ABC/Randy HolmesDeftones won't be playing their scheduled show in Cologne, Germany tonight. Frontman Chino Moreno has broken the "top of his foot."

"Regretfully, we have to cancel our show tonight due to Chino breaking the top of his foot," the band writes in a Facebook statement. "He needs to stay off it for the next day or two."

Luckily, no other Deftones shows are currently "in jeopardy of being cancelled," and the band is expected return to the stage on May 2 for a show in Paris. We assume that Moreno is on the phone now with Dave Grohl, asking to borrow his throne.

Deftones will return to the U.S. this summer for a tour alongside Rise Against.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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James Gordon Bennett, Sr.

James Gordon Bennett, Sr. (Sept. 1, 1795 -- June 1, 1872) was the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald newspaper and a major figure in the history of American newspapers.

Born in Scotland he later immigrated to Boston by 1820. With an expensive education background obtained in Scotland he was qualified to work as a proofreader and bookseller before the Charleston Courier hired him to translate Spanish news reports. He moved to New York City in 1823 where he was employed as a freelance paper writer, and then assistant editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer.

By May 1835, Bennett started the New York Herald after years of failing to start a paper. With innovative ideas such as shocking his readers with front-page coverage of the murder of a well-known prostitute he advanced the idea to have business pay for advertisements in his newspaper in advance. This would later become the standard for all newspapers.

Bennett was also the leader in using the latest technology to gather and report the news and added illustrations produced from woodcuts. In 1839, Bennett was granted the first ever exclusive interview to a United States President, Martin Van Buren.

In his newspaper he initially opposed Abraham Lincoln. However, he did back the Union, then took the lead to turn the president into a martyr after Lincolns assassination. He favored most of Andrew Johnstons Reconstruction proposals following the conclusion of the Civil War.

By the end of the Civil War the senior Bennett turned control of the Herald to his son James Gordon Bennett Jr. in 1866. The paper had the highest circulation in America. However, under the younger Bennetts leadership, the paper declined. After the younger Bennetts death, the paper was merged with its arch-rival, the New York Tribune.

It is reported that in James Gordon Bennetts legacy his limited liability of being cross eyed led to the comment He was so terribly cross-eyed that when he looked at me with one eye, he looked out at the City Hall with the other.

Also, the phrase Gordon Bennett was denoted as exasperation or shock. This was a statement made by his son.

The seniors account of the prostitute Helen Jewetts murder in the Herald was selected by The Library of America for inclusion in the 2008 anthology True Crime.

In conclusion, he was truly a remarkable newspaper editor and a leader in print media.
Clark County Extension plant, bake sale planned

MARSHALL -- The University of Illinois Extension in Clark County plans to hold its annual plant and bake sale on Saturday.

The sale will be held from 8 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Clark County Extension office, located along Illinois Route 1 south of Marshall.

Community members are welcome to buy and sell plants at this event. The Martinsville On The Move community booster group plans to have a table there as a fundraiser. Those interested in reserving a space can call the Extension Office at 217-826-5422.

Doughnut sale to benefit Relay for Life scheduled

MATTOON (JG-TC) -- Mattoon Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center's Relay for Life team is taking orders for Krispy Kreme doughnuts as a fundraiser in the fight against cancer.

The Krispy Kreme items available for order are regular dozen glazed, $8; chocolate iced, lemon filled, raspberry filled, or Kreme filled dozen, $10; and 12- ounce bags of Krispy Kreme signature coffee in rich, smooth, or decaf varieties, $10.

Orders can be made by calling or texting 217-259-6234, and the money is due by May 8. The doughnuts can be picked up between 2 and 5 p.m. May 12 at the Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center, 2121 S. Ninth St.

Toledo Springfest photo contest planned

TOLEDO --A Toledo Springfest Amateur Photo Contest is scheduled to be held May 20-21 in conjunction with this annual festival.

Local amateur photographers of all ages are invited to enter prints in this competition sponsored by the Toledo Clickers camera club. They can enter photos in the categories of Cumberland County and general subject matter. The deadline for entries is May 15.

The prints will be displayed at the Life Center of Cumberland County, 507 E. Main St., from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 20 and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 21. The photos will be professionally judged, and cash prizes and ribbons will be presented during an award ceremony at 3 p.m. May 21.

Winning prints will then be displayed at the Sumpter Township Library in Toledo from May 23 to June 23. For rules, entry forms and additional information, send an email to toledo.clickers@gmail.com or call Jerry Brown at 217-821-3181 or John Thomas at 217-849-3894.
MATTOON -- Dozens of health care students wearing red and black scrubs joined in the Heart Walk procession Saturday as Lake Land College hosted this annual event for the first time.

Lake Land President Josh Bullock welcomed participants to the American Heart Association's East Central Illinois Heart Walk during an opening ceremony in the West Building's Farm Credit Room.

Bullock said students from the Allied Health Division's nursing, massage therapy, physical therapy assistant, emergency medical services, and dental hygiene programs participated in the Heart Walk and staffed informational booths in the West Building.

"Lake Land College is proud to be a partner in today's Heart Walk and the American Heart Association's efforts to promote heart-healthy living, save and improve lives from heart disease and stroke, and advance scientific research on these topics," Bullock said.

Bullock said Lake Land lost a valued employee, Todd Venatta, to heart disease approximately a year ago. He said through advances in scientific research, four others benefited due to Venatta being an organ and tissue donor. He said Lake Land was proud to honor Venatta's memory at the Heart Walk.

Emcee Bub McCullough said the Heart Walk had raised approximately $35,000 by Saturday afternoon and was expected to reach its goal of $40,000 for the American Heart Association.

Heart transplant recipient Zale Walk, 1, of Mattoon served as the honorary chairman for this year's Heart Walk. His parents, Vince and Katie Walk, brought Zale to the stage during the opening ceremony as they shared their story and thanked the participants in this fundraiser.

Katie Walk said Zale's heart valve defect was diagnosed before he was born and he ultimately received a transplant at a Chicago children's hospital. Vince Walk said he hopes further research will spare other parents from going through this ordeal, adding that replacement hearts may eventually be grown in labs.

The walk across campus included many survivors of heart disease and stroke. Participant Bill Gass of Gays, who received a heart stent a couple of years ago, said he is happy to help raise funds that benefit medical research for those in need, like 1-year-old Zale Walk.

"That little man in there, that is what it is all about," Gass said. Gass was accompanied at the Heart Walk by his wife, Nancy, and other family members wearing "Team Bill" markers, plus grandchildren wearing "Team Papa" markers.

Lake Land nursing instructors Shannon Hood and Maria Nohren said the Heart Walk provided a great opportunity for the Allied Health students to help serve their community. They said various students offered blood pressure screenings, massages, and hands-free CPR lessons before the walk started.

Nursing students McKenzie Brewer of Westfield and Jenna Forster of Paris said they particularly enjoyed visiting with survivors of heart disease and stroke, and hearing their stories about how the individuals helped restore their health through exercise and other healthy living habits.

"It is nice to hear stories like that and connect it to what we have learned in class," Brewer said.
CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- A fire caused extensive damage to a home south of Charleston on Sunday night but fire officials said no injuries were reported.

The fire was reported at 7:38 p.m. at 14633 E. County Road 600N, about a mile south of Charleston, according to news release from the Lincoln Fire Protection District.

Fire and smoke were visible when fire crews arrived and the home's living room and utility room received extensive damage, the release said. It said the rest of the house received heat and smoke damage.

The release said the cause hasn't been determined and the Illinois State Fire Marshal's office is helping with the investigation. It said no one was home at the time of the fire.

It also said fire crews were at the scene until just after 10 p.m. Sunday.
CHARLESTON -- Teenagers are at an "interesting stage" of their lives when they're getting more rights as well as the responsibilities of early adulthood.

And that's why they need to know more about the legal profession and how the system works, a group of Charleston High School students heard Monday.

"The law affects virtually everything in our lives," local attorney Angel Wawrzynek told the students.

Wawrzynek and Coles County Circuit Judge Jim Glenn visited Matt Schubert's civics class at CHS Monday as part of a "Law Day" program conducted by area bar association members.

They talked about the various types of legal cases -- crimes, divorces, lawsuits and more -- along with the work they do and why they decided to do it.

Glenn told the students that his father Ralph Glenn was an attorney and joked that he "didn't have much choice" but to do that same. He quickly added that he thought his dad's work was "pretty cool" and still feels that way now.

"You're helping people," he said. "People come to you with a problem and you help them. It's a very rewarding profession."

Preparing for a trial means you "cancel all your other plans" because of the time demands, Wawrzynek said.

Along the same line, Glenn told the students he once had to take a phone call and make a ruling on setting bond for someone in jail, all while standing in line with his family at an amusement park.

And while attorney-client privilege means what someone tells their lawyer stays between them, that doesn't mean you have to pass along a client's lies in court, Wawrzynek said.

"I have fired clients," she said. "If you're lying to me, I can't do my job."

May 1 is designated as "Law Day" each year and Wawrzynek organized the school presentations to help educate young people "about the law and lawyers," she said.

She said she worked on an Illinois State Bar Association task force that addressed the future of legal services. It was designed to help people know when legal help might be a benefit, she explained.

"There's a large segment of our population that doesn't even come to a lawyer in the first place," she said.

Wawrzynek is also on the committee for pro bono work, or free legal services, of the area judicial circuit and said that committee's duties include "community outreach."

Schubert said the CHS class that saw Monday's presentation was made up mostly of sophomores and they benefited from the chance hear from someone with "real life experience."

He said a similar presentation took place in one of his classes two years ago and he still uses materials from that presentation. That topic was the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and range of protections it provides, Schubert said.

"The kids really got into it," he said.

The other presentations in conjunction with the program took place at Mattoon Middle School, Cumberland High School and Danville High School, some on Friday as well as Monday.

The legal professionals who participated were from the state's 5th Judicial Circuit, which covers Clark, Coles, Cumberland, Edgar and Vermilion counties.
Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead at his home in Southern California. He was 34. Representatives for Carters family confirmed the singers death Saturday. They did not provide any immediate further comment. A sheriff's official says deputies responding to reports of a medical emergency found a person deceased at the home in Lancaster. Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brothers boy band, and appeared on the familys reality series, House of Carters.
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Nebraska Home Sales is pleased to welcome Jeff Graham . Graham has his brokers license, is a member of the National Association of Realtors and has his GRI certification.

Graham is also the general manager and part-owner of his family's property management company, is a member of the Real Estate Owners and Managers Association (REOMA), is a member of the Everett Neighborhood Association and is a frequent guest speaker for CenterPoint's RentWise classes. Graham has the experience you're looking for to help make your life simpler and invites anyone seeking professional real estate services to contact him at 402-432-2066.
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Garcia joined Union Bank in 2009 with increasing responsibilities, most recently as branch manager. In her new role, as mortgage loan officer and Branch Manager, she originates and markets mortgage loans in Crete and surrounding areas while continuing as branch manager. Garcias ability to speak Spanish fluently enables her to serve both English and Spanish speaking customers. Garcia holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and a Master of Business Management with an emphasis in Leadership both from Doane University.
Property tax relief proponents on Monday urged state senators to amend Gov. Pete Ricketts' tax reform package to focus on property taxes rather than income tax reduction or kill the legislative bill.

"We would prefer no bill over a bill that is $10 of income tax cuts to $1 of property tax reform," Mark Fahleson of Lincoln told a telephone news conference.

The tax bill (LB461) sponsored by Sen. Jim Smith of Papillion, which incorporates the governor's proposals, is scheduled for debate on Tuesday afternoon before it confronts a decisive vote to determine whether it can break loose from a filibuster.

A test vote 11 days ago on a motion to return the bill to the Revenue Committee left the package four votes short of the 33 that will be required on Tuesday to free it from a filibuster that would trap the proposal and remove it from the legislative agenda.

Fahleson, chairman of Reform for Nebraska's Future, said Nebraskans need and want property tax relief, not the income tax cuts proposed by businesses and "special interests."

A new poll of 500 likely general election voters conducted on April 27-30 showed that 55 percent of Nebraskans singled out property taxes as too high compared to 15 percent who point to income taxes, Fahleson said.

Seventy-two percent of those polled in the survey said they are more likely to vote for a candidate if he or she has supported property tax reform, Fahleson said. The survey was conducted by Harper Polling.

The tax package supported by Smith and Ricketts "needs to be flipped" through amendments that place the overwhelming emphasis on property tax relief, Fahleson said.

"LB461 needs a massive overhaul," he said.

"Compromise is not an ugly term," Fahleson said, but his organization has received "no positive messages from the governor or from Sen. Smith."

"We hope the bill gets rejected or completely amended," he said.

"If nothing changes, we strongly encourage the Legislature to kill the bill."
A 25-year-old serving prison time for being a getaway driver in a Lincoln robbery in 2015 has entered a plea for doing the same thing a year later while out of jail and awaiting sentencing for his earlier crime.

Both involved drugs. The second left one man dead and another paralyzed.

On Monday, Terique Jackson pleaded no contest to aiding and abetting terroristic threats and being an accessory to robbery, first-degree assault or burglary.

Two women cried in the front row as the prosecutor gave details of what happened April 18, 2016.

Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Dan Packard said that afternoon police went to 1966 Euclid Ave. on a call about gunshots and found Christopher Coleman, 32, shot dead just inside the doorway and Jerry Griffis, 21, in the kitchen suffering from gunshot wounds that left him paralyzed.

A dog also had been shot to death.

He said police identified Jackson as a suspect, and Facebook records confirmed he had been messaging the suspected shooter.

Witnesses had seen his dark-blue BMW convertible parked in the area at the time of the shooting.

Packard said police learned Jackson had driven the shooter and another man there, the shooter showing them both the .45 caliber gun he had with him.

After the killing, they split the money and marijuana taken in the robbery, he said.

Jackson left the Lincoln area. But, nearly two months later, police in Aurora, Colorado, arrested him on Lancaster County warrants.

At the time, Jackson had entered a plea but failed to appear for sentencing in May 2016 for being the getaway driver in an armed, home-invasion robbery a year earlier at a townhouse near 27th Street and Yankee Hill Road.

In court records, police say on May 7, 2015, one of the victims, a 19-year-old man, was pistol whipped and had a shot fired inches from him into a couch cushion.

As the men fled, one of the victims got a photo of the car, which was registered to Jackson.

He is at the Omaha Correctional Center serving 20 months to five years for terroristic threats for the crime.

Three others charged in connection to the Coleman killing, including the accused shooter 18-year-old Markel Steele, are awaiting trial.
A Florida man caught in a Hastings motel room with more than 12 pounds of meth he stole from a drug lord learned Monday how much federal prison time he would get for the crime, said to be an anomaly in his otherwise law-abiding life.

"You obviously led an alternate life," U.S. District Judge John Gerrard told Alexander Castellano-Benitez, a Cuban who was living in the Tampa area.

Defense attorney Craig Martin argued that Castellano-Benitez deserved less than the near 20-year guideline minimum in part because, after migrating from Cuba, he helped countless other Cuban immigrants relocate and find homes and work in the U.S.

"Mr. Castellano-Benitez was a pillar of the community," Martin said.

He said it would be an injustice if his two co-defendants, who both had criminal records, got less time for their roles in the crime.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Klein said the other men charged -- Yulio Cervino-Hernandez and Yunior Flores-Veliz -- resolved their cases differently.

Castellano-Benitez's case went to trial in Lincoln in January, and the jury found him guilty of possession with intent to distribute more than 500 grams of methamphetamine.

Plus, Klein said, Castellano-Benitez had made phone calls from a Nebraska jail trying to arrange for a Florida man to pick up 12 pounds of meth officers originally missed because it was hidden inside a truck battery.

After being tipped off, they found the drugs and thwarted the plot.

It all started with a call to Hastings police Sept. 21, 2015, about a man texting a woman asking for sex in exchange for drugs.

The next day, members of the Central Nebraska Drug and Safe Streets Task Force tracked the caller, Cervino-Hernandez, to the Rodeway Inn.

An ounce of meth was in plain sight when investigators came to the door.

A search of the room he shared with Castellano-Benitez turned up three baggies of meth, including one under the bed holding about 1 pounds.

Later they discovered nearly 11 pounds more that was in the truck battery, according to court records.

Martin, the defense attorney, said Castellano-Benitez isn't a rich man or a king pin. A 20-year sentence would be too much, he argued.

Gerrard agreed in the end, giving him 14 years and 2 months, plus five years of supervised release.

The drugs found, he said, came from 40 pounds of meth Castellano-Benitez stole from a Texas drug lord.

"And today is the cost of doing that alternative business," the judge said.

Gerrard said he may not have been in the drug business long but it was a stupid act that endangered a lot of people and unleashed drugs on the Hastings and Grand Island area.

He already gave Cervino-Hernandez, of Houston, 11 years and three months of prison. He pleaded guilty.
A Furnas County man has been indicted in a federal case involving a Tennessee fugitive and an alleged plot to kidnap a sheriff and judge.

The indictment charges Anthony Todd Weverka, 54, with misprision of felony and alleges he knew of the existence of felony offenses during the January arrest of Tennessee fugitive Michael Parsons, 55.

The case began Jan. 10 when Parsons failed to appear at a hearing in Tipton County, Tennessee, for two charges of possession of a weapon by a felon.

Parsons apparently left Tennessee by piloting a 1964 Piper Cherokee with an obscured tail number. He had plans to fly to British Columbia, Canada, but stopped for the night at the Arapahoe airport where he met with Weverka, who served as the president of the Arapahoe Airport Board, the indictment says.

The indictment doesnt name Parsons and only refers to him by the initials M.P. However, media reports from January say Parsons is the man who was arrested at the airport on Jan. 12 related to the out-of-state failure to appear.

He was booked into the Furnas County Jail pending extradition back to Tennessee.

During that time, a woman and resident of British Columbia, referred to as S.H. in the document, represented herself as the Chief Justice of the Universal Supreme Court of the Tsilhqotin Nation (USCTN), which represents the country of Chilcotin in British Columbia, the document says.

However, the document says the USCTN is not affiliated with the Tsilhotin Nation and representatives of the USCTN are not tribal members.

From Jan. 11 to March 16, the woman issued orders demanding Parsons be released. When her orders were ignored, the indictment says she contacted a bounty hunter in New Orleans. She offered to pay him to break Parsons out of jail and arrest the sheriff of Furnas County and the Tipton County Circuit Court judge, and transport all of them to Canada where they would face criminal charges, the indictment says.

The indictment claims Weverka knew of the plot and didnt immediately tell law enforcement. It also alleges Weverka supplied the sheriffs home address to S.H.

He warned the sheriff that his life might be in danger, but didnt tell him his full knowledge of the planned abduction, the document says.

Weverka faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Furnas County Sheriffs Office, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Nebraska State Patrol and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
A 29-year-old Wisconsin man caught with nearly 100 pounds of pot, worth a half-million dollars, on Interstate 80 near Lincoln last year got two years of prison time Monday.

On Sept. 22, a Lancaster County sheriff's deputy stopped Noah Vang of Appleton, Wisconsin, on traffic violations and smelled marijuana.

A search turned up 99.2 pounds of marijuana in heat-sealed bags in eight large black trash bags stuffed in the trunk of a 2016 Dodge Challenger, according to court records.

Vang was arrested and later pleaded guilty to attempted delivery of marijuana.

On Monday, Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson sentenced Vang to the prison time, plus a year of post-release supervision. She also ordered him to pay $5,567 in restitution to the Nebraska Department of Revenue.
WASHINGTON -- A late night mortar blast in the jungles of Vietnam sent shrapnel into the bodies of Dave Eaton and Willis Matthews on April 4, 1967.

Fifty years later, Eaton quietly traced Matthews name at the polished granite wall memorializing Americans lost in that war.

I am the other machine gunner, he said, holding the tracing in his left hand.

He had only been in-country 17 days, an Army draftee from South Dakota.

Nine from Eatons unit would die during his tour, in a war that claimed more than 58,000 American lives.

After a while you got to the point where you didnt get too close to people because you didnt know if they were going to be there the next day, the McCook resident said.

Eaton and more than 600 Vietnam War veterans from Nebraska were flown to Washington Monday and descended on their war memorial for what's likely a final homage to their fallen comrades.

At the Vietnam Memorial, they touched the etched letters and photographed the names of the dead.

A boy walking by with his mother asked what the names on the wall meant.

Not everyone makes it back, she said.

* * *

Retired Army Sgt. Steven Neptune laid his eyes on the wall with 58,612 names for the first time Monday.

"I have had opportunity to see the traveling (Vietnam memorial) wall, but I had two Army buddies that Ive been looking for ever since I was in 'Nam," Neptune said last week.

"I didnt really want to go and find their names."

Ultimately the Purple Heart recipient mustered the will to search their names in an online database of the war's dead.

And to his relief, they weren't there.

Neptune has a hard time reconciling how some soldiers met their fate on the battlefield.

One guy I remember never got a scratch, and I was wounded four times, Neptune said.

Tom Heany, an Army specialist, said he came close to having his name etched on the wall, but a Viet Cong sniper missed his mark.

On Monday, he traced the name of his first lieutenant, James Gaiser, killed by a mortar round atop their barracks as he tried to pinpoint where enemy fire was coming from.

It was a rough day that day, Heany said.

Tom Dawson, a former Marine sergeant, said he couldn't pass up the opportunity to return to the countrys war memorials.

The 74-year-old retired juvenile judge paid his respects to his two fallen Marine buddies.

The death of one of them, Lance Cpl. Merrill Lantry, is close to mind anytime Dawson hears a trumpet play taps, he said.

When Landry was hurt in a landmine explosion near Chu Lai, his company held a ceremony for him, Dawson said.

And someone found a trumpet and played taps.

As taps played outside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery Monday afternoon, Dawson felt the emotion of that song building inside.

I got almost through it and my eyes started to well up, Dawson said.

* * *

On the flight to Washington, Sam Zanderholm felt overwhelmed.

Not since he was being flown to war had he been around this many Vietnam veterans, he said.

The free trip for veterans was such a grand gesture to him and others who didn't feel supported when they returned from war decades ago, he said.

The Army cook who had to duck into his foxhole when his base took mortar fire in the Central Highlands appreciated being together.

Dawson, one of 87 Lincoln veterans on the Honor Flight, enjoyed the chance to pay respects at the other war memorials Monday.

"Its sort of a one last time (to) say goodbye to some friends," said Dawson.

* * *

Neptune couldn't believe the welcome this bunch of Nebraskans got when they got off the plane at Reagan National Airport.

Well-wishers cheered and welcomed them to D.C., lining their path out to a fleet of buses.

Its gonna get even better, a man told Neptune.

Eaton was grateful for the Honor Flight and all the people turning out to help give these veterans the welcome they didn't receive when they returned home from war.

Several veterans said they didn't receive the mistreatment in Nebraska that their comrades on the coasts experienced.

Eaton was drafted and felt a duty to fight after several of his relatives served in the Armed Forces.

We felt like we were called upon and we went, Eaton said.

Monday served as his second chance to honor Matthews at the Vietnam memorial. The first time he was there he forgot Matthews name -- his mind went blank.

Only later in a conversation did he remember it.

It was just eerie, he said.

Mel Wilkinson of Greenwood got through his list at the wall again.

It was easier this time, said Wilkinson, who had been once before.

From his Army infantry company, 23 men gave their lives to save their brothers, Wilkinson said.

Theyre the real heroes, he said.

Ken Angel, a former Army medic, laid a hand-rolled cigarette for his late sergeant.

Hed rolled cigarettes for Sgt. James Borden during the war.

Borden was killed in an ammunition explosion, along with Angels lieutenant and a third soldier.

Angel would have been helping them, but he had a dentist appointment that day, the Alvo resident said.

So Monday he stood atop the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, as tourists snapped photographs of the monument and strolled about the National Mall on a sunny day.

He came to see the monuments built to honor the men who fought and died protecting this country.

Theyre all just glad to see what they were fighting for, Angel said.

More airport welcome for Nebraska's Honor Flights pic.twitter.com/JhjBjORjCd  Riley Johnson (@LJSRileyJohnson) May 1, 2017

On tarmac at Reagan National, fire department performs water gun salute for Nebraska's Honor Flights. pic.twitter.com/VUB1Y965Ur  Riley Johnson (@LJSRileyJohnson) May 1, 2017
WHITECLAY -- A century of alcohol sales in this reservation border town came to hushed halt Sunday.

Whiteclay's four beer stores, their licenses set to expire at midnight, never opened for the day. A few men roamed the side streets along Highway 87, sipping cans of Camo and Hurricane malt liquor in the afternoon sun.

By nightfall on a day like this, these two blocks would be normally be bustling with activity: People from the dry Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just up the road, looking to spend their end-of-month Social Security deposits on alcohol; street people stammering and stumbling up the sidewalks.

Instead, silence.

"Probably the first good thing those beer stores have done for Pine Ridge," quipped Matt Walz of Keystone Treatment Center in Canton, South Dakota.

Walz was among a small group of volunteers who planned to provide detox help in Whiteclay on Monday morning. The stores' unexpected early closure didn't change those plans, he said.

A cluster of activists and Pine Ridge residents gathered outside one of the beer stores, Arrowhead Inn, for about an hour to mark the occasion. They plan to meet with tribal leaders Monday to discuss a path forward without Whiteclay beer.

"I think it's a new day," proclaimed Frank LaMere of Winnebago.

Andrew Snyder of Scottsbluff, attorney for the beer store owners, said he hadn't spoken with them about why they closed a day earlier than they needed to.

The Nebraska Liquor Control Commission decided this month it would not renew the stores' licenses, citing concerns about law enforcement. A Lincoln judge reversed the decision Thursday, only to be trumped when attorneys from the state appealed the ruling hours later.

So, for now, the stores must stay closed.

It's unclear when -- or if -- they'll reopen.

Snyder said he didn't know his next move in the licensure case, but he planned to file a motion Monday for dismissal of a separate case in which the beer stores are accused of selling to bootleggers and other violations of state liquor law.

He contends the Liquor Commission lacks jurisdiction to hear the case now that the stores aren't licensed.
WASHINGTON -- Yesterday's conventional wisdom: A wave of insurgent populism is sweeping the West, threatening its foundational institutions -- the European Union, the Western alliance, even liberal democracy itself.

Today's conventional wisdom (post-first-round French presidential election): The populist wave has crested, soon to abate.

Chances are that both verdicts are wrong. The anti-establishment sentiment that gave us Brexit, then Donald Trump, then seemed poised to give us Marine Le Pen, has indeed plateaued. But although she will likely be defeated in the second round, victory by the leading centrist, Emmanuel Macron, would hardly constitute an establishment triumph.

Macron barely edged out a Cro-Magnon communist (Jean-Luc Melenchon), a blood-and-soil nationalist (Le Pen) and a center-right candidate brought low by charges of nepotism and corruption (Francois Fillon). And the ruling Socialist candidate came in fifth, garnering a pathetic 6 percent of the vote.

On the other hand, the populists can hardly be encouraged by what has followed Brexit and Trump: Dutch elections, where the nationalist Geert Wilders faded toward the end and came nowhere near power; Austrian elections, where another nationalist challenge was turned back; and upcoming German elections, where polls indicate that the far-right nationalists are at barely 10 percent and slipping. And, of course, France.

In retrospect, the populist panic may have been overblown. Regarding Brexit, for example, the shock exaggerated its meaning. Because it was so unexpected, it became a sensation. But in the longer view, Britain has always been deeply ambivalent about Europe, going back at least to Henry VIII and his break with Rome. In the intervening 500 years, Britain has generally seen itself as less a part of Europe than an offshore island.

The true historical anomaly was Britain's EU membership with all the attendant transfer of sovereignty from Westminster to Brussels. Brexit was a rather brutal return to the extra-European norm, but the norm it is.

The other notable populist victory, the triumph of Trump, has also turned out to be less than meets the eye. He certainly ran as a populist and won as a populist, but, a mere 100 days in, he is governing as a traditionalist.

The Obamacare replacement proposals are traditional small-government fixes. His tax reform is a follow-on to Reagan's from 1986. His Supreme Court pick is a straight-laced, constitutional conservative out of central casting. And his more notable executive orders read as a wish list of traditional business-oriented conservatism from regulatory reform to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

I happen to support all of these moves, but they don't qualify as insurrectionist populism. The one exception may be trade policy. As of now, however, it remains ad hoc and idiosyncratic. Trump has made gestures and threats to those cunning Mexicans, Chinese and now Canadians. But it's not yet clear if he is serious about, say, withdrawing from NAFTA or just engaging in a series of opening negotiating gambits.

The softwood timber dispute with Canada is hardly new. It dates back 35 years. Every intervening administration has contested the terms of trade in various forums. A full-scale trade war with our leading trading partner would indeed break new ground. Anything short of that, however, is the art of the deal.

The normalization of Trump is one indicator that there may be less to the populist insurrection than imagined. The key, however, is Europe, where the stakes are infinitely higher. There the issue is the future of the nation-state itself, as centuries of sovereignty dissolve within an expanding superstate. It influences every aspect of daily life -- from the ethnic makeup of neighborhoods to the currency that changes hands at the grocery.

The news from France, where Macron is openly, indeed ostentatiously, pro-European (his campaign headquarters flies the EU flag) is that France is not quite prepared to give up on the great experiment. But the Europeanist elites had better not imagine this to be an enduring verdict. The populist revolt was a reaction to their reckless and anti-democratic push for even greater integration. The task today is to address the sources of Europe's economic stagnation and social alienation rather than blindly pursue the very drive that led to this precarious moment.

If the populist threat turns out to have frightened the existing powers out of their arrogant complacency, it should be deemed a success. But make no mistake: The French election wasn't a victory for the status quo. It was a reprieve. For now, the populist wave is not in retreat. It's on pause.
True to his word, the attorney for four Whiteclay beer store owners filed a motion late Monday afternoon asking the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission to dismiss 22 allegations of liquor license violations leveled against them.

Attorney Andrew Snyder of Scottsbluff argued in the document that the case before the commission now was moot given that their licenses have expired.

The agency lacks jurisdiction, he said.

On Feb. 22, the Nebraska Attorney General's office accused the owners of a list of violations of state liquor laws, including selling to bootleggers, keeping inadequate records and selling alcohol after hours.

In March, Hobie Rupe, the Liquor Control Commission's executive director, said an audit of the stores that began in fall 2015 uncovered "significant irregularities" that ultimately resulted in the citations.

But, he said, the commission wouldn't consider them until after it weighed in on renewal of the liquor licenses, a move that came last month.

After a hearing at the Capitol on whether law enforcement in Whiteclay is adequate to let beer sales continue, the commission voted 3-0 to deny the licenses.

But the decision quickly was appealed, and last week a Lincoln judge reversed it.

The state, in response, filed an appeal, which prevented the judge's order from vacating the denial of the liquor licenses, which led the stores to close over the weekend.

The state hasn't yet responded.

Whiteclay is home to about a dozen permanent residents and sits just 200 yards from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where alcohol is banned. Yet the four beer stores sell millions of cans of beer and malt liquor each year, much of which is consumed by people on the reservation.
RED CLOUD  Gathered with friends around a kitchen table six decades ago, Mildred Bennett started the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation with eight others in Red Cloud, the town that serves as an important backdrop to the authors work.

The museum dedicated to Nebraskas most famous author has undergone several transformations in the 62 years since, moving into bigger spaces in the town of 1,000 and acquiring 10 properties tied to Cathers time in Nebraska.

The foundation will celebrate its latest iteration next month with the opening of the National Willa Cather Center, the culmination of a five-year effort that saw the restoration and renovation of a two-story building overlooking the brick-laid street in downtown Red Cloud.

Once opened, the new center will connect with an opera house converted into offices, an art gallery and performing arts center the Willa Cather Foundation has occupied since 2003.

This was a vision that started with our founder, Mildred Bennett, and the volunteers on the first Board of Governors of the foundation, said Ashley Olson, a Red Cloud native who now serves as the executive director of the Willa Cather Foundation.

The Moon Block, the two-story building finished in 1886, will now feature a new exhibit detailing the life and writing of Cather on the first floor, as well as an expanded archive of the authors works and belongings on the second floor.

Laura Bush, who brought Cather's works to the White House as part of her Salute to American Authors series, will be on hand for the centers June 3 grand opening as a guest speaker.

The former first lady, who has been a friend of the Cather Foundation for several years, said Cather gives voice to the values that define Americas frontier heritage.

By reading her words and promoting her contributions to western culture, we commemorate the pioneering spirit that distinguishes us as a nation, she said.

The dedication of the National Willa Cather Center coincides with the 62nd annual Willa Cather Spring Conference, a celebration of the author, as well as the arts and humanities inspired by her works.

This years conference, Picturing the American West: The Railroad and Popular Imagination, will feature Brent Glass, director emeritus of the Smithsonians National Museum of American History, and Ann Satterthwaite, a Washington-based city planner who has written extensively about preserving the environment and culture of small communities.

The event has been designated a signature event of Nebraska Statehood 150, according to Regan Anson, executive director of the sesquicentennial celebration.

Cathers legacy as a novelist, journalist and short story writer has continued to grow around the globe, according to Guy Reynolds, director of the Cather Archive at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

For many years, critics labeled Cather as a regional writer, Reynolds said, but over time her place in American literature has expanded.

Cather was a Nebraska writer, but shes also a national writer, Reynolds said. If she was just a Nebraska author, she wouldnt have the status that she has.

Each of Cathers 12 novels remain in print and Red Clouds most famous daughter still graces college reading lists while continuing to sell 5,000 copies a year in the United Kingdom.

Thats really not bad for a non-British author who has been dead for 70 years, Reynolds said. A lot of living writers would be happy to do that.

Red Cloud has benefited from the boon of literary tourism sparked by growing interest in Cather and her work.

Visitors from all 50 states and 10 different countries have taken a pilgrimage to Red Cloud, which calls itself Americas Most Famous Small Town.

Olson said visitors from France, Japan, China, Taiwan and Mexico have booked tours of the Red Cloud sites that inspired works such as O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Antonia.

The renovations to the Moon Block building have created three new storefronts in downtown Red Cloud for entrepreneurs and local businesses. One of those has already been occupied by On the Brix, a wine and craft beer tasting room.

"It's a really unique project," Olson said. "We're honoring Cather's legacy and building an industry around it to help spur economic development and downtown revitalization."

Red Cloud Mayor Gary Ratzlaff said the Cather Foundation and the national center draw as many as 10,000 people annually, explaining the community is also exploring plans for a new downtown motel within walking distance of the Cather Center to accommodate future visitors.

Olson said the Cather Foundations goal is to keep promoting the person the Journal Star selected as the most-notable Nebraskan in the states 150-year history.

"It's my hope that the Center will become a living memorial to Cather through arts and educational opportunities that bring more attention to her life and legacy and, ultimately, her work," Olson said. "It took 62 years to get here, but we've finally created the archive and museum that Cather deserves."
OMAHA  Omaha Public Schools Superintendent Mark Evans is slated to receive a 2.5 percent pay raise and two extra weeks of vacation in exchange for agreeing to lead the district for another year.

The Omaha school board is set to vote Monday on a one-year contract for Evans. Evans agreed to delay his retirement after the board's search to replace him ended without a hire in March.

Evans, 57, had previously announced he would step down in June as head of the state's largest school district, which has about 52,000 students.

The contract would run from July 1 through June 30, 2018, and pay Evans a base salary of $295,569. His current salary is $288,360.

Evans' yearly vacation allotment also would be increased, to 35 days from 25 days.

Other provisions of his contract would remain the same, including a 14 percent contribution to an annuity, a car allowance of $12,000, and medical and retirement benefits.

The total cost of his compensation package is estimated at $447,893.

Omaha Public Schools had hoped to hire a superintendent this spring to replace Evans. But the three finalists withdrew from consideration after the first two said neither of them had won support of the board and the third said the job wasn't a good fit.
OMAHA  The labor union representing public school teachers in Nebraska has created a new strategic plan to advance "a culture of social justice."

Delegates from local teachers unions approved the plan last month during the Nebraska State Education Association's annual assembly in Lincoln.

The plan calls for more diversity in teacher recruitment, training teachers in "cultural proficiency" and promoting a legislative agenda that "advances human and civil rights."

Jenni Benson, the union's new state president, said the union looks at social justice as providing free and equitable public education across the state.

"NSEA will advance a culture of social justice by improving educational opportunities for all students and building respect for the worth, dignity and equality of every individual in our diverse society," the plan reads.

Other goals included in the union's plan are protecting collective bargaining rights and "being active in the election of pro-public education candidates."

Benson said that for the past couple of years in the Omaha area the union has provided a "social justice retreat" for its 28,000 members, where keynote speakers talk about important related topics.

She said the main challenge for the union is to stay true to the belief that public schools are important.

"If we focus on what our goal and our vision is, which is to provide great schools and equal access to all students in Nebraska, then those challenges will be met with facts and figures showing that we're doing a good job in Nebraska," Benson said. "People across the nation are envious of the public schools in Nebraska."
A 12-year veteran of the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office was killed Monday morning while taking a prisoner from court back to the Iowa jail, according to authorities.

Deputy Mark Burbridge, 43, died from his injuries just after noon, Sheriff Jeff Danker said during a news conference Monday afternoon.

A 10-year veteran, Deputy Pat Morgan, 59, was shot in the torso and is in stable condition with injuries not considered life-threatening, the sheriff said.

The deputies were transporting Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, 23, after he was sentenced to 45 years in prison for a separate homicide, Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber said.

Wilber described Correa-Carmenaty's demeanor during Monday's sentencing hearing as cold and said he "wasn't real remorseful." Through an interpreter, Correa-Carmenaty said during the hearing that he killed the man because the man was an idiot, Wilber said.

Back at the jail, Correa-Carmenaty struggled with the deputies and was able to get one of their handguns just before 11 a.m. He commandeered the transport van and crashed it through a garage door of the jail before leaving.

Authorities are still working to determine how Correa-Carmenaty obtained the gun and whether he had been able to free himself from his shackles during the ride back from court. One other inmate was in the van, but Danker said he didn't believe she was involved.

After escaping the jail, Correa-Carmenaty tried carjacking the vehicle of a 30-year-old driver, who he also shot, Danker said. That man was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

In a neighborhood about two miles away, a 31-year-old woman was driving her car when she saw the abandoned prison van and stopped to see if anyone was hurt. Correa-Carmenaty kidnapped her, took her car and dropped her off at an Omaha liquor store in the 5800 block of 30th Street, where she called 911, Danker said.

The Omaha Police Department then spotted Correa-Carmenaty and a chase ensued. He tried getting onto Interstate 480 near downtown and hit a barrier before being taken into custody, Danker said.

It's unknown how many times Correa-Carmenaty fired the deputy's weapon. Deputies didn't return fire.

Danker said the scene at the jail was shocking.

"You walk in there and the van is crashed through the door," he said. "You've got two deputies there on the floor of the sally port getting aid administered to them. It's just a shocking scene to walk into."

Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said Correa-Carmenaty's hands were free when he was arrested and the deputy's gun was found.

Danker said the day has been a blur.

"We lost one officer today," he said. "It's something we never hope happens in this line of work, but the reality is, that it does. It can happen any time."

Burbridge was always happy and a good deputy, Danker said. He had worked in different areas of the department, including patrol, on the investigations team and most recently the court security team.

The investigation is ongoing, including reviewing video surveillance. The Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations is handling the jail shooting, the Council Bluffs Police Department is investigating the two other crime scenes in the state and the Omaha Police Department is investigating the chase.

Schmaderer released a statement on the Omaha department's Facebook page saying, "Today, the Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office tragically lost a deputy in the line of duty. We are deeply saddened by his death and we mourn alongside the entire Pottawattamie Sheriffs Office. We offer our deepest condolences to their department and to the family of the fallen deputy. We also extend our thoughts and prayers to the injured deputy. The Omaha Police Department has pledged our full support across the river as we mourn together."

Area police departments and sheriff's offices have flooded the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Office with messages of support.

"No words can express the hurt that we feel as a family," the sheriff's office said on its Facebook page. "Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!"

Wilber said Correa-Carmenaty faces several charges in Iowa including first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and kidnapping.

He was booked in the Douglas County Jail on suspicion of kidnapping, use of a weapon to commit a felony, felon in possession of a firearm and fugitive from justice.

Correa-Carmenaty had pleaded guilty in January to voluntary manslaughter, attempted murder and two counts of robbery in connection with the slaying of 22-year-old Anthony Walker, according to the Associated Press.

Before Monday's escape, there had been only three Pottawattamie County Sheriff's deputies killed in the line of duty since 1848. The most recent death was in 1981.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Nebraska (BCBSNE) awarded a Fearless Grant to Community Crops of Lincoln on Monday (May 1) at Health 360 Clinic, 2301 O St.

Making fresh produce available to areas that are underserved by traditional farmers markets is another way to improve the health of Nebraskans, Steve Grandfield, BCBSNE executive vice president said. Supporting them will have an impact on peoples lives and that is an important part of our mission.

The Fearless Grant program is an effort by BCBSNE to contribute statewide in grants, sponsorships and community involvement and spans BCBSNEs social responsibility focus areas of health and wellness, human services and education.

Community Crops receivef a $8,525 Fearless Grant for their Mobile Veggie Van project which brings local produce to Lincoln families and supports farmers in the community. The Health 360 Clinic parking lot serves as a storefront for the portable farmers market.
RACINE  A Racine man is facing charges after he was served with an eviction notice and deputies discovered a stockpile of weapons in his apartment. As he was being taken into custody, he allegedly attempted to draw for a weapon he was carrying.

Pepijn F. Schmidt, 30, of the 4000 block of North Main Street, is facing misdemeanor charges of contempt of court and resisting an officer and a felony count of possession of a firearm silencer.

According to the criminal complaint:

In December, Racine County Sheriffs Office investigators served Schmidt eviction paperwork. At the time, Schmidt refused to fully open the door and told deputies he was not going to leave. Deputies learned that Schmidt, who had served in combat in the military, was heavily armed inside the apartment.

According to the criminal complaint, representatives from the county Human Services Department, deputies and military veterans tried to convince Schmidt to come out of the apartment and receive assistance. After attempts failed, deputies learned that Schmidt only left his apartment every two or three weeks to go to a local grocery store.

On April 18, deputies arranged to intercept Schmidt at a grocery store in the 3900 block of Erie Street. As Schmidt came out of the store and caught sight of officers, he reportedly reached for a handgun he was carrying as a sidearm.

Two other deputies converged on his right side and were able to bring Schmidt to the ground, where he reportedly continued to resist. Deputies told him to stop resisting for several minutes until he was overpowered. Two handguns, two handgun magazines and two knives were found in Schmidts possession.

At his apartment, the following items were located:

Two shotguns, one of which was loaded, was found in Schmidts bedroom.

Five rifles  a loaded .308-caliber semiautomatic rifle was found in his living room and a loaded .223-caliber rifle was found in a back closet.

Two loaded revolvers  one at the front door and another on a book case in the living room.

Two loaded semiautomatic pistols  a 9mm was located in the living room and a .22-caliber with an affixed silencer was located in a back closet.

Thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Two sets of military-grade body armor.

Other military items and edged weapons were located.

Schmidts next scheduled court appearance is a preliminary hearing set for at 8:30 a.m. May 10 at the Law Enforcement Center, 717 Wisconsin Ave. He is being held on a $2,500 bond at the Racine County Jail. He is ordered not to possess or control any weapons and body armor and must comply with Behavioral Health Services orders and take all medication as prescribed, online court records showed.
MOUNT PLEASANT  A 17-year-old Racine boy has been charged with possession of a firearm on school grounds, a felony, and misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and possessing a dangerous weapon under the age of 18 after he reportedly brought a gun to school last week.

On Wednesday, DeAvrndre Crawford, of the 1500 block of Park Avenue, was reportedly in a fight with another student in front of Case High School, 7345 Washington Ave.

During the fight, he reportedly pulled a gun out of his pocket.

Police later made contact with Crawford at his house. When officers talked to him, Crawford reportedly denied having a gun, even though a gun was found on his bed.

Crawford has been assigned a May 11 preliminary hearing in Racine County Circuit Court. He remained in custody as of Monday afternoon at the County Jail.
RACINE  Isaly Talavera has two children who attend an after-school program at S.C. Johnson Elementary School and have done so for the past several years.

We started as something that they wanted to do, just for fun, Talavera said. I thought it was good for them to just start getting to know friends.

The program is funded by the 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the only federal program that provides grants to schools with at least 40 percent of students coming from low-income families (typically defined as qualifying for free or reduced lunch) to provide after-school educational programming to school districts around the country.

At Johnson Elementary, 2420 Kentucky St., a school with 75 students enrolled Monday through Thursday, the after-school program covers subjects that include computer classes, science, theater, reading and math.

We were full before school started this year, said Sara Deltoro, the extended-day coordinator at Johnson. Both of my kids are in the program here.

There are limited spots available at the different after-school sites in the Racine Unified School District and parents must sign up in advance in order to be part of the program.

For Talavera, not only does the 21st Century Community Learning Center provide a place where her children can receive extra help with homework and physical activity, it also allows her to have a place where she can pick her children up after shes finished at work.

I just started working because I have someone to stay with my kids until 4 p.m., Talavera said, adding it would be a big change for her family if the program went away. I might have to stop working because this is where my kids come after school.

On the chopping block

In the budget proposal put forth by President Donald Trump, the administration is proposing eliminating the $1.2 billion program, saying it lacks strong evidence of meeting its objectives, such as improving student achievement.

According to the most recent data from the state Department of Public Instruction, Wisconsin received $16.6 million to operate 220 sites serving 42,417 students. Of that number, 22,149 students were regular attendees participating in activities for 30 days or more.

The majority of those regular attendees, 76 percent or almost 17,000 students, came from economically disadvantaged families and almost 60 percent, or 13,000 students, were students of color.

According to the same data set, 73 percent of students improved their academic performance; 65 percent of student improved turning homework in on time; 56 percent improved their classroom behavior.

Kathy Dunkerson, director of extended learning for Unified, said the district has 10 sites using the funds, serving about 4,500 students per year. Roughly 1,000 of those students attend daily.

Right now theres a resolution to continue the budget as it stands which would keep us OK for this year (2017-18 school year), Dunkerson said.

Although it isnt final yet, Ian Martorana, press secretary for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said Congress will work through the federal budget to determine what to approve.

As you know, the president submits his budget to Congress for review, Martorana said. It is the Congress that sets the actual funding levels for these programs through the appropriations process. While I cannot say where funding levels will end up, our members will work their will through regular order.

This year Unified received $700,000 from the program to operate 10 sites throughout the district, including at Johnson Elementary. The grants range from $50,000 to $100,000 at each site, depending on how long the program has been operating.

The longer you have the grant, the less you can apply for because the idea is were supposed to provide our own sustainability after so many years, Dunkerson said.

Of the 10 sites, six of them receive $50,000 grants.

On average it costs between $65,000 and $75,000 a year to run an after-school program for 32 weeks for three hours a day with eight staff (members), Dunkerson said, adding that because the district uses its own buildings, it brings the cost down to $500 per student to participate for the year. Nationally its about $2,000 per child to attend a program for a year.

Other parts of state affected

Many other school districts use local YMCAs or Boys and Girls Clubs to house the programs and provide transportation to those locations from the schools.

Danielle Englebert, district executive director for the YMCA of the Fox Cities in Appleton, said the funding they receive from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers helps operate nine sites in the area.

With the requirement that a school have 40 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch, Englebert said people are surprised of the amount of poverty in the Fox Valley area that affects students.

I think our valley has continued to change, Englebert said. We have a lot more folks moving here and seeking out jobs. What we see form the kids is parents are working a lot of service jobs that are not high paying.

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers in the Appleton Area School District serve about 1,200 students at 11 sites, Assistant Superintendent Nanette Bunnow said.

Bunnow said the district received about $450,000 in grants from the program and the district contributes about $540,000 to operate the program.

If we lost this funding, which is a great concern for us, we would have a very difficult time sustaining some of these programs, Bunnow said. The district values these programs but our budgets are tight.

Bunnow said the district applied for an additional four grants in hopes to extend the program.

I think for the types of kids that we attempt to recruit to these programs, it creates a more level playing field, Bunnow said. This is one of our interventions to closing that achievement gap.

Dunkerson said theres bipartisan support to keep the funding for the program in the budget.

It would be a real shame that this funding be eliminated when its such a small percentage of the federal budget, Dunkerson said. Both Republicans and Democrats are supporting keeping the funding in the budget because they are being told by their constituents that they need these programs for kids. If we take all of these things away, what do we have to offer to the children in our community?
WALWORTH COUNTY  Former Racine Zoo CEO Jay Christie and Safari Lake Geneva founder opens his second season at the safari park with numerous newcomers to his menagerie.

After 16 years heading the Racine Zoo, Christie left to start his own safari park, which he opened last summer; it reopens for the 2017 season Monday, May 1.

The park is an immersive experience in which visitors ride through the grounds, with a naturalist as guide, in a covered but open-sided wagon that stops periodically so guests can feed the animals.

The park is located on Litchfield Road in the Village of Bloomfield, about 5 miles southeast of downtown Lake Geneva and 16 miles southwest of Burlington. Christie, who lives on the grounds, describes his 75-acre safari park property as a blend of rolling topography, mature trees and wetlands surrounded by 800 acres of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources land as a backdrop.

Safari Lake Geneva opened last year with about 70 animals including bison, Ankole-Watusi cattle, scimitar-horned oryx, ostriches, nilgi antelope, African crowned cranes and domestic goats. Christie buys the animals from zoos and private breeders in the Upper Midwest but will also be breeding his own starting this year.

The park opens for season two with at least 13 new animal species  some of them for the on-deck area that is also a petting zoo. The new ones include:

A herd of cold-hardy yak, native to the Himalayas and surrounding region where they are used as beasts of burden and for milk, fiber and meat. We have one bull and three cows and anticipate having calves this summer, Christie said.

Four juvenile Brahman cattle cows, descendants of the zebu or sacred cattle of India.

Aoudad, or Barbary sheep, a wild relative of both sheep and goats that is officially classified as vulnerable because of its declining numbers in its North African homeland.

Silver Appleyard ducks, a critically endangered breed of domestic duck that was developed in England and is known for both its egg and meat yields. This is the most-endangered domestic animal we currently work with at the park, Christie said. The most-endangered wild animal we have is the scimitar-horned oryx.

A southern coati, a member of the raccoon family that hails from South America. Unlike the raccoon, they are diurnal (active during the day), Christie said. Ours will be used for educational encounters so she wont always be on display.

Other new species this year include guinea fowl keets, Tennessee fainting goat kids born last week, domestic rabbits born less than two weeks ago, baby camel and alpaca, Virginia opossum, an African spurred tortoise and a reticulated python.

Safari Lake Geneva is open seven days a week. Tours, which last about an hour, can be booked online at www.safarilakegeneva.com.
MOUNT PLEASANT  Like his brothers before him, Mark Pierce served decades in firefighting before deciding to call it a career.

The South Shore Fire Department division chief retired April 14, ending a 37-year career that began with the Town of Mount Pleasant Fire Department.

He joins his brothers in retirement: Scott served 32 years with the City of Racine, while Skip served 25 years with the City of Kenosha.

After 37 years, it was time, Pierce said. My career was awesome all the way through. I look back at it and just how blessed I was with the way things went.

In his time in Mount Pleasant, Pierce was involved with the department as it, and the community, saw big growth. Mount Pleasant eventually moved from a town to a village, and in 2009 the fire department merged with Sturtevants to form the South Shore Fire Department.

Pierce was on the scene of the massive Diamondhead apartment fire in 2000, when one man was killed, 18 people were treated at a hospital and some 140 residents were displaced.

Among his duties as the departments longtime division chief was overseeing fire prevention programs.

In addition to his duties in Mount Pleasant, Pierce was one of the founders of the Wisconsin Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, a multistate program in which departments provide help to other communities. About 95 percent of fire departments in the state are now involved, Pierce said.

Theres always that rift between career fire departments and volunteer fire departments, and I think with the MABAS system, that has somewhat lessened, he said.

Man of many hats

Pierce, 59, also served the village as a backup snowplow driver and as acting village administrator for a few days due to absences a couple years ago.

He has also been active with Mount Pleasant parks, serving on the villages Parks and Recreation Advisory Board since 2001.

On Friday, Pierce was honored with a tree planting in his name as part of an Arbor Day event at Caledonia-Mount Pleasant Memorial Park, 9614 Northwestern Ave.

This is a treat, Pierce said. Im just honored by it. There will be that tree there for how many years ... Im thankful for them recognizing me.
We seem to have averted a crisis in trade relations with our North American neighbors. But theres a cautionary tale to be found within the news.

A dairy group says most of Wisconsins 58 dairy farms desperately looking for new milk buyers before a May 1 deadline have found them, the Associated Press reported.

The Dairy Business Milk Marketing Cooperative said in a news release Thursday the group believes most farmers dropped by Grassland Dairy earlier this month found new buyers.

Grassland notified the farms itd stop buying their milk May 1 after Canada changed its dairy pricing policy to favor domestic milk. The farms scrambled to find companies that would take their milk. Many faced having to shut down.

Grassland had to make cuts after Canada, a major trading partner, changed its pricing policies, the Capital Times reported April 24. Grassland provides Canada with ultra-filtered milk, a specialized milk type used to make cheese and yogurt.

Since 2011, Canada has encouraged U.S. producers to provide ultra-filtered milk, said Ben Brancel, Wisconsin secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Wisconsin producers did just that, building processes around the product and increasing volume to 365 million pounds exported to Canada in 2016.

But last year, a Canadian policy lowered prices for Canada-made ultra-filtered milk, effectively edging out American producers.

Brancel said that starting last year when Canada began considering the change, he had met with Canadian officials numerous times to try to convince them to consider the seriousness of the matter for American farmers.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the problem lies with Americas own dairy surplus. The U.S. has a $400 million dairy surplus with Canada, so its not Canada thats the challenge here, he said.

President Donald Trump has called on Canada to do more for American dairy farmers, and threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement before changing his mind. Trump tweeted early Thursday that he has agreed to remain a partner in the much-discussed trade agreement in calls he received from Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

If President Trump wishes to renegotiate aspects of NAFTA, thats worth considering. But termination of the agreement entirely would almost certainly have a serious impact on the U.S. economy. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., was correct Thursday when he characterized U.S. trade with Mexico as 10 times greater, in dollar terms, than it was before NAFTA.

That being said, protectionist policies by our next-door neighbors, to the north or south, in a given economic area might best be met by some protectionism of our own.

Trudeaus government seems to be looking out for the best interests of Canadian dairy farmers, in the form of favoring them over American dairies. If that continues to be the case, the Trump administration should look into doing the same for dairy farmers in Wisconsin and throughout the United States.

Its not a North American free-trade deal if one of the North American partners is at a significant disadvantage.
Some critics have called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walkers 2017-2019 state budget a re-election budget, arguing that hes investing in education and handing out tax cuts to gain favor with voters before a 2018 campaign.

On Sunday's installment of UpFront with Mike Gousha, Walker denied this. He argued that his budget is a natural consequence of earlier money-saving reforms and a response to listening sessions throughout the state.

For years people told me, youve got to do these tough reforms, but ultimately the voters want something to payoff for that, and this is the payoff: education, transportation, tax relief continues, he said.

Host Mike Gousha pressed Walker, pointing to an increase in education spending.

So the election year has nothing to do with the increase? asked host Mike Gousha.

Well, it all fits together, Walker said. This is not a bonus; this is not unexpected. We laid out over time a series of reforms we said were tough but necessary, but would lead to prosperity, would lead to better times. These are the better times.

In addition to the budget, Walker talked about the trade dispute with Canada, discussed the recently proposed campus free speech legislation and hinted at his run for governor in 2018.

Transportation

Walkers proposed budget would mean the government would spend $24 billion on transportation over eight years, which Walker said was $3 billion more than former Gov. Jim Doyle. Walker said transportation was one of his consistent priorities throughout the budget process.

While Walker said he was willing to work with lawmakers who wanted to spend additional money on transportation, he stood firm in his resolution not to add a gas tax or vehicle registration fee increase.

He denied that his refusal to institute a gas tax was a short-term fix after Gousha pointed to other midwestern states like Indiana and Iowa that bit the bullet and raised their gas taxes for long-term planning and repairs. Walker said that there was a difference between those states in Wisconsin.

I love Iowa, but they dont yet have the reform dividend that we have here, Walker said.

He pointed to two factors that he said havent gotten much attention: the budgets elimination of a requirement that state-funded construction projects pay workers a base wage and the addition of excess revenue from the states petrolium inspection fee, which Walker said amounts to an additional 2 cents a gallon going toward transportation without actually increasing the gas tax.

K-12 Education

Gousha said a few years ago, the state budget for K-12 spending was flat, but this year is investing an additional $649 million dollars.

Is the states fiscal situation so different today than it was then, or is this, as your critics say, simply an election year budget? Gousha asked

Walker said it was a response to listening sessions, but also a move to ensure that there is an educated and skilled workforce in Wisconsin ready to fill open jobs. He cited the low 3.4 percent state unemployment rate.

My ongoing concern is where do I find enough people to fill those positions? Walker said. K through 12 is a fundamental part of that.

University of Wisconsin

While Walkers proposed 5 percent tuition cut for UW students doesn't look likely to survive the Legislature's approval process, Walker said that he wants to ensure a tuition freeze. The cost of college is a common concern among high school students, he said.

Walkers proposed budget add $100 million to the UW System and $35 million for reduction in tuition. UW System President Ray Cross called the plan the best budget hes seen in a decade.

But Gousha also pointed out that critics said deep cuts to UW a few years ago did long-term damage to the institution, negatively affecting its ability to attract grant money and top faculty.

The data shows just the opposite, Walker said, pointing to higher rankings among institutions of higher education.

Gousha also asked about the campus free speech bill introduced in the Legislature late last week. A similar proposal was originally part of Walkers budget, but was removed as it was seen as a non-fiscal policy item.

The law would require UW System schools to suspend or expel students who disrupt speeches on campus.

Walker said campuses should be sites of open dialog, and liberal groups, while they claim to be open-minded, may only want to hear from people who agree with them. He said he was fine with disagreement and even protests or rallies opposing campus speakers.

But the minute that you shut down a speaker, no matter if theyre liberal, conservative or somewhere in between, I just think thats wrong, Walker said. Shutting down the ability for someone to actually be heard is not free speech.

Trade dispute with Canada

Walker said he was grateful to organizations like Mullins Cheese and the work of Ben Brancel, state secretary of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, to find short-term buyers and loans for farmers who had no place to sell their milk after a trade dispute with Canada.

He said he was also grateful for the strong action of President Donald Trump.

And thank God, I appreciate President Trump stepping up, and being much more aggressive than I think anybody thought he would be, Walker said. President Trumps comments have clearly put this on a priority for Canada, and we think thats good and we think we can work this out.

He said he didnt find Trumps actions overly aggressive and said they have led to meetings with Canadian cabinet members. The long-term goal is a good trade relationship with Canada, Walker said.

Re-election

Everybody assumes youre going to be candidate. You are going to be a candidate, aren't you? Gousha asked.

Walker stopped short of actually announcing his candidacy, saying he would make an announcement after the budget was approved this summer, but suggested that a re-election run was likely.

With more people employed with ever before, why wouldnt I run? he said.

He went on to cite other accomplishments, saying Wisconsin is in the top ten states of people in the workforce, ACT scores, high school graduation rates and health care systems.

With all these great things happening, Ive never been more positive during all my years as governor about the future of this state as I am right now. To me its very appealing to say, Yeah, Id like to keep this state on the right track.
President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order Tuesday at the Environmental Protection Agency, which officials said looks to curb the federal government's enforcement of climate regulations by putting American jobs above addressing climate change.

The order represents a clear difference between how Trump and former President Barack Obama view the role the United States plays in combating climate change, and dramatically alters the government's approach to rising sea levels and temperatures -- two impacts of climate change.

Trump said during the signing that the order will "eliminate federal overreach" and "start a new era of production and job creation."

"My action today is latest in steps to grow American jobs," Trump added, saying his order is "ending the theft of prosperity."

A White House official briefed on the plan said Monday the administration believes the government can both "serve the environment and increase energy independence at the same time" by urging the EPA for focus on what the administration believes is its core mission: Clean air and clean water.

More important than regulating climate change, the official said, is protecting American jobs.

"It is an issue that deserves attention," the official said of climate change. "But I think the President has been very clear that he is not going to pursue climate change policies that put the US economy at risk. It is very simple."

Tuesday's order initiates a review of the Clean Power Plan, rescinds the moratorium on coal mining on US federal lands and urges federal agencies to "identify all regulations, all rules, all policies ... that serve as obstacles and impediments to American energy independence," the official said.

Specifically, the order rescinds at least six Obama-era executive orders aimed at curbing climate change and regulating carbon emissions, including Obama's November 2013 executive order instructing the federal government to prepare for the impact of climate change and the September 2016 presidential memorandum that outlined the "growing threat to national security" that climate change poses.

"The previous administration devalued workers by their policies," the official said. "We are saying we can do both. We can protect the environment and provide people with work."

The White House official went on to argue that the best way to protect the environment is to have a strong economy, noting that countries like India and China do less to protect the environment.

"To the extent that the economy is strong and growing and you have prosperity, that is the best way to protect the environment," the official said.

The executive order also represents the greatest fears climate change advocates had when Trump was elected in November 2016.

"These actions are an assault on American values and they endanger the health, safety and prosperity of every American," Tom Steyer, the president of NexGen Climate, said in a statement. "Trump is deliberately destroying programs that create jobs and safeguards that protect our air and water, all for the sake of allowing corporate polluters to profit at our expense."

Andrew Steer, CEO of the World Resources Institute, said that the executive order shows Trump is "failing a test of leadership to protect Americans' health, the environment and economy."

Some environmental advocates have already said they plan to take legal action against the Trump administration.

But as much as Democrats and climate advocates will decry it, Trump's executive order follows the President's past comments about climate change. Though Trump told The New York Times during the election that he has an "open mind" about confronting climate change, he also once called it a hoax.

"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive," Trump tweeted in November 2012.

"I will also cancel all wasteful climate change spending from Obama/Clinton," Trump said in October 2016.

On Tuesday, ahead of the signing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer declined to say whether Trump still believes climate change is a hoax.

"He does not believe ... that there is a binary choice between job creation, economic growth and caring about the environment," Spicer said. "That's what we should be focusing on."

The changes, the official said, do not mean the Trump administration will not look to protect the environment any longer, the official said, but when pressed about the human impact on climate change and Trump's beliefs, the official was reluctant to say whether all government officials in the Trump White House believe humans cause climate change.

"I think there are plenty of rules on the books already. We will continue to enforce that provide for clean air and clean water. And that is what we are going to do," the official said. "The President has been very clear that he wants the EPA to stick to that basic core mission that Congress set out for it."

The changes also reflect the view of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who routinely sued the organization he now leads during his time as the Attorney General of Oklahoma. In an interview with CNBC earlier this month, Pruitt argued incorrectly that carbon dioxide isn't the "primary contributor" to climate change, a comment that goes against most scientific research.

This executive order is also an attempt by the Trump administration to make good on its promise to bring more coal jobs back. The official said that Obama's regulations "were not helpful" to the coal industry and these reversals are the President honoring "a pledge he made to the coal industry."

"We are going to put our coal miners back to work," Trump said at a March 2017 event in Kentucky. "They have not been treated well, but they're going to be treated well now."

He added: "The miners are coming back."

On Tuesday at the EPA, Trump welcomed a group of miners that attended the signing and said the order was "putting an end to the war on coal."

It is unclear whether Trump's order will actually bring back coal jobs, in part, because of market forces like the rise of clean energy that are already putting pressure on the coal industry.

Robert Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, told CNN in January that coal employment "can't be brought back to where it was before the election of Barack Obama" because of market pressure.

This story has been updated.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
Bibeksheel Nepal protests impeachment motion against CJ Karki

Bibeksheel Nepal Party (BNP) took to the streets to protest the impeachment motion filed at the parliament by the ruling CPN (Maoist Centre) and Nepali Congress against Chief Justice Sushila Karki.
Confusion looms over local polls

A series of political developments on Sunday, including the resignation of Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi may put the scheduled local level polls into a tailspin.
DPM Nidhi resigns

Two weeks before the first polling day of the scheduled local level elections, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi resigned on Sunday, voicing dissatisfaction with the move to impeach Chief Justice Sushila Karki.
Election candidate injured by bullet shot during police live-fire exercise

A man sustained bullet injury during a live-fire training exercise of Nepal Police at Baseni in Bharatpur Municipality-11 in Chitwan district on Sunday.
Famed Swiss alpinist dies in Nuptse bid

Swiss alpinist Ueli Steck, who had set a string of records for making quick solo ascents of mountains, died on the slopes of Mt Everest on Sunday morning while attempting to climb Mt Nuptse.
Govt plan to establish fishery zone hits snag

The governments plan to establish a fishery zone in Rupandehi district has hit a snag as few farmers have shown interest in digging ponds.
Hatil makes foray into Nepali market

Hatil, the leading furniture brand in Bangladesh, has made its debut in the Nepali market.
Health Ministry suspends Manipal licence

The Ministry of Health has decided to suspend the renewal of the operation licence of Pokhara-based Teaching Hospital and its process related to its promotion over the recent incident where the Hospital denied emergency healthcare facilities to the Kagbeni jeep accident victims.
Impeachment motion against CJ Karki

In a surprising move, two major ruling parties on Sunday registered an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki in the Legislature-Parliament, accusing her of interfering in the executives decision-making and working against the principle of separation of powers.
Impeachment motion should be withdrawn by Tuesday: Oli

CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli said that the impeachment motion registered by the two main ruling partiesNepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre)against Chief Justice Sushila Kaski should be withdrawn by Tuesday.
India gifts 86 vehicles for elections

The Government of India has donated 86 vehicles worth Rs. 89.1 million to help with the local level elections in the country.
India to gift vehicles to EC

The government of India is handing over various types of vehicles to the Elections Commission on Monday.
Jail, fine for 3 former police chiefs, others

The Supreme Court on Sunday issued its final verdict on the high-profile Sudan scam, ordering jail and fines for three former inspector generals of Nepal Police and other police officers of various ranks.
Jha criticises Education Ministrys inaction over private school fee hike

Ranju Kumari Jha, the chairperson of Women, Children, Senior Citizens and Social Welfare Committee of the Legislature-Parliament, has expressed concern over haphazard fee hike in private schools.
Missing man returns home after 18 years

A man, who had disappeared 18 years ago, returned home a few days ago.
Naya Shakti party makes its manifesto public

The Naya Shakti Nepal has made its commitment letter (manifesto) public with a special focus on economic development and prosperity, for the May 14 local level elections.
NC defends its position on impeachment motion

Ruling coalition partner Nepali Congress has defended its decision to register the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki along with CPN (Maoist Centre).
Non-gazetted officer arrested for taking bribe in Khotang

Police on Sunday arrested a first class non-gazetted officer of the District Hospital Khotang for receiving kickbacks under the pretext of fixing the job of midwives.
One killed as bike rams into parked tipper in Chitwan

A man died when a bike (Na 40 Pa 1947) he was riding on rammed into a parked tipper (Na 3 Kha 9396) at Khairahani in Chitwan on Sunday evening.
Our established politicians are not capable of change

With local level elections slated for May 14 and June 14, parties have started announcing their nominees for the position of Mayor of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City.
People from all walks of life hit street against move to impeach CJ Karki

People from all walks of life including students, representatives from civil society and a few political parties marched on the streets of Kathmandu on Monday to protest against the move to impeach Chief Justice (CJ) Sushila Karki.
PM Dahal urges UML Chair Oli to move ahead with consensus

A day after the two main ruling parties registered an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal held a meeting with the main opposition CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli on Monday.
Polls: Parties hop on youth bandwagon

Major parties have fielded youth candidates to compete for the posts of mayor, deputy mayor and ward chairs among other posts in the upcoming local polls, with the majority of the candidates canvassing for votes in towns and villages being under 40.
Prez not happy for filing impeachment motion against CJ without coordination

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari has expressed her dissatisfaction for not coordinating with her before filing the impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki, sources said.
Quake survivors still in temporary shelters

Three hundred displaced earthquake-affected families of remote Syaule, Selang, Golche, Gumba, Batase, Boldegaun and Paripangtang villages in Sindhupalchok district are still living in the temporary shelters at Banskharka, Kharigaun and Kaflegaun in Sangachokgadhi Municipality.
RPP unlikely to quit govt immediately

The Central Executive Committee of Rastriya Prajantra Party meeting on Monday morning failed to take any decision regarding its position whether to continue or quit the government.
Separate and unequal

The losses that Nepal suffered in the 2015 earthquakes were staggering. The governments Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) estimated that over 8,000 people lost their lives in the earthquakes and more than 20,000 were injured.
Shree Airlines gets 2nd Bombardier jet

Nepals largest helicopter operator Shree Airlines, welcomed its second Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ) on Saturday.
South Asia Satellite launching on May 5

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that a South Asia Satellite will be launched on May 5. ISRO, the Indian space agency, has completed all the preparations to launch the satelliete.
ABCNews.com(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump can add the name of another controversial, authoritarian leader to the list of so-called strongmen that he has praised: President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.



The compliment to the Philippines leader came from the White House on Saturday after Trump and Duterte spoke by phone.



Trump has also in the past praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And he recently congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the passage of a referendum that will greatly concentrate Erdogan's already-significant powers.



On Saturday, a White House statement on the call between Trump and Duterte said the two presidents had a "very friendly conversation" that touched on "regional security, including the threat posed by North Korea."



Human rights groups accuse Duterte of being behind what they say are extrajudicial killings of more than 7,000 drug offenders by police and vigilante groups.



The White House release on the call said Trump "enjoyed the conversation" and invited Duterte to Washington, D.C., "to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction."



White House chief of staff Reince Priebus defended the invitation to Duterte in an interview Sunday with ABC News' Jonathan Karl on "This Week," saying the president aims to work with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations in confronting North Korea's nuclear program.



"It doesn't mean that human rights don't matter," Priebus said. "But what it does mean is that the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get."



Over this past weekend, Duterte wasn't the only leader to receive Trump's praise. In an interview with CBS, taped Saturday and released in full this morning, Trump called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un a "pretty smart cookie" because of his ability to hold onto power at a young age after his father died.



"A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie," Trump said.



Similarly, Trump has previously said of Kim Jong Un: "You gotta give him credit."



"How many young guys  he was, like, 26 or 25 when his father died  take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden ... he goes in, he takes over, and he's the boss," Trump said of the North Korean leader in January 2016. "It's incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean, this guy doesn't play games. And we can't play games with him."



Earlier in April, Trump called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on his victory in a referendum vote that critics contend was rife with election irregularities. The referendum's approval will lead to the abolishment of the post of prime minister and weakening of the country's parliament, adding to Erdogan's already-significant powers. Some observers say the changes threaten to choke off the possibility for modern democratic values to take hold in Turkey.



During the election campaign, Trump responded to criticism of his praising authoritarian leaders. In a GOP primary debate in March 2016, CNN's Jake Tapper asked then-candidate Trump about his calling Putin a "strong" leader and his references to the Chinese government's massacre of Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989 as showing "the power of strength."



Trump responded that his comments weren't endorsements of the Chinese government's crackdown or Putin.



"Strong doesn't mean good," he said, adding that in his remarks about Tiananmen Square and Putin, "I dont say that in a good way or a bad way. I say it as a fact.



Trump has been critical of some of the strongmen he has praised, including of Kim Jong Un over his country's nuclear program, Assad over his chemical attack against civilians in April and Putin over his support of Assad.



He said in March that Kim Jong Un was acting "very, very badly."



In April, in the wake of the Syrian chemical attack, Trump said of Assad, Ive never seen anything like it and frankly, Putin is backing a person thats truly an evil person and I think is very bad for Russia, I think is very bad for mankind.



Earlier, in January, Trump expressed a neutral view of Putin: "I don't say good, bad or indifferent. I don't know the gentleman. I hope we have a fantastic relationship. That's possible and it's also possible we won't."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Tea exports jump record high to Rs2.4b

Nepals tea exports jumped 19 percent to reach a record 13,289 tonnes in the last fiscal year due to promotional efforts launched in key markets.
Uproar against decision

Political parties and leaders have protested against the impeachment motion that the NC and the Maoist Centre registered against Chief Justice Sushila Karki on Sunday.
VoIP operator held

Police on Sunday arrested a man for allegedly operating the illegal Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system from Damak of Jhapa district.
By Stephen Ariong

Health officials in Moroto district are using the motorcycle ambulances donated by UNFPA for boda boda business.

On 20th May 2015 UNFPA donated 28 motorcycle ambulances to all the health centers in the seven districts in Karamoja sub region.

The move was aimed at saving lives of expectant mothers and children in villages that are far from the health centers.

While handing over the ambulances to Moroto district authority in 2015 Steven Muzinguzi the then the UNFPA representative Moroto office urged health officials to put to good use the ambulances.

However, his call seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Moroto Chief Administrative Officer Jackchan Gwokito says he is not aware that the health officials are misusing the equipments and has asked the police to investigate the matter.
By Steven Ariong.

A group of elders from Karamoja, Turkana and Pokot in Kenya have asked the two governments to jointly deploy the forces along the cattle theft corridors.

They argue that this will end cross border cattle theft between Kenya and Uganda.

The elders who are also cross border peace actors made the demand during the regional cross border senior government leaders forum meeting held on Friday at Lokiriama in Kenya.

Led by Mr. Hoseah Ekiyeyes, a Turkana elder also the district peace chairman of Turkana South the elders also suggested that the joint force should be allowed to shoot to kill any armed notorious Turkana, Pokot or Karimojong pastoralists who cross to destabilize others.

Mr. Richard Aruk Maruk the Mt. Moroto Regional Police Commander says a joint force has already been deployed along the border territory to deal with criminals.
By Benjamin Jumbe & Samuel Ssebuliba

Uganda today joins the rest of the world to commemorate International Labor day.

Labour Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the achievements of workers.

In Uganda the day is to be celebrated under the theme Building the Nation through good work ethics with national celebrations to be held at Kamuge Saza grounds in the eastern district of Pallisa.

The state minister for gender Hon.Peace Mutuuzo challenges workers to use this day to reflect on how best to promote good work ethics.

Meanwhile employers are challenged to ensure they invest in occupational safety and health.

The director labor in the Gender Labor and Social Development ministry Martin Wandera says this is not only good for the workers, but the employers too.

Mr. Wandera tells KFM that workers who feel safe enhance productivity and profits which in turn contributes to the wider national economy.

Workers too have spoken out as they celebrate Labor Day.

They are calling for separation of ministry of labor from its mother ministry of gender labor and social development.

Mr. Usher Wison Owere the Chairman General National Organization of Trade Unions says labor issues are mixed up with in many elements and departments of this ministry, thus isolating it is the only solution.

He adds that labor is major issue in economic transformation of any country and thus according it a full ministry will be a great tool for steering economic prosperity in Uganda.
By Andrei Lankov





The relations between China and South Korea are bad. In March a poll indicated China overtook Japan as Korea's most disliked foreign nation. The reason is simple: the South Korean decision to deploy the THAAD missile defense system annoyed China which reacted with introducing the "unofficial" but biting sanctions against South Korean companies. This is the worst situation since 1992.

But hang on, why do we mention 1992 as a starting point? Is not it the case that for millennia Korea and China have lived side by side, maintaining sometimes uneasy but always close relations?

Yes, the history of relations between the two goes back a few thousand years, and it will be only a major exaggeration to say the Korean state emerged and grew in the giant shadow of China, under its immense influence. However, after the Opium Wars of the 1840-60s, China became a victim of Western imperialism and disintegrated in the collapse and chaos, only to be reunited by Mao's Communists in 1949 as a poor authoritarian country.

Throughout the Chinese "century of crisis" Koreans lost much of their interest in Chinese culture. Gone were the times when a perfect command of written Chinese was a major prerequisite for a successful career. From the 1890s on, educated Koreans were obsessed with the West, which came to be seen as an embodiment of progress, while China, especially classical China of Confucian classics, became a symbol of conservatism and backwardness, a country few were seriously interested in.

Things became more complicated in 1948-49 when both Korea and China were divided between the communists and right-wing nationalists. In Korea the nationalists took a poorer part of the country which, however, had a larger population, but in China the division was very uneven: the nationalists managed to cling only to a small island province of Taiwan, while nearly all China's land and population after 1949 were under control of the victorious communists.

The division led to a peculiar situation: Communist China and Communist North Korea established formal diplomatic relations, but Mao's China did not recognize the Republic of Korea. The Republic of Korea, too, maintained diplomatic relations only with the nationalist government in Taiwan, formally supporting its improbable claim of being the only legitimate government of all of China.

Until the late 1980s, South Korea behaved as if "Red" China did not exist. Even President Nixon's famous 1972 trip to China and subsequent improvement of Sino-American relations (actually, as a part of their de facto alliance against Russia) failed to impact the position of Seoul which steadfastly clung to the "One China principle," the "China" in question being Taiwan, of course.

But times were changing. In the 1960s and 70s, under President Park Chung-hee's dictatorial but efficient rule South Korea transformed itself into a booming economy. Under Deng Xiaoping's China, to a large extent, repeated what South Korea did a decade or two earlier, also succeeded economically under its own variety of a "developmental dictatorship" (communist in rhetoric and government structure, unsurprisingly capitalist in economic policy). In the new world, old feuds of the Cold War ceased to matter while market size began to matter enormously.

In August 1992, China (the People's Republic of China, that is), established formal diplomatic relations, to the great dismay of both Taiwan and Pyongyang. The results were impressive: in the early 2000s China overtook the U.S. and Japan as Korea's largest trading partner. It also became a major destination for outbound tourists and a major source of Korea's inbound tourism (last year, 48 percent of visiting tourists came to Korea from China). Many Koreans  largely businesspeople and technicians  moved to China, while even a larger number of Chinese nationals  largely unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workers  moved to Korea.

In one regard Korea has differed from other countries of the region: it did not see the rise of China as a challenge or security problem. Since 1992, political conflicts and tensions were rare, and most Koreans looked on China lightly, perceiving it as a producer of low-priced consumer goods, a large playground and provider of cheap labor. The thought of possible political complications seldom, if ever, crossed the minds of Koreans, many of whom, frankly, did not take China too seriously.

But now things are changing  for the time being, at least. In a sense, the THAAD crisis made Koreans aware that a powerful and pushy aspiring superpower happens to be located nearby, and the relations with this superpower are not going to be easy. Surprisingly, for many Koreans it looks like revelation.





Andrei Lankov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and teaches at Kookmin University in Seoul. Reach him at anlankov@yahoo.com.
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Having clean and abundant water is something that typically isnt an issue in Wisconsin.

But to some residents that live next to sand mines, there are concerns regarding the water they pull from their well.

In an affidavit that Mike and Stacy Sylla filed in opposition to sand mines, they stated, The worst thing that happened during construction and mining was the deterioration of our water. It turned a terrible orange/brown color-thick, dirty. When we would fill our Brita water pitcher, there would be a layer of sand on the bottom. Our ice maker on our fridge quit working-the system became plugged with all the sediment.

Syllas home is about 0.6 miles from a sand mine. The day before the sand mine started blasting, his water was tested and came back clean, but a week later is when his water changed. He said that his waters iron levels changed from 0.29 milligrams per liter to about 2.6 milligrams per liter.

Dr. Kent Syverson, a geologist with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire says it is difficult for a sand mine to directly cause such changes, but he cannot tell for sure without any data such as flow directions and water samples.

I would think it [sediment in the water] is highly unlikely to be caused by the sand mine. It is very hard to move sediment through the ground, Syverson said as he explained how water becomes ground water.

Syverson said that in order for the sand that the mine is processing to get into anyones well it would have to first travel through the soil and into the aquifer that supplies the water. This is something that is highly unlikely according to Syverson because sand does not dissolve in water.

Syverson said that as the water goes through the ground, the sand particles would be filtered from the water naturally.

A change in water doesnt necessarily mean it is caused by the mine. Local changes in the well can also cause problems, Syverson said.

Quality of groundwater

Even though large sediment particles such as sand, clay or silt are not easily transferred into the ground water, some are concerned about the products that are soluble getting into the water table, mainly water-soluble polymers such as polyacrylamide.

Polyacrylamide is used to make larger chunks of particles. Syverson said polyacrylamides are used in settlement ponds in sand mines to make larger chunks of clay, which then settle out of the water faster.

Once the clay has settled out of the water, the water can then be in the processing of the sand.

Acrylamide, which is a known neurotoxin and carcinogen, is found in trace quantities in polyacrylamides. This has caused many people to be concerned that these acrylamides are being leached into the soil.

Syverson said that is unlikely to happen because acrylamides rapidly decay. He sais, according to the U.S. EPA, 74-94 percent of the acrylamides will decay in 14 days in aerobic soils where air is present. In water-logged, anaerobic soils, 64-89 percent of acrylamides will decay in 14 days.

Syverson said that you can expect water to move an inch a day through soil, so most, if not all, of the acrylamide would decay by the time it reached the water table.

One of the latest findings was that high levels of aluminum concentrations were found in settling ponds, which has some concerned that metals could move into the groundwater. Currently, the Wisconsin DNR is studying this, focusing on process water discharges, but the study is in the early development stages.

Quality of surface water

Syverson said that the greatest concern he has with sand mines is storm water runoff.

According to the Wisconsin DNR, there were 25 violations from sand mines between Nov. 30, 2011 and Jan. 27, 2016 involving water, with most of the cases involving storm water runoff. Seven of the cases involved citations and five were requested for prosecution by the Wisconsin Department of Justice(1).

The DNR regulates these runoff events through permits and the reclamation plan. When a mine is in violation of the permit and has a runoff event, the mine is required to go through measures to bring them back into compliance.

Storm water runoff puts sediment in surface water, which makes it cloudy and can have negative impacts on the fish and wildlife in the body of water.

According to the DNR, most nonmetallic mines are designed to contain storm water runoff within the mine so that it can be controlled, but most mines are only designed to contain water from a 10- or 25-year rain event which is when a runoff event can happen.

We seem to be having more high intensity, low duration rain events which are causing the problems, Syverson said.

Syverson also notes that while runoff events are a significant problem with sand mines, the problem is not just a sand mine issue.

He said that the largest sediment runoff event in Barron County was due to road construction and that some farming practices can also lead to storm water runoff.

Water quantity

The definition of a high-capacity well system according to the Wisconsin DNR is one or more wells, drill holes or mine shafts on a property that have a combined approved pump capacity of 70 or more gallons per minute.

Most sand mines require a high-capacity well to maintain enough water for the processing of sand.

Most sand mines also use a closed-loop processing system, which means they reuse water while processing the sand. According to the DNR, this processing system on average uses about 292-1,380 gallons per minute. In these systems, water can be lost by evaporation and incorporating the water into the sand.

While most sand mines use a closed-loop processing system, an open-loop processing system can use 2,000-3,700 gallons per minute according to the DNR (2).

In an interim report of the Chippewa County Groundwater Study, researchers from the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey-UW-Extension found that sand mines within the study area of western Chippewa County withdrew 25.88 million gallons per year per point in 2012, while irrigated agriculture withdrew 24.15 million gallons per year per point and the municipalities withdrew 19.75 gallons per year per point.

In 2013, sand mines withdrew 21.02 million gallons per year per point, irrigated agriculture withdrew 27.57 gallons per year per point and municipalities withdrew 19.77 million gallons per year per point.

Both the sand mines and municipalities had a total of five active withdrawal points in 2012 and 2013, while the irrigated agriculture had 22 points in 2012 and 25 point in 2013 (3).

The interim report noted that the total withdrawals for sand mines reduced from 2012 to 2013, which could be due to using the water more efficiently or changes in how sand is produced.

It is important to think of all water users in an area. I think it is normal and natural for people when there is a new industry or activity in town to focus on that one individual industry, but sometimes we forget about other water-intensive industries, farming practices or withdrawals for municipal use, said Mike Parsen, Chippewa County Groundwater Study researcher. Every individual use of water is going to have some impact to some degree.

The impact that high capacity wells have on the water supply have many because they can have adverse effects on smaller wells and bodies of water that are close to it.

A high capacity well can reduce the water table and make it so personal wells have to be dug deeper, Mark Davy of Davy Engineering said.

Parsen also said, The closer a well is to a stream, the greater the chance we would expect it to impact that stream. Similarly, the shallower a well would be, the more impact it would have than one that was drilled several hundred feet down.

Even with all of these reasons why it cant be sand mines, the Syllas continue to tell their story about how their well became contaminated a week after a local sand mine began blasting.

(1) Industrial Sand Mining in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, June 2016.

(2) Silica Sand Mining in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, January 2012.

(3) Michael J. Parsen and Madeline B. Gotkowitz, Chippewa County Groundwater Study  Interim Report, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and UW-Extension, March 2015.
Peggy Hamm credits the Coulee Council on Addictions with her nearly eight years of sobriety and her rebound from virtual helplessness to holding a full-time job and a host of volunteer positions.

I dont think I could have stayed sober without it, the 61-year-old La Crosse woman said of the organizations influence on her recovery.

Hamm said she had lost her job and house, and had no prospects for employment because of her alcoholism and the resulting neuropathy.

I was sick and couldnt even function, despite having held a responsible job at an insurance company, she said.

The YWCA secured her a place to stay in its Ruth House emergency shelter for women who are homeless and/or in recovery, and good friend Pat Ruda persuaded her to seek help at Coulee Council, she said.

Ruda, who then was executive director of the Coulee Council, also enlisted Hamms volunteer help with activities at the house, Hamm said.

Hamms volunteer undertakings included organizing food for meals the council hosts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as preparing the meals, she said.

It really helped me in staying sober, getting really engulfed in volunteering and recovery, Hamm said. Any kind of function they call me, and I volunteered because they did so much for me.

The experience was an eye-opener, she said, adding, I lived in Onalaska and had no idea of the addiction, the drugs and alcohol and suffering, said Hamm, the mother of daughters ages 25 and 30.

Hamm acknowledges alcoholisms contribution to her own suffering, including withdrawing the savings she had accumulated during her insurance company job in her 401(k) without having taxes withheld  and spending it. She still is paying taxes on the amount, she said.

Hamms path back to full employment started with Experience Works at the La Crosse County Law Enforcement Center, although she entered the state program with little confidence in herself.

Quite honestly, I didnt even know if I could answer the phone, she said.

I got to work with people who had had OWIs and were trying to stay sober, she said. That was a God thing.

Hamm also became house coordinator at Ruth House, and I got to help women recovering from drugs and alcohol. That was another God thing, she said.

She also works at Ophelias House, a community-based jail alternative for women, noting that her indebtedness to the IRS means I still have to work at a lot of jobs. I wear a lot of hats.

The sins of addiction  a lot of normal people dont think of all the debris behind you that you have to clean up, she said.

I never realized the things many people in the homeless population have gone through  rape, abuse, Hamm said.

Resources available through the Coulee Council, such as credit counseling and an discussion group that steers people to resources and assistance have helped her take care of her own debris, she said.

Hamms full-time job is with the county Law Enforcement Centers justice support services, formerly known as justice sanctions.

Her involvement with preparing and serving meals and participation in other programs at the Coulee Council have made her keenly aware that the council needs a new facility, she said.

Each year, more goes wrong with the aging house at 921 West Ave. that is the councils headquarters, she said. To grow and do more, they need to have space.

There are plumbing issues in the kitchen, and with the electrical you have to be careful plugging in a lot of pots. It needs a nice kitchen. Its amazing that we are even able to prepare meals, she said.

They need something more inviting to the eye, and meeting rooms, Hamm said. Now, some groups have to meet in the reception area.

The building is falling apart, she said.

But, because of the council, her life isnt.
For the second budget in a row, lawmakers on the Legislatures budget-writing committee have rejected Gov. Scott Walkers call to change oversight and eliminate the states judicial watchdogs.

Walker proposed in his 2017-19 state spending plan to move the Wisconsin Judicial Commission under the control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and eliminate the state Judicial Council. The Joint Finance Committee stripped both proposals from the budget on Monday, which they also did two years ago.

The votes were among the first the committee is taking to amend Walkers $76 billion state budget proposal.

Lawmakers on Monday also put off voting on Walkers proposal to increase salaries for judges by about 4 percent in the second year of the budget, similar to proposed raises for other state employees. Walker also wants to create a new process for approving future pay increases, also similar to how state employee raises are approved.

The Joint Finance Committees co-chairmen said Monday its likely the committees conservative majority will approve a 2 percent increase.

In Walkers proposal, the money for raises would no longer come from the state employee compensation plan, but rather from other court revenue sources, similar to how the University of Wisconsin System funds employee salaries.

State Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack has asked the committee to keep judicial pay within the states compensation plan. The courts also have asked for a 16 percent salary increase for judges and justices over two years.

Current annual wages for Wisconsin judges are $131,187 for circuit court, $139,059 for the appellate court and $147,403 for the Supreme Court, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The state ranks 38th in Supreme Court and circuit court pay and 33rd in appellate court pay among the states when adjusted for cost of living, according to the National Center for State Courts.

The budget committees vote to reject Walkers proposal to change oversight and eliminate the state Judicial Commission and Judicial Council comes after both the executive director of the commission and Roggensack have said the move could create potential conflicts of interest and wont save money.

The commission polices allegations of judicial misconduct. Walker has said consolidating it under the Supreme Court would create administrative efficiencies.

The Judicial Council has 21 members who study the efficiency of the court system and recommend procedural changes. It employs a full-time lawyer.

Walker proposed eliminating the council and moving the lawyer to the Supreme Court, which could then create its own council outside of the statutory requirement.

Roggensack also opposed that move, saying it wouldnt save money and overlooks the significant work that the council does for both the Legislature and the courts.

Labor commissioners reduced

Also on Monday, lawmakers voted to approve Walkers proposal to reduce the number of commissioners on the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission from three to one. They also approved cutting staff at WERC from seven to five positions.

The commission is charged with settling employment disputes. Its workload has decreased since 2011 after the passage of Act 10, which essentially eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees.

Assembly transportation plan

John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Monday that Assembly Republicans plan to address the billion-dollar shortfall in the states transportation fund will be unveiled as soon as this week. He said the plan, which Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield, is leading in writing, will not increase the tax burden on Wisconsin residents.

Budget co-chairwoman Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said Senate Republicans look forward to reviewing the plan.

Though Mondays committee action reflected the first votes on Walkers budget, the Republican leaders of the committee already announced sweeping changes to Walkers 2017-19 spending plan by removing all 83 non-fiscal policy items and scrapping his entire transportation budget proposal.

The committee is expected to take on those bigger-ticket items over the coming weeks.

No additional dates have been set yet.
EAU CLAIRE, Wis.  Growth in online shopping and changing consumer preferences make this a challenging time for the retail industry.

For regional shopping hubs such as Eau Claire, the resulting volatility is difficult to avoid.

The fallout has left the city with a number of prominent vacancies at what were once thriving big box retail outlets:

Macys: One of the signature anchor tenants at Oakwood Mall closed March 26, leaving the regional mall with a 100,000-square-foot hole on its south end. The Eau Claire outlet, which opened in 1991, was one of about 100 department stores Macys announced last year it planned to close in a major restructuring.

Mega Co-op: Consumers Cooperative Association of Eau Claire closed its struggling Mega Co-op East supermarket at 1201 S. Hastings Way in February 2016 when it exited the grocery business and sold its other stores to Gordys Market. The 60,000-square-foot building, which was only 4 years old when it closed, remains empty.

Kmart: The citys firstnational big box discounter closed its Eau Claire store in 2014. Despite sitting on 10 acres in a high-visibility location at 2424 E. Clairemont Ave., the 120,000-square-foot store, built in 1963, has been vacant ever since.

Gander Mountain: The outdoor goods retailer, which appeared to show great confidence in its market presence when it moved in 2008 from a smaller location near Oakwood Mall to a brand new, 65,000-square-foot store at 6440 Sculy Drive just south of Interstate 94, announced March 10 that it had filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was closing the Eau Claire store and 31 other underperforming outlets. Company spokesman Jess Myers said last week that no closing date has been set for the Eau Claire store.

Industry trends

Local experts insist the presence of so many hulking, vacant retail spaces at once is more a sign of the times than a cause for worry.

What youre seeing here is not unique to Eau Claire, said Stuart Schaefer, president of Commonweal Development, which is marketing the Kmart and Mega properties. Theres undoubtedly a trend in the retail world, as department stores are struggling nationally.

In some cases, such as with Kmart, the concept has gotten old, while other closings represent a shakeout as retailers adjust their commitment to brick-and-mortar stores in response to the rising popularity of online shopping, Schaefer said.

Obviously, the internet is a big factor right now, he said.

In their store closing announcements, Macys specifically mentioned allocating more investment to growing the digital side of its business and Gander Mountain acknowledged that, like other retailers, it has been challenged by e-commerce sales.

Scott Hodek, regional economist for the state Department of Workforce Development, also pointed to online shopping as a disruptive factor for the retail industry.

Retailers that once touted the one-stop-shopping convenience of their big box outlets now face competition from Amazon and other online marketers that often offer lower prices and even more convenience  products shipped right to the customers door, Hodek said.

Americans spent $350 billion online, or 10 percent of all retail purchases excluding automobiles and fuel, in 2015, according to a report released last year by Pew Research Center. The report also indicated that the share of Americans who have made e-commerce purchases rose from 22 percent in 2000 to 79 percent in 2016, with the rate even higher among millennials and other young adults.

At the same time, a renewed emphasis on downtown revitalization has some merchants reconsidering locations in the city centers they once abandoned in favor of malls and shopping centers on the outskirts of communities.

Its a definite shift, Hodek said, and it could make some of those vacant buildings difficult to fill.

Mike Schatz, Eau Claires economic development administrator, said city officials are monitoring retail trends to determine how they should affect the kinds of businesses being recruited to the community. He added that consumers most likely will always prefer to shop for some products in person, especially items too large to easily ship or ones that people want to touch, see or test before buying.

Been there, done that

It may seem like Eau Claire is undergoing a rash of retail closings lately, but the city has survived such turbulence before, Hodek and Schaefer emphasized.

Hodek cited the former London Square Mall as an example of prime retail space that eventually closed and was redeveloped into multiple uses. Schaefer rattled off a series of once-dominant names in the local grocery market  Kerms, Randalls, Rons Castle Foods, Copps and Dukes Country Market  that have vanished in the past few decades.

I dont think its anything to be alarmed about, Schaefer said. Its just the natural progression of things. For the most part, its good for the consumer. If theres a retailer thats not doing well, they dont last.

Its an unforgiving environment for retailers. They either perform or theyre gone.

The 2015 arrival of a 240,000-square-foot Woodmans Market in Altoonas River Prairie development undoubtedly sent shock waves through the local grocery market, and yet Schaefer said he is aware that other grocers are considering the Eau Claire market.

Other retail concepts that are having success in larger markets also eventually could make their way to Eau Claire and fill some empty buildings or build in new sites, said Schaefer, whose company is planning an undisclosed $30 million retail development on a site just southeast of the Highway 93 and I-94 interchange.

Interest shown

As for the current lineup of large vacant buildings, Schatz said, its not as if they havent generated any interest.

Prospects are looking at those all the time, he said. Its just a question of finding the right fit and the right price.

Its possible they could be leased to substitute large retailers, broken up into spaces for multiple businesses or repurposed for use by entirely new industries, Schatz added.

Schaefer said prospects have inquired about the Mega and Kmart spaces, with some even making offers that werent accepted. Both buildings appear to offer desirable commercial locations  along high-traffic roads near a lot of rooftops.

Solutions for the Kmart site range from fixing it up for multiple tenants to razing the building and starting from scratch. Commonweal has put together plans for a range of options, Schaefer said, adding, Frankly, Im a little surprised we havent been able to put together a deal on that yet.

Oakwood Mall manager Betsy Maher said Chicago-based mall owner General Growth Properties bought the Eau Claire Macys location last fall and is seeking a replacement tenant, but she declined to comment on potential prospects.

Media reports indicate Camping World Holdings and a group of liquidators won a bankruptcy auction Friday for Gander Mountain, but there was no immediate word on what the winning bidders might do with stores slated for closing.

Positive signs

Despite the vacancies, local officials remain optimistic about Eau Claires economy, with Schatz quickly pointing to the recent upsurge in development downtown as a positive sign.

Similarly, Hodek said the area isnt experiencing a rise in unemployment, a drop in disposal income or any other negative economic indicator that might be cause for alarm.

Even with the spate of retail closings, Schaefer said, the citys commercial vacancy rate remains below the national average, and other businesses are expanding.

Wed be a lot more discouraged if we were seeing population decreases or unemployment increases or anything like that, Schaefer said. The market to us still seems pretty solid. Relative to other markets, we think that Eau Claire is still headed in the right direction.
A La Crosse County judge has temporarily halted work on a 7-mile stretch of a controversial high-voltage power line between the La Crosse and Madison areas while denying a local communitys effort to stop the line entirely.

The town of Holland asked the court to overturn the Wisconsin Public Service Commissions approval of the Badger-Coulee transmission line, arguing that the panel responsible for protecting utility consumers erred when it authorized a consortium of utility companies to build the nearly $580 million project.

A joint venture of American Transmission Co. and several regional utility companies, including La Crosse-based Dairyland Power Cooperative, the 180-mile line will run between the Madison suburbs and Holmen, where it will connect to another high-voltage line, CapX2020, that runs across Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

In a written ruling issued Monday, Judge Todd Bjerke determined the PSC properly determined that Badger-Coulee  was needed to provide an adequate supply of electric energy to the La Crosse area, despite a deficient record supporting the decision.

But Bjerke also found the PSC failed to provide a rational basis for its decision to route the line along the Hwy. 53 corridor parallel to another high-voltage transmission line but on separate poles often on opposite sides of the highway.

Bjerke ordered the PSC to re-evaluate siting of the line in the contested portion through the town and ordered that work on that stretch be halted until the commission has complied with his order.

PSC spokeswoman Elise Nelson said the agency was still reviewing the ruling and did not yet have a timeline for reconsidering the siting decision.

Holland Clerk Marilyn Pedretti had mixed reactions to the ruling, saying she was pleased that Bjerke recognized the lack of justification for not requiring ATC to share poles with CapX2020, though she was disappointed the judge deferred to the PSCs approval of the line, which she and other opponents contend is unnecessary given the recent lack of growth in electricity use.

Its like adding on to a house after the kids have left, she said. There is no need and its not fiscally responsible.

ATC, which is spearheading the project, began pre-construction work on the La Crosse County portion of the line in April. ATC spokeswoman Kaya Freiman said the company would continue work on other segments until cleared by the court to proceed. The southernmost segment, in Dane County, is completed, while ATC has yet to secure the necessary federal wetland permits needed for much of the construction.

Freiman said its not clear if the injunction would delay completion of the line, scheduled for late 2018.

The owners say the lines will make the electric grid more reliable and provide a pipeline between remote locations with strong wind resources with population centers like Madison and Milwaukee where the energy is needed. The cost will be shared by customers in 15 Midwestern states and one Canadian province.

The town argued that Badger-Coulee is not necessary to keep the lights on in western Wisconsin.

According to data from the Energy Information Administration, electricity use has been relatively flat since 2007. Over the decade ending in 2014 (the last year for which EIA data are available), the nations electricity sales grew by about 0.6 percent per year. In Wisconsin, where manufacturing represents a larger chunk of the economy, growth has been only about 0.2 percent.

But the PSC decided Badger-Coulee met the statute in broader ways: eliminating the need for other projects, lowering costs and providing reliable, affordable, and clean electric energy.

While deferring to the PSCs decision on need, Bjerke chastised the commission for failing to provide him with supporting documents, including its environmental impact studies.

The Court can only conclude, on the basis of the record before it, that the missing documents were to keep the Court from considering the actual facts, Bjerke wrote. That, coupled with the distain (sic) for Holland that first came out of the mouth of the attorney for the PSCW at the beginning of his argument before this Court last October, leads this Court to believe that the interests of the public was not truly in the forefront of the PSCW as they approved this Project on behalf of the Applicants.
A La Crosse flag that predates the Civil War and has been the target of several search and recovery missions will be unveiled during a private reception today at its new home in the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison.

The 5-foot-by-6-foot silk flag, which the Ladies of La Crosse presented to a private militia known as the La Crosse Light Guard during the annual ball on July 4, 1860, is one of the most significant Civil War acquisitions for the museum to date, according to a news release from the museum.

The flag is way beyond just a military artifact, said Peggy Derrick, executive director/curator of the La Crosse County Historical Society, which had displayed the flag until recently at its headquarters at 145 West Ave. S.

The real significance of the flag is it has two simultaneous and important links to history. On one side is the blue La Crosse Light Guard, and on the flip side is one of the earliest versions of the state flag, said Derrick, who will attend the unveiling and reception.

Also attending will be Jack Turner, commander of American Legion Post 52 in La Crosse, which owned the flag and donated it to the museum.

To the American Legions credit, they decided to donate it instead of selling it, Derrick said.

Less than a year after the Ladies of La Crosse donated the flag to the Light Guard, the unit became Company B of the 2nd Wisconsin Regiment of Infantry Volunteers. Capt. Wilson Colwell, the young citys sixth mayor, led Company B to Madison, where it answered President Abraham Lincolns call for volunteers to preserve the Union.

The 130-member company, which eventually became known as part of the Iron Brigade  along with volunteer troops from Indiana and Michigan  took the flag along, flying it at Camp Randall on May 2, 1861.

Leaving the Light Guard flag in Washington, D.C., to fight under the regiments flag, the La Crosse contingent saw action in some of the bloodiest conflicts of the war between the states: the first and second battles of Bull Run, Antietam and Gettysburg, according to a history of the flag that Derrick compiled.

I recognized how difficult it was to decide to donate the flag, Derrick said. Part of me believes it is such a part of La Crosse history, and another part  recognizes the significance to the state, she said.

Textiles are tricky because they break down, Derrick said, adding that the historical society is well equipped to preserve artifacts but the Veterans Museum has better conditions.

Helen Kelly, a La Crosse attorney who is judge advocate for Post 52, said making the decision was a two-year process.

Initially, we wondered what could be done, whether to keep it here in La Crosse, auction to a collector or a military museum, said Kelly, who plans to attend the Madison reception this evening.

There were lots of different options, she said, noting that the flag already was on display at the historical societys museum.

When we started to talk to the Veterans Museum, we felt that might be the best place, Kelly said. It was hard leaving the historical society, but for long-term preservation, the Veterans Museum seemed the most appropriate place.

The flags locations throughout the decades have been scattered and sometimes mysterious.

Several years after the Civil War, a former Company B member found it in the nations capital and brought it back to La Crosse. Veterans carried it in parades for several years, but it disappeared, according to Derricks account.

It resurfaced in the belongings of deceased Company B member Milo Pitkin, Derrick found.

In 1930, Colwells daughter presented the flag to the La Crosse County Board for display in the courthouse, where it remained until the building was razed in 1965 and the flag went to the historical society.

At some undetermined point after that, someone allegedly removed the flag from society property, claiming that it had been placed with the rubbish, Derrick wrote.

Recovered again, the flag was displayed at Post 52 until members of the 2nd Wisconsin Civil War Reenactors group initiated a campaign to preserve the tattered flag. A host of La Crosse residents were involved in the quest for preservation, including Post 52, the historical society and the re-enactors, who raised $5,000 to help stabilize and preserve the flag with the help of a La Crosse Community Foundation grant.

After the preservation in 1994, the flag was displayed in the historical societys Swarthout Gallery in the main branch of the La Crosse Public Library until the gallery was closed at the end of 2012.

Officials at the Veterans Museum, which is a Smithsonian affiliate, are greeting the addition to their gallery with open arms.

Battle flags represent the heart and soul of our collections, and the addition of this extremely rare early example to our Civil War flag collection of 200 is perhaps one of the most important acquisitions in the last 25 years, said museum director Michael Telzrow.

It enhances our ability to tell the complete story of Wisconsins famed Iron Brigade, Telzrow said.

Similarly, Post 52 members are happy with their decision, Kelly said, adding, Were looking forward to it being there for a long, long time.
Because the California National Guard couldnt be mobilized in time, Ann Coulter had to withdraw from giving a speech at Berkeley.

If you take it seriously, thats the import of UC-Berkeleys decision to do everything it could to keep the conservative provocateur from speaking on campus over safety concerns.

If somebody brings weapons, theres no way to block off the site, or to screen them, the chancellor of the university said of Coulters plan to go ahead and speak at an open-air forum after the school canceled a scheduled talk.

The administrator made it sound as if Coulter would have been about as safe at Berkeley as she would have been addressing a meeting of MS-13  and he might have been right.

We have entered a new, much less metaphorical phase of the campus-speech wars. Were beyond hissing, or disinviting. Were no longer talking about the hecklers veto, but the masked-thugs-who-will-burn-trash-cans-and-assault-you-and-your-entourage veto.

Coulter is a rhetorical bomb thrower, which is an entirely different thing than being a real bomb thrower. Coulter has never tried to shout down a speaker she doesnt like. She hasnt thrown rocks at cops. She isnt an arsonist. She offers up provocations that she gamely defends in almost any setting with arguments that people are free to accept, or reject, or attempt to correct.

In other words, in the Berkeley context, shes the liberal. She believes in the efficacy of reason and in the free exchanges of ideas. Her enemies do not.

Indeed, the budding fascism that progressives feared in the Trump years is upon us, although not in the form they expected. It is represented by the black-clad shock troops of the anti-fa movement who are violent, intolerant and easily could be mistaken for the street fighters of the extreme right in 1930s Europe. That they call themselves anti-fascist speaks to a colossal lack of self-awareness.

It is incumbent on all responsible progressives to reject this movement, and  just as important  the broader effort to suppress controversial speech. This is why former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Deans comments about hate speech not being protected by the First Amendment were so alarming. In Deans defense, he had no idea what he was talking about, but he was effectively making himself the respectable voice of the rock throwers.

Deans view was that Berkeley is within its rights to make the decision that it puts their campus in danger if they have her there. This justification, advanced by the school itself, is profoundly wrongheaded.

It is an inherently discriminatory standard, since the Berkeley College Republicans arent given to smashing windows and throwing things when an extreme lefty shows up on campus, which is a near-daily occurrence.

It would deny Coulter something she has a right to do (speak her mind on the campus of a public university) in reaction to agitators doing things they dont have a right to do (destroy property, among other acts of mayhem).

It would suppress an intellectual threat, i.e., a dissenting viewpoint, and reward a physical threat. This is perverse.

For now there is a consensus in favor of free speech in the country that is especially entrenched in the judiciary. The anti-fa and other agitators arent going to change that anytime soon. But they could effectively make it too burdensome for certain speakers to show up on campus, and over time more Democrats like Dean could rationalize this fact by arguing that so-called hate speech doesnt deserve First Amendment protection.

So, it isnt enough for schools like UC-Berkeley to say that they value free speech, yet do nothing to punish disrupters and throw up their hands at the task of providing security for controversial speakers. If everyone else gets safe space at UC-Berkeley, Coulter deserves one. If the anti-fa are willing to attack free speech through illegal force, the authorities should be willing to defend it by lawful force.

Heck, if necessary, call out the National Guard.
MADISON  Even with its tradition of research excellence, the UW-Madison is caught in a perfect storm of challenges to its prominence.

Its a storm that could dampen Wisconsins economy if it doesnt soon pass.

Part of the maelstrom is a recurring story: State support for the university has declined for years, starting in the early 2000s, and basic research programs have suffered. While the latest state budget proposal from Gov. Scott Walker stands to help, it will take time to rebuild foundations eroded over time.

Basic research is a necessary precursor to applied research, which produces inventions and innovations that attract outside dollars  such as federal and private grants  and which lead to patents, products and startup companies.

In part because the UW-Madisons basic research platform has been shaken, the campus dropped out of the nations top five-ranked research universities in 2015 for the first time since records have been kept. While it still attracts about $1.1 billion in R&D spending per year  dollars that flow far beyond the borders of the campus  the UW-Madison has lost funding ground while competitors have not.

The problems arent just a function of state funding, however. Layers of regulation imposed at the state and federal levels make the UW-Madison (in fact, the entire UW System) far less nimble than comparable academic institutions.

Chancellor Rebecca Blank confronted part of that issue April 26 in Washington, D.C., when she told a Senate committee that excessive federal regulation of research is seriously impeding the productivity of our scientists. Not that red tape will ever disappear for R&D grants, Blank noted, but it has reached the point where some grants come with 23 layers of administrative strings attached.

The number of full-time workers at the UW-Madison who do nothing but deal with regulatory compliance on human and animal research projects alone has grown from 50 to 80 in the past 10 years, Blank said. One federal audit alone required 4,500 hours of staff time.

I cannot think of another function on campus that has added 30 full-time positions in the past decade, Blank said in urging senators to create a new Research Policy Board to streamline grant application and reporting requirements.

While state government doesnt formally regulate research, state lawmakers occasionally introduce bills that would make the UW-Madison and other campuses less competitive than their peers by imposing restrictions on the types of research conducted.

This is not to say the UW-Madison doesnt produce a lot of Badger red tape of its own. For example, some emerging companies in health care have found it difficult to navigate the universitys clinical trials process. Campus research leaders are working on ways to keep clinical trials and other projects on schedule and to eliminate other surprises for cash-strapped entrepreneurs.

Although hundreds of startup companies over time can trace their roots to research at the UW-Madison, the size of the overall research budget should yield even more Wisconsin-based success stories.

A recent report by the independent Milken Institute suggests where there is room for improvement. Concept to Commercialization: The Best Universities for Technology Transfer ranked UW-Madison 40th among 225 U.S. universities covered by the report. Thats down from 22nd in 2006, the last time the survey was conducted.

The UW-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, its independent patent and licensing arm, scored high on patents issued and licensing income from those patents. It was comparatively low in two other important measures: Licenses issued and startups.

In part, thats because other universities surveyed by Milken own more than just patented ideas. They also own copyrighted intellectual property generated on campus. Most software inventions are copyrighted but not patented. Neither the UW-Madison nor WARF hold such copyrights, which mean they cant be counted in the rankings.

A bigger issue is removing hurdles and providing incentives to faculty and students who want to start companies.

UW-Madison and WARF must continually improve in its efforts at fostering an entrepreneurial environment and supporting the establishment of startup companies, said Erik Iverson, who became WARFs managing director in mid-2016. The team has worked hard in this area over the past few years and this is a priority initiative in our new strategy.

Reliable funding, less regulation and more emphasis of moving ideas from the lab to the marketplace are needed to keep the UW-Madison among the nations R&D leaders. Campus leaders know theyre in the eye of the storm and are working to find their way out.
First Amendment watchdogs say a Republican bill that would require University of Wisconsin System officials to punish students and employees who interrupt speeches could help address what they see as growing hostility to opposing ideas among some on college campuses.

But they also say aspects of the legislation take that goal too far, and are calling on lawmakers to dial back mandatory punishments for students involved in disruptive protests, prohibitions against broad categories of speech and language that tells universities not to weigh in on political controversies.

The Campus Free Speech Act, as the bill is known, was circulated for co-sponsorship last week. Its authors  who include the Assemblys Speaker and the leaders of the Legislatures higher education committees  say the bill is meant to preserve the free exchange of ideas at universities, and was spurred by recent high-profile protests at colleges across the country against conservative speakers.

The legislation would direct the UW Board of Regents to create a free speech policy that requires campuses to be open to all invited speakers, as well as rules for disciplining students or others affiliated with a university who interfere with free expression, such as by interrupting a speech.

The bill borrows many of its provisions from model legislation drafted by the conservative Goldwater Institute of Arizona. Lawmakers have proposed similar bills in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and North Dakota, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Gov. Scott Walker signaled support for the bill during an appearance on WISN-TV Sunday, saying people on college campuses should not be able to shut down others with whom they disagree.

Democrats say the legislation is unnecessary, and have along with UW officials noted that disruptive protesters can already face university discipline and even criminal charges under existing laws and policies.

Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education  a national civil liberties group that tracks college speech policies and worked with Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, to draft the bill  said the proposal is a necessary step to ensure open debates at universities.

People have the right to criticize any speaker or any idea, but you dont have the right to prevent other people from hearing those points of view because you dont like them, Cohn said. And schools shouldnt be passive and just ignore it when people act like mobs.

Call to alter punishments

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin  which at the national level last week defended conservative commentator Ann Coulters planned speech at the University of California-Berkeley  took issue with mandatory discipline spelled out in the bill. Universities would be required to hand down suspensions of at least one semester to students who violate the policy twice, and could expel them.

Such a requirement is unnecessarily draconian and actually chills the potential exchange of ideas that controversial speakers provoke, said Larry Dupuis, legal director for ACLU-Wisconsin.

Cohn also questioned that provision, saying FIRE believes lawmakers should use a light touch and let universities tailor discipline based on the severity of a students conduct.

Some forms of heckling  dont necessarily need to be treated with the same severity as the person who assaulted a professor, Cohn said, referring to a protest at Middlebury College in Vermont that turned violent.

He also said lawmakers should change a section of the bill that listed types of speech that would be prohibited. The legislation bars violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, obscene, unreasonably loud or other disorderly conduct that interferes with the free expression of others.

Cohn said profane and boisterous speech are protected under the First Amendment, and that the description of abusive speech is too broad.

Thats just unconstitutional, he said.

But, Cohn added, I feel good that before this bill is passed, I think those changes will be made.

Political stances

Free speech advocates also questioned a section of the bill that appears to tell UW officials not to take political stances.

Two of the bills authors, Kremer and Rep. David Murphy, R-Greenville, have said the section is meant to prohibit UW institutions from requiring that students or employees agree with certain viewpoints, and does not seek to stop universities from lobbying on issues such as the state budget. But another author, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he believes UW institutions should not take political stances.

Cohn noted the legislation says universities must only strive to remain neutral on political topics, and doesnt explicitly bar political activities.

UW-Madison professor emeritus Donald Downs, a First Amendment scholar who helped draft a 2015 Board of Regents statement on free expression, said he appreciates that the bill seeks to protect controversial speakers and open debate. But Downs said he is wary of using state law to accomplish that goal, and of telling UW officials their institutions cant officially comment on issues.

Its a good idea for the university to be neutral, especially when its an issue that has nothing to do with the university, Downs said. But to make this a formal part of legislation, I think that could be an issue.
It wont be quite as brisk as the past two nights, but things will stay chilly for the foreseeable future.

Temperatures dipped as low as 29 degrees in Tomah Thursday night and into Friday, as cold air from Canada continued to work its way into the region. The National Weather Service forecast predicts temperatures will stay below normal late into this week, with daytime highs in the mid-50s and overnight lows in the upper 30s and low 40s.

Bill Halfman, the Monroe County Extension agriculture agent, said he hadnt heard any reports of frost damage from the low temperatures. The wet weather actually protected crops from freezing, he said, as water absorbs and retains much more heat energy than the air.

The Tomah area was dusted with a layer of wet snow Thursday morning, when the temperature dropped to 32 degrees by sunrise. The snow covered windshields, lawns and trees but didnt stick to local roads. There were reports of frost Saturday morning, mostly north of Interstate 94. The weather service doesnt expect more frost this week.

NWS meteorologist Dan Jones said area rivers are already running a little high due to the amount of rain the area has received the past few weeks, but with the exceptions of the Mississippi River at Winona Dam 5A and the Trempealeau River at Dodge, local rivers arent nearing flood stage.

It is all a matter of how much precipitation we get Sunday and into next week, Jones said.

The cold temperatures are expected to last until at least Thursday. Jones said there are some hints that things could start to warm up next weekend.

Tomah Journal editor Steve Rundio contributed to this report.
When Darlene Parkinson entered her Tomah High School classroom for the first day of the 1966-67 school year, she noticed there wasnt a teachers desk.

No problem.

I figured I could just put my books on the window sill, she said. Other than not having a desk, everything else was in place.

Parkinson, who was about to begin her first year as a English teacher in Tomah, wasnt going to let a little thing like a desk spoil a monumental occasion. It was the first day of class in the new Tomah High School building, and both students and teachers were ready to embrace their new home.

Fifty years later, the school still houses nearly 1,000 students grades 9-12. To commemorate the buildings half-century anniversary, the school district will host an open house celebration Sunday, May 7 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at the school. There will be a short ceremony at 2:30 p.m. with a birthday cake.

The open house will be held exactly 50 years after the district officially dedicated the building May 7, 1967. School district superintendent Cindy Zahrte said the event was originally envisioned as the unveiling of the districts distinguished alumni program, but Parkinson brought up the anniversary angle.

Darlene called me and said, Do you realize it has been 50 years since the high school was first built? Zahrte said. Those two things came together and made me realize that this is a perfect opportunity to celebrate the dedication of 50 years of the high school and roll out the distinguished alumni program.

The 26-acre building site was purchased for $27,000 and constructed for $2.4 million. Zahrte said similar construction today would cost $63 million. While there were doubts about building a school in a low-lying area, Parkinson was absolutely confident in the structures future. Her father helped install the heating and air conditioning units.

My dad explained to me that, no, it wasnt built on a swamp; it was built on what was a swamp, Parkinson said.

She said contractors dug way down until they hit white sand, which, I guess, is something that holds buildings, and in there they put these big concrete bases, and then steel. Its constructed so that if there should be something tremendous happen to it, the outer walls are constructed to fall to the outside, not inside onto the students. That was the thought at that time. I hope it works 50 years later.

Parkinson said students werent concerned about the buildings structural integrity.

They were happy to be there, she said. They took pride in being the first graduating class from that school.

Unlike many schools in the area, Tomah had an auditorium separate from the gymnasium, and Parkinson recalled classrooms that were larger than the old high school, which was converted to a junior high school and later renovated into the present-day Tomah Middle School.

The high school housed students grades 10-12 until 1997, when an addition was built to accommodate the move of the ninth graders. Recent additions expanded the cafeteria and created a modern fitness center.

During the open house, information will be presented on how the distinguished alumni program will work. Zahrte said recognizing successful alumni will have a positive impact on students and the community.

Its to inspire our current students, Zahrte said. We believe that students need positive role models.

She said many people who have walked these same halls have become successful and responsible adults who have made significant contributions to their communities, both in Tomah and elsewhere.

Zahrte believes many more distinguished alumni will pass through the high school building. She said previous administrations and Tomah School Boards have made it a top priority to maintain and enhance the structure.

I think people who visit that building will notice that it has held up extremely well, Zahrte said. We have done our best to keep it in top-notch shape ... it can serve our community another 50 years.
De Soto is celebrating its fifth year as a Bird City, Saturday, May 6, with childrens activities, a morning bird walk and a program on bird migration.

The walk will start at 8 a.m. at the De Soto Community Center, 53 Crawford St. Peter Fissel and Peter Gorman of the Madison Audubon Chapter will lead the walk. Walkers are reminded to bring binoculars. If there is light rain, but no lightning, the walk will be held. To check on the status of the walk in case of rain, call Mary Rae at 507-358-6699.

Childrens activities will begin in the community center at 9 a.m. The activities will familiarize young people with birds of the area.

At 10 a.m., Markus Mika will do a presentation at the community center on bird migration. Mika, a biologist and bird researcher, is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. His research is on the flammulated owl, a western states species, and other raptors.

The event is free.
DISNEY TWENTY-THREE EXPLORES PANDORA  THE WORLD OF AVATAR, OPENING THIS SUMMER AT WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT

THE CREATIVE MINDS BEHIND DISNEYS NEWEST LAND GIVE DISNEY TWENTY-THREE AN EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT THE SPECTACULAR ADDITION TO DISNEYS ANIMAL KINGDOM



PLUS, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH THE NEW CREW OF PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES, THOR: RAGNAROKS CHRIS HEMSWORTH, AND THE DRIVING FORCES BEHIND CARS 3

BURBANK, Calif.  May 1, 2017  Disney twenty-three will take readers 4.4 light years away to visit the breathtaking Pandora  The World of Avatar. Opening at Disneys Animal Kingdom on May 27, this new land will transport guests into the epic creations first seen in James Camerons 2007 blockbuster, Avatar. Readers will set out on a behind-the-scenes look at Pandora with the creative team responsible for this unprecedented project, including Walt Disney Imagineerings Joe Rohde, Cameron, and Avatar producer Jon Landau. We didnt build sets of all this stuff when we made the movie. It was all in a computer, James Cameron remarked in an exclusive interview with Disney twenty-three. So, to be able to walk around it in full-scale? Its unfathomable. Were literally on Pandora! Im on Pandora! It was a pinch-me moment to ensure I was really awake and actually in the world we had created.

In addition to the cover featuring Pandora  The World of Avatar, the summer issue, exclusively for Gold Members of D23: The Official Disney Fan Club, has a second, spine-tingling cover with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Javier Bardem and Kaya Scodelario reveal what it was like to join the Pirates crew, as they set sail on an all-new adventure with Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Orlando Bloom. Cars newcomer Cristela Alonzo talks about joining the high-octane franchise. And Chris Hemsworth shares what its like going head-to-head with Hulk in this falls Thor: Ragnarok.

Walt Disney Imagineerings Steven Davison and Kim Irvine give readers a first look at the triumphant return of Fantasmic! and Disneylands Rivers of America; enjoy a tour of Duckburg with the creative team behind the upcoming reimagined DuckTales for Disney XD; and return to the beautiful art of Bambi in honor of its 75th anniversary year, created by Disney Legend Tyrus Wong and other influential Disney artists.

Also included in the summer issue of Disney twenty-three:

 A tour of Golden Oak Ranch, one of Disneys most storied filming locations

 Popular Disney myths busted

 A celebration of Disneys most innovative films, attractions, and experiments

 A toy-filled edition of From the Desk of as we tour John Lasseters office at Pixar Animation Studios

 Regular features including A Walk with Walt, D Society, and Ask Dave

Plus, all D23 Gold Members will receive a Navi translator card featuring the Shaman of Songs, the character featured on the attraction Navi River Journey. This card is a collectible on its own and, when used with the Navi language translator device (available at Pandora this summer), will tell the guest how to say the words in the Navi language.

Disney twenty-three, which is delivered directly to fans doorsteps, is offered exclusively to D23 Gold and Gold Family Members as a benefit of their membership. The latest issue will begin arriving in mid-May.

About D23

The name D23 pays homage to the exciting journey that began in 1923 when Walt Disney opened his first studio in Hollywood. D23 is the first official club for fans in Disneys 90-plus-year history. It gives its members a greater connection to the entire world of Disney by placing them in the middle of the magic through its quarterly publication, Disney twenty-three; a rich website at D23.com with members-only content; member-exclusive discounts; and special events for D23 Members throughout the year.

Fans can join D23 at Gold Membership ($74.99), Gold Family Membership ($99.99), and General Membership (complimentary) levels at D23.com and at DisneyStore.com/D23. To keep up with all the latest D23 news and events, follow DisneyD23 on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube.

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Monday, May 1, 2017

A summary of a discipline case scheduled for argument this week from the web page of the Ohio Supreme Court

Disciplinary Counsel v. Andrew R. Schuman, Case no. 2016-1834

Wood County

The Board of Professional Conduct recommends a one-year suspension, with six months stayed, for Bowling Green attorney Andrew R. Schuman. The board determined that Schuman charged an excessive fee as a guardian ad litem, improperly started garnishment proceedings against one of the parents, altered documents submitted to the court, and misrepresented to the court the amount he was owed.

Lawyer Claims Parents Owe Thousands More Than Billed

Schuman, a solo practitioner and former prosecutor, was appointed in December 2010 as guardian ad litem in a Hancock County Juvenile Court case. Parents Heidi Walter and Derek Smith shared the cost of a $500 deposit. In July 2011, Schuman submitted a bill to the juvenile court at an $80-an-hour rate for a total of $3,416, which the court approved and divided between the parents with credit for the deposit.

By February 2013, the lawyer had received only $200 more in payment. He filed a complaint in Findlay Municipal Court demanding payment of $6,405; however, he was only owed a balance of $2,716. In a subsequent court filing, Schuman claimed his hourly rate was $150, and he altered a time record he provided to the court by deleting the earlier bill total of $3,416 and the reference to the juvenile court case name.

The municipal court ruled in Schumans favor, ordering payment of $6,405 plus interest and costs. About six months later, after receiving no payments, Schuman asked the court to garnish the wages of the parents. He was unable to garnish Walters wages because she no longer was working at her last known employer, but he was able to garnish Smiths income. After paying for about a year, Smith requested a court hearing in January 2015 disputing the outstanding amount and said he had paid more than $7,000. Before the judge, Schuman didnt correct the amount he was actually owed and continued to seek additional payment.

In November 2015, Smith filed a complaint of ethical misconduct against Schuman with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Once he received the grievance, Schuman hired a lawyer and refunded $2,989 to Smith and later refunded additional amounts to each of the parents.

Parties Seek Different Penalties

Schuman testified at the disciplinary hearing that he works too much, he was resentful when he wasnt paid, and he acted out of greed and retaliation, but that his actions were out of character.

The disciplinary counsel and Schuman agreed to the facts of the case, that Schuman has paid Walter and Smith what they were overcharged, and that Schuman violated four professional conduct rules. The parties disagree, though, about the recommended sanction for Schumans misconduct. The disciplinary counsel recommended an actual six-month suspension to the Board of Professional Conduct, while Schuman argued for a suspension of any length, but fully stayed.

Noting that Schumans misconduct was an isolated incident in his nearly two-decade career and that he was remorseful at the disciplinary hearing, the board explained, however, that misrepresenting facts to a court is a serious offense. The board recommends a one-year suspension with six months stayed if Schuman meets certain conditions, including that he take two continuing legal education courses on law office management, take steps to ensure that the case against the parents is dismissed, and agree to be monitored for one year if he is reinstated to the legal profession.

Attorney Wants to Continue His Practice

Schuman contends that a stayed suspension would permit him to continue to provide much-needed and high-quality legal services in the Bowling Green area. His brief to the Court states that in his criminal practice he by all accounts performs exemplary work for unpopular clients with unpopular cases. He notes in his objections to the recommended sanction that the purpose of a disciplinary sanction is to protect the public rather than punish the attorney. This public interest test has support in Disciplinary Counsel v. Carroll, a 2005 Ohio Supreme Court decision, he asserts.

Pointing out that the board stated it believes he wont commit this type of misconduct again, Schuman argues that an actual suspension then serves no useful purpose. In asking the Court for a stayed suspension, Schuman accepts the recommended conditions for his suspension and reinstatement.

Disciplinary Body Advocates Actual Suspension

The disciplinary counsel responds that the board found the mitigating factors in Schumans case didnt overcome the presumption that this type of misconduct warrants an actual suspension from the practice of law. Contrary to the boards description of Schumans misconduct as an isolated incident, the disciplinary counsel argues that he instead engaged in multiple dishonest acts during a two-year timeframe.

It was a series of willful and deliberate actions committed over an extended period of time that were designed to exact retaliation and retribution on a vulnerable litigant, the offices brief states.

In supporting the boards recommended suspension, the disciplinary counsel maintains that the sanction will convey to the states lawyers that such misconduct isnt acceptable when responsibility is accepted only after a disciplinary grievance is filed.

- Kathleen Maloney

Docket entries, memoranda, briefs (including amicus briefs), and other information about this case may be accessed through the case docket.

(Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/05/probation-or-suspension-ohio-supreme-court-considers-the-issue.html
VOA Learning English presents Americas Presidents.

James Knox Polk moved into the White House as the 11th president of the United States in 1845.

Few had predicted that Polk would become president. Even he was surprised.

Polk had come to his partys presidential nominating convention nearly a year earlier with low expectations. But the top politicians, including former president Martin Van Buren, failed to win a majority of votes.

Convention delegates tried again and again to agree on a candidate. Eventually, Polk was nominated. A small number of delegates supported him. Then the delegates voted again.

This time, Polk received all 266 votes. He became the first dark horse candidate in U.S. history to be nominated by a major party. In other words, he was someone no one thought would win. But he did.

Early life

Polk was born in the southeastern state of North Carolina. When he was a child, his family moved west, to Tennessee. At the time, Tennessee had few white settlers. Some considered it the wilderness.

Polks family did well there. His father became wealthy, buying land and enslaved people.

His mother Jane, who followed strict, Christian religious teachings, gave her 10 children a good education. James was the oldest. He went to college, then studied law.

When he was 25, he married an intelligent and wealthy young woman named Sarah Childress. The two never had children. But they worked together to launch Polks political career.

In time, Polk was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives, then the national House of Representatives.

There, he developed a close relationship with President Andrew Jackson. Since Jackson was called Old Hickory, Polk became known as Young Hickory.

When Polk left Congress and returned to Tennessee to become governor, he supported Jacksons banking reforms. But soon the U.S. economy collapsed. Tennessee voters failed to re-elect Polk as governor  not once, but twice.

So Polk returned to his plantations and waited for a chance to re-enter national politics.

In 1844, Polk traveled to the city of Baltimore to attend the Democratic Partys national convention. He thought he could perhaps win the nomination for vice president. Instead, he became the Democrats candidate for president.

Several months later, he narrowly defeated the opposing partys candidate in the national election.

Why Polk won

Historian Robert Merry wrote a book about Polks presidency. Merry says one reason Polk won the election was the issue of Texas. Polk wanted to make Texas a state. He thought the United States could take possession of the area peacefully. The other leading candidates did not.

Merry says the other candidates were right  the United States eventually went to war with Mexico. But Polk spoke for the American people.

In the 1840s, many Americans liked the idea of expanding the country. They believed in manifest destiny -- the idea that God wanted America to expand west, all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and take control of the continent.

As a result, many voters supported Polk and his promise to add Texas to the United States.

Polk took another unusual position in the 1844 election. He said if he won the presidency, he would serve only one term -- that is, four years. (Several previous presidents had served two terms.)

Polk told voters presidents might abuse their power if they held office too long. One term, he said, would be enough for him.

But Robert Merry says there was more to Polks one-term promise. It was a political bet.

Polk thought if he said he would serve as president for only one term, other party leaders might help him win. Then, those politicians could try again to win the presidency in four years, instead of waiting eight.

He was probably right. If Polk had not made the campaign promise, Merry says, Young Hickory would not have won.

Presidency

During the first days of his administration, James K. Polk famously listed the four things he planned to do as president.

He wanted to reduce taxes on imports. He wished to establish an independent treasury. He hoped to settle the dispute with Britain over the Oregon border. And he wanted to get California for the United States.

Less than four years later, Polk had realized each item on his list.

He is remembered for greatly expanding the size of the United States. He successfully negotiated with Britain for U.S. control over territory in the west up to the 49th parallel. The agreement gave the U.S. the current states of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington.

Below those states lay California.

An American government minister once described California as the richest, the most beautiful, and the healthiest country in the world. The official said the port of San Francisco was big enough to hold all the navies of the world. He said someday San Francisco would control the trade of all the Pacific Ocean.

There was only one problem, from the point of view of the U.S. government. California was part of Mexico.

At first, U.S. officials attempted to buy California from Mexico. But Mexican officials refused even to talk about selling California to the United States.

Shortly after the U.S. Congress approved statehood for Texas in early 1845, Mexico broke relations with the U.S. all together.

The following year, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and clashed with American soldiers.

In answer, President Polk asked Congress to declare war.

He did not think the conflict would last long. He believed the U.S. declaration would quickly force Mexico to sell him the territory he wanted.

Polk was wrong. Historian Robert Merry says the war with Mexico lasted longer, was more expensive, and cost more lives than he expected.

But in the 1848 treaty that ended the war, Polk got the land he had wanted.

Mexico recognized the independence of Texas, and it sold the areas that are now all or part of the states of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado and, yes, California.

Legacy

President Polk kept his promise to serve only one term. After four years, he retired from the presidency, traveled for a few weeks, and then returned to Tennessee to settle in a new home.

Only three months after he left the White House, Polk died.

He left behind a much larger country, but a divided one.

The issue was again slavery. Southerners argued that they had the right to take enslaved people into California and other former Mexican lands. Northerners opposed any further spread of slavery.

The question was this: did Congress have the power to control  or even ban  slavery in the new territories?

Im Kelly Jean Kelly.

Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

See how well you understand this story by talking this listening quiz. Play each short video, then choose the best answer.

Quiz - America's Presidents: James Polk Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz



______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

convention - n. a large meeting of people who come to a place for usually several days to talk about their shared work

strict - adj. carefully obeying the rules or principles of a religion or a particular way of life

plantation - n. a large area of land especially in a hot part of the world where crops (such as cotton) are grown

manifest destiny - n. a future event that is sure to happen; a destiny that can be clearly seen and that cannot be changed

bet - n. a choice made by thinking about what will probably happen

parallel - n. any one of the imaginary circles on the surface of the Earth that are parallel to the equator and that are shown as lines on maps

expensive - adj. costing a lot of money

ill - adj. not well or healthy

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.




Millions of people share material like videos and news stories with their friends and family over the Internet every day.

They use social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to do so.

In 2016, the Pew Research Center reported about 62 percent of adults in the United States get their news from social media.

Now, some U.S. colleges and universities have decided they want some of that internet action. And they are using a kind of web content known as clickbait to get it.

Clickbait is content that is designed to attract web users and persuade them to click on a link to a webpage.

Clickbait often uses shocking headlines that make users feel like they have to know more, like What Famous Stars Look Like Without Makeup or Five Common Foods That Could Kill You.

People are likely to want to learn what those foods are. So they click on the link. Often this leads to a page with an advertisement written as a news report. And the page is also usually filled with more clickbait.

The more clicks these websites get, the more advertisers pay the website owners.

Buzzfeed is one of the most popular websites in the U.S. For years, critics have viewed Buzzfeed as a major source for what they call clickbait.

Some Buzzfeed reports are based on lists, like 23 Things Parents Should Never Apologize For or 50 Tweets That Show How Different America and Britain Are.

The lists include lots of pictures and little written information.

Other Buzzfeed reports are advertisements, like 13 Things You Could Actually Buy If You Didnt Have Student Loan Debt. The University of Wyoming paid for that one. The ad promotes the schools lower costs of education.

Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was one of the first universities to partner with Buzzfeed in 2015. Shortly after, schools like Indiana University and the University of Wyoming began working with Buzzfeed, as well.

Chad Baldwin is the vice president of communications at the University of Wyoming. His school paid $100,000 for two pieces of material from Buzzfeed in 2016. He admits it was costly. But he said the stories on Buzzfeed have received more than 100,000 views.

There are a lot of the traditional things we still use, Baldwin said. [But] the social media element is huge and anyone who resists engaging in those [ways] is probably going to get left behind.

Jay Baer is the creator of U.S.-based Convince & Convert, a marketing company that deals mostly with social media. He is also a parent of a high school student currently choosing a college to attend.

Baer said there are many media companies that do this type of branded advertising for businesses. This includes large newspapers like The New York Times. And he feels that universities should have considered this method of advertising much sooner.

But he also said he is concerned about the ethics of universities using this kind of advertising and about news media sites that receive money from businesses.

As a parent, I wondered whether this was actually informing potential students  and how [trustworthy it] is, Baer said. Does it concern me as a citizen that people who report the news are also making [material] for money? Yeah, of course. But I dont know what the alternative is.

Stephen Loguidice is the vice president of global brand development for Buzzfeed. He said Buzzfeed does not create clickbait and its content is not all paid advertising.

Loguidice said Buzzfeed understands how young people react to advertising. He said most do not trust or even see information on television or in print media. He said young people seek information from content shared on social media.

Its always been, How do I get the message that I want to say in front of the people I need it in front of? Loguidice said.

With social [media], now [companies] have to think about, How do I say what they want to hear and not necessarily what I want to say? And at the end of the day, now [companies are] competing with friends and family and co-workers and trusted news sources and all these other things.

In traditional advertising, a company tells an advertiser exactly the kind of message it wants to send. But Buzzfeed studies its most popular stories and uses that information to create copy.

Instead of forcing people to listen to a companys message, Buzzfeed includes parts of that message in with other interesting material.

For example, the online music service Spotify paid Buzzfeed for a branded marketing campaign in 2014. Buzzfeed then created a story for them with the headline 15 Of The Best Bands To Come From College Campuses.

Jennifer Cronin is a professor of marketing and social media in the Mendoza School of Business at the University of Notre Dame. She noted that Buzzfeeds materials could be considered clickbait. But, she said there is also nothing wrong with that. And the website clearly shows what is and is not paid advertising, she said.

Yet she did warn that several companies have faced trouble recently for things they have said or shared themselves online. Companies can lose public favor easily if they are connected to online material considered offensive or untrustworthy.

She said, Colleges are supposed to be very elite and [centered] on academics.  And so, when you use these other [methods], if you do it poorly then there is the chance that you could harm your reputation.

Im Caty Weaver.

And Im Pete Musto.

Pete Musto reported this story for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. We want to hear from you.

What do you think is the best way for universities to share their message with the current generation of young people? Should colleges be using this type of branded marketing? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

website(s)  n. a place on the internet that contains information about a person, organization or thing, and that usually consists of many websites joined by hyperlinks

click  v. to press a button on a mouse or some other device in order to make something happen on a computer

headline(s)  n. the title written in large letters over a story in a newspaper

branded  adj. having a well-known brand name, or name of a category of products that are all made by a given company and all have a given name

alternative  n. something that can be chosen instead of something else

global  adj. involving the entire world

band(s)  n. a usually small group of musicians who play popular music together

campus(es)  n. the area and buildings around a university, college, or school

elite  adj. seen as the most successful or powerful

academics  n. courses of study taken at a school or college

reputation  n. the common opinion that people have about someone or something
The United States is defending President Donald Trumps decision to invite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House.

The two presidents spoke by telephone on Saturday. Trump noted the need to strengthen an Asian alliance against the growing threat from North Koreas military.

He also spoke by phone on Sunday with Singapores prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. The president also invited the two leaders to the White House.

A White House statement described the discussions between the Philippines and U.S. presidents as very friendly. Trump told Duterte that he was interested in developing a warm, working relationship."

However, on Sunday, Trumps chief of staff Reince Prebus said on U.S. television that the phone call should not be seen as support of Dutertes record in his war on drugs.

It doesnt mean that human rights dont matter, but what it does mean is that the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get.

However, the White House statement about Trumps call to Duterte did not note international condemnation of some of the Philippine leaders policies.

Philippine leader has faced criticism on human rights

Rodrigo Duterte has been strongly criticized for his war on drug trafficking.

Last year, then-United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Dutertes support for extra-judicial killings. Philippine forces are accused of executing drug suspects before they can be tried.

Ban called the killings a breach of fundamental human rights and freedoms.

Some observers estimate that more than 6,000 people have been killed in Duertes war on drugs since he took office last year. About one-third of the deaths have resulted from police raids; the rest, by vigilantes.

Duterte, himself, told British media last year that he personally killed three suspects while he was mayor of the southern city of Davao.

Relations between the United States and the Philippines worsened last June after Duterte became president. The administration of then-president Barack Obama criticized the Philippines for a lack of respect for the rule of law in its campaign against drug dealers.

Gerard Finin is with the East-West Institute. He told VOAs Victor Beattie that a meeting of Trump and Duerte could have good results.

Finin said that because the Philippines is a treaty partner with the United States, it is important to keep high-level communications open between the two sides.

He added that, until now, U.S. efforts to get the Philippines to respect the law in its anti-drug trafficking campaign have not succeeded. Finin said the administration will be able to give a message to the Philippine leader during talks at the White House.

Also, the invitation will give Duterte a chance to see how the United States deals with issues such as the illegal drug trade.

Finin noted that the Philippine war on drugs appeared to ease in October after the death of a South Korean businessman at National Police Headquarters in Manila.

Since then, however, the violence has grown worse.

Much needs to be done, Finin said, before Philippine officials show a respect for human rights and people receive fair trials before they are punished.

Phone calls made as tensions in the area increase

Trumps calls to the Asian leaders took place within days of another test of a missile by North Korea.

However, the U.S. effort to build support with Asian nations is considered part of an effort to increase pressure on the North Korean government.

North Korea has continued to test long-range missiles in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. The latest launch failed last weekend. North Korea also has carried out five nuclear tests.

On Monday, Trump said he is willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un under the right conditions to discuss the Norths nuclear activities.

A White House spokesman said there is no Trump-Kim meeting planned. He added that such talks are possible only if North Korea ends its "provocative" behavior.

The United States recently completed military exercises with South Korea. The U.S. government has ordered the deployment of an advanced anti-missile system to South Korea.

In addition, American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson and at least one nuclear submarine, have been sent to waters near the Korean peninsula.

Japan plans to send its helicopter carrier Izumo to guard a U.S. supply ship as it travels in the western Pacific Ocean. The move is believed to be the first time that Japanese forces have been ordered to protect U.S. ships. Japans constitution bars the nation from carrying out an offensive war.

Im Mario Ritter.

And I'm Ashley Thompson.

Lou Lorscheider, Fern Robinson and Victor Beattie reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted their reports 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

breach  n. a failure to do something that is required by law or agreement

fundamental  adj. something very basic, very important

extra-judicial adj. outside of the justice system

vigilante  n. a person who is not a law enforcement officer who acts like one and seeks to carry out justice

advanced  adj. at a high level, fully developed

provocative adj. meant to cause a response
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.
Hong Kong Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan was barred yesterday from entering Macau while on a tourist visit with his family in a group of about 10 people.

The incident happened just two weeks after a similar case involving another Hong Kong lawmaker Kenneth Leung, from Professional Commons.

Wan was barred from entering the region after being assessed as a [potential] threat to the internal security and internal stability of Macau, the Macau immigration authorities said.

After being held for about one hour and sent back to the neighboring SAR, Wan gave a statement to the Hong Kong media upon arrival, saying that he will ask the Hong Kong authorities why he was barred from entering Macau.

Im not sure if it is related to Zhang Dejiang [Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress] visiting Macau or not but Im quite puzzled and astonished  I cannot see why [] Im a threat to the internal security and internal stability of Macau. That is what Macau government replied to me, Wan said.

Im going to urge the Security Bureau of the Hong Kong government to find out the reasons and raise my complaints and concerns, he continued.

Wan added that he wants to know if there is really a blacklist of Hong Kong democrats in the hands of the Macau government and if there is any mechanism between the Macau government and HK government to co-work on this blacklist. RM
North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson mounted an effort at the United Nations to rally pressure against Kim Jong Uns regime. The missile was fired at 5:30 a.m. Saturday local time from northeast of Pyongyang and appears to have failed, according to a text message from South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff. The U.S. Pacific Command said it didnt leave North Korean territory and posed no threat to North America. It was likely a medium-range KN-17 ballistic missile and broke up minutes after launch, the Associated Press reported, citing an unidentified U.S. official.

 Tokyo briefly halts subway

Trains on Tokyos biggest subway were halted for 10 minutes Saturday morning after North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile. Tokyo Metro Co. Ltd. stopped services shortly after 6 a.m. as part of measures adopted this month under which services are halted after reports of a North Korean missile launch until confirming that its safe to operate, Kyodo News said. About 13,000 people were affected by the suspension. The missile test came just as Japan started a series of holidays known as Golden Week.
China won approval from Southeast Asian leaders on Saturday at a meeting where U.S. allies in Asia have previously criticized Beijing over its actions in disputed maritime territory.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has enjoyed an upswing in relations with China for some time, ended a summit in Manila with a statement noting the improving cooperation between Asean and China in the South China Sea.

The leaders also welcomed progress to complete a framework of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea by the middle of this year, and recognized the long-term benefits of peace, stability and sustainable development in the region.

The leaders avoided mention of sensitive issues such as land reclamation or militarization, or last years ruling by an international court that rejected Chinas claims to more than 80 percent of the South China Sea in a case brought by the Philippines under the administration of former president Benigno Aquino.

Chinas efforts to assert its dominance over the South China Sea, one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes that carries more than $5 trillion in annual trade, have in the past angered Southeast Asian nations with competing claims such as Vietnam and the Philippines. The waterway has become a flash-point in a broader tussle for regional influence between China and the U.S. in Asia.

Speaking after the meeting, Philippines President and current Asean chairman Rodrigo Duterte said Chinas recent actions in the South China Sea were not discussed at the leaders meeting on Saturday, describing any talks on the issue as useless.

The biggest victor in diplomacy in this summit is China, Lauro Baja, former Philippine foreign affairs undersecretary, said on Saturday. Asean seems to feel and act under the shadows of China.

China is engaging Asean in a very successful diplomatic position, Baja said. Asean considers what China feels, what China thinks and how China will act in its decisions.

Before the summit, Duterte told reporters that arguments between the Philippines and China over disputed maritime territory were not an issue for Asean. A Philippine delegation is due to travel to China in May to discuss issues related to the South China Sea.

Closer relations with China has lent itself to a more cohesive Asean and promises to prevent war and escalated conflict in our part of the world, Wilfrido Villacorta, a former Philippine Ambassador to Asean and also a former Deputy Secretary-General of Asean, said in an email Saturday.

President Dutertes inclusive foreign policy has significantly transformed the security architecture and balance of power in Southeast Asia.

At the summit, Asean leaders also instructed ministers to redouble efforts toward bringing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with Asean dialog partners, including Japan, China, India and Australia, into force as soon as possible.

With a combined gross domestic product of $2.55 trillion in 2016 and robust year-on-year real GDP growth rate of 4.7 percent that is expected to accelerate to 4.8 percent this year, Asean leaders also committed to continue efforts to further integrate the regions economies.

Asean leaders also welcomed progress on a roll-on, roll-off shipping network between Davao in the Philippines and Indonesia, and stressed the need for cooperation against piracy and other crimes at sea.

On Aseans decision not to raise last years international court ruling on the South China Sea, former undersecretary Baja said it was a judgement call by Duterte.

Most of us were expecting that, as chair of the Asean, we could have been more expressive and assertive in pushing for Philippine advocacies. The arbitral ruling is one of them, Baja said.

Albert del Rosario, who was Philippines Foreign Secretary under Dutertes predecessor Benigno Aquino from 2011 to 2016, also criticized the decision.

Our government, in its desire to quickly accommodate our aggressive northern neighbor, may have left itself negotiating a perilous road with little or no room to rely on brake power and a chance to shift gears if necessary, Rosario said in a text message Saturday. Andreo Calonzo, Ian Sayson, Bloomberg
Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing raised more than USD5.5 billion from investors, scoring the largest round of funding ever for a technology company to bankroll an expansion beyond China and into driver-less technology.

Didi, which drove Uber Technologies Inc. out of China last year, is already one of the countrys best-funded private companies: its backers range from powerful state agencies to global venture firms and WeChat-operator Tencent Holdings. The latest financing, which Didi disclosed in an emailed statement Friday, may propel forays into everything from artificial intelligence to auto-financing  and potentially markets beyond its home territory.

Didi, led by the 33-year-old Cheng Wei, didnt reveal the backers who joined this round. People familiar with the matter said this week that the investors would include SoftBank Group Corp., Silver Lake Kraftwerk, China Merchants Bank Co. and an arm of Bank of Communications Co. The round was said to have raised the four-year-old startups valuation to about $50 billion, up from a previous $34 billion after its acquisition of Ubers China business.

That price tag would surpass smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp.s and make Didi the worlds most valuable startup after Uber. Didi amassed $10 billion in cash and equivalents last year, but the deal yields more ammunition as it prepares to challenge Uber and Alphabet Inc. in automated driving, and buys the company time to carve out new revenue streams.

Cheng founded Didi less than five years ago after leaving e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. He and former colleagues started the business with financing from one of Alibabas ex-executives and initially launched the service in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen.

As the business took off, he won out over rivals through competition or acquisition. That culminated with last years acquisition of Ubers China business, resulting in the U.S. ride-

hailing company getting a 17.5 percent stake in Didi.

Having cornered the market for on-demand cars and taxis, Cheng is branching out into bus services and bikes, throwing his weight for instance behind one of the countrys largest bicycle-renting services, Ofo. On the global front, the company has formed an alliance with Grab in Southeast Asia and Ola in India, to thwart Uber in those regions.

Those forays outside of ride-

hailing are becoming increasingly important as its main source of income comes under pressure from more stringent Chinese regulations governing driver qualifications.

Cities including Beijing and Shanghai have imposed stricter rules that require drivers to be local residents, cutting out thousands from the countryside who had been willing to take chauffeur jobs to make a better living. Still, Didi has won operating licenses in close to a dozen cities including Tianjin and Chengdu, affirming its right to legally operate in China. Lulu Yilun Chen, Bloomberg
Jose da Costa Nunes Kindergarten has launched its yearbook containing photos of its events, after halting its publication for a year.

The 2013-14 and 2014-15 yearbook consists of photos at the schools events including Christmas parties, carnivals, and Mothers Day celebrations.

Launched last week, the yearbook was made in collaboration with the schools Parents Association.

The schools director Lola Flores do Rosario noted that Chinese parents are becoming increasingly interested in having their children immersed in Portuguese culture, adding that its number of students will increase this coming academic year.

Now we have 183 students. Next year, we will double this number of children, the director informed the Times.

When questioned on whether this increase in students would result in changes to its curriculum in September, the director said, If we need to change something to make it better for the kids, I think Ill do it.

The Secretary of Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam, attended the book launch. Speaking on the sidelines of the event, he told the press that the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) is handling the troubled Hotel Estoril project and a public tender is expected to be launched this year.

Tam revealed that the project will include school facilities for music and dance and a youth center.

The education bureau is handling the project with assistance from the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) and Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT).

This is not a small project. [] First we are concerned with the design, said Tam.

The secretary further reiterated that local citizens would be prioritized when hiring Portuguese teachers.

According to him, priority will be given to holders of a permanent resident card, with teachers only being employed from Portugal when needed.

Do not worry, because if there are no permanent resident card holders qualified to meet all our needs, we have a direct connection to Portugal for the recruitment of teachers, Tam added. LV
Adolf Hitler has been killed at the Reich Chancery in Berlin, according to Hamburg radio.

At 2230 local time a newsreader announced that reports from the Fuhrers headquarters said Hitler had fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany. It said he had appointed Grand Admiral Doenitz as his successor.

There followed an announcement by Admiral Doenitz in which he called on the German people to mourn their Fuhrer who, he said, died the death of a hero in the capital of the Reich.

Reports from Washington say US officials are suspicious of the announcement and are certainly not celebrating as yet.

They fear the timing of Doenitzs appointment may mean that Hitler is not dead but trying to escape or go underground.

In London, Prime Minister Winston Churchill would not make a statement to the Commons about the war situation in Europe except to say it was definitely more satisfactory than it was this time five years ago.

Admiral Doenitz, famous for his U-boat victories in the first three years of the war, vowed to continue the battle against the Soviets and their western Allies. The British and the Americans do not fight for the interests of their own people but for the spreading of Bolshevism, he said.

As new head of state and supreme commander of the Wehrmacht  the German armed forces  he demanded discipline and obedience and urged German soldiers, Do your duty. The life of our people is at stake.

There is now speculation in the British press as to whether the weakened German forces will follow Doenitz or Heinrich Himmler, head of the home army, the Volkssturm, the SS and the Gestapo.

He has made peace overtures to the Allies in recent days in meetings with Count Folke Bernadotte, a nephew of the King of Sweden, but so far these have come to nothing.

Courtesy BBC News

In context

First details about the real circumstances of his death emerged on 20 June.

One of Hitlers bodyguards who escaped to the British side of Berlin said he had seen the partly burned bodies of Eva Braun and Hitler lying side by side in the grounds of the Reich Chancery near the entrance of his bunker.

Hitler had married Eva Braun on 29 April and they committed suicide the next day.

Hitlers Thousand-Year Reich lasted 12 years and three months.

Heinrich Himmler, whose attempts at peace talks with the Allies had convinced Hitler the war was over for Germany, offered to serve under Admiral Doenitz but was rejected.

After Germany surrendered on 7 May, Himmler tried to escape, was captured and committed suicide on 23 May.

Doenitz was sentenced to ten years in prison at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
A suspended diplomat from the Dominican Republic pleaded guilty to new charges in a United Nations bribery scheme last week, revealing himself as a key witness at a Chinese billionaires trial next month.

Francis Lorenzo entered the plea in federal court, admitting for the first time that he accepted bribes and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He had pleaded guilty more than a year ago to six other charges, though his cooperation was not disclosed in open court at the time.

Defense attorney Brian Bieber said outside court that Lorenzo will testify against Ng Lap Seng as Ng fights charges that he paid bribes to gain U.N. support for a conference center in Macau. Ngs trial is scheduled to start May 30.

Bieber said the additional plea proceeding so close to trial was necessary to make the record complete, accurate and comprehensive.

Lorenzo told U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick he paid bribes to a former U.N. General Assembly president who served in the post in parts of 2013 and 2014 as part of an effort to promote the conference center between 2011 and 2015. He also admitted that he solicited and accepted bribes for himself from Ng.

He said that he knew what he was doing was wrong when he committed the crimes.

Ng has pleaded not guilty. He has been confined since his 2015 arrest to a luxury Manhattan apartment under 24-hour guard according to the terms of his USD50 million bail.

His lawyers have cast him as the victim of a politically driven prosecution aimed at preventing construction of the conference center and slowing the progress of Chinese influence over developing nations.

An attorney for Ng, Tai Park, declined to comment on Thursday.

Lorenzos cooperation deal can earn him leniency at sentencing. Otherwise, Lorenzo, 49, would face up to 78 years in prison. AP
The University of Saint Joseph (USJ) remains confident that it will be granted the license  issued by the Land, Public and Transport Works (DSSOPT)  on May 11 to occupy its long-awaited Ilha Verde university campus by June.

On Saturday, the university held a visit to the new campus, which is almost complete. It invited representatives of local authorities and priests from the Macau Diocese and Parishes.

USJ rector Peter Stilwell informed the press that they will officially occupy the campus  to be shared with Colegio Diocesano De S. Jose (CDSJ) secondary school  on June 1, adding that inspections from DSSOPT were conducted last week.

According to him, the university has undergone the required inspections, while CDJS will have to undergo an inspection conducted by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ).

We have had no indication either from the public or other entities that this [moving in by June] will not be possible. We need to move in at the beginning of June to get all the IT working, said Stilwell.

The universitys academic year for 2017-18 will commence on September 18.

The campus, of which construction is nearly complete , features a large and a small auditorium, a dormitory, a swimming pool, an in-door multipurpose activity area and a gymnasium.

The rector also revealed that construction of the St. Joseph nursery  which will be in NAPE 1A  will commence in January 2018. USJ is currently collaborating with DSEJ and the Institute for Social Affairs Bureau (IAS) for its upcoming nursery.

[We are] working on the plan. They will start renovating the building in January and only in about this time next year will the nursery [be created] USJ owns the nursery, Stilwell emphasized.

There is a pioneer project for an innovative type of nursery and we hope itll be able to be followed by academic research, and so guarantee the quality of what we are doing, he added.

The rector again stressed that the secondary school student demographic remains problematic in the territory, implying that a large number of students choose to pursue further studies abroad.

With the universitys current plan to remain in the same campus as CDSJ, the university head contended that USJ would likely develop a better understanding of the expectations and needs of secondary students.

Some of them are going to Taiwan, Hong Kong or Canada. Why dont they stay in Macau? If we can understand what they are looking for [and] if we can provide the service, we think it will be useful for the university, Stilwell explained.

USJ recently hired a private consultant from an accredited agency in a bid to assist the university in raising its standards to international levels.

The move was also to create a culture of educational quality, which could assist the secondary school.

The rector stressed that GAES is slated to bring in requirements of accreditation or assessment for university programs. All higher institutions in the territory will therefore have to obtain quality insurance and be accredited by outside agencies.

UCP rector discusses joint double degrees with Alexis Tam

The rector of the Catholic University of Portugal (UCP), Isabel Capeloa Gil, has met with local authorities to discuss the development of program degrees while on her two-week visit in Macau.

Aside from monitoring the development of USJ, which is partly owned by Catolica, Gil noted that discussions of a few programs were made with local authorities as to expand the courses to other areas.

According to her, numerous local students are undertaking law degrees.

One of the objectives is to pursue some new avenues of research with local institutions [and] to see where the development of higher education in the territory is going, said Gil.

A UCP alumni association will also be created for alumni in the region to network and develop activities associated with their alma mater.

When questioned whether there were protocols signed in relation to USJ, Gil simply responded that they had just monitored previous protocols and are preparing for future ones, particularly in regard to the creation of joint double degrees.

The current higher education law does not yet allow for joint degrees so were waiting the approval of the law. This is one of the things weve discussed with secretary [for Social Affairs] Alexis Tam, she revealed, adding that the program nevertheless will likely commence in September 2018.

But we are preparing these new degrees to move forward. One of them is already going: its a degree in Lusophone Law with USJ, Gil added.

A joint masters degree in teaching Portuguese as a foreign language is also underway, in which enrolled students will spend a year in Portugal and another in Macau.

Gil commended the new facilities of USJ, saying, The new paradigm of research is collectively. You need space, well-equipped premises, and this is now what USJ would provide.

She added that the new campus would acquire both the physical space and human capital  local and international  that will provide a specific and vital profile for the Catholic university.
Starting today, the import and sale of all live poultry in Macau is banned, the Civil and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) said in a press conference on Friday.

IACM president Jose Tavares said Macaus frozen chicken will still be provided by the farms that are currently supplying Macaus chicken.

Ung Sau Hong, a member of the Administration Committee of IACM, said the ban is due to the consideration of public hygiene and the actual needs of epidemic prevention.

Local health authorities claim that the most effective way to prevent transmission of the virus is separating human and poultry, which will minimize the threat of avian flu out- breaks.

According to Ung, Macaus frozen chicken will be slaughtered in Zhuhai.

At present, Macaus frozen chicken is transported to Macau the day after the poultry is slaughtered.

IACM hopes that the quarantine process for chickens can be reduced to fewer than 10 hours, in order to ensure that the chicken will still be fresh.

However, the final quarantine procedure is still awaiting a decision by the market.

IACM is already in talks with the mainland quarantine department about the process.

According to Ung, Macau had five avian flu outbreaks between February 2016 and February 2017.

As workers in the poultry industry will and have already been affected by the ban on poultry sales, the government will have further discussions with the industry in order to find reasonable compensation and financial support for the industrys workers.

Regarding compensation for the previous ban on poultry sales, ICAM will distribute MOP200 in subsidies per day to each person affected, with the compensation period between February 7, 2017 and April 3, 2017.

The total subsidy amount to be distributed will be approximately MOP4.3396 million.

An additional payment to compensate importers will amount to approximately MOP1.85 million.

Last Friday morning, IACM issued an urgent notice to poultry businesses, requesting that the notified parties inform the department of their employee count to aid IACM in planning for further meetings with industry representatives.

The contacted businesses have until May 12 to deliver the relevant information to the department. IACM will have an official meeting with industry representatives on May 15.

The IACM president believes that in terms of hygiene and health, the public will know how to make the right choice for their food.

Poultry dealers protest

Dissatisfied sellers made their voices heard at the IACM headquarters on Friday. Claiming that he was speaking on behalf of 250 poultry dealers, Live Poultry Dealer Association chairman Leong Meng Lap told TDM in an emotional statement: Of course we wont accept [this], but what can we do? Were not the government with the ultimate power. But we are not afraid of them. We only have one life and a job to fight for. Dont force us all to go against them.
Hong Kongs Securities and Futures Commission plans to look more closely at corporate asset valuations, according to Chief Executive Officer Ashley Alder.

Assets such as coal mines or residential property are valued by independent appraisers and their conclusions are used to justify prices paid by companies. Its time for a fresh look at the issue, Alder said at a media event last week, adding that valuation firms are not regulated by the SFC. The agency plans to address the issue by targeting licensed intermediaries such as corporate finance firms that advise on transactions, he said.

Alder, who last week was reappointed by the government for another three years, said his agency was working to nip problems in the bud. The top financial regulator was speaking two days after Hong Kong-listed Fullshare Holdings Ltd. fell 12 percent and saw its trading suspended in the wake of a short-seller report, highlighting the issue of so-called bubble stocks. Last month, another Chinese company listed in the city plunged 85 percent in less than 90 minutes. The market has also seen many stocks experience wild price swings.

We are increasingly doing this through early, targeted intervention to minimize damage to our markets and to stem irreparable harm to affected investors, said Alder.

The valuation industry needs an oversight body that can investigate and penalize firms, said Simon Mak, CEO at Ascent Partners, an asset valuation and advisory firm. There are a lot of problems in the marketplace in terms of valuations, he said. Among them is a race to the bottom by appraisers giving free initial valuations to listed firms who then choose the pitch closest to their view.

Among its efforts, the SFC, working with Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd., targeted the small-company Growth Enterprise Market after years of extreme price moves by reminding deal-makers to follow rules that ensure a fair and orderly market. On Feb. 23 the regulator stunned the market by suspending trading in GME Group Holdings Ltd. on its debut, after the stock rose 543 percent in a few hours.

Alder cited the actions on GEM as an example of targeted intervention designed to send a message to participants and change behavior. Some new GEM listings, often placed to a small number of investors, became more balanced while others were withdrawn as a result of the SFCs action, Alder said.

Glaucus Research published a report Tuesday that called Fullshare one of the largest stock manipulation schemes trading on any exchange anywhere in the world. Fullshare called the Glaucus report misleading. On March 24, China Huishan Dairy Holdings Co., dropped 85 percent before trading was suspended. Benjamin Robertson, Bloomberg
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)  Raw milk advocates efforts to expand availability across the U.S. have not slowed despite health officials assertions that its dangerous to drink milk that hasnt been heated to kill bacteria.

Efforts to legalize raw milk sales in some form have succeeded in 42 states, and expansion pushes are ongoing this year in states including Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, Rhode Island, North Dakota and Texas.

We are concerned that increases in legislation of raw milk can certainly lead to increases in outbreaks of illness in those states, said Dr. Megin Nichols with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC warns against drinking raw milk, especially by children under age 5, older adults, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems. Illnesses are most commonly caused by bacteria including campylobacter, E coli and salmonella and the microscopic parasite cryptosporidium.

A CDC study released in 2015 found 81 percent of raw milk outbreaks from 2007 to 2012 occurred in states with legalized sales.

I think what were seeing now is an increasing trend in the number of outbreaks of illness as we see increased sale, increased consumption, Nichols said.

Advocates argue heating milk to kill bad bacteria also damages beneficial enzymes and milk proteins.

State raw milk laws vary widely, from outright bans in eight states to allowing retail sales in at least 10 others. Still others permit sales only on the farm that milks the animals. A few states recently have allowed herd-sharing arrangements that let people buy raw milk from individual animals. Some only allow it to be sold for pet consumption.

A proposal in Massachusetts would allow farmers with 12 or fewer cows or goats to sell raw milk through animal-sharing agreements and at farm stands.

Raw milk is one area that can help farmers to sustain and grow their dairy business, said Sen. Anne Gobi, the bills sponsor. The opportunity to be able to create a larger market and better marketing ability will be a great assist to our farmers.

A New Jersey bill sponsored by Assemblyman John DiMaio would establish a raw milk permit program.

People are buying it now whether it be in Pennsylvania, New York or even from farms in New Jersey, from friends, he said. The bill would at least codify it and put some inspections and checks in place and make it a legal product to sell in New Jersey.

Supporters lined up in February to testify in support of a Montana bill sponsored by Rep. Nancy Balance that would allow farmers with fewer than five cows, 10 goats or 10 sheep to sell milk to the public.

Its time for the state government to get out of our kitchens and end this control of what we choose to eat and drink, said Balance, whose bill has passed the House.

When the Food and Drug Administration began requiring milk pasteurization in 1987, the agency prohibited raw milk sales across state lines, but that hasnt stopped the transactions.

Rachel Moser who runs Be Whole Again Family Farm with her husband, Scott Moser, north of Kansas City, Mo., said many of her customers drive up to three hours from Iowa, which prohibits raw milk sales.

Most of our clients have children that are unhealthy, Rachel Moser said. They cant drink store-bought milk or they themselves have severe gastrointestinal issues when they try to drink store-bought milk but they can drink ours just fine.
SOUTH AFRICA  Focus on what you do best is a business principle agricultural economists stress to farmers during times of economic stress. Its good advice whether you are farming in southern Idaho or South Africa.

For Vito Rugani and his business partner Vincent Sequeira the trick was to first identify what enterprises they were good at, and then to identify ways to separate themselves from their competitors.

Both men came from farming families that immigrated to South Africa more than 100 years ago. But in the late 1980s, both men found themselves farming alone with about 50 acres. They combined forces to grow vegetables to supply supermarkets near Johannesburg, in northeastern South Africa.

Bankers wouldnt lend them any money to get started, Rugani remembers. They relied on friends for financing and poured any profits back into the farm to try to keep afloat. Rugani was sleeping on the floor in an apartment on the wrong side of Johannesburg to keep his living expenses as low as possible.

Labor made up their largest expense accounting for about 35 percent of production costs. Yields were okay but they just couldnt break even.

Most South African farmers were in a similar situation, Rugani recalled, so they decided to spend a month in Australia visiting other vegetable farmers to see if they could figure out a way to restructure the business.

It didnt take us long to realize we were our own worst enemy, Rugani said. There was a balance missing on the farm, the balance between man and machine. There is a sweet spot where you marry labor and machine.

That realization came when they visited a farm that was harvesting the same way they were but was using five workers instead of 50.

Rugani blames that misconception on the lasting legacy of apartheid and lingering misconceptions about race, and also the lack of knowledge transfer that has left many South African farmers intimidated by machinery.

Today the partners have 6,175 acres located in three different parts of the country to take advantage of climate and elevation differences. They plant every day to harvest every day, producing 200 tons of carrots per day year-round. Around 230 employees work in the fields, the packing shed and juice plant.

We got there by using the latest technology, Rugani said.

Carrots are one of the only vegetables where rapid cooling significantly extends shelf life. Cooling carrots to 35.5 to 37.5 degrees at the core within 3 to 4 hours after harvest can increase shelf life from three to four days to three to four weeks, Rugani said.

They were the first to begin using hydro-cool technology in 2000 and rapidly increased their market share. But competitors quickly adopted the same technology. Even though they remain the largest carrot producers in South Africa, supplying about 40 percent of the market, future growth was limited.

One of Ruganis sons is an accountant and he told his dad, you cant keep growing the farm horizontally. Thats particularly true in South Africa where large farms are viewed with suspicion and land ownership is a highly controversial subject.

In order to survive, we are putting our energy into going vertical, Rugani said. They considered slicing and dicing carrots, but realized there are no barriers to entry for that market share. Instead, they opted to developing a carrot juice product and the market for it.

Juicing offers them the chance to use seconds  anything that is too big, too small or has too many cracks for the fresh market. They worked with an Italian professor who has developed equipment to process raw carrots into fresh squeezed juice as quickly after harvest as possible to maximize the amount of beta carotene.

When you eat a carrot, you break about 10 percent of the cell walls in a carrot to release beta carotene. Put a carrot in a blender or home juicer and youll break about half the cell walls. But use an extractor like the one Rugani is using, and you will break 90 to 100 percent of the cell walls, creating a product rich in available beta carotene.

If we were going to go into juicing we were going to with the cusp of technology to give us a competitive edge, he explained. Our farm motto is growing in the morning, juice in the afternoon.

One of the challenges they have faced is a perception in South Africa that farmers farm and processors process. The idea of having a processing plant on a farm was hard for bankers to grasp.

Another challenge has been marketing. Although Rugani has plenty of medical research that shows the beta carotene in fresh squeezed carrot juice can improve the health of people suffering from HIV or AIDS (as about half his work force does) or reduce cancer, many consumers still believe carrot juice is interchangeable with fruit juice.

Still, he is optimistic that consumers will eventually get the message. Most of the sales now are being generated in health stores. About 30 percent of their production goes to juice, with the rest to fresh sales.

Carrots are grown every three years in a field. After harvest, the field is seeded to pasture and grazed by cattle for two years. To stretch limited water sources, pastures are watered after seeding to get established and then let go dry. Water is reused within the packing shed and then used to irrigate fields. Pulp is used to produce biogas to power the juice plant.

Carrots have a phenomenal characteristic to capture the life force, Rugani said.

And he is hoping to bring that life force to the market.

It didnt take us long to realize we were our own worst enemy. There was a balance missing on the farm, the balance between man and machine. There is a sweet spot where you marry labor and machine. Vito Rugani, South African carrot producer
ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- President Trump commented on his nonexistent relationship with former President Obama in an interview this weekend as he marked the 100th day of his presidency.



In the president's interview with CBS on Saturday, large portions of which were released Monday morning, Trump told Face the Nation anchor John Dickerson that he has "no relationship" with his predecessor, Obama.



"He was very nice to me, but after weve had some difficulties," Trump said. "It doesn't matter. Words are less important to me than deeds. You saw what happened with surveillance, and everybody saw what happened with surveillance... I think that was inappropriate."



The president had previously touted what he said was a "beautiful" letter that Obama left for him in the Oval Office, but said on CBS said that the relationship has soured since.



"Look, you can figure it out yourself. He was very nice to me with words, but -- and when I was with him -- but after that, there has been no relationship," Trump said.



Asked if he stands by his unsubstantiated claim that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, the president said: "I dont stand by anything. I think you can take it any way you want. Our side has been proved very strongly, and everybody is talking about it. And frankly it should be discussed. I think that's a very big surveillance of our citizens. Think it's a very big topic and it should be number one and we should find out what the hell is going on."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP)  The population of non-native mountain goats is growing prolifically in the Teton Range in Wyoming, while the number of native bighorn sheep is in noticeable decline, a biologist says.

Counting bighorn sheep from a helicopter over the past three years, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Aly Courtemanch has tallied no more than 57 bighorns in the Tetons, a considerable drop from counts of 96 in 2008 and 81 in 2010.

Weve always said we believe the population was stable at about 100 to 125 sheep, but it seems like these recent counts indicate that its dipped, Courtemanch said.

Factoring in sheep that she missed from the helicopter, Courtemanch figures theres likely 80 or so sheep inhabiting the Tetons.

Meanwhile, an aerial count found 43 mountain goats  an exotic species introduced by Idaho decades ago to be hunted.

The fact that we saw almost as many goats as we saw sheep is concerning, Courtemanch told the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Bighorn sheep and mountain goats inhabit the West, including Colorado, Montana and Idaho, but mountain goats generally live in different terrain than bighorn sheep.

However, in the Tetons, one goat was seen within a couple hundred yards of the sheep, Courtemanch said.

The closeness is worrisome for managers because Teton Range goats have tested positive for strains of bacterial pathogens that can be deadly in bighorn, triggering potentially catastrophic pneumonia outbreaks.

Transmission among the two species has not been documented, nor is their relationship to one another well understood, at least in the Tetons.

Grand Teton National Park has been working on a management plan to rid the Tetons of mountain goats, but wildlife biologist Sarah Dewey said she couldnt say right now when the plan might be completed.

Courtemanch said more research in the years ahead will reveal whether invading mountain goats are partly to blame for the bighorn decline.

We dont know if the drop in sheep numbers were seeing is a direct effect of the mountain goats being there, said Courtemanch, who studied the herd for her University of Wyoming masters thesis. Theres a lot of pressures on that sheep population, and mountain goats might be one of those.
STANLEY  The next big wildfire lurks in the sea of dead lodgepole pine surrounding Stanley Basin and the Sawtooth Valley.

And for the past four years a group of stakeholders that include federal, city and county government, private land owners and businesses have been meeting to devise a plan to extinguish potential catastrophic fires in the area.

The Sawtooth Valley Wildland Fire Collaborative met on April 26 to unveil their plans to thin 6,000 acres of forest. The meetings have been held quarterly with a dozen to 50 people attending. About 43 people attended The April 26 meeting. The collaborative was formed after the Halstead Fire burned 179,000-acres in 2012. It is co-chaired by Steve Botti, president of the Stanley City Council and Gary OMalley, executive director of the Sawtooth Society. Preliminary work will begin this summer with the majority of the work starting next year.

For now, all anyone can do is wait and hope a huge fire doesnt break out.

Theres no guarantee, Botti said. Thats what weve been saying for years. In another year a big fire could roll into the Sawtooth Valley. We are just hoping we have enough of these project implemented before that day comes.

After the Halstead Fire, OMalley said, the Sawtooth Society saw an urgent need to get involved and stop a big fire from happening. The Sawtooth Society is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization formed in 1997 to help protect the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area. OMalley said the area of most concern is Banner Creek to west of Stanley across Stanley Lake to Redfish Lake.

It has taken us longer to get here than one would have hoped, OMalley said. But to bring consensus, and work constructively with two national forests, its really taken until now. The good news is now there are concrete specific plans to make a large enough scale difference. Time is of the essence with this. If you look at fire maps in this area, it is one of very few areas that hasnt burned in 20 or 30 years. Its not a question of if it will burn, but can we act quickly enough?

There have been a handful of fires including last Augusts Dry Creek Fire. The fire was started by lightning Saturday and burned more than 700 acres six miles northwest of Stanley.

The Dry Creek Fire burned next to one of the tree thinning projects being proposed.

If winds have changed that day it might have made these plans moot, OMalley said. We really diverted a disaster. A 1,000 acres fire could have been a 100,000 acre fire.

Why is this area such a hotbed for fire activity?

Its a result of the lodgepole pine bark beetle that devastated trees the last five to 10 years.

Its a cyclical phenomenon and hopefully the forest will restore themselves here, OMalley said. There is a lot of dead pine trees in there and thats true throughout the west. Its not unique to the Sawtooth NRA area. Theyve run their course largely so now you are dealing with a lot of standing dead trees with the potential for a fire storm to go through there.

The South 21 project one of two major projects west of Stanley intended to break up the sea of dead lodgepole pine. The South 21 project is comprised of at least a dozen treatment units. It would enable some breaks big enough to get firefighters in to contain a potential fire.

The Sawtooth Valley Wildland Fire Collaborative will hold another meeting this summer, but it not yet scheduled.

Botti said the meeting Wednesday discussed projects theyve been talking about for several meetings.

It wasnt totally new, Botti said. It was a chance for the Forest Service to explain in more detail about how they plan to implement the projects.

They also discussed how homeowners can protect their own structures using Firewise Communities Program planning and action.

Thats a key element of this, people have to learn how to protect their own investment, Botti said. They need to know how to remove vegetation and build Firewise structures. There are a lot of steps that people can take on their own.
TWIN FALLS  Twin Falls City Council plans to talk more Monday evening about a proposed welcoming city resolution.

The Council voted almost a month ago to direct city staff to prepare such a resolution, based on similar ones passed in Boise and Ketchum, that declares the community a welcoming place for people, including immigrants.

According to a memo attached to Mondays Council agenda, City Manager Travis Rothweiler wants to have another discussion with the Council, based on the variety of public input and our review of existing plans and policies, and get more input on the resolution before presenting a draft to the Council.

Since that meeting [in April], city staff reviewed the record of the meeting and has received significant additional input from the public on this proposed resolution, Rothweiler wrote. Staff has also reviewed several existing policies, plans, and other documents to look for ways in which the city has already adopted welcoming and safe practices that could be included in the creation of a resolution.

The Council is also scheduled to vote on setting a public hearing for a proposal to give away some city-owned land near the Snake River Canyon to help build about 1,000 feet of the Canyon Rim Trail connecting the Evel Knievel jump site to the Eastland and Pole Line roads intersection. Some homeowners in the area are buying land from another property owner to keep the trail farther from their homes, and using that city land would help accomplish that and benefit the city by making the trail shorter and straighter, according to a memo attached to the Council agenda.

The Council is also set to vote on whether to take up to $60,000 from a reserve fund to pay to repair Centennial Trail, which was damaged by flooding in February.

The meeting is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. at the City Council Chambers, 305 Third Ave. East. The agenda and related materials are available online through the citys website, tfid.org.
Blood drives

The American Red Cross has scheduled community blood drives this week in Wendell and Hailey.

Blood donation opportunities will be available from 1 to 6:15 p.m. Monday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 605 N. Idaho St., Wendell; and noon to 6 p.m. Thursday at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 821 Broadford Road, Hailey.

Blood and platelet donors of all types are needed. To schedule an appointment to donate, use the free blood donor app, visit redcrossblood.org or call 800-733-2767. Completion of a RapidPass online health history questionnaire is encouraged.

Hepatitis C support

Hepatitis C Support Group, 6 p.m. Monday at Magic Valley Fellowship Hall, 801 Second Ave. N., Twin Falls.

The meeting offers support for those who have been diagnosed with the Hepatitis C virus. A medical professional will speak about HCV and options for treatment.

Information: Cathy Shaddy, 208-410-2768.

Bariatric support

Magic Valley Bariatric Support Group, 7 p.m. Monday in Oak Room 1 on the lower level of St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls.

The meetings are facilitated by licensed bariatric health-care professionals.

Registration isnt required. Information: 208-381-3641.

Water fitness

Aquatic MS Class, 1 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday at the YMCA, 1751 Elizabeth Blvd., Twin Falls.

The water class provides resistance to help strengthen muscles, improve endurance, flexibility, balance and increased range of motion. Multiple sclerosis participants are welcome to bring someone to help with your needs.

The class is free to members and an assistant, or $10 day pass for both nonmember and an assistant. 208-733-4384.

Yoga

Morning Bliss Yoga, 9 a.m. Tuesday and Saturday at the YMCA, 1751 Elizabeth Blvd., Twin Falls.

The yoga class stretches and strengthens the muscles with a strong focus on breath and body alignment.

Free to the community. 208-733-4384.

Recovery support

Safe Harbor will hold Al-Anon meetings at 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Recovery group meetings at 7 p.m. Thursdays at 213 Fifth Ave. W. in Twin Falls,

A meal will be provided at 6 p.m. Thursday; donations accepted.

Information: 208-735-8787.

Victims support

Support group for victims of domestic violence, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. every Tuesday at the Mini-Cassia Shelter Haven of Hope, 323 First St., Rupert.

Information: Rachel, 208-312-7021.

Anxiety support

Anxiety Support Group, 6 p.m. every Thursday at Magic Valley Fellowship Hall, 801 Second Ave. N., Twin Falls.

Support for those who experience anxiety, panic attacks or depression. Learn about the signs, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and coping skills.

Information: Cathy Shaddy, 208-410-2768.

Blood drive

The American Red Cross has scheduled a community blood drive next week in Twin Falls.

Blood donation opportunities will be available from 1 to 7 p.m. May 8, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 9 and 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 10 at Church of Ascension-Episcopal, 371 Eastland Drive N., Twin Falls.

Schedule an appointment online at redcrossblood.org and enter sponsor code twinfalls, or call Sharla, 208-734-4566.

Breastfeeding

Free Breastfeeding 101 class, 7 p.m. May 8 in Oak Room 4 on the lower level of St. Lukes Magic Valley, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls.

The class is for new mothers and breastfeeding mothers wanting to review their skills. Babies and your support person are welcome.

Free; pre-registration is required, 208-814-0402.

Diabetes wellness

Living Well with Diabetes workshop, 1 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays, May 9 through June 13, at Twin Falls Senior Center, 530 Shoshone St. W.

Qualis Health presents the program developed by Stanford University for people to learn how to manage their diabetes.

Topics: healthy eating, safe exercise, managing medications, communication skills, dealing with depression and stress, and preventing low blood sugar.

The classes are free and all ages are welcome. Pre-registration is required: Jeanette Roe, 208-734-5084.

CPR, infant safety

Infant safety and cardiopulmonary resuscitation class, 6:30 to 9 p.m. May 9 in Oak Rooms 2-4 on the lower level of St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls.

New parents, grandparents and caregivers learn CPR and what to do if an infant chokes. The class isnt a certification course.

Free; no registration required. 208-814-0402.

Joint replacement

Free community education class on joint replacement (hip, knee or shoulder surgery), 6:30 p.m. May 9 at BridgeView Estates, 1828 Bridgeview Blvd., Twin Falls. Meet in the lobby.

Topics: Preparing for surgery, recovery time, insurance coverage, care after surgery, discharge planning and long-term rehabilitation. Tours of the BridgeView rehabilitation facility are available.

Pre-registration is required, Amy at 208-280-0047 or Sarah at 208-280-0045.

C-sections

Caesarean childbirth class, 6:30 to 9 p.m. May 10 in the Oak Rooms 2-4 on the lower level of St. Lukes Magic Valley, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls.

Topics: Caesarean delivery procedures, pain management, and non-conforming labors.

Free; pre-registration is required, 208-814-0402.

CPR, first aid

St. Lukes Magic Valley Education Department is offering a Heartsaver CPR, First Aid and AED class, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 13 at the Learning Center, 840 Meadows Suite 2, Twin Falls.

The course provides training for cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid and using an automated external defibrillator.

Cost is $60 and pre-registration is required: 208-814-9050.

Childbirth

St. Lukes Magic Valley prepared childbirth bootcamp, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. May 13 in the Oak Room at St. Lukes, 801 Pole Line Road W., Twin Falls. This session is for those unable to attend the five-week prepared childbirth classes.

Topics: wellness during pregnancy; labor process with relaxation and breathing techniques; videos of deliveries and labor positions; and care of the postpartum mother and newborn. Bring a labor support person if possible.

Cost is $25 and pre-registration is required, 208-814-0402.
A bipartisan group of 41 House members expressed concerns to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly that President Donald Trump's executive orders threaten to hurt protections for immigrant victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

In a letter sent to Kelly Friday and obtained by CNN, the lawmakers said Trump's immigration policies "endanger longstanding US protections for immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other crimes" and "reduce the likelihood that victims will report crimes they experience or witness."

The group, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, and Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, sought answers from Kelly on how the executive orders changed immigration authorities' policies on detaining crime victims and witnesses.

Kelly's department oversees several agencies, including US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that enforce federal immigration laws and policies.

In an interview with CNN, Jayapal said the letter was inspired by recent reports of ICE agents apprehending domestic violence survivors at courthouses.

In February, ICE agents detained an undocumented woman at the El Paso County Courthouse while requesting a protective order against an allegedly abusive ex-boyfriend.

Last month, top judges from California and Washington wrote to Kelly about reports of immigration officials appearing at courthouses.

"Immigration agents appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests," California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said. "I respectfully request that you refrain from this sort of enforcement."

Immigration and survivor advocates have argued that the presence of ICE agents at courthouses threatens to adversely impact victims and witnesses, undermining local law enforcement's ability to investigate and prosecute violent crimes.

In recent weeks, some local officials have reported a decline in the number of Hispanic victims reporting crimes.

In March, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said rape reports among Latino residents had dropped 25% compared to the same period last year. Houston police chief Art Acevedo said earlier this month that rape reports were down 42% in the Latino community compared to last year.

"This is not a partisan issue," Jayapal said. "We all understand that, particularly for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, we have to have the ability for them to come forward and not fear that they are going to somehow suffer some kind of a consequences because of their immigration status."

Thirty-nine Democrats and two Republicans  Ros-Lehtinen and Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo  signed onto the letter, according to Jayapal's office.

Jayapal said Trump's "vilifying of immigrants" makes it difficult for Republican colleagues to speak out on undocumented crime victims.

"It's the demonization that makes it very difficult even for some Republicans to maybe step forward when maybe they would agree with these ideas," she said. "That's troublesome to me."

"We need to be able to come together on some things that have always been core principles."

Federal authorities at DHS and its agencies have argued they have every right to arrest undocumented immigrants at courthouses, especially in sanctuary cities that do not let them make arrests in jails, and that courthouses are preferable to making arrests in communities because they are controlled environments with security screenings.

They have also denied going after individuals who do not have some other reason to be targeted besides being here illegally -- such as criminal records or final orders for deportation.

DHS has not yet issued a response.

This story has been updated to reflect CNN's latest reporting.
Sebastian Gorka, a controversial national security aide in the White House, is expected to leave his job, several administration officials confirm to CNN.

One senior administration official said Gorka is expected to find an opportunity outside the White House soon. Another said it's possible he would take another job in the administration, but added it's more likely he will leave altogether. That official said Gorka was simply generating too much controversy for the White House.

Gorka is a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and has been working on the National Security Council and on the Strategic Initiatives Group, which Gorka has described as a focal point for task forces collaborating with people outside government.

Gorka is a former Breitbart national security editor who has been outspoken on the need to confront Islamic terrorism. In his role in the White House, he has become one of Trump's most prominent public cheerleaders, frequently hitting the radio airwaves to defend the President's counterterrorism policies and public statements.

Gorka has previously vigorously defended the administration's travel ban and the President's continued use of the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism."

Gorka is the latest shake-up for the Trump White House's National Security Council following the firing of the first national security adviser Michael Flynn, the removal of Steve Bannon from the NSC's Principals Committee and the expected departure of deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland.

Gorka's work for Trump goes back as far as 2015, as Federal Election Commission filings showed Gorka was paid $8,000 that October to be a policy consultant for the Trump campaign.

But a CNN KFile review of Gorka's public comments throughout the presidential campaign shows that even after his work for Trump, the former Breitbart editor offered stinging critiques of his future boss's rhetoric on key foreign policy issues from terrorism to Russia and China.

Gorka, a US citizen who was born in Britain and has Hungarian parents, was known for his dire warnings about Islamic terrorism while at Breitbart.

Though his role at the White House was always nebulous, he emerged as a top spokesman for the Trump administration, frequently appearing on CNN and other networks.

The Washington Examiner first reported Gorka's expected departure.

Gorka could not be reached for comment.
President Donald Trump hit hard at the news media at a rally Saturday in Pennsylvania to tout the accomplishments of his first 100 days, striking a tone both divisive and determined as he played to the populist sentiments of a cheering crowd.

"It's time for all of us to remember that we are one people with one great American destiny, and that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, and we all share the same glorious freedoms of our magnificent country," Trump said, evoking the populist rhetoric of his inauguration speech after spending a large part of his Saturday remarks decrying the alleged shortcomings of the mainstream media.

Among the crowd favorites at Trump rallies are the President's attacks on the press, and this was true again on Saturday, when many in the media were attending the annual White House correspondents' dinner in what Trump routinely calls the "swamp" of Washington -- setting up a prime-time duel with what has become his No. 1 foe, the media.

"A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation's capital right now," Trump told the crowd. "They are gathered together for the White House Correspondents' dinner -- without the President. And I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington's swamp, spending my evening with all of you and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people."

Trump held that divisive tone throughout the speech, prompting former presidential adviser and senior CNN political analyst David Gergen to call the remarks "deeply disturbing" in a special prime-time edition of "CNN Newsroom" with John Berman and Poppy Harlow.

"This was the most divisive speech I have ever heard from a sitting American president," Gergen said. "Others may disagree about that. He played to his base and he treated his other listeners, the rest of the people who have been disturbed about him or opposed him, he treated them basically as, 'I don't give a damn what you think because you're frankly like the enemy.' I thought it was a deeply disturbing speech."

Trump, who found his stride during the campaign in front of large, cheering crowds across the country in states where his populist message resonates, took the stage Saturday night alongside Vice President Mike Pence.

"There is no place I'd rather be than right here in Pennsylvania to celebrate our 100-day milestone, to reflect on an incredible journey together," Trump said.

As expected, the President also addressed some of the biggest issues he has tried to tackle during his first 100 days in office. The threat from North Korea, getting a health care bill passed and possibly renegotiating the Paris climate accord were among the big talking points of the nearly one-hour speech.

"I'll be making a big decision on the Paris accord over the next two weeks, and we will see what happens," Trump said on the same day that protesters backing action on climate change took to the streets in Washington and other cities across the country as part of the "People's Climate March."

While Trump's raucous rally was straight out of his campaign playbook, he also did something he rarely does -- call out US congressmen from Pennsylvania who were in attendance by name.

"We're going to give Americans the freedom to purchase the health care plans they want, not the health care forced on them by the government," Trump said. "And I'll be so angry at Congressman (Mike) Kelly and Congressman (Tom) Marino and all of our congressmen in this room if we don't get that damn thing passed quickly."

In addition to speaking at the rally, Trump signed two executive orders in Harrisburg, one directing a review all US trade agreements and the second establishing the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

This marks the first time in 36 years that a sitting president has not attended and spoken at the White House correspondents' dinner. President Ronald Reagan missed the dinner while recovering in the hospital from an assassination attempt, but he still made remarks by phone. Richard Nixon was the last president to skip the dinner completely.

The last time Trump attended the dinner was in 2011, when he was a New York real estate mogul and reality TV star who had just jumped into politics by getting involved in the "birther" movement, calling for President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate. Trump ended up being the butt of the jokes that night from comedian Seth Meyers and Obama himself.

But no matter where he was, the spotlight was on Trump on Saturday since the day also marked a significant milestone in the career of a president. After serving as commander in chief for 100 days, his achievements, as well as shortfalls, were being closely scrutinized.

On paper, Trump lacks a major legislative achievement, has the lowest approval ratings of any new commander in chief since World War II, has seen several key immigration goals held up by the courts and has failed to deliver the health care overhaul he promised again and again on the campaign trail.

Trump's sole big win has been the successful nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court -- something a president hasn't done in his first 100 days since James Garfield appointed a justice within that time frame 136 years ago.

Trump, a longtime critic of the number of Obama's executive orders, issued more executive orders in his first 100 days than any other president aside from Harry Truman.

Trump's first 100 days have also been plagued with controversy, from appointing his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner to key White House posts to dealing with allegations of possible ties between some of his campaign aides and Russia.

His campaign promises on such major items as repealing and replacing Obamacare and overhauling the tax code -- things he rallied crowds with for months all over the country -- have yet to be enacted. Even his promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico has been caught up in a spending debate, with no support from Democrats and little to no progress being made.
President Donald Trump said Saturday he will decide the future of the United States' role in the Paris climate accord over the next two weeks.

"We will see what happens," Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania to mark his first 100 days in office.

Trump advisers met this week to discuss the possibility of the US pulling out of the deal -- something that has reportedly divided individuals inside Trump's circle.

The Paris climate agreement is a deal with almost 200 countries that aims to lower carbon levels over the next decade. The United States formally entered the agreement in September.

Trump has repeatedly insisted the US remove itself from the environmental agreement, stating on the campaign trail that he would "cancel" the accord.

But just this week, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the US should renegotiate instead of completely withdraw from the pact.

"I'm not going to tell the President of the United States let's just walk away from the Paris accord," Perry said on Wednesday. "But what I'm going to say is, I think we probably need to renegotiate it, and they need to get serious about it."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also said during his confirmation hearing that the deal gives the US a role in international negotiations.

Under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency has also seen proposals for sweeping budget cuts and reduced regulations.

CNN's Kaylee Hartung, Paul Murphy, Ann Roche and John D. Sutter contributed to this report.
In response to Dan Quall's April 20 letter, "Time for a recall":I don't know where to begin with your letter. What exactly do you think the city council does? They handle city government. They enact local laws and ordinances  they don't handle crime and punishment.

Problem with your water bill or tax rates? City council. Problem with refugee center? Talk to your congressman because that is federally funded. Problem with crime and punishment? That would be the chief of police of Twin Falls, county sheriff, prosecutor Grant Loebs, and the Idaho Judicial Council. Or do you just want them to shake their fists and say crime is bad? Because that is all they can do. They can't shut down the refugee center; it is not within their power nor are they responsible for punishment those boys have received.

Want change? Vote out Grant Loebs and get a prosecutor that you agree with. Disagree with the punishment? Go to the Idaho Judicial Council and have the judge in that girl's case taken off the bench. You have a voice, so use it in the right direction. To say city council has power over the things you say they do is like yelling at a cop because your mail was lost at the post office.

I will say good luck to you in this endeavor. You'll need it to get anyone voted out of this state that has the R behind their name.

Andrew Smith

Filer
I few of you asked me about the Bret Stephens column. I would have preferred something more specific and detailed on climate change uncertainty, but my main reaction was encapsulated by Chris Blattman on Twitter:

Bad sign for science if my impulsive thought is so glad I dont work in this area

And yes, I blame both sides for that.

A related question is: how good is the social science in this area? I would say not so great. Try looking for good public choice treatments of how climate intentions end up translated into climate policy. That is a remarkably important question, and yet it is understood poorly.

Or how many of the people who make proclamations in this area have a decent understanding of Chinese energy and climate policy?, and the answer is hardly any, even though that may be the most important topic in the area. And I ask that question not only of the casual tweeters but also of the academics who work on climate change. Follow Christopher Balding if you dont believe me, and by the way praise to the highly rated but still underrated Matt Kahn.

In other words, yes we should do something but still yap less, study more.

How about Ross Douthat on Marine Le Pen?

The way I see it, the case for Le Pen is simply that it might force the (supposed) outsiders to own the euro and European Union, and that might be better for liberalism in the long run than having a France limp along under the probably not so popular Macron. In my view, Le Pen has neither the means nor the inclination to actually pull France out of the EU or eurozone, and the whole thing has been a campaign stunt. Of course I find it hard to estimate the probabilities here, and personally I reserve my political rooting for my classical liberal mood affiliations and also the Washington Wizards; I wont support a candidate for reasons of n-dimensional chess, given that I am never the decisive voice. So Im not rooting for Le Pen, but if someone holds that strategic point of view I do think it is defensible, though I hope they are holding it with plenty of humility on the epistemic side.

I thought Rosss column had the desired and necessary caveats, and furthermore he did not tell people to vote for her or root for her. Rather than try to smear his piece with Nazi associations and the like, it is better to focus on why so many political parties in the West are falling apart. And as for the unsavory associations, keep in mind that oft-praised American presidents have owned slaves, exterminated native Americans, turned back ships of Holocaust victims, and napalmed Vietnam. That doesnt provide an excuse for bad current behavior, but it does provide some context for the how could you possibly? tendencies we all have.

I would not myself have written either column, but overall I say kudos to The New York Times. Its their readers I worry about.
Tunisias Prime Minister Youssef Chahed on Sunday replaced his Finance Minister as opponents in the North African nation accuse her for the sharp fall of the local currency and slow progress in economic reforms.

The prime minister replaced Finance Minister Lamia Zribi with Minister of Investment Fadhel Abd Kefi, without giving a reason for the dismissal.

Six years after the uprising that ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, economic growth in Tunisia remains below the long-term average.

The government has been working to strengthen its economic reforms and has established a five-year development plan. This strategic plan is expected to boost the economy and help solve the countrys relentless woes of unemployment.

The government also plans to cut 20,000 public jobs through early retirement.

The country has secured a $2.88 billion loan last May. The IMF released $319 million the same month, but did not disburse $321 million in December as scheduled.

It was only earlier this month that the international lender agreed to pay out the $321-million second tranche after the two sides agreed on reform priorities.

The IMF predicts Tunisias budget deficit will fall to 5.6 percent of gross domestic product this year, which is higher than the initial target, due to slow growth and fiscal-policy slippages.
The NATO, which backed Muammar Gaddafis downfall, has indicated it would assist Libyas UN-sponsored Presidency Council to rebuild the countrys defense apparatus.

The announcement was made by Jens Stoltenberg, the organizations Secretary General at a press conference with Italian Premier Paulo Gentiloni, last week in Rome.

The organization will send a team to help the Libyan Presidency Council build a modern ministry of defense, a joint chief of staff organization and intelligence services, said Stoltenberg, who deemed these institutions vital for Libyas stability.

Libya has descended into chaos in 2011 following the removal of former ruler Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed revolution. The North African country has been unable to bounce back due to lack of a national and central administration.

The UN-backed Presidency Council, led by Faiez Serraj, has become unpopular and is facing rejection from the countrys internationally recognized parliament; the House of Representatives (HoR) located in the east of the country.

Uncontrolled militias have also taken control of some districts of capital Tripoli.

The NATO team is expected to arrive in Libya in the third week of May, before the Summit in Brussels, on May 25, Libya Herald reports.

Stoltenberg had a lengthy telephone conversation with Serraj on military and security cooperation, on April 20, the Libyan media said.

Rome has called on NATO members to play more active roles in Libyas reconstruction, deeming it is a moral duty.

Serraj has been calling for foreign intervention and assistance to rebuild the countrys key structures among which security. In February, Serraj received assurances from NATO to help build the countrys security and defense structures.
The United Nations Security Council on Friday called for the resumption of negotiations on Western Sahara, urging the parties to show political will and work in an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to resume these negotiations, and thus ensure implementation of previous UN resolutions on the issue.

In a resolution adopted unanimously by its fifteen members, the Security Council stresses that realism and the spirit of compromise are essential in order to achieve progress in the negotiations.

The Council affirms its full support for the commitment of the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy towards a solution to the question of Western Sahara to relaunch the negotiating process with a new dynamic and a new spirit leading to the resumption of a political process.

In this context, the Council calls upon the parties to resume negotiations under the auspices of the Secretary-General without preconditions and in good faith, taking into account the efforts made since 2006 and subsequent developments, with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, reads the resolution.

The Security Council, which insists on the need to reach a political solution to the Sahara conflict, reiterates its call upon the parties and the neighboring states to cooperate more fully with the United Nations and with each other and to strengthen their involvement to end the current impasse and to achieve progress towards a political solution, the resolution states.

This call for neighboring countries involvement in the settlement process echoes the recommendations that the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made in the report he submitted to the Security council earlier this month. In his report, Guterres urged Mauritania and especially Algeria that he mentioned several times, to cooperate fully in the endeavors seeking a solution to the Sahara conflict. Moroccos neighbor Algeria hosts the separatist Polisario front on its territory and extends it diplomatic, military and financial support, which make of it a party to the conflict, although it claims the contrary.

The Council emphasizes the importance of the parties commitment to continue the process of preparation for a fifth round of negotiations, and encourages the neighboring countries to make important contributions to this process.

The United Nations opened negotiations between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario separatists in 2007, after Morocco presented an autonomy plan for the Sahara that the UN Security Council deemed serious and credible. Several negotiation rounds were held since then, but no progress was made. The latest round took place in 2012.

The Council reaffirms, in this vein, its commitment to assist the parties to achieve a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, and affirms that enhanced cooperation between the member states of the Arab Maghreb Union, would contribute to stability and security in the Sahel region.

The Council, which extends the mandate of the MINURSO until 30 April 2018, reaffirms the need for full respect of the military agreements reached with MINURSO with regard to the ceasefire and calls on the parties to adhere fully to those agreements.

The council reiterates that it takes note of the Moroccan autonomy proposal presented on 11 April 2007 to the Secretary-General and welcomes the serious and credible efforts made by Morocco to move the process forward towards resolution.

The UN body recognizes that the consolidation of the status quo is not acceptable, and notes further that progress in the negotiations is essential in order to improve the quality of life of the people of Western Sahara in all its aspects.

Morocco has welcomed the UN Security Council Resolution on the Sahara, which highlights Moroccos efforts to settle the conflict through the autonomy initiative and calls on the other parties, notably Algeria, to uphold their responsibility in settling the dispute.

The Moroccan Foreign Ministry said in a statement released Saturday that Morocco takes note with satisfaction of the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of its resolution 2351.

Morocco also welcomed the fact that the MINURSO mandate was extended within the strict framework of its current prerogatives, and clearly reaffirms the parameters of the political process as defined since 2007.

The resolution reiterates the regional dimension of the artificial dispute around the Moroccan Sahara and clarifies the responsibility of neighboring countries, and particularly Algeria, the statement adds, renewing Moroccos commitment to work towards a definitive solution within the framework of the autonomy initiative.

Following the vote, delegates of the council member states hailed the resolution as a real opportunity to revive the political process in Western Sahara and called on all parties to rise to their shared responsibility, and to refrain from actions that may undermine the ceasefire agreement.
French forces in Mali have killed more than 20 militants hiding in a forest near the border of Burkina Faso, Reuters reported, quoting a statement from the French regional force.

The air and ground raids come weeks after a French soldier was killed in the region.

Mali is reeling from the advance of Islamist extremists, who took advantage of a power vacuum in 2012 to seize large parts of the north of the country.

Despite a French-led military operation to counter their advance, the militants still carry out regular attacks throughout the country.

About 11,000 U.N. peacekeepers and French troops are deployed in Mali but militants still launch attacks, including a suicide assault on an army base in January.

On Saturday, members of the war-stricken countrys National Assembly voted to extend a state of emergency by six months in a bid to quell an upsurge in attacks by Islamist militants.

The Parliament Speaker said the Assemblys legal commission gives security forces extra powers for arrest and detention.

The extra powers prohibit large groups from gathering in public spaces and allow police to search peoples homes.
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Take Me our of here
Putnam: I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world because I get to call Florida home. Its our responsibility as Floridians to keep our economy at work, to increase access to high quality education, to fiercely protect our personal freedoms, to keep our state safe, and to welcome our veterans home with open arms. I hope everyone will join me on May 10 at 11:00 a.m.on the old county courthouse steps in Bartow, where Ill share my vision for Floridas future.

Democratic former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham of Tallahassee has an announcement scheduled for tomorrow in Miami-Dade County that is expected to make her bid for governor official too.

Photo credit: AP
@ByKristenMClark

The majority of former Miami Republican Sen. Frank Artiles legislative agenda was killed Monday, because few other senators wanted to keep advocating for his bills in the five remaining days of the 2017 session.

After Artiles abruptly resigned from the Senate on April 21 in the wake of scandal, his 36 bills fell to his co-sponsors for them to handle, if they chose to.

Only five senators did that  salvaging only 11 of those bills.

Full details here.

*This post has been updated.

Photo credit: Tampa Bay Times
@ByKristenMClark

Freshman state Rep. Daisy Baez, D-Coral Gables, officially says she's running for the vacant state Senate seat left open after Miami Republican Frank Artiles resigned 10 days ago.

Baez announced her candidacy in a statement Monday, saying the state Senate "is where I believe the most good can be accomplished on behalf of Floridians."

"The people of Miami-Dade deserve to have high quality public schools for their children, good-paying jobs that provide economic security for working families, and access to quality, affordable healthcare," she said. "I look forward to continuing my steadfast advocacy on behalf of Florida families in the State Senate."

Several candidates have expressed interest in Artiles' District 40 seat, which represents a largely Hispanic population and leans Democratic.

Baez is the first to formally launch a campaign for the special election that will determine Artiles' replacement. Due to House rules prohibiting fundraising during the legislative session, Baez cannot begin raising money for what's expected to be a hotly contested race until after session ends Friday.

Republican Gov. Rick Scott has not yet scheduled that election. He said Monday he's "reviewing it."

Baez was elected to the state House barely six months ago. She won with 51 percent of the vote over Republican John Couriel. She represents District 114 in southeastern Miami, the former seat of Republican Erik Fresen who left office in 2016 due to term limits.

Baez was born in the Dominican Repubican and emigrated to the U.S. at age 17. She served in the U.S. Army, where she received numerous medals of achievement, and she now works as the director of the Dominican Health Care Association of Florida.

Last fall, she campaign on a platform of supporting a living wage, equal pay and more money for public education, and of opposing steering taxpayer money to private, for-profit institutes and wants to restore cuts to Bright Futures scholarships.

"As a veteran and an immigrant, I have spent my adult life working hard to repay this country for the incredible opportunities provided to my family and I so we could achieve the American Dream," Baez said Monday. "Serving in the Florida House has been an incredibly rewarding experience, and serving in the Florida Senate will allow me to continue to work on behalf of our community in a much greater capacity."

-- Mary Ellen Klas and Amy Sherman contributed.
@ByKristenMClark

Heading into the final week of session, House and Senate leaders by Monday morning were still negotiating in secret several pieces of substantial education policy that are tied to the budget -- such as a $200 million idea to create "schools of hope" that would help students in failing schools and a $214 million expansion to teacher bonuses.

Lawmakers had vowed repeatedly, especially in the past several days, that the compromise proposals would be released in time for Floridians to provide meaningful comment before a vote on the annual budget, but no language has been released yet -- although House and Senate leaders had said it would come over the weekend.

MORE: "As clock ticks, lawmakers compromises on education policy remain a mystery"

Just Saturday, Senate Appropriations chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, promised public meetings to consider the policy bills "one by one," and House pre-K-12 budget chairman Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah, said, "I do believe you will see that go on in public," in reference to open, public debate among lawmakers prior to any vote or final compromise on language.

But on Sunday night, House Appropriations chairman Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, deflected from the two chambers' previous promises of transparency, telling reporters that he personally never guaranteed public hearings on any policy bills linked to the 2017-18 budget.

"Im not sure if well have an opportunity for public comment, because we're still working on the bills," Trujillo initially told reporters, noting there was really only about 48 hours or so to shore them up.

After House budget director JoAnne Leznoff interjected and he conferred with her, Trujillo then said at least one more public hearing would be held to address only the budget-related legislation, which also includes environmental policy and other topics. (An email a short while later from Senate spokeswoman Katie Betta said there would be an additional meeting on remaining budget items, too.)

House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O'Lakes, set the tone and expectation of transparency for this session by promising "unprecedent openness" and a genuine change from how legislative business had been done in previous years. That hasn't turned out to be the case.

MORE:  Unprecedented openness slams shut as Corcoran, Negron forge secret budget deal

Diaz and Senate pre-K-12 budget chairman David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, each told the Herald/Times on Sunday there were still disagreements on language that legislative staff was working out. Simmons added that the Senate was waiting on a House offer, but he remained optimistic that the chambers would reach middle ground on a final product that would have broad support.

Trujillo could not say when the policy bills would be released or how much time Floridians would have to analyze them before they're finalized. Unlike the budget -- which requires a 72-hour cooling-off period -- conforming bills need to be done only 24 hours before lawmakers vote on the budget, he said. Session is scheduled to end Friday.

Fort Lauderdale Democratic Sen. Perry Thurston, who sits on the Pre-K-12 Education Appropriations Subcommittee, said he was eager to know what the final language for the education bills, in particular, looks like. "I think it's important that we, as a body as well as a community, know exactly where we're going with them," Thurston said.

"I'm not for the 'schools of hope.' I would like to see the final formation and what are we going to do and what's going to be included in it," he added. "I think the process of kicking everything up (to Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron) is not transparent at all."

Image credit: House Appropriations chairman Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami. Florida Channel
Six Democrats joined 22 Republicans as the Florida Senate voted Monday to put on next years ballot a proposal to increase the state homestead property tax exemption to $75,000.

The Republican-backed measure, timed for the next election when the governorship is up for grabs, is part of a complex political puzzle in private, late-session talks between the House and Senate on a new budget. The Senate vote was 28-10, with one seat vacant and one senator absent.

The only Republican who voted no was Sen. Jack Latvala of Clearwater, who did not debate the bill.

Supporters said voters deserve the chance to give themselves lower property taxes, including seniors and people whose home values still have not recovered from the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

"Lets give our voters an opportunity to do what they know is right," said Sen. Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby.

Opponents said the higher exemption would force cities and counties to cut back needed services, lay off workers, and raise taxes on snowbirds, small businesses and renters, including low-income people.

"Its absolutely unfair and irresponsible for us to pass a potential tax cut without telling people what the cuts are going to be," said Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth.

With so much revenue at stake, cities and counties are expected to mount a aggressive campaign to rally public opposition against the idea, and every candidate for state office in 2018 will be under enormous pressure to take sides on the question.

The Florida Association of Counties estimates that the lost property tax revenue to counties, cities and special taxing districts would be $587.5 million in 2019.




@amysherman1

Gov. Rick Scott is clearly miffed that the state Legislature doesnt see eye-to-eye with him on tax cuts and the amount of money for Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida, but he wouldnt use the veto word in an interview in Broward Monday.

Scott briefly spoke with reporters while visiting Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale for Fleet Week. Scott gave no indication about his timeline for setting a special election to fill the seat of Sen. Frank Artiles and called the retirement of U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen a loss for the state.

Here is a partial transcript:

Q: It looks like tax cuts are far smaller than you had hoped for. How do you feel about that?

We walked in with almost $3 billion surplus. We have some extra general revenue, the president gave us the low-income pool that President Obama had cut so we have ability to do tax cuts. The right thing to do is give citizens some of their money back. Our economy is booming right now, we ought to give people their money back.

I am very concerned about making sure the Legislature finds$ 200 million to jump start the Lake Okeechobee dike project. I am very focused on making sure they give us $100 million to continue the success weve had with tourism in this state. If we want to continue to diversify this economy we've got to continue to fund Enterprise Florida.

Q: How likely is it you will veto the budget if it doesnt give as much in tax cuts or Visit Florida or Enterprise Florida funding as you think Florida needs?

Im going review the budget like I've done every year make sure it's good for citizens of our state.

Q: What do you think about the Latest GOP health care plan -- the MacCarthur amendment that would give waivers states. Do you think Congress should pass that and would you want a waiver or Florida?

I clearly want as much flexibility as possible. We've got to figure out how to reduce costs. The way you reduce costs is you create more competition, you would allow people to buy the insurance they want to can buy, you sell insurance across state lines....

Q: Would you want them to vote yes on the (health care) amendment?

I havent seen all of it but I know we have to repeal and replace Obamacare. Weve got to make sure citizens can afford their health care.

Q: what do you think about Ileana Ros-Lehtinen retiring?

She is wonderful person. I spoke to her on Saturday. She and her husband Dexter are wonderful people. She clearly cares about her state, she clearly cares about freedom and liberty in Cuba. It will be very difficult to replace her.

Q: What do you think the chances are that Republicans can win that seat. It's now a left leaning seat with tons of Democrats lining up."

This election going to be about who can do the best thing for the state.

File photo of Gov. Rick Scott
The Hebrew word dayenu means it would be enough, Daniel McMannis explained Sunday.

He first used the word after the group of about 20 people gathered in Har Shalom Synagogue introduced themselves and told why they had decided to participate in Crossing the Bridge.

It would be enough, McMannis said, to just learn some new names and a little bit of anothers story, but they were there to take the conversation deeper; to cross the bridge between people.

Its only out of disconnect that we demonize the other,  McMannis said.

He was teaching the group a technique for understanding another person, most likely someone that held a very different worldview or opinion than their own.

The talk was the final event of Celebrate Islam Week, put on by local group SALAM (Standing Alongside Americas Muslims).

The technique -- a combination of active listening where the speaker isnt challenged, judged or argued with, but instead their statements are repeated back, so the listener gains an understanding of their viewpoint -- comes from Holocaust survivors and relational therapists Hedy and Yumi Schleifer.

McMannis and David Schaad demonstrated for the group before everyone paired off.

They turned toward each other in their chairs and took some deep breaths while looking at each other to begin the ritual of becoming present in a conversation with each other.

The idea was to have one person give their thoughts, while the other listened, repeated back what they heard and encouraged further thoughts, without interjecting or adding their own opinions.

Itll seem somewhat artificial, McMannis said. You cant do it wrong.

He suggested the pairs talk about their feelings on Islamaphobia and anti-refugee sentiment, common themes throughout the weeks events.

The groups reported having great conversations and enjoyed getting to know another person so immediately, but feelings about refugees or Muslims generally were all positive.

So how can one have those conversations with people who may feel differently?

Youre not going to engage (Richard) Spencer up in Whitefish by Crossing the Bridge likely, McMannis said.

The practice of allowing someone their thoughts without invalidating them should be used as often as possible, McMannis said. Especially if someone wants to have a meaningful dialogue about important issues like refugees.

One participant told McMannis it felt like he was learning to stop being defensive and start connecting instead.

Our intention is: Im willing to cross the bridge  and Im willing to suspend my agenda,  McMannis said.

Laurie Franklin, spiritual leader of Har Shalom, said the second annual iteration of Celebrate Islam was a success  there were more attendees and their goals are starting to be accomplished, though theres more to be done.

I just feel theres a lot more conversations to be had with people who are uncomfortable with refugees in Missoula, Franklin said.

She envisioned conversations like the ones taught by McMannis, where there wasnt judgement or arguing, but two people trying to understand each others fear and anger.

The point is to hear them and hopefully have them hear me, she said.

McMannis is scheduled to teach Crossing the Bridge again at 6:30 p.m. May 11 at Har Shalom. It is free and open to the public.
Sally Stansberry spent her 30s living with her husband, their two children and eight teenage boys.

She and William Stanz Stansberry were some of the first house parents for Youth Homes Inc., a Missoula-based organization that cares for children who are facing abuse, neglect, emotional trauma and substance abuse problems.

The organization operates nine homes in three Western Montana communities, serving 150 kids and families.

But when the Stansberrys began working for the organization 39 years ago, there were just four homes and Youth Homes had only existed for about 10 years.

The Stansberrys would be integral to the organization's evolution over the next 30 years.

She and her husband met at the University of Montana while they were both studying psychology. After the two graduated, Stansberry wasnt sure what she wanted to do with her degree. A friend of hers was starting a house painting business and asked if Stansberry would help her.

I said, Sure, (but) youll have to teach me how to paint,  Stansberry said.

There werent any other women in the house-painting business in Missoula at that time, Stansberry said. Clients liked the work the pair did. Stansberry liked the six-pack abs she got from holding up the extended paint roller and pressing in the paint.

The job was a placeholder, though. Soon, Stansberry noticed her husband had taken to circling the same job ad in the newspaper every day.

The ads pitch was a tough sell: Move into a group home with eight teenage boys.

At the time, the Stansberrys son was about 5 years old and Sally Stansberry had reservations about bringing him into a group home environment. But the couple applied and Youth Homes approved them, asking them to move into the Tom Roy Home. The house is still used by the organization.

Running the home was intense. I couldnt afford to go home, watch TV and have a beer, Stansberry said. But she was was so engaged in the work, she never felt deprived.

In every sense, Stansberry said she wanted the kids to be healthy. That meant making sure they ate right and making sure they got exercise. It also meant addressing their emotional conflicts.

Kids have real issues, Stansberry said. They come by them honestly.

Many of the kids, when they came to the home, didnt know how to form relationships, didnt know how to engage in activities, she said.

They were limited in how they saw, how they felt, Stansberry said. Excited was happy, mad was everything else.

Some of her kids struggled as they became adults, but she doesnt know if that makes them unsuccessful. She also doesnt know if there is a way to judge a persons success in life.

Stansberry hopes her teens grew up and made connections with people, got some form of education and stayed out of trouble.

Years later, one of the teens who used to live with Stansberry came knocking at her door. He told her he was loading his own children up into his truck and taking them on hikes, which used to be the standard outing for the group home on Sundays. On one of these trips, hed found a spectacular rock, which is why hed come to see her. He wanted to show her the rock.

This, Stansberry said, was a sign of success.

***

The Stansberrys lived in the group home for about five years. When Stansberry gave birth to her daughter, she started to consider moving out. By the time their daughter was 3 years old, the family moved.

For the next 39 years, Stansberry worked for Youth Homes. She retired this March from the position of director of operations. Youth Homes Executive Director Geoff Birnbaum said the Stansberrys were an integral part of making sure the homes did right by both the staff and the kids as the organization evolved.

Sally Stansberry helped to move the organization away from house parents to shift staff.

Being a houseparent was tough, Stansberry said. Sometimes a parent might ask for a child to be removed from the house.

It sends a profound message to live with someone, Stansberry said. But it also sends a profound message to make them leave.

Better to have staff staying at the homes in shifts, she said.

She has spent the years since her husbands death helping prepare Youth Homes  an organization that held her after her loss  for its future.

More of a homebody, Stansberry was surprised how much she enjoyed her final goodbye party. The people in the Youth Homes organization are some of the most exceptional people shes ever known, she said. That includes both the kids and the staff.
Upward Bound remains on the financial ropes and at risk of shuttering at the University of Montana and around the country despite calls this month from lawmakers to keep the college preparation program for disadvantaged students alive.

The U.S. Department of Education, which funds Upward Bound, ruled some programs ineligible for funding for the next five years, but it estimated the decision affects only 5 percent of the grant applications.

Elle Cook, an Upward Bound student at UM, is among those affected. Last week, Cook said she probably wouldn't be enrolled in college at all if it weren't for the program, and she definitely wouldn't be a pharmacy student.

Cook grew up with a single father in Missoula and without a lot of money. The summer before she started high school, she learned about Upward Bound, a college preparation program.

She applied and got accepted, and she credits the program with not only her ability to enroll in college, but her success. Cook, who will be a first-generation college graduate, earned a scholarship she wouldn't even have known to apply for were it not for Upward Bound, and she came out of her shell.

"I was really shy when I was growing up," said Cook, technically a senior and first-year pharmacy student at UM. "And before attending the program, I felt like I couldn't relate to anyone because I was low income, and I never would have been able to go to college without Upward Bound, without the knowledge they gave us."

But some Upward Bound programs are on the chopping block, in Montana and around the country.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education found dozens of grant applications from Upward Bound programs across the nation ineligible for funding because of formatting errors.

UM had requested $1.7 million  $340,000 a year from 2017 to 2022  but the budget page of its application wasn't double-spaced as required, according to Upward Bound director Twila Old Coyote. She said the budget page was the only one out of 65 pages that wasn't double-spaced.

In an email, U.S. Department of Education Press Secretary Elizabeth Hill said the agency received 1,592 grant applications. Of those, 1,222 were accepted for review, and 77, or 5 percent, were rejected "due to formatting guidelines issued by the previous administration," she said.

"This will not happen again," said Hill in a statement provided by a press officer. "The Secretary (Betsy DeVos) shares in the frustration of those rejected for not following formatting guidelines and has issued a new Department-wide policy that program offices may not reject grant applications based on simple formatting issues.

"Needless red-tape should never interfere with helping students.

As of Friday afternoon, the department had not responded to a question as to whether it would reconsider applications that had been reformatted and resubmitted  or whether an appeals process was in place.

However, the decision from the department has Republican and Democratic congressional leaders alike, including U.S. Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines of Montana, urging Secretary of Education DeVos to reconsider  noting the long-term impacts on low-income families as well as the significant challenge created by the "arbitrary" criteria.

Tester said the worst part of the problem is that the decision runs contrary to the promise President Donald Trump made to clean up Washington, D.C.

The government is facing major challenges, such as its relationship with North Korea and providing services for military veterans, and Tester said the secretary of education is only adding to the trouble.

"They're not solving a problem," said Tester, a Montana Democrat. "They're creating another problem."

***

Earlier this month, elected leaders, including Tester and the bipartisan delegation from Maine, sent letters to Secretary DeVos arguing she should reconsider applications based on their substance rather than on "minor" formatting mistakes.

In their letter, the delegation from Maine identified 960 high school students at risk of being denied the opportunity to fulfill their academic potential because of formatting criteria "not mandated by Congress."

"They are arbitrarily drawn, entirely unrelated to the substance of the application, and do not provide any recourse for applicants to correct minor, unintentional, non-substantive mistakes," said the letter on behalf of the University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI).

Signing the correspondence were Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican; Sen. Angus King Jr., an Independent; Rep. Bruce Poliquin, a Republican; and Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat. Tester and Collins serve as co-chairs of the TRiO caucus, which advocates for higher education programs serving disadvantaged students.

The Maine delegation wrote that the department's "inflexible and bureaucratic decision could result in the elimination of a long-standing, successful and greatly needed program."

"We strongly urge the department to apply some common sense to the Upward Bound Program competition and read and score UMPI's applications," the letter said.

Friday, Tester, Collins, Montana Republican Daines and 22 other senators sent another letter to the secretary, arguing thousands of students could be denied a chance at higher education. The senators implored the department to evaluate the applications based on content.

The letter also noted the department employs different guidelines for various grants, and it described the inconsistency as "confusing and unhelpful."

"We look forward to working with you to break down the barriers facing our neediest students and to promote greater college accessibility and success," said the letter. "We would appreciate your prompt attention to this request."

***

Tester, who described the decision if it stands as "an example of bureaucracy at its very worst," said the department rejected applications "for all bogus reasons."

"There are few things that really get my blood boiling, but when somebody directly hurts Montanans intentionally, that gets my blood boiling," Tester said. "This is a direct assault on the next generation of leaders in this country."

Upward Bound helps people get out of poverty, and the department's final decision will affect the next generation, he said. At UM, the program is currently funded to serve 75 students, and the senator said that's 75 families who will be affected in 10 years.

Yet the programs have bipartisan support because results are clear, Tester said. For example, an estimated 75 percent of Upward Bound students enroll in college compared to only 27 percent of students from similar backgrounds nationwide.

"This is the country where dreams are made," Tester said. " ... If you're poor, this country will help get you out of poverty."

In his own letter to DeVos earlier this month, Tester called on the secretary to accept UM's application for funds, and he noted its successes, including a "near 100 percent" high school graduation rate.

On the other hand, he said the presidents budget cuts $92 million from TRiO, a 10 percent reduction. And he said the secretary's "unconscionable" rejection that harms students because of a minor spacing issue is exactly the reason people hate government.

"You get a bull-manure response  I'll be kind  to a bona fide application," Tester said.

The confirmation of DeVos split senators 50-50, and the vice president broke the tie, a first for a confirmation. Tester opposed DeVos, and he said the "travesty" with Upward Bound confirms his vote against her was correct.

"This lady does not support education. She doesn't support public education. She doesn't support programs that help kids go to school," he said.

***

Twila Old Coyote, Upward Bound's director at UM, said the double-space requirement was a new standard from the agency.

UM reformatted and resubmitted its application, and it is awaiting a response from the department, although this summer's program is already canceled.

Since the program started at UM 50 years ago, Old Coyote said it has been a feeder for the campus, responsible for some 200 students' enrollment since 1995, the year it started tracking that data.

Cook is among those students, and she said her brother benefited from Upward Bound too, as he's also considering college, something he wasn't interested in before. She said she loves advocating for the program, and she credited it with teaching her about scholarships, loans, budgeting and more.

"I knew that college would be possible through attending the program," Cook said.

As part of Upward Bound, high school students spend part of their summers living on campus and taking classes. The immersion introduces students who would otherwise be unfamiliar with a university to the college experience, Old Coyote said.

The program helps disadvantaged students, including Native American students, those with disabilities, and those whose parents did not go to college. An estimated 30 percent to 40 percent of incoming freshmen are first-generation college students, according to Old Coyote.

***

Old Coyote said Gov. Steve Bullock also has advocated for the Upward Bound grant to the U.S. Department of Education. Daines' office is helping UM work with the federal agency; Bullock's office did not respond to an email from the Missoulian about Upward Bound.

An Upward Bound program director from Ohio told The Chronicle of Higher Education that he visited with Linda Byrd-Johnson, acting deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs. Program director Eddie Chambers told the Chronicle the conversation was "gracious."

"But in the end, she told me, A rule is a rule. She told me, Eddie, I too have to abide by the rules."

Tester, who sent his initial letter to DeVos more than three weeks ago and followed up Friday, said he has received no official response from the agency.

"We've been told on the back channels that they weren't going to do anything," Tester said. "But we're going to continue to push them."
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Independents, if you are going to appeal to non-partisan voters you should get your facts straight. As a rancher, Montanan and gun owner, Rob Quist advocates for "responsible" gun ownership, not a national registry or loss of Second Amendment rights. He did at one time advocate for registering automatic weapons; sounds responsible to me.

Nowhere has he mentioned taxing to 80 percent; the statement needs no further comment.

As a physician in private practice for 33 years, retired for 12, I have dealt with health care issues and insurance companies from both sides. I have to agree with President Trump: "health care is complex."

I have purposefully talked with many Canadians regarding their health system and 100 percent have spoken favorably. Comments like "no one goes bankrupt, we get the care we need and it is affordable." One conversation: "I have had two hips replaced my husband has been treated for cancer. We have two medical doctor sons, one in the U.S., one Canada, and have seen both systems. How can you tolerate the American system? We never worry about getting or affording care."

I support single-party-payer health care. I hope Rob Quist does too. He has my trust and vote.

Gary Goodman,

Polson
DEER LODGE  A cow moose took a leisurely tour through Deer Lodge  nearly joining a track meet in session  before officials safely herded her out of town by about 12:30 p.m. Saturday.

It was a big cow, said Powell County Sheriffs Office Dispatcher Jen Lee. She was beating feet through town and was all flustered. We had two police officers and a deputy rounding her up.

Startled residents called the dispatcher, giving a running color commentary on the moose's whereabouts, tracking the moose as it breezed through town.

The animal made tracks south to the corner of Fifth Street and California, where she paid quick fly-by respects to the Community Church of Christ.

She then continued south on Fifth, then east past Powell County High School.

We were afraid she was going to participate in the junior high track meet going on, laughed Lee.

Minus a calf or any like companions, the moose headed southward to a south frontage road, she reported.

Then once out of the city, the officers let her go, Lee said. They just kept an eye on her to make sure she didnt run over any children or dogs. She ended up going (east) up to Interstate 90, which she crossed safely.

It was the most excitement Lee has had in the office for a long time.

Were not super-super busy during the day for that kind of thing, said Lee, gleefully, liberally using the phrase moose on the loose throughout the day.

It was funny. It was the highlight of my day. I rarely get phone calls, you know.
KALISPELL  A 26-year-old man pushed another man into the Flathead River from a bridge last week after the victim reportedly made an inappropriate remark about his girlfriend, prosecutors in northwestern Montana said.

Cecil Thomas Rice is charged with deliberate homicide in the April 26 death of Anthony Walthers, 34, in the river east of Kalispell. Rice's bail was set at $500,000, the Flathead Beacon reported.

One witness reported hearing a splash and seeing a man yelling for help while another witness saw the man disappear under the water, court records state. Walters' body has not been recovered, but he is believed to be dead due to the high water flows and cold temperatures.

Rice and two other people who had been on the bridge left in a minivan, witnesses said.

The next morning, a man who had been on the bridge told officers that Rice pushed Walthers off the Old Steel Bridge.

Heather Joy Meeker, 25, confirmed the other man's story and said Rice was upset because of something Walthers said about her earlier in the day at a church that offers meals to the homeless. Flathead County prosecutors charged her with evidence tampering for reportedly throwing a backpack believed to belong to Walthers out of the van as they left. Her bail was set at $50,000.

Rice and Meeker are expected to be arraigned on May 25.
DARBY  A new skatepark for the town of Darby was the last thing that was on Mayor JC McDowells mind when he answered the telephone a couple of ago.

On the other end, a representative from Evergreen Skateparks told McDowell that a big project they were planning to build had just been delayed.

He told me that if Darby could move pretty quickly, at the very least the company could renovate the existing skatepark, McDowell said. He told me they had private donors who would pay for everything.

McDowell quickly reached out to members of the council. He found nothing but support for the idea.

When we green-lighted it, there was $20,000 to work with, McDowell said. A second donor added another $100,000. Im not really sure who they are. I didnt ask too many questions about the donors. We were just happy this was happening.

Last week, Evergreen Skateparks owner Billy Coulon was moving dirt with a small backhoe as his orange-shirted crew busily worked to create the features that would become the Bitterroot Valleys newest skatepark over the next month.

Coulons company has a branch office in Stevensville, where it built a Jeff Ament-designed skatepark in 2015.

Darbys skatepark will be the third project for which Pearl Jams bass player has offered financial and technical help in the Bitterroot Valley. Last year, Ament  a Montana native  donated $60,000 to the ongoing effort to build a skatepark in Hamilton.

Darbys original skatepark was built years ago by folks who really didnt understand that skateboards dont do well navigating square corners.

This place was definitely in need of an update, Coulon said. The last skatepark they had was lacking.

The new concept will include a new bowl and a separate slab with a couple of hills.

It was a concept that Jeff (Ament) came up with, Coulon said. There will be something here for all abilities. I think its going to work well.

Work started on the project last week. Coulon expects that it will be completed in about a month.

At this point, Im not really sure when they are going to open it officially, Coulon said.

The skatepark is located north of the Darby rodeo grounds just a stones throw from the new, $250,000 skybox project that was completed through volunteer labor and donations last year.

The new skatepark is also close to the renovated Quonset hut that gives the community a place to host all sorts of events. McDowell said that project was paid for through a combination of insurance money, donations and some matching funds from the town.

When you start looking at whats happened out there, its pretty impressive, McDowell said. If you want community involvement, you have to be ready to say yes.  If people want to donate money to do good things for the community, you have to be ready to allow them to express their vision.

The skatepark is just the latest in that plan to improve on what Darby has to offer its residents.

Its adding another quality of life measure to our community, McDowell said. Its not impacting our current budget at all. I know my daughter is very excited. Darby doesnt have a lot of areas covered in asphalt. It doesnt have a lot of places where kids can get out on their skateboards.

So far, not that many people in the community even know the project is up and going.

It caught us between council meetings, McDowell said. We had consensus from the council, which allowed us to move forward 

Its been a good year for us, he said. There have been a lot of folks struggling to adapt to the concept of saying yes and being willing to allow people to contribute. Ultimately, our main street will benefit and so will our community. Its all tied together.
Readers were well served by your April 17 news story on the U.S Postal Service, which highlighted USPS importance while raising issues related to delivery times.

As your reporter noted, postal customers  whether residents or mail-dependent businesses like small newspapers  need high-quality and reliable service. Thats true throughout the country; its especially imperative in large, rural states like Montana, the nations fourth-biggest state.

You also accurately characterized the active role of Montanas representatives in Washington D.C. in working on postal reform that will address the issues.

Id like to take this opportunity to provide some additional information about the value of the Postal Service, factors that have led to the current situation, and the path forward.

First, some background.

The Postal Service delivers to 155 million homes and businesses six and increasingly seven days a week. It is based in the Constitution and serves as the center of civic life in thousands of small towns and rural communities while helping unite this vast nation  as the Founders intended.

Its consistently rated the publics most-trusted federal agency, and is the countrys largest employer of military veterans.

USPS provides Americans and their businesses with the industrial worlds most affordable delivery network  and does so without a dime of taxpayer money. By law, the Postal Service earns its revenue, through the sale of stamps and other products and services.

USPS also is the centerpiece of the $1.3 trillion national mailing industry that employs 7 million Americans in the private sector, including 26,879 Montanans.

So the Postal Service is a driving engine of our national economy, as much today as ever.

USPS and letter carriers also play a key role in improving the quality of life in communities everywhere. Next month, as they do the second Saturday of every May, letter carriers will conduct the nations largest single-day food drive to help replenish food banks, pantries and shelters.

May 13 food drive

With the generosity of residents in Montana and beyond, letter carriers last year collected a record 80 million pounds of food. We hope the 25th annual food drive, set for May 13, will be just as successful.

Every day as they deliver mail on their routes, letter carriers help save the elderly or other residents who have fallen or experienced medical problems, put out fires, locate missing children or help stop crimes in progress.

Despite what you may have heard, the Postal Service operates in the black  $3.7 billion since 2013. Operating profit for Fiscal Year 2017s first quarter alone was $522 million.

As the economy improves from the worst recession in 80 years, letter revenue is stabilizing. And as the Internet drives online shopping in Billings and elsewhere, package revenue is rising sharply  up 16 percent in 2016. As a result, revenue earned from delivering the mail more than pays all normal costs of delivering the mail.

Political red ink

There is red ink but it stems not from the mail but rather from congressional politics. In 2006, a lame-duck Congress mandated that the Postal Service pre-fund retiree health benefits decades into the future. No other government agency or private company has to do this. That $5.8 billion annual charge not only is the red ink  it disguises the actual profits USPS is making.

This political mandate has created an artificial financial crisis at USPS that has led to the closing of postal processing facilities and the reduction of hours in some post offices, the slowing of mail and the resulting frustration among businesses and residents discussed in your article.

The Postal Service, postal unions, key lawmakers and industry groups have coalesced around core legislative proposals that would address pre-funding while preserving and strengthening the invaluable postal networks.

If Montanas elected representatives in Washington continue to play an active role on postal issues and lend their support to such reform legislation, USPS can provide Americans and their businesses with the quality service they rely on. Folks in Billings, Butte, Missoula, Helena and throughout your beautiful state deserve that  and its what letter carriers are committed to delivering.

-- Fredric Rolando is president of the National Association of Letter Carriers in Washington, D.C.
HELENA  Libertarian Mark Wicks says he is surprised at how often he hears about public lands access and management as he runs for Montanas lone U.S. House seat.

The Inverness-area rancher says he has always had access to open spaces on private lands, but that is not always the case for all Montanans.

I did not expect it to come up as much as it has, he said of land issues. I understand people in the West living in town  their yard is the public lands they go to recreate and I had to learn that a little bit.

As a third-party candidate, Wicks is a long-shot to replace newly confirmed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in Congress in a race featuring Republican Greg Gianforte and Democrat Rob Quist. The special election is May 25.

Wicks says he is appalled at the management of federal lands. Driving from Great Falls to Missoula, one quote that comes to mind is, If I had a renter treating my land that way, Id evict them, he said.

Wicks favors reforms to the Equal Access to Justice Act, which he believes will spur forest management by reducing environmental litigation. He also favors reforms to the Endangered Species Act, as he is concerned protections will unduly impact farmers and ranchers.

Sooner than later were going to end up in lawsuits where ag lands are starting to have problems for the same reasons, he said. There has to be amendments to make it function for us as a state.

Wicks opposes large-scale sale of federal lands into private hands, but if land is transferred to state ownership, he wonders whether the transfer could include a conservation easement allowing public access even if they are sold.

Wicks appreciates federal lands as multiple use and says he is upset at seeing the number of roads gated off from motorized access. He is overall happy with the amount of access the public has available.

Trump-proposed cuts to federal agencies such as the Forest Service, BLM and EPA are warranted but must be done intelligently, he says.

I think every agency has room to cut, he said, citing a mounting federal debt. Unfortunately every time they cut, bureaucrats make cuts where it hurts that agency and cut what people need the most  they want people to see the pain immediately.

Wicks has not developed his full position on climate change but questions many of the numbers associated with it. He also recognizes the climate has naturally changed from prehistoric times from ice to nearly tropical.

We have to understand that climate is not static, he said. Now we cant go and just pollute the Earth, we have to conserve, but we have to be smart in how were doing it and not just make it a waste of effort.
The White House and congressional Republicans are in serious danger of not having enough votes to pass their health care bill.

Several Republicans have come out Monday against the current measure to repeal and replace Obamacare, bringing CNN's whip count to 21 Republicans -- mostly moderates -- opposed to the bill with another dozen lawmakers still undecided.

And President Donald Trump, whose White House was optimistic the House could pass a bill Wednesday, once again muddied the waters by suggesting the measure may still be changed.

"I want it to be good for sick people. It's not in its final form right now," he said during an Oval Office interview Monday with Bloomberg News. "It will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare."

Vice President Mike Pence, who has been working with congressional leaders from the start on the health care effort, is heading up to Capitol Hill Monday afternoon as well.

The Republican Party can only afford to lose 22 votes assuming all of the Republicans are able to attend the vote and no Democrats cross over. As they count votes, GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who was expected to be out for three to four weeks after surgery, is returning Monday from Colorado and will back the bill, his office said.

Most notably Monday, Rep. Billy Long, a Republican from Missouri who serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, announced he was opposed to the legislation. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Daniel Webster of Florida and Chris Smith of New Jersey will also vote against the current bill, making their decisions public in succession Monday afternoon.

Pushing forward

As hard as it is, Republican congressional leaders know they can't simply abandon their effort now.

"I hope we keep going. I don't think we can stop," said Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Republican who serves on the House's Energy and Commerce Committee told CNN last week.

White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn sounded optimistic Monday morning when asked if he thought Republicans' plans for health care had enough votes.

"I think we do," Cohn told CBS. "This is going be a great week. We're going to get health care down to the floor of the House. We're convinced we've got the votes and we're going to keep moving on with our agenda."

Pre-existing conditions

The fight over how pre-existing conditions are covered is at the center of the fight.

Trump said Sunday the White House is pushing forward, and that the GOP plan "guarantees" coverage for Americans with pre-existing conditions.

"Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, 'Has to be,'" Trump said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday.

Pressed further, Trump said that "we actually have a clause that guarantees" coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. Trump also said the health care legislation is "changing."

Unlike the mandate under Obamacare, however, under the GOP bill insurers could charge them higher rates than others in the plan if they allow their coverage to lapse.

Republicans might seem stuck in a never ending cycle of trying to please the moderate and conservative wings of their party but pressure from the White House to deliver a legislative win for Trump is real. Also real: the repeated pledges to their constituents over the past seven years to repeal and replace Obamacare if given the chance.

MacArthur amendment not enough?

Last week, Republicans seemed to reach a major breakthrough on health care.

A new amendment sponsored by moderate leader Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey gave states the ability to opt out of more Obamacare regulations. The amendment was also enough to finally bring the conservative House Freedom Caucus on board.

But the amendment, which experts noted could drive up the cost of insurance for older Americans and those with pre-existing conditions, spooked moderates and left some -- who had been supportive of the legislation before -- scrambling to publicly voice their discontentment. All of a sudden, it was moderates in the hot seat.

It seemed that even though leadership may have gained upwards of 30 new votes from the Freedom Caucus, they were suffering significant enough losses from the other side of the party that they still couldn't bring a bill up to the floor for a vote in order to mark Trump's first 100 days in office.

This week, leadership's focus remains trying to help those moderates get comfortable with the new MacArthur amendment. Over the weekend, House leaders, as well as Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, spoke with members hoping to flip enough votes to move the bill forward. Leadership aides emphasize that there isn't much room to change the proposal at this point, but many deputy whips are trying to get members to keep the process in perspective.

"You remind them there is a United States Senate, and it will change things. What we send over there isn't going over there on stone tablets," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma.

"Going back to the drawing board would be death to repeal and replace," one aide said.

After last week, though, many moderates are frustrated with the process. Some say they see their party making the same kind of mistakes Republicans criticized Democrats for making back in 2010.

"We didn't learn anything from their mistakes," said Rep. Mark Amodei, a moderate Republican from Nevada told CNN. "We learned nothing from their mistakes."

As to promises the bill will be changed once it's in the Senate?

"Seriously, you want me to go back and tell the people in my fourth of Nevada 'the Senate will make it better?'" Amodei said. "What the hell?"

CNN's MJ Lee, Phil Mattingly and Eric Bradner contributed to this report.
The White House and congressional Republicans are in serious danger of not having enough votes to pass their health care bill.
MUSCATINE  The Iowa Attorney General's Office said it will not move forward with a petition to remove the Muscatine City Council.

On March 16, Muscatine resident, Ann Brumback, delivered the petition, with allegedly 1,100 signatures, asking the Attorney General to remove the city council pursuant to Iowa Code Chapter 66.

Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown responded to the petition April 18, claiming the instances cited "failed to meet legal criteria," and ruling the office would decline to pursue action on the petition.

In an interview, Brumback said she is working with Jim Merideth, a Muscatine County resident, to review the Attorney General's letter and consider their options, which could include taking the case to court.

With the petition, Brumback sent a packet of complaints, including allegations the council has made "disparaging remarks about the mayor's decisions" and making allegations "regarding nepotism by the Muscatine city administrator that were approved by the council," according to Brown.

In response, Brown wrote, "there is insufficient proof that the council members acted with an evil or corrupt motive or acted in a dishonest or fraudulent manner."

In order to constitute grounds for the removal of a public officer, Iowa Code Chapter 66 states the officer must have neglected duties or performed maladministration, "knowingly, willfully, and with an evil or corrupt motive and purpose."

Brown said "there is very little identified in the documents...that would rise to the level of habitual neglect, refusal to perform the duties of the office, willful misconduct, maladministration of office or corruption."

"On occasion elected bodies make decisions with which constitutes of that body disagree or believe are wrong," he wrote. "The disagreement may include claims of violations of policy or law. However, disagreement with the council members decisions, whether it is politically based or otherwise, is not grounds to remove a duly elected officer."

Brumback filed the petition on behalf of the citizens of Muscatine and the group "Remove the Muscatine City Council." The petition also is listed on change.org, where it has garnered 689 signatures.

The electronic petition includes signatures and comments from residents, some in support of Mayor Diana Broderson, claiming the city council should not have the right to remove the mayor, and some in support of a state audit or full investigation into the matter.

Several residents also have accused the council of gender discrimination, with comments like "women have rights" and "I believe [aldermen] do not want to answer to a woman."

Some comments accuse the city council of favoring former Muscatine Mayor DeWayne Hopkins, who has announced he will seek re-election in November, after losing to Broderson in 2015.

On May 2, at 4 p.m., written briefs and proposed decisions are due from Broderson's lawyer William Sueppel and prosecutor John Nahra. After reviewing the submissions, the council will vote whether it will remove Broderson from office, a vote that requires a two-thirds majority.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump is promising that the latest Republican health care legislation will cover people with pre-existing conditions "beautifully." Such reassurance is not to be found in the bill that's been under review.

In a TV interview Sunday, an op-ed in The Washington Post and a rally Saturday night in Pennsylvania, Trump vigorously celebrated a 100-day stretch that actually produced little in the way of legislative achievement. His aides, meanwhile, began a hard sell on his tax plan over the past week.

Here's a look at some assertions by the president and his people:

TRUMP: "When I watch some of the news reports, which are so unfair, and they say we don't cover pre-existing conditions, we cover it beautifully.... Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, 'Has to be.'"  On CBS' "Face the Nation."

...healthcare plan is on its way. Will have much lower premiums & deductibles while at the same time taking care of pre-existing conditions!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2017

THE FACTS: Although the bill says "access" is guaranteed for people with pre-existing conditions, it is silent on a key point, whether such access must be affordable.

President Barack Obama's health law requires insurers to take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and patients with health problems pay the same standard premiums as healthy ones. But the Republican legislation would let states opt out of the requirement for standard premiums, under certain conditions. If a state maintains protections such as a high-risk pool, it can allow insurers to use health status as a factor in setting premiums for people who have had a break in coverage and are trying to get a new individual policy.

Such complications were in the proposed legislation under review last week, prompting the American Medical Association to say the Republican protections "may be illusory" and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network to worry that the plan could return the U.S. to a "patchwork system" that drives up insurance costs for the sick.

It's possible Trump will demand stronger protections for sick people in the bill, but he said on Sunday that the legislation was already so good "they could have voted on Friday."

TRUMP on the first attempt to repeal and replace Obama's law: "This bill has evolved. And we didn't have a failure on the bill. You know, it was reported like a failure."

THE FACTS: The first bill was pulled from Congress without a vote being taken, because it did not have enough support. The effort has evolved but the bill flopped.

TREASURY SECRETARY STEVE MNUCHIN, on Trump having "no intention" of releasing his own tax returns ever: "The president has released plenty of information and I think has given more financial disclosure than anybody else. I think the American population has plenty of information."

THE FACTS: Trump has released less than other presidents in modern times.

By withholding his tax returns, Trump has fallen short of the standard followed by presidents since Richard Nixon started the practice in 1969.

During last year's election campaign, Trump argued that he couldn't release his taxes because he was under an audit by the IRS. That reason didn't hold up, because being under audit is no legal bar to a candidate from releasing tax returns. On Wednesday, Mnuchin seemed to abandon even that explanation.

What Trump has released are financial disclosure forms that list his assets and liabilities in broad ranges, required by law. But those forms don't disclose precise numbers, and they include nothing about a person's income or charitable giving  data disclosed only in tax returns.

The few Trump tax returns the public has seen weren't released by him, but disclosed by news outlets. Two leaked pages of his 2005 return that came out in March didn't include full details on income and deductions, but did show that he would have benefited massively by an elimination of the alternative minimum tax  a feature of his just-outlined tax plan. And three pages that surfaced last year showed he had claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 return, which could be used to reduce his taxes by offsetting later gains.

TRUMP tweet on the tactics of the two jurisdictions that challenged his order to penalize cities that don't cooperate with U.S. immigration officials: "They used to call this 'judge shopping!' Messy system."

THE FACTS: It's hard to argue this was judge-shopping. The two California governments that sued to block Trump's order, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, routinely filed in the court in their neighborhood, which is in the federal system's 9th Circuit. And they don't get to choose a judge; that's assigned through a system that more resembles a lottery.

...the Ninth Circuit, which has a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80%). They used to call this "judge shopping!" Messy system.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017

TRUMP tweet: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where three of his orders have run into roadblocks, has "a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80 percent)."

THE FACTS: That's misleading. The nature of the appeals system means that most circuits have high rates of being overturned. The fact the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case means it's likely to overturn it. But other circuits have seen their decisions overturned at a higher rate.

In the most recent full term, the Supreme Court did reverse eight of the 11 cases it heard from the San Francisco-based court. But the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit went 0 for 3  that is, the Supreme Court reversed all three cases it heard from there. And over the past five years, five federal appeals courts were reversed at a higher rate than the 9th Circuit.

The 9th is by far the largest of the 13 federal courts of appeals, which means that in raw numbers, more cases are heard and reversed from the 9th Circuit year in and year out. But as a percentage of cases the Supreme Court hears, the liberal-leaning circuit fares somewhat better, according to statistical compilations by the legal website Scotusblog.

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Christopher S. Rugaber, Josh Boak, Stephen Ohlemacher, Robert Burns and Mark Sherman in Washington and Foster Klug in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
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 []
William N. Finley IV/@WNFIV(NEW YORK) -- The site in the Bahamas where the now-postponed Fyre Festival was to happen is on "lockdown" by the island country's government.



Private security guards were seen Saturday protecting the main site where people had been slated to sleep in luxury tents.



On Sunday, the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism told ABC News, "Customs has the area on lockdown because [festival organizer] Billy [McFarland] has not paid customs duty taxes on the items that he imported" for the event. "He and his staff have left the items with a security company guarding it."



ABC News is attempting to reach McFarland for comment in regard to the tourism ministry's statement.



Customs duty taxes are often levied on goods transported internationally.



Fyre Festival said in a statement Friday that it had to import many items to essentially build a city because the private island of Fyre Cay where the luxury concert event was to take place, lacked "the physical infrastructure" needed "to fulfill on that vision safely and enjoyably for our guests."



News of a lockdown at the site comes after festival organizers released a statement Saturday trying to explain what happened with the festival, which was postponed amid a storm of complaints posted on social media.



The event, tickets for which cost up to thousands of dollars, erupted into what the tourism office called "total disorganization and chaos" after hundreds of prospective concertgoers landed in the Bahamas. The planned lineup included Ja Rule, Daya and Tyga.



On Saturday, the organizers promised in a statement posted to the festival's website that "all festival goers this year will be refunded in full. We will be working on refunds over the next few days and will be in touch directly with guests with more details."

"Also, all guests from this year will have free VIP passes to next years festival," the statement read.

So Fyre Fest is a complete disaster. Mass chaos. No organization. No one knows where to go. There are no villas, just a disaster tent city. pic.twitter.com/1lSWtnk7cA  William N. Finley IV (@WNFIV) April 27, 2017

The statement also said that the Fyre Festival was created by technology entrepreneur McFarland and rapper Ja Rule after a "partnership over mutual interest in technology, the ocean, and rap music."



"This unique combination of interests led them to the idea that, through their combined passions, they could create a new type of music festival and experience on a remote island," the statement continued. "They simply werent ready for what happened next, or how big this thing would get."



The statement then explained that interest in the festival quickly went viral. Festival organizers experienced what they called "roadblocks" after realizing that the island didn't have the infrastructure needed for the event.



"So, we decided to literally attempt to build a city," the statement read. "We set up water and waste management, brought an ambulance from New York, and chartered 737 planes to shuttle our guests via 12 flights a day from Miami."



The Fyre Festival organizers said they plan to hold a festival in 2018, but "at a United States beach venue."

Ja Rule spoke out Friday via social media, saying he was "heartbroken" about what happened in the Bahamas. He also maintained that it was not his fault, but he is "taking responsibility" and is "deeply sorry to everyone who was inconvenienced by this."

McFarland, 25, who told ABC News he was unaware of an investigation into his festival, cited bad weather as the reason why the festival stalled, pointing to a storm that approached the island Wednesday night and broke their water lines.



He added that all attendees slated to attend the festival have now departed the island, unless they were accommodated in rental properties they personally obtained.



The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism in a statement Friday said it was "extremely disappointed" with how events unfolded around the festival.



"Hundreds of visitors to Exuma were met with total disorganization and chaos," the statement continued. "The event organizers assured us that all measures were taken to ensure a safe and successful event but clearly they did not have the capacity to execute an event of this scale."



Hallie Wilson, one attendee who said that she and her friends spent $4,000 to celebrate a friend's bachelorette party, told ABC News that she and more than 100 others landed back in Miami after spending hours trying to get a flight.



"It's been the longest 24 hours of our lives," she added.



Another attendee Trevor DeHass told ABC News that despite the Fyre Festival being promoted as an all-inclusive upscale weekend, he said that he and his friends were served two slices of bread, a slice of cheese and a small salad for dinner Thursday.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
PHILLIPS STATION  Melting of this years massive Sierra Nevada snowpack will cause California rivers to surge and possibly overflow their banks well into the summer this year, officials said Monday.

Among the first to be affected will be the Merced River running through Yosemite National Park, which is expected to hit flood stage by mid-week with waters rising a foot above its banks, forecasters warned.

Large amounts of water are being released from reservoirs downstream from the Sierra Nevada to lower their levels in anticipation of the heavier-than-normal melt off of snowpack, which is nearly double its normal size.

Reservoirs on tributaries of the San Joaquin River are also being lowered and will continue to be through June to avoid the possibility of being forced to use spillways for emergency water releases, reservoir managers said.

People who flock to the Tuolumne River for recreation will have to be careful of the potential for rapidly rising and dangerous river waters, said Calvin Curtis of the Turlock Irrigation District.

The water is going to be fast. Its going to be colder than it has been, he said.

The snowmelt flows downhill during warm months into reservoirs and canals, which supply one-third of the water used by residents of the most populous U.S. state. It also irrigates crops in the nations most productive farming state.

The heavy snowpack today blanketing the 400-mile (644-kilometer) long Sierra Nevada stands in contrast to two years ago when barely any measureable snow remained at this time of year amid Californias drought, state water managers said.

The California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program on Monday measured that snowpack contains nearly twice the amount of water typically found in the snow at this time of year.

While the heavy snow and its high water content will help prevent water shortages that California residents endured over the last several years, the tough winter was cruel to mountain wildlife  killing off bighorn sheep and lengthening hibernation periods for bears.

During Californias drought, the iconic Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep moved from lower elevations higher up into the mountains in search of food, said Jason Holley, a wildlife biologist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

But the heavy snow may have killed 100 of the 600 or so bighorn, he said.

Theyve triggered some avalanches, Holley said. Others go caught in areas with no natural food.

The snowdrifts have also kept many bears hibernating in the remote wilderness inside their dens one month longer than normal because food is still scarce, Holley said.

Hikers heading to the mountains are sure to find damaged roads leading to prized campgrounds that may not be repaired until next year, said Stanislaus National Forest officials.

In Yosemite National Park, rangers warned that visitors will need to be careful when they are near swift-flowing rivers and waterfalls with much higher water flows than normal.

Inexperienced hikers heading into the mountains should be prepared for snow lasting longer than normal this spring and should hike with more experienced people or consider heading to coastal mountains not covered in snow, said Kathryn Phillips, director of the Sierra Club California

Not only is it technically difficult, it is pretty uncomfortable, Phillips said. If youve never done it before, go with somebody who has.
Michala Jeberg has been named public relations and marketing manager at Castello di Amorosa, according to an announcement by Founder/Proprietor Dario Sattui and President Georg Salzner.

We welcome Michala to our team. She has a wealth of experience with consumer marketing, and will be a fantastic addition, said Salzner.

Jeberg brings more than 15 years of experience building beverage and food brands for companies like Nestle and Colgate-Palmolive.

Born in Denmark, Jeberg obtained her bachelors and masters degree in economics and business administration at Copenhagen Business School. Leaving Denmark in 2012, Jeberg and her family moved to Sonoma County to seek new challenges.

I am excited to be part of the next chapter of the history of the Castello," said Jeberg.
They are fewer now, and mostly older and grayer, but after the greater part of a century they are still proudly Italian-American and Catholic  and still here.

In a city and country transformed from what their ancestors knew, members of San Giuseppe Branch 12  one of the oldest branches of the Italian Catholic Federation  gathered Sunday in Napa to celebrate 90 years of faith, cultural pride, service and friendships unfrayed by time.

Over laughs, small talk and plates of penne and pork cutlets, about three dozen visitors shared memories of old times and of club members gone, infirm or still going strong. Among those celebrating inside St. John the Baptist Parish Hall were some of those who have spent half a century or more with the family fraternal group named for St. Joseph: Ernie Rota, a member for 61 years, Dorothy Jensen, who joined 56 years ago  and the oldest of the guests, Genevieve Traverso.

I joined in 1940, right out of high school; its been a long time! said the 97-year-old Traverso, who recalled a succession of Thanksgiving dinners, New Years bashes and marching bands that for years gave local Italian-Americans a sense of belonging. I met all my good people here; almost everyone in Napa who was Italian used to join.

The marching band  and the softball team and musical revues once hosted by the San Giuseppe branch  are in the past. But Sunday was a day for Napans not only to renew acquaintances but celebrate a club that has endured when some of its peers have disbanded.

San Giuseppes roots lay in a time when Italian immigrants were streaming into the U.S., but still faced the headwinds of bigotry and discrimination  as well as, in many cases, the erosion of cultural ties and faith. In response, two emigres based in San Francisco  Luigi Providenza, a Genoa-born newspaperman, and Rev. Albert Bandini, an attorney and scholar from Florence  in 1924 created the Italian Catholic Federation, in which layfolk and priests combined the social events of other immigrant groups with a focus on reconnecting their countrymen with the church.

You have to understand, were a very social people, said Bob Acquistapace, a former president of the federation and a member of its Santa Rosa branch for 51 years. It got us together for parties, dances, fundraisers; people enjoyed themselves. It was a way to get Italians to get together and work together.

Other clubs opened under the wing of the nonprofit Italian Catholic Federation across California and as far afield as Arizona, Nevada and Illinois. In the mid-1960s, the agency extended its reach into public service, starting scholarship funds to help children into colleges and parochial high schools, and the federation also began raising funds for research into thalassemia, a form of anemia that strikes a high proportion of people of Southern European descent.

Time, assimilation and busier lives have cut into the ranks of the Italian Catholic Federation as they have to numerous other fraternal groups, said Acquistapace, who estimated the groups membership at 9,500, one-third of its peak. Still, at least one guest at the Napa celebration was in a position to share the experience with a new generation.

Ill have to call my Italian friends in Napa and ask why they didnt show up, quipped Jim Marchi, who arrived with his 17-year-old son Gianni, a Justin-Siena High School junior. We go to the Sons of Italy events in town. We still travel to Italy. Its still nice to see the old-timers here, those who are becoming fewer and fewer.

On this day, it was possible to set aside the San Giuseppe branchs shrinking ranks, and be thankful for those friends who had persevered as their club had.

Acquistapace, who had been the master of ceremonies at the Napa clubs 50th and 80th anniversary gatherings, went to the lectern to share greetings written by members unable to attend.

Starting planning for your 100th, he read from one letter. If Im still alive, I will be there with you!
The opening salvo in what is expected to be a month-long murder trial of two defendants in the death of Kayleigh Slusher -- her mother Sara Krueger and her boyfriend Ryan Scott Warner -- began Monday morning in Napa County Superior Court.

She wouldve turned 7 this Wednesday, Deputy District Attorney Lance Hafenstein said in his opening statement about Kayleigh, the 3-year-old girl who died in her mothers apartment back in 2014.

Napa Police made two welfare checks that week at the home on the 2060 block of Wilkins Avenue and found nothing suspicious. On the third visit, officers found the girl dead in her bedroom.

Officer Bobby Chambers saw what he first thought was a doll lying under blankets in a princess bed, Hafenstein said, describing the morning of Feb. 1, 2014. The little girl Kayleigh was cold as ice, colder than the room in which she lay, he said.

Chambers, who had seen numerous dead bodies, had never encountered a body as cold as hers, Hafenstein said.

Napa City Fire arrived at the scene and confirmed that Kayleigh was dead. She was wrapped in a sheet and a body bag and transported to the coroners office, Hafenstein said.

An enlarged photo of Kayleighs bare and bruised body was shown to the court, eliciting a sobbing sound from the girl's mother, Sara Lynn Krueger.

Krueger, 26, is on trial for the alleged murder of Kayleigh. Krueger's boyfriend at the time, Warner, 29, is also on trial for the alleged murder. His trial is happening simultaneously before Judge Francisca P. Tisher in the same courtroom but is being decided by a separate jury in Napa County Superior Court.

The defendant (Kruger) had silenced Kayleigh but her body still spoke volumes, Hafenstein continued. The coroner identified 41 distinct external injuries on the girls body, all of which occurred while she was still alive, he said. Kayleighs body showed that she had an injury to the front of her spine, had endured blunt force trauma to her abdomen and, in addition to having a broken rib, was dehydrated.

He determined in the end that Kayleigh was literally beaten to death, Hafenstein said.

Kayleighs injuries would have been painful every time she took a breath, he said  this time causing a woman watching the proceedings to tear up.

Why did Kayleigh have to die? Because her mother chose methamphetamine over her, because she was getting in the way of her drug use, Hafenstein surmised.

Before Krueger started using meth, she was a good mother, Hafenstein said. Defendant Krueger showed love to her daughter, the kind of love youd expect from a mother, he said. Krueger took Kayleigh to the doctor for wellness checks and, during her short life, took her to the emergency room seven times, including one instance when she thought the girl had ingested hand sanitizer, Hafenstein said.

But things changed when she let Warner, a man with no car, no job, no money, no nothing, move into her home, Hafenstein said. Thats when she began doing meth again, thats when blankets started to cover the windows and neighbors didnt see as much of Kayleigh, he said. And when they did, he said, they noticed that she was pale with dark circles under her eyes. Krueger, too, he said, had lost weight, become unfriendly and seemingly stopped taking care of herself.

The next-door neighbor, who shared a wall with Kayleigh, would hear the little girl crying and knock on her wall to let Kayleigh know she was there, Hafenstein said. Shut up before I hit you again, this same neighbor allegedly heard Krueger tell her daughter.

The day before Kayleigh was found dead, Krueger and Warner contacted one of Warners friends to help them with the dead girl in the apartment, Hafenstein said. The friend, who had never called the police in his life, thought they had wanted him to beat someone up for them, but when he heard this, he told the couple they needed to call 911. They didnt listen, Hafenstein said.

The friend called Richmond dispatchers the next morning.

After Kayleighs body was found, police began the search for Krueger and Warner. They alerted other authorities as well as the media. On Feb. 2, a woman sitting in the El Cerrito IHOP was skimming through articles on her phone. When she saw a familiar looking couple walk into the IHOP, she pulled one of the articles back up, Hafenstein said. When Krueger saw the look on the womans face, she and Warner left the restaurant only to be found and apprehended at the El Cerrito Del Norte BART station.

When Krueger was questioned about her daughters death, she was emotional, but didnt explain the bruises on Kayleighs body other than saying that she had fallen off her bicycle, Hafenstein said. Krueger described her relationship with Warner as complicated but not abusive, he said.

Kayleighs 34 pound, 3-foot, 5-inch body was packed into a plastic bag, then into a suitcase and placed in the kitchen freezer, Hafenstein said. The food had to be emptied out of it in order for her to fit, he said.

After three hours, she (Krueger) couldnt let her stay in there and she put her in bed and read her a story, he said. Then the couple left the apartment and went to the Home Depot parking lot to look for a ride to the Vallejo bus stop, eventually ending up at the San Francisco airport where they sat beside each other, sometimes smiling, acting like its any other day while a little girl lay dead in their apartment, he said.

Krueger chose meth over her daughter and intended to kill her because Kayleigh was in the way of her drug use, Hafenstein said.

After Hafenstein made his opening presentation to the jury, Krueger's attorney, Jim McEntee summed up his defense.

Mr. Hafenstein gave a very excellent presentation  mine's not going to be at that level, he said. "I know I dont have emotion on my side.

McEntee said that its true that a little girl did suffer and that she was as cold as ice when they found her, but these facts are sensational and are not proof that her mother murdered her.

When Krueger went to sleep on Wednesday night, or early Thursday morning, Kayleigh was next to her, McEntee said. Earlier that day, the Napa Police had come by for a welfare check and cleared the call, he said.

Kayleigh was fine, he said, and Sara (Krueger) was a good mother. She was attentive, careful and kind to her child.

Kayleigh was in good health during a welfare check earlier in the week as well, he said. The little girl came off as bubbly and questioned one of the officers about his uniform, he said.

That same week, Krueger and Warner had been fighting, McEntee said. Krueger told him to leave, but he said that the only way he would leave was if police were involved and, if that happened, he would call his friends, whom Krueger feared, McEntee said. So Warner stayed.

Thursday  while Krueger slept  is when Kayleigh was no longer fine, McEntee said. Warner punched the little girl so hard, he said, leaving her abdomen bruised. That blow caused her small intestine to rupture  and she ultimately died due to an infection, he said.

When Krueger woke up, she found Kayleigh dead on the bathroom floor, McEntee said. Krueger was in and out of consciousness due to the shock, he said.

She did not report the incident and she was present but perhaps not aware of what Warner was doing to the childs body in regards to the refrigerator, McEntee said. The two fled the scene, trading a PlayStation for a ride to Vallejo, he said.

Krueger has a history of being abused, McEntee said. She was abused as a teenager, abused by Kayleighs father, Jason Slusher, and by Warner, he said. The abuse she suffered in life, in addition to drug use as a teenager, contributed to the awful decision she made to leave Napa that day with Warner, he said.

Who did it? McEntee asked. The evidence is going to show it was not Sara Krueger. It was Ryan Warner who did that.

Kayleigh was not injured when Sara (Krueger) went to sleep, McEntee said. Sara Krueger did not do this. This is a woman who loved her child.

Kruegers jury was dismissed at 10 a.m. following opening statements. Opening statements in the Warner trial are scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. on Monday.

Both Krueger and Warner have been held without bail at the Napa County jail since their arrests on Feb. 2, 2014. If convicted, Krueger and Warner could face life in prison without the possibility of parole. The DA is not seeking the death penalty.
ST. HELENA  When Joanne Gouaux moved her family to St. Helena, she said it was for the schools and the school districts Special Education programs.

That experience was so positive that she has become a Special Education advocate, now bringing parental education and instruction about the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to the Napa Valley.

Gouauxs son had a visual disability that was preventing him from succeeding in school. Called dyslexia, it is a specific learning disability, according to International Dyslexia Association, that is neurobiological in origin.

Though her sons condition was known to school teachers and administration in the East Bay school district where he was a first grader, she could not get the district to provide him with the appropriate programs to help him.

I would come to pick him up outside his class each day, she wrote to the St. Helena Star. And nearly every day the teacher would sneer at me and say You know he really needs to work harder.

Then, according to Gouaux, She very sternly told me, in front of my son, that his problem was that he was lazy, and not applying himself. He started crying as we walked to the car. I was stunned. I wanted to cry too.

When she urged the principal to get a team together to evaluate him, the principal told her there were other children with greater needs than her son. They insisted they would not provide an academic assessment until he was at least two grades behind, she recalled.

I did not know my sons legal rights, she said. I was confused, devastated and felt like I was being asked to prove that my sons difficulty learning was due to an invisible disability, rather than a disobedient child.

Thats when Gouaux began a two-year search for help, transferring to different school districts and attending endless meetings and appointments with specialists. Then a friend on the Calistoga school board told her she should talk with Helen Bass, director of special services in the Calistoga Elementary School. Bass, in turn, recommended Dr. Cindy Toews, who at the time was the assistant superintendent of the St. Helena Unified School District.

Toews is currently the superintendent of the Howell Mountain Elementary School District.

Dr. Toews returned my call the same day and over that brief 15-minute call convinced me that her district would, indeed, assess my son and provide appropriate services. So I took a leap of faith, packed up my family and moved to St. Helena. Dr. Toews kept her promise.

While the family lived in St. Helena, Gouauxs husband continued to commute to his job in San Francisco.

St. Helenas staff created an ideal program for a child with her sons profile, Gouaux said. The family lived in St. Helena for a year before moving away. But in that short time, she said, her son became a fluent third-grade reader, and his enjoyment and confidence at school was restored.

She said she believed the services shed obtained in St. Helena and the districts dedicated staff were crucial to her sons success. So she thought, after the familys move to Contra Costa County, his services could be transferred to her sons new school.

She was wrong.

In many respects, Gouaux had to start all over again, informing the school of her sons rights under a unique law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It was also when she realized that her family was not unique; that 10 percent of children in school districts had been legally identified as Students with Disabilities and that many families and school administrators did not fully understand the legal rights of these students.

Thats when she realized that she needed to become a Special Education advocate.

The idea for a seminar training came to me in January after a couple of months of deep thinking on where exactly the knots are in the system, she said. It seemed to me that something wasnt flowing: information about Special Education, eligibility, service programs, trainings and options.

Gouaux, through a series of efforts, contacted the leading legal expert in IDEA in Washington, D.C.  Peter Wright  and persuaded him to come to the Napa Valley. He will be the featured speaker at the Lincoln Theater in May in the seminar that Gouaux is producing.

The seminar will be from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Friday, May 19. Tickets cost $190 for individuals and $235 for professionals. Preregistration is required at lincolntheater.com.

Wright is an attorney who represents children with special educational needs. He has successfully represented clients before the U.S. Supreme Court (Florence County School District Four v. Shannon Carter, 1993). Wright is also the co-author of a number of books, including Wrightslaw: Special Education Law and Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind; and Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy.

This conference, according to Gouaux, is designed to give parents, educators, health care providers, advocates and attorneys access to practical tools they can use with their children, students, patients and clients who have learning disabilities and other special needs.

Gouaux began simply as a parent of a child with special needs. The St. Helena Unified School District helped her learn what could be accomplished when the right services are applied. Now shes returning to the Napa Valley with the intent of bringing a better understanding of the rights of individuals with disabilities.
ST. HELENA  Help is on the way for St. Helenas treacherously undulating downtown sidewalks, which will be replaced over the next few years thanks to a $1.2 million grant.

The Napa Valley Transportation Authority (NVTA) board approved the projects funding on April 19 as part of a countywide package of One Bay Area Grants, which draw on local, state and federal funding sources. St. Helenas sidewalk funds come from the federal government and require a city match of $300,000, for a total project cost of $1.5 million.

The grant will pay for smoother sidewalks, 17 wheelchair-accessible curb ramps to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and new street trees with deeper root systems that wont damage sidewalks or utilities along Main Street between Pine Street and the Pope/Mitchell intersection. Sidewalk bulb-outs that reduce the amount of time pedestrians have to spend in traffic will be installed at the intersections of Main/Spring, Main/Hunt and Main/Pine.

Tracey Perkosky, grants manager for the city of St. Helena, said the size of the award is really incredible, since sidewalks grants usually come in at closer to $50,000 or $100,000, especially for small cities like St. Helena.

Perkosky said St. Helenas grant application was ranked highly because smoother sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements encourage people to walk instead of drive, which, in turn, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves air quality. The evaluation process considered pedestrian counts and projected greenhouse gas reductions.

By fixing the sidewalks and making downtown aesthetically more beautiful, more people will walk here, said Perkosky, who called the application a true collaborative effort among city staff.

The condition of the sidewalks was a recurring theme at a town hall meeting the City Council held in February, when several people described tripping and falling. In addition to the safety hazards, serious injuries can expose the city to expensive litigation.

The improved sidewalks wont appear right away. Perkosky said the project will be designed in fiscal year 2018-2019, and construction is scheduled for 2020-2021. The grant requires construction to be complete by 2022.

The work involves federal money. So Caltrans will have to approve each stage of the project, which contributes to the extended timeline. The city will also have to consult with Caltrans on the bulb-outs and the curb/gutter improvements, since Main Street is a state highway.

In the meantime, the city will reach out to the public, local businesses, and the St. Helena Chamber of Commerce on yet-to-be-determined details such as the style of the new sidewalk (concrete, new brick pavers, or the existing pavers) and which trees to plant in which spots.

We purposely didnt specify certain details  like what the new sidewalks are going to be  because we wanted to engage the community, Perkosky said.

Perkosky credited the NVTA for helping the city secure the funding. The NVTA collected grant requests from around the county, ranked them, and made recommendations to the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which formally signed off on the recommendations.

Perkosky said the city will look at drawing its $300,000 match from gas tax revenue or possibly from local Measure T sales tax revenue.
Donald Trump is not required under any laws, the Constitution, or any federal ethics requirements to produce his tax returns. None. This constant demand from the Liberal Left, Democrats like Rep. Waters, Schumer and Pelosi, and 'Trump Haters' crowd is nothing more than pure hate-filled jealousy of a very successful businessman and pure political theater. Pure Political BS and hate.

He did, however, and was required by law, to produce a detailed and comprehensive candidate financial statement report that was cleared as having no problems or conflicts of interests or ethics violations by a government ethics committee. All presidential candidates are required by law to file such a complete financial statement for review by the government ethics committee. President Trump followed the law. Period. Again -- he was cleared.

President Trump won -- end of debate. Face Facts. Hillary Lost. And, as a life-long JFK Democrat, I can say, Thank God. Constant crying over a humiliating political defeat all over the country from presidential, state legislatures, governorships, down to city dog catcher won't change it. Trump's personal tax returns had nothing to do with the defeat across the country. Presenting all of those failed candidates tax returns won't change one darn result either.

All this fake narrative from Liberal Left demagogues and Democrats that we, the public, are somehow entitled to see a fellow citizen's personal tax returns, going back who knows how many years, if he or she runs for public office, is nothing but pure political BS. Opponents only want tax returns so they can use them for political purposes against their opponent, period.

In fact, should such a candidate produce even one year of returns, opponents would demand more -- and have. Just because some other presidential candidate foolishly chose to release their returns does not in any way mean others must also do so. And proof opponents use the returns against the other for pure political purposes is revealed year after year - the most recent by MSNBC - from an illegally leaked partial president Trump tax return. What a joke. No wonder MSNBC has no credibility. Pure hate and political demagoguery. End of debate.

Fact - federal law states just the opposite. Personal income tax returns, corporate and business tax returns, and nonprofit tax returns, etc. are protected by law to be released to the public. It is a federal crime to reveal such returns by the Social Security Administration -or the government -- or by any government employee. Fact - we citizens are not entitled just because we say we want them for some political BS. That is the purview of the government ethics committee. If there is any conflict of interest charges, that committee investigates. Not the general public. Period.

So, as a lifelong registered JFK Democrat, I offer this fair and balanced respectful and request demand to the fake premise from the totally misguided, with absolutely no legal grounds whatsoever, Liberal Left and Democrats in congress, the President Trump must produce his tax returns crowd.

Let it be resolved: to President Trump, release your personal tax returns when -- and only when -- every businessman or businesswoman, every corporate or small business owner and or all their employees, every member of Congress - including Schumer, Pelosi, Warren, and Waters, in particular, every federal, state and city official and/or their employees, every college and university student, faculty, and their employees, every member of the Democrat and Republican party and any and all DNC and RNC officials, and their members and employees, every Hollywood elite and industry employees, every member of MSNBC and other media, and every person in the United States who works, or has ever worked, every registered voter or past living registered voter, or every person who receives federal or state or local government assistance of any kind, and every illegal immigrant releases their tax returns. So we can all see exactly who will benefit from your tax plan.

Robert Wilkinson

Napa
At least 27 passengers were injured when an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Bangkok hit severe air turbulence on Monday.

24 Russians and 3 Thais were hurt, with some suffering serious fractures and bruising, when the plane unexpectedly hit an "air hole" during its approach to Suvarnabhumi Airport, according to the statement from Russian Embassy in Bangkok.

"Some injured passengers were not wearing seat belts. All victims were taken to a local hospital with various injuries, mostly fractures and bruises. Some require surgery. Fifteen people remain hospitalized," the embassy said.

The Airport Authority of Thailand said in a press release that 30 passengers had been injured during the flight with 27 individuals transferred to Samitivej Srinakarin hospital in Bangkok, while three chose to seek their own treatment.

It added that the flight was traveling with 318 passengers and 14 crew on board and that it was struck with turbulence as it flew over Myanmar.

'Blood on the ceiling'

Rostik Rusev, who is from Ukraine but lives in Hackensack, New Jersey, was on the flight and told CNN it was so bad it threw passengers out of their seats.

"It lasted for about ten seconds, the plane was being thrown everywhere," Rusev told CNN.

"There was blood on the ceiling, people with broken noses, babies who were hurt, it was horrible. It came out of nowhere it was like driving a car and a tire suddenly bursts.

"The aircraft personnel couldn't have been more professional and courageous. They were heroes in everything they were doing."

Rusev also provided CNN with a photograph showing blood on an overhead compartment, which, he says, was the result of people being thrown out of their seats and hitting the ceiling.

An "air hole" is an area of low pressure air where there differential causes the plane to drop, according to Richard Quest, CNN's airline and aviation correspondent. He said it can also be the results of air currents shifting, crossing the jet stream or storms in the area.

However, Quest said "air holes" are not dangerous to the aircraft -- only those who aren't wearing seatbelts when the plane travels through the air pockets.

'There were broken legs, arms, bruised faces'

Another passenger, Margarita Vladimir, told CNN that the journey had been mostly peaceful but as passengers were visiting the toilet and preparing for landing, the turbulence erupted.

"We saw so many people getting seriously hurt. There were broken legs, arms, bruised faces," she said.

In a video she provided to CNN, the aftermath of the turbulence could be seen. One passenger had fallen to the floor and was being comforted by a passenger seated across the aisle. Others on the flight looked disorientated. As the footage panned to the galley, a man could be seen propped up against the emergency door with a gash to his head.

Vladimir said that she suffered only scratches and bruises on her arms and shoulder but her child was hit in the head so they were taken to the hospital for assessment. She says they've been given the all-clear but that there are still people from the flight who remain at the medical facility.

Aeroflot issued a statement explaining the circumstances surrounding the incident, which occurred about 40 minutes before landing, saying that this type of turbulence known as "clear sky turbulence" is difficult to prepare for as "it does not occur in clouds but in clear skies with good visibility."

The flight operator cited this as the reason passengers were not warned to return to their seats before adding that around 750 cases of clear sky turbulence occurs globally each year.

Russian officials were at hospitals in the Thai capital providing translation and counseling assistance.

CNN's Tomas Etzler in Moscow contributed to this report.
The St. Helena City Council's discussion of the Culinary Institute of America at Greystones dorm plan has been postponed from May 9 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 23, at Vintage Hall.

The CIA is appealing the Planning Commissions rejection of its plan to expand its dorms on Pratt Avenue. The commission voted 4-0 in March to deny the CIAs application to build two- and three-story dorms, which would increase the dorms capacity by 123 beds, for a total of 224.

The project drew heavy criticism from neighbors in the Pratt/Park/Crinella area. In rejecting the project, commissioners cited neighbors concerns about size, traffic, wastewater, parking and other impacts on the neighborhood.

The CIAs plans also involve reconfiguring the layout of its educational facilities at the Greystone campus, replacing the old Wine Spectator restaurant with a smaller student-run restaurant, and expanding enrollment from 200 to 300 students.
Tuesday, April 25

1123  A woman who got married on Saturday said greeting cards containing cash, checks and gift cards, along with a pair of sunglasses and a small engraved silver dish, were stolen from her Main Street hotel room. She estimated the loss at $10,000.

1305  A backpack containing an unknown cleaning chemical was thrown in a trash can near Main Street and was now smoking and starting a fire.

1440  Report of a woman using drugs on a bench near the library.

1531  Report of a noisy leaf blower on Quail Court. Police determined it was within the citys decibel limit.

1556  Report of a drunk man staggering near Adams/Stockton.

1638  Police served a warrant related to a child abuse case and arrested the mother on College Avenue.

Wednesday, April 26

0842  Public Works found a memory photo book and photos at Lewis Station Park.

1035  Police were asked about a child custody issue.

1255  A 30-foot trailer had been parked on Hillview Place for three days. Police marked it to be towed in 72 hours.

1539  A community service officer talked to a little boy who was upset near Oak/Spring.

1637  A Hillview Place resident said her neighbor added two feet to her fence and trespassed on her property while she was away. Police talked to the resident, concluded it was a civil matter, and took no further action.

2117  Report of an ongoing problem with a black Chevy truck parking on the curb on Stockton Street. Police cited it.

Thursday, April 27

0021  Following a traffic stop at Main/Adams, police arrested a 61-year-old Easton, Connecticut resident on suspicion of DUI.

0452  Non-injury accident at Pine/Main. Police helped arrange for a tow truck.

1346  Medical aid for an elderly woman with extremely low blood pressure on San Ardo Court.

1506  Report of an elderly man staggering on Allyn Avenue with blood on his face, arm and hand. He had tripped and fallen and needed medical attention.

2046  Medical aid for an elderly man who was feeling very lethargic on Olive Avenue.

Friday, April 28

0110  Report of a woman lying on the ground on Main Street south of Madrona Avenue. She was gone when police arrived.

0752  A purse, jewelry, and important documents were stolen on Hunt Avenue. Police took a burglary report.

1123  Report of a reckless driver on Main Street, last seen turning onto Vintage Avenue.

1137  Report of a suspicious person riding around on a yellow bike, looking into the back of delivery vehicles in a Hunt Avenue parking lot.

1213  Medical aid on Pope Street.

1253  Medical aid for a woman who hit her head on Meadowcreek Circle.

1401  A caller said someone tried to file a tax return in his name. He had already notified the IRS.

1448  Report of a problem with the traffic light at Main/Madrona.

1845  A caller from Voelker Court said his neighbor was yelling for help and saying someone had entered his home.

Saturday, April 29

0013  Report of a possible drunk driver on Highway 29. Police stopped the car and determined the driver wasnt drunk.

0122  Report of a possible drunk driver in the elm tunnel.

1045  Medical aid for a baby who fell off a bed and hit his head on Spring Street.

1055  One of the railroad crossing arms at Charter Oak Avenue was swaying and appeared to be broken. The railroad police said they would check it out.

1712  Medical aid for a woman having trouble breathing on San Juan Court.

1714  Report of four boys trying to hitchhike at Main/Grayson. Police determined they were just going to the skatepark.

2126  Medical aid on Hunt Avenue.

2213  Two lab-sized dogs named Leroy and Johnny were reported missing from Sylvaner Avenue. Leroy is brown and white with a white tip on his tail. Johnny is brown with a white tip on his tail. Both are wearing collars.

Sunday, April 30

0656  Police cited a car parked in the wrong direction on Pratt Avenue.

0941  Report of a worker using a loud leaf blower on Vallejo Street.

1502  Medical aid for a motorcyclist down near Highway 29 and Inglewood.

1633  Police responded to a disturbance involving a man and a woman near Main/Spring.

1725  Non-injury hit-and-run on Main Street.

1743  Report of a loud Dodge Charger speeding on Spring Mountain Road.

2147  Report of an ongoing problem with a dog barking on Springbrook Court.
In May 2016, the military ordered two Project 23550 patrol ships from Admiralty Wharfs. "Under the contract, the ships are to be delivered to the Navy before year-end 2020," a Defense Ministry official said, adding that the order had been awarded under the 2020 Defense Procurement Program. The ice-rated patrol ships design was unveiled at the Army 2015 International Military-Technical Forum and IMDS 2015 International Maritime Defense Show in St. Petersburg. A model of the ship was exhibited during Army 2015. According to the developer and open sources, the advanced class is intended for guarding and monitoring the Russian sector of the Arctic, especially Russias exclusive economic zone; escorting or towing poacher vessels seized within the Russian exclusive economic zone; escorting and supporting auxiliary vessels; participating in rescue operations; recovering vessels that run aground; carrying special cargo in containers on the upper deck; and engaging naval, coastal and aerial targets with her weapons. The Almaz Design Bureau has classified its new ship as Arc 6 AUT1 FF3WS EPP Special Purpose Ship ANTI-ICE DYNPOS-1 HELIDECK-H as per the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. The ship can effectively operate in the Arctic both solo and as part of a formation and is capable of escort missions on sea lanes in the Arctic. According to Almaz and open sources, the Project 23550 ice-rated patrol ship measures about 100 m long and about 20 m abeam, with a maximum draft of around 6 m. It displaces 8,500 tons and has a cruising range of approximately 6,000 nm and a maximum icebreaking capability of 1.5 m (1 m if moving continuously). Its speed equals around 16 knots. The ice-rated corvette has a 15,000kW power plant. Its propulsion unit includes two Azipod Vi1600L electric podded azimuth thrusters or similar ones about 6,000kW each and Schottel STT2 side thrusters or similar ones around 500kW each. The ship is furnished with a tow rig with a pull of at least 80 tons-force and two electrohydraulic cranes with a lifting capacity of about 28 tons each. There is a main crew of about 60, with 50 seamen more to be carried if needed. The self-contained operating capability is around 60 days. The area of operations is unlimited.

According to open sources, the weapons suite of the Project 23550 patrol ship comprises the Kalibr (NATO reporting name: SS-N-27 Sizzler) guided missile system, guns, two Project 03160 Raptor patrol boats and a Kamov Ka-27 (Helix) helicopter. In all probability, the lead ship will lack the missile system, but the second one will differ from her in terms of weapons, and its weapons suite is yet to be decided on. The pictures published by Almaz show two Kalibr missile system modules at the stern, each comprising four launch tubes. In addition, a 76-mm AK-176MA versatile gun will be mounted at the bow. The press office of the Arsenal Company has said in March 2017 that the AK-176MA had been designed for littoral combat ships and added to the weapons suites of advanced combatants, including those in the Project 23550 class.



The weapons suite also includes two Project 03160 landing craft designed for operating near the coast round the clock. The craft are capable of landing Marines (at least 20 each) on the shore or on any other object. They can patrol assigned areas of water, intercept and seize small-size craft and conduct search and rescue. The Raptor is crewed by three and armed with a fighting module comprising a 14.5-mm machinegun, a gyro-stabilized electro-optical module and a fire control system.



The Project 23550 patrol ship can accommodate a helicopter on a helipad at the stern fore of the Kalibr launchers. Probably, the ship also has a helicopter hangar in front of the helipad. According to open sources, the ship can carry the Ka-27PL (Helix-A), but it is very likely that she also can accommodate the search-and-rescue Ka-27PS, transport/assault Ka-29 (Helix-B), radar-picket Ka-31 (Helix-E) and Ka-35, their upgraded variants and Ka-52 (Hokum-B) armed reconnaissance helicopter. The latter can use guided missiles, e.g. the Kh-31 (AS-17 Krypton) and Kh-35 (AS-20 Kayak) antiship missiles.



As of now, open sources have provided no information on the air and antisubmarine defense systems of the Russian advanced ice-rated patrol ship. Presumably, she will mount a navalized version of the Tor (SA-15 Gauntlet) surface-to-air missile system, which is in trials now, or the Pantsir-M (SA-22 Greyhound) anti-air gun/missile system. The Project 23550 patrol ship may be equipped with the Paket small-size system with 324-mm torpedo tubes and an ammunition load including anti-torpedoes. Fitting the ship with 533-mm torpedo tubes does not look reasonable. At the same time, her weapons suite should incorporate anti-torpedo rocket launchers.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
These ships are dedicated to sovereignty missions and to protect French interests in the Antilles (French West Indies) and Guiana maritime area. One of the missions for the two PLGs will be securing the waters around the Guiana Space Center where the European Space Agency (ESA), the French space agency CNES (National Centre for Space Studies), and the commercial Arianespace company conduct regular launches from Kourou. Other missions will include the fight against illicit trafficking (fisheries police, narcotics trafficking), the protection of life and property at sea and fight against pollution.



The PLGs are able to accomodate 14 people (special forces for example) in addition to 24 crew members. With a length of 60 m and a width of 9.50 m, a draft less than 3.2 meters, the vessel are able to operate in shallow waters including the Kourou river. The patrol vessels can reach speeds of 21 knots with an endurance of 12 days at 12 knots.



Contacted by Navy Recognition in 2015, a DGA official gave the following additional details:

 PLG have two shaft lines, the propelling power will be about 6 MW, capable of crossing at least 3500 NM at 12 knots.

 The weapon stations for secondary weapons will be able to receive a choice of small caliber machine guns of 12.7 mm or 7.62 mm. PLG is also equipped with water cannon. (A Nexter Narwhal 20mm RWS is fitted at the bow).

 The two on-board RHIBs will be identical. They will have an aluminum hull and a length of about eight meters.

 PLG will have several sensor systems (radars, projectors, optronic system) enabling it to intervene at any time, day or night.


If there is a god which interacts in any way with our world, science should by now have measured [...] some effects of that interaction.

It seems to me that god believers should be very concerned that science has failed to find any trace of positive evidence that god exists. Given sciences amazing track record of predicting, discovering, measuring, and describing dozens of invisible things, some with only very tiny effects on our material world, why is there still no tangible, reproducible evidence of the existence of a god, an entity which supposedly created and supports the continued existence of everything else?My claim here is that if there is a god which interacts in any way with our world, science should by now have measured, at least statistically, some effects of that interaction. Somewhere there should be some data that simply cannot be explained by purely natural causes. Yet, while scientists have scoured, tested, and measured the earth and the heavens for thousands of years, they have yet to uncover that data.Of course, this failure of science to find god goes back as far as science itself. In 240 BCE, in ancient Greece, Eratosthenes determined the earth was a sphere and measured its circumference with amazing accuracy by measuring shadows cast by the sun in different locations. This was about 1700 years before Columbus. Eratosthenes also measured the tilt of the earths axis with surprising accuracy. All in all, the ancient Greeks accomplished a great many exceptional scientific feats, yet they could find no trace of Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, or any other god.In the late 1600s, Sir Isaac Newton calculated that the planets orbits were unstable and thought they would need a push by god periodically to keep them in orbit. A hundred years or so later, Pierre-Simon Laplace wrote an important book on celestial mechanics which found those orbits to be stable. When Napoleon was shown the book, he asked Laplace why it said nothing about Newtons claim about god stabilizing the planets orbits. Laplace is said to have replied, Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis. Again, there was no trace of god in those calculations or in the heavens.Sometimes, the data even seems to work directly against the god hypothesis. In colonial America, before lightning rods were invented, churches were constantly being struck by lightning and burning down, and were often the only structures so affected. They were much more frequent targets than houses or any other type of building. Why were gods houses the prime targets of lightning? If we use god as an explanation, then we must somehow ignore or argue around his alleged grace, compassion, and desire for worship. But nature gives us a very simple explanation: the churches were the tallest structures on the landscape, and lightning tends to strike the tallest structures the most. This suggests there is no god protecting his own.Speaking of protecting his own, according to the Bible, God delivered his chosen people, the Jews, from the Egyptians. Isnt it a little strange then that he failed to deliver them from the Nazis?If theres a god who really favors those who worship him, shouldnt we expect to be able to measure this effect? Well, it turns out that, in general, the areas in the world with the highest levels of religiosity, like Africa and the Middle East, are the areas with the weakest economies and the poorest health. And, Western Europe and Japan, with the lowest levels of religiosity, consistently outshine the rest of the world in economic and health measures. The Scandinavian countries, among the least religious in the world, present perhaps the best evidence of this non-correlation of godliness and societal health. As Victor J. Stenger put it in The New Atheists, By every measure of societal health  life expectancy, literacy rates, school enrollment rates, standard of living, infant mortality, child welfare, economic equality, economic competitiveness, gender equality, healthcare, lack of corruption, environmental protection, charity to poor nations, crime, suicide, unemployment  Denmark and Sweden rank near the top.Similarly, in the U.S., the states with the greatest religiosity, in the southern Bible belt, consistently measure the poorest in terms of family incomes and health.The World Happiness Report for 2017 ranked 155 countries on seven main factors that support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, good governance, honesty, health, and income. The top 10 countries were Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. The U.S., with higher religious identification and observance than any of these top 10, placed 14th in the ranking. And, as expected by now, the worlds most religious countries were ranked as the least happy.Curiously, it seems that when things get better for people, they turn away from the god hypothesis, yet they stay happier and healthier. And still, science fails to find any god clues.One thing related to gods alleged earthly effects which has been measured statistically is prayer. The largest and most famous such study is the Harvard Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP). The findings? The Harvard press release said the study, found that intercessory prayer had no effect on recovery from surgery without complications.Another intriguing statistical test of prayer was conducted online in 1999-2000 by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Respondents were asked whether they approved or disapproved of same-sex marriage. They were then told to pray and ask whether god approved or disapproved and rank how sure they were that god had given them a definite answer. About half said they approved of same-sex marriage and the other half said they didnt. However, 43 of the 49 who said they got an answer from their prayers said they were either very sure or certain that they had accurately determined the will of God. Interestingly, in every single case, whether the respondent approved or disapproved of same-sex marriage, their prayers confirmed that god agreed with them. Given these results, I think that we can be pretty sure that no god was involved in this study.Science kicked into high gear with the Enlightenment, about 350 years ago. Ever since then scientists in dozens of sub-specialties have been observing, testing, theorizing about, and making predictions concerning the natural world of matter and energy.The search for answers about how the world works has been broad and deep, involving physics, astronomy, cosmology, biology, chemistry, mathematics, logic, geology, quantum mechanics, relativity, and many more fields of scientific inquiry. The millions of descriptions and measurements of what scientists have learned in this search, often with incredible accuracy, involve tens or hundreds of thousands of mathematical equations, yet not one of those equations contains a term or symbol for god. Not one.Think of all that man has learned about how the world works, from gravity to the expanding universe, from electromagnetism to quantum mechanics, superconductivity, and fluid dynamics. Think of all the amazing engineering successes mans equations have contributed to, like the pyramids, the Panama and Suez canals, the Chunnel, supersonic aircraft, computers, television, medical imaging machines, etc. And still theres not one equation containing a symbol for god.So, is there a god? Well the results are in, and science has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that when it comes to describing, measuring, and altering our universe, man has no need of that hypothesis. ALL the available data so far, gathered over the past couple thousand years, compellingly suggest that god exists only in the imaginations of men. And that is why science has failed to find god.
After Laura Robinson collects her M.Div. degree May 8 at Emorys Candler School of Theology, shes heading to her first post-seminary job at a church in Iowa. In addition to her degree, shes also bringing her experiences from the schools first-ever course on Jewish-Christian-Muslim Dialogue, and is eager to apply at her new home base what shes learned about interfaith relations.

Taught at Candler this spring by Deanna Ferree Womack, assistant professor of history of religions and multifaith relations, the course combines readings and study of the three Abrahamic faiths with real-world encounters. Students were required, in addition to their academic work, to participate in several interfaith activities in metro Atlanta.

If were going to connect academic study to the way we live in the world, we need to understand and connect with living faith communities, says Womack.

Robinson, who will serve as an associate pastor at Plymouth Church in Des Moines, agrees.

I felt this class was really important to take before I leave seminary and head out into the world of church ministry, she says.

Why Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue

Students preparing for a call to Christian ministry tend to feel they have an understanding of Judaism because they read the Hebrew Bible, and its incorporated in [Christian] tradition, says Womack, but this course fills a gap for them in understanding the history and development of the Jewish tradition.

When it comes to engaging Islam, says Womack, fewer students may have had that opportunity, and for those coming to Candler from outside the area, Atlanta is diverse with a vibrant Muslim community. The course provides a chance for them to engage with Muslim Americans in a way they havent before.

Something Dr. Womack brings thats such a gift to the Candler community are the many relationships and connections shes built around Atlanta and Emory, says Robinson.

Students in the course attended Shabbat services at The Temple in Midtown; visited the Medina Institute Mosque, Seminary and Community Center in Duluth; and participated in at least one of three interfaith dinner-dialogue sessions at different metro locations.

Class members also networked in February at the annual LAMP (Leadership and Multifaith Program) Symposium, a joint initiative with Georgia Institute of Technologys Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. This years program, focusing on the theme of refugees and asylum seekers, was attended by more than 200 community members and representatives from more than two dozen area NGOs.

We connected with people from all over the Atlanta area who are interested in [helping refugees and asylum seekers], says Brittani Magee, a second-year student from Norcross, Georgia.

Testing assumptions

In addition to their community work, students undertook readings, analyses and discussions on both historical and contemporary Jewish, Christian and Muslim relations, theologies and practices. They also confronted challenges to their own assumptions about interfaith dialogue.

A new dose of humility is always in order, says second-year M.Div. student David Roth. He acknowledges that the principles of commitments to Christian evangelism and to interfaith dialogue can sometimes stand in tension, but that at their best, mission and dialogue can stand together, sharpening each other and perfecting each other.

For Rob Levin, a first-year Master of Theological Studies (MTS) student, the big takeaway was that there are no easy answers in the world of interfaith dialogue. Although he was involved with Interfaith Youth Core work as an undergraduate, he had not done in-depth study on the theological differences among the three faiths.

Its not that the similarities are superficial, because there are profound similarities as well, Levin says. Its just that there are also extreme differences and they really cant be ignored.

Tala Alraheb, a first-year MTS student from Palestine, says that when people engage in interfaith dialogue, they often tend to look only at commonalities, and shy away from discussing disagreements.

But one of the books we read said we ought to discuss differences between religions just as much as commonalities, she says. That is the way to really engage in dialogue.

Alraheb says she learned not only about interfaith movements in the United States, but also interfaith efforts within Palestine, which she called eye-opening.

A lot of [NGOs in Palestine] are womens organizations, which has been very surprising to me to see how much women are involved in the peace process, even though we dont really hear about them much in the media.

Moving beyond Atlanta

Students in the course predicted that interest in studying interfaith dialogue will remain high.

One of the main things students want to know is How can I bring this information back to my congregation and community to change some of the stereotypes around the Jewish or Muslim faith? says Magee, who also works part-time at the Nett Church in Lilburn, Georgia, as part of Candlers contextual education requirement.

Being able to bring to [church] leadership that there are ideas and resources right here in Atlanta that we can use to begin to have interfaith dialogues is very valuable to me, she says.

Robinson says her new-found connections in Atlanta will help her pursue interfaith work in Des Moines as well. Its about gaining more exposure to people already doing this work, which gives you a leg up, especially when youre out of school, she says.

That's exactly what the professor intended when she created the course.

I want students to have the skills to go to whatever congregation and whatever community theyll be serving and be able to engage with other faith communities nearby, says Womack, who received a Community Engaged Learning Grant from Emorys Center for Faculty Development and Excellence to fund the courses activities.

Ultimately, Womacks aim is to help students develop their own theological, pastoral, scholarly and/or community-based approach to Jewish-Christian-Muslim engagement.

What Im hoping students will gain the most from the course, says Womack, is an understanding of interfaith relations that will guide how they live in American society and how they serve their congregations and communities after graduation.
Posted by Mark Williams | May 1, 2017





By Aaron Bragman

Living with a half-ton luxury pickup truck isn't terribly difficult. These premium rigs can cost $60,000 to $80,000 and come with amenities that  until recently  only foreign luxury-brand flagship sedans have provided. But what happens when you go a size bigger on the pickup spectrum? Upgrading from a half-ton to a three-quarter-ton truck means a beefier suspension, more weight, a bigger engine, a larger body, different steering; they're entirely different than their light-duty cousins.

They also don't get a lot of media attention; most comparison tests involve light-duty half tons or the ultimate heavy-duty one tons. But the HD diesel monsters we tested in our 2017 3/4-Ton Premium Truck Challenge are a good stop in between. They're for people who need more capability than half tons can deliver but who still want a relatively easy-to-use vehicle that won't make the daily commute a chore.

Since all four of the lux trucks in our Challenge featured optional diesel engines, we put them through a mileage test to see how efficient they are. Fun fact: HD pickups are not rated by the EPA, and manufacturers generally don't report their efficiency since they're heavy enough to be considered commercial trucks. But fuel economy is important for any buyer  commercial or consumer  so our testing should help determine who is more efficient.

Fuel-Economy Analysis

We took these pickups on two loops of 111 miles in mixed urban and highway driving in the Phoenix area; they were empty for one loop and towed a 10,000-pound gooseneck trailer for the second loop.

The winner of the fuel-economy test for the empty loop was the 2017 Nissan Titan XD Platinum Reserve, which is not surprising given that its turbo-diesel 5.0-liter V-8 Cummins was the smallest, least powerful engine of the field. It got 19.3 mpg, beating the 2017 Ram 2500 Laramie Longhorn and its massive turbo-diesel 6.7-liter inline-six-cylinder Cummins by a fraction; it registered 19.2 mpg. Third place went to the 2017 Ford Super Duty F-250 King Ranch and its turbo-diesel 6.7-liter V-8 Power Stroke at 18.3 mpg, while the 2017 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 LTZ Midnight Edition and its turbo-diesel 6.6-liter V-8 Duramax finished last at 18.2 mpg.

Hook the trucks to a 10,000-pound gooseneck trailer filled with bags of construction sand and the order changes. When towing a big load, the Ram was the top performer at 13.1 mpg, followed by the Ford and Chevy in a veritable tie at 12.1 and 12.0 mpg, respectively. The Nissan trailed the rest at 11.5 mpg due its smaller engine, which had to work much harder than the others.

As Daily Drivers

As daily drivers, these four luxo trucks were far more pleasant and tolerable than their base-model brethren tested in our 2017 3/4-Ton Work Truck Challenge. That's to be expected for trucks that cost twice what the entry models go for. They still ride stiffer than light-duty trucks, and their sheer size can make parking them an adventure in urban environments. They all feature massive turning circles, and visibility can be a bit compromised by the sheer amount of sheet metal surrounding you, but they all come with aids such as parking sensors and cameras to help alleviate those stresses.

It's when you put them to work that you start to see the real differences emerge. Towing the 10,000-pound trailer opened our eyes to how differently they behave, with the Nissan singled out for how unhappy it was towing that much weight. The engine struggled, but the transmission was truly the weakest link in the Nissan's powertrain. It had such severe driveline slap on deceleration and foot-off-the-throttle liftoff when accelerating that none of our judges thought it was going to last the life of the truck if it was used mainly as a towing rig. The other trucks were more impressive, with the Ford getting the most praise for its smoothness and ability to make work tasks look easy.

Cars.com photos by Angela Conners

Overview | Track Testing | Towing | Daily Driving | Dynamometer Testing | Results
New grant-funded program creates opportunities for teachers

by Andrea Hahn

CARBONDALE, Ill.  Opportunity knocked. Southern Illinois University Carbondale opened the door and is inviting the community along as well.

A $752,664 grant from the No Child Left Behind fund administered by the Illinois Board of Higher Education K-12 Teacher Enhancement Project will help SIU create more options for elementary, middle and high school teachers, both in the area and from elsewhere in Illinois.

The grant has two parts, one to provide more qualification opportunities for teachers to become dual credit-qualified, and one addressing the need for more bilingual and ESL (English as a Second Language) instructors. In addition, the grant also provides tuition and fees assistance for the school teachers interested in obtaining these credentials.

Dual credit refers to courses high school students may take that provide both high school credit and college credit. Dual credit courses generally represent college freshman or sophomore level courses that fulfill core curriculum, or general education, requirements.

Many students turn to a community college for dual credit courses. Now, though, high school teachers in the area will be able to come to SIU and take the graduate courses that lead to dual credit teaching certification. Then they can offer these courses to students ready for dual credit, giving students the option of taking dual-credit classes in their high schools.

SIU is offering courses that will qualify school teachers in dual credit math, geology, psychology, history and agribusiness economics courses. This array of courses may lead to more course offerings in the high schools. For example, a dual credit history course SIU offers is for a two-semester high school course in History of World Civilizations, a choice not necessarily available in area high schools at all.

The ESL-Bilingual Endorsement courses are for teachers who teach in bilingual programs or who teach students who are learning English. Accordingly, the program offers two kinds of endorsement certifications: ESL (English as a Second Language) and bilingual. The linguistics department already has experience offering these endorsements.

The IBHE-supported program begins this summer. During the academic year especially, courses will be offered in the evening to accommodate high school teachers schedules. The math program has an online component for those who cant easily make it to campus, and other programs may offer online courses in the future.

Meera Komarraju, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and Matthew Keefer, dean of the College of Education and Human Services, spearheaded the drive to obtain the grant. When they learned money was available for this program, but only for a limited time, they assembled a team quickly and put together a proposal on a very short deadline.

After the grant providers saw our initial proposal, they said, There is more money available for this. So we asked for all of it available for our region. We didnt really expect to win the whole award  but we did, Komarraju said.

It makes me feel very hopeful, she said. SIU is an important resource for the region. Before we were a university, we were a teaching college, and this speaks directly to that first mission.

Dual credit in particular is the trend these days, and its something the IBHE wants to promote. Its beneficial to us to be involved in this and to bring teachers who want this qualification to our campus, Keefer said. The grant also gives us the ability to develop online courses, so well be doing that as well.

Registration for program enrollment is currently open for intersession and summer classes. Intercession enrollment closes May 8 with classes to begin May 15; summer class enrollment ends on June 5 with classes beginning June 12. Go here for more information, or email go4ELL.dual@siu.edu.
Aviation Technologies signs agreement with Chinese university

by Pete Rosenbery

CARBONDALE, Ill.  Southern Illinois University Carbondales Aviation Technologies program and Shenyang Aerospace University (SAU) in China will begin an articulation agreement in fall 2018.

The 2+2 project, approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education, will likely bring 50 to 60 students to Carbondale beginning in 2020. The academic concentrations will be on avionics and maintenance with a goal to recruit 150 students. Students who stay in China will receive the Shenyang Aerospace University degree; those who come to SIU will receive a bachelors degree in aviation technologies with a specialization in avionics from SIU Carbondale.

Andy Wang, dean of the College of Applied Sciences and Arts, said. Considering a growing student population from Saudi Arabia in our aviation programs, this new international development with SAU will dramatically increase the diversity of our aviation student body as well as help strengthen the quality of our aviation programs.

Wang noted that the college sponsored Ping Liu, a visiting scholar, from SAU last year. Wang said that he expects more faculty exchanges and research collaboration between the two universities in the future.

SIU Carbondale entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Shenyang Aerospace University in 2013. Typically, about 40 percent of students enrolled in articulation programs between Chinese and American universities will take classes in the United States, Yi Lee, international partnership coordinator with SIU Carbondales Center for International Education, said.

While the programs first class of freshmen will be on the China campus in 2018, recruitment efforts are beginning, Lee said. The university is working on course articulations so that college credits earned in China will transfer to SIUs program. Lee added that Shenyang Aerospace University has also secured Chinese Ministry of Education Scholarships to send tuition paying non-degree seeking exchange students to SIU Carbondale in fall 2018.

As part of the agreement, SAU in the future will require SIU Carbondale aviation instructors to go to China and teach during the summer. The program will run for six years with the possibility to renew, as long as the program passes Chinese education ministry review during the midpoint of the agreement, Lee said.

The project is the same model used for two other programs now on campus, Lee said. About 30 accounting students started last year with another 40 students planned to be on campus next year, he said. Eleven students from Dalian Jiaotong University (DJTU) are now on campus in

SIUs mechanical and civil engineering programs with another 15 students expected from DJTU this fall.

Michael Burgener, chair of SIUs Department of Aviation Technologies, is excited about the agreement, which will build enrollment in the program. Enrollment is now at about 150 students, he said.

This agreement, along with one involving the avionics program with Saudi Arabian Airlines, could double the number of students in SIUs program in a few years, Burgener said. About 10 students from Saudi Arabia who are now on campus and in the Center for English as a Second Language program will start work toward their avionics certificates in June, he said.
Poll explores publics awareness of human trafficking

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Illinois ranks eighth in the nation in the number of cases of human trafficking, which includes many child victims. Yet, an overwhelming majority of Illinois citizens are uninformed about this important human rights issue, according to the results of the latest poll from Southern Illinois University Carbondales Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

The poll provided voters the definition of human trafficking from the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2000) as the act of recruiting, harboring, moving or obtaining a person, by force, fraud or coercion, for the purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage or sexual exploitation. This definition was provided to inform voters on the issue and remove potential bias.

The Simon Poll was March 4 to March 11. The sample included 1,000 randomly selected registered voters and a margin for error for plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Sixty percent of the interviews were with respondents on cell phones.

More than half, 51 percent, of voters surveyed disagree or strongly disagree that sex trafficking affects their area, with 28 percent reporting that it does. One in five voters, 21 percent did not know or refused to answer. Support is strong for legally required human trafficking training for law enforcement. Six in seven voters, 86 percent, said that there should be mandated training on human trafficking in Illinois. This data was replicated across all demographics -- including region, education, party affiliation, age and employment. One in 10 voters, 10 percent, said training on human trafficking should not be legally required.

Illinois large population centers like Chicago, major airports, interstate highway networks and Midwestern location make the state a prime location for human trafficking, Kimberly Palermo, the institutes Celia M. Howard Fellow, said. Pimps, traffickers and family members exploit runaway and homeless youth to infiltrate the multi-billion criminal enterprise, and we have a duty to protect and prevent this through training and public education efforts.

In 2016, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law a bill that created a task force to address this human rights issue statewide, including development of a statewide plan to combat human trafficking, create methods to protect the rights of victims and explore public awareness approaches to educate the state.

Affected by Region: Voters in Chicago, 32 percent, reported most often that sex trafficking affected their area. This was similar in the rural regions outside Cook and the collar counties, where 31 percent of voters reported that sex trafficking affected their area. Only 26 percent of voters from the Chicago suburbs reported that sex trafficking affected their area. Those who strongly disagreed or disagreed that sex trafficking affects their area were 47 percent in Chicago, 53 percent in Chicago suburbs, and 49 percent in downstate areas of Illinois.

Affected by Political Party: Among Republicans, Democrats and independents, Republicans (54 percent) were the most likely to report that they strongly disagree or disagree that sex trafficking affects their area.

In Illinois, the National Human Trafficking Hotline recorded 198 cases, a 35 percent jump over 2015, of human trafficking. Throughout the nation, the Polaris Project, which operates the hotline, has learned of 8,042 cases just this past year. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and private donors fund the project.

Half of the Democrats, 50 percent, said they strongly disagree or disagree that sex trafficking affects their area. Independents followed Democrats, with 47 percent who strongly disagree or disagree. Independents were least likely to strongly agree or agree that sex trafficking affect their local area at 24 percent. Republicans at 32 percent and Democrats at 27 percent reported that sex trafficking affects their area.

Respondents were also asked, Which comes closer to your view: Prostitution or drug-related offenses committed by sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted or such offenses should be tried like any other charge. Overall, 22 percent of voters said that sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted, and 69 percent said the offenses should be tried like any other charge. Nine percent of voters reported they did not know or refused to answer.

Our polling shows much remains to be done to combat an issue many have called a modern form of slavery, Jak Tichenor, institute interim director, said. But Ms. Palermos important work helps build a foundation for bipartisan legislative efforts to make Illinois a national leader in the fight against human trafficking.

Prosecution by Region: A vast majority of Illinoisans said that sexually exploited adults should be tried for offenses committed. This is reflected in the rural regions outside of Cook County and the collar counties at 75 percent, Chicago suburbs at 68 percent and Chicago at 62 percent. One in four voters, 25 percent, in Chicago suburbs said that sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted. This was reflected similarly in Chicago at 26 percent. Only one in five voters, 15 percent, in downstate areas of Illinois said sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted for prostitution or drug-related offenses.

Prosecution by Political Party: Seven in nine, 78 percent, of Republican voters said sexually exploited adults with prostitution or drug-related charges should be tried, like any other charge. Democrats followed with 63 percent and independents at 62 percent. Only 29 percent of Democrats said that sexually exploited adults should not prosecuted for prostitution or drug related charges. Republicans also said sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted at 14 percent and independents at 24 percent.

People can receive help or report a tip of suspected human trafficking by calling the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 888/373-7888 or by sending a text to the Polaris Project at BeFree (233733).

Poll results are available here.

For more information, contact Tichenor at 618/453-4009 or Palermo at 847/345-0269.

The margin of error for the entire sample of 1,000 voters is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. This means that if we conducted the survey 100 times, in 95 of those instances, the population proportion would be within plus or minus the reported margin of error for each subsample. For subsamples, the margin of error increases as the sample size goes down. The margin of error was not adjusted for design effects.

Live telephone interviews were conducted by Customer Research International of San Marcos, Texas using the random digit dialing method. The telephone sample was provided to Customer Research International by Scientific Telephone Samples. Potential interviewees were screened based on whether they were registered voters and quotas based on area code and sex (<60% female). The sample obtained 51% male and 49% female respondents. Interviewers asked to speak to the youngest registered voter at home at the time of the call. Cell phone interviews accounted for 60 percent of the sample. A Spanish language version of the questionnaire and a Spanish-speaking interviewer were made available.

Field work was conducted from March 4 through March 11. No auto-dial or robo polling is included. Customer Research International reports no Illinois political clients. The survey was paid for with non-tax dollars from the Institutes endowment fund. The data was not weighted in any way. Crosstabs for the referenced questions will be on the institutes polling website, http://paulsimoninstitute.siu.edu/opinion-polls/index.php

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Researchs (AAPOR) Transparency Initiative. AAPOR works to encourage objective survey standards for practice and disclosure. Membership in the Transparency Initiative reflects a pledge to practice transparency in reporting survey-based findings.

Simon Institute polling data are archived by four academic institutions for use by scholars and the public. The four open source data repositories are: the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/), the University of Michigans Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (http://home.isr.umich.edu/centers/icpsr/), the University of North Carolinas Odum Institute Dataverse Network (https://dataverse.unc.edu/), and the Simon Institute Collection at OpenSIUC (http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/ppi/).

Note: The Simon Poll and the Southern Illinois Poll are the copyrighted trademarks of the Board of Trustees of Southern Illinois University. Use and publication of these polls is encouraged- but only with credit to the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale.
Humility over hubris

UF President Kent Fuchs addressed graduates over the weekend during spring commencement ceremonies. His speech is below:

Graduates, I want to begin by telling you how immensely proud I am of each and every one of you.

I am proud of the many academic and personal achievements that have earned you a seat here today.

I am proud of the exceptional education your University of Florida diploma represents.

Family members, friends and faculty, I know you are proud of all that you have contributed to these graduates, and to the future they inherit.

Graduates, you, too, deserve to be proud of what you have learned at UF and to have pride in your knowledge.

Thats what commencements are all about: Celebrating all that you know.

But today Im going to switch things up a bit.

I want to celebrate the importance of what you dont know.

I trust that many of you share my frustration at the intellectual hubris we sometimes see, here at universities, in our culture, and in our politics.

I bet that you, too, have been frustrated by the inability to get past this hubris and to change someone elses mind  or simply get them to see your point of view.

So as I send you off, I want to speak to the underrated value of

Humility over hubris 

Inquiry over insistence 

And listening over lecturing 

But wait a minute  it feels hypocritical to say this in my full presidential commencement regalia, which after all is designed to convey that Im a very important person saying very erudite things.

Please excuse me while I remove my tam  thats the official name for this hat here.

President Fuchs puts on Gator cap.

Ive got one more thing. Im going to get rid of my chain here. This is my presidential bling. Could you come up here?

President Fuchs hands chain to student.

Now, I need that back in about 10 minutes!

So now Im ready!

Graduates, the knowledge and expertise you have honed here will serve you so well.

It will give you the answers to tough questions.

I know your answers will be right, and I know they will be just.

When the questions involve conflicting interests, I am confident your answers will, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, give the greatest good to the greatest number.

But I want to stress that even though it will be important for you to have the answers, it will be equally important for you to understand when you do not have the answers.

It will be important for you to recognize, and even to embrace, the moments when you have more to learn  or when you understand that your answers may be wrong or incomplete.

We benefit from knowing what we do not know.

That is my simple message, one that arises from my own personal experience.

I have been fortunate in my 26 months as UFs president to celebrate many amazing public milestones achieved for this university by our faculty, staff and students.

But some of my strongest memories are tied to private moments, when I have been reminded how little I know  how few my talents are  and how much I can learn from others.

Let me illustrate.

Ill show you a brief video of beautiful dancing by our students in the School of Theatre and Dance 

Now let me show you my own not-so-beautiful dancing over the last two years at the University of Florida 

Instead of Cant Stop the Feeling, Justin Timberlake would sing, Please, stop the feeling! if he saw my moves.

My attempts at dancing on camera have renewed my appreciation of real dancers genius and beauty.

I had a similar humbling but enlightening experience when I dropped in on a sign language class taught by UF faculty member Stephen Hardy last fall.

It was intimidating to try my hand at a new language, but it was also refreshing.

I loved learning and laughing with the students while working on my name sign, Fuchs.

President Fuchs performs name sign.

Sign language helps with a name like mine, that is spelled strangely, and is often pronounced in embarrassing ways!

Were fortunate at UF to have an excellent Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences.

One of my most powerful experiences of learning from others occurred last summer, when I met with African-American faculty and staff following several national violent incidents, and heard their personal experiences of discrimination and racism.

It was far more important for me as a leader to listen at that moment, rather than to talk.

By the end of that two-hour conversation everyone was crying, including me, though of course those experiences are completely outside my own.

Listening is what is needed when you are on the side of the angels.

That was the side of beloved UF Professor and Historian Michael Gannon, who died earlier this month at age 89, after a rich life that included being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest  authoring seminal books about Spanish Florida and World War II 

and being one of the most revered teachers in the history of the University of Florida.

Professor Gannon taught over 16,000 students during his career here.

At a time of unrest on this campus in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, he was supportive of student protestors in their tangles with local police and the university administration.

Yet because he listened to all, he was trusted by all.

He was known to students as the movement priest.

He was known to the police as our mediator.

He was known to the administration as a trusted go-between.

And in that role, more than anyone else, Father Gannon was able to help UF and Gainesville mend divisions and achieve greater justice.

Someone who can only shout in angry righteousness  even when they are right  cannot have that same effect.

Dante wrote, I love to doubt, as well as know.

And indeed, the arc to Father Gannons star begins with questioning ourselves.

For when we know that we know very little, its easy to believe that others may add to our storehouse.

When were aware that we dont have it all worked out, its easy to believe that they may have a point.

This leads to conversation, learning, understanding and actual progress.

From my experience, the simple act of conversation also tends to produce

some personal warmth and understanding, even when strong disagreements continue.

We saw a public example in the close personal friendship between liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the late conservative Justice Anton Scalia.

May daring to converse produce more such friendships among our leaders  and among ourselves.

The French philosopher Montaigne wrote, I prefer to be quiet rather than clever.

This gets to me my final point, which is that striving for cerebral humility over hubris also opens us to insight, and even to revelation.

To me, Sting is a great songwriter, but like many great artists he doesnt point to his incredible talent when explaining his creative process.

A melody, Sting wrote, is always a gift from somewhere else.

You just have to learn to be grateful and pray that you will be blessed again some other time.

Graduates, you are poised to compose your own melodies.

Whatever your plans, wherever your destination, you will soon begin the next stage of your life anew.

For many of you, as you start this next stage, you are going to feel like you know very little, perhaps the way you did your very first day at UF.

Since you are Gators, I have every faith that you will quickly get your bearings and realize you are prepared to overcome any challenge.

But as you rocket forward, remember to carry with you what it felt like to know very little.

For if you remain willing to embrace your intellectual humility, you will always continue to learn.

You will always stay open to other ideas and perspectives  ready to pursue the truths and the triumphs that are only achievable when human beings choose

Humility over hubris 

Inquiry over insistence 

And listening over lecturing.

Before I put back on my tam and retrieve my presidential bling, let me leave you with an old Irish blessing that expresses my personal affection for each one of you.

May the sun shine gently on your face.

May the rain fall soft upon your fields.

May the wind be at your back.

May the road rise to meet you.

And may the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand.

Until we meet again.

Graduates, congratulations!

It is great to be a Florida Gator!
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-30 23:54:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TEHRAN, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Sunday that Iran will support earlier decision by the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to extend oil output freeze agreement.

"If majority of OPEC and non-OPEC states agree to extend the oil freeze deal, Iran will also get along," Zanganeh told reporters after his meeting with the visiting European Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.

Positive signals have been received for extending oil freeze agreement for the second half of 2017 and Iran will accompany other member-states of OPEC if they support the extension, he was quoted as saying.

In their meeting last November, OPEC members unanimously agreed on the oil price of 60 U.S. dollars per barrel, hence they agreed to cut output by 1.2 million bpd down to 32.5 million bpd for the first six months of 2017.

Non-OPEC members including Russia, Oman and Mexico also agreed to cut 558,000 bpd off their production.

In April, Zangeneh said that extending a crucial oil output agreement by world's biggest producers helped stabilize prices in markets since its implementation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 00:49:08|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NEW DELHI, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in India Sunday evening for a two-day visit, officials said.

On Monday Erdogan is scheduled to hold a delegation-level talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The talks, according to foreign ministry officials, will be held around issues pertaining to key bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj will also call on the Turkish president during his visit.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a referendum this month with a narrow margin. The referendum gave him more executive powers as the president.

Erdogan, according to officials, is accompanied by some ministers, senior officials and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

"A number of agreements are expected to be signed in several areas after the talks," an official said.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee will also host a banquet in honor of the Turkish president.
LONDON, April 30 (Xinhua) -- A 21-year-old woman shot by police during an anti-terror operation earlier this week in London has been arrested after being freed from hospital, police said Sunday.

She was shot during a counter terrorism investigation when armed officers entered an address in Harlesden Road in northwest London on Thursday, April 27.

The Metropolitan Police said during the operation, the woman, who was one of the subjects of the investigation, was shot by police.

The Met said on Sunday afternoon the woman was discharged from hospital and arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. She has been taken into custody at a south London police station.

Six other people were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

They included a 21-year-old man arrested near Harlesden Road, a 20-year-old woman arrested at the address in Harlesden Road, a 43-year-old woman arrested in Kent, a 16-year-old boy arrested at the address in Harlesden Road, a 28-year-old man arrested at the address in Harlesden Road and a 28-year-old woman arrested at the address in Harlesden Road.

Warrants were granted Saturday at Westminster Magistrates' Court on allow all six suspects to be detained until dates between May 2 and May 4. They are currently in custody at a south London Police station.

The Met said in their statement: "The address in Harlesden Road and persons connected with it had been under observation by counter terrorism officers as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation. Searches at the address are ongoing, as well as two further searches at linked addresses elsewhere in London."

This incident was not connected to the arrest in Whitehall earlier Thursday.
TUNIS, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Security sources said a Tunisian militant blew himself up during a gunfire on Sunday between the National Guard Forces and a group of armed extremists in the central province of Sidi Bouzid.

The group was entrenched in a house in the province's capital city that bears the same name, said a source on condition of anonymity.

According to the national guard forces, one militant was killed and two others arrested by the security forces.

The operation is still continuing with the entire perimeter of the house sealed off, local media reported.
ADDIS ABABA, April 30 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) has called on the South Sudan warring parties to desist from escalating violence in the world's youngest nation.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the AU Commission, has expressed his deep concern over the increasing military clashes in South Sudan, especially in the restive Upper Nile region, according to a statement of the pan-African bloc on Sunday.

The Chairperson called on the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGoNU) and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition and other armed movements in South Sudan to immediately desist from fighting, which continues to negatively impact on the security, safety and life of civilians in the country.

"The renewed fighting in South Sudan is a clear indication that the warring parties continue to believe in a military solution, fully disregarding the plight of innocent civilians which they claim to represent and defend," he said.

"The immediate consequences of the military clashes on the civilian population are shattering and therefore it should be understood that those engaging in this callous behaviour should be held accountable."

He strongly called on the TGoNU, as well as on the other warring parties to immediately cease hostilities and uphold their responsibilities to protect civilians as provided for in the Constitution of the country and the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 02:54:36|Editor: Mengjie

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DAMASCUS, April 30 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 rebels are believed to have been killed during a three-day infighting over control of territory east of the capital Damascus, a monitor group reported Sunday.

The infighting started on Friday, when the Jaish al-Islam, or Islam Army, unleashed a wide-scale offensive against the Front for Liberating the Levant, previously known as the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, in the Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The UK-based watchdog said the aim of the attack by the Saudi-backed Islam Army is to strip the Qatari-backed Nusra Front of areas in Ghouta.

The Observatory said at least five civilians were killed during the infighting.

Meanwhile, about 3,000 people protested on Sunday in Eastern Ghouta, demanding an end to the rebel-on-rebel battles, said the Observatory, adding that the Islam Army opened fire at the protestors to disperse them.

The Islam Army issued a statement later on Sunday, saying it "apologizes" for the shooting on civilians by its fighters during the protests, calling it a "wrong conduct."

The Eastern Ghouta, a sprawling, largely-agricultural land, has been long out of the government control and dominated by foreign-backed jihadi factions.

In recent months, the Syrian army and allied fighters succeeded to lay a kind of siege on that part of the capital, prompting the rebels to launch a surprise attack last month against the government-controlled east of Damascus, but they failed to make any breakthrough during two waves of attacks.

Observers believe that the infighting reflects the conflicting interests of regional backers, as each group wants to have the stronger foot on ground east of the capital.

The Nusra Front, or the Front for Liberating the Levant, has been branded by the UN and the international community as a terrorist group, and the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition has been targeting its leaders in Idlib Province in northwestern Syria.

The infighting in the Ghouta area plays into the hands of the government, whose troops fought intense battles when the rebels launched their major offensive from that part against the capital last month.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 05:00:17|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Syrian pro-government forces hold a position as smoke billows following an air strike on an Islamic State (IS) group position in the Hatabat al-Bab area, in Aleppo's eastern countryside, on January 24, 2016. (AFP / GEORGE OURFALIAN)

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon said on Sunday at least 352 civilians were killed as a result of U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to match 2017.

In its monthly report of assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.

According to the Pentagon, 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

In addition, the U.S. military reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present which were not previously announced.

"Although the coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimizes the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable," said the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's figures contradict the assessment by London-based Amnesty International, which estimated that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition airstrikes in Syria alone.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 05:05:19|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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WARSAW, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Poland has decided to suspend from duty an honorary consul in Ohio of the U.S., after she allegedly posted a controversial photo of European Council President Donald Tusk, Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported on Sunday.

"It is very good that such a decision has been made, because the matter is very complex and serious," Maria Szonert-Binienda, the honorary consul, said at a forum in the Polish city of Torun.

"I have never done any photomontage, and the one which triggered the storm was not uploaded by me. I emphasize again that my social media profile account was hacked, and I do not possess one on Twitter," she said.

"I have nothing to do with the photomontage of Mr Donald Tusk in SS uniform," she said, referring to the digitally-altered photo showing Tusk dressed as a Nazi German SS officer.

On Saturday afternoon, Szonert-Binienda had said that her social media profile had been hacked.

Also on Saturday, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo expressed her hope that the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs would "act quick in the case".

Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, had bitter relations with the current Polish government, led by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party under its leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 06:45:33|Editor: Mengjie

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WASHINGTON, April 30 (Xinhua) --- U.S. former President Barack Obama has been under fire from the progressive wing within the Democratic Party after he was reportedly to be paid 400,000 U.S. dollars for speaking at a Wall Street company's healthcare conference in September.

"At a time when people are so frustrated with the power of Wall Street and the big-money interests, I think it is unfortunate that President Obama is doing this," U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, the strongest rival for Hillary Clinton during last year's Democratic primaries, said last week.

"I was troubled by that," Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and a leading role in the Democratic Party, has said, expressing her disdain for "the influence of money" in Washington swamp.

However, Obama's spokesman has rejected that Wall Street would sway the former president, citing the financial reforms implemented when Obama was in office.

"With regard to this or any speech involving Wall Street sponsors, I'd just point out that in 2008, Barack Obama raised more money from Wall Street than any candidate in history," Eric Schultz said in a statement.

During a 90-minute event last week, Obama was interviewed by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin about what he missed most about the White House and how he dealt with frustrating moments during his presidency.

"For starters, by not having a Twitter account," Obama reportedly quipped in response.

He said he missed sitting on the Truman Balcony of the White House in the summer and looking upon the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, according to the local media.

He also told the audience about his transition back into civilian life, saying he still hasn' t drive a car and is learning how to use the coffee machine in his new D.C. home, said the reports.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 06:50:35|Editor: Mengjie

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RIO DE JANEIRO, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President Michel Temer on Sunday dismissed a massive nationwide general strike against proposed austerity measures as just democracy in action.

The measures "initially generate objections and protests, but they are typical of the robust democracy we have in our country," Temer told reporters following a public event in Sao Paulo.

Temer also indicated his government will not be swayed by public opinion, saying "whatever happens, whether there are protests or not, Brazil continues and will continue to work."

To reduce the public deficit, the government has drafted a highly unpopular labor reform package, that includes raising the retirement age, and has slashed social spending, leading unions to organize a general strike that millions appear to have taken part in on Friday.

A poll published by regional daily Folha de Sao Paulo showed Temer's government with a mere 9 percent approval rating, while a whopping 61 percent of the people rated his administration as bad or awful.

The survey by polling firm Datafolha queried 2,781 registered voters across 172 cities on Wednesday and Thursday prior to the strike, and has a 2-percent margin of error.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 08:20:49|Editor: An

People of Wa ethnic group and tourists take part in the "Monihei" Carnival in Cangyuan County, southwest China's Yunnan Province, April 30, 2017. As a tradition, Wa people throw and smear muddy water onto each other to express their wishes for health and happiness during the "Monihei" carnival. (Xinhua/Chen Haining)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 09:11:16|Editor: An

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SEOUL, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Hyundai Motor, South Korea's biggest automaker, has selected Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) as its first battery supplier in China to enhance cooperation in new energy vehicles.

"We selected CATL as our first Chinese battery partner as Hyundai seeks to diversify its supplier base," a Hyundai official who declined to be identified told Xinhua Monday.

The official said CATL was widely recognized for its competitiveness in the automobile battery market.

The Fujian Province-based company will provide batteries for Hyundai's plug-in Sonata sedans that are expected to hit the Chinese market in the first half of 2018.

The Sonata plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) models would have both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor.

Beijing Hyundai Motor, Hyundai's Chinese venture, said at the Shanghai auto show in April that it would introduce six new energy vehicles in China within a short period of time beginning with an electric variant sedan model in the latter half of this year.

The CATL is supplying automobile batteries to renowned carmakers and Chinese brands. It plans to start operation of a new factory in east China's Jiangsu Province next year.

It is forecast to increase its battery output capacity six-fold by 2020 to 50 gigawatt-hours (GWh).
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 09:41:20|Editor: Mengjie

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WASHINGTON, April 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday spoke separately with leaders of Singapore and Thailand to reaffirm the United States' commitment to the Southeastern Asian countries, the White House said.

In a telephone conversation, Trump and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hailed the two countries' trade and investment, security cooperation, as well as collaboration on regional and global challenges.

Speaking with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, Trump affirmed his administration's commitment to playing an "active and leading role" in Asia, in close cooperation with "partners and allies like Thailand," according to the White House.

Trump and Prayut expressed a shared interest in strengthening trade and economic ties.

The businessman-turned-president invited both leaders to visit the White House.

On Saturday, Trump discussed with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte regional security issues in Southeast Asia, including the threat posed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Duterte's clampdown on drugs was also mentioned during the conversation.

Describing the conversation as "very friendly," the White House said in a statement that the two presidents acknowledged "the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world."

Trump also invited Duterte to Washington to discuss the bilateral relationship, "which is now heading in a very positive direction," said the statement.

The Obama administration had raised concerns over Manila's extra-judicial killings of drug-trafficking suspects. A meeting between Obama and Duterte was called off last year after Duterte publicly "insulted" Obama.
SUVA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The assistance for Fiji's Conference of Parties (COP23) presidency has been the subject of talks in Sydney between Voreqe Bainimarama, Fiji's prime minister, and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull.

Bainimarama is in Australia for a four-day visit and met Turnbull at his home in Sydney's eastern suburbs to discuss this matter.

Bainimarama told Turnbull that it was critical to preserve the multilateral consensus contained in the Paris Agreement for decisive cuts in carbon emissions to arrest the current rate of global warming and reduce the impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events such as Tropical Cyclone Winston.

He said Fiji had deeply appreciated Australian assistance in the wake of the devastation caused by Winston in February 2016.

Bainimarama appealed to Australia to stand shoulder to shoulder with Fiji as it worked as COP23 President to keep up the momentum to tackle the underlying causes of such events on behalf of every global citizen.
CANBERRA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Australia's Trade Minister Steven Ciobo will this week lead a delegation of Australian business leaders to the United States, in an attempt to further promote Australia as an "investment destination."

In a statement released on Monday, Ciobo said the delegation would meet with U.S. business leaders at the Milken Institute Global Conference, while the minister said he would also be speaking at a summit to discuss current international trade issues amidst increasingly protectionist attitudes.

"During the visit, I will meet senior U.S. business representatives to promote Australia as an investment destination," Ciobo said in the statement.

"Our economy offers strong opportunities in industries including tourism, infrastructure, resources, and advanced manufacturing," he added.

Ciobo said that Australia's close relationship with the United States was reflected by the fact that the U.S. remains Australia's biggest source of inbound investment, especially with the weaker Australian dollar offering value to U.S.-based businesses.

The trade minister said that further U.S. investment in Australia would bring long-term benefits not only to the economy, but to the nation's employment outlook as well.

"American companies are investing across our economy including in mining, financial services, manufacturing; and professional, scientific and technical services. This is creating thousands of Australian jobs," Ciobo said.
By Matt Walsh

CANBERRA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- In an attempt to bring the nation's budget back to balance, the Australian government will target around 20,000 welfare cheats who are choosing to rort the system instead of actively search for work, Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said on Monday.

Ahead of the federal budget to be handed down by Treasurer Scott Morrison next Tuesday, the government has confirmed it would be targeting welfare crooks, after figures revealed that a growing number of jobless Australians were taking advantage of a loophole which allows them to access welfare payments despite missing mandatory "appointments."

Data obtained by local media showed that last year 7,006 Australians skipped their welfare appointments but "made contact" before the fortnightly "cut-off," meaning their welfare payments continued despite missing the meetings.

Around half of the 7,006 continued to do this for at least six fortnightly periods, meaning they were paid 433 U.S. dollars every two weeks despite not making physical contact with the welfare body. Another 13,000 Australians were identified as exhibiting "unusual behavior."

Speaking to News Corp on Monday, Cash said that welfare was to be used by Australians genuinely struggling to find employment, not by those "who have no desire to work."

"Australia's welfare system is there to provide a safety net for those in need, not to fund a lifestyle choice," Cash said.

"The (government) continues to look at ways in which to strengthen the system so that community expectations are met and to ensure that those who can work, do work."

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge backed Cash's sentiments. He told News Corp that while the majority of Australians who used welfare were genuinely in need of the help, there were a problem few who were "gaming the system" at the cost of the taxpayer.

"We need to close these loopholes so that jobseekers can't get around their obligations," he said on Monday.

"It is in their interests as much as the community's for them to get back to work as quickly as possible, because the longer a person is on welfare, the steeper the road back to employment."

"We need a system that recognizes that some have serious issues in their life and need assistance. But for those who are gaming the system, we need to introduce stronger, more immediate consequences."

Meanwhile Treasurer Scott Morrison's plan to pass on tax breaks for first-home buyers in Australia has drawn criticism from think tanks, with Deloitte Access Economics warning that measures slated by the government would not return the budget to surplus, meaning it could put the Australian economy's AAA credit rating at risk.

Deloitte's director, Chris Richardson told Fairfax Media that proposed tax cuts, while positive in theory, would not simply "whirr (the budget) back into surplus."

"As a nation, we need to have a serious conversation," he said in comments published on Monday. "We've voted ourselves extra spending but not a way to pay for that spending. The government's approach seems to do little other than promising that 'she'll be right.'"

Responding on radio on Monday, Morrison refused to say the government would bring the budget back to balance by Fiscal Year 2020-2021.

Earlier, the Treasurer said the government would also look into re-evaluating the allocation of the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) following a request from the Western Australian state government.
SYDNEY, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Melbourne's efforts to remove homeless people from the city's streets has seen the rough sleepers flock to Geelong.

According to front line services, demand for homeless support has surged in Geelong, Victoria's second biggest city, since the Melbourne's council voted in February to ban sleeping on the street in public places.

Andrew Edgar, coordinator of the Barwon Region Homeless Network, said there were at least 1,000 people experiencing homeless in the Barwon region of Geelong alone.

"I have been hearing some people that have been rough-sleeping in Melbourne are now coming to Geelong," Edgar told News Limited on Monday.

"Local homelessness services are seeing a significant increase in demand."

He said that while the new rules in Melbourne were partly responsible, the closure of manufacturing plants in Geelong was also a factor.

John Hutchinson, support coordinator of the Salvation Army in Geelong, said support services were stretched thin.

"There are no beds available ... everything's full," Hutchinson said.

"Speaking to the entry point - where anyone over 25 presents - they're definitely seeing an increase.

"On Friday April 21 they had 19 walk-ins, with nothing available, so they've had to say 'no' to everyone."

Data from the Department of Housing and Human Services (DHHS) released in January said that Geelong had 567 people living without shelter.

However, the Geelong Regional Alliance (G21) agreed with Edgar that the number had climbed to at least 1,000 in the last four months.

"While the homelessness of others might not be visible to us day-to-day, the need is very real and it is of serious concern that it appears to be multiplying in our region," G21 executive Elaine Carbines said.
Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hold hands during the opening ceremony of the 30th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Pasay City, the Philippines, April 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Rouelle Umali)

MANILA, April 30 (Xinhua) -- The 30th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has concluded here which started Saturday, with a chairman's statement on further strengthening ASEAN's integration process and making the regional body a global player.

Guided by the theme of "Partnering for Change, Engaging the World", the leaders from ASEAN gathered in Manila to reaffirm their aspiration for an ASEAN that works to effect positive change in the lives of the peoples, said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the opening of the summit.

During the summit, the leaders exchanged views on pressing regional and international issues, including building people-oriented and people-centered ASEAN, maintaining a peaceful and stable region, advancing inclusive and innovative-led growth, promoting ASEAN's resiliency, and promoting ASEAN as a model for regional integration and a global player.

The leaders welcomed the progress made in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations during their summit, saying the giant free trade pact will boost global trade.

"We emphasized that the sluggish economic environment and trends towards protection increases the need to achieve a modern, comprehensive, high quality and mutually beneficial RCEP Agreement, which has the potential to boost global economic growth, deepen regional economic integration and facilitate equitable economic development for all RCEP participating countries," the leaders said in statement issued by President Duterte at the end of the summit.

In the document, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to assisting Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam in meeting their region-wide targets, with a view to realizing regional integration and advancing sustainable development.

According to the statement, ASEAN's combined GDP stood at 2.55 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016 with a robust year-on-year GDP growth rate of 4.7 percent despite the challenging global environment. Growth in the region's economy is expected to accelerate to 4.8 percent in 2017 supported by solid growth of private consumption and investment as well as expansionary fiscal policy.

Meanwhile, ASEAN's merchandise trade remained resilient at 1.06 trillion dollars in the first half of 2016. ASEAN also attracted a total of 52.94 billion dollars foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in the first half of 2016.

The ASEAN leaders reaffirmed their commitment that the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will be implemented in a mutually-reinforcing manner to build a truly inclusive and people-oriented, people-centered ASEAN Community.

In the chairman's statement, ASEAN leaders expressed grave concern over recent developments on the Korean Peninsula, including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) two nuclear tests in 2016 and subsequent ballistic missile launches.

ASEAN leaders called on the DPRK to immediately comply fully with its obligations arising from all relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and stressed the importance of exercising self-restraint in the interest of maintaining peace, security and stability in the region and the world.

The leaders reiterated their full support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and for concerned parties to explore all avenues for immediate dialogue.

In the statement, the leaders welcomed the operationalization of the Guidelines for Hotline Communications among Senior Officials of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of ASEAN Member States and China in Response to Maritime Emergencies.

The document said ASEAN leaders took note of the improving cooperation between ASEAN and China, and welcomed the progress to complete a framework of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC) by mid-2017 in order to facilitate the early conclusion of an effective COC.

ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, was established 50 years ago. The regional body is to commemorate the Grand Celebration of ASEAN's Golden Anniversary on Aug. 8 this year.
SYDNEY, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A man has been arrested on the roof of Victoria's government house after a major security breach on Monday morning.

The man, who is reported to be suffering from mental health issues, was carried off the roof of the building, which is the home of Victorian Governor Linda Dessau, on a stretcher and treated for minor injuries.

He was arrested by Victoria Police Critical Incident Response Team officers at 8 a.m. local time on Monday, 15 minutes after he gained access to the roof.

The building has been put into lockdown as authorities were investigating how he was able to get past security on the premises.

Governor Dessau, who acts as the state's representative of Queen Elizabeth II, was not at government house at the time of the incident.

A spokesperson confirmed she was in Singapore on an official visit.

"The governor is appreciative of the swift response from emergency services," the spokesperson said in a statement.
SYDNEY, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Teenage girls in Victoria are being forced into marriages in record numbers, police data has revealed.

Authorities in the state are investigating dozens of child-bride and forced marriage cases, with Victoria accounting for almost a third of such infringements in Australia.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigated 69 incidents of forced or underage marriage in Australia in financial year 2016, 19 of which were in Victoria.

The national figure was up from 33 investigated cases in the previous financial year and 11 cases in financial year 2014.

Law enforcement agencies consider the investigated cases the tip of the iceberg, with many victims of forces marriages being too fearful to contact police.

Reports were most commonly made by concerned school principals, teachers or counsellors.

The release of the data came as Melbourne man Majed Mamosi was likely to be the first person convicted under federal forced-marriage laws introduced in 2013 that criminalized forced marriage.

The laws have proven difficult to prosecute due to a reliance on victims testifying in court but Mamosi's guilty plea to a forced-marriage charge in April meant the victim's testimony was not required.

Mamosi admitted that he had arranged a forced marriage in Melbourne's northern suburbs in 2015.

Forced marriage in Australia carries a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment.

A spokesperson for the AFP said that because the 2013 legislation was not retrospective, forced marriages that occurred before March 2013 could not be prosecuted.

Another Melbourne man, Ibrahim Omerdic, is awaiting trial after being charged with forcing a marriage in 2015.

It is alleged that Omerdic performed a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and a man twice her age at a mosque in Noble Park, 25 km southeast of Melbourne.

The girl's "husband" pleaded guilty to marrying the girl in March.
YANGON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has vowed to continue to strive for national reconciliation and domestic peace, setting May 24 to hold the second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference in Nay Pyi Taw for five days, a dialogue open to all ethnic armed groups.

It was designated at the Joint Implementation Coordination Meeting (JICM) in the capital recently, held for the first time during the incumbent government and was attended by State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services Vice Senior-General Soe Win, leaders of eight signatory armed groups to the Nationwide Ceasefire Accord (NCA).

The government and eight cease-fire signatory armed groups also agreed on eight points with their continued peace process which include exploration of basic policy accepted by all sides and holding of national level political dialogue with groups that have not yet been inclusive and drawing of standard of operating producer (SOP).

The JICM agreed to make coordination on undertakings during the transition period from the date of signing the NCA to reaching a union agreement.

Other agreed points include tasking the JICM to demarcate the controversial cease-fire area between the government forces and the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) / Shan State Army (SSA)-South and striving to bring non-ceasfire signatory groups to join the NCA.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has been holding national region-oriented and race-oriented political dialogue in regions and states across the nation since January. The latest national level political dialogue took place in Taunggyi, Myanmar's Shan state-South, in April.

Representatives from the self-administered regions and zones submitted a total of 70 papers respectively related with politics, economy, land issues and natural resources and environmental conservation which were read during the dialogue involving the government, armed groups and political parties as well as the civil societies.

The outcome of all regional dialogues will be submitted to the upcoming second meeting of the Panglong Peace Conference expected to gather about 700 representatives.

Myanmar's previous U Thein Sein's government and eight armed groups signed the NCA on Oct. 15, 2015, and the first meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Conference was held in Nay Pyi Taw in August 2016, four months after the new government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) took office.

The first meeting of the Panglong Conference agreed to find solutions through coordination and discussions towards the goal of achieving peace.

That conference called for prompt implementation of peace without delay and coordination of diversified stances and opinions expressed in the event.

The eight signatories mainly include Kayin National Union (KNU), Arakan Liberation Party (ALP) and Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) / Shan State Army (SSA)-South.

In the latest development, of the seven remaining non-ceasefire signatory armed groups, five, which are members of a coalition of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), proposed accession to NCA in March. They are Kayinni National Progressive Party (KNPP), New Mon State Party (NMSP), Arakan National Council (ANC), Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) and Wa National Organization (WNO).

State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi stressed the importance of inking the NCA which she said would pave way for them to attend the upcoming second meeting of the Panglong Peace Conference.

Official media commented that the five armed groups' decision has created bright rays of hope for national reconciliation and peace which has shined a positive light on many successive eras of Myanmar history of seeking peace.

However, Aung San Suu Kyi warned that "at such a time of great importance, undesirable destructive elements and instigation intended to harm peace might emerge," urging leaders of the ethnic nationalities and her compatriots to be extremely vigilant.

With the proposed accession to NCA, there remains only two armed groups yet to follow suit, which are the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) or Shan State Army (SSA)-North.

The five armed groups' promised signing of the NCA came after year-long negotiations, Aung San Suu Kyi said.
By Feng Yingqiu

YANGON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar finance authorities have submitted a proposal to the government on seeking permission to grant operation of all types of insurance services to the private sector.

Running of all 40 types of insurance plus additional farmers insurance and overseas employment life insurance are expected to be granted by the government soon, said U Kyaw Win, minister for planning and finance.

Out of 40 types of insurance, the government's Myanmar Insurance (MI) has so far allowed licenses for only 12 types of them with private companies. Of them, traveling insurance, total vehicle insurance, fire insurance and life insurance are the best sellers.

MI has granted licenses to 11 private insurance companies since May 2013. Starting from 2015, MI has planned to open up more insurance categories to private companies.

These categories include products like mercantile marine insurance, credit guarantee and health insurance, but it still limits life and general insurance.

The Insurance Business Supervisory Board, chaired by Deputy Finance Minister Maung Maung Thein, said at present Myanmar has 11 private insurance companies with its premium income reaching more than 72 billion Kyats (65.45 million U.S. dollars) annually.

The country has insurance penetration of 0.1 percent of GDP, an increase of about 4.5 times compared with one decade ago. However total premium income is small relative to the country's economy.

Following credit guarantee insurance that MI launched in July 2014, health insurance was the second new product before the launch of weather index insurance as its third new product.

Health insurance policies has been introduced for the first time in Myanmar under a one-year trial since July 1, 2015 and people aged between 6 and 65 years are set to be eligible for the health insurance.

In the latest development, nine local Myanmar private insurance companies began a new version of health insurance sale to local citizens and foreigners in January this year which guarantees to pay partial cost of hospitalization expense and insurance coverage for accidental deaths.

Since 2012, the country has started liberalizing the sector, granting licenses to private companies but restricting them to operating only six kinds of insurance services.

Of the 20 foreign insurance companies waiting to enter Myanmar's insurance market, three have been reportedly to operate in some special economic zones.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 11:36:42|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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MACAO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Macao has adopted a series of measures in terms of traffic control, tourism assistance and consumer rights protection during the Labor Day holiday, the special administrative region's tourism office said on Monday.

Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) said that in order to safeguard visitor rights and ensure tourism quality, it has prepared a variety of measures such as carrying more scrupulous inspections, sending reminder letters to local businesses, providing food guide, attending to enquiries at different locations and supporting entities in organizing festive and holiday activities.

Besides, MGTO said it maintains regular communication and exchange of information with Macao's Consumer Council, Public Security Police Force, Customs Service, Marine and Water Bureau, and Transport Bureau, to ensure a quick response to tourists' asking for help.

The Labor Day holiday in 2016 saw about 530,000 tourist arrivals in Macao. During the four-day Easter holiday from April 14 to 17, 2017, Macao registered a total of 427,000 tourist arrivals.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 12:13:23|Editor: An

Tourists visit Yuanjiacun Village of Liquan County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, April 30, 2017. Yuanjiacun Village, which has been taking advantage of its rural resources to develop its folk tourism, has attracted three million tourists each year for three years in a row with annual turnover exceeding one billion yuan (about 145 million US dollars). (Xinhua/Tao Ming)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 11:56:48|Editor: Mengjie

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LOS ANGELES, April 30 (Xinhua) -- At least eight people were shot by a beer-drinking gunman at a San Diego apartment pool in the United States on Sunday night, will the suspect killed by the police later, KFMB-TV reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 12:11:52|Editor: Mengjie

Pianist Herbie Hancock (C), singer Cassandra Wilson (R) and singer Orlando Valle (L) perform on the sixth annual International Jazz Day in Havana, Cuba, on April 30, 2017. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) selected the Cuban capital as the 2017 Global Host City for the sixth annual International Jazz Day. An all-star global concert was held here Sunday to send a message of peace and promote intercultural dialogue through music. (Xinhua/Str)

HAVANA, April 30 (Xinhua) -- An all-star global concert was held here Sunday to send a message of peace and promote intercultural dialogue through music.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) selected the Cuban capital as the 2017 Global Host City for the sixth annual International Jazz Day on Sunday.

Streamed live to 125 countries, the show was directed by Herbie Hancock, UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador for Intercultural Dialogue, together with the Cuban pianist and composer Chucho Valdes, who had won multiple awards.

Hancock thanked the citizens of the Caribbean nation for their support of jazz music, noting that the "Afro-Cuban jazz and its rich history have played a pivotal role in the evolution and enrichment of the entire jazz genre."

Recalling an old African proverb as saying that "a city without music is a dead city," Hancock said Havana today is the most lively and dynamic place on the planet.

The musical parade at the stage of the Havana Grand Theater also included the American actor, musician and rapper Will Smith, along with other world-acclaimed performers such as Quincy Jones, Esperanza Spalding, Cassandra Wilson, Ambrose Akinmusire, Carl Allen, Regina Carter and Marcus Miller, among others.

Cuba was represented by other outstanding jazz figures such as Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Alfredo Rodriguez Jr., Bobby Carcasses, Roberto Fonseca, Francisco Amat and Barbarito Torres.

The performance also featured artists from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, and concluded with John Lennon's song "Imagine," which was considered a call for peace and hope among the people.

The special gala was attended by Cuba's First Vice President Miguel Diaz Canel and UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

"Today, we celebrate the international art form of jazz and its power to promote dialogue among cultures, to make the most of diversity, to deepen respect for human rights and all forms of expression," Bokova said in her statement marking the event.

"The story of jazz is written into the quest for human dignity, democracy and civil rights. Its rhythms and variety have given strength to the struggle against all forms of discrimination and racism -- this is the message we must take across the world today," she said.

For an entire week before International Jazz Day, Cuba throughout the island hosted several concerts, workshops, lectures and musical jazz sessions given by well-known figures of the musical genre.

Over 190 countries across the world held live performances and educational activities on Sunday to mark International Jazz Day.
SUVA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Fiji's Ministry of Health and Medical Services has declared a dengue fever outbreak in the country after 913 people were diagnosed with the fever between January and April.

Mike Kama, national advisor for communicable diseases, confirmed one person had died during the period, the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation news website reported Monday.

Kama said out of the 913 cases, more than 85 percent were recorded in western and central divisions.

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services has warned Fijians, visitors and tourists to be careful.

It has also urged people to reduce mosquito density by cleaning up and discarding the breeding sites of mosquitoes.
SYDNEY, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Australian operation of social media giant Facebook came under fire on Monday, after internal documents revealed they were targeting vulnerable young Australians with their advertising.

In a document obtained by The Australian, the process of utilising the data acquired by Facebook to subsequently target young, vulnerable Australians was outlined, with the site determining when children felt "stressed," "overwhelmed" and "nervous," among other feelings, using this to determine relevant advertisements.

Facebook in a statement issued an apology, and said they will conduct an internal investigation into the conduct.

"We have opened an investigation to understand the process failure and improve our oversight. We will undertake disciplinary and other processes as appropriate," a spokesperson said.

The leaked 23-page document was authored by two of the company's top executives in Australia -- David Fernandez, their national relationships agency manager, and Andy Sinn -- who claimed in the report that the data they collected was able to accurately predict what times in the week the children would experience different things.

"Anticipatory emotions are more likely to be expressed early in the week, while reflective emotions increase on the weekend," the authors said.

"Monday-Thursday is about building confidence; the weekend is for broadcasting achievements."

The actions of the social media giant may be in breach of the Australian Code for Advertising & Marketing Communications to Children guidelines, which prohibits the collection of any data from those under the age of 14 that may be used to identify them.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 13:57:03|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Editor's note: The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held May 14 to 15 in Beijing. To give readers better knowledge of this international meeting on the Belt and Road Initiative, Xinhua will release a series of reports.

BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation scheduled for mid-May is a high-profile international meeting on the Belt and Road Initiative, a China-proposed trade and infrastructure plan connecting Asia with Europe and Africa.

China will use the forum to build a more open and efficient international cooperation platform and a closer, stronger partnership network as well as to push for a more just, reasonable and balanced international governance system.

Here is what you need to know about the initiative and the upcoming forum.

-- NEW VISION

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which takes the theme "strengthening international cooperation and co-building the 'Belt and Road' for win-win development," will be held from May 14 to 15 in Beijing. President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony and host a round-table leaders' summit.

The forum has been designed to pool more consensus, identify cooperation directions, push forward the implementation of projects, and improve supporting systems.

-- HISTORIC LEGACY

The Belt and Road comprises the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, which were put forward for the first time by President Xi in September and October 2013 in his subsequent state visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia.

Building upon the spirit of the ancient Silk Road -- "peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning, and mutual benefits" -- which continues to this day, the initiative targets a modern transnational network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa, with the aim of promoting common development among all parties involved.

-- INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

More than 100 countries and international organizations have already joined the initiative, of which more than 40 have signed cooperation agreements with China.

The United Nations General Assembly, the UN Security Council and APEC have all incorporated or reflected Belt and Road cooperation in their resolutions and documents.

-- FACILITIES CONNECTIVITY

A series of major transport, energy and communication projects, including the multi-purpose road-rail Padma Bridge in Bangladesh, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and China Railway Express trains to Europe - have witnessed breakthroughs over the past three years and more.

-- UNIMPEDED TRADE

Trade between China and countries along the Belt and Road totaled 6.3 trillion yuan (about 913 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, more than a quarter of China's total trade value.

Chinese businesses have invested more than 50 billion U.S. dollars in countries along the Belt and Road, and helped build 56 economic and trade cooperation zones in 20 of those countries, generating nearly 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in tax revenue and 180,000 local jobs.

-- FINANCIAL INTEGRATION

China has dedicated 40 billion U.S. dollars to a Silk Road Fund and set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015 to provide financing for infrastructure improvement in Asia.

So far, the AIIB has seen its membership increase to 70, with the multilateral development bank's total lending amounting to over 2 billion dollars.

-- ECONOMIC CORRIDORS

China is also pushing forward six economic corridors in the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, namely, the New Eurasian Continental Bridge, the China-Mongolia-Russia corridor, the China-Central Asia-West Asia corridor, the China-Indochina Peninsula corridor, the China-Pakistan corridor, and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar corridor.

Together, the six corridors form a trade and transport network across Eurasia, laying a solid foundation for regional and transregional development plans.

-- PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE BOND

While the "hard connection" of rail lines and ports brings countries closer through ease of travel and logistics, "soft connections" will bring their people together.

On June 22, 2016, during a speech at the Legislative Chamber of the Uzbek Supreme Assembly in Tashkent, Xi called for building a green, healthy, intelligent and peaceful Silk Road, laying out the future of the initiative.

-- GLOBALIZATION

The significance of the forum is especially timely given the rise of anti-globalization.

At a time when certain Western powers are retreating into protectionism and isolation, China has been promoting the globalization of the economy in a spirit of openness and inclusiveness. China will unswervingly continue to open up and push globalization with Chinese wisdom.

-- WIDE PARTICIPATION

More than 1,200 people will attend the forum scheduled for mid-May, including officials, scholars, entrepreneurs, representatives of financial institutions and media organizations from 110 nations, as well as representatives from more than 60 international organizations.

They include heads of state and government from at least 28 countries, as well as UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, and managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde.

-- CONCRETE OUTCOMES

Results of the forum are expected to range from consensus building to specific measures on implementation. China expects to sign cooperative documents with nearly 20 countries and more than 20 international organizations at the event.

China will also work with countries along the routes on nearly 20 action plans concerning infrastructure, energy and resources, production capacity, trade and investment.

The round-table leaders' summit, to be held on May 15, will issue a document defining goals and principles and refining cooperative measures.

During the forum, all parties will identify major cooperative projects, set up working groups and establish an investment cooperation center. They will sign financing agreements to support their cooperative projects.

China will work with all parties on a set of measures, including an improved financial cooperation mechanism, a cooperation platform for science, technology and environmental protection, and enhanced exchanges and training of talent.
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, May 1 (Xinhua) -- At least 28 militants were killed after fighting erupted between two militant groups in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar Sunday and two civilians caught in cross fire also died, authorities said on Monday.

"Fighting between Taliban rebels and militants of Islamic State (IS) started in Chaparhar district early Sunday and sporadic clashes are still going on there. The initial reports by army found 21 Taliban and seven IS fighters had been killed and nine persons from two sides wounded by the clashes," Afghan army's Corps 201 Selab said in a statement.

Two civilians, including a nine-year-old girl, were killed and five others also wounded during the clashes in the district in the southern part of the provincial capital Jalalabad city, the statement said.

The motive behind the fighting remained unknown.

Seven houses were set on fire and destroyed during the clashes in the province, 120 km east of Afghan capital Kabul, according to the statement.

The Afghan civilians continue to bear the brunt of armed conflicts as 715 civilians were killed and over 1,460 others injured in conflict-related incidents across Afghanistan in the first three months of the year, according to figures released by the UN mission in the country.

On Saturday, a man, who was travelling to hold his wedding ceremony in northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, was killed together with his father and five of his family members were wounded when Taliban fired on a vehicle along a main road in northern Baghlan province.

The UN mission has attributed 62 percent of the civilian casualties over the period to the Taliban and other insurgent groups, 21 percent to security forces while the rest 17 percent were unattributed to or caused by explosive remnants of war.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 16:27:28|Editor: Tian Shaohui

One of the pressing issues is the rising amount of inexperienced labor coming into the work force. Fresh college graduates will hit a historical high of 7.95 million in 2017, accounting for more than half the new labor force. (Xinhuanet file photo)

BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Working in a small village in China's Hubei Province, Su Tao lives a life that is atypical when compared with his college classmates.

Upon graduation, Su passed a test allowing him to work at a water management station in a poor village plagued by water shortages. By helping local residents fix pipes and look for water sources, Su felt a sense of achievement like never before.

"Few of my classmates had the chance to work at the grassroots," Su said. "It is just great to feel needed here."

Su is one of the 25,000 college graduates that go to the country's poorest areas every year to support local development. The program, first launched in 2006, allows the educated work force to assist with rural development in fields such as agriculture and education, while also helping fresh graduates find jobs.

Such a program is just one example of how the Chinese authorities are working to keep employment stable during a time of structural change. While official unemployment data points to an optimistic outlook, China's job market faces many challenges.

One of the pressing issues is the rising amount of inexperienced labor coming into the work force. Fresh college graduates will hit a historical high of 7.95 million in 2017, accounting for more than half the new labor force.

More than 3 million rural laborers have moved into the cities, leading for calls for more jobs in urban areas to meet demand.

China's structural reforms also come with pain. China will have to relocate 500,000 laid-off workers from glutted industries such as steel and coal, an arduous task requiring determination and intelligence.

"There are certainly many structural problems in the job market," said Lu Aihong, spokesperson of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. "We will continue to make stable employment our top priority."

Authorities have rolled out an array of pro-employment policies. Fiscal funds totalling 100 billion yuan (about 14.5 billion U.S. dollars) were set aside to assist the resettlement of workers laid off due to the overcapacity cut, while special programs were launched to give graduates more job opportunities.

The government helped 720,000 laid-off workers find new jobs last year.

While job fairs and special programs help satisfy demand in the job market, experts say a more sustainable pattern to ensure stable employment is the increase of supply.

Entrepreneurship is a buzzword of the government agenda, not only because for its role as a growth driver, but also as a job creator. A guideline on entrepreneurship and employment released recently by the State Council encouraged young migrant workers to start their own businesses, and offered favorable tax terms for innovative companies that create jobs.

"China's economy is in the middle of transition. As new growth engines replace the old, the changes in labor structure are inevitable," said Liu Yanbin, director of the Chinese Academy of Labour and Social Security, a government think tank.

"Policies that promote employment should be consistent with the structural changes taking place in China, balancing supply and demand in the job market," Liu said.

As China's manufacturing sector gradually moves up the value chain, professional training should be given to increase the supply of highly skilled workers.

Su Tao will undoubtedly become a skilled plumber by the time he leaves the village. After one year at the water management station, Su plans to apply to be a civil servant. The government will offer people like Su favorable terms, giving them a competitive edge as a reward for their experience.

"As a civil servant, I can have a more stable job," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 16:37:31|Editor: xuxin

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ISLAMABAD, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A soldier was killed and two others wounded when unidentified militants ambushed an army convoy in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of Kurram Agency on Monday, local Urdu media reported.

The convoy was on a routine patrol when the militants opened fire at it in Yakhta area of Kurram Agency, a tribal area located along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the Dawn News said.

In the retaliatory attack by the army, several militants were also killed whose identities have not been revealed yet.

The wounded, including an officer, were shifted to a nearby hospital.

No group has claimed the attack yet.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 16:47:33|Editor: Mengjie

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by Xinhua writer Liu Chen

SHANGHAI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Both Chinese and U.S. markets need each other as bilateral relations are so intertwined, said Curt Ferguson, president of Coca-Cola Greater China.

In the future the two countries will have closer trade ties which "work both way," and Coca-Cola will further its involvement in China, the regional head of the world's biggest beverage maker told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently.

Ferguson also expressed Coca-Cola's adherence to free trade and globalization.

As an international brand with branches in over 200 countries, Coca-Cola is a "very strong supporter of globalization," said the company's China chief, adding that free and increased trade "helps everybody."

The reason that people in the United States can afford so many things is because it's been made "cheaply" and "efficiently" in China, he noted.

The president also gave credit to the Chinese market for helping many U.S. companies sustain their gains, including the big names in aircraft- and car-making sectors.

"The reason that Boeing can thrive and General Motors and Ford make their numbers is because they have big businesses in China," the 60-year-old Coca-Cola veteran said.

Ferguson expected to see more American businesses in a great market like China.

Since re-entering China in 1979, the Atlanta-based U.S. soda giant has been expanding its business in the Chinese market which, as Ferguson put it, has "insatiable appetite."

Now China has become Coca-Cola's third biggest market worldwide following the United States and Mexico. The company estimated that a Chinese person consumes about 40 products made by Coca-Cola every year.

Ferguson believed that the localization strategy and longtime devotion to brand building are the key elements for their success.

"Our product only works when it is produced locally," he said.

With a total investment of 9 billion U.S. dollars over the past decades, Coca-Cola now has 44 plants and 45,000 employees in China, according to data from the company.

Although taking the post less than a year ago, Ferguson, formerly charging Coca-Cola's Middle East and North Africa business, said that he has already experienced the fast-paced development in the country.

China is growing with "a lot of creativity" and "a lot of efficiency," he said.

For the beverage giant's future plan in China, Ferguson said that the company will further its involvement in China "in different ways with different products and different brands."

Ferguson hoped that Coca-Cola China, which is servicing 12 million outlets, may double or even triple its outlets with the booming online purchasing trend.

He also noticed the increasingly fierce competition in the Chinese market, in which one has to be "fairly brave and bold to survive."

In the past months, Coca-Cola has been reshaping its business by selling its bottling and distribution operations to independent bottlers, a move interpreted as an effort to focus on its core brand strength.

In the first quarter, Coca-Cola's net income plunged to 1.2 billion dollars, down 20.3 percent from a year ago. Its revenues also fell 11.3 percent to 9.1 billion dollars.

Earlier this month, the maker of Sprite and Fanta put a grinning cartoon portrait of the U.S. business magnate Warren Buffett on cans of its newly launched cherry-flavor coke in China, a new effort to woo Chinese consumers with Buffett's popularity.

"We hope that we are fast enough to stay ahead of the chases," said Ferguson.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 16:47:34|Editor: xuxin

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by Peerzada Arshad Hamid

NEW DELHI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A minister in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has given hundreds of washing paddles to newlywed brides, urging them to use them against their husbands if they abuse them or turn alcoholic.

Gopal Bhargava, the minister of social justice in Madhya Pradesh local government, handed over the "special gifts" to around 700 brides during a mass marriage organized by the local government at the weekend.

Bat shaped wooden paddles are traditionally used in Indian villages by women to rinse dirt out of clothes during washing.

"The idea behind suppling washing paddles is to boost the morale of women in their fight against social evils," Bhargava told Xinhua in a telephone interview from Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh.

"Here we have a huge problem of men taking liquor and then beating their wives, so providing bats to the newlywed brides is to encourage them to bridle their husbands."

The foot-long wooden bats have messages written in Hindi reading: "Police won't intervene" and "For use against drunkards."

According to Bhargava, there were increasing incidents of domestic violence against women across Madhya Pradesh and administration was doing little to control it.

"Here women are committing suicides because of domestic violence at the hands of alcoholic husbands and handing washing paddles is an act of providing them with self-defense," Bhargava said. "I think this will go a long way in bringing a social change in our state and at the same time it will highlight plight of rural women."

Mass weddings are organized in India to help couples from low income families to marry without having to pay for the event.

Eyewitnesses quoted Bhargava telling the brides to reason with their husbands first and in case their spouses refuse to listen, they should "let the wooden paddles do the talking."

The minister said the exercise should be seen as an effort towards "empowering" women. He said they would soon take a review of "gifting bats exercise" to see its impact.

"I have distributed 10,000 bats so far during various such events and will be distributing further ones," he said, adding that "there is no intention to instigate women to resort to violence but to prevent violence at the hands of their drunkard husbands."

Many Indian states have launched a campaign to ban or restrict sale of alcohol in a bid to curb domestic violence.

Alcohol is completely banned in the western state of Gujarat, and northern eastern states of Manipur and Nagaland. It is also partially banned in few other states.

Pledges to ban alcohol is popular among women voters. Last year, the Tamil Nadu government vowed to introduce liquor prohibition as part of its campaign to win re-election.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 17:02:37|Editor: xuxin

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BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The total net profit of publicly traded Chinese firms rose 11.22 percent in 2007, boosted by an improving economy.

Every listed firm on the A-share markets but one had released their financial results for 2016 and the first quarter of 2017 by Sunday.

Total revenue of the 3,204 listed firms reached 32.51 trillion yuan (4.72 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2016, up 10.21 percent year on year, compared with just 1.13 percent year-on-year growth in 2015.

About 70 percent of the listed firms reported net profit growth for 2016, with 620 having more than doubling net profits.

Firms in upstream sectors such as coal and steel were big winners. The steel sector suffered losses in Q1 2016, but turned to profit in the following three quarters.

The government launched a campaign of supply-side reform last year to cut excess capacity in steel and coal, leading to rising prices that helped boost financial performance.

However, listed firms in machinery, fossil fuels and finance reported slower profit growth in 2016.

The Chinese economy expanded 6.7 percent in 2016, the slowest growth rate in over a quarter of a century. It grew 6.9 percent in Q1, well above the annual growth target of around 6.5 percent.

Financial statements showed that net profit of listed firms grew 19.8 percent in Q1, adding to signs that the world's second largest economy is firming up.

China's major industrial firms reported a 23.8-percent year-on-year profit growth last month, slowing from 31.5 percent in January and February but much faster than the 8.5-percent increase in 2016, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

However, it is not known if the strong growth momentum can be sustained, as China's manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities both softened expansion in April.

The manufacturing purchasing managers' index came in at 51.2 in April, lower than the 51.8 recorded in March, while the index for non-manufacturing stood at 54, down from 55.1 in March.

Commodity prices such as steel, coal, as well as midstream products such as chemical fiber all saw notable corrections in April, partially driven by financial deleveraging, said investment firm China International Capital Corporation (CICC) in a research note.

China has recently stepped up efforts to contain asset bubbles and financial risks, including real estate controls in some cities, as a stabilizing economy provides more room for tightened policies.

Improving efficiency of supply is a sustainable way for enterprises to make profit and it is imperative to stick to deleveraging and give up on government bail-outs, according to Jiang Chao, chief economist with Haitong Securities.

"China should deleverage its economy at a proper pace to ensure the financial sector is under pressure to keep reducing leverage while avoiding being pushed into any systemic financial risks," Xu Zhong, head of the research bureau of the People's Bank of China, wrote in the latest edition of Caijing Magazine.

Overly fast deleveraging might lead to shrinking credit and deflation, hurting the real economy, according to Xu.

Although the market has been concerned about the potential spill-over to real economic growth from ongoing regulatory tightening, April monetary data may indicate improved policy coordination and an overall moderate pace of monetary tapering relative to the strength of the economy, the CICC note said.
A bullet train is pictured at Beijing West Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 26, 2012. (Xinhua/Zhou Guoqiang) Happy International Workers' Day! Here is what's not to miss about China for the last 24 hours. BEIJING -- The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation scheduled for mid-May is a high-profile international meeting on the Belt and Road Initiative, a China-proposed trade and infrastructure plan connecting Asia with Europe and Africa. China will use the forum to build a more open and efficient international cooperation platform and a closer, stronger partnership network as well as to push for a more just, reasonable and balanced international governance system. Here is what you need to know about the initiative and the upcoming forum. xhne.ws/3PTNx - - - - BEIJING -- China's major banks saw slowing profit growth in the first quarter, though bad loan rates fell. Financial statements from China's five major banks, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Bank of China, Bank of Communications, Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and China Construction Bank, showed slowing profit growth in Q1, with the first three banks seeing net profits plunge by over 70 percent compared with the previous quarter. xhne.ws/h1VWr - - - - TAIYUAN -- A small recreational airplane crashed into a tree, killing two people and injuring another on Sunday in north China's Shanxi Province, local authorities said. The accident occurred at 5:41 p.m., when the airplane carrying two passengers attempted to land following a sight-seeing trip above the Huihe reservoir in Quwo County, according to the county government. xhne.ws/MLVWd - - - - KUNMING -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan province have seized more than 12 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, said local authorities on Sunday. According to a statement by the public security bureau of Ximeng Wa autonomous county, police found a man driving an unlicensed motorcycle last Wednesday who appeared suspicious. When police asked him to stop for a check, the man ran off. xhne.ws/A8kkZ - - - - WENCHANG, Hainan -- China's Long March-5 Y2 carrier rocket arrived at the launch base in Hainan, south China, on Sunday. The launch vehicle departed from northern China's Tianjin on April 24 and sailed 1,670 nautical miles before reaching Wenchang, Hainan Province. xhne.ws/r3MD4 - - - - BEIJING -- Parks in Beijing received more than 500,000 visitors on the first day of International Workers' Day holiday, said local authorities on Sunday. The Summer Palace, Beijing Zoo and the Temple of Heaven are the most popular tourist attractions, according to the Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks. The Summer Palace which topped the list received 80,000 visitors on Saturday. xhne.ws/bquTC - - - - HOUSTON -- More than 10 Chinese films were awarded here on Saturday at the 50th annual WorldFest-Houston, an independent international film festival, which ended on Sunday. The Chinese films won different awards at the festival, but there is no doubt that it is a great success for "Reset," a science fiction supervised by Jackie Chan. xhne.ws/lallM
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 17:32:45|Editor: xuxin

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NEW DELHI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Police in the northeastern Indian state of Assam have launched a major probe into the lynching of two Muslim men by a mob that accused them of trying to steal cows for slaughter.

The cow is considered sacred by India's majority Hindus, and killing of the animal is considered illegal in several states.

A senior police official said Friday that the incident took place Sunday in a remote village in Assam's Nagaon district and the victims have been identified as Abu Hanifa and Riyazuddin Ali, both aged between 20 and 25 years.

"They were brutally thrashed by local villagers. They died of their injuries in the hospital. We are investigating the deaths to ascertain the involvement of cow vigilantes. A murder case has been filed and two persons detained in connection with the deaths," he said on condition of anonymity.

The killings of the two Muslim men are the latest in a series of attacks blamed on hardline Hindu cow vigilantes in recent months. A Human Rights Watch report last week said at least 10 Muslims had been killed over the issue since May 2015.

A group of cow vigilantes had last month beaten to death a Muslim cattle trader in the western state of Rajasthan for allegedly transporting cows from state capital Jaipur to neighboring state of Haryana, adjoining the Indian capital.

The victim, Pehlu Khan, succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in Rajasthan's Alwar town three days later, while the police have registered a case of murder against the unknown cow vigilantes and so far arrested five people in connection with the death.

Several Indian states have banned slaughter of cows after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. The western state of Gujarat in March made cow slaughter punishable with life in jail recently.

In addition to government bans, several vigilante groups who portray themselves as protectors of cows have also been active in several states. These groups routinely check vehicles and often beat up cattle traders.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year came down heavily on such vigilantes, saying that such people made him "angry," but it has not stopped the attacks against cattle traders.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 17:37:50|Editor: xuxin

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HONG KONG, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China signed two documents with Indonesia on Monday to further boost cultural and labor cooperation.

The two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cultural cooperation as well as a joint statement on labor cooperation, which underlines both sides' commitment to protect Indonesian domestic helpers working in Hong Kong.

The MoU reflects the joint efforts of Hong Kong and Indonesia in strengthening cultural cooperation and provides a framework for promoting collaborative initiatives and exchanges in the fields of arts and culture, said the secretariat press office of Hong Kong's Home Affairs Department.

Such cooperation will contribute to the furtherance of closer cultural ties and better understanding between the two sides, the department said.

HKSAR Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who attended the signing ceremony with visiting Indonesian President Joko Widodo, expressed hope at their meeting that the two sides would continue to maintain exchanges and build stronger ties on all fronts.

Highlighting that the Belt and Road Initiative would bring about enormous development potentials for Hong Kong and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) such as Indonesia, Leung said Hong Kong would further enhance economic and trade relations with Indonesia and other major trading partners along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Leung also thanked the Indonesian government for its support in assisting the establishment of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Jakarta.

President Widodo arrived here Sunday on a two-day visit.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 18:12:51|Editor: An

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DUBAI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) said Monday the recently listed DGCX Shanghai Gold Futures Contract has had a positive "knock-on effect" on the trading activity of the Exchange's other gold products.

The Shanghai Gold Futures Contract, which the exchange said uniquely allows access to the Chinese gold market, traded a total of 2,946 contracts since its listing on March 10.

DGCX's Spot Gold contract saw six-fold growth year-on-year, while also recording a 74 percent increase in deliveries through the DMCC trading platform.

"There has also been a growing optimism for gold, especially on the back of Brexit and French election uncertainty," added the exchange which is a licensed market of Dubai's biggest industrial free zone DMCC.

Following the signing of a deal between the DGCX and the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) in October 2016 during the promotional "Dubai Week in China", the listing of the Shanghai Gold Futures Contract marked "the first-ever usage of the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price in international markets," said Gaurang Desai, CEO of the DGCX.

He added that the consistent growth of DGCX's product suite, volumes and member community "helps us to create a vibrant, exciting and well regulated marketplace for all market participants across asset classes."

Paresh Kotecha, Chairman and CEO of Dubai-based commodities trading firm Richcomm Global Services, told Xinhua in an interview "the Shanghai Gold Futures Contract has given the DGCX a decisive advantage over Singapore, because in the Southeast Asian city-state Chinese gold futures are traded over the counter, but not as a standardized futures contract."

Financial derivatives such as futures and options allow traders of an underlying commodity like gold or a currency to hedge themselves against expected price fluctuations in the future. They can also be used for speculative purposes.

The DGCX which has 46 products on its quotations list already launched Chinese yuan futures back in 2015.

In 2014, China replaced India as Dubai's biggest trade partner and has retained this lead since then.

In 2016, bilateral exchange between the trade and tourism metropolis and the world's second largest economy was worth 45.23 billion dollars, accounting for 13 percent of Dubai's total foreign trade, according to the Dubai Customs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 18:12:52|Editor: xuxin

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COLOMBO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lanka Navy on Monday arrested five Indian fishermen for poaching illegally in the seas of Mannar in the island's north, the navy media unit said here.

A fishing dhow was also taken into naval custody.

The navy said that the arrested fishermen and fishing dhow were handed over to the Mannar Assistant Directorate of Fisheries for onward legal action.

Sri Lanka and India have had several rounds of talks in an attempt to resolve the fishing issue in recent years but have failed to reach a final solution.

Indian fishermen often stray into Sri Lankan waters to catch fish as Sri Lanka has rich fishing resources.

However, hundreds of fishermen have been arrested by the Sri Lankan navy over the years for illegally poaching in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka's Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera recently said that Indian fishermen will continue to be arrested if they poach in Sri Lankan waters.

Amaraweera said the government was also looking at resolving the Indo-Lanka fishing dispute in a diplomatic manner.

Fishermen in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu recently issued an ultimatum to Sri Lanka and India, demanding that concrete steps be taken to address the Indo-Lanka fishing dispute, otherwise the situation may spiral out of control.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 18:17:55|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas gestures ahead of a Christmas lunch with members of the Christian Orthodox community on January 6, 2017, in Beit Sahur, near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)

RAMALLAH, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President's spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeinah said Monday that the upcoming meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday would set the political track for coming years.

Abu Rudeinah said that Abbas will reiterate the "need for a just and comprehensive peace based on the two state solution and the Arab peace initiative," according to a statement published by official Palestinian news agency (WAFA).

The statement said that Palestinians are in constant coordination oath Arab states committed to the 2002 Arab peace initiative and a political path leading to a genuine peace that brings security and stability to the region.

He said "there is a real opportunity to make peace, and the international community should reinforce this opportunity and not miss it, because the region is in a state of boiling, and the occupation cannot continue in any way."

As part of regional consultations, Abbas has met with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi last Saturday in Cairo and with Jordanian Monarch Abdullah II Sunday.

The last peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians were halted at the end of March 2014 after nine months of U.S.-sponsored peace talks without achieving any progress to resolve decades of conflict between the two sides.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 18:37:58|Editor: xuxin

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DHAKA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people, including members of trade unions and other workers' groups, marched through the streets of Bangladesh capital Dhaka on a sunny Monday to mark May Day, demanding working hours reduction and wage increase.

A survey conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Labor Studies (BILS), a local think-tank, says workers in Bangladesh work for 12 hours a day on average.

The survey findings were released on Sunday, on the eve of May Day, or the International Workers' Day.

According to the survey, at least 46 percent transport workers work for more than 15 hours a day in the country, while over 40 percent work for about 13-14 hours, while 20 percent of them work without any regular rest.

The survey was conducted on working hours of five labor intensive sectors - security guards, transport, hotel/restaurants, re-rolling, and private hospital/clinic/diagnostic centers or pathological labs.

BILS Assistant Executive Director Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmmed told journalists that the May Day's main demand was eight hours of working a day, but in most cases it is still violated in local and foreign companies in Bangladesh.

He said officials, employees and workers are forced to work more than eight hours a day in some local and foreign companies in the country, which is blatant violation of the eight-hour working day recognized by the International Labor Organization.

"We're forced to work even on holidays without pay," said an official of a foreign agency who joined a rally of blue-collar workers in Dhaka on Monday.

"We're not entitled to overtime compensation for working on or before office times," said the official who declined to be named.

He said in some cases foreign companies in Bangladesh do not properly monitor their operations, paving the way for their representatives to commit workplace violence.

Abdur Rahim, who works for a local non-banking financial institution, said his directors often force them to stay in office after working time finishes.

"This is also a kind of labor exploitation which we can't tell being afraid of losing jobs."

Meanwhile, worker groups and trade unions, political parties, different government and socio-cultural and professional organizations have chalked out events for observing the day which is a public holiday in Bangladesh.

All public and private offices, courts, banks, markets, mills and factories remained closed.

All the state and private television channels and radio stations have been airing special programs to mark the day.

Bangladeshi President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also issued separate messages on the occasion of the May Day.

The president said in his message that May Day is a unique and glorious day in the history of establishing rights of the working class.

He expressed hope that positive and amicable participation of workers and owners would enhance overall progress and productivity.

In her message, Prime Minister Hasina paid deep respect to the people who embraced martyrdom to establish fundamental rights of the working people in Chicago in 1886.

Hasina said the government has been implementing multidimensional programs to ensure safe working environment and social safety and to maintain cordial relations between owners and workers.

She expressed her hope that productivity of factories and mills would increase through cordial relations between employees and employers by following the spirit of the historic May Day.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 18:53:03|Editor: Mengjie

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by Matt Walsh

CANBERRA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Two-way trade between Australia and China is being typified by the growth in the financial technology (fintech) sector after Australian start-up Airwallex said it raised 13 million U.S. dollars from backers - including from China - to help fund its business.

The total funding for Airwallex reaches 16 million U.S. dollars as the company had already raised 3 million U.S. dollars in the pre-Series A round last year.

The development, announced by FinTech Australia, will allow Airwallex to enable businesses to make faster, easier and cheaper worldwide payments, and is the latest example of Australian and Chinese cooperation in the fintech sector.

Danielle Szetho, CEO of FinTech Australia - the peak body for fintech in the nation - said recent development in Australian fintech have typified the bilateral trade trends between the two nations.

She said Australia's "thriving" fintech scene is backed by one of most "highly-regarded financial regulatory systems in the world," adding that potential Chinese investors have a lot to gain from taking a closer look at the Australian fintech market.

"This means Australian fintech companies have a great reputation for producing innovative and trusted fintech products in areas such as wealth creation, peer-to-peer lending, payments and cyber security, along with taking advantage of blockchain technology," Szetho said in a statement released on Monday.

"We think that Chinese investors have a lot to gain from taking a close look at the Australian fintech environment and what it has to offer. In addition, we think Chinese consumers and businesses will increasingly get to know the major benefits of Australian fintech products."

She said that a number of thriving Chinee businesses - such as e-commerce giant Alibaba - were expanding their operations into Australia as a result of the local government's willingness to embrace fintech.

"We're also excited to see that Chinese fintech firms are also beginning to establish bases in Australia, given Australia's world record for uninterrupted economic growth and the long-standing cultural links between the two countries," Szetho said.

"As a market well known for its early adoption of technology and 'fintech-friendly by design' regulation, Australia also represents a great test market for new Chinese fintechs looking to expand into western markets.

"Australia has a relatively small venture capital market by world standards, which provides an attractive and new opportunity for inbound Chinese investment."

Australia is best known for its resources exports to China and there is no reason why it shouldn't be able to also export some of its trusted and innovative fintech product, according to Szetho.

However it's not just Chinese backers which are moving to Australia or funding Australian start-ups; Australian fintechs such as CrowdfundUP and Novatti are also actively pursuing big moves into the Chinese market.

Novatti is an alternative mobile payment platform which enables Australians to accept payments from Chinese apps such as WeChat and AliPay, and has recently launched a subsidiary called China Payments, which it hopes will flourish in the Chinese market.

Novatti CEO Peter Cook said China provides a "huge opportunity" for his business to expand.

"Our China Payments subsidiary is actively involved in promoting new types of wallets from China for cross border transactions that help drive sales for Australian exporters and retail stores," Cook said on Monday.

"These new types of overseas wallets are allowing a lot more innovation and margin control, innovation and flexibility."

He said China Payments has noticed with its merchants that they quickly gain new consumers and businesses from China once they bring on these new payment methods.

"China Payments is actively helping financial institutions in Australia deploy some of these services, helping innovation and growing businesses."

Meanwhile CrowdfundUP Managing Director, Jack Quigley said his company was "actively pursuing" opportunities to "tap into" China's massive population, by using the "landing pad" established by the Australian government through the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

"We have strong partnerships with Chinese businesses underway as we believe collaboration with the local players is the best way to learn the intricacies of the market," Quigley said.

"China is a major player in the global fintech landscape and we've found they are just as excited by the prospect of learning more about Australia's sophisticated financial services sector."

The world's largest e-commerce retailer, Alibaba, opened its Australian headquarters in February, and teamed up with Australia Post to fight counterfeit food fraud, while a trade mission involving eight Australian fintech companies visited China in March.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 19:03:07|Editor: xuxin

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SYDNEY, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The owners of a German castle have offered to swap their sprawling property for an apartment in Melbourne, Australia.

Lord James Richard Welsh and his wife, Ingrid Straub-Zerfowski, are hoping to swap the Schochwitz castle for a simple home in the world's most liveable city.

The 4,000 square meter property contains 28 bedrooms and sits next to a lake in the wine growing region of northern Germany.

The residence is a two-hour drive from Berlin and half an hour from Leipzig.

"My wife and I bought the castle about 12 years ago and have appreciated our time here in Germany and at this wonderful place," Welsh, who is from Britain, told News Limited on Monday.

"However, we are looking to retire and have family in Melbourne so that's why we are interested in a trade."

He said that he would rather trade the property than sell it due to the taxes associated with selling a house in Germany.

The Melburnian who decides to make the trade will adopt the title of "Lord" with it being associated with the property.

Welsh said he and his wife were looking "for the right person or situation to make a trade."

"We are hoping to find someone who has a nice apartment or house for a similar value. We would prefer three to four bedrooms but can flexible," he said.

"We are also open to something out of the city if there are people interested in our offer."

The castle was built in the 12th century and has been meticulously restored and maintained by the couple who have operated a hotel and therapy center from the property.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 19:08:07|Editor: xuxin

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LONDON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Three women, linked to an anti-terror operation last week in which a woman was shot by police, have been arrested in east London, according to local media on Monday.

The suspects, two aged 18 and one aged 19, were held after raids by the police, and were in custody outside London on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts, according to police.

The arrests were part of an "ongoing intelligence-led operation" in connection with a raid on Thursday in Harlesden Road, north London.

British police said earlier on Sunday that a 21-year-old woman shot by police during an anti-terror operation on Thursday in London has been arrested after being freed from hospital.

She was shot during a counter-terrorism investigation when armed officers entered an address in Harlesden Road in north London.

Meanwhile, six other people -- three men and three women - were also arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts, police said on Sunday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 19:18:08|Editor: xuxin

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PHNOM PENH, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A series of events were held in Cambodia on Monday to mark the International Labor Day, while garment and footwear workers rallied to demand higher wages.

Some 1,000 garment and footwear factories had organized parties for their 700,000 workers to celebrate the day, a statement from the Labor Ministry said.

Besides, the Labor Ministry hosted an event in Phnom Penh to mark the day with some 450 participants representing the trade union and the manufacturers' association.

"In general, the commemoration of the 131st anniversary of the International Labor Day this year was observed in a happier and friendlier atmosphere than that of previous years thanks to Cambodia's peace, stability, sound economic growth and good relations between the employees and the employers," the statement said.

On the occasion, over 1,000 Cambodian garment and footwear workers also rallied near the National Assembly, calling for higher wages and better working conditions.

"We request that the Government and the National Assembly set the minimum wage of 207 U.S. dollars a month for the workers in the garment and footwear sector," said Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labor Confederation, which organized the rally.

Current minimum wage for the workers is 153 U.S. dollars a month.

Garment and footwear industry, the kingdom's biggest income maker, earned 7.3 billion U.S. dollars from exports in 2016, up 7 percent compared to a year earlier.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 19:18:09|Editor: xuxin

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BAGHDAD, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Violence, terrorist acts and armed conflicts across Iraq killed a total of 309 civilians and wounded 387 others in April, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said on Monday.

A UNAMI statement said figures of casualties do not include security members, as the Iraqi military declined to give information about casualties among the troops.

Previous figures of security members' casualties were questioned by the Iraqi military as "inaccurate," while UNAMI responded that "the military figures were largely unverified."

April's results also excluded the casualties in Iraq's western province of Anbar, where volatility of the situation on the ground disrupted figures from there, the statement said.

Most of the civilian casualties occurred in Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, where 153 were killed and 123 others injured in fierce battles between Iraqi forces and Islamic State (IS) militants in western Mosul.

Jan Kubis, the UN envoy to Iraq and the UNAMI chief, said civilians continue to pay a heavy price in the conflict, particularly in Nineveh province where the Iraqi security forces are fighting heavy street battle against IS militants in the provincial capital Mosul, according to the statement.

"Daesh (IS group) terrorists have detonated car bombs in residential neighbourhoods in Mosul and attacked civilians desperately fleeing the fighting as the security forces liberate more territory from the terrorists. But Daesh's atrocities were not confined to the combat zones and spared no one," Kubis said.

"They (IS militants) have struck in liberated areas where people are trying to rebuild their lives, using suicide bombers as in the attack in the Sunni heartland of Tikrit in Salahudin province earlier in April. They have also attacked with a suicide bombing in the Karrada neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad last weekend," Kubis added.

However, Kubis said that the terrorist attacks by IS group "has failed to weaken the will and the unity of the Iraqi people, who are increasingly seeing victory against the terrorists within reach."

The UNAMI statement came as the Iraqi security forces backed by anti-IS international coalition are carrying out a major offensive to drive out the IS militants from its last major stronghold in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Earlier, the UNAMI said a total of 6,878 civilians were killed and 12,388 wounded in 2016, adding that the figures did not include the civilian casualty figures for Anbar Province for the months of May, July, August and December.

Iraq has witnessed intensifying violence since the IS extremist group took control of parts of its northern and western regions in June 2014.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 19:23:13|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (R, front) receives a hat from Hu Jie (L, front), captain of China's missile destroyer Changchun, in Davao City, the Philippines, May 1, 2017. Duterte visit the Chinese warship docked in Davao City wharf on Monday. A Chinese naval fleet has begun a three-day friendly visit after arriving Sunday at Davao City in the southeastern region of The Philippines. (Xinhua/Yu Wei)

MANILA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that he is open to the idea of conducting joint military exercises with China.

"I agree (to the idea). They can have joint exercise(s) here in Mindanao, maybe in the Sulu Sea," Duterte told reporters after visiting the Chinese warship docked in Davao City wharf.

Duterte said he was very impressed by the Chinese warship. "It's very impressive. It's all carpeted. It's so beautiful. Inside, it's like a luxury hotel," he told reporters, "It's clean!"

He said the visit to the warship is part of the confidence building and good will between Manila and Beijing.

A Chinese naval fleet has begun a three-day friendly visit after arriving Sunday at Davao City in the southeastern region of The Philippines.

Related:

Chinese naval fleet starts friendly visit to Philippines

DAVAO, The Philippines, April 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese naval fleet has begun a three-day friendly visit after arriving Sunday at Davao City in the southeastern region of The Philippines.

It is the first time for a Chinese naval fleet to visit Davao, the country's third largest city. The Philippine side held a grand welcome ceremony at the Port of Davao. Full Story
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 19:43:20|Editor: xuxin

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BANGKOK, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar migrant workers joined a march held by Thai trade unions here on Monday to ask for more equality.

Around 100 Myanmar migrant workers, holding banners in Thai and Burmese, walked from Bangkok's Democracy Monument to the building of UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) to express their demands.

"Today is International Labor Day, all workers are equal despite their skin color and nationality, and we want to have equal rights with Thai workers," Said Aung Kyaw, vice president of Migrant Worker Rights Network, an organization promoting rights of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand.

Their minimum wage is less than 300 baht per day (8.7 U.S. dollars), according to Aung Kyaw, while Thailand's minimum daily wage is about 305 to 310 baht (8.8-8.9 dollars).

He added that the Myanmar people's social welfare is also not good enough and there is inequality when compared with Thai workers.

"We have been fighting for equality for so many years, I don't know whether we can get it this year, our fight is very different," Aung Kyaw said.

Behind Aung Kyaw, Myanmar workers, some of them, especially females, wearing thanaka cream on their faces or padauk flowers in their hair, were chanting "Su Su," which means to fight in Thai.

Around 2 million to 3 million Myanmar migrants work in Thailand and some of them are undocumented and thus vulnerable to exploitation, rights group said.

Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi visited migrant workers in Thailand last June during a three-day visit to the kingdom.

She and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha then witnessed the signing of three documents on cross border, labor cooperation and employment of workers.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 20:38:27|Editor: xuxin

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WASHINGTON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- SpaceX launched a spy satellite for the U.S. Department of Defense early Monday morning and then landed the first stage of its rocket back on solid ground.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the classified NROL-76 satellite, lifted off at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT) from historic Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same pad that supported numerous Apollo and space shuttle launches, the company's live webcast showed.

About 10 minutes later, the rocket's first stage landed at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX previously landed a first stage booster at Landing Zone 1 three times. It also successfully recovered Falcon 9 first stages from six missions at sea using the company's drone ships.

Few details have been released about NROL-76, a satellite designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office, a member of the U.S. intelligence community of an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.

This launch has great symbolic significance for SpaceX, since it's the 15-year-old company's first mission for the Pentagon.

For years, the market for launching U.S. military payloads was dominated by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

But SpaceX broke the monopoly in 2015, when the U.S. Air Force certified its Falcon 9 rocket to launch national security space missions.

Since then, the California-based company has also won two contracts to launch Global Positioning System satellites for the U.S. Air Force.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 20:58:29|Editor: xuxin

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LONDON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Three teenage females, two aged 18 and the other aged 19, were arrested Monday by Officers from London's Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command.

Police said they carried out search warrants Monday morning at three addresses in east London.

In a statement, the Met said the three women were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They are currently in custody at a police station outside of London.

The arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation last Thursday in connection with an address on Harlesden Road in northwest London's Willesden district during which a 21-year-old woman was shot and wounded by armed police.

She was discharged from a London hospital, where she had been under guard by armed police, on Sunday and was immediately arrested.

Police are now holding nine people under terrorism laws as a result of the raid at the house in Harlesden Road, as well as a 10th person in custody following an incident near Downing Street when a man, carrying a number of knives, was arrested.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 20:58:29|Editor: xuxin

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LONDON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The failure of social media companies to deal with illegal and dangerous material posted on internet sites was described Monday by a British MP as a disgrace.

Yvette Cooper, chair of the British parliament's home affairs committee, launched her attack in a report which heavily criticised the failure of social media companies to deal with illegal and dangerous material posted on the internet.

The all-party committee of MPs strongly criticised social media companies for failing to take down seriously illegal content, saying the companies are "shamefully far" from taking sufficient action to tackle hate and dangerous content on their sites.

The committee has called on the government to assess whether failure to remove illegal material is a crime and whether the law should be strengthened.

They want the government to consult on a system of escalating sanctions to include big fines for social media companies who fail to quickly remove illegal content.

The MPs say social media companies that fail to proactively search for, and remove illegal material, should pay towards the cost of the police doing the job instead.

The report says: "Given their immense size, resources and global reach, the committee considers it completely irresponsible that social media companies are failing to tackle illegal and dangerous content and to implement even their own community standards."

"Social media companies' enforcement of their own community standards is weak, haphazard and inadequate," say the MPs.

The committee wants the government to conduct a review of the entire legal framework around online hate speech, abuse and extremism and ensure the law is up to date.

Committee chair Cooper said: "They have been asked repeatedly to come up with better systems to remove illegal material such as terrorist recruitment or online child abuse. Yet repeatedly they have failed to do so. It is shameful."

"Given their continued failure to sort this, we need a new system including fines and penalties if they don't swiftly remove illegal content," said Cooper.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:13:32|Editor: xuxin

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NEW DELHI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- India and Turkey on Monday inked three pacts in which both sides condemned terrorism and vowed to work together to strengthen ties to effectively counter the menace.

The pledge came Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"#IndiaTurkey sign three agreements in the fields of ICT (information and communication technologies), training and culture," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Addressing a joint media conference with the Turkish president, Modi said that he had an extensive conversation with Erdogan on the subject of terrorism.

"Nations of the world need to work as one to disrupt terrorist networks and their financing, and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists. We agreed that no intent, goal, reason or rationale can validate terrorism," Modi said.

On his part, the Turkish president condemned the recent terror attacks in India, saying that Ankara would always be in solidarity with New Delhi in battling terrorism. "Terrorists will be drowned in the blood they spill."

On trade, Modi said that the bilateral trade turnover of around 6 billion U.S. dollars is not commensurate with the size of the two economies and the business and industry on both sides can do much more.

"President and I are clear that strengths of our economies present an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen our commercial linkages. We need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner," the prime minister said.

Earlier in the day, the Turkish President, who arrived in India Sunday night on a two-day visit, was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee. He also met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who called on him and discussed bilateral issues.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:18:33|Editor: xuxin

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CAPE TOWN, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Chaos disrupted a May Day rally in Bloemfontein, Free State Province on Monday, prompting President Jacob Zuma to cancel his speech.

Zuma was about to speak at the rally but was booed by opponents who earlier clashed with Zuma supporters.

Several other VIPs, including African National Congress's (ANC's) National Executive Committee member Naledi Pandor, were also prevented from making a speech.

All speeches have been cancelled at the main May Day rally, organizers said.

For the first time, Zuma was to share the podium with President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Sdumo Dlamini and South African Communist Party (SACP) Secretary General, Blade Nzimande, after both organizations called on Zuma to resign.

The COSATU, SACP and ANC are partners in a tripartite alliance, which has lately been experiencing ructions over Zuma's continued leadership.

Some unions affiliated to COSATU objected to plans for the president to address the federation's main May Day rally after the federation said Zuma would be speaking at the commemoration.

At least three COSATU-affiliated unions have warned that allowing Zuma to address COSATU members at the May Day rally would send "a confusing message" because the federation has taken a resolution that Zuma should step down as president.

The National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) in the Free State said it was expecting Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to address workers at the May Day rally instead.

The union's provincial chairperson Napo Moeketsi said on Sunday it would be unwise to allow Zuma to address the workers.

There have been growing calls for Zuma to resign after he reshuffled the cabinet on March 31. This led to the downgrade of South Africa's sovereign credit rating to junk status by international rating agencies Standard & Poor's and Fitch in April.

On Sunday, Nzimande said the SACP's decision to call for Zuma to step down was a decision that was not taken lightly.

Nzimande explained that the decision was seen as the best solution to try to address the situation that the governing ANC finds itself in.

"We are going through a difficult period. Factions are very strong and undermine the ANC," ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe tweeted in response to the disruption of the May Day rally.

When the tripartite alliance is divided and fighting among itself, it destroys the gains it has made, Mantashe warned.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:23:30|Editor: xuxin

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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, May 1 (Xinhua) -- At least five policemen and two bank guards were killed Monday after militants attacked a bank cash carrying vehicle in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The vehicle was attacked at village Pombai in Kulgam district, about 78 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"Today we have received seven bodies in our hospital. Out of them five are of policemen and two are bank guards," Dr R D Kasana, medical superintendent at Kulgam district hospital told Xinhua over telephone. "All the bodies bore multiple bullet wounds."

"They were brought dead to the hospital," he said.

The vehicle belonged to Jammu and Kashmir Bank and policemen were send to guard it.

"We have reached the spot and are trying to collect details as how militants carried out the brutal attack," a senior police official posted in Kulgam said.

Eyewitnesses said they saw bullets holes in the vehicle, besides blood splashed inside it.

Reports said militants have taken away five service rifles of the policemen following the attack, besides looting currency notes (around INR 5 million) from the vehicle.

Following the attack police and Indian army rushed to the spot to carry out searches. However, the assailants have managed to escape.

So far no militant outfit has claimed responsibility of the attack.

On Sunday evening, a civilian was killed and five people including four policemen were wounded after suspected militants hurled a grenade on a police party in Srinagar.

A guerrilla war is going on between militants and Indian troops stationed in the region since 1989.

Last month the region's police chief issued an advisory to its personnel cautioning them to avoid visiting their homes for few months. The advisory was issued in wake of the spate in incidents of gunmen entering houses of policemen and damaging their property besides asking them to quit jobs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:28:33|Editor: Mengjie

Photo taken on April 28, 2017 shows the scenery of a gala held in Ulanhot City, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the first province-level autonomous region established in China, celebrated its 70th birthday on May 1, 2017. Over the past 70 years, the region's economy has expanded from 537 million yuan (78 million U.S. dollars) to 1.86 trillion yuan (270 billion dollars), ranking first among the country's five autonomous regions. Its foreign trade volume increased from 11 million dollars to 11.7 billion dollars over the same period. (Xinhua/Deng Hua)

HOHHOT, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Inner Mongolia, the first province-level autonomous region established in China, celebrated its 70th birthday with a gala Monday, highlighting the country's successful practice of regional ethnic autonomy.

More than 1,000 people dressed in traditional Mongolian costumes performed dances and Mongolian music on Wuyi Square in Ulanhot city in the east of the region, where the regional autonomous government was founded on May 1, 1947.

"The 70th anniversary is a big event. Our whole family come here to watch the gala," said Zhao Hongfu, 82, a Mongolian in Ulanhot.

Talking about the changes, Zhao said his family lived in a small clay-made house while now they live in a building with storeys.

"In the past, there might be sort of discrimination between different ethnic groups. But now, people from Han, Mongolian and other ethnic groups live in the same building," he added.

Zhao's remarks on the huge progress were echoed by others. Li Kun, 91, recalled his poor life when the autonomous region was founded.

"At that time, ordinary people ate steamed corn bread, used kerosene lamps and wore shabby clothes," he said. "Today, the life is very different."

The system of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities is a basic political system in China.

Besides Inner Mongolia, the other four areas are Xinjiang Uygur, Guangxi Zhuang, Ningxia Hui and Tibet autonomous regions.

The first National People's Congress that convened in 1954 included the system of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, and the regional ethnic autonomy law was put into effect in 1984.

"The regional ethnic autonomy is the fundamental guarantee of rapid development of Inner Mongolia," said Hobsgaalt, a Mongolian and head of the Bairin Right Banner government in the region.

The percentage of officials from ethnic minorities is an important reflection of autonomy rights.

In Inner Mongolia, officials from ethnic minority groups account for 33 percent of the total, higher than the proportion of their population.

Zhou Jinghong, an ethnic policy researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that a successful experience of Inner Mongolia was the protection and prosperity of the traditional culture of the ethnic Mongolian group.

"In recent years, a large number of traditional Mongolian cultural heritage items have been inscribed on protection lists at different levels," she said.

"We are in an era of cultural prosperity. Since China's reform and opening-up, the environment has provided favorable conditions for the development of Mongolian culture," said Baljinima, a retired Mongolian reporter in Hohhot, the regional capital.

He and his wife Zhang Jixia, an ethnic Han, have visited 50 countries and collected 12,000 Genghis Khan-related books in different languages, for research.

Over the past three decades, China has strengthened research in the history and culture of Mongolians, and a group of bilingual Chinese-Mongolian scholars have emerged, according to Gombzarb, an influential Mongolian poet and chairman of the Inner Mongolia Federation of Literary and Art Circles.

Great changes have taken place on the prairie of Inner Mongolia since 1947. Most herders settled down and now live a better life.

Burenjargal, a herder on the outskirts of Xilinhot city, moved to a new house with a TV set, tap water, a flush toilet and a gas stove three years ago.

He has 60 horses and 10 cattle on his grassland. Last year, his revenue from selling horses and mare's milk, and tourism, reached 200,000 yuan (29,000 U.S. dollars).

With government subsidy, herders raise livestock in sustainable fashion to protect the grasslands.

Inner Mongolia covers an area of 1.18 million sq km, about 12 percent of the country's land area. The Mongolian population is 4.6 million, nearly one-fifth of the region's total.

Over the past 70 years, the region's economy has expanded from 537 million yuan to 1.86 trillion yuan. The per-capita GDP of the region exceeds 10,000 U.S. dollars.

China's ethnic policy features equality, unity, regional ethnic autonomy and common prosperity for all ethnic groups.

Ao Junde, a regional ethnic autonomy law expert, said China had taken the lead in protecting the rights of ethnic minorities with a comprehensive set of theory, policy, system and law.

"China's regional ethnic autonomy has its own socialist characteristics, but it is of important reference value for many countries still plagued by ethnic issues today," Zhou said.
People shout slogans as they arrive to attend a May Day rally in Istanbul, Turkey May 1, 2017. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

ISTANBUL, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of people gathered in Istanbul on Monday to mark the International Labor Day, raising their voices against poor working conditions, high unemployment rate and low wages.

The crowds also protested against what they call anti-democratic regulations imposed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party in the wake of a failed coup in July last year.

Some 100,000 civil servants, over 40,000 police and nearly 33,000 teachers have been expelled in the ongoing crackdown over their alleged links to terror organizations, according to press reports.

"No! It is not over," read a banner carried by some academicians, who were dismissed in the purges. "We are not leaving. Our democratic struggle continues," read another banner.

Main trade unions agreed this year to have a mass rally in government-designated Bakirkoy district, as the iconic Taksim Square was closed to rallies for a fourth year straight.

The square has a symbolic meaning for the trade unions and leftist groups, as 34 workers were killed in 1977 May Day celebrations in shots fired from a nearby building. Since then, Turkey's worker unions and labourers have been insisting on commemorating the killings at the square.

The authorities, however, have banned all demonstrations and gatherings there since massive anti-government protests erupted in June 2013 in the square and in neighboring Gezi Park.

This year police were blocking all the roads to the square with iron barriers and deploying over 30,000 personnel to patrol the city.

Public transportation, including ferry service offering shuttles between the European and Asian parts of Istanbul and metro service in several districts, was halted as part of the blockade of Taksim Square.

Some leftists groups, however, tried to march to the square from several districts, leading the police to use water cannons and tear gas to disperse them and detain over 50 individuals, press reports said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:48:38|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Photo taken on April 21, 2017 shows the scenery of the county seat of Rongcheng, north China's Hebei Province. China announced the plan for Xiongan New Area, an economic zone about 100 kilometers south of Beijing, on April 1, 2017. The new area will span Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin counties in Hebei Province, eventually covering 2,000 square kilometers. Hebei announced recently it would call for international bids to plan and design Xiongan New Area. Global companies are welcomed to bid with their ideas for a 30-square-km area at initial stage. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)

BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) -- One month after the advent of Xiongan New Area, a new economic zone about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing, people have seen signs of a promising future for the area.

INTENSIVE ATTENTION

On April 1, China announced the plan to create the Xiongan New Area, which spans the counties of Xiongxian, Rongcheng and Anxin in Hebei Province, and home to Baiyangdian, a major wetland in northern China.

"The new zone is a golden-lettered signboard," said Guo Yonghong, general manager of a local clothing company, who told Xinhua he had received hundreds of phone calls seeking for cooperation during the last month both from home and abroad.

"The sudden intensive attention made me realize that I must prepare in advance for the upgrading and transformation of my enterprise."

A BLANK SHEET FOR A GORGEOUS DRAWING

Launching of the new area is expected to help phase out some non-capital functions from Beijing, explore a new model of optimized development in densely-populated areas, and restructure the urban layout in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region,

The new area will cover around 100 square km initially and be expanded to 200 square km in the mid-term and about 2,000 square km in the long term.

As the national plan kicks in, massive demolition and relocation is inevitable, and local residents and entrepreneurs are concerned about where their old industries will go.

"Relocation of enterprises will be thoughtful and people-centered," said a circular from the preparatory committee of the Xiongan New Area issued on April 12, setting people's mind at rest.

The top priority for Xiongan's smooth start lies in sound environmental protection and early scientific planning and regulation.

Since April 1, people have crowded squares and streets in Xiongxian, Anxin and Rongcheng counties, taking photos, exchanging information and looking for business opportunities.

Against the backdrop of investor speculation and increasing housing prices, the preparatory committee has frozen transactions related to land and property, vowing to crack down on illegal construction and trading of second-hand houses.

The livelihood of local people after relocation is among the central authorities' top concerns.

During the past month, government officials were asked to listen to local residents' appeals and explain policies of the central government.

Ecosystem protection started much earlier.

Guo Hezi, resident of the Wangjiazhai Village, which is surrounded by the Baiyangdian wetland, told Xinhua that pollution treatment had been enhanced in recent years and the quality of water in the lake was gradually improving.

"In October 2015, a giant project diverting water from the Yellow river to the Baiyangdian was launched to improve the ecosystem in the new area," said Zhao Jianmin, a technician with Anxin County's water resources bureau."Upon its completion, 255 million cubic meters of fresh water will be poured into the Baiyangdian each year."

CITY OF THE FUTURE UNDER PLANNING

During his February visit, President Xi Jinping called for "world vision, international standards, Chinese characteristics and high goals" in planning and construction.

The planning of Xiongan is under way and will include one general plan and several specific plans such as Baiyangdian ecological environment protection, social and economic development and industry layout plans.

The planning began about one year ago, and now the China Academy of Urban Planning & Design and five other institutions are working on improving Xiongan's general plan and the regulatory plan of its starting area.

The detailed regulatory plan and urban design of the 30-square-kilometer starting area of Xiongan will be open for global bidding, according to local authorities.

If all goes according to plan, the area will have an excellent environment, optimal urban layout, great public services and innovative development.

China will take pioneering steps to turn the plan into reality. There will be a lean, efficient and uniform management body to ensure reforms in land use, environmental protection and public service and diverse ways of financing instead of just selling land.

The government will also introduce high-quality education and technological innovation resources into the new area and try to attract major projects such as national laboratories.

The Xiongan New Area's priority will be to serve as a new home for Beijing's "non-capital" functions, which will receive some of Beijing's administrative organs, large enterprises, financial institutions, colleges and research institutions.

Many players are echoing the call. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council announced it would encourage state firms to support development of the area.

Telecom giants China Mobile and China Telecom declared that they would make sure Xiongan was covered by a 5G network ahead of many other places in the country. China Development Bank, a state-owned policy bank, said it would soon provide loans of 130 billion yuan (18.9 billion U.S. dollars) to support Xiongan's development.

"With the support of the whole country, the Xiongan New Area will become an innovative development model featuring the government's new growth philosophy and we will see a more coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region," said Zhao Kezhi, secretary of the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:53:40|Editor: Mengjie

Tourists watch lion dance at a scenic zone in Emeishan City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, April 30, 2017. China's tourism industry raked in 79.1 billion yuan ( billion U.S. dollars) in revenue during the International Labor Day holiday. The revenue was driven by 134 million domestic tourist trips, according to the National Tourism Administration. (Xinhua/Xue Yubin)

BEIJING, May 1 (Xinhua) -- China saw a tourism boom during the three-day May Day holiday, a sign of the country's booming tourism industry, official data showed on Monday.

The country's tourism industry raked in 79.1 billion yuan (11.5 billion U.S. dollars) in revenue during the holiday, up 16.2 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the National Tourism Administration.

During the holiday that ended on Monday, tourist destinations across China received a total of 134 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of 14.4 percent.

The tourism boom came as China tries to wean its economy off over-reliance on exports and heavy industries, and shift to a growth model that draws strength from consumption, innovation and service sector.

The tourism industry is considered a driver to growth as it boosts profitability in sectors ranging from hotel, transportation to catering.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 21:58:42|Editor: xuxin

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THE HAGUE, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The net surplus (excluding re-exports) arising from export of Dutch-made goods and imports for the Dutch market rose from 17.9 billion euros (19.53 billion U.S. dollars) in 2006 to 31.9 billion euros in 2016, announced Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on Monday.

Examples of Dutch-produced goods causing a sharp increase in the net trade surplus include agricultural goods and chip equipment.

The total trade surplus reached 52 billion euros if the substantial re-export flows are taken into account. The CBS stressed that "re-exports generate relatively little revenue for the Netherlands."

Out of every euro of export value, approximately 11 eurocents are earned in re-exports. Direct exports of domestically produced goods yield around 57 eurocents per euro of export value, according to CBS.

Re-exports refer to goods manufactured abroad and imported by the Netherlands which are subsequently exported without undergoing much, if any, industrial processing.

A considerable part of Dutch imports from Asia or the United States is transferred via the Netherlands to the European hinterland, such as tablets or mobile phones originating from Asia and reaching Germany or France with an intermediate stop in the Netherlands.

After correction for re-exports, "the Dutch trade surplus with Europe excluding re-exports is substantially lower and Dutch trade deficits with the United States and Asia even fully disappear," said CBS.

The trade surplus with European countries including re-exports amounts to 101 billion euros, against 27 billion euros if re-exports are excluded.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 22:13:48|Editor: Mengjie

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SHANGHAI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Aged just two and a half, Wu Rui follows her mother to work every morning, joining her peers in day care while her mother works in an office a few paces away.

Zhang Yi and her daughter have followed a similar schedule almost every week-day for a year, using the same day care center.

Before the center was launched last April, baby-sitting was a headache for Zhang, a computing engineer with Ctrip, a Shanghai-based travel service.

"Very few nurseries accept children under three, and even if they do the children are dismissed at 3 or 4 p.m. when parents are still busy at work," she said. "As a result, most toddlers stay home with grandparents. But when they are ill or out of the city, baby-sitting becomes a big problem."

Last year, her company began to offer day care for employees' children aged from 18 months to three years. From 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., the children are tended by nurses and teachers, served meals, told stories and enjoy outdoor activities.

"The center also helps tend older children, including primary school students who finish class early and need to wait for their parents to take them home," said Qian Kun, head of the day care center.

"The center now provides services for 100 children, and the oldest are in grade three," she said.

"This is really the best baby-sitting approach," Zhang said. "When I am tired at work in the middle of the day, I steal a look at the photos and video the teachers share in our WeChat group. My daughter's smiling face is such a relief."

Since March 11, several other day care centers were established in Shanghai's office buildings, industrial parks and large companies, a move requested by the city's federation of trade unions, to help working mothers stay in their jobs. The number will expand to 50 before the end of the year.

A 2016 survey by the federation and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences found that 80 percent of women of child-bearing age were unwilling to have a second child, mainly because no one in their families was available to baby-sit.

"I hope Beijing will follow suit," said Wang Yan, who works for a Hong Kong-invested company and is expecting her second child in September.

Wang, 37, remembers going to work with her mother as a toddler. "The nursery was run by my mom's factory in downtown Beijing and was close to her workshop," she said. "Mom said I began attending nursery when I was three months old, but she never felt miserable: we were so close to each other all the time."
ACCRA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Health and Safety Ghana, a policy institute Monday urged the government here to ratify key International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions on occupational health and safety to protect workers in the country.

In a statement released here Monday to commemorate the 2017 May Day celebration, President of the group Francis Dzifa Ahadzi expressed worry over the country's inability to ratify ILO Conventions 155, 161, 170, 121 and 174.

The ILO estimates that 2.3 million people die every year through work related accidents and diseases.

"Health and Safety Ghana would like to use this opportunity to urge government to as a matter of urgency pass the occupational health and safety law, establish an authority to oversee matters of occupational health and safety in all sectors and speed up the ratification of the key ILO Conventions that are related to workplace health and safety," the statement said.

The policy institute also reminded Ghanaian workers that workplace health and safety is a shared responsibility and human right.

May Day is an annual event marked globally to acknowledge the contribution of workers to the economies of their respective countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-01 22:59:01|Editor: An

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Austria's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz (L) and Libyan Government of National Accord's Foreign Minister Mohamed Taha Siala give a joint press conference in Tripoli, Libya, on May 1, 2017.(Xinhua/Hamza Turkia)

VIENNA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz described the present situation in Libya as "still extremely bad" during a visit there on Monday, according to an Austria Press Agency report.

The one-day visit was unannounced for security reasons, with both the refugee crisis and Austrian economic interests in the civil-war stricken country on the agenda.

Kurz, who was welcomed by his counterpart Mohamed Taher Siala at the military airport in Tripoli, told journalists the visit should be a "clear sign of support for the unified government."

The way forward will still take some time, he said, but added that there is no alternative than to support the unified government.

Also among Kurz's delegation were Austria business heads, such as Rainer Seele, CEO of oil and gas giant OMV.

Austria notably had good business relations prior to the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime, that could resume should the situation in Libya stabilize.

The delegation also met with other members of the unified government under very tight security.
SINGAPORE, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Singaporean Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong said on Monday that he has accepted the invitation from the White House to visit the United States sometime this year.

The invitation was extended by the U.S. President Donald Trump through a phone conversation to PM Lee on Sunday.

Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said both leaders "affirmed the deep and longstanding relationship between Singapore and the United States" after the call.
KATHMANDU, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Rashtriya Prajatantra Party of Nepal (RPPN), a major coalition partner of the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government in Nepal, has quit the government on Monday.

Mohan Shrestha, leader of the party, told Xinhua that the RPPN Chairman Kamal Thapa submitted resignation to the prime minister later in the evening.

A crucial meeting of the party decided to pull out of the government expressing the discontent over the impeachment motion filed against the serving chief justice of the apex court at the parliament by the ruling parties, party leaders said here at a press conference.

"The impeachment motion against the chief justice was immature and irresponsible, and was moved with an ill intention. Thus we decided to pull out of the government in protest," RPPN Chairman Kamal Thapa told reporters in the capital.

Thapa was of the view that the ruling parties' move to file the impeachment motion against the chief justice was aimed at weakening the independent judiciary.

"The motion is rightly against the principle of separation of powers which is not acceptable for us," he added.

Sushila Karki, the first female chief justice at the Nepal's Supreme Court, was suspended on Sunday after 249 parliamentarians of ruling parties filed the impeachment motion.

The parliamentarians have accused Karki of interfering the government's decisions through court verdicts.

The RPPN was involved in the government with the four cabinet ministers including Kamal Thapa, who was the deputy prime minister overseeing the federal affairs ministry.

The RPPN is the fourth largest party in the parliament with 37 seats.

This is a major setback for the current coalition government as the country is planning to hold local body elections on May 14 and June 14, observers said.

Earlier on Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi had stepped down from the post expressing unhappiness over the ruling party's motion against the chief justice.

The country's two ruling parties, Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Center), lodged the impeachment motion against the chief justice, in the first such move in Nepal's history. Karki, 64, started her stint as the chief justice in April 2016.
BUCHAREST, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Four British Typhoon jets Monday started their four-month service in Romania to support NATO's Southern Air Policing mission.

The four Royal Air Force Typhoon fighters touched down on last Monday at the "Mihail Kogalniceanu" Airbase in southeastern Romania and will perform patrolling missions in the Black Sea region along the Romanian MiG-21 Lancer aircraft in the coming four months.

During the tasks, Typhoons will typically fly with four Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missiles, four AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, along with the internal Mauser 27 mm cannon.

It is for the first time when the Typhoons are deployed on Romania's territory.

The deployment is part of the implementation of the Action Plan for the assurance of the NATO operational capacity on the Alliance's eastern flank in both the north and the south areas, thus proving the NATO unity and determination as a response to the security environment challenges, according a release by Romania's National Defence Ministry.

The joint air police missions aim at developing the reaction and deterrence capacity, as well as strengthening the interoperability between the Romanian and British air forces, the release added.

The mission of patrolling the skies along NATO's eastern border has been intensified following the Ukraine crisis.
PARIS, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Violence erupted on the sidelines of May Day rally in Paris, leaving four policemen wounded including two suffering serious injuries, Interior Ministry said on Monday.

"During the clashes, four police officers were wounded ... one of them was seriously injured by hand and another seriously burnt in the face," the ministry said in a statement.

Interior Minister Matthias Fekl has firmly condemned "intolerable violence against police officers," pledging to do everything to identify and arrest the individuals who threw projectile and Molotov cocktails at riot police.

In a context of high terror risk, 9,000 policemen, gendarmes and soldiers were mobilized on Monday with 2,000 of them deployed to secure protests in the French capital, according to Paris prefecture.

One person was arrested after 150 masked people attacked riot police, who replied by using tear gas, local media reported.
COLOMBO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan opposition led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday called for a black flag protest during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit next week.

The "joint opposition" alleged that Sri Lanka and India are to discuss a deal during Modi's visit which could be harmful to the country.

Modi has confirmed he would visit Sri Lanka next week to take part in the celebrations marking the UN "Vesak Day", which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha.

However, opposition Parliamentarian Wimal Weerawansa, speaking at the joint opposition May Day rally in Colombo, said that Modi and Sri Lanka are discussing a deal on the eastern town of Trincomalee which he says must be opposed.

The opposition member urged all those who oppose the deal to raise black flags to pretest Modi's visit.

"They are trying to sell Sri Lanka to India," he said.

The Indian media reported recently that India and Sri Lanka have, in principle, agreed to jointly operate the World War-era oil storage facility in Trincomalee.

The government, however, said that India and Sri Lanka will not sign any agreement during Modi's visit.
| 2017-05-02 06:13:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber was killed after he rammed a car bomb at a foreign forces' convoy in Afghanistan's eastern province of Nangarhar on Monday, a spokesman of the provincial government said. (Afghanistan-Suicide Bombing)

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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir -- At least five policemen and two bank guards were killed on Monday after militants attacked their vehicle in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said. (India-Bank car attack)

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TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stepped up call for changing Japan's pacifist Constitution on Monday, two days ahead of a public holiday commemorating the enforcement of the postwar Constitution 70 years ago.

"This is the time to show the public our specific stance on the ideal Constitution," Abe said, citing the "increasingly severe security situation" as a reason for the move. (Japan-Consitutional amendments)

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KATHMANDU -- The Rashtriya Prajatantra Party of Nepal (RPPN), a major coalition partner of the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government in Nepal, has quit the government on Monday, expressing the discontent over the impeachment motion filed against the serving chief justice of the apex court at the parliament by the ruling parties. (Nepal-Party quitting) Enditem
VIENNA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Austrian chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats (SPOe) Christian Kern called for unity within his party during his address at its traditional May 1 Labour Day rally on Monday.

Speaking to thousands in attendance outside the Rathausplatz in the national capital Vienna, Kern addressed recent turbulence in the SPOe ranks, stating the SPOe had always managed to overcome crises when it stood together.

He noted that the "true opponent" of the party is "not within its own ranks," saying the "key" to the chancellery the party presently occupies will not simply be given to the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), which is seen as a challenger at the polls.

The chancellor once again hosed down talk of early elections, acknowledging that while difficulties exist in the government's work, early elections would not solve any problems.

The party had recently come under media scrutiny after long-serving mayor of Vienna and SPOe mainstay Michael Hauepl attained approval of only 77.4 percent during a vote from party delegates at its state convention on Saturday.

In 2015 his approval was a much higher 95.8 percent.
TRIPOLI, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed prime minister, Fayez Serraj, met Austrian foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz here on Monday.

Kurz confirmed Austria's support for Serraj's government and keenness for Libya's stability. He mentioned Austria's willingness to develop bilateral relations and cooperation with Libya in the fields of oil, health and security.

The Austrian FM also expressed hope for the return of the Austrian embassy and companies to Libya.

"Libya is an important neighbor and partner of Europe, especially in the migration crisis," he said.

He also tweeted earlier on Monday that Austria will continue to support Libya with another 1 million euro (1.09 U.S. dollars) humanitarian aid for 2017.

Serraj said he appreciated the bilateral relations and the Austrian support for the Libyan political dialogue, assuring that the support for the Libyan agreement "will have a positive impact to start a new era in Libya's modern history."

The prime minister also said he hoped for increasing political, economic, and security cooperation with Austria.

Libya suffers political division and unrest since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011. The country has been struggling to make a democratic transition.
WINDHOEK, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Fifteen people were killed on Sunday when a minibus and a pickup collided in central-north Namibia, police said.

The accident occurred outside the city of Otjiwarongo, about 300 kilometers from capital Windhoek.

Police said the minibus caught fire on impact and the bodies of 10 of the victims were burnt beyond recognition.

According to the police, the five people who were traveling in pickup died on the spot.

Fourteen other passengers survived the accident, police said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 02:14:31|Editor: ZD

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TEHRAN, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian and Syrian army commanders on Monday vowed to boost cooperation in the face of threats, Press TV reported.

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Baqeri and his Syrian counterpart General Ali Abdullah Ayoub denounced the recent Israeli and U.S. strikes on Syria.

Baqeri said that the Syrian army and nation have put up brave resistance in the face of crimes by the terrorists, regional aggression and foreign intervention.

"By maintaining their unity and national solidarity as well as holding inter-Syria talks, the Syrian people must be prudently vigilant about foreign plots aimed at creating rifts in this country," he was quoted as saying.

Ayoub said that Iran's military advisory support for his country has played a decisive role in the continuation of the Syrians' resistance and their major victories against terrorists and Israel.

Heading a high-ranking military delegation, Ayoub arrived in Tehran on Monday to hold talks with Iranian officials aimed at strengthening relations between the two countries' armed forces and improving coordination on the latest political and military situation in Syria.

The United States fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Shayrat Air Base in central Syria on April 7, saying the strike was intended to deter the Syrian government from using chemical weapons.

Also, the Syrian army confirmed that Israel missile fire targeted a Syrian military position near the international airport of the capital Damascus earlier on Thursday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 02:29:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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By Eric J. Lyman

ROME, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The highest reaches of the Italian government are currently split over accusations that charity groups may be "colluding" with smugglers paid to sneak migrants into Italy, even as the government takes steps to make it easier to return undesirable arrivals back to their home countries.

Carmelo Zuccaro, chief prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Catania, where many migrants are processed, attracted headlines of Italian media in the past days when he said he had evidence that non-governmental groups working to help migrants were cooperating together with smugglers.

Zuccaro did not open an investigation to substantiate his allegations. The controversial charges quickly attracted criticism from Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando -- Zuccaro's superior in the justice system, albeit indirectly -- who said, "It is not appropriate to make a story saying [aid organizations] working in the Mediterranean colluding with people smugglers because that is a lie."

Orlando went on: "I hope the Catania prosecutor's office will let its investigations speak for it because I think it's the best way to clarify things quickly," he said.

But soon after, Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano contradicted Orlando, saying he "agreed 100 percent" with the allegations Zuccaro made.

"Those who become indignant at the drop of a hat are hypocrites," Alfano said when asked about the criticism of Zuccaro's statements.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni tried to say neutral in the spat, saying only that if the Zuccaro's has credible proof the government would not stand in the way of an investigation.

The issue remains far from resolved, but it is helping draw more attention to the growing crisis. On a state visit to the U.S. April 20, Gentiloni brought the issue up with U.S. President Donald J. Trump when he said the rising tide of migrants "threatens to engulf Europe."

Meanwhile, the United Nations Refugee Agency reported that through the last days of April more than 37,000 people have been rescued, making the crossing between Africa and Italy, a 40-percent increase compared to the same period in 2016. At least 1,000 have died trying to make the trip, the UN said.

Those numbers could be set to rise: in the past, traffic has risen dramatically in the summer, as warmed weather leads to calmer seas and more hours of daylight.

Zuccaro's remarks came just days after Italy's parliament approved a measure to speed up asylum proceedings for migrants processed in Italy.

The so-called Minniti-Orlando immigration law, named for Minister of the Interior Marco Minniti and Orlando, the justice minister, creates several new processing centers, and it expedites the processing time for migrant asylum requests to be processed mostly by eliminating the right to appeal.

Though the law has been approved it has not yet been applied to the specific statutes, something that could take months, according to Setfania Panebianco, a political scientist with the University of Catania as well as Rome's LUISS University.

The measure was hailed by the government has a reform designed to benefit migrants by reducing their waiting time and improve security for Italians by keeping migrants off the streets. But analysts said the main impact would be to make it easier for Italian officials to send migrants back home without due process.

"Italy has mostly been a progressive voice in the migrant crisis but this is a backwards step," Panebianco said in an interview.

"There's no doubt that the courts are overloaded, and this is a way to reduce their workload at the expense of the migrants, who will lose rights."

Maurizio Ambrosini, an expert on the sociology of migration, agreed. "The reform is made in order to impact public opinion, and not to help the migrants," Ambrosini told Xinhua.
Visiting Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev (R, front) attends a welcoming ceremony with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L, front) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, capital of Turkey, on March 15, 2016. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya)

BAKU, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Azerbaijan and Turkey on Monday started joint live exercises, said the Azerbaijan's defense ministry.

The military exercises, held in Azerbaijan, will last five days in accordance with an agreement on military cooperation between the two countries.

The military exercises are aimed at improving the interaction between the two armies and sharing the experience through joint headquarters planning, according to the statement of the defense ministry.

The exercises are also expected to improve capabilities of Azerbaijani and Turkish units to conduct military operations.

The drills involve armored vehicles, artillery systems and mortars as well as the military and transport helicopters of the air force and air defense units.

Military cooperation between the two countries started in 1992 with a bilateral agreement signed on military education. Since then, the two governments have been closely cooperating on defense and security.
MOSCOW, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plan to meet in the United States next week, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Lavrov and Tillerson discussed over phone the schedule of upcoming talks on the sidelines of an Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Alaska on May 10 and 11, the statement read.

The meeting will be the second within one month between the two diplomats, after Russia and the United States failed to mend their ties as many had expected under Donald Trump's presidency.

The Russian statement did not disclose what issues Lavrov and Tillerson would mainly discuss in Alaska.

During Monday's phone conversation, Lavrov and Tillerson exchanged views on an international meeting on Syria to be held in the Kazakh capital of Astana on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Syrian civil war, the Ukrainian crisis and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have been major obstacles distancing Moscow and Washington.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 02:49:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TIRANA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Albania's election authorities have extended for two more days the registration period for candidates for June 18 elections as the final attempt to "convince" opposition enter polls.

Albania's Central Election Commission confirmed Monday that political parties have time until May 3 to register their candidates for the June 18 parliamentary elections.

The previous deadline expired on April 29. The opposition coalition did not register while the Socialist Party (SP), Socialist Movement for Integration (SMI) and some other small parties presented their list of candidates.

After submitting list of candidates of SP, Prime Minister Edi Rama voiced confidence that the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) would participate in the June 18 parliamentary elections.

He also expressed readiness to hold talks with DP leader Lulzim Basha to resolve the political deadlock while he warned Basha that if he refused to enter elections, he would take the party into an abyss.

The Albanian opposition has being boycotting parliament since February, insisting on its demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama before the June polls and formation of a caretaker government.

The opposition has also threatened to disrupt voting with "civil disobedience," starting with the by-mayoral elections in Kavaja city on May 7.

DP chairman told reporters Monday that the opposition planned to extend the protests and civil disobedience all across the country.

Basha also issued a strong ultimatum for the Prime Minister, declaring that he had 48 days before the opposition declared a war against what is considered to be the old republic.

Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission has started the verification of decriminalization forms for the candidates that 17 political parties have proposed to be part of elections.

According to the electoral code, the central election commission should approve the list of candidates no later than May 5, 2017.

The list of candidates which will be found with documentation problems will be returned to complete the missing documents, before May 4.

Election body informed Monday that it had set up a special structure to verify all the decriminalization forms and the complete process of verification and accepting or refusing the candidates' lists will end on May 5.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 02:49:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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By Alessandra Cardone

ROME, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Italy's former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi won secretary post of the center-left Democratic Party (PD) in an internal primary election, indicating the ruling PD will fight for the next national elections under the control of Ranzi, who will again play decisive part in Italian politics.

According to the final results published on Monday, Renzi won 70.01 percent of votes in the internal voting of 1.85 million people in the PD primary election on Sunday.

His two contenders, current Justice Minister Andrea Orlando and governor of Puglia region Michele Emiliano, were left far behind with 19.5 percent and 10.4 percent of votes, respectively.

The primaries' result propels Renzi back in a prominent position within Italy's national politics, since the new secretary will lead the PD -- a pro-European force now ruling Italy's center-left cabinet -- into the next general elections due in spring 2018 in the latest.

Italians actively picked up the next leader of center-left PD in the party's primary election because it was likely to impact on the country's politics, and possibly also on Italy's stand in Europe.

Renzi was seen as the favorite against his two challengers, Orlando Emiliano, since the winner would lead the party into the next general elections, when the Democrats -- now major force in a center-left cabinet -- will face the tough competition of anti-establishment and euro-skeptic Five Star Movement (M5S).

Among those waiting before makeshifts gazebos spread across the Italian capital, many seemed aware the outcome of the vote might have reverberations in this perspective.

"These (PD) primaries may be relevant in European terms, indeed," Fabio, a 50-year-old architect and artist, told Xinhua in the historic center of Rome, where he cast his vote for Renzi.

"We are living through a phase in which Europe is at risk due to people who are either against the euro or against the European Union (EU) overall."

"As such, it is important to have a strong (pro-European) party, and a leader, able to stand against this trend," he said.

For Enzo De Filippi, another voter, a strong PD led by "the vision of Matteo Renzi" would also benefit Europe.

"He has undoubtedly a pro-European vision, but also a critical idea of what EU member states should do or not," the man said.

"Italy is bearing the major burden of the immigration flows to Europe, for example, and our EU partners should help somehow."

The turnout was a key factor for the PD, which has appeared weakened and much fractured in latest months, and for the legitimacy of Renzi. As much as Renzi was expected to receive a fresh mandate, his political strength as party leader just depends on popular support for him.

In the last PD primaries in Dec. 2013, over 2.8 million voters were registered, with Renzi taking some 67.5 percent of the ballots, according to the PD's data.

Since then, however, he had to quit from the prime minister office in December 2016 after a harsh defeat on a constitutional reform he had strongly advocated, and stepped down as PD secretary a few months later.

"For me, casting (my) vote is most of all a signal of participation and interest (in the country's political life), not just for us but for our children," Anna, a 52-year-old lawyer, told Xinhua.

The woman stressed the most important thing for the PD was to avoid giving an image of a fractured party, which would alienate new possible supporters.

"Surely, these (PD) primaries have implications on the EU: we are in Europe, and we have to remain in it. Building walls or borders in a globalized world makes no sense to me," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 02:54:39|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KHARTOUM, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Sudan and Belarus signed a cooperation agreement here on Monday in the field of mining and minerals exploration.

A signing ceremony was held at the Sudanese Minerals Ministry, where Minerals Minister Ahmed Mohamed Saddiq al-Karouri signed for Sudan, and Belarusian minister of natural resources and environment protection signed for his country.

"The agreement covered many aspects relating to investment in the field of mining and industrial and agricultural minerals," said Mohamed Abu Fatma Abdalla, director of Sudan's General Authority for Geological Research.

He added that the agreement also covered other areas including investment, environmental studies, labs development, legislations cooperation and introduction of modern technologies.

He said an executive committee from the Sudanese and Belarusian minerals ministries will implement the agreement.

Around 461 companies are operating in the mining field in Sudan, where the mining sector constitutes 40 percent of the country's exports.

Sudan's gold production jumped to 93.4 tons in 2016, making the nation ranks second after South Africa in gold production in Africa, according to Sudan's minerals ministry.

Sudanese statistics indicate that around one million Sudanese employees work in the traditional mining industry in Sudan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 03:14:38|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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KHARTOUM, May 1 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) on Sunday invited Sudan and South Sudan for a meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to discuss outstanding security issues between them.

Sudan's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour, said the joint political and security committee between Sudan and South Sudan received an invitation from the head of the AU High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP), Thabo Mbeki, to meet again to discuss the outstanding issues between them.

He said the AUHIP would hold the meeting in Addis Ababa on May 8-9 to discuss files relating to "implementation of joint cooperation agreements in the security field including border demarcation, the demilitarized zone and the file of sheltering and supporting the armed movements."

Sudan and South Sudan signed a matrix deal on March 8, 2013 in Addis Ababa to implement a previously signed security arrangement, which stipulates an immediate withdrawal of forces from the joint borders, along with establishing a safe demilitarized zone between the two countries.

The matrix deal also included other issues related to border demarcation and economy. But the agreements did not tackle the issue of oil-rich Abyei.

The border issue constitutes one of the biggest barriers hampering the settlement of differences between Sudan and South Sudan.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 04:24:49|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NEW YORK, May 1 (Xinhua) -- New York City has launched its new ferry service with an aim to reduce traffic on streets and subways.

The NYC Ferry service started Monday with a Rockaway, Queens route and the existing East River route. They are two of the six lines that eventually link Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx along the East River.

"A new era begins in New York City," said Mayor Bill de Blasio at the Rockaway dock in Queens late Sunday.

A South Brooklyn route begins on June 1, an Astoria, Queens, route in August, followed by the Lower East Side and Bronx routes in 2018.

An estimated 4.6 million passengers a year are expected to use the ferries, which will cut travel times by as much as two thirds.

A one-way trip will cost 2.75 U.S. dollars, the same as a subway ride and includes transfers. For 1 dollar more, you can bring your bicycle onboard.

All routes have battery-charging stations, concession stands and Wi-Fi.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 05:15:16|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ANKARA, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced Monday to re-elect President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chairman after a break of some three years, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

A ceremony will be held by the party on Tuesday to welcome its founder, President Erdogan, and renew membership for him, the Deputy Chairman Yasin Aktay told reporters after the AKP's Central Decision and Executive Board meeting.

Erdogan will first make his request to register with the AKP and then address the ceremony, which will include all party officials, AKP lawmakers and other related officials.

The President will be re-elected as party chairman at an "extraordinary" congress on May 21, according to Aktay.

Erdogan had chaired the AKP for 13 years from 2001 but had to step aside when he was elected president in August 2014, as the constitution prevented president from being affiliated with a political party on the grounds of the impartiality of the president.

The constitutional amendment that was approved by the April 16 referendum paves the way for the president to retain membership of a party.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney waves to his supporters during his election night rally in Boston, the United States, just after middle night early on Wednesday. Romney conceded his defeat in the presidential election. (Xinhua/Shen Hong)

by Peter Mertz

DENVER, the United States, May 1 (Xinhua) -- With only three million people, Utah is home to one of the smallest state populations in the United States, but three politicians shine a spotlight on this historically conservative enclave, led by Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving U.S. senator in American history.

Moreover, Hatch's potential successor, Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman, both used to be presidential candidates in 2012, is even more famous than him.

"It's the changing of the Republican guard - from a state that embodies conservative, western values," Washington political insider David Richardson told Xinhua Friday, pointing to Hatch's anticipated retirement in 2018.

Hatch held the U.S. Senate seat since 1977 and last month said he would consider retiring if Romney ran to replace him.

Romney was the 2012 Republican presidential nominee who lost to Democrat candidate Barack Obama by 4 points, 51-47 percent of the vote.

If Hatch steps down and Romney waivers, Jon Huntsman, Obama's well-regarded ambassador to China and another 2012 Republican presidential candidate, was named by local media as a potential senator.

All three conservative Utah Republicans are big U.S. political players.

"But Huntsman couldn't get any tailwind because he was too moderate by Republican standards," said Arn Menconi, a former U.S. Senate candidate and Green Party member.

"It's all up to Orrin Hatch," said Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, telling all interested Republicans to step back - even her father's brother.

"I love my uncle," she said of the rare race prospect. "I think it's hard to have those discussions until Sen. Hatch makes his decision. So out of respect for him, I want him to make his decision, and then we can talk about other candidates."

Hatch's "official" announcement is expected any day - whether he will run for reelection in 2018, as encouraged by President Donald Trump, or retire.

The 83-year-old Senate Judiciary Chairman, first elected in 1976, last month named Romney as his "perfect" replacement, but backed away from a retirement statement.

If Hatch runs next year and is likely elected, he could serve 48 years and be 90 years old at the end of his eighth term.

Ironically, in Hatch's first run for political office in 1976, he criticized his opponent for serving three consecutive terms.

"It's time...and Mitt Romney would be an excellent choice," said Washington D.C. political insider Al Rickard. "We need more people like him who are smart and reasonable, and willing to work with the other party to get something done."

Rickard, an original member of America's brash "Young Republicans" under Ronald Reagan in 1982, like many traditional Republicans, lamented that Romney didn't defeat Obama in 2012.

"That would have helped the current situation and made a difference in the Republican Party - to drive them back into the center where they need to be," Rickard told Xinhua Friday.

Even more critical of Trump are Utah's Mormons, who condemned the brash billionaire after he made lewd remarks concerning women a month before last November's hotly contested presidential election.

Hatch, Romney and Huntsman are all Mormons, who proclaim a devotion to Christ and traditionally father many children.

"Almost anyone is more moderate than Hatch," said Rickard, who compared electing Romney to dropping a pebble in a bowl. "When what you really need is to fill the entire bowl with pebbles to make a difference in the Republican Party."

One generation ago, Catholic families with 10 or more children were not uncommon in America. Today, Mormons are one of the few groups who still have large families.

Hatch, Romney and Huntsman have 18 children combined, and two of Huntsman's daughters were adopted from India and China.

Mormons are a "pro-family," conservative religious group who emphasize a drug-free, public service, community, and family-oriented lifestyle - defined in the Book of Mormon that was written by Joseph Smith in 1820.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 05:25:18|Editor: ying

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People attend an annual march for International Labor Day in Paris, capital of France, on May 1, 2017. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

PARIS, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of French people took to the streets in many cities to mark the traditional May Day, with some trade unions seeking to make the day a national mobilization to block the far-right National Front from taking power on May 7.

The outcome of the first round of France's most uncertain election on April 23 sent centrist novice Emmanuel Macron and anti-Europe and immigration candidate Marine Le Pen to a final round, a duel that rocked the country's political mainstream and smashed the efforts to forge a Republican front against the extreme right.

For this year's May Day, French trade unions called for massive protests but with dispersed order. In Paris, CFDT and Unsa organized a rally calling for a "Republican vote" against Le Pen.

"We refuse ambiguity. Abstention is a half voice for (Marine) Le Pen, we will vote (Emmanuel) Macron," Laurent Begy, head of CFDT said.

"We have to push back the FN and continue to build solidarity in France," he added.

Meanwhile, a second rally for "neither Le Pen, nor Macron" took place in Paris, with GCT, FO and Sud unions refusing to endorse any of the top two candidates.

Across the country, 280,000 protestors took part in the rally, CGT union said, while police numbered 142,000.

In Paris, 80,000 people joined unions call for massive turnout while officials' figure stood at 30,000. However, the march turned violent after a group of hooded youth threw projectile and Molotov cocktails at riot police who replied by using tear gas.

In a statement, Paris prefecture said six police officers were wounded, with two seriously burnt.

Five individuals were arrested, with two of them being taken into police custody on charges of having prohibited arms and violence against order forces, it added.

Interior Minister Matthias Fekl firmly condemned the "intolerable violence against police officers," pledging to do everything to identify and arrest those who threw projectile and firebombs at riot police.

In a context of high terror risk, 9,000 policemen, gendarmes and soldiers were mobilized on Monday with 2,000 of them deployed to secure protests in the French capital, according to Paris prefecture.

FRONTRUNNERS ON OFFENSIVE

Macron and Le Pen, the two frontrunners who enter the final straight in the race to the Elysee Palace, both used May Day to attack each other during meetings held in the French capital.

Enjoying an unprecedented public support, the defiant far-right leader Le Pen told a gathering in Villepinte, a northern suburb of Paris, "On May 7, I ask you all to stand tall against finance, arrogance and the rain of money."

"Today, the enemy of the French people is always the world of finance. But this time, it has a name. It has a face. It has a party, and it presented his candidacy. And all dream of seeing him elected. Its name is Emmanuel Macron," she said.

In her speech, Le Pen lashed out at her rival as the face of establishment who "is just (outgoing president) Francois Hollande who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle."

Firing back, Macron described the National Front, as "the anti-France, what this party defends, announces, proposes, is the inevitable collapse of what France has made France, the denial of our values."

Instead, he pledged "In face of insults and obscenity of the National Front, we will refound the country."

"I will fight up until the very last second not only against her program but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic," he told thousands of supporters.

A daily Opinion-way poll on Monday showed Macon beating Le Pen on Sunday run-off with 61 percent of the vote against 39 percent.

The two frontrunners will face off in a televised debate on May 3.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 06:25:25|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CHICAGO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Schaller's Pump, a bar that has run for 136 years in Chicago said goodbye to its customers, old and new, on the last day of April.

The bar, believed to be the oldest continuously operating bar in this third largest city in the U.S., has hosted ordinary Chicagoans and elected officials with cold drinks, good food and hospitality, Chicago Tribune reported.

Kim Shinnick, whose family runs the business, told the local newspaper that she is having a really hard time with this.

Opened to business in 1881, Schaller's Pump has long been considered one of Chicago's most historic taverns.

"Every happy moment in my family's life has been here," said 60-year-old Elmer Mestrovic who lives in the neighborhood and has been coming to the bar since he was a toddler.

The bar was packed with customers Saturday. "It's almost like people are here to stop them," Chicago Tribune quoted Mestrovic as saying. "They don't want it to end. Nobody really knows why it's ending." They've commemorated birthdays, funerals, Mother's Days, Father's Days and first communions here.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 06:45:25|Editor: ying

A woman holding a placard participates in a May Day march in Chicago, the United States, on May 1, 2017. Thousands of Americans on Monday took to streets in major U.S. cities including Washington D.C., Chicago, New York and Los Angeles to join May Day demonstrations for the rights of workers, women and immigrants. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Americans on Monday took to streets in major U.S. cities including Washington D.C., Chicago, New York and Los Angeles to join May Day demonstrations for the rights of workers, women and immigrants.

"It is not my first time to join the event. I joined because the workers of America have been giving a very rough deal for really long time. Workers need more rights, shorter work days, better safety, laws for better pay," Treg Waahl told Xinhua , referring to May Day as the International Workers Day.

"You have to keep asking, keep trying." said Waahl, who was among hundreds of people marching in the downtown of Washington D.C. Monday afternoon.

"I am a cabin maker, I never had an employee because I cannot afford to pay the health insurance. I cannot teach anybody what I do. I think that is really wrong." another protester, identified himself as Philips Palmer, said.

Zakiya Scott, one of the organizers, told Xinhua that the May Day demonstration is the culmination of a series of protests starting from early April by a newly formed umbrella organization called the Majority coordinating more than 50 protest groups across some 100 U.S. cities.

Besides the traditional themes, this year's May Day "is also being used as to call attention to Trump's empty job creation promises, pro-corporation, and anti-worker stances," he said in a statement, citing May Day as U.S. President Donald Trump's 101st day in office.

Also on May Day in Oakland, California, at least four demonstrators have been arrested by police after they chained themselves together to block a county building in protest against Trump's tough immigration policies.

In downtown Chicago, organizers estimated an attendance of 20,000 people in the May Day rally. They carried banners and signs calling for immigrant and workers'rights, environmental justice and a higher minimum wage.

In a Los Angeles park, several thousand people chanted "love not hate" in opposition to the new administration.

The White House had no immediate response to the May Day demonstrations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 06:55:30|Editor: ying

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HOUSTON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- At least one person was killed and three others injured Monday in a stabbing attack on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin), which is located at the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas.

The attack occurred outside of the Gregory Gymnasium in East Campus just after 1:30 p.m. local time and the suspect, who is also a student of the university, has been in custody and identified as the 21-year-old Kendrex J. White, according to the police.

Police so far have no idea about why White, who was armed with a hunting knife, stabbed the victims, three white males and one Asian male between the ages of 20 and 21.

University President Greg Fenves said that his university would actively investigate the stabbings and that all classes and events have been canceled for the rest of the day.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-05-02 07:05:31|Editor: ying

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CHICAGO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- A plane taking off from Chicago's O' Hare International Airport made an emergency landing at nearby DuPage County Airport due to smoke in the cockpit Monday morning.

The plane landed safely and no one was hurt, West Chicago police said.

The America Eagle Flight 2936 bound for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, carries 50 passengers, one infant and three crew members.

According to Marissa Snow, a spokeswoman for SkyWest Airlines, there was no fire, only smoke in the cockpit.

The twin-engine CRJ-200 jetliner flew only 37 miles before it had to make the emergency landing. Mechanics are investigating into the incident.
Contractor shot at Beetham Highway project

Sinanan yesterday said he was deeply concerned after he was informed that two workers with Lutchmeesingh Transport Contractors Limited on the site was shot on Friday night. Police sources also confirmed the incident.

Newsday was informed that the workers are warded at hospital.

Workers also said they were threatened by residents for a cut. Sinanan confirmed that work resumed yesterday but with a heavy police presence at the site which will be maintained until the completion of the project.

Throughout the course of the project we intend to maintain a heavy police present at the worksite. Weve received complaints from workers and contractors that they wont return to work until the area is secure so this is something were taking very seriously, he said.

Its been reported that contractors are being approached by certain elements from the Beetham for money but we cant confirm these reports at this time, he said.

He was hopeful that incident does not affect the completion date for the project since work is being done on weekends to minimise the discomfort for commuters during the week.

Lutchmeesinghs Transport Contractors Ltd has threatened to withdraw their services from the project unless police can guarantee their protection at the worksite.

The Minister spoke as he continued his tour of the constituencies of East Port-of- Spain, Laventille and Diego Martin.

He said Government was formulating a plan to treat with issues of infrastructural development and roadworks repair within these communities and will continue similar tours throughout all constituencies in Trinidad.

There are several key challenges to different areas and were working to see how best we can treat with these challenges. Its important that we assess the areas which are in urgent need of infrastructural development.

Weve already visited six constituencies along the East- West corridor and we intend to continue with our weekend visits to all constituencies, he said.

Member of Parliament for Port-of-Spain South Marlene Mc- Donald expressed optimism that the tour would yield results and echoed Sinanans sentiments that the repair of roads within the community were long overdue and lauded the Works Minister for taking the initiative.

I have already identified several roads and streets in the community of East Port-of- Spain which are in dire need of repair. Im very optimistic that todays walk around will be something good for all of the people in Portof- Spain.
Two arrested after PoS crime spree

According to reports, officers led by ASP Ajith Persad and Anthony Williams including Sgt Kennedy, Cpl Fernando and Constables Sookwah, Hoyte and WPC Mayers were on an exercise in the Port-of-Spain district when they responded to a report of a robbery at Erica Street at about 2 am.

When the police officers responded they saw a 57-year-old man with injuries about his body.

The man told police two men attempted to rob him but he put up a fight and the men escaped empty handed.

Police reports stated that the two suspects then went to Thomasine Street where the broke the windscreen of two vehicles, one belonging to a 38-year-old pastor, and stole cash and other valuables found in the car.

The men then robbed a woman in her 50s of cell phones, cash and other valuables, police said.

Acting on information, the police went to an abandoned building at Eastern Main Road, Laventille, where they found the two suspects and recovered all the stolen items.

The suspects were arrested and will be placed on an identification parade today before being charged with several offences.
Juries not likely to convict

This was the argument put forth by the British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Tim Stew, as he made the case against this countrys death penalty law.

The research that weve seen here, carried out by universities and so on, suggests that actually, juries are half as likely to find somebody guilty if they know that the only sentence the judge can deliver is the death penalty.

Whereas if there is a range of options; long-term imprisonment and so on, to obviously take that person out of society, they are more likely to convict the person in front of them.

The obvious consequence of that is that you could well have people who should be in prison, who shouldve been convicted, who are walking free, walking the streets. Naturally, that is a concern of mine, that actually when people in this country are calling for the swift delivery of justice, that actually the mandatory nature of the death penalty may be making that worse, not better, Stew said.
NCDs cost TT $8.7 billion

Deyalsingh made this disclosure in response to a question in the House of Representatives.

He said this figure can be broken down into diabetes ($3.5 billion), hypertension ($3.2 billion) and cancer ($2 billion).

Deyalsingh said the Government will launch its new national NCD strategy on Wednesday.

Responding to a question from Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Deyalsingh said the strategy will focus on the early detection and treatment of lung, cervical, colo-rectal and prostate cancer. The minister said more needs to be done to catch cancer in its early stages for the benefit of both the patient and the health sector in general.

Deyalsingh also outlined steps being taken to improve service at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex at Mt Hope.
Sinanan to Tobago Chamber: Bear with us

Speaking to the media yesterday during a walkabout in East Port of Spain, Sinanan admitted that he was aware of the inconveniences being caused to Tobago businessmen, but said that the vessels were merely a temporary solution to the problem.

Sinanan said Cabinet was currently reviewing all the options available to them to resolve the matter in the three month period promised earlier this month.

I am aware that there are some serious inconveniences caused and I am working to see how quickly we can resolve this matter. At this time we understand that there are a number of concerns on both the part of the Tobago Chamber and private citizens, and Im really asking them to bear with us as we are doing our best so that we get our moneys worth, he said.

Sinanan also addressed reports the replacement vessels which included a barge (the MV Transporter) and the MV Atlantic Provider, were more expensive to rent and maintain than the Galicia itself, saying it was both false and irresponsible.

I understand that there are a lot of rumours circulation on social media and even by some legitimate media houses, that the cost of the vessels currently being used are in the millions. This is totally untrue and I will add that there has been a marked decrease in cost of about $1.5 million since weve began using these vessels. Earlier this month, the MV Superfast Galicia withdrew its services following controversy surrounding the vessels leasing, repeated delays in the contracts renewal and the cost for its operations.
Agricultural business project lauded as a success

On hand to participate in the final session and interact with the graduates was Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries, Clarence Rambharat who conceptualised the programme almost a year ago.

YEAP represents a collaborative effort between the Agriculture Ministry, the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) and energy company BP Trinidad and Tobago.

It focused on creating avenues for entrepreneurship, innovation and employment in agro-industry for residents of Mayaro and environs.

Spilt into three daylong workshops, the programme delivered comprehensive training in the areas of Techniques for making signature sauces into successful businesses; Processing of candied fruits; and concluded with Processing of vegetable pickles.

This has been a very impressive programme with equally remarkable results and the partcipants have been given an opportunity to transform their lives and take the community of Mayaro even further forward. YEAP was very comprehensive and delivered in-depth information about every aspect of being a businessperson, from technology to techniques and the inherent need for professionalism.

The benefits dont end today because some of the participants will be selected for the Business Incubator Programme.

Im proud of everyone who took part and I look forward to purchasing your products in the very near future, the Minister explained Joel Primus, Community Sustainability and Stakeholder Relations Advisor, bpTT, underscored the companys partnership in the programme. Fostering entrepreneurship is one of the pillars of bpTTs corporate philosophy and this programme was able to achieve that with a high level of excellence.

It provided a different perspective on agriculture and also inculcated valuable skills that included good manufacturing practices, sanitation and packaging. The impact of this programme has national and even international potential because all it takes is one brilliant idea to change the world. The response from the participants was great encouragement in our drive to invest in the development of people, Primus pointed out. The final session saw the young entrepreneurs produce mixed pickles and hot chow chow, where they were ably assisted by Minister Rambharat and Primus.

Also on hand to lend support was CARIRIs Chief Executive Officer, Liaquat Ali Shah, who encouraged the participants to believe in themselves and explained, You are now well equipped for a new and exciting world of opportunity and just as you have improved yourselves, you need to take Mayaro and our nation forward as well. For 25-year-old Afeisha Rodney of New Lands Village, Guayaguayare, the project was a transformative experience, I work at a popular catering establishment and I will take back what I learnt to share with my co-workers and increase the capacity of the business. I have a degree in Biochemistry and I appreciated how scientific methodology was incorporated into the training. We owe a dept of gratitude to the Ministry, CARIRI and bpTT because, at the end of the day, there are now 60 young people in Mayaro with a renewed vision and new skills who are ready to make a difference.
Prakash: Florida condo motivated Ax the Tax

He replied to recent criticism from Finance Minister Colm Imbert that he (Ramadhar) willingly pays American tax but now opposes the introduction of a similar tax in TT.

In the Lower House on Friday, Ramadhar used the debate on an Opposition private motion berating the state of the economy to try to dissuade the Government from pursuing the Property Tax.

Accusing Government MPs of only advocating for things that affect them personally, he said that before becoming an MP he had launched his Ax the Tax campaign to help vulnerable persons.

Saying his Florida condo was the result of hard work by himself, his grandparents and parents, he said that real estate is the one thing that people aspire to bequeath to their children, but is now threatened by the Property Tax.

At one point Finance Minister Colm Imbert rose to object that the debate was not about the tax, and Deputy Speaker Esmond Ford in the chair then warned Ramadhar against tedious repetition.

Ramadhar remarked, They dont understand the relevance of the Property Tax; Thats the straw that will break the camels back.

He said many people in TT sport nice clothes and cars but are in fact financially living on the absolute edge.

Ramadhar said the country is now in a perfect storm of people living in fear for their lives and in fear of losing their jobs.

Citing British statesman Winston Churchill, Ramadhar said a nation cannot tax its way to prosperity.

He accused the Government of massacring agriculture in TT.

Saying his heart went out to the women pictured in the daily press in tears after losing their jobs at Caroni Green, Ramadhar vowed to lead a campaign next month to plant fruit tees such as avocado and pomerac.

By agreement the House did not debate the Plea Bargaining Bill, with Planning Minister Camille Robinson Regis saying this was due to across-floor deal to delay to await the outcome of a similar debate in the Jamaican Parliament.

The House adjourned to Friday.
Labour Minister lauds future entrepreneurs

Minister of Labour and Small and Micro-Enterprise Development, Jennifer Baptiste-Primus, who visiting several of the booths and bought a few items in the bargain, underscored her ministrys support of the JA youth enterprise development initiative.

We re-affirm the major role that co-operatives play in the economic and social life of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. It is heartening to see young people engaging in different forms of business activity.

They represent the future of our countrys business and enterprise.

This is a positive reflection on what our youths can achieve, said Baptiste-Primus.

The Labour Minister disclosed that discussions were being held with the Minister of Education, Anthony Garcia, with the purpose of creation of a space within every school to advance the concept of the co-operative enterprise module.

Joel Primus, Community Sustainability and Stakeholder Relation Advisor, representing platinum sponsor, BP Trinidad and Tobago, said the energy company was honoured to continue its enduring partnership with Junior Achievement, dating back to the 1970s. We at bpTT believe that initiatives such as the JA Trade Fair are aligned with our aspiration that calls on us to be involved in the development of everyone in Trinidad and Tobago. The work that our partners such as Junior Achievement and others do helps us to achieve this goal. It is imperative to highlight the achievements of young people and the work of organisations like JA at a time when there are so many negative stories, Primus declared.

JA Trinidad and Tobago celebrated its 47th Annual Trade Fair as Woodford Square was turned into a virtual bazaar as the student entrepreneurs peddled a wide variety of handcrafted products such as printed tee-shirts, wrist and hand-bands, earrings, bracelets, souvenir buttons, designer mugs, and bakery items.

Karyl Williams, Commissioner for Co-operative Development, Ministry of Labour, said the ministry would initiate measures to get more credit unions throughout the country to get involved in the JA youth entrepreneurial programme.

This trade fair is a clear expression of the creativity and innovativeness of our young men and women and we will take steps to get more credit unions involved with schools in their community, Williams announced. Some 14 companies were supported by the Division of Co-operative Development through various credit unions.

Ashley Davies, President of Ellipsiis, one of 10 bpTT-sponsored companies, said the programme, while challenging at times, was a wonderful experience as her colleagues received valuable insights into planning and forming the company.

To do all this from scratch and to come to Port-of-Spain to sell our products is extremely satisfying.

We intend to sell all our items today, said a confident Davies, a student of St Josephs Convent, San Fernando. Ellipsiis sold items such as mason jars and personal trinkets such as handbands, hair pieces, necklaces and caps.

Earlier, JA Executive Director, J.

Errol Lewis, declared at the formal opening of the trade fair: When you look at the news, you would think that young people are only involved in negative things.

Yet you have hundreds of young men and women coming together in Woodford Square today to bring value to Trinidad and Tobago. Lewis heaped praise on BP Trinidad and Tobago and the Ministry of Labours Division of Co-operative Development, for their significant support of the youth enterprise programme.
The Spanish interior ministry announced Sunday the arrest of 30 members of a drug trafficking gang in the south of the country, with the help of Moroccos authorities.

The men, Spaniards and Moroccans, are member of Las Castanas; the largest drug trafficking and money laundering gang in Spain. The gang was operating in the Strait of Gibraltar; the land mass that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

According to press reports, the police seized one ton of hashish and 350,000 in cash as well as several firearms, 16 vehicles and 3 boats. Bank accounts belonging to 24 people among the arrestees have been also frozen.

The operation was successful thanks to coordination with Moroccan authorities. Around 150 security forces were mobilized in the raid of 21 houses in Cadiz (Southern Spain) and in Morocco.

The gang used high power engine boats to ship cannabis resin from Morocco to Spain, the Spanish police said.
The rug has been pulled from under the Polisarios feet in the battle over Guerguarat wherefrom the Algerian-backed separatists had to withdraw in extremis to avoid an outspoken condemnation by the UN Security Council.

The adoption of the UN Security Council resolution 2351 last Friday was delayed to allow for the Polisario pullback from the Guerguarat area in the buffer strip on the border crossing with Mauritania. The strip, under the 1991 ceasefire agreement, should remain demilitarized.

After months of simmering tension in the border crossing and provocation attempts against the Royal Armed Forces on the other side of the security wall as well as attempts at hindering the flow of commercial traffic between Morocco and West Africa, the Polisario was forced to abide by international law without Morocco firing a single bullet.

Polisario, which acts upon orders from its paymasters in Algeria, showed strategic short sightedness by maintaining troops in the Guerguarat area, in its desperate attempts to tell the world that it still exists.

Previously, polisario officials vowed to never leave the Guerguarat strip in a bid to distract attention from the waning support for their separatist thesis in the continent where an increasing number of African countries back Moroccos territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Sahara.

Also, the Polisarios provocations by maintaining militiamen in the Guerguarat area aimed at trapping Morocco into a military response. But Moroccos restraint and attachment to settle the Guerguarat issue through the UN dealt a diplomatic blow to the separatist front, which, now more than ever, is seen by the international community as a source of instability in the region.

Securing the Guerguarat crossing is of extreme importance to Morocco, which braces for stronger ties with the rest of Africa, notably after submitting a request to join the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS).

Moroccos Permanent representative to the UN in New York, Ambassador Omar Hilale has made it clear in a statement to the press following the adoption of the UN Security Resolution 2351 that there would be no political process unless the Polisario has withdrawn from Guerguarat.
After it restored diplomatic ties with Cuba, Morocco is preparing for the opening of an embassy in Havana, a diplomatic source told the Moroccan news website le360.ma.

Morocco will soon open an embassy in Cuba, the source said, adding that the kingdom has voiced support for lifting the US-imposed economic embargo on Cuba.

Moroccos stance in favor of lifting sanctions on Havana was lauded by Cuban news outlets such as Gramma.

The Moroccan diplomat who requested not to be named has also expressed recognition for Cubas position in 2006 against the presence of representatives of the Polisario separatists in an international event by the non-aligned movement.

Morocco and Cuba have recently ushered a new era by restoring their diplomatic ties and turning the page of 37 years of severance on the backdrop of Havanas alignment on the Polisario separatist thesis.

The re-establishment of diplomatic ties was announced last month following a meeting between the heads of the permanent missions of the two countries at the UN headquarters in New York, Cubas Anayansi Rodriguez Camejo and Moroccos Omar Hilale.

The agreement to restore diplomatic relations came days after a private visit by King Mohammed VI to Cuba where he held private talks with senior Cuban officials to pave the way for a normalization of relations between the two countries.
Moroccos foreign Ministry has issued a statement welcoming the UN Security Resolution 2351 on the Sahara and deploring Algerias role in perpetuating the conflict.

Morocco takes note and expresses satisfaction at the unanimous adoption of the UN Security Council resolution 2351, the statement said while holding Algeria responsible for perpetuating the conflict.

The resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15 members of the Security Council, renews the mandate of the UN mission to the Sahara, the MINURSO, and maintains its role while reaffirming the parameters of the political process as defined in 2007, the statement said.

The political process should take into account the preeminence of Moroccos autonomy initiative, which has emanated from serious and credible efforts, the statement said.

The resolution highlights the regional dimension of the artificial dispute over Moroccos sovereignty over the Sahara and points out to the responsibility of neighboring countries, notably Algeria, the statement added.

The resolution echoes the calls made by the UN Secretary General on Algeria and Mauritania to contribute effectively to settle the Sahara issue, said Moroccos Foreign Ministry.

Algeria has also been held accountable for the ordeal of the population held in the Polisario-run camps in Tindouf. The resolution has reiterated the need for a census of the camps population, said the statement.

In its resolution, the Security Council recognizes that the consolidation of the status quo is not acceptable, and notes further that progress in the negotiations is essential in order to improve the quality of life of the people of Western Sahara in all its aspects.

It also calls upon the parties to resume negotiations under the auspices of the Secretary-General without preconditions and in good faith, taking into account the efforts made since 2006 and subsequent developments, with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution.
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Alex Marlow. Photo: Gage Skidmore

Breitbart is the media voice most closely aligned with Donald Trumps candidacy. (Steve Bannon was, until last summer, its executive chair.) But its since turned against the administrations agenda on several occasions. So how should we be reading Breitbart now? New Yorks Gabriel Sherman spoke with Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow.

Is Breitbart the voice of the Trump White House?

Its hard for us to be the voice of the Trump White House when his biggest legislative push  really his only legislative push thus far  we opposed. Breitbart was seen as instrumental to the takedown of the Obamacare-light bill. We have a set of values that we think are underrepresented in the media landscape and were going to continue to fight for those values. Ive been 100 percent consistent. Were supportive of his policies that reflect the populist, nationalist, conservative agenda that put him in the White House and were very negative when hes abandoned those principles.

Related Stories Beyond Alt: Understanding the New Far Right

Do you see the elevation of Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn as a sign that Trump is moving toward a centrist, technocratic, almost democratic agenda?

That is a great speculation. I have very little insight into what Jared is doing and whether or not he really has as much power as the medias portraying. I am relying on reports from Politico, from the New York Times, from news sources that I largely do not trust, because Jared doesnt do interviews. When is the last time the guy has spoken up? I would love to interview Jared.

What would you ask him?

I would ask him how his vision, Jareds personal vision for the country, how that relates to the people that elected his father-in-law. If he counsels the president to not forget about his base, then hell get some positive coverage at Breitbart. But the media reports that Im reading are the exact opposite. Hes urging the president to moderate his tone and to try to convert Democrats who I believe would never come to the presidents side simply because the president is a Republican and is perceived as controversial. Thats a lesson that I feel like much of the base understands, which is that people on the left are not seemingly willing to compromise with any Republican. People forget how horribly George Bush was treated.

Ive heard that Kushner and Cohn refer to Bannon and Stephen Miller as the crazies. There clearly is a camp that is trying to move away from this nationalist, populist movement.

Obviously, as someone who is at the top of the editorial chain of the leading populist nationalist site in the United States, thats the sort of thing that will prick my ears up. I dont know if its true or not. I dont trust the media reports. And what Ive heard from inside the White House is usually different than what Im reading. But of course Im skeptical that a liberal Democrat or former liberal Democrat billionaire type would be able to channel the Republican conservative working-class Trump base. Im not saying it cant be done, Im just saying Im going to be paying very close attention to it. And I think the Trump voters will be paying very close attention as well.

But you dont necessarily believe the media reports about whats going on inside the Trump White House?

I hear, Its all a game of thrones and everyones at each others throats and everythings a power play, and then I hear, Its all theatrics, its people mostly getting along, the chaos is really a controlled chaos, and everyone actually respects one another. Now the media is pushing a narrative that Steve Bannon is losing power. Theyre gleefully reporting that. And we dont know how much of it is true. Because they want the Trump White House to fail.

How much is Bannon involved in Breitbart now?

Steve has not had any control over Breitbarts editorial since he left Breitbart.

So you are willing to run stories that might complicate things for Bannon in the White House?

As much as I respect Steve  and I think Steve is a patriot and understands the conservative, populist, nationalist movement globally better than any individual on the planet  he also now works for the president of the United States. If President Trump or Steve wants to come out and explain that we actually pushed this health-care bill because this was the most important issue to the Speaker, and in return the Speaker is going to make sure that we get the border wall funded, make sure that we fix our trade deals, et cetera, then maybe that would change some of the views of the Breitbart readership. That wasnt how this was presented.

It sounds like you see your role as the voice of the Trump voter, whether that aligns with the White House itself or not.

You nailed it. I have two responsibilities: No. 1 is to report the truth, and No. 2 is to report the issues from the vantage point of a populist, nationalist conservative.

Would you say Fox News is more in lockstep with the White House than Breitbart is?

I would say so. Ill caveat this by saying I think its good for the country that Fox is presenting so much of what the Trump administration has to say in a way thats unadulterated by the Establishment media filter. But its fascinating how quickly Fox went from an essentially anti-Trump network, where they were diametrically opposed to Trump on core issues like immigration and trade, and watch them change the voice of the network on a dime. I do think theres a cynical business element to it, but I dont fault Fox for doing that because I think its good for the country as well.

The nationalist movement is international as well. Whats going on with your European expansion?

The media likes to report that theyre not happening or that theyve been delayed, all of that fake news. All of these bureaus just take time and careful planning when you have a target on your back as big as Breitbart has. The second we set foot in these countries, were going to be subject to relentless attack, not just from the institutional left but, in many cases, governments that have more control over speech.

Despite the fact that Breitbart now has a seat at the table in the Trump administration, it sounds like you still feel very much like the outsiders.

In many ways I think we are. I think were comfortable in that role. We dont have to be hysterical or outraged as often because our agenda is mostly getting implemented. But when we feel like theres a big departure from it, then we will speak up loudly. Were always going to be seen as outside of the mainstream.

*A version of this article appears in the May 1, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Sebastian Gorka. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

National security adviser Sebastian Gorka is leaving the White House, according to sources who spoke with the Washington Examiner and later confirmed by CNNs Jim Acosta. Gorka is an especially shady and controversial character, even for the Trump administration, as he has been linked to an anti-Semitic far-right party in Hungary with Nazi roots. The Examiner reports that Gorka will leave the White House for a new role that will deal with the war of ideas involved in countering radical Islamic extremism and will entail an appointment to a federal agency.

Assuming the reports are accurate, its highly unlikely that Gorka is leaving the White House by choice, particularly following a Buzzfeed report last week that suggested he lacked the necessary security clearance to even be a national security adviser. Also, in light of Gorkas reported links to anti-Semitic groups, Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler submitted a request to the Trump administration in March asking for Gorkas immigration paperwork so that the House Judiciary Committee could be assured that he did not enter this country under false pretenses. (Gorka is a naturalized U.S. citizen born to Hungarian parents in the U.K.)

The former Breitbart editor was also a deputy assistant to President Trump specializing in counterterrorism, as well as a member of the Strategic Initiatives Group, an internal organization at the White House. Thats all on paper, however, as it may not have actually been clear what Gorka really did in the administration, a White House source explained to the Examiner:

[The source] said Gorkas role has always been unclear and said Gorka never had national security issues in his portfolio. This guy has always been a big mystery to me, the source said of Gorkas contributions to the staff. The source said Gorkas only known duties included speaking on television about counterterrorism, as well as giving White House tours and peeling out in his Mustang, but added that he had few notable responsibilities.

Regarding Gorkas supposed counterterrorism expertise, that claim  as well as his extreme views on the subject  deserve serious scrutiny, too.

The precise timetable for Gorkas departure is not yet clear.
Steve Sailer. Photo: UNZ

After Mitt Romneys 2012 loss to Barack Obama, the Republican establishment undertook a rigorous postmortem and, looking at demographic trends in the United States, determined that appealing to Hispanics was now a nuclear-level priority. And yet their successful candidate in the next election won by doing precisely the opposite. The Trump strategy looked an awful lot like the Sailer Strategy: the divisive but influential idea that the GOP could run up the electoral score by winning over working-class whites on issues like immigration, first proposed by the conservative writer Steve Sailer in 2000, and summarily rejected by establishment Republicans at the time. Now, 17 years and four presidential cycles later, Sailer, once made a pariah by mainstream conservatives, has quietly become one of the most influential thinkers on the American right.

Related Stories Beyond Alt: Understanding the New Far Right

Sailer, a California native and the son of a Lockheed engineer, became a journalist in his mid-30s, starting his career contributing to National Review in the 1990s. His specialty was a plain-spoken form of science journalism, numerate and clued-in to developments in genetics and evolutionary theory, but also infamous for applying, often in a blunt and inflammatory manner, such methods to alleged racial differences in intelligence and behavior. Indeed, Sailer popularized the term human biodiversity (HBD)  now a mainstay on the alt-right  to describe his field of interest, which, despite winning a few lonely adherents in the academy, has been dismissed by critics as pseudoscience at best and eugenics at worst.

Sailers brief career at National Review ended in 1997, when William F. Buckley, Jr. eased out the magazines then-editor, the immigration hawk John OSullivan, in favor of Rich Lowry  part of a larger shift in the conservative world away from paleoconservatives and immigration skeptics near the turn of the millennium. Since then, he has largely been confined to smaller and less mainstream conservative outlets. But after Trump won last November by getting blue-collar, Midwestern whites to vote like a minority bloc, as Sailer had so memorably recommended in 2000, a number of Sailers establishment critics, such as Michael Barone, were forced to acknowledge that Sailer had been vindicated.

On foreign policy, too, Sailer has been a pervasive if subtle presence on the right. During the mid-2000s, he popularized the phrase Invade the World, Invite the World to parody the apparent bipartisan foreign policy consensus of the last two decades around large-scale military intervention abroad and large-scale immigration at home. It took some time, but by the summer of 2016, the mood of the country had caught up with Sailer. Breitbart began using Invade the World, Invite the World to describe the ideology of John McCain and Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trumps stated hostility to elites perceived globalist overreach proved to be a major asset in his campaign.

As Michael Brendan Dougherty of The Week has observed, Sailer has exerted a kind of subliminal influence across much of the right  even in the places where his controversial writing on race was decidedly unwelcome. Sometimes that influence has not even been subliminal  David Brooks has cited Sailer in The New York Times on the correlation between white fertility rates and voting patterns, Times columnist Ross Douthat has referenced Sailers analogy between Breitbart-style conservatism and punk rock, and the economist Tyler Cowen has described him as the most significant neo-reaction thinker today. Meanwhile, Sailers ideas and catchphrases  including the coalition of the fringes, to describe the Obama coalition, and elect a new people, a paraphrase of Bertolt Brecht describing an alleged liberal plot to re-engineer the countrys demographics  have spread across the right-wing Internet like wildfire.

Perhaps the Sailerist idea most closely echoed by the Trump movement is citizenism, which he describes as the philosophy that a nation should give overwhelming preference to the interests of its current citizens over foreigners, in the same way as a corporation prioritizes the interests of its current shareholders over everyone else. Effectuating this philosophy  putting Americans First, as he put it in 2006would, according to Sailer, require a draconian reduction in immigration levels.

Most liberals would take issue with citizenism as reactionary, and perhaps see it as a closeted form of the white nationalism openly championed by many bloggers on the alt-right. Yet Sailer describes citizenism as the best possible bulwark against ethnonationalist impulses. In Sailers view, people are naturally inclined to pursue ethnic nepotism  that is, to help those like themselves at the expense of those who are not. The goal of citizenism, therefore, is to redirect these energies by providing a more expansive definition of us than the race or tribe.

Of course, saying that citizenism is not white nationalism is not to exonerate Sailer. His record contains ample reasons to question the rather innocent description of his politics. In his most infamous and widely condemned blog post, written during the unrest following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Sailer wrote that African Americans possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus, they need stricter moral guidance from society. And he regularly plays up a sort of white grievance politics  grousing about black privilege or complaining about Jordan Peeles Get Out as a remarkably racist kill-the-white-people horror movie. Sailer usually dances around blatantly bigoted remarks in his writing, but if his ideal of citizenism is formally egalitarian, his view of people more generally is not.

In other words, Sailers body of work points to a politics very much like the Trumpism of the campaign trail  nationalistic, contemptuous of limitations on acceptable discourse, and laden with occasionally sinister racial undertones without directly challenging the principle of equality under the law. Sailer sees himself as having presented an intellectual justification for commonsense politics, which Donald Trump, by being ignorant of the (as Sailer put it in an email to us) Davos Man conventional wisdom, arrived at out of instinct.

And hes not entirely wrong. Sailers influence is impossible to understand without recognizing how far what he refers to as the conventional wisdom has drifted from the common sense of a large part of the country, creating a demand for people who are indifferent to the castigation that normally deters the airing of sometimes wrong, sometimes merely inconvenient ideas. In 2017, Im the voice of reason and moderation, Sailer told us, in reference to the open ethnonationalists to his right and cosmopolitan liberals to his left. That isnt true  Sailer is a perceptive thinker, but his views on race, for which he will inevitably be best-known, still represent the more resentful end of white opinion. Yet if current trends toward partisan and racial polarization continue unabated, Sailerism may indeed come to represent a kind of uneasy center, flanked by identitarian leftism on one side and raw white nationalism on the other. This is a future we should try to avoid.

*A version of this article appears in the May 1, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Michael Eric Dyson (left) and Leon Wieseltier. Photo: Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for for National CARES Mentoring Movement/Tracy A. Woodward/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Where does the alt-right come from? Is it just a new word for racism? Is it a response to economic anxiety? We spoke to historians, sociologists, and thinkers for their perspective.

White supremacy. Pure and simple.

These are the same kind of folks who used to be called white supremacists, renamed themselves in the 80s as white nationalists to sound less bad, and now have rebranded themselves to look more like theyre part of the right wing. Until the Trump run, most of the people in this movement  white supremacists, white nationalists  had no time for either political party. They basically felt like neither of the parties were appealing to their racial interests. Dog whistling wasnt enough for them. When Trump attacked Mexicans on day one and then went on to say all kinds of terrible things that were not dog whistles  they were bullhorns  that was certainly seen as a positive for them. Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Centers Intelligence Project

With a new name to blur old hate 

The term alt-right has two functions. First, it has strategic ambiguity. Its not 100 percent clear who is the alt-right and who isnt. Some people who the media would consider the alt-right, the alt-right doesnt consider alt-right. Some groups I would consider the alt-right dont call themselves alt-right. It allows people to take on and discard elements of the ideology they dont agree with, and because the alt-right itself is marked by heavy layers of irony, in-jokes, memes. It allows them to decry the most extreme elements by saying its ironic, its just a joke. Its very hard to believe that when you have people in the movement who are literal neo-Nazis: They call themselves white supremacists, they believe in white genocide, they advocate a white-nationalist solution. Theres disingenuousness there. The second thing is that theyre incredibly media savvy. By rebranding white ethno-nationalism as the alt-right, it becomes a neologism and it can be newly discussed. All of a sudden it has novelty. There are plenty of white-power militias in the Pacific Northwest and no ones doing big pieces on them. It wasnt until people slapped an Italo-disco 80s-aesthetic coat of paint on it and put it out there with a Pepe face that people start paying attention to these ideas again.

Related Stories Beyond Alt: Understanding the New Far Right

Its also all about the embattled white male identity and the way that it feels infringed upon from other places. If you look at the origins of the mens-rights movement, its about reacting to mens loss of economic status and the rise of women and people of color in the workplace. For many of these alt-right guys, theyre aware of ideas like male privilege and white privilege, and they dont necessarily feel that they are privileged. If even if they may be, they dont see that in their everyday lives, so they strike back at whatever they think is to blame, which could be immigrants, could be women, but its all about protecting this idea of the white male identity. Alice Marwick, studies the alt-right as a fellow at Data & Society Research Institute

And new allies with old blind spots.

Whats crushing to me about them is not that theyre all racist or anti-Semitic, because I dont think that they all are, its that for none of them was racism or anti-Semitism a deal breaker. I dont believe the majority of people in 1933 Germany were anti-Semitic. But for the majority of them anti-Semitism wasnt a deal breaker. Some of it is about bigotry, some of it is about ideological fanaticism. Its possible to be anti-government and not racist. The controlling emotions of the alt-right are rage and anger and resentment and fury. It is possible to be critical of the globalization policies of the 1990s without the anti-elitist madman. It is possible to believe that trade deals should include worker protections without becoming haters. But populism is a paroxysm of anger. Populism always passes. It exhausts itself. Leon Wieseltier, senior fellow in culture and policy at the Brookings Institution

Even its Christianity might have dark undertones.

If you look at the politics of the alt-right, its all chapter and verse from the politics of the American South. We focused on Trump as the alt-right candidate. But there were other related strands that appeared in other candidates too. The Christianity strain in Ted Cruz. The Klan, for instance, in the 20th century would wrap itself up in religion: being the Christian protectors. Or people like Pence, who have a very conservative view of where women should be. That was also part of what the Klan stood for: protecting our women.

The election of an African-American president really brought people out of the woodwork. Instead of sitting in front of their dinner tables grumbling, they got out in the streets and voted. Bigotry always surges forward in times of economic stress, sure. But the strain that holds everything together  say, anti-communism, anti-womens rights, anti-unionization  is the foundation of white supremacy. Nell Irvin Painter, emeritus professor of history, Princeton, and author of The History of White People

It defines itself against defensive Republicans 

Theres nothing right, as in conservative, about these groups. Theyre supporters of a white, blood-and-soil nationalism that is fundamentally un-American. The U.S is a creedal nation, the first of its kind in the world: All men are created equal. The original sin of the country is the dichotomy between that magnificent vision and the reality of African-American slavery. But through the Civil War and civil-rights movement, the story of the country has been one of advancing toward the noble goals of the countrys ideas in our foundational documents. Traditional Republicans have the same revulsion to the ideas of the alt-right as someone from the center-left of the Democratic Party would have. Of course, a broken clock is right twice a day, so there may be an issue on which theyre right. For example, the U.S. ought not to try to reengineer governments in Islamic tribal societies. That we lack the capacity to do it no matter the expense or effort. But Richard Spencer, his allies, are irremediably racist. The Trump campaign played footsie with these groups. He should have unequivocally condemned these groups and their behavior. But he has condemned a lot of these characters and actors. Steve Schmidt, former adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain

Who have tried to define themselves against it.

The view, often voiced on the left, that the alt-right and the Trump movement are merely extensions of conservatism is wrong. Since the peak of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, there has been decreasing willingness on the right to be overtly racist. And Id go further: Since around 2000, youve even seen a declining tolerance among very conservative politicians, journalists, and intellectuals for racism, certainly for explicit racism. Its notable how many figures were tossed out of the National Review orbit, first by William F. Buckley Jr. and then by Rich Lowry. Joe Sobran, Ann Coulter, John Derbyshire, and so on. Even Pat Buchanan  who served in important roles under Nixon and Reagan  had a fairly successful presidential run in 1992; had a huge following for his column; and was probably the most prominent pundit on TV for two decades (Crossfire, The McLaughlin Group, MSNBC, etc.)  even he became marginalized, at long last, after the publication of his 2008 book attacking World War II as unnecessary. Notably, this was also a period when RNC chair Ken Mehlman apologized on behalf of the GOP for the southern strategy and otherwise exploiting racial resentment.

But this was happening at an elite level. On-the-ground attitudes among conservatives were changing, too, but not as dramatically. Those who continued to believe in the sort of rank racism that was once common clustered around certain other publications; Twitter made them more visible to the rest of us, who werent surfing the paleocon blogosphere. Immigration, anti-globalization, neo-isolationism, and other Buchananite issues became, with the racism and anti-Semitism, part of a fairly coherent ideology or worldview.David Greenberg, professor of history, journalism, and media studies, Rutgers

 Even if it meant splitting their base.

Alt-right has been taken more broadly as an alternative to movement conservatism and mainstream right politics. Thats how a lot of people have interpreted it. They thought, Well, I hate Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. I need some sort of label. White nationalism is an important element of the alt-right, but not the only element that people in the alt-right believe in. Without a nationalist, populist type of moment in the U.S., the alt-right would have remained a message-board phenomenon.

Its also not clear to me that theres any political traction for the hard-core elements. The most mainstream element would be an extreme skepticism or hostility to Muslim immigration. Thats an area where theres considerable overlap between the alt-right and the populist part of the conservative spectrum. When Bannon referred to Breitbart as a platform for the alt-right, I think he was referring to that middle phase, the people trying to claim a label for anti-Establishment right-wing politics. I dont think he fully appreciated the unsavory elements. I dont think Bannon has any sympathies for white nationalism as an ideology, for anything that Richard Spencer or that crowd goes in for. I think hes firmly on the populist-nationalist wing of conservative politics, but theres nothing to suggest that hes racist himself, or anti-Semitic himself.  Ian Tuttle, Thomas L. Rhodes Journalism Fellow at the National Review Institute

Which brings us to the tea party

Ideas about white dispossession, the rise of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and nativism  these ideas were held by the majority of national tea party factions. It got to their core brand, the idea of taking America back. From its outset, that idea is racially charged: taking things back from an African-American president whom they viewed as illegitimate. White people being squeezed from above by the internationalist elite. The frame in which they were promoting these ideas was clear even as far back as 2010. It created the bridge from the margins to the mainstream. The tea party has anywhere between 18 and 35 percent of the American public supporting their ideas. Ideas about and identity politics are percolating throughout that movement, and there is very little opposition to those ideas. You see it in everything from their opinions about Black Lives Matter to immigration. Everything has been infected by this notion of white identity politics. It dramatically changed the landscape in the course of eight years. Devin Burghart, co-author of Tea Party Nationalism

 And Sarah Palin, along with Lehman Brothers

The racism has a particular 2017 twist to it. There is still the old-fashioned, we hate these people mentality. But more so, the thing that ties them all together is that white people are now seen as the oppressed people. Thats very different from classical racism in this country and elsewhere. Multiculturalism is seen as perhaps the villain above all. Its one that has an appeal to right-wing populist voters who perceive themselves as being taken unfair advantage of by identity-group political forces, like blacks, Latinos, and women.

There have always been elements of white dispossession. There were big flare-ups around things like bussing for integration in places like Boston in the 1970s. There was a lot of mobilization, especially in the South, around school integration and homeschooling and creating alternate private schools. I would say the most significant antecedents of the state of racism in 2017  i.e., the oppressed-people mentality  happened in 2008, which parallel the race-economic opportunity question: one, the extraordinary financial crisis. Suddenly, people are losing their houses, unemployment skyrockets. What else is going on? America is electing a black president.

And then another antecedent is the amazing vice-presidential campaign of Sarah Palin. Palin goes around and gets rallies excited in the way Trump will later, and in the way John McCain wasnt even close to be able to do. Shes telling people, You are the real Americans. Those other people, theyre urban, theyre multicultural, they look down on us, all that. And she becomes this extraordinarily popular candidate. Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies

It really dates back to the end of the Cold War

All of this started around 1990, when the Soviet bloc collapsed and conservatives of this ilk started talking about the main enemy being the U.S. government. It used to be Russia. Anti-communism used to unify them with other conservatives, but now there was no communism. And remember, Pat Buchanan  who drew directly from the pre-WWII America First movement  he took 3 million votes in the GOP primaries in 92 and 96, which is considerable.

Theres been an increase in the last year and a half in the number of people who believe that they need a white-dominant or white-only country in the U.S. Were talking about people who dont think of themselves as white nationalists, dont think of themselves as stone-to-the-bone racists, but have the same goals that white nationalists do. The important thing is to differentiate between those who are self-conscious in their desire to make a whites-only country and those who are not. David Duke knows hes a white nationalist. He understands it about himself. The others just think theyre Americans. Leonard Zeskind, author of Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream

And is fueled by the well educated and underpaid.

Based on the interviews Ive been doing, members of the alt-right are definitely higher educated [than most Trump voters]. It is a movement that is pretty technologically literate, so it is qualitatively different from the KKK of a generation ago. What some have speculated about, actually within the alt-right itself, is that one of the causes for its growth is that there is a growing number of very skilled and rather talented people who are not of the social status that one might anticipate given their levels of education. So theyre very well trained, very well educated, and they have a lot of time on their hands. So its maybe a lot of people who got good STEM degrees and ended up moving back in with their parents. One of the key ways to destroy a budding radical is to make him or her firmly ensconced in the bourgeoisie. Once you are dealing with mortgage payments, youre not spending time on the internet trying to foment revolution anymore. Part of the problem is this large population that has time and has skills, and its angry. There are people who are quite bitter about their experiences and the alt-right tells them that they have answers for them.

The alt-right is not as large as its able to appear online. My general argument is that around 2015 or so, what the alt-right did and did very successfully, was through social media, especially Twitter, they created this sort of Potemkin village that they would put up in front of opinion leaders, especially journalists, so that every time they fired up their computer they would see a constant barrage of white-nationalist, anti-Semitic remarks, giving the impression that there was this massive online Nazi army that was taking over the internet. Particularly anti-Trump journalists, particularly Jewish journalists, and particularly if you were a conservative anti-Trump Jewish journalist, if you were to go online, someone from the alt-right was probably there to troll you. I dont want to say the trolling of the alt-right was super-coordinated, but there were certain personalities that were very likely to be targeted by anonymous alt-right folks on social media. And starting around 2015 you began to see these big stories about this new scary movement called the alt-right, and in a way it sort of became this self-fulfilling prophecy. I think the real change especially occurred about Hillary gave her Reno speech in which she denounced the alt-right. Which, at that point, I think the growth of the movement really sped up. Which is not to say that she necessarily made a mistake, but the alt-right viewed it as a major victory to be brought into the national conversation that way. George Hawley, political scientist and author of the forthcoming Making Sense of the Alt-Right

And the anonymity of the internet.

The affordances of digital media (everything from being able to post under a pseudonym to the ability to opt out of certain conversations) create what internet scholar Pavel Curtis describes as reduced social risk  people are able to express things online that might get them in trouble in embodied spaces. This can be liberating, say, for a queer person who lives in an area where nonconformity is looked down upon or actively punished, but it can also empower virulent racists to express bigotries without having to worry about being fired from their job or being shunned by their neighbors. Ultimately, this is what allowed members of the alt-right to thrive  though as bigoted expression became more and more normalized within the broader public discourse, white nationalists could be a bit more open about their views offline as well as online. Whitney Phillips, author of This Is Why We Cant Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture

But what if the real cause is modernity itself, which is just a racist construct?

Any deep response to modernity is rooted in racism. The Enlightenment project itself  reason, rationality, scientific inquiry, the quest for objectivity, are rooted in and indistinguishable from a racist conception of who wields reason and why. Remember, Thomas Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia was skeptical about the rational capacity of the Negro to engage in serious and critical reflection. The denial of black reason and humanity and intelligence go hand in hand with the rise of modernity. So the alt-right amplifies and echoes some of the worst elements of modernity itself, which is indissolubly linked to the denial of legitimate rationality among people who are seen as marginal minority in a subculture. We cant escape it by saying Those people over there are horrible. The alt-right is merely echoing some of the premises, presuppositions, and perspectives that have been deeply entrenched in modern western civilization and profoundly articulated at certain levels across the spectrum of political and ideological communities. It is the heinous, disfigured manifestation of a smoother, far more sustained bigotry and polite racism that have taken root in our culture.

At least we know what were dealing with in the alt-right. Theres no pretense at attempting to engage in the politics of tolerance. Thats out the door. Sessions stopping all agreements between the Department of Justice and police departments, that is a severe blow and an expression, although less polite, of an alt-right ideology.

This election was said to be about two contradictory things. The end of identity politics and simultaneously without a sense of contradiction the reassertion of the white working class. As if the white working class is not rooted in identity politics. Whiteness is our culture has been pretty consistent. Its been denying its particularity and its roots in a specific economic or cultural or class formation as a race and sees itself as a universal. When white people hear race, they think black, brown, red, and yellow; they dont think white. Thats why white people can say, Why dont you people stop talking about race? They believe that they are Americans. They dont have a race. They think they dont have a commitment to a particular ideology other than an ostensible neutrality and objectivity. Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology, Georgetown University

Whatever its root cause, the movement will likely only grow.

For many in this movement, being American is part of a civilizational identity, not a set of ideas that anyone can buy into or share. Theres a strong civilization component to most Islamist groups as well  not like ISIS, but the mainstream Islamists who participate in politics. One thing youll find, regardless of the spectrum, is a strong sense of Islamic religious civilization. Thats different because the alt-right privileges ethnicity. Theyre two very different approaches to civilization and identity, but the same basic idea of trying to draw clear lines between large groups of people based on whatever ideology they subscribe to.

ISIS and the Bannon-ites, they feed off each others rhetoric. ISIS and Bannon both want to promote civilization struggle. Theres no moral equivalence between the two, but much of this rhetoric is an endless loop of being reactionary. With groups like ISIS, you have to be attuned to the risk of feeding into a civilizational narrative of war on Islam. This is where the alt-right doesnt distinguish  all Muslims are guilty until proven innocent. They have to prove loyalty to America. It calls into question the very notion of citizenship  as an American Muslim, I shouldnt have to say that Im loyal to America. It goes against the core element of American identity.

As the white population becomes a smaller majority and ultimately a minority, there is going to be more white panic. Its not super-common as a natural democratic process. How will people deal with that? Whites would be a powerful majority in the economy and politics, which creates a dangerous-imbalance power dynamic, like the dangerous sectarian resentments seen in some Middle Eastern conflicts. Thats why Im not super-optimistic about this, unless we can allow some room for a legitimate expression of white identity. White self-interest that doesnt discriminate against others, that isnt racist toward minority groups. A stark understanding of Youre a racist or non-racist, is not a good idea and not sustainable.Shadi Hamid, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Islamic Exceptionalism

*A version of this article appears in the May 1, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi drive nails into the inaugural platform on September 21, 2016. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Members of Congress reached a deal late on Sunday that will keep the government funded through September. The Trump administration had floated adding a number of controversial provisions that Democrats said could spark a government shutdown, such as money for a southern border wall, defunding Planned Parenthood, and punishing sanctuary cities. The bipartisan deal includes another $1.5 billion for border security and $12.5 billion in new military spending, but the Trump administration dropped all of these poison pill demands.

Democrats had also threatened to shutdown the government if Republicans held a vote on Obamacare repeal, but last Thursday GOP leaders said they didnt have the votes to revive zombie Trumpcare. With hours to go before the midnight-Friday deadline, Congress passed a stop-gap funding bill that gave them another week to negotiate. Both chambers are expected to vote this week on the longer-term spending bill.

A Republican aide told the Hill that it will take some time to post the full text of the bill. According to early reports, this is whats included in the roughly $1 trillion package:

 $15 billion in military funding. This is a win for Republicans, though Trump had requested $30 billion in additional military funding in his budget blueprint. According to Bloomberg, $2.5 billion of the funding is contingent on the Trump administration providing a new plan to fight ISIS.

 $1.5 billion for border security, such as additional detention beds and repairing existing fencing. The money cant go to funding a border wall or hiring ICE agents.

 $2 billion in additional funding for the National Institutes of Health, bringing its funding to $34 billion total.

 $68 million to reimburse local law enforcement for the cost of protecting President Trump when he visits his residences in New York and Florida.

 The Environmental Protection Agency will keep 99 percent of its funding, and there are funding increases for clean energy and science. Trump had proposed funding cuts for all three.

 $1.3 billion to permanently extend health-care benefits for 22,000 retired coal miners.

 $2 billion in disaster funding for California, West Virginia, Louisiana, and North Carolina, and more money for transit infrastructure grants.

 $407 million for wildfire funding to western states, and a 2 percent increase in funding for national parks.

 $100 million to combat opioid abuse.

 $295 million to help Puerto Rico keep making payments to Medicaid. Last week President Trump complained via Twitter that Democrats were threatening to shut down the government if we dont bail out Puerto Rico, though Puerto Ricans are tax-paying American citizens.

The bill doesnt defund Planned Parenthood or sanctuary cities, and Democratic leaders said they forced Republicans to withdraw more than 160 riders.

This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table, said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The bill ensures taxpayer dollars arent used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure.

Congress was originally supposed to have the funding for the 2017 fiscal year settled by last October. Even if the deal passes easily this week were in for more budget drama next fall, when Congress faces another government shutdown and a vote on raising the debt ceiling.
Its back. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Shortly after Republicans were forced to cancel the vote on their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare in March, the White House revealed that it was still negotiating with House Republicans. Zombie Trumpcare had risen from the dead.

Now every time a significant date approaches on the congressional calendar, Republicans say theyre on the verge of rounding up the votes to pass the American Health Care Act. They sounded the alarm before they headed home for Easter recess, and again before President Trumps 100th day in office, but each time Zombie Trumpcare stumbled before it could eat the brains of the American health-care system.

Now another deadline is approaching, and sure enough, Republicans are promising that AHCA will rise again.

Stay tuned  watch next week  and you will see the repeal and replace of Obamacare, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at a Republican party in Texas on Saturday.

Since Democrats wont help gut Obamacare, Republicans are relying on a process called reconciliation that will let them pass the bill with a simple majority, not 60 votes. That window closes when they wrap up the budget for fiscal year 2017, and on Sunday night Congress reached a bipartisan spending agreement thats likely to pass this week. Plus, as Politico notes:

The House is scheduled to leave town for a one-week recess on Thursday, and some senior Republicans worry that failing to get it done by then would fritter away critical momentum. Skittish Republicans would return home to face a barrage of pressure from Democrats and progressive outside groups.

This is it, an administration official told Politico. We get it done now, or we dont get it done ever.

Despite reaching a compromise last week that House Freedom Caucus members actually like  though it would make the AHCA even worse for the poor, sick, and elderly  Republicans were unable to muster the support to hold a vote last week. Now GOP insiders say theyre getting close to the 218 votes they need in the House, but theres scant evidence that theyre actually there. Per Politico:

Ryan and his team still have to nail down about 20 undecided Republicans. More than 15 lawmakers  mostly moderates  have said publicly they will not vote for the current bill. So GOP leaders, who can only lose 22 votes, are scrambling to persuade those who havent made up their minds.

The Wall Street Journal reports that GOP moderates are concerned that the changes made to appease conservatives will push costs higher, and their skepticism remains a stumbling block.

Vice-President Mike Pence tried to temper expectations for Zombie Trumpcares return on Sunday, telling Meet the Press that while theyre close to having the votes to get the bill through the House, it may not pass for months. I hope before the end of the year, Pence said.

They may need that time to get the president straight on what exactly is in the bill hes championing. This is how Trump explained the compromise that would allow states to do away with protections for people with preexisting conditions, as long as they set up high-risk pools, during an appearance on Face the Nation. Per the Washington Post:

Preexisting conditions are in the bill  and I mandate it. I said, Has to be, Trump said, later adding that the proposal has a clause that guarantees protection for those with preexisting conditions.



At another point in the interview, the president said, Preexisting is going to be in there, and were also going to create pools, and pools are going to take care of the preexisting.
Jim Jordan warns that conservatives have no reason to support a spending deal with none of their priorities included. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Conservatives who want to appear grateful to Donald Trump have another reason to focus to the exclusion of everything else on the Gorsuch nomination and confirmation (and perhaps the persistent rumors of additional SCOTUS vacancies): The appropriations deal the White House and congressional Republican leaders cut to avoid a government shutdown is almost impossible to spin as anything other than a major disappointment to the right. The Washington Posts James Hohmann lists eight major ways in which Trump got rolled, ranging from the ban on use of new homeland-security money for border wall construction, to higher (not lower) nondefense discretionary spending, to the removal of 160 specific conservative policy riders. On some very early disputes, like Planned Parenthood funding, Republicans caved early (though they are still promising to take care of that priority in the Zombie Trumpcare bill).

In terms of enacting the funding bill, the White House better hope that congressional Democrats view it as a victory and vote for it. Because a lot of conservatives may defect, according to the Washington Examiner:

Conservative Republicans are already shaking their heads at the spending deal reached late Sunday to keep the government open until the end of September, Rep. Jim Jordan said Monday.



I think youre going to see a lot of conservatives be against this plan this week, he said on CBS, adding that hes disappointed.

Jordan reminded everyone that it was the expectation of something very different that convinced his fellow House Freedom Caucus members to vote for the short-term funding bill enacted last December that expired on Friday:

We did a short-term spending bill so when Republicans controlled the government we could do the kind of things we campaigned on, Jordan said.



We make this job too complicated, he said. Our job is to do what we told the voters we were going to do.

There is another alleged benefit of the deal to conservatives that the White House was quick  probably too quick  to claim:

The White House agreed to punt on a lot of the presidents top priorities until this fall to avert a shutdown on Friday and to clear the deck so that the House can pass a health-care bill. This is going to be a great week, Gary Cohn, Trumps chief economic adviser, said on CBS this morning. Were going to get health care down to the floor of the House. Were convinced weve got the votes, and were going to keep moving on with our agenda.

This message may be aimed at consoling conservatives given the Freedom Caucus endorsement of Zombie Trumpcare. But if hes wrong and they dont have the votes you will have a fresh and very bitter disappointment to conservatives. And unless something changes dramatically, of course, the disappointment is inevitable after Zombie Trumpcare dies in the Senate if not in the House.

Yeah, conservatives should dwell on SCOTUS.
Joe Biden. Photo: Brad Barket/WireImage

Like Michelle Obama, Joe Biden is trying to nip speculation about his future political career in the bud  despite what his busy schedule suggests.

Early on Sunday, Politico reported that the former vice-president is keeping his options open on another presidential run, talking with his staff about how to best position himself for 2020. Hes lined up a slew of political appearances befitting a potential candidate, including a fundraiser for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and a speech to the Florida Democratic Party.

But later in the day during a speech at the annual state Democratic Party dinner in New Hampshire, where the nations first primary is held, Biden denied that hes thinking of taking on Trump.

When I got asked to speak, I knew it was going to cause speculation, he said to applause. Guys, Im not running.

The crowd booed and there were chants of Run, Joe, Run.

Biden said that his current focus is raising money and campaigning to help Democrats get elected throughout every level of government. He said Democrats need to embrace the challenge ahead and reject the false debate within the party about progressive idealism versus standing up for the working class.

Remember the core reason why youre a Democrat  we abhor the abuse of power, whether it is financial power, psychological power, physical power. Think about what made you a Democrat. Its the abuse of power. Weve got to remember who we are, Biden said.

Ted Kaufman, Bidens longtime friend and adviser, suggested that Biden hasnt really made his final decision on his political future. Thats a long way off. Itll be a long time before hell have to think about that. And a lot will depend on where he is, where the country is, where the party is, Kaufman told CNN. Who knows where this presidencys going to be after 100 days? Its pretty daunting to predict where well be 100 days from now, let alone a year from now.
Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte (center) returns a salute from a Chinese naval officer (left), as Philippine defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana (right) looks on during Dutertes arrival to visit the guided missile frigate Changchun berthed at the Davao international port on May 1, 2017. Photo: Manman Dejeto/AFP/Getty Images

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte might end up RSVPing no to Donald Trumps controversial White House invitation. Speaking Monday about the U.S. presidents offer, Duterte told reporters he was tied up.

I cannot make any definite promise, he said, citing a busy schedule that includes upcoming visits to Russia and Israel.

On Saturday, during a very friendly conversation, Trump asked Duterte to visit the White House, as part of renewed outreach to Southeast Asian leaders in the wake of the North Korea crisis. The United States relationship with the Philippines became strained under Obama. Duterte had threatened to break up with his American allies amid U.S. criticism over Dutertes alleged human-rights violations, namely extrajudicial killings in his nations war against drug trafficking. The strain had nudged the Philippines, a critical regional ally, closer to China.

The call may have been an attempt at an apparent reset of relations, but Trumps invitation to Duterte drew deep outrage from human-rights groups, and reportedly surprised members of Trumps own administration.

But even if Duterte is too busy to make the trip to Washington, D.C., the Philippine president struck a more positive tone about U.S. relations while touring Chinese warships on Monday. It was not a distancing, but it was rather a rift between me, maybe, and the State Department and Mr. Obama, who spoke openly against me, he said of Obama, whom Duterte once called the son of a whore. He added: Things have changed. Theres a new leadership.

Later Monday, Trump defended his Duterte invitation, in an interview with Bloomberg News: The Philippines is very important to me strategically and militarily, the president said. I look forward to meeting him. If he comes to the White House thats fine.

Trump added that Duterte has been very, very tough on that drug problem. Despite the evidence that being very, very tough has amounted to Duterte flouting the laws, Trump seemed reassured by the Philippine presidents high approval rating. You know hes very popular in the Philippines, Trump said.

When asked during the White House brief about Duterte, Press Secretary Spicer indicated that Trump was aware of Dutertes checkered history.The President gets fully briefed on the leaders that hes speaking to, obviously, Spicer said. The number-one concern of this president is to make sure that we do everything we can to protect our people and specifically to economically and diplomatically isolate North Korea.





Spicer asked if Trump is comfortable w/ extrajudicial killings of drug users in Philippines



"This isn't a simple yes or no situation"  Dan Primack (@danprimack) May 1, 2017

This post has been updated.
The 45th president thinks the seventh president could have cut a deal to prevent the Civil War. Photo: Olivier Douliery - Pool/Getty Images

Donald Trump was probably feeling pretty relaxed when he sat down for an interview with Salena Zito of the Washington Examiner, one of quite a few he granted in connection with assessments of his first 100 days in office. Zito was arguably the most influential pro-Trump pundit of the 2016 election cycle, renowned for capturing the sentiments of the heartlands white working-class voters who took Trump seriously but not literally.

But while Zitos own account of the interview focused on Trumps work habits and perceptions of the challenges of serving as president, especially in international relations, some excerpts leaked out that showed the 45th president reflecting on his favorite predecessor, Andrew Jackson. And as always when Trump talks about history, recent or long-distant, the material is a bit hair-raising.

For one thing, Trump continues to have counterfactual opinions about his own election victory last year (Zito was one of multiple journalists treated by the president to a color-coded map of the 2016 election results):

My campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson, with his campaign. And I said, when was Andrew Jackson? It was 1828. Thats a long time ago, Trump said.

It was indeed a while back. But the results werent much like 2016. Jackson won a popular-vote (56 percent to 44) and electoral-vote (178/83) landslide over John Quincy Adams; in perhaps the most crucial state, Pennsylvania, Jackson won two-thirds of the vote. Trump lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote with incredibly narrow wins in battleground states.

But more interesting than Trumps mischaracterization of the comparative election returns is his expressed belief that had his hero lived longer, he could have engineered a deal to prevent perhaps the greatest calamity in American history: I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldnt have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, he said. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said: Theres no reason for this.

This last part is more than a little odd, since Jackson died in 1845, well before the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the formation of the Republican Party, and many other events leading up to the election of Lincoln, the secession wave, and the firing on Fort Sumter. Presumably Trumps reference to Jacksons anger is a reference to Old Hickorys threats of military action against South Carolina if it persisted in resisting federal law or in pressing a right to secession.

The actual Jacksonian strategy, however, for dealing with the slavery issue before and after Jacksons death was to keep it out of national politics entirely; Jacksonians were among the biggest supporters of the gag rule preventing consideration of anti-slavery resolutions by the U.S. House of Representatives. Since the Civil War was touched off by Abraham Lincolns decision to stop Southern secession by military force, it is unclear how someone like Jackson could have acted with greater strength. And in fact, the Jacksonian in the White House when the secession crisis arose, James Buchanan, proposed maintaining the Union by Northern surrender to Southern demands for expansion of slavery into the territories.

Putting aside these factual quibbles about Jackson, the bigger problem may be that Trump thinks of the Civil War as something that could have been prevented by the Art of the Deal:

People dont realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?. People dont ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

As a matter of fact, the entire prehistory of the Civil War involved endless efforts to work out sectional differences over slavery, mostly by maintaining national parties that sought (via methods like the gag rule) to exclude the issue from politics and maintain a political balance (sometimes by extending slavery into the territories) between slave and free states. The recognition that slavery represented what Republican William Seward in 1858 called an irrepressible conflict was by 1860 shared broadly by people in both regions. It is hard to imagine a deal that could have put off the conflict much longer, and if it had been brokered by a slave-owner like Andrew Jackson, it would have been a deal that sacrificed the freedom of slaves for another generation.

So if you think about it, the Civil War is precisely the event in American history that shows not only the limitations of the Art of the Deal, but the immorality of deal-making when fundamental rights and the courage to fight for them are at stake. Being strong in the defense of injustice is not a tradition that can make America great again.
Photo: Sushavan Nandy/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Newest New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, a conservative refugee from the increasingly Trumpist Wall Street Journal editorial page, uses his first column to imply, without quite stating outright, that somebody (the world? America? liberals?) overrates the certainty of climate science. Stephens concedes that the reality of global warming is indisputable, as is the human influence on that warming, [while] much else that passes as accepted fact is really a matter of probabilities. He is completely right that the level of future warming is a matter of probabilities, and he is also right that the political debate treats that level of warming as far more knowable than it actually is. Where hes wrong  catastrophically so  is in his implicit argument that the risk lies entirely on one side.

Greenhouse gases have been proven to trap atmospheric heat, so the basic fact that carbon dioxide increases global temperatures is not a matter of debate. Calculating the exact relationship between a given level of greenhouse-gas emissions and average global temperature is a question laced with some uncertainty. Scientists have devoted enormous resources to modeling this. The consensus reports on climate change use the most likely scenarios as the basis for action. Much of the coverage of climate change in the mainstream media focuses on those likely scenarios.

Stephens is correct that, because scientists have calculated these likely scenarios, they have taken on an air of certainty among some nonscientists. The trouble is that he proceeds to imply that the risk lies in the possibility that scientists are overrating the importance of greenhouse-gas emissions. Demanding abrupt and expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions, he argues. Censoriously asserting ones moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts. Policy changes can only be called abrupt and expensive if we think climate change may turn out to be less severe than expected.

But the uncertainty of climate modeling runs in both directions. Climate Shock, a 2015 book by two economists, Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman, argues that the likely global-warming scenario gets too much attention. What should really concern policy makers, they suggest, is the chance that scientists are underrating temperature change. The likely outcomes, represented by the thick part of the curve, are extremely dangerous and expensive levels of climate change. But the truly frightening scenarios lie on the right edge of the curve:

Graph from page 53 of Climate Shock.

There is, they reckon, about a 10 percent chance of a temperature increase exceeding 6 degrees Celsius, or 11 degrees Fahrenheit. That would be a civilizational catastrophe, orders of magnitude more dangerous than the likely warming scenarios, and potentially on a scale that could threaten human life. Even if the likely scenarios were completely harmless, the far-right tail alone is horrific enough to justify significant steps. After all, they argue, people do not accept a 10 percent likelihood of a fatal car crash or terrorist attack. Wagner and Weitzman are economists well versed in climate science who bolster their case with a rigorous analysis of both science and probability.

Stephenss column does not engage seriously with either climate science or distributional probability. He uses most of his limited column space to argue anecdotally. That is an approach that makes sense if your highest priority is limited government, and you are attempting to reason backward through the data in a way that makes sense of a policy allowing unlimited dumping of greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere. That is a tic of American conservative-movement thought  the conclusion (small government) is fixed, and the reasoning is tailored to justify the outcome. Nearly all conservatives argue this way, and if the Times is going to have conservative columnists  which, in my opinion, it should  theyre going to engage in this kind of sophistry.

Stephens warns, [H]istory is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power. It is sad and dangerous that the cost of too-rapid adaptation of green-energy technologies is the only human wreckage Stephens seems capable of imagining.
Photo: Pool/Getty Images

Not content to fail at everything else, President Trump has apparently decided to reform digital services offered by the government, one star in a constellation that he famously understands as the cyber. According to Axios, the president  represented in this case by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is apparently not busy enough with the opioid epidemic and Israel-Palestine peace agreement portions of his portfolio  will establish the American Technology Council to revamp tech offerings. The White House will learn whats wrong with the government by reportedly hosting a summit with unnamed private-sector tech leaders in June.

The Axios scoop, offered by willful propaganda tool Mike Allen, reads more like a press release than an actual plan of action, offering almost no specifics other than the now-well-known assertion that government technology lags behind the private sector. This new initiative will fall under the umbrella of the White House Office of American Innovation, which is run by Trump adviser and big boy Kushner.

That Trump would add technology to the list of things to hate about the federal government is unsurprising, and not even wrong  government technological infrastructure is bad and in need of serious reform  but there is no reason to suspect that this specific program is anything except bluster. The Trump administration is steered by a terrible deal-maker whose policy dictum frequently appears to be, Well, why dont they just make the entire government out of the black box?

For one thing, Silicon Valley almost uniformly detests Trump, and its leading CEOs appeared at a summit at Trump Tower in December mostly as a courtesy to the new regime. Nothing substantive came out of that meeting room  just a series of very uncomfortable photos. In January and February, many of the largest tech companies signed on in formal protest of Trumps immigration ban, in part because their industry is so reliant on foreign workers. (That being said, much of Silicon Valleys corporate liberalism is concentrated on the consumer tech side; enterprise tech leaders like Oracles Safra Catz assisted the Trump transition.)

Even in less contentious times, when the Obama administration openly embraced Silicon Valleys progress and innovation, the results were almost impossible to transition over to the public sector. There are numerous reasons for this. For one, private tech firms pay a hell of a lot better than the government, making it easier for them to attract top talent. Plus, building digital services for the government goes through the government bidding process that favors who can do it the fastest and cheapest. Simply landing a government contract is an industry in itself. As Clay Johnson told the podcast Reply All, This regulatory environment is so huge, and requires a real skill to understand, that the people who win the contracts are the people oftentimes who understand those regulations the best, not the people who can understand the technology the best. Its part of why the initial Obamacare online-exchange rollout was such a catastrophe, with unresponsive servers and 404 errors abounding.

Silicon Valley utopianism doesnt scale to a country of 320 millionplus residents tied together by extensive bureaucracy. Last October, President Obama addressed this directly in remarks at Carnegie Mellon. He said:

The final thing Ill say is that government will never run the way Silicon Valley runs because, by definition, democracy is messy. This is a big, diverse country with a lot of interests and a lot of disparate points of view. And part of governments job, by the way, is dealing with problems that nobody else wants to deal with.



So sometimes I talk to CEOs, they come in and they start telling me about leadership, and heres how we do things. And I say, well, if all I was doing was making a widget or producing an app, and I didnt have to worry about whether poor people could afford the widget, or I didnt have to worry about whether the app had some unintended consequences  setting aside my Syria and Yemen portfolio  then I think those suggestions are terrific. (Laughter and applause.) Thats not, by the way, to say that there arent huge efficiencies and improvements that have to be made.



But the reason I say this is sometimes we get, I think, in the scientific community, the tech community, the entrepreneurial community, the sense of we just have to blow up the system, or create this parallel society and culture because government is inherently wrecked. No, its not inherently wrecked; its just government has to care for, for example, veterans who come home. Thats not on your balance sheet, thats on our collective balance sheet, because we have a sacred duty to take care of those veterans. And thats hard and its messy, and were building up legacy systems that we cant just blow up.

The last reason why this Trump initiative will likely never clear the starting line is because its overseen by Jared Kushner, and his tech-industry advisers. Kushners mismanagement of the New York Observer as it transitioned to a digital publication is notorious, and his only other big tech-related initiative has been creating a scoring system for NYC broadband services called WiredNYC (it is unclear whether this has had any impact on the quality of broadband service New Yorkers receive, but its a nice press release). More tangentially, hes the brother of tech entrepreneur Josh Kushner, whose Thrive Capital invested in Juicero (the $400 Wi-Fi juicer thats sometimes as effective as squeezing by hand).

That being said, Axios claims, The council will be run by two of Kushners lieutenants, Chris Liddell and Reed Cordish, assistant to the president for intra-governmental and technology initiatives. Liddell  the White House director of strategic initiatives, and former CFO of Microsoft and GM  will be the councils director. At the very least, those two use computers regularly.

Government technology sucks. Donald Trump will not fix it.
The Drugstore Project No run-of-the-mill Rite Aid, or even a high-end apothecary carries our favorite products  which is why weve pieced together the inventory of our dream drugstore here. Photo: Courtesy of Studio Ghibli/Toei Company

While there are plenty of wonders to be found in the aisles of your local CVS, things get markedly more interesting when you start exploring the drugstore offerings available in other countries. Japanese drugstores, for instance, are a treasure trove of tiny facial razors, hydrating lip masks, and bath salts. Luckily, you dont need to hop on a plane to Kyoto to enjoy the benefits of Japanese skin-care and makeup, as these days many of the countrys best drugstore products are available on Amazon. Read on for 22 Strategist-approved Japanese drugstore finds, including the cult-favorite Baby Foot, binchotan-infused washcloths, and the countrys top-selling exfoliator.

Baby Foot Exfoliation for Feet Peel $25 New York Magazines literary critic Molly Young wrote about this podiatric miracle way back in 2016. If you are not yet aware of its power, well let Young explain the peels appeal: Its a product that will make you believe in beauty products again. Because everybody who does Baby Foot undergoes the same cycle of disbelief, repulsion, fascination, and conversion. It never fails to do what it promises to do. Theres a whole Reddit thread to back me up. $25 at Amazon Buy $25 at Amazon Buy

IDA Laboratories CANMAKE $11 With a creamy formula that doesnt melt or slide off your face in humidity or hot office temperatures, this is a great, easy staple, writes Hou, who put together a guide to the best Japanese drugstore products for the Cut. All of the colors are wearable (even the bright pink) and inexpensive enough that you can collect them all. $11 at Amazon Buy $11 at Amazon Buy

Green Bell Nail Clipper $14 now 14% off $12 Photo: Retailer Former Strategist editor Jason Chen found this nail clipper while in the Narita airport with 1,700 yen (about $16) burning a hole in his pocket. He was floored by the smoothness of the movement, how ergonomic its handle feels, and the way the blades glide through even the gnarliest toenails. While it is expensive for a nail clipper, Chen says that the cost of two Chipotle burrito bowls (without guacamole) is a small price to pay for the most precise at-home manicure youll ever experience. $12 at Amazon Buy $9 at Global Kitchen Japan Buy

NatureLab Tokyo Volume Shampoo $15 If youre looking for an affordable shampoo (thats particularly great for fine hair), celebrity hairstylist Brit Kenna, the owner of Kennaland Salon, suggests NatureLab Tokyos plant-based volumizing shampoo. According to her, it uses rice protein to build volume and soy protein to add thickness, and also has moisturizing elements that dont weigh down the hair. $15 at Ulta Beauty Buy

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Around the time Steve Bannon lost his spot in President Trumps National Security Council, a reporter at the Daily Beast spoke to an unnamed White House official who described Bannons rage. Americas most powerful alt-righter had vented to us about Jared being a globalist and a cuck,  the official said. He actually said cuck, as in cuckservative.  And there it was, the moment when a niche neologism moved, fully and incontrovertibly, into the mainstream  and explained the neurotically masculinist world whence it came.

Cuckservative, the portmanteau that insults moderate Republicans by accusing them of being cuckolds  men whose wives cheat on them  started trending in the alt-right two years ago. The day after Donald Trump announced his candidacy, a thread on 4chans /pol/ page titled Jeb Bush the cuck featured a photo of Trump yelling, Youre fired, alongside a slew of sexually and racially charged insults. The metaphor gained momentum when, one month later, Rush Limbaugh marveled at Trumps refusal to become an average, ordinary, cuckolded Republican.

Related Stories Beyond Alt: Understanding the New Far Right

The first recorded use of cuckold is in a 13th-century Middle English poem called The Owl and the Nightingale, in which two birds debate gender relations. If a man mistreats his wife, the (sort of feminist) owl argues, if she cuckolds him, God knows, its not her fault. The term derived from cuckoo, a bird known for laying its eggs in other birds nests. Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare all made frequent use of the term. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer tells the story of an elderly cuckold named January who is blind. Even after the gods briefly restore Januarys vision so he can see his wife copulating with another man in a pear tree, she convinces him that he is mistaken and continues cuckolding him.

So how did a literally medieval insult end up in modern American politics? Some blame pornography  in the past decade, the archaic term has enjoyed a resurgence in online smut and fetish sex, where it functions as an emasculating subgenre of partner-swapping. As a modern sexual practice, cucking requires an ostensibly heterosexual man to watch as another man penetrates his wife. The goal, generally, is eroticized humiliation of the cuck as a form of emotional masochism. (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, after whom masochism was named, was a fan.) In 2016, PornHub analyzed cuck fetishists searches and found that humiliation and bisexual were among the top words to appear in cuckold searches.

And, yes, race also plays a role. Interracial was the sixth-most-common term to appear next to cuckold in searches, and race plays a role in a significant portion of the cuck-porn oeuvre. Cuckoldry is, after all, about power  and when Americans talk about power, they talk about race. So its not surprising (but still highly upsetting) that humiliation fantasies that hinge on female sexual autonomy would over-index with those who view black sexuality as threatening to their power. Historically, also, cuckoldry incorporated race anxiety, such as the fear of losing white women to Othello in Shakespeares play. Still, PornHub users are more likely to pair cuckold with husband, amateur, and cleanup. (Its a cum-eating thing.)

As for cucks leap from porn to politics, thats sort of anyones guess  but it probably has something to do with the internet, too. Politico cites a political-message-board uptick that dates to Gamergate, the social-media furor that revolved around a female video-game designer whose ex-boyfriend accused her of cheating. When anti-feminist activists moved from video games to politics, Politicos Ben Schreckinger argues, they brought their lexicons (and chauvinism) with them.

For the political figure most associated with cuck-phobia to be Donald Trump is either darkly appropriate or painfully ironic. Trump does seem to subscribe to a worldview in which power is tied to ones ability to obtain  and guard  sexual partners. And hes on the record plotting to cuckold other men, most notably in that leaked Access Hollywood tape. But hes also a man whose wife maintains more corporeal autonomy than any previous First Lady  Melania spends most nights hundreds of miles away from Donald, and even on the nights theyre together, the couple are rumored to use separate beds. (Melanias team denies this. Traditionally, however, wearing the horns was as much about perception as reality.) Meanwhile, Trump has associated himself with people so chaste that, according to medieval cuckold theorists, theyre destined to wear the horns, too. In The Decameron, 14th-century Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio describes a man whose piousness drove his wife to run off with a pirate. What I wouldnt give to find out how Boccaccio would deal with a vice-president who thinks extramarital dining is a gateway to sin.

But the greatest irony is how self-defeating cuck is as an emasculating insult. For a man to use cuck is to admit that his entire understanding of masculinity revolves around the actions of women  which turns masculinity into a quality that women, not men, control. Just as a woman who uses bitch to insult other women in earnest is, inevitably, also kind of a bitch, a man who accuses another of being a cuck is, inevitably, the most fragile man of all.

*A version of this article appears in the May 1, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
Kirsten Gillibrand says she wont be challenging Donald Trump in 2020. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Less than a month after Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election, the lists went up: Ten Potential Democratic Candidates for 2020; 11 Democrats Who Could Defeat President Trump in 2020; Which Democrats Will Run for President in 2020? And every list had at least one name in common: Kirsten Gillibrand. Given her outspoken opposition to President Trump and his appointees, many have speculated that Gillibrand is positioning herself for a White House bid. It would not surprise me if Kirsten were a candidate for higher office some day, Susan Collins said of the New York senator.

Gillibrand has demurred before, saying shell focus on getting reelected in 2018. But on Monday, she gave her most definitive denial yet. During a stop at Fort Drum in Jefferson County, New York, Gillibrand told reporters shes dedicated to serving our state as our senator, and Im running for reelection so I can continue to be their senator.

Does that mean shes ruling it out?



Im focused entirely on running for Senate, so yes, Im ruling it out, she said.

Which is not quite as direct as Joe Bidens Guys, Im not running, but it gets the point across.
If youd like to watch the night unfold on the Met Gala red carpet, head to the Cuts Facebook page, where were streaming it on Facebook Live. With the Comme des Garcons theme honoring decades of progressive, avant-garde fashion by Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, the looks are sure to be bold and original. Well be there until the last celeb has crossed the threshold (best guess: Beyonce).

You can also keep up with us on Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat (all under the name @thecut). Watch the first half of our livestream below.
i had no idea this was still going! is it good for what it is? yay for queen lucy getting shit done

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When Mommy directs Day 2





He's the most precious assistant director ever.

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Why couldn't the attacker leave other bodily fluids on the bed, like spit or blood. Why did it have to be his urine. -__-



I'm relieved that Chantal is okay and the wife didn't do it.



I have never eaten ants so kudos to Sherlock for being adventurous on a date.

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I'm happy Chantal was okay.

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I imagine because urine was the easiest thing for the real attacker to get their hands on to frame the other guy



Edited at 2017-05-01 06:35 pm (UTC)

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You're right, that must be reason.



It's kinda gross but unexpected. I did like the Chinese herbs/pot/drug test chain of clues and Sherlock's "We will all put rubber sheets on our mattresses" line.

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Jonny's insta has been his damn cat and it's adorable.







I NEED MORE JONNY AND ROCKWELL PHOTOS!

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IA. Will he ever let his poor cat live in peace though? I think not.

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I love his insta stories lol. His kitty is so cute.

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Season 5!!! Omg that's amazing and I miss Lucy Liu. Slay. Def need to catch up. Still fresh from dat stan war era. Fun times

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Ngl I'm excited about the next episode because I'm a sucker for game show themed murders. Idk why.

I'm so glad Chantal didn't die! Also the part with Bell and Sherlock at the end <3

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When they say "a reality show contestant is murdered" I thought oh maybe Survivor or The Price Is Right or some other CBS tie-in, but after watching the promo I'm not so sure. The killer is not messing around.

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lucy liu is so beautiful

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It's probably the last season. I love Lucy Liu but she's really bland on this show - Joan is such a boring character and she speaks so damn softly all the time I have a hard time hearing her.

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how is this show holding up? i always meant to watch it bc of the lovely lucy liu gifs popping up on tumblr.

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I haven't watched elementary in years so its crazy to see how everyone's hairstyles have changed

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Is this ish renewed for season six? b/c that's all I wanted, besides a movie, to piss off the Angloviles.



PS. Lucy Liu is an ageless deity.

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Not yet.



Also, not sure if the upcoming writers' strike will help or hurt its chances.

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Last night was so good, I feel satisfied

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super glad chantal is okay. i didn't predict the ending but there were some scenes that were obvious - like the ex coming out of the lift when marcus leaves the room so they can have a ~dramatic confrontation~



i love lucy liu. i would love s6....which i know is 99% not gonna happen

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I can't remember if it was season 3 or 4 but the whole Underwoods vs Russia was such a boring overly long storyline. I love this show and personally thought it picked up toward the end so hopefully this season is good!

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lmao I thought that Underwoods v. Russia was the only good part of S3, the guy that they had playing HOC-verse Putin was highlight of that season.

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Same, Petrov was fucking amazing

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I basically watched it in its entirety over a few days while I had long shifts. Seeing it that way made the lulls a little bit easier to digest between the big moments.



But damn, there was a whole lot going on in that trailer. Did you catch who was feeling up Frank around the 1:10 mark?

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I stanned for House of Cards for way longer than it was reasonable to do so, but I don't even know how they can continue it after 2016, the year where irl politics were more soapy and dramatic and unbelievable than anything the HOC writers are capable of cooking up.



It's so bad that I would actually take the HOC version of politics, where the Republican is popular because he's a young/hot moderate, over our current reality :'(

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i kind of thought i wouldn't be able to watch this season because politics right now but seeing the trailer, it reminded me that trump could at least never be frank because he's not that smart so it still might be a weird escape?

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Sis it's Joel Kinnamon I would 100% sympathise with you if you did that



PS if you like the actor you should watch the Killing, he is AMAZING on that show!

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Yasss The Killing was so good and Holder was the best part of it. <3

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I'd prefer actual murderer Frank Underwood for president over the mess we have now.

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Real life politics doesn't have the behind-the-scenes shit though. I love seeing them come up with a strategy on the fucked up shit they do.

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But will there be more Petrov and less Doug this season tho

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Doug is the absolute worst lol

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I hate him so, so, SO much. I wish he would've fucking died instead of sweet prince Meechum.

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stamper needs to die. he's on borrowed time rn.

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one nation, underwood



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mte

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mfte

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YUP

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lol me irl

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I still need to finish the rest of S4. It's eerie how half the shit that happens on this show doesn't seem far off IRL now.



/csb but my doctor looks identical to Robin Wright (and even have the same style) and sometimes when I watch some of the scenes it totally weirds me out a bit.



Edited at 2017-05-01 04:44 pm (UTC)

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i can't wait. this show is just what i need right now  robin wright's hair evolution on this show is can't-miss tv.



i wonder how the current political situation will impact people's desire to watch. does trump make a show like this more or less appealing?

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She's giving me Cora Harper with her hair this season, only 100000x better

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lmao ive been seeing a little claire in cora from day one, but thankfully claire is less 'i was told by applecare' and more cyberpunk queenpin

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I'm ready. Love the show and hell yeah to more Joel Kinnaman.

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i am so ready

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i still can't believe meechum died

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Rip Eddie. Only good person on this show.

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I cant believe HoC now looks so tame to the reality we are living in

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Ikr, ain't that about a bitch

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Right? Like what the fuck

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Ain't that the truth :/

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I know right, black mirror realness

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lmao ikr 

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About time they release a trailer! I don't know how popular he is but I hope they get rid of that novelist guy, Tom. I can't believe Claire is fucking a dude who is that fucking boring tbh.

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He's a big dull dud and he's not even cute, get thee in front of an incoming train

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I agree, he's such a bore

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from ur lips to beau's ears sis

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Lol I think they're hot together oop.

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lol same I kinda dig him and his incredibly slow voice

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ikr, but he's so available to her, so i get it lol

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lol on Boardwalk Empire he was so fucking goofy, so I can't take him seriously.

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oh shit, this looks good

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yas I'm binge watching this mess May 30

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i'm still sad about meechum :(



but i'm looking forward to drinking wine and watching this show with my bff, it's become our tradition

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he was so hot

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i will never, ever get over meechum. RIP sweet prince :'(

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Ann Coulter is a demon

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BREAKING: Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) tells me he's a NO on new GOP health bill! Brings to 22 the number of NO votes https://t.co/MFBvOPW9qP  Scott Wong (@scottwongDC) May 1, 2017



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that's something at least

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Billy Long is a cool name.

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Your entire life is a huge mistake, Paulie.

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When the inevitable HBO movie miniseries is made about the downfall of this treasonous administration is made, they need to cast Matthew Morrison from Glee as Paul Ryan, cause damn. I didn't notice the resemblance until this GIF.

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Wow, Ann Coulter seems more calm this interview?? I mean, calm for her.

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Still delusional tho!

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She seems kind of aware that she's being ridiculous though lol.



"He's not lying, he's bullshitting!!"

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It's gotta be hard for her. She made a career of being shocking, racist and hateful and now Donald Trump has come along and made her look middle of the road and reasonable. Unless she wants to publicly join the KKK there isn't anywhere more to the right to go anymore.

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ALSO there's a Latina Trump supporter being interviewed on my local ABC station right now (there's some Anti-fas and Trump supporters protesting and stuff here in LA) and OH MY GOD. LOVE YOURSELF. Trump doesn't give a shit about you.

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I saw that! I was dumbfounded. I was wondering what the reporter was thinking because she's Latina too

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I hate Coulter and I don't care that she wasn't able to talk, cancel her from now to eternity.

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why did they even invite her? she's a fucking professional troll, ignore her

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He is truly an awful person to his core, a deeply insecure, unintelligent, narcissistic monster with an ugly heart and no empathy and I wish him nothing but continued losses. I've said before that I hope the realities of being president tear him apart inside and I will repeat this until he is gone.

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I'm hoping he gets visited by the ghost of Christmas future and the ghost basically just shows him 50 years from now how much of a fucking embarrassment and a joke he is historically

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You know he would tell that ghost it was fake news and then tweet about it "Failing ghost visited last night with fake news. Such a hater. Sad."

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Nah, in the story, Scrooge redeems himself by acknowledging his faults and developing empathy. There is no redemption for this insect, I just wish him continual suffering.

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He would probably just think it was his BFF Steve, though. They look a lot alike.

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Nah. I find myself hoping that a lot.

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he is a sentient stroke istg

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I dont stand by anything,



If you stand for nothing Trump, then what will you fall for.

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I dont stand by anything."



That should be the tag line to his presidency.

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What...did....any of that actually mean???? Artificial intelligence prototypes can put together more coherent sentences than that.

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"A very big surveillance." I'm gonna need this gif a lot in months to come, aren't I.

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I dont stand by anything, with respect to his past accusations.



You are the president of the United States and the reason its about to become #3 on the Forbes 'most respected jobs' list behind 'COO of McDonalds inc' and 'Head of Apple Music'.



Edited at 2017-05-01 07:52 pm (UTC)

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He was very nice to me with words,"



JFC...



"but, and when I was with him, but after that there has been no relationship.



This emotional 11 year old is actually upset that Obama hasn't kept in touch with him. Like he legit thought they were besties because Obama was civil to him post election and now he's hurt that Obama wants nothing to do with him now that it's no longer part of his job to ensure a safe transfer of power. We're being led by a child who lashes out when his feeling are hurt.

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What kind of relationship did he expect to have with Obama? He spent the entirety of Obama's first term trying to convince the public he wasn't even born in the US and that his birth certificate is fake. Just because the man was civil to you doesn't mean he owes you jack shit.

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this word vomit. and im just so sick and tired of that phrase "find out what the hell is going on" stfu u orange poop.

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Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is retiring, if Democrats can't pick up her seat then we should all just give up on life cause it's a winnable fucking seat.

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DNC: Hold my beer...

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Both Obama and Hillary won that district. My fellow Miamians get this shit right.

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I can't at this person saying tramp doesn't lie. Like what how why?

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Here's Trump's full answer on "swashbuckler" Andrew Jackson and the Civil War: "Why could that one not have been worked out?" pic.twitter.com/Zb8OQaDqyq  Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) May 1, 2017





Yes, literally no one has thought to try to figure out the causes of the Civil War. Yes, literally no one has thought to try to figure out the causes of the Civil War.

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Holy shit this man is losing his mind.

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I think this man's mind left a long time ago. =\

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I guess there wouldn't have been a war bc Andrew would just let the south keep slaves

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christ he's going to ruin all credibility, what little was left, of america in international politics.

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I am embarrassed to be alive at this time in history.

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"Why could that one not have been worked out?"



I bet Frederick Douglass could tell explain it to him, somebody get him on the phone

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jfc there is SO much that is wrong with everything here that I can't even begin to unpack it. How the fuck did Penn let this man graduate?

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This is so embarrassing

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people don't realize, you know, the civil war, if you think about it, why?





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Seriously I can't. Like Andrew would want to keep the slaves, seeing as he owned and raped them

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that whole last paragraph is like something a 5th grader would write for a book report after not reading the book

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Jesus fucking Christ. There's something wrong with him, and I don't just mean how terrible he is.

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PENCE ROT IN HELL!



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What did he do now?

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him with his rallies scares the hell out of me.



shades of hitter.

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that outfit...

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His look is almost complete

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hdu, these are clearly milk maid braids and not at all cornrows

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lmao

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lol, Graham Northon called him out on this look the last time he was on, it was pretty great, and at least he had the decency to admit he was a fool for doing this. (especially since he met Nelson Mandela with that hairstyle.)

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i think it's smart to go this route tbh. like pop music as a genre is dead rn and people aren't rly checking for it. urban music is huge rn and prob will be for a while until we go through another music wave where pop takes over again



but he shouldn't be OTT with it like then it just comes across try hard and chessey

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Sis he's a white british guy it's not a good idea for him to be doing this unless he wants to be the next Robin Thicke/Iggy Azalea

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lol true

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Don't lump Robin Thicke in with Iggy. What kind of mess?

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Urban music

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true, but there are also acts like ed sheeran, twenty one pilots, chainsmokers, shawn mendes, etc. who are all doing very well

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nah...this is the wrong direction (pun not intended) for his career

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... a collaboration with the homophobic hip hop trio MIGOS



MIGOS gave their controversial opinion about musician iLoveMakonnen, who had recently come out as gay. When talking about the star coming out of the closet, MIGOS told Rolling Stone: They supported him? Thats because the world is fu**ed up. This world is not right.



Later, they claimed that they can't be homophobic because they have a track with Frank Ocean



http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/105958414.html I think it's pretty funny the way this is presented here vs how Migos was presented 4 days ago in a Katy Perry post. So it's ok for Liam to do it --the homophobia is just ignored today.... a collaboration with the homophobic hip hop trio MIGOSMIGOS gave their controversial opinion about musician iLoveMakonnen, who had recently come out as gay. When talking about the star coming out of the closet, MIGOS told Rolling Stone: They supported him? Thats because the world is fu**ed up. This world is not right.Later, they claimed that they can't be homophobic because they have a track with Frank Ocean

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what a qt pairing of homophobes

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mte

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White people. OMG, this is so embarrassing.

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wtf is that outfit

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lol irl

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lol mte, i'm already cringing

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LMFAO

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sdfkljslkj

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I've been seeing your icon around and the girls in his video were so hot even if the video was zzzz



Edited at 2017-05-01 09:49 pm (UTC)

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lmao

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you fool

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please don't embarrass me Liam

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He will absolutely embarrass you. Come on, now.

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I'm afraid this might happen.

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those chains he keeps wearing...

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That outfit is so bad. SO BAD. Well, I like the sweatshirt but not with the whole ensemble.

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Mte. Someone on tumblr suggested that since they had to dress according to the 1D brand when they were actual teenagers instead of making awkward fashion choices when trying to look cool like the rest of us, they're doing it now and I'm inclined to agree. He and Louis have been looking particularly ridiculous lately.



Edited at 2017-05-01 09:05 pm (UTC)

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Obviously this is a point in the Management column that they made them look semi decent. Because left to their own devices ~shudder~

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Does Louis dress much different than his 1d days? Liam has done a complete 180 style wise since he's gone solo

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I can believe that hahahaha

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i say tihs to people all the time and they never get the buffy reference :(

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Niall is releasing another Shawn Mendes' b side!

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lol

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2Paynez lmfao I can't. I guess Cheryl's chav-iness has rubbed off on Lime.

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IKR?? Who could forget the Lana Del Rey penned, Cheryl Tweedy Cole Fernandez Versini Payne autotuned "Ghetto Baby"





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I can't wait to see it.



I can't wait to see it.

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I already feel like this one music video will be more entertaining and have me cackling harder than all other music drama from this year. Can he beat Ja Rule and Fyre Fest? I don't know...but I'm ready for him to try!!



Edited at 2017-05-01 09:14 pm (UTC)

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South Africa, the continents second largest economy, with the most organized business and financial sector in the region, has had its share of electricity related issues culminating in a spate of load shedding that upset its industrial customers of which there are quite a few. Eskom, the state owned utility, has gotten some of these problems behind it and has launched an ambitious generation building program that could add 9,500 megawatts to the presently installed electric generating capacity of 46,300 MWs. (Eskom supplies 95 percent of South Africas electricity needs, or about 45 percent of Africas entire electric generation., largely by burning coal. )

Despite this aggressive plan for multi-billion dollar power plant construction, that's not why Eskom is back in the headlines. In 2014 South Africa's President Jacob Zuma and Russias Vladimir Putin signed an agreement whereby Russia's state-owned Rosatom would supply the country with eight nuclear power stations with a capacity of 9,600 MW. The cost of the projects was estimated at $76 billion (or 1 trillion rand). To put the magnitude of this deal in perspective, Eskoms assets now total about $52 billion. At present the country has one nuclear power station, the Areva-built Koeberg unit in Western Cape Province which is rated at 1,931 MWs.

This agreement quickly came under fire in the local press not least because the President's son Duduzane holds a substantial financial interest in the uranium mine likely to supply these nuclear facilities. In addition the mine itself seems to have been purchased at a fire sale price by the Gupta family, close political and business allies of the President. Related: Australian Government Just Shocked The Natural Gas Markets

Critics of this significant nuclear new build have claimed that given diminishing prospects for load growth the units are not necessary as well as representing an undue financial burden for a fiscally constrained South African economy. Bond rating agencies S&P and Fitch rate the senior obligations of the South African government as BB, non-investment grade. The additional strain of a $76 billion nuclear construction program would not improve this situation.

In addition, Predent Zuma recently removed Pravin Gordhan, his well respected finance minister, after the latter objected to the proposed nuclear deal with Russia. Gordhan's predecessor at the treasury, Nhlanhla Nene, was also sacked in 2015 apparently for the same reason. Gordhan's recently appointed successor, Malusi Gigaba, has stated publicly that this deal with Russia would proceed "at a pace and scale that the country can afford". Eskom has expressed a preference for nuclear over grid scale renewables on the grounds of superior reliability.

A few days ago Judge Lee Bozalek of the Western Cape High Court intervened to set aside a December 2016 finding by energy minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson supporting the Russian nuclear deal. The judge determined that parliamentary approval was necessary and that by itself Eskom lacked the statutory authority to sign a deal of this nature. The court also invalidated separate nuclear cooperation agreements previously signed with the US and Korea. The government can appeal this ruling. The lawsuit itself challenging the Russian nuclear deal was launched by two environmental groups.

Almost as an aside, the court alluded to the appearance of "special favors" in the Russian contract. The contract would indemnify the Russians in case of all future nuclear accidents as well as providing for favorable tax treatments.

Related: This Is Why Your Lithium Battery Doesnt Age Well

Leaving aside the allegations of political corruption, (a feature we doubt is unique to this part of the world), this nuclear deal and its apparent failure raises a number of questions. The first is one of prudence. Why would South Africa, certainly not a rich country, be willing to take on the burden of such a large construction program with all the risks that this would inevitably entail? Could South Africa afford the potential (likely?) cost overruns and what would happen if the construction fell behind schedule? Could the country afford to indemnify Russia in case of accident? And in the case of a not uncommon commercial dispute, could South Africa realistically hope to enforce judgments in a Russian court against a state-owned company?

Perhaps this is a case of a powerful political leader willing to buck the tide of public opinion in order to resolve a significant issue, inadequate reserves of electric generating capacity. That President Zuma chooses to do so in a fashion that may be both risky and high cost is to us beside the point. Electricity as a public policy issue is extremely complicated and justifications for virtually any policy choice abound.

South Africa, along with the UK, may be one of the few nations still willing to place massive bets on new nuclear power plant construction. At least for the time being, it looks as if that bet is off or at least meaningfully delayed. However, Rosatom's two principal competitors are Westinghouse, which is currently in bankruptcy and EDF-Areva which also faces its own financial issues pertaining to delayed nuclear construction. As they say, it ain't over till it's over.

By Leonard Hyman and Bill Tilles for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Saudi Arabias state-held oil giant Saudi Aramco will be launching in 2018 the revamped Muajjiz oil terminal on the Red Sea that would raise the Kingdoms oil loading and export capacity to 15 million bpd from 11.5 million bpd now, Mohammed Y. Al Qahtani, Aramcos Senior vice president of Upstream, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.

Muajjiz was used for exports of crude oil from Iraq via the Iraqi Pipeline in Saudi Arabia (IPSA), but the terminal has not been used to load Iraqi oil since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait back in 1990. IPSA was laid across Saudi Arabia in the 1980s after both sides attacked oil tankers in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war. Saudi Arabia confiscated the pipeline in 2001 in exchange for debts Iraq owed.

In 2012, Iran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuzwhich lies along the route of around 40 percent of the global seaborne oil exportsin retaliation to the Western sanctions. Then Saudi Arabia reopened IPSA to be ready to have alternative export route should Iran live up to its threat.

In 2018, Saudi Arabias additional capacity coming from the Muajjiz terminal will be integrated into the Yanbu crude oil terminal, and will handle increased fuel oil and Arabian Heavy crude supplies to the refineries Yasref, Jazan, and Jeddah.



According to Sadad al-Husseini, former senior executive at Aramco and now an energy consultant who spoke to Reuters, the Muajjiz terminal will boost Aramcos flexibility in crude and oil product sales, as well as traffic out of the Red Sea without affecting its intense operations out of the Arabian Gulf, which are largely dedicated to the Asian markets. Related: Whats Behind This Sudden Drop In Chinas Gold Production?



Saudi Arabias three key primary crude oil export terminals are Ras Tanura and Ras al-Ju'aymah on the Persian Gulf, and the Yanbu terminal on the Red Sea, according to the EIA. Ras Tanura has an average handling capacity of 3.4 million bpd, Ras al-Ju'aymah has a capacity of around 3 million bpd, and Yanbu, 1.3 million bpd. In addition to these export terminals, Saudi Arabia has other smaller terminals including Ras al-Khafji, Jubail, and Jeddah.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Since the start of OPECs production cuts, oil market analysts and experts have been focusing on how U.S. shale would respond to the relatively higher and stable oil prices, possibly eating up some of the cartels global market share while the cuts last.

The market share war is also going on a micro level within OPEC itself  a diverse group of producers, with each pushing and pursuing their own agenda in every meeting and collective decision. This time around it is no different.

Saudi Arabia, OPECs biggest producer and de facto leader, is losing market share, while Iran and Iraq have so far emerged as winners of the cuts with in the cartel in a battle for market share, according to Christof Ruehl, former chief economist at BP who is currently Global Head of Research at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).



If youre talking about winners, you can count Iran and Iraq, Ruehl said at a Dubai conference last week, as quoted by Bloomberg.

The Saudis were aware that they would be ceding some market share with the OPEC deal, but opted for higher and more stable oil prices by signing up to a deal that allowed Iran to slightly lift its output, while others especially Riyadhwould have to cut.

The lower-for-longer oil prices have led to a considerable deficit in Saudi Arabias budget, and the Kingdom had to draw from reserves and increase the issue of debt to finance the gaps in its oil-dependent government revenues.

The Saudis now need higher oil prices if they want their oil giant Aramco to be valued in next years IPO anywhere in the vicinity of US$1 trillion, let alone the US$2-trillion valuation that Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has mentioned.

The Saudi 2017 budget sees higher oil prices this year lifting oil revenues by 46 percent compared to the 2016 estimates.

So, the Saudis entered the OPEC production cut deal knowing that Iran might use the leeway it was given to slightly raise its production, and Iraq might not fully comply with the cuts.

As per OPECs agreement, Saudi Arabia had to cut output by 486,000 bpd to a ceiling of 10.058 million bpd. OPECs no.2 producer, Iraq, promised to cut 210,000 bpd to a level of 4.351 million bpd, while Iran -- the cartels no.3 and bitter regional rival of Saudi Arabia -- was allowed to raise its output to 3.797 million bpd. Related: Is The Permian Starting To Get Crowded?

While the Saudis have overcomplied with the cuts and kept output below 10 million bpd since January, as per OPECs secondary sources, Iran has been pumping as much as it was allowed, and exceeded its quota in February. Iraq, for its part, has failed to comply with the cuts in each of the months through March for which data are available.



Iran and Iraq are looking beyond the cuts and taking steps to raise their output, taking advantage of Saudi Arabias current play of overcomplying with cuts and compensating for rogue members.

The Saudis are losing out because other countries are able to squeeze out more production, Edward Bell, commodities analyst at Dubai-based lender Emirates NBD PJSC, told Bloomberg.

Saudi Arabia is trying to preserve its market share amid the cuts and has been lowering the official selling price for Arab Light and Arab Extra Light varieties for Asia for two months now. The Saudis are expected to slash Arab Light prices to Asia for June to the lowest pricing in nine months, as the Middle East benchmark Dubai crude is falling due to oversupply, according to a Reuters survey of five Asian refiners.

Saudi Arabia is also said to be trying to lure buyers from European markets by changing the way it prices its oil in order to make it easier for hedging. Related: OPEC Has Failed

In a sign that the higher oil prices are helping Saudi budget revenues, reports suggested last week that Saudi Arabia had reinstated perks for civil servants, after revenues for the first quarter turned out higher than expected.

Now the oil market and analysts are waiting to see whether OPEC will decide to roll over the production cuts until the end of the year. The current Saudi rhetoric to the market is that there seems to be a consensus over extending the cuts beyond June, but further discussions need to be held, including with non-OPEC Russia.

The Saudis may demand that Iran also cuts output and insist that non-complying members (such as Iraq) finally get in line as a condition to roll over the cuts, S&P Global Platts reported in March, citing people familiar with the Saudi thinking. With Iran unlikely to concede to any cuts now that it has regained the market share it had lost to the Western sanctions, the Saudis may find it difficult to impose such a deal. But with the possibility that oil prices may fall below US$40 if the deal is not extended, in the end Saudi Arabia may once again choose higher oil prices over market share.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
A new gas condensate refinery, dubbed the Persian Gulf Star, will make Iran self-sufficient in gasoline production and will set the country on its way to turning into an exporter of the fuel, media reported at the inauguration of the refinerys first phase this weekend.

When it begins full operation, the Persian Gulf Star will have a daily capacity of 37 million liters of gasoline. In its first phase, it can produce 12 million liters of the fuel daily.

The refinery is being built by a construction company affiliated with Irans Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.

Currently, Iran produces some 700,000 barrels of condensate daily, but there are plans to boost this to a million barrels daily over the next two years. Iran is already exporting condensate, and last month the daily rate, which is a combined figure for crude oil and condensate, averaged 3 million barrels.

Separate figures for gas condensate were reported for January, when the exports reached 24 million barrels. Government officials at the time said that condensate output would reach a million barrels daily when the final development phase of South Pars is completed, but exports will be reduced, redirecting more condensate to local consumers.

The Persian Gulf Star refinery is one of two projects that will process the increased output. The other is the $2.8-billion Siraf condensate refinery park, which will consists of eight condensate refineries, each with a daily capacity of 60,000 barrels. Its construction is in the early stages.



Related: OPEC Deal Extension Could Be Shorter Than 6 Months

Iran has big plans for its downstream oil industry. Earlier this year, media reported that there are 12 new refineries in the works, to be added to the nine existing ones in Iran, which process 1.73 million barrels of oil equivalent. The aim is to make Iran self-sufficient in the gasoline department and expand its fuel footprint in Asian markets.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
By John A. Charles, Jr.

Last week the Oregon House of Representatives passed HB 2682, which will allow Portland to lower traffic speeds on residential streets from 25 MPH to 20 MPH. This was hailed as an important step towards reaching the citys goal of zero traffic fatalities by 2025, but in reality the bill is mostly symbolic.

First, HB 2682 only affects residential streets. Most traffic fatalities occur on higher-speed arterials.

Second, reducing travel speed is just one of many factors in traffic safety, and not always the most important. According to the 2015 Portland Traffic Safety Report, 54% of fatal crashes involve alcohol or drugs. When pedestrians are involved, 30% of fatalities involve either an intoxicated walker or driver.

Traffic speed is a factor, but 80% of Portlands fatalities and serious injuries occur on the 19% of roadways that are posted at 30 MPH or higher. None of those roads will be affected by HB 2682.

The ubiquitous use of digital devices by motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians represents the greatest new challenge to traffic safety. Unfortunately, people who would rather text than watch the road are unlikely to be helped by a law that reduces speeds in quiet neighborhoods from slow to slower.

John A. Charles, Jr. is President and CEO of Cascade Policy Institute, Oregons free market public policy research organization.
By NW Spotlight

Its well known that unions will contribute to candidates for public office who have their general interests at heart. This happens all the time. However, unions have become much more brazen about supporting candidates as of late.

Candidates like Angela Chisum running for Bend-La Pine School Board are being bankrolled by the Oregon Education Association and Bend Education Association with the primary purpose of influencing them in upcoming school board actions.

In her campaign this year, Chisum has raised just over $9,000 (including the $400 she loaned to her own campaign). The Bend Education Association (local teachers union) has contributed $2,500 to her campaign and the Oregon Education Association (state teachers union) contributed another $2,300 in one transaction and even in-kinded Chisum printing for literature in another $200 transaction. The Oregon School Employed Association (OSEA  educational employees union) contributed $2,000.

The Oregon Education Association is responsible for a full 27% of Chisums budget, the Bend Education Association is responsible for another 27%, and OSEA is responsible for 21%. That means 75% of her budget has been bankrolled by union special interests.

The education associations are weighing in with big money in the Bend-La Pine School Board races for one specific reason: contract bargaining. Every three years the Bend-La Pine School Board is responsible for renegotiating their contracts the unions. Those negotiations have begun and the Education Associations would love nothing better than to gain additional leverage over school board members they helped elect.
India-Pakistan need to build bridges: Turkish President

NEW DELHI: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit, has said that India and Pakistan need to build bridges, strengthen dialogue between different stakeholders to resolve the Kashmir dispute.



The Turkish leader praised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as a well-meaning friend with whom he had discussed the Kashmir issue many times.



Mr Erdogan, who will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, said in an interview to TV news channel WION that Kashmir question upset both countries and surmounting the Kashmiri challenge will contribute tremendously to the global peace.



Indian Express quoted a translation of his remarks as saying: The relations between India and Pakistan if we dig and (go) closer, I can confidently say that the relations between the two nations are improving on a daily basis which makes me very happy. But this Kashmir question, this question saddens us deeply because I think this is a question that upsets both of the countries involved and surmounting the Kashmiri challenge will contribute tremendously to the global peace.



Pointing out that the 70-year-old issue will hurt future generations, the Turkish president said: For the last seven decades, this question (Kashmir issue) has not been settled. And I believe, doing so will provide relief to both the countries. Extending conflicts, extending questions and carrying these questions to the future will be unfair to the future generations because they will have to pay the price. And right next to the prosperity of the Kashmiri people we need security and stability in South Asia. We want this region to be peaceful. We want to win friends wherever we go.



Mr Erdogans comments came amid a clampdown on the internet in India-held Kashmir, where it is now more difficult to surmise the state of stress and trauma the people are going through in the heavily militarised zone.



Mr Erdogan said that both India and Pakistan are Turkeys friends and they must keep the dialogue channels open and engage different stakeholders.



India is our friend in the region. Pakistan is our friend in the region. And there are certain aspects that contribute tremendously to our ancient relations. In terms of faith, in India, we have followers of the Muslim faith. And in Pakistan there are Muslims and this brings us even closer.



We have to build bridges, strengthen dialogue between different stakeholders. We shouldnt allow more casualties to occur. We should strengthen multilateral dialogue. We can be involved in multilateral dialogues. I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all. It will provide great benefits to both the countries.



Mr Sharif is a well-meaning person, Mr Erdogan said, and he had been discussing these issues with him at length.



My dear friend, the prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, is an individual with whom I have been discussing these issues at length and I know he is a man of good intentions. I know he is a good intended man. I heard him personally speak of his will to settle this question once and for all. So if we keep the dialogue channels open, we can settle this question once and for all. And all around the world, there is no better option than to keep the channels of dialogue open if we have to contribute to global peace.



Earlier, Ilnur Cevik, Senior Adviser to President Erdogan, said in New Delhi that Turkey would be interested in nuclear cooperation with India and all other peaceful countries that seek peaceful use of nuclear technology.



Turkeys position on Indias bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council is different. Mr Cevik said his country wanted the five permanent members of the world body to give up their veto powers. Turkey is a member of the group called Uniting for Consensus that is opposed to the expansion of permanent seats in the Security Council.
Teen girls with stones are the new threat in India's Kashmir conflict: The Washington Post

WASHINGTON: Teen girls with stones are the new threat in Indias Kashmir conflict, says The Washington Post in a news story that reviews the current situation in the valley.



As Indias most restive region stares down the abyss of what a commentator calls another hot summer of violence, the doom-laden headline has returned with a vengeance: Is India losing Kashmir? asks a BBC article.



Anti-government protests have escalated again in Indian-administered Kashmir, following violent clashes earlier this month. On April 9, an election was held for a parliamentary seat, but voter turnout was only 7 per cent, notes the Atlantic magazine.



These and other stories in the Western media followed a recent New York Times editorial  Cruelty and Cowardice in Kashmir, which starts with a reference to an incident earlier this month, which apparently moved the newspapers editorial board to comment on the current situation in the valley.



Members of Indias armed forces reached a new low in the long history of alleged human rights abuses in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir when they beat and then tied a 24-year-old shawl weaver named Farooq Ahmad Dar to the front of a jeep on April 9, using him as a human shield against stone-throwing crowds, the editorial noted.



In a subsequent news story, NYT reported that earlier this week, the valleys government blocked 22 social network services, including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, from posting message until further orders.



The move illuminated a government increasingly vexed by civilian protests, by a newly budding home-grown militancy in south Kashmir and by a series of video clips, distributed on social media, depicting confrontations between civilians and Indian security forces, the newspaper noted.



The latest Kashmir story in The Washington Post also pointed out that the current uprising in the valley was local and the weapon of choice of separatist youth against Indian security forces was a stone  or a brick if they can get it.



Indian soldiers have their own slingshots too, as well as conventional weapons and pellet guns that have killed and maimed scores, the newspaper added.



The BBC article, by one of its correspondents in India, points out that the last summer was one of the bloodiest in the Muslim-dominated valley in recent years. Following the killing of influential militant Burhan Wani by Indian forces last July, more than 100 civilians lost their lives in clashes during a four-month-long security lockdown in the valley, the report added, with a warning: Its not looking very promising this summer.



The report noted that the regions Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who leads an awkward ruling coalition with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), rushed to Delhi last week to urge the federal government to announce a dialogue and show reconciliatory gestures.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh told her that they could not offer a dialogue with separatists and other restive groups in the valley while fierce violence and militant attacks continued, the report added.



The Atlantic report observed that a new cycle of protests and violent crackdowns had begun in Kashmir, as have responses to those crackdowns  leaving dozens dead and more injured. The magazine pointed out that anti-India demonstrations had created an increasingly radicalising population in the valley, multiplying Indias troubles.



The Atlantic pointed out that clashes with students in the streets of Srinagar resulted in brutal acts carried out by the Indian security forces being caught on video and spread via social media, which forced the regions authorities to shut down 22 social outlets.



We have faced our moment of truth in Kashmir, observed veteran Indian journalist Prem Shankar Jha in an article he wrote for The SundayGuardian.
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...
Reverend Kwabena Ofosu-Addo, the Chairperson of the Brong Ahafo Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), has called for concerted efforts from Ghanaians to transform the nation.



He said at 60, the nation must demonstrate maturity in its development and he agreed with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo that the era of mediocrity was over.

Rev Ofosu- Addo was addressing the 51st Session of the Brong- Ahafo Presbytery in Sunyani, on the theme: When The Holy Spirit Moves, There is Divine Restoration.

He explained that governance was about setting right leadership examples and placing the development of her citizenry and the nation as paramount.

He said: We have lived long enough to witness Ghanas developmental processes but to say the least; it has been slow and unimpressive in spite of some successes.

The Presbytery Chairperson urged Ghanaians to do away with corruption, political opulence, sensational and unproductive media reportage, moral degradation and replace them with attitudinal change and strong political will to restore the nation to its glory.

Rev Ofosu-Addo urged the leadership of the country both political and institutional, to be principled, transparent and disciplined in their manners and proactive in their mission and called for all hands to be on deck for the rebuilding of the nation.

He commended Rev Kwasi Tettey, the Minister in-charge of Tema Community 11 Presbyterian Church, for his support to mission work by donating a motor bike worth GH? 3,500 and paying quarterly allowances for some Ministers serving in deprived communities of the country.

The week-long session was preceded by a three- day prayer retreat with Dr Abboah-Offei of the Grace Evangelical Mission, Akropong Akwapim, as the main Speaker.

Source: GNA









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Leonardo Da Vinci called it a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art. He was referring to the human foota lever that propels us forward, provides balance, and bears all of our weight. Though small compared to other parts of the body, the average human foot supports a force equivalent to several hundered tons every day. No wonder foot pain is widespread.

Almost 8 in 10 Americans have experienced a foot problem, and half say it has impacted their quality of life, according to the American Podiatric Medical Association. Treatment for foot conditions has advanced significantly in recent years, and the Pittsburgh area is home to promising new treatments and some of the fields world leaders.

Compared to other body parts, the foot was sort of left behind, says Dr. Alan Catanzariti, a podiatric surgeon with Allegheny Health Networks Foot and Ankle Institute. Its only been in the last 20 years where science and technology relative to foot and ankle problems has advanced and gotten so much better. I have been practicing for 30 years and its been a joy to watch how things have evolved.

Foot doctors tool box

A good pair of shoes and inserts can relieve a lot of foot pain but for chronic and difficult-to-treat conditions, experts now have all sorts of gadgetslasers to blast away warts and toenail fungus; cryosurgery to freeze foot tumors (neuromas); and shockwaves to relieve persistent plantar fasciitis.

Emerging therapies include treating chronic and severe pain of the Achilles tendon and heel (plantar fasciitis) with platelet-rich plasma injections containing a persons own specially prepared blood. At UPMC, a podiatrist and plastic surgeon are making waves worldwide: Theyre the first to study injecting a persons own specially prepared fat into parts of the feet that have lost their natural fat pads. While some of these treatments have yet to be proven effective by large research studies, local experts using them are seeing couch potatoes becoming walkers again.

Shocking away heel pain

The most exciting breakthrough Dr. Christina Teimouri has seen during her career is extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT), a noninvasive office treatment for severe and chronic plantar fasciitis.

As a podiatrist and foot surgeon, Dr. Teimouri sees 10 to 20 people a day for heel pain (affecting 5 percent of American adults). The vast majority get relief with steroid injections, wearing night splints, stretching and/or arch supports. But about once every two weeks, she performs a shockwave treatment. She only uses it for people who have tried and failed three conservative methods for at least six months.

Before the advent of ESWT, the only option was open surgery and three weeks of downtime. Plus, the surgery only worked 50 percent of the time, says Dr. Teimouri, who founded Beaver Valley Foot Clinic and now has five locations in three counties (bvfootclinic.com).

In 2007, most insurance plans stopped covering ESWT due to a lack of evidence that it was effective. The day they stopped paying for it, everyone started cutting again. I had such a strong belief in ESWT that I still offer it and am the only one in the area. I couldnt go back to cutting these people when you know theres a better option, Teimouri adds.

Annette Marshalek, 65, of Scenery Hill in Washington County, starting having heel pain in her 30s. At first, she found relief from rest and wearing sensible shoes. Later, a podiatrist taped her foot, but eventually her plantar fasciitis kept her from walking long distances. Finally, she went to Dr. Teimouri after a friend told her about shockwave therapy. It cost her $1,000. I paid for that. The pain was just that nasty and I didnt want surgery, Marshalek says. It took two months to heal but shes had no heel pain since. Marshalek is among many longtime heel-pain sufferers, including one for a record 35 years, helped with a one-time shockwave treatment, Dr. Teimouri claims.

Marrying podiatry & plastic surgery

Fat injections are the latest treatment gaining traction for foot pain. In 2010, Dr. Beth Freeling had a busy podiatry practice when she married Dr. Jeff Gusenoff, a plastic surgeon. Dinner conversations would often turn to work. I would tell Jeff how I had these patients who had no fat cushions in their feet and theyd say to me, I wish you could just put fat in my feet. And Jeff tells me hes putting fat in faces, behinds and breasts and says, Why cant I put it in feet?

Those dinner conversations evolved into five small clinical trials conducted through the University of Pittsburgh Department of Plastic Surgery (learn more about the trials at footfatgrafting.com or call 412-641-3960).With fat grafting, a plastic surgeon uses liposuction to take several millimeters of fat from a persons belly or thighs. The surgeon then injects the fat into the ball or heel of the foot. Right now, were the only group doing this in a comprehensive fashion and with the expertise of a plastic surgeon and podiatrist, says Dr. Jeff Gusenoff.

Last fall, they published promising findings from their first pilot study. The majority of people in our study after one fat-grafting procedure are very happy and doing very well, says Dr. Beth Gusenoff.

About two years ago, Fran Borovetz, 69, of Squirrel Hill made a visit to the UPMC Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Center in Oakland. She didnt go for a procedure to look better; she went hoping to get relief from foot pain that made walking and standing excruciating.

She was among 25 participants in the Gusenoffs first clinical trial testing fat grafting for a condition called pedal fat pad atrophy (loss of fat in ball of foot). She walked out with a butterfly bandage and padded sneakers. Within six months, she was able to rejoin her walking group and now enjoys being on her feet as a volunteer at Pittsburghs Jubilee Soup Kitchen where shes painting a mural.

At first (after the fat-grafting procedure), I had to walk with crappy-looking shoes. Then slowly but surely, it started to work Ive lost some fat but I still have enough to be able to walk. Whether it will stay there for another couple years, I dont know, Borovetz says.

The Gusenoffs closely observed the feet of Borovetz and other trial participants for two years. The subjects lost fat at the injection site but tend to remain pain-free. Its possible there are some intrinsic factors in the fat that is improving the quality of the tissues and bones, while the fat either gets moved to the side or disappears, explains Dr. Jeff Gusenoff. He adds, Our long-term goal is to have large multicenter clinical trials to make sure this is reproducible at other sites, affect a broader group of patients, and eventually be covered by insurance.

Until then, people are willing to pay out of pocket for the procedure that costs $3,000/foot ($5,000 for both feet). People are coming from all over the country. We even had someone come from Australia, Dr. Beth Gusenoff says.

On your feet after surgery

Foot surgery should always be a last resort and not done for cosmetic reasons alone, several medical organizations say. But if you need foot surgery, you can likely get back on your feet faster than in years past.

Surgery for painful bunions (bumps at the base of the big toe caused by genetics but aggravated by narrow shoes) has been around for more than 100 years. Modern techniques and custom walking boots mean patients get back on their feet faster.

There is a common misunderstanding among patients considering bunion removal surgery that they wont be able to walk for weeks or months, says AHNs Dr. Catanzariti. The reality is that the surgery has changed dramatically in the last 10 years, and recovery time is often four to six weeks.

He adds, Not so long ago, treating symptomatic flat feet was difficult. Now we can get an orthotic or brace in someones shoe and make them better And outcomes for flat-foot surgery are so much better.

He tries to avoid operating on the Achilles tendon, which is still a difficult surgery to recover from. Hes glad there is another option. I send patients out weekly for platelet-rich plasma injections. Im a believer in that. Some good studies show its no different from steroid injections. But Ive read enough articles about patients doing fairly well. I think its fantastic.

A painful hammertoe can often be fixed now with a 15-minute office procedure. The patient walks out and is back in shoes in two weeks, Dr. Teimouri says.
Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the American Authors Association

Douglas V. Gibbs is a proud member of the Military Writers Society of America.
U.S. Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, and John Faso, R-Kinderhook, should push to visit the White House as often as possible to discuss climate change, said Judith Enck, a former federal Environmental Protection Agency official in the Obama administration.

If they have any influence in the Trump administration, they should talk some sense to them, Enck said in a interview at the Glens Falls Peoples Climate Change March on Saturday, where Enck was one of the speakers.

Stefanik introduced and Faso co-sponsored a House resolution recognizing the importance of climate change.

Enck, who marched with a delegation that traveled from Rensselaer County, said Stefanik and Faso should go beyond recognizing the importance of climate change and advocate against proposed EPA cuts in President Trumps budget proposal and they should support former President Obamas Clean Power Plan, which addresses green house gasses from coal-fired power plants.

Thats nice, but its not good enough, Enck said, referring the House resolution recognizing the importance of climate change.

Stefanik has said she is concerned about proposed EPA budget cuts.

President Trump, on March 28, signed an executive order to initiate a review of the federal Clean Power Plan and to lift a moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands, among other environmental measures.

We dont need more study.  We need solid solutions, said Enck, who was EPA regional director for seven years and now is an environmental law scholar at the Haub School of Law at Pace University.

Stefanik spokesman Tom Flanagin said at the time of the executive order that Stefanik believes solutions need to be worked through Congress and not done by executive rule.

As of Monday afternoon, Stefanik had not taken a definitive stance on the executive order.
Fidelis Care, a Roman Catholic-affiliated health care plan in New York, already has an exemption from a state requirement that health plans include abortion coverage, Tom Flanagin, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, said Monday.

Flanagin was responding to a Post-Star inquiry about concerns that Democratic congressional candidate Patrick Nelson and the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, have raised about whether federal tax credits could be used in New York under language in the latest Republican health care legislation that would prohibit tax credits from being used to purchase health insurance that covers abortion.

Rep. Daniel Donovan, R-Staten Island, has cited the language as one of the reasons he intends to vote against the health care legislation, according to The Hill online news service.

Congresswoman Stefanik will fight to make sure New Yorkers are able to claim the tax credit they deserve, said Flanagin, the Stefanik spokesman. New York State has the ability to make changes to their regulations that would allow for coverage plans that do not cover abortion. Such an exemption has already been made for Fidelis.

Stefanik had not taken a definitive position on the overall legislation, as of 6 p.m. Monday.
Warning students about the dangers of drinking and driving has become as much a part of prom and graduation season as limousines, corsages and after-prom parties.

Overall, I think its an eye-opening experience for the students. They seem to pay attention very well as to what it going on, said Ryan Pedone, a police officer and the chief of the Granville Fire Department.

He and his members, along with the Granville Rescue Squad, Granville Police and the Washington County Sheriffs Office, put on a mock crash at Granville on Friday afternoon, a day before the schools prom.

It is something thats done annually, and includes funeral directors Robert and Mary King of Kings Funeral Home on hand to escort the fatality victim off, in a body bag on a stretcher.

Dan Poucher, Granvilles assistant principal, said he feels the mock-crash is effective.

Our mock crash was well received by our students, Poucher said. They understand that we care about them a great deal and that we seek to do our best to provide them with learning opportunities which will enhance their safety.

One of the most active instructors regarding impaired driving is Washington County Sheriffs Deputy Robert Sullivan, who is in the middle of a couple of busy weeks. He did a presentation at Fort Edward and a mock crash at Granville last week, and will be doing a program at a mock crash at Argyle and another for Fort Ann and Hartford students at Hartford next week.

I do it every prom season, that has become the drill, but you hope they listen and follow through year-round, said Sullivan, who talks about both drunken driving and distracted driving.

Sullivans general presentation, which he does year-round, is focused on using fatal vision glasses. Students put on the glasses, which simulate their vision when they are drunk, and try to perform simple tasks like catching a ball or throwing it to someone. The students invariably fail.

Long-time presenter

Sullivan has been doing the presentations and mock crashes for 17 years, and 15 years ago he lost his brother in a drunken-driving crash.

When I get personal, the kids really listen up, he said.

He does a great job getting the message across to the kids, said Undersheriff John Winchell. It gets to be this time of the year, and hes out everywhere.

Pedone said Sullivan plays another important role at the mock crashes.

Sgt. Sullivan helps narrate to the students what is taking place between all of the different roles between police, fire department and EMS, he said.

Sullivan said another point he stresses to the students is they are seeing the rescue scenario in perfect conditions.

Friday, the weather was sunny, the fire and emergency stations were right nearby, and it took 25 to 30 minutes, he said. Now, imagine its 2 in the morning, raining, its on a back road, and the car is 50 feet into the woods. Its going to take a couple hours.

Sullivan, who works midnights, points out that some of the more rural roads in the county see few, if any cars, from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Change in approach

Andrew Cook, superintendent at Hartford and the former principal at the school, said the mock crashes have evolved over the years.

We used to call it the prom crash simulation, but now we just look at it as a crash simulation drill, he said. Its not only drinking and driving, but distracted driving as well.

Its also the time of year we have proms and graduations, and people just getting their licenses, he added. We want to reinforce the great responsibility a drivers license is.

Other events planned

A number of schools in Warren County also have mock-crash events scheduled.

Warrensburg EMS, Warrensburg Fire and Lake George EMS will be at Warrensburg High School on May 10 at 1:45 p.m.

The presentation will begin in the school gym, then go outside for a drill that will include two cars and eight students, and it is meant to show the dangers of distracting driving.

We are focusing on the dangers of distracted driving this year, because the students involved feel that it is a common thing among young drivers, said Lydia Hayes of Warrensburg EMS. We do the mock car crash for the school to help promote smart and safe decisions, and to show the impact that distracted driving can have on not only the person doing it, but others around them as well.

The following day, North Warren will be out on its event.

The Chestertown, Horicon and Pottersville fire companies, along with North Warren EMS, state troopers and the Warren County Sheriffs Office will work with the North Warren SADD chapter to provide a simulated DWI accident response scenario in the student parking lot.

The event will start at 1:25 p.m.

Prior to the outside presentation, Jeremy Coon of the Warren County Sheriffs Office will provide a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation in the auditorium to all grade 7-12 students.

Michael Therio, a guidance counselor and the adviser for the SADD and Natural Helpers chapters at North Warren, said its a chance to take advantage of the support from the community and the emergency organizations.

We really just want to call attention to the issue, he said. We want the students to have fun and to do it safely.
FORT EDWARD  As the Friends of the Washington County Important Birding Area has grown, it has raised funds mainly through donations and a few grants.

Last week, the group got big news: the award of a $75,000 grant from the 2017 New York State Conservation Partnership Program to advance the nonprofit land trusts work. That work involves protection of New Yorks endangered short-eared owls and other imperiled grassland birds.

It just comes at a perfect time for us, said Friends of the IBA Director Laurie LaFond.

The group is in the middle of a campaign to acquire another 64 acres of habitat in and around Fort Edward.

We need paid staff to support and expand our land conservation program. This grant will enable us to hire a full-time executive director and a part-time office manager to do that, she said.

Friends of the IBA will need to match the grant, either through fundraising or in-kind services.

State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos announced $1.8 million in Conservation Partnership Program grants to 58 land trusts across the state.

DEC and the Land Trust Alliance combined on the grants, which are funded through New Yorks Environmental Protection Fund and leverage an additional $1.5 million in private and local funding raised by the land trusts.

Coming at a time when every effort makes a difference, this initiative enables land trusts, local communities and private landowners to better protect New Yorks most important water resources, farmlands, wildlife habitats and urban green spaces, said Andrew Bowman, president of the Land Trust Alliance, in a press release.

Friends of the IBA is best known for its annual Winter Raptor Fest educational event and fundraiser. More information is available at www.ibafriends.org.
CHESTER  The residents of Chester like the natural resources as well tranquility and friendliness of their community, but they could use a little more economic development.

About 75 people attended the North Warren Economic Development Initiative kickoff held Thursday at the Chester Municipal Center.

Supervisor Craig Leggett asked who loves the community, and all hands shot up in the air. He then encouraged people to think long-term, as in 100 years from now.

Who has hopes and dreams and would like to see this community do better? he asked.

Leggett said residents want more businesses and more development, but they do not want it to change the quality of life.

We are inviting economic development. We are inviting change, he said.

Leggett said the town can cultivate an industrial and entrepreneurial spirit.

The discussion began with people offering thoughts on what they liked about the greater Chester area, which includes Johnsburg and Horicon.

Lakes, mountains, hiking, biking and snowshoeing trails were mentioned, along with amenities such as a grocery store, medical center, pharmacy and restaurants. The town tax rate is relatively low.

The people of the community are also a resource. Residents said local people are highly educated, involved with community events and activities and generous with time and money.

Chester is not too far from other places such as Albany or Lake Placid.

North Warren Superintendent of Schools Michele French cited a strong education system and active youth commission.

Community members also stressed Chester is a safe community with a State Police barracks and Warren County Sheriffs Office patrols as well as active volunteer fire departments.

The town put in solar panels before that became a fad and is about to bring its pellet boiler on line, Leggett said.

We hope to have that cranked up within the next couple of weeks, he said.

Resident Curtin Austin said he believes the town should take advantage of being located right off Exit 25 of the Northway.

A town like this needs money, he said.

Resident Monica Herrington said lack of high-speed internet is the biggest problem. People would be able to work from home if they could connect to the web.

EDC Warren County President Edward Bartholomew said economic development takes a collaborative effort.

Were here to help, but the plan is going to come from everybody in these seats and your supervisor, he said.

You need to arrive at a consensus of where your town needs to be, he added.

Leggett said he wanted to undertake this project because the Tri-Lakes Business Alliance has put a tremendous amount of effort into reviving the downtown.

With any volunteer organization, you risk losing that energy, he said.

Leggett said much of the groundwork was done during former Supervisor Fred Monroes tenure. The town produced its first comprehensive plan in 1970 and has developed a variety of plans since then.

We identify the weak link of our local economy and we dedicate resources toward that weak link, he said.
QUEENSBURY  SUNY Adirondack officials are still trying to assess the potential effect of the new Excelsior Scholarship, with unknown factors including the number of students who will qualify and take advantage of the program to offset tuition costs.

President Kristine Duffy said the community college is fielding a lot of inquiries about the new state program, which would pay for the remaining tuition costs not covered by the Tuition Assistance Program and other grants.

Were certainly getting calls on a daily basis, she said.

The college recently held an accepted students day for 300 students, and parents asked a lot of questions about the program, Duffy said.

Its hard to know the full impact until we see how many students are eligible. Its creating a lot of buzz and a lot of excitement about the potential of reducing peoples cost, she said.

The program will be administered by the Higher Education Services Corp., the same entity that handles TAP, according to Duffy. The state still has to draft the rules for the Excelsior Scholarship. She hopes it mirrors the TAP framework.

Families making $100,000 or less are eligible this fall. That will increase to $110,000 in 2018 and $125,000 in 2019.

Students must complete 30 credits per year. They must have lived in New York state for 12 continuous months to qualify, and they must agree to remain in New York after graduation for as many years as they took the scholarship.

Among the unknowns is how students stay eligible for the program, according to Duffy. Students need to earn passing grades, but the exact GPA requirement has not been set.

Another issue is whether developmental courses, which some students who are deficient in math or English skills must take before they can enroll in college-level classes, count toward the requirement that students enroll in a full course load of 30 credits.

The law also requires colleges to hold Excelsior students to the 2016-17 tuition rate and keep it flat for four years. Duffy said the students who do not qualify for the program would be paying the higher tuition.

SUNY Adirondack is planning a $108-per-semester increase in tuition, to $2,196, for full-time in-state students in 2017-18. The Excelsior Program tuition rate would remain at $2,088 per semester.

Duffy said it is expected that students would be able to begin applying for the Excelsior program by the end of May. The deadline would be sometime in late July.

The best advice we can give you right now is students should apply for financial aid as they normally would, she said.

Duffy said the Excelsior program could have a positive impact on enrollment if it encourages more people to apply for college. More students may decide to pursue a four-year scholarship at a SUNY school, however, instead of attending community colleges.

A fact sheet prepared by SUNY says the community colleges have about 3 to 5 percent capacity to add students based upon demand. Some colleges have up to 10 percent spare capacity.

Duffy said SUNY Adirondack remains a great value and could be an even better value with the Excelsior program.
QUEENSBURY  The SUNY Adirondack Board of Trustees has approved a $108-per-semester tuition increase to help offset a $300,000 cut in state aid in the community college's 2017-18 budget.

The 2017-18 rate for full-time students from New York would increase to $2,196.

For part-time students, the rate is increasing by $9 per credit hour to $183. The full-time rate for out-of-state students is $4,392 per semester  double the rate for in-state tuition.

The state budget allocated an increase in aid of $50 per full-time equivalent student, according to SUNY Adirondack President Kristine Duffy.

Unfortunately, because of enrollment at all of the community colleges, that translates into a decrease, she said.

Because enrollment has fallen, the state aid works out to roughly a 3 percent decrease in funding, according to Duffy. That decrease has affected the process of putting together the budget, which will be presented to the board next month.

We had planned an increase (in tuition), but not that high, she said.

College officials needed a larger increase to balance the budget without substantially cutting services or staff, Duffy added.

She said higher education advocates had lobbied legislators to hold public colleges harmless, as is done with K-12 public school aid, so enrollment declines would not lead to cuts in aid. Now that the economy is better, enrollment in community colleges has decreased. When jobs are not available, more people go back to school.

The colleges enrollment dropped by 1.5 percent from a head count of $3,993 in the fall of 2015 to 3,934 in the fall of 2016. College officials are projecting a slight decline in enrollment for this fall.

Spokesman Doug Gruse said the college is making efforts to increase enrollment, and applications for new students are up 15 percent.

In addition, the college is increasing some fees to reflect the costs of providing programs, according to Ann Marie Somma, the colleges vice president for administrative services.

Over the last few years, weve been doing extensive work in analyzing our fees and when necessary, increasing or decreasing them, she said.

In cases where a large increase is needed, Somma said college officials agreed to phase in the increase over a period of years.

The nursing fee is increasing by $15 to $250 per semester. The upper limit for some other course lab, studio, activity and testing fees is increasing from $170 to $200. The low end of the range is still $10.

Somma said the fees are still the lowest among community colleges.

The technology fee would also increase to $15 per credit-hour.

Were proposing a $5 increase in the technology fee to fund some much, much, much needed improvements for students on our campus, she said.
A ballistic missile launched early Saturday by North Korea in defiance of international pressure and at a time of heightened regional tensions appears to have failed.

The missile blew up over land in North Korean territory, said US Navy Cmdr. Dave Benham, a spokesman for the US Pacific Command.

US President Donald Trump cast the launch as a direct snub against China, one of North Korea's only allies and a nation seen by the Trump administration as a potential US ally in efforts to stamp out Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!" Trump tweeted.

Pyongyang's show of defiance -- at a time when its military ambition has reached its highest level in years -- came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressed a special meeting at the United Nations and called for increased pressure on North Korea.

"All options for responding to future provocations must remain on the table," Tillerson said. "Diplomatic and financial leverage or power will be backed up by willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action, if necessary."

The launch was swiftly condemned by South Korean and Japanese leaders.

'Continuously playing with fire'

South Korea called it a "provocative action," saying it clearly violated UN Security Council resolutions and constituted a serious threat to peace and security.

"It demonstrates once again the regime's belligerence and recklessness of categorically disobeying the international community's resolve to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea," the foreign ministry said.

South Korean officials also said the test likely was a failure.

"We are analyzing additional information," the nation's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. "Our military is maintaining a thorough defense posture while keeping a close eye on the possibility of North Korea's further provocations."

Japan protests

Japan launched a protest through its diplomatic channel in Beijing, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said.

Japan won't tolerate repeated provocative actions by North Korea and asked the Japanese public to remain calm, Suga said.

Tokyo's subway operator temporarily halted train service Saturday morning after the missile launch, the Tokyo Metro said. All trains stopped running for 10 minutes, then resumed service after it was confirmed the launch had no impact on Japan's safety. An estimated 13,000 people were affected, an official said.

White House officials said Trump was briefed as Air Force One returned to Maryland from Atlanta, where the President earlier addressed a meeting of the National Rifle Association.

The test-fired missile probably was a medium-range ballistic missile called a KN-17, a US official told CNN. The KN-17 is a land-based solid-fuel missile fired from a mobile launcher.

A US military assessment found the main part of the missile landed about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Pukchang airfield, the US official said.

There has been no announcement on North Korean state television, CNN's Will Ripley in Pyongyang reported.

Analyst: Launch 'preordained' by North Korea

Trump's administration has delivered a drumbeat of warnings about the dangers of North Korea this week, using presidential statements, an unusual White House briefing for the Senate, and a White House lunch for UN ambassadors to underscore that Pyongyang is a priority.

The US military has moved an aircraft carrier strike group into the region, docked a powerful nuclear submarine in South Korea and staged large military drills with South Korea and Japan.

New joint drills with the USS Carl Vinson and the Korean navy began Saturday in waters off the Korean Peninsula, a South Korean military spokesman said.

In light of those actions, Saturday's launch amounts to a message from the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the United States and others, said John Kirby, a CNN military and diplomatic analyst.

"This is Kim giving us the finger, giving China the finger, giving the UN the finger," he said. "I think timing is absolutely planned and preordained in his mind."

There is no such thing as a failed missile attempt for Kim, Kirby said.

"He learns from every single attempt, and he gets knowledge, and he gets intel," the analyst said. "And he takes those lessons learned and just churns them right over into the next one."

Risk of conflict simmers

North Korea has been "provocative all along," US Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland said when asked whether the missile test was provocative.

But "there is reason to be concerned" about North Korea's missile tests, she added.

Trump this week said there's "a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea," but added he would prefer a diplomatic resolution.

Washington is hopeful the Chinese can help.

China has threatened North Korea with sanctions if the regime conducts a nuclear test, Tillerson told Fox News on Thursday. North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test last fall, and observers have said a sixth test could come soon.

China remains one of North Korea's only allies and is responsible for much of the heavily-sanctioned nation's economy.

North Korea on Saturday said it is developing nuclear weapons for self-defense and as a deterrent to the United States, according to an unofficial translation of a statement released by an official in Pyongyang's mission to the UN. The statement, which came in response to CNN's questions about the latest launch, did not acknowledge Saturday's missile test.

Launch follows special UN meeting

North Korea has attempted at least nine missile launches on six occasions since Trump was inaugurated in January. Some of those missiles reached the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.

The United States called Friday's UN meeting to call for greater sustained pressure on Pyongyang.

At the meeting, South Korea's foreign minister urged proactive sanctions.

"The council has repeatedly warned that it will take 'further significant measures, including sanctions' in the case of future provocations," Yun Byung-se said. "But Pyongyang may still harbor the illusion that the Security Council will only take limited action and that it can disregard and ridicule the authority of the UN."

Uruguay's UN Ambassador Elbio Rosselli, who sits on the UN Security Council, condemned the missile test as "very disgraceful" and "against international law and humanity."

Italian UN ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, who heads the UN committee that could sanction North Korea, said he hoped Pyongyang would "refrain from any other further escalation."

With less than two weeks until South Korea votes for a new president, the spokesman for the frontrunner, Moon Jae-in, called on North Korea to stop its military tests.

"We urge the North Korean regime to immediately stop its reckless provocations, give up its nuclear ambitions and cooperate with the international community," Democratic Party spokesman Park Kwang-on said. "That would be the only way it can save itself, instead of taking the path of destruction."

CNN's Richard Roth, Jim Acosta, Carolyn Sung, Nicole Gaouette, Elise Labott, Laura Koran, Yoko Wakatsuki, Taehoon Lee and Laura Smith-Spark contributed to this report.




WASHINGTON  The massive government spending bill negotiated by lawmakers over the weekend includes a provision that would create an additional 2,500 visas for Afghan interpreters who worked alongside the U.S. military in the war in Afghanistan.





f the spending bill passes, the visas would provide a critical lifeline for hundreds of Afghans whose lives are now in danger because of their assistance to American troops.





This is potentially a life-saving development, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the lawmaker who spearheaded the effort to secure more visas, said in a statement on Monday. Allowing this program to lapse would send the message to our allies in Afghanistan that the United States has abandoned them.





The U.S. war effort in Afghanistan relies heavily on local interpreters. In addition to language translation, interpreters provide troops with a better understanding of the culture and politics in the area. But working with Americans can pose a huge risk for locals in Afghanistan. Interpreters, whom militants view as traitors, often become the targets of death threats. In recognition of their sacrifices, the State Department has a program that provides special immigrant visas to Afghans who face an ongoing serious threat because of their work as interpreters for U.S. troops.





The State Department depends on Congress to authorize enough visas to keep the program running. Right now, the program is effectively stalled. There are currently more than 14,000 Afghans at some stage of the application process, a State Department spokeswoman told HuffPost. As of April 20, there were only 780 special immigrant visas remaining. Last month, the State Department said it would not schedule any more interviews for Afghan applicants until lawmakers allocated additional visas.





Passing legislation to keep the State Department supplied with enough visas for the Afghan interpreters should be easy for lawmakers. There is bipartisan support for the program in Congress. The militarys top brass  including former commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus and his predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal  have all urged Congress to allocate more visas. Gen. John Nicholson, the current commander in Afghanistan, has said that failing to do so could have grave consequences for these individuals and bolster the propaganda of our enemies. During his confirmation hearing in January, Defense Secretary James Mattis said he would work to ensure that the translators were not left behind after risking their lives to support the U.S. war effort. - Read More, Huffpost
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In a California ranch house, the seven members of the Sisters of the Valley wear white blouses, long denim skirts, and habits made from old pillowcases.

They might look the part, but the Sisters of the Valley are hardly the convent types.

The sisters make a line of salves, tinctures, and oils derived from hemp, a type of cannabis plant that contains only trace amounts of the psychoactive ingredient in weed.

The sisters claim their products provide relief from pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, and debilitating diseases. However, the medicinal value of hemp oil is hotly debated.

The sisters grow a strain of cannabis  hemp  that they say is rich in CBD, responsible for many of the drug's therapeutic effects.

The sisters sold their products on Etsy until the e-commerce site gave them the boot in 2016 for violating their drug policy. Now the Sisters of the Valley have their own website.

The sisters claim their products are legal to ship across state lines under a 2004 court ruling that freed hemp from DEA regulation. Some experts call it a legal gray area.

Sources: and

The sisters grow 12 hemp plants  the maximum allowed under county law  in a garage-turned-greenhouse. Their bud looks typical, but the medicine-making process is not.

The sisters say they infuse their products with healing powers through a series of rituals. For starters, they only manufacture from the new moon to the full moon.

On the first day of the cycle, they hold a ceremony under the stars to bless their work table. They give thanks to Creator God and Mother Goddess for calling them to this profession.

Last year, I visited the sisters on a day when they were preparing a tincture. Darcy Johnson, who was part of the group from 2015 to 2016, sliced open a bag of ground hemp so big that she needed two hands to lift it. Green particles fell in clumps like snow.

Johnson weighed out the appropriate dosage of hemp and scooped it into small brown jars. She consulted a YouTube video to double-check her measurements.

Meanwhile, Sister Kate lit a a bundle of sage and swept it over the supplies, which included a high-proof alcohol used to dissolve the bud. She muttered some incantations.

It may seem easy to write off these rituals as a marketing ploy. However, Sister Kate started dressing like a nun long before she began growing pot.

"When people say, 'Well, they're not real nuns,' my answer is there are no nuns. They're going extinct in this country," Sister Kate said. Her sisters take a different kind of vow.

The Sisters of the Valley netted $60,000 in sales in 2015, their first year. These days, the online store rakes in about that much revenue monthly, Sister Kate tells Business Insider.

Despite their commercial success, the company is not profitable. Sister Kate said that as much as $150,000 is currently tied up in credit card processing and banking.

"B

The cost of security and repairs on the property also eats up their profit, she said. The compound has an armed guard and a newly constructed

Plus, the sisters' livelihood faces constant threats from local and federal governments. In 2015, the group was living in Merced, California, when the city council banned the cultivation and sale of cannabis within city limits. (It was later overturned.)

Source:

Fortunately, the sisters were already in the process of buying a foreclosed home in Merced County. Local law there permits residents to cultivate 12 cannabis plants per land parcel.

"This is the Wild West," one sister told me during my visit. "We're not growing dandelions."

Despite the risks, Sister Kate has big plans for expansion. She hopes to start chapters, which will be called "abbeys," from coast to coast over the next five years.

The sisters also have an eye on the booming legal weed market in Canada, Sister Kate told Reuters in April. The country is expected to legalize the drug outright in spring 2018.

Sisters of the Valley hopes to create jobs for like-minded, cannabis-loving women.
There must be mutual respect for the rights of workers and employers through education and sensitisation of the social partners the statement said.

There have been numerous incidents of abuse of Ghanaians in foreign-owned businesses.

In March 2016, Young Gyu Lee, a Korean national and the chief executive officer of the PeterPan restaurant was charged with assault after he slapped a Ghanaian employee with hot pizza.

And in March 2017, a Lebanese national Jihad Chaaban, manager at Mawarko Fast Foods, allegedly assaulted a female employee by dipping her face into blended pepper.

Workers' day is a national holiday in Ghana and a dozen of other countries, marked to celebrate workers as well as highlight their challenges.

This year's celebration is under the theme: Ghana @ 60: Mobilising Ghanas Future through the creation of Decent Jobs.

The Ghana Employers Association also called for pragmatic and realistic policies for job creation for the mainly unemployed youth.

"Unemployment is increasingly that sustainable, pragmatic and realistic policies that would be adopted and implemented to create the needed jobs.
READ MORE: PUWU blasts US Ambassador over ECG privatization

He said: "We have stated that we are taking a second look at the ECG compact.

"We are driven by two consideration. We are as concerned as the workers that the reform should not lead to involuntary job loses and we should find a long term solution to the nation's electricity problem.

"In this regard, [the] government is amending the terms of the agreement of the concession agreement to require that: 1. Ghanaians own at least 51 percent of the concession. 2. There should be no involuntary layoffs as the result of the concession. 3. The term of the concession will be reduced fro 25 to 20 years.

READ MORE: New MiDA board under pressure to list ECG on the stock market

"We believe that these amendments meet the aspirations of Ghanaians in protecting the jobs of workers and ensuring the control and viability of the ECG."

The agreement has gathered strong opposition from the Trades Union and The Public Utilities Workers Union who argue that the concession is not in the interest of Ghana.
Deborah Vanessa and Medikal are one adorable with their public appearance and display of affection even on red carpets.

Speaking on the Delay show, Medikal recalled that after the program, they went home but his girlfriend didnt make any attempt to console him.

She didnt say anything. We were talking and laughing. She knows the kind of person I am so she didnt try to console me. Im the type of person who gives no attention to certain things. Im not fragile. She had just returned from Belgium. I had missed her so we went home after the awards to have fun, he said.

READ ALSO: Juliet Ibrahim recalls risky sex at the beach
Workers' day is a national holiday in Ghana and a dozen of other countries, marked to celebrate workers as well as highlight their challenges.

This year's celebration is under the theme: Ghana @ 60: Mobilising Ghanas Future through the creation of Decent Jobs.

The Ghana Employers Association (GEA) has commended Organised Labour and all workers of Ghana for their contribution toward the socio-economic development of Ghana.

"The monumental sacrifices made by the working people of Ghana towards nation building and national progress are highly commended, a statement signed by Mr Alex Frimpong, the Chief Executive Officer of GEA said.

It also called for pragmatic and realistic policies for job creation for the mainly unemployed youth.

"Unemployment is increasingly that sustainable, pragmatic and realistic policies that would be adopted and implemented to create the needed jobs.

It is the firm belief of GEA that employment creation and by extension economic development cannot be successful in an atmosphere of industrial unrest, disagreements and misunderstanding at both the enterprise and national levels," the GEA said.

This year's May Day will be marked at the Independent Square where President Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to address the workers.
The day is set aside by organised labour to celebrate workers as well as highlight their challenges.

This year's celebration is under the theme: Ghana @ 60: Mobilising Ghanas Future through the creation of Decent Jobs.

In a tweet Monday morning, the former president said: It's workers day. I join my fellow countrymen and women to salute you all, gallant Ghanaian workers.

This year's May Day will be marked at the Independent Square where President Nana Akufo-Addo is expected to address the workers.
The hacking comes after an intense media campaign against illegal Chinese miners who have been accused of introducing advanced technology in gold mining that is compromising the nation's river bodies.

The hacking is believed to be in the form of denial-of-service (DDoS) which denies users access to the targeted resource.

The media websites that have come under attack are Ghanaweb.com, Peacefmonline.com, Myjoyononline.com and Adomonline.com and Multiveworld.com.

Some editors of the affected websites told the Daily Graphic that investigations were ongoing to ascertain the cause of the hacking.

An unnamed editor said: "We are all gathering data. We have made a lot of progress and will officially file a complaint with National Security after our internal investigations.

There appears to be a sponsored attack on the websites of the media houses. What usually happens is that others go down when hacked websites revive their operations."

The hackers of Ghanaweb demanded a ransom to stop the attack while the desktop version of peacefmonline.com was not accessible was not accessible during the attack.

The hacking started around Easter.

Security experts have warned of more of such attacks on government agencies and companies as well as on important private establishments if the nation does not develop and implement a cybersecurity strategy to address cyberwarfare, sabotage and espionage, Daily Graphic reported.

The Bank of Ghana, alarmed by the recent hacks, have warned banks in the country to strengthen their cyber security systems to preempt attacks.

The warning was given by the Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Johnson Asiamah.

"The growing threat of cyber attacks has never been more pressing...Recent instances of payment fraud demonstrate the necessity for industry-wide collaboration to fight against threats", he said.
READ MORE: Police deploys elite units to Bimbilla

The police in the region have deployed more personnel to the mainly farming community to restore calm.

According to multiple media reports, there are fears of reprisal attack despite the deployment of a joint team of the police and military.

The land dispute has been raging for years between two rival Bimoba clans in the Nakpanduri area.

The Northern Regional Minister and chairman of the Northern Regional Security Council, Salifu Saeed has confirmed the unrest.

READ MORE: Fragile calm returns to Bimbilla following clashes

He also confirmed the deployment of security forces to avoid further and possible reprisal attack.
They pleaded not guilty to the crime and are to re-appear in court on May 23, 2017.

A statement from the Eastern Regional Police Command said Prince Teye had a sour relationship with his former girldfriend.

The statement said Prince later sent nude pictures to Amuzu after they broke up.

During investigations, however, Prince mentioned Amuzu as the one he mistakenly sent the pictures to while he was trying to send it to his former girlfriend, it said.

Investigations, however, revealed that the pictures were sent to Amuzu who later called the victim to demand an amount of money to ensure that the pictures were not released to the public," the statement said.

The victim, identified as Lydia Tetteh, on April 22, 2017 lodged a complaint with the police, during which she informed the police that her brother brought nude pictures of her in a sexual intercourse with her former boyfriend, which were circulating on Facebook.
John Peter Amewu is a gem, a gem of the Gbi state, he is a gem for the Volta Region and a gem of Ghana as a whole, he said.

READ MORE: Nana Addo unfazed by threats from illegal miners to vote against him

He continued: The work that Peter Amewu is doing with Nana Akufo-Addo and the government is the work that you voted for Nana to do. So we ask the people of the Gbi State and the people of Ghana as a whole to continue praying for Nana Akufo Addo and the government because we are going to do great things for this country."

Bawumia said the rebuilding of the Ghanaian economy will not be possible without Mr Amewu and the work he is doing at the Land and Natural Resources Minister.

"The creation of this new economy that we have embarked on cannot be possible without the support of John Peter Amewu and the work he is doing and is going to do in the Ministry of Lands and Natural resources," he said.

As a government, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo wants you to know that he is engaged daily in the business for which you elected him.

The event, which was organised by the Gbi state, was to celebrate the Mr Amewu's appointment as a minister and his quest to end galamsey.
This revelation was made during the companys 11th Annual General Meeting (AGM), held in Lagos on Sunday, April 30, 2017. He explained that about N101 billion has been expended on towards actualisation of the companys Backward Integration Projects, BIP.

During the year under review, we continued our backward integration targets. This, unfortunately, has been challenges. Despite these hurdles, the Board is resolute and is even more determined towards achievement of our target to produce 1.5 million tonnes of refined sugar from locally grown sugar cane in the next six years. We are confident that this ambitious goal is achievable, and we will leave no stone unturned in seeing that it becomes a reality, he said.

Reviewing financial performance of the company, the business tycoon, Ahaji Dangote noted that the 2016 results reflect the outcomes of the various strategic initiatives being implemented over the years to ensure the company sustains its impressive performance in the face of the challenge business environment in the country.

The results showed that Dangote Sugar achieved a turnover of N169 billion, which is 68 per cent higher than previous year, while the profit before tax, PBT, stood at N19.6 billion.
In the 30-second ad, a narrator touted Trump's achievements during his first 100 days, including nominating Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and rolling back environmental regulations.

"Donald Trump, sworn in as president 100 days ago: America has rarely seen such success," the ad said. "A respected Supreme Court justice: Confirmed. Companies investing in American jobs again. America becoming more energy independent."

The ad took a characteristic swing at the media, alluding to press reports that said the new president had been unable to pass and sign major legislation in his first 100 days in office.

"You wouldnt know it from watching the news  America is winning again and President Trump is making America great again," a voice-over said.

Though the Commerce Department's first-quarter report showed sluggish economic growth last month, Trump's ad also focused heavily on jobs created during his tenure, showing workers building a pipeline, assembling a truck, and laying down cable.

According to a campaign press release, the campaign spent $1.5 million to air the ad "on television in major markets throughout the United States as well as target specific voting groups online."

Trump has continued to hold campaign-style rallies in swing states  he counter-programmed the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday by holding a rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump's presidential campaign committee has also continued to fundraise heavily in the first months of his presidency.

According to Federal Election Committee disclosures last month, in the first three months of his presidency, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. raised over $7 million for reelection, while a joint fundraising committee between Trump's campaign and the Republican National Committee raised over $9 million.
The incident sparked a series of protests known as the LA Riots. Tensions between law enforcement and Angelenos bubbled over, and by the end of the five-day riots, at least 55 people had died.

At a time when similar racial tensions are again at the forefront of the national conversation, we take a look back. On Saturday, people in Los Angeles marched and held vigils to commemorate the outburst of violence that erupted throughout the city in 1992.

Here's what happened during the LA Riots:

In March 1991, four LAPD officers arrested African American motorist Rodney King for speeding, and proceeded to Taser, tackle, and strike him with police batons over 50 times. King suffered a fractured skull and multiple other injuries.

Source:

George Holliday, a plumber standing on the balcony of his Los Angeles apartment, filmed the officers beating up King on a home camera and sent it to the local press.

Source:

Even though the video showed more than a dozen officers standing by during the attack, only the four directly involved in the beating were arrested.

Source:

On April 29, 1992, the four officers charged with the beating were acquitted of all charges in California state court.

Source:

After the verdict was announced, several hundred protesters gathered outside the courthouse.

"Today, the jury told the world that what we all saw with our own eyes was not a crime," said then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. "My friends, I am here to tell the jury ... what we saw was a crime."

Source:

The protests quickly spread throughout the city, and were peaceful at first.

Source:

But the pent up anger bubbled up into violence.

Source:

Some protesters set fire to cars and broke windows in rage.

Source:

The LAPD's response to the protests also quickly escalated into violence.

Source:

By nightfall on April 29, a citywide state of emergency had been declared.

Looters tried to capitalize on the violence by breaking into stores and stealing goods.

Source:

The protests would go on for the next five days. By the second day, the National Guard had been called in and most of the city was placed under a curfew.

Source:

The conflict also exacerbated race relations between Los Angeles' African American and Korean communities.

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Many in Koreatown picked up weapons to stop the protesters from coming near their stores.

Rodney King soon appeared on TV to plead for an end to the riots and violence.

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By May 3, soldiers guarded the city, and the curfew was lifted.

Los Angeles residents slowly started to go back to daily lives.

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In total, at least 55 people lost their lives in the looting, crossfire, or police shots.

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Hundreds of others  including Elvira Evers, whose daughter was born with part of a bullet in elbow  were seriously injured.

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In 1993, a "sympathetic" federal judge sentenced Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell, two of the principal officers who attacked King, to two and a half years in prison.

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On April 29, 2017, Los Angeles residents gathered to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the protests.

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The overtures prompted outrage among human-rights experts and some Democratic lawmakers. Duterte's merciless anti-drug campaign has left more than 7,000 people dead since he took office in late June 2016, according to the Filipino news site Rappler. Nearly 3,000 have died at the hands of police.

You know hes very popular in the Philippines, Trump said of Duterte on Monday. He has a very high approval rating in the Philippines.

Kim

The White House has defended the invitation to Duterte  who called President Barack Obama an "idiot" and "son of a whore" after his administration raised concerns about the country's drug war and extra-judicial killings  as simply a "meeting," not a "thank you." An administration official told Reuters that it was aimed at preventing the Philippines from pivoting completely away from the US, which could "intensify" Duterte's "bad behavior."

But the outreach to Duterte and was not the first time Trump has displayed an unforced affinity for, and even attempted to legitimize, leaders with authoritarian reputations.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader and called it a "great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond." Trump has twice defended Putin against accusations that he murders journalists and dissidents, saying in September that he hadn't seen "any evidence that [Putin] killed anybody" and telling Bill O'Reilly in February that in the US, "we kill people, too."

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a referendum last month allowing him to vastly expand his presidential authorities and consolidate power, Trump called to congratulate him on his victory. The White House readout of the call did not mention Erdogan's crackdown on dissent, which has only intensified since a failed coup threatened his grip on power last summer.

In early April, Egyptian President

Trump has also developed a "very good relationship" with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has intensified China's longtime policy of censorship and intolerance of dissent (which has included the periodic abduction of government critics), according to Human Rights Watch. Trump has said he and Xi have "great chemistry," an abrupt turn after he frequently lambasted China along the campaign trail.

Trump's behavior in the foreign policy arena, experts say, is either an indication of how he views strength and good governance, or a signal of his broader understanding that the US-led global order  and its commitment to liberal democratic values  is eroding.

Or both.

Theres certainly a tradition of collaborating with unsavory dictators

The US has a long history of cooperating with authoritarian or dictatorial regimes in the name of furthering US national security interests.

T

The difference, however, is that previous presidents tended to caveat these partnerships with either a public or private warning about the need to uphold human rights and the rule of law.

"Just about every administration since Franklin Roosevelt has had to cooperate with dictators, to some extent, in the name of US strategic interests," Inboden said, pointing to Roosevelt's alignment with Joseph Stalin during World War II to counter Nazi Germany. "But the US also has a consistent record of pushing these countries

We need friends, and we need allies

Former US ambassador Jim Jeffrey, who

Inboden, the , said that approach seems "very strategically short-sighted." Others don't think there's a strategy behind it at all.

Derek Chollet served as theSecretary of State Hillary Clinton's policy planning

Chollet acknowledged that the US' commitment to human rights is often in conflict with its need to preserve and foster certain diplomatic relationships, a point Spicer made during his briefing on Monday.

"It's a very tricky balance," Chollet said. But it requires "
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The first season  a biopic of Albert Einstein  is currently airing on the National Geographic Channel. It dramatizes the life and times of Einstein, who developed the theory of general relativity (among other discoveries), in 10 hour-long episodes.

But Howard, who directed the series, seems to be chasing more than just a good story. In the eyes of Howard and Gigi Pritzker, a billionaire who produced the show, it's also about promoting science and, by extension, the future of America.

Speaking to Business Insider alongside Pritzker, Howard expressed concern about the current direction of the United States, and  in particular  the recognition of social and economic roles that science plays, given that the Trump administration has thus far exhibited an overall lack ofsupport for (if not antagonism towards) the research community.

"Look at what Silicon Valley has meant to our economy and our ongoing influence around the world. ... What we don't want to do is cede that position to other countries, other nations, other cultures," Howard said.

Born in 1954, Howard was around for the first moon landings, the rise of personal computing, and the advent of the internet  but he's also seen many missed opportunities science and technology.

"We could have had the [Large] Hadron Collider. But 15 years ago we decided not to fund that. So I've always lamented the fact that we didn't stay in that pole position on that front of exploration," he said. "I'm an advocate of both because I believe in the growth of the knowledge base, but I also believe in what it means to the national economy."

"Genius" joins a growing list of science-focused productions for Howard, including his films "Apollo 13" (about NASA's moon mission gone awry) and "A Beautiful Mind" (a drama focused on the life of Nobel Laureate mathematician John Nash). Howard was also behind the recent TV production "Mars", a science-meets-fiction mash-up of humanity's efforts to colonize the red planet, which features Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs.

"When it was over, and the scripts had been written, we realized ... how much momentum there was in all 10 hours," Howard said of the process of making the first season of "Genius". "We could have done 15 hours on Einstein's life."

Pritzker, agreeing with Howard, said shows like "Genius" give filmmakers a chance to cut through the politics that often distort science, and remind people about the value of exploration.

"Having people like Einstein in the forefront of popular culture, and really raising scientists to the level of celebrity, is a really important thing  so people who sit passively and don't think of themselves as scientists or understanding science can really get a grasp of why it's so important to support science and breakthroughs and research and development," Pritzker said. "Because it does get politicized and has been for years."

Howard says that if the Trump administration doesn't support research, others must make up the difference to keep the US competitive.

"I believe they know that science is at the root of growth, social and economic." Howard said. "If government funding starts to dry up, that's where entrepreneurs need to rush in, and universities need to step up and use their endowments."

"It's hard to know ... what the Trump administration really believes versus what they say," Howard told Business Insider. "Trump is a brand-builder and a salesman and will say whatever will help push the sale."

"Genius" has already been renewed for a second season, which will profile a different luminary. Howard wouldn't tell Business Insider who the show plans to dramatize next, but said the shortlist isn't limited just to scientists. He also said it includes people who "are very high-profile today." (When we asked Howard if someone like Musk or Jeff Bezos would be candidates, he dodged the question, saying only that "those are remarkable individuals.")
"I have dexterity problems. I can't roll a joint to save my life," Williams told Business Insider. He prefers vaporizing more concentrated forms of the drug.

Williams, who is also a retired Navy officer, has multiple sclerosis, a disease that causes his immune system to attack the insulation around his nerves. It produces intense, burning sensations from his head to his toes.

Every morning, Williams takes a fistful of pills to ease the pain. He supplements this cocktail with cannabis, which he started using after his diagnosis in 1999. The drug has been shown to improve symptoms in patients suffering from MS, according to a summary from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

In April, Williams became a "ganjapreneur," launching a line of cannabis products. Lenitiv Labs makes high-quality, user-friendly marijuana products designed for medical users. They're available in over 30 dispensaries in California.

The company uses a type of cannabis extract made from compressing carbon dioxide at high pressures, a process that does not require chemical solvents or artificial additives. The oil and drinks come in three formulas that vary the ratio of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, and CBD, a chemical compound thought to be responsible for many of the drug's therapeutic effects, so patients can control their doses with precision.

"The Montel Williams Show," which made Williams the first African-American man to host a syndicated daytime talk show, ran for 17 seasons. He hid his disease for most of that time, until a tabloid threatened to print the story and forced him to reveal his diagnosis on air.

Williams has since described how he'd take long commercial breaks backstage, where he could cry from the pain in private. "[I would] let it go, refocus, come back out and sit down, and do another interview with a person," he told Oprah Winfrey in 2009. "I was doing that every day."

After his diagnosis, Williams jumped in front of a taxi in New York City in an attempt to kill himself. Around the same time, he started using cannabis  specifically kief, a fine powder made from the plant's dried resin glands  to help manage his pain and mood. Depression is one of the most common symptoms of MS, according to the NMSS.

Today, cannabis "helps me to function," Williams said.

He lives in New York, which is home to one of the country's more restrictive medical marijuana programs. But because he operates a business in California, Williams says he is qualified to buy and consume medical marijuana there. He sources his kief from a "compassionate caregiver"  a person authorized by the state to grow the plant for medical users.

Williams says that since 2012, when the first states legalized marijuana for recreational use, sugary, weed-laced junk food has dominated dispensaries.

"They're putting all kinds of junk in there," he said. "And I say, 'Really? That's medicine?'"

An increased demand for recreational products has Williams and others worried that the needs of medical users will be ignored.

"This industry has gotten so caught up in making money, they forgot they're leaving patients on the battlefield," Williams said.
Born to different fathers, award-winning video director, Clarence is the son of Sir Shina Peters.

She wrote on Instagram, "Robert, Brian and Clarence. I raised Soldiers. Motherhood is LOVE beyond imagination, Loyalty beyond understanding. Fatherhood? LOVE beyond human definition, beyond Betrayal cause His Name is JESUS CHRIST. Deuteronomy 28, 1-14. Happy New Month...it's a new day."

Meanwhile, the 51-yr-old veteran actress and her fiance, Anthony Boyd tied the knot in March this year in the United States.

The veteran who got married for the third time broke up with socialite, Femi Oduneye, also known as 'Femi Egyptian' whom she married on February 14, 2004, but ended up as an on and off relationship.
ALSO READ: Actress reportedly beaten up by husband

In her latest post on Instagram today, May 1, 2017, she wrote, "Over to you Jehovah!!!!"

Word is she got beat bad by her husband, Lanre Gentry, but actress is looking to move on from all that it appears.

She also shared a post depicting a battered woman writing, "Say no to domestic violence."

NET reports that the couple's marriage was fraught with mutual infidelity, made worse by Gentry's financial crisis.

An anonymous source close to the family reportedly disclosed some details of the disturbed marriage.

ALSO READ: Actress attributes marriage success to God

The report states that Lanre Gentry also had extra-marital affairs. It claims that his hotel "Laveronique" was where he hung out with other women. The source also said that Mr. Gentry isn't having the best of times financially.

There also seems to be another woman in the picture- Opemititi, a graduate of Covenant University who is reportedly close to Mercy Aigbe.

Aigbe was later shocked to find out that Opemititi was allegedly sleeping with her husband. Within the last month, she stopped talking to Opemititi.

The final straw between Mercy Aigbe and Lanre Gentry came when Gentry reportedly asked his actress wife to cook a special meal for him and his friends. Mercy Aigbe refused to do her husband's wish and a huge fight ensued.

After years of publicly displaying their love for one another, it might just seem their marriage is over. Aigbe is reportedly holed up in a Magodo apartment while Gentry considers his options in the divorce proceedings
The only problem about this article on the New York Times site was that a photo of President Muhammadu Buhari and his family was used. The gaffe was noticed by Nigerians today on Twitter.

Of course, Nigerians quickly pointed out the mistake in New York Times post. "The @nytimesworld is about to learn a geography lesson by Twitter Nigeria!" tweeted @JKFagge.

Tolu Ogunlesi, Special Assistant to President Buhari also commented on the mistake via Twitter.

New York Times later made a correction to the article and removed the President's photo. "A photograph with an earlier version of this article was published in error. The photo was of President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria. While Mr Buhari has travelled to Britain for medical treatment, he had nothing to do with the visa fraud case involving the Ghanaian lawmakers" wrote New York Times at the bottom of the article.

The article did mention President Buhari's stay in the UK for his medical treatment earlier in the year.

", the president of Cameroon, spends weeks at a time in Geneva, and he was holed up in a hotel there for so long last year that critics called him the president of the Hotel Intercontinental. Muhammadu Buhari, the president of Nigeria, travelled to Britain and stayed there for weeks this year to receive medical treatment. His absence from his country was never fully explained" wrote Nana Boakye-Yiadom and Dionne Searcey for New York Times.
The Governor said he would instead begin new industries.

Akeredolu disclosed this while addressing the workers in the state during the celebration of Workers' Day in Akure, on Monday, May 1.

He said a new glass industry will be established in the state to replace the dead Oluwa Glass Industry.

According to him, the new glass industry would be furnished with modern equipment as the ones at the Oluwa Glass are obsolete.

Akeredolu noted that with the new establishment, about 10,000 people would be employed.

He said, "We want to begin reforestation in the state and another glass industry would be established that will employ not less than 10,000 people.

"There is a dire need for us all, particularly workers in this state, to start thinking out of the box on how to diversify our economy from the oil dependence into agriculture, entrepreneurship and industrialisation in order to boost our Internally Generated Revenue."

The Governor also assured the workers of regular salaries, promising to ensure a good relationship between him and labour but cautioned them to be diligent at work too.

ALSO READ: Akeredolu promises to reward loyalty, dedication

On his part, the state chairman of the Trade Union Congress, Mr. Soladoye Ekundayo urged Akeredolu to weigh into the crisis in the State House of Assembly.

He said the crisis is stalling the passage of the 2017 budget.
The story like many of its kind is untrue, as @GarShehu said on Thursday, there is no need for apprehension over President Buharis health, Ahmad wrote via Twitter.

He was referring to a statement by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu who urged Nigerians not to worry about the presidents health.

Buharis health has been a major topic of discussion since he travelled to London in January for what was to be a 10-day medical vacation, but ended up spending 49 days.

Fears that the president had taken ill were heightened by his absence at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday, April 26, and the Jumaat prayer service on Friday, April 28.

ALSO READ:
The aggrieved workers under the aegis of Enlightened Workers Forum (EWF), say they have suffered a lot due to the non-payment of their salaries.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC), Joint Negotiating Council (JNC) are planning to honour Fayose with the Comrade Governor Award.

The workers also allege that the unions met with the Governor, who promised to donate N10m to their cause.

The EWF co-ordinator, Mike Bamidele, in a statement made available to Daily Post, said "By the way, why ths award and why the Labour? Is it to appreciate him (Fayose) for punishing us unduly?

Right now, the workers are being owed six months arrears of salary, local government workers eight months and pensioners seven months.

Are we to thank him for making us celebrate the last Xmas without salary for the first time in the history of the state or for the Xmas bonus of only five per cent of basic while his predecessor paid 30 percent of same?

Though we had listened to the governors cooked up stories on how his predecessor threw the state into imaginary debt but in the real sense of it, Ekiti had no excuse at all to owe salary if the man in charge had been honest and if the cash and carry Labour had been alive to its responsibility.

ALSO READ:IPOB honours Ekiti Governor with honorary citizenship

Meanwhile, the Ekiti NLC Chairman Ade Adesanmi debunked EWFs allegations saying "The Comrade Governor to be given to Fayose 'is not an award but a decoration' to appreciate what he has done for workers.

It is not an award but a decoration that we supposed to have done last year but we suspended it when Ekiti lost six doctors in an auto accident in April last year.

I want to say that this group of people cannot be hiding under a name and be spreading falsehood; we dont know them, we dont know their office and we dont know their phone number.

If they are really concerned about workers welfare, let us know them so that we can work together but it is not good for them to be hiding somewhere and be throwing stones. If there are things they feel we are not doing right let them come into the open and tell us.
Masari, who described the session as bipartisan gathering, said it was aimed at reviewing the various policies implemented by his administration since inception with a view to charting a way forward.

He stressed that the goal of his administration was to create an enabling environment that would encourage both local and international investors to invest in the state.

Masari said that the government was open and not scared of constructive criticism, adding that such criticism would spur the government to be proactive and deliver more dividends of democracy to the electorate.

He blamed decay in the states infrastructure to negligence from successive governments and relevant stakeholders.

The governor said that stakeholders in the state had ignored the state government over the years, instead of holding them accountable to spur positive economic changes in the state.

 We do not have reason to be where we are. Stakeholders in the state have decided to ignore and expect just few people to take up responsibility of changing the narratives of Katsina.

 In terms of poverty, Katsina ranked third position; in Federal Government allocation, Katsina ranked seventh position; the state also has 15 honourable members at the National Assembly, ranking fourth highest represented state, he said.

He said the wage bill in the local government was about half, if not more than the allocation accrued to the state government from Federation Account.

According to Masari, when he took over the mantle of leadership of Katsina, he found the state in a deplorable situation, adding that its health sector was in bad shape.

The governor explained that the current administration had so far improved the state healthcare service delivery by engaging highly qualified medical personnel in the sector and upgrade facilities.

He said as part of efforts to reduce cost of governance, state officials rarely travelld on foreign trips except occasionally where they are sponsored by host country for major functions.

The governor, therefore, called on investors to invest more in the state, describing the state as investors haven, with assurance that his administration would continue to prioritize education in the state.

Masari disclosed that his administration had introduced a number of empowerment and resettlement schemes to reduce redundancy and curb the activities of a notorious group in the state.

We have also intensified our collaboration with National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to help curb the rising rate of drug abuse in the state, he added.

The Katsina State Commissioner for Health, Mrs Mariatu Usmam, disclosed that arrangements had been concluded to establish Katsina Teaching Hospital, College of Midwifery and Post Basic Nursing Institute.

She said that the state government had renovated, upgraded and equipped over 100 health facilities across the state in the last two years.

Sen. Abu Ibrahim, representing Katsina South Senatorial District, commended Masari for harnessing the great potential of Katsina through investment drive.
The Oba via a statement signed by Mr Desmond Agbama, the palace Chief Press Secretary and made available to newsmen in Benin City on Monday, said workers commitment would boost economic recovery.

He stressed that workers dedication to duty, transparency, as well as accountability, remained veritable virtues to take the country out of the present economic recession.

Oba Ewuare II also stressed the need for employers of labour to use the occasion of workers day to reflect on the welfare of their employees.
Aderanti, who, spoke through the Public Relations Officer, Zone 1,DSP Sambo Sokoto disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Kano on Sunday.

According to him, the former Governor honourably presented himself before the Police after an invitation was sent to him to answer questions.

The invitation was as a result of a complaint we received from the Jigawa State Government on April 27, following an inciting statements alleged to have been made on a local radio by Lamido.

The Jigawa State Government alleged that the former Governor called on his supporters in the state to stop the conduct of the upcoming local council polls in the state by all means, he said.

According to him, the statement made by Lamido was capable of breaching the Public peace.

He said it is a public offence which is contrary to section 114 of the Penal code of Nigeria.
The Kano police commands spokesman, Samba Sokoto said Lamido was arrested for allegedly inciting violence.

According to Premium Times, Sokoto said The offence is contrary to Section 114 of the penal code.

He also added that  Mr. Lamido would be charged to court at the end of the investigations.

Reports say Lamido allegedly told his followers to cause violence if they dont win the upcoming July 1, 2017 local government election.

According to Premium Times, Lamido allegedly said Before the election I will make every one of you swear with his life to protect our cause. No matter what, I will not listen to you for complaining. All I want is to come for your bail in the police station breaking another persons head or you fought someone because the administration belongs to mad people.

Sule Lamido was arrested in his Kano home on Sunday, April 30, 2017.
Peterside, the Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) also called on Wike to go to court if he has proof.

The Rivers Governor had earlier alleged that the police boss is after his life.

Wike also said Idris and his team want to plant weapons in his Abuja home, to frame him for terrorism.

Speaking further, Peterside said This is the first time in the history of Nigeria that the governor of a state will openly accuse the nations number one policeman of plotting to kill him. Wike claims he is a lawyer and we expect such a person to head to court to bring the police boss to justice if he has facts and proof to get conviction.

Accusing the Police IG of attempted murder is a serious offence.
In a statement made available to newsmen on Sunday in Lokoja, both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said the decision was taken in solidarity with the affected workers and pensioners.

The statement was jointly signed by the state Chairman of the NLC, Mr Onu Edoka and his TUC counterpart, Mr Ranti Ojo.

According to unions, the non-payment of salary to a large number of workers and pensioners over the past 14 months has destroyed the civil service and the workforce of the state.

They expressed concern over the increasing hardship being faced by workers and pensioners affected by outcome of the screening exercise conducted by the state government.

The non-payment of salary and pension, has led to the loss of lives and also brought untold hardship to workers in Kogi State, they noted.

They unions also decried the refusal by government to make available to the organised labour, copy of the report of the screening appeal committee, describing the measure as a deliberate move to prevent the labour from taking a position.

In the face of all these negative happenings, it is therefore advisable for workers not to make themselves available for any act of molestation, harassment and intimidation by any security agency.

All affiliate unions are to adhere strictly to this resolution, which is in solidarity with workers and pensioners that have not been paid in the last 14 months, including those that have lost their lives during the period, they said.

In his reaction to the complaints, Mr Kingsley Fanwo, Director  General, Media and Strategy, said government would convene a meeting of stakeholders soon to take a common position on the report of the staff screening and verification committee.

He explained that the objective of the screening was not to sack workers, but reform the civil service for optimum performance.

He however said that those who secured employment with fake documents would not be spared.
Tongues have been wagging for weeks since President Muhammadu Buhari stopped making public appearances and absent at official duties.

This has fuelled the speculations that Buhari's health has deteriorated.

He expressed fears that the current turn of events may throw the country into anarchy.

In a statement issued on Monday, May 1, the APC chieftain said the President's ailing health is taking a toll on the country.

Akande said, "These are two great red flag dangers that have the potential of plunging the country into unprecedented chaos and of destabilising the gains of democracy since 1999."

"The greatest danger, however, is for political interests at the corridor of power attempting to feast on the health of Mr. President in a dangerous manner that may aggravate the problems between the executive and the national assembly without realising if, in the end, it could drag the entire country into avoidable doom.

"Let me warn today that those who wish to harvest political gains out of the health of the president are mistaken. This is not Nigeria of 1993.

"We are in a new national and global era of constitutionalism and order. We hope Nigerians have enough patience to learn from history.

"My greatest fear, however, is that the country should not be allowed to slide into anarchy and disorder of a "monumental proportion."

ALSO READ: Buhari not being fed through tubes  Aide

Akande said he wept last Saturday when he did not see Buhari at the wedding of his grandson in Kaduna.

"I did not see President Buhari at the wedding of his grandson in Kaduna last Saturday. I was sad, and I wept," he said.

"When last we met at the wedding of his daughter in Abuja last December, I complained to him that I was not happy about his stressful looks.

"His reply connoted some allusions to circumstances where an honest man fighting corruption is surrounded mostly by unpatriotic, greedy ruling class. He felt painfully frustrated.

"He assured me he would soon be going on vacation. I then knew that corruption had effectively been fighting back. And I prayed for Nigeria.

"That was why Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and I rushed to meet him in London in February this year when he was sick and could not return as scheduled from his vacation.

"The rest is history, but we must appreciate that his poor health is already taking a toll on the health of Nigeria as a polity."
The Rivers APC also called on the National Security Adviser, Minister of Interior and the Inspector General of Police to investigate the Governors utterances.

They also Rivers APC Publicity Secretary, Chris Finebone also said Credible pieces of evidence at the disposal of Nigerians today confirm that Gov. Nyesom Wike had a stranglehold on the electoral umpire (INEC), the judiciary and security agencies until recently under the present Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim. Several INEC personnel are presently facing trial in court over alleged bribery by the governor involving N360m.

Whereas his hold on INEC and the judiciary is as firm as ever, Gov. Wike has failed to compromise the IGP, the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State or the SARS Commander.

We make bold to ask: why is it only under the present IGP that the Police is attempting to assassinate the governor as he claims? Why did the previous IGP not plan to assassinate Gov. Wike? Why was the State Police Commissioners under the previous IGP so helpless and often overruled by their boss in favour of Gov.Wikes interest?

The APC believes that the bitter war being unleashed on the present IGP by Gov. Wike is a desperate attempt to blackmail, coerce and subdue the IGP, the Commissioner of Police and other key officers to do the bidding of the governor in exchange for the tempting bait he always dangles which they have so far shunned.

The APC commends the IGP, the State Commissioner of Police and other officers of the Force in Rivers State who have refused to go near Gov. Wikes poisoned chalice.

APC calls on the National Security Adviser, Minister of Interior and the IGP to view the actions and utterances of Gov. Nyesom Wike beyond mere politics but as grave threat to national security and do the needful to safeguard the security of our dear fatherland from the whimsical and capricious manipulation of a governor steadily displaying unstable utterances and behaviour.

Gov. Nyesom Wikes immunity only covers prosecution and not investigation.
"He left the prison this morning, without incident, and continues under house arrest," an adviser to the state's secretary of penitentiary affairs said.

An emblem of Brazil's boom years, Batista amassed a fortune with investments in mining and oil that in 2012 put him in seventh place on Forbes's list of the world's wealthiest.

But by 2013 a downturn in the commodities market wiped out a fortune that had been estimated at $30 billion.

He was arrested on January 30 upon arrival on a flight from New York, on suspicion of having paid former Rio governor Sergio Cabral $16.5 million, allegedly through the fictitious sale of a gold mine.

Cabral had been arrested in November on charges of heading a criminal enterprise that allegedly diverted tens of millions of dollars from public works contracts.

In authorizing Batista's release to house arrest, Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes ruled that "the fact that he was accused of serious crimes -- corruption and money laundering -- in itself cannot serve as the sole and exclusive basis for maintaining his preventive imprisonment."

After his arrest, Batista was put in a prison for common criminals.
She was reacting to the strange case of a 28-year-old army lieutenant, named by German media as Franco A., who led what prosecutors called a "double life" pretending to be a Syrian refugee.

He was arrested last Wednesday on suspicion of planning a gun attack which he meant to blame on his alter-ego -- a fictitious Damascus fruit seller.

The scandal widened after news magazine Der Spiegel reported the suspect had expressed far-right views in a 2014 academic paper, but that no disciplinary action was taken against him.

The military intelligence service is currently investigating around 280 cases of suspected far-right sympathisers in the German armed forces, the report said.

Von der Leyen pointed to leadership failures within the Bundeswehr and criticised "a misunderstood esprit de corps" that had led superior officers to "look the other way" in the lieutenant's case.

She and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, in charge of immigration and refugee issues, have vowed to clear up the embarrassing case, which has led one Social Democrat member to label them a "security risk" for Germany.

'Death list'

The lieutenant was first temporarily detained in February, by Austrian police at Vienna airport, after he tried to retrieve a loaded, unregistered handgun he had hidden in a toilet there days earlier.

This sparked an investigation in which a fingerprint check threw up an even bigger surprise: the suspect had in December 2015 created a false identity as a Syrian refugee.

The soldier, who has an Italian father and German mother, had pretended to be a Damascus fruit seller named "David Benjamin" -- ostensibly a Catholic with Jewish roots who had fled the Islamic State militant group.

He had registered himself at a German refugee shelter and even launched a request for political asylum, said the prosecution statement. Incredibly, the request was accepted, even though the soldier speaks no Arabic.

He was allotted a place in the refugee home and from January 2016 onward received 400 euros ($435) a month in state assistance under this false identity.

The Bild daily has now reported that police found a "death list" compiled by the suspect, including left-wing anti-fascist activists.

Police last Wednesday also arrested a second German man, a 24-year-old student and alleged co-conspirator named by media as Mathias F, who was reportedly in possession of bullets, flares and other objects that breach weapons laws.
Some 10,000 people demonstrated in Athens while another 3,500 marched in Thessaloniki, police said.

The strike, on a public holiday in Greece, saw businesses shuttered, ferries and trains suspended, and a state services shutdown.

"We must take back all that was stolen from us during the crisis," said Communist party leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas.

"We must scrap all anti-labour laws...and unilaterally erase the (Greek public) debt," he said.

A general strike will be held against the cuts on May 17.

"Bailout government and the creditors have been squeezing the people and workers for seven years," said civil servants' union Adedy.

Under pressure from its creditors -- the European Union, European Central Bank and the International MonetaryFund -- the government agreed earlier this month to adopt another 3.6 billion euros ($3.8 billion) in cuts in 2019 and 2020.

Athens conceded fresh pension and tax break cuts in return for permission to spend an equivalent sum on poverty relief measures.

The measures are to be approved by parliament by mid-May, with the government hoping to reach an overall deal at a May 22 meeting of eurozone finance ministers.

A compromise is required to unblock a tranche of loans Greece needs for debt repayments of seven billion euros in July.

A government source early Monday said Athens and the creditors were inching towards a preliminary agreement.

"There are four dossiers with important issues, and four or five dossiers with lesser issues (remaining)," the official said, according to state agency ANA.

In an interview Sunday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a May 22 deal was feasible "if the (Greek) government respects all the agreements."

"Greece has made progress, the last figures are positive. But the government has not yet fulfilled all the agreements," he said.

Greece and its creditors agreed a third, 86-billion-euro ($94-billion) bailout deal in July 2015.

But the IMF has so far refused to take part after two prior programmes on the grounds that the targets were unrealistic and Athens' debt mountain unsustainable.
"We can come unexpectedly in the night," said Erdogan. "We are not going to tip off the terror groups and the Turkish Armed Forces could come at any moment."

The YPG has been seen by the United States as the best ally on the ground in the fight against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in Syria and Trump has inherited a policy from Barack Obama of actively supporting the group.

But Ankara says the YPG is a terror outfit and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have waged an insurgency since 1984 inside Turkey that has left tens of thousands dead.

'Sign of impatience'

Analysts say the dispute will be the number one issue when Erdogan meets Trump for the first time as president on May 16 in the United States. Failing to resolve the problem could seriously harm US efforts to destroy IS in Syria.

"The strikes are manifestly a sign of impatience by Turkey and part of a long line of appeals telling the US to stop supporting the YPG," said Jean Marcou, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies.

Since Trump's election, Turkey had indicated it wanted a "change in US policy on the YPG support. But in reality Erdogan has obtained nothing for now," he said.

The cooperation between Washington and the YPG, which saw the United States send a limited number of forces to work with the group, led to bitter tensions between Ankara and Washington in the dying months of the Obama administration.

The US backed the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the YPG but also including Arab fighters, yet Ankara contends it is merely a front from the Kurdish group.

In an unusual move after days of border clashes between the Turkish army and YPG that followed the air strikes, the US sent military vehicles to the Syrian side of the frontier to carry out patrols in an apparent bid to prevent further fighting.

Erdogan said the sight of American flags in the convoy alongside YPG insignia had "seriously saddened" Turkey.

'Tensions help IS survival'

The Turkish president, fresh from winning the controversial April 16 referendum on enhancing his powers, has indicated that the rewards for Washington in breaking up with the YPG could be high by spurring Turkish involvement in a joint operation to take the IS fiefdom of Raqa.

Together the United States can "turn Raqa into a graveyard for Daesh (IS)," Erdogan said on Saturday.

But Ankara has made clear it will have nothing to do with any operation involving the YPG and analysts say Turkey could even be a threat to a Raqa operation if it is not included.

"Washington was reluctant to launch the Raqa operation before Turkey's April 16 referendum to avoid potential complications with Ankara," said Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

He said the Turkish air strikes -- which were combined with strikes against the PKK in Iraq -- brought "another unanticipated challenge" to coalition efforts against the jihadists.

"Tensions among coalition members have been one of the key factors for the Islamic State's continued survival," he said.

'Singular dilemma'

The International Crisis Group (ICG) said in its latest report on the Syria crisis that the US had "a singular dilemma" on the future of its relationship with the YPG

It said the YPG "is indispensable" to defeat IS but there is also "no avoiding the fact" that the US is backing a force "led by PKK-trained cadres in Syria while the PKK itself continues an insurgency against a NATO ally."

It said that Turkey had pressed ahead with the air strikes despite US objections and this "should serve as a warning for what could lie in store."

But it said while the YPG was counting on American and also Russian support as a bulwark against Turkey, the importance of the country will mean Trump will have an ear for Erdogan's concerns.
South Sudanese government forces targeted a town in the north on Wednesday, displacing civilians the UN said may be headed toward the border with Sudan.

"We are disturbed by the escalation of violence and subsequent suffering of civilians in South Sudan as a result of the recent government offensive," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement.

"We urge the government and other warring parties to cease hostilities, uphold their responsibility to protect civilians and cooperate with the United Nations and other humanitarian actors to ensure safe access to all civilians in imminent danger along the West Bank of the River Nile."

Some 50,000 people in Kodok in Upper Nile state, many of whom fled fighting six weeks ago in the town of Wau Shilluk, were at risk from the violence, the UN said earlier this week.

"The renewed upsurge in fighting represents a callous and blatant disregard of the pledges made during the 25 March 2017 IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development) Summit to implement a ceasefire and to facilitate humanitarian access," Dujarric said, calling on all sides to return to the negotiating table.

"There can be no military solution to the crisis in South Sudan."

This week's attack was the latest in an upsurge in fighting in South Sudan since the beginning of the year that has driven tens of thousands of civilians from their homes.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the country descended into war in December 2013, leaving tens of thousands dead and more than 3.5 million people displaced.
After a nearly 40-year run, Milan Lanes has closed its doors and the real estate will be put up for sale, a representative with IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union, the site's owner, confirmed Monday.

The bowling alley at 2020 1st St. W. closed its doors Sunday.

Amy Orr, vice president of marketing for IH Mississippi Valley, said the Moline-based credit union has been the property's owner for about three years. "We are looking to sell the property to whoever has an interest in it, if it's another bowling alley ... or another developer who wants to take care of it," she said. "There's a lot of potential.''

Milan Lanes' Manager Alan Schopper said the closing has been "very sad" as patrons have been reminiscing. "We've had lot of people coming in with their stories over the last month.''

The bowling alley first opened in 1978 and has had several owners, he said.

While the building and the nearly five acres of ground will be sold by the owner, he said the bowling equipment will be sold at a public auction.

"It's an institution that will be missed," said Milan City Administrator Steve Seiver. "That has been a wonderful activity and amenity in the community and we're going to miss it.''

According to Seiver, the city will work with the credit union to market the building. With its "good location and good accessibility from U.S. 67," he said it could be re-developed for other commercial or service-related businesses. "There's a good chance we'll see somebody pick the building up for another use," he said.

Schopper said Milan Lanes employed between 12 to 15 people who "all are pursuing other options."
The third trial of murder defendant Stanley Liggins that was set to begin May 22 in Waterloo is officially off the docket.

Seventh Judicial District Chief Judge Marlita Greve on Monday granted a request by his newly appointed attorneys, Waterloo public defenders Aaron Hawbaker and Nichole Watt, to delay the trial to give them more time to prepare.

Greve set a status hearing for Jan. 3 to determine new dates in the case. She has not yet ruled on a second request by the attorneys to have Liggins, 55, held in the Black Hawk County Jail, rather than the Scott County Jail, pending trial.

Liggins is charged in the September 1990 strangulation death of Jennifer Ann Lewis, 9, of Rock Island, whose burned body was found near a Davenport elementary school. Prosecutors say she also was sexually abused.

He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1993 and 1995. The Iowa Supreme Court overturned the first conviction, and on Nov. 6, 2013, the Iowa Court of Appeals reversed the second conviction.

Liggins has been in the Scott County Jail in lieu of bond since February 2014.

Hawbaker and Watt filed their appearances in the case April 24, less than a week after Greve granted Liggins request to fire his former appointed attorneys, Derek Jones and Miguel Puentes of the Davenport public defenders office.

Greve granted Liggins' motion earlier this year to move the trial from Scott County to Black Hawk County, citing the heavy pretrial publicity surrounding the case.
A former teacher at Camanche High School who was convicted on a sexual exploitation charge will have his teaching license reviewed by the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners, Des Moines.

Bradley E. Wickes, 37, was convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor after engaging in a romantic relationship with a 17-year-old female student at Camanche High School, court records show.

In more than 600 pages of Facebook messages that started Aug. 21, 2015, Wickes was found to speak to the girl in inappropriate ways. "I'm going to cross over to the creeper side a moment and tell you, 'you are hot'" is one message in the affidavit.

In the affidavit, Wickes suggested the victim engage in sexual conduct with him. He would message her into the early-morning hours and would "sext" the teen, she said on the record.

In October 2015, Wickes asked her about limits. "Do you really think you'd like to take this farther despite the age? Could you really be happy with a guy who is 36, divorced, with three kids?"

Wickes set up a meeting with the girl at a Walmart store, and they hugged in the parking lot, according to the affidavit. The relationship was discovered shortly after this by authorities, and Wickes was subsequently arrested.

On Oct. 6, 2016, he received a sentence not to exceed five years in prison, $1,000 in fines and a 10-year "special sentence" for the parole period. His name is also to appear on the state's Sex Offender Registry.

His case is now on appeal in Iowa.

Wickes has been notified that his teaching license is the subject of a hearing set for 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 20, before administrative law Judge Margaret LaMarche in Des Moines.
Rock Island, East Moline and Moline will have new mayors sworn in today and Tuesday, but the former mayors of two of those towns say theres plenty left in their tanks for the future.

Dennis Pauley, of Rock Island, and John Thodos, of East Moline, both say they are excited about their futures. Scott Raes, of Moline, did not return phone calls to participate in this story.

Dennis Pauley

At age 71, former Rock Island Mayor Dennis Pauley continues to be on the move, literally.

He and his wife Lois have purchased a big recreational vehicle and plan to take it around the United States.

There are a lot of things around the country we want to see and do, Pauley said. I have a daughter that lives in Virginia so well go there, and well visit Washington, D.C. even though Ive been there a million times.

In his travels, Pauley plans to visit Americas Civil War battle sites.

Im fascinated about the Civil War, Pauley said. I just got interested in it last year. We were camping at Bull Run State Park and we had some spare time and went by the Manassas battlefield.

We watched a video about the battles and then stepped out onto the field, he said. It felt like I was in the middle of the battle itself.

We plan on going to Gettysburg this summer, he added.

But Pauleys travels wont keep him from participating in Rock Island. Hell maintain a seat on boards and commissions that can use his expertise, and he will volunteer around the city.

Pauley worked for AT&T for 46 years and retired as director of external affairs.

He served one term as 3rd Ward Alderman and then won two terms as mayor during a time when the nation was recovering from a recession.

Naturally, there were successes and disappointments.

During Pauleys time there were 25 ribbon cuttings for businesses downtown.

A major goal was cleaning up the bar scene in the downtown, he said, adding that he plans to stay on the citys Liquor Commission. We got the downtown straightened up and I think I could be helpful in keeping it straightened up, Pauley said.

And although Walmart didnt come to Watch Tower Plaza after the city spent $15 million getting the site ready, other businesses did invest in that area, Pauley said, with three of the businesses investing $20 million.

It wasnt just Rock Island that Walmart turned down, either. The company turned down several other cities around the nation. But we now have a 23-acre site that is ready because Walmart paid for all the environmental work.

Without question that area is ready to go and the city will find the right business to go there, Pauley said.

Rock Island has a great future ahead, Pauley said, adding that hes going to figure out how best he can help it move forward.

Theres a lot of good stuff out there, he said. I just have to figure out the organizations I want to volunteer for.

I cant sit still, Pauley said.

John Thodos

I have no clue, said former East Moline Mayor John Thodos when asked about his plans for the future.

I have no plans right now, he said. As opportunities present themselves Ill evaluate them and see.

Thodos spent eight years as an East Moline alderman before being elected mayor where he spent the next 12 years.

I left the city better than I got it, Thodos said.

Thodos said the city was able to get rid of the adult businesses downtown. In their place came new businesses which were the dream of entrepreneurs who saw their opportunity and took it.

We have a Greek grocery store, an Asian grocery store, a Hispanic grocery store, he said. The houses and neighborhoods in the downtown area have been or are being cleaned up. We have money available to help with that so a lot of that has been going on.

We tore down some of the old buildings downtown and now we have Community Health Care downtown, he added. Our strength is in our diversity.

Thodos said they added 40 percent of ground for development to the city in 2008. FedEx, Matcon and Hope Creek Care Center came into the city at that time, too.

Now, the East Moline riverfront is getting a $40 million hotel project, Hyatt Place and Hyatt hotel, on the empty site that once was home to Case IH.

Im happy to be leaving when I am, Thodos said. Everythings on its way up.

But there were disappointments and battles that continue.

Losing Triumph Foods plant still hurts after all the years of fighting to get it. We could have had it, but a sister city went out of its way to kill that, Thodos said.

Also, much of the ground on which East Moline was planning to expand its business and residential tax base has been deemed to be in the floodway by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

That fight with the IDNR and FEMA continues, Thodos said.

The current financial crisis at the state level has hindered a lot of potential growth not only in East Moline, but throughout the state, he added.

Thodos was able to devote his time to city politics as he has rental properties for income.

At age 53, Thodos said he is too young to retire, but whatever he does he will discuss with his wife, Tricia.

He is still on boards, with Community Health Care and the Black Hawk College Foundation, and he remains active in Rotary.

Well see what presents itself, Thodos said. I have 20 years of knowledge. Ive met senators and presidents and I like helping people.

So, well see, he said.
The nonprofit organization glow media, based in Washington, D.C., will host the Iowa premier of its award-winning teen short film, Warning: Take Only As Directed from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport.

Featuring original music and compositions, the 26-minute film serves to raise awareness and prompt discussion about the widespread use and misuse of prescription medication in the United States.

The evening begins with a pre-screening reception, including live performances by Davenport area students as well as musicians who wrote the original music that is part of the soundtrack.

Members of local law enforcement groups, teachers, students and those involved in addiction treatment will participate in a panel discussion and question-and-answer session after the screening.

Warning: Take Only as Directed, which was added to Discovery Educations digital streaming subscription series, is based on realistic teen situations involving prescription-drug use and misuse. The film and curriculum are available free at www.warningshortfilm.com and www.glowmedia.org.

For more information or to see the film, visit www.warningshortfilm.com.
In normal times, a 40-minute, late-April meeting to talk about the budget between a governor and the House Speaker would be so routine that it would likely go unnoticed by pretty much everyone under the Statehouse dome.

But these ain't normal times.

A funded, full-year state budget has not passed during a spring legislative session since 2013, almost exactly four years ago. We've had partial-year or stopgap budgets ever since.

And House Speaker Michael Madigan hasnt formally met with the governor since Dec. 6, about five months ago. Gov. Bruce Rauner announced at the time there would be no more such meetings until the Democrats were prepared to offer up a balanced budget with specific reforms - something that the governor hasn't done since, either.

So, it was definitely news when Speaker Madigan requested a private, one-on-one sit-down with Gov. Rauner last week and then the two actually met.

Speaker Madigan issued a statement saying that he had urged the governor "to turn his focus to the budget." Gov. Rauner's office then claimed that Madigan "hinted that he may be willing to enact a truly balanced budget with changes that will help create jobs, properly fund our schools and lower property taxes."

Did they really make progress?

Well, we all know that the governor is prone to exaggeration. He said repeatedly during the two-week spring break that the grand bargain negotiations were close to being wrapped up. He even claimed at one whistle stop that negotiations were going on between the two caucuses as he spoke, with another scheduled for the following day. None of that was true.

The House Speaker has his own issues. He doesn't say much except to repeat what he's been saying over and over for two years: The governor should focus on passing a budget. Madigan himself, meanwhile, has been completely focused on denying the governor any wins on Rauner's terms. All wins must instead be on Madigan's terms.

Madigan's spokesman reacted to the governor's statement by pointing to a bill the House passed last week to make workers' compensation insurance "more affordable." That bill (HB 2622), however, sets up a state-run workers' comp insurance company to compete with existing private insurers. Trial lawyers and unions insist that the hundreds of workers' comp insurers in Illinois are colluding to keep prices high. Hey, maybe such a thing could work. But creating a government insurance company is not exactly the sort of reform that our Milton Friedman-worshipping governor will ever accept as a "win."

Even so, I choose, for the millionth time, to look at the bright side. At least they met. At least there was apparently a mention (no matter how brief) of non-budgetary reforms. At least they didn't full-on whack each other after their meeting ended.

You gotta crawl before you can walk, so I'll take it, no matter how pathetically tiny or how temporary that microscopic bit of progress may have been.

Its been Madigans habit over the years to send the Senate a budget and then announce that the House has completed its work. He did it again last year and was ultimately stymied when the Senate refused to pass it.

But Madigan likely can't even pass another budget bill out of his own chamber this year, mainly because a group of ten or so independent Democratic women in his caucus are sick and tired of these impasse games. They have enough votes to block him if they stick together.

And if the Senate ever does send Madigan its grand bargain, those ten House members and several more will demand that he take some action. This impasse is killing them back in their districts, along with the blame that the governor has so successfully pinned on Madigan with tens of millions of dollars. A deal would take an enormous amount of heat off Madigan's members, and, by extension, him.

Rauner, for his part, is dangerously close to being permanently labeled as a failed governor. Everything he's tried has failed. Sure, he can point to minor administrative successes, but he wasn't elected to save a few bucks on data processing. And constantly awarding himself an "A" grade by pointing to these little administrative successes comes close to making him look dangerously separated from the reality that his state is rapidly going down the drain.

Both men have good reasons to find a way out of this mess. But theyre also the most stubborn men on the planet. Lets hope they keep talking.
PINE RIDGE | The grass is a vibrant green outside Jackie and Austin Ices trailer home, rejuvenated by a barely controlled wildfire last fall. The prairie meanders into the sweep of hills on the other side of the road, where the Wounded Knee Massacre site lies.

Sitting on the steps of her new deck one warm afternoon in April, Jackie, 47, recalled hearing stories of restless spirits when she was growing up. The deck is attached to a sturdy wooden frame built around her trailer home and capped with a metal roof, its ribbed panels a darker shade of the springtime jade spreading across the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The color is intentional, designed to blend into the landscape.

Erected last summer, the wood and metal shelter cant protect the Ices' fragile home from wildfires, but it has kept out the slashing winds, snow and rain. Its a blessing, Jackie said.

Without it, she said, "eventually our house would have caved in."

It is one of 10 pole structures raised over trailer homes on Pine Ridge last year by Waves For Water in an attempt to push back against the housing crisis there. The reservation has hundreds of dilapidated homes, many of them without running water, heat or electricity.

The Los Angeles-based international nonprofit humanitarian organization plans to build dozens more in the coming years. The pole structures, which cost around $25,000 each, are built and installed for free by Waves For Water.

In addition to its work on Pine Ridge, the nonprofit also provides disaster relief and clean water to more than two dozen developing nations across the world, including Haiti, India, Peru and Nepal.

I dont look for whats wrong, I look for whats missing, said Jack Rose, a project developer with Waves For Water. And whats missing here is good housing.

Reversing a downward spiral

Rose, 68, says the pole structures are built to last for generations." He calls his pilot program the House-2-Home project. Its his way of helping to reverse what he describes as a historic downward spiral in Indian Country by contributing to the positive forces already at work in one of the poorest places in the U.S.

To that end, Rose has partnered with local businesses, community leaders and nonprofit groups on the reservation over the past year. The real story is the people, the Lakota, Rose said. People who have nothing and are surviving.

Unemployment on the reservation has reached as high as 85 percent in recent years, but Roses group is helping to fix that too.

Waves For Water hires crews of young Oglala Lakota men and women to build the pole structures at a wage of $10 an hour. If they dont know how to work a saw or hammer, thats OK, Rose says, because his team will teach them as apprentices in carpentry.

A designer by trade as well as a self-described conjurer and freelance problem solver, the silver and wispy haired Rose grew up surfing in Santa Monica Bay, with the ocean in our front yard, mountains in our backyard.

Growing up in LA, exposed to the film (storytelling) industry, Rose wrote in an email to the Journal, it seemed normal to imagine anything, then tell a story and watch it come to life.

Developing an interest in humanitarian work as a young man, he started catching rainwater on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1998 and installed his first catchment system in Kenya in 2004. His son, Jon  also a surfer  founded Waves For Water in 2009, and the Roses have continued to provide humanitarian aid all over the world ever since.

Rose first came to Pine Ridge in the summer of 2012. Waves For Water was invited by the White Plumes  a well-known and respected family in Lakota territory  to install a pair of rainwater storage and filtration systems, similar to the kinds the group has introduced to communities in Africa and South America.

He never expects a thank you, said Alex White Plume. He just does it and leaves.

Rose says he intends to eventually install rain catchers at each of the homes equipped with one of his pole structures.

A seed is planted

Rose remembers his visit in 2012 when he first saw the trailers scattered across the far flung reaches of the reservation, baking in the summer heat, their sagging roofs worn to tatters by powerful winds and rain.

Some are known to house as many as 30 people at a time, and many leak so badly that their floors and ceilings have slowly rotted away.

Off the reservation theyd be red-tagged, considered uninhabitable, Rose said. That was planted in my brain.

That fall, Hurricane Sandy came crashing into the East Coast. It was while he and his team were helping rebuild homes amid the destruction in New Jersey that Roses thoughts drifted back to Pine Ridge and the idea for the pole structures came to him.

He sketched out a rough design and filed it away.

Theres a saying in the nonprofit world, Rose said. 'Perfect is the enemy of good.' There are no perfect solutions  but there are good ones.

To kick-start the project, Waves For Water partnered with Armfield Construction out of Malibu, Calif., to serve as a consultant and secured $500,000 in funding from Beach Body, a health and fitness company also based in California.

He also formed partnerships within the reservation that were a key part of the project. It's Rose's way of "helping the helpers," as he puts it.

The Lakota Prairie Ranch Resort in Kyle has served as the Waves For Water headquarters, with owner Rusty Puckett  who owns Medicine Root Development, a licensed contracting company  contributing heavily to the material and construction side of things.

Rose has been living in a cabin on Pucketts land. He plans on displaying a variety of alternative affordable housing prototypes at the Lakota Prairie Ranch over the next year, including an A-frame structure designed and built with Pucketts help.

It would be pretty much impossible to do what were doing on the scale that we are without Rusty, Rose said. Hes, like, the best builder in the universe. To me hes a shining star. His contribution is really invaluable to the project.

Structures already paying dividends

On a recent weekend at the White Plume homestead, Alex White Plume looked on as a dust devil surged through the grass and peeled a layer of aluminum siding off an unprotected structure.

A similar wind howled over the hill a few weeks ago where his brother, Percy White Plume of the Horse Spirit Society, lives. If not for the pole structure that Rose helped install to protect his home, Percy said, I think it would have torn the roof right off.

Percy hopes to someday remove the trailer entirely and use the pole structure as the bones of a house.

For Harrison and LaDonna No Neck, the addition of the pole structure has been a money saver. Keeping their trailer heated with propane usually costs them around $500 a month. But with the pole structure providing insulation this past winter, the familys bill was reduced by more than half.

Its been a big help, Harrison said.

The house heats up like a microwave in the summer, he added, but the shade from the new metal roof has already proved effective at keeping the inside cool.

Its s nice to have a dry house, LaDonna said, remembering how rain used to leak into the trailer. The roof is preventing all that.

An added benefit to the pole structures, Rose said, is that if the No Necks ever want to get a new trailer, they can slide the replacement into the spot where the old one used to be.

Think of the structure as a carport for a house, Rose said.

More structures on the way

The next phase of Roses project is to help repair the interiors of some of the homes where hes already put up pole structures, and to install double-pane windows and insulated entry doors where necessary.

The cost of building new homes is prohibitive, Rose said, estimating the cost of a single unit to be around $150,000. But fixing these up is affordable.

This year, Rose hopes to double his funding and build at least 20 more pole structures. Hes already got a waiting list of a dozen families.

A single team of six people can put up a pole structure in a week, he said, so it should be quick work once he starts hiring more teams of workers and taking in volunteers.

When asked how long his group intends to continue working in Pine Ridge, Rose replied: Pretty much forever. Thats how we are everywhere. We never leave.

Rose sees his work in Pine Ridge as a form of penance. Our current success was/is built on the graves of our predecessors. I think we are therefore obligated to help those who have suffered from the European invasion of North and South America.

Jackie Ice keeps a reminder of that history inside her home: a brass button from a 7th Calvary uniform that she found in the dirt when she was a teenager.

She's glad she doesnt have to climb up on the roof anymore to slather hot tar onto the leaky spots. The work is difficult enough without having to struggle with her prosthetic leg. Repairing the trailers rotting roof is usually her husband Austins job, but he suffered from a nearly fatal accident last year when he was driving through Gordon, Neb., and swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle. Hes only recently regained the ability to walk.

Sitting on the steps of the deck, Jackie began to cry. An independent woman who has worked for years in substance abuse counseling and now serves as a youth advocate in Pine Ridge, today she is one of the "helpers" on the reservation that Rose is working to lift up.

She says they dont have any money, that she and Austin have to ask for rides or hitchhike to get around.

But the roof doesnt leak anymore. And at night the two of them can sit out on their new deck and look up at the stars.

Its hard for me, she says, to ask for help.
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Former President Barack Obama's decision to give a pair of high-dollar speeches has set off a wave of criticism and Democratic hand-wringing.

And Van Jones, a former Obama aide and CNN political analyst, suggested Sunday that the former President could blunt some of the backlash by starting his post-presidency with a nationwide "poverty tour."

Jones said on CNN's "State of the Union" that it was unfair to impose a "second standard" for Obama when he gives paid speeches -- something all his recent predecessors have done after their time in office -- and argued that Obama "should not be the first president to have to be broke."

But saying "we need a Bobby Kennedy in this country," Jones suggested that Obama, who left office with a net worth of more than $12 million and subsequently inked a lucrative book deal, "do a tour, go to Appalachia, go to native American reservations where they are shoving these pipelines down their throats and they don't even have clean water, go to South Central, go to the Arizona border, where you have a lot of poverty."

"If [Obama] would do a poverty tour first, from a moral point of view, it would be great for him to do," Jones said.

The debate over Obama's paid speaking engagements, which reportedly will fetch him a cool $800,000, echoes similar arguments during the 2016 presidential campaign about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who was heavily criticized for her paid speeches to Wall Street banks.

Critics contend that the speeches are emblematic of the too-cozy relationship between public officials and the business sectors they are charged with regulating. That argument has been increasingly resonant in the wake of Democrats' 2016 losses, as Clinton's chief primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), and like-minded Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) -- who, with Sanders, criticized Obama's speaking fees -- have seen their influence among liberals grow in the early months of the Trump presidency.
A Seeley Lake father and son will not be able to hunt for years after illegally killing an elk in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in 2015 and then lying to investigators to cover it up.

William Bartlett and his son Leland were charged in October following an investigation by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks about an elk shot by Leland who could not have a hunting license because of a previous poaching conviction.

As part of plea agreements, William forfeited his right to get a hunting, fishing or trapping license for five years, and Lelands right was suspended for a decade. For the next five years, the pair are also banned from accompanying any hunter, fisher or trapper into the field.

The son will also have to make presentations at hunters education courses about what he did and the consequences he faces.

FWP game warden Bill Koppen, who investigated the crime, said that in addition to officers, other residents in the area will likely be keeping an eye on the Bartletts over the coming seasons.

Anybody can turn anybody in. If youre thinking youre getting away with it just because the warden didnt see it, youre wrong, he said. It upsets people when this kind of thing happens.

According to a court affidavit, U.S. Forest Service officer Tyler Robinson was working out at a Seeley Lake gym during the start of early rifle season in September 2015 when the gym owner Terryl Bartlett  Williams wife and Lelands mother  told him her husband and son were out hunting and that they had killed an elk.

Leland later told Robinson he'd killed the elk. Because of a prior elk poaching conviction in Beaverhead County, Lelands hunting privileges had been suspended from December 2013 to December 2015.

Weeks later, William told FWP game warden Chris Hamilton that his wife had killed the elk. But Robinson had seen her working at the gym during the hunting trip.

Hamilton and Robinson later spoke and realized they had been told conflicting stories.

As FWP game wardens began to investigate, Leland changed his story and said his mom had been with them and killed the elk. Terryl told a warden she had been there and made the kill, but cited a different rifle and number of shots than what Leland described. Another employee at the gym confirmed to investigators Terryl had been working the days of the hunt.

William stopped answering investigators questions after being told they knew his wife had been at work when he said she'd been hunting with them, according to the affidavit.

Investigators obtained a warrant for cell phone records, and found Terryls phone had been making and receiving calls from a Missoula tower during the days of the hunt, which would have been impossible if she'd been hunting in the Bob Marshall.

Several FWP employees told the investigator Leland had shown them pictures on his phone of the elks antlers. When asked to present the antlers, William initially said they had been stolen before agreeing through his attorney to turn them over.

Terryl eventually pleaded guilty to obstructing a peace officer and received a several hundred dollar fine.

Under the plea agreements with the father and son, the Missoula County Attorneys Office agreed to defer prosecution for five years of the felony charge.

William received an 18-month suspended jail sentence and 100 hours of community service. Leland got a two-year suspended jail sentence with 250 hours of service. The father was fined $3,000, the son $4,000, and the pair are responsible for an additional $8,000 in restitution to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
America must return to conservative principles of less government,reduced taxes, less spending and a balanced budget! Cut,cap and balance!
Guwahati, April 30 : Poachers killed another one horned rhino in Assam's Biswanath district.

Forest guards on Sunday recovered a bullet injuries dehorned carcass of a male rhino at Modajir Tapu near Batimari in the northern Assam district.

A top official of state forest department said that, poachers had killed the rhino few days ago and managed to flee with its horn.

According to the reports, the area covered under the Kaziranga National Park where the dehorned carcass was recovered.

It is the fourth poaching incident in the state this year.

On April 22, the forest guards had found the bullet injuries dehorned carcass of a male rhino near the Kartik Chapori area under Agoratoli forest office in the world heritage site.

Assam has lost over 250 one horned rhinoceros in past a decade.

Meanwhile, Assam forest minister Pramila Rani Brahma has ordered the forest officials to take stern action against poachers and adequate measures to protect wild animals including rhino in the state.

On the other hand, Nagaon police had arrested three rhino poachers from Jakhalabandha area in central Assam on Sunday.

The arrested poachers were identified as Rahimuddin, Iman Ali, Abdul Rashid.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati: Arunachal Pradesh governor P.B. Acharya chaired a meeting along with Chief Minister Pema Khandu to discuss various social issues at Raj Bhavan, Itanagar on Saturday.

The governor emphasized that on the International Workers' Day, we should strengthen our welfare projects of labourers and contingency staffs.

He asked the Chief Minister to initiate steps towards benefits like Earned Leave, pension, accommodation for the contingency staffs and labourers and also providing basic provisions under Food Security Act and other central projects.

The governor also suggested the Chief Minister to create Department of Tribal Dialects in the Universities in the line with Department of Foreign Languages.

It may recalled that on the initiative of the Governor, eight universities i.e. Mumbai University, SNDT University, Symbiosis University, Pune, Karve University (Pune), NITTE Medical University, Mangalore, Alva Education Foundation, Moodubidire, Karnataka and Manipal University in Mangaluru have started six-month Tribal Dialect (N.E.) Course.

Acharya also dwelled in length on the Autonomous Welfare Board of Puroik Community. It may be mentioned here that on the initiative of the Governor, Autonomous Welfare Board is constituted.

He also took personal initiative through Indian National Fellowship Centre, Mumbai for other welfare programmes for the Puroiks including free general nursing course for four persons and educational and emotional cum integration home stay and tour for 20 youth in Mumbai and Pune, Goa on June 2-15.

The governor was informed that the State Cabinet has approved the constitution of the Development board and notification of Puroik Development Board will be issued by soon.

The governor, while recalling his visit to lone cremation ground at Karsingsa called for at least three cremation grounds for Hindus, especially Non-Tribals in the city.

He expressed his dismay that inspite of have huge population, there is no proper cremation or burial grounds. It is unfortunate that the bereaved family members have to go to neighbouring State to perform the last rites of their loved ones.

Ashish Kundra, Commissioner of Finance department, J. Angu, Secretary of Food and Civil Supplies, Nitika Pawar, Special Secretary of Social Justice, Empowerment and Tribal Affairs, L. Borang, Director of Food & Civil Supplies, K. Dolo, Joint Director of Rural Development and Vinod P. Kavle, Secretary to governor were present in the meeting.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati: The Saturday (29 April) evening OPD clinic at Guwahati Press Club was conducted by the city based Dispur Hospitals. Dr Udayan Saikia from the healthcare institution offered free consultations to over 30 participants, where they also got the opportunity to check their weight, sugar and blood pressure. Health workers Sonmani Dutta (nurse) and Biswajit Das (technician) assisted the physician to conduct the camp.

The next camp under the 'Evening with a Doctor' series on 6 May will be graced by Apollo Chennai Hospital's senior gynecologist Dr A Vinutha. Open for lady members of the press club along with the spouses (also daughters) of media persons, the camp will begin at 4 pm and continue till 6 pm at the press club premises.
Kathmandu, Nepal: With an attempt to convince over the widespread suspicions over the future course of Nepali politics, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has on Monday morning informed to the President Bidya Devi Bhandari that the impeachment motion registered in the parliament against of the Chief Justice Sushila Karki would not affect the scheduled elections in local levels.

As President Bhandai desired to be clear over the recent political development after the impeachment motion registered against the Chief Juestice Karki particularly over the fate of the scheduled local level elections, Prime Minister Dahal had made such clarifications. He had gone to meet the President at the latters office in Sheetal Niwas on Monday morning to make clear about the issue.

Responding to the concerns of the President Bhandari, Prime Minister Dahal reportedly told that the impeachment motion was brought against Karki for interfering with the governments executive role.

Lawmakers from the major ruling allies Nepali Congress and CPN Maoist Centre had on Sunday registered the impeachment motion against Karki. Following the impeachment motion, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home affairs Bimalendra Nidhi, who is also the senior leader of the Nepali Congress, resigned from the post.

The incident has created a big jolt in Nepali politics. Political parties have been mulling their strategy. As not only the opposition parties including the main opposition CPPN UML but also the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, another major ally of the incumbent government, stand against of the impeachment motion registered against of the CJ Karki, the major government allies- Nepali Congress and the Maoist Center have faced tough task for safe landing the recent political development of the country.
Kathmandu, Nepal: The Indian government has provided logistical supports to the Election Commission (EC) of Nepal for the upcoming local level elections, slated for May 14 and June 14.

Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri handed over the different types of vehicles to the Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav amid a function held at the EC on Monday.

The vehicles worth of Rs 89.17 million includes 35 double cabin pickups, seven Scorpio jeeps, four sedan cars, one XUV car, one minibus, one microbus 30 motorcycles and seven scooters.

During the function Indian ambassador Puri appreciated to the Nepal government and the EC on the extensive preparations to hold the local level elections. Chief Commissioner of the EC Yadav also thanked the government and people of India on behalf of EC for the extensive support for the election.

It is said that the vehicles provided by the EC will be used in different parts of the country during the election.

As India had not extended any form of support to the EC contradicting to the earlier practice it was suspected that India would not have positive with the local level elections.
Kathmandu, Nepal: 128th Labor Day which is also popularly known as International Workers' Day is being marked all over the world including in Nepal with different program today.

The day is marked commemorate the Haymarket affair, which occurred in Chicago on 4 May 1886. Nepal has also given high preference to the day by giving national public holiday.

President Bidya Devi Bhandari has given a special message on the eve of the International Workers' Day on Monday. In the message she has expressed confidence that the International Labour Day would unite all the working class people across the country in a thread of unity to collectively raise voice for their rights and freedom.

President Bhandari has also lauded the role of the working class people for their contribution to establish the federal democratic republic in the country. In the message she has also wished that the working class people in the country would be benefitted in the context of constitutionally ensured provision of socialism-oriented economy.

Similarly, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has also extended best wishes to the all Nepali at home and abroad on the occasion of International Workers' Day on Monday.

As Nepal's constitution has defined rights to labor as the fundamental rights and workers have the rights to open a trade union and associate with it for the collective bargaining of their professional rights, , Prime Minister Dahal has stated in a message.
Election Commission (EC) of Nepal

Kathmandu, Nepal: The government decision to revise the schedule of the local-level election has left the people in general and party cadres disappointed. Not only the people of province number 1, 2, 5 and 7 but also the people of province number 3, 4 and 6 are disappointed with the government decision.

The people of were eagerly waiting for the arrival of May 14 , the date earlier announced for holding the local level election nationwide, to take part in the local election to be held after 19 years.

The people in general have been casting a suspicion that the government would backtrack from the commitment and responsibility of holding elections in the pretext of responding to the concerns of the dissident forces, which would have intended to blemish the recent change in the pretext of protesting the elections.

As one after another disappointing voices are continually coming against of the elections, people in general seem skepticism for the timely completion of three tiers of elections, which is indispensible to implement the constitution and to institutionalize the recent change.

Notwithstanding the thirsting of the people to chose their own representatives to run local units, the government has decided to hold first phase of local elections on May 14 covering the provinces 3, 4 and 6 while the second phase of election is fixed for June 14 covering provinces 1, 2, 5 and 7.

Hundreds of thousand people who have returned home taking a break from their works in home and abroad just to participate in the election are left in confusion with the revision of the election schedule.

The people are worried that whether they would be deprived of choosing their representatives at the local-level, despite a long wait in this regard.

The postponement of the poll date has had its impact even on election related activities as well. The elections campaign reached in the village level have also relatively gone down in the in the aftermath of the announcement of new date for the election.
Kathmandu, Nepal: the move to impeach Chief Justice Sushila Karki is protested from different sectors. Various youth organizations have taken to the streets on Monday in Kathmandu to protest the impeachment motion filed against Chief Justice Karki.

The people from various walks of life including the Rabindra Mishra led Sajha Party and Bibeksheel Party taken to the streets to protest the impeachment motion registered in the parliament o Sunday.

A rally that started from Maitighar Mandala was ended at New Baneshwore, before of the legislative parliament building.

Similarly, CPN-UML affiliated sister organizations also stage a protest program in front of the Legislature-Parliament on Monday.
Kathmandu, Nepal: The Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), major alley of the incumbent government, has on Monday decided to pull out of the coalition government led by UCPN Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

A meeting of the partys Work Execution Committee and Cabinet members took the decision to this effect. A meeting held earlier on Monday morning had failed to reach on the conclusion over the issue of withdrawing the support to the government.

It is said that the RPP will submit party decision to leave the government on Tuesday. Likewise the meeting has also decided to stand against the impeachment motion registered by lawmakers from ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), the party has stated in the statement.
Kathmandu, Nepal : Rastriya Prajantra Party, an ally of the incumbent government and the fourth largestparty in the parliament has issued a threat to withdraw support to the government but not made any concert decisions.

A Central Executive Committee meeting Of the party held on Monday morning just decided to protest the impeachment motion registered by the Nepai congress and the CPN Maoist Centre' lawmakers on Sunday.




China should not be allowed to conduct military exercises in Sulu Sea or anywhere in the Philippines including our EEZ





Golez: The President has announced he is open to a joint military exercise with China in the Sulu Sea, according to this ABS CBN report shown below. I will await the official Malacanang announcement just to be sure.

Meantime, let me convey my alternative views on the matter submitted as my unsolicited advice :

1. Treaty required: Sulu Sea is part of our archipelagic waters and therefore part of Philippine territory where we have full, absolute sovereignty. I believe a joint m ilitary exercise with a foreign military inside the Sulu Sea will require a Visiting Forces Agreement or VFA subject to Senate approval. The Constitution states (Article XVIII, Sect. 25):

"...foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines except under a treaty duly concurred in by the Senate..."
sacw.net - 1 May 2017

On March 28, during the fourth hearing of the J & K Bar Associationas appeal for banning the use of pellet guns in the valley, the Supreme Court apparently told the Bar Association that it would ask the Central government to stop using pellet guns if the Bar Association was able to persuade the Kashmiri youth to stop pelting stone and return to schools and colleges. "We can direct them (the government) to suspend use of pellet guns for two weeks, but you must assure that violence and stone pelting will stop," Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar. Earlier the Attorney general had insisted that the Bar Association must first come up with a solution that would get the youth off the streets.

This was an odd response to the plea of a people who are being blinded and killed by a weapon which is not used anywhere else in the country for mob control. The Bar is asking the Supreme Court to look at the disproportionate use of force by the government and the massive damage that this so-called non-lethal weapon has caused to the people of Kashmir. The plea is also pointing out that the security forces are using a weapon of which it has very little information. In the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, the CRPF admitted that it had fired nearly 1.3 million pellets on protesters in Kashmir within a period of 32 days. It also admitted that there was no way to predict how the pellets would spread once it was fired. The CRPF accepted that the pellets could also hit bystanders. Though the government has been talking about replacing the metal pellets with less lethal munitions, there has been little progress on that front. In fact the government seems to be inclined to continue to use these weapons. In the month of March, the government increased the number of pellet guns in the valley to 5,000. These guns are capable of firing more than 3 million pellets at one go. According doctors the type of pellets that have been recovered in Kashmir indicate that the CRPF are using bare metal pellets.

The question is whether the government forces should use pellet guns? Is this weapon legal? Has its use in crowd control been approved by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD). What are the Standard Operating Procedures for using pellet guns in crowd control? And more importantly, how and when was the use of pellet guns by the CRPF was approved, particularly as this is not included in the list of anon-lethala weapons for the police force of the states?

The other critical questions are whether the use of pellet guns conform to the Principle 4 of the Code of Conduct of Police in India, which says that as far as practicable, the methods of persuasion, advice and warning should be used. Section 130 Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) clearly states that if the use of force becomes unavoidable then only the irreducible minimum force required in the circumstances should be used.

It is strange that the Supreme Court instead of going into the issues of the law, rules and regulations regarding use of force during crowd control seemed to suggest that it might order the government to stop using pellet guns if the Bar Association could get the youth to stop throwing stones at the security forces.

This response of the Supreme Court to the plea of the J & K Bar Association is radically different from the manner it treated the plea of the Extra Judicial Execution Victimsa Families Association of Manipur (EEVFAM). In its order the court had noted that if members of the armed forces are deployed and employed to kill citizens of the country on the mere allegation or suspicion that they are aenemy,a then not only the rule of law but also democracy would be in grave danger. It said that the use of excessive force or retaliatory force by the Manipur police or the armed forces of the Union is not permissible. It its order the court had directed that the Indian army and other paramilitary forces cannot use aexcessive and retaliatory forcea in Manipur and that all allegations of such excessive use of force must be probed.

One wonders why this difference in dealing with the issue of use of excessive force by the state in Manipur and Kashmir. While the Supreme Court has sent J & K Bar Association back to Kashmir to talk to the leaders of the agitating people of Kashmir, the government has also told the court that it was not interested in talking to the agitators and their leaders. The Attorney General said athe court cannot direct the government to meet separatist leadersa .

The government says that it would talk with only alegitimatea political parties. The point is that the so-called alegitimatea political parties are not a part of the protest movement. They are a part of Indian amain streama . They contest elections, form governments and rule over the people of Kashmir. Talking to them is talking to your own side.

I would say that the government is dialoguing with the opposition groups in Kashmir. It is not conducting the dialogue through words. It is conducting this dialogue through guns. As we know War is also a form of dialogue. This is the reality of the governmentas attitude towards the agitation people of Kashmir. The choice of the pellet gun fits into this.
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Apr-30-2017 23:30 TweetFollow @OregonNews OREGON: As of May 1 Worker Permits Needed to Continue Working in Cannabis Industry Licensees Required to Enter Permit Employee Information into Metrc to be Compliant

Beginning May 1, 2017, only individuals with valid Marijuana Worker Permits can be employed to work in a licensees licensed premises.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - Beginning May 1, 2017, only individuals with valid Marijuana Worker Permits can be employed to work in a licensees licensed premises if they do any of the following tasks at a non-laboratory license: Handle, secure or sell any kind of marijuana item

Access Metrc on behalf of the licensee

Check customer identification to verify age

Maintain records related to any of the items above; or

Directly supervise any of the persons who do the above tasks. All licensees are required to have current employees entered into the Metrc Cannabis Tracking System with valid OLCC Marijuana Worker permits before Monday May 1, 2017. It is the licensees responsibility to ensure all its current employees who are required to, have a valid worker permit and that the worker permit information is entered into CTS. For an employee not required to have a worker permit a licensee must enter into Metrc the month and year of the employees date of birth. A significant number of licensees still have NOT entered the required employee information into Metrc. Licensees employing individuals without a valid Worker Permit and/or not recorded properly into Metrc will be in violation of their license, and subject to administrative action. A licensee should deactivate from the licensees Metrc account any former employees who no longer work at their licensed premises. A former employee entered incorrectly into Metrc (no Worker Permit or no date of birth) will also be considered a potential violation. The OLCC has received a surge of Worker Permit applications leading up to the compliance deadline; as a result it is now taking about 10 business days to process an application and issue a worker permit. Please refer to Compliance Education Bulletin CE2017-06 for additional details on how to comply with this requirement. If you have questions please contact: marijuana@oregon.gov or 503-872-5000 _________________________________________

Prohibition | Marijuana | Medicine | Business | Most Commented on





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There are 1,281 days between today and the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election. But, with Donald Trump in the White House, Democratic politicians are already eagerly jockeying for position with the expectation that the party's nominee will have a very good chance of ousting the incumbent -- if his poll numbers stay anywhere as low as they are at the moment.
Photos: This New Orleans slaughterhouse is making a business out of wild boar
The gritty and edgy thriller RED just picked up two awards at the Unrestricted View Film Festival in London.

The directorial debut of Branko Tomovic (24: Live Another Day, Fury, The Bourne Ultimatum) starring Dervla Kirwan (Ondine, Interlude in Prague) with Francesca Fowler (Doctor Who, Macbeth), is set in the underground world of illegal organ smuggling, the so-called red market. It tells the story of a damaged and guilt-ridden man who works in this dangerous underground world but is trying to find a way out of it.

Tomovic plays the isolated and tormented surgeon with extraordinary emotional depth which makes you emphasise with him, although he is performing these horrible crimes. For his captivating and very powerful performance Tomovic won the Best Actor Award last night. Additionally, the award for Best Screenplay, which was also written by Tomovic, went to Red as well.

The 20-minute film has already won numerous awards and nominations on the international film festival circuit, including San Diego International Film Festival, Tangier International Film Festival, the European Film Award qualifying International Short Film Festival in Drama, Naperville Independent Film Festival, Maverick Movie Awards, Winchester Short Film Festival, North Hollywood Cinefest and Berlin Independent Film Festival. Upcoming screenings include the BAFTA qualifying Carmarthen Bay Film Festival where Red is nominated for Best Short and the prestigious Scenecs Film Festival.

The Unrestricted View Film Festival celebrates the very best in independent films and presented a terrific mix of exciting new works from across the globe.

Have a look at the preview clip below, Red highlights the dark and brutal world of the illegal organ trade and the people involved in such operations.
Last year we debuted the poster for Yen Tan's 1985, a short film that evoked potent memories in just eight minutes. It won a Special Jury Prize at SXSW. Now a feature film version is on its way.

The cast is impressive: Cory Michael Smith (TV's Gotham), Virginia Madsen, Michael Chiklis, Noah Schnapp (Stranger Things) and Jamie Chung. Here's the synopsis, per Deadline:

Terminally-ill Adrian (Smith) flies home from New York to visit his estranged family in Texas. His attempt at revealing his circumstances to his conservative parents (Madsen, Chiklis) are challenged when he reconnects with his preteen brother (Schnapp) and his old flame (Chung).

Yen Tan (Pit Stop) wrote the screenplay and will direct. He's a long-time acquaintance, talented filmmaker and an all-around good man, so I'm delighted to hear the news. Filming is slated to begin next month in Dallas, Texas.
Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, Edinburgh International Film Festival is looking to the future by highlighting the classics of the past with three retrospective strands entitled "Great Britain," "Scotland" and "The Western World of The Future".

Great Britain

Billed as "a timely reflection of British culture past" the Great Britain strand explores the works of ex-Beatle George Harrison's HandMade Films and feature such cult classics as Time Bandits, Withnail & I and The Long Goodbye Friday.

Also celebrated here is the work of Matt Johnson of legendary post-punk group THE THE, and his director brother Gerard Johnson. 1987's THE THE: Infected - The Movie will play here alongside the UK Premiere of new documentary The Inertia Variations, which focuses on Matt's life and work. Gerard's first two features, Tony and Hyena, will receive screenings as the man himself returns to EIFF to direct a stage reading of John Hopkins controversial 1968 play, This Story of Yours.

The Western World of The Future

Focusing on the years 1980 - 1985, The Western World of The Future offers some of the most significant, exciting science fiction of that era in order to "turn attention to the future of the western world via the science fiction cinema of the past, and in the process, continue the review of our own rich history." Films to be screened include The Terminator, Brazil, Escape From New York, Outland, Videodrome and The Last Battle.

Excitingly, the strand will also feature the animated sci-fi works of Iconic French director Rene Laloux, La Planete Sauvage and Gandahar.

Scotland

The Scotland strand explores the the world of visionary Scottish playwright, poet and jazz musician Tom McGrath. Along with a musical performance from the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and live-readings of McGrath's ground-breaking plays The Hard Man and The Android Circuit the film selection will include Wholly Communion and The Connection.

Edinburgh International Film Festival takes place 21 June - 2 July.

For full details on the retrospective programme click here.
German helmer Roderick Warich is fresh from the premiere of his arthouse thriller 2557 at Argentina's BAFICI festival and based on a quartet of clips released from the film this looks to be an intriguing film for fans of mid-era Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and the following Thai indie wave. Here's a translation of the festival's description:

Robbery, nightclubs and love triangles define the turbulent life of Salisa, a twenty-year-old Thai girl who must flee to the dusty plains of Isaan because of a coup.



The idea of Bangkok as a port of arrival and repository for drifting Westerners has been underpinned for decades by urban tales and legends, and also by the imagination of creators of all kinds. The German filmmaker Roderick Warich takes this stereotype and his strong aesthetic baggage as a starting point, and then demolishes meticulously: he leaves us in return a formally overwhelming film that begins as a sort of Jules & Jim made up by the reflection of a thousand neons, And finally transforms into a thriller of heavy atmosphere in which two inexpressive German Golem crash in mute against the local mafia. In the background, the city populated with luminous alleys which, citing Vazquez Montalban, "tourists are attracted like flies in search of groin honey."

No 'groin honey' in the clips but there's plenty to like. Check them out below!
It seems as though Ann Coulter managed to come near the Bay Area this weekend after all, if not actually into it, giving a speech Friday evening in Modesto Centre Plaza that drew "hundreds" of supporters according to the Modesto Bee. And, inevitably, there were also protesters, and Trump/Coulter fans on hand to shout down the protesters, as you can see in the video below. Coulter used her microphone time to talk about the possibility of a populist revolution, and to say that she wishes California would secede, lest our liberal immigration policies spread to the rest of the country.

The occasion was the annual Lincoln Day Dinner fundraiser for the the Republican Party of Stanislaus County, which paid Coulter's $25,000 speaking fee. And as CBS 5 reports, security was high, with private guards, Modesto police, Stockton police, Stanislaus County sheriffs, and California Highway Patrol all on hand. The demonstration turned out to be peaceful, however, despite the shouting.

It's unclear when the Modesto appearance was planned, or if it was planned in the course of the week in which Coulter's speech at UC Berkeley was ultimately cancelled after much back and forth with the university. Announcements of the appearance seem to have first appeared around April 19.

Its not just the governor, Coulter said in the speech, per the Modesto Bee. If I could push secession on you, Id really be doing the rest of the country a solid.

As KCRA reports, media cameras were not allowed into the event. But as you can hear in the video below, Coulter also spoke about keeping the US out of international conflicts in which we don't have a national interest.

Someone should tell Coulter, though, that Modesto is not in the Bay Area.

I met your Bay Area Proud Boys in Modesto tonight. I think those guys can keep me safe! https://t.co/fWvUlMk2wb  Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 29, 2017



The event apparently raised about $50,000 for the Republican Party of Stanislaus County.



Previously: Ann Coulter Backs Out Of Berkeley Event After Student Groups Abandon Her
While May Day rallies have traditionally been calls for attention to workers' rights, this year the day is expected to be marked by many demonstrations nationwide focusing on immigrants' rights and resistance to Trump administration policies overall. On May 1, also called International Workers' Day, a coalition of nearly 40 advocacy groups are organizing rallies and protests around the country, and here in the Bay protests are expected in San Francisco's Civic Center Plaza, on Market Street, outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in SF, at Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose, on the UC Berkeley campus, on Mandela Parkway in Emeryville, and in Fruitvale Plaza in Oakland.

As the Chronicle reports, a rally is set to happen Monday morning in Justin Herman Plaza that will be followed by a noon march to Civic Center, and Mayor Ed Lee is expected to participate. Lee gave a statement to the paper saying, "We cannot have our residents living in the shadows, fearful to go to work, enroll their children in schools or seek medical assistance. Despite the misguided rhetoric coming from Washington, D.C., we will continue to lead the way and fight for our immigrant communities."

ABC 7 has a list of rallies and events here.

Marking a Day Without Immigrants, Adriano Paganini's Back of the House restaurant group is shuttering all of its 20 Bay Area restaurants on Monday  that includes Beretta, Belga, Flores, Delarosa (both locations), El Techo, Lolinda, Starbelly, The Bird, Uno Dos Tacos, and all 10 locations of Super Duper. Paganini, himself an immigrant who moved to the Bay Area from Italy over 20 years ago, says in a statement, "The subject of immigration remains very personal to me, and It hits close to home for many of us. I feel very proud to be an immigrant who has successfully built a business that provides jobs for many people and places to eat for our neighbors."

NBC Bay Area reports that a focus of the San Francisco demonstration will be the education of immigrant children. Lita Blanc from the United Educators of San Francisco tells the station, "Public money is going to private schools and, of course, an increase in charters, that runs counter to public education being a cornerstone of democracy."

In recent years, May Day has been an occasion for anarchic protest events, particularly in Oakland where in 2015 nighttime rioting left many businesses vandalized in the city's downtown and on Auto Row.

No event appears to be scheduled in downtown Oakland, like the general strike that happened on May Day in 2012, however it remains possible that similar chaos could erupt given the tradition of the last several years.
Airbnb and HomeAway announced Monday that they are dropping a lawsuit that was challenging San Francisco's ordinance that penalizes them for the scofflaw behavior of their users. As part of the settlement agreement, as SocketSite reports, the short-term rental companies will both be implementing a requirement for new hosts that they enter a valid registration number from SF's Office of Short Term Rentals before allowing their listing to go live on the sites. Also, the sites have agreed to provide monthly reports of listings to the city, and to cancel future stays and disable a host's account if they are alerted to the presence of an unregistered host by the city.

Airbnb issued a statement Monday saying, "Similar to other agreements we have established with cities all around world, this agreement puts in place the systems and tools needed to help ensure our community is able to continue to share their homes."

Mayor Ed Lee thanks City Attorney Dennis Herrera for his work sorting out this issue, and said in a statement, "When platforms cooperate with the City to only list lawfully registered hosts, we can more effectively enforce our laws and protect our rental housing supply. This settlement is a significant leap forward for enforcement of our short-term rental laws."

Also, Board of Supervisors President London Breed chimed in.

Today's short-term rental settlement-a step in the right direction to protect housing by making it difficult for bad actors to break the law pic.twitter.com/o1HHslWtoo  London Breed (@LondonBreed) May 1, 2017

The law, approved by the Board of Supervisors last spring, fines short-term rental companies $1000 per day per illegal listing, drawing a definitive line in the sand about where the responsibility lies for policing the activity of hosts. As you may recall, Airbnb had actively sought to challenge the city's law, filing suit last June and claiming that the law violated the 1996 Communications Decency Act  a federal statute that has typically shielded internet platforms from liability when it comes to the content posted by their users. Airbnb's attorneys also argued at the time that the law "violates the federal Stored Communications Act, which creates uniform privacy protections for internet users and prevents cities from simply demanding that platforms turn over user information without a subpoena or other legal process."

The City Attorney's Office argued that the law didn't penalize the companies for their users' content, but rather has the effect of "regulating the business activity of the hosting platform itself."

Back in November, a federal judge dealt a blow to Airbnb and HomeAway, denying a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the implementation of the law. At the time, the judge instructed the city and the companies to jointly arrive at a solution for cracking down on scofflaw hosts.

It's been suggested that Airbnb was hoping to prevail in this suit in SF, the first big one of its kind challenging a local crackdown like this, and use it as a template for challenging laws in other cities that are limiting the use of short-term rental platforms. Previously, Airbnb has complained that the city bears responsibility for making the registration process to cumbersome and time-consuming.

As Socketsite notes, there are now about 2,100 registered hosts in San Francisco, but about 8,000 listings on Airbnb alone  and, legally, hosts are only supposed to be allowed to list their primary residences.

Complaints about illegal Airbnbs have been on the rise, and now the short-term rental giant and its competitors will have 120 days to implement the registration requirement on their sites, and they have eight months in which to show that all users are registered with the city, or they must be removed.

Related: Airbnb Dealt Blow By Federal Judge In Their Challenge To SF Crackdown On Illegal Rentals
#BART police arriving for extra shifts tonight pic.twitter.com/mjAfRTAfHt  Lisa Amin Gulezian (@LisaAminABC7) April 30, 2017

In the wake of the wide attention that came to a swarm or "flash mob" robbery committed by dozens of teenagers at Oakland's Coliseum Station two Saturdays ago, more information is coming to light about rising overall crime rates on the BART system, and the need for more constant patrols by BART police. We learned Friday that there has been a 22 percent uptick in crime overall in the BART system, year over year, and this past weekend the Chronicle reported specifically on where spikes in robberies have been occurring over the first three months of they year  and robberies, both in stations and aboard trains, are up 45 percent so far this year.

Coliseum Station has long been known to BART officials and some riders as a hotbed for crime activity, and indeed it has seen the most robberies in the first three months of 2017, 13, followed closely by Bay Fair Station, which has seen nine, and Fruitvale Station, which has seen six.

The biggest year-over-year jump in robberies has actually been in San Francisco, though, with ten robberies in the first three months across all SF BART stations, compared to just four by this time last year. But in terms of sheer numbers, downtown Oakland stations extending out to Coliseum Station, have seen the most, including group-style robberies, and often involving the theft of cellphones.

BART Police have responded by authorizing more overtime and increasing the presence of officers, as ABC 7 reports. Acting Deputy Chief Terence McCarty explains that this is being done in part by eliminating a day off for most officers, who typically work four 10-hour shifts a week. Orders like this are typically reserved just for large protests or disasters.

Since March, McCarty tells the Chronicle that 19 individuals have been arrested on suspicion of robbery on BART, all aged between 12 and 21, and often working in groups. Those engrossed in their phones and situated near doors are the most vulnerable.

BART spokesperson Alicia Trost is still quick to tell the Examiner that crime on BART has been dropping for three years in a row, and she tells the Chronicle, "We just want to make the point that crime is low and we serve so many people without incident." There were only 1.6 robberies per million rides on BART last year, she points out, and projections suggest that may just rise to 1.7 for 2017.

In related news, there's been a recent spate of thefts of catalytic converters, ripped out from beneath cars in BART parking lots, with eight such incidents reported in the East Bay in just four days, as CBS 5 reports.

Meanwhile, one arrest has been made of one of the juveniles involved in the April 22 mob robbery, and several other warrants have been issued. In total, seven people were robbed, mostly of their phones, in that incident.



Previously: BART Identifies Some Suspects In Mob Robbery As Woman Comes Forward With Separate Teen Attack Story
Remember Zuck's early January announcement that he planned to visit with people in all 30 states that he'd never been to this year? Well, over the weekend he made a campaign stop in Ohio where, as the Associated Press reports, he told his staff to find him some Democrats who'd voted for Trump. The Facebook CEO was then taken to the home of Dan and Lisa Moore on Friday evening in Newton Falls where the family was only given 20 minutes notice of who their mystery dinner guest would be.

As many commenters on Facebook have pointed out, the meal was served on disposable plates.

"It was a great meal and great conversation," says Zuckerberg. "I appreciate their hospitality!"

The conversation was reportedly not all about politics, and the Moore's also talked about their work with an orphanage in Uganda, called Kisiizi Good Shepherd Orphanage, that Zuckerberg says he's going to throw a fundraiser for.

We got to know a very cool guy, says Dan Moore, speaking to the Youngstown Vindicator. "Just down-to-earth and real easy to talk to." Moore adds, "He cares very much about family and about community, Moore said. And hes taking steps to do a lot of very positive things with his money."

Moore's family was apparently selected because he was quoted in an article on cleveland.com as having voted twice for Obama and he campaigned heavily for Donald Trump last year.

On this trip, Zuckerberg also hit up Michigan on Thursday, touring a Ford plant in Dearborn, and he spent time Saturday with people in Dayton, Ohio who are suffering from opioid addiction.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg Won't Run For President, But Is Preparing For More Political Battles
The San Francisco Police Department is looking for the owner of a white car, saying that its occupants might have witnessed a crash that killed an elderly pedestrian Saturday night.

SFPD spokesperson Sergeant Michael Andraychak says that the collision occurred at around 11:30 p.m. Saturday night at Lake Merced Boulevard and Font Street, at the edge of the SF State campus.

Andraychak says a 77-year-old woman was crossing Lake Merced Blvd when she was struck by a 56-year-old Millbrae resident behind the wheel of a Dodge pickup truck.

Police did not immediately provide further details on the collision, including if the woman was in the crosswalk at Font and Lake Merced, and, if so, if it was she or the driver who was crossing with the signal.

Andraychak says that the driver "remained at the scene and is cooperating with the investigation" and that "impairment does not appear to be a factor." However, he says that "Investigators believe that another vehicle, a two door white car, was traveling on Lake Merced Blvd. at the time of the collision and the occupants may have witnessed the incident."

The possible witnesses did not stop, however, hence the police search to get their account of the collision.

Andraychak says that the SFPD Traffic Collision Investigation Unit is still looking into the case, and is hopeful that members of the public might come forward to assist in their inquiry. The occupants of that car are asked to contact the TCIU at 415-553-1641 or 415-553-9516. They, or anyone else with information on the case, can also contact the SFPD's anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444, or Text a Tip to TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD.

As I finished writing this report, news of a second fatal pedestrian collision in SF broke, this time at Octavia Boulevard and Market Streets.

According to KRON 4, a pedestrian was killed as they was crossed the street inside a crosswalk in front of the Octavia on-ramp to 101. The collision occurred shortly before 4:30 a.m. Monday, KRON reports, when the driver of a car "spun out and hit them."

KRON reports that the on-ramp was closed until 4:50 "while authorities investigated the incident." As of publication time, additional information on the crash was not available.

Related: Man Shot To Death Near San Francisco State University
Police have launched a suspicious death investigation after a male body was found floating in the San Francisco Bay this weekend.

A spokesperson with the Alameda County Sheriffs office says that the call regarding the body came in at around 8:44 a.m. Saturday morning, with the caller saying that "something was floating in the water," Bay City News reports.

By 10:50, rescue crews had retrieved the body as it floated off the coast of Alameda.

NBC Bay Area spoke with the 911 caller, who says they first noted the remains at around 8:30, "when she spotted something strange in a nearby lagoon."

"I don't see if it's a joke or [if] it's real," Marcela Galvez told NBC, saying that she had been "enjoying her morning coffee on her patio" before the alarming incident occurred.

"I called my wife and she [told me to] call the police."

The death is absolutely suspicious, Alameda Police Police Lieutenant Matt McMullen told BCN, which reports that "officers will be investigating it as suspicious until the coroner determines the cause."

Area resident Katie Winton-Henry, who NBC reports "recorded the recovery effort," dismisses this characterization, however, telling the station that she "doesn't believe foul play was a factor."

"There wasn't any wounds, or blood or anything that I could see," she says.

"It's just really sad," she told NBC. "This stuff doesn't happen here in Alameda... It's just really odd to find a dead body and, as a community, I think we just really want to know more."

According to the Alameda firefighters who pulled the remains from the waters, the body is of a "young man." As of publication time, he had not been publicly identified, nor had an autopsy to determine cause of death been completed.

Related: SFPD Investigating Body Pulled From Waters Near Mission Bay
 Expand On Wednesday, Turner Hall will host the kick-off events for Milwaukeeas second-ever Janeas Walk.

This week, Janes Walk will return to Milwaukee for its second year of promoting community involvement via neighborhood walking tours. Six different parts of Milwaukee will be highlighted in this years tour series, which runs from Thursday, May 4 through Sunday, May 7. Janes Walk kicks off on Wednesday, May 3 with a buffet-style fish fry fundraising dinner at the Turner Hall restaurant. Afterward, a presentation by local Janes Walk organizers will highlight the organizations mission and this years tours.

Janes Walk honors Jane Jacobs, a community engagement activist and author who lived in New York City and Toronto. Jacobs wrote the influential The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which eventually sold over a quarter-million copies and became a requisite text of the movement against urban renewal. The concept of Janes Walk fits in with her overall aim of encouraging citizens to be involved in the development of their cities. Local volunteers who share their expert knowledge and promote conversation and engagement among the walkers lead the walks. The first Janes Walk was held over a decade ago in Toronto and the concept has since spread to over 200 cities all across the world.

Milwaukees walks open with a tour of downtown led by architect Chris Socha, an advocate for active and livable urban development in the city. The walk will explore the past and future of downtown and the pattern language of the areas architecture. This one-hour tour departs from the Plankinton Rotunda at 2 p.m. on May 4. On May 5, Michelle Kramer of the Menomonee Valley Partners will present a tour of West St. Paul Avenues past, present and future. The walk will explore the streets many historic buildings and discuss how to better incorporate the area into the burgeoning Menomonee Valley. The tour departs from the Brass Light Gallery at 3 p.m.

Friends of the Shepherd Help support Milwaukee's locally owned free weekly newspaper. LEARN MORE

On Saturday, May 6, tours will highlight three diverse aspects of the city. Departing from North Ninth St. and Vliet at 9:30 a.m., the 5 Miles of Art Justice Trail tour will visit numerous examples of historic and contemporary works of public art honoring social justice leaders. The 5-hour walk is sponsored by ZIP MKE and will be led by the organizations founder, Dominic Inouye. At noon, a tour highlighting Milwaukees role in shaping American culture will depart from City Hall and visit key landmarks in the area on what tour leader Christian Matson-Alvirez calls a Brew City Safari. If you prefer biking to walking, you can join with journalist Michael Horne at noon at the Urban Harvest Brewing Company for a ride through Walkers Point to learn about Milwaukees bicycle history. Horne will also lead the South 5th Street Renaissance tour, the final of the series, on Sunday, May 7. Departing from the Fifth Street Fuel Cafe at 11 a.m. the tour will go through one of the citys most interesting historic neighborhoods and discuss about its recent revival.

To sign up for any of the walks or for more information, click here. The walks are all free of charge. The fish fry kick-off event is $20 per person, which includes the meal and soft drinks. The post-dinner lectures are open to the public, with a suggested donation of $5. For more information on the kick-off event, click here.
SINGAPORE 60's: ANDY's POP MUSIC INFLUENCE IS A PERSONAL MUSIC, MEMORY TRAIL. BLOGGER DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO VIDEOS, AUDIO TRACKS AND IMAGES. THEY ARE UPLOADED FOR FUN, EDUCATIONAL, ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES AND HAVE BEEN CREDITED. BLOG IS NOT SPONSORED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. INFORM BLOGGER OF COPYRIGHT ISSUES AND POST WILL BE DELETED IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT COPY THE POSTS; GET PERMISSION N CREDIT ME IF YOU DO. ANDY LIM LA (NOVEMBER, 2008) - ()
NEWELL, Iowa | The Buena Vista County Sheriff's Office is investigating another suspected arson along the Dakota Access Pipeline west of Newell.

The incident was reported Thursday evening when passers-by noticed a pipeline site along 180th Avenue just north of the Highway 7 burning. The fire caused an estimated $70,000 damage to a building serving the pipeline and another $70,000 in damage to a skid loader owned by a construction company near the pipeline.

Marty DeMuth, a captain with the Buena Vista County Sheriff's Office, said the department is investigating the incident as arson.

This is the second such vandalism attempt on the pipeline in the past six months. The department is continuing to investigate another suspected arson that resulted in nearly $1 million in damages to machinery at another pipeline site about four miles to the southeast.

The investigation has also involved the Iowa State Fire Marshal's Office, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"We don't know who's doing this. We don't know if they are connected. We're assuming they are," DeMuth said.

Those two incidents join several other vandalism reports along the controversial $3.8 billion pipeline that runs 1,200 miles through the Dakotas, Iowa and Illinois in recent months. The Sioux County Sheriff's Office reported two such incidents near Hospers, Iowa, in mid-March.

DeMuth encouraged anyone who has information or notices suspicious people or vehicles in the area to report it to the local sheriff's department.
MILFORD, Iowa | A Milford man was found dead after barricading himself at an apartment complex Sunday night.

At 9 p.m., the Milford Police Department responded to a domestic situation at 26 Westview Drive. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) reported that Robert Brunner, 52, fired several rounds when approached by officers.

A Milford officer returned fire before retreating to safety.

The DCI said Brunner then barricaded himself inside an apartment. Law enforcement made several attempts to make contact and communicate with Brunner but were unable to do so.

At around midnight, law enforcement entered the residence, where they found Brunner dead.

An autopsy will be performed at the Iowa State Medical Examiner's Office later this week.

The incident is currently under investigation by the Milford Police Department, Dickinson County Attorney's Office and the Iowa Department of Public Safety's Division of Criminal Investigation.

Assisting agencies included the Arnolds Park Police Department, Spencer Police Department, Okoboji Police Department, Estherville Police Department, Spirit Lake Police Department, Lake Park Police Department, Dickinson County Sheriff's Department, Clay County Sheriff's Department, Osceola Sheriff's Department, Emmet County Sheriff's Department and the Iowa State Patrol.

The Milford Police officer who fired a weapon has been placed on administrative leave, as is the policy when an officer is involved in a shooting investigation. The officer's name is not being released at this time.
SIOUX CITY | Democratic Rep. Chris Hall of Sioux City said he is considering giving up his Iowa House seat to seek the Democratic nomination for governor next year.

"I've received encouragement to run for governor throughout the session, especially from here in Sioux City," Hall said. "People see this state moving in the wrong direction. They want new leaders to step up, people who know how to work across the aisle and who can give voice to this corner of the state."

Hall said he's thinking of his political future more concretely, now that the Legislature has adjourned for the year. He plans to travel around the state to meet voters and listen to their concerns.

"People should expect to see me at picnics and fundraisers the next few months as I introduce myself," Hall said.

The Democratic race for governor in 2018 appears wide open. Former Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Andy McGuire, former Iowa Department of Natural Resources Director Rich Leopold and former Des Moines School Board President Jon Neiderbach have announced their candidacies. Other Democrats are mulling a campaign.

"There is still a lot of time for that field to develop," Hall said.

Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, who will ascend to the governorship once Gov. Terry Branstad becomes U.S. ambassador to China, is expected to seek her own four-year term in 2018. Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett also is expected to seek the Republican nomination.

Hall, 32, said that while he is relatively young, he is well-tenured. First elected to the House in 2010, he is in his seventh year as a state representative.

"People view me as level-headed. I am an honest broker. I can work with both sides of the (political) aisle," he said.

Former Woodbury County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Bottaro, of Sioux City, said Hall has the heft to be a statewide candidate.

"He is one of the most thoughtful in choosing his words, well spoken and well thought of by legislators in Des Moines. He's been able to get legislation passed in Republican-controlled House. He forges alliances," Bottaro said.

Hall said he also will consider running for statewide row offices, but has ruled out a bid for the Iowa 4th Congressional seat held by Republican Rep. Steve King. Other electoral options, he said, are to run for re-election in the House, or seek the Iowa Senate District 7 seat held by Sen. Rick Bertrand, a Sioux City Republican.

If Hall pursues the latter one, it could be a battle of experienced campaigners, as Bertrand, a two-term incumbent, told the Journal last week he likely will run for another four-year term.

"It is a little raw after the session," Bertrand said. "I think it is a little early to say I am definitely running in 2018. But if you are putting me on the spot today if I am in or out, I'm in."

In 2016, Bertrand, a Sioux City businessman and developer, unsuccessfully challenged King in the Republican primary for the 4th District seat.

Hall noted Bertrand had previously pledged not to run again. After the loss to King, Bertrand told the Journal in 2016 that he campaigned on the fact that he would only serve two terms in the state Senate. He said the only way he would veer on that decision is if it appears his departure would cost Republicans a chance to hold a majority in the 50-member Senate.

Iowa Senate District 7 includes portions of Hall's seat, as well as the House seat held by first-year Democratic Rep. Tim Kacena.
Marshals reported that Wabasha provided a false name to the officers but eventually admitted his true identity and was booked into the Woodbury County Jail.

Wabasha was wanted by the Iowa Department of Corrections for escape from custody. He escaped from the Residential Treatment Facility in Sioux City, where he was placed after being convicted of two counts of felony possession of drugs. Marshals put out a request for information on his whereabouts in December.
SIOUX CITY | More than 60 Siouxland leaders head to Washington, D.C., this week to push for a bevy of local issues, including the shortage of skilled workers and affordable housing.

With unemployment at near-historic lows, many new and expanding employers are struggling to find sufficient numbers of qualified applicants.

"We need people and we need good people with the skills to do the jobs that are open," said Barbara Sloniker, executive vice president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce, which leads the annual lobbying blitz to the nation's capitol. "When we talk to people in the tri-state community, it runs a gamut. Electricians to welders to architects and everything in between. There isnt one skill needed."

In a series of meetings this week, tri-state leaders will urge federal decision-makers to support educational programs to train the next generation of skilled workers. Local school district and college leaders will be part of the Chamber delegation.

Sloniker said employers will give lawmakers short presentations on the condition of their industries, and how certain legislation impacts them.

"We hope that when (federal lawmakers) are in meetings that can effect some change they can pull back and think, Oh yeah, we talked with Jared Higman from MASABA and heres what he said. We talked with Mark Porter from Seaboard, Al Almar from FiberComm' all those industries are totally different and they need different things," Sloniker said.

The region also faces a housing crunch, particularly for affordable units. The need for more workers and housing is expected to become more acute with the opening of the Seaboard Triumph Foods pork plant in Sioux City. The $300 million plant is scheduled to start in July with one shift and at least 1,300 salaried and hourly workers, and expand to nearly 2,000 employees by next spring, with the vast majority expected to be newcomers to the region.

Local officials will urge federal officials to save two programs the city of Sioux City has relied on to increase the stock of affordable housing. The Trump administration has put the Community Development Block Grant and the Home Investment Partnership program on the chopping block as part of its proposed budget for the next fiscal year.

Both programs are part of the Housing and Urban Development Department. The local delegation will get a face-to-face meeting with HUD Secretary Ben Carson on Wednesday. Carson, a surgeon and former Republican presidential candidate, will be the guest speaker at the Chambers annual Steak Reception. The reception, which will be held in the Russell Senate Office Building, replaced the Chambers traditional sit-down steak dinner several years ago.

The three-day conference kicks off Tuesday with an optional tour of the Pentagon. From there, the delegation will travel by bus to a reception hosted by retired Admiral James "Sandy" Winnefeld Jr. and his wife, Mary, at their McLean, Virginia, home.

Mary Winnefeld is the sponsor of the USS Sioux City, an LCS 11 naval ship that is scheduled to be commissioned at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in the summer of 2018. Winnefeld recently visited Sioux City to promote the commissioning, which will include a series of special events and ceremonies. Local officials are privately raising funds for the commissioning.

James Winnefeld is a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

During the three-day trip in Washington, the local delegation is scheduled to meet with the 14-member Siouxland congressional delegation, starting with a breakfast with Iowa 4th District Rep. Steve King on Wednesday morning.

The delegation also will meet with Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
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Black Diamond Group Limited rents and sells modular space and workforce accommodation solutions. It operates through two segments, Modular Space Solutions and Workforce Solutions. The Modular Space Solutions segment provides modular space rentals to customers in the construction, real estate development, education, manufacturing, health care, financial, government, and defense industries in North America. Its products include office units, lavatories, storage units, large multi-unit office complexes, classroom facilities, banking and health care facilities, custom manufactured modular facilities, and blast resistant structures. This segment also sells new and used space rentals units; and provides delivery, installation, project management, and ancillary products and services. The Workforce Solutions segment provides workforce housing solutions, including rental of accommodations and surface equipment, and provision of turnkey lodging and travel management logistics services in Canada, the United States, and Australia. This segment also provides associated services, such as installation, transportation, dismantlement, and sale of used fleet assets. This segment primarily serves the resource, infrastructure, construction, disaster recovery, and education sectors. company also provides specialized field rentals to oil and gas industries. Black Diamond Group Limited markets its rental assets, custom sales, and ancillary products and services through in-house sales personnel, its website, social media, web campaigns, and its digital marketplace. The company was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.
The following companies are subsidiares of InterContinental Hotels Group: 2250 Blake Street Hotel LLC, 24th Street Operator Sub LLC, 36th Street IHG Sub LLC, 426 Main Ave LLC, 46 Nevins Street Associates LLC, Allegro Management LLC, Alpha Kimball Hotel LLC, American Commonwealth Assurance Co. Ltd., Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BHMC Canada Inc., BHR Holdings B.V., BHR Luxembourg SARL, BHR Pacific Holdings Inc., BHTC Canada Inc., BOC Barclay Sub LLC, Barclay Operating Corp., Bristol Oakbrook Tenant Company, Cafe Biarritz, Cambridge Lodging LLC, Capital Lodging LLC, Compania Inter-Continental De Hoteles El Salvador SA, Crowne Plaza Amsterdam (Management) B.V., Crowne Plaza LLC, Cumberland Akers Hotel LLC, Dunwoody Operations Inc., EVEN Real Estate Holding LLC, Edinburgh IC Limited, General Innkeeping Acceptance Corporation, Guangzhou SC Hotels Services Ltd., H.I. (Ireland) Limited, H.I. Soaltee Management Company Ltd, HC International Holdings Inc., HH France Holdings SAS, HH Hotels (EMEA) B.V., HH Hotels (Romania) SRL, HI Sugarloaf LLC, HIM (Aruba) NV, Hale International Ltd., Hoft Properties LLC, Holiday Hospitality Franchising LLC, Holiday Inn Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Holiday Inns (China) Ltd, Holiday Inns (Chongqing) Inc., Holiday Inns (Courtalin) Holdings SAS, Holiday Inns (Courtalin) SAS, Holiday Inns (England) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Germany) LLC, Holiday Inns (Guangzhou) Inc., Holiday Inns (Jamaica) Inc., Holiday Inns (Malaysia) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Middle East) Ltd., Holiday Inns (Philippines) Inc., Holiday Inns (Saudi Arabia) Inc., Holiday Inns (South East Asia) Inc., Holiday Inns (Thailand) Ltd., Holiday Inns (UK) Inc., Holiday Inns Crowne Plaza (Hong Kong) Inc., Holiday Inns Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Holiday Inns Inc., Holiday Inns Investment (Nepal) Ltd., Holiday Inns of America (UK) Ltd., Holiday Inns of Belgium N.V., Holiday Pacific Equity Corporation, Holiday Pacific LLC, Holiday Pacific Partners LP, Hotel Inter-Continental London Limited, Hotel InterContinental London (Holdings) Limited, Hoteles Y Turismo HIH SRL, IC Hotelbetriebsfuhrungs GmbH, IC Hotels Management (Portugal) Unipessoal Lda, IC International Hotels Limited Liability Company, IHC (Thailand) Limited, IHC Buckhead LLC, IHC Edinburgh (Holdings), IHC Hopkins (Holdings) Corp., IHC Hotel Limited, IHC Inter-Continental (Holdings) Corp., IHC London (Holdings), IHC M-H (Holdings) Corp., IHC May Fair (Holdings) Limited, IHC May Fair Hotel Limited, IHC Overseas (U.K.) Limited, IHC UK (Holdings) Limited, IHC United States (Holdings) Corp., IHC Willard (Holdings) Corp., IHG (Australasia) Limited, IHG (Marseille) SAS, IHG (Thailand) Limited, IHG ANA Hotels Group Japan LLC, IHG ANA Hotels Holdings Co. Ltd., IHG Bangkok Ltd, IHG Brasil Administracao de Hoteis e Servicos Ltda, IHG Commission Services SRL, IHG Community Development LLC, IHG Cyprus Limited, IHG ECS (Barbados) SRL, IHG Franchising Brasil Ltda, IHG Franchising DR Corporation, IHG Franchising LLC, IHG Hotels (New Zealand) Limited, IHG Hotels Limited, IHG Hotels Management (Australia) Pty Limited, IHG Hotels Nigeria Limited, IHG Hotels South Africa (Pty) Ltd, IHG International Partnership, IHG Istanbul Otel Yonetim Limited Sirketi, IHG Japan (Management) LLC, IHG Japan (Osaka) LLC, IHG Management (Maryland) LLC, IHG Management (Netherlands) B.V., IHG Management MD Barclay Sub LLC, IHG Management SL d.o.o, IHG Management d.o.o. Beograd, IHG Orchard Street Member LLC, IHG PS Nominees Limited, IHG Systems Pty Ltd, IHG Szalloda Budapest Szolgaltato Kft., IHG de Argentina SA, IND East Village SD Holdings LLC, Inter-Continental D.C. Operating Corp., Inter-Continental Florida Investment Corp., Inter-Continental Florida Partner Corp., Inter-Continental Hospitality Corporation, Inter-Continental Hoteleira Limitada, Inter-Continental Hotels (Montreal) Operating Corp., Inter-Continental Hotels (Montreal) Owning Corp., Inter-Continental Hotels (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation, Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation de Venezuela C.A., Inter-Continental Hotels of San Francisco Inc., Inter-Continental IOHC (Mauritius) Limited, Inter-Continental Management (Australia) Pty Limited, InterContinental (Branston) 1 Limited, InterContinental (PB) 1, InterContinental (PB) 2, InterContinental (PB) 3 Limited, InterContinental Berlin Service Company GmbH, InterContinental Brasil Administracao de Hoteis Ltda, InterContinental Gestion Hotelera S.L., InterContinental Hotel Berlin GmbH, InterContinental Hotel Dusseldorf GmbH (Germany), InterContinental Hotels (Puerto Rico) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd, InterContinental Hotels Group (Australia) Pty Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (Canada) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (Espana) SA, InterContinental Hotels Group (Greater China) Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (India) Pvt. Ltd, InterContinental Hotels Group (Japan) Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group (New Zealand) Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group (Shanghai) Ltd., InterContinental Hotels Group Customer Services Ltd., InterContinental Hotels Group Healthcare Trustee Limited, InterContinental Hotels Group Operating Corp., InterContinental Hotels Group Resources Inc., InterContinental Hotels Group Services Company, InterContinental Hotels Group do Brasil Limitada, InterContinental Hotels Italia S.r.L., InterContinental Hotels Limited, InterContinental Hotels Management GmbH, InterContinental Hotels Nevada Corporation, InterContinental Management AM LLC, InterContinental Management Bulgaria EOOD, InterContinental Management France SAS, InterContinental Management Poland sp. z.o.o, InterContinental Overseas Holding Corporation, Intercontinental Hotels Corporation Limited, KG Benefits LLC, KG Gift Card Inc., KG Liability LLC, KG Technology LLC, KHP Washington Operator LLC, KHRG 11th Avenue Hotel LLC, KHRG 851 LLC, KHRG Aertson LLC, KHRG Alexandria LLC, KHRG Alexis LLC, KHRG Allegro LLC, KHRG Argyle LLC, KHRG Austin Beverage Company LLC, KHRG Baltimore LLC, KHRG Born LLC, KHRG Boston Hotel LLC, KHRG Canary LLC, KHRG Cayman Employer Ltd., KHRG Cayman LLC, KHRG DC 1731 LLC, KHRG DC 2505 LLC, KHRG Donovan LLC, KHRG Employer LLC, KHRG Goleta LLC, KHRG Gray LLC, KHRG Gray U2 LLC, KHRG Hillcrest LLC, KHRG Huntington Beach LLC, KHRG King Street LLC, KHRG La Peer LLC, KHRG Miami Beach LLC, KHRG Muse LLC, KHRG NPC LLC, KHRG Onyx LLC, KHRG Palladian LLC, KHRG Palomar Phoenix LLC, KHRG Philly Monaco LLC, KHRG Pittsburgh LLC, KHRG Reynolds LLC, KHRG Riverplace LLC, KHRG SFD LLC, KHRG Sacramento LLC, KHRG Savannah LLC, KHRG Schofield LLC, KHRG Sedona LLC, KHRG State Street LLC, KHRG Sutter LLC, KHRG Sutter Union LLC, KHRG Taconic LLC, KHRG Tariff LLC, KHRG Texas Hospitality LLC, KHRG Texas Operations LLC, KHRG Tryon LLC, KHRG VZ Austin LLC, KHRG Vero Beach LLC, KHRG Vintage Park LLC, KHRG WPB LLC, KHRG Wabash LLC, KHRG Westwood LLC, KHRG Wilshire LLC, KHRG Zamora LLC, Kimpton Hollywood Licenses LLC, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group LLC, Kimpton Phoenix Licenses Holdings LLC, Kimpton Sedona Licenses LLC, Louisiana Acquisitions Corp., MH Lodging LLC, Mercer Fairview Holdings LLC, PML Services LLC, PT SC Hotels & Resorts Indonesia, Pollstrong Limited, Powell Pine Inc., Priscilla Holiday of Texas Inc., RM Lodging LLC, Regent Hotels and Resorts, Resort Services International (Cayo Largo) L.P., SBS Maryland Beverage Company LLC, SC Cellars Limited, SC Hotels International Services Inc., SC Leisure Group Limited, SC NAS 2 Limited, SC Quest Limited, SC Reservations (Philippines) Inc., SCH Insurance Company, SCIH Branston 3, SF MH Acquisition LLC, SPHC Group Pty Ltd., SPHC Management Ltd., Semiramis for training of Hotel Personnel and Hotel Management SAE, Six Continents Corporate Services, Six Continents Holdings Limited, Six Continents Hotels Inc., Six Continents Hotels International Limited, Six Continents Hotels de Colombia SA, Six Continents International Holdings B.V., Six Continents Investments Limited, Six Continents Limited, Six Continents Overseas Holdings Limited, Six Continents Restaurants Limited, SixCo North America Inc., Solamar Lodging LLC, Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation (BVI) Ltd., Southern Pacific Hotels Properties Limited, Universal de Hoteles SA, White Shield Insurance Company Limited, and World Trade Centre Montreal Hotel Corporation.

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Spreading extremist propaganda online should also be treated as a form of terrorism, expert says

China has seen a decline in violent terrorist acts thanks to tougher security measures, but the country still faces grim threats. The number of attempted attacks remains high, senior security experts said on March 20.

The number of violent attacks involving or orchestrated by terrorist cells dropped last year, according to nationwide public security data cited in a study report released on March 20 by the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The numbers were not available.

The study was part of the Blue Book of Rule of Law, which was released on March 20 and includes analyses of various issues last year in the fields of legislation and crime.

Anti-terrorism soldiers train in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. China has seen a decline in violent terrorist acts, but still faces grim threats, according to experts. Provided to China Daily

"China's tightened measures against terrorism have driven some suspects underground. And we see more cases of fabricating terrorist-related information and spreading terrorism propaganda," says Huang Fang, the institute researcher who led the study.

The country's first comprehensive anti-terrorism law, which took effect on Jan 1 last year, has improved the legal framework to better fight such crimes, she says.

However, Li Wei, an anti-terrorism expert at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, warns that although there were fewer violent terrorist attacks in the past year, the situation has not fundamentally improved.

"People should realize that more attacks have been foiled at the planning stage. We haven't seen a significant drop in the number of attempted attacks," he says.

Li says terrorist-related activities are still underway in some regions of the country due to the continued penetration of extremism from abroad.

The report released on March 20 also warned that the situation might become more serious, since overseas terrorist groups now have stronger influence in China, and the connection between domestic and foreign terrorist groups has grown deeper.

In addition to stopping terrorist acts, China must fight the spread of terrorist propaganda online and on social media, Li says. Spreading such propaganda should be treated as a form of terrorism because much of the content targets young people and lures them into violence, he adds.

According to the report, a considerable number of terrorist suspects arrested last year were born in the 1980s and 1990s. Additionally, many terrorist cells consist of family members, it said.

Contact the writers at cuijia@chinadaily.com.cn and caoyin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 03/24/2017 page14)
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.
(WB) With the 100-day mark of President Trumps time in the White House fast approaching, LGBT rights supporters are giving him failing grades as the nation evaluates him at the benchmark.

Since he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, the White House has asserted Trump is respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights, but at the same time he has taken anti-LGBT actions  such as undoing guidance protecting transgender students  and filled his administration with opponents of LGBT rights.

The Washington Blade solicited evaluations and grade assessments from six LGBT advocacy organizations on Trumps performance in anticipation of his 100th day in office on April 29. Each of the organizations gave the president a failing grade with the exception of Log Cabin Republicans, which gave him an A- grade.

Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, said she gave Trump a failing grade for missteps ranging from anti-LGBT appointments, immigration enforcement that has targeted undocumented immigrants with a vengeance and a budget proposal that increases defense funding at the expense of programs for the middle class.

Since taking office, Donald Trump has pushed an agenda that is designed to destroy lives and roll back progress, Carey said. Everything he has done is detrimental to marginalized communities. His executive orders and actions dehumanize and devalue entire communities of people  including trans children, people of color and women.

To the surprise of many, the start of the administration saw limited support for LGBT rights. The White House within days of the new administration issued a statement declaring Trump is respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights and would keep in place an executive order signed by President Obama in 2014 that barred federal contractors from engaging in anti-LGBT workplace discrimination.

The Trump administration also defied the wishes of anti-LGBT advocates seeking to purge the State Department of LGBT rights supporters by keeping in place Randy Berry in his role as special envoy for global international LGBT rights.

Gregory Angelo, president of Log Cabin Republicans, cited those commitments  in particular Trumps pledge to keep the federal contractor order, which was made after a request from Log Cabin to leave the directive intact  in his explanation for why Trump deserves an A- for his first 100 days in office.

Trumps first 100 days in office have been something of a mixed bag in regard to LGBT issues, but that was to be expected considering his concurrent outreach to evangelicals and to LGBT voters during his campaign, Angelo said. There has been a lot of hand-wringing about a number of non-troversies over the past three months  fake news stories about the White House erasing gay people from the Census and the White House website, which were nothing more than fundraising ploys to rile up dejected LGBT liberals still reeling from Hillary Clintons loss.

But other indications bely Trumps stated support for LGBT people. Despite the White House pledge to keep the Obama-era executive order intact, concerns persist Trump will sign an new directive that would undermine the order and otherwise enable anti-LGBT discrimination in the name of religious freedom.

Media reports have said Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner convinced Trump not to sign the order, but White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has said the administration would have something on it. Just this week, USA Today reported a group of 51 House Republicans have sent a letter to Trump calling on him to sign the religious freedom executive order.

The same holds true for people with HIV/AIDS. Although the Trump administrations proposed budget identified HIV funding as a priority and maintains funding for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, it seeks to cut funding by nearly 20 percent for the National Institutes of Health, which conducts HIV research, and PEPFAR, a Bush-era program that seeks to combat the global HIV epidemic.

Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, explained his failing grade for Trump by saying any promises the White House has made in support of LGBT people are undermined by Trumps actions in his first 100 days.

Since the moment he walked into the Oval Office, Donald Trump has attacked our progress and undermined the rights of countless Americans, including LGBTQ people, Griffin said. From his anti-LGBTQ appointees and nominees, to rescinding protections for transgender students, to his Muslim ban, to his draconian deportation orders, to now considering a taxpayer-funded license to discriminate, Donald Trump has broken his promise to be a president for all Americans.

In terms of anti-LGBT actions, the most concrete actions are ones undermining trans rights in particular. Most prominently, that came in form of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos revoking Obama-era guidance instructing schools discrimination against trans kids, such as denying them access to the restroom consistent with their gender identity.

Under Sessions, the Justice Department also withdrew litigation against North Carolinas anti-LGBT law after it was replaced despite assertions from civil rights groups the new law is discriminatory. The department also missed a deadline to appeal a court injunction barring enforcement of an Obama-era regulation assuring trans people have access to health care, including gender reassignment surgery.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, was insistent the Trump administration is actively seeking to undermine civil rights in explaining the failing grade she gave to the new president.

The Trump administration set about trying to roll back civil rights for several communities from day one, and the LGBT community was no exception, Keisling said. From packing agencies with extremist appointees, to attacking transgender students, to undermining health care for transgender people, this administration has already completely undercut any campaign promises of support for LGBT equality.

On international LGBT rights, the Trump administration has already seen a human rights crisis after the emergence of reports of arrests and torture of gay and bisexual men in Russias semi-autonomous Republic of Chechnya. More than 100 men have been tortured and at least three killed in what media reports are calling concentration camps.

After some prodding, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has said the U.S. government is disturbed by reports of kidnapping, torture and murder of people in Chechnya, although Trump himself has remained silent.

Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International, gave Trump a failing grade on international work even though Haley spoke out against anti-gay abuses in Chechnya.

The policies that we are seeing coming out of the Trump administration are scary and dangerous, Stern said. Expanding the global gag rule, putting forth a Muslim ban, targeting Mexicans, all of these policies are contributing to an environment of marginalization and fear. These policies doubly discriminate against LGBTIQ people who belong to these communities and experience multiple forms of oppression.

Stern also accused Trump of undermining the international system by seeking to eliminate funds for the United Nations and appointing to a U.S. delegation to the U.N. womens conference a pair of anti-LGBT activists.

What we need now are for progressive leaders in other countries to fill this vacuum and push forward to continue moving the needle forward on human rights, Stern said.

Another metric for presidential commitment to LGBT rights has been making openly LGBT appointments, an effort Obama undertook, which led to a record number of openly LGBT appointees.

In contrast, Trump has yet to make a single openly LGBT appointment. Media reports have indicated Trump intends to appoint Fox News commentator and foreign policy expert Ric Grenell, whos gay, as U.S. ambassador to NATO, but that nomination has yet to occur.

Meanwhile, Trump appointments include Roger Severino as assistant secretary of civil rights at the Department of Health & Human Services, which essentially places an anti-transgender activist in charge of defending trans health. LGBT advocates are also seeking to derail the confirmation of Trumps choice of Army secretary, Mark Green, who has taken anti-LGBT positions during his career as a state legislator and said being trans is a disease.

Aisha Moodie-Mills, CEO of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, gave Trump a failing grade for surrounding himself with appointees who demonize or oppose the rights of our community instead of making LGBT appointments.

Personnel is policy, and the extremist worldview of his administration is driving agency and administration policy on LGBTQ rights, Moodie-Mills said. We saw that when the transgender school guidance was rescinded in February, and we are seeing it now with his insufficient response to widespread reports that gay men in Chechnya are being systematically tortured and murdered. We also see it with his administrations attacks on LGBTQ immigrants, women, people of color and Muslims.

Moodie-Mills called on LGBT rights supporters to be clear-eyed and relentless because these 100 days were just the beginning, urging LGBT people to run for public office.

Ivanka Trump is not going to save us, Moodie-Mills said. We need LGBTQ leaders to run for office and represent us in the halls of power  they are our best defense against anti-equality efforts moving forward.

The White House didnt respond to the Blades request comment on ways the Trump administration has acted to protect or advance LGBT rights during Trumps first 100 days in office.

 Chris Johnson, Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.
(AP) The first openly lesbian bishop in the United Methodist Church can stay on the job for now, but she is subject to a disciplinary review that could lead to her removal, the top church court ruled Friday.

Bishop Karen Oliveto's civil marriage to another woman violates church law that bars clergy who are "self-avowed practicing homosexuals," the Judicial Council said. However, a decision over whether she can remain in the position must come from a separate disciplinary process, the court ruled.

Oliveto was elected last year to lead a Denver-area church region that is part of the Methodist Western Jurisdiction, which has rejected the denomination's position that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." Within minutes of her election, a challenge was filed by the Oklahoma-based South Central Jurisdiction, leading to Friday's ruling.

The case is the latest chapter in an intensifying fight over LGBT recognition that is fracturing the 12.8 million-member denomination - the third-largest faith group in the U.S. Earlier this week, bishops announced a special 2019 meeting of its top legislative body, or General Conference, expressly to address church law on sexuality and find ways the denomination can avoid schism.

LGBT advocates in the church have stepped up pressure to lift prohibitions on gay clergy. Bishops have conducted same-sex weddings in defiance of church policy and dozens of LGBT clergy have come out, risking being defrocked. Evangelical Methodists, who have gained strength in the denomination in part through growth of Methodist churches overseas, have responded by pushing to enforce church policies. The court said Friday that bishops who consecrate an openly gay bishop were considered in violation of Methodist law and also subject to church discipline.

The Methodist policy making body has upheld the church's stand on same-sex relationships since 1972, even as other mainline Protestant groups, including the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have approved same-sex marriage.

The ruling Friday was made on a 6-3 vote. Oliveto said she felt "grateful" for the chance to remain as bishop as she and other church leaders study what the decision means for her future. Bruce Ough, president of the Methodist Council of Bishops, said the decision would not ease "the disagreements, impatience and anxiety" in the church, but he appealed to church members to stay unified.
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.




UCSD UCSD

Explorers planning to settle on Mars might be able to turn the planets red soil into bricks without needing to use an oven or additional ingredients.

Instead, they would just need to apply pressure to compact the soilthe equivalent of a blow from a hammer.

These are the findings of a study published in Scientific Reports on April 27, 2017. The study was authored by a team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and funded by NASA. The research is all the more important since Congress passed a bill, signed by President Donald Trump in March 2017, directing NASA to send a manned mission on Mars in 2033.

The people who will go to Mars will be incredibly brave. They will be pioneers. And I would be honored to be their brick maker, said Yu Qiao, a professor of structural engineering at UC San Diego and the studys lead author.

Proposals to use Martian soil to build habitats for manned missions on the planet are not new. But this is the first that shows astronauts would need minimal resources to do so. Previous plans included nuclear-powered brick kilns or using complex chemistry to turn organic compounds found on Mars into binding polymers.

In fact, the UC San Diego engineers were initially trying to cut down on the amount of polymers required to shape Martian soil into bricks, and accidently discovered that none was needed. To make bricks out of Mars soil simulant, without additives and without heating or baking the material, two steps were key. One was to enclose the simulant in a flexible container, in this case a rubber tube. The other was to compact the simulant at a high enough pressure. The amount of pressure needed for a small sample is roughly the equivalent of someone dropping 10-lb hammer from a height of one meter, Qiao said.

The process produces small round soil pallets that are about an inch tall and can then be cut into brick shapes. The engineers believe that the iron oxide, which gives Martian soil its signature reddish hue, acts as a binding agent. They investigated the simulants structure with various scanning tools and found that the tiny iron particles coat the simulants bigger rocky basalt particles. The iron particles have clean, flat facets that easily bind to one another under pressure.

Researchers also investigated the bricks strengths and found that even without rebar, they are stronger than steel-reinforced concrete.

Researchers said their method may be compatible with additive manufacturing. To build up a structure, astronauts could lay down a layer of soil, compact it, then lay down an additional layer and compact that, and so on.

The logical next step for the research would be to increase the size of the bricks.
It is impossible to talk coffee in Brazil without mentioning the state of Minas Gerais, its largest coffee producer and home to some of the micro-regions that are well-known among coffee connoisseurs around the world, such as Cerrado and Mantiqueira de Minas. The name of the state comes from its mining: Minas was the epicenter of a gold rush led by Europeans in the 18th century. Coffee plantations started to spread in the 19th century, first in the central-north region and then all over the southern region as well.

If you visit Minas Gerais, chances are you are going to get invited to a hospitable natives (mineiro) house, and the first thing they are going to do is offer you a cup of coffee. If you are lucky, it will come alongside one of the worlds greatest inventions, originally from Minas: pao de queijo, a cassava-flour-and-cheese-bread concoction. (Yes, I am a Mineira, and I cant help but brag about our invention, one of the most delicious edible things on Earth.) Belo Horizonte, the states capital, is where you are going to find some of the best cheese bread in Brazil. The city is reaffirming itself as a cultural, creative, and gastronomic hub. And coffee has followed along, with many cafes now serving up regionally grown black gold in different extraction methods and building direct-trade relationships with Mineiro farmers. For when you visit the state, here is where to find these places.

Academia do Cafe

Academia do Cafe is a coffee school that holds Specialty Coffee Association of Europe-accredited coffee courses, a coffee shop, and a green-coffee sourcing center in the middle of Belo Horizonte. Founders Bruno Souza and Debora Fortini launched it as a training center in 2011, with the coffee shop being added in 2013; it is now run by their daughter and son-in-law. Souza and Fortini already had experience working with coffee importing during 10 years spent in Oregon. Upon returning to Belo Horizonte, their idea was incentivizing the specialty coffee industry in the region while providing quality coffee to Belo Horizontinos when such a thing was close to nonexistent.

The Academia folks also run a fifth-generation coffee farm, Fazenda Esperanca, where they source some of their coffees, as well as buy directly from other producers. They have experience with every step of the coffee chain, which helps them to educate their customers. All espresso drinks at the cafe are double shotssomething unusual in Brazil. And in the summertimewhich is a large share of the year in BHtheir Limaozin drink is a hit: rangpur-lime concentrate mixed with cold brew. Sweet and refreshing.

OOP Coffee

OOP Coffee is located in the heart of the Savassi neighborhood, a busy commercial and cultural hub close to the city center. There you will probably find founders Adriene Cobra and Tiago Damasceno behind the counter serving OOPs coffeenow roasted by Damasceno himselfand a short but delicious food list, including cheese from small producers in the state of Minas.

They run a streamlined operation, focused on coffee quality. Oop, which means open in Afrikaans, aims to be an open platform for local artists and suppliersfrom the food offered to the art displayed on the wall. When I visited, there were five different coffee options, served on Hario V60 or AeroPress, in addition to espresso drinks. The sofa in the back makes for a welcoming slow-down area.

Intelligenza

While walking to OOP, I stumbled upon Intelligenza a few blocks away. In the middle of Savassis busy area, Intelligenza has a dedicated area for laptop workers on the third floor. There you will find large tables, free WiFi, and many power outletswhich are not so easy to find in Brazil. Henrique Fiuza, the owner, explains that since Savassi is the site of many offices, it is often necessary for people to find a quiet place to have a coffee and do some work, so he wanted to offer both.

Fiuza got inspired to open his own shop after doing consultancy work for Noete Cafe Clube (see below). At Intelligenza, he serves coffee via various extraction methods (V60, AeroPress, Clever, and French press, plus Toddy cold brew) and from different roasterswhen I visited, Cafeteria Will Coffee and Noete were the featured roasters. When in need of a workspace and good coffee in Savassi, you know where to go.

Noete Cafe Clube

Noete was born in 2015 as a coffee roasting club where subscribers could get a different coffee delivered to their doorstep every month. Soon, childhood friends Guilherme Costa and Daniel Cabral wanted to bring the face-to-face coffee experience to their clients, so they opened their casa cafea place to relax and have good coffee and food.

Every week they host an event that might involve coffee plus craft beer, local cheese, cigars, or wine. They have an external area used by Cuban cigar lovers and a partnership with a nearby cigar supplier. The subscription club is still up and running, but now customers also get to try different coffees when they visit the shop. When visiting, order a pour-over (there are always three beans to choose from) and a brownie, made by Costas sisterto die for.

A Pao de Queijaria

A Pao de Queijaria, also in Savassi, is the place to go for yummy pao de queijo. Pair it with coffee from Cafe das Amoras (see below), as a pour-over or in espresso drinks. Each day features a different cheese, all from artisanal producers in Minasand as you can tell once you bite into one, there is a lot of cheese inside.

The regular cheese bread comes with a choice of cheese sauce or espresso butter, both of which go great with coffee. If youre in the mood for heavier fare, dont miss the sandwichesalso made with cheese bread. The chovinista one is very traditional in Minas, pao de queijo filled with pork loin, bacon, Minas cheese, and fried collard greensa real treat. Finish the meal with an espresso and you are good to go explore the Savassi area a bit more.

Cafe das Amoras

Cafe das Amoras is not a coffee shop per se, but it is worth being mentioned here for the work it has been doing to improve Belo Horizontes dining-industry coffee service. Besides A Pao de Queijaria, Cafe das Amoras supplies coffee to many other small cafes and restaurants in the city. Felipe Brazza, the roaster, and Gabriela Mendonca, a Q Grader (and also a dentist), source from their family farms Fazenda das Amoras and Estancia Santa Luzia, both in the Minas Gerais countryside.

Brazza started roasting in 2013 on a Probatino inside the couples apartment. From there, the beans went into a grinder located in the middle of the living room, then delivered to a few clients. Suddenly, the building super gave them an ultimatum: the smoke was bothering the neighbors and they had 30 days to find another place for their roasting adventure. They found an ample floor in a commercial building in Savassi, and moved all the equipment there, where they have been based ever since, with an ever-growing wholesale-customer list. The couple is also thinking about opening a coffee shop in the future if the time is right. Customers dont usually visit the roasting studio, but if they show up, Brazza says, they will be very welcomed. We have an espresso machine and all extraction methods here to please them. Why not?

Juliana Ganan is a Brazilian coffee professional and journalist. Read more Juliana Ganan on Sprudge.

Top photo courtesy Luiza Ananias.
Spain has deployed troops in 5 stages, with about 3,500 ctive. There is also a presence in Bosnia, but not military (of advice). Afghanistan is the mission that brings more Spanish soldiers: 1,500. Lebanon, Indian Ocean, and Uganda are commanded by a Spanish military missions. Spain will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2014.



The operation launched against the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadafi, organized by the international community to ensure the compliance of the resolution 1793 of the Security Council of the UN was the fifth scenario in which Spain has deployed troops, with about 3,500 ctive. The other four missions ongoing (Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Indian Ocean and Uganda), more the operation of advice carried out still in Bosnia, after the end of the military mission, completing the total of the work of our military abroad. According to the latest global data given by Dnsa, Carme Chacon, Minister last December they were 2.880 military abroad. In particular, the mission more numerous, in terms of number of ctive, is the international assistance force security in Afghanistan (ISAF, by its acronym in English), developed by NATO in the Asian country. The total number of authorized for this mission in 2011 ctive is 1,521 military and 40 civil guards. The bulk of the contingent is deployed in regional command West, Herat and Qala i Naw, in addition, there are a small number of soldiers in Kabul, in the headquarters of ISAF, and in Mazar i Shariff is deployed a team of instructors from the Guardia Civil. Secondly, in terms of number of ctive, is Spain's participation in the interim force of United Nations for Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has a maximum of 1,100 men and women deployed in the South of the country.



Within the framework of the naval mission of the European Union against piracy in the Indian Ocean, known as operation Atalanta, Spain can deploy a maximum of 395 soldiers. Fourth, up to 38 Spanish soldiers may participate in the Mission of training of Somali forces that carried out the EU in Somalia (EUTM Somalia). Under the command of three of the four missions at present, three of these four missions (Lebanon, Indian Ocean and Uganda) are commanded by a Spanish soldier. To them must be added up to 40 soldiers who will participate in 2011 on the advice of the armed forces of Bosnia mission, once last November ended the Spanish participation in the Eufor Althea mission. In addition, a maximum of 50 military, official observers of liaison and military advisers, may contribute, at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and cooperation in humanitarian aid missions, operations of peace and crisis management that made those international organizations she belongs to Spain. The Government, on the proposal of the Minister of Dnsa, Carme Chacon, eliminated on January 1, 2009 the maximum that had previously established the Socialist Executive of 3,000 soldiers deployed on operations abroad, establishing that the armed forces have the capacity to maintain overseas to 7,700 ctive. With the new rule, the presence of Spanish soldiers abroad is only limited by the legality of the mission, by the will of the Spanish people (expressed through the necessary authorization by the Cortes Generales) and by the ability of deployment of the armed forces, which NATO estimated at 8% of the total, which represents about 7,700 military. Source of the news: Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Indian Ocean, Uganda and Libya: the 5 missions military of Spain
By Olivia Rose

IN AN effort to reintroduce the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands to their traditions and disappearing culture, the Government is gearing up to launch a Back to our Roots campaign.





This initiative will take a multi-sector approach since both the Department of Culture and Ministry of Education will be spearheading the planning and implementation process.





Minister of Tourism and Culture, Ralph Higgs, recently revealed that a working group has been established to launch the movement.





He noted that a comprehensive programme highlighting proposed activities will be rolled out in the coming months.





"This undertaking envisions a long term sustainable nationwide effort to reconnect current and future generations of Turks and Caicos Islanders with activities our forefathers participated in, he said.





Premier Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson also weighed in on the importance of this campaign in preserving the heritage and roots of the people of the TCI.





She said: "There needs to be that understanding, especially among our young people, that Turks and Caicos Islanders have always had to work hard, from the salt industry to the fishing industry.





"Our children have been exposed to a get rich quick mentality that will take forever to reverse, but it is something that we will have to do.





Coupled with this campaign the tourism ministry has set aside some $150,000 for the enhancement of historic sites.





This is geared toward strengthening existing tourist and heritage sites across the Turks and Caicos Islands.





Higgs said: "These funds would allow the Tourist Board along with the National Trust to identify new cultural and heritage attractions across the Islands to be developed for the enjoyment of residents and tourists alike.





Higgs told reporters that during his first 100 days in office he conducted several familiarisation tours throughout the length and breadth of the country.





"In conjunction with the National Trust I visited most of the heritage sites under their management; these included, Cheshire Hall Plantation, Bird Rock Point, Wades Green Plantation

Middle Caicos Caves, Flamingo Pond and the Cottage Pond.





"I toured the National Museum, the old prison and the light house etc.





These visits were to enable the minister to assess first-hand the conditions that they were in and discuss with the trust the day to day operational issues, solutions and how to protect and safeguard these heritage sites for future generations.




By Delana Isles

TWO female officers stationed at Her Majestys Prison in Grand Turk were sexually assaulted by inmates.





Information reaching the Weekly News earlier this week indicated that on Sunday, April 23, inmate Clifford Gibson - who is serving a life sentence for the murder of a 16-year-old school boy killed in January 2008 - accosted a female guard by grabbing her in her private area.





She reportedly pushed him away and punched him. However, Gibson, on seeing another female warden, is alleged to have grabbed her by the derriere.





The inmate was then placed in confinement, pending possible police action.





The following day, Monday (April 24), a similar incident occurred, with a more violent outcome for the female victim and her attacker.





Reports are that the female officer (one of whom was attacked the previous day) was allegedly pushed, punched and choked by inmate Lorand Prospere as he attempted to tear her clothing off while also forcibly trying to kiss her and grabbing her private parts.





Information reaching the Weekly News is that Prospere was restrained by other prisoners who rushed to her defence.





Several inmates and other prison officers are alleged to have physically assaulted him in response to his attack.





A relative of the twice assaulted officer took to social media on Monday to express her dissatisfaction with the way the matter was being handled.





She alleged that the victim was denied medical attention for hours while she was being interviewed at Grand Turk Police Station, while the prisoner was taken straight to the hospital following the beating he received.





"She is extremely traumatised with a swollen face, busted lip and feeling very violated from what she had to experience.





"She was refused medical attention and was told that she could not be at the hospital the same time as the inmate thus the reason she was taken to the police station instead.





"It took family members to go and get her from the station to seek medical attention, this after being at the station for hours under extreme duress, the relative reported.





She further substantiated reports that her relative was attacked the day before, stating that at no time following the first incident were any measures put in place to protect the workers from similar attacks.





In the wake of the media attention and attempts to contact the responsible minister, the Ministry of Home Affairs released a press statement. However, that statement only acknowledged one of the alleged attacks.





It read: "The Ministry of Home Affairs was advised of an incident which occurred at Her Majestys Prison yesterday, Monday, April 24, 2017 involving a female officer and a prisoner.





"The incident was reported to the police and the matter is currently being investigated.





"The officer involved has been given a leave of absence from work and has been offered medical assistance and counselling.





"The prisoner is receiving medical attention at the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre in Providenciales.





"A full press statement will be released once the investigation has been completed but the ministry is unable to provide any further comment at this time as the incident remains an ongoing police matter.




THE INTEGRATED border management system initiative that began under the former administration is set to become the key mechanism for the processing of labour clearances, work permits, visas, and permanent residency certificates.





This is according to Sean Astwood, Deputy Premier and Minister of Border Control and Employment during last weeks budget address in Grand Turk.





He said that a budgetary allocation has already been made for the inclusion of the registration and citizenship processes, as well as the digitising and archiving of files.





Additionally, further allocations have been made in 2017/2018 for the operations of Border Control and Protection in order to strengthen data intelligence and the available manpower resources.





The minister said that these e-services will not only streamline processes, but will also provide greater efficiency, and shorter processing time for customer applications.





"This border management system will further provide my enforcement officers with real time data and reports on the status of individuals in our country thereby aiding in the combat against illegal migration, illegal residency, and illegal employment.





He added that to address the threat of international security, terrorism, and the activities of transnational organised crime, his ministry will be implementing an advanced passenger information system, in conjunction with the governments of CARICOM countries, and the government of the United States of America, for the improvement in the security of the territory from exposure to high risk individuals and commodities being transported via air and sea travel into and out of the country.





This, he said, will be accomplished through the sharing of passenger information prior to arrival in and departure from the Turks and Caicos Islands.





Astwood stated that with this initiative and the partnership with the CARICOM implementation agency for crime and security, IMPACS, there will be ongoing collaboration, data sharing, and training in intelligence and reporting, which will assist in the capacity building of local officers and those in other law enforcement agencies.





"I would also like to inform the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands that I leave the country this coming Monday (April 24), to travel to Barbados where I will be signing the agreement, on behalf of the TCI, in order to begin preparations for the implementation of this system, he said.





Commending the work of patrol officers who man the Radar Station for their diligence in the detection, and reporting of illegal vessels, Astwood informed that the current detection rate is over 90 percent.





"This year some $300,000 has been earmarked for investment in the upgrade to the software and radar equipment, as well as plans for the employment of additional officers to assist in the coverage at the radar station and at the main ports in Providenciales, Astwood promised.




By Daisy Handfield

JAMES Smith, Commissioner of Police, believes that a small group of individuals are responsible for the majority of violent crime that takes place in the Turks and Caicos Islands.





He expressed these thoughts during a police press conference held at the police headquarters in Providenciales on Thursday (April 27).





Commissioner Smith referred to the statistics which he gave at the press conference, stating that from April 1, 2016, to March 30, 2017, there have been 111 reports of incidents involving firearms.





He said: "We suspect that there is a very small group of people committing multiple offences.





"The fact that 111 firearms have been seen could mean that there are 10 firearms for 10 different crimes, but we do not know that for sure.





"However, our belief is that we have a very small number of very dangerous career criminals who will stop at nothing to steal and rob.





One of the media houses asked why it is so difficult for police to capture these criminals since police believed that there are small numbers, adding emphasis to the fact that Providenciales is a small island.





Smith explained that some of the criminals live in areas that are a bit more challenging to access.





"If you yourself go to some of these more challenging areas where, as I mentioned in my initial brief, undocumented individuals live in unregulated and unlawful housing, you will find that what looks like a little shack leads to another one and another one, sometimes with connecting doors, sometimes with tunnels spaces and of course in the dark; completely unlit, he said.





The Commissioner of Police added that this does not mean that police would not go in these areas, just that the circumstances made it more difficult to locate the individuals and firearms.





He said: "which is why we have invested in other technology and why we have invested in dogs.





Assistant Commissioner of Police Rodney Adams agreed with Commissioner Smith, stating that he too believed that a small group of individuals were out committing most of the crime heard of in the TCI.





He said: As the Commissioner has indicated, we suspect that a number of these offenses are committed by the same group.





"This based on the descriptions that we get from a series of these incidents, so it is pretty safe to say that.





"You might have a group committing numerous offences and without doubt these persons are still at large.




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US space firm SpaceX has pushed back its first launch of a US military satellite after a "sensor issue" with the rocket triggered a 24-hour delay on Sunday. "Standing down today due to a sensor issue; backup launch opportunity tomorrow (Monday) morning," Xinhua news agency quoted the California-based company as saying in a tweet.

A Falcon 9 rocket was less than 60 seconds away from liftoff on Sunday when the issue triggered a hold. Liftoff is now targeted on Monday between 7 and 9 a.m. EDT (1100 and 1300 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Following stage separation, the first-stage booster will attempt to land at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

The mission, which is being referred to as NROL-76, will carry a classified payload designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office. This comes after reports that Nasa is working closely with Boeing and SpaceX for getting their spacecraft ready to use as lifeboats for the ISS. Currently, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft does double duty as an escape vehicle. Every astronaut on board has a seat reserved, which limits the number of crew working at the ISS at any point of time.

With inputs from IANS
PTI

The outcome of the Brexit vote could have been predicted by analysing tweets during the five months preceding the historic vote, a first-of-its-kind study has found. Researchers from the University of Surrey in the UK examined 18,000 tweets posted by the three main campaign groups, Stronger In, Vote Leave and Leave.EU. Vote Leave focused on economic arguments against the European Union, while Leave.EU highlighted immigration- related issues.

"The outcome of the Brexit vote on June 22, 2016 would not have been as shocking had more attention been paid to what was happening on Twitter," said Simon Usherwood from the University of Surrey. Researchers discovered that the Leave campaign (Vote Leave and Leave.EU) continually outperformed their rival in disseminating their online messages and presenting themselves as agenda setters compared to the official Remain campaign (Stronger In) which delivered a sporadic, inflexible online strategy.

They found that the Remain campaign was marginally more likely to make negative comments about its opponents. This confused approach is further reinforced when examining the language used in the tweets. The most commonly used word used in Stronger Ins campaign was leaving, well in excess of its use by either Leave group. Similarly the term Brexit was mentioned more by Stronger In than the official Leave campaign (Vote Leave).

This highlights the extent to which the campaign was fought on Leaves terms, rather than building a different set of references to frame the debate, researchers said. The examination of Twitter also showed that Stronger In was disadvantaged by the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron's decision to try and avoid becoming the central figure of the campaign.

While the official Remain campaign rarely mentioned him, both Leave campaigns made much of his words and actions, calling into question his competence and ability and reminding voters that a Leave vote would also hurt his government. The Leave groups were able to capitalise on an established social media network of anti-EU campaigners helping to publicise its messages to a wider audience, which undoubtedly disadvantaged Stronger In, researchers said.

During the Brexit campaign, both Leave groups attracted substantially more Twitter followers than the official Remain campaign.

For example, on the polling day Leave.EU had nearly 50,000 more Twitter followers than Stronger In, while Vote Leave had 20,000 more.

Although the Leave campaign had a significant advantage in being able to mobilise an already extensive social media network, Stronger Ins failure to build as extensive an online following showcases the shortcomings in attracting new followers and successfully spreading its message on Twitter.
hidden

Facebook has monitored the posts of Australian children and used algorithms to identify and exploit them by allowing advertisers to target them during their most vulnerable moments. Internal documents outline how the social network can target "moments when young people need a confidence boost" by monitoring posts, pictures, and interactions, Sky News reported on Monday.

Facebook collects the information on a person's moods including feeling "worthless", "overwhelmed" and "nervous" and then it divulges the same to advertisers who use it to target them. Facebook's tactic violates the Australian Code for Advertising and Marketing Communications to Children guidelines.

The revelation also points towards the how Facebook can be used for covert surveillance which most of the social networking sites claim to be fighting against. Facebook has admitted that it was wrong to target the children and apologised for the same. The company has also ordered an investigation.

This comes right after a study found that reading supportive comments, likes and private messages from Facebook friends just before taking an exam may help anxious students reduce their nervousness and improve test scores. Researchers at the University of Illinois in the US found that undergraduate students with high levels of test anxiety who sought support from their online friends and read the messages prior to a simulated exam reduced their anxiety levels by 21 percent.

With inputs from IANS
PTI

Reading supportive comments, likes and private messages from Facebook friends just before taking an exam may help anxious students reduce their nervousness and improve test scores, a new study has found. Researchers at the University of Illinois in the US found that undergraduate students with high levels of test anxiety who sought support from their online friends and read the messages prior to a simulated exam reduced their anxiety levels by 21 per cent.

These students, and peers who performed a seven-minute expressive-writing exercise, were able to perform as well on a set of computer programming exercises as students who had low levels of test anxiety, said Robert Deloatch, a graduate student at the university. Up to 41 per cent of students are estimated to suffer from test anxiety, which is a combination of physiological and emotional responses that occur while preparing for and taking tests.

Test anxiety is linked to lower test scores and grade point averages, as well as poor performance on memory and problem-solving tasks. Test anxiety can be particularly acute when students face exams involving open-ended problems, such as those commonly used on computer science exams that require students to write and run codes, the researchers said. When students test anxiety is reduced, their scores and task performance improve accordingly, they found.

Students with high test anxiety strongly fear negative evaluation, have lower self-esteem and tend to experience increased numbers of distracting and irrelevant thoughts in testing situations, according to the study. For the simulated exam, students had to solve two programming problems by writing and running codes. Most of the participants were computer science majors or computer engineering students who passed a pretest that ensured they had basic programming knowledge.

The researchers measured participants levels of test anxiety using the Cognitive Test Anxiety scale, which assesses the cognitive problems associated with test-taking such as task-irrelevant thinking and attention lapses. Participants also completed two other questionnaires that measured their levels of anxiety. The day before the experiment, students in the social support group posted messages on their personal social media pages requesting encouragement - in the form of likes, comments or private messages - about an upcoming computer programming challenge they planned to participate in.

"We found that only the students who received supportive messages from their Facebook network showed a significant decrease in anxiety and an increase in their performance on our simulated exam," Deloatch said.
tech2 News Staff

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is planning to export smartphones made in India to other countries. The company is planning to export smartphones to North Africa, Middle East and other South East Asian countries in coming two to three years. This report comes right after it was reported that Oppo is now one of the top five smartphone makers in the Indian market.

The company ranked fourth with about 10 percent smartphones shipped in India. According to the report by Economic Times, Sky Li, the global VP, and India president added, "In the next 2-3 years, in line with our plan, we will begin exporting the manufactured phones out of India to Middle East, North Africa and other South Asian markets. Currently, the products offered to our Indian consumers are made in India."

The report details that Oppo has purchased about 110 acres of land in Noida from the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority to set a manufacturing plant. The company purchased the land for Rs 145 crore and plans to invest about Rs 2,000 crore to build the plant with assembly units and residential units for 30,000 people. The company did not disclose further details about the timeline of exports or the manufacturing plant in Noida at the time of writing.
IANS

Google is preparing to introduce an ad-blocker to Chrome browser despite fears that it would hit their online advertising revenues - a move that has been hailed by publishers in the US and Europe, the Financial Times reported.

The move comes after Google was recently criticised for placement of ads on its video hosting platform YouTube. In March this year, several major brands boycotted YouTube and have their ads out from the platform as they protested the placement of ads which were appearing next to offensive content, including videos posted by terrorism-affiliated groups.

According to the experts, the boycott could cost YouTube's parent company Google nearly $750 million in revenue. Google, at that time, promised that it was taking steps to deal with the problem and the move to introduce ad-blockers in Chrome seems one of the steps the company has taken to resolve the issue.

Details of the plan have not been disclosed but Google has said it held "initial conversations" on the idea with publishers. According to NetMarketShare - a company that provides market share statistics for internet technologies - Chrome is a dominant player in the internet browsing market with a near 60 percent share.

"The blocker would be likely to target certain types of ads that have been found to frustrate readers, such as pop-ups and auto-playing videos," the Financial Times report said on Sunday. Initially, it was expected that the company's ad-blocking plan was a blow to the publishers who are struggling to compete with Google and Facebook for online ad revenues. But the report said publishers are encouraged by the company's move as a way to clean up online advertising.
tech2 News Staff

Samsung was quick to react when reports of certain Galaxy S8 and S8+ units having a certain red-tint on the display emerged. In an official statement the company said that the red-tint appears due to the nature of the display and theres little that can be done to control it.

Due to the nature of Super AMOLED displays, there can be natural differences in color. Users can optimize the color depending on their preferences. Samsung had also said that it inspects every single Galaxy S8 unit and that it is pretty confident about the quality of its products.

There was a report that Samsung was working on rolling out a software update for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ which would allow users to adjust the colour settings as per their preferences. This update has reportedly starting rolling out in South Korea and Europe and today it has officially hit India. Having a size of about 426 MB, the update comes with firmware version XXU1AQDG.

This is good news for Indian customers as the Galaxy S8 and S8+ have not yet hit the market and both will be available starting 5 May. This means that users in India will immediately get the fix as soon as they get their hands on the device. We have been testing the Galaxy S8 and can confirm that the update is officially available.
IANS

Turkish authorities on Saturday blocked online free encyclopedia Wikipedia in the country, citing administrative measures. According to a report in the BBC, it was not initially clear why the ban had been imposed. "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, an administrative measure has been taken for this website," Turkey's Information and Communication Technologies Authority was quoted as saying.

However, no particular reason was given for the ban. The website was inaccessible from 10:30 a.m IST by order of the Turkish authorities. However, some people in Istanbul accessed Wikipedia pages using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). According to Turkish media, the provisional order would need to be backed by a full court ruling in the next few days.

It is not the first time that Turkish authorities have censored Internet. In the past, when mass protests and terror attacks in Turkey were rampant, the country witnessed a temporary ban on popular social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. But the government had then denied censoring the internet, saying the outage was a result of spikes in usage after major events.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently won a controversial referendum on increasing his powers, that left the country divided. People took to social media after the news of the Wikipedia ban, with some observers speculating that the ban was a bid to suppress criticism on Erdogan's Wikipedia page.
IANS

Ever since Donald Trump assumed office as the US President, there has been a significant decline in his number of tweets and other engagements on Twitter. According to US-based digital metrics firm Huge that conducted a deep analysis of Trump's tweets in commemoration of his 100 days in office, it was found that the US President has been tweeting less frequently of late.

The number of likes, responses and retweets has dropped by 66 per cent over the last three months, Fortune reported on Sunday. Trump's "likes" now make up 64 per cent of engagements, down from 77 per cent three months ago while his total number of likes per tweet has fallen a whopping 72 per cent.

Trump's tweets were categorised as "agitated, calm and prepared". The findings showed that 24 per cent of his tweets were "agitated" in April, down from 44 per cent in February.

"But that doesn't mean that Trump himself has calmed down all that much. After cross-indexing content to tweet time and location, it was found that most of the agitated tweets were posted on weekends and early mornings, while the calmer tweets were posted during the day on Monday through Friday," the findings noted.

What analysts deduce from the research is that there might be a "tug of war" between the Trump and staffers who try to moderate his communication strategy.
Dedicated to the Restoration of Progressive Democracy
Militants shifting hideouts from capital: DMP

Staff Reporter :

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia on Sunday said the militants are now shifting their hideouts from the capital following series of anti-militant drives across the capital and its adjacent areas in recent months.

The number of militant hideouts in the city has fallen due to strong anti-militancy stance by the law enforcement agencies, said the Commissioner at a rally in the city's Mohakhali on Sunday afternoon.

Police organised the "rally against drug and militancy" at Titumir College, Mohakhali.

Now, people are conscious enough about the militancy in Dhaka for which militants are shifting their dens," Asaduzzaman said.

Citizen Information Management System (CIMS) software database have been introduced to detect and prevent crimes in the capital, the DMP Chief said.

House owners are providing details about their tenants through the software that has increased the capability of the law enforcers to take action against criminal activities like militancy, he said. "We have faced difficulties when we introduced the system. Now it is working," he said. Taking part in the rally, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal again claimed, there is no Islamic State militia in Bangladesh though an international quarter is hatching conspiracy against us.

Praising anti-militancy role of the law enforcers, Kamal said, police are dealing with the issue with strong hand..

Mass awareness and cooperation of people are helping police weaken the militants, he added.

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque has claimed that some political parties are instigating the militancy while criticising the way of dealing with the militants.

He requested all professional bodies to be united to curb terrorism in the country in the name of the people' interest.

The Police chief said this in a view exchange program with the newly elected leaders of Crime Reporters' Association of Bangladesh (CRAB) at Police Headquarters on Sunday.

He also deplored the political parties' inaction in condoling the death of law enforcers.

The IGP said that law enforcers could not risk to arrest militants alive as they had heavy arms, grenades, bombs and suicidal vests. "The misguided radicals did not respond to the request of their blood relatives and the law enforcers as they thought that death would lodge them in Paradise," the IGP said. He also claimed that now Police are more media friendly to provide necessary information, he claimed.

Police Headquarters' Deputy Inspector General (Media) Mohsin Hossain, Additional DIG Habibur Rahman, AIG Md Moniruzzaman, AIG Soheli Ferdous, and Public Relation Officer (PRO) AKM Kamrul Ahsan, among others, were present in the function.


Historic May Day observed

The historic May Day was observed across the country as elsewhere around the globe on Monday with a fresh call to announce a new salary structure for workers and ensure their justified rights, including trade union one.



Trade unions and readymade garment (RMG) workers, professional bodies, socio-cultural organisations and political parties observed the day in the city and elsewhere throughout the country staging rallies, bringing out processions, holding discussions, seminars and cultural programmes.



They also pressed for improving the working conditions with better wages and security for the workers.



May Day, also known as International Workers' Solidarity Day, commemorates the historic uprising of working people in Chicago, the USA at the height of a prolonged fight for an eight-hour workday.



The day was a public holiday.



Labour and Employment Ministry arranged a discussion at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre marking the day.



Speaking at the programme as the chief guest, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged the mill, factory and industry owners to properly look after the wellbeing of their workers. "And I'll call upon the workers to take care of the mills, factories and industries that are sources of your livelihood. This is your duty."



The Prime Minister urged the owners to give special attention to developing the conditions of their workers and workplace. "There'll be a cordial relation between owners and workers...They'll complement each," she hoped.



Jatiya Sramik League arranged a discussion in front of Awami League central office on the occasion.

Addressing the programme, Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader urged all concerned to fix eight-hour duty for workers and employees in their respective offices and mills and factories.



Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal brought out a rally from in front of the Nayapaltan central office joined by BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and other party senior leaders.



Jatio Sramik Federation brought out a rally at Purana Paltan from where they demanded announcement of a new wage board for the workers, payment of their arrears and the implementation of the labour law to protect their rights.



Garment Workers Trade Union Centre arranged a discussion at Mukti Bhaban at Purana Paltan. Speaking at the programme, its adviser and left party leader Monjurul Ahsan said, "Although we're an independent nation, our workers are still not free from repression and exploitation."



The platform leaders demanded the government announce a minimum basic wage of Tk 10,000 for all the RMG workers and minimum gross wage Tk 16,000 for them.



Private Drivers Union also took out a rally in front of the Jatiya Press Club and demanded fixation of their working hours, placing a proper requirement process and checking irregularities in providing them driving licence and its renewal.



Bangladesh Apparels Workers Federation (BAWF) also organised a rally in front of the Ramna Park and placed their various demands while Garments Workers Alliance Forum arranged a mass rally at a playground in Shyampur area of the capital.



Bangladesh National Alliance (BNA) organised a human chain in front of the Jatiya Press Club in the morning.



Bikalpa Sramik Dhara organised the programme at Bikalpa Dhara Bangladesh's Kuril Biswa Road office, marking the May Day.



Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) and Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) also jointly organised a discussion at the Jatiya Press Club marking the May Day.



At the programme, the leaders of the two platforms demanded the government announce the 9th Wage Board immediately for journalists.



Newspapers published supplements while radio and television channels aired special programmes highlighting the significance of the day.



On May 1, 1886, 10 workers were killed when police opened fine on a demonstration in the US city of Chicago near Hay Market demanding an eight-hour working day instead of a 12-hour shift. On the height of agitation, the authorities had to accept the workers' demand and the eight-hour day has been introduced universally.



On July 14, 1889 in Paris, an international workers' rally declared May 1 as the International Workers Solidarity Day in recognition of the Chicago workers' sacrifice and achievement and since 1890, the day has been observed globally as the International Workers Solidarity Day.--UNB, Dhaka.












Country

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Intro ordinance gives Lafayette police  and sheriffs deputies in unincorporated Lafayette Parish  the authority to immediately shutter a bar if it presents an immediate danger to the health, safety and welfare of the public.

Lafayette Consolidated Governments revamp of the alcohol code  the body of ordinances that govern bars and liquor sales in the city of Lafayette and unincorporated parish  includes a new provision that would grant police officers or sheriffs deputies in the unincorporated part of the parish the authority to order the immediate closure of a bar if its deemed an immediate danger to the health, safety and welfare of the public.

The ordinance also makes LCGs chief administrative officer  currently Lowell Duhon  in charge of hearing appeals of closures. Those appeals, if denied by Duhon, can ultimately be brought before the City-Parish Council and district court. Currently the Lafayette Parish sheriff has authority over hearing appeals from establishments within unincorporated Lafayette Parish.

The ordinance is part of a reset of ordinances governing alcohol sales within LCGs jurisdiction that began more than a year ago and included a series of public meetings to which bar owners were invited. Although LCG has not lifted the so-called moratorium on new bars in Downtown Lafayette, consolidated government is headed toward a conditional permitting system within the district that some fear could lead to a proliferation of bars Downtown  an eventuality Councilman Bruce Conque says is highly unlikely because the application process for applying for liquor licenses to operate as a bar will be lengthy and expensive, the conditions strict, and local governments ability to shutter non-complying establishments robust.

Im comfortable [with the revamp] because it came out of a very transparent process that allowed everyone to have input, Conque tells The Independent.

The new police power to shutter bars seen as a threat to public safety is widely regarded as an effort to clamp down on high-capacity bars, especially Downtown, that in the past have posed issues for police  Exhibit A: the former Karma on Jefferson Street, now operating as Delta Grand II.

In addition to giving law enforcement the authority to order immediate closures of bars, Ordinance 090 also establishes provisions for allowing bars to reopen after theyve addressed officials concerns as well as penalties for bar owners who defy closure orders.

The ordinance will be introduced at Tuesdays council meeting and, if approved, would be up for final adoption on May 16. To read the ordinance, click here.
The old centers of power have been torn down, but the new ones have neither the authority nor the legitimacy of those theyve superseded. (Susan B. Glasser, Politico, December 2, 2016)

"The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice."

"We have to talk to find out what's going on, because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control."

(Donald Trump, News Conference, February 16, 2017)

No development in the Trump era has more impact than the diminution of the press, otherwise known as the mainstream media (MSM) or, as Sarah Palin called it in 2009, the lame-stream media. This diminution, however, has been less the result of active efforts, distrust and ill will than an ineluctable by-product of the digital revolution, which has hit the news business like a bomb, shattering the existing sources while producing others.

An uninformed person, told of this upheaval in the news business, might see it as an unadulterated good, pointing to the greater number of people paying attention to public affairs and fewer elite gatekeepers deciding what information should be brought to the publics attention. From this point of view, this democratization of the news industry might even presage the fulfillment of Thomas Jeffersons maxim that the best way to protect liberty is to give people the full information of their affairs thro the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people (letter to Edward Carrington, 1787).

A less happy consequence of this new state of affairs, however, is that in the face of frenzied competition, the most trusted bastions of the news business have retreated and retrenched. This retreat has been prompted and accompanied by a sharp loss of revenue, which, in turn, has limited these organizations ability to finance and deliver high-quality reporting. Cutbacks, consolidations and closings are the painful facts of life in todays news industry. Louisiana citizens have seen the venerable Times-Picayune become a three-times-a-week publication after 175 years of continuous daily publication. Gannett, which owns five Louisiana newspapers, similarly reduced the Daily World of Opelousas and the Town-Talk of Alexandria. Fewer publications means fewer reporters and less coverage.

Gannett, for example, cut award-winning reporter and columnist John Hill from their Baton Rouge capital bureau before giving celebrated veteran reporter Mike Hasten his pink slip and eliminating the bureau altogether. Gannett today assigns a single reporter to Baton Rouge during the legislative session only.

If the networks and daily papers are not providing it, how do people stay informed? A 2017 Pew Research Center study asked people how they got information about the 2016 Presidential Election. The answers they received revealed the new dispensation in political news: Each of the 11 sourceswhich included social media, cable TV news, news websites and late-night comedyhas a distinctive clientele, style and viewpoint (figure 1). More distinctive than the sources themselves was the gulf between who used what source. The data revealed that there is no longer anything remotely like a public square. Instead, news today resembles a Baskin-Robbins, where everyone chooses the flavor that best suits them.

The young, unsurprisingly, are addicted to their cell phones, making social media their first choice for news. The use of social media in fact provides a telling snapshot of the news information generation gap. While 35 percent of those 18-29 get their news from social media, this figure dropped to 15 percent among those 30-49, 5 percent among those 50-64, and finally to a bare 1 percent among those over 65. Thus, the number one source of news for the youngest was the least sought source of news for their grandparents.

What does this proliferation of news sources and the different consumption habits among and across the generations mean for news coverage and for America? It means that consumers of news and information can choose what to listen to, based on personal preference, which includes their personal beliefs. Dont believe in climate change? Listen to a source that supports your view. Believe strongly in the importance of saving the planet? Listen to a source that supports regulation promising to do so. Think the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to sway the election? Listen to a source that supports that version of events. Believe the opposite? Listen to Alex Jones.

Given their ability to control what they listen to or read, news consumers today are increasingly unlikely to encounter views that conflict with or challenge their own. When they do encounter these views, they are increasingly likely to discount what they view as fake news  a popular refrain of our president. Referring to this phenomenon, one disgruntled editor commented, The media scandal of 2016 isnt so much about what reporters failed to tell the American public; its about what they did report on, and the fact that it didnt seem to matter (Susan Glasser, Politico, December 2016). Perhaps it did matter to those few who were listening, but most everyone else was locked into their own carefully selected and curated view of the world  a world that appears very different depending on which outlet youre tuned into.
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Carbondale police responded to a fight during which one person was stabbed and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

According to a media release from the Carbondale Police Department, at approximately 2:49 a.m. April 30, officers responded to a call of a fight at the corner of South Beverage and West Cherry streets in Carbondale. During their investigation, officers were told that one person involved in the fight was taken to Carbondale Memorial Hospital's emergency room with a stab wound that was not life-threatening.

The report described the suspect as a slim, approximately 5-foot 8-inch Hispanic man in his 20s. Police said he left on foot wearing a green hooded sweatshirt and dark blue jeans.

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Carbondale Police Department at 618-457-3200 or Crime Stoppers at 618-549-2677.

 The Southern
BENTON  Franklin County Board Chairman Randall Crocker formally declared a state of disaster for Franklin County on Monday.

The declaration was made after recommendation of Director of Emergency Management Ryan Buckingham and other officials, according to a news release from Franklin County Emergency Management.

"Local agencies have been working tirelessly since last Friday to ensure public safety and to protect the property of local residents," Buckingham said in the release.

A thorough damage assessment is expected later this week.

In Franklin County, Sheriff Donnie Jones said the rainfall covered areas already prone to flooding, such as Yellow Banks Road, but also closed some surprising areas as well. He said Illinois 37 north and south of West Frankfort was closed over the weekend and that the portion of the highway north of town was still closed Monday. He said on Monday the water seemed to be receding.

Jones said despite having so much rain, he was not aware of any injuries as a result of the flooding.

Randolph County was in a similar boat. Randolph County Sheriff Shannon Wolff said there were some rural road closures over the weekend and that the county was monitoring Illinois 3, but as of Monday had not decided to close it. He said they would be closing the flood gates on Illinois 155 at Prairie du Rocher, a community that suffered during 2016s New Years flood.

Wolff also said the locks are closed at the Jerry Costello Lock and Dam in rural Randolph County near Ellis Grove.

Charlie Bargman, Chesters emergency management coordinator, said the Missouri Department of Transportation, which controls the Mississippi River Bridge at Chester, had sent a memo Monday indicating that despite forecasts predicting the river cresting Friday morning at 43 feet 5 inches, it did not have plans to close the bridge.

Concern grew farther south. Dana Pearson, coordinator for Union County Emergency Management, said flooding had closed Ware/Wolf Lake Road, Morgan School Road, Kaolin Road and Old Cape Road in the county, but that the primary concern was the farmland and communities along the Mississippi River.

Pearson lives in Cobden and said he recorded 13 inches of rain between Thursday and Sunday. He said the river is projected to crest at 45 feet 9 inches in Union County this week, which is four inches more than the New Years flood last year. While on paper it sounds worse than last year, Pearson said the ground this year was much more saturated, which is better for the levees.

Pearson said typically, the county sandbags around sand boils on the levee and fills the area with water to equalize the pressure. Pearson said because there is already water in those areas, in a way, the work is already done for them.

Pearson said while all the rain over the last week certainly impacted the region with flash flooding, along the Mississippi River the big concern is the possibility of more rain upstream.

Its got to stop raining in the north, Pearson said of the threat of river flooding.

Both Wolff and Pearson said people need to stay off of the levees during flooding. Wolff said floodwater sightseeing can get in the way of work crews and can damage the levees  not something he wants should a major flood event come about.

At the bottom of the state in Alexander County, the high waters are nothing new for residents. The countys engineer, Jeff Denny, said it is still too early to tell how bad things might get, but at the moment he said they are, so far, so good.

Denny said the biggest problem Alexander County is facing with all the rain and the potential for a 51-foot flood crest at Cairo coming this weekend is the breach in the levee at Olive Branch during last years flood. Denny said the levee has not been repaired because the county was waiting to see if the Army Corps of Engineers would repair it. He said Alexander County is in a federally-run levee repair program, but after running cost-benefit analysis, it was deemed the repair was not worth the cost.

So we are just wide open to flood, Denny said. He explained that because the breach is large and the area is so rural, it was perfect storm for failing the test. Denny said the county is working on a repair plan with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, which has helped design the new levee and has been helping with permits, however, funding is still the big question. Denny said Alexander County has some funds, but not near enough.

The primary focus this weekend was evacuating Horseshoe Lake. Denny said campers had to be evacuated, as well as farm equipment.

In Springfield, Gov. Bruce Rauner opened the State Emergency Operations Center after heavy rains and severe weather pounded the state over the weekend.

According to a news release from the governors office, representatives from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Illinois State Police, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Illinois Department of Corrections, Illinois Department of Transportation, Illinois Department of Public Health, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the American Red Cross have reported to the SEOC to coordinate deployment of state resources and personnel to assist communities preparing for or already battling floodwaters.

In the release, Illinois Emergency Manager James Joseph said with the flash flood threat shrinking, the focus is shifting to a potential river flood fight.

While the heavy rainfall and flash flood risks have subsided, were now focusing on river flooding that will increase in several areas throughout the week, Joseph said.

According to charts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in one 24-hour period ending at 7 a.m. April 30, the Carbondale Airport received 2.9 inches of rain, while some locations along the Mississippi near Chester received nearly 4 inches of rain.

In a flood warning issued by the National Weather Service Monday, there still was the possibility for flooding expected through Tuesday for 16 counties in both Southern Illinois and Missouri, including Randolph County. According to the warning, flooding is the result of runoff from 5 to 7 inches of rain, which fell from Friday to Sunday.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va.  More than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage was set to expire this month will instead see that coverage extended permanently under the new congressional spending plan, West Virginia lawmakers said Monday.

That provision, which resolves a longstanding congressional dispute, is in the $1 trillion-plus spending bill to fund most federal operations through September, according to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins.

The cost is estimated at about $1.3 billion over a decade, Manchin said. It will be funded by a customs user fee on imports, instead of the interest from the existing federal fund used to clean up old abandoned mines, he said.

"It's been a long time, over three years, we've worked on this, getting a permanent fix for all of our miners that have been left behind," Manchin said in a conference call Monday. "This is all miners who have been retired, their widows who've been worried about whether they'd have health care or not."

In West Virginia, about 8,500 retired miners and their families face loss of benefits if Congress does not act. Other states affected include Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Alabama.

Hundreds of retired coal miners traveled to Washington, D.C., from Southern Illinois this past September to demand Congress act to secure retirees' benefits.

"I have heard from countless mining families worried about losing these crucial benefits," Jenkins said in a prepared statement. "They aren't asking for a handout or a bailout, just what they were promised."

In 1946, President Harry Truman brokered an agreement with the United Mine Workers of America to guarantee miners' lifetime health and pension benefits, a move that averted a lengthy strike by unionized workers.

"My colleagues and I made it abundantly clear to congressional leadership in recent weeks that another short-term extension of these vitally important health benefits for coal miners would be simply unacceptable," U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, Illinois, said in an emailed statement. "These men and women worked hard in extremely dangerous situations to power America and were made a promise."

The agreement by Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate follows a series of short-term extensions of health care funding. Last year's budget deal was briefly stalled over the issue. Voting on the latest deal is expected later this week.

The miners' pension and benefit funds have been depleted by coal company bankruptcies.

"I don't see any pushback right now," Manchin said.

Pension benefits are not included in this week's deal. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, now supports the benefits funding but not the pensions, he said.

"The sooner we take care of our pensions the less costly it will be," Manchin said. "We're going to start working feverishly on that."

Bost said the long-term fix on health care gives Congress "operating room" to work on a solution for pensions.

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who also pushed for the health care coverage, said the spending legislation includes help for West Virginia communities recovering from last June's floods. It also has support for rural economic development; more money for fossil energy research and development; higher funding to address the drug epidemic; and investments in other scientific research at the state's universities, she said.
CARBONDALE  Illinois ranks eighth in the nation in the number of cases of human trafficking, which includes many child victims. Yet, an overwhelming majority of Illinois citizens are uninformed about this important human rights issue, according to the results of the latest poll from Southern Illinois University Carbondales Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

The poll provided voters the definition of human trafficking from the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as the act of recruiting, harboring, moving or obtaining a person, by force, fraud or coercion, for the purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage or sexual exploitation. This definition was provided to inform voters on the issue and remove potential bias.

The poll was taken March 4 to March 11. The sample included 1,000 randomly selected registered voters and the margin for error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Sixty percent of the interviews were with respondents on cell phones.

More than half, 51 percent, of voters surveyed disagree or strongly disagree that sex trafficking affects their area, with 28 percent reporting that it does. One in five voters, 21 percent, did not know or refused to answer.

Support is strong for legally required human trafficking training for law enforcement. Six in seven voters, 86 percent, said that there should be mandated training on human trafficking in Illinois. This data was replicated across all demographics  including region, education, party affiliation, age and employment. One in 10 voters, 10 percent, said training on human trafficking should not be legally required.

Illinois large population centers like Chicago, major airports, interstate highway networks and Midwestern location make the state a prime location for human trafficking, Kimberly Palermo, the institutes Celia M. Howard Fellow, said.

In 2016, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law a bill that created a task force to address the issue statewide, including development of a statewide plan to combat human trafficking, create methods to protect the rights of victims and explore public awareness approaches to educate the state.

Voters in Chicago, 32 percent, reported most often that sex trafficking affected their area. This was similar in the rural regions outside Cook and the collar counties, where 31 percent of voters reported that sex trafficking affected their area. Only 26 percent of voters from the Chicago suburbs reported that sex trafficking affected their area. Those who strongly disagreed or disagreed that sex trafficking affects their area were 47 percent in Chicago, 53 percent in Chicago suburbs, and 49 percent in downstate areas of Illinois.

Among Republicans, Democrats and independents, Republicans were the most likely to report that they strongly disagree or disagree that sex trafficking affects their area, with 54 percent giving that answer.

Half of Democrats, 50 percent, said they strongly disagree or disagree that sex trafficking affects their area. Independents followed Democrats, with 47 percent who strongly disagree or disagree. Independents were least likely to strongly agree or agree that sex trafficking affects their local area, at 24 percent. Thirty-two percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats reported that sex trafficking affects their area.

Respondents were also asked, Which comes closer to your view: Prostitution or drug-related offenses committed by sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted or such offenses should be tried like any other charge. Overall, 22 percent of voters said that sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted, and 69 percent said the offenses should be tried like any other charge. Nine percent of voters reported they did not know or refused to answer.

Our polling shows much remains to be done to combat an issue many have called a modern form of slavery, Jak Tichenor, institute interim director, said. But Ms. Palermos important work helps build a foundation for bipartisan legislative efforts to make Illinois a national leader in the fight against human trafficking.

A vast majority of Illinoisans said that sexually exploited adults should be tried for offenses committed. This is reflected in the rural regions outside of Cook County and the collar counties at 75 percent, Chicago suburbs at 68 percent and Chicago at 62 percent. One in four voters, 25 percent, in Chicago suburbs said that sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted. This was reflected similarly in Chicago at 26 percent. Only one in five voters, 15 percent, in downstate areas of Illinois said sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted for prostitution or drug-related offenses.

Seventy-eight percent of Republican voters said sexually exploited adults with prostitution or drug-related charges should be tried, like any other charge. Democrats followed with 63 percent and independents at 62 percent. Only 29 percent of Democrats said that sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted for prostitution or drug-related charges. Republicans also said sexually exploited adults should not be prosecuted at 14 percent and independents at 24 percent.

In Illinois, the National Human Trafficking Hotline recorded 198 cases of human trafficking, a 35 percent jump over 2015. Throughout the nation, the Polaris Project, which operates the hotline, has learned of 8,042 cases just this past year. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and private donors fund the project. People can receive help or report a tip of suspected human trafficking by calling the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 888-373-7888 or by sending a text to the Polaris Project at 233733.

Live telephone interviews were conducted by Customer Research International of San Marcos, Texas using the random digit dialing method. The telephone sample was provided to Customer Research International by Scientific Telephone Samples. Potential interviewees were screened based on whether they were registered voters and quotas based on area code and sex (<60% female). The sample obtained 51% male and 49% female respondents. Interviewers asked to speak to the youngest registered voter at home at the time of the call. Cell phone interviews accounted for 60 percent of the sample. A Spanish language version of the questionnaire and a Spanish-speaking interviewer were made available.

Field work was conducted from March 4 through March 11. No auto-dial or robo polling is included. Customer Research International reports no Illinois political clients. The survey was paid for with non-tax dollars from the Institutes endowment fund. The data was not weighted in any way. Crosstabs for the referenced questions will be on the institutes polling website, http://paulsimoninstitute.siu.edu/opinion-polls/index.php

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute is a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Researchs (AAPOR) Transparency Initiative. AAPOR works to encourage objective survey standards for practice and disclosure. Membership in the Transparency Initiative reflects a pledge to practice transparency in reporting survey-based findings.
The US Commission on Civil Rights on Monday criticized the Trump administration for the way it is arresting undocumented immigrants, saying it could be harmful to "access to justice."

The public rebuke from a federally appointed commission adds to a chorus of local and state officials who have pleaded with the administration to not arrest immigrants at courthouses, an action that advocates say can hurt public safety by making people afraid to cooperate with law enforcement.

In a statement released Monday, the commission asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly "to consider the fair administration of justice when determining how and where they send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents."

Citing several cases from around the country, the commission said it was "concerned" about reports that non-criminal undocumented immigrants were being arrested at courthouses.

"Stationing ICE agents in local courthouses instills needless additional fear and anxiety within immigrant communities, discourages interacting with the judicial system, and endangers the safety of entire communities," the commission wrote. "Courthouses are often the first place individuals interact with local governments. It is the site of resolution for not only criminal matters, where a victim might seek justice when she has been harmed or wronged, but also for resolution of civil matters, including family and custody issues, housing, public benefits, and numerous other aspects integral to an individual's life."

DHS said the statement from the Civil Rights Commission was based on "innuendo and incorrect assumptions" and that they did not contact the department in advance.

"Determinations about where and how ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) personnel carry out arrests are made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all aspects of the situation, including the target's criminal history; safety considerations; the viability of the leads on the individual's whereabouts; and any sensitivities involving the prospective arrest location," spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said. "In that vein, ICE officers are not 'stationed' at courthouses. Rather, courthouse arrests occur when investigating officers have exhausted all other options of possible apprehension."

DOJ declined to comment.

The statement from the commission follows similar requests from officials around the country. California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye also wrote a letter to Sessions and Kelly expressing similar concerns, asking them to top making such arrests in California courthouses.

The Cabinet officials wrote back, saying they would continue to make such arrests and blaming sanctuary cities' lack of cooperation with federal law enforcement for needing to make such arrests in public. They wrote that officials unhappy with the arrests should revoke so-called sanctuary policies, and they have continued to defend arrests at courthouses as safer than trying to apprehend people in environments without the security of courthouses.

The US Commission on Civil Rights noted, though, that courthouse arrests have happened even in places without sanctuary policies, and it argued that arresting witnesses and crime-reporting community members at courthouses will make it less likely that undocumented immigrants will report crimes or agree to testify in cases.

"The fair administration of justice requires equal access to our courthouses," commission Chairwoman Catherine Lhamon said in the statement. "People are at their most vulnerable when they seek out the assistance of local authorities, and we are all less safe if individuals who need help do not feel safe to come forward."

The commission is made up of eight commissioners, no more than four of whom can come from the same political party. Four members are appointed by the president and four by Congress, all to six-year terms.

Shortly before leaving office, former President Barack Obama appointed Lhamon and another commissioner. The board currently is composed of four Democrats, three independents and one Republican, Peter Kirsanow, who testified in favor of Sessions' confirmation before the Senate earlier this year.
COLUMBIA  Before you can fight a disease, you have to identify the foe. For that, you need someone like Guillermo Rimoldi.

Recently named the head of the histopathology section of the Veterinary Diagnostic Center, a unit of Clemson University Livestock Poultry Health in Columbia, Rimoldi is responsible for examining tissue samples of animals to diagnose potential diseases.

The CVDC is on the front line in the war against animal diseases as dangerous as rabies and as potentially devastating as avian influenza.

What we do in the diagnostic lab is detect problems so producers and farmers can treat their flocks and herd animals and improve their vaccination schedules, Rimoldi said.

We do a lot of of surveillance, he said. Almost every avian sample that comes to our necropsy floor is checked for pathogens such as avian influenza and also Newcastle Disease, which can be very important from an economic point of view. Our task is to come up with a fast and accurate diagnosis to stop an outbreak.

The CVDC assists veterinarians, the animal industry and animal owners with livestock, poultry, companion animal and wildlife disease problems. The list of pathogens they can encounter reads like a chilling catalog of pestilence: salmonella; listeria; West Nile Virus; and Eastern equine encephalitis, a devastating disease of horses. Many of these diseases are zoonotic, meaning they can affect people as well as animals, Rimoldi said.

Fast-spreading poultry diseases such as Newcastle and avian influenza are of special concern given the size of the industry in South Carolina. Poultry annually contribute more than $12 billion  more than a quarter of the total economic impact of the states agribusiness  from more than 3,350 active houses at 800 commercial poultry farms across the Palmetto State.

If a producer with 50,000 birds sends us carcasses of poultry that have died, an accurate diagnoses can be the difference in saving hundreds if not thousands more birds in addition to stopping the spread of disease to other farms, Rimoldi said.

A 1994 graduate of veterinary sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rimoldi comes to Clemson from the Tulare Veterinary Diagnostic Lab at the University of California-Davis, where he served as a pathologist for the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System. Rimoldi is board certified in anatomic pathology by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists.

He joins a laboratory that is part of a three-pronged state regulatory agency  Clemson Livestock Poultry Health  that is charged with the responsibility of protecting the health of food animals such as cattle, poultry, swine and other livestock. The CVDC works alongside sister LPH divisions  Animal Health Programs and Meat and Poultry Inspection  to help assure a safe and adequate food supply and to protect the health and welfare of South Carolinians.

A member of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, the Diagnostic Center has the capability to perform necropsy, histopathology, bacteriology, virology and serology. It accepts most species of animals from practicing veterinarians, regulatory officials and animal owners.

We perform some diagnostics for protection for companion animals as well, Rimoldi said. But our core mission is to safeguard livestock and poultry health for the benefit of people, the environment and the economy.
Teens are bombarded with advice about technology. They are warned about use of phones while behind the wheel. They are told social media can be a vehicle for everything from predators to cyber thieves. They are told to be cautious of what they post as social media can come back to haunt them in everything from personal to professional relationships.

By and large, they do not listen. What else is new? Baby boomers didnt listen as teens and today do not completely relate to young peoples use of social media. While boomers have found connecting via Facebook a huge phenomenon, they cant quite come to grips with social media as a key component of life the way it is for teens and most millennials.

Today's teenagers might not recall a time before social media. MySpace was founded in 2003. Had it survived, it would be 14 years old. Facebook is a year younger. Instagram launched in 2010.

But everything has a time and place  and there are signs of change even with social media. Something new will come, but at least for now teens seem to be learning how to step back from social media.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has found nearly 60 percent of teens in the United States have actually taken a break from social media  the bulk of them voluntarily.

The poll surveyed teens ages 13 to 17 and found most value the feeling of connection with friends and family that social media provides. A much smaller number associate it with negative emotions, such as being overwhelmed or needing to always show their best selves.

The poll found teens' social media breaks are typically a week or longer, and that boys are more likely to take longer breaks.

Teens were allowed to cite multiple reasons for their breaks. Nearly two-thirds taking a break cited at least one voluntary reason.

Amanda Lenhart, the lead researcher and an expert on young people and technology use, told AP she was surprised by the results, as they counter the broader narrative that teens are "handcuffed" to their social media profiles.

And here are a few other surprises:

 Among the teens who took voluntary breaks, 38 percent did so because social media was getting in the way of work or school.

 Nearly a quarter said they were tired of "the conflict and drama."

 20 percent said they were tired of having to keep up with what's going on.

According to the AP report on the poll, for an adult to understand what it might be like for someone who grew up with it to step back from social media, consider disconnecting from email  or your phone  for a couple of weeks.

About the only way that is going to happen is for someone to take away the phone or computer.

Which brings up an important point that tempers the results of the poll: Nearly half of teens who took a break did so involuntarily. This included 38 percent who said their parents took away their phone or computer and 17 percent who said their phone was lost, broken or stolen.

In other words, the poll is interesting but dont start writing the obituary for social media.
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By Azernews





By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijans new economic strategy will significantly improve the living standard of countrys citizens, said Ali Ahmadov.



Azerbaijans deputy prime minister and chairman of the National Coordination Council for Sustainable Development made the remark on May 1 in Baku during a conference titled The role of civil society in achieving sustainable development goals in Azerbaijan.

The goal of Azerbaijan, which joined the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is to raise the level of social welfare of the countrys citizens, he noted.

Azerbaijans economy has been rapidly developing in recent years, and it grew 3.5 times in the last 12 years, he said, stressing that the way civil society is organized also plays an important role in achieving the goals of sustainable development.

Ahmadov went on to say that some donors perceived the requirement of the state to ensure transparency in the activities of NGOs in Azerbaijan as an attempt to create obstacles.

The Azerbaijani government is ready to work with donor organizations that carry out activities under conditions of transparency, he said.

Each state has the right to take measures to ensure its own security: Azerbaijani lands are occupied and over one million citizens have become refugees and internally displaced persons, and therefore international donors should first of all help solve the problems of refugees and IDPs, and liberate Azerbaijani lands from occupation. We must think about the interests of the state. I do not intend to question the activities of any donor. But part of the territory of Azerbaijan is under occupation, the country is in a state of war, and these forces the state to take certain steps. For this reason, some restrictions have been imposed on the activities of international donors, the deputy prime clarified.

In turn, Chairman of the Council of State Support for NGOs under the President of Azerbaijan Azay Guliyev said that the implementation of the sustainable development program in Azerbaijan requires the active participation of civil society.

Civil society institutions in Azerbaijan are sufficiently developed and have great experience in implementing international programs, Guliyev said. Therefore, civil society institutions should actively participate in the implementation of the sustainable development program, and monitor its implementation.

Azerbaijan joined the new Global Goals for Sustainable Development for 2016-2030 at the Summit on Sustainable Development of the UN member states held in September 2015.



The National Coordination Council on Sustainable Development established by the presidential decree on October 6, 2016, is aimed to coordinate the tasks assigned to state bodies in connection with the obligations arising from the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Live-fire joint tactical exercises of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey started on May 1 in Azerbaijan in accordance with the agreement on military cooperation between the two countries.

Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported that the aim of the exercises is to improve coordination through the exchange of experience between the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as to achieve the interoperability of the military units of the two countries through joint headquarters planning, improving the readiness and capabilities of the units to conduct operations.

The joint exercises involve military personnel, armored vehicles, artillery launchers and mortars, military and transport helicopters of the Air Force, as well as air defense units and anti-aircraft missile units equipped with modern defensive systems to protect groupings from the air.

The ministry informed that the exercises will last until May 5.

The skills and combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army are growing year by year, as the countrys Armed Forces regularly conduct military exercises. The Azerbaijani army is supplied with modern weapons and technical equipment for maintaining a high level of combat capability.

The army building process is of particular importance for Azerbaijan, as twenty percent of the country's territory is under Armenian occupation and the country is in a state of war with Armenia.
By Trend





President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has offered condolences to his Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev.

I was deeply saddened by the news of heavy casualties as a result of a landslide in Osh region, said President Aliyev in his letter of condolences.

On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and loved ones of those who died and the people of Kyrgyzstan, and wish those injured the soonest possible recovery, President Aliyev said.
By Dalga Khatinoglu

Iranian deputy oil ministry Hossein Zamani-Nia said Apr.16 that $50-80B worth of foreign investment is expected to be attracted to Irans energy projects, including $10B into the petrochemical sector in near future.

In total, $185 billion worth of investments is needed, he said.

Zamani-Nia said $85 billion are planned to be invested in the upstream oil sector by 2021.

However, Homayoun Falakshahi, senior Iran analyst at Wood Mackenzie told Trend Apr.28 that "We estimate that National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) would need $115 billion over 20 years to develop the 50 oil and gas fields it has shortlisted for investment under the IPC."

"Despite much interest from international oil companies, it is unlikely that all of these projects will be awarded, so the actual level of investment will be a lot less. Because of ongoing US sanctions, international banks continue to be extremely cautious. This will make it difficult for Iran to attract the required capital, at least for now," he said.

Iran introduced 49 oil and gas fields to foreign investors based on newly designed oil contract, called the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) in 2015, but it hasnt issued tenders on them yet.

Previously, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that about $20-$30 billion worth of foreign investments are expected to be attracted based on the IPC.

About 80 percent of Irans active fields are in their second half life and lose 8-12 percent of productivity every year.

Iran says its old oil fields would lose 0.3 mb/d of productivity during this year, but 0.35 mb/d of oil would be added from new fields, like Azar, oil layer of South Pars, West Karoon block, etc.

Falakshahi says that Irans biggest potential clearly lies in the West Karun fields, which are huge and in early phases of development.

"Fields such as Azadegan or Yadavaran could produce more than 1 mb/d combined. However, new output from other fields is will also make a significant contribution  Azar and the South Pars Oil Layer will produce a combined 90 kbd by 2020".

Iran has prioritized the development of West Karoon block, including North and South Azadegan fields, Yadavaran and North and South Yaran fields with 64 billion barrels of in-situ reserves, which currently share about 3 percent of the country's total crude oil production, halved since December 2016, according to an official document, seen by Trend.

Year 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Crude oil output 3.899 3.963 4.092 4.153 4.206 4.29

* Wood Mackenzies estimations (mb/d)

Year 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 Crude oil and gas condensate output 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.5 4.8 5.4

*International Monetary Funds estimations (mb/d), based on Irans fiscal year, starts on March 21. Irans gas condensate output stands at 560,000 b/d and expected to reach 1 mb/d by 2022.

Falakshahi said that "for 2017 however, incremental output from these fields will be limited to around 100-150 kb/d. NIOC will fight against production decline in ageing reservoirs by drilling more and increasing gas re-injection. Increased gas production from South Pars will be allocated to be re-injected into oil fields".

Currently Iran re-injects about 75-80 million cubic meters per day of gas to oil fields to maintain their production, but the needed re-injection volume is at least three times more than this figure.

Falakshahi said that "our estimate of crude production capacity for 2017 is 3.9 mb/d, although we believe NIOC will abide by the OPEC agreement, which, if extended for another six months, will allow Iran to produce 3.8 mb/d of crude oil."

Coming to a five-year perspective of Irans oil output, which is claimed at 4.7 mb/d by Iranian officials, Falakshahi added that "we believe Irans crude oil production capacity is likely to increase to close to 4.3 mbd by 2022, provided Iran enjoys some success in the IPC process and awards a few major projects to investors (we have included Azadegan South Phase 2 and Ab-Teymour among other projects in this forecast)."




By Laman Ismayilova

May is a fantastic time to visit Baku, Azerbaijan, when the weather is warm and dry.

The average temperature begins at 15C. During the day, temperatures in May can rise to 25C and higher, especially over lunchtime and in the early afternoon. This is much warmer than most of Europe at this time of year, and even the evenings are very mild with rarely dipping below 13C.

The Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry reported that the average monthly temperature in May is expected to be nigh to the climatic norm along with a small positive margin. Rainfalls are forecasted to be close to the climatic norm, while a little more than norm in some regions.

The average monthly temperature in Baku and Absheron peninsula is predicted to be +17-19?C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +12-17?C. In the afternoons the temperature will be +19-24?C, +27-32?C in some days.

Average monthly precipitation will be close to the climatic norm (23-33mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +17-20?C.

At nights the temperature will be +10-15?C. In the afternoons the temperature will be +20-25?C, but will rise up to +28-33?C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 33-62 mm).

In Upper Karabakh: Khankandi, Shusha, Khojali, Khocavand; Gubadli, Zangilan, Lachin, Kalbajar and Dashkasan, Gadabay regions, average monthly temperature predicted to be +11-15?C which is nigh to the climatic norm and above 1 degree.

At nights the temperature will be +5-10?C.

In the afternoons temperature will be +12-17?C, and will be +20-25?C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 68-122 mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Gazakh-Ganja, Goranboy, Tar-Tar-Agdam-Agjabadi-Fuzuli-Jabrail regions, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +17-19?C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +11-16?C.

In the afternoons the temperature will be +18-23?C, will be +27-31?C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 31-54 mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Balakan, Zagatala, Qakh, Sheki, Oguz, Gabala, ?smailly, Agsu, Shamakhy, Siyazan, Shabran, Khizi, Guba, Khachmaz, Gusar regions, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +15-18?C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +10-15?C, +2-6 ?C in some days.

In the afternoons temperature will be from +15-20?C, will be +23-28?C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 26-166mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Central-Aran: Agdash, Mingachevir, Yevlakh, Kurdamir, ?mishli, Beylagan, Sabirabad, Bilasuvar, Saatli, Shirvan, Haj?gabul, Salyan, Neftchala regions, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +18-20?C.

At nights the temperature will be +11-16?C. In the afternoons the temperature will be from +21-26?C, will be +28-33?C in some days. Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 26-62mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Masall?-Lankaran-Astara-Lerik, Yardimli regions

Average monthly temperature is predicted to be +14-19?C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +9-14?C. In the afternoons the temperature will be from +18-23?C, will rise up to +26-29?C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 41-72 mm).
By Azernews





The activity of the Nizami Ganjavi Scientific Centre for the Study of Azerbaijan and Caucasus at the University of Oxford is a remarkable event for the Azerbaijani science, public opinion and cultural history.

The Rector of the Baku branch of Moscow State University, co-chair of the Anglo-Azerbaijani Society, head of the Nizami Ganjavi Scientific Centre for Study of Azerbaijan and Caucasus at the University of Oxford, Corresponding member of ANAS, Professor Nargiz Pashayeva announced about this while talking to journalists on sidelines of the awarding ceremony held by Presidium of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.

Pashayeva was awarded Nizami Ganjavi Gold Medal of the Republic of Azerbaijan for her exceptional role in establishing Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre for the Study of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus, and ensuring the centre`s effective activity.

She thanked the Presidium of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) for the "Nizami Ganjavi Gold Medal of the Republic of Azerbaijan" award.

"This award is associated not only with our names, but also with the name of Nizami Ganjavi who is the source of pride of more than nine million peoples living in Azerbaijan and the world Azerbaijanis. That's why this a great event," Nargiz Pashayeva said.

Describing the activity of the Centre as a significant contribution to future generations, Nargiz Pasahayeva noted that the establishment of such organizations paves the way for new ideas, and encourages people.

The Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre become the first Azerbaijani research center to study the history and culture of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus region, established at the Oxford University in the UK.

The center implements long-term research projects on the historical heritage and culture of Azerbaijan and conducts a variety of scientific, cultural and social events, lectures and discussions.
Have an event, trend or general energy happening youd like to see in the Energy Journal newsletter? Send it to Star-Tribune energy reporter Heather Richards at heather.richards@trib.com. Sign up for the newsletter at www.trib.com/energyjournal.

This week in numbers

Friday oil prices: West Texas Intermediate (WTI) $49.33, Brent (ICE) $51.73

Natural gas weekly averages: Henry Hub $3.02, Wyoming Pool $2.63, Opal $2.67

Baker Hughes rig count: U.S. 870, Wyoming 20

CPP ruling delayed

Closely watched in Wyoming, the fate of the Clean Power Plan was delayed Friday after a court ruled to give the Trump Administration 60 days before it moved ahead with the case.

The Clean Power Plan is currently the only rule that would bring the U.S. close to its international promise to scale back emissions, but the rule is hotly contested by industry groups and coal producing states like Wyoming who say it's a business killer.

Environmental advocates are fighting for the CPP and take Friday's ruling as one foray lost in a long battle for the rule's existence. Industry and current political strength in Washington however won't be giving up easily.

Wyoming sage grouse farms are happening

Flummoxing wildlife scientists is a move approved by the Wyoming Legislature to allow captive rearing of sage grouse in Wyoming. The state's Sage Grouse Implementation Team, a conglomeration of industry reps, environmentalists and wildlife experts, met on Friday to go through potential rules on how to take wild eggs and raise the grouse in captivity.

SGIT has no real authority in the process, but was convened to advise the Wyoming Game and Fish Department on crafting regulations. The bird was precluded from an endangered species listing in 2015, freeing the various mineral and fossil fuel industries from severe limits on development in sage grouse areas.

The fate of the conservation strategy for the grouse, pioneered by Wyoming stakeholders, faces some uncertainty with a new political administration running the show. Much of the bird's habitat is on federal lands.

Debating coal's comeback

A policy research group waded into the debate on coal's future last week, with one of its researchers visiting the University of Wyoming to lay out the reasons why he believes coal won't survive the downturn.

Coal has its place in the energy mix and will likely retain a prominent role in local economies like Campbell County, but its fate is set, and it's not good news, according to the Rhodium Group.

Those who disagree with that prospect say the group's research was a political move as its researchers have ties to the previous presidential administration.

Wyoming wind development first in nation

A report out last week put Wyoming first for renewable energy per capita and new renewable energy power capacity, due to the increase in wind farms in the state.

Little has changed on the Wyoming landscape, but a number of wind projects in the works for a decade are getting closer to production. Of course Wyoming's small population leads to the per capita ranking, despite the state landing 15th in installed wind capacity.

A gateway to Asian coal markets?

The final state environmental assessment for a large coal port in Washington State was released Friday, bringing an export terminal for Western coal one step closer to completion.

The Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview would make it easier to send Powder River Basin coal to the Asian market if demand and economics coincide to make exports feasible for more Wyoming producers.

Though export terminals are available in Canada, a U.S. terminal on the West Coast has captured Wyoming's imagination for years, as leaders sought new markets for the state's resources and Asian demand for coal rose.

Some question how viable the Asian route will be, as countries like the Philippines are well-suited geographically to compete for the market.

The final assessment of Millennium Bulk from the Army Corps of Engineers is expected this summer.
This website is intended for U.S. visitors only.
Izaak Walton

League meets

On Friday, Izaak Walton Leagues monthly program will be: From Kracow to Casper: Life Adventures of Jacek Bogucki. Jacek left Karcow, Poland, in 1982 with fellow Polish adventurers to go to South America to search for the source of the Amazon River. After lots of whitewater kayaking, Jacek ended up in Casper. There will be a potluck at 6 p.m., and the program will be at 7 p.m. at the lodge at Fort Casper Campground, 4205 Fort Casper Road. If you have any questions, call or text Jennie at 251-3739.

Mayflower descendants meet

The Society of Mayflower Descendants in the state of Wyoming will hold its annual meeting at 1 p.m. May 6 at the Riverton Holiday Inn & Convention Center. Visiting dignitaries will be Governor General Lea Filson and Assistant Governor General Dr. George Garmany.

The Wyoming Mayflower Society was chartered by the General Society on May 17, 1955. There are 107 members in the society. Those interested in seeking membership are invited to attend. To join, you must prove descent from one or more of the 1,620 Mayflower Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth from its embarkation from England. Research help will be offered, but the applicant is responsible for doing as much as possible.

Model railroaders host division meeting

The Central Wyoming Model Railroad Association will host the spring meeting of the Northern Wyoming Division of the Rocky Mountain Region NMRA at the clubhouse, 1356 N. Center St., at 10 a.m. May 6.

A couple of clinics are planned, as well as an afternoon operating session, where the HO layout will be turned into a single-tracked mainline resembling a trip from Denver to Billings via Casper. Interested people are invited to try out as engineers, brakemen or conductors and new operators will be trained.

A training session for operators will be held at the next meeting at 1 p.m. April 29 at the clubhouse.

The clubhouse is still open on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Fridays from 7 to 10 p.m., and on Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m. The clubhouse is open to the public at no charge.

New trains include a Spirit of America, Thomas Kinkade Christmas Express and a Wells Fargo Express.

Consider holding a birthday party or other family gathering at the clubhouse. School and daycare groups are welcome as well. Call Nathan at 258-7869, Harry at 235-4950 or Homer at 266-6439 for information or scheduling.

Flycasters meet

May 10

The monthly meeting of the members of Wyoming Flycasters is held the second Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. at the Izaak Walton League Lodge, 4205 Fort Caspar Road. Interested people are encouraged to come and consider joining. Annual membership fee is $30. Wyoming Flycasters is dedicated to educating and assisting new or old fly fisher men and women in Wyoming and conserving waters and habitat for Wyomings wildlife and fisheries.

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. The group meets at a different restaurant each month and partakes 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, May 10, 5-7 p.m.: La Cocina.
Monday support meetings

Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 8:30 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 10 a.m., 328 E. A St.; noon, 500 S. Wolcott; 2 p.m, 917 N. Beech; 5:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 6 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 6 p.m., 456 S. Walnut; 7 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 8 p.m., 328 E. A. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688.

Al-Anon: Noon, 701 S. Wolcott, St. Marks Church, main entrance, left to library.

Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 7 p.m., 302 E. 2nd, Methodist Church; 8 p.m., 4700 S. Poplar (church basement). Web site: http://www.urmrna.org.

Teen Addiction Anonymous: 3:30-4:30 p.m., Boys & Girls Club Teen Center. Info: 258-7439.

Adult Children of Alcoholics: 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott St., Suite 200.

TOPS Weight Loss: 5:30 p.m., Weight Loss Support Group TOPS #246, Wyoming Oil & Gas Building, 2211 King Blvd. Use NE door entry. Info: 265-1486.

Childrens Chorale tours schools

The Casper Childrens Chorale will present its annual Casper school tour, with 30-minute concerts at (9 a.m.) Evansville Elementary, (10 a.m.) Centennial Middle School, (11 a.m.) Summit Elementary, (1:15 p.m.) Oregon Trail Elementary, and (2:30 p.m.) Crest Hill Elementary Schools.

On May 14, the Childrens Chorale presents its 38th annual Mothers Day Concert at 6 p.m. at Kelly Walsh High School. Sign-up for 2017-18 auditions will be available that evening.

Rotary hears historic trails

Aubrey Valdez, executive director for the National Historic Trails Center Foundation, will give a presentation on the Past, Present and Future of the Trails Center to Rotarians and guests at noon at the Parkway Plaza. Valdez will discuss the vision of the Trails Center, describe the public/private partnership the Trails Center Foundation has with the Bureau of Land management and the steps taken to ensure that the facility is free for everyone. The presentation will cover why the Trails Center is Caspers top attraction, why it is important to students around the state and information on current upgrades and vision for the future.

Valdez is a native of Casper and has been executive director of the National Historic Trails Center Foundation for the past five years, and has a deep commitment to the Trails Center and the community of Casper, wanting to ensure that everyone can tour the facility with friends and family.

Tween Monday

The Natrona County Library will host a life-sized version of Chutes & Ladders for students in grades four through six at 4 p.m. All supplies provided. Call 577.READ x5 for more information.

Community impact at Pizza Ranch

Pizza Ranch, 5011 E. Second St., hosts Community Impact nights from 5 to 9 p.m. normally on Mondays and Wednesdays. Members of nonprofit groups bus tables for tips, and 20 percent of meal tickets from diners who mention the group are donated as well. Dine-in, delivery or pickup orders qualify. Mondays nonprofit is Roosevelt High School.

Financial Literacy Series: your credit

As part of the Natrona County Library and Reliant Federal Credit Unions Financial Literacy Series, a talk titled Your Credit and Why It Matters will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the librarys Crawford Room. A Reliant FCU representative will discuss what a credit score is, how to build good credit and what ruins credit. The lecture is open to the public and free of charge.

Doll collectors talk whimsy

Casper Doll Collectors Club will meet at 7 p.m. at the Senior Center, 1831 E. Fourth St. The group will enjoy a presentation of whimsy dolls from a fellow collector in Sheridan. For information, contact Janet at 234-4044.

Photographers see Iceland

The Casper Photography Association monthly meeting is at 7:15 p.m. at the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2211 King Blvd.

The program will be about Iceland, presented by Lyn Clark. In addition, the photo challenge, Winter Action, is due. Refreshments will be provided by Al and Margi Metz.

Give tuna this month

Wyoming Food for Thought Project has announced its food of the month suggestions for the nearly 1,000 weekend food bags its volunteers prepare for food-insecure school students in Natrona County each week. May is tuna month. Often, schools, churches and other groups designate certain collection days for a specific type of food as a donation.

The suggested food items may be taken to program headquarters at 900 St. John, but its best to call ahead to make certain someone is there to receive it.

For more information, call Cassandra at 337-1703.

Senior Stompers meet Mondays

Join Joyces Senior Stompers at 10:50 a.m. Mondays and exercise your mind and body. Its free for seniors 60-plus. Call Joyce for more information: 237-4908.

NCSD preschool registration

Ten schools in Natrona County will host half-day preschool programs during the 2017-18 school year. Schools with preschools will include: Bar Nunn, Cottonwood, Evansville, Journey (Mills), Lincoln, Midwest, Mountain View, Pineview, University Park and Willard Elementary Schools. Preschool students must be 3 or older by Sept. 15.

Applications for NCSD preschools will be available to families on May 1 at all schools listed above and at the front desk at the NCSD Central Service Offices. Completed packets should be taken to the familys first-choice school by May 30. It is not necessary to reapply at more than one school.

NCSD Preschool Programs are funded with federal Title I and TANF grants, which require that a portion of the seats in each class be held for children who qualify financially and academically. Parents will be notified by phone or mail on or before June 7 about their childs preschool placement for the 2017-2018 school year.
Tuesday support meetings

Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 8:30 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 10 a.m., 328 E. A; noon, 500 S. Wolcott; 2 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 5:30 p.m., 1124 Elma, Imitate the Image Church; 5:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 7 p.m., 520 CY; 8 p.m., 328-1/2 E. A; 8 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688.

Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 7 p.m., 15th and Melrose, at the church. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org.

Historic Bishop Home open for touring

The Historic Bishop Home, 818 E. Second St., is open for touring from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and Saturday and from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursdays.

The current exhibit commemorates the home front support for World War I.

Visitors learn why this home is on East Second Street, why it is important to Caspers development and who occupied it for over 100 years, plus more. Tour fee is $2 per person or $5 for a family of four. The house is on the north side of Second Street between Lincoln and Jefferson streets. Parking is available on Lincoln Street behind the home. For questions, call 235-5277, email info@cadomafoundation.org or visit the Facebook page.

Customer appreciation day

Jimmys Johns Gourmet Sandwiches, 4801 E. Second St. in the Triangle Plaza, will offer $1 subs on nationwide Customer Appreciation Day from 4 to 8 p.m. Subs number 1 through 6, plus the JJBLT, are $1 plus sales tax. Limit is one $1 sub per person. Good for in-store purchases only, offer not valid for online ordering or delivery.

Corvette Cruise

and Dine

Cruise and Dines sponsored by the Central Wyoming Corvettes (a nonprofit organization) are every Tuesday night through Nov. 7. Bring your Corvette and meet at Whites Chevrolet at 6 p.m. and take a short cruise with several other Vettes to a local restaurant for dinner. Guests or new members are always welcome. See us on Facebook or visit our website.

Reading the West book discussion

The Natrona County Library and Fort Caspar Museum will host a book discussion series celebrating all things Western, from rugged heroes and horses to books that ride off into the sunset. At 6:30 p.m. at the Natrona County Library, discuss the autobiography The Life of Tom Horn, by Tom Horn. The discussion is free and open to the public.

CLIMB hosts free CNA meeting

CLIMB Wyoming hosts an informational meeting for its free Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) training for single mothers from 5:30 to 7 p.m., at the Casper CLIMB office, 632 S. David St.

If you enjoy caring for others, the right fit for you might be in a high-demand occupation making $12 an hour. You must be available for shift work. You will receive support with CNA testing and licensing after the training is successfully completed. For more information, email casper@climbwyoming.org or call 237-2855.

Deadline for Civic Chorale Spring Gala

Casper Civic Chorale presents selections from musicals written by Rodgers and Hammerstein at 6 p.m. Friday at the Parkway Plaza. The evening will begin with dinner and dancing to music provided by Natrona County High School Jazz Band followed by the CCC concert at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $45 each or $320 for a table of eight. Tickets must be purchased in advance at Donnells Candies, Hill Music or WY Music at Sunrise Mall by Wednesday. It is recommended that you purchase tickets early. For questions, contact Gary at 259-0771.
Casper police arrested a man Sunday suspected of masturbating in front of his home in the middle of the day.

Neighbors called police just after 1 p.m. Sunday to report that a man had his shorts around his knees and was masturbating in plain view of nearby houses, according to an arrest affidavit. When officers arrived, they found Bruce Brooker standing in the driveway of the reported house on Amherst Avenue.

According to the affidavit, Brooker was a suspect in numerous previous calls for indecent exposure and was on probation for a previous indecent exposure conviction. He was previously arrested on suspicion of exposing himself in the lobby of Community Health Center, walking through Wal-Mart with his genitals exposed and masturbating in his car while at a Starbucks drive-through window.

Brooker told police that he had just walked outside to smoke a cigarette, but officers could find no signs that a cigarette was recently smoked. He said he had urinated in the yard earlier in the day but never had exposed his genitalia at any other time, according to the affidavit.

A neighbor told police that she had first observed Brooker exposing himself at about 10 a.m. that morning. She said she had driven by his house and saw him masturbating in his doorway but did not call police because he was inside the home. The woman drove by the house later that day and saw the same man masturbating in the driveway. She identified the man as Brooker after officers showed her a photo of him.

Brooker was booked into the Natrona County Detention Center on suspicion of public indecency later that day.

According to Wyoming law, public indecency is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.
A 30-year-old Casper woman has pleaded not guilty to charges that she gave her daughter marijuana candy and having drugs and paraphernalia at her house.

Vanessa R. Smith is charged with two felonies: delivery of marijuana to a minor and child endangerment with methamphetamine. She also faces three misdemeanor counts of giving a controlled substance to a child, possession of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana.

Smith pleaded not guilty this past week in District Court.

Authorities accuse Smith of giving the child, who was four or five years old at the time, a marijuana laced gummy candy in February to "calm her down."

Smith remains free on bond. Her trial is set for June 26.
JACKSON  The population of non-native mountain goats is growing prolifically in the Teton Range in Wyoming, while the number of native bighorn sheep is in noticeable decline, a biologist says.

Counting bighorn sheep from a helicopter over the past three years, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Aly Courtemanch has tallied no more than 57 bighorns in the Tetons, a considerable drop from counts of 96 in 2008 and 81 in 2010.

Weve always said we believe the population was stable at about 100 to 125 sheep, but it seems like these recent counts indicate that its dipped, Courtemanch said.

Factoring in sheep that she missed from the helicopter, Courtemanch figures theres likely 80 or so sheep inhabiting the Tetons.

Meanwhile, an aerial count found 43 mountain goats  an exotic species introduced by Idaho decades ago to be hunted.

The fact that we saw almost as many goats as we saw sheep is concerning, Courtemanch said.

Bighorn sheep and mountain goats inhabit the West, including Colorado, Montana and Idaho, but mountain goats generally live in different terrain than bighorn sheep.

However, in the Tetons, one goat was seen within a couple of hundred yards of the sheep, Courtemanch said.

The closeness is worrisome for managers because Teton Range goats have tested positive for strains of bacterial pathogens that can be deadly in bighorn, triggering potentially catastrophic pneumonia outbreaks.

Transmission among the two species has not been documented, nor is their relationship to one another well understood, at least in the Tetons.

Grand Teton National Park has been working on a management plan to rid the Tetons of mountain goats, but wildlife biologist Sarah Dewey said she couldnt say right now when the plan might be completed.

Courtemanch said more research in the years ahead will reveal whether invading mountain goats are partly to blame for the bighorn decline.

We dont know if the drop in sheep numbers were seeing is a direct effect of the mountain goats being there, said Courtemanch, who studied the herd for her University of Wyoming masters thesis. Theres a lot of pressures on that sheep population, and mountain goats might be one of those.
Utah wildlife officials say they fatally shot a mountain lion that had found its way into a residential backyard in Salt Lake City.

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Sgt. Ray Loken says cougar sightings were reported starting about Friday afternoon in the Glendale neighborhood of southwest Salt Lake City.

Authorities searched for hours until they spotted the animal trying to attack a house cat.

Loken says they chose to shoot the animal to euthanize him because the mountain lion appeared to be hungry and could pose a danger to humans or pets.

The mountain lion was shot about 4 a.m. Saturday.

Loken says tranquilizers are often used but that the shooting was the safest, most humane thing to do.
Firearms; Col. Jeff Cooper's Rules

1. All guns are always loaded.

2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.

3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

4. Be sure of your target and what lies beyond it.



Knives

1. Never cut toward yourself.

2. Always cut away from yourself.

3. Never cut yourself.



AND

If you drop a knife or gun, let it fall!



Chainsaws



1. Always wear your safety gear when running your saw: hard hat, eye, face, hearing protection, cut resistant protection for your legs, heavy boots, gloves (depending on work conditions).



2. Safety devices on the saw must be in working order: front hand guard,chain brake, chain catcher, throttle lockout, and right hand guard.



3. Hold the saw on the ground or lock it between your knees for starting. No 'Drop Starts.' Set the chain brake before cranking.



4. The engine must idle reliably without turning the chain.



5. The chain must be sharpened properly, including properly set depth gauges.



6. The chain must be adjusted to remove slack and still run freely.



7. The operator must understand the forces on different parts of the bar as the saw runs: push, pull, kickback and attack.



8. Both hands must always be on the saw when the chain is running. The thumbs must be wrapped around the handles. Both feet should be firmly planted on the ground.



9. The operator must always know where the end of the bar is, and what it's doing.



10. Don't let the upper (kickback) corner of the bar contact anything when the chain is running unless the tip has been buried with the lower corner.



11. Let off of the throttle before pulling out of a pinch on the top part of the bar.



12. Make a plan for every tree you cut. Assess hazards, lean, escape routes, forward cuts, and back cuts. Evaluate the forward or backward lean, and the side lean of every tree you cut. Know your limits.





13. Clear your work area and your escape path of brush, vines, and other hazards that can trip you or catch your saw.



14. Escape from the bullseye when the tree tips. 90% of accidents happen within 12 feet of the stump. Go more than 15 feet, and stay out of the bullseye until things stop falling.



15. Keep spectators away more than twice the height of the tree in the direction it will fall.



16. Don't cut alone.



17. Keep your body and the swamper's out of the line of the bar in case of a kickback.



18. Set the brake when taking over two steps or when moving through tripping hazards. Keep your trigger finger off of the throttle when you are moving.



19. DO NOT operate a chainsaw from a ladder! Operating with your feet off the ground requires special training.



20. Do not cut above your shoulders.



21. Springpoles must be shaved on the inside of the apex between the ascending and descending sides. If the apex is higher than you shoulders, stand under the springpole and cut it low on the descending side. It will release upward, away from you.Leaning and heavily loaded poles that are too small to bore cut for a hinge should be shaved on the compressed side until they fold.



22. Do not cut a tree that is holding up a lodged tree. Do not work under a lodged tree. Think about a mouse trying to steal the cheese out of a trap.

23. Instruct your swampers and helpers to NEVER approach you from behind or the sides to within the reach of your saw when you are cutting. If you pull out of a cut with the chain running, or have a severe kickback, the swamper can be killed if he is coming up behind you!

24!! Quit When You Are Tired!




Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday his country may take further action against Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria, as U.S.-backed forces in Syria closed in on the last neighborhoods of a former stronghold of the Islamic State group.

The U.S. views the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as the most effective partner to counter the Islamic State group in northern Syria, an assessment bolstered by the SDFs steady advances against the jihadists. But it has complicated relations with Turkey, which views the groups Kurdish component as an extension of a terror group operating inside its own borders.

In Istanbul, Erdogan insisted that U.S. support for such groups must come to an end, and said he would bring up the matter at a meeting with President Trump next month.

The SDF, which include Arab fighters, seized six neighborhoods from IS militants in Tabqa on Sunday, according to the affiliated Hawar news agency.

Tabqa is 25 miles southeast of the Islamic State groups de facto capital Raqqa and an important stronghold for the militants. It lies next to the Tabqa Dam, one of several controlling the flow of the Euphrates River.

A U.S. air lift of artillery and special forces advisers to place them behind IS lines in March was a turning point in the Tabqa offensive and underscored the closeness between Washington and the SDF.

Turkey, however, has remained hostile to the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, known by their Kurdish acronym the YPG, which form the backbone of the SDF. The YPG are close to the Kurdish PKK insurgent group in Turkey, which is designated as a terror organization by NATO and the U.S.

Last week, Turkey struck at YPG positions inside Syria, killing 20 fighters and media activists, according to the group, prompting Kurdish parties to call for a U.S.-enforced no-fly-zone over northern Syria.

U.S. troops were seen Saturday in armored vehicles in Syria in Kurdish areas in a show of force apparently intended to dissuade Turkey and Syrian Kurdish forces from attacking one another. Kurdish officials describe the U.S. troop movement as buffer between them and Turkey.

Video from northern Syria showed the U.S. patrols parked alongside Kurdish units flying the YPG flag.

We will be forced to continue (our offensives), Erdogan said. We wont provide a date and time for when well come. But they will know that the Turkish military can come.

Erdogan is due in Washington on May 16 for his first meeting with U.S. President Trump.

The YPG is distrusted by Turkish-backed anti-government forces in Syria, who say the group is an ally of President Bashar Assads government. The YPG and Syrian government forces have largely avoided confrontation over the course of the countrys six-year-long civil war.

Other Kurdish parties accuse the YPGs political arm, the PYD, of squelching dissent and embracing authoritarianism.

In other developments, more than a thousand residents of Damascus suburbs demonstrated against anti-government rebel infighting, activists said, only to be met at one demonstration by rebels who tried to disperse the protest with gunfire.
Rio Nuevo and a developer have reached an agreement to bring another new Marriott-branded hotel as well as several million dollars worth of improvements into existing businesses in downtown Tucson.

The taxing district board voted last week to expand an existing deal with businessman Scott Stiteler and his business partners related to the new AC Hotel by Marriott on East Broadway and Fifth Avenue. The agreement includes an estimated $3.2 million in new investments by Stiteler into businesses and property he owns in the 200 block of East Congress Street.

The new agreement frees up money for Rio Nuevo, which is funding a number of projects  including a permanent regional headquarters for Caterpillar Inc. west of downtown.

The Hub restaurant and the Playground Bar and Lounge, which he owns, will be renovated and expanded, and Elviras Restaurant, where Stiteler is the landlord, will also see some improvements.

The now-empty former home of Pizzeria Bianco, between The Hub and the Playground, will also be renovated to accommodate the expansion of Stitelers businesses.

Additionally, the board signed off on an agreement that would end legal disputes between Stiteler, the city of Tucson and Rio Nuevo related to the Depot Plaza Garage. The central dispute dates back to when Rio Nuevo was still under city control and built the underground parking garage. Despite a settlement in 2013, some issues continued to linger.

With those disputes settled, the downtown developer said he would be able to move forward with his plans for a 100-room Marriott-branded boutique hotel catering to millennials called The Moxy.

The hotel would be built on top of the Depot Plaza underground parking garage at 45 N. Fifth Ave., across the street from Stitelers businesses on Congress and near the hotel now being built.

Rio Nuevo Chairman Fletcher McCusker hailed the new agreements as continued progress in revitalizing downtown.

It is one of our most active blocks, said McCusker about the 200 block of Congress. It is an unbelievable deal for Rio Nuevo.

The taxing district had an agreement with Stiteler to buy the 200-space parking garage attached to the 137-room AC Marriott Hotel for $4.3 million. Stiteler was expected to lease the garage back from Rio Nuevo.

Under the new agreement, Rio Nuevo would forgo the purchase and Stiteler would invest $3.2 million on expanding and renovating the Hub and the Playground. Stiteler would be able to keep the taxes usually collected by Rio Nuevo that are generated by The Hub, Playground and Elviras. The amount would be capped at $7.7 million over the next eight years.

McCusker said it is possible Stiteler will not receive the full amount $7.7 million before the taxing district is set to expire in 2025.

We sunset in 2025, so everything we are doing would only last until then, he said. And there is no way hed hit those caps unless (Rio Nuevo) is extended.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some May 1 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.
A hoverboard fire led to a family of four, a mother and her three children, being displaced from their home on Saturday.

The mother purchased the hoverboard earlier in the day and had left it charging in the kitchen for the first time while the family left the residence for about an hour, according to a news release from Tucson Fire Department.

They returned to find the hoverboard charred and the home's interior covered in soot and ash.

Fire personnel determined that the hoverboard had been sitting on a tile surface with no combustible material around it, the release said.

Red Cross assisted the family in finding housing as their home, located in the 3500 block of East Blacklidge Drive, was not safe to stay in, the release said.
As it stands, Pima County is a hodgepodge of different rules regarding texting and other uses of electronic devices while driving.

Marana has no specific ordinance limiting or banning motorists cellphone use, though officers can certainly pull people over for the erratic driving it sometimes leads to, according to town officials,

Late last year, the Oro Valley Town Council approved an ordinance mandating the use of hands-free electronic devices while driving with only a handful of exemptions and incremental fines for each violation. It also designated violations a primary offense, meaning an officer can pull someone over just for violating that law.

The Tucson City Council passed a similar ordinance in March, but violations were designated as secondary offenses, meaning an officer would have to observe a driver violating another law to stop them. Councilwoman Regina Romero pushed for that distinction, citing concerns that the measure could be used as cover for racial profiling by police officers.

At $250, first-times fines are also five times those in Oro Valley.

Until last week, the state of Arizona had no ban on the practice, which has been cited as a factor in rising vehicle fatalities in recent years. However, Gov. Doug Ducey just signed a bill banning the practice among new drivers, but leaving most everyone else unaffected, leaving just Montana as the only state with no statewide ban of any kind.

And finally, theres Pima County. Its current ordinance, passed unanimously just shy of a year ago, makes texting while driving a primary offense, but it has broader exemptions. One cited by two county officials as particularly problematic is the fact that drivers can still initiate, receive or engage in voice communication.

From the outside looking in, distinguishing between sending a text and dialing a number is no easy task, according to Sheriff Mark Napier.

The Road Runner requested data detailing enforcement in unincorporated Pima County of the current ordinance and it was not received by deadline, though Napier said his department has not issued a good number of tickets. Just 50 tickets were issued in the first two years of Tucsons 2012 texting ordinance, the Star has previously reported.

A new county ordinance, modeled after Oro Valleys and set for consideration by the supervisors Tuesday, could bring some jurisdictional consistency.

Supervisor Sharon Bronson, who asked for the item to be put on the Tuesday agenda, told the Road Runner the current ordinance isnt enough to address what she described as a major public health issue. She also doesnt except the Legislature to take more sweeping action on the matter anytime soon.

Multitasking while driving isnt acceptable, she said, adding later: Weve got to solve our own problems. We cant depend on federal or state government.

Bronson and Napier advocated for making violations a primary offense.

None of the other four supervisors returned calls Friday for comment on the ordinance by deadline. Brendan Lyons, an anti-distracted driving advocate who was seriously injured by a driver taking a call in 2013, said it was incredible that the county could become the third local jurisdiction to adopt a hands-free ordinance.

Beyond requiring that any electronic device used by drivers be hands-free, the new ordinance makes no exemptions for drivers stopped at lights or signs, as the current ordinance does, though it does allow for emergency calls. The measure would come into effect 30 days after passage.

Napier said the rollout in Oro Valley, where its ordinance has been in effect since January, offers some helpful lessons about what to do if the measure passes.

The town is still in the public education phase of implementation, and officers are directed to issue warnings to violators, and they have done so with gusto, according to Oro Valley Lt. Chris Olson.

Since January, officers have issued nearly 800 warnings to drivers and likely wont start issuing citations for at least several more months. Olson had expected to have 1,000 by now, but said his officers are already having a harder time spotting violations.

To have a warning period makes a lot of sense, Napier said.

He said he understands concerns about law enforcement overreach and over-policing, but added that even after the warning period  if the ordinance is approved  his deputies would not be overzealous in their enforcement.

We have no interest in that, he said. What we want to do is increase awareness.

Check out the poll in the online version of this story to weigh in.

DOWN THE ROAD

Starting Monday at 9 a.m., surveyors will be at work along Grant Road between North Edith Boulevard and North Venice Place. During the work, which will go through Friday and end daily at 4 p.m., there will be intermittent lane closures and traffic shifts. The surveying is a part of the third and fourth phases, which are still in design, of the Grant Road Improvement Project.

Also starting Monday, the right-hand turn lane on northbound South Houghton Road just south of Old Vail Road will be closed.
Northwest Healthcare is no longer in UnitedHealthcare's network - a contract termination that will affect thousands of Tucson area patients.

As has been the case throughout the dispute, each side had its own version of what happened.

"As of midnight last night, Northwest Healthcare has been forced out of UnitedHealthcares network," Northwest Healthcare spokeswoman Kimberly Chimene wrote in an email this morning, adding that the company will continue trying to work with UnitedHealthcare.

"We worked tirelessly through the weekend to try and come to a resolution in order to maintain vital patient access to our health system."

Officials with UnitedHealthcare issued a statement today that said despite numerous attempts over the weekend to reach an agreement, Northwest Healthcare and its parent company Community Health Systems turned down an offer for a five-year agreement that would have kept the systems hospitals, ambulatory clinics and physicians practices in-network.

The contract affects tens of thousands of patients, most of them on Tucson's Northwest Side.

The end of the contract means patients covered by UnitedHealthcare will no longer be able to use Northwest Medical Center and Oro Valley Hospital, except for emergencies. And they will also no longer be able to have visits to Northwest Allied Physicians and Northwest Healthcare urgent care centers, among others, covered by their insurance.

A contract termination affects UnitedHealthcares Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, individual and employer-sponsored plans (but not MediGap plans). UnitedHealth officials last week said they already had a transition-of-care plan in case the contract wasn't resolved.

Patients receiving ongoing treatment for special conditions, or women in their third trimester of pregnancy, may be eligible for continuation of care benefits.

Officials with Northwest Healthcare, which is owned by Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, had been hopeful for a resolution. UnitedHealthcare officials said they had been hopeful, too.

UnitedHealthcare's Arizona Health Plan CEO Dave Allazetta was in Tucson on Thursday and made an in-person proposal to Northwest Healthcare CEO Kevin Stockton. They met for about an hour, UnitedHealthcare officials confirmed.

But there was no agreement.

"Despite our significant compromise and request for a contract extension to continue working through the details, United has rejected every proposal we have offered," Chimene wrote.

"We understand this impacts our patients in-network access to care at Northwest Healthcare. We will continue to try reach an amicable agreement with United that ensures our patients have the freedom to choose their providers and hospitals, while keeping out of pocket costs down."

UnitedHealthcare officials said that members who are currently getting treatment with a Northwest Allied physician or specialist should call the number on their health insurance ID card to request a Continuity of Care benefit.

"Other Tucson hospitals and physician practices are supportive and prepared to accept our members for care," the insurance company's statement says.

"For more than 20 years, weve been working with the Arizona community to ensure residents have access to a broad network of care providers. UnitedHealthcares goal remains to find an acceptable solution that would renew in-network access to the health system's hospitals and physicians with a contract focused on quality, affordable health care."

Both sides of the dispute have written newspaper op-eds, as well as letters to patients. Northwest Healthcare said it sent out more than 60,000 letters to UnitedHealthcare patients who had used a Northwest facility in the last year. It also set up a website called Stand Up to United Az.

Southern Arizona's largest physician organization  the Pima County Medical Society, last week called on both entities to do the, "moral and ethical thing," and resolve the dispute for the sake of patients.
Help India!

By TwoCircles.net, Staff Reporter

New York: Kashmiri journalist and author of celebrated memoir Curfewed Night on the conflict in Kashmir Basharat Peer has been awarded the First Decade Award by Columbia Journalism school in recognition of contributions to the profession during the first 10 years since graduating from the Journalism school.

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The award was given to Peer during the Alumni weekend 2017 at the Columbia University on Saturday, April 29.

Along with Peer, four other journalist and alumni Matt Bai, Erika Dilday, Robin McDowell, James S. Toedtman of CJS were conferred with awards. Peer is the youngest among all the five alumnus to receive the award.

Presently, Peer is working as opinion editor at The New York Times.

Peer, 40, who hails from Anantnag district of south Kashmir, started his career at Rediff in 2000.

He has worked as an assistant editor at Foreign Affairs and was a fellow at Open Society Institute, New York. He has written extensively on South Asian politics for Granta, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, FT Magazine, The New Yorker, The National and The Caravan. His book Curfewed Night won the Crossword Prize for Non-Fiction and was chosen among the Books of the Year by The Economist and The New Yorker.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): For Indian students seeking to study abroad, Turkey, with its government-funded higher education scholarship programme, is slowly emerging as a popular destination.

The Turkiye Scholarships  specifically designed for international students  is one of the most extensive programmes being coordinated from a single centre.

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In 2016, the country received as many as 122,000 applications from 175 countries, according to the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities, which is responsible for the Turkiye Scholarships.

Since 2012, over 100 Indian students have received the scholarship.

I belong to a farmers family from south India. It was unthinkable for people like me to come here to Turkey and get a high-quality education. I applied to Turkeye scholarships and I was accepted, said Mustafa Ujampaaly, a PhD student at Ankara University, in a statement.

Currently in India, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said before embarking on the official visit: We embrace students from all over the world coming to Turkey.

The Turkiye Scholarship project first began in late President Turgut Ozals rule in 1992. The project initially covered Central Asian Turkic Republics and was later extended to other parts of the world.

The scholarship, offered for undergraduate, graduate, PhD, proficiency in art and research levels, includes allowance, accommodation, tuition and fees, health expenses and a compulsory Turkish language course.

There is a misconception propagated by the media that being a Muslim country, Indian students of other religions may face difficulty many restrictions. But I am living here, it feels really awesome to be here nice place, said Kanika Walia who is pursuing PhD in communications from Gazi University.

The students who are eligible for the Turkiye Scholarships and do not speak Turkish are also granted free Turkish language training for one year.

Students who successfully complete the language course are allowed to pursue their education at the university they have registered with.

In addition, the programme is aimed at enhancing Turkeys relations with other countries in the fields of higher education and culture.

For students who wish to know about the art, culture, history or music of the country, additional certificate-level programmes are also available. For such students, study tours are also conducted free of cost.

It is a very good thing to be in Turkey. I had always dreamed of studying abroad and never dreamed that I could study in Turkey. I was accepted after I applied to the government-funded Turkiye Scholarships of the Turkish Prime Ministry (YTB), said Navaz Kuttakkaren, a BA student from Kerala at Ankara University.
Help India!

Lucknow, (IANS): Tension gripped Meerut in western Uttar Pradesh on Monday when a school girl was found in the room of a Muslim cleric in a mosque. The cleric was later taken into custody.

Police said the girl wearing a school uniform was spotted in the room of a Muslim cleric in Swami Paada, Budhana Gate, by some locals.

Support TwoCircles



They raised an alarm and soon a large mob started shouting communal slogans after which the police rushed to the spot.

The cleric tried to flee the mosque from the rear gate even as the people wanted to lynch him. Police intervened and the cleric was taken into custody and sent to the Kotwali police station.

A large gathering of people reached there and shouted slogans and engaged in a spat with the police.

Police had to resort to mild use of force to disperse the mob.

Some local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders also reached the scene of tension but the police pacified the two sides and dispersed them.
Help India!

By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has accused Telangana police of setting up a fake ISIS website to trap young Muslim men.

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On Monday morning, the Congress General Secretary wrote on Twitter, Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.

Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

The state police have termed his claim unfounded, while the state government asked Singh to either come forward with evidence or withdraw his remarks.

In a series of tweets, Singh wrote, It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP.

It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Singh went on to link the fake terror module with Saifullahs encounter in Kanpur during early days of March.

It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

He accused Telangana police by saying, The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?

The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Is It Ethical? Is it Moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS?, asked Singh.

He asked for the resignation of Telangana CM Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao and said, If he hasnt then shouldnt he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime?

Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

If he hasnt then shouldnt he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Telanganas Director General of Police Anurag Sharma said the allegations were unfounded and that these allegations will lower the morale and image of police.

Unfounded allegations from a senior responsible leader will lower the morale and image of Police engaged in fighting anti-national forces, Sharma tweeted in reply.

Telangana Minister K. T. Rama Rao, who is also son of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, reacted strongly to the allegations,

Most irresponsible & reprehensible thing coming from a former CM. Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence.

Rama Rao also told the media in New Delhi that Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi should react and condemn the baseless allegations.

It is pertinent to point out that while Singh made bold allegations, he neither responded to any of the questions posed by the Telangana government nor furnished any evidence to support his claims. It remains to be seen if the allegations made by Singh have any basis or if this is another attempt by Singh to pick up a fight on Twitter.
Help India!

New Delhi, (IANS): Puducherry Lt Governor Kiran Bedi on Monday dismissed as rumours the reports that she was going to replace Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra in the wake of street protests in the state.

Rumours. There is no place for rumours, Bedi said during an event organised by business chamber Ficci when asked about these reports.

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There were reports that Vohra was summoned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the situation in the Kashmir Valley, fuelling speculations that the government was looking for a new Governor. However, Vohra had also dismissed the reports.
Investors continue to view London as one of the worlds fastest growing and most attractive tech hubs  despite the UKs vote to leave the EU. In Q1 of this year, London tech firms received 395 million in venture capital investment  significantly more than total amount raised in Q4 of 2016 (245 million). In total, London tech companies have received over 1 billion in funding since the EU referendum  representing over 70 per cent of the total 1.59 billion invested into UK tech firms since Brexit.

So, if you're living in London or are thinking about moving here, these are exciting times.

Check out some of the hottest tech companies currently recruiting:

Junior Account Manager, Wiser Graduates

Based out of cool offices in Shoreditch, Wiser Graduates is looking for 8 junior account managers. Responsibilities include:

Support the business development team

Identify ways to improve the existing job lead process

Enhance and update existing business profile

Assist in set up and management of live events, trade shows and more

Assist with outbound marketing activities

Salary: 22.000

Sounds good? Know more and apply on the company's website at wisergraduates.com

Junior Marketing Account Manager, UWP Consulting

A fast-growing digital marketing agency based in Farringdon, UWP Consulting is looking for a Junior Marketing Account Manager.

The role will include:

Managing and posting on client Social media

Producing imaginative, original content for client blogs (strong language skills a must)

Managing SEO projects with the help of account managers and directors

Research, analysis and writing headlines, tags and titles for client sites

Assisting with the management of existing client accounts

Performing various small technical jobs

Salary: 17.000

To apply please visit the company's website at uwp.co.za

Junior Social Media & Content Manager, busuu

Founded in 2008, busuu was designed to change the global language learning industry.

through its mobile and online platforms.

What does a Junior Social Media & Content Manager do?

Create, maintain, measure and optimise online content.

Take full ownership of our social media accounts, e.g. Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube

Plan and execute video content across all marketing channels

Support Wechat and Weibo for China and explore other social media properties.

Build and manage network of contributors and copywriters.

Maintain 'best practice' standards for content creation and social media management.

Salary: Undisclosed

If this matches your profile, apply on busuu.com

Junior Revenue Analyst, Badoo

Badoo is dating app for meeting new people in your area.

As a rapidly growing start-up, Badoo specialises in innovation, flexibility and agility, and its teams are focused towards cross-platform mobile development. Badoo is seeking a Junior Revenue Analyst to join its London office in Camden. The role will include:

Reconcile partner revenue statements to the in-house database and partner cost invoices to contracts

Find and report errors and bugs within revenue data, and prepare discrepancy reports

Document all partner communication including statements and invoices

Work closely with partners and suppliers to ensure information provided is accurate, timely and complete

Update and monitor pay-out rates in our revenue calculator tool

Ensure up to date contracts are held on file for all partners

Work with Billing and Finance teams to drive the automation of revenue data

Carry out various ad-hoc analysis of revenue and pricing

Salary: Undisclosed

To know more about the company and apply to this vacancy, visit badoo.com

So that's it! Good look with your job hunt. Don't forget to leave your comments below and share this page with your friends.
According to Tony Blair, a hard Brexit is the worst possible event to happen to this country in a long time. But when it comes to making drastic decisions with dire consequences, we all know the former Labour leader is an expert in this field. So what right does he really have to lecture Britain over Brexit?

Let's rewind back to 2003 when Mr. Blair took us to war with Iraq. Whether you agreed with his decision at the time, there is no denying that the circumstances that culminated in war were disastrous. Numerous opinion polls, which undoubtedly dictated Labour Party policy most of the time in a bid to seize the centre ground, opposed the war.

Even though the prime minister at the time had prerogative powers to declare war without parliamentary approval, the prospect of conflict was so daunting that, like Theresa May over triggering Article 50, Mr. Blair had to force a parliamentary vote on the issue. With Iain Duncan Smith's Tory Party lending Labour their support, the former prime minister had the support he needed to declare war.

Yet when Saddam Hussein was removed, the aftermath of the invasion was dire. The 45-minute dossier emerged as a total lie. Dr. David Kelly took his life over the issue. And towards the beginning of this decade, Barack Obama withdrew American troops from Iraq in a populist bid to distance himself from George W.

Bush and Mr. Blair, but Iraq has appeared on the news again in recent years due to the emergence of ISIS.

I could go on to list numerous mistakes that Labour made in office, but when it comes to terrible mistakes, but I'm afraid Mr. Blair is the pot calling the kettle black in this context.
In early 2014, there has been the "No makeup selfie" tendency on social media; it was an initiative to raise funds for cancer patients. We had the opportunity to discover the True Beauty of some of the most popular stars, like Adele, Nicole Richie, Eva Longoria, Jessica Alba It is great to see the stars just as they are, with their Natural Beauty and imperfections, just like us!

In other occasions, stars have published selfies of them without makeup, like Alicia Keys, who started to be makeup free since 2016, after been many years afraid of going out without it: Cause I don't want to cover up anymore.

Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing," the musician said.

Why do we use makeup?

We put makeup for us, because it is fun, creative and it gives a sense of well-being; a way to simply step ahead. Butwe also put makeup for others! In fact, many women say that makeup gives them confidence; it helps to anticipate the judgment of the other. Also, researches has shown that women who care more about their appearance are considered more socially integrated, more attractive and more feminine, according to Psychologies Magazine France. Beauty and femininity are irremediably linked because, unlike animals, in humans it is the woman's responsibility in regard the social conceptions to make herself beautiful, according to Hana Rottman, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst quoted by the same source.

Besides, the specialist clarifies that worrying about appearance is not wrong, it is even a mental health standard, because it presupposes to be aware of the reality of one's body, and of the existence of the other.

Furthermore, beauty is above all related to sexuality. But, if you use makeup to attract men, think twice on quantity!

A study conducted by the British psychologist Alex Jones of the University of Bangor (Wales), published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, has revealed that men prefer women without makeup or with very little makeup, but with any other artifices of beautification.

According to an article of Elle magazine published in 2014, men like that women put makeup on big occasions, as a change of daily life, but not too much!

My natural and beautiful me

Moreover, makeup reduces skin quality and ages it faster. So, lets highlight you natural beauty, accompanied with a big smile and a confident attitude, no one will resist you!

It would improve your self-esteem, since it involves accepting ourselves as we are, with everything and imperfections. Also, going makeup free is a way to reinvent yourself: go for that hair style you always wanted, and show the world your true self! : You want to cut it? Cut it! It will grow again; let free your curly hair Moreover, it is an opportunity to change in order to have a better way of life and, of course, a better skin: use a moisturizer and sun screen, clean your skin, eat healthy, have a good sleep, drink water.

If you want or need to wear a little makeup you can use a BB cream and your favorite lipstick. Some have SPF protection, antiaging activities, antioxidants, moisturizer, etc., it depends on the needs of your skin type.

And always remember, as Bruno Mars says: Cause you're amazing. Just the way you are.
The latest victims

At least thirty five people were killed last week in various Mexican cities after very violent clashes broke out among rival drug trafficking gangs that are fighting a war for dominance and controll of drug trafficking routes to the United States.

According to local officials in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, twelve people were killed because of clashes in numerous incidents during the week. The Mexican state of Sinalosa is located on the northwest coast of Mexico and is the base of operations of the powerful Sinalosa Cartel which is an international drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime syndicate.

The rest of the killings occured in various other smaller scale violent episodes accross Mexico.

The reasons behind the conflicts

As mentioned earlier, the major reason for these conlicts is the fight for dominance and control of the drujg trafficking routes that lead to the United States. However, these conflicts between rival drug gangs have escalated after the arrest of the drug leader Joaquin El Chapo Gusman in 2016, who was extradicted to the United States last January. This arrest has created a power gap which rival drug gangs are trying to fill.

More escalation is expected

It seems that Mexico is taking a harder stance against the Drug Cartels with the most recent example being the Battle of Reinosa.

In theBattle of Reinosa, Mexican marines killed Juan Manuel Lossa, known by the nickname "El Toro", who according to the Mexican authorities, was the head of the Gulf Cartel in Reinosa.

Even though this is considered to be a great success for the Mexican authorities against the drug cartels, it also has the potential to intensify the violence between rival drug gangs as it has created a power gap and rival gangs may fight among themselves to fill it.

However, the Mexican authorities need to remain vigilant and continue with their recent successes.

Consequences of the drug gangs war

Since 2011 more than 100,000 people have either been killed or are missing because of actions directly attributed to organized crime and drug trafficking gangs in Mexico. In 2017 the number of drug gangs related killings reached its highest level since 2011.

The most worrying thing is that we are still in April and there are eight more months in the year. This simply means that 2017 is expected to be a record breaking year regarding drug trafficking related killings.
For this reviewer, I've had a lot of years to come to grips with Identity and with Matt Damon as the iconic Jason Bourne. As much as I can attempt to give the film a fresh look as a standalone product, one viewing of the alternate ending and beginning sequences (on the included standard Blu-ray) is enough to know that this movie is for me, forever tied with its sequels (or at least, Supremacy and Ultimatum). Still, Identity has its quirks, and is the origin for both Bourne as a re-born, independent asset, and as a bad-ass.

Why the handlers and other intelligence officers in charge never seem to grasp Bourne's desire to simply be left alone is now one of those plot points that defies common sense. (Or even more granular elements, such as an elite assassin that would carry around a printout of the target.)

This does make the first Bourne a tricky animal. The setting, cinematography, the score, etc. all have the trappings of an espionage thriller, but the plot and the plotting are both simple and brisk. The romance story is also kind of funny as Bourne finds himself needing a ride and only able to hire out the nearest hot mess.

But as ever, it's the action quotient of the movie, specifically, JB's ability to thwart and evade all comers that makes for the much-desired thrills. Whether that means an embassy full of soldiers and police or other supposedly Bourne-level operators, JB is too tough, too quick, and too stealthy to be pinned down. Again, those characteristics seem at odds with an agent who blew a mission and was found floating and effectively bullet-ridden, but the trip down memory lane is as fun as JB's leaping stairway strike.

Marie (Frank Potente) quickly becomes an important part of the film and the Bourne character, and gives him someone halfway normal to socialize with. Meanwhile, many of Bourne's adversaries are so good, like Clive Owen, that it is almost a shame that they are dispatched forthright. (Or in one case, self-dispatched.) Unlike some of the later films, Identity keeps its running time tight and taught, and remains fun both with and without the rest of the franchise.

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray

Universal brings The Bourne Identity to Ultra HD Blu-ray both as an individual release, and as a Best Buy Exclusive (until June 6, 2017) in the Bourne Ultimate Collection. The individual release comes as a two-disc combo with a flyer for the Digital HD version, which with Vudu, yielded the Vudu UHD version, complete with Dolby Vision and Dolby Digital Plus support. The Ultra HD Blu-ray disc is designated as a BD-66 and has Bourne disc art with a dark background, which is a little bit nicer than the blue and silver standard Blu-ray. The disc goes straight to the menu, and the menu features the same video loop as the Blu-ray but in full-frame and without the old familiar Universal menu design.
Many people don't know this, but there's more to the world of comic books than superheroes. In fact, many of the brightest names in American comics started writing in other countries, especially Britain, which has a distinct comic book industry that in many ways takes more chances than Marvel, DC, Image, or Dark Horse. Take 2000 AD as an example. This sci-fi anthology magazine debuted in the mid-70's, and in the second issue it featured a strip called Judge Dredd. The title character of the strip was a stern, no-nonsense cop living in an absolute police state. The property proved so popular that the strip has run non-stop in every issue of 2000 AD ever since. Even more surprising, the comic takes place in real time, meaning that one year of our lives is one year in the world of Judge Dredd. The comic is incredibly ambitious, with many storylines taking place over the course of six months or more.

Judge Dredd is so popular in his native Britain that his name is used as a byword for the threat of a police state. Sadly, in America, most people's only exposure to the character is the 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle. While that movie has some fun elements, it did a terrible job of translating the comic to the screen. It's also tainted the franchise in American eyes so thoroughly that the character is considered something of a joke by anyone who hasn't read the brilliant comic books. As a result, another attempt at adapting the property to film hasn't happened for almost twenty years. But finally Alex Garland, author of The Beach and screenwriter of 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Never Let Me Go, managed to get the funds together to make a low budget film, this one titled simply Dredd.

Dredd stars Karl Urban in the title role. The film follows a day in the life of a Judge of Mega-City One, as Dredd assesses the telepathic Judge candidate Anderson (Olivia Thirlby). They investigate a trio of homicides in the Peach Trees megablock (a city contained within a massive skyscraper that dwarfs the Empire State Building). In doing so, they get on the wrong side of Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), a drug lord determined to maintain her empire at any cost. Locking down the megablock, Dredd and Anderson have nowhere to go but up to find Ma-Ma in the penthouseand judge her.

Dredd develops a strong visual style, immediately distancing itself from the Stallone version. Dredd is dirty, grimy, and feels incredibly real. The film was shot in South Africa, with Cape Town and Johannesburg standing in for the east coast of the United States in a post-apocalyptic Mega-City. I was very impressed with the production design of Dredd. It feels like a place that could exist under the right circumstances, instead of the Blade Runner gone mad look that defined the 1995 film. Even more arresting are the "Slo-Mo" sequences. Slo-Mo is a drug that slows down time for the person high on it, and the filmmakers take great care to show these trips, turning gunfights into slow-motion ballets of death. Dredd takes this even further than films like Hard Boiled or The Matrix, using newly developed cameras that shoot at 3,000 frames per second, for an unparalleled sense of slow motion. The results are stunning.

Most pleasingly, the film is one of the most faithful comic book adaptations I've ever seen. True to the source material, we never see Judge Dredd's face. There is one shot where we see the back of his head at the beginning, but once he suits up, his helmet stays right on his head where it should be. Garland perfectly understands the world writer John Wagner created in the comic strip, and managed to bring that world intact to the silver screen. There is a sly sense of humor that runs through the picture, whether it be a homeless man with a sign that says "Homeless junkie: Will debase self for credits" or the way that automated machines clean up dead bodies after a food court massacre. There are wink and you'll miss 'em nods to the comic series, such as the appearance of Judges Volt and Guthrie, Judges Hershey's and Griffen's names on a computer terminal, Chopper's smiley face and "Kenny Who?" graffiti, and even a Judge Death figurine hanging in the van that Judge Dredd chases in the film's opening. The filmmakers are clearly fans of the comic, and it shows.

Karl Urban, perhaps the most underrated genre actor working today (having appeared in The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, The Chronicles of Riddick, Priest, and many others) anchors the movie as the titular Judge Dredd, and he knocks it out of the park. Perpetually wearing Dredd's trademark scowl on his face, Urban plays Dredd as the no-nonsense Judge that he is. He doesn't get happy or even particularly mad. He just enforces the law the best way he knows how: Through the barrel of a gun. Urban spares us the melodrama that Stallone stuck us with, and the result is a wholly accurate portrayal of an iconic character.

Olivia Thirlby anchors the audience as Judge Anderson. Anderson is psychic, and her powers come to play a major role in the film. Despite this, she's a neophyte and we experience the world through her eyes. Thirlby is very solid, providing us with the sole character arc in the film, as she goes from scared trainee to battle-hardened Judge. If your only experience with Lena Headey is from Game of Thrones, then you might not even recognize her here as the brutal and sadistic Ma-Ma. Warped and scarred, Headey is a potent villain who proves to be quite the match for Dredd.

The movie is as no-nonsense as its central character. There's no needless romance between Dredd and Anderson shoehorned in. We never learn anything about Dredd's childhood, what he does in his time off, or indeed what he feels at all. We only see him do his job. In other movies, the lack of such development might be a detriment, but here it works. The film is lean and mean and takes no prisoners. Sadly, it bombed even harder than the Stallone flick, despite far better critical response. 'Dredd' is primed to become a cult classic, a title that was unjustly ignored in theaters. If enough people buy it on home video, perhaps we can get a little more out of this version of Dredd's world. And let's hope we do, because Garland and company have this property down pat.

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray

Dredd comes with a dual-layered UHD66 Disc and a Region A locked Blu-ray Disc. There is an insert for a Digital HD copy as well. The discs are housed in a hard, black plastic case with a cardboard sleeve too.
On Saturday morning, Donald Trump used his social media following to single out "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd. In response, the well-respected TV journalist fired back.

Todd on Trump

It's no secret that President Donald Trump doesn't see eye to eye with the majority of the mainstream media. Ever since the early days of his campaign, Trump has clashed various reporters and journalists, going as far as labeling them "terrible" and the "most dishonest people" he's ever met. The feud between both sides has since escalated since Election Day, and has picked up steam in the weeks following Trump being sworn into office.

As the media has focused on the growing scandal involving the White House and Russia, the former host of "The Apprentice" has done his best to create a conspiracy theory of his own by accusing Barack Obama of wiretapping his office inside Trump Tower. During an early-morning tweet on Saturday, Trump attacked the media for not giving his allegations credibility, while targeting Chuck Todd in the process. Todd decided to response to the president on April 1 with a tweet of his own.

For those wondering, I slept well even tho I stayed up late watching the #msstate upset of UConn. #cowbell. Don't feel sleepy at all though  Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) April 1, 2017

As part of his Saturday tweet-storm Donald Trump gave Chuck Todd the nickname "sleepy eyes," while asking when he will "start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?" It didn't take long, but the host of MSNBC's "MTP Daily" took to his own Twitter account to fire back at the commander in chief.

When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017

"For those wondering, I slept well even tho I stayed up late watching the #msstate upset of UConn," Chuck Todd wrote on Twitter, while using the hashtag, "#cowbell." In conclusion, Todd added, "Don't feel sleepy at all though."

Chuck Todd fires back at Trump: "Dont feel sleepy at all" https://t.co/35jBEmTdVC pic.twitter.com/NSOVblnABD  The Hill (@thehill) April 1, 2017

Next up

The war of words between Donald Trump and the media has reached a fever pitch, with the White House going as far as banning many respected news outlets from a press briefing just last month. As Trump continues to take jabs at reporters and news outlets on social media, it doesn't appear like both sides will be able to patch up their differences at any point in the near future.
Donald Trump and his feud with the media is not a secret, and has been on full display since the day his campaign kicked off. After three months in office, it doesn't appear that the president is willing to back down from his war of words anytime soon.

Trump on "Face the Nation"

It all started during his campaign announcement for president when Donald Trump referred to illegal immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and "murderers." The majority of the mainstream media quickly reacted negatively, which planted the seed into what would grow into a full-blown feud between the press and the former host of "The Apprentice." Since being elected and sworn into office, the battle between Trump and the media has only increased, which appeared to reach a fever pitch when the White House blocked several well-respected news outlets from attending a press briefing.

It's become routine for Trump to push back against any report that doesn't promote and support his political agenda, calling it "fake news" in the process. Trump has even given nicknames to some, including the "failing New York Times," while mocking CNN and MSNBC for having lower ratings than the more conservative Fox News. These issues were addressed during an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation," which included Trump insulting the host right to his face.

Donald Trump sat down with CBS host John Dickerson this weekend for a one-on-one interview about his first 100 days in office. During the interview Trump was pressed about comments he recently made where he said he missed his old life, while admitting that his job as president is a lot harder than he thought.

Despite being quoted, Trump dismissed his own words and claimed that the media was to blame, which also included a personal swipe at Dickerson.

.@POTUS @realdonaldtrump on lessons learned in first 100 days: One thing I've learned is how dishonest the media is. pic.twitter.com/WsRJla5glK  Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) April 30, 2017

Trump trolls

"It's very funny when the fake media goes out, we call the mainstream media, sometimes, I must say, that is you," Donald Trump said to John Dickerson.

In response, Dickerson asked if the president's comments were meant as a personal attack. "I love your show," Trump initially said, before adding, "I call it 'Deface the Nation!' "You know, your show is sometimes not exactly correct," he continued. The billionaire real estate mogul moved forward, claiming that the country is better off now that he is in office, while ignoring the most recent polls that show his favorability rating at just 40 percent with the American people.
The story that is dominating the news cycle ever since the election of Donald Trump has been over what impact Russia had on the 2016 presidential election. With a new twist developing on a daily basis, the president is voicing his outrage on social media.

Trump on Twitter

The potential link between President Donald Trump and Russia has been rumored since the early days of the election, with speculation only increasing since the billionaire real estate mogul was sworn into office last January. The rumors started when Trump refused to release his tax returns, leading many to wonder what the former host of "The Apprentice" was possibly hiding in his financial history.

As the months moved on, former campaign manager Paul Manafort was forced to step down from his role after he was exposed for having financial ties back to the Kremlin. The issue just got worse for Trump after the election when it was revealed that Russia not only hacked the Democratic National Committee, but did so in his favor. The story has only taken more controversial twists and turns since then, prompting the White House to attempt to deflect onto other issues, including the baseless claim that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. As seen on Twitter on April 1, Trump is not happy with the media's coverage of the events.

When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017

Taking to his Twitter account early Saturday morning, Donald Trump expressed his anger that the media is not reporting the news in the way he would like.

"When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?" Trump tweeted out in an attack on the moderator of 'Meet the Press.'"

It is the same Fake News Media that said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017

In a follow-up message on Twitter, Donald Trump expanded his criticism from Chuck Todd to a more vague attack on the media in general.

"It is the same Fake News Media that said there is 'no path to victory for Trump' that is now pushing the phony Russia story," Trump wrote on Twitter, before adding, "A total scam!"

Next up

As expected, Donald Trump is not happy with the mainstream media. The feud between the president and the press has only gotten worse over the last few months, and if Trump's tweets are an example of how it will play out in the future, their relationship will not improve anytime soon.
Ever since the election of Donald Trump, there have been almost daily reports linking him and his administration to Russia. As the president continues to deny any wrongdoing, one of his former associates is still feeling the heat.

Flynn busted

Dating back to the early stages of the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was forced to push back against allegations that he had a relationship with Russia. However, with Trump refusing to release his tax returns, critics wondered what the former host of "The Apprentice" was hiding in his financial history.

As time went on, members of his campaign, and later administration, were found to have been contact with high-ranking Kremlin officials. One Trump associate that has come under fire has been retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign as National Security Adviser just weeks after starting the job when it was uncovered that he had spoke to a Russian officials only weeks after the election. As reported by the New York Times on April 1, Flynn has even more explaining to do.

Michael Flynn Failed to Disclose Income From Russia-Linked Entities https://t.co/kF0wXCzCe6  The New York Times (@nytimes) April 2, 2017

According to the New York Times on Saturday night, Michael Flynn failed to disclose payments he received from Russia to the United States government.

"The Russia-linked payments were detailed in a letter released in March by congressional investigators, and included a $45,000 speaking fee from RT," the New York Times explains. Flynn reportedly gave a speech in Moscow back in 2015, while also attending a Russian state dinner where he shared a table with President Vladimir Putin.

The information became public on Saturday when the Trump administration released two financial disclosure forms.

Looks like Flynn initially left Russia-related income off his financial disclosures. Nothing suspicious about that at all, right?  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) April 1, 2017

Hey Mike Flynn if you think Hillary's a bitch try Karma. #TrumpRussia #FreeMelania pic.twitter.com/WWW5I1hGfb  Bill Maher (@billmaher) April 1, 2017

Twitter back

As expected, the news about Michael Flynn didn't go over well with many social media uses.

"Looks like Flynn initially left Russia-related income off his financial disclosures," actor George Takei tweeted out, before adding, "Nothing suspicious about that at all, right?"

@nytimes Tax evasion? Treason. Colluding with a foreign power to harm our democracy? He set his price and Russia took it. Trump had to know.  Debie (@DebieNervina) April 2, 2017

@nytimes Flynn up to his eyeballs in Russian ties/pay/unreported income. How many federal laws & rules broken? Trump knew & hired him. Complicit.  Norman Dong (@EarthPlannr) April 2, 2017

"Hey Mike Flynn if you think Hillary's a bitch try Karma," Bill Maher wrote on Twitter. "Tax evasion? Treason. Colluding with a foreign power to harm our democracy?

He set his price and Russia took it. Trump had to know," another Twitter user wrote. "Flynn up to his eyeballs in Russian ties/pay/unreported income. How many federal laws & rules broken? Trump knew & hired him. Complicit." another tweet read.
In a diplomatic move to gain the support of the Philippines, President Trump invites Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial president of the Philippines to the White House. The two presidents had a phone call on Saturday, which was described as light and friendly.

The call happened just after the conclusion of the ASEAN summit retreat held in Manila between South East Asian nations. It can be assumed that trump desires political agreement with the ASEAN block in the midst of the Korean crisis and the growing influence of China in the region.

Duterte holds the Chairmanship of the ASEAN

Despite the notorious personality painted by the media, the polarizing president is held in high regards by fellow South East Asian countries. Having waged a continuing war on drugs that triggered killings due to police clashes and in-fighting between drug gangs, the president also commands the support of the majority of Philippine citizens.

Duterte came into the political limelight during the Obama administration, when he publicly foul-mouthed the former president. It is also during Obama's time that Duterte shifted his diplomatic priorities towards China. However, upon Trump's inauguration, the Philippine president have shown approval of the new and also controversial US president.

What will Trump gain for inviting Duterte to the White House?

The Philippines is historically a staunch ally of the United States. It is of the interest of the United States to continue amicable relationship with the country as it will provide a strategic diplomatic stance in South East Asia. As Asian countries start to pivot to China, especially with the growing distaste of ASEAN countries over Trump trade policies, it is important for the US to find a friend in Asia.

The US and the Philippines also have scheduled joint military exercises, which is one of the major advantage Trump has if he manages to lure in the support of Duterte away from China.

Duterte's controversy of extra-judicial killings

The Philippines is under heat as its President is being considered as a person who casually commits crimes against humanity.

The number of killings attributed to his regime has so painted him in the world stage as an uncontrollable killer. However, the Philippines is more politically divided and more of the issues dumped at Duterte are more of political in nature. The country's government is fragmented with rival politicians who casually malign each other publicly in the expense of driving the country into the bottom of the barrel of shame.
The number of temporary visas issued in the U.S. dropped 40 percent last month. The current revelations surround nationals in the seven nations restricted by travel ban imposed by Donald Trump. This data is in comparison to the number of the permits released in the month of March a year ago.Media resources discovered this information after Reuters conducted an investigation on the governments preliminary data last Thursday. The data exhibited that the total non-migrant visas that the U.S. issued to individuals from all nations increased by 5 percent last month compared to data analyzed in 2016 at the same time.

Latest developments

The State Department discharged the information in compliance with Trumps request to circulate month to month analyses on the quantity of visas the United States issues around the globe. The government division didnt release the information based on the wide variety of visas that the U.S. can issue. It remains undetermined whether the lowered percentage of permits distributed results from a significantly higher rate of application expulsions or other diverse components that no one mentioned yet.

The White House has yet to respond to the medias demand for their input. The Department noted that the information provided is preliminary and might be forced to succumb to some minor ramifications.

All things considered, most legal counselors claim that disclosed last week give and an in-depth look into how Trump's methodologies are impacting the decisions concerning visa applications.

Order highlights

Trump acknowledged that his travel bans were implemented to secure U.S. citizens from terror attacks. He placed his signature on the official demand January 27, 2017.

It prohibits foreign nationals from Somalia, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Iran from gaining entry into the U.S. for a minimum of 90 days.

Federal courts dismissed the order several weeks ago. They demanded that the trump administration have it modified. The provision came into effect March 16 with fewer restrictions and removed the nation of Iraq from the list.Regardless of how many visitor visas the U.S.

currently issued in these countries, two of them saw an increase in their number of U.S. traveling permits approved in their nation.

At least 41 Libyans obtained worker visas last month, compared to the 32 per month average analyzed from last year. The government of Somalia had 171 permits approved in contrast to only receiving 150 of them back in 2016.

Legal attorneys specialized in immigration law note that regardless of the way district courts cease actions on the travel bans until further notice, the Trump administration promises to implement stricter sanctions on immigration and more than likely change how departments in the U.S. asses visa candidates.

Stephen Pattison, a former consular for The State Department, stated that his coworkers are probably going to be more for rejecting applicants than they plan to.
Japan has deployed its largest warship, the helicopter carrier, Izumo to escort the US supply convoy heading to the korean peninsula. This is the first naval deployment of a Japanese warship in peacetime since the second world war.

PM Abe passed new legislation allowing naval deployment

After Prime minister, Abe has provided amendments called the security legislation in the Japanese constitution that allows its defense force to not only defend its own assets but also reply to assistance requested by its allies. This amendment came under criticism, as it has effectively broadened the scope of operations the Japanese military can perform overseas and erodes Japan's pacifist constitution.

China's reaction to Japan's growing military presence overseas is not well-accepted

Since the start of the Korean crisis, China wades sorely in an unwanted entanglement of diplomatic limitations. Though Beijing doesn't approve on the show of force by the US and its regional allies, it has to condone unwillingly to the unfolding events.

However, China continues to oppose the increasing US presence in the area and formally desires to return back to the status quo and begin diplomacy anew. North Korea is China's only regional ally and serves as a buffer country against the encroachment of US influence in the Korean peninsula.

Russia on the other hand openly supports China and wants the US to refrain from doing any preemptive strikes on North Korea as it may result in total war.

It is unsure whether Russia will support Pyongyang when conflict erupts, but Putin is sure to side with China in this diplomatic crisis.

Japan vows to help US carrier force until conclusion of joint drills in the Korean peninsula

The Helicopter carrier Izumo will escort an American vessel carrying needed supplies for US troops in the Korean peninsula.

Japan alone has an estimated 50,000 men stationed permanently in the country, added to that the troops in South Korea and the crew of the carrier flotilla sent to the area.

Trump has also started to have dialogues with ASEAN nations hoping to cement ties with these countries. As China continues to increase in influence in Asia, Trump sees fit to challenge this expansion by forming a collection of pro-US nations in South East Asia once more. The eyes of the world are focused now on Asia and how diplomatic tensions are tackled and hopefully solved.
President Donald Trump believes that Chinas president Xi Jinping, is creating pressure on North Korea as they are heading for their missile and nuclear weapon programs. In an interview on Sunday, April 30, Trump termed the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a smart cookie.

The interview

During the interview with CBS News, Trump stated that Kim gained power at a very young age of 26 or 27, after his father passed away. He also stated that being a leader at such a tender age, he had been dealing with really tough people. Despite facing so many obstacles, including from his uncle who tried to take the power away from him, Kim overcome them and has been ruling the country since.

However, this is not the first time that Trump has lauded Kims skills of being a young survivor and ruler. He added that he was not praising Kim, but only highlighting the fact that gaining so much power and being able to control it at such a young age was commendable. Therefore, the North Korean leader was a smart cookie.

Diplomatic relations hinted at?

Speculations are rife that President Trump is playing smart and attempting to locate common ground. With Trump suggesting that the leader is not unreasonable but was put in a tough scenario at a young age, suppositions of a diplomatic mode are rife. His remarks have fueled speculation that it may be a way of opening up a diplomatic channel between the US and North Korea.

Why the North Korean ballistic missile was banned

On Saturday, April 29, a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile failed initially after it was launched. The UN has banned the ballistic missile tests. Reason being, the mission was seen as an effort from the country to destroy the mainlands of the United States. President Trump has already sent a submarine, which is nuclear powered, to the Korean waters last week.

A huge live fire exercise was carried out at the eastern coast by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft. Both United States and South Korea have started installing a defense system. It is expected to become partly functional in the coming days.

What was the reaction of the residents?

Residents of Seongj village had a fight with the police on April 30.

Around 300 protestors had a huge face off with 800 police. They were also successful in stopping two oil trucks from the US army entering the place. Many residents were reported to have injured or have fainted due to the protest have been admitted to the hospital.
Last Thursday, Purdue University announced its plans to purchase Kaplan University. The educational institution will obtain the for-profit school system with only $1. Purdue intends to transform the university into a liberal, state funded college in Indiana that focuses on individuals who are considered nontraditional students. The school announced its unforeseen declaration to the public during a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Purdue's leading group of trustees affirmed the arrangement.

What the new development entails

In the filing, approximately 32,000 students currently enrolled at Kaplan will successfully transfer to the new college. No one knows what Purdue plans to name the new institution. That information remains anonymous to this day. The goal is to have Kaplan College operating the new establishment. The school plans to gain 12.5 percent of the anticipated colleges annual revenue over the course of three decades.

The U.S. Department Of Education intends to endorse the arrangement with Purdue after Obamas administration rejected similar methods a few years ago. The Trump administration indicated that it would bring back more government controls that allow colleges and universities to expand their businesses.

Purdue stated that its new college would conduct its operations online for the most part. It plans to open more than 15 on-campus locations nationwide, incorporating one of them in Indianapolis, IN.

Mitch Daniels is a former governor of Indiana and the current president of Purdue University. The political leader announced last week that the arrangement would enable the college to extend its services to working adults and veterans alike, who wish to pursue furthering their education.

Daniels also announced during a press conference with BuzzFeed that Purdue University plans to elect Kaplan president Betty Vandenbosch as chancellor of the new college.

In the meeting with BuzzFeed

Many organizations who are currently operating multiple colleges and universities are starting to engage in agreements involving revenue sharing.

BuzzFeed announced, however, that there have been several times where these arrangements from what critics describe as incognito, revenue driven schools that are diligently operating with less government oversight. Pundits believe such exchanges can likewise diminish effective business controls implemented by the Department of Education.

They say that the situations will debilitate government financing for schools and cause students to graduate with excessive amounts of debt imbalanced by entry-level income.
A group of adults was enjoying a birthday party by the swimming pool in a La Jolla, San Diego Apartment Complex on Sunday. A man opened fire, killing one woman and wounding seven people, some of whom are critically injured. Police shot the suspect in the shooting incident dead.

Several 911 calls received by San Diego Police

As reported by the LA Times, the San Diego Police received a number of calls shortly after 6 p.m. relating to the shooting at the apartment complex in the University City area. According to San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman, officers then rushed to the building.

According to Zimmerman, a police helicopter arrived on the scene first with authorities able to see the shooter standing near the pool, apparently reloading his weapon. The shooter was a white man, dressed in brown shorts and according to witnesses was shooting at the around 30 people standing around the pool. Most of the party attendees were African American.

Police investigating motive for San Diego shooting that left 1 dead, 7 injured https://t.co/1SrX5rE02i pic.twitter.com/Ew3IkIH9AK  ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) May 1, 2017

Police shoot the shooter

When three police officers arrived on the scene, they headed to the pool area where the gunman pointed a large caliber handgun at them. All three police officers opened fire, killing the man, who has been identified as Peter Selis, 49.

The motive for the shooting is still unclear and officials are still interviewing witnesses at the swimming pool, including the three responding officers. According to Zimmerman the shooter and at least one of the partygoers were residents at the apartment complex.

1 Dead, 7 Injured in a Shooting at La Jolla Crossroads: PD https://t.co/EVSAxIDDwY pic.twitter.com/IT7A8xowwF  San Diego Daily (@DailySanDiego) May 1, 2017

Eight people injured in the San Diego shooting incident

Seven adults were hit in the shooting incident, including two African American men, four African American women as well as one Latino man.

Another African American man broke his arm while trying to flee the area. All eight victims were taken to a local hospital. One unnamed African American woman died at the hospital. Police are so far unsure if Selis knew any of the victims.

Shooter stood with a beer in one hand and a gun in the other

One of the residents of the apartment complex told CBS News 8 that he was at home when he heard gunshots at round 6 p.m., followed by screaming and yelling.

The man ran to the buildings clubhouse, where he had a view of the swimming pool. He said the shooter seemed completely at ease, with a beer in one hand and a gun in the other. The resident, who only gave his first name, John, added that two victims were lying bloodied on the ground, with one attempting to crawl to the other to help them.

According to the LA Times, two other witnesses, Amberjot Riat, 22, were in the Jacuzzi at the apartment building when the shooting started. According to Riat, they decided to stay in the water, hoping to avoid catching the shooters attention. When they did finally climb out of the Jacuzzi, they could hear the shooter speaking to some young women, who were trying to help a wounded friend.

Selis reportedly told the women they could either leave or stay there and die.

A reunification center has been set up by the police close to Golden Haven and Judicial drives for any loved ones looking for information about friends or family. San Diego police are asking the public for any information they may have about the shooter.
Amidst constant threats of an impending missile strike coming from North Korea, the US navy continued its scheduled joint naval drills with four different countries in the Korean peninsula, reported The Associated Press. The aim of the drills is to check each navy's capability of intercepting ballistic missiles. The drills will be spearheaded by the USS Carl Vinson carrier group and the naval representatives of South Korea.

North Korea lashed out threats of blowing the US carrier out of the water

Even after North Korea constantly failed to effectively launch a missile into the Sea of Japan, Kim Jong-Un continues to threaten US forces in the area with missile strikes.

Recently, North Korea issued threats of destroying the nuclear submarine USS Michigan, which is currently docked in South Korea.

The US navy isn't taking any chances with Pyongyang and regards each rhetoric, no matter how improbable it may be, as serious threats to American safety. The US navy uses this pretext of continued North Korean belligerence to justify its naval maneuvers in the area. It is still not sure how long the USS Carl Vinson will stay in the Korean peninsula, but the scheduled drills are expected to conclude next week, reports Yonhap News agency

China does not condone US-South Korean joint drills as it will only worsen the situation

Beijing has openly criticized the joint naval drills between the US and South Korea as increasing the tension with North Korea.

However, china continues to provide exports to the belligerent state even after Trump urged Xi Jinping to increase pressure on North Korea and force it to diplomacy.

China, however, publicly stated that Beijing is fully supportive of North Korea's denuclearization; However, Beijing will not support a US show of force in the area.

This was also stated by President Xi Jinping during his phone call with Trump last week, urging the US president to remain calm and refrain from doing actions that may worsen the situation in North Korea.

Japan braces itself for feared missile attacks from Pyongyang

As they are part of the front lines, if a conflict does erupt in the Korean peninsula, Japan is trying its best to inform and prepare its citizens for preemptive missile strikes.

There are approximately 50,000 US personnel in Japan, making it one of the largest concentration of American forces abroad, effectively becoming part of Pyongyang's list of first-strike targets. At the moment, the Japanese navy is also part of the joint drills with the Uss Carl Vinson in the Korean peninsula. It has also committed to escort US supply ships from the Pacific headed for the troops now stationed in South Korea.
Donald Trump was the underdog in the last presidential election. He almost pulled a rabbit out of the hat when he defeated the favorite Hillary Clinton and became president of the USA. Trump's ascendancy to the presidency has not been smooth and many scandals have surfaced. Notably, allegations of collusion with the Russians are doing the rounds. There are also some people who are talking about dark secrets. The bookies are betting that Donald will not complete his term as the US President. The only way this can happen is in case he is Impeached. This may look improbable to many people but the very fact that the bookies are betting on Donald completing his term is a pointer.

It is worth noting that no such betting took place when Obama became the President of the US.

Donald is on risky ground. One man who had forecast the victory of Donald Trump, Professor Allan Lichtman has given another forecast. One will recollect that the professor forecast a Donald victory which went against the grain of the opinion polls and knowledgeable political analysts. The same man has now forecast that Donald will not complete his term and he will be removed, maybe because of financial irregularities. The odds against Donald completing his term first term are high and this is disturbing news

Risky ground

Donald Trump is the 45th president of the USA. To date, only two presidents have been impeached.

The last was Richard Nixon four decades back. This shows the strength of the American political system which can even remove the topmost executive of the government. Donald is on risky ground and one can't be sure what will happen in the future

Congressional investigation

There is a Congressional investigation against Trump over the Russian connection.

There are also allegations of financial impropriety. Perhaps there is more than a grain of truth that the Russians tried to swing the election in favor of Donald Trump. That could be one reason he is being hard on them, obviously with an intent to cover his tracks and show that he is not a Russian stooge.

Last word

Bill Clinton came close to being impeached on Grounds of sexual misconduct but he got out of it.

This shows that in the USA the president has to maintain the highest standards of ethics, morality and conduct. this is not so in many nations and for that reason, I would say America is a true democracy. Donald Trump may or may not be impeached but the bookies are betting on him and that is a disturbing sign
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes has come under fire over the last week ever since he appeared to break protocol and released information about the committee's investigation into Russia with Donald Trump. Backlash quickly followed, including from actor George Takei who is potentially looking to take his opposition to the next level.

Takei's challenge

Ever since Donald Trump announced his campaign for president back in June 2015, the overwhelming majority of Hollywood stars have voiced their opposition. Whether it's his controversial rhetoric, questionable policy proposals, or late-night Twitter rants, the mostly left-leaning celebrities have used their popularity to push back against the former host of "The Apprentice." While there have been many that have spoken out against the new president, actor George Takei has been among the most vocal, using his more than two million Twitter followers to hit back against the administration on a daily basis.

Following the aforementioned incident with Devin Nunes, Takei confirmed a report from the Daily Buzz on April 1 that he intends to run against the House Intel Chair for his congressional seat in 2018.

Well, the cat's out of the bag it seems. Let's do this! #Takei2018 https://t.co/Wf7qvV1eXj  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) April 1, 2017

"Well, the cat's out of the bag it seems. Let's do this!" George Takei wrote on Twitter early Saturday morning, while using the hashtag "#Takei2018." The tweet was also accompanied by an article from the The Daily Buzz who scored an exclusive interview with the former Star Trek actor. "Well, I guess the jig is up," Takei told the website, before explaining, "With what is going on now in the country, I couldnt stand by any longer merely as a citizen." "I knew I had to take a bigger stand.

So thats why Im running for Congress," he continued, while noting, "My hope is to challenge Devin Nunes for his seat in 2018."

April Fool's?

Speculation quickly followed about George Takei's potential senate run with many wondering if it was an April Fool's joke. However, the Daily Kos picked up on the story and reported it's legitimacy.

Describing Devin Nunes as the "disgraced head of the House Intelligence Committee," the website noted that Takei will be running in 2018, unless the actor reveals that it's all a prank over the next 24 hours.
During the last several months of the Obama administration, the Russians increased their assault on the Syrian city of Aleppo which was held by rebels who were fighting against the Assad regime. During that time, the Syria stopped making the kind of headlines it previously had, with the media focusing on the incoming Trump administration and what it could mean to the conflict. It was then that the Russian military would finally help Syria's President Bashar al-Assad take Aleppo back with the assistance of Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon who enjoy the financial backing of Iran.

Syria once again became the center of focus when Assad attacked his own people on April 4, with chemical weapons over which the U.S. military responded with 59 tomahawk cruise missiles. From the beginning of the conflict, the U.S. and its allies have all held the view that Assad should not longer stay in power and recent events have started that conversation again. Blasting News provided some analysis about the future of Syria as viewed by pundits and government officials. In the discussion, other "actors" involved in the fight are referred to as either fighting for or against Assad and how when one falters, there will always be some support available. Currently, it appears that Hezbollah is going through some changes in helping Assad win his war.

Hezbollah fighters hand off to Lebanese army

Currently, Hezbollah fighters are trying to push off a rebel offensive in Hama province but in the meantime, UPI reported last week that many of these fighters might be freed up to fight for Assad as they are releasing military bunkers along the Lebanese-Syrian border to the Lebanese Army.

Other reports say that both Hezbollah, the Lebanese Army, and the Syrian Army have taken control of their border to target militants. Reasons as to why Assad used these forces is apparently due to the Syrian troop's mass defections, losses and that no one seems to be willing to enlist. For these shortcomings, it's believed this is the reason why Assad used the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun where an al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham are said to be located.

It's important to point out that this group, like ISIS, are Sunni which identifies more with the Muslim beliefs of Saudi Arabia as opposed to Iran's Shiite base. Saudi Arabia is also arming rebel groups in Syria against Assad and as Blasting News recently reported, a Russian delegation was apparently discussing the possible ouster of Assad.

Hezbollah re-adjusting priorities?

Hezbollah has prioritized targeting Israel as their main enemy. Since 2013, they had devoted 8,000 of their fighters and have lost 2,000 in the Syrian Civil War. Their reason for protecting Assad is over Syria's support of the Lebanese cause, who Israel also sees as an enemy. But the militant group and political party have taken damage on the political front with public support for Assad waning, which could lead up the reasons for as to why they seem to gradually be pulling away.

But they still have to contend with extremists along the border and prevent them from coming into Lebanon from Syria. The Lebanese Army has reportedly bombarded militants, creating a firing line to keep them from coming in.

According to one report by NPR, Hezbollah is grandstanding in public to remind the people there that they are prioritizing their focus on Israel. At a checkpoint, UN officials positioned themselves in the area to keep the peace between Israel and Lebanon. Israel fears that Hezbollah could fire missiles at them at some point in the future and have been digging in to monitor the situation. At this time, Israel doesn't feel that there's going to be a confrontation, yet.


KATHMANDU  Famous Swiss climber Ueli Steck, popularly known as the Swiss Machine for his rapid climbs, died on Sunday after falling to the foot of Mount Nuptse, Nepalese officials and expedition organizing company said.

It is the first death this spring in the region of Qomolangma  known as Everest in the West  according to Nepal's Department of Tourism, which issues permits for mountain climbing.

Steck, 40, was heading toward camp 2 from camp 1 of Qomolangma. The camp also serves as a base for climbing the 7,855-meter Nuptse, where he fell 1,000 meters to the foot of the mountain, according to Khem Raj Aryal of the department's mountaineering division.

Steck's body was taken to Lukla airport and then to Kathmandu by helicopter.

"His body now is being kept at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu for the postmortem," said Nivesh Karki, manager of Seven Summits Treks, which organized Steck's expedition.

Steck had received a permit to climb Nuptse on April 13 and had headed to the mountain on the same day. He had gone there with 14 others on his expedition team. There were two Swiss climbers including Steck and Nepalese Sherpa guides, according to the Seven Summits Treks.

Steck had won multiple awards for his speedy ascents. The climber had reached the summit of Qomolangma in 2012 without oxygen and in 2015 climbed all 82 Alpine peaks over 4,000 meters in 62 days.

The climber, who vowed never to return to Qomolangma after a fight with local Sherpa guides in 2012, was back in Nepal in 2013 to scale the 8,091-meter Mt Annapurna.

XINHUA
Congress has given a one-week extension to the federal EB-5 visa program that is popular with Chinese investors and gives green cards in exchange for investments in American businesses that create jobs.

The extension until May 5 was part of a spending measure  called a continuing resolution  approved by Congress on April 28 to avoid a shutdown of the federal government.

EB-5 targets foreign investors who put at least $500,000 in a project that creates a minimum of 10 jobs in an economically-depressed region.

In return, investors receive a two-year visa with a good chance of obtaining permanent residency for them and their families. About 10,000 EB-5 visas are awarded each year and previous estimates indicate that Chinese account for about 85 percent of recipients.

"Congress did this to give itself more time to try to resolve some big-ticket items like additional funding for the military and healthcare reform," Stephen Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell University wrote in an email. "The additional week also gives members of Congress time to try to finalize an EB-5 reform package."

Some members of Congress say that weak government oversight has resulted in a program that is rife with fraud and abuse, and that it favors projects in affluent urban areas over ones in rural communities. They want to either end the program that was set up in 1990 or reform it.

The White House issued a statement to The Washington Post last week saying that the Trump administration is weighing changes to the program.

"There are serious concerns held by the administration regarding the EB-5 visa program, in part because it is not being used as it was primarily intended," said Michael Short, a White House spokesman. "The administration is continuing to evaluate reforms to the program, which we believe is in need of substantial repair."

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the US Department of Homeland Security, administers EB-5. It estimates that since 2012 at least $8.7 billion has been invested in the US economy and 35,150 jobs created through the EB-5 program.

Homeland Security has proposed increasing the minimum investment from $500,00 to $1.35 million in a "targeted employment area," one with high unemployment or a rural area.

The proposal suggests raising the minimum investment to $1.8 million for developments in low- to average-unemployment areas, up from the current $1 million.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com
Whether you are planning a honeymoon, anniversary vacation or a long weekend getaway, Paris is one of the worlds most romantic places to visit. You will get to choose from many great museums, historic attractions, charming cafes and beautiful parks to explore on your trip. See famous paintings at the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay or the Musee de l'Orangerie, and visit the Eiffel Tower. Here are the best things to do in Paris, France.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France  Courtesy of wjarek - Fotolia.com

Reflecting on the waters of the Seine across from the Tuileries Gardens, the Musee d'Orsay occupies the former Orsay railway station built for the famous 1900 World Exhibition. The magnificent Art nouveau building, a work of art in and of itself, is the home of the national art collection of France. It displays the work of some of the most important masters from the art nouveau, impressionist and post-impressionist movements from the 1840s to approximately 1914. Stroll through the rich, subtly lit galleries and see the masterpieces such as Manets beautiful On The Beach, Monets famous Gardens at Giverny, Cezannes lovely Card Players, Renoirs magnificent Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, several paintings of ballerinas by Degas, and so much more. Musee d Orsay, 62, rue de Lille, Paris, France, Phone: +33 (0)1 40 49 48 14

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2. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France  Courtesy of siraanamwong - Fotolia.com

Nothing can prepare you for the magic of the Eiffel Tower. Wherever in Paris you are sure to catch the glimpse of Gustave Eiffels 324-meter tower built for the 1889 World Exposition, and it will take your breath away. Admiring the tower from the green field that surrounds it is a truly spectacular experience. You can climb to its first and second floors to get a magnificent view of Paris and spot some of the famous landmarks during the day, or you can see it lit up at night in all its glory. Take a lift to the transparent floor at the top and get a birds-eye view of Paris from the open or closed gallery. Take a glass of champagne from a little bar high up in the sky or have a gourmet lunch or dinner in one of the two upscale restaurants with the city spread out at your feet. Visit one of the several galleries to learn more about the construction of the tower, its history, the lore, and the buildings around it. The Eiffel Tower is one of the best romantic things to do in Paris. 5, avenue Anatole France  Champ de Mars, Paris, France, Phone: +33 892 70 12 39

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3. Musee du Louvre, Paris, France  Courtesy of orpheus26 - Fotolia.com

Visiting the Louvre is on everyones bucket list; it is an experience that stays with you the rest of your life. Built in 1190 as a fortress, the magnificent Baroque palace was renovated in the 16th century and converted into a royal palace. Today, it hosts hundreds of thousands of pieces of art by the most important artists of all times, and it is one of the largest museums in the world. At any given time, there are 35,000 works of art on display. The museum is divided into eight distinct departments, and they have everything from Near Eastern and Egyptian antiquities to paintings, prints and drawings. To help you navigate the enormous museum, download an app for your smart phone or take one of the guided tours to get more in-depth information about the museum's artworks. The popular Masterpieces Tour will take you to see the most important works and locations in the Louvre, including the Mona Lisa, the Apollo Sauroctonus, and the Venus de Milo. Musee du Louvre, Paris, France, Phone: +33 (0)1 40 20 53 17



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4. Montmartre, Paris, France  Courtesy of richie0703 - Fotolia.com



Montmartre is a hill and a historic district in the 18th Arrondissement in Paris on the right bank, or Rive Droite, of the River Seine. Montmartre is known for its fabulous views of the city from the top of the hill and also for its famous Basilica of the Sacre Coeur. The other older church in the district is called Saint Pierre de Montmartre. This district became famous during the Belle Epoque era at the beginning of the 20th century because it was the place where many painters established their studios. These artists included Dali, Modigliani, Mondrian, Monet, Picasso, Pissarro, van Gogh, and many others. Montmartre is also the home of the world famous Moulin Rouge.

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5. Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, France  Courtesy of Aliaksandr Kazlou - Fotolia.com



Located in the Sixth Arrondissement of Paris, the Luxembourg Gardens are a well-known and popular garden between the Latin Quarter and Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Inspired by the Boboli Gardens in Florence, the 25-acre Luxembourg Gardens were created in 1612 by Marie de Medici, the widow of King Henry IV of France, as a part of her new residence, the Luxembourg Palace. Today, the French Senate makes use of the palace, and visitors enjoy going to the park because of its flowerbeds, tree-lined promenades, the beautiful 1620 Medici Fountain, and much more. It is divided into an English Garden and French Garden with a forest and large pond between the two areas. Sixth Arrondissement of Paris, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 42 34 23 62

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6. River Seine, Paris, France  Courtesy of Beboy - Fotolia.com



The River Seine is one of the most famous rivers in the world. It flows from northwest France near Dijon through Paris on its 482-mile (776 km) route to the English Channel; it is a very important commercial waterway. Within Paris, there are 37 bridges that cross the Seine, and the Pont Alexandre III is one of these. Built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, it is one of Paris most iconic bridges with its high pylons topped with gilt bronze statues of winged horses. One of the most popular activities for visitors to do in Paris is to take a river cruise that will allow them to see important historical sights like the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Louvre.

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7. Le Marais, Paris, France  Courtesy of Frank Boston - Fotolia.com

Le Marais is an area of Paris on the right bank, or Rive Droite, of the River Seine near the Cathedral of Notre Dame and the Ile de la Cite. For many years, it has been the historic and aristocratic district of Paris, and so there are many spectacular and significant structures in Le Marais. Le Marais means marshland in French; the area was drained in the 12th century and has been inhabited ever since. Because of its long history and important buildings, it is one of the most popular areas to visit in Paris. But theres more to Le Marais than just buildings; it is a trendy area with many clubs, restaurants, shops, and more.



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8. Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France  Courtesy of davis - Fotolia.com

Located on Place Charles de Gaulle on the right bank of the River Seine, the Arc de Triomphe is one of Paris most iconic monuments. Designed in 1806, the monument was not completed until nearly 30 years later. Inspired by the Roman Arch of Titus, it stands at the western end of the famous Champs-Elysees and honors those who fought and died for France during several wars. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I lies under the monuments vault, and a Memorial Flame burns here. Many bas-reliefs by famous artists decorate the monument, and the most famous is La Marseillaise sculpted by Francois Rude. Place Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 55 37 73 77



9. Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris, France  Courtesy of wjarek - Fotolia.com

Saint-Germain-des-Pres is a well-known area in the Sixth Arrondissement of Paris on the left back, or Rive Gauche, of the River Seine. It began as a small village centered around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, which was consecrated in 558 AD. It is home to numerous famous cafes including the Cafe de Flore and Les Deus Magots. It is also the area typically associated with post-World War II actors, intellectuals, musicians, philosophers, and writers like Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Francois Truffaut, and especially the existentialist movement of the 20th century.

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10. Things to Do in Paris, France: Ile de la Cite  Courtesy of tilialucida - Fotolia.com

Located in the River Seine, the Ile de la Cite is considered by many to be the center and the heart of Paris. It is one of two natural islands in the river, the second being the Ile Saint-Louis. The island has a long history: Roman ruins are located on the island and it remained an important defensive place during the Middle Ages. A palace has been in place on the western end of the island since Merovingian times during the 5th century, and the eastern end of the island has been the location of a place of worship for an equal amount of time. The popular island is the home of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Sainte-Chapelle, and more.



11. Things to Do in Paris, France: Musee Rodin  Courtesy of jundream - Fotolia.com

The Musee Rodin, located on Rue de Varenne, is dedicated to the works of the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Opened in 1919, the museum is divided into two locations: the Hotel Biron and its gardens in Paris and Rodins former home, the Villa des Brillants in Meudon, located just outside of the city. In addition to more than 6,000 sculptures, the collection includes 8,000 drawings, 7,000 art objects, and 8,000 photographs. Many of Rodins most well known sculptures can be seen at the Musee Rodin; these include The Gates of Hell, The Kiss, and The Thinker. The gardens around the museum are naturally landscaped and the sculptures are beautifully displayed here. 79 Rue de Varenne, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 44 18 61 10

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12. Things to Do in Paris, France: Musee de l'Orangerie  Musee de l'Orangerie

Located in the old Orangerie of the Tuileries Palace in the Jardin Tuileries, or Tuileries Gardens, next to the Place de la Concorde, the Musee de l'Orangerie is a famous art museum known for its collection of impressionistic and post-impressionistic works of art. The Orangerie was built in 1852 to house the orange trees of the Jardin Tuileries. The museums most famous painting is Monets set of eight murals called Nympheas or Water Lilies, which he painted in his garden at Giverny. These murals were installed in the museum in 1927. There are other works of art by famous painters such as Cezanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Picasso, Renoir, Rousseau, Sisley, and many more. Jardin Tuileries, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 44 50 43 00



13. Things to Do in Paris, France: Paris Perfect  Courtesy of WolfiGuil - Fotolia.com

Paris Perfect is a travel design company dedicated to introducing to their clients the secret of fine Parisian living. Their team of experts offers their clients a database of carefully selected, hand-picked Paris vacation apartment rentals to choose from. But, their effort of making a trip to Paris just perfect does not stop there. They also organize a range of tours in order to let you make the most of the Paris experience. The tours cover art, history, culture, and much more. There is something for everyone: Gourmet experiences tours and cooking classes for food enthusiasts, walking tours that explore famous and less-known alleys and secret corners of Paris, romantic tours in the most romantic city in the world, Seine River cruises under magical Parisian bridges, and much more. No need to wait in line or spend hours going through your guidebook, just let the Paris Perfect experts share with you their knowledge of and love for this beautiful city. Phone: 888-520-2087



14. Things to Do in Paris, France: Theatre in Paris  Courtesy of corradobarattaphotos - Fotolia.com

Theatre In Paris breaks down foreign language barriers for international Parisian theater tourists, offering no-hassle booking for musicals, comedies, classics, and operas presented in English at the city's top playhouses. The unique concept company was founded in 2014 and has served tourists from more than 60 English-speaking countries around the world. It provides information for all current productions presented in English, with an English-speaking service team available to assist patrons every step of the way, from ticket booking to the evening of the show. Select shows presented in French also offer easy-to-read English subtitles secured by the company. An English-speaking customer service hotline is available on weekdays. Phone: +33 1 85 08 66 89



15. Things to Do in Paris, France: Une Glace a Paris  Une Glace a Paris



Une Glace a Paris is the vision of World Pastry Champion Emmanuel Ryon and business partner Olivier Menard, crafting high-quality ice cream and ice cream-based pastries at their Le Marais shop since 2015. The ice cream parlor is known for its handmade ice cream flavors, which are prepared with top-quality milk, cream, eggs, and internationally-sourced flavor ingredients. Specialty ice cream flavors served up throughout the year include caramel croquant parisien, Cafe d'Ethiopie, creme glacee chataigne, paired with traditional favorites such as Tanzanian chocolate and Madagascar vanilla. Delectable sorbet flavors are also offered, including fromage blanc, framboise, orange carrot ginger, and pamplemousse. 15 Rue Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie, 75004 Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 49 96 98 33

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16. Things to Do in Paris, France: Don Juan II  Courtesy of nikolayshubin - Fotolia.comanon



There is no wrong way to explore Paris, but a quiet evening on board the elegant Don Juan II as it floats down the River Seine is certainly unique. The Don Juan II was designed to combine opulence with the elegance of an authentic yacht. Its new decor in an art deco style, designed in collaboration with renowned Pierre Frey, brings to life the golden age of luxury transatlantic ocean liners. The cruise includes a gourmet dinner prepared by Chef Guy Krenzer, who unveils unique flavors with a touch of extravagance in an inspired unique cuisine that reinterprets the Palace spirit. As you enjoy your superb meal and great wines, you will be taken past some of the most iconic Paris structures and attractions, creating a truly unique experience. Port Henri IV, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 44 54 14 71



17. Things to Do in Paris, France: Wine Tasting In Paris  Courtesy of kichigin19 - Fotolia.com



Learning about French wine will take you a long way towards understanding French people and their culture. Wine pays an important role in the way the French enjoy their meals, socialize, and relax. Wine Tasting in Paris offers a two and a half hour-long crash course of French wine appreciation. Their tasting room is located in a tiny old house on a narrow cobblestoned street in the heart of the Latin Quarter. An experienced oenologist will greet you and then take you on a virtual tour of the most important wine regions in France, from Burgundy to Champagne and from Cote du Rhone to Bordeaux. You will learn how to select the right wine in a restaurant, how to appreciate a high quality wine, how wines are made, the major differences between wines, and so much more. Order a plate of cheese of charcuterie to complete your culinary French experience. 14 rue des Boulangers, Paris, France, Phone: +33(0) 676 933 288

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18. Things to Do in Paris, France: Jardin des Tuileries  Courtesy of chrisdorney - Fotolia.com



The Jardin des Tuileries, or the Tuileries Garden, is a public garden on Rue de Rivoli between the Place de la Concorde and the Louvre Museum in the First Arrondissement of Paris. It was created by Catherine de Medici in 1564 as the garden for her Tuileries Palace. Later, in 1667, it was opened to the public, and it became a public park after the French Revolution. For several hundred years, especially during the 19th and 20th century, it was a popular place for Parisians to meet, relax, and walk. Features of the garden include numerous sculptures, two ponds, the Musee de lOrangerie, labyrinths, and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.



19. Things to Do in Paris, France: Cook'n With Class  Cook'n With Class



A big part of visiting Paris is eating your way through the colorful markets, charming bakeries, and adorable sidewalk bistros. The French know how to enjoy food, and they certainly know how to cook. So why not take the opportunity to learn to cook some of the delicious goodies you have been enjoying in Paris and recreate the experience when you get back home? Cookn With Class offers a range of classes that cover topics from making baguettes and croissants to baking macarons or cakes. You can also opt to learn more about cheeses and pairing cheese with wine, or you can discover the best shopping practices for finding the right ingredients before turning them into a delicious 4-course meal. The school, run by Chef Eric Fraudeau, is state of the art, but it is located in a typical charming Parisian space in colorful, artistic Montmartre. 6 rue Baudelique, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 42 57 22 84

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20. Sight Seeker's Delight Unique Walking Tours  Courtesy of william87 - Fotolia.com



There is so much to see in Paris and never enough time to see it all. The best way to take in as much as possible is by walking through narrow cobblestone streets, the various parks and cemeteries, and the many quarters. And if you take one of the Sight Seeker's Delight Unique Walking Tours, you will not only visit some of the most important spots in Paris, but you will also learn about the attractions history and anecdotes, walk through secret passages, and discover much about this fascinating old city. All tours are walking and take from two and half to four hours. There is also a limo tour if you have very little time and just want to see everything in one sweep. Choose to stroll along the Seine, visit Montmartre or the Jewish quarter Marais, take a night attraction tour, visit the famous Pere Lachaise Cemetery, or indulge in a food tour. The guides are knowledgeable and speak excellent English, so ask away.



21. Things to Do in Paris, France: Pictours Paris  Pictours Paris



Pictours Parisoffers visitors to Paris much better souvenirs of the City of Light than what you would get from your selfies. Professional photographer Lindsey Kent and her husband Justin, originally from Colorado, offer to take you to the most romantic spots in Paris and take beautiful, memorable photos of you and your travel companions. It is a great opportunity to have life-long memories of your trip preserved in photographs, whether you are there on your honeymoon, just got engaged, or are travelling alone and would like to have high quality photo to send to your friends at home. The Kents also offer a combination of a photo session and gourmet picnic, as Justin is a professional, Paris-trained chef. 5 rue Joseph Granier, Paris, France, Phone: +33 6 42 47 42 48



22. Things to Do in Paris, France: La Fromagerie Beaufils  La Fromagerie Beaufils



La Fromagerie Beaufils is a gourmet Parisian cheese shop along the Rue de Belleville, selling one of the city's best selections of fine French cheeses, including goat, sheep, and cow cheese varieties that are matured within the shop's own cellars. Foreign cheeses are also sold, including Dutch, Swiss, Greek, Spanish, Italian, British, and American varieties. Visitors can choose from high-quality cheeses like Stilton, Montgomery's Cheddar, Camembert, and Oregon Rogue River Blue cheese, paired with upmarket butters and yogurts from around the world. A selection of wine, beer, and grocery items is also sold, along with cheese accompaniments such as chutney, marmalade, and crackers. 118 Rue de Belleville, 75020 Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 46 36 61 71

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23. Things to Do in Paris, France: Paname Brewing Company  Paname Brewing Company Paname Brewing Company is a hip craft brewing company opened in 2015 along the banks of Paris' splendid Bassin de la Villette, open to the public seven days a week. The company strives to craft approachable artisanal brews for beer novices and connoisseurs alike, offering indoor brewery, glass veranda, and outdoor terrace seating on a gorgeous floating patio. Excellent brews offered throughout the year include the company's Le Barge du Canal Blonde Ale, L'Oeil de Biche Pale Ale, Un Singe en Hiver pre-Prohibition-style lager, Casque d'Or Saison, and Bete Noir Black IPA. A full slate of seasonal and experimental brews are also released throughout the year, highlighting fruit flavors and imperial styles. Guests can enjoy delicious street food at the brewery's restaurant, including artisanal pizzas and shareable charcuterie platters. 41 bis Quai de la Loire, 75019 Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 40 36 43 55



24. Things to Do in Paris, France: Calife Dinner & Cruise  Courtesy of richie0703 - Fotolia.com Why not end your day of exploring Paris with a more relaxed but no less exciting tour: let Calife Dinner and Cruise show you the city from the deck of the renovated super luxurious steam boat Kromhout built in 1939. As you slowly float under the famous Paris bridges and admire the historic buildings that are hundreds of years old, you will enjoy the opulent decor and indulge in Chef Dadis famous cocktails and cuisine. Choose between classic French dishes or exotic dishes from all over the world. If you think Paris is magical during the day, you will be mesmerized by its charm as the lamps light up the banks of the City of Light. +33 1 43 54 50 04



25. Things to Do in Paris, France: Avenue des Champs-Elysees  Courtesy of yakub88 - Fotolia.com The Avenue de Champs-Elysees is one of the most famous and one of the most beautiful avenues in the world. It is located in the Eighth Arrondissement of Paris and runs for 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from the Obelisk of Luxor at Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe at the Place Charles de Gaulle. The avenue is known for its cafes, restaurants, theaters, and upscale boutiques and shops, and for the military parade held each year on July 14 to celebrate Bastille Day. Champs is French for fields and Elysees refers to the paradise for dead heroes in Greek mythology. The avenue was also the scene of victory parades to celebrate the end of World War II.



25 Best Things to Do in Paris, France

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Places to Visit in Paris: Musee Marmottan Monet

The Musee Marmottan Monet, located on Rue Louis Boilly in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris, is famous for its extensive collection of works of art by Monet as well as works of art by other impressionistic and post-impressionistic painters. The museum was originally a hunting lodge owned by the Duke of Valmy that was located at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne.

Purchased by Jules Marmottan, it eventually became an art museum thanks to art donations from the Marmottan family and other benefactors. The museum contains over three hundred works of art and the worlds largest collection of works by Monet. Other artists represented include Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Pissarro, Renoir, and more.

2 Rue Louis Boilly, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 44 96 50 33

Musee Jacquemart-Andre

Located on Boulevard Haussmann, the Musee Jacquemart-Andre displays art collected by Edouard Andre and his wife Nelie Jadquemart in their home. The mansion was built between 1869, and 1875 and the building and the works of art were donated to the Institut de France as a museum that was opened to the public in 1913.

The museum is divided into several areas, including the State Apartments, which exhibit works by French painters, and the Informal Apartments, which display smaller refined works and decorative art. The most important area is the Italian Museum with sculptures by Donatello and Della Robbia, and paintings by Bellini, Botticelli, and Ucellos St. George and the Dragon.

158 Boulevard Haussmann, Paris, France, Phone: +33 1 45 62 11 59

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Place des Vosges

Located in the Marais district of Paris between the Third and Fourth Arrondissements, the Place des Vosges is one of the oldest and most beautiful squares in the city. Built by King Henri IV between 1605 and 1612, it was originally known as the Place Royale.

What made it unusual at the time of its construction was the fact that all of the fronts of the houses surrounding the Place were of the same design, and many cities employed this concept throughout the following centuries. Today, visitors walk around the central garden and enjoy the red brick facades, the shops, and the historic houses that have been made into museums.

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Visitors to Southern Florida will delight in the exploration of its beachfront parks, its museums, and its beautiful botanic gardens. Families can swim with dolphins at the Miami Seaquarium or go snorkeling at the first undersea park in the US as they explore John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Southern Florida's museums offer a world of information about art, science, nature, and the fascinating history of the region. From Miami to Key Largo, Southern Florida is the perfect destination for a sunny respite from the cold, with attractions that suit visitors of all ages and interests.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Naples Botanical Gardens  Courtesy of Edelweiss086 - Fotolia.com

The Naples Botanical Gardens aim to present and conserve a space for its visitors to experience plants native to the tropics. It consists of 170 acres of beautifully cultivated land and contains within its grounds over one thousand distinct species of plants. The gardens are separated into seven sections, each of which represents a particular ecosystem. Tours of the Naples Botanical Gardens are offered year round at 11am, and from February until November, a second tour is also offered daily at 2pm. The space is fully accessible for guests in wheelchairs, and it is recommended that guests wear appropriate clothing for the weather and also bring a bottle of water with them. 4820 Bayshore Drive, Naples, FL 34112, Phone: 239-643-7275

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2. Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park  Courtesy of lucky_photo - Fotolia.com

At Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, visitors can swim, play, and go boating on the Atlantic. The beach at Bill Baggs is rated one of the top ten beaches in America, and with over a mile of picturesque, sandy beachfront, it's not difficult to see why. The Lighthouse at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park is the oldest of its kind in the region. Built in 1825, it provides a stately and distinctive sight for visitors, set against the gorgeous backdrop of the park and beach. Guided tours of the lighthouse and the connected cottage for the lighthouse keeper are offered two times a day. 1200 South Crandon Boulevard, Key Biscayne, FL 33149, Phone: 305-361-5811

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3. South Florida Attractions: Naples Museum of Art  Naples Museum of Art

The Baker Museum, part of the Artis--Naples center for the performing and visual arts, is located in a gorgeous, 30,000 ft. space with a glass-dome conservatory. Inside the Baker Museum, guests will find 15 galleries that host travelling exhibitions as well as permanent collections. With an emphasis on modern art and contemporary art, the Baker Museum is one of the most prevalent fine arts museums in the region, with pieces by artists such as Albert Paley and Dale Chihuly. Free tours of the museum are offered to the public on certain days. Next read: Things to Do in Naples 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd, Naples, FL 34108, Phone: 239-597-1111



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4. Southern Florida: Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium  Courtesy of rose1967 - Fotolia.com



The Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium is a park, museum, planetarium, and so much more. Located on 105 acres in Fort Meyers, the Calusa Nature Center offers various exciting activities and exhibits for its visitors to learn about the natural history of Southern Florida. Guests can meet some of the center's resident animals, including skunks, raccoons, and the inhabitants of the Butterfly and Audubon Aviaries, which feature birds of prey like hawks, eagles, and owls. In the museum, guests can learn about native Florida wildlife and then take to one of the three nature trails at the center to see some with their own eyes. The Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium is open seven days a week. 3450 Ortiz Avenue, Fort Myers, FL 33905, Phone: 239-275-3435

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5. Edison and Ford Winter Estates, Southern Florida  Edison and Ford Winter Estates



In the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, visitors will find museums and gardens on the grounds of the adjacent historical homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Visitors can tour the homes of both of these illustrious inventors, wander the botanic gardens on the museum's 20-acre property, or visit the Estates Museum to learn about two of the most influential men in American history. Visitors will learn about their lives, inventions, and influences with fascinating and interactive galleries, displays, and exhibits. The site is also home to the Edison Botanic Research Laboratory, and the stunning botanic gardens that both influenced Edison in his research. 2350 McGregor Blvd, Fort Myers, FL 33901, Phone: 239-334-7419

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6. Imaginarium Hands-On Museum and Aquarium  Imaginarium Hands-On Museum and Aquarium



At the Imaginarium Hands-on Museum and Aquarium, kids can experience science and marine life in a way unlike any other. The establishment is located in Fort Myers, and admission to the Imaginarium grants access to over 60 hands-on exhibits like the Touch Tank, where kids can see and touch sea life like stingrays, the Dino Dig fossil lab, and the Animal Lab, which includes everything from ball pythons and alligators to prairie dogs and Mexican axolotls. The Imaginarium's exhibits are fun and educational, and the museum also offers educational programs and shows where kids can meet and learn about live animals or explore their creativity and engineering skills. 2000 Cranford Ave., Fort Myers, FL 33916, Phone: 239-243-0043

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7. Southern Florida: John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park  Courtesy of Lawrence Cruciana - Fotolia.com

While its sparkling blue ocean views and swaying palm trees are beautiful, the real draw at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park lies under the surface of the ocean. The bounds of Pennekamp Park stretch for three miles into the Atlantic Ocean, and with a glass-bottom boat tour, visitors can look into reefs teeming with fish and other wildlife from the comfort of a dry boat. For a closer look at the water, the park also offers canoeing, kayaking, and paddle boarding, as well as snorkeling and scuba diving. Back on dry land, visitors are welcome to enjoy the park's beaches, trails, and picnic areas. 102601 Overseas Highway (MM 102.5), Key Largo, FL 33037, P.O. Box 1560, Phone: 305-451-6300



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8. South Florida Attractions: Jungle Island  Courtesy of oriori - Fotolia.com

Visitors to Jungle Island will get up close and personal with a wide variety of animals and tropical plants. This interactive zoological experience offers live shows where guests can learn and even have their photo taken with tigers, primates, or birds of prey. While playing with lemurs or hanging with some two-toed sloths, guests will learn about the habitats and conservation efforts surrounding some of the earth's most unique creatures. Jungle Island is open 365 days a year and offers different entry packages that include shows, animal interactions, tours, and special programs. 1111 Parrot Jungle Trail, Miami, FL 33132, Phone: 305-400-7000



9. MDC Museum of Art and Design, Southern Florida  Courtesy of wmiami - Fotolia.com

The Miami Dade College's Museum of Art and Design is located right in downtown Miami in the National Historic Landmark Freedom Tower. The Museum of Art and Design (MOAD) is the permanent home to over 1900 works of art across all mediums, including photography, painting, sculpture, film, and many more. At the Museum of Art and Design, visitors will see works by famous artists as well as those by rising artists and student artists. They will also find works that have significant influence in the world of contemporary art. On the third Saturday of every month, the museum hosts a children's program called GOGO MOAD!, which is located in various settings around the city of Miami. 600 Biscayne Blvd, Miami, FL 33132, Phone: 305-237-7700

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10. Miami Children's Museum, Southern Florida  Courtesy of ulianna19970 - Fotolia.com

At the Miami Children's Museum, every exhibit is designed with a specific learning goal in mind. From the Construction Zone to the Ocean Odyssey to the Music Makers Studio, kids will love the wide variety of exhibits that promote not only learning, but also play. The museum was created in conjunction with real school curriculums, and its mission is to take the lessons that kids learn in classrooms and turn them into real, lasting experiences. Kids of all ages will love the museum and the many layers of learning and fun that it offers. 980 MacArthur Causeway, Miami, FL 33132, Phone: 305-373-5437



11. Southern Florida: Miami Seaquarium  Courtesy of Felix Mizioznikov - Fotolia.com

Miami Seaquarium is a marine themed entertainment park that emphasizes education and conservation along with fun for the entire family. At the Miami Seaquarium, guests can swim with dolphins, learn about a penguin's habitat, and see endangered manatees and sea turtles. The Seaquarium offers eight unique and fantastic animal shows, where audience members can watch dolphins jump and flip high in the air, and laugh at the silly antics of sea lions. Each show is designed to teach its audience about the animals they are watching, as well as conservation efforts that everyone can take part in. The Seaquarium recommends that its visitors allow a visit of at least four hours in order to fully enjoy everything they have to offer. 4400 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149, Phone: 305-361-5705

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12. Murphy-Burroughs House, Southern Florida  Murphy-Burroughs House

Located right in the center of downtown historic Fort Meyers, the Murphy-Burroughs house is a beautiful piece of Georgian Revival architecture that was built in 1901. Set on a gorgeous property overlooking the Caloosahatchee River, the home is open for guided historical tours. Visitors can enjoy the peaceful gardens and listen to the relaxing flow of the river or explore every room of the house while learning about the history and stories of the lavish social events that once took place within its walls. Guided tours are available to the public with an advance reservation. 2505 First Street, Fort Myers, FL 33901, Phone: 239-337-9505



13. Museum of Discovery and Science  Courtesy of science photo - Fotolia.com

Inside the Museum of Discovery and Science, visitors can dig for fossils, navigate the skies in cockpit simulators, meet alligators, iguanas, and a 12-foot long snake, and so much more. The Museum of Discovery and Science is located in Fort Lauderdale, and it is designed to teach children and adults of all ages about science and nature through a wide array of interactive exhibits and shows. At the EcoDiscovery Center, families can feel the forceful gale of hurricane winds, play with adorable river otters, and ride the Everglades Airboat Adventure. Other exhibits will teach visitors about the power of the human body, life in the Everglades, and going green. 401 SW 2nd St, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312, Phone: 954-467-MODS



14. South Florida Attractions: Bonnet House  Courtesy of TasfotoNL - Fotolia.com

The Bonnet House Museum and Gardens is the historical home and studio of American artist Frederic Clay Bartlett, and it was built in 1920. Located in Fort Lauderdale, the Bonnet House today is home to a vast collection of art, as well as the personal belongings of the Bartlett and Birch families, all of which are available for viewing individually and by guided tour. Bonnet House is built on 35 acres of a beautiful coastal barrier island, and its grounds and gardens offer its guests the opportunity to explore the natural ecosystem of Southern Florida, complete with native wading birds and even manatees. 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304, Phone: 954-563-5393



15. Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park  Courtesy of Luciana Oluvres - Fotolia.com



The Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park is located on a tract of land that was once designated for a condominium development but was instead preserved because it contains more West Indian tropical hardwood hammock than anywhere else in the United States. Inside the park, visitors will find over eighty species of protected plants and animals. From wild cotton to the American crocodile, the park is abundant with wildlife, and its trails are perfect for sightseers, photographers, hikers, or cyclists. Self-guided tours are available through a series of informational signs along the six miles of trails within the park, and ranger-guided tours are also available by appointment. County Road 905, Mile Marker 106, Key Largo, FL 33037, Phone: 305-451-1202

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16. Southern Florida: Naples Zoo  Courtesy of ricwel - Fotolia.com



The Naples Zoo was instituted in 1919 as a tropical botanic garden. When the space was re-outfitted to house animals, it was done with the utmost care to preserve the historic garden setting, and the result is a unique and beautiful space complete with not only exotic animals but also rare tropical plants and trees that have grown in the Naples Zoo for almost a century. The Naples Zoo features a mile-long paved walking path that will lead visitors through exhibits where they will find lions, bears, and giraffes as well as primates, reptiles, and some rarer creatures like fosas from Madagascar. 1590 Goodlette Road, Naples, FL 34102, Phone: 239-262-5409



17. NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale  NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale



Located right in the heart of Fort Lauderdale just a short walk from shops and restaurants and at a convenient driving distance from both Miami and Palm Beach, the NSU Art Museum provides access to a wealth of exhibitions and programs depicting all aspects of visual art throughout history. With over 6,000 items in its permanent collection and seasonal or travelling exhibitions on display, the NSU Art Museum of Fort Lauderdale aims to educate its visitors through a diverse selection of art. 1 E Las Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301, Phone: 954-525-5500

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18. Old Fort Lauderdale Village & Museum  Courtesy of Aleksandr - Fotolia.com



The Old Fort Lauderdale Village and Museum contains a historic 1907 house museum as well as three more historic houses and structures that date back to 1905. In the New River Inn History Museum, visitors can see artifacts from the Seminole Indians, early Pioneers of the region, and items from railroad workers and military movements in the area. The King Cromartie House is the painstakingly preserved home of two pioneer families, and the Ivy Cromartie Schoolhouse is a detailed replica of an 1899 schoolhouse, complete with period-appropriate desks and teaching equipment. Visitors to the Village & Museum can explore the property on a guided or self-guided tour during its operating hours. 219 Southwest Second Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301, Phone: 954-463-4431



19. Perez Art Museum Miami  Courtesy of Maria - Fotolia.com



Located on the stunning waterfront edge of Biscayne Bay, the Perez Art Museum exhibits contemporary and modern art, with an emphasis on international art. In the Perez Art Museum, visitors can explore the galleries on their own or with a free guided tour. The Perez Art Museum is part of the City of Miami's Museum Park, which is also home to the Miami Museum of Science. Visitors to the Perez Art Museum will also enjoy the park's hanging gardens, as well as the museum's gift store and the delicious dining at Verde, the museum's waterfront restaurant. The Perez Art Museum is closed on Wednesdays. Admission to the museum is free on the second Saturday of every month and the first Thursday of every month. 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33132, Phone: 305-375-3000

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20. Stonewall National Museum & Archives  Stonewall National Museum & Archives



The Stonewall National Museum and Archives aims to highlight the proud culture of LGBTQ history and the impact that it has had on the world. In the Stonwall National Archives, visitors can find pulp fiction, LGBT ephemera, oral histories and personal records amongst the 30,000 items. The Stonewall National Library is the largest of its kind in the US and contains over 26,000 books and DVDs. At the Stonewall Museum Wilton Manors Gallery, visitors can learn about the history of the LGBTQ community and culture as we know it today and the role it plays in modern society. Admission to the museum is free, with a suggested donation of $5 per person. Stonewall Museum Wilton Manors Gallery: 2157 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors, FL 33305, Phone: 954-530-9337 Archives & Library: 1300 East Sunrise Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33304, Phone: 954-763-8565



21. Southern Florida: Stranahan House  Courtesy of Aniram - Fotolia.com



Frank Stranahan was the founding father of the city of Fort Lauderdale, and his home built in 1901 is the oldest surviving structure in the region. Over the years, it has served a variety of uses including a post office, a trading post, and the home of the Stranahans. Guided tours of the Stranahan House are offered daily at 1pm, 2pm, and 3pm and last approximately 45 to 60 minutes. Each tour will provide visitors with a ticket to the past, back to the days of historic Southern Florida when Fort Lauderdale was nothing more than a small frontier town. Stranahan House is located on 6th Avenue in Fort Lauderdale on the New River just off of Las Olas Boulevard. 335 Southeast 6th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301, Phone: 954-524-4736



22. South Florida Attractions: The Bass  The Bass



Located in Miami Beach, the Bass is a beacon for contemporary art in the region. The Bass highlights international contemporary art of both emerging and established artists and aims to represent the culture and spirit of Miami beach though a variety of mediums including fashion and architecture alongside more traditional art mediums. Though a series of educational and outreach programs for art lovers of all ages and levels of experience, the Bass IDEAS initiative uses art to inspire creativity within its community. Within the museum, visitors will find a rotating display of works from the Bass' permanent collection as well as a rotating schedule of temporary exhibits. 2100 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139, Phone: 305-673-7530

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23. The Kampong  Courtesy of Ana - Fotolia.com Once home to Dr. David Fairchild, one of the most famous and influential horticulturists in the United States, the Kampong is home to a colorful collection of flowering and fruit-bearing trees and plants. Some of the rare and exotic fruits grown on the property include cocoplums, peanut butter fruit, and more than 50 types of mango. Visitors will stand awed by a Tanzanian baobab tree that weighs almost 50 tons, and they can appreciate the scents of the flowers and plants they may recognize from beloved perfumes. The Kampong allows self-guided tours with an informational brochure and map and also offers guided tours by reservation from September through June. 4013 Douglas Rd, Miami, FL 33133, Phone: 305-442-7169



24. The Wolfsonian  The Wolfsonian More than 180,000 objects make up the collection at the Wolfsonian, which include artifacts from the Industrial Revolution through the era immediately following the end of World War II. Furniture, ceramics, paintings, and textiles are just some of the items that visitors can see when visiting the Wolfsonian, which is renowned for depicting life in a bygone era through these objects and its exhibits. The Wolfsonian aims to educate its visitors about the future through a study of the past. Admission at the Wolfsonian is free to the public. 1001 Washington Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139, Phone: 305-531-1001



25. Southern Florida: Vizcaya Museum & Gardens  Courtesy of travelview - Fotolia.com Built in the early 20th century as a subtropical version of an Italian villa, Vizcaya was once the winter residence of James Deering, one of the founding fathers of Miami and is located just south of the city on the shores of Biscayne Bay. The house's gardens are some of the most exquisite in the entire country, reminiscent of Italian and French gardens from the 17th and 18th centuries. The hedges, fountains, and mazes in the tiny tropical paradise will charm visitors, who can also enjoy the 34 lavishly furnished rooms of the main house. Audio tours and guided tours of the house and gardens are available. 3251 S Miami Ave, Miami, FL 33129, Phone: 305-250-9133



25 Best Things to Do in South Florida

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In Cambridge, Massachusetts, visitors enjoy a selection of outstanding museums, a vibrant performing arts scene and great restaurants. Visit the Harvard Art Museums, the MIT Museum, and Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. Stroll through Harvard Square, have dinner at one of the local restaurants and watch a theater performance. Here are the best things to do in Cambridge, MA.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts  President and Fellows of Harvard College

Located on Quincy Street, the Harvard Art Museums are a part of Harvard University and consist of three museums. Opened in 1896, the Fogg Museum is the oldest of the three museums, and it is known for its collection of Western paintings, prints, photographs, and sculptures dating from the Middle Ages to the present. The Busch-Reisinger Museum opened in 1903 and is the only museum in the U.S. exclusively devoted to artwork from the German-speaking countries of Europe. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is the newest museum; it opened in 1985 and contains pieces of art from Asian counties like China, Japan, and Korea. 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-495-9400

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2. Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Harvard Museum of Natural History

Founded in 1998, the Harvard Museum of Natural History features a collection of 12,000 specimens and is the university's most visited museum and one of the top Cambridge attractions. The permanent galleries exhibit dinosaurs, fossils, gemstones, meteorites, and the world famous Blaschka Glass Flowers. Admire the 42-foot Kronosaurus, a marine reptile from the time of the dinosaurs which is the world's only mounted specimen. The museum welcomes 240,000 visitors per year. There are several outreach programs, including hands-on experiences for children and lectures and other events for adults. Admission includes the adjacent Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology. 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-495-3045

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3. Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Courtesy of PRILL Mediendesign - Fotolia.com

Located on Brattle Street, Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site was the home of the famous American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and is one of the best things to do in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The house was built in 1759 and served as the headquarters for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War between 1775 and 1776. At first, Longfellow lived in the house as a tenant, but later, in 1843, his father-in-law bought it for Longfellow and his wife. Longfellow lived in the house until his death in 1882. The house and garden are open every day, and tours are offered seasonally. The site also hosts special events such as historic reenactments, music concerts, and poetry readings. 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-876-4491



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4. Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Courtesy of Bastos - Fotolia.com



Harvard Square is the central business district and historic center of Cambridge. It is a triangular plaza located at the intersection of Battle Street, John F. Kennedy Street, and Massachusetts Avenue. Sometimes called the Square by locals, Harvard Square is adjacent to Harvard Yard, the center of Harvard University. The Square functions as the commercial center of the city as well as for students of the university. The square is a vibrant area full of bookstores, coffee shops, hotels, restaurants, boutique shops, and theaters. Because it is a high pedestrian area, Harvard Square is known for its lively street performers. 18 Brattle Street #352, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-491-3434

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5. MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Courtesy of Hedgehog - Fotolia.com



Founded in 1971, the MIT Museum is known for its collections related to the history of MIT, maritime history, holography, photography, robotics, and much more. The 5,000-square foot Mark Epstein Innovation Gallery is located on the ground floor of the museum and showcases the most recent research and developments in technology at MIT. In addition to its permanent collection, the museum often presents temporary exhibits of art and technology displays. The museum has many outreach programs for children and for adults, and it sponsors the annual Cambridge Science Festival. 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-253-5927R

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6. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology



Located on Divinity Avenue on the campus of Harvard University, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is one of the worlds oldest and largest museums devoted to anthropology. Founded in 1866, it is associated with Harvard University and is home to more than 1.5 million objects. The anthropology objects display and celebrate the archaeology and the ethnography of the Americas and include totem poles, monumental Maya sculptures, and special exhibits. Nearly one quarter of its collection features artifacts from North America that span a period of 10,000 years. Although its focus is on the Americas, the museums collection also includes objects from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-496-1027

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7. The Hahvahd Tour, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Courtesy of lunamarina - Fotolia.com

The Hahvahd (the way they pronounce Harvard in Cambridge) Tour is a 70-minute walking tour of Harvard University, one of the most prestigious universities in the world and alma mater of some of the great world authorities in a variety of fields. The tour is lead by Harvard students, who scripted the tours as unique theatrical performances featuring several themes: Insider Information, Harvard History, and Famous Harvardians. The tour will take you to see major Harvard landmarks such as John Harvard Statue, Johnston Gate, Widener Library, Memorial Hall, Harvard Lampoon, Memorial Church, and the Winthrop Park.



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8. American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, MA  Courtesy of ugljesaras - Fotolia.com

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional theater company located in the Loeb Drama Center on Brattle Street at Harvard University. It was founded in 1980 and is known for presenting new American dramas and musicals as well as reviving neglected but poignant plays from the past. It is one of the most important theaters in the U.S. and has won many awards, including three Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, and more. If you are looking for romantic date ideas in Cambridge, this is a great place to visit. The theater is also the home of the Institute for Advance Theater Training and the Harvard-Radcliffe Drama Club. The theater has presented works by famous playwrights such as Chekhov, Fo, Fuentes, Mamet, and many others. 64 Brattle St, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Phone: 617-547-8300



9. Toscanini's, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Toscanini's

Toscanini's is a spacious, modern shop in Cambridge's Central Square, just around the corner from the MIT campus. There are hundreds of flavors that rotate throughout the year, but their signature flavors are always available. At any time, there are 32 possible flavors and newbies are encouraged to ask for samples. Be brave and ask for their famous B3 flavor, which is a mix of brown sugar, brown butter and chunks of fudge brownie, or the bourbon-gingersnap ice cream. If you are more of a traditionalist but perfectionist nevertheless, go for strawberry and Belgian chocolate. It will take you straight to heaven. 159 First St., Cambridge, MA 02142 , Phone: 617-491-5877

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10. Charles Riverboat Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Charles Riverboat Company

Charles Riverboat Company, founded in 1990, offers a variety of sightseeing tours in the Cambridge area. The tours give guests the best views from the Charles River Basin and Boston Harbor and, at the same time, the opportunity to learn about the rich maritime history of the area. One of the most popular tours is the 60-minute narrated Charles River Tour, with provides views of Beacon Hill, Boston University, Esplanade Park, Harvard University, MIT, and more. The 90-minute Architecture Tour focuses on the buildings along Boston Harbor, the Charles River basin, and the Charles River locks. The 75-minute sunset cruise gives passengers memorable views of the Boston Harbor skyline. CambridgeSide Galleria, 100 Cambridgeside Place, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-621-3001

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11. Bondir Cambridge, Cambridge, MA  Bondir Cambridge

Bondir is reminiscent of old French farmhouses-turned restaurants you might find by accident while driving through Bourgogne. It is small, simple, and cozy, and every detail has been carefully chosen, from the hand-made dishes to the old lace curtains and colorful flowers in earth ware pots. The warm atmosphere is just the right background for a truly memorable dining experience. Owned and run by the top chef Jason Bond, Bondir offers what Bond calls Cambridge cuisine  a type of cuisine the restaurant can produce thanks to its proximity to the ocean and because of the fact it is surrounded by small, family farms producing organic and heirloom fruits and vegetables. The menu varies daily depending on what is available and in season. If you are lucky, you might get Roasted Foie Gras from Hudson Valley with pear consomme, Dulce seaweed, and dried figs. Bondir has small but very nice wine list with selections from all over the world. 279A Broadway, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-661-0009



12. Orinoco, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Orinoco

Orinoco offers a taste of Venezuelan street food in a cozy, welcoming restaurant with a lovely outdoor patio on Harvard Square. Vibrant decor and warm colors create a pleasant, cheerful atmosphere perfect for trying the traditional Venezuelan street food-inspired dishes, which are made with local, fresh, and seasonal ingredients. The menu relies on old Venezuelan family recipes that are a flavorful blend of the cuisines of the Andes, Orinoco coast, and the Caribbean islands. The best way to get an idea of what that means is to try a bunch of antojitos or little cravings, appetizers such as meat- or veggie-filled empanadas or datiles (grilled, almond-filled dates wrapped in bacon). 56 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-354-6900



13. Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA  Courtesy of Jaroslav Machacek - Fotolia.com

Sanders Theatre is a historic theater that is one of three parts of the High Victorian Gothic Memorial Hall just north of Harvard Yard in Cambridge. Completed in 1875, the theater was inspired by the Sheldonian Theatre built by Christopher Wren. The theater can seat up to 1,166 people and is the largest meeting place at Harvard University. Celebrated for its excellent acoustics, it is a popular venue for ceremonies, concerts, and lectures. Famous speakers at the theater have included Winston Churchill, Mikhail Gorbachev, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many more. Exterior architectural features of the theater include busts of famous speakers like Cicero and Daniel Webster, while the inside features statues and a stained glass window entitled Athena Tying a Mourning Fillet. 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-496-2222



14. Life Alive, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Life Alive



If therapeutic food created with love to feed your vitality resonates with you, you will love Life Alive, and you will find it to be a true urban oasis, as well as a place to heal your spirit. For those who arent there for the new age ambience, the excellent vegan and vegetarian food will be enough to pique their interest. Life Alive has three locations, and the one in Cambridge is a colorful, cheerful, and comfortable place for a pleasant lunch. Everything is fresh and organic, and dishes feature many super food ingredients. Youll find combinations of Thai noodles, nutrient-rich salads, and imaginative wraps. The ingredients combine to create rich flavors we do not often find in vegetarian dishes. They also have tasty smoothies and juices. 765 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-354-5433

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15. Central Square, Cambridge, MA  Courtesy of spiritofamerica - Fotolia.com



Central Square is an area in Cambridge where Massachusetts Avenue, Prospect Street, and Western Avenue meet. The section on Massachusetts Avenue between Clinton Street and Main Street is referred to as the Central Square Historic District, and the square is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Central Square is well known for its variety of bars, churches, ethnic restaurants, shops, and live music and theater venues. Historic churches on the square include Christ the King Presbyterian Church, First Baptist Church, Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, and more. Many Internet and video game companies have moved to the square because of its proximity to MIT.



16. Alden and Harlow, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Alden and Harlow



With its open kitchen, brick walls, glossy wood features, and soft leather touches, Alden and Harlow on Brattle Street is a restaurant that is lively, pleasant, and inviting. Celebrated chef/owner Machael Celfo uses locally sourced ingredients to create classic American fare, but there is nothing ordinary about it. He pairs ingredients in a totally unexpected way to create bold flavors that are slightly smoky and exquisite. Many dishes are shareable, and the small plates are a revelation. Try fried olives stuffed with mortadella with roasted tomato vinaigrette. Check their custom cocktails, which are considered the best in Harvard Square. 40 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-864-2100

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17. Tasty Burger, Cambridge, MA  Tasty Burger



If you are a student in Cambridge, having a place that serves great burgers and is open late is a great bonus. Tasty Burger gained its reputation in 2014 when it became the official burger of the Boston Red Sox. If you are a fan, you must have tasted it already. Large and juicy, it is made of first-class beef fed on grass and grains, with no hormones or antibiotics. The buns are made especially for Tasty Burger at the old Sunbeam Bread factory and their sauces are all made in-house, fresh. Their Cambridge spot on Harvard Square is a spacious, unpretentious, modern counter-serve with a downstairs lounge that has a billiard table. They do serve craft beers with their burgers. 40 John F. Kennedy St, Cambridge, MA 02138, Phone: 617-425-4444



18. Things to Do in Cambridge, Massachusetts: City Wine Tours  Courtesy of Christian Delbert - Fotolia.com



City Wine Tours are designed for those who not only enjoy drinking wine but would also love to learn about the wine of the region. The tours visit different Boston neighborhoods, offer samples of some excellent wines and some delicious foods, and help tour-goers discover great wine shops and restaurants. The tours last about two hours and include visits to three restaurants or shops selling wines, where patrons can sample six different wines and taste several food and wine pairings. There is very little walking involved, as it is only a short distance between places. The groups have a maximum of 12 guests and are led by guides who know and love wine; many work in the wine industry and can answer any and all of your wine-related questions.

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19. Things to Do in Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Smoke Shop BBQ  The Smoke Shop BBQ



The Smoke Shop BBQ has been named as Boston's best barbecue restaurant by Boston Magazine, opening its first location in Cambridge's Kendall Square in 2016. Since then, it has opened two additional locations at Tavern Road and Assembly Row. The chef-driven restaurant is overseen by World Champion Pitmaster Andy Husbands, known for its award-winning brisket and ribs platter. Diners can enjoy delicious combination barbecue plates featuring pulled pork, rotisserie chicken, smoked turkey breast, or chicken wings, paired with delectable Southern-style sides such as sweet and spicy coleslaw and collard greens. More than 200 American whiskey selections are highlighted as part of the restaurant's extensive drink program, which also serves up craft beers and classic cocktails. 1 Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA 02139, Phone: Phone: 617-577-7427



20. Puritan & Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts  Puritan & Company



Located on Inman Square in a historic building that was home to the famous Puritan Cake Company in the 1930s, Puritan & Company is a spacious industrial-rustic restaurant that serves modern American cuisine focusing on traditional New England fare with occasional ethnic touches. The space is bright and unpretentious, with large communal tables, cozy booths, and a massive bar. The atmosphere is relaxed and lively, designed for socializing and enjoying Chef Will Gilsons seasonal delights. Whether you choose his signature Moxie soda-glazed lamb belly or incredible wagyu beef carpaccio with quail egg, tomato, wax beans, and baby greens, you are in for a treat. The best deal is the chefs seasonal six-course menu for an entire table. Puritan has an excellent wine list with main wines available by the glass. 1166 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02139, Phone: 617-615-6195



21. Grafton Street Pub & Grill, Cambridge, MA  Grafton Street Pub



Grafton Street Pub & Grill is not your typical Irish pub, although it did get its name from a popular Dublin shopping district. It is spacious, polished, and full of light thanks to the large windows overlooking Massachusetts Avenue. It has been the neighborhoods most popular pub, restaurant, and hangout since 1996. The pleasant, relaxed atmosphere with comfortable booths around large round tables and spectacular food from Executive Chef Eric Gregory make Grafton Street an excellent choice for a lunch with business clients or a dinner with friends. The food is far from your typical pub grub. Their pizzas have toppings like pork short rib confit with puree of maitake, Vermont goat cheese, caramelized onions, and cherry tomatoes. They have a large number of beers on draft from all over the world and a nice international wine list. 1230 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-497-0400

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22. Things to Do in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Bambara  Bambara Located on the Charles River Canal near Tech Square, MIT, and the Museum of Science, Bambara is popular after-work happy hour bar. Its sophisticated decor, relaxed atmosphere, and the presence of Chef Jay Silva also make Bambara a popular destination for lunch or dinner. What Chef Silva calls New American cuisine consists of fresh, seasonal, and locally purveyed or freshly caught ingredients that are made into innovative dishes with a mix of Cape Cod and other exotic influences. Munch on their waffle chips served with tuna tartare and Ponzu dressing,? avocado puree, and sriracha. Sip your cocktail while waiting for the main star of the show, which might be Seared Yellowfin Tuna with sesame crust and soy glaze and served with coconut rice, lemon butter, sriracha, and spinach and mango salad. Bambara has an excellent, extensive wine list. 25 Edwin H Land Blvd, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-868-4444



23. Flour Bakery and Cafe, Cambridge, MA  Flour Cambridge residents on a diet try to stay away from Massachusetts Avenue so that not even a whiff of Flours sticky buns can reach them. Flour is a very popular bakery and coffee shop whose renown is almost reaching cult-like proportions. At Flour, they spend the 24 hours of each day making endless amounts of hot crunchy baguettes, brioches filled with raisins and covered with delicious icing, out-of-this-world, smooth-as-silk double chocolate truffles, butter-dripping flakey croissants, and, of course, their legendary sticky buns, covered with dark caramel and toasted pecans. They also make fabulous sandwiches with their own hot breads, and soups made from scratch every day. Be prepared to wait, as the line is often out the door, but waiting is always worth it. 190 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-225-2525



24. Things to Do in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Fresh Pond Reservation  Courtesy of botevvs - Fotolia.com The Fresh Pond Reservation is a park and reservoir in Cambridge. It is a 155-acre shallow kettle hole lake and is surrounded by 162 acres of land. There is a 2.25-mile road around the perimeter of the lake, and it is popular with cyclists, runners, and walkers. There is also a nine-hole golf course in the park. At one time when the lake was privately owned, the ice harvested from the lake was sold and shipped to cities in North America as well as to tropical areas around the globe. Later, when the city took ownership, the lake was used as a source for public drinking water.



25 Best Things to Do in Cambridge, Massachusetts

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Cambridge Public Library

The Cambridge Public Library consists of a main library located on 449 Broadway and six branches in other locations around the city. The six branches are the Boudreau Branch, the Central Square Branch, the Collins Branch, the OConnell Branch, the ONeil Branch, and the Valente Branch.

The main library is housed in a historic 1888 building listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The library reopened in 2009 after a renovation and expansion that tripled its square footage. The main library also boasts the Childrens Room, a space for children aged 13 and younger that takes up the entire third floor of the building.

449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, Phone: 617-349-4040

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The Comedy Studio, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Located at the top of the Hong Kong Restaurant on Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, the Comedy Studio is a well-known comedy club that hosts comedy acts. Some of the comedians who perform at the studio are veterans, while others are talented newcomers to the comedy scene.

Some of the past and upcoming comedians include Kyria Abrahams; Thom Brown, one of the original Comedy Studio comics; D.J. Hazard; Rick Jenkins, the owner of the Comedy Studio; and Brian Kiley, a writer for The Conan OBrian Show. The studio serves food and drinks, including the popular Scorpion Bowl alcoholic drink.

70 Union Square, Somerville, MA 02143, Phone: 617-661-6507

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Plan a weekend trip to Wilmington, a beautiful coastal destination in North Carolina where you can stroll along the Riverwalk, visit great museums, restaurants, gardens, breakfast spots, wedding venues and historic attractions like the USS North Carolina. Best things to do in Wilmington, NC with kids include the Wilmington Railroad Museum, the Cape Fear Serpentarium and the Children's Museum of Wilmington.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Riverwalk  Courtesy of spiritofamerica - Fotolia.com

The Riverwalk is a popular boardwalk in downtown Wilmington that runs along the Cape Fear River waterfront. Originally designed in the 1980s with the purpose of drawing more people to the historic area, the pedestrian pathway will eventually connect the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge to the Isabel Holmes Bridge. The Riverwalk is one of the top Wilmington attractions. Along the way, visitors are treated to beautiful views and many attractions. Some of the attractions located along Riverwalk include the USS North Carolina, the Cotton Exchange, and the historic 1914 Murchison Building. In addition to the historic buildings, there are many restaurants and shops including boutique shops and souvenir shops. The Riverwalk is also well known for its weekly Wilmingtons Farmers Market.

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2. Wilmingtons Historic District  Courtesy of Zack Frank - Fotolia.com

Wilmingtons Historic District begins at Water and Market Streets and continues for 230 blocks, making it one of the largest historic districts in the United States and one of the best things to do in Wilmington, North Carolina. It features churches, gardens, homes, museums, shops, restaurants, and much more. Popular transportation methods for touring the moss-draped historic area include horse drawn carriages, riverboats, and trolley cars. There are guided tours as well as self-guided tours of the district that lies along Cape Fear River. The historic district is home to more than 40 locally owned restaurants; some of these sit at the waters edge and offer fresh local seafood. There are many music performances in the district, especially in the evening. The Riverwalk winds through the heart of downtown and affords beautiful views of the river. Water and Market Streets, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 901-341-4030

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3. Bellamy Mansion Museum  Bellamy Mansion Museum

Located in downtown Wilmington, the Bellamy Mansion Museum is one of North Carolina's most extraordinary examples of antebellum architecture and one of the best things to do in Wilmington, North Carolina. Built for Dr. John Dillard Bellamy and his family, the magnificent 10,000-square-foot mansion features fine examples of Victorian architecture in the elegant main entrance framed by soaring columns and the handcrafted intricate details throughout the house. The abode is surrounded by a beautifully manicured Victorian garden with winding oyster-shell paths and 150-year-old magnolia trees. Now serving as a museum of history and the design arts, the mansion provides visitors with an opportunity to take a stroll through history on daily guided tours and visit one of the countrys last remaining and perfectly preserved urban slave quarters. The Museum also offers dynamic educational and cultural programs throughout the year and is open Tuesday through Sunday. 503 Market Street, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 910-251-3700



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4. Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, North Carolina  Courtesy of Mr Twister - Fotolia.com



Airlie Gardens, a 67-acre public garden, was established in 1901 for the Pembroke Jones family and has been enchanting visitors for the past 100 years. Originally created as a private and authentic Southern garden that was named after an ancient Airlie Oak, Airlie Gardens represent the vision of landscape architect Rudolf Topel who remodeled the landscape into a spectacular public garden in 1999. If you are wondering what to do in Wilmington NC with kids, this is a great place to visit. Airlie Gardens feature striking combinations of formal and informal gardens, a world-renowned collection of over 100,000 azaleas and camellias, walking trails with beautiful views of Bradley Creek, historic structures and sculptures, and more than 10 acres of freshwater lakes. Relax in the Pergola Garden and enjoy continuous year-round blooms in displays around the 468-year-old Airlie Oak. More North Carolina destinations, beaches and lighthouses

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5. New Hanover County Arboretum  Courtesy of Steven - Fotolia.com



The New Hanover County Arboretum is a seven-acre arboretum located on the grounds of the New Hanover County Cooperative Extension Service. Established in 1989, the arboretum currently features over 30 gardens consisting of verdant lawns, flowering plants and bushes, and one of the largest water gardens in North Carolina, which is home to hundreds of multi-colored koi and catfish. Among the gardens, visitors will find a herb garden, a rose garden, a bog garden, a childrens garden, an aquatic garden, and a landscaped Japanese garden. The gardens have more than 4,000 varieties of native and naturalized plants. The arboretum also serves as a horticultural laboratory and education center and provides opportunities for all levels of ability to enjoy gardening. The New Hanover County Arboretum is free of charge. 6206 Oleander Dr, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 910-798-7660

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6. USS North Carolina Battleship  Courtesy of ncdiver68 - Fotolia.com



Work began on the USS North Carolina in 1937. Launched in 1940, the ship was so fast and carried so many powerful guns that the North Carolina was given the nickname of Showboat. The USS North Carolina took part in nearly every major battle in the Pacific Ocean during World War II and won more battle stars than any other battleship in that same time period. The ship was decommissioned in 1947 and arrived in Wilmington in 1961. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1986. The battleship hosts many programs and events. One Battleship Road NE, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 910-251-5797

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7. Cape Fear Museum, Wilmington, North Carolina  Cape Fear Museum

Founded in 1898, the Cape Fear Museum is the oldest history museum in the state and is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history, science, and cultures of the Lower Cape Fear. The museum has a collection of more than fifty-two thousand artifacts collected from regions around the city of Wilmington and displayed in a variety of educational exhibitions and programs. The Michael Jordan Discovery Gallery on the first floor of the Museum explores the region's ecosystems while the bones of a Giant Ground Sloth and a locally built Simmons Sea-skiff boat are on display in the lobby. The museum also hosts temporary and traveling exhibits including Make it Work, a presentation of simple machines and maritime work. The Cape Fear Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday. 814 Market St, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 910-798-4370



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8. Things to Do in Wilmington: Cameron Art Museum  Cameron Art Museum

Established in 1964, the Cameron Art Museum is located in historic downtown Wilmington and presents a permanent collection of works by international and local artists across a range of disciplines. It also features several rotating exhibitions of contemporary historical significance on an annual basis. The museum is set on the historic site of the pivotal Civil War Battle of Forks Road and is surrounded by Confederate revetments built during the battle that saw the fall of Fort Fisher and marked the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. Every year the museum commemorates the lives lost during this fight with a re-enactment of the battle, artillery demonstrations, workshops, and lectures. The museum also offers a range of educational art programs and classes for adults and youth, including educator-guided access to the museums exhibitions and non-circulating art library that houses over 2000 monographs and publications. 3201 South 17th Street, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 910-395-5999



9. Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens  Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens

The Burgwin-Wright House is a spectacular example of Georgian architecture, and it open to the public as a museum house. Built circa 1770, the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has several distinct features, including rooms furnished with antiques from the 18th and 19th century and an array of rare objects that enhance the unique experience for visitors. The house is surrounded by magnificent gardens that offer visitors a tranquil oasis in the heart of the city, complete with orchards of figs and pomegranates, a manicured rose garden, and a fragrant kitchen garden full of herbs. The property also boasts a stand-alone kitchen house with an immense hearth and period cooking utensils, which can be explored on self-guided or docent-led tours. The Burgwin-Wright House is also available for private events and portrait photography. 224 Market Street, Wilmington, North Carolina, Phone: 910-762-0570

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10. Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden  lorenza62/stock.adobe.com

If youre looking for a unique and one-of-a-kind attraction to visit in Wilmington, look no further than the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden. Managed by the City of Wilmington in partnership with North Carolinas Coastal Land Trust, the Carnivorous Plant Garden is located within the Pine Ridge Nature Preserve and is named after the Flytrap Man, Stanley Rehder, who was celebrated for his tireless efforts to protect the carnivorous plants youll see in the garden today. These plants are quite special because they only naturally grow in a 70-mile radius around Wilmington, and as such deserve protection and appreciation. The garden is open year-round, but the best time to visit is in the spring as this is when the park truly comes to vibrant life. There are concrete walking trails to take guests around the garden, and several wooden observation decks situated around the area as well. 3800 Canterbury Road, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, Phone: 910-341-7852



11. Masonboro Island Reserve  Courtesy of mangpor2004 - Fotolia.com

Masonboro Island is an 8.4-mile long barrier island situated five miles southeast of Wilmington with a rich estuarine system and diverse range of natural habitats. The island is the largest undisturbed barrier island along the southern part of the North Carolina coast and is home to an array of different ecosystems, from salt marshes and maritime forests to tidal flats, ocean beaches, and rolling grasslands, which in turn attract a plethora of birds and wildlife. The pristine beaches serve as nesting sites for loggerhead and green sea turtles, while the nutrient-rich waters of Masonboro Sound are a vital marine nursery area for a variety of fish, including mullet, pompano, summer flounder, and bluefish. Masonboro Island can only be reached by boat, and it has a network of walking trails that allow visitors to explore the island. Primitive camping is also allowed on the island for a maximum of two days.

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12. Wilmington Railroad Museum, Wilmington, North Carolina  Courtesy of Dezay - Fotolia.com

The Wilmington Railroad Museum is dedicated to presenting and preserving the history of railroading in the Southeastern United States with a particular focus on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, and it provides an educational and enjoyable experience for everyone. Established in 1979, the museum features a variety of informative and interactive exhibits for all ages, from a life-size caboose, boxcar, and a century-old steam locomotive to operating scale model trains and a Thomas the Tank Train play area for children. The museum hosts several family-friendly events throughout the year, including Red Caboose parties and the arrival of the Polar Express, and offers guided group tours of up to 10 people. 505 Nutt Street, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-763-2634



13. Empie Park  olezzo/stock.adobe.com

For easy to access outdoor recreation in Wilmington, Empie Park is the place to be. Open to the public, the park is located in between Wrightsville and Park Avenues and along Independence Boulevard. It provides access to the Wilmington Cross City Trail, making it a fantastic way to explore a portion of Wilmington holistically and actively, as visitors can walk, bike, or jog along a well-maintained paved trail that wraps around the parks perimeter. Empie Park is also home to a 1,4000 square foot clubhouse, 18 tennis courts, care of the Althea Gibson Tennis Complex, a public basketball court, and a baseball field. There is also a dog park that dog-lovers can visit to meet some of the citys cutest four-legged inhabitants in Empie Park, as well as a modern playground with an exciting climbing wall, zipline, firepoles, and swinging bridges to traverse. 3405 Park Avenue, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, Phone: 910-341-7852



14. Things to Do in Wilmington, NC: Poplar Grove Plantation  Courtesy of russieseo - Fotolia.com

Poplar Grove Plantation is one of the oldest peanut plantations in the state of North Carolina and has been open to the public as a museum since 1980. Built by Joseph Mumford Foy in the 1850s, the plantation is located on Topsail Sound Plank Road in Scotts Hill and is dedicated to preserving and conserving the homestead of a successful farming family and showcasing the workings of a typical 19th century working community. The current Manor House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is surrounded by 835 acres of landscaped gardens, both of which can be explored on guided tours through the property. Poplar Grove Plantation is also home to a farmers market and an animal sanctuary, and it plays host to several festivals throughout the year. 10200 US-17, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-686-9518



15. Children's Museum of Wilmington  Children's Museum of Wilmington



The Children's Museum of Wilmington celebrates the joys of childhood by creating magical and playful experiences that stimulate the imagination, curiosity, and a love of learning. Located on Orange Street in historic downtown Wilmington, the museum features playful, hands-on exhibits and child-directed displays that encourage children to explore and learn more about science, art, and culture. If you are looking for fun things to do in Wilmington, North Carolina with kids, this is a great place to visit. Interactive exhibits include the Toothasaurus Dental Exhibit where children can familiarize themselves with a dental environment; Magnetic Minds Science Research Center, which allows children to take part in facilitated science projects; and Ports of Call, which introduces and explains the ports of North Carolina to children. 116 Orange St, Wilmington, NC 28401, Phone: 910-254-3534

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16. Latimer House, Wilmington, NC  Latimer House



Located on South Third Street, the Latimer House is a historic house museum and home of the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society. Built in 1852 in the Italianate style by local merchant Zebulon Latimer, the four-story house contains 14 rooms and is perfectly symmetrical. In 1963, the Historical Society acquired the house, which then began operating as a museum. Inside the house there are more than 600 historic items such as jewelry, pieces of furniture, and much more. Some of the rooms even feature original marble fireplaces and stunning chandeliers. Outside, visitors can admire the beautiful formal gardens. Trained docents lead guided tours throughout the establishment, and the house hosts many events. 126 South Third Street, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-762-0492



17. Halyburton Park  Courtesy of doris oberfrank-list- Fotolia.com



Halyburton Park is a nature reserve that features a community building, playground areas, picnic shelters, and a 1.3-mile trail used by bicyclists and walkers. The park offers a wide variety of nature programs for all age groups: Little Explorers is for children aged two to five; Eco Explorers is for two age groups, five to seven and eight to ten; and a number of family programs. The park also offers group programs like school field trips. The Halyburton Events Center is a community events building where yoga and Pilates classes are held; the building can accommodate groups for birthday parties, business meetings, and weddings. 4099 South 17th Street, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-341-0075

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18. Legion Stadium  Courtesy of BillionPhotos.com - Fotolia.com



Legion Stadium is a 6,000-seat stadium with 3,500 seats in the grandstand and 2,500 visitor seats. Built in 1930, it underwent several renovations, the most recent refurbishing taking place in 2011. It is the home of the Wilmington Hammerheads, who belong to the United Soccer League. Other facilities of the stadium include concessions in the grandstand, a beer garden, a merchandise booth, a press box with public address, a VIP Tent, and home and visitor field houses. The main field is covered in Vamont Bermuda, a type of artificial turf, and there are four acres of paved parking for visitors. 2149 Carolina Beach Rd, Wilmington, NC 28412, Phone: 910-341-4604



19. Tregembo Animal Park, Wilmington, North Carolina  Courtesy of freistilchaot- Fotolia.com



Closed for the season, this attraction will reopen in 2016. Tregembo Animal Park is a family-run zoo located on Carolina Beach Road in Wilmington. Opened in 1952 by George and June Tregembo, the zoo began with just a few species but grew tremendously over the years. Today it is home to more than 100 species of animals from all over the world. In business for more than 60 years, Tregembo Animal Park is the oldest zoo in South Eastern North Carolina, and animals that live there include amphibians, birds, insects, mammals, and reptiles. Some of the popular mammals are bears, giraffes, lions, monkeys, sloths, tigers, and zebras. The zoos mini museum displays ancient artifacts, dinosaur bones, fossils, and other compelling items. 5811 Carolina Beach Road, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-392-3604

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20. Noni Bacca Winery  Olga/stock.adobe.com



Owned and operated by husband-and-wife duo, Toni and Ken Incorvaia, the Noni Bacca Winery is an award-winning winery that was originally opened in Buffalo, New York, but later relocated to Wilmington. The winery finds its roots in Toni and Kens European families who came to America from Bulgaria and Sicily respectively, bringing with them their old-world traditions of wine making. Today, the winery produces over 60 different varieties of wine, through which the winery has earned 179 international medals of excellence since 2009. The tasting room of Noni Bacca Winery is open daily from 10 am to 6 pm, with adjusted hours from Friday to Sunday, and offers close to 50 varieties of internationally acclaimed wines to sample. 420 Eastwood Road, State 108, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, Phone: 910-397-7617



21. Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, Wilmington, North Carolina  Courtesy of matteozin - Fotolia.com



The Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts is one of the most important and oldest theaters in the United States. Opened in 1858, it is an old-world arts venue that features two stages for dance and music performance, films, and theater productions. If you are looking for date ideas in Wilmington, watch a performance at at this unique venue. The center is operated by the Thalian Hall Center for the Performing Arts, which maintains the interior of the building and supervises its use. The center produces hundreds of events every year including ballet performances, concerts, film festivals, lectures, recitals, and more. It is home to many performing companies such as Cape Fear Theatre Arts, Opera House Theatre, Thalian Association, and Willis Richardson Players. 310 Chestnut Street, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-632-2285



22. Sea Turtle Camp  Courtesy of BlueOrange Studio - Fotolia.com



Sea Turtle Camp is a marine biology summer camp for all ages that allows visitors to enter the world of the sea turtle and help make a difference in the environment. This life-enriching program offers a variety of exciting hands-on, get-your-feet-wet educational experiences from teen summer camps to adult retreats in beautiful places like southeastern North Carolina, tropical Costa Rica, and picturesque Hawaii. Programs include patrolling Caribbean beaches for nesting leatherback and green sea turtles, volunteering at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, scuba diving North Carolinas shipwrecks, and helping with ongoing Hawaiian sea turtle research. This multi-dimensional marine biology program aims to give every participant a life-changing experience. 7213 Ogden Business Lane, Suite 214, Wilmington, NC, Phone: 910-686-4611 More weekend and day trips: Best Family Vacation Ideas in North Carolina and Romantic Weekend Getaways in North Carolina.

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23. Jungle Rapids Family Fun Park  Jungle Rapids Family Fun Park Have fun under the sun at what is arguably the best water park in the entirety of eastern North Carolina at the Jungle Rapids Family Fun Park. Jungle Rapids water park features a crazy selection of adrenaline-pumping water slides and other water-based attractions for the family to enjoy. As the park is so large and jampacked with activities, guests can opt to rent 6-person or 10-person cabanas for the duration of their visit. In addition to the water park, Jungle Rapids also has a dry park with an arcade, a laser tag arena, a mini-golf course, a mini-bowling alley, a rock-climbing wall, a bumper car zone, and even a go-kart track. For young children, there is a kids jungle available to keep them entertained for hours on end. Guests to Jungle Rapids can avail of a variety of packages, with the most recommended being their All-In Package which even comes with snacks and beverages. 5320 Oleander Drive, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, Phone: 910-791-0666



24. Museum of the Bizarre  Museum of the Bizarre If its strange, weird, unusual, or a collectible oddity, youll see it here. This is the slogan that greets guests to the Museum of the Bizarre, the one and only unique and curious odditorium museum in this part of North Carolina. A science museum at heart, the Museum of the Bizarre is a great place to visit for brave science enthusiasts no matter what their age. The collections and exhibits are family-friendly with some notable items on display being the Fort Fisher Mermaid, the Big Foot Imprint, Houdinis Ouija Board, the Chupacabra Hand, and the Unicorn Horn. In addition to their interactive exhibits, the Museum of the Bizarre also has a Mirror Maze and Laser Vault to navigate and explore. Visitors can choose from various packages that allow them access to all section of the museum or just certain areas and is open daily. Children under three years of age may enter for free. 201 South Water Street, Wilmington, North Carolina 28401, Phone: 910-399-2641



25. Wilmington Brewing Company  Wilmington Brewing Company Spend a great afternoon in a relaxing and laid-back atmosphere with a fantastic craft beer in hand at the Wilmington Brewing Company. Owned and run by the husband-and-wife duo of John and Michelle Savard, the Wilmington Brewing Company has the same passion and love for craft beer culture that their Wilmington-native founders do. Their family-friendly taproom is open seven days a week from 12 pm to 9pm and welcomes locals and guests alike to sample their selection of incredible craft beers. Come and try draft beers like the Tropical Lightning IPA, the Grapefruit Gose, or the Whitlows Belgian Wit, or bring home growlers of offerings like the Effit Lime Hard Seltzer or the Lemur Party Milkshake. Some offerings are only available like the can like the Jorts Party Juice IPA and the Dinosaur Parade Session IPA, making them perfect to take home and to try from the comfort of your own home. 824 S Kerr Avenue, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, Phone: 910-392-3315



25 Best Things to Do in Wilmington, North Carolina

Attraction Spotlight: Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens in Wilmington

The Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina, is part of the National Historic District and one of three homes that has survived the colonial era. Operated as a museum house, The Burgwin-Wright home is the only one of these three residences that is open to the public. The Burgwin-Wright home was built in 1770 and is one of the oldest homes in North Carolina. The original owner was John Burgwin, a wealthy plantation owner and merchant from England.

The architecture is Georgian and features three stories with multiple shaded porches, pillar columns, and immaculate gardens at the back of the property surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

Shortly after construction was completed, the revolutionary War lead to the home being occupied by Lord Cornwallis in 1781. Over the next two hundred years, the home would change hands several times and be purchased by many several wealthy and notable Wilmington families including Burgwins business partner Charles Jewke, and Charles wife Anne Grainger Wright.

In the 1930s The National Society of Colonial Dames of North Carolina purchased the home and used it as their headquarters. The society had a mission of preserving the historic homes and landmarks in North Carolina and the Burgwin-Wright Home was the prime location, on Market Street in Downtown Wilmington.

The NSCDA-NC opened the home to the public as a museum in 1951 and have completed numerous renovations to keep the property preserved and also landscaped the gardens that border Market Street behind and surrounding the property.

Attractions

The attraction at the Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens is the Property itself. Visitors are transported back to colonial times when touring the home. Bedrooms are still adorned with ornate fireplaces for heating, every room is furnished with antiques from the 18th and early 19th century that came from North Carolina. The site was also once the home of the towns city jail and many supernatural enthusiasts have deemed the property as being haunted!

Outside of the home, visitors will find a cookhouse that was used for preparing meals. Traditionally, all meals were cooked by slaves outside of the home so that the heat and smells would not permeate through the house. Residents of the home and guests would then be served in the formal dining room which visitors can see set up as though dinner were about to be had.

The gardens are divided into both useful and ornate styles with a herb and vegetable garden being near the cookhouse. Visitors can also take a leisurely self-guided stroll through the orchards where a variety of fruit trees including fig and pomegranates grow as well as a two-terraced garden featuring Italian Cypress, Ferns, and hyacinths. There is also an aromatic rose garden with dozens of rare heirloom roses, live oaks, Spanish moss, and many other plants native to the area and abundant during Colonia and pre-industrialized times. Another unique garden is the Physic garden where medicinal herbs are grown that were used in holistic remedies during the 18th and 19th centuries. The gardens are open to the public and free of charge.

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, February through December (last updated March 2017) and guided tours are available hourly. There is an admission charge for tours of the home. Docents of the museum will provide historical information while dressed in period costumes and educate visitors on the history of the home, the NSCDA-NC and the lore surrounding the home.

There are many special events that are held at the Burgwin-Wright home and Gardens that are open to the community and public throughout the year. More information about these events can be accessed through the events calendar. Past events have included local author book signing and presentations, history lectures and presentations, Founders Days Celebrations, open hearth cooking demonstrations and many other educational panels and symposiums.

Private events can also be held on the property in the gardens and courtyards. Weddings and portrait photography sessions are very popular and there are 7 different areas on 4 levels to ensure privacy and intimacy for your special events. Outdoor lighting can be arranged as well as use of the catering kitchen and restrooms however the interior of the home and museum will not be accessible.

There is also a special room available for meeting and small parties. The Florence Kidder Room is equipped with a projector and screen and is where many of the special events and educational seminars at the museum take place.

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224 Market Street, Wilmington, North Carolina, 28401, Phone: 910-762-4523

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Hop on a bike with Pedal Bike Tours for one of the best ways to see Portland, OR. The tour company offers several easy and fun bike tours that explore the food, history, culture, and architecture of the city. Pedal Bike Tours also offers bike rentals for those wanting to explore Portland on their own. Tours exploring Oregon Wine Country and Columbia Gorge, as well as custom bike tours, are also offered.

The Historic Downtown Tour is an essential introduction to Portland. Using bike lanes, this tour takes participants for a spin around the city, stopping to take in views of Portland's several bridges, the river, and downtown. Views include Old Town's nineteenth and early twentieth century cast iron and brick fronted buildings along the waterfront. The tour will also visit Chinatown, and Pearl District with its warehouses-turned-art galleries, restaurants, and shops. Among the buildings seen in the Pearl District are a theater that was once a fortress-like armory and Henry Weinhard's 140-year-old brewery.

Pedal Bike Tours' Columbia River Gorge Tour is a combination of a hiking and biking excursion from Portland. Stops are made along the way during the forty-five minute drive to the Gorge at the most scenic vistas. The drive is followed by an easy nine-mile bike ride through the Columbia River Gorge along the country's first National Scenic Highway. There will also be stops for short hikes at up to six waterfalls.

The Oregon Brewery Tour is a leisurely bike tour that visits many Portland's forty brewpubs and microbreweries that have turned the city into "Beervana." This five-mile, three hour tour travels past several of the most beloved breweries in Oregon, and includes beer tastings at four breweries and a brewery tour. The tour ends at the Pedal Bike Tours shop with a pint of local beer. The tour's guide will point out several of Portland's sights, as well as the best restaurants and bars. Some of these sights include Northwest Portland, the Pearl District, Stumptown Coffee, Powell's Books, and Downtown.

The Food Cart Tour offered by Pedal Bike Tours takes participants to many of Portland's amazing food carts in some of the city's most scenic neighborhoods, such the Hawthorne District, Sunnyside, and Portland Waterfront. All drinks and food from three to six food carts are included. The first stop of the tour is at 12th and Hawthorne, the first food cart pod that appeared in Portland. Favorites here include La Perriera Creperie, Potato Champion, and Wiffies.

The next stop of the Food Cart Tour takes tour-goers through Sunnyside to a more off-the-beaten path pod called Good Food Here, which includes favorites like The Honey Pot, Viking Soul Food, and Fifty Licks Ice Cream. Other stops include two hidden gems of food carts near the scenic Laurelhurst neighborhood, and the city's largest food cart pod at 10th and Alder. This pod has more or less forty food carts, so it's almost certain guests will find something that meets their tastes there.

Back to: Things to Do in Portland, OR

133 SW Second Avenue, Portland, Oregon, website, Phone: 503-243-2453
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LONDON  British acting star Damian Lewis on Sunday revealed that former US President Barack Obama had offered him advice in playing a charismatic hedge fund manager in hit television series Billions.

When asked by the BBCs Andrew Marr if his character Bobby Axe Axelrod glamorised Wall Street bosses, Lewis replied: "Im going to drop a name here and Im going to enjoy it enormously.

"The (then) president of the United States Barack Obama did say to me a few months ago, Im loving Billions, Im loving your character in it, Im loving Bobby, the only problem is hedge fund managers arent that cool."

The Showtime series is loosely based on real-life prosecutor of financial crimes Preet Bharara and his battles with hedge fund manager Steve Cohen.

Lewis, who played Nicholas Brody in the television series Homeland, said "the one slightly romantic thing you can say about" hedge fund managers is that "they do bet against the tide".  AFP
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia  German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Saudi King Salman on Sunday, state media said, as she began a visit focused on bilateral relations and preparations for the next G20 meeting.

King Salman received Merkel in his palace in the western city of Jeddah, SPA state news agency said, adding that the two presided over a signing ceremony for six cooperation agreements: three government-to-government and the others involving the private sector.

Merkel was expected to discuss with the Saudis the agenda for the G20 meeting in July, including the Paris climate accord and G20 decisions on energy, according to a German official.

"There will be for sure a discussion over how Germany could support Saudi efforts to diversify its economy and reduce its dependency on fossil energy," the official said ahead of the visit.

"Economic relations are solid but not shining. The volume of commercial exchange stood at eight billion euros ($8.72 billion) in 2016. German investments in Saudi were around 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion)," the official said.

The worlds largest oil exporter has embarked on an ambitious plan to diversify its oil-dependent economy after a sharp drop in crude prices hit revenues.

Merkel is also expected to urge Saudi Arabia and its fellow Sunni-ruled Gulf monarchies to reduce tension with their Shiite-dominated neighbour Iran, the official added.

Merkel also also meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful son of the king who is also defence minister.

Merkel travels on Monday to the United Arab Emirates, where German investments stand at around 2.4 billion euros ($2.6 billion), the German official said.  AFP
BANGKOK  Thailands government head has accepted an invitation to visit the White House from President Donald Trump, his spokesman said on Monday, the latest autocrat to be embraced by the US leader.

The offer came during a phone conversation on Sunday night, part of a flurry of calls Trump made to Southeast Asian leaders over the weekend trying to shore up regional support over the troubled Korean peninsula. On Sunday he extended a White House invitation to Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte.

"The Prime Minister thanked and accepted President Trumps invitation to visit the United States," government spokesman Major General Werachon Sukhonhapatipak said in a statement, adding that the offer to visit had been reciprocated by Bangkok.

Thailands former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power three years ago, anointing himself prime minister.

Many Southeast Asian nations have looked to the Trump administration with some trepidation.

He has shown little appetite for his predecessors Asia "pivot" and he swiftly scrapped the TPP trade deal after taking office.

Trump is due to visit two regional summits -- in Vietnam and the Philippines -- towards the end of the year.

The Thai government statement was light on specifics but said Trump "had confidence in the Thai government" and that the two countries were ready to "enhance bilateral co-operation in all dimensions".  AFP
LONDON  Former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Monday he was plunging back into domestic politics in order to fight against Brexit.

Blair, who led the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007, will not be standing in the June 8 general election.

But he said he wanted to build a political movement to shape the policy debate as Britain starts its negotiations to leave the European Union.

Blair, 63, who was prime minister for a decade from 1997 and whose legacy has been defined by the Iraq war, said he knew he would face intense criticism for doing so.

But the ardent Europhile, who has largely been working on Middle East and African issues since leaving office, still wanted to get his "hands dirty" and re-enter the fray, saying voters should have the chance to change their mind once the final EU exit deal becomes clear.

"This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics," he told the Daily Mirror newspaper.

"You need to get your hands dirty and I will.

"I know the moment I stick my head out the door Ill get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me, but I really do feel passionate about this.

"I dont want to be in the situation where we pass through this moment of history and I hadnt said anything because that would mean I didnt care about this country. I do.

"I am not sure I can turn something into a political movement but I think there is a body of ideas out there people would support."

He said his push was not about defying the vote to leave the European Union.

He said leaving the European single market and seeking a free trade agreement, as is Conservative Prime Minister Theresa Mays intention, would be "relegating ourselves" from the top order.

Opinion polls put the Conservatives far ahead of Labour, a few weeks out from the general election.

Blair, who won three straight general elections as Labour leader, was from the most centrist strain of the party, while current leader Jeremy Corbyn is from its strident leftist wing that reviles Blairite politics.

"Unless you are providing answers for the future you are not going to win," Blair warned.  AFP
WATERLOO  A Waterloo teen has been arrested on gun and drug charges after he allegedly hit a car and a detached garage Saturday afternoon.

Police said a patrol officer attempted to stop Alex Michael Bullerman, 18, after he allegedly crashed into a parked car in the area of West Fourth and South streets around 3:40 p.m. Saturday.

Bullerman allegedly kept driving and then struck a garage in the 500 block of Bayard Street.

He ran off but was detained about two blocks away, according to police.

Officers found a handgun and marijuana, and Bullerman was arrested for felon in possession of a firearm, carrying weapons, eluding, leaving the scene of an accident and possession of marijuana.

He was later released from the Black Hawk County Jail.

Saturday gunfire investigated

WATERLOO  Police are investigating a Saturday evening shooting that damaged a parked car.

No injuries were reported. Neighbors in the 600 block of West Park Avenue called police after hearing gunfire around 3:45 p.m. Saturday, and officers found one bullet hole in a parked vehicle.

No other damage or evidence was found. No arrests have been made in the case.
INDEPENDENCE  Attorneys for an Arlington man accused of leaving the scene of a fatal crash say a public 911 call shows their client is innocent.

Gina Messamer, one of the three attorneys representing former reality television star Chris Soules, filed a motion to dismiss in Buchanan County District Court on Monday.

The motion asks the court to dismiss the charge of leaving the scene of an accident causing death, a felony. Messamer said the 911 call is the key piece of evidence.

That 911 recording establishes that Mr. Soules satisfied, as a matter of law, the requirements of Iowa Code 321.261 and 321.263, Messamer said in the filing. Because probable cause does not exist to support the charge against Mr. Soules, it must be dismissed.

Soules was charged with leaving the scene of an accident that killed Kenneth Mosher, 66, of Aurora.

Moshers tractor was allegedly hit from behind by Soules pickup truck April 24, according to law enforcement.

The motion states Soules unhesitatingly identified himself and his role in the accident to dispatch and tried his utmost to resuscitate Mr. Mosher.

The motion said Soules was on the scene for approximately 5 minutes and 45 seconds.

Messamer also argues in the motion Iowa Code does not require a driver to remain at the scene of a crash until police arrive.
MARENGO  Jury selection has started in the case of a former Tama man accused of killing his fiance in 2000.

Tait Otis Purk, 50, is charged with first-degree murder in the disappearance of Cora Ann Okonski, a 23-year-old mother who went missing April 16, 2000.

Okonskis body has never been found, and Purk wasnt charged until December 2016, about a month after the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation announced it had classified Okonskis case as a homicide.

Purks trial was moved from Tama County to nearby Iowa County earlier this year because of pretrial publicity.

The Iowa County Clerk of Court called in 65 to 70 people for jury selection on Monday, and court officials interviewed prospective jurors about their knowledge of the case and media exposure.

Responses ranged from people who had passing media exposure of the case to a woman who said she had been following news of Okonskis disappearance for years through newspapers, TV and the Iowa Cold Cases website.

The judge struck the woman from jury service in the case.

Dressed in an orange plaid shirt, Purk sat quietly and listened to the proceedings, occasionally talking with defense attorneys Aaron Siebrecht and Scott Hunter.

The case is being prosecuted by Laura Road with the Iowa Attorney Generals Office and Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren.

Okonski moved to Iowa from Illinois and planned to marry Purk. In December 1999, Purk was arrested for allegedly assaulting Okonski, but the charge was dismissed three months later.

Purk told authorities Okonski left to buy cigarettes April 16, 2000, and she never returned.

Purk was charged with firearm and meth-related charges in federal court in August 2003, and was sentenced to prison.
CEDAR FALLS  Henry Gaff, co-chair of the Iowa Green Party and chairman of the Black Hawk County Green Party, announced his bid for the 1st District congressional seat, making him the first entrant into the contest.

Gaff said Iowans deserve a progressive choice and noted his inspiration from former Democratic primary presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Gaffs platform includes tax reforms and a single-payer health system.

Gaff, of Cedar Falls, is just 18. The U.S. Constitution calls for U.S. House of Representatives members to be 25 years old, but Gaff argues no one elected by the people has been denied office based on their age.

I maintain that my platform is more important than my age; we need fresh ideas in government anyway, Gaff said. Most people dont feel like theyre seeing any change for the better, and who could blame them following the 2016 election? Were going to turn all that around, and thats why Im running for office  to start building a government that works for us.

Gaff will hold a campaign rally at 1:30 p.m. May 21 at Overman Park in Cedar Falls, where he anticipates a number of progressive candidates for office will speak.

Iowas 1st congressional district is comprised of 20 counties in northeast Iowa that include Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque. U.S. Rep. Rod Blum, R-1st District, currently holds the seat and is in his second term.

More information about Gaff is available at www.henrygaff.com.
FAYETTE  An Upper Iowa University alumnus who immigrated to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago with his parents at the age of 13 will deliver the commencement address during the universitys 155th graduation ceremonies Saturday at Harms-Eischeid Stadium in Fayette.

Kenneth Curtis Williams, an honored military veteran, is the co-owner, president and CEO of Beard and Tie Co. LLS, a disabled veteran business in St. Cloud, Fla. After graduating from high school in 1972, Williams joined the U.S. Army as a combat medic. Achieving the rank of command sergeant major, he served in numerous leadership, staff and field positions, including three combat tours and the senior medical noncommissioned officer for the installation. He retired honorably after 26 years of military service. His military honors include the Order of Military Medical Merit, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, Combat Medical Badge 2nd Award and Expert Field Medical Badge.

Williams graduated cum laude in 1999 with a bachelors degree in public administration at Upper Iowa Universitys Fort Riley Center at Fort Riley, Kan. Shortly thereafter, he was selected to lead the Department of Veterans activation contracting team as chief contracting officer for the Orlando VA Medical Center at Lake Nona, Fla. He retired in 2014 after 15 years of civilian service in the federal government.
While Wells Fargo has increased clawbacks  the forced return of pay or stock  from top executives deemed culpable in a scheme to create fraudulent accounts, federal regulators responsible for oversight were clawless and clueless.

After an investigation ordered by Wells Fargos board of directors, the banks law firm blamed John Stumpf, the former chief executive officer who was forced into retirement, for creating a culture for department heads to run it like you own it.

One who apparently did was Carrie Tolstedt, the fired head of community banking. She was found to have abused her authority by pushing an unrealistic Eight is Great sales campaign for customers to have eight separate accounts, often achieved by sandbagging or establishing false accounts.

When confronted with whistleblower complaints, the report stated Tolstedt resisted and impeded scrutiny and minimized the scale and nature of the problems.

Stumpfs clawback increased from $41 million to $69 million, while Tolstedts clawback of $19 million jumped to $67 million. Neither will be destitute. Stumpf left with holdings valued at $247 million. Tolstedts were put at $125 million.

Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees for creating more than 1.5 million fraudulent bank accounts  often transferring funds from legitimate accounts  and applying for 565,000 credit cards. The abuse was most rampant in California and Arizona, where Latino immigrants were targeted as perfect victims because they couldnt protest the practice, according to Bloomberg News.

The New York Times reported one branch managers teenage daughter had 24 bogus accounts and her husband had 21.

The bank was hit with a $185 million penalty  $100 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $50 million to the City and County of Los Angeles, which acted following a Los Angeles Times investigation.

Wells Fargo recently agreed to raise its settlement offer to consumers from $100 million to $142 million, acknowledging the sales practices started in 2002 rather than 2009. The courts must approve the settlement. Wells Fargo stated, We want to make sure that no Wells Fargo customer loses a single penny because of these issues.

Oversight by federal regulators was nonexistent, despite more than 700 whistleblower complaints related to gaming of incentive plans, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The OCC report found federal investigators were ineffective and missed opportunities to uncover the false accounts as far back as 2004, even with a team of 60 to 70 OCC employees at Wells Fargos San Francisco headquarter.

Nor did it force Wells Fargo to investigate. When Tolstedt was confronted, she said Wells Fargos culture encourages complaints that are investigated and appropriately addressed. In fact, whistleblowers were frequently fired after lodging complaints.

Examiner Bradley Linskens, who headed OCCs oversight of Wells Fargo, was removed.

The American Banker reported the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered Wells Fargo to pay a fired former manager  dismissed after whistleblowing  $5.4 million in back compensation, damages and legal fees.

But the Reuters News Agency also stated OSHA had received 91 complaints concerning the Wells Fargo program since 2002 with 34 remaining open.

That drew the ire of Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who was concerned about the impact the sales practices had on small businesses. He called it absolutely outrageous that these government bureaucrats failed to do their job.

New York Federal Reserve president Bill Dudley noted the importance of federal oversight in a recent speech, citing the Wells Fargo accounts opened by bankers apparently with utter disregard for whether customers wanted or even knew about them.

Like mortgage brokers in the early 2000s, he added, it appears that job security depended almost exclusively on meeting targets, regardless of how those targets were met, alluding to the tactic of steering borrowers into the high-cost loans that rocked the economy in 2008.

His concerns should resonate, despite the decision by the Trump administration to remove a U.S. Department of Labor website for current and former Wells Fargo employees to lodge complaints on workplace issues.

As we learned in 2008, the integrity of the banking system is critical to the well-being of the U.S. and world economy.
Forcing religion

LANNY SCHWARTZ

CEDAR FALLS  The Republicans in Des Moines have once again set out to scam the pro-lifers by passing bills that prohibit abortion, even in the case of rape, incest, or to force the birth of deformed fetuses. The courts have always found that to be unconstitutional. However Republicans will say we tried, except for those darn courts. Vote for us again and we will scam you again.

Its time pro-lifers learn theirs is a religious theology. Many faiths believe life begins at other times; e.g., when the baby quickens, at birth, etc. So, you are trying to force your minority religious conviction on people polls show dont want abortions banned. Evangelicals, if you have the strength to question your faith, you will find that up until 1980 your religion believed life begins at birth. Then some mega-preachers decided it should be at conception. Books of theology were hastily rewritten.

There are probably 100 million gallons of blood spilled on this Earth by those trying to force their religion on others or by those resisting unwanted beliefs. Whether by the sword or the ballot box, it is always wrong to force your religion on others who dont want it.

GOP agenda

KAMYAR ENSHAYAN

CEDAR FALLS  Based on the kinds of legislation passed during the past session, it is clear the majority Republicans guiding philosophy and posture towards polluting industries, gun lobby and other out-of-state entities has been Come and cash-in on our low self-esteem.

And their message to Iowans who have to endure nitrate in their drinking water, or lower wages, or less Medicaid service due to privatization: It sucks to be you. The most shameful legislative session in memory.

Police gear

RONNIE FLICKINGER

WATERLOO  Tom Lind tried giving money to the police department for equipment. Tom Powers said Tom Lind tried to create a bad vote for political reasons. Tom Lind probably made that move because he wants the Waterloo Police Department to be safe.

With all the shootings and stabbings lately, Lind had a good idea. Powers should want police officers to be safe too. Spending money on equipment for cops is a good idea. I hope the police department is supported in the future.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Apr. 30, 2017 | 05:22 PM | MAYFIELD, KY

A Mayfield man faces numerous charges after an incident on Saturday.

According to the Mayfield Police Department, 36-year-old Richard Noonan was being treated by by Mayfield-Graves County EMS when he began throwing fists in the air toward EMS personnel and family members. The Mayfield Police Department was called to assist.

When police arrived, Noonan fled on foot and disregarded officers' commands to stop. Noonan fell in the road and began punching and kicking while police tried to place him in handcuffs.

Noonan was eventually taken into custody and taken to Jackson Purchase Medical Center for treatment. Once cleared, he was lodged in the Graves County Jail on charges of assaulting a police officer, fleeing and evading, disorderly conduct, menacing and public intoxication of a controlled substance.
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Though there are now 9,091 wineries in the U.S., the WBM 30 companies represent more than 90 percent of domestic wine sold by volume. The three top wine companies by themselves represent more than half of all case sales.

The short answer is: almost.The Power Law is used to describe phenomena where large events are rare but small ones are quite common. For example, there are few billionaires while most people make only a modest income; there are few large cities but many small towns; there are few very frequent words (such as "and", "the") but many rare words.Mathematically, Power Laws are of interest because of what is known as "scale invariance", as well as the fact that there is no well-defined average value. You can read about this in Wikipedia For the rest of us, Power Laws are of interest because of their practical consequences. For example, the 80:20 Rule (or Pareto Principle) is one example of a Power Law, which says that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. You can also read about this in Wikipedia . For a discussion of this idea, see What is the 80/20 rule and why it will change your life . [Sometimes, it is also 90/10; for example, it is usually estimated that 90% of wine consumption in the USA is by 10% of the people.]Power Laws are considered to be universal, and so there is no reason why they should not exist in the wine industry. One of the more obvious places that we might expect to find them is in the size of wine companies. Size might be measured by amount of wine produced or by monetary income, for example. Either way, there will be a few very big companies and lots of little ones.So, let's look at a specific example. In its February 2017 issue (p.48),compiled its fourteenth annual ranking of the top 30 U.S. wineries by case sales (in 2016). You can see a copy of the list in Big Wine takes over notes:This sounds like a classic case of a Power Law; and so it is worth checking this possibility.One special case of the Power Law is known as Zipf's Law, which refers to the "size" of each event relative to it's rank order of size. This is what we are looking at here. For each wine company, the "size" is the number of cases of wine sold during 2016, and the WBM 30 companies are listed in rank order of their sizes (largest to smallest).The standard way to evaluate the Zipf pattern is to plot the data with both axes of the graph converted to logarithms. Under these circumstances, the data should form a straight line. Here is the graph of the WBM 30 data. The three largest wineries are labeled.As you can see, almost all of the data lie roughly along a straight line, and thus do indeed fit a Power Law. That is as expected; and the Power Law is thusproverbial in this case.However, there is one exception  the largest company, E&J Gallo Winery, didproduce enough wine to fit into the same pattern as the other 29 wineries. Indeed, to fit the Power Law, the top-ranked company would need to have sold about 260 million cases during 2016, which is c. 3.5 times as much wine as E&J Gallo actually sold.This is an interesting finding. The Power Law suggests that the biggest US winery (and thus the biggest wine company in the world) should dominate the US industry to aextent than the Gallo winery currently does. That is, having one-quarter of the US wine market is not enough! The current degree of industry dominance has been held by Gallo for at least the past quarter-century, but it seems unlikely that it has ever dominated sufficiently to fit the Power Law. Apparently, it is rather hard to dominate US wine sales in the way predicted by a simple Power Law model.This "under-performance" by Gallo may be a good thing for the consumer, of course, since Diversity is usually a better thing than is a Power Law  the Power Law actually represents a rather extreme situation.For comparison, the biggest-selling imported wine in the USA is Yellow Tail (from Casella Wines, in Australia), with more than 8 million cases shipped to the US per year. This would place it at no. 9 in the WBM 30 list. This will be the subject of a separate blog post.
The Bolivian president says the secretary-general of the OAS is trying to stage a coup against Venezuela.

Bolivian President Evo Morales denounced Sunday the undemocratic and meddling actions of the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, who, working in concert with the U.S. and right-wing governments in the region is trying to topple the government of Venezuela.

"It's not understandable what the OAS is doing against Venezuela," said the Bolivian president at a ceremony to inaugurate a school in Tiraque, Cochabamba.

Morales said OAS head Luis Almagro should respect the foundations of the bloc and not be "an accomplice" of the imperial forces. He called on the regional organization to respect its charter, which dictates its own actions, as he said an aggression against a Latin American country "constitutes an aggression against all Latin American states."

Almagro has repeatedly called for the Democratic Charter to be applied against Venezuela, which would have led to its suspension from the organization, alleging that a severe political and economic crisis is grounds to justify an intervention.

Morales read the principles of the OAS that obligate respect for the sovereignty and independence of the member states.

Article 1 of the OAS Charter says that the organization does not have the authority to intervene in matters within the domestic jurisdiction of member states.

"And what are they doing in Venezuela?" said Morales, "giving a coup d'etat supported by the United States."

Last week, in response to Almagro's actions, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez presented an official letter to start the process of leaving the OAS, which she said was attempting to intervene and promote a coup in the country.

The decision was announced after the OAS Permanent Council approved a convening of foreign ministers to discuss Venezuela, without the countrys consent. There were 19 votes in favor of holding the meeting, 10 against, one abstention and one absence.

Article 143 of the OAS Charter states that any member state can choose to leave the group by means of a written communication to the secretary-general and after two years from the date on which the secretary-general receives the notification, the state shall be removed from the organization.
May 1, 2017 | By Benedict

Scientists at Russias Kabardino-Balkarian State University say they have invented a new multifunctional polymer material that could be used for 3D printing drones, prostheses, and robots. Production costs would be low, making the polymers available for widespread 3D printing use.

A new Russian-made 3D printing polymer could be used to produce drones at low cost

Whatever your thoughts on Vladimir Putin, its hard to argue that the Russian president doesnt take seriously the subject of national defense.

Evidence for that fact was made clear in 2012, when the president founded the state-run Foundation for Advanced Research Projects (FPI), an organization designed to promote scientific research that could benefit Russian national security.

At the time of the FPIs launch, Putins deputy and defense specialist Dmitry Rogozin said the foundation would put an end to 20 years of stagnation in Russian military science. And while it may be too soon to evaluate that goal, some of the research being carried out by FPI-backed scientists appears far from stagnant.

While military research obviously gets top priority at the FPI, the organization also oversees projects that arent explicitly defense-oriented, such as the laboratory of progressive polymers at Kabardino-Balkarian State University in Nalchik.

Advanced plastics can be used for military applications, of course, but they can also benefit many other areas of scientific research. Head laboratory researcher Svetlana Kashirova recently confirmed that fact by revealing some exciting developments from the lab that directly concern 3D printing.

According to Kashirova, scientists at the laboratory have developed a new multifunctional polymer material that is cheap to produce, easy to manipulate, and which can be used in the 3D printing of drones, prostheses, and robots.

President Vladimir Putin authorized the foundation of the FPI in 2012 in order to advance Russian technology

(Image: AP/RIA-Novosti)

The lab chief revealed that the new material has been under development since 2014, and could offer a number of advantages to 3D printer users, including shorter production times, low spoilage, and a high level of material purity.

By using our material in 3D printing, prostheses created for individual characteristics of a particular person could be printed, Kashirova said of the new Russian 3D printing material.

It could also be used for printing drones, powered exoskeletons, machine components, complex parts of robotic devices, and elements of a space suit.

Kashirova said the 3D printing material also has a high level of biological inertness, making it suitable for use in medical applications.

The materials are chemically, fire, heat and frost-resistant, the laboratory chief added. They could be used in environments with high temperature and radiation exposure levels. That is why the usage of the new material is quite broad: the aviation and space industry, machine engineering, the oil and gas industry, as well as others.

While this level of detail is hardly enough to get us excited about the prospect of a game-changing 3D printing material, its fun to know that a small fraction of Russias defense resources are going towards improving 3D printing.

Posted in 3D Printing Materials

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May 1, 2017 | By Julia

New Zealand is about to get its first ever 3D printed electric car. Currently in development by Ira Munn, an entrepreneur working out of local tech charity Accelerating Aotearoa, The Drop is a three wheeled electric car designed for commuters. The vehicle will be motorway legal and have a battery range of up to 300 kilometres, making it the first 3D printed electric car by and for New Zealanders.

Ira Munn

The innovation began as part of New Zealands push to make electric cars mainstream: in 2016, the government launched a program to increase the adoption of electric vehicles. The countrys current target is to double New Zealands number of electric cars each year, with an ultimate goal of reaching 64,000 by 2021.

Its an ambitious goal, but one that is readily achievable with makers like Munn hard at work. "It's a first for New Zealand and I'm really excited that New Zealand can have an electric car it can call its own," Munn told local press.

The entrepreneur made the move to New Zealand from the U.S. in 2015, where he promptly set up his business Ierospace. A chance encounter led him to Judy Speight of Accelerating Aotearoa, a local charity that supports technology education and development.

Munn has partnered with the organization ever since, an avenue he hopes will connect him to young people, who Munn sees as integral to the future of 3D printing.

I think theres a lot of creativity here in south Auckland that hasnt been unlocked yet, said Munn.

So far, the Auckland-based entrepreneur is well on his way. Munn has been developing the car for the past year, and thanks to the help of Massey University engineering students, the Drop was able to be manufactured using a 3D printer.

An initial prototype is expected to be ready by August of this year. Munns hope is that the full car will be available for the market by March of 2018, at a negligible cost of only $10,000.

Unsurprisingly, the maker is a big user of public transport, and is optimistic that more electric vehicles in Auckland will positively impact the environment. Im excited about Ierospace having a role in helping accomplish that goal, he said.

In addition to the green benefits of electric vehicles, the 3D vehicle kits will also be built from recyclable materials.

"I want our footpaths for pedestrians to be safe from vehicle exhausts ... we'll be improving the environment in many ways," Munn said.

Munn will be showcasing The Drop along with Massey University's 3D printer this September at Conferenz's evworld expo in Manukau.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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by Dave Maier

Joanna Demers  Listening Through the Noise: The Aesthetics of Experimental Electronic Music (Oxford University Press, 2010)

When I tried, in 1981, to interest my undergraduate music professors in progressive electronic music, they didn't get it: anything with notes was harmonically simple (it hess to do with analeetical levelss, explained one prof), and anything without notes left them completely at sea. Apparently musicology meant the theory, not of music generally, but of Western classical music in particular. For anything else you want ethnomusicology, which turned out to be basically a subset of anthropology, dominated by scrupulously objective descriptions of Javanese gamelan, Ghanaian drumming, and so on (worthy music all, but not what I was talking about).

I guess that's not too surprising. If you are trained from the age of five to think about music solely in terms of melody and harmony, or at least pitch and duration, then you should be equally flummoxed both by music which lacks these things entirely, and  perhaps even more  by that which subordinates them to other things, like sound texture and spatial location. So I have not been expecting much analytic help from musicological quarters. However, I am pleased to report that Joanna Demers's recent book displays an amazing degree of familiarity  for an academic musicologist at any rate  with the full range of contemporary electronic music and sound art.

Listening Through the Noise is not a work of criticism, but of aesthetic theory, and the discussion is a bit abstract at times, perhaps in order to avoid drowning the reader in technical detail. However, as appropriate to the subject as this abstraction is, Demers renders her subject approachable through the analysis of a wide-ranging array of examples, and her writing is clear and accessible. This is partly because she is laying the groundwork for future elaboration rather than making a definitive statement, but as a level-headed introduction to this difficult topic, this book is hard to beat.

Yet I think we're still talking about baby steps. Impressed as I was to see approving references in an academic book to the likes of Celer, Basic Channel, and Tetsu Inoue, a quick look at the discography and index reveals huge, gaping holes. Some are excused by the focus on aesthetic theory rather than history or criticism, but to see what progress has actually been made here, we need to take a closer look.

The unifying thread of Demers's discussion is the issue of whether sound is meaningful, either inherently or as used in the various kinds of sound art, which she divides into three broad metagenres: a) electroacoustic music, by which she basically means academic computer/classical music; b) electronica, with roots in pop/rock/dance music; and c) sound art, which is more associated with the gallery/museum tradition of visual art. As she elaborates later on, [p]articipants in each metagenre generally perceive themselves in an oppositional relationship to a mainstream made up of the other two metagenres as well as different forms of nonelectronic music [e.g. pop and Western classical] [ they] also define themselves on the basis of institutions, media, and criticism.

This sounds about right, but it may seem odd to think that the same theoretical issue is working itself out in such diverse areas of sonic art. Let's see how it comes up.

Part I: Sign

1) Listening to Signs in Post-Schaefferian Electroacoustic Music

A perennial controversy in aesthetic theory over the centuries concerns the autonomy of art. Is art (merely) an expression of culture or politics, or does it have its own identity entirely independent of these? Neither extreme seems attractive (which is why it's a perennial controversy). To think that the cultural and political background in which the artwork is produced has nothing to do with its identity is hopelessly naive for a dozen reasons. On the other hand, to reduce the artwork to a mere epiphenomenon, of interest only for its clues to power relations or whatever, makes hash of our experience of art. It's hardly better  even if entirely correct  to split the difference and say that the cultural context is partly, but not entirely, constitutive of the artwork. But can something be partly autonomous? What would that mean exactly? It's a mess.

Demers's subject is sonic art, and in this context it is natural to begin one's story at the moment when sound art decisively broke away from the specifically musical tradition. Her treatment of Pierre Schaeffer's conception of the sound object (objet sonore) is too subtle and detailed to get into here, but the most controversial aspect of Schaeffer's theory has been the idea of reduced listening. Akin to the Husserlian phenomenological reduction of reality to experience, this idea tells us to disregard any causal, mimetic or referential links to the world and concentrate instead on sound in itself. Even this idea, let alone Schaeffer's aesthetic as a whole, is remarkably hard to pin down, which is partly why it plays such a large role in the subsequent history of sound art.

Demers's point is not that we are all Schaefferians now; just the opposite, in fact, as much of what she discusses is a partial or complete rejection of the ideal of absolute music, and should thus be viewed in this context. This first chapter introduces the combatants and discusses a few ways to get beyond absolute music in the context of academic electroacoustic music (like the title says). We'll skip over this stuff (e.g. Trevor Wishart and Simon Emmerson, if you're interested) in the interest of time, except to note her observation that even the most radical works in terms of form and sound content still identify themselves as music through the rituals in which they are experienced, creating a schizophrenic condition in which electroacoustic music is simultaneously music and something other than music, such as sound art. [42] We see similar ideas below, but by itself I'm afraid this can't make most academic monstrosities even remotely listenable (not that that's her goal, of course).

2) Material as Sign in Electronica

We will have to skip over some chapters here, so let me be brief. Like the electroacoustic musicians of chapter 1, electronica artists are open to a wide variety of uses of nonmusical sound, as pioneered by Schaeffer, but also retain the idea that sound can be meaningful. According to Demers, they see sound as material subject to intelligible transformation, allowing meaning to be conveyed sonically by metaphors (say of destruction, augmentation, or recontextualization). I wasn't convinced by everything here, and she does tend to go for the suspiciously obvious examples (Matmos, William Basinski), but overall I think this is the right line to take.

Part II: Object

3) Minimal Objects in Microsound

As Demers uses it here, microsound means recent electronic music that treats sound as collections of infinitesimally small particles. This description suggests the technique of granular synthesis, which does not apply to all of her examples, but she later references as well the ambient and glitch works appearning on such labels as Mille Plateaux, Trente Oiseaux, and 12k/LINE (in other words, a wide range of stuff, not just minimal techno). Sometimes (e.g. Richard Chartier) the music itself is minimal in the sense of very spare; but in Demers's use the term applies to the sound particles themselves, as objects.

Object is the other key term here, as Demers's concern here is to make a connection between microsound and the minimal sculpture of Donald Judd et al, given the analogous theoretical brouhaha over same in the 1960s (q.v. Michael Fried's Art and Objecthood (1967)). In some of her examples, e.g. Chartier and Miki Yui, she draws attention to the material qualities of sound and silence[:] Chartier's silence is not the same as the pregnant silences in Cage's music, full of ambient, neglected sound, but is rather completely blank, empty space. For some microsounders, sounds function less as placeholders for meaning than as blank objects that can be added to or removed from the texture of a work [78].

Demers concedes the inexactness of her analogy to sculpture, which is after all fixed in time in a way that music is not, but in each case the artist has purposely discourage[d] decoding or interpretation in order to combat previously dominant theoretical paradigms (say, of mimesis or intention). In addition, she has a couple of gripes with the application of the idea to microsound. First, while microsounders make a big deal out of not deciphering, explaining, or decoding art, this move is hardly new, as we have seen above (as in Schaefferian reduced listening and non-referentiality). In a word, it sounds to many critics like absolute music all over again.

In particular, Demers's second criticism focuses on the means these artists use to this famiiar end. Even when a track has been stripped of virtually everything interpretable as a musical gesture, just when reduced listening seems more attainable, we naturally turn again, as Demers herself does in discussing it, to metaphor: pops, flutters, hums, and so on. Extremely quiet and esoteric sounds can evade meaning, but they cannot trump it altogether once listeners begin the process of explaining what they hear. I think the equation of minimalism in this sense with the goal of Schaefferian reduced listening is a bit quick, and I don't want to reduce any work to its (apparent) theoretical motivations, but as a listener I have to admit that if that's what I'm supposed to get out of it, a little of this stuff goes a long way. Why limit your sonic means to a few digital clicks simply to discourage deciphering? There must be more to it than that.

One final note before we move on. Demers makes an exception to this criticism in the case of minimal techno, where [p]aradoxically, once a track identifies itself as music [here, with its techno rhythm, even if manifested only in clicks], our curiosity about its contents [that is, its meaning or reference] is sated, thus allowing for a form of reduced listening after all. This sort of dual possibility, in which listening is necessarily reduced, but not simply to non-referential sound (as in Ryoji Ikeda or Alva Noto), suggests to Demers that [m]icrosound might thus represent [!] less an effort to avoid signification altogether than an idealistic attempt to preserve music's ability to signify. [89]

4) Maximal Objects in Drone, Dub Techno, and Noise

While microsound aspires to a reductive absence of meaning, other types of music, Demers tells us, have not given up on the belief that music can signify but have rather abandoned faith that signification occurs through intelligible units of a musical language.  [the techniques they use] disrupt the sense that music functions as a language by calling attention to physical aspects [those stressed by extreme volume and duration] that music usually asks us to ignore.

For example, drone artist Eliane Radigue's recordings, while minimal in a familiarly broad sense, due to its static harmonies and limited sound palette, are maximal in their extreme length  often over an hour. Noise music is perhaps more obviously maximal in its ear-splitting volume. We might be surprised to see dub techno in this category, but as Demers explains, what these genres have in common, on her analysis, is a quality of excess, something appreciable only after long stretches of time [] These pieces confine their materials to drones, noises, and repetive rhythmic patterns and often studiously avoid any other types of sounds that might distract from these elements. [92]

In particular, these works are intentionally static, scrupulously avoid[ing] any sense of trajectory or anticipation, even (as in dub techno, which Demers is here describing) when there are rhythmic elements present. The murky production of Gas's Nah und Fern (a massive reissue of his first 4 records, which are fairly similar in this respect), helps create[] the impression that these sounds have solidified into inert objects promising no future growth or evolution. The significance of this for Devers can be found in a distinction (as in Adorno) between aesthetic time and empirical time. The stasis she finds in this music focuses our attention on the disjunction between what we're hearing (a work of music occurring in finite time) and what we hear in another sense (non-teleological eternity).

Here too (typically for me, I grant) I worry about the danger of overdetermination of artistic substance by theory, as well as Demers's use, as before, of perhaps-too-friendly examples. Not all drone is as long-winded or reductive as Radigue, nor all noise simply featureless and loud. (For another take on noise, see my post here.) My sense is that there is more to these genres than this, and we need to let our ears lead us farther before we turn things over to the theoreticians.

Part III: Situation

Demers's final chapter (Genre, Experimentalism, and the Musical Frame) is about the tripartite distinction of sonic art into the metagenres mentioned above. I don't have a whole lot to say about this, but I do agree that the concept of genre is crucial to our experience of art, something which seemingly commits me to agreeing with Demers that meaning (in a broad sense at least) is an ineliminable factor here, as the constraints of genre  whatever they may be in particular cases  just are the makers of meaning in this sense. Anyway, let's finish up with a look at chapter 5.

5) Site in Ambient, Soundscape, and Field Recordings

Here the key concept is that of site: space and its metaphorical extensions. While not signifying (i.e. referring), sound is not simply an object, but instead creates a sonic space; such works regard sound as situated [so, site], as inextricably bound to a particular spot or trajectory, whether real or imagined, physical or metaphysical.

While field recordings are the most obvious example of sound's connection with site, ambient music is equally concerned with site's aesthetic potential. Again Demers begins with an obvious example: KLF's Chill Out, which is jam-packed with exotic samples, but she is impressed by its subtle mix, which makes it seem[] to position itself in the background of any space in which it is played, even when it is heard through headphones. She again stresses the construction of a listening space over the reference of the samples in her second example. Thanks to Tetsu Inoue's subtle processing of the various sounds, World Receiver is a collision of two different types of acousticsa reverberant open one and a more restrained private one that suggests interiority, or the music and sounds heard only in the mind.

We have to leave it here (Demers goes on to cite soundscape recordings as going beyond ambient in thematizing listening in search of a higher degree of truth content), but let me furrow my brow one final time. Demers's book, again, is not a work of criticism; but while a theoretical focus may work fine for the electroacoustic exercises of her opening chapter, it seems insufficient when dealing with a real live musical masterpiece like World Receiver. Can pointing out its balance of inner and outer spaces  or any purely theoretical consideration  really capture its greatness? And isn't greatness what we're really concerned with, when it's there to be had?
by Dave Maier

In a previous post I considered and rejected the idea that music and noise (= non-musical sound art) are entirely incompatible  that noise is the very negation of musical meaning. This left open the question of how these things might co-exist  or, turning the question around, how composers might make use of both resources in the same composition. Today I revisit that issue. If you've heard the podcasts I've posted here, you know what sort of compositions I'm talking about, even if I haven't been able to explain how or why they work. If you want to skip the theoretical blather and check out another fab mix (a bit noisier than usual this time), scroll down now.

In his book Aesthetics & Music, philosopher Andy Hamilton seems to position himself to answer this question, but then skirts it, on the way to what he takes to be more important questions which we will not discuss here. However, that he does even this much is interesting, given most philosophers' attitudes toward music, so let's take a look. The context is the traditional philosophical question of what music is. It's clearly an art of sound in some sense, but what makes a sound musical and/or artistic? According to Hamilton, the traditional assumption (universalism) that music is the only art of sound has gone together with another assumption that music exploits as material a particular range of sounds, namely tones (45). As music has embraced more noise elements, he says, these two assumptions have come apart. This allows a variety of positions on the matter. We might, for example, keep the former stipulation, but expand the range of music to accommodate the new forms it may now take (i.e. after a century of experimentation).

Hamilton, however, goes the other route: [P]aradoxically, the tonal basis of music has been clarified by the rejection of instrumental puritanism. Thus I reassert that music is the art of tones, while rejecting universalism and recognizing an emergent non-musical sound art which takes non-tonal sounds as its material. In support of this, he insists that the fact that any sounds can be incorporated into music doesn't mean that any sounds can constitute music. Music, he says, is on a continuum with non-musical sound art; which something is depends on which type of sound is predominant. However, this distinction is not in any way evaluative and is not intended to mark any great metaphysical divide.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, I suppose, but now I wonder what exactly we're supposed to take away from it. In the context, it seems like he's simply making whatever concessions he needs to make to recent musical/sound-artistic history in order to continue with his story about music as the art of tone. But that gray area between tone and noise is where I live, or at least hang out a lot, so that's what I want to hear about. It's not just a theoretical exception to be swept under the rug. How does this stuff work?

I wouldn't have mentioned Hamilton at all if that's all he said. After all, at least he thinks there is another form of sound art besides music (that is, that one can make sound art without composing with tones). In particular, he considers sound artist Francisco Lopez's acousmatic conception of sound art, according to which we hear sound aesthetically only when we disregard its origin and consider it absolutely. As we saw last time, Lopez pleads with his sonic-documentarian opponents (e.g. acoustic ecologists like composer R. Murray Schafer) to be allowed the freedom of a painter when creating sound art, and use sound only for its intrinsic sound and not for its external meanings.

Ironically, that acousmatic conception of sound art is exactly what people appeal to when they want to dismiss the very idea of non-musical sound art. Philosopher Roger Scruton, for example, equates considering sound absolutely, independently of its physical origin, with considering it as tone, and thus as music traditionally construed. Scruton's views on music, as laid out in his 1999 book The Aesthetics of Music and other works, are intimately related to his idealistic metaphysics (and Tory hand-wringing on the Decline of Western Culture), and deserve a few posts of their own. For now let's just see him as Lopez's partner in sonic-metaphysical purism, in the context of Hamilton's rejection of the acousmatic characterization of sound art (as well as a rather simplistic acoustic theory) in favor of an aesthetic one whose details are again beyond our scope.

Essential to hearing sound aesthetically, for Hamilton, again, is attending to which of its elements predominate; and this, again, is where he leaves us  just when things were getting interesting. So let's push it a little further. How should we think of this compositional continuum between music and non-musical sound art, or noise? How can we tell where a particular work falls? Here we might consider how much sense it would make to arrange the work in question for, say, string orchestra. For Lopez's La Selva, or anything else at the noise/field recording end of the spectrum, this makes no sense at all; but at the other end, if our aesthetic interest in a range of sounds lies in the tones they represent, then we can re-present those tones differently, sometimes with interesting results.

So far this is pretty obvious. The orchestrator of La Selva clearly wouldn't know where to begin, and plenty of mainstream classical works exist in multiple arrangements. Still, I can't resist sharing a remarkable passage I just ran into while reading science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson's recent 2312, which well describes the sort of specifically musical (that is, tonal-compositional) interest an alternate arrangement of a familiar work can have:

Wahram looked up the program for the performance they were to attend, and was excited to see it was a triple bill of rarely played transcriptions: first a wind ensemble playing a transcription of the Appassionata piano sonata; then Beethoven's opus 134, which was his own transcription for two pianos of his Grosse Fuge for string quartet, opus 133. Lastly a string quartet was to play a transcription of their own for the Hammerklavier sonata.

Brilliant programming, Wahram felt []

The wind ensemble [] rollicked its way through the finale of the Appassionata in a way that made it one of the greatest wind pieces Wahram had ever heard, fast to the point of effervescence. The transcription to winds made it a new thing in the same way that Ravel had made Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition a new thing.

When they were done, two pianists got up, and sitting at grand pianos snuggled into each other like sleeping cats, they played Beethoven's own opus 134, his transcription of his Grosse Fuge. They had to pound away like percussionists, simply hammering the keys. More clearly than ever Wahram heard the intricate weave of the big fugue, also the crazy energy of the thing, the maniacal vision of a crushing clockwork. The sharp attack of struck piano keys gave the piece a clarity and violence that strings with the best will and technique in the world could not achieve. Wonderful.

Then some other transcriber had gone in the opposite direction, arranging the Hammerklavier sonata for string quartet. Here, even though four instruments were now playing a piece written for one, it was still a challenge to convey the Hammerklavier's intensity. Broken out among two violins, viola, and cello, it all unpacked beautifully: the magnificent anger of the first movement; the aching beauty of the slow movement, one of Beethoven's finest; and then the finale, another big fugue. It all sounded very like the late quartets to Wahram's earthus a new late quartet, by God! It was tremendous to hear.

Back at the other end of the spectrum, once we have some tonal elements (as La Selva has none), we at least have the conceptual possibility of re-arranging them for performance. Yet most of the time this will clearly be aesthetically pointless. An interesting example for debate is Brian Eno's pioneering work of ambient music, Music for Airports, which existed for a long time in recorded form only. Yet it  its (fairly minimal) tonal material, anyway  has been rearranged and rerecorded as if it were a normal work of music. Whether the result sounds to you like a new performance of the same thing, or on the other hand a different work entirely, will depend on how you think of compositions of this sort. Yet even Wahram speaks in the purely tonal case of the new arrangement's ma[king] a new thing.

In any case, the new Music for Airports is dependent entirely on the arranger's idiosyncratic construal of what ambient music is, and we shouldn't expect new versions of, say, Thomas Koner's Permafrost any more than rearrangements of La Selva. The toughest cases to understand (that is, as intermediate in the way Hamilton suggests) are those in which tonal aspects or elements are more clearly present and/or potentially detachable, and here is where the acousmatic purism of Scruton and Lopez leaves us with nothing we can use.

Scruton argues that when we move from attending to merely referential sound to active listening to its aesthetic properties, we abstract away from the reality of physical sound to the ideal realm of musical tone. This leaves no conceptual room for a non-musical art of sound: necessarily, the sole art of sound is music, the art of tone. Scruton takes the idea of a continuum between music and non-music, if there is one, to be one between musical art properly pursued as the art of tone and a devolution of same into anarchy or ear candy. (In this sense he would seemingly agree with Nick Smith that noise is the antithesis of musical order, making them the compositional analogues of oil and water rather than potentially complementary elements.)

Consider the (actual) recording of orchestral performances of Vangelis's electronic music. The idea, presumably, is to free Vangelis's music (i.e. its tones) from its unfortunate synthetic clothing and play it on real instruments, thus elevating it to the level of classical music. The result is predictably horrible, ripping those tonal patterns out of the only context in which they make any aesthetic sense (as if Vangelis were trying to write bad orchestral music, but was unfortunately forced to settle for synthetic instruments instead). Naturally Scruton agrees with my negative verdict (Such music prompts that peculiar 'yuk' feeling, the sense of being contaminated, which sends spasms of recoil through the body)  but his concurring opinion refers not to orchestral abominations but to Vangelis's work generally, which he is unable to hear in any other way.

I do admit that Vangelis in particular is an impossibly tough listen for most people without proper ear training of the sort Scruton will never have (and that the Chariots of Fire theme is uncharacteristically awful). But that's why Vangelis is a good example for us: if you can't tell why he's good (when he is) while Yanni is wretched in just that way (yuk), then that shows something about how you listen to electronic music.

Oops, we're out of time. Let's hear some sound!

1. Yannick Dauby  a stairwell in taipei, 24.08.2004

Yannick Dauby's work is mostly on the field recording side, like this piece from the seventh phonography.org anthology, but he also has a wonderful collaboration with ambient artist Alio Die which is one of my favorite things.

2. Matt Shoemaker   [track 3] (from Spots in the Sun)

I'm a big fan of this guy, whose work ranges from overlaid field recordings in the F. Lopez vein to full-on noise assaults. This is probably my favorite of his discs, on the excellent Helen Scarsdale Agency label. Check out an interview with him here.

3. Neina  diffraction (from formed verse)

Neina is mainly Sakana Hosomi (w/Masaki Narita on this track). These two also record as Maju, whose excellent discs on the Extreme label are more ambient, featuring wonderfully understated melody and lovely delicate glitchyness. Neina is also glitchy, as one might expect from a release on the Mille Plateaux label (home of Oval), but also harsher and noisier. The digital distortion on this track is particularly bracing, and I had a hard time with this disc at first, but the subtle compositions finally won me over.

5. Celer/Mathieu Ruhlmann  First Night in Complete Darkness (from mesoscaphe)

That's a guess as to the section we're hearing here, as there are several titles listed for this one track, which is from a beautifully packaged disc on the Spekk label. According to the liner notes, the Mesoscaphe (later named the Ben Franklin) was a submarine built in 1969 for scientific exploration of the Gulf Stream. Contact mic recordings of the craft, which is now located in the Vancouver Maritime Museum, were used in the recording, which makes me think this is not strictly acousmatic procedure in Lopez's sense. Celer are one of the major drone artists working in the past decade (check out their glorious track in this set), so it's interesting to hear them here in a more sound-arty context.

5. Crawl Unit  Artificiality (from Everyone Gets What They Deserve)

Crawl Unit is Joe Colley, a prolific sound artist from California. This is an early disc from 1999. I've tried several times to fit this record into my ambient sets, but it's just too unsettling for the most part. I like his work very much, even if it gets a bit conceptual at times (more so recently).

6. The Hafler Trio  A Thirsty Fish/The Dirty Fire (from A Thirsty Fish)

This outfit is mostly Andrew Mackenzie, but has also included Chris Watson of Cabaret Voltaire (and a leading field recorder in his own right). Not sure if he's on this one though. Along with Nurse With Wound, Coil, and Throbbing Gristle (love that name), The Hafler Trio were the cream of the industrial/experimental crop in the 1980s and 1990s.

7. Peter Cusack  baikal ice flow split 1 (from Baikal Ice (Spring 2003))

Here's another straight field recording, this time of the spring break-up of ice in and around Lake Baikal in Siberia. Mr. Cusack tells us in the liner notes that although the melting process takes weeks there are a few days when the ice finally disappears and the lake becomes open water again. It is a very spectacular and moving transformation. I have not seen nature operating on such a grand scale before. It was a magnificent and humbling experience. Melting ice makes an amazing sound, kind of like Xenakis's Concret P-H if you know that one, only without all the splicing.

8. Eric La Casa  Les Pierres du Seuil part 6

Aside from Lopez himself, La Casa strikes me as the sound artist most attuned to the aesthetic Lopez defends in his writings (when I had a chance to ask him once, Lopez himself told me he admired this particular record quite a bit). He's not as single-minded about it as Lopez though: not only does this disc list his sources (basically field recordings from all over the place) on the cover, it also includes instrumental collaboration on this track (Jean-Luc Guionnet is credited with organ improvisation  probably that bit at the end). This is on the fantastic edition  label (pronounced edition ellipsis) from Georgia, USA.

That's it for this time, but there's a lot more great noise out there, so stay tuned!
by Leanne Ogasawara

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream. Vincent Van Gogh

It is my second favorite essay of all time: C.S Lewis' Imagination and Thought in the Middle Ages. First delivered as a lecture in 1956, the piece was later published posthumuously in this collection of his essays in 1966. Unlike in my #1 favorite essay, William Golding's magnificent Hot Gates, CS Lewis does not seek to form arguments or to persuade. What he does instead is to transport the reader back in time, illuminating the medieval world-view using nothing more than words alone.

He begins his essay urging the reader to perform an experiment. He says,

Go out on any starry night and walk alone for half an hour, resolutely assuming that pre-Copernican astronomy is true.

He says,

Look up at the sky with that assumption in mind. The real difference between living in that universe and living in ours will, I predict, begin to dawn on you.

Intrigued, I decided to take him up on his suggestion. It so happened that my beloved and I had found ourselves up on the summit of Mauna Kea, on the Big Island. Home to the world's greatest collection of large telescopes, the skies up there are dark and famously clear.

As a girl, I had wanted to become a cosmologist. It was my first great passion. And, in addition to reading astronomy books voraciously, I spent many nights using my amateur telescope to look up at the stars from my parent's house in Los Angeles. Growing up, I drifted away from cosmology, turning naturally toward philosophy. Still, I always loved the starsfor as Van Gogh said, they make me dream. Returning home to Los Angeles about twenty five years after leaving it, I have been dismayed by their disappearance. What happened to all those myriad of stars of my childhood? Indeed, I cannot recall the last time I saw the Milky Wayhad never seen it in Japan and was sad to see it was simply invisible from LA now. It is dis-heartening, really, since the splendid vision of the stars at night is something that we used to just take for granted.

Fast forward to last week in Hawaii. Surrounded by snow, the summit of Mauna Kea sits above the clouds. Like from the summit of Mount Fuji, you can stand and watch the clouds roiling beneath you. As with all mountaintops, the summit of Mauna Kea is magnetic and the views exhilarating. We were there to visit the KECK Observatory and were so fortunate to be there as they opened the dome to the night sky at sunset. The galaxies that they observe are so faraway that now it is as much about capturing the distant images as it is about subtracting or reducing the turbulance and distortions that is in the way. So, as exciting as it was to watch the dome open up onto the night sky and see the telescope begin to rotate into position, even more interesting was watching them fire up the laser to use the adaptive optics system to get the clearest images possible of galaxies that are very, very faraway. I thought that, while sometimes it seems that not much really has changed theoretically in astronomy since I was a girl (maybe dark energy and exoplanets?) it was this area of instrumentation and optics that have been revolutionized astronomy during my lifetime.

But then came the best part.

After the laser shot up into the dark skies to create an artificial guide star for imaging the scientific target object, we stood there in the freezing cold, allowing our eyes to get used to darkness. It took several minutes, but finally they began to appear stars upon stars upon stars.

First was Jupiter, more beautiful than I had ever seen her; followed by several very familar constellations old friends that I have not seen in decades. And then finallyat long last the vision of the Milky Way appeared before our eyes in all its majesty. 

Staring up, I tried to do as CS Lewis suggested to imagine that pre-Copernican astronomy is true. The first thing that dawns on one is that for the Medievals, no matter how impossibly large the universe was to them, it was ultimately something finiteand this is perhaps something that generates a feeling of being embraced, because it forms a kind of edge, or frontier as Lewis says.

You will be looking at a world unimaginably large but quite definitely finite. At no speed possible to man, in no lifetime possible to man, could you ever reach its frontier, but the frontier is there; hard, clear, sudden as a national frontier.

And, secondly, because the earth is at the absolute center, it is not just distance that is felt, but height. So, some stars are not simply a long distance from us, but they are far, far above us too.

In this way, beyond the gates of the moon, everything was in timeless and heavenly realm. The stars and galaxies were therefore changeless, necessary and not open to Fortune. The moon was the gateway between our world of decay and change (and Fortune) and the heavens, which were perfectly finite and regular. Things in the heavenly realm were not evolving and indeed, there were no ultimate causes and effects, not in the way astronomers look for today. On this topic, Aristotle posited an Unmoved Mover, and as Lewis explains:

The infinite, according to Aristotle, is not actual. No infinite object exists; no infinite processes occur. Hence we cannot explain the movement of one body by another and so on forever. No such infinite series, he thought, could exist. All the movements of the universe must therefore, in the last resort, result from a compulsive force exercised by something immovableAccordingly we find (not now by analogy but in strictest fact) that in every sphere there is a rational creature called an Intelligence which is compelled to move, and therefore to keep his sphere moving, by his incessant desire for God.

This comes deliciously close to CS Lewis' famous Argument from Desire, but it also illuminates the meaning of Dante's Theology of love. For the medievals, says Lewis, an unmoved mover does not move other things in terms of ends, like balls on a billiard table, but rather it is the things that themselves move from out of their own desire, like food moves a hungry man or a mistress moves her lover.

A modern might ask why a love for God should lead to a perpetual rotation. I think, because this love or appetite for God is a desire to participate as much as possible in his nature; i.e. to imitate it. And the nearest approach to His eternal immobility, the second best, is eternal regular movement in the most perfect figure, which, for any Greek, is the circle.

When the medievals looked out at the night sky, they did not see dark skies as we do now, but they rather saw a universe jam-packed with stars and planets and angels and music (Lewis writes beautifully in the essay about how the heavens were filled with heavenly music). And all this activity, they believed was put in motion not by causes and effects but rather out of love. But he cautions us not to misunderstand Dante's famous line about the love that moves the heaven and stars; for this is less about modern conceptions of love with their ethical connotations as it is an appetites or desires. So, as Lewis describes it, the Medieval universe was rotating in its desire or appetite for God. It was a musical, ordered and festive universe; for Lewis says the angels and seraphim spend their time engaged in festivals of great pagentry):

The motions of the universe are to be conceived not as those of a machine or even an army, but rather as a dance, a festival, a symphony, a ritual, a carnival, or all these in one. They are the unimpeded movement of the most perfect impulse towards the most perfect object.

One has to admit that there is something incredibly aesthetically pleasing to understand the universe in these terms.

That night in Hawaii, seeing once again the great splendor of night sky remembered from my childhood, I realized how much we had lost. Our gracious and wonderful host at the observatory said that he really understood the Dark Sky Movement since the vision of the night sky is such a crucial part of our human heritage and indeed we have lost so much. Before getting back in the car to go back down the mountain, I took one last look at the myriad stars twinkling so beautifully in the sky. Sadly, I recalled Emerson's famous quote about the stars since the envoys of beauty no longer come out to light the universe in smiles anymore.

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

***

It is perhaps a dying art in English (?), but if you have a favorite essay, I'm all ears.

Fellow time travelers will love Lewis' essay.

I wrote about Hot Gates here: Fighting in the Shade of 10,000 Arrows.

Part One of my Medieval Triptych is here: WINGS OF DESIRE (A MEDIEVAL PHYSIOLOGY)

And an added bonus for your mucho reading pleasure: Richard Dawkins and the Ascent of Madness

KECK in Motion here! And my favorite KECK video of all belowenjoy!
by Michael Liss

"What do you expect from a Republican?"

Being the child of FDR Democrats, I can't tell you how many times I heard that. What does one expect from a Republican? Always siding with business and the wealthy over the interests of the common people. Loving wars; making them, spending big for the toys to make them, and questioning the patriotism of those who disagree. Displaying an unseemly admiration for pencil-mustached right-wing dictators who wear uniforms and mirrored Ray Bans. Having an unhealthy fascination about how others live their private livesand a compulsion to tell them how to live it better. That's what you expected from a Republican.

With my limited world-view (my Dad insisted I read the incomprehensibly dense and partisan Ramparts magazine), I saw "Republicans" as sort of a duck-billed platypus. There were the kookswhat we would now call the tinfoil brigadeconspiracy spouting, rootin' tootin' Yosemite Sam types. There were the American Gothics, the Midwestern farmers who, to me, not understanding social issues particularly well, inexplicably voted against their own economic interests. There were the blue-collar ethnics who had started to move out of decaying cities to the suburbs and exurbs-Nixon voters in 1968. There was the beginning of the great political migration of the Solid South. And, most importantly, there were the guys at the top of the food chain, the well-heeled and the well-bred. Tall, good-looking, society-page weddings, Mayflower, SAR, DAR. Those guysthe ones who really ran things, and for whom the government always worked. Discreetly. As you can see, I had a very sophisticated view of things.

Of course, this was a caricature. There was an entire moderate wing of the GOP. A real onenot some lonely Rock Cornish Hen wingette, but a plump, juicy game-bird of an appendage. New York's very own Governor, Nelson Rockefeller, was in charge of that wing, having inherited it from one of our former Governors, Thomas E. Dewey. Dewey started the State University System, doubled aid to education, and pushed through the first non-discrimination-in-hiring law. Rockefeller built more colleges, supported environmental causes, and created the New York State Council on the Arts (it's exceedingly difficult to explain to my own children that there actually were Republicans like this).

Yet, humanity evolves (in a non-Biblically offensive way). The moderates went the way of the Giant Squidwe hear occasional reports of one washed up on a distant shore. The farmers' loyalty intensified with the ever-warming Earth. The South turned so beet red that it solemnly considers secession every time there's an election result it doesn't agree with. Yesterday's kooks are today's.White House staffers, Freedom Caucus, and Cabinet Secretaries. And the blue-collar ethnics, and a surprising number of white-collar workers stalled in a no-growth-for-them economy, found their hero in a four-times-bankrupt brigand.

Why Trump? Why not? Was the old way really working, except for the big shots? Historically, most Republicans in positions of real power saw themselves as heirs to the Founders' visiona democracy, but one governed by the educated and affluent elites who knew better than the common man. Republicans would adhere to the model of Washington, Adams, and Jeffersoncalm, sober men of education, experience and judgment. Preservationists of the old order and called to a certain higher duty. You played by the rules (most of the time) and were mindful that government was transactional and majorities impermanent. You showed restraint. You did well for yourself, of course, but overt looting, ravaging, and pillaging were gauche. The GOP was the Party of Cool, Cool, Considerate Men.

Quaint, isn't it? Not unlike a lawn party on some magnificent country estate you pass on a bucolic road and see, shrinking, in your rearview mirror. Don't bother to stop to watch the croquet, it's by invitation only.

So, the ground was plowed for an angry candidate in 2016, someone who would shake up the old order. But, still, why Trump? If you want an angry scourge, why not someone like Cruz, or Newt? Plenty of convert-or-die in those two. Why pick someone profoundly ignorant of policy, and disinterested in learning any? Someone who lacks fixed principles and routinely reverses not just long-held positions, but those for which the ink (or digital footprint) is barely dry. Someone who takes whatever isn't nailed down, and looks for a crowbar to collect the rest. Someone extraordinarily thin-skinned about personal hurts and thoroughly callous about those he inflicts on others. And those are his good points. Why him?

Why? His supporters just don't seem to care about his deficiencies. For many rank-and-file Republicans, who chose others in the primaries, it's an exercise in craven opportunism, party loyalty, and moral gymnastics, repugnant but sadly understandable. But for Trump's base, the ones who have a personal loyalty to him, the answer may very well be that his flaws are irrelevant. They've been yessed forever, but never been invited anywhere. Trump, for them, is a non-ideological egg-breaker. They know very well they aren't going to agree with him on everything, but they can at least hope that some of the battles he fights will also be theirs.

That suits Trump just fine, because it's basically how most deal-makers operate, and Trump sees himself as the ultimate deal-maker. You decide what you have to have, and trade anything else (regardless of whether you actually own it) to get it.

Where is Trump going? Here's what we know about him from his first hundred-or-so days: He doesn't really care all that much about Obamacare, or whom it covers, or the contents and impact of any replacement. It's a bargaining chip, with a victory to be claimed whatever the result. The same with Medicare and Social Securityif "reforming" it advances another Trump goal, go ahead, Paul Ryan. If it doesn't, don't mess with it. He doesn't care about social issues, so if the regular GOP wants to go hard right on thaton religion, on abortion, on schools, on the NEH and NEA and Big Birdsure, it's never going to affect a Trump anyway. He needs to burnish his manly "Border" brand, so he wants his Wall, or something he can claim is a Wall, and he wants his DOJ threatening immigrants and sanctuary cities. Makes for great coverage on Fox. He loves government policies he can personally profit from, like his big tax-cut proposal. He wants a free hand to monetize his time in the White House. He wants businesses singing his praises, with pictures of happy workers wearing hard hats and MAGA caps. He likes to show off a bit with some muscular new military equipment, with maybe a parade like Vlad has. He doesn't care what the cost of these things are, or whether they are good policy, or whom he might be offending or even hurting, or whether they blow a hole in the budget. Give him some of his personal priorities (and stifle the Russia investigation) and you can have whatever else you want.

Republicans, for all the dysfunctional Freedom Caucus stuff, have already figured some of this out. Using just the Congressional Review Act and Trump's desire for photo-ops at signing ceremonies, they've managed to kick Planned Parenthood, enable mentally ill people to purchase guns, revoke a rule requiring federal contractors to disclose and fix significant labor and worker safety regulations before getting new contracts, open new areas for drilling and extraction, and my two favorites, permit coal miners to dump poison into streams, and ISPs to collect and sell your personal viewing habits. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what today's Republican Party calls progress. And in just 100 days!

And Democrats? Democrats are appalled. They have organized, and marched, and raised money, and pointed out, continuously, the moral failings of Trump. They feel really good about themselvesand the percentage of voters who think that Democrats understand their needs has dropped in half. Dumb, dumb, dumb, I say to my own people. Hellodidn't we learn anything from the last election? Everyone knows Trump is profoundly flawedand there he sits in the White House (whichever one he's in at the time) with the crown on his head. For goodness sake, feckless leaders, find a better way before we all get stripped of our citizenship and herded into reeducation camps built on top of toxic waste dumps.

That is how we came to a Big Fat Republican President, and a Big Fat Republican Government: how a so-called populist revolt led us to be ruled by a preening billionaire with an inexhaustible supply of antagonism and a bottomless appetite for self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement. All aided and abetted by a GOP-dominated Congress that has suspended whatever compass it might have had, to fall, ravenously, on a pile of spoils. The swamp is strong with these guys.

What do you expect from a Republican?
by Akim Reinhardt

Last week, Barack Obama got beaten up on social media and called out by the press for accepting a $400,000 speaking fee from a Wall Street investment firm. It was the day's major kerfuffle, the non-Trump story of the week, and reactions to it by many of my smart, well reasoned friends surprised me somewhat.

They began with the stance that this isn't an issue. Obama's a private citizen now, so who cares? But lots of people did care. When the story picked up steam despite their protestations, my friends then blamed the loony left for fabricating the issue, launching a general assault on fringe elements of the Democratic party and a firm defense of sensible centrist outlooks. Yet it wasn't just the left. The right predictably piled on as well, without any prompting from the left. The story also transcended the partisan divide as the centrist press ran with it. Christ, even the BBC, the vanilla pudding of international news, covered it.

In the end, the defense of Obama that gained the most traction among my friends, and to some degree in the national media, was a racial analysis. Some claimed that this brouhaha was another example of white people shaming a black man for earning a paycheck, the imposition of a racial double standard since white politicians and ex-politicians do this kind of thing all time.

This needs to be reckoned with. Obama was always held to a higher standard, precisely because he was black; he was always subjected to intense racism, and the racist backlash to his presidency as much as anything helps explain Trump's victory. Was this just another example of that racial double standard? It's an important question to ask.

In the end, I don't think it was. Which is not to say that Obama is no longer subject to racism and double standards; he obviously is, and those issues are still at play here, but I don't believe they're the driving force. Because to mark race as the reason for a vast public outcry against his acceptance of money is to ignore the most salient point: where the money came from.

People are not upset that he made money. Private citizen Obama collecting a $400,000 speaking fee doesn't violate anyone's principles, even racist assholes'. Rather, the problem is that he very specifically took money from Wall Street. The proof is clear: There wasn't nearly as much griping when he signed a $20,000,000 book deal last month.

Why did that eight-figure windfall spark nowhere near the outrage this five-figure fee did? Because no one's worried that publishing money has corrupted Washington, or bitter that the book industry crippled the U.S. economy ten years ago, then reaped a massive bailout from taxpayers, and is now running amok again. And thus, virtually no criticism of twenty-million to publish what will probably be the kind of bland, self-serving memoir that every ex-president of late has authored. But $400,000 from Wall Street is different, if for no other reason than the general public now views Wall Street differently than it used to.

Why did Obama take the speaking fee? Should he have? Should people be upset about it? None of those questions interest me. Rather, I believe the issue worth considering is: Why exactly did so many people get upset about it?

That question speaks to the current political moment, which Obama seems to have misread, much as the Democratic Party mainstream he represents has been doing for over a year now.

*

I have an arms length relationship to the left. While I don't count myself among their ranks, I do agree with many of their critiques and analyses. Yet I can't help but shake my head when leftists occasionally go tone deaf on matters of race, gender, and sexuality, or worse yet, are occasionally hostile towards "identity politics," dismissing them as an exasperating distraction from the almighty class analysis. Not all leftists, of course. Many are keenly aware of racial (and other non-economic social) problems and dynamics. But in general, the left has a bad habit of treating racial analysis as some kind of annoying younger sibling. And as an American historian with a research focus on Indigenous histories, that kind of economic determinism and marginalization of race simply doesn't cut it for me. Indeed, it sometimes drives me a little nuts.

I argue with them about it, and I agree with minority critiques of leftists who privilege class analysis over other analyses. I also recognize that some leftist critiques of Obama's Wall Street payday are being made with a blind spot for race. But not all of them. Because hating on Wall Street is no longer just a leftist past time. It wasn't simply leftists screaming about Obama's Wall Street dalliance. It was many people from all over the spectrum who are now comfortable voicing what not too long ago were strictly leftists critiques.

The economic collapse of the last decade unleashed something here and around the globe. There is a current of discontent circumnavigating the developed world and beyond. The most obvious and disturbing manifestation of this anger and fear is the rise of right wing nationalism in the United States and Europe. But that's not all there is. In this age of economic malaise and austerity remedies, the leftist critique of neo-liberal capitalism has found a surprisingly wide audience. Together, these competing yet oddly complementary right- and left-wing impulses signal the return of the populist moment.

American populism reached its first zenith during the 1890s, a reaction to the rise of big business and the violent undulations of unregulated capitalism. As millions of small farmers and tradespeople lost their economic independence and were sucked into the brutal, exploitative industrial economy, angry citizens derided the new corporations as undemocratic and antithetical to the American way. Large railroad companies were a popular target of outrage, especially for farmers. Individual robber barons like John D. Rockefeller and Cyrus McCormick also incited all levels of vitriol. But the most potent symbol stirring the raging populist pot was the dreaded financial sector: bankers and Wall Street financiers like J.P. Morgan, whom they lambasted as "non-producers," parasites leaching off the hard work of honest Americans. Reveling in such rhetoric, the People's (a.k.a. Populist) Party ran political candidates on a decidedly socialist platform, even if they didn't call themselves socialists. Farmers across America lined up to support leftist proposals such as industrial cooperatives, the federal confiscation of "excess" land from corporations, and government-owned alternatives to private banks.

Today's political landscape is, in some ways, is the return of that moment. Average Americans are pissed at Wall Street.

One of the most interesting elements of American populism is an earnest dislike and even outright hostility towards bankers and Wall Street. Today, as was the case in the late 19th century, that antipathy cannot be neatly apportioned along the left-right axis. Normally, the left is a marginal presence in U.S. politics and boasts a monopoly on banker-bashing while the right celebrates the fruits of capitalism. But these are not "normal" times. In a populist moment, frustration and anger are pervasive and get exhibited in surprising ways.

All of a sudden, the right can complain about capitalism too.

That's exactly what Donald Trump did during his massive, right wing campaign rallies when he promised to "drain the swamp." The fact that he's a lying sack of shit (or maybe just an incoherent, selfish mess) who's practically handing over the White House to the financial industry is a bit besides the point. He loudly touted an anti-Wall Street message, and his right wing base roared their approval. That, as much as anything else, illustrates our current populist moment. Trump's triumph is not a clear cut victory for the right. Rather, it is a scatter blast statement of right-leaning populism. Thus, the Trumpist moment does not reflect upon and influence only the GOP. It reflects the nation as a whole. It affects both parties.

Most of the time, the center holds, or even dominates American politics. During centrist epochs, most politicians simply pay lip service to, or even ignore, both the right and the left when they drift too far from center. Under normal circumstances, a politician might pander to the left or right during the primaries, but then run frantically back to the center once the general election is underway; the cherished center, that site of political stability where most voters sit comfortably under normal circumstances. But these are not normal times. The center has fallen away. This is a moment of populist extremism. The two ends reach out for each other.

The issues that resonate most are precisely the issues the left and right agree on.

*

In this populist moment, "reasonable" can be a moving target, and not because of the old, misplaced stereotype that populists are hysterically irrational. Rather, a fuzzy definition of "reasonable" is symptomatic of populism, not causal.

Just two years ago, it was unreasonable in mainstream discourse to be center-left; anything left of center was "radical." Bernie Sanders was marginal figure from a little state, independent, somewhat isolated, and considered by many to be "unreasonable." His socialist platform was largely laughed at and dismissed, his legislative record unimpressive at best. But the ascent of populism represents a substantial shift in American attitudes about the economy and politics. Things that seemed crazy to most Americans just a few years ago are now deemed within reason.

Amid the tidal shift of emerging populism, a septuagenarian Jewish socialist almost won the Democratic presidential nomination despite having to challenge a longstanding heir apparent and facing complete opposition from the party's institutional forces. At the same time, a sexist, racist, egomaniacal reality TV star became president.

Both of them railed against Goldman-Sachs.

The populist reshaping of American politics began in earnest eight years ago when the Tea Party radicalized the American right in reaction to a crippled economy and the sudden arrival of a black president. In some ways it was a natural fit for the Republicans. Ever since the Reagan Revolution, the Republican Party has been excellent at responding to its constituents, consistently moving rightward. I find that to be a rather troubling development, but there's no denying the successes the GOP has reaped from that strategy even as the nation's ongoing demographic shifts work against them. But even the Grand Old Party got steam rolled by the recent populist tidal wave, unable to prevent outsider and former Democrat Donald Trump from running amok through their primaries. Now they're trying to hold a tiger by the tail.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has stubbornly clung to its Clintonian center, resisting the obvious leftward movement engulfing its rank and file. The initial failure was a reticence to embrace Occupy Wall Street and the influential social movement it spawned. No matter. "Unreasonable" people like Sanders and his legion of supporters eventually pushed the Democratic voters away from the center. Now it's the left's turn to help reshape the national discourse. Today, leftist ideas are reasonable, even on the right.

With Democratic voters shifting left, and Republican voters shifting right, many politicians need to respond; they cannot simply remain in the center. Hilary Clinton learned that the hard way. As the definition of "reasonable" stretches out to both directions, the dead center loses gravity.

During the populist moment, the center does not get re-branded as unreasonable. It just gets ignored.

*

Of course former president Barack Obama playing footsie with Wall Street does not deserve to be the major story it turned into; as many folks have pointed out, it's simply the kind of unseemly shit that many politicians do once they leave office. Under normal circumstances, it is perfectly "reasonable" that as a private citizen he's free to make money however he likes.

But beyond the inconvenient fact that Obama remains very politically active and the face of his party, that logic is also detached from the reality of this populist moment. Obama's fee became a major story because it is the perfect example of Democrats not following political momentum, of not reading the tea leaves, of continuing to wallow in the center. And railing against Trump's hypocrisies doesn't change any of that; Trump successfully crafted a populist message that, at least for the time being, buys him substantial leeway with his supporters. Few major Democrats other than Sanders have yet to craft a left wing version of that message, so instead of goodwill, it is merely resentment that builds among the Democratic base.

In this populist moment, the center has fallen away. It won't last forever, but for now the Democrats won't get anywhere by continuing to frame themselves as the party of the center. They need to effectively counter the GOP's far right turn with their own turn to the left. Clinton refused to do it, and she paid the price.

This isn't 2008 anymore, much less 1992. Obama's decision to take easy Wall Street money defies the current zeitgeist, ergo the outrage, whether warranted or not. In 2017, politics is no longer about making a rational argument to the public; quite frankly, I don't know that it ever was. But it is even less so now than it was just a few years ago. That should be painfully obvious to anyone residing in the shadow of Donald Trump. More than ever, politics is about controlling the narrative and stoking the fire.

Obama lost on this one, and so too, by extension, did his party, which continues to sit in the sinking center, unable or unwilling to respond to a changing electorate. Trying to besmirch these developments as "unreasonable" is itself an unreasonable act that ignores America's new political reality. It won't last forever, and maybe not even for much longer. But Donald Trump is the president, Bernie Sanders is the nation's most popular elected Democrat, and this is the return of America's populist moment.

Akim Reinhardt's website is ThePublicProfessor.com


These days they raise more cash than crops in Silicon Valley, but that didn't stop a Menlo Park family from wanting their new home to feel like a farmhouse.

"It's in the suburbs, but they wanted to incorporate some aspects of country life," says interior designer Suzanne Glynne of Modern Organic Interiors in Oakland. Her clientsa couple with two school-age childrenare nature lovers who enjoy growing their own food, so the agrarian association wasn't much of a stretch. But they were emphatic that they didn't want to build an imitation of an 1890s homestead.





"From the start the concept was modern farmhouse," says Glynne, who collaborated on the project with architect Steve Simpson of SDG Architects and Milne Design and Build, both in Redwood City. "They wanted it to feel modern but like something you would find in the country."





Glynne kept most of the furnishings neutral, which helped the styles work together, but she didn't eschew color altogether. "All the rooms have some color," she says, pointing out the pale blue Afghani rug and Lee Jofa curtains in the living room.





Organic toucheslike the gnarled root table and the pendant stem wrapped in sisal  add a toothy naturalness that's echoed in the white oak floors, which were finished with a lightly pigmented oil instead of polyurethane, for a matte surface.





"We're not using any glossy finishes, except the polished-nickel fireplace screen, so the natural organic finishes make it feel less formal," the designer says.





The owners grow their own vegetables and like to entertain, so cooking is pretty central to their lives. Honed Calacatta Oro marble graces the perimeter counters and the island in the kitchen. The Tolix stools there have slots in their seats for easy moving. The kitchen's flow-through floor plan minimizes congestion and makes it easier for others to help with the meals or simply watch. Cookbooks fill the shelves next to the breakfast bay, while a built-in desk (visible behind the island faucet) accommodates homework and household chores. The owners asked for a breakfast table large enough to fit friends as well as the immediate family.





The master bedroom has a vaulted ceiling and treetop views. A shimmering chandelier from Arteriors adds a playful touch of glamour that tweaks the farmhouse aesthetic. All white but definitely not clinical, the master bath boasts classic fixtures and finishes with some fun modern accents thrown in, like the fluffy Mongolian lamb's wool stool and the carved trophy head. The basement rec room/media area includes a full bar and a wine cellar. Fred Albert





Houzz at a Glance

Who lives here: A family of 4

Location: Menlo Park, California

Size: 6,052 square feet (562 square meters), including a full finished basement; 4 bedrooms, 6 baths







You might also like:

How to Plan the Perfect Living Room Layout

See More Chic Vanity Stools

Soak Up These Stunning Home Bar Ideas


Getty Images

A new study has found that joint-replacement patients who live alone and can perform a home exercise program recover just as well with home-based rehabilitation as patients who spend 10 days in a rehab facility.

The findings are significant because joint replacement surgeries are costly and a wave of aging boomers is increasing the number of such surgeries.

The study, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that six months after knee-replacement surgery, there was no difference in pain levels, mobility or knee function between patients who went to an inpatient rehabilitation facility and those who did rehab exercises at home.
The idea is to use reminiscence therapy to provide guided interactions that engage participants memories and spark conversations, the San Diego Union Tribune reported.

It helps reduce agitation, improve mood and improve sleep quality. That translates to a better experience for the participants and for the family caregivers, Scott Tarde, CEO of the George G. Glenner Alzheimers Family Centers, told the Union Tribune. The village is Tardes brainstorm, and he hired the San Diego Opera Scenic Studio to build the environment.
The House of Representatives voted this year to get rid of the guidance, and last month the Senate narrowly agreed to roll back the one pertaining to cities. In the next vote, senators will decide whether to scrap the part affecting states.

About 55 million workers do not have access to a retirement plan at work. Research shows that workers with modest incomes are 15 times more likely to save for retirement if they can do so automatically from their paychecks.

So far, seven states have approved setting up work and save plans for their private-sector workers. More than 20 other states as well as a few major cities are considering doing the same. Under these plans, workers could have a portion of their paychecks automatically deposited into a retirement account, typically an IRA. Employers dont contribute at all. And workers can always opt out, too.

In a letter to senators today, AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond urged them not to eliminate the Labor Department guideline. Despite decades of federal incentives, employer sponsorship of retirement savings plans has not grown, especially amongst small employers, LeaMond wrote. In response, numerous states have started working with employers, investment firms and key interested parties to create easy private sector retirement vehicles for their workers.
With no Democratic challenger, Johnson secures third term in House

Republican U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson won reelection for his third term representing South Dakotas only U.S. House district.


Quarterly Activities Report - March 2017

Sydney, May 1, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Global Geoscience Limited ( ASX:GSC ) is pleased to provide the Company's Quarterly Activities Report - March 2017.



Highlights



- Metallurgical results continue to support potential for a simple, low-cost acid leaching flowsheet using established technologies and processes to produce lithium carbonate and boric acid on site.



- Testwork shows that flotation is highly effective in removing carbonate minerals (calcite and dolomite) from the Li-B mineralisation whilst maintaining high (>95%) recoveries of both metals.



- The lithium-boron flotation concentrate with low-carbonate content represents an ideal feed for acid leaching



- Acid leach tests have been completed on the flotation concentrate and results are imminent.



- Drill results at South Basin extend Li-B mineralisation for a further 200m to the east of the Resource



- North Basin drilling confirms thick, shallow zones of lithium-boron mineralisation



Exploration Activities



Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project, Nevada



Rhyolite Ridge is a lithium-boron deposit located in southern Nevada, close to existing infrastructure. The project lies 25km west of Albermarle's Silver Peak lithium mine and 340km from the Tesla Gigafactory near Reno. Rhyolite Ridge is one of the largest lithium and boron deposits in North America and has the potential to become a strategic, long-life and low-cost source of lithium and boron. Global Geoscience holds an exclusive option to purchase 100% interest in the project with no royalties to the owners.



Mineralisation is hosted by sedimentary rocks, representing a potential third source of lithium - in addition to brine and pegmatite types. The mineralised sedimentary rocks are thick, shallow and flat lying, making them ideally suited to open pit mining methods. The deposit has potential for simple, low-cost processing to produce lithium carbonate and boric acid. The relatively simple process route, involving crushing, grinding, flotation and acid leaching, is expected to compare favourably on a cost basis to other sources of lithium.



The project consists of two sedimentary basins (North and South) located four kilometres apart. South Basin (9km2) contains a Resource of 3.4 million tonnes of lithium carbonate and 11.3 million tonnes of boric acid. The Resource is open in three directions and is likely to increase in size with additional drilling. North Basin (20km2) contains thick, shallow zones of lithium-boron mineralisation intersected in wide-spaced historic drilling, but no resource has been estimated to date.



The South Basin Resource contains a high-grade Li-B zone of 65Mt at 1.0% Li2CO3 (1910 ppm Li) and 9.1% H3BO3 (1.6% B) for a total of 650,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate and 5.9 million tonnes of boric acid. The high-grade mineralisation is dominated by the mineral searlesite (>40% by weight), averages 20 metres thickness over an area of approximately two square kilometres. The high-grade zone outcrops along the western margin of South Basin.



Metallurgical Testwork



The current metallurgical program is evaluating a simple process route involving crushing, grinding and flotation followed by acid leaching to extract lithium and boron in order to produce lithium carbonate and boric acid.



Key findings from the testwork completed to date are:



- Lithium and boron are contained in acid soluble minerals including searlesite and sepiolite and can be readily leached using dilute sulphuric acid (20%).



- High grade Li-B rich mineralisation occurs in thick (>20m), consistent and well defined sedimentary layers within the deposit where the mineral searlesite, a sodium borosilicate mineral, accounts for over 40% of the rock (by weight).



- Lithium-boron mineralisation occurs in relatively coarse grained rocks dominated by the minerals searlesite (B-bearing), K-feldspar, calcite/dolomite and sepiolite (Li-bearing)



- Calcite and dolomite (carbonate minerals) consume large amounts of acid during the leaching process but are able to be removed prior to leaching via simple flotation. The carbonate minerals are floated off while the boron and lithium bearing minerals sink and report to the flotation tailings. Flotation recoveries for lithium and boron are above 95%.



Acid leach tests have been completed on flotation concentrate (carbonate removed) and the results are imminent.



For further information regarding metallurgical testwork, refer to the following reports that are available to view on the Global Geoscience website:



"Metallurgy and Drilling Update Nevada Lithium-Boron Project" dated 23/01/2017



"Metallurgy Update Nevada Lithium-Boron Project" dated 9/03/2017



Drilling Results



Five diamond core holes were completed during the quarter (3 at South Basin and 2 at North Basin) for a total of 1247m. Assay results have been received for all five holes. The results show that both North and South basins host thick zones of lithium-boron mineralisation over broad areas and that mineralisation remains open in most directions. The current Resource of 3.4 million tonnes of lithium carbonate and 11.3 million tonnes of boric acid will increase in size with the latest and additional drilling.



Three holes drilled at South Basin extended the Li-B mineralisation an additional 200m to the east of the Resource. All three holes were outside the current South Basin Resource and two of the three intersected lithium-boron mineralisation of similar grade and thickness to nearby holes. One hole (SLB-1) was abandoned before reaching target depth.



Highlights of the South Basin drilling were:



- 18.6m at 2148ppm Li and 1.33% B from 281.9m in SLB-2 (upper Li-B zone)



- 22.9m at 1354ppm Li and 1.68% B from 364.8m in SLB-2 (lower Li-B zone)



- 10.5m at 2213ppm Li and 0.63% B from 127.0m in SLB-3 (upper Li-B zone)



Two holes drilled at North Basin confirmed Li-B mineralisation previously identified and drilled by US Borax in the 1980's. Highlights of the North Basin drilling were:



- 67.0m at 1212ppm Li and 0.49% B from 22.9m in NLB-1



- 28.6m at 1517ppm Li and 0.40% B from 3.4m in NLB-2



Refer to Figure 2 (see the link below) on page 6 and Tables 1 and 2 on page 7 (see the link below) for further information regarding the drilling.



June Quarter Work Program



The June quarter work program will continue focus on work required for a pre-feasibility study including:



- Completion of acid leach testwork



- Optimisation of flotation and acid-leach process steps



- Production of a lithium-boron brine for crystallisation testwork



- Infill drilling (200m spacing) to upgrade the high-grade Li-B Resource to Measured category.



- Upgrading of the Resource estimation



- Commencement of pre-feasibility work



Corporate



The Company welcomed Mr James D Calaway to the board of directors as non-executive chairman. Mr. Calaway is a respected business and civic leader residing in Houston, Texas, with considerable experience and success in building junior companies into successful commercial enterprises. He has played major roles in the development of both public and private companies engaged in lithium operations, oil and gas exploration and production, enterprise software and solar farm development.



Until his retirement in July 2016, Mr. Calaway served for eight years as non-executive Chairman of the Board of Orocobre Ltd, ( ASX:ORE ) ( TSE:ORL ), helping lead the company from its earliest development to becoming a significant producer of lithium carbonate and a member of the ASX 300. With Orocobre being the only other lithium company with a significant exposure to boron, his Orocobre experience ideally suits him to help lead Global to become a leader in the lithium and borates businesses.



As a condition of the appointment of Mr Calaway, the company completed a $5.2m (US$4m) share placement to entities controlled by and related to Mr Calaway.



During the March quarter, the Company spent $827,000 on exploration and $380,000 on corporate/administration/salaries. Current cash on hand (post-placement) is $8 million.



To view tables and figures, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/75A5D8WL





About Global Geoscience Limited





Global Geoscience Limited (ASX:GSC) is a Sydney-based mineral exploration company specialising in greenfield exploration and mineral discovery. The Company's main focus is for copper, gold and silver on its mostly 100%-owned projects in Nevada and Arizona in the United States, and Peru in South America.


Quarterly Activities Report

Sydney, May 1, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Pacific American Coal Limited ( ASX:PAK ) is pleased to provide its Quarterly Activities Report for the three months ended 31st March 2017.



Key activities PAK engaged in during the Quarter include:



- Appointment of Mark Lochtenberg as Managing Director



- Completion of Successful Capital Raising



- Elko Coking Coal Project



o Commenced permitting process with BC Government



o Engaged key personnel for Elko



-- Appointed Local Project Manager

-- Engaged Nupqu Development Corporation to complete GAP analysis



- Oklahoma Assets



- Investments

o Imagine Intelligent Materials Updates

o GCI Progress Payments



Appointment of Mark Lochtenberg as Managing Director



During the Quarter the Company announced the appointment of Mr Mark Lochtenberg as Managing Director of Pacific American Coal Ltd. Mr Lochtenberg will focus on advancing PAK's flagship Elko Coking Coal Project, in British Columbia, Canada. He commenced on February 1, 2017.



Mr Lochtenberg has substantial global and Australian coal industry experience, including as former co-head of Glencore International AG's worldwide coal division overseeing its trading division and identifying and negotiating the acquisition and aggregation of a project portfolio that became Xstrata Coal. He was also Executive Chairman and founding Managing Director of ASX listed Cockatoo Coal Limited, taking that company from grass roots explorer to mainstream metallurgical coal producer.



He is the Chairman of ASX-listed Equus Limited and a Director of rail infrastructure group Australian Transport and Energy Corridor Pty Limited. Mr Lochtenberg has previously been a Director of ASX- listed Cumnock Coal Limited and privately held United Collieries Pty Limited.



Capital Raising



In addition to the successfully capital raising of $2,000,000 in the previous quarter through an Entitlement Offer and placement on the same terms as the Entitlement Offer, PAK raised a further $300,000 during the Quarter. The additional placement of $300,000 was on the same terms as the Entitlement Offer being at an issue price of $0.10 per new share, together with one attaching new option for every two new shares subscribed for and issued. The total capital raising through the Entitlement Offer and placements is $2,300,000. The funds are being used to advance the Elko Coking Coal Project.



Elko Coking Coal Project



Commenced Permitting Process with BC Government



PAK has further advanced the permitting process for the Company to undertake the planned 2017 exploration drilling program at Elko. During the Quarter, PAK applied for a 'Notice of Work' permit to enable exploration to take place at the Elko Project. The Company is working with the BC Government to ensure the Notice of Works meets the necessary requirements for approval.



As part of this process, PAK is working with local First Nations and consulting companies to support the activities once the Notice of Work has been approved. These activities include:



- Construction of access roads

- Site establishment

- Drilling supervision

- Drill core collection and sampling

- Environmental studies

- Archaeological studies

- Mapping of Riparian systems

- Site access agreements



The drilling program proposes to drill up to 14 core and rotary holes to collect coal core and to define the preliminary extent of mineable coal resources and geological structures.



Drilling will focus on the Company's Coal Licences in the North Western region of the project (Coal Licences 418648 and 418650) and will build on the Company's knowledge of the project. The figure below (see the link below) illustrates the location of the proposed drill holes in the upcoming program. Information gained through this drilling program will also assist in better defining the regional geological of the project.



Project Manager Appointment



PAK has appointed Alex McLeod from Silenius resources to be the project manager for the Elko Exploration. Mr. McLeod is the President of Silenus Resource Management Inc. in Cranbrook BC. He holds a bachelor degree in Forestry from the University of British Columbia, and is a registered professional forester in BC. Mr. McLeod has over 25 years' experience in environmental consulting and project management. He has extensive experience in permitting, monitoring, and managing exploration projects in coking coal, gas, and gold. With a strong background in environmental and economic issues he is able to ensure that all aspects of every project are well attended to. Mr. McLeod has a keen eye for safety and is proficient in development and implementation of solid safety programs and procedures. The Company is pleased to welcome Alex to the team.



Elko Environmental GAP Analysis Report



During the Quarter the Company engaged Nupqu Development Corporation (Nupqu) to complete a GAP analysis on the Elko project area. Nupqu brings local expertise to the Elko Project having been involved in numerous exploration projects in the Kootenay region. The Company is pleased to announce that the GAP analysis will focus on the following:



- Physical Environment

o Soils, air quality, topography, regional geology



- Aquatic Environment

o Quality, quantity, hydrology, habitats



- Terrestrial Environment

o Fauna and Flora



- Socio-Economics

- Heritage

- Project permitting

o Assessment reports, along with Provincial and Federal requirements



The Company will update the market once the GAP analysis has been completed.



As announced on 21 Nov 2016, the Company engaged Palaris to conduct a Scoping Study of the Elko Coking Coal Project. During the Quarter, Palaris provided the Company with a draft report that is currently being finalised.



Oklahoma Assets



The Company continues to retain tenements in application status within the Arkoma Basin of Oklahoma. The tenements cover the projects referred to as Howe, Bokoshe, Harford and Lafayette. These are detailed in the table below (see the link below).



Investments



Imagine Intelligent Materials



During the Quarter Imagine Intelligent Materials (Imagine) released updates on their activities. These can be found on the Imagine website http://www.imgne.com.



These updates, including highlights are:



- Imagine IM presented at world's biggest composites event in Paris (26 Feb 2017)



o Imagine IM announced as a finalist in JEC World Startup Booster competition

o Largest global composite materials conference

o Opportunity to present to world's leading advanced manufacturers

o Imagine IM showcased future industrial-scale sensing applications for pressure, moisture and temperature using graphene composites



- Imagine Intelligent Materials Raised $2m in Private Placement (16 Feb 2017)



o The new capital will enable Imagine IM to optimize its "Plant-In-A-Box" technology into a licensable "turnkey" product.

o Imagine IM will establish an internal Applications Group to develop communications protocols for sensing textiles that will enable data collection on changes in stress, temperature and moisture.

o This will enable the Company to develop high value products with multiple revenue streams.



GCI Progress Payments



During the Quarter, the Company received payments totalling US$85,570 (AU$112,000) from GCI. The payments are in accordance with the terms as announced on 19 May 2016. The Company will recover 100% of the funds invested in GCI over a 24 month period that commenced 15 Jan 2017.



Funds received from the divestment of GCI are also being used to advance the Elko Coking Coal Project.



Tenement Management Updates



During the Quarter, there was no change to the ownership in PAK's tenements.



To view the full report, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/B9RY98NP





About Pacific American Coal Ltd





Pacific American Coal Ltd (ASX:PAK) is focused on the production, development and exploration of metallurgical coal assets in North America. The Company's strategic focus is on the 100% owned Elko hard coking coal project in British Columbia and its investments in technological advanced opportunities. PAK has 100% ownership in a total of 6 Coal Leases in the East Kootenay Coal Field in British Columbia - Canada and tenements in application in low volatile bituminous region of the Arkoma coal basin in Oklahoma.


Quarterly Activities and Cashflow Report

Perth, May 1, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Pioneer Resources Limited ("Pioneer" or the "Company" ( ASX:PIO ) ( PIONF:OTCMKTS ) is pleased to update the market with a summary of activities undertaken during the March Quarter of 2017.



HIGHLIGHTS



PIONEER DOME Lithium Caesium Tantalum Project - Eastern Goldfields, WA



- 22 RC holes for 1,447m drilling completed;

- Pollucite Mineral Resource Statement for Sinclair Zone: 10,5001 of pollucite at 17.1% Cs20;

- Mine plan and Project Management Plan commenced;

- Metallurgical testing successful - caesium formate brine produced without difficulty;

- Extraction of a 5,000t pollucite bulk sample planned for second half of 2017;

- Battery grade lithium carbonate produced from Pioneer Dome lepidolite using the L-Max(R) process;

- Project very prospective for further caesium discoveries and significant spodumene mineralisation;

and

- Further caesium-focused drilling to resume in early May, 2017



MAVIS LAKE Lithium Project - Ontario, Canada



Fairservice (PEG006) drilling intersected multiple thick zones of spodumene - the best to date - including:



- MF17-39: 17.90m at 1.47% Li20 from 80.00m;

- MF17-40: 12.85m at 1.16% Li20 from 80.05m;

- MF17-49: 26.30m at 1.70% Li20 from 111.9m;

including 7.70m at 2.97% Li20 from 130.5m;

- MF17-50: 16.55m at 1.45% Li20 from 74.55m;

and 23.10m at 1.36% Li20 from 122.00m.

- Planning for the next phase of drilling underway, likely during the September quarter.



BLAIR DOME Nickel and Cobalt Project (Includes Blair Nickel Mine) - Eastern Goldfields, WA Nickel Sulphide Strategy



- Drilling to test new nickel sulphide targets adjacent to the closed Blair Nickel Mine with precollared diamond drill holes is underway.



Cobalt Strategy



- Review of the Project's drilling database identified multiple, broad zones of high grade cobalt mineralisation; and

- The Company will release details of its strategy to maximise value from this asset during the June quarter.



CORPORATE



At 31 March 2017 the Company had cash reserves of $3.43 million and no debt.



To view the full report, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/61EKG9OD





About Pioneer Resources Ltd





Pioneer Resources Ltd (ASX:PIO) (OTCMKTS:PIONF) (FRA:PNL) is an active junior exploration company focused on the exploration for key global demand-driven commodities. This includes a portfolio of high quality lithium assets in Canada and Western Australia, and a portfolio of strategically located gold and other commodity projects in sought after mining regions in WA. The Company is focused on delivering shareholder value by actively strengthening its project portfolio, and targeted exploration programs to enable the discovery and commercialisation of high value mineral resources.
Successful commissioning and plant ramp-up at Montepuez Ruby Project; Ruby inventory grows to ~73,500cts; Spectacular high-grade graphite discovery at Balama project; $3.1 million cash on hand (no debt)



Quarterly Report & Appendix 5B

Sydney, May 1, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Mustang Resources Ltd ( ASX:MUS ) ( GGPLF:OTCMKTS ) is pleased to provide the following report on its activities during the March quarter 2017.



Highlights



MONTEPUEZ RUBY PROJECT, MOZAMBIQUE



- Plant commissioning completed and post quarter upgrades taking capacity to 1,500tpd, a more than 300% increase from start of the quarter



- Mustang acquired highly prospective ruby licence located between Montepuez and Gemfields' ( LON:GEM ) major ruby project (subject to shareholder approval)



- Ruby inventory increased to ~73,500cts (at 28 April 2017)



- Subsequent to end of quarter:



o Plant throughput rate being increased further to 1,500tpd (~380,000tpa)

o Revised sales strategy to focus solely on selling rough stones as the most sustainable over the medium to long term

o First auction of ~200,000cts set for October 2017

o Developing rough grading system to be implemented prior to auction



BALAMA GRAPHITE PROJECT, MOZAMBIQUE



- Spectacular high-grade graphite discovery resource at Caula deposit within the Balama Project in Mozambique



- Significant graphitic mineralised zones encountered with assays awaited



- Balama well-placed to participate in the rapidly growing graphite market, which is benefiting from the soaring demand growth in the lithium battery market



CORPORATE



- $3.1 million cash on hand at 31 March 2017; this is after funding latest plant upgrades



- Mustang listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange



- Listing was in response to rapidly growing interest in the Company's ruby and graphite projects from European investors



- Raised $5.88 million in a share placement early March 2017 (before costs and $5.2 million settled in March 2017, balance to settle in second tranche)



MONTEPUEZ RUBY PROJECT, MOZAMBIQUE



Mustang continued to execute its strategy to ramp-up production at its Montepuez Ruby Project in Mozambique, completing the commissioning of the relocated processing plant and continuing to focus its prospecting efforts on secondary deposits the source of the vast majority of gem quality rubies from Mozambique.



Production ramped-up to the targeted rate of 525tpd (~11,025 tons per month, assuming 21 operational days per month running one shift) and hit as much as 1000tpd, a move which is forecast to result in a substantial increase in the Company's ruby production.



Subsequent to the end of the quarter, production has risen to 1,500tpd as key plant upgrades were installed.



Mustang finished the quarter with a total ruby inventory of 69,989cts. Since the end of the quarter, this has grown to ~73,500 carats. The Company aims to increase this to 200,000cts by October, at which time it intends to sell the entire inventory at an auction.



This represents a shift in its formative strategy, which involved the sale of cut and polished rubies as well as rough stones. However, after the end of the quarter, Mustang adopted a revised strategy under which it will sell all its rubies as rough stones.



This new strategy has two key objectives. First, it will ensure Mustang does not compete with its rough stone customers for sales of cut and polished stones and second, it will generate more cashflow in the medium term due to faster payment terms for rough stones and a much simpler sales process.



The revised strategy follows extensive consultation with prospective customers and a market study undertaken during Q1. The strategy is the same as that used by leading ruby miner Gemfields, which generated US$225 million in seven auctions totalling 8.6Mcts (commercial and gem quality rubies from primary and secondary deposits) over 3.5 years.



The five 'special' stones sent to the US for cutting and polishing by Meg Berry will be sent to Thailand for inclusion in the overall inventory.



These five stones (77cts) were never intended to generate material cashflow and only represent 0.1% of current gem ruby inventory; they were to provide an insight into the value of Mustang's cut and polished stones for testing and marketing purposes only and to assist in defining the best sales strategy over the medium to long term.



The remaining parcel of rubies sent to the US (~6,148cts) will be sold as part of the auction in October 2017.



During the quarter, Mustang's team attended the AGTA GemFair in Tucson, Arizona from 31 January to 4 February 2017. The AGTA GemFair is the largest coloured gemstone trade show in the world and provided a perfect opportunity to engage with potential customers from around the globe.



During the quarter, Mustang also announced that it had agreed to acquire a 65 per cent interest in a new highly strategic ruby licence (Licence 8245L) which borders its existing Montepuez Ruby Project in Mozambique. A site visit undertaken by Mustang consultant, Mr Paul Allan, confirmed that artisanal miners are recovering large, high-quality rubies from this licence area, which also borders one of the key ruby deposits being mined by London-listed Gemfields.



Importantly, Mustang's new licence is only 3km directly south-east of the Company's plant site and Alpha ruby deposit and lies along the south-east, north-west ruby mineralisation trend, which also transects the adjacent Gemfields licences.



Following completion of environmental permitting, Mustang will immediately commence a prospecting program, including mapping, auger drilling and trenching to determine a preferred location to open a bulk sampling pit. Mustang will then commence processing gravels from the priority areas identified, further enhancing the current bulk sampling program and ruby sales planned for 2017.



BALAMA GRAPHITE PROJECT, MOZAMBIQUE



Mustang Resources made a spectacular high-grade graphite discovery during the quarter at its 80 per cent-owned Caula Project (Licence 6678L) along geological strike of Syrah Resources' ( ASX:SYR ) world-class Balama graphite project in Mozambique.



Each of the first five diamond drill holes at Caula returned exceptionally high grades of up to 26 per cent Total Graphitic Carbon in multiple 1m samples/intersections.



Graphite was also intersected over extensive widths of 14m to 87m (downhole based on an incline of between 55deg and 60deg), providing strong evidence that Caula is both a large and extremely high-grade deposit with graphite mineralisation starting at shallow depth in the oxidised zone near surface.



The Caula Project sits within Mustang's Balama Project licence areas. Due to the highly successful results at Caula, Mustang has decided to name this project in its own right. The licence areas which do not form part of Caula will continue to be referred to as the Balama Project.



The Caula core is being assayed at SGS, a leading Perth laboratory, which will assess its metallurgical characteristics. These results, combined with the assays from the holes referred to above, will be used to calculate a maiden JORC Resource estimate. Mustang expects to publish this estimate in the June quarter, followed by an initial Scoping Study.



Mustang also intends to undertake a comprehensive analysis of flake size distribution and preliminary flowsheets for high-quality graphite concentrate products. This is aimed at confirming field observations which suggest the Caula graphite deposit contains large flake-sizes.



CORPORATE



During the quarter, Mustang's fully paid ordinary shares listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol GGY. The Company retains its primary listing on the Australian Securities Exchange.



The listing in Frankfurt is a result of the growing interest in the Company's Montepuez Ruby Project and in the Caula Graphite Project from European investors. Both projects are located in northern Mozambique.



To support a further increase in the drilling and bulk sampling campaign and to accelerate its development plans with the expanded project area, Mustang raised $5.88 million from existing and new institutional and sophisticated investors from which $5.2 million has been settled with the balance scheduled for settlement immediately following the EGM on 22 May 2017.



Mustang finished the quarter with cash on hand of $3.1 million. This was after funding the latest upgrade plant upgrade at Montepuez and an extensive drilling program. However, the broader JORC Resource drilling program is now largely complete and therefore drilling costs are expected to be significantly lower this following quarter as activities are focused on processing highly prospective ruby-bearing gravels from newly discovered deposits.



To view tables and figures, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/0V554745





About New Energy Minerals Ltd





New Energy Minerals Ltd (ASX:NXE) (FRA:GGY) is an ASX listed junior mining company, that recently announced the divestment of the Company's Caula vanadium - graphite project and the Montepuez Ruby project in Mozambique.
April 30, 2017

On April 28, Iranians tuned into state televisions Channel 1 to watch the first round of presidential debates  a forum that greatly shapes voter sentiments.

Incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, a former minister of industries and mines, are the candidates of the Reformist-moderate camp. On the other side of the political spectrum, the conservatives are represented by Ebrahim Raisi, the custodian of the holy shrine of the eighth Shiite imam, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former minister of culture and Islamic guidance.

The first televised debate was supposed to be about social issues, but quickly turned into a highly political battle over the economy. The clash began when Rouhani was to make his address, and Ghalibaf  who was defeated by Rouhani in the 2013 presidential elections  claimed that the incumbent had previously promised that he would create 4 million jobs. Rouhani quickly denied this and interrupted Ghalibaf by saying, I do not want this lie to continue and do not want Mr. Ghalibafs sins to increase.

During the debate, Iranian news sites and channels on the popular smartphone app Telegram were highly active, and engaging in real-time fact-checking. As such, the moment Ghalibaf spoke of Rouhanis alleged promise, the statement in question was quickly circulated, showing that Rouhani had before the 2013 elections said that 4 million jobs could be created  if the countrys tourism industry boomed and 10 million tourists could be attracted to Iran.

This wasnt the only time in which Rouhani and Ghalibaf tensely traded barbs during the debate. Another important showdown was when Ghalibaf accused Rouhani of deceiving people through the candidacy of Jahangiri, who is widely assumed to have signed up to run to aid Rouhani during the debates and then withdraw in favor of the incumbent.

Ghalibaf seemingly did not expect Jahangiri to counter him seriously. Instead, the Tehran mayor found himself coming under fire by the vice president, with Jahangiri saying that the man behind the attack on the Saudi Embassy in January 2016, which led to the severing of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, is seemingly working for Ghalibaf.

Which people were behind the attack on Saudi Arabias Embassy?  We [Rouhani administration] did not attack the embassy and put peoples interests at risk. For which candidate are those who attacked the embassy working for? Who gave the money [for the embassy attack] and supported them? Jahangiri unexpectedly thundered during the debate.

Jahangiris charge did not stop Ghalibaf from launching further attacks on the Rouhani administration. In the last minutes of the debate, the Tehran mayor curiously appeared to both imitate former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-13) and the latters Reformist rival in the 2009 elections, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011.

During the controversial presidential debates in 2009, Ahmadinejad famously brought up a document on the air, claiming that Mousavis wife, academic Zahra Rahnavard, held two illegal degrees  a claim that was later denied by the Inspection Organization. In direct response to Ahmadinejad, Mousavi minutes later addressed the Iranian people on TV, saying, We are facing a phenomenon who stares in your eyes and lies.

Eight years later, in the April 28 presidential debate, Ghalibaf seemingly imitated Ahmadinejads tactic to discredit Rouhani by showing a printed screenshot of the presidents remarks published on his website about creating 4 million jobs, and seemingly repeated Mousavis aforementioned famous statement to attract some of the Reformists supporters. However, this does not appear to have worked out very well as many slammed Ghalibaf for repeating Ahmadinejads behavior. Indeed, soon after the end of the debate, many users on social media uploaded pictures of Ghalibaf and Ahmadinejad next to each other, each holding up a printed document at respective debates, and accusing the Tehran mayor of hypocrisy for stealing Mousavis statement.

Following the debate, four of the candidates  Rouhani, Ghalibaf, Mirsalim and Raisi  lodged protests with the Election Campaign Monitoring Committee. Rouhani's cultural adviser, Hesamoddin Ashna, said the president filed a complaint with the committee over Ghalibafs accusations and because state TV did not give him the opportunity to respond the Tehran mayors claims.

Another significant aspect of the debate was Raisis apparent decision not to get entangled in Ghalibafs clash with Rouhani and Jahangiri. Some hinted that Raisi feared a direct clash with Rouhani, who is a skilled speaker.

The big highlight seemed to be that Jahangiri's allegations about the embassy attack helped him gain traction with voters, according to online surveys after the debate.

Ghalibafs harsh attacks had not been expected. Some believe the Tehran mayors real aim was to portray himself as the only conservative candidate. Indeed, following the debate, his supporters slammed Raisi for his inabilities, lack of courage and inaction in the face of the heated battle between Ghalibaf and Rouhani and Jahangiri.

On the other hand, Ghalibafs actions were criticized by Raisis supporters, who surmised that the Tehran mayors direct clash with Rouhani was planned in order to portray Ghalibaf as effective and get him the upper hand vis-a-vis Raisi in opinion polls.

By accusing Rouhani and the people behind him as belonging to the 4%  an apparent adaptation of the Occupy Wall Street movements reference to the 1%  who are violating the rights of the 96%, Ghalibaf apparently imitated US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and was seeking to attract the votes of the middle class.

Saeed Leylaz, a prominent Reformist analyst, said April 29, Mr. Ghalibaf definitely cannot portray himself as the representative of the poor classes, or as he himself said, the 96%. Leylaz added, This gesture doesnt match with Ghalibafs background, referring to the various corruption scandals rocking the Tehran municipality in recent years.

Candidates are scheduled to take part in two more televised debates ahead of the May 19 vote.


Appointment and Resignation of Directors

Sydney, May 1, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Tianmei Beverage Group Corporation Limited ( ASX:TB8 ) (Company) is pleased to advise that Ms Xiao Han was appointed as Executive Director of the Company. Ms Han is a graduate of Northumbria University in the UK through the Finsborough School, where she obtained a Masters in Business Management.



During 2008 two 2010 Ms Han was the accountant of Singapore Shide Aviation Technology Ltd. In the two years to 2012, Ms Han served as the Financial Manager and CFO of Shenzhen Zhichengtang Science and Technology Development Ltd.



Ms Han successfully obtained a legal practitioner qualification certificate in 2012 and became a practising lawyer in China. Since then Ms Han has been the Chief Representative of CKR Law LLP China Office. The Company welcomes Ms Han as a director and looks forward to the excellent skills she will bring to the Company as a member of the Board.



We also wish to advise that Ms Xu, an Executive Director of the Company has retired from the Board. We thank her for her significant contribution to the affairs of the Company, made during her time as an Executive Director and wish her the best for the future.





About Tianmei Beverage Group Corporation Limited





Tianmei Beverage Group Corporation Limited (ASX:TB8) provides promotional services to producers of FMCG goods as well as its own water products in the Guangdong province in China. Guangdong province is one of China's most developed provinces with a gross domestic product of US$1.1 trillion in 2014 and has as its capital, Guangzhou city, which is China's third largest city with a population of approximately 13 million people.

Product Promotion

Tianmei have contracts with over 940 terminal supermarkets and convenience stores in Guangdong. Through this network of stores, the Company promotes fast moving consumer goods, including food, beverage and general grocery products for over 65 FMCG suppliers.

Water Products

The Company's water products business focuses on the sale of Tianmei-branded water products, including bottled water, infant water and water dispensers through a network of over 500 retail outlets. The Company have a number of patents approved and pending surrounding it's water products and production equipment.


Quarterly Update and Appendix 4C

Perth, May 1, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - MMJ PhytoTech Limited ( ASX:MMJ ) ("MMJ" or "the Company") is pleased to provide its quarterly activities report for the period ended 31 March 2017.



Highlights:



- Harvest Once completes C$25 million equity raising to finalise RTO transaction of United Greeneries Holdings Ltd and Satipharm AG on the TSX-V



- Post quarter end, Harvest One receives listing approval on the TSX-V as Tier 1 Life Science Issuer



- Cannabis cultivation underway at Duncan Facility with first crop of OG Kush strain successfully harvested yielding approx. 60kg of dried cannabis buds



- Land Lease agreement signed with Cowichan Tribes to secure additional 13 acre land package located directly adjacent to existing Duncan Facility in Canada



- $9M from equity raise allocated to massive expansion of Duncan facility on leased land, targeting production capacity of 8,500kg p.a. by YE 2017



- Phase 2 Clinical Trial of PTL101 drug-beads underway aimed at measuring safety and efficacy for treating refractory epilepsy in children



- Swiss-subsidiary Satipharm AG expands European sales network with Gelpell CBD capsules now available throughout all pharmaceutical outlets in Germany



- Partnership with HL Pharma for the importation and distribution of Satipharm's Gelpell CBD capsules into Australia - Import Licence received in March



- MMJ remains in a strong financial position with circa A$8.3M cash



United Greeneries Cannabis Cultivation Update



Following the commencement of production in December 2016, MMJ's Canadian-based subsidiary United Greeneries Ltd ("UG"), successfully completed its first cannabis harvest at the Duncan Facility during the quarter.



UG's first crop of the OG Kush strain yielded approximately 60kg of dried cannabis buds, with the harvest passing strict internal quality control measures. The Company expects the cannabis buds to be ready for shipment by early May.



Cultivation activities are continuing to be scaled up at the Duncan Facility, as UG looks to establish a first-mover advantage in the soon to be legalised Canadian recreational market, which will have an estimated retail value of CAD$8.7 billion per annum (according to a 2016 Insights and Opportunities Report on Recreational Marijuana by Deloitte).



Cowichan Land Lease Agreement Expands Production Capacity



In March, United Greeneries executed an agreement with Cowichan Tribes ("Cowichan") in respect to the leasing of a 13-acre land package ("Expansion Land") located adjacent to the Company's existing Duncan Facility.



The Expansion Land will underpin UG's Phase 1 Expansion Strategy, initially supporting up to three acres of additional greenhouse production space, increasing production capacity to approximately 8,500kg of dried cannabis buds by the end of calendar year 2017.



The agreement also provides scope for a potential Joint Venture ("JV") with Cowichan to further expand UG's landholding with an additional 20 acres of greenhouse production space. This would drive production capacity at the Duncan Facility to approximately 50,000kg p.a. by 2020, potentially establishing UG as one of the largest cannabis producers in Canada.



Strategic Partnership Strengthens Australian Distribution Network and Obtains Importation Permit for Satipharm Products.



In February, MMJ strengthened its Australian distribution network, entering a binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") with HL Pharma Pty Ltd. ("HL Pharma") for the importation and distribution of the Company's medicinal cannabis products in Australia.



Under the agreement, HL Pharma will provide the requisite framework for the importation of MMJ's Swiss-based subsidiary, Satipharm AG's ("Satipharm"), Gelpell CBD capsules to approved prescribers in Australia.



In March, HL Pharma received approval for a medicinal cannabis importation licence from the Department of Health, with the final Import Permit expected to be received shortly - enabling the importation process to commence.



Importantly, Satipharm's Gelpell CBD capsules are expected to be one of the first medicinal cannabis products available to approved prescribers in Australia, solidifying the MMJ's position as a first mover in this evolving market.



Satipharm has the necessary inventory to immediately commence the importation of its Gelpell CBD capsules into Australia, where the capsules will be stored by HL Pharma in a secure warehouse facility.



HL Pharma is a Melbourne-based specialist pharmaceutical wholesaler and distributor. The Company has more than 20 years of experience, supplying pharmaceuticals to hospitals, pharmacies, doctors, veterinarians and pharmaceutical wholesalers worldwide. HL Pharma is registered with The Victorian Department of Health and works under the code of Good Distribution Practice ("GDP") to supply pharmaceuticals.



Satipharm Expands European Sales Footprint



Satipharm continued its strong growth trajectory during the quarter, highlighted by the expansion of its sales and distribution network in Europe.



Significantly, Pharmaceutical Central Numbers (PZN codes) have been secured for its 10mg and 50mg Gelpell CBD Capsules, enabling both products to be sold in all pharmacies throughout Germany and through leading E-commerce platform Amazon.



Satipharms's online distribution partner, German Bodfeld Pharmacy, has now commenced the shipping of Satipharm's cannabidiol ("CBD") extract products to regulated markets globally, further enhancing the Company's capacity to rapidly scale up product sales. Importantly, German Bodfeld Pharmacy accepts all major payment methods, which solves a key payment gateway issue imposed on CBD producers globally due to the federal U.S. ban of cannabinoids.



A binding LOI was also executed with a leading pharmaceutical distributor and retailer in Denmark for the marketing and distribution of Satipharm's products throughout Scandinavia. Satipharm expects this partnership to provide direct access to hundreds of thousands of potential new customers in the near-term.



Phase 2 Clinical Trial for Treatment of Pediatric Epilepsy Underway



During the quarter, the Company's wholly-owned, Israeli-based subsidiary PhytoTech Therapeutics Limited ("PTL"), commenced a Phase 2 clinical study into the safety and efficacy of its PTL101 capsules in treating refractory epilepsy in children.



The Phase 2 clinical study follows the highly successful Phase 1 study (announced 3 March 2016), which highlighted the safety and high performance of the Gelpell CBD capsules. The capsules successfully demonstrated the effective delivery profile of CBD compound to trial subjects.



The PTL101 capsules / beads are utilising proprietary formulation developed through the Company's Gelpell CBD product technology.



It is estimated that approximately 100,000 children in North America suffer from refractory epilepsy - a treatment resistant category of the disease, causing uncontrollable seizures.



To date, drug therapy remains ineffective in the treatment of epileptic seizures for approximately 30% of refractory epilepsy patients in North America alone, due to the drug failing to control the frequency of seizures or patients not being able to tolerate the related side effects. A number of currently available epilepsy drugs have been found to have significant side effects including the impairment of a patient's motor skills and cognitive abilities.



For further details on the Phase 2 Clinical Trial, please refer to ASX release dated 13 February 2017.



Canadian Recreational Market Update



The Canadian Federal Government recently confirmed it will move to legalise the recreational cannabis market by 1 July 2018. The Federal Government's initial plans and proposed legislative framework were tabled in a Bill to the House of Commons on 13 April 2017.



Key points from initial framework include:



- Canadian Federal Government ("Government") has decided to continue with the existing Licensed Producer ("LP") framework in place for supply to the medicinal cannabis, and will utilise this model for governing supply to the recreational market.



- Government will maintain the pre-existing medical mail order delivery system for recreational cannabis market.



- Legislation confirms that sales in a retail environment must happen from a "licensed" distributor - with further details to be provided.



- Government has advised there will be "restrictions" not a "ban" on promotional activities.



- Initially, the Government will legalise oils and dried cannabis which is the same as the current regime on the medical side.



The latest development follows the release of the Federal Government's Final Report into Cannabis Legalisation and Regulation (the "Report") in December 2016. The Report incorporated the findings and recommendations submitted by the Health Canada instigated Task Force, and outlined the need for a safe and responsible production system, with the development of regulatory framework to support commercial production by the private sector a key priority.



At present, there are 41 approved companies operating under the current regulatory framework, of which 10 are publicly listed in Canada. It is expected that existing Licensed Producers under the current regulatory framework will have a strategic first-mover advantage as early stage suppliers to the recreational market.



Corporate Activity Overview



Post quarter end, Harvest One Capital Inc. (NEX:WON.H) ("Harvest One") received approval from the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") for the acquisition of MMJ's wholly-owned subsidiaries United Greeneries and Satipharm.



The resulting issuer, Harvest One Cannabis Inc. ("Harvest One Cannabis") ( CVE:HVST ), was approved as a Tier 1 Life Science Issuer, with trading of HVST Common Shares commencing on 28 April 2017.



The Company also advised that an Amended Filing Statement dated as of April 19, 2017 filed in connection with the Acquisition has been posted on SEDAR and may be viewed under the Harvest One profile at www.sedar.com in accordance with Section 12.4 (i) of Exchange Policy 2.4.



Importantly, TSX-V listing approval satisfies the final escrow requirement for the release of the CAD$25 million secured under the recent Harvest One capital raising (see ASX release dated 23 February 2017). Upon listing, Andreas Gedeon assumed the role of Managing Director and CEO of Harvest One Cannabis.



In February, Harvest One closed the previously reported (January 27, 2017) private placement ("the Placement"), raising C$25,000,500 before costs. Pursuant to the Placement, Harvest One issued 33,334,000 Subscription Receipts at a price of C$0.75.



The Subscription Receipts were sold on a private placement basis through a syndicate of agents led by Mackie Research Capital Corporation (the "Lead Agent") and including Canaccord Genuity Corp., Eight Capital and GMP Securities L.P. (the "Agents"). The Agents exercised in full their option to purchase an additional 4,000,000 Subscription Receipts for additional gross proceeds of $3,000,000.



Post transaction, MMJ remains in a strong financial position with circa A$8.3 million cash. These funds are intended to be applied towards the ongoing clinical trial programs in Israel, working capital and pursuit of new opportunities in the medical cannabis sector.



MMJ shareholders will have a 60% ownership in Harvest One Cannabis - a fully-financed company with two strategic cannabis brands operating in one of the fastest growing cannabis markets globally. MMJ also retains 100% ownership of its Israel-based subsidiary, PhytoTech Therapeutics Ltd, which is responsible for the Company's R&D and clinical development activities.



Management Commentary



MMJ PhytoTech's Managing Director, Andreas Gedeon, commented:



"The March quarter was a transformational period, with the delivery of a number of key milestones driving us closer towards becoming one of Canada's leading large-scale cannabis production businesses.



Looking ahead, the Canadian cannabis sector is approaching a watershed moment, with Justin Trudeau's Liberal Government recently tabling legislation to end Canada's prohibition on cannabis that has stood for close to a century.



This latest development erases any previous doubts around the commitment of the Canadian Federal Government to legalise the recreational cannabis market. Importantly, companies currently operating in the sector have been provided with increased clarity in regards to proposed legislative framework and expected timelines.



We are also very proud that our strategy of creating international jurisdictional synergies has resulted in the fact that our Swiss Satipharm Gelpell capsules will be one of the first, if not the first, medical cannabis products available to Australian patients.



I would like to thank our shareholders for their ongoing support and the Company looks forward to providing shareholders with additional corporate and operational updates in the near-term."





About MMJ Group Holdings Ltd





MMJ Group Holdings Ltd (ASX:MMJ) is a global cannabis investment company. MMJ owns a portfolio of minority investments and aims to invest across the full range of emerging cannabis-related sectors including healthcare, technology, infrastructure, logistics, processing, cultivation, equipment and retail. For MMJ's latest investor presentation and news, please visit: https://www.mmjphytotech.com.au/investors/
Another issue that Godlee was forced to respond to was that the BMJ had failed to acknowledge its own conflicts, with its commercial relationships with MMR manufacturers Merck and GSK. In the end the BMJ put up a notice with a partial admission of the problem over the on-line editorial but not over the Mr Deers articles (which left readers none the wiser). Even so, the published notice only mentioned advertising revenue from the two companies and not the fact that the BMJ learning division received unlimited grants from Merck through its non-profit arm Univadis. And none of this, of course, received any of the publicity of the original publication [4, 5].

"The case we presented against Andrew Wakefield that the1998 Lancet paper was intended to mislead was not critically reliant on GP records. It is primarily based on Royal Free hospital records, including histories taken by clinicians, and letters and other documents received at the Royal Free from GPs and consultants."

A fundamental error in the Deer/BMJ case to swiftly emerge was that Mr Deer (who had no competence to interpret medical records) was making use of GP notes which were not available to the authors of the paper, and could not be used as a guide to what they knew.

It is my intention to submit evidence to the committee about research integrity but after consideration I decided to write to you about statements made in the committees recent publication Integrity in Research (Postnote 544) [1], which singles out the Wakefield 1998 Lancet paper as an example of fraud citing the editorial in the British Medical Journal by Godlee et al from January 2011[2]. While the committee may have done this in good faith it should not be in the position of knowingly committing errors of its own and therefore I suggest that the pamphlet is urgently withdrawn. Subsequent, to the publication of the Godlee editorial (and the accompanying articles by journalist Brian Deer) the position of the BMJ began to crumble.

Below is my correspondence with the United Kingdom House of Commons Science and Technology Committee from January, which I am publishing now partly in response to further malicious attacks on the reputation of Andrew Wakefield in the London Times. The committee  presently dissolved due to the General Election  naturally failed to deal with the matter. The chairman of the committee, Stephen Metcalfe (in photo) an elected politician  handed on my complaint to the clerk, Simon Fiander, who defended their claim that Wakefield had committed fraud by citing a British Medical Journal editorial of January in 2011 as if nothing had happened the interim. In essence they were claiming that because something had been said six years before it could be idly repeated. Although Fiander extended a specific invitation to submit evidence to the committees inquiry into research integrity three attempts were rejected. The reality is that when it comes to vaccination the British establishment cannot deal with the truth in any shape or form:

From the beginning the BMJ was obstructive about publishing comments pointing to (many) factual errors in Deers presentation [6]. This became more serious when the journal blocked in substance a detailed examination of the case, with new documentary evidence from a senior scientist Dr David Lewis [7]. In the wake of this a news article published by Nature contained further admissions from the journal [8]:

"Before publishing Lewis's letter, the BMJ asked Ingvar Bjarnason, a gastroenterologist at King's College Hospital, London, to review the materials. Bjarnason says he doesn't believe they are sufficient to support claims in the Lancet paper of a new disease process. He also questions whether "non-specific" on the grading sheets refers to colitis, saying it could refer to any kind of gut changes. But he says that the forms don't clearly support charges that Wakefield deliberately misinterpreted the records. "The data are subjective. It's different to say it's deliberate falsification," he says.

"Deer notes that he never accused Wakefield of fraud over his interpretation of pathology records. But he says that records read to him from the Royal Free pathology service clearly stated that the children's gut biopsies were within normal limits, even though they were reported in the Lancet paper as having enterocolitis.

"Fiona Godlee, the editor of the BMJ, says that the journal's conclusion of fraud was not based on the pathology but on a number of discrepancies between the children's records and the claims in the Lancet paper."

It should also be noted that both the histopathologist co-authors of the paper wrote to the journal on separate occasions repudiating Deers version of events [9,10].

The case continued to disintegrate in 2012 when Sir John Mitting fully exonerated the senior author of the paper Prof John Walker-Smith in the High Court (Wakefield, himself, not being funded to appeal) having failed to find evidence, central to the GMC case, that the paper was based on a study protocol proposed to the Legal Aid Board, or that it misreported data, or involved inappropriate or unauthorised investigations [11].

Later in 2012 the BMJ reported the conclusion of University College London (which had been drawn into the BMJs demands for inquiry) that there was no case to be answered. Zosia Kmietowicz wrote [12]:

"In a paper on the development of its new framework, UCL said that after taking advice from the UK Research Integrity Office and a senior legal figure it concluded that the net result [from an investigation] would likely be an incomplete set of evidence and an inconclusive process costing a substantial sum of money."

It was also vastly inappropriate that Dr Godlees editorial was signed by another BMJ editor Dr Harvey Marcovitch, who was also at the time head of GMC panels (particularly while these matters were under legal appeal). The claim by BMJ that Deers articles were externally peer reviewed (but actually by Dr Marcovitch) was also apparently false (a real example of fraud?) [13].

The case that the Wakefield paper is a prime example of fraud seems to be politically motivated rather than historically well-founded.

Finally, I draw your attention to the fact  as I drew it to your predecessor Andrew Miller  that when Crispin Davis, CEO of Reed Elsevier and proprietor of the Lancet, denounced Dr Wakefield before committee in March 2004, he himself failed to disclose that he was a director of GSK and that it was actually his brother, Sir Nigel Davis, who had dismissed the MMR litigation in the High Court three days earlier [14].

[1] http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/news-parliament-2015/research-integrity-inquiry-launch-16-17/

[2] Godlee et al, Wakefields article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent, BMJ January 2011, http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452

[3] http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/03/bmj-response-emails-readers-age-autism

[4] http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/03/response-john-stone

[5] http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d1678

[6] Martin Hewitt, How Brian Deer and the British Medical Journal Fixed the Record Over Wakefield (links to three parts) http://www.ageofautism.com/2015/03/how-brian-deer-and-the-bmj-fixed-the-record-over-wakefield-part-2.html

[7]David L Lewis PhD, Apparent Egregious Ethical Misconduct by British Medical Journal, Brian Deer, https://niceguidelines.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/lewis-report-jan-8-2012.pdf

[8] Eugenie Samuel Reich, Fresh Dispute Over MR Fraud, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111109/full/479157a.html?s=news_rss%20

[9] http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/02/caution-assessing-histopathological-opinions

[10] http://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/11/17/re-pathology-reports-solve-%E2%80%9Cnew-bowel-disease%E2%80%9D-riddle

[11] http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2012/503.html&query=Walker-Smith+and+GMC&method=boolean

[12] http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e6220

[13] Wakefield vs. BMJ (Texas litigation) Deposition of Jane Smith, p. 29 ff. , note p.91http://www.rescuepost.com/files/ex-c-bmj-smith-depo.pdf

[14] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/4030107.htm

Yours sincerely,

John Stone (Autism Parent and UK Editor, Age of Autism)

Dear Mr Stone,

The Chair of the S&T Committee passed your email to me, and asked me to thank you for your letter.

In your letter you take issue with the way the Wakefield case is presented. This is set out in the 'POSTnote' produced by the Parliamentary Office for Science & Technology (POST), to which the Committee then refers in its call for submissions for its inquiry. The assertion in the POSTnote about 'fraud' is referenced to the 2011 Godlee article in the BMJ, although I recognise that you take issue with her about her actions and views in the case. I will pass on your letter to POST.

The Committee would in the meantime welcome a submission from you and/or Age of Autism for the inquiry.

Simon Fiander

Clerk, Science & Technology Committee

Dear Mr Fiander,

Thank you for your swift and courteous reply on behalf of the committee. It is, of course, for the committee to guard its own integrity, but I do point to the anomaly. The committee publishes comments as fact citing a six year old editorial when much has happened in the interim, and plainly this is not just in my opinion. New and contradictory evidence came to light; British Medical Journal had to back down on crucial matters; a High Court judge reviewed the evidence relating to reporting in the paper and dismissed the GMC case against the senior author; University College London finally backed down from holding an inquiry for lack of evidence (on the advice of the United Kingdom Research Integrity Office and a senior legal authority).

The committee itself was involved in these events. If we go back to November 2011, and the partial publication of Dr David Lewiss report in BMJ Rapid Responses, the British Medical Journal plainly found itself out on a limb. Dr Godlee, mindful of the fact that the evidence was unravelling against Wakefield wanted UCL  which was increasingly wary of conducting an inquiry - to go after the other authors of the paper, and in her frustration called upon the Science and Technology Committee to take over the job. This sounds suspiciously like a witch hunt. Andrew Miller, on behalf of the committee replied (letter of 8 November 2011):

"You also indicate concerns about the broader questions of whether or not UCL adequately investigated the roles of all those who put their names to Dr Wakefields papers and whether there was pressure to minimise any investigations in order to protect the institution. These relate to the integrity of the academic institution as a whole and are not simply an issue of whether or not the institution promotes good science. This is a matter rather for a body such as HEFCE, which has the task of ensuring academic standards in publicly-funded bodies."

It is plain from this that the position had already moved on from the Godlee et al editorial of January 2011 which is now fully six years later being cited as established fact, while the message of the committee chair then was that it was outside the committees competence.

However, the committee also needs to alert itself to the problem of confirmation bias. A few paragraphs along from the statement:

"While deliberate fraud does occur (such as that involving Andrew Wakefield, whose1998 paper suggested a potential link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and autism),.. it is thought to be extremely rare..."

we read:

"Risking public health, for example by asserting evidence that may cause people to decide to either undergo or refuse trials or treatment or to use products that have not been shown to be safe or effective. For example, despite Wakefield being struck off the medical register, and the retraction of his paper in 2010, the take up of the MMR vaccine has only recovered to the pre-1998 level in the last two years..."

In reality, in terms of research integrity we need good science irrespective of whether it fits in with the agenda of public health programmes, and what institutionally speaking has been done to Wakefield may not be a good model for public science. With all the focus on infectious disease and the expanding vaccine schedule there has been none on the ever increasing flood of autistic and otherwise neurologically compromised children entering our schools since 1998 (no explanation, no public concern and great deal of obfuscation). In Scotland, now, the number of young children with an autism diagnosis is likely to be above 1 in 30 and rising.

It might also be pointed out that while approximately 10 million people will have died in the United Kingdom since 1998 only three people have died from contracting measles (one of them actually due to gross medical negligence and all three otherwise very sick people), so it is necessary to have a sense of proportion. We need to remember that in 1998 Wakefield advocated splitting the vaccines, which was at the time an NHS option. This was rapidly removed by the government, thus politicising the issue. If people who raise questions about public health are just trodden underfoot there is a much bigger problem and the possibilities for corrupting the process are infinite. The committee should be very careful.

Yours sincerely,

John Stone (Autism Parent and UK Editor, Age of Autism)








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A messenger of God  self-acclaimed  Horacio Villegas says that he has predicted that the Third World War will commence this year in 2017. This is not the first time that the mystic has predicted events that went ahead to happen. Villegas who lives in Texas came to the limelight following the fulfillment of some of his prophecies.

Earlier, he accurately predicted that Donald Trump will emerge as the 45th president of the United States since 2015 as reported by Daily Star. He further added that the billionaire businessman would be the architect of the nuclear war.

Horacio Villegas also predicted that attack on Syria by the United States which happened earlier in the month when Trump fired 59 Tomahawk missiles into Shayrat airbase near Homs suspected to be the origin of a chemical weapon attack that killed dozens of people. This action, he warned, would draw in China, Russia, and North Korea.

If the prediction should be taken seriously, World War III may just be a few weeks away because according to Villegas, it would coincide with the first visit of Our Lady  a name that has been frequently used for Virgin Mary, the mother of God  to Fatima in Portugal.

It can be recalled that Our Lady visited Fatima on six different occasions. The first was on the 13th of May 1917. There is a strong claim by Catholic faithful that on this visit Our Lady warned that if Russia is not converted, the country would be used by God to inflict chaos on the world.

Villegas claims the commencement of World War III would coincide with the first visit of Our lady to Fatima which is just three weeks away. Our lady visited Fatima last on the 13th of October 1917, a date that would coincide with the end of the war.

The self-acclaimed "supernatural being" made his visions and prophecies known to Daily Star Online. This has resulted to a date for the nuclear war which would plague the world in few weeks time. Villegas made known one of his dreams where he said, I saw balls of fire falling from the sky and hitting the Earth.

Villegas was quoted to have told Daily Star that, "The main messenger that people need to know in order to be prepared is that between May 13th and October 13, 2017, this war will occur and be over with much devastation, shock, and death."

According to the clairvoyants vision, the war will wipe out a significant part of the world. He said he saw, people everywhere were running around trying to hide from this destruction. Knowing that the world has not fully recovered from the tremors of the WWII, such prophesies and the tension already in progress between the world powers should be a serious source of concern.








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Date: 20 April, 2017.

Place: Surface of Mars.

The Martian surface has always been a very intriguing place. It is arid, rocky and its reddish sands give it a touch of uniqueness.

And it turned out to be even more intriguing due to a quite strange image that was sent by Mars Curiosity rover on 20 April.

In that image it is possible to see a tall object that, according to some ufologists, resembles to a tree stump.

Paranormal researcher and YouTube user Paranormal Crucible released a video about it, and said: Intriguing object found by the Curiosity rover; this time a possible tree stump.

This object definitely looks out of place and in my opinion could be the petrified remnants of a Martian tree, he continued.

In his opinion, the Red Planet is filled with exotic plant life. For this reason, according to him, it is logical to believe that something like this would be discovered sooner or later.

With the numerous discoveries of plant and animal life on mars, it would be logical to assume, that a variety of tree either existed, or still exists on this enigmatic planet, he affirmed.

About this unusual finding, veteran UFO researcher and writer Scott C. Waring, of UFO Sightings Daily expressed: Paranormal Crucible makes a hypothesis that this could be an ancient tree stump on Mars.

In his opinion, NASA has recently accepted that life in Mars could have existed long ago. Its a good assumption [Paranormal Crucibles hypothesis] since NASA themselves said that Mars was Earth-like when a solar explosion hit the planet, striping the atmosphere and oceans from its surface.

However, some people have reacted with scepticism to these statements. YouTube user Tohopes said with a touch of sarcasm: My God, we've found rocks on Mars. Additionally, another user called Matt S commented: So you people think a tree with clear signs of bark would last for millions of years if not longer? It's a god damn rock!

Draw your own conclusions

For further information: http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2017/04/ancient-tree-stump-found-on-mars-near.html

Ancient Tree Stump Found On Mars Near Rover On April 2017, Video, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: April 2017

Location of discovery: Mars

Source NASA photo: https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/?rawid=1647ML0085250370700323C00_DXXX&s=1647.42118872689

Paranormal Crucible makes a hypothesis that this could be an ancient tree stump on Mars. Its a good assumption since NASA themselves said Mars was Earth-like when a solar explosion hit the planet, striping the atmosphere and oceans from its surface.

Scott C. Waring

Paranormal Crucible states:

Intriguing object found by the curiosity rover, this time a possible tree stump. This object definitely looks out of place and in my opinion could be the petrified remnants of a Martian tree. Object is around 3 feet in height, and with numerous discoveries of plant and animal life on mars, it would be logical to assume, that a variety of tree either existed, or still exists on this enigmatic planet.








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Date: 18 April, 2017.

Place: Surface of the Moon.

For hundreds of years, the Moon has raised curiosity among scientists and the general public.

Being so close to Earth, it was the first celestial body to be explored by the human science. And the evidence gathered by crewed and non-crewed missions is shocking.

For example, Apollo XII astronaut Alan Bean once said that he had seen flashing lights while collecting rocks on the Moon. And so did his colleague Charles Duke, who affirmed that it [the flashing lights] was like fireworks in your eyeballs. It was spectacular!

However, more recently, some researchers have claimed that there is still much more material about these strange features on the Lunar surface.

One of these researchers, famous ufologist and writer Scott C. Waring, of UFO Sightings Daily, affirmed on 18 April that he had just discovered what he called a rectangle alien base placed in of the photos that NASA released in recent days.

I found this rectangle structure in a small crater this week, Mr Waring expressed. The structure is whitish-grey and is 100% proof that alien structures do exist on Earths Moon, he continued.

In his opinion, NASA has edited the image in order to hide the alleged alien-made structure. NASA however tries to blur them out. If you click the above photo, the first thing you will notice is that 50% of it is blurred out, he wrote.

Why the hell does NASA even bother showing photos to the public if they are going to dish out so much disinformation that we choke on it?, said the UFO researcher who currently lives in Taiwan.

Mr Waring showed strong indignation at NASAs official posture. They tell us the truth, then turn around and tell us a lie and expect us to believe it. Well, the buck stops here boys, he mentioned. I am sick and tired of the bull %$^@ that NASA is dishing out and I will point out there mistakes every opportunity I get, he added.

Draw your own conclusions

For further information: http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/2017/04/rectangle-alien-base-found-on-earths.html

Rectangle Alien Base Found On Earths Moon In @NASA Photo, April 2017, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: April 18, 2017

Location of discovery: Earths Moon

Source photo: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA00002.jpg

I found this rectangle structure in a small crater this week. The structure is whitish-grey and is 100% proof that alien structures do exist on Earths moon. NASA however tries to blur them out. If you click the above photo, the first thing you will notice is that 50% of it is blurred out. Why the hell does NASA even bother showing photos to the public if they are going to dish out so much disinformation that we choke on it? They tell us the truth, then turn around and tell us a lie and expect us to believe it. Well, the buck stops here boys. I and sick and tired of the bull %$^@ that NASA is dishing out and I will point out there mistakes every opportunity I get.

Scott C. Waring
Krogers in Aiken, above, and North Augusta will be ending Senior Day discounts on May 17.
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April 28, 2017

CAIRO  In an effort to address the worsening plight of Egypts street children, the Egyptian government launched the "Homeless Children" initiative on April 8 to accommodate 10,000 street children.

The government, represented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, also announced that it is working on a program called Takaful and Karama ("Solidarity and Dignity"), which gives cash payments to families in order to help them take their runaway children back in.

The Homeless Children initiative is implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity in collaboration with the Tahya Misr Fund (Long Live Egypt). This initiative of 164 million Egyptian pounds (around $9 million) is set to distribute 17 mobile units in 10 governorates where the phenomenon of street children is most prevalent, such as Cairo, Giza and Alexandria.

Hazem al-Mallah, the initiatives media officer at the Ministry of Social Solidarity, told Al-Monitor, The mobile units are dispatched in the streets of the governorates to attract homeless children and provide them with emergency services such as food and health care. The units also aim to gain these childrens trust in order to refer them to the competent authorities, such as public care homes. The authorities will provide identity papers to these children and try to reunite them with their families or place them in care homes under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Social Solidarity.

In 2015, independent experts, who report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, said there are up to 150 million street children worldwide. In Egypt, the number of street children is not accurately determined. In 2001, a UNICEF report said the number of children living on the streets reached 2 million. However, the latest statistics, conducted by more than one governmental authority, including the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, reported 16,019 street children in 27 governorates across Egypt in 2015.

In conjunction with the government initiative, members of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee are preparing a draft law for homeless children aimed at sheltering them, keeping them off the streets and making sure they get a vocational training to work in professions that could boost the Egyptian economy.

The head of the parliamentary Human Rights Committee, Alaa Abed, told Al-Monitor, "The new draft law aims to revive the idea of Mohammed Ali Pasha  the ruler of Egypt from 1805 [to 1848]  who took in 300,000 street children and offered them vocational training. These children acquired great skills. Our goal is to create a generation of craftsmen and industrials in various fields.

Pasha, who took over Egypt during the Ottoman rule in 1805, detained more than 300,000 homeless children, both girls and boys, in the streets of Egypt over the years and placed them in a camp in the Aswan Desert for three years where they were trained in various professions and trades. The children were also taught French and Arabic. They became skilled professionals in various trades; some worked as construction workers building bridges, roads and canals, while others were sent by Egypt to countries that lacked workers in their fields of specialization, such as carpentry and blacksmithing. Pasha also built ports for this workforce to help them export their produce.

There have been increasing calls by some in Egypt to bring street children into army camps and teach them trades and professions. This, however, has raised controversy as human rights activists in Egypt see this as tantamount to forced labor.

In March, parliamentarian Mona Mounir Rizk submitted a proposal to the parliament calling on the armed forces to determine the numbers of street children and recruit them in rehabilitation camps, which Zeinab Khair, the executive director of the Egyptian Association for Economic and Social Rights, told Al-Monitor was a frightening idea.

Khair said, To deprive children of their childhood by detaining them for years in camps in the desert makes them monsters unable to integrate into society, pointing out that the most appropriate measure would be to reunite them with their families.

Mohammed el-Komi, a parliamentarian and a member of the Human Rights Committee, told Al-Monitor, The legislation being prepared by the committee relies on the experience of Mohammed Ali Pasha in terms of bringing these children together for learning and vocational training. The draft law, however, does not include detaining them in camps in the desert. Rather, the existing child care and governmental homes would be transformed into places that can accommodate them and teach them skills.

He added, I submitted to the parliament another draft law in March 2017 on the after-care for homeless children. Komi explained that if passed, this draft law would bind the state to provide apartments and job opportunities for graduates of care homes to keep them away from drug addiction or terrorist networks.

In turn, Abed said, A small committee of five members from among the Human Rights Committee was formed on March 20 to draft the new law and hold sessions to hear experts from among civil society and government.

Mohammed al-Ghoul, who heads the small committee, told Al-Monitor that there are a number of proposed draft laws, some of which bind the state to allocate care homes in each governorate to offer psychological rehabilitation services for street children and to exploit youth centers to teach them various trades so as to get them ready for the labor market when they reach the working age.

Ghoul said that the draft law would address the issue of domestically abused children who fled their family homes. We are preparing a text that allows the state  if ill-treatment is proven  to take away children from their families and put them in special care homes and to oblige the parents to pay the due expenses, he said.

According to Abed, the draft law would oblige the state to provide these children with identity cards through specialized teams roaming the streets, as in most cases runaway children leave their parents without taking any identity papers. We will not neglect the children fleeing care homes due to abuse, and we are considering the proper legal mechanisms to deal with them, he said.

There are about 448 social welfare centers for children throughout Egypt, all under the control of the Ministry of Social Solidarity. However, numerous cases of physical and sexual abuse of children have been reported in these institutions, which are severely neglected.

Mallah noted that new care homes are being set up within the scope of the "Homeless Children" initiative, which is different from the existing orphanages and shelters for juveniles. He said that six homes have been established in Cairo for street children. These homes include carpentry and blacksmithing workshops and training classes where children can learn different crafts, he said.

To be efficient, the Egyptian government needs to offer homeless children with the most appropriate alternative, either by rehabilitating thousands of families to welcome back their young runaways or by reforming the system of social welfare homes that suffer from violations and abuses.
April 30, 2017

On May 2, Israel will celebrate the 69th anniversary of its independence that was achieved against all odds in 1948. Next month, on June 5, the Jewish state will mark another historic event. It also will be the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War. In that war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fought against the armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan (as well as troops from other Arab states), conquered the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and the West Bank in a whirlwind attack and liberated East Jerusalem, including the Western Wall. It was the culmination of 2,000 years of longing to return to that site.

It is doubtful whether there was a more decisive event in the history of Israel and the Middle East. In less than a week, Israel was transformed from a tiny state, hanging by a thread, surrounded by enemies armed to the teeth and under threat of immediate annihilation, into a confident regional giant.

If Israel's founders had been told about the situation in Israel 70 years after declaring independence in the most vicious neighborhood in the world, they would have been hard-pressed to believe it. On the eve of the Six-Day War, Israel was home to fewer than 3 million citizens. It had a tiny economy, just faltering along, and its borders were indefensible. Meanwhile, terrorist groups and regular armies alike all grew stronger and swore to wipe the state off the map. Israel's independence, they threatened, would be short-lived.

Today, Israel is home to almost 9 million citizens. Life expectancy is among the highest in the world. According to foreign publications, Israel is one of the strongest nuclear powers in the world. In the 1967 war, the country quadrupled its territory (though in 1982, Sinai was returned to Egypt). It expanded its narrow "midsection" and restored Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria in the West Bank, where this authority emerged millennia ago.

Almost 50 years after the Six-Day War, all of the immediate existential threats to Israel, which hung over the country since Day One, have been lifted. Peace agreements have been signed with Egypt and Jordan. Iran's nuclear project will be on hold for about 15 years. Syria is a shattered state. So is Iraq. Hezbollah may still pose a terrorist threat, but it is not existential. The same is true of Hamas. In 2017, Israel is several times stronger than all the Arab states and its other Middle Eastern neighbors combined. It leads the world in cybertechnology and high-tech and boasts a flourishing economy. The gross domestic product approaches European figures, and the standard of living is high. The IDF enjoys absolute superiority on land, in the air and on the sea. Israeli brainpower has developed weapons systems to shoot down enemy missiles while they are still in flight, providing the country with a multitiered defense system unlike that of any other country. Israel launches advanced spy satellites, and it leads in drone technology. Tel Aviv is one of the most expensive, desirable and lively cities in the world.

And yet, there are still quite a few Israelis who miss the way life was 50 years ago, when Israel was a smaller but more united country. It may have been surrounded by enemies, but it was stubborn and acted justly. Now that it has seemingly reached green pastures, Israel knows no rest. Something is tearing it up inside. Social divisions are only intensifying, while political divisions pose a real threat. The sense of solidarity has vanished; tolerance has faded away. Instead, its tribes are lashing out at one another. The streets, and especially the social networks, are seething with hatred. Israel is being torn apart like never before.

Confronting the camp that will celebrate the "liberation" this June is a smaller but no less determined camp, which regards that war as a kind of curse, which brought us the "occupation" and with it the domination of another people. Israel is having a hard time reaping the benefits of its victory over its adversaries and enemies. It is as if it is now determined to attain victory over itself as well.

At the official dedication ceremony April 30 of Mount Herzl's new Memorial Hall for the casualties of Israel's wars, the father of one fallen soldier heckled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he delivered his speech. A spectacle like that would have been unimaginable just 10 years ago. But in the past decade, Israel has become a seething cauldron, overflowing with passions, and sometimes even real hate. Many point accusingly at Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics high-handedly since 2009 and is considered the "father of divisiveness as a political strategy." Netanyahu flourishes by inciting one tribe against the other and on fanning the flames of fear and paranoid anxiety, even when there is no real justification for them. There is good reason why his main political rival Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid has adopted a different approach. He tries to spread a message of tolerance and love, even if they are artificial. He rarely wages a full frontal attack on Netanyahu, preferring the alternative instead. He is building upon public exhaustion with the politics of division and hatred. We will find out in the next election whether this pays off for him.

Meanwhile, the internal debate that has plagued Israel since the Six-Day War  and has long since become a deep-rooted, unresolvable structural rift  continues. Israel is the only country in the world that has yet to decide what it wants from itself. It is the only country without permanent borders. It has controlled the West Bank for some 50 years, but it has yet to decide what it wants to do with that territory, and particularly with the approximately 2 million Palestinians living there.

It is being torn apart by conflicting trends. There is a growing group of religious Israelis who demand the annexation of the West Bank, even if this means ignoring the international community or the fact that annexation will threaten the very continuation of Israel as a democratic state. Confronting them is another group of Israelis, which still believes in a two-state solution and wants to part ways with the Palestinians.

This debate has only intensified in recent decades. It is getting sharper and descending into unknown territory right before our eyes. The nightmare scenario now involves coming to the verge of a civil war between advocates of the State of Judea, who demand the annexation of Judea and Samaria and want Israel to become a religious Jewish state  confrontational and isolated  and the citizens of the "old Israel," who strive to attain peace and believe in more modest, more cautious behavior.

Now plopped into the middle of this mix is a new US president named Donald Trump. The impact he will have on Israel's future could be dramatic. He arrived at a critical juncture, when someone is needed to think outside the box, someone who does not owe anything to anyone. Trump could be that man. He even wants to be that man. All that is now left to do is hope that he is that man.
April 28, 2017

RAMALLAH, West Bank  In reaction to the open-ended and ongoing hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, started on April 17, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Palestinian Authority on April 22 to to prove its commitment to the peace process by halting the financial allocations to Palestinian prisoners and their families.

Netanyahu's demands come in line with Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman's March 16 declaration that the Palestine Liberation Organization's Palestinian National Fund (PNF) is a terrorist organization over its support for elements responsible for terrorist acts against Israel. Liberman also condemned the disbursement of funds to Palestinian prisoners who killed Israelis. On March 16, the PA dismissed the declaration as a breach of the Oslo Accord signed between the PLO and Israel Sept. 13, 1993.

The PNF receives an annual budget of $250 million from the Palestinian government to conduct the tasks of the PLO's mission. The PNF is also responsible for paying allocations to the prisoners and their families as part of the PNFs mission to protect and care for prisoners and their families and support the rehabilitation of released prisoners, which is included in the government's general budget.

Several PA officials confirmed to Al-Monitor that the PA would remain committed to paying these funds in defiance of Israel.

Issa Qaraqe, chairman of the Prisoners Affairs Committee (formerly the Ministry of Prisoners), told Al-Monitor, Netanyahu's statements are completely dismissed by the PA. He said, President [Mahmoud] Abbas has stressed in several speeches and meetings that supporting the families of prisoners and martyrs is a national, humanitarian and social duty that shall always be fulfilled regardless of Israeli and international pressures.

Qaraqe said that Netanyahu's statements are intended to pressure and politically extort the prisoners and the PA. He said that for the PA to end these payments would be tantamount to the criminalization of the Palestinian struggle against Israel, which is simply unacceptable.

Prisoners in Israeli prisons receive monthly PNF funding, which varies according to the detention period of each prisoner. Some of the money is directly transferred to prisoners so they can buy food and clothes inside the prison, while the rest is sent as social security payments to the prisoners family.

Palestinians are aware that Netanyahu's statements are primarily political and aim to draw the attention of US President Donald Trump and work against the PA before his meeting with Abbas at the White House May 3.

PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yousef told Al-Monitor, Amid talks about a potential political process with US support, Israel is trying to tarnish the struggle of the Palestinian people with terrorism through Lieberman's PNF-related declaration and Netanyahu's call to cut off the [prisoners] families.

Abu Yousef said, The payments for prisoners and martyrs must not to be messed with because these are people who are fighting for freedom and who have spent their lives in the occupation's prison cells.

He added, Netanyahu's statement is an attempt to reshuffle the deck and thwart efforts to launch a political process, adding this condition to the previous conditions that had been set for the resumption of the peace process. These include refusing to halt the settlement activity in the West Bank, insisting on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and refusing to release the fourth batch of prisoners.

Parliament member Khalida Jarrar, head of the Prisoners Affairs Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, agreed, telling Al-Monitor that Israel's escalatory rhetoric toward the prisoners is an attempt by Netanyahu to use this as an Israeli condition that must be applied before the resumption of the peace process. It is a means to challenge the Palestinian conditions that have been set for the launch of negotiations. These include putting a halt to the settlement activity and setting a timetable to end the occupation under international auspices. By so doing, Palestinians would be prompted to drop all their conditions in return for the [Israelis] dropping their terms and going to the negotiation table without any preconditions on either side.

Jarrar ruled out the possibility that the PA will cut off the prisoners families, saying, The issue is not only financial but also national, as those prisoners have fought for the freedom of their people, and cutting off their allocations would be tantamount to the Palestinian peoples disavowal and abandonment of prisoners and their families.

For hundreds of families who lost their sole breadwinners, these allocations are the sole source of income.

Ismat Mansour, a former prisoner who spent more than 20 years in Israeli prisons and now runs the Hebrew Teaching Center in Ramallah, told Al-Monitor, Before their detention, a large part of the prisoners were providing for their families. Therefore, it is the humanitarian, moral and national duty of both the PA and the Palestinian community to support them.

Asked how the prisoners and their families would be affected if the PA agrees to Netanyahus demand, Mansour said, The PAs deference would be a major setback for the prisoners and all the Palestinian people because it would be a recognition of the Israeli narrative whereby we are terrorists.

He added, Responding to Netanyahu's request would prompt a strong reaction among the prisoners, their families and society as a whole and would be tantamount to delegitimizing the struggle of the Palestinian people.
April 25, 2017

Draft legislation that could become Lebanon's official budget is on its way to parliament. Although such news isn't considered unusual in other countries, it is extraordinary in Lebanon, as the last time the country's lawmakers approved a draft budget was in 2005. Successive governments' attempts to pass budgets have been stymied by differences between two political parties, the March 8 and March 14 coalitions.

President Michel Aoun on April 12 inked a decree submitting the 2017 draft budget, which the Cabinet had approved March 27.

Government expenditures in the past 12 years were set by applying constitutional provisions that state when a final decision on the budget is delayed until after the end of January, the budget of the previous year shall be adopted as a basis" until a new budget is approved.

Since 2009, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) has been accusing Fouad Siniora, who was prime minister from 2005 to 2009, of spending $11 billion in extra-budgetary funds without consulting parliament or abiding by the state oversight institutions during his term. Also, the March 8 Coalition and the FPM accused Siniora of scuttling all budgets since he left that office, as he has demanded since 2010 that the $11 billion in expenditures be discharged in exchange for the Future Blocs approval of the rank and salary scale bill and budgets. Siniora is the current leader of the Future Bloc.

At the April 6 parliament session, Nawaf al-Moussawi, a parliament member for Hezbollah, asked for an accounting of where the $11 billion had been spent. Siniora responded, The disbursement of every penny of the $11 billion is registered at the Ministry of Finance. I left office at the Ministry of Finance 13 years ago. Why haven't the successive finance ministers completed the year-end closing of accounts? Siniora had been finance minister from 1992 to 1998 and from 2000 to 2004.

He called for an end to the circulation of rumors and many lies."

The $11 billion has been a major contention between the Future Bloc and the FPM, with the latter publishing a book titled The Impossible Exoneration in 2013. The book outlines legal and financial accusations against Siniora from his tenure as finance minister under now-deceased Prime Minister Rafik Hariris governments and while heading the Cabinet. (In response, the book "Slander in the Exoneration Book" was published and Siniora wrote the foreword.)

Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil explained at a March 30 press conference that expenditures under the 2017 draft budget are estimated at 23.7 trillion Lebanese pounds ($15.7 billion), and revenues at 16.4 trillion pounds ($10.8 billion). Thus, the deficit amounts to 7.3 trillion pounds ($4.8 billion). This is added to the 7.2 trillion pounds in foreign debt interest, 7.4 trillion pounds in salary expenses and 2.2 trillion pounds in electricity spending, he added.

After the March 16 and 19 mass protests against tax hikes  which are designed to fund the salary scale increase  the Cabinet partially amended the draft budget and referred the value-added tax increase to parliament. It added to the draft budget tax increases on financial institutions, bank deposit interest, real estate sales and other taxes. It also added taxes on $5 billion in windfall profits earned by the banks in 2016.

The first version of the draft budget left out more than 2.28 trillion Lebanese pounds in revenues from the tax on profits made by the banks in swap operations, conducted by the Central Bank, and the windfall profits tax revenues. The amended draft, however, includes those revenues. Economist Ghazi Wazni warned against replacing tax increases on bank deposits, investment companies and real estate registration with revenues originally due to the state. This would mean that the banks would pay a one-time tax of $850 million and avoid paying a tax increase of 5-7% on deposits.

Wazni told Al-Monitor that the amended draft budget does not include taxes that were approved in parliament in March to fund the salary scale increases. He explained that those increases will be included in the budget once it's approved. Yet, he added, the money needed to fund the salary scale increases should be approved by parliament, which requires a consensus among all major blocs. He pointed out that the budget and the year-end closing of accounts from past years should be submitted to parliament simultaneously.

There are several obstacles to approving the state budget, Wazni said. Most prominent among these: Money must be made available to fund the salary scale increases, and issues related to the year-end closing of accounts from the previous years must be settled and approved by the Audit Bureau.

Wazni indicated that to avoid disagreements, especially over the $11 billion, parliament can approve the draft budget while giving the Cabinet a deadline to prepare the account closings and preserve the Audit Bureaus right to oversight.

A final approval of the draft budget is supposed to be delayed until a new electoral law is enacted. On April 12, Aoun invoked his constitutional powers to adjourn for one month the parliament session that had been scheduled for April 13 to extend parliament's term and avoid a legislative vacuum, as the deadline for registering to vote in the general elections hadn't been met.

Now, the next parliament session is set for May 15 to discuss a new election law. If parliament agrees on the law, a technical extension of parliament's term will be needed for a few months to prepare for the elections. The draft budget is supposed to be discussed in parliament after a new election law is endorsed, amid concerns about a delay in passing the budget until after the elections.

In the meantime, National Social Security Fund employees protested last week against two articles in the budget that they say would exempt businesses and the government from having to pay into the pension and insurance fund and could lead to its eventual privatization.
April 27, 2017

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia  US Defense Secretary James Mattis considers Iran a troublemaker that is exporting terrorism and whose influence is prolonging the bloody war in Yemen, he told reporters April 19 after meeting in Riyadh with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman.

Everywhere you look, if theres trouble in the region, you find Iran, he told reporters.

US President Donald Trumps administration seeks to repair US-Saudi ties, which suffered under former President Barack Obama because of divergent views on how to settle the regions crises, including those posed by Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Saudi Arabia opposed the nuclear arms deal the United States and five other world powers struck with Iran, and a Saudi-led alliance supporting Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In a March 2016 article titled "No, Mr. Obama," Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, who was the head of Saudi intelligence and ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2007, accused Obama of turning against the kingdom.

Zuheir Harithi, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Saudi Arabia's Shura Council, told Al-Monitor that US policy in the past three years has been vague and confusing for the allies, including Saudi Arabia. He added that policies made during the Obama era need to be reconsidered in a way amenable to Gulf countries. He confirmed that there are positive signs indicating that Trump is serious in dealing with regional issues. Harithi anticipates, however, that US-Saudi ties will be pragmatic and based on the interests of both sides.

He pointed out that during recent meetings, Saudi and US officials spoke frankly but with fairness and respect. He believes the United States now realizes the magnitude of the threats facing the region because of the neglect of the previous administration, which Harithi said handed Syria over to the Russians. He pointed specifically to Obama's failure to follow through on his warning of a military move against the Syrian regime if President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.

According to Harithi, Trump needs to revise the Obama administration's policy of limiting its dealings with Iran to the nuclear agenda and overlooking its ties to al-Qaeda, the Houthis and Hezbollah. He affirmed that the Obama policy disappointed Saudi Arabia, but at the same time it prompted the latter to rely on itself, which resulted in a military operation against the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.

Saudi political expert Asaad Shamlan told Al-Monitor that the Trump administration seems inclined toward a confrontation with Iran, and this inclination needs to be translated into an effective policy to counter Iranian activity in the region. He explained that the necessary political support seems available in this regard, but so far there have been no signs that Trump will follow through. Shamlan added that US policy has been to weaken Iran while preserving the nuclear deal in a way to achieve US strategic interests.

During his campaign for the presidency, Trump blasted the nuclear deal, but he did not provide an alternative. Though the administration recently announced it will review the deal, it also said Iran is in compliance and the United States will continue to honor the pact.

According to Shamlan, the nuclear agreement is not expected to be annulled, because doing so would weaken US credibility. He also noted that Saudi Arabia didn't object to the pact at the time, as the idea of Iran as a non-nuclear weapon state serves the region's interests. The problem, Shamlan noted, is that so far the deal has failed to improve Iran's conduct.

Shamlan said the Obama administration hoped the nuclear deal would, in the long run, improve Iran's openness to the global economy and lay the foundations for a political shift in Iran. Shamlan noted, however, that the proposition is a long shot.

He added that remarks made by the Saudi defense minister to the Washington Post in April indicate Saudi Arabia is optimistic about the Trump administration and believes Trump is taking an interest in regional issues, although it is too early to say there's been a qualitative change. Shamlan believes US officials when they say the recent US military strike against Syria was retaliatory and wasn't launched to make a change in the battle's balance.

Saudi journalist Bandar Al Shihri told Al-Monitor that regardless of US support, Saudi Arabia has taken measures to promote its national security and counter Iranian plans that destabilize the region. The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen is one of those measures, in which Saudi Arabia took action before a pro-Iran Houthi regime could be established on its southern border. Also, the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism was established in 2015 as a regional, self-sufficient force that doesn't rely on other allies, including the United States, he said.

The Trump administration has not yet taken tangible measures to counter Iran's influence in Iraq, Syria or Yemen, which concerns Saudi officials. This prompted, at least in part, the Saudi monarch to dismiss on April 22 Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki from the post of Saudi ambassador to the United States. Instead, the king's son Khaled bin Salman was appointed to the post. By making such a move, Saudi Arabia is racing to revive US-Saudi ties and positioning itself to counter the influence of Iran and other countries in the region that pose a threat to US interests.
May 1, 2017

CAIRO  With the 26-hour historic visit of Pope Francis to Cairo on April 28-29, Al-Azhar and the Vatican have restored momentum to Christian-Muslim dialogue. At the end of the visit, Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb and the head of the Roman Catholic Church exchanged a warm embrace.

"Together let us affirm the incompatibility of violence and faith, belief and hatred," said the pope, commenting on the photo of the embrace he posted on his Instagram account.

At the start of his two-day trip to Egypt, at the International Peace Conference held at Al-Azhar Conference Center in Cairo, Francis said, "Precisely in the field of dialogue  particularly interreligious dialogue  we are constantly called to walk together, in the conviction that the future also depends on the encounter of religions and cultures."

The words of Francis reflected the Vatican's keenness to promote dialogue between Islam and Christianity through the institutions of Al-Azhar and the Vatican, and find mechanisms to pass on the culture of dialogue to the new generations in schools and universities as well as at the popular level.

The pope's visit to Cairo to attend the International Peace Conference organized by Al-Azhar came a year after the visit of Tayeb to the Vatican in May 2016, in which he announced the resumption of dialogue between Al-Azhar and the Vatican and the formation of joint committees to manage the dialogue focusing on the values of peace and coexistence and on confronting extremist ideas and terrorism.

In January 2011, relations between Al-Azhar and the Vatican were severed against the backdrop of the remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI on Islam and Muslims, which were interpreted by some in Egypt as accusing Muslims of persecuting adherents of other religions in the Middle East and calling for intervention to protect them.

"The outcomes of the dialogue that started between the Vatican and Al-Azhar cannot be assessed after just one year," Rev. Rafiq Geryish, the head of the press office of the Catholic Church and member of the Vatican-Al-Azhar Dialogue Committee, told Al-Monitor.

"Changing ideologies and starting religious dialogue will take time, but the most important thing is focusing on fast intervention to confront emerging phenomena," he said.

Geryish added, "The objective of the dialogue is to focus on reviewing methods, changing religious discourse and achieving religious ideological openness, especially in poor and marginalized places that may be influenced by radical and extremist ideas."

Coptic Catholic Bishop Emmanuel Ayad of Luxor, the head of the organizing committee for the pope's visit to Egypt, told Al-Monitor, "The restart of the Christian-Muslim dialogue does not mean that things are back to normal, but the visit of Pope Francis is a new breakthrough," asserting that the visit pushed the dialogue forward.

He said, "Now there is a genuine will to hold a sincere dialogue. The most important thing is to spread this culture of dialogue among Christian and Muslim populations." He denied, however, that any direct agreement was reached during the visit on a mechanism to disseminate this culture among citizens, through sermons at mosques or churches.

He added, "The feeling of anger among Christians following the twin Coptic church bombings will not discourage Christians from accepting interfaith dialogue. The bombings stirred anger among Christians and Muslims alike. The dialogue's main objective is to create a common refusal of terrorism and extremism. This is the key for the success of the dialogue."

The speech of Tayeb  who is known as a moderate and centrist  that he delivered in the presence of Francis was mainly political, focusing on cleansing Islam from accusations of extremism.

Islam is not a religion of terrorism because a group of its followers warped some of its texts and then started shedding blood and killing innocent people," Tayeb said. Christianity is not a religion of terrorism because a group of its followers carried the cross and started killing people while not differentiating between a man or woman or child, and fighter or hostage. Judaism is not a religion of terrorism because a group of its followers erroneously used the commandments of Moses for occupying lands where millions of the poor Palestinian people  who have rights  fell victim. Even more, the European civilization is not a civilization of terrorism due to the two world wars that broke out in the heart of Europe and left more than 70 million dead. The American civilization is not a civilization of terrorism due to devastating Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tayeb also called for unity under the umbrella of Al-Azhar and the Vatican to deepen "the philosophy of coexistence and reviving the method of dialogue and respect of the creeds of others."

Abdel Ghani Hendy, a rapporteur at the Egyptian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, told Al-Monitor, "Al-Azhar, the Vatican and the Orthodox Church are now on the same side. There is no alternative but to accept a dialogue that calls for peace, coexistence, a moderate understanding of monotheistic messages and the criminalization of murder, violence and extremist ideologies."

An intense media campaign has been waged in Egypt during recent months against Al-Azhar, questioning its ability to renew the religious discourse and adopt a moderate approach. The campaign was provoked by remarks made by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi addressing Tayeb during a celebration on National Police Day in January. "You wear me out!" said Sisi, addressing the grand imam.

These remarks raised doubts about Al-Azhar's ability to successfully hold a solid and efficient dialogue with the ecclesiastical institutions on the values of coexistence and peace.

Commenting on this campaign, Hendy said, "Al-Azhar's methodology is the correct Islamic methodology of moderation and acceptance of the other. Al-Azhar will remain the only platform of centrism and moderation in Islam."

He added, "Al-Azhar can harness all of its potentials for holding a successful dialogue with the Vatican. We have no other solution than reform through dialogue. Prophet Muhammad called for this dialogue when he said, Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation. We know there is a big conspiracy against Al-Azhar. There are also challenges. We need reform. But ultimately we must admit that Al-Azhar University has a scientific approach that calls for peace and rejects extremism."

The success of interfaith dialogue and positive outcomes of the popes visit depend on finding real mechanisms for a joint action by Muslim and Christian religious institutions that reach the Christian and Muslim peoples. This also depends on containing anger and incitement among citizens, stopping misinterpretation of religious texts and changing religious discourse.
May 1, 2017

In the 2013 Iranian presidential debates, then-candidate Hassan Rouhani accused his main rival, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, of having favored an iron fist in dealing with the 1999 student protests when Ghalibaf was national police chief while Rouhani was secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. Rouhani said, Mr. Ghalibaf has raised issues that I did not want to discuss here. But now that you have brought it up, I need to state some realities. In the July 1999 meeting, your position was to give the students permits for protests. You said, Lets wait for them to come out, so you and your forces could crush them with a pincer attack. I told you that this is not the way to go. If we give them permits, we also need to provide for their safety. Rouhani famously thundered, Mr. Ghalibaf! I am not a colonel, I am a lawyer!

Rouhani won the presidency in 2013, and many observers have said his remarks in the debates nipped Ghalibafs presidential ambitions in the bud.

Now, as Iran nears its May 19 presidential elections, live TV debates have once again become a hot topic. On April 20, Interior Ministry Spokesman Seyed Salman Samani announced that the Election Campaign Monitoring Committee had decided that there would be no live debates in the run-up to the vote and that, instead, the presidential debates would be prerecorded.

The Interior Ministry announcement stated that the committee had decided to record the debates and then review them in the presence of the candidates or their representatives in order to delete potential insults or accusations made against any candidate before anything was aired.

The decision to ban live presidential debates was met with an uproar on social media, with many users criticizing the move.

Rouhani was the first candidate to reject the measure. In a speech in Fars province on the day of the announcement, the president said, I am in favor of approaches that allow people to better understand the realities. I ask that the Election Campaign Monitoring Committee review this decision. I think everyone should be able to voice their minds. Competition, criticism and even opposition are also good.

Following Rouhanis footsteps, the other presidential candidates also began rejecting the ban on April 20. Highlighting the unique potential of live debates in increasing voter turnout, Ghalibaf said they were necessary for raising public awareness about the plans and viewpoints of each candidate.

Conservative hopeful Ebrahim Raisi, the custodian of the holy shrine of the eighth Shiite imam, also expressed his opposition to prerecorded debates and said, I welcome live debates as a tool for public awareness and see it as the right of the honorable and intelligent people of our country.

Mostafa Mirsalim, another conservative candidate, additionally opposed the measure and said, People should not be deprived of their right to know the candidates true reactions [to the questions posed to them]. It is the publics right to be able to choose their candidate of choice with full awareness.

The decision to ban live debates also sparked reactions in the media. Various opinion polls were held by both official and nonofficial news agencies, asking people if they prefer live or prerecorded debates  with the majority of respondents in favor of the former. On Twitter, various hashtags began popping up in Persian, including ones saying #livedebate and #deaddebate, displaying the publics discontent with the idea of prerecorded broadcasts.

On April 21, member of parliament Ehsan Ghazizadeh Hashemi  the representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Supervisory Council on the Election Campaign Monitoring Committee  said the committee would seek to achieve consensus on a final decision at its April 22 meeting. He did not reveal which committee members were opposed to live debates.

The committee is also made up of the head of the IRIB, the interior minister, the prosecutor general, a member of the Guardian Council and the secretary of the Central Executive Election Board, according to the Rouhani administrations official website.

Meanwhile, opposing political factions used the opportunity to further attack their opponents. Media outlets critical of the administration accused Rouhani of being afraid of being embarrassed on live TV and claimed that it was his government that requested the debates be prerecorded. The hard-line Mashregh News published a piece April 20 titled Why is Rouhani afraid of live debates? It accused the government of proposing the measure due to its poor performance and its inability to respond to the criticisms of the Principlist candidates.

Although Rouhani insisted on live debates, contradictory comments by some officials close to him fueled the conservative attacks on the incumbent president. Indeed, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli on April 22 defended the decision to prerecord the debates, saying, We also have to take into consideration the issue of national security during the debates. The 2009 [presidential] debates [in which then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced Reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi] inflicted heavy costs on the country. We want to record the debates and review them in the presence of the candidates representatives so that any insults or accusations made in the debates can be removed. Two days later, Rouhanis cultural adviser, Hessamoddin Ashna, said, The candidates should be provided with the questions prior to the debate.

In apparent response to the public pressure, the Election Campaign Monitoring Committee reversed its decision April 22 and announced that the debates would be broadcast live. Yet this did not end the disputes.

On April 23, the pro-government website Entekhab, which is close to the family of the late Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, criticized Fazli over his comments. It also pointed to the 2013 presidential debates, arguing that it is not Rouhani who is afraid of debating but rather those reeling from the debates of the last presidential election  a thinly veiled reference to Ghalibaf. Meanwhile, the conservative Tasnim news agency published a piece April 25 titled The Rouhani camps strange fear of debates, in which it accused the administration of being afraid of criticism and not being able to defend its performance.

On April 28, Iran held the first of three live presidential debates ahead of the vote. The debate caused great excitement and attention, as Ghalibaf fiercely clashed with both Rouhani and First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, who is a Rouhani ally. Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of the hard-line daily Kayhan, said of the debate, Rouhanis first appearance in front of his critics after four years showed his empty hands. Prominent Reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh, who served as deputy interior minister under President Mohammad Khatami, seemed to hint at the underlying dynamics of the debates when he said, Jahangiri was the star of the debate. Now its clear why they were afraid of live debates.
May 1, 2017

Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi has revealed that al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) are discussing a possible alliance. Despite their differences, rapprochement is possible between the two, especially if a change in leadership occurs in one of these groups.

Allawi said in a press statement April 17, Negotiations have already begun. There are discussions and dialogues between representatives of [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and [Ayman] al-Zawahri," in reference to the leaders of IS and al-Qaeda, respectively. Also, Allawi added, I can't see IS disappearing into thin air. They will remain covertly in sleeping cells, spreading their venom all over the world.

In line with Allawi's statement, Iraqi intelligence sources reported April 27 that prominent IS leaders have returned to Diyala province in eastern Iraq to start negotiations with remnants of al-Qaeda on forging a new alliance.

There are indications that prominent jihadi forces in the region are making plans for when IS loses ground. In this context, Zawahri urged the jihadis in an audio recording published April 23 to practice jihad and prepare themselves for a long war against whom he called the Crusaders and their allies, the Shiites and Alawites. He also pressed them to follow guerrilla tactics.

In addition, Zawahri called on the jihadis to unite their ranks, saying You have to unite and come together with your Muslim and jihadist brothers in Syria and in the entire world. He also called on himself and the jihadis to practice self-revision because it is the first step on the path of victory. This indicates that his policy is based on opening a new page of relations between other jihadi groups, and it is proof of what Allawis intelligence information has revealed.

It is clear that al-Qaeda sees IS successive losses as an opportunity to regain its role as a leader among the jihadi armed groups in the upcoming phase. IS had stolen al-Qaedas thunder with its military victories and announcement of the Islamic caliphate, but the recent setbacks have paved the way for al-Qaeda to play a bigger role among jihadi forces. The US Institute for the Study of War warned in February that al-Qaeda would become active again in Iraq, simultaneously as IS loses the land it had occupied there.

The differences between the two jihadi groups emerged in May 2013 when Zawahri ordered in an audio recording to abolish IS. Baghdadi had announced in March 2013 that he would unify the Islamic State in Iraq and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria to establish the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which then became known as IS.

The differences between the two groups led them to accuse the other of treachery. A senior IS leader called Zawahris al-Qaeda the Jews of Jihad. For his part, Zawahri strongly attacked the leader of IS and accused him of stirring up strife in the ranks of the jihadis. The differences between these two groups were not limited to inciting statements, but led to military clashes.

Yet the necessities of the upcoming stage make it imperative for the leaders of these groups to consider rapprochement. The attempts to unify scattered jihadi groups are not new; al-Qaeda has succeeded in consolidating the various jihadi groups under its banner. It was much stronger than it is now because it had money and training bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan and was headed by Osama bin Laden, who had charisma, which his successor, Zawahri, lacks.

Today the picture is completely different, as IS is still stronger than al-Qaeda and more influential in the arena, despite the heavy losses it has recently endured.

However, no one can deny the great similarity in the ideology adopted by both groups, which could serve as a springboard for them to return to cooperation. In this context, Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi expert on jihadi groups, told Al-Monitor, The leaders and members of both IS and al-Qaeda believe in the same doctrine as well as they have the same resources of jurisprudence. Both groups are committed to the principles of global jihad founded by Abdullah Azzam.

This similarity in ideology will not stop the two leaders from competing over leading the Islamic nation. Each one of them sees themselves as more deserving. Zawahri is the successor to bin Laden, but Baghdadi fits the requirement of a vilayet.

These differences date back to the era of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's leadership over al-Qaeda in Iraq, who believed that legitimacy comes from the battlefield and not from above. The leaders of the two groups also disagree about the priorities of jihad at this stage. Although both share the ultimate goal of establishing the Islamic caliphate throughout the world, al-Qaeda leaders believe that this stage requires striking the distant enemy, namely the West, especially the United States, while IS remains preoccupied with the local enemy.

There are different scenarios about a possible alliance between al-Qaeda and IS, but there is no doubt that Baghdadi and other IS leaders will not operate under al-Qaedas umbrella, as was the case prior to the declaration of the Islamic State.

Hashemi believes that the deep-rooted differences make the rapprochement and alliance between the two groups difficult at this stage. I do not think there is any rapprochement on the level of understanding or military and security coordination.  When one of the two leaderships fades away, only then it would be possible for one group to join the other, he said.

However, this does not necessarily mean it would take long for one of them to fade away, since IS is fighting on several fronts simultaneously, which caused it to lose the majority of its prominent leaders. In addition, the United States had promised a $25 million reward for information about Baghdadi, and Zawahri and other al-Qaeda leaders are being pursued by the United States. If one of these leaders are killed, rapprochement between the two groups would be easier.
May 1, 2017

The Antalya police department issued on April 27 a ban on the consumption of alcohol in a "disturbing and open" manner in public and in parked cars. The public and those working in the tourism industry reacted so strongly to the ban that it was reworded, but that did not end the controversy.

Tourism professionals see the ban in the coastal city of Turkey as negatively impacting an already floundering tourism industry, while social media users suggest the ban is aimed at imposing a conservative lifestyle. Stunned by the reaction, the police department removed the decree from its website and replaced it with an updated announcement that omitted the word ban and stated that public alcohol consumption was to be regulated by the Governorship of Antalya.

The police department asserted that alcohol consumption was not banned in public areas  only "regulated" to prevent the disturbance of the public order. Still, the public was not satisfied with this explanation. The police department and Governorship of Antalya could not provide adequate clarifications to ease the discontent. The debate continues unabated.

Osman Ayik, the board chairman of the Turkish Hoteliers Federation (TUROFED), told Al-Monitor: We are asked about this ban both on domestic and international levels. The controversies sparked will have a negative impact on the tourism sector. He added, Due to the recent diplomatic crisis the with European Union and Russia, the tourism sector recorded significant losses in 2016. Turkey is perceived by the rest of the world as an oppressive and autocratic country. Relevant authorities should give positive messages both to the public and the rest of the world and change this perception. We inform those who ask that this is not a blanket ban on alcohol but is a practice to prevent people disturbing the public order.

Hakan Duran, the board chairman of the Professional Hotel Managers Association (POYD), said: Such controversies damage Turkeys reputation and image in the eyes of the rest of the world. Our tourist potential could be affected by such controversies. We should be more careful on issues relating to our reputation and image.

Who is causing disturbances to the public order? Is there some legal basis for the ban? Izzet Ozgenc, a professor of criminal law at Gazi University, told Al-Monitor, Neither the police department nor the governorship can impose such bans legally. This ban is not feasible or practical.

Another expert on criminal law, Sinan Kocaoglu, said, The governorship and police department take actions as if they are the guardians of the public order, but they impose their own concepts of public order and a specific lifestyle to the society. He added, Making arbitrary rules to regulate general social life to prevent a few possible incidents is legally wrong. The governorship and police department are causing confusion, which is an indication of significant malfunction within the system of government in Turkey.

An irate tour operator in Antalya who spoke not for attribution said: This nonsensical rule was imposed by some illiterate, ignorant bureaucrats who are not aware of the environment they live in. The bulk of tourists coming to Antalya are Russians and Germans. Now imagine the Russians without their vodka and the Germans having to drink their beer secretly.

Access to Wikipedia is blocked

A Turkish court issued a decision on April 29 to block access to Wikipedia. The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) announced that access to Wikipedia was blocked over content that suggests Turkey cooperates with terrorist organizations like the Islamic State. The ICTA stated they are in touch with Wikipedia to remove the false content. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said on April 29 via Twitter: Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people, I will always stand with you to fight for this right. Many Turkish social media users said the Wikipedia ban is an irrefutable indication of the Turkish government's autocratic and oppressive mindset.

Republican Peoples Party (CHP) deputy Erdal Aksunger told Al-Monitor: Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, an information source. It cannot be argued that it is supported by terrorist organizations. If the governments mindset and approach to the right to internet and information access is blocking it to restrict undesirable contents, they should block all sites, including Google itself. Unfortunately, restrictions on basic human rights can be easily imposed here in Turkey.
May 1, 2017

It looks like Ukraine is becoming Turkey's new go-to defense technology partner. Strategic ties between Turkey and Ukraine in the fields of defense and military cooperation are flourishing. The latest development was the April 19-22 visit to Turkey of the commander of the Ukrainian navy, Vice Adm. Ihor Voronchenko, and his delegation.

Voronchenko visited Golcuk shipyards, where Turkey built the Ada-class SW corvettes TCG (Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Gemisi, or "Ship of the Turkish Republic") Heybeliada, Buyukada and Burgazada and delivered them to the Turkish navy in 2011 and 2013; the TCG Kinaliada is under construction there. Turkish and Ukrainian navy personnel participated in the Eurasia Partnership Maritime Interdiction Operations held April 3-7 in Ukraines port of Odessa. The Turkish navy visited Batum, Georgia; Novorossiysk, Russia; Constanta, Romania; and Varna, Bulgaria, and held joint air defense exercises with the Ukrainian navy at Odessa.

Meanwhile, high-level defense industry visits between Turkey and Ukraine have become frequent. The volume of trade between the countries, which was $3.7 billion in 2016, is expected to reach $20 billion in five years now that they have signed a free-trade accord. Their mutual defense industry projects involve satellite technology, warships and navigation systems, radars, engine technology, phased space rockets and ballistic missile systems, solid fuel rocket engines, long-range ballistic missiles and even cruise missiles.

Recently, when Austria restricted technological support for the engine of the Altay main battle tank Turkey designed and is producing using mainly local technologies, Ankara turned to Ukraine. Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Groysman visited Turkey on March 14, and the two countries signed a preliminary memorandum of understanding in which Ukraine is proposing its 6TD-3 engine for the Turkish tank.

What encouraged this rapidly developing defense industry and military technology cooperation between Turkey and Ukraine?

The first reason is geographical: Unlike other NATO and European countries, Turkey is a neighbor of both Russia and Ukraine and is therefore always careful to balance its relations with both.

The other reason is Black Sea geopolitics. According to Devrim Yaylali, an expert on the naval defense industry who spoke with Al-Monitor, although the Black Sea appears to be an inland sea, it still has vibrant, heavy traffic coming from the rivers of Europe and Russia and also from Turkeys straits. Russia's invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014 have added to the complexity of security politics of the Black Sea. Ukraine has a long Black Sea coast, and the country's contribution to Black Sea security is important for Turkey.

For Ukraine, Turkeys role in restraining Russia in the Black Sea and supporting Ukraines membership in NATO are important assets.

Yaylali added: Turkey doesnt want any other navies in the Black Sea other than those of [coastal] countries. That is why it is crucial for Turkey to maintain good relations particularly with naval and coast guard forces of all [coastal] states. This was demonstrated by the Turkish navys visit to all the Black Sea countries" during the 2017 Sea Star exercises.

Another motive for Turkey and Ukraine to cooperate: Both countries want to share military technology to expand and strengthen their national defense industries. Neither has a self-sufficient defense industry.

Yaylali says Ukraine's navy is weak. He explained: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has not added any new vessels to its navy. After Russias occupation of Crimea in 2014 and its seizure of some of the Ukrainian navy vessels, Ukraine doesnt have a navy to speak of. Before 2014, Ukrainian warships had gone to the Mediterranean and twice to the Gulf of Aden to support NATO operations. But today, for Ukrainian ships to move out of the Black Sea is only a dream.

To defend its naval interests, Ukraine will have to make a major investment. It could buy secondhand military vessels from NATO countries or build them in Ukraine. This explains Ukraines interest in the experience Turkey has gained in constructing warships locally. Turkey can provide Ukraine with technical support to design and produce a warship in its own shipyards. Turkey can also provide standard NATO weapons systems, sensors and radars for vessels Ukraine can build.

Turkeys interest in the Ukrainian defense industry is basically in satellite technologies, diesel engines, ballistic missile solid fuel engines and cruise missiles. It is interesting to learn, based on their joint projects, that Turkey is particularly interested in cruise missiles.

According to defense industry expert Arda Mevlutoglu, Ukraine has advanced capability in electronic warfare, radar technology and engines. Mevlutoglu said Turkeys most urgent needs from Ukraine are diesel engines.

When Turkeys sale of self-propelled howitzers to Azerbaijan didnt materialize  after Germany, for political reasons, blocked sales of engines for the howitzers  Turkey began looking to Ukraine as the alternative source of engines, Mevlutoglu added.

Ukraine also has significant knowledge and experience in basic sciences such as mathematics, physics and chemistry, and their applications. Turkey seriously lags in these fields. The two countries last year launched projects to develop joint sonar systems. They also have student exchange programs, especially in the engineering fields needed in the defense industry.

Of course, not to be ignored is Ukraine's geopolitical importance; most of the natural gas Ankara buys from Russia reaches Turkey via pipelines passing through Ukraine.

What is becoming apparent is that Ukraine is the nearest and most willing potential partner to help Turkey overcome the interruptions in military technology transfer from the United States and Europe because of frequent political disagreements. However, Ukraine suffered tremendous economic and human resources losses with ongoing clashes since 2014 and Russias annexation of Crimea," Mevlutoglu said. "Much of its defense industry was either looted by Russian intelligence services or simply fell into Russian hands because they were in Crimea. That is why we have to wonder if Ukraine can deliver its promises of strategic cooperation. That is why it would be wiser if Ankara focuses on what Ukraine can do instead of what it promises.
May 1, 2017

The deployment of US special forces along the Syrian border in a bid to deter Turkey from carrying out further attacks against their Syrian Kurdish allies has done little to melt Turkish resolve. Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was seriously saddened by the images of US military convoys with the American flag accompanied by members of the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) but that Turkey will continue its fight against the terrorists.

In separate comments ahead of an official trip to India that kicked off today, Erdogan declared, I could come unexpectedly, at any time.

The lyrics borrowed from a classic Turkish love song are not taken lightly by the YPG, which is still reeling from a wave of Turkish airstrikes on April 25 that targeted Mount Karachok near the town of Derik and left 25 militants dead.

The attacks were not coordinated with the US-led coalition, which the Turkish military gave only 52 minutes' notice to get its forces out of harms way. The unilateral move provoked deep anger among administration officials and prompted the US military to deploy along the border in an unprecedented show of solidarity with the YPG.

The US presence makes it unlikely that Turkey will move against the YPG in areas it controls east of the town of Manbij. Turkish troops are reportedly gathering across the border town of Tell Abyad, but those actions are more likely linked to Turkish offers to help the coalition dislodge the Islamic State from Raqqa. The fastest way for Turkish troops to get to Raqqa is through Tell Abyad. Turkey has been pressing the United States to dump the SDF and to team up with Turkey and Arab rebel forces in their stead. Erdogan is expected to renew the offer when he meets with President Donald Trump in Washington on May 16. However, administration officials speaking to Al-Monitor on strict condition of anonymity described the Turkish scheme as a non-starter.

Turkish forces and their Free Syrian Army allies are said to be focusing instead on the town of Tal Rifaat, which lies between the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin and Al Bab and Azaz, both strongholds of the Turkish-led Euphrates Shield Turkmen and Arab force. Tal Rifaat, which was run by a mix of rebels including al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, fell to the YPG and its Arab partners in January 2016.

The YPG is determined to connect Afrin to the territories it holds east of Manbij, thus creating an uninterrupted swath of Kurdish-controlled lands. Turkey thwarted those plans when its forces entered Jarablus in August 2016, going onto capture al-Bab in February after a long and bloody battle against IS. If Turkey wrests control of Tal Rifaat, that will make the establishment of a Kurdish corridor even harder. Nicholas A. Heras, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al-Monitor, Tal Rifaat is a point from which the Turkish military could garrison and lay siege to Afrin.

A commander from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the YPG-led army uniting Arabs and Kurds trained by the United States to fight IS, told Al-Monitor that a Turkish play for Tal Rifaat was afoot and that Russian military advisers in Syria had warned them of an imminent Turkish attack. The commander said Turkish and FSA forces would likley move on Tal Rifaat from their positions near al-Bab and Azaz. Russia has called on the YPG to let Syrian regime forces move into the area to pre-empt any such moves, but the SDF has refused. In February, the SDF denied reports that it handed over control of Tal Rifaat to Syrian regime forces and hoist the Syrian flag to halt the advance of Euphrates Shield.

The United States has no sway over northwestern Syria and there is little it can do to stop Turkey from going after the YPG in either Tal Rifaat or Afrin if it so chooses. Russia, which commands this area's airspace, can. Thus when Turkish forces stepped up cross-border artillery attacks against Afrin in March, Russian forces deployed to the village of Bulbul close to the Turkish border. Russia claimed its actions were part of its cease-fire monitoring efforts between the warring parties in Syria. Similarly, it moved its forces to villages west of Manbij together with some regime troops, again to fend off a Turkish attack. The gambit served the dual purpose of allowing the regime to encroach on Kurdish-held territory.

According to SDF sources, Russia has now warned the YPG that unless it allows Sryian regime forces into Tal Rifaat, it cannot guarantee protection against a Turkish grab. The Russians are saying different things to different parties, but the aim appears to be to give the regime greater control, the SDF commander said.

All of this has intensified conjecture about a possible Russian-Turkish deal for Idlib, which borders Turkey. The province is dominated by Jabhat al-Nusras latest iteration, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which continues to pose the most serious threat to the Syrian regime. Sam Heller, a Beirut-based senior fellow at the Century Foundation, recently observed that if the group cannot be defeated from inside Idlib, maybe it could be defeated from without. Turkey in particular seems best positioned to intervene and dislodge it."

While Turkey is unlikely to physically do so, some analysts say it could help Russia to finish the job. Fabrice Balanche, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, told Al-Monitor, If Russia wants to bomb HTS targets close to the border and the Jebel Turkmen mountain, access to Turkish airspace would expand its maneuvering space. Balanche added, Dont forget that Turkey shot down the Russian jet in November 2015 when it strayed into Turkish airspace trying to do that.

Balanche speculated that the contours of such a deal could see regime troops moving into Tal Rifaat, which would satisfy Turkish fears about the Kurds linking their cantons and Russian forces continuing to defend Afrin proper from Turkish shelling. But any such plans have a big hole in them. What would happen if the Russians used Turkish airspace and ended up killing hundreds of civilians, as they often do? Turkeys credibility with the Syrian opposition would be horribly dented and hundreds of thousands of Syrians would seek refuge in Turkey, which is already host to some three million Syrians fleeing the war.

Heras argued that Russia does not need Turkish airspace to target HTS. What would be more useful for Russia would be actionable information from Turkish intelligence on the location of key HTS leaders and operatives. However, Russia and the regime have generally targeted armed opposition groups with little regard for their affiliation to al-Qaeda or IS. So the Russians deciding to make al-Qaeda a priority would be a shift in their targeting priorities, Heras noted. This would sit well with the United States, which sees HTS as potentially as dangerous as IS. Thus, Turkey could see this as an opportunity to chalk up brownie points in Washington as well.

In any case, as Heras says, the YPG and the SDF are dependent on the the goodwill and motivation of bigger players  Russia and the US  to maintain the autonomy of the areas it controls." The same could be said about all of Syrias competing groups and second-tier powers Turkey and Iran will always be in the mix.
A former north Alabama fiber plant will get new life after Mohawk Industries agreed to purchase the facility to preserve jobs in Jackson County.

The Alabama Department of Commerce said Mohawk is investing in new equipment and upgrades at the old Beaulieu America plant in Bridgeport. The announcement comes a few months after Beaulieu said it would shut down its extrusion, cabling and heat set operations, affecting more than 350 employees.

Brian Carson, president of Mohawk Flooring North America, said Mohawk purchased the plant to support the growing demand for carpet and rug collections.

"We are impressed with the Bridgeport plant's team and manufacturing capabilities, and we look forward to growing the plant to produce innovative fibers into the future," he said.

Mohawk, which is actively recruiting new workers for the site, expects to grow its workforce as the company's manufacturing capacity grows. It is unclear if Mohawk is seeking former Beaulieu workers to fill vacancies.

In January, Beaulieu said the long-term shift from carpet to hard surfaces was to blame for the partial closure of its Bridgeport plant. President Michael Pollard said the decision to close had nothing to do with the workers.

"Our associates there have performed very well over the years, and we are grateful for their dedication and service," he said. "We determined that these short-term changes are necessary to allow us to invest long-term in our commercial, residential carpet and hard surface product offering."

Mohawk is the world's largest flooring manufacturer specializing in carpet, rugs, ceramic tile, laminate, wood, sheet vinyl and luxury vinyl tile. The company operates manufacturing facilities in 11 states and employs more than 37,800 workers across the globe.

Vince Perez, a project manager with the Alabama Department of Commerce, said Mohawk selected the Beaulieu facility over a strong option in South Carolina. Launching a new fiber facility in Bridgeport means Mohawk will avoid a costly "greenfield" project, he added.

The commerce department worked with the Jackson County Economic Development Authority, City of Bridgeport, Jackson County Commission, Jackson County Legislative Delegation, Bridgeport Utilities and the Tennessee Valley Authority on the deal.

AL.com is seeking more information about employment, job assistance, financial incentives and tax abatements tied to the project.

Bruce Purdy, general manager of the North Alabama Electric Cooperative, said the benefits of the new Mohawk operation will "reverberate throughout our communities."

"I appreciate Mohawk Industries coming to Bridgeport, continuing the livelihoods of hundreds of families," he said.
Birmingham's Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED has closed its purchase of the metro-Atlanta territory.

The company signed letters of intent in late 2015 for the acquisition of territories in Athens, Dublin, Gainesville, Jasper, Lawrenceville, Macon, and metro-Atlanta, as well as the production facilities in Collegeville and Marietta.

The acquisition of the territory, which includes Coca-Cola Company's headquarters, increases the Birmingham company's overall size by about 40 percent, as well as adding 2,000 employees. President and CEO of Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED President and CEO John Sherman said the company plans to make "significant" investments in the new territory's people and infrastructure.

The Birmingham company has already added about 200 new jobs and plans to invest $25 million this year on the Atlanta-area's equipment, facilities and delivery fleet. In the next few years, it plans to spend another $100 million in local capital investments in Atlanta.

"It's both humbling and a tremendous opportunity to be the local bottler in the hometown of The Coca-Cola Company, and we take this new responsibility very seriously," Mike Suco, Vice-President of the Atlanta-based East Region for Coca-Cola Bottling Company UNITED. "We have an extraordinarily talented and experienced Coca-Cola team here, and I am impressed with their dedication to our local customers and communities."
A Chicago-based nonprofit plans to establish a new no-kill animal shelter this year in Madison County.

(www.fcrescuecenter.org)

Felines & Canines Rescue Center said it has a 10-acre property and warehouse facility under contract off U.S. 431 South in Owens Cross Roads. The organization is not disclosing the exact address until the site is official and receives city approval.

FCRC is raising $850,000 to buy the property outright and make the necessary renovations. They have already received more than $200,000 for the Rescue Center and are seeking the community's help to fund the remaining portion.

"If funding is secured in a timely manner, our goal is to have the facility up and running prior to Thanksgiving 2017," said Development Director Kelly Thompson. "It is important to us that the program is active before the winter months roll in."

When funding is raised and FCRC closes on the facility, Thompson said they will start renovations immediately and begin hiring staff. Bethany Marbut has been named executive director of the local operation.

Thompson said renovations will take approximately 12 weeks to finish and crews are prepared to begin work on the property as soon as possible.

FCRC, which works with intake facilities and rescue groups to end the euthanasia of adoptable dogs and cats, is a temporary safe haven for up to 100 dogs and 50 cats. The FCRC placement program will include both local adoptions and weekly transports for animals not adopted by the community to approved adoption centers throughout the Midwest.

The organization believes its adoption program will drastically reduce the homeless animal population in north Alabama.

"(Owens Cross Roads is) the ideal central location to access a large radius on animal control facilities throughout northern Alabama, as well as access to major highways for transportation purposes," she said.

Three anonymous Chicago donors each contributed $50,000 to the Owens Cross Roads facility. Thompson said the remaining donations were made through various Chicago- and Alabama-based supporters.

Residents interested in learning more about the operation or donating should visit www.fcrescuecenter.org.
KevinSuttonKilled.jpg

Fairfield Fire Chief Kevin Sutton was killed, and his wife and daughter injured, in a Sunday afternoon crash with an 18-wheeler on Interstate 59 near the Fourth Avenue exit. (Special to AL.com)

( )

Fairfield Fire Chief Kevin Sutton was killed in a Sunday afternoon crash with an 18-wheeler in Birmingham that injured his wife, and critically injured his daughter.

"It is a loss of a great man and a great leader that will be felt for years to come,'' said Fairfield Police Chief Nick Dyer. "This is truly an awful day."

Sutton, 54, was at Fairfield for nearly 24 years. Firefighters on the horrific scene Sunday afternoon learned that Sutton was the victim when Sutton's wife told them, and they saluted as Sutton's body was extricated from his mangled SUV and carried from the scene.

"The rain had stopped, but right then the skies opened up. It was pouring, almost as if the sky was crying,'' said Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service Battalion Chief Decimus Williamson, a longtime time friend of Sutton. "Everybody on the scene was professional, but it was emotional."

His wife, Phyllis Sutton, was listed in stable condition Monday. Their daughter, 26-year-old Tabitha Normal, is in critical condition.

The crash happened at 2:50 p.m. on Interstate 59 northbound at the Fourth Avenue exit. Williamson said an 18-wheeler traveling southbound on I-59 just past the Fourth Avenue Bridge crossed the median and struck two vehicles, one of them Sutton's SUV.

Both of the vehicles traveled down an embankment. Sutton's daughter was thrown about 30 yards from the SUV. Sutton and his wife, Phyllis, were trapped inside.

The motorist in the second struck vehicle was able to get out of the car and had only minor injuries. That victim refused transportation to the hospital, as did the driver of the 18-wheeler.

Williamson said firefighters were able to extricate Sutton's wife in about 20 to 30 minutes. It was then that she told them her husband was the Fairfield fire chief. She and their daughter were rushed to UAB Hospital.

The impact of the crash sheared the top off of the Suttons' SUV, authorities said. Sutton was pronounced dead on the scene. "It was difficult for me,'' said Williamson. The two became friends when they were both instructors at the American Red Cross.

"Our prayers go out to his family and friends, and the men and women of the Fairfield Fire Department,'' said Birmingham police Sgt. Bryan Shelton.

Sutton graduated from Phillips High School in 1981, where he was a classmate and friend of Birmingham Police Chief A.C. Roper. "Even then he had fabulous leadership qualities. He was destined for success and never met a stranger due to his magnetic personality,'' Roper said Sunday. "The City of Fairfield and in fact this entire metropolitan area lost a committed public servant who lived his life caring for others."

Sutton indeed was well-known and well-loved in the Birmingham area. He earned the respect of many by his devotion not only to his family, but to his firefighters and the department. Fairfield's political and financial struggles made Sutton's job a tough one, but friends and colleagues said he never showed discouragement.

"He worked hard to overcome and stay afloat. He always stayed positive,'' said BFRS Chief Charles Gordon, a longtime friend of Sutton. "He was a good guy who really cared about his department and always met you with a smile."

Just before the Christmas holidays last year, Sutton started a GoFundMe account to help the city employees. This is what he wrote at that time: "The City of Fairfield has been going through an economic downturn for some years now. Recently, several City employees have been laid off, in order to save money for the city. It is the holiday season and these employees have no income to pay bills or to buy food or gifts for their children and families. The Fairfield Fire Department along with city employees are helping these employees and their families. We want to raise $20,000 to be divided among approximately 18 employees. These funds will help to ease their burden during this crisis. They will be able to pay bills and buy food for their families. No one should be stressed out over the holidays and especially when circumstances are beyond their control. We thank you all in advance for your contributions and please know that these funds are going towards a good cause to benefit those in need and we couldn't do it without your support. Happy Holidays! God Bless you! "

"He was a trooper for that department,'' Gordon said. "He would put on gear and fight fires himself. Very few chiefs do that."

Birmingham firefighters were covering all of Fairfield's calls Sunday so firefighters there could mourn the loss of Sutton.

The crash that killed Sutton was less than 30 yards from where a fatal crash happened Saturday. In that accident, a vehicle was traveling south on I-59 also near the Fourth Avenue South exit when the vehicle's tire blew and the car crossed the median and flipped several times. A man was ejected from the back seat and killed.

"For a number of years, that has been a bad spot on the interstate for us,'' Williamson said. ''They really need to put up some barriers there."
As the Palestinian Hamas movement gears up to release the long-awaited updated version of its founding charter, rumours surrounding the changes to the document have put many on edge.

On Monday evening, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal is expected to reveal the new document to the public after two years of work, and several occasional leaks of the document.

It remains to be seen whether Meshaal will have the courage to affirm, quite unequivocally, that this new document replaces, supersedes and even abolishes, the old one. He needs to say that his current move is a correction of a mistake that should not have been made in the first place.

Hamas critics could find nothing more damning for the movement than its own charter, which was released to the public on August 18, 1988, less than nine months following its birth out of the womb of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Palestine.

Israelis and their supporters quote the Hamas Charter as proof that the movement is anti-Semitic and incites violence.

READ MORE: Palestinians, not Israel, need security guarantees

The old Charter speaks of the conflict in Palestine in religious, rather than political, terms.

It took Meshaal and his comrades 10 years to accept the fact that the Charter, which few of them thought was of any relevance to their work, was a major vulnerability and a weapon in the hands of their enemies.

The new charter, or political document as Meshaal prefers to call it, does away with much of what was considered to be erroneous in the old charter. The new document will state unequivocally that the conflict in Palestine is not a religious one:

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. However, it is the Zionists who constantly refer to Judaism and the Jews in identifying their colonial project and illegal entity, the new document is expected to read.

Furthermore, unlike the old charter, the new document will be free from any conspiracy theory analysis. It provides a clear view of what the conflict is about:

The Palestinian cause in its essence is a cause of an occupied land and a displaced people. The right of the Palestinian refugees and the displaced to return to their homes from which they were banished or were banned from returning to  whether in the lands occupied in 1948 or in 1967 (that is the whole of Palestine), is a natural right, both individual and collective. This right is confirmed by all divine laws as well as by the basic principles of human rights and international laws. It is an inalienable right and cannot be dispensed with by any party, whether Palestinian, Arab or international.





The new document will define the movement in terms of national liberation, stating that:

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.

However, as far as the objective is concerned, there has been no change of position. Hamas has long called for the liberation of the whole of historic Palestine, and is expected to continue to do so in the new charter.

Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

In what may be perceived as an element of pragmatism unseen in the old charter, the new document states that the movement would accept a de facto Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity [Israel] and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

This item is likely to stir up some controversy and draw accusations that the movement is being ambivalent. The truth is that this position has been mostly the outcome of considerable pressure exercised on the movement by regional and international actors who want to see it resume reconciliation talks with the Fatah movement and moderate its position towards Israel.

However, what the new document will express is a position that falls well short of accepting the two-state solution that is assumed to be the end product of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

As for the Oslo agreements, signed between 1993 and 1995, the new charter is expected to say the following:

Hamas affirms that the Oslo Accords and their addenda contravene the governing rules of international law in that they generate commitments that violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. Therefore, the [Hamas] movement rejects these agreements and all that flows from them such as the obligations that are detrimental to the interests of our people, especially security coordination (collaboration).

The new document is also expected to express the movements unwavering rejection of the three demands of the Middle East Quartet, comprising of the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union and Russia, for the recognition of Hamas. The demands consist of the recognition of Israel, the renunciation of violence, and the adherence of previous diplomatic agreements.

On the issue of violence, the amended document is expected to state the following:

Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.

READ MORE: The price of Oslo

Hamas has long promised to make changes to its charter, which has placed it at a disadvantage within the international community. The updates are long overdue, but the circumstances seem finally suitable for releasing a new document.

So why has the Hamas leadership decided to release the amendments to its charter now?

Firstly, the increasing pressure from a growing community of Hamas supporters around the world from Latin America to the Far East demanding that the Hamas leadership should do something about the Charter, which is often used against them in public discussions and in the media as proof that Hamas is anti-Semitic and is anything but a national liberation movement.

Secondly, the growing number of channels of communication between the movement and official as well as semi-official entities around the world, especially in Europe and the US, and the discussions these channels generated about what Hamas stand for and what it hopes to achieve.

Thirdly, the maturation of thinking at the grassroots level, as well as at the top leadership level regarding the nature of the conflict and the best means of promoting the cause worldwide.

Fourthly, the failure of the Oslo Accords in achieving peace and the ascendance of Hamas as a potentially major player in any future settlement. Israelis themselves were often eager to set up secret backchannels with Hamas to negotiate a prisoners exchange or a long-term truce arrangement.

And finally, the decision by Meshaal to retire and leave behind a legacy for which he would be remembered best.
Nearly 70 years after the founding of Israel, the past is still looming large.

As Israel celebrates the Palestinian Nakba as its triumphant independence on May 1, it is preparing for a massive celebration for the 50th anniversary of its occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

Two dates are often used to frame the so-called Palestinian-Israeli conflict: Nakba Day on May 15 and Naksa Day on June 5.

Nakba means catastrophe, a reference that was commonly used to describe the violence meted out against the Palestinian Arab population during the period of British colonialism in Palestine, which extended from 1917 to 1948.

The term Nakba morphed to define the zenith of British and Zionist colonisation and settlement in Palestine, which ultimately led to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population from their historic homeland in 1947 and 1948.

May 15, 1948, was the final act of all previous catastrophes.

Naksa, on the other hand, means the letdown.

In that period, there were high hopes among ordinary Arabs that Arab armies would manage to defeat Israel, reclaim historic Palestine and pave the road for the Palestinian refugees  dispossessed during the Nakba  to go back to their homes.

By then, the number of refugees had grown rapidly, and refugee camps were bursting at the seams with misery and destitution.

During the Nakba, nearly 500 villages were destroyed, entire Palestinian towns depopulated and approximately 800,000 Palestinians exiled to make room for Jewish immigrants who arrived from all corners of the globe.

The 1967 war, however, was a major letdown.

The Arabs were soundly defeated.

Lack of preparedness and hyped expectations on the Arab side, and massive American-Western military and financial support of Israel, led to a humiliating defeat for the Arabs on all fronts: the West Bank, Jordans western border, the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian Sinai and the Syrian Golan Heights.

That defeat settled the military score decisively for Israel, cementing US-Israel relations like never before; and, equally important, led to a fundamental shift in language.

For a long time after the war, the Nakba was largely assigned to the history books and Israels new borders  which acquired massive Arab lands, including the entirety of historic Palestine  became the new frame of reference.

The 1967 defeat brought an end to a previous dilemma in which the Palestinian armed struggle was often dictated by Arab countries, mainly Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

The occupation of the remaining 22 percent of the West Bank shifted the focus to East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, and allowed the Palestinian faction, Fatah, to redefine its role in light of Arab defeat and subsequent division.

The infamous declaration once made by former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that Palestinians didnt exist and that there is no such a thing as a Palestinian people was far more dangerous than a mere racist comment.

That division was highlighted most starkly in the August 1967 Khartoum summit, where Arab leaders clashed over priorities and definitions. Should Israels territorial gains redefine the status quo ante? Should Arabs focus on returning to a pre-1967 situation or that of pre-1948?

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) insisted that the defeat in the war should not compromise the integrity of the struggle, and that Palestine  all of Palestine  was still the pressing issue. The message of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian president, seemed, for once, befuddled, although he continued to advocate for a conventional military confrontation with Israel.

Syria, on the other hand, did not attend the summit.

Nonetheless, the Arabs agreed that there would be no negotiations, no recognition and no peace with Israel, whose behaviour continued to be a source of loss, defeat and hostility throughout the region.

The response to the war was not promising internationally either.

The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 242 on November 22, 1967, reflecting the US Lyndon B Johnson administrations wishes to capitalise on the new status quo ante. The UN resolution demanded Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories in exchange for normalisation with Israel.

READ MORE: How Britain destroyed the Palestinian homeland

The new language of the post-1967 period alarmed Palestinians, who realised that any future political settlement was likely to ignore the situation that existed prior to the war, and would only attempt to remedy current grievances.

Empowered by its military triumph, the 1967 victory was another chance for Israel to rewrite history. Israels official language reflected that sense of newfound power.

In fact, Israel felt powerful enough that it shifted its discourse from presenting itself as a victimised country defending its border from Arab hordes to a country that had supremacy over ideas, history and common sense. Although it conquered all of Palestine and subjugated millions of its inhabitants, it still declared them non-existent.

Indeed, the infamous declaration once made by former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that Palestinians didnt exist and that there is no such a thing as a Palestinian people was far more dangerous than a mere racist comment, as justifiably understood by many.

The statement was made two years after the Naksa.

The more land Israel illegally seized by military means and the more Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland, the more Israeli leaders felt the pressing need to erase Palestinians from the annals of history as a people with an identity, a culture and an entitlement to a nationhood.

If Palestinians existed in Israels imagination, there could never be any moral justification for the creation of Israel; no spin could be powerful enough to rejoice at the birth of the Israeli miracle that made the desert bloom.

Israels violent birth callously required the destruction of a whole nation  one with a unique history, language, culture and collective memory. Therefore, the Palestinian people had to be wiped out to quell any possible sense of Israeli guilt, shame and legal and moral responsibility for what had befallen millions of a dispossessed people.

If a problem does not exist, then one is under no obligation to fix it. Thus, the denial of the Palestinian was the only intellectual formulation that would allow Israel to sustain and promote its national myths.

Not surprisingly, the Israeli logic was convincing enough for those  driven by political necessity, religious zeal or simply self-deluded  who felt the need to also celebrate the Israeli miracle.

Their new mantra, as repeated by one of the United States most opportunistic, and indeed, ignorant politicians, Newt Gingrich a few years ago, was: Palestinians are an invented people.

This logic seeped through to every facet of Israeli society.





Despite a fledgling movement in Israel that attempts to challenge the Israeli narrative, in Israeli literature the Palestinian is a mute shadow, as poignantly phrased by Elias Khoury.

The shadow is a reflection of something real, but intangible. It is mute so that it can be talked at, but can never talk back.

The mute shadow Palestinian exists and doesnt exist.

But defying common sense and rewriting history is an old Israeli habit. Israels official discourse regarding what took place during the Nakba was not finalised until the 1950s and 60s.

In a Haaretz article entitled Catastrophic Thinking: Did Ben-Gurion Try to Rewrite History?, Shay Hazkani revealed the intriguing process of how Israels first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion worked closely with a group of Israeli Jewish scholars to develop a version of events to describe what had taken place in 1947-48.

Ben-Gurion wanted to propagate a version of history that was consistent with Israels political position  yet he still lacked evidence to support that position. The manufactured evidence eventually became history, and no other narrative was allowed to challenge Israels take on the Nakba.

Ben-Gurion probably never heard the word Nakba, but early on, at the end of the 1950s, Israels first prime minister grasped the importance of the historical narrative, Hazkani wrote.

The Israeli leader assigned scholars in the civil service the task of fashioning an alternative history that continues to permeate Israeli thinking until this day.

Distracting from history  or the current reality of the horrific occupation of Palestine  has been in motion for nearly 70 years.

The absurdity of the Israeli celebration of the 50th anniversary of its occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, is not escaping all Israelis, of course.

A state that celebrates 50 years of occupation is a state whose sense of direction has been lost, its ability to distinguish good from evil impaired, Israeli commentator Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz. What exactly is there to celebrate, Israelis? Fifty years of bloodshed, abuse, disinheritance and sadism? Only societies that have no conscience celebrate such anniversaries.

Levy argues that Israel has won the war of 1967 but has lost nearly everything else.

Since then, Israels arrogance, detestation of international law, ongoing contempt for the world, the bragging and bullying have all reached unprecedented heights.

Levys article is entitled Our Nakba.

The courageous Levy is right, of course; but if the Israeli Nakba is to be judged strictly on moral grounds, then the shaming must start much earlier  at least 20 years before the war of 1967.





More Jewish voices are joining a Palestinian intellectual movement that has long aimed at redefining the roots of the Palestinian struggle.

Writing in the Forward, Donna Nevel refuses to accept that the discussion of the conflict in Palestine starts in the war and occupation of 1967. Nevel is critical of the so-called progressive Zionists who insist on positioning the conversation only on the question of occupation, thus limiting any possibility of resolution to the two-state solution.

Not only is such a solution defunct and practically not possible, but the very discussion precludes the Nakba altogether.

Israels violent birth callously required the destruction of a whole nation  one with a unique history, language, culture and collective memory.

The Nakba doesnt enter these conversations because it is the legacy and clearest manifestation of Zionism, Nevel wrote. Those who ignore the Nakba  which Zionist and Israeli institutions have consistently done  are refusing to acknowledge Zionism as illegitimate from the beginning of its implementation.

This is precisely why Israeli police recently blocked the March of Return, conducted annually by Palestinians in Israel.

For years, Israel has been wary that a growing movement among Palestinians, Israelis and others around the world has been pushing for a paradigm shift in order to understand the roots of the conflict in Palestine.

That new thinking was a rational outcome of the end of the peace process and the demise of the two-state solution.

Incapable of sustaining its founding myths, yet unable to offer an alternative, the Israeli government is now using coercive measures to respond to the budding movement: punishing those who insist on commemorating the Nakba, fining organisations that participate in such events and even perceiving as traitors any Jewish individuals and groups that deviate from its official thinking.

In these cases, coercion hardly works.

The March [of Return] has rapidly grown in size over the past few years, in defiance of increasingly repressive measures from the Israeli authorities, wrote Jonathan Cook in Al Jazeera.

It seems that nearly 70 years after the founding of Israel, the past is still looming large.

Fortunately, the Palestinian voices that have fought against the official Israeli narrative are now joined by a growing number of Jewish voices.

It is through a new common narrative that a true understanding of the past can be attained, all with the hope that the peaceful vision for the future can replace the current one  one which can only be sustained through military domination, inequality and sheer propaganda.

Dr Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for more than 20 years. He is an internationally syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada, and his latest, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gazas Untold Story. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
Paris, France  For the first time in modern French history, the runoff vote will not feature a single presidential candidate from a mainstream party.

On Sunday, tens of millions of people will choose between Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year-old centrist who  himself disillusioned with traditional political groups  founded En Marche! (On The Move!) last year, and Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate who until recently was running under the National Front party.

After securing her place in the final, Le Pen stepped down from the party, a measure she says will allow her to represent better the interests of all French people.

Le Pen is the more obvious populist leader  her slogan is in the name of the people. But Macron, too, has exhibited some populist tendencies.

He has repeatedly said he wants a new kind of politics, called for the reform of his beloved European Union and set up not a party to the left nor right, but a movement.

In a broader sense, his populism can be seen as a case of soft populism, a homoeopathic remedy to the hard populism expressed by his competitor: an anti-populist populism, said Fabio Bordignon, who teaches Political Science at Italys University of Urbino Carlo Bo.

Jason Cowley, editor of Britains New Statesman magazine, describes Macron as that rare thing  a populist eruption from the liberal centre.

That two outsiders won most votes on April 23 in the first round, followed by the Trotskyist-turned-populist-leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, marks a momentous change. Mainstream parties are breaking down.

READ MORE: Why does Le Pen get so much support from young voters?

Traditionally, France chooses between two political bands.

The left wing centres around the Socialist Party of Francois Hollande, an outgoing president so deeply unpopular that he made the unprecedented move not to run again, and Benoit Hamon, this years candidate who came last of the major runners.

The right rallies around The Republicans, which failed in the first round as its hopeful, Francois Fillon, was embroiled in a corruption scandal.

Political life in France was cut off between two political parties for 50 years, explained David Bobin, an editor at CNews, a digital channel. I think the French wanted to have new faces.

While Macron, the strong favourite, caters to voters between the left and right, Le Pen takes advantage of peoples fears, such as concerns over the economy, Bobin told Al Jazeera.

The unemployment factor

Unemployment is at the heart of those fears, arguably the top voter concern.

Frances unemployment rate runs at around 10 percent, more than double the level of Germany and Britain, and higher than the eurozone average.

It has not dipped below nine percent since before the global economic crisis of 2008.

Macron has promised to slash that figure by three percent, while Le Pen says state-led industrialisation and greater taxes on foreign workers will boost employment.

Populism is on the rise all over Europe, said Samia Hathroubi, European director of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.

Its a clear trend, but it seems that none of the traditional parties knows how to tackle it and how to respond to the economic crisis and its consequences.

We have seen hundreds of debates about Islam and identity, but apart from Marine Le Pen, no one is addressing the losers of globalisation. by Samia Hathroubi, Foundation for Ethnic Understanding

The two oft-cited examples of a gripping populist wave in the West  the election of US President Donald Trump and Britains decision to leave the European Union  were also soaked in fears over joblessness.

Trump promised more jobs at every campaign stop, and those lobbying for a so-called Brexit  particularly the populist United Kingdom Independence Party  assured voters that stronger borders would prevent economic migrants from snatching opportunities from hard-working Britons.

The economy is the first issue for voters, said Hathroubi. We have seen hundreds of debates about Islam and identity, but apart from Marine Le Pen, no one is addressing the losers of globalisation.

Macron, meanwhile, a former economic minister under Hollande, finds it hard in some quarters to shake his old connections.

One of the biggest debates happening today is whether or not people should vote for Macron in order to prevent a Le Pen victory, said Hathroubi.

The last time the far-right made it this far was in 2002, when Marines father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was up against the right-wing Jacques Chirac, who ultimately won.

In 2002, it was clear. Even if people didnt vote for Chirac in the first round, they voted for him in the second, Hathroubi said.

Now it is no longer clear, because Macron is seen as someone who will continue to increase social inequality as Hollande did  Macron was his minister.

Show tactics

Le Pen, a master of tapping into peoples greatest anxieties, has railed around what she terms savage globalisation.

At a recent campaign stop in the northern city of Amiens, Macrons hometown, she upstaged her rival at the Whirlpool factory, which is threatened with outsourcing.

As Le Pen posed for the media on the picket line among a sea of worried workers, Macron met in a more sober setting with union leaders behind closed doors.

Globalisation scares people: manufacturing factories are closing and moving, robotisation is slowly taking over and no answers are given, said Rim-Sarah Alouane, a PhD candidate and researcher in public law at the University of Toulouse.

Youth unemployment is also a major issue that has not been tackled accordingly The current economic situation actually drove young French voters towards Le Pen.

Mainstreams profound crisis

Youth unemployment is around 24 percent  far lower than Spain and Greece but way off Germanys 7.7 percent  Europes most successful employer of young people. And according to some polls, almost 40 percent of young people intend to vote for Le Pen.

But while concerns over unemployment have contributed to the populist sentiment of the French election so far, so too has the stark inability of traditional parties to address concerns that they are simply not engaged  perhaps proving the point.

Clearly, the most important issue for voters in this election is unemployment, Pierre Bocquillon, a lecturer of politics at Britains University of East Anglia, told Al Jazeera.

I think the result [of the first round] really reflects a profound crisis of both the mainstream left and right parties. This election reveals a recomposition of both the left and right. Many people are tired of incumbent politicians and dont feel represented by the two main parties.
Workers and activists marked International Workers Day, or May Day, around the world with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions.
The war on Islamists, in much of the Arab world, is a war on democracy and the principle of power-sharing.
Find out the history of May Day and what kind of protests and commemorations can be expected this year.

Each year on May 1, people across the globe take to the streets to commemorate International Workers Day, or May Day.

In dozens of countries, May Day is an official holiday, and for labour rights campaigners it is particularly important.

The day commemorates past labour struggles against a host of workers rights violations, including lengthy workdays and weeks, poor conditions and child labour.





Why is International Workers Day on May 1?

In the late-19th century, socialists, communists and trade unionists chose May 1 to become International Workers Day.

The date was symbolic, commemorating the Haymarket affair, which took place in Chicago, in the United States, in 1886.

For years, the US working class  often forced to work up to 16 hours a day in unsafe conditions  had been fighting for an eight-hour workday.

Then, in October 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labour Unions of the United States and Canada decided that May 1, 1886, would mark the first day that an eight-hour workday would go into effect.

When that day arrived, between 300,000 and 500,000 US workers went on strike in cities and towns across the country, according to various historians estimates.

Chicago, which was the nucleus of the struggle, saw an estimated 40,000 people protest and strike.

Until May 3, the strike was well-coordinated and largely nonviolent.

But as the end of the workday approached, striking workers in Chicago attempted to confront strikebreakers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. Large police contingents were protecting the strikebreakers, and officers opened fire on the striking workers, killing at least two.

As the police attempted to disperse the protesters on May 4 in Chicagos Haymarket Square, a bomb was thrown at them, killing seven officers and at least four civilians.

Police subsequently rounded up and arrested eight anarchists, all of whom were convicted of conspiracy. A court sentenced seven to death and one to 15 years imprisonment. Four were hanged, one committed suicide rather than face the gallows and two had their sentences commuted to life in prison.

Those who died are regarded by many on the left, including both socialists and anarchists, as the Haymarket Martyrs.

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In 1889, the Second International, the international organisation for workers and socialists, declared that May 1 would from then on be International Workers Day. The Haymarket affair galvanised the broader labour movement.

In the US, however, the eight-hour workday wasnt recognised until it was turned into law in 1916, after years of strikes, protests and actions in favour of it.

What is the holidays history after 1916?

After the eight-hour day was initiated in the US in 1916, it was endorsed by the Communist International, an international coalition of socialist and communist parties, and by communist and socialist parties in various countries.

In that same year, as World War I continued, partial strikes and clashes with police in the US and several European countries were fuelled by massive anti-war sentiment as much as they were driven by the struggle for labour rights.

In 1917, as the US declared its involvement in the war, socialists and other leftists demonstrated against the bloodshed.

Marxist leaders across the globe  among them Rosa Luxemburg and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who is most widely known as Lenin  considered the war to be an example of capitalist, imperialist countries pitting members of an international working class against one another. They argued that workers should unite and wage a revolutionary war against the ruling classes in their own countries.

Four days after the revolution that toppled Tsarist rule in Russia, the eight-hour workday was introduced by official decree.

What have been some of the most memorable International Workers Day protests?

International Workers Day is marked with celebrations, protests, strikes and commemorations around the world.

While the size and intensity of commemorations have ebbed and flowed over the years, several International Workers Day commemorations stand out.

In the US in 1971, as the war in Vietnam continued under the presidency of Richard Nixon, protests in Washington, spanned several days and included civil disobedience against the war.

Nixon sent in an estimated 10,000 troops and mass arrests were made, prompting accusations of civil rights violations. Police and security forces arrested more than 12,000 people, although most were eventually released without charges.

More recently, in 2006, a series of US-wide immigration reform marches continued on May 1, when organisers called for a strike they named a day without immigrants. Protests had already drawn the participation of between 350,000 and 500,000 people in cities across the US.

In 2016, large May Day protests and marches were held in countries across the world. In the Turkish city of Istanbul, protesters clashed with police while trying to reach the citys iconic Taksim Square. At least one protester was killed and dozens arrested.

READ MORE: May Day  US workers struggle, then and now

In Moscow, tens of thousands of Russians marched in a pro-Kremlin rally to commemorate the holiday, while left-wing groups held separate events in several Russian cities.

In Taipei, Taiwans capital, labour unions took to the streets with a march to call on the government to reduce working hours and increase wages.

Thousands of people in the German cities of Berlin and Hamburg participated in public demonstrations. Protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (also known as AfD) party were held in several German cities.

What should you expect in 2019?

Following Frances nationwide yellow vest protests that began in November last year, about 7,400 policemen are expected to be deployed in Paris.

Observers say most of those joining the ranks of the yellow vest movement are workers on lower middle incomes who say they barely scrape by and get scant public services in exchange for some of the highest tax bills in Europe.

Although planned protests to commemorate May Day take place every year in France, clashes between protesters and riot police may take place as they have become regular occurrences following the latest wave of demonstrations.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has warned that up to 2,000 radical activists may try to sow violence and disorder and may join up with radicalised protesters from the yellow vest movement.

Castaner said there was also a risk that radical elements could try to infiltrate trade union marches in other cities, even though the unions themselves were committed to avoiding any violence.

In neighbouring Germany, the German Trade Union Confederation has called for traditonal May Day demonstrations in favour of a European-wide minimum wage.

Police have said a total of 5,500 officers will be deployed in Berlin including 2,000 in Friedrichshain, and have called on demonstrators to remain peaceful.

Thousands of trade union members will also march through Asia, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Cambodia and Myanmar.

In Sri Lanka, major political parties called off traditional May Day rallies due to security concerns following the Easter bombings that killed 253 people and were claimed by members linked to ISIL.
Tornadoes and flooding kill at least 14 as dangerous weather hammered parts of the midwest and the south.

At least 14 people have been killed by tornadoes or floods as a severe storm slammed the southern and midwestern United States over the weekend.

Tornadoes hit several small towns in eastern Texas, killing four people. Flooding and winds killed five people in Arkansas, including a fire chief who was struck by a vehicle while working during the storm.

Two deaths were reported in Missouri, including a woman who drowned after rushing water swept away a car. Two people died in Mississippi including a seven-year-old who died by electric shock. In Tennessee, a two-year-old girl died after being struck by a football goal post thrown by heavy winds.

Dozens more were injured, according to US officials.

A chance remained for more severe weather in the south. Parts of Florida Panhandle, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi could be affected by severe thunderstorms, according to National Weather Service.

IN PICTURES: Tornadoes ravage eight states killing three

The first reports of tornadoes came on Saturday afternoon, but emergency crews were hampered by continuing severe weather, said Judge Don Kirkpatrick, chief executive for Van Zandt County.

Wed be out there working and get a report of another tornado on the ground, he said.

Flooding closed part of Interstate 44 near Hazelgreen, Missouri, and officials expected it would be at least a day before the highway reopened.

Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed because crews were waiting for snow falling at 8 to 10cm an hour being blown by 56kph winds to subside.

The National Weather Service found evidence of four tornadoes with one twister possibly on the ground for 80km.
Republicans and Democrats agree on plan to keep the US government running until September.

US Congress leaders have reached a bipartisan deal on around $1 trillion in federal funding to avert a government shutdown on Friday this week.

The proposed pact, reached by Republican and Democratic late on Sunday, will fund public spending until September. It will be put to a vote in the following days, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

The deal reportedly increases defence spending by $25bn and $1.5bn for border security. This money is not to be spent on the so-called deportation force and there are no cuts to federal funding for sanctuary cities  municipalities that do not prosecute undocumented immigrants for violating federal immigration laws.

The agreement makes the US stronger and safer, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in statement, because it acts on President Trumps commitment to rebuild our military for the 21st century and bolster our nations border security to protect our homeland.

Yet, to get the document passed, President Donald Trump had to make concessions to the Democrats. One of the biggest campaign promises  the construction of a border wall to Mexico  had to be put off yet again, because the budget deal does not include any funding for it.

The White House last week had dropped the request over concerns about passage of the broader spending bill  Republicans will need support from Democrats in the Senate to pass the legislation

READ MORE: Donald Trump praises his first 100 days in office

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer went on record saying that an ineffective construction project such as the border wall to Mexico would not be funded from taxpayers money.

He called the budget agreement a good deal for the American people that eliminates the threat of a government shutdown.

The Democrats were also able to force other issues during the negotiations. The city of New York was given $68m to cover the expense of protecting the president and his family during their stay at Trump Tower.

Trump had to forgo funding cuts for medical research and community development programmes.

Republicans were not able to push through cuts to Obamacare subsidies or to the Planned Parenthood Programme.
On International Workers Day, marchers in Sweden take to streets to back Muslim womens right to wear hijabs at work.

May Day marchers have taken to the streets in several cities across Sweden to call for Muslim womens right to work while wearing the hijab.

The International Workers Day event on Monday followed a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which allowed private companies to ban employees from wearing visible religious symbols  a ruling Muslims said was a direct attack on women wearing the headscarf in the workplace.

The decision came after lawsuits were filed by a Belgian and a French woman who argued that they had been dismissed from their jobs for wearing the hijab. The hijab is a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion.

READ MORE: Millions hit the streets in worldwide May Day rallies

Protesters in the capital, Stockholm, as well as in the cities of Malmo, Gothenburg, Vasteras, Sala and Umea, chanted slogans such as crush racism, my hijab is not your business and employment is our right.

Muslim women here [Gothenburg] dont usually go out to protests on May Day, so its empowering to see so many people from different backgrounds fighting for labour rights, Maimuna Abdullahi, one of the event organisers, told Al Jazeera.

I came out because its our societys responsibility to stand for all of us, said Gabrielle Guastad, a participant in the march, which was planned by a network of Swedish activists in Gothenburg called The Right to our Bodies.

Another marcher, Khaali Mohammed, said: I marched because its my right to wear whatever what I want. The least the march could do is educate people and break the silence surrounding Muslim womens workers rights.

Organisers said they were stunned by the silence that followed the EU court ruling  and this prompted them to put together the event.

There was no solid criticism against the ruling, especially here in Sweden, a country that is hailed for its human rights, Abdullahi said.

When we uploaded a video calling for action on May 1, several people across the country called us wanting to organise their own marches, because they too recognise that this EU judgement is a game changer.

READ MORE: What the hijab means to me

To promote the march, Aftab Soltani, one of the organisers, drew a visibly powerful Muslim woman.

She said the goal was to reverse the image of Muslim women as victims of discrimination.

Its an image of a strong hijabi, because the real narrative of resistance is not being told, Soltani told Al Jazeera.

Social media users soon started to share the logo online under the #Muslimwomenban hashtag.

Different activists and artists in Europe contacted us saying they will carry signs in support of Muslim women during the different May Day marches, Soltani said.

Prior to the ruling, we could encourage each other as Muslim women to at least file lawsuits against discrimination. Legalising the discrimination forces us to choose between our economic independence and our religious identity, Abdullahi said.

It makes the issue even worse because lawsuits were the only way to know what barriers Muslim women faced in the workplace.

Changing perceptions

The ruling itself does not allow for a complete ban of the hijab in the private sector, but it is vague enough that it allows employers to arbitrarily decide what constitutes neutrality in the workplace.

The courts wording of neutrality in a company also indicates that hijabis are somehow abnormal, which further alienates them, said Hajar El Jahidi from the European Forum for Muslim Women.

The courts decision also caused some private sector employers to include a neutrality clause in their policy as a basis for removing or barring workers who wear the headscarf, El Jahidi added.

READ MORE: The reality and future of Islamic feminism

According to a recent study by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), workplace discrimination for women who wear the hijab is three-fold, as they are judged for gender, ethnicity and religion.

This limits their career trajectory, since they are forced to either seek job alternatives within the Muslim community or remove the hijab.

Before the ruling, the average French Muslim woman wearing the headscarf would have to hand in at least a 100 resumes before receiving a reply, according to the ENAR study.

These women then internalise this discrimination, so they dont bother applying for jobs, El Jahidi said.

Continue the resistance

There are greater implications for barring certain groups from the workplace, such as huge economic losses for companies who lack diverse workplaces, according to El Jahidi, who said that a positive outcome of the courts decision is that the fight for Muslim womens rights in Europe has moved to the streets.

Muslim women are more vocal and theyre collaborating with other movements to change perceptions, El Jahidi said.

The ENAR study also found that images of Muslim women in the media further exacerbate the discrimination they face. The political discourse is affected by images of women wearing the hijab that accompany stories about terrorism, domestic violence and gender inequality.

Yet, Abdullahi said that the stories we are familiar with as Muslim women are stories of agency and resistance.

However, these are not the stories we are being told in the public sphere. The only way forward is to continue the resistance, as we will not choose between our religious identity and our right to employment.
Groups targeted in Foulsare Forest along Mali-Burkina Faso border by Mirage fighter jets but identity not disclosed.

France says it has killed about 20 suspected fighters in a forest near Malis border with Burkina Faso.

French Mirage fighter jets bombed several suspected arms depots in the Foulsare Forest, southwest of the northern Malian city of Gao, late on Saturday, a French counterterrorism unit said in a statement on Sunday.





Troops from Operation Barkhane, whose mission is to target fighters operating in the Sahel region of the Sahara Desert, said they also discovered large amounts of arms, ammunition, rocket launchers and explosives.

It however, did not identify the groups that were targeted.

A French soldier was killed last month in the region, considered a sanctuary of armed groups fighting the central government based in the capital, Bamako.

Set up in 2014, Operation Barkhane comprises around 4,000 soldiers who are deployed across five former French colonies  Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso.

In Niger, it operates four Mirage 2000 fighter jets and five Reaper drones for gathering intelligence.

France intervened in its former West African colony in January 2013 to stop a southward offensive by fighters linked to al-Qaeda who seized control of vast expanses of the north.

Despite continued French troop deployments, a UN peacekeeping mission and years of peace talks, Mali remains beset by unrest and ethnic strife.
Khaled Meshaal presents a new document in which Hamas accepts 1967 borders without recognising state of Israel.

Hamas has presented a new political document that accepts the formation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, without recognising the statehood of Israel, and says that the conflict in Palestine is not a religious one.

The positions were made official on Monday in Qatars capital, Doha, by Khaled Meshaal, the leader-in-exile of the Palestinian group that runs the besieged Gaza Strip.

We shall not waive an inch of the Palestinian home soil, no matter what the recent pressures are and no matter how long the occupation, Meshaal said as he revealed the document to the public after two years of work.

MARWAN BISHARA, AL JAZEERAS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hamas has been accused of being dogmatic, and living in a straitjacket. [Meshaal] made it clear that the new Hamas, if you will, is dynamic and open-minded. He said their philosophy and the philosophy behind writing a new charter is that we are going to be a dynamic and open organisation. He also said that they will have a dual strategy. On the one hand, they will continue to resist occupation by all means necessary. But on the other hand, they will be an open and moderate political group. [Meshaal] said that all of that is stemming from Hamas experience, not only over the past three decades, but particularly over the past 10 years, when Hamas was actually governing after it won the elections of 2006. So I think the approach  we are open, we are changing and we might have a new charter moving forward, means that they are open to dialogue and compromise.

Hamas rejects any idea except liberating the home soil entirely and completely, although it does not necessarily mean we recognise the Zionist entity or give up any of our Palestinian rights.

While Hamas 1988 founding charter called for the takeover of all of mandate Palestine, including present-day Israel, the new document says it will accept the 1967 borders as the basis for a Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees to their homes.

The 1967 borders refer to those that existed before the war in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

But it does not go as far as to fully recognise Israel and says Hamas does not relinquish its goal of liberating all of Palestine.

Hamas considers the establishment of a Palestinian state, sovereign and complete, on the basis of the June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital and the provision for all the refugees to return to their homeland is an agreeable form that has won a consensus among all the movement members, Meshaal said.

The document also falls short of accepting the two-state solution that is assumed to be the end product of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

It also clarifies that Hamas fight is with the Zionist project, not with the religion of Judaism, making a distinction between those who believe in Judaism and Zionist Israeli citizens who occupy Palestinian lands.

It also sidesteps language in the groups original charter that affirms its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, and says that Hamas is a fully independent organisation.

Analysts said the release of the document appears to be an attempt by Hamas to seem more pragmatic and help it to avoid international isolation.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mohammad Abu Saada, a professor at Gazas al-Azhar University, called the new document a bid to accommodate Egyptian conditions and calm Egyptian fears regarding Hamas connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt has classified as a terror group since democratically elected president Mohammad Morsi was ousted in a 2013 military coup.

While in the 1988 charter Hamas affirmed its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood by mentioning it six times, the new document asserted Hamas strict Palestinian credentials as a liberation movement that uses Islam as its main ideological component.

READ MORE: Hamas political document: What to expect

Hamas is trying to walk a fine line between its hardliners and its own moderates, said Abu Saada of al-Azhar University.

In one way, the moderates can say they accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, but the hardliners can still say they are not recognising Israel.

Azzam Tamimi, author of Hamas: A History from Within, told Al Jazeera that while Hamas leaders were unlikely to say so, the new document would practically replace the groups old charter.

They would prefer to say that the old charter expressed Hamas in 1988, and that now, Hamas is a different organisation. It has different insight and understanding of the conflict and that todays document is what speaks for Hamas today.

Crippling blockade

Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, after winning elections and forcefully pushing its Fatah rivals out. Since then, Gaza has suffered three major Israeli assaults, whick killed more than 3,500 Palestinians, and a crippling 10-year-long siege.

The question is whether this change will do anything to try and lift the blockade, or anything to get this struggling economy back on its feet, said Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Gaza City.





Israeli officials rejected the document before it was made official, calling it an attempt by Hamas to trick the world into believing it was becoming a more moderate group.

Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed, said David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office.

The documents release comes just days ahead of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas visit to Washington on May 3 and as US President Donald Trumps administration prepares a new push to forge peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Abbas and his Fatah party have long pushed for a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, and have engaged in talks with Israel on that basis.

But Israel has frequently refused to enter into political talks with Abbas PA on the grounds that they do not represent all Palestinians.

Mustafa Barghouti, leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Al Jazeera that this move by Hamas reflected a level of political maturity.

Acceptance of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders  means accepting a two-state solution. In my opinion this is going to embarrass Israel a lot, said Barghouti.

Weve seen the Israeli reaction, which looks very frightened, first of all from the greater possibility of Palestinian unity, but also  of peace and the possibility of peace.

With reporting by Ali Younes in Doha
Clashes between armed groups in Damascus suburbs leave at least 95 people killed, monitor and residents say.

At least 95 Syrian opposition fighters and civilians have been killed during infighting in a rebel-held district in the suburbs of Damascus, according to a monitor.

In the third day of clashes, the infighting between Jaish al-Islam group against al-Rahman Corps and the al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) has killed at least 95 people in Eastern Ghouta, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.

At least 87 fighters, 32 of them from Jaish al-Islam group, and eight civilians were killed in the clashes.





Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official from Ghouta Media Centre told Al Jazeera the fighting intensified and continued on Monday.

Jaish al-Islam, the most powerful rebel group in Eastern Ghouta, attacked areas controlled by Faylaq al-Rahman and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, he said.

Activists have said the reasons behind the fighting between rebel groups include different beliefs and long-term goals.

In addition to that, activists believe Jaish al-Islam wants to eject all former al-Nusra Front fighters from Eastern Ghouta.

One of the main reasons behind these deadly clashes is the differences these rebel groups have, a Syrian journalist in Eastern Ghouta, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera.

They have different beliefs and goals. But the infighting is affecting us because we already live under a siege. We have the government air strikes from above, a siege and fighting on the ground.

The Syrian government is abusing this distraction and continues to target us with air strikes. Just a while ago a child was killed in a government air strike in Hamouriya [Eastern Ghouta].

READ MORE: The slow motion slaughter of Syrian civilians

Residents are scared another Aleppo scenario will happen to Ghouta. We are scared of being forced to leave our homes.

The Ghouta Media Centre official said there was a protest in Erbin, one of Ghoutas districts, where civilians called for an end to the ongoing fighting.

The protesters were shot at with live ammunition. We know that Jaish al-Islam were the group targeting civilians in the protest, he said.

The Syrian Observatory said at least 3,000 people attended the protest, adding that 12 people were injured in the gunfire.

Partial siege

Eastern Ghouta, which has been partially besieged by the Syrian government since 2013, has an estimated population of 400,000, according to a report by a Netherlands-based Siege Watch team.

The area is made up of 22 communities and has seen Russian and Syrian air attacks on civilian markets, schools, and hospitals in many of them.

READ MORE: The unravelling of Syrias Eastern Ghouta

Mohammed Alloush, a leading figure in Jaish al-Islam, was the chief negotiator for the High Negotiations Committee, the main Syrian opposition group, at previous UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva.

At least 400,000 civilians have been killed since 2011, when the Syrian conflict began as a largely unarmed uprising against the government, according to the UN.
Sushila Karki suspended after MPs filed impeachment motion accusing her of bias and interfering with executive powers.

Nepals first female chief justice has been suspended after an impeachment motion filed against her was signed by members of parliament.

The two main parties in the ruling coalition  the Maoists and the Nepali Congress (NC)  accused Sushila Karki of interference after the Supreme Court last month overturned the governments choice for chief of police.

The government had appointed Jaya Bahadur Chand as police chief, but the court ruled that the highest-ranking officer Navaraj Silwal should take the top job.

We have decided to impeach Chief Justice Sushila Karki  after she visibly started taking sides in cases, Min Biswakarma, a member of the ruling coalition and an NC member of parliament, who proposed the motion, told AFP news agency on Monday.

Hours later, Bimalendra Nidhi, deputy prime minister and NC member, resigned in protest. One of the smaller coalition parties  Rastriya Prajatantra Party  has also threatened to quit the government.

KP Sharma Oli, leader of the Communist Party of Nepal and former prime minister, also criticised the governments move.

But the Communist Party of Nepali (Maoist Centre) of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, and its main coalition partner, the NC, are together on the issue.

Karkis supporters say she has taken a strong stance against corruption during her year-long tenure as head of the Supreme Court.

The motion to impeach her was signed by 249 legislators from the NC and the CPN (Maoist Centre). The government said she breached Article 75 of the constitution, which outlines the governments executive powers.

A committee will now be established to investigate the allegations of bias, after which MPs will vote on whether to impeach her.

But the process is unlikely to get that far as she is due to retire in June when she turns 65.

Lok Raj Baral, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera that Karkis suspension is the latest case of the judiciary versus the executive in Nepal.

Karki took a tough stance against corruption, but she was a bit aggressive  that annoyed the politicians, he said.

Nepal has a history of political interference in key civil appointments such as the head of police.

The Himalayan country has had nine governments since the end of the civil war in 2006, with each successive administration seeking to fill key positions with their loyalists.

But Baral said that the stability of the current government was not threatened as some political parties outside the coalition are ready to back the government.

Local elections are due later this month, followed by provincial and then national elections by the end of the year.
Days before key election, Macron and Melenchon attend gathering for French-Moroccan killed by skinheads in 1995.

Paris, France  On May 1, 1995, skinheads rallying with the far-right National Front (FN) threw Brahim Bouarram, a 29-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent, into the River Seine and disappeared into the crowds.

Unable to swim, Bouarram  a father of two who had been simply walking with his girlfriend  struggled to stay afloat and drowned.

Since then, activists have gathered each year at the scene of the murder in the French capital to pay tribute to Bouarram and all the victims of racist attacks.

This year, however, was different.

Crowds, slightly larger than usual, gathered on Monday to protest against xenophobia with a presidential election due in less than a week.

On Sunday, millions of voters will choose between frontrunner Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, and Marine Le Pen, the FN leader, in the final round of Frances presidential vote.

Both won most votes in the April 23 first round.

The last time the far-right made it this far was in 2002, when Marines father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was up against the right-wing Jacques Chirac, who ultimately won.

At the time of Bouarrams death, Jean-Marie Le Pen described the incident as minor.

You might as well ask me why I dont condemn rain, hail, traffic accidents or earthquakes, he said at the time, according to the New York Times.

Eager to highlight the racist roots of the National Fronts ideology, both Macron, the frontrunner in Sundays vote, and Jean-Luc Melenchon, the left-wing losing candidate of the first round, attended Mondays gathering.

We have been commemorating Brahims death every May 1 since his death, said 56-year-old Driss El Kherchi, of the Association des Travailleurs Maghrebins de France (ATMF), who has lived in France for 34 years.

Our objective is to say no to racism, no to the violence that is killing people, he told Al Jazeera, adding that he has been fighting against the FN for more than 20 years.

We always felt we have to remain cautious about the FN, and we can see now why we were  There has been a normalisation of racism over the past 24 years. Even politicians who are not in the FN use the same kind of rhetoric that targets immigrants and refugees  Young Arabs here are French citizens, but they are worried about the promotion of hatred and violence.

Several anti-racism activists spoke at the event, which included a minutes silence, and called for the rights of Africans, Roma, Arabs, Jews and Muslims of France to be protected.

Others threw flowers into the river where Bouarram lost his life, as protesters chanted: No space for the fascists, Brahim Bouarram  we dont forget and we dont forgive.

"No space for the fascists, Brahim Bouarram  we don't forget and we don't forgive" pic.twitter.com/qvjPbXChwE  Anealla (@anealla) May 1, 2017

The FN is an anti-Semitic, racist, xenophobic party, said Abdallah, also of the ATMF.

The normalisation of the ideas of the NF is worrying us. Even more so, it scares us that a large proportion of the army, gendarmerie and police vote for Marine Le Pen. We are scared for our kids who have brown, black and Arab faces when they get stopped by the police.

He described the attendance of politicians at this years memorial as opportunistic.

Its a facade to get our votes. Macron will not get mine, he said. A lot of my comrades will vote for Macron to stop Le Pen, but Im sick of the blackmail, the strategical vote. I think I will abstain.

One of Bouarrams killers was sentenced to an eight years in prison in 1998, and three others to five-year terms.

Letitia Lallemand, who attended Mondays memorial, was adorned with homemade cardboard placards.

She said: Im here today because Im a human being, and I happen to be white. Im a white person who is privileged by my whiteness, at the expense of non-white people. And Im really fed up.

Additional reporting by Naima Bouteldja in Paris.




Navy announces detention of 32 people, half of them children, believed to be Rohingya refugees and two smugglers.

Sri Lankas navy has arrested 32 people suspected of being Rohingya refugees and their Indian traffickers off the countrys northern coast.

Chaminda Walakuluge, a navy spokesman, said a coastguard patrol observed the boat entering Sri Lankan waters on Sunday.

The 30 passengers from Myanmar included 16 children, among them a baby just 15 days old and a four-month-old child.





The two Indians were suspected of being their traffickers.

Walakuluge said the suspects had been handed over to police for further inquiries.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmars Rakhine state since the military began a security operation last October in response to what it says was an attack by Rohingya armed men on border posts, in which nine police officers were killed.

Last month Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars leader, denied reports saying security forces carried out ethnic cleansing of the countrys Rohingya Muslims, despite the United Nations and human rights groups saying a crackdown by the army may amount to crimes against humanity.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate whose international star as a rights defender is waning over the treatment of the Rohingya, has not condemned the crackdown and has not spoken out in defence of the persecuted minority.

Instead, she has called for space to handle the issue in a country where the more than one million Rohingya are not recognised as an ethnic minority and widely vilified as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh  even though many have lived in Buddhist-majority Myanmar for generations.

READ MORE: Myanmars major ethnic groups and where they live

A UN report released in February said the armys campaign targeting the Rohingya involved mass killings, gang rapes and the burning down of villages, likely amounting to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, where more than 75,000 Rohingya have fled to escape the crackdown, people have recounted grisly accounts of horrendous army abuse, including soldiers allegedly executing an eight-month-old baby while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers.

What kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mothers milk, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN rights chief, said in a statement at the time.

What kind of clearance operation is this? What national security goals could possibly be served by this?
Police investigating blaze that burned part of countrys biggest Shia place of worship outside Stockholm.

Swedish authorities have started an investigation into possible arson after a fire damaged the facade and roof of a mosque on the outskirts of Stockholm overnight, according to a police statement.

Nobody was injured in Mondays fire in the Jarfalla suburb of the Swedish capital, according to the statement.

The scene of the fire has been sealed off in anticipation of forensic tests.

The Imam Ali Islamic Centre in Jarfalla, a municipality northwest of Stockholm, said in a post on Facebook that about a quarter of the building was destroyed.





No one was injured in the blaze that appeared to have started on one of the outer walls, according to the police who have opened an investigation into arson.

Fire fighters arrived at the scene after the alert was sounded late on Sunday.

Earlier in the evening, several hundred people had attended a gathering in the building.

We are very disappointed. This is the largest Shia Muslim mosque in Sweden with thousands of members, Akil Zahiri, a mosque spokesman, told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

He expressed shock and sorrow over the incident, and said many members of the congregation were worried.

If the police conclude it was arson, it is key that we step up security measures but we will wait for their findings, Zahiri said.

The mosque had previously installed security cameras.

Zahiri declined to say if the mosque had been subjected to recent threats.

Wary of reprisals

The Imam Ali Islamic Centre houses a library as well as youth and culture associations. The centre said it had cancelled all planned activities until Thursday.

The association that runs the mosque was formed in 1997.

Swedish authorities are wary of possible reprisals after a man drove a hijacked beer truck into a busy pedestrian mall last month, killing five people.

OPINION: Seeing Swedens race problem for what it is

An Uzbek whose asylum request was rejected is being held as the main suspect.

Swedish police have confirmed that he had expressed sympathies for extremist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group but disclosed no other details.

ISIL, also known as ISIS, has targeted Shia Muslims in several countries. It claimed responsibility for a fire last year at a small Shia mosque in southern Swedens Malmo.

The main suspect in the case was accused on terrorism charges but has been acquitted.
Leading US-based rights group says nerve agent attacks are part of a clear pattern that could amount to war crimes.

Syrian government forces have used deadly nerve gas in four chemical weapons attacks since December, including one in Khan Sheikhoun that killed nearly 100 people in April, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Citing new evidence, the US-based rights group said the attacks are part of a clear pattern that could amount to crimes against humanity.

President Bashar al-Assads forces are also stepping up chlorine gas attacks and have begun using surface-fired rockets filled with chlorine in fighting near Damascus, HRW said in a report published on Monday.

The governments use of nerve agents is a deadly escalation, Kenneth Roth, HRWs executive director, said.

In the last six months, the government has used warplanes, helicopters, and ground forces to deliver chlorine and sarin in Damascus, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo, he added.



Thats widespread and systematic use of chemical weapons.

READ MORE: Syrias civil war explained from the beginning

Assad has denied using chemical weapons, saying the suspected sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun was a fabrication to justify a US missile strike.

HRW urged the United Nations Security Council to adopt sanctions against anyone UN investigators find to be responsible for these attacks.

Al Jazeeras UN correspondent, Rosiland Jordan, said diplomats had called the report a real confirmation of what they know to be happening inside Syria.

Russia, Assads top ally, declined to comment, said Jordan, reporting from New York.

In April, Russia blocked a UN resolution demanding a speedy investigation into the Khan Sheikhoun attack.

HRW said it interviewed 60 witnesses and collected photos and videos providing information on the four suspected chemical attacks for its report, entitled Death by Chemicals.

All four attacks took place in areas where offensives by rebel forces fighting the government threatened military airbases, the report said.

In some of the attacks, the aim appears to have been to inflict severe suffering on the civilian population.

In Khan Sheikhoun, residents said the first bomb believed to be carrying the deadly agent sarin was dropped near the towns central bakery. It was followed by three or four high-explosive bombs a few minutes later.

Dozens of photos and videos provided by residents of a crater from the first bomb showed a green-coloured metal fragment that HRW said was probably the Soviet-produced KhAB-250 bomb.

The report cast doubt over Syrian and Russian claims that toxic agents were released in Khan Sheikhoun after a bomb struck a chemical weapons depot on the ground.

It would not be plausible that conventional bombs struck chemical caches repeatedly across the country, it said.

At least 92 people, including 30 children, died in the Khan Sheikhoun attack, HRW said, citing local residents and activists. Hundreds more were wounded.

On December 11 and 12, some 64 people died from exposure to nerve agents after fighter jets attacked territory controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group in eastern Hama.

A third suspected nerve agent attack in northern Hama on March 30 caused no deaths but wounded dozens of civilians and combatants, according to residents and medical personnel, the report said.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is investigating allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria along with the joint UN-OPCW panel (JIM) which is tasked with assigning responsibility for the attacks.
The case against Assange is as political as it is legal; where does it go from here? Plus, Kenyas election influencers.
President Muhammadu Buhari said this in a message to workers on the occasion marking the 2017 May Day Rally with the theme, Labour Relations in Economic Recession: An Appraisal.

I am happy to inform you that Government will give expeditious consideration to the proposal contained in the Technical Committees Report which was submitted to it on April 6, 2017.

Government will take necessary steps to implement the final recommendation of the Main Government/Labour Committee as it relates to the setting up the new National Minimum Wage Committee and the needed palliatives.

This is in order to reduce the discomfort currently being experienced by the Nigerian working class.

I want to assure you that government will continue to do all at its disposal to better the lots of all Nigerians and more importantly to provide a commensurate welfare for all Nigerian workers, he said.

He said that he was aware that the economic recession in the country has huge implication for the seamless conduct of industrial relations.

He noted that this arises from the fact that the economic recession by its nature was characterised by a substantial risk of the vicious circles of low- productivity.

He said others are mass retrenchment of workers and closure of workplaces due to high cost of doing business, unregulated subcontracting and outsourcing with its consequences on welfare of workers among others.

According to him, in the face of these inevitable challenges, you have shown maturity and understanding in spite of the situation in which we found ourselves.

I strongly salute your great sense of patriotism and loyalty to the country, he said.

President Buhari however, called for effective deployment of labour relations, an amalgamated approach that would be used in creating a conducive work environment that would attract foreign investment for wealth creation.

He called on government, workers and employers to work together to put out the economy from the recession.

Therefore, I called on the organised labour to continue to partner with this administration by resorting to social dialogue as an indispensable tool for conflict resolution

Today, we stand in solitary with workers all over the world to commemorate this historic Day which marked a turning point in the economies of the nations and the welfare of the working class, he added.

He commended the organised labour for their support and encouragement to the administrations fight against corruption which was the bane of sustainable economic development.

He added that, my commitment to fight against corruption is total and irreversible. We must fight corruption before it destroys us.

As a matter of fact, the workers should be in the forefront of activities in the realisation of the WhistleBlowing Policy of this Administration, he said.

He called for support and cooperation while adding that government was determined to restore growth, investment in people and also building a global competitive economy to its full realisation.(NAN).



Read more at https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/buhari-assures-workers-of-speedy-passage-of-national-minimum-wage/195833.html#gXogJ0ZeXQ1AHee0.99
Jaxport CEO Eric Green said the $23.5 million grant marks a milestone in our initiatives to build the port of the future and move cargo in the most efficient and eco-friendly way possible.
Several friends on the independent Right have been sending me notes stating their frustration with the Trump administration for playing them for fools. These fellow-members of the independent Right (yes, Ill admit to my own leanings) complain that after all their efforts in campaigning for the president, hes turning into a tool of the moderates and neocons. I for one am less critical of Trump, because although I wrote and donated on his behalf, I never thought his election would change much in our society or politics. Nor do I believe that if the improbable happened and Marine Le Pen became president of the French Fifth Republic, she would be able to act effectively against the French deep state (which is proportionately more massive than ours), the rabidly adverse media, and the rest of an entrenched cultural Left.

There is no magic bullet by which decades and even generations of leftist penetration of political and cultural institutions can be reversed in one presidential race. Contrary to a recent hysterical column by the perpetually foaming Ralph Peters, France is not in imminent danger of being turned over to a raging anti-Semite and Holocaust-denier. Not only does Marine in no way answer to that description, even if she defeated Peters hero, Emanuel Macron, who represents the multicultural Left and globalist interests, Marine would have to battle the same media hostility that confronts Trump. Unless fundamental institutions can be changed, winning the presidential sweepstakes here or in France will not lead to profound alterations in the political climate.

In the case of Trump, however, there is another reason that Ive been skeptical about his capacity to change things in a way that would please his present critics on the independent Right. Please note that Im not speaking of those Never-Trump journalists who still abound in the conservative movement. These people, particularly the ones who shilled for such implausible figures of the Right as W, Mitt, and John McCain, are getting away with stunning hypocrisy. The less said about them, the less elevated my blood pressure is likely to become. No, Im referring to those on the Right who break ranks by criticizing a liberal internationalist foreign policy. I also mean those on the Right who believe that political reconstruction should begin at home and should not be a key element in the way we deal with sovereign foreign powers, unless were actually threatened by them. Unlike Bill Kristol, this Right views the deep state as a menace to our freedoms. And its devotees have had enough of multiculturalism in all its varied forms and would like the government to stop promoting its crusade against communities and individuals who are charged with discrimination.

The more determined members of this Right would like to see the government come down hard on the antifascist goons and on the political correctness inquisitors at our misnamed institutions of higher learning. Not only do they want Trump to withdraw all federal funding from a place like Berkeley, theyd also be delighted if he sent in the National Guard to suppress the well-planned riots against reactionary speakers at Berkeley and other ideologically similar institutions. And yes, they are disappointed that Trump has not spoken out in favor of his loyalists who have shown up at universities to counter the rioting Left.

Although I fully sympathize with these sentiments and proposals, I see no compelling reason why Trump would lend his ear to those who express them. Nor am I in any way shocked that the loudest Trump-detractors, including the outright Hillary-supporters in the conservative movement are swarming all over Fox News and still writing for conservative publications. These are well-connected people who enjoy support from corporate funders and are represented in the National Endowment for Democracy and other government agencies. If there is a Right, and a truer one, which would like to have more public exposure, then it will have to follow the neoconservatives path to success in the 1970s and 1980s, that is, raise funds and create its own media outlets.

The short cuts that young members of the independent Right have tried promise only very limited success. Starting up a blog with ones buds or becoming a website troll is a form of self-indulgence. Such activities will never produce the firepower of the National Review or Weekly Standard website. Such vehicles of mainstream opinion have considerably more funds and far better PR than those assets that are available to someone working on a shoestring. The most ridiculous attempt to gain influence from the Right may be sending obscene or cranky messages through social media. Those who do this sort of thing are likely to be dismissed as overgrown adolescents. Yes, I know -- the Left gets away with such behavior, but then theyre holding better cards than their altright imitators. If a more authentic Right than the one that is now in power hopes to mobilize, it will have to match the mainstream right-center by coming up with equivalent resources. Such a Right can only succeed by doing what a nineteenth-century French premier Francois Guizot told an impecunious shopkeeper when asked how he could obtain the vote: Enrichissez-vous (accumulate wealth) was Guizots retort in standing by Frances limited franchise based on the amount of revenue paid by citizens to the state.

It is also ridiculous for an independent Right to believe that those whom they hope to supplant will share their resources with opposition on the Right. I cant think of any reason they would. Whats in it for those who enjoy a media monopoly on conservative opinion to exchange views with troublesome dissenters on the Right? If they do want a different point of view, they can obtain one from someone who is generally on the same wavelength; or from leftist debating partners who are invited on Fox News.

Back in the 1980s when the neoconservatives were becoming dominant in the respectable Right, members of the Old Right would complain that their adversaries did nothing but network. Whether or not that was the only thing neoconservatives did really doesnt matter. Whats more significant is that they worked diligently at building profitable connections. This was made clear to readers of my book when I published the revised edition of The Conservative Movement (1993). There I showed how the neoconservatives acquired a vast media and print empire by attracting wealthy donors. Fundraisers like Irving Kristol and Leslie Lenkowsky devoted time and energy to their work and went from one lead to the next in amassing the necessary resources for their movement. Although this movement was a familiar form of Cold War liberalism with a changed label, the neoconservative founding fathers knew how to sell their product as some kind of novelty. They engaged in what many on the Right, including this writer, thought at the time was a tawdry marketing ploy. This may indeed have been what it was, but the strategy and persistent salesmanship worked brilliantly. And Im not sure there is an alternative course of action for those on the outside who want a cut of the media pie.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu states that Ankara and Moscow have come to an agreement on the purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense system. A number of Russian experts close to the Kremlin note that reaching agreement on this issue is a positive step before the upcoming meeting between the presidents Erdogan and Putin in the Russian city of Sochi. This deal symbolizes a new stage in the crisis in relations between Ankara, Washington, and Brussels. Moreover, it is an evidence of strengthening Russian-Turkish relations. However, in order to understand the logic of these processes, it is necessary to analyze the political background and geopolitical configurations that have been developing in the region and in the world. Over the past eight years, there has been a gradual deterioration in relations between Turkey and the countries of the West. This was exemplified by events following Erdogans imprisonment of representatives of the army elite. When the army -- as the guarantor of preservation of secularism -- was weakened, the arrests of opposition leaders began and a decision was made to close hundreds of media outlets.

All these steps allowed Erdogan to achieve the main goal -- to change the state system, transforming the parliamentary republic into a super-presidential one. The leader of the Turkish state believed that the Republican administration of the USA, unlike Democrat Obama, would overlook to repression inside Turkey. These expectations were erroneous. Certainly, President Trump congratulated his colleague, as it is required by the protocol, especially when it comes to allies within NATO. However, one should not lose sight of the fact that together with the congratulatory message from the leader of the White House, the State Department revealed its worries about the conditions under which the referendum was held. Ankara is unhappy with Washington's controversial reaction to the issue of changing the system of state administration as well as with the fact that Trump did not extradite Fetullah Gulen -- the main political opponent of President Erdogan. In addition, Ankara's expectations on the Syrian question were also not justified. Many influential experts wrote that, like Bush Jr., Trump would rely on Turkey as part of the policy in the Middle East. However, recent events have shown that the Kurdish factor remains extremely significant for America.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend declares that Kurdish units will participate in the operation to liberate the Syrian city of Rakka from ISIS. In turn, Ankara says that the country will not take part if Kurdish troops are involved. U.S. cooperation with Kurds in Syria raises serious irritation of Ankara. It has already cooled relations between Turkey and America. It is worth mentioning that last year in February, Erdogan demanded that Washington choose between the Kurds and Turkey. Today, Erdogan continues to insist that America cease all contacts with Kurds. However, it should be understood that Republicans are not accustomed to the language of ultimatums that could be used with former president Obama. Trump repeated many times that America's crucial task in the region is the elimination of terrorists. It would be difficult to achieve that goal without the support of Kurdish forces. This means that Washington will not risk its strategic plans to appease Ankara's desire to solve the Kurdish issue.

Americans are still firmly convinced that Kurdish detachments should stand in the vanguard of military actions in Rakka. Even commitments to NATO cannot force the USA to exchange Kurds for the Turkish military. Thus, Ankara risks being on the sidelines of the Syrian issue settlement, which can affect the domestic political positions of President Erdogan and his elite. In addition to America, many European powers criticized Turkish policy. The most acute conflict was between Ankara and Amsterdam. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was going to deliver what amounted to a propaganda speech in the Netherlands. Dutch authorities refused to allow Cavusoglus plane to land. In response, President Erdogan compared the Dutch people to Nazis and said that Europe was preparing a crusade against Turkey. After this incident, Turkey was criticized by the authorities of Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, and Spain, among others. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said that Turkey's accession to the European Union is not going to happen.

This disappointment led Ankara into Moscow's political embrace. The deal to buy the S-400 system really symbolizes the fact that Turkey is trying to find its place in a changing geopolitical configuration. In this sense, Russia and Turkey are in a similar situation. They mistakenly expected that with the arrival of Trump, America's foreign policy would be less active. Sanctions against Russia are still functioning, but the internal political crisis continues to grow. Undoubtedly, Moscow would like to take advantage of the situation to involve Turkey in its integration project -- the Eurasian Union. Many high-ranking politicians, including Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev, made proposals on the necessity of Turkey's admission to that union. Kazakhstan -- one of the key members of the Eurasian Union -- does not hide its intentions to form the geopolitical axis "Russia-Turkey-Kazakhstan", which will become one of the leading forces not only in the Eurasian space, but the world.

In addition, for Kazakhstan, lobbying for Turkey's interests has not only political but also civilizational meaning. Astana seeks to change the predominantly Christian Eurasian Union with a strong Muslim power. Turkey is best suited for this role: apart from the religious factor, Astana and Ankara are united by Turkic roots. Many of the political ideologists close to the Kremlin also speak about the importance of Turkey's accession to the Eurasian Union. In numerous interviews, philosopher Alexander Dugin and political analyst Sergey Markov noted that Turkey's accession would alter the geopolitical balance of the continent. Political philosopher Eduard Bagramovs theory about a Turkic-Slavic union is often discussed in Russia. This theory implies that the Turkic and Slavic communities must act together to successfully implement Eurasianism. Many high-ranking politicians are also sure that the Eurasian Union is aimed not at geographical but at civilizational unity, which will be successful if Turks and Slavs are united.

Earlier, Turkish leaders hoping for a positive outcome of accession to the European Union did not respond to opposing signals from Eurasianists. The crisis in relations with the West, which led Ankara to a standstill, forced the country's authorities to change their minds. Thus, Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci stated that Turkey wanted to join the Eurasian Union and noted that negotiations had been conducted in this direction. Unlikely as this seems, considering such factors as membership in NATO and close economic relations with the European Union, it is important to take into account the serious internal split in the country after the referendum and the acute geopolitical crisis in the region. An important factor is Erdogan himself, who has the reputation of an absolutely unpredictability. For the Turkish president, the Eurasian Union can become not only a lifeboat, but also a new political opportunity. Aware of Astana's desire to form the triangle "Russia-Turkey-Kazakhstan" within the framework of the Eurasian Union, Erdogan seeks to expand that axis by including another Muslim-Turkic state -- Azerbaijan. It is known that the priorities of official Baku entirely depend on political well-being of Ankara.

It was the Turkish factor that allowed the Azerbaijani authorities to maintain a balanced relationship between the countries of the West and Russia. Nowadays, the situation has changed: crisis in the relations between the West and Turkey automatically spread to Baku, which no longer has serious geopolitical significance for Washington and Brussels. It could be that Azerbaijan's admission to the Eurasian Union with the support of Kazakhstan may be the first step in Turkey's accession.

The only serious obstacle to the implementation of this plan may be the position of Armenia -- another member of the Eurasian Union. It is well known that Yerevan has no diplomatic relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan for a number of historical and political reasons. Thus, Armenia supports the Armenian Diaspora's aspirations for the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 by the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, Armenia perceives the policy of denial by the current Turkish leadership as a threat to its national security. Meantime, Yerevan is a security guarantor of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) and represents its interests in negotiations for the settlement of Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

A complicated situation has developed. If Russia supports the entry of Azerbaijan and Turkey, it risks spoiling relations with Armenia, where its only military base in Transcaucasia is located. The question is whether Moscow is ready to take certain risks in order to involve Ankara and Baku in the orbit of its influence. It is difficult to answer that question. However, there are some historical precedents: in the 1920s, the Soviet authorities gave the territory of Western Armenia to Turkey hoping to involve it in the communist bloc. A similar political gesture occurred when Karabakh and Nakhijevan, which were inhabited by Armenians, were included in the Azerbaijani SSR.
I feel like I am beating a dead horse on tax cuts, but facts are extremely important if we want to get the economy growing.

I get extremely aggravated when I read material like the following paragraph by Paul Waldmen in the Washington Post, because it is so demonstrably false. Of course the notion that tax cuts dont pay for themselves is repeated so often that either the media has no idea that it is false or they dont care. My guess is they dont care because they have had almost 14 years to research the Bush tax cuts and instead of the Democrats and the media telling the truth, they just repeat bald faced lies.

Sixteen years ago, President George W. Bush made exactly the same arguments youre making, in defense of a similar tax cut. The results were abysmal: a huge deficit; poor growth in GDP, jobs and incomes; and eventually a financial cataclysm. What did Bush do wrong?

Something you rarely see in the diatribes about how disastrous Bush tax cuts were for the government and the economy are actual numbers. If they used actual numbers the public would get to see the lies. It is a shame that Republican politicians dont show the actual numbers to the public.

The media and Democrats just repeat over and over again that tax cuts cause deficits and don't help the economy, hoping that the public becomes indoctrinated. It is exactly the way they handle climate change. Facts haven't mattered for a long time.

This website, http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/, shows federal revenue and expense numbers for all years in recent history. It also shows debt and deficit numbers. Anyone can download the information. The media must not be interested in the facts. Here are a few numbers and facts:

In 2002, the top income tax rates for individuals was 38.6% on ordinary income and dividends and 21.2% on capital gains. George W. Bush got Congress to lower taxes across the board and the top bracket to 35% on ordinary income and 15% on dividends and capital gains. (Bush had inherited a recession and a collapsed stock market in 2001 and the economy had been stagnant or slowing up to these tax cuts). Instead of the tax rate cuts costing the government money, revenues skyrocketed. From FY 2000 to FY 2003 income tax proceeds had declined from around $1.2 Trillion to around $900 Billion in FY 2003. After the across the board cuts, income tax revenues skyrocketed over 60% to over $1.5 Trillion by FY 2007. The deficit also went down to $161 Billion by FY 2007, including both wars and Medicare Part D. Obviously, the tax rate cuts and the increasing revenue did not increase the deficit as we are repeatedly told.

The tax cuts gave the economy the boost that it needed. It is an extremely simple concept that the more money that is left in the hands of individuals and businesses, the more opportunity there is to spend, save and invest -- and all are good for the overall economy. It is also a simple concept that the more money the government confiscates, the less opportunity there is for growth.

As for jobs, in January 2001 when President Bush took office, there were 132.7 million non- farm workers. By May 2003, when Bush passed the tax cuts, employment had dropped to 130.2 million. At the end of 2007, employment had jumped to 138.4 Million. If employment was trending down before the cuts and jumped substantially after the tax cuts occurred it certainly appears that there is both a correlation and causation related to the tax rate cuts as to the significant boost to the economy

It seems that Democrats have a major interest in not simplifying the tax code and not lowering rates. They obviously have more power if they can control special tax breaks and tax penalties, picking winners and losers, and the more people they can make dependent on government, the better. The biggest winners in a complicated tax code with high rates is government itself and especially the career politicians and bureaucrats.

In 2008, candidate Obama said in so many words that he would raise capital gains rates even if that didn't raise revenue because of "fairness." That truly shows the Democrats and the media's mentality. They don't care about helping the economy. They will spend the money even if the revenue goes down, and just charge it to future generations. They obviously don't like individuals and business being able to keep more of the money they earned.

No one should believe that Google, Facebook or any of the other pretend fact checkers care about sorting out the news because not one of them will challenge all the reporters that say Bush's cuts decreased revenue and increased the deficit. They obviously have exactly the same agenda as the Democrats.

Jack Hellner is a CPA with more than forty years' experience on tax matters.
In case you havent noticed, there is an orchestrated campaign underway to convince Americans that the threat of Islamic terrorism is wildly overstated. And every so often, the purveyors of that lie will cite a study that ostensibly proves the claim to be true.

Take this recent example, a Twitter tease from the Cato Institute:

Far right extremist groups were responsible for 73% of deadly terrorist incidents since September 11, 2001.

Its pretty hard to miss the intended message, as its pretty broad and suggestive. But its also incredibly dishonest.

First of all, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study that Cato cites in the article addresses only domestic acts of terrorism. Cato neglects to mention in the tease that the statistic is relevant to domestic terror attacks only, opting instead to misleadingly make a blanket statement which suggests that global terrorism data has been considered to reach its conclusion. And, given the Iron Cross flags in abundance (which is not an archetypical symbol of American white supremacists), these certainly would appear to be European white supremacists in the picture.

Its simple but sly propagandistic deception. The tease and the image suggest to casual readers that the statistic addresses the global issue of terrorism. But if global terrorism data were actually considered, the data would very clearly suggest a wildly different conclusion than the one in the Cato tease, to say the least.

Consider that, as The Economist reported in late 2015, there were 32,700 people killed in global terrorist attacks in 2014. The deadliest five terrorist groups responsible were the Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, al-Shabaab, and Fulani militants. These five groups, all of which are Islamic extremist groups, were responsible for well more than half of those deaths.

Secondly, upon closer inspection, we find that not only is the data used in the GAO report extremely selective, but its none too pure, either.

You see, the Cato tease focuses on the number of deadly domestic terror incidents as compiled by the U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), and not the number of victims. Its a curious means of approaching the impact of terrorism. After all, which is more important; the number of shots fired in a shootout, or the number of people struck by bullets?

We can assume Cato didnt tease the article using the number killed by Islamic versus right-wing terrorists in America (the binary focus of the GAO study) because the conclusion drawn by readers might be a little different. Despite the wide discrepancy claimed in the number of incidents, Islamic extremists are still responsible for 53% (119 of 225) of deaths since, but not including, 9/11.

Imagine:

Islamic extremists responsible for 12% more deaths in domestic terror attacks since 9/11 than right-wing extremists, GAO study suggests.

That wouldnt exactly have the same effect on the casual Twitter reader, would it? But it uses the exact same studys data.

Even more curious, though, is the fact that the discrepancy in incidents as presented by the ECDB appears to be altogether inaccurate.

The ECDB reports that there have only been 23 deadly incidents of Islamic terrorism since 9/11. But its clear that not all acts of Islamic terror are tallied as Islamic terrorism in the data.

On December 4, 2009, a non-Muslim Islamic studies professor was stabbed to death in New York by a Muslim student as revenge for persecuted Muslims.

This incident is missing in the ECDB data.

In November 2012, a devout Muslim killed a young man in Houston for his alleged role in converting a young Muslim woman to Christianity.

In September 2014, a Muslim man beheaded a woman after calling for Islamic terror in Oklahoma.

Neither of these incidents appear in the ECDB data.

Recently in Fresno, a Muslim murdered three people while shouting Allahu akbar to his victims and captors. Given the media subterfuge downplaying the role of Islam in the attacks, all signs point to this incident also being excluded from such ECDB data in the future.

The ECDB lists the number of incidents of right-wing terror at 62, versus the number of Islamic terror incidents at 23. Hence, 62 is 73% of 85. It appears that Cato just stopped all logical thinking at that point and took their irresponsible conclusion to Twitter, without considering any of the aforementioned (and obvious) points.

But more accurate data appears at Religion of Peace, which suggests that, when religiously motivated honor killings are included (and why should a devout Muslim murdering his daughter and her lesbian lover for religious reasons, for example, not be?), there have been 51 separate deadly incidents in America since 9/11, and that these were responsible for 158 deaths.

This means that when incidents are compared using that data, right-wing extremism would account for roughly 55% of domestic terror attacks, and Islamic extremism for 45%. This would also mean that Muslim extremists have killed 50% more people than those right-wing extremists.

How can one conclude that these facts do not suggest that the permeation of extremist ideology is particularly malignant in Americas Muslim community? After all, Muslims are less than 1% of Americas population. Shouldnt the fact that Islamic extremism accounts for 27% (much less 45%) of terrorist attacks in America be shocking enough? The fact that the incidents of Islamic terrorism have been far deadlier than incidents of right-wing terrorism should be particularly alarming. Why all the effort to downplay the deadliness and occurrences of violent extremism within this extremely small demographic in America?

No, America. Youre not imagining this threat. Given all of evidence weve already seen in Europe, along with ISISs official strategy to hide attack operatives within the waves of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria, it is only logical to be wary about Muslim immigrants with unknowable backgrounds becoming your neighbors.

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.
Richard Nixon once gave a speech to the nation where he famously said, I am not a crook. At the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, President Trump not in attendance, Bob Woodward and other media champions tried to tell the President, and the nation We are not fake news. In the long run, its hard to tell which phrase will be taken more seriously.

Honestly, does anyone but the most dyed in the wool Democrat truly believe what the left leaning media has tried to bamboozle the American public with, during the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency? Not likely all that many in the end. Those who believe that Trump is Putins puppet now have little factual basis to do so other than the 89% negative reporting the left-wing media has been shoveling, so its a shallow belief at best, one that will change as facts come out, and as the Trump agenda is implemented.

I have a close friend who votes liberal, and has for as long as I can remember. She loves her dogs. Dogs that are not necessarily the most behaved pets in the world (an understatement). I saw a meme on a social media forum that I shared with her. It was a real photograph of a room left a mess, torn apart by two dogs. They are facing the camera, the torn-up mess all around them. Their faces look really guilty, while the printed caption on the picture had the dogs saying The Russians Did it! When I shared the description, she laughed. Sincerely, long and heartily. She watches MSNBC a lot; its where she gets her news.

Donald Trump had a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night. It was an alternate to the Correspondents Dinner. Many Americans watching cable news saw split screen coverage of the two events; an arena packed with cheering ordinary folk and their president on one side, and tuxedos and ball gowns, dinner and wine, on the other.

Only one of those two events was successful, and contrary to what the New York Times implies, it wasnt the Correspondents Dinner. Boiling it down, all the media dinner could offer was We are not fake news! Trump on the other hand, told those who were at his rally, and those watching all over the US what the administration had actually accomplished in the first 100 days, and what they were planning to do.

His speech was a mixture of many things. One thing he did was to list what they had done , or started to do, in the first hundred days. He also listed the many things he still intends to still do. It was an impressively long list. A big agenda, an ambitious attempt to accomplish what he had promised to do during the election campaign. Needless to say, it was received well, as chants of USA! USA! dominated the background. The crowd was impressed, and shared their appreciation.

The bad news for the media is manifold. First, the Trump voter is still heavily engaged. Second, the list of what he has accomplished is actually kind of impressive. Third, the media has reported very few of these accomplishments. Fourth, compared to the rally, few watched their silly dinner. Fifth, Trump trolled them masterfully by having his big rally on the same night so that split screens were inevitable. (Dont forget that Trump was a television producer, big time.) Sixth, Trump is winning the narrative. While he is getting things done, the media looks like the dogs in the meme picture saying, The Russians did it!

He rattled off an impressive list of accomplishments, he called it Historic progress. He reminded the crowd of the Historic mess they inherited. He intertwined what he had done, with what they were doing, along with the big problems they were tackling. It was a pretty impressive performance from someone who has not been considered a great orator. What was more important, it communicated well to his loyal voters, and formed a basis for overcoming the monstrously negative coverage being shoveled by the mainstream media.

What Trump did at the rally, besides troll the media, was to again set the narrative that he is winning. A recent poll has Americans believing him, by a fairly large margin, over the mainstream media. And this was before this rally. Before the list of accomplishments, largely previously unreported, was given in his speech.

The media at their dinner that same night looked small, impotent, and lost. They tried to justify themselves to themselves and hoped the nation was paying attention. An article in the New York Times claims attendees said the often-frivolous dinner felt oddly profound. [T]he event became a catharsis for a political press corps that has faced months of unrelenting strain. Oh, boo hoo, that poor beleagueredmedia being less believed than that scurrilous Trump whom they hate so much. For the record, calling out Bannon as Hitler, and Sessions as racist gave their event negative gravitas. By not booing off stage Hasan Minhaj, who riffed on those themes, they just confirmed how foolish and small they all looked.

They dug their own graves by their misreporting, and trying to peddle an unsustainable false narrative. Oh, the guilty look on those dogs faces. It was so there at the Correspondents Dinner.

Having watched and admired President Reagan, I remember watching as he went over the heads of the media to persuade the American people to help push his vision for the country. He was quite simply, as good as it gets at articulately presenting his ideas. This Trump rally was very different, Trump is many things, but he does not have the same eloquence Reagan did. He is not as polished. But heres the bottom line: he is every bit as effective as Reagan so far. He is every bit as good at getting his message across to his targets

What is happening is profound. Trump is succeeding mainly because he is following up on his many promises. Its why 93% of his voters approve of the job he is doing in a poll done just before his hundred days rally. I will be surprised if he doesnt gain a percentage or more back in the next week and beyond. In spite of the best efforts of the leftist media, they are failing, and its precisely because of what they tried to sell themselves at the correspondents dinner: they really have become fake news. Bannon is Hitler and Jeff Sessions is racist. And they just sit there, laugh, and applaud.

I remember well the narrative that claimed Reagan was an amiable dunce, a dolt, one who was no better than a napping actor. Today President Trump is facing something of a replay of that time. The things Trump is doing, his list, are similar to the things that Reagan did. They will bring real, tangible benefits to the country. And this is why the media is on the process of losing. Trump looks good, and is accomplishing real, substantial things while the leftist media messes up the room.
An Apology to Donald Trump

Almost a year ago, I published an article on American Thinker arguing that neither Hilary Clinton nor Donald Trump was acceptable as president and suggesting that the Electoral College could save us from them both. I was wrong in that judgment. It is true that Trump is often uncouth and his behavior is not presidential, but the first 100 days of his administration have been a revelation. I am now more optimistic about restoring the last best hope of earth than I have been since Ronald Reagan was president. An actor and now a business tycoon seem much more effective than any professional politician.

It will take decades to reverse the ratchet to the Left that weak Republicans have permitted for so long. As one of the most important examples, the systematic brainwashing of students from kindergarten to college is a problem whose roots run all the way back to the Wilson administration, a century ago. A nationwide school voucher program would help but is insufficient because many if not most parents are themselves victims of the pervasive ideological indoctrination and therefore do not realize how the schools are injuring their children. Even if we could eliminate the entirely unprofessional teachers unions and privatize all schools, it would still take many years to staff them with unbiased teachers. Breaking the politically-correct socialist stranglehold on college faculties will take even longer. We can, however, hope that Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos will at least start the reform process, and that is more than any previous Republican administration has done. It appears that Congressional Republicans have now become a principal obstacle to progress. Both houses need major reforms so that the Congress can fulfill its dual role as a partner to Trump and a check on possible excesses by his administration. It is outrageous that House Republicans are still debating how or even if to repeal and replace ObamaCare, since they have had six years to come up with a viable plan. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell must eliminate the virtual filibuster, which allows a simple announcement by a single senator, without an actual filibuster, to prevent passage of almost any bill unless there are 60 votes in favor. Absent these and many other necessary changes, the obvious task for the mid-term elections will be to replace those timid Republicans who want to go along to get along with the destructive Democrats, so that we can indeed get started on making America great again. Phil Chapman is a retired geophysicist and concerned Republican who lives in Scottsdale, AZ. He was once a NASA astronaut and is still involved in space-related research.
Protecting the climate by trashing Mother Earth

Another spring day, another massive temper tantrum, exploding brain meltdown, euphemistically called a "march" protesting "climate change," by the real liberal-left now that their alt/antifa unwanted one-world, phony-science, no-tolerance-for-diversity has been massively rejected in the U.S. and Europe -- not to mention the slaughterhouses of the Middle East and North Korea. On Saturday, there were so-called marches for the climate across the country. Well, you can't really be against climate, can you? It is there. If you don't like the climate where you presently live, move. Or buy some air conditioning and/or heating equipment. But no, that doesn't work for the climatistas. But yes, all the human hot air expended at these silly gathering certainly changed the immediate climate, unlike the several previous Ice Ages in which the climate-change cold cycle seemed to begin and then end several thousands of years later without any human interference.

But then, during those cold, colder, coldest times renowned environmentalist and climatologist Leonard DiCaprio, in between being paid untold millions for acting gigs, wasn't around to enlighten the planet. Now he is. Dashing in from one of his many luxurious energy-guzzling homes -- or maybe from one of his equally energy-guzzling yachts all well-stocked with nubile under-30 females -- he proclaimed, "Climate Change is Real". Well, who can argue with an authority like a Hollywood star? The gaggle-eyed spineless resisters didn't. Afterwards, exhausted and exhilarated from the attention their childish, feel-good behavior, the overgrown climate marching mental two-year-olds departed, leaving behind, as two-year-olds do, their detritus  garbage -- for others, the adults who don't believe in climate change but in cleanliness, to clean up. As happened on Earth Day/March for Science the week before. As on the Women's March a few months earlier. And the garbage from the March For Life before that. Oh, wait... those marchers cleaned up after themselves. What? Wait? Are the real planet lovers people who want kids and mostly don't believe in climate change? Of course, the average reader didn't read about environmentalists casual disregard for garbage on this delicate planet in any respectable Washington-based news outlet because they were busy preparing for the White House Correspondents Association dinner a few hours after the climate march. The self-important correspondents missed the march, so they couldn't report on it and its trashy aftermath. Instead, at the dinner, they heard trash talk from their master of ceremonies, a son of immigrants of some color, who criticized the president -- "the elephant not in the room" -- for doing his job of listening to the citizens of the country in person instead of through the warped "reporting" lens of those professionally assigned to the task. Elephants! Oh, the animal cultural appropriation! Later at the dinner, Bob Woodward reassured the noncorresponding correspondents by addressing the absent Donald Trump (R), "Mr. President, the media is not fake news." The fake news newsies applauded. Bathed in self-love and desirable victimhood, the correspondents left their gathering, leaving the mainly minimum-wage staff to clean up after them, thus protecting the planet's climate. And now today is May 1, so it is May Day, another phony holiday, another phony excuse for the left-wing fascists to publicly signal their virtue for their love of humanity and our planet by destroying it as in left-coast, coffee-addled Seattle. Which makes as much sense as phony science climate change. But the planet endures; the climate continues to climate while the planet lovers continue to destroy it.
May 1, 2017

Congress is blaming the State Department and the US Embassy in Lebanon after draft sanctions legislation was leaked to the Lebanese media, setting off a political and diplomatic firestorm.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., began devising a new bill targeting Hezbollah last year amid concerns that the Barack Obama administration was slow-walking implementation of a previous effort that was signed into law in December 2015. Royce shared an early draft with State Department experts for their input, sources on and off Capitol Hill told Al-Monitor, but got burned when a media outlet close to Hezbollah got wind of it.

The State Department has not officially acknowledged or denied being involved. Royce declined to comment.

As a result of the leak, numerous newspaper articles in Lebanon over the past month have picked apart  and possibly distorted  an unfinalized draft that only a handful of people in Washington have heard about and fewer still have seen. Even House Foreign Affairs ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., a natural ally on sanctions legislation, has yet to see the proposed draft, according to a Democratic aide. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is working on a similar effort in the Senate.

Lebanese officials say destabilizing sanctions would be ill-advised while tiny Lebanon is struggling to absorb more than a million refugees from Syria.

"We are surprised by all the leaks about new sanctions," Lebanese member of parliament Yassine Jaber, a former economy minister who met with administration officials during the congressional recess two weeks ago, told Al-Monitor in an email. "We don't see a need for further legislation, we feel that all these leaks about further legislation to come, only hurts Lebanon, its economy and banking sector, at a moment of very high weakness and vulnerability."

According to Lebanese media accounts, the 20-page draft bill has also caused a panic in Lebanon because of its potential political impact. While the 2015 bill unnerved a banking sector that is one of the pillars of the country's economy, the new draft has government leaders fretful that Congress is now coming after them.

The Royce draft, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said last week during a meeting with the Washington-based American Task Force for Lebanon, "would harm Lebanon and its people greatly." Critics are worried that the draft bill paves the way for sanctioning Lebanese allies and political parties that are close to Hezbollah, including Aoun, the Christian Free Patriotic Movement headed by his son-in-law and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, and the Shiite Amal Movement of parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

In response, the Lebanese government is planning to send a delegation to Washington later this month of government officials, lawmakers and other dignitaries, possibly including Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh. The government hopes to have representatives of the private banking sector tag along to play up any potential threat to the financial sector, a Lebanese source told Al-Monitor, but the main concern appears to be with the bill's political ramifications.

"This is more about the political groups of the speaker, etc., being nervous rather than the issues of the banks," the source said. "Politicians  and the government, actually  are trying to get the private banks involved in their effort. I can tell you the private banks do not like that: They do not want to come with politicians here."

The Association of Banks in Lebanon spent $200,000 in the first three months of this year to discreetly lobby Congress about the bill and other matters, according to lobbying records. The banks would prefer to wait until President Donald Trump fills in top spots at the Treasury Department before organizing their annual visit to Washington, the source said.

Hezbollah claims to get all its funding from Iran. US experts, however, have long suspected that much more comes from Lebanese expatriates, illegal activities and other sources, fueling Congress' desire to crack down on as many funding streams as possible.

The Lebanese source, who has seen a draft of the bill, said it does not designate Hezbollah's allies as terror groups. Rather, it would require the Trump administration to publicly report on their financial links to the Shiite militia, including estimates of the net worth of some top Lebanese officials.

"Obviously they don't want their net worth to be mentioned," the source said. "I totally see how Nabih Berri could be panicking even if his own party knows how much money he has."
The USS Michigan goes to Korea

Responding to the recent deployment of the Ohio Class nuclear submarine USS Michigan to the Korean peninsula, the Hermit Kingdom has now threatened to sink the powerful vessel. "The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming a underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface," the Kims Communist propaganda website Uriminzokkiri announced in a posting.

The submarine, which arrived in the southwestern city of Busan on April 25, is one of the most powerful naval assets the U.S. has in its arsenal, extending more than 560 feet long and weighing more than 18,000 tons. Powered by a nuclear reactor, the Michigan has an unlimited range of deployment and can stay at sea up to 60 days fully stocked with food for its crew of 15 officers and 140 sailors. Its destructive force comes from the subs 22 tubes that carry seven Tomahawks each. Each Tomahawk missile carries a thousand pound warhead, capable of extensive damage as witnessed recently in Trumps Tomahawk bombing of Syria. "The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic," the dictators propaganda website claimed. According to the South Korean Yonhap news agency, The Michigan was reported to have undocked from Busan on April 29 after the Norths most recent missile launch Saturday. This was Kims third test this month, and like his previous show of bravado, was considered a failure, exploding after traveling only 71 km. The Michigan is now at sea in an unknown region of the Korean peninsula. A massive show of U.S. air and sea power has been building in the region since the North began a series of ballistic missile tests on April 5, including the deployment of the Grey Eagle drone fleet which is designed to rain AGM-114 Hellfire missiles on its targets. In addition to the Michigan, the U.S. strike group just offshore North Korea now includes the USS Wayne E Meyer, a Los Angeles class attack submarine, USS Michael Murphy, USS Lake Champlain, and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier that supports approximately 90 fighter jets and helicopters.
Almost a year ago, I published an article on American Thinker arguing that neither Hilary Clinton nor Donald Trump was acceptable as president and suggesting that the Electoral College could save us from them both. I was wrong in that judgment.

It is true that Trump is often uncouth, and his behavior is not "presidential," but the first 100 days of his administration have been a revelation. I am now more optimistic about restoring the last best hope on Earth than I have been since Ronald Reagan was president. An actor and now a business tycoon seem much more effective than any professional politician.

It will take decades to reverse the ratchet to the left that weak Republicans have permitted for so long. As one of the most important examples, the systematic brainwashing of students from kindergarten to college is a problem whose roots run all the way back to the Wilson administration, a century ago. A nationwide school voucher program would help but is insufficient because many if not most parents are themselves victims of the pervasive ideological indoctrination and therefore do not realize how the schools are injuring their children. Even if we could eliminate the entirely unprofessional teacher unions and privatize all schools, it would still take many years to staff them with unbiased teachers. Breaking the politically correct socialist stranglehold on college faculties will take even longer. We can, however, hope that Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos will at least start the reform process, and that is more than any previous Republican administration has done.

It appears that congressional Republicans have now become a principal obstacle to progress. Both houses need major reforms so that the Congress can fulfill its dual role as a partner to Trump and a check on possible excesses by his administration. It is outrageous that House Republicans are still debating how or even whether to repeal and replace Obamacare, since they have had six years to come up with a viable plan. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell must eliminate the "virtual filibuster," which allows a simple announcement by a single senator, without an actual filibuster, to prevent passage of almost any bill unless there are 60 votes in favor. Absent these and many other necessary changes, the obvious task for the midterm elections will be to replace those timid Republicans who want to go along to get along with the destructive Democrats so that we can indeed get started on making America great again.

Phil Chapman is a retired geophysicist and concerned Republican who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was once a NASA astronaut and is still involved in space-related research.
Farming in South Africa is the most dangerous occupation in the world. Farmers there suffer more murders per capita than any other community on Earth outside a war zone. Since the dawn of democracy in the country, farming South Africa has been slaughtered by black South Africans in ways that would do Shaka Zulu[*] proud.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union's numbers (purported to be the most reliable) are bolstered by Genocide Watch. (I wrote about this here.) By this assessment, South African farmers were being exterminated at the annual rate of 313 per 100,000 inhabitants, 3,000 since the election of the sainted Nelson Mandela (1994), two a week, seven in March of 2010, "four times as high as is for the rest of the [South African] population," in the words of Genocide Watch's Dr. Gregory H. Stanton.

The number of farmers martyred on land their families had farmed since the 1600s has since been revised downward by the African National Congress (ANC) government, its police, and its lickspittle social scientists. This is good if true, bad if doctored for the purpose of diminishing the facts.

The Democratic Alliance used to dispute any crime statistics issued by the South African Police Service (SAPS). The tiny, tokenistic opposition to the "all-powerful black majority party" puts the ostensible drop in crime down to the fact that 51 percent of victims no longer bother to report crime, given that corruption is rife, arrests rare, and prosecutions and convictions still rarer. Findings suggest that the SAPS's optimistic homicide statistics are not to be believed. According to the Economist (citations in Into the Cannibal's Pot), the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation has confirmed the existence of a "pervasive pattern of [police] manipulation of statistic[s]."

Every year, millions in taxpayers' money is forked out to private security firms to protect...the new South Africa's police stations. "South Africa's protectors can't protect themselves," they can't protect the country, and they probably can't count. The orgy of crime in South Africa reflects the capabilities of this reconstructed police force.

Back when it tracked South Africa's murder rate, Interpol came up with roughly double the numbers released by the S.A. police. While slightly more optimistic, the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) tended to corroborate the trend uncovered by Interpol.

Another denier is the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). In 2004, the Economist had already counted 1,500 rural whites dead "in land-related violence." By 2010, the SAIRR was finally willing to concede that "not all murders in the country are a function of simple criminal banditry." Last I checked (2011), they still put the figure "conservatively" at only 1,000, even as most news outlets were reporting around 3,000 farmers murdered. The 3,000 figure was said to consist of "some 1,000 white farmers, along with 2,000 of their family members."

Perhaps the SAIRR had forgotten to factor in the families.

They're only filling their crime quota, contend some South African advocates for criminals (who get their ideas from America). The claim is that blacks are merely committing crimes in proportion to their numbers in the population. In 2004, at 76.6 percent of the population, blacks committed 76.4 percent of "intimate femicides" (defined as "the killing of a female person by an intimate partner"). And they committed 68.3 percent of "non-intimate femicides": "the killing of a woman by someone other than an intimate partner." (That snippet came courtesy of a not yet binned Medical Research Council report.)

Although they're dying like flies  the words of Steve Hofmeyr, famed Afrikaner activist and musician  tardy whites are proving woefully inadequate to the task of filling their pro-rata crime quotas: at less than nine percent of the population, the corresponding numbers for white South Africans are 3.9 and 2.6 percent, respectively. Whites underperform again with respect to incarceration rates. According to the South African Department of Correctional Services, 113,773 criminals had been sentenced as of June 2008, of whom only 2,190 were white. Whites make up only 1.9 percent of the number of sentenced criminals. Weighing in with 90,013 sentenced individuals  approximately 79.1 percent of the total number of criminals sentenced  blacks more than fill their per-population crime allotment.

The minority that dare not speak its name is on the wane. Of the approximately 48 million South Africans, whites number only 4.3 million, blacks more than 38 million. By the estimate of the SAIRR, the white population had shrunk from 5,215,000 in 1995 to 4,374,000 in 2005. Almost a fifth. "Since 1996," reports the New York Times, "the black population has risen to a projected 38.5 million from 31.8 million." (Submerged in this sentence is the fact that the same population has been increasing since Europeans settled South Africa.)

While the number of whites is shrinking as a percentage of the total population, their proportion among the scalded, shot, sliced and garroted is growing.

Constituting less than nine percent of the population, whites nevertheless made up 10 percent of the 33,513 "non-natural deaths," recorded in 2007 by the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System, a project of the MRC and my alma mater, the University of South Africa. At around 80 percent of the population, black "Africans constituted 76 percent of all cases." The SAIRR would have evinced a modicum of intellectual integrity had it argued that wealth was a confounding variable in crime: because Indian and white South Africans tend to be wealthier than blacks, the theory would run, they're likelier than blacks to be targeted.

While Indian South Africans, unlike whites, are not being murdered in ways that beggar belief, there are still "marked differences in feelings of safety between the race groups. Indians followed by white South Africans were least likely to feel safe." A study conducted by the market research company Markinor for the Institute for Security Studies reveals, "Only 32 percent of all blacks questioned knew someone who was a victim of crime," compared to 66 percent of Indian adults and 56 percent of white adults.

Conversely, 32 percent of black South Africans were likely to know someone who made a living from crime, while less than 17 percent of Indians and just seven percent of whites said the same. As of June 2008, the South African Department of Correctional Services reported that 90,013 blacks had been sentenced. Conviction rates stand at a dismal eight percent! The black criminal class is thus 1.13 million strong, at least one million of whom are still at large.

Let not the swirl of statistics conceal the flesh-and-blood casualties of this black-on-white offensive. South Africa's farmers, undeniably, are the focus of ethnocide. Contrary to the Syrians and Somalis streaming into the United States, they would make fabulous refugees, President Trump. South Africa's commercial farmers operate in the "most violent environment in the world outside of a war zone," and they're the best in the world.

Saint Mandela was mum about farm murders. If his party, the African National Congress and its oleaginous officials and enablers, won't protect the men and women who feed their country, let them all eat cake.

Ilana Mercer is the author of The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed (June 2016) and Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011). Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Gab. Subscribe to Ilana's YouTube channel.
The president and Congress agreed to a spending bill to get the government through to September. President Chuck Schumer said:

This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table[.] ... The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure.

Since Republicans lost the presidency and the Congress in the last election, it is no surprise that this spending bill hewed closely to the Democrat agenda. Republicans had tried to include funding for a border wall, but since they are in the minority in Congress, they didn't have the power to push it through.

Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted:

... that they were able to force Republicans to withdraw more than 160 unrelated policy measures, known as riders, including those that would have cut environmental funding and scaled back financial regulations for Wall Street.

The bill does include $12.5 billion more for the military and $1.5 billion for border security, but the border security cannot be used for a wall. Likely it will be used for technology, which will better allow the government to watch illegals crossing the border on TV. The legislation also stipulates that none of the money be spent for a "deportation force" and that there be no cut in funding to sanctuary cities, at least while President Schumer is in the White House.

Democrats fought to include $295 million to help Puerto Rico continue making payments to Medicaid, $100 million to combat opioid addiction, and increases in energy and science funding that Trump had proposed cutting[.] ... [T]he legislation will ensure that Planned Parenthood continues to receive federal funding through September.

Obviously, Trump, who lost the election, never had any hope of cutting any of these programs with President Schumer showing such resolve. I mean, Schumer can veto legislation if it doesn't fund what he wants. How can Republicans, in the minority in Congress, oppose him? The answer is, they can't. Their bargaining position is too weak.

What does this spending bill tell us about politics? If we want a government that doesn't fund Planned Parenthood, we need to elect a Republican House of Representatives. If we want a government that doesn't fund Obamacare, we need a Republican Senate. If we want a government to get serious about funding a border wall, we need a Republican president. In the minority, Republicans are powerless to push any of their agenda, just as Democrats are powerless when they are in the minority. That's why we need to push hard to help Republicans win the House, Senate, and presidency in the next election so we can finally get real change in Washington. Imagine what they could do if they won all three and had total control of government!

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
They're all upset about President Trump's announcement that he would host the Philippines' controversial president, Rodrigo Duterte, in the White House.

According to this report in the New York Times, the human rights groups are wringing their hands, the State Department and the National Security Council are tearing their hair out, and the congressional Democrats are ruefully stroking their chins and trying to make political hay.

In reality, Trump's move is an exceptionally bold and clever one, and strongly rooted in advancing U.S. interests. Big time. Here's what they don't get:

The Philippines has elected Duterte, a wild-man populist, out of frustration with the status quo. Whatever his merits  and cripes, he does pop off  he does represent the outcome of years of frustration from a population long silenced and held down by its soggily leftist Davos-style elites. Trump can see through that dynamic even as the left shrieks.

One of the outcomes of that frustration is the Philippines' drift toward China. This is a reaction to perceived U.S. influence in the country, which includes a Jimmy Carter-like sanctimoniousness on the human rights of crooks and the empowerment of left-wing lawyers as the entire population suffers.

The Philippines' China drift comes at a very bad time  as China is expanding its footprint in the South China Sea, impinging on the free flow of trade that has made most of the region so prosperous throughout most of the 20th century, as well as violating the rights of nations with legitimate claims to the South China Sea's waters  Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and others.

Preserving the free flow of trade has historically and by longstanding tradition been the top mission of the U.S. Navy and its Great White Fleet, according to Robert D. Kaplan in his books, The Revenge of Geography and Monsoon.

The U.S. no longer has any military bases on the Philippines. These were scrapped in the late 1980s and 1990s, leaving the entire region vulnerable as China moves in and sets up its illegal artificial islands for military base construction.

There is a move to set up a base  on the narrow, sparsely populated, strategically important island of Palawan. That base is important for keeping China in line. If the NSC doesn't know about it, and thinks human rights as defined by the Soros crowd are more important, it's an incompetent Obama dead-ender NSC. I think it does know about it. Kaplan described it in The Revenge of Geography. The Times report seems quite unaware of this.

But in light of this strategic necessity to check China, it would explain Trump's move perfectly.

Duterte is a flawed person. He makes frustrated Filipinos feel better for seemingly cutting through the sludge of the Philippines' Deep State, but he has an overactive ego and an easily wounded pride.

Trump taking him in and giving him a few strokes should work wonders for pulling the Philippines back into the U.S. camp and making the Duterte government friendlier at this critical time for the region and the future of American power. Don't think China hasn't noticed this, by the way, as it seeks to court the Philippines as well. Yet it also helps that Trump has established friendly ties with China, which disallows Duterte to play the two superpowers off each another, which is an old Philippines game. What the Duterte visit will do is help create a united front in the region so that China cannot exert muscle on its neighbors, nor can it check the Great White Fleet and its mission to keep sea lanes open.

That is completely in U.S. interests. The press should get a clue.
Totalitarians always seek to erase history.

The sad preamble to the horror of 9/11 was in the Taliban's brazen destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, a magnificent old relief sculpture that stood as testimony to Afghanistan's rich and many-layered history as a crossroads of civilization. To know of that history was anathema to the Taliban, which wanted absolute power over the lives of the Afghanis they terrorized. Allowing the Buddhas to stand could only allow Afghanis to take strength from their past.

The same dynamic was also seen in 1917, when the Bolshevik atheists destroyed most of Russia's abundant churches and synagogues, literally grinding their relics into the mud and leaving hollowed out dead shells to spiritually devastate the devout public. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote at length about this effort to deracinate Russia from its past to create a spiritual "exhaustion" or wasteland.

We see the same dynamic now with the left's movement to wholesale destruction of Confederate monuments in New Orleans. The Washington Post has an interesting, fairly reported article on an old Confederate group's effort to stop this postmodern move from the radical left. Like the Confederacy itself, it's probably a lost cause, but it's heartening to see some fight-back, because the Confederacy deserves to be known and understood objectively, meaning neither romanticized nor demonized. Wiping out the evidence of its existence deracinates New Orleans from its history and makes it just another generic U.S. city with nothing to speak for it other than crime and the other failures of Democratic one-party rule.

Using the rubric of racism alone (even though the origins of the Civil War itself are far more complicated), it's pretty obvious that what the left wants is to create a Uniworld of soulless urban habitats with no history to speak of other than what the left deems history  victimology, identity politics for favored special interest groups, as well as the glorification of totalitarians. Its intolerance is often noted on college campuses, in the media, and in Hollywood, but it's also there in its efforts to erase and distort history.

The left justifies its effort to dismantle New Orleans's unique history is motivated by the cold-hearted killer of last year, Dylann Roof, who waved a Confederate flag in a photo and then massacred Charleston, South Carolina black churchgoers in cold blood. Roof's rootless evil is not Confederate; it's more in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find, a masterpiece of American literature about a soulless, merciless killer in the Deep South who massacres a traveling family he's kidnapped after one member tries to connect with him.

Roof was in that tradition, not the Confederate one he claimed. Roof, in fact, misappropriated and distorted history, and the left is seeking to advance its agenda by accepting his narrative. The leaders depicted on those Confederate monuments would have been horrified by what was done in their name by a rootless, soulless human wasteland like Roof.

What they themselves stood for  not the Confederate idea, not the false romanticism of the postwar South, not the postwar Jim Crow activity that followed, but the leaders themselves  and what they do to contribute to the American experience of today is in how they acted in the wake of the vast Civil War, which ended in 1865. Anyone who looks into the history learns that Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant on unconditional terms, because he did not want his beloved South to descend into guerrilla warfare, a horrific prospect  the sort of thing we have seen in Colombia for most of the 20th century. He surrendered to spare the South that potential devastation, despite the very cruel punishments that followed from the North in the war's aftermath. The Confederate leaders also demonstrated their worthiness of memory by actually working with their Yankee counterparts in peacetime pursuits.

One of the most interesting, barely known chapters of American history is in the story of how leading Confederate war dog Gen. James Longstreet went into business with leading Yankee ferocity Gen. William T. Sherman in the aftermath of the Civil War. The place where they went into business was...New Orleans.

This is not to say all history should be preserved. The Nazi past is best erased completely to inoculate Germans against ever being tempted by national socialism's false promises again. Nazis need to be pariahs. It's their punishment. They can be studied in history books, not felt on the street. The move to raze Hitler's childhood home to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine is the best idea.

But the Confederacy was not an unalloyed evil. It was a product of its time. It had good and bad aspects, even some stupid ones (imagining it could win a war with the sort of rail system and economic structure it had, for one). All of those things should be understood. And the fact that some of the action is unique to New Orleans  is, in fact, its history  deserves to be preserved.

My own personal feelings about this add two additional thoughts: I am the descendent of abolitionist northerners from Michigan who welcomed runaway slaves into their communities, and the relics of that stance remain active in those places. Some of my relatives live in a town called Free Soil, Michigan, which should give a hint of the sentiment. The history there is preserved, as it rightly should be, in those many towns. It should also be preserved as it was seen in the South.

My other thought is this: if the left succeeds in destroying Confederate monuments, who do you think is going to be next? It's California's mission heritage. California's fascinating history began with the work of selfless Franciscan friars who sought to save the souls of Indians as their religious mission by setting up missions whose cities now bear their lives. But they also sought to save Indians' lives. Spanish troops were slaughtering native Americans across two continents on the grounds that they found them "useless." It happened in Argentina; it happened a lot of places. The Franciscans of California, by teaching the Indians skills, destroyed the Spanish justification for massacring the Indians. It's significant to me that real descendants of California's Indian tribes understand this and know this history in all its good and bad aspects objectively, while left-wing activists  who seek to erase this California history as well as its beautiful architectural legacy  completely ignore it.

The attack on New Orleans's historic monuments is an omen of worse to come. History itself tells us this, just as surely as it tells us the story of the Confederates. It is hoped that the fight-back will grow.
Responding to the recent deployment of the Ohio Class nuclear submarine USS Michigan to the Korean peninsula, the Hermit Kingdom has now threatened to sink the powerful vessel.

"The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming a underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface," the Kims' Communist propaganda website Uriminzokkiri announced in a posting.

The submarine, which arrived in the southwestern city of Busan on April 25, is one of the most powerful naval assets the U.S. has in its arsenal, extending more than 560 feet long and weighing more than 18,000 tons.

Powered by a nuclear reactor, the Michigan has an unlimited range of deployment and can stay at sea up to 60 days fully stocked with food for its crew of 15 officers and 140 sailors.

The sub's destructive force comes from its 22 tubes that carry seven Tomahawks each. Each Tomahawk missile carries a thousand-pound warhead capable of extensive damage, as witnessed recently in Trump's Tomahawk bombing of Syria.

"The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic," the dictator's propaganda website claimed.

According to the South Korean Yonhap news agency, the Michigan was reported to have undocked from Busan on April 29 after the North's most recent missile launch Saturday. This was Kim's third test this month, and like his previous show of bravado, it was considered a failure, exploding after traveling only 71 km. The Michigan is now at sea in an unknown region of the Korean peninsula.

A massive show of U.S. air and sea power has been building in the region since the North began a series of ballistic missile tests on April 5, including the deployment of the Grey Eagle drone fleet, which is designed to rain AGM-114 Hellfire missiles on its targets.

In addition to the Michigan, the U.S. strike group just offshore from North Korea now includes the USS Wayne E Meyer, a Los Angeles Class attack submarine; the USS Michael Murphy; the USS Lake Champlain; and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier that supports approximately 90 fighter jets and helicopters.
If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both


Speaking at the annual general assembly in Amman, Board chairman, Said Darwazeh,, said that the 2016 results did not conform with those sought by the Royal Jordanian management, its employees and shareholders.

He said that the main reason that led to incurring a net loss of $34.6 million refers to the provision for currency devaluation of the Sudanese Pound and the Egyptian Pound of $27.5 million, due to the decision taken by the Sudanese government to impose incentive fees on currency transfers outside Sudan and the decision of the Egyptian government to float the Egyptian Pound during 2016, in addition to provision of $5 million in compensation of voluntary staff release.

He added that another factor that contributed to the decrease in last year revenues and increased the loss was the drop in ticket fares by 11%.

The operating revenues declined to $843 million from $927 million in 2015, because of the growing competition RJ faced in 2016 both from full-service airlines and low-cost carriers.

He stressed that although RJ's operating revenues fell by 9%, Royal Jordanian decreased its operating costs by 6%, from $787 million in 2015 to $743 million in 2016, which helped it attain a $7 million net operating profit, compared to $41 million in 2015. The gross profit reached $99.5 million in 2016 compared to $139 million in 2015, a decline of 29%.

Darwazeh said that despite the decline in revenues, the net operating profit recorded by the company in 2016 remains an indication of RJ's ability to maintain its competitive position and its share in the local, regional and global markets.

He said the entry into service of seven 787 Dreamliners was an important factor to enable RJ offer even more competitive services. At the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, the sixth and seventh aircraft of this type entered on a capital lease basis that ends with ownership of these aircraft. The first five aircraft of the same model entered on an operational lease basis.

RJ transported 3 million passengers in 2016, the chairman said.


YEREVAN, MAY 1, ARMENPRESS. The New Indian Express has referred to the visit of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan India, mentioning that he arrives in India with guilt of genocide. The article reminds that days before Erdogans visit, on April 25, India's Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari visited Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex in Yerevan, honoring the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, while a day before Erdogan visit Indian Premier hosted the President of Cyprus.

This is a tragedy, indescribable things done to humans by humans, the periodical quoted the Vice President of India referring to the Armenian genocide.

The Armenian Genocide is often termed as the first genocide of the 20th century by Armenian historians, a contention countered by Turks by calling it inter-communal warfare and wartime relocation.

By acknowledging Armenian genocide, New Delhi is provoking Ankara that has often threatened retaliation against Armenian diaspora pushing for recognition of the killings as a Genocide in their respective parliaments. The second message is to visiting Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades for whom India rolled out the red carpet and it would be hard for President Erdogan to ignore. PM Narendra Modi reiterated Indias support for the sovereignty of Cyprus, the article says, stressing that this is a demonstration of Indias masculine foreign policy of India against Turkeys support to Pakistans position on Kashmir.
I still cant quite get used to the fact that theater companies around America are performing Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, without my being there to see it happen. On Thursday, for example, Satchmo opens in Portland, Oregon, for a month-long run at Triangle Productions, a company about which I know nothing save that it exists. Nor am I familiar with the work of Salim Sanchez, the actor wholl be playing the triple role of Louis Armstrong, Joe Glaser, and Miles Davis. Not only will I not be in Portland this weekIm busy covering shows in New York and on the East Coastbut nobody in Portland has gotten in touch with me about the production. Its as if I were a Famous Dead Playwright, the author of a dusty classic, instead of a non-famous, undead guy whos hard at work on Play No. 2.

Dramatists Play Service, Inc., the publisher of and licensing agent for Satchmo, assures me that its normal, or at least not uncommon, for regional theaters to produce plays by non-famous, undead playwrights without reaching out to their authors. Once the papers are signed and the show licensed, the company is on its own, and in most cases it simply doesnt occur to the director or actor to check in with the playwright: they do their thing, and thats that.

Im just fine with all this. Like a full-grown child, Satchmo now has a life of its own, and it doesnt require my presence to flourish. Thats a good thing, an outcome of which I once dreamed and which has, to my amazement and delight, come to pass. Nevertheless, it feels more than a little bit funny to know that my brainchild is being put on stage without me, in the same way that someone might check one of my books out of a library and read it. What will Triangle Productions staging look like? What kind of accent will Salim Sanchez use when he plays Glaser? Will the citizens of Portland laugh in the usual placesor at all? Ill never know.

It turns out that Salim is on Facebook, so I sent him a note last week wishing him the very best of luck (and no, I didnt use that jinx-making phrase!). He wrote back at once and as follows: I am so honored to be a part of this amazing piece! I will do my best to do it all the justice it deserves. Once I get in the zone, Im gonna kill it! That touched me greatly. Im sure he will, and I hope that everyone in Portland who comes to see Satchmo enjoys watching him do so. But its a purely theoretical hope, for only in the most tenuous sense can you sincerely wish good luck to people you dont know. This, too, is part of the mystery of being a modestly successful playwright. You write a show, other people in other places put it on stage, andthats that.

The mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel once told this story about Paul Hindemith:

Hindemith, after he wrote a piece, wasnt interested in it anymore. He never came to hear my Marianleben; although he knew I do it very well, he said hes not interested to hear ithes written it.

No doubt such detachment is a becoming thing in an artist, and perhaps Ill acquire it if I live long enough. I dont have it yet, though, and somehow I doubt that a time will ever come when Im not interested in seeing what other people do with Satchmo at the Waldorf. Its my baby, all grown up.
April 30  yesterday  was celebrated as the sixth annual International Jazz Day with a global webcast from Havana, hosted by Will Smith, headlined by pianist Herbie Hancock and including a couple of dozen top notch musicians from the U.S., Russia, Cameroon, France and Korea as well as Cuba. Did you know?

Advance publicity and followup coverage has been but a dot on the attention focused on IJD last year, when President Barack Obama hosted a splendiferous Jazz Day in the White House. Considering the leader of the regime replacing Obamas administration, its no surprise our government did not note the event  though after all, it represents one of the most successful exports, cultural or otherwise, ever coming from America.

As explained by Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO which produces IJD in organizational collaboration with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Jazz is great music because it carries strong values. Jazz is about freedom, about dignity and civil rights. . . Through jazz, we improvise with others, we live better together, in dialogue, in respect. So maybe its better to keep the music at arms length from the current political heavies. After all, the U.S. no longer has voting rights in UNESCO, since we are $300 million in arrears for our dues since 2011, though Obama and John Kerry, his Secretary of State, in 2015 urged Congress to restore funding the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture, now 70 years old.

Regardless of political issues, the music performed in the beautiful Gran Teatro de la Habana Alicia Alonso (billed as the oldest theater in Latin America) exemplified jazzs virtues and reinforced the importance of Afro-Cuban influences on jazz, which we commonly think of as born in that Caribbean capital, New Orleans. Opening with a renditions of Dizzy Gillespies Manteca (co-written by Cuban conguero Chano Pozo and big band arranger Gil Fuller), the concert had multiple highlights including Esperanza Spaldings bass obbligato to Youn Sun

Nahs smoldering vocal on

Besame Mucho (which also featured an affecting solo by violinist Regina Carter), electric bassist-vocalist-bandleader Richard Bonas lively number, Cuban vocalist Bobby Carcassess scat chorus, a tribute to Cubas native changui style (from the province of Guantanamo), electric bassist Marcus Millers role in diverse combos, and the extraordinary Cuban pianists Chucho Valdes and Gonzalo Rubalcaba duetting on and beyond Blue Monk. Congrats to music director John Beasley, who sat with me in 2013 for an NPR interview about whats involved putting this all together.

IJD events were this year held in 190-some countries on all seven continents. The star-studded global webcast has been, of course, the most prominent event right along, though its advance planning is evidently so complex that announcement of where its taking place seems to come later and later. This year the information that Havana was the site didnt come until April 10  short lead time for many news organizations. As I write this post, neither DownBeat nor JazzTimes has a report from yesterday. Nothing in the New York Times, Washington Post, the LA Times or the Guardian. Theres bit from the PRNewswire published by Market Watch, a note on the blog of KNKX (Seattle) and an overview on eNews Channel Africa which mentions the attendance at the concert of Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cubas vice president of Cubas State Council and a rumored potential successor to President Raul Castro, scheduled to leave office in February 2018

With Irina Bokovas second term as UNESCO director-general coming to an end and our federal support (even by lip service) of the initiative dim compared to Obamas warm welcome of it in 2016, one might worry that IJD will lose crucial support. Lets hope not, as it has indeed been a beacon of enlightened international creativity and collaboration. Herbie Hancock, in his closing remarks, vowed we will see an IJD again next April 30. Eager for details! Tell us where sufficiently in advance and well spread the word.

howardmandel.com

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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!)
The actor said this at the launch of Asha Parekhs autobiography The Hit Girl in New Delhi.

Mumbai: On April 30, Aamir Khan launched veteran actress Asha Parekh's autobiography The Hit Girl in the capital city of India.

The actor said the yesteryear diva's journey in films and beyond can be a source of inspiration for budding talents.

The 52-year-old star said it is motivating that Parekh did not lose hope even after early rejections in her career.

"I think Asha aunty has had a prolific career and all of us really want to know more and more about her. When I met her the last time told me that she was offered 'Goonj Uthi Shehnai' and she shot for it for two days, but after that the director felt she was not the right choice and was removed from the film, said Aamir.

He further added, "Any person would get crushed in such situation and actors are very fragile to get rejected like this. So, to come back from that and become one of the top actresses of her time is an amazing inspirational story for all newcomers. It teaches us early setbacks need not mean that you need to give up."

The Dangal actor said that one of his biggest regrets has always been the lack of books written on Indian actors, and famous personalities, whose lives can be a source of learning.

"Thank you Asha aunty for opening yourself up because so many film personalities are a little hesitant to do it... I think it's important to share what you have done (autobiography) because it gives so many lessons to the people, who want to be in this field."

Veteran actor- politician Shatrughan Sinha also attended the book launch.

Film critic-writer Khalid Mohamed has penned the autobiography.
Call it sheer luck or coincidence, Rumman is over the moon to reprise the role as Pragati.

While making her journey from Delhi to Mumbai to pursue a career in acting much like her idol Shah Rukh Khan  newbie Rumman Ahmed had absolutely no inkling that she would take up a role similar to the actor. As it turns out, the actress role in Sethji shares striking similarities with SRKs role as Aryan from the movie Mohabbatein.

Call it sheer luck or coincidence, Rumman is over the moon to reprise the role as Pragati. When we contacted Rumman, she shared, My character is like Shah Rukh sirs character Aryan in Mohabbatein. Like Aryan, even Pragati is trying to bring about changes in the traditionally-run Gurukul, Devsu. She also falls in love with the heads son just like Aryan falls in love with the principals daughter.

But she reveals that that the similarity between the film and the show ends there. Pragati explains, In the movie, the students are aware of the rules and regulation before they take admission in Gurukul where as Pragati has no idea how rigid the traditions are in Devsu before she enters the village. Pragati wants to bring about changes which will help everyone in the village.

The actress is pitted against two very senior performers Gurdeep Kohli and Prachi Thakker in the show. Making her presence felt between the powerful actresses could prove to be quite a daunting task for a first-timer but Rumman isnt anxious about it. She says, I am not nervous but I am excited to be acting with such reputed faces. Working with them improves my confidence since I get a chance to learn so much from them. This constant learning is helping me deliver a good performance.
The officials in Jammu said that the Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked shelling at the BSF post in Poonch sector at 8:30 am.

Srinagar: A Junior Commissioner Officer (JCO) of the Army and a Border Security Force (BSF) head-constable were killed and another BSF jawan was injured when Pakistani troops fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled-grenades to target an Indian forward post along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir Poonch district on Monday morning. The condition of the injured BSF jawan is stated to be stable.

The officials in Jammu said that the Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked shelling at the BSF post in Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector at 8:30 am. The two critically injured were removed to a nearest medical facility but were declared brought dead on arrival.

The officials in Jammu while confirming it said that BSF head-constable Prem Sagar and Army's Naik Subedar Paramjeet Singh who were critically injured in the Pakistani firing and shelling succumbed on way to the hospital.

They also said that second BSF jawan injured in the firing and shelling is out of danger.

The firing has stopped, reports received in Jammu said. But it is not clear as yet if the Indian troops retaliated to the Pakistani firing or not.

The Krishna Ghati sector often witnessed skirmishes between the facing troops.
There were unconfirmed reports of some students pasting posters of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, as well.

Srinagar: Clashes erupted between security forces and students, on Monday, after they took out a protest march against the alleged highhandedness of security personnel at a college in Pulwama in south Kashmir, the police said.

A number of students of Boys Higher Secondary School and Pulwama Degree College took out a joint march against the security forces action on April 15, a police official said.

When the march reached near Pulwama police station, some of the students threw stones at security personnel, who lobbed teargas shells to disperse them, the official said.

There are no reports of any casualty in the clashes, which were going on till reports last came in.

There were unconfirmed reports of some students hoisting Islamic State flags and pasting posters of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in an encounter with security forces in July last year, on the building of the degree college.

Meanwhile, shops and other business establishments were shut in the area in view of the clashes.
CBI FIR names 13 who were shown accepting cash.

New Delhi: Fresh trouble seems to be brewing for senior Trinamul Congress leaders as the CBI is preparing to conduct lie-detection tests on certain ruling party leaders of West Bengal as part of its investigation into the Narada sting footage case. The leaders have been booked by the CBI for corruption in the case where they were allegedly caught on camera taking bribe.

Sources said, The agency will soon start questioning of the Trinamul Congress leaders. If they dont cooperate with the investigation agency, the CBI will certainly explore the possibility of conducting lie-detection (polygraph) test on them. The CBI recently filed an FIR against 13 persons, including senior leaders of Trinamul Congress in the Narada sting footage case. Sources further clarified the agency will first need to seek accused consent as legal provisions entail that such a test can not be conducted without his/her permission. If the accused does not give his/her consent for the lie detection test, then CBI sleuths go by the evidence that is collected by them during investigation, sources said.

Those Trinamul Congress leaders who have been named by the CBI in its FIR are: Madan Mitra, Mukul Roy, Saugata Roy, Sultan Ahmed, Iqbal Ahmed, Kakoli Ghosh, Prasun Banerjee and Suvendu Adhikari.

The list of FIR includes all persons (leaders) who were purportedly seen receiving money in the Narada sting operation footage. Trinamul Congress MP Aparupa Poddars name has also been included in the list of FIR, the source said. The case was registered on the completion of preliminary enquiry (PE) by the CBI.

The PE was registered on directions of a division bench of the Calcutta high court, comprising acting Chief Justice Nishita Mhatre and Justice T. Chakraborti.

The Calcutta high court ordered the PE on March 17 and asked the CBI to submit the report within 72 hours.

The Trinamul Congress appealed to the Supreme Court on 21 March, challenging the high courts order.

However, the apex court refused to interfere with the high court order but extended the deadline for the preliminary probe to one month.

The controversy erupted in election-bound West Bengal in March last year when Narada News portal uploaded a series of video footage purportedly showing a number of high-profile Trinamul leaders, including former and present ministers, MPs and state legislators, receiving money in exchange for favours to a fictitious company.
Erdogan arrived in New Delhi on Sunday night and will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine Erdogan upon their arrival at AFS Palam in New Delhi on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: In a statement sure to raise concerns in India, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for a multilateral dialogue on Kashmir, with Turkeys involvement, said reports.

Erdogan made these comments in an interview before landing in New Delhi on Sunday night.

Expressing concern at the standoff between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, Erdogan said, We should not allow more casualties to occur and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multilateral dialogue, I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, which will benefit both countries.

On a question whether the Organisation of Islamic Cooperations references to self-determination for all peoples should be applied universally, whether in Kashmir or in settling the Kurdish and Tibetan problems, Erdogan said, OIC has its area of influence. It has economic and political strengths, it has a say in global matters and it can contribute to world peace. If something has been approved by all member-states, it should not be criticised or questioned. OIC members also have weight in the United Nations. Turkey supports India to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Erdogan arrived in New Delhi on Sunday night and will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday on key bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

Apart from his wife Emine Erdogan, the Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

Ahead of his visit, India had played down proximity between Turkey and Pakistan as well as Ankara's statements on Jammu and Kashmir, saying the government is aware that Turkey has a very close relationship with Pakistan and it is their bilateral matter.

"We have always emphasised that India-Turkey relations stand on their own footing and, we believe, the Turkish side reciprocates our sentiment," Ruchi Ghanashyam, Secretary (West) in the External Affairs Ministry, said, adding that India's position on the state of J&K is very well known that it is an integral part of the country.

However, she did not respond when asked if India will raise the issue.

With Turkey being a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the issue of India's membership bid for the elite group is likely to figure during the talks between the two leaders.

"We remain engaged with Turkey," she had said when asked if the Indian side will raise the country's NSG bid during talks.

Turkey is not directly opposed to India's NSG membership but has been maintaining that the powerful bloc should come out with a system to consider the entry of the countries which are not signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as also supporting Pakistan's case, diplomatic sources said.

The two sides are also expected to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism during the presidential visit here.

After a failed coup in July last year to topple Erdogan, Turkey had blamed Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO) for it and said the outfit has "infiltrated" India.

Turkey had also asked India to take action against the organisation.

Asked about the action taken by India so far, she said Turkey had raised it with the government, which has noted their concern.

Calling the FETO a "secretive transnational criminal network" with presence around the world, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, during a visit here last year, had said, "Unfortunately, the FETO has also infiltrated India through associations and schools."

Issues relating to regional security, situation in the Middle East, particularly Syria, are likely to figure during talks between Modi and Erdogan.
Forces fine tuning strategy to launch major offensive against Naxals.

People and children at a candle light vigil in memory of the CRPF personnel, who were killed in the Sukma Naxal attack in Chattisgarh, in Patna. (Photo: PTI)

Bhopal/New Delhi: The Centre may ask the National Investigation Agency to take over the probe into the recent killings of 25 CRPF personnel in Sukma in Chhattisgarh.

Sources in the Union home ministry said it was a fit case to be handed over to the NIA as many security personnel were killed in a single incident. We are contemplating handing over the probe into the Sukma incident to the NIA, said an official.

Senior security advisor in the Union home ministry K. Vijay Kumar has visited Chhattisgarh conflict zone of Bastar second time in three days to review counterinsurgency strategy following a confidential report submitted by the NIA in the wake of April 24 Naxal ambush.

Sources told this newspaper on Sunday that senior officers of Chhattisgarh police and different Central paramilitary forces deployed in Bastar along with Mr Kumar have earlier camped in district headquarters town of Sukma to give final shape to a fresh counterinsurgency strategy before May 2, when national security advisor Ajit Doval was scheduled to interact with them from Delhi on video conferencing.

Mr Kumar visited Bastar for the second time in three days on Saturday following submission of a confidential report by NIA chief Sharad Kumar, apparently to fine tune the strategy to launch a major offensive against Naxals in southern part of Sukma district in the very near future, sources said.

They said options of airdropping reinforcement personnel during the counterinsurgency operations were also weighed in by strategists.

Security forces deployed in other areas of Bastar were being mobilised to join the planned offensive against Maoists in Sukma, considered a safe haven for senior Maoist leaders.

Source said a new standard operation procedure has been announced for security forces deployed in counterinsurgency operations, restricting them from having lunch in the field.

The CRPFs road-opening party was ambushed at Burkapal in Sukma district on April 24 when they were taking lunch.

However, the security forces were allowed to take snacks in the field. They would take lunch only after they returned to their camps.
New Delhi is hoping that the sentence will be at least commuted to life imprisonment.

File photo of former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of 'espionage'. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: A final decision on whether former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav will face the gallows is expected to be taken by Pakistan in about six to seven months, sources have said.

The civilian-military tussle in that country over the Dawn news leaks issue may well have complicated matters since Mr Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and sabotage.

New Delhi is hoping that the sentence will be at least commuted to life imprisonment. Sources also said a decision by Pakistan on the visa application of Mr Jadhavs parents is expected soon.

Pakistan PMs advisor on foreign affairs Sartaj Aziz had said earlier, As per law, Kulbushan Jadhav has following available options. He has the right to appeal within 40 days to an Appellate Court. He may lodge a mercy petition to the COAS within 60 days of the decision by the appellate court. He may lodge a mercy petition to the President of Pakistan within 90 days after the decision of COAS on the mercy petition.

According to foreign policy watchers, Pakistans Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa is expected to reject any mercy petition filed, since he had confirmed the death penalty verdict by the military court in the first place.

With the Pakistan Army adopting a hardline stand on the matter and being in the forefront of the move to deny Mr Jadhav consular access, there seems little possibility of the Pakistan Army chief granting mercy.

Therefore, experts say the Pakistan President will have to take the final call on whether Mr Jadhav will be hanged or not. The alternative is to commute the sentence to life imprisonment.

But going by the fact that the Pakistan Army is calling the shots, it seems most likely that any decision by the Pakistan President will also be taken after the Army there is on board.

But what seems to have complicated a tenuous situation is the controversy over Pakistan Armys reaction and dissatisfaction over what it sees as grossly inadequate action of PM Nawaz Sharif in sacking his aide over the leak last year in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn about the civilian-military rift.
SC said that if justice Karnan decides not to file his response, the SC would presume that he has nothing to say.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a medical examination of Calcutta High Court judge Justice CS Karnan by a team of doctors on May 5 and asked them to submit their report by May 8. It also fixed the next date of hearing in the case as May 18.

The apex court added that if justice Karnan decides not to file his response, the SC would presume that he has nothing to say. No one can say such things and get away, the bench said on Monday after Karnan did not heed its summons to appear before it.

SC directed West Bengal DGP to set up a team of police officials to assist the medical board in examining Justice Karnan. The apex court also asked Justice Karnan to file his response, if he desires so.

It also directed all courts, tribunals, commissions across country not to consider any order passed by Justice Karnan after February 8 when it had restrained him from taking up judicial work.

Karnan on Friday deferred the hearing of his case against seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, said a report.

However, Karnan, against whom the CJI has issued a contempt notice, also directed the Air Control Authority in New Delhi not to permit the seven judges to fly abroad till the case is disposed off, since their offence involves caste discrimination against him.

Earlier this month, Karnan had directed the 7 judges to appear before him on Friday for caste discrimination against him.

But in his fresh order on Friday, Karnan said, Today the above mentioned accused 1 to 8 are called absent hence their matter is re-posted to 01. 05. 2017 (Monday) to enable their reappearance. In the meantime, this court directs the Air Control Authority (referring to the Airports Authority of India) New Delhi, not to permit the said accused 1 to 8 from going abroad until the disposal of this crucial issue, since the nature of the offence, that is caste discrimination, is not only a heinous crime but also a very cruel atrocious act of heinous crime, and is punishable as per the Constitution.

Karnan thus also included an eighth judge in his order, the identity of whom is not known.

Bizarrely, Karnan then claimed that the reason for his order directing airport officials to prevent the judges from flying abroad was, if the accused are permitted to travel abroad, there is the probability of the virus of caste discrimination spreading in the said country by such perpetrators.

In February, the Supreme Court had issued a contempt notice to Karnan for degrading the judicial institution after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi called for contempt proceedings against him for scurrilous letters against sitting and retired judges of the High Courts and Supreme Court.

Justice Karnan had written to the Prime Minister and accused several retired and sitting judges of corruption. Following the apex court order, Karnan 'summoned' 7 Supreme Court judges including the CJI to his 'residential court', and accused them of caste discrimination.
Rajnath Singh reviews security along border, asks military to retaliate with full force.

New Delhi: The government swung into immediate action after receiving information of bodies of two Indian soldiers being mutilated by the Pakistan Army with home minister Rajnath Singh chairing a high-level meeting with top security and intelligence officials to discuss the incidents and security along the Indo-Pak border. Among those present were R&AW chief Anil Dasmana, director Intelligence Bureau Rajiv Jain, home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officials.

The meeting discussed a detailed report forwarded by BSF on the incident. A BSF head constable Prem Sagar and Armys Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh were killed and their bodies mutilated while another BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured in the attack though he is reported to be out of danger.

The BSF headquarters informed the home ministry that they had received intelligence inputs about Pakistan Army personnel laying land mines close to the LoC in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch region. A 10-member team, comprising BSF and Army personnel, were sent to inspect the site on Monday morning.

The team came under heavy firing from Pakistani security forces.

Sources said home minister directed BSF to remain on high alert along the border and retaliate hard to any ceasefire violation by Pakistani security forces. The home minister will soon discuss the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and NSA Ajit Doval particularly on the retaliatory action by Indian security forces.

The home minister has also directed the ministrys top brass to ensure complete security for BSF personnel deployed along the border, especially along the forward posts that are situated ahead of the fencing.

Perhaps our security forces were caught unawares by the sudden attack by BAT as they apparently were distracted by heavy firing from the Pakistani post, a security official said.

Intelligence reports available with the home ministry also claimed that the BAT, which entered 200 meters inside Indian territory, comprised members of Pak Armys special services group (SSG) and militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

The BSF too informed the Central government that Indian security personnel did not violate the LoC and were inside their own territory and it was Pak BAT which crossed over and attacked the patrolling team.

BSF, which is the border guarding force for the Indo-Pak border, has also informed Home Ministry that in the past few weeks there has a substantial increase in ceasefire violations by Pakistan. The security force claimed as many as seven such violations have taken place in Poonch and Rajouri sectors recently. BSF chief KK Sharma also briefed the Home Secretary on the incident.
The killings are also bound to again make the situation on the LoC extremely volatile.

It is fairly clear now that any remote possibility of Indo-Pak talks has receded even further, making dialogue between the two countries impossible in the current situation.

New Delhi: The mutilation of Indian soldiers bodies in J&K by Pakistani troops is set to further worsen ties between the two countries in the backdrop of increasing tension between the Pakistan Army and the civilian government there led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It is fairly clear now that any remote possibility of Indo-Pak talks has receded even further, making dialogue between the two countries impossible in the current situation. The Pakistan Army seems to have decided to fish in troubled waters and take advantage of the discontent among a large section of the population in the Kashmir Valley.

The killings seem to be a clear message from Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa that it is the Pakistan Army and not the civilian government there that will decide the policy towards India. The killings are also bound to again make the situation on the LoC extremely volatile. With the Summer season already having begun, the border tension will also provide Pakistan the perfect excuse to carry out unprovoked firing with the aim of pushing in as many infiltrators as it can.

The situation in Pakistan became fairly obvious last week following the latest controversy over the Pakistan Armys angry reaction and dissatisfaction over what it sees as grossly inadequate the action of PM Nawaz Sharif in sacking his aide over the leak last year in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. This is expected to make Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif even more helpless before the powerful Army establishment.

The tension could also have a fallout on the case involving Indian former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav who has already been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court.
Pak Army suffers considerable losses in revenge attack, says Sources.

Srinagar/New Delhi: Pakistani troops sneaked about 250 meters into the Indian side of the LoC in J&K on Monday and mutilated the bodies of two Indian jawans after they were killed, sparking widespread outrage and prompting an Army offensive to avenge the barbarism. Defence sources said that the Pakistan Army has suffered considerable losses in Indias retaliatory fire.

Indias Army said the bodies of naib subedar Paramjit Singh and BSF head constable Prem Sagar were mutilated. However, defence sources said they were beheaded. BSF constable Rajinder Singh was also injured in the attack carried out by Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) comprising soldiers of the Pakistani special forces under cover of heavy mortar fire in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch.

Defence minister Arun Jaitley condemned the reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such acts dont take place even during war. It is an extreme form of barbarism. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces, which will react appropriately. The sacrifice of these soldiers will not go in vain, he said.

In response to the despicable act, the Indian Army vowed an appropriate response even as Army chief Bipin Rawat rushed to Srinagar. At about 8:40 am, even as the Pakistan Army attacked two Indian forward defence locations with rockets and mortars, the BAT led an ambush on an eight-member joint patrol party of the Army and the BSF. According to Indian Army sources, it was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army as part of its latest violation of the November 2003 ceasefire agreement.

Coming under attack, the patrol party broke up to take positions for a counter-attack Two members, who were left behind, were attacked by BAT soldiers killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated, officials said.

It was followed by an attack on another forward post in the same area leading to strong retaliation by Indian troops. On Sunday, Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa had visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to Kashmiris.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Armys public relations arm denied any BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector. Pakistans foreign office spokesman M. Nafees Zakaria also tweeted, Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation as alleged by India.

In Delhi, the government and various political parties condemned the mutilating of the Indian soldiers with BJP MP R.K. Singh who is a former Union home secretary asking for a tit-for-tat response. He said. Pakistan understands only one language and, therefore, we need to kill more Pakistani soldiers and give them the same treatment.

In November 2016 also, the Pakistani Army was accused of mutilating the body of one of the three soldiers after they were killed in Macheal sector along the LoC in Kupwara district.
Turkey is a close friend of Pakistan and is also an important member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

New Delhi: India on Monday told visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the main issue in Kashmir is that of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and that it is ready to discuss the political aspect of the issue bilaterally with Islamabad as per the Shimla Accord and Lahore Declaration.

The ministry of external affairs (MEA) said Turkey listened with care and attention to the Indian side during talks between the two countries.

President Erdogan had, just before his visit, suggested multilateral dialogue on Kashmir. The Turkish President said his country would be with India in fighting the menace of terrorism, quipping that terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said both he and President Erdogan agreed that no intent or goal no reason or rationale can validate terrorism.

Turkey is a close friend of Pakistan and is also an important member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

After talks with the visiting Turkish President, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he and Mr Erdogan discussed the menace of cross-border terrorism, and agreed that no intent or goal no reason or rationale can validate terrorism. The nations of the world, therefore, need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists. They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence.

In his address before the media at Delhis Hyderabad House, the Turkish President condemned the recent attack by Maoists on CRPF jawans in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, but did not, in the same breath, condemn any of the big terrorist attacks that have taken place in J&K in the past one year.

He, however, did breathe fire against FETO (Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation), which he described as an evil terrorist one, expressing confidence that India will take measures to expel FETO from her territory. Turkey accuses US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen of being behind the organisation.

There was also no mention in President Erdogans address of Turkish support for Indias membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Turkey is believed to be in favour of the entry for both, India and Pakistan, at the same time into the NSG.

However, in the joint statement released late on Monday evening, PM Modi thanked President Erdogan for Turkeys support for Indias application to join the NSG.

The Turkish President also back Indias move for permanent entry into the UN Security Council, and was quoted as saying, India, with a population of 1.3 billion is not a part of the UNSC. Over 1.7 billion people live in the Islamic world but they too are not a part of the UNSC. A nation like Japan is not a part of the group. This is not a healthy sign. We need a fair and just world order by bringing in significant reforms in the UNSC.

Trying to dispel any notion of divergence between India and Turkey on the issue of terrorism, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, There was a detailed discussion on terrorism. Our viewpoint was put across to the Turkish leader on terrorism, on Kashmir. The issue of Kashmir essentially is an issue of terrorism. We said we have been victims of cross-border terrorism for the past 40 years.

Our case essentially was that Kashmir is an issue of terrorism that has dogged us for the past 40 years, he said. However, he added that India is ready to address all issues with Pakistan, including Kashmir bilaterally and in a peaceful manner and that this had also been conveyed to the Turkish President.

The joint statement said, Both leaders strongly condemned the use of double standards in addressing the menace of terrorism and agreed to strengthen cooperation in combating terrorism both at the bilateral level and within the multilateral system.

The two countries also signed three pacts in the fields of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), training in diplomacy, and culture.
The situation is deteriorated particularly after the Reserve Bank of India stopped paying the state after it defaulted on overdraft.

According to some estimates the expenditure of each jail is Rs 40 lakh to Rs 80 lakh per month. (Photo: Representational Image)

The precarious financial situation in Punjab is manifesting in different ways, weather it was delay in giving salaries and pensions to employees, or panic at the time of crop procurement payment.

The latest addition in the list are prisons in the state, which are feeling the heat due to lack of funds. The overall financial situation of the state is precarious as chief minister Amarinder Singh recently told the government think tank Niti Aayog that the state is under debt of Rs 1.82 trillion (Rs 1.82 lakh crore).

The bad financial health of jails could be gauged from the fact that a majority of the prisons are finding it hard to buy necessities such as ration and pay power bills.

The situation is deteriorated particularly after the Reserve Bank of India stopped paying the state after it defaulted on overdraft.

With no budgetary provision for jails, the prisons department is managing its affairs by raising debt and buying items on credit.

Sources in the state prisons department say that providing meals to inmates is turning out to be a tough task for officials, who are forced to buy items from the market on credit. Some jails are feeding prisoners with vegetables grown on their premises.

Sources said the department has run out of vegetables, cooking oil, sugar, milk powder, lentils, salt and cooking gas. Some of the suppliers who provide food to the jails have not been paid for the last six months and are now refusing to supply anymore.

The jail authorities have come up with innovative ideas to deal with the situation as the prisons are procuring many items from government-run undertakings so that they dont have to pay. They are taking milk from Verka, ghee from Markfed and sugar from government-run mills.

According to some estimates the expenditure of each jail is Rs 40 lakh to Rs 80 lakh per month.

Apart from food items, many district jails have run out of medicines too. Jail hospitals are either not giving medicines or asking inmates to arrange medicines from their relatives.

Sources said that doctors are finding it hard to manage from the available resources. In some jails, the authorities have arranged for essential medicines on their own.

Apart from medicines, jail officials confirmed that contractors had not been paid for vehicles outsourced to the department to be used by senior officials. The bills are pending for more than two months.

However, additional DGP (prisons) Gaurav Yadav said the government had assured to solve the matter. The department has written to the government for necessary sanctions, he said, adding there were some technical issues and nothing much should be read into it.
The officials alleged that the gunmen opened indiscriminate fire, resulting into death of four police guards and two bank employees.

Srinagar: Five Jammu and Kashmir policemen and two bank employees were killed when gunmen attacked a cash van in southern Kulgam district on Monday afternoon. The authorities have blamed the gory incident on separatist militants.

The officials in Srinagar said that the cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank was intercepted by the gunmen outside Kulgam's Pombai village.

The van was heading towards Anantnag town after unloading cash at the bank's Nehama branch, when gunmen opened indiscriminate fire, resulting into the death of five policemen including a sub-inspector and two bank security guards. Another policeman was injured in the firing but succumbed to his injuries later.

They had sustained multiple bullet wounds and had died due to blood loss, said a hospital official.

The assailants, who had suddenly appeared from a roadside apple orchard, took the service weapons of the policeman including four INSAS rifle and one AK 47 Rifle with them after committing the crime, police officials said. The security reinforcements have launched a massive manhunt for them.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir range) SP Pani said that it was a group of about half a dozen militants, being led by Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Omar, which attacked the police.

The gunmen stopped the cash van and asked those on board to get down. They found the van empty and apparently in fit of anger shot the policemen and the bank guards in cold blood, an official said.

The slain men have been identified as ASI Bashir Ahmed, Selection Grade Constable Farooq Ahmed and Constables Muhammad Qasim, Muhammad Yusuf and Ashfaq Ahmed and J&K Bank security guards Javed Ahmed and Muzaffar Ahmed.

Though the suspected militants have looted cash from different branches of mainly Jammu and Kashmir Bank in the Valley on several occasions in the past, it is for the first time that the bank employees or the policemen escorting them in a cash van have been targeted.
Modi also pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt terror networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border terrorism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before a meeting at Hyderabad house in New Delhi. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: Terming constantly evolving threat of terrorism as "a shared worry", India and Turkey said today that no reason or rationale can validate terrorism and pitched for strong action against those who provide shelter and support to such forces.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held comprehensive discussions and took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.

Addressing a joint press event with Erdogan, Modi said, "We live in times where our societies face new threats and challenges every day. The context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern."

"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," he said.

Modi also strongly pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror outfits.

"President (Erdogan) and I agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace," the Prime Minister added.

On his part, Erdogan said, "His country will always be with India in its battle against terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."

Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he had told a TV channel in an interview.

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

This is Erdogan's first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

The Turkish leader arrived in New Delhi on Sunday, on a two-day visit.
Sources confirm Rahul Gandhi wants to break the shackles of the old guard and encourage grass-root workers.

New Delhi: After the Election Commission granted the Congress party a year to conduct its organisational elections, the party has set up an election committee, under Lok Sabha MP from Kerala, Mullapally Ramachandran.

Sources said this is the beginning of the anointment of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi as the president. The elections to the post would be held between September 15 and October 15.

Insiders say that Mr Gandhi  to show his belief in internal party democracy  wants to contest the election rather than being anointed by the Congress committee. After becoming general secretary of the partys frontal organisation, he had started internal elections to the National Students Union of India and Indian Youth Congress. However, many in the Congress criticised the move, saying the money power was used in these elections.

Sources confirm Mr Gandhi wants to break the shackles of the old guard and encourage grass-root workers. Even in the 2014 General Elections, he had talked about having primaries like the United States in India also. Total 15 Lok Sabha candidates of the Congress were selected through primaries, though all lost the elections.

After the debacle in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand elections, doubts have been raised over the leadership of Mr Gandhi. Several party leaders even demanded fixing of the responsibility at the top. The only silver lining was Punjab but Captain Amarinder Singh had defied Rahul Gandhi and won the elections on the basis of his charisma, said a senior party leader.

Punjab CM Amarinder Singh said earlier he is also not in favour of conducting elections for the top party post. Congress will be happy if Sonia Gandhi decides to continue for an another term. But she has to take a call on it, he said.

Many say if Mr Gandhi contests the elections, it will wash away the inheritance tag often attributed to him. In November 2016, senior leaders had asked him to take over as the chief. For now, there are all indications that he will contest the election.
Congress V-P kickstarts poll campaign, accuses BJP of ignoring tribals, woos Patidars.

New Delhi: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi kickstarted the partys campaign in Gujarat by addressing a rally in Narmada district. After landing in Gujarat, Rahul headed to the Panduri Mata temple for darshan. After paying respects, he headed to the rally grounds. Accompanying him was political secretary to the Congress president Ahmed Patel, general secretary and in-charge of Gujarat Ashok Gehlot, senior Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela and Gujarat Congress chief Bharatsinh Solanki.

Mr Rahul Gandhi hit out at the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for overlooking the tribals. He said These lands, water, forests belong to you people, the tribals of Gujarat, not them, who are ruling and dominating the state. The RSS and the BJP do not respect tribals. They want to enslave tribals as domestic maids in urban areas. Tribals in the state constitute almost 15% of the population while they are a decisive force in almost 41 out of the 142 seats of the Gujarat Assembly.

In the upcoming Assembly election of Gujarat, slated to be held in December this year, the Congress wants to aggressively woo the influential Patidar community. Patidars constitute almost 24 per cent of the population and are influential in the state. In 2015, there was a huge agitation against the BJP government by the Patidars, leading them was the 23 year old Hardik Patel. Rahul even reached out to the Patidars in his speech. He said Patidar youth told me that entire education sector is controlled by 10-15 people close to Narendra Modi. In Vibrant Gujarat, nobody excepts those people and they have not got any real benefits.

The Congress vice-president also chided the Prime Minister on his Mann Ki Baat programme. He added The Congress does not believe in just telling our own Mann ki Baat, as we believe in listening to people. When our government will be formed here, we will listen to the people first and then work accordingly.

The Congress has been out of power in Gujarat for more than two decades now and is looking for a comeback. But much to the chagrin of the state unit, the high command is yet to announce a chief minister face.
Yogi also said that for him, politics was a responsibility and a duty and not a position meant for enjoyment.

Lucknow: UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday asked party workers not to welcome him and his ministers with flowers during their visits to various districts. Instead, you should welcome us with a cleanliness campaign. A day before a minister visits a district; you should carry out a cleanliness campaign and then take the minister there. I will also come and then you can tell me about the problems specific to that area, he said while inaugurating the two-day state executive meeting of the UP BJP here. The chief minister said that this would not only give an impetus to the Swachchh Bharat campaign but would also ensure the involvement of the common people.

We have the model of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and we simply have to follow it, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.

The chief minister said that the era of nepotism and appeasement had ended and the politics of development was being supported. Our government is working for the people and on the ideology of our party. I can assure you that we will never disturb anyone who follows the rules, he said.

He also said that for him, politics was a responsibility and a duty and not a position meant for enjoyment.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath further referred to his decision of banning illegal slaughter houses and said that it was beyond his comprehension why the previous government had not implemented the NGT order.



Some people told me that the ban would adversely affect the health of people. I am a vegetarian but am not less healthy than others. In fact, I am more energetic when it comes to working, he pointed out.



The chief minister stated that the system in the education and health sector in the state had been completely derailed. Within 100 days, we will set it back on the rails. Doctors will have to attend to patients and teachers will have to teach the students, he announced.



Earlier in the day, the chief minister had said that photographs of teachers should be put up on walls of government schools in order to check proxy teaching.



The chief minister said that his government was determined to implement the Lok Sankalp Patra and work had already begun. We have waived loans of farmers, set up Anti-Romeo Squads and started clearing cane dues.



Yogi Adityanath said that he and his ministers were working till after midnight every day to fulfill the aspirations of the people and assured a visible change within 100 days. And no one is complaining or even blinking at our late night meetings, he said.

The chief minister said that his ministers would soon start touring the state to integrate the state and central welfare schemes.
Friends, family and fraternity members laud the move of honouring the stalwart of Indian theatre.

In his memoir And Then One Day, Naseeruddin Shah writes In Alkazi I had at last found an inspiring teacher  one who liked and appreciated me and didnt make me feel like a fool, one who was interested in helping improve my mind, and pushed hard to make me realise the potential he perceived in me... in praise of theatre stalwart Ebrahim Alkazi.

On Wednesday, Shah and his daughter Heeba will be performing at the Meghdoot Theater Complex, where the open theatre performance space will be named as Alkazi Rangpeet. A short film on Ebrahim Alkazi will be followed by a performance of Ismat Apa Ke Naam staged by Mumbais Motley Theatre Group. Then Shah will present Gharwali and Heeba will stage Chuhui Muee. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan will also grace the occasion with her presence. An exhibition on Alkazi curated by Amal Allana and designed by Nissen Allana will also be on display.

About the decision of naming the space after him and not renaming the complex, Chairperson of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Shekhar Sen, says, The name of Meghdoot Theatre remains the same. It was established and named by him and we cant even think of changing it. We are establishing a chair to honour him.

Ebrahim Alkazi

Veteran actor M.K. Raina is thrilled with the move. In those days, the National School of Drama used to get very little money. Ebrahim Alkazi made that theatre space. We as students carried the bricks and mortar during its construction. Premchands Hori was probably the first play staged there directed by one of the final year students. Meghdoot was our training ground, he says and adds, I am so happy that something is named after him, otherwise nothing has been named after the likes of Alkazi and B.V. Karanth, who are like the makers of modern Indian theatre. It was high time the government took a step like that.

In 2015, when actor Om Puri visited his alma mater, NSD after 32 years as a guest of honour to inaugurate the Bharat Rang Mahotsav, he got nostalgic. Remembering how Alkazi, the former director and chairman of the NSD, changed his life, he had reminisced, I could not speak a single line in English because I had studied in a Punjabi medium school. I got so frustrated that I wanted to leave NSD in six months. Alkazi, being an ideal teacher, noticed that something was wrong with the boy who was good in practical exercises but weak in literature. He told me that English is not a hauwa and taught me easy ways to learn the language.

Alkazi is now a nonagenarian and lives in the capital. He is remembered for being a great guru and a theatre artiste par excellence, despite the fact that he has not been active in the field for a few decades now.

Sharing the joy of the Alkazi family, Feisal Alkazi says, As a family, we are very happy. Many of dads plays were staged there. Tughlaq, for example, was staged there before it was presented at Purana Qila. Also, NSD was situated at the Rabindra Bhawan before it moved to its new building, and so all the plays used to be staged at Meghdoot.
Delhi CM warned party leaders against trying to create a divide between him and his younger brother Vishwas.

New Delhi: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday warned partymen to desist from spreading alleged misinformation about his rift with Kumar Vishwas, a member of the Aam Aadmi Partys political affairs committee (PAC).

The AAP national convenors stern message came after Mr Vishwas pointed to reasons other than the leaderships claim of tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs) for the partys recent electoral defeats. Earlier in the day, AAPs Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan alleged that the prominent AAP leader was trying to usurp AAP and that he harbours ambitions of leading the party.

Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are trying to create a rift between us. Such people are enemies of the party. They better mend their ways. No one can separate us, Mr Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.

On Friday, contrary to the party line that EVM rigging was behind AAPs loss in the Punjab Assembly and Delhi municipal elections, Mr Vishwas had pointed to reasons other than alleged tampering of EVMs and said that there is a communication gap between the top brass and the volunteers. He even said that AAP was getting Cong-ressised to an extent.

Mr Khan, who is also a member of PAC, the partys apex decision making body, claimed that Mr Vishwas has been calling MLAs to his residence and coaxing them to rebel against the Delhi chief minister or to join BJP.

Kumar Vishwas is trying to usurp AAP and break the party. He is calling MLAs to his residence and saying that he should be made the party convenor. Or else, they (MLAs) can join BJP, which is ready to pay Rs 30 crore to each MLA. This is what Yogendra Yadav (Swaraj India president and expelled AAP leader) also wants.

I think this is happening at the behest of the BJP. It has deployed four MLAs to take AAP legislators to Kumar Vishwas house. This has been confirmed by at least 10 party MLAs, Mr Khan said in a message circulated to the media.
Hussain emphasised about the need to ensure that citizens obtain accurate and unadulterated quantities of fuel purchased by them.

New Delhi: Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Imran Hussain on Monday reviewed the measures being taken for the prevention of unlawful activities by unscrupulous petrol pump owners in a meeting with the Secretary, Legal Metrology and Controller, Weights and Measures and Legal Metrology Department along with other senior officers.

The Department of Weights and Measures has been mandated to ensure that customers get due value of the cost paid on the commodities including fuels of various kinds.

The Weights and Measures Department officers apprised the minister that in order to prevent illegal and unauthorised activities of similar kind, the department conducts surprise inspections of the petrol pumps from time to time with a view to ensure that customers get accurate quantity of fuel.

Hussain emphasised about the need to ensure that citizens obtain accurate and unadulterated quantities of fuel purchased by them.

The minister directed the department to constitute and dispatch teams in various parts of Delhi for ensuring that petrol pumps in capital were not indulging in unlawful installation of electronic chips in fuel dispensing units or any other similar means.

The minister also directed the department for taking a stern legal action against the defaulting units including lodging of FIR, sealing of petrol pumps, initiation of prosecution action etc., as the case may be.

Hussain also sought the cooperation and support of public for checking the menace of supplying lesser quantities of fuel by erring petrol pumps and accordingly appealed to the citizens of Delhi to report about any such illegal activities which may come in their notice.

Recently, news reports emerged from Uttar Pradesh that some petrol pump owners, managers, and workers were allegedly caught cheating people by dispensing lower quantity of fuel by installing remote controlled electronic chips.
A seven months pregnant woman died after a fire broke out as the compressor of the air-conditioner exploded.

New Delhi: Five persons were charred to death while four people, including a three-year-old girl, were injured in three separate fire incidents in the city on Sunday early morning.

The first incident was reported in Outer Delhis Sultanpuri area where a wedding function turned mournful after a 30-year-old pregnant lady, Anjali, and her 13-year-old niece, Aditi, died after a fire broke out in their house in the early hours of Sunday.

An eight-year-old girl, Taviska, who is Anjalis da-ughter, is severely injured and is currently being treated at AIIMS Trauma Centre, DCP (Outer) M.N. Tewari said.

A case has been registered under relevant sections. Anjali was seven months pregnant.

A senior police official with the fire department said that prima facie it seems that the fire broke out after the compressor of the air-conditioner located at the ground floor exploded. The curtains and the wooden doors caught fire. By the time anyone could wake up, the fire turned huge. The women were sleeping on the top floor of the building and could not escape. A forensic team has visited the spot to find out the reason of fire.

Locals alleged that they immediately informed the fire department and the police about the incident but fire tenders were late.

In the second incident, a 50-year-old man died when a major fire engulfed a godown in Malviya Nagar. Around 30 shanties in the vicinity were gutted. The deceased was identified as Ashok Gupta. A fire official said that 25 fire tenders were rushed to the spot and one charred body was found on the spot.

A senior official said that the Delhi government announced Rs 2 lakh compensation for the family of Ashok Gupta.

Besides, the government has also offered to provide Rs 25,000 for each affected household.

Meanwhile, deputy CM Manish Sisodia has directed all district magistrates to conduct a survey in their respective areas to identify such spots, including scrap godowns, which are vulnerable.

The third incident was reported in South East Delhis Sriniwaspuri area at around 8.20 pm on Saturday where a gas cylinder exploded while two men were preparing food in their jhuggi.

The deceased were identified as Vasudev (50) and his son Arjun (18), who worked as a labourer.
Agricultural body NAFED approached court for recovery of loan due from a company.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has directed the deputy sheriff of Mumbai to store and preserve 25 paintings by celebrated painter M.F. Husain worth Rs 25 crore at the Fine Art Warehouse in Wadala after it was informed that the paintings could suffer damage and loss of valuation while being kept in the locker of a suburban private bank. The petitioner, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), had approached the court for recovery of its loan amount of Rs 104 crore from a company out of which it had recovered a sum of Rs 73 crore through immovable property. NAFED was to recover the remaining amount from the sale of the paintings and hence sought that the paintings be moved out of the locker to ensure that they did not get damaged.

The order was passed by Justice G.S. Patel last week after hearing the contentions of NAFED in an arbitral award petition against Swarup Group of Industries after the latter failed to pay up Rs 104 crore that NAFED had loaned them in 2012. After the deputy sheriff told the court that the paintings were stored in a cupboard of IndusInd Bank Limited at Lokhandwala branch, the court observed that this is an unsatisfactory state of affairs as the paintings were not stored properly they may get damaged due to improper storage or result in degradation of value.

While directing the transfer of these paintings to Fine Art Warehouse in Wadala, the court rejected the proposition to move them to Jehangir Art Gallery, the National Gallery in Delhi or National Gallery Modern Art in Mumbai, as they were not equipped to offer proper warehousing services. The court said, The works need to be maintained in an environment that is controlled for humidity and temperature, among other concerns. The deputy sheriff will, therefore, for the purpose of preservation of the property immediately contact the Fine Art Warehouse.
The state government is trying to placate the increasing unrest among farmers over tur procurement in Maharashtra.

Mumbai: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has assured that his government will take strict action against those traders who were involved in black-marketing of tur, taking advantage of the current situation of farmers. Our government is already investigating it through different channels. We are aware about such traders and hoarders. Once the investigation get completed, we will not spare them, said Mr Fadnavis on Sunday. He was reacting to media reports about a tur scam that is taking place in the state amid the unexpectedly high yield of tur in the state.

The state government is trying to placate the increasing unrest among farmers over tur procurement in Maharashtra. Farmers have produced almost 20 lakh metric tonne tur this year but the state could procure only 4.8 lakh metric tonne of it. As a result, tur rates are down in various local markets and many farmers have likely have sold it to traders at a rate below the minimum support price (MSP). To redress the situation, the state declared Rs 5,050 per quintal as MSP this year but farmers in need are selling tur at prices of Rs 4,300 per quintal and below in several parts of the state.

The government strongly suspects that many traders bought tur from farmers at below the MSP price and sold it in procurement centres at Rs 5,050 per quintal. The government also suspects a few officers and traders are hand-in-glove in this scam. Mr Fadnavis said the government has primary information about tthe scam and further investigation is on The government is also probing all those that have sold huge quantities of tur at procurement centres. If they fail to convince authorities about their production in proportion to their farm area, the government will use it as proof to take action against them.
In 2004 the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government announced that it would build a memorial to Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government is mulling over inviting fresh bids for the construction of the Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial in the Arabian Sea, as the lowest tender it has received  Rs 3,826 crore, from Larsen & Toubro (L&T)  exceeds the estimated cost of phase 1 of the project by a whopping Rs 1,326 crore.

Sources in the public works department (PWD) have said that the government would have to think twice before awarding the tender, as the total cost of the project would increase exponentially. The PWD short-listed L&T for the project, as the firms was the lowest tender it had received. However, Reliance Infrastructure and Afcon Infrastructure were also in bidding race.

PWD sources said that if the government finalises the tender, cost escalation would be inevitable. The department short-listed L&T after scrutinising the tender papers. The Cabinet will give the final approval on the matter. However the lowest tender, quoted at Rs 1,326 crore more than the governments estimated cost, is likely to impact the overall project cost and hence the government might consider re-tendering, an official from the PWD said. The cost of the project in the second phase is Rs 1,100 crore. The total cost of the project is Rs 3,600 crore.

While the statue will be 309 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty, the memorial will host an exhibition on the Maratha emperor, an amphitheatre and a library.

In 2004 the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government announced that it would build a memorial to Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian. However, the project has been in limbo, owing to environmental permissions.
Ahmed, who was arrested in April, hails from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh and was staying in Mumbra since sometime.

Mumbai: Maharashtras Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) sources have revealed that Nazim Ahmed, who was arrested recently for suspected links to banned terror outfit Islamic State, had drawn up a list of areas in the city and the state and was planning minor attacks.

Sources said that these attacks were planned in gas cylinder shops or fireworks godowns, which would be masked as freak accidents and not terror attacks. Officials also revealed that there were also plans to target and kill some policemen in certain districts to create a sense of panic.

Ahmed, who was arrested in April, hails from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh and was staying in Mumbra since sometime. He was arrested in a joint operation led by the Uttar Pradesh ATS and assisted by Maharashtra ATS. The UP ATS, which booked Ahmed and took his custody, has asked all the ATS in all states to probe the case as Ahmed was allegedly heading a country-wide terror module. Sources in the ATS revealed that Ahmed had drawn up a list of areas predominantly populated by a particular community.

They were planning attacks in areas targeting a particular community. These attacks are suspected to be in places like gas cylinder warehouses or godowns storing fireworks, said a source. The source revealed that these attacks were to be held in places where they would be masked as accidents involving the goods stored and not a terror attack. They wanted it to cause damage but not be an obvious attack, at least in the prima facie investigation, said the source.

The source revealed that some of the places on Ahmeds list included Nanded, Aurangabad and some areas in Mumbai too. We are constantly in touch with the UP ATS and getting updates regarding the investigation and also conducting our own probe, said the source.
The larger-than-life opulence has been released in four languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.

Mumbai: While the entire nation is raving about SS Rajamoulis magnum opus Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, superstar Rajinikanth also saluted the efforts put by the team to create such a masterpiece.

On Sunday, superstar Rajinikanth tweeted, 'Baahubali 2' Indian cinema's pride. My salutes to god's own child Rajamouli and his team."





The film, which released on April 28, became the first Indian film to cross the 100 crore mark, on day one, at the box office.

The larger-than-life opulence has been released in four languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.

Such craze, hysteria, and hype hasn't been seen for any other film, but Baahubali franchise.

Baahubali: The Beginning, which released in July 2015, minted over 600 crores at the box office.

The film features Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sathyaraj and Rama Krishnan in pivotal roles.
Critics have slammed Mr Trump for legitimising foreign autocrats by felicitating and doing business with them.

Is US President Donald Trump backsliding on democracy-promotion and propping up dictatorships? Friendship with authoritarian leaders has been a prominent feature of his foreign policy in his first 100 days in office. Much to the chagrin of liberal observers and commentators, he has heaped praise on his peers who are notorious for repressing their own populations and invited them to the White House.

Besides hosting Egypts military dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in the Oval Office last month, Mr Trump has lined up an array of controversial rulers like Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte to be his official guests in the coming weeks.

These three blood-soaked leaders have won lavish applause from Mr Trump, who loves to contradict and mock mainstream Western lore which deems them as rogues. The unwritten rule in the contrarian Mr Trumps playbook is that whoever is the whipping boy of the liberal Western establishment must be an asset for the new America, which he is shaping.

Over and above the rhetorical Twitter appreciations and hyperbole, the US President has also sought to strengthen Americas economic and strategic links with illiberal regimes by shedding any compunctions about their domestic governance records. Instead of hectoring and chiding governments that are abusive, he has embraced them with a candour that befits classic realpolitik behaviour at the cost of morals and value judgments. In some instances, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, even if there is no overlap of interests with America, Mr Trump has adopted an ideologically tinted rightist view of admiring and desiring to collaborate with strongmen.

To his detractors, Mr Trump loves tyrants because he is himself of that mould and dreams of vast power by bypassing or weakening checks and balances to pursue his core objectives without shackles. Having run into steep resistance from American courts, bureaucracy and legislature to his signature policies like the Muslim visa ban and the repeal of Obamacare, he may be envying Mr Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and their ilk for unchallenged statures in their respective countries.

The nationalistic, anti-globalist fervour that Mr Trump exudes through his America first doctrine creates feelings of kinship with a Duterte or an el-Sisi, who carry the I care a damn for international opinion badge loudly to mobilise their conservative constituencies at home. By placing human rights and democracy on the backburner, Mr Trump is aiming at building an alternative coalition of tyrannies which can shift global norms away from liberal ideals and thereby give him more leeway within the US to push through his populist agenda.

Critics have slammed Mr Trump for legitimising foreign autocrats by felicitating and doing business with them. But the obverse also works, wherein Mr Trumps own mission to downsize the liberal order in America depends on carving out a new international system based on rejection of free trade, open migration, non-discriminatory treatment of citizens and separation of powers.

When Mr Trump resumes military aid to Bahrain and Egypt that his predecessor had restricted, increases coordination with Turkey in spite of the latters dubious role in the war in Syria, and offers to strengthen the US alliance with the Philippines despite Mr Dutertes extra judicial killing spree, he is consciously or unwittingly forming a club of what he views as non-nonsense leaders who go about ruthlessly achieving their goals. It is now obvious that there is a choreographed good cop bad cop routine in place in the Trump administration. The President himself talks from his heart and revels in the company of dictatorial and violent counterparts, complimenting them for fantastic jobs and giving them important economic or military concessions. In order to sugarcoat this open courtship of problematic regimes, his top diplomats, like the secretary of state Rex Tillerson and his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, project the conventional line of America as a defender of human rights and democracy. Ms Haley has boasted that the US remains the moral conscience of the world and Mr Tillerson has vowed to hold to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world. Both these central purveyors of Mr Trumps foreign policy happily ignore cases where their boss is coddling dictators and focus on those authoritarians who are antagonistic to the US to prove Americas moral credentials. Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the Castros of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Bashar al-Assad of Syria directly challenge American interests or do not fit into Mr Trumps idiosyncratic worldviews and hence do not get the same sympathy from the Trump administration as a Duterte or an el-Sisi.

Proponents of Mr Trump argue that, unlike earlier US Presidents, at least he is not a hypocrite and is doing a service by dropping all pretensions of America being a moral policeman of the planet. But the rampant mixed messaging that emanates from him and his aides does contain severe inconsistencies and contradictions on democracy and human rights. On one hand, Mr Trump wants to deter Mr Assad for allegedly gassing babies and compel Mr Maduro to release political prisoners. But on the other hand, he does not mind cooperating with an el-Sisi butchering thousands of Egyptians or an Erdogan jailing hundreds of thousands in mass purges.

In a way, much has changed under Mr Trump, especially his unapologetic willingness to sup with the proverbial devils. But in a broader comparative sense, very little has changed. The same double standards that motivated both Democratic and Republican Presidents during the Cold War and after it are still around. Tyrants like the Khalifa dynasty of Bahrain are good dictators for Mr Trump because they serve American interests, while Mr Assad deserves to be overthrown because he is part of Irans sphere of influence that resists the US. Chinas most despotic leader since Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping, is to Mr Trump a very good person because Mr Xi might help the US to pressurise North Korea and also due to the great chemistry Mr Trump has developed with him on a personal level. But whenever it is expedient or jarring to Mr Trumps ideology, he selectively attacks certain authoritarian regimes. Analysts have been scratching their heads about Mr Trumps whimsical foreign policy flip-flops. Understandably so. But there is one constant, be it Mr Trump or any of his predecessors. America is not and has never been a true, universal champion of democracy and human rights. Those who treat it as a beacon for advancing a more moral world order and rue how Mr Trump has ruined all, live in an illusory and historically misguided bubble.

Mr Trump is a continuation of Americas long, deceptive record as an opportunistic power.
Trump assailed the failed launch as a show of disrespect towards its ally China.

Washington: Donald Trump thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping is putting pressure on North Korea, the US President said in an interview to air on Sunday, as tensions mount over Pyongyangs nuclear and missile programmes.

If North Korea carries out a nuclear test I would not be happy, Mr Trump told the CBS television networks Face the Nation programme.

And I can tell you also, I dont believe that the President of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either, Mr Trump said in excerpts of the interview released on Saturday. Asked if not happy signified military action, Mr Trump answered, I dont know. I mean, well see.

North Korea test-fired a missile over the weekend in apparent defiance of a concerted US push for tougher international sanctions to curb Pyongyangs nuclear weapons ambitions.

The latest launch, which South Korea said was a failure, came just hours after US secretary of state Rex Tillerson warned the UN Security Council of catastrophic consequences if the international community  most notably China  failed to pressure the North into abandoning its weapons programme. Mr Trump assailed the failed launch as a show of disrespect towards its ally China.
The president used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.

Washington: The White House press corps gathered on Saturday for its annual black-tie dinner, a toned-down affair this year after Donald Trump snubbed the event, becoming the first incumbent US president to bow out in 36 years.

Without Trump, who scheduled a rally instead to mark his 100th day in office, the usually celebrity-filled soiree hosted by the White House Correspondents Association took a more sober turn, even as it pulled in top journalists and Washington insiders.

Most of Trumps administration also skipped the event in solidarity with the president, who has repeatedly accused the press of mistreatment. The president used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.

I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away, he told a crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, calling out The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC by name.

In Washington, WHCA president Jeff Mason defended press freedom even as he acknowledged this years dinner had a different feel, saying attempts to undermine the media was dangerous for democracy.

We are not fake news, we are not failing news organizations and we are not the enemy of the American people, said Mason, a Reuters correspondent.

Instead of the typical roasts  presidents of both parties have delivered their own zingers for years  the event returned to its traditional roots of recognizing reporters work and handing out student scholarships as famed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of Watergate-fame presented awards.

Thats not Donald Trumps style, NBC News Andrea Mitchell told MSNBC, referring to the self-deprecating jokes presidents in the past have made despite tensions with the press.

Instead, the humour fell to headline comedian Hasan Minhaj.

Welcome to the series finale of the White House correspondents dinner, Minhaj, who plays a correspondent on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show program, told the crowd.

He also joked about Trump, despite organizers wishes, saying he did so to honour US constitutional protection of free speech: Only in America can a first-generation, Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president.

In a video message, actor Alec Baldwin, who has raised Trumps ire playing him on NBCs Saturday Night Live program also encouraged attendees.

Few other celebrities graced the red carpet, although some well-known Washingtonians, such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and republican representative Darrell Issa of California, appeared.

Trump attended in 2011, when then-President Barack Obama made jokes at the expense of the New York real estate developer and reality television show host.

In an interview with Reuters this week, Trump said he decided against attending as president because he felt he had been treated unfairly by the media, adding: I would come next year, absolutely.

In Pennsylvania, Trump told supporters the media dinner would be boring but was non-committal on whether he would go in 2018 or hold another rally.

Late night television show host Samantha Bee also hosted a competing event  Not the White House Correspondents Dinner  that she said would honour journalists, rather than skewer Trump.
The meeting comes a day after the Army rejected Mr Sharifs inquiry report on Dawn leaks as incomplete.

Islamabad: Amid tension with the Army, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday summoned close aides  finance minister Ishaq Dar and interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan  to Lahore, sources said.

The meeting comes a day after the Army rejected Mr Sharifs inquiry report on Dawn leaks as incomplete. Sources said recommendations on the Dawn leaks would be discussed in the Sunday meeting.

An article detailing high-level security talks published in Dawn in October had angered the Army and led to the firing of then-information minister Pervez Rashid.

After an inquiry into the leak, Mr Sharif on Saturday sacked special advisor on foreign affairs Tariq Fatemi and ordered action against principal information secretary Rao Tehsin.

But the Army rejected the directive. Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected., military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor, said on Twitter.
Renzi, 42, resigned as prime minister in December after a crushing defeat in a referendum over constitutional reforms.

Rome: Matteo Renzi, staging a political comeback less than five months after resigning as Italy's prime minister, easily regained the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) on Sunday with an overwhelming victory in a primary election among party supporters.

According to partial results, Renzi had about 72 percent of the vote, held in makeshift polling booths around the country. About 2 million party members voted in the primary. Justice Minister Andrea Orlando had 19 percent while Michele Emiliano, the governor of the southern Puglia region, had about 9 percent.

Both of his opponents, as well as Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, called to congratulate him, and Renzi gave a long victory speech at party headquarters.

"Forward together," Renzi said to applause.

Renzi, 42, resigned as prime minister in December after a crushing defeat in a referendum over constitutional reforms aimed at streamlining lawmaking. He was replaced by Gentiloni, his foreign minister, but he quickly began planning a comeback.

With a national vote due by May 2018, polls show the ruling PD has slipped behind the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which questions the country's euro membership. Renzi's ability to counter the 5-Star surge may be crucial to fending off an existential threat to the euro zone.

However, under Italy's proportional representation voting system, no party currently looks likely to win enough seats in parliament to govern alone.

Renzi, with his confrontational leadership style, has become a divisive figure, and there is no guarantee he would be named prime minister of a future coalition government even if the PD were to win the most votes during the election.

While Renzi remains the most popular politician among PD voters, the party and his own appeal look much weaker than during his heyday as prime minister, after he failed to convert his ambitious reform agenda into reality.

Renzi's current personal approval rating is about half of the 50 percent he posted three years ago, according to the Ixe polling institute.

Polls show 5-Star now has around 30 percent of the vote and a lead of between 3 and 8 percentage points over the PD after a dispute between Renzi's loyalists and left-wing traditionalists caused a party split in February.

"I voted for Renzi because he's got more drive and determination than the others, but I'm not convinced he'll get back into government," said computer engineer Luigi Mancini, a PD supporter in Rimini on the Adriatic coast.

"With the (proportional representation) voting system we've got, it seems unlikely that anyone will get a majority," he added.
While in Saudi Arabia, Angela Merkel had said she does not believe there can be a military solution to the war.

Merkel said Berlin is offering diplomatic support aimed at resolving the Yemen conflict and has been in contact with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about its proposal. (Photo: AP)

Dubai: Germany has offered diplomatic help to try to end the war in Yemen, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday as she ended a two-nation Gulf tour taking in the Arab world's largest economies with a stop in the United Arab Emirates.

Merkel arrived in the seven-state federation following a visit to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where she held talks with King Salman and other senior leaders that touched on regional conflicts as well as women's inequality and other human rights issues.

She said Berlin is offering diplomatic support aimed at resolving the Yemen conflict and has been in contact with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about its proposal, according to a transcript of her remarks provided by her office.

"Germany has offered to support this UN process with its own diplomatic possibilities," she was quoted as saying. "That has met with the approval of Saudi Arabia. We will now move ahead with the necessary coordination with the UN secretary-general."

A Saudi-led coalition backed by significant Emirati support has been bombing and battling Yemeni rebels for more than two years in support of the impoverished country's internationally recognised government.

Shiite powerhouse Iran supports the rebels, known as Houthis, and the Sunni-ruled Gulf states view the fight as a way to limit Iran's involvement in their backyard.

While in Saudi Arabia, Merkel had said she does not believe there can be a military solution to the war, which has killed more than 10,000 civilians and created a humanitarian crisis in what was already the Arab world's poorest country.

The UN recently said some 18.8 million people in the country need humanitarian help or protection. The German leader was greeted by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan upon her arrival on Monday in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi. The crown prince is the half-brother of the country's ailing president and his presumed successor.

Emirati officials did not allow foreign journalists based in the country to witness Merkel's visit. German officials have said Merkel would press Gulf rulers to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries. Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

Trade is high on Merkel's agenda too. Her delegation includes prominent German business leaders looking to strengthen ties with the country's two largest trading partners in the Middle East.

Her meetings in the Emirates, which include the Mideast commercial hub of Dubai, would include discussion of a free-trade agreement between the Gulf states in the European Union and "how we can move ahead and intensify our economic relations still further," she said.
More than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 have been purged for alleged connections to terror organisations.

The countrys Official Gazette published the decrees on Saturday evening. (Photo: AP)

Istanbul: Turkey passed two new decrees on Saturday  one that expelled more than 4,000 civil servants and another that banned television dating programs.

The countrys Official Gazette published the decrees on Saturday evening.

The first named thousands of civil servants to be dismissed, including nearly 500 academics and more than 1,000 Turkish military personnel. The decree also reinstated 236 people to their jobs.

The second decree, among other things, bans radio and television programs for finding friends and spouses.

The state of emergency that followed last summers coup attempt has allowed the Turkish government to rule by decrees.

Since then, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 have been purged for alleged connections to terror organisations.

Turkey has said US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen orchestrated the coup attempt. He, however, has denied the allegations.
The army chief accused India of state-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir.

Islamabad: Pakistans army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Sunday visited the Line of Control and said his country would continue to support the political struggle of the Kashmiris for the right of self-determination.

Bajwa, who toured the areas in the Haji Pir sector, was briefed about the alleged ceasefire violation by the Indian troops and the state of preparedness of the army to face any aggression.

The army chief said Pakistan would continue to support the struggle of the Kashmiris.

We will always stand by their (Kashmiris) rightful political struggle for the right of self-determination and recourse to basic human rights, Bajwa said in an interaction with troops.

He accused India of state-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir.

Bajwa alleged that India was not only involved in aggression against the people in Kashmir but also against the people living on the Pakistani side of the LoC and the Working Boundary.

India has repeatedly rejected Pakistans allegations of rights violations in Kashmir.
by Purushottam Nayak

The Labour Office of the Bishops' Conference released a message for May Day, a day dedicated by Pope Pius XII to Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955 "to Christianise labour". India has about 326 million migrant workers out of a population of 1.2 billion. Migrants are denied dignity and access to services.

New Delhi (AsiaNews)  Indian bishops issued a message today, Labour Day, saying that migration and human trafficking should not be forgotten. The two are interlinked since unorganised workers and uninformed people leave their home for work or are brought to work, said Rev Oswald Lewis, chairman of the Labour Office of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI).

"May Day, he noted, reminds us of the events and endeavours that have contributed to worker solidarity, the dignity of work and prosperity, unity and harmony among workers achieved through sweat and toil."

The bishop explained that in 1955 Pope Pius XII instituted the feast day of Saint Joseph Worker "to Christianise the concept of labour and give all workers a model and protector". For this reason, he hopes that today's celebration "can highlight the dignity of labour and bring a spiritual dimension to labour and labour unions."

Above all, we must not forget migrant labour, he added. "Migrants are inherently vulnerable from the very moment they leave their homes in search of new places to feed themselves and their families. These brothers and sisters of ours are trying to escape difficult situations and find some serenity, peace and a better place for themselves and their families. Instead, they [often] go missing, are trafficked and end up desolate."

Citing the example of Pope Francis, who has repeatedly slammed human traffickers, Mgr Lewis stressed that "we cannot remain silent about the scandal of poverty [which causes] migratory movements. Violence, exploitation, discrimination, marginalisation, and restrictive approaches to the fundamental freedoms of individuals and groups are some of the chief elements of poverty that we must overcome. "

Joseph Jude, president of the Workers India Federation (WIF) said that "the victims of migration and human trafficking live in our midst, surround us every day. How can we identify them?" he wonders.

"In the case of children or women employed as domestic workers, we must watch for signs of oppression, violence and discrimination that can be expressed in various ways, for example when children act withdrawn and anxiously, or show signs of physical ill-treatment, unusual behaviours and verbal aggressiveness.

It is no coincidence that the message of the Bishops' Conference Office focuses on the issue of migrant workers. In India, migration is widespread, both internal (90 per cent), from the poorest to the richest areas, and abroad, by those seeking fortune in the Middle East, Europe and North America.

India itself is the destination of people trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh, or a transit country for those who are on the way to the Middle East.

According to the 2011 census, India has about 326 million internal migrants out of a population of 1.2 billion (28.5 per cent), employed mostly in construction, domestic work, garment industry, brick kilns, transport, mines, quarries and farming. Many end up in the sex trade or organ racket.

Migrants are denied basic services such as access to subsidised food, housing, drinking water, sanitation, health care, education and banking services. Most cannot afford legal protection and live in extreme poverty.

Mgr Jose Porunnedom, a member of the CBCI Labour Office, acknowledges that "poverty is the primary cause of human trafficking in our country." In order to stop this, the Labour Office and the WIF have set up a web portal, where migrants at home and abroad can register to get help.

For his part, Mgr Lewis concluded saying that "Let this May Day bring good tidings of freedom, prosperity and peace to all the workers of our country.
by Fady Noun

The Muslim leader who dared embrace Pope Francis in public comes from a Sufi order and studied the philosophy of religions at the Sorbonne. His steps towards modernity include dialogue with Christians and full citizenship for everyone, but rigorists oppose him.

Cairo (AsiaNews)  Behind the Grand Imams sideways glance, which sometimes makes him look like a hunted beast, there is "a shy guy," said former Lebanese Culture Minister Tarek Mitri, who has known him since university years in Paris where one studied the philosophy of international relations and the other the philosophy of religions. This is a far cry from the image of a fierce "guardian of dogma" or the "great inquisitor" that one can get from his public career.

The son of a sheikh in a tariqah, a sufi order in Alssaeid (Upper Egypt), Ahmad el-Tayeb, 71, has a solid philosophical background acquired at the Sorbonne, attending courses taught by Paul Ricoeur. For Tarek Mitri, "His religious thought is thus informed by mysticism on the one hand and by philosophy [on the other]. He is not a Faqih, a jurist or a canonist."

In his address at al-Azhar University on 27 April, the Grand Imam spoke of "existentialism" and "postmodernity". Was he showing off? The former Lebanese minister does not think so. "When he speaks publicly, the Imam is in a logic of confrontation between religious faith and modern nihilism. But in reality, he is a man who is in dialogue with modernity. There is therefore the man and the function. In public, the function certainly takes the upper hand, but I believe he is inhabited by concern to make the religious message plausible, credible, in the eyes of modern people. He is aware that there is a modernity that causes anxiety in the Muslim world".

Publicly, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, appointed by President Hosni Mubarak in 2010, is certainly approved by many, but he has also been criticised. Fundamentalists hate him and people in power scheme to replace him. In 2011, during the revolutionary days that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak, the revolutionaries saw him as an ally of the regime. Without being revolutionary, he was very sensitive to what young people demanded. As a result, people in power have lost confidence in him, suspecting him of being too favourable to new ideas.

"In an unprecedented move," Mitri said, "the Imam decided to make al-Azhar a place of dialogue. He created Beit el A'ila el Masria (The House of the Egyptian Family), a place where all Christian religious leaders feel at home and where people try to solve, defuse confessional tensions, as well as offer practical solutions to practical problems, as is done in a family.

For almost two years, he has brought together several times more or less moderate Islamist intellectuals, as well as Muslim and Christian liberals, working on the notion of a constitutional state. He has also proclaimed, in consultation with a large number of intellectuals from all sides, a Charter of Freedoms that goes very far  artistic freedoms, intellectual freedoms and even freedom of conscience  but without using the word. Finally, he sought to introduce the notion of citizenship in the Islamic world, which led to the symposium last March."

The name of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar was warmly applauded at the outdoor Mass celebrated by the Pope on Saturday, 29 April. Cited in a final word of thanks by the Patriarch of the Coptic Catholics, his name was applauded by the crowd as much as that of President al-Sisi and Tawadros II.

"Sweet consolation in the midst of bitterness," said Tarik Mitri, recounting the mixed feelings at the end of the Holy Father's visit. Like the Pope, who hugged him in public, he faces a tenacious and sometimes even malicious internal opposition on the part of the rigorists of his camp.
Israel took away the prisoners salt, the only solid food they have been taking. In the West Bank, solidarity protests and strikes break out. Barghouti's son launches the Salt Water Challenge on the web. The tension and fear grow over the possibility of a new intifada.

Jerusalem (AsiaNews)  As the hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons enters its 15th day, the Israel Prison Service has intensified its pressure on prisoners to get them to stop, including seizing their radios and salt, which they took with water.

The hunger strike began on 17 April, the "Palestinian Prisoner Day", to seek better living conditions in Israeli jails, in particular an end to torture, more family visits, and better health care.

Demonstrations and actions in support of the prisoners took place across the West Bank, as well as on the web.

Kairos Palestine, a Christian organisation based in Bethlehem, issued a statement on 26 April, expressing "support for the just and humanitarian demands of prisoners  children, women and the sick  and their families."

On 27 April, schools, banks and businesses across the territory closed in a general strike. Public transport, government and universities did the same.

Various groups called for a "Day of the Anger" on 28 April in support of the prisoners, encouraging Palestinians to face off Israeli soldiers.

Several clashes pitted demonstrators against Israeli soldiers in many Palestinian cities, including Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and Bethlehem.

Scores of young Palestinians clashed with the Israeli army near the Qalandia checkpoint, which connects Jerusalem to Ramallah.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that about 2,000 Palestinians took part in what she called "violent riots" across the West Bank. According to Al Jazeera, 50 were injured in the clash.

The protest moved to social media with a campaign launched by Aarab Marwan Barghouti, son of the Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader who has been in an Israeli prison for 15 years.

Inspired by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Aarab Barghoutis Salt Water Challenge is meant to raise awareness about the prisoners. Instead of dumping ice water on themselves, participants drink salt water in solidarity with the prisoners and post videos of themselves doing it.

In one video, Aarab highlighted the fight for "freedom and dignity" on 3 May. Thus far, thousands of people have already taken part in the campaign, including two Palestinians who won the Arab Idol competition, Mohammed Assaf and Yacoub Shaheen.

Speaking to AsiaNews, activist Adel Misk said that taking away the salt was a "blow to the detainees". The situation is "very tense and difficult" throughout the West Bank and could get worse if one of them dies.

Likewise, some Palestinian leaders have denounced Israel's decision not to negotiate with the prisoners, warning that if one of them died, a "new intifada" might break out.
Young Vietnamese fishermen are used in illegal fishing. Human trafficking is a danger. The nun obtained the repatriation of 87 of them, with another 18 to follow shortly. The local governor expressed his gratitude towards her, whilst the local diocese is proud of her work.

Alotau-Sideia (AsiaNews)  Sister Ma Theresa Trinh Vu Phuong, of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA), works unreservedly for the release and repatriation of many Vietnamese fishermen.

More than 130 are currently held in prison in Alotau, Giligili, and Bomana, Papua New Guinea, allegedly for illegal fishing in Milne Bay province, on the eastern tip of the country.

Sister Trinh is a Salesian nun from Vietnam. She works at a girls' school in the Diocese of Alitau-Sideia, Sideia Island. At the same time, she takes care of prisoners needs and acts as an interpreter and mediator for them in court proceedings. Equally, she communicates with their families at home, pays fines, and gets the papers and airline tickets needed for their return to Vietnam.

"It is very disturbing that young Vietnamese fishermen might be victims of human trafficking, said Mgr Rolando Santos, bishop of Alotau-Sideia. They are used by whoever exploits them to fish illegally, without a proper license, or any guarantee of protection and security from their employers.

For the prelate, There is an urgent humanitarian need to put an end to this. It is a serious abuse of the rights and dignity of these young men. Once caught, they are almost totally forgotten and abandoned. The rights of these young men must be respected and they must be afforded a better and dignified job."

Up to now, Sister Trinh has obtained the repatriation of 87 Vietnamese fishermen. Another 18 will follow shortly. Thanks to the courage of this little nun and the support of the Salesian community, everyone will soon be able to go back to their families.

The governor of Milne Bay province expressed his deep gratitude to Sister Trinh for the help she has provided to Vietnamese detainees. The diocese is also proud of her. Her charity is truly heroic and worthy of emulation.
About 78 per cent work without proper papers, health care coverage, or work compensation. At least 56 children died last year in workplace accidents, but the number is probably higher. The increase in the number of exploited children is linked to the "significant growth" of child poverty. Underage Syrian refugees work illegally in the garment industry.

Istanbul (AsiaNews)  About two million children work in the country, 78 per cent of them without proper papers or health coverage. Officially, workplace accidents claimed the life of 56 of them in the past year, this according to Child labour in Turkey, a study released today by the DISK Genel-Is trade union confederation.

Today is Labour Day, an event marked around the world to remember workers struggle to reduce work to eight hours a day. However, millions of children are deprived of the right to study and are victims of abuse and exploitation in Turkey, a country where voters recently approved in a controversial referendum a plan by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to turn the state into a presidential republic,

The DISK report on child labour does not fully address the problem since it covers only children aged 15 to 17. Excluded are those under 15, those involved in vocational, apprenticeship, and seasonal work, in agriculture for example, as well as those employed in the hospitality industry, where minors work long hours.

In another report, the Institute of Statistics of Turkey also acknowledged the problem, saying that at least one young person in five between 15 and 17 worked last year.

According to the findings of the DISK report, the number of children who entered the job market in 2016 went up, mostly in conditions of illegality. The study found that since 2012 child labour has been increasing year by year. Overall, the number of apprentices has increased from 400,000 in 2015 to 1,7 millions by the end of December 2016.

The research indicates that the rise in child labour was linked to a significant increase in the rate of child poverty, which stands at 25.3 per cent, placing Turkey among the worst.

This has not escaped the attention of opposition parties, who have criticised the government, which has been all too ready to suppress any form of dissent.

Children who work or who are forced to work in sectors from agriculture to industry, from construction to textile, are victims of loopholes in the law or of bad implementation of the laws, said Atila Sertel, an MP for the Republican People's Party (CHP).

Prof Seyfettin Gursel, from Bahcesehir Universitys Centre for Economic and Social Research (BETAM), and his team carried out a survey focusing on children living under material deprivation. According to the findings of their survey, 7.2 million children in Turkey live in households suffering from severe material deprivation.

The war in neighbouring Syria has further complicated the situation. Late last year, international media highlighted the exploitation of Syrian refugee children, especially in Turkeys important garment industry, which is used to dealing with last-minute orders from Europe.

What is more, underage workers paid less than the minimum wage are part of the production chain of some major brands. Middlemen recruit children in the streets and pay them some advance money. Afterwards, the latter start working in factories during long shifts and under an unsafe working conditions.
Navy SEAL Reveals What Happened The Night He Killed Osama Bin Laden

Trending News: Here's What Really Happened The Night Osama Bin Laden Was Killed

Long Story Short

Robert O'Neill, the ex-Navy SEAL who shot Osama Bin Laden, described in his book the moments before he shot and killed the former world's most wanted man.

Long Story

It's hard to image what the world would be like if Osama Bin Laden hadn't been killed in 2011. Perhaps Barack Obama would have lost the 2012 election in favor of Mitt Romney. Perhaps Donald Trump would never have been elected president. Perhaps Al-Qaeda would be a worse pain in the ass than the so-called Islamic State.

Hypotheticals aside, the historic assassination of Bin Laden happened in Pakistan in 2011, and now we know how it all went down.

Robert O'Neill, the ex-Navy SEAL now adorned with some 52 medals just published his memoir, The Operator, wherein he describes the mission.

Just so you don't need to dish out the dough for a copy, here's how O'Neill describes the mission, as transcribed by The Mirror:

"We were in Pakistan and we knew we could get shot down at any minute. Thoughts start running through your mind: 'How does it feel when a helicopter blows up? How long does it take to die?'

The team then got out of 'the copter, blew open the gate, only to find another brick wall. But O'Neill knew it was a sign.

No, this is good,' I said. 'Thats a fake door. That means hes in there.'

They're in.

"The door opened. As we entered, it was all dawning on me: 'Holy sh*t, were here, thats Bin Ladens house. This is so cool. Were probably not going to live, but this is historic and Im going to savor this.'"

The SEAL members got into Bin Laden's hideout, passing by women and children allegedly part of the former Al-Qaeda leader's family. After killing Bin Laden's 23-year-old son Khalid, the soldiers moved forward, resisting the urge to wait for backup.

Here's how the final confrontation with Bin Laden went down, in O'Neill's words:

"We swiftly moved up the stairs to the curtain and he pushed it aside. Two women stood there screaming at us. The point man lunged at them, assuming they had suicide vests, tackling both. If they blew up, his body would absorb most of the blast and Id have a better chance of surviving and doing what we had come there to do. I turned to the right and looked into an adjoining room. Osama bin Laden stood near the entrance at the foot of the bed, taller and thinner than Id expected, his beard shorter and hair whiter. He had a woman in front of him, his hands on her shoulders. In less than a second, I aimed above the womans right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice. Bin Ladens head split open and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance. The woman, who turned out to be Amal, the youngest of Bin Ladens four wives, fell on top of me. I carried her over to the bed. For the first time, I noticed a little boy, Bin Ladens youngest son, a two-year-old, tottering in a corner of the room. Hed watched the whole thing, but it was so dark and he was so young he didnt know what was going on, except that it wasnt good. I picked him up and put him on the bed with the woman. Now other Seals began making their way into the room. I stood there and, kind of frozen, watched my guys do the work Id seen them do hundreds of times. One of the guys came up to me and asked, 'Are you OK?' Was I? I felt blank. 'Yeah,' I said. 'What do we do now?' He laughed and said, 'Now we go find the computers.' I said, 'Yeah, youre right. Im back. Holy sh*t.' 'Yeah, you just killed Osama bin Laden.'

Wow, nuts. That is, if it's true.

O'Neill's claim of having killed Bin Laden has been criticized by his fellow SEAL members. Jonathan Gilliam, a former Seal, said in 2014 that "Its ridiculous for ONeill to claim the credit for the fatal shot as we probably never will know and dont need to know.

Gilliam also said that by claiming he's the shooter puts a target on O'Neill's back, as well as those around him.

"He put a bulls-eye not just on his back but on those around him by identifying himself. I would not want to be anywhere around him, Im afraid. If I heard he was coming to give a speech at my workplace, Id call in sick.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Is O'Neill's account true?

Drop This Fact

Mark Bissonnette, another Navy SEAL part of the mission, also wrote a memoir about killing Bin Laden, but ended up having to dish out nearly $7 million of the book's revenue as punishment for leaking classified information.
Hemp foods approved for sale in Australia





Food containing low-THC hemp can now be sold in Australia.

The decision to allow for the sale of low THC hemp foods at the Australian and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation came late last week after several prior proposals had been knocked back.

The international market for hemp foods is currently estimated to be worth AUD $1 billion annually.

It is expected the demand for Australian hemp foods will now quadruple over the next few years.

Australian nutritionists welcome decision

Associate Professor in Nutritional Science at the University of Canberra, Dr Duane Mellor, welcomed the decision, saying hemp is a great source of protein and a vegetarian source of omega 3 fatty acid.

It can be used as a crushed seed, flour, oil or protein powder, which can be used in a variety of recipes and foods, from breads, through burger patties and even in desserts and confectionery, Dr Mellor said.

Interest from farmers and restaurants

Hemp manufacturer, Hemp Foods Australia, has also welcomed the decision saying both farmers and high-end restaurants have already expressed interest in farming and using low-THC hemp in recipes.

In addition to added job opportunities for Australias farming industry, this is a very positive step towards more sustainable farming in Australia, said hemp Foods Australia founder, Paul Benhaim.

Related articles
OzHarvest opens Australias first rescued food supermarket



Ms Ronni Kahn , CEO and Founder of OzHarvest

Australian food charity, OzHarvest, has opened the countrys first rescued food supermarket.

Based in the Sydney suburb of Kensington, OzHarvest is inviting anyone who is in need of food, but low in cash, to shop at the supermarket by taking what you need and giving if you can.

The supermarket will be stocked with surplus food donated to OzHarvest by the public.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of OzHarvest, Ms Ronni Kahn, said the supermarket is a way for the charity to provide food to those who might be missed their existing services.

If times are tough and youre in need of food or other goods, you can take what you need, if you can give something, then please do, it could even be your time or skills, said Kahn.

The supermarket is located at 147 Anzac Parade, Kensington, New South Wales, and will be open each weekday from 10am  2pm.

OzHarvest was founded by Ronni Kahn in 2004. In 2005, Ms Kahn worked with pro-bono lawyers to lobby state governments to amend legislation allowing surplus, perishable food to charity. In 2005, the Civil Liabilities Amendment Act was passed in NSW which now lets surplus food be donated without fear of liability. Similar legislation has since been passed in the ACT, South Australia and Queensland.

Today, OzHarvest collects perishable food from over 2, 000 commercial outlets Australia-wide and distributes it to more than 8, 0000 charities.

Related articles
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Aims at daily long-distance commuting in heavily congested urban areas; tags it as a cheaper and safer transportation option than cars.

Uber will launch flying taxis in Texas and Dubai by 2020, the company's chief product officer Jeff Holden has announced at the Uber Elevate Summit.

Using small electric VTOL (Vertical Take-off and Landing) aircraft, Uber will charge passengers $1.32 per mile.

This price is slightly higher than the cost of booking an UberX cab. The firm says that the cost will reduce over time so much so that'll it'll one day be cheaper to use Uber's flying taxi service than to run a car.

Uber described its plans as enabling rapid reliable transport between suburbs and cities, and ultimately, within cities. Daily long-distance commutes in heavily congested urban areas not served by existing infrastructure would likely to be the first to use the aircraft.

More than a dozen companies are working on the project, including vehicle charging station maker Chargepoint, which will develop an exclusive charger for the network of Uber aircraft.

Twice as safe as a car

Uber's electric aircraft, which would be quieter, cheaper and less polluting than its nearest equivalent, the helicopter, and would ultimately use autonomous technology, the company says, making it much safer by significantly reducing operator error.

Uber envisages VTOL aircraft to be twice as safe as driving a car due to autonomy and distributed electric propulsion (DEP). The use of DEP allows for fixed-wing VTOLs, which wouldn't need large helicopter rotors and generate lift with greater efficiency than rotors.

However, Uber has said: No vehicle manufacturer to date has yet demonstrated a commercially viable aircraft featuring DEP, so there is real risk here.

Cheaper than running a car

Uber believes that, in the long term, using VTOL aircraft taxis can be more affordable than running a car. Acknowledging that todays aircraft and helicopters cost about 20 times more than a car, due to low-volume manufacturing, it said: If VTOLs can serve the on-demand urban transit case well  quiet, fast, clean, efficient, and safe  there is a path to high-production volume manufacturing (at least thousands of a specific model type built per year) which will enable VTOLs to achieve a dramatically lower per-vehicle cost. The economics of manufacturing VTOLs will become more akin to automobiles than aircraft.

It added that early VTOL vehicles are likely to be very expensive, but because the ridesharing model quickly reduces vehicle cost, the high cost should not end up being prohibitive to getting started.

Once the ridesharing service commences, a positive feedback loop should ensure that it ultimately reduces costs and thus prices for all users, i.e. as the total number of users increase, the utilisation of the aircraft increases, the company said.

Uber also identified a number of challenges which must be addressed to make the aircraft viable. These include the certification process for new aircraft concepts, battery technology for electric transport and issues with air traffic control.

The greatest operational barrier for deploying a fleet of flying taxis is a lack of sufficient locations for landing pads, Uber says.

The firm describes the vision as ambitious but believes it is achievable in the coming decade if all the key actors in the VTOL ecosystem  regulators, vehicle designers, communities, cities, and network operators  collaborate effectively".
With the widespread issue of low rental prices, America Car Rental wants to give advice to customers on how to avoid the surprise of unexpected charges at the counter.

We want to help the customer, said Karla Solis, America Car Rentals commercial manager. We would like to give customers more confidence and knowledge about how the car rental process works.

According to Solis, America Car Rental hopes that brokers, global distribution systems (GDS), and online travel agencies (OTA) will also become more transparent with customers.

In our own sales channels, we try to be extremely transparent with the reservation process, said Solis. And a majority of our customers are happier and come back with us. Unfortunately, the majority of the problems arise when the reservation has been made through external sales channels.

For customers, greater transparency will provide more knowledge upfront about the rental. Benefits include speeding up the car rental process at the counter and preparing the customer ahead of time so they wont be surprised with a higher bill at the counter.

For the rental industry, benefits include avoiding stress and confrontation between the car rental company and the customer, speeding up the process of car delivery, increasing customer satisfaction, and reducing complaints.

According to Solis, greater transparency can lead to a customer having more confidence in a rental company; he or she will probably recommend that company to others.

America Car Rental plans to share this advice on several of its social media websites (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) as well as review sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Trustpilot.

Here is some advice that America Car Rental will share with its customers:

1) If you are booking online, read the terms and conditions carefully before confirming your reservation.

2) After making a car rental reservation online, print out all the details. Then present the printed document at the rental company to be sure it honors the original agreement.

3) Call the travel agency or car rental company where you made the reservation. Ask if there will be any extra charges. And check to see if your personal insurance policy can be applied to the car rental.

4) If renting Mexico, you need Mexican insurance. If your rental vehicle is involved in an accident, uninsured drivers may be arrested and held until any damage is paid for.

5) Check the levels of the collision-damage waiver and theft protection excesses. If they are high, its worth taking out zero-excess cover.

6) When you pick up the car, the rental agent will inspect it with you and mark any previous damage. Be sure to also check the headlights and windshield wipers. Also check to make sure there is a spare tire and jack in the truck.
Toyota Tacoma is reportedly sporting a faulty rear axle. The Japanese automaker is now recalling 250,000 units of Toyota Tacoma worldwide, where 228,000 units come from the U.S.

Toyota has reportedly released a statement saying it will recall a total of 250,000 units of its beloved pick-up model. The ones affected are the 2016 and 2017 model-year of the Toyota Tacoma.

According to the report, the affected models sport a faulty rear axle. This faulty component can result in oil leak which can damage the rear differential.

Toyota also mentioned that the faulty rear axle can create noise and reduced propulsion. Things can also get worst as the faulty rear axle can eventually result in the loss of control of the vehicle.

This faulty rear axle also suggests an increasing probability of a crash. Therefore, Toyota is now recalling the reject component to avoid accidents.

Toyota has not confirmed any incident of crashes or injuries due to this faulty component. Spokesman Victor Vanov declined to give an update on this. Unfortunately, a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was also not available.

The recall process includes inspection of the rear axles in the affected Tacomas. Toyota will tighten the fasteners should there be no leaks. If however a leak was determined, the Japanese automaker will replace the axle carrier gasket and fasteners. For cases where the axle will be found damaged, the Japanese automaker has confirmed to replace the whole assembly.

Toyota Tacoma owners (from 2016-2017) are encouraged to be more careful with their units until the automaker has fixed their rear axle. Toyota Tacoma repairs have been set to begin in mid-June.

Meanwhile, the Japanese automaker also mentioned that they will notify customers of the affected Toyota Tacoma. The notice will also confirm if the unit owner is eligible for the free repair.
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One of the main roads in and out of Bath is partly blocked after a car crashed into a set of traffic lights.

Police are still at the scene of the collision on the A4 London Road, near Grosvenor Bridge Road.

A set of traffic lights was damaged in the incident, which involved two cars.

No one appears to have been injured in the collision.

A spokeswoman for Avon and Somerset police said that officers were called at 7.17am on Monday (May 1) to reports of an incident on the A4 London Road.

"A vehicle hit some traffic lights," she said.

Two cars were involved in the collision, she added.

According to traffic information service Inrix: "The accident is not too far from Alice Park.

"Traffic is coping well."
The family of Jahiem Robertson remembers him as an awesome son, who was helpful, and very gifted.

Jahiem Robertson was injured during a hit-and-run Friday

Authorities say the driver was drunk

Robertson was taken off life-support Saturday



RELATED: Former officer charged in fatal DUI hit-and-run involving kids



Jahiem Robertson was taken off of life support and his organs were donated Saturday night, according to his father Allan Robertson.

His father said Jahiem was declared brain-dead Friday, hours after authorities said John Camfield was drunk and drove into Jahiem and his sister, Jasmine, and three other kids. The middle schoolers had just exited the bus and were walking home.

Allans brother Daniel flew in from Chicago to be with his brother. He called Jahiem the rock of the family.

He was looking forward to being 15 and driving his car. He loved carsand look what took his life, a car that he loves," said Daniel Robertson.

Daniel said his brother Allan is trying to be strong for his family.



"You want to be angry but at the same time, like I said, Gods got a better plan for all of us. We don't know what it is yet. And I try not to question his works, I really don't but it still hurts deep down inside, " Daniel Robertson said.

Jahiem's sister Jasmine had minor physical injuries. But Daniel said emotionally, she's in a lot of pain.



"To be honest with you, going forward with her is concerned, it's going to be tough. It's definitely going to be tough, Daniel Robertson said.

Daniel spent the morning looking at the roadside memorial for Jahiem. Throughout the afternoon, friends and family members met at the Robertson household. Daniel said the family appreciated the support.

"For someone to come out here and put all of these flowers and stuff, it's very touching to me," Daniel Robertson said.



Unfortunately, this isnt the first time the family has gone through tragedy. Daniel said he and Allan lost a nephew to gun violence and a sister in a car crash two years ago.



Thats the first thing that crossed my mind," Daniel Robertson said. "This can't be happening again. It makes you feel like why him so young, so much potential at this present time in his life."



The family is preparing funeral arrangements for Jahiem and organizing a vigil.
Pasco County has seen its share of brush fires this spring.

The dry conditions have aided in multiple fires but Pasco Fire officials said Monday that illegal burns also are to blame for numerous fires.

"We have had 410 illegal burns since the burn ban went into effect (on April 12)," said Pasco Emergency Services Director Kevin Guthrie. "That is taxing on our fire departments, taxing on our resources.

"We're asking - begging - people to comply with the burn ban. We are looking at how can we more effectively put out the (burn ban) message."

Officials have not said how this weekend's fire in the State Road 54 and Gunn Highway area of Odessa started.

The fire is 90 percent contained. There were no injuries or structures threatened.

SR 54, Gunn Highway and other roadways in the area have reopened after being closed during Sunday.

According to Pasco County Fire Rescue, the fire started around 9 a.m. Sunday at the Paw Materials mulching Facility on SR 54. An ember from a small fire at the facility sparked a second fire in the nearby forest.

Gusty winds and dry conditions caused the fire to spread several acres.

About 45 acres burned near the Starkey Wilderness Park, which was evacuated on Sunday. At one point, the fire crowned as flames moved up to tree tops.

A Blackhawk helicopter was brought in to drop thousands of gallons on the flames. The fire was contained by Sunday evening.

Crews are watching over hot spots on Monday.

During their news conference Monday, emergency officials said the burn ban has been in place due to the extreme dry conditions. And, the heavy fire activity has come before the rainy season starts when lightning activity can help start more fires.

Officials also added that more enforcement is likely with the burn ban.

"We are going to actively enforce the burn ban ordinance," said Brian Prill with the Florida Forest Service. "We will bill for suppression costs (if cause can be pinpointed)."

Worst in a decade

Photo: Kim Leoffler, staff

Tony Maulorico, a resident of the Suncoast Lakes subdivision in Land O' Lakes, said the dry conditions are the worst he's seen in over a decade of living in the area.

Definitely the worst, the most dry," Maulorico explained. "They came and they brought the bush hawk through here and ripped out a lot of the underbrush because its all ready to go up in flames."



A recent wildfire, dubbed the "Silver Palms Fire" by the Florida Forest Service and Pasco Fire Rescue, came close to Tony's neighborhood just weeks ago.

(It was) pretty scary because it was lit up into the night and we were told we didnt need to call anybody, but we could see fires burning over there at three or four different spots. Didnt really sleep too well that night, he said.

Maulorico said he's glad authorities are cracking down on the illegal burning, and hopes people realize the risk they could be creating.

All you have to do is come outside and feel the 92 degree, 95 degree temperature and see the surroundings and know right now its not a good time to burn anything, he said.


This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Lancaster County Sheriff's Office SC Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Lancaster County Sheriff's Office SC Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Show More Show Less 5 of 5









A woman's black-eyed, blonde-haired mugshot, with elaborate face tattoos, has gained social media's attention online with many describing her as "creepy" and "possessed."

Morgan Joyce Varn, 24, was arrested along with Jonathan Mikael Robinson, 23, after a SWAT situation concluded at a townhome in South Carolina. She and Robinson allegedly robbed a 25-year-old man of his cellphone and cash on Monday, April 24, 2017.
At least four people are dead and dozens more injured in one Texas county after tornadoes battered parts of the state, officials said Sunday.

The National Weather Service confirmed two tornadoes in Canton area and one in Caney City. One twister tore along a 35-mile path, tossing vehicles and destroying a car dealership on Interstate 20, according to footage of the scene.

Although Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett initially told local media of five deaths, she revised that number down to four at a press conference Sunday morning.

"The damage was extensive," she told reporter gathered at the local police station.

"It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least."

HERE'S WHY: Maps, charts explain Houston's frequent flooding problems

More than 50 people were rushed to hospitals with injuries from the storms, and a spokeswoman for East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare Systems said she expected more to come. Although one person was in critical condition, most of the injuries were not deemed life-threatening.

Door-to-door searches were underway Sunday morning, although Everett discouraged volunteers from showing up, saying the situation was still "too fluid."

"We're not allowing anyone into the affected areas," Van Zandt County Judge Don Kirkpatrick added.

"We're still in the search and recovery aspect of this disaster."

A triage center was set up in the Canton High School band hall, and Van Zandt County residents were encouraged to conserve water until electricity could be restored.

"As mayor, I have signed a disaster declaration for the city," Everett said.

On Saturday night, Gov. Greg Abbott urged Texans to take shelter as the storm raged.

DESTRUCTIVE PATH: Tornadoes strike East Texas, damage homes and businesses

"Texas Task Force 2 has been sent to help the Canton & Van Zandt areas respond to weather," he tweeted around 9 p.m.

Early Sunday morning, the National Weather Service said it was still in the process of rating the weekend's tornadoes.

By daybreak, the Dallas-area forecast had calmed to nothing more than a gusty day, according to the National Weather Service.

Here in Houston, the cloudy morning is expected to give way to a sunny day in the 70s.
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A student at the University of Texas at Austin, wielding a large Bowie-like hunting knife, is suspected of stabbing four other students on campus Monday afternoon, killing one of them, police said.

Kendrex J. White, a 21-year-old junior from Killeen, offered no resistance when officers tackled him within minutes of the stabbings.

The four victims  three white males and one Asian male ages 20 and 21  were attacked separately and without apparent provocation, police said.

RELATED: With no UT-Austin warning, students panic on social media amid attack reports; Twitter alerts others

The deceased victim has been identified as Harrison Brown, a graduate of the Graham Independent School District in 2016, according to a Facebook post from the school district. The names of the three surviving students, who were treated at University Medical Center Brackenridge, were not immediately released.

"The news of Harrison Browns (GHS Class of 2016) passing is heartbreaking. There are no words adequate enough to express the sorrow felt by Graham ISD and the community of Graham for this loss. Harrison was an inspiration to everyone around him," the post read.

The four victims, three white males and one Asian male between the ages of 20 and 21, are not believed to be connected to each other, said UT-Austin Police Chief David Carter . The police chief could not confirm that incident was related to recent threats made against the university's Greek community or if White was part of any group or possible motivation.

More than 25 witnesses are working with police as the investigation is ongoing.

White attended Killeen High School and graduated in 2014, according to a Facebook page that appears to belong to him. On what appears to be his Twitter account, he said he was a "future doctor" studying biology.

University President Greg Fenves said the university would actively investigate the stabbings and that classes were canceled for the remainder of Monday.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families," he said. "This breaks my heart that any of our students are touched by tragedy."

READ ALSO: Police: Dallas paramedic shot, critically hurt; scene active

Rachel Prichett, a UT freshman, had just left her last class of the day when she walked by the gym.

"I heard a couple people scream," she recalled about an hour later. "I thought they were joking with each other, until I turned around and saw a guy ... holding a small machete-type thing."

Prichett saw the attacker walk up behind another man, grab his shoulder and stab him in the back. She said that attack happened so close to her that she could have reached out and touched the victim.

"Then I turned around and started running," she said. "While I was running, I saw this guy sitting at a table that was slumped over and bloody. Apparently no one had seen him get hurt. Someone was just walking up to him and seeing and saying, 'Everybody get out.' "

Prichett said the attacker had escaped attention by blending into the busy campus scene.

"He was just walking around very calmly with the knife down by his side," Prichett remembered after she reunited with her boyfriend near the scene of the attack. "You wouldn't have seen it unless you were paying attention."

Gov. Greg Abbott responded to the stabbings and a shooting in Dallas in an emailed statement.

"Our prayers go out to all those affected by today's tragic events," he said. "I have been briefed by the Department of Public Safety on both incidents, and have also talked to University of Texas at Austin President Greg Fenves. As the investigations into these heinous crimes continue, I have offered all available state resources to both Dallas and the University of Texas to assist in any effort."

RELATED: FBI: The safest and most dangerous college campuses in Texas

After White was apprehended, there were reports of a separate stabbing in West Campus and possible bomb threats at the Moody College of Communications and Belo Center for New Media.

The UT Student Government said the area around the buildings in North Campus were reopened after a bomb threat was found to not be credible. Carter said he did not know the specifics of the reported bomb threat.

Additionally, KVR News, a student newscast, reported a banner reading "Tuition pays for bombs" was hung up on the sky bridge connecting Belo and Moody. Carter said the banner was not connected to the stabbings.

An official university alert went out to students at 2:14 p.m., which said the suspect was in custody and there was no immediate threat to the campus.

Before the university alert was sent, several students took to Twitter Monday afternoon in a panic, saying there was a possible stabbing or shooting near Jester West Residence Hall and the Perry-Castaneda Library.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com



Staff writer Nicole Cobler contributed to this story.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker appointed Padmaja Doniparthi, MD, and Alaa Abd-Elsayed, MD, to the Wisconsin Medical Examining Board.

Here's what you should know.

1. Dr. Doniparthi is an anesthesiologist at Oconomowoc (Wis.) Memorial Hospital and Waukesha (Wis.) Memorial Hospital. She began her career after earning her degree from Milwaukee-based Medical College of Wisconsin. She completed a residency at Houston-based Baylor College of Medicine before returning to the Medical College of Wisconsin for her fellowship.

2. Dr. Alaa Abd-Elsayed is the medical director of Madison-based University of Wisconsin Health Pain Services, and the medical director of the Madison-based University of Wisconsin Pain Clinic. She began her career after earning her medical degree from Egypt-based Assiut University Medical School. She completed a residency and a fellowship at the University of Cincinnati.

3. Both physicians will join the board's 13-member physician, public team.
UMass Memorial Health Care, the largest health system in Massachusetts, has plans to lower costs for consumers through its new ASC in Shrewsbury, according to Worcester Business Journal.

Here are three quick facts:

1. The ASC is under construction.

2. UMass expects to finish the facility in February 2018.

3. The health system aims to move surgeries out of its hospital in Worcester, Mass and into the center.
A study presented at the 2017 European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Vienna examined the spread of Clostridium difficile bacteria, Gastroenterology and Endoscopy News reports.

David Eyre, DPhil, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues used DNA fingerprinting to analyze more than 600 stool samples and examine how bacterial infections spread across Europe.

Here's what you should know.

1. Researchers found two distinct patterns of robotypes spread.

Researchers said RT027 and RT001 were spread through healthcare settings. The strains clustered in specific countries.

RT078, RT015, RT002, RT014 and RT020 were present throughout Europe and associated with farm animals. Researchers found RT078 in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and United Kingdom and was directly associated with pig farming.

2. Researchers are unsure as to why animals are coming down with C. diff. Mark H. Wilcox, MD, of FRCPath, theorizes that antibiotics could be one reason. Pigs often carry C. diff, but lose it as they grow older.

3. Dr. Wilcox said to Gastroenterology and Endoscopy News that it's unclear if animals can transmit C. diff to humans, but said, "Theoretically yes [It's a possibility]."

4. Researchers need more data to discover how bacteria spread through food distribution.
Florida hospitals could see about $651 million in Medicaid cuts under a proposal from state lawmakers, according to a report by News Service of Florida relayed by News 4 JAX.

The Florida House proposed reducing state hospital funding by $250 million, which, when incorporating lost federal matching funds, would total about $651 million, according to the report. State senators have proposed the same $250 million hospital funding cut.

Florida lawmakers previously requested financial information from hospitals to help determine state hospital funding cuts.

While lawmakers have proposed about $651 million in Medicaid cuts, hospitals are still slated to receive monies through Florida's Low Income Pool program to aid the state's safety-net hospitals. Earlier this month, Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott and the federal government announced an agreement for a $1.5 billion annual commitment for the LIP program.
Throughout the healthcare industry, an air of intrigue and confusion surrounds the cloud. Health system executives and physicians often hear of its great potential in moving healthcare forward, but many are unsure how to best implement the cloud and how transitioning information into this virtual space will directly impact their organizations.

"I tell people to think of the cloud as a data center that someone else controls," said James Millington, Director of Healthcare Industry Marketing at VMware, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of cloud and virtualization software, services and claims. "Through the cloud, we can take the exact technology you are running in your data centers so your IT people are not managing physical data centers. Rather, they can focus on handling the innovation of services."

During a roundtable discussion hosted by VMware at Becker's Hospital Review 8th Annual Meeting on April 20 in Chicago, executives from various U.S. hospitals and health systems discussed challenges they face when implementing cloud technology and progress they want to make within the next few years.

What hospitals and health systems are currently doing

Many organizations are making headway with cloud-based services. VMware polled the roundtable attendees during the discussion and found:

 33 percent said between 0 percent and 10 recent of their applications are with a cloud-based provider

 11 percent of attendees said between 11 percent and 25 percent of their applications are with a cloud-based provider

 22 percent said between 26 and 50 percent of their applications are with a cloud-based provider

 22 percent said between 51 and 75 percent of their applications are with a cloud-based provider

 Approximately 11 percent said between 76 and 100 percent of their applications are through a cloud-based provider

The primary reason attendees moved to the cloud was for disaster recovery purposes, which 54 percent cited as their main driver. Forty-six percent of attendees said they integrated the cloud for data analytics purposes.

"Everybody is going to have to do big data," said the senior vice president of a for-profit Pacific Northwest health system spanning five states. "It will start with the large integrated systems and then the medium and smaller practices. However, organizations can't afford not to do it."

Challenges: Managing vendor relations & security

Selecting a vendor that matches an organization's overall needs is crucial, as many vendors may not be strategically aligned with their clients and therefore will not form a fruitful partnership. A chief compliance offer and chief innovation officer at a southwestern health system said he faced difficulty when working with a vendor that did not fully understand the health system's emphasis on patient privacy.

"There are vendors out there that have approached us and said they require the ability to use our data for their research [to partner with them]," the executive said. "I tell them that I cannot allow that. That would require me getting approval from everyone in our data pool. They politely told me to take a walk  there was no consideration for the privacy of the patient."

Vendor lock-in was also an obstacle various healthcare leaders cited during the discussion. Twenty percent of the attendees ranked vendor lock-in as their primary concern with the cloud. A vice president and chief information officer of an independent, nonprofit 151-bed Midwestern community hospital said he faced a trying experience when working with a vendor on IT solutions.

"Once we got into it, it was hard to get out," he said. "Everything had a charge."

Ensuring the cloud is secure was also cited as a top concern among attendees as medical records are sought-after commodities on the black market. The chief compliance offer and chief innovation officer at the aforementioned southwestern health system said his organization had upwards of 5,000 attempts to get into their IT system in a single day.

The cloud can help alleviate many concerns hospitals and health systems may have, especially as healthcare mergers become more prevalent and practices work to consolidate their data into each other's platforms.

The chief medical information officer of a 231-patient room teaching hospital in the Pacific Coast said the hospital moved to some cloud solutions after acquiring another practice that suffered a cyberattack when they tried to consolidate their systems. The executive said the hospital had to shut down and load the other practice's information onto the hospital's EHR overnight. This experience led the hospital to integrate more cloud-based services into its IT platform.

As healthcare increasingly moves beyond the four walls of the hospital to be more accessible to patients, healthcare IT will be moving beyond the hospital datacenters into the cloud. Over the next several years, hospitals and health systems may fall behind competitors if they lack updated technology. Eleven percent of attendees said they wanted between 76 percent and 100 percent of their applications to be on the cloud within the next three years.

"We will always consider the cloud. We are seeing good return of investment," said the aforementioned vice president and CIO of a nonprofit Midwestern community hospital. "Meeting the overall needs of the business is the target and if the cloud continues to do that, that is great."

Visit www.vmware.com/go/healthcare for more information about VMware and the cloud.
Technology has played a crucial role in healthcare innovation in the last two decades. Going forward, technology and innovation will continue to affect important areas in care delivery, including prevention, precision medicine and creative, technology-enabled health encounters. For executive teams leading hospitals, it comes down to making the best decisions to invest in technologies that support innovation initiatives.

To learn more about the relationship between technology and innovation in healthcare, Becker's caught up with Andy Bartley, senior solutions architect of the Health & Life Sciences Group at Intel Corporation. Intel Corporation and Lenovo Health are supporting a three-day innovation summit in partnership with Becker's Healthcare, from June 6-8. To learn more about this virtual opportunity, click here.

We asked Mr. Bartley to weigh in on the most significant trends he sees in healthcare's technology space, including common cultural problems around innovation, EHR redesign for physician satisfaction and emerging technology generating the greatest excitement among IT leaders.

1. We live in interesting times. Drones are making deliveries in the U.S. and driverless cars are a reality, yet at the same time it isn't unusual to use a scanner or fax machine. How should executives think about emerging technology vs. old technology? How can they find an adoption rate of new technology that is right for their organization?

Andy Bartley: In my experience, the most successful adoption of new technology comes as a result of solving a problem that is of clear and measurable impact to the business. There is an endless stream of cool new technology coming onto the market, like new sensors or drones, but a clear business case is what turns these technologies into powerful engines for growth.

Let's take drones and sensors as an example. Say a segment of my patient population is located in rural settings that are difficult to access with conventional transportation. Designing a cost effective and innovative solution for delivery of therapies to patients with chronic conditions might leverage sensors to indicate when the patient is running low on their medication, and a drone to do the remote delivery. Start with the problem first, and the right technologies will fall into place.

From an executive's perspective, have a defined channel for getting relevant technology briefings. This might be from your team or from partners that can speak to technology innovation not only in healthcare but other industries that may have implemented a particular best practice that could be of value. Setting a clear business and strategic vision can help channel the enthusiasm for technology in the right direction. To the earlier point on starting with business problems, make sure that the strategic goals of the organization are clear to all employees, and drive a process for evaluating new technology that requires a mapping to those goals.

Where executives can have the biggest impact with regards to technology adoption is championing the right causes to drive organizational change. Adopting new technology can be difficult. Oftentimes you have to change workflows, update trainings and ask people to work differently. Promising technology implementations fail all the time because the organization doesn't fully embrace the change. Driving change management discipline and capabilities across your teams can reduce the adoption curve and shorten the time to ROI.

2. Can you talk about the technological trends and developments that are piercing the healthcare bubble and affecting clinicians, patients and hospitals the most?

AB: From a global perspective, you see healthcare delivery systems generally addressing similar challenges: how to increase access and improve quality of care while controlling costs. The priority of these themes can vary widely by geography, but many of the new technology trends we see gaining traction address these in some fashion.

Technology to enable virtual care delivery is becoming fairly pervasive worldwide. Virtual care is one way of addressing cost and access challenges. This is really still an emerging technology in terms of adoption both by providers and patients. Traditionally we've thought of virtual care as video visits, but with the rise of increasingly sophisticated sensors, applications and computing platforms we see virtual care moving more into a model of continuous care that is seamlessly integrated into the patient's life.

Patient engagement and experience is a critical trend right now that is driving adoption of new technologies. I think this is a really interesting place for augmented and virtual reality. Undergoing a surgical procedure can be a scary thing, and for many of us it can be difficult to understand exactly what the procedure and rehabilitation might entail. I've seen some interesting solutions on the market that are using virtual reality to take patients through the surgical experience. Once they go home, they can use augmented reality to make sure that their rehabilitation is tracking to plan, thereby preventing unnecessary readmissions.

Finally, as healthcare organizations increasingly digitize workflows, they are generating large amounts of data. I see a lot of adoption around tools, technologies and platforms to help organizations extract actionable insights from that data. We've really just started scratching the surface of the potential for the value that data can bring to healthcare. Right now I'm seeing a lot of interest in predictive analytics using machine learning techniques. Technology and solutions for data analytics will be one of the most exciting and quickly evolving trends in healthcare in the years to come.

3. Few of us can imagine life without our smartphones. In healthcare, what are some forms of technology or innovation that physicians cannot imagine life without?

AB: From my perspective at Intel, I spend a lot of time looking at how computers are used throughout healthcare. With the move to digital health records, the personal computer has become an essential part of a physician's workday. Computers have replaced the old paper charts as the primary means for accessing patient data. As organizations mature in their adoption of EMRs, we see them driving mobility initiatives focused on increasing the use of computers like laptops and 2in1's that can give providers access to patient data anytime, anywhere.

Tools and technology that enable collaboration are also gaining in popularity. More and more, the care team is expanding to include primary care physicians, hospital staff, long-term care providers, family members and other caregivers all working together. Collaborative tools are an important part of supporting this type of team-based approach.

Another area we expect to become integral to healthcare is analytics. The field of predictive analytics is just emerging today, but we expect it to become a common part of the routine workday, from precision medicine to population health. We expect to have intelligence systems that can analyze massive amounts of data across multiple organizations and generate intelligent responses that can be delivered in real-time to augment care delivery.

4. Consumerism is one driving force behind a lot of change you see in healthcare today. Do you think technology is creating, keeping pace or following the enhanced role of informed and empowered consumers? How so?

AB: Consumer technology is driving new patient expectations when they walk into the hospital. Consider your favorite consumer applications  Amazon, Netflix, email. These applications deliver personalized and engaging experiences that are really designed to work for the consumer. This ability to personalize a product or service is table-stakes in many digital industries. As consumers spend more time online, we become accustomed to having experiences tailored to us. So when we walk into a healthcare facility, have to fill out paperwork, wait for an appointment that starts late and don't have an easy way to access our medical record afterwards, patients can get frustrated.

Healthcare organizations are realizing this, and I am seeing a big shift in focusing on the patient experience as a core component of corporate strategy. This is increasingly important as we see increased M&A among healthcare providers, which increases the level of competition to attract and retain patients.

A great example of how organizations are aligning resources to activate patient experiences strategies is the emergence of the chief experience officer role or experience task forces. These functions within the organization will evaluate the patient experience and champion the development of new solutions like wayfinding, patient portals, online form completion and mobile applications that make the patient experience more streamlined and personalized.

5. Caregiver wellbeing is of national concern today. It seems more attention is now paid to how technology affects the clinician. Please share your thoughts on what we need for a world in which technology and clinicians are both thriving.

AB: It's an important topic, and one that many technology companies are actively working to address. The move from paper to digital resulted in a variety of inefficiencies in healthcare. Many providers felt that technology was being thrust upon them against their will. The massive effort of standing up new technology like an EMR didn't leave many resources to focus on how all of the new technology introduced would impact clinicians. This was also such a dramatic shift in business process that some of the downstream impacts were very difficult, if not downright impossible, to forecast in advance.

Going forward, it's incumbent on technology providers to comprehend the unique needs of their users, and how technology will be used in the business process. This is a known need, and many technology companies have created industry specific teams to better understand user requirements and align product development accordingly. The more you can entrench yourself in the nuances of your customers workflow, the better you can develop solutions that improve those workflows. Going forward, we'll see more seamless integration of compute and intelligence into the surrounding environment, and solutions that are adaptive based on context like location.

Healthcare organizations and technology providers can work collaboratively to evolve the process for new technology adoption. New success criteria might be considered that take into account new measures that reflect caregiver wellbeing. Systemically engaging the caregiver teams into technology decisions is a key component here. More and more organizations are involving business leaders and team members to improve the process by which they evaluate and adopt new technology.

6. Can you tell me one or two specific examples of emerging technology that have roused the greatest excitement and interest from your colleagues or healthcare organizations? Amid a stream of new products, gadgets, applications and more, what have you seen hold people's attention?

AB: There is a lot of excitement and interest right now around artificial intelligence and precision medicine.

Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic lately. AI represents an opportunity to take the rich structured and unstructured data available in today's healthcare environment and turn it into products that allow our clinicians to work better, smarter, faster and more collaboratively. At end of day, it's about enabling higher quality care and producing better outcomes at a lower cost. You have computing power available to run sophisticated AI applications, such as machine learning, deep learning and cognitive computing, on large data sets in a reasonable amount of time and get responses that are actionable. I can't say I've spoken to a single health system executive who doesn't want to talk about how AI can be applied to their institution.

The other area of intense interest and investment is precision medicine. How do we enable a healthcare delivery system that is able to personalize care to the individual based on their unique genetic makeup. Realizing this opportunity requires many different technologies, from gene sequencing to ultra-high bandwidth networks to high-performance computing and storage and many more. Today we're seeing amazing innovations around precision medicine in specific populations like those with cancer.

However, you can envision a day when your genome becomes a standard part of routine care delivery. The question becomes, what does that do to healthcare? What needs to happen to enable that vision? We see precision medicine driving a lot investment and collaboration throughout the health and life sciences industry happening to make this vision a reality.

7. It's important to step back and take in the stunning progress of technology. Some people can say they watched live as the first man walked on the moon. Perhaps others remember the first time they connected to the World Wide Web. Looking at the big picture, what are some of the most remarkable technological developments we will be able to say we observed and witnessed in healthcare?

AB: I think when we look back, developments like AI are going to shine light on how significant the move to EHRs and the transition from paper to digital workflows really was. It was a very difficult transition that required a substantial amount of IT and clinical resources from healthcare organizations. But we're already starting to see really interesting use cases as a result of now having more data available. Retrospectively, I think people will look back at the digitalization of healthcare and be amazed at how fast it happened.

In the future, precision medicine will lead healthcare through another transformation, but instead of digitalization, it will be personalization. One day we could all go to clinics to get our genomes sequenced, and then an Amazon drone could drop off the treatment. The whole flow could be different. The move to precision medicine has the opportunity to disrupt traditional healthcare delivery models and be one of the biggest changes to healthcare in next few decades.
Vivian Lee, MD, PhD, stepped down Friday from her roles as senior vice president for health sciences, medical school dean and CEO of University of Utah Health Care in Salt Lake City, after a high-profile controversy involving the director of the university's cancer center.

Dr. Lee announced the news to faculty and staff Friday: "Taking account of the events of the last two weeks, I believe the best interests of the University are now served by the decision I am taking today."

The feud erupted when Mary Beckerle, PhD, director and CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Institute was fired over email on April 17. Dr. Becklerle, who has led the cancer center for 11 years, claims no reason was given for her removal. Billionaire philanthropist Jon Hunstman Sr., who helped found the institute, called the move a "power grab," threatened to sue the university, took out full-page ads in two local newspapers protesting her firing and threatened to withhold a $250 million donation, according to KSL.com. Dr. Beckerle was reinstated April 25.

Throughout the ordeal, Dr. Lee declined to publicly comment on the matter. "I am aware too that more than a few have felt there should be some sort of reply to the very strong criticisms of leadership and actions, directed especially at me," she wrote in her resignation announcement to faculty and staff. "This absence is not because of a lack of strongly held alternative viewpoints and substantive positions, but rather a clear sense that the best interests of our university and of our entire community are to collegially embrace one another and all move forward together."

Mr. Hunstman said he did not regret Dr. Lee's resignation and called her a "one-person wrecking crew," according to KSL.com. He also called her integrity into question in relation to the application of a $12 million donation from Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, which is currently under review by the state Office of the Legislative Auditor General, according to KSL.com.

Dr. Lee responded to the criticisms of her character in her resignation statement: "In a more private way, it is fair to say that some of the strong invective directed at my integrity and character, which was carried in the news media over the past two weeks, has been disturbing, especially to the younger members of our family in this close-knit community in Utah we have come to call home." She added, "I am hoping my decision today will help in putting that completely in the past."

During her six-year tenure leading the health system, Dr. Lee emerged as a leader in driving value-based outcomes and investigating the costs of care. Under her leadership, the university recruited 400 new faculty members and launched initiatives in neuroscience, diabetes, global health, precision medicine and genomic sequencing, among others, according to a statement from University President David Pershing, PhD.

"She has been described by her colleagues as a visionary leader who maintains high standards for herself as well as others," Dr. Pershing said in the statement. "Dr. Lee has led a remarkable transformation of our academic and research operations and has been at the forefront of innovations in healthcare delivery at the national level."

Dr. Lee plans to stay on at University of Utah as a radiology professor. Dr. Pershing plans to announce her interim replacement soon.

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President Donald Trump plans to appoint Charmaine Yoest, PhD, of Virginia as assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS.

Here are six things to know about Dr. Yoest.

1. She is a senior fellow at American Values, a conservative, pro-life nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.

2. Previously, she served as president and CEO of public interest law firm Americans United for Life.

3. Dr. Yoest also acted as project director of a national study funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which focused on paid parental leave in academia, according to a news release.

4. Additionally, she served in the Office of Presidential Personnel during the Reagan administration.

5. She was a strong Trump supporter during last year's presidential campaign, serving as a Trump for President surrogate.

6. She earned a bachelor's degree from Wheaton (Ill.) College and a Master of Arts and doctorate degree in American government from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

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The following healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships took place or were announced in the past month.

1. 2 Massachusetts hospitals in talks to join Beth Israel Deaconess, Lahey merger

Two more players are in talks to join Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Burlington, Mass.-based Lahey Health's proposed merger: Boston-based New England Baptist Hospital and Cambridge, Mass.-based Mount Auburn Hospital.

2. UnityPoint Health, Memorial Hospital, QMG explore partnership

Des Moines, Iowa-based UnityPoint Health, Carthage, Ill.-based Memorial Hospital and Quincy (Ill.) Medical Group signed a nonbinding agreement to explore a potential partnership.

3. Marshfield Clinic Health System, Ascension finalize sale of Saint Joseph's Hospital

St. Louis-based Ascension finalized its agreement to sell Marshfield, Wis.-based Saint Joseph's Hospital to Marshfield (Wis.) Clinic Health System.

4. Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas partners with 2 cancer centers

Beaumont-based Baptist Hospitals of Southeast Texas, Port Arthur-based Cancer Center of Southeast Texas and Altus Cancer Center  with locations in Beaumont and Baytown, Texas  will consolidate their specialized radiation therapy, hematology and medical oncology services to enhance regional cancer care in southeast Texas.

5. Providence St. Mary Medical Center to integrate with Adventist-run Washington hospital

Walla Walla, Wash.-based Providence St. Mary Medical Center entered into a transfer of membership agreement with Walla Walla (Wash.) General Hospital.

6. The Carle Foundation acquires second Illinois hospital

Olney, Ill.-based Richland Memorial Hospital is the second hospital to integrate into Urbana, Ill.-based The Carle Foundation.

7. MultiCare to finalize purchase of CHS-owned hospitals by early summer

Tacoma, Wash.-based MultiCare will finalize its $425 million purchase of Spokane, Wash.-based Rockwood Health System by mid-June.

8. Global Medical REIT closes 2 acquisitions worth $74M

Global Medical REIT, a Bethesda, Md.-based company engaged in the acquisition and leasing of healthcare facilities, closed on two previously announced acquisitions totaling $74 million March 31.

9. Comprehensive Pharmacy Services acquires PharmaSource: 3 things to know

Pharmacy solutions provider Comprehensive Pharmacy Services added to its offerings with the acquisition of PharmaSource.

10. LifePoint Health, LHC Group joint venture to operate North Carolina hospital

Hospice of Wilson (N.C.) Medical Center will transition its ownership and management to a joint venture created by Brentwood, Tenn.-based LifePoint Health and Lafayette, La.-based LHC Group.

11. Duke LifePoint, BJC HealthCare in talks to manage Missouri hospital

Four health organizations are vying to become the manager of 397-bed Boone Hospital Center in Columbia, Mo.

12. SEARHC, Alaska hospital finalize merger

The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) in Juneau, Alaska, finalized its merger with the Wrangell-based Alaska Island Community Services after more than a year of negotiations.

13. Financially struggling New Jersey medical center to be sold for $12.2M amid controversy

Officials said they plan to sell the financially struggling Secaucus, N.J.-based Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center for $12.2 million.

14. Liberty Medical Center completes affiliation agreement with Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centers

Morris, Ill.-based Liberty Medical Center finalized an affiliation agreement with Morris (Ill.) Hospital & Healthcare Centers.

15. Baylor Scott & White, AccentCare to form joint venture for home health

Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health and AccentCare, also in Dallas, signed a letter of intent to form a home health joint venture.

16. UW Health, UnityPoint Health-Meriter finalize joint operating agreement

The Federal Trade Commission approved Madison-based University of Wisconsin Health's proposal to enter into a joint operating agreement with UnityPoint Health-Meriter, also in Madison.

17. Penn State Health pursues strategic partnership with 120-member Pennsylvania physician group

Penn State Health, the parent company of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center, and Lancaster, Pa.-based Physicians' Alliance revealed plans to embark on a strategic partnership.

18. Rhode Island's largest health systems consider merger

Two of Rhode Island's largest health systems  Lifespan and Care New England, both in Providence, R.I.  are considering a potential merger.

19. Southwestern Medical Center to partner with SSM Health-owned hospital

Lawton, Okla.-based Southwestern Medical Center is teaming up with Oklahoma City-based St. Anthony's Hospital, a St. Louis-based SSM Health facility.

20. Partners HealthCare to acquire Care New England in Rhode Island

Boston-based Partners HealthCare disclosed plans to acquire Providence, R.I.-based Care New England Health System.

21. HCA to purchase Memorial University Medical Center for $710M

The Savannah, Ga.-based Memorial Health board of directors and the Chatham County Hospital Authority approved Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Holdings' proposal to purchase Memorial University Medical Center, also in Savannah.

22. Prime Healthcare Foundation to acquire Care New England-owned Rhode Island hospital

Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Foundation signed a letter of intent to acquire Pawtucket, R.I.-based Memorial Hospital from Providence, R.I.-based Care New England Health System.

23. Duke, WakeMed to collaborate on cancer care

Durham, N.C.-based Duke Health and Raleigh, N.C.-based WakeMed Health & Hospitals signed an agreement to create Cancer Care Plus+, a collaboration to serve the cancer care needs of residents in Wake County. The collaboration is effective May 1.

24. VA partners with CVS to reduce patient wait times in Phoenix

Veterans in the Phoenix area will be able to use their federal healthcare benefits at CVS MinuteClinics to treat minor illnesses and injuries under a new pilot program.

25. Cleveland Clinic, University of Nevada, Las Vegas discuss expanding partnership

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas may expand its partnership with Cleveland Clinic to incorporate additional opportunities for students of the university's new medical school.

26. Yuma Regional Medical Center partners with Accumen on critical laboratory initiatives

Yuma (Ariz.) Regional Medical Center revealed plans to form a strategic partnership with Accumen to improve the medical center's laboratory initiatives.

27. UAB partners with rural Alabama hospital to improve care services

University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System entered into a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with the Tombigbee Healthcare Authority to explore a possible relationship.

28. Midlands Family Clinic to take over operations of neighboring Nebraska clinic

Papillion, Neb.-based Midlands Family Urgent Care will assume operations at Ashland (Neb.) Family Clinic.

30. Northwell Health signs strategic affiliation agreement with Rothman Institute

New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health entered into a strategic affiliation with the Rothman Institute, a private orthopedic practice serving patients across 25 locations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

31. Yale New Haven Health System in 'preliminary talks' with South County Hospital

Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health System is reportedly in talks to partner with Wakefield, R.I.-based South County Hospital.

32. University of Rochester, Arnot Health expand cancer care partnership

The Arnot Health Falck Cancer Center in Elmira, N.Y., plans to expand its existing cancer care partnership with the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Wilmot Cancer Center.

33. Hannibal Regional Healthcare System to acquire Complete Family Medicine

Hannibal (Mo.) Regional Healthcare System declared plans to acquire Kirksville, Mo.-based Complete Family Medicine.

34. Providence St. Joseph Health, Huntington Hospital create pact to expand care services

Pasadena, Calif.-based Huntington Hospital and Providence St. Joseph Health, with offices in Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif., embarked on a partnership to expand both institutions' services to residents in the area.

35. Children's Hospital Colorado, St. Mary's Medical Center to form children's care alliance

Grand Junction, Colo.-based St. Mary's Medical Center-SCL Health and Aurora-based Children's Hospital Colorado will embark on a formal care alliance to provide children and their families in the region with the highest level of coordinated care.

36. Catholic Health, BryLin Behavioral Health System explore partnership options

Buffalo, N.Y.-based Catholic Health System and BryLin Behavioral Health System, also in Buffalo, are reportedly in discussions to form a potential affiliation.

37. United Hospital System takes on Froedtert name in new affiliation

Kenosha, Wis.-based United Hospital System revealed plans to affiliate with, and assume the brand name of, Milwaukee-based Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin.

38. Abbott renegotiates deal with Alere, shaves $500M off original price

Abbott renegotiated its deal to purchase Alere for $5.3 billion April 14.

39. Spectrum Health to partner with Select Medical on unnamed venture

Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Spectrum Health inked a deal to create a joint venture with Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based Select Medical.

40. Sequoyah Memorial Hospital, Northeastern Health System plan management agreement

Sequoyah Memorial Hospital in Sallisaw, Okla., approved a letter of intent for a management agreement with Tahlequah, Okla.-based Northeastern Health System.
The following healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships took place or were announced the week of April 24.

1. Yale New Haven Health System in 'preliminary talks' with South County Hospital

Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health System is reportedly in talks to partner with Wakefield, R.I.-based South County Hospital.

2. University of Rochester, Arnot Health expand cancer care partnership

The Arnot Health Falck Cancer Center in Elmira, N.Y., plans to expand its existing cancer care partnership with the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Wilmot Cancer Center.

3. Hannibal Regional Healthcare System to acquire Complete Family Medicine

Hannibal (Mo.) Regional Healthcare System declared plans to acquire Kirksville, Mo.-based Complete Family Medicine.

4. Providence St. Joseph Health, Huntington Hospital create pact to expand care services

Pasadena, Calif.-based Huntington Hospital and Providence St. Joseph Health, with offices in Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif., embarked on a partnership to expand both institutions' services to residents in the area.

5. Children's Hospital Colorado, St. Mary's Medical Center to form children's care alliance

Grand Junction, Colo.-based St. Mary's Medical Center-SCL Health and Aurora-based Children's Hospital Colorado will embark on a formal care alliance to provide children and their families in the region with the highest level of coordinated care.

6. Catholic Health, BryLin Behavioral Health System explore partnership options

Buffalo, N.Y.-based Catholic Health System and BryLin Behavioral Health System, also in Buffalo, are reportedly in discussions to form a potential affiliation.

7. United Hospital System takes on Froedtert name in new affiliation

Kenosha, Wis.-based United Hospital System revealed plans to affiliate with, and assume the brand name of, Milwaukee-based Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems completed its sale Monday of eight hospitals to Boston-based Steward Health Care and divested two hospitals to Clinton, Tenn.-based Curae Health.

CHS signed a definitive agreement to divest the hospitals to Steward in February. The following hospitals are included in the transaction:

1. 119-bed Wuesthoff Health System-Melbourne (Fla.)

2. 298-bed Wuesthoff Health System-Rockledge (Fla.)

3. 154-bed Sebastian (Fla.) River Medical Center

4. 355-bed Northside Medical Center in Youngstown, Ohio

5. 311-bed Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren, Ohio

6. 69-bed Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital in Warren, Ohio

7. 258-bed Sharon (Pa.) Regional Health System

8. 254-bed Easton (Pa.) Hospital

With the transaction completed, CHS no longer operates any hospitals in Ohio, while it continues to operate 21 hospitals in Florida and 15 in Pennsylvania.

The for-profit hospital operator also completed the sale of two Mississippi hospitals  95-bed Merit Health Gilmore Memorial in Amory and 112-bed Merit Health Batesville  to Curae Health. After selling off the two facilities, CHS operates 10 hospitals in Mississippi.

Although CHS finalized several transactions, the company's divestiture spree is not over. CHS announced Monday it signed a definitive agreement to sell 88-bed Lake Area Medical Center in Lake Charles, La., to Irving, Texas-based Christus Health. The transaction, which is subject to customary regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the second quarter of this year. CHS will also divest 350-bed Tomball (Texas) Regional Medical Center and 67-bed South Texas Regional Medical Center in Jourdanton to Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Holdings. The deal is expected to close this summer.

The announcements regarding the transactions come after CHS said Friday it finalized the sale of 125-bed Stringfellow Memorial Hospital in Anniston, Ala., to The Health Care Authority of the City of Anniston.

All of the divestures are part of a financial turnaround plan CHS put into place last year. After ending 2016 with a net loss of $1.7 billion, the company said it planned to sell 25 hospitals to trim its debt load and improve its finances.

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Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health Corp., and the Walker County Hospital District in Texas have mutually agreed to terminate a deal proposed last year for Quorum to acquire Huntsville (Texas) Memorial Hospital, according to The Huntsville Item.

Quorum inked a letter of intent in October to acquire Huntsville Memorial Hospital. The specific terms of the transaction weren't disclosed due to a confidentiality agreement signed by both Quorum and the Walker County Hospital District. However, the hospital district indicated last fall the deal would involve expanding and renovating the hospital, according to the report.

Walker County Hospital District Board Chairman Anne Karr-Woodward told The Huntsville Item Saturday she couldn't comment on what caused the deal's breakdown because of the confidentiality agreement, which remains in effect until the letter of intent is officially withdrawn.

Ms. Karr-Woodward said the hospital district would now focus on finding ways to get the capital needed to make improvements at Huntsville Memorial Hospital.

"As responsible stewards of our community's medical needs, the district will continue to evaluate options for ensuring adequate funding to improve the hospital and provide additional services, with the underlying goal of providing quality patient care well into the future," she said, according to the report.

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After three days of deliberation, a jury convicted Salomon Melgen, MD, a Florida ophthalmologist, on 67 counts of Medicare fraud Friday, according to Politico.

The government alleged the 62-year-old physician submitted more than $100 million in false claims to Medicare for eye procedures that were medically unnecessary or never performed.

Dr. Melgen first made headlines for his billing practices in 2014 when CMS released data showing he was the No. 1 recipient of Medicare dollars in the U.S. in 2012, receiving $20.8 million in Medicare Part B reimbursement. After he was arrested in 2015, federal prosecutors described his practice as a "high-volume operation," where patient files included false information and fraudulent billing submissions.

Sentencing in the healthcare fraud case is slated for July 14, and a federal prosecutor told Politico sentencing guidelines call for the physician to spend 15 to 20 years in prison.

Although the fraud trial is over, Dr. Melgen's legal troubles are far from over, as a joint trial for him and Democratic New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez is set to begin in August.

The pair was indicted in 2015 over allegations Sen. Menendez improperly used his office to help Dr. Melgen in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts. Prosecutors allege the senator performed many favors for Dr. Melgen, including intervening with a federal probe into the physician's billing practices, according to Politico.

Sen. Mendedez has denied any wrongdoing.

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Tampa, Fla.-based WellCare Health Plans completed its $800 million acquisition of White Plains, N.Y.-based Universal American.

Under the agreement, Universal American will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of WellCare. Universal American shareholders will receive $10.00 cash for each share of common stock, bringing the total transaction value to approximately $800 million.

Officials expect the sale to be $0.60 to $0.70 accretive in the first-year following closing, with an incremental $0.10 accretive in the second year following closing. The value excludes the one-time $30 million in transaction-related expenses and integration costs worth approximately $25 million to $30 million.

WellCare officials said they will provide more details about the sale during the company's first quarter 2017 earnings call May 3.

As part of the agreement, Universal American's chairman and CEO Richard Barasch, JD, will depart from his executive roles with the insurer.

"This transaction strengthens our business by increasing our Medicare Advantage membership by a third, deepening our presence in two key markets  Texas and New York  and diversifying our business portfolio," said Ken Burdick, JD, CEO of WellCare Health Plans. "We also welcome Universal American employees, members, agents, and providers to WellCare. WellCare and Universal American have a shared commitment to serving Medicare beneficiaries, and we look forward to working together to ensure a smooth transition."
Candida auris, an emerging strain of multidrug-resistant fungus, has been cropping up in hospitals across the globe, including those in the U.S. Researchers presented new findings on the deadly fungus at the CDC's 66th Annual Epidemic Intelligence Services Conference this week.

Here are seven things to know from the new study.

1. Researchers traveled to Colombia to investigate cases of C. auris transmission at four hospitals in three cities.

2. Of the 40 confirmed cases (of which nearly half were infants), in-hospital mortality was 56 percent.

3. All affected patients had a central venous catheter.

4. Two-thirds of affected patients had recent surgery.

5. Half of affected patients had been fed intravenously.

6. Researchers sampled patients, healthcare workers and hospital surfaces, and found C. auris on two nurses' hands.

7. "C. auris was found on patient and healthcare worker skin and on hospital surfaces, suggesting that assiduous infection control practices are needed to limit the spread of this emerging pathogen," the study's abstract concludes.
STAT obtained a document indicating Puerto Rico may be underreporting Zika cases.

The issue stems from a personal dispute between Miguel Valencia, MD, the Puerto Rican official in charge of the territory's tracking program, and the CDC Director of the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases Lyle Petersen, MD, according to the report.

The CDC provided Puerto Rico with $9.5 million in funds in 2016 to create and run a Zika surveillance system, STAT reported. The document alleges Dr. Valencia instructed staff to use his criteria  which was narrower than the CDC's  to identify and record Zika-related birth defects. Puerto Rico has only identified 29 cases of Zika-related birth defects, compared to 65 cases in the U.S., according to the report. A former government official told STAT "dozens and dozens" of babies have been born in Puerto Rico with birth defects similar to those associated with Zika, according to the report.

In August 2016, Dr. Petersen sent a letter to Brenda Rivera, the former territorial epidemiologist, indicating he was concerned about Puerto Rico's Zika reporting. Though unclear if the letter was the issue, Dr. Valencia then called for a formal apology from Dr. Petersen and refused to communicate with the CDC for several months, according to the report.

The CDC would not confirm with STAT if it issued a corrective action plan for the tracking program. The CDC has asked for Dr. Valencia to be replaced, but it is unclear if that action was taken, according to the report.

Read the full story here.

More articles on quality and infection control:

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Minnesota measles outbreak jumps to 29 cases
Johnson & Johnson was awarded a contract to supply the U.S. Defense Department with orthopedic devices, according to Mass Device.

Here are four things to know:

1. The one-year contract includes four additional one-year options.

2. The agreement's total maximum value is roughly $260.5 million.

3. Johnson & Johnson will supply the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and federal civilian agencies with orthopedic products.

4. The agreement took place on Sat., April 27, 2017, and will expire on April 27, 2022.

More articles on devices:

Redefining the gold standard of bone graft for spine  How i-FACTOR Bone Graft stacks up



Zimmer Biomet, NuVasive, Mazor Robotics & more: 18 device company key notes



What's happening with the medical device tax? 5 things to know
The MPs said the idea promoted by companies that flexible work was contingent on self-employed status was "fiction"

Drivers employed in the so-called gig economy should have worker status to protect them from the "appalling" practices they face, MPs are urging.

The Work and Pensions Committee called on the Government to close loopholes which lead to workers being exploited because of "bogus" self employment.

An inquiry by the committee, which took evidence from firms including Uber, Deliveroo, Amazon and Hermes, found "starkly contrasting" pictures of their employment practices.

The MPs said the idea promoted by companies that flexible work was contingent on self-employed status was "fiction".

The committee said the freedom companies have to deny people the rights that come with worker status failed to protect employees from exploitation.

It also leads to "substantial" tax losses and a possible strain on the welfare state, said the MPs.

Labour MP Frank Field, who chairs the committee, said: "Companies in the gig economy are free-riding on the welfare state, avoiding all their responsibilities to profit from this bogus "self-employed" designation while ordinary taxpayers pick up the tab.

"This inquiry has convinced me of the need to offer 'worker' status to the drivers who work with those companies as the default option.

"This status would be a much fairer reflection of the work they undertake which seems to fall between what most of us would think of as 'self-employed' or 'employed'.

"It would also protect them from some of the appalling practices that have been reported to the Committee in this inquiry.

"Uber's recent announcement that it will soon charge its drivers for sickness cover is just another way of pushing costs onto the workforce, to reinforce the impression that those workers are self-employed.

"It is up to Government to close the loopholes that are currently being exploited by these companies, as part of a necessary and wide ranging reform to the regulation of corporate behaviour."

The committee, which cut short its inquiry because of the General Election, said self-employment could be "highly desirable", but could also be "deeply negative", allowing firms to evade responsibility for their workers' wellbeing.

Uber announced last week it is offering its workers a range of benefits such as sickness and injury cover which it says is the first of its kind for self-employed drivers.

An employment tribunal decided last year that Uber's drivers were wrongly classified as self-employed and should be classed as "workers", although the company is challenging the ruling.

An Uber spokesman said: "Almost all taxi and private hire drivers in the UK have been self-employed for decades and with Uber they have more control over what they do.

"Licensed drivers who use our app are totally free to choose if, when and where they drive with no shifts, minimum hours or uniforms.

"The vast majority of drivers who use Uber tell us they want to remain their own boss as that's the main reason why they signed up to us in the first place.

"But we know drivers want more security too, which is why we are investing in a heavily discounted illness and injury cover offer for drivers with IPSE (Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed)."
Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Paula Gribbin and Nuala O'Connell pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Karen, David and Sarah Smyth pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Karen and Sarah Smyth pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Karen and Sarah Smyth pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Bebhionn Hardy and Ellen Creaney pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Bebhionn Hardy and Ellen Creaney pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Zara McNulty, Declan McCusker, Erin Donnelly and Claire Adams pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Zara McNulty, Declan McCusker, Erin Donnelly and Claire Adams pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Hannah Hawkes, Claire Harper and Harley Sample pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Claire Melville, Keeva McIlwaine and Aoife Ramsay pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Claire Melville, Keeva McIlwaine and Aoife Ramsay pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Emma McAlindon, Dearbhile MMcClean, Aoibhin McCool and Gemma Maguire pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Raffy Smyth, Devany Wallace, Fodhla Gallagher and Hannah Gallagher pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Aine McGroarty, Alana Pell and Meghan Kelly pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Aoife Loughran, Orlagh Mullan, Aisling Mullan and Ciara McKernan pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Ben Magowan and Ian Megahey pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Naimh Butler and friends from Ballymena pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Naimh Butler and friends from Ballymena pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Naimh Butler and friends from Ballymena pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 1st May 2017 - Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye. Racegoers pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

Raffy Smyth, Devany Wallace, Fodhla Gallagher and Hannah Gallagher pictured at the Daily Mirror May Day Meeting at Down Royal Racecourse

May Day sunshine and style at Down Royal [photos] Close

There was a mixture of sunshine and style at Down Royal this May Day.

Hundreds turned out for the annual event in Lisburn and it was as much about the fashion as the horse racing in the sunshine.

Ladies from across Northern Ireland showed off the latest fashion trends, while the men also arrived in their finest for the occasion.

The summer racing season has now officially kicked off with seven races taking place at Down Royal throughout the day.
The 51-year-old lives in Ballymoney with her husband Ian and son, Odhran (17), from a previous relationship. She is the author of The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories which has been adapted for stage and will tour Northern Ireland until June.

My best moment

When I ran 203 miles unsupported around the island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides, Scotland in 2010. During the run, which was in a bird reserve, I felt totally at one with everything. As I made my way around the island I visited all the distilleries and each of them gave me a dram of whisky.

My best song

Cara Dillon's Spencer the Rover. I also recently took up singing lessons so my favourite song to belt out is On My Own from Les Miserables.

My best way to relax

Walking my Jack Russell terrier, Sparky by the sea.

My best bit of advice

My grandmother told me that I could do anything I put my mind to - and she was right.

My best movie

The first film in the Matrix series because it was very thought provoking. You can't help thinking, what if that were true?

My best job

Working as a community firefighter in Scotland for eight months. I wore a bleeper that could go off at 2am and I would have to race out. I fought a hill fire - they had been burning back the heather for the grouse season and it went out of control.

My best gift

A guitar given to me by my grandparents at Christmas when I was six. At the time I thought it very special, but I didn't do very much with it. When I was 18, I taught myself how to play it and during the summers in between university I went travelling. I brought that guitar with me so it, and the songs that I sang, helped me to meet lots of people and have some amazing experiences. Music is a great connector.

My best book

Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner which I read recently. It's the story of a man who got stolen away to Elfland by the fairy queen.

My best achievement

A project I took part in called 365 days of adventure in 2014 which involved having an adventure every day. I made a vlog on it which included self-composed choral pieces, hosting my own YouTube channel and starting the writing for The Faerie Thorn and Other Stories. So, indirectly, the project led to my book deal with Blackstaff Press.

My best buy

A Little Tykes car I bought for my son when he was 18 months old. He got so much joy from that toy it was incredible.
Bail was refused amid police concerns about potentially obstructing the course of justice.

An electrician allegedly stored a submachine gun and ammunition in a bin at his home on the outskirts of Belfast, a court has heard.

The firearm discovered in Damian Black's garage at Lagmore Glen in Dunmurry last Friday is capable of firing multiple rounds indiscriminately, a judge was told.

A detective claimed: "The activity for such a weapon could only lead to death and serious injury."

Black, 47, appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court charged with possessing a Scorpion submachine gun and five rounds of ammunition in suspicious circumstances.

He faces a further count of having a firearm designed or adapted so that two or more missiles can be discharged without repeat pressure on the trigger.

Bail was refused amid police concerns about potentially obstructing the course of justice.

Black was arrested during an intelligence-led search carried out at his home.

The gun was located in a bin his wife and two children could have easily accessed through an internal door, the detective said.

District Judge Harry McKibbin was told that during interviews Black made no comment and declined to say if he was acting under duress.

It was accepted that the accused has no previous criminal history.

But the detective added: "This is an ongoing police investigation into organised criminal activity."

Defence solicitor Darragh Mackin insisted there was nothing to link his client to any crime groupings or paramilitary organisations.

He pointed out that Black is not charged with having any violent intentions.

No forensic evidence has been identified yet on the weapon, the solicitor added.

Seeking bail, Mr Mackin argued that Black's home could be repossessed if he is not released.

"He was arrested on Friday and his whole world has been turned upside down," he added.

"His two sons may lose their home if he's not allowed to go back to work."

Despite the offer of deeds to two properties and 1,700 in cash as sureties from family members gathered in court, Mr McKibbin remanded the accused in custody.

"I'm not taking any chances. The matter is very serious indeed," he said.

Black will appear again in court by video-link on May 26.
Sinn Fein leader for Northern Ireland Michelle ONeill addresses a memorial event in Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members

Sinn Fein leader for Northern Ireland Michelle ONeill addresses a memorial event in Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members

PACEMAKER BELFAST 1988 Aerial view The bullet riddled Hiace van (blue at bottom) in which 8 IRA men were shot dead by the SAS outside Loughgall RUC station in 1988.

PACEMAKER BELFAST 08/04/98 General View of the Loughgall ambush in 1987 when 8 IRA men were shot dead by the SAS.

PACEMAKER BELFAST MAY 1987 JH/PF/MW SCENES OF LOUGHGALL RUC STATION WHERE 8 IRA MEN WERE SHOT DEAD BY THE SAS AS THEY TRIED TO BLOW UP THE RUC STATION BY PLACING A BOMB ON A JCB DIGGER. 384/87/BW/C

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Michelle O'Neill prepares her speech before getting up to speak. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. A Republican colour party ion front on an IRA memorial in Cappagh. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. A Republican colour party ion front on an IRA memorial in Cappagh. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members hold pictures of the eight men who were killed. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

PACEMAKER BELFAST THE BULLET RIDDLED VAN IN WHICH 8 IRA MEN WERE KILLED BY THE SAS AT LOUGHGALL RUC STATION IN 1987

A flag-bearer carries the Irish tricolour during a march to Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members and bystander Anthony Hughes in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Co Armagh. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday April 30, 2017. The IRA members killed were Jim Lynagh, 32; Padraig McKearney, 32; Gerard O'Callaghan, 29; Tony Gormley, 25; Eugene Kelly, 25; Patrick Kelly, 32; Seamus Donnelly, 19; and Declan Arthurs, 21. See PA story ULSTER Loughgall. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Photographs of the eight IRA members and bystander Anthony Hughes who were killed in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Co Armagh, are held by people taking part in a march to Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday April 30, 2017. The IRA members killed were Jim Lynagh, 32; Padraig McKearney, 32; Gerard O'Callaghan, 29; Tony Gormley, 25; Eugene Kelly, 25; Patrick Kelly, 32; Seamus Donnelly, 19; and Declan Arthurs, 21. See PA story ULSTER Loughgall. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader for Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill addresses a memorial event in Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members and bystander Anthony Hughes in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Co Armagh. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday April 30, 2017. The IRA members killed were Jim Lynagh, 32; Padraig McKearney, 32; Gerard O'Callaghan, 29; Tony Gormley, 25; Eugene Kelly, 25; Patrick Kelly, 32; Seamus Donnelly, 19; and Declan Arthurs, 21. See PA story ULSTER Loughgall. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader for Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill takes part in a march to Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members and bystander Anthony Hughes in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Co Armagh. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday April 30, 2017. The IRA members killed were Jim Lynagh, 32; Padraig McKearney, 32; Gerard O'Callaghan, 29; Tony Gormley, 25; Eugene Kelly, 25; Patrick Kelly, 32; Seamus Donnelly, 19; and Declan Arthurs, 21. See PA story ULSTER Loughgall. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

PACEMAKER BELFAST MAY 1987 JH/MW MONTAGE PIC OF THE 8 IRA MEN WHO WERE SHOT DEAD BY THE SAS AS THEY TRIED TO BLOW UP LOUGHGALL RUC STATION. FROM TOP LEFT-PATRICK McKEARNEY, TONY GORMLEY,JIM LYNAGH, PADDY KELLY. FROM BOTTOM LEFT-DECLAN ARTHURS, GERARD O'CALLAGHAN, SEAMUS DONNELLY AND EUGENE KELLY. 388/87/BW

Marchers commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members and bystander Anthony Hughes in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Co Armagh, make their way towards Cappagh, Co Tyrone, for a memorial event. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday April 30, 2017. The IRA members killed were Jim Lynagh, 32; Padraig McKearney, 32; Gerard O'Callaghan, 29; Tony Gormley, 25; Eugene Kelly, 25; Patrick Kelly, 32; Seamus Donnelly, 19; and Declan Arthurs, 21. See PA story ULSTER Loughgall. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Photographs of the eight IRA members and bystander Anthony Hughes who were killed in an SAS ambush in Loughgall, Co Armagh, are held by people taking part in a march to Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday April 30, 2017. The IRA members killed were Jim Lynagh, 32; Padraig McKearney, 32; Gerard O'Callaghan, 29; Tony Gormley, 25; Eugene Kelly, 25; Patrick Kelly, 32; Seamus Donnelly, 19; and Declan Arthurs, 21. See PA story ULSTER Loughgall. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Alan Lewis - PhotopressBelfast.co.uk 30-4-2017 Republican memorial ffeaturing the names of some of the eight man IRA gang killed in an SAS ambush at Loughall police station in County Armagh on 8th May 1987. The eight died in a hail of bullets after they had exploded a bomb in a mechanical digger which they had driven through the gates of the heavily fortified police base. A ninth man was shot dead in a vehicle that had been travelling behind the IRA gang.

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 30th April 2017 Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987. Family members of those killed, along with bands and a Republican colour party parade from Atlone to Cappagh before the commemoration. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill speaks at a commemoration held in Cappagh, Co. Tyrone, for eight members of the IRA who were killed by the SAS as they were about to attack Loughgall RUC station in May 1987.

Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill has been accused of disrespecting IRA victims after she spoke at an event to commemorate the deaths of eight of the terror group's members killed in Loughgall, Co Armagh, in 1987.

The party's leader in Northern Ireland insisted there was no contradiction in commemorating the IRA dead while also reaching out to unionists. She said republicans "are proud of our freedom struggle".

Read More

But last night, DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the decision by Sinn Fein's Stormont chief to defend the IRA was "appalling".

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph, the Lagan Valley MP said: "While recognising that people have the right to commemorate the dead and their families, I find her remarks an insult to the innocent victims of IRA violence."

"Her defence of the IRA violence is appalling, and demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the innocent victims of the IRA.

"The families of the thousands of children, women and men murdered in cold blood by the IRA will be deeply hurt by these comments, coming from the person who aspires to be the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland."

Ms O'Neill took part in a republican parade on Sunday to mark 30 years since the SAS ambush of the IRA men.

Large crowds gathered at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Altmore and paraded to the IRA memorial in the village of Cappagh.

The IRA tried to blow up Loughgall police station in Co Armagh in May 1987. Members of the east Tyrone Brigade loaded a 200lb bomb into a stolen digger which smashed through the gates of the station.

Expand Close PACEMAKER BELFAST MAY 1987 JH/MW MONTAGE PIC OF THE 8 IRA MEN WHO WERE SHOT DEAD BY THE SAS AS THEY TRIED TO BLOW UP LOUGHGALL RUC STATION. FROM TOP LEFT-PATRICK McKEARNEY, TONY GORMLEY,JIM LYNAGH, PADDY KELLY. FROM BOTTOM LEFT-DECLAN ARTHURS, GERARD O'CALLAGHAN, SEAMUS DONNELLY AND EUGENE KELLY. 388/87/BW / Facebook

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Whatsapp PACEMAKER BELFAST MAY 1987 JH/MW MONTAGE PIC OF THE 8 IRA MEN WHO WERE SHOT DEAD BY THE SAS AS THEY TRIED TO BLOW UP LOUGHGALL RUC STATION. FROM TOP LEFT-PATRICK McKEARNEY, TONY GORMLEY,JIM LYNAGH, PADDY KELLY. FROM BOTTOM LEFT-DECLAN ARTHURS, GERARD O'CALLAGHAN, SEAMUS DONNELLY AND EUGENE KELLY. 388/87/BW

The SAS was lying in wait and opened fire, killing all eight members of the IRA unit.

An innocent civilian, Anthony Hughes, was also shot dead.

Family members of the dead men carried their photographs to the memorial.

Speaking to the crowd, Ms O'Neill said she had been criticised by unionists and the media for commemorating the IRA.

However she added: "Let me be clear.

"I am an Irish republican. Make no mistake about it - I will always remember and commemorate our patriot dead - and each of our fallen comrades who gave their lives for Irish freedom."

Expand Close Sinn Fein leader for Northern Ireland Michelle ONeill addresses a memorial event in Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members / Facebook

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Whatsapp Sinn Fein leader for Northern Ireland Michelle ONeill addresses a memorial event in Cappagh, Co Tyrone, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the shooting dead of eight IRA members

She added: "I see no contradiction whatsoever in commemorating our republican dead while reaching out to our unionist neighbours to build the future - Orange and Green together on the basis of full equality and mutual respect."

Ms O'Neill said everyone has a legitimate right to remember their dead without being demonised.

"We are proud of our freedom struggle.

"We are especially proud of our republican patriot dead and each of our fallen comrades with whom we are gathered to remember, honour and whose lives we celebrate here today," she added.

Previously, DUP leader Arlene Foster had said she was disappointed by Ms O'Neill's decision to attend the event.

Mrs Foster met Irish language students in Northern Ireland in a bid to learn more about the language as part of efforts to restore devolved powersharing.

She said: "It is disappointing that when I am trying to make this a shared place for everybody in Northern Ireland that other leaders are doing things that frankly are wrong and backward-looking."
The man suffered a wound to his cheek

A 20-year-old man is being treated in hospital for a wound to his cheek after being assaulted by a gang wearing tracksuits in Belfast.

Detectives are appealing for witnesses following the assault in Belfast City Centre in the early hours of Monday May 1.

Shortly before 2.50am police received a report of an ongoing altercation involving a number of people in Donegall Place.

A 20-year-old male sustained a wound to his cheek after he was assaulted by a number of males wearing track suits.

He is currently in hospital receiving treatment.

Detective Inspector Paul Rowland is appealing for anyone who was in the area of Donegall Place and who witnessed an altercation or anyone who has any information that can assist with the investigation to contact them at Musgrave Police Station on 101 quoting reference 165 of 01/05/17.

Information can also be passed anonymously via the Independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
MPs said Tony Blair had missed chances to secure compensation during a period when the former Gaddafi regime was seeking a rapprochement with the west

The next UK Government should finance a compensation fund for victims of IRA attacks using Libyan explosives, a committee of MPs said.

Successive administrations were accused of "two decades of failure" to seek money from the North African country and letting down many bereaved and injured across the UK.

Ministers after the General Election must order a pension or payment by the end of the year even if negotiations with the Arabs are not possible - before time runs out for victims, parliamentarians said.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee accused former Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour administration of missing a vital opportunity to secure payouts in the early 2000s, compounded by further omissions by successor governments.

Chairman Laurence Robertson said: "The UK Government cannot allow this litany of missed chances to continue.

"There needs to be direct dialogue with the Libyan Government, and if the situation there makes this impossible, the Government must begin the process of establishing a fund themselves."

Starting work on compensation now would allow the Government to calculate who is eligible and how much money it should claim back from the Libyan authorities after their predecessors armed the Provisionals with massive amounts of weaponry - extending the Troubles and causing enormous human suffering.

Bombings using toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi's weapons included: Harrods department store in 1983; an Enniskillen Remembrance Day ceremony blast in 1987; Warrington in 1993 and the financial heartland at the London Docklands in 1996.

Victims of IRA attacks using Libyan Semtex, a plastic explosive frequently deployed across the UK, are pressing for UK Government support in their campaign for compensation from massive amounts of frozen assets seized from the toppled Gaddafi administration.

While the US, France and Germany negotiated multimillion-pound settlements with Muammar Gaddafi for its citizens impacted by Libyan-directed terrorism, the previous Labour government in the UK has been heavily criticised for not striking a similar deal.

Tuesday's report from MPs also found:

:: Almost 9.5 billion of frozen assets in the UK from the Gaddafi regime could provide "leverage" in negotiations on a compensation deal.

:: The UK Government has left it to victims to secure compensation for fostering terror in stark contrast to other countries.

:: The administration led by Mr Blair missed a vital opportunity, during the period in which Libya was seeking a rapprochement with the west from 2003, to act on behalf of IRA victims by placing this issue firmly on the negotiating table to secure a compensation package.

:: The exclusion of the UK victims of Gaddafi-sponsored terrorism from the terms of the US-Libya Claims Settlement Agreement 2008 after Mr Blair left office was another missed opportunity to resolve the issue of compensation, given the determination and vigour demonstrated by the Governments of France, Germany and the US.

:: If the Coalition Government had taken up the issue after the 2011 fall of Gaddafi it would have had a good chance of an agreement.

The report concluded: "We believe that, with sufficient determination, the UK Government should be able to reach an agreement.

"But, as one of our witnesses said: 'it requires somebody to bang on their door, not with a wet sponge, but (with a) bang'."

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "The Government supports UK victims of Gaddafi-sponsored IRA terrorism in their attempts to seek redress from the Libyan authorities.

"The next government will respond to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee's report in due course."
Women who paid thousands of pounds for unnecessary breast surgery carried out by rogue surgeon Ian Paterson must fight for compensation because of a legal loophole.

The NHS alone has paid out nearly 18m after settling the cases of more than 250 patients treated by top surgeon and former Bangor Grammar pupil Ian Paterson (59), who was described in court by one victim as being "like God".

On Friday, Birmingham-based Paterson was convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and three counts of unlawful wounding against 10 patients.

One solicitor said he could have "hundreds, if not thousands" of other victims.

But women who were private patients face a legal nightmare after hospitals group Spire and Paterson's insurers, the Medical Defence Union, denied liability for his actions.

Around 400 women are now having to sue in the civil courts for damages, it was revealed yesterday. The courts will decide where liability lies and on the appropriate level of compensation.

A spokesman for Irwin Mitchell, a law firm suing Paterson and Spire, told the Sunday Telegraph: "People think they have better cover going private, but the NHS provides much better cover if things go wrong."

One victim of Scottish-born Paterson looked like a "car crash victim" after undergoing an unnecessary mastectomy, while another had a "significant deformity in her visible cleavage area" after a pair of needless operations on her left breast.

The surgeon maintained all the operations were necessary, but a jury of six men and five women at Nottingham Crown Court agreed with the prosecution that Paterson carried out "extensive, life-changing operations for no medically justifiable reason".

Former friends said Paterson joined Bangor Grammar's preparatory school, Connor House, in the mid-1960s after his parents moved to the seaside town from Scotland.

"When he arrived from Scotland, he was pretty quiet," recalled local journalist and businessman Colin Breen, who was one of Paterson's classmates.

"He kept himself to himself. He seemed conscious of being different, probably because of his accent, I suppose."

Another former prep school classmate said: "Ian was quiet - you wouldn't have found him messing about with the rest of the boys at breaktime or anything like that. He was bright academically, but slightly aloof - a bit of a loner."

A third former pupil added: "I remember that he was a good rugby player - he was a hooker and he captained the first XV. He was a clever enough fellow, but even though he took part in team games he never really mixed.

"I remember him well and his prowess on the rugby field, but strangely enough I don't really remember anything about him other than he was there."
Northern Irelands current power source is either old or not secure

The lights could go out in Northern Ireland during its centenary celebrations due to an energy crisis, an MP has warned.

Ulster Unionist Danny Kinahan urged people to have their candles ready for Northern Ireland's 100th anniversary - but for power blackouts rather than a birthday cake.

The warning came after an influential committee of MPs reported that the province will need more energy than can be supplied in 2021.

Power bills are set to soar unless work begins now on a cross-border interconnector, according to the report by Westminster's Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. The province already faces the highest energy prices in the UK but this is set to get worse unless a secure electricity supply is established quickly.

The committee has also warned that the UK's withdrawal from the EU will probably see the removal of energy funding.

Improving electricity connection between Northern Ireland and the Republic will help alleviate concerns, the report says.

The report warns it is "crucial" that the North/South interconnector clears the final planning stages and construction begins as soon as possible to ensure it is operational ahead of 2021.

Mr Kinahan, a member of the committee, said the clock is ticking to remedy a crisis that has been looming for years.

He said that unless the interconnector is established or new means of generation are developed "this could mean 'the lights going out' for local households and businesses".

The South Antrim MP said that the lack of an Executive was exacerbating the problem, "with no minister in place to even take strategic decisions".

Mr Kinahan said that in their evidence to the committee, business leaders in the CBI noted that the lack of long term certainty over Northern Ireland's energy supply has hindered its ability to attract foreign direct investment.

"If action is not taken soon we could find ourselves drifting towards an energy crisis," he said.

The report also highlights how the Moyle interconnector, between Northern Ireland and Scotland, is under-utilised.

This sytem ensures cheaper electricity and security of supply between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. However, it currently operates at half capacity due to technical restrictions which are imposed by the National Grid.

Mr Kinahan said: "The interconnector from the Republic of Ireland is stalled. The Moyle interconnector is only working one way. We're about to pull out of the EU, we've got old power stations that are coming to the end of their useful life, and we have an electricity grid that doesn't reach everywhere, so that not all the wind farms we are building can get onto it. Added to that, we have a slow planning process.

"Put all that together, and we are lacking a long-term strategy. None of the emergency measures really tackle the long-term problems thoroughly and properly.

"Get your candles ready.

"I do hope it won't come to that, but we do need to take this seriously."

Laurence Robertson MP, chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, said that establishing a secure electricity supply must be a priority for both the Stormont Assembly and Westminster, warning: "The region already faces the highest energy prices in the UK, causing significant harm to the competitiveness of businesses based here and creating unacceptable levels of fuel poverty. This must not be allowed to get any worse."

The report recommends there should be further investment in the Scottish grid to enable it to work at full capacity.

It also says that whenever the Executive is restored it must work to encourage investment in the energy market.

"Difficult decisions about where future electricity supply will come from will need to be taken quickly if the current situation is not to get worse," said Mr Robertson.

Angela McGowan, CBI NI Regional Director, said earlier this month: "The business community is justifiably concerned that Northern Ireland is projected to face an electricity supply deficit from 2021," she said.

"The interconnector can address this problem, as it will reduce the risk of power shortages and blackouts, while simultaneously reducing costs."

A Department for the Economy spokesperson said it will give the report "careful consideration".
A major policing operation has been planned ahead of a visit to the Republic of Ireland later this month by the Prince of Wales and his wife, The Duchess of Cornwall.

Charles and Camilla are due to visit Dublin, Kildare and Kilkenny as part of their third formal tour of the Republic in less than two years.

In 2015, the Prince's visit to Ireland included a trip to Mullaghmore in Co Sligo, where his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten was murdered in 1979 when the IRA blew up his boat.

A high-level security plan has being drawn up ahead of the latest visit, which will include gardai checkpoints and road closures including at Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery, which is on the Royal couple's itinerary.

It is understood Prince Charles and Camilla will be shown the Cross of the Sacrifice in the cemetery, which commemorates the beginning of World War One

Staff at Clarence House, the official residence of the couple in London, declined to comment on the trip, which has been planned for several months.
The scene of the crash at Quigleys Point in Donegal

The families of two teenagers who died in a traffic accident over the weekend are said to be "absolutely distraught".

The two young men from Buncrana in Donegal were killed while travelling home from a nightclub in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Teenagers Nathan Fullerton (17), and Nathan Farrell (18), were in a car with three of their friends.

Their vehicle collided with a wall between Quigley's Point and Whitecastle on the R238 road at around 3.35am on Saturday.

The remains of Mr Fullerton and Mr Farrell were brought home yesterday evening, and they will both be buried at St Mary's, Cockhill in Buncrana later this week.

The young men were returning from a night out at the Bailey nightclub in Redcastle when the incident occurred.

The road, on the Lough Foyle side of the Inishowen Peninsula, was re-opened yesterday after an examination was conducted by Garda Forensic Collision investigators.

One of the young men was pronounced dead at the scene while the second was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry, where he was pronounced dead.

It is believed that Mr Fullerton was due to leave Ireland today for a job in Scotland.

The other three passengers are said to be in a stable condition in Altnagelvin and Letterkenny hospitals.

"I've been talking to some of the family members and they're absolutely distraught, they're in shock, disbelief," said councillor Rena Donaghey.

"They went out to go to a disco, but they never came home.

"They were all very young, they were all under 20, they had everything to live for.

"They were just beginning out in life really, one of them was starting a job in Scotland on Monday.

"My thoughts are with the ones who are in hospital as well.

We just hope that they have a speedy recovery and get back to full health again," Ms Donaghey added.

Buncrana priest Father Francis Bradley said there was a "stunned silence" in the community, adding that people were shocked at the sudden loss.

"Unfortunately, this isn't a set of circumstances that we're unfamiliar with - we are all too familiar with it.

"But nevertheless, it is different people and different families, and for that reason it is a fresh tide of grief," Fr Bradley added.

"People mourn the loss of two young lives, they are saddened by the pain that this brings to the families and all their generations, from grandparents to parents to siblings to circles of friends."

The collision occurred in the same location where in 2005 five young men also from Buncrana died when their Peugeot 306 was in collision with a Mazda people carrier.

The driver of the people carrier was very seriously hurt.

Derry man Brendan Henderson was later jailed for four years for causing the deaths by dangerous driving.
Sinn Fein's deputy leader in the Republic, Mary Lou McDonald, is standing by her call to scrap the country's Special Criminal Court - just days after publicly welcoming her former protege's conviction for torture.

Ms McDonald found herself at the centre of controversy following the conviction of former Sinn Fein politician Jonathan Dowdall, who waterboarded another man.

The Special Criminal Court heard last week how the ex-councillor threatened to feed his victim, Alexander Hurley, to dogs and burn his head at the stake.

During the shocking interrogation, Mr Hurley, who has prior fraud convictions, pleaded for his life as Mr Dowdall covered his face with a cloth and doused his head with water, while his father Patrick Dowdall threatened to cut his fingers off with a pliers "knuckle by knuckle".

The court heard how the ex-Sinn Fein man told his victim he was a "stupid dumb f*** to mess with the head of the IRA."

He also claimed to be a friend of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and Ms McDonald.

The father and son, who pleaded guilty to threatening to kill their victim, are due to be sentenced later this month.

Dowdall (38), was elected a Dublin city councillor in 2014, left the party, rejoined the next year and then quit for good.

But Ms McDonald has now found herself at the centre of a political row after she released a statement welcoming the ruling of the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, despite repeatedly calling for it to be scrapped.

Last night, Ms McDonald said the sentence handed down to her former colleague "must reflect the seriousness of the crimes for which he has been convicted".

But the Dublin Central TD is standing behind her claim that the no-jury court - similar to Northern Ireland's Diplock courts that deal with terrorism cases - should be abolished.

Ms McDonald is one of a number of Sinn Fein politicians who have called for the abolition of the Special Criminal Court, which administered the convictions and jailing of some of the country's most dangerous criminals, including IRA members.

Despite her party's demand for its scrapping, Ms McDonald released a statement backing last week's verdict in relation to her former close ally.

"I welcome the conviction of Jonathan Dowdall in court today," she said. "The details of the attack perpetrated by him are deeply shocking.

"I hope the sentence delivered by the court reflects the seriousness of the offence and the trauma endured by his victim."

Last night, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock said the case illustrated Sinn Fein's links to criminality and accused Ms McDonald of hypocrisy. "It's incredible that Sinn Fein now find one of their former councillors in the dock for waterboarding and torturing a member of the public," he added.

"He's on trial, in fact, in the very same Special Criminal Court that Mary Lou McDonald's Sinn Fein wanted to abolish. It's quite clear that with Sinn Fein past and Sinn Fein present, you are not far from criminality.

"It's simply unbelievable that they wanted, and still want, to abolish the Special Criminal Court."

Last night, a Sinn Fein spokesperson responded: "Deputy Rock is playing cheap politics with a serious crime.

"Sinn Fein's concerns with the operation of the Special Criminal Court are shared by Amnesty International, the ICCL and the UN Commission on Human Rights. Perhaps Deputy Rock opposes these groups as well."
The parties met in Downing Street last week.

Theresa May has dismissed claims she is at loggerheads with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker over her Brexit negotiating strategy as just Brussels gossip.

The Prime Minister came under fire following reports Mr Juncker walked out of talks last week in Downing Street saying he was 10 times more sceptical than before.

Opposition parties warned the UK was heading for a disastrous hard Brexit after a detailed account in the German press of their dinner suggested Mr Juncker left fearing the negotiations would end in failure.

But campaigning in Ormskirk in Lancashire, Mrs May brushed off the claims insisting that they were at odds with what the commission had said about the meeting.

From what I have seen of this account, I think it is Brussels gossip, she said.

Look at what the European Commission themselves said immediately after the dinner took place which was that the talks had been constructive.

Downing Street said it did not recognise the latest account which appeared in the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

The Prime Minister nevertheless sought to exploit the report to drive home her message that she  not Jeremy Corbyn  can provide the strong leadership needed to secure the best deal for Britain.

It also shows that these negotiations are at times going to be tough and in order to get the best deal for Britain we need to ensure that we have got that strong and stable leadership into those negotiations, she said.

When it comes June 8 people have a clear choice.

There will be 27 European countries on one side of the table  who do they want to see standing up for Britain on the other side? Me or Jeremy Corbyn.

The Labour leader, campaigning in Battersea, south London, warned however that Mrs Mays negotiating strategy was unravelling.

To start negotiations by threatening to walk away with no deal and set up a low tax economy on the shores of Europe is not a very sensible way of approaching people with whom half of our trade is done at the present time, he said.

Of course they are going to be difficult (negotiations), but you start from the basis that you want to reach an agreement, you start from the basis that you have quite a lot of shared interests and values.

If you start from that basis and show respect, you are more likely to get a good deal.

But if you start with a megaphone, calling people silly names, it is not a great start to anything.
Donald Trump has said that he "absolutely" would meet with North Koreas Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.

Kim has never met with a foreign leader since taking charge after his fathers death in 2011.

Asked if he was prepared to meet him President Trump said: If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it.

"Most political people would never say that but Im telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news."

The comments came at a moment of particularly high tension and following a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed, the third flop in a month.

On Friday, the UN Security Council held a ministerial meeting on Pyongyang's escalating weapons programme. North Korean officials boycotted the meeting, which was chaired by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the US mainland.

The latest test came as US officials pivoted from a hard line to diplomacy at the UN in an effort to address what may be Washington's most pressing foreign policy challenge.

US president Donald Trump said on Twitter: "North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!"

North Korea's state media has reiterated the country's goal of developing a nuclear missile capable of reaching the US.

Expand Close Donald Trump, pictured, says he hopes North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un wants peace (AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Donald Trump, pictured, says he hopes North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un wants peace (AP)

The Rodong Sinmun newspaper also said the North revealed two types of new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in an April 15 military parade honouring its late state founder, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current ruler Kim Jong Un.

The parade featured previously unseen large rocket canisters and launcher trucks.

It said: "The large territory that is the United States has been entirely exposed to our pre-emptive nuclear strike means."

Referring to the United States sending the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to Korean waters, the newspaper said that "rendering aircraft carriers useless is not even a problem" for its military.

The newspaper said the North displayed three types of ICBMs during the parade, including two new types that were inside the canisters.

Analysts say the North's existing liquid-fuel ICBMS, including the KN-08 and KN-14, are potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, although the North has never flight tested them.

Norwegian foreign minister Borge Brende said Saturday on Twitter that "new missile test violates SC (Security Council) resolution. Urgent need for common action to reduce tension."

Norway, which is not a current member of the Security Council, is a founding member of the United Nations and has always considered the body as a cornerstone in its foreign policy.

In Japan, one of Tokyo's major subways systems shut down all lines for 10 minutes early on Saturday after receiving warning of a North Korean missile launch.

Tokyo Metro official Hiroshi Takizawa said the temporary suspension affected 13,000 passengers.

Service was halted on all nine lines at 6.07am. It resumed at 6.17am after it was clear there was no threat to Japan.

Mr Takizawa said it is the first time service had been stopped in response to a missile launch. Train service is generally suspended in Japan immediately after large earthquakes. Tokyo Metro decided earlier this month to stop for missile launch warnings as well.
When I open my email these days, I find it flooded with various commercial offers. Especially around cannabis products. Now is the right moment, I'm informed, to invest in cannabis. It's getting legal everywhere! It's a profitable product - and, besides, it helps with a range of illnesses "including chronic pain, anxiety, arthritis, diabetes, PTSD, strokes, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer".

Justin Trudeau's Canada has legalised it and Canadians can now buy marijuana with names like Girl Scout Cookies, Green Crack and Suicide Girl (eh?) from government-licensed companies. And it's been legalised in Colorado and some other American states for a while now.

It's hard to know what to think of this trend. Many people support marijuana and cannabis for medical use (CNN reports that seven in 10 Americans approve of athletes using it to alleviate pain), and it seems a worthy application of the drug. People with terminal illness are pumped with opium to relieve pain and distress, and why not? Yet, when my sister was dying in New York, I had to sign a waiver saying we would not sue the hospice for making her a dope addict - for absurd legal reasons.

But when it comes to cannabis, I also know it can be so harmful. The Middle East specialist Patrick Cockburn - who grew up in Youghal - has written with his son, Henry, a heart-wrenching book called Henry's Demons: Living with Schizophrenia, which describes how Henry, as a teenager, descended into a hell of schizophrenia most likely triggered, they believe, by cannabis use.

Time for me to have a renewed conversation with Grainne Kenny, a dynamo of a woman - 80 this year but utterly undiminished in energy - who, as a long-time president of Eurad, the European non-profit network against drugs, and now honorary president, has campaigned against drugs in Ireland since 1979. Isn't there an argument for legalising cannabis for the relief of pain?

Grainne thinks that a lot of the campaigning for medical use is often a ploy to normalise use for recreational reasons. The adverts that are coming into my mailbox about the wonders of cannabis are more about Big Pharma taking over from Big Tobacco than about compassion for the afflicted. And, Grainne says, you'd be asking someone with an illness to smoke a joint, because that's the most practical way of getting the cannabis inside you. Since health advisors want to halt smoking, it's hardly a sensible course.

What about inhaling it through cannabis oil, which is now much promoted as a healing property? Some cancer survivors claim to have been helped by it. Grainne is not convinced that any cannabis-based product is without side effects, and cannabidiol can be much stronger than ordinary pot, too.

Moreover, cannabis can cause cancer - the British Lung Foundation found that tar from joints contains 50% more carcinogens than cigarettes made from tobacco alone - rather than cure it. People with a chronic illness who need a relaxant "would probably be better off with a gin and tonic", Grainne says. Alcohol, though a serious drug, is not a narcotic or a psychotropic. And we have been acculturated to alcohol for over 5,000 years.

But what about the trend, in North America, to be more accepting now of cannabis-based products? In this, Grainne sees the influence of the financier George Soros (backed, on this side of the Atlantic, by Richard Branson), who has donated millions to drug liberalisation.

Besides, some of the outcomes of legalisation are already dubious. In Colorado, where you can buy cannabis legally, the dealers have moved in and are trading it elsewhere - and criminally. For similar reasons, the Dutch have pulled back from their formerly easy-going approach to soft drugs: every dopehead in Europe was heading for Amsterdam, and they didn't like the overall effect on their cities.

The state of Utah, which was preparing to legalise cannabis, is pausing to reflect, and New Hampshire - in the liberal northeast - has voted against. Britain has toughened legislation against cannabis possession and the health authority NICE has ruled out funding the cannabis-based medication Sativex, although it is used in Wales to control muscle spasms (and, recently, an 11-year-old epileptic boy, Billy Caldwell, in Northern Ireland was given prescriptive cannabis oil).

Sweden, which Grainne regards as the gold standard, has held firm and remains solidly opposed to any liberalisation of drugs.

Many commentators believe that the 'war on drugs' is a failure - achieving little except enriching criminals. But there's no easy remedy to legalising it. "Who's going to sell this stuff? Distribute it? Tax it?" Tax it too highly, and there will be a parallel black market anyway. Tax it too low and the State is irresponsibly encouraging young people to take up the drug habit.

But won't people always seek some kind of drug? Because human beings cannot bear too much reality. Grainne concedes this may be so. Yet you can do a lot with drug education - not by lecturing young people but by engaging them. Teenage girls, she says, are so responsive: they worry about their friends. Lads are more likely to guffaw and show off.

Surely that, at least, is something we can all agree on - that serious, engaged education around the drug question is a vital backdrop to the increased clamour for liberalisation?
Thank you, Stella Wilson, for your comments (Write Back, April 25) on my letter of April 20. I agree with some of what you say, particularly your opening opinion that I have painted "a bleak view of pregnancy".

It was my intention to do so, because although millions of mothers would rightly disagree with me, I am attempting to speak for the many thousands who do not see pregnancy as a happy process and are running the risk of criminalisation and ostracisation by our outdated laws and narrow-minded religiosity.

Stella speaks of her own happy circumstances and experiences. I am a family man and have shared in the joy of pregnancy and birth, as well as the heartbreak of miscarriages. What I ask is that people (and the law) accept the right of a woman to seek a termination.

The suggestion that contraception is the answer is not correct, because no method is 100% reliable.

As to the grounds on which I argue the primacy of the mother's feelings, the answer is simple: an early embryo does not have complex human experience or feelings. The mother must do what she feels is best for herself and others around her (including the embryo, for that matter).

It is the mother who must take the difficult decision over continuation or termination, which is, indeed, a difficult decision to take - whatever her religious beliefs (or lack of them).

Obviously, Stella does not agree that religion has no place in the law, but if that is the case, I would ask which religions? Should we accept Sharia law? It is not just Christians who fall under the law of the land.

It is not just Christianity that gives human beings dignity. Any sensible philosophy will do the same (humanism, for example).

Indeed, even a passing knowledge of the history of Christianity, right up to the present day, shows much that is unsavoury and lacking in human dignity.

Legislating sensibly on termination of pregnancy forces no one to do anything they do not wish to do. It will certainly not lead to the end of the human race.

DAVID FULLERTON

By email
The fundamental divide in Northern Ireland is between unionist/Protestant/British people and Irish people. In short, it's about national identity and allegiance.

Irish people in Northern Ireland have an inalienable right to national freedom as part of the sovereign Irish nation.

British sovereignty over Irish people denies them their right to national freedom.

MALACHY SCOTT

Belfast
The scene of the Loughgall attack, the 30th anniversary of which republicans mark today

The South Down IRA killed nine police officers in a mortar attack in Newry in 1985. The atrocity was something the brigade was delighted by and bragged about. Its record is brutal and bloody.

Colum Marks (29) was in this brigade. He was in charge of a terrorist cell in Downpatrick. His name takes pride of place on the IRA's roll of honour.

In April 1991 Marks was on 'active service' when he was shot dead by police. 'Active service' is republican language for terrorism. The Provos hated being called terrorists. Indeed, they hated being called Provos.

Specialist police in a covert operation confronted the Provo commander.

The E4 officer who fired the shots saw a terrorist suspect he identified as a threat.

That is, he believed Marks posed a real and immediate risk to his life or that of others.

It may come as a surprise to people and bodies that make careers from criticising the security effort, but police officers also have a right to life.

Considering the antecedents of the South Down Provos, the officer's assessment is credible. He was up against men from a brigade that had committed mass murder.

The coroner's court found that Marks was positioning a horizontal mortar at the side of a road. The weapon was historically used to great effect. It was part of a homemade arsenal that terrorist groups adopted all across the world.

These crude devices could be set off remotely. A terrorist did not need to be beside it to detonate it.

An example is the murder of policewoman Colleen McMurray (34) by the South Down IRA, a year after the Downpatrick incident.

To say Marks (far right) was unarmed, as most media coverage has, downplays the gravity of the life-threatening situation the officer faced.

When the IRA man was hit, it was not by a volley of shots but several bullets.

The officers at the scene gave medical aid. They tried to save him.

Marks died on the operating table at the hospital. Another suspect escaped.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of lawful killing.

Twenty-seven years later, a new eyewitness has emerged. Reports claim that he saw a man under arrest beside three police officers. The inference being that this was Colum Marks.

In other words, three police officers walked him on a public road to a location where he was then shot dead.

According to the witness, Marks was executed in cold-blood and at least three officers are implicated.

This is very different to claiming one officer made a bad call and other opportunities to arrest Marks or disrupt the attack were not taken.

But why, if the objective was to kill, did they try to keep him alive and call an ambulance? Why would they risk him talking to medical staff? It makes no sense.

Covert operations often involved different teams from different locations coming together. E4 armed response crews in uniform ran close to single E4 surveillance operators in plain clothes.

When an operation went down, it was usually when people were out of position or not entirely ready.

This is the nature of covert operations, whether in Northern Ireland, Iraq or Afghanistan. Not everything goes to plan.

In the commotion, it was not uncommon for an E4 surveillance operator to be mistaken for a suspect and challenged by an armed response crew, especially at night.

The operator knew that to comply with the instructions was to stay safe. Even when they realised who it was, the pretence of arrest was maintained. Otherwise, the operator's cover is blown. This was standard operational procedure.

There are normally three officers in a crew. Is this what the new witness saw?

If it is, the difficulty for the officer is that historical inquiries have been disinterested in how the intelligence machinery worked and dismissive of the explanations of officers from this background.

What was used in England, should have been used here, is the mindset. Few of these investigators have policed a conflict and fewer have been in this officer's shoes. The witness is not the issue.

What also makes no sense in this new claim is that no officer was trained or told to shoot to kill. They shot to stop the threat and were trained to target the chest.

At times, however, shooting was unavoidable and often fatal because E4 were crack shots.

In numbers, 0.5% of E4 operations resulted in a fatality. The last terrorist they killed was a decade prior to Marks.

This is an incredible record in a peacetime setting, let alone in a conflict. Given these figures, again the claim does not stack up.

Police shooting to kill is a belief or political catchphrase. It is what nationalists, left-wingers and the mainstream media have been conditioned to believe by Provo propagandists.

Critics who claim shootings of this kind could have been prevented ignore the elephant in the room - a person not becoming a terrorist was the best preventative measure. For the majority, this is where moral values greatly helped.

It is to the lasting credit of both communities that only a tiny minority took up arms.

Had Marks not been in Downpatrick that night, neither would the police.

MP Ian Paisley recently said the officer who killed Marks deserves a medal and not an investigation. He is right.

The comment outraged Sinn Fein. In their eyes, he was a good man, a victim and a martyr, like the IRA men killed in Loughgall.

The thirtieth anniversary of Loughgall is today. Sinn Fein will exploit it to re-justify the 'armed struggle' (their language for terrorist campaign), applaud legacy inquiries such as Marks's and demand more.

In 1991 a cowardly terrorist tried to murder and a brave cop stopped him. Why this seems controversial today is down to a 'peace process' that has encouraged, funded and popularised an opposite view.

How true heroes have been treated is shameful, how terrorism has been sanitised is sickening and how the past is being rewritten is pitiful. No other democracy would tolerate this madness.
Northern Ireland bakery Ashers has been slammed after it refused to make an engagement cake with a same-sex marriage slogan for a man and his partner.

Joe Palmer, who is to wed long-term love Andy Wong this summer, says hes hurt by the refusal to bake the cake ordered just weeks after a landmark Court of Appeal ruling against the firm run by Christian family the McArthurs.

In October judges upheld a finding that Ashers had discriminated against customer Gareth Lee due to his sexuality when it refused his order for a cake with a pro-gay marriage motto.

Joes friend Grainne McCann ordered and paid for the cake online, only to have the order rejected the next day.

London-based Grainne, who is from Northern Ireland, told Sunday Life: The wording we requested was Gay marriage rocks! Happy engagement, Andy and Joe! Lots of love xxx. We were thrilled when Ashers accepted our online order, and full payment of 23.40 plus 20 P&P, but the next day they sent the cancellation note and a refund.

My gut instinct told me the cake was refused because it celebrated gay marriage.

To prove her point, Grainne then ordered a christening cake for her goddaughter Leila.

Ashers couldnt have been happier to make that cake, she said.

A woman from the company even offered to drive it to its destination in Dublin as a favour, because she was going that way.

This was terribly kind, but I felt angry and sad that Ashers attitude to gay people is so different.

Expand Close Andy Wong (left) and Joe Palmer - getting married this summer 2017 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Andy Wong (left) and Joe Palmer - getting married this summer 2017

Grainne managed to get a cake for her friends from a London bakery.

Joe said: Thank God I live in London, where I cant imagine something like this happening.

Im staggered that Ashers wouldnt make the cake, but Im glad that Londoncakes.com supplied it  the cake was delicious and made with love.

Londoncakes.com owner Graham Brooks said: Obviously, if someone wanted a racist cake for an English Defence League meeting, wed say no, but I dont have the right to judge others views unless theyre illegal.

Grainne said: In my view, by turning away business based on the sexual orientation of the consumer they risk being sued again.

My friends and I dont want to sue  Andy and Joe want to focus on their forthcoming happy day  but others might want to take action.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Daniel and Amy McArthur of Ashers Baking Company Daniel McArthur, managing director of Ashers Bakery, and his wife Amy outside the High Court in Belfast in October / Facebook

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Sunday Life contacted Ashers, but it refused to comment.

However, on the build a cake section of its website the company outlines its terms and conditions.

It does not mention its stance on gay marriage, but states that people must not send content or images which contain any threatening, defamatory, blasphemous or pornographic material.

Also on the banned list are images and content portraying any kind of child abuse, or are racially offensive or abusive of any religion, or likely to incite hatred against any person or group, or are otherwise criminal or offensive in the minds of reasonable people, or are obscene or menacing or harassing in any way, or breach any applicable law.
A top cop whose job it is to investigate the behaviour of other officers is facing a PSNI examination into his public comments about homosexuality.

The PSNI last night revealed it is going to examine statements made by Detective Inspector Calvin Coulter who is also a Christian preacher.

DI Coulter is a senior officer in the PSNIs Professional Standards Department.

Sunday Life can reveal his controversial online comments include saying he was dumping Starbucks over the companys support for gay marriage  and urging others to boycott the coffee shop chain.

In a statement to this newspaper last night, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: Any private views expressed by a police officer are a matter for that individual and are not the views of the PSNI.

However, PSNI will not accept or tolerate homophobia or any other forms of discriminatory behaviour.

We will examine what has been said to see if there has been a breach of the law or our code of ethics.

Part-time preacher Calvin Coulter has used social media to make a number of offensive remarks about the gay community. These include:

Saying he has dumped coffee shop Starbucks for supporting gay marriage and you can too;

Promoting articles that describe being gay as a distortion of human sexuality and;

Advertising religious tracts that claim homosexuality keeps people out of the Kingdom of God.

When Sunday Life approached DI Coulter yesterday he said that he had no comment to make. Screen-shots of his comments were sent to the PSNI who in response issued the statement by ACC Hamilton.

As an employer the PSNI is committed to upholding the highest standards that include promoting equality of opportunity between persons of different religious belief, political opinion, racial group, age, marital status or sexual orientation.

By publicly taking part in a boycott of Starbucks for supporting same sex marriage, and advertising online articles that describe being gay as a distortion of human sexuality DI Calvin Coulter appears to be breaching these strict guidelines.

The PSNI is proud of its links with the Gay Police Association, and senior officers have taken part in the annual Belfast Pride celebrations.

Ulster Unionist politician Jeff Dudgeon, a gay rights and equality campaigner, questioned how DI Coulter could be tasked with investigating the behaviour of other officers in light of his views.

He said: My first thought is what confidence could a gay officer have in being investigated by this policeman? The PSNI needs to review his position.

It is deeply disappointing to learn that a senior PSNI officer has these outdated views, and that he has been so unwise as to express them on social media. His remarks are quite frankly unpleasant.

As well as his online homophobic comments DI Coulter, who preaches at Ballymena Congregational Church, also made a number of near-the-knuckle comments about other religions during his recorded sermons.

In one 30-minute speech from the pulpit entitled A Right Relationship with the World, he claimed the Catholic saint Mother Teresa represents so many people who have closeted themselves away from the world. In another sermon to his Ballymena church called the Righteous and the Wicked, he said of Orthodox Jews: Some folks might say they are so blinded and so dismissive of the Messiah, and yes, theyre all of those things...

PSNI sources who tipped-off Sunday Life about DI Coulters uncompromising religious views questioned his ongoing role as a senior officer in the forces Professional Standards Department.

One cop told us: Its one thing to believe those things, but to say them in public is a different matter entirely. Calvin would have been better off keeping his mouth shut.
Who Was King When Jesus Was Born?

King Herod, or Herod the Great as he liked to be called, was a jealous king, placed in power by the Roman Empire. Like most kings he wanted more power, not less power. Then, out of the east come these wise men (or scholars) on camels bearing fancy gifts, asking one question: where could they find the newly born king of the Jews? They added We have seen His star in the east and have come to worship Him (Matthew 2:2). They didnt come all this way to see King Herod but another king. Can you imagine what he was thinking? Another king? Here? Where I rule? Jesus represented a new kingdom, and His coming, though misunderstood, represented a threat to other powers, by the kings like Herod, or spiritual authorities like the Pharisees, and teachers of the law later in the gospel. You may wonder kind of difference a tiny baby could have made to someone as powerful as Herod was: a whole lot.

Herod Tries To Kill Jesus

When word reached Herod that the wise men were looking for this new king, he sent for them and urged them to find the child so he could worship him too. But Herod was lying. His real goal was to destroy the child, fearing illogically that in time, Jesus would take over his throne. Historians tell us that Herod was a cruel, power-hungry ruler who destroyed anyone who he feared was threatening his power by trying to topple him from his throne. He even went as far as killing members of his own family because he thought they were plotting against him. God warned the wise men of Herods plot in a dream, so they found Jesus and gave him gifts and did not return to Herod. After Herod realized they had evaded him, he ordered the death of every child in Bethlehem below the age of two. It wasnt just jealousy that Herod was experiencing as he ordered the massacre of hundreds of babies, it was fear. Fear of losing what was most important to him: power.

Another important thing to note is his status as ruler. Herod knew his status as ruler was tenuous. He gained and maintained his power by brute force and manipulation. He had little support from the common people around Jerusalem. Discontent with his rule was so high that a small spark could create a firestorm of revolution. Herod lived in constant fear  no matter how many enemies he tortured or executed; he knew their numbers would continue to grow. Thats why Herod was so furious to learn the wise men had tricked him. He was so furious that, He sent for and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under (Matthew 2:16). This was only the latest of his extraordinary acts of brutality. Earlier, he had his two eldest sons murdered because he feared they were plotting against him.

The tragic story is the introduction to the entire story of Jesus. Jesus exposed the violence of power politics. He exposed the violence that lies all too close to the hearts of all of us. He goes on to show us that Gods merciful kingdom is available to all of us right now to break spiritual violence.

The story of Jesus is about the presence of Gods healing mercy in human history. This mercy enters a world of conflict. It is because we have so much conflict that we so desperately need Gods mercy. Jesus, even at His birth, exposes the violence of Herod. Alongside Jesus birth story , the joyful song of God with us comes another song, a terrible song: A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more (Matthew 2:18). Such lamentations have too often been a part of human history before and since Jesus birth. Jesus birth though, signals a new hope that Herods violence would be overcome.

Jesus and Herod represented two very different types of kings. The tidings of Jesus birth are tidings of a new expression of Gods abundant mercy and healing. King Jesus taught that abundance means rejecting dividing people into insiders and outsiders or limiting Gods mercy and love. Gods kingdom is or all people. Jesus ate with tax collectors and other sinners, forgave the woman caught in adultery and promised paradise to the criminal on the cross next to Him. Jesus received all who wanted to come.

Jesus was a genuine threat to Herod, to the religious leaders and to the Roman Empire. He approached life with an entirely different script from that of scarcity and fearfulness. Jesus wrote a revolutionary script of trust, acceptance, openness and mercy. Anyone who genuinely hears Jesus word will no longer find it possible to accept Herods definition of reality but will give homage to an altogether different kind of king: the peaceable king, Jesus.

Herod wasnt the last to try and destroy Christ and His own people; even in our own day, evil men and women rise up against Gods work. But Gods Word is true. I will build my church, and the gates of hell should not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). And some day, Christ will come again to judge all evil, and Satans defeat will be complete.

Lesli White is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth with a Bachelors degree in Mass Communications and a concentration in print and online journalism. In college, she took a number of religious studies courses and harnessed her talent for storytelling. White has a rich faith background. Her father, a Lutheran pastor and life coach was a big influence in her faith life, helping her to see the value of sharing the message of Christ with others. She has served in the church from an early age. Some of these roles include assisting ministry, mutual ministry, worship and music ministry and church council.
Kashmiri residents offer funeral prayers for Ghulam Mohammad Khan who was killed in an attack by suspected insurgents in Srinagar, April 30, 2017.

A separatist group in Indian Kashmir claimed responsibility for gunning down five policemen and two bank guards while holding up a cash van on Monday.

The attack came a day after suspected militants hurled a grenade at a police patrol party in Srinagar, killing a civilian and injuring five policemen, amid growing unrest in the insurgency-torn region.

Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), the largest separatist faction in the disputed Himalayan region, praised its cadres for conducting Mondays assault in south Kashmirs Kul gam district.

HM operatives carried out the attack and decamped with guns of policemen. Mahmood Ghaznavi [HMs operational commander] congratulated the operatives involved in the attack and announced a reward for them, the group said in a statement issued to the press late Monday.

In Mondays incident, gunmen ambushed a Jammu and Kashmir Bank vehicle used to transport cash near Pombai village and fled with four rifles that belonged to the slain security personnel, police said. No money was stolen.

The bank cash van was returning after depositing cash at a branch in the district. It was a sudden and intense attack. The policemen and bank guards accompanying the vehicle did not get a chance to retaliate, Indian Kashmirs police chief, S.P. Vaid, told BenarNews.

The attackers fled with the policemens service rifles after the gruesome strike. We have launched a manhunt for the suspects, he added.

The militants fired shots at the tires, bringing the vehicle to a halt, before killing the occupants, another police official in the district said.

They [the attackers] shot the occupants of the vehicle from very close range. But for some reason, they spared the vehicles driver, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Kashmir, which is claimed in its entirety by India and Pakistan, has been grappling with a separatist insurgency that has claimed over 70,000 lives since the late 1980s.

India and Pakistan have fought three full-blown wars, largely over control of Kashmir, since the partition of the sub-continent in 1947. The two sides routinely accuse each other of cross border infiltrations and ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC), a de facto border that divides Kashmir between the two countries.

India blames Pakistan for beheading soldiers

On Monday, the Indian Army accused Pakistani soldiers of beheading two Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers following an unprovoked attack on Indian posts situated along the LoC in Poonch district.

The Indian Army warned of a befitting reply to its neighbor.

Bodies of two soldiers were mutilated in an inhuman act by the Pakistan Army after an unprovoked attack at Krishna Ghati sector along the LoC. The Pakistan army fired rockets and mortar shells at Indian posts at around 8:30 a.m. IST, The Indian Armys Northern Command said in a statement.

The Indian Army will appropriately respond to [the] despicable act by Pakistan army, it said.

The Pakistan Army denied allegations that its soldiers attacked and beheaded Indian security personnel.

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on the LoC in the Buttal sector (Indias Krishna Ghati sector) as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers bodies is also false, the Pakistan Armys Inter-Services Public Relations wing said in a statement, according to the Press Trust of India.

Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian, it said.
A caretaker cleans the yard at a shelter for cows in New Delhi, April 25, 2017.

Indian police said Monday they had detained two people in connection with the weekend killings of a pair of suspected cattle thieves by a mob in northeastern Assam state.

The fatal beatings of the two Muslim men in Nagaon district were the latest in a string of attacks in India allegedly carried out by so-called cow vigilantes and stemming from inter-religious tensions over the treatment of cows, considered sacred in Hindu culture. Most states in Hindu-majority India ban the slaughter of these animals and consumption of beef.

The killings in Nagaon occurred Sunday after a villager spotted two men  identified as Riyazuddin and Abu Hanefa  walking away with his cows and raised an alarm, superintendent of police Debaraj Upadhyay said.

The other villagers who gathered at the spot chased the two men and brutally beat them. Police arrived at the scene and rushed the two men to a nearby hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries, Upadhyay told BenarNews.

We have picked up two people for questioning and are looking for other suspects in the case, he said, adding these were the first killings of suspected cattle thieves by a mob in Assam.

Nagaon district resident Abdul Jabbar, who claimed to have witnessed the killings, told BenarNews: There was a huge ruckus. I stepped out of my house and saw dozens of villagers chasing two men. They eventually got hold of them and beat them mercilessly.

At least 10 Muslims have been killed in separate incidents of mob violence over rumors of beef consumption across India since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in May 2014, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week.

Indian authorities should promptly investigate and prosecute self-appointed cow protectors who have brutally attacked Muslims and Dalits over rumors that they sold, bought, or killed cows for beef, the report said.

The nearly 180 million-strong Dalit community, relegated to the bottom of Hinduisms rigid caste hierarchy, for centuries has been at the receiving end of caste-related discrimination that frequently turns violent. Such attacks have increased since the rightwing BJP came to power, government critics say.

Instead of taking prompt legal action against the vigilantes, many linked to extremist Hindu groups affiliated with the ruling BJP, the police, too often, have filed complaints against the assault victims, their relatives and associates under laws banning cow slaughter, HRW said in its report.

Muslim group demands impartial probe

Badaruddin Ajmal, president of the All India United Democratic Front, an Assam-based Muslim organization, also blamed hardline Hindu groups affiliated with the ruling party for stoking fear nationwide in the name of cow protection.

We want an independent judicial inquiry into Sundays incident. Of late,violence against Muslims in the state has increased and only an impartial probe will ensure that those guilty are punished, Ajmal told BenarNews.

While condemning the unforunate incident, the BJP assured that those responsible for the violence would not be spared.

Branding people as cattle thieves and [killing] them is completely unacceptable. A detailed investigation will follow and anyone found guilty will be punished, R.P. Sharma, a BJP lawmaker from Assam, told BenarNews.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Myanmar State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Laos Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith pose for a "family photo" at an ASEAN leaders' summit in Manila, April 29, 2017.

Southeast Asian leaders met for an annual summit Saturday, tackling security issues that weigh on the region including terrorism and China's expansionist moves that risk stoking further tension in the potentially resource-rich South China Sea.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, the host of this year's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, tried to strike a conciliatory tone and avoided directly mentioning China, but some of the regional leaders raised the contentious topic that for years has dominated the regional event.

In his opening statement, Duterte stressed that the 10-nation bloc thrived with a policy of "non-interference," an apparent swipe at questions by the West about his government's brutal anti-drug war that has left thousands dead.

The leaders also raised the problem of terrorism and nuclear proliferation in the Korean Peninsula, noting that Pyongyang's continued nuclear and missile tests have undermined the region's security.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told fellow ASEAN leaders that they should boost anti-terrorism cooperation to counter the spread of the Islamic State (IS) in the region, which is home to the world's most populous Muslim nation and a large number of migrants to the Middle East.

"We know the threat is growing and we must work together to combat it," he said in remarks at the closed door meeting, a copy of which was obtained by reporters.

"ISIS is active in Southeast Asia and creating a Wilayat [province] in the southern Philippines and I urge all member states to share intelligence, and stand united and resolute in countering terrorism," he said, using another acronym for IS.

Militant groups from the southern Philippine region of Mindanao have been blamed for a recent spike in violence. Filipino group Abu Sayyaf, a former al-Qaeda linked group which has recently pledged allegiance to IS, holds several foreign and Filipino hostages.

Flash point

Lee also called on ASEAN to close ranks and speak with one voice in matters regarding overlapping claims to the South China Sea, a topic that has long weighed down the regional bloc.

China is not a member of ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Apart from the Philippines and China, the sea region is claimed as well by Taiwan and ASEAN states Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The claims are a source of agitation and security experts have said growing militarization in the sea region led by China's aggressive expansion could be a potential flash point of armed conflict.

"Not all of us are claimants but we have common interests in maintaining peace and stability, ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight and in the peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance to international law," Lee said, warning that mishaps at sea could "escalate and threaten regional peace."

He welcomed moves by ASEAN and China to craft a framework for a "code of conduct" expected to be finalized by mid-2017. Both sides agreed to draft it about 15 years ago, but questions have been raised about China's sincerity.

A chairman's statement that was prepared ahead of time, however, underwent several revisions. The document initially did not officially include references to China's island building and fortification activities.

Four countries have refused to delete a portion that mentioned China's construction activities, sources said.

Earlier in the week, Duterte said that as this year's chairman, he believed it was pointless to raise the issue. He said an arbitral ruling last year that found in favor of the Philippines and junked China's historical claims to most of the region "is not an issue in the ASEAN."

China has steadfastly ignored that ruling, and instead continued building and expanding artificial islands in areas it claims in the region, adding to fears that it was slowly militarizing the region. A Philippine Air Force plane was challenged recently by Beijing when it passed over the islands.

Pushback

An analyst said that other ASEAN countries, such as Singapore and Indonesia, may have led an internal pushback at the summit, fearing an escalation of the dispute and worrying that silence on the issue would mean China's uncontested geopolitical dominance.

"Ignoring the South China Sea issue entirely was impossible since several countries, from Vietnam to Singapore and Indonesia, believe the ASEAN should make a strong stance on the issue lest the regional body fades into total irrelevance," said Richard Heydarian of De La Salle University in Manila, who has been following the dispute.

He said some in the Philippine defense establishment, including senior diplomats, appeared to have aggressively lobbied for a stronger stance amid Duterte's soft-pedalling approach to the issue.

Duterte, he said, has not only refused to discuss the arbitration case "but also mentioning the massive reclamation activities."

"Increasingly, the Philippines is being seen as part of the emerging Chinese sphere of influence inside ASEAN, a remarkable climb down from the country's robust position just a year ago," he said. "And this is creating deep frustration among major founders such as Indonesia and Singapore, and fellow claimant Vietnam."

China remains sensitive to anything that could be seen as a veiled reference to its expansion in the South China Sea. And the latest development underscores the growing ties between President Duterte and Beijing.

Duterte, on Saturday, also raised traditional and non-traditional security issues, including illegal drugs that he said threatened the youth and terrorism that continued to plague the region.

"Piracy and armed robbery against ships disrupt the stability of regional and global commerce. Terrorism and violent extremism have brought the reality of attacks right on our shores and at our doorsteps," he said.

"Vigilance is the price that we must pay to keep our citizens safe. We can only achieve this through advancing cooperation at the bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels," he said.
Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo, left, meets with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila ahead of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, April 28, 2017.

Foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Friday expressed grave concern about rising tensions in the Korean peninsula over the Norths nuclear tests last year and its recent ballistic missile launch.

Meeting ahead of a leaders summit in Manila on Saturday, they said members were mindful that instability in the Korean Peninsula seriously impacts peace and stability in the region already beset by its own security problems.

ASEAN strongly urges the DPRK to comply fully with its obligations arising from all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions and international laws in the interest of maintaining international peace and security, the group said in a statement. North Korea is also known as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The ministers asked Pyongyang to exercise self-restraint to de-escalate the tension and refrain from actions that may aggravate the situation.

ASEAN supports the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in this regard, calls for the resumption of dialogue on the Korean Peninsula to defuse tensions and create conditions conducive to peace and stability, the ministers said.

Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand are joined in ASEAN by Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam.

US response

The statement came as the United States vowed to step up actions against North Korea.

We are engaging responsible members of the international community to increase pressure on DPRK in order to convince the regime to de-escalate and return to the path of dialogue, said a statement issued Wednesday by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats.

It said North Korea jeopardizes stability in Northeast Asia and poses a growing threat to allies there and in the U.S. mainland.

The United States seeks stability and the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We remain open to negotiations toward that goal. However, we remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies, it said.

Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, earlier welcomed moves by China to help defuse tensions between Pyongyang and Washington and suggested a non-military solution remained the objective.

Earlier this month, North Korea held its largest firing drill to mark the founding anniversary of its armed forces. The show of strength coincided with the 105th celebration of the birth of North Koreas founder Kim Il Sung.

Analysts said it was meant to send a message to Washington and its allies, South Korea and Japan, that the hermit kingdom was capable of launching nuclear arms.

So far, North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests but its latest missile test was a failure. In response, the U.S. dispatched an aircraft carrier and a battle group to the region.

Separately, the U.S. State Department noted the use of a deadly nerve agent in the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, as it marked the 20th anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty that outlaws their use.

South Korea and Malaysia have accused North Korean government agents of killing Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 on Feb. 13.
Updated at 2 p.m. ET on 2017-05-01

The Philippine armed forces said Saturday it had killed a notorious Abu Sayyaf "sub-commander" wanted for a rash of abductions targeting Malaysians and Indonesians and for a 2002 bomb attack that left a U.S. soldier dead.

Alhabsy Misaya was killed Friday by troops scouring the thick jungles of Jolo, in the southern tip of the Philippines, although details could not be released as the offensive action was continuing, the military said.

A member of the army's Joint Task Force in Jolo confirmed the death, and said the offensives were part of the armed forces' stepped up operations to crush the Abu Sayyaf force by June 30.

Military chief Gen. Eduardo Ano in a brief statement said Misaya was slain during an operation in Jolo's Indanan town, but that he could not provide further details so as not to compromise ongoing operations.

Troops from assigned Philippine Marine units killed the Abu Sayyaf extremist commander, who is considered to be one of the most notorious kidnappers in southern Philippines, he said.

Hostages

Misaya's group is believed to be holding some of the Abu Sayyaf's 27 hostages, which include 12 Vietnamese, seven Indonesians and a Dutchman seized in 2012.

In March 2016, Misaya's faction seized 10 Indonesian crewmen of the Tugboat Brahma 12 while five Malaysians were seized in July last year.

The Indonesian crewmen were all released after reported payments of ransom, while the Malaysian captives were freed following clashes that year.

"We have got information about the death of Alhabsy Misaya. Seven Indonesian hostages are not detained by Misaya's group. They are detained by two different groups in Sulu island," the Indonesian foreign ministry said in a statement.

Misaya is a known Abu Sayyaf bomb maker, and the military has named him as the main suspect in a 2002 attack that killed U.S. soldier Sergeant Mark Jackson and wounded a colleague and 23 Filipinos, the army said.

The Joint Task Force said the fresh clashes were part of its operation to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf, which deployed a group of militants to scout for new victims on the central island of Bohol this month.

A combined group of soldiers and policemen however were tipped off, triggering a series of clashes that left nine Abu Sayyaf militants dead, including Abu Rami, another Abu Sayyaf militant who led a faction that kidnapped and beheaded foreigners.

The military said the Abu Sayyaf, or Bearers of the Sword, was once affiliated with al-Qaeda but has declared allegiance to the Islamic State.

Viewed as one of Southeast Asias most violent militant groups over two decades, it was blamed for the 2004 bombing of a passenger ferry on Manila Bay in which over 100 were killed in what is considered the country's worst terrorist attack.

In February, the militants beheaded Jurgen Kantner, 70, a German yachtsman they snatched in December. Last year, they also beheaded two Canadian hostages who had been seized from a beach resort also in the south.

In Manila, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella confirmed the report, and said Misaya's death was a "big blow" to the Abu Sayyaf.

But while the Abu Sayyaf leader has been killed, he called on the public to remain on alert and work with state forces in addressing the threat posed by the group.

We call on all citizens to remain vigilant, alert and watchful in cooperating with security forces to end the menace of this bandit group as government holds them accountable for their brutal and senseless crimes, Abella said in a statement.

Let us cooperate to have safer and more secure communities. This is our shared responsibility, he said.

Mark Navales in Mindanao and Felipe Villamor in Manila contributed to this report
Police Officer 2 Gerome Anthony Natividad embraces his family after the New Peoples Army released him in the outskirts of Cagayan de Oro in the southern Philippines, April 27, 2017.

Communist guerrillas on Thursday freed a policeman they had seized almost three months ago in the southern Philippines in what the rebels described as a goodwill gesture to bolster ongoing peace negotiations.

Police officer Gerome Anthony Natividad was turned over to an intermediary by the New Peoples Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, near the town of Talakag in the outskirts of Cagayan de Oro city, about 1,370 km (853 miles) south of Manila, the Philippine capital.

Natividad was in good spirits when he was reunited with his relatives, said Felixberto Calang, bishop of a local Christian church which brokered the release.

He was mentally alert and there was no scratch on him, Calang said. We were assured that he was not hurt during his captivity. We are happy that we have a successful outcome. We have worked hard for this release.

Guerrillas seized the officer on Jan. 29 at a road block and said they would free him only if the military and police stopped their armed offensives in the area.

His release came just weeks after negotiators from the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front, the NPAs political group, agreed to a temporary cease-fire in talks held in the Netherlands.

The peace talks came after the rebels killed three soldiers and almost derailed the process, with President Rodrigo Duterte threatening to pull out of the peace negotiations.

Duterte, a self-declared leftist, has since softened his stance and even invited communist party leader Jose Maria Sison to return to the Philippines from Europe, where he is on a self-imposed exile.

Sison, who is said to be sick, politely declined the offer. In January, Manila said it would ask the United States to remove Sison from a list of wanted terrorists.

The Maoist-inspired NPA has been waging war since the late 1960s. The Philippine Army estimated the NPAs strength at 3,200 fighters, mostly armed with rifles, at the end of 2015. Some 40,000 soldiers, rebels and civilians have been slain over the course of the conflict.

Duterte has made the release of all captive government troops a condition of the resumption of talks. He had also asked the rebels to end collecting so-called revolutionary taxes from local businessmen.

The Army welcomed Natividads release, but said it would not suspend military operations against the NPA, which it considers a terrorist organization.

But it agreed to a temporary stand down to pave the way for release of more government troops in the hands of the rebels. Army officials said the NPA was holding one more soldier hostage.

The NPA released two soldiers on April 19, about three months after they were taken captive as they made their way to their military camp in a remote region of the south.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (center) salutes while visiting the Chinese warship Changchun in the port of Davao, May 1, 2017.

The Philippines is to conduct military exercises with newfound regional backer China in waters around the southern Mindanao region, President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday after touring Chinese warships docked at his hometown of Davao City.

It was the first time in seven years that the Chinese Navy had made a port call in the Philippines, and on Monday military personnel on both sides engaged in goodwill games to cement the revitalized friendship.

[This trip] is really part of confidence-building and goodwill, and to show that we are friends, Duterte said. Thats why I welcomed them here and I was the one who asked, you show me your warships.

Yes, I said I agree, you can have a joint exercise here in Mindanao, maybe in the Sulu Sea, Duterte told reporters, according to a transcript released to the media in Manila.

The Philippine leader also said he might not be able to visit the United States this year, after boasting earlier about receiving an invitation from U.S. President Donald Trump over the weekend.

Duterte visited the three Chinese warships a day after issuing a chairmans statement on behalf of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which just wrapped its annual meeting in Manila.

In what many experts consider as a turnaround from Manilas earlier position regarding China, Duterte merely took note of concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments in the area.

He ignored a 2015 ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that invalidated Chinas claims to most of the potentially resource-rich South China Sea region, a vital waterway through which most of the worlds shipping commerce passes.

Apart from the Philippines and China, the sea region is claimed as well by Taiwan and ASEAN states Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. China insists it has historical and sovereign rights over the region.

In previous news conferences, Duterte repeatedly said the Philippines and other nations were helpless to stop Chinas island-building in parts of the South China Sea. He also emphasized the potential billions of dollars worth of investments from Beijing that he expected to be an offshoot of improved bilateral relations.

In Davao City on Monday, Duterte said he was impressed by the Chinese vessels armaments.

If they fired toward the Philippine direction, he said, all of us will be blown.

Im tied up

Asked if he would make a state visit after getting the invitation from President Trump, Duterte replied: No, because I have  Im tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. Im supposed to go to Russia, Im also supposed to go to Israel.

Trump called Duterte after the ASEAN summit on Saturday.

Duterte said the telephone conversation was brief but friendly, and that he cautioned the U.S. president to tread carefully with North Korea, which has threatened anew to test nuclear weapons.

Duterte said he explained to Trump his relationship with the former administration of Barrack Obama, whom he blamed for publicly warning him about his countrys war on drugs.

It was not a distancing but it was rather a rift between me maybe and the State Department and Mr. Obama who spoke openly against me, Duterte said.

He said that with the election of Trump, things have changed.

He wants to make friends and he says we are friends, Duterte said. So why do you have to pick a fight?

Dutertes latest comments about Trump came after the New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the American president to censure his Philippine counterpart for his countrys anti-narcotics campaign, which has left thousands dead since last year.

Phelim Kine, a deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, urged Trump to talk about the killings that occurred since Duterte took office in June 2016.

Kine called the Filipino leader an enthusiastic cheerleader for those killings.

Countries with close bilateral ties to the Philippines, particularly the United States, have an obligation to urge accountability for the victims of Dutertes abusive drug war, rather than offer to roll out the red carpet for official state visits with its mastermind, Kine said.

He said Duterte had made repeated calls for the public to kill drug addicts as part of the campaign.

These calls could constitute criminal incitement to commit murder, Kine said.
Luzviminda Siapo hugs her sons coffin during his wake in Navotas, north of Manila, April 3, 2017. (AFP)

Embalmer Orlando Cadiente takes a nap inside the morgue of the Veronica Memorial Chapel in Manila, where unclaimed bodies of alleged drug dealers are kept, Dec. 2, 2016. (AFP)

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he answers questions from reporters at Manila International Airport, March 23, 2017. (AFP)

A woman weeps over the body of her father, an alleged drug dealer who was killed during a police operation in Manila, Jan. 5, 2017. (AFP)

Relatives react after police gunned down an alleged drug dealer in Manila, Sept. 24, 2016. (AFP)

Suspected drug users are rounded up during a police operation at an informal settlers community at the Manila Islamic Center, Oct. 7, 2016. (AFP)

Police operatives take position as they serve a search warrant to a resident believed to be a drug dealer in Pasig City, a Manila suburb, Sept. 5, 2016. (AFP)

Police officers conduct a house-to-house search for illegal drugs at an informal settlers community in Manila, Oct. 6, 2016. (AFP)

Luzviminda Siapo (right), a Filipino domestic worker employed in Kuwait, arrives at a funeral wake in Navotas, north of Manila, for her son, Raymart, who was shot dead by kidnappers after neighbors complained to a village watchman that he was selling drugs, April 3, 2017. (AFP)

Rodrigo Duterte was already known as a tough guy when he became president of the Philippines last June, a reputation that has solidified through his administrations war on drugs.

He entered office with the nickname Duterte Harry  inspired by the San Francisco cop played by Clint Eastwood on the silver screen. That stemmed from Dutertes reputation for coming down hard on illegal drugs and narcotics users in his hometown of Davao City in the south, where he served as mayor for more than 22 years.

During his presidency, Duterte has declared a nationwide war on drugs, and it has been bloody.

Police officers so far have killed almost 2,800 people in purported gun battles, while another 6,000 deaths of suspected drug dealers and users are being investigated, according to reports from news outlets and human rights organizations.

Duterte has made no apologies for the killings, but he also has denied allegations that these extra-judicial deaths are state-sponsored.

In the meantime, business has been brisk for funeral homes, as the drug-related killings have kept Filipino undertakers and embalmers busy.

The campaign against drugs has caused suffering among Filipinos whove lost loved ones.
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By Dean Schnurr

Like many incoming college freshmen, William Sberna was not completely decided on his career path when he started classes. As a high school student he did his research and was entering Bowling Green State University Firelands College enrolled in the radiologic technology program, but like so many other students, there were lingering doubts.

What was unique for Sberna, however, was how rapidly he made a decision. It was during his first hour in a college classroom that he knew his career path.

Ironically, I thought I was in the wrong classroom, said Sberna, who will earn his bachelors degree this semester. The professors name did not match my class schedule, but I was a freshman in my first class so I was a little leery about getting up and walking out. In hindsight, Im glad I didnt."

Sbernas first class as a college student was biology and the professor was Ram Veerapaneni. Sberna found that Dr. Veerapaneni was an outstanding teacher and the content of the biology class was intriguing. He had found his calling.

Ram was teaching biology on a cellular level and it was fascinating to me to learn how cells worked. They are very mechanical in nature, but they are a living thing, said Sberna, a Bellevue, Ohio, resident. He added that his high school experience with biology only involved the study of plants and animals.

Although Sberna knew his passion was for biology, he opted to complete an associate degree in radiologic technology and currently works at a local hospital as a radiologic technologist while earning his bachelor's degree in applied health science.

Wills love for biology is obvious and infectious. He embodies all the qualities one would want in a perfect student, said Veerapaneni, a BGSU Firelands assistant professor of biology.

Sberna and Veerapaneni developed a strong relationship throughout four years at BGSU Firelands. In addition to several classes together, Sberna was a member of the Chess Club and the Science Club, both of which Veerapaneni advised.

Whether its biology or chess, he makes learning fun and interesting. Its clear that he enjoys what he does, Sberna said of his teacher.

It was also Veerapaneni who encouraged Sberna to further his study of biology through independent research.

He encouraged me to take a job in the labs and also supported my research activities, said Sberna.

Sbernas interest in cell activity and interaction fueled his research. He was particularly interested in learning more about bacteria and how, at a cellular level, antibiotics were inadvertently creating superbugs.
by John D. Barry, CEO of Jesus' Economy

Every narrative, every act, is a call and response related to faith. Faith inor for some, faith in nothing at allis a thread that weaves throughout our lives. Jesus of Nazareth recognized this and questioned the religious status quo; he confronted people who used religion for power and gain.

Jesus was a rabbi whose followers believed he was God incarnate and who sacrificed their own lives to represent his teachingsthey refused to back down from his message of love and the claim that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. This is how incredible Jesus wasthat he prompted a movement of people dedicated to living sacrificially for the sake of others. In their minds, love had come down as Jesus and changed everything about their lives. They believed that Jesus resurrection had given them freedom to live in full relationship with God and to spread his message of love and peace over the sword and hate.

Jesus articulated the incredible power of love. He spoke of how religion can and should be used for bringing love and peace to our world (Matthew 5:9; 22:3740; compare Matthew 26:52). Because God is love, as Jesus' follower John put it (1 John 4:8).

Religion, though, tends to distort the eternal message of love for power and individual gain. Religion has been wrongly used to justify the Crusades, slavery, segregation, and acts of terror.

Each of us needs to represent, in our actions, a better solution. We need to express our belief in self-sacrificial love.

Jesus is an example of someone who faced oppressive religion and said, You've heard this hate your enemy and get an eye for an eye ... but I tell you this: Love your neighbor, including your enemy (see Matthew 5:3848).

We can summarize much of Jesus message as: Be generous to those who persecute you, condemn you, stand against you. Live sacrificially, for the betterment of the impoverished, marginalized, outsider.

Jesus called the rich, the powerful, and each and every person, to account (see Matthew 57; 23). He says to live self-sacrificially for the marginalized and to practice a faith rooted in serving others. Jesus even claims that this type of love is how he will recognize his true followers (see Matthew 25:3146). Something to ponder theresacrificial love is how Jesus recognizes those who know him.

In one of Jesus last messages to his disciples before his crucifixion, he focuses on serving others. With his carpenters hands, he washes the dirty feet of his disciples (see John 13:117 ). This is a living testimony of sacrificial love. He shows them what true love means.

Just prior to his arrest, Jesus says, love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this: that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:1213 LEB adapted).

These teachings are, in large part, what led to Jesus being crucified. He called those in power to change their ways and they killed him for it. Jesus died for this love and for the full weight of every wrongdoing we commit against our brothers and sisters.

Later, the book of James will summarize this message of love as: Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God is this: to look after orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world (James 1:27 LEB adapted).

Let us live as people who don't give into the pressure of our world to place ourselves before otherslet's not let that nonsense stain our vibrant colors of love. Let's place the refugee, outsider, impoverished, imprisoned, and voiceless before ourselves. Lets answer the call of love in word and deed (compare the book of James). This should be the narrative of religion woven through our lives, through our existence.

Jesus economy is based on self-sacrifice. And his currency is love. This is true religion.

John D. Barry is the CEO of Jesus Economy, an innovative non-profit creating jobs and churches in the developing world. At JesusEconomy.org, people can shop fair trade and give directly to a cause theyre passionate about, such as bringing the gospel to unreached people groups. John is also the general editor of Faithlife Study Bible and the author or editor of 30 books.
For Immediate Release, May 1, 2017 Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org

Must-pass Spending Bill Includes Funding for Trump's Border Wall Replaces Vehicle Barriers With 'Pedestrian Barriers' WASHINGTON Congressional leaders in both parties agreed Sunday to include $146 million in the federal budget for the construction of new walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. The replacement of vehicle barriers with pedestrian barriers will step up border militarization, continue to harm local communities, and have devastating effects on wildlife, blocking the movement of jaguars, ocelots and other animals. The budget agreement also includes $77 million for new border roads that will provide the needed infrastructure to build future segments of the wall. Despite claims by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats, a pedestrian barrier is a wall, as it is the only type of border-control structure that deters pedestrian entry. Don't be fooled by the misleading claims coming from Congress: Trump just got a down-payment on his destructive wall, said Brett Hartl, government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity. Trump's wall is as divisive as it is dangerous, not just for people but for wildlife too. Make no mistake, though. This fight is just beginning. On April 12 the Center and Congressman Raul M. Grijalva sued the Trump administration over the proposed border wall and other border-security measures, calling on federal agencies to conduct an in-depth investigation of the proposal's environmental impacts. At least 50 species near the border are already endangered, like the Sonoran pronghorn, gray wolf and ocelot. Studies show that border barriers divide natural habitat, impact breeding levels and can make it more difficult for animals to forage for food and water. Converting vehicle barriers to pedestrian barriers is exactly the type of impact that should be assessed for the enormous environmental havoc it will wreak, said Hartl. Since 2001  the last time the federal government reviewed environmental impacts on the U.S.-Mexico border  enforcement programs and associated environmental impacts have increased exponentially, including the deployment of thousands of new border agents, construction of hundreds of miles of border walls and fences, construction of thousands of miles of roads, the installation of operating camps and other military and security infrastructure. These physical impediments, as well as 24-hour surveillance lighting and road network all function to block critical movement routes and threaten the survival of numerous species.
For Immediate Release, May 1, 2017 Contact: Randi Spivak, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org Republicans Attack Presidential Authority to Protect National Monuments House Hearing on Tuesday Continues Industry-backed Assault on Public Lands WASHINGTON House Republicans will hold a hearing Tuesday to review national monument designations by past presidents, including Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The hearing  chaired by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), who has cosponsored 24 anti-public lands bills since 2011  is part of a larger effort by House Republicans to weaken protections of public lands. The aim of this assault on national monuments is to rescind or shrink their boundaries and open them to industrialization. Teddy Roosevelt would be appalled to see the Republican Party's mean-spirited attempts to dismantle our public lands, said Randi Spivak, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's public lands program. Republicans would rather allow industry to log, mine and frack these beautiful wild places for short-term profit than let future generations marvel at the natural and cultural wonders of this country. Congress authorized the president to designate national monuments on federally owned land under the Antiquities Act of 1906 with the express purpose of protecting important objects of historic and scientific importance. Last week President Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of the Interior to review the designation of national monuments protected since 1996. Over the past century, national monument designations have protected some of the country's most iconic natural and cultural landmarks. Twenty-four national parks, including Grand Teton, Grand Canyon and Acadia, first received protection as monuments. Over the past 110 years, 16 out of 19 presidents have designated national monuments under the Antiquities Act. Presidents from both parties established these monuments to protect irreplaceable natural, scientific and cultural treasures, Spivak said. McClintock, Bishop and House Republicans are completely out of touch with the values of an overwhelming majority of Americans who want to see the continued protection of our national monuments. A recent Center for Biological Diversity report, Public Lands Enemies, identified the top 15 members of Congress trying to seize, destroy, dismantle and privatize America's public lands. Members of the Subcommittee on Federal Lands, including Reps. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Don Young (R-Alaska), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), landed on the public lands enemies list, having sponsored or cosponsored collectively 124 anti-public lands bills since 2011. The lawmakers have also received, collectively, millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the oil, gas and logging industries. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
The startup aims to use the money to augment technology and infrastructure to expand services and introduce new products. The startup aims to use the money to augment technology and infrastructure to expand services and introduce new products.

Gurgaon-based Credi Health Pvt. Ltd, an online medical assistance company, has raised $1.5 million (Rs 10 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round.

The healthcare startup secured the investment from Tolaram Inc., the family office investment arm of Tolaram Group, and Mountain Pine Capital.

The startup aims to use the money to augment technology and infrastructure to expand services and introduce new products. For Credi Health, it is innovation and steady growth more than money that are needed to survive in the market.

Credihealth was started in 2013 by Virmani, Gaurav Gaggar, Saurabh Uboweja and Piush Kumar. Virmani is the founding managing director of Hewitt Associates India and former COO of Max Healthcare. Gaggar is an investment banker and earlier co-founded two e-gaming ventures. Uboweja, an alumnus of IIM Calcutta, also runs brand consulting and design firm Brands of Desire. Kumar runs investment firm Hausela, which funds digital technology startups.

The company provides domestic and international patients with information on Indian healthcare providers. It aims to solve the patients' problem of looking for the right doctor or diagnostic centre, besides being an additional sales channel for hospitals. The startup also fixes patient follow-ups with the doctor. The company has tie-ups with 630 hospitals such as Fortis, Medanta, Columbia Asia, Paras and Artemis.
Headquartered in the UK, Essentra Packaging is a global provider of healthcare packaging solutions, which recently spread its footprint in India, with the acquisition of Kamsri Printing and Packaging in 2015 in Bangalore

The company's MD for India, Mr A Narayanaswamy, exclusively spoke to BioSpectrum about why India serves as its key business market, its acquisition plans and expansion, competition strategies, and future growth. Edited excerpts:



Q: Tell us about Essentra's business in India. What were your market entry challenges?

A: Our first investment in India was through a JV with ITC for manufacturing cigarette filters.

Essentra first started serving the packaging market in India 16 years ago with its tear tape portfolio. Over time, the company has grown from a position of just trading to outright manufacturing. In 2013, Essentra opened its 70,000 sq ft state-of-the-art site in Bangalore.

In healthcare packaging, the assets acquired from Kamsri Printing & Packaging have already been transferred to Essentra's site, in addition to which the company has invested in a second carton manufacturing line.

Q: What are the major growth drivers for the healthcare packaging industry in India?
European carmakers warned Thursday against the potential dangers of Brexit to the vital auto industry in both Britain and Europe.

 welcomia via 123RF

According to EU data, the auto industry employs a total 12 million people in Europe and accounts for a huge 4.0% of the bloc's gross domestic product.

Last year, some 1.7 million cars were assembled in Britain of which eight out of 10 were exported, mostly to the EU.

"Today, the automotive industries of the European Union and the United Kingdom are closely integrated, from the economic, regulatory and technical points of view," said Erik Jonnaert, secretary-general of the European Automobile Manufacturer's Association at a news briefing in Brussels.

Adverse impact on manufacturers

"Any changes to this level of integration will most certainly have an adverse impact on automobile manufacturers with operations in the EU or the UK, as well as on the European economy in general," he said.

The association fired the warning shot two days ahead of an EU summit dedicated to finalising the bloc's negotiation stance in the divorce talks with Britain.

Ahead of the summit, Germany's Angela Merkel warned Britain it should have no "illusions" that it will keep EU privileges, hardening the tone ahead against London.

But the auto industry, a key sector of the German economy, urged caution and continued free trade between the EU and Britain.

"When dealing with Brexit, the aim must really be to mitigate its impact ... no tariff is an obvious starting point," said Sigrid de Vries, head of CLEPA, the European Association of Automotive Suppliers.

"Costs will have to somehow be recovered if there were tariffs imposed ... and that will affect demand, profitability and jobs," she said.

Source: AFP
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A file photo.

WASHINGTON (PTI): North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile but it failed to go beyond its territory, the US said, as Pyongyang's defiant move amid repeated warnings from Washington ratcheted up tensions in the Korean Peninsula.



"The US Pacific Command detected what we assess was a North Korean missile launch at 10:33 AM Hawaii time, April 28.



The ballistic missile launch occurred near the Pukchang airfield," Dave Benham, United States Pacific Command spokesman, said in a statement.



"The missile did not leave (the) North Korean territory," Benham said.



Responding to the development, US President Donald Trump slammed North Korea for the provocative move.



"North Korea disrespected the wishes of China and its highly respected President (Xi Jinping) when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!" Trump said in a tweet on April 28 night, hours after North Korea carried out yet another missile test.



The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America, Benham said.



"US Pacific Command stands behind our steadfast commitment to the security of our allies in the Republic of Korea and Japan," he said.



According to reports, the missile was likely a medium-range KN-17 ballistic missile.



The North Korea missile test came a day after the Trump administration praised China and its President Xi for having prevailed over Pyongyang in not carrying out either a nuclear test or a missile test.



Sending a tough warning to North Korea, the US had earlier said the policy of strategic patience was over and no options were off the table in dealing with the nuclear threat posed by Pyongyang.



US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea said on Friday that Washington's goal was "not regime change" in the isolated country nor does it "desire to threaten the North Korean people or destabilise the Asia Pacific region".



"The policy of strategic patience is over. Additional patience will only mean acceptance of a nuclear North Korea.



The more we bide our time, the sooner we will run out of it," Tillerson said while chairing the meeting as the President of the Council.



Military options for dealing with the North were still "on the table", Tillerson had warned.



The US is deploying a naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier to the Korean peninsula, and a missile-defence system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).


A file photo.

SEOUL (AFP): North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday in apparent defiance of a US push for tougher international sanctions to curb the Asian country's nuclear threat.



"North Korea fired an unidentified missile from a site in the vicinity of Bukchang in Pyeongannam-do (South Pyeongan Province) early this morning," the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, adding that the missile "is estimated to have failed."



A US defence official confirmed North Korea had fired a missile.



The launch comes with tensions high on the Korean peninsula, with US President Donald Trump warning of the risk of a "major conflict."



It came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressed the UN Security Council for the first time, called for a global campaign of pressure on Pyongyang -- with China playing a major role -- to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.



"Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences," he warned.



He repeated Washington's threat that US military options were "on the table."



Tillerson said China had "unique" leverage over its communist ally and neighbour.



But Beijing pushed back, arguing that it was unrealistic to expect one country to solve the conflict.



"The use of force does not solve differences and will only lead to bigger disasters," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the council.



His country, he said, should not be "a focal point of the problem on the peninsula" and stressed that "the key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side."



Russia joined China in saying a military response would be disastrous and appealing for a return to talks and de- escalation.



Military action was "completely unacceptable," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the council. A miscalculation could have "frightening consequences," he warned.



But Tillerson argued that diplomacy had to be backed with credible muscle.



"Diplomatic and financial levers of power will be backed up by willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action, if necessary," he said.



"The threat of a North Korean nuclear attack on Seoul or Tokyo is real, and it is likely only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland."



Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un are locked in an ever-tighter spiral of threat, counter-threat, and escalating military preparedness.



The US is deploying a naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier to the Korean peninsula, and a missile- defense system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) will be operational "within days," according to officials.



North Korea meanwhile said it has conducted its biggest ever artillery drill and threatened to "bury at sea" the US aircraft carrier. Speculation has mounted it could soon carry out a sixth nuclear test.



The meeting of the top UN body yesterday laid bare major differences among key powers over the way to address the North Korea crisis.



Over the past 11 years, the Security Council has imposed six sets of sanctions on Pyongyang -- two adopted last year -- to significantly ramp up pressure and deny Kim's regime the hard currency revenue needed for his military programs.



But UN sanctions experts have repeatedly told the council the measures have had little impact because they have been poorly implemented.



Tillerson called on all countries to downgrade or sever diplomatic relations with North Korea and impose targeted sanctions on entities and individuals supporting its missile and nuclear program.



The United States is ready to impose sanctions on third countries where companies or individuals are found to have helped North Korea's military programs, he said.



China instead wants Pyongyang to freeze its military programs in exchange for a halt to US-South Korean annual drills.



"Now is the time to seriously consider talks," said Wang.



But Tillerson was blunt in saying it was up to North Korea to take the first concrete steps.



"We will not negotiate our way back to the negotiating table," he said. "We will not reward their bad behaviour with talks."



The United States, Russia and China took part in six- party talks on North Korea's denuclearization from 2003 to 2009, along with Japan, South Korea and Pyongyang.




A file photo.

NEW DELHI (PTI): India embarks on space diplomacy like never before.



For the first time, New Delhi is flexing its prowess of space technology by embarking on an unprecedented and un- chartered 'stratospheric diplomacy' through a special Rs 450 crore gift for south Asians.



India is carving a very unique place in the universe, this week New Delhi will 'gift' a heavyweight bird in the sky to its neighbours through the 'South Asia Satellite'.



India is opening its heart out to its neighbours, explains External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, adding "neighbourhood first is now being extended beyond the stratosphere".



It seems this 'gift' of a communications satellite for use by neighbours at no cost has no parallels in the space- faring world, all other current regional consortia are commercial for-profit enterprises.



So it seems Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is a known visionary space buff, is placing the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a new orbit by providing this space- based platform that would cost the participating nations almost USD 1,500 million over the 12-year life of the satellite.



Prashant Agarwal, an IIT Kanpur-trained engineer and the point-person in the Ministry of External Affairs piloting the project, says, "Prime Minister Modi has actually extended his slogan 'Sab Ka Saath Sab Ka Vikas' to India's neighbourhood essentially to service the needs of the poor in South Asia."



On May 5, the skies above the island of Sriharikota on the coast of the Bay of Bengal will be lit up as the Geo- synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) also called the 'naughty boy of ISRO' on its 11th mission will carry a message of peace like never before.



The nearly 50-m-tall rocket that weighs about 412 tons will carry what is now dubbed as the 'South Asia Satellite' or what the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) still prefers to call GSAT-9.



The 2230-kg satellite has been fabricated in three years and is purely a communications satellite costing Rs 235 crore.



The uniqueness of this satellite is that it will have a footprint that extends all over South Asia and India is gifting this heavenly messenger to its neighbours who according to India's assessment could be helped in better utilising these space based technologies.



The South Asia Satellite has 12 Ku band transponders which India's neighbours can utilise to increase communications. Each country will get access to at least one transponder through which they could beam their own programming and there could be common 'south Asian programing' as well.



Each country has to develop its own ground infrastructure though India is willing to extend assistance and know-how.



According to the government. the satellite will "enable a full range of applications and services to our neighbours in the areas of telecommunication and broadcasting applications viz. television, direct-to-home (DTH), very small aperture terminals (VSATs), tele-education, telemedicine and disaster management support".



The satellite also has the capability to provide secure hot lines among the participating nations in addition since the region is highly prone to earthquakes, cyclones, floods, tsunamis, it may help in providing critical communication links in times of disasters.



In this unusual message of peace, India's most hostile neighbour Pakistan has fully opted out. Rest of the seven nations part of the South Asian Association for Regional Co- operation (SAARC) are already on-board with Afghanistan still to ink the deal with some minor technical details still to be fixed in Kabul.



Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have agreed to be part of this mission, confirms Baglay.



When Prime Minister Modi was just a fresher and just four weeks into his new position on June 30, 2014, he surprised the world while speaking to the scientists at ISRO in Sriharikota as he asked "the space community to take up the challenge of developing a SAARC satellite that we can dedicate to our neighbourhood as a gift from India".



The proposal emerged directly from Modi and the leadership at ISRO was stunned into silence not knowing what this space animal will look like.



A highly-impassioned Modi, who had just witnessed a successful launch, said "I believe that the fight against the poverty of the countries of SAARC is the fight against illiteracy, the fight against superstitions, the challenge of moving forward in the scientific field is the possibility of providing opportunities to young people of SAARC countries.



"Our dream of this SAARC Satellite will work in the welfare of all our neighbouring countries. And that's why I have proposed in front of you today that we offer a valuable gift to our SAARC countries through a SAARC Satellite launch so that we also become partners in their welfare."



Modi reinforced this idea five months later when speaking in Kathmandu at the SAARC Summit on November 26, 2014.



He said, "India's gift of a satellite for the SAARC region will benefit us all in areas like education, telemedicine, disaster response, resource management, weather forecasting and communication.



"We will also host a conference in India for all South Asian partners next year, to strengthen our collective ability to apply space technology in economic development and governance. And, we plan to launch our satellite by the SAARC Day in 2016."



Modi's sincere efforts got a jolt when even after participating in the planning meeting on June 22, 2015, Pakistan decided to 'opt out' from the proposed SAARC satellite suggesting that 'Pakistan has its own space program'.



So the project was renamed to 'South Asia Satellite' but sources say Pakistan was not allowed to veto the development project. Meanwhile frequency co-ordination activities took longer than expected and the launch got postponed by almost six months.



Among India's neighbours, three nations already possess full-fledged communication satellites with Pakistan and Sri Lanka having been helped by China; Afghanistan also has a communication satellite actually an old India-made satellite acquired from Europe.



Bangladesh is likely to have its first bird in the sky later this year made with help from Thales.



Essentially, it is the tiny nations of Bhutan and Maldives that may benefit in the long run. Incidentally, Nepal has already floated a tender to acquire two communications satellites.



Experts say "Pakistan has missed an opportunity" since its own space program is currently in a primitive stage as compared to India's.



This is despite the fact that Pakistan actually launched its first rocket five years ahead of India and its space agency Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) is older than ISRO.



Pakistan has had five satellites in space but today lacks heavy duty launchers and satellite fabrication facilities.



But will India's strident regional space diplomacy yield results?



There is no doubt that through the South Asia Satellite India is actively trying to counter China's growing influence on its neighbours. But in the 21st-century Asian space race, China already has the first mover advantage.



Better late than never is prevailing mood and for this unique space diplomacy it is almost certain that India is likely to get applauded by the world's powers for this one of a kind friendly confidence building measure.



Hopefully friendly skies can result in reduced hostilities on Earth.




An unrelated file photo.

SEOUL (AFP): South Korea and the United States wrapped up their annual large-scale military drills Sunday, but continued a separate joint naval exercise that has triggered dire threats from nuclear-armed North Korea.



Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running sky- high for weeks, with signs that the North might be preparing a long-range missile launch or a sixth nuclear test -- and with Washington refusing to rule out a military strike in response.



The massive "Foal Eagle" drill, which the defence ministry in Seoul said was ending as scheduled on Sunday, involved around 20,000 South Korean and 10,000 US troops.



Another annual joint exercise known as "Key Resolve" ended last month.



Both play out scenarios for a conflict with North Korea, but Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature, despite Pyongyang's claims that they are provocative rehearsals for invasion.



Their conclusion normally signals a period of relative calm in North-South tensions, but this year the situation looks set to remain highly volatile.



US President Donald Trump has warned of a possible "major conflict" while Pyongyang has carried out a series of failed missile tests, including one on Saturday, and a massive live-fire military exercise.



The South Korean defence ministry confirmed Sunday that a joint naval drill with a US strike group, led by aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, was still ongoing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea).



The exercise, aimed at verifying the allies' capability to track and intercept enemy ballistic missiles, is expected to continue until sometime next week.



Through state media, North Korea has threatened to attack the Carl Vinson, and a state-sponsored website on Sunday also warned of a possible strike against a US nuclear-powered submarine despatched to the area.



China is "putting pressure" on its ally North Korea to curb its weapons programmes, Trump told the CBS television network's "Face the Nation" programme.



If North Korea carries out another nuclear test "I would not be happy," he said.



"And I can tell you also, I don't believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either," Trump said in excerpts of the interview released Saturday.



Asked if "not happy" signified "military action," Trump answered: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."



Pyongyang's show of defiance included a failed missile test on Saturday that came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned the UN Security Council of "catastrophic consequences" if the international community -- most notably China -- failed to pressure the North into abandoning its weapons programme.



Military options for dealing with the North were still "on the table", Tillerson said.



China has repeatedly pushed back at the idea that it alone holds the solution to curbing the North's nuclear ambitions, and warned that any use of US force would only lead to "bigger disasters".



Pope Francis this weekend called for negotiations to resolve tensions over North Korea.



"There are plenty of mediators in the world who are putting themselves forward. Norway, for example which is ready to help," he said.



The tensions have also triggered some friction between Seoul and Washington, with Trump suggesting in a recent interview that the South should pay for the 1.0-billion dollar THAAD anti-missile system that the US is deploying on its ally's territory.


Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CFB SHILO  When Londons calling, Shilos troops want to look their best.

At a ceremony steeped in pomp and pageantry, the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI) officially received its new Queens Colour Saturday morning  a cherished symbol the unit wanted to refresh for this summers trip to London.

The battalions last Queens Colour, a flag representing the units loyalty to the Crown, was received and consecrated in 1991.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Maj. Adam Petrin, right, unravels the new Queens Colour for the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry as part of a consecration ceremony at CFB Shilo on Saturday.

The fabric itself was beginning to tear and we didnt want to have a bad incident in front of the Queen, explained Lt.-Col. Wayne Niven, commanding officer of 2PPCLI, after the parade.

Approximately 100 troops from the Shilo-based unit will spend three weeks in the United Kingdom performing public duties, including standing guard at Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, St. James Palace and Windsor Castle.

The Queen invited soldiers from Shilo and the Royal Canadian Artillery Band in Edmonton to the U.K. as a commemoration of Canadas 150th anniversary.

The Queens Colour represents sacrifice and loyalty, Niven said, and the aged look of the previous flag, which was marched out of the Korea Parade Square Saturday, necessitated a change.

The colours will go to London this summer, so we wanted to make sure they were in good shape.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry Colonel-in-Chief Adrienne Clarkson, former governor general of Canada, looks out at the 2nd Battalion during a ceremony to mark the new Queens Colour at CFB Shilo on Saturday.

The new flag is the same as the 1991 version. Comparable to the red and white of Canadas national flag, the Queens Colour, trimmed in gold and red, includes the Royal Cypher for Canada at the centre of the maple leaf.

Adrienne Clarkson, former Canadian governor general and colonel-in-chief of the PPCLI, presided over the ceremony.

In her address to the approximately 200 soldiers in attendance, Clarkson described it as an honour and a pleasure to witness the consecration of the Queens Colour.

The occasion is also an opportunity to look back at what Clarkson described as a defining moment for the regiment, the Battle of Kapyong, 66 years ago last month.

The unit was called up from reserve to the Kapyong Valley where they held their own against waves of enemy soldiers during the Korean War.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Troops from the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry based at CFB Shilo march during a ceremony Saturday to receive and consecrate the new Queens Colour for the unit.

For their heroic efforts, 2PPCLI received the U.S. Presidential Unit Citation, a rare honour for a Canadian unit. Soldiers wear a blue patch on their dress uniform to recognize the citation.

Clarkson told the audience she has visited Kapyong Valley, where trees have flourished but remnants of the heavy fighting remain.

Earlier in the ceremony, Clarkson and Lt.-Col Niven stood atop a military jeep for an inspection of the gathered soldiers, who spent two weeks rehearsing for the parade.

You are looking pretty sharp, she said afterwards.

The battalion moved from Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg to Shilo in 2004.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Chaplains, from left, Stephen Neil, Guy Chapdelaine and Matthew Ihuoma bless the consecration ceremony of the new Queens Colour for 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry during a ceremony at CFB Shilo on Saturday.

 ifroese@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ianfroese
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The bicycle racks were populated with dozens of unsold rides looking for new homes when a pint-sized pink bike caught the eye of six-year-old Davia-Kae Johnson.

She casually tried to pull the bike away, but was told to leave it alone  her family hadnt outbid anyone yet.

It was one of 128 rides auctioned off at the Kiwanis Club of Brandons annual spring auction Saturday at the Keystone Centres Manitoba Room.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Sarah Smith and Jordan Smart with the Brandon Police Service Cadet Corps line up the bikes about to be auctioned Saturday at the Kiwanis Club of Brandons annual spring auction at the Keystone Centre.

Davia-Kae didnt want the bike for herself, though.

I wanted to make sure that she got one, explained Davia-Kae, who was looking out for her four-year-old sister, Kaeda-Neille. That was the last small bike.

The sisters would not leave disappointed, as their parents, who emigrated from Jamaica to Brandon eight months ago, won bikes for each of their daughters.

Together, the bikes cost $95, their father Davion said.

He was happy to roll away with wheels for cheap.

Shes been bugging me. When can we have a bike, dad? We need to get a bike, Davion said of his oldest daughter. I said, All right, were going to try and get a bike as long as the price is right.

The training broke off on her daughters last bike, which she rode in Jamaica, so she couldnt ride it alone.

In the coming days and weeks, she will learn how to take her new bike for a spin; first, with a set of proper training wheels installed.

It allows us to do some daddy-daughter stuff, teach her some cool tricks, her dad said. I hope that will give us an opportunity to get a little closer.

Whatever ones use for a bike, there were plenty of happy customers leaving the bike auction Saturday.

The vast majority of the holdings were donated by the Brandon Police Service, which recovers stolen and abandoned rides. The bicycles are held for 30 days, after which theyre donated to the Kiwanis Club of Brandon if not claimed by the owner.

Auction chairman Garry Winters was thrilled by this years sale.

The local service club earned more than $10,000 in proceeds, at least $2,000 higher than last years auction when more bikes were for sale.

Winters theorized people were keen to bid since bikes at retail stores are becoming pricier. Close to 200 people attended the start of the sale, the most Winters remembers seeing at the event.

Ian Froese/The Brandon Sun Precious Aghahon and Femi Dimeji inspect one of the bikes they purchased at the Kiwanis Club of Brandons annual spring auction Saturday at the Keystone Centre.

Bikes sold on Saturday averaged in the $90 range, while the average price in 2016 was $58.

That money all stays in the community and goes back into the community, Winters said.

Saturdays sale was Gurdeep Maans first visit to the bike auction, and he left with a pink-tinted ride for his 10-year-old daughter Daman, who outgrew her previous bicycle.

She likes the colour, she likes pink, and its a bit more modern, Gurdeep said.

Femi Dimeji, a 21-year-old returning to Brandon University this fall to study science, was pleased with his bargain.

Giant is usually a more pricey brand, so for $170, it was a snag, Dimeji said. I thought Id have to drop $300 bucks on it today; thank God, I didnt.

His pal, Precious Aghahon, a 24-year-old university student, showed up an hour before the auction to scope out the bike he wanted, which he happily walked out of the Keystone Centre with.

He hasnt had in his own bike in a decade, since he lived in Nigeria.

I just wanted something slick, something fast, he said. I want to do a lot of bike-riding this summer.

 ifroese@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ianfroese
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Three big names in popular music have been announced as rock acts at the North Dakota State Fair.

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Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 100th day of the Donald Trump presidency has come and gone.

Its a moment for the world to reflect on what Mr. Trump has  and has not  accomplished, although Canadians have a slightly different perspective on this landmark moment.

For the first 88 days of the Trump administration, Canadians were able to relax and enjoy the show.

Weve all had the luxury of raising our eyebrows at Mr. Trumps trademark volatility and laughing as Alec Baldwin parodied the presidents unpredictable antics on Saturday Night Live.

During the past two weeks, however, things have changed. In the past 12 days, Mr. Trump has turned his angry eyes northward, making Canada his No. 1 target for criticism on trade.

From Day 1, Canadians were interested spectators as Mr. Trump vented his wrath against China and Mexico. But its harder to enjoy the show when, against your will, youre dragged onto centre stage by a ringmaster with a weak grasp of the issues and a penchant for blaming foreign governments for his own countrys economic ills.

For Canada, its much like spending all of Grade 8 trying not to draw the attention of the schoolyard bully, only to have him grab you two weeks before graduation and demand your lunch money. Youre left with an obvious but inevitably painful choice: is it better to take a swing, knowing that by striking back, youll either shock the bully into backing down or invite an even worse beating on yourself, or do you absorb the lunch-money loss in the hope that the bully will soon be distracted by the opportunity to pick on someone else?

As a former teacher, Justin Trudeau no doubt had to respond to bullies while on recess duty. But now as the countrys prime minister, the stakes are much higher, and his tactical responses may very well determine whether Canada has just had a bad fortnight or if this countrys next 100 days are about to become as problematic as Mr. Trumps first 100.

Mr. Trumps anti-Canada rants began last week in cheese-rich Wisconsin, where he laid into Canadian dairy. In Canada, some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers, Mr. Trump declared. Its another typical one-sided deal against the United States.

Earlier last week, after slapping tariffs of up to 24 per cent on imports of Canadian softwood lumber, the president doubled down on dairy by tweeting: Canada has made business for our dairy farmers in Wisconsin and other border states very difficult. We will not stand for this. Watch!

The White House then floated a trial balloon about Mr. Trump drafting an executive order to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, even though dairy and lumber are not covered under the current NAFTA. That trial balloon was popped quickly when Mr. Trump declared it was better to negotiate a new accord  at least for now.

When you consider Mr. Trump has also warned Canadas energy sector could also be on the table, this sudden flurry of complaints is enough to make heads spin on this side of the border.

Fortunately, Canadians are used to such blistering blather from our neighbours to the south.

In 1999, the animated film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut featured an Oscar-nominated song titled Blame Canada, wherein the cartoon parents of the fictional U.S. town sang, We must blame them and cause a fuss / Before somebody thinks of blaming us!

It seems Mr. Trump is singing from the same hymn book.

 Winnipeg Free Press
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BY Yona Lunsky and Robert Balogh

With the recent federal commitment to increase mental-health funding across Canada, we need to turn our attention toward a group of individuals that is invisible within Canadas mental-health system  a group that has some of the greatest need for services and supports, yet is rarely acknowledged or targeted.

Those with developmental disabilities  which include Down syndrome, fetal alcohol syndrome and autism  are rarely recognized in mental-health statistics, policy priorities, education and training or even clinical practice.

There was a time when this population was not seen within mainstream mental-health initiatives because they received their care in a separate system, primarily through institutional care. But with the closure of institutions and an emphasis on community inclusion in Canada over the past several decades, those with developmental disabilities are expected to access physical and mental-health care, as with everyone else, in their home communities.

Unfortunately, their health needs are often not adequately addressed. And our inability to see this population is costing the health system enormously.

In August 2016, the Ontario ombudsman released Nowhere to Turn, a disturbing report following a four-year investigation about the care and treatment of adults with developmental disabilities. The report found frequent emergency-department use and lengthy hospitalizations, as well as homelessness, incarceration, family burnout and cases of abuse and neglect.

Although mental health was not the focus of the investigation, it was clear that poorly addressed mental-health issues led to many of the social and health problems highlighted in the report.

Perhaps because of the complexity of health needs (physical and mental-health problems are prevalent), this group is more likely to have repeat emergency department visits and to be re-hospitalized than other individuals. Thats a sign that the connection between community and hospital-based care for those with developmental disabilities is not what it should be.

A national study of hospitalizations, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, found that psychiatric hospitalizations accounted for almost half of developmental disability hospital admissions. The majority of those with developmental disabilities hospitalized for psychiatric issues were youth and young adults, in stark contrast to what was observed in those without these disabilities whose psychiatric hospitalizations tended to occur later in life.

Sadly, this complex and vulnerable population is also often treated by mental-health and general-health providers who are unfamiliar with their disabilities and frequently do not feel comfortable working with them. Indeed, the training of health-care providers on the mental-health needs of this group is very limited in Canada.

So what needs to be done to help policy-makers finally see this invisible population and to support the mental-health system in addressing their needs?

As a start, since we know that adults with developmental disabilities are prone to mental illness and addictions, our mental-health promotion efforts need to include them.

We should be investing in screening for mental-health issues and early intervention in this population. We should play an active role in helping those with developmental disabilities obtain an accurate diagnosis and receive accessible evidence-informed treatments and supports. This would mean that all mental-health-care providers require some basic skills and knowledge to support those with developmental disabilities.

Repeated emergency visits and lengthy hospitalizations could be reduced or avoided if we delivered more extensive outpatient-based mental-health care to those in need. Across the country, mental-health and social-service sectors must work together, especially once someone in this population is hospitalized, to plan for safe discharges with the appropriate mental-health supports in place.

Finally, the phrase nothing about us without us should be kept in mind. A quality, patient-oriented solution means those with developmental disabilities and their families need to be at the table alongside other groups with mental-health or addiction expertise.

It makes good policy and economic sense to ensure individuals with developmental disabilities are included in mental-health plans, strategies and funding.

Its time their needs were seen  and met.

 Yona Lunsky is an expert adviser with EvidenceNetwork.ca, a professor at the University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry and the director of the Health Care Access Research and Developmental Disabilities Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Robert Balogh is an assistant professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Faculty of Health Sciences.
America's CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but would not say for how long.

South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a US aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters.

A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort US naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a US supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas.

They said the US ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japan's Defence Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a Second World War naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilising the region.

"Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world," Mr Turnbull said.

"Together, we're taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region."

Mr Turnbull is to meet Mr Trump for the first time on Thursday in New York.

- AP
A man has been arrested over the death of a British woman at a holiday apartment block in Benidorm during a hen party.

The woman died on Saturday in the popular tourist area in the south east of Spain.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has dismissed claims she is at loggerheads with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker over her Brexit negotiating strategy as just "Brussels gossip".

She came under fire following reports Mr Juncker walked out of talks last week in Downing Street saying he was "10 times more sceptical than before".

Opposition parties warned the UK was heading for a "disastrous hard Brexit" after a detailed account in the German press of their dinner suggested Mr Juncker left fearing the negotiations would end in failure.

But campaigning in Ormskirk in Lancashire, Mrs May brushed off the claims insisting that they were at odds with what the commission had said about the meeting.

"From what I have seen of this account, I think it is Brussels gossip," she said.

"Look at what the European Commission themselves said immediately after the dinner took place which was that the talks had been constructive."

Downing Street said it did not recognise the latest account which appeared in the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

The Prime Minister nevertheless sought to exploit the report to drive home her message that she - not Jeremy Corbyn - can provide the strong leadership needed to secure the best deal for Britain.

"It also shows that these negotiations are at times going to be tough and in order to get the best deal for Britain we need to ensure that we have got that strong and stable leadership into those negotiations," she said.

"When it comes June 8 people have a clear choice.

"There will be 27 European countries on one side of the table - who do they want to see standing up for Britain on the other side? Me or Jeremy Corbyn."

The Labour leader, campaigning in Battersea, south London, warned however that Mrs May's negotiating strategy was unravelling.

"To start negotiations by threatening to walk away with no deal and set up a low tax economy on the shores of Europe is not a very sensible way of approaching people with whom half of our trade is done at the present time," he said.

"Of course they are going to be difficult (negotiations), but you start from the basis that you want to reach an agreement, you start from the basis that you have quite a lot of shared interests and values.

"If you start from that basis and show respect, you are more likely to get a good deal.

"But if you start with a megaphone, calling people silly names, it is not a great start to anything."

According to the newspaper account - attributed to commission sources - the EU side left the meeting believing Mrs May was way too optimistic about the prospects for a deal.

When the Prime Minister told them "Let us make Brexit a success", Mr Juncker was said to have replied "Brexit cannot be a success".

At one stage - to underline the complexity of negotiations - the commission president was said to have brandished copies of Croatia's EU entry deal and Canada's free trade deal which runs to 2,000 pages.

Mrs May was also said to have angered the EU side when she warned that the UK could not be forced to pay a "divorce bill" for leaving because there was no requirement under the treaties, which drew the response that the EU was "not a golf club".

As he left, Mr Juncker was said to have told her: "I leave Downing St 10 times as sceptical as I was before."

The following morning he rang German chancellor Angela Merkel to warn her that Mrs May's approach was from a "different galaxy" and that she was deluding herself.

Mrs Merkel responded by re-writing a speech she was giving that day to warn that some in Britain were still harbouring "illusions" about the Brexit process.

No 10 said it did not recognise the account of the meeting which took place over dinner last Wednesday.

A Britishgovernment spokesman said: "As the Prime Minister and Jean-Claude Juncker made clear, this was a constructive meeting ahead of the negotiations formally getting under way."

Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said: "It's clear this Government has no clue and is taking the country towards a disastrous hard Brexit."

For the SNP, Scotland's minister for UK negotiations with the EU Michael Russell said: "Leaving the EU with no deal - and no agreement on access to the single market - would be an unprecedented act of self-harm which would devastate the UK and Scottish economy."

However, pro-Brexit Conservatives dismissed the report as an attempt to destabilise the Government ahead of the negotiations.

Former party leader Iain Duncan Smith told Channel 4 News: "The reality is there is no trouble because this is all pre-negotiation guff really, at the end of the day, so it should be put in that basket and then we'll get on with the negotiation."
A counter-terrorism adviser to President Donald Trump will be leaving the White House, according to an official.

Sebastian Gorka, a former counter-terrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as a counter-terrorism adviser, will be leaving his job in the coming days.
Construction on the ACT courts redevelopment ground to a halt after the counterweight on a tower crane slipped at the Civic worksite on Monday.

Police closed Knowles Place, just off London Circuit, to cars and pedestrians and restricted some access to the ACT Magistrates Court and Supreme Court about 1pm.

Police closed Knowles Place, just off London Circuit, to cars and pedestrians about 1pm. Credit:Megan Gorrey

CFMEU ACT secretary Dean Hall said the crane's driver inspected the machine after he noticed a shudder. The site was later evaluated by Lang O'Rourke site management.

An experienced engineer was travelling from Sydney to inspect the crane in the evening.
The 350,000 solar households in NSW could soon be paid twice as much for the power they export to the grid, thanks largely to increasing electricity prices in the wholesale market.

A higher feed-in tariff range, of 11.6 to 14.6 cent per kilowatt hour, was outlined on Monday in a draft proposal from the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

It is double last year's benchmark range of 5.5 to 7.2 cents per kilowatt hour.

While the proposal is good news for solar customers, it also reflects the rising cost of energy for all homes and businesses in NSW.
University graduates will be forced to pay back their HECS debts when they start earning just $42,000 a year and student fees will rise by 8 per cent under the Turnbull government's higher education changes.

The package presents a more measured approach than the Abbott government's disastrous 2014 budget - which proposed the full deregulation of university fees and a 20 per cent funding cut - but still carries political risk for the Coalition and will be difficult to get through the Senate.

The lowering of the HECS repayment threshold - down from the current $55,874 - is more dramatic than expected and will see almost 200,000 extra graduates dragged into the repayment system. The threshold was previously legislated to fall to $52,000 in coming years.

Universities will also be hit with funding cuts through a 2.5 per cent efficiency dividend in the package, designed to save the budget $2.8 billion in total over the next four years.
Alphabet can't seem to stop heaping massive pay packages on Google's Sundar Pichai.

The chief executive officer of the search-engine unit received $US199.7 million ($267 million) in compensation for 2016, according to a regulatory filing.

That marks his third straight year getting nine-figure pay - a rare accomplishment even at well-paying technology companies and virtually unheard of in other industries.

Since he became CEO in 2015, Pichai has moved to give Google more control over two critical fields: artificial intelligence and cloud.
A cystic fibrosis "miracle" drug that would normally cost patients $300,000 a year and a breakthrough rare cancer treatment will become affordable under new Turnbull government subsidies.

Health Minister Greg Hunt says the medicines - among $310 million worth of drugs to be added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme on Monday - will change and save lives.

Kalydeco will for the first time become available to children with cystic fibrosis aged two to five. Children born in Australia with CF today have a life expectancy of just 37 years but the new wonder drug could extend that by as much as two decades.

It has been listed on the PBS since December 2014 but until now has been restricted to patients aged six or over.
US military personnel are carrying out some biosecurity inspections on Australia's behalf, amid warnings by the Pentagon that tough quarantine laws risk the capability of marines visiting Darwin.

A report last month from the US congressional watchdog found that some equipment brought in by the Marines could be out of action for two of the six months that they are on rotation so that it can be cleaned before being brought into Australia.

Pentagon officials had told the Government Accountability Office that "the biosecurity requirements are a risk to the Marine Corps units' capability", the report states.

"Marine Corps officials stated that, during the approximately two months it generally takes to break down, clean and reassemble the Marine Corps equipment, the equipment is not functional and this hinders capability and training," it states.
Mario Testino and co better watch their backs - the Duchess of Cambridge has once again moonlighted as the official royal photographer and captured a new image of Princess Charlotte to mark her second birthday.

The artist formerly known as Kate Middleton photographed her daughter in April at their country compound in Norfolk.

Princess Charlotte appears to be thrilled at the prospect of her impending second birthday in this new photo taken by her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. Credit:HRH The Duchess of Cambridge via Getty Images

The image was released by the palace on Monday evening ahead of Charlotte's second birthday on May 2.

"Their Royal Highnesses would like to thank everyone for all of the lovely messages they have received, and hope that everyone enjoys this photograph of Princess Charlotte as much as they do," a spokesperson said.
Ugliness is interesting in fashion. Especially when you consider how fashion - and its constant neighbour, commerce - define what is ugly, and what is beautiful. And how come both can be desirable, often at the same time.

As philosopher Umberto Eco wrote in 2007 in a treatise on ugliness versus beauty, "Attributions of beauty or ugliness are often due not to aesthetic but to sociopolitical criteria. There is a passage in which Karl Marx points out how money may compensate for ugliness: 'As money has the property of being able to buy anything, to take possession of all objects, it is therefore the preeminent object worth having. ... The extent of my power is as great as the power of the money I possess. ... What I am and what I can do is therefore not determined by my individuality in the slightest ... the effect of ugliness, its discouraging power, is annulled by money'."

And anybody who has dropped more than $1000 on a pair of Gucci's fur-lined mules or admired Rihanna at last year's Met Gala in that magnificent yellow Guo Pei ensemble that was compared to a fried egg by the internet or wondered who would ever buy the strange pieces shown at Haute Couture fashion weeks, kinda subscribes to this.

So it's interesting that the popularity of unflattering trousers has come at the same time that the Met Gala theme, and exhibition that it is in honour of, is themed Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between. Perhaps more than any other designer, the reclusive Japanese designer has challenged fashion and what we think is ugly or beautiful or indeed, wearable.

As Vanessa Friedman wrote in the New York Times, Kawakubo "routinely ends up on every list of 'most influential designers of the 20th century' - and, now, the 21st - in large part because she refuses to accept any of the rules that govern normal clothing design: that clothes need to be flattering, for example, or that they need to have armholes. Instead, she is interested in challenging our ideas about what defines beauty, identity and gender. She goes where most other designers fear to tread, which is to say, into the realm of clothes that look really, really weird."
Yes, unfortunately. Although it is possible to lose weight at any age, several factors make it harder to lose weight with age.

Even those who remain active lose muscle mass every decade beginning in their 30s, research suggests, replacing it with fat. Muscles use up more calories than fat, so less muscle means a slower metabolism and the need for fewer calories, said Dr. Medha Munshi, a geriatrician and endocrinologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston.

It is harder, but not impossible and we can always improve our health. Credit:iStock

Declining levels of the sex hormones oestrogen and testosterone, which typically start around the early 50s for women, with the onset of menopause, and somewhat later for men, compound the effect, said Munshi, who also directs the Joslin Diabetes Centre's geriatric diabetes programs.

People may also pay in late-middle age for weight they gained and lost in earlier decades, said Dr. Leslie Cho, an interventional cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Weight gain changes metabolism, she said. A 60-year-old who now weighs 90 kilograms but once weighed 130, for example, will need far fewer calories per day than someone of the same age and size who was never so overweight. Losing those fat cells, she explained, tricks the body into thinking it is starving and needs to hold on more tightly to calories consumed.
Binge listening is a thing  or at least it should be. The other week I binged on S-Town, the latest podcast from the producers of the acclaimed Serial. (S-Town has been No.1 on the US iTunes for the 45 days since it launched).

S-Town is compelling. And part of the compulsion to listen is a kind of confusion about quite why it is compelling in the first place. Produced by Brian Reed and Julie Snyder, the poignant, conspiracy fuelled series, which morphs into something of a melancholy treasure hunt, is triggered by a murder mystery in Woodstock, Alabama, and follows local eccentric John B. McLemore, an antique clock restorer.

Donald Trump's version of fake news is news he doesn't like or disagrees with and he declares as much. Credit:David Rowe

I like podcasts. They kinda remind me of my grandfather shushing me as he listened to the wireless. You have to create the space to listen. They make you pay attention. S-Town took three years to make. It is high quality investigative journalism at its absolute finest. In this 140-character world, where the virtue of one social media platform SnapChat is that messages disappear in 10 seconds  it is a deep, seven-hour dive into a story.

S-Towns' critical acclaim  not without chewy debates about ethics and hipster left audio voyeurism  is stark in contrast with the current debate around fake news and its siblings alternative facts and post-truth.
The Berejiklian government is being accused of botching the appointment of the inaugural chief commissioner of the NSW corruption watchdog and potentially opening the door for the agency's future findings to be challenged in court.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced the appointment of former Supreme Court judge Peter Hall, QC, as chief commissioner of the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

The position of chief commissioner is newly created as part of an overhaul of ICAC's structure under former Premier Mike Baird. The then ICAC commissioner Megan Latham resigned after being told she must reapply for her job.

The new structure, which replaces the current single commissioner model with a full time chief commissioner and two part time commissioners, is outlined in legislation amending the ICAC Act that passed through parliament late last year.
A top executive at NSW's Family and Community Services department has been a director of a company which donated to the Liberal party and sought a casino licence, business ventures an expert says conflict with his public service duties.

Fairfax Media revealed last week that top public servant Jim Longley was at the centre of a widening charity payments scandal under investigation by NSW Fair Trading.

Jim Longley, a former Liberal minister and top bureaucrat, was an RSL LifeCare director.

Mr Longley is chief executive of the $3 billion Ageing, Disability and Home Care division and also deputy secretary of the department of Family and Community Services.

FACS runs programs providing support and housing for, among others, people affected by problem gambling.
Fifteen minutes before he shot dead NSW Police accountant Curtis Cheng, Sydney teenager Farhad Jabar turned to a CCTV camera inside Parramatta Mosque and gave the Islamic State salute.

An image of the 15-year-old holding his index finger in the air, captured on camera near a stairwell in the mosque's main entrance after 4pm on October 2, 2015, was tendered to the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday.

The hotline was one of several initiatives promised after Curtis Cheng was shot by Farhad Jabar, pictured leaving Parramatta Mosque moments before the killing.

At 4.30pm that afternoon, Jabar shot dead Mr Cheng, 58, as he exited NSW Police Headquarters to spend the long weekend with his family. Jabar was killed moments later, in a shootout with special constables tasked with guarding the police building.

A bloodied note found on Jabar's body was also tendered in court on Monday. Addressed to the "disbelievers" it states: "your security means nothing to us" and "know your weapons are nothing compared to what we have".
A year ago, many investors had given up on Apple, whose stock price had fallen more than 30 per cent from its 2015 peak. Apple's once-unstoppable growth had come to a crashing halt: the number of iPhones sold was down 13 per cent, and the company posted its first revenue decline in 13 years.

Today, Apple's business remains sluggish, but that hasn't stopped investors, including the famously tech-averse Warren Buffett, from falling in love with it again. Shares of the tech giant - the most valuable company in the United States by market value - have repeatedly hit new highs this year. On Friday, they closed at $US143.65, up nearly 60 per cent from last May's trough.

What's driving the stock, say sceptics and fans alike, is hope - hope that the new iPhones due in September, after the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone's introduction, will be dazzling enough to inspire existing iPhone users to upgrade and prompt others to switch from Android phones made by Samsung, Huawei and other manufacturers.

"Everyone expects Apple to cure cancer with their next product launch," said Kevin Landis, chief executive of Firsthand Funds, who has managed tech-focused mutual funds through many ups and downs.
Washington: After stealing and releasing 10 episodes of the fifth season of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black a month before its planned premiere, a hacking group now is threatening to release shows by four other networks unless the networks pay a ransom.

The future is being hacked, and there's no certainty where it might end. Hackers can steal an ever-growing number of secrets.

Screenshot of download website PirateBay where the episodes are available.

If they can steal unreleased television shows, could they also spoil the Oscar ceremony by stealing and threatening to reveal the winners ahead of time? How about announcements of Nobel prizes? Or product launches from Apple and Tesla?

People don't want to wait for staged announcements designed for collective suspense. Hackers seek to profit from that desire. For better or worse, they steal  and reveal  the future.
What matters most in future-gazing Silicon Valley is rarely profits or revenues. It is the holy grail of growth.

While companies in many industries make protecting their existing business a priority, stasis is repellent to technology investors: if you're standing still, you may as well be going backwards.

Take Twitter. For almost two years the company has, for all its executives' efforts, appeared to be in a state of suspended animation.

It was once the app that was going to kill Facebook, but for almost two years its all-important monthly user numbers had been flat. Either nobody was joining, or users were leaving in vast enough quantities to match those coming in. Even Jack Dorsey, the founder who returned to run Twitter in 2015, seemed unable to do a Steve Jobs and save it.
An elderly Mornington Peninsula couple who went missing after visiting caves near the Victoria-South Australia border have been found 15 kilometres from their bogged car.

An 81-year-old man and a 74-year-old woman from Flinders visited caves near Penola on Sunday, north of Mount Gambier in South Australia's south-east.

A Flinders couple who went missing near the Victoria-South Australia border.

They left the area at 4.30pm on Sunday to travel 60 kilometres to Casterton, in Victoria's west.

But they never arrived.
"People sit there and expect young people to be on Centrelink, and that's just not the case, I don't want to be on Centrelink."

Taylor Bailey, 18, is an aspiring undertaker. She's worked for free, she's worked full time, and she's worked casually, but she says the reason she can't get permanent work is employers won't take her seriously.

Taylor Bailey (centre), 18, says she is tired of being stereotyped because she is young and unemployed. Credit:Justin McManus

"I want to work in the funeral industry, and I've got quite a bit of experience there, but things don't always line up properly," she said.

"I was employed but they had to let me go. I think they thought 'she's new, she's young, so we can get rid of her'. I know I've got a lot of skills and experience in different industries but it's difficult to find an employer that's going to take on a young person."
A toddler has died after being hit by a reversing car driven by his father in country Victoria.

The boy, believed to have been 18 months old, was playing in the yard of his family's rural home in Waubra, near Ballarat, when the tragedy unfolded.

Ballarat Sergeant Rick Nield said it appeared the toddler had wandered out of the shed moments before he was hit.

"The dad was in the yard with his young fella today. The dad was in his car and it appears the young bloke was in the shed," Sergeant Nield told the Ballarat Courier.
An expensive decision by a Perth fisherman to pull up someone else's cray pot has cost him a $1,188 fine.

The 45-year-old Rockingham man is one of ten people this cray fish season to have his catch seized by Fisheries officers after being caught interfering with a rock lobster pot that wasn't his.

A Rockingham man has been fined $1,188 for interfering with someone else's cray pots. Credit:Fisheries

The offence occurred in Warnbro Sound in October with the man fined $1,188 in Rockingham Magistrates Court on April 24.

South Metropolitan acting compliance manager Ryan Parker said the magistrate, however, denied the Department of Fisheries' request to forfeit his $4,500 dinghy.
A WA police sergeant will fight allegations he sexually abused four boys while he was a school teacher at a Catholic college more than 30 years ago.

Eamon Dominic Heary, 56, faced Perth Magistrates Court on Monday, accused of indecently dealing with the eight-year-old boys sometime between 1984 and 1985.

A WA sergeant is accused of sexually abusing boys in the 80s.

Heary, who has been stood down from operational duties, pleaded not guilty to all charges and had his bail extended before a committal mention on July 22.

- AAP
Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has made the startling claim it could take up $90 million of taxpayers' money to fix the ongoing bungles at the state's peak DNA testing agency.

Mr O'Callaghan said criminals were roaming free on the streets of Perth because of the lack of funding for the PathWest's Forensic Biology Unit.

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan says the the PathWest's Forensic Biology Unit is seriously underfunded.

It also meant there was a massive backlog of DNA testing linked to crimes sitting in the bowels of the WA Police Department.

Only last week, it was revealed a man was wrongly convicted for a crime because of a bungled DNA test at PathWest, and in late March one of the state's top DNA scientists was sacked for "cutting corners" during testing at the state-run pathology centre.
Canton, Texas: At least 10 people have been killed by tornadoes or flooding in the US South and Midwest with a rare late-season blizzard hitting western Kansas.

Tornadoes hit several small towns in East Texas, killing four people. Three people were killed by flooding and winds in Arkansas, with officials saying two more people were missing.

Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri; and a death was reported in Sunday morning storms that raked Mississippi.

An Arkansas volunteer fire department chief was killed while working during storms in north-central Arkansas, state police said.
Washington: At least 352 civilians have been killed in US-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the US military says.

The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the US coalition's operations against the militant group, said on Sunday it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.

It added that 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017. It reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present that had not previously been announced. The report included 26 deaths from three separate strikes in March.

The military's official tally is far below those of other outside groups. Monitoring group Airwars says more than 3000 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes.
Latest News NABs net profit up 8.3% Good results driven by home loan growth, rising interest rates

Refinancing volumes soar in changing market Brokers need to take advantage of $16.9 billion boost

The co-founder of Australias newest bank Tyro Payments has announced he will be leaving the organisation to pursue other business opportunities.Andrew Rothwell, who is also head of sales at Tyro, is departing on 19 May to join a start-up technology business. A new director of sales has already been identified with more information expected in the coming weeks.CEO Gerd Schenkel thanked Rothwell for his outstanding service and contribution in his 14 years working for Tyro.Andrews passion for start-up businesses is infectious and he can be proud of the long-term shareholder value he has helped generate since co-founding Tyro in 2003, Schenkel said. We wish him every success for the future.While Rothwell was sad to leave, he felt confident the company was in good hands.When I co-founded Tyro Payments in 2003, I was determined to make a difference. We started with three people and today Tyro employs close to 400 people, he said.My passion has always been in the start-up industry and Tyro has now successfully grown beyond that stage. I leave it in the capable hands of a strong management team. I am proud of what I have helped achieve in providing Australias SME community with a genuine alternative to the large banks.
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Brooklyn celebrated the grand opening of the first of two spans that will replace the aging Kosciuszko Bridge on Thursday night with a dazzling lightshow before traffic was allowed onto the first new bridge to grace the citys skyline since the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connected Kings County to the Rock in 1964.

The light display was synchronized to city-themed ballads such as Frank Sanatras New York, New York, and Billy Joels, New York State of Mind, but it was the surrounding industrial wasteland that really gave the light show its flavor, according to one local.

It was interesting to see this big spectacle in an otherwise different kind of environment, said Greenpoint resident Willis Elkins. The area is heavy industry, its not your typical tourist destination.

Throughout the day leading up to the big show, drivers were stuck with traffic delays on both sides of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, as lanes are closed and traffic directed away from the old bridge and onto the new one.

But the old Kosciuszko has served as a major bottleneck along the expressway for decades, with Rep. Carolyn Maloney (DGreenpoint) calling it the worst bridge in the state. The new dual bridges replacing it at a cost of $825 million are expected to ease congestion considerably, according to Cuomo.

This new bridge will ease congestion and improve our regions transportation network while demonstrating that the Empire State continues to lead the nation in building state-of-the-art infrastructure projects that will serve New Yorkers for generations to come, the governor boasted at the opening.

Cuomo, who drove Franklin Delano Roosevelts 1932 Packard to the opening, rigged the bridge to radiate a massive, multi-color light show as the premier to whats called New York Harbor of Lights, an event that will eventually feature coordinated displays from other bridges throughout the Five Boroughs, along with the Empire State Building.

Following the show, traffic was finally allowed to flow over the new bridge at 11:30 pm.

Cuomo announced in February that the old Kosciuzsko, opened in 1939, would go out with a bang, with workers carting away the spans center portion and then rigging the remaining structure with explosives in order to speed up the work.

The demolition was originally set to coincide roughly with the opening of the new bridge, but as of Thursday morning, the bridges fiery doom isnt expected to happen until the summer, according to a spokeswoman for state Department of Transportation.

Recently, a group of musicians calling themselves the Kosciuszko Philharmonic Orchestra created an online petition requesting the city let it perform Tchaikovskys famed 1812 Overture during the spans obliteration, although they remain short of their goal with only 237 out of 1,000 signatures.

Once the new span is open, six lanes will take traffic from Brooklyn to Queens and vice versa. Construction of a second cable-stay span with four-traffic lanes headed to Kings County, along with a bike and pedestrian lane, is in the works and is scheduled to open in 2020.

The Brooklyn Paper has been covering the plans to build the bridge since at least 2009, when the legendary Will Yakowicz wrote a piece headlined The billion-dollar bridge. What ever happened to that guy?
What to do in Pennsylvania if you made an error on your mail-in ballot
State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) presented a check to Yardley Borough Police Chief Joseph Kelly for $68,600 for the purchase of a new police vehicle and motorcycle during a visit to the station. Our police put themselves on the line every day to keep our community safe, said Sen. Santarsiero. Dating back to when I was a Lower Makefield Township Supervisor more than...
Top takeaways from Election Day in New Jersey

The expected red wave didn't crash in New Jersey, but one closely watched race was too close to call.
With the much-awaited Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) coming into effect on Monday, some buyers are hopeful it will end their woes but many are unaware of the benefits arising from the new regulatory regime.

Under the central law, each state has to notify rules and set up a regulatory authority to manage the real estate sector. Uttar Pradesh notified the rules last November but is yet to set up a regulator. The law provides for strict penalties against promoters and builders for not fulfilling promises.

K K Kaushal, a flat buyer of Amrapali Dream Valley project in Noida Extension, is not sure what the fallout of the new law would be. " will take its own time. I don't think we can expect to come up with solutions very soon. We have hope from the new Uttar Pradesh government, though," Kaushal said.

He had booked his flat in 2010 and was told that possession would be available by 2015. "It has been seven years and the project is not yet ready. Work came to a halt at the project site. It's been almost two months, no work is going on at the site," Kaushal told IANS.

Like Kaushal, there are many such buyers who booked flats in that project and 600 of them have started a campaign against the developers. Some went and met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow, while many recently joined a candlelight march as a protest.

Amit Kumar, who booked his flat during the same time in Jaypee Greens in Noida, is still waiting for his flat, promised to him for 2013. But he's hopeful that might bring about a change.

"At least now, real estate developers won't be able to take buyers for a ride. Buyers don't have any rights in the country. There should be a panel comprising buyers, developers and bankers (who provide loans) to monitor the project," he told IANS over phone from Oman.

Dushyant Naagar, a farmer leader, has been fighting since 2012 to rein in developers. "Lot of farmers are home buyers. Real estate developers collect money from buyers, even when the land is not cleared by the authorities. Almost 90% of builders have not deposited money with the Noida Authority after taking money from the buyers," Naagar told IANS.

He was promised possession of an Amrapali flat in Noida Extension in 2014. He says brokers should also face the same penalty as builders under RERA. He feels the new law will build pressure on builders who will now have to pay penalty for any delay. "This will be binding. Till now, once the buyer gave money, he was at the mercy of the builder. It is a new hope now," he added.

Ramkumar Choudhary, who has a small business in Noida, booked a flat in 2009 in Supertech, Noida extension. He was to get possession by 2013-14. He said the builder is ready to return the money, but without interest.

"They have refused to give the flat. There is a committee of Greater Noida aggrieved buyers. We have done dharna (sit-in protest) outside Supertech office at Noida Sector 58. Some people have filed court case, which is still on," Choudhary said.

RERA allows buyers to cancel their option for a project and receive the full refund along with interest. It also allows a buyer to receive interest for any delay if he or she does not want to cancel. But Choudhary is not sure if he can repose hope in RERA.
With an aim to expand its market in India, is likely to launch an online iPhone store in the country around Diwali. Initially, the online store will sell iPhone SE which will be manufactured in India.
Buoyed by the bidding success of Rewa Ultra Mega Solar, the Union government wants state governments to offer guarantees to grid connected wind and solar projects. The guarantee is one of the three tiers of payment security mechanism which is in place for the Rewa project in Madhya Pradesh and is now been planned for adoption by other states.
An employee speaks over his phone as he sits at the front desk inside the office of Ola cab service in Gurugram (Photo: Reuters)
Extending the online taxi aggregation concept to the underserved transport needs of people with mobility issues, MyInd Medtech Innovations' app-based service would launch medical taxis, a first in India, within a year in six-odd cities.
Indian information technology (IT) services plan to replicate their model of hiring freshers from universities and training them in important global markets such as the US and the UK.

So far IT services majors such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro and others have been dependent on sending engineers from back home to these markets, which rank number one and two in terms of generating revenues, for servicing their customers.

But, with the Donald Trump-led US government pushing for restrictions on talent movement to protect jobs for local people and Theresa Mays statements that visa norms for Indians in the UK may not remain as liberal as they are today, Indian IT firms are looking to protect themselves by hiring locally.

These developments certainly worry Indian IT firms which have created $108 billion export market largely by playing the cost arbitrage card. For them, sending Indian engineers on projects abroad has been more cost-effective than hiring locally.

Infosys said the company has made similar attempts to hire engineers from campuses in the US, the way started creating right technology talents three decades ago from Indian engineering colleges.

Our endeavour now is to step that up in the US and that is the right thing to do because you want to ...build local talent pools organically and then look for global talent to supplement it, said Ravi Kumar S, deputy chief operating officer, Infosys.

Last year, the Bengaluru-headquartered IT services major hired fresh graduates from schools in the US and brought them to its training centre in Mysuru. This year we are doing this in bigger numbers.

Infosys is planning to set up a training centre in the US too. body Nasscom recently claimed that Indian IT services firms collectively hired 50,000 local engineers in the US alone over the last decade and increased hiring too.

We will have to staff at all levels. When you are building localisation by design you are building cadres. So, we went to campus this year and hired local engineers and have trained them. Now, it is a consistent programme for graduate and post graduate levels, says Jatin Dalal, chief financial officer, Wipro. it is a balancing act and the company has managed the cost despite localisation. Wipro has put in place a dedicated localisation programme as part of its growth strategy.

University hires bring new thinking, lower cost-structure and a vehicle around H-1B challenges. We see this not only as an Indian IT service trend, but an overall trend in general. More nationalism is set to occur in the next five to 10 years, as traditional western democracies brace for voter backlash on slow growth, says Ray Wang, principal analyst and chief executive, Constellation Research, a Silicon Valley-based technology research and advisory firm.

All three large IT services firms, Infosys, TCS and Wipro, have applied for lesser number of H1B visas early this month when five-day window was opened by US Citizenship and Immigration Services for 2018.

Interestingly, Peter Bendor-Samuel, chief executive of global IT research firm Everest Group, says Indian firms can probably get one last bite of the H-1B visa lottery apple.

Indian firms are moving to address their H-1B dependent workforce issues by increasing their hiring of experienced US workers and recruiting from US universities. Firms like Wipro are more advanced in this process and have already made substantial progress. However, I would stress that all of the Indian firms are still active in the H-1B lottery and will take as many of these as they can, but expect that the numbers will decline, points out Bendor-Samuel.

Indian IT firms do not divulge numbers of Indians working on H-1B visas in the US or in UK. TCS had recently said it applied for nearly 4,000 new US visas in 2016, compared with about 14,000 applications in 2015.

Even though the visa applications crossed the cap of 85,000 (including 20,000 US Masters degree holders) this year, USCIS witnessed drop in total number to 199,000, as against 236,000 last year.

Indian firms face a similar shift in multiple markets which can potentially increase cost of business, says Bendor-Samuel. Unfortunately, this comes at a difficult time for the which faces increasing price completion which will make it difficult if not impossible for them to pass these cost on to their customers.

Indian IT firms plan to have the right combination of local talent and collaborative technology-enabled models across US, Europe and other regions.

Our strategy is to move to a regime where our operating model should be visa neutral.We will have to put the right model of execution; having the local talent, executing it out of the delivery centres in the onsite, offshore or nearshore, says N G Subramaniam, chief operating officer, TCS.
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Last year, the low-profile saw sales worth Rs 50,000 crore for the first time in India. Products manufactured in villages by small-scale industries and social entrepreneurs, most of which are run by women, also saw huge demand. Such products include honey, soaps, cosmetics, furniture and food items. This feat was made possible through constant push by the government of India and the increasing trend of using organic products worldwide.
Enterprise transportation service provider plans to expand its services to Southeast Asian countries such as Philippines, Indonesia over the next few years. The Bengaluru-based start-up, which helps Wipro, Oracle, LinkedIn, NetApp, AT&T and 45 other in India reduce cost to ferry employees, says these countries may offer big opportunities given the increasing business process outsourcing industry.

MoveInSync, co-founded by former technology professionals in multi-national Deepesh Agarwal, Akash Maheshwari, Anuvrata Arora, claims the business model of saving cost for enterprises was crucial for it to become profitable in six years from ideation.
Senior Congress leader on Monday made a shocking allegation by accusing Telangana Police of setting up a 'bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules'.

Questioning the involvement of Chief Minister K.

Chandrashekhar Rao in the matter, Singh asserted that if KCR is involved then he should own up and resign.

"If he has then shouldn't he own the responsibility and resign?" he tweeted.

If he has then shouldn't he own the responsibility and resign ?  (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

If he hasn't then shouldn't he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime ?  (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

"Is it Ethical? Is it Moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS?" senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh tweeted.

Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

"Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules," he tweeted.

Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

"Whether the state police should be trapping Muslim youth in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?" Digvijaya tweeted.

The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

He also raised questions on the ISIS terror accused Saifullah's encounter that it was on the basis of the Telangana Police's information that the Madhya Pradesh police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District and Saifullaha's encounter also took place in Kanpur the same day.

"It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP," he tweeted.

It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

"It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day," he tweeted in a series of tweet.

It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Recently, the Lucknow district administration ordered a magisterial probe into the death of ISIS terror accused Saifullah, who was killed on the outskirts of Uttar Pradesh capital after long hours of anti-terror operation on March 8.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans suggestion that Kashmir be resolved through multilateral negotiations, was met with a polite rebuff from New Delhi which said the issue facing both Turkey and India was one of terrorism and that it was ready to talk to Pakistan on all bilateral issues, including Kashmir, thus, turning down Turkeys offer of hosting mulatilateral negotiations. Ways to strengthen bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation, Indias claim to becoming a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and a similar bid by Pakistan were among key issues that were understood to have been discussed but India got few reassurances beyond continued cordiality in relations.
On May 5, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will attempt to launch the GSLV F09 mission. It will be the ninth flight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), and the fourth consecutive with the indigenous cryogenic engine powering the upper stage. The rocket will be carrying the GSAT-9 communications satellite and an electric propulsion system.
Expressing grave concern over cross-border terrorism, India on Monday conveyed to Turkey that it was ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan, including Kashmir.

"We said Kashmir is an issue of terrorism and we want to solve it bilaterally. They (Turkey) listened very carefully," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

Asserting that India condemns the use of the double standard in addressing the menace of terrorism, Baglay said that both the nations (India and Turkey) called for early conclusion of negotiation on Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).

India's stand came amid Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's call for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue which was an issue of terrorism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day urged all nations to work unanimously to uproot the terrorist network while adding that no region could "validate terrorism."

He further said that both the nations (India and Turkey) would work together to strengthen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally to counter terrorism.

"Terrorism is a shared worry, we agreed, no impact or goal and no region can validate terrorism," he said, while issuing a joint statement with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.

Prime Minister Modi, in another veiled attack on Islamabad, asserted that stern action should also be taken against the countries that "shelter terrorism."

"The nations of the world need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks, their financing and cross-border movement of terrorists. Strict action should be taken against those who create and conceive, support and sustain, shelter and spread ideologies of violence," he added.

Turkish President Erdogan extended support to India's bid to counter terrorism while saying that terrorist outfits tried to launch their propaganda over people's sufferings.

"Turkey will always be on the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism. Terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over the sufferings of people and are willing to create future for themselves out of the victims' pain," the Turkish President said.
Turkish President was accorded a ceremonial welcome on Monday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Erdogan. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Later during the day, Erdogan will participate in delegation-level talks with Modi. The two sides are also expected to sign a series of agreements.

Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.

His visit comes after winning the April 16 referendum, which gives him more executive powers as President.

Terrorism will also feature in the Modi-Erdogan talks.

India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.

His last visit to India was in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

Mukherjee visited Turkey in 2013. Modi also met Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015.
Condemning the beheading of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani army along today, Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said Pakistan was a terrorist state and known for such cowardly acts.

Hitting out at the neighbouring country for "creating havoc in Kashmir by engineering terror attacks", he said his government was very serious about such attacks by Pakistan, wherein "militants are being sent to Kashmir to attack and kill people."

"We condemn the killing and mutilating the bodies of two Indian soldiers in the Border Action Team (BAT) attack by Pakistani army on a patrol party along LOC in Poonch district. Pakistan is a terrorist nation and is known for such cowardly acts," he told reporters here.

"They [Pakistan] are doing everything in their power to create havoc in Kashmir by engineering terror attacks. They are trying to engineer BAT attacks and ceasefire violations along the border.

"The government is very serious over Pakistan's attack and directly sending militants into Kashmir to attack and kill people. This is a very big conspiracy against India wherein terrorists and separatists are active," he said.

Singh said the army will give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

All Party Migrant coordination Committee (APMCC) Chairman Vinood Pandita also condemned the attack and mutilation of the bodies of Indian jawans and demanded a befitting reply to the neighbouring nation.

Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, the Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel today, officials said.


Pakistan Army on Monday denied mutilating the bodies of two Indian security personnel, which has evoked a sharp reaction in India.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false," a statement from the Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations wing said.

"Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier," it said.

In a barbaric attack, an army junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a Border Security Force head constable were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan's Border action team (BAT) crossed into the Indian side as the Pakistan Army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.

The incident evoked a sharp reaction in India with Defence Minister Arun Jaitley saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The Indian government strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.
On Labour Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday saluted workers, saying they play a big role in the country's progress.

"Today, on we salute the determination & hard work of countless workers who play a big role in India's progress. Shrameva Jayate!," he tweeted.

International Workers' Day also known as celebrates the spirit of labourers.

The Prime Minister also wished Gujarat and Maharashtra on their foundation day.
The launch on May 5, of GSAT-09, a communication satellite developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), will bring India closer to its neighbours Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
Terming constantly evolving threat of terrorism as "a shared worry", India and Turkey said on Monday that no reason or rationale can validate terrorism and pitched for strong action against those who provide shelter and support to such forces.

Prime Minister and visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held comprehensive discussions and took stock of a full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.

Addressing a joint press event with Erdogan, Modi said, "We live in times where our societies face new threats and challenges every day. The context and contours of some of the existing and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern."

"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," he said.

Modi also strongly pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror outfits.

"President (Erdogan) and I agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace," the prime minister added.

On his part, Erdogan said, "His country will always be with India in its battle against terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."

Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he had told a TV channel in an interview.

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

This is Erdogan's first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

The Turkish leader arrived in New Delhi on Sunday on a two-day visit.
Planning to build your dream home? You may want to hold on for some time, as the housing board is trying to convince state governments to cut stamp duties and registration fees. If the move is successful, you will definitely save some bucks. In mid-April, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that every Indian should have a house by 2022, on the 75th anniversary of the countrys Independence.
It is not widely realised that dealt a severe blow to the microfinance sector. As a result, significant sections of Indias working poor, who were seeking to pull themselves out of poverty by taking small loans form microfinance institutions (MFIs), also suffered a setback.
The Turkish government would be pushing Delhi to hasten a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two nations, while also trying to build investments, during President Recep Tayyip Erdogans two-day visit from Sunday.

While the proposal for an FTA had been pitched by Turkey before 2012, dates are yet to be fixed to start negotiations, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity. Delhi is currently involved in similar negotiations with Australia, Canada, Georgia, the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Erdogan will be accompanied by the minister for the economy and an 88-company business delegation, besides representations from government institutions.

However, bilateral trade had shrunk in 2015-16 by 28 per cent to $4.91 billion. Exports to that country were $4.14 bn and imports were $776 million. Turkish exports to India fell 47 per cent; Indian exports fell 22 per cent. Both governments have targeted $23 bn of trade by 2023.

The Turkish government is also keen to boost investments into India, dormant for years, said the official quoted earlier. Total inbound direct investment from there in the 2000-2016 period was $137.1 mn or about 0.04 per cent of all such inflows. According to the Turkish embassy, about 20 companies from there are operating in India. Turkish companies now want to tap India for the large South Asian market.

However, Turkey is also expected to pitch for greater Indian investment, considering that at least 210 Indian companies operate there. They mainly target the country as a hub to extend operations in the European Union with which Turkey has a customs union, and to West Asia/North Africa.

Lutfi Elvan, the countrys development minister, had said during a visit to India in November last year that apart from the standardised general incentive policy for investors, Turkey had initiated tailor-made incentives for investments from various nations. For Indian investors, this might include up to 100 per cent discount in corporate tax, allocation of public property for up to 49 years without rent obligation and free ownership transfer of such property. Also, exemption from paying social security tax for up to 20 years.

Turkey is also considered a world leader in public-private partnership projects, with its government signing 211 of these, worth $122 bn.

The two nations have a Joint Economic Commission which had its 10th meeting back in 2014. A Turkey-India Business Council is also active.

With Turkey also being a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the issue of Indias membership bid of the elite grouping is likely to figure in the talks during Erdogans visit.

Delhi will have to tread carefully on geopolitical discussions involving West Asia and the Mediterranean region, with Erdogan calling for Indias continued dialogue with Pakistan over Kashmir but arguing that the situation bore no resemblance to Kurds fighting for separation in Turkeys eastern provinces.
Prime Minister today invited Turkish businesses to invest in sectors like energy, rail, road, ports and housing, saying India was never a better investment destination than it is now.

Addressing business leaders present at the India-Turkey Business Summit, which was also attended by visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Modi stressed the need for a substantial increase in the economic engagement between the two countries.

The prime minister said although the bilateral trade between India and Turkey has gone up to $6.4 billion in 2016 from 2.8 billion in 2008, it is still far behind the real potential.

"India and Turkey enjoy good economic ties... While this (trade growth) is encouraging, the level of present economic and commercial relation is not enough against the real potential," Modi said.

Observing that India and Turkey, which are among the top 20 economies of the world with strong fundamentals, can substantially increase bilateral cooperation in several areas, the Indian prime minister said, "The time has come to make aggressive effort to deepen relationship and enhance bilateral engagement."



Promising a business friendly environment, Modi said the Turkish construction companies can participate in India's infrastructure sector development, especially in sectors like ports, rail, housing, energy, hydrocarbon, tourism, textiles and auto.

Modi also highlighted India's low-cost manufacturing capabilities before the Turkish businessmen while seeking investment.

Speaking on the occasion, Turkish President Erdogan also made a strong case for deepening and strengthening bilateral ties to achieve the actual trade potential between the two nations.

He also suggested that India and Turkey should initiate free-trade agreement talks and look for possibility of bilateral trade in domestic currencies to tide over the issue of exchange rate fluctuation.

"We should increase our business and economic relationship...If we can also start the comprehensive economic relations negotiation that would be great...It would be also good to start free-trade agreement talks. This would also add further momentum to our relations," he said.

Erdogan, however, underlined the need for balancing the trade saying it was highly in favour of India.

He also called upon Indian businessmen to increase investments in Turkey stressing that his country was "ideal place for investment and production".

The businessmen of the two countries, he said, could also join hand to explore investment opportunities in third countries.
At a time when the government is trying to make prescription of generics compulsory, the Prime Ministers Jan Aushadhi Yojana is in the limelight once again. As a large portion of unbranded generics is sold either in Jan Aushadhi stores or chemists at government hospitals, the governments flagship project promising drugs at affordable prices is likely to get a renewed push, according to officials.
At a time when Indian railways is on a transformational phase through introduction of high-speed trains, faster electrification, doubling and introduction of metro in more cities, Tilak Raj Seth, executive vice-president of Siemens and chief executive officer of its mobility division in India to Shine Jacob about the future of the sector. He also shares the German conglomerates growth road map in India, covering various segments like electrification, automation and digitalisation. Edited excerpts:



Do you think once the Rail Development Authority is in place, there will be more clarity on pricing and infrastructural projects of Indian Railways?



It will certainly contribute to easing some of the pressure the rail sector has. Rail has a dual role as commercial enterprise and a social responsibility. Sometimes, one has to compromise on the other. When the Authority is in place, the railways will have a bit of a de-stressed situation.
Over the past few days, Indias agriculture has received much public attention for two apparently contradictory concerns. The first issue was the possibility of taxing agricultural income. NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy reportedly suggested this move for widening the tax base and pruning exemptions. However, this led to a massive public outcry and within a few days both the NITI Aayog and ministry of finance ruled out such a move. Beyond the political economy though, the data show such a tax would rope in a very small fraction of farmers into the tax net.



Chart 1 maps the distribution of agricultural households by the size of land possessed and an overwhelming number of farm households have tiny land holdings.









Source: Income, Expenditure, Productive Assets and Indebtedness of Agricultural Households in India NSSO



Chart 2 shows that, even if taxed, given the existing tax slabs, incomes from such small holdings will merit an exemption.









Source: Income, Expenditure, Productive Assets and Indebtedness of Agricultural Households in India NSSO



Chart 3 reiterates this point by mapping the average annual income of the farm households.




Turkish President on Monday called for reforms in the United Nations Security Council as he supported India's bid for a permanent seat in the exclusive body.

"India, with a population of 1.3 billion is not a part of the UNSC. Over 1.7 billion people live in the Islamic world but they too are not a part of the UNSC. This is not a healthy sign," Erdogan said here.

The Turkish leader said one cannot expect the UN Security Council to dispense justice without more representation. The membership in the body should be on a rotational basis with 20 to 30 countries holding the mantle at a time, he said.

Erdogan, who is on a two-day visit to India, was speaking at the Jamia Millia Islamia University where he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree.
Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan while addressing media today, congratulated the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force for unearthing the racket involved in short delivery of fuel at petrol stations in Lucknow. These raids were carried at 11 petrol pumps out on specific information regarding tampering with fuel calibration by use of electronic chips. Of these, electronic chips were found at 9 fuel stations, 3 of which belong to IOCL and the other 6 belong to BPCL. .

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The Minister said that he held talks with the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and DGP of Uttar Pradesh on this issue. The Central and State Governments have decided to hold a meeting in Lucknow in light of the raids, which would be chaired by the Chief Secretary, Uttar Pradesh and will be attended by representatives of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Oil Marketing Companies. .

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The Minister said that all fuel stations in Uttar Pradesh will be re-assessed by a team comprising of representatives from State Governments Weight and Measures Department, Civil Supplies Department, Special Task Force and the Oil Marketing Company. At the same time, random surprise checks will be conducted all across the country at fuel stations. The instructions to this effect have been given to all concerned. Shri Pradhan said that the Central Government hopes for full cooperation from the States as Weights and Measures is a State subject and the annual supervision cum certification of fuel delivery units at fuel stations is carried out by the Weights and Measures Departments of the concerned State. .

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Shri Pradhan said consumer interest is paramount and that strict action will be taken against those found guilty of tampering with fuel calibration. He said that those dealers violating the Marketing Discipline Guidelines (MDG) will also face strict action mounting to even termination of licences. .

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Commerce and Industry Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has said that India should take lead in making quality products available to world at an affordable price. .

Inaugurating the 4th National Standards Conclave organized by the Department of Commerce in association with CII, BIS, EIC, FSSAI, APEDA and NABCB she emphasized while standards as signifying quality are important but they also need to be affordable for manufacturers to comply and consumers to buy. She said Prime Ministers Zero Effect Zero Defect idea aims at exactly this. She cited The Mangalyan launch costing and worldclass quality is a prime example of quality with affordability. .

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Commerce and Industry Minister appreciated that a standards strategy document is going to be the possible outcome of this conclave however, she emphasised that long term strategy should not lose sight of immediate challenges. Smt. Sitharaman stated that any national strategy for standards should be able to factor in technology to disseminate any change in import requirements in foreign countries so that our exporters are well prepared to overcome those barriers. This dissemination has to be in regional languages. She said this has become critical as number of notifications in WTO have increased and many deal with standards . .

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The Minister highlighted the issues confronting agriculture sector, where the nature of standards set in international bodies often militate against the Indian varieties. She stressed that International standards especially in food produce must value variety over homogeneity and India must participate actively in such Standards setting. When Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) controls are put on agro products, like mango or grapes unilaterally, they hurt our farmers. Similarly, the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) of certain pesticides or biocides are altered too quickly in the foreign markets and farmers are taken by surprise. So, efforts must be put to create quick information system for such farmers and exporters. She hoped that the proposed strategy would provide a guide or a kind of framework so that we avoid such crises at negotiation stage it self. .

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The Minister also launched the India Standards Portal a one stop portal for all information on Standards, Technical Regulations, conformity assessment & accreditation practices, and the related bodies in India and adivsed that portal should also help exporters to identify regulations in various countries abroad. .

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In his address, Mr. R V Deshpande, Minister for Large and Medium Industries and Infrastructure Development, Government of Karnataka, highlighted the strategy adopted by his state to put in place a robust standards eco system. These include besides providing incentives to the industrial units adopting standards, insistience on procurement of products and services which conform to the standards, ensuring infrastructure is available in the state and focus on Research and Development. .

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Ms. Rita Teaotia, Secretary, Department of Commerce highlighted the legislative reforms that have been happening as a result of series of national and regional Conclaves. She stated that since the last edition of the Conclave, the new BIS Act had been passed and the Consumer Protection Act is also proposed to include a new chapter on Product Liability. This would help strengthen the standards ecosystem in the country. She also noted that for the first time, standards in the services sector were getting attention. She suggested that there was a need to develop a National Strategy for Standards as well as Vision Document for the same. .

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Ms. Alka Panda, Director General, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) highlighted the role that the BIS was playing in the development of standards in the country. Mr. Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman, Quality Council of India stated that there was a need to work with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to help improve their standards. He also spoke of the need to create a standards compliance system which was easy to comply with and emphasized that standards should be seen as an opportunity rather than as a threat. .

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Mr. Rakesh Bharti Mittal, President Designate, and Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of CII also spoke in the inaugral affirming Industries commitment to graduate to a high Standards regieme in the country. .

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Mr. Sudhanshu Pandey, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Commerce and Industry proposed the Vote of Thanks. .

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Minister of State for Minority Affairs (I/C) Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Saudi Arabia Ambassador in India Dr Saud Mohammed Alsati discussed various issues related to about 1 lakh 70 thousand pilgrims from India going for Haj 2017 today in New Delhi..

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After significant increase in Indias Haj quota by Saudi Arabia Government, a total of 1,70,025 people will go to Haj pilgrimage this year from India out of which 1,25,025 pilgrims will go through Haj Committee of India while 45,000 people will go through Private Tour Operators. .

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Shri Naqvi said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, bilateral relations between India and Saudi Arabia have been further strengthened. He said that facilities of Haj pilgrims especially their safety is our top priority. Various issues such as visa process, accommodation and transport facilities for the pilgrims were discussed in the meeting. .

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Shri Naqvi said that all the preparations for Haj this year has been completed before time. He also expressed thanks to the Saudi Arabia Government for increasing Indias annual Haj quota by 34,005. It is the biggest increase in the quota of Haj pilgrims from India after several years..

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They also discussed about reviving the option of sending Haj pilgrims through sea route. Shri Naqvi said that sending pilgrims through ships will help cut down travel expenses by nearly half as compared to air fares. The practice of ferrying Haj pilgrims between Mumbai and Jeddah by waterways was stopped in 1995. Shri Naqvi said that another advantage with ships available these days is that they are modern and well-equipped to ferry 4,000 to 5,000 persons at a time. They can cover the 2,300-odd nautical miles one-side distance between Mumbai and Jeddah in just two-three days. Earlier, the old ships used to take 12 to 15 days to cover this distance. .

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Shri Naqvi said that Ministry of Minority Affairs is in constant touch with Saudi Arabia Government, Haj Committee of India, Air India and other concerned agencies. A team of senior officials from the Ministry and Haj Committee of India had recently visited Saudi Arabia to take stock of various facilities..

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Shri Naqvi said that a high level committee, constituted to frame new Haj Policy 2018, will soon submit its report. The new Haj Policy is aimed at making entire Haj process easier and transparent. Haj pilgrims facilities will be the focus of the new Haj policy..

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President of India to attend the 8TH convocation of the Lovely Professional University tomorrow The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee will visit Punjab (Phagwara) tomorrow (May 2, 2017) where he will attend the 8th Convocation of the Lovely Professional University.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Centre approved about Rs.25,000 cr investment in urban infrastructure in the State in last 3 yrs .

Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu will review progress of implementation of new urban missions in Karnataka tomorrow. Shri Naidu will chair the review meeting to be held in Bengaluru. .

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Ministers of Urban Development and Housing, Chief Secretary of Karnataka, Secretaries of both the urban ministries of Government of India, National and State level Mission Directors of new urban missions besides other senior officials of central and State Governments would be attending the review. .

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Under different new urban missions launched during the last three years, central government approved an investment of about Rs.25,000 cr for improving urban infrastructure in Karnataka with central assistance of about Rs.9,000 cr. .

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Under Smart City Mission, six cities of Karnataka have been included in the mission of which five cities viz., Davangere, Belgavi, Shivamogga, Mangaluru and Hubbali-Dharwad have been selected for financing smart city plans of respective cities in two rounds of competition so far held. The sixth one i.e Tumakuru is participating in the third round of competition. Bengaluru has also been allowed to participate in the competition. .

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Investments approved under Smart City Plans are: Belgavi-Rs.3,534 cr, Hubbali-Dharwad-Rs.2,227 cr, Mangaluru-Rs.2,001 cr, Shivamogga-Rs.1,517 cr and Davanagere-Rs.1,307 cr. Central assistance of Rs.500 cr per each city is provided under this mission. .

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Under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), centre has approved a total investment of Rs.4,971 cr with central assistance of Rs. 2,319 cr for improving basic urban infrastructure in 27 mission cities. These include; Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Gulbarga, Bellary, Belgaum, Bidar, Tumakuru and Hasan. Provision of water taps to all urban households in the mission cities and improving water supply to the normative 135 litres per day is accorded priority under this mission followed by expansion of sewerage and drainage networks, non-motorised transport and open spaces. .

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Badami is among the 12 cities in the country in Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY). An investment of Rs.22.26 is envisaged for improving heritage related infrastructure in Badami. .

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Under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), construction of 1,46,548 affordable houses for urban poor in Karnataka has so far been approved by the centre with an investment of Rs.6,288 cr for which central assistance of Rs. 2,492 cr has been approved. .

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Shri Venkaiah Naidu will review progress in respect of all these new initiatives. .

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AAR/KM/
German Chancellor snubbed (eschewed) the strict Saudi Arabia dress code as she arrived in the country without a headscarf for talks with the oil-rich kingdom's monarch King Salman.

Merkel, who chose not to cover her hair or wear a traditional flowing black robe, was greeted by King Salman and other top officials upon her arrival at Jeddah, reports the Independent.

However, she is not the first western woman, who did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom, as Hillary Clinton, Theresa May and Michelle Obama had also not covered their hair in Saudi Arabia.

Women in Saudi Arabia are required to wear a full-length robe and cover their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws, including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Merkel told journalists that she had pressed the Saudis on women's rights, the war in Yemen and other sensitive issues.

This is Merkel's first visit to the kingdom in seven years.

Merkel had also called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our country".

She had said that it should be banned if it is legally possible.
A year ago, many investors had given up on Apple, whose stock price had fallen more than 30 per cent from its 2015 peak. Apples once-unstoppable growth had come to a crashing halt: The number of iPhones sold was down 13 per cent, and the company posted its first revenue decline in 13 years.
Former US Vice President told a crowd of Democrats at an event in New Hampshire that he will not run for President in 2020, the media reported.

Biden spoke on Sunday night at an annual dinner hosted by the New Hampshire Democratic Party in a state that the 74-year-old has come to know well through two unsuccessful presidential campaigns of his own and two more as a running mate, CNN reported.

Biden, who advisers say is currently nowhere near making a decision on 2020, addressed the question head on.

"Guys, I'm not running!" he said with a smile, as the audience booed in response.

Regarding the 2016 presidential election, Biden said: "Trump was pretty smart. He made it all personal".

"It would not have taken much for Hillary Clinton to win on Election Day, but too many Democrats decided to stay home... I'm absolutely positive they wanted to be with us. But we have to prove again we understand that hopelessness."

Accompanied at the dinner by his wife, Jill, and speaking for a full hour, Biden also wholly rejected the President Trump's worldview, especially on the issue of immigration, reports CNN.

He warned that the values like dignity and optimism that are at the core of the country were being eroded.

But he also insisted that the current political climate was just a passing phase.

"Tolerance has long been our greatest attribute...We've had our ugly periods, we've had our moments of shame, but the arc of this nation has been towards justice."

Biden spent eight years as Obama's deputy and he served as a US senator from Delaware for 36 years prior to that.
Pakistan has decided to extend the house arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, along with his aides Abdullah Ubaid, Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid and Qazi Kashif Niaz, for another three months.

Punjab Government spokesperson Malik Ahmed Khan has confirmed that a formal notification in this regard would be issued within next few days, local media reports say.

Saeed's three-month detention was to come to an end tonight.

The Pakistan Government on January 30 had put and four under house arrest at the Qadisiyyah Mosque near Chouburji in Lahore, for their alleged involvement in activities prejudicial to peace and security, for a period of 90 days.

Saeed is wanted by India and the United States for his alleged role in masterminding the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai that claimed 166 lives. He even carries a bounty of 10 million USD (approx. Rs 66 crore) on his head for his role in the attack.

Pakistan claims to have banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), but following the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2002, it re-emerged as Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD). The United States has designated the JuD as a front for the LeT.
Philippine President said on Monday he may turn down an invitation by Donald Trump to visit the United States, as he welcomed three Chinese warships to his hometown.

Duterte, who has loosened the Philippines' long alliance with the United States while strengthening ties with China and Russia, said he could not commit to the American president because of a busy schedule that included a trip to Moscow.

"I am tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia, I am supposed to go to Israel," he told reporters when asked about Trump's invitation made in a telephone call on Saturday.

Duterte expressed concerns about not being able to fit in a visit to Trump even though no firm date has yet been proposed for it.

Nevertheless, Duterte said relations with the United States were improving now that Trump had taken over from Barack Obama, who criticised the Philippine president for his anti-drug war that has claimed thousands of lives.

Rights groups have warned Duterte may be orchestrating a crime against humanity, with police and vigilantes committing mass murder. But Duterte insists his security forces are not breaking any laws.

Duterte last year branded Obama a "son of a whore" in response to the criticism. He also declared while in Beijing last year that the Philippines had "separated" from the United States.

The United States is the Philippines' former colonial ruler and the nations are bound by a mutual defence treaty.

Duterte said on Monday that his efforts to loosen the alliance were only a response to the drug war criticism.

"It was not a distancing (of relations) but it was rather a rift between me and the (US) State Department and Mr Obama, who spoke openly against me," he said.

"Things have changed, there is a new leadership. He wants to make friends, he says we are friends so why should we pick a fight?"

Duterte's comments came shortly after he visited three Chinese warships visiting his hometown, the southern city of Davao on Mindanao island.

"This is part of confidence-building and goodwill and to show we are friends and that is why I welcome them," he said.

Duterte has pursued closer relations with the Chinese government even though Beijing has taken control of a fishing shoal and built artificial islands in parts of the South China Sea that are within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

China claims nearly all of the strategically vital waterway, even waters approaching the coasts of its neighbours.

Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have claims in the sea.

China's expansionism in the waters have triggered concern regionally and in the West, with its new artificial islands capable of serving as military bases.
American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX on Monday launched a top secret spy satellite for a US government towards orbit.

The commercial rocket Falcon 9, owned by Elon Musk, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, reports the CNN.

Seven minutes after liftoff, the first-stage rocket booster separated from the upper stage and fired its engines again.

An on-board computer then guided the rocket to a pinpoint landing on a 300-foot platform back at Kennedy Space Center.

The satellite was made for National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a US government agency that develops and maintains spy satellites.

The NRO says the satellite aims to survey potential threats to the United States by tracking terrorists and monitoring the development of nuclear weapons in other countries.

It also has the capability to provide an early warning of a potential missile strike.
US federal prosecutors subpoenaed several banks last month as part of a criminal investigation into possible manipulation of the US Treasuries market, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The banks include AG, BNP Paribas SA and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.



A series of class action lawsuits have accused various banks and brokerages of conspiring to manipulate US Treasury auctions.

The lawsuits have alleged that the banks colluded to manipulate Treasury Department auctions and the pricing of Treasury securities, as well as derivative products such as futures, whose value is pegged to the Treasury.

UBS has flagged a probe related to US Treasury securities in its earnings reports.

"UBS and reportedly other banks are responding to investigations and requests for information from various authorities regarding US Treasury securities and other government bond trading practices," the Swiss bank said in its latest quarterly report last month.

UBS, BNP Paribas and the US Justice Department all declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. RBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Pentagon said on Sunday that at least 352 civilians were killed as a result of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to March 2017.

In its monthly report of the assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the Pentagon, 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

In addition, the US military reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present which was not previously announced.

"Although the coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimises the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable," said the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's figures contradict the assessment by London-based Amnesty International, which estimated that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition air strikes in Syria alone.
As stock scale new highs, many investors are wondering if the rally will sustain. And, whether they should book profits and wait for a correction to re-enter. While timing the is not possible, having an exit strategy for stocks in your portfolio can ensure you make profits, irrespective of where the go from here.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Monday termed the mutilation of two Indian Army soldiers as intolerable and asked the Centre to act sternly against Pakistan.

"This is something which is not acceptable. These incidents can't be tolerated. The government has to answer this. How this can be achieved, the government, if wants, can discuss with us," CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury told ANI.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called on the international community to declare Pakistan a 'terrorist nation' and asserted that India would give a befitting reply for the barbaric act.

"The Pakistani forces once again violated the international treaties and the way they violated the worst kind of human rights and laws is very unfortunate. We condemn such barbaric acts. International powers should take actions on this and should declare Pakistan a terrorist nation," BJP leader Ravindra Raina told ANI.

BJP leader Nalin Kohli told ANI, "Pakistan is increasingly becoming from its act, a state which appears to be where barbarism and inhumanity is the norm. We are confident that the statement of the Army sums up what is to be done. This despicable act will not go unpunished. Prime Minister Modi ji, the Army and soldiers have free hand to do what they deem appropriate."

Pakistan mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir's Krishna Ghati sector.

The Indian Army in a tweet said,"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector. Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated . Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two people were detained by the Nagaon Police in connection with the mob lynching of two suspected cow thieves and an interrogation is underway.

Earlier yesterday, two people were lynched by a mob following suspicion that they were trying to steal cows from a village.

The victims, Abu Hanifa (23) and Riazuddin Ali (24) were brutally beaten up after some villagers said the duo tried to chase away two cows from the grazing ground in Kasomari village.

The deceased hailed from Naromari Jamtola village, which is two kilometres from Kasomari.

The Police handed over the bodies to their families after conducting post-mortem examination.

On April 1st, 55-year-old dairy farmer Khan, who hailed from Haryana, along with four others, including his two sons, was attacked by cow vigilantes in Alwar's Behror on April 1 when he was transporting cows. Khan had died on April 3 during treatment at a hospital, while his associates suffered injuries.

The incidents of lynching started came to fore when in 2015, Fifty-year-old Akhlaq was lynched and his son Danish (22) was brutally beaten up by their neighbours in Bishahra in Dadri in September last for allegedly eating beef on Eid and storing it for later consumption.

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Pakistan's brutal Border Action Team (BAT) is again in news after it mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers on Monday in Krishna Ghati sector along the Line of Control, where they had beheaded Lance Naik Hemraj in 2013.

The Indian Army confirmed the involvement of the BAT in the gruesome act.

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in the Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.

It is the same Krishna Ghati sector where the Pakistani BAT had beheaded Lance Naik Hemraj and badly severed the head of Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh of 13 Rajputana Rifles, on January 8, 2013.

Indian Army killed terrorist Anwar Khan in August 2015 in Poonch area of Jammu and Kashmir. He was part of a 15 member team of Lashkar and Jaish terrorists in the BAT team that killed Hemraj and Sudhakar.

In fact, the BAT is a brutal and barbaric arm of Pakistan Army. Its actions along the Line of Control (LOC) may be not in public domain, but the Indian Army has been bearing its brunt for long. The raiding members of BAT are specially instructed not be caught on the Indian side.

Defence experts say that the Pakistan's Special Services Group (SSG) forms the BAT which employs highly trained terrorists for Trans-LoC action up to a depth of 1 to 3 kilometres.

In February 2000, seven months after the Kargil War, a Pakistani BAT killed seven Indian soldiers in Nowshera in Rajouri district. The army was shocked to discover the headless body of a soldier, Sepoy Bhausaheb Talekar.

Defence experts say that the Pakistani BAT beheads and mutilate the bodies of Indian soldiers to terrorise troops and wage psychological warfare.

The SSG commandos and terrorists of BAT mainly use AK-47 rifles, Swiss-made snow clothing and snow boots, Digital Navigation Consoles like Skype and VoIP.

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Condemning Pakistan's act of mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, Baloch Republican Party (BRP) representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Abdul Nawaz Bugti has said that this was the wake-up call for India and the about what Islamabad was doing in Balochistan.

"Baloch political workers, politicians, activists, students are kidnapped daily and tortured in Pakistani cells. They are there made victim of atrocities and their bodies are then thrown away at deserted paces after being mutilated," he said.

Bugti said this was once again a wake-up call for the about the kind of behaviour Pakistan can mete out to its neighbouring countries.

"Pakistan's atrocities are spreading from Balochistan to India and will spread in the whole world," he said.

He called on the international community to stop Pakistan from spreading terrorism in the .

Echoing similar sentiments, Balochistan's representative at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Mehran Marri said the Pakistani Army and Pakistan have once again proven itself to be criminal minded barbaric army and a terrorist state.

"Today, by decapitating Indian soldiers and mutilating their bodies, what they have been doing in Balochistan from the past 70 years, they have started this with their neighbours now. The world has to take serious notice of this and as America dropped mother of all bombs in Afghanistan on the ISIS targets, I think America should be thinking of dropping bombs on Pakistan Army headquarters as well," he added.

Escalating his attack on Pakistan, Marri said their Army is worst than ISIS.

"I would appeal to Russia, who has the father of all bombs, to consider dropping one on Pakistan to rid the world of this evil that has troubled its neighbours and the International community. Yet the world has turned blind eye to their activities for 70 years. Everybody should wake up and do something about Pakistan now," he added.

Earlier, the Pakistan Army mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers in the Krishna Ghati sector of the Poonch area in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Indian Army confirmed the news on Twitter.

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector. Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts.

In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress on Monday criticised the Centre for its lax attitude in dealing with the killing and mutilation of two Indian Army soldiers by Pakistan.

"In Jammu and Kashmir alone over 200 soldiers have made supreme sacrifice, 91 civilians have been killed and 1,343 times Pakistan has committed border ceasefire violation. When will this government wake up? Does it not show a compromise on the security on the part of the current BJP government? Does it not show a lack of policy or direction on the part of this government?" Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told ANI.

Surjewala further said, "Lack of political and credible and responsible leadership on part of the BJP government can be seen from the fact that country does not even have a regular defence minister and charge has been given additionally to the finance minister."

The Army, in a tweet said, that Pakistan security forces carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector.

"Simultaneously, a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an un-soldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," it said.

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A Delhi Court will on Monday hear Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's disproportionate assets case in which his wife Pratibha Singh had filed a plea alleging non-compliance with rules by the (CBI) in filing a chargesheet.

Pratibha's counsel earlier on April 24 argued whether witnesses and documents that were collected during the investigation could be a part of the chargesheet and if the court could read them for the purpose of taking cognizance.

The counsel also moved an application seeking consideration of these terms, while also requesting to not take cognizance of the chargesheet.

A day after being booked by the CBI special court, the Chief Minister accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of conspiring against him and asserted that all charges levelled against him were fabricated.

"The fight has just begun and I know the truth will prevail. All cases against me are fabricated. This is a conspiracy against me stitched by some BJP leaders like Prem Kumar Dhumal and Anurag Thakur. The BJP is misusing its power. There's no truth in it," said Singh.

He also said the case against him is a 'political vendetta' and he was ready to face the charges registered against him.

"This is a political vendetta. I am not afraid of it. I am ready to face the case," Singh told ANI.

(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.)
At least three people, including a Police Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) were killed and a constable was injured last night in a gang-war in Delhi's Mianwali area.

Bhupendra, who has several criminal cases registered against him, was sitting in a car with his friend Arun along with his Public Safety Officer (PSO) Vijay and constable Kuldeep.

At around 11.15 p.m., when Bhupendra was sitting in the car, some goons fired indiscriminately on his car.

Bhupendra, Arun and Vijay were killed on the spot, while Kuldeep was injured.

He was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital for immediate treatment.

An investigation into the matter is currently underway.

Further details are awaited.

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has arrived in India on a two-day visit.

Earlier this day, the Turkish President was accorded a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan ahead of his delegation level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Erdogan later proceeded to lay wreath at Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at the Rajghat.

The Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a referendum in his country earlier this month which gave him more executive powers as President.

Key bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade are expected to be discussed during his visit.

A number of agreements are expected to be signed in several areas after the talks.

Ahead of his visit, Erdogan expressed his desire for constructive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad in order to find a solution to the burning conflict over Jammu and Kashmir.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Police have registered an FIR against a paraglider pilot for allegedly molesting a tourist from Mumbai.

A lady tourist from Mumbai has alleged molestation by a paraglider pilot in Bir-Billing in Kangra Valley.

Superintendent of Kangra Police, Sanjeev Gandhi said that they received an online complained from the alleged victim, who was on a visit to Kangra district recently.

"The women in her complaint alleged that the paraglider pilot molested her during a tandem paragliding flight. An FIR has been lodged against the accused pilot under section 354 IPC. Person alleged is being interrogated and all aspects are being examined. The statement of complainant is recorded and investigation will be completed very soon," he added.

Gandhi said that the identity of the accused cannot be revealed until the charges against him are verified.

(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.)
President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday was conferred with the Degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) in a convocation function by the Jamia Millia Islamia University for "his contribution to strengthen international cooperation, peace and diplomacy as well as for his extraordinary humanitarian aid to millions of refugees."

The degree was conferred by JMI Chancellor Lt. Gen (Retd.) M.A. Zaki.

Vice Chancellor Prof. Talat Ahmad read out the citation and said that when talking about Indo-Turkish relations, Jamia Millia Islamia's role was hard to ignore given that some of the legendary founders of the university like Dr. M.A. Ansari were the very people who led the Indian Medical Mission to Turkey to treat Ottoman soldiers wounded in the 1912-13 Balkan Wars.

President Erdogan said that he was delighted to accept the honorary degree from a university which has played a significant role not only in India's freedom movement but also in the way it supported the Khilafat movement in the 1920s and stood by the Turkish people and its founders.

Citing the commonness and familiarity between the Indian and Turkish cultures, he said that "culture and education" were potential areas which could take the relationship between both countries to the next level.

He strongly advocated for India's membership for the UN Security Council and said that the international order cannot be called a just one till India's 1.3 billion people were given representation in the world body.

Criticising the current structure of the Council as arbitrary, he said that it was set up to address the crisis emanating from the Second World War but now that situation has changed drastically. It therefore requires thorough restructuring to address the current geo-political reality of the world. "Only five permanent members of the Council are deciding the fate of the entire world which is not fair", he added.

President Erdogan said that the Council must ensure that it gives voice and representation to India which is inhabited by 1.3 billion people.

Talking about terrorism, the Turkish President said that the menace had to be fought collectively and it was unfair to associate it with any one specific religion. He said that indulging in acts of terrorism in the name of Islam was nothing but blasphemy. He particularly named ISIS and Al Qaeda.

President Erdogan said that since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, Turkey had opened its doors to the refugees from the neighbouring country. He said that the international community also had a responsibility to do something for them.

Turkey has made a conscientious effort to help them as "we should not become tyrants" by becoming indifferent to the sufferings of others.

The President, who, earlier in the day, had talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, described their meeting as "very fruitful". He said that Turkey was keen to expand trade and commercial ties with India as the volume of trade had still to reach its actual potential.

Vice-Chancellor Prof. Ahmad, who is himself an eminent Earth Scientist, urged the President to support the university in research and teaching in Earthquake Risk Management for which some Turkish universities are internationally known.

Registrar A.P. Siddiqui, who conducted the proceedings of the special convocation expressed his gratitude to the President of Turkey for "graciously accepting the degree" and hoped that his gesture of accepting the degree would go a long way in further strengthening the ties between India and Turkey.

The Special Convocation was attended among others by a 90-member strong Turkish delegation accompanying the President, H.E. Turkish Ambassador to India, Mr. Shakir Ozkan Torunlar, Saudi Ambassador H.E. Saud Mohammad Al-Sati, officials of the Ministry of External Affairs, Heads of various Diplomatic Missions in Delhi, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Prof Shahid Ashraf, OSD to VC Prof Sharfuddin Ahmad, Deans, Heads, Directors, faculty members and students of Jamia Millia Islamia.

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Condemning Pakistan's "inhuman act" of mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz's (JSMM) chairman Shafi Muhammad Burfat on Monday said that Islamabad was indulging in such kinds of acts in order to deviate India's attention from its core political, strategical, and economical role, while adding that Islamabad's existence was based on terrorism.

"Pakistan's existence is based on terrorism. China is deliberately giving millions of dollars to Pakistan under the CPEC initiative to provoke India on the issue of Kashmir," he said.

Burfat further said that Pakistan did not want peace and harmony with its neighbouring countries.

"Pakistan has been repeatedly engaging in such types of act. This time as well Pakistan has proved itself to be a state laden with terrorists. It doesn't desire peace for its neighbouring states," Burfat said.

Burfat further said that Pakistan was acting on the behest of China which looks to expand its base in Indian waters and Islamabad was deliberately keeping India's attention solely on Kashmir.

"On one hand, China has started provoking America through North Korea so that America's priority shifts toward North Korea and on the other end, China has given Pakistan an agenda to keep India's agenda revolve around Kashmir," he said.

Two Indian security force personnel were killed and their bodies were mutilated during an attack by Pakistan's BAT team on a patrol party along the Line of Control (LoC) in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district, the Indian Army said.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated . Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," the army said in a tweet.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has termed his side's jammed-packed schedule as 'not human' after the club's growing list of injuries continue to threaten their hopes of making top-four finish in the Premier League.

United slumped to their sixth stalemate in eight games following their 1-1 draw against Swansea City at Old Trafford, thus harming their hopes of a place in next season's Champions League.

To add to their woes, the Mourinho-led side are also hit with number of injuries.

Luke Shaw, who was criticised by Mourinho earlier this month, was forced to walk off the field during the draw after nine minutes with an injury to his left leg.

United also lost fellow defender Eric Bailly ahead of Thursday's Europa League first leg semi-final visit to Celta Vigo.

Meanwhile, Marcos Rojo, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling are already sidelined.

Reflecting on the same, the Portuguese manager said although his side do not seem to be tired and exhausted, they are quite affected by the hectic schedule in reality.

"We lost players and we lost points, so yes today was a bad day. We did not look tired and exhausted, we are tired and exhausted," Sport24 quoted Mourinho as saying

"You cannot isolate the performance out of the context. This is the ninth match of April, it is not human. We have a squad of 22 that is reduced to 13 or 14 players. The players are very tired," he added

With Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini returning against Vigo from injury and suspension respectively, Mourinho remains hopeful that his team would continue their amazing spirit and bring the side back on track.

"I trust the boys, the spirit is amazing. The group is phenomenal. Fellaini and Pogba will be back for that game, so a bit more options and we try with everything we have and we go again," the former Chelsea boss said.

United are currently standing at fifth spot in the Premier League table, having 17 wins from 34 games they played so far.

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Amid the worsening ties between India and Pakistan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged all nations to work unanimously to uproot the terrorism network, while adding that no region could "validate terrorism."

"Terrorism is a shared worry, we agreed, no impact or goal and no region can validate terrorism," he said, while issuing a joint statement with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan here.

Prime Minister Modi also, in another veiled attack on Islamabad, asserted that stern action should also be taken against the countries that "shelter terrorism."

"The nations of the world need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks, their financing and cross border movement of terrorists," he added.

Prime Minister Modi further said that an action should be taken against those who create and conceive, support and sustain, shelter and spread ideologies of violence.

He added that both the nations (India and Turkey) would work together to strengthen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally to counter terrorism.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Erdogan extended support to India's bid to counter terrorism, while saying that terrorist outfits tried to launch their propaganda over people's sufferings.

"Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism. Terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over the sufferings of people and are willing to create future for themselves out of the victims' pain," the Turkish President said.

Turkish President Erdogan, who arrived in India on Sunday on a two-day visit, was accorded a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan ahead of his delegation level talks with Prime Minister Modi.

This is his first visit to India as the President. He visited India in 2008 as the Prime Minister of Turkey.

He also paid his tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat, following which he addressed a FICCI business summit with Prime Minister Modi.

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The Odisha government has become 'violent' after suffering defeat in the recently held Panchayat elections, said Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday.

He was talking to media after meeting Home Minister Rajnath Singh, accompanied by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Spokesperson Sambit Patra and other leaders of BJP's Odisha unit accompanied Pradhan.

The delegation apprised the Home Minister of the current violent situation in Odisha.

"Ten people have been killed in Odisha after the Panchayat elections. This had never happened in Odisha. The state government has become violent after poll defeat," said Pradhan.

He termed the death of ten people as political killing as "state government didn't digest the defeat in the Panchayat Elections".

The BJP emerged number one in Panchayat election held in February this year. Ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) lost its supremacy.

The Union Minister further said that a woman was manhandled by local goons and the police didn't register an FIR, because the BJP had secured large numbers of votes from her village in recently held Panchayat elections.

"When tried to lodge an FIR, she was told: 'go to Modi because you voted for the BJP'. It seems it was her other fault that she apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi of her plight during his road show in Odisha. She and other women of her family were subjected to torture, but again the police were nowhere seen," Pradhan said.

"Rajnath Singh assured us that he would talk to Odisha government over this issue", said Pradhan.

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Coming down heavily upon Pakistan for its dastardly act of mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday said Islamabad was inviting its own ruin.

Naqvi promised that the Indian forces would give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

"Pakistan is inviting its own ruin. Our security forces will give a befitting reply to Pakistan," said Naqvi.

On the other hand, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Subramanian Swamy said it was a mistake to have created Pakistan, adding that India was ready for a war.

Swamy opined that India should retaliate by bombing Pakistan's camps, whatever the consequences be.

Swamy said the civilian society in Islamabad was captive and the actual show was run by savages of the ISI and the Taliban.

"This is not new. They have done it in the past. They did it in the Kargil. It's a rogue state. It is not a civilised country. It was a mistake to have created this country at all.Therefore, we have to retaliate. This time the retaliation should be bombing of their camps, no matter what the consequences be. Be ready for war. Indian people are ready for sacrifice," Swamy told ANI.

Pakistan today mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers who were killed earlier today in a ceasefire violation at Jammu and Kashmir's Krishna Ghati sector.

The Indian Army confirmed the news, releasing a statement on Twitter.

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector.

Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated . Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.

Earlier, two defence personnel were killed, as Pakistan violated ceasefire by opening fire on Border Security Force (BSF) posts in Poonch.

The firing began at 8:30 a.m. as Pakistan used rocket launchers and automatic weapons on Indian posts.

An Indian Army personnel was killed, along with a BSF head constable, who succumbed to his injuries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Strongly condemning the mutilation of Indian soldiers' bodies by the Pakistan Army, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday called upon the international powers to declare Pakistan a 'terrorist nation'.

"The Pakistani forces once again violated the international treaties and the way they violated the worst kind of human rights and laws is very unfortunate. We condemn such barbaric acts. International powers should take actions on this and should declare Pakistan as a terrorist nation," BJP leader Ravindra Raina told ANI.

Asserting that India would give a befitting reply to Pakistan for the barbaric act, Raina further said that they would not tolerate such acts.

Venting his ire over the same, BJP leader Nalin Kohli said that India would make sure that such 'despicable' act does not go unpunished.

"Pakistan is increasingly becoming from its act, a state which appears to be where barbarism and inhumanity is the norm. We are confident that the statement of the Army sums up what is to be done. This despicable act will not go unpunished. Prime Minister Modi ji, the Army and soldiers have free hand to do what they deem appropriate," Kohli told ANI.

The BJP leader further saluted the contribution of brave soldiers and extended condolence to their family members.

In a development that is set to further worsen the already strained ties between New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers who were killed earlier today in a ceasefire violation at Krishna Ghati sector here.

The Indian Army confirmed the news, releasing a statement on Twitter.

The Army, in its statement, has vowed to give a befitting reply to Pakistan "in the same language."

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector. Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated . Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two defence personnel have been killed, as Pakistan violated ceasefire today by opening fire on Border Security Force (BSF) posts in Poonch, Jammu and Kashmir.

The firing began at 8:30 a.m. as Pakistan used rocket launchers and automatic weapons on Indian posts.

An Indian Army personnel has been killed, along with a BSF head constable, who succumbed to his injuries.

A massive gunbattle is underway, as Indian forces are retaliating heavily.

More details to follow.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Launching a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) over the mutilation of Indian soldiers' bodies by the Pakistan Army, Congress leader asked whether any saffron party leader would now send bangles to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Union Minister Smriti Irani wanted to gift former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime following a similar incident.

"When a similar incident took place during the UPA regime, a BJP MP wanted to gift bangles to the then prime minister. I would like to ask her that will she now do the same and gift bangles to Prime Minister Modi after this mutilation," told ANI.

A few years ago, then BJP MP Smriti Irani, while delivering a speech in Indore during the UPA regime, had said that she would send "bangles" (a sign of feminity) to then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after terrorists attacked the Indian Army in 2013.

Hitting out at the Congress, Irani had said that "10 attackers came and attacked us while the central government did not take any step."

Earlier, Pakistan mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers who were killed earlier today in a ceasefire violation at Krishna Ghati sector here.

The Indian Army confirmed the news, releasing a statement on Twitter.

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector. Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.
The Patiala House Court may take cognizance of the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's Disproportionate Assets case.

Meanwhile, Virbhadra's wife Pratibha Singh has withdrawn her plea which had alleged that the CBI hadn't obtained permission from the state government to procure documents used to prepare the chargesheet.

A Delhi Court earlier today heard Singh's case in which his wife had filed a plea alleging non-compliance with rules by the CBI in filing a chargesheet.

Pratibha's counsel earlier on April 24 argued whether witnesses and documents that were collected during the investigation could be a part of the chargesheet and if the court could read them for the purpose of taking cognizance.

The counsel also moved an application seeking consideration of these terms, while also requesting to not take cognizance of the chargesheet.

A day after being booked by the CBI special court, the Chief Minister accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of conspiring against him and asserted that all charges levelled against him were fabricated.

"The fight has just begun and I know the truth will prevail. All cases against me are fabricated. This is a conspiracy against me stitched by some BJP leaders like Prem Kumar Dhumal and Anurag Thakur. The BJP is misusing its power. There's no truth in it," said Singh.

He also said the case against him is a 'political vendetta' and he was ready to face the charges registered against him.

"This is a political vendetta. I am not afraid of it. I am ready to face the case," Singh told ANI.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister started his Sunday with his ritualistic practice of feeding cows and calves in the cowshed of his parliamentary constituency Gorakhpur.

For over two decades, Chief Minister has devotedly observed the practice of feeding the cows. According to him, the cows recognise him and he has given special names to some of them.

The Chief Minister has spearheaded the movement of protecting the cows in the country by putting a blanket ban on illegal abattoirs in the state. A gaushala at the Gorakhnath temple, where he is the head priest, 'protects' 500 cows.

But when it comes to animals, his love isn't just restricted to cows.

The love extends to dogs too and the usual recipient of that is his pet 'Kallu'.

When Adityanath is in Gorakhpur, he spends time with Kallu whenever he finds time from his busy political schedule.

The social media is also seen in awe of the firebrand showing his softer side and big heart, that is, when it comes to Kallu.

On Sunday, after he returned home post the numerous rallies he held in his constituency, the familiar Kallu was waiting for his master. And the master didn't disappoint him.

The Adityanath and Kallu reunion gave the social media a million reasons to hold the UP Chief Minister in admiration, yet again.

Recently, a photo of Adityanath feeding milk to a tiger cub also went viral.

His aides in the Gorakhnath temple said the cub was found roaming near an ashram in Tulsipur, in Balrampur district near the India-Nepal border, about 150 km from Gorakhpur.

Adityanath used to feed the cub with a milk bottle whenever he visited the ashram. The cub was kept in the ashram for a few months and later handed over to the forest department for rehabilitation.

Reports also say that many of his favourite cows will soon be shifted to his sprawling 5-Kalidas Marg residence in Lucknow.

Earlier talking to media, Adityanath had said, "Cows are also required in religious rituals of the Hindus. Cowsheds will be promoted in all the districts. The central government is also promoting cowsheds in UP and other states. We will take assistance of the central government in setting up cowsheds and dairies."

When Adityanath was ascended to the throne of Uttar Pradesh, the firebrand leader in him reeked of his sagacity as a Hindutva crusader, but a month into his Chief Ministership, with the visibility of his love for animals, he has certainly shown himself to be an interesting choice for the coveted designation in a state that, along with the religious diversity, boasts of a variety of wildlife.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A total of 2,786 people were killed in Syria in April, slightly lower than the figure in March when there were 2,826 casualties, a British-based war monitor revealed on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that among those killed were at least 938 civilians, including 291 children and 151 women, Efe news reported.

According to the SOHR, nearly half of the civilians were killed in the bombing by Russian and Syrian warplanes in different parts of the country.

Other causes of the death of Syrian citizens were gunfire by Islamic factions, Turkish border guards, explosions of mines and international coalition bombings, as well as attacks by the Syrian Democratic Forces fighters (SDF) an armed alliance led by Kurdish militias.

At least 449 Syrian fighters from the rebel groups and SDF were killed in April, with 833 militants among the dead, most of them foreigners from radical organisations including the Islamic State and the Turkic Islamic Army.

On the government side, at least 215 regular troops were killed, in addition to 308 Syrian rebels from other militias loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Among them were five fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and 23 militia from other nationalities.

Syria has recorded more than 321,000 deaths since the start of a civil war in March 2011.

--IANS

ksk/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three women were arrested on Monday in connection with last week's anti-terror operation in London, the media reported.

The women, two aged 18 and one 19, were arrested on Monday on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts, the BBC reported.

It follows a counter-terror operation on April 27 in which a 21-year-old woman was shot at a house in Willesden.

She was discharged from hospital on Sunday before being arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts.

Monday's arrests came after counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police Force carried out warrants at three addresses in east London.

The Met said the arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation in connection with an address on Harlesden Road, Willesden, which was raided on April 27.

A further six persons were also arrested in connection with the incident, including five at or near the Willesden address, which had been under observation by the police, and one in Kent.

--IANS

ksk/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
His attempt to bring William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" alive on the silver screen and to give a visual translation to a video game with "Assassin's Creed" failed to elicit the expected response. Australian film director Justin Kurzel observes that with adaptation comes the challenge of "disappointing fans of the original source".

"There's always a challenge of living up to people's expectation... It also depends on what you are making... But that is unavoidable. If you are making anything extremely popular whether it is a play, a video game or book, I think you are going to fight that challenge of disappointing fans of the original source," Kurzel told IANS over phone from Australia.

Kurzel's "Macbeth", which made it to the Indian small screen on Sunday through Sony Le PLEX HD under the property 'Le Premiere', feature stars like Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, and narrates the story of grief that comes with war.

Starring Fassbender, Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling and Michael K. Williams, "Assassin's Creed" was set in the same universe as the video game, but also took it forward with a whole back story.

Talking about "Macbeth", Kurzel said: "There are many fond memories about the film. It was a very ambitious project and we were very fortunate to work on it."

Kurzel, best known for the 2011 film "Snowtown", also said that he is happy that independent films in Hollywood are not only being welcomed but being celebrated too.

He said: "Look at the Oscars this year... there were so many different films that were being celebrated in Hollywood from 'La La Land' to 'Moonlight'. They were refreshing films. People have an appetite for different stories and dramas but at the same time there are these huge blockbusters that obviously are extremely popular.

"I am encouraged to say that very unique independent stories (are) still being wanted (in Hollywood) and there is an appetite for them."

--IANS

sug/rb/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a visit to Saudi Arabia, has arrived in the oil-rich kingdom without a headscarf for talks with the King.

Merkel was greeted by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other officials upon her arrival at the western city of Jeddah on Sunday, The Independent reported.

The 62-year-old like other female Western visitors did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also avoided the strict dress code for women when she visited the country. May had said that she hoped to be an inspiration to oppressed women in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia enforces a conservative dress code in public, requiring women to wear a full-length robe and cover their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Foreign visitors have not always followed the protocol, and Merkel also followed the footsteps of May, President Donald Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama.

Merkel has called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".

"It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

The German parliament last week voted for a draft law banning women working in the civil service, judiciary and military from wearing full-face veils.

Burqas and niqabs will be prohibited in select professions as part of the legislation, once approved by the Bundesrat state parliament.

The German leader is expected to press Gulf leaders to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries.

According to The Independent, Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

She is scheduled to travel to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates after visiting the Saudi Kingdom.

--IANS

py/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a visit to Saudi Arbia, has arrived in the oil-rich kingdom without a headscarf for talks with the King.

Merkel was greeted by King Salman and other officials upon her arrival at the western city of Jeddah on Sunday, The Independent reported.

The 62-year-old like other female Western visitors did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also avoided the strict dress code for women when she visited the country. May had said that she hoped to be an inspiration to oppressed women in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia enforces a conservative dress code in public, requiring women to wear a full-length robe and cover their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Foreign visitors have not always followed the protocol, and Merkel also followed the footsteps of May, President Donald Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama.

Merkel has called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".

"It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

The German parliament last week voted for a draft law banning women working in the civil service, judiciary and military from wearing full-face veils.

Burqas and niqabs will be prohibited in select professions as part of the legislation, once approved by the Bundesrat state parliament.

The German leader is expected to press Gulf leaders to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries.

According to The Independent, Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

She is scheduled to travel to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates after visiting the Saudi Kingdom.

--IANS

py/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Several car makers and a two-wheeler maker on Monday said they closed the first month of the current fiscal with volume growth as compared to April last year.

Leading the group was Maruti Suzuki India, which reported a 19.5 per cent growth, selling a total of 151,215 units last month up from 126,569 units in April 2016.

For April, domestic sales edged by 23.4 per cent to 144,492 units (including 411 units of light commercial vehicle Super Carry) from 117,045 units.

However, exports of the automobile major declined by 29.4 per cent, with 6,723 units shipped out last month, down from 9,524 units in April 2016.

Segment-wise, sales of passenger cars was up by 26.6 per cent to 109,505 units against 86,481 units in April 2016.

The company's passenger car segment comprises brands like Alto, WagonR, Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno, Dzire, Dzire Tour and Ciaz.

Besides, sales of utility vehicles, which comprises brands like Gypsy, Ertiga, S-Cross and Vitara Brezza, rose by 28.6 per cent to 20,638 units.

In contrast, off-take in the van segment, which includes brands like Omni and Eeco, decreased by 4 per cent to 13,938 units.

Total domestic passenger vehicle sales stood at 144,081 units -- up 23.1 per cent -- from 117,045 units in April 2016.

On the other hand, the second-largest car maker in India, Hyundai Motor India, reported a 3.6 per cent growth in sales to 56,368 units in April as compared to 54,420 units in April last year.

Domestic sales stood at 44,758 units, up 5.7 per cent from 42,351 units in April 2016.

"Hyundai, with a volume of 44,758 units, continued its growth momentum on a strong base of last year and continued strong performance on volume," company Director (Sales and Marketing) Rakesh Srivastava said.

The carmaker, however, said its exports declined by 3.8 per cent to 11,610 units compared to 12,069 in April last year.

The Japanese-Indian joint venture Toyota Kirloskar Motor reported a surge of 52 per cent in domestic sales during April 2017.

The company's total domestic sales stood at 12,948 units of the Etios series as compared to 8,529 units sold during April 2016.

It exported 1,109 units of the Etios series as against 978 units exported in the like month last year.

"We have been able to sustain a robust growth in April 2017. This has been propelled by the overwhelming response the new Fortuner received," said N. Raja, Director and Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing.

Similarly, Nissan Motor India's deliveries surged 39 per cent in April 2017 to 4,217 vehicles from 3,028 in April 2016.

"We usher in the new fiscal year with robust growth in terms of sales and positive sentiment," said Arun Malhotra, Managing Director of Nissan India.

But commercial vehicle and car maker Tata Motors closed last month with a lower overall sales as sales of commercial vehicles were hit due to a court ban on sales of BS III emission norms-complaint vehicles.

Last month, Tata Motors passenger vehicles in the domestic market sold 12,827 units, a growth of 23 per cent, over April 2016.

According to Tata Motors, its commercial vehicle sales in the domestic market totalled 16,017 units, down by 36 per cent from April 2016.

"This is an unusual decline, in exceptional circumstances," the company said.

Tata Motors passenger and commercial vehicle total sales (including exports) in April 2017 totalled 30,972 vehicles, a de-growth of 21 per cent over 39,389 vehicles sold in April 2016.

Its domestic sales of commercial and passenger vehicles for April 2017 stood at 28,844 units, down from 35,604 units in April 2016.

In the two-wheeler segment, Eicher Motors Ltd logged 25 per cent volume growth, selling 60,142 units (domestic 58,564 units, exports 1,578) last month as against sales of 48,197 units (domestic 47,037, exports 1,160).

--IANS

vj/nir/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Director Vijay says his plans to remake Malayalam hit film "Charlie" in Tamil, with R. Madhavan in the lead, has been delayed and it won't happen anytime soon.

"Right now, my focus is on my next project 'Karu'. 'Charlie' remake will take time and it's not happening soon. Sai Pallavi is part of the project and it will be her Tamil film debut," Vijay told IANS.

"Karu" was officially launched On Sunday. The project will be bankrolled by Lyca Productions.

While Nirav Shah will crank the camera, Anthony will take care of editing.

Vijay also confirmed that the shoot of "Karu" will commence after the release of his "Vanamagan".

"We are busy with the release of 'Vanamagan', which will hit the screens on May 19. Principal shooting of 'Karu' will start from May end or early next month," he said.

"Vanamagan" stars Jayam Ravi and Sayyeshaa in the lead.

--IANS

hp/rb/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three persons, including an Assistant Sub-Inspector of Delhi Police were shot dead and a constable was injured, in an apparent case of gang rivalry, police said on Monday.

ASI Vijay , Bhupendra and Arun -- died on the spot in West Delhi's Mianwali Nagar area when a total of 39 rounds were fired in the attack.

Constable Kuldeep sustained injuries, police said.

"The incident happened on Sunday night around 11:15 p.m. in the National Market of Mianwali Nagar, when all four persons were fired at by bike-borne assailants while sitting in a sedan," M.N. Tiwari, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), told IANS.

"Prima facie, it seems to be a case of gang rivalry. We are examining the CCTV footages and an investigation is on," Tiwari said.

Bhupendra, whose wife, Rajrani, was earlier killed by rival gang member in Punjabi Bagh area, was under police protection.

--IANS

sp-vn/ruwa/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The difference of opinion between the CPI-M and CPI, the two principal parties in Kerala's ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), over an anti-encroachment drive in Munnar intensified on Monday with top leaders of the two parties taking pot shots at each other.

Relations between the two parties first hit a road block last month when revenue officials along with armed policemen in the wee hours removed a cross belonging to a new generation Church - Spirit in Jesus - placed on a hill top near Munnar.

However, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan criticised the manner in which the cross was pulled out. He warned state government officials to behave and expressed deep anguish in the manner the cross was pulled out.

When it surfaced that Vijayan was attacking the officials, Christian bishops and Church leadership who during the day had remained silent, started to condemn the act.

The CPI leadership was irked by Vijayan's action. They came out in the open and said the action was taken after following due process as required by law.

Vijayan, unhappy with the CPI, on Monday again raked up the issue and said there was a conspiracy behind the pulling down of the cross.

This was criticised by the CPI leadership.

State Revenue Minister and CPI leader E. Chandrasekheran said he is "helpless" to unravel the so called conspiracy.

"The portfolios that I have is not enough to probe the conspiracy.. Those who have that portfolio can freely conduct a probe to find out if there was a conspiracy," said Chandrasekheran to the media, referring to the Home portfolio.

The Home portfolio is being handled by Vijayan.

CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran then said the cross that was pulled out belonged to the "thief who was hanged along with Jesus Christ", referring to the Bible.

"The cross that was pulled out should not be mistaken as that of the pain and sufferings, instead it belonged to the thief. The CPI always has stood for righteousness," said Rajendran at a public meeting on Monday.

Hitting back at the CPI, State Power Minister and CPI-M leader M.M. Mani said the CPI should adhere to the basic tenets of decency in a coalition.

"We will not allow anyone to target our Chief Minister and none should become a tool in the hands of the enemy," Mani told a public meeting on Monday.

This difference of opinion comes as the state assembly resumes its new session on Tuesday.

--IANS

sg/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Department of Food and Public Distribution of the central government is likely to seek reduction in norms governing packaging of food grains in jute bags at the upcoming Standing Advisory Committee (SAC) meet, officials said on Monday.

The reduction will be sought from existing 90 per cent to 75 per cent in general and full exemption from existing 20 per cent in case of sugar, during the 25th meeting of the SAC scheduled on May 4 to recommend norms for packaging for the jute year 2017-18 (July-June).

The Union Ministry of Textiles had sought the inputs from the food department with regard to norms for packaging of commodities in the jute packaging material for the jute year 2017-18, an official said.

"The department seeks immediate implementation of direction of CCEA (Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs) for reduction in compulsory packaging of food grains in jute bags," the official said.

The discretionary powers to decide dilution from compulsory packaging of food grains in jute bags should rest with the department, he said.

"The recommendations made by CoS (Committees of Secretaries) on packaging of wheat subject should also be considered by SAC to finalise a ten-year road map for automatic gradual exemption in respect of jute bags usage for foodgrains packaging," the department said in its inputs to the Textiles Ministry.

Jute industry sources, however, said further dilution for jute packaging would be detrimental to the jute industry and jute cultivators. They said supplies should not be a constraint in meeting the demand.

"It is estimated in the recently held Jute Advisory Board (JAB) meeting that there may be a carryover stock of around 26 lakh jute bales at the end of 2016-17 season. Therefore, there is no dearth of raw jute. Production and supply of raw jute during the current season (2016-17) is adequate for maintaining 100 per cent reservation of jute packaging for food grain and sugar," an industry source said.

According to industry estimates, this year, the production of raw jute will be around 80 lakh bales. With import and carryover stock of another 26 lakh bales "it will be adequate to meet the entire central demand of jute bags and those of sugar mills".

"Though as per JPMA (Jute Packaging Material Act), the reservation for jute packaging material during the ongoing season has been fixed at 90 per cent for food grains and 20 per cent for sugar bags, yet substantial dilution of 5.37 lakh bales has been undertaken hampering the interests of the working group both at the agricultural field as well as at the industrial sector," the industry source said.

Jute industry players, however, said that looking into the larger interests of the 4 million farmer families and another 0.4 million of people engaged in the industrial sector, the government should continue 100 per cent reservation for jute packaging material for food grains and sugar in terms of JPMA till improvisation is brought forth in jute cultivation and its productivity.

--IANS

bdc/ruwa/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dinakaran, accused of attempting to bribe Election Commission officials, was on Monday sent to 14 days judicial custody by a court here.

Special Judge Poonam Chaudhary sent Dinakaran, nephew of jailed AIADMK General Secretary V.K. Sasikala, to judicial custody till May 15 over the bribery allegations.

Dinakaran is accused of trying to obtain a favourable verdict from the poll panel so that the now frozen "two leaves" party symbol could be restored to the AIADMK.

Mallikarjuna, a long-time friend of Dinakaran, who was arrested on April 25, was also remanded to judicial custody for a similar period.

The order came after the Delhi Police told the court that they did not require any further custodial interrogation of the accused.

Dinakaran and Mallikarjuna were presented before the court after expiry of their five days in police custody.

The court allowed Dinakaran and Mallikarjuna's plea seeking proceedings of the case through video-conference.

The court also extended judicial custody, till May 15, of a hawala operator from Delhi, Naresh Jain aka Nathu Singh.

Dinakaran's aide Sukesh Chandrashekhar, who is in judicial custody till May 12, was arrested on April 16.

On April 25, Delhi Police Crime Branch arrested Dinakaran for trying to pay Rs 50 crore in bribes to the poll officials through middleman Sukesh Chandrashekar to ensure the "two leaves" poll symbol was allotted to the AIADMK faction led by Sasikala.

--IANS

akk/mr

(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.)
At least eight Islamic State militants were killed when a US drone fired a missile at a running vehicle in Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, officials said on Monday.

"The air strike took place on Sunday and one vehicle was destroyed," Xinhua news agency quoted an official statement as saying.

The mountainous province with Jalalabad city as its capital has been the scene of clashes between security forces and the IS since the emergence of the group there in early 2015.

US forces in Afghanistan on April 13 struck an IS cave complex in Achin district using the largest non-nuclear bomb, killing nearly 100 IS fighters and destroying a militant hideout.

--IANS

py/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US rap artist Eminem is suing New Zealand's ruling National Party over a a track it used for a campaign ad in 2014, the media reported on Monday.

The rapper said the song, used in the party advert, was an unlicensed version of "Lose Yourself", one of his biggest hits and also the winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Song in a Movie category, along with two Grammys, the BBC reported.

Lawyer Gary Williams for Eight Mile Style, the company representing Eminem, told the High Court in Wellington on Monday that the National Party infringed copyright by using the song, or a substantial reproduction of it, reports the New Zealand Herald.

"The song 'Lose Yourself', is without doubt the jewel in the crown of Eminem's musical work," Williams said in his opening statements to the court.

Even if the party only authorised the infringement, that in itself would be a breach of copyright, he said.

Williams said it did not matter if the song's lyrics were not used.

He said there were three layers of copyright, covering lyrics, musical composition and then the sound recording itself.

The two tracks were played in court.

But the party's lawyers argued that it was not actually "Lose Yourself", but a track called Eminem-esque which they bought from a stock music library.

The National Party denies being responsible for any copyright infringement, reports the BBC.

Defence lawyer Greg Arthur said copyright was "not in any way proven by the name given to a piece of music".

The case is expected to continue for six days.

--IANS

ksk/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A day after his remarks against senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas, a group of the party volunteers and a party legislator from Punjab on Monday demanded expulsion of Delhi legislator Amanatullah Khan from the party.

A group of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteers staged a demonstration at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence to press their demand for Khan's removal from the party.

Khan on Sunday alleged that Vishwas -- who is considered close to Kejriwal -- was conspiring to break the party and had asked some legislators to join the BJP with an offer of Rs 30 crore each.

Khan said that Vishwas had called some AAP legislators to his home with the offer at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"Kumar Vishwas called some MLAS and asked them that he should be made the party convenor," the legislator from Okhla said.

An AAP volunteer, who was protesting, said that by making remarks against the party's founder member Kumar Vishwas, Khan had not only maligned Vishwas's image but also caused a damage to the party.

"He should be expelled," the protester said.

Meanwhile, AAP legislator from Punjab Sukhpal Singh Khaira wrote a letter to AAP national convenor Kejriwal and demanded that Khan be "expelled" from the party for making "maliciously false" and "defamatory" allegations against Kumar Vishwas.

In a letter to Kejriwal, Khaira said that Khan's remarks not only brought disrepute to Vishwas but also "damaged the party in the eyes of the people".

"Amanatullah Khan's statements are not only aimed to malign the image of Kumar Vishwas but there is an ulterior motive to create a deep wedge between yourself (Kejriwal) and Kumar Vishwas," he said.

"I request that immediate stringent disciplinary action amounting to his (Khan's) expulsion from the party be taken against him for tarnishing the image of AAP and Kumar Vishwas," Khaira demanded.

Khan's remarks have come after Vishwas in a TV interview on Friday said the party won't hesitate in taking a call on change in its leadership after its poor show in Delhi municipal polls.

He has said blaming the EVMs entirely for the party's poll defeats was wrong as there was mistrust among people against the party.

Kejriwal on Sunday denied any rift with Vishwas after Khan accused the latter of trying to break the party at the BJP's behest.

--IANS

am/vgu/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Facebook monitored the posts of Australian children and used algorithms to identify and exploit them by allowing advertisers to target them during their "most vulnerable moments", media reported, evoking criticism against the social media giant.

A confidential 23-page Facebook document prepared by company's two top Australian executives outlines how the social network can target "moments when young people need a confidence boost" in pinpoint detail, The Australian reported on Sunday.

Facebook collected the information on a person's moods including feeling "worthless", "overwhelmed" and "nervous" and then, it divulged the same to advertisers who use it to target them.

Facebook admitted it was wrong to target the children and apologized.

"We have opened an investigation to understand the process failure and improve our oversight. We will undertake disciplinary and other processes as appropriate," a Facebook spokeswoman told The Australian.

"While the data on which this research is based was aggregated and presented consistent with applicable privacy and legal protections, including the removal of any personally identifiable information, our internal process sets a standard higher than required by law," she added.

Facebook's tactic violates the Australian Code for Advertising and Marketing Communications to Children guidelines.

The revelation also points towards the how Facebook can be used for covert surveillance which most of the social networking sites claim to be fighting against.

There have been rumours about Facebook's advertising sales methods but there was no proof until now that could corroborate that.

"The document is an insight on how Facebook gathers psychological insights on 6.4 million 'high schoolers', 'tertiary students' and 'young Australians, New Zealanders? in the workforce' to sell targeted advertising," the report noted.

The document states that the detailed information on mood shifts among young people is "based on internal Facebook data, shareable under non-disclosure agreement only, and is not publicly available".

Facebook has not disclosed if the similar practices exist elsewhere.

This practice is similar to a 2014 psychological experiment conducted by Facebook on its 600,000 users without their knowledge.

Facebook had then tweaked the News Feed of users to highlight either positive or negative posts from their friends. The social media giant then monitored the users' response to study the impact of their friends' attitude.

--IANS

qd/na/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The full impact of bank accounts getting blocked due to non-compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) will be known on Tuesday or Wednesday, said a banker in a government-owned bank.

This would only be after across the country commence functioning on May 2 after the May Day holiday on Monday.

"Today (Monday) is a holiday in some states due to May Day and the headquarters of most of the are located in those states," he told IANS preferring anonymity.

According to him, whether the bank's software would automatically block a non-compliant account or it has to be done manually would be known on Tuesday.

Another banker with a government bank said the bank's software does not automatically block a non-compliant account. "We are waiting for instructions," he added.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), in a statement issued earlier, had said account holders of banks, mutual funds and National Pension Schemes (NPS) would have to be informed that their accounts would be blocked if self-certifications were not submitted by April 30, 2017.

In other words, a bank account holder or a mutual fund investor will not be able to operate their accounts like withdrawals, selling of units and the like.

What is

" is a unique piece of legislation enacted in the US which requires financial institutions (FIs) to provide information about account holders who are US persons to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)."

"Non-compliant FIs are liable to a punitive withholding tax of 30 per cent of their US sourced income," Rahul Jain, Partner, Nangia and Co, an international tax advisory and accounting firm, told IANS.

"The agreement is reciprocal in nature and allows for India to receive tax information in respect of its own residents," he said.

"The FATCA agreement will, therefore, allow for exchange of information between the two countries and will help considerably in detection of unaccounted money held by US persons in India and vice versa," he added.

Under Indian Income Tax rules, financial institutions have to obtain self-certification and carry out due diligence in respect of all individual and entity accounts opened between July 1, 2014, and August 31, 2015.

The last date for submission of self-certification ended on April 30, 2017.

Jain said the FATCA agreement can have serious implications for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who qualify to be US persons.

"Such NRIs need to be mindful that the accounts they hold in India with Indian FIs are duly reported in the US. The information concerning these accounts will now be shared with the IRS and any non-reporting may entail serious consequences for the NRIs under the US tax regulations," he added.

Indian resident taxpayers holding assets in the US will also be impacted.

The agreement with the US is reciprocal and will result in the US providing India with information regarding accounts or assets held by Indian persons in the US.

This information would provide more teeth to the Indian tax authorities in detecting assets held by Indian taxpayers in the US.

Together with the Black Money Law 2015, this could have serious ramifications for Indian residents who may not have reported such assets to the Indian tax authorities, Jain said.

According to Jain, any organisation or individual who has not been able to submit its or his FATCA self-declaration by the deadline of April 30 could make such declaration now and ask for his account with the Indian FI to be unblocked or de-frozen.

"While mutual funds have asked the investors to subject the self-certification form online, the problem may be for NPS account holders who have to go to the registrar office personally," Jayant Pai, Head-Marketing, PPFAS Mutual Fund, told IANS.

"We have reached out to our investors well in advance to be FATCA-compliant and there will not be much impact on our investors. On the other hand, and large mutual funds may face some problems going by the sheer size of their numbers," Pai added.

"Mutual Funds will continue to earn their fund management charges even if an account is blocked," he added.
India and Turkey on Monday agreed to boost bilateral trade from the current level of just over $6 billion and expressed the resolve to fight the global menace of terrorism together.

"President and I are clear that the strength of our economies presents an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages between our countries," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, jointly addressing the media with Turkish President Recep Tayyip here after delegation-level official talks.

The Prime Minister said that at the level of the two governments, "we need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner".

"India and Turkey are two large economies," he stated.

"Our bilateral trade turnover of around $6 billion does not do full justice to convergences in our economies. Clearly, the business and industry on both sides can do much more."

Modi invited Turkish businesses to tap the "diverse and unique opportunities", including infrastructure requirements and Smart Cities programme, available in India.

"We would like to encourage stronger partnership of Turkish companies with our flagship programmes and projects, either on their own or in collaboration with the Indian companies," he said.

On the issue of terrorism, the Prime Minister said that he had an extensive conversation with President Erdogan on this, and added that both of them agreed that "no intent or goal, no reason or rationale can validate terrorism".

"The nations of the world, therefore, need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists," he said.

"They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence."

Modi said that he and Erdogan "agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace".

The two leaders also discussed the need for comprehensive reforms in the UN, including the Security Council expansion, "to make the body more representative accountable and effective".

"Both of us recognise the need for the UN Security Council to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the century gone by," Modi stated.

Turkey's position on India's bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council is different.

Turkey is a member of a group of countries called Uniting for Consensus (UfC) that is opposed to expansion of permanent seats in the Security Council.

On his part, Erdogan said that Turkey would always be by the side of India "in full solidarity" in battling terrorism.

"Terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over the suffering of people and are willing to a create future for themselves out of victims' pain," he said.

He said that he and Modi also discussed the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July last year in which over 300 people, both civilians and security personnel, lost their lives.

The Turkish government has blamed the US-based preacher and political activists Fethullah Gulen for the coup attempt.

Erdogan expressed hope that India would expel all institutions linked to FETO -- or the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation that Turkish authorities describe the Gulenist network as.

Stating that the current bilateral trade volume of just over $6 billion was "not enough for us", he called for increasing this figure to at least $10 billion.

"We have discussed cooperation in the areas of energy cooperation and infrastructure development," the Turkish President said.

He also said that the frequency of flights between the two countries should be increased to help businessmen on both sides.

Following Monday's talks, the two sides signed three agreements, including a cultural exchange programme, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Foreign Services Institute of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey, and another MoU on information and communication technologies.

Earlier in the day, Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry organisations CII, Ficci and Assocham, at which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties.

Erdogan arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit to India. He last visited India in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and Turkey on Monday signed three agreements following delegation-level talks headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan here.

"#IndiaTurkey sign three agreements in the fields of ICT, training and culture," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

An agreement was signed on a cultural exchange programme for the years 2017-2020.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Foreign Services Institute (FSI) of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey.

Another MoU was signed on cooperation in the area of information and communication technologies (ICT).

Earlier on Monday, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome with a guard of honour.

Later, Erdogan paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry organisations CII, Ficci and Assocham, at which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties.

On Monday evening, President Mukherjee will host a banquet in honour of the visiting dignitary.

Erdogan arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit to India. He last visited India in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) on Monday complained to Delhi Police about, what it called, a "misleading campaign" being run on Twitter to "malign" the university.

In a letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, the union said that a Twitter user was spreading "objectionable" comments about female students and teachers of the university in a series of tweets.

"The user, which goes by the name of 'Swamy Sena', has shared a one-year-old article whose headline reads 'JNU den of organised sex racket, says dossier by university teachers'," the letter read.

The elected student body then goes on to denounce the allegations published in the news report as "baseless" and "devoid of facts".

"The post has been retweeted by an account which goes by the name of Subramanyam Swamy (tweets@swamy_39) and its description reads 'Rajya Sabha MP, BJP national EC member'... As a result of their proximity to those in power, some people believe that they have the licence to make lascivious remarks against women," the complaint said.

It further read that because of such messages, in the past many women students had received threats of sexual violence.

The article in question was published last April on the basis of a "dossier" alleged to have been prepared by 12 JNU teachers, who had claimed through the document that the university was a den of prostitution and immorality.

The students union sent a copy to the Delhi Commission for Women as well.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Kerala Congress (Mani), which sits as an independent block in the Kerala Assembly after it quit the Congress-led UDF last year, is being actively wooed by all three political fronts in the state.

It is led by its supreme leader K.M. Mani, who has completed 50 years as a legislator by winning every election since 1967 from Pala assembly constituency in Kottayam district. Last year, he decided to end the over three decade relation with the United Democratic Front, and walked out of it.

Now, the six party legislators sit as an independent block.

The CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front, the latest to woo the front, has entrusted the job to its ally and chairman of the Kerala Congress, led by Skariah Thomas.

A close aide of Thomas told IANS that last month the first meeting for testing the waters for wooing Mani was held at Kottayam.

"What took place at Kottayam was a calculated move, which has the blessings of a powerful Catholic bishop. Those who got together included a famers movement, leaders including Mani, Johnny Nelloore who represents Kerala Congress (Jacob), an ally of the UDF and others. What has been propagated was it was a meeting by leaders who got together to discuss the plight of the farmers," said the close aide who did not wish to be identified.

Stephen George, a former legislator and a Kerala Congress (Mani) member who took part in the Kottayam meeting, told the media on Monday that the discussion at the meeting centered around on what best could be done for the farmers.

While Kerala Congress (Jacob) lone legislator and former State Minister Anoop Jacob expressed ignorance about the Kottayam meeting, Nelloore told reporters on Monday that nothing beyond the interest of farmers was discussed and there was no need to give any political colour to it.

Last month, in a sudden move, State Congress president M.M. Hassan extended an olive branch to Mani by asking him to return to the UDF fold. But after a section of Congress leaders expressed their displeasure at Hassan's move, the Congress leader beat a hasty retreat and was made to eat his own words.

The BJP has been trying to strengthen the NDA by inviting new parties and the name of Mani has always been a point of speculation. New BJP state president Kummanem Rajasekheran, whenever asked about Mani has given the stock answer of "We are always open for new parties to join the NDA."

One reason why Mani is being wooed by all is because his is a party with significant strength in the Central districts of the state and has a sizeable following in two districts in north Kerala.

In the 2016 assembly polls his party as part of the UDF won six seats, out of the 15 they contested.

His party secured four per cent votes, making it the sixth largest party in terms of vote share in the state.

Currently his party has one member each in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Mani has for long been hoping for his son Jose K. Mani be made a minister. One of the reasons for his quitting the Congress-led UDF is that the second Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre failed to give his son a berth. According to those who know Mani well, the moment he gets a call from the BJP inviting his son to be a member of the Union Cabinet, his party will join the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Following the bar scam case which surfaced in 2014 over allegations that Mani took bribes from bar owners, Mani had to quit as minister in 2015. The moment Mani gets a clean chit in the bar scam case, the CPI-M will be happy to open its doors to Mani, said the sources.

With all the three fronts warming up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mani is a political force none of the three rival fronts can ignore.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A threat publicly issued to Punjab Chief Minister by pro-Khalistan elements during an event in Surrey city of Canada's British Columbia province recently has drawn an official protest from India.

Sources here told IANS that the Indian High Commission in Canadian capital Ottawa has lodged a "formal complaint" to Global Affairs-Canada, the foreign office last week, following the open threat to and hate speeches.

Videos of the 'Vaisakhi Parade' in Surrey on April 22 have been sent to the Canadian foreign ministry as proof of the open threats issued to Amarinder by Sikh hardliners.

The communication has also objected to the public display of Khalistan floats with images of slain separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other terrorists, pictures of Kalashnikov rifles and photographs of former and serving army and police officers who are on the hit-list of Sikh radicals.

It is learnt that the Canadian authorities were cautioned about the "anti-India propaganda" of the Khalistani elements by the Indian authorities, who were anticipating such trouble, on April 13 itself. The Canadian foreign ministry, responding to the early warning, said it will take "necessary action".

However, the Khalistani elements were allowed to have a free run and even issued threats on loudspeakers to in front of hundreds of people from the Indian community who participated in the April 22 parade. The Canadian provincial police and security agencies were present when all this happened, the sources told IANS.

It is learnt that the complaint pointed out to two Khalistani activists, Inderjit Singh Bains (an ex-office bearer of the Dashmesh Gurdwara, Surrey) and another person from the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) organization.

British Columbia premier Christie Clark had also attended the parade. The Punjabi Diaspora, particularly Sikhs, form a major vote-bank in the election-bound province.

"These kinds of open and cheap threats show the extent of radicalisation in a relatively small section of the Sikh community in Canada. They endorse our stand of pro-Khalistani leanings of such elements in the Canadian Sikh community. Such brazen threats, and that too against the elected chief minister of a state in another country, should have no place in a democratic polity. It is up to the Prime Minister of Canada and the authorities there to rein in such elements and take preventive action to ensure that things do not get out of hand," Raveen Thukral Media Advisor to the Punjab Chief Minister told IANS.

The Amarinder Singh government cold shouldered visiting Canadian Defence Minister of Indian-origin, Harjit Singh Sajjan, 46, as he visited various places in Punjab last month.

Amarinder refused to meet Sajjan, the first Sikh to be the defence minister of a western country, accusing him and other ministers of Punjab origin in the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of links to radical elements demanding a separate Sikh state of Khalistan.

No minister or senior officer of the Punjab government either went to welcome Sajjan or even accompany him during the visit.

Amarinder had pointed out that "Sajjan and several other ministers and top leaders in Canada were sympathizing with those indulging in anti-India activities, notwithstanding Canada's claims to the contrary", adding that he would "not meet any Khalistani sympathisers".

"I will personally not entertain the Canadian minister as I have concrete information about his being a Khalistani sympathiser, just as his father Kundan Sajjan, a board member of the World Sikh Organisation, was," Amarinder had said earlier.

"Not only Sajjan but other ministers and MPs, including Navdeep Bains, Amarjit Sohi, Sukh Dhaiwal, Darshan Kang, Raj Grewal, Harinder Malhi, Roby Sahota, Jagmeet Singh and Randeep Sari, were well known for their leanings towards the Khalistani movementaa I will not be seen hobnobbing with a Khalistani sympathiser," Amarinder pointed out.

Amarinder has been annoyed with the Canadian government since April last year when he was denied permission to visit that country, which has a sizeable Punjabi Diaspora, in the run-up to the Punjab assembly elections. The SFJ had complained to the Canadian government against Amarinder's visit.

The Congress leader had to cancel his trip after being told by the Canadian authorities at the last minute that he could not allowed to visit the country for holding political rallies and meetings. The visit was aimed at wooing influential Non-Resident Indian (NRI) groups in Canada.

Amarinder had shot of an angry letter to Trudeau protesting against the "gag order". He was informed by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishanker of the Canadian government's stance.

Trudeau's prdecessor, Stephen Harper, had visited Punjab in 2012 and 2009 in an apparent bid to woo the Punjabi and Sikh community in Canada.
It is not mere power which can kill as one needs to fight off poverty and inequality to eradicate it, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday at the Jamia Millia Islamia where he was conferred an honorary doctorate.

" cannot be stopped by power alone. It can only be stopped by fighting poverty, inequality and ignorance," Erdogan said on the second day of his second visit to India. He had earlier come to India as Prime Minister in 2008.

Heading a nation that is beleaguered with terror attacks, Erdogan said he has been fighting Islamic State committedly and that the group has brought bad name to the religion of Islam.

"We are fighting Daesh (Islamic State) with commitment. It is an infamy to Islam, it is a blasphemy to Islam. Our battle with it will continue," he said.

A degree of Doctorate of Letters (D.Litt.) was conferred upon Erdogan by Jamia Chancellor M.A. Zaidi.

Erdogan expressed his happiness at receiving a degree "from such an august institution".

He held delegation-level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day when both sides signed three agreements in the fields of ICT, training and culture.

--IANS

vn/vgu/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Condemning the deaths of Indian soldiers in unprovoked firing by Pakistan and the mutilation of their bodies, the Congress on Monday said "unacceptable" actions like these won't help Pakistan in improving its internal situation.

"We condemn what Pakistan did. It must stop terrorism and realise that these actions are unacceptable," Congress leader Anand Sharma said at a press conference here.

Noting that the Pakistani forces were attacking Indian posts even after the surgical strikes in September last year, he said it was a "cause of concern".

"Six major attacks have taken place since the surgical strikes were carried out. 41 soldiers have been killed... it's an issue of concern," Sharma said.

He criticised the central government for having "no plans" to stop repeated attacks by Pakistan on Indian interests.

The former Union Minister also expressed concern over the situation in the Kashmir Valley.

--IANS

sk/vd/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is a "smart cookie", but insisted that military option remains on the table in the face of continuing provocations from Pyongyang.

"At a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie," EFE news quoted Trump as saying in an interview with "Face the Nation" that aired on CBS on Sunday.

"But we have a situation that we just cannot let -- we cannot let what's been going on for a long period of years to continue," he added.

Regarding the ballistic missile tests by the North Korean regime, the President said he is working with Chinese President Xi Jinping, one of the few leaders to whom Pyongyang listens to, to reduce tensions and try to pressure Kim to negotiate an end to his nuclear programme.

"If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy. And I can tell you also, I don't believe that the President of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either," said Trump, who this weekend completed 100 days in office.

When asked if a new nuclear test by Pyongyang would lead to US military action, Trump said: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."

"People are saying: 'Is he sane?' I have no idea ... but he was a young man of 26 or 27 ... when his father died. He's dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others," said Trump when asked for his take on the North Korean leader.

Pyongyang on Saturday staged a new ballistic missile test, but the projectile apparently exploded just minutes after being launched, according to South Korean and US military sources.

Washington has asked China for help in getting North Korea back to the negotiation table but has not ruled out military action to prevent Pyongyang from developing a nuclear missile that can hit the US if diplomacy does not work.

--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.)
North Korean leader has threatened to destroy USS Michigan, an American naval submarine, if it gets any closer to the Communist nation's waters.

The Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarine is currently docked at a naval base in South Korea's Busan, where it was recently joined by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group, the Daily Mail reported.

Pyongyang has warned that if the USS Michigan "tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming a underwater ghost.

"The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic," a North Korean website claimed.

Pyongyang also warned of sinking the USS Carl Vinson if it edged any closer to the North.

"Whether it's a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centred on the self-defence nuclear deterrence," the website said.

The threats come as relations between North Korea and the US become increasingly tensed, with President Donald Trump hinting that America was willing to take military action if carried out another missile test after Friday's failed test.



Trump, on the other hand, offered some backhanded praise for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, calling him "a pretty smart cookie" in a television interview.

The US President is famously guarded about his strategic military thinking, but suggested that his administration will be the one to de-fang Kim.

"This should've been done and taken care of by the Obama administration. Should've been taken care of by the Bush administration. Should've been taken care of by Clinton."

Trump said North Korea had "disrespected" China by attempting to launch another ballistic missile as the President counts on his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to encourage Pyongyang to give up its pursuit of missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

In a show of force against North Korea, the US has dispatched USS Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean peninsula and was on Saturday spotted sailing north offshore Nagasaki in Japan towards North Korea.
Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Monday accused her pro-European Union (EU) centrist rival Emmanuel Macron of being the "candidate of continuity", the media reported.

She linked Macron to incumbent President, Francois Hollande, in whose cabinet he once served, the BBC reported.

She launched a full-throttled attack on Macron, calling him the candidate of "a morbid continuity, littered with the corpses of jobs transferred offshore, the ruins of bust businesses, and the gaping holes of deficit and debt".

"Emmanuel Macron is just Francois Hollande who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle," she told a rally in Villepinte, a suburb north of the capital.

Le Pen has capitalised on anti-EU feeling, and has promised a referendum on France's membership.

She has won support in rural and former industrial areas by promising to retake control of France's borders from the EU and slash immigration.

However, Le Pen trails Macron in the polls by about 20 percentage points ahead of Sunday's second round of voting.

Macron, who will holds a rally later on Monday, told the BBC the EU must reform or face the prospect of "Frexit" -- exit from the 27-member bloc.

France is on high alert as traditional May Day protests, on the left and the right, get under way.

Although five big unions have urged their members not to vote for National Front (FN) leader Le Pen, only two have expressed their support for Macron.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maoists and security forces exchanged gun fire in Odisha's Malkangiri district on Monday, police said.

The militants fired at the District Voluntary Force (DVF) in Kurub forest during anti-Maoists operations undertaken following the April 24 attack on the CRPF in Chhattisgarh.

The police suspect that some Maoists may have been injured or killed in the gun battle.

Meanwhile, the Maoists killed a suspected police spy by slitting his throat in Tamaguda village in Malkangiri district.

--IANS

cd/in/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's referendum victory for the constitutional amendments granting executive powers to him, he will on May 21 take the helm of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in an extraordinary convention.

Erdogan will implement major changes in the party's administration and the cabinet in May, Xinhua news agency reported.

With the new constitutional changes, Erdogan is able to officially re-establish his ties with the AKP from which he resigned in August 2014 after being elected as the President, according to the constitutional requirement at that time.

The first step will be taken on Monday as the party will convene its Central Executive Board, its top executive bodies, and then the central-decision making body to invite Erdogan to re-establish links with the AKP.

Erdogan will also deliberate on the extraordinary convention during these meetings and register his party on Tuesday at a parliamentary meeting.

"We happily invite our President back to our party. There is nothing stopping him from becoming its chairman. However, the first step is to readmit him once more as a member of our party," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said last week.

Ahead of the party meeting, a cabinet reshuffle is expected as Erdogan wants to shift departing ministers to different posts in the party.

Erdogan on Sunday said that he was not in charge of the cabinet reshuffle decision which is the Prime Minister's responsibility, but has remained the de facto determining leader for party affairs since leaving the AKP.

Several other new appointments are expected for party cadres in the extraordinary congress.

Yildirim will also resign from his post as Erdogan will become the sole candidate for the party's chairmanship.

Erdogan, one of the ruling AKP co-founders, previously chaired the party for 13 years from 2001 but had to step aside when elected President.

Presently, he will once more be able to head the ruling AKP while concurrently serving as President, thereby legitimising the de facto situation without violating the constitution.

The Turkish President will be in a position to maintain a tight grip over his party and parliament since the AKP holds majority seats in parliament.

Turkish nationals voted "yes" on April 16 for the 18-article package paving the way for a transition from a parliamentary government model toward a presidential system, with limited checks and balances among governing authorities.

The referendum paved the way for Erdogan to potentially rule until 2029.

The majority of constitutional amendments will be put into effect through general and presidential elections to be simultaneously held in 2019.

However, three articles will immediately come into effect -- the President's party membership, the re-organisation of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors and abolishing military tribunals.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets on Monday in massive May Day events across the US, mostly protesting the policies of President Donald Trump, the media reported.

May Day -- also known as International Workers' Day -- has spawned protests around the globe in past years highlighting workers' rights. But on Monday, the impetus for the US marches span from immigrants' rights to LGBT awareness to police misconduct, the USA Today reported.

"There's a real galvanisation of all the groups this year," said Fernanda Durand of political advocacy group CASA in Action, which will lead a march of about 10,000 people for immigrants' rights through Washington.

"Our presence in this country is being questioned by Donald Trump. We are tired of being demonised and scapegoated. We've had enough."

Durand's protest is part of the "Rise Up" umbrella movement that will hold 259 events in more than 200 cities in 41 states focusing on immigrants' rights, she said.

Another widespread effort, dubbed "Beyond the Movement", will feature a collection of racial-justice groups and include protests and marches in more than 50 cities, from Portland to Miami.

Trump released a statement on Friday declaring May 1 "Loyalty Day" as a way to "recognise and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles" upon which America was built, calling on all government buildings to display the US flag and schools to observe the holiday with ceremonies, reports the USA Today.

Originally a pagan celebration dating back two millenniums and heralding the return of spring, May Day has morphed into a global observance of workers' rights. But its emergence as an international workers' rights day actually arose from a May 1, 1886, Chicago strike for the eight-hour workday.

In 2006, the focus of May Day demonstrations shifted to immigration when roughly one million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would have made living in the US without legal permission a felony.

--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 on Monday met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Hyderabad House here ahead of delegation-level talks between the two sides.

"New impetus to a multifarious relationship," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted with a picture of the two leaders at the venue.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan where he was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour.

Later, Erdogan paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry bodies CII, Ficci and Assocham in which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties.

On Monday evening, President Mukherjee will host a banquet in honour of Erdogan.

Erdogan arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit to India. He last visited India in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

--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 on Monday called for aggressive efforts to deepen economic ties with Turkey.

Speaking at a business event here, Modi said India and Turkey were making efforts to build stronger political ties but it was time to take aggressive steps to strengthen the economic relations.

"Growth in bilateral trade over the years has been impressive," Modi said.

Trade between the two countries has gone up from $2.8 billion in 2008 to $6.4 billion in 2017, he said.

Calling for investment in Indian economy, Modi said: "India was never a more promising destination than today."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a two-day state visit to India.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, where he was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour.

--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 on Monday said the bilateral trade between Turkey and India needs to reflect the potential of the two economies.

"The strength of our economies presents an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages between our countries," Modi told the media after delegation level talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He expressed the need for the two governments to approach the entire spectrum of business opportunities in strategic and long-term manner.

"The businesses and industry on both the sides can do much more."

The Prime Minister also invited Turkish businesses to participate in infrastructure sector and the flagship programmes of the government.

The two sides held comprehensive discussion on the full spectrum of issues, particularly in political, economic and cultural spheres.

Modi and Erdogan also discussed the changing contours of the common security challenges such as global terrorism and called for action against those who finance, support and spread terrorism.

There can be no validation of terrorism, the Prime minister said.

According to Modi, India and Turkey discussed the need for comprehensive reforms in the UN, including the Security Council's expansion to make the organisation more representative, accountable and effective.

The two sides recognised the need for the UN Security Council to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the centuries gone by.

Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan at Rashtrapati Bhavan, where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome with a guard of honour.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday discussed facilities for Haj pilgrims from India with Saudi Arabian Ambassador Saud Mohammed Al Sati.

Over 1.7 lakh people will go to Haj pilgrimage this year from India including over 1.25 lakh through the Haj Committee of India.

Besides safety of pilgrims, issues like visa process, accommodation and transport facilities for the pilgrims were discussed in the meeting with both Al Sati and Naqvi calling the meeting postive.

Naqvi said that there is "active consideration", in consultation with Shipping Ministry and the Saudi Arabian Government, on reviving the sea route to Jeddah.

He said the sea route will cut down travel expenses by nearly half as compared to airfares, and will be a revolutionary, pro-poor, pilgrim-friendly decision.

The practice of ferrying Haj pilgrims between Mumbai and Jeddah by water was stopped from 1995.

Naqvi also said that a high level committee constituted to frame new Haj Policy 2018 will soon submit its report. The new policy is aimed at making entire Haj process easier and transparent and will focus on Haj pilgrims' facilities.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government in Nepal on Monday received a major blow after one of the ruling coalition partners, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, decided to withdraw from the government over the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice.

A meeting of the party central committee decided to pull out support following the impeachment motion registered in Parliament against Chief Justice Sushila Karki by the two other ruling coalition parties, Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), on Sunday.

There was no immediate reaction from the Prime Minister's Office over the fate of the coalition of seven parties.

"The decision to impeach Karki by the ruling Nepali Congress and Maoist Centre is an attack on the judiciary and our party does not support such a move," the Rastriya Prajatantra Party said announcing its decision to leave the government.

Nepal has seen hectic political developments following the decision to impeach the first woman Chief Justice, with Nepal's Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi quitting his post on Sunday following his reservation over the impeachment decision.

The Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre have accused Karki of interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced.

A government decision to appoint a new police chief and a subsequent ruling by the Supreme Court led to a serious feud between the executive and judiciary, leading to the ruling party deciding to impeach the Chief Justice, causing an uproar in Nepal.

With just two weeks to go for the first phase of local level elections on May 14, the series of political incidents has put the fate of the polls in a limbo, with the resignation of the Home Minister adding to the quandary ahead of the polls.

The Home Minister is in charge of overall security of the country.

Kamal Thapa, chairman of the RPP that decided to withdraw support on Monday, heads the Local Development Ministry that is in charge of coordinating various 477 local units.

Amid the crisis, a meeting of the top Nepal Army brass on Sunday night further fuelled the political uncertainties in Nepal. The emergency meeting called by Army chief General Rajendra Chettri on Sunday assessed the latest political situation and decided to maintain extra vigil across the country.

Nepal is holding local level polls on May 14 and June 14. Major Madhes-based party, Rastriya Janata Party, has already declared it would not participate in the May 14 polls.

Another party, Madhesi Janadhikar Foum that has 18 votes and is extending support to the government, has threatened to pull out its support on Tuesday, which would put the government in a minority.

MJF is all set to hold the party central committee meeting on Tuesday to take a final call, and is likely to withdraw support to the government, said a leader.

In the midst of this unprecedented political turmoil, Prime Minister Prachanda said that elections on May 14 will take place at any cost.

The Election Commission has set Tuesday to file nominations for the first round of elections but the fast changing political situation has put a question mark on the fate of the local polls.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A delegation of Odisha BJP leaders led by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking his intervention over the law and order situation in the state.

The five-member delegation of the BJP leaders submitted a memorandum to the Home Minister accusing Odisha's ruling Biju Janata Dal of physically silencing political opponents.

The delegation also demanded protection for Parbati Sasmal of Kalikuda in Jagatsinghpur, who was allegedly attacked by BJD supporters for handing over a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a road show in Bhubaneswar on April 15.

"We seek your intervention to ensure safety and security to the lady and others of her like. We urge you to use your good office to take up the issue with the government to ensure justice to a poor lady," the memorandum said.

Sasmal, who manages her family by rearing goats, was allegedly attacked by BJD workers for voting BJP during Panchayat elections and the police has taken no action against the culprits, the memorandum said.

The memorandum further said that after the Panchayat elections, the BJD workers became very violent against political opponents and 10 persons have died in violent incidents.

"The BJP members are out to physically silence political opponents in Odisha. Instead of a democratic fight, the party has resorted to violence against political opponents," it said.

Later, talking to reporters Pradhan said that the Home Minister has assured them of all possible action against the culprits.

"The Home Minister has assured us that he will talk to the state government and will take all possible steps," he said.

The delegation comprised of BJP's national spokesperson Sambit Patra, state General Secretary Prithviraj Harichandan, state Secretary Lekhashree Samantsinghar and Convenor of Pavasi Odia cell Subhash Gantayat.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Oil tanker drivers on Monday launched a cease work strike in Manipur following an armed attack that injured two drivers.

The drivers said that the strike will continue till their demands are conceded.

The main demand is that they should be given adequate security along the highways which are infested by all kinds of militants.

Sunday's attack was the second since the BJP-led government took office on March 15.

According to the police, CRPF personnel were escorting the goods trucks and oil tankers enroute from Assam to Imphal, the state capital.

Militants attacked three oil tankers at Changoubung in Kangpokpi district.

The attack damaged the tankers.

Director General of Police L.M. Khaute said: "We have arrested three Kuki Revolutionary Army rebels in connection with the attack."

However, another militant outfit People's War Group in a statement said: "We had carried out the gun attacks. The claim of the DGP is baseless".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With the rise in corporate power in the country, is the trade union movement on the wane? On International Labour Day, stakeholders across the political spectrum, however, assert to the contrary, insisting the fight for labour rights has intensified.

The RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), however, while observing that trade union movement has evolved from being anti-industry, said only the Left-affiliated labour movement has lost relevance.

"Its the Left model of trade union movement which is dying. Labour movement led by the Left philosophy has completely lost its relevance. Its because of this fact that it is being presumed that trade union movement has weakened," BMS General Secretary Virjesh Upadhyay told IANS.

He said the Left trade unionism was characterised by hooliganism and disruptions which led to its demise.

"Because of the Left, trade unionism only meant strikes, lockouts and hooliganism in the name of protests. Workers are aware now that these practices are not just irrelevant but counter-productive," added Upadhyay.

The Trinamool Congress-affiliated Indian National Trinamool Trade Union Congress (INTTUC) expressed a similar view.

"Because you don't see lockouts, strikes or workers going on rampage doesn't mean trade unions are dead or they are incapable of securing and protecting labour rights. The Left parties are gone and with them gone are the days of disruptive labour movement," INTTUC President Dola Sen told IANS.

She maintained that to protect workers' interests, it was imperative that industry was given a congenial environment to grow.

"Our motto is save labour, save industry. You cannot secure workers' interests by jeopardising industries through disruptive practices. Left trade unions are examples of how labour movement should not be," said Sen. She blamed the erstwhile CPI-M-led Left Front government in West Bengal for destroying industry and work culture in the state.

Sen also said the government has an integral role in settling industrial disputes.

"Other trade unions prefer bipartite settlement of disputes that facilitate under-the-table compromises. We believe in active involvement of the government and this has yielded desired results -- zero loss of mandays and increased protection of workers' rights and improved worker-industry relationship," said Sen.

The CPI-M affiliated Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) rejected the allegations of being disruptive and said under the Narendra Modi regime, workers' rights are increasingly under threat.

"Under the pro-corporate Modi regime, there have been increased attacks on labour rights. It is mostly because of trade unions like the BMS and the INTTUC pro-government and pro-corporate approach," CITU Vice President A. Soundararajan told IANS.

He said the Modi government, in the name of "ease of doing business", was "drastically diluting" labour laws and taking away workers' rights.

"When the corporates do not approve of your tactics and ways of protests, it means you are on the right path, it is a certificate that our protests and movement is yielding a result," he said, dismissing the charge of "hooliganism".

However, the Congress-affiliated Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), contended that trade unions were becoming weak and called for building up unity to take on the Modi government.

"This government doesn't believe in cooperation and consultation," INTUC President G. Sanjeeva Reddy told IANS, blaming Modi's "rigid" and "adamant" attitude for the trade unions becoming weak.

"There is a need for the labour unions to strengthen themselves and collectively confront the Modi government," he added.

(Anurag Dey can be contacted at anurag.d@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.)
Pakistan on Monday rejected India's accusation that it killed two soldiers in "unprovoked" firing and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Inter-Services Public Relations in a statement said the Pakistan Army "did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT (Border Action Team) action in Krishna Ghati Sector as alleged by India."

It said the "Indian blame of mutilating soldiers' bodies are also false".

The Indian Army said on Monday that the "despicable act" occurred in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch border district, and warned of "appropriate response" to the "unsoldierly act" by the Pakistan Army.

The Pakistan Foreign Office in a statement said the "Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday slammed Pakistan for mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, and said the neighbouring country is inviting its own ruin.

"Pakistan is inviting its own ruin. Our security forces will give a befitting reply to Pakistan," he told media persons here.

An Indian soldier and a BSF trooper were killed near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and their bodies mutilated.

The Indian Army warned Pakistan of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Army on Monday killed an Indian soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said, and warned of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act". denied the charge.

The dead were identified as Naik Subedar Paramjit Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment and Head Constable Prem Sagar of BSF's 200 Battalion. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF suffered injuries.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said the Army would "react appropriately" to Pakistan's "extreme form of barbaric act... that such acts are unheard of during war and definitely during peace times.

"The government of India strongly condemns the incident.. The country has full faith in its Army. The sacrifices of the soldiers will not go in vain."

The Army's Northern Command said the Army in the morning fired rockets and mortar shells on two forward posts on the LoC -- the de facto border that divides Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries -- in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district.

The two were killed in the unprovoked firing as they were patrolling the LoC, army sources said, adding Pakistan Army men then crossed over 250 meters into Indian territory and mutilated their bodies.

"It was a pre-planed operation. They crossed over 250 metres inside and set up ambushes to carry out the attack," an army officer told IANS.

The Udhampur-based Northern Command based said: "A BAT (Border Action Team, which generally comprises Pakistan Army personnel and its trained militants) was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of the two soldiers in the patrol were mutilated.

"Such despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," it warned.

The Pakistan Army denied violating the 2003 ceasefire on the LoC and mutilating the Indian soldiers' bodies.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action ... as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies are also false.

"Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian." A similar statement was issued by the Pakistani Foreign Office.

But the firing on the tense border sector continued till late Monday evening, Indian Army sources said in Jammu.

In a November incident, three Indian soldiers were killed in an ambush by the Pakistan Army and the body of one of them was mutilated.

The two countries had in 2003 agreed on a ceasefire in the border region that has been violated by sporadic firing incidents.

India has been accusing Pakistan of violating the ceasefire.

The Pakistan Army violated the ceasefire in various sectors along the LoC in Poonch on April 3, 4, 5, 8, 17 and 19. In March, there were four violations on the LoC.

--IANS

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A Pakistani immigration official has been sacked for assaulting a family of Norwegian nationals at the airport here after a tiff over tissue paper, it was reported on Monday.

The family was manhandled by immigration officials two weeks ago and offloaded from a flight to Doha.

They were "finally allowed to travel to Oslo ... after an official who was found guilty of assaulting (them) was dismissed from service", the Dawn reported.

An inquiry by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) found immigration lady Constable Ghazala Shaheen guilty, and she was dismissed from service. Two other officials were also found guilty.

"Initially, the issue between the passengers and immigration staff started over tissue paper," an official said. The daily gave no further details.

Video footage of the assault drew outrage, after which Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered an inquiry into the incident.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Five persons were arrested from West Bengal's Siliguri for allegedly trying to smuggle 95 cows to Bangladesh, police said on Monday.

"We have arrested five Indian residents for allegedly trying to smuggle 95 cows in multiple vehicles from Siliguri's Bidhan Nagar area on Sunday night," said a senior police officer from Siliguri rural sub-division.

According to police, the five accused are residents of West Bengal's North Dinajpur district. They were planning to smuggle the cows through the India-Bangladesh border in North Dinajpur's Changrabanda.

"When their vehicles were stopped at the police checkpost, they were not able to produce any valid documents for the cows. The five accused have been slapped with charges of smuggling. They would be produced before a court," the officer added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Assistant Sub-Inspector of the Delhi Police and two other men were shot dead and a constable was injured in an apparent case of gang shootout, the police said on Monday.

ASI Vijay, Bhupendra Sherawat alias Monu Dariyapur and Arun died on the spot in West Delhi's Mianwali Nagar area when a total of 39 rounds were fired in the attack.

Constable Kuldeep sustained critical injuries, a police official said.

"The incident happened on Sunday night around 11.15 p.m. in the National Market of Mianwali Nagar, when bike-borne assailants fired at all four persons sitting in a sedan," Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) M.N. Tiwari told IANS.

"Prima facie, it seems to be a case of gang rivalry. We are examining the CCTV footages to identify the assailants and an investigation is on," he said.

Both Vijay and Kuldeep were provided as security men to Sherawat, who is alleged to be involved in many cases of attempt to murder, murder, extortion, ransom and property disputes in Bawana area.

Sherawat and his wife, Raj Malik alias Rajrani, were earlier attacked in 2006 by Satyawan alias Sonu Dariyapur, a gangster from the national capital and a cousin of Rajrani.

"Sherawat was earlier close associate of Satyawan when he used to run a cable operation business at his village Dariyapur Kalan in Bawana area. But later they fell apart and turned foes after Satyawan came to know about his cousin sister's affair with Sherawat," said another officer.

Accused of murdering Sherawat's elder brother Sudhir in 2008, Satyawan carries a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head. He was arrested in 2008 but later escaped and has been on the run since then.

According to police, photographs of some senior politicians were found at his residence in Bawana, suggesting his connections.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
is preparing to introduce an ad-blocker to Chrome browser despite fears that it would hit their online advertising revenues -- a move that has been hailed by publishers in the US and Europe, the Financial Times reported.

The move comes after was recently criticised for placement of ads on its video hosting platform YouTube.

In March this year, several major brands boycotted YouTube and have their ads out from the platform as they protested the placement of ads which were appearing next to offensive content, including videos posted by terrorism-affiliated groups.

According to the experts, the boycott could cost YouTube's parent company nearly $750 million in revenue.

Google, at that time, promised that it was taking steps to deal with the problem and the move to introduce ad-blockers in Chrome seems one of the steps the company has taken to resolve the issue.

Details of the plan have not been disclosed but Google has said it held "initial conversations" on the idea with publishers.

According to NetMarketShare -- a company that provides market share statistics for internet technologies -- Chrome is a dominant player in the internet browsing market with a near 60 per cent share.

"The blocker would be likely to target certain types of ads that have been found to frustrate readers, such as pop-ups and auto-playing videos," the Financial Times report said on Sunday.

Initially, it was expected that the company's ad-blocking plan was a blow to the publishers who are struggling to compete with Google and Facebook for online ad revenues.

But the report said publishers are encouraged by the company's move as a way to clean up online advertising.
Producer B.V.S.N. Prasad says upcoming Telugu entertainer "Radha", which is gearing up for May 12 release, will equally appeal to the class audience as well as masses.

The film stars Sharwanand and Lavanya Tripathi in the lead.

"This is an entertainer with a perfect dose of romance, action and comedy. I'm confident it will appeal to classes and masses. Sharwanand's success streak will continue," Prasad said in a statement.

The team is currently filming a song in Milan, Italy.

"With the Milan schedule, the shoot will be completed. We will hit the screens on May 12 worldwide," he said.

Directed by Chandra Mohan, the film has music by Radhan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired a high-level meeting on Monday to review the situation in Jammu and Kashmir as well as Maoist-affected areas following the killing of 25 CRPF troopers in Chhattisgarh.

The meeting was attended among others by Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Intelligence Bureau chief Rajiv Jain, RAW chief Anil Dhasmana and Central Reserve Police Force chief Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar.

Informed sources said the meeting discussed the fresh trouble in Jammu and Kashmir, where a spike in stone-pelting incidents by students have caused a law and order problem.

The meeting took place hours before Pakistan Army killed two Indian soldiers in unprovoked firing and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control (LoC), and the killing of seven persons, including five policeman, in a bid on a bank cash van.

Sources said that the Home Minister was briefed about the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and steps taken to tighten the security in the state.

The meeting comes days after Rajnath Singh reviewed the status of 2015 developmental package announced for Jammu and Kashmir by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and directed its expeditious implementation.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had held a meeting with Modi and Rajnath Singh last week during her Delhi visit and discussed the Kashmir situation.

After returing to state, she held the first meeting of the Unified Headquarters after last year's summer unrest that left more than 100 persons dead in the valley.

Security in areas of Maoist influence in view of Sukma attack was also discussed, the sources said.

A day after 25 CRPF troopers were massacred by Maoists in Chhattisgarh, Rajnath Singh visited the state and announced that the strategy to root out left-wing extremism will be reviewed and a meeting of affected states has been convened on May 8 for the purpose.

The Home Minister, termed the massacre as a "cold blooded murder" and said that their sacrifice won't go in vain.

Around 300 Maoists, including women, ambushed a CRPF contingent in a forested patch in Chhattisgarh, killing the troopers and escaping with their AK-47 assault rifles.

--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.)
With its nominee Directors on boards of all the government-owned bank, the RBI cannot escape its responsibility for the huge non-performing assets of the banks, said a top union leader said here on MOnday.

All India Bank Employee's Association (AIBEA) General Secretary C.H. Venkatachalam also demanded a probe by a Parliamentary Committee or by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to book those responsible for the bad loan scam.

In a statement issued here, Venkatachalam said: "The total bad loans of the banks have crossed Rs 13 lakh crore. Even according to RBI and the Finance Ministry, a few big borrowers' defaults constitute more than 70 per cent of the bad loans."

Coming down heavily on Reserve Bank of India's Deputy Governor Viral Acharya's view that some of the government banks should be privatised, Venkatachalam said: "The only stress our banks are facing today is on account of increasing bad loans by the corporate houses and big business."

All public sector banks are making operating profit despite all odds and pressures and the net loss is only due to provision for bad loans.

"For the year ended March 31, 2016, the public sector banks earned Operator Profit of Rs 1,37,306 crore. But total provisions for bad loans and contingencies were Rs 1,55,297 crore and so there was net loss of Rs 17,991 crore," Venkatachalam said.

"In all the banks, RBI has its nominee Directors on the Boards. All big loans are sanctioned with the concurrence of the RBI. RBI cannot escape from its responsibility now and advocate privatisation," Venkatachalam said.

"Let there be proper accountability for bad loans. That is why AIBEA is demanding parliamentary probe or by CBI to book those responsible for the bad loan scam," he added.

"It is unfortunate that Viral Acharya is trying to denigrate public sector banks in this fashion instead of suggesting measures to take tough action on wilful defaulters and to recover the bad loans," Venkatachalam said.

Meanwhile, the Indian Banks Association, the management body of a majority of banks in India, has invited the bank unions for initiating negotiations for the next wage settlement in the banks.

According to the AIBEA, the 10th Bipartite Settlement on wage revision for 10 lakh bank employees and officers was signed in May, 2015, covering the period from November 2012 to October 2017. Hence the next wage revision is due from November 2017.

A total of 43 banks in public sector, private sector and foreign banks would be covered by the settlement.

Most of the banks have already authorised the Indian Banks Association to discuss with the unions on their behalf, Venkatachalam said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Calcutta High Court Justice C.S. Karnan on Monday termed the apex court's order for conducting a medical examination on him as "ridiculous", and instead ordered the Delhi Police to produce the seven apex court judges before a psychiatric board.

"The said order is a ridiculous order without proper application of mind in following appropriate procedures as required...the seven accused judges have desperately adopted this ridiculous order, in order to escape the punishment leviable via the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (prevention of) atrocity act," Karnan said in a press release.

"With their phenomenal behaviour, it is the said seven judges who actually require medical examination," he said.

Earlier in the day, a seven-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar directed the constitution of a medical board to examine Karnan on May 4 and submit the evaluation report on May 8.

Justice Karnan further claimed that such an order is an "additional insult" to a Dalit judge like him, who is of "sound health and mind".

"This kind of harassment order against my sanity is an additional insult to an innocent Dalit judge who is of sound health and mind," he said.

He also directed the Delhi Police to present the seven accused judges before a psychiatric medical board under the AIIMS Hospital in Delhi and submit a report on or before May 7 after conducting "appropriate medical tests".

"I further direct the Director General of Police, New Delhi to take all the seven accused judges and produce them to a psychiatric medical board attached to the AIIMS Hospital in New Delhi to conduct appropriate medical tests and submit a copy of the report on or before May 7," he added.

Karnan is facing contempt charges for degrading the judiciary and making allegations of corruption against Supreme Court judges.

On April 13, in a renewed confrontation, Justice Karnan passed a "judicial order" against seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Khehar, for "violating" the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and directed them to "appear" before him on April 28.

The seven judges had issued a suo motu contempt order against Karnan in February after he had in January named 20 "corrupt judges" and sought a probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the Indian judiciary.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The over-three-month standoff between the Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court judge C.S. Karnan entered a new stage on Monday, with the apex court ordering his medical examination and he hitting back by ordering Delhi Police to produce the seven judges before a psychiatric board.

The issue that has been grabbing the headlines since January, saw a further heightening of the confrontation as a seven-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar directed setting up of a medical board to examine Karnan on May 4 and ordered that no tribunal or authority should take cognisance of any orders passed by him.

The medical evaluation has to be submitted on May 8, a day before the next hearing of the matter.

The court directed the West Bengal Director General of Police to constitute a police team to assist the medical board in conducting the medical examination.

However, within hours, an unfazed Justice Kannan called a media conference at his Newtown residence in Kolkata's northeastern fringes and termed as "ridiculous" the apex court's order for conducting a medical examination on him.

Instead, he ordered the Delhi Police to produce the seven apex court judges before a psychiatric medical board under the AIIMS hospital in New Delhi and submit a report on or before May 7 after conducting "appropriate medical tests".

"The said order is a ridiculous order without proper application of mind in following appropriate procedures as required...the seven accused judges have desperately adopted this ridiculous order, in order to escape the punishment leviable via the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (prevention of) atrocity act," Karnan said.

"With their phenomenal behaviour, it is the said seven judges who actually require medical examination," he said.

Justice Karnan claimed the order was an "additional insult" to a Dalit judge like him, who is of "sound health and mind".

"I further direct the Director General of Police, New Delhi to take all the seven accused judges and produce them to a psychiatric medical board attached to the AIIMS Hospital in New Delhi to conduct appropriate medical tests and submit a copy of the report on or before May 7," he said.

Karnan is facing contempt charges for degrading the judiciary and making allegations of corruption against Supreme Court judges.

He had shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 23, naming 20 "corrupt judges", and seeking probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the Indian judiciary.

The Supreme Court responded on February 8 by issuing a contempt notice to Karnan, an unprecedented step against a sitting judge, for writing letters casting aspersions on several judges.

Karnan was also asked to appear before the bench in person five days later and told not to discharge any judicial and administrative functions during the pendency of the proceedings.

As Karnan failed to appear, the apex court on March 10, in another unprecedented move, issued a bailable warrant against him.

But the same day, the judge escalated the row by holding a press conference and ordering the Central Board of Investigation (CBI) to probe all the seven apex court judges in the constitution bench.

Four days later, the West Bengal Director General of Police served the bailable warrant on Karnan, who, however, dismissed it as "immaterial".

On March 31, Karnan appeared before the seven-judge bench and was given four weeks to respond to the contempt notice.

But, he renewed the confrontation on April 13, calling the media yet again, and said he has passed a "judicial order" against seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Khehar, for "violating" the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and directed them to "appear" before him on April 28.

--IANS

ssp/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As doubts were expressed over his state of mental health, the Supreme Court on Monday directed the medical examination of Calcutta High Court judge Justice C.S. Karnan, who has been on a confrontation with the apex court, and also ordered that no court or authority should take cognisance of any orders passed by him.

A seven-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar directed the constitution of a medical board to examine Justice Karnan on May 4. Justice Karnan would be examined by the medical board of doctors of a government hospital at Kolkata.

The medical evaluation has to be submitted on May 8, before the next hearing of the matter on May 9.

The court directed the West Bengal Director General of Police to constitute a team of police to assist the medical board in conducting the medical examination.

The court also directed that in the meantime, no court, tribunal or authority in the country would take cognizance of any orders passed by Justice Karnan.

Besides Chief Justice Khehar, other judges on the bench are Justice Dipak Misra, Justice J. Chelameswar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan B. Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Kurian Joseph.

The court directed the medical examination as senior counsel K.K. Venugopal told the bench that "He (Karnan) can't be taken seriously.. He is not in a position to decide what is correct and what is not correct" - a position contested by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi.

As doubts were expressed about his state of mental health, the bench said, "If that is so then he can't be responsible for his acts."

At this the Attorney General said, "It is one thing to say that he has lost balance" but what about his conduct as a judge.

Saying that Justice Karnan was in "gross misconduct", the Attorney General pointed to his conduct prior to the initiation of contempt proceedings and during the pendency of the contempt proceedings by the top court.

Pointing to the conduct of Justice Karnan after the last hearing of the matter on March 31, the Attorney General said: "This is aggravation of contempt. This is becoming more than ... Everyday he keeps saying something. Court can't give him opportunity to explain for his every new act."

The AG said this as the court said the nature of Justice Karnan's latest action was different from his earlier act and he be asked to offer an explanation.

Telling the bench that Justice Karnan's actions are a calculated attempt to bring down the esteem of the judiciary in the people's eyes, Attorney General Rohatgi said: "Contempt action is not for the protection of judges, but to instil the confidence of the people in the institution of judiciary."

Karnan is facing contempt charges for degrading the judiciary and making allegations of wrongdoings against certain judges of the Madras High Court and questioning the orders of the top court.

On April 13, in a renewed confrontation, Justice Karnan had passed a "judicial order" against seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Khehar, for "violating" the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and directed them to "appear" before him on April 28.

Later in an order, Justice Karnan directed the Air Control Authority in New Delhi not to allow the CJI and other six judges to travel abroad.

The seven judges had issued a suo motu contempt order against Karnan in February after he had in January named 20 "corrupt judges", seeking probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the Indian judiciary.

Reacting to the apex court order, Justice Karnan termed it as "ridiculous", and instead ordered the Delhi Police to produce the seven judges before a psychiatric board.

"The said order is a ridiculous order without proper application of mind in following appropriate procedures as required...the seven accused judges have desperately adopted this ridiculous order, in order to escape the punishment leviable via the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (prevention of) atrocity act," Karnan said in a press release.

"With their phenomenal behaviour, it is the said seven judges who actually require medical examination," 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.)
Actress Shraddha Kapoor has urged her fans to watch a short film starring her aunt Tejaswini Kolhapure. It addresses the water crisis.

Along with the link to the short film, Shraddha tweeted on Monday: "Please watch this short film starring Tejaswini Kolhapure addressing water crisis prevalent in our country. Save water."

Titled "PaaniPath", the film also stars Nagesh Bhonsle. It is presented by National Film Award winner Hansal Mehta and directed by his son Jai Mehta.

Inspired by true events, "PaaniPath" confronts the reality of a water crisis through the victims of a flawed and politicised water management system.

-*-

Vidyut picks strength over good looks

Actor Vidyut Jammwal of "Commando" fame says it is more important to be strong than to look good.

"I believe that being strong is more important than looking good," the actor, blessed with both, captioned his photo which he tweeted on Monday.

In the black and white image, he is seen baring his toned chest and holding on to an ATV.

-*-

Rituparna shooting with Rohit Roy in 'full swing'

Actress Rituparna Sengupta says it's a pleasure to shoot with "Kaabil" actor Rohit Roy.

Rituparna tweeted on Monday: "Shooting for one of my upcoming films, 'Jihaad' by Agnidev Chatterjee in full swing. It's always a pleasure to shoot with Rohit Roy and Rachel White."

The Hindi film is said to be based on the Dhaka terror attacks in 2016.

--IANS

nn/rb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A soldier and a BSF Head Constable were killed on Monday in firing by Pakistani troops on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistan Army resorted to "unprovoked" firing in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district at 8.30 a.m., Defence Ministry sources told IANS.

Rockets and automatics were used to target Indian positions.

"A BSF (Border Security Force) Head Constable and an Army soldier were killed in the ceasefire violation," an officer said.

"Indian troops effectively retaliated and firing exchanges are going on between the two sides," 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.)
SpaceX launched a spy satellite for the US Department of Defence on Monday, officials said.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the classified NROL-76 satellite, lifted off at 7.15 a.m. from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, the same pad that supported numerous Apollo and space shuttle launches, the company's live webcast showed.

About 10 minutes later, the rocket's first stage landed at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Xinhua news agency reported.

SpaceX previously landed a first stage booster at Landing Zone 1 three times. It also successfully recovered Falcon 9 first stages from six missions at sea using the company's drone ships.

Few details have been released about NROL-76, a satellite designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office under the Department of Defence.

This launch marks the 15-year-old company's first mission for the Pentagon.

For years, the market for launching US military payloads was dominated by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

But SpaceX broke the monopoly in 2015, when the US Air Force certified its Falcon 9 rocket to launch national security space missions.

Since then, the California-based company has also won two contracts to launch Global Positioning System satellites for the US Air Force.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actress Amy Schumer says stand-up comedy is still a "major priority" for her.

The 35-year-old may have made a name for herself in Hollywood, but she is adamant that her passion still lies in stand-up comedy and her planned comedy tour in 2016 was cancelled at the last moment due to illness, not to pursue a film project, reports dailymail.co.uk.

"Stand-up is still a major priority. I got really sick, or I would have been there," Schumer told Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"I have every intention of coming back. Everybody loves performing in Australia. I love it, so I hope I get to come out there soon," she added.

--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.)
Automobile major on Monday reported a 21 per cent decline in its total sales, including exports, of passenger and commercial vehicles during April 2017.

According to the company, the total sales, including exports, of passenger and commercial vehicles of the company stood at 30,972 units -- down 21 per cent -- from 39,389 vehicles sold during April 2016.

Besides, the company's commercial vehicles sales in April 2017 fell by 36 per cent to 16,017 units.

However, the passenger vehicles segment reported a surge of 23 per cent to 12,827 units during April 2017.

The company said the commercial vehicles sales were affected by the Supreme Court judgment of March 29 that banned sales and registration of all BS III (Bharat Stage) vehicles' sales -- requiring a higher quantity of BS IV compliant stock for April sales.

"The higher demand at short notice was not met in production, as vendors struggled to meet with the higher demand, especially in the MHCV (medium and heavy commercial vehicles) segments," the company said in a statement.

"Moreover, after the strong pre-buying of BS III vehicles in March, and the price increase of BS IV vehicles (especially in the MHCV and buses at 8-10 per cent), demand for BS IV vehicles was also weak."

The company's domestic sales of commercial and passenger vehicles for April 2017 was lower by 19 per cent at 28,844 units as compared to over 35,604 units sold during the like period of 2016.

"While the industry faced short-term headwinds further to the BS III verdict, continued its robust sales performance with a growth of 23 per cent in April led by a strong pipeline for Tiago and a positive response for our new lifestyle UV - Tata HEXA," said Mayank Pareek, President, Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, .
After Morocco and Vienna, the team of "Tiger Zinda Hai" will shoot in Abu Dhabi over a 65-day schedule from May 4 at multiple locations in the city. A set is being designed by some of those workers who helped to build the "Star Wars" set in 2013.

The Yash Raj Films (YRF) project is a sequel to the blockbuster film "Ek Tha Tiger". Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, it features superstar Salman Khan and actress Katrina Kaif, who are both happy to be shooting there.

Salman said in a statement: "'Tiger Zinda Hai' is a film of sizeable scale and context. Abu Dhabi, with a variety of locations, and gracious hosts, is ideal to shoot for a film like this one. I hope that the entire unit will enjoy our time here."

Katrina feels the city fits in perfectly with the movie's story.

"I look forward to shooting in eye-catching locations and on the impressive set here," she added.

Work has begun on the construction of a 20,000 sq metres backlot for the movie's shoot.

The set is being designed by Rajnish Hedao from Acropolis DMG, and over 150 workers will be on site to create the film's main set, many of whom helped to build the "Star Wars" set in Abu Dhabi in 2013. The production unit will also film at several other locations around Abu Dhabi before moving onto the set.

twofour54's Film and TV Services division will provide production services for the movie, with a crew of 300 expected to work on the movie. Government support will come from the UAE military, which will provide military equipment, including choppers during the shoot.

Zafar said: "A film like 'Tiger Zinda Hai' requires a certain scale, which we found in Abu Dhabi. Keeping all the practical measures in mind, the kind of support we got on the infrastructure was phenomenal. That along with some stunning real locations, makes shooting in Abu Dhabi special."

Officials in Abu Dhabi note Bollywood's increasing attraction towards the city as a shooting destination.

Maryam Al Mheiri, CEO of Media Zone Authority - Abu Dhabi, said: "Abu Dhabi is gaining traction in India as the emerging new home of Bollywood, as a result of what we can offer this dynamic industry: a generous 30 per cent rebate, a huge variety of locations, and crew with Bollywood experience."

--IANS

rb/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Trump administration lawyers plan to meet on Monday to discuss the legal implications of remaining in the Paris climate change agreement, officials told Politico news.

Critics of the 2015 accord have quietly been mounting a behind-the-scenes effort to convince President Donald Trump that sticking with the deal would pose legal hurdles.

The meeting is expected to include lawyers from the White House, National Security Council, State Department and Justice Department, the officials said, though the list of attendees and timing could still change.

On April 27, a meeting of Trump administration officials about the Paris agreement focused largely on legal issues.

Critics of the deal, led by chief strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, have pushed several legal arguments, including that the Paris deal restricts countries from weakening their domestic emissions-reduction targets and that any decision to remain could be used in court to counter the administration's bid to undo former President Barack Obama's climate regulations for power plants, reports Politico news.

The Monday meeting was organised after Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a proponent of remaining in Paris, called for a deeper assessment, the officials said.

Backers of the accord were surprised when the White House Counsel's Office signalled during the April 27 meeting that it agreed with Pruitt's legal concerns.

Current and former State Department officials strongly disagree with Pruitt's contentions about the legal issues.

Trump, during a rally on Saturday marking his 100th day in office, said that he would make a final decision in the next two weeks.

--IANS

ksk/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump's Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka, who joined the administration as a counterterrorism adviser, is expected to leave his job at the White House, administration officials told CNN.

One official on Sunday said Gorka, a British aide, is expected to find an opportunity outside the White House soon.

While another said it was possible he would take another job in the administration, but added it was more likely he will leave altogether since Gorka was "simply generating too much controversy for the White House".

Besides the role of the Deputy Assistant, Gorka has been working on the National Security Council and on the Strategic Initiatives Group, which he described as a focal point for task forces collaborating with people outside government, reports CNN.

Gorka has been known to make controversial statements, compared the Islamic State militants to "cockroaches" and continued use of the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism".

Gorka is the latest shake-up for the Trump White House's National Security Council (NSC) following the firing of the first National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, the removal of Steve Bannon from the NSC's Principals Committee and the expected departure of Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland.

His work for Trump goes back as far as 2015, as Federal Election Commission filings showed Gorka was paid $8,000 that October to be a policy consultant for the Trump campaign.

--IANS

ksk/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was looking at breaking up the huge Wall Street banks, separating their commercial and investment banking businesses.

"I'm looking at that right now. There's some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So we're going to look at that," EFE news quoted Trump as saying in an interview with Bloomberg News.

The former real estate developer said during the presidential campaign that he was open to enacting a "21st century" version of the Glass-Steagall Act, a 1933 law that separated banks' consumer and investment banking businesses.

Glass-Steagall was repealed by legislation signed in 1999 by President Bill Clinton, who cited the need to reduce financial industry regulation.

Many critics blamed Glass-Steagall's repeal for the financial crisis that crippled the global economy in 2008 following the bursting of the real estate bubble in the US.

Trump, however, did not provide additional details about his plans for a new version of Glass-Steagall.

The President's comments about breaking up big banks come as he moves to scrap many of the banking industry regulations imposed by former President Barack Obama in the wake of the financial crisis.

Trump has argued that excessive regulation cuts off the flow of loans to consumers and businesses.

The President's remarks about Glass-Steagall led to a sell-off on Wall Street, especially in shares of large banks, such as Citigroup and Bank of America, but share prices later rebounded.

Some analysts contend that the big financial institutions created following Glass-Steagall's repeal might be worth more in a break-up than in their current form.

--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 on Sunday spoke separately with leaders of Singapore and Thailand to reaffirm the United States' commitment to the Southeastern Asian countries, the said.

In a telephone conversation, Trump and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hailed the two countries' trade and investment, security cooperation, as well as collaboration on regional and global challenges, Xinhua news agency reported.

Speaking with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, Trump affirmed his administration's commitment to playing an "active and leading role" in Asia, in close cooperation with "partners and allies like Thailand", according to the .

Trump and Prayut expressed a shared interest in strengthening trade and economic ties.

The businessman-turned-president invited both leaders to visit the .

On Saturday, Trump discussed with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte regional security issues in Southeast Asia, including the threat posed by North Korea.

Duterte's clampdown on drugs was also mentioned during the conversation.

Describing the conversation as "very friendly", the White House said in a statement that the two Presidents acknowledged "the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world."

Trump also invited Duterte to Washington to discuss the bilateral relationship, "which is now heading in a very positive direction," said the statement.

The Obama administration had raised concerns over Manila's extra-judicial killings of drug-trafficking suspects. A meeting between Obama and Duterte was called off last year after Duterte publicly "insulted" Obama.

--IANS

lok/

(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.)
Turkey, a close ally of Pakistan, on Monday extended "full solidarity" with India in battling terrorism even as New Delhi virtually sidestepped visiting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's suggestion for a multilateral dialogue on resolving the Kashmir issue.

After extensive talks with Erdogan, in which the fight against terrorism formed a major part, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said both the countries have agreed that "no intent or goal, no reason or rationale can validate terrorism".

Modi said that he and Erdogan "agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace".

There was no mention of Jammu and Kashmir in the brief statements made by the two leaders at a joint address to the media after delegation-level talks and one-on-one talks between the two leaders.

On his part, Erdogan said that Turkey would always be by the side of India "in full solidarity" in battling terrorism.

"Terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over the suffering of people and are willing to a create future for themselves out of victims' pain," he said.

Both the leaders discussed the situation in their respective regions and on terrorism. The double standards in dealing with the problem and the need for early adoption of the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the UN also came up in the talks.

Turkey conveyed its support for India's bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group for which Modi expressed his gratitude.

He said that he and Modi also discussed the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July last year in which over 300 people, both civilians and security personnel, lost their lives.

The Turkish government has blamed the US-based preacher and political activist Fethullah Gulen for the coup attempt.

Erdogan expressed hope that India would expel all institutions linked to FETO -- or the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation that Turkish authorities describe the Gulenist network as.

He said that Turkey saw India playing an important role "in every international development that is unfolding in India".

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay later told the media in reply to questions that India put across its views on Kashmir to the Turkish side.

Baglay said India conveyed its position that it was always ready for talks with Pakistan on any issue in an atmosphere of peace.

Interestingly, Erdogan in a TV interview ahead of his arrival here had suggested that there could be multilateral dialogue to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. India has always maintained Jammu and Kashmir was a bilateral issue and has ruled out any third party mediation.

"The nations of the world, therefore, need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists," Modi said in his address to the media with Erdogan by his side.

"They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence."

During the talks, which extended by nearly two hours beyond the scheduled 60 minutes, India and Turkey agreed to boost bilateral trade from the current level of just over $6 billion and expressed the resolve to fight the global menace of terrorism together.

"President and I are clear that the strength of our economies presents an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages between our countries," Modi said while addressing the media.

The Prime Minister said that at the level of the two governments, "we need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner".

"India and Turkey are two large economies," he stated.

"Our bilateral trade turnover of around $6 billion does not do full justice to convergences in our economies. Clearly, the business and industry on both sides can do much more."

Modi invited Turkish businesses to tap the "diverse and unique opportunities", including infrastructure requirements and Smart Cities programme, available in India.

"We would like to encourage stronger partnership of Turkish companies with our flagship programmes and projects, either on their own or in collaboration with the Indian companies," he said.

Stating that the current bilateral trade volume of just over $6 billion was "not enough for us", Erdogan called for increasing this figure to at least $10 billion.

"We have discussed cooperation in the areas of energy cooperation and infrastructure development," the Turkish President said.

Following Monday's talks, the two sides signed three agreements, including a cultural exchange programme, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Foreign Services Institute of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey, and another MoU on information and communication technologies.

--IANS

ab-vsc/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India and Turkey on Monday agreed to boost bilateral trade and investment relations, with various institutional mechanisms being initiated towards this end.

"I agreed with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi that we should increase our economic relations and we will have opportunity to discuss this further today (Monday)," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the India-Turkey Business Forum, where Prime Minister Modi also was present.

"It would be good to start free trade agreement (FTA) talks, which would add further momentum to our relations," he said.

Noting that Indian industry chamber FICCI, the organisers of the forum, had requested permission to open a liaison office in Turkey and the Turkish Export Office should start an office in India, Erdogan said the balance of trade is heavily weighted against Turkey.

"Joint trade volume should be balanced. Steps should be taken to achieve that," Erdogan said.

Bilateral trade between India and Turkey last year stood at $6.5 billion, of which Indian exports accounted for nearly $5.8 billion and Turkish exports to India amounted to only $652 million.

"This is not sustainable for Turkey and there is need to increase reciprocal investment so that trade balance is achieved," he said.

Addressing the gathering, Modi said India planned massive investments in creating social and economic infrastructure and Turkish construction companies, renowned globally, "can easily participate in Indian infrastructure building".

"This meeting marks a new era of business relations," Erdogan said.

Earlier in the day, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan at Rashtrapati Bhavan where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome with guard of honour.

Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
For Indian students seeking to study abroad, Turkey, with its government-funded higher education scholarship programme, is slowly emerging as a popular destination.

The "Turkiye Scholarships" -- specifically designed for international students -- is one of the most extensive programmes being coordinated from a single centre.

In 2016, the country received as many as 122,000 applications from 175 countries, according to the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities, which is responsible for the Turkiye Scholarships.

Since 2012, over 100 Indian students have received the scholarship.

"I belong to a farmer's family from south India. It was unthinkable for people like me to come here to Turkey and get a high-quality education. I applied to 'Turkeye scholarships' and I was accepted," said Mustafa Ujampaaly, a PhD student at Ankara University, in a statement.

Currently in India, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said before embarking on the official visit: "We embrace students from all over the world coming to Turkey."

The Turkiye Scholarship project first began in late President Turgut Ozal's rule in 1992. The project initially covered Central Asian Turkic Republics and was later extended to other parts of the world.

The scholarship, offered for undergraduate, graduate, PhD, proficiency in art and research levels, includes allowance, accommodation, tuition and fees, health expenses and a compulsory Turkish language course.

"There is a misconception propagated by the media that being a Muslim country, Indian students of other religions may face difficulty many restrictions. But I am living here, it feels really awesome to be here nice place," said Kanika Walia who is pursuing PhD in communications from Gazi University.

The students who are eligible for the "Turkiye Scholarships" and do not speak Turkish are also granted free Turkish language training for one year.

Students who successfully complete the language course are allowed to pursue their education at the university they have registered with.

In addition, the programme is aimed at enhancing Turkey's relations with other countries in the fields of higher education and culture.

For students who wish to know about the art, culture, history or music of the country, additional certificate-level programmes are also available. For such students, study tours are also conducted free of cost.

"It is a very good thing to be in Turkey. I had always dreamed of studying abroad and never dreamed that I could study in Turkey. I was accepted after I applied to the government-funded 'Turkiye Scholarships' of the Turkish Prime Ministry (YTB)," said Navaz Kuttakkaren, a BA student from Kerala at Ankara University.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two persons were arrested from Assam's Nagaon district for their alleged involvement in lynching of two youths suspected to be cow thieves, police said on Mondau

Nagaon Superintendent of Police D. Upadhaya said police have arrested two persons after registering a case. "Our investigation is on to ascertain their involvement in the crime and also to find out if there are more involved in the crime," he said.

A mob in Kachomari village on Sunday lynched to death two youth suspecting that they were stealing cows. Police arrived in the spot after being informed by the locals and rescued the two but they succumbed to their injuries in a hospital.

The duo hailed from Naromari village in the district.

On Monday, group of people took out a protest demonstration with the two bodies and demanded action against the brutal killings. The relatives of the deceased denied their involvement in the crime and alleged that they were killed in cold blood.

"Our probe is on. We have carried out the post mortem on the bodies and handed over the bodies to the families. Its an incident of mob fury and we are going to deal with the situation strictly," said Upadhyaya.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As actor Ajith Kumar turned 46 on Monday, the makers of his upcoming Tamil spy thriller "Vivegam" unveiled a special poster of the movie.

The poster features a battered Ajith carrying a log of wood.

Originally, the makers had planned to release the film's teaser. However, the plan was changed at the last minute.

The team is currently filming the final leg of shooting in Serbia.

Directed by Siva, "Vivegam" marks the reunion of the director with Ajith for the third time in a row.

In the film, Ajith is rumoured to be playing an Interpol agent.

Also starring Akshara Haasan and Kajal Aggarwal, the film has music by Anirudh Ravichander. It is gearing up for an August 11 release.

--IANS

hp/rb/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police are looking for a woman who allegedly honey-trapped BJP MP K.C. Patel after similarly ensnaring 15 politicians and businessmen. But the woman accused Patel of raping her.

Delhi Police said on Monday that the MP, K.C. Patel from Gujarat, filed a complaint alleging extortion by a woman-led gang after being honey-trapped and filmed in an "objectionable position".

The woman had earlier approached a Delhi court alleging she was raped by the Lok Sabha member from Valsad.

"Patel alleged the woman gave him a spiked drink at her residence and filmed him in objectionable positions after he became unconscious," said a police officer.

"She threatened to make the clips go viral. She demanded Rs 5 crore from him," said the officer.

"The woman had earlier extorted at least 15 other people, including some businessmen and a Haryana-based senior politician."

The MP said the woman approached him seeking his assistance but he realised he was honey-trapped after she showed him the objectionable video clips.

In his Saturday complaint to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, Patel alleged that the gang was led by the woman who took him to her house in Ghaziabad.

Police have registered a case of extortion against the woman and her gang.

Patel's complaint came after the woman on Wednesday approached the Patiala House Court charging Patel with rape.

Police said the woman alleged that she was first raped by Patel at his official residence on March 3 when he invited her to dinner. He raped her on several other occasions in various places.

She also accused Patel of threatening her with dire consequences if she approached police. She claimed that police refused to register her complaint.

"I was raped multiple times by Patel. I had to make a CD as evidence so that he stops threatening me. I approached the court to know the status of my complaint after police refused to register my case," she said.

Patel has rubbished the allegations. Police say the woman has made similar allegations against other politicians in the past to extort money.

"Investigations reveal that she took back her complaints when police started probing them," Special Commissioner of Police M.K. Meena said.

"This time she tried to extort Patel. We are investigating from all possible angles," Meena said.

Patel said he had faith in law. "I will cooperate in the investigation."

--IANS

sp/and/mr/rn

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Thousands across Asia marked May Day or International Workers' Day on Monday by holding rallies and demanding better wages and working rights.

In Jakarta, more than 10,000 workers gathered in a rally to protest President Joko Widodo's labour policies, Efe news reported.

They were stopped by a road block police set up about 500 metres from the presidential palace, manned by around 1,000 anti-riot police officers.

In the Philippines, hundreds took to the streets in Quezon City, east of Manila, to call for an increase in the minimum wage.

About 1,500 protesters marched along the Quezon Avenue to the Mabuhay Rotonda roundabout, carrying large flags and banners and raising slogans like "Enforce 750 peso (about $15) national minimum wage" and "Increase wages, decrease prices".

The march was organised by labour groups, who are calling for a minimum daily wage of 750 pesos for workers and a minimum monthly salary of 16,000 pesos for government employees.

In Cambodia, thousands of workers rallied in Phnom Penh to call for improved working conditions, higher minimum wages and amendments to a law that make it difficult for workers to unionise.

International Workers' Day is celebrated each year on May 1 as a celebration of workers and labour rights, and is an official public holiday in several countries.

--IANS

ksk/vt

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday issued a timetable of meeting MPs and MLAs from the state. Under this schedule, he will meet the MPs between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. every Friday and the legislators every Monday and Friday.

The meetings will take place at the Chief Minister's secretariat Lal Bahadur Shastri Bhavan. In a letter addressed to all state MPs and legislators, Adityanath has said that the people of the state have voted them to power with great expectations and they have to give much of their time to their constituencies.

During their interactions with the people, they get many petitions and applications which need intervention at the government level. The Chief Minister has also mentioned that this arrangement of meeting these lawmakers has been rolled out to ensure immediate redressal of problems faced by the people and better coordination with public representatives.

He also expressed the hope that through these meetings, more and more people's problems will be brought to light and positive steps will be taken to solve them. Yogi also expressed confidence that the meetings will take place in a conducive and fruitful atmosphere and has requested the MPs and MLAs not to bring people along with them for the meetings.

--IANS

md/vgu/bg

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At a conference on the new corporate insolvency regime, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs was to make the inaugural address after an address by guest of honour, Supreme Court judge A K Sikri. But since the minister had an important assignment he took the microphone first. Referring to Sikris first name and his own he said, Jahan do do Arjun, yeh IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code) ka kuch galat nahi ho sakta. He completed his short speech saying the legal luminaries would take care of the technicalities.

Sikris first name is Arjan Kumar. Arjun is the third pandava brother of Hindu epic Mahabharata, while Guru Arjan is the fifth Sikh Guru.
For years now, India has faced almost negligible pressure from the international community to resolve the Kashmir issue. Most other countries, even China, have largely respected Indias position that Kashmir is a bilateral issue with Pakistan. Only New Delhi and Islamabad pay much attention to their annual United Nations General Assembly tit for tat in New York, where Pakistan launches broadsides at India over Kashmir, provoking New Delhi into responding. But that counts for little, given Pakistans standing as the epicentre of global jihad and its reputation for using extremist groups as instruments of state policy. Besides this, there is only occasional back-channel pressure from Washington encouraging New Delhi to de-escalate when confrontation with Pakistan crosses a certain threshold.
The state of Madhya Pradesh (MP) saw a 30 per cent increase in agricultural output last year. While it came on the back of two weak years, since 2008 the annualised growth has been 20 per cent (a remarkable 10 per cent a year in real terms). has now increased to 38 per cent of its total output, versus 17 per cent (and falling) for India on average.
In the aftermath of the Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh, India-China bilateral relations have plumbed new depths. China accuses India of using the Dalai Lama to provoke anti- Chinese sentiment, and says that diplomatic relations are seriously damaged. But His Holiness is a popular and revered guest in India, and so the Indian governments resolute defence of his right to travel anywhere in the country remains fully in harmony with popular sentiment. Still, we should expect a climate of cold peace between the two countries for some time to come, with bilateral political issues remaining unresolved. However, a Sinophobic public climate can damage our own public interest, and this the government should work to avoid. Because China matters to India  if not politically  certainly in the realm of economic development. And it matters in four quite specific ways.
The Delhi Police on Monday arrested two persons in connection with the attack on Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari's house.

The arrested include Jay Kumar, 38, and his brother Jaswant Singh, 33.

According to the police, the incident occurred around 1.15 a.m. following a car accident in which one of Tiwari's staff-member was involved.

After a heated exchange, occupants of the other vehicle forcibly entered Tiwari's North Avenue residence and thrashed his cook and personal staff.

The police officials said that the attackers were also from the same neighbourhood and they had called in some of their friends to aid in their attack.

"We have arrested two persons and a case has been lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," Delhi Police spokesperson Madhur Verma told IANS.

The sections include trespassing, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and acts of common intent.

The officer also said that there was no political angle in the incident.

"Eight to 10 persons attacked my 159, North Avenue residence," Tiwari tweeted.



#WATCH: CCTV footage of Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari's house in Delhi whose house was ransacked,police claims it is a dispute over road rage pic.twitter.com/EcE6JJ5z6O  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

According to the police, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, who represents the northeast constituency of Delhi, was not present at his home at the time of the attack.

Tiwari's personal staff, who was injured in the incident, Abhinav Mishra told IANS: "I came out after hearing the cook's cry. He was being beaten up by four to five men. And when I intervened they also thrashed me."
A MP from Gujarat's Valsad has filed a complaint with Delhi Police against a woman and her gang alleging he was honey-trapped and filmed in an objectionable position after being given a spiked drink. Police has launched a massive manhunt to trace the woman and her gang in the alleged case of extortion.

The MP, K.C. Patel, alleged that the woman threatened to leak the video clips online if she was not paid Rs 5 crore, police said.

The woman has also approached a Delhi court alleging she was raped by the MP.

Patel in his complaint to Delhi Police Commissioner, Amulya Patnaik, has alleged that the gang was being operated by the woman, who took him to her house in Ghaziabad.

A case was registered against the woman and her gang in North Avenue police station on Saturday.

"K.C. Patel alleged that the woman gave him a spiked drink in her residence and later filmed him in objectionable positions after he got unconscious. She later started to threaten him to make those clips viral. She demanded Rs 5 crore from him," a senior police officer said.

The woman, who had also approached a Delhi court, has accused Patel of raping her at his official residence on March 3 when he invited her to dinner. She said she was allegedly raped on several other occasions in various places by Patel, the officer added.

The woman alleged that the MP had threatened her with dire consequences if she approached police. She claimed that she approached Delhi Police but it refused to register her FIR.

Patel has denied the allegations. "These are all false allegations against me. I have full faith in the law. I will cooperate in the investigation with police."

He said the woman approached him seeking his assistance, but later he realised that he was honey-trapped after she showed him the objectionable video clips and demanded money.

The police have registered a case of extortion against the woman and her gang.
unveiled his pro-poor agenda to win back Gujarat from the BJP and took potshots at PM Modi for catering only to the rich.

Elections for the 182 seat Gujarat assembly are likely in November this year.

Launching the Congress' poll campaign from Dediya Pada, a tribal area, Rahul asked people if the Vibrant Gujarat concept promoted by Modi had brought any benefits to them over the past 20 years. Taking a dig at PM's radio programme Mann Ki Baat, Rahul exuded confidence that the Congress would come back to power and the state government would rather listen to the views of the poor voters.

The rally at Dediya Pada was in continuation of a series of events the state unit had launched recently to mobilise Tribal votes, where the BJP too is trying to get a toe hold.

Rahul reminded the voters of the UPA's land bill and said PM Modi had tried to change it. He charged the BJP wanted to take away the land of tribals and give it to the rich for a song. The Congress government will not be run by an individual, he declared, hitting at Modi's style of functioning.

The Congress vice president further attacked the BJP saying that the resourceful Patels, who used to support the BJP, were worried over the lack of educational facilities for their children.

Trying to connect with the Tribals, Rahul said their traditional rights over water, land and forest would be protected by the Congress as he charged PM Modi of diluting the laws meant to empower the panchayati raj institutions.

Acknowledging that the Congress was poor at marketing itself, Rahul said his party rather works for the people than make false promises. Mentioning the note ban, the Congress leader said PM Modi took away their savings in a single stroke. He appreciated the work done by women in promoting Anand milk cooperative movement and said the youth in the state had no jobs due to BJP's policies.

May 1 was chosen to launch the Congress' poll campaign as it was also foundation day of Gujarat.
has kicked off the much-awaited Congress reshuffle, bringing in new faces to manage the grand old party.

The Congress vice-president, set to take over the reins of the party from his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, has also approved a team, which will oversee the internal elections to be held in the coming months.

Sonias tenure will expire in December this year and Rahul is expected to take over as party chief. Sonia became the Congress chief through internal polls in 1998.

Though Rahuls upgrade can be done through an executive order and the Congress working committee has already passed a unanimous resolution urging him to take over, the former wants it through a proper route.

There has been intense speculation over the changes in the party, as it lost four of the five states to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recent Assembly polls.

Tweak time Congress vice-president is set to take over the reins of the party following the retirement of Sonia Gandhi He has approved a team to oversee internal elections

Over the past week, Rahul replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa and brought in young leaders as secretaries

Digvijaya Singh, in-charge of Karnataka and Goa, has been replaced by Lok Sabha MP KC Venugopal and A Chella Kumar, respectively

Madhusudan Mistry, head of central election committee, has also been replaced

Party lawmaker in Maharashtra Amit Deshmukh is AICC secretary in Goa

In Gujarat, Gurudas Kamat has been replaced with former Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot

Over the past week, Rahul has replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa, and brought in young leaders as secretaries.

According to sources, the changes are unlikely to be a one-time exercise and poll-bound states would get the primary attention.

The changes announced relates to veteran Digvijaya Singh, who was in charge of Karnataka and Goa, and Madhusudan Mistry, who was heading the central election committee, which decides candidates for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Digvijaya Singh faced a strong reaction from the state unit as the BJP moved fast to form a government in Goa under his watch despite the Congress emerging as the single largest party.

While Goa has gone to A Chella Kumar, Singh's deputy in the state, Lok Sabha MP KC Venugopal has replaced Digvijaya in Karnataka, where Assembly polls are due in April next year.

Party lawmaker in Maharashtra Amit Deshmukh, son of former Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, will be the All India Congress Committee's (AICC) secretary in Goa.

In Gujarat, where polls will be held this year-end, old-hand Gurudas Kamat has been replaced with former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara, also the home minister, might be changed, as Rahul plans to revamp the state unit.

Tweaks are also expected in Himachal Pradesh where polls are due this year-end.

Rahul is likely to form his own team to face the challenges, especially the next round of Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in 2018 where the BJP has been ruling for the past three terms.

Rahuls aides Lok Saba member Rajeev Satav and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jitu Patwari have been made AICC secretaries in Gujarat, while Manickam Tagore and former MP Madhu Yashki Goud are the new secretaries in Karnataka.

Sources said the changes would be a mix of youth and experience, which means not all seniors stand to lose their positions in the revamp process.

Digvijaya, who still holds charge of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, said he was loyal to the party and to the Gandhi family. He also thanked party workers in Goa and Karnataka.

Rahul has also addressed the delay in conduct of internal elections as well.

Lok Sabha MP Mullapally Ramachandran heads a panel, which will supervise the party's internal elections likely to be completed by October.

Earlier, in 2015, Ramachandran had prepared a schedule for internal polls, but the exercise could not be rolled out, as several states had problems with membership lists.
The emphatic win of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has led to much churn among parties, awakening them to the need for unity and even be willing to shed long held ideological positions in a spirit of accommodation.
A student has been killed and three others injured after multiple people were stabbed inside the University of Texas at Austin campus in the US.

The suspect, identified by campus police as 20-year-old student Kendrex J White, was apprehended for allegedly attacking four people.

One of the victims died from their injuries at the scene, University of Texas (UT) police chief David Carter said.

"Police got the call around 1:30 pm yesterday about a person with a knife who attacked or assaulted someone outside the Gregory gym. A UT police officer saw a man, later identified as White, with a "large, bowie-style hunting knife," Carter said.

"The officer drew his gun and told Whiteto get on the ground, which he did, and police took him into custody. Within about a block, three more people were found stabbed," he said.

According to Austin-Travis County EMS, they have taken three people with potentially serious injuries to University Medical Center Brackenridge.

The University officials said they have cancelled classes and events on the campus for the rest of the days.

"About a dozen Austin police units swarmed responded to provide back up and support university police, which is leading the response to the stabbing, University spokeswoman said.

In a separate incident, the Belo Center for New Media was briefly evacuated after a reported bomb threat. But the university police said the building was not under lockdown and is open.

"There is no immediate threat at this time," they said.

A sign had been draped across the building's sky bridge with the words"Tuition Pays for Bombs" before it was taken down.

Last week, university police alerted the campus abouta drive-by shooting near Dean Keeton and San Jacinto streetson Thursday.

No one was injured, and police said neither the shooter or his target were affiliated with the university.

The attack came three days after police said a former student wielding a machete and other blades attacked students at Transylvania University in Kentucky. One student was hospitalised in that attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two persons including a minor were thrashed by angry villagers in East Garo Hills district after they allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl, police said today.

The incident took place on April 27 at about 3:30 pm when they waylaid the girl on her way back home from school at remote Dinamgre village, a senior district police told PTI.

The angry villagers caught hold of the two and thrashed them and later handed them over to the police, the officer said.

The girl was rushed to the Williamnagar Civil Hospital by family members after the incident and she is said to be in a stable condition.

The family members had filed a rape case against the two at the Williamnagar police station, the police officer added.

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In a barbaric attack, two security personnel were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Border action teams (BATs) crossed into the Indian side as Pakistan army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.

The simultaneous, unprovoked attacks took place this morning, in which an army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed and another soldier was injured, a defence spokesman said.

The Indian Army said that such "despicable" acts of Pakistan's army would be "appropriately responded" to.

"It was a pre-planed operation of Pakistan army. They had pushed in BATs over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army officer said.

Pakistan's Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning, a spokesman of the Indian Army's Northern Command said in statement here.

Simultaneously, a BAT operation was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts, it said.

"In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said.

"They have been to an extent beheaded," the army officer said.

The deceased have been identified as Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army.

Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion suffered injuries in the attack.

A BSF officer said troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, he said.

In April this year, there have been seven ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.

On April 19, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch sector.

On April 17, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by firing and shelling mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector along the LoC in Rajouri district.

They had broken the ceasefire in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

In Digwar sector of Poonch, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

In 2016 there were 228 instances of ceasefire violation along the LoC, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violation along the International Border (IB).

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Over 50 per cent patients in the UK, who have been treated for depression and anxiety, relapse within a year of completing their psychological treatment, according to a new study.

The study, published by leading scientific journal 'Behaviour Research and Therapy', was conducted by a team of National Health Service (NHS) clinicians and scientists from the Universities of Sheffield, York, Huddersfield and Trier.

A total of 439 patients, who were considered to have recovered from their symptoms following therapy by the NHS, took part in the study.

Over half of these were found to have suffered a relapse, with up to 79 per cent of events occurring within the first six months after treatment.

According to a report released in February, poor mental health carries an economic and social cost of 105 billion pounds a year in England.

In total, 9.2 billion pounds are spent every year by the NHS on mental health support and services.

Depression and anxiety are very common and often disabling mental health problems, experienced by one in six adults in the UK.

Available treatments in the NHS include medication and psychological therapy.

The most widely available form of psychological care for these conditions is known as Low intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (LiCBT), which is a brief and simplified adaptation of a treatment called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

LiCBT involves weekly contact with a mental health professional who guides patients on how to look after their mental health and typically lasts under two months.

LiCBT has been found to lead to short-term improvement of depression and anxiety in previous studies, although there is as still limited evidence about its long-term effectiveness after treatment.

Participants in the study were in contact with researchers on monthly basis for 12 months after treatment.During the period, their wellbeing was monitored and the percentage of cases that relapsed was quantified.

Patients with residual depression symptoms at the end of treatment were twice as likely to relapse, the study said.

Jaime Delgadillo, a researcher with the University of Sheffield, said: "These findings underline the importance of monitoring patients' wellbeing for at least six months after treatment and offering adequate support to ensure they stay well".

"We argue that relapse prevention is a crucial but often neglected aspect of psychological care in the NHS. Incomplete or insufficient treatment also costs the NHS, as patients who relapse often need further care or support," he added.

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Nine persons were killed and four others seriously injured after they were hit by a goods train near Sirai station last night, a railway official said.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today expressed sorrow over the tragedy and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh each for the next of kin of those killed.

The accident took place around 8.30 pm last night near the Sirai station on the Kiul-Gaya section in Danapur division of East Central Railway.

Some passengers were walking on the tracks in order to cross a bridge over a rivulet to go home. They got down at the station from the Rampurhat-Gaya passenger train.

The passengers could not see a goods train coming on the second track due to a strong windstorm and darkness. They panicked when the train came closer and were hit by it, Lakhisarai District Magistrate, Sunil Kumar Sinha said.

Seven persons died on the spot. Later, two others succumbed to their injuries at a hospital, the DM said.

Train movement on the Kiul-Gaya section remained suspended for more than four hours, the public relations officer of Danapur division, R K Singh said.

The victims were identified as Suresh Yadav (50), Saroj Devi (45), her son Rohit (10), Asha Devi (50), Purshottam Kumar (25), Mangal Yadav (58), Munni Devi (38), Sanjay Kumar (17) and Jhunna Kumari (12), a railway official said.

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flew 8.4 lakh passengers in the January-March quarter of the current year, up 57% from 5.38 lakh in the same period of 2016, aided by new routes and higher capacity.

The Bengaluru-based airline, which is a joint venture between Tata Sons and Malaysia's AirAsia Berhad, raised its fleet size to nine aircraft from six in the first quarter of the previous year, said in a statement today.

The number of passengers carried increased by 57% year-on-year to 0.84 million, with 50% increase in capacity, the airline said.

The seat factor, a measure of how full the plane flies, also increased by 3% to 89% in the quarter from 86% in Q1CY16.

Three new routes, Delhi-Srinagar, Delhi-Bagdogra and Delhi-Pune, were added in AirAsia India's network, it said adding that the frequency on the Delhi-Goa route also increased in the first quarter of the current year.

AirAsia India, which will be completing three years of operations in June, currently flies on 20 domestic routes from three hubs  Bengaluru, Kolkata and New Delhi.
A Delhi Police Assistant Sub- Inspector, an alleged criminal and his friend were shot dead by unidentified men in outer Delhi's Mianwali Nagar, police said today.

Bhupender alias Monu Dariyapur, accompanied by two of his personal security officers -- given on a court's direction, and his friend Arun were attacked around 11 PM last night near the national market in Mianwali nagar, they said.

Monu, Arun, ASI Vijay Singh and Constable Kuldeep were in a car when a group of unidentified men arrived on two motorcycles and a car, and started firing indiscriminately, police said.

Bhupendra, his friend Arun and ASI Vijay Singh were killed in the attack while constable Kuldeep was also shot in his arm and managed to survive



A case has been registered on the basis of the constable's statement, police said.

The police is yet to make any headway in the case, however, several people have been detained for questioning.

Police suspect it as a case of honour killing, as police sources said that Bhupendra had married a local criminal's sister against his wishes.

The case has been transferred from the district police to the Special Cell unit on the orders of Delhi Police commissioner Amulya Patnaik.

Bhupendra, a porperty dealer, had a number of criminal cases against him.

Sources claimed that several rounds were fired on the men.

Constable Kuldeep somehow managed to run away but was chased for a few metres and shot at but he had sustained bullet injuries to his arm.

The attackers even fired at the shutters and walls of nearby eateries, police said.

Police have claimed that this may be a case of honour killing, as Bhupendra had married, Rajrani, the sister of Sonu Dariyapur.

Monu and Sonu were friends but had a fallout after the former married the latter's sister.

Since Monu and Rajrani belonged to the same village, the elders were of the view that they are siblings. Sonu had allegedly threatened Monu on previous occasions and had once even tried to kill Monu and his wife.

Following this attack, Monu and his wife had appealed for police protection, which was accepted.

This is the second case of a shootout in the area. On April 29, an industrialist, who had been brought to the Rohini court for hearing by the Haryana Police, was shot dead in the neighbouring district by a 19-year-old man.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police today detained two persons in connection with the alleged lynching of two suspected cattle thieves in central Assam's Nagaon district but refrained from terming it as a case of 'cow vigilantism'.

District Superintendent of Police Debaraj Upadhay told PTI, "We have picked up two persons in this connection and after investigation as to whether they were involved in yesterday's lynching incident, we will arrest them."



Yesterday's incident was an outcome of "mob fury leading to the brutal killing of the two persons suspected to be cattle thieves", he said.

Asked if it was a case of 'cow vigilantism', the SP said, "Not at all. There is no communal issue involved in the incident. It was a case of mob being angry and beating up the two suspected thieves".

"The owner of the cattle in Kasamari village saw two men taking away his cows and shouted for the local people to stop them. The people there came out and chased the two before the angry mob beat them up, injuring them seriously," Upadhay said.

The police team which arrived at the site rushed the two to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries, he said.

Stating that the deceased have been identified as Abu Hanifa and Riyazuddin, the SP said their parents have registered a complaint with the police and investigations are on.

Although some incidents of cattle thieves being thrashed by the mob have been reported from Assam earlier, this is the first casualty after cases of cow vigilantism have been reported in recent times across the nation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
lovers, rejoice! A couple of pints of your favourite drink may be a better pain reliever than paracetamol, new research claims.

Researchers from Greenwich University in the UK looked at 18 studies involving more than 400 participants.

They analysed if drinking could blunt the sensation of pain by acting on brain receptors or if it could lower anxiety, which then reduces the perception of discomfort.

The researchers found that the more people consumed, the less pain they felt.

"We have found strong evidence that alcohol is an effective painkiller," Trevor Thompson from Greenwich University was quoted as saying by 'The Sun.

"It can be compared to opioid drugs such as codeine and the effect is more powerful than paracetamol," Thompson said.

The findings suggest that alcohol is an effective analgesic that delivers clinically-relevant reductions in ratings of pain intensity, researchers said.

This could explain alcohol misuse in those with persistent pain, despite its potential consequences for long-term health, they said.

"If we can make a drug without the harmful side-effects then we could have something that is potentially better than what is out there at the moment," Thompson added.

The findings were published in the Journal of Pain.
Microlender Inclusion today reported a net loss of Rs 234.92 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, mainly due to write-offs of Rs 334.56 crore.

Bharat Financial, formerly SKS Microfinance, had made a net profit of Rs 84.47 crore during the corresponding January-March quarter of 2015-16.

At the board meeting held today, the company said it was authorised to "appoint consultants, advisers as well as bankers to map and evaluate strategic options including induction of strategic investors, strategic alliance, merger with or acquisition of a bank/financial institution."

The announcement holds significance against the backdrop of speculations of its merger or acquisition with/by mid-sized private lender IndusInd Bank.

IndusInd Bank earlier in March had hinted that it was in talks with various entities, including Bharat Financial, to expand the business.

"... In the changing landscape of microfinance sector in the country, the company continues to explore a range of strategic options," said in a filing.

Bharat Financial's total income during the March quarter of 2016-17 was at Rs 409.31 crore, up from Rs 370.31 crore in the same period a year ago, according to a regulatory filing.

There were write-offs to the tune of Rs 334.56 crore during the quarter, sharply up from Rs 13.92 crore a year ago.

Expenses related to employee benefits and finance costs were also higher in the quarter compared to the same in the year-ago quarter.

The firm has been taking technology initiatives and in-house solutions, the last mile cashless transaction points to expand products and services, it said.

said it has completed a successful pilot project to scale up coverage.
Objecting to Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu's comments that 'triple talaq' has no sanction in Shariat, MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi today accused BJP leaders of being "selective" in talking about rights of Muslim women.

He alleged the BJP was raising the issues like triple talaq with a motive of keeping the "communal pot boiling".

"Talking about Muslim women's rights, why Naidu is not speaking about rights of Pehlu Khan's (who was allegedly lynched by cow vigilantes in Alwar) blind mother?



"Why Naidu is not speaking about rights of Zakia Jafri? (widow of ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots)...So, this selective talking about rights is not acceptable to us," Owaisi told reporters.

Though Prime Minister spoke against politicising (triple Talaq issue), Naidu and a minister in Uttar Pradesh still talked about the matter, he said.

"Basically, BJP wants to keep this communal pot boiling. On 11th of May, supreme court is going to start hearing. So, why is BJP talking before supreme court? If they have (something to say), let them go and speak in the supreme court. But, they want to keep the communal pot boiling," the Hyderabad MP said.

Naidu yesterday said here that triple talaq is not a religious issue as it has no sanction in Shariat.

"Triple Talaq is not a religious issue as it has no sanction in Shariat. It is a matter of right of equality and right to live with dignity of Muslim women along with other women.

"Why this discrimination...This must be put to an end and it should not be politicised," the minister said.

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The CBI today questioned UPSC member Chattar Singh in connection with its probe into alleged irregularities in the allocation of industrial plots at Panchkula in which former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is also named as an accused.

According to the FIR, industrial plots were given to 14 people by allegedly manipulating certain provisions of allotment which included allowing them to submit their applications even after the last date of submission ended.

The 14 people who had been allotted lands had submitted their applications on January 24, 2012 whereas the last date of submission was January 6, 2012, the FIR has alleged.

Singh, a former IAS officer of 1980-batch, was Additional Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister between 2009-13.

The case which was handed over from the vigilance bureau of Haryana to the CBI has named "the then Chairman of HUDA" which was Hooda, being the then Chief Minister of Haryana, three former bureaucrats, 13 beneficiaries and unknown officials of the authority and state government.

The FIR also alleged that ineligible beneficiaries were allotted plots at rates lesser than the prevailing market rates, causing financial loss to the tune of several crores of rupees to the state exchequer.

It is alleged that the 14 plots, ranging from 496 square metres to 1,280 square metres, were allegedly allotted at throwaway prices after changes were made midway in the eligibility criteria.

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With only 13 states and UTs notifying rules under the realty law that came into effect today, apex body CREDAI expects that the remaining will soon implement this law and asked member developers not to panic.

CREDAI will hold workshops across the country to help its over 10,000 member developers prepare for compliance of provisions of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, its national President Jaxay Shah said.

The law has the potential to revive the sluggish property market and help improve housing demand as buyers' and investors' confidence will increase after implementation of this law, he said, but felt that supply could be affected this year.

"I have requested all our members, particularly small developers, not to panic. All states will implement this law. We are in dialogues with state governments," Shah told PTI.

Rating agency ICRA said the expected benefit of this law would accrue only if regulatory infrastructure is put in place to implement the provisions in letter and spirit.

"As on date, only seven states have notified the required rules, resulting in a lower compliance ratio, to start with. The absence of a regulator or appropriate rules can result in a regulatory vacuum and dilution of the Act's provisions," said K Ravichandran, ICRA Senior V-P and Group Head Corporate Ratings.

ICRA said that since registration with the RERA has been made mandatory for any project to be marketed and sold, further delay in setting up regulatory infrastructure could impact the operations of real estate developers.

Knight Frank India CMD Shishir Baijal said, "It is good that brokers have been brought within the ambit of RERA and any deviation would invite penal actions. Although there would be teething problems, the move will see the emergence of a new consolidated broking fraternity."



Bengaluru-based Puravankara Ltd MD Ashish R Puravankara believes that the RERA will be a game-changer for the overall industry and boost customer and investor confidence.

Rohit Gera, Vice-President, CREDAI (Pune), said the risks of delayed delivery, poor quality of construction, changes in the final product from what was promised, sales made without permits and developers running out of money on account of fiscal indiscipline will now all be borne by developers.

India Mortgage Guarantee Corporation CEO Amitava Mehra said the law will safeguard the interests of buyers and bring more transparency to the sector.

However, Mehra said care needs to be taken so that the approval processes, which are required in advance, do not become a bottleneck in adding to the inventory.

Supertech CMD R K Arora said the law will make the environment positive. "With the implementation of the Act, the interest of the end buyers will be safeguarded and it is expected that the fence-sitters may begin to consider their options to buy."



Rattan Hawelia, founder and Chairman, Hawelia Group, said this law will eliminate fly-by-night operators. Ashok Atri, Director Delhi Infratech Ltd, said real estate prices could increase with this law coming into effect.

Colliers International India Associate Director Valuation and Advisory Services Amit Chawla said it is a positive move towards giving structure to one of the biggest revenue contributors and employment-generating sectors.

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Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's wife today withdrew her application from a special court in which she had urged the court not to take cognisance of a CBI charge sheet filed against the couple into a disproportionate assets case.

After she withdrew the application, Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal put up the matter for May 3 for decision on taking cognisance of the final report filed against Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and others alleging that the Chief Minister had amassed assets worth Rs 10 crore which were disproportionate by 192 per cent to his total income during his tenure as a Union Minister.

The court allowed Pratibha Singh's counsel to withdraw the plea, giving him liberty to move it again at a later stage if he wished to.

In her application moved before the court on April 24, the politician's wife had urged that the court to first decide whether the material relied upon by the CBI in its final report, which was reportedly collected during its probe in the state without taking the Himachal Pradesh government's approval, can be considered for the purpose of cognisance by the judge or not.

In her plea, moved through advocate Vijay Aggarwal, she had claimed that the consent of the concerned state government was a mandatory pre-requisite for the CBI to derive jurisdiction to carry out investigation in any area within the territorial limit of the state.

The court was hearing the matter in which the CBI had filed a charge sheet against nine people on March 31 for alleged offences of abetment and forgery, punishable under Indian Penal Code and other offence punishable under Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency has arrayed around 225 witnesses and 442 documents.

Besides the 82-year-old Congress leader and his wife, the CBI has also named LIC agency Anand Chauhan, Universal Apple Associate owner Chunni Lal Chauhan, stamp paper vendor Joginder Singh Ghalta, MD of Tarani Infrastructure V Chandrasekhar among others as accused, charging them with criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption among others.

Chauhan was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from Chandigarh on July 9 last year in a money laundering case filed it on the basis of CBI complaint and is currently in the judicial custody. The court had on September 7 last year taken cognisance of the final report against him.

The apex court had on November 5 last year transferred politician's plea from Himachal Pradesh High Court to Delhi High Court.

Both charge sheets by CBI and ED are the outcome of the same offence as alleged by the two agencies. In the final report filed by the ED, the chief minister has not been arrayed as an accused but a witness.

The ED charge sheet was filed for offence of money- laundering, punishable under Prevention of Money Laundering Act Act.

The ED has said Singh "while serving as a Union minister had invested huge amounts in purchasing LIC policies in his own name and those of his family members through Chauhan".

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The National Green Tribunal has directed the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to submit copies of water bills generated by it to the Delhi police to ascertain their water consumption.

A bench headed by Justice Jawad Rahim asked DJB to furnish the particulars with regard to the charges for water consumption payable by the police department within two weeks.

"The police department shall, within one week after receipt of the bills, file their response if any," the bench said while posting the matter for hearing on May 19.

The NGT was hearing a plea filed by Delhi resident Sanjay Kumar who had claimed that he has learnt through RTI replies that Delhi Police has not paid its water bills to DJB amounting to over Rs 232 crore.

The police told the tribunal that they have already paid approximately Rs 65 crore after the filing of this petition and DJB has till date not given them separate bill for the consumption of water.

DJB counsel said it provided bulk connections to various government departments and if any separate meter has to be installed, then an application for a fresh connection is needed.

The plea, filed through advocate Gaurav Bansal, had sought directions to the Delhi Police to pay pending water bills including cess to the Delhi Government so that the amount could be used by the latter for the welfare of the people of National Capital.

Earlier, the police had claimed that DJB was claiming commercial rates for its residential complexes and had no specific record of the water connections installed at various locations.

It had also said that the Jal Board had no proof of the bills and meter readings in respect of their pending claims because majority of the bills were 8-10 years old.

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A Gurgaon-based engineer drowned while bathing in Ganga in Rishikesh.

Neeraj Kumar (26), who worked as an engineer in a firm in Gurgaon, had come in a group of six persons to spend the weekend here.

Neeraj along with his friends went to take a dip in the Ganga at around 4 last evening, Muni-ki-Reti police station inspector in-charge Ravi Kumar said.

The group was bathing at Shivpuri ghat but Neeraj swam further down the river leaving rest of his friends behind and drowned, he said.

On receiving information about the incident, police and SDRF personnel dived into the river to scour for Neeraj and after a prolonged search his body was recovered, he said.

Neeraj, who hailed from Ballabhgarh in Faridabad district, was an engineer with the Dental Hydraulic company at Manesar, Gurgaon, the official said, adding his family has been informed of the tragic incident.

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State-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd today said it has awarded natural gas pipeline laying work contracts for 131-km in Kerala.

With this award, 75 per cent of the Kochi-Koottanad- Mangaluru pipeline is now in construction phase.

The 131-km section from Areacode (Malappuram) to Kurumathoor (Kannur) will cost about Rs 200 crore, the company said in a statement here.

The balance 111-km stretch in Malappuram, Kannur and Kasargod districts will be awarded by July 2017.

"Construction works from both the ends of the Kochi- Koottanad-Mangaluru pipeline -- in the 91 Km Kochi-Koottanad section as well as in the 105 km Perole (Kasargod) - Mangaluru section are already in full swing," it said.

GAIL said it has made substantial progress in acquisition of Right of User due to the continued support of the state government, administration, police and the public at large.

The Kochi-Koottanad-Mangaluru pipeline has been stuck for years because of problems in getting land for laying the line.

GAIL is targeting to complete the entire Kochi- Koottanad-Mangaluru Pipeline by December 2018, the statement added.

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Haryana PWD minister Rao Narbir Singh today asked the Sub-Divisional Magistrate Bharat Bhushan Gogia to hold a meeting between parents of the students and School Management of DPSG over fee hike.

After hearing the grievances of the both sides, Gogia directed the school management not to take action against the students who are not able to deposit the fees.

He also directed the management of Delhi Public School Ghaziabad (DPSG) not to charge late fee until the matter was resolved.

"The school management has almost 60 to 70 per cent hiked in fees which forced us to protest against the school demanding roll back. The management is hiking the fee this session. Earlier, the students who had paid up to Rs 8,000 tuition fee for three months are now being forced to pay Rs 16,000," alleged Maya Goel, a mother of 6th class student.

Gogia asked the school management including its Academic Director, N M Bhatia and Principal, Deepika Sharma to empathise with the problems being faced by the parents and students.

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The Delhi High Court today directed a private hospital here to immediately grant permission to a woman for donating one of her kidneys to her son-in-law's father, whose both kidneys have stopped functioning two years ago.

The court pulled up Max Super Speciality Hospital, Shalimar Bagh in north Delhi for not granting permission for donating the organ on the ground that there were some financial transactions between the two families.

"It is normal in the Indian society for a son-in-law to help in-laws in need," Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva said.

The court also noted that patient-petitioner Sanjay Yogi Goel, who had filed the plea through his wife, was undergoing dialysis thrice a week and his condition was deteriorating.

"The case is pending since March 2017. In view of this, the authorisation committee (of Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh) is directed to forthwith grant permission to the proposed donor (woman) to donate one of her kidneys to the proposed donee (Goel)," the judge said.

The court passed the order while disposing of Goel's petition filed through advocates Rajiv Bajaj and Paras Chawla, seeking quashing of the hospital authority's decision denying permission for donating the organ and a direction to permit the man to undergo kidney transplant operation at the hospital.

The counsel said the hospital's authorisation committee had rejected the case of petitioner under the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act, 1994 without giving reasons.

They said there is a family connection between the proposed donor and the recipient and there was no commercial financial transaction, as prohibited under the Act.

The man had also filed an appeal before the appellate authority which also refused to grant permission.

The court while passing the order said the appellate authority has shut its eyes to the relationship of the parties which is that of a close relation, if not mere relatives.

Goel said that his other family members could not donate a kidney due to medical or personal reasons and the woman has stated in her affidavit that she was ready to donate the organ of her free will.

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Hindu couples should have eight children each to protect their religion, a prominent religious leader has said.

The advice to follow the 'we two and our eight' formula came from Swami Prabodhananda Giri, the national president of Sanatan Dharma Mahasangh, when he was addressing an event at the in Lakhipur here on Saturday



"In the present times, there is threat to Hindutva and to protect it is responsibility of every Hindu. For this, every Hindu should produce eight children so that he can contribute towards conserving, preserving and protecting Hindutva and the society.

"Hindus should follow - we two, our eight - formula," Giri said.

To promote family planning in the country, the government had in the past introduced the 'Hum do, hamare do' (We two, our two) slogan.

At the event which was organised at the Pawan Van Vihar Ashram, Mahora in Lakhipur here, Giri also said that for safety of Hindus, 'Hindu Raksha Dal' had been constituted and that it would be spread in the entire state.

He praised Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath saying that he would create history in the state and by banning cow slaughter and had already made a good start.

He lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that for the first time India has got "a good PM" and added that the country needed a PM devoted to the cause of Hindutva.

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A regional manager of Himachal Road Transport Corporation and two others were today arrested near here with 4.4 kg of chitta (synthetic drugs) worth Rs 2.50 crore in the international market.

Shimla Police stopped Mohinder Rana's official vehicle at Shoghi checkpost, 13 km from here and upon searching found the drugs, a police official said.

State Transport Minister G S Bali said that Rana has tarnished the image of the Corporation and has been suspended with immediate effect.

He said that the seized drugs are worth around Rs 2.5 crore in the international market.

Rana has been suspended in the past also but then BJP- ruled state government reinstated him in 2008.

Police also arrested two persons-- Vikas and Rajiv who were travelling along with Rana.

All of them would be produced in the court, police said.

Bali said that it is a very serious matter and a thorough probe will be ordered into the matter.

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India today gifted nearly 50 vehicles and motorcycles worth about Nepali Rupees 90 million to Nepal for the May 14 local polls, the first to be held in over two decades.

India's Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri handed over different types of vehicles to Chief Election Commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav at a programme held at the Election Commission's office.

The vehicles include 35 double cabin pickups, seven jeeps, four sedan cars, one XUV car, minibus, microbus, 30 motorcycles and seven scooters worth Nepali Rupees 89.17 million, a statement said.

Puri congratulated the Election Commission for making extensive preparations for the upcoming local level polls, it said.

Speaking on the occasion, Yadav thanked India for the extensive support for the upcoming election.

The vehicles would be used in different parts of the country during the local body elections.

Earlier, a media report said China had become the first country to offer assistance to Nepal for the elections.

Apart from the financial aid of nine million Yuan announced during Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda's visit to China in March, a tranche of election-related materials arrived in Kathmandu from Beijing.

Nepal has also purchased 30,000 ballot boxes from China, the report had said.

The Nepal government has tabled a new Constitution amendment bill in Parliament to address the demands of the agitating Madhesi parties which are demanding more representation and re-demarcation of state boundaries ahead of the local elections.

According to the new bill, the government may form a federal commission to recommend it on the issues relating to the number of provinces and their boundaries.

Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, launched a prolonged agitation between September 2015 and February last year against the implementation of the new Constitution which they felt marginalised the Terai community.

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Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao today inaugurated "Kalam Library" at two places, where reading materials will be available mainly for the underprivileged children and youths residing in slums.

Kalam Library was inaugurated at Chembur in the suburbs and Colaba in South Mumbai on the occasion of Maharashtra Day, according to a senior associate of the Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Centre, an NGO which is managing these facilities.

The NGO works to spread the mission and vision of the former President.

"These two libraries have been set up with the association of Wockhardt Foundation and I Love Mumbai (both NGOs) in Colaba and Chembur for the underprivileged children and youth living in slums," said a senior programme manager of the Abdul Kalam Centre.

Besides Governor, Shaina NC from I Love Mumbai and Samina Khorakiwala from Wockhardt Foundation, among others, were present on the occasion.

The governor also launched the Dreamathon Campaign in the city by welcoming the 'Missile of Dreams' van to Maharashtra.

Highlighting the objective of the campaign, the senior programmer said the 'Missile of Dreams' will travel all over India, taking entries from one million youth on what is their dream for a better India and how do they see themselves fulfilling it.

Srijan Pal Singh, CEO of the Abdul Kalam Centre said, "I am very happy to see our Dreamathon Campaign touching so many lives across the country. Through both these initiatives (the library and the campaign), we wish to provide opportunities to young Mumbaikars to make global connections, build bridges between communities through the world of books along with value-based recreational and educational activities.

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In a clear message to visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had advocated a multilateral dialogue to resolve Kashmir issue, India today asserted that it is a Indo-Pak bilateral matter, essentially due to cross-border terrorism.

The virtual rejection of Erdogan's suggestion came in the course of his discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during which the two countries held that "no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism" and decided to work together to deepen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace.

Erdogan also assured India of his country's full support in the fight against terrorism as he held "extensive" discussion on this evolving threat with Modi, who described it as a "shared worry".

However, Modi-Erdogan meeting came in the shadow of Turkish president's comments on Kashmir, made during a TV interview ahead of his visit to India.

Erdogan had said, "We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all."



The remarks were not well received here as they were contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

Asked if the Kashmir issue or Erdogan's proposal of multilateral dialogue to resolve it figured during the meeting between the two leaders, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay said India's position that Kashmir is its integral part is very sharp and publicly known.

"We conveyed our viewpoint clearly on terrorism and Kashmir (to the Turkish side). It was made clear that there cannot be any justification for terrorism whatever is the intent. We clearly conveyed that the issue of Kashmir is essentially an issue of terrorism.

"We told them that we have been victims of cross-border terrorism and and state-sponsored terrorism for 40 years. As far as Kashmir issue is concerned, we have always been ready to resolve it with Pakistan. Not only Kashmir but also all other bilateral issues should be resolved in a peaceful manner," Baglay said.

He also said that the government has made many attempts to have bilateral talks with Pakistan to address issues, including Kashmir as per the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.

Asked about the response of the Turkish side, Baglay said they heard it "care and attention".

India's discussion on Kashmir with Turkey came on a day when two Indian security personnel were beheaded by Pakistan army in Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier, addressing a joint media event with Erdogan, Modi said countries across the world need to "work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists", in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror groups.

The international community also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence, the prime minister added.

Condemning the Naxal attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 in Sukma, in which 25 of them were killed, Erdogan said, "Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."



Asked if there was a difference of opinion on the definition of terrorism as Modi talked about cross-border terrorists and Erdogan mentioned the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO), Baglay said there was a convergence on condemning terrorism and an agreement that it was a menace which needed to be tackled effectively.

The spokesperson also said the Turkish side mentioned the presence of FETO (in India). "Any organisation in India has to work within the parameters of our laws, rules and regulations," he added, without mentioning if India has assured action against the group.

During his statement, the Turkish president had referred to the FETO, saying the outfit is active in 170 countries. He said the Turkish government has informed the countries about FETO's operations and hoped India will take action against it.

After a failed coup in July last year to topple Erdogan, Turkey had blamed the FETO for it and said the outfit has "infiltrated" India. Turkey had also asked India to take action against the organisation.

"We will never bow down to terrorism or the propaganda of the terror outfits," Erdogan, who also invoked Mahatma Gandhi, said. He said terror outfits will never be able to "shackle our resolve" to combat the menace.

Modi and the Turkish leader had a comprehensive discussion and took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic, the external affairs ministry said.

Referring to changing times where societies face new threats and challenges every day, Modi said the context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are "our common concern".

"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," the prime minister said.

The two leaders, who addressed a India-Turkey business forum earlier in the day, also pitched for enhanced trade and business ties.

Observing that India and Turkey are two large economies which present an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages, Modi said at the level of the two governments, there is a need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner.

"Our bilateral trade turnover of around 6 billion dollars does not do full justice to convergences in our economies. Clearly, the business and industry on both sides can do much more," he added.

He further said, "We would like to encourage stronger partnership of Turkish companies with our flagship programmes and projects, either on their own or in collaboration with the Indian companies."



Erdogan also emphasised the need to increase bilateral trade to at least USD 10 billion, as soon as possible, and added that the countries will look at ways to expand cooperation in the energy and infrastructure sectors, in particular.

After the Modi-Erdogan meet, the two sides exchanged three pacts, including one between their telecom authorities.

In his media statement, Modi also referred to Rumi and Sufi tradition in India. "While Rumi found his home in Turkey, his legacy continues to enrich the Sufi traditions of India as well," he said.

Modi also thanked Erdogan for his country's support to India's aspiration for Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership as well as other export control regimes like Missile Technology Control Regime.

Turkey has been maintaining that the NSG should come out with a system to consider the entry of countries which are not signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has also supported Pakistan's case for NSG membership.

There was also convergence on United Nations Security Councilreforms during the meeting of the two leaders, Baglay said.

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A court here today acquitted Khalistan Tiger Force terrorist Ramandeep Singh Goldy in a blast case of 2010 due to lack of evidence.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravideep Singh Hundal granted him the reprieve after the prosecution could not convince the court why the eyewitnesses took so long to record their statements, defence lawyer B S Sodhi said.

On April 20, 2010, the blast rocked the Arya Samaj area - a busy market place in interior Patiala city - near the popular Satyanarayan Mandir. Seven persons, including two policemen, were injured in the blast.

Goldy was arrested by Punjab Police from Malaysia in 2014.

All the other accused were also acquitted earlier.

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The Left trade unions here today called for intensive struggle against the no-liberal and privatisation policies of the Narendra Modi government.

The Left trade unions in Kolkata organised a programme to observe International Workers' Day or May Day. Several small street corner meetings were organised to observe the day.

"The Modi government is a anti-people government and every decision taken by this government is against the interests of the workers. The only way to fight against this government is intensive struggle against this government," CITU leader Dipak Dasgupta said.

Dasgupta also accused the TMC government of being ignorant towards the interests of the working class in the state.

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Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis tonight went on an inspection visit of the work of entire route of Metro 3 from SEEPZ to Colaba with senior MMRDA officials.

Metro 3 is a 33.5-km-long underground corridor running along Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ.

Length of the corridor is marked with 27 stations out of which 26 will be underground.

Officials in the Chief Minister's Office said Fadnavis started his visit from Azad Maidan in South Mumbai at 11.45 PM and will tour the entire stretch till Seepz in Andheri.

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Madras High Court has directed that a distance be maintained between a state run TASMAC liquor shop and an old age home at a village in Coimbatore district,though a government rule of 2003 does not specifically state it.

The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar in its recent order on a PIL from one P Raju, who sought a direction to authorities to not shift the liquor shop from alongside a highway to near the Home.

The bench said though Rule 8 of Tamil Nadu Liquor Retail vending rules 2003 does not specifically mention an old age home, keeping in mind distances to be mantained from places of worship, educational institutions and the like, it felt that distance should be maintained from old-age home, particularly one where most immates are women under care of Psychiatrists.

Raju,President of Ayyampalayam village Panchayat,Pollachi North Union, submitted that as per the Supreme Court order the TASMAC shops should be removed from National and State High Ways from such a distance already prescribed in the schedule.

The Government under the guise of relocating the shops was trying to shift one such shop near an Old age home, where some inmates were taking treatment for psychiatric problems.

If the shop is shifted to the spot, it would affect the peaceful life of the public, particularly the inmates,he said.

Raju said he was constrained to file this petition as his earlier representations to the government, including that one given on March 31 2017, had not evoked any response.

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Trade unions affiliated to various political parties in the Union Territory celebrated May Day with zeal and enthusiasm here today.

The CITU, AITUC, INTUC and other trade unions held special programmes to mark the day.

Lt Governor Kiran Bedi, Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, Labour Minister M Kandasamy and leaders of various political parties greeted the working class on the occasion.

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It was exactly 94 years ago in Madras that May Day was first observed in India to fight for the rights of the working classes.

Led by M Singaravelar, leader of Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan, the day was dedicated to workers, with a function being held at Marina Beach here in 1923 to mark the occasion.

A Congress party leader, he later broke ranks with it and aided the setting up of the Communist Party of India in 1925. A staunch supporter of the Self-Respect Movement, he fought especially for the rights of the Backward Classes.

Also, Madras (now Chennai) has the distinction of forming the first organised trade union, the "Madras Labour Union," on April 27, 1918 here to strive for workers' rights.

It led to setting up of several other trade unions, including those of tramway and railway workers, enabling them have the power of collective bargain with managements.

Reminiscing the May Day history, plight of workers and contribution of leaders like Singaravelar, CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP T K Rangarajan told PTI that neo-liberal policies went against the interests of workers.

The amendments being brought by the Centre in labour laws showed that the government wanted to put the working classes at the "mercy" of capitalists, he alleged.

"Struggle is already on against anti-labour measures and it is the only way out," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Labour Day message, has hailed the hard work of countless workers who play a big role in India's progress.

"Today, on Labour Day we salute the determination and hard work of countless workers who play a big role in India's progress. Shrameva Jayate," he said.

May Day was celebrated with zeal in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where the Left parties have a robust organisational structure.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Left Front government was committed to the welfare of workers in all sectors.

In his May Day message, he listed out the various welfare initiates of the government after it assumed office in May last year.

Opening of closed cashew factories, disbursement of welfare pension arrears, revising basic wages of workers in different areas and creation of new job opportunities in traditional industries sector were some of the pro working class initiative of the government, the CPI(M) leader said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi Police today arrested two men who had allegedly barged into the residence of BJP MP Manoj Tiwari and attacked his staff members, with the Bhojpuri star-turned-politician alleging the episode smacked of "conspiracy".

The police, which had initially dubbed the case as arising of "road rage", later said the matter appeared to be a "conspiracy", as claimed by Tiwari, who is also the Delhi unit chief of the BJP.

The incident occurred around 1.30 AM when Tiwari's staffers were in a vehicle which brushed past the duo's car while taking a turn near the MP's residence in Lutyen's Delhi, police officials said.

The two men, identified as brothers Jai Kumar and Jaswant, got agitated and called up their friends who arrived in a tempo armed with iron rods and sticks, and got into the residence of Tiwari, they said.

Once inside the premises, they roughed up three of his staff members using the rods and the sticks, even as the act was being captured in a CCTV camera there, a senior police official said.

One of the staff members informed the police, which son rushed to the spot and held the two main suspects.

On the basis of the CCTV footage police are trying to find the other accused, said the officer.

Tiwari, MP from North East Delhi, has alleged a conspiracy behind the attack on his personal assistant, cook and driver and the ransacking of his residence.

"My residence at 159 North Avenue has been ransacked by 8 to 9 people," he tweeted.

"It looks like a conspiracy and the police are involved in it. No one should be spared," Tiwari said.

Tiwari's aides claimed that the group, which had entered the bungalow through the gate meant for public entry, also abused them while demanding to see Tiwari, who was not at home then.

A couple of hours after Tiwari's allegation, the Delhi Police said the matter appeared to be a "conspiracy".

Earlier, the police had said it appeared to be a case of "road rage" but after Tiwari called it an "act of conspiracy" and accused , police also agreed to what he said.

Following the attack, the BJP leader has demanded better security from the police.

Mukesh Kumar Meena, special commissioner of police, New Delhi range, also said the incident does not appear to be a case of simple road rage.

"An accident happened initially. It's not a case of simple road rage. The attackers collected in an organised way with rods and sticks and then trespassed into the MP's house," he added.

"It appears to be a case of conspiracy. What was the purpose of them entering the MP's residence and inquiring about his presence? Had the MP been there, the situation could have been worse. We are taking it very seriously," said Meena.

The officer said the FIR has sections of rioting, trespass and attempt to commit culpable homicide.

The police, meanwhile, have arrested the two brothers and are questioning them to find details about the other accused.

In the CCTV footage, apart from the duo, there are other people who could be seen running amok with rods and sticks, police said.

"We are trying to identify them and are questioning the two persons who are in our custody," they added.

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Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has asked the chief ministers to soon notify the rules under the Real Estate Act, which has come into force today, after only 14 states and union territories doing so.

The minister also expressed "deep concern" over reports that some states/UTs have diluted the key provisions of the Act.

"You would agree that the Act of Parliament has a certain inviolable sanctity and there can no such dilution of the provisions of the Act and the spirit of the Act," Naidu said in his letter to the chief ministers.

He asked the states to set up the regulatory authority and the appellate tribunal under the Act.

"Only Madhya Pradesh has so far reported to have set up the regulator. You would agree that this does not do justice to the concern and the spirit with which Parliament passed this historic legislation," Naidu said.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2016 was passed by Parliament in March last year and all the 92 sections of the Act came into effect from today.

The Act required the states to notify the rules by October 31, 2016 and stipulated that regulatory authorities and tribunals be set up by April 30, 2017.

"It is, however, a matter of concern that the real estate rules have so far notified only in respect of 14 states and UTs," Naidu said.

The states and UTs that have notified are Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, besides Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nager Haveli, Daman & Diu, Delhi, and Lakshadweep.

He said no new projects can be offered by developers to buyers without their registration with the regulatory authority.

This, he said, therefore warrants putting in place the real estate rules, the regulatory authority and the appellate tribunals immediately.

"...I request you to review the progress of implementation of this important Act and draw up a clear road map to ensure that necessary and quick measures are taken to ensure that the Act is implemented in letter and spirit," Naidu said.

He also asked them to inform him of the progress made so far and the course of action proposed in this regard.

Besides, Naidu asked the chief ministers to review the progress of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) scheme in their states.

He asked them to direct the concerned department to speed up the submission of proposals to his ministry under the scheme so that the construction of affordable houses could be completed by 2022.

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A missing hoof of a white stallion belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte has been found in the UK, over 200 years after it helped in carrying the French Emperor into battle for the last time at Waterloo.

The missing fourth hoof belonging to Napoleon's stallion Marengo was found stuffed in a plastic bag in a kitchen drawer.

It had been languishing in a plastic bag at the back of a kitchen drawer in a Somerset farmhouse once owned by the wealthy family who bought Marengo when the injured horse had been nursed back to health after the battle in 1815, The Times reported.

The stallion's skeleton was recently restored and put on display at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, where it is one of the most popular exhibits.

Eagle-eyed visitors noticed that it was missing its original front hoofs.

They were removed by Marengo's last owner, Lieutenant- Colonel William Angerstein, after the horse's death in 1831 and converted by two silversmiths into snuff mills, to be passed around the table after dinner.

One was engraved and presented in 1840 to the officers' mess of the Brigade of Guards at St James' Palace, where it is still in use. The other was missing presumed lost until a few years ago when it was discovered in the farmhouse.

In the intervening years at least six army regiments thought that they had acquired the "missing" hoof, which they proudly displayed along with other trophies of war.

Christopher Joll, a former officer in the Life Guards, identified the hoof found in Somerset as the genuine article.

Joll, who has written a book called Britannia's Spoils about trophies of war, said, "I have been around horses my entire life and I could see immediately they were from the same animal."



"There is a big question over whether this horse was ever called Marengo but there is no doubt he was Napoleon's mount at Waterloo," he was quoted as saying.

On June 18, 1815, Napoleon abandoned his wounded mount and fled the battlefield at Waterloo in a cart.

The horse was found in a ditch by Lieutenant Henry Petre of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, who recognised the imperial brand on his flank and saved him from being turned into barbecued horse steaks by the hungry victors.

Lieutenant Petre nursed the horse back to health and brought him to London, where he was put on display at the Waterloo Rooms in Pall Mall.

When public interest waned he was sold to Angerstein, who was then a captain in the Grenadier Guards, and put out to stud.

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Critical of rating agencies for giving India the lowest investment grade rating, eminent banker has wondered how a country with such "strong fundamentals" on both economic and political fronts can be rated so low.

India continues to be rated 'BBB-' -- just a notch above the junk grade and lowest among investment grade ratings -- by most of the global credit rating agencies despite the government pitching hard for an upgrade on the basis of several reforms initiated over the last few years.

"Why is India, the fastest growing emerging economy for over one year now with all macroeconomic fundamentals being positive, rated just BBB-?

"On the other hand, Italy and Spain, which are far weaker and smaller, are having much higher ratings than us," Parekh told PTI in an interview.

"Italian banks are in far worse shape than our banks. The Italian government is shakier and we have a solid political stability now," he said.

The top industry leader and Chairman of housing finance major HDFC Ltd, who commands huge respect for his candid views on policy matters, said a credit rating is supposed to be based on both economic and political factors.

"Sometimes, when the economic scenario is good, political situation can be bad and at times when politics is in good shape, economic factors can be bad.

"This time, both (factors) are good for us and are very strong. The foundation is strong and we have a strong government," he said.

Asked whether we should focus too much on rating agencies, who themselves have been facing questions, Parekh said they are still global rating companies but made a strong pitch for an upgrade for India.

Some commentators have already raised questions about the methodologies adopted by the rating agencies, even as they have been defending their views and have ruled out any upgrade in the immediate future.

Taking a dig at rating agencies, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian went on to write a piece in this year's Economic Survey with a headline- 'Poor Standards? The Rating Agencies, China and India' -- an apparent reference to the leading agency Standard and Poor's.

He also wrote that the role of ratings agencies has increasingly come into question in recent years.

"In the US financial crisis, questions were raised about their role in certifying as AAA bundles of mortgage-backed securities that had toxic underlying assets. Similarly, their value has been questioned in light of their failure to provide warnings in advance of financial crises -- often downgrades have occurred post facto, a case of closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted," he wrote.

Subramanian said the S&P had, in November 2016, ruled out the scope for an upgrade for India for some considerable period, mainly on the grounds of its low per capita GDP and relatively high fiscal deficit.

Noting that the actual methodology to arrive at a rating was more complex, he wondered whether these variables were right key for assessing India's risk of default.

Noting that per capita GDP is a very slow moving variable, Subramanian said the poorest of the lower middle-income countries would take about 57 years to reach the upper middle-income status.

"So, if this variable is really key to ratings, poorer countries might be provoked into saying -- Please don't bother this year, come back to assess us after half a century," he said.
The three-day 'Odisha Parba 2017' concluded today with large numbers of people attending the cultural event here at the India Gate lawns.

Organised by Odia Samaj, the event was a celebration of the state's culture, tradition, heritage and cuisine.

In the valedictory ceremony of the event, Governor of Jharkhand Draupadi Murmu attended as Chief Guest while Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal was the guest of honour, according to a release.

Inaugurated on April 29 at the India Gate lawns, the final day witnessed with a series of enthralling folk dances of the state.

The 'Hasta Shilpa Haat' exhibition showcased Odisha's authentic artifacts, sculptures and handcrafted textiles.

One of the main highlights of the three-day extravaganza was authentic Odia food that attracted a large crowd.

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Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa today described a proposed deal with India to jointly operate a strategic oil facility as a "betrayal" of Sri Lanka's national asset, as his supporters called for raising of black flags during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit next week.

Addressing a May Day rally in Colombo, Rajapaksa, who leads Joint Opposition camp, said that Trincomalee's oil tanks preserved as national asset by successive governments since independence are to be sold.

"This is a government which auctions all national assets," Rajapaksa said.

The reference was on the proposed deal to start a joint venture with India to utilize the World War II time tanks.

At least 73 of the 99 storage tanks in Trincomalee is to be managed under a new equity arrangement between India and Sri Lanka.

Workers of state-run petroleum company went on a strike last week over the issue. They, however, ended their strike after an assurance from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

One of Rajapaksa' main backers Wimal Weerawansa, a former minister, called for raising of black flags during Modi's visit to Lanka.

"They are trying to sell our country to India," he told the rally.

Modi is due to visit Lanka on May 12 to attend the UN Vesak Day, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha.

The opposition claims Modi is to sign the oil tank deal during his visit despite President Maithripala Sirisena rubbishing it as misinformation.

Modi would only attend the UN 'Vesak Day' celebrations and no bilateral agreements will be signed during his visit to Lanka, President Sirisena has said.

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Two senior doctors and three paramedics have been arrested in Pakistan for allegedly running a major organ trade racket since 2009 involving recipients from Gulf countries.

The two doctors of public hospitals were taken into custody during a raid at a posh locality here. Two donors and as many foreign recipients have been shifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.

"Besides arresting two senior doctors - Fawad Mumtaz and Altamash Kheral of Lahore General Hospital and three paramedics - we have taken four Omani nationals into custody who had come here for organ transplant. This racket has been operating in the country since 2009 and exploiting a number of people here to oblige its clients in Gulf countries," Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) investigator Jamil Ahmed Khan told PTI.

He said both doctors during interrogation revealed that they have been looking for clients in the Gulf countries through an agent stationed in Oman since 2009.

"They along with their other accomplices are also operating in Rawalpindi and Pakistan occupied Kashmir. They would charge an average 6 million Pakistani rupees to 7 million Pakistani rupees from a foreign client (recipient of a kidney) and pay just over 100,000 Pakistani rupees to a poor donor," he said, adding the doctors have made a windfall in this illegal business of organ transplant.

Talking about the plight of the donors, the FIA official said 20-year-old Nahid Akhtar and rickshaw driver Muhammad Aamir were operated upon by the doctors in an operation theatre set up at a small rented house in the private housing society.

"Nahid's kidney was removed but the doctors failed to transplant it into an Omani national, because of excessive bleeding. Both women were semi-conscious when the FIA raided the house. Similarly, both doctors had taken out Aamir's kidney and were performing procedure on another Omani national. We called ambulances and shifted them to the Mayo Hospital where they are stable now," the official said.

The doctors had paid only 125,000 Pakistani rupees and 130,000 Pakistani rupees to Nahid and Aamir, respectively, while they (doctors) received over 5 million Pakistani rupees from each Omani recipient, he added.

"My family was to pay debt that forced me to sell my kidney to arrange the amount. Extreme poverty made me to do so," Nahid said. Aamir also had the similar story.

The FIA has booked both doctors and three paramedics under Punjab Human Organs and Tissues Act (amended) 2012 and Pakistan Penal Code. The doctors would face up to 10 years of imprisonment with fine up to 10 million rupees.

A few months ago, police sealed a multi-storey hospital in Rawalpindi for illegal organ transplant and detained 24 people.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), every year thousands of people from Europe, Middle East, the US and Australia come to India, Pakistan, China, Egypt, the Philippines and other countries in search of poor donors who are willing to give one of their kidneys for financial compensation.

The WHO said up to 10 per cent of the 63,000 kidney transplants that occur annually throughout the world involve donors from developing countries who are unrelated to the recipients.

A common feature of this commercial organ trade is that the donor usually does not receive any post operative care which can lead to grave consequences.

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As much as 69.32 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of wheat has so far arrived in Haryana during the ongoing Rabi marketing Season, whereas over 64.59 Lakh MT of wheat arrived during the corresponding period last year.

Giving this information here today, a spokesman of the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department, Haryana said 69.27 lakh MT arrival of wheat has been purchased by five government procurement agencies at Minimum Support Price, while traders purchased 5,874 MT of wheat.

On wheat procured by government agencies, he said 17.02 lakh MT of wheat has been procured by Food and Supplies Department, whereas HAFED has purchased 24.72 lakh MT of wheat.

He said Food Corporation of India has purchased 8.23 lakh MT of wheat, Haryana Agro Industries Corporation has purchased 6.36 lakh MT, and 12.91 lakh MT of wheat has been procured by Haryana Warehousing Corporation.

He said district Sirsa was leading where 9.69 lakh MT of wheat has so far arrived in the mandis.

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Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel today, officials said.

The Indian Army vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicableact", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the mutilation of the bodies was "reprehensible" and an "extreme form of barbarism".

He said the armed forces will react appropriately to the "inhuman act" and their "sacrifice will not go in vain".

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army. They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

"The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them," the official said.

"Their target was a 7 to 8-member patrol party, which had come out of the post," the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

"Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated," the official said.

"Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning," a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Simultaneously, a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistani Army, the bodies oftwo of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said, adding "Such a despicableact of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded".

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

As per reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

As per a senior BSF officer, at about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from the Pakistani army posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons.

"They attacked with rockets a forward BSF post (which lies) ahead of the fencing and opened heavy fire from automatic weapons. They violated the ceasefire," the BSF officer said.

"It is an attack directly hitting a posts (listening post)", he said.

Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittenly.

In April this year, there were seven ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops along the LOC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.

On April 19, the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch sector.

Two days prior to that, the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by firing and shelling mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector along the LoC in Rajouri district, according to Indian army officials.

They had broken the ceasefire in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

In Digwar sector of Poonch, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

On March 9, army jawan Deepak Jagannath Ghadge was killed when Pakistani soldiers initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing along the LoC in Poonch.

In 2016, there were 228 instances of ceasefire violation along the LoC, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violation along the International Border (IB).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel today, officials said.

The Indian Army vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicableact", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

The Pakistan army denied that it was involved in any attack.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the "sacrifice (of the two killed) will not go in vain" and the Indian armed forces will react "appropriately" to the "inhuman act" of the Pakistani troops.

"This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during war," he said.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army. They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

"The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them," the official said.

"Their target was a 7 to 8-member patrol party, which had come out of the post," the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

"Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated," the official said.

"Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning," a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Simultaneously, a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistani Army, the bodies oftwo of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said, adding, "Such a despicableact of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded to."



According to reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

A senior BSF officer said that at about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from the Pakistani army posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons.

"They attacked with rockets a forward BSF post (which lies) ahead of the fencing and opened heavy fire from automatic weapons. They violated the ceasefire," the BSF officer said.

The Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittenly.

In Islamabad, the Pakistani army said it did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector.

There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which Indian jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated.

On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian Army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector.

In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by a BAT. It had also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion had suffered injuries in the attack.

In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.

During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.

In February, 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Army's 'Ashok Listening Post' in the Nowshera sector to kill seven Indian soldiers.

Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.

In April this year, there were seven ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops along the LOC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan's Punjab government today issued a notification extending the house arrest of Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed and his four aides for 90 days more under the country's anti- terrorism act.

Punjab government spokesman Malik Ahmed Khan, while confirming that the notification for Saeed's arrest has been issued, said, the provincial government will defend its action in the Lahore High Court.

"Jammat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed and his associates -- Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Abdur Rehman Abid, Qazi Kashif Hussain and Abdullah Ubaid -- will remain under house arrest for another 90 days," a senior official of the Punjab province's Home Department told PTI.

"Saeed's Jauhar Town house while other four's Chauburji residence have been declared sub-jail," the official said.

He said their detention has been extended under the country's anti-terrorism act.

The government on January 30 had put Saeed and his four aides under house arrest in Lahore for their alleged involvement in activities prejudicial to peace and security. The house arrest was made for a period of 90 days that ended last night.

According to media reports, the Nawaz Sharif government had detained Saeed after the Trump administration, which had just taken over, had told Pakistan that it may face sanctions if it did not act against JuD and its chief.

The Jamaat-ud Dawah (JuD), the front group of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, and its sister organisation Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), had also been put under terror watch on the basis of a report sent by the ministry of foreign affairs.

Saeed, along with his four aides, has filed a petition in the Lahore High Court challenging his detention through senior advocate A K Dogar.

During the previous hearing on the petition earlier this month, the Punjab government had told the Lahore High Court that no violation of law had been made in their detention as it had reasons to believe that the JuD and FIF are engaged in activities which can be prejudicial to peace and security.

Saeed and his aides allege in their petition that the government detained them without any legal justification.

Saeed was also put under house arrest after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, but he was freed by a court in 2009.

He has a bounty of USD 10 million on his head for his role in terror activities.

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A 40-year-old property dealer was shot dead allegedly over an old enmity in Meerut.

The incident occurred yesterday in Modipuram when Subodh Sharma was returning to Khagoliy from Meerut, police said today.

Police are searching for five persons, including a local Congress leader, in connection with the case.

"All five are absconding," said a police officer.

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh today reviewed security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the Naxal-affected states in the wake of recent violence there.

Singh was briefed about the ground situation in J-K, particularly along the border, where the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by Pakistan Army.

Top security brass, including Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and chiefs of intelligence agencies, briefed the home minister about the steps taken to tighten security along the border, official sources said.

The home minister directed the top officials to ensure strict vigil along the International Border, which is guarded by the BSF.

In the Naxal-affected states, the home minister has been told, the security forces were continuing their operations against the ultras in areas like Sukma, where 25 CRPF personnel were killed by the Left-Wing Extremists on April 24.

The home ministry has already directed the security forces engaged in anti-Naxal operations to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures to foil Maoists attempts to attack them.

Continuing unrest in Kashmir valley was also discussed in the meeting.

Tension in the valley has been continuing since the April 9 bypoll to the Srinagar Lok Sabha when large-scale violence took place that claimed eight lives.

After a few Kashmiri students were threatened in some parts of the country, the home minister had asked all state governments to provide security to Kashmiris living in their states.

He had also asked the states to take strongest possible action anyone harassing Kashmiris.

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Former Congress councillor Balwan Khokhar, serving life term in one of the 1984 riots cases, today blamed his senior party colleague Sajjan Kumar in the Delhi High Court for allegedly ruining his life by making him a scapegoat.

"My life has been ruined by Sajjan Kumar and his lawyers. He (Kumar) himself escaped from conviction in the cases," Khokhar orally submitted before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Anu Malhotra.

He was produced from jail in pursuance to a production warrant issued by the high court.

Khokhar, who is in advanced stage of life and was allowed to make submissions in-person, said as of today, he has been left with nothing and parted away with all his agricutural land to fight the case.

"Today, I do not have anything, including money. His (Kumar) lawyers have also ditched me. This case has cost me everything I had and even my agricultural land has been sold off during the trial," he submitted in the court.

The convict made the statement on being asked by the court whether he will have his own lawyer to defend himself in three different cases reopened by it for retrial and reinvestigation or it should provide him a legal aid counsel.

Khokhar, however, said he needed some time to look for a counsel of his choice, which was allowed by the court.

The bench sought his presence on the next date of hearing in the matter on July 11.

Khokhar was convicted in a riot case in the Delhi Cantonment area in which Kumar was acquitted by the trial court.

The high court, on March 29, had issued show cause notices to 11 accused in five 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases, who were acquitted of the charges, as to why it should not order reinvestigation and retrial against them as they had faced allegations of "horrifying crimes against humanity".

It had also asked the police to produce the complainants in the cases, along with the status of the accused, who were acquitted by the trial court in all the cases.

The Delhi Police today gave details of two complainants, out of the five, and said three of them were not traceable and there was a possibility that one or two might have died. It also said that many of the accused persons have also died.

To this, the bench directed the police to produce proof of those who have died. It also asked the CBI, the prosecuting agency in the case, to produce details with regard to all the five cases which have been weeded out in 2005, so that the arguments could be heard in these matters.

The bench observed that when the trial court was of the view that murder has been committed, but not by the accused, then the records ought to have been preserved for 50 years.

Hardly any investigation was carried out and there has to be fresh probe, the bench said. It separated all the five cases and listed them on different dates for further hearing.

The bench had issued notices to 11 accused, including Khokhar and ex-MLA Mahender Yadav, on the complaints filed regarding rioting incidents on November 1 and 2, 1984 in Delhi Cantonment area.

Khokhar has been serving life term after being convicted for murder in another 1984 anti-Sikh riots case.

The high court had issued the directions to "secure ends of justice" after perusing the trial court records regarding the acquittal of accused in five different cases in 1986 relating to the killing of Sikhs during the riots, which broke out a day after the assassination of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The trial court records were placed before the high court by the CBI during the hearing of another 1984 riot case in which the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and punishment awarded to other convicts, including Khokhar, is under challenge by CBI, the riot victims and convicts.

Finding fault with the trial court judgements, the bench headed by Justice Mittal had said prima facie the verdicts acquitting the accused "reflect a very perfunctory and hasty disposal of the cases which has deeply troubled our judicial conscience".

It had observed that a prima facie consideration of the charge sheet filed before the trial court in 1985 indicated "lip service" to the duty to investigate while the judgements in the five cases reflected no steps or compliance of law and instead showed "haste to scuttle prosecutions and close trials".

The bench had noted that trial in these cases were concluded within three to four months and the final outcome was acquittal of the accused of all the charges.

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Saudi Arabia's ambassador to India Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati met Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi here today and the two discussed various issues related to this year's Haj pilgrimage.

A total of 170,000 Indians can go for the annual pilgrimage.

According to a statement, Naqvi stated that safety of devotees will be the government's priority.

Various issues such as visa process, accommodation and transport facilities for the pilgrims were discussed in the meeting, the statement said.

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Seven Trinamool Congress workers suffered bullet injuries in a clash with a rival faction of the party at Kalahazra in South 24 Parganas district today.

Both the factions attacked each other with lathis, sharp weapons and pistols injuring seven persons. Two houses were also ransacked, police said.

All the injured suffered wounds in hands and legs in the clash.

The clash could be a fallout of an attack on the rival faction by the other camp of the party three days ago, they said.

The injured were admitted to the Basanti hospital.

A police picket was posted in the area.

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BJP president Amit Shah will tomorrow meet party's newly elected MCD councillors and guide them on their works and duties.

BJP sources said its Delhi unit will felicitate Shah for leading the party to a massive victory in the MCD polls.

"He will give Guru Mantra to them and guide them on their works and duties as representatives of people in their wards," said Delhi BJP general secretary Rajesh Bhatia.

Besides the sitting councillors, all BJP candidates in municipal polls, the outgoing councillors, district presidents, and other Delhi unit leaders and workers will attend the function at Civic Centre, which serves as headquarters for South and North Delhi Municipal Corporations.

"The event will also be an occasion to acknowledge the contribution of every party worker who worked hard to ensure BJP's impressive victory," Bhatia said.

The party pulled off a massive victory in the recent elections for three municipal corporations, winning 181 out of a total of 270 wards.

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Beleaguered Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has met his top ministers and aides to discuss options before the government to defuse a simmering civil-military row over a leaked report that had angered the powerful army, according to media reports today.

The meeting in Lahore yesterday followed Pakistan's military rejecting Sharif's move to sack his top aide and Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi.

The military had demanded full implementation of recommendations by a committee which probed a story in the Dawn newspaper last October of a meeting at which civilian leaders confronted the military over its alleged reluctance to halt Islamist groups in the country.

In this connection, the Sharif government is considering to either formally withdraw the contentious notification or to unofficially discard it and issue a separate 'comprehensive' notification through the interior ministry, the Express Tribune quoted sources privy to meeting as saying.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Fawad Hassan Fawad - whose signature was on the notification in question - and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his son Hamza Shehbaz were part of the low-key consultative huddle in Lahore, the report said.

Ruling party sources close to Nawaz said Nisar was unhappy with the issuance of the notification by the Prime Minister's Office. They said the interior minister, who was directly dealing with the Dawn Leaks issue, felt he was 'bypassed' by Sharif's secretary to issue the notification.

Sharif's aides told Nisar that the security establishment's disappointment over the notification stemmed mainly from the fact that it was issued by Fawad, whose own role is being questioned in the Dawn leaks episode, the report said.

On Saturday, the head of the military's media wing had tweeted the defence establishment's disapproval of the Prime Minister's directives, prompting Chaudhry Nisar to observe at a press conference that "institutions don't talk to each other [over Twitter]".

In October, a columnist for Dawn newspaper wrote a front-page story about a rift between civilian and military leaderships over militant groups that operate from Pakistan but engage in proxy war against India and Afghanistan.

"In a blunt, orchestrated and unprecedented warning, the civilian government has informed the military leadership of a growing international isolation of Pakistan and sought consensus on several key actions by the state," the report had said.

The army took strong exception to the Dawn story. The military had called the leak of the meeting a breach of national security and urged strong, punitive action against those responsible for leaking information to the newspaper.

Pakistan's military has always played a crucial role in the country's politics. The army has ruled Pakistan for more than 33 years of the country's 70-year history.

The PML-N government was forced to remove then information minister Pervaiz Rasheed but a probe was also initiated at the demand of army to fix the responsibility. The report was submitted to the prime minister last week.

According to the inquiry report, Fatemi was primarily responsible for leaking the report of the key meeting, and Sharif took action against him.

Meanwhile, the Dawn reported that Prime Minister Sharif has tasked Dar and Nisar to engage the army and allay its reservations regarding actions taken so far in the light of the recommendations of the inquiry committee, while Shahbaz Sharif has been asked to assist the duo.

The paper also noted that Nisar and Shahbaz Sharif are said to enjoy a good rapport among army circles and have met the then army chief Gen Raheel Sharif on a number of occasions to resolve differences between the civilian and military leaderships over certain issues which had cropped up previously.

However, in a message from her Twitter account, the prime minister's daughter Maryam Nawaz denied that any such task was assigned to anyone.

"All statements being attributed to PM on media after the consultative meeting are incorrect. No one has been assigned any task by the PM," her tweet read.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) has urged the government to make public the inquiry committee's report, calling for parliamentary debate on the matter to allay "doubts and misgivings".

In a carefully-worded statement, PPP spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said the "unceremonious sacking" of Fatemi and Principal Information Officer Rao Tehseen Ali, as well as the "unprecedented advice" to the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) to proceed against the editor and reporter concerned had made it "absolutely necessary" that the report should immediately be made public.

Fatemi's removal is considered a setback for Sharif who is already under pressure due to Panama case verdict.

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The BJP's state unit president, Dilip Ghosh today said the people of Bengal may have to vote simultaneously for the Lok Sabha and the state assembly polls in 2019, drawing sharp reactions from the Trinamol Congress.

"I feel instead of 2021, the people of the state may have to vote simultaneously for the Lok Sabha and the assembly elections in 2019," Ghosh said at the party's state executive meeting here.

"Whenever TMC held a meeting in 2009, the CPI(M) used to counter it by holding its own meeting. Now the TMC has started countering us the same way," he said.

Ghosh also charged the TMC with resorting to atrocities and unleashing violence against the BJP workers leading to frequest clashes across West Bengal.

"The TMC is unleashing atrocities against the BJP workers as the party is growing. It is following the footsteps of the CPI-M which used to unleash violence against its political opponents when it was in power in the state," he said.

Ghosh's statement on simultaneous election drew sharp reactions from the ruling TMC and the opposition Congress and Left Front.

"Who is he to decide when the assembly polls will take place? The people of Bengal voted in TMC for five years and we will complete the term. Who are they (BJP) to undermine the verdict of the people?" retorted TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee.

State Congress President Adhir Chowdhury accused the BJP of trying to impose presidential form of government in the country.

"The BJP has no faith in the Constitution. They want to change the Constitution and impose presidential form of government just like the USA. They want to change the country into a Hindu Rastra," Chowdhury told PTI.

The CPI-M leader Sujan Chakrabarty echoed Chowdhury.

Ghosh's comment came in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi making a strong pitch for simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies and urging all parties to consider the suggestion by rising above political consideratins.

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Police today arrested six Maoist sympathisers from Yadadri district and Hyderabad in Telangana and recovered firearms and explosives from them, a senior official said.

"Six Maoist sympathisers were arrested by Siddipet police on the basis of a specific input. Police recovered one revolver, three pistols, 49 live rounds, two magazines and 20 electronic detonators from them," Siddipet police commissioner Shiv Kumar told reporters.

He said that police arrested one R. Swamy, working as a courier for naxalites, from Venkatraopet village in Siddipet district. "Based on the information given by him, raids were conducted in Hyderabad and Yadadri-Bhuvangiri district and five others were arrested today," the police commissioner said.

They are identified as V. Ramachandram, who hails from Nalgonda district in Telangana, Ranjit Kumar, a native of Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh, B. Narasimha Chary and G. Venkatesh (both from Yadari district), and N. Balaswamy, who hails from Siddipet district, the officer said.

He said Ranjit Kumar is the supplier of arms.

"V.Ramchandram had purchased a pistol from Kumar for Rs 60,000 in 2012 whereas R. Swamy recently purchased two pistols, two magazines and 39 bullets for Rs 80,000 from Kumar," he said, adding that several cases are pending against Ramchandram in Nalgonda district.

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Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan today lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Muslims are being troubled in the country and he should be ready for the consequences if the community approached the UN.

"Muslims are being harassed in India and if the community approached the United Nations and narrated their ordeal, then Modi will not be able to show his face anywhere. Stop it otherwise be ready to face the consequences," he told reporters here.

"Muslims follow the holy Quran and will continue to obey it till their last breath, whereas the prime minister is neither aware of Islam nor Hinduism," Khan said.

Hitting out at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, he said there is a big difference between his statements and actions.

Khan said the chief minister talks about acting against illegal land possession and encroachments but he has not acted against a minister in his government who has carried out "unauthorised construction" worth crores of rupees of his house.

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AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh today kicked up a row with comments that the Telangana police has set up a "bogus" ISIS website to radicalise Muslim youth and encourage them to join the terrorist outfit.

Telangana's ruling TRS reacted sharply to the "most irresponsible and reprehensible" remarks of the senior Congress leader and demanded that he withdraw those.

"Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim youth and encouraging them to become ISIS modules," Singh said in a post on his Twitter page.

"The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?



"Is It Ethical? Is it Moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS? If he has then shouldn't he own the responsibility and resign? If he hasn't then shouldn't he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime?" Singh said in a series of tweets.

Following the comments, TRS MLA from Jubilee Hills constituency M Gopi Nath filed a police complaint against the Congress leader seeking action against him.

"We have received a complaint from the MLA that says Digvijaya Singh has defamed the police. We have referred the matter for legal opinion and will proceed as per the legal opinion," Jubilee Hills police station inspector S Venkat Reddy told PTI.

Protesting against Singh's comments, TRS workers in the city burnt his effigy.

The Congress leader's comment drew sharp reaction from TRS, with Telangana Industries and IT Minister K T Rama Rao demanding that Singh withdraw his remarks or provide evidence to back his claim.

"Most irresponsible and reprehensible thing coming from a former CM (of Madhya Pradesh). Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence," Rama Rao, the son of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, tweeted.

Later, talking to reporters on the issue in New Delhi he wanted to know if the Congress high command endorsed Singh's remarks.

The Congress leader, who continues to be the party's general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana after being divested of the charge of Karnataka and Goa on Saturday, said on Twitter that it was after Telangana police's information "that MP police arrested those who were responsible for a bomb blast in a train in Shajapur district".

"It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day," he said.

Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma said the Congress leader's comments would demoralise the police force and lower the image of personnel engaged in fighting anti-national forces.

"Unfounded allegations from a senior, responsible leader will lower the morale and image of police engaged in fighting anti-national forces," Sharma said.

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Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh today urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take strong action against Pakistan in the wake of the mutilation of two Indian soldiers.

"A strong reaction is needed from a prime minister who does not care about political fallout at the cost of national esteem," he told PTI.

The expelled Samajwadi Party leader is in Wagah today as part of a parliamentary delegation vising Indo-Pak border posts.

He said despite attempts by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Modi to improve relations with Pakistan, Islamabad's attitude has not changed.

Singh also slammed China for using Pakistan as its "special purpose vehicle" to create "chaos" in India.

He welcomed the decision of the government to allow the visit of Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh overruling objections by Beijing.

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Tata Motors today reported a 21 per cent decline in total sales in April at 30,972 units as compared to 39,389 units in the same month last year.

Domestic sales of Tata Motors' commercial and passenger vehicles declined by 19 per cent to 28,844 units in April, as compared to 35,604 units in the same month of the previous year.

Sales of passenger vehicles in the domestic market grew 23 per cent to 12,827 units last month.

"While the industry faced short-term headwinds further to the BS III verdict, Tata Motors continued its robust sales performance with a growth of 23 per cent in April led by a strong pipeline for Tiago and a positive response for our new lifestyle UV - Tata HEXA," Tata Motors President Passenger Vehicles Business Unit Mayank Pareek said in a statement.

The company has completed the launch of Tata Tigor across the country and is delighted that it has been well received by customers, he added.

In the commercial vehicles segment, the company's domestic sales were down 36 per cent at 16,017 units, the auto major said.

The company said its commercial vehicles were affected by the Supreme Court judgement on March 29, banning sales of BS- III vehicles,leading to the need for a higher quantity of BS-IV stock for April sales.

"The higher demand at short notice, was not met in production, as vendors struggled to meet with the higher demand, especially in the MHCV segments," it added.

Moreover, after the strong pre-buying of BS-III vehicles in March, and the price increase of BS-IV vehicles especially in the MHCV and buses, demand for BS-IV vehicles was also weak, the company said.

"This is anunusual decline, in exceptional circumstances," Tata Motors said.

The company expects production, wholesales and retails to pick up in May and June, it added.

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Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today urged Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari to provide funds for constructing 'elevated corridors' on the Warangal, Bengaluru and Vijayawada highways to ease traffic.

Rao, who spoke to Gadkari over phone, asked him to sanction Rs 950 crore for the construction of 6.40 kms of elevated corridor from Uppal to Ghatkesar on the Hyderabad- Warangal highway.

He also sought Rs 290 crore for construction of 10 kms of elevated corridor from Aramgarh to Shamshabad Airport on the Hyderabad-Mahabubnagar-Bengaluru road.

Rao demanded Rs 170 crore for the construction of Utility Corridor (including service roads) of 26 kms on the Hyderabad-Suryapet-Vijayawada route, said a release from the Chief Minister's Office.

Gadkari responded positively to the request, the release added.

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Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today laid foundation stone for construction of temporary shelter homes for labourers in seven places and also launched a social security board for workers in unorganised sector.

Patnaik laid foundation stones for the proposed shelter homes for labourers at Cuttack, Jajpur, Paradip and Berhampur through video conferencing.

He had also physically laid foundation stones at three places for temporary shelters in Kharvel Nagar area of the state capital before attending the function marking the State Level Labour Day celebration.

Noting that the state government is committed for the welfare of the labourers, Patnaik said temporary shelter homes with capacity of 1700 beds for labourers would be set up in 21 places across the state.

On welfare of Odia labourers working in Telangana, the Chief Minister said he had a discussion with the Telangana Home and Labour Minister in this regard. "The state government has been working to bring labourers to the mainstream and provide social security to them," he said.

The chief minister pointed out that a number of projects were launched today, including a social security board for workers in unorganised sector, a welfare board for workers in organised sector and a Help Desk for migrant workers in the state of Telangana.

He said that the state government has prepared an action plan worth Rs 134 crore to curb labour migration and for their rehabilitation.

The National Child Labour project has been expanded to remaining six districts of Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Boudh, Phulbani, Bhadrak and Puri. The objective is to ensure Odisha become a child-labour free state, he said.

Odisha Labour minister Prafulla Mallick said the state government will provide houses to labourers at low price in five towns including Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Jajpur, Paradip and Berhampur soon. The houses will be provided through the Odisha Housing and Urban Development Department, Mallick announced.

The Minister said registration of unorganised and domestic labourers will be undertaken through the Construction Workers Welfare Board (CWWB). He further said special action plan would be chalked out to abolish child labour in the state.

Over 18 lakh construction workers have been registered so far in the state. The government has provided Rs 389 crore to more than 7 lakh labourers as assistance under several programmes. The assistance centre has been set up for non-resident Odia workers in various states.

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Terrorists today killed four policemen and two bank officials besides looting a cash van of a bank in Kulgam district of Kashmir, police said.

The cops and the bank officials were killed by the terrorists after dragging them out of their vehicle, DIG south Kashmir S P Pani told PTI.

He said further details of the incident were awaited.
Thailand's junta chief has accepted an invitation to visit the White House from President Donald Trump, his spokesman said today, the latest autocrat to be embraced by the US leader.

The offer came during a phone conversation yesterday night, part of a flurry of calls Trump made to Southeast Asian leaders over the weekend trying to shore up regional support over the troubled Korean peninsula.

Yesterday he extended a White House invitation to Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, whose brutal anti-drugs campaign has claimed thousands of lives and led to warnings from rights groups about possible crimes against humanity.

"The Prime Minister thanked and accepted President Trump's invitation to visit the United States," junta spokesman Major General Werachon Sukhonhapatipak said in a statement, adding that the offer to visit had been reciprocated by Bangkok.

Thailand's former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power three years ago, anointing himself prime minister and ushering in the kingdom's most autocratic government in a generation.

The coup strained ties with the Barack Obama administration as the military jailed dissidents, banned protests and ramped up prosecutions under the kingdom's draconian lese majeste law.

But the generals who now run Thailand -- a former staunch US ally that has moved closer to Beijing since the coup -- know they are now less likely to be berated for their dismal rights record under Trump, who has had much fewer qualms about embracing autocrats.

He also recently called Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a controversial referendum that will dramatically increase his powers.

And Trump's rhetoric towards China, a popular punching bag during the campaign, has noticeably softened since his meeting with President Xi Jinping in Florida last month.

Many Southeast Asian nations have looked to the Trump administration with some trepidation.

He has shown little appetite for his predecessor's Asia "pivot" and he swiftly scrapped the TPP trade deal after taking office.

Trump is due to visit two regional summits -- in Vietnam and the Philippines -- towards the end of the year.

The Thai junta statement was light on specifics but said Trump "had confidence in the Thai government" and that the two countries were ready to "enhance bilateral cooperation in all dimensions".

Like Trump, the arch-royalist general Prayut enjoys berating the media and speaking off the cuff at length, including during weekly "Bringing Happiness Back to Thailand" speeches that are broadcast on all channels.

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The Chainsmokers treated high school students with a surprise as the musical duo performed for them before their concert in Chicago.

The EDM-pop duo, which consists of Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall, took to Twitter to share the picture from the prom.

"Crashed this prom right now. It was across the street from our arena show, so why not," they captioned the photo.

In a 10-minute performance at Huntley, the two sang their one of the biggest hits from this year- "Closer"



While it was a surprise to most participants, the Chainsmokers' prom appearance was actually planned, with the help of school principal Scott Rowe.

"They just kind of came from backstage and just started performing 'Closer.' The kids weren't exactly sure what was going on. About three words in, somebody screamed 'That's The Chainsmokers!' and they just bum-rushed the stage.

"It says a lot about those guys and how cool they are to their fans. It was probably the toughest secret I've ever kept, because I knew the kids were going to go crazy for it," Rowe told the Chicago Daily Herald.

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A tigress has died at the Tata Steel Zoological Park here.

18-year-old tigress, Shanti died at the Zoological Park here on Saturday, a Tata Steel press release said today.

Since last one month, Shanti was under treatment at the Tata zoo hospital due to old age related complications but her condition started deteriorating in the last 15 days.

Shanti had given birth to three healthy cubs Dona (Female), Vivan (Male) and Ahana (Female) who are in the Tata Zoo. The Zoo is now left with four tigers.

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The BJP today charged the Trinamool Congress with resorting to atrocities and unleashing violence against its party workers leading to frequest clashes across West Bengal.

"TMC is unleashing atrocities against the BJP as the party is growing. TMC is following the footsteps of the CPIM which used to unleash violence against the political opponents when it was in power in the state", Ghosh said at the BJP state executive meeting here.

During his three-day visit to the state last week, BJP president Amit Shah had also accused the TMC-government of unleashing atrocities on the people in a way "never seen since Independence".

Ghosh alleged that in Cooch Behar district, TMC was targeting BJP workers at places like Dinhata, Sitai where a large number of supporters of the Forward Bloc, which was earlier strong in the district, had joined the BJP.

"During my visit to Cooch Behar, I had seen that the people there wanted to work for the BJP, but they were intimidated by the TMC", he said.

"The people in the state have shown that they are not happy with the TMC rule and the result of recent Kanthi Assembly by-election was an indication. BJP had finished second although the party organisation is weak there", he said.

TMC Secretary General Partha Chatterjee, while reacting to Ghosh's statement, said that clashes were taking place due to instigation by the BJP.

"Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is trying to develop the state and BJP is trying to prevent it. They will not succeed. Mamata Banerjee is always with the people", he said.

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US President today said he would not rule out meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, saying he would be "honoured to do it," despite weeks of tough talk against the regime.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him I would absolutely. I would be honoured to do it," Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Tensions with North Korea have soared in recent weeks, amid Pyongyang's series of provocative missile tests.

The Trump administration has repeatedly warned, "all options are on the table" when it comes to dealing with North Korea's missile and nuclear programs -- but it also stressed last week it is open to direct talks with Pyongyang.

"If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that," Trump said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today supported India's bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council, even as he called for major reforms in the exclusive body.

Referring to the ongoing fight against the ISIS, the crisis in Syria and countries like the US, Russia and Iran supporting different groups in the region, Erdogan said using one terrorist organisation against another can be counter- productive.

Noting that there are "differences" as well as "commonalities" between the two countries, India and Turkey must "quash" prejudices against each other, he said.

He also said that India-Turkey relations are "significantly behind" their potential and for a fair world both countries have to work together.

"India, with a population of 1.3 billion is not a part of the UNSC. Over 1.7 billion people live in the Islamic world but they too are not a part of the UNSC. A nation like Japan is not a part of the group. This is not a healthy sign. We need a fair and just world order by bringing in significant reforms in the UNSC," Erdogan said here.

The Turkish leader said one cannot expect the UN Security Council to dispense justice without more representation.

The membership of the body should be on a rotational basis with 20 to 30 countries holding the mantle at a time so that all nations get a chance to be a member of the key world body, he said.

"Only five permanent members (the US, Russia, France, China and the UK) have veto power in the UNSC. The non- permanent members' vote does not count. (Then) why do they deceive (the world)? The UNSC cannot dispense justice," the Turkish President said.

Erdogan, who is on a two-day visit to India, was speaking in Turkish at the Jamia Millia Islamia university where he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree.

However, earlier there was opposition from a section of students over honouring Erdogan alleging "he is involved in blatant human rights violation and has become a dictator in Turkey".

Erdogan said the existing global order was "shying away" from dealing with those violating human rights, as he attacked his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad.

Lashing out at ISIS, Erdogan said the terrorist group is "blasphemy" in the name of Islam and has no connection with the religion.

"Terrorism can only be fought by tackling poverty and inequality. It will be unfair to blame religion for terrorism," he said.

Erdogan also urged Indians not to view Turkey from the "prism" of the western media.

"Please, please, please do not follow the western media when you look at Turkey. This is a propaganda against Turkey by the western media and terrorist organisations," he said.

Erdogan also blamed the world community for not doing much while his country was fighting ISIS with full commitment.

He said, Turkey shares a nearly 900 km border with Syria and has accommodated nearly three million Syrian refugees, spending over USD 25 billion on this.

"Yet, the global players are not ready to share the responsibility. The European Union promised USD 3 billion, but has only given USD 750 million," the Turkish president said.

Asserting that he was the only world leader to have visited Somalia, Erdogan said no other leader has visited the terror-hit African nation.

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Nikki Haley didn't wait to take office as US ambassador to the United Nations to break with the Trump administration's foreign policy stances.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Haley bluntly accused Russia of being complicit in war crimes in Syria going against the president-elect's talk of warmer relations with Moscow.

Three months later, she remains boldly off-message. Much to the chagrin of Washington diplomats, her remarks often go well beyond the carefully worded scripts crafted by the White House and State Department.

She's warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that "the days of your arrogance and disregard of humanity are over," even as other top aides to President Donald Trump insisted that his fate was a decision for the Syrian people.

She's pushed human rights as a driver of foreign policy just as the Trump administration showed its willingness to work with leaders who have suppressed civil liberties, such as Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt's Abdel-Fatah el- Sissi.

US diplomats fear Haley's words could result in an inconsistent, incoherent international message. State Department diplomats drafted an email urging Haley's office to ensure that her public statements on high-profile issues are cleared by Washington. The email was first reported by The New York Times.

In some ways, Haley has been ahead of the curve. Her hints at a change in the Syrian government are now seeping into Trump policies, and the administration has toughened its stance on Russia.

She seems to be in Trump's good graces. At a White House luncheon for UN diplomats last week, he said Haley was doing a "fantastic job" but only after awkwardly joking that if the diplomats didn't like her, "she could easily be replaced." Haley, a rookie to international politics, was an unusual pick for to be UN envoy.

As South Carolina governor, she was outspoken in her criticism of Trump during the 2016 campaign a stance that effectively disqualified other candidates for top administration positions.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley alluded to Trump in denouncing "the siren call of the angriest voices" who disrespected America's immigrants. Trump tweeted that "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley."



She has star power in an administration where the president prefers to keep attention on himself. In some ways, the 45-year-old Haley is seizing the spotlight left vacant by media-averse Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Her high- profile persona and relative youth have prompted speculation that she may run for president someday.

The White House and the US Mission to the United Nations declined to comment for this story.

Haley's office falls under the State Department's authority, but administration officials say Haley's staff frequently bypasses the department for policy matters.

They said Haley's deputy, Jon Lerner, a Republican pollster and strategist who helped coordinate the Never Trump movement during the campaign, is in closer contact with senior members of the National Security Council, the White House's national security apparatus. Still, at times, Haley ad-libs her remarks, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorised to publicly discuss the policymaking process.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US-backed fighters cornered the Islamic State group in a last part of Tabqa today, after tearing down a huge jihadist flag that had fluttered over the northern Syrian city.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, were in control of all but a fifth of Tabqa as of early today, a monitor said.

The city sits on a strategic supply route about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of IS's main Syrian stronghold Raqa and served as a key IS command base.

The SDF broke into Tabqa from the south a week ago and have steadily advanced north, squeezing IS in three contiguous neighbourhoods on the bank of the Euphrates River.

At dawn today, IS fighters withdrew from the western-most district towards the other two neighbourhoods, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

"The SDF now controls more than 80 percent of Tabqa," Abdel Rahman said, with IS only holding the two northern neighbourhoods of Hurriyah and Wahdah.

Clashes and bombing raids by the US-led coalition rocked the city today, the Observatory said.

In the aptly named Flag Roundabout in Tabqa's west, an AFP correspondent yesterday saw an SDF fighter climb a ladder propped on a huge flagpole.

He triumphantly pulled down an enormous black IS flag, dropping it to the rubble-littered street as fellow fighters cheered and took pictures.

"We've brought down Daesh's flag and we'll hang our own - the flag of the Syrian Democratic Forces," SDF fighter Zaghros Kobane told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Other IS propaganda could still be seen around the city, including a billboard of a balaclava-wearing jihadist with three warplanes behind him.

"We will be victorious despite the global coalition," the billboard read.

The city is home to an estimated 85,000 people, including IS fighters from other areas, and is also adjacent to the strategic Tabqa dam, which remains under IS control.

To circumvent the dam, SDF fighters have been using a makeshift ferry to run supplies across Lake Assad, an enormous reservoir created by the barrier.

The SDF said their hard-fought advance had seen jihadists surrendering in large numbers.

"Tabqa is the toughest battle we've ever waged," said SDF commander Jako Zerkeh, nicknamed "The Wolf".

Zerkeh said the SDF had used new tactics - including the waterway supply line and an airlift behind enemy lines in late March - to kickstart the offensive.

"These were a huge surprise to them (IS) and shattered their morale... Dozens of Daesh fighters have surrendered. There were more surrenders here than any other town," he told AFP.

The AFP correspondent in Tabqa yesterday saw SDF fighters guarding a group of blindfolded, bearded men that a security official said were suspected IS fighters.

They were waiting to transport them across Lake Assad and into SDF-controlled territory on the northern bank of the reservoir.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a tragic coincidence, wives of two policemen ended their lives in unrelated incidents in Solapur city of western Maharashtra today.

Charushila Bhangale (32) allegedly set herself on fire at around 7 this morning at Police Colony in the city.

Her husband works with Railway Police in Mumbai.

She was allegedly fed up with torture, abuse and beating up by the husband in the presence of family members, said a police officer investigating the case.

The husband, the couple's two children and in-laws were home when she set herself on fire after drenching herself with kerosene. She was rushed to the hospital but succumbed to injuries.

In the second incident, Vijayalakshmi Birajdar (28) hanged herself at her house in Police Colony.

She had married only eight months ago. Her husband, who works with Solapur Rural Police, allegedly harassed her, demanding that she bring money from her parents, police said.

Unable to meet the demand, she committed suicide.

"Jail Road Police have registered offences against both victims' husbands," said inspector S M Kane.

In the first case police registered a case of abetment of suicide, while in the second, a case of dowry death was registered. Further probe is on.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Marcy Nicholson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold prices fell 1 percent to a three-week low on Monday, pressured by rising U.S. stocks and an agreement that averted a U.S. government shutdown, dampening demand for non-interest paying bullion.

U.S. stocks were lifted by Apple shares hitting a record high and a gauge of key world equity indexes also strengthened, while Treasury yields rose. [MKTS/GLOB]

"Risk appetite isn't collapsing here," said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy for TD Securities in Toronto.

"Gold has been a little bit overdone here. It looks like we're just trying to trend to the 200-day moving average."

Spot gold was down 0.8 percent at $1,257.58 an ounce by 3:16 p.m. EDT (1916 GMT), after dropping to $1,253.66, the lowest since April 11 and just above the 200-day moving average at $1,251.93.

U.S. gold futures settled down 1 percent at $1,255.50.

Many financial markets in Asia and Europe were closed for the May Day holiday. Tokyo markets will be closed for three days from Wednesday for a string of holidays known as Golden Week, and many investors take additional time off.

U.S. Congressional negotiators hammered out a bipartisan agreement on a spending package to keep the federal government funded through Sept. 30, averting a government shutdown. nL1N1I302A]

Gold briefly moved higher after U.S. construction spending unexpectedly fell in March from a record high, government data showed, while the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing employment index came in at the lowest since October.

"The current level of the ISM Manufacturing Index is still indicative of healthy growth in the sector, but it will be important to see that level hold," said Royce Mendes, director and senior economist at CIBC Capital Markets in Toronto.

Traders said the market was waiting for the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting and the statement the central bank will issue at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Wednesday following the meeting. [FED/DIARY]

"We see gold maintaining a relatively higher trading range in May as tensions with North Korea will command more attention now that the bearish impact of the French election is out of the way," said INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir.

North Korea suggested on Monday it will continue its nuclear weapons tests.

Money managers increased their net long position in COMEX gold contracts for the sixth straight week to April 25, U.S. government data showed late Friday.

Spot silver dropped 1.9 percent to $16.87 an ounce, after falling to $16.78, matching the May 10 session low.

Platinum fell 1.7 percent to $927.25 an ounce, after falling to a four-month low at $923.

Palladium was down 1.1 percent at $814.50 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Nallur Sethuraman and Swati Verma in Bengaluru; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Chizu Nomiyama)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday termed the mutilation of two Indian soldiers an extreme form of barbaric act. Jaitley also said that their sacrifice won't go in vain.

In a strong reaction, Jaitley said such attacks do noteven take place during war and that the whole country has fullfaith in the armed forces.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form ofbarbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns thisact. The whole country has full faith in our armed forceswhich will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.

He said sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vain.

"This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacksdo not take place during war," he said.



Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel today, officials said.

The Indian Army vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicable act", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the mutilation of the bodies was "reprehensible" and an "extreme form of barbarism".

He said the armed forces will react appropriately to the "inhuman act" and their "sacrifice will not go in vain".

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army.

They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

"The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them," the official said.

"Their target was a 7 to 8-member patrol party, which had come out of the post," the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

"Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated," the official said.

"Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning," a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Simultaneously, a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistani Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said, adding "Such a despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded".

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

As per reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

As per a senior BSF officer, at about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from the Pakistani army posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons.

"They attacked with rockets a forward BSF post (which lies) ahead of the fencing and opened heavy fire from automatic weapons. They violated the ceasefire," the BSF officer said.

"It is an attack directly hitting a posts (listening post)", he said.

Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittenly.

In April this year, there were seven ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops along the LOC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.

On April 19, the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch sector.

Two days prior to that, the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by firing and shelling mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector along the LoC in Rajouri district, according to Indian army officials.

They had broken the ceasefire in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

In Digwar sector of Poonch, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

On March 9, army jawan Deepak Jagannath Ghadge was killed when Pakistani soldiers initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing along the LoC in Poonch.

In 2016, there were 228 instances of ceasefire violation along the LoC, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violation along the International Border (IB).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for more 'aggressive efforts' to strengthen economic ties between India and Turkey while addressing a business summit along with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, adding that the current level of relations between the two nations are 'not enough'.

Furthermore, PM Modi is also expected to seek Turkey's support to India in a bid to become a member of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

President Erdogan, who arrived in India today, received a ceremonial welcome before the Rashtrapati Bhavan on his two-day visit to India on Monday. The leader even paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at the Raj Ghat.

Following this, the two leaders headed to the Hyderabad House in New Delhi to attend the India-Turkey Business Summit hosted by FICCI were they held wide-ranging discussions on bilateral trade and regional issues.

PM @narendramodi and President @RT_Erdogan with leaders of business forums of India and Turkey at India-Turkey Business Summit in New Delhi pic.twitter.com/7afipiWlzn - PIB India (@PIB_India) May 1, 2017

Currently, trade between India and Turkey stands at $6.4 billion. To bridge this gap, Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India.

With little chance ahead of Turkey becoming a member of the European Union, the country has now turned towards Asia for more strategic partnerships with India as a promising partner.

Here are the major highlights of the summit:

1. PM Modi said that there is great potential to enhance bilateral engagement through FDI inflow, technological tie-ups and corporation on various projects.

2. Inviting Turkish construction companies PM Modi said: Turkey's companies can easily participate in this task of building India fast. We plan to build 50 million houses by 2022. For this purpose we have repeatedly refined our FDI policy in construction sector."

3. On tourism PM Modi said: Turkish tourism sector is globally renowned. Number of tourists going to Turkey has gone up in the last few years. It's also popular for shooting Indian films and television industry. We must explore wider opportunities in this area. We could reach out to regional cinema industry."

4. In a bid to become more energy efficient, the PM said: "India and Turkey are both energy deficient, and our energy needs are ever increasing. This sector is an important pillar of bilateral relations."

Speaking to WION news channel in an interview, President Erdogan said: "We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all,"

The Turkish President added that it is in the interest of India and Pakistan that they should resolve this issue and not leave it for the future generations who will have to suffer.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.
Vijay Prakash Jain, 75, a trader and national general secretary of a traders' association, the Bhartiya Udyog Vyapar Mandal, has not let his physical frailties weaken his resolve to fight for traders. Jain, who trades in groceries, chemicals and dry fruit, and also runs a travel and tourism business from the narrow lanes of Daryaganj in old Delhi, is gearing up for another battle - adapting to the Goods and Services Tax or GST. GST provisions, he says, are so complex that even though all the processes are online, he will not be able to file returns on his own. He will have to hire a chartered accountant. "Our compliance cost rose during the shift from sales tax to VAT (value-added tax). Now that we are going from VAT to GST, it will go up again," he says.

Like Jain, many small traders and owners of micro, small and medium enterprises, or MSMEs, are facing the uphill task of preparing for the new GST system that will come into force from July 1. This is being called one of the biggest tax reforms that will make businesses stronger and tax administration & compliance easier. It will also plug indirect tax leakages by bringing into the formal economy a large part of the informal sector, including small traders and many MSMEs. However, for MSMEs and small businesses, adjusting to the system will involve huge costs (see Challenges Ahead). They may even lose business, as the new system of seamless input credit encourages companies to do business with players whose compliance record is perfect or at least near perfect. The system has been designed in such a way that unless the records submitted by all the parties in the supply chain match, no party will be able to claim input credit. For now, though, this is not the biggest headache for MSMEs.

The Problems

GST has been designed keeping in mind large businesses and ignoring the problems that small businesses may face, says V.K. Bansal, President, Federation of Indian Small Business. The biggest hassle is filing three returns a month. "Few MSMEs have the technological wherewithal to file three returns a month and then revise them in case of any error within the stipulated time. Many MSME owners still do not have Tally packages," says Bansal, the promoter of Nexgen Infosystem and Nexgen Exhibitions. Tally is one of the most commonly-used accounting software used by small businesses in India.

When GST was conceived, as a one-nation-one-tax, ease of compliance and administration were supposed to be its essence. What the country has got is far more complex with compliance requirements that are cumbersome if not draconian. This was, say experts, made worse by the rush to pass different rules under the Act so that the new regime can be rolled out from July 1, 2017, just two-and-a-half months from now.

Archit Gupta, CEO and Co-founder, ClearTax, says most small businesses are unaware of the enormous compliance burden GST will bring - right from raising invoices to filing returns. ClearTax is offering a bouquet of GST compliance and advisory services.

"GST provisions are fairly complex and, therefore, for smaller businesses to read, interpret, understand and apply them will take a bit of time. They are not used to such level of complexities. Even smaller chartered accounts who SMEs consult are struggling to understand the laws," says M.S. Mani, Senior Director, Indirect Tax, Deloitte India.

Tens of Returns

Under GST, all taxable entities will have to file three monthly returns and one annual return, all within a stipulated period. One return is for outward supplies of taxable goods and/or services effected, another for inward supplies, and the third one is for finalisation of details of outward supplies and inward supplies along with the payment of the tax.

This comes to 37 returns a year. And this is for an entity that operates in only one state. If the entity has operations in more than one state, the number will multiply. Every taxpayer will have to get itself registered in each state where it has an operation.

In comparison, VAT returns are filed quarterly (for proprietary firms,limited liability partnerships and partnership firms) and service tax returns once in six months. GST will replace both VAT and service tax.

Filing three returns a month is not the only challenge. Each and every invoice raised will have to be uploaded on the GST Network (GSTN), the company floated to build and maintain the IT infrastructure. This means digitisation of all invoices. Also, the invoicing mechanism may have to be changed; this is especially true for MSMEs that are right now exempt from excise or VAT due to higher turnover thresholds in the current system.

Another problem is that tax payers will have to specify the place of supply in the invoice. Tax experts say determining the place of supply is a tedious job. Product coding through HSN (harmonised system of nomenclature) is also not going to be easy. HSN is an internationally standardised system of names and numbers to classify traded products.

"At present, MSMEs exempt from excise duty because of turnover of less than `1.5 crore issue invoices in a simple format - they give details of products and VAT applicable to them. But after they come under GST (many will, since the threshold for GST is `20 lakh), they will have to mention both the HSN code and the place of supply in invoices," says Naveen Wadhawa, Deputy General Manager, R&D, Taxmann.

Accounting Trouble

MSMEs which come under GST will have to get their accounts audited. Many are right now availing of the benefit of the presumptive taxation scheme under which any entity with annual turnover of up to `2 crore is not required to maintain books of account and are taxed at 8 per cent of their turnover. Now, such businesses may not only lose the exemption, but will also have to maintain books as per the country's accounting rules.

Also, the entire process - registration, raising of invoice, filing of returns and claiming of refund - will be online. Small businesses may have to either buy software solutions such as Tally and Marg or take help from websites such as ClearTax. All this will add to the cost of running the business, though GST Network has developed an offline tool for these tasks. The tool can be used for uploading invoices, downloading GST return forms and copying purchase data of suppliers and buyers.

"While we do not provide special services for any particular category of taxpayers, our offline tools will help SMEs. Any taxpayer can download and use them to upload invoice data and download GST return forms. While large corporations will have their ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, the smaller ones can use this tool," says Naveen Kumar, Chairman, GSTN.

Working Capital

A buyer will not be able to claim input tax credit unless the tax charged in respect of such supply has been paid by the seller. So, an entity that has paid tax will have to depend on compliance by its suppliers to claim tax credits. This means if the supplier fails to pay tax, the buyer will not get input credit. This means that the supplier which collected tax from the buyer has to deposit the tax every month. The credit will also get blocked in case of any mismatch in returns filed by the seller and the buyer. "Imagine the problem a small buyer can face in getting a large seller to file a return or getting it corrected," says Naveen Wadhawa of Taxmann.

That's not all. The whole process of getting input credit itself takes a long time. If tax is paid in the first week of the month, the input credit will not be available till the 15th of the next month, the deadline for filing returns. This could mean blocking of capital for over a month.

Also, there are three different taxes under GST - IGST, CGST and SGST. Payment under the wrong head means the entity will have to first make payment under the correct head and then claim refund for the extra tax paid.

Loss of Business

The condition for claiming input tax credit will put many small entities at the risk of losing business. Since the law put the onus of ensuring that suppliers pay tax and file returns on time on buyers - as non-payment will delay input credit - large buyers will shift their businesses to more compliant suppliers. Smaller enterprises risk losing business to bigger players that have the wherewithal to better comply with the GST rules.

Sanjay Bhatia, President, Ficci-Confederation of MSME, says claiming input tax credit itself will become a cumbersome process as many small suppliers may not be tech-savvy enough to file returns accurately. Because of their non-compliance, the buyer will suffer, he says.

This, he says, will hit the business of small dealers, as nobody would like to deal with small businesses due to fear of non-compliance by them. This will lead to more dependency on larger players and, therefore, create a situation of monopoly in the market, he says.

There is another provision that may lead to loss of business for smaller entities. The Central GST rules say if the supplier is not registered under GST, all the tax the supplier is liable to pay has to be paid by the buyer. Now, any small business with a turnover of less than `20 lakh is not required to be registered under GST. This means no buyer would like to do business with it. "This will discourage registered units/companies to buy from these unregistered units. This will wipe out these micro & small players," says Sanjay Bhatia.

The MSME sector and the trading community are the backbone of our economy. The MSME sector alone accounts for 40 per cent of our gross domestic product and offers employment to over 130 million people. GST, with its many complexities and compliance norms, may have a disruptive effect on it. Only time will tell how well it copes with the changes staring at it.



@dipak_journo
Tata Motors today reported a 21 per cent decline in total sales in April at 30,972 units as compared to 39,389 units in the same month last year.

Domestic sales of Tata Motors' commercial and passenger vehicles declined by 19 per cent to 28,844 units in April, as compared to 35,604 units in the same month of the previous year.

Sales of passenger vehicles in the domestic market grew 23 per cent to 12,827 units last month.

"While the industry faced short-term headwinds further to the BS III verdict, Tata Motors continued its robust sales performance with a growth of 23 per cent in April led by a strong pipeline for Tiago and a positive response for our new lifestyle UV - Tata HEXA," Tata Motors President Passenger Vehicles Business Unit Mayank Pareek said in a statement.

The company has completed the launch of Tata Tigor across the country and is delighted that it has been well received by customers, he added.

In the commercial vehicles segment, the company's domestic sales were down 36 per cent at 16,017 units, the auto major said.

The company said its commercial vehicles were affected by the Supreme Court judgement on March 29, banning sales of BS- III vehicles, leading to the need for a higher quantity of BS-IV stock for April sales.

"The higher demand at short notice, was not met in production, as vendors struggled to meet with the higher demand, especially in the MHCV segments," it added.

Moreover, after the strong pre-buying of BS-III vehicles in March, and the price increase of BS-IV vehicles especially in the MHCV and buses, demand for BS-IV vehicles was also weak, the company said.

"This is an unusual decline, in exceptional circumstances," Tata Motors said.

The company expects production, wholesales and retails to pick up in May and June, it added.
The government has been pushing for digital payments ever since the demonetisation. However, cost of digital payments remain a major stumbling block for many people to embrace digital methods of transaction. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, who also heads a committee set up the government to push digital payments, tell Dipak Mondal the steps the government has taken to bring down the cost of digital payments.

How has cost of digital payments fallen over the years, say, in the past five years?

We are moving from a low volume, high transaction cost to high volume, low transaction cost digital economy. Cost of digital payments have fallen significantly over the years, both due to pro-active initiatives of Government and increased volume of transactions. RBI has progressively reduced the caps on MDR charges on debit cards since 2012. It was brought to 0.75 per cent for transactions upto Rs. 2000 and 1 per cent for above Rs 2000. Further, in December 2016, cap on debit card MDR charges was further reduced to 0.25 per cent for transactions upto Rs. 1000, 0.5 per cent for Rs. 1000-2000 transactions. In February 2017, a draft MDR policy with revised charges and new categories has been proposed and public comments have been sought. I am sure RBI will initiate measures to provide a massive impetus to digital payments movement.

Enlist some of the steps that the government has taken in the past couple of years to bring down the cost of digital payments/ transactions?

Apart from rationalising caps on MDR on debit card transactions, Government has launched and incentivised new modes of digital payments. Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) is operated by banking correspondents where they are given incentives for transactions. Cost of micro ATMs, biometric devices and PoS devices have reduced quite significantly due to customs and excise duty waivers announced in the budget. Government also ran a DigiDhan campaign where 16 lakh lucky winners (users and merchants) were rewarded with prizes ranging from Rs 1000 to 1 crore. Further to incentivise behaviour change and bring down the cost of digital payments, referral and cashback schemes have also been launched for BHIM where users and merchants receive cashback. Referral Scheme awards Rs 10 cashback to referrer and Rs 25 to new user on each successful referral on BHIM.

Cashback Scheme is for merchants and awards Rs 100 for 50-100 inward transactions received by the merchant on BHIM every month if he/she receives it from at least 20 different customers. On top of 100 inward transactions, the merchant is given 50 paise per additional transaction with a cap of Rs 200. So, a merchant on BHIM can earn Rs 100-300 every month through the Cashback Scheme. On April 14th this year, the Prime Minister also launched BHIM Aadhaar, the merchant interface of the BHIM App, to ensure that citizens are able to transact digitally with just their aadhaar number, even without internet, smartphone or a mobile. This radically reduces the cost of buying expensive PoS devices by the merchant and, instead, transforms his mobile phone into a PoS device. This is a major disruptive move making digital transactions easy and simple. Every smartphone owner has the possibility of becoming a walking ATM.

The govt has recently launched the BHIM App, which allows chargeless transactions. What is the cost that the government is incurring by 'subsidising' digital transaction?

Government has led the way in rationalisation of cost of digital payments. Earlier regime of digital payments was based on low volume and asset heavy infrastructure. Now since the underlying fundamentals of the sector have changed where volumes have gone up exponentially and zero-cost acceptance infrastructure (QR code) has developed, the cost regime has to change. Government has tried to instill a "work done" principle while coming up with costs of a digital transaction. As the cost of settling a transaction on UPI/BHIM is very nominal, NPCI has waived off switch charges. However, the individual's bank may or may not have IMPS charges.



You have said on many occasions that cost of digital transaction would one day be less than that of cash transaction. What is the government's roadmap to achieve this target?

Cost of a cash transaction is not apparent to us. Nonetheless, it is costly. RBI and other commercial banks spend Rs 21000 crore every year on currency management operations. On top of it, there are costs associated with fake currency and replacement of soiled and torn notes. Visa's report estimates the overall cost of cash upto 1.7% of GDP. As the digital transactions rise in volumes, its costs, mainly in terms of MDR, will come down and will eventually become cheaper than cost of printing, storing, transporting, verifying, distributing and replacing currency.

What are the major challenges in bringing down the cost of digital payments further and what could government do to cross these hurdles?

The major objective is to increase the adoption and use of digital payments in India so that cash usage drops to 5-6 per cent of GDP. Government has taken multi-pronged steps to increase digital payments - DigiDhan campaign for awareness and behaviour change, incentive schemes, cost rationalisation, wider choices of modes of digital payments and infrastructure creation through Bharat Net. Government has also understood the role of fast changing technology in financial services space and hence has allowed the sector to grow without reactive intervention. New Payment and Small Banks have adopted ICT for increased access. More than 900 new fintech startups have developed various innovative technologies such as voice and SMS based transactions which do not need internet. All these new developments with pro-active government support will bring down the cost of digital payments substantially.

Usage of big data, new financial technologies such as blockchain and distributed currency will transform the way banking services are delivered. Transformation has been visible through my experiences since the time when fishermen in Kerala used to run around banks for opening an account to now when they can open an account either online or by just using their Aadhaar and thumbprint. Such a revolutionary fast paced change led by private sector and pro-actively supported by the government presents a huge opportunity for India - to make a quantum jump forward towards a digital economy.


In a new face-off, telecom operator Reliance Jio has alleged that Bharti Airtel is violating tariff rules by issuing misleading offers and arbitrarily discriminating among its own customers subscribing to the same plan.

The Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has demanded highest penalty imposed on Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel by telecom regulator Trai alleging that the two plans of Airtel -- priced at Rs 293 and Rs 449 respectively -- are being marketed in a misleading manner.

It said that Airtel's advertisements of these offers are an attempt to lure prospective subscribers making them believe that they will be provided 1 GB data per day for 70 days.

"However, the subscribers who do not satisfy Airtel's dual criteria, will be provisioned only 50 MB data and post that, they will be charged the exorbitant data tariff of Rs 4,000 per GB," Jio said.

Under the said plans, Airtel is offering unlimited local and STD calls along with 1 GB of mobile internet per day for 70 days to customers with 4G handsets and 4G SIM. In case of Rs 293 plan, unlimited calling is limited within the Airtel network.

Other Airtel customers availing these plans get only 50 MB of data usage per day for 35 days.

Jio said that Airtel is offering these recharges "in a grossly discriminating basis by providing the headline data benefits of 1 GB data per day for 70 days only to the new subscribers holding a 4G handset in conjunction with a 4G compatible SIM card. All other subscribers are provided substantially lower data benefits of 50 MB for 35 days."

Jio said that with reduction in validity of the plan for other set of customers, the value of voice calls also gets reduced.

"Airtel has chosen to create an arbitrary distinction on the basis of subscribers possessing 4G handset and 4G SIM. It has arbitrarily reduced the validity of voice benefits under same recharge for the same class of subscribers without a 4G handset or 4G SIM...," Jio said.

The new entrant alleged that the "arbitrary classification" by Airtel is a gross violation of the telecom tariff order 1999.

When contacted, a Bharti Airtel spokersperson denied the allegations and said that the company is in full compliance of all regulatory guidelines, including tariff orders.

"These allegations are nothing but a continuation of Reliance Jio's standard ploy of blaming others for all its problems, including network deficiencies," the Airtel spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that what is even more ironic is that Jio itself offered free services for several months but is now pointing fingers at other operators, who are merely offering simple discounts to their own customers to retain them.

"In fact, it is Jio that has been blatantly disregarding all guidelines and directions of the Trai," the spokesperson alleged.

Jio requested the regulator "to take strict action under the Act and impose highest penalty on Airtel" besides a direction to Airtel to immediately withdraw the tariff offer which is non-compliant and in breach of Trai rules.

In March, Jio had challenged Airtel's advertisement which claimed that the telecom major has fastest network before the Advertising Standards Council of India. The ad regulator decided in favour of Jio. However, Airtel has appealed to the ASCI to review its decision.




A large-scale power outage in Wellsville, Mendon and College Ward left more than 2,800 <a href=https://www.rockymountainpower.net/>Rocky Mountain Power</a> customers without electricity for nearly 24 hours over the weekend. Rocky Mountain Power Spokesman Dave Eskelsen said two separatebut likely relatedwork orders were involved, the first being a problem with a fuse in the Nibley substation and the second being a failed voltage regulator.

Lights in the impacted communities originally dimmed around 7:40 p.m. on Friday, with full power being restored at 10:40 p.m. The second, longer lasting outage was reported at 11:41 p.m. Power was not restored until 4:51 p.m. on Saturday.

While Rocky Mountain Power dispatched repair crews immediately, Eskelsen said it took time to diagnose the problems.

Once they determined that it was the voltage regulator that was bad, he said of the second work order, they had to make a decision, okay, do we go back and repair this thing or replace it?

Eskelsen said crews first attempted to repair the failed regulator because a new one had to come from Salt Lake City. When repairs failed, a new regulator was ordered.

We do apologize for the fact that the estimated restoration time kept getting pushed out, Eskelsen said. Sometimes that happens when you have a more complicated repair. You think you know what the problem is and what the solution is, so you set an estimated time with the best information that you have, but it turns out that something more complicated is necessary. In this case, getting a new component up from Salt Lake City, taking the old one out and putting a new one in did consume a lot of time.

Comments on social media mentioned multiple complications arising as a result of such a lengthy outageruined food, fried computer equipment and a chilly nights sleep to name a few. Jamie Hunter, a resident of Wellsville, said the temperature in her home dropped below 50 degrees overnight Friday, and her four young children froze when the heater wouldnt come on.

I cant even imagine what we would have done if this had happened in the winter, she said. I am just counting my blessings that the heat was the worst of our problems, as I know many others have suffered a lot more inconvenience than my family.

Jessie Shock, who lives in Petersboro, said she and twelve of her neighbors had major flooding due to the power loss because their sump pumps were inoperable. She also said one of her neighbors who relies on oxygen had to scramble to find batteries.

We have some great neighbors with generators and were able to things under control, she said, but most people around us were not that lucky.

Shock expressed frustration with Rocky Mountain Power, saying the outages could have been averted if Rocky Mountain Power did routine checks and kept their equipment up to par.

I feel like our voices are not being heard, she said. It seems like the power goes off quite frequently. I think the poles out here and the equipment are not safe. I feel like Rocky Mountain Power doesnt keep them up to date, and that is why the power always goes out! I feel forgotten, except I pay my bills on time just like everyone else. My neighbors feel the same way. I have another neighbor on the Box Elder power grid who very seldom experiences power outages.

Eskelsen said Rocky Mountain Power makes every effort to provide a reliable system and said the company does its best to mitigate power interruptions. He also said designing a fail-safe, 100 percent reliable system would be prohibitively expensive.

We recognize how vital electricity is, and our system really isits more than 98 percent reliable, he said, but we recognize that sometimes, as in this case, technical problems will produce an extended outage. Given the instantaneous nature of electricity, we know that we cant guarantee absolutely uninterruptable service. The other big problems we face are related to weather.

Rocky Mountain Power advises customers with critical operations like sump pumps, life support equipment and oxygen concentrators to have an alternative source of energy or another place to go should power be interrupted. The company also advises all consumers to have an <a href=https://www.rockymountainpower.net/ed/hws/ep.html>emergency preparedness plan</a> that includes an emergency supply kit.

Its part of that emergency preparedness ethic that weve been talking so much about in this and our other states, Eskelsen said. We certainly agree with emergency preparedness officials typically at state and county levels that everybody should be prepared to be without essential services for up to 72 hours.

While being in the dark can indeed cause great concern, many posters on Facebook were able to look on the bright side during the weekend outage, mentioning being able to enjoy time with their children, work in their yards and fold stacks of neglected laundry without the distractions of electronics.

A post from the American West Heritage Center said, If you are bored, come out to the American West Heritage Center! We are up and running! See what no power looked like 100 years ago! A meme from a Wellsville Facebook group said, Happy Amish appreciation night, Wellsville!

As neighbors stepped in to share generators and mop up flooding, Firehouse Pizzeria offered 50 percent discounts on pizza for families whose kitchens were closed without power.

Personally, we always want to help wherever we can, said owner and manager Kelley Chambers. Our customers are the people who keep us in business and we really want to serve our community.

Acknowledging the challenges of having no electricity, Eskelsen thanked Rocky Mountain Powers customers for their patience during a complicated and longer-than-anticipated outage.

The folks who are out there actually doing this work in the middle of the night are very anxious to get the power back on as quickly as possible, he said. Theres a big safety factor that we deal with, particularly when were working in substations, so we are working to get the power back on as quickly as possible as long as we can do it safely for employees.

For more information about safety and preparedness during power outages, visit <a href=http://www.rockymountainpower.net/>www.rockymountainpower.net</a>.

<hr />

jennifer@cvradio.com
| BY Ricki Green |

CB Exclusive  Hyundai has launched a new campaign for its iconic i30 through Innocean Australia.

Says Steve Jackson, ECD, Innocean: The winning history of the previous i30 led us to a powerful narrative for the next. Not content with merely evolving, Hyundai chose to totally reinvent the car and we created an idea to match. We were lucky enough to have some of Australias most talented production companies and individuals help bring it to life, and Id like to thank them all for bringing so much passion to the project.

Says Peter Fitzhardinge, CEO, Innocean: What I most love about the campaign, is that its a true launch idea; grab attention and deliver the message in the biggest possible way. The agencys commitment through Steves and Philips teams over the last few months to bring it alive has been fantastic.

The campaign launched with a teaser last week with the full reveal over the weekend. The campaign is one of Hyundais most significant launches and will run across all channels including TV, Cinema, Digital, Print and Outdoor.

Hyundai Australia Motor Car Company

Director of Marketing: Oliver Mann

General Manager Marketing: Andrew Knox

Product Marketing Manager: Nick Cook

Product Marketing Co-ordinator: Katrina Mendoza

Agency: Innocean Worldwide Australia

Executive Creative Director: Steve Jackson

Creative Team: Daryl Corps & Dave Shirlaw

Campaign Creative: Steve Carlin, Dean Hamilton, Dave King

Film Producer: Jacqui Walker

Production Director: Warrick Nicholson

Head of Planning: Scott Davis

Group Business Director: Philip Sherar

Head of Digital: Trevor Crossman

Account Director: Vincent Pled

Account Manager: Kat Knight

Production Company: Collider

Director: Daniel Askill

2nd Unit Director: Lorin Askill

Executive Producer: Rachael Ford-Davies

Producer: Julianne Shelton

Post / VFX: Fin Design + Effects

Executive Producer: Alastair Stephen

VFX Supervisors: Justin Bromley and Stuart White

Sound & Music: Nylon Studios

Sound Designer: Simon Lister

Composer: Michael Yezerski

Music Producer: Karla Henwood

Photography: Photoplay

Photographer: Michael Corridore

Executive Producer: Alison Lydiard

Producer: Melanie Reardon

Retouching: Cream Studios
| BY Ricki Green |

The best radio ad of 2017 will be battled out between 10 of Australias leading agencies and production studios from Sydney, Melbourne and Perth as part of the national Siren Awards, which will be announced in May.

Last years Gold Siren was won by Melbourne agency Clemenger BBDO for the Maltesers ad titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre created by Elle Bullen and James Orr. The Melbourne agency dominated the round wins this year and is credited with 11 of the 30 finalist nominations.

Creative radio ads promoting charities, road safety, beer, dog food, fast food, banks and public transport are amongst the high-quality entrants up for the Gold Siren Award this year.

Stand-up comedian and Fox FM, Melbourne breakfast presenter, Dave Thornton (pictured) will host this years Siren Awards in Melbourne on 11 May. Thornton has been part of Melbournes Fox FM breakfast team since 2014 alongside Fifi Box, Byron Cooke and last year they were joined by Brendan Favola.

Thornton has appeared at the worlds three major comedy festivals and his TV credentials include appearances on Network Tens The Project, ABC TVs, Agony Uncles and as an actor in Channel Nines House Husbands and the ABC TVs Upper Middle Bogan. Fresh from appearing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Thornton will bring his honest, engaging and whip-smart humour to the stage at the announcement of the Siren Awards.

The Gold Siren winner will receive a trip to the Cannes Radio Lions in June, accompanied by the client of their winning campaign. In addition, Silver Sirens will be awarded to the winners of the three Siren categories of single, campaign and craft.

Says Joan Warner, chief executive officer, Commercial Radio Australia: As an industry we want to recognise and promote excellent radio advertising. The Siren Awards provides agencies, clients and creatives a chance to put forward their best ads and for an opportunity to compete on the world stage at the Cannes Radio Lions Festival.

The winners are decided by the Siren Creative Council; a panel of creative directors from leading ad agencies. Finalists are selected from five rounds and final call of Siren voting throughout 2016-17. There is also a $5000 cash prize for a client-voted award. A panel of clients vote for the best ad from the round 1- 5 overall winners and it is presented to the writers of the winning ad.

The national Siren Awards are run by Commercial Radio Australia and are designed to recognise the best radio advertising in the country.
| BY Ricki Green |

Australian brand and design agency Hulsbosch has worked together with Virgin Australias award-winning loyalty program, Velocity Frequent Flyer, to create new-look branding for the program as well as a redesign of the member welcome packs.

Celebrating its 11th year in 2017, Velocity has been on a rapid trajectory, growing its membership base, and expanding the unique program benefits and diverse product offering. Velocity engaged Hulsbosch to create a brand refresh to align all facets of the evolving business in Australia and New Zealand.

Says Clare Bailey, head of account management, Hulsbosch: Were bringing the Velocity positioning to life. They needed beautiful, elegant and simple solutions to showcase who they are.

Bold and engaging concepts integrate Velocitys brand values, personality and essence. The impactful design elements create a look and feel that is uniquely Velocity and leverages the spirit of the global Virgin brand.

The Hulsbosch creative establishes clear market differentiation for Velocitys exceptional offering and is reflective of a valued exchange between consumers, business partners and the program.

Part of the refresh included a redesign of the member welcome packs, with Platinum and Gold the first to hit the market. The new member experience for Velocity Platinum and Gold members delivers consistency with a sleek, premium redesign featured in the members welcome pack, member cards, brochures, luggage tags, and printed collateral. The Silver and Red welcome packs will be rolled out later this year.

To underpin the new-look brand strategy, Hulsbosch worked closely with the Velocity team to implement a process for internal integration and engagement of the business. Hulsbosch has developed an extensive brand guideline portfolio, a mini brand swatch book and internal launch video that are the cornerstone reference materials for the new design of the Velocity program.

Hulsbosch, Velocity and Virgin Australia continue to work together on creative projects and the brand development work for Velocity demonstrates how resources can support client core or subsidiary business units.

The rollout of the new Velocity branding has commenced for sales and marketing collateral including social media and print advertising campaigns. It will be integrated into the Velocity digital experience later this year.

Agency: Hulsbosch

Executive Creative Director: Hans Hulsbosch

Director: Jaid Hulsbosch

Head of Account Management: Clare Bailey
| BY Lynchy |

Every year in Singapore, at least 1,800 cases of cardiac arrest take place outside of hospital settings. Currently, only 13.8% survive. Philips, in collaboration with the Singapore Heart Foundation, has launched Retiree Rescue, as part of a mission to change those stats for the better.

The chance of survival for a cardiac arrest patient decreases by up to 10 percent every minute  with most attacks proving fatal in 10 minutes. It can take emergency services 11 to arrive.

While there are AEDs or automated external defibrillators such as the Philips HeartStart situated in most public spaces around Singapore, most bystanders are not equipped with the necessary confidence to respond to cardiac emergencies.

The campaign, which was developed by iris Singapore for Philips aims to equip retirees with the training and confidence to become rescuers- by offering a complimentary training programme with hands-on lessons with the Philips HeartStart AED.

The campaign kicks off with a recruitment film to show the first batch of retirees being trained. This is part of a bigger ambition, to change behaviour and help save lives by raising awareness around sudden cardiac arrest, and the need for more individuals to be trained in Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and the use of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs).

Winston Phua, Head of Brand, Communications and Digital at Philips ASEAN Pacific: At Philips, we constantly innovate to find ways to make life better. With the Retiree Rescue campaign, we want to debunk the myth that only trained medical professionals can help save lives. In fact, we aim to educate the community on how almost anyone can play a part in helping victims of sudden cardiac arrest with the right training and equipment through this campaign. With the right training, we can give more people the confidence to provide CPR and to use an AED during times of emergency to help those in need, so that we can all play a part in helping to save lives.

Ed Cheong, Executive Creative Director at iris Singapore: Personally, Ive lost someone dear to sudden cardiac arrest. Many have. When the life of a loved one hangs in the balance, what wouldnt you give just to buy more time? Thats what this project is ultimately about. For no matter how impactful Philips HeartStart AED is, its futile without rescuers applying it in times of emergencies.

Credits 

Executive Creative Director: Ed Cheong

Creative Group Head: Sylvester Poh

Senior Creative: Boo Wei Yi

Senior Planner: James Honda-Pinder

Regional CEO: Luke Nathans

Business Director: Francesca Babet

Senior Account Manager: Linda Avriani

Senior Producer: Tasmin Vosloo

Director: Henry Jen
| BY Lynchy |

Top visual effects company VHQ held an industry party last week to celebrate the opening of their new Singapore office. This is another milestone as VHQ continues to expand its well established operations to meet the booming demand for visual effects in Asia across all forms of media.

The new office space has been designed to meet the needs of both its clients and artists. The open and modern design of the new office provides a highly creative and inspirational environment that encourages interactivity and collaboration. It also includes significant capacity for future growth. When combined with the group, the Singapore facilities and team make VHQ one of the largest visual effects and post companies in Asia.

Further solidifying their success in the region, VHQ Media has expanded into a stunning new flagship office in Singapore, a freehold purchase in the Apex @ Henderson complex.
Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 9:02PM

For developers attending Google I/O 2017 in Mountain View, California, you can now start planning your trip. Google released some of the scheduled activities happening at the annual developer conference this May 17 to 19 so you can start planning which events to go to. But Google points out that they havent released information on all sessions and want to keep some a surprise until the opening keynote on May 17th (which starts at 10 a.m. Pacific time).

Aside from that, Google will be letting attendees reserve seats for some of the sessions ahead of time. But they also intend to leave a few seats open for those who want to attend at last minute. Google has increased the size of each tent to accommodate more people, too. The tech company also plans to double the number of Office Hours to give developers more time to talk with Google team members. And this year, the sandbox demo is moved inside climate-controlled structures to help keep people cool and dry for these events.

Source: Android Authority
None of my actual dates were like that. You could tell how you were going by how soon they left for their next date. Meeting could be awkward, looking for faces that matched with the one on your phone, shuffling past dates you'd already spoken to.
"There is no immediate risk to safety of workers or the community however as a precaution some roads in the immediate area have been closed temporarily and traffic diversions are in place," the spokeswoman said.
Still, the thinking behind the order is the thinking permeating Nash's advocacy of the "decentralisation program". Her near-exclusive focus is on using the placement of government functions to benefit regions, and ministers will need to "actively justify ... why all or part of their operations are unsuitable for decentralisation". She has it around the wrong way. In considering where they should set up shop, the starting point for sensible organisations, public or private, is what location is most likely to ensure their efficient and effective operation. Under Nash's program, the starting point for ministers will be a negative argument about why they shouldn't be in a region.
Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car

I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
Just as Toyota Motor Philippines updated the specs of the Hilux pickup truck , theyve done the same for the Fortuner as well.
If you had an order in for a new Chevy Colorado ZR2, we have good news, because theyve started rolling off the assembly line and heading to their eagerly awaiting customers hands.



The ZR2 is the beefed-up off-road version of Chevys midsize pickup. It features a suspension thats been widened front and rear by 3.5 inches and lifted by 2, with special off-road dynamic dampers, functional rockers, and unique bumpers.

The rock-crawling truck is built alongside the standard Colorado (and GMC Canyon) at GMs Wentzville Assembly plant in Missouri. Customers who got their orders in early will be getting their trucks this month.

Among the first coming off the line is headed to off-road racer Chad Hall, whos specd one (pictured) in red with a crew cab, 3.6-liter V6 and eight-speed automatic transmission. Hall Racing will be modifying the truck and fielding it in the Best in the Desert series, starting with the General Tire Vegas to Reno race in August.

Photo Gallery
The fate of the Lexus GS appears to be sealed following an admission from the Japanese carmaker that its sedans wont survive unless they are overhauled.



Speaking to Automotive News about the future of Lexus sedans, Toyota global branding chief Tokuo Fukuichi said that huge demand for SUVs and crossovers means sedans need to become more dynamic and less formal.

Unless we can really offer a sedan experience you cannot have with an SUV or crossover, I think the sedan may not be able to survive if it does not evolve.

At a certain point of time, the traditional, square, three-box sedan will go away, Fukuichi said.

According to the executive, SUV and crossover models have dramatically improved in recent years and are now as comfortable as sedans and handle just as well. Fukuichi cites the steering response of sedans as one of the key areas that needs to be improved.

At the initial touch, it needs to respond sharply. The LC is quite close, he said.

Beyond the future of the Lexus sedan, Fukuichi also said hed be interested in creating a station wagon for Toyotas luxury division.

Personally, I would like to have a Lexus wagon if we had enough resources. Maybe not as tall as an SUV but not as short as a wagon. There could be some optimized packaging. If were going to do it, it cant be just an ordinary station wagon.

PHOTO GALLERY
The likes of Koenigsegg, Spyker and Rimac are all cashing in on demand from U.S. customers for bespoke supercars that stand out from the pack.



All three are relatively new to the US, and as it remains the worlds largest market for high-performance vehicles, the three small manufacturers rightfully consider it crucially important.

Speaking with Auto Express at the NY Auto Show, Koenigsegg sales boss Tariq Ali said that the customers of the Swedish automaker have enough money to not worry about choosing between an Egg or a rival, theyll just buy both, whether that be a Rimac or a Spyker or both.

The chief executive of Spyker, Victor Muller, echoed Alis sentiments, revealing that it is often quite easy to find customers.

A typical customer? When he was young, he bought a Porsche 911. But all his peers had them, too. So he goes for a Ferrari, Bentley or Aston. Then he moves to suburbia and finds that everyone has a Ferrari 488. Thats very embarrassing. So thats when he goes to a boutique brand like Spyker.

According to the chief operating officer of Rimac, Monika Mikac, convincing a prospective customer to buy its Concept_One electric supercar simply involves a test drive, so confident is the company in its sole production model.

Looking beyond bespoke automakers like these, established brands like McLaren and Lamborghini enjoyed record sales in 2016, proving that the market is stronger than ever.

PHOTO GALLERY
VW is launching a total of 8 spots part of its America ad campaign for the new Atlas, a campaign that follows the story of a three-generation family and their journey across the United States.



Of the eight videos, one is 90 seconds in length, while the other are either 30-second or 15-second spots. Their role is to emphasize the Atlas features such as the 4MOTION all-wheel drive system, panoramic roof, Digital Cockpit, easy-access 3rd row or Pedestrian Monitoring.

Our first seven-passenger SUV was built with American families in mind, said VW USA marketing boss, Vinay Shahani.

The America campaign tells the story of Atlas through the lens of an American family traveling across this beautiful country.

In order to tie all the ads together, the campaign features the same family throughout, as well as various versions of Paul Simons song America  including the Simon and Garfunkel original. The Campaign will run in multiple formats starting May 1st, in cinemas, on major TV networks as well as digital. Its tagline is Lifes as big as you make it.

VWs all-new Atlas is currently assembled alongside the Passat in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where VW recently invested an extra $900 million.

VIDEO
A Porsche may not be the first vehicle thatd come to mind if you have a load to haul. Maybe tow one on a trailer to and from the race track, sure, but to do the towing itself?



Well Porsche is out to fix that conception with this latest publicity stunt. Teaming up with Air France, the German automaker brought its latest Cayenne crossover to Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris and towed an Airbus A380  setting a new world record in the process.

The A380, for those unfamiliar, is one of the largest aircraft ever made. Airbus double-decker jumbo jet weighs 285 metric tons, eclipsing the Boeing 747 and coming second only to the truly massive Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo jet on the list of the worlds largest production civilian aircraft. Despite its gargantuan size and weight, though, the Cayenne proved capable of towing it for a distance of 42 meters (138 feet).

Now if youre wondering if Porsche achieved the feat in a gasoline or diesel Cayenne, the answer is yes. The achievement was first carried out in a Cayenne S Diesel, whose 4.1-liter V8 produces 380 horsepower and a mammoth 630 lb-ft of torque. And just to show they could, the team then repeated the exercise in a Cayenne Turbo S, whose 4.8-liter V8 churns out much more power at 560 hp but a bit less torque at 590 lb-ft. Impressive, either way you look at it.

The vehicles were entirely showroom stock. All they required was a special attachment for the standard towing bar. And to show that they were undamaged in the endeavor (not to mention return them to their place of origin), the vehicles were then driven back to London from whence they had driven in the first place.

If all of this seems strikingly familiar, you may recall a similar feat orchestrated by sister brand Volkswagen. Over a decade ago VW hooked up its Touareg (with over 15,000 pounds of added ballast) to a 747, putting the 309 hp and 553 lb-ft of torque from its 5.0-liter V10 TDI to good use in moving the 155-ton jumbo jet for a distance of 150 meters (nearly 500 feet).

The Toyota Tundra had little trouble towing the Space Shuttle Endeavour a couple of years ago, either. Something tells us this wont be the last one of these towing stunts well be seeing.

Photo Gallery

Video



Air France and Porsche: New Guinness World Records title from Porsche AG on Vimeo.
A wrong way driver in Ohio met a fiery end after slamming into a fuel tanker on I-75 in Dayton.



According to ABC 13 and Whio-TV 7, a 30-year old driver was traveling the wrong way on the interstate at approximately 4:45 p.m. Sunday when he crashed into a fuel tanker. The collision resulted in a massive fireball and a plume of black smoke which could be seen for miles.

Police havent released the identity of the wrong way driver but officials have confirmed they died as a result of the accident. Surprisingly, the truck driver survived and is said to have suffered minor injuries.

Police are continuing to investigate what happened but, as of yet, there is no word on what caused driver to head into oncoming traffic.

The accident temporary closed all lanes of I-75 as the fire burned for several hours before being extinguished. The median and roadway were damaged from the heat of the fire and will need to be repaired before the section of I-75 can be fully reopened. However, the Ohio Department of Transportation plans to have everything fixed by Thursday morning.

Video
The Green Party's candidate in the Vernon-Monashee district has to think outside the box when it comes to making herself known to some voters.

Because the Greens don't accept corporate or union donations, we have to get very creative with our campaigning, said Westgate. That means I have to be on doorsteps, I need to be on the phone, I need to be on social media and available to people however possible.

On Sunday, Westgate and her supporters biked through Vernon, ending up at Kin Beach for a picnic fundraiser.

I can't do 2,000 signs in town, I can't have all the print ads. We do need to make the most of a very small amount of money which I think is really good training for getting into government because I appreciate efficiency and I am a frugal person by nature so I personally appreciate that and I think the voters will too.

Green supporters have even taken to standing on Highway 97, outside the campaign office in the old tourist building south of the city, waving campaign signs at drivers.

Westgate, the sales and marketing manager for Spa Hills Compost which helps businesses reduce their organic waste, is also a director for the non-profit Sustainable Environment Network Society.

She has urged the City of Vernon and the North Okanagan Regional District to become a Blue Dot community to protect the health of the community through environmental protection.

But the big, local issues of this campaign for her are affordable housing but linked to employment as well, so good paying jobs and affordable housing.

Westgate is on the same ladder as a lot of younger people living in Vernon  looking to buy an affordable residence.

I've been looking for three years since moving here and it is difficult and that (problem) is connected to jobs.

She said the Green Party platform has a multi-faceted approach to housing which includes giving basic income support to people in hard times and teens who've aged out of the foster care system.

Working with municipalities on zoning rules and finding land that could be available affordable housing and obviously building the stock. We've allocated $750 million to build 4,000 new units per year. Obviously that's not going to be enough but we have to start somewhere. Also working with owners of buildings that are sitting empty currently and trying to bring those back either into rental stock or upgrading them, retro fitting them so they are available.

Westgate expressed some concern with city council's decision to sell 19 acres of the Hesperia lands in Okanagan Landing to a developer.

It does concern me from the perspective of developers don't always do what's best for the community. They're going to do what's best for the bottom line, so I really hope the developer does consider we have a desperate need for affordable housing and that sociey will benefit if we build those instead of higher end, larger houses.
Photo: Contributed

Long wait times for procedures and tests continues to be a growing concern for residents in British Columbia.

Insights West conducted a survey asking B.C. residents to point out specific concerns they may have about the health-care system.

Three-in-four residents (75 per cent) include long waiting times for procedures and tests as one of their key concerns. The second ranked concern across the province is a shortage of doctors and nurses at 66 per cent.

Two-thirds of British Columbians are concerned about a perceived lack of medical professionals in their communities, said Insights West vice president of public affairs Mario Canseco.

While Metro Vancouverites are worried about this, the proportion is significantly higher in Vancouver Island, the Okanagan and Northern B.C."

When asked about their personal interaction with the health-care system in the province, more than three-in-five British Columbians (63 per cent) say they have waited more than one hour during an emergency room visit.

Three other concerns are less prevalent: 32 per cent of British Columbians are worried about bureaucracy and poor management," 27 per cent about inadequate resources and out-of-date facilities and 15 per cent about dirty hospitals and insufficient hygiene standards.
Photo: The Canadian Press

With just over a week left in British Columbia's election campaign, the leaders spent Sunday out on the hustings trying to shore up votes.

Campaigning in the Kootenays, B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark repeated her party's promise to protect jobs in resource industries like forestry and mining.

Last week, the U.S. introduced tariffs of up to 24 per cent on Canadian lumber, and Clark said her party is the only one that can stand up for B.C. workers in the face of rising protectionism.

"The NDP can't do it. The Greens won't do it. Not when they have opposed so many of the jobs we already have in British Columbia," she said during a campaign stop at a hardware store in Invermere, B.C.

Clark's party also reiterated a promise Sunday to bring ride-sharing to B.C. by December 2017, saying in a release that new legislation would be tabled in the first session following the election.

The Liberals also announced a car-sharing tax credit at an annual cost of $1.5 million.

Meanwhile, B.C. New Democrat Leader John Horgan campaigned around the Lower Mainland, repeating his party's pledge to make life more affordable for British Columbians.

The message is striking a chord with people who have consistently seen their cost of living rise under the Liberal government, he said.

"The Liberals are saying 'This is as good as it gets.' And the public's saying 'We can do better than this.' And a better B.C. is nine days away."

Horgan said his campaign is building momentum, and there's an energy and excitement in the air that he hasn't seen for a "long, long time."

"The Liberals want desperately to hold on to power for the wealthy and the well-connected, and the people are desperate for a government that works for them," he said.
UPDATED: 2 p.m.

Green Party leader Andrew Weaver says his party can win seats in the Okanagan Valley in the May 9th provincial election, including in Vernon and Kelowna area districts.

Weaver stopped in Vernon Monday afternoon for a rally with a small group of supporters outside the headquarters of Vernon-Monashee Green candidate Keli Westgate. He also planned a walkabout to meet voters along 30th Avenue in the downtown.

Keli is an amazing candidate, she has strong support here, said Weaver. Eric's (Foster) been there for such a long time. People want change.

They look to the BC NDP. They don't know what they stand for. They see someone like Keli who's young, vibrant, dynamic, who recognizes the importance of a strong economy at the same time...I think you'll see her surge in the polls as we move toward election day.

When asked where he thought his party could win seats, Weaver pointed to the Kelowna area which he visited over the weekend, the Nelson-Creston district and in Vernon-Monashee.

The Okanagan has got a rich history of recognizing the interplay between economics and the environment and I think we're going to see Keli win this riding, Weaver insisted.

We're leading on Vancouver Island with 38 per cent of decided voters over the NDP and there are 14 seats, he added.

Weaver rejected poll numbers showing the Greens up at only 14 per cent support across the province, preferring to rely on internal polling which he inferred showed higher numbers for his party.

Weaver also blasted the Liberals and NDP for taking massive donations for their election campaigns from corporations and unions.

Sometimes it's difficult to put forward good public policy because you are more concerned about catering to your special interests. We don't do that.
Photo: Dustin Godfrey

Nearly 120,000 people showed up to the polls for B.C.'s first day of advance voting, including just shy of 6,000 in Kelowna's three ridings, about 2,300 in Penticton and around 1,200 in Vernon-Monashee.

The numbers, released on Sunday, means nearly one-third of last year's entire advance voting period showed up on Saturday, with five days left to go.

According to Elections B.C., 118,270 British Columbians came out, making nearly 4 per cent of registered voters. In Kelowna, that turnout bumps up to 4.3 per cent across all three ridings, with Kelowna West's 4.7 per cent at the highest turnout in the Central Okanagan.

In the south end of the Valley, Penticton hit 5.3 per cent and Boundary-Similkameen 5.8 per cent. To the north, that number's much lower, with Shuswap bringing out 3.7 per cent of its registered voters, while just 2.6 per cent of Vernon-Monashee's turned out on Saturday.

In the 2013 election, a total of around 367,000 showed up to the polls before voting day, with about 110,000 of those coming on the Saturday.

This year's election bumps up the number of advance voting days from four  the usual Wednesday-to-Saturday round of voting  to six, adding Saturday and Sunday.

Even without that added boost, the number of people showing up for early voting days has been steadily increasing since 1996, when around 90,000  about 5.7 per cent of the total vote  showed up for advance polls. By contrast, in 2013's election, over 20 per cent of the total vote came early.

In Penticton, voters didn't show any concern that they may change their minds about their votes come election day.

"I think for us, we've done our research and we've been to a few of the candidate forums, so we know what each of the parties are offering," said Jackie Heinrich, who said she couldn't think of anything that would change her mind. "I've never thought about it that way, I guess."

Another man said he was getting voting out of the way, because "it gets too busy otherwise."

"Not happy with who's running at all," he said when asked about whether he was worried about regretting his vote. "None of them. But you've got to pick one of them."

Karen Beaulieu says those who don't vote don't get to complain about the outcome.

"I like to complain, so I have to vote," she said with a laugh.

"Win me over? Doubtful," Beaulieu said of the parties she didn't vote for. "If you jump the ship that fast, you probably not paying close enough attention to the real reason you're voting. You don't vote because of one thing a person says," she added on whether she might be turned off of the party she voted for down the line.

Sunday's advance voting turnout is expected to be released later on Monday. Four more days of advance voting will be held this week from Wednesday to Saturday. Polling stations can be found at the Elections B.C. website.
TV home improvement celebrity Mike Holmes is putting his stamp on a Kelowna project.

Holmes Approved Homes teamed up with Acorn Communities for the ground breaking of a new luxury townhome and condo project at McKinley Landing.

Granite at McKinley Beach will have homes ranging from $400,000 to $1.1 million.

Coming here for ground breaking is fabulous, and working with the different people that are here and making sure these homes are going to be built to the highest standard just makes me feel good, said Holmes.

For years Ive looked at the Okanagan in my mind and on maps and have thought I want to live here, he said.

Acorn president Greg Bird said: This is a dream project, in my entire 35 year career this is by far the most spectacular property and location I have ever had the chance to be involved in. There is nothing like it in Kelowna, there will probably never be anything like it in Kelowna again.

Mike's team takes it to the next level, they get into the quality of the materials that you choose to put into the home and the quality of craftsmanship that goes into making the homes, said Bird.

Holmes' third-party verification recognizes "the best builder, the house is built the best way, and weve documented it, said Bird.
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Osprey Photo: Stephen Wells Photo: Daryl Jensen Photo: Stephen Wells Photo: Chris Clark 1 2 3 4

The ospreys are back on Kelowna's waterfront.

Castanet viewers captured some spectacular images of the birds of prey during the last few days.

They've been building nests on top of nesting platforms along Okanagan Lake, just a short walk from downtown, at Rotary Marshes.

Osprey are known to breed near the water and build nests in trees or on poles during the spring and summer.

The birds have exceptional vision that is adapted to detect underwater objects from the air.

They often circle 10 to 40 metres above the water and plunge into the water at high speed to catch fish.

Send your best photos for inclusion in our reader gallery. Email them to [email protected]
Photo: The Canadian Press Christy Clark looks through a microscope as she visits Stemcell Technologies in Vancouver, Monday.

Both the Liberals and the New Democrats are starting the last full week of the British Columbia election campaign with a push for votes in Metro Vancouver.

NDP Leader John Horgan is promising to restore the province's reputation as a climate action leader, focusing on reducing emissions that cause climate change.

Environmentalist Tzeporah Berman, who was an adviser for the B.C. Liberal government's climate team, endorsed Horgan today, saying she's encouraged the NDP has committed to reducing emissions while accusing Christy Clark of breaking her climate promises.

Clark told a crowd at a Vancouver biotech firm that the biggest threat facing the province is U.S. President Donald Trump and his anti-trade rhetoric.

She says the province can't afford the double squeeze of tax hikes under an NDP government amid rising U.S. protectionism.

Clark says the province is in perilous times and that what people care most about are jobs, which she says the Liberals are best able to provide.
Photo: FortisBC

A crow took out power to about 220 Kelowna residents on Monday, but it was quickly restored.

FortisBC confirmed wildlife caused the outage, which happened at 10:40 a.m. around Glenmore Drive and Spall Road.

Unpredictably, Mother Nature does occasionally bring surprises in the form of wildlife coming into contact with our system," said a spokesperson for FortisBC.

Power was restored to the customers by 11:10 a.m.
Photo: Contributed

It's going to be lengthy and it has already raised the ire of people who run businesses along the route but phase one of work along Kalamalka Lake Road is set to begin this week.

The general scope of work involves regrading the southbound lanes of Kalamalka Lake Road to accommodate for the new four-metre wide multi-use path, which will take users from 14 Avenue to the city boundary located just past the Alpine Centre on Kalamalka Lake Road, said Tanya Laing Gahr, city spokesperson.

The timeline for work is:

Phase one, May 1 to July 25 (14 Avenue to Browne Road)

Phase two, July 25 to October 25 (Browne Road to Alpine Centre)

While the road will remain open during this first phase, traffic will be reduced to one lane in both directions.

Laing Gahr said single-lane alternating traffic will be in effect as required at the Kal Lake Road and 11 Avenue.

Traffic control and work crews will be on-site approximately 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from Monday to Friday, and with Saturday work as required.

Questions or concerns may be emailed to Dave Hrabchuk, project manager for LB Chapman Construction which is carrying out the work.
Photo: Contributed - KIRO7 Seattle Violence breaks out at May Day party in Seattle

9:06 p.m. update: Police used flash bangs and pepper spray as officers and protesters clashed late Wednesday as a May Day rally turned violent in Seattle.

Protesters threw several objects, possibly rocks and other items, at police officers and news crews.

Officers responded by using flash bangs and pepper spray and using their bikes as shields. A few people were seen taken into custody.

Earlier, thousands of people marched peacefully through downtown.

The violence broke out later in the evening after a separate march started at the Capitol Hill neighbourhood. Many of the protesters are self-described anarchists.

8:15 p.m.

News report from KIRO 7



Police have made several arrests after apparent anarchists and May Day marchers arrived in downtown Seattle, screaming, blowing whistles, lighting flares and leaving a broken window in their wake.

Protesters met at Seattle Central Community College at the busy intersection of Broadway and Pine and then spilled into the street, blocking traffic.

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reporter Essex Porter said at first there appeared to be more spectators than participants and the gathering seemed to be more of a party than a rally.

But as the crowd began to move, flares were lit and the crowd became noisy as it made its way toward downtown on Pike street, flanked by police officers.

Seattle police tweeted that someone in the crowd may have broken a window at Sun Liquor on East Pike and Belmont, and people clad in black, with their faces covered, were seen in the mix.

As the group of several hundred people moved north on Sixth Avenue after turning off of Pike Street, police said some in the group were throwing metal bars and water bottles at businesses' windows.

A KIRO 7 News crew was surrounded by rowdy protesters. They spit and sprayed Silly String on KIRO 7 reporter David Ham and hit his photographer.

Police said there was no permit for the rally, and no information about where they were headed, but their final destination was Westlake Plaza.

It was there that at least two people were taken into custody. One protester's hands and feet were restrained as the crowd became angry.

As the crowd's fervor intensified, metal pipes were thrown from the crowd onto cars and people.

More details to come.
(TNS) -- TUPELO  With students across the Northeast Mississippi region heading into state testing next week and some already in the thick of it, district leaders are gaining a sense of how their technology infrastructure holds up at the time when they need it most.Last year, the Mississippi Assessment Program, or the state test, was administered completely online for the first time, and some districts made technology adjustments based on their experiences.The Lee County School District did not have enough devices to minimize the time students spent testing during the 2016-2017 school year, according to superintendent Jimmy Weeks.Since then, the district has purchased several hundred more devices, but still not enough that everyone can test at the same time.However, each grade will be able to take the same section at the same time this year, which condenses the amount of time spent testing.The more days spent testing, Weeks said, the harder it is for students to focus.That was an issue last year, but its not an issue for us this year, Weeks said. Our goal was to have enough devices so that each grade could test in a three-day time period almost like they did for paper and pencil.Tony Cook, superintendent of the Houston School District, said just since last spring, the district added wireless access points in every classroom at Houston Middle and Upper Elementary schools.Although some glitches in last years state test were expected with it being the first time it was online, Cook said the districts wireless network did not have the capacity to test as many students simultaneously as needed.Cook said some students were kicked off of the wireless networks mid-test and had to start over. Houston students began testing last week, and as of Friday, Cook said the district hasnt had any of those same issues.The longer we do it and the more we do it, the more familiar we get with it and the more we know what we have to have, Cook said.In the Nettleton School District, students use a combination of laptop computers and computer labs to take the state test.Superintendent Michael Cates said technology has become a higher priority when it comes to budgeting district dollars with the Mississippi Department of Educations switch from paper to online testing.Nettleton didnt make any major changes to its technology infrastructure between last spring and now, Cates said, but has been updating its technology slowly over time in preparation for online testing.You have to do it a little at a time to get everything you need, Cates said. Thats something you have to plan for.Upgrading technology requires money, though, and for districts with smaller tax-bases, securing that funding can be a challenge.Cook said Houston, like many districts, relies on federal funding to fund technology needs.Technology also requires maintenance  replacing outdated devices and ensuring wireless networks can support each schools students from year to year  that Cook fears will become more vital with online testing but also harder to pay for.Between Title I dollars and the federal E-Rate program, Houston, Lee County and Nettleton school chiefs say their districts have been able to make significant technology investments in recent years.However, those programs are always changing, and district officials are wary they may not be able to count on them for funding in the future.Districts like us, middle-of-the-road size, its going to be tough for small communities with small tax bases like us to keep up, Cook said. We dont really know where that funding is going to come from in the future.
Workers at the Lululemon store at 930 N. Rush St. dismantle signs and remove mannequins and other store fixtures May 1, 2017, in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood. The store fixtures were being taken to a nearby temporary store location on Oak Street. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Lululemon is stretching out in the Gold Coast, where the yoga-wear brand plans to expand its store into a flagship.

The Canadian retailer plans to nearly double the size of its store at Rush and Walton streets by expanding into an adjacent building, according to the owner of the buildings, Acadia Realty Trust.

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In the unique deal, Lululemon's existing space of about 2,900 square feet at 930 N. Rush St. will be combined with 2,300 square feet next door at 12 E. Walton St. that is currently occupied by Italian suit-maker Brioni, which is closing, said Christopher Conlon, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Acadia.

Construction to create the larger flagship store will begin in the next 30 days, Conlon said.

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The project will require Lululemon's Gold Coast store to close for a few months, Conlon said.

Workers on Monday were moving items from the closed Rush Street store to a space at 113 E. Oak St., where Lululemon is expected to have a short-term store.

It is unclear exactly when the seller of yoga pants and other active wear plans to reopen at Rush and Walton. Representatives of Vancouver, B.C.-based Lululemon did not respond to requests for comment.

Wedding dress store BHLDN, which leases ground-floor space next to Brioni, as well as the Walton Street building's second floor, will not be affected by the construction, Conlon said.

Lululemon's expanded long-term lease is an affirmation of the real estate strategy of Acadia, a Rye, N.Y.-based real estate investment trust that often buys several retail properties near one another in major U.S. cities. In Chicago, Acadia has assembled portfolios of nearby buildings in areas including the Gold Coast, North Michigan Avenue, State Street and Lincoln Park.

Buying up buildings in Chicago's top retail markets isn't cheap. Acadia's $20.7 million deal for Lululemon's Gold Coast building in 2012 equated to more than $7,000 per square foot, a Chicago record.

Acadia's other properties in the affluent Gold Coast neighborhood include the retail space in the Waldorf Astoria hotel.

"We like to aggregate as much as we can in a submarket," Conlon said. "Where we can aggregate, we can provide expansion opportunities. Lululemon's expansion is good for other properties in the area, because it's a retailer committing to a larger flagship."

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rori@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Ryan_Ori
Protesters argue with anti-May Day protesters during a rally in Daley Plaza on May 1, 2017, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

Monday's May Day protests targeted a broad range of progressive causes, including income inequality, racism and climate change, but the Chicago businesses that closed so their workers could march were centered in Latino neighborhoods where immigration is top of mind.

Hispanic grocery stores and restaurants throughout the Chicago area closed in solidarity with International Workers' Day, including all six locations of El Guero supermarket chain and the nine locations of Carnicerias Jimenez.

"We oppose the criminalization of immigrants! We all have rights that we are going to exercise!" said a flyer in Spanish posted on the El Guero Facebook page.

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El Milagro, which supplies tortillas to many area restaurants and stores, closed its taquerias and grocery stores, though its factory remained open.

Azteca Bakeries closed its 10 Chicago-area locations for the day after workers asked for permission to march, said Jorge Flores, vice president of the company.

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The Little Village restaurant Mi Tierra shut so workers could join the march from Union Park to Daley Plaza and planned to reopen later in the afternoon.

Other businesses that didn't close cheered on immigrant workers in other ways.

Charmers Cafe in Rogers Park was offering free coffee to people on their way to or back from the protests, as it had in February for the Day Without Immigrants.

"It's an attack on our industry," co-owner Roseanna Magada said of the Trump administration's toughened immigration policies. The food service industry employs many immigrants.

May 1 has been a day for labor actions since 1886, when there was a national strike to push for an eight-hour workday. Protests in Chicago's Haymarket Square turned deadly a few days later, and that event led to the International Socialist Conference establishing International Workers' Day.

Immigration reform became the principal cause for May Day protests in 2006, when marches across the country drew 1 million people, including some 400,000 in Chicago.

The Trump administration's tough stance on immigration, including the proposed Mexican border wall and sharpened deportation policies, has reignited activism around immigrant rights to demonstrate immigrants' economic clout.

But Monday's protests, which in Chicago included rallies at the Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, Union Park and Daley Plaza, weren't only about immigration. A broad coalition of organizations was behind the local actions, including Fight for $15, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Sierra Club and Black Youth Project 100.

"This is being driven by all corners," said Bob Reiter, secretary-treasurer at the Chicago Federation of Labor.

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He viewed Monday's protests as a culmination of the demonstrations that have taken place since President Donald Trump's election, including the women's march, the climate march and the tax march, to build solidarity between groups fighting for common causes.

"It's not just about resisting, it's about setting the stage for us to move forward," Reiter said. "I think you're going to see a deepening of relationships that have happened since November."

aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @alexiaer
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is in one of the most attractive college towns in the country when it comes to buying homes for college students rather than paying rent, a study shows.

The area ranks 10th in the nation for homes that are more affordable than rent in college towns, according to a study by Realtor.com, the website affiliated with the National Association of Realtors.

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With a median price of $149,075 on a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Champaign County, a homebuyer would spend $875 a month on the home versus $956 for the average rent, said Javier Vivas, manager of economic research for Realtor.com.

The monthly home payment assumes that the buyer provided a 20 percent down payment on the home, and each month covered the cost of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, insurance and taxes.

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"This is very attractive," Vivas said. Besides the simple comparison between average rent and monthly payments, he said, Champaign is attractive because homes have not appreciated as sharply as in many areas of the country. Yet while prices haven't soared, the area is appreciating  which could help buyers sell with a future gain if the trend continues.

Median monthly cost to buy: $875 Median monthly cost to rent: $956 (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)

According to the Illinois Realtors, the median price of a single-family home sold during March in Champaign County was $157,450  a 2.9 percent increase over a year ago. A year earlier prices were up 3.4 percent from 2015.

The Realtor.com analysis ranks John Hopkins University in Baltimore as the nation's most attractive campus area for buying versus renting. The median-priced home there would cost $775 a month to own while rents average $1,443. It is followed by Notre Dame in the South Bend, Ind., area, with $470-a-month payment on the median-priced home compared with $856 in rent. Purdue University, Michigan State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Maryland at College Park, Case Western Reserve University, Swarthmore College and Marquette University were also in the top 10.

The calculation does not take into account maintenance costs. It also doesn't consider the lower rent a student might face when sharing an apartment with other students, or the income a homeowner might make by renting out bedrooms to other students.

A similar analysis by Zillow indicates that a buyer in Champaign would break even on buying a home within 25 months based on rent of $1,200 a month.

In Champaign, Coldwell Banker real estate agent Jim Waller said he is in the process of trying to sell a home purchased by a graduate student about five years ago. The two-bedroom home within two blocks of campus hasn't appreciated much, so the owner was at first disappointed as he considered a $102,000 sale price. But he's been paying about $700 a month for the home versus $1,000 he would have paid for rent  saving $300 a month on housing. If he can sell the home for about $2,000 more than the original price, he figures he'll have lived rent-free.

As a rule of thumb, it's considered risky to buy a home if you are likely to sell it in less than five years because the home may not appreciate enough to cover the commissions. Waller said some people buying for college students in Champaign figure they will be landlords after graduation.

Not everyone is cut out to be a landlord, however, he said. Landlords have ongoing maintenance costs and occasionally face tenants who don't pay.

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Skylar Olsen, an economist for Zillow, suggests that parents considering a home purchase in a college town evaluate the trade-offs between making a 20 percent down payment on a house and investing it elsewhere. Yet, trying to calculate how much a home might appreciate over time isn't clear-cut, she said.

"Playing the housing market is not easy to do," she said. While numerous rent-vs.-buy calculators on the Internet can help with immediate decisions, housing economists struggle to forecast home prices further than a year into the future, she said. "Four years down the road there is a lot of uncertainty."

gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
After 10 iterations in which Next has looked outward, creating menus inspired by cuisine from turn-of-the-century Paris, street food from Thailand and the gastronomic wonders of El Bulli chef Ferran Adria, the shape-shifting Next has adopted an inward gaze, focusing on the early work of chef/partner Grant Achatz in a menu called "Trio."

"Trio" refers to the now-shuttered Evanston restaurant where Achatz became nationally famous. And it's there that now-partner Nick Kokonas first tasted Achatz's food, and without that happy introduction, there would be no Alinea, or Next, today. So in addition to a look at Achatz's work from 2001 to mid-2004, the "Trio" menu carries a certain where-it-all-began vibe; think "When Harry Met Sally," minus the vocal accompaniment (though a dish or two had me considering it).

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All this is a very unusual proposition for the "Trio" patron, who might feel as though he was crashing someone else's reunion. And it's a strange challenge for Next's executive chef, Dave Beran; it's one thing to oversee homages to Adria and Escoffier, but quite another to helm an ode to one's boss.

Ten or so years doesn't seem very long ago, but consider this: Not a single cook in Next's kitchen, Beran included, actually ate at Trio. Thus, the re-creation of that restaurant's cuisine is as much an abstraction as any other idiom that Next has explored, and certainly more so than, say, the Thailand, Sicily and Vegan menus. But it's not an abstraction at all to "Trio" customers who patronized the restaurant in the early aughts, and know exactly what to expect.

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Which fascinates me, because one of the givens in Achatz's restaurants is that one never knows what to expect. Over the years, there has been very little repetition at Alinea and, faint echoes aside, zero at Next; if you're like me, the Achatz dishes you've had are one-shot experiences. And so I felt a rush of giddy recognition with the arrival of the Ice Cream Sandwich course, a note-perfect re-creation of the savory course (olive-oil ice cream between Parmesan-black-pepper cookies) that was an amuse-bouche I last tasted 13 years ago. It was like saying hello to an old friend.

Other bits of sensory nostalgia followed. There was the black truffle explosion, a single ravioli containing liquid black truffle (it was a quintet back in the day, but inasmuch as "Trio" embraces 21 courses, one is plenty), now augmented with a soupcon of charred romaine and chopped black truffle. There was the short-rib with root-beer flavors, a deconstruction that presents sassafras, anise and sugar as discrete ingredients to match with beef. One dessert course is essentially a deconstructed dark beer, layering dark-porter gelee, flaxseed-pistachio tuile, and soft dark chocolate, next to a scoop of yeast ice cream.

Achatz's fondness for subverting expectations of flavor and texture are on display. Lamb loin (a pure sous-vide preparation with no caramelization whatsoever) over orange puree sits alongside a cup of cold lamb consomme with orange; the same flavors, but with completely different textures and temperatures. Audience participation comes into play in a dish of crab and coconut, surrounded by a dozen garnishes arranged like numbers on a clock, each playing off crab and coconut in differing ways. Aromas are prominent in many dishes, notably a bowl of lobster and roasted mushrooms under lobster-cream foam; the bowl sits in an additional bowl filled with rosemary leaves, and when the waiter pours in hot water, the heady rosemary aroma becomes part of a dish that otherwise is rosemary-free.

And there are some dishes in which the focus is less on the food than on the contraption that presents it. A tempura rock shrimp with cranberry and Meyer lemon is suspended by a multiwired contraption (known in the kitchen as "the squid") and impaled on a vanilla bean, serving as the dish's fork. The menu's 21st and final taste is a hibiscus sphere  just a bit of frozen hibiscus tea and sugar  perched on a tripod that happens to be the first custom piece made for Achatz by Martin Kastner, the Crucial Details designer whose work includes The Aviary's now-famous Porthole cocktail flask. Here, and in some other courses, the dishes are less Trio in nature than they are early Alinea, which those who have eaten at both restaurants will recognize.

And, I swear, sometimes the kitchen is just messing with your head. The pizza course consists of a tiny, postage-stamp square of edible paper, seasoned with tomato powder, fennel and other ingredients meant to convey a pizzalike flavor. And not good pizza, either; the flavor is like one of those tomato-paste-and-English-muffin disasters I tried as a kid, and that is the intentional joke. The pizza square is suspended midair by a pin; if you've ever wondered how many pizzas can dance on the head of a pin, you now have your answer.

If you visited Trio when Achatz ran the kitchen, "Trio" will be a memorable nostalgia trip. If Trio the restaurant eluded you, "Trio" the menu is fascinating enough, and delicious enough, to stand on its own.

Watch Phil Vettel's reviews weekends on WGN-Ch. 9's "News at Nine" and on CLTV.

pvettel@tribune.com

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Next

953 W. Fulton Market

nextrestaurant.com

Tribune rating: Four stars

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Open: Dinner Wednesday-Sunday

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Prices: Dinner with wine, tax and gratuity $450-$525

Credit cards: A, DS, M, V

Reservations: Tickets sold online only

Noise: Conversation-friendly

Other: Wheelchair accessible; valet parking

Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars: unsatisfactory. The reviewer makes every effort to remain anonymous. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
When Stephen Colbert asked Oscar winner Tom Hanks to introduce himself on Friday's episode of "The Late Show," Hanks said he is a "man whose brother is a tenured professor in entomology at the University of Illinois."

Hanks recalled running into entomology students from the University of California at Riverside while on an anniversary trip to Joshua Tree National Park with his wife, actress Rita Wilson.

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Hanks said he introduced himself to the students and said his brother, Lawrence Hanks -- who "insists on being called Professor Lawrence around our house" -- is an entomology professor.

"I said, 'Well, I'm Tom Hanks.' And they said, 'Yeah, and your brother is Dr. Larry Hanks.' So I was like the famous guy's brother, you know, at the thing. And it rattled me. And my brother Jim is still angry about it, and my sister Sandra still can't quite...," Hanks said.

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Lawrence Hanks has been at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for more than 20 years, according to his resume. Tom Hanks stars in the tech movie "The Circle," which hit theaters Friday.

"The Late Show" airs 10:35 p.m. weeknights on CBS.

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So how did Tom Hanks do as guest host of NPR's 'Wait, Wait' show?







Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Eminent jazz pianist Marcus Roberts will lead his trio and collaborate with the Chicago Sinfonietta in his improvised version of "Rhapsody in Blue" at two Chicago-area locations. (John Douglas )

Who knew that 2017 was going to be the year of "Rhapsody in Blue"?

During the last few weeks, we've heard two pianists take on the fiendishly difficult piece  and struggle with it.

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In late March, Chicago Symphony Orchestra guest conductor Bramwell Tovey attempted to gloss over its thornier measures by leaning on the piano's sustaining pedal, producing a deadly blur of sound. A week later, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra featured pianist Michael Chertock also waging battle with the Rhapsody, missing much of the rhythmic pulse of the piece and swooning over lyrical passages as if he were playing Rachmaninoff rather than Gershwin.

But the situation for "Rhapsody in Blue" may be improving, with two exceptional pianists scheduled to play a work that many of their colleagues underestimate, at their peril.

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On May 12 and 15, the eminent jazz pianist Marcus Roberts will lead his trio and collaborate with the Chicago Sinfonietta in his improvised version of the "Rhapsody" at two Chicago-area locations. And on Aug. 13, Kevin Cole  a leading Gershwin pianist  will perform the piece with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, in Highland Park.

Roberts' version commands particular interest because he made history here in 1995, when he played the world premiere of his improvised "Rhapsody," accompanied by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra at the long-gone Skyline Stage on Navy Pier.

One hesitates to call anything "the first," but never before had I heard a jazz trio improvise on Gershwin's score while the orchestra played it as written (using the symphonic orchestration by Ferde Grofe).

"I'm definitely one of the first ones," says Roberts, who will play the "Rhapsody" with the Sinfonietta at Wentz Concert Hall in Naperville on May 12 and in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center on May 15 (during a "Rightness in the Rhythm" program that also will include music of Scott Joplin and Leonard Bernstein).

"If someone else has done it" before Roberts did, he adds, "I definitely want to hear it."

Roberts' rendition on the night of July 1, 1995, proved revelatory, the pianist and his trio wasting no time in veering from Gershwin's original.

"To say that Roberts 'improvised' this 'Rhapsody' actually may be an understatement," I wrote in my review, "for it implies that he simply embellished Gershwin's score. In fact, Roberts radically reconceived the piano part, using Gershwin's basic melodic material to create new themes, unexpected harmonies and bracing, utterly modern dissonances.  By offering sections of stride piano, steeped-in-blue chord progressions and plaintive countermelodies of his own, Roberts made this his 'Rhapsody' as much as Gershwin's."

Roberts developed the concept considerably for his 1996 recording of the "Rhapsody" on his "Portraits in Blue" album, which featured members of the Orchestra of St. Luke's plus the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (now called the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra). Having performed the work often since then, says Roberts, his approach has evolved.

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Along the way, he has come to understand "why so much of Gershwin's music is played" today, says Roberts. "Because it's really flexible. Jelly Roll Morton's music is like that. (Thelonious) Monk's music is like that. It seems to be able to be put in any context. If you know what you're doing, you can make it work."

All the more with Gershwin's 1924 masterpiece.

" 'Rhapsody in Blue' is one of the few pieces that's still in the American psyche enough (so that) when you make stuff up, they still know it's 'Rhapsody in Blue,' and you still can understand it and still can follow it," says Roberts. "So there's a unique connection we can build on as we play it for people all over the world."

For those disapproving of anyone reworking this landmark composition, it's worth noting that Gershwin himself improvised when he sat at the piano. Indeed, no one but Gershwin himself knew exactly what he was going to play during the work's world premiere, on Feb. 12, 1924  including Paul Whiteman, who was conducting his orchestra.

"Had (listeners) been able to glance in Whiteman's score," writes Edward Jablonski in "Gershwin: A Biography," "they would have found several blank pages in that piano part; at the end of several blank bars was the notation (to Whiteman): 'Wait for nod.' "

The "Rhapsody" that Roberts unveiled here nearly 22 years ago was conceived in the same spirit, but it was also a starting point for Roberts' work in merging jazz and classical sensibilities. In 2003, he performed his jazz version of Gershwin's Concerto in F, with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. A decade later, Roberts premiered his Spirit of the Blues: Piano Concerto in C Minor with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

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And last year he unveiled his "Rhapsody in D" for Piano and Orchestra in Japan and Tallahassee, Fla., a private recording of the piece showing it to be a major work influenced by both of Ravel's piano concertos and Gershwin's Concerto in F.

How wise it would be for the Ravinia Festival, where Roberts performed his improvised "Rhapsody" with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1996, to produce an evening's worth of his jazz piano/orchestral music. For when Roberts and his trio  staffed by drummer Jason Marsalis and bassist Rodney Jordan  play these pieces, the music achieves a degree of rhythmic lift and melodic freedom not usually associated with the classical tradition.

"That's the power of group improvisation and of jazz improvisation," says Roberts. "Because I always tell people, you can only play what you know or what your subconscious can unlock, which basically just means this: If you've studied enough consciously in the practice room and in rehearsal, in our music there's a subconscious component that kicks in when you're improvising.

"You will find yourself playing above what you know  in those special moments."

Which is what Roberts strives to achieve each time he performs "Rhapsody in Blue."

Marcus Roberts performs with the Chicago Sinfonietta at 8 p.m. May 12 in North Central College's Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville ($10-$60); and 7:30 p.m. May 15 in Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave. ($10-$99); 312-284-1554 or www.chicagosinfonietta.org.

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Grants to Chicago music groups

The D'Addario Foundation, which is based in Brooklyn and "supports upward of 200 grass-roots community based not-for-profits" dedicated to music education, has announced grants to several Chicago institutions.

The awards will go to the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic ($2,000), Chicago West Community Music Center ($3,000); DePaul Community Music Division of DePaul's School of Music ($2,000), El Valor ($2,000), Intonation Music ($3,000) and The People's Music School ($5,000).

For more information, visit www.daddariofoundation.org.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @howardreich

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Watch the latest movie trailers.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox)
Christine Lui Chen, a 36-year-old from Bridgewater, N.J., right, is a first-generation Asian-American who says she was inspired to run for state senate after participating in the Women's March. Chen, a Democrat, canvasses April 13 with her running mate, Laura Shaw. (Olan Trosky / Handout)

Donald Trump's election was a life-altering event for many Americans. Those who supported him felt validated and optimistic, while those who opposed him found the results hard to accept.

"It was the highlight of my life," said Cyndi Love of Scottsdale, Ariz., a Trump campaign volunteer. Nicki Weiss, a social worker from New York City said, "The sense of our world having changed reminds me of how I felt with 9/11."

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While men as well as women say the election deeply affected their lives, it is hard to overstate the impact it has had on women. An estimated 4.5 million Americans, mostly female, joined the Women's March the day after Donald Trump's inauguration. Since then, many have taken up political activism for the first time with profound effects on their work and personal lives.

Some women are rethinking how they allocate their time and energy to have more for political activities. Others are joining grass-roots groups and finding new career paths, including running for office, to further causes they believe in. Along the way, women are learning more about themselves and their communities and discovering new ways to balance work, family and a newfound commitment to their country.

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The day after the election, Sharon Adams Poore, a 58-year-old product manager for a publishing company, said she noticed "utter silence" on her regular train commute from her home in South Hamilton, Mass., to her Boston office. That morning, she says, "there was a solemnness" she'd never felt before.

Poore has always had an interest in politics, particularly local issues that affect her family, the environment and animal rights. But the 2016 election, and especially her participation in the Women's March with her 20-year-old daughter, Madison, reignited her commitment to national causes.

Since the march, Poore has renewed her lapsed newspaper subscription in order to be better informed. And, like a lot of other women, she has been voting with her pocketbook. A grass-roots effort called #GrabYourWallet, which began as a social media reaction to the Access Hollywood tape released last October, has grown into a consumer movement targeting Trump-owned companies, sellers of Trump-brand merchandise, and companies with executives or board members who publicly supported Trump. The numbers change daily, but a recent check of the grabyourwallet.org website lists over 50 companies in the activists' crosshairs.

Gina Perez, a 43-year-old mother of two in Ames, Iowa, and an IT professional for the Iowa Department of Transportation, decided to run for her local school board after the election. She says she was shocked by Trump's victory, but "I felt like I had no room to complain if I was not going to work toward fixing it." Perez's husband is from Puerto Rico, and she says she is concerned about possible racism targeting him or her sons.

According to a recent poll by The Washington Post, political activism is catching on among women. Forty percent of Democratic women said they intend to become more politically active in 2017, as compared with 27 percent of Democratic men. Among Republicans, though, the men outnumbered women: 17 percent of women and 26 percent of men plan to increase their involvement.

Still, many Republican women are energized.

Lisa Vranicar-Patton, 50, of East Berlin, Penn., is a small business owner and longtime supporter of Donald Trump. She said Trump's win has motivated conservatives, and "the energy and enthusiasm is being used again to support our (elected representatives) and judicial candidates."

Sharon Adams Poore, 58, has always had an interest in politics, particularly local issues that affect her family, the environment and animal rights. The 2016 election and her participation in the Women's March reignited her commitment to national causes, she said. (Madison Poore)

Candidate-training programs also are reporting an upsurge in enrollment. Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University and head of Ready to Run, a national training program for female candidates, says interest in the program "is unlike anything we've seen before." Registrations are coming in about three times faster than usual, and many would-be candidates are being placed on waiting lists. "There is a new energy," Sinzdak says. Women who had not been politically active say they "cannot sit on the sidelines anymore."

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Christine Lui Chen, a 36-year-old from Bridgewater, N.J., and a first-generation Asian-American, says she was inspired to run for state Senate after participating in the Women's March. Chen, a Democrat, says her campaign provides an example for her 6-year-old daughter and demonstrates that "we create our own possibilities." If Chen wins, she will be the first woman since 1987 and the first Asian-American ever to be elected to the seat.

Women also are joining grass-roots groups in droves. In the wake of the election, neighbors and friends from both the left and the right are coming together to promote causes they believe in. Many are relying on the Indivisible Guide, a tool kit for political activism, to learn how to reach out to elected representatives. According to its website, Indivisible includes nearly 6,000 groups, with every state and congressional district represented.

Established political organizations, such as the League of Women Voters (LWV), are witnessing increased interest as well. Jesse Burns, executive director of LWV New Jersey, says the nonpartisan group has "seen a huge upswell in membership" since the election.

And women say they are donating more to political causes and candidates. Cynthia Love, a recording secretary for the Paradise Valley, Ariz., chapter of the National Federation of Republican Women, says she has been donating to candidates committed to the president's agenda. Gloria Falzer of Montclair, N.J., has been giving more to Planned Parenthood and to Democratic candidates running in special elections.

Engagement spans all age groups. Abby Schreiber, a 28-year-old New Yorker, disagrees with the image of younger people as apathetic, citing movements they were instrumental in starting, like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. But the 2016 election and the Women's March have increased their focus, she says. "This generation is mobilized and is speaking out."

Whether making calls to Congress or running for office, women are finding ways to fit political activism into already busy lives. Monic Behnken, a 44-year-old sociology professor at Iowa State University, mother of two, and a candidate for her local school board, says she hadn't run before because she was too busy. But that changed after the election. "When I woke up on (Nov. 9) ... I realized I'm really not that busy. This was something I needed to make time for."

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Claire Altschuler is a freelancer.

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After at least a dozen drownings or near drownings on cruise ship pools in the past several years, three major cruise lines now have lifeguards on duty.



Norwegian Cruise Line is the latest to add lifeguards, announcing recently that the line would roll out guards at family pools beginning this summer on its largest ships Norwegian Escape, Norwegian Getaway, Norwegian Breakaway and Norwegian Epic. The remainder of the Miami-based line's fleet will have lifeguards by early 2018.



Norwegian will also begin offering complimentary swim vests for adults and children, which it hopes to offer across all its ships by this summer, said NCL spokeswoman Vanessa Picariello.



The line has stationed deck attendants who are certified in first response on its four mega ships since 2015, said Andy Stuart, president and CEO of NCL, in a statement, but will now add dedicated lifeguards.



"While parents are always the first line of supervision when it comes to water safety, we felt it was important to provide this added measure across our fleet," Stuart said.



The announcement comes two months after Royal Caribbean International also decided to start posting lifeguards at every pool, including in the adults-only Solarium area. The change began in February with the Oasis of the Seas; all remaining ships in the line's fleet will have lifeguards by June.



Miami-based Royal Caribbean is partnering with IAM StarGuard Elite, which will provide licensed lifeguards, consulting and risk-prevention services. The lifeguards, who will wear red-and-white uniforms, will not serve other roles on the ship, as often is the case with crew members who take on various tasks on cruise ships. The line also will offer a 15-minute water safety presentation during the embarkation-day open house session for Adventure Ocean, Royal Caribbean's youth program.



Royal Caribbean began offering life jackets for children to use in the pool in late 2015.



Until the dual announcements this year, Disney Cruise Line had been the only line to offer lifeguards. The change was prompted by a March 2013 incident when a 4-year-old nearly drowned in a pool aboard the Disney Fantasy and suffered a brain injury, resulting in a multimillion-dollar settlement and lifeguards on all Disney ships.



The lack of lifeguards on cruise ships (which instead stress parental supervision), a practice that hotels also follow, has become an increasingly contentious issue after multiple drownings, most of them involving small children, on ships from the major cruise lines.



Last summer, an 8-year-old boy drowned on Royal Caribbean International's Anthem of the Seas. The year before, a family sued the line, demanding that it add lifeguards at pools after a 4-year-old nearly drowned in a wave pool on Oasis of the Seas. In 2014, a 6-year-old boy suffered a brain injury after nearly drowning on Independence of the Seas.





Three children aboard Norwegian Cruise Line ships have drowned or nearly drowned. In May 2015, a 10-year-old girl drowned on the Norwegian Gem and in February 2014, two children were found in a pool on the Norwegian Breakaway. A 4-year-old boy died, and his 6-year-old brother was airlifted to the hospital in critical condition.



In 2013, a 6-year-old boy from Orlando drowned aboard Doral-based Carnival Cruise Line's Carnival Victory. That same year, a 41-year-old man drowned in a hot tub on the Carnival Dream.



Cruise lines are protected by a 1920 law, known as the Death on the High Seas Act, that exempts them from nearly all financial responsibility in the death of a non-wage earner, such as a child or retiree. The only financial burden on the lines would be funeral costs for the victims, which doesn't incentivize cruise lines to post lifeguards, said maritime attorney Michael Winkleman, of Miami-based firm Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman. The firm has litigated various cruise drowning or near-drowning cases.



But large settlements like the one in the Disney case, as well as growing public pressure to add lifeguards, finally forced the lines to change their policies, he said.



"Public sentiment shifted because of the sheer number of children that began drowning on cruises," Winkleman said. "A lot of people said, 'Where are the parents?' I absolutely think parental responsibility plays a major role. But when it was up to a dozen children, those naysayers said, 'Gosh, maybe these big corporations should take a simple step to keep our families safe."



Carnival Cruise Line is now the only major cruise line without lifeguards, despite often touting that it's the cruise line that "sails the most families," including a large number of children.



Jennifer De La Cruz, a spokeswoman for the line, said Carnival has always taken pool safety "very seriously" and will continue to make "significant" investments to train employees on water safety, CPR and first aid. The line has two dedicated water safety management roles on its fleet to audit the line's operations.



Carnival offers complimentary life vests, uses safety nets around its pools when they are closed and provides pool safety information to parents with children under 12 years of age. Still, the line has made no commitments to add lifeguards in the future.



"Carnival is the last hold out," Winkleman said. "I think the pressure on Carnival is now going to be huge."
Fidget spinners are toys designed to enhance concentration and stimulate learning, but schools are starting to see them as a distraction and banning them. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune) (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

The latest craze in classrooms and on playgrounds comes in the form of brightly colored, hand-held trinkets that spin, have buttons to push or otherwise keep hands occupied.

The aptly named fidgets are supposed to enhance concentration, reduce anxiety and stimulate learning. But some educators aren't buying the spin. They say the toys have become a major distraction to teachers and students, and, in some cases, they're being banned from classrooms.

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The idea behind fidget devices  or what's sometimes called fidget therapy  is that they enhance the senses to allow for better and longer concentration. There's a variety of fidgets, but the type that's become suddenly ubiquitous, sold at places like convenient stores, is a small, three-pronged metal and plastic device that spins on a center ball bearing. Another popular fidget is a tiny cube with buttons and levers to manipulate.

Advocates say fidget therapy has been particularly useful for children on the autism spectrum and those who have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, known as ADHD, or otherwise have a harder time paying attention or sitting still.

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Yet some school administrators have already soured on the trend.

"Frankly, we've found the fidgets were having the opposite effect of what they advertise," said Kate Ellison, principal of Washington Elementary School in Evanston. "Kids are trading them or spinning them instead of writing."

It took only a few days after teachers started noticing the toys before almost all of the older students had multiple devices, she said.

"All of the sudden, they're everywhere," she said. "It happened overnight."

While some cost upward of $20, cheaper versions can be had for just a few bucks.

The staff recently made the decision to ban fidgets, and Ellison sent out a letter to parents, explaining the tools are a distraction or worse, because they've caused conflict among students.

"They're treating them like they would treat a toy," she said. "So we can't have them in class or at recess."

While Ellison acknowledged the benefits of fidgets and the philosophy behind them, she said the school has other tools for students who need so-called "manipulators," like a squeeze ball, or a piece of Velcro or rubber band underneath their desk.

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"This particular kind of toy has not been part of our repertoire of sensory tools," she said.

Washington Elementary isn't alone in its thinking. On social media and in published reports, word has spread of fidgets being banned in classrooms or entire schools, usually with exceptions made for children with special needs.

Janelle Feylo of Downers Grove was pleased to see a letter from her principal at Prairieview School announcing such a ban. Feylo's fourth-grade son had recently started asking for a fidget toy and brought home a homemade device given to him by a friend. That one was promptly lost in the laundry.

Eventually, the fidget was located, but Feylo confiscated it.

"I don't think he needs it," she said. "I don't want him to get in trouble."

Occupational therapists say fidgets do work if used correctly and not just as a toy.

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"It's this idea that ... if (students are) inattentive, they could be disruptive or not learning," said Sandra Schefkind, pediatric program manager at the American Occupational Therapy Association.

Those who tend to fidget, the theory goes, can channel the urge into the mindless manipulation of the device, thus freeing them to focus on the task at hand.

It's the reason why people doodle during a class or a meeting, and why people need breaks to move around when sitting still for long periods, she said.

"Our brains can't just focus on auditory and visual challenges," said Kristie Koenig, an associate professor and chair of the department of occupational therapy at New York University. "It's the same reason why recess helps."

Koenig said educators have long included tools to enhance learning in classrooms, from stretching and water breaks to gum chewing during tests.

"You only have so much time to (spend sitting and listening or reading), then you get up to sharpen your pencil," she said. And people naturally fidget by twirling hair or tapping a foot. Fidget devices are an extension of that, Koenig said.

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While the concept isn't new, Koenig said the bump in popularity could relate to greater inclusion of students with special needs as well as, like most contemporary trends, social media. But they're not just for students with disabilities or learning difficulties, she said.

"They could help anyone," she said. "An outright ban could be counterproductive to kids who need them."

Still, Koenig acknowledges that when students use fidgets as toys or collectibles, their benefits may diminish. "We don't want kids to use them as toys to distract."

And even if some schools are banning them, the fidget trend is far from played out, said Laurie Kherani, owner of Learning Express Toys stores in Clarendon Hills, Countryside and Glenview.

"We sell through them quicker than we're getting them in," she said.

kthayer@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @knthayer
End sanctuary cities

This is getting to be out of hand regarding sanctuary cities. I don't understand what part of illegal people don't understand. Anybody who gives sanctuary to illegal immigrants should be arrested. Sanctuary for illegals is illegal, plain and simple.

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Jail tale

This is about jails being crowded. I spent two years following the trial of the fool who stole my car and burglarized a bunch of houses in my neighborhood. They let him go on work release, and he immediately took off. He was only 18 years old, yet he had a long list of offenses such as driving under the influence and looting. When he was finally convicted two-and-a-half years later with 437 days he served in county, he was given nine months in the Department of Corrections. He is in minimum security. What is this teaching someone who keeps going in and getting out? He got a slap on the wrist every time, and he would go out and steal again. He lived at home with his mother. There was a continuance every single week. It was never ending. Jails remain crowded for a reason.

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Concern about concerts

This is about the comment on standing up to Gov. Rauner and President Trump. It said former President Obama spent $83 million on vacation while he was in office. How much was spent for former First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters to go to Beyonce concerts? I have friends who are musicians. I don't have to go to every one of their shows. How many millions did it cost every time Obama and his family came to Chicago?

Temerity of celebrities

What happened to all those celebrities who said they were going to Canada if President Trump was elected? If these rich celebrities are so worried about what the government is doing, let them pay for it with their own money. I watched television the other day and found that some celebrities were spending $35,000 a night to stay at a hotel in the United States. These are the same celebrities who tell us what we should be doing for other countries. Put your money where your mouth is or be quiet.

Prove who you are

Jesse Jackson is up in our arms because Attorney General Sessions wants people to have identification when they vote. What is wrong with that? You need IDs to cash a check, so why shouldn't you have IDs when you vote? What is the big deal about reaching into your pocket or purse to pull out your voter ID? It's time we make a law that you need identification if you want to vote.

Twitter @NewsSun

Editor's Note

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Talk of the County is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you see something you disagree with or think is incorrect, please tell us. Call us at 312-222-4554 or email talkofthecounty@tribpub.com. For a continuously updating blog of Talk of the County comments, go to newssunonline.com/talk.
Roused about Rauner

Gov. Rauner has kept my check for the past two years. Regarding his commercial, we should take that duct tape and put it over his eyes, ears and mouth. My wife and I are living from paycheck to paycheck. We are both disabled. We don't go anywhere. We don't drink or smoke. If the governor is going to keep my check, he should send me a form or drop by the house and ask me. He just took it. Governor, leave my checks alone. Our 46th anniversary is coming up, and we can't afford to go anywhere.

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Good old boys club continues

Hear ye, hear ye, citizens of Waukegan. Have we really changed the demographics of our city? It looks like we are going to continue with the same dishonesty. It's going to be the same good old boys club. Good luck, Waukegan.

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Too much money

Lake Villa Township wants to buy the Antioch Country Club. With major repairs, it will cost around $1 million. If the township has that much money sitting around, give it back. We need people to go to meetings or let your leaders know that this is wrong. It's not even in Lake Villa Township.

Watch where you plant

It's that time of year again. Get those shovels out to plant your trees right under the power lines. Then you'll have something to complain about when the power company goes out and has to butcher those trees to get it going again. Stupid power company.

Pass the bill

As a citizen who has voted in every election for more than 30 years, I strongly urge passage of Senate Bill 1933. With Senate Bill 1933, the Illinois General Assembly can pass a measure supported by both Democrats and Republicans: Automatic Voter Registration. AVR means changing voter registration at state agencies like the DMV from opt-in to opt-out. Only eligible voters who document or affirm that they are eligible would be registered to vote. AVR will make our voter lists more secure, save taxpayers money over time and shorten lines on Election Day. If Senate Bill 1933 is passed and then signed by Gov. Rauner, Illinois voters, taxpayers and citizens will benefit, and we will be an example for other states to follow.

Twitter @NewsSun

Editor's Note

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Talk of the County is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you see something you disagree with or think is incorrect, please tell us. Call us at 312-222-4554 or email talkofthecounty@tribpub.com. For a continuously updating blog of Talk of the County comments, go to newssunonline.com/talk.
An ICE detainee is casting blame on the Chicago Police Department for his violent arrest by federal authorities, claiming its practice of sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement brought about an unlawful raid on his home, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

Attorneys representing Wilmer Catalan-Ramirez say he was erroneously placed in CPD's "over-inclusive" gang database, which effectively stripped him of any privacy protections under Chicago's sanctuary city ordinance, according to court documents. As a result, Catalan-Ramirez, who lawyers say was never a gang member, was seriously hurt in a March 27 arrest after ICE agents entered his Back of the Yards home without a warrant.

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Catalan-Ramirez, who is in the U.S. illegally, wasn't informed or allowed to challenge his placement in the gang database, the suit says.

"The City of Chicago is therefore not a sanctuary city for those individuals like Mr. Catalan-Ramirez who have been falsely labeled by CPD as a gang member and then subsequently targeted by ICE because CPD shared this false information," the lawsuit says.

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In a separate incident, Catalan-Ramirez, a mechanic and father of a 3-year-old U.S. citizen, suffered serious injuries, including partial paralysis and brain damage, when he was shot in the head and shoulder in January in a drive-by shooting.

During the March arrest, the suit says agents wrenched his arm behind his back and slammed his head on the floor, exacerbated his brain injury and caused him to begin to lose sight in his left eye.

His lawyers say he wasn't given proper medical attention and was teased by staff at McHenry County Adult Correctional Center, a county jail and Chicago area ICE detention center.

The suit, which names ICE, the city of Chicago, CPD and McHenry County, claims authorities used excessive force and unlawful search and seizure. It also contends authorities violated his right to due process in his removal proceedings by characterizing him as a gang member.

Spokespeople for Chicago and the police agencies named in the suit declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. >

The federal lawsuit was announced by Catalan-Ramirez's wife, Celene Adame, who attended a protest at Union Park for May Day, an international holiday advocating for labor and human rights. Holding a poster with images of her family, Adame said she's suing the police department and ICE for violating their rights and "treating us as though we're a piece of garbage."

"We're not trash," Adame said, of herself and the broader Latino community. "We come here to work and fight for our children, to bring them out ahead."

Adame who witnessed her husband being taken into custody along with their son continues to be troubled by the event, according to the suit. Their son also has nightmares about the ordeal.

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"There needs to be consequences for everyone responsible for hurting our family, for my husband, and so that it doesn't happen to others. That's why today we are here marching and why we are filing the lawsuit," she said in a statement.

Chicago Tribune's Gregory Pratt contributed.

tbriscoe@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_tonybriscoe
A 52-year-old man was killed and a woman was injured in a single-vehicle crash late Sunday in the city's South Loop neighborhood, Chicago police said.

About 11:40 p.m., officers found a 2011 Lincoln sedan near a brick embankment on Indiana Avenue near Roosevelt Road. The vehicle had damage that indicated it was involved in some kind of crash.

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The driver, a woman, and her passenger, the 52-year-old man, were extricated from the vehicle, police said. Both were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where the man was later pronounced dead. The woman injured her right leg in the crash.

Police do not know yet what led up to the crash. The incident remains under investigation.
William Curl accepted a plea for killing an NIU student Toni Keller but then tried to take it back. A judge denied his request Friday. (DeKalb County Sheriff's Department)

A DeKalb man who pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a Northern Illinois University freshman and is now seeking to withdraw his plea has been granted a hearing to present evidence that he was provided ineffective legal assistance.

DeKalb County Chief Judge Robbin Stuckert ruled Monday that William Curl may present evidence of his ineffective counsel claims as he seeks to withdraw his guilty plea in the death of 18-year-old Antinette "Toni" Keller. The badly burned body of the student from Plainfield and graduate of Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville was found in a DeKalb park in October 2010.

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Curl, 40, was charged with her murder and in 2013 made an unusual guilty plea in which he maintained his innocence but stipulated that had his case gone to trial prosecutors would have presented enough proof against him to garner a conviction.

In 2015, in the second year of a 37-year murder sentence, Curl filed a post-conviction petition, alleging that his attorney, Public Defender Thomas McCulloch, had pressured him into pleading guilty. He also alleged that then-State's Attorney Richard Schmack had threatened to implicate Curl's son in the murder if Curl did not plead guilty.

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Both Schmack, who is no longer the state's attorney, and McCulloch have previously contested Curl's version of his plea negotiations.

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Curl also maintained that at the time of plea he had been prohibited from taking his required psychotropic medication, which affected his ability to knowingly enter a guilty plea.

In her ruling, Stuckert said Curl's petition had raised enough constitutional issues to warrant their examination at a full hearing.

Antinette "Toni" Keller. (Northern Illinois University)

"...The petitioner's allegations of fact  liberally construed in favor of the petitioner and in light of the original trial record  make a substantial showing of a constitutional violation warranting further factual inquiry at an evidentiary hearing," the judge wrote.

Keller was last seen alive on Oct. 14, 2010, when she told friends that she was going to the park to do some sketching. Her body was found there two days later, and Curl was arrested about two weeks later. Police interviewed him once and then tracked him to Louisiana when he failed to appear for a second interview.

Authorities say Curl originally told police he discovered Keller's body in the park and that he incinerated it. He later said he and Keller were having sex when she hit her head on a rock and died, according to authorities.

The case will be back in court for a status hearing on May 22, and a date for the evidentiary hearing may be set then.

Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
A regional American Airlines jet made an emergency landing at DuPage County Airport after a report of smoke in the cockpit just minutes after taking off from O'Hare International Airport, officials said Monday.

SkyWest Flight 2936 was diverted to the DuPage airport around 9:15 a.m., according to Marissa Snow, a spokeswoman for SkyWest Airlines. The plane was bound for Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

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There were 50 passengers, 1 infant and 3 crew members on board the flight, she said.

"The flight landed safely and passengers deplaned normally," Snow said. DuPage "is not a commercial airport but the runway can accommodate commercial flights."

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Snow said there was no fire in the cockpit, only smoke. Mechanics will inspect the plane to see what might have caused the smoke. A video posted to the Twitter account of a man who says he was on board the flight shows smoke visible throughout the front of the plane.

Airline staff was working to help passengers resume their travel, Snow said. "We will bus them back to O'Hare for new flights," she said.

The twin-engine CRJ-200 jetliner flew just 37 miles at an altitude of 27,000 feet, according to the flight tracker Flightaware.com. It reached a speed of 487 mph after departing more than 30 minutes late from O'Hare.

Check back for more.
A 15-year-old boy died two days after he was shot in the head during a shooting in the Cragin neighborhood, according to officials.

Xavier Soto, 15, of the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, was pronounced dead at 4:09 p.m. Saturday at Illinois Masonic Medical Center, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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An autopsy Monday determined Soto died of multiple gunshot wounds and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the medical examiner's office.

Soto had been one of two teens who were shot about 8 p.m. last Thursday on the same street where he lived. The shooter was inside a passing vehicle that opened fire, striking the boy and a 16-year-old boy, Chicago police said. The older teen was shot multiple times.

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The 15-year-old boy had been taken in critical condition to Illinois Masonic Medical Center. The 16-year-old boy had been listed in serious condition at the same hospital.

Police did not release a description of the vehicle or the shooter.

Check back for updates.
Former President Barack Obama speaks about civic engagement at the Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus on April 24, 2017. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

WASHINGTON  Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, will unveil a conceptual model of the former president's library and museum during a community meeting in Chicago on Wednesday, according to a source familiar with the foundation's plans.

A three-dimensional model of Obama Presidential Center will be shown during the midday event at the South Shore Cultural Center, the source said. The model will offer the first look at the complex in Jackson Park, which is viewed as a potential driver of economic revitalization on the South Side.

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On Monday, the nonprofit Obama Foundation released a few details about Wednesday's event, including that Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the president's first White House chief of staff, will be on hand.

The foundation billed the gathering as a event with community leaders. The former president will host a roundtable discussion at the event to give an update on the center and hear directly from community members on their ideas for it, the foundation said.

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Husband-and-wife architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of New York will also attend Wednesday's event. The future Presidential Center is expected to open in Jackson Park in 2021 at a cost of at least $500 million.

"More than a building or a museum, the Obama Presidential Center will be a working center for civic engagement and a place to inspire people and communities to create change," the foundation said in Monday's announcement.

Tickets to Wednesday's event are by invitation only, the foundation said.

Later Wednesday, Barack Obama is scheduled to appear at The Chicago Club, a source told the Tribune. The foundation divulged no details on that event.

This week's planned visit follows Obama's re-emergence on the public stage in Chicago on April 24, when he appeared with young people for a conversation on civic engagement. The event was widely watched and followed three months of him keeping mostly out of the public eye.

That event was at the University of Chicago, where Obama formerly taught constitutional law. The university is not far from the family's residence in the Kenwood neighborhood.

A day earlier, the former president met behind closed doors with at-risk youths in the Roseland neighborhood, where he cut his teeth at age 25 as a community organizer.

The South Shore Cultural Center is another touchstone for the Obamas, who had their wedding reception there in 1992. The Obamas now live in Washington, D.C., as their younger daughter won't finish high school there until 2019.

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kskiba@tribpub.com

bkamin@tribpub.com

Twitter @KatherineSkiba

Twitter @BlairKamin
A stop at a Bloomingdale factory was part of Gov. Bruce Rauner's two-day, campaign-style tour of the state in April. (Sara Burnett / AP)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Subscribe here.

Topspin

In mid-April, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner launched a two-day campaign-style tour of the state that he insisted was not a re-election kickoff even though it was paid for by his political fund.

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Rauner gave speeches similar to those he gives during his official governmental visits around the state, contending Democrats in the legislature were blocking his efforts to move Illinois forward and get a budget deal.

Rauner's appearances during the tour were recorded and used in political advertising. Another reason that Rauner deemed the two-day tour political may have been revealed in his most recent campaign disclosure report with the state.

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It shows an in-kind contribution from Donald Wilson, CEO of DRW Trading Group, providing the governor's campaign with the "use of private jet" valued at $14,882. Wilson has contributed to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's fund and paid for a mayoral trip to Washington, D.C., on a regulatory matter.

Rauner traditionally attends events by car after having grounded the state's air fleet early in his first term.

The campaign disclosure report also showed the Illinois Republican Party providing $51,400 worth of polling services. In early April, the Chicago Tribune noted that a pollster with ties to a firm that Rauner previously has used was making automated calls asking voters about the governor, two potential Democratic challengers and President Donald Trump.

Incidentally, those ads featuring Rauner, often with a roll of duct tape, arent going away yet. The ads, funded by an affiliate of the Republican Governors Association, are set to run for another week on Chicago and Springfield cable, according to an industry report. (Rick Pearson)

What's on tap

*Mayor Emanuel's schedule was not available.

*Gov. Rauner's schedule was not available.

*The Illinois Senate is set to meet Tuesday, and the House is off this week.

*New City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado will give a speech and make personnel announcements on his first day on the job.

*The Chicago Teachers Union will hold a May Day rally. It had previously talked about a one-day strike over the district's finances, but that didn't materialize. Labor leaders and Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin will hold a lunchtime rally at Union Park. They plan to push back against Republican Gov. Rauner and President Donald Trump.

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* The week ahead : On Tuesday, Audra Hamernick, executive director of the Illinois Housing Development Authority, will speak to the City Club of Chicago. On Wednesday, former U.S. Education Secretary and former CPS CEO Arne Duncan will speak to the City Club. At night, former President Barack Obama will speak to the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

From the notebook

*Kennedy compares Rauner to Pritzker: Democratic governor candidate Chris Kennedy used a fundraising email over the weekend to compare rival J.B. Pritzker to Illinois' Republican governor.

"Gov. Rauner has done some pretty awful things to our state. The worst thing he has done is fail to pass a budget but the second worst thing he has done is silence his own party. No elected official in the Republican Party has spoken out against him. Why would they? He spent millions in the last election cycle to elect his preferred candidates. He has used his money to intimidate them. He has used his finances to bully them," Kennedy says in the email solicitation.

"We can't let what's happening in the Republican Party happen in the Democratic Party," he said. "We are at a moment when we can strengthen the Democratic Party in Illinois. But we won't become stronger by nominating someone to represent us who doesn't need our money, who doesn't need our ideas, and who isn't influenced by our opinions. Big money talks, it doesn't listen."

It was Kennedy, a businessman and a member of the iconic political family, who gave his campaign $250,100 to break the limits on campaign donations in the governors race. Pritzker, a billionaire investor and entrepreneur, has given his campaign $7.2 million. (Rick Pearson)

*Pawar compares Rauner to Trump: Democratic governor candidate Ameya Pawar, a Northwest Side alderman, used a fundraising email to compare Rauner to Trump.

"The run as a populist and govern as a plutocrat playbook started in Illinois," said Pawar, who noted in a posting on the Democratic-leaning Daily Kos website last week that "the country might be stuck with Trump until 2020, but Illinoisans can get rid of our own Trump in 2018."

In that post, Pawar wrote that Rauner was a "Donald Trump prototype" who was "ruining Illinois." Pawar did say that unlike Trump, Rauner "isn't a preening megalomaniac, and doesn't get into Twitter feuds with minor celebrities."

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Still, in his fundraising email, Pawar said like Trump, "Bruce Rauner claimed to be looking out for working people. But once the election was over, he went back to pushing policies that benefit his billionaire friends at our expense." (Rick Pearson)

*Dems protest cuts to science: Fresh off the March for Science on the National Mall, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, the only physicist in Congress, led 67 Democratic House members in a letter Friday to President Donald Trump warning about his proposed budget cuts of $900 million to the Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Foster, of Naperville, worked for years at DOE's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, and his district includes part of the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont. While both fall under DOE's Office of Science, it's unclear whether their budgets would be hit because Trump's blueprint was not that specific, a Foster spokeswoman said.

Democratic Reps. Danny Davis, Dan Lipinski, Bobby Rush and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois joined in the letter, which cautioned a heavy hand on the budget ax could lead the U.S. to forfeit its leadership in scientific research to Asia or Europe.

The Office of Science has been integral to developing technologies including MRI machines, PET scans, DNA sequencing technologies, 3-D models of pathogens and tools to manufacture nanomaterials, the lawmakers wrote. (Katherine Skiba)



*CTU's fiery statement on Emanuel: City Hall and the Chicago Teachers Union each offered rapid response statements following the federal criminal sentencing of former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett (she got 4.5 years, in case you were in your weekend bubble a bit early Friday afternoon). The missives arrived in our inbox less than a minute apart.

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Mayor Emanuel's statement was about what you would expect, attempting to put distance between himself and his hand-picked former public schools chief.

"Barbara betrayed the public trust. She broke the law. She turned her back on the very children she was entrusted to serve, and the children of Chicago are owed much better than that. Today's decision is a reminder that no one is above the law, and with justice now served the entire CPS community can continue to focus on building on the record academic success of Chicago students," the statement read in full.

But the CTU statement spit fire in what amounted to a "greatest misses" type summation of what a potential Emanuel mayoral challenger might say in 2019.

"Today's sentencing of former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett joins the shuttering of 50 schools in predominantly Black and Latino communities, the cover-up in the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, the closure of city-run mental health clinics, and an ongoing email scandal on a list of embarrassments and transgressions Chicagoans have endured under the Rahm Emanuel administration," the statement began.

*The Sunday Spin: On this week's show, Chicago Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson's guests were Democratic state Rep. Anna Moeller of Elgin, who passed a pay equity bill; Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, who's on a book tour; and Bob Schillerstrom, chairman of the Illinois Tollway, which approved a $4 billion Tri-State Tollway project. "The Sunday Spin" airs from 7 to 9 a.m. Sunday on WGN-AM 720. Listen to this week's full show here.

What we're writing

*Byrd-Bennett, ex-CPS chief, given 4 1/2 years for massive bribery scandal.

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*Judge rejects CPS' state funding lawsuit, but school year still won't end early despite Claypool's earlier threat.

*Newly minted Cook County judge who refused traffic court duty quits bench.

*Should Illinois require cursive be taught in schools?

*Illinois House backs study of pharmacy safety, consumer needs.

*College endowments hope for rebound after worst year since financial crisis.

*Western Illinois county reveals the Land of Lincoln's electoral divide (a people-who-voted-for-Trump story).

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*Judge blocks winner of Markham mayoral race from taking office.

What we're reading

*Benny and Jorge and the quest for peace in Little Village.

*CPS CEO Claypool honed "sky is falling" playbook at CTA.

*Yes, guacamole is extra. Costs to jump as avocado shortage sparks record prices.

Follow the money

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*The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform tracks the big donations of the week.

*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago

*After 100 days, Trump's push on taxes and jobs to come.

*On trade, feisty Trump risks economic damage, NYT reports.



*Biden keeps 2020 options open.

*Marcon's start-up style campaign upends expectations.
Police officers investigate a bus shelter shot out at a crime scene in the intersection of Central Avenue and Corcoran Place in the Austin neighborhood on April 7, 2017, in Chicago. Six people were shot, one fatally, and all were taken to area hospitals. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Aldermen on Monday called for the Chicago Police Department to do more to help police officers contemplating suicide in response to the stresses of the job.

Reacting to statistics on suicide rates and mental health services for police officers in a Justice Department investigation of the Police Department, aldermen noted officers working on the city's violent streets often deal with stress like soldiers in war zones. The Justice Department report said that based on statistics federal investigators received from the Police Department and the Fraternal Order of Police, "CPD's officer suicide rate is more than 60 percent higher than the national average of 18.1 law enforcement suicides per 100,000."

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But there's a stigma within the department to seeking help dealing with the issues. Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, said studies have found officers also face "serious legal issues" and pressure from the public and the media, yet there are just three full-time counselors on staff at the Police Department.

"If we're to succeed in our goal of improving the morale and the efficiency of the department, and the tenor of police-community relations, this mindset needs to change," Burke said. "The City Council must provide the necessary tools and resources to improve the availability and the quality of mental health care in the department."

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Aldermen introduced a resolution for the City Council to look into what can be done to help officers, but the proposal includes no new funding or specific plans about how to move forward in addressing the issue.

Testifying at the hearing, Chief Barbara West of the Police Department's Bureau of Organizational Development said the department "is reviewing the support services currently available through the employee assistance program to ensure they are appropriate to assist officers exposed to trauma, those who are involved in shootings, domestic violence and other stressors that have an impact on officer health and wellness."

And West said the department may seek to make mental health services mandatory for officers following "significant events in order to combat what has been traditionally stigmatized around seeking mental health assistance within the CPD."

Far Northwest Side Ald. Anthony Napolitano, 41st, a former police officer and firefighter, talked about the coping mechanisms officers use to deal with the horrors they see. Police worry they could get stuck at a desk or lose their jobs if they seeking counseling, he said. "It's about a career, it's about feeding your family," he said.

"We had a thing called the death laugh, as morbid as it sounds," Napolitano said. "But you see so much death that the only way you can get your mind around it or your heart around it is you find something to laugh about with the crew that's on the scene there."

jebyrne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @_johnbyrne
Congress on Monday announced it has reached an agreement on a federal spending bill through September. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)

Lawmakers reached an agreement late Sunday on a broad spending package to fund the federal government through the end of the fiscal year in September, ending weeks of uncertainty. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the package early this week. The bipartisan agreement includes $12.5 billion in new military spending and $1.5 billion more for border security, a major priority for Republican leaders in Congress.

So, what's in the agreement? The Washington Post has sifted through the legislation, consulted supporting documents from Democratic and Republican aides, and called out some of the more notable and controversial elements below.

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AIRPORT SECURITY

The Transportation Security Administration would get $331 million in additional money to hire new officers and canine teams to speed up the screening process at airports and seaports.

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And air travelers rejoice: Congress decided against enacting a plan that would require $880 million in passenger fee increases.

AMTRAK

The nation's passenger rail service, a quasi-government organization, gets $1.5 billion, a $105 million increase from the last budget year.

ARTS FUNDING

Democrats are claiming a huge victory for the arts. They successfully blocked Trump's request to cut funding to the National Endowments of the Arts and Humanities. Instead both agencies would see a funding increase of $2 million under this spending bill, bringing each budget to $150 million for fiscal 2017.

BORDER SECURITY

Trump didn't get the wall money he wanted but Republicans did get $1.5 billion to spend on repairs to existing border fencing and new technology, such as drones and sensors to help agents keep an eye on parts of the border not protected by barriers.

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

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Gone are requests for fee increases for ranchers grazing on federal land and plans for increased oil and gas inspection fees. The BLM got $1.2 billion in the spending bill, an increase of $15 million over last year, including $9 million for the hotly-debated sage grouse conservation project and federal land preservation.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE

Democrats say they used the spending bill to stave off attempts to end federal reporting of political contributions.

But there's a ban on requiring government contracting firms to disclose political campaign contributions as a requirement for bidding for government work  ending an Obama-era push to do so.

And the bill bars the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring the disclosure of political contributions, contributions to tax-exempt organizations or dues paid to trade associations  a loss for groups pushing for more disclosures of campaign contributions.

CDC

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The spending bill includes a modest $22 million increase for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and fully funds the Public Health Preparedness and Response programs, which are in charge of preparing for a bioterrorism attack or pandemic outbreak.

COAL MINERS

One of the rare bipartisan wins in this bill is a permanent extension of health-care coverage for coal miners. The measure was a major priority for coal-state lawmakers, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

COLLEGE TUITION GRANTS

Pell Grants for college tuition would get a boost to help cover a student's full year of college. The maximum award would be increased to $5,935, up from $5,775.

CUBA

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Headed to the island nation? Bring back as many cigars you'd like. Negotiators declined to include language barring Americans from bringing back merchandise from Cuba  an attempt to roll back the Obama administration's renewal of diplomatic and trade relations with the communist country. The bill also doesn't include language barring air travel to Cuba, certain educational trips or barring American businesses from doing work with entities owned by Cuban officials or their families.

CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION

Several agencies related to border security would get a boost for the remainder of fiscal 2017. CBP is slated to see a $137 million increase over last year's funding level, bringing them to $11.4 billion. The money includes the full $772 million Trump requested for technology and repairs to existing infrastructure at the Southern border with Mexico.

DIRTY WATER

The EPA program that helps communities clean up the water quality in their drinking supply is slated to remain fully funded at the previous year's level. The agency was responsible for sending $100 million to help Flint, Mich., restore its drinking supply last year.

The Pentagon also gets $57 million for water quality testing projects at military bases.

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The nation's capital gets $756 million from the federal government  a $26 million increase from last year, but $7 million less than what the Obama administration had requested. The bill includes more money for security operations; $45 million for District school improvements; and the bill reauthorizes a scholarship program that helps low-income students attend private schools in the city.

The bill also bars federal funding from being used for abortion services or "to further marijuana legislation." It also bars federal money from being used to fund a citywide needle exchange program.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

This is one of the few departments to see its budget trimmed under the new spending bill. The $68 billion budget is $1.2 billion lower than the spending level enacted in 2016 and $2.3 billion lower than former President Barack Obama proposed for this year. However, student academic support and special education both got modest boosts under the spending bill.

EMBASSY SECURITY

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There's no change in spending to secure U.S. diplomatic outposts. Overall embassy security programs will cost $2.357 billion.

E-CIGARETTES

The spending agreement requires FDA review of "e-cigarettes, little cigars, cigarillos, hookah" and all cigar products. Lawmakers from tobacco-producing states had been pushing to exempt thousands of e-cigarette flavors from federal review, according to congressional aides.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

So much for Trump's pledge to make deep cuts to the EPA: The spending bill would maintain nearly 99 percent of the agency's total budget. Still, Republicans are celebrating that the $8.06 billion EPA budget will force the agency to maintain low staffing levels. The spending bill also bans the EPA from cutting agricultural exemptions under the Clean Water Act and requires an update on plans to address the backlog of mining permits that have yet to be approved.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

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There's language in the bill requiring the Office of Management and Budget to detail "the expected costs of Executive Orders and Presidential Memorandums." President Trump has signed 30 executive orders in the first 100 days of his presidency.

FEDERAL WORKER PAY AND PERKS

The bill continues to bar federal funding for abortions as part of the federal Employee Health Benefits Program. The bill also authorizes a pay freeze for the vice president and other senior political appointees.

FOOD STAMPS

Officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the bill slashes funding by $2.4 billion compared with last year "reflecting declining enrollment," according to Republicans. Overall, there's $78.5 billion in required mandatory spending for the program and another $3 billion for the SNAP reserve fund that covers unexpected increases in enrollment.

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

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There's $13.5 million in spending increases for the Government Accountability Office to continue its investigative and oversight work across the three branches of government.

GUANTANAMO BAY

As with previous spending agreements, the new legislation bars funding to "house, transfer, or release any Guantanamo Bay detainee."

IMMIGRATION POLICY AND FUNDING

Trump won only a small boost in funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the main agency in charge of deportations and immigration monitoring. Republicans had hoped to fund a hiring spree for new ICE agents and the addition of tens of thousands of detention beds. Instead the spending bill includes money for 100 new officers and approximately 5,000 more beds.

But a $1.5 billion spending increase for the Justice Department will help pay for "short-term detention space" that Republicans say will help house undocumented immigrants and other federal offenders.

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A $20 million increase for the Executive Office of Immigration Review will help pay for 10 more federal immigration judges. But the new funding also requires monthly reports to Congress on "immigration judge performance."

IRS

The nation's tax enforcement agency gets $11.2 billion  freezing its funding in place. Money has been moved around so that there's now an additional $290 million to improve customer service programs, including phone call wait times.

One of the most embattled agencies in recent years, the spending bill also includes language barring the use of money to pay bonuses or to rehire former employees unless their conduct and tax compliance is considered. The IRS also cannot use any money to produce "inappropriate videos or conferences"  a response to employee conferences and training videos that earned scrutiny for their cost and content. The IRS cannot audit an organization "based on their ideological beliefs," but the White House is also barred from ordering the agency to determine an organization's tax exempt status.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Overall, the department sees a $143 million spending cut, but its key agencies, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms  all see eight-figure increases. There's also more money for several of the department's grant programs, including the Violence Against Women grants, the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, and $22.5 million more to pay for police armored vests.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Its massive archive would get a $32 million funding boost, primarily to help pay for upgrades to data and computer support and updates to the copyright office.

MARIJUANA

The spending bill bars the Justice Department from using any money to prevent local governments from "from implementing their own laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana." This applies to states and the District of Columbia.

METRORAIL

The Washington area's bus and subway system gets $150 million  equal to the amount it's already receiving.

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NATIONAL PARKS

The National Park Service would be fully funded, including a modest bump of $81 million for park maintenance and projects related to the agency's centennial celebration.

MILITARY CONTRACTS

Here's what the Pentagon will be able to spend: $21.2 billion to procure 13 Navy ships, including three DDG-51 guided missile destroyers and three Littoral Combat Ship. There's also $8.2 billion for 74 F-35 aircraft; $1.1 billion for 14 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft; $1.2 billion for 62 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters; $774 million for 52 remanufactured AH-64 Apache helicopters; $262 million for seven new Apaches; $72 million to spend on 10 more helicopters; $702 million for 145 Patriot MSE missiles; $275 million for 20 MQ-1 Gray Eagle unmanned aerial vehicles; $187 million for 28 Lakota light utility helicopters; $1.8 billion for 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft; $2.6 billion for 15 KC-46 air tankers; and $1.3 billion for 17 C/HC/KC/MC-130J aircraft.

MILITARY PAY AND PERKS

There's a 2.1 percent pay raise for the troops. The new agreement does not make the proposed cuts in troop strength proposed by the Obama administration.

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The Defense Health Program gets $312 million to continue its cancer research, $125 million for traumatic brain injury and psychological health research and $296 million for sexual assault prevention and response programs  all above the Trump administration's budget requests for the programs.

NASA

The space agency's $19.7 billion is $368 million more than last year. That new money helps increase funding for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and the Space Launch System and the Europa and Mars missions.

NIH

No cuts here. The bill would provide a $2 billion increase for NIH, bringing the agency's budget to $34 billion this year. The funding is to be used, in part, for research into Alzheimer's disease, antibiotic resistance, brain studies and the development of new treatments and cures.

OPIOID ADDICTION

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A big spending increase is seen as one of the biggest bipartisan victories in the bill. There's $103 million specifically for opioid addiction reduction in addition to a $130.5 million increase for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. It includes $30 million more for the Mental Health Block Grant which helps states fund mental health programs for low income people.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Democrats successfully blocked a GOP request to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal funding. The women's health group will continue to have access to that money through the end of the fiscal year in September. Federal money accounts for about 40 percent of Planned Parenthood's overall budget, with most of that money reimbursing the organization for the treatment of patients on Medicaid.

POSTAL SERVICE

The bill prohibits the nation's mail delivery system from consolidating or closing "small rural and other small post offices."

PUERTO RICO

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The island commonwealth is expected to fall short this year on reimbursements to Medicaid. The spending bill includes $295 million to help fill the gap.

PUBLIC BROADCASTING

Elmo and Peter Sagal, breathe easy: Congress didn't make any cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the agency that helps fund programming on NPR and PBS.

SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

The new spending agreement ends a program championed by the former first lady to combat childhood obesity that forced changes in school lunches served to about 31 million children. Republicans say the legislation "stops an Obama-era school meal regulation" and that doing so provides "flexibility for whole grains and milk and preventing changes to sodium standards that have not been fully scientifically vetted."

The changes caused schools to begin serving more milk, whole grain-rich foods, and a variety of fruits and vegetables, plus limit the amounts of calories, trans-fats and salt that kids get in cafeterias. But a powerful school lunch industry group withdrew its support for the program, saying the new standards were expensive and unpopular with students.

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Democrats noted that the bill allows school districts to continue the Obama-era regulations if they choose to do so. The bill also bars the use of poultry from China in USDA-backed school lunch programs.

SECURITY FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP

The spending bill includes $61 million in money to help pay back local law enforcement agencies for protecting Trump in the six months since he was elected. Any agency that provided protection to the president can apply for the reimbursement, but the majority of the funds are expected to be used by officials that protect Trump Tower in New York and the president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.

Lawmakers also added $131 million for the U.S. Secret Service, to help keep up with increased deployments to help protect the president's extended family.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

The quasi-government agency that runs the museums along the Mall in Washington would get a small $23 million increase.

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VISAS

The bill includes at least two more years of funding to dole out 2,500 special immigrant visas for Afghans who were employed by ISAF or the U.S. government in Afghanistan since military operations began there in 2001.

WILDFIRES

Lawmakers from Western states secured $407 million in emergency funding to help fight wildfires this year.

The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
Japan's helicopter carrier JS Izumo, foreground, sails by a U.S. supply ship, top left, at anchor in the waters off Yokosuka after the Japanese destroyer departed Yokosuka port, south of Tokyo, Monday, May 1, 2017. Japan's navy has dispatched its largest destroyer reportedly tasked with escorting U.S. military ships off the Japanese coast, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japanas military a greater role overseas, amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula. The Izumo started to escort the U.S. supply ship after the two vessels met up in the waters off the Boso Peninsula, south of Tokyo, later in the day. (Ren Onuma / AP)

SEOUL, South Korea  America's CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul confirmed Monday, amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but wouldn't say for how long. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

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South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office. The U.S. official, however, wouldn't confirm any meetings beyond ones with officials at U.S. Forces in Korea and the U.S. Embassy.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a U.S. aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters. A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort U.S. naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

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The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo in the morning.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a U.S. supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas. They said the U.S. ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japan's Defense Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilizing the region.

"Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world," Turnbull said. "Together, we're taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region."

Turnbull is to meet Trump for the first time Thursday in New York.

Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this story.
A liberal arts college in Minnesota canceled classes Monday after students planned to boycott, continuing their weekend protests against hate speech on campus.

Hundreds of students at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., staged a peaceful protest Saturday evening inside a student union building after racist expressions against students.

The latest of those came just hours before the demonstrations, when a black student reported having found a note on the windshield of her car that read: "I am so glad that you are leaving soon. One less n - - - - that this school has to deal with. You have spoken up too much. You will change nothing. Shut up or I will shut you up," according to the Northfield News.

Some of the students protested through the night Saturday, sharing their own on-campus experiences with racism and chanting: "This ends now." The students marched to the college chapel Sunday morning and stood in silent protest during a service.

Students were expected to boycott classes Monday after two days of demonstrations. But St. Olaf spokeswoman Kari VanDerVeen said classes would not be held "so that we may have time for faculty, students, and staff to continue the discussions about racism and diversity on our campus."

"It's been something that's been going on all year," Samantha Wells, who said she found the note, told fellow students during the weekend demonstrations, according to the Northfield News. "We've done so much digging and this stuff has happened for decades. There's one thing that happens and it stops and then it happens again and then it kind of stops. I think the big message is we shouldn't let this happen again. The administration needs to do something that stops it indefinitely."

Wells was not immediately available for comment.

VanDerVeen said school leaders were planning to meet with students Monday to discuss their concerns.

"The racist message a student received this weekend follows several other racist acts on campus throughout the year, including written racial epithets and a message targeted at another student," she said in a statement. "In addition to the sharp rise in incidents, it is also deeply troubling that the perpetrators have begun directing messages to specific members of our community.

"These acts are despicable. They violate every value we hold as a community, and they have absolutely no place at St. Olaf."

Nearly 3,000 full-time students were enrolled in St. Olaf College in fall 2016; 2,214 of the students were white and 63 were black, according to enrollment figures.

During the current school year, there have been nine reported acts of hate speech on campus - three incidents during the first semester and six during the second semester - according to the college.

School officials called it "deeply troubling" that some racist messages were being sent directly to specific students and said the administration is working to find those responsible for the "hate-filled acts."

In an April 21 email to students, St. Olaf president David R. Anderson compared the recent incidents to a form of terrorism.

"I am as angry and frustrated as you are at the repeated violations of our values and community norms by someone who defaces the campus with scrawled racial epithets," Anderson wrote. "I would love nothing more than to discover who is responsible for these acts and to remove that person from our community."

Anderson wrote:

I say "that person" because I am pretty sure that this is the work of one or a small number of people. (It may not even be an Ole). This person uses the same modus operandi every time this happens; even the handwriting on the notes is similar from incident to incident. This person has adopted a strategy similar to the one terrorists use: under the cover of darkness and anonymity engage in acts that frighten, dishearten, and frustrate people with a goal of unsettling the community and turning people against one another.

The Northfield News reported that a student discovered a similar note on his car last week.

Then, the outlet reported, another student found a note in her backpack that read, "Go back to Africa."

Students are now calling on St. Olaf administration to put an end to it.

Officials at the college said they appreciate those who are "advocating for meaningful action" and are listening to their concerns.

"The students in Buntrock Commons last night shared their fear, anger, and frustration," VanDerVeen, the spokeswoman for St. Olaf, said in the statement. "These recent acts of racism have opened painful - and important - discussions about how we can do better as a community in addressing the broader issue of racial discrimination."
As the Democratic Party rebuilds itself for the 2018 and 2020 elections, Democratic strategists have been preoccupied with a pressing question: Why did so many voters who backed Barack Obama in 2012 switch to Donald Trump four years later, and what can be done to win them back?

Top Democratic pollsters have conducted private focus groups and polling in an effort to answer that question, and they shared the results with me.

One finding from the polling stands out: A shockingly large percentage of these Obama-Trump voters said Democrats' economic policies will favor the wealthy  twice the percentage that said the same about Trump. I was also permitted to view video of some focus group activity, which showed Obama-Trump voters offering sharp criticism of Democrats on the economy.

Priorities USA, the super PAC that is working to restore Democrats to power, conducted focus groups of Obama-Trump voters in Wisconsin and Michigan  two states that Trump snatched from Democrats  in late January and polled some 800 Obama-Trump voters nationally at around the same time. The pollsters also conducted focus groups with so-called drop-off voters  people who voted for Obama in 2012 but didn't vote in 2016  in the same states and polled 800 drop-off voters nationally.

"[Hillary] Clinton and Democrats' economic message did not break through to drop-off or Obama-Trump voters, even though drop-off voters are decidedly anti-Trump," Priorities USA concluded in a presentation of its polling data and focus group findings, which has been shown to party officials in recent days.

The poll found that Obama-Trump voters, many of whom are working-class whites and were pivotal to Trump's victory, are economically losing ground and are skeptical of Democratic solutions to their problems. Among the findings:

-- 50 percent of Obama-Trump voters said their incomes are falling behind the cost of living, and another 31 percent said their incomes are merely keeping pace with the cost of living.

-- A sizable chunk of Obama-Trump voters  30 percent  said their vote for Trump was more a vote against Clinton than a vote for Trump. Remember, these voters backed Obama four years earlier.

-- 42 percent of Obama-Trump voters said congressional Democrats' economic policies will favor the wealthy, vs. only 21 percent of them who said the same about Trump. (Forty percent say that about congressional Republicans.) A total of 77 percent of Obama-Trump voters said Trump's policies will favor some mix of all other classes (middle class, poor, all equally), while a total of 58 percent said that about congressional Democrats.

---

"If you felt like your life wasn't getting better over eight years, then you might draw a conclusion that Democrats don't care about you," Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, told me in an interview. "Certainly a subset of these voters were responsive to what Trump was selling them on immigration. But you had a lot of consistency with the Obama-Trump voters ... in terms of the severe economic anxiety they face."

A similar dynamic was in place with the drop-off voters. Priorities USA's polling found that 43 percent of them said their income is falling behind the cost of living, and another 49 percent said incomes were merely keeping pace. "There's a lot of commonality between these drop-off voters and the Obama-Trump voters," Cecil said.

Skepticism about the Democratic Party was echoed rather forcefully in the focus groups that I watched. In one, Obama-Trump voters were asked what Democrats stand for today and gave answers such as these:

"The one percent."

"The status quo."

"They're for the party. Themselves and the party."

One woman, asked whether the Democratic Party is for people like her, flatly declared: "Nope."

---

When I asked Cecil whether Clinton and/or her campaign, in addition to stagnating incomes, were to blame for these voters' conclusions about Democrats on the economy, he answered carefully. He acknowledged Clinton's "high unfavorable ratings" but added that "some of these problems pre-dated 2016." When it comes to communicating a message of economic opportunity that wins over both "communities of color" (where some drop-off voters are concentrated) and "struggling exurban families" (the types who went for Trump), Cecil acknowledged that Democrats "clearly have a lot of work to do."

I also asked Cecil whether, in this context, Clinton's association with Wall Street was part of the problem and whether Barack Obama's widely criticized decision to accept $400,000 for a speech sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald also risked feeding it. Do Democrats have a "Wall Street problem"?

Cecil pointed out that Democrats favor far more in the way of Wall Street accountability and oversight than Republicans do. But he acknowledged that Democrats must do more to take on Wall Street and said the party should represent a substantially more ambitious economic agenda:

---

"The deck is stacked against most Americans in many ways. Pharmaceutical companies that gouge consumers, for-profit prisons that abuse inmates and do nothing to reform them, for-profit colleges that offer false hopes and incredible amounts of debt (my brother went to one). Democrats must take on these systemic problems and we must name names.

"The second part of the argument must include a real, forward-looking economic plan that does more than rehash the same four policy proposals from the last 20 years. How do we deal with automation and huge company mergers? What do we do to address opportunity deserts in rural and urban areas where real investment is almost impossible to find?"

---

Ultimately, though, Cecil said that all this research and polling suggested to him that Democrats have an opportunity. The polling also shows that, among the Obama-Trump voters, large percentages of the more cautious supporters of Trump are concerned that he will go through with deep cuts to social programs and the repeal of Obamacare.

"To win back cautious Trump supporters, we should tie Trump to GOP policies that put the interests of the wealthy/businesses before the middle class and programs they rely on," the polling memo concludes.

Cecil noted that winning back Obama-Trump voters would be key in 2018 to defending vulnerable Democratic senators and winning the many gubernatorial contests that are taking place in big swing states currently controlled by Republicans. But he also cautioned against too narrow a focus on those voters. He pointed out that motivating those Obama 2012 voters who sat out 2016  and keeping Trump's margin down among the college-educated whites who may be souring on him and are concentrated in many districts of the more vulnerable House Republicans  will also be imperatives.

"Democrats are going to have to make a historic investment in turnout," Cecil said. "Democrats are going to have to have a real persuasion campaign that we lacked in 2016."
President Donald Trump is continually surprised by the obvious  health care is hard, the presidency is harder than running a private family company with no accountability.

Newt Gingrich remarked, "I think he's much more aware how complicated the world is. This will all be more uphill than he thought it would be because I think he had the old-fashioned American idea that you run for office, you win, then people behave as though you won." That's not old fashioned; that's wrong, the product of an uncurious mind, a stunted attention span and juvenile temperament.

His grandiosity  a burning need for impressive quick wins  has driven his presidency into the ditch. The more he ruminates about repealing Obamacare and insists on the "biggest tax cut in history," the less he is going to accomplish. The best his advisers can do for him is to loosen his grip on gigantic, unattainable ends and work on middle-size, bipartisan wins.

He might take Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., at his word. On Friday, Schumer said on the Senate floor, "President Trump could have chosen to spend his first 100 days working with Democrats, to find consensus on issues like jobs, trade, outsourcing and infrastructure  places where we have some common ground." He added, "I told him many times that if he governed from the middle, his presidency would have some success."

He might have added to the list: additional reform of the Veterans Administration, expansion of post-secondary education opportunities, revenue neutral corporate tax reform and reform of our legal immigration system. Somewhere in that list are a few items he can pluck out, offer to work on with Democrats and thereby show he really does care about the lives of ordinary Americans.

Trump and the GOP overreached and under-planned their opening agenda. Democrats justifiably complained there was little to no consultation with them on the big agenda items. What policies did come out of the White House and House Republicans (on the Muslim ban, sanctuary cities, health care) were hastily-drafted, flawed and therefore unattractive. No wonder they flopped.

Moderation and steadiness, to put it mildly, are not qualities that come easily to Trump. But that is how successful governance is usually done  small and medium steps done on a bipartisan basis. If this sounds like the approach of some Midwestern governors, it is. When you look to the heartland, where Trump won (Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin), you see dogged Republican governors working with a mix of Democratic and Republican legislators to churn out concrete accomplishments. Each of these GOP governors, interestingly, won a second term in 2014. (John Kasich in Ohio got 63 percent of the vote.)

The way to lower partisanship and get things done is to downscale ambition and look for opportunities that the other side does not find entirely objectionable. On health care, for example, why not pursue a bill to increase rural health-care options, something both sides recognize is a problem? House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., can keep churning away at repeal and replace, but in the meantime a positive result could be achieved.

Unfortunately, no one in Trump's inner circle  even the saner types (e.g., Gary Cohn)  has governing experience. Perhaps they will figure out along the way that bluster, grandiosity and bullying may work in New York real estate but are spectacularly unhelpful in politics.

Washington Post
In a topsy-turvy world, yesterday's enemy can be today's friend. The U.S. has played this game (Germany, Japan, Italy, Vietnam and so forth). For another remarkable reversal of enmity and alliance, let's drop in on the Kremlin.

In 1989, the Soviet Union limped out of Afghanistan, defeated by ragtag mujahedeen fighters determined to turn back Moscow's bid to commandeer their homeland. Those mujahedeen forces evolved into the Afghan Taliban, ousted from power by America's post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan and now a dogged insurgent group bent on unseating the country's democratically elected, U.S.-backed government.

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After more than 15 years of fighting U.S., NATO and Afghan forces, the Afghan Taliban have not gone away. Instead, they remain a daunting threat to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's troubled administration, and to the 8,400 U.S. forces still in the country training Afghan security forces and hunting down militant commanders.

It's a deadly, costly conflict with no end in sight. Predictably, Russian President Vladimir Putin's making a bad situation worse.

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The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson, all but confirmed last week that Russia is supplying to the Afghan Taliban machine guns and antiaircraft weapons  armaments that the militant group is using to keep a tight grip on southern Afghanistan, and to kill Afghan and American troops. Asked if Russia was arming the Taliban, Nicholson said, "I'm not refuting that." A senior U.S. military official told reporters in Kabul that Russia has ramped up its supply of arms to the Taliban in the past 18 months.

The Kremlin denies this, of course. But an earnest Kremlin denial has the credibility of a breathless Breitbart News post.

The Trump administration ought to tackle this problem  fast. Russia's arming of the Taliban won't turn the tide of the war, but it will perpetuate combat and make it that much more lethal. It's hard enough to wear down an enemy as combat-hardened and resilient as the Afghan Taliban is. Another government helping the enemy is unconscionable, particularly because the Taliban's targets include American troops.

The foreign policy think tank Stratfor suggests one motive for the Kremlin's actions might be its desire to become an influential counterpoint to the U.S. presence in South and Central Asia, much the same way Russia's intervention in Syria disrupts America's Middle East policy. If that's the case, the Kremlin's thinking is short-sighted. As long as Afghanistan is at war, it destabilizes Central Asia  a region at Russia's doorstep  and keeps intact a potential breeding ground for Islamic militants, including the Islamic State. To that group, Russia is as much an enemy as is the U.S.

The Trump team's message to Moscow should be firm and blunt: Cease and desist. Russia is violating international law by arming the Taliban. It's already coping with sanctions imposed because of its invasion of Ukraine  is it willing to weather more punishment? If Russia really wants to get involved, it should work toward what is the only bridge to peace in Afghanistan: negotiations that culminate in the laying down of arms and the integration of the Taliban into Afghan politics and society.
Fast food workers rally outside McDonald's restaurant, 23 N. Western Ave., Wednesday April 26, 2017 before traveling to Springfield to lobby lawmakers to support HB 198 which would raise the minimum wage in Illinois to $15/hour by 2022. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)

Business groups in one U.S. city sighed with relief when the mayor vetoed a proposed hike in the minimum wage.

No, not Chicago, where the City Council raised the minimum wage starting July 1, 2015, bumping it to $13 an hour by 2019. After that, wages will be tied to the cost of living. Despite protests from business groups who said they're already overregulated and stretched by City Hall and state mandates, the council and Mayor Rahm Emanuel supported an ordinance that made Chicago a less attractive place to do business. Have aldermen been to the jobs-starved West or South sides lately? We think not.

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But in Baltimore, freshman Mayor Catherine Pugh protected her city's fragile economy by vetoing an ordinance in March that would have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. She said the ordinance, if enacted, would have made her city an outlier and less competitive with nearby cities and suburbs. She's taking mega heat for her veto.

May we import her to Springfield?

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A bill moving through the legislature and sponsored by Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, would hike the minimum wage statewide from the current $8.25 to $15 by 2022. Small businesses would be eligible to receive a tax credit to offset the additional costs.

The late and celebrated University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman would be wagging his finger at Guzzardi and supporters: Good intentions do not justify bad policy. Friedman would point to states such as South Dakota where low unemployment has created demand for jobs, forcing companies to offer more lucrative salaries for entry-level positions. Government didn't force the issue. The market organically responded.

The opposite is in play here, where all six bordering states have much lower minimum wages than Illinois would have.

Illinois desperately needs to expand its economy. To create more jobs, to grow more taxpayers. Political gridlock, the lack of a state budget, high workers' compensation costs, high labor costs, a taxation system in Cook County that punishes businesses and a regulation-obsessed Chicago City Council strain the businesses and nonprofit firms already here.

Raising the minimum wage isn't just a cost driver involving workers in the lower pay brackets. It forces wages up throughout the pay scale.

We know, we know. Raising the minimum wage sounds noble. But discouraging businesses from hiring entry-level workers is a particularly bad idea in a deadbeat, debt-ridden state that can't pay its bills and leads the nation in outmigration while every Midwestern neighbor is gaining in population. One more time: Illinois desperately needs to expand its economy. To create more jobs, to grow more taxpayers. Pass another piece of legislation that disadvantages Illinois businesses, and lawmakers might as well hang a "going out of business" sign on the Capitol doors.

One warning shot: The San Diego Union-Tribune recently reported on data showing a sharp slowdown in growth in the food industry since that city increased its minimum wage. From the start of 2016 to February of this year, federal payroll records indicate the stifling of as many as 4,000 jobs  jobs that could have been created in the food sector, the report said.

There are, of course, studies on the other side of the issue that dispute the link between shrinking job growth and minimum wage increases.

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But you don't need a dissertation exploring why the fast food industry, grocers, warehouse companies and retail outlets are increasingly introducing self-service products, such as kiosks at checkout or robots to fetch and deliver. The technology is there to replace humans, even if giants such as McDonald's insist their kiosks are not part of a staff reduction effort.

You also don't need a dissertation to explore the connection between Illinois' financial crisis and its anti-employer policies.

As in so many areas, Illinois lawmakers risk doubling down on their prior bad decisions. Raising the minimum wage this dramatically only invites employers to slash jobs.

Join the discussion on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook.

Become a subscriber today to support editorial writing like this. Start getting full access to our signature journalism for just 99 cents for the first four weeks.
It seems that free speech is under attack  at times quite literally  at America's colleges and universities. The University of California at Berkeley appears to be the epicenter for students demonstrating against speakers who espouse ideas and ideologies that are antithetical to their own.

When they take a break from their shouts and smears, fists and fingers, I would suggest that the students at Berkeley, and elsewhere, read historian Jean Edward Smith's 2012 "Eisenhower in War and Peace." After he left the Army, but before he became the president of the United States, Eisenhower served as the president of Columbia University in New York. At the outset, Ike was faced with a two-pronged dilemma regarding free speech.

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Columbia had invited Arnold Johnson, a member of the American Communist Party, to speak there. The university had also offered a Polish historian, Manfred Kridl, an endowed chair. It was, however, the late 1940s, and anti-communist witch hunts were swirling up across the country and at American colleges and universities. Thus, critics looked at Columbia as being "soft on communism," as the old saying went, for inviting Johnson and Kridl.

After he examined both matters, Eisenhower, as Smith details, dismissed the criticism. Of course Johnson and Kridl will come to Columbia, Ike said. We have much to learn from them, and we have nothing to fear because they espouse beliefs different from ours. When Ike addressed the university on assuming his new office, he spoke words that should be heard today at colleges and universities across the country: "No intellectual iron curtain shall screen students from disturbing facts." For Eisenhower, ignorance was a dangerous weapon.

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 John Vukmirovich, Lemont
The Chicago area is waterlogged in the wake of a washout weekend. Waves of showers and thunderstorms dumped heavy rainfall across the area with many locales receiving more than 2 inches of rain. Local flooding occurred in saturated low-lying areas, and many rivers are in flood. The showers will finally taper off Monday as the storm system moves into the upper Great Lakes, setting the stage for some welcome dry weather that should extend into the weekend.

The same storm system that soaked Chicago spawned flash floods across the southern Midwest and deadly tornadoes across the South that killed several people in east Texas. Heavy snow and a full-scale blizzard developed on the storm's cold flank, paralyzing western Kansas with up to 18 inches of snow. By Monday, heavy snow should impact areas from northeast Nebraska to northeast Minnesota.
Why these young voters in Pueblo want to get more youth involved in voting
With the scope and penalties of Chinas social credit system being further clarified in 2021, legal and regulatory compliance has become more important than...
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FAW's Besturn X80 [File photo]

China's oldest automaker FAW will have 32 distributors in Russia by the end of this year, said the company on Sunday.

Currently the group has 22 distributors in Russia, selling Vita V2 and V5, as well as Besturn B50. It recently launched its first SUV in Russia, the Besturn X80.

Wang Zhijian, president of the FAW Group Import and Export Co. Ltd believes that the launch could push up sales and attract more distributors.

"Russia has always been FAW's strategic market," he said. "The launch of Besturn X80 will enhance the influence of FAW brands in Russia."

FAW began talks with Russian auto manufacturer Avtoto in 2015 for local assembly. Besturn X80 is also FAW's first auto assembled in Russia.
Nepal has been ready to accept the presence of branches of Chinese banks in the country irrespective of their size, provided they fulfill required criteria set by the central bank, a senior official of the Nepal Ratra Bank (NRB) said.

Senior officials of the central bank had recently discussed whether to accept any smaller Chinese financial institutions to open branches here.

"We reached a conclusion that the presence of Chinese banks has been necessary in the country and we should welcome branches of Chinese banks irrespective of their size in China," Chintamani Siwakoti, deputy governor of the NRB, told Xinhua on Sunday.

He said despite increased inquires from the Chinese side, the Nepalese central bank is yet to receive any official proposal from any Chinese bank.

Foreign banks and financial institutions can enter Nepal's banking sector either by partnering with Nepalese investors under joint venture arrangement or by opening their own exclusive branches.

Nepal's law allows foreign banks and financial institutions to hold up to 80 percent of stake in joint venture banks and such banks are allowed to provide all types of banking services in Nepal.

But foreign banks that open their exclusive branches in Nepal are required to assign capital of at least 20 million U.S. dollars. Scope of banking for such branches is also limited as they cannot be involved in retail banking.

"Once the Chinese banks' branches are opened in Nepal, the transactions of goods in Chinese yuan will rise and it will also save cost of carrying U.S. dollar to China for Nepalese traders," said Bishnu Bahadur Khatri, president of Nepal Trans Himalaya Border Commerce Association, a body involved in trade with China.
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Police in southwest China's Yunnan province have seized more than 12 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, said local authorities on Sunday.

According to a statement by the public security bureau of Ximeng Wa autonomous county, police found a man driving an unlicensed motorcycle last Wednesday who appeared suspicious. When police asked him to stop for a check, the man ran off.

Police didn't catch him, but found a blue bag he dropped with 12.43 kilograms of the drug inside.

Police are still hunting for the man.

The Ximeng county, on the border of China with Myanmar, is close to the opium-producing Golden Triangle.
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The Pentagon said on Sunday at least 352 civilians were killed as a result of U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to match 2017.

In its monthly report of assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.

According to the Pentagon, 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

In addition, the U.S. military reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present which were not previously announced.

"Although the coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimizes the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable," said the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's figures contradict the assessment by London-based Amnesty International, which estimated that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition airstrikes in Syria alone.
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Brazil's President Michel Temer on Sunday dismissed a massive nationwide general strike against proposed austerity measures as just democracy in action.

The measures "initially generate objections and protests, but they are typical of the robust democracy we have in our country," Temer told reporters following a public event in Sao Paulo.

Temer also indicated his government will not be swayed by public opinion, saying "whatever happens, whether there are protests or not, Brazil continues and will continue to work."

To reduce the public deficit, the government has drafted a highly unpopular labor reform package, that includes raising the retirement age, and has slashed social spending, leading unions to organize a general strike that millions appear to have taken part in on Friday.

A poll published by regional daily Folha de Sao Paulo showed Temer's government with a mere 9 percent approval rating, while a whopping 61 percent of the people rated his administration as bad or awful.

The survey by polling firm Datafolha queried 2,781 registered voters across 172 cities on Wednesday and Thursday prior to the strike, and has a 2-percent margin of error.
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A civilian was killed and four others, including three policemen, were wounded Sunday in a grenade attack on police party in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The grenade was hurled in the evening in Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"This evening militants threw a grenade towards police party outside police station in Khanyar locality, which wounded five people, including three policemen," a police spokesman told Xinhua.

"Of the wounded, one civilian succumbed to his wounds, while as another civilian and three policemen were immediately removed to hospital for treatment," said the spokesman.

Following the attack, police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) contingents rushed to the spot to carry out searches aimed at nabbing suspected militants.

The attack created panic in the area.

So far no militant group has claimed responsibility of the attack.

Meanwhile, the Muslim-majority areas of the region Sunday observed a complete strike to protest killing of a civilian outside a military camp in frontier Kupwara district.

The shutdown was called by separatist group.

The civilian was killed on Thursday after government forces fired upon people protesting outside the military camp demanding bodies of two militants.

Three army troopers, including an officer, were killed after the two militants stormed their camp. The militants were also killed inside the camp.

Markets and business establishments remained closed, and public transport was off the roads in wake of the call.

Separatist movement and guerrilla war challenging New Delhi's rule is going on in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989. Gunfight between militants and Indian troops takes place intermittently across the region.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.
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Chinese companies operating in Egypt held an employment forum on Sunday at the Suez Canal University in Egypt's Ismailia Province, east of the capital Cairo.

At least 15 Chinese companies, including Chinese large industrial developer TEDA, fiberglass giant Jushi, Hengshi Egypt Fiberglass Fabric Ltd, XD-EGEMAC High Voltage Co. Ltd and New Hope Group for agricultural industries, joined the recruitment forum, which was held in cooperation with the Chinese embassy in Cairo.

Ismailia's Governor Yassin Taher hailed the forum and "the clear criteria set by the Chinese companies for their needs of the Egyptian labor market," noting that most of their needs will be met among the graduates of the Suez Canal University.

"We hope for further cooperation with the Chinese side and for their continuous presence in Egypt, especially at the Suez Canal Corridor region that is economically promising," the governor told Xinhua during the forum.

He said the Egyptian and the Chinese sides discussed all aspects of cooperation including the lands required by prospective Chinese investors in Ismailia.

"We are completely ready to offer all sorts of facilitation to attract more Chinese investments and achieve further economic cooperation with the Chinese side in Ismailia," Taher noted.

The employment forum attracted several hundreds of students and graduates of various majors, such as the Chinese language, commerce and fish farming.

The Chinese companies offered some 300 job opportunities during the recruitment event and have so far received about 1,000 resumes.

Zhu Tingting, Chinese director of Confucius Institute at the Suez Canal University, said the Chinese companies in Egypt cannot grow stronger without Egyptian employees, and building a team of Egyptian professional, qualified and competitive employees is the key to the development of Chinese companies in the Arab country.

"So, it is a win-win situation, as the Egyptians hired at Chinese companies will also help Egypt reduce the unemployment rate," Zhu said.

"I hope that this kind of job fair can be held regularly and Confucius Institute will communicate with the Chinese firms in Egypt in the future to try to hold it biannually," she noted.
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Jordan and Palestine on Sunday stressed the need to relaunch peace talks between Palestine and Israel, the state-run Petra news agency reported.

At a meeting between King Abdullah II of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, the two sides said any peace talks to be launched should focus on the two-state solution, which is the sole solution to address the Palestinian issue and one that should results in the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

The meeting between King Abdullah and Abbas comes ahead of a visit by the Palestinian president to the U.S., where he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and discuss peacemaking efforts.

During the Amman meeting, Abbas and King Abdullah said the 2002 Arab peace initiative was fundamental for peacemaking.

The initiative offers Israel normal ties with the Arab and Islamic states in return for withdrawal from territories it occupied in 1967.

The two leaders said the initiative was the most comprehensive framework to attain peace in the Middle East.

The two sides also stressed their rejection of unilateral Israeli measures to alter the status quo in Jerusalem.

They also stressed on the need for efforts to preserve the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
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Famous Swiss climber Ueli Steck, popularly known as "Swiss Machine," died on Sunday as he fell to the foot of Mount Nuptse, Nepalese officials and expedition organizing company said.

It is the first death in this spring season in the Qomolangma region, according to officials of Nepal's Department of Tourism (DoT) which gives permit for mountain climbing.

Steck, 40, was heading toward camp 2 from camp 1 of Mt. Qomolangma, also known as Mt. Everest. The camp also serves as a base for climbing the 7,855-meter high Nuptse as he slipped 1,000 meter down to the foot of the mountain, Khem Raj Aryal, an official at the mountaineering division of the DoT told Xinhua.

The incident took place at the altitude of 6,400 meters from the sea level at around 8 a.m. local time (0215 GMT), according to the Seven Summits Treks company that organized Steck's expedition.

After the incident, his body was brought to Lukla airport and latter to Kathmandu by helicopter.

"His body now has been kept at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu for the postmortem," Nivesh Karki, manager of the Seven Summits Treks, told Xinhua.

According to the DoT, Steck who had received permit to climb the Nuptse on April 13 had headed to the mountain on the same day. He had gone there with 14 other members of an expedition team. There were two Swiss climbers including Steck and Nepalese Sherpa guides, according to the Seven Summits Treks.

Steck, who is famous for his speed records, had won multiple awards for his rapid ascents. The climber had reached the summit of Qomolangma in 2012 without oxygen and in 2015 climbed all 82 Alpine peaks over 4,000 meters in 62 days.

The Swiss climber, who vowed never to return to Mt. Qomolangma after a brawl with local Sherpa guides in 2012, was back in Nepal in 2013 to scale the 8,091-meter Mt. Annapurna.
By REN XIAOJIN and JING SHUIYU in Beijing and SUN RUISHENG in Taiyuan | China Daily | Updated: 2017-05-02 07:14

TISCO's innovation powering space, nuclear programs and boosting exports

If you see Taiyuan Iron and Steel (Group) Co's recently attained capability to make domestic pen-tip steel for ballpoint pens as a sign of an exclusive focus on small things, you will be mistaken. The nation's top maker of stainless steel has decidedly big plans.

For one, TISCO is going global in line with the Belt and Road Initiative. For another, it is strengthening the supply of high-strength and high-end steel available for China's big-ticket projects, such as bullet trains, next-generation nuclear power plants and aerospace programs.

It is now a key cog in the massive manufacturing wheel that powers China's endeavors in industry and science.

As of March, TISCO started to supply stainless steel to Hualong One, the country's domestically developed third-generation reactor, adding one more name to the list of over 10 completed or under construction nuclear power stations that use TISCO-made stainless steel.

TISCO's high-end products also will shine on the global stage through integration with the Belt and Road vision of huge advances in infrastructure and trade, company officials said. TISCO-made materials are used in the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, Temburong Bridge in Brunei, China-Russia and China-Myanmar natural gas pipelines, a nuclear power station in Pakistan and even for the coins cast in Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland and Brazil.

For China's military forces, TISCO's materials have proved essential in making Dongfeng missile shells and the latest series of destroyers. It is the only qualified Chinese supplier of low-magnetic steel plate for warships and vessels, TISCO officials said in a statement released exclusively to China Daily.

The company's staff has worked hard to achieve technical prowess, particularly in research and development. It has further sharpened its competitive edge through R&D, officials at the Shanxi-headquartered company said.

In 2016, TISCO introduced more than 10 new products, which have garnered a more than 70 percent share of the Chinese market.

Its products have given a major boost to the country's aerospace industry, TISCO said. It made a number of components of the new Long March 7 Y2 rocket, which lifted China's first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou 1, into orbit on April 20. Tianzhou 1 is the nation's largest and heaviest spacecraft.

The Long March 7 Y2 included TISCO's stainless steel, electromagnetic pure iron, high-strength alloy structural steel and other materials. The company's materials also played a key role in the Long March 7 Y1 rocket, the Y2's predecessor and an important milestone.

According to the SOE's military and nuclear power business department, TISCO's high-end steel and iron have been widely used in China's crucial aerospace programs, including the Shenzhou spaceship series and the Chang'e lunar orbiters. Rocket engines use TISCO stainless steel that is resistant to high temperatures.

"With Tianzhou 1's launch behind us, we're set to supply essential materials for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, the world's largest and one of the most critical fusion experiments," the company said in a statement to China Daily.

All the moves would mark TISCO's heightened efforts to expand into the international market, its chairman, Li Xiaobo, said in a written interview.

"We need to move fast to figure out potential demand, and to design the best material for clients," Li told China Daily. "Simply following others isn't going to work. We'll provide optimized solutions to win the (world's) trust."

TISCO's next ambition is to become the world's most competitive stainless steel enterprise, Li said.

A technician inspects the surface of a stainless steel piece at a factory of Shanxi-based Taiyuan Iron and Steel (Group) Co, which is staking its future on its research and development efforts. ZHANG XUANYU / FOR CHINA DAILY

TISCO is further fine-tuning its alignment with visionary national campaigns such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Made in China 2025 industrial upgrading plan, and the go-global drive of Chinese enterprises. In doing so, TISCO aims to serve high-end markets as well as burgeoning industries from a global perspective, Li said.

Experts see merit in TISCO's future plans. Belt and Road and the go-global drive will create new, long-term opportunities for iron and steel companies, said Chen Ziqi, deputy director of metallurgical and building materials for China International Engineering Consulting Corp.

Zhao Ying, a researcher at the Institute of Industrial Economics, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said when Chinese firms, particularly SOEs, seek to expand abroad, industrial innovation and long-term investment goals are key to maintaining earnings.

TISCO is allocating 3.5 percent of its annual sales to R&D and innovation, which could mean several billion yuan annually for leading-edge work. This is expected to help TISCO go from a traditional manufacturer to a digital-age global supplier of new products.

"TISCO needs to grab the opportunity presented by supply-side structural reform to expand its product catalog and enhance its competitive edge," Li said.

The company has set a goal to produce 4.5 million metric tons of stainless steel this year, the nation's largest amount. It also intends to top its peers in more than 20 high-end stainless categories, such as steel for aerospace ships and nuclear power reactors.

By the end of 2020, TISCO expects high-end and specialized steel to comprise 90 percent of its total production, with R&D expenses reaching 5 percent of annual sales.

The company said it made a major breakthrough this year by launching its duplex stainless steel productshigh-strength steel with lots of chromiumin Europe's high-end materials market.

"In the past, we had to import steel to produce motors for new energy vehicles, which require extremely good quality," said Zhang Wenkang, chief engineer of TISCO's silicon steel mill. "Now, we've independently developed such material that also performs better in energy efficiency."

In 2016, TISCO launched its ballpoint pen-tip steel after spending five years in R&D to develop its own patented technology. It could help end China's long reliance on imported products. Pen-tip steel imports cost $17.3 million a year, the China National Light Industry Council said.
By FAN FEIFEI in Beijing and FENG ZHIWEI in Changsha | China Daily | Updated: 2017-05-02 07:18

Workers at a Foxconn Technology Group plant in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. The tech giant will enhance its production capacity at its plants in Hengyang, Hunan province. WANG LEI / FOR CHINA DAILY

Firm to build precision-molding demonstration park, production center in the city

Foxconn Technology Group plans to open a production center in Central China's Hunan province for Amazon.com Inc, as part of its effort to diversify and reduce its reliance on Apple Inc, according to technology website Digitimes.

The center, based in Hengyang, will produce an array of devices for Amazon, the report said, citing unnamed industry sources.

Foxconn confirmed with China Daily on Monday that it had signed a cooperation agreement with the government of Hengyang, but declined to disclose further details. Amazon declined to comment.

The plan includes building a precision-molding demonstration park and Amazon production center in the city, Digitimes reported.

The report indicated that Foxconn will enhance the production capacity of its plant in Hengyang this year, adding 30 new production lines for audio equipment and tablets, and another 15 lines for smartphones, tablet mainboards and other components.

As a main assembler of Apple's iPhone, Foxconn's expansion plan may indicate that demand for the Amazon Echo, the voice-activated personal assistant, will increase this year, analysts said.

Foxconn and Amazon have been cooperating since 2007, and it is the sole manufacturer of the Amazon Echo.

In January, Foxconn posted its first annual revenue decline since 1991. The tech giant recorded $136.38 billion in revenue in 2016, down 2.81 percent year-on-year, after its biggest client Apple saw slowing iPhones sales.

Foxconn has launched a strategy to reduce its dependence on Apple. Last year, it acquired Japanese electronics giant Sharp Corp to rejuvenate Sharp's television business and increase its production of LCD panels, with an aim to expand its product portfolio.

James Yan, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, said Foxconn has a sense of crisis and is trying to reduce its heavy reliance on Apple as the sales performance of Apple's iPhone 6S and 7 is unsatisfactory.

"Foxconn hopes to ramp up its capacity and is unwilling to just rely on a single client," Yan said, adding that Apple is also reducing its dependence on Foxconn, cooperating with other contract manufacturers, such as Pegatron Corp.

Amazon has made efforts in artificial intelligence and machine learning in recent years and has become a client offering Foxconn huge growth potential.
The world's venture capital industry in 2016 saw declining valuations but venture capital investments in China hit an all-time high, Forbes reported on Tuesday.

Chinese companies received $31 billion in funding in 2016, a 19 percent increase from the previous year, as companies in artificial intelligence, robotics, and the internet of things continue to attract investor attention, according to the report.

Let's take a look at the top 10 companies that made the greatest difference for this year's top 100 investors in the world.

No 10 ZTO Express
An applicant (left) introduces himself to a representative from University of International Business and Economics in Beijing during an overseas job fairs targeting overseas Chinese talents in New York. [Photo/Xinhua]

The "generosity" a prestigious university exhibited in a recent recruiting notice to attract prospective talented young employees has caught people's attention.

In the notice, the University of Science and Technology of China, located in Hefei, East China's Anhui province, said top science and engineering talents are wanted for crucial teaching and research posts.

Those hired will receive a salary of at least 450, 000 yuan ($65,000), research funds ranging from 1 million to 3 million yuan, a living stipend of 500,000 yuan and a 160-square-meter apartment.

Applicants are expected to be aged below 40, have generated outstanding research results and have worked more than three years at a prominent higher education institution or research institute overseas.

The university is not alone in seeking young talents, though its offer is particularly generous. In recent years, an increasing number of universities in China have adopted such methods to lure young talents studying or working overseas.

Some, like the university in Hefei, post want ads with tempting incentives while others send recruiting "task forces" overseas in the hope they will be able to sweet-talk talents into signing up.

Tian Guoqiang, director of the School of Economics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said his university was one of the earliest among higher education institutions in China to start recruiting faculty members from overseas.

Since 2005, Tian has led a team to the United States each year to look for teaching and research staff. More than 100 teachers and researchers with PhDs have been sourced in this way over the past 13 years.

Liang Qi, director of the human resources division at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, a leading domestic institution, said almost every visit made by the heads of the university and its schools to institutions overseas has involved recruiting presentations and interviews with talented young people.

And not long ago, the university published want ads in leading international periodicals, such as Science, and Nature, for people who are dedicated to relevant academic research.

National importance

In January, Tian and his colleagues flew to Chicago for the Allied Social Sciences Associations Annual Meeting, where thousands of the best minds in the social sciences gathered to present and celebrate new research achievements.

On the sidelines of the annual meeting, Tian's team interviewed 82 candidates who stood out from 261 applicants, many of whom graduated from the most prestigious universities in the US, including Princeton, Stanford and Columbia.

Twelve were eventually hired.

Tian said the importance of such talents cannot be overstated, not only for the development of a university and a particular discipline, but also the county.

The professor of economics said business education at domestic higher education institutions, for example, was brought back on track in 1990s, when China set the goal of building up a market economy and joining the World Trade Organization.

But although almost all domestic colleges and universities have introduced majors related to business studies during the past two decades, there is still a short supply of internationally educated teachers who are able to lecture on courses that meet international criteria, which hinders domestic business schools from moving forward.

"Many institutions solve the problem by extending invitations to talented young Chinese studying or working abroad," Tian said.

Liang at Shanghai Jiao Tong University said recruiting talented staff is the "top priority among all priorities", since all the best universities in China, including his, are making great efforts to become world-class institutions.

"We treat the young members of our faculty as our strategic resource, as they are playing a key role in the development of the university," he said.

More coming back

While domestic universities are constantly heading overseas to hunt for bright minds, an increasing number of talented young people are returning of their own volition.

Statistics from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security show that a total of 2.65 million Chinese have studied overseas since China's reform and opening-up in 1978, with more than 430,000 of them returning home last year alone.

With the stimulus and support of a series of national-level plans to attract top talents, such as the Recruitment Program of Global Experts launched in 2008 and the Young Overseas High-level Talents Introduction Plan initiated in 2011, the number of people coming back with the title of professor between 2008 and 2016 was 20 times more than the total number who returned in the three decades between 1978 and 2008.

Wang Huiyao, director of the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank, has conducted research on talent-related topics for years.

In his eyes, many Chinese talents choose to come back because of the great potential for both career and personal development being released by the rapid rise of China.

"New things are occurring in China all the time, creating a lot of opportunities and attracting attention from all over the world," he said, citing the recent announcement of the plan to develop the Xiongan New Area in Hebei province as an example.

After earning a PhD from Netherland's prestigious Tinbergen Institute and Erasmus University Rotterdam last year, Huang Zhenxing chose to join a university in his hometown Shanghai, rather than a post at a university in the US or Australia.

The 32-year-old associate professor of economics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics believes that although China's economy has grown to be the world's second largest, there is a lot to be improved in business research and education, and he anticipates career take-off and a brighter future.

Although China's research in economics is not as advanced as it is in some other countries, Huang said he has strong confidence that China will catch up soon.

"Many bright people of my generation have studied abroad and have now come back. These people know China's reality and international research approaches and can combine them together, making me believe that China's catching up is merely a matter of time."

Good conditions

In spite of the fact more talented individuals are coming back, Tian said the competition among domestic institutions for high-end returning talents is becoming increasingly fierce.

"At the annual meeting in January, we encountered at least 40 domestic institutions which were also conducting job interviews there," he said. "You could not imagine such a situation a decade ago when the number was only a single digit," he said.

He added that many universities, particularly some with the financial support of the provincial government where they are located, offer very high, attractive salaries to overseas talents.

But he believes that a high salary is not the be-all and end-all for attracting talents.

"Rather, 'soft power' elements such as favorable working conditions, a comfortable living environment, as well as a clear self-development route are more important," he said.

From his decade-long recruiting experience overseas, Tian said the biggest concern among high-end talents when deciding whether to return and work in China is whether they will enjoy personal growth.

His university has therefore built up an academic platform by regularly holding seminars, workshops, lectures, forums and conferences that involve global academics to ensure that teaching and research staff at the university remain close to the frontiers of their disciplines.

He said the university has also established a "tenure track" systema system similar to academic tenure overseasthat offers high salaries and abundant support for research over six years.

Annual evaluations over the six years, along with a final evaluation at the end of that period, then determine whether the professors will be offered tenure or leave the position.

Wang of the Center for China and Globalization said it is always a big choice for high-end talents to relocate, particularly those who have lived and worked overseas for quite a long period of time, as there are so many things to consider, so many things to adapt to and so many problems to be solved.

"In that sense, domestic employers offering all-rounded support and servicesinternationally competitive salaries, academic freedom, career development, convenience in daily life, spouse's employment, children's education and so onwould be the most attractive."




Deepening of positive change is part of blueprint drawn up by Xi to help the people and the nation realize aspirations

Thanks to reform measures taken by the local government, migrant worker Liu Gang found it easier to have his hukou, or household registration, transferred in April from his rural hometown to an urban region with better education, pension and medical services.

Liu, 24, a resident of Chengguan district in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, said that in the past, he had to work at least two years in Lanzhou before applying for the city's hukou, but now he could submit the application at any time as long as he owned a house in the city.

Measures have been rolled out across the country to facilitate hukou application procedures since the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform, headed by President Xi Jinping, reviewed and passed a guideline at a meeting in early 2014.

Hukou reform is just one element of the country's extensive reform drive. Last year, 97 key reform tasks were completed, 419 reform plans were drafted and frameworks for reform in major sectors were drawn up.

Comprehensively deepening reform is one of the "Four Comprehensives", a strategic blueprint drawn up by Xi that creates pathways to realize the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has presided over 34 meetings of the Central Leading Group for Deepening Overall Reform since its establishment in late 2013.

Poverty alleviation, healthcare, employment and education were among the key issues discussed at the meetings, which aimed to improve people's lives.

During a meeting of the central leading group held early this year, Xi said leading CPC and government officials are central to the national reform drive. They must act to "shoulder the heaviest burden, and chew on the hardest bones", he said.

Xi has taken the lead. In the four years since he became general secretary, reform has emerged as a hallmark of his administration. Xi's first trip outside Beijing as the leader of the CPC, in 2012, was to Guangdong province, which has been at the forefront of China's decadeslong reform and opening-up drive.

"Reforms are always in the present tense, not the past tense," Xi has said.

Last year, he visited Xiaogang village, often called the birthplace of rural reform, in Anhui province, where he called for a solid agricultural sector and improved conditions for farmers.

In July, during an event to mark the 95th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, Xi said reform and opening-up will be crucial to deciding the fate of modern China.

The general objectives of reform are improving socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernizing the State governance system, according to a communique issued after the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013. The session featured a comprehensive reform package covering 60 tasks and over 300 reform measures.

Reform must be focused on issues of public concern, Xi has said. It must serve to resolve outstanding problems in ordinary people's lives and meet their demands and needs. It should be carried out by the people and for the people.

Among the reform tasks, poverty reduction is a key step in improving people's lives. Xi said in his most recent New Year's address that what he cares most about is poor people.

The whole process of poverty reduction requires tailored poverty relief policies and precise measures, and sometimes patience and accuracy like "doing embroidery", Xi told lawmakers during the top legislature's annual session in March.

According to a standard set in 2011, China categorizes those with an annual income lower than 2,300 yuan ($334) as poverty-stricken. The CPC has made a solemn promise to lift all those still living in poverty out of that status by the end of 2020.

The number of people living in poverty nationwide was reduced by 12.4 million last year to 43.35 million. The government will lift another 10 million people out of poverty this year, according to the Government Work Report.

Other endeavors to help improve the people's livelihoods are also taking shape.

The National Development and Reform Commission said in April that all public hospitals will end the longtime practice of drug price markups by September as part of ongoing healthcare reform. That is expected to help resolve problems like overprescribing, overuse of antibiotics and unnecessary increases in medical expenses. Hospitals' loss of revenue will be offset, for the most part, by a rise in prices for patient services, and more government investment is likely.

In the economic sphere, Xi has promised extensive supply-side structural reform.

The reform, proposed at the end of 2015 to resolve structural imbalances in the economy, has been focused on five tasks: cutting industrial capacity, reducing housing inventory, lowering indebtedness, cutting corporate costs and improving weak economic links. Efforts in these areas paid off last year. China met the annual target to reduce overcapacity of 45 million metric tons of steel and 250 million metric tons of coal production ahead of schedule, and a large number of zombie enterprises were shut down.

To advance supply-side reform, China has to handle the relationships between government and market, short term and long term, addition and subtraction, and supply and demand, Xi said in January, during a group study held by the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

The country's clean-governance and supervisory system is another area of political reform that has far-reaching importance. In January 2016, Xi stressed that the country must upgrade the structure of its supervisory organizations and establish a national supervisory system that will oversee all State organs and civil servants.

Han Qingxiang, a professor of public administration at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, said that reform has continued to be a key theme of China's development since the country embarked on its reform and opening-up drive in the late 1970s.

The reform drive is now in a deep-water zone because many of the easier reforms have been accomplished, leaving the difficult tasks, he said.

Zhu Lijia, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance, said the country had made remarkable progress, and the experience of the past few years will be invaluable over the next three to five years.

"Deepening overall reform needs both determination and wisdom because the country's reform is facing arduous and complicated tasks," he said, adding that reform should address such problems as a widening income gap, corruption and employment issues.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Border guards in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region direct a drone to patrol border areas in the region recently.ZHAO YONGFENG/CHINA DAILY

The Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region plans to deploy drones to patrol its borders as it further tightens security this year, a senior official said.

"Xinjiang will deploy drones, set up barbed wire and install surveillance cameras along the border to prevent people crossing the border illegally," Jerla Isamudin, deputy chairman of the region, said in an interview. Xinjiang needs to further enhance cooperation in exchanging terrorism-related intelligence with neighboring countries, he said.

The region has been working on connecting People's Liberation Army border control units to the power grids since 2014 to provide an efficient electrical supply to high-tech equipment. In 2017, 29 more frontier defense companies in Xinjiang will have electricity and will not have to rely on unstable solar energy and diesel generators, PLA Daily reported in March.

Northwest China's Xinjiang neighbors eight countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it has a border of more than 5,600 kilometers. It has been China's main battleground in the fight against terrorism.

Many terrorists who carried out attacks in the region in recent years received training abroad and then entered illegally, and some also fled across the border, according to the regional police authority. Chinese authorities believe the penetration of religious extremism from abroad has prompted people to carry out violent attacks in Xinjiang and other parts of the country in recent years.

Shohrat Zakir, the region's chairman, said in January that Xinjiang would impose tighter entry-exit measures in 2017.

In 2016, the regional legislature passed a regulation on border control, which took effect in December. The regulation requires people living along border areas to report strangers to public security authorities within 24 hours. Also, those who damage surveillance equipment along the borders will be punished in accordance with the regulation.

Nayim Yassen, director of the Xinjiang People's Congress Standing Committee, the regional legislature, said the committee will examine the works on border control and give suggestions for improvements later this year. Xinjiang sees keeping the region stable as a priority.

Chen Quanguo, the region's Party chief, has said the local security situation is an important index in evaluating officials.


Today marks the 127th International Workers' Day, or May Day. It is the day that Chinese people all celebrate the workers, expressing their appreciation for their diligence and hard work.

Therefore, China Daily has collected a series of photos to show the colorful side of life aside from their daily work.

As China is becoming more developed, workers have found more ways to entertain themselves during their spare time.

Life has lightened up. They visit exhibitions, learn new skills and participate in various cultural activities.

They watch performances and experience traditional folk customs.

They get used to showing their talent and proficiency in various skills.

They participate in group activities held by social organizations, finding a sense of belonging.

It is their colorful life that has charged their passion for daily work, giving them more strength and energy to do their jobs.
Hours after a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Korean Peninsula's nuclear issue, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea reportedly test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday, which exploded after liftoff. Pyongyang's repeated testing of the international community's patience will lead to severe consequences that will increasingly be hard for it to swallow.

Its blatant violation of Security Council resolutions constitutes an act of open defiance to the international community's resolve to denuclearize the peninsula and points to the urgency of tackling both the symptoms and the root cause of the issue.

A vicious circle of provocation and retaliation has reigned in recent months, with Pyongyang pushing its nuclear and missile programs while the United States and the Republic of Korea resorting to massive military exercises and the deployment of an advanced US missile defense system in the ROK.

As a result, the degree of distrust and enmity has reached the highest it's been in years between the contested parties on the peninsula. One miscalculation and one misstep would easily push the two sides, separated by the Demilitarized Zone, to the brink of war.

At this stage, both sides should exercise utmost restraint because a head-on clash, even if a limited one, would lead to a costly price that neither side could afford to pay. Before diplomatic means are exhausted, those who have a penchant of trumpeting war rhetoric are being neither responsible to themselves nor others.

Pyongyang should awaken from the fantasy that its pursuit of nuclear capabilities and a missile program will bring it peace and security, as it has left the world community little choices but to tighten nonmilitary measures to rein in its dangerous ambition.

The country should know it is playing a dangerous and counterproductive game of provocation, which can backfire and reduce the chance for diplomatic mediation. In fact, its constant and escalating provocations have eroded the patience of stakeholders on the peninsula to defuse tensions through peaceful means.

Meanwhile, the US and ROK also need to do their part, and stop military threats and deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, which is the practical way to mitigate distrust and defuse tensions so as to create the conditions for communication and dialogue.

Yet, as Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out in the UN Security Council meeting, no matter what happens, we should never waiver in our commitment to the goal of denuclearization.

A nuclear-free Korean Peninsula is the basic precondition for its long-term peace and stability, which caters to the interests of all parties as it is the only way to dispel reasonable concerns of all stakeholders, including DPRK and ROK, and this should be the right direction for all parties to strive for.
It was a sweltering Saturday afternoon when the mercury hit 90 degrees around 3 pm; Nikki White was one of the many sitting on the edge of the sidewalk across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

She was one of tens of thousands of protesters in Washington participating in the People's Climate March on Saturday.

The protesters started from Capitol Hill around 12:30 pm and marched on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, ending at the Washington Monument.

White said she was quite disappointed in US President Donald Trump for doubting climate change.

"So he won't fund it; he takes away funds from it," she told China Daily, referring Trump's plan to cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

White noted that climate change affects every country. "A decision made in the US affects Canada," said White, who is originally from the US but moved to Canada. She was visiting her family in Washington.

"Anything he stands for has nothing to do with what I stand for. It's the opposite," White said.

During his presidential campaign, Trump called climate change a "hoax" created by the Chinese and said he will pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. Since taking office, his administration has rolled back some Obama-era regulations on fossil fuels.

On Friday, the EPA removed some climate change information from its website. In a press release, the EPA said the website is undergoing changes to reflect the agency's new direction under Trump and administrator Scott Pruitt.

In a rally on Saturday evening in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trump said he will make a big decision regarding the Paris accord next week, but did not provide details.

An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people took part in the rally in Washington on Saturday, according to The Washington Post, quoting the number given to the National Park Service by march organizers. Saturday was Trump's 100th day in office.

The same People's Climate March, which originated in New York in September 2014, also took place on the same day in many other US cities as well as some cities outside the US.

Robert Labaree came from Boston to join the rally in Washington. He said his wife participated in the Boston rally.

"The administration is just too deep in the pocket of large corporations, especially the fossil fuel industry. It seems quite clear," he told China Daily. He also took part in the tax rally on April 15 and science march on April 22, both in Boston.

Marching in the procession included a brass band. Some were dancing while holding their signs. The signs were mostly colorful. One blue sign read "Protect Water" while a red one said "Planet on Fire".

One man, with a white beard and wearing a green cap, held a sign that proclaimed "Oceans Are Rising, So Are We."

An elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair held a sign that reads: "I am 91, Mother Earth is even older than me, Respect your elders."

Another woman, her body wrapped with a US national flag, held a sign stating "Climate Patriot."

A Gallup poll released on March 14 shows that a record percentage of Americans are concerned about global warming, believe it is occurring, consider it a serious threat and say it is caused by human activity.

The perceptions are up significantly from a 2015 poll. Some 45 percent of Americans now say they worry "a great deal" about global warming, up from 37 percent a year ago and significantly higher than the low point of 25 percent in 2011.

Another 21 percent say they worry "a fair amount" about global warming, while only 18 percent say they worry "only a little"; 16 percent said they worry "not at all".

Randy Orwig, from North Carolina, told China Daily that he went to the protest to make sure the environment is taken seriously.

Orwig said he doesn't believe Trump represents the long-term interests of the United States and the world.

"We are going to resist. We are going to find ways to work around him. We are going to be working in the local governments, municipal governments and continue to make climate important," he told China Daily.

China and the US are the two largest carbon emitters in the world, but per capital carbon emission in the US is more than twice that in China.

Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
US president marks his first 100 days in office at big campaign-style rally

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania - US President Donald Trump hit the road on Saturday to celebrate his first 100 days in the White House with cheering supporters at a campaign-style rally, touting his initial achievements and lashing out at critics.

Trump told a Pennsylvania crowd he was just getting started on meeting his campaign promises. He repeatedly attacked an "incompetent, dishonest" media, saying they were not telling the truth about his administration's accomplishments.

"My administration has been delivering every single day for the great citizens of our country," Trump said in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. "We are keeping one promise after another, and frankly the people are really happy about it."

The rally occurred on the same day as a climate march at which thousands of protesters surrounded the White House, and it also coincided with the annual black-tie White House press dinner in Washington.

Trump and his staff chose to skip the press dinner because of what he said was unfair treatment by the press. Trump said he was thrilled to be away from the "Washington swamp".

"A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation's capital right now," Trump said to loud boos from the crowd. "If the media's job is to be honest and to tell the truth, the media deserves a very, very big fat failing grade."

Trump listed what he said were some of his key early accomplishments, including the successful confirmation to the US Supreme Court of Justice Neil Gorsuch and clearing away many regulations on the environment and business.

He also listed his approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, killing a pending Asian trade pact, and enhanced security measures that have led to a sharp decline in illegal border crossings at the southern border.

"The world is getting the message: if you try to illegally enter the United States, you will be caught, detained, deported or put in prison," Trump said.

Campaign promises

He shrugged off his failure to score major legislative victories on his core campaign promises, such as repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act and construction of a Mexican border wall. Trump's ban on visitors from some Muslim nations was blocked in court.

He blamed Democrats for the legislative failures so far and said all of his promises would be kept eventually.

"We'll build the wall, people, don't even worry about it," he said.

Some supporters in the crowd said they were willing to give Trump more time.

"I voted for him and I'll give him a year. That's enough time to whip Congress into shape and get some deals done," said Michael Casciaro, 54, a civilian contractor for the military.

Reuters

(China Daily 05/01/2017 page4)
MANILA/SEOUL - Southeast Asian leaders urged the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to seriously comply with its international obligations during their summit, voicing concerns over Pyongyang's test-firing of mid-range ballistic missiles.

The 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held their 30th annual summit and retreat in Manila on Saturday.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose country holds the rotating chair of ASEAN this year, officially released the chairman's statement on Sunday.

"We discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula and are gravely concerned about recent developments, including (DPRK's) two nuclear tests in 2016 and subsequent launches using ballistic missile technology like the submarine-launched ballistic missile," the ASEAN leaders said in a chairman's statement issued at the end of their summit.

"We urged (the DPRK) to immediately cease all actions that violate its international obligations and contravene UN Security Council resolutions," the leaders said.

The leaders reaffirmed the importance of compliance with international law and the full implementation of all relevant UN security Council resolutions.

The leaders also reiterated their support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and "for the concerned parties to exercise restraint in order to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula".

"We strongly urged (the DPRK) to comply with these resolutions and acknowledged the importance to exercise self-restraint and called on all parties to exert collective efforts in the interest of maintaining peace, security and stability in the region and the world," the leaders said.

ROK warning

The Republic of Korea's Foreign Ministry denounced the launch as an "obvious" violation of United Nations resolutions and the latest display of the DPRK's "belligerence and recklessness."

"We sternly warn that the (DPRK) government will continue to face a variety of strong punitive measures issued by the UN Security Council and others if it continues to reject denuclearization and play with fire in front of the world," the ministry said.

The ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the missile flew for several minutes and reached a maximum height of 71 kilometers before it apparently failed.

It didn't immediately provide an estimate on how far the missile flew, but a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said it was likely a medium-range KN-17 ballistic missile. It broke up a few minutes after the launch.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, speaking after a meeting of Japan's National Security Council, said the missile is believed to have traveled about 50 kilometers and fallen on an inland part of the DPRK.

Xinhua - AFP

(China Daily 05/01/2017 page4)
LONDON - The parents of Madeleine McCann, the 3-year-old British girl who vanished during a family vacation to Portugal in 2007, say they are still hopeful they will one day be reunited with their daughter as they mark the 10th anniversary of her disappearance.

In an interview with the British media released on Sunday, the McCanns said they felt encouraged by the "real progress" that British police have made in the case in the past five years.

Scotland Yard said last week that, a decade later, detectives are still pursuing "critical" leads to trace Madeleine, who disappeared from a vacation home in Portugal's Algarve region on the night of May 3, 2007. Her parents had gone out to a tapas bar nearby after putting her and her twin siblings to bed.

Despite an investigation costing more than 11 million pounds ($14 million) so far, police said there was no "definitive evidence" on whether Madeleine who would be almost 14 now is alive or dead. The girl was abducted from the apartment, they said, but how and why it happened is still largely a mystery.

One theory that police say hasn't been ruled out is a "burglary gone wrong".

Gerry McCann, 48, acknowledged it was "devastating" not to have found her, but added: "No parent is going to give up on their child, unless they know for certain their child is dead. And we just don't have any evidence."

His wife, Kate, agreed.

"My hope for Madeleine being out there is no less than it was almost 10 years ago," she said. "I never thought we'd still be in this situation, so far along the line. It's a huge amount of time."

Associated Press

(China Daily 05/01/2017 page4)
WASHINGTON - In his first 100 days in office, US President Donald Trump's foreign policy has been tough, but lacking an overall strategy, US experts have said.

Experts said Trump's election marks a new era for US foreign policy, as he is more willing to use military force and bomb adversaries.

Critics have blasted Trump's predecessor Barack Obama as an ivory tower intellectual who was paralyzed by fear of escalation in some areas and therefore took no real action on pressing foreign policy matters.

By contrast, Trump has shown that he spends less time deliberating and is quicker to take action in certain areas.

Since taking office on Jan 20, Trump has gotten tough on both Syria and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in what experts see as a break from the previous administration's more diplomatic approach to foreign policy.

Indeed, earlier this month, Trump ordered a surprise missile strike against Syria to send a warning to the Syrian government after a reported chemical weapons attack.

He also ordered the US military to drop the "mother of all bombs" - the most powerful non-nuclear bomb - in Afghanistan, in a bid to send a message that he means business.

At the same time, Trump has declared the end of the so-called "strategic patience" policy over DPRK's nuclear and missile programs, while putting all options, including a military strike, on the table. He even ordered a US carrier strike group to the waters near the Korean Peninsula.

"I think that the crises to date have been managed okay," Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Xinhua.

While some experts said that Trump is faring well in terms of foreign policy overall, others said his recent moves in Syria have backfired, and have been detrimental to US interests.

"Trump's anti-chemical weapons missile strike against Syrian (government) forces caused the Syrians to redouble their conventional bombing of pro-US rebels in non-IS areas of Syria," Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East Intelligence Office, told Xinhua.

On the war against the IS, White said the Trump administration is doing nothing different than Obama.

"Despite promises to crush IS, Trump has done practically nothing different than his predecessor so far," White said.

"A small US troop reinforcement, something the Obama administration already was doing in stages for over 2 years, plus an aerial bombardment mostly unmodified," he added.

Xinhua

(China Daily 05/01/2017 page4)
President Xi, right, meets with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen in Washington, on March 31, 2016 file photo. [Photo/Xinhua]

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen has called China's proposed Belt and Road Initiative "a future dynamo" for growth and prosperity in Asia and Europe.

Ahead of his four-day visit to China starting Tuesday, Rasmussen said he would use his trip to further boost his country's relationship with China, pledging to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is indeed a very interesting foreign policy strategy," Rasmussen said. "Further connecting Europe and Asia firmly through trade and bilateral cooperation can hopefully be a future dynamo for growth and prosperity for both continents."

President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and China's top legislator Zhang Dejiang are scheduled to meet or hold talks with Rasmussen, and will exchange views on bilateral ties and issues of common concern.

Rasmussen's visit is among the recent high-level exchanges between China and the Nordic countries. Shortly after Xi's visit to Finland in early April, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg paid a visit to China to enhance bilateral relations.

Rasmussen visited China in 2010 during his previous term as Danish prime minister. His current term started since June 2015.

Rasmussen said he hoped the Belt and Road Initiative could provide economic stability and development for Central and South Asia gateways between East Asia and Europe.

"This will be crucial for trade between the two biggest concentrations of economic power," he said.

The Danish prime minister also said his country  as one of the world's foremost shipping nations - has been engaged in linking the two continents for centuries.

This visit happens several days before the highly-anticipated Belt and Road Initiative Forum for International Cooperation on May 14 to 15 in Beijing. He said his country's representatives will be attending and "be happy to contribute" positively on both political and business level during the conference.

Rasmussen said China is Denmark's largest trading partner in Asia and his country was the first Nordic country to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership with China.

"We will now take our bilateral relationship to a new high," he said, "I am particularly pleased that we will launch our first 'Joint Work Program' during my visit."

Rasmussen revealed that the program contains 58 concrete joint cooperation areas toward 2020 between 80 Chinese and Danish state institutions, saying this will take the cooperation between the institutions of both sides one important step further.

During his visit, he said both sides will sign new agreements to strengthen economic and trade cooperation. For instance, he said a Chinese-Danish Food and Drug Regulatory Cooperation Center will be launched and it will help facilitate knowledge-sharing between public authorities in the two countries.

In terms of cultural and people-to-people exchanges, the prime minister said the two countries will sign a bilateral film agreement that allows China and Denmark to work on co-productions in the film area.

Rasmussen also said that Denmark and China have a close cooperation on international issues.

"We are both trading nations and strong supporters of free trade and increased global cooperation," said Rasmussen.

From the United Nations and climate change to the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Belt and Road Initiative, Rasmussen said there were many global issues with potential to deepend cooperation between both countries.

Rasmussen said he has met with President Xi on several occasions including the Nuclear Security Summit in 2016. "We've had very cordial and fruitful discussions during all our meetings  and it has led to many of the results that we now finalize in China during this visit," he said.

He also said that President Xi gave a very fine speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January and Denmark supports any efforts to stick to the road of trade liberalization and "better globalization". "Anything that China does will have an effect not only in Asia but on the rest of the world," said Rasmussen. "We wish to join China on this trip."

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn
LOS ANGELES - At least eight people were shot by a beer-drinking gunman at a pool in the US city of San Diego on Sunday night, with the shooter killed by police later, KFMB-TV reported.

Several victims are in critical condition as a result of the attack at 6 pm local time (0100GMT, May 1), according to police.

A witness said he heard the gunfire and saw the shooter "sitting, drinking a beer in one hand with a gun out in the other" in the pool area of an apartment complex in San Diego, California.

The shooter, described as a white male armed with a gun, was fatally shot by three police officers who had arrived at the scene, said San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman.
Homeowners take stock of damage to their home after a tornado hit the town of Emory, Texas, US April 30, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

Tornadoes ripped through an East Texas county on Saturday evening, killing at least four people and injuring dozens, while high winds, falling trees and floods killed five in neighboring states, according to news reports.

Three tornadoes were confirmed by the US National Weather Service in Canton, a city about 60 miles (95 km) east of Dallas in Van Zandt County.

The winds flipped over cars, snapped trees, destroyed houses and left roads strewn with debris and fallen power lines,according to photographs and video published by the Dallas Morning News.

"We have at least four fatalities," Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett said at a news conference on Sunday, adding that number could rise. "The damage was extensive in the affected area. It is heartbreaking and upsetting." Forty-nine people had been treated for injuries, she said.

Earlier a Canton fire department captain said he believed five people had been killed.

The mayor urged people to stay away from a sprawling flea market known as First Monday Trade Days, as crews tried to clean up debris.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a search and rescue team to the area.
SAN DIEGO - A man holding a gun in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other opened fire on people around a swimming pool in a San Diego apartment complex, killing one and injuring others before police shot him dead on Sunday, media said.

The gunman launched his attack during a birthday celebration in the complex in the city's University City section, NBC News' San Diego affiliate reported.

One resident, who identified himself as John, told KFMB-TV he saw the gunman "sitting, drinking a beer in one hand with a gun out in the other" in the pool area.

He said he and his wife saw "three people laying on the ground shot" and one wounded victim trying to crawl to another to give assistance.

Two police officers arrived and confronted the gunman, who exchanged gunfire with the officers before he was shot, the witness said. Some of the victims were taken away in cars to hospital before paramedics made it to the scene.

The gunman was killed after pointing his weapon at police, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman told reporters. She did not identify the suspect or mention a possible motive.

Eight people were injured when the shooting broke out just after 6 p.m. local time (0100 GMT Monday), Zimmerman said, several of them left in a critical condition.

Media including NBC's affiliate and CNN, citing Zimmerman, reported late Sunday night that a female victim had died. Media reports said the gunman was a resident of the complex.

Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a news conference after concluding the 30th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Manila, Philippines April 29, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

MANILA -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Monday that he is open to the idea of conducting joint military exercises with China.

"I agree (to the idea). They can have joint exercise(s) here in Mindanao, maybe in the Sulu Sea," Duterte told reporters after visiting the Chinese warship docked in Davao City wharf.

Duterte said he was very impressed by the Chinese warship. "It's very impressive. It's all carpeted. It's so beautiful. Inside, it's like a luxury hotel," he told reporters, "It's clean!"

He said the visit to the warship is part of the confidence building and good will between Manila and Beijing.

A Chinese naval fleet has begun a three-day friendly visit after arriving Sunday at Davao City in the southeastern region of The Philippines.
WASHINGTON -- SpaceX launched a spy satellite for the US Department of Defense early Monday morning and then landed the first stage of its rocket back on solid ground.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the classified NROL-76 satellite, lifted off at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT) from historic Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same pad that supported numerous Apollo and space shuttle launches, the company's live webcast showed.

About 10 minutes later, the rocket's first stage landed at SpaceX's Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX previously landed a first stage booster at Landing Zone 1 three times. It also successfully recovered Falcon 9 first stages from six missions at sea using the company's drone ships.

Few details have been released about NROL-76, a satellite designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office, a member of the US intelligence community of an agency of the US Department of Defense.

This launch has great symbolic significance for SpaceX, since it's the 15-year-old company's first mission for the Pentagon.

For years, the market for launching US military payloads was dominated by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

But SpaceX broke the monopoly in 2015, when the US Air Force certified its Falcon 9 rocket to launch national security space missions.

Since then, the California-based company has also won two contracts to launch Global Positioning System satellites for the US Air Force.
A still image from video shows passengers lying on floor and debris in plane cabin onboard an Aeroflot Boeing 777 flight from Moscow to Bangkok after it hit turbulence, May 1, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

BANGKOK/MOSCOW - At least 27 people were injured on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Bangkok on Monday when their Boeing 777 hit an air pocket, the Russian embassy in Thailand said in a statement.

It said 24 of the injured were Russian nationals and 15 of them were taken to a Bangkok hospital for treatment. The other three injured were from Thailand.

Three Russians have undergone operations lasting several hours, Russian RIA news agency reported, citing a Russian diplomat in Bangkok. The diplomat cited doctors who say their lives were not in danger. Aeroflot also dismissed some media reports about spine injuries.

The Russian airline said in an earlier statement that several passengers had been injured during "severe turbulence" 40 minutes before landing in the Thai capital. It said the crew could not warn passengers of the danger because the turbulence occurred in a clear sky.

"All the injured were sent to a local hospital with injuries of a different kind of severity, mainly fractures and bruises," the embassy said. "The reasons behind the injures was that some of the passengers had not had their seatbelts fastened."

Airports of Thailand Pcl, Thailand's main airport operator, told Reuters the Boeing 777 had landed in Bangkok, but said any other comment should come from the airline.

Aeroflot operates two flights a day from Moscow to Bangkok. Thailand is a top destination for Russian tourists, with many visiting the country's beach resorts.

Reuters
In China Payment Fraud, we wrote how it has become somewhat of a December tradition to write about China payment scams in December because history shows this is the biggest month for those.

This year it seems China fraud season has started earlier than usual for those doing business with China and, near as I can tell from my completely unscientific non-survey, it seems the diversity and ingenuity and number of scams is way up as well. In other words, dont say we didnt warn you.

We are seeing the following old scams in quantity this year:



1. The come to China to celebrate our deal scam In this scam, a Chinese company emails a foreign company to express a desire to buy a few million dollars of the foreign companys product or service. The terms of the deal are quickly worked out and the Chinese company suggests the foreign company come to China to sign the contract and to celebrate the two parties having cooperated so well in inking their deal. The foreigner(s) gets to China (usually some fairly out of the way city in China) and is treated to what appears to the foreigner to be a really expensive meal at which the contract is signed. At which point, the foreign company is told how Chinese custom requires the foreigner buy the Chinese CEO an expensive gift and pay the notarization fee. The foreigner is then taken to purchase a nice piece of jade and requested to pay a couple of thousand dollars for the notarization fee. Oftentimes the foreigner just gives the Chinese company people cash to go off and buy the CEO gift on the foreign companys behalf.

Weeks later, the foreigner learns there is no deal and there is no Chinese company either. The big lure of this scam is that nobody wants to fly all the way to China, have a great meal at someone elses expense, and then be too cheap to spend USD$3,000 to $8,000 more to seal the deal.

I keep getting emails from people asking me if their deal looks real to me. My answer is always the same: I have no idea but before getting on a plane, I would do some due diligence on the company AND if the company shows up as real, I would contact them to make sure they are really the ones with whom you are dealing. Sometimes just one email to the company that is purportedly behind the deal is enough to determine that a scam is being perpetrated.

It should go without saying, but real Chinese companies are a heckuva lot less likely to perpetrate this sort of scam than someone posing as a real Chinese company.

2. The new bank account to pay us scam. This is the scam on which we focused last year and it is still around and scary as ever. I hate this scam because I have seen far too many smart companies fall for it and I view it as maybe the most difficult to detect.

This scam is usually employed against a foreign company that has been making purchases from a Chinese company for an extended period. The foreign company has been making its payments pursuant to purchase orders that specify the company bank account to which payment should be made. Suddenly, the Chinese company (note the quote marks here) sends an email to the foreign company requesting funds for outstanding POs be made to a new bank account. Often, the name on the bank account is not the same as the name of the Chinese company. Often, the bank account is in a different city or even in a different country. Often it is for Hong Kong.What is the scheme here? Well, it is always possible your Chinese company has changed its bank account, but you had better be quite certain of this before you switch your payment. In the old days, the scheme was either that the Chinese company had hit hard times and was seeking a double payment or an employee at the Chinese company was seeking to get your payment instead of the company. The Chinese company would get the money in Hong Kong and then claim you had never paid and that you still owed them money because it was completely your fault for having made the payment to someone other than to them.

Then last year this scam became even more sophisticated when computer hackers started hacking into Chinese companies computers and sending out invoices that purported to be on behalf of the Chinese company.

How can you avoid getting caught up in this type of fraud? Take note of the following:

The computer networks of many Chinese companies are not secure. The networks are subject to abuse by employees of the Chinese company and by outsiders. This means you can NEVER trust an email communication from a Chinese company. Email is inherently insecure in China and you never know with whom you are really dealing when engaging in electronic communication with Chinese companies.

Chinese companies tend to be very loyal to their banks and so you should view with suspicion any request to make a change in the payment bank. You should not even consider following such a request unless the request is made in writing on a revised purchase order stamped with the company seal. Even in that case, it is important to contact by telephone someone you know in the company with supervisory authority to ensure that the request is valid. Email requests to make a change should be ignored, but the request should be forwarded to your trusted Chinese company contact for an explanation.

Carefully review all bank account information. Monitor both the name of the payee and the location of the bank. Where the payee is even slightly incorrect, do not pay. Where the location of the bank is in the wrong city or country, do not pay. I have seen cases where foreign buyers paid to bank accounts outside of China to payees with no connection to the seller. These cases were all obvious frauds and the buyers lost their entire payment. I have seen millions of dollars vanish into thin air with this sort of scam. The Chinese parties committing the fraud will explain the need for this irregular payment as part of a plan to hold foreign currency outside of China. This kind of arrangement is no longer required in China. Explanations of this kind are indicia of fraud and should be ignored.

My law firm recently drafted a settlement agreement between an American company that had been tricked by someone (presumably outside the Chinese company) into sending a six figure payment to a new Hong Kong bank account. The Chinese company continued to seek payment from the American company for product the Chinese company had produced and delivered to the American company. Initially, the Chinese company sought full payment, but it agreed to compromise both because we argued it had been negligent in allowing its computers to get hacked and because it wanted to maintain its relationship with the American company.



3. The fake company scam. This is a tried and true favorite and it comes back in new forms every year. My personal favorite is the fake law firm or fake trademark/copyright/patent agent scam. Under that scam, a website appears proclaiming really cheap trademark, copyright and patent registrations in China. Foreign company sends some money and nothing ever gets filed. There are two variations on this one, one much more sophisticated and harmful than the other.The first and more simple version is for the fake China law firm or China IP agent to get a one-time payment and then do absolutely nothing further. Under this scenario, the foreign company quickly realizes it has been scammed and, more importantly, knows it still needs to register its IP in China.Under the more sophisticated version, the fake Chinese law firm or IP agent keeps updating the foreign company and keeps requesting more money along the way. Many (probably even most) legitimate law firms and IP agents charge for registrations in stages so even savvy foreign companies see nothing wrong in this. The smartest of these sophisticated scammers eventually send the foreign company a fake trademark registration certificate or copyright registration certificate (I am personally not aware of this having gone so far with a patent registration, but I would not doubt that it has). The foreign company then thinks it is covered for its China IP registrations and does not learn for many years later that it is not. By that point, of course, there are no further traces that might lead to the scammers.This years most popular edition of the fake company scam seems to be that of fake freight forwarders. I did some research on this scam after getting my second email on it in a week and came across this article, Forwarders put on alert over new Chinese freight scam. One version of this scam is not all that different from the fake IP registration scam in that both involve gaining trust, getting money, and then disappearing:

Fraudulent forwarders pose as legitimate companies with spare capacity. They arrive on-time to collect loads and then disappear.

Another frequently seen scam involves organized gangs creating their own websites and advertising themselves as freight forwarders. These sites are characterized by very basic information, free email accounts, and mobile phone or Skype contacts only, Mr Yarwood warned.

A third type of fraud commonly seen is where criminal organizations buy failing operators and continue to trade under their name in a state of virtual insolvency. They are able to identify and accept cargo which is subsequently stolen in transit.

Many years ago, a company came to us after its multi-million dollar cargo had disappeared. All we had to do was look at the shippers business license to know it was a complete fake.What is the best way to prevent falling victim to this scam? Pretty much the same as with most other scams. Make sure you know with whom you are doing business. In other words, do your due diligence and if you do not know how to conduct due diligence in China, retain someone who does.One of our China lawyers (who has researched and written dozens of China company due diligence reports) just finished reading a very thorough and systematic book on China Due Diligence, called, Due Diligence in China: Beyond the Checklists and she very much liked it.

What are you-all seeing out there?
(Photo : IAF) Su-30MKIs of the IAF.

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Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa, Chief of the Air Staff of the Indian Air Force (IAF), has ordered his commanders to raise the combat readiness of their air wings and squadrons to the extent they're able to immediately fight a 15-day war against China and a 10-day war against Pakistan.



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This surprising order to immediately raise the IAF's combat readiness was issued during an IAF commanders' conference in New Delhi last week. In response to this order, the Directorate of Air Staff Inspection (DASI) has been ordered to ascertain the combat readiness of all operational units.



DASI has also been ordered to keep personnel and IAF aircraft combat-ready, and ensure the immediate availability of supplies and weapons such as air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles and smart bombs. Radar systems monitoring both China and Pakistan must be operational 24/7.



DASI assesses the tactical and operational level of IAF aircraft to ensure they're capable of meeting combat requirements in a war.



"Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa has directed the IAF commanders to prepare for short duration but intense wars of 10 days in case of Pakistan and 15 days with China to maintain razor-sharp operational preparedness and enhanced combat effectiveness," said a senior IAF officer quoted by Indian media.



Marshal Dhanoa's order highlights the key importance of combat support operations in successful aerial campaigns. Stocking large quantities of munitions directly supports the IAF's new strategy of fighting a short but intensely brutal air war.



This new strategy is spelled-out in the "Joint Doctrine of the Armed Forces-2017," a document released by the Indian Armed Forces only last week. This report contends the character of future wars is likely to be "ambiguous, uncertain, short, swift, lethal, intense, precise, non-linear, unstructured, unpredictable, and hybrid."



As a result, the IAF's role must change. The IAF will rely very heavily on its huge fleet of Sukhoi Su-30 MKI multirole air superiority fighters for victory in aerial campaigns against China and Pakistan.



IAF operates 230 Su-30MKIs, a number that should exceed 300 by next year. The Su-30MKI will remain the backbone of the IAF's fighter fleet well beyond 2020.



In contrast, the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) operates the Su-30MKK variant while the People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force operates the Su-30MK2. China operates 76 Su-30MKK and 24 Su-30MK2.



The most numerous PLAAF fighter, however, is the Shenyang J-11 air superiority fighter, of which some 200 are in service.



The Pakistan Air Force's most numerous fighter is the CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder multi-role aircraft co-developed by Pakistan and China. PAF operates some 90 of this aircraft.



Other fighters in service with PAF are the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon air superiority fighter (76 aircraft) and the Dassault Mirage III interceptor (75 aircraft).



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TagsAir Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa, Indian Air Force, war, china, Pakistan, Directorate of Air Staff Inspection, Joint Doctrine of the Armed Forces-2017, Su-30MKI
(Photo : AVIC) AG600 seaplane.

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The AVIC AG600 -- the world's largest seaplane -- flew for the first time on April 29 from the waters off the port city of Zhuhai in southern Guangdong province.



The maiden flight of the four engine turboprop was labeled a success by Chinese state-controlled media. It was to have occurred in May and no reason was given for advancing this flight.



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The seaplane was developed by China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Company (CAIGA), which is a subsidiary of aerospace firm the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).



Over the past months, Chinese media has harped on the civilian virtues of this amphibious aircraft. It says the AG600 was designed to extinguish forest fires and carry out rescue missions at sea. One media outlet, however, said this amphib can also "be used to monitor and protect the ocean."



Despite this focus on the civilian qualities of the AG600, it's well known the largest user of this seaplane won't be a civilian organization or scientific institute but the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).



Certification procedures are expected to be completed by 2020. CAIGA said deliveries of the seaplane will begin in 2021.



It said the first plane will be delivered to the State Forestry Administration, which will use it to fight forest fires.



The biggest user of the AG600, however, is expected to be the PLAN, which is slated to receive most of the first 17 planes to be produced.



CAIGA launched the AG600 project in September 2009 to fill the gap in China's lack of amphibious aircraft, which is now more acute given the tense military situation in the South China Sea.



The AG600 has a maximum takeoff weight of 53.5 metric tons and an operational range of about 4,500 kilometers.



It will give China the ability to more quickly reinforce the military garrisons on its man-made islands in the South China Sea. The Permanent Court of Arbitration on July 12, 2016 declared China has no legal rights to claim most of the South China Sea. The same court also found China had infringed on the Philippines' territorial rights. China has unilaterally dismissed the ruling.



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TagsAVIC AG600, world's largest seaplane, Zhuhai, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, People's Liberation Army Navy, PLAN
(Photo : Getty Images) Workers put up scaffolding on a building owned by the contract manufacturer Foxconn International Holdings Ltd in Shenzhen, China.

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Foxconn is planning to build a production center in Hengyang, central China to produce devices for Amazon, DigiTimes reported citing industry sources.



Foxconn's Integrated Digital Product Business Group (iDPBG), which assembles iPhones and iPods for its largest partner, has reportedly inked a cooperation agreement with the Hengyang City government to establish a precision molding demonstration park for plastic and injection molds and an Amazon production center in the city.



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The investment project is estimated to be worth six billion yuan ($70.53 million) and will employ at least 15,000 people. Foxconn's share in the project has not been divulged.



Foxconn, which is the world's largest contract manufacturing company, will also allegedly ramp up the capacity of its plant in Hengyang this year. It plans to add 30 new production lines for audio equipment and tablets, and 15 lines for smartphones, tablet mainboards, and other components.



Foxconn has also continued to help Amazon to increase supply levels of its on-demand Echo and Echo Dot voice-activated assistant devices. Foxconn has been the only manufacturer of Echo devices and has teamed up with Amazon for business-related developments over the past decade, Fudzilla reported.



Meanwhile, Amazon is starting to push into China's logistics industry to grab a share of the country's $8 billion industry. Amazon has earlier launched the Amazon Logistics+ that allows wholesales to use Amazon to ship their products worldwide via air, land, or sea transport. This service also rattled its rivals including FedEx, UPS, DHL, and most especially local key player Alibaba.



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TagsFoxconn, Amazon, iPhone, china, Amazon Logistics+
It seems it is true that history repeats itself as some military analysts have compared the current battle with the Islamic State to Israels ancient battle with the Amalekites.

The Amalekites were one of the tribes which God told the Israelites to drive out of the Promised Land after He brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.

"Two thousand years later, a new battle against Israel's enemies is being staged in exactly the same place: an Egyptian airfield in Bir Gafgafa, which is located precisely on the biblical site of Rephidim in the Sinai Peninsula, reports Breaking Israel News.

Giora Shamis, editor of the Israeli military intelligence website Debka Files, is credited with first pointing out the similarity.

"I am not religious, but the correlation between ISIS and Amalek is clear and should be taken into account when considering modern events," said Shamis, according to The Christian Post. "What happened thousands of years ago is simply being played out again, a continuation of what already happened there historically."

Ben Tekoa, former head broadcaster for Arutz Sheva, also commented on the similarity: "Like Amalek, they [ISIS] seek out gratuitous cruelty, said Tekoa, referencing the Islamic States torture and killing of Christians and other minorities.

"The Bible is true, and its timeless brilliance is the best source for understanding the world today," he added.

Other Christians leaders, some in the U.S., have suggested that ISIS is part of Bible prophecy. Harvest Ministries pastor Greg Laurie even preached a message titled Israel, Iran, ISIS in Bible Prophecy.

What do you think? Is ISIS fulfilling biblical prophecy?

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: May 1, 2017
The oldest woman in the world, 117-year-old Violet Mosse-Brown from Jamaica, says the secret to her longevity is her Christian faith and serving God.

CBN News reports that Mosse-Brown was born on March 10, 1900. It is incredible to think of the changes she has seen in the world throughout her lifetime.

Mosse-Brown, who is known as Aunt V, gives God the credit for being her source of strength throughout her life.

"Thank God for what he has given to me. This what God has given me, so I have to take it, long life," said Mosse-Brown. "I've done nearly everything at the church. I spent all my time in the church."

Mosse-Brown was raised in a Christian home and was baptized at the age of 13 at Trittonville Baptist Church in the Duanvale district of Trelawny Parish, Jamaica.

CBN notes that Duanvale is the same parish where famous Olympic gold medalist sprinter Usain Bolt is from.

At 117, Mosse-Brown is often asked the secret to her longevity, to which she replies, "My faith in serving God, and believing strongly in the teaching of the Bible."

Brown is still able to move around on her own and is also blessed to share her old age with her 97-year-old son.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstock/cloverphoto

Publication date: May 1, 2017
I had the privilege or reading a pre-release version of "God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church." Here are 20 quotes from the book, which you should pick up.
The turnover among Christians in the Middle East, in addition to years of stirring among reformist Arab evangelicals, has made way for female pastors to rise into leadership positions vacated by clergy who have fled amid the mass migration in the region.

Not since three women were ordained by the Church of God in 1920 had an Arab woman been granted the ecclesial backing to administer the sacraments in Syria or Lebanon. Nearly a century later, a pair of female pastorsRola Sleiman and Najla Kassabwere ordained in February and March of this year.

They represent a unique way forward for the meager evangelical population in the Levant, which has followed traditional gender roles.

It wasnt in my dreams, said Sleiman, who studied at Beiruts Near East School of Theology (NEST). I just wanted to serve God. I never planned that Im going to be ordained.

After serving for years as a Christian educator and Sunday school teacher in Tripoli, Sleiman was tapped to fill the pulpit at Tripoli Evangelical Church during a transition period after her churchs pastor emigrated.

When a year passed and the role hadnt been filled, leaders selected Sleiman to represent the church on an administrative council. Even as pastor, she could not administer the sacraments or perform marriages without being ordained.

Last year, her church put forth the revolutionary motion to ordain Sleiman, now in her early 40s. The decision was carried out by secret vote and passed 23 to 1. I thought it was going to pass, said Sleiman, but not with that vote. It was shocking for me.

The following month, Kassab secured her ordination at Rabieh Evangelical Church in suburban Beirut. ...

1
A woman's black-eyed, blonde-haired mugshot, with elaborate face tattoos, has gained social media's attention online with many describing her as "creepy" and "possessed."

Morgan Joyce Varn, 24, was arrested along with Jonathan Mikael Robinson, 23, after a SWAT situation concluded at a townhome in South Carolina. She and Robinson allegedly robbed a 25-year-old man of his cellphone and cash on Monday, April 24, 2017.
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Home renovations you do yourself can either come out amazing or be a total wreck, but one Kingwood man gives us hope in successfully finishing that DIY project we have on our plate.

John Altic is a real estate company owner who previously flipped houses himself and he used his years of self-taught experience to treat himself to the ultimate, Pinterest-worthy man cave he's dubbed, "The Lounge."

LOCAL INSPIRATION: Kitchen makeover inspiration from Houston homes

He transformed his 360-square-foot single-car garage into an epic room with dark wood floors, custom cabinets, brick accents and dozens of liquor bottles.

"Normally when I do other projects I talk to my wife, but on this one, I didn't," Altic told Chron.com. "I just showed her some Pinterest ideas and she wasn't quite picking up what I was putting down, but after a while, she realized that it's going to happen."

What was once a typical garage, Altic transformed the room - with the help of DIY books and YouTube videos. The space features in part an accent brick wall, an under-the-counter dehydrator for beef jerky, a built-in ice machine, a 170-bottle wine fridge, a separate heat and air unit and donated liquor bottles.

When all was said and done, the project ended up costing somewhere between $15,000 to $20,000, " not including the liquor," Altic told Chron.com. "I will say that a lot of my buddies have been donating to the liquor stock. I'm mainly a wine drinker, but when people come over I want them to have whatever they want."

DO IT YOURSELF? Pinterest DIY fails that make us cringe

Along with the cost, Altic also invested about a year of his time working on giving the space a facelift, though he was just working on it during the weekends and occasional late nights.

While it does scream "man cave" with its dark wood, brick and leather features, Altic says his two daughters probably spend more time in the room than he does.

Altic's DIY projects aren't stopping anytime soon. During Easter weekend, he built a treehouse with his oldest daughter during the holiday weekend. He is currently four weeks into rehabbing his daughter's bathroom, as well.

Thanks to the inspiration of Pinterest and homes he's given tours in, Altic was able to create his version of an epic man cave, which he has nicknamed "The Lounge." To see The Lounge before, during and after renovation, click through the slideshow. Continue clicking to see some Pinterest-inspired projects that didn't end as well as Altic's in the gallery above, too.

INSPIRATION: 20 kitchens that will make you want to start remodeling today
It was not always a crime to enter the United States without authorization.

In fact, for most of American history, immigrants could enter the United States without official permission and not fear criminal prosecution by the federal government.

That changed in 1929. On its surface, Congresss new prohibitions on informal border crossings simply modernized the U.S. immigration system by compelling all immigrants to apply for entry. However, in my new book City of Inmates, I detail how Congress outlawed border crossings with the specific intent of criminalizing, prosecuting and imprisoning Mexican immigrants.

Knowing this history is important now. On April 11, 2017, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his plan to step up prosecutions of unlawful entries, saying its time to restore a lawful system of immigration. This may read like a colorblind commitment to law and order. But the law Sessions has vowed to enforce was designed with racist intent.

The Mexican immigration debate

The criminalization of informal border crossings occurred amid an immigration boom from Mexico.

In 1900, about 100,000 Mexican immigrants resided in the United States.

By 1930, nearly 1.5 million Mexican immigrants lived north of the border.

As Mexican immigration surged, many in Congress were trying to restrict non-white immigration. By 1924, Congress had largely adopted a whites only immigration system, banning all Asian immigration and cutting the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States from anywhere other than northern and western Europe. But whenever Congress tried to cap the number of Mexicans allowed to enter the United States each year, southwestern employers fiercely objected.

U.S. employers had eagerly stoked the eras Mexican immigration boom by recruiting Mexican workers to their southwestern farms, ranches and railroads, as well as their homes and mines. By the 1920s, western farmers were completely dependent on Mexican workers.

However, they also believed that Mexican immigrants would never permanently settle in the United States. As agribusiness lobbyist S. Parker Frisselle explained to Congress in 1926, The Mexican is a homer. Like the pigeon he goes home to roost. On Frisselles promise that Mexicans were not immigrants but, rather, birds of passage, western employers successfully defeated proposals to cap Mexican immigration to the United States during the 1920s.

The idea that Mexican immigrants often returned to Mexico contained some truth. Many Mexican immigrants engaged in cyclical migrations between their homes in Mexico and work in the United States. Yet, by the close of the 1920s, Mexicans were settling in large numbers across the southwest. They bought homes, started newspapers, churches and businesses. And many Mexican immigrants in the United States started families, raising a new generation of Mexican American children.

Monitoring the rise of Mexican American communities in southwestern states, the advocates of a whites-only immigration system charged western employers with recklessly courting Anglo Americas racial doom. As the work of historian Natalia Molina details, they believed Mexicans were racially unfit to be U.S. citizens.

Western employers agreed that Mexicans should not be allowed to become U.S. citizens. We, in California, would greatly prefer some set up in which our peak labor demands might be met and upon the completion of our harvest these laborers returned to their country, Friselle told Congress. But western employers also wanted unfettered access to an unlimited number of Mexican laborers. We need the labor, they roared back at those who wanted to cap the number of Mexican immigrants allowed to enter the United States each year.

Amid the escalating conflict between employers in the West and advocates of restriction in Congress, a senator from Dixie proposed a compromise.

Blease's Law

Sen. Coleman Livingston Blease hailed from the hills of South Carolina. In 1925, he entered Congress committed, above all else, to protecting white supremacy. In 1929, as restrictionists and employers tussled over the future of Mexican immigration, Blease proposed a way forward.

Library of Congress

According to U.S. immigration officials, Mexicans made nearly 1 million official border crossings into the United States during the 1920s. They arrived at a port of entry, paid an entry fee and submitted to any required tests, such as literacy and health.

However, as U.S. immigration authorities reported, many other Mexican immigrants did not register for legal entry. Entry fees were prohibitively high for many Mexican workers. Moreover, U.S. authorities subjected Mexican immigrants, in particular, to kerosene baths and humiliating delousing procedures because they believed Mexican immigrants carried disease and filth on their bodies. Instead of traveling to a port of entry, many Mexicans informally crossed the border at will, as both U.S. and Mexican citizens had done for decades.

When the debate stalled over how many Mexicans to allow in each year, Blease shifted attention to stopping the large number of border crossings that took place outside ports of entry. He suggested criminalizing unmonitored entry.

According to Bleases bill unlawfully entering the country would be a misdemeanor, while unlawfully returning to the United States after deportation would be a felony. The idea was to force Mexican immigrants into an authorized and monitored stream that could be turned on and turned off at will at ports of entry. Any immigrant who entered the United States outside the bounds of this stream would be a criminal subject to fines, imprisonment and ultimately deportation. But it was a crime designed to impact Mexican immigrants, in particular.

Neither the western agricultural businessmen nor the restrictionists registered any objections. Congress passed Bleases bill, the Immigration Act of March 4, 1929, and dramatically altered the story of crime and punishment in the United States.

Caged

With stunning precision, the criminalization of unauthorized entry caged thousands of Mexico's "birds of passage." By the end of 1930, the U.S. Attorney General reported prosecuting 7,001 cases of unlawful entry. By the end of the decade, U.S. Attorneys had prosecuted more than 44,000 cases.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, the vast majority of immigrants imprisoned for breaking Bleases law were Mexicans. Throughout the 1930s, Mexicans never comprised fewer than 85 percent of all immigration prisoners. Some years, that number rose to 99 percent. By the end of the decade, tens of thousands of Mexicans had been convicted of unlawfully entering or re-entering the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons built three new prisons in the U.S.-Mexico border region: La Tuna Prison in El Paso, Prison Camp #10 in Tucson and Terminal Island in Los Angeles.

Only the outbreak of World War II halted the Mexican immigrant prison boom of the 1930s. The war turned the attention of U.S. Attorneys elsewhere and Mexicans workers were desperately needed north of the border.

With few exceptions, prosecutions for unlawful entry and reentry remained low until 2005. As a measure of the War on Terror, the George W. Bush administration directed U.S. Attorneys to adopt an enforcement with consequences strategy. In 2009, U.S. attorneys prosecuted more than 50,000 cases of unlawful entry or re-entry. The Obama administration continued the surge, betting that aggressive border enforcement would help bring a recalcitrant Congress to adopt comprehensive immigration reform. It did not.

By 2015, prosecutions for unlawful entry and reentry accounted for 49 percent of all federal prosecutions and the federal government had spent at least US$7 billion to lock up unlawful border crossers.

Throughout this most recent surge, the disparate impact of criminalizing unlawful entry and reentry has endured. Today, Latinos, led by Mexicans and Central Americans, make up 92 percent of all immigrants imprisoned for unlawful entry and reentry.

Attorney General Sessions still wants more. Traveling to southern Arizona to announce his plan to even more aggressively prosecute unlawful entry, he signaled that, in the years to come, most prosecutions will happen on the U.S.-Mexico border and will target Mexicans and Central Americans.

When the number of Mexicans as well as Central Americans imprisoned on immigration charges soon booms, there will be nothing unwitting or colorblind about it. Congress first invented the crimes of unlawful entry and reentry with the purpose of criminalizing and imprisoning Mexican immigrants and it has delivered on that intent since 1929. The Sessions plan will bear a similar result and, in the process, discharge the racist design of Bleases law.

***

Kelly Lytle Hernandez is an Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. This article was originally published on The Conversation.

#CalleHouston blogger & curator: Olivia P. Tallet
Jay Janner/MBO

AUSTIN -- Early in last week's overnight debate on "sanctuary cities" in the Texas House, we got word of a possible deal to limit the debate and keep the most economically and socially damaging language out of the bill.

Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, was perhaps ready to retreat from his "show me your papers" language, we were told, if Democrats would agree to trim their nearly 200 proposed amendments down to 15 or so of their favorites.
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"He was born a gentleman, lived a gentleman and died a gentleman."

This is the sentiment that ends a passage on Robert (Robin) Courtenay Carter in the 1981 Montgomery County History Book produced by the Montgomery County Genealogy Society.

Carter was a veteran, serving in the U.S. Navy and a beloved pharmacist and operator of Carter Drug Store on the downtown square until his death. During war time, when then-mayor Thomas Earl Gentry went off to war during World War II, Carter served in the capacity of mayor during Gentry's absence.

He also served on the Conroe Chamber of Commerce and as a city councilman.

"He (Robin) was loved by everyone in town, as he dispensed not only pharmaceuticals for his customers, also provided drugs for animals," according to Montgomery County Historical Commission Chairman Larry Foerster.

Carter was born in the Gay Hill community of Washington County on Dec. 8, 1892.

He was the first son of Braxton and Stella Carter, according to the 1981 passage written by Charles Lee Williamson.

After the death of his parents, Carter moved to Conroe to live with his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Harris.

Robert Carter met Hattie Lescher Stinson, who had relatives in West Montgomery County, and they married on Dec. 10, 1917 and opened Carter Drug Store on Dec. 1, 1919.

The family operated Carter Drug Store for several generations on the downtown square of what is today Texas 105 and Main Street.

In 1928, the couple purchased a home on West Phillips street to use as their residence.

The Carters had two daughters, Mittie Sue Carter (1922-1973) and Roberta Courtenay Carter (1926-1979).

The family home at 402 West Phillips stayed in the care of the daughters until it was sold in 1976.

According to Al Stewart, former Conroe attorney, the home was residential property and had been leased up until 1976.

The property was purchased by A.K. Stewart, Al's father, in the fall of 1976 to serve as their law office.

After his father's death in 1987, Al Stewart bought out his sisters' shares in the property and did more improvements to the structure.

Stewart owned the property until 2013 when he sold the property to Alton Hues.

On June 15, 2016 the property was purchased by Montgomery County for the possible future use of the property which could include a tax office and/or parking.

Carter died on Oct. 8, 1969.

Hattie Stinson Carter died on Oct. 18, 1978.

The passage concluded by saying "She was born a gentlewoman, lived a gentlewoman and died a gentlewoman."

The structure at 402 West Phillips remains intact today. There is interest among county officials and historians to have someone move the structure.

Contact Foerster at 936-756-3337 or foerster@dfcllp.com if you are interested in offering a proposal to move the house.
Kindred Hospital Town and Country in West Houston notified the Texas Workforce Commission on Friday that it would eliminate all 133 staff positions beginning June 27.

In a statement issued Monday, Kindred said it then plans to close the hospital. It also said it has stopped accepting new patients.
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Houston Ballet patrons and young ambassadors dined like company members on Sunday evening at Cafe Annie. "Raising the Barre," the seventh annual dinner-in-four-acts, combined the city's hottest culinary talent with rising stage stars for a record-breaking foodie affair.

Chairmen Holly and Austin Alvis joined forces with Rachel and Sebastien Solar to host a full-house upstairs at the Uptown Park eatery. Their mission? To acquaint the next generation of ballet supporters with more established board members, organization insiders, and of course, the dancers.

Soloists Chun Wai Chan, Jacquelyn Long, Katharine Precourt, and Derek Dunn were each paired with top local chefs to create an inspired four-course feast.

"Let's talk about the food," an event organizer said with a shimmy. "Because that's why we're all here."

James Beard Award winner Robert Del Grande, Cafe Annie's executive chef and owner, likened his kitchen to a performance. "It needs to be well-choreographed."

He had been paired up with Precourt for the entree, a "fisherman-style" red snapper with creamy cheese polenta and tomato broth.

Chan, too, referenced open water when explaining his dish, king salmon crudo crafted by Uchi's Lance Gillum.

"I grew up in south China, by the sea," Chan said. "Every time there's a big event, my family eats seafood and nothing else."

Long, who worked with Le Colonial's Nicole Routhier and Dan Nguyen, happily stayed within the pescatarian-friendly motif; the trio settled on Goi Cuon (cold summer rolls with shrimp) and papaya salad.

Dunn and Rebecca Masson of Fluff Bake Bar's curtain-closer  pistachio pound cake with white chocolate  proved to a real crowd-pleaser. As did the announcement that Sunday's fun day surpassed its $75,000 fundraising goal.

While the chairs took a well-deserved bow, dinner-goers collected "burger cookies" (a sweet encore if there ever was one) at nights' end.
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Explaining Cattle Baron's Ball to an outsider is more complicated than it sounds.

The annual VICTORY event at the George Ranch Historical Park in Richmond, which benefits the American Cancer Society, is equal parts rodeo, casino night, shopping bazaar, concert, and eat-a-thon.

Fortunately, the 2017 chairs Cindi Colvin, Denise Leisten, and Tammy Norman have their pitch down flat; sometime last year, the trio marched into River Oaks District hot spot Steak 48 and asked Oliver Badgio, Senior Vice President at Prime Steak Concepts, to sign on as a "Pink Diamond" sponsor. Not only did he pony up and throw in an "Ultimate Guys Night Out" auction package, he and business partner Jeff Mastro flew into Houston for the weekend with their wives Kristen Badgio and Jodi Mastro to experience the festivities first-hand.

The Scottsdale-based foursome joined bold-faced Houstonians Hannah and Cal McNair, Joanna and Brad Marks, Lori Sarofim, Christie Sullivan, Kristina Somerville, and the Cullen family in the dirt for an exclusive VIP experience. The tony group received blinking faux gemstone rings upon arrival and then it was onto bourbon tastings at the Garrison Brothers Distillery Bar, private performance from Adam Hood, or samplings of Hugo's and Tony's high-end junk food buffet.

Not for the faint-of-heart (or non-Texans, for that matter) dining stations offered chile rellenos, tamales, enchiladas, fried avocados, tostadas, a queso bar, prime beef Frito pie, mini flautas, and more.

Once doors opened to the public at 7 p.m., so did bidding and raffle opportunities. More than 1,875 cowboys and cowgirls rushed the Magnum Wine Pull, Kendra Scott Jewelry Pull, pig races, Midway Games, silent auction, and big board.

NBC News correspondent Janet Shamlian presided over the relaxed program which included additional performances from Holly Williams and headliner Dwight Yoakum, live auction with Mike Jones, drawing for the IW Marks 1-carat diamond, and Sonic Automotive car raffle.

While the Badgios and Mastros figured out what the 30th anniversary celebration was all about, ball-goers had no trouble deciphering the value of their athlete-heavy package; as one of the evening's big ticket items, the winning bid hovered above the $20,000 mark.

When the dust settled, more than $2.2 million had been raised, something that newcomers and repeat ticket-holders can both appreciate.
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College campuses this fall saw intense political divide  just ask this years freshmen.

An annual survey of more than 137,000 students at 184 universities found that the fewest students ever  at 42 percent  identified their political leanings as middle of the road.

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA reported the results of its annual The American Freshman survey on Monday morning and found that despite the polarization, U.S. students largely believe they tolerate others with different beliefs.

The survey also discussed college costs, a growing concern in Texas and nationwide.

LOOKING AHEAD: After 100 days of Trump, some are planning 2020 challenges already

Most incoming students  56 percent  said they worried about how to pay for college. Fifteen percent of students didnt think they could afford their first-choice school, and about half of the respondents said there is a very good chance that they would get a job to offset college costs.

Luckily, though, these students still have time for Facebook and Instagram. More than 40 percent of students said they use social media for at least six hours a week  a record high.

The institutes research was cited in last years Fisher v. The University of Texas case to support the importance of campus diversity. The Supreme Courts decision in June upheld UT and other universities' ability to consider race as they review applications.

Scroll through the gallery above to see how Texas universities stack up against their counterparts nationally
Houston-area residents remain upbeat about immigrants contribution to the U.S. even after a year of political rhetoric criticizing foreign-born citizens and immigrants here illegally.

Most respondents to the annual Kinder Houston Area Survey  63 percent  said they thought U.S. immigrants generally contribute more to the American economy than they take, compared to 45 percent in 2010. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they wanted to grant immigrants here illegally a path to citizenship if they speak English and have no criminal record.

But some gaps remain in a city whose rapid demographic change will chart the course for Americas future. The 36th annual Kinder Houston Area Survey from Rice Universitys Kinder Institute for Urban Research showed a Houston metropolitan area that accepts diversity as part of its identity but has not moved past several key entrenched racial divides.

There are gaps in trust between black respondents and police officers. Less than half of white and black survey respondents held a positive view of the relationship between the two groups. And white respondents said they would hesitate to buy a house in a majority-Hispanic or majority-black neighborhood with high-quality schools and a low crime rate.

Theres still a deep sense among Anglos of not wanting to be in the minority, said Stephen Klineberg, a Rice sociology professor and co-director of the institute directing the study regarding this last finding. Theres increasingly positive views, (but) its still this entrenched legacy of racist history.

Researchers falsely expected a big falloff in approval of immigration given the Trumpian rhetoric, Klineberg said, referencing President Donald Trumps policies and statements during the campaign. But more than 70 percent of respondents said that the U.S. should admit the same number or more of legal immigrants in the next 10 years as were admitted in the last 10 years, up from about 55 percent in 2011.

Houston has made up our mind on this, he said.

The annual survey included 1,629 responses from respondents in Harris County, Fort Bend County and Montgomery County who were contacted by cellular or land-line phones between Jan. 24 and March 1. The results were weighted to better reflect race, ethnicity, age and gender distributions, and the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points, Klineberg said.

Tracking racial views in Houston is crucial given its rapidly diversifying population, a model for the country, Klineberg said.

Houston in 1980 was 63 percent white, 20 percent black, 16 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Asian. In the most recent census, more than 40 percent of Houstons residents were Hispanic, one third were white, 18 percent black and 8 percent Asian.

The numbers are expected to shift even more in the next 30 years  the majority of all Harris County residents below the age of 20 are Latinos, and whites only make up the majority of the demographic in the 65 or older age group.

Houston has a lot going for it, but the jury is out on whether we can build a city that can be a model for the rest of the country, he said. This is where the American future is going to be worked out.

A new question this year aimed to track different ethnic groups relationships with police officers given a growing conversation on officers shootings of unarmed black people and proposed legislation in Austin that would allow police officers to ask people who are detained immigration papers.

Nearly 95 percent of U.S.-born white respondents said theyd feel comfortable calling police for help, while only 72 percent of U.S.-born black respondents said the same, which Klineberg called a problematic result.

Hispanics  both immigrants and U.S.-born  largely indicated that they would be comfortable calling the police. But Klineberg said that may change with Senate Bill 4, a bill that passed the Texas House on Thursday. If signed into law in its current state, officers could ask about a detained persons immigration status and would have to honor all federal requests to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Houston officers are against the bill, fearing that immigrants here illegally would be afraid to report crime or call for help for fear of deportation with the proposed law. Police Chief Art Acevedo said the bill would drain HPD resources.

Thats one of the lessons of the survey  dont let that happen, Klineberg said.

A sharp divide between those who said they voted for Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged regarding how respondents considered higher education and employment.

More than half of Trump voters said there are many ways to succeed in todays economy with no more than a high school diploma. Thirty-five percent of Clinton voters said the same. Black and Hispanic respondents were more likely than white respondents to say that education beyond high school is necessary.

Still, white students are more likely to graduate from college than are black students and Hispanic students if they enroll immediately after high school.

African Americans and Latinos, if theyre not getting (higher) education, it is demonstrably not because they dont value it, Klineberg said.

He called the belief that Americas economy would soon include more low-skill jobs false. By 2020, 65 percent of all American jobs will require education beyond high school, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

Theres not an economist alive that thinks that there are plenty of low-skill blue-collar jobs coming back to America, Klineberg said.

lindsay.ellis@chron.com

twitter.com/lindsayaellis
SAN ANTONIO  A 46-year-old man was arrested Sunday accused of beating a 9-year-old family member with a belt after the child was suspended from school for assaulting a teacher, according to court documents.

Johnny Gonzales faces third-degree felony charges of injury to a child, assault on a family member  second offense and violation of parole.
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AUSTIN -- Roughly 100 people occupied the lobby of the state office building that houses the governor's office Monday demanding Gov. Greg Abbott veto a bill that would allow law enforcement officers across the state to inquire about individuals' citizenship.

With many wearing t-shirts calling for the rejection of the controversial Senate Bill 4 -- the "sanctuary cities" measure -- that passed the Texas House last week, the crowd sang and chanted in Spanish and English phrases like "You shall not pass" and "this entrance is closed" as they locked arms to block people from entering the building.

"SB4 is racist," they chanted as a woman shook a set of green maracas.

They said they planned to stay in the lobby of the building until the governor acquiesces to their request, he rejects the bill or until they forcibly are removed.

STANDING TOGETHER: Police chiefs united against 'sanctuary cities' bill

"They're going to have to drag us out of here or lock us in the building at the end of the day. We're not leaving," said Cristina Parker, an organizer with Grassroots Leadership, a group focused on detention and deportation.

The sit-in was put on by Grassroots Leadership and RAICES, a refugee and immigration education and legal advocacy group. Story continues below





Between bouts of cheering, speakers launched as question and answer session using a bullhorn with organizers fielding questions from protesters about the potential effects of SB 4.

One undocumented woman asked in Spanish what would happen to her children, who are U.S. citizens, if a policeman pulled her over at a traffic stop and she did not have their citizenship documents with her. A speaker told her that lawmakers rejected a specific provision that would have prohibited police from inquiring about a child's citizenship status, and encouraged the mother to contact local immigrant rights' groups who have set up networks to care for children whose parents could be detained.

SB 4 threatens jail time and fines to law enforcement officials who decline detention requests from federal agents wishing to deport people in the country illegally. The bill now heads to the Senate to iron out minor differences between the House and Senate versions.

Scroll through the the gallery above to see municipalities that have declared themselves "sanctuary cities"
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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All-Conference WEC teams The All-Conference teams for the War Eagle Conference have been announced with multiple MMCRU and South OBrien volleyball players making...

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Sharwanand and Lavanya Tripathi starrer 'Radha' has confirmed its release date. Producer Bapineedu announced May 12th as its release date. After delivering a hit like 'Shatamanam Bhavati', Sharwanand is coming up with this romantic action drama. He has played the role of a cop.

Presented by B.V.S.N. Prasad and produced by Bogapalli Bapineedu, the film introduces Chandramohan as director.

"The great response to the first look and teaser of Radha was quite a boost for us. Presently, the team is in Milan, shooting for the final song after which the films production part will be completed. We will soon be announcing the date of the films audio release too. We are soon going for censor also, so that we can have our film ready in time for May 12," producer said.
Lawmakers concerned about the plight of residents with chronic pain are considering softening a tough law that puts limits on how much opioid painkillers a doctor can prescribe.

Maine has the nations strictest limit for opioid prescriptions, part of a sweeping law that aims to stop doctors from over-prescribing the painkillers. The law passed last year with support from Republican Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic lawmakers.

By July, Maine doctors will not be allowed to prescribe more than 100 milligrams of opioid medication per day to most of their patients.

The law has a broad exception for palliative care that the state says protects patients with chronic or acute pain. But Rockland attorney Patrick Mellor says hes heard from 100 people across Maine who say their doctors have told them they dont qualify for the exceptions.

Mellor said he is representing two chronic pain patients who have formally notified the state they intend to sue over the opioid prescription law. He said he hopes a legislative committee will at a minimum extend the deadline to next year.

That change would let doctors and patients taper, or reduce, opioid dosages over a longer period of time than allowed under the current law. Federal guidelines say chronic pain patients who agree to lower doses should be tapered down slowly. Otherwise, experts say, they could experience depression or suicidal tendencies.

Its not exaggerating to say that people will die if the legislature doesnt extend that tapering deadline, Mellor said.

One of Mellors clients is Eric Wass, who owns a small roofing company in Rockland. He said hes been on narcotics for 20 years for his spine, and said his doctors have long prescribed him enough painkillers to make sure he can keep working and living his life.

But now his medication has been cut back and he only has enough to get me through a half day, leading to afternoons spent on the couch to avoid pain, Mellor said.

My ability to work is being taken away from me by you all or whoever else is responsible for this, he recently told lawmakers.

Democratic Rep. Patricia Hymanson, the committees House chair, said she hopes the committee can agree on a solution and better educate the medical community.

I think that just for humanitys sake something needs to be done, she said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Federal officials say new flood maps for parts of North Dakota are expected to be released in early June.

Federal Emergency Management Agency official Ryan Pietramali told the Minot Daily News that science and technology have improved the agencys understanding of terrain since the Souris River flooding in June 2011. The flooding caused $700 million in damage to Minot.

Pietramali said the improved data allow for a better assessment of flood risk and more precise mapping.

FEMA will make necessary revisions to the for Minot and Ward County flood maps after a public review process this summer. The final adoption of the maps is expected in 2018.

About 4,000 properties with 3,600 structures are expected to move to a higher flood-risk zone, which has implications for flood insurance premiums, Pietramali said.

We are seeing just about a doubling of the 100-year discharge, he said

Pietramali noted the 1 percent annual flood risk will be based on discharge of 10,000 cubic feet a second rather than 5,000 cubic feet a second. The 2011 flood was about 27,000 cubic feet per second.

Property owners are being advised to purchase flood insurance and keeping it to cushion premium increases.

FEMA will continuously monitor flood-risk changes and update those portions of the map, Pietramali said. FEMA previously announced that updates typically take three years, but Pietramali said the agency is following the proposed impact of the flood protection project to quickly update the flood maps.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Dr. David Dao, who received an undisclosed settlement from United Airlines after being violently dragged off a flight earlier this month, wont be roughed up by the Internal Revenue Service: He wont owe any taxes on the payout.

The IRS allows for the tax-free treatment of personal-injury settlements if theyre awarded for personal physical injuries. Dao, who had boarded a Louisville, Kentucky-bound flight at Chicagos OHare International Airport, sustained a concussion, broken nose and lost two teeth during his forcible removal by police employed by the citys Department of Aviation on April 9, according to his lawyers. Payouts just for emotional distress arent tax-free under IRS rules.

Terms of Daos settlement with Chicago-based United are confidential, according to a press release issued Thursday by Corboy & Demetrio, the law firm which represents him. Asked Friday if his clients award was free of income tax, Daos Chicago-based lawyer, Thomas Demetrio, wrote in an email, Yes, its tax free.

United didnt immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on whether it would be able to deduct the payout from its corporate expenses. IRS rules broadly permit a company to deduct settlements reached privately, outside the court system, as a business expense thats considered ordinary and necessary.

Business Expenses

Phyllis Epstein, a tax lawyer in Philadelphia, said United likely would have sought to structure the settlement so that it was tax deductible to the company. That would mean focusing on language about the need to avoid litigation and to settle a personal injury case, which are both business expenses, she said. If the settlement instead were written in a way that described Uniteds efforts to preserve its battered reputation, the payout would be a capital expense, which is not deductible, she said.

Payouts reached as a result of court-approved settlements often arent deductible by the payor, particularly if they result from a government-imposed fine or penalty levied as a result of criminal violation of a law.

A Vietnam-born, Louisville-area physician, Dao insisted he needed to see patients the next day and refused to vacate his seat. Various United officials intervened in a futile attempt to persuade him, then contacted airport authorities for assistance with his removal, which was captured on video and circulated online.

Asked if he could name the number of figures in the settlement, Demetrio replied with an emoji depicting a wide-eyed chimp with its hand over its mouth.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Last year, Texas sustained the most expensive hail and storm season on record with an estimated 500,000 hail claims filed and insured losses totaling more than $4 billion, according to the Insurance Council of Texas.

The huge storm losses make the state, and certain counties, especially attractive to unscrupulous contractors and attorneys that engage in hailstorm lawsuit abuse. Industry experts said that the lawsuit abuse will lead to increased insurance premiums and insurers exiting the market. Thats why ending the abuse was listed among the states 10 legislative priorities for 2017, according to the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick.

Two bills, SB 10 and HB 1774 focus on hail lawsuit reform.

After the bills were initially filed in February, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR) President Richard J. Trabulsi Jr. said that Hail-related litigation is the worst lawsuit abuse in Texas today. If left unchecked, it will hurt every Texas homeowner through increased property insurance premiums and deductibles, or reduced or lost coverage.

A representative of a Washington D.C.-based think tank agreed that homeowners will suffer if the litigation abuse continues.

According to The R Street Institutes Southwest Region Director Josiah Neeley, the legislation will preserve the right of a homeowner to sue while removing incentives for attorney led abuse of the legal process. He explained that those incentives were part of old provisions in state law meant to ensure prompt payment of claims, but instead caused the opposite effect.

Trial attorneys are exploiting provisions in the law to run up large fee awards, Neeley said. Insurance companies often dont even know there is an issue until a lawsuit is filed. Cases that should be resolved without litigation end up in a long and costly legal process.

Mark Hanna, public relations manager for the Insurance Council of Texas, said its members are hopeful that the legislation will pass.

Our members are optimistic that Texas lawmakers will pass a bill that simply requires that insurers be given notice and an opportunity to resolve any disputes or disagreements about storm-related property damage without resorting to prolonged and unnecessary litigation, that curbs excessive attorney fee recovery, and still protects consumers access to the courts if needed, Hanna said. Texas has already seen a 1400 percent increase in lawsuits, since 2012, that cannot be explained by any similar increase in claim denials or claims handling, and without this reform, we could continue to see more lawsuits, longer delays in claims being resolved, increased pressure on rates in some areas, and fewer choices for consumers as companies either limit or stop writing in some areas.

The hail litigation crisis occurring in the state is having a significant impact on Texas-based insurers who cannot allocate the risk among a broader policyholder base, according to Steven Badger, a partner with Zelle LLPs Dallas office.

Cory Moulton, the CEO of Houston-based Southern Vanguard Insurance Company, explained the impact of hail lawsuits on the low value home market it serves.

Our company writes policies in the underserved Texas market of low-value homes. We issue policies without credit scoring or other common underwriting restrictions. Our homeowner customers need our inexpensive product to avoid being placed by their mortgage companies in very expensive forced-risk policies, Moulton said. Unfortunately, our low-value home market is one of the primary targets for the solicitation of homeowners for lawsuits, even when we have fully paid claims. We get sued regardless of whether we accept a claim or how much we pay on a claim.

According to both Badger and Hanna, the bill has passed the Texas Senate and is scheduled for a full House vote on May 4. Badger said this is a major step forward, given a similar bill died in the Calendars Committee during the last legislative session.

If the legislation is enacted, Badger cited two reasons why he expects to see a reduction in the number of hail damage lawsuits being filed.

First, lawyers will be forced to evaluate their matters before filing suit. The current sue now investigate never model will change as lawyers will be required to submit a pre-lawsuit demand letter supported by a legitimate estimate of unpaid damages. Hopefully, this will force the lawyers to weed out the meritless cases, as opposed to the current practice of suing on everything just to extract a cost of defense settlement from the insurance company, Badger explained. Second, with mandatory pre-suit notice supported by legitimate estimates, we expect to see more of the real disputes resolved without the need for a lawsuit. Thats good for everyone, especially the property owners who will now see quicker resolution of their disputes.

Badger emphasized property owners will continue to preserve their right to sue an insurer if there is a dispute in the evaluation of damages.

Also, very important is the fact that even with passage of this legislation, the property owner who was truly underpaid by its insurance company maintains every cause of action available to it today, with the ability to recover actual damages, statutory interest, prejudgment interest, treble damages, and attorneys fees, said Badger. None of that is taken away.

If the legislation fails to pass, Badger said hail lawsuit abuse will continue.

Without the legislation, the feeding frenzy to sign up property owners for lawsuits will continue unchecked, Badger said. Lawyers and their case solicitors will scour neighborhoods wherever a hail event occurs, signing up every homeowner willing to put their name on the retention agreement  regardless of whether their claim was already paid or if their home was even in the path of the storm. The lawyers promise of free money is too alluring to turn away.

Policyholders can expect tighter restrictions on coverage and increased policy premiums, he said.

This will force the insurance industry to react. We are already seeing it happen, with endorsements restricting hail coverage and carriers pulling out of markets where the litigation abuses are most severe, Badger said. The insurance industry, especially the Texas-based insurers that only write in this state, cannot continue to absorb the enormous cost of defending thousands of lawsuits.

Without reform, Badger predicts there may no longer be an option of hail insurance through private insurers. Instead, as he predicted in an earlier article he wrote for Claims Journal on the subject, there could be the development of an association that is an insurer of last resort.

I fully expect that we will eventually see entire Texas market segments, perhaps the entire State of Texas, completely unable to obtain hail insurance coverage. This is how the Texas Windstorm Association came to be in 1971. After Hurricane Celia struck the Texas coast, the private insurance market stopped writing in that market. Dont be surprised if we soon have a need for THIA, the Texas Hailstorm Insurance Association, when the private market entirely stops writing hail coverage, added Badger.

Perhaps, most damaging of all is that the lawsuit abuse has altered the way people view insurance, he said.

The Texas hail lawsuit feeding-frenzy has also brought about a change in how people see the insurance claims process. Insurance policies are there to help people pay for damage to their property, not to put money in their pockets for vacations and new cars, Badger explained. We now routinely see advertisements from contractors and others advising property owners how they can profit from their insurance claims. What these advertisements do not say is that if building owners are profiting from their claims they are very likely committing insurance fraud. We need to change this emerging culture of viewing an insurance claim as a lottery ticket.

Badger first brought attention to hail litigation abuse in a 2014 Claims Journal article, The Emerging Hail Risk: What the Hail is Going On? Was he correct in his prediction of the affordability and availability of hail coverage if hail lawsuits continue unabated? It appears the industry will have its answer this month as the legislative session ends on May 29.
AKRON, Ohio -- Authorities are searching for an Akron man who is accused of shooting at a house where four children were sleeping.

Jearron D. Waters, 28, is charged with felonious assault in the Sunday incident on Gordon Drive near West Exchange Street. He is not in custody but a warrant has been issued for his arrest, police said.

Several people were sitting on the front porch just after 1 a.m. when Waters came by and started shooting at the house, police said. Investigators did not offer a motive for the shooting.

Four small children, including Waters' own 6-month-old child, were in the house. No one was injured, police said.

Anyone with information about Waters is asked to call the Akron Police Department's detective bureau at 330-375-2490.

If you would like to comment on this story, please visit Monday's crime and courts comments section.



cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
DSC_0906 edited.jpeg

A $2.5 million gift from the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation to Kent State's School of Fashion Design and Merchandising will fund a chair to support the Fashion School's director and support the study-away program for fashion school students. Pictured is the Kent State University Fashion School's New York City Studio.

(Kent State University)

KENT, Ohio - Kent State University has received $2.5 million for its Shannon Rodgers and Jerry Silverman School of Fashion Design and Merchandising from the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation.

The money will back two initiatives: $1.5 million to endow a chair to support the Fashion School's director and a matching grant of up to $1 million to support the study-away program for fashion school students.

"This incredible gift from the Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation will greatly enhance global experiences for our fashion students," said Kent State President Beverly Warren, in a news release. "The foundation's support of our Fashion School elevates the professional trajectory of both faculty and students and positions Kent State as a distinctive global innovator."

Kent State's Fashion School is rated among the best fashion institutions in the United States and worldwide. It is currently ranked No. 3 in the U.S. for design and merchandising by Fashion-Schools.org and No. 19 in the world by The Business of Fashion's 2016 Global Fashion School Ranking.

The school is the first in the country to require a study-away experience for all fashion students. Opportunities to spend a semester in Florence, Italy, with the world's best designers, work in the Fashion School's New York City Studio, and participate in programs in Paris and Hong Kong help make Kent State fashion students globally competitive.

"Peg Morgan, our founder, had a lifelong interest in fashion and always deeply valued education," said Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation President Rick Kellar in a release. "The Fashion School at Kent State is a perfect match for her creative and personal passions. Peg's legacy of support for Kent State will continue to be carried out through this gift, accelerating the ascension of Kent State as the premier global educator of future fashion industry leaders."

Warren formally announced the donation on April 29, at the 2017 Annual Fashion Show, FS2 presented by Michael Kors. The annual fashion show highlights the talents and creations of the Fashion School's design and merchandising students. At the event, Don Witkowski, a Kent State alumnus and president of men's at Michael Kors, was inducted into the Fashion School's Hall of Fame.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
AKRON, Ohio - A Norton man is accused of stabbing the boyfriend of his estranged wife Sunday in East Akron.

Troy Burgan, 27, is charged with aggravated burglary and felonious assault in the incident on Mohawk Drive at Emmitt Road, according to court records.

Burgan is not in custody but a warrant has been issued for his arrest, records show.

The 27-year-old boyfriend suffered minor injuries and was taken to Summa Akron City Hospital for treatment, according to a police report.

Burgan went to the house just before 2:30 a.m. to talk to his estranged wife. He forced open the front door when she refused to see him, the report says.

Burgan found the boyfriend inside the house. He grabbed a knife and used it to stab the boyfriend in the back and arm, the report says.

The knife broke, so Burgan got another knife and stabbed the boyfriend again, the report says. Burgan dropped the knife and ran away when another resident called 911.

Officers searched the area but could not find Burgan.

Burgan's criminal history includes a previous conviction for domestic violence, according to Akron Municipal Court records.

To comment on this post, please visit our crime and courts comments section.

cleveland.com is a partner of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Every dollar buys four meals for the hungry. Click here to donate.
Perotti LLC wins variances on Little Italy project

Developer Tim Perotti makes his (ultimately) winning case on zoning variances for his nearly $7 million project to build apartments near the Mayfield RTA rapid transit station in Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood at Monday's meeting of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

(Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - The city's board of zoning appeals voted 4-1 Monday to grant a half-dozen variances allowing Perotti Development Co. LLC to build a controversial, 40-unit apartment building near the heart of Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood.

Board member Tim Donovan was the sole dissenting vote.

The vote resolved a development issue that has roiled Little Italy for months, pitting the community's desire to preserve its character against a developer's right to profit reasonably from land hampered by outmoded zoning.

Variances sought - and granted

The developer sought variances on the floor area, or amount of construction allowed on its property, located on a tight site off Mayfield Road, just downhill from restaurants and shops that make Little Italy a beloved regional destination.

The developer also needed variances on the one-to-one ratio of parking spaces to apartment units required by zoning, and the building "setbacks'' from the sidewalk and adjacent properties.

A Dimit Architects rendering of the proposed Perotti development for Little Italy, which won crucial zoning variances Monday.

Nearly two-dozen residents who spoke at Monday's meeting - the third hearing before the zoning board on the project since March - opposed it because they said it was too big, and because they said it would strain parking in Little Italy.

Residents still firmly opposed

Photographer David Schwartz, who operates a studio at 2025 Random Road within sight of the future Perotti project called it "more than 35 pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack."

Resident Barbara Mongelluzzi said: "Its' like putting a Colosseum on a postage stamp. It just doesn't work.

Tim Perotti, a principal of Perotti Development LLC along with his brother, Edward Perotti, and mother, Constance Perotti, begged to differ.

Tim Perotti told the zoning board that he recently downsized the project from 45 to 40 units in the spirit of compromise.

He described the project as a "transit-oriented development designed to leverage the nearby Mayfield rapid transit station built in 2015 by the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.

A developer's response

And yet, responding to community demands earlier this year, Perotti agreed to include 16 ground level spaces in his building, with a driveway off Mayfield Road, the only available access point.

And, he said he had negotiated long-term leases with Case Western Reserve University and developers of the nearby Centric apartments to provide dedicated garage spaces for residents of his building.

Perotti agreed to install safety equipment to safeguard pedestrians from cars entering or leaving the garage and to restrict cars to right-turn in and right-turn out movements from the garage to avert delays on Mayfield, a major thoroughfare that doubles as U.S. Route 322.

Zoning at issue

Conflict over the project highlighted tension over the future of Little Italy at a time when the city's planning commission wants to add density and population, now that demographics are in Cleveland's favor after decades of suburban outflow.

The conflict over the Perotti venture also highlighted the city's need to update its outdated 1929 zoning code.

The city's planning Director, Freddy Collier, who testified at the hearing, said the answer lies in creating new "form-based" zoning for important commercial and residential areas including Little Italy.

Form-based zoning, now adopted by hundreds of communities nationwide, spell out how to encourage walkable, transit-friendly neighborhood development now in demand nationally. Cleveland is experimenting, but not yet ready to go large-scale with the practice.

"We're not there yet," Collier said.

Collier also said the planning department strongly supports the project.

"We believe Mr. Perotti has done everything possible to mitigate the parking concern," Collier said.

The schedule

Perotti LLC plans to break ground in September on the apartments, which will cost nearly $7 million to build. Completion is expected in mid-2018.

Units should rent for an average of $2.40 a square foot, Perotti said.

"I'm pleased," Perotti said after the zoning board vote. "We're going to continue to work with Little Italy. We want to be good neighbors, of course."
AURORA, Ohio -- The name San Diego Taco Factory doesn't make one think of a small, one-location local establishment in Northeast Ohio. But that's exactly what it is.

Pulling most of its inspiration from the type of food you'd get at a California taco truck, this local gem serves some of the most diverse tacos in Greater Cleveland.

The "Best of" team at cleveland.com visited the Aurora restaurant last week. San Diego Taco Factory is one of 12 finalists in cleveland.com's Best Tacos in Greater Cleveland contest. Voting in the finals is open until May 15 and the poll can be found at the bottom of this post.

Name of shop: San Diego Taco Factory

Address: 7217 Aurora Road, Aurora

Phone: 330-995-0191

Website: www.sdtacofactory.com

When did it open: March 2016

How many varieties of tacos are on the menu: There are 34 varieties of tacos, which can be served on five types of shells, in addition to an entire build-your-own section.

Biggest seller: Korean Sticky BBQ Chicken Taco

Other top sellers: L.A. Taco, Shrimp Taco

Taste test review: We tried the Chicken Authentic Taco, Steak Taco, Korean Sticky BBQ Chicken Taco and Spicy Thai Chicken Taco.

Chicken: The grilled chicken was tender with a lightly spiced flavor. The green sauce was a nice addition, along with the crunchy vegetables.

Beef: The steak was flavorful and well spiced. The accompanying cilantro, onion and chile all worked well together.

Shop's Selection (Korean Sticky BBQ Chicken): This was one of our favorite tacos so far in the entire contest. Reporter Brenda Cain raved about the unique blend of flavors for the rest of the day.

Shop's Selection (Spicy Thai Chicken): Although this taco was spicy, it was the other flavors in the glaze that made it delicious. Paired with crisp cabbage, the Spicy Thai taco was another overall favorite.

Salsas: Called Chiles here, we tried the green, yellow, red and pineapple mango. The green was one of Hannah Drown's overall favorites with a flavorful yet mild taste. Cain preferred the sweet-yet-spicy aspect of the pineapple mango.

Cheese: We tried the Chipotle Crema, which is a warm queso-type dip. It was thick and mildly spicy.

Shells: Of the five options at San Diego Taco Factory, we tried the flour, corn and Griffin wrap, which is a hard and soft shell combined. The Griffin wrap was unique, and the added element of putting beans between the shells gave it even more uniqueness.

Prices: Tacos range from $3 to $3.50

Specials: You can get a three tacos for $7.99. There are also daily specials such as Taco Tuesday and Fish Friday.

Most unique taco: Hong Kong Orange Chicken Taco

What makes the restaurant unique: It's the only restaurant of its kind in Greater Cleveland, serving food inspired by both Southern California and the entire world.

Fun fact: There's a special section of the menu that requires a signature in order to order from it because those items are so spicy.
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio - Theft, East Washington Street: Police expect to file charges against one or more individuals for stealing cash, credit cards and other items from book bags and lockers in the girls' softball locker room. The most recent theft was reported April 18.

Aggravated Menacing, West Orange Street: A man felt that his neighbor's pest control application was making his wife sick. The matter was reported to police April 17, when the man told another person that he intended to go to the pest control man's home in Solon with a gun. Solon police were advised of the threat and Chagrin Falls officers will talk to the man who made the threat.

Underage Consumption, Riverside Park: Paramedics were called after a 20-year-old man was found passed out 10 p.m. April 17 in the park. He checked out fine and was picked up by his mother until a mandatory court date for underage possession and consumption. The man's cell phone was found the next morning and turned over to police.

Missing Juvenile, South Franklin Street: After her daughter, 17, did not come home from having lunch with friends for nearly 24 hours April 23, a mother reported it to police. Friends' homes were checked in Chagrin Falls, South Russell and Mantua. She eventually returned home facing possible juvenile court charges.

Parking Complaint, West Orange Street: A woman said a car blocked her from her driveway 10 p.m. April 22. She described the scene as chaotic with cars parked everywhere. Officers arrived and did not find any obstructions.

Harassment, Main Street: A woman's Cleveland tenant was advised to not contact her April 19, after he sent several threatening text messages. He was warned to stop.

Harassment, Heather Court: Another student is harassing a woman's young teenage son by sending him text messages. The matter was reported to police April 23. An officer tried to reach the sender of the texts. The phone number was blocked from the boy's phone.
Tremont carjacking trial

Tremont carjacking suspects Kenneth Jackson Jr. (left) and Antowine Palmer are on trial in federal court.

(Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Two members of the Heartless Felons gang on trial in a series of carjackings that plagued Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood in the summer of 2015 looked on Monday as federal prosecutors' star witness dodged questions on the stand.

Tervon'tae Taylor, 24, pleaded guilty in August to federal charges and agreed to testify against Kenneth Jackson and Antowine Palmer. Both men are on trial and are charged in the series of armed car robberies in the near-west Cleveland neighborhood.

Taylor was the prosecution's star witness and was expected to receive a shorter sentence in exchange for his testimony against Jackson and Palmer. But Taylor, who has been in jail since August 2015, largely refused to say Jackson and Palmer were involved in the carjackings.

His testimony was delayed for about 40 minutes on Monday afternoon as he again met with his attorney and spoke to prosecutors.

Jackson and Palmer, clad in black suits, spent much of the testimony either staring at Taylor, reading documents or taking notes. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Galvin noted at one point that Taylor's eyes seemed to move to her right, where Jackson and Palmer were seated, but defense attorneys objected and Taylor did not respond to her statement.

Taylor said he was not afraid of Jackson, Palmer or anybody else. He spoke quietly and mumbled his way through most of his testimony, giving terse, general answers.

He did not give a motive for stealing the cars, saying at one point that he "just did," and denied any knowledge of an ongoing beef between members of his Broadway sect of the Heartless Felons and a group based out of Fleet Avenue.

When asked by Galvin whether anyone else helped him carry out the carjackings, Taylor said that he either worked alone or with people he refused to name. When asked to name names, Taylor repeated variations on the phrase: "That I'm not going to say."

Taylor also said he lied to the FBI in interviews when he said Jackson and Palmer were there for several carjackings. He said he made false statements to U.S. District Judge Patricia Gaughan in admitting to certain facts when he pleaded guilty. He even refused to concede that he agreed to cooperate with investigators, even as Galvin showed him his plea agreement.

Taylor's testimony now puts that agreement in jeopardy. Gaughan did not look pleased as the jury left for an afternoon break following the Taylor's testimony.

Leif Christman, Taylor's attorney, declined to comment after his client left the stand.

The carjackings in question happened between June and August 2015. Victims in three of the cases were pistol-whipped. The group chose Tremont because of the high-volume of street parking, prosecutors said.

Investigators found DNA and fingerprints, which they used to connect Palmer and Jackson to the robberies, prosecutors said. Palmer's cellphone put him in Tremont on Aug. 12 at the same time as one of the carjackings.

Palmer also had photos of one of the stolen cars on his phone.

Calvin Rembert, another co-defendant, testified Friday about a July 25, 2015 carjacking of a GMC Envoy Denali in which he was involved. Taylor's testimony about this incident was one of the few things he said that lined up with the testimony of previous witnesses.

The trial is expected to conclude this week.

If you would like to comment on this post, please visit Monday's crime and courts comments section.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio-- Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove has held the health system's top spot for almost 13 years. Here's a quick look back at what's happened at the Clinic during his tenure.

June 1, 2004: Dr. Toby Cosgrove, chairman of the Clinic's department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, is named the fifth leader of the hospital system since its founding as a group practice by physicians in 1921. He succeeded Dr. Floyd Loop, who held the position for 14 years. Cosgrove officially begins his duties in October 2004.

October-December, 2004: Cosgrove removes Pizza Hut from the Clinic main campus food court and begins a 10-year battle to get McDonald's out the door, too, saying that the hospital system needs to lead by example in providing healthy food options for patients.

March, 2006: The Clinic announces plans to expand to Toronto, opening a health and wellness center to offer services such as fitness assessments and stress management, and to lure more Canadian business to the main campus.

Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove stepping down

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June, 2007: The Clinic announces it will no longer hire smokers, a policy that will go into place Sept. 1. The move ensures the Clinic will "walk the walk" of a health-care institution that stands for wellness, Cosgrove told The Plain Dealer at the time.

September, 2007: Clinic announces plans to open a new hospital in Abu Dhabi, its first outpost overseas. At the time, Cosgrove told The Plain Dealer the Clinic had inquiries from 50 countries to open branches or provide other services.

December, 2008: Clinic institutes hiring and salary freeze, travel restrictions in an effort to preserve jobs during the economic downturn.

August-September, 2009: Cosgrove tells the New York Times he would not hire obese people if he could do so lawfully. "We should declare obesity a disease and say we're going to help you get over it," Cosgrove said in that interview, much as the Clinic had done with smokers. The remarks sparked controversy, but Cosgrove defended them, saying they were meant to stimulate discussion about the costs of obesity.

September, 2009: The Clinic announces plans to build a medical facility in Las Vegas next to the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, an $80 million facility the Clinic started managing earlier in 2009.

February, 2010: Lowe's, the home improvement giant, announces a 3-year deal with the Clinic to send its employees needing heart care to Clinic facilities in an effort to cut costs for the company and secure high quality healthcare.

October, 2012: Walmart Stores, Inc. announces a deal with the Clinic that allows WalMart employees and dependents needing heart care to have consultations and care at the Clinic at no out-of-pocket cost. This is eighth such agreement the hospital inks with employers, including aircraft manufacturing giant Boeing.

March, 2013: The Clinic forms its first partnership with a large for-profit hospital system, Community Health Systems, a Nashville-based organization that operates more than 130 hospitals nationwide. "This gives us a national footprint," Cosgrove told The Plain Dealer. "The more we talked about it, the more we realized there were tremendous opportunities for both organizations."

June, 2013: The Clinic and Case Western Reserve University announce plans to build a new 165,000 square foot medical education building on the Clinic's main campus. "We're absolutely thrilled," Cosgrove told The Plain Dealer at the time. "This increases the educational mission of the Cleveland Clinic and gives it more presence. Where is our education building right now? There really isn't one -- that's the point."

August, 2013: The Clinic announces plans to buy up the majority of Akron General Health System with its for-profit partner, CHS. In the deal finalized a year later, the Clinic invested $100 million in the health system to become minority owner, adding Akron General to the Clinic's community hospitals.

September, 2013: Cosgrove tells employees that the health system may have to eliminate jobs to meet a target of cutting $330 million from its 2014 budget. The Clinic first offers early voluntary retirement to about 3,000 employees.

June, 2014: Cosgrove, 73, is approached by the Obama administration with an offer to run the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs. A Vietnam veteran who served in Da Nang, Cosgrove was a surgeon in the U.S. Air Force and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Republic of Vietnam Commendation Medal.

June 7, 2014: Cosgrove turns down the VA position. "This has been an extraordinarily difficult decision, but I have decided to withdraw from consideration from this position and remain at the Cleveland Clinic, due to the commitment I have made to the organization, our patients and the work that still needs to be done here," he said at the time.

October 2014: Clinic forms a strategic alliance with Theranos, then a California company on the rise whose 31-year-old CEO promised to revolutionize blood testing by performing diagnostic tests on a single drop of blood.

August, 2015: Clinic succeeds in ousting McDonald's from its main campus food court.

February, 2016: The Clinic reports its best financial year ever, recording $481 million in operating income in 2015, due largely to employee-driven cost cutting measures. "Over the last three years, we have reduced the cost of providing care some $600 million," Cosgrove tells staffers. "Had we not been able to make that reduction in our cost and efficiency, we would have had one of the worst financial years that we have ever had."

May, 2016: Theranos, a strategic partner with the Clinic, faces scrutiny about the accuracy and effectiveness of its blood testing methods. The Clinic, which had said it would test the California company's technology in its health system, remains quiet about the development. The company's tests were never put into place at the Clinic.

December, 2016: President Trump taps Cosgrove to sit on his Strategic and Policy Forum, making Cosgrove the only healthcare representative on the 16-member committee which includes CEOs of WalMart, PepsiCo, JPMorgan Chase, and General Motors, among others.

December 20, 2016: Cosgrove is once again interviewed for the VA Secretary position, this time by the Trump administration.

August, 2016: Clinic is named No. 1 in heart care for the 22nd year in a row by U.S. News & World Report, and the No. 2 hospital in the country overall, its highest ranking to date.

January, 2017: Cosgrove, 76, turns down the VA position, again, citing the work he still needs to accomplish at the Clinic. He says he has no immediate plans to step down from his position as CEO.

February, 2017: The Clinic CEO reports a nearly 50 percent decrease in operating income in 2016, from the previous year's record high of $481 million during his annual State of the Clinic address to employees.

May 1, 2017: Cosgrove announces he will step down as CEO and make way for his successor, who has yet to be announced.
Trump says Cleveland Clinic, CEO to help reform care at VA system

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove delivers his State of the Clinic address to employees at the InterContinental Hotel amphitheater, Wednesday, March 4, 2015.

(Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- During his 13 years as Cleveland Clinic CEO, Dr. Toby Cosgrove has spoken out on rising health care costs, smoking, Obamacare and other topics. He announced Monday that he is stepping down from the helm. Many of his most interesting comments came during his annual State of the Clinic addresses, and he also has written opinion pieces and appeared on cable news shows.

Here are a few of his notable quotes; all of them appeared in The Plain Dealer unless otherwise noted.

On opiates,

"This is one of the great tragedies of our time and not many people realize how bad it is. I recently visited the Vietnam memorial in Washington. There are 53,000 names on that memorial. Last year there were 53,000 deaths caused by drug overdoses. We have a Vietnam War going on in our country every day."

"If this gets changed to where it is, it clearly puts hospitals in a much worse position," Cosgrove said. "The bill we have right now I'm worried is going to wind up costing the actual patients, and they're not going to get the kind of coverage they need, and I'm concerned about that."

"The patients are older, they're sicker, and there's more things we can do for them, and it's more expensive to look after them."

On possibly l eaving the Clinic for a political appointment, January 2017:

"I don't see that I'm going to become a politician. I've not been a lifetime policy individual or a government worker. I think my time is best spent and my energy best directed in trying to make this organization do as well as it can. I wouldn't care if (the president is) a Republican or a Democrat or Green. On the VA side of things, as someone who spent 10 months on a 15-member Commission on Care studying the VA, I'll try to give him my best thinking on that."

On health care cost-cutting, State of the Clinic address, February, 2014:

"Efficiency will become more and more important" over the years that follow, Cosgrove said. "This is not what most of us grew up with, and it's caused many people to feel demoralized, depressed and devalued. I understand that. We're somewhere on this curve between anger and depression as a profession, but we must get to the other side of this so that we can move forward and create the new health care environment for the 21st century."

On the issue of smoking in Ohio, January 2014:



"We have cigars flavored as sour apple, grape and Dreamsicle, clearly appealing to children. In Cleveland schools, one in five students smokes cigars -- twice the rate of cigarette smoking. Besides ice cream flavoring, there's a tax loophole that allows such cigars to be taxed at about a third of the rate of cigarettes. With severe funding cuts of tobacco prevention (to zero) and blockage by a few downstate senators who would apparently have Ohioans pay taxes for tobacco treatment rather than provide 1/20th of those funds for prevention, few teens receive the messages they need.



"Fortunately, we know what works to combat the terrible toll that tobacco causes. Enacting strong laws providing for smoke-free public places, raising prices by tax increases, and funding comprehensive tobacco prevention and cessation programs repeatedly are shown to drastically reduce smoking."

"Use heroin and it is going to destroy you. That is the warning we need to be flashing in big, red lights all over our region.



"It may destroy you slowly, as it has done to so many addicts who end up as shadows of their former selves. Or it may destroy you in a blinding flash, as it has for the hundreds of Cuyahoga County residents who have died from heroin overdoses in the past two years alone."

On banning smoking on college campuses, June 2012:

"Universities take a great deal of thought, time and expense to educate the brain," Cosgrove said. "You have to think about educating the bodies."

Email to employees from Cosgrove, after being quoted in the NYT saying he wouldn't hire obese people, if he could get away with it legally. Sept, 2009:

"My objective was to spark discussion about premature causes of death, but some of my comments were hurtful to our community. That was certainly not my intent, and for that I apologize."



On closing the McDonalds restaurant at the Clinic,

"We have to set an example with the food we serve our patients and employees. In a way, McDonald's was symbolic as much as anything else. It is not associated with heart-healthy food; neither is Pizza Hut."



"That's how the Clinic got started, how it made its reputation, that's how it's had all the growth and stature that it's had," Cosgrove said. "Why would we not come home from the dance with the girl we brought?"



"I've thought for a long time that there was another thing for me to do in my life, something important, but I didn't know what it was," Cosgrove said. "I've been searching for it for a while."



Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove stepping down
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove today announced he will step down as CEO of the hospital system.

The CEO gave few clues about who will fill his role, saying only that there is a search committee and a pipeline of potential leaders at the Clinic.

The Clinic expects to name a successor for Cosgrove by the end of the year and has asked him to remain on in an advisory role.

"I suspect it will get finished sometime this year. It depends on how long the search process is and how quickly that is accomplished," Cosgrove said.

There has not been a new face at the helm of the Clinic since 2004 when then-CEO Dr. Floyd Loop retired. But there has been plenty of speculation over who will replace Cosgrove, who in the past three years was courted by two different federal administrations for a Cabinet-level position.

In 2014 and again this year, Cosgrove, a former surgeon in the U.S. Air Force, turned down the offers to head the Department of Veterans Affairs. Both times, he cited his commitment to the Clinic as a reason to decline the federal role.

But now, it seems, Cosgrove is ready to end his tenure at the head of one of the state's largest employers, and there are a number of Clinic physicians who could be tapped to fill his shoes.

Dr. Jeffrey Ponsky

In 2004, Dr. Jeffrey Ponsky was one of seven Clinic physicians vying for the CEO position, a title Cosgrove eventually was awarded.

Ponsky, who had been with the Clinic for eight years, left in 2005 for a nine-year stint as chair of the department of surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. He returned to the Clinic in 2014 to serve as a surgeon in the advanced endoscopy group.

Prior to his time at the Clinic, Ponsky worked for 18 years as director of the Department of Surgery at Mr. Sinai Medical Center.

Dr. Brian Donley

Dr. Brian Donley in 2015 was promoted to his current role as chief of staff and chief of clinical operations for the Cleveland Clinic. He also works as a professor of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Donley joined the Clinic 21 years ago as an orthopedic surgeon and since has served in various roles at the Clinic, including as president of Lutheran Hospital, vice president of Cleveland Clinic Regional Hospitals, chief of Regional Hospitals Medical Affairs and Quality and president of the Cleveland Clinic Regional Hospitals and Family Health Centers.

Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic

Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic is chief of staff and chairman of the Heart and Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, an attending surgeon in the Cleveland Clinic department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery and a professor of surgery at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Before the heart surgeon joined the Clinic 13 years ago, he worked as director of the Cardiac Surgery Research Laboratory and an associate surgeon in the division of cardiac surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and served as a clinical fellow in surgery and an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Marc Gillinov

Dr. Marc Gillinov is chairman of the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in the Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute and surgical director of the Center for Atrial Fibrillation at the Cleveland Clinic.

A graduate of Hawken School, Gillinov started working at the Clinic in 1978 as a researcher and assistant in the cardiac surgery operating suite. He joined the cardiac surgery staff in 1997 and now performs about 400 heart surgeries per year.

Moving forward

Few details are known about who will succeed Cosgrove, but one thing is certain: The Clinic's new CEO will be a practicing physician. Cosgrove was a cardiac surgeon for nearly 30 years before being named CEO.

When asked if there was anyone else The Plain Dealer should consider as a candidate for the hospital system's top position, a Clinic spokesperson said, "It's so hard to say, but these are all great people."

Cosgrove did not share plans about his future in the field, but did confirm he will remain on President Trump's strategic and policy forum, a 16-member group of business leaders who advise the administration.

Cleveland Clinic CEO Dr. Toby Cosgrove stepping down

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove to step down

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove steps down: A look back at his tenure (timeline, photos)

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove talks about his decision to step down, time at the helm: Q&A

Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove's most memorable quotes from the past 13 years

Brie Zeltner and Julie Washington contributed to this story.
WILLOWICK, Ohio -- A year after Mark and Dr. Lynn Carden met at the Taste of Tremont in 2013, he proposed to her on the Niagara Falls International Rainbow Bridge connecting New York and Ontario, Canada. The bridge, he felt, symbolized their union because Lynn, 38, is originally from Toronto, and Mark grew up near Boardman, Ohio.

Now all the lovebirds needed was a permanent nest. Here's how they came to build their dream home a stone's throw away from Lake Erie in Willowick.

Mark and Lynn, who lived in the Flats' Stonebridge Towers during their engagement, craved a house on the water with a roomy master bedroom and formal dining room. "A formal dining room reminded us of childhood," said Mark, 43. "It's nice to have the TV off and the family together, there's nice china and Grandma's over."

Their real estate agent showed them a small house, as well as an empty lot for sale on Cresthaven Drive in Willowick; the street runs near Lake Erie. "I trudged [through snow] and looked at the view from the lot. It was amazing," Mark said.

Now the couple faced a choice. Should they buy the small house and put a 1,000-square-foot addition on it, or buy the lot and build a custom house? They decided to go for the custom home.

"We fell in love with lake views early on in our house search," Lynn said in an email. "We were blown away by this rare opportunity to build our dream house within our budget. We also loved the location, with great highway access and close proximity to work and downtown. Driving through the neighborhood, it was immediately evident to us that it would be a wonderful place to raise a family."

The couple tapped Remodel Me Today of Olmsted Falls for the building job. Mark met Brian Pauley, owner of Remodel Me Today, at the 2015 NARI Home Improvement Show, and felt that Pauley understood what the couple wanted to accomplish.

The couple chose a floor plan, then decided on upgrades that included a three-season room, two additional fireplaces, an integrated sound system, and upgraded lighting and windows.

The 2,700-square-foot home, with five bedrooms, was finished at the end of last summer. "We love it. We never get tired of the view," Mark said.

He grew up near Boardman and came to Cleveland from New York to work for American Greetings Corp. in 2003. He's currently an analyst with KeyBank. Lynn moved to Cleveland in 2006 from Toronto for an internal medicine residency program. She practices internal medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. The couple has a 9-month-old daughter, Violet.

The home's floor plan combines a compact kitchen and great room into one space. The kitchen's hammered tin ceiling was Mark's idea; it reminds him of the ceilings in old restaurants. A C-shaped island, which holds a wine refrigerator and dishwasher, divides the kitchen from the great room, where Violet's toys wait for playtime.

Deep blue walls make a bold statement in the living and dining rooms, which flow together. Lynn and Mark worried that the rich color, Sherwin-Williams Marea Baja SW 9185, would make the rooms feel small. But they discovered that the white window trim and light-colored fireplace contrasted nicely with the dark walls.

Textures abound in the living room, from the gray velvet tufted sofa to the fluffy white fur chair and its matching fur footstool. The fireplace is decorated with a rough stone surround. "We want it to be a glam room," Mark said. "We're liking how it's coming."

Upstairs, the master bedroom has a fireplace and doors leading to a second-floor balcony with stunning views of water and sky.

Mark and Lynn wanted a spa feeling in their master bath, so they designed it with teak mats and two vessel sinks. "Vessel sinks are extremely in right now," Pauley of Remodel Me Today said.

Their luxury shower is outfitted with multiple water jets, a hand-held shower head, a glass door and decorative tiles on the walls and bench. At 20 inches in diameter, the rainfall shower head is "the biggest one we could find," Mark said. "We wanted it to feel like you're out in the rain."

Some couples are overwhelmed by the task of choosing every detail of a custom home, but Mark and Lynn enjoyed it.

"I love that each room is its own space, with distinct features and finishes unique to it, while still maintaining a remarkable continuity," Lynn said in an email. "We also love the things outside and around the house, namely our incredible neighbors and community, which really make this house feel like a home."

Do you have a home or office building you'd like to nominate for Cool Spaces? Click here.
Lakewood police SUV.jpg

Lakewood police investigate home burglaries.

(cleveland.com file photo)

Burglary, Plover Street: A resident returned home about 6:50 p.m. April 22 to discover his home had been broken into. Police said the house had been ransacked the crooks damaged a window to gain entry.

Burglary, Ridgewood Avenue: Police were called to an apartment about 7 p.m. April 27 by a resident who reported discovering items had been stolen from the apartment.

Operating a vehicle while impaired, McKinley Avenue: A caller told police about 1 a.m. April 21 that an erratic driver without headlights on and traveling eastbound hit the caller's car at Madison and McKinley. The driver stopped for a second, yelled something at the driver and her husband, and then took off driving. Police found the suspect's vehicle on Belle Avenue and arrested the male driver for operating a vehicle while impaired.

Criminal damaging, Hopkins Avenue: A resident called police about 10:50 a.m. April 26 to report someone slashed the tires on her car. The caller said she suspects a woman she had been allowing to stay with her of the damage.

Fraud, Ogontz Avenue: A resident reported April 24 discovering that an unknown person opened a checking account in his name in Maryland and cashed $1,200 worth of checks.

Petty theft, Sloane Avenue: Nature's Bin employees called police about 9:40 a.m. April 27 to report equipment had been stolen off the back dock of the grocery store.

Petty theft, Detroit Avenue: Police were called to Simone's Beverage about 8 p.m. April 27 about a man who was accused of stealing items from the store. Police received a description of the suspect and caught a man matching his description a few minutes later. Police arrested the suspect for petty theft and on a Lakewood Police Department warrant.

Petty theft, Clarence Avenue: A man called police April 26 to report he suspects someone stole his food stamp card from his mailbox.

Intoxication, Franklin Boulevard: A caller told police at 6:20 a.m. April 25 that that while on Franklin Avenue, he encountered an elderly man lying on the ground near Chesterland Avenue. The man asked the passerby for a ride. Police arrived and arrested the man for intoxication.

Petty theft from auto, Lake Avenue: A car parked at a Lake Avenue apartment building in an open garage had a window smashed out. A large rock was found inside the car. The incident was reported about 4:40 p.m. April 24.

Petty theft, Detroit Avenue: A locked green mountain bike was stolen from outside an office building April 24. The theft was discovered shortly after 5 p.m.

Vandalism, Detroit Avenue: Vandals spray painted the back of the restrooms at Kauffman Park. Staff believes the incident occurred sometime between 9 p.m. April 21 and 7 p.m. April 22.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.

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With costs soaring and $1.4 trillion in outstanding student debt, some colleges have carved out a unique spot in academia. For starters, tuition is $0. Getting in, though, is no small feat. Each school is geared to determined young scholars eager to challenge themselves throughout their academic years. In return for a degree at no tuition cost  and with little or no debt burden  the commitment they require, even after graduation, is steep. "These are particular kinds of schools that are not for every student," said Robert Franek, editor -in-chief at The Princeton Review. "For those students that fit into this cohort, it will be such a great coup." Feeling up to the task? Then here are nine institutions that don't charge for tuition:

Berea College

This small school in Kentucky has a singular mission: to attract underprivileged students committed to working hard. Only those who have financial need are admitted, and every student is awarded a four-year scholarship and a laptop. Tuition costs: $0. The catch? No slacking off is allowed  classroom attendance is mandatory and every student must work on campus for a set number of hours every week. The scholarships also don't cover room and board or other expenses, although additional financial aid is available to help with those costs.

Berea College Campus. L.H. | Flickr CC

Deep Springs College

This incredibly small all-male liberal arts college is in California's remote High Desert. Although obtaining a spot is highly competitive, every student is awarded a scholarship that covers tuition and room and board. Since Deep Springs is a two-year school, many graduates transfer to elite schools after completion. The catch? The college admits only 22 to 25 men a year, on average, and the school's academic demands are intense. This is a "very nontraditional college experience, and students must forgo a lot of the comforts of a typical college dorm," said David Soto, co-author of the Princeton Review book "Colleges That Pay You Back." .

Deep Springs College students vote on issues of governance during student meeting, the meeting which decide everything from when to harvest to whom the college should hire to teach often last until late into the evening. Spencer Weiner | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

College of the Ozarks

Dubbed Hard Work U, this is one of the most difficult Midwestern schools to get in to, with an 8 percent acceptance rate. Students don't pay a penny for tuition. Scholarships and grants completely cover the cost of tuition at this Christian school in rural Missouri. The catch? Every student is required to work 15 hours a week plus two 40-hour weeks as part of the school's work education program. Although there is no tuition, underclassmen must still pick up the tab for room and board and other expenses.

College of the Ozarks-Branson Missouri. Jerry and Pat Donaho | Flickr CC

U.S. Air Force Academy

In addition to free tuition, students receive a stipend to cover all other costs at this prestigious academy in Colorado. There are very high standards for applicants and students straight through to graduation. After four years, graduates are commissioned as second lieutenants in the Air Force. The catch? Each cadet will serve at least five years as an active duty officer after graduation, although many opt to stay in the military for much longer.

Cadets toss their hats in celebration after becoming newly commissioned first lieutenants marking the 45th graduating class at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Getty Images

U.S. Coast Guard Academy

This Connecticut-based service academy is also quite selective and rigorous. Many students study engineering and environmental science during the highly structured four-year program. Aside from purchasing uniforms, all students receive scholarships to cover tuition and room and board. The catch? Students must commit to five years of service after completing their schooling. About 80 percent of cadets go to sea after graduation.

While docked in Portsmouth, N.H., the USCGC Eagle received Coast Guard Academy cadets. Coast Guard News | Flickr CC

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy

Tuition, room and board, uniforms and books are all covered at this service academy in New York. It's known for having the hardest academic standards but the widest variety of career options of all the service academies. After graduation, cadets can enter any branch of the armed forces as an officer. The catch? Every graduate must maintain their merchant marine officer's license for six years and there is a service obligation, which varies depending on what type of job they choose.

Merchant marines walk to class at the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY, on August 01, 2016. Yana Paskova | For The Washington Post | Getty Images

U.S. Military Academy  West Point

This highly competitive military academy has a 9 percent acceptance rate. Students are focused and work hard without exception. In return for a stellar education and training, West Point is fully funded. Students receive free tuition in addition to a stipend of about $10,000 a year. After their years of military service, many graduates go on to successful careers in politics and business, Soto said. The catch? Graduates must serve at least five years of active duty and three years in the reserves.

New cadets stand in formation during the Oath of Allegiance ceremony during Reception Day at the United States Military Academy at West Point, June 27, 2016 in West Point, New York. Getty Images

U.S. Naval Academy

The Navy picks up the tab for tuition and room and board for all students at "The Yard" in Annapolis, Maryland. Midshipmen are highly motivated and disciplined, and many go on to have prominent careers within and outside the military. The catch? All graduates must serve at least five years as an officer followed by the reserves.

Mahan Hall displays banners for the War of 1812 exhibit at the United States Naval Academy in Annaplois. Loop Images | UIG | Getty Images

Webb Institute

Founded by the shipbuilder William Webb, this little engineering college in New York is tailor-made for those who want to pursue a very specific career. Every student receives a full scholarship to cover tuition to study naval architecture and marine engineering. Because of the school's reputation, graduates are highly employable. In fact, there's generally a 100 percent placement rate after graduation. The catch? Webb offers only one academic major and one degree, and "students eat, sleep, study ship design," said Soto.
State control is deepening in Southeast Asia's second-largest economy. Harsh censors and restricted freedom of expression have always weighed on Thailand's human rights record, but developments over the past month now suggest an intensified level of state control  a fresh development on top of the nation's delayed return to democracy.

A general view at the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market in Bangkok. Isa Foltin / Getty Images

In the Kingdom of Thailand, the prime minister manages government affairs but the centuries-old monarchy still remains a deeply revered institution  walls of nearly every establishment and household have at least one image of the king. And any perceived insult or defamation of the monarchy is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, according to the country's lese-majeste laws that are among the world's strictest. Meanwhile, those who express opposition to military rule  the current form of government and one that has been a staple throughout the nation's 19 army coups since 1932  can get slapped with sedition charges that carry a seven-year jail term. Earlier this month, a letter from the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society banned Thais from any kind of interaction with three well-known critics: journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall, historian Somsak Jeamteerasakul and academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun. Citizens who follow, contact or share content from the trio on the internet could be violating the Computer Crime Act, the directive said. The three men, who remain respected in international circles, have written extensively about the monarchy's failure to follow democratic governance and a need for the royal institution to fundamentally reform its powers. Among the contentious topics discussed in their writings are the country's Privy Council, an advisory body handpicked by the king that oversees key military and judiciary appointments reportedly to protect royal interests, and a lack of transparency over the royal family's wealth. The Crown Property Bureau manages the monarchy's investments and is the country's largest corporate group with assets valued between $37 billion to $53 billion, according to media reports. However, it is subject to the king's control.

watch now

Marshall, Jeamteerasakul and Chachavalpongpun left the country years ago and face arrest if they ever return for their scrutiny of royal practices. As a result of the ban, Marshall and Chachavalpongpun told CNBC that their respective social media following spiked dramatically, but that they remain concerned about the safety of their families back in Thailand. While the international community has long reprimanded Bangkok for detaining and arresting citizens under lese-majeste and sedition charges, the public targeting of Marshall, Jeamteerasakul and Chachavalpongpun was unusually aggressive, experts said. "The recent ban is even more heavy-handed than usual and reflects discomfort with criticism of the monarch," said Christian Lewis, Asia associate at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. Many believe King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who took over the throne in December following the death of his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej, plays a key role behind Bangkok's increasing autocratic stance. International media have widely described the former crown prince as a playboy who spent much of his time abroad. Before signing the new constitution on April 6, King Vajiralongkorn made several changes that analysts believe enhance his royal powers, such as naming the monarch as the key arbiter in times of constitutional upheaval. That legally places the king at the forefront of potential political disputes, to which Thailand is no stranger, and sets the stage for the monarchy to intervene in politics, noted Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council of Foreign Relations. Thai officials did not respond to CNBC's request for comment. "The new reality in Thailand is a move toward enhanced state absolutism, likely reflecting the preferences of the new sovereign, as implemented by the junta," said Paul Chambers, lecturer at Naresuan University in the Thai province of Phitsanulok. British-born Marshall, a former Reuters deputy editor who resigned from his role in 2011 in order to self-publish an online expose of the Thai monarchy based on 3,000 leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, alleged to CNBC that it was King Vajiralongkorn who ordered the ban on Jeamteerasakul, Chachavalpongpun and himself.

Thailand's King Vajiralongkorn after signing the military-backed constitution in Bangkok on April 6, 2017. LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP / Getty Images
Chris Reining crossed the $1 million threshold at age 35 and retired at 37, thanks to various habits he had developed. One such routine was reading for one hour every night. That happens to be a "rich habit" of highly successful people. On his blog, Reining shares five books that had the biggest impact on his life in 2016.

Chris Reining Holly Whittlef

"The Obstacle Is the Way" by Ryan Holiday "What I like about this book is when I'm struggling, it's easy to pick it up and read a few pages to get a different perspective, and to see the hidden opportunity," Reining says of Holiday's book, which shows how some of the most successful people have applied the ancient Greek philosophy of stoicism to turn difficult situations into opportunities.

"The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield "If deep down you know what you're supposed to be doing with your life, and you're not doing it, read this book," says Reining. The succinct read will inspire you to overcome the mental roadblocks holding you back from doing what you want to do.

"Quiet" by Susan Cain In "Quiet," Cain argues that society undervalues introverts  people who prefer listening over speaking  and so is missing out. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, the book is worth a read, says Reining: "If you're an introvert you should read this book to embrace who you are. And if you're an extrovert you should read this book to understand how not everyone can spend hours socializing every day."

"So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport "Most people don't understand that how much money you make depends on your value. And you increase this value by building what Cal Newport calls 'career capital,' or honing more and more skills," writes Reining. Young people in particular should pick up this books, says the self-made millionaire: "If I read this book when I started my career, I wouldn't have wasted so much time in my 20s being stagnant. I would've known that to advance my career I needed to spend my time mastering more skills."
It is "unlikely" that there will be a comprehensive tax reform bill anytime soon, Carlyle Group co-founder and co-CEO David Rubenstein told CNBC on Monday.

Instead, he anticipates tax cuts.



"We have these every 30 or 40 years. The last comprehensive bill was 1986. It's not easy to get done," he said in an interview with "Closing Bell" on the sidelines of the Milken Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

The White House unveiled an outline of President Donald Trump's tax reform plan last week. Among other things, it would reduce the number of income tax brackets and slash the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from 35 percent. It would also eliminate all deductions except mortgage interest and charitable giving.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin reiterated the proposal to get rid of those loopholes.

However, Rubenstein thinks the likelihood of no longer allowing an interest-rate deduction is "relatively remote" because it would "affect so many different businesses around the country."

What it comes down to is what is more important to Trump, reducing taxes or a larger reform package, and the cuts are probably the higher priority, he said.

He also thinks repatriation of corporate cash from overseas will be part of those tax cuts.
Citadel's Ken Griffin cast doubt Monday on whether President Donald Trump could actually break up the big banks as promised.

"My fantasy is to break up the big banks," the billionaire investor said at the Milken Institute's Global Conference in Los Angeles.

"I wish we would end 'too big to fail' in our banking system but we are not," he said, referring to the idea that certain large, essential financial institutions must be supported no matter what.

Around midday, Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News that he is considering breaking up Wall Street's giant banks. "I'm looking at that right now," he told the news organization.

Press secretary Sean Spicer added Monday afternoon that the administration is "looking at a 21st-century Glass-Steagall."

Instituted in 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial banks from participating in investment banking. The legislation's partial repeal in 1999 allowed banks to grow into large institutions that ultimately faced massive losses during the financial crisis of 2008.

In order to reduce future risks to the financial system, the Obama administration instituted the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, which included regulations such as higher capital requirements.

Ahead of his inauguration, Trump had called for repealing Dodd-Frank and breaking up the banks.

 Reuters contributed to this report.
A man walks out of a shop displaying a bitcoin sign during the opening ceremony of the first bitcoin retail shop in Hong Kong on February 28, 2014.

Bitcoin leaped to a fresh record high Tuesday, spurred by a jump in global trading activity.

The digital currency climbed almost 3 percent to an all-time high of $1,442.58 Tuesday, according to CoinDesk. The currency has jumped almost 7 percent in the two days to begin May.

Alex Sunnarborg, a CoinDesk research analyst, pointed to a spike in global trading volume, especially from Japan and its bitFlyer bitcoin exchange.

There seems to be an increasing amount of capital flows into bitcoin from around the globe.

"The biggest driver right now is you're starting to see institutional investors take a keen interest in the entire sector," said Brian Kelly, founder of Brian Kelly Capital, which recently launched a digital assets fund for outside investors.

"I don't think this is hot money. This is real money that's going to sit around and build the new internet," Kelly said, citing his conversations with institutions and other investors. He also noted that consensus in the bitcoin community has moved in the last several weeks away from Bitcoin Unlimited  which would split the currency into two coins  and toward an upgrade of the existing system, known as Bitcoin Core.

Analysts also pointed to continued investor interest in other cryptocurrencies such as ethereum that are near record highs, driving further demand. These obscure digital currencies usually must be bought and sold with bitcoin, Sunnarborg said, forcing traders to buy bitcoin.

Bitcoin (2012 - 2017)

Source: CoinDesk

Watch: Bitcoin prices on the rise
CIA Director Mike Pompeo is in South Korea holding talks with top officials and military leaders, as tensions remain elevated on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported he arrived over the weekend and already held meetings with his counterpart in South Korea's National Intelligence Service. It also cited sources as saying the CIA chief met with other officials at the presidential palace in Seoul.

The unannounced visit to South Korea comes as tensions remain high in the region after a failed ballistic test early Saturday by the regime led by Kim Jong Un. It comes as a carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson holds drills off the peninsula with South Korea.

There are concerns the 33-year-old leader may conduct the country's sixth nuclear test at any time.

North Korea threatened to "speed up" the pace of its nuclear program, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman quoted Monday by the official KCNA news agency. The North added that it "will continue to bolster its military capabilities for self-defense and preemptive nuclear attack with the nuclear force as a pivot."

Pompeo also was reported to have consultations with Seoul over the THAAD missile defense system, which is designed to protect against missile and nuclear threats from Pyongyang.

Last week, President Donald Trump threatened to "terminate" the free trade deal with South Korea unless it paid for the THAAD system. But the administration has since reassured Seoul that the U.S. will pay the costs of the deployment.

On Saturday, Pompeo flew to Osan Air Base south of Seoul, the South Korean paper Kookmin Ilbo reported. The next day he held a dinner meeting with the acting U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Marc Knapper.

The Seoul paper said Pompeo's visit is a review of the "security crisis on the Korean Peninsula" as well as a fact-finding trip to learn about the Korean presidential election and possible North Korean policy change. The South Korean presidential election is scheduled for May 9.

The CIA director is expected to remain in South Korea through Tuesday, the newspaper said.
Events to Take Place in Atlanta, Chicago, Hartford, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Seattle

PHILADELPHIA, PA CNBC's hit reality series "The Profit" and Comcast Business are joining forces to celebrate Small Business Week (April 30-May 6). The Comcast NBCUniversal entities will host a series of events in Atlanta, Chicago, Hartford, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Seattle, and feature panel discussions with members of the local business community, networking forums, and casting opportunities for prospective candidates to apply for a chance to be on CNBC's "The Profit."

On "The Profit," serial entrepreneur and investor Marcus Lemonis puts his own money on the line to help save and grow struggling small businesses across the country. "The Profit" returns with all-new episodes on Tuesday, June 6th at 10PM ET/PT on CNBC.

CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers will moderate panels in Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia featuring past businesses from CNBC's "The Profit," along with Julianna Reed, the winner of CNBC's competition series "The Partner" and Marcus' new business partner.

Comcast NBCUniversal provides content, products and services designed to help businesses succeed. Comcast Business offers advanced communication solutions to help companies of all sizes be more productive. Building on the company's entrepreneurial heritage, the events will leverage this expertise from all parts of the company in an effort to share opportunities that help grow the small business economy.

"Technology is a key factor in the success of every businesswhether it's a locally owned shop, a national chain or an emerging startup  and that success starts with a fast, reliable and secure internet connection" said Denice Hasty, chief marketing officer, Comcast Business. "As a provider to businesses of all sizes, Comcast Business is helping to shape how businesses advance, grow and innovate, and programs like this are a natural fit for us to reinforce that message."

"We are excited to partner with Comcast Business in our continuous goal to help small businesses become successful," said Tom Clendenin, SVP, marketing, CNBC. "'The Profit' has turned struggling companies into profitable success stories and has become a popular resource for entrepreneurs across America."

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

MAY 1ATLANTA, GA Moderated by CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers and featuring Julianna Reed, winner of CNBC's "The Partner" along with Allison Behringer, Founder and Co-Owner of Sweet Pete's (CNBC's "The Profit" season 2)

Moderated by CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers and featuring Julianna Reed, winner of CNBC's "The Partner" along with Allison Behringer, Founder and Co-Owner of Sweet Pete's (CNBC's "The Profit" season 2) MAY 2CHICAGO, IL Moderated by CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers and featuring Julianna Reed, winner of CNBC's "The Partner" along with Giovanni Senafe, Co-Owner, Bentley's Pet Stuff and Founder, Bentley's Barkery (CNBC's "The Profit" season 3)

Moderated by CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers and featuring Julianna Reed, winner of CNBC's "The Partner" along with Giovanni Senafe, Co-Owner, Bentley's Pet Stuff and Founder, Bentley's Barkery (CNBC's "The Profit" season 3) MAY 2PITTSBURGH, PA Moderated by Bill Flanagan, host of "Our Region's Business" on WPXI and featuring Adam Paulisic, Chief Customer Officer at MAYA Design

Moderated by Bill Flanagan, host of "Our Region's Business" on WPXI and featuring Adam Paulisic, Chief Customer Officer at MAYA Design MAY 3SEATTLE, WA Moderated by Mark Briggs, Director of Digital Media at KINGTV in Seattle and featuring Brett Greene, Founder / CEO of New Tech Northwest

Moderated by Mark Briggs, Director of Digital Media at KINGTV in Seattle and featuring Brett Greene, Founder / CEO of New Tech Northwest MAY 3HARTFORD, CT Moderated by Brad Drazen, Anchor and Investigative Reporter, NBC Connecticut and featuring Tariq Farid, Founder and CEO, Edible Arrangements International

Moderated by Brad Drazen, Anchor and Investigative Reporter, NBC Connecticut and featuring Tariq Farid, Founder and CEO, Edible Arrangements International MAY 4PHILADELPHIA, PA Moderated by CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers and featuring Stephanie Menkin, President & Partner of ML Fashion Group and President of Courage B. (CNBC's "The Profit" Season 2)

Moderated by CNBC's Small Business Reporter Kate Rogers and featuring Stephanie Menkin, President & Partner of ML Fashion Group and President of Courage B. (CNBC's "The Profit" Season 2) MAY 9NASHVILLE, TNModerated by Chris Miller of Channel 4 News Today and featuring Rober Grajewski, Executive Director of the Wond'ry Innovation Center at Vanderbilt University

About The Profit

"The Profit" follows serial entrepreneur and investor Marcus Lemonis, who puts his own money on the line to help save and grow struggling small businesses across the country. Since "The Profit" first premiered, Lemonis has invested more than $50 million of his own money in the companies featured on the series.

When Marcus Lemonis isn't running his multi-billion dollar company, Camping World, he goes on the hunt for struggling businesses that are desperate for cash and ripe for a deal. In each episode, Lemonis makes an offer that's impossible to refuse; his cash for a piece of the business and a percentage of the profits. And once inside these companies, he'll do almost anything to save the business and make himself a profit; even if it means firing the president, promoting the secretary or doing the work himself.

CNBC's "The Profit" returns with all-new episodes beginning Tuesday, June 6 at 10PM ET/PT.

To learn more about "The Profit," visit: theprofit.cnbc.com. Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheProfitCNBC/ and follow us onTwitter: @TheProfitCNBC #ThePartner and #TheProfit, and Instagram:@TheProfitCNBC.

About Comcast Business

Comcast Business, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a next-generation network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Internet, Ethernet, TV, a full portfolio of Voice services and Managed Enterprise Solutions for cost-effective, simplified communications management. For more information, call (866) 429-3085. Follow Comcast Business on Twitter @ComcastBusiness and on other social media networks at http://business.comcast.com/social.
Copper prices suddenly surged to a near one-month high Monday morning, but several on Wall Street were uncertain about exactly what caused the spike.

Copper futures for July delivery briefly leaped more than 2.5 percent around 9:31 a.m. EDT, hitting $2.6945 a pound, their highest since April 5. Copper traded about 2.3 percent higher as of 10:45 a.m.

It was the kind of move that typically comes when a single big piece of news hits, but traders were scratching their heads.

Copper intraday performance Monday

"I can't see any [headline] in particular," said Dane Davis, commodities research analyst at Barclays. He noted that a strike was set to begin Monday at Freeport-McMoRan 's Grasberg mine in Indonesia and a weaker U.S. dollar supported copper's move higher.

Thousands of workers at the world's second-largest copper mine staged a rally on Monday ahead of a planned monthlong strike to protest layoffs, a union leader said in a Reuters report.

The U.S. dollar index traded slightly lower on the day.

Low trade volume was also a likely factor behind the commodity's jump. Key copper trading markets in London and Shanghai were closed Monday for a holiday.

Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex, first pointed out the move in a Tweet:

Tweet

"The fact that it stayed high tells me something's happening, there's some news," he told CNBC. "This is sudden."

Copper rose 2.76 percent last week ahead of Monday's spike.

 Reuters contributed to this report.
Facebook's stock has taken off ahead of its Wednesday earnings report, which worries Cramer because the social media giant tends to report artificially weak quarters because of such runs.

Cramer was referring to his abbreviation for Facebook , Amazon , Netflix , and Alphabet's Google, to which he has since added another "A"  Apple .

"It almost feels like there's a surge in money coming into the group, yet there isn't an ETF that is part of FANG. And the FANG acronym is just something I coined years ago when I was exasperated that these felt like the only stocks that consistently moved higher in a sluggish market," the " Mad Money " host said.

As investors rush to top-performing technology stocks in the peak of earnings season, Jim Cramer looked into their quarters to see what is driving them higher.

"We've all lived through the supposedly disappointing Facebook quarters that weren't really disappointing at all ... yet the stock gets hammered anyway," Cramer said.

Cramer said that part of the reason for Facebook's perceived earnings weakness is CEO Mark Zuckerberg's philosophy: not only does he openly spend to get ahead, but he typically puts his app's users above its advertisers and investors.

"I'm always surprised that people consider this philosophy such a mystery," Cramer said. "When you ponder how much Facebook's stock moves up intra-quarter, you'd think that there would be some sort of reluctance to sell on the news."

Sometimes, when Facebook's stock ticks down after a report, it gets hit harder the following week because brokers that handle insider selling tip their hands to slow down buying.

"Given how much it's run, I wouldn't be all that surprised if you get a better buying opportunity than you're going to get tomorrow morning, even if the results are terrific," Cramer said, pointing to the stock's last two post-earnings moves.

Cramer loved Amazon's first quarter, but noted that its stock also sold off for a while after the report, as if sellers were expecting negative news to emerge.

"Amazon reported a fabulous quarter where it felt like the company couldn't hide its amazing profitability even if it wanted to," Cramer said. "It's a great sign about the profitability because Amazon's expanding like mad."

The "Mad Money" host particularly liked that Amazon's future is still in the hands of the company and not Wall Street analysts, adding that fellow FANG stock Netflix seems to share that attitude.

"On every conference call, there are these endless questions about competition and how Netflix could ultimately get slammed because of it," Cramer said in light of the company's first quarter report.

This quarter, when asked about challenges from HBO, CBS, Comcast and Amazon, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that the company's main competition was how much people sleep.

Though Netflix downplayed its key licensing deal with a subsidiary of Chinese search engine Baidu , calling it "modest in scope," its stock rallied off the news because the company tends to under-promise and over-deliver.

"There's another aspect that has Netflix's stock ramping endlessly: takeover talk," Cramer said, pointing to Apple's upcoming earnings report. "Let's put it this way: Apple's had ample time to consider buying Netflix to augment its service revenue stream  the key to having investors pay up for an otherwise hardware business model that's always viewed skeptically."

Another rumor heard on the Street is that Walt Disney will buy the streaming service and install Reed Hastings as CEO when its current chief, Bob Iger, steps down.

"The scuttlebutt says that Disney's ready to spin off ESPN and take in Netflix with a simplified structure, less levered to cord cutting. Last week's noisy layoffs at ESPN solidified the chatter," Cramer explained, insisting that talk of an acquisition is still nothing but a rumor.

After Alphabet's stock ran from $895 to $925 on its fabulous first quarter earnings report, Cramer argued it could have run even higher thanks to the growth it showed across the board.

The "Mad Money" host said that instead of being seen as reliant on advertising, Alphabet "finally got more credit for being an online store, a computer maker, a cellphone operating system, a carrier of a billion hours of programming a day that's waiting to be heavily monetized, an autonomous car leader, and a true rival to Amazon Web Services."

Wall Street is eagerly awaiting numbers from FAANG's latest addition, Apple. Its Tuesday report may give investors clues about the upcoming iPhone release and how the company might use its $250 billion in cash.

"All I care about is an expansion of the ecosystem that people pay for to be part of what I call 'the Apple club,'" Cramer said. "Any sign that the service revenue stream has the potential to be greater than a Fortune 50 company instead of a Fortune 100 company, which is what they use lately  putting it above the $28 billion level that is a Fortune 100 [company] that would cause the stock to run after the earnings print."

All in all, the tech giants seem once again to be leading the market higher, and each company's earnings have thus far supported the trend.

"FANG's back, but this time it's F-A-A-N-G; and while the spelling is tortured, the story is anything but," Cramer said.

Questions for Cramer?

Call Cramer: 1-800-743-CNBC

Want to take a deep dive into Cramer's world? Hit him up!

Mad Money Twitter - Jim Cramer Twitter - Facebook - Instagram - Vine

Questions, comments, suggestions for the "Mad Money" website? madcap@cnbc.com
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg are busy doing things quite atypical for top executives of a high-profile public company.

Zuckerberg has been criss-crossing the country -- in the Deep South in February, then the Midwest last week -- on visits that closely resemble those of an aspiring politician.

Rather than meeting with the leaders of other companies that either partner with or advertise on Facebook, for example, he's seeking out everyday citizens who voted for President Donald Trump. In recent weeks, he's visited a dairy farm in Wisconsin, dined with a family in Ohio and spent a few minutes working on a Ford assembly line -- and documented everything on his Facebook page.

Sandberg, meanwhile, will be in San Francisco on Thursday as part of a tour in support of her new book, which delves into her emotional struggles following her husband's sudden death in 2015.

On Wednesday, the two will collaborate on something more germane to their Facebook jobs -- conducting a conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss first-quarter results.

This integration of personal and professional time is not uncommon for executives who are nearing retirement or otherwise close to moving on to their next challenge.

Yet Zuckerberg and Sandberg are both relatively young, which makes the overlap of Sandberg's book tour and Zuckerberg's travels all the more striking.

The coinciding tours by Facebook's high-profile tandem could be nothing more than a reflection of just how much the company's service has infiltrated the lives of its users.

When over 200 million Americans use your product every day, it's hard to do anything without being noticed.

A picture of Zuckerberg eating a sandwich in Madison, WI, over the weekend, for example, was shared by 305,000 Facebook users.
Think space travel is just for skilled astronauts and fictional characters from your favorite "Star Wars" films? Think again. You don't have to be a professional scientist to fly into suborbital space, but you will have to pay a steep price.

With a variety of pioneering companies competing to launch humans into space, lunar exploration is taking off. Take SpaceX, the brainchild of Elon Musk, which plans to transport two passengers aboard its SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to cross over the moon and back in 2018. Or Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket company, which aspires to launch six lucky tourists into space via a capsule, and that's testing its New Shepard rocket ahead of plans for commercial suborbital journeys in 2018. For those more inclined to board a spaceship, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic aims to send tourists  including world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking  aboard the SpaceShipTwo (a six-passenger aircraft) into space this year.

If you're not interested in gliding into deep or suborbital space  or you lack the funds to support a $250,000 journey aboard the Virgin Galactic  you can enjoy epic space events from Earth this year, including watching the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, stargazing in prized national parks or even checking out the northern lights.

Thanks to groundbreaking technological advancements, space tourism is no longer a pipe dream. Here are leading astro -tourism trends to watch in 2017 and beyond.

More from U.S. News:

Mnuchin: Trump's Preparing 'Largest Tax Reform' Ever

The 20 Best Places to Live in the U.S. for the Weather

In Virginia, a Democratic Party Proxy War

The 21st-Century Space Race Is Heating Up

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin's New Shepard are carving the path for space tourism by utilizing "reusable space vehicles," explains Bill Gutman, vice president of aerospace operations at Spaceport America, a commercial space complex that aims to unlock the future of space exploration. While refurbishing rockets can be costly, reusing rockets, shuttle space engines and space vehicle parts can significantly reduce costs for space entrepreneurs and ultimately space tourists. "These vehicles have the potential to open the space experience to vastly more people than has been possible heretofore," he says. Plus, reusable technology could trim the launch costs, advance technology breakthroughs for future exploration and enable a greater volume of launches, making space travel more accessible to tourists, he adds. "It is anticipated that Virgin Galactic will take more people to space in the first few years of operations than have experienced space from the beginning of the Space Age until present ," Gutman explains.

Orbital space travel will also be available to tourists in the near future, he adds. Gutman points to Bigelow Aerospace, which is working to build sophisticated space equipment like the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module for the International Space Station. "Bigelow Aerospace is well along with developing space habitat modules that will enable longer space tourism stays perhaps akin the 'Orbital Hilton' as seen in the movie '2001: A Space Odyssey,'" he says.

Boeing, in partnership with NASA, also has developed technology that will enable astronauts to experience low-orbit earth journeys aboard the Crew Space Transportation-100 Starliner. While other companies are offering suborbital journeys, the Starliner aims to carry up to seven people per trip to low-earth orbit. Though Starliner's technology is specifically designed for astronauts to advance space exploration, a future commercial airline is already being tested at Kennedy Space Center and is slated to launch in 2018, explains Kelly Kaplan, communications lead at Boeing Space Exploration.

Private commercial space tour company Space Adventures has partnered with Boeing to market seats on the Starliner, but it had not yet released information on what the experience will entail. "Our clients have traveled over 36 million miles and have spent a total of approximately three months in space. We also have plans to fly two clients around the far side of the moon on a modified Russian Soyuz spacecraft," says Tom Shelley, president of Space Adventures.

Commercial Space Stations May Become a Reality in the Near Future

Getting materials and supplies transported from Earth to commercial space stations or settlements will have a high initial cost, but in the future, "it is likely that technologies will be developed to recycle materials, to grow food in space and to utilize lunar materials to build and to provide oxygen and water," Gutman says, enabling costs to go down. To accomplish this, commercial space lines will be vital, he adds. But first, operators must "demonstrate to the FAA that risk to the uninvolved public does not exceed a threshold level," he explains. In the future, the FAA may license space adventures, he says, noting that the process "will be complex because international law and treaties must be considered."

Boeing and NASA are also teaming up to help astronauts expand research with a deep space gateway and transport system that will create an environment, similar to the International Space Station, complete with a docking system and technology to shield astronauts from the harsh conditions, enabling an ideal jumping-off point for journeys from the moon to Mars, Kaplan adds.

In the Near-Term, Space Travel Will Cost You

Launching into suborbital space is possible, but it won't be cheap. While you can purchase tickets to board the Virgin Galactic, prices and ticket reservations for Blue Origin's New Shepard have not yet been revealed. "As with all new enterprises, we would certainly expect that as more providers enter the market, the price for a space tourism experience will trend lower. The ultimate price point will be determined by supply and demand and by the success of providers in bringing cost-lowering technologies to the market," Gutman adds.

If you're interested in visiting the International Space Station with an outfitter like Space Adventures, you can book tickets now. Pricing is contingent on the mission, timing and vehicle, Shelley explains. The cost for a flight to the ISS is roughly $50 million; flights orbiting the moon are priced at $150 million per person, he explains.

You Can Embrace Your Inner Astronaut on Earth

If you don't have the funds to support a moon mission, you can still enjoy otherworldly experiences on terra firma. "Space Adventures is able to arrange on-the-ground space-related experiences, such as tours to watch rocket launches from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, or the ability for clients to experience elements of the same training required for our private astronaut clients in Star City, Russia," Shelley explains. Space Adventures also offers zero-gravity flights for roughly $5,000, Shelley adds.

Meanwhile, Spaceport America offers programs such as interactive exhibits, a g-force simulator and launch videos for enthusiasts.
A Russian Communist party activist carries a banner with a portrait of late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin during a May Day rally in central Moscow on May 1, 2017.

On Monday, thousands of workers took to the streets across the globe to demonstrate, protest and celebrate May Day or International Worker's Day. While the day was marked primarily with marches for better working conditions, some clashes with police have been reported in places such as France, Germany and Indonesia.

Communist and socialist countries like North Korea, China and Cuba celebrated the day as a national holiday, paying tribute to their workers. Scroll down to see how May Day was marked across the globe.

(Photo caption above) Russia: A Russian Communist party activist carries a banner with a portrait of late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin during a May Day rally in central Moscow.
Singer Ja Rule performs onstage at The Barstool Party 2017 on February 3, 2017 in Houston, Texas.

Ja Rule and the Fyre Festival are facing a $100 million lawsuit after the "luxury" music festival in the Bahamas they charged up to $49,000 to attend was plagued by terrible housing arrangements, food issues, thieves and feral dogs.

Concertgoers reported an organizational mess that failed to live up to the marketing material. The "Private Luxury Villas" Fyre Festival had promised for housing ended up being USAID disaster-relief tents. Services like baggage handling and guest assistance, too, didn't meet guests' expectations.

@avatz: Crushed it #fyrefestival

@WNFIV: This is how Fyre Fest handles luggage. Just drop it out of a shipping container. At night. With no lights. #fyrefestival

And while Ja Rule and organizers issued an apology, it didn't satisfy people upset with the artist:

@Ruleyork OMG. This is the only way I'm apologizing from this moment on:

Shortly thereafter, a class-action lawsuit representing attendees was filed against Ja Rule, co-founder Billy McFarland and Fyre Media, the company that runs Fyre Festival. Geragos & Geragos, a firm that has represented high-profile clients such as Chris Brown and Michael Jackson, is handling the case.

@meiselasb We just filed Federal Class Action against Fyre Media for festival of horror. Refunding ticket price is not enough! @markgeragos

According to the lawsuit, Fyre Festival's conditions were dangerous, unsuitable and completely at odds with what was promised.

"The festival's lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees  suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions  that was closer to "The Hunger Games" or "Lord of the Flies" than Coachella," the suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in California, said.
John A. Paulson is one of the best-known names in the hedge fund industry. But these days, Mr. Paulson is having more success in the political realm than he is managing his business.

Mr. Paulson, 61, was one of the first people on Wall Street to back Donald J. Trump's bid for the presidency. He counseled Mr. Trump on economic matters during the campaign. He gave $250,000 to Mr. Trump's inaugural committee. And he recently visited President Trump at the White House for a "C.E.O. Town Hall."

But his investors are unlikely to be impressed by his political access. His firm, Paulson & Company, has recorded nearly double-digit losses in several of its larger funds as of the end of March.

More from New York Times:

John Paulson's Fall From Hedge Fund Stardom

As Hollywood Writers' Contract Ends, Studios Are More Vulnerable

In Europe's Election Season, Tech Vies to Fight Fake News

That dismal record is a far cry from nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Paulson made nearly $15 billion betting on the collapse of the housing market. Back then, state pension funds and investors around the world rushed to give him their money to manage. Even Mr. Trump became an investor with Mr. Paulson  and eventually lost money.

Mr. Paulson's struggles come after a gut-wrenching 2016, when he recorded even steeper losses in those funds, partly because of several wrong-footed bets on drug makers, including the troubled Valeant Pharmaceuticals. That followed a painful 2015, when investors first balked and began pulling their money from his firm.

A representative of Mr. Paulson declined a request for an interview with him. His funds are said to have performed better in April, said a person with knowledge of the firm who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Despite his mounting losses, there is little indication that Mr. Paulson, who donated $400 million to Harvard University's school of engineering in 2015, is throwing his hands up and walking away.

"It is clear that Paulson has dug in with both heels and committed to steering the firm through this period," said David Black, founder of Quadra Advisors, a recruiting firm for hedge funds and other investment firms.

Nonetheless, his assets under management continue shrinking. Paulson & Company manages just under $10 billion today, down from $36 billion in 2011. Nearly two years ago, some Wall Street banks began to recommend that investors redeem some of their money from the firm.

And while Mr. Paulson is not the only hedge fund manager to see large investors pull their money in recent years, he has become a symbol of what some pension funds have taken issue with for the industry at large: big fees for little reward and little originality.

Mr. Paulson has remained upbeat with investors, according to two people who have seen recent investor letters but spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"While we are disappointed in performance in 2016, we believe we have a path to a recovery," Mr. Paulson told investors in one letter.

But it has not been smooth sailing. In another letter to investors of a merger arbitrage fund that declined by 49 percent last year, Mr. Paulson called 2016 "the most challenging year since inception." In May, Mr. Paulson will address his investors at a meeting in London at Claridge's Hotel in London.

Mr. Paulson's fall from stock-trading stardom underscores a common disclaimer in industry parlance: Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

In early 2007, Mr. Paulson, who started his firm in 1994, was still a relatively unknown hedge fund manager. A former Bear Stearns investment banker, he had a reputation for running a solid if boring hedge fund that made bets on the outcomes of various mergers and acquisitions.

But as the housing market began to show signs of overheating, Mr. Paulson had a hunch that home loans to borrowers with spotty credit histories  which were ballooning at the time  were about to go sour. He positioned his firm to benefit in the event of a huge failure of the subprime mortgage market.

It was a bet that few were willing to take, but one that resulted in a major payday for him and his firm, and was later referred to as "The Greatest Trade Ever," in a book by the reporter Gregory Zuckerman.

After the financial crisis, investors flocked to Mr. Paulson's firm, which is in Midtown Manhattan, a stone's throw from Rockefeller Center.

For several years, Paulson & Company continued to make money for some of his investors, but the performance increasingly grew bumpy. This was particularly true for the firm's flagship Advantage fund. It lost 36 percent in 2011 and plunged another 14 percent in 2012, but rallied to post a 26 percent gain in 2013, according to an HSBC industry report and people with knowledge of the firm's performance. The losses were amplified in Advantage Plus, a version of the fund that uses leverage to enhance returns.

Over the last three years, Advantage has consecutively recorded double-digit losses. Some of Mr. Paulson's merger funds, credit funds and gold funds have posted positive returns, but the overall picture has not been pretty.

But Mr. Paulson soldiered on and even began to raise money in 2015 for a private equity fund and one focused on health care stocks.

Health care bets, in particular those on pharmaceutical companies, have proved especially punishing for Mr. Paulson and his investors. Losing wagers on economic recoveries in Greece and Puerto Rico haven't helped.

The Valeant trade resulted in a nearly $2 billion loss for the firm  bad, but not as disastrous as it was for another famed investor, William A. Ackman, whose firm Pershing Square Capital Management lost $4 billion on Valeant.

Some of Mr. Paulson's top talent have moved on. Putnam Coes, his former chief operating officer, left the firm in September. Soon after, John Reade, a senior vice president who was based in London, left.

Despite his losses, Mr. Paulson is still making new and speculative investments. In November, Paulson made an investment in Didi Chuxing, a fast-growing Chinese ride-hailing firm that signed a deal to acquire Uber Technologies' operations in China.

One bright spot could be a bet on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Steven T. Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, has pledged to return the mortgage finance giants to free-standing publicly traded companies, a development that could make Mr. Paulson's funds big profits. Mr. Paulson and Mr. Mnuchin, a former hedge fund manager, once worked together to pull OneWest Bank out of the wreckage of IndyMac, a lender that the federal government seized in 2008.

Several new funds the firm has started are posting positive returns, too.

"We remain confident in the long-term relationship we have with Paulson," said Christopher Zook of CAZ Investments, a Texas wealth management firm that recently rotated out of the poorly performing Paulson Special Situations fund into a newer Paulson fund.

And Mr. Paulson and other hedge fund managers stand to be big beneficiaries of Mr. Trump's plans to slash taxes.

Yet 2017 is shaping up as another rough one for Mr. Paulson. The Advantage fund was down 9.7 percent as of the end of March and the Partners Enhanced fund continues to sink  falling just over 8 percent after last year's 49 percent plunge.

Even after several years of losing money for his investors, Mr. Paulson remains one of the richest men in the world  with a net worth of about $7.9 billion, according to Forbes.

But, as the financial magazine recently noted, he is now $2 billion poorer.
The Massachusetts attorney general sued a unit of Ocwen Financial , accusing the mortgage servicing company of engaging in abusive practices that harmed thousands of homeowners in the state.

The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk County Superior Court, came a week after the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Florida attorney general and more than 20 state banking regulators took action against Ocwen.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said Ocwen Loan Servicing charged homeowners for unnecessary forced-place insurance policies, hit delinquent borrowers with excessive fees and failed to process escrow and insurance payments.

"It is alarming that one of the nation's largest mortgage loan servicers has proven itself to be incapable of properly handling homeowners' mortgages in Massachusetts," Healey said in a statement.

Ocwen, one of the United States' largest nonbank mortgage servicers, in a statement said that it was reviewing the matter and intended to vigorously defend itself.

The lawsuit followed a similar case brought by the CFPB on April 20, accusing Ocwen of widespread misconduct in how it serviced borrowers' loans, from foreclosure abuses to a basic failure to send accurate monthly statements.

CFPB officials said Ocwen and its subsidiaries have failed to clean up their act, even after reaching a settlement with the agency and states in 2013 to provide $2.1 billion in relief to harmed borrowers because of similar violations.

The CFPB's lawsuit was filed as more than 20 state banking regulators, including the Massachusetts Division of Banks, issued orders or charges to subsidiaries of Ocwen to address violations of state and federal laws.

Ocwen on Wednesday filed a legal challenge to the CFPB that argued the agency was not legal under the U.S. constitution. Ocwen has also filed lawsuits to block the actions by the Massachusetts and Illinois banking regulators.
A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day. STOCKS/ECONOMY -Stock futures are higher as we begin a busy week with airline hearings and Apple earnings Tuesday, the Fed meeting and Facebook earnings Wednesday and the April jobs report Friday. -Chinese manufacturing grew in April, but by less than expected. CAPITOL GAMES -Congress and the White House have reached a deal to keep the government funded through September. The stopgap bill does not include funding for a border wall or action against so-called "sanctuary cities." And President Donald Trump and GOP leaders in Congress are pushing for a vote on their Obamacare replacement bill this week. OIL/ENERGY -U.S. crude prices are down and holding just above $49 a barrel. Gasoline prices are at $2.38 a gallon, national average. That's down 3 cents from a week ago today. DEALS/NO DEALS -21st Century Fox is looking to partner with Blackstone to buy Tribune. -Coach is expected to win the bidding to buy Jimmy Choo for $1 billion. TERROR/DEFENSE -North Korea says it will continue to carry out nuclear tests and boost its nuclear capabilities to the maximum. -The Pentagon may send 5,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. -The GAO says it will cost a lot more than the official price tag to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. HOLLYWOOD BATTLE -Talks to avoid a writers strike are making progress, but the deadline is midnight tonight.

Pennsylvania Avenue at dusk, Washington D.C. Jon Hicks | Photographer's Choice | Getty Images
U.S. crude futures have posted losses for two weeks in a row and are poised to sink again, according to a historical correlation between oil prices and GDP data.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that the U.S. economy grew at a 0.7 percent annual rate in the first quarter, below Wall Street's expectations for 1.2 percent growth.

Weaker-than-anticipated economic growth typically raises concern about energy and fuel consumption, weighing on crude prices. Oil "is the ultimate macroeconomic commodity," in the words of Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at Oil Price Information Service.

And a study of oil's moves around economic data shows there's a lot of truth to that.

Since 2001, Commerce's first of three readings on first-quarter gross domestic product undershot forecasts by up to 50 basis points on seven occasions. U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude traded lower five trading days after these releases 100 percent of the time, according to data crunched with trading analysis technology Kensho.

The median return for WTI over those seven instances was a negative 6.14 percent.

To be sure, historical studies don't always guarantee future results, even ones with a perfect track record. And many economists have dismissed this first reading of economic growth as distorted by seasonal factors and believe it will be revised higher.

But this poor reading comes at a crucial time for crude. A meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on May 25, where the exporter group will decide whether to extend a six-month coordinated production cut aimed at balancing a global oil oversupply.

De facto OPEC boss Saudi Arabia and other Gulf producers have signaled support for an extension through the second half of 2017. But crude prices have nevertheless slipped from mid-April highs on concerns about weakness in the gasoline market, resurgent U.S. shale oil production and stubbornly high global crude stockpiles.

Signs this week that an OPEC extension is imminent could boost the market. But tepid gasoline demand and the return of sidelined Libyan oil production last week will make it difficult for OPEC to talk up the market in the coming days, according to Kloza.

"It's going to be tough for that PR machine to really get something going before the actual meeting takes place," he told CNBC.
Catalog retailer J. Peterman, parodied on "Seinfeld" for its whimsical and wacky product descriptions, is opening a brick-and-mortar store later this month in Ohio.

In true J. Peterman fashion, it won't be a typical store.

"This will be a very uncommon shopping experience since it's our actual warehouse, not a glossy retail store," CEO John Peterman said in a statement.

"We've swept the floors and dressed it up a bit; you can even have a little espresso or coffee to keep you going," Peterman added. "It's a place to come and peruse at your own pace with minimal interference and more savings. It's unusual but that's why we like it."

"Seinfeld" helped make the catalog famous by highlighting its unique merchandise and the fanciful copy it used to describe its products, which often digressed into long-winded stories of how the catalog writer found an item.

However, not long after the show ended in 1998, J. Peterman went bankrupt and the brand was sold. Then, in 2001, Peterman called John O'Hurley, the actor who played him on the sitcom, to buy back the name and revive the company online.

The store is set to open in Blue Ash, Ohio, on May 13. Peterman has said he will sign catalogs and interact with customers on opening day.
"The theory has always been the sum of the parts is worth considerably more than the whole," said analyst Dick Bove, vice president for equity research at Rafferty Capital Markets. "You might find a lot of investors who say that (if) they're going to break up these banks, they're more [valuable] in pieces than they are together, I'm going to buy them."

Bank stocks rallied, with investors taking a win-win view: Breaking up the big banks would open business opportunities for smaller institutions, while the large Wall Street firms would be worth more as separate entities than they are combined.

Major averages slipped as the news broke , then rebounded, while government bond yields hit their highs of the day.

In an interview Monday with Bloomberg News, Trump said he is "looking at that right now."

President Donald Trump is considering breaking up the nation's biggest banks, a vow he had made during the presidential campaign then seemed to put on the back burner.

Bank of America shares jumped 1.7 percent, a high for the session, while JPMorgan Chase was up 0.6 percent.

The SPDR S&P Bank exchange-traded fund was up 1.2 percent, also a high for the session.

Banking expert Christopher Whalen agrees with the sum-of-the-parts theory.

"You'd have more competition in the industry," said the head of Whalen Global Advisors. "If investors could buy a pure-play JPM and not have to own Chase, that's a much better stock. That's a stock that trades at 1.5 to 2 times book value instead of 1."

Whalen said spinning off Merrill Lynch from Bank of America also could prove beneficial. BofA bought Merrill during the financial crisis.

The industry breakup would come with the revival of a Glass-Steagall-type law, which separated commercial and investment banks but was repealed in 1999.

Trump's sentiments came the same day he met with leaders of the Independent Community Bankers of America, an advocacy group for small- and mid-market institutions.

Industry analyst Dick Bove believes that may not be a coincidence.

"He probably made a statement to them that they wanted to hear," Bove said. "In the last few weeks he has been heavily campaigning again, and I think this is just part of his campaign."

Whether anything will come of it legislatively is unclear.

"I just think he had a need to communicate, to connect again with community banks and say, 'Hey guys, we're on your side. We believe in you and maybe we should break up the big Wall Street banks,'" Bove added. "But I don't expect anything to come of it."

Bank stocks had been one of the biggest winners of the Trump trade, rallying strongly after his victory in the November presidential election. The sector rallied more than 25 percent in the immediate aftermath, but the bank ETF is down about 1.3 percent in 2017.

The Glass-Steagall repeal is sometimes blamed for the financial crisis that peaked in 2008. However, many of the big institutions at the center of the crisis were not banking behemoths but rather investment banks or, in the case of American International Group, an insurer.

Still, the Republican platform last year carried language calling for a reinstatement of the law.

"There's some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So we're going to look at that," Trump said in the interview.

Watch: Don't adjust portfolio based on Trump's bank comments
Theranos said it has settled lawsuits with one of its biggest backers.

The blood-testing start-up said on Monday it had reached a confidential settlement with hedge fund Partner Fund Management, which invested more than $96 million in Theranos in 2014.

Partner Fund Management had accused Theranos of securities fraud, alleging that the company had attracted the investment '[t]hrough a series of lies, material misstatements and omissions."

The fund declined to comment to CNBC.

Theranos has come under fire over the past few years, after Wall Street Journal investigations questioned the efficacy of its blood testing technology, raising flags for regulators. But Theranos has now resolved proceedings with the , as well as the Arizona Attorney General.
Like many millennials, Candace Mitchell, now 29, graduated from Georgia Tech in 2011 with student debt. But Mitchell stands out from others her age because her debts didn't discourage her from launching a successful start-up; instead, they motivated her. "When I started my company I was year out of college, so one of the top things on my mind was student loan debt," she says. "I decided I wasn't going to allow it to hold me back. Even with a little debt, I knew that I would have an opportunity to really pay it back in full through the success of this venture. "Rather than seeing it as a weakness, I saw it as an opportunity." Mitchell was inspired by her own struggle with brittle hair and the inability to find the right products to help. She co-founded the company Techturized, Inc., in 2012, and launched the consumer brand Myavana two years later. Myavana, which recommends products for its customers via hair analysis, has a storefront in Atlanta and and nearly 2,000 customers around the country.

"Student loan debt is an epidemic that is troubling for many millennials financially. We are always pressed to get a greater education. But what happens is, when you graduate and go into the job market, you have these astronomical payments. You can't really invest in the things you really want to  things you are talented at and passionate about," she says. "I think it holds a lot of people back." A 2016 report from the Small Business Administration found millennials are on track to become the least entrepreneurial generation in recent history. In 2014, less than two percent of millennials reported self-employment, compared with 7.6 percent of Generation X and 8.3 percent for baby boomers. That's attributable in part to their youth. But the growth trend in the same report showed that, even at age 30, less than four percent of millennials reported self-employment in their primary job in the previous year, compared with 5.4 percent for Generation X and 6.7 percent for boomers.

Student loan debt is an epidemic. ... I think it holds a lot of people back. Candace Mitchell founder of Techturized, Inc.

"Trends among the age groups millennials will join in future years suggest that entrepreneurship among millennials will remain relatively low for decades," the report states. With college far more expensive, and more necessary, than it used to be, and student loan debt topping $1.3 trillion, research institutions like the Kauffman Foundation are in the beginning stages of studying the impact of this burden on entrepreneurship among millennials. Early results are not encouraging. Loans affect millennials' ability to build credit, manage equity and find cash flow to launch new ventures. A separate 2016 report from EY and the Economic Innovation Group found that while 62 percent of millennials have considered starting their own business, 42 percent say they don't have the financial resources to do so. At least not until they finally finish off paying off those loans.

Candace Mitchell, 29, started her business Myavana in 2014, despite having college debt. Photo: Jeffrey McGovern

Finding new talent and inspiring the next generation To help attract and retain millennial talent like Mitchell to live, work and hopefully launch new ventures in Atlanta, the city's Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign called ChooseATL in 2015. "We have an intention and a strategy around recruiting the talent needed to support business growth," said Kate Atwood, ChooseATL's executive director. "It's important to create an environment and community that invites, encourages and really provides resources so that any young person that wants to start a business knows Atlanta is the place to do it." Atwood cites small business and angel investment tax credits, as well as the city's low cost of living, as incentives for new talent to move in and thrive in the area. The city is also home to a chapter of Youth Entrepreneurs, a nationwide, year-long accredited program for high-school students in under-served areas that means to teach young people the skills needed to launch their own business. Since 2006, 2,600 local students have participated, and 99 percent go on to graduate high school, according to Scott Brown, Youth EntrepreneursEast's executive director.

Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia Ashlee Espinal | CNBC
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits Baekdu Mountain Architecture Research Institute in this undated picture provided by KCNA in Pyongyang on March 11, 2017.

"Under the right circumstances," President Donald Trump said Monday he would be open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump said in a Bloomberg interview. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."

Later Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that while the meeting could happen under the right circumstances, "those circumstances do not exist now." He added that there would have to be "significant change" for a meeting between Trump and Kim to be a possibility.

When a reporter pressed Spicer on why Trump would consider it an "honor" to meet with the North Korean leader, the press secretary said Kim is "still a head of state."

Spicer also said that Trump is "doing everything diplomatically, economically and militarily" to stave off the nuclear threat that North Korea poses to the United States.

The president's remarks come after North Korea conducted yet another failed missile test early Saturday, a move Trump said "disrespected the wishes of China."

@realDonaldTrump: North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!

As a candidate, Trump had expressed similar willingness to meet the North Korean leader. In a CBS interview that aired Sunday, Trump called the North Korean dictator "a pretty smart cookie," repeating other compliments of Kim that he made on the campaign trail.

When asked about these remarks, Spicer said Kim "assumed power at a young age" and has fended off potential threats to his rule.

"He's obviously managed to lead the country forward despite the obvious concerns that we and so many other people have. He is a young person to be leading a country with nuclear weapons," Spicer said, adding that the president does recognize the threat North Korea presents.

Kim's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was executed in 2013 after being declared a traitor. He had long been considered the isolated nation's second in command and mentor to Kim. But North Korea's state news agency turned on Jang, claiming that he sought to capitalize on the death of Kim Jong Il and challenge his son, Kim Jong Un, to claim power for himself.

Trump's positive comments of Kim stand in contrast to those made by other political leaders.

On Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the United Nations to take new sanctions against North Korea. A day earlier, Tillerson said North Korea's closest major ally, China, has pledged to impose unilateral sanctions should Pyongyang carry out another nuclear test.

House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy said on Thursday that the chamber would hold a vote on sanctions this week, which he said would target North Korea's shipping industry and "those who employ North Korean slave labor abroad."

Read the full report on Bloomberg.
President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he departs after attending a CEO town hall on the American business climate at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S., April 4, 2017.

President Donald J. Trump is a creature of reality television. He may not be very good at running hotels or casinos, but he is a gifted performer, a master of creating the illusion of action. As he marks his first 100 days in office (one day of a Trump presidency would have been incredible enough), what has President Trump actually done?

And then there is a commercial for erection pills. The application to the first 100 days of the Trump administration is of course obvious.

Junkman offers $x for a quantity of junk; Junk-Haver produces a look of concentration. The camera cuts quickly back and forth among the faces of Junkman, Deputy Junkman, Assistant Deputy Junkman, Junk-Haver, and Sundry Junk-Having Onlookers.

Its popularity is as inexplicable as it is undeniable. Because nothing actually happens on American Pickers, the show relies on the illusion of action, which is created through camerawork and editing.

The supporting characters are assistant junkmen and sundry onlookers. It is as though someone decided to remake Sanford and Son without actors, Redd Foxx's humor, or a plot.

There is a reality-television program called American Pickers, and what happens on it is this: A junkman drives around in a van and offers to buy other people's junk, sometimes haggling over the price.

Well done, whoever had the job of explaining to Donald Trump what a Gorsuch is and keeping the president's batty sister off the nation's highest court.



There is the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. For that, the church bells should be rung. The Gorsuch confirmation represents a genuine and genuinely important political victory. That victory belongs to Mitch McConnell, the wily Republican leader in the Senate who understood that Barack Obama was an even lamer duck than he seemed and took the opportunity to hand an abusive and overreaching administration a political defeat of a kind never before dealt to an American president. Well done, Senator McConnell. And well done, whoever had the job of explaining to Donald Trump what a Gorsuch is and keeping the president's batty sister off the nation's highest court.

What else you got?

Trump made a "solemn vow" that on his first day in office, he would label China a currency manipulator and slap sanctions on Beijing. A few weeks later, he reversed course, because  we have the president's own word on this  somebody explained the issue to him. Solemn vows are not Donald Trump's thing.

Trump repeatedly promised that the woefully misnamed Affordable Care Act would be repealed, and that this would be among his first actions in office. A few weeks later, he reversed course, because  we have the president's own word on this  somebody explained the issue to him. "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated!" he said.

As with many things Trump says, that is not quite true. It is not the case that nobody knew health care is complicated. Pretty much everybody who has given two seconds' thought to the issue, read a copy of the Wall Street Journal (Hello, Mrs. Clinton!), or stood within 25 feet of Avik Roy knows that health care is complicated. Pretty much everybody but the reality-television host who was duly elected president of these United States knew that.

President Trump is not a details guy.

There was going to be a wall paid for by Mexico. What there will be is some additional border fencing that Trump promises "eventually, at a later date, in some way" will be paid for by Mexico. We do not have the president's word on this, but it seems likely that somebody explained that issue to him, too, things like how rivers work and what private property is, not to mention the niggling fact that most illegals do not enter the United States by wading across the Rio Grande or enter illegally at all.

Trump's promised schedule was always absurd. And presidential candidates often make absurd promises about their first 100 days, forgetting about such minor details as Congress and the Constitution and democracy and all that. But Trump was, he assured us, a different kind of politician, a builder and a doer, a winner, a hard-charging negotiator.

Which is to say, he convinced the electorate that he was in reality the character he plays on television. Many of his talk-radio and cable-news partisans are still trying to convince us that is the case, but it is not entirely clear that these reality-show performers are able to tell the difference between the political theater and the theater, between action and acting.

Instead of hard choices and committed action, what Trump has produced is a flurry of shallow gestures that create the illusion that he is doing something meaningful. But those executive orders range from the shoddy and unusable to the symbolic. He produced a "Buy American" executive order without quite seeming to understand that the Buy American Act already is law and has been since the administration of Herbert Hoover.

Trump's "Buy American" guidance is essentially a memo to federal agency heads asking them to think really hard about it before issuing one of the Buy American Act waivers that they routinely hand down in order to get around the fact that the Buy American Act rules are deeply stupid and entirely unpractical.

He met with some business leaders and announced that he had saved jobs by preventing a great deal of outsourcing that never was actually scheduled to happen. He made a lot of noise about saving the coal industry without taking into account that what is killing it is the natural-gas industry.

He installed a bunch of amateurs in the White House, including family members, none of whom has any particular experience or talent related to the portfolios given them. He abominated Goldman Sachs and then hired half of its old-timers league. He has produced a vague and half-baked tax plan that many of his fellow Republicans have said they cannot support.

He can't hire people or figure out what he thinks about China, Syria, or the Russians whose shenanigans are plaguing some of the associates he would dearly like to forget. He threatened to pull out of NAFTA, which he does not have the legal power to do on his own, and then announced that he'd be renegotiating the trade accord without ever having said which of its provisions he objects to  or, indeed, ever publicly describing any of its provisions or the trade rules that it created.

Trump's first 100 days are a bust.

For the next 100, Republicans should try something else: Having Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell send him useful and responsible pieces of legislation to sign. These need not be dramatic and far-reaching: In fact, it would be better if they were not.

Send him a bill reforming corporate taxes instead of a tax-reform omnibus. Create stronger federal penalties for employing illegal immigrants and see to it that federal law-enforcement agencies get serious about enforcing them.

Figure out what you think about health care, if you can. Republicans will get reform the same way Johnny Cash got his Cadillac: one piece at a time. Conservatives had better start facing the fact that the president is a man overmatched by his job.

All of President Trump's reality-television posturing, all of his hooting and hollering and fussing and foolishness and tweeting and preening is sound and fury signifying squat. The Trump administration is a show about nothing.

Commentary by Kevin Williamson, a roving correspondent for The National Review. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinNR.

2017 National Review. Used with permission.
President Donald Trump's one-pager on tax reform "stirred up a lot of dust," but didn't clarify much, Brookings Institution's David Wessel told CNBC on Monday.

"I think the tax bill is in real trouble," Wessel, a Wall Street Journal veteran, said on "Squawk Box." "You can see there's a disagreement between the House and Senate. There's disagreement among Republicans on the Hill and in the White House."

On Wednesday, top administration officials Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin outlined Trump's long-awaited tax plan, which included slashing tax rates for businesses, but offered no specifics on how it would be paid without increasing the deficit.

Some Republicans, who slammed the growing national debt under former President Barack Obama, said they were open to Trump's tax plan, arguing the cuts could spur economic growth.

Other Republicans have said the Trump's tax cuts won't pay for the increased spending he has proposed.

Most independent analyses of Trump's campaign tax plan said it would balloon the budget deficit over time, even after higher tax revenue from greater economic growth is factored in.

Wessel, who spent 30 years at the Journal before joining the think tank, said he doesn't expect a "dramatic" cut in the corporate tax rate but a "small" one. He added the border adjustment tax is also likely to make a reappearance.

"I think the problem with the border adjustment tax is it's not a dumb idea, it's very complicated, [but] the system isn't ready for it. So it'll come back in some form," he said.

CNBC's Jacob Pramuk and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Chevron CEO John Watson on Monday warned that U.S. shale oil alone cannot meet the world's growing appetite for crude.

Global oil demand is growing by more than a million barrels per day each year. American producers are meeting much of that consumption growth after a revolution in drilling technology that has allowed them to unlock oil and gas from shale rock formations.

"Shale can help. Certainly between now and the end of the decade it will be a big contributor to meeting that million-barrels-of-oil-demand growth that's out there," Watson told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on the sidelines of the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles.

"But ultimately oil fields decline, and we're going to need all sources of supply, including the shales, but also deepwater and other sources around the world," he said.

Investment in oil exploration and development  especially expensive projects like offshore drilling  has plummeted as oil companies slash spending plans amid a prolonged crude price slump. That could cause the market to become undersupplied in the future, the International Energy Agency warns.
U.S. bond prices fell on Monday after a deal was reached to fund the government avoiding a shutdown.

Congressional negotiators worked through the weekend to hash out an agreement on around $1 trillion in federal spending.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year note, 7-year note and 30-year bond jumped to session highs after President Trump said he is actively considering breaking up big banks, according to Reuters.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said the government is looking into creating ultra long-term bonds with over 30-year maturities.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was higher at 2.32 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was higher at 3.003 percent. The yield 7-year note was around 2.128 percent.

Yields move inversely to prices.

Investors also digested several key economic data due Monday.

The ISM manufacturing index slipped to 54.8 in April from 57.2 and came in below consensus. Also, construction spending in March from a record high.

The Commerce Department said consumer spending remained flat in March, while personal income rose less than expected.

In oil markets, Brent crude traded at around $51.48 a barrel on Monday, down 1.10 percent, while U.S. crude was around $48.76 a barrel, down 1.16 percent.
Microsoft is holding a press conference on Tuesday morning in New York City  and while the company hasn't made anything official, they've hinted at what they might reveal.

has already confirmed that the event will focus around education, which is a market that it needs to focus on as it continues to fight against Google Chromebooks and Apple iPads. Many people expect Microsoft to introduce a new "cloud" version of Windows  likely called Windows 10 Cloud  that's not as robust as the full version of Windows 10.

The cloud version of Windows 10 would presumably compete against Chrome OS, which powers Chromebooks, and may let Microsoft sell more affordable computers with less powerful (and thus less expensive) processors. It's unclear exactly how Windows 10 Cloud will operate, or what sort of features may be kept or left out.

Recall a few years ago Microsoft launched both Windows 8 and a watered-down version called Windows 8 RT. The latter failed miserably, and consumers seemed confused about which version of Windows to buy. If it tries this strategy again tomorrow, Microsoft will need to make it much more clear how Windows 10 Cloud compares to a standard version of Windows 10.

There will be new hardware at the event  either from Microsoft or its partners  but investors won't see something that's becoming more and more important: A new Surface Pro.

Microsoft is not currently planning to announce the Surface Pro 5 during the event, though it would be wise give some information on when it will be released. The company blamed a decline in Surface sales as one reason for its third quarter revenue miss. While it introduced new Surface products, including the Surface Book with Performance Base and Surface Studio, both are far more expensive than its Surface Pro 4 product, which doubles as a tablet and a notebook computer. The Surface Pro 4 hasn't been refreshed since October 2015.

Microsoft hasn't indicated when it plans to launch the Surface Pro 5, but it won't be tomorrow. Instead, expect to see low-cost education devices and Windows 10 Cloud.
President Donald Trump did not mean to suggest that he'd trade away American jobs to try to persuade China to help the U.S. defuse rising tensions with North Korea, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Monday.

Ross, a billionaire who made his fortune investing in distressed assets, added in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" that the U.S. is having productive talks with China on a number of issues.

Over the weekend, Trump told a CBS interviewer that "I believe that [Chinese] President Xi is working to try and resolve a very big problem, for China also. And that's North Korea." He was explaining at the time why he's not pushing China on trade, despite his tough talk on the campaign trail.

"I think that, frankly, North Korea is maybe more important than trade," Trump continued on Sunday. "Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, 'trumps' trade."

During CNBC's interview, Ross qualified what he believes Trump meant. "I think what the president was trying to say was we're trying to have an overall constructive relationship with China on a variety of topics  the most pressing of which because he involves human lives is the North Korea situation."
President Trump appointed Jovita Carranza as the 44th Treasurer of the United States. The appointment does not require Senate approval.

Former U.S. Small Business Administration executive Jovita Carranza was appointed April 28 by President Trump to serve as the 44th treasurer of the United States.

The presidential appointment does not require Senate approval. Carranza is the seventh Latina to hold the office. All U.S. treasurers since 1949 have been women.

The Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011  Public Law 112-166 , signed into law on Aug. 10, 2012, by President Obama  eliminates the requirement of Senate approval for 163 positions, including treasurer of the United States, allowing the president alone to appoint persons to these positions.

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Carranza fills the vacancy created by the resignation of President Obamas appointee, Rosa Rosie Gumataotao Rios, who served as the 43th U.S. treasurer from July 28, 2009, through July 8, 2016. Rios was the last U.S. treasurer whose appointment required a vote of the full Senate.

Previous to her presidential appointment, Carranza, a native of Chicago, served as president and chief executive officer of the JCR Group, a consulting firm working with global corporations and nonprofits worldwide with a focus on business development, profit and loss management, operations, logistics and systems optimization.

Carranza served the George W. Bush administration from December 2006 to January 2009 as deputy director of the of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She joined the government from her position as vice president of air operations for United Parcel Service in Louisville, Ky.

Numismatic Bookie tackles how an 1804 dollar appeared in a Budapest book before any were struck: Inside Coin World: This week, we find an 1804 dollar in a book two years before any of the coins were struck, a reader questions

Carranza was a member of President Trump's National Hispanic Advisory Council during the presidential campaign and met with the president in December about a position in his administration.

Treasury and White House officials have not disclosed when Carranza is expected to assume her treasurer's responsibilities, which includes oversight of the U.S. Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Once Carranza assumes office, provisions will be made for Carranzas facsimile signature to join that of President Trumps Treasury secretary appointee, Steven Mnuchin, on United States paper money.
The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
Greg Downer, senior IT director at Oshkosh Corp., a manufacturer of specialty heavy vehicles in Oshkosh, Wisc., wishes he could tip the balance of on-premises vs. cloud more in the direction of the cloud, which currently accounts for only about 20% of his application footprint. However, as a contractor for the Department of Defense, his company is beholden to strict data requirements, including where data is stored.

"Cloud offerings have helped us deploy faster and reduce our data center infrastructure, but the main reason we don't do more in the cloud is because of strict DoD contract requirements for specific types of data," he says.

In Computerworld's Tech Forecast 2017 survey of 196 IT managers and leaders, 79% of respondents said they have a cloud project underway or planned, and 58% of those using some type of cloud-based system gave their efforts an A or B in terms of delivering business value.

Downer counts himself among IT leaders bullish on the cloud and its potential for positive results. "While we don't have a written cloud-first statement, when we do make new investments we look at what the cloud can offer," he says.

Oshkosh has moved some of its back-office systems, including those supporting human resources, legal and IT, to the cloud. He says most of the cloud migration has been from legacy systems to software as a service (SaaS). For instance, the organization uses ServiceNow's SaaS for IT and will soon use it for facilities management.

According to the Forecast report, a third of respondents plan to increase spending on SaaS in the next 12 months.

[ Further reading: Expert tips for managing your cloud data ]

Cordell Schachter, CTO of New York City's Department of Transportation, says he allies with the 22% of survey respondents who plan to increase investments in a hybrid cloud computing environment. The more non-critical applications he moves out of the city's six-year-old data center, the more room he'll have to support innovative new projects such as the Connected Vehicle Pilot Deployment Program, a joint effort with the U.S. Department of Transportation's Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office.

The Connected Vehicle project, in the second year of a five-year pilot, aims to use dedicated short-range communication coupled with a network of in-vehicle and roadway sensors to automatically notify drivers of connected vehicles of traffic issues. "If there is an incident ahead of you, your car will either start braking on its own or you'll get a warning light saying there's a problem up ahead so you can avoid a crash," Schachter says. The program's intent is to reduce the more than 30,000 vehicle fatalities that occur in the U.S. each year.

Supporting that communication network and the data it generates will require more than the internal data center, though. Schachter says the effort will draw on a hybrid of on-premises and cloud-based applications and infrastructure. He expects to tap a combination of platform as a service, infrastructure as a service, and SaaS to get to the best of breed for each element of the program.

"We can use the scale of cloud providers and their expertise to do things we wouldn't be able to do internally," he says, adding that all providers must meet NYC DOT's expectations of "safer, faster, smarter and cheaper."

Apps saved for on-premises

In fact, Schachter has walled off only a few areas that aren't candidates for the cloud -- such as emergency services and email. "NYC DOT is one of the most sued entities in New York City, and we constantly need to search our corpus of emails. We have a shown a net positive by keeping that application on-premises to satisfy Freedom of Information Law requests as well as litigation," he says.

The City of Los Angeles also has its share of applications that are too critical to go into the cloud, according to Ted Ross, CIO and general manager of the city's Information Technology Agency. For instance, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), 911 Dispatch, undercover police operations, traffic control and wastewater management are the types of data sets that will remain on-premises for the foreseeable future.

"The impact of an abuse is so high that we wouldn't consider these applications in our first round of cloud migrations. As you can imagine, it's critical that a hacker not gain access to release sewage into the ocean water or try to turn all streetlights green at the same time," he says.

[ To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page. ]

The cloud does serve as an emergency backup to the $108 million state-of-the-art emergency operations center. "If anything happens to the physical facility, our software, mapping and other capabilities can quickly spin up in the cloud," he says, adding that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure provide many compelling use cases.

The city, with more than 1,000 virtual servers on-premises, considers the cloud a cost-effective godsend. "We very much embrace the cloud because it provides an opportunity to lower costs, makes us more flexible and agile, offers off-site disaster recovery, empowers IT personnel, and provides a better user experience," he says.

SaaS is a gateway drug to other cloud services. Ted Ross, CIO, city of Los Angeles

As an early adopter of Google's Gmail in 2010, Ross appreciates the value of the cloud, so much so that in 2014, the city made cloud a primary business model, starting with SaaS, which he calls "a gateway drug to other cloud services."

Eventually, the city ventured into infrastructure as a service, including using "a lot of Amazon Web Services," which Ross describes as more invasive than SaaS and more in need of collaboration between the service provider and the network team. "You have to be prepared to have a shared security model and to take the necessary steps to enact it," he says. Cloud computing also requires additional network bandwidth to reduce latency and maximize performance, he adds.

Other reasons for saying no to the cloud

As much as Ross is a cloud promoter, he says he fully understands the 21% of respondents to Computerworld's Forecast survey who say they have no plans to move to the cloud. "I get worried when users simply want to spin up anything anywhere and are only concerned about functionality, not connectivity and security."

Ron Heinz, founder and managing director of venture capital firm Signal Peak Ventures, says there will always be a market for on-premises applications and infrastructure. For instance, one portfolio client that develops software for accountants found that 40% of its market don't want to move their workflow to the cloud.

Heinz attributes the hesitation to more mature accounting professionals and those with security concerns. "Everybody automatically assumes there is a huge migration to the cloud. But there will always be a segment that will never go the cloud as long as you have strong virtual private networks and strong remote access with encrypted channels," he says.

Greg Collins, founder and principal analyst at analyst firm Exact Ventures, has found clients usually stick with on-premises when they are still depreciating their servers and other gear. "They have the attitude 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it,'" he says.

Still, he also believes the cloud is still in the early days and will only grow as the installed base of on-premises equipment hits end of life.
People were talking about Bixby, Samsung's virtual assistant, for months before it launched with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones.

Except it didn't actually launch -- not entirely, at least. Bixby came without its most talked-about feature, but it wouldn't be without it for long. Bixby Voice has started rolling out to S8 devices in some areas, but when will it hit the rest of the world?

In IT Blogwatch, we keep waiting.

So what is going on? Cosmin V. has some background:

Samsung's personal digital assistant, Bixby, wasn't ready...when the South Korean company released its flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ less than two weeks ago.

...

However, Samsung informed customers that...the assistant will be distributed later on...it looks like it didn't take too long for Samsung to start rolling out Bixby Voice services, as the South Korean company recently confirmed that it would launch the assistant today.

But Bixby did have some features when initially, right? JC Torres is very generous:

When the [Samsung Galaxy S8] launched...Bixby lacked its most advertised feature of all: voice control...To be fair, Bixby wasnt completely useless when it launched. Bixby Home and Reminders did surface contextual and pertinent information when needed. Bixby Vision...showed off its computer vision capabilities, identifying real-world objects and, unless youre on Verizon, let you jump directly to Amazon to buy the identified object.

Where is it rolling out, and when will it hit other areas? Mitja Rutnik has those details:

Samsung has rolled it out via a software update to its flagship devices in South Korea...Bixby currently isnt available in the U.S...it should make its way to the flagship devices later this spring, although an exact date has not been given yet. The digital assistant will then make its way to other countries around the world...with the release in Germany scheduled for the last quarter of the year.

So remind us, what does Bixby do? Alex Dobie shares that info:

Initially, Bixby's voice commands...work in a handful of Samsung's own apps  Gallery, Settings, Camera and Reminders. Expect more apps and services to be added in the coming months.

...

With so few apps supported at launch, it's not like Galaxy S8 owners in other countries are missing out on much...Bixby is going to be a slow burn, and it'll take several months for the voice features to expand into new apps anyway.

So if users want Bixby, but their phone hasn't updated yet, what can they do? Dominik Bosnjak has some tips:

Samsung is pushing out the Bixby Voice feature through an over-the-air (OTA) update...While the service is currently only being released in South Korea, it remains to be seen whether Samsung will decide to start rolling it out in more countries simultaneously...the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are periodically scanning for OTA updates, but users who are feeling impatient can...try searching for the Bixby Voice software package manually by launching the Settings app on their device, navigating to the Software update section, and tapping the Download updates manually option on the following screen. This will prompt the device to download and install the Bixby Voice update provided that one is already available in your territory.

Anything else going on with Samsung's newest phones? Cho Mu-Hyun is in the know:

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have...hit over 1 million pre-orders in South Korea...However, there have been some hiccups along the way. Some customers in the U.S. have complained of the phones randomly rebooting.

...

The company also rolled out a software update following...complaints of the phones having a red-tinted display, but stressed that there was no quality issue.
Future Economy Council to transform Singapores economy

For transforming Singapores economy and to grow jobs, a Future Economy Council has been formed which is headed by Heng Swee Keat, Finance Minister. This Council will implement the proposals of Committee for the Future Economy (CFE).

The Finance Minister will be assisted by S Iswaran, Trade and Industry (Industry) Minister, Chan Chun Sing, Labour chief and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Ong Ye Kung, Education Minister (Higher Education and Skills) and Lawrence Yong, National Development Minister.

Future Economy Council will implement the proposals of CFE. Photo courtesy: packwebasia.com

In addition to this, other ministers and ministers of state, especially the younger ones, will also be roped into the Council.

Making the announcement about the Future Economy Council, Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, said, It is a deep transformation, which will take time and will extend beyond this term of government. It is an opportunity for them to work closely together as a team, strengthening their bonds with employers and unions, and with each other, and show Singaporeans what they can do," he added.

This Council was first set up in May 2016 to further efforts by the SkillsFuture Council and the National Productivity Council. It was earlier called as Council for Skills, Innovations and Productivity and headed by Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies.

Also read : CFE lays out roadmap for Singapores development

The main function of the council is to focus on developing skills for the future and supporting productivity-led economic growth by implementing the Industry Transformation Maps announced in Budget 2016.

Since the CFE has completed its report, Heng will take over the implementation portion to make the transformation happen, Lee said.
Signing of DTAA to unlock investments between India, Cyprus: President Anastasiades

Signing of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), which came into force last month, is bound to strengthen economic ties between Cyprus and India and boost investment on both sides, Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades has said.

Noting that Cyprus was the eighth largest foreign investment country with regards to India, President Anastasiades said the DTAA treaty removed Cyprus as Notified Jurisdiction Area (NJA) which will give "a completely new dynamic to the link of our economies."

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades (4th from left) addressing Cyprus-India Business Forum, reaffirming the strong will of Cyprus Government for closer bonds with India. Photo courtesy: Twitter/ @anastasiadescy

"Undoubtedly, it will contribute to further strengthening the economic ties between Cyprus and India, particularly in the field of investments, on which Cyprus ranks as the 8th biggest foreign investment country to India," Anastasiades said in his keynote address to the Cyprus-India Business Forum in Mumbai before concluding his four-day visit to India.

He said his visit was a testimony to a "determination to actively upgrade" Cyprus-India ties.

"It is precisely for this reason that I am accompanied to India by the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism, the Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, and the Government Spokesman. My delegation also comprises a strong business delegation from a range of fields, including the legal, financial, property, construction, and services sector," he told Mumbai business community leaders.

He said his aim was to shed light on the unique investment opportunities Cyprus  an EU member state at a strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, North Africa and Asia  has to offer, and achieve "a strategic re-orientation" of our economic partnership.

President Anastasiades said it was impossible not to talk about Cyprus shipping industry while being in a port city of Mumbai.

Our meeting today @narendramodi is yet another stepping stone in our common history #Cyprus #India pic.twitter.com/QLdhbvT3Pd  Nicos Anastasiades (@AnastasiadesCY) April 28, 2017

"Cypruss shipping industry has been one of the most successful export services of our country, as Cyprus enjoys the privilege of being one of the most influential global hubs for ship owning and ship management services," he said.

The south-east European nation is home to some of the worlds most prominent names in shipping offering competitive ship registration costs and favourable tax regime for ship management and other international business enterprises.

There are more than 1,000 registered vessels with 21 million gross tonnage sail under the Cyprus flag. It has tenth largest merchant fleet in the world, third largest merchant fleet in the EU, and its Ship management Centre is among the top three in the world.

Briefing the mediapersons on President Anastasiades's first visit to India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Secretary (West) Ruchi Ghanshyam said,"India and Cyprus enjoy friendly and time-tested ties. On many global issues both countries share similar views. India has extended unwavering support for sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Cyprus. Cyprus supports India's views of crucial multilateral issues such as UN Security Council reforms and Nuclear Suppliers Group(NSG)."

"Cyprus and India enjoy robust economic ties. Cyprus is a major investor in India with cumulative FDI of USD9 billion," Ghanshyam added.

The trade volume between the two countries has gone up from USD82 million in 2014 to USD108 million in 2016. India exports chemicals, oil seed, oleaginous fruit, fish, vehicles, spares, and iron and steel. Cyprus sends aluminium, wood pulp, machinery, boilers, engines and plastic goods to India.

The Indian community in Cyprus is about three thousand seven hundred strong, mostly consisting of domestic workers, farm workers, professionals, computer engineers, software programmers. Indians are also employed in merchant navy, shipping management, banks, tourism, tobacco industry, and market research companies. At present 670 Indian students are studying in Cyprus.
Nadhim Zahawi is a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and MP for Stratford On Avon.

Since I last wrote this column, the British people have been offered a choice by the Prime Minister. Its a choice of which leader they believe will be best for our country. Its a choice of who can provide the leadership we need. Its a choice between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.

I am glad that the voters have been given the chance to have their say in the coming election, and I hope that May will be returned with the strong backing of the British people that she deserves and requires. As we face the next five years, its clear that we require strong and stable leadership. That means a calm, competent and capable leader at the helm; and she fits that bill better than anyone else. Every extra vote, and every extra MP will count. The voters know that, and I suspect they will back our Prime Minister up.

But this election is more fundamentally important than just providing our Prime Minister with the solid base she needs. I believe that Labour have insulted the British people by asking for their votes to put Corbyn into power after June 8th, and they must be held to account for this.

Corbyn is singularly unfit to hold the office of Prime Minister. And yet Labour have ploughed ahead with offering him up to the country. Their representatives and their candidates will be campaigning for him in towns and cities across our land, and delivering his leaflets  even if they refuse to show his face on them. For offering this option to the country, and for looking people in the eye and telling them that Corbyn should be Prime Minister, Labour deserves to be punished.

We should always remember that the first and foremost duty of any Prime Minister is to keep our country safe. Corbyn has said he wants to close down NATO. He has said he is against the replacement of Trident. He has said he is not happy about the polices shoot to kill policy when faced with terrorists. He has talked glowingly about countries that have abolished their army.

Even worse than Corbyns naivety is that John McDonnell has been placed in the second most important position in the Shadow Cabinet. A man who the British people are being asked to elect as their Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man who posed with a list of socialist demands on a Labour government, that included disbanding MI5 and banning armed police. A man who said that its about time we started honouring those involved in armed struggle in Northern Ireland for their bombs, bullets and sacrifice.

Corbyn and his cabal do not have different ideas about what to do about the defence of our realm. It appears they wish to stop defending it, and hope that all the nasty people go away. It does not matter what your views are about other issues  if you cannot be trusted with our nations security, in a dangerous world where we face real threats every day, then you cannot be our Prime Minister.

We have all seen repeated terror attacks in Europe and many attempts to repeat such horrors in Britain. It is a testament to the work of MI5 and our brave police services that the terrible events in Westminster just a few weeks ago have been so blessedly rare. We have all seen Iran and North Korea attempt to bolster their nuclear programs. We have all seen Russias aggression increase on the world stage. We have all seen Assad gas his own people.

This is not a world for Corbyns utopian fantasy. This is not a world in which politics is a game. This is not a world where it doesnt matter who your leader is.

The irony of this election is that so many of Labours own MPs, who will put their names forward for election in support of Corbyn, have already accurately described why he is unfit for the job. Indeed, many have tried as hard as they can to remove him. Most of his shadow cabinet resigned in June last year, and many campaigned against him in favour of Owen Smith. But the Labour party as a whole overwhelmingly backed their man two years in a row, and any Labour MP or candidate in the general election is now fighting for him to be Prime Minister.

This is a man who wants to lead us in a dangerous and difficult world. And the Labour party are telling us this is the best person theyve got, the best person to embody Labour values and who personifies principles in politics. What the voters already know, is that anyone who is asking them to vote for this man to be their leader, is treating them with utter disdain.

Labour candidates will be going around the country for the next month, telling voters that Corbyn is the best man to lead our nation through these next five years. Thats a joke. Its an utter delusion, its a denial of reality. Most of the candidates know it themselves, but theyll keep on asking for Labour votes. The British people will realise theyre being insulted, and I hope Labour get what they deserve for it.
Close

New research said that mindfulness meditation has a greater effect in reducing negative thinking patterns in women than men. A group of researchers has conducted the study at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

The researchers discovered greater decreases of negative effects in women, constantly compared to the other men who are also deep meditators in the process of their experiment. Their recent study on the effect of mindfulness meditation is published in Frontiers in Psychology.

What Changes Does Meditation Bring In The Brain?



Here, meditation will be discussed as how it is able to develop ones mental abilities, (mental) psychology and change the brains activity. Research showed an increase in grey matter in various parts of the brain, due to the effect of meditation such as anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex followed by increase in cortical thickness in the hippocampus. Meditation, mainly mindfulness or awareness meditation makes a chaotic or monkey mind calmer than anything else.

According to Fadel Zeidan, Associate Director of Neuroscience at the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine, majority of people have always been skeptical of mindfulness meditation, simply because of scarcity of objective evidence. However, according to Zeidan, now with improved neuroimaging, the changes are being able to be recorded and further studied. These physical evidences make doctors more likely to recommend meditation to everyone, Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

Mindfulness Meditation Helps To Get Rid Of Opioid Drugs



Zeidan is involved in high experiment on those people who are highly addicted to using of opioid drugs that give morphine-like effects. Through his small study, he is able to find out how mindfulness or awareness meditation is highly effective in reduces pain and cure malfunctioning in body parts without the application of opioid drugs.

A Guide To Mindfulness Meditation



Even people suffering from stress, anxiety, frustration, depression, or any type of psychological problems can be cured with mindfulness meditation. One may be surprised how it is possible but mindfulness or awareness meditation helps the practitioner recognize his own mind, as the process involves observing or witnessing his mind waves without being judgmental or biased.

The practitioner should not react to whatever comes to mind, but he should remain calm and quiet as a bystander to the mind waves traffic. This is how one gets rids of all sorts of mental agonies and psychological irregularities.

Insomnia is also a critical disease that can absolutely be cured with the right application of meditation techniques. Time said that researchers have found out that mindfulness meditation improves sleep quality, fatigue and insomnia in those people who not only have trouble in sleeping, but suffering from high stress, fear, and frustration.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
But how was this character made? Was he CGI? A failed attempt by the Henson Company to make an Alex Jones puppet? Nope, it was mostly just a dude in a costume -- and not just any dude, but famed actor and all-around nerd Simon Pegg (best known for Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, and, oh yeah, Star Trek).

Lucasfilm

Lucasfilm

We're guessing they had to hide his face so that the Gene Roddenberry estate didn't break his legs.

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Adding to the "who the hell is that"-ness of the whole thing, Pegg's flabby prosthetic face was augmented by digital effects to make the character "as gross as possible," thankfully stopping short of adding puke stains to his overalls and making Axl Rose his roommate. Pegg's voice has also been altered in the movie, changing the pitch of his lilting British accent to a low, cranky growl -- less Shaun Of The Dead, more Buffalo Bill from Silence Of The Lambs. And while we're on the topic ...
An employee gets stopped over the weekend for a DUI. Unbeknownst to him once his name hits the polices public database, his employer will know about it soon after  whether the conviction has any impact on the employees job performance or not.

That is just one scenario in which enterprises are checking up on their employees to make sure their private lives dont impact the companies bottom lines. It is not uncommon for companies to do background checks on prospective employees, but some businesses are carrying that through while employees still punch the clock.

Security company Endera explained that employers want to know if an employee is on a criminal watchlist, is booked or arrested, loses a key certificate, is in financial distress or is involved in a lawsuit. An employee roster is loaded into the continuous monitoring system, and that system provides 24/7 scanning of thousands of external data sources. The employer receives real-time, secure alerts for further investigation.

While more than 98 percent of businesses conduct pre-hire background checks on potential new employees, less than one-quarter proactively use post-hire background screenings for current employees, according to the Endera survey of nearly 300 CXOs. The survey indicates most executives have no way of knowing if employees have been arrested or involved in other civil, financial or domestic activities after being hired.

Endera's risk alerts are focused on those that demonstrate a change of behavior that leads to problems with customers and fellow employees. The fraud pyramid describes opportunity, pressure and rationalization as the leading attributes of fraud, the company states. Endera detects the pressure and matches the insiders role to the risk that presents the opportunity.

From embezzlement-related crimes to a history of workplace violence, having insight into such potentially problematic employee behavior is paramount to the success of the business and most importantly, the safety of other employees and customers. This should take precedence over everything else, said Endera CEO Raj Ananthanpillai.

With the example of the employee arrested for DUI, Enderas system recognizes that a DUI for an airline pilot is a significant problem while embezzlement is not. But a DUI for an engineer working on JP Morgans credit card portfolio is not a problem while embezzlement is a huge problem, the company says.

So, when an employer receives a risk alert the initial determination is has the employee potentially violated a customer service-level agreement or a security clearance requirement. If so, the employee could be redeployed or benched pending a final outcome of the incident. If not, the employee is placed under greater scrutiny, Endera said. Additional information such as IT, HR and access control data is reviewed to determine if a change in behavior appears in the other silos. Privileges are tightened and the employee can be referred to an employee assistance program, where a deeper investigation can be triggered and resolution can be determined.

Companies face risk trade-offs every day. The safety of employees and customers should be the highest priority, Ananthanpillai said.

In Enderas December survey of 278 business executives, fewer than 25 percent of companies proactively review current employees at risk. The survey also showed that the top reported employee risk mitigation procedures are direct supervisor observation and employee self-reporting.

Most post-hire employee screenings are conducted only after an incident is discovered. Endera said companies are mostly blind to the external pressures on employees that contribute to their making bad decisions and causing harm to customers, colleagues and corporate assets.

With tech employees (and contractors) Endera said it is looking for financial pressure  foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, payday loans, garnishments and liens as examples. They also look for malicious intent around wrongful taking and embezzlement-related crimes. Endera's system also looks at citations which can be an indicator of rationalization or manifestation of pressure which are major components to committing fraud.

Most businesses rarely address the risks employees pose once they are hired. Our platform quantitatively proves safety to customers by detecting troublesome behaviors and matching this behavior to the risk that it presents to the business, said Ananthanpillai.

Endera explains that security personnel are inundated with unprioritized and general risk notifications. Endera has chosen to avoid social and general web data since it hasnt proven conclusive in identification of role-specific risk to employers. The company says its data has to be verifiable and provide an audit trail and be legally defensible.

Endera queries criminal, civil, sanctions, watch lists and licensing data sources at the federal, state and local level to provide role specific risk alerts. They not only rely on conviction data, and the software captures booking and charging as well as convictions. Endera also receives citation data since that captures a large percentage of incidents that are not captured in court data. Its data covers 100 percent of sex offenders, 97.2 percent of criminal and over 98 percent of civil cases as a percent of the total population of the US.

Endera receives its alerts directly from the jurisdiction up to third-party aggregators.

In a second use case, Endera cited workplace violence and sexual harassment. A predilection for violence is found in its criminal data across bookings, charges and convictions. Endera has a current use case where a Fortune 500 company tracks ex-employees because of threats made against the company and fellow employees.

Hospitals are seeking to screen employees and patients for domestic abuse detection, which Endera identifies through divorce, restraining orders and citations.

With regard to contractors or gig economy workers, Endera says its data shows that contractors generate two times the number of criminal incidents when compared against a Fortune 500 employee base. For a CSO, anybody that provides contract services will begin to see SLA requirements at the employee level regarding risk, Endera officials say.

Endera is not allowed to look through credit bureau information, saying that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) regulations are very restrictive in the use of credit bureau information. Endera instead works backwards from bankruptcies to foreclosures, pre-foreclosures, garnishments, liens as well as payday loans to determine financial pressure. It also includes insight into large asset purchases to identify unexplained household wealth.

How it works Endera continuously scans thousands of federal, state, and county public data sources. Customers have full control over what data you choose to monitor. Here are some options. Wants and warrants

Booking and arrests

Criminal history

Sex offender registrations

Bankruptcy and foreclosures

Liens and judgements

Lawsuits

Large purchases

Professional licenses

Drivers licenses

Healthcare licenses

Concealed weapons permits

Healthcare sanctions

OFAC sanctions

Terrorist watch lists

Criminal watch lists

Is it ethical to do so?

There is certainly a trust factor that appears to be broken with employers constantly checking up on employees. If the employees job performance has not suffered by a conviction, should it be held against them? Those in the ethical and legal field say it is not unlawful to do so but outsourcing this task might be ethically crossing a line.

Bill Sandwald, professor of ethics in business at San Diego State University, said he has no problem with companies going through public databases to find information on their employees. Companies do that a lot to try to find out as much as possible, he said. I am not sure I like (outsourcing) as much. If the crime is not applicable to the work situation, thats an issue and should be disregarded.

Katherine Armstrong, an attorney for Drinker Biddle focused on data privacy, said a variety of laws and regulations may touch criminal background checks used for employment purposes. For example, many pre-employment background checks are conducted by consumer reporting agencies that must comply with the FCRA, which includes specific conditions for furnishing and use of background checks for employment purposes. In addition, state laws may apply. Depending upon the facts, post-employment background checks may be covered by the FCRA or other state laws.

Without commenting on the applicability of such laws, we believe that transparency is an important principle to protect and respect an individuals privacy. One way to be transparent is provide employees with a clear and conspicuous notice that post employment criminal records checks are being or will be conducted and a description of how that process will work and include, for example, what information is collected and how it will be used, said Armstrong.

Dan Eaton, a San Diego employment attorney and instructor in business ethics and employment law at the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business Administration, said It is not clear that courts would agree that an employer may violate Title VII (the federal employment anti-discrimination law) by taking into account a job applicants criminal convictions  as opposed to arrests -- in making a hiring decision.

He added that in California, an employer may not ask an applicant about arrests that did not lead to convictions. In California, an employer also may not ask a job applicant about convictions related to low-level marijuana offenses that are more than two years old (except for convictions for the possessions of marijuana on school grounds or possession of concentrated cannabis) and any information concerning a referral to, and participation in, any pretrial or post trial diversion program.

From an ethical perspective, it is prudent for a prospective employer to obtain information about a job applicants criminal record, particularly where the job requires interaction with customers, he said. An employer cannot know whether a particular conviction is related to a particular job unless the employer has at least searched the employees public record.

These background checks also appropriately are used to check the veracity of an applicants answer to a common job application question about whether he or she has any record of criminal convictions, Eaton said. The law gives an employer broad latitude in vetting job applicants, generally prohibiting only inquiries that offend statutes addressing discrimination based on membership in a protected class and statutes protecting whistleblowers. That latitude is ethically appropriate in my view, an example of the law and ethics being in alignment.

The employment relationship, regardless of the particular job, rests at some level on trust and criminal convictions are relevant to evaluating that aspect of character, he added.

What side do you sit on in this situation? Let us know on our Facebook page.
A security firm has claimed the recent issues facing Netflix and their series "Orange is the New Black" are Ransomware, and a recent report from NBC News states the same. While no company wants to be held under the threat of ransom demands, Ransomware and extortion are two different types of problems.

Over the weekend, a hacker known as TheDarkOverlord resurfaced and released the first episode of season five for "Orange is the New Black" a popular show on Netflix that isn't slated to air until June.

A short time later, TheDarkOverlord released episodes 2 though 10, along with a warning to other Hollywood studios  you're next.

The media jumped on the story. Netflix wouldn't confirm or deny the leaked episodes were legitimate, stating that proper law enforcement had been notified, and that a company used by several TV studios "had its security compromised."

The company in question, Larson Studios, does audio post-production work for a number of shows and films, including NCIS Los Angeles, Designated Survivor, and Arrested Development. According to Larson Studios, they've done work for FOX, Netflix, ABC, NBC, IFC, Showtime, and more.

As word of Netflix's security problem started to spread, news outlets starting comparing the incident to the Sony Pictures hack and the medical hacks over the last few years. While there are some comparisons to be made, they're not the same type of threat.







NBC News, in a video attached to their coverage of the Netflix situation, states:

"A classic Ransomware attack, cyber experts say. Malware that seizes control of a computer, threatening to delete or release files if demands are not met"

The phrasing used by NBC News sounded oddly familiar. After checking our weekend email, Salted Hash located a story pitch from security firm Comodo. While it's unknown if NBC News received the same pitch we did, the tone of Comodo's messaging is certainly similar:

"Ransomware is online extortion, which will rise in the future, in both number and complexity. Hackers often lock your computer, or encrypt its files, but this case is closer to doxing, or threatening to release stolen and potentially embarrassing information." - Comodo PR, April 29, 2017

No.

Just no.

Netflix didn't have a Ransomware incident, and neither did Larson Studios. Their files were stolen, not encrypted.

Ransomware encrypts the files on a computer and renders them useless. Victims can recover the files if they pay a fee (ransom), or they can try and recover the files from backups.

The mention of doxing by Comodo, or the release of personal information, feels as if they are talking about the Jigsaw family of Ransomware. But the "doxware" in Jigsaw was only development code. The security firm linked to its mentions in the media couldn't confirm if the feature actually worked, or if it was even used [1] [2].

Ransomware is something a victim must be tricked into downloading. In the case of Larson Studios and Netflix (based on comments by TheDarkOverlord), the attack was likely a mix of server side hacking or perhaps Phishing  Ransomware wasn't involved.

According to TheDarkOverlord, Larson Studios was targeted because they were a post-production company.

Late last year, TheDarkOverlord hacked Larson Studios and downloaded an unknown number of files. Plenty of reporters knew TheDarkOverlord had targeted Hollywood, but until this weekend there was never any proof.

Fast forward a few months. When Larson Studios didn't comply with the extortion demands, TheDarkOverlord turned their attention to Netflix. When Netflix refused to pay, season five (minus three episodes) of "Orange is the New Black" was released for download.

"It didn't have to be this way, Netflix. You're going to lose a lot more money in all of this than what our modest offer was. We're quite ashamed to breathe the same air as you. We figured a pragmatic business such as yourselves would see and understand the benefits of cooperating with a reasonable and merciful entity like ourselves," TheDarkOverlord wrote in a statement.

Netflix surpassed $2.5 billion in quarterly streaming revenue in Q1 2017, and added five million members to their subscriber base. While having one of their popular series leaked to the web isn't exactly helpful, it isn't clear if there will be any financial impact from this incident.

Once again, extortion and Ransomware are two separate things.

Netflix and Larson Studios are (were) being extorted, they were not infected with Ransomware and have complete access to their files.

However, there is a lesson to be learned. Third-parties are always going to pose a risk to any organization, and this is certainly the case in Hollywood where secrecy and suspense are key to their business model.

Extortion is a valid risk, but payments (as seen with Ransomware) only encourage attackers to keep going. Is extortion something your company is concerned about? Do you have a plan to deal with such situations?

More importantly, is that plan current?

Do you think Netflix is a victim? Let us know on our Facebook page.
Dan Geer probably wouldn't call himself a prophet. But he may come about as close to it as anyone in IT security. And his view is that while current trends in the online world are not necessarily irreversible, they are headed in a dystopian direction.

Geer, CISO at the venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, who gave the closing keynote at SOURCE Boston 2017 this past week, even cited a New Testament prophecy early on  I Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

But while he doesnt claim prophet status, he is all about predictions. The future is once and always the topic for any security talk, he said, because, cybersecurity and the future of humanity are conjoined now.

Also because while geologic evolution can take millions of years, the cyber world is evolving, as he put it with significant understatement, at a faster clock rate.

Making predictions is practically universal  humans are hard-wired to make them, he said, quoting neuroscientist and engineer Jeff Hawkins, who called them, the primary function of the neo-cortex, and the foundation of intelligence.

But making them also requires an element of humility, he said, taking a line from novelist Warren Ellis: I try not to get involved in the business of prediction. It's a quick way to look like an idiot.

Nevertheless, Geer said, I will now make some predictions.

He made a lot of them  more than two dozen. Not the Alvin Toffler Future Shock type, but the kind that forecast the logical consequences of what is happening in the present. And they came across as through the glass clearly, not darkly.

Geers glimpses into the future included:

- Cyberinsecurity is and will remain the paramount national security risk.

- Mutual Assured Destruction, of the kind demonstrated by the Stuxnet attack on the Iranian nuclear program, wont work the way it did with nuclear weapons. The reason is attribution, he said. While intercontinental ballistic missiles have a visible flight path and a limited number of launch-capable governments, offensive software has neither.

- Just as a public safety argument led to a mandate for continuous geocoding of mobile phones, a public safety argument will mandate geocoding of the internet.

- Major nation states will prevent products of other nation states from being used in some parts of what they consider their critical infrastructure. Industrial espionage will thus rise in importance to nation states, as if it were not high enough already, he said.

- Pre-deployment of cyber weaponry in otherwise non-military positions  devices, networks, etc.  is all but certain. Much of that will be for denial of information services, but is likely to expand into disinformation as soon as sensors assume a place in the critical path for autonomous devices.

- The most significant cybercrime rings will continue to operate from a small number of sovereign jurisdictions where they enjoy tolerance, if not revenue sharing.

- Cyber attack detection using behavioral techniques  anomaly detection against long-term norms  will be used with greater vigor, but with immense side effects.

- It will be seductive to turn over decision-making to machines, but it wont be safe unless such systems will let humans override the machines. That will require maintaining, the conditions for operating without that delegation.

Except at the level of especially sentient cybersecurity practitioners such as some of you, this lesson will be learned the hard way, he said.

- The characteristics of financial high-frequency trading  rapid-fire decision making by self-modifying algorithms  will begin to appear in other domains including government.

- The skills shortage in cybersecurity will not be solved. The 1 percent  the half-dozen enterprises able to pay any price for talent  will get all or most of that talent. Government wont be part of that 1 percent.

- Because most critical infrastructure in Western societies is privately owned, governments will deputize them, willingly or not, to do things in the service of national security.

This was, of course, the story around telephone records at AT&T, et al., and will be the story soon enough around cloud computing and data handlers, he said.

- End-User License Agreements (EULA), most of which deny any liability for damage cause by a product, will be effectively challenged as soon as a suitable crisis appears. Autonomous vehicles may be where such challenges draw their first blood.

- The cybersecurity industry is in no danger of collapse, because there will always be more to do than can be done. Cybersecurity as a formal science will remain a goal and not an accomplishment, he said.

And if all those (and others) were not unsettling enough, Geer gave multiple examples that the future is now when it comes to pervasive surveillance and the loss of individual privacy, and that the tools to enable it are as prevalent in the private sector as the public.

As anyone knows, what the government and only the government has today, the rich will have tomorrow, he said. What the rich have tomorrow the lumpen digitariat will have the day after tomorrow  and that is within a now-established precedent that general public use removes any prohibitions on use by government or other institutions.

So, from facial recognition to motion sensors, to electromagnetic pulses from the heart, to microwaves, to Bluetooth signals, to omnipresent Wi-Fi routers, what is fair game to observe is independent of wavelength  I have every power to capture what you emanate, he said.

This, plus the continuing explosive growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) means that, interdependence within society is today absolutely centered on the internet beyond all other dependencies excepting climate, he said, and the internet has a time rate of change five orders of magnitude faster.

Remember, something becomes a critical infrastructure as soon as it is widely enough adopted; adoption is the gateway drug to criticality, he said.

That leaves the industry with two stark choices. Either we damp down the rate of change, slowing it enough to give prediction operational validity, or we purposely increase unpredictability so that the opposition's targeting exercise grows too hard for them to do.

In the former, we give up many and various sorts of progress. In the latter, we give up many and various sorts of freedom, as it would be the machines then in charge, not us. Either way, the conjoining is irreversible, he said, telling his audience of cybersecurity professionals that, you have not picked a career. You have picked a crusade.

Let us know your comments on our Facebook page.
BRIDGEPORT  More than 100 people rallied Monday at McLevy Green in unity with the hundreds of May Day demonstrations around the country against President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Holding signs and banners proclaiming, Hate has no home here, they used a day set aside to traditionally support workers rights to demand rights for undocumented workers in the community.
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SHELTON-It was born in a field next to Diane Jowdys mill last April, grew up on Facebook and reached adolescence at Planning and Zoning meetings.

Now Save Our Shelton, a group of residents who organized to fight the massive Towne Center at Shelter Ridge project, look to grow their numbers and their bank account so they could take their influence citywide in their fight against high density development projects.

On April 29 at 10:30 a.m. they conducted their first monthly meeting in the Shelton Community Center. Despite it being a bright, summer-like morning they still attracted 50 people who filled the room and spilled into the hallway. They included newcomers like Ron Kwalek and, Mary Bennett as well as mainstays like Adrianne Couture and Maureen Magner. Even State Rep. Jason Perillo dropped by.

This is not going to be an organization that flares up and then fades away, said Greg Tetro, who with Caitlin Augusta, are two of it leaders. Anything our members think that needs to be fought for, we will be there. We want people to talk to their neighbors and ask what they see as a problem, bring it to the group and well work it together.

So early on they created a Facebook page which has 1,678 likes. They nare building a website and preparing a GoFundMe page. Now they have a registered trade name and a bank account to pay for Keith Ainsworth, the lawyer they hired to before the Inland Wetlands commission and Joel Green, their lawyer who is suing Planning and Zoning involving the approval of the massive Towne Center at Shelter Ridge project.

Heres why Shelter Ridge is important, Tetro told the group explaining the project encompasses 123 acres and includes a million square feet of retail, office and residential space. Shelter Ridge is a lynchpin. Its the one that will pay for all the upgrade of the roads.

He said the recently withdrawn Long Hill Cross Road proposal which involved a hotel, restaurants, apartments and retail on about 18 acres and the planned 28 condominiums on Bridgeport Avenue couldnt do that.

This is why the city fought so hard (for Shelter Ridge) and got the approval despite the cries of the people, Tetro said. Thats why we are fighting in court, fighting in before Inland Wetlands. If (Shelter Ridge) drops, a lot of the other stuff goes away.

On April 28, Milford Superior Court Judge John Moran met with the lawyers. He set a series of deadlines for briefs and scheduled a hearing before Judge Arthur Hiller to take place Jan. 16, 2018 at 10 a.m.

Which is good, Tetro said.That means theyre not doing anything this spring, summer and fall. If they do well contact our lawyer and get a cease and desist.

In the meantime, he said the Wells Family which owns the property could go in and trim trees but egregious blasting is not going to happen, clear cutting is not going to happen.

By the end of the meeting 30 people signed a petition which now forces Inland Wetlands to conduct a public hearing on Shelter Ridge.

In addition to sign up and donation sheets, there was another recommending people vote against Ruth Parkins, Elaine Matto, Ned Miller and Virginia Harger, all Planning and Zoning commissioners who supported Shelter Ridge. They suggested voting for Jimmy Tickey, a commission member and Republican Aldermen John Anglace and Jim Capra, all who spoke against it.

Only Parkins, Tickey, Anglace and Capra are up for re-election.,

Mayor Mark Lauretti and Anthony Simonetti, a first ward alderman and Republican Town chairman, thought the criticism was unfair.

Our Planning and Zoning Commission works very hard, said Lauretti. Its a bi-partisan commission that listens to everybody and makes judgments based on facts. They listened to what the people said (about Shelter Ridge), implemented some of their recommendations and made suggestions.

As to Parkins, Lauretti said she has provided a lot of leadership.

But Dave Gioiello, the Democratic Town chairman wouldnt write SOS efforts off. If a group gets out campaigns and works for a candidate that could have an impact, he said. They could even run petition candidates.
Thirty years ago, when Connecticuts Special Transportation Fund was first established, the idea was a good one: the state would use gas tax receipts to finance much-needed investments in our transportation infrastructure.

But over the last few decades, the fund has been used for purposes other than transportation  specifically to balance the states budget because of our growing deficit.

As a result, our statewide transportation infrastructure has suffered greatly. And this, in turn, continues to hinder our economic growth and stymie our ability to attract and retain business.

Connecticut faces serious financial challenges in financing a viable statewide transportation infrastructure through this fund. As gas tax receipts dwindle because people are driving less and more efficient cars travel our roadways, we can no longer depend upon this fund to finance much-needed road and bridge repairs.

This fact serves as a basis for many lawmakers who support tolls on interstates  arguably a debate for another time.

But no matter how transportation-related money is raised, it still would make good fiscal sense to return to the funds original purpose.

For many Connecticut motorists  many who are voters  raising transportation funds through tolls, mileage fees, or congestion pricing are unpopular pills to swallow.

Going forward, they need  and want  assurances that transportation-related revenue wont be used for purposes other than transportation. There can be no talk of tolls, mileage fees, congestion pricing or any other method to raise money until lawmakers pass a constitutional amendment calling for a Transportation lockbox.

Several resolutions, calling for such an amendment, are now winding their individual ways through a legislative path to debate, then passage.

A lockbox, however, isnt a new idea. In fact, within the last year, voters in in New Jersey and Illinois have passed laws, dedicating their states gas taxes for transportation. Similar protective measures were passed in Maryland and Wisconsin three years earlier.

In all these states, voters have sent clear messages to lawmakers: money raised for transportation funding must be spent only for transportation funding.

In Connecticut, the idea of a lockbox continues to gain traction. In fact, AAA Northeast has found that 8 in 10 Connecticut drivers support a law that prohibits the state from using transportation-related revenue for other purposes. This figure  81 percent of drivers  has been consistent over the last two years in the clubs surveys.

The devil is in the details, however, so its imperative Connecticut lawmakers develop a thoughtful, thorough, enforceable law where the language is clear as to what is meant by transportation purposes, and clearly identifies what types of fund receipts would be protected from diversion.

The time is right to pass a resolution to stop government from rifling a fund that was created with the sole purpose of transportation in mind.

For Connecticut, that will mean safer roads, more secure bridges and a transportation infrastructure that helps reduce traffic, support business and move the state forward.

Fran Mayko is public affairs specialist for AAA Northeast, whose territory in Connecticut covers a Fairfield, Litchfield and New Haven Counties, home to more than a half-million AAA members. Amy Parmenter is the public affairs manager for AAA Allied Group, whose territory in Connecticut covers Hartford, Middlesex, New London, Tolland and Windham Counties, home to more than a half-million AAA members.
Just because Democrats hold a slight majority in the 187-member state legislature does not mean they hold the monopoly on good ideas.

And for too long they have acted that way.

Republicans, under the leadership of Senate President Pro Tempore Len Fasano, R-North Haven, and House Republican Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, have consistently come up with sound ideas for budget improvement.

Weve become somewhat weary of saying that the Republican ideas, like ending income tax on Social Security and pensions, cannot be excluded from discussions about the states future for no reason other than they come from the minority party.

Its no secret that voters in Connecticut hold their elected leaders in low regard.

Thats one of the reasons why Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced earlier this month that he would not seek a third term as governor. Eight years, we would imagine, is a long time to be in that cauldron. But had the governors approval ratings been soaring, that announcement might have been something different.

Legislative leaders in Hartford should be exercising a little more statesmanship and a little less playground taunting.

For better or for worse, the Republican delegation has put forward a budget. Now, whether all their ideas are sound remains to be seen.

But theyve put ideas on the table. And those ideas should have a robust airing and debate, along with Democratic plans.

The Republicans work didnt deserve the response that was quick in coming from Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk.

The Republicans crafted this half-baked budget in secrecy without any transparency or public hearings, he snarled.

Nor, frankly, did Republican Fasano need to rise to the bait with his remark, All he (Duff) does is sit and loves to tweet silly things like a high school kid.

Come on, boys and girls, the residents of Connecticut are tired of listening to their leaders cooking up insults.

A far more mature  and productive  response came from Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, who said, The people of Connecticut want us to do things to make the state better.

We appreciate the effort Republicans put forth with their budget today. And I look forward to sitting down. Lets get to work.

Editors note: Amen.

Malloy, unshackled by any concerns about re-election, is free now to push for some of the items on his agenda to let the state regain its financial equilibrium, pension reform chief among them.

He will have to worry less about offending parties that might otherwise be crucial to a re-election run.

But whatever his new freedom, he cannot reverse the states fortunes by himself.

Theres more at stake in this session of the legislature than maneuvering for future political advantage. The residents of Connecticut deserve compromise and respectful behavior from the people theyve give the honor of working on their behalf.
Contributed Photo / Contributed Photo

MILFORD - A 51-year-old Milford man has been arrested on allegations that he downloaded child porn.

David Guernsey, of Oronoque Road, was arrested in late April on a charge of possession of child pornography.
Opening dates, hours and new policies set for 2022 ski season

A price increase on all day and season passes at Seven Springs, Hidden Valley and Laurel Mountain ski areas goes into effect on Nov. 20.
He is one of the culinary hopefuls about to burst onto our screens in the upcoming ninth season of hit cooking reality show.

And the 2017 iteration of the show will be contestant Josh's second chance at cooking glory after he narrowly missed out on the 2015 season after a run-in with a car thief left him in a coma.

Woman's Day reports that Josh, 32, was celebrating in Melbourne, with girlfriend Erin, after getting through to the judges audition round for that season, but the celebrations were short lived.

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He's back! The 2017 iteration of the show will be contestant Josh's second chance at cooking glory after he narrowly missed out on the 2015 season after a run-in with a car thief left him in a coma

Speaking to the publication, Josh said that dreams of MasterChef glory were thrown asunder when he noticed a teenager trying to steel his car, with the would-be TV chef chasing after the thief.

'My natural instincts kicked in and I ran after him, and it's a regret I've had to live with,' he said.

The magazine goes on to report that the teenage thief reversed the car, knocking Josh unconscious and leaving him with a severe brain injury when his head struck a nearby pole.

Can still cook: Josh added that he suffered memory loss as well as his sense of smell, but thankfully, not his culinary skills

He eventually had to be put into an induced coma, spent nine weeks in intensive care and had to undergo brain surgery.

Josh added that he suffered memory loss as well as his sense of smell, but thankfully, not his culinary skills.

'I still struggle with attention and memory - but I haven't lost my ability to cook,' he said.

Fully recovered: With Josh now fully recovered, he will join 23 hopefuls to vie for approval from judges George Colombaris Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston

With Josh now fully recovered, he will join 23 hopefuls to vie for approval from judges George Colombaris Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston.

The 2016 season was won by Elena Duggan who pipped rival Matt Sinclair in the final by 86 points to 84.

MasterChef season nine premieres Monday on Channel Ten.
While Pippa Middleton is planning her upcoming wedding, her sister Kate has no doubt been busy preparing for a celebration of her own this week.

On Tuesday May 2, Princess Charlotte will turn two with a lavish celebration expected in the youngest royal's honour.

But how will the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge celebrate the little Princess' special day?

It's the family's last summer in Amner Hall before they swap Norfolk for London to take up permanent roles as full-time royals, so they will no doubt want to make the most of the beautiful surrounding countryside.

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Princess Charlotte will turn two on Tuesday with a lavish celebration expected in the youngest royal's honour. But how will the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge celebrate the big day?

And according to a children's party planner, we can also expect Pokemon, unicorns, picnic-style food and children's games galore.

'Two is such a lovely age as children are old enough to really understand and enjoy their big day,' Antonia Voss tells FEMAIL.

'Given that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge like to dress their children in classic pieces, I would imagine they might want to mark their daughters birthday with a party that is timeless and lots of fun for all.'

Antonia, who works for creative events agency Peppermint Diva, has worked on lavish children's parties costing up to 100,000.

She says the biggest trends in children's parties this year are unicorns, Pokemon, emojis and, of course, My Little Pony: The Movie.

Charlotte with her mother the Duchess of Cambridge at a children's party in Canada in September 2016. The young royal is known to be a fan of animals - and balloons

Princess Charlotte, who turns two tomorrow, is the fourth in line to the British throne

Doting dad the Duke of Cambridge holds his daughter close at a children's party during the family's royal tour of Canada last September

Antonia believes the Cambridges may also opt for a teddy bears' picnic-themed party - weather permitting - with plenty of cakes, jelly and ice cream.

But given the little Princess' love for animals, she might prefer an wildlife-themed party.

'A professionally-run petting zoo with lambs, chicks and rabbits, tractor rides around the grounds and a puppet theatre complete with hay bale seating could make for a really memorable day,' says Antonia.

When Charlotte's brother George celebrated his second birthday, the Queen and Prince Philip reportedly dropped in from nearby Sandringham.

It's the family's last summer in Amner Hall before they swap Norfolk for the bright lights of London so they will no doubt want to make the most of the beautiful surrounding countryside

VIP guests: Prince Philip has engagements at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, but how will the Cambridges accommodate their VIP guest if the Queen stops by?

Princess Charlotte pictured at Amner Hall in November 2015. Royal watchers are hoping the Cambridges will release new images of the little Princess for her second birthday

Prince Philip has engagements at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, but how will the Cambridges accommodate their VIP guest if the Queen stops by?

'Ensuring the comfort of all your guests can be key to the success of a party,' says Antonia.

'Ample comfortable seating for parents, grandparents (or in this case, great grandparents) is important, as is clear access in and out of the room.

'Adults need to be able to be within easy reach of their children, but in an area where they can safely be served food and drink.'

Charlotte famously said her first word in public - 'Pop!' as she delightedly played with a balloon arch at the party for military families during the 2016 Royal tour of Canada

William and Kate entertain the youngsters with balloon animals. But according to Antonia Voss, the trendiest children's parties this year are all about Pokemon and My Little Pony

'Afternoon tea is always a popular choice, as there is something for everyone and parents can come and go as required without feeling they have missed out.'

And when it comes to presents, what do you buy the toddler who has everything?

'The best presents always have a lot of thought behind them,' Antonia notes. 'Im sure Princess Charlotte will receive plenty of toys, but perhaps a time capsule that she can open on her 16th or 18th birthday might be of more long-term enjoyment.

'It could be filled with items which are precious to her and her family at this moment in time, things that may not be in the public domain.'
A mother with terminal cancer has revealed how she put her life-prolonging treatment on hold in order to safely give birth to her baby.

Emma Johns, 38, from Harrow, was advised not to go ahead with her pregnancy when she learned to her surprise she was expecting while being treated for triple negative breast cancer.

But Emma, who was warned by doctors following her diagnosis it was unlikely she would live longer than two years, halted her chemotherapy so she could deliver her baby boy, Phoenix, in December.

Determined to see her son grow up, Emma has now managed to raise more than 40,000 for a new trial drug after the cancer spread to her hip and lower spine.

Due to her pregnancy Emma missed out on being eligible for the treatment, called Pembrolizumab, and is fundraising to pay for private treatment.

Emma Johns gave up her life saving treatment for three months in order to safely deliver her son Phoenix (pictured together in the hospital)

Emma was diagnosed with primary breast cancer four years ago, shortly after her wedding to husband Matt.

Speaking to MailOnline she said: 'My cancer diagnosis threw my world upside down. Matt and I had only just gotten married a year before.

'I was in the process of decorating when I found my lump. We were meant to be enjoying a new start having moved out of London, and suddenly I was thrown into a world of tests and hospital appointments.'

Emma says that although she was terrified she and Matt have tried to find ways to make the best out of the situation - but admits her illness has inevitably taken a toll.

Doctors strongly recommended that Emma terminate her pregnancy, however, they discovered a way she could continue with chemo on a lower dosage for a while

Emma was disagnosed with triple negative breast cancer four years ago and has remained positive throughout experimenting with mohawks and colourful wigs

She continued: 'My world became very, very small and very, very scary. We are both very positive people so we tried to make it fun.

'I shaved a mohawk when my hair started falling out, I wore coloured wigs, I chatted to people at hospital and made friends with the staff.

'However, the toll on my family over the years has grown. I am a changed person from the effects of the drugs.

She was 34-years-old when diagnosed and she and husband Matt had been married just a year. Pictured: The couple on their wedding day

She immediately started chemotherapy (pictured left) and later, under the instruction of doctors, had a double masectomy

Four days after Emma's 36th birthday she was told that the cancer had spread to her bones and was warned she was unlikely to live more than two years

'I have fatigue, I have ballooned in weight and have a lot of pain which makes being active very difficult.

'I've gone from being healthy and active to a person who can't climb the stairs without getting out of breath.'

Emma initially had three months of chemotherapy, and while it shrunk her tumour, it did not eliminate the cancer and she had a double mastectomy under the advice of doctors - only to be hit with more bad news.

She said: 'While I was healing, another two tumours popped up on my chest.

'A year after my initial surgery I had more surgery where they collapsed my lung to get at the tumours in my chest.

Emma discovered she was pregnant in July last year and immediately ended her treatment until going onto a lower dosage in August

'Four days before my 36th birthday, I was told it had spread to my bones and had become secondary and incurable.

'I was told that I had between 2 and 5 years to live. In light of my cancer type, I could only expect to live 2 years.'

While the news was devastating a brave Emma said that it helped her to put a positive spin on her outlook on life.

She continues: 'When I found out I was going to die my eyes were opened. I suddenly realised that most things we obsess about in life mean nothing.

In December last year Emma had an emergency c-section and delivered her son Phoenix. Pictured: Emma, Matt and newborn Phoenix in the hospital

The couple started a GoFundMe page to raise 40,000 for a new trial drug that Emma says she hopes will save her life

'At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is how you love and are loved in return.

'Cancer is a terrible, terrible disease but it made me really appreciate every little thing. I made a decision to be thankful, no matter what, for something each day.'

Emma's condition became even more complicated when she discovered that she was pregnant.

She recalls: 'I'm quite a stoic person but this knocked me sideways. Matt was away working when I got the news.

Cancer is a terrible terrible disease but it made me really appreciate every little thing

'The doctors called me in for an emergency meeting and I knew it was bad news.

'When I sat in the doctor office and he told me my cancer was back I was ok. He then said...'we found something else'. I immediately thought the cancer had spread all over. But he said, 'you're pregnant'.'

'After that I was shell shocked. They sent me immediately for an ultrasound. I expected to see a cashew nut sized fetus. Instead I saw a full sized 18week baby sucking its thumb. I knew there and then that I was having that baby.'

Emma was warned by her oncologist that no chemo drugs are safe during the first trimester, and it was recommended that she terminate the pregnancy.

On Sunday the couple met their target and Emma's dream of seeing her son grow-up is ever closer

Despite the warnings Emma chose to keep the baby and refused any treatment for a month until she knew he would be safe.

At the end of August she was then placed on a weekly chemo which was safe for the baby, at a weak dose.

Emma said: The hope was to keep my cancer ticking over with low level chemo and keep him safe.

'Weirdly, I always knew Phoenix would be safe. He'd hidden away for so long and through so much, I knew he was a fighter. We even nicknamed him 'Rambo!''

Towards the end of her pregnancy Emma encountered several complications and after 36 weeks had an emergency c-section.

She said: I wasn't scared...I knew he would be ok. He was so small I couldn't believe it. I felt such an overwhelming desire to care for him and be there for him through everything.'

Emma gave birth to Phoenix in December 2016, but in order to have him she had to give up chemotherapy from November to February.

The new mum has now developed a further four tumours in her hip and lower spine and has returned to a full course of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The couple set up a GoFundMe page in the hope to raise 40,000 for the Pembrolizumab - a trial drug training your immune system to kill the cancer.

The couple have now beaten their target raising over 43,000 meaning that Emma will be able to fund the treatment.

Emma said: 'I had no idea so many caring people were out there. Matt and I are utterly overwhelmed by the love and generosity that people have shown.

'I knew people were inherently good but this has confirmed to me, that life is beautiful and there is always hope.

'I had no idea that so many would be willing to step in and support us. It's truly humbling.'

To donate to Emma's fundraising campaign visit her GoFundMe page - Fight for Phoenix.
Crown Princess Mary's eldest daughter Isabella has celebrated her 10th birthday with a photo shoot.

The mum-of-four's mini-me posed in two separate outfits to mark the occasion: A navy blue printed dress, which she wore with a delicate drop necklace and a striped long sleeved t-shirt with black trousers.

Images of the young royal were published on the Danish Monarchy website accompanied by her own signature monogram.

Images of the pint-sized royal were published on the Danish Monarchy website accompanied by her own signature monogram

Princess Isabella's actual birthday was on April 21, 2017, but the pictures were released some time later by the palace

Princess Isabella's actual birthday was on April 21, 2017, but the pictures were released some time later by the palace.

Her official monogram, a tradition of the royal families, was released to the public around a similar time.

'Princess Isabella monogram consists of Princess initial letter "I", which is asymmetric in structure and as with other royal monograms has Christian V's royal crown placed over the logotype,' a representative of the Danish Monarchy wrote.

She was born in the afternoon of April 21, 2007 at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, and was christened on July 1 that year

Princess Isabella (left) with her family at Queen Margrethe's 77th birthday celebration

'The monogram can act as a personal hallmark used in a variety of areas in which identity should be marked. It may be objects, gifts, stationery, jewellery and much more.

'A royal monogram consists of an initial or a double initial with the the royal crown.'

Princess Isabella was born in the afternoon of April 21, 2007 at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, and was christened on July 1 that year.

At present Princess Isabella is third in line to the Danish throne (pictured here with her mother Princess Mary and her brother Prince Christian

In August 2013, Isabella began primary school at the Tranegardsskolen in Gentofte.

At present, she is third in line to the Danish throne.

Isabella made an official appearance alongside her parents and siblings Prince Christian, 11, Princess Josephine, six, and Prince Vincent, six, at their grandmother Queen Margrethe's 77th birthday celebration.
Chontel Duncan, 27, has spoken out about her son Jeremiah's intense 'asthma attack' to warn parents about some of the symptoms.

Brisbane-based personal trainer Mrs Duncan shared a picture of her one-year-old with his father Sam revealing the traumatic experience via an Instagram caption.

'My babies smile says a million words,' she wrote.

'Yesterday an innocent runny nose and cough that seemed like absolutely nothing, I mean he'd cough once every hour if that and was not at all fazed by it turned out to be much more.

Mrs Duncan's son Miah responded like a 'champ' to the doctor's treatments and is now on the mend

'Yesterday an innocent runny nose and cough that seemed like absolutely nothing, I mean he'd cough once every hour if that and was not at all fazed by it turned out to be much more,' Mrs Duncan began her post

What age can children be diagnosed with asthma? Most children who have asthma develop their first symptoms before five years of age. However, asthma in young children (aged zero to five years) can be hard to diagnose. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a child has asthma or another childhood condition. This is because the symptoms of asthma also occur with other conditions. Also, many young children who wheeze when they get colds or respiratory infections don't go on to have asthma after they're 6 years old. Source: National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Advertisement

'It was then followed by high slight temps and a power chuck of his bottle - that again didn't faze him.'

The 27-year-old immediately booked in to see their family doctor just to be safe. Jeremiah's breathing became 'wheezy' in the hours leading up with the appointment.

'Finally at the docs we were rushed straight up to hospital, in for what was a big upsetting night ahead,' she wrote.

'He responded like a champ to the treatments, yes he panicked and got very upset, but his body responded perfectly.

'We were released late this morning with at-home treatments to continue with.

'While Miah is too little to be diagnosed with asthma what he experienced was like an asthma attack.

'The signs went from zero to a hundred, so I'm sharing my experience as I know a lot of mummies follow me & I believe it's my duty to spread any experience that could help another out.

'Mild common cold symptoms shouldn't be brushed off, always double check, because if WE DIDN'T things could have been much worse,' she finished

The family are expected to be travelling to Hawaii in the coming weeks with the mum-of-one hoping a similar 'asthma attack' experience doesn't happen while their overseas

'Mild common cold symptoms shouldn't be brushed off, always double check, because if WE DIDN'T things could have been much worse,' she finished.

Mrs Duncan recently announced she is expecting a second baby and will vlog the entire length of the pregnancy.

The family are expected to be travelling to Hawaii in the coming weeks with the mum-of-one hoping a similar 'asthma attack' experience doesn't happen while their overseas.
She managed to keep her separation from the Western Bulldogs forward, Jake Stringer, a secret for six months before the couple formally split last December.

But now, mother-of-two, Abby Gilmore, has opened up about her feelings since she broke up with her partner in 2016, revealing she also hopes she will 'bump into my future husband in the supermarket' on her blog.

'I'm still hoping for someone to fill the passenger seat in my family car and fill the empty spot in my bed,' the 23-year-old former WAG wrote, honestly.

Mother-of-two and former WAG, Abby Gilmore (pictured), has opened up about her life and feelings since she split from AFL star, Jake Stringer

'I'm still hoping for someone to fill the passenger seat in my family car and fill the empty spot in my bed,' the 23-year-old former WAG wrote, honestly on her blog (pictured with her kids)

'I'm hoping for one of those fairy tale things where you just can't believe your luck and you end up with someone who just appreciates everything about you and never makes you feel unsure about anything.

'Someone who just comes straight in and loves all your broken pieces back together again. Someone who day in day out chooses me. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK PEOPLE?'.

Ms Gilmore added that she has 'so many questions to ask the person who invented this stupid love thing I tell you!'.

'...To me it [love] was such a beautiful thing and something I got so much joy out of but now I just can't seem to see it ever happening again.'

'I'm hoping for one of those fairy tale things where you just can't believe your luck and you end up with someone who just appreciates everything about you and never makes you feel unsure about anything,' she added

Ms Gilmore said the past nine months have been hard - 'I'm struggling more with the fact that I don't have a person to confide in and snuggle at night more than I thought I would,' she wrote

As well as her desire for 'love' and being loved in return, Ms Gilmore also discussed how difficult she has found the past nine months:

'I'm struggling more with the fact that I don't have a person to confide in and snuggle at night more than I ever thought I would,' she wrote.

'How funny is it that out of everything, I just miss having someone to tell everything to and get a simple cuddle when I need it?'.

Ms Gilmore - who is mother to two daughters, Milla and Arlo - concluded by saying that if someone feels they have a good man or woman right now then they should 'LOCK THAT S**T DOWN NOW!'.

'I'm telling you this isn't a time to be single and have a big soft heart. It's scary. I almost want to pack up and move to a deserted island where I don't have a phone and just my favourite people in the world to live there with me,' she said.

This isn't the first time that the mum-of-two has opened up on her blog, either - she regularly tries to help others struggling through relationship breakdowns, single parenthood and post-natal depression

'I'm in complete shock, I'm a single mum. I'm 23 years old with two kids. I still can't believe it some days myself, but it's just how it is,' Ms Gilmore wrote after the split (both pictured)

This isn't the first time that the mum-of-two has opened up on her blog.

When Ms Gilmore first split from Jake, she took to social media to try and help other women struggling through relationship breakdowns, single parenthood and post-natal depression.

The 23-year-old has close to 80,000 followers on Instagram, while her daily posts on her blog also resonate with other mums who are struggling.

'I'm in complete shock, I'm a single mum. I'm 23 years old with two kids - that's shocking to me. I still can't believe it some days myself, but it's just how it is,' Ms Gilmore previously wrote after the split.

'...As much as we fought to stay together, it just wasn't going to work for us, and that's okay.'

To read more from Abby Gilmore, visit her blog here.


Australian skincare label, Frank Body, has just released a new shimmer body scrub after two years of selling purely coffee-based scrubs.

This new product - which features holographic packaging and a unicorn-inspired look - has had one of the company's most successful pre-launch campaigns to date.

So far, more than 55,000 people have signed up to the waiting list and desperately want to try it. The business is expecting to sell out of their latest exfoliator in the first week.

Scroll down for video

More than 55,000 people are desperate to try Frank Body's new shimmer scrub

'The departure from our traditional and less shiny packaging was a risk but we wanted to have some fun with this product,' Jess Hatzis, co-founder of Frank Body, said.

'We knew our target demographic would respond to the holographic packaging and with 55,000 signups at pre-launch we weren't wrong.'

The scrub contains mica, an edible mineral-based product often used to make things sparkle. But beware, the coffee scrub itself isn't edible.

Warning: Do not eat the scrub! Even though the glitter is technically edible, the coffee scrub is not

The usual favourites of salt, sugar, coffee and grapeseed oil will also make an appearance in the exfoliator, but the texture is finer than their traditional coffee scrub making it easier to wash out of the bath or shower.

'Frank Body is all about having fun with your skincare routine whilst also achieving results and our new shimmer scrub is no exception,' commented Bree Johnson.

At $19.95 the skin product is bound to bring co-founders Jess Hatzis and Bree Johnson in a tidy sum.

At $19.95 the skin product is bound to bring co-founders Jess Hatzis and Bree Johnson in a tidy sum

Bree Johnson, an avid latte drinker, and Jess Hatzis, who prefers an espresso, have built their lives on the sacred coffee bean

Bree Johnson, an avid latte drinker, and Jess Hatzis, who prefers an espresso, have built their lives on the sacred coffee bean.

The Melbourne duo met while working at Red Bull - and became fast friends.

They were attending university at the same time, Jess studying commerce and Bree completing a Journalism degree, when they started their first marketing venture.

Bree Johnson and Jess Hatzis are the powerhouse behind Australian skincare label Frank Body and they're set to make a serious profit this year

But it's their second business, Frank Body, that's seen the girls' products valued at $20 million.

They spoke to the Daily Mail Australia about how the brand began.

'We were friends before we went into business. I think you need to be before you jump into something like this. You need to be able to trust each other completely,' said Miss Johnson.

Their coffee-based scrub is made from Robusta beans rather than the traditionally served Arabica bean because it has a higher caffeine concentration.

Campaign videos and images on social media have successfully launched the online brand into the retail market

The girls had no formal beauty training before launching Frank Body but had spent a decade of their adult lives trying different products out

Frank came about when they heard about women using coffee beans to exfoliate.

'The idea seemed brilliant. We wanted to have complete creative control of a brand. This was our chance!' said Miss Hatzis.

The girls had no formal beauty training before launching Frank Body, but had spent a decade of their adult lives trying different products out.

We often go into stores and can't find Frank because it's been sold out! It's really humbling.

They liked the idea of using natural ingredients on their skin and they loved the brightening effect beans had on their bodies.

'We always say that one of our weaknesses became our strengths. So while we didn't start in the beauty space, we have evolved into it.

'There are some eye creams that use caffeine as a main ingredient but we're the only brand that sources all of their products from coffee,' said Miss Johnson.

The homegrown scrub grew in popularity on the internet and the girls admit they hadn't really thought about getting it on the shelves before now.

Frank Body has just launched its glow masks which are designed to be a 'quickie' pick-me-up for your face in the morning

'Moving into retail was really intimidating. We weren't sure exactly how our consumers would react to us being in store,' Miss Hatzis said.

'I think our biggest pinch me moment came when we partnered with Mecca. We often go into stores and can't find Frank because it's been sold out! It's really humbling.'

The pair worked alongside co-founders Steve Rowley and Alex Boffa to launch Frank Body internationally and with minimal shipping.

Jess and Bree both admit this was one of the hardest parts about growing the business.

'We started Frank Body with a $10,000 investment. We're always telling people you don't need millions in capital to start. Don't be embarrassed by what you do have - just get the product out there!' said Miss Johnson

'It's hard work every day. But it's also so rewarding

'We started Frank Body with a $10,000 investment. We're always telling people you don't need millions in capital to start. Don't be embarrassed by what you do have - just get the product out there!' said Miss Johnson.

Jess and Bree have just won the 2017 Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award which recognises 'successful, visionary, up-and-coming, entrepreneurial business women aged between 25 and 39 years old,' reported the Financial Review.

Frank Body was originally available as just an exfoliating coffee scrub but now fans can buy face creams and masks

Both girls are avid supporters of start-ups and often give advice to new business owners about how they've come so far.

Miss Johnson said: 'I have a jacket I wear around the office that says "Risk it for the biscuit" which I think might be my life motto!'.

'We're always saying there is no right time to start a business. The stars will never perfectly align. Sometimes you've got to just bite the bullet and dive in,' added Miss Hatzis.

'We're always saying there is no right time to start a business. The stars will never perfectly align. Sometimes you've got to just bite the bullet and dive in,' added Miss Hatzis

Frank Body has also launched its glow masks which are designed to be a 'quickie' pick-me-up for your face in the morning.

They've also got other new products lined up for 2017 - one of which being the shimmer scrub.

'But obviously, it's a secret for now,' they said.
A mother was left fuming after she was told to leave a restaurant because she changed her nine-week-old baby's nappy.

The mum-of-three was enjoying a meal at a Melbourne eatery to celebrate a family member's birthday.

She decided to remove the nappy inside her son's pram because the restaurant didn't have a change table in the toilets.

A mother was left fuming after she was told to leave a restaurant because she changed her nine-week-old baby's nappy (stock image)

The mother explained to Kidspot that she had no idea it would be an issue, as the child was fully concealed in a bugaboo bassinet.

'I was in a corner away from others eating as my pram was in the way of servers...

'It's not like I was sitting in the middle flashing my naked baby with poo all over him. It was only a WET nappy. NOT POO,' she told the publication.

But a female staff member was quick to tell her she had to use another part of the restaurant or leave immediately.

She explained she had no idea it would be an issue, as the child was fully concealed in a bugaboo bassinet (stock image)

'You shouldn't do that there because it's yucky. There's a hallway over there you can use,' the waitress reportedly told the woman.

The irate mother said it is the first and last time she and her family will eat at the restaurant.

'She looked down at me like I had asked if she'd like to eat my son's nappy.

'I was so shocked and very unimpressed. The food was bad anyway - so we definitely will not be returning,' the mum-of-three concluded.
A mysterious bus passenger has become an online sensation after being spotted on a bus hauling a massive tub of Cinnabon frosting.

A fellow traveler snapped a photo of the man in Toronto, Canada Friday night and shared it on Twitter, where fellow social media users promptly celebrated the bus passenger and his surprising load.

The tub, high enough to reach the shoulders of a seated passenger, first looks like an innocuous - albeit massive - container.

Mystery: A man has become an online sensation after being spotted hauling a massive tub apparently containing Cinnabon frosting Friday night on a Toronto bus

Clues: A closer look at the container's label shows the words 'Cinnabon frosting' and 'Taco Bell' - and the fast food chain does use the iconic frosting on one of its items, the Cinnabon Delights

But a closer look at its label reveals the words 'Cinnabon frosting' and 'for Taco Bell'. The fast food chain does use the iconic frosting in one of its items, the Cinnabon Delights - balls of dough filled with the sweet concoction.

Otherwise, Cinnabon typically uses the famed frosting on its cinnamon rolls, which are popular offerings at malls and airports.

Passenger Craigh Calhoun, who took the photo of the man and his tub, shared the snap on Twitter with the puzzled caption: 'Guy on this bus is packing a 30-gallon drum of Cinnabon frosting.'

The 37-year-old told BuzzFeed News he was on his ways to have drinks with friends when he spotted the passenger and the intriguing drum.

Calhoun insisted that the container did seem to be full and heavy, because the man didn't lift it and instead had to roll it on its side to leave the bus.

Sweet: The Cinnabon Delights, balls of dough filled with Cinnabon's white frosting, are on the menu at Taco Bell. Otherwise, Cinnabon uses the frosting on its famed cinnamon rolls

Popular: Twitter users promptly noticed the photo of the mystery man - with one professing to follow him 'to the ends of the Earth' and the picture has been shared more than 23,000 times

That's one possibility: Fellow Twitter users tried to imagine what wild circumstances might have driven a man to hop on a bus with the huge container of frosting

'He got off a few stops later,' Calhoun told the website. 'There was definitely something in there because he had to roll it on its edge to get off the bus, and he continued to roll it that way down the sidewalk.'

Twitter promptly noticed the photo of the mystery man and the picture has now been retweeted more than 23,000 times.

'I will follow him to the ends of the earth,' one of them person wrote in response to the photo.

Fellow users quickly tried to imagine what wild circumstances might have driven a man to hop on a bus with the huge container of frosting.

One of them thought the picture was an appropriate response to the classic job interview question: 'Where do you see yourself in five years?'

Another imagined that the man was preparing himself for 'a very delicious apocalypse'.
A goth woman and her pet raven have won over the hearts of thousands after they were photographed riding a subway together  and people can't stop writing Edgar Allen Poe-inspired poetry about the duo.

The bizarre snapshot sees a woman sitting down with a large raven perched on her leg while traveling on what appears to be the Moscow Metro in Russia.

Playwright Max Sparber couldn't resist sharing the photo on Twitter over the weekend, writing: 'Sure, you're goth, but are you dejectedly riding the subway with your raven goth?'

Unusual pet: A photo of a goth woman traveling with a raven perched on her lap has gone viral

Going viral: Playwright Max Sparber couldn't resist sharing the photo on Twitter over the weekend, and it has been retweeted more than 113,000 times

Literary response: The image has prompted plenty of people to quote Edgar Allen Poe's poem, The Raven

Inspiration: Some people wished that had a raven of their own to travel with, while other said the girl was 'goth goals'

The unknown woman is pictured wearing a black top, black leather pants, and studded black leather boots to match her black hair and dark make-up.

While the large raven is sitting on her lap, she has a shopping bag resting in between her legs like any other subway commuter would.

Unsurprisingly, many people have dubbed her 'goth goals', while others were immediately reminded of the famous Edgar Allen Poe poem, The Raven.

'Awww a raven in its natural habitat with a pet goth,' PullUpHopOutAirOut commented on the image.

Poking fun: This person joked that the ravel was out with its 'pet goth'

'Doomed to ride the train they are': Some were so inspired by the image that they posted their own Poe-style poems in the comments section

'Nevermore': A man named Alan imagined an attendant telling her that she could never bring the bird on the subway again

'Wow I want a raven, a woman named Lizzie added, and Laura Matheny simply quoted Poe's poem when she wrote: 'Nevermore.'

Many others were so inspired by the image that they posted their own Poe-style poems in the comments section.

'Doomed to ride the train they are / To every station near and far / Never to step out the door / Until the train runs nevermore,' Trevor S. Valle wrote.

Eric Millikin added: 'Once upon a subway dreary, while I pondered with my Raven near me, Over many a quaint and curious bag of groceries from the store...'

In the same vein: Eric Millikin cleverly created a poem about the girl and her raven, inspired by Poe's poem The Raven

Location: Ronan Barnard said the unknown woman was riding the Moscow Metro in Russia

Filled with inspiration: This person created an entire poem based on the event, sharing each line in separate tweets

Meanwhile, someone named Alan imagined an attendant meeting her on the subway platform to tell her she couldn't bring the bird on again. After she says, 'Not Ever?' the attendant replies, 'Nevermore.'

Another person known as Threadmiser thought of a very specific reason why she had the bird, commenting: 'I want that to be her emotional support animal.

Sparber's original post has been retweeted more than 113,000 times since it was shared on Saturday, and it has earned over 264,000 likes in just a few days.

Emotional support? This person thought of a very specific reason why she might have had the bird on the subway with her

Clever: A Twitter user known as Sac Town Dan quoted the title of the Disney show 'That's So Raven'

Chance meeting? This person wishes the woman would meet the man who recently went viral for carrying a 30-gallon tub of Cinnabon frosting on a bus

Teaming up: Japanese-Canadian cartoonist Nina Matsumoto sketched an illustration of the goth traveler sitting next to 'fresh pizza girl'

Unsurprisingly, people are utterly fascinated by the picture, and while some questioned why she was traveling with a raven, others imagined her meeting other viral stars.

'I think the Cinnabon frosting guy and goth woman need to meet. Frosting and sharing makes all happy,' a person known as Trademark Litigator tweeted, referencing a man who also found viral fame this weekend after he was photographed hauling a 30-gallon tub of Cinnabon frosting on a bus.

And Japanese-Canadian cartoonist Nina Matsumoto sketched an illustration of the goth traveler sitting next to 'fresh pizza girl', a woman who shot to online stardom after she was photographed sleeping on the London tube while her tray of pizza slipped out of the box onto the floor.

'I wish Fresh Pizza met Raven Goth, she wrote of the creative drawing, which sees the goth woman and her unusual pet snacking on some pizza.
Tonight the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will host fashion insiders and celebrities alike for their annual charity gala.

The Met Gala, which started in in 1971, is held on the first Monday in May, and is the biggest fundraiser for museum's Costume Institute.

Andrew Bolton, the Head Curator of the Costume Institute, announced this year's exhibition theme is 'Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between'.

Here, get to know the designer behind the celeb favored designer/brand, and shop the line before tonight's festivities.

Tonight's honoree: Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, first started her label Comme des Garcons in Tokyo in 1973 (seen here with husband and president of the brand, Adrian Joffe)

Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, first started her label Comme des Garcons in Tokyo in 1973.

Rei is known for her avant-garde designs almost as much as she is for being secretive. The 74-year-old prefers to let her designs do the talking and rarely gives interviews or makes public appearances, including at her own runway shows.

Besides the main label, Rei is also the Creative Director behind the brands diffusion lines Comme des Garcons Play and Comme des Garcons Girl as well.

Avant garde: Lady Gaga is a fan of the brand's eccentric and fashion forward designs

The Tokyo-based designer is known to be a major source of inspiration for many other designers including Alexander McQueen, Viktor & Rolf and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Her eccentric designs have been seen on the likes of fashion forward stars Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani, while Diane Kruger and Stella Maxwell prefer the brand's more commercial pieces.

The brand itself has collaborated with many other fashion houses over the years including Fred Perry, Converse All Star, Chrome Hearts, Louis Vuitton, Supreme, Nike, Levi's, Vetements, Moncler and Lacoste, amoung many others.

Style stars: Gwen Stefani (left) and Diane Kruger (right) have both been spotted in tops by the brand

Head Curator Andrew Bolton, recently talked to vogue.com about the exhibit and Rei and had this to say: 'I think that I try to come up with an idea that might seem relevant for the time being. With Rei, I just felt it was time. I think what it is with Rei is that shes taught us that the body has no bounds and that fashion itself is boundless, limitless,'

'Shes not only the most influential and important, shes also the most inspiring designer for that reason. I find her brave, I find her vision unique, and shes always gone her own way,' he added

The exhibit opens to the public at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5th and you can shop the brand below now!

Off-duty style: Model Stella Maxwell (left) carried a Comme des Garcons clutch recently, while Kylie Jenner (right) was spotted in sneakers from the brand's collaboration with Converse

SHOP IT NOW

Not your average florals: Dress, $2,049, farfetch.com

Spring skirts: Left: polka dot skirt, $925, net-a-porter.com. Right: Skirt, $962, farfetch.com
Gymnast Gabby Douglas has become the latest inspiring lady to be honored with her very own Barbie doll.

Mattel originally created the lookalike doll for the 21-year-old Olympic hero last year ahead of the Rio Olympic Games, which was a one of a kind at the time.

Now, the doll is going to be available to the public for $24.99, complete with a Team USA leotard and a set of Nike sweats in pink and black.

Big news: A Barbie bearing the likeness of Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas is going on sale

Leaping in: The doll was originally made as a one-off last year for Gabby before the Rio Games

Spitting image: The doll comes with a leotard and Nike warm-ups

Wearing its hair in a ponytail, the doll looks just like the Olympian - and can bend like her too, with limbs that do the splits and arms that can move at natural angles.

The doll was created as a part of Mattel's You Can Be Anything Campaign, naming Gabby as a brand 'Shero'  that's female heroes, or she-heroes.

Ballerina Misty Copeland, director Ava DuVernay, actress Emmy Rossum, and Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth have also previously been honored with dolls.

Speaking to People, Gabby described the release of the doll as 'a huge honor.'

'I always dreamed of having my own doll, and I played with Barbie when I was little with my sisters,' she said.

Currently Gabby is taking a break from the sport after helping the Final Five grab the Team Gold at Rio last summer - her second Olympic Team title.

Back in 2012, Gabby became the first African American to win individual gold in the All-Around competition at the London Games.

During her time off she has been keeping herself busy with other projects, including releasing a line of lipsticks with cosmetics brand Beauty Bakerie in March.

Got the moves: The doll also bears Gabby's trademark stunning smile and ponytail

Getting busy: Gabby is currently taking a break from gymnastics and working on different projects

Two of a kind: Despite being on a break, Gabby hasn't ruled out returning for Tokyo 2020

She has also been dipping her toe into the acting world with a guest role on Nickelodeon show Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn.

As for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Gabby hasn't ruled out a return, telling People: 'Well see.'

'For me, since Ive been doing gymnastics since I was six years old, Im 21 now. Its just a huge decision. I dont want to make any rash decisions. For me, Im just taking it day-by-day, and Ill just take it from there.'
Last week it was Michelin star chef, Shaun Rankin's pronunciation of chorizo that sent MasterChef fans into a frenzy.

But in tonight's semi-final, it was judge John Torode's turn to cause a stir on the hit cookery show with his unusual slurping sound effects.

The Australian chef got a bit over-enthusiastic while sampling contestant Lorna's dessert of honey-roasted rhubarb with ginger crumble, rhubarb jelly, rhubarb crisps, rhubarb and ginger puree with a rhubarb and custard shard.

'As a rhubarb lover, I want more rhubarb, I want more juice,' Torode told the 22-year-old copywriter.

As he continued to describe how she could improve the dish, words appeared to fail him, so he resorted to loud slurping noises instead.



John Torode mid-slurp. The Australian celebrity chef, who is a self-confessed rhubarb fanatic, got a bit over-enthusiastic while sampling contestant Lorna's rhubarb-inspired dessert

The strange noise took viewers by surprise, with some taking to Twitter to comment on his sound effects.

One user said it was likely to give Lorna nightmares while another said it made her shudder.

Another joked that the subtitle writer would have a hard time summing up Torode's sound effects, which sounded something like Hannibal Lecter slurping soup.

Tonight's semi-final saw the nine remaining wannabe chefs facing just one test to keep themselves in the competition.

Each contestant had 90 minutes to cook dishes with their favourite ingredients. Besides the rhubarb, choices included lamb, cauliflower, ginger, beetroot, pork and seaweed.

In the end, Lyndsay, a 36-year-old drummer and DJ, was sent packing, after her seaweed-inspired dish failed to wow Torode and fellow judge Gregg Wallace.

Stand-out dishes included Faye's pork cooked in four different ways and Giovanna's unusual fennel-flavoured panna cotta.

Brodie also impressed with his ginger sponge and butterscotch creme anglaise and Saliha surprised judges with her tasty cauliflower creations.

Lorna's dessert of honey-roasted rhubarb with ginger crumble, rhubarb jelly, rhubarb crisps, rhubarb and ginger puree with a rhubarb and custard shard

Last week, viewers were left outraged when judges used the word 'brambles' in place of blackberries on MasterChef.

A few days later, it was a plate of iberico pork with grilled calamari and chorizo jam that sparked debate.

Viewers took to Twitter to debate whether the whether it is pronounced sho-reez-oh or cho-reeth-oh.

The British Michelin starred chef Shaun Rankin used the former on the show, the narrator chose the latter, prompting one view to tweet: 'Can someone decide, once and for all, how to properly say "chorizo"?'

The next episode will see the eight remaining candidates will cook for the cast and crew of Holby City.

MasterChef continues on Wednesday at 8pm on BBC1
People in love are known to do bizarre things every now and then. For one couple, tying the strings of their hoodies together equals quality bonding time.

Perhaps even stranger than this one couple's weird stunt is the fact that they're evidently not the only people who have done this. In fact, a Twitter thread reveals numerous other individuals who confess to playing this game with their friends.

It all started with the Lovells - Josh and Madison - who live in Chicago, Illinois. When Josh was getting ready to leave for an eight-month Navy deployment, Madison's sister Allu caught them in the act of tying their hoodie strings together.

Bound together: This married couple from Chicago, Illinois, became a viral sensation after the woman's sister posted this picture of them to Twitter

Unmasked! Josh and Madison (left) were photographed in a 'bonding' moment by Madison's sister, Allu (right)

Who knew? Allu's tweet showcasing her sister and brother-in-law's weird ways immediately inspired others to share pictures of themselves doing the same

Allu posted the picture of her sister and brother-in-law to Twitter with the caption, 'What is wrong with my sister and her husband.'

Though seemingly random, Allu's tweet quickly caught on. The responses were a passionate mixture of the confused and the praise-filled.

On the one hand, many questioned exactly what the couple was doing, where they got the idea, and why anyone would think to rope themselves to another human via their hoodie - even if that human was their life partner.

Even more strange, however, was the opposite camp who immediately identified with Josh and Madison.

Stringing you along: Though this weird trick has no name, it seemed to be surprisingly common among those who responded to the tweet

Just one of those moments: When asked for an explanation, one Twitter user who said she had also done this with a friend said it was just a 'genius idea' she had one day

Stretched out: This pair seems perfectly casual despite their predicament, with both of them using their phones as though nothing was amiss (or tied to their head)

Many even shared images of themselves or their friends participating in this strange hoodie-entangling trick.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason behind this game. In the responses to the original tweet, one girl who said she had tied her hoodie to someone else's in the past was asked, 'Can you explain why? Or was it just one of those moments?'

Her reply seemed to be about the only justifiable explanation for this scenario: 'Well you know how like you're just chillin with friends and like you get genius ideas? That's what happened.'

Of course, whether or not one is interested in potentially strangling themselves with a stunt like this, no one who replied to the tweet could deny Josh and Madison's love for each other.

Pure love! This Twitter user clearly felt passionately about Josh and Madison's special hoodie-based connection

In good times and in bad: Twitter acknowledged that couples who allow themselves to be this silly and ridiculous around each other must be happy

Goals? While it's unlikely that Twitter users desire to be tied to someone else via hoodie, many did express a wish for a love that would allow them to get to a place where they'd consider it

'They're communicating on a very high level,' said one tweet. 'Candid pic of our wedding ceremony. There will be no vows. Only this,' said another.

Though tying your hoodie to someone else's is a bit weird and likely uncomfortable, it seems that people were more inspired by this couple's ability to keep things light and have fun with each other as though they were kids.

The phenomenon of tying hoodies together doesn't seem to have a particular name - and yet people certainly know what 'it' is. Hopefully, for the sake of everyone involved, hoodies don't go out of style any time soon.
It has only been a little over a month since Bee Shaffer, the daughter of Anna Wintour, was revealed to be engaged to the son of late Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani.

Now, she and 34-year-old Francesco Carrozzini have made their red carpet debut together, alongside her Vogue Editor-in-Chief mother Anna Wintour at this year's glitzy Met Gala.

Bee, 29, looked stunning in her figure-flattering patterned gown, which included panels of different floral prints, and served as the perfect backdrop for her sparkling engagement ring, which also made its red carpet debut.

Beautiful: Bee Shaffer arrived on the Met Gala red carpet with her fiance Francesco Carrozzini

Striking: The 29-year-old looked stunning in an embroidered silk gown

Iconic: Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, meanwhile, opted for a multi-textured dress that featured sequins, fur and embroidery

Meanwhile her fiance looked dapper as can be in a bright blue tuxedo and a classic black bow tie.

The doting husband-to-be kept his arm firmly around his future wife's waist as they made their way along the infamously-lengthy Met Gala carpet and into the Anna Wintour Costume Center, which was re-named after the Vogue editrix in 2014.

In keeping with the theme - Rei Kawakubo/Commes Des Garcons: Art of the In-Between - Anna's dress couldn't quite make up its mind about which texture it wanted to embrace, with the fashion editor opting for a gold gown featuring sequins, fur and embroidery.

Anna finished off her look with a chunky necklace, a pretty pink lip, and her trademark sleek bob - choosing, wisely, to leave her infamous dark glasses at home for the ritzy occasion.

Bee and the filmmaker were first linked just last year, soon before his mother, Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani, passed away in December following a year-long illness.

Stunning: Bee made quite the impression as she showed off the long train of her dress on the stairs leading up to the gala event

Lucky in love: The pair - who are both the children of Vogue Editors - got engaged earlier this year, having kept their relationship out of the spotlight for months

All hail: Met Gala chair Anna looked dazzling in her gold gown

The news of their engagement came to light in March after Bee was spotted wearing an engagement ring in an Instagram Story image shared by a friend and Vogue editor, which even mentioned her husband-to-be in the caption.

Their happy news was then confirmed by a Vogue spokesperson.

Franca, who died before Christmas at the age of 66, had edited Italian Vogue since 1988, taking up the position in the same month that Anna took over Vogue in the US.

Anna wrote a heartfelt letter of remembrance after Franca's passing, saying of her friend: 'Franca was warm, clever, funny, and someone who could give the Sphinx a run for its money when it comes to keeping a confidence.

'She was also the hardest-working person I have known, and with an envy-inducing ease with multitasking.'
Common antibiotics could trigger miscarriages if taken early in pregnancy, research suggests.

While many types of antibiotics were found to be safe, certain forms were linked with a significantly increased risk, scientists discovered.

Experts said the link was particularly worrying because infections are common during pregnancy, so women are more likely to need the drugs. The Canadian team, which tracked more than 90,000 pregnancies, found some antibiotics more than doubled the risk of miscarriage.

Risk: Common antibiotics could trigger miscarriages if taken early in pregnancy, research suggests

Doctors had warned that antibiotics could increase the risk of premature birth or low birth weight, but this is the first major study to establish a link to miscarriage.

Experts last night stressed that many antibiotics are safe to take during pregnancy, and that it is dangerous to leave infections untreated.

But the research, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, suggests care is needed over what types of antibiotics are selected to treat such infections.

The Montreal University team found increased risk for the macrolides, quinolones, tetracyclines, sulfonamides and metronidazole groups of antibiotics.

Erythromycin had no increased risk, nor did nitrofurantoin, which is often used to treat urinary tract infections in pregnant women.

Researcher Dr Anick Berard and her team looked at data from 1998 to 2009, comparing 8,702 miscarriages with 87,000 healthy pregnancies.

Experts last night stressed that many antibiotics are safe to take during pregnancy, and that it is dangerous to leave infections untreated

Some 16.4 per cent of the women who miscarried had taken antibiotics, compared with 12.4 per cent of those with no problems.

When they broke down the findings, the scientists found women who took azithromycin were 65 per cent more likely to suffer a miscarriage than those who did not, those who took clarithromycin had a 135 per cent increased risk, metronidazole was linked to a 70 per cent increase, sulphonamides showed a 101 per cent increase, tetracyclines 159 per cent and quinolones 172 per cent.

Dr Berard said: Given that the baseline risk of spontaneous abortion can go as high as 30 per cent, this is significant.

In Britain, some of the drugs such as tetracyclines and quinolones come with warnings they should not be taken during pregnancy. But some carry no such warning, or warn only that they should be not taken at high doses.

Dr Andrew Thomson, of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said further studies were needed to work out whether pregnancy loss is caused by the antibiotics or by the infection.
A Pakistani family is hoping for a miracle to save their conjoined twin daughters who are fused at the head.

Zainab Bibi, 35, gave birth to Safa and Marva at a hospital in Peshawar in January this year.

Despite being joint together by the tip of their skulls, a range of scans have since shown that they have separate brains.

Doctors at the Government-run facility are hopeful that a complex surgery to detach the pair could be successful.

Safa and Marva were born at a Government-run hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, in January

But Dr Shahzad Akbar, medical director of the hospital, said that because of the scenario, it will be 'very complicated'.

The team of medics are now seeking international experts in the field of conjoined twins to help chalk a plan together for an operation.

However, the uncertainty over the surgery has plundered the poverty-stricken family into chaos.

Muhammad Sadaqat, the twins' uncle, revealed that Zainab lost her husband just 10 days before the girls were born.

Despite being joint together at the skull, scans have since shown that they have separate brains (pictured with their mother, Zainab Bibi, 35, and their uncle Muhammad Sadaqat)

Doctors at the Government-run facility are hopeful that a complex surgery to detach the pair could be successful

Safa and Marva are known as 'craniopagus twins' - a phenomenon that occurs just once in every 2.5 million births

CRANIOPAGUS TWINS: THE FACTS Safa and Marva are known as 'craniopagus twins' - a phenomenon that occurs just once in every 2.5 million births. Around 40 per cent of these kind of twins are stillborn. Of those that survive, a third die within 24 hours of birth. If craniopagus twins survive to that point, there is still an 80 per cent risk they would die before the age of two if they are not separated. Separation means one or both of the twins may suffer developmental complications. Usually the twins would share brains and have completely separate organs, but in this instance, the pair each have their own brain. Advertisement

He said: 'We are worried for the future of the family now. We are praying for God to show mercy and make a miracle happen.

'We don't know what to do. The doctors first said they will go for the surgery but now they are telling us this is going to be difficult.

'We dearly love the twin girls and we want them to be a hope for their mother.'

Meanwhile, Zainab - who is a housewife - is struggling to feed her other five children after her husband's death.

Her father said: 'Her husband was only the bread winner in the family. We are not only dealing with that death, but we also have to take care of these twin girls.

'We are hopeful that doctors will soon give us the good news on the surgery. We can handle other life problems later.'

The twins are known as 'craniopagus twins' - a phenomenon that occurs just once in every 2.5 million births.

Around 40 per cent of these kind of twins are stillborn. Of those that survive, a third die within 24 hours of birth.

If craniopagus twins survive that point, there is still an 80 per cent risk they would die before the age of two if they are not separated.

Separation means one or both of the twins may suffer developmental complications.
A war veteran who was the UK's longest serving patient has died after spending 56 years in NHS care.

James Morris was admitted into hospital with a broken leg in 1962, aged 21, after breaking his thigh bone - but he never went home.

He suffered a cardiac arrest on the operating table to repair the damage and was left in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.

Doctors moved him to Wester Moffat Hospital, near Glasgow, where he spent the next 54 years - with two years spent at other hospitals.

Left fully disabled and only able to utter his three favourite words, he died last month aged 75, having spent more than five decades in care.

Left fully disabled and only able to utter his three favourite words following an operation that went wrong, James Morris died last month aged 75, having spent 56 years in NHS care

His brother Karl, 62, from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, was astounded when a doctor suggested he had spent the longest time in a single hospital across the entire NHS.

He said: 'Over the years we found a way to communicate with him. He was all there mentally but couldn't communicate with us at all.

'He only ever learned how to say three words again - his three loves - "home", "pub" and "horses".

'We often took him on holidays in Britain and the hospital knew how much he loved the pub so they would even take him there now and again.'

James joined the army in 1959 and served in Germany as part of the Scottish Rifle regiment, the Cameronians.

Three years later, he was injured in a car crash after the Jeep he was driving flipped on its side after hitting a tree.

James Morris was admitted into hospital with a broken leg in 1962, aged 21, after breaking his thigh bone - but he never went home (pictured before the operation at hospital in 1962)

Despite only breaking his nose and a thigh bone in the initial crash, he had suffered irreparable damage by the time he had been sent back to Scotland.

An operation to repair the latter went horribly wrong, causing part of his brain to shut down.

He only ever learned how to say three words again - his three loves - 'home', 'pub' and 'horses' Karl Morris, 62

He was moved to Wester Moffat Hospital, run by NHS Lanarkshire, where he remained for a potentially record-breaking 54 years.

Helen Ryan, senior charge nurse at the hospital, said: 'Our condolences are with Jimmy's family at this time.

'Having spent such an extraordinary long time at the hospital, Jimmy touched the lives of many; he was a good confidant and a great character and he will be sorely missed by everyone at the Heather Ward.'

Karl has heaped praise on staff at West Moffat Hospital where his brother was taken care of for more than five decades.

His brother Karl (pictured), 62, from Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, was astounded when a doctor suggested he had spent the longest time in a single hospital across the entire NHS

Despite only breaking his nose and a thigh bone in the initial crash, he had suffered irreparable damage by the time he had been sent back to Scotland (pictured in hospital when he first returned home in 1962)

He said: 'Everyone at the hospital was outstanding, to care for a man throughout his entire life is quite something and we couldn't be more grateful to the NHS.

OUTSIDE, HOW LIFE WENT ON James Morriss hospital stay began as John Kennedys assassination in 1963 stunned the world. In Britain that year 2.6million was stolen in the Great Train Robbery. Secretary of State for War John Profumo quit over an affair with Christine Keeler. Sean Connery starred as James Bond in From Russia With Love. Henry Cooper sensationally knocked down Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, at Wembley before losing. The worlds first liver transplant was carried out in Denver, Colorado. Advertisement

'It was a place for young disabled people and over the years I've seen countless patients and staff come and go.

'We made sure he got out over the years to live as fulfilling a life as possible and even right up to the week before he died we brought him home to visit.

'When my mum died we carried on doing what she did and visited him at the hospital regularly.

'He was mentally all there but just didn't have any control over his body so we took him on holidays and the hospital knew how much he loved the pub so they'd often take him.

'The staff were unbelievable and because James was a mad lover of Elvis they even organised special nights which he enjoyed.'

With his parents Charles and Mary both passing at early ages and his sisters Bridie and Rose now gone, Karl has praised Rose's daughter for visiting James as often as she did.

Karl is now determined to find out the truth about his late brother's accident in Germany by digging into Cameronian archived material.

Karl has heaped praise on staff at West Moffat Hospital where his brother was taken care of for more than five decades (pictured, a drawing of James and Karl from before the accident)

A nurse at the hospital said that Jimmy was a 'great character' who 'touched the lives of many' and will be 'sorely missed' (pictured - James Morris' driving licence from 1960)

Karl is now determined to find out the truth about his late brother's accident in Germany by digging into Cameronian archived material (pictured - James Morris' army ID from 1959)

He said: 'My dad died at 41 so my mum raised us on her own and would always visit James and when she died my sisters and I took over.

'I'm in the process of finding out the true story, what we do know is that he had no sleep for 24 hours.

'James was driving and we don't know if he fell asleep or not but his jeep was up against a tree on its side and he had was found with a broken nose and femur.

'I don't know how or why but when he went to have his femur operated on, he had a cardiac arrest and lived the rest of his life in hospital.

'Due largely to his age he recently developed problems with his throat which meant he couldn't eat or drink and over the last ten months he deteriorated.

'I can't imagine anyone has ever lived so long in an NHS hospital which I think is a remarkable reflection on Wester Moffat and NHS Lanarkshire.'

An NHS spokesperson said they were not aware of anyone having spent longer than 54 years in an NHS hospital.
A set of triplets have undergone a first-ever operation to cure all three of them of a rare skull deformity.

Jackson, Hunter and Kaden Howard were born in October 2016 with craniosynostosis, a condition that means parts of their skulls fused in the womb, and they were all born with misshapen heads.

Ultimately, this condition can lead to vision loss and limited brain growth. Treatment can be risky unless it's caught early.

And so, just nine weeks after their birth, the boys underwent simultaneous skull surgery at Stony Brook Children's Hospital in New York.

Five months later, they are hitting key milestones, and they're just as lively and energetic as any six-month-olds - a handful but a relief for first-time parents Amy and Michael Howard.

'I was nervous before the surgery for sure,' Amy, 38, from Center Moriches on Long Island, told Daily Mail Online on Monday. 'But now they're doing great. It's amazing.'

Michael, 41, added: 'They are certainly a handful! But we wouldn't change it for the world.'

Jackson, Hunter and Kaden Howard, of New York, were born in October with craniosynostosis, meaning parts of their skulls fused, and they were all born with misshapen heads. Pictured: all three boys happy and healthy in April, four months after surgery, in corrective helmets that they will wear every day for six months

Five months later, they are hitting key milestones, and they're just as lively and energetic as any six-month-olds - a handful but a relief for first-time parents Amy and Michael Howard

WHAT IS CRANIOSYNOSTOSIS? Craniosynostosis is a rare problem with the skull that causes a baby to be born with, or to develop, an abnormally shaped head. This can cause headaches, learning difficulties and eye problems. These symptoms usually result from increased pressure within the skull. The problem occurs as a result of the premature fusion of the different sections of the skull. This means the skull is unable to grow in certain areas and when one area is prevented from growing, other areas may 'overgrow' to compensate. Craniosynostosis affects about one in every 1,800 to 3,000 children. Three quarters of cases involve boys. The main treatment for the condition is surgery - most children recover well after the surgery and have no further problems but some develop other problems with their skull's development as they get older. This can require further surgery to correct. Advertisement

The boys were diagnosed at one week old, after close monitoring in the NICU.

Jackson and Hunter, who are identical, had sagittal synostosis. Kaden, who is fraternal, had metopic synostosis. Though the conditions are the same in effect and require the same surgery, they involve different bones in the skull.

The chance of having triplets is one in 1,000.

The chance of sagittal synostosis is one in 4,000.

The chance of metopic synostosis is 1 in 10,000.

'If you crunch all the numbers, the chance of having triplets with these conditions is one in 500 trillion,' the boys' surgeon Dr David Chesler told Daily Mail Online.

Amy admits she had no idea the boys had a head deformity at first.

It was their first pregnancy, and a completely spontaneous natural one at that. They didn't find out they were expecting three until their second obstetrician visit.

So when she finally got to hold the boys at 9.37am on October 22 last year, she wasn't sure if their elongated heads and protruding foreheads was anything to worry about.

'There's not much room in there, is there? I wasn't sure if, it being three of them, they were just squashed or something.'

Michael agreed: 'I wasn't sure; I could kind of tell there was something up with Jackson and Kaden. Hunter I couldn't really tell. But we both just thought it was a normal kind of thing.'

Dr Chesler said he could see what it was immediately - but was staggered.

'The chances of this happening are so rare. It has never been documented in medical literature, and nobody I've spoken to has ever seen this before.'

Since each boy had such significant deformities, Dr Chesler decided to do one CT scan on each to help understand their needs ahead of surgery.

'Very often I wouldn't do a CT scan because based on the shape of the head I can make a diagnosis. But in this case we decided it was best. One CT scan is not damaging for a baby; I wouldn't do more than that.'

JACKSON BEFORE: Jackson, one of the identical triplets, pictured before

JACKSON AFTER: Jackson, one of the identical triplets, pictured four months after surgery

HUNTER BEFORE: Hunter, one of the identical triplets, before surgery in November

HUNTER AFTER: These images show Hunter's skull in April, four months after surgery

KADEN BEFORE: Kaden, the fraternal triplet, pictured before surgery

KADEN AFTER: Kaden, the fraternal triplet, pictured four months after surgery

Finally, they were booked in for surgery in the first week of January, operating on each boy individually over the course of two days.

The surgery involved removing a bone from the skull. It releases the prematurely closed suture via two small incisions.

The operation typically takes between 90 and 180 minutes and has an average hospital stay of one night.

There is rarely a need for blood transfusions with endoscopic surgery, unlike open-skull, so the risk of blood loss and complications are dramatically lowered

'I don't think it hit me until a few weeks after we found out they needed surgery,' Amy told Daily Mail Online.

'If you crunch all the numbers, the chance of having triplets with these conditions is one in 500 trillion,' the boys' surgeon Dr David Chesler told Daily Mail Online

'I started to worry about brain damage - if their brains couldn't grow, what does that mean exactly? There isn't clear data on links between craniosynostosis and brain development.

'But Dr Chesler told me it would be fine.'

Now as part of the postoperative care, the three boys wear custom-fit helmets, 23 hours a day, seven days a week, to help guide and mold the shape of their skulls as they grow.

They will wear these helmets for six months, then have check-ups twice a year until they are about six years old.

Ninety-five percent of cases see completely normal head development after the surgery and recovery.
Within days of an operation to insert a mesh support to improve her bladder function after childbirth, Kimberley Vallis, knew something was very wrong.

She couldnt move her left leg properly  I had to use my hand to move it, recalls the 31-year-old special needs teaching assistant from Yate, near Bristol.

It was the start of two years of agony and urinary tract infections that culminated, she says, in her next pregnancy ending in a miscarriage. Kimberley had had a foreign body response to the plastic mesh.

Ordeal: Kim Vallis photographed with her partner Tony and children Hayden (seven) and 11-week-old Adam

I kept asking them to take the mesh out, but they wouldnt, she says.

Eventually I had a miscarriage. The baby died at six weeks, though I didnt actually miscarry until 12 weeks. Ive no doubt this was because of the infection set up by the mesh implant.

Her nightmare only ended when she spent 4,500 on private surgery to remove the surgical mesh ribbon.

I just couldnt bear the pain and constant infections, says Kimberley who gave birth to her second son, Adam, 11 weeks ago.

She believes she was a victim of a procedure to tackle a taboo problem: the fact that many women never regain full bladder control after childbirth.

The stigma around incontinence has meant vast numbers of women suffer in embarrassed agony because of the disintegration of the polypropylene material used to support the bladder or womb after childbirth.

Fragments of the mesh, which is inserted like a hammock to support the bladder, can burrow deep into tissue like tiny shards of glass, causing excruciating pain and infection that has left some women unable to walk or even facing kidney removal. Others report pain during sex.

Studies have shown that the longer the mesh is left in, the more likely it is to erode, embedding itself into tissue in a way that it cannot be removed.

Kim spent 4,500 on private surgery to remove her surgical mesh ribbon

A study published in The Lancet last December showed women given mesh implants were roughly three times more likely to suffer complications and twice as likely to need follow-up surgery compared with the traditional version of the surgery, where stitches are used to provide support.

Last week Johnson & Johnson which produces Ethicon, one of the best-selling meshes, was ordered to pay more than 16 million in damages to a woman injured by the mesh.

It has also been ordered to pay 10 million in two other cases, and is facing a further 35,000 lawsuits in the U.S., with claims from at least nine other countries including class actions from Australia and New Zealand.

At least 800 women in England are taking legal action, it was reported by the BBC last week. But despite cases first coming forward back in 2011, authorities in the UK have so far insisted there is no problem.

Our reports in September 2012, left, and in July 2013, right

In fact there are concerns about the current, official investigations. Last month an inquiry in Scotland published its report on over 1,500 women who have been affected, concluding that despite the problems, the mesh should still be available.

However before the reports publication, four of the 20-strong inquiry team resigned, including chairman and leading public health specialist Lesley Wilkie, Wael Agur another top clinical lecturer from Glasgow University, and patient representatives, Elaine Holmes and Olive McIlroy.

Meanwhile, an NHS England investigation has dispensed with input from five other patients and reformulated itself as a mesh oversight group dominated by officials.

In the meantime, countless women in the UK have been left with dreadful side-effects.

An estimated 92,000 women in England alone have received a mesh implant in the last 10 years, and two million worldwide.

It was first introduced in the mid-Nineties as a cheaper, quicker way for less experienced doctors to do pelvic repairs which previously involved highly skilled stitching.

As the Mail first highlighted five years ago, problems with nerve damage, pain, infection and sexual difficulties were initially reported to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2011.

NHS England set up an investigation in 2014, but it has yet to produce a final report and none of the five patient representatives originally invited to participate has been invited to recent meetings Good Health has discovered.

An NHS England spokesman said many women had been treated successfully using transvaginal mesh implants

Leaked minutes from its meeting last October discussed the need to avoid media attention on mesh. An MHRA spokesman told Good Health this referred to a need to ensure balanced reporting. He insisted that the mesh is safe but refused to comment further, bizarrely citing pre- election purdah.

Olive McIlroy, 60, and Elaine Holmes, 52, the two patient representatives who resigned from the Scottish investigation, have expressed fury about the report. Elaine had the mesh inserted in 2011, waking after surgery in excruciating pain as the mesh had sliced through her urethra. She can no longer walk or drive.

Olive had the operation in 2008 and two years later woke up unable to move because of apparent nerve damage. Neither was well enough to talk to Good Health, but in a joint statement said vital evidence and safety warnings had been ignored, and they were dismayed and disgusted the Scottish government has seen fit to publish this tainted report.

Journalist Kath Sansom has set up a campaigning group for victims called Sling the Mesh

Kath Sansom, 49, a journalist in Cambridgeshire, set up Sling the Mesh, a campaigning group for victims, two years ago after she, too, was left with nerve damage by the procedure in 2015. She now has 1,600 members demanding the mesh is banned.

The Government just isnt listening to patients. The Scottish report is clearly a whitewash and we fear the NHS England one will be similar, she told Good Health. An NHS England spokesman said: Many women have been treated successfully using transvaginal mesh implants, however, we do recognise that a number of women have suffered complications or poor outcomes.

We have listened carefully to their concerns . . . and made a number of recommendations in December 2015 to improve the quality of care and information available. Strong progress has been made in completing these recommendations, and a final report setting out the action taken will be published later this year.

The women who have been affected fear many others will suffer before the medical establishment recognises the level of damage caused.

Sallie Booth, of solicitors Irwin Mitchell, represents nine women who have claims against Johnson & Johnson. Its an embarrassing, awful condition, she says. Its difficult to gauge how many there are because for a long time people havent realised that the awful effects are shared by others.

Part of the problem is that many women are still being told by doctors their problems are unique. Teresa Hughes, 65, from St Helens, Lancashire, whose case was among the first to be highlighted by Good Health, was told the pains in her legs and lower body were nothing to do with the mesh she had implanted in 2006.

Then I was told I was among a handful of unlucky people the product didnt suit, she says. I had no idea there were thousands of women with the same problem.

Sohier Elneil, a gynaecologist at University College Hospital in London, who has developed an expertise in removing fragments of mesh, says the material was given a licence on the basis its similar to hernia mesh.

Over a period of seven years, this mesh fragment removal work has gone from 10 per cent to 60 per cent of my practice, she says.

Another gynaecologist, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the mesh was being promoted to save money. It costs about 1,000 to do a surgical repair but a mesh procedure is 268 cheaper, he said.

That may not sound much, but if youre doing thousands of operations a year, it adds up. Theyre trying to keep the lid on it because of the possibility of the terrifying cost of litigation: claims could run into many millions.

A spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson said: Ethicon is vigorously defending litigation concerning the use of our pelvic mesh products. We believe the evidence shows the devices are safe.

Kimberley says one thing is clear: Weve got to get the message out that incontinence is pretty normal and there are other less risky ways of dealing with it.
A million Britons suffer from uncontrollable shaking. Selwyn Lucas, 53, a painter and decorator from St Austell, Cornwall, talks to Sophie Goodchild about undergoing a pioneering treatment.

THE PATIENT

The tremor in my right hand started about 20 years ago  it was steady when I wasnt using it, but sometimes would shake when I picked something up.

This happened just occasionally until ten years ago. Then, every time I went to pick up a paintbrush, my hand would shake uncontrollably.

A million Britons currently suffer from uncontrollable shaking that can seriously impact their daily lives

It was so bad Id have to stop painting until it stopped, usually after a few minutes. Id also spill drinks because my hand made the glass shake so much.

My wife Marianna urged me to see the GP, but I just switched to using my left hand instead of my right one for painting. Washing and putting my clothes on were still OK so I tried to ignore the problem. It was embarrassing, though, if we went out socially.

In 2012, Marianna booked a doctors appointment for me because she knew I never would.

The GP said it could be linked to a car crash at the age of 18 when I shattered the top of my neck, but he wasnt sure, so he referred me to The Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro for a brain scan.

Nothing showed up and they ruled out the accident as the cause. Instead, they prescribed me tablets. For the next two years the tremors didnt get any worse, but they certainly didnt get any better.

In 2014 I went to see tremor expert Dr Peter Bain, a consultant neurologist at Imperial College London. He explained I had a type of tremor caused by faulty circuits in the area of my brain controlling movement.

Given that the drugs hadnt made much difference, another option was deep brain stimulation, where they drill through your skull and implant an electrode. But theres a risk of stroke and having a hole in my skull sounded drastic. I wasnt keen.

In 2016, Dr Bain contacted me about another treatment he was trialling, using ultrasound to destroy the faulty tissue thats causing the problem. Its called MRI-guided focused ultrasound: they put you in a scanning machine with a helmet on your head that sends the soundwaves into your brain.

You only need a local anaesthetic and there are no incisions.

I was a bit sceptical about all this, as it was new and I would be one of the first people in this country to have it. But I didnt want brain surgery and decided to give it a go.

The treatment works immediately and the results are expected to be long-lasting

For the procedure last November, they shaved my head to stop the heat generated by the machine burning my scalp  apparently your hair traps heat.

Alocal anaesthetic was injected into my scalp and, using four tiny bolts, a metal frame was attached to my head to keep it totally still.

Before putting me into the MRI scanner, they placed a plastic helmet filled with ice-cold water on my head  as well as stopping the ultrasound burning my scalp, it would help the waves pass through my skull more effectively.

My head was in the MRI scanner for four-and-a-half hours. All that time they were zapping my brain.

It was making this bang, bang, bang sound like a drill and the noise gave me a bit of headache, but it didnt make me anxious.

Every hour they asked me to raise my right hand to check if it was still trembling, and also took me out of the scanner to check my speech wasnt slurred, a warning sign that the right area wasnt being targeted. They also asked me to mimic holding a glass of water and draw a spiral shape on paper.

Afterwards, they removed the helmet and metal frame and put plasters over the 4mm holes in my head left by the bolts. Then they checked my tremor by asking me to raise my hand. It was completely still, which was incredible.

I went home the next morning and, apart from a headache, I felt fine. The tremor is 90 per cent better. I get the occasional shake but I can write my name for the first time in years, and pick things up. Im glad I had the treatment.

THE SPECIALIST

Peter Bain is a consultant neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London.

Tremors are involuntary and uncontrollable shaking of the body such as in the hands, head or legs  they can even affect the voice box, causing a shaky voice.

They occur when muscles repeatedly contract and relax. Its thought they are caused by abnormal electrical circuits deep inside the brain in an area called the thalamus, affecting messages sent via nerves to the muscles.

There are many types of tremor. The most common is essential tremor (ET), affecting a million people in the UK  the tremor is the only symptom.

ET often runs in families and commonly occurs after the age of 40. Around 100,000 people have other tremors caused by movement disorders such as Parkinsons disease  sometimes ET is misdiagnosed as Parkinsons.

Mild ET is a nuisance. But for 250,000 people it causes severe disability and they cant perform daily tasks.

It can be socially isolating and many people are reluctant to go out because others assume they are drunk.

Treatments include medication such as beta-blockers (its not clear why these can help) and epilepsy drugs (which reduce nerve impulses). But these arent always effective and can cause drowsiness and nausea.

Some patients are offered deep brain stimulation, where an electrode is implanted into the thalamus to send continuous electrical pulses that block the abnormal signals. This involves drilling through the skull and the procedure carries a risk of brain haemorrhage of up to 3 per cent and a one in 10,000 chance of death from stroke.

To test if the tremor has improved, patients are asked to mimic drinking from a glass

The recovery time can be several months. At Imperial, weve been trialling a non-invasive approach  magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS)  for six months, though we have been using this technology for 16 years for other conditions.

The treatment uses MRI imaging to guide more than 1,000 high-powered, focused ultrasound beams to a very small point, in the same way that a magnifying glass can be used to focus the suns rays on a single point and burn a hole.

Once these beams hit the correct part of the brain, intense heat is created by the rapid vibration of molecules within the brain tissue. This heat cooks to nearly 60c and destroys the abnormal tissue cells.

The scanner sends real-time images of the brain to a computer screen.

You can work out the right area to treat within a few millimetres, but its not exact, so we begin the treatment using test pulses that dont cause a permanent alteration.

We then ask the patient to mimic drinking from a glass  if the tremor has improved, we know were at the right spot. If not, we reposition the pulses until we are.

We then switch the machine to deliver high-powered pulses.

The treatment works immediately and the results are expected to be long-lasting. Because it does not involve surgery, this approach is less risky than deep brain stimulation.

Patients can return home the same or the next day. Its also cheaper  12,000 to 20,000, compared with 35,000.

The machine is at St Marys Hospital (part of Imperial) and we are the first UK site to take part in an international safety and efficacy trial into MRgFUS to treat ET.

Trials in the U.S. and Japan have shown it reduces the severity of tremor by at least 80 per cent. The hope is it could be used to treat tremors caused by multiple sclerosis.

Other countries have used MRgFUS in Parkinsons tremor.

We hope to publish our trial results next year and then it could be offered more widely.

WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

Burns on the scalp.

Headaches, temporary tingling in the fingers or unsteadiness when moving after the procedure.

There is an urgent need to improve the range of therapeutic options available to help people manage this debilitating symptom, says Professor Ray Chaudhuri, a consultant neurologist at Kings College Hospital and Kings College London, and an adviser to Parkinsons UK.

This new technique offers a new and promising tool for treating tremor.

It is particularly attractive because it could provide similar benefits to deep brain stimulation, but without the need for invasive surgery.
Marijuana is a substance all too readily associated with university students. But now its been announced that Oxford University, no less, is planning to develop cannabis-based products.

This is not, however, a sign that the academics have been binge-watching U.S. crime drama Breaking Bad. The university has thrown its name and backing behind a new company developing cannabis-based products for medical treatments.

Its all above board and legal and the company, Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies (OCT), which has been funded to the tune of 10 million by a UK venture capital firm, will investigate the role in biology and medicine of cannabinoids  the chemicals in cannabis that affect the human brain and body.

Most patients in the UK using cannabis obtain it illegally

The plan is then to develop new therapies for acute and chronic conditions including pain, cancer and inflammatory disease.

The companys website is already inviting people to sign up as volunteers for clinical trials, offering the chance to access treatments before they are widely available.

Last week, the Daily Mail reported that an 11-year-old boy had become the first patient to receive medicinal cannabis on the NHS.

Without the treatment, Billy Caldwell, from Castlederg, Northern Ireland, was suffering up to 100 epileptic fits a day. His condition is now under control and he has not had a fit in three months, says his mother Charlotte.

She had been taking him regularly to the U.S. to obtain prescriptions for cannabis oil  which contains cannabidiol (CBD). Its not known how it works, but its thought to block or mimic the chemical messages that pass between the brain and the body.

CBD is not psychoactive  unlike one of the main extracts of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol, which causes users to get high.

Charlotte became desperate when her son was running out and she was unable to make the journey to Los Angeles. Her GP, Brendan OHare, wrote a prescription for the drug because, he said, it was a crisis situation.

He told the Mail: Whatever the rights and wrongs, we had a child who had benefited and the childs welfare was paramount.

It would not, he said, open the floodgates for others. It is a one-off.

It is clear, however, that countless thousands of other people are self-medicating with cannabis, either by smoking weed obtained illegally from acquaintances or dealers, or by obtaining supplies of the extract CBD via the internet.

Last year, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform (APPG) estimated as many as 30,000 people in the UK use cannabis for medicinal reasons every day.

Estimates show as many as 30,000 people in the UK use cannabis for medicinal reasons every day

Though its illegal to sell or possess cannabis the plant  users face up to five years in prison and a fine  until recently CBD was in a grey area.

But that changed last October, when the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) cut off the flow of CBD by declaring it a medicine.

This means no product containing it can be sold without a licence  a lengthy, expensive process designed to prove it meets safety, quality and efficacy standards to protect public health.

BETTER TO MAKE IT INTO PILLS?

There is some evidence that cannabis can help with a range of medical conditions.

In September last year, a trial carried out by GW Pharmaceuticals found that patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare and serious form of epilepsy that begins in childhood, had 42 per cent fewer seizures while taking Epidiolex, a liquid form of the CBD extract given by mouth.

And in a report also published in September, based on the most extensive review of evidence in the literature in modern times, the All-Party Parliamentary Group concluded it was now beyond dispute that medicinal cannabis works for a range of conditions, with good evidence that both CBD or natural cannabis was effective in treating chronic pain, stiffness of muscles experienced with multiple sclerosis, nausea, vomiting and anxiety. There was moderate evidence cannabis could help with sleep disorders, fibromyalgia (which causes chronic pain), and some symptoms of Parkinsons disease, such as rigidity.

Controversially, cannabis seems to be creeping towards becoming a legitimate medical treatment  and yet worrying questions about it remain, not least whether it really is such a wonder drug, with organisations such as the British Pain Society pointing to insufficient evidence to justify the recommendation of use of cannabis formulations for pain.

There is also the question of whether the Government should decriminalise weed for medicinal use, or whether the way forward lies with medicines developed in labs from extracts of the drug.

Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies believes its research can help give the UK a global leadership role in this fast-growing field.

It hopes to bring to market effective new treatments for conditions including chronic pain, arthritis, Alzheimers and depression.

More importantly, the development of properly researched and approved prescription drugs based on cannabis could render redundant the debate about legalising cannabis for medical use.

For although cannabis in some forms is already prescribed, it is for a very limited number of conditions (for nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and multiple sclerosis) and only then used in a very small number of cases.

PATIENTS FORCED TO BLACK MARKET

Most patients in the UK using cannabis obtain it illegally  cannabis is currently listed as a schedule one drug, i.e. a dangerous drug with no medicinal value  and they depend for their supplies on street dealers or internet sites.

One such patient is Faye Jones, a 32-year-old corporate PA for a Reading-based technology company. She is typical of patients who have turned to cannabis because conventional medicines failed.

Back on track: Faye Jones, 32, has now managed to control her symptoms

Five years ago, at just 27 and shortly after taking out a mortgage on her first home, in Berkshire, Faye was struck down virtually overnight with crippling rheumatoid arthritis.

The condition, an overreaction of the immune system which causes painful swelling in joints, affects more than 400,000 Britons. I went to bed one Sunday night feeling fine and woke up the next morning unable to get out of bed, get dressed or even take myself to the toilet, recalls Faye.

For a couple of days I was almost completely paralysed. My joints, from my jaw down to my knuckles and toes, were completely swollen, very stiff and really painful.

Doctors said shed probably have it for life and that she might not be able to return to work. My career has always been the most important thing to me, says Faye.

Id worked really hard to get to where I was and I was not prepared to let it go.

The problem was the side-effects of the conventional drugs she was given became more disruptive to daily life than the disease itself.

She was put on two drugs also given for cancer, which left her constantly sick, in a dangerous brain fog, or suffering strange panic attacks and low blood sugar.

This was followed by the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, also used in some experimental cancer treatments, but she stopped taking it almost instantly as she suffered chronic diarrhoea and vomiting.

I was exhausted, fed up and still trying to work full-time, she says.

Essentially, what I was being offered was a lifetime of low-level chemotherapy. Some people get on absolutely fine with that. For me, that was not the case.

WORRIES ABOUT BREAKING THE LAW

In a desperate search for a solution, Faye read on the internet that cancer patients were using cannabis for the vomiting and nausea caused by their treatments.

She had never used cannabis but knew friends who had. It was like a magic wand, she says. I stopped feeling sick all the time.

Cannabis drugs on the NHS Until recently, there were just two cannabis-based drug treatments licensed for use in the UK. Nabilone, a synthetic cannabis-type drug marketed in the UK as Cesamet, is a hospital-only treatment for nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy  and is a last-resort option. Sativex, a peppermint-flavoured mouth spray from GW Pharmaceuticals, can ease loss of muscle control experienced by patients with multiple sclerosis, but is so expensive it is rarely prescribed. Neither drug is licensed to treat any other condition. Last October, the UK drugs watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), ruled that products such as cannabis oil that contain cannabidiol (CBD), a derivative of the drug, are now considered a medicine. This means it can no longer be sold without a licence. However, it can be prescribed by a doctor for medicinal purposes. Advertisement

Not a smoker, she instead used a vapouriser, which heats the herb and causes it to give off canna-binoids.I suddenly realised I was taking fewer painkillers and had far fewer symptoms, says Faye.

Thats when I thought, well, why not try that instead of these drugs that are causing me such horrific side-effects I can barely stand up half of the week? And it worked.

It has now been two and a half years since Faye last took one of the conventional medicines prescribed for her. Cannabis is now the only thing I use, she says.

I havent even touched an ibuprofen in that time and my quality of life is 98 per cent as good as it was before I was diagnosed.

Not only that, she has been able to continue working full-time and recently landed her dream job. She says her NHS doctors know that she self-treats with cannabis.

She still uses raw cannabis for vapourising, because its easy to get hold of, but supplements this with a nightly pill containing cannabis extract CBD, in oil form.

She gets this illegally, she admits, over the internet from Spain. Like thousands of others who self-medicate with cannabis, she feels deeply uncomfortable having to break the law and hopes the Oxford research will end that.

DOCTORS WARN ABOUT ADDICTION

Dr Natalie Carter, head of research liaison and evaluation at Arthritis Research UK, cautions that more research is needed to show the benefit and safety of cannabinoid medicines for people with arthritis.

For those who might be tempted to self-medicate with cannabis or cannabinoid medicines, its important to remember they are not legally available for arthritis in the UK and can have serious side-effects, she adds.

The NHS says herbal cannabis, whether smoked, vapourised or eaten, can make some people feel confused, anxious or paranoid, and some experience panic attacks and hallucinations.

Regular use can leave you demotivated and uninterested in other things going on in your life, such as education or work and new research suggests up to 10 per cent of cannabis users will become dependent on the drug.

Faye was struck down virtually overnight with crippling rheumatoid arthritis

The Royal College of Psychiatrists view is that while it favours more research to explore the use of cannabis products as medicines, cannabis is addictive and carries significant mental health risks for some individuals: its use increases the risk of developing psychosis, depression and anxiety.

And yet the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform is keen to see natural cannabis legalised for medical use.

In a report last September it called on the Government to end the criminalisation of those who used the drug as medication and said its treatment in UK law as a dangerous drug with no medicinal value is irrational and incoherent.

Baroness Meacher, co-chair of the APPG (who has previously suggested the sale of cannabis for recreational use should be regulated in the same way as tobacco), said that Billy Caldwell would be dead today without access to CBD, which, unlike tetrahydrocannabinol, the component that gets recreational users high, is not psychoactive.

CBD, says Baroness Meacher, is available on prescription in many other countries and parents in the UK are quietly buying CBD for their epileptic children overseas.

This is the agonising position in which parents Ilmarie Braun, 40, a charity case worker from Chester, and her builder husband Alex could find themselves in.

Their 20-month-old son Eddie suffers from a rare but serious form of epilepsy known as infantile spasms, or West syndrome. Doctors have tried several conventional epilepsy drugs but Eddie continues to suffer up to seven clusters of seizures in every 24 hours.

It has now been two and a half years since Faye last took one of the conventional medicines prescribed for her

Some are mild, but others are heartbreaking to watch, says Ilmarie. He can become hysterical and when they happen in the middle of the night it can take another two hours for him to settle and go back to sleep. Its hard not to feel completely overwhelmed and devastated for him.

Desperate to help their child, Ilmarie and Alex are considering ordering the CBD oil from America. Initially, the thought of giving something to Eddie that wasnt supported by the NHS was terrifying, says Ilmarie.

If someone had told me years ago that one day I would be thinking about giving it to my child I would have told them they were crazy.

But we are past the first anniversary of his seizures beginning and now I feel we are running out of options. The longer Eddies seizures go on the more his development will be set back.

Ilmarie says she feels out of my depth and worried that people will think we are irresponsible parents. But we are in an impossible situation, with nowhere left to go.

She adds: Every parent wants the best for their children. All that matters to me now is that Eddie is happy and leads a life without pain or distress. If CBD can help us achieve this for him, then how can we deny him that chance?

SHOULD MEDICAL USE BE LEGALISED?

These kinds of emotive stories are cited by campaigners who argue that regulatory approval for new drugs can take many years.

This is why the APPG will continue to press for the herbal form of cannabis to be immediately legalised for medical use, which would bring the UK into line with 11 other European countries, Canada, Israel, various Latin American nations and 24 U.S. states.

But this alarms some experts.

Rather than pushing for herbal cannabis to be made legal for medical use, it would be far better to wait for properly researched, trialled and developed drugs to become available, and for interested patients to contribute to those studies, says Hannah Cock, professor of epilepsy and medical education at St Georges, University of London.

This is because herbal cannabis is a mixture of many compounds, some of which are of medical benefit, but others also carry significant risks, in particular with respect to mental health and cognitive functions such as memory.

Or to put it more simply, more research is needed.

Additional reporting by Liz Hull.
Pakistan has extended by three months the house arrest of Hafiz Saeed, accused by the United States of masterminding the 2008 attacks on the Indian financial capital Mumbai that killed 166 people, a Pakistani official confirmed on Monday.

Saeed was placed under house arrest in January after years of living free in Pakistan, a sore point in the relationship between the United States and Pakistan. His freedom had also infuriated Islamabad's arch-foe India.

The US had offered $10 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Saeed, who heads the Muslim charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD). Washington says JuD is a front for the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The US had offered $10 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Saeed, who heads the Muslim charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD)

Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, a spokesman for the provincial Punjab government, said the regional administration decided on Sunday to extent the restrictions on Saeed, but did not specify the reasons why.

'Hafiz Saeed's house arrest, which ended Sunday night, has been extended for another three months,' Khan said.

Saeed could not be reached for comment.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) supporters burn Indian and US flags in Peshawar, after JuD leader leader Hafiz Saeed was placed under house arrest by Pakistani authorities on January 31, 2017

The Mumbai attacks in 2008, when 10 gunmen swarmed across targets including two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a train station in a rampage that lasted several days, brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war.

India accused Pakistan of sponsoring the attacks through LeT, which Saeed founded in the 1990s. Pakistan has denied any state involvement and Saeed - who has distanced himself from LeT - has said repeatedly he was not responsible.

Previous Pakistani announcements of action against anti-India militant groups have rarely led to serious punishments for them.

Western countries have for decades accused Pakistan of harboring Islamist militant groups and using them as proxies against bigger neighbor India, with whom it has fought three wars since independence. Islamabad denies having such a policy.

Supporters of Hafiz Saeed protest his arrest in Islamabad

Pakistani police stand guard outside the home of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) leader Hafiz Saeed, after he was placed under house arrest in Lahore

The iconic The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai
Bookies, it seems, can still make a killing by thinking inside the box.

The Special Task Force of Uttar Pradesh busted a betting ring at a posh residential area of Noida last Friday, and discovered an ingenious device that allowed the gambling network to remain connected to the bookie.

The said that the device, sewed up into a briefcase by an electrician from Najafgarh in south west Delhi, could interconnect up to 32 callers to place their bets simultaneously during a live match, investigators told Mail Today.

The locally-built device, set into a briefcase connects up to 32 callers is used by bookies for IPL betting

'The suitcase connected all the phones in such a way that the bookie's voice would be audible on all phones at the same time. The phone lines of gamblers were connected to a speaker beneath the suitcase to record their stakes,' said Raj Kumar Mishra, DSP Noida-STF.

'The gang was using the briefcase for last one year. The set-up gave them high mobility and allowed a quick get-away in case of an emergency.'

The briefcase-linked device came in two sizes: One that connected 16 phones and was available for Rs 27,000 (330) and the other with 32-handset connectivity costing Rs 50,000.

'All the mobile phones used by them were basic Nokia bar-phone. For, these vantage handsets have better battery life and audio quality,' investigators said.

Interestingly, although police have closed in on the local 'Najafgarh talent' who had put in place the briefcase, they can't arrest him, for making a customised electronic equipment is not a crime.

The Indian Premier League is one of the biggest events in India's sporting calender

Investigators said they have been trying to extract details from the electrician.

Bookies would carry several phones around them and employed multiple staff to attend calls from punters and recording their bets.

The 'briefcase' simplified this complex system.

Investigators said the portable device allowed the bookies easy mobility, as they could easily check into a room with a TV to operate with secrecy.

The bookies arrested in Noida too had taken the flat on rent. 'Earlier, such a set up could be installed in wardrobe. The briefcase gave the bookies high mobility.

'One day it could be installed in a hotel room and another day at a rented apartment,' a bookie told Mail Today, requesting anonymity.

He also disclosed that to avoid coming on police radar, most of them now use encrypted chat platform where payments are made in bitcoins.

STF DSP Mishra said punters in contact with the gang were given one of the mobile numbers.

'The gang continuously received updated rates on each ball of the match from an international website, www.betfair.com and these were promptly communicated to all bookies connected to him,' he said.

The bookies would collect the money the next day from the people who lost. 'Only close members were gambling with the gang. No random person could contact or place a bet with them. An entry was possible only if an existing member took the guarantee of new entrant,' Mishra said, adding during each IPL match, the Noidabased gang made Rs 30-40 lakh.

Police suspect their total earning from this season would be around Rs 20 crore. The mastermind of the gang is claimed by police to be one Rohit Gupta, a resident of Kailash Puri in Bulandshahr.

The briefcase-linked device came in two sizes: One that connected 16 phones and was available for Rs 27,000 and the other with 32-handset connectivity costing Rs 50,000

Gupta is said to have bought a flat for Rs 1.7 crore in ATS Village, Sector 93 A, in the name of his wife. He also bought a BMW car worth Rs 38 lakh and a Harley Davidson bike worth Rs 7 lakh.

The other six accused have been identified as Ankur Govil, Neeraj Gupta, Samuel Jacob, Rahul Chana, Akash Vij and Ashok Garg.

The accused had created a network in Goa, Delhi and other NCR cities.
Pakistani troops are reported to have killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies in Kashmir, in what India's army has described as a 'despicable act'.

In a statement, the army said Pakistan's border force attacked a patrol operating between two border posts on the de facto frontier known as the Line of Control in the remote Himalayan region.

'In an un-soldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated,' the statement said, warning of an 'appropriate response'.

Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers in disputed Kashmir on Monday and mutilated their bodies, India's army said, calling it a 'despicable act' (pictured - Indian troops in Chowkibal)

It also accused Pakistan of what it called 'unprovoked' rocket and mortar firing across the heavily militarised Line of Control but gave no further details.

The two sides have accused each other in the past of mutilating the bodies of each other's soldiers.

Army spokesman N. N. Joshi said the victims were a junior officer and a border guard.

Another guard from India's Border Security Force was injured in the initial firing from Pakistan, Joshi said.

Denial

Pakistan's military denied the allegations. It said there had been no violation of a ceasefire on the Kashmir frontier and that its soldiers had not mutilated the corpse of any Indian soldier.

The Indian army said Pakistani forces fired rockets and mortar bombs at two Indian posts on the Line of Control dividing Muslim-majority Kashmir between the two countries, in the Krishna Ghati sector.

Pakistan's military described its army as a 'highly professional force' that shall 'never disrespect a soldier, even Indian.'

Fragile ceasefire

India and Pakistan have faced off for decades across the Line of Control, an old ceasefire line through the region that both countries claim in full but rule in part.

Sporadic cross-border attacks in past months have frayed the region's 2003 truce.

In a separate incident, militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir ambushed a van carrying cash for the state-run Jammu and Kashmir Bank, killing five policemen and two bank officials, a senior police official said. It wasn't initially clear if the militants had looted the cash.

The attack occurred in south Kashmir's Kulgam district, where protests against Indian rule have flared in recent weeks.

Both sides have previously accused each of violating the ceasefire and of beheading soldiers in the past.

Indian soldiers Prem Sagar (right) and Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh were killed

India's Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, who also holds the finance portfolio, condemned the latest killings which he called 'reprehensible and barbaric'.

Peace talks between the two countries have been on hold for years and diplomatic engagement is at a minimum.

India accuses Pakistan of backing Islamist militants and encouraging them to attack Indian forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir and, occasionally, in other parts of India.

India's revenge begins

By Gaurav C Sawant

Indian Army destroyed two Pakistani posts along the Line of Control opposite the Krishna Ghati sector for providing covering fire to the Pakistani border action team that killed and mutilated two Indian soldiers on Monday.

Kirpan and Pimple posts provided cover fire to the Pakistan army commandos and terrorists as they sneaked in more than 200 metre inside the Indian Territory and ambushed a patrol of the army and the Border Security Force (BSF) around 8.40 am. 'It was a planned operation.

'The Pakistani commandos were lying in wait ahead of the AIOS (Anti-Infiltration Obstacle System).

A soldier of Border Security Force stands alert outside college in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian controlled by Kashmir

As the Pakistani posts opened fire with mortars, the Pakistani commandos and terrorists opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades at the patrol.

Before the patrol could take cover and respond, two soldiers - Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh, of the 22nd Battalion, Sikh Regiment and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200 Battalion BSF - were killed and their bodies mutilated,' said sources.

Before the patrol could fire back, the Pakistani team slipped back across the LoC.

The army immediately opened fire at the Pakistani positions. In the afternoon, the army found out that the 647 Mujahid battalion had carried out the strike.

'The commander ordered retaliatory strikes. The mortars opened up and carried out tactical punitive strikes on the two posts destroying them,' added the sources. But this is not India's response.

'There will be a punitive strike that will be carried out. Pakistan has been bleeding along the LoC for some time now,' said an official.

Army chief general Bipin Rawat flew into J&K to take stock of the situation and clear army's response.

Pakistan is prepared for a response at this stage. Destroying two posts was to send a message that no action will go unpunished. But a bigger response will follow to act like a deterrent.

Defence minister Arun Jaitley said the sacrifice of the two jawans will not go in vain.

'Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces.'

India is convinced Pakistan Army is complicit in the terror strike at the LoC not only because of the army giving a covering fire but also because general Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan army chief visited the Hajipir sector only Sunday and interacted with the troops and terrorists on ground.

His instructions were to seek maximum headlines for action at LoC and in the Valley, sources added.
Drama ensued in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday with senior legislators demanding the expulsion of Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan from the party, for defaming poet-politician Kumar Vishwas.

A few MLAs of the party - including Delhi ministers Kapil Mishra and Imran Hussain, and Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri - were said to have signed a letter, urging the top leadership to expel him for alleging that Vishwas joined ranks with BJP and is conspiring to destroy AAP.

Water minister, Kapil Mishra, said, 'Amanatullah will be removed. He is a traitor.' A separate letter, with the same demand, has also been released by a Punjab MLA of the party.

MLA Amanatullah Khan accused Kumar Vishwas of joining ranks with BJP and raising doubts on CM Arvind Kejriwal's leadership

'Amanatullah has lost his mental balance,' Environment minister Imran Hussain tweeted.

The party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC), chaired by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, is expected to make a call on the issue during its meeting by Monday night.

Incidentally, Khan is also a member of the PAC. When contacted, Khan said the whole campaign was scripted and added that he will attend the scheduled meeting.

He said, 'Barely four to five MLAs support the signature campaign against me.' The development came a day after Khan had alleged that Kumar Vishwas was trying to usurp the AAP and that he harbours ambitions of leading the party.

He claimed that Vishwas was raising doubts on CM Arvind Kejriwal's leadership at the behest of BJP and had called at least 30 AAP MLAs to his residence, asking them to either make him 'Convenor of AAP or join BJP which has Rs 3 cr each ready for them.'

'Yogendra Yadav also did this earlier,' he said.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, 'It's not possible. Vishwas is my younger brother. Those trying to drive a rift between us better be careful. We will not spare them.'

A senior leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity, alleged that apart from his recent attempt to drive a wedge between Kejriwal and Vishwas, Khan had also worked against the party's interests in the recently held municipal polls, where the AAP received a drubbing.

'If he has proof then, he should present it to the PAC. The charges that he has leveled are serious and if he fails to produce any evidence to back it up then he should be expelled from the party,' Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba said.

Earlier, Vishwas had given an interview to Aaj Tak differing with Kejriwal on the issue of EVMs.

He had refused to attribute AAP's recent poll upsets to alleged manipulation of EVMs and had instead stressed on the need to introspect.

He had said that 'abusing Modi repeatedly was not appropriate' and 'questioning the surgical strikes in PoK was not right either.'

Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan accused poet-politician Kumar Vishwas (pictured) of courting the BJP

Interestingly, another MLA Asim Ahmed Khan came to the rescue of embattled Amanatullah and said that 'for the past few months there was a lot of anger among AAP MLAs.

They were not being given time by CM Kejriwal. They hadn't had a meeting with him for 4-5 months. They were just waiting till the MCD elections get over.

Now they are venting their anger. There is no hand of BJP or Congress in this. Nobody has given us any monetary benefits to say this.'

Meanwhile, BJP also chipped in giving its reaction to the development. Delhi BJP vice-president Shri Rajiv Babbar said, 'This is scripted by Arvind Kejriwal to divert attention from his governance and political failures in Delhi.'
At least 352 civilians have been killed in US-led strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria since 2014, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

The Combined Joint Task Force said they were still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths in their monthly assessment of air attacks targeting the jihadists.

Senior officials added that 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

It reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present that had not previously been announced. The report included 26 deaths from three separate strikes in March.

But monitoring group Airwars said more than 3,000 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes.

At least 352 civilians have been killed in US-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the US military said in a statement on Sunday. A B-1B long range bomber is seen in the skies above Kobani, Syria, not far from the Turkish border

In this March 24, 2017 file photo, residents carry the bodies of several people killed on the western side of Mosul, Iraq. Over 200 people reported to have been used as human shields by ISIS died when US-led forces bombed the area last month

Included in Sunday's tally were 14 civilians killed by a strike in March that set off a secondary explosion, as well as 10 civilians who were killed in a strike on Islamic State headquarters the same month.

'We regret the unintentional loss of civilian lives ... and express our deepest sympathies to the families and others affected by these strikes,' the Pentagon said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch accused the US military of failing to take 'necessary precautions' to prevent civilians deaths in a strike on a Syrian mosque in March that killed dozens of people.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch accused the US military of failing to take 'necessary precautions' to prevent civilians deaths in a strike on a Syrian mosque in March that killed dozens of people. Rescuers search for survivors from the rubble in the Aleppo district above

The March 16 strike in the village of opposition-held Al-Jineh in northern Aleppo province killed 49 people, mostly civilians, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

'United States forces appear to have failed to take necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties,' in the strike, Human Rights Watch said in a report.

The Pentagon said the strike targeted a meeting of senior al-Qaeda leaders and denied a mosque had been hit in the attack.

But it launched a casualty 'credibility assessment' after reviewing public and classified information.

HRW said it had interviewed 14 people with firsthand knowledge of the strike, and worked with organisations to analyse imagery of the attack and reconstruct the assault.

'The US seems to have gotten several things fundamentally wrong in this attack, and dozens of civilians paid the price,' said Ole Solvang, HRW's deputy emergencies director.

'The US authorities need to figure out what went wrong, start doing their homework before they launch attacks, and make sure it doesn't happen again.'

Also last month, around 230 people - mostly women and children - who were being used as 'human shields' by ISIS were killed when an airstrike by the US-led coalition triggered a huge explosion in Mosul.

Civil defense agency officials said three buildings in the Jadida neighborhood of west Mosul collapsed and it is believed the airstrike set off explosives in a lorry being used by ISIS militants.

The incident reportedly happened on March 17 but details began to emerge a week later.

One man who survived the blast told reporters: 'The entire neighborhood was fleeing because of missiles so people had taken refuge here.

'I didn't know if it was a shelter. I didn't know we couldn't go there. My entire family is inside, 27 people. We pulled only one of them out. We don't know about the rest.'
Italy's former prime minister has made a dramatic return to frontline politics five months after stepping down.

Matteo Renzi, nicknamed 'The Scrapper' because of his confrontational style, easily regained the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) on Sunday with an overwhelming victory in a primary election among party supporters yesterday.

The 42-year-old quit in December following a crushing referendum defeat over plans to streamline lawmaking.

Matteo Renzi easily won the leadership poll for the ruling Democratic Party, receiving more than 70 per cent of the vote

The pro-European former prime minister has vowed to take the fight to the 5-Star Movement, which is gaining in popularity

He was replaced as prime minister by Paulo Gentiloni, who called to congratulate him after his victory.

Renzi hopes the result will bolster the centre-left's ability to counter growing support for populist politicians in Italy ahead of national elections.

He tweeted: 'Forward, together.'

And Renzi told supporters: 'The alternative to populism isn't the elite. It's people who aren't afraid of democracy.'

His party is still the main force in Italy's centre-left coalition government, but opinion polls indicate it is no longer the country' most popular.

Renzi quit as prime minister in December after failing to convince voters of the need to reform Italian politics

Overtaking the Democrats in recent soundings was the 5-Star Movement, whose leader, comic Beppe Grillo, wants a crackdown on migrants, rails against EU-mandated austerity and opposes Italy belonging to the euro single currency group.

According to partial results, Renzi had about 72 percent of the vote, held in makeshift polling booths around the country.

About two million party members voted in the primary. Justice Minister Andrea Orlando had 19 percent while Michele Emiliano, the governor of the southern Puglia region, had about 9 percent.

With a national vote due by May 2018, polls show the ruling PD has slipped behind the 5-Star Movement, which questions the country's euro membership.

According to partial results, Renzi had about 72 percent of the vote, held in makeshift polling booths around the country

Under Italy's proportional representation voting system, no party currently looks likely to win enough seats in parliament to govern alone.

Renzi, with his confrontational leadership style, has become a divisive figure, and there is no guarantee he would be named prime minister of a future coalition government even if the PD were to win the most votes during the election.

While Renzi remains the most popular politician among PD voters, the party and his own appeal look much weaker than during his heyday as prime minister, after he failed to convert his ambitious reform agenda into reality.

Renzi's current personal approval rating is about half of the 50 percent he posted three years ago, according to the Ixe polling institute.
University student fees are set to skyrocket and funding to campuses slashed under tough new budget measures expected to be unveiled by the Federal Government.

Education minister Simon Birmingham is expected to detail a package on Monday that will be included in the May 9 federal budget that could lead to student fees rising at least 25 per cent.

Students might also have to start repaying higher educations loans earlier and a loan fee could be charged at the start of their studies.

The government wants to bring the share of fees paid by students closer to half the cost of their degree, up from the 40 per cent average now.

Australian university student fees could rise at least 25 per cent under changes to be unveiled by the federal government on Monday (stock image)

Under the changes, students might also have to start repaying higher educations loans earlier and a loan fee could be charged at the start of their studies (Pictured is the University of Sydney)

Senator Birmingham said recently it was 'not unreasonable' to rebalance the proportion of student and taxpayer contributions.

The minister will address a higher education and business event in Canberra on Monday, with the audience expected to include many vice-chancellors eager to learn about the government's plans.

This is a marked difference from when the coalition took the sector by surprise by revealing plans in its 2014 budget to cut funding by 20 per cent and completely deregulate student fees.

Labor has already resurrected its campaign against '$100,000 degrees', which ultimately led to the Senate rejecting the previous funding overhaul.

Universities tried to pre-empt any funding cuts with an analysis the sector says shows it has contributed $3.9 billion to the budget bottom line in recent years.

But the government has released its own analysis of the financial position of universities, which it says shows they have been pocketing taxpayer funds beyond the cost of teaching and research.

The government wants to bring the share of fees paid by students closer to half the cost of their degree, up from the 40 per cent average now (stock image)

The average cost of delivery per student grew 9.5 per cent between 2010 and 2015, a government-commissioned Deloitte report found, while funding per student grew by 15 per cent.

Universities received $19,285 per student place in 2016.

Government figures show the average cost of an undergraduate place is $16,000 and for postgraduates $20,000.

The government acknowledges funding in some areas - such as dentistry and veterinary studies - didn't cover the cost of delivery but says the vast majority of courses could be delivered cheaper than the level of funding provided.

Senator Birmingham says this showed the record level of funding for universities had grown beyond the cost of their operations.

Education minister Simon Birmingham (pictured) is addressing a higher education and business event in Canberra on Monday

'Universities have a vital role to play in Australia but many mums and dads are feeling the pinch of tighter budgets at home and want to know their tax dollars are being used effectively and efficiently,' he said on Monday.

'Universities need to invest taxpayer money judiciously and with appropriate public scrutiny and accountability.'

Universities Australia says it has already contributed its fair share to repairing the budget and further cuts cannot be justified.

'In this context, it is difficult to justify further cuts that would affect student affordability and put at risk the quality of education and research on which Australia's prosperity depends,' UA chief executive Belinda Robinson told The Sydney Morning Herald.
The American soldier who was killed when he stepped on an IED while fighting ISIS in Iraq has been identified

Weston C. Lee, the 1st lieutenant with the 82nd Airborne Division, died while out on patrol near Mosul on Saturday.

Lee, 25, was conducting security as part of advise-and-assist support to partnered forces in the ongoing battle with the jihadists.

1st Lieutenant Weston C. Lee, 25, of Bluffton, Georgia, was killed in Iraq on Saturday when an improvised explosive device detonated during a patrol outside Mosul

Lee, pictured, had been conducting security as part of advise-and-assist support when he was killed

Lee was deployed to Iraq in December 2016 and had been serving in the Army since March 2015

The Bluffton, Georgia native was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 325th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

He joined the Army in March 2015 and was deployed to Iraq, for the first time, in December 2016.

'First Lieutenant Wes Lee was an extraordinary young man and officer,' Colonel Pat Work, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, told CBS North Carolina.

'He was exactly the type of leader that our Paratroopers deserve.

'Our sincere condolences and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.'

The armed forces member has been awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Ranger Tab, the Parachutist Badge and the Army Service Ribbon.

Posthumously, he received the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, and the Meritorious Service Medal.

Lee is the fifth soldier to have been killed in Iraq since the U.S. army began operations against ISIS in August 2014.

His is the first combat death in Iraq since Donald Trump became president.

Lee posthumously received the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, and the Meritorious Service Medal. While he was alive, he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Ranger Tab, the Parachutist Badge and the Army Service Ribbon
Former Channel Nine television presenter Kelly Landry rang police the day they took out an AVO against her husband Anthony Bell to protest they had 'over-reacted', a court has heard.

Ms Landry was upset and told police she did not want an AVO against Mr Bell, Sydney's Downing Centre Local Court was told on Monday.

Police domestic violence liason officer Senior Constable Catherine Farrell said Ms Landry rang her about 5.45pm on January 5 this year, the same day police commenced proceedings against her husband.

Under cross-examination by Ian Temby, QC, Senior Constable Farrell agreed Ms Landry was upset and did not want the AVO taken out.

Mr Temby: 'She told you, did she not, that you had over-reacted?'

Senior Constable Farrell: 'Yes'.

Ms Landry had spoken to Glebe police about an incident at the Watsons Bay home she shared with Mr Bell on November 18 last year.

Former Getaway star Kelly Landry (pictured) arrives at the Downing Street Centre in Sydney on Monday for the first day of her five-day AVO court hearing with husband Anthony Bell

The court heard Mr Bell had voluntarily moved out of the couple's home about a week earlier. Divorce proceedings are underway.

Mr Temby put to Senior Constable Farrell that Ms Landry had called her on February 8, February 15 and February 20 and the pair had spoken for a total of more than an hour.

'In the course of these telephone conversations Ms Landry consistently urged upon you that she regretted the fact that the AVO proceedings had commenced,' Mr Temby said.

Senior Constable Farrell said Ms Landry had only protested about the AVO on January 5.

Mr Bell had never been charged with assault in relation to the November 18 incident or an earlier alleged assault at Bondi in February 2012, which is part of these court proceedings.

Senior Constable Farrell went ahead with the AVO due to concern she had about the November 18 incident.

'Those concerns were that there had been an alleged assault in what she said to police.

'That she felt intimidated and harrassed,' she said. 'And the fact that this had hallmarks that I would have concerns with as a domestic violence liaison officer.'

In January, police applied for an AVO on Ms Landry's behalf against Mr Bell (pictured), a month after he'd skippered his multi-million dollar yacht to victory in the Sydney-to-Hobert race

Ms Landry was called to the witness box and was shown three photographs of bruising to her neck.

When asked by police prosecutor Sergeant Laura Nightingale what the pictures showed, Ms Landry replied: 'They are photos I took of the bruises on my neck.... after the incident in February 2012'.

The evidence came after lawyers for Mr Bell failed in a bid to exclude four 'explosive' recordings made by his estranged wife Kelly Landry which police want to tender in her apprehended violence order application.

In the recordings played to the court, Ms Landry could be heard saying to Mr Bell: 'You're acting psycho' and 'you're scaring me'.

In the second of three recordings, Mr Bell could be heard saying to Ms Landry: 'Youre not going anywhere, youre not taking the kids, you cant take them... youre drunk.

Ian Temby, QC, said the defence had only learnt of the recordings' existence late last

Magistrate Robert Williams allowed the recordings to be heard in court, saying he believed they related to Ms Landry's claim of an alleged assault on November 18.

Downing Centre Local Court heard three of the recordings - two audio and one video - relate to events on November 18 last year which are the subject of Ms Landry's AVO application.

Ms Landry, 37, reportedly recorded the couple's altercation and took photos of bruises she allegedly sustained in the fight, during which Mr Bell, 45, grabbed her phone

Mr Temby said while the recordings had not been served on the defence, some of the contents had been 'leaked' to media in an effort to damage Mr Bell's reputation.

Scroll down for video

The legal battle over an AVO taken out by the former TV star against her celebrity accountant husband will be heard in a Sydney court over the next five days

Mr Temby said there was no mention of any recordings in any of the four written statements Ms Landry had made since January.

'As we understand the recordings were made by Ms Landry, she must have known of the fact they were made,' Mr Temby said.

'Nothing was disclosed to us until late Wednesday last and as we understand the position nothing was disclosed to the prosecutor until that day.'

Mr Temby said material from the recordings had been published by media at the weekend under the headline 'Explosive audio records night marriage ended'.

The publication of that material, along with the contents of one of Ms Landry's statements in the same newspaper in January, had been part of a 'course of conduct' by Ms Landry with the intention of harming Mr Bell's reputation, Mr Temby said.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Laura Nightingale confirmed she had only become aware of the recordings' existence last Wednesday.

She had notified the defence that afternnon but it would not have been approriate to forward the material electronically.

'The nature of the evidence is quite sensitive,' Sgt Nightingale said.

Ms Landry, 37, looked staunch as she arrived in court on Monday accompanied by a friend

A court previously heard Ms Landry felt intimidated by Mr Bell when CCTV footage showed an Aston Martin Vanquish similar to his slowing as it drove by her Watson's Bay home

Mr Bell, 45, looked stony faced as he arrived at court flanked by legal staff on Monday morning

Mr Bell has been accused of slamming Ms Landry's arm into a wall during an incident at their $12.5 million home at Watsons Bay on November 18 last year. He denies any wrongdoing.

However, Sgt Nightingale said the broader probative value of the recordings was 'quite significant'.

'It's the real evidence of what actually occurred on that evening,' she said.

Magistrate Robert Williams has adjourned the matter until later on Monday to give the defence an opportunity to hear the recordings.

Arriving in court on Monday, both Ms Landry and Mr Bell appeared staunch as they walked into the Downing Street Centre flanked by legal representatives.

The dramatic legal battle over the AVO taken out by the former Getaway star against her 'accountant to the stars' husband is expected to be heard over five days.

Police applied for an AVO on Ms Landry's behalf in January, less than a month after Mr Bell skippered his multi-million dollar yacht to victory in the Sydney-to-Hobart.

A court previously heard Ms Landry felt intimidated by Mr Bell when CCTV footage showed an Aston Martin Vanquish similar to his slowing as it drove by her Watson's Bay home.

The argument between the couple began after they had dinner with friends multi-millionaire hotelier Peter Calligeros and wife Sacha at Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay

The star witness is expected to be the couple's nanny, who will be called by the defence this week

Daily Mail Australia this year exclusively revealed police acting on Ms Landry's behalf handed her celebrity accountant husband with an interim violence order

Ms Landry dressed elegantly in a long-sleeve white top, paired with a black skirt and high-heels for her court appearance

Footage from the same day obtained by Daily Mail Australia also purportedly showed a woman Ms Landry believed to be Mr Bell in disguise peering through a front gate.

But Mr Bell said his Aston Martin had a different roof and wheels to the one captured on camera and an employee and a security guard at his accountancy firm both told the court he was at work at the time.

Ms Landry told police that during the November 18 incident, Mr Bell slammed her right arm into a wall at their $12.5 million Watsons Bay mansion's bedroom.

Mr Bell denies wrongdoing.

Ms Landry last week told Daily Mail Australia she spent four 'lonely' months of pregnancy with her second daughter in hospital after suffering the early signs of heart failure

Sources close to Ms Landry said they expected Mr Bell's lawyers to try and paint her in a 'really bad light'

Just weeks before the AVO was taken out the couple celebrated Mr Bell's victory in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race aboard Perpetual LOYAL

Police are expected to call about eight witnesses during the week-long AVO hearing between the pair.

Mr Bell's lawyers are reportedly expected to call 10 witnesses of their own.

The star witness is expected to be the couple's nanny, who will be called by the defence at some point during the hearing in the Downing Centre Local Court.

Sources close to Ms Landry said they expected Mr Bell's lawyers to try and paint her in a 'really bad light'.

Ms Landry opened up about her battle with heart disease last week, telling Daily Mail Australia she spent four 'lonely' months of her second pregnancy in hospital.

Kelly Landry opened up about her battle with her heart condition in an interview on Friday
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Just a few feet beneath one of Manchester's busiest roads, a small community of homeless people are living in squalid tunnels filled with blankets, duvets and sofas.

Pedestrians walking across the carriageway could never imagine the harsh conditions endured by those living in this makeshift home.

Tolik and Valeriy, both from Lithuania, lie just a few hundred yards from one of many new apartment developments where trendy flats sell for as much as 365,000.

Tolik (left) and Valeriy (right), both from Lithuania, live in a tunnel filled with sofas and duvets beneath a busy Manchester road

What few possessions they have are kept neatly in a set of plastic drawers.

Their scruffy clothes are hung neatly from a railing to prevent them getting dirty.

The floor is littered with broken bottles, tin cans and food wrappers. But among the dirt is a bottle of Febreze air freshener and a sponge, hung up next to an old toilet bowl.

They say they are keen to maintain some semblance of normal life.

'I will not live like people live on the streets,' says Tolik. 'We have a sofa and bedding, it's very comfortable.

'I shower three times a week, at hostels,' he tells an interpreter, in Russian. 'If we need to wash our faces we use the toilets in a garage.'

His friend, Valeriy, says both men are staying here after a friend set up the makeshift shack many months ago and invited them to stay.

This dark, dingy tunnel is their home. Tolik, 57, speaks of another eight temporary shacks dotted around the city centre which are regularly frequented by homeless people.

The father-of-seven says he never expected to end up living this way when he first arrived legally in the UK eight years ago looking for work.

The floor is littered with broken bottles, tin cans and food wrappers. But among the dirt is a bottle of Febreze air freshener and a sponge

He worked in his home country, which joined the EU in 2004, for 27 years and hoped to do the same in England. But after working in a factory in London he came to Manchester and was homeless within months.

No longer able to send money home he is desperate to find work again and has been learning English in the hope of increasing his chances.

'I try,' he says in broken English. 'I would be able to find a job in Lithuania but I have no house and nowhere to live,' he says. 'If I get some money I can go home. I want a normal life.'

The Lithuanian unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent in February against 4.7 per cent in the UK the same month. The average monthly wage in the country in 2016 was 827 euros (700).

Each day he feeds the ducks and geese that float along the canal. He treats them, and a rat that visits his 'bed' each night, as pets.

While living in this secluded tunnel close to the city's intricate canal system Valeriy and Tolik stay dry and relatively warm. Hidden from the world they believe they are safe here.

'We are not afraid of anyone,' says Valeriy. Despite the shocking living conditions Valeriy insists that he would rather stay here, out of sight, than return home.

He speaks of the freedom in Britain. 'This is a house. A home I built with my own hands.' The men say they are not on government benefits.

During the week the two friends visit homeless shelters for food and walk around the city. On weekends they pass the time by drinking when they can but insist this is just a leisure activity.

'From Friday England starts to drink so they do, too,' the interpreter says.

Valeriy, 43, was invited to the UK by a friend and worked in a chicken factory for three months.

Valeriy says both men are staying here after a friend set up the makeshift shack many months ago and invited them to stay

A professional driver by trade he struggled with the language and could not find work. He has been homeless in Manchester for eight years.

He explains that his three children, aged 13, 15 and 27, still live in Lithuania. He has never told them about his living conditions in the UK.

'I don't want to spoil their lives,' he says. 'If I told them they would probably come here and take me home but I don't want to be a burden for them.

'Their life is not easy either. I would be an extra mouth to feed. Here I can find food.

'I just wish I could find my happiness but I can't find it.'

When asked if he is lonely, he replies: 'Yes. Very much so.'

But he offers a warning to anyone who plans to come to the UK. 'People should understand that if they come here they will end up like this,' he says.

The co-founder of a homeless charity says the men's living situation is an example of how many people have become completely 'cut-off' from modern society.

This is a house. A home I built with my own hands

Hendrix Lancaster, 38, helped found Coffee for Craig which helps feed hundreds of homeless people across the city every week.

And he says they have experienced people setting up makeshift homes in the outdoors increasingly regularly.

He said: 'It's definitely happening more and more. There have always been people who chose to live like that, nomadically and on their own.

'They're not right under the noses of the council like many people in the city centre.

'I think in a way it could be seen as a fingers up to modern society, which is so pressurised, so commercialised, which so many people feel detached from.

'They won't be able to get any public funding or benefits. And we all know getting a job isn't easy particularly in their situation.

'That means their only option is going home but in many cases what would they be going back home to?'

Mr Lancaster said, despite the current homelessness epidemic, services were there.

'We have done so much in Manchester, the services are there if they want to come indoors and engage. No one should feel like they have to live like that.'
The Australian Tax Office appears to have turned a blind eye to George Williams' $570,000 debt after striking a deal with the Melbourne crime boss so he could keep his second home.

Despite owing the staggering sum, the gangland figure was not forced to sell the Essendon home and his former daughter-in-law, Roberta Williams, continues to live there, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

As part of the agreement made between the ATO and Williams, the ATO took over as the mortgagee of the property and Williams in exchange gave evidence to Victoria police.

Although Williams died of a suspected heart attack in 2016, the ATO continues to honour the deal.

The Australian Tax Office struck a deal with George Williams (pictured right with his son Carl Williams) in 2013 so the Melbourne crime boss could keep his second home despite owing more than $570,000 in taxes

Despite his debt, Williams was not forced to sell the Essendon home and his former daughter-in-law, Roberta Williams (pictured), continues to live there

Roberta, who was married to Williams' son Carl Williams, also owes almost $300,000 in taxes and declared bankruptcy last year.

The debts stem from payments she received from media outlets following Carl's death in 2010, when he was attacked by a fellow inmate.

Since filing, Roberta has refused to cooperate with the trustee and hasn't submitted necessary paperwork, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

Victims of Crime Commissioner Greg Davies said he didn't understand why convicted drug dealer Williams was given the opportunity to keep his home when other law-abiding citizens are not.

'The ATO is not known for its philanthropy. And this pair [George and Roberta Williams] aren't exactly model citizens,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'I can't see why they would be treated differently to ordinary Victorians who lose their homes when [their] legitimate businesses don't work out and they can't pay a loan back.'

The ATO took over as the mortgagee of the property and Williams (pictured) in exchange gave evidence to Victoria police. Although Williams died in 2016, the ATO continues to honour the deal

More than 150 families lost their homes during the same month Williams struck the deal with the ATO, the publication reported.

An ATO spokesman told Daily Mail Australia on Monday afternoon Fairfax had published misleading media reports regarding Williams' debt.

'While we are unable to comment on the tax affairs of any individual due to our obligations of confidentiality under the law, broadly speaking the ATO can take security over a property where a taxpayer has a debt.'

'The vast majority of taxpayers meet their tax obligations and pay their debt liabilities on time. In instances where taxpayers are unable to meet their obligations, we work with them to repay debts, for example using payment plans. In 201516, we agreed to approximately 950,000 payment plans.'

'Taking security over real property gives the ATO more certainty that the debt will be repaid. This arrangement is distinct from a commercial loan arrangement, for example with a bank. The ATO does not provide loans to taxpayers.'
Pippa Middleton, pictured left, and her fiance James Matthews, pictured right, have been having pre-marital counselling sessions with a vicar in the run-up to their wedding later this month

Pippa Middleton and her fiance James Matthews have been undergoing Christian pre-marital counselling sessions in the run up to their wedding later this month.

On the recommendation of her mother, Carole, the Duchess of Cambridges sister has had five meetings with the vicar of St Marks Church in Englefield, Berkshire, the Rev Nick Jones, who is due to marry the couple, and his wife Harriet.

The Church of England offers what they call voluntary marriage preparation  or marriage prep  for couples preparing to walk down the aisle.

According to its official guidance the sessions are to help brides and grooms to be help to consider the vows they make together.

Topics covered include in laws and family issues  hopefully not a problem for Pippa, 33, and James  sex, communication, children, coping with conflict and money.

The latter most definitely shouldnt be an issue for millionaire hedge fund manager James, 41, who has his own private jet and a 17 million house in one of the most exclusive areas of London.

It is not known, however, whether the couple have drawn up a pre-nuptial agreement.

The Church of England website page on the subject of marriage preparation says: You have probably already spent many hours planning your wedding.

The couple have invited so many people to St Mark's Church on Englefield Estate in Berkshire, pictured, that more than 30 people are now going to be seated in the vestry

'There are so many things to think about - the dress, the cake, whom to invite, the honeymoon. All of these are important, but the wedding is just one day, while marriage should last for the rest of your lives.

Alongside the wedding preparations it is also important to spend time as a couple talking through your expectations of marriage.

'However much you think you have in common, you are still two separate individuals with different backgrounds, personalities, experiences, hopes and fears.

'The minister who is taking your service will probably want to spend some time with you talking through these issues.

Churches sometimes offer marriage preparation, perhaps as part of a group with other couples.

Pippa Middleton and James Matthews will pass through these gates and down the tree-lined drive to St Mark's Church, where their marriage will take place on May 20th, 2017

'This gives you an opportunity to think through possible areas of difficulty and how you will handle them as a couple.

One source told the Mail: Pippa and James are a very solid couple, but on Caroles recommendation they have met with Nick and Harriet for five pre-marital meetings both at Englefield, where they are to be married, and Nicks home.

By all accounts, Pippa was quite shy and James was very laid back.

Starting a family is high on their list of priorities and both were really engaging when Nick and Harriets grand-children, who were at the house, interrupted them. 

Meghan will be at the wedding Meghan Markle, pictured, has been dating Prince Harry for 10 months Prince Harrys girlfriend Meghan Markle will make her first semi-official appearance at his side when they attend Pippa Middletons wedding. There has been frenzied speculation over whether the 35-year-old actress would fly over for the wedding from Canada, where she is filming the US legal drama Suits. But sources told the Daily Mail that Miss Markle, who has been dating Harry for 10 months, will definitely be present. It has, however, been suggested she may only attend the evening celebration at Bucklebury Manor, the Middleton family home. Advertisement

The Mail can also reveal several other key aspects of the ceremony on May 20, attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, and at which Prince George will be a page boy and Princess Charlotte a bridesmaid.

The couple have invited so many people to the church that more than 30 people are now going to be seated in the vestry where a sound system and screen is going to be set up for them to see the happy couple exchange vows.

Pippa is also borrowing a number of ideas from sister Kates 2011 wedding, in which she stole the show in her form-fitting bridesmaids dress.

Local florist Green Parlour in Pangbourne, Berkshire, are providing the flowers and their displays are set to incorporate trees very much in the way that Kate had the knave Westminster Abbey lined with 20 foot English field maples.

Indeed the firm also helped out with some of the flowers for the duchesss wedding day.

Pippa has also gone to the same company that made her sisters wedding jewellery  Robinson Pelham  for her wedding ring and other adornments.

One of its directors and founders, Zoe Benyon, is married to Sir Richard Benyon, the wealthy Conservative MP who owns the estate on which St Marks is situated. Both Zoe and Richard are close friends of the Middleton family.

According to well-placed sources, there will be five bridesmaids who will get ready at Englefield House, Sir Richards Elizabethean country home, where a specially-booked choir (not the usual local one) will get ready too.

Although Charlotte will undoubtedly steal the show, she has company in little Avia Horner, who at two and a half is just a few months older than the princess.

Avia is the daughter of financier Edward Horner, who works with James, and his wife, Lady Emily Compton, the former social editor of society bible Tatler.

Last night it was reported that renovation work was being carried out at the main gates to Englefield Estate.

Photographs showed the main entrance to the estate shrouded by scaffolding. Signs said the work would continue until May 8.
Primary school headteachers could strike again in protest at a squeeze of funding.

Yesterday, the leader of their union, the NAHT, raised the possibility of primary school head teachers going on strike over funding shortages.

Departing general secretary Russell Hobby said in his last speech that he was proud that his seven years in charge had seen the first time the NAHT had taken national industrial action.

Leaders of the teaching union NAHT have raised the possibility of primary school teachers going on strike over funding shortages over fears of a 3billion shortfall by 2020 (stock)

He added: We may be called upon to do so again to defend against massive cuts to education spending that will harm standards of education.

However, the issue was not debated and it is not thought members will be balloted in the near future.

Headteachers also called for primary schools across the country to close for half a day every week in protest at a squeeze on funding.

The school leaders said they wanted to introduce a four-and-a-half day week as a last resort amid a growing funding crisis.

If it goes ahead, the move could cause chaos for working parents as pupils may be asked to go home early on one or more weekdays.

Other action schools could take might include refusing to submit their budgets, or running a deficit budget, it was suggested.

The proposal, discussed at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) annual conference, comes amid mounting pressures on school budgets.

The government says it has protected per pupil funding in real terms, but heads say it does not account for the rising costs of staffing and pensions.

The NAHT wants ministers to pledge more money to plug an estimated 3 billion shortfall facing schools by 2020.

They are calling for more money to be dedicated in the Autumn Statement last this year.

Over the weekend, the unions delegates backed a call for its executive to explore every available option open to schools if irresponsible funding cuts are not reversed.

An amendment to a motion on funding cuts said: All options should be considered, not excluding: reducing the school week to four and a half days; refusing to submit budgets to local authorities or EFA; permitting all schools to run a deficit budget.

Speaking after the debate, Carlisle headteacher Clem Coady, who proposed the amendment said: We feel, when we put this amendment together, that the four-and-a-half day week must be seen as ultimately, the very last resort because we dont want to cut the offer that we are giving to parents, to children, to families, to our staff.

The NAHT wants ministers to pledge more money to plug an estimated 3 billion shortfall facing schools by 2020. They are calling for more money to be dedicated in the Autumn Statement last this year

But theres got to be some way of forcing and opposing these Government-imposed cuts.

Fellow Carlisle headteacher Graham Frost added: We are confident that, come the autumn statement, this 3 billion shortfall in the schools budget will be reversed.

But, in the meantime weve got to prepare for any eventuality.

The resolution, including the amendment, was passed by delegates at the Telford conference.

Head teachers have previously suggested that cutting down the hours children are at school could save on staffing costs.

However, by law, all schools are obliged provide at least 380 sessions or 190 days every year  so only half a day would be able to be shed a week.

Early finishes have already proved controversial in England and Wales.

There were protests from parents at Cottesbrook Juniors in Acocks Green, Birmingham, in 2012 when the head announced plans to close early each Friday to allow teachers to catch up on paperwork.

The school was subsequently turned into an academy and now finishes at the normal time.

The rules are different in Scotland, where the length of the school week is at the discretion of local education authorities.
A man filmed a student driver after she allegedly fled from the scene of an accident and detained her until the girl's father and police arrived.

Ali Alsaedi decided to fill the young woman as she tried to drive away from the scene Duluth, Georgia.

In a seven-minute clip, Alsaedi filmed and described what he witnessed in order to hand off the evidence to police. He then uploaded the video to YouTube.

Alsaedi claims that the learning driver hit a mini van in her Kia Soul then quickly drove off, with her front bumper hanging off.

He eventually forced the unidentified girl to pull over and held her there until her father and Gwinnett County police arrived.

Ali Alsaedi decided to document a student driver who reportedly fled after she hit another car in Duluth, Georgia. The clip was uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday

He claims that the learning driver hit a woman driving a mini van then quickly drove off, with her front bumper hanging off from her new Kia Soul

The video begins with Alsaedi stopped at a red light claiming that the 2016 Kia Soul in front of him was just involved in an accident.

He is heard talking to another driver off camera, who is apparently calling the police to report the woman.

Alsaedi says: 'Okay this video I'm making for the police because I'm going back to show to the police.'

He claims that the girl, who had a bumper sticker that read student driver, was making a right turn when she hit a woman that was going through a green light.

The girl allegedly ignored his and another driver's request to pull over and return to the scene of the alleged accident.

He added: 'She's going to go to jail for that.'

Alsaedi eventually forced the unidentified girl to pull over and held her there until her father (pictured) and Gwinnett County police arrived

Alsaedi teamed up with another driver who is heard in the video calling the police in order to report the incident

The girl was clearly upset when a police officer arrived and opened up her car door and asked for her driver's licence

The light turns green and Alsaedi pulls next to the driver, who seems unbothered behind her sunglasses.

Her car is seen with the front bumper scrapping along the road as it hangs off her vehicle and the corner of her gray car has a dent in it.

Alsaedi is able to pull in front of the girl, blocking her in and says: ' You aren't getting away with it. We've called the police.'

The girl sits behind the wheel of the car with her phone and is seen passionately talking into it.

A man, who identifies himself as her father, pulls up behind her and hastily walks toward the Kia and inspects the car.

He attempts to attach the bumper back on the car and said tried to defend his daughter by saying she was following him and didn't realize that an accident had happened.

The video comes to an end when a Gwinnett County police car pulls up and an officer opens up the student driver's car door and asks for her driver's license.
A club at an elite university has been accused of sexism after a woman alleges she was deliberately excluded from an event because the men felt 'uncomfortable inviting a chick'.

One female member of the Melbourne University Liberal Club claims she was told she could not attend a club event as a few of the boys would feel awkward in the presence of a woman.

The woman - who remains anonymous - was contacted by the club president Xavier Boffa who said he wanted to invite her but claims 'a couple of the guys were a bit uncomfortable about inviting a chick,' reports The Age.

The university political club was founded in 1925 and gathers young Liberal students for debates and social events (pictured is president Xavier Boffa)

Club president Xavier Boffa (pictured) reportedly messaged the woman and told her a couple of the boys would feel uncomfortable about her presence at the event

She spoke about the blatant 'sexism' to members at the club's general meeting last month and read out the message she received from Mr Boffa - who also works alongside shadow attorney general John Pesutto.

The event the woman was reportedly barred from was an exclusive meet-up at a Melbourne city bar last November for club members and its alumni.

The university political club was founded in 1925 and gathers young Liberal students for debates and social events.

On its club website, the Liberal Club writes 'the role of government is to protect the liberty of citizens' and believes in an 'open society of free and responsible individuals'.

The Liberal Club was founded in 1925 at Melbourne University (pictured)

It is not the first time the Liberal Club has been caught up in a controversy over sexist or misogynist comments.

In 2014 members were found posting rude and misogynist comments on social media, describing women as 'sl**s', Muslims as 'degenerates' and said all feminists are 'ugly'.

Screenshots of the Facebook posts were leaked online and the club was faced explaining why its members were demeaning women and other minorities.

Members of the elite Liberal Club have alleged in the past the group often excludes women from its club events and avoids recruiting females altogether.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Melbourne University Liberal Club for comment.
Theresa May, pictured visiting voters in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, spends every weekend canvassing in her own Maidenhead constituency and wants to spend as much time as possible on the doorstep

Theresa May has ordered aides to give her more campaign time to knock on doors and meet ordinary voters.

The Prime Minister, who spends every weekend canvassing in her own Maidenhead constituency, reacted angrily after she was shown a schedule for her visit to Scotland which allowed only a few minutes to knock on doors before flying home.

Briefed on the itinerary by campaign chief Fiona Hill, she shouted: Stop trying to limit how much time Im spending on the doorstep.

Im a doorstep campaigner and from now on I want to spend proper time knocking on doors and seeing people.

The exchange, reported by The Sunday Times, was confirmed by Tory party officials.

It shows Mrs Mays determination to meet voters, something she pointed to yesterday as she again ruled out TV debates with Jeremy Corbyn.

Instead she told the Andrew Marr show on BBC1 she wants to get into communities that have felt until now that politicians have ignored them, have not been taking their concerns into account.

Mrs May yesterday rejected the suggestion her type 1 diabetes is a health problem.

She said it was hugely important to young people who share her condition know it wont be a barrier to them in their lives.

The PM also revealed she can discretely inject insulin with a medical pen while she is eating  so wouldnt have to leave the EU negotiating table to do so.

Im going to pull you up on describing type 1 diabetes as a health problem. People who have it can do whatever they like! she told the Mail on Sunday.

Yes, type 1 diabetes brings a change in ones life - I have to inject, test my blood sugar and so forth - but it doesnt mean there are things I cant do. You just build that into your life.

Its hugely important that young people with type 1 diabetes know it wont be a barrier to them in their lives.

She added: My approach to anything, whatever the circumstances, is: you roll up your sleeves and do it.

Mrs May said she goes through Government papers in her ministerial red box in the No10 flat in the evening listening to Classic FM radio and chatting to her husband Philip

She also has a pink cushion in her Commons office stitched with the motto: I can deal with anything if I have the right pair of shoes.

Asked about her recent walking holiday with her husband in Snowdonia, she joked  in a reference to her campaign slogan: Its important, when walking up mountains, always to feel strong and stable.
Testing for young children should be made less high stakes because it damages teacher and pupil wellbeing, MPs have said.

The education select committee said primary school SATs may be putting too much pressure on pupils and causing them unnecessary stress.

The cross-party group also said the assessments can lead to schools teaching to the test and neglecting the rest of the curriculum.

SATs are too stressful for pupils according to the education select committee. The cross-party group also said the assessments can lead to schools teaching to the test

If a Tory government follows their advice after the election, it would mean another partial climb-down from the partys previously strict position on assessment.

Under reforms pioneered by former education secretary Michael Gove, testing has become more rigorous in an effort to raise standards in numeracy and literacy.

The flagship Tory policy was sparked by results from international studies which show youngsters in the UK are falling behind peers in many other countries.

Following a campaign by left-wing teaching unions, the government has already pledged to scrap tests for seven-year-olds.

But the committee believes it should go further to make the remaining tests  for pupils aged four and 11  less intensive.

Instead of schools being judged each year on the results, the MPs said the government should instead look at a rolling three year average.

It could mean one year of disastrously bad results would not trigger an intervention as long as the following two years produced better ones.

The MPs said schools should still have yearly data available for their own use, however.

Neil Carmichael, Chair of the Education Committee, said: Many of the negative effects of assessment in primary schools are caused by the use of results in the accountability system.

The resulting high-stakes system has led to a narrowing of the curriculum with a focus on English and maths at the expense of other subjects like science, humanities and the arts.

It is right that schools are held to account for their performance but the Government should act to lower the stakes and help teachers to deliver a broad, balanced, and fulfilling curriculum for primary school children.

Under reforms pioneered by former education secretary Michael Gove (pictured), testing has become more rigorous in an effort to raise standards in numeracy and literacy

Earlier this year, education secretary Justine Greening said SATs for seven-year-olds would be scrapped after campaigners said they were too upsetting for pupils.

SATs for 11-year-olds will remain, with a new informal test for four-year-olds to be introduced so that progress throughout the school can be measured.

Last year, parent campaigners kept their children off school during the Year 2 SATs in protest as part of the Let Our Kids Be Kids campaign.

Two teaching unions have voted this year in favour of taking steps towards boycotting the tests.

The committee report, published today, said the link between tests and school accountability creates a high stakes system which can negatively impact childrens teaching and learning.

Following a campaign by left-wing teaching unions, the government has already pledged to scrap tests for seven-year-olds. SATs for 11-year-olds will remain, with a new informal test for four-year-olds to be introduced so that progress throughout the school can be measured

It calls on the next Government to lower the stakes by changing what is reported in annual performance tables.

And it also urges Ofsted to ensure it looks across the whole curriculum at primary school and guard against putting too great a focus on SATs.

The report says: School leaders and governors should support a culture of wellbeing amongst staff and pupils and ensure that external assessment does not result in unnecessary stress for pupils.

The Government should assess the impact of changes to curriculum and standards on teacher and pupil wellbeing before they are introduced and publish plans to avoid such negative consequences.

A Department for Education spokesman said: We will consider the recommendations of this report carefully and respond in due course. A consultation relating to primary assessment is ongoing.
There was more than a hint of the bizarre about the meeting at which 27 EU leaders set out their negotiating position on Brexit.

After getting round the conference table in Brussels, they deliberated for just four minutes before issuing a set of absurdly draconian demands.

Then, like some 1970s meeting of the Chinese Communist party, they erupted into a protracted round of applause and self-congratulation, as if they had done something terribly clever.

In fact, what they presented was not so much a negotiating position as an ultimatum to Britain  pay a 50billion penalty, guarantee the rights of all EU citizens living in the UK, give Spain a veto on the future of Gibraltar and promise not to enforce border controls between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Jean-Claude Juncker, pictured, the insufferably pompous, cognac-loving head of the European Commission, spoke gravely of an early crash in negotiations unless we acquiesced

And they continued talking tough after the meeting, both directly and through a series of carefully choreographed media briefings. Britain would have to pay a huge price for leaving, they said, and Theresa May was delusional if she thought the EU would enter trade talks before the cash was stumped up.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the insufferably pompous, cognac-loving head of the European Commission, spoke gravely of an early crash in negotiations unless we acquiesced. European Council president Donald Tusk said it was time for Britain to get serious.

But Britain is already deadly serious, Mr Tusk. Serious about leaving the EU, regaining control of our borders and throwing off the shackles of the European Court. If we have to do that without a trade deal in place, as Mrs May stated again yesterday, we will do so and no amount of bullying or empty threats from Brussels will change that.

Unlike Mr Tusk and Mr Juncker, Mrs May has a democratic mandate and she intends to honour it.

These ludicrous blowhards should also remember that Britain imports billions of pounds a year more in goods and services from the EU than we export to them. So German car makers, French wine producers and Irish farmers have more to lose from a trade war than UK manufacturers.

Of course, there is another agenda. With Euroscepticism rampant across the continent, the EU high command wants to punish Britain for leaving as a warning to other member states not to follow suit. They are terrified that a blast of democracy could soon destroy their cosy little club.

The Mail is confident Mrs May will not be deflected by these cynical tactics but she needs the full support of the British people in the difficult negotiations to come. The best way to strengthen her hand is to give her a resounding majority on June 8.

An NHS whitewash

Will anyone be held to account for the scandalous failings that allowed rogue surgeon Ian Paterson to mutilate hundreds of women with botched and often unnecessary mastectomy operations?

Despite a string of warnings from fellow doctors, he continued to practise his malign experimental surgery with impunity for more than a decade. Yet so far not a single NHS employee has even been disciplined.

Its nothing less than an outrage that those who colluded in this gross betrayal especially those managers who ignored specific warnings  have not been brought to book. Until they are, Patersons victims will have no justice.

A Commons committee attacks internet giants including Google and Facebook today for helping to spread terrorist propaganda and sexually abusive material.

As the MPs say, they are showing little sign of wiping this filth off their systems voluntarily, so surely its time for the law to intervene and force them into showing some social responsibility.
The Church of England is to intervene in a general election for the second time.

Church leaders plan to publish their advice to Christians on how they should vote over the next few days, in advance of the appearance of the main party manifestos.

The initiative comes after the CofE tried to influence voting in 2015.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby became Archbishop of Canterbury four years ago

Then, it published a letter from the House of Bishops to the people and parishes three months before polling day  a 53-page document perceived as so biased towards Labour that it provoked an angry and personal response from then Prime Minister David Cameron.

This time, guidance to the faithful on how to vote will appear only a month before polling and at the time when parties will be working up their campaigns to full pitch. Senior CofE figures are understood to be still debating the nature of the advice they will offer.

There is agreement that it will contain an appeal for recognition of the place of religious faith in national life, together with a call for reconciliation between Brexit supporters and Remainers, and between those with entrenched and opposing political views.

But there is also pressure for the Churchs paper to contain detailed views on some political controversies. Any advice seen as steering voters towards or away from any of the main parties is likely to invite criticism from those who believe it could lose them support.

The Church has not shied away from giving political advice since the Most Reverend Justin Welby became Archbishop of Canterbury four years ago.

He approved the bishops guidance before the 2015 poll and made it known before the EU referendum last summer that he would be voting to stay in the EU. An election guidance document that avoids political controversy would be widely seen as a climbdown by the Archbishop and his senior colleagues.

Labour manifesto chief's rioter past Labour's election supremo has boasted of how he confronted police while taking part in a riot. Andrew Fisher, who is writing the partys manifesto, described how he had hurled abuse at police and taken back Whitehall during student riots in 2010. In a blog post on the riots, written at the time, he described how he was part of a 200-strong group that burst through police lines. Mr Fisher, who is now paid 56,000 a year from public funds as Labours head of policy, said he and fellow activists pushed the two-deep line of riot police three-quarters of the way back to King Charles Street in Whitehall. Hundreds of people were enjoying the role reversal of the police being penned in and scared. I felt elated, he said. In a post on the 2011 riots in Croydon, south London, he wrote: As soon as I heard things were kicking off in Croydon, I headed into the centre of town. He described the riot, which caused 14million of damage in one street alone, as aggravated shopping. The posts were made on the blog of the Labour Representation Committee, a hard-Left group. Advertisement

Their election document two years ago committed the Church to a series of radical ideas, some of them recognisably close to current positions adopted by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Among these was the CofEs call for a national debate on the future of the Trident nuclear deterrent. The 2015 advice said that traditional arguments for nuclear deterrence need re-examining and accused politicians of failing to trust the public enough to have a serious debate about defence needs.

The Church was effectively calling on all party leaders to move away from support for nuclear weapons. Repeated today, the advice would be taken as a straightforward call for support for Mr Corbyn.

The CofE's election document two years ago committed the Church to a series of radical ideas, some of them recognisably close to current positions adopted by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

So would another of the Churchs 2015 points of guidance, which warned against military intervention in the Middle East on the grounds that it would risk generating new resentments which intensify the threat to our own way of life.

The CofEs 2015 advice to voters that they should halt and reverse the accumulation of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands, whether those of the state, corporations or individuals would also be seen now as uncomfortably close to Mr Corbyns thinking.

Any repeat would be likely to play badly with Theresa May. The Prime Minister is a vicars daughter who worships regularly at an Anglican church.
The fiance of the Australian woman arrested in Colombia with 5.8kg of cocaine has backed his partner's innocence and said she is a 'respectful, loving, caring person'.

Scott Broadbridge, who is engaged to Adelaide personal trainer Cassandra Sainsbury, 22, said it was 'easy for tourists to get targeted' overseas in an impassioned post on an online fundraising page.

Mr Broadbridge was responding to comments posted on the page set up by Ms Sainsbury's sister to 'Help me save my sister, and bring her home'.

'If you don't know Cassie, and the respectful, loving, caring person that she is, don't be so negative,' Mr Broadbridge wrote.

Scroll down for video.

Scott Broadbridge (left), the fiance of Adelaide woman Cassie Sainsbury (right) arrested with cocaine in Colombia said his partner is a 'respectful, loving, caring person'

Mr Broadbridge, pictured with Ms Sainsbury, said it was 'very easy for tourists to get targeted, especially in Colombia'

'If this happened to your family is this how you'd want people responding to your situation. Just be respectful, we're trying to get an innocent girl back home where she belongs.'

Ms Sainsbury's arrest on April 11 at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota at the end of a working holiday came while she was planning a wedding next February to her fiance and 'love of her life', 23-year-old Mr Broadbridge.

The pair got engaged in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia and have dated for just over 18 months.

Mr Broadbridge said it was not hard for tourists to get caught up in the wrong crowd while in Colombia.

Mr Broadbridge's impassioned post on an online fundraising page set up by Ms Sainsbury's sister

Ms Sainsbury (pictured) was arrested on April 11 at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota

'Unfortunately, it's very easy for tourists to get targeted, especially in Colombia,' he said.

He said he was at a loss to explain why his fiancee was being referred to as a personal trainer as she was working for a cleaning business.

'Although Cassie is a PT, she is not currently personal training and hasn't been for six months. I don't know why that was mentioned at all,' Mr Broadbridge said.

'She helped manage a commercial cleaning business that had both national and international clients.'

Ms Sainsbury has been denied bail and is being held at the El Buen Pastor prison, which houses more than 50,000 women. She is facing up to 25 years in jail.

The cocaine was concealed in the packing of more than 15 headphones Ms Sainsbury said she was given the morning of her flight home.

'I didn't do it mum, you have got to get me out,' a hysterical Ms Sainsbury said, according to her mother Lisa Evans.

Mr Broadbridge said Ms Sainsbury (pictured) 'helped manage a commercial cleaning business with national and international clients'
The owner of a giant rabbit that mysteriously died in the care of United Airlines claims bungling staff accidentally shut the pet in a freezer and cremated it without her knowledge.

Simon, a three foot long and black-furred bunny was expected to outgrow his enormous father to become the largest rabbit in the world.

The prize animal was alive when he was taken off the plane from London's Heathrow airport but died at a holding facility at Chicago O'Hare Airport.

An airport worker revealed that the pet was placed in frosty temperatures by mistake for up to 16 hours, causing it to freeze to death last Wednesday.

Now, former Playboy model and bunny breeder Annette Edwards said she learned on Friday that her prize animal was cremated without her knowledge or consent.

Simon, a three foot long and black-furred bunny (pictured), was expected to become the largest rabbit in the world. He died after he was flown to Chicago from London last week

Annette Edwards, 65, of Stoulton, Worcestershire, learned on Friday that United had cremated the body without her consent or knowledge. She is pictured with Simon's father Darius, the world's biggest rabbit

Edwards told The Sun: 'The whole thing stinks of a cover-up. I had been asking United over and over again for his body so that I can have him examined here in Britain but they never got back to me.

'Then finally, late on Friday, they called and told me he had been cremated and there was nothing they could do.

'I suspected he was dropped but to find out he was frozen to death has really knocked me. I had asked for the CCTV but they wouldnt give me it and now I know why.'

Earlier in the week, it was revealed that United Airlines staff allegedly locked away the animal for up to 16 hours in a freezer, where temperature dipped into frigid conditions.

Edwards said a vet had checked Simon shortly before he was placed on the United flight on Wednesday last week and he 'was fit as a fiddle'.

Former Playboy model and bunny breeder Edwards (pictured) claims Simon was 'fit as a fiddle' and was in perfect health when he was checked by a vet three hours before his flight

An unnamed source told The Sun: 'The rabbit arrived fine but there was some sort of mistake and he was locked inside a freezer overnight.

'Everyone thought he was just having a nap or something. Nobody realized it needed to be taken out.'

A United spokesman denied the claims, saying: 'That assertion is completely false. Simon was cared for at the PetSafe kennel facility which is kept at room temperature (on average 70F).

'He arrived at Chicago OHare airport in apparent good condition at 10:25 am (local time). He was seen by a representative of the kennel facility moving about within his crate about 11:00am.

'Shortly thereafter, a kennel representative noticed Simon was motionless and determined that he passed away.'

The incident is the latest embarrassment to hit United after it sparked global outcry when a passenger was dragged off an overbooked plane earlier this month.

United said the rabbit was moving around in his crate and appeared healthy when taken off the plane in Chicago, waiting to be put on another flight to Kansas City.

The incident comes just weeks after the besieged airline hit the headlines when a doctor was dragged off a plane by stewards at Chicago O'Hare Airport

About half an hour later, at the company-run pet facility, Simon seemed to be asleep.

Shortly after that, a pet facility employee opened the cage and found the rabbit dead. The spokesman said the airline was reviewing its handling of the animal.

'We won't know the cause of death, because we offered to perform a necropsy free of charge - that's standard procedure - but the customer didn't want us to perform a necropsy, and we understand,' he said.

The spokesman added that the airline offered compensation to the breeder but would not disclose the amount.

Bryan Bergdale, a farmland investment manager, said he bought the rabbit for his boss, who had hoped to show him at the Iowa State Fair.

He had driven from the Des Moines area to Kansas City and was nearing the airport last Thursday when United called with the bad news.

At first, he didn't believe it. 'We'd built a pen and had toys all ready. It's sort of a sad deal,' he said.

Edwards, pictured with Simon's father Darius (right) and his wife Honey. An United staffer said Simon was locked away in an freezer for up to 16 hours

Mr Bergdale, 29, said he had tracked down the breeder and bought the rabbit for his boss, Steve Bruere, who owns a farm real estate company in the Des Moines suburb of Clive.

Mr Bergdale said the rabbit cost $530 and the shipping was $1,800. He said the United representative didn't say anything about compensating him for the loss.

'We're still in the mourning process,' he said. 'We're not quite sure what we're going to do.'

United had the second-highest level of animal deaths and injuries of any US airline last year, or 2.11 per 10,000 animals transported, according to the Department of Transportation.

Only Hawaiian Airlines was worse at 3.99, the result of three deaths among the 7,518 animals it transported.

United transported 109,149 animals last year, second only to Alaska Airlines with 112,281. United reported nine deaths and 14 injuries, the highest figures for each category among US carriers. Alaska reported two deaths and one injury.

United said it works to protect the safety of animals through its PetSafe program, which is staffed 24 hours a day and allows pet owners to track their animals from point of origin to destination.

'Travel can be stressful for animals,' the spokesman said, adding that the carrier has plenty of tips for those who do decide to ship their animals.

Had he lived Simon was expected to outgrow the world's biggest rabbit - his 4ft 4in father Darius.

Simon's new owner is expected to sue because he paid 2,000 for Simon's flight, 85 vet bill and 300 for Simon himself.

United is already working to repair its battered image after a passenger who refused to give up his seat on an overbooked flight was forcibly dragged from a plane at O'Hare Airport.

Airport security officers removed David Dao, a 69-year-old from Kentucky, from the United Express flight. Images of his bloodied face were widely circulated online.

Mr Munoz was widely faulted for his early responses to the situation. He first blamed Dr Dao but later apologized repeatedly for United's handling of the situation.

Two weeks earlier, United was criticized after a gate agent stopped two young girls from boarding a flight because they were wearing leggings.

The airline said leggings violate the dress code of the United Pass program, a benefit for employees and their dependents.

The airline said Mr Munoz would not automatically become chairman of the carrier's parent company, United Continental Holdings, next year as originally planned.
Theresa May is constantly accused by Remainers of being zealous, obdurate and unrealistic in the demands she is making in negotiations with our European Union partners.

Whether she deserves any of these epithets is a matter of opinion. I would prefer to say she is tough, single-minded and pretty beady-eyed. But what no one can reasonably pretend is that she has been rude, overbearing or threatening towards our European friends.

And yet these are the characteristics a number of European leaders have been displaying over the past few days. Have our own ultra-Remainers complained? Of course not. When Mrs May is tough, they say she is hysterical. But when EU leaders are hysterical, they keep quiet.

Theresa May is constantly accused by Remainers of being zealous, obdurate and unrealistic in the demands she is making in negotiations with the European Union

It wasnt statesmanlike of Frances President Francois Hollande to reiterate over the weekend what he has said before  namely, there would inevitably be a price and a cost for the UK and that Britain will have a weaker position in the future outside Europe than it has today within Europe.

Nor was it very friendly of German Chancellor Angela Merkel  hitherto one of the most level-headed of EU leaders  to speak scornfully of British illusions in the Bundestag last Thursday.

As for the puffed up Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, hes said to have told Mrs Merkel that Mrs May was in a different galaxy. He later accused her of underestimating how complex the process would be. The suggestion is that she isnt all there.

This is not the normal language of diplomacy between allies. One might expect the risible (though lethal) Kim Jong-un, dictator of North Korea, to throw similar insults at President Donald Trump or other prospective enemies. But surely not supposedly sensible European politicians.

We have every right to be offended. The whole approach of the EU elite seems calculated to be aggravating. In just four minutes on Saturday, European leaders agreed a hardline stance on Brexit at a meeting in Brussels.

They are insisting  as though Britain were some pathetic little petitioner rather than a great nation state  that the Government must follow their timetable. First, we must agree to stump up a divorce settlement of 50billion.

Threats: German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke of British 'illusions' last week

Then, in the provocative words of European Council President Donald Tusk, we must make a serious response regarding EU citizens in Britain after Brexit, though he conveniently forgets that Mrs May wanted to settle the matter before Christmas but was stymied by Mrs Merkel.

Only when these matters have been concluded in a way satisfactory to Brussels  along with the issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU  will it deign to discuss Britains future trade relations with the bloc.

The combination of these bullying negotiation techniques and incendiary language is enough to make ones blood boil. This is no way for friendly states to behave.

Nor can I help reflecting that, 73 years ago next month, Britain supplied some 40 per cent of the troops in the D-Day landing, which led to the liberation of Europe  or that part of it not occupied by the Soviet Union.

The spectacle of some European leaders sinking so readily to invective against the country to which they owe so much of their freedom  well, it is hard to stomach. Even now Europe still relies on Britain to a significant degree for its defence. Is this really the way to address a resilient and important ally?

So, like millions of others no doubt, I find myself resenting this aggression from leaders who at the very least owe us a degree of respect. I dont think we should feel in any way intimidated  though some intransigent Remainers will encourage us to be so.

'Dont blame the French when Hollande invokes calamity for Britain. He speaks only on behalf of the French political class and the EU elite, not the French people'

For the fact is that reasonable people usually only act unreasonably when they feel threatened. The orchestrated show of seeming solidarity in Brussels on Saturday was a performance designed to convey that the EU is united, confident and buoyant. But it isnt any of those things. It is an organisation in crisis which has lost the support of near-majorities of the populace even in countries such as Italy, which has traditionally been wedded to the EU. No longer.

Dont blame the French when Hollande invokes calamity for Britain. He speaks only on behalf of the French political class and the EU elite, not the French people. Many of those, very possibly a majority, are as sceptical of the EU as the British showed themselves to be in last Junes referendum.

In many countries there is a rising tide of scepticism as a result of the doomed euro project, which has frustrated growth and induced despair among ordinary people.

What we saw in Brussels at the weekend was an institution pretending to be much tougher and more united than it is. I strongly suggest that it is not in the interests, or even within the capabilities, of this flagging organisation to throttle Britain.

Moreover, Hollande will shortly be replaced, probably by the business-friendly Emmanuel Macron, believed by some to be more sympathetic to Britain. Mrs Merkels every word is tempered by political consideration before this autumns German elections. If, as seems likely, she wins, she will strike a pragmatic deal with this country.

And, even if the French political class forgets the debt France owes to Britain, we have numerous friends throughout Europe. They may have gone along with the pantomime in Brussels, but once negotiations are under way they will act as a check on Juncker.

Remainers may be trembling at the knees, but nothing that happened in Brussels on Saturday should make us scared  though watching that empty rigmarole, and hearing those bogus threats, Im more glad than ever that Britain is leaving the EU.
An Adelaide man has been sentenced to seven years in jail for bashing his drinking partner and dumping his body in a wheelie bin.

Daniel Hind, 29, was killed by Timothy Seymour, 35, in a drunken clash in August 2015 and his body was found in a bin in a paddock more than three weeks later.

The court sentenced Seymour to seven years and three months in jail on Monday with a non-parole period of just under six years, after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Seymour was arrested in October 2015, meaning he could be out on parole in just over three years.

Timothy Seymour, 35, has been sentenced to seven years jail for bashing his drinking partner and dumping his body in a wheelie bin. Seymour has already served more than one-and-a-half years of his sentence after being arrested in October 2015 (pictured)

Daniel Hind, 29, was killed by Seymour in a drunken clash in August 2015. His body was found in a bin in a paddock more than three weeks later

During sentencing Justice Sam Doyle said Seymour's decision to dispose of the body in such a manner was an 'appallingly callous act'.

The judge said while the killing was not premeditated to any great degree, he did not know the real reason for the attack.

He did not accept the prosecution argument that it resulted from angst over a drug deal, or defence submissions that it related to comments Seymour made about a woman.

Family members of Mr Hind burst into tears after the sentence was delivered, along with gasps and comments.

The sentence comes after Mr Hind's grief-stricken sister gave a heart-wrenching statement to the Supreme Court last month, saying Seymour had 'single-handedly ruined' her family.

'Daniel and I were very close,' she said in her victim impact statement. 'He was a big part of my life. I would always listen to what he had to say.

'We would always help each other. He was always there.'

Ms Hind said she and her brother had been painting the house just before he went missing.

Justice Sam Doyle said while the killing was not premeditated to any great degree, he did not know the real reason for the attack. Pictured is the crime scene where police discovered Mr Hind's body in 2015

During sentencing the judge said Seymour's decision to dispose of the body in a wheelie bin was an 'appallingly callous act'

When she found out what had happened to him her life was 'completely flipped'.

'I don't feel well and I don't want to eat,' she said, sniffing and tearful. 'I used to be very fit and healthy. Now I am skeletal.

'I don't like people as much as I used to.'

Seymour had been drinking at home with Mr Hind and knocked the younger man out with punches to his face during a clash in the kitchen before falling asleep on the couch.

In the morning Seymour realised what he'd done and he stuffed the body in a wheelie bin.

But Mr Hind's body was eventually found in a paddock in Waterloo Corner and Seymour was charged, later pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Mr Hind's family said they were torn apart by the loss and they are reminded of his death whenever they put the bins out.

His father Philip Hind said he had a breakdown from the grief and he was in hospital for months.

His mother Mindy Hind said family gatherings will never be the same now her first-born son is gone and she still feels sick every time she walks past a wheelie bin.
'F--- tha Police' is one of the most well known hit songs performed by the Compton, California-based hip hop group N.W.A (above)

Right about now, N.W.A. court is in full effect

Judge Dre presiding

In the case of N.W.A. vs. the Police Department

Prosecuting attorneys are MC Ren, Ice Cube

And Eazy-motherf***ing-E

Order, order, order

Ice Cube, take the motherf***ing stand

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth

And nothing but the truth so help your black ***?

You goddamn right!

Well won't you tell everybody what the f*** you gotta say?

F*** the police coming straight from the underground

A young n***a got it bad cause I'm brown

And not the other color so police think

They have the authority to kill a minority

F*** that s***, cause I ain't the one

For a punk motherf***er with a badge and a gun

To be beating on, and thrown in jail

We can go toe to toe in the middle of a cell

F***ing with me cause I'm a teenager

With a little bit of gold and a pager

Searching my car, looking for the product

Thinking every n***a is selling narcotics

You'd rather see, me in the pen

Than me and Lorenzo rolling in a Benz-o

Beat a police out of shape

And when I'm finished, bring the yellow tape

To tape off the scene of the slaughter

Still getting swoll off bread and water

I don't know if they f*** or what

Search a n***a down, and grabbing his n***

And on the other hand, without a gun they can't get none

But don't let it be a black and a white one

Cause they'll slam ya down to the street top

Black police showing out for the white cop

Ice Cube will swarm

On any motherf***er in a blue uniform

Just cause I'm from the CPT

Punk police are afraid of me, huh

A young n***a on the warpath

And when I'm finished, it's gonna be a bloodbath

Of cops, dying in L.A

Yo Dre, I got something to say

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

Pull your god damn *** over right now

Aww s***, now what the f*** you pullin me over for?

Cause I feel like it!

Just sit your *** on the curb and shut the f*** up

Man, f*** this s***

Aight, smart***, I'm taking your black *** to jail!

MC Ren, will you please give your testimony

To the jury about this f***ed up incident?

F*** the police and Ren said it with authority

Because the n***as on the street is a majority

A gang is with whoever I'm stepping

And the motherf***ing weapon is kept in

A stash box, for the so-called law

Wishing Ren was a n***a that they never saw

Lights start flashing behind me

But they're scared of a n***a so they mace me to blind me

But that s*** don't work, I just laugh

Because it gives them a hint not to step in my path

For police, I'm saying, "F*** you punk!"

Reading my rights and s***, it's all junk

Pulling out a silly club, so you stand

With a fake-*** badge and a gun in your hand

But take off the gun so you can see what's up

And we'll go at it punk, and I'ma f*** you up!

Make you think I'mma kick your ***

But drop your gat, and Ren's gonna blast

I'm sneaky as f*** when it comes to crime

But I'ma smoke them now and not next time

Smoke any motherf***er that sweats me

Or any ***hole that threatens me

I'm a sniper with a hell of a scope

Taking out a cop or two, they can't cope with me

The motherf***ing villain that's mad

With potential, to get bad as f***

So I'ma turn it around

Put in my clip, yo, and this is the sound

{*BOOM, BOOM*}

Yeah, something like that

But it all depends on the size of the gat

Taking out a police would make my day

But a n***a like Ren don't give a f*** to say

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

Yo man, what you need?

Police, open out!

Aww s***

We have a warrant for Eazy-E's arrest

Get down and put your hands up where I can see 'em

(Move motherf***er, move now!)

What the f*** did I do, man what did I do?

Just shut the f*** up

And get your motherf***ing *** on the floor

(You heard the man, shut the f*** up!)

But I didn't do s***

Man just shut the f*** up!

Eazy-E, won't you step up to the stand

And tell the jury how you feel about this bulls***?

I'm tired of the motherf***ing jacking

Sweating my gang, while I'm chilling in the shack, and

Shining the light in my face, and for what?

Maybe it's because I kick so much butt

I kick *** -- or maybe cause I blast

On a stupid-*** n***a when I'm playing with the trigger

Of an Uzi or an AK

Cause the police always got something stupid to say

They put out my picture with silence

Cause my identity by itself causes violence

The E with the criminal behavior

Yeah, I'm a gangsta, but still I got flavor

Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got?

A sucker in a uniform waiting to get shot

By me, or another n***a

And with a gat it don't matter if he's smaller or bigger

(MC Ren: Size don't mean s***, he's from the old school fool)

And as you all know, E's here to rule

Whenever I'm rolling, keep looking in the mirror

And ears on cue, yo, so I can hear a

Dumb motherf***er with a gun

And if I'm rolling off the 8, he'll be the one

That I take out, and then get away

While I'm driving off laughing this is what I'll say

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

The verdict

The jury has found you guilty of being a redneck

White bread, chickens*** motherf***er

But wait, that's a lie! That's a god damn lie!

Get him out of here!

Get him the f*** out my face!

I want justice!

Out, right now!

F*** you, you black motherf***ers!

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

F*** Tha Police

Source: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has urged parents to 'save lives' and vaccinate their children.

The royal mother-of-four came out in support of vaccinations on Monday in a World Health Organisation video, released ahead of European Immunisation Week.

'Recent outbreaks of measles remind us that vaccine preventable diseases can affect people of all ages and that timely vaccination is a lifelong responsibility,' she said.

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Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has urged parents to 'save lives' and vaccinate their children in a World Health Organisation video released on Monday (pictured)

There have been 49 confirmed cases of the measles across Australia this year, including 23 in New South Wales (stock image)

'The effect of persistent rumours can cause some people to delay or decide against vaccination, but no rumour can be as compelling as the simple truth that vaccines save lives,' she said.

There have been 49 confirmed cases of the measles across Australia this year, according to the Department of Health.

'As of 7 April, there have been 23 cases from New South Wales, 12 cases from Western Australia, eight cases from Queensland, four cases from Victoria and two cases from the Northern Territory,' the website read.

Princess Mary's comments came after it was revealed on Monday parents who don't vaccinate their children will lose $28 in family benefits every fortnight.

The new policy, which will start from July 2018, will see the two-weekly family tax benefit part A payment docked for each child who doesn't meet immunisation requirements.

The royal mother-of-four said 'recent outbreaks of measles remind us that vaccine preventable diseases can affect people of all ages and that timely vaccination is a lifelong responsibility' (pictured)

Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik are pictured with their four children

Social Services Minister Christian Porter and Health Minister Greg Hunt say reducing fortnightly payments instead of withholding the end-of-year supplement will serve as a constant reminder to parents to vaccinate their children.

The government has previously fined families who decide not to vaccinate a one-time fine of $726, according to The Daily Telegraph.

About 400,000 high-income families have not paid the fine because of welfare reforms, the publication reported. The number of children being vaccinated has dropped in northern NSW, particularly in Byron Bay and Ballina.

The number of area children under 15 months who have not been fully vaccinated rose from 16 percent last year to 22 percent this year.
Jimi McDowell was a sportsmad 13-year-old who was well-liked, funny and had the biggest heart.

But in late February, the Perth youngster made the tragic decision to take his own life, just two weeks before his 14th birthday.

His devastated parents have spoken of their grief over losing their young son in the hope no other parent will ever have to experience the same loss.

Debra Brumby and Jason McDowell say they are still struggling to come to terms with their son's death, which came as a complete shock as there were no warning signs.

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Perth teenager Jimi McDowell tragically took his own life earlier this year, just two weeks before his 14th birthday

Jimi was sportsmad, a keen rugby player and was the captain of his team last year

'He was a really happy kid. The only time you saw him unhappy was when he was grounded,' Ms Brumby told Daily Mail Australia.

'He was funny, he was sweet, he had the biggest heart.'

Ms Brumby said Jimi was a keen rugby player, the captain of his team last year and had a wide circle of friends.

It was after he got into trouble with his mother that Jimi made the split second decision to commit suicide in a public park.

'In one little moment, he felt like he had let mum and dad down,' Ms Brumby said.

He was rushed to hospital but his life support was switched off two days later.

Jimmi's mother, Debra Brumby, said the 13-year-old 'had the biggest heart'

Jimmi was well-liked among his peers and had a wide circle of friends

After his death, Jimi's kidneys were donated, which were given to two people on dialysis.

'I felt like I just wanted my boy back,' Ms Brumby said.

She said there needed to be a broader conversation within the community around suicide.

'Stop sweeping suicides under the carpet,' she said.

'People are afraid to talk to talk to their kids about it. Parents need to be talking to their kids [about suicide].'

Jimi's father said his son was an active teenager and his unexpected death was 'a jolt out of the blue'.

Jimi's parents, Jason McDowell and Debra Brumby, want a broader conversation within the community around suicide

'He wasn't a recluse, he didn't hide in his room, there was no signs,' Mr McDowell told 7 News.

Mr McDowell joined Ms Brumby in calling for changes to society's attitude towards suicide.

'Why can't we talk about it [suicide], why is it taboo? Get it out there. People have got to know,' Mr McDowell said.

For confidential support call the 24-hour crisis support Lifeline on 13 11 14. Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800.
Top Capitol Hill negotiators reached an agreement on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that avoids a government shutdown, aides said on Sunday.

The deal means virtually all the day-to-day-operations of the federal government will be funded until September.

It was a victory for Trump, who got an extra $15billion to strengthen the military and another $1.5billion to enhance border security.

However, he lost out on the funding he needed for the US-Mexico-border wall, a promise that was one of the cornerstones of his presidential campaign.

Details of the agreement were expected to be made public Sunday night, said aides to lawmakers involved in weeks of negotiations. T

he House and Senate had until midnight Friday to pass a measure to avert a government shutdown.

The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during President Donald Trump's short tenure in the White House.

Top Capitol Hill negotiators have reached an agreement on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that will fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through September

The deal gives Trump an extra $1.5billion to spend on enhanced border security - but it doesn't including funding for the wall. He is pictured before a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night

It rejects White House budget director Mick Mulvaney's proposals to cut popular programs such as funding medical research and community development grants.

But adds $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds.

Most of the core decisions about agency budgets had been worked out, but unrelated policy issues - such as a Democratic request to help the cash-strapped government of Puerto Rico with its Medicaid burden - were among the final holdups.

THE TRILLION-DOLLAR BUDGET $1.5billion for border security - with strict stipulation that it be used only for technology investments and repairs to existing fencing and infrastructure

$61million to reimburse local law enforcement in New York and Florida for the cost of protecting Trump and his family when he's not in Washington

Permanent extension of program that offers health benefits to coal miners

$407million earmarked for wildfire relief for Western states

$295million to help cover a Medicaid deficit in Puerto Rico

Continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood

$2billion to be held in reserve for the National Institutes of Health

Budget calls for $12.5billion increase in military spending, even though President Trump demanded $30billion

No allocation of money toward construction of a border wall along the frontier with Mexico

Budget maintains 99 percent of current levels of funding for the Environmental Protection Agency

Budget does not include any money for a deportation force which Trump wants to remove undocumented migrants

There is also no cut in funding for so-called 'sanctuary cities' - jurisdictions that permit undocumented aliens to receive services

Key Obamacare subsidies to aid lower-income earners will remain Advertisement

The aides required anonymity because they were not allowed to speak about the agreement by name.

Democrats have denied Trump a big-picture win on obtaining an initial down payment for his oft-promised border wall with Mexico, while anti-abortion lawmakers didn't even attempt to use the must-pass measure to try to cut off federal money for Planned Parenthood.

It denies Trump a win on his U.S.-Mexico border wall, but gives him a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military. He is pictured on Saturday ahead of a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to mark 100 days in office

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who has been central to the negotiations, speaks to reporters from Capitol Hill on Friday

Details were being closely held ahead of an agreement, but Trump and Capitol Hill defense hawks procured a $15 billion infusion of cash for Pentagon readiness and won funding for other border security accounts, such as detention beds for people entering the country illegally.

'This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table,' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, told Politico.

'The bill ensures taxpayer dollars arent used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle-class relies on, like medical research, education, and infrastructure.'

Democrats praised a $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health - rejecting the steep cuts proposed by Trump - as well as additional funding to combat opioid abuse, fund Pell Grants for summer school and additional transit funding.

A provision extending health care for 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families was on track to provide permanent health benefits, a priority of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other Appalachia region lawmakers.

Democratic votes will be needed to pass the measure, so even though Republicans control both the White House and Congress, Democrats have been actively involved in the talks, which appear headed to produce a lowest-common-denominator measure that won't look too much different than the deal that could have been struck on President Barack Obama's watch last year.

Republicans had pressed for policy wins with so-called riders related to other abortion-related issues and blocking environmental regulations such as Obama's sweeping expansion of the Clean Water Act.

They also hoped to chuck new financial rules. But Democrats pushed back and were hopeful that the measure would not contain many items they deemed 'poison pills.'
Two biker gang members were injured following a shootout between two Florida motorcycle clubs.

David Donovan, 41, and Marc Knotts, 48, were injured during the Saturday night standoff between the Outlaws and Kingsmen in Leesburg, 75 miles northeast of Tampa, theOrlando Sentinel reports.

Each man was shot three times on Saturday, as an estimated 200,000 attended Leesburg Bikefest.

David Donovan, 41 (pictured), was shot and injured along with Marc Knotts (48) during a shootout between biker gangs 'Outlaws' and 'Kingsmen' at a gas station in Leesburg, Florida

Pictured is the gas station where the shootout took place, which is three miles from where an annual biker celebration called 'Leesburg Bikefest' was being held

Donovan, based on his Facebook profile, is a 'Kingsmen' member while a prior arrest for Knotts reveals that he is an 'Outlaws' member. Both are recovering at local hospitals. Pictured: The scene of the crime

The annual event was held three miles from the shooting at a local gas station, WFTV reported.

Leesburg's Police Lieutenant, Joe Iozzi, said: 'This was an isolated incident which occurred far outside the downtown venue area.'

Iozzi added that police are hunting for a suspect who fled the scene of the crime.

The annual celebration in Leesburg (pictured) was expected to attract around 200,000 people

Donovan's Facebook page reveals that he is likely a Kingsmen member.

He was arrested once in 1998 on a drug charge, which was dropped.

Knotts is a member of the Outlaws, according to a 2013 arrest report.

He had been charged with aggravated assault.

Both Donovan and Knotts are recovering in local hospitals.
US rapper Eminem has taken New Zealand's ruling political party to court, claiming it used an unlicensed version of one of his biggest hits in order to entice voters.

The 44-year-old, real name Marshall Mathers, says he never gave the National Party permission to use a version of his track 'Lose Yourself', which featured in 2002 movie '8 Mile'.

Barrister Garry Williams said the party breached the copyright of Eight Mile Style, Eminem's publisher, by using the tune in a 2014 election television commercial.

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Barrister Garry Williams said National breached the copyright of Eight Mile Style, Eminem's publisher, by using the tune in a 2014 election television commercial.

Williams said the Detroit rapper's hit was 'iconic', having won an Academy Award, two Grammys and critical acclaim.

He told the court, the New Zealand Herald reports: 'The song Lose Yourself, is without doubt the jewel in the crown of Eminem's musical work," Williams said, in his opening statements to the court.

'Not only did the song win an Academy Award for best original song in a movie, it also won two Grammy awards.'

He said that meant rights to the work were 'enormously valuable' and were strictly controlled by the publisher, which had rarely licensed them for advertising purposes.

The track featured in 2002 movie 8 Mile, starring Eminem in the lead role

Lawyers are expected to argue that any breach of copyright in the campaign ad was accidental

Williams said the song, which topped the charts in 24 countries, dealt with 'the idea of losing yourself in the moment and not missing opportunities in life'.

'That's why the song appeals to both the public and those who wish to influence the public by using it in advertising,' he said.

No details were immediately revealed of what damages Eminem was seeking.

National's lawyers are set to argue the tune they used, 'Eminem-esque', was a generic track that was part of a library bought from production music supplier Beatbox.

They are expected to contend that any copyright infringement was accidental.

The conservative party's campaign director Steven Joyce dismissed Eminem's claim when the row erupted in 2014.

'We think it's pretty legal, I think these guys are just having a crack,' he told reporters at the time.

The judge-only hearing is scheduled to take six days.
Advertisement

The Lord of a 15th-century German castle is looking to trade his 28 bedroom estate for a modest Melbourne home.

Lord James Richard Welsh and his wife Ingrid Straub-Zerfowski have lived in the extravagant castle Schochwitz, valued at $1.09 million, for 12 years, but are keen to retire closer to their son in Melbourne's south-east.

Lord Welsh said the couple hope to trade the 4000sqm estate with the owner of a much smaller three or four bedroom house to avoid paying tax.

'It's too much for us now, we want someone who's positive and who wants to run a good business,' Lord Welsh told 3AW.

The Lord of a 15th-century German castle is looking to trade his 28 bedroom estate (pictured) for a modest Melbourne home

Lord Welsh said the couple hope to trade the 4000sqm estate with the owner of a much smaller three or four bedroom house

Lord James Richard Welsh (right) and his wife Ingrid Straub-Zerfowski (left) have lived in the extravagant castle Schochwitz, valued at $1.09 million, for 12 years,

Ms Straub-Zerfowski used the enormous property as a natural healing centre and Lord Welsh said the couple are now 'too busy' and feel as if they are running a hotel.

The pair chose Melbourne after visiting their son, who lives in Parkdale in the city's south-east.

'I've been over a couple of times and I like the place,' he said.

Lord Welsh admitted he would lose his title after signing over the estate, but said the new owner would earn the prefix and become Lord of the Manor.

Ms Straub-Zerfowski used the enormous property as a natural healing centre and Lord Welsh said the couple are now 'too busy'

Lord Welsh admitted he would lose his title after signing over the estate, but said the new owner would earn the prefix and become Lord of the Manor

The property features 28 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, central heating, a cafe and a yoga room

Lord Welsh said he is more looking for the right person to see the castle as a 'good business' rather than just sell it to anyone

The property features 28 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, central heating, a cafe and a yoga room, the Herald Sun reported.

The couple hope to move to Parkdale, but would need to drastically downsize with a budget of $1 million.

A much smaller four bedroom townhouse is on the market in the German couple's chosen suburb for just over $1 million.

The Parkdale property is a far cry from the Schochwitz castle with just two bathrooms and two car parks.

Lord Welsh said he is more looking for the right person to see the castle as a 'good business' rather than just sell it to anyone.

The couple hope to move to Parkdale, but would need to drastically downsize with a budget of $1 million. A Parkdale townhouse on the market in their budget is pictured
Four men have died, including the suspected gunman, in a shooting at a care home for people with special needs.

The gunman opened fire at a home affiliated with charity TARC in Topeka, Kansas, on Sunday afternoon.

The man believed to be the gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot, Police Lieutenant Colleen Stuart said.

Four men have died in a shooting in a care home for people with special needs in Topeka, Kansas. The suspected gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said

She said the four men were all pronounced dead at the scene and another man has been taken to hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

The victims of the shooting have not yet been identified and Stuart said the shooter and all the victims were associated with the home.

Though the care home is affilliated with TARC, it is not run by them.

The charity provides day care for adults and children with special needs and helps make them as independent as possible.

Sherry Lundry, TARC development director, told the Capital-Journal: 'We are doing all we can to support the provider at this time.
A New Zealand man could be locked up after he was found guilty of beating his 15-year-old stepdaughter's rapist after spotting him walking in the street.

The father, who cannot be identified to protect his teenage stepdaughter, saw rapist Jason Haward two days after the sexual assault and took matters into his own hands.

Jumping out of a car, he punched Haward several times and then headbutted him in the face as witnesses attempted to break up the brawl, the NZ Herald reported.

A police officer on the scene reportedly said he thought Haward - who suffered seizures in the ambulance and lost a tooth in the melee - might die from the attack.

A New Zealand man could be locked up after he was found guilty of beating his 15-year-old stepdaughter's rapist (stock image)

The man claimed he was merely trying to restrain Haward until police arrived, but a Wellington District Court jury found him guilty of the serious charge of assault with intent to injure.

'I'm just disgusted in the whole system, to be honest,' the stepfather told reporters outside court on Monday afternoon.

'I don't know how they managed to find me guilty on this charge. There was no level of violence.'

The man said he didn't regret his actions but felt let down by the legal system.

'With this going on at the same time it just feels like we're the ones getting punished for our daughter getting raped,' he told media.

Judge Peter Butler said it was unlikely the man would be given any jail time, but ordered him to remain behind bars until the sentencing hearing.

Haward was convicted of raping the man's stepdaughter in February and is serving out a seven-and-a-half year sentence in jail.
A year seven student in North Sydney was hospitalised on Friday after he was allegedly stabbed in the eye with a pen by a student with special needs.

The class was sitting an art exam when the boy was allegedly stabbed, with his injuries requiring surgery to fix, the Daily Telegraph reported.

It is claimed the child, who has no history of violence at the school, is usually accompanied by a teacher's aide but was alone at the time.

The injured boy was taken to Randwick Children's Hospital on Friday afternoon, where his family have remained by his side.

A year seven student was allegedly stabbed in the eye by a classmate with intellectual disabilities during an art exam on Friday

'[His father] stayed all night at the hospital by his bed,' the boy's grandmother told the Telegraph.

'For somebody to do that with a pen in your eye, that's bad.'

The other boy, who is reported to have intellectual disabilities, was removed from the classroom and suspended from school until investigations are complete.

A spokesperson for NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia enquiries were ongoing.

Principal Kathy Melky issued a letter to parents saying the school had safety policies in place, but explained: 'unfortunately, there are still times when incidents take place'.

A parent told the Telegraph a group of parents had filed a report with police noting multiple threats allegedly made by the young boy to stab, beginning at the start of the year.

The parent also claims no offer of comfort or counselling was made by the school on the day, and children were 'sent home as normal'.

'Parents are hearing the news second-hand and there have been no offers of counselling,' they said, further claiming their children were 'traumatised' by the incident.

The boy's injuries are reportedly so bad he requires surgery at the Sydney Children's Hospital in Randwick (pictured) to help his eye heal

The NSW Department of Education disputes this, and a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'Parents have been informed of the incident, and counselling was offered to students present in the classroom at the time'.

'Violence or threats of violence are not tolerated in NSW public schools,' they said.

'Staff immediately gave first aid to a student who was injured during an incident with another student at the school on Friday.

'The alleged perpetrator was removed from the classroom straight away, an ambulance was called, the injured students family notified, and police contacted.

'The alleged perpetrator was suspended, with further action pending the outcome of the police investigation and enquiries by the Department of Education.'

The Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick were contacted for comment, but declined to provide any update on the injured boy's condition.
A grandmother has been left fighting for her life in a Chinese hospital after being struck down by Swine Flu while on a family holiday.

Kerri Cosma, 58, was visiting her daughter Emma Madigan and young grandchildren in Nanjing, in the country's east, over Easter when she contracted the illness.

A personal trainer from Preston, Melbourne, Mrs Cosma has spent the past 10 days in an induced coma and is only alive thanks to a 'miracle', her daughter told Daily Mail Australia.

Melbourne grandmother Kerri Cosma (pictured with her grandson) has been left fighting for her life in a Chinese hospital after being struck down by Swine Flu while visiting her family

Told by a doctor that her mother was dying, Ms Madigan said what should have been a memorable family catch-up looked set to end in tragedy.

'There's been some positive steps in recent days but she's still not out of the woods - its been a distressing 10 days or so,' she said.

'We met in Shanghai and she (Mrs Cosma) was coming down with something. They tested her for all types of influenza and they found out it was H1N1, or swine flu.'

Placed into an induced coma, Mrs Cosma was quarantined into isolation with guards at her door to ensure no one entered the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) without a HAZMAT suit.

A 58-year-old personal trainer from Preston, Melbourne, Mrs Cosma has spent the past 10 days in an induced coma and is only alive thanks to a 'miracle', her daughter told Daily Mail Australia

Mrs Cosma was quarantined into isolation with guards at her door to ensure no one entered the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) without protection from a HAZMAT suit

The illness took such a toll on the grandmother's breathing that doctors were forced to hook her up to an ECMO machine that moves blood through her body, while still allowing her vital organs to rest.

Since moved to Southeast University Hospital in Nanjing, her level of quarantine has been downgraded and Ms Madigan said in recent days Mrs Cosma's made progress with her health.

'It's still early days, because the doctors have said it could take 18 months for her to recover fully,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Mrs Cosma was holidaying with her family in Nanjing (pictured), in eastern China, when she was struck down by the illness

'But today when we see her we hope she can communicate with us using pen and paper.

'It's a miracle that she's still alive.'

While Ms Madigan said travel insurance had saved her thousands of dollars in costs, the grandmother will still be left out of pocket by her ordeal.

A GoFundMe page has been set up by Mrs Cosma's husband Sam, who is by her side in Nanjing.
Hillary Clinton had to suppress the anger that touched every nerve in her body when she conceded the presidential election to Donald Trump on the night of November 8, according to an excerpt from a new book about her ill-fated campaign.

The extraordinary account was relayed by the authors of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clintons Doomed Election Campaign.

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes describe the behind-the-scenes goings on during that fateful night  particularly when the realization sets in that Clinton would fail to win crucial swing states like Florida, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, were watching the returns in their suite on the top floor of The Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan, according to the excerpt published in the New York Post.

They were joined by top aides Robby Mook, John Podesta, and Cheryl Mills  all of whom were burning up the phone lines with Democratic operatives who were reporting the grim results as they were rolling in.

Hillary was still surprisingly calm, unable or unwilling to delve into the details of how her dream was turning into a nightmare, the authors write as the campaign was coming to grips with its loss in Florida.

Hillary Clinton (right) is seen giving her concession speech in New York on November 9 as her husband, former President Bill Clinton (left), looks on - just hours after she lost the presidential election to New York real estate mogul Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton had to suppress the anger that touched every nerve in her body when she conceded the presidential election to Donald Trump on the night of November 8, according to an excerpt from a new book about her ill-fated campaign

Bill was less reticent. Hed had a sinking feeling that the British vote to leave the European Union had been a harbinger for a kind of screw-it vote in the United States.

Hed seen the trans-Atlantic phenomenon of populist rage at rallies across the country, and warned friends privately of his misgivings about its effect on Hillarys chances.

The extraordinary account was relayed by the authors of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clintons Doomed Election Campaign (above)

Now his focus turned back to the international movement hed seen gathering. Its like Brexit, he lamented. I guess its real.

After North Carolina and Wisconsin were called for Trump, President Barack Obama reached out to his former secretary of state and told her it was time to give up.

Whats going on in your camp? an Obama aide, David Simas, asked Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook.

I dont think were going to win, Mook replied.

'I dont think you are either,' Simas agreed. 'POTUS doesnt think its wise to drag this out.'

Now Mook had to tell his boss that Obama was interested in a smooth transfer of power to his successor, Trump, and that Clinton needed to give up any last-ditch hopes that the swing states would somehow flip for her.

I dont see how you win this, Mook told Clinton.

'I understand,' she told Mook.

Still, Clinton was not ready to officially bow out of the race.

The Clintons are seen above leaving after casting their votes at a school in their hometown of Chappaqua, New York, earlier on November 8. As his wife's hopes of victory were slipping away, Bill Clinton remarked that the US presidential election reminded him of the Brexit vote

Clinton is seen left with top aide Huma Abedin (right). Abedin called Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, who handed the phone to the winning candidate

'Congratulations, Donald (above),' Hillary said while 'suppressing the anger that touched every nerve in her body,' according to the book

Im not ready to go give this speech.

Eventually, Obama personally picked up the phone to call Clinton.

You need to concede, the president said.

After Pennsylvania was called for Trump and the Associated Press declared The Donald the winner, Clinton finally faced reality.

Kellyanne Conway picked up Huma Abedins call and handed her phone to Trump, the authors write.

Hillary took Humas phone and faked a smile with her voice. Congratulations, Donald, she said, suppressing the anger that touched every nerve in her body.

Ill be supportive of the countrys success, and that means your success as president.

Trump credited her for being a smart opponent who ran a tough campaign. The denouement lasted all of about a minute.

Then-President Barack Obama (left) and Clinton make one final appearance together on the night before Election Day in Philadelphia. Obama personally phoned Clinton the next night and urged her to concede the election

Shortly after the call with Trump, as the scope of her defeat sank in, Abedin walked up to her boss once again with phone in hand.

Its the president, Clintons loyal aide said.

The authors write: Hillary winced. She wasnt ready for this conversation.

When shed spoken with Obama just a little bit earlier, the outcome of the election wasnt final yet.

Now, though, with the president placing a consolation call, the reality and dimensions of her defeat hit her all at once.

She had let him down. She had let herself down. She had let her party down. And she had let her country down.

Obamas legacy and her dreams of the presidency lay shattered at Donald Trumps feet.

This was on her. Reluctantly, she rose from her seat and took the phone from Abedins hand.

'Mr. President," she said softly. "Im sorry".'
A woman was bitten by a deadly venomous snake just hours after her boyfriend's romantic sunrise proposal.

Jessica Daniel, 24, was walking along the beach at dawn when her boyfriend of seven years, Joshua Wells, got down on one knee and proposed to her.

Ms Daniel said 'yes' and the pair decided to celebrate by spending the day at Big Banana theme park in Coffs Harbour, NSW.

However, the day was cut short when a yellow-faced whip snake bit Ms Daniel twice on her big toe, according to News.com.au.

Jessica Daniel, 24, was bitten by a venomous snake just hours after her boyfriend's romantic sunrise proposal in Coffs Harbour

Ms Daniel was celebrating her birthday in Coffs Harbour when her boyfriend of seven years Joshua Wells got down on one knee while walking along the beach

Ms Daniel was taken to hospital where she received blood tests on a birthday she 'won't forget'.

'It hurt so much ... like someone chopped my toe off,' Ms Daniel told News.com.au.

Ms Daniel said they were about to leave the fun park but decided to go on one more ride.

She was walking along a concrete path towards the ride when she was attacked by the snake, Ms Daniel said.

Ms Daniel said 'yes', posting a picture of her engagement ring to Facebook. The pair decided to spend the day at Big Banana fun park in northern NSW to celebrate, before Ms Daniel was bitten by the snake

Staff at the fun park wrapped her leg while her future husband searched for the snake, she said.

'[Josh] then drove me to the hospital where we spent the next 8 or so hours waiting,' she told the website.

Ms Daniel was given the all clear after several blood tests and was released.

Yellow-faced whip snakes are common in Australia, although they aren't considered dangerous.
A 15-year-old Muslim teenager who shot dead Sydney police employee Curtis Cheng was found with a bloodstained suicide note on his body.

The note found on Farhad Jabar outside the NSW Police Force headquarters in Parramatta, Western Sydney, read 'I have come to put terror in your hearts'.

It also said 'an act that will cause nightmares during the night-time and hell during the daytime' and a reference to this being 'the world of Allah'.

The first half of the bloodstained note found on Farhad Jabar's body outside the NSW Police Force headquarters

The second half of the bloodstained note found on Farhad Jabar's body outside the NSW Police Force headquarters in Parramatta, Western Sydney

Farhad Jabar, (pictured), shot dead police employee Curtis Cheng on the afternoon of October 2, 2015

The full note found on Farhad Jabar outside the Police Force headquarters

Jabar allegedly supplied the gun used to kill NSW Police employee Mr Cheng originally obtained the 'wrong' weapon, a Sydney court has heard.

Police surveillance material played at a committal hearing in the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday allegedly shows the terror plotters encountered a major glitch in their plan just hours before Mr Cheng was shot dead on the afternoon of October 2, 2015.

Farhad Jabar (pictured) gave an Islamic State salute to a security camera in a mosque before the shooting

Aerial police footage allegedly shows Talal Alameddine, 24, arranging to supply the murder weapon to fellow accused terror plotter Raban Alou, 19, at a rendezvous at a park at Mays Hill, near Parramatta, about 1.30pm on October 2.

In audio from Alou's car that was played to the court, Alou can be heard saying, 'What did you bring?' and Alameddine replying, 'Well, I brought the 30 cal, bro.... You wanted the big one.'

A displeased-sounding Alou can be heard saying, 'S*** bro.'

Crown prosecutor Paul McGuire SC says Alameddine had provided 'a firearm that turns out to be not the firearm that's requested due to the wrong type or the wrong size'.

Surveillance footage shows Alameddine and Alou then driving to Merrylands, where Alameddine lived, allegedly to obtain the right weapon.

The men were followed by a second car carrying another accused terror plotter, Mustafa Dirani.

Mr McGuire said the revolver used to kill Mr Cheng was a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson, which is relatively small and easily concealed compared with the .30 calibre gun that was originally supplied.

Alameddine, Alou and Dirani are all accused of supplying the gun used by 15-year-old Farhad Jabar to kill Mr Cheng outside Parramatta police headquarters about 4.30pm that Friday afternoon.

Jabar was shot dead by police in an exchange of gunfire shortly after.

CCTV footage shows he prayed at a Parramatta mosque and gave the Islamic State salute to a security camera there before he went on foot to shoot Mr Cheng outside the headquarters.

15-year-old Jabar caught on CCTV footage believed to be raising his finger as an Islamic State salute at the mosque

The teenage boy who shot dead Sydney police employee Curtis Cheng gave an ISIS salute to a security camera at a Parramatta mosque (pictured) before carrying out the murder

'The raising of the index finger has become known as the IS salute,' Crown prosecutor Paul McGuire SC told the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday

Crown prosecutor Paul McGuire SC said just before the 15-year-old left the mosque for the police station, he could be seen raising his index finger and looking at the mosque security camera.

'The raising of the index finger has become known as the IS salute,' Mr McGuire told the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday.

The footage shows Jabar praying at the mosque before striding through the streets of Parramatta in Islamic robes with a Nike backpack on his back, on his way to shoot Mr Cheng.

Mr McGuire said the bloodstained suicide note was almost identical to a torn-up note found in a bin in Jabar's bedroom that appeared to have been written by his sister.

Jabar's sister allegedly flew to Syria the day before Mr Cheng's murder.

Mr Cheng (far left) was shot dead by Farhad Jabar, 15, outside the police HQ in Parramatta in February 2015, where he worked as an accountant

After carrying out the murder of Mr Cheng, Farhad Jabar was shot by police in an exchange of gunfire

On a bloodstained note found on his body outside the police HQ the teen had scrawled that his was 'an act that will cause nightmares during the night-time and hell during the daytime'

Mr McGuire said that after Jabar shot Mr Cheng, the online Islamic State magazine Dabiq referred to the teenager as among the 'brave knights' of jihad who had 'struck the crusaders of Australia and killed one of their personnel'.

'The Crown says that reference ... establishes that the Islamic State was taking credit for the act of terror that was committed by (Farhad Jabar),' Mr McGuire said.

Talal Alameddine, Mustafa Dirani and Milad Atai are facing a committal hearing accused of aiding Jabar's plot.

Raban Alou is also accused over the plot but is not involved in Monday's committal proceedings.
Following days, months and even years of separation, families were momentarily reunited when a door was flung open along the US-Mexico border.

For a brief three minutes, United States Border Patrol agents opened up a single gate that was the only barrier dividing loved ones from one another on Sunday.

The Door of Hope was unlocked for the fifth year along the border at Friendship Park, where the bottom of California meets Tijuana, Mexico.

It was this tiny sliver of land where six families were able to cross through painted slats that make up the border fence between two nations and emotionally embrace their relatives.

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For a brief three minutes, United States Border Patrol agents opened up a single gate on the US-Mexico border that was the only barrier dividing loved ones from one another on Sunday

The Door of Hope was unlocked for the fifth year along the border at Friendship Park, where the bottom of California meets Tijuana, Mexico

Six families were able to cross through the border fence between two nations and emotionally embrace relatives

Jannet Lorenzo, 31, was one member of those six families who was able to take part of the day to celebrate Mexico's Children's Day, in the event organized by Border Angels.

Lorenzo had last hugged her mother in the US seven years ago was able to hold onto her mother for the first time since 2010, reported the San Diego Union-Tribune.

She told the news outlet: 'I was shaking, and my heart was beating really hard. The three minutes passed right away. I thought I was there for one minute.'

The special reunion was bittersweet as she soon had to say goodbye and has serious fears if they will ever be together again with the Trump administration calling for stricter immigration policy.

Loenzo said: 'Most of my family is scared, really scared. My mom lost a little more hope.

She added to Times of San Deigo : 'I think that [Trump] is going to make it really hard for people  more restrictions for people to apply legally.'

The reunion was to celebrate Mexico's Children's Day in the event organized by Border Angels

Friendship Park is located on the border of California and Mexico (pictured)

The reunion comes a day before immigrant and union groups plan to march in cities across the United States on Monday to mark May Day and protest against President Trump's efforts to boost deportations

The reunion comes a day before immigrant and union groups plan to march in cities across the United States on Monday to mark May Day and protest against President Trump's efforts to boost deportations.

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies are expected to rally in cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also are planned for dozens of smaller cities from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Portland, Oregon.

In many places, activists are urging people to skip work, school and shopping to show the importance of immigrants in American communities.
The family of a 22-year-old Australian woman accused of trying to smuggle cocaine out of Colombia are being told to 'get their story straight' after several discrepancies emerged in their claims about why she was there.

Cassandra Sainsbury was detained at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota just as she was about to fly back to Australia on April 11, after she was found with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine hidden in headphones.

The young woman's family faced the media asking for donations to help her fight the charges, claiming she was a personal trainer in the country on a working holiday.

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Australian woman Cassandra Sainsbury, 22, faces 25 years in jail after she was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine at an airport in Colombia

The woman (pictured with her fiance) was detained on April 11 at Bogota Airport just as she was about to fly back to Australia after a working holiday

However, Australia and Colombia do not have a working holiday agreement, and Ms Sainsbury's fiance Scott Broadbridge, has revealed she hasn't worked as a personal trainer this year.

Khala said her sister was tricked into being a drug mule by a man she just met who handed her a package containing the concealed drugs

'Although Cassie is a PT, she is not currently personal training and hasn't been for 6 months. I don't know why that was mentioned at all,' Mr Broadbridge wrote online.

'She helped manage a commercial cleaning business that had both national and international clients.'

The woman's sister, Khala Sainsbury, set up a fundraising page to help her sister with legal costs. On the page she wrote that her sister is a volunteer firefighter with Country Fire Service in Adelaide, but the organisation has said she hasn't worked with them for three years.

'Hi Khala, although SA Country Fire Service appreciate you helping your sister through this, we are concerned you are stating that she is a member of SA Country Fire Service,' Alison Martin a senior publicity officer wrote on the fundraiser page.

'She has not been a volunteer for the past three years and we would appreciate you taking all material relating to CFS from this profile.'

The page has raised $2,995 in four days but most of the comments appear to be negative towards the 22-year-old.

Khala said her sister (pictured) found a Colombian lawyer but he suggested pleading guilty to lesser charges to avoid an up to 25-year jail sentence

A message on the fundraising site from her fiance

Her mother, Lisa Evans, has maintained her daughter is innocent, saying she had been 'naive' in trusting a Colombian man to help her get a good deal on headphones

The young woman's family told Daily Mail Australia she thought the parcel contained headphones for her bridal party and friends back home.

However Bogota residents, where she was caught with the drugs, say technology is expensive in Colombia  and headphones would be hard to find in the city.

'Colombia is not a country like Thailand where they have headphones in the market places like Dr. Dre Beats,' an Australian in Colombia said.

'Technology is considered expensive to buy here.'

The woman who claimed to have spent 'a lot of time in Bogota' said she had never seen headphones for sale there.

Khala said her sister (pictured) found a Colombian lawyer but he suggested pleading guilty to lesser charges to avoid an up to 25-year jail sentence

Her family says she is innocent and being 'set up'

Khala said her sister was tricked into being a drug mule by a man she just met who handed her a package containing the concealed drugs

Mr Broadbridge at a music festival, the woman's fiance claims she was a manager of a cleaning business

Many people also questioned the difference in weight between the earphones and the drug parcel.

'Everyone knows that a extra 6kgs in headphones wouldn't feel right,' one person said.

'Always check your packages before putting them in your bag,' said another

Her family says she is innocent and being 'set up'

The family's fundraising page also claimed the Colombian government 'is corrupt' which has seen them receive angry comments from those who live there.

Don't call my country corrupt when she was caught with the good in her bag. You have lied twice in your fundraising intro, Ern Perez said.

Why are you lying, and it seems your family is trying to put sympathy to the Australian public in making false statements.

Ms Sainsbury was an aspiring model before leaving for the South American country and had built her own starnow profile which invited potential client to view her Instagram account.

Working holiday visas to Colombia are only issued to citizen of France who are aged 18-30 and

The references to the firefighting service remain in the public cry for help.

Cassandra was planning a wedding to her fiance and 'love of her life' Scott Broadbridge (L) after they got engaged in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia

'She is just so scared that she is caught up on the other side of the world for something she didn't do with no support over there, no nothing,' Ms Evans told the Today Show.

The Adelaide woman was denied bail and is being held at the El Buen Pastor prison, which houses over 50,000 women.

Ms Evans said Ms Sainsbury's Colombian lawyer, who used to be the Mayor of Bogota, has advised the young woman plead guilty to avoid 25 years behind bars at her hearing in two months.

She said the 'best case scenario' is a minimum six-year sentence with a guilty plea.

'If Cassie gives information about the person that gave her the package it may come down a bit to four,' Ms Evans told KIIS 1065's Kyle & Jackie O on Monday.

The distraught mother said her daughter told her she had trusted a Colombian man who offered to be her translator and find gifts for her family.

'She mentioned these headphones she wanted to get and this man said 'I know a guy and if you buy 16 or 18 of them he can give you a really good price',' Ms Evans said.

'The day of her departure he gave her the package wrapped in black plastic and she put it in her luggage'.

The former personal trainer from Adelaide was denied bail and is being held at the overcrowded El Buen Pastor women's prison (pictured) until her hearing in two months

Ms Sainsbury's older sister Khala was to pick her up from the airport on Easter Saturday and didn't realise Cassandra's predicament until the morning of Good Friday.

'The trip was at least in part to promote her personal training business,' her sister told Daily Mail Australia.

The mother-of-four insisted her CFS volunteer sister was innocent and being 'set up'.

'Anyone that knows her, would say she is a kind, loving, happy kind of girl. She would help anyone out in need,' she said.

'Our hearts break, because we know she is innocent, but stands little chance of proving it in such a corrupt country.'

Her arrest came while Cassandra was planning a wedding next February to her fiance and 'love of her life' Scott Broadbridge, 23.

They got engaged in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia and have dated for just over 18 months.

'I'm devastated that my little girl is in this place. I'm scared to death for her. Our family just wants her home safe,' her mother Lisa Evans (L) said

The cocaine was concealed in the packing of more than 15 headphones Ms Sainsbury said she was given the morning of her flight home.

'It came to her already packaged and concealed and she put it straight in her suitcase. She's very naive,' Khala told 9 News.

Cassandra grew up on the Yorke Peninsula before moving to Adelaide and has three huskies Buster, Bella and Rex living with her and Mr Broadbridge.

'She has her full life ahead of her, and now its all put on the line because of this. We miss her so much, and since we have very little contact with her its very hard,' her sister said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing assistance to an Australian woman arrested in Colombia in accordance with the Consular Services Charter.

'Due to our privacy obligations, we are unable to release further information,' it said.

Prison inmates are searched in the El Buen Pastor women's prison at Bogota
A man has been captured on CCTV after stealing $8,500 worth of highly-collectable Lego from a toy store in the middle of the night.

The popular plastic brick toys were pinched at 3.30am on Monday when a man broke into the Boorowa Street shop in the NSW town of Young before fleeing in a car, police say.

Officers want to speak to a man who was hobbling around in a nearby car park at the time, and have publicly released the footage in the hope someone might recognise his 'distinct way of moving'.

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Police released CCTV footage of the man who walked in a 'distinct' way in a car park near the toy store in Young

Police believe the man stole $8,500 worth of Lego from the Young toy store (stock picture)

Footage shows the man head towards a vehicle in a deserted car park, hobble around with an apparent limp before breaking into a pained run.

The offender is shown wearing a dark hooded jumper and long pants.

It is believed the thief forced entry into the regional toy store and got away with thousands of dollars worth of the children's merchandise.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Cootamundra Police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Kelly Landry can be heard yelling 'You're psycho, you're psycho something has flipped in your head, you're scaring me', in a dramatic recording of a fight with her husband Anthony Bell, played to a court.

The recording, which Ms Landry said she made while locked inside a room in the couple's Sydney waterfront mansion on November 18 last year, was played to the Downing Centre Local Court on the first day of a hearing into an AVO she has taken out against Mr Bell.

In the recording played to the court, Mr Bell can be heard saying: 'You're not going anywhere, you're not taking the kidsyou're drunk'.

Ms Landry then yells to him: 'You're acting psycho, you're acting psychosomething has flipped in your head, you're scaring me.'

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Kelly Landry can be heard yelling 'You're psycho, you're psycho something has flipped in your head, you're scaring me' in a dramatic recording of a fight with her husband Anthony Bell

Mr Bell, 45, looked stony faced as he arrived at court flanked by legal staff on Monday morning

The bruises Ms Landry allegedly sustained during the scuffle with Mr Bell heard on the tape

There is a scuffle, followed by Ms Landry screaming 'Owww', before the recording cuts out.

While wiping away tears as she gave evidence on Monday, Ms Landry told the court the recording was a 'drop in the ocean' of the ongoing abuse she suffered from Mr Bell.

'There are a number of incidents during the course of our marriage,' she said. 'What is in my statement is a drop in the ocean of what I experienced in a weekly basis.'

Police took out an AVO against Mr Bell on behalf of Ms Landry, after she went to police in January this year to make a complaint.

She told the court that despite an interim AVO being in place, she still lives in fear.

'I fear he feels he is above everything and above the law, I feel because he has unlimited means that he can basically throw money at everything and continue to intimidate me.

The court heard the couple has already commenced divorce proceedings, and Mr Bell voluntarily moved out of their $12 million Watsons Bay home in Late December last year, a week before the AVO was taken out.

Former Getaway star Kelly Landry (pictured) arrives at the Downing Street Centre in Sydney on Monday for the first day of her five-day AVO court hearing with husband Anthony Bell

In January, police applied for an AVO on Ms Landry's behalf against Mr Bell (pictured), a month after he'd skippered his multi-million dollar yacht to victory in the Sydney-to-Hobert race

Earlier in the day, the court heard Ms Landry contacted police the day after they took out the AVO against her husband, protesting that they had 'over-reacted'.

Police domestic violence liason officer Senior Constable Catherine Farrell said Ms Landry rang her about 5.45pm on January 5 this year, the same day police commenced proceedings against her husband.

Under cross-examination by Ian Temby, QC, Senior Constable Farrell agreed Ms Landry was upset and did not want the AVO taken out.

Mr Temby: 'She told you, did she not, that you had over-reacted?'

Senior Constable Farrell: 'Yes'.

Ms Landry had spoken to Glebe police about an incident at the Watsons Bay home she shared with Mr Bell on November 18 last year.

The legal battle over an AVO taken out by the former TV star against her celebrity accountant husband will be heard in a Sydney court over the next five days

Ms Landry, 37, looked staunch as she arrived in court on Monday accompanied by a friend

A court previously heard Ms Landry felt intimidated by Mr Bell when CCTV footage showed an Aston Martin Vanquish similar to his slowing as it drove by her Watson's Bay home

Mr Bell has been accused of slamming Ms Landry's arm into a wall during an incident at their $12.5 million home at Watsons Bay on November 18 last year. He denies any wrongdoing.

Mr Temby put to Senior Constable Farrell that Ms Landry had called her on February 8, February 15 and February 20 and the pair had spoken for a total of more than an hour.

'In the course of these telephone conversations Ms Landry consistently urged upon you that she regretted the fact that the AVO proceedings had commenced,' Mr Temby said.

Senior Constable Farrell said Ms Landry had only protested about the AVO on January 5.

Mr Bell had never been charged with assault in relation to the November 18 incident or an earlier alleged assault at Bondi in February 2012, which is part of these court proceedings.

The argument between the couple began after they had dinner with friends multi-millionaire hotelier Peter Calligeros and wife Sacha at Catalina restaurant in Rose Bay

The star witness is expected to be the couple's nanny, who will be called by the defence this week

Daily Mail Australia this year exclusively revealed police acting on Ms Landry's behalf handed her celebrity accountant husband with an interim violence order

Ms Landry dressed elegantly in a long-sleeve white top, paired with a black skirt and high-heels for her court appearance

Senior Constable Farrell went ahead with the AVO due to concern she had about the November 18 incident.

'Those concerns were that there had been an alleged assault in what she said to police.

'That she felt intimidated and harrassed,' she said. 'And the fact that this had hallmarks that I would have concerns with as a domestic violence liaison officer.'

The hearing is expected to last for five days, and hear evidence from up to 15 witnesses including babysitters who have worked for the couple.

Last week Ms Landry opened up about her battle with heart disease last week, telling Daily Mail Australia she spent four 'lonely' months of her second pregnancy in hospital.

Just weeks before the AVO was taken out the couple celebrated Mr Bell's victory in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race aboard Perpetual LOYAL

Kelly Landry opened up about her battle with her heart condition in an interview on Friday
These were the chaotic scenes on board an Aeroflot plane as major turbulence threw passengers all over the cabin on a flight between Russia and Thailand.

At least 27 people - including three babies - suffered major injuries including suspected broken bones in the carnage which happened en route from Moscow to Bangkok.

Dramatic video shows passengers lying injured in the aisle after they were hurled up to the ceiling.

These were the chaotic scenes on board an Aeroflot plane as major turbulence threw passengers all over the cabin on a flight between Russia and Thailand

At least 27 people - including three babies - suffered major injuries including suspected broken bones in the carnage which happened en route from Moscow to Bangkok

The babies were thrown out of their mothers' arms by the force of the severe turbulence one hour before landing in Bangkok, said a source.

People walking in the aisle and without seat belts on were injured.

Luggage as well as food and drink from the trolleys was strewn all over the cabin.

Evgenia Zibrova posted a shocking video with the comment: 'Numerous air pockets one hour before landing led to broken bones, internal and external bleeding.

'Babies are covered in bruises, people lost consciousness. Thanks that we are still alive. Aeroflot, please help these people.'

Dramatic video shows passengers lying injured in the aisle after they were hurled up to the ceiling

Babies were thrown out of their mothers' arms by the force of the severe turbulence one hour before landing in Bangkok, said a source

People walking in the aisle and without seat belts on were injured. Luggage as well as food and drink from the trolleys was strewn all over the cabin

Vladimir Sosnov, deputy head of Russian Consulate in Thailand, said: 'The injured suffered multiple fractures. There are both Russian and foreign citizens among them.'

He said: 'Apparently, those who were injured did not have their seat belts fastened.'

The plane - a Boeing 777 and packed with tourists - hit several successive areas of turbulence en route to Bangkok.

The flight crew kept control of the aircraft and the injured passengers were rushed to hospital on arrival in the Thai capital.

The plane - a Boeing 777 (file picture) and packed with tourists - hit several successive areas of turbulence en route to Bangkok

A source said 19 people were hospitalised in Bangkok, with two undergoing urgent surgery.

Others were treated with first aid after the incident on board flight SU 270.

A source told Interfax: 'A Boeing 777 plane suddenly got into the zone of strong turbulence before starting to descend.

'There had been no order to fasten seat belts at that moment.

'As a result, the plane was jolted by hundreds of metres, and some passengers were thrown into the space between the chairs suffering traumas.'

The Russian embassy is providing assistance to the injured passengers.

Aeroflot later said that none of the passengers suffered serious spinal injuries, despite earlier reports.

However, 17 remained in hospital with 'contusions' and 'fractured or broken bones'.

The airline agreed to pay all medical costs of the injured.

The airline said: 'An experienced crew piloted the flight.

'The pilot has more than 23 thousand flight hours, and the co-pilot has over 10,500 flight hours.

'However, the turbulence that hit the Boeing 777 was impossible to foresee.

'The incident was caused by what is known in aviation as 'clear-air turbulence'.

'Such turbulence occurs without any clouds, in clear skies with good visibility, and weather radar is unable to alert of its approach. In such situations, the crew is unable to warn passengers of the need to return to their seats.'
An 18-month-old boy in a small Victorian town near Ballarat has been run over by a reversing car that was driven by his father.

The toddler was killed at approximately 2:55pm on Monday on a property in Waubra and died at the scene, police said.

Ballarat Sergeant Rick Nield understood the boy was hit after he suddenly walked out of the garage.

A toddler has reportedly been killed after a car reversed over the 18-month-old boy

'The dad was in the yard with his young fella today. The dad was in his car and it appears the young bloke was in the shed,' Sergeant Nield told the Ballarat Courier.

He said the youngster wandered out of the shed and was struck.

'It's a tragic accident. It's tough on everyone, the family and emergency services,' Sergeant Nield said.

An 18-month-old toddler has been killed in a small Victorian town in Ballarat

Help arrived at the scene just after 3pm however the boy was not able to be saved.

A man in his 30s was behind the wheel and investigations are ongoing. Fairfax reported the boy's father is in his 30s.

Fewer than 500 people live in Waubra, a farming town about 35km northwest of Ballarat.

Earlier, a woman died in a head-on crash with a pole in the Ballarat suburb of Redan just before 2pm.

Senior Constable Alistair Parsons said the woman was yet to be identified and was the only person in the car when it left the road and hit a pole near the intersection of Pleasant Street South and La Trobe Street.
Japan is sending its largest warship to protect a US vessel as it resupplies the strike group led by carrier Carl Vinson amid tensions with North Korea.

The 800ft helicopter carrier Izumo left its home port of Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, on Monday to escort the American vessel to the waters off Shikoku, around 400 miles away at the top end of Japan's south island.

The supply vessel, which is not being named, is believed to be in the region to support the 'armada' sent by President Trump to warn Kim Jong-un off conducting a sixth nuclear test.

Scroll down for video

Japan has deployed the Izumo (top), its largest ship built since the Second World War, to escort a US supply vessel (bottom) which is believed to be supporting the carrier USS Carl Vinson

The last time the Japanese and American navies were on active deployment in the Pacific together, they were fighting. On Monday carrier Izumo (bottom) guarded a US vessel (top)

The 800ft Izumo, a helicopter carrier, left its port near Tokyo on Monday and is thought to be making a 400 mile trip to the waters near Shikoku alongside the US vessel

The Izumo appears similar to American carriers, but is only designed to use helicopters as it lacks the launch mechanisms to get aircraft into the sky

The Izumo is Japan's largest vessel constructed since the Second World War, and its active deployment marks the first time new powers expanding the role of the country's military have been used.

Japan's pacifist constitution, which was adopted after its surrender to America in 1945, forbid its military from carrying out any action that was not in self-defense.

However, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expanded the definition of self-defense last year to include protecting Japanese allies and providing logistical support to countries who are important to the defense of the country.

The Izumo's deployment marks the first time Japan has used new powers which allow its military to carry out actions that are not purely in self-defense

Japan's pacifist constitution, signed after surrender to the US in 1945, was changed in December last year to allow the country to defend allies (pictured, the Izumo on Monday)

The Izumo (pictured leaving port) has been authorized to use 'minimal firepower' in order to protect the supply vessel, according to local reports

The powers also allow the military to shoot down a North Korean nuclear missile, and may allow minesweeping to take place to clear lanes for Japanese supply ships.

The Izumo has been authorized to use 'minimal firepower' in order to protect the supply vessel, it has been reported.

North Korea has continued testing long-range missiles despite the Vinson's presence, with the latest coming on Saturday, though a much-anticipated sixth nuclear test has not yet taken place.

On Monday, the country's communist regime warned that it would carry out the test 'at any time and at any location' set by its leadership.

The USS Carl Vinson (pictured) is currently in the waters of the Korean Peninsula as Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un face off over a sixth nuclear test by North Korea

Jong-un has repeatedly said he will carry out a fresh nuclear test 'at any time' and warned his military is capable of sinking the Vinson with a 'single strike'

A spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said Pyongyang was 'fully ready to respond to any option taken by the US'.

The regime will continue bolstering its 'preemptive nuclear attack' capabilities unless Washington scrapped its hostile policies, he told the state-run KCNA news agency.

Jong-un has said his regime is capable of sinking the Nimitz-class Vinson and an accompanying submarine, the USS Ohio, with 'a single strike'.

The USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan and their accompanying strike groups are also being sent to the region after Trump promised to 'resolve' the North Korea issue.
French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron has warned that the European Union must reform or face Frexit.

Polls predict the pro-EU 39-year-old, a former economy minister, will win the May 7 run-off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen with about 59-60 per cent.

But the momentum has recently been with Le Pen, who has clawed back about five percentage points over the past week.

French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron has warned that the European Union must reform or face Frexit

Polls predict the pro-EU 39-year-old, a former economy minister, will win the May 7 run-off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen with about 59-60 per cent

Macron, looking to maintain his 20 per cent lead on his rival, this morning warned the EU must reform or face a Brexit-style vote.

He told the BBC: 'I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation.

'But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.

'So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project.'

Allowing the EU to continue to operate as it does currently would be a 'betrayal', he added.

'And I don't want to do so. Because the day after, we will have a Frexit or we will have [Ms Le Pen's] National Front (FN) again.'

A week before the decisive second round in France's presidential election, many voters are sceptical that either of the two candidates can solve chronic unemployment or tackle security concerns, a poll published on Sunday found.

The Ifop survey for the Journal du Dimanche highlights two key battlegrounds as centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron and far-right opponent Marine Le Pen enter a final week of campaigning - France's economy and borders.

Macron, looking to maintain his 20 per cent lead on his rival, this morning warned the EU must reform or face a Brexit-style vote. He is pictured walking past the wall engraved with the names of the 76,000 Jews deported from France , during a visit to the Shoah memorial in Paris

Polls predict that Macron, a former economy minister, will win the May 7 run-off with about 59-60 percent. But the momentum has recently been with Le Pen, who has clawed back about five percentage points over the past week.

According to the Ifop poll, 45 percent of voters believe the two finalists would not put an end to unemployment, which has for years stood close to 10 percent in France. And 36 percent say neither candidate is able to protect France from attacks.

France has been under a state of emergency since 2015 and has suffered a spate of Islamist militant attacks, mostly perpetrated by young men who grew up in France and Belgium. More than 230 people have been killed in the past two years.

Days before the first round of voting on April 23 a French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

A week before the decisive second round in France's presidential election, many voters are sceptical that either of the two candidates can solve chronic unemployment or tackle security concerns, a poll published on Sunday found

The result of the run-off vote will depend to a large extent on floating voters and the level of abstentions.

In the first round 22.2 percent of voters abstained, the highest percentage since 2002 when Marine Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, won through to the second round only to be soundly defeated by conservative Jacques Chirac.

This time if turnout is low in the second round analysts say Macron could struggle to reproduce the same broad movement against the National Front candidate, citing his mainly free-market policies at a time when anti-establishment feeling has been on the rise in Europe and the United States.

Left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, with 19.6 percent of the votes in the first round, has urged his supporters to oppose Le Pen but has refused to back Macron for the second round.

Le Pen travelled to Marseille on Sunday to speak on the environment, a key issue for Melenchon supporters, while Macron visited the Holocaust memorial in Paris.

The Ifop poll found 42 percent of voters believe neither Macron nor Le Pen would be able to reunite the country after months of bitter campaigning, while 43 percent questioned whether either would be able to govern after capturing the Elysee palace.

France returns to the polls in June to select members of the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, where a majority is needed to push through government policies.

Macron, who launched a new party a year ago, and Le Pen, whose National Front has only two seats in the National Assembly, have faced questions about their ability to build a parliamentary majority

Both Macron, who launched a new party a year ago, and Le Pen, whose National Front has only two seats in the National Assembly, have faced questions about their ability to build a parliamentary majority.

Le Pen said on Saturday defeated right-wing candidate Nicolas Dupont-Aignan would be her prime minister if she won.

In a statement outlining the alliance struck with Dupont-Aignan's small nationalist party, Le Pen said there was no rush to dump the euro and that other policy changes might take precedence, in what appeared to be a softening of her stance towards the single currency.

She appeared to reverse this position on Sunday, making clear in a video published on newspaper Le Parisien's website that she was still intent on leaving the euro eventually.

A policy coordinator with Le Pen confirmed she would call a referendum within six months on France's future in the European Union, and therefore on the euro, if she were to be elected.

Analysts said the confusion was largely due to the fact that Le Pen's plans to quit the EU and the euro are among the least popular policies in her protectionist, anti-immigration electoral platform.

Both Macron, who launched a new party a year ago, and Le Pen, whose National Front has only two seats in the National Assembly, have faced questions about their ability to build a parliamentary majority

Macron received support on Sunday from Jean-Louis Borloo, a previous leader of the UDI, a small centrist party, but has yet to say who he would ask to lead a government.

Yesterday he paid homage to the tens of thousands of French Jews killed in the Holocaust with a sombre, simple message to voters: Never again.

Chants of 'Macron, President!' mixed with tears of sorrowful remembrance as he visited the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, walking past panels bearing the names of those deported to death in Nazi camps, while Holocaust survivors and children of its victims looked on.

It was the second time in three days that Mr Macron visited a site tied to France's wartime history, as he seeks to remind voters of the shame of France's Nazi collaboration  and especially of the anti-Semitic past of his rival Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front party. The two face a presidential run off on May 7.

Ms Le Pen herself, who has worked for years to detoxify her party's image, laid a wreath at a memorial to France's deported Jews in Marseille on Sunday, a national day of remembrance.

Yet the gesture cannot undo decades of anti-Semitism that still poisons her party. Her own father has been convicted of describing the gas chambers as a 'detail' of history, and her temporary party leader was removed just last week for similar comments.

After visiting the Holocaust Memorial and a wall honoring French people who protected Jews during the German occupation, Mr Macron said: 'We have a duty today to their memory.'

The 39-year-old former economy minister lamented a 'moral weakening that could tempt some people to say all things are relative, that could tempt others to negate the Holocaust  a position some people find refuge in because what happened is unforgettable and unforgivable, and should never happen again'.
Fears have been raised 300 British jihadis could be plotting attacks on the UK from Syria after a defector revealed several Britons hold senior positions in ISIS.

Stefan Aristidou, 23, of Enfield, who joined ISIS in 2015, revealed there were between 250 and 300 British terrorists within the organisation and believes they are planning to continue targetting the UK following a series of foiled attacks.

It comes after six people were arrested by anti-terror police during a raid on a house in Willesden last week, with a 21-year-old woman who was shot by officers in the leg subsequently arrested yesterday.

Meanwhile Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali, 27, was also arrested last week in Westminster on suspicion of possession of a knife and preparing terrorism after allegedly being found with a 'rucksack full of knives' in the capital.

Stefan Aristidou, pictured, who recently defected from ISIS, claims there are 250-to-300 Brits within the organisation, with many in 'higher roles'

Aristidou and his British wife Kolsoma Begum, 22, surrendered to Turkish authorities last week after spending two years in Syria.

Aristidous family reported him missing after he ceased contact with them a week after he travelled to Larnaca, Cyprus, on Easter Sunday in 2015.

Up until his disappearance, he lived in Enfield, North London, with his mother and sister. The family are of Greek heritage.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he said British members of ISIS were 'not foot soldiers'.

He said: 'They were in charge of the media and propaganda for the group. They had higher roles.'

He added: 'Some want to stay, but there are some who want to leave. It's getting tougher and there are splits...about it's future'.

Aristidou surrendered in Turkey last week and could face trial either there or be extradited to the UK

His wife Kolsoma Begum, 22, was an 'angelic schoolgirl' (left) before she decided to leave Britain to live under Sharia law in Syria. Kolsoma (right) now wants to return back to the UK

Security expert Olivier Guitta, of consultancy firm GlobalStrat, added it was 'very likely' there was communication between terrorists in Syria and sources in the UK.

He told the Telegraph: 'The UK has been at the top of the list for targets for jihadists since the intervention in Syria'.

In a telephone interview in March, Aristidou told Sky News that living under IS was like being in a prison and he had gone into hiding. Im just trying to get my life back, he said.

So be it if I have to go to prison in order to do that. Im prepared to do that. Im not here to harm anybody, Im just here to look after my family and live my life.

Aristidou spent time in Mosul and Raqqa and is believed to have been 'smuggled' out of Syria after a dispute with his commanding officer.

The Turkish authorities are said to be seeking to jail him for up to 15 years. He could face further prosecution under anti-terrorism legislation if he returns to the UK.

Security experts fear British jihadis in ISIS may be in touch with sources in the UK to plot attacks here (file picture)

Aristidou and Begum had a daughter while in Syria and it is understood mother and child are being kept in a detention centre awaiting deportation to the UK.

As reported by MailOnline Begum's father Ahmed Ali, 47, said his daughter needs to face the law if she wants to return to England.

He said: They have to face the law. The law will decide what punishment to give them. But, as a father, Im saying everybody deserves a second chance. Theyve already damaged their lives.'

Since ISIS was formed in 2013, an estimated 1,000 Britons have left the UK to join the terrorists in Syria, with around 100 believed dead and nearly half since returning.
The number of acid attacks taking place in Britain is soaring, with school children as young as 13 using corrosive substances as weapons.

Crime statistics show that there was more than 450 acid attacks in London alone last year, with the number of attacks in the capital more than doubling since 2014.

But experts say the real figure is much higher, with the true scale of the problem hidden because people are afraid to come forward.

Model Katie Piper is one of the most high-profile victims of acid attacks. But figures show the number of such attacks has soared since her tragic incident in 2008

Jaf Shah, of the Acid Survivors' Trust International, told The Sun: 'Per head of population, the UK has more male-on-male acid attacks than an other country in the world. The numbers may be even higher than we think.'

It comes after Assistant chief constable Rachel Kearton, the National Police Chiefs Council spokesperson on corrosive attacks, said many victims are staying silent.

She said: 'I do fear that this is a hidden crime and that some of the victims are in fear of reprisal and don't come forward.'

It is believed criminal gang members are carrying acid in drinks bottles because they are less likely to get caught than if they carry a knife or gun.

Schoolchildren as young as 13 have also told how 'squirting' rivals with acid is easier than trying to stab or fight them.

The figures will add to calls to ban the sale of corrosive substances to youngsters.

The issue has come under the spotlight after the attack on clubbers at Mangle nightclub

Naomi Oni spoke out about the lack of support for victims after she was attacked in 2012

Shops currently have to report children or teenagers acting suspiciously when they buy acid or strong household cleaners, but there is no age restriction on its sale.

The issue first came to widespread public attention when model Katie Piper was attacked with sulphuric acid by her ex-boyfriend Daniel Lynch in 2008.

Ms Piper has since led campaigns to raise awareness of the problem, founding her own charity to help people living with burns and scars and releasing an autobiography about her life entitled Beautiful.

Another high-profile victim of the sickening weapon was Naomi Oni, who suffered burns to her face and chest in an attack near her east London home in December 2012.

She later hit out at authorities over the lack of support and the 'incompetant' way in which her complaint was handled'.

Adele Bellis spoke of her road to recovery after she lost an ear in an attack in Suffolk in 2014

Victim Adele Bellis, who lost an ear and suffered permanent scarring in the sulphuric acid attack in Suffolk in 2014, also bravely spoke publicly about rebuilding her life after the attack.

The issue has received renewed attention in recent weeks after clubbers were doused with a corrosive substance at Mangle nightclub in Dalston, London, on April 17, leaving two people blind in one eye and 18 others with multiple burns.

Arthur Collins, the former boyfriend of TOWIE star Fern McCann, has since appeared in court, alongside with another man, Andre Phoenix.
A Texas cemetery is facing backlash after posting 'Space Available' signs to advertise open plots.

The bright yellow signs are scattered around the San Jacinto Cemetery in Harris County, and many believe that they are in poor taste.

The signs feature the words 'Space Available' alongside the cemetery's phone number for those interested to call.

The bright yellow signs are scattered around the San Jacinto Cemetery in Harris County, Texas, and many believe that they are inappropriate, 'undignified' and in poor taste

Many visitors to the cemetery saw it as a business move and said the signs were inappropriate and 'undignified'.

Cemetery officials said that the signs were placed in areas where visitors might want to buy plots in the future.

One woman, who has family buried in the cemetery, told KPRC that the signs were 'cheesy'.

The signs feature the words 'Space Available' alongside the cemetery's phone number for those interested to call

Cemetery officials said that the signs were placed in areas where visitors might want to buy plots in the future

'We just felt it was so undignified and pretty cheesy for a cemetery to have 'for sale' signs out there like that,' Dana Rowan said.

On social media, people had mixed feelings about signs on the plots.

'They have to sell it somehow. If it offends you don't buy it,' one social media users said.

Another added: 'It's their decision but I kinda feel that's in bad taste. Maybe one very visible sign would be better.'
Police have arrested three women - two aged just 18 - as part of bid to stop an 'active terror plot'.

The trio were arrested in east London following dramatic raids in the north-west of the capital last week.

The suspects, two aged 18 and one aged 19, were held after raids by Scotland Yard's Counter-Terrorism Command in east London today.

Three more women have been arrested as part of an anti-terror probe which saw six others arrested in the north west of the capital last week

The Met said the arrested women are connected to the raid in Willesden in which a woman was shot by armed officers.

A spokesman said: 'Officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command have this morning, Monday, 1 May, carried warrants at three addresses in east London.

'Three woman aged 18, 18 and 19 have been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

'They are currently in custody at a police station outside of London.

'The arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation in connection with an address on Harlesden Road.'

The latest arrests bring the total linked to the Harlesden Road operation, in which police believe they foiled an active terror plot, to 10.

The latest arrests are linked to a raid in which anti-terror police shot a woman last Thursday

Elite armed officers carried out a 'specialist entry' into the terraced property shortly before 7pm on Thursday night.

Police fired CS gas into the address, which had been under observation as part of a current counter-terrorism operation.

The 21-year-old woman shot by police was discharged from hospital on Sunday following treatment before being taken in for questioning.

The young woman  yesterday wrongly reported in one newspaper to have been pregnant  was believed to be unarmed when a team of balaclava-wearing armed police opened fire, shooting her at least once during the raid when she reportedly defied their instructions to freeze.

Bleeding heavily, the 21-year-old described as a white English woman wearing a burka, was dragged screaming into the street following the shooting at 7pm, shouting: Dont touch my body.

Five shots were heard as police raided the terraced house in Willesden last week

A total of six people were also arrested in connection with the swoop, including five at or near the address in north London and one in Kent.

Aged between 16 and 43 they were all arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts and taken to a south London police station for questioning.

Mohamed Amoudi, 21, was one of the six people held by armed police last Thursday

One has been named in reports as Mohamed Amoudi, a Yemeni-born British citizen who studied physics at Queen Mary University in east London.

Neighbours said Amoudi had been involved in a number of disputes with neighbours since returning from Turkey in 2015 when he was arrested with two 17-year-old boys believed to be travelling to Syria to join IS fighters.

Scotland Yard said warrants of further detention were granted at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Saturday, allowing the six to be questioned until dates between May 2 and May 4.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu confirmed after Thursday's raid that an active terror plot had been foiled.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been informed of the incident, as is routine with police shootings, along with the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards.
A leading foe of Vladimir Putin has claimed the Kremlin ordered a suspected acid attack on him which he fears will lead to him losing the sight of his right eye.

Alexei Navalny was splashed with green paint near his office in Moscow, Russia, but the damage he has suffered leads doctors to believe that a stronger corrosive liquid was added.

The charismatic anti-corruption campaigner - who aims to oust Putin as president - has been warned he could lose his sight.

Alexei Navalny was splashed with green paint (pictured) near his office in Moscow, Russia, but the damage he has suffered leads doctors to believe that a stronger corrosive liquid was added

The leading foe of Vladimir Putin has claimed the Kremlin ordered a suspected acid attack on him which he fears will lead to him losing the sight of his right eye

The charismatic anti-corruption campaigner - who aims to oust Putin as president - has been warned he could lose his sight

'The doctor thinks that the brilliant green paint was mixed with something else,' he said. 'I am now applying eye drops every 15 minutes for the third day.'

'I have had injections for two days and we are fighting to keep the eye transparent' - but failure would mean he will lose his sight, he said.

'It is unpleasant, but what can we do with it. This is Russia in 2017 and instead of political debates they pour some acid into your eyes.'

The police have ignored his demand for an investigation into the attack close to his Moscow office, he said.

Blaming the Kremlin, he claimed: 'The attack was organised by the president's administration.'

The police have ignored his demand for an investigation into the attack close to his Moscow office, he said

A group called the National Liberation Movement are behind a succession of green paint attacks on him and other opposition figures

A group called the National Liberation Movement are behind a succession of green paint attacks on him and other opposition figures.

'They are constantly informed about my movements, hotels, tickets, arrivals and departures,' he said.

'Where I come in and where I go out. Of course, information from databases and CCTV cameras is provided to them by the secret services. They also guarantee that they will be untouchable.

'CCTV cameras won't work - and police won't organise a criminal investigation.'

He alleged that Putin's administration 'financed the whole thing'

Navalny was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with 'chemical eye burn by brilliant green antiseptic liquid, and was released after aid was provided to him.'

Navalny has blamed the Kremlin, claiming: 'The attack was organised by the president's administration.'

'The police hotline received a message that brilliant green was splashed on Alexei Navalny on Leninskaya Sloboda Street,' said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

He was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed with 'chemical eye burn by brilliant green antiseptic liquid, and was released after aid was provided to him.'

A female activist with an anti-Putin party is also feared to have almost completely lost her eyesight after a recent acid attack.

Natalia Fedorova was attacked by a male assailant. Her political party Yabloko had demanded a criminal investigation.
North Korea has said it will carry out fresh nuclear tests 'at any time and any location' Kim Jong-un chooses.

A spokesman for the regime said on Monday that the country is ready to 'bolster the nuclear force to the maximum... at any moment' in response to US aggression.

The news comes after President Trump deployed a $1billion THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, drawing protests from locals, Pyongyang and China.

North Korea has made fresh threats to carry out nuclear tests 'at any moment' after the US deployed a $1 billion THAAD missle defense system in South Korea (pictured)

A spokesman for Kim Jong-un said the North is ready to 'bolster the nuclear force to the maximum... at any moment' to combat US aggression (pictured, the THAAD system)

The weapon system is designed to shoot down North Korean warheads in the event that Jong-un attempts to strike South Korea

South Koreans are wary that moving such a powerful weapon system to the region could prompt Jong-un to strike out.

China opposes THAAD because military chiefs fear the powerful radar system it is fitted with will be used to spy across their border.

Meanwhile in America there has been conflict over who will pay for the deployment, with Trump insisting that South Korea should foot the bill.

But on Sunday H. R. McMaster, national security adviser to the White House, said America will continue picking up the tab for the time being.

Elsewhere, South Korean experts warned the YTN cable news channel that a North Korean missile test on Saturday might not have failed, as previously thought.



The official said the missile might be been deliberately detonated in mid-air as Jong-un tested a warhead explosion, a step in triggering a nuclear warhead detonation.

President Donald Trump has warned Kim Jong-un that a 'major, major conflict' is possible if North Korea continues trying to develop a nuclear weapon

There are fears that North Korea alrady has the capability to hit mainland America after the country showed off what appeared to be long-range ICBMs at a military parade

Mid or long-range missiles typically stabilize around 20 to 30km into the air, the South Korean expert said, after which the chances they will explode without being deliberately detonated are 'very low'.

The missile launched on Saturday made it to 71km altitude before exploding, South Korean and US officials said.

The test was carried out in defiance of warnings by President Donald Trump that a 'major, major conflict' is possible if the dictatorship continues trying to develop a viable nuclear weapon.

In a show of force, Trump sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula to join drills with South Korea.

Reclusive North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions.

It has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: 'You'll soon find out,' but has not elaborated since.

The THAAD system has proved controversial, as locals fear it could cause North Korea to lash out, while there is also uncertainty over who will pay for it

The deployment has also strained relations with China after Trump hosted premier Xi Jinping, as the country fears the THAAD radar system will be used to spy on them

Trump stepped up outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean threat and make sure everyone is 'on the same page', a top White House official said.

'There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea,' White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC's 'This Week.'

The United States is seeking more help from China, the North's major ally, to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development.

Trump previously hosted Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and has since praised him as a 'good man'.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said before it will pursue its nuclear and missile programmes to counter perceived US aggression.
A supercar dealer has been accused of defrauding dozens of classic motor owners in a multi-million pound scam.

Richard Sean Gleave and his wife Rachel, 36, were detained by police officers from Cheshire Police amid accusations of fraud from customers of his firm VIP Cars.

Gleave, 45, launched the business in Knutsford in 2014 - but several supercar owners claim their motors disappeared without them ever receiving a penny in return.

One alleged victim claimed their 70,000 Porsche went missing after it was handed over to Gleave, whose business has now gone into liquidation.

Richard Sean Gleave and his wife Rachel, 36, were detained by police officers from Cheshire Police amid accusations of fraud from customers of his firm VIP Cars

One alleged customer complained that their 50,000 BMW M2 vanished before it was later seized by police (stock photo)

Meanwhile, a 90,000 Ferrari was apparently sold after it arrived at Gleave's garage for a valet.

A Warrington man told The Sun that Gleave had been detained by police at an airport.

He told the newspaper: 'Gleave has a history of exporting cars and was trying to reach Cambodia, where his brother-in-law now lives.'

Another motorist complained that their 50,000 BMW M2 vanished before it was later seized by police.

More than 100 people have joined a Facebook group entitled People vs Richard Sean Gleave, which was set up 'victims to come together for strength in numbers'.

The group description claims that '60-plus car owners are out of pocket and their cars missing'.

SOME OF THE HIGH-END MOTORS Range Rover Vogue; worth 90,000 Jaguar F-type 3.0 V6; sold for 40,000 BMW M2; valued at 50,000 Maserati Gran Turismo S; 40,000 Porsche 911; sold for 29,500 Advertisement

One woman, called Janet, wrote: 'We were friends with these scumbags for over 10 years. He sold a car for us which we never got paid for.

'He put our 70k Porsche in a safe place on the day he was initially arrestedwe can't get the car back. He has even shafted his in laws. So much for friendship.'

Det Insp Claire Jesson told the Knutsford Guardian: 'This is an extremely complex investigation and were currently following a number of lines of enquiry.

'So far we have received in excess of 50 calls relating to the company and officers are working tirelessly to progress these.

'I urge anyone who believes that they may have been a victim, or anyone who has any concerns, to email the investigation mailbox operation.vip@cheshire.pnn.police.uk and officers will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible.'

MailOnline has approached Cheshire Police for comment.
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The sight of Russian warships sinking will make uncomfortable viewing in modern-day Moscow, but a fascinating set of pictures give an insight into one of the heaviest defeats the country suffered in the 20th century.

The rare images show Russian soldiers marching past their fallen comrades in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, and large crowds celebrating Japan's victories.

Russia lost almost all of its Pacific and Baltic Fleet during the fighting in a conflict which broke out over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria, China and Korea.

The Russo-Japanese war would be a humiliating defeat for Russia, with its reputation as a great power severely dented as a result. The two nations went to war over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria, China and Korea. This image shows sunken warships in a conflict which cost Russia most of its Pacific and Baltic fleets

Russian soldiers gaze at heaps of their fallen comrades following the Battle of Port Arthur in February 1904. The battle marked the start of a war in which Russia would suffer massive losses, and began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Japanese destroyers at the port in Manchuria

A Russian battery is pictured during the siege of Port Arthur, the longest and bloodiest battle of the war. Between August 1904 and January 1905 Russia suffered more than 30,000 casualties, and defeat was a decisive blow in the war

Losses on both sides were high, with Japan losing 47,000 military personnel, and between 34,000 and 53,000 Russians losing their lives.

It was the first major victory in the modern era of an Asian power over a European one.

Russia sought a warm-water port on the Pacific Ocean and leased Port Arthur in Liaodong Province from China, but Japan feared a Russian expansion into their sphere of influence.

They offered to recognise Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for recognition that Korea was within the Japanese sphere of influence.

Tens of thousands of soldiers on each side of the conflict lost their lives. Russian soldiers are pictured looking into a trench filled with the bodies of Japanese soldiers in the disputed Port Arthur in Manchuria, which was the scene of a prolonged siege in a decisive clash in the Russo-Japanese war

Russian troops and officials dine in a restaurant which had been heavily damaged by Japanese shells during the conflict, in which both sides battled for influence in the crucial shipping region

Despite suffering numerous defeats to Japan, Tsar Nicholas II chose to remain engaged in war in order to avoid a 'humiliating peace'. But the decision would prove costly, and Russia became the first European power to lose to an Asian one in the modern era

The black-and-white images, released by the Library of Congress, document the bloody war between Russia and Japan which ended in a humiliating defeat for Tsar Nicholas II

A priest and soldiers are pictured praying over the bodies of Russian soldiers who would be buried on a hill in Port Arthur in Manchuria. Both Russia and Japan lost tens of thousands of servicemen during the conflict between 1904 and 1905

A large crowd of Japanese soldiers are pictured in Manchuria during a devastating conflict which saw Russia defeated, losing almost all of its Pacific and Baltic fleets

When Russia refused, and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel to be a neutral buffer zone between the two countries, Japan decided to go to war. They attacked the Russian Eastern Fleet at Port Arthur, China in a surprise attack which began the hostilities.

Despite suffering numerous defeats to Japan, Tsar Nicholas II chose to remain engaged in war in order to avoid a 'humiliating peace'.

The war was eventually concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. Japan eventually annexed Korea, and had proxy-influence over Manchuria. Russia's reputation as a Great Power was severely dented by the conflict.

The war was eventually concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth, mediated by US President Theodore Roosevelt. Japan eventually annexed Korea, and had proxy-influence over Manchuria

A priest and a group of Russian soldiers are pictured praying over the bodies of fallen Russian troops in Port Arthur, which was attacked by Japanese destroyers in an action which started the war between 1904 and 1905

A Japanese fighter is pictured being carried by nurses after being injured during the war. It is estimated that around 47,000 Japanese service personnel were killed in the conflict with Russia
The Conservatives have slammed Labour proposals to shake up the private rented sector via licensing and huge fines as a 'tenant tax'.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow housing secretary John Healey unveiled the plans today as the centre piece of a 'consumer rights revolution'.

Under the proposals, every private landlord would be required to buy a licence from councils if it wins the election, the party said today.

Failure to abide by those licenses would trigger fines of up to 100,000.

But it was branded a 'tenant tax' by Tory Housing Minister Gavin Barwell, who highlighted Croydon Council as charging 750 a time for the licences.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today in Clapham) is promising an overhaul for private tenants ahead the June election

Mr Corbyn and his shadow housing secretary John Healey pitched the plans to shoppers this morning as part of his 'consumer rights revolution'

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured with Mr Healey today) is stumping for his new housing policies in Clapham today

Shadow housing secretary John Healey said the plans will empower renters to 'call time on bad landlords' by setting standards to ensure homes are 'fit for human habitation'.

The proposals include requirements for safe wiring and appliances, freedom from damp and vermin infestation, 'appropriate' water and sewage facilities, appropriate facilities for preparing and cooking food, and general good repair.

The party would also introduce new powers for councils to license landlords and hit those who break the rules with 'tough' fines.

Labour cited Labour-run Newham Council in east London, where landlords paid 150 per property for a five year licence and faced fines of up to 20,000.

Mr Barwell said the licensing scheme amounted to a 'tenants' tax' which would lead to landlords pushing up rents to meet the cost.

Labour's housing pledges were announced alongside its own analysis which it said showed the cost of England's 1.3 million sub-standard private rented properties.

Tenants are spending 800 million a month on homes the Government classes as 'non-decent', and around a quarter of this, some 2.3 billion a year, is paid by housing benefit, according to Labour's research, based on the 2014 English Housing Survey and conducted in consultation with the House of Commons library.

Mr Healey said: 'Our homes are at the centre of our lives but at the moment renters too often don't have basic consumer rights that we take for granted in other areas.

'In practice you have fewer rights renting a family home than you do buying a fridge-freezer. As a result, too many are forced to put up with unacceptable, unfit and downright dangerous housing.

Labour's plans would mean all private rented homes had to meet minimum standards but the Tories warned they would see costs passed on to tenants (file picture)

'The number of families renting from a private landlord has soared since 2010 but decisions made by Conservative ministers have made it easier for a minority of bad landlords to game the system.

Shadow housing secretary John Healey (left) unveiled Labour's plans for rental homes today but was accused by Housing Minister Gavin Barwell (right) of proposing a 'tenant tax'

'Most landlords provide decent homes that tenants are happy with, but these rogue landlords are ripping off both renters and the taxpayer by making billions from rent and housing benefit letting out sub-standard homes.

'After seven years of failure the Conservatives have no plan to fix the housing crisis. The next Labour government would go further and call time on bad landlords. We'd introduce proper minimum standards to put renters back in control, and give councils the powers they need to tackle the worst offenders.'

But Tory Mr Barwell hit back: 'This is just another misjudged and nonsensical Jeremy Corbyn idea: a town hall 'tenants' tax' that would hit every tenant in the pocket with higher rents.

'We want to help people have good quality housing, which is why we have taken targeted action against the small minority of rogue landlords, without hitting every single home with expensive municipal red tape that will force up costs and reduce supply.

'With strong and stable leadership from Theresa May and the Conservatives we can continue that work.'
Two Queensland saltwater crocodiles have found a new home at an aquarium in Turkey after a 15,000 kilometre journey.

Rob, five metres long, and three-metre Mrs Rob left Koorana Crocodile Farm in Rockhampton on April 13 and arrived in Istanbul the next day.

They were first trucked to Brisbane Airport before flying to Turkey via Singapore accompanied by the zoos curator and a zoo animal transport agent.

Two Queensland saltwater crocodiles have found a new home at an aquarium in Turkey after a 15,000 kilometre journey

Rob, five metres long, and three-metre Mrs Rob left Koorana Crocodile Farm in Rockhampton on April 13 and arrived in Istanbul the next day

The pair, both aged 50, were sedated and traveled in separate bespoke crates with climate control and safety measures to ensure a comfortable ride.

The massive containers were marked 'handle with care' and included screens to keep an eye on their precious cargo.

The predators were caught as rogue wild crocodiles and spent 20 years at the wildlife park under its live problem capture service and used for breeding.

The pair, both aged 50, were sedated and traveled in separate bespoke crates with climate control and safety measures to ensure a comfortable ride

The massive containers were marked 'handle with care' and included screens to keep an eye on their precious cargo

The predators were caught as rogue wild crocodiles and spent 20 years at the wildlife park (pictured) under its live problem capture service and used for breeding

Rob and Mrs Rob needed health checks and veterinary examination to ensure they met Turkeys biosecurity requirements.

'Exporting eight metres worth of crocodiles is no mean feat, but our team snapped to it and made it happen,' Department of Agriculture head of veterinary services delivery Dennis Way said.

Their new home is the EMAAR Discovery Center in the new Boulevardi Mall, Istanbul's biggest shopping centre modeled on the huge Dubai Mall.

The 'underwater zoo' measures 6,250 square metres over three levels of the mall.

Its designers said the aquarium would 'reflect the beauty and wonders of our natural world and will take guests on an unforgettable journey through oceans, rivers and jungles'.

heir new home is the EMAAR Discovery Center, an 'underwater zoo' that measures 6,250 square metres over three levels of the mall
Twins aged 24 got matching $11,000 Brazilian butt-lifts the year after they had breast implants to recreate Kylie Jenner's curves.

Larissa and Nadia, from Forest Hills, New York, had the pricey surgery on the same day and couldn't sit down afterwards for six weeks.

The pair were forced to sleep on their fronts and had to cut holes in deck chairs so they could 'sit'.

Twins Larissa and Nadia, 24, from Forest Hills, New York, got matching Brazilian butt-lifts and breast implants to look like Kylie Jenner. After surgery, they couldn't sit down for six weeks

The butt-lifts cost $11,000 and the twins had to travel to California for the operation. Nadia's boyfriend said he is delighted with the results and Nadia said she feels 'ten times cuter'

Science teacher Nadia told the New York Post how her boyfriend is delighted with the results.

She said: 'Now that I have got it done, he cant contain his excitement.

'We feel perfect as we are.'

Last year, the twins went from A-cups to Cs and had to shell out $8,000 each for the implants. Pictured, Larissa

Nadia added that she feels '10 times cuter' now she has had the operation.

Last year, the twins went from A-cups to Cs and had to shell out $8,000 each for the implants.

In their most recent operation, they have gained four inches in their bottoms.

Larissa and Nadia travelled to Beverley Hills, California, to have the operation, where fat from the twins' stomach, lower back and biceps were injected into their posterior.

A Brazilian butt lift is when fat is moved from another part of the body into a person's bottom.

It was pioneered by surgeon Ivo Pitanguy and its recent rise in popularity was caused in part by celebrities with famous posteriors such as Nicki Minaj and Kim Kardashian.
An Islamic sheikh who speaks out against radicalisation and sharia law has been cursed and spat at while walking down the street in the Muslim heartland of Sydney.

Shia imam Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi was mobbed with abuse only moments after strolling along Haldon Street in Lakemba, which is home to Australia's largest mosque.

A man shouted in Arabic as he ventured past shops with 7News reporter Bryan Seymour shortly before noon on Monday.

Asked by what the insult meant, Sheikh Tawhidi said: 'It means, 'May God curse you, you pig, you dog.'

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A man in outside a shop (pictured wearing black) in Lakemba called Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi a dog and a pig in Arabic

After only a few minutes, Sheikh Tawhidi and the 7News crew returned to an unmarked van to avoid the possibility of violence.

Closed Facebook groups began sharing abuse online, with a Lebanese Muslim man using the Arabic word for dog to suggest there should have been a violent confrontation.

'This kalb walking through Lakemba. Can't believe no one did anything,' he said.

Sheikh Tawhidi, who moved to Australia from Iraq when he was 12 in 1995, said this was the first time he had experienced abuse of this nature.

'We were abused, spat at, insulted, called pigs and dogs and they gathered to try and intimidate us,' the Adelaide-based religious leader told Daily Mail Australia shortly after the incident.

'I have never been insulted or abused in Australia by any non-Muslim.

A man on a closed Facebook page used the Arabic word for dog, kalb, to wonder why violence wasn't inflicted on Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi

Sheikh Tawhidi believes Islamists in parts of Sydney think they have a God-given right to the land

Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi believes Muslims influenced by the Koran didn't want him there

'I have never suffered from racial discrimination at all and today was the first time that I ever experienced racial discrimination in my entire life and it was from a Muslim.'

Sheikh Tawhdidi said the holy Koran had influenced the men who abused him on Monday.

'They believe the land belongs to God and they are the chosen nation of God and that everybody that doesn't believe in the God that they believe in, the way they believe in, then it's basically not their land and they have no right to be on it,' he said.

However, he fears something worse could happen next time.

'If this continues, there will come a time where an average Australian will require a visa to enter those areas,' he said.

'I was expected to be shot at, I expected to be stabbed with a knife, it was very normal for me and I was not afraid.

'My appearance today was a statement that I am not afraid.'
As the white stallion which famously carried Napoleon though some of his greatest triumphs - as well as his greatest defeat - the skeleton of the Emperor's horse Marengo has been given pride of place at a top London museum.

But only the most observant of visitors will have noticed that the steed hasn't quite found his feet - because his two front hooves are missing.

Now, more than 200 years after Marengo was captured following the Battle of Waterloo, the horse's fourth and final hoof has been found, stuffed in a plastic bag in a farmhouse in Somerset.

The fourth and final silver-plated hoof hbelonging to Marengo - Napoleon's favourite horse - has been found stuffed in a plastic bag in a farmhouse in Somerset

The hoof - which had been missing since the horse's death in 1831 - was found in a kitchen drawer at the cottage, which was once owned by the family who bought Marengo following the 1815 battle.

After he died, the horse's final owner removed the stallion's two front hooves and had them mounted in silver as a keepsake.

While one was given to the officers' mess at St James's Palace, where it remains today, the other was unaccounted for, until it was unearthed by a descendant decades later.

The hoof has now been identified by Christopher Joll, a former officer in the Life Guards, who told The Times he is as confident as possible that it belongs to the white steed.

Marengo - the white stallion who carried Napoleon into battle in 1815 - was immortalised by Jacques Louis Davids Napoleon Crossing the Alps portrait.

The horse was named after Napoleon's victorious Battle of Marengo and stayed with the French emperor throughout his military career.

After he died, the horse's final owner removed the stallion's two front hooves and had them mounted in silver as a keepsake (shown, left and right)

Marengo - the white stallion who carried Napoleon into battle in 1815 - was immortalised by Jacques Louis Davids Napoleon Crossing the Alps portrait (pictured)

But, when he was defeated by a British-led army under the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, the horse was captured alive by the Grenadier Guards and brought to England, where it was nursed back to health.

BATTLE OF MARENGO: A MAJOR MILITARY VICTORY The Battle of Marengo, which took place on 14 June 1800, was one of Napoleons greatest military victories. The Frenchman was at the height of his military powers, and drove Austrian forces out of Italy. It was fought on the Marengo Plain - about three miles from Alessandria - between 28,000 French troops and 31,000 Austrians led by General Michael Friedrich von Melas. It brought about the French occupation of the Lombardy region up to the Mincio River. At first, the Austrians attacked at Alessandria while the French were separated - leading General Melas to believe he had won. But after the French were pushed back, Napoleon gathered his extra troops from Turin - and forced the Austrians into a retreat. Advertisement

Marengo was initially put on display at the Waterloo Rooms in Pall Mall, but was later sold to Lieutenant Colonel Angerstein.

The horse then remained at the family's seat at Weeting Hall, Norfolk, until he died in 1831, at the age of 38.

After his death, Marengo's final owner, Lieutenant-Colonel William Angerstein, removed the horse's two front hooves and converted them into snuff mills.

One was engraved and presented to the officers' mess of the Brigade of Guards at St James's Palace where it is still in use today. The other was presumed missing.

His carcass was sent to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel where it was mounted on an iron frame.

The family later came into financial difficulty and sold off most of their possessions but chose to keep Marengo's hoof.

It was one of Angerstein's descendants, who inherited a family farmhouse later down the line, who found it. She has loaned it to the Household Cavalry Museum in London, where it is now on display.

Earlier this year, the horses skeleton was restored by curators and installed at the National Army Museum, in Chelsea, west London.

The horse's remains had been on display there since the 1960s but were carefully repaired by conservator Derek Bell. However, the horses two front hooves were missing.

Two historians have come forward to argue that not only is the skeleton not the remains of Marengo but that the horse might not have existed at all.
A mother has been roundly criticised after she was pictured leading her young child down a crumbling cliff.

The woman passed several signs which warned of killer landslides as the pair cautiously traversed the coastline.

At one point, the parent had to let go of her little boy's hand halfway down the cliff as she struggled to get her own footing.

As a result the youngster was forced to make his own way to the bottom of the hill on his own.

Several people were seen ignoring safety signs at West Runton, which warned visitors not to traverse the dangerous hillside

A mother has been roundly criticised after she was pictured leading her young child down the crumbling cliff

At one point, the parent had to let go of her little boy's hand halfway down the cliff as she struggled to get her own footing. Shown right, warning signs at the cliffside

After making their way to the bottom, the group of two adults and two children promptly clambered back up to dangerous cliffs just minutes later (shown)

Despite their difficulties getting down, the group of two adults and two children promptly clambered back up to the top of the cliffs just minutes later.

The terrifying set of pictures were taken at West Runton on the stunning north Norfolk coast on Sunday as Bank Holiday daytrippers flocked to the beach.

At least a dozen people - both adults and kids - were caught on camera flagrantly flouting warning signs to keep clear of the cliff edge.

The cliffs at West Runton are world-famous after giving up one of the most complete skeletons of a mammoth ever found in Europe.

At least a dozen people - both adults and kids - were caught on camera flagrantly flouting warning signs to keep clear of the cliff edge

The terrifying set of pictures was taken at West Runton on the stunning north Norfolk coast on Sunday as Bank Holiday daytrippers flocked to the beach

Two schoolkids used the fast-eroding slopes battered by the North Sea and powerful winds for thousands of years as a playground

The spectacular beauty spot has been thrown back into the limelight after the suspected lower leg of a two million-year-old mammoth was dug up on Friday.

But Coastguard chiefs have told people to stay off the dangerous cliffs after a man of 58 was crushed by a collapsing cliff at Thorpeness, Suffolk, in January.

A Cromer and Sheringham Coastguard spokesman said: 'We strongly advise all members of the public not to walk under the cliffs or near to the edge on top and keep all pets away from the base.

'Shockingly children are still climbing the faces and digging significant holes into the cliffs.'

He warned: 'If your child goes to the beach please ensure that they are not doing this for their own safety.

'The cliffs could give way without any notice and collapse in or on top of someone at any time.'
A mother narrowly escaped death when hundreds of the world's most deadly spiders burst from a banana and crawled all over her and her baby.

Gemma Price, 30, had the shock of her life when she peeled a Costa Rican banana from Asda at her home in Stanley, County Durham.

Shocked: Police advised Miss Price to leave her home with her seven-month-old baby Leo on Tuesday and they were only able to move in on Friday

Suddenly a tiny white egg sac stuck to the skin burst apart releasing a cluster Brazilian wandering spiders which can kill an adult in two hours.

They rapidly swarmed over her hands and down her legs as she screamed and dropped the bananas to the floor.

The spiders crawled into her son Leo's cot as the screaming mother picked him up and ran out of the room.

Leftover: The offending banana with the remnants of the egg sack where the spiders came from

Creepy crawlies: The spiders crawled into her son Leo's cot as the screaming mother picked him up and ran out of the room

Miss Price said: 'I threw the banana down on the bed and they spread everywhere. I was freaking out and screaming and trying to kill as many as I could. Some got into my baby Leo's cot. I quickly picked him up and called 999.

'The operator asked if we had been bitten and when I said no. I was told to evacuate the property with my baby immediately and not go to back. My mother lived just across the road, so luckily I had somewhere to go that time of night.'

Police advised Miss Price to leave her home with her seven-month-old baby Leo on Tuesday and they were only able to move in on Friday after specialists had exterminated them.

Miss Price said when she called the Asda to make them aware, she was told by the store manager to bring the spiders and banana to customer services for a refund.

'It was absolutely comical. There was no way I was going to be walking with potentially venomous spiders in my bag,' she said.

'I contacted head office the next day but they said there was not much they could do about it.

'The conversation got heated when he suggested I shake the baby's clothes out.

A tiny white egg sac stuck to the banana skin burst apart releasing a cluster Brazilian wandering spiders which can kill an adult in two hours

'I said I didn't have any for Leo. That's when he offered me a 50 voucher, as a goodwill gesture, to go to the store to get baby milk and pyjamas and things he needed.'

Miss Price contacted Durham County Council's environmental health department and was referred to pest control.

But they said they would not be able to deal with an infestation of foreign spiders and specialists needed to be called in.

Miss Price said: 'I'm a chef and have had an encounter with a tropical spider before. I got bitten by a false widow spider in 2009 and ended up in hospital.

'It could have been a totally different outcome if there was an adult spider with these. Hopefully I can make people aware.'

'The way Asda has treated me, it's absolutely disgusting. 'They said I should be taking it up with the supplier but I don't pay the supplier I pay Asda.

Miss Price contacted Durham County Council's environmental health department and was referred to pest control

'I don't think the health and safety procedure is up to scratch for bringing produce in from other countries.

'It was really unprofessional, they weren't taking into concern what could have happened in the worse case scenario.'

Miss Price says after complaining to Asda, they sent pest control to her house on Thursday.

She said: 'Pest control sprayed the whole house with chemicals, they did it twice to make sure they had killed everything.

'I had to have someone to look after my dog for three days as he could not be in the house.

WORLD'S MOST VENOMOUS ARACHNID: THE BRAZILIAN WANDERING SPIDER The scientific name for the Brazilian wandering spider - Phoneutria - is Greek for 'murderess' (file picture) The Brazilian wandering spider appears in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most venomous arachnid. Its scientific name - Phoneutria - is Greek for murderess. They are known as the wandering spider because they do not build webs, but instead walk the jungle floor at night looking for prey. Brazilian wandering spiders are nocturnal, and so find places to hide during the day. This is why they are so dangerous, because they hide in houses and cars, where they are easily disturbed by humans. They may be considered the most toxic spider, but they are not the biggest. Their leg-span reaches up to five inches. When the spiders are defending themselves, they lift their body up on their hind legs in a defensive display. Bites killed 14 people until an antidote was found in 1996. The venom causes extreme pain and inflammation, loss of muscle control and breathing problems, resulting in paralysis and eventual asphyxiation. The spider's bite can also cause an unwanted erection in men, sometimes lasting for four hours. In one case, a single spider killed two children in Sao Sebastiao, Brazil. In 2005, a British man spent a week in hospital after he was bitten by a Brazilian wandering spider that had travelled to the country in a shipment of bananas. In 2005, a British man spent a week in hospital after he was bitten by one of the spiders that had travelled to the country in a shipment of bananas. A Tesco in Chatham, Kent, was closed after one was spotted in 2008. Advertisement

'They couldn't find the adult spider, they checked the house twice with the chemicals.

'I don't even know where the adult spider is.' Gemma was able to move back into her house on Friday but is still wary about the spiders.

She said: 'When I am putting my clothes on I am still looking for them. 'It has put me off bananas. I haven't had any since last week.

'My life has been turned upside down and my whole house has been turned upside down.

The ASDA store in Stanley, County Durham where Miss Prince bought her bananas

'I am a young mother by myself with a son, I have got enough without this which I don't need.

'I am concerned about people's safety - god forbid anyone gets bitten. If it was somebody who did not know anything about spiders they could have just put them in the bin.

'The only good thing that has come from this is making people aware and hopefully saving people from being bitten, especially children.'

A spokeswoman for Asda said: 'We are investigating this issue with utmost priority, and will revert as soon as possible.'
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French police were pelted with Molotov cocktails and fireworks as hundreds of anti-Marine Le Pen activists hijacked the annual May Day march on Monday.

Officers were pictured on fire while demonstrators were hit with tear gas and charged with batons as scenes turned ugly ahead of a speech by Le Pen and her presidential opponent Emmanuel Macron.

Meanwhile dozens of anti-Erdogan marchers were detained in Turkey after they tried to walk to Taksim Square, an iconic protest space that had been declared off-limits by police.

Ugly clashes between protesters and police were also photographed in the US, Italy, Indonesia and the Philippines.

In France National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen held a rally ahead of competing events being put on by his daughter and presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen and her rival, Emmanuel Macron.

May 1, also known as Labour Day or International Workers' Day, is supposed to be a celebration of the working classes, but is also used by activists to demand better rights.

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France

Police in Paris were attacked with Molotov cocktails after a group of anti-Marine Le Pen activists broke off from the main May Day march began hurling projectiles

Several officers could be seen covered in flames during the altercation, though the extent of their injuries is unclear

French police had anticipated trouble between pro and anti-Le Pen protesters and flooded the streets of Paris, though were unable to stop trouble flaring on Monday afternoon

Officers had managed to isolate the violent demonstrators off to one side of the main march, but struggled to disperse them

A shopping trolley with a large cardboard dragon's head on the front was rolled toward officers at one point. It is not known if anybody was hurt during the clashes

Rioters threw Molotov cocktails at a row of bikes, and appeared to have set one alight, as they called on Le Pen to stand down

Petrol bombs and stones were hurled at police by hooded agitators yesterday during a violent protest against the French presidential election.

Hundreds of demonstrators started rioting during what was meant to be a peaceful union march in Paris.

Police responded to the clashes with tear gas and truncheons. Six officers were injured in the May Day skirmishes.

The violence came during a tense day of campaigning that saw pro-EU candidate Mr Macron admit that if he does not overhaul the bloc then Frexit would be inevitable.

He acknowledged that the tide of anti-EU feeling in France is too strong to ignore and that the dysfunction of the EU is not sustainable.

His words will be seen as a clear attempt to steal votes from his rival, Marine Le Pen, who wants to ditch the euro and scrap Europes open border system. Mr Macron added that not addressing the criticisms would either see France follow the UK out of Europe, or put it under the control of Miss Le Pens far-Right National Front.

He said: I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe its extremely important for French people and for the place of our country.

But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient, and the dysfunction of the EU is not sustainable. So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in-depth the European Union and our European project.

Admitting that allowing the EU to continue without change would be a mistake, he added: I dont want to do so ... because the day after, we will have a Frexit or we will have National Front again.

One poll yesterday placed Mr Macron on 61 per cent, significantly ahead of Miss Le Pen who polled 39 per cent.

French police faced a barrage of fireworks, bottles, debris and Molotov cocktails during the Paris May Day march

Police were seen dragging away several demonstrators, though there is no word yet on how many were arrested

Officers used baton charges to break up crowds before dragging some of the violent protesters away and handcuffing them

Police isolated a group of masked men from the main march before hitting them with tear gas as they attempted to bring the situation under control in Paris on Monday

Tempers boiled over in the French capital shortly before Marine Le Pen was due to speak in the city. Emmanuel Macron, her presidential challenger, is holding a rally at the same time

France had deployed more than 9,000 officers on the streets of Paris in order to keep pro and anti-Le Pen protesters apart, and to prevent another terrorist attack

Traditionally May Day marchers in Paris use the occasion to call for more rights for workers, but this year's even also featured a contingent of anti-Le Pen protesters who turned on police

A bus shelter was destroyed by some of the activists, while others hurled flaming projectiles into the streets

Anti-Fascist campaigners have been opposing Le Pen's presidential run, which they say will be damaging to France

Workers were joined by demonstrators trying to block Le Pen's election during elections on Sunday (pictured, protesters hold images of Jean-Marie Le Pen adorned with his daughter's hair)

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France's far-right National Front party, held a rally for supporters in front of a statue of Joan of Arc in Paris ahead of the country's elections on Sunday

Elsewhere in Paris union members gathered while waving banners against Le Pen, before participating in a traditional march

As Molotov cocktails were thrown in Paris, Le Pen held a rally for her supporters a short distance away in Villepinte

Emmanuel Macron held a rally shortly after Le Pen when he spoke to supporters in Paris ahead of Sunday's election

Turkey

More than 200 people have been arrested in Istanbul, Turkey, according to local authorities as anti-government protesters took to the streets on May Day

Demonstrators angry at a referendum which passed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers had been trying to reach Taksim Square, a focal point for anti-government protest, when they were arrested

Police reportedly used tear gas canisters to disperse crowds attempting to reach Taksim Square, which had been declared off-limits by authorities after it became a focal point of anti-Erdogan demonstrations

Police in Turkey said 40 Molotov cocktails, 17 hand grenades and 176 fireworks had been confiscated from arrested activists, while illegal posters had also been seized

Police have swarmed Istanbul, one of Turkey's major cities which voted against giving Erdogan new powers in a recent referendum, as May Day protesters took to the streets

While a small group of union representatives were allowed to lay a wreath in Taksim Square, others who tried to reach it were dragged away and arrested (pictured)

Italy

Marchers in Turin, Italy, also got into clashes with riot police as demonstrators took to the streets on Labour Day in order to demand better rights for workers

Turin is a focal-point for left-wing demonstrators in Italy on May Day, and there have been repeated clashes here in the past

Far-left activists demonstrate for workers' rights in Turin on Labour Day. Italy has struggled with employment figures in recent years, with 35 per cent of young people still without a job

Turin is a focal point for far-left activists every year on May Day, with people traveling from across Europe in order to attend demonstrations in the city

Chile

Demonstrators clash with riot police during a rally marking May Day in Santiago, Chile, setting the streets alight and hurling missiles into the air

A well prepared rioter even puts a gas mask on as another sets himself to throw a gas canister along the street, where furniture has been piled up and set alight

The protests in the Chilean capital turned violent today as people clashes with police and lit fires on the day that is traditionally a time for workers to come together to protest against issues affecting them

Trouble on the streets of Chile on May Day is not unusual, with the labor movement's march (pictured today) escalating into violence in previous years

As riot police arrive to try and quell trouble on the streets, one hooded anarchist looks set to fight them with what appears to be a mop handle as the crowd watches on

One of the demonstrators throws a missile against a pharmacy, seen as a symbol of capitalism, which has already has its windows smashed and fence surrounding it ripped down

USA

Demonstrators clash with people opposing their rally during a May Day protest in Union Square in New York City today

With some of the marchers wearing face masks, hoods and helmets, at appears they came prepared for the violence that erupted on the streets of New York today

Rival demonstrators were seen coming together and the crowds appeared to brawl in Union Square, a place synonymous with workers' rights in the city

Some tried to split up the fight, which left bodies tumbling all over the floor as people watched and filmed the escalating situation in New York

One man, centre, wearing a black baseball cap, appears to be winding up a punch amid scenes of chaos in New York today

Guadalupe Chavez, center, and others yell during a protest outside of the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services building in San Francisco today

Protesters locked arms in solidarity against Donald Trump's controversial stance on immigration, which has meant efforts to deport many workers have been boosted

Immigrant and union groups marched in cities across the United States today on a day that been used as a rallying point for immigrants since demonstrations were held against a proposed immigration enforcement bill in 2006

Protesters hold a banner that references three of Donald Trump's controversial ant-immigration policies: A travel ban from certain states in the Middle East, raids to increase deportations, and a wall dividing the US and Mexico

Indonesia

Marchers in Jakarta, Indonesia, also clashed with police as they attempted to burn tributes left for governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama after he was defeated in a recent election

Workers also attempted to march to the presidential palace in Jakarta as they called for more rights and better pay

Hundreds of police were on hand to contain the protests in Jakarta, as workers demanded better social security while calling for an end to outsourcing and low wages

Philippines

In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, hundreds of workers gathered to demand better wages and an end to temporary contractual jobs which they say deprives them of benefits given to full-time workers

Workers also called for an end toextra-judicial killngs of alleged drug dealers carried out on the orders of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has been widely condemned for the move

Activists criticized Duterte for holding a phone call with President Donald Trump over the weekend, saying an alliance with America would lead to worse conditions for workers

Protest leaders in Manila argued that Trump's America First policy agenda will harm countries like the Philippines

Greece

Several thousand protesters gathered outside Greece's parliament on Monday as the country prepares for more austerity imposed by international creditors which bailed the country out after its economy collapsed

Two Greek labor unions planned marches on Monday as government representatives met with creditors to thrash out a deal that would see more spending cuts, including cuts to pensions

The Greek demonstrations on May Day will be seen as a practice-run ahead of a general strike planned for May 17 after the terms of the latest rescue package become clear

Madrid

Thousands of workers turned out in Madrid, waving banners demanding more rights for workers in a country where the unemployment rate is 18 per cent, with youth unemployment at 41 per cent

Madrid was the focal point for demonstrations in Spain, as protest leaders called for marches in more than 70 cities. Thousands more people attended a rally in Barcelona, while others were held in Seville and Valencia

Pablo Iglesias, leader of the Podemos party, said that after two years of economic growth it is time the government starts ensuring more and better jobs for Spanish workers

UK

Hundreds of workers gathered at Clerkenwell green in London before marching to Trafalgar Square to mark May Day

Union members were joined by striking workers from two cinema chains in the city to mark May Day in London

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke to marchers in Trafalgar Square at last year's event, though there is no sign he will speak during Monday's demonstration

Ukraine

Marchers advocating for workers' rights took to the streets in Kiev, Ukraine. The formerly communist country holds a two-day public holiday to mark the occasion

Thousands of peaceful marchers made their way on to the streets of Kiev to celebrate the contribution of the working class

Supporters of the Social Democratic Party, a fringe political force in Ukraine, march through the streets of Kiev on May Day

Russia

In Russia, state-sponsored celebrations are held for International Worker's Day, with up to 100,000 people marching through the streets of Moscow each year

Thousands of government supporters march through Moscow carrying national flags and banners celebrating the communist congress, the original seat of power for Communists in Russia

While the focal point of marches centered in Moscow, dozens of other cities across the communist country joined in, with Sevastopol reporting record numbers of attendees

Marchers waving blue banners supporting Vladimir Putin's political party, release balloons in front of St. Basil's Cathedral during Labour Day celebrations in Moscow

South Korea

Thousands of trade unionists also gathered in Seoul, South Korea, to demand an end to temporary work contracts which deprives employees of the right to a minimum wage

Members of the South Korean Confederation of Trade Unions hold up protest posters as they demand better working rights from bosses in Seoul

Demonstrators in Seoul also want working conditions improved for temporary workers, who they say are denied basic rights afforded to those on permanent contracts

Cambodia

In Phnom Penh around 1,000 garment factory workers defied a government ban in order to deliver a petition demanding better workplace conditions on Monday

Hundreds of police watched on as the workers delivered their petition, despite being officially barred from being on the street

Marchers were stopped from reaching government buildings by police, starting an hours-long standoff that ended when one politician emerged to take their petition

Taiwan

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Taipei, Taiwan, in order to demand higher wages for those in low-skill jobs

Union leaders said low wages are 'at the root of all problems' in Taiwan while calling for the minimum wage to be raised

Some protesters threw bean curd at actors dressed up as prominent government members, including president Tsai Ing-wen

China

In China, Monday forms part of a three-day holiday to mark the contribution of workers to the nation, with around 137million people expected to travel over the course of the weekend

Visitors flock to popular tourist attractions during the public holiday, including these people in Tiananmen Sqaure

Tourists file past a giant portrait of nationalist leader Sun Yat-sen as they visit Tiananmen Square for the worker's holiday, one of the busiest times in the Chinese calendar

India

Unionised workers in Bangalore, India, gathered outside the town hall in order to call for better working conditions

India adopted Labour Day as a national holiday in 1923, and every year it is marked by thousand of marchers on the streets

Members of All India Trade Union Congress take to the streets in Hyderabad to mark International Workers' Day

Pakistan

Workers in Lahore, Pakistan, wave portraits of the country's politicians as they demand better rights for the working classes

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Lahore in order to demand more pay, better job security, and more protections
The 64-year-old potential future First Lady today looked on adoringly at her 39-year-old husband tried to claw back his lead over National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

Emmanuel Macron took the offensive in a rousing speech, criticizing opponent Le Pen's 'rude manners' and calling her 'the heir' to her father's far-right politics.

But, as Paris was overrun by rioters amid a divisive campaign, Macron also warned Brussels to reform or France could be the next nation to leave the union.

With his lead slipping, he tried to appeal to his critics by claiming it would be his mission to reform the EU, then tried to rally his supporters against Le Pen.

Macron told supporters waving French and European flags: 'Don't boo her, fight her! Go and convince (others), make her lose next Sunday.'

The 64-year-old potential future First Lady today looked on adoringly at her 39-year-old husband tried to claw back his lead over National Front leader Marine Le Pen

Emmanuel Macron took the offensive in a rousing speech, criticizing Le Pen's 'rude manners' and calling her 'the heir' to her father's far-right politics

Macron was speaking in Paris today, where rioters at an anti-Le Pen march set fire to riot police by launching molotovs into the air in the street

As he spoke in Paris, where rioters at an anti-Le Pen march set fire to riot police, his 64-year-old wife looks on adoringly at the man she once taught drama at school.

The potential First Lady Brigitte, looking pristine, watched on smiling before greeting supporters in the crowd.

Her husband Macron is expected to be voted President in the May election but recent polls indicate that his commanding lead over her has slipped.

Today he told crowds Le Pen's priorities would be 'to fight against press freedom,' 'against women's rights, the right to abortion' and 'against same-sex couples' rights.'

Macron, a former economy minister, is campaigning on strong pro-European, pro-free market, liberal views.

Le Pen leads the National Front party that her father founded. She expelled him in 2015 after he reiterated anti-Semitic comments.

The potential First Lady Brigitte, looking pristine, watched on smiling before greeting friends and supporters in the crowd

Thousands of French union activists are marching through Paris and other cities to demand France's next president protect worker rights.

However, they appear divided about how to cast their vote and troublemakers today clashed with police on the outskirts of Paris.

On the sidelines of the union march, protestors clashed with police, throwing molotov cocktails at motorcycles at the scene.

Some carried banners protesting both Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron. The two face off Sunday in France's presidential runoff.

The moderate CFDT union marked the May Day holiday with a small Paris rally against Le Pen, leader of the National Front party.

At a larger union rally nearby, some marchers carried signs reading 'Let's block the National Front' - but no one was openly rallying for Macron.

Marchers included far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came in fourth in the first-round presidential vote. He strongly opposes Le Pen gaining power but has also refused to endorse Macron, seen as a pro-business figure who could reduce France's strong labour protections.

Mrigitte marches along with the political movement that her husband is leading, a protest against the far right in France

Brigitte appears to halt the advance of one man as the protesters march through Paris, many in support of her husband's campaign to become president

Le Pen has accused rival Emmanuel Macron of being a puppet of the world of finance and Islamic fundamentalists.

Cheers of 'Marine President!' and anti-immigrant chants rose up in the crowd of thousands for Le Pen's rally north of Paris.

Le Pen, who hopes to mimic President Donald Trump's populist electoral victory, compared Macron to Hillary Clinton.

The far-right leader also repeatedly disputed Macron's argument that he represents change, calling him a lapdog of unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.

CENTRIST LEADER VOWS TO REFORM EU TO AVOID FREXIT French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron has warned that the European Union must reform or face Frexit. Macron, looking to maintain his 20 per cent lead on his rival, this morning warned the EU must reform or face a Brexit-style vote. He told the BBC: 'I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation. 'But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable. 'So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project.' Advertisement

She called Macron the candidate of 'the caviar left' and 'moralizing snobbery' and warned that his pro-business policies wouldn't create jobs but send them abroad and leave French workers hungry.

Macron's lead over Le Pen has fallen six points since polls carried out just before the first round of voting last Sunday - but he remains up to 20 points ahead.

Pollster Harris Interactive found Macron now has a lead of 61 per cent over his National Front rival.

Just before last Sunday's vote his lead over Le Pen stood at 67 per cent over Le pen's 33 per cent.

The poll emerged as Macron taunted Le Pen by paying tribute to a Moroccan man drowned by skinheads after a National Front rally in 1995.

The centrist observed a minute's silence on the banks of the Seine in Paris - 22 years to the day since immigrant Brahim Bouarram was killed.

The tribute today took place just as Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party's former leader and father of Marine, addressed this year's FN May Day rally near the statue of national heroine, Joan of Arc, a few hundred feet away. He accused Macron of 'doing a tour of graveyards'.

'We must never forget what happened,' Macron told reporters at the site, a few steps away from the Louvre museum, where he laid a wreath of white flowers in front of a plaque in memory of the Moroccan victim.

Macron also relaunched his attack on comments last month from Le Pen, who last week said the French state was not responsible for a mass arrest of Jews in Paris during World War Two.

'I shall never forget, and I will fight up until the very last second not only against her programme but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic' said Macron.

French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron is losing his lead over far-right leader Marine Le pen with just a week to go until their election run-off, an opinion poll has shown

In between the two rounds of the 1995 presidential election, Bouarram, a 29-year old father of two, was thrown into the Seine by a group of skinheads leaving a May Day rally held nearby in Paris by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was party leader at the time.

Skinheads leaving Le Pen senior's parade pushed Bouarram, who could not swim, into the river and watched him struggle to stay afloat in the swift-flowing current, before then leaving the scene.

One was sentenced to an eight-year jail sentence in 1998 and three others to five-year terms.

Standing on the same bridge, Macron hugged Bourram's son Said, who was nine when his father was killed.

Said, a chauffeur who supports Macron, said his father was targeted 'because he was a foreigner, an Arab. That is why I am fighting, to say 'No' to racism.'

Macron said, despite Marine Le Pen's efforts to distance herself from her father's anti-Semitism, 'the roots are there, and they are very much alive.'

French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron has taunted far-right leader Marine Le pen by paying tribute to a Moroccan man drowned by skinheads after a National Front rally in 1995. he is pictured today laying flowers at the spot where the killing took place

Macron's tribute took place just as Jean-Marie Le Pen (pictured), the party's former leader and father of Marine, addressed this year's FN May Day rally near the statue of national heroine, Joan of Arc, a few hundred meters away

Activists wear masks depicting the face of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the French far-right National Front, with the hair of his daughter Marine Le Pen, during a demonstration as part of traditional May Day marches in Paris

The tribute to Bouarram was the latest attempt by Macron, a pro-Europe centrist, to remind voters of what he and other critics see as the National Front's racist and anti-Semitic legacy.

He visited a Holocaust memorial in Paris on Sunday and a village burned down by the Nazis in World War Two last week.

The FN has cried foul at Macron's tactics. The niece of Marine Le Pen, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, said on Sunday that he was using death and deportations for political ends and indulging in 'World War Two blackmail'.

In a speech before the gilded statue in Paris of Joan of Arc, his heroine, Jean-Marie Le Pen urged French voters to back his daughter in Sunday's runoff.

'She is not Joan of Arc but she accepts the same mission ... France,' Jean-Marie Le Pen said.

He denounced Macron, her rival, calling him a 'masked Socialist' and a candidate back by the highly unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande.

The centrist observed a minute's silence on the banks of the Seine in Paris - 22 years after the immigrant was murdered - in a move clearly aimed at painting the National Front as extremist

Jean-Marie Le Pen (centre) told his supporters on Monday: 'Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards. It's a bad sign for him.'

Jean-Marie Le Pen has denied any connection with the Morrocan's death 22 years ago and called it a provocation staged to discredit his movement

'He wants to dynamize the economy, but he is among those who dynamited it,' the elderly Le Pen said, referring to France's stagnant economy and high jobless rate around 10 percent, and Macron's role in it as one-time economy minister.

He also told his supporters on Monday: 'Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards. It's a bad sign for him.'

Marine Le Pen, speaking in a hall outside Paris, also skewered Macron, a former investment banker, calling him a 'puppet' of the world of finance and Islamic fundamentalists.

Cheers of 'Marine President!' and anti-immigrant chants rose up in the crowd of thousands for Le Pen's rally Monday north of Paris.

Le Pen, who hopes to mimic Donald Trump's populist electoral victory, compared Macron to Hillary Clinton. She also sought repeatedly to puncture Macron's argument that he represents change, calling him Hollande's lapdog, the candidate of 'the caviar left.'

French far-right National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and his wife Jany attend a demonstration near the statue of Jeanne d'Arc today

She warned that his pro-business policies would not create jobs but send them abroad and leave French workers hungry.

Marine Le Pen has sought to cleanse the National Front's image of xenophobic and anti-semitic associations and make it more palatable to a broader electorate.

The 88-year old former paratrooper was expelled from the party's management but remains the party's honorary president and has lent money to his daughter's campaign.

'I have no contacts with him anymore, I'm not responsible for his misconduct, for his unacceptable comments,' Marine Le Pen said on Sunday.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has denied any connection with Bouarram's death and called it a provocation staged to discredit his movement.

He also called it a common criminal 'incident' of the kind he said occurred daily in heavily populated cities.
Around 15million of taxpayers' money has been set aside to fund anti-smoking classes around the world in yet another foreign aid row.

The cash is part of a 150million pot that the Department of Health promised to spend abroad in the past year.

The 15million will be sent to 15 countries including Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, Nepal, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Zambia to help people quit smoking.

Critics have said that the money should be spent in Britain and accused the Government of throwing cash around 'like confetti'.

Foreign aid: Around 15million of taxpayers' money has been set aside to fund anti-smoking classes around the world

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall told the Daily Express: 'Our NHS needs a huge injection of cash so patients are treated as soon as possible, but meanwhile here is our government giving millions to support smoking cessation in far flung corners of the world.

'It is more foreign aid madness. It is right the UK gives aid for disaster relief and humanitarian projects but it is nonsense we hand it like confetti.'

In total Britain's foreign aid pledge is around 13.3billion and Theresa May (pictured yesterday) has pledged to protect it

The 15million was set aside to support the World Health Organisation's anti-smoking schemes.

Almost 60 countries asked the WHO to fund stop-smoking schemes in their countries and the final 15 who will receive cash has been chosed,

Seven are classed as third world with the rest among the developed world.

It came at a time when the Department of Health's spend on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has almost quadrupled in the past year from 32 million in 2015/16 to 149 million in 2016/17.

In total Britain's foreign aid pledge is around 13.3billion and Theresa May has pledged to protect it.

John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance said: 'It is astonishing British taxpayers' money continues to be spent in this way

'How can the WHO possibly see fit to lecture these people on the risks of smoking when many will have far greater concerns around issues such as their human rights?

'If the WHO is going to persist with such insensitive campaigns the UK Government must reconsider the vast amounts of taxpayers money it hands to these people.'

The Department of Health said it could not comment on the spending because of the upcoming snap election called by Mrs May.

But earlier this year a spokesman said in reference to its spending abroad: 'The way we account for this money has changed over time, and not a penny of it has been diverted away from the NHS frontlinebut as diseases do not respect borders, and epidemics like Ebola threaten us at home, we make no apology for using UK expertise to help people in developing countries defeat the world's worst infectious diseases.'
British tank crews unwittingly went into the first ever major tank battle in vulnerable unarmoured vehicles, historians have revealed 100 years after the event.

Researchers have found that the 45 Mark II tanks that went into action at the Battle of Arras in May 1917 were training vehicles which had no armour.

Experts believe the crews were not informed the steel the tanks were made from was untreated and therefore could be penetrated by rifle fire.

The weakness of the vehicles actually ended up helping the British war effort after one was captured by the Germans, who then abandoned plans to develop more advanced armour-piercing weapons.

But it was actually mechanical issues that proved the most costly, with just 11 of the tanks eventually crossing No Man's Land due to breakdowns.

Researchers have found the British Army went into the first ever major tank battle during the First World War in vulnerable vehicles. Mark II tanks took part in the Battle of Arras in May 1917 but were made of steel so weak it could be penetrated by ordinary rifle fire. Pictured is Tank 785, the oldest surviving tank that saw active service for the British Army, on display at the Tank Museum in Dorset

Experts at the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset, said none of the 45 Mark IIs that took part in the battle should have been there, and claimed their crews were unaware of the danger they were in. Pictured is museum curator David Willey with a Mark II tank, Tank 785, that took part in the battle

The Germans were able to capture a Mark II tank during the battle, pictured, and were surprised to find how weak the armour was. Experts at the museum say this actually helped the British war effort as the Germans abandoned plans to develop more advanced armour piercing weapons, before the British Army brought out the stronger Mark IV tanks

Out of 360 men in the tank crews, more than 50 were killed in the action.

Historians at the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset, which is home to the oldest surviving tank to have seen combat, believe that none of the 45 Mark IIs should have gone to war in the first place.

But incredibly the move actually helped the British war effort after the Germans successfully captured one of the tanks.

Upon examining it they were surprised to find that simple bullets would penetrate the armour and so felt no urgency to come up with an anti-tank weapon.

BATTLE OF THE TANKS: HOW MARK IIs SHAPE UP VS MARK IVs As experts have revealed, Mark II tanks were actually vulnerable machines that provided little protection to their crews during the early mechanised battles of the First World War. As they were taking to the battlefield in May 1917, more powerful tanks were being developed back home, with the Mark IVs entering active service just one month later. One of the main improvements was the improvement in armour, with Mark IVs made of steel around half-an-inch think, more than double the size of the Mark IIs armour. But how else did the vehicles stack up against each other? Mark II Length: 26ft Width: 8ft 4ins Height: 8ft Armament: 'Male' - Two six-pound Hotchkiss guns, four 0.303ins Hotchkiss machine guns 'Female' - Four 0.303ins Vickers machine guns, one 0.303ins Hotchkiss machine gun Weight: Around 28 tonnes Speed: 3.7mph Range: 28 miles Number produced: 50 Mark IV Length: 26ft 5ins Width: 8ft 4ins Height: 8ft Armament: 'Male' - 2 six-pound guns, six hundredweight Mark I 23 calibre gun, three 0.303 inch Lewis machine guns 'Female' - 5x 0.303 inch Lewis machine guns Weight: Around 28 tonnes Speed: 4pm Range: 35miles Number produced: 1,220 Advertisement

It was a year before they realised the tank they had captured was a training vehicle.

Tank 785, which is on display at Bovington, was commanded by 2/Lt Herbert Chick who advanced on the enemy on May 3, 1917 with his eight-man crew.

He attacked the German lines, knocked out several machine guns and broke the wire.

However, with five of his crew wounded, two seriously, he was unable to continue the offensive.

Chick returned to Allied lines and filled in a form reporting the numbers of wounded, the rounds used and the damage sustained, as well as details of the engagement.

The Mark II, pictured, was built in Lincoln, with 50 built in total. Forty-five were used in action, beginning with the Battle of Arras. Tank 785, which was later rebranded 285 when it became a supply vehicle, was commanded by Second Lieutenant Herbert Chick, who had an eight-man crew

Mr Willey, pictured with the damaged Mark II, said the German capture of a 'training vehicle' tank turned out to be a 'peculiar win' for the British as it caused the Germans to become 'relaxed' about tank warfare

Lt Chick, pictured left and right, advanced on enemy lines in his tank, but was forced to abandon the offensive after five of his crew were injured, including two seriously

Eventually the Mark IIs were withdrawn from service and replaced by Mark IVs, pictured during the First World War. Mark IVs were heavily armoured and went into production in May 1917, with more than 1,000 produced

AND IF YOU THOUGHT MARK II WAS BAD... Developed from the Little Willie tank prototype, the Mark I was the first British Tank to enter the battlefield in the First World War. Officially, they were called His Majesty's Land Centipede. They first trialled in April 1916. They were more than 32ft long including their tail and 8ft wide, and carried eight crew members. They travelled at a maximum speed of 4mph. In total, 150 of these machines were produced. Features of the Mark I included tail wheels to aid steering at the rear (left), a commander's seat and engine controls at the front (right), Hotchkiss pounder and machine guns (right) and ammunition storage tube for up to 334 shells (centre) Advertisement

After the Battle of Arras the Mark II tanks were gradually removed from the front as the fully armoured Mark IV tanks were rolling off the production line.

However, museum curator David Willey said the Mark IIs shouldn't have been taken into battle.

He said: 'During the Battle of Arras the Germans captured a Mark II and took it back for testing.

'They realised that bullets would go straight through it and passed on this information to their soldiers.

'It was over a year before they released that the tank they had captured was only a training vehicle.

'So it was a peculiar little win for the British as it meant the Germans were a bit more relaxed about the tanks than they would have been otherwise.

'The steel had not been treated properly and while it would protect those inside against some things, rifle fire could simply pass through the armour into the interior.

'Bigger rounds and armour-piercing rounds had absolutely no difficulty in passing through.

'The bullets would then ping around inside the tank - you can only imagine the fear of Chick and his crew.

Lt Chick was awarded several medals during the war and commanded tanks until victory in 1918. Pictured from left are his Military Cross, awarded for bravery in combat, his 1914 Star, given to those who fought in France or Belgium between August and November 1914, his British War Medal and his Victory Medal

Also on display at the museum is this postcard sent to Lt Chick by his commanding officer, known only as Colonel Ridley

'Our research suggests that before the battle the crews were not told that the tanks were unprotected.

'Even when they must have realised this, it didn't stop them driving at the enemy lines.

'After the battle, Chick's tank was used as a supply vehicle and later arrived at the museum and is the oldest surviving tank ever to have seen action.

'Its damage is still visible and people always want to touch it and that really does help bring home the horrors of this war.'

The Battle of Arras was part of the spring offensive and there were just 15 Mark I tanks left from the previous year.

As they needed 60 tanks for the battle at Bullecourt the Mark IIs were summoned.

Tank 785 saw action on April 9 and then again on May 3 when it sustained the damage.

Upon his return from the Battle of Arras, Lt Chick filled out this battle report, which detailed how much ammunition was used, how many people were injured and the condition of the vehicle following the action. The report is also on display at the museum

When the battle officially ended on May 16, British troops had made significant advances but had been unable to achieve a breakthrough.

Herbert Chick continued to serve and in 1918 won the Military Cross after leading his tanks into battle on foot and taking charge of the infantry.

He survived the war, changed his name officially to Chick from its original Cicognani and in 1921 married Hilda Grove.

He died the following year at his home in Maidstone, Kent, aged 29 from a cerebral abscess.

The Mark II tanks were built by Fosters in Lincoln.
University graduates could be forced to pay back their student debt when they start earning $42,000 a year.

The Turnbull government has also flagged an eight per cent increase in student fees.

The plans would see higher education graduates paying back their loans when they earn $42,000 a year, down from $54,000 now.

However, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson wants students to pay back their Higher Education Loan Program debt when they're earning a minimum wage in a part-time job.

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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson wants graduates earning $22,000 a year to repay their debt

Education Minister Simon Birmingham says students will face a 'modest' increase in fees

'I've proposed they start at $22,000,' she told Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt on Monday night.

A full-time worker earning a minimum wage of $17.70 an hour takes home less than $35,000 a year.

Under Senator Hanson's proposal, a university graduate working 25 hours a week packing bags at Coles or Woolworths would already be paying back their student debt.

Under the government's plan, Australians will have to start paying back their debt when they are earning well below the average graduate salary of $60,000.

University students in Canberra protest against the government's university fee plans

That is the figure quoted by glassdoor.com, which accepts anonymous salary submissions.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham however described the student fee increase as modest.

'In relation to these higher education reforms, they are quite modest, quite well balanced,' he told ABC 7.30 interviewer Leigh Sales.

'We have worked very hard to ensure we come up with a proposal for students, see them face yes a modest increase in fees, although the government will still pay the majority of student university fees, around 54 per cent, down by just a few percentage points.'

Senator Birmingham said students historically faced 'a small increase' in fees.
Theresa May's closest aides have resigned from Downing Street to work full time on the Tory election campaign.

Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill have transferred to the Tory payroll to ensure they can work politically without breaching civil service rules.

The move is standard practice at election time for many senior aides but does not mean Mrs May's closest advisers will be locked out of official Government meetings.

Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill have transferred to the Tory payroll to ensure they can work politically without breaching civil service rules

Purdah rules mean only civil servants and not party staff can take part in official business.

The change was confirmed to the Daily Telegraph. A spokesman said the pair had 'resigned, as you would expect during an election'.

Ms Hill is understood to be in charge of communications and Mr Timothy is writing the party's manifesto with John Godfrey, another key adviser.

Civil Service rules mean that the pair are reportedly not allowed to communicate with Oliver Robbins, the official in charge of Brexit talks, while they are out of Government.

One European ambassador told The Sunday Times: 'We don't know who to ring. We thought it was Robbins but it is clear he has been cut out.'

A slew of other special advisers have also quit the Government to work for the party during the campaign.

One former special adviser told the Telegraph: 'This is standard practice.

'Taxpayers should not foot the bill for political campaigns.'

Ms Hill and Mr Timothy are Mrs May's closest advisers and by reputation among the very tight circle whom the PM (pictured campaigning in Lancashire today) fully trusts

Under arrangements at the 2015 general election, the party paid advisers who had quit the Government and were working on the campaign.

Political staff and special advisers who are not re-employed by the Government are entitled to receive a payoff in lieu of notice.

Ms Hill and Mr Timothy are Mrs May's closest advisers and by reputation among the very tight circle whom the PM fully trusts.

They worked with Mrs May at the Home Office and returned to Government to run her No 10 as joint chiefs of staff.
This is the disturbing moment the wife of a convicted paedophile called a nine-year-old girl a sl*t and blamed her for being molested.

Peter Andrews, 64, was found guilty of indecent treatment of a child after luring the young girl to his house with video games and a playful dog for two years.

But his wife Heiki instead launched a stunning tirade at the girl's grandmother in the street near her Gold Coast home, blaming everyone but her predator husband.

Peter Andrews, 64, was convicted of indecent treatment of a nine-year-old child but never spent a day in jail as he was given a suspended sentence

'She's a sl*t at 14 (sic) sleeping around. Hey? Did she learn that off you?' she screamed in a video shown on 9 News.

'Because you're negligent parents. Her parents didn't care, that's why she used to come over.'

Andrews never spent a day in jail as he was given a suspended sentence after he told the court her had terminal cancer.

He walked free to live back in the house where he abused the young girl - just metres from a childcare centre.

Confronted by a reporter about his crimes as he took a walk, the paedophile admitted 'of course I do' when asked if he regretted what he did.

His wife Heiki instead launched a stunning tirade at the girl's grandmother in the street near her Gold Coast home, blaming everyone but her predator husband

A photobooth snap Andrews and his wife took with the young girl

Similarly, when asked if he was sorry he said: 'Of course I am.'

But when challenged about his crime of preying on a young girl, he replied 'it wasn't like that'.

The girls grandparents, who can't be identified, were so livid Andrews received no jail time they were dropping off pamphlets warning other young families about him.

'Absolutely unbelievable that you can blame a child 10 years or younger, that she coerced a grown man into sexually abusing her,' he grandfather said.

His wife agreed: 'He's not a man he's an animal.'
The New Zealand police have enlisted the help of their newest recruit - Constable Elliot, a guinea pig, to urge drivers to watch their speed around schools.

Styled in his own version of the standardised police uniform the cute little rodent has been taken on to send a serious message to Kiwis about safe driving speeds around schools.

The New Zealand police shared news of their newest team member via their Facebook page.

Constable Elliot, a guinea pig, has been recruited to help police tackle speed

In a post on Facebook it was explained that Constable Elliot doesn't move very fast, but that's the way he prefers things.

'I am not too fast and that's the way I like it - slow is safe,' the message read.

'Remember people, the kids are going to be out and about walking and biking, and crossing roads. Like me, they are small and unpredictable, so you have to watch out.

Constable Elliot reminded road users to drive at safe speeds when driving near schools.

'Keep an eye out for school patrols and please do your part in keeping our kids safe. Drive to the conditions, reduce your speed and stay alert,' the post said.

A post on the New Zealand police Facebook page sent a message to drivers to be slow around schools now that holidays are over (stock picture)

The New Zealand police were undeterred by commenters claiming the guinea pig was being mistreated stating in one reply: 'Elliot, is a well cared for family pet of one of our media team members.

'According to his human 'mum' he's pampered, and loves going on trips to explore new food supplies,which is what he was doing yesterday.

They said the furry friend loves being patted and carried as well as being cuddled while doing laps.
Jean-Claude Juncker has admitted the EU's remaining members face 'tough decisions' about how to deal with Britain and its lucrative payments leaving the bloc.

The EU Commission President said Europe would have to navigate the fact many members do not want to pay in more to Europe while still getting out the same benefits.

Mr Juncker admitted 'unity will suffer' as the remaining 27 members of the EU face up to the future without Britain, which is the second largest net contributor to the budget.

Jean-Claude Juncker has admitted the EU's remaining members face 'tough decisions' about how to deal with Britain and its lucrative payments leaving the bloc

The EU Commission President said Europe would have to navigate the fact many members do not want to pay in more to Europe while still getting out the same benefits

His remarks came as the EU unanimously agreed a negotiating position on Brexit in just four minutes on Saturday in a rare show of full agreement.

Speaking at a press conference after the agreement, Mr Juncker said: 'It was surprising given the past experiences, that we could get an agreement this swiftly, and such a solid agreement among the 27 that fast.

'Now, I'm not at all certain that that unity will suffer but certainly as the debate proceeds and budgetary matters arise there will be tough decisions.

'Clearly, there are those who don't want to pay a penny more and those who don't want to give up a penny either.'

Last week Mr Juncker warned Mrs May that 'Brexit cannot be a success' at a disastrous No 10 dinner that left EU chiefs believing the chances of a deal are less than 50 per cent.

The Prime Minister hosted Mr Juncker and chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Downing Street last Wednesday night.

Theresa May (pictured on the BBC yesterday) is determined to minimise Britain's settlement and ongoing contributions to the EU

The meeting was intended to smooth the way to Saturday's agreement by the remaining EU 27 of their negotiating guidelines - seen as a hardline position in London.

But the 90 minute dinner broke up with Mr Juncker 'ten times more sceptical' about the prospects of a deal within two years, according to the highly partisan briefing.

Mr Juncker used Saturday's press conference to publicly warn of the challenges ahead.

He said: 'I have the impression some times that our British friends underestimate the technical difficulties we have to face.

'The single question of citizens' rights, in fact 25 different questions, which have to be solved. This will take time.

'This will take a huge amount of time - although as a Commission and Michel Barnier we have already prepared a text that could be adopted immediately if our British friends would be ready to sign it

'That will probably not happen.'
A Pennsylvania woman was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison for conspiring with a man who killed his ex-girlfriend and hid her body in a shed.

Natasha Stover, 21, had exchanged 15,000 text messages with 23-year-old Marcus Bordelon, who was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year in the 2015 death of his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child, 21-year-old Samantha Young.

She was sentenced in York County Court on Thursday to 12-and-a-half to 25 years in prison followed by 12 months of probation on charges of conspiracy to committee criminal homicide, obstruction of the administration of law and conspiracy to commit obstruction of the administration of law.

For five months before the April 2015 murder, Bordelon and Stover messaged each other about killing Young, her then-boyfriend, James Horn, and Bordelon's other ex, Lacey Sauer. Plots against Sauer and Horn were never carried out.

Natasha Stover (left), 21, was sentenced to 12-and-a-half to 25 years in prison on Thursday in York County, Pennsylvania, in connection to the April 2015 killing of 21-year-old Samantha Young. It comes months after Marcus Bordelon (right) was sentenced to life for the murder

The two, who dated on and off for years, exchanged thousands of messages in which they came up with a list of items they would need for the killings and ideas on how they would cover up the crimes.

In one message, Bordelon wrote: 'I'm gonna kill someone.'

Stover replied to one of his messages, with: 'No, you can't because you're gonna be prime suspect.'

During her trial, prosecutors said that Stover had helped Bordelon plan the April 19, 2015, murder of Young and helped him move Young's car away from his Wrightsville home after the slaying.

Stover had pleaded guilty to the charges on February 28, after a first-degree murder charge against her was dropped.

Bordelon stabbed Young - his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child - 49 times during the April 2015 killing, resulting in 52 wounds

Authorities said Stover, Bordelon's girlfriend at the time, wasn't present when the murder was committed.

Bordelon stabbed Young 49 times during the April 2015 killing, resulting in 52 wounds, according to Penn Live. He was charged the following day after police found Young's body in his shed.

Police said that Bordelon told investigators that he and Young were having dinner when a fight erupted and he used a knife to keep her from leaving the home.

Police said there was a large amount of blood on Bordelon and the floor of his home following the killing.

But police say that the conspiracy to kill Young dated back five months earlier, to December 2014.

Stover was charged in June 2015, two months after Bordelon.

Bordelon, who has a young daughter with Young, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year.
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Images from the inside of a semi-collapsed iron mine in Alabama show the rusted rails that would have once carried iron ore and the rubble that's been left behind 64 years after the facility shut down.

The photos show a mine in Ruffner Mountain in Birmingham, that operated between 1886 and 1953.

The mine, operated by Sloss Furnace Company, contracted workers - predominately African Americans - who would use picks, wedges and even explosives in their daily operations. They would earn 60 cents for each car filled with iron ore.

The underground mine, in Ruffner Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama, was operated by operated Sloss Furnace Company between 1886 and 1953

But after the mine closed in 1953, the mine was abandoned and left to crumble. Some railways and tunnels can still be found 64 years later

During its heyday, the contracted workers - predominately African Americans - who would use picks, wedges and even explosives in their daily operations

Despite facing tough manual labor each day in the tunnels, workers still faced low pay: They would earn 60 cents for each car filled with iron ore

Birmingham was once a booming steel city thanks in part to the vast amount of natural minerals located in such a small region

During the mine's operation, local newspapers reported several deaths of workers that were the results of runaway mine carts, explosions and falling rocks.

Newspapers at the time reported deaths of workers as a result of runaway mine carts, explosions and falling rocks.

Stunning shots of the mine were taken by an urban explorer known as Abandoned Southeast.

One photo shows water-filled tunnels while another shows an overgrown, moss-ridden pulley system above the surface.

But despite a booming mining business, they were still a dangerous place to work. During the mine's operation, local newspapers reported several deaths

Several deaths at the mines were a result of runaway mine carts, explosions and falling rocks in the deep underground tunnels

Mining's decline in the last half of the 20th Century brought with it a decline in mining towns throughout Alabama, marking the disappearance of many communities and the loss of thousands of jobs

The mountian in which the mine sits is named after William Henry Ruffner, a geologist from Virginia who mapped the geographic features of the mountain in 1882, including the iron ore and other resources valued by iron and steel companies

Birmingham was once a booming steel city thanks in part to the vast amount of natural minerals located in such a small region, said Abandoned Southeast.

The photographer added: 'Photographing in pitch black darkness can be tricky, parts of the mine were flooded and we had to be careful to not hit our heads on the ceiling, in most spots the mine was only three to four feet tall.

'You could not even see your hand in front of your face. The wooden pillars at the end of the mine are 1200-feet below ground.

'We were unable to continue from there due to a collapsed roof and three-feet of water. Occasionally, after a long rain, this mine fills with water completely and is inaccessible.'

One of Abandoned Southeast's photos shows an above-ground pulley system that was used to carry iron ore out of the facility when it was in operation

Years after the mine closed, hundreds of people were abandoned from nearby towns in 1971 after an explosion of ammonium nitrate occurred at the shuttered facility. No one was killed in the blast, but 13 people were injured and it caused $500,000 worth of damage

The mines were closed for 18 years when the 1971 explosion occurred. It ripped through a mine portal, not far from above-ground offices and an ore benefication plant

Stunning shots of the mine were taken by an urban explorer known as Abandoned Southeast, who visited the site earlier this year
Tory councillor Ray Bray has been suspended after a series of 'abhorrent' Islamaphobic messages were sent from his Twitter account

A Tory councillor has been suspended after 'abhorrent' Islamaphobic messages - including one which said Labour was to blame for 'Muslim rapists' - were posted on his Twitter account.

Councillor Ray Bray's account published a string of shocking statements, including hitting out at 'Muzzie rapists', urging people to boycott Muslim firms and encouraging the building of mosques to be banned.

Another post from the @rayjbray account accused London's Mayor Sadiq Khan - who is Muslim - of condoning terrorism.

It read: 'Honour killings, wife beatings, and FGM along with terrorism are part and parcel of his faith.'

The Tory councillor, who represents Shelley on Kirkburton Parish Council in Huddersfield, denies sending the tweets and claims his account was hacked.

But he has now been suspended from the party while an investigation takes place. His account has also been taken down.

On April 20, a message was sent from Mr Bray's account to Redcar MP Anna Turley, after she criticised grammar schools.

The message - which has now been deleted - read: 'You're a fool. What you are saying is complete and utter rubbish and how you can say it is in v/bad taste.

'Lab 2 blame for Muzzie rapists.'

Another tweet urged people to boycott all taxis and takeaways run by Muslims.

Mr Bray's account published a string of shocking statements, including one hitting out at 'Muzzie rapists' (pictured)

One post from the @rayjbray account accused London's Mayor Sadiq Khan - who is Muslim - of condoning terrorism. It read: 'Honour killings, wife beatings, and FGM along with terrorism are part and parcel of his faith'

It came after another Twitter user urged customers to boycott a taxi firm which had picked up some of the Muslim defendants involved in a sexual exploitation case.

The tweet read: 'And their takeaways etc. Its [sic] our money they are after, not to share our country and embrace what it gives.'

Another post which was retweeted from the account on April 19 read: 'Ban building any more Mosques or madrasses [sic]'.

The following day, a tweet sent from the account said funding for places of worship to tackle hate crime was 'a waste of money'. Another message said Muslims were 'not here to integrate'.

Another tweet (pictured) urged people to boycott all taxis and takeaways run by Muslims

One of the messages retweeted from his account said building mosques should be banned

The account also retweeted a message which said Islam and its followers are 'truly evil'

The account also re-tweeted a meme that claimed the word Islamophobic was a 'bull**** term invented to vilify and silence anyone being honest about mankind's most violent supremacist culture'.

Another re-tweet said: 'I'll see your Jihad and I'll raise you one crusade'.

The councillor's account also retweeted a message which read: 'Islam is truly evil as are those that follow it.'

Another retweet on the account appeared to lend support to French politician Marine Le Pen

MP Paula Sherriff described the language as 'absolutely abhorrent'.

She added: 'This blatant Islamophobia has no place in society, even more so when the country needs to be coming together and standing up against the rise in hate crime we have seen in the last year.'

A Conservative spokesman said: 'Mr Bray has been suspended from the party pending an investigation.'
Democrats' hard-left turn will keep Republicans in power - maybe forever - President Donald Trump predicted in an interview reviewing his first 100 days in office.

Turning the tables on New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who accused Trump of taking his party too far to the right, Trump said the Democratic lawmaker has made a 'fool' out of himself by being 'bad' at his job.

'Schumer's not a leader, he doesn't know how to lead. I know him for a long time, he has no leadership ability,' Trump told CBS' John Dickerson. 'And he's bringing them so far left they're never going to win another election, believe me.'

Democrats' hard-left turn will keep Republicans in power - maybe forever - President Donald Trump predicted in an interview reviewing his first 100 days in office

'Schumer's not a leader, he doesn't know how to lead. I know him for a long time, he has no leadership ability,' Trump told CBS' John Dickerson. 'And he's bringing them so far left they're never going to win another election, believe me'

A New York native himself, Trump has set Schumer up to be his Washington foil, starting disputes with him on social media, calling him a 'clown' and ripping his leadership ability.

Schumer has shoved right back at the Republican president who prioritized a Middle Eastern-travel ban and deportations immediately after he took office.

Trump went to town on the Democrat at a Saturday evening rally in Pennsylvania on his 100th day on the job.

'Senator Schumer is a bad leader. Ive known him a long time, Senator Schumer is a bad leader, not a natural leader at all. He works hard to study leadership  Well if you have to study leadership youve got problems,' Trump said.

Continuing, Trump said Schumer's soft-on-illegal-immigration party posturing is a threat to the nation.

'His policies are hurting innocent Americans and making it easier for drug dealers to enter our country,' Trump said. 'Schumer is weak on crime and wants to raise your taxes through the roof. He is a poor leader, and he is leading the Democrats to doom.'

The following morning, Schumer belittled the Republican and his administration for their bare-boned list of accomplishments that relies heavily on the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

'He is not governing from the middle. He's governing from the hard right,' Schumer charged. 'That's why his regime has had hardly any major successes with the exception of Gorsuch.'

The top-ranking Democrat said his party would be willing to work with Trump if he wasn't so authoritarian.

'He can't just dictate what he wants, not talk to us and say you must support it,' Schumer said on Fox News' flagship Sunday morning program.

Trump told CBS in a taped interview that aired in pieces on Sunday and Monday that Schumer was leading Democrats off a cliff.

'Frankly, a lot of the Democrats are great. They have bad leadership,' he said in a clip that ran on Monday.

In a Sunday package that aired on Face the Nation, Trump again hit Schumer as a 'bad leader' - and not just for his party.

'The Democrats have been totally obstructionist. Chuck Schumer has turned out to be a bad leader. He's a bad leader for the country,' Trump contended. 'And the Democrats are extremely obstructionist. All they do is obstruct. All they do is delay.'

Returning to the topic later, Trump said Schumer was responsible for the continued unraveling of the Democratic Party.

'Look where they are. Look where the Democrats have ended up...They had everything going. Now they don't have the presidency, they don't have the House, they don't have the Senate, and Schumer's going around making a fool out of himself,' he said.
A Virginia woman is suing Qatar Airways for negligence over claims a flight attendant spilled hot coffee on her and provided no care after the fact.

Zahra Azizkhani, 72, of Virginia Beach is seeking $850,000 in damages because a flight attendant allegedly dropped 'scalding hot' coffee onto her lap in January, severely burning her stomach, according to a lawsuit cite by WAVY-TV.

The airline has disputed that anything of such nature happened.

Virginia's Zahra Azizkhani, 72, is seeking $850,000 in damages from Qatar Airways after a flight attendant allegedly dropped 'scalding hot' coffee on her in January, severely burning her

Azizkhani said she was flying from Virginia to Tehran, Iran, on January 12.

She claimed the spilled coffee caused her 'extreme pain' and that the flight attendant did not offer to help her.

She also said the company offered little in terms of medical treatment beyond suggesting she not let her clothes touch her burns, and eventually a supervisor offering a cream for the burn.

The coffee apparently also spilled on Azizkhani's passport, which led to issues when she arrived in Iran.

She was allegedly held at the airport for approximately two hours as officials questioned whether she had purposely damaged her passport, resulting in fading.

She allegedly has a permanent scar from the incident, according to Barry Taylor, her attorney.

Azizkhani was travelling to Iran for her aunts funeral, which she was able to attend, but the rest of her trip and attendance at family events was limited due to the injuries she sustained as a result of the spilled coffee, Taylor said.

Her lawsuit has asked for $500,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages, along with a jury trial.

Qatar Airways has filed a notice to remove the matter from city court to federal court.

The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A white local news anchor has resigned after referring to herself as a 'news n***a' in a Twitter exchange with a black man she was contacting for a story.

Valerie Hoff, 54, was trying to obtain a copy of a video which showed a white police officer punching a black motorist when she made the comment to Curtis Rivers on April 13.

He shared a screen grab of the comment with followers, prompting Hoff, a mother-of-two from Atlanta, Georgia, to apologize and later resign from her role at 11 Alive, an Atlanta-based ABC affiliate.

Their exchange began when Rivers posted footage of Gwinnett County Police Department officer Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni punching student Demetrius Hollins in the face during a traffic stop.

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Valerie Hoff, 54, resigned from her role at 11 Alive after using the N word in a Twitter exchange with Curtis Rivers

The footage triggered Bongiovanni's termination from the department. Another officer was also fired over the incident.

After sharing the video which he came across in a group chat, Rivers told Twitter followers that a lot of 'news n***as' had been contacting him requesting permission to use it in coverage.

Hoff made contact with him through a direct message where she tried to obtain a copy.

'Please call this news n***a. Lol I'm with 11 Alive,' she wrote.

Rivers was at first amused and answered the journalist's questions without hesitation.

Minutes later however, he commented: 'I just looked through your photos on twitter and realize you aren't black but called me a n***a.'

Hoff shot back immediately. 'No, I called myself one,' she wrote, going on to explain that she was a 'news lady' and apologizing for any offence.

Rivers responded by requesting contact details for her 'manager or lawyer'.

Hoff launched their private conversation by introducing herself as a 'news n***a'. Rivers was at first amused but took offence when he realized she was white

The exchange was picked up by other social media users who lampooned Hoff's use of the word.

'I'm just confused because even if you were repeating what he said, censor yourself,' said one.

'So public or private, it's disgusting. Waiting to see how u try to justify the reason for u using the N word?' another asked.

11 Alive initially suspended Hoff but she announced her resignation on Saturday.

She has since continued tweeting about the issue, insisting her comment was made in 'bad judgement' but with good intentions.

Hoff was trying to obtain a copy of this video which showed a Georgia police officer punch a black student during a traffic stop

Student Demetrius Hollins was left with a bloodied nose after the attack. Gwinnett County Police Department Sgt. Michael Bongiovanni was fired over the incident

Hoff apologized immediately but resigned over the weekend. She has since tried to explain herself, telling Twitter followers the remark was 'stupid' but made with good intentions

She also claimed Rivers threw their conversation out of context, that he tried to sell the video to her and that she has 'so much more to tell'.

In a statement to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 11 Alive boss John Deushane said: '1Alive does not tolerate any form of racial insensitivity and aggressively enforces our standard policies. We acted promptly to address this situation.

'Valerie Hoff has chosen to resign and apologizes for her actions. 11Alive is committed to treating the communities we serve with dignity and respect.'
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A massive superyacht, thought to be one of the biggest in the world with masts taller than Big Ben, is undergoing testing in Gibraltar, weeks before it is handed over to its wealthy owner.

The huge 360million vessel, named Sailing Yacht A, is said to be 'the world's greatest yacht' by project leaders close to owner Andrey Melnichenko, a Russian billionaire.

It has three 300ft masts, eight floors, a helicopter pad and an underwater observation room.

Pictures taken today show the superyacht in Gibraltan waters, with workers on the decks carrying out tests and inspections.

The impressive vessel is currently in Gibraltar, where workers were today seen on the decks carrying out inspections and tests

The huge 360million vessel, named Sailing Yacht A, is said to be 'the world's greatest yacht' by project leaders close to owner Andrey Melnichenko, a Russian billionaire

The yacht's 300ft masts are taller than Big Ben, and it also boasts eight floors, a helicopter pad and an underwater observation room

The massive yacht, which has eight floors, is currently undergoing testing in Gibraltar before it is handed over to its owner

Workers can be seen checking and carrying out tests on the superyacht, which is believed to cost around 360 million

'Her beauty is breathtaking' said Mr Melnichenkos Project Director, Dirk Kloosterman in February

The collosal yacht has three 300ft masts, eight floors, a helicopter pad and an underwater observation room

Mr Melnichenko hit the headlines back in September when he moored his other 240 million masterpiece, 'Motor Yacht A', on the Thames.

The new luxury boat is due to be handed over to Mr Melnichenko in late Spring.

As the boat made its way to Spain, Mr Melnichenkos Project Director, Dirk Kloosterman said: 'This has been the most challenging assignment of my career. I am confident Sailing Yacht A will be the worlds greatest yacht in terms of design and technology for the years ahead.

The huge scale of the massive boat makes a worker above one of the vessel's decks appear minuscule in Gibraltar this morning

The massive boat has been named Sailing Yacht A by its owner, reportedly because its owner wants his vessels listed first in shipping registers

The luxury superyacht has been undergoing tests and inspections by workers in Gibraltar today

The massive yacht is expected to be handed over to the Russian billionaire in the late spring, according to reports

The boat is designed to accomodate up to 20 guests, and will require a crew of 54, it is believed

The boat is powered by a 'hybrid diesel-electric package with controllable pitch propellers', according to experts

Two workers look out over one of the decks on the sprawling superyacht, which cost a huge 360 million to build

'Her beauty is breathtaking, and Philippe Starck's astonishing design and ultimate vision will be the subject of many conversations wherever she travels around the globe. We look forward to the final delivery to the owner.'

After the boat left the German shipyard, Nobiskrugs Managing Director, Holger Kahl told superyachts.com: Born from the desire of the owner to push the boundaries of engineering and challenge the status quo of the industry, Sailing Yacht A is undoubtedly one of the most visionary projects Nobiskrug has ever been involved in.

Melnichenko, who has an estimated net worth of $13.4 billion (10.8 billion), is said to favour using the letter 'A' so that his vessels are listed first in shipping registers.

Mr Melnichenko (pictured with wife Aleksandra), who has an estimated net worth of $13.4 billion (10.8 billion), founded the fertilizer producer EuroChem, the coal producer Suek, and the power generator SGK

Groups of workers were pictured onboard the luxury superyacht in Gibraltar this morning

The boat's owner has an estimated net worth of $13.4 billion (10.8 billion) and he spent 360million on the luxury vessel

The impressive superyacht was designed by Frenchman Philippe Starck and built by German Naval Yards, Nobiskrug

Superyachtfan.com reports that the boat is powered by a 'hybrid diesel-electric package with controllable pitch propellers,' and is designed to accommodate 20 guests and a crew of 54.

The unconventional yacht was designed by Frenchman Philippe Starck, who challenges the expectations of conventional aesthetics, and built by German Naval Yards, Nobiskrug.

Mr Melnichenko is expected to recover some of the costs by licensing the technology developed for the vessel for commercial applications.

The massive vessel, which has space for 20 guests and more than 50 crew, was being tested and undergoing inspections in Gibraltar today

Mr Melnichenko is expected to recover some of the costs of building the yacht by licensing the technology developed for the vessel for commercial applications
A family court judge in Kentucky has recused himself from future adoption cases involving gay parents, citing his inability to remain impartial.

Judge Mitchell Nance, assigned to the family court circuit covering Kentucky's Barren and Metcalfe counties, issued an order on Thursday recusing himself from future same-sex couple adoption cases.

The order cited Nance's 'conscientious objection to the concept of adoption of a child by a practicing homosexual' and an ethical rule saying judges must recuse themselves when they have a personal bias or prejudice.

'It's preemptive in nature. I wanted to preempt there from being any uncertainty if the situation arose,' Nance told the Glasgow Daily Times.

Kentucky family court judge Judge Mitchell Nance issued an order on Thursday recusing himself from future adoption cases involving same-sex parents

Another family court judge from the 43rd Judicial Circuit has said he has no objection to hearing cases involving gay parents, meaning the recusal will not create delays for adoptive parents.

Nance's order produced divided reactions in Kentucky, the state where Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis' refusal to issue marriage licenses created controversy in 2015.

'If we are going to let liberal judges write their personal biases and prejudices into law, as we have done on issues of marriage and sexuality, then, in the interest of fairness, we are going to have to allow judges with different views to at least recuse themselves from such cases,' Family Foundation of Kentucky spokesman Martin Cothran said in a statement.

Kentucky Fairness Campaign Director Chris Hartman told the Daily Times that the judge's decision indicated 'clear discrimination'.

'If Judge Nance can't perform the basic functions of his job, which are to deliver impartiality, fairness and justice to all families in his court room, then he shouldn't be a judge,' said Cothran.

The US Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that all states must allow same-sex marriage, and Kentucky state law allows gay parents to adopt children.

Nance explained in an interview with the Washington Post that the intent of his order was to minimize any disruption to cases involving gay parents by preemptively recusing himself, and said he stood by his decision.
A man has been cited for disorderly conduct after police say he 'freaked out' when he saw a Confederate flag displayed in a Pennsylvania hotel window as part of a Civil War-themed wedding.

The Easton Express-Times reports that police charged the man with making the disturbance at the Hotel Bethlehem on Saturday. His name wasn't immediately released.

Police Chief Mark DiLuzio says the man was cited for 'freaking out, screaming and yelling' and creating a 'very aggressive and disorderly scene' when he saw a Confederate flag hung up in the window of the hotel.

A man was arrested after 'freaking out' when he saw a Confederate flag hanging in a Pennsylvania hotel where a Civil War-themed wedding was taking place on Saturday. Above, an image of Confederate flag in South Carolina

The couple who were getting married met at a Civil War re-enactment, so they wanted their wedding to be Civil War themed. Above, the Hotel Bethlehem

The couple who were getting married met during a Civil War re-enactment, and their wedding followed that theme - with people in period uniforms and dresses.

The chief says the couple 'just wanted their theme to be of the Civil War era. There was no political message.'

'I understand how it could be offensive to him, but I also want to respect the rights of the people getting married,' DiLuzio said.

He added: 'If his behavior wasn't offensive and he walked inside the hotel and in a civilized manner asked the flag to be taken down, I'm sure the hotel would have apologized and taken it down.'

After the man was taken into custody, the hotel took the flag down, citing other complaints.

In a statement, posted to Facebook, the hotel said that they were 'unaware' that the couple were going to hang the flag in their lobby.

In a statement, posted to Facebook, the hotel said that they were 'unaware' that the couple were going to hang the flag in their lobby

Hotel general manager Dennis Costello told The Morning Call that he doesn't believe the couple meant to hurt anyone.

'In hindsight, if someone says, "Well, we're going to do a Civil War re-enactment," we'd say, "All right, that's good, but you've got to leave the flags home,"' he said.

The Confederate flag is contentious symbol. Many white southerners view the flag as a part of their cultural identity, but others see it as a symbol of hate.

In recent years, South Carolina has stopped flying the Confederate flag above the state capitol.
Mohsin Akram, 21, repeatedly beat Mariam Hussain

A Pakistani asylum seeker who smashed his wife with a hammer when she forgot to cook his dinner has been allowed to stay in Britain.

Mohsin Akram, 21, repeatedly beat Mariam Hussain while drunk at their home in Cardiff.

He battered her with first one and then two hammers, shouting 'you've had your chance to be a good wife' as she begged him to stop, saying that he was hurting her.

The brute treated the 20-year-old, who he met on Facebook and married to get a visa, as a prisoner in her own home.

He forbade her from leaving the house alone, owning a mobile phone or having access to the internet or social media.

Months of abuse culminated in the assault in their one-bedroom flat in the early hours of December 24 last year.

Full-time mother Mrs Hussain told a court how she was 'bruised all over' in the 10-minute sustained attack before she managed to escape and call for help.

She raced out of the first floor flat and pleaded with three girls for help, who hid her in a doorway and called police.

Mrs Hussain was so scared that she stayed outside leaving her four-month-old baby sleeping in the bedroom alone.

When police arrived at the flat they found Akram, who had filed a missing persons' report in the meantime, pacing up and down outside on the street saying he was looking for his wife.

Mrs Hussain was treated at the University of Wales Hospital the following morning for injuries including bruising and cuts to both arms, mid back and fingers.

During the course of the assault, Akram also smashed an Amazon fire seven tablet belonging to Mrs Hussain which was her 'only link to the outside world'.

He was jailed for 15 months at Cardiff Crown Court on Friday after pleading guilty to Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH) and criminal damage - but the judge decided not to deport him.

The court heard Mrs Hussain had fallen asleep at around 10pm on December 23 and woke three hours later when Akram returned home drunk and in a rage

The court heard Mrs Hussain had fallen asleep at around 10pm on December 23 and woke three hours later when Akram returned home drunk and in a rage.

Prosecuting, Stephen Donoghue said: 'The prosecution say he was expecting her to have made him food. That was the genesis for the argument that ensued.

'The prosecution say he completely lost his temper and started to talk about teaching her a lesson, how to be a good wife.

'He then picked up one of the hammers and began hitting her, she put her arms above her head to protect herself.

'The prosecution say that she was pleading with him to stop, telling him that he was hurting her. He said 'you've had your chance to be a good wife'.

Mr Donoghue claimed Mrs Hussain invented that she needed to top up the electric metre in a bid to escape her husband.

In a statement read out in court, one of the girls who helped Mrs Hussain after she fled from her flat, Amelia Murphy, said: 'Even though it was night-time, we were stood underneath an outdoor light and could clearly see she had cuts and a bruise on the side of her hand.'

Mrs Hussain invented that she needed to top up the electric metre in a bid to escape her husband (pictured)

Defending Akram, Andrew Kendall suggested the injuries Mrs Hussain sustained following a '10-minute assault' with two hammers should have been drastically worse.

He claimed Akram fled Pakistan after his schizophrenic brother burned down the family home in Lahore, destroying a copy of the Quran in the process which enraged locals.

Sentencing Akram, Judge Tom Crowther said: 'On the night of December 23 last year you left her and your infant son at home to go out socialising.

'When you came back, you were plainly intoxicated and aggressive.

'You aroused [her[ from her sleep, complained loudly about the fact she had not cooked for you, made upsetting comments about her appearance and her behaviour as a wife.

'It seems to me you wanted not a real person but some imaginary figure who not only would bear your children but would constantly dote on you.

'So angry did you become that your life didn't correspond to this teenage fantasy that you started to belabour [her] with a hammer, first one then two in a sustained attack that left her badly bruised all over her body and deeply shaken.

'During the attack on her in a gesture clearly designed to isolate her and underline your control over her, you made a point of breaking a tablet computer that was the only link she was allowed to the outside world.'

Mohsin Akram described himself on Facebook as a 'perfect man' in his photo captions

This is not the first time Akram has attacked his wife. He was convicted of battery in 2015 following another assault on Mrs Hussain and was handed a community order.

Akram was jailed for 15 months after pleading guilty to Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm.

He also pleaded guilty to production of a Class B drug and criminal damage and was in breach of the community order imposed in 2015.

Akram was given a restraining order which states he must not approach Mrs Hussain contact her directly or indirectly or go within 50 yards of her address.

Mrs Hussain is furious a judge chose not to exercise deportation powers and she is calling on the Home Office to review his asylum status once he is released from prison.

Speaking after the sentencing, Mrs Hussain, who has filed for divorce, said: 'The judge could have said he is to be deported but didn't. There are so many reasons why he should be deported.

'He is an asylum seeker but actually went out of the country last year. He has the stamps on his passport, how can they let an asylum go there, come back and continue life as normal.

Full-time mother Mrs Hussain told a court how she was 'bruised all over' in the 10-minute sustained attack by Akram (pictured)

'I was pregnant at home, he left and broke the baby's money box and went to Pakistan partying, he was there for three weeks.'

She added: 'We met on Facebook and the first time we saw each other was in August 2013, we used to keep our relationship on Skype before we met,' she added.

'At the time his appeal was still in progress, his asylum status had not been granted. His higher tribunal hearing for his appeal, because he's under social services, was separate.

'By November 2014 he started discussing it with me and he started pressuring me to enter into a civil partnership, ready for this tribunal.

'After we got married in February 2015, that's when the real abusive relationship started.

'In May 2015 his tribunal came, I went there and helped him with it. He presented me as his wife and that he had been in a general relationship with me since 2013, so it looked good as well.'

Mrs Hussain claims she 'knew the attack was coming' but never imagined he would use two hammers.

'He hit me in a way where I would still wake up the next morning, he wasn't going to kill me that night,' she said.
President Donald Trump abruptly ended an interview chronicling his first 100 days in office after he brought up Barack Obama's alleged surveillance of his New York residence.

'It's enough. Thank you,' he told CBS News' John Dickerson after the Face the Nation host pressed him to stand by or retract his assertion that Obama is 'sick' or 'bad' and had him 'wiretapped.

Trump had revived his claim that Obama ordered 'surveillance' on him  but stopped short of repeating his accusation that his predecessor spied on him at Trump Tower.

'You saw what happened with surveillance. And everybody saw what happened with surveillance,' he said. 'And I think that was inappropriate.'

'We've had some difficulties,' President Trump said of his relationship with President Obama in an Oval Office interview

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Instead of repeating a specific charge that might get knocked down, Trump referred to 'very big surveillance of our citizens' and repeatedly told his interviewer when asked to amplify his words: 'You can figure that out yourself.'

Trump returned to the fraught subject that is intertwined with sprawling investigations into alleged ties between his presidential campaign and Russia in a CBS interview after he was asked about his relationship with Obama.

'Well, he was very nice to me,' Trump told Dickerson. 'But after that, we've had some difficulties. So it doesn't matter. You know, words are less important to me than deeds. And you  you saw what happened with surveillance. And everybody saw what happened with surveillance.'

Dickerson pressed on what 'difficulties' he was referring to, but the president was vague.

'Well, you saw what happened with surveillance. And I think that was inappropriate,' he said.

'What does that mean, sir?' Dickerson followed.

'You can figure that out yourself,' Trump said.

In a lengthy exchange on the subject, Trump said of Obama, 'He was very nice to me with words  and when I was with him  but after that, there has been no relationship.'

Dickerson asked him to explain his character assassination of Obama several times, but Trump wouldn't answer.

'I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions,' he finally said. 'It's enough. Thank you.'

Trump fired off his tweets shortly after 3.30am on a Saturday morning about two months ago blasting Obama

Trump accused Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower in a flurry of tweets

"Words are less important to me than deeds." President Trump on why he now has "no relationship" w former President Obama. #WHThisMorning pic.twitter.com/16UimVudb3  CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) May 1, 2017

Trump refused to explicitly say he stood by his earlier claim, announced in a series of angry tweets, that Obama had ordered his Trump Tower phones be tapped. Obama and top congressional Intelligence Committee members have denied Trump's phones were tapped.

The FBI did get a federal judge to approve on a secret intelligence court to approve a warrant to monitor the phone conversations of former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, the Washington Post reported.

'I don't stand by anything,' Trump said. 'I just  you can take it the way you want. I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it. And frankly it should be discussed.

'I think that is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think it's a very big topic. And it's a topic that should be number one. And we should find out what the hell is going on.'

CBS correspondent John Dickerson repeatedly tried to get President Trump to amplify his claims about 'surveillance'

Ben Rhodes, the former policy advisor for Obama, also blasted Trump's accusations on Twitter: 'No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you'

Trump also declined to repeat his claim when asked that Obama was 'sick and bad' and didn't even take the bait when his interviewer said he was asking to avoid being 'fake news.'

'You don't have to ask me,' Trump said.

Trump made the comments inside the Oval Office Obama used to occupy, standing before a portrait of President Andrew Jackson.

Obama has denied Trump's claims.

The former president's spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement late March: 'A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,' Lewis wrote.

'As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.'
This is the dramatic moment a 12-floor building in China was demolished - with little or no warning given to passing pedestrians.

Footage shows passersby panicking and running back as clouds of dust spill into the streets of Changzhou.

The huge dust-cloud filled the city's streets, making it look like the scene of a disaster movie.

Bystanders can be heard screaming and shouting as they rush for cover in the middle of the busy street.

Local news agency Sina reported that the building had been demolished to make way for a planned railway line.

A spokesman for Changzhou city authority said: 'We hired the most powerful workers in the province to ensure that the last pillar of the building was collapsed.'

He claimed that authorities had ensured the building was evacuated and traffic was halted.

Passersby looked on shocked as the building collapses, spewing dust everywhere

This was despite the fact that the footage showed pedestrians and cars passing right next to the 34-year-old building.

China's massive economic expansion has paved the way for a record-breaking amount of building.

Authorities say the demolition was to make way for a new rail line

The Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat reported that 84 skyscrapers over 200 metres tall were built in China last year.

In January Chinese demolition crews destroyed 19 buildings at once in just ten seconds.
Australian jihadists are using gift cards to fund terrorist attacks in the Middle East.

Travel and retail gift cards that can be loaded with up to $100,000 in Australia are being spent in countries that border war-torn Syria.

Federal intelligence agency AUSTRAC has identified 12 cases of stored card values being used to finance terrorism, the Herald Sun reports.

Australian jihads are using gift cards to fund terrorist attacks in places like Syria which continues to endure atrocities like this car bomb attack in Aleppo last year

Federal intelligence agency AUSTRAC has written a report about gift cards (stock image) being spent in nations bordering Syria, including Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan

They are releasing a report on Tuesday showing that funds were spent in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, in situations where $170,000 was loaded on to the cards.

Islamist terrorists and organised crime syndicates are using cards that can be bought at Australia Post, banks, retailers and credit unions and stored with cash via online transactions.

AUSTRAC has also cited another 66 dubious money transfers in nations that are recognised as transit areas for terrorist activity.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said stored cards were being used by terrorists worldwide, including in France to fund the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said foreign fighters are using gift cards before entering conflict zones

'In Australia, foreign fighters have used stored value cards to fund their terrorist activity before and after departure to the conflict zone,' Mr Keenan said.

The AUSTRAC report cited the discovery of a prepaid card in a rented flat used by the terrorists to hire the cars used in the Paris attacks, in which 130 people were killed.

The report said $2.2 billion worth of funds from Australian gift cards were spent in foreign countries in the year to the end of August 2016.
A five-year-old boy has been rushed to hospital after he was shot inside a bedroom near the front of his Sydney home.

The little boy suffered a gunshot wound at 9pm while inside his Lurnea home in Sydney's south west on Monday night.

The boy was rushed to Liverpool Hospital by his parents where he remains in a stable condition with a wound to his hip.

Toys and a pram outside a house in Lurnea in the same area a five-year-old bout was shot

A child's car seat outside a house in Lurnea the same suburb a five-year-old boy was taken to hospital with a gunshot wound

Police investigating an incident where a five-year-old boy was shot inside his home in Lurnea

Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the shooting and have taken in the family car for forensic examination.

Early investigations suggest the motive for the shooting is unclear and a shot was fired at the house.

Detectives were at the home early on Tuesday morning collecting evidence, with the alleged shooter remaining on the run.

Police close of the area where a five-year-old boy was shot
The cost of producing vanilla ice cream is shooting up across the US after a recent cyclone in Madagascar destroyed crops.

Cyclone Enawo hit Africa's east coast last month, displacing 500,000 people and tearing through 80 per cent of the world's vanilla crops.

That's left ice cream vendors with a nasty headache: Raise prices on their product's most basic flavor or swallow a dramatic increase in cost,The Boston Globe reported. And other flavors, such as chocolate, are impacted too.

The cost of vanilla ice cream could go up thanks to a dramatic increase in the cost of vanilla. The spice (beans pictured right) is struggling after a cyclone damaged crops

Vanilla prices were already on the up last year due to consumers turning away from artificial flavors, and speculative hoarding. But last month's African cyclone has pushed them up again

Raymond Ford, the owner of Christina's Homemade Ice Cream in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told The Boston Globe that his business, which sells 2.5-gallon tubs of vanilla ice cream to local restaurants, has been hit hard.

'It's made [vanilla] ice cream a loss leader,' he said. 'We're losing money, and that's a major problem.'

To actually make a profit on the tubs he'd need to double the cost - but on a product as unglamorous as vanilla ice cream, that's likely to backfire.

Even if he weren't to swallow the cost, it's likely his customers, the restaurants, would have to.

'I just don't think that anyone in Boston could get away with that without making people angry,' said Aaron Cohen, the owner of Gracies Ice Cream in Somerville. 'Vanilla is a euphemism for plain. They'd think it was a joke.'

And dropping vanilla ice cream from the menu isn't an easy fix either.

Cyclone Enawo caused huge flooding in Madagascar, which grows 80 per cent of the world's vanilla crops. That's led to rationing, which is in turn affecting consumers.

The crops are already hard to grow as they need to be pollinated by hand, bloom once annually and take years to mature. Now high prices could persist for years - at least well into 2018

Vanilla - which was already the most expensive spice in the world after saffron, due to its laborious growth process - is used in many other ice cream flavors, such as chocolate, to balance and blend the other ingredients.

Some stores have reduced the amount of vanilla extract they use; others are trying to find an alternative.

But for now the costs are an omnipresent concern, and are likely to continue being a worry for years to come.

Vanilla prices were already high last year thanks to speculative hoarding and a trend away from artificial flavorings, according to the Financial Times.

The price of raw vanilla beans rose from around $45 per lb in 2015 to as much as $227 per lb.

Supplies of vanilla pods had been protected by armed guards in Madagascar after thefts added to the problem.

Producers must now decide whether to swallow the costs or push them on consumers. Vanilla is also an essential ingredient in many other ice cream flavors, such as chocolate

WHY IS VANILLA SO EXPENSIVE? Vanilla might be synonymous with plain or blandness, but it's a key ingredient in many recipes - and it's not cheap. In fact it's the second-most-expensive spice after saffron. That's because vanilla is a much harder crop to grow than many others. Beans only grow if the vanilla flower is pollinated, and those flowers only bloom once a year. To make things more complicated, the only natural pollinators for the plant live in Mexico, so vanilla growers in Madagascar and elsewhere must pollinate the plants by hand. Worse, each vanilla flower must be pollinated within 12 hours of its opening, otherwise it wilts and dies. Even after the beans are grown and harvested, they must be sun-dried to develop their flavor. Poor weather, or an early or late harvest, can affect the quality of the crops. And as crops take as many as four years to mature, it's impossible to quickly scale up production to meet demand. (Sources: BioWeb, The Boston Globe) Advertisement

But the Madagascar cyclone disaster has pushed prices as high as $272 per lb, and that's expected to continue well through the summer and into the near future.

It takes up to four years for new vanilla crops to mature to farmable levels, and while more crops had already been planted last year to catch up with demand, the cyclone has meant a further hit for supplies.

Other countries such as Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Uganda and India continue to grow vanilla, but as they only make up 20 per cent of producers combined, that will provide scant relief for vanilla fanatics.

Lawrence Kurzius, chief executive of McCormick, the US spice and food ingredients company, told investors in the first quarter of the year that he sees 'high vanilla pricing continuing certainly well into 2018'.

He added that 'it doesn't have a quick bounce back' so the issue could stretch on.

Most of the world's 'vanilla' products - like those found in cakes and confectionery - will likely escape price hikes, because their flavors are synthetically produced, often from petroleum.

But that's cold comfort for ice cream manufacturers and companies that only use natural flavorings.
Tim Farron has insisted he is a Eurosceptic pro-European as he launched a battle bus mission to win back seats lost to the Tories.

The Liberal Democrat leader unveiled his election transport on a swing through West London seats the party desperately wants to win back on June 8.

Mr Farron visited Twickenham and Kingston today both of which he hopes to regain by capitalising on a strong Remain vote.

The Lib Dem chief, who is campaigning for a second Brexit referendum, shocked audiences yesterday by insisting to Andrew Marr he was a 'Eurosceptic'.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron unveiled his election battle bus in Surbiton, West London, today as he made his bid to reclaim pro-Remain seats lost to the Tories in 2015

Mr Farron insisted he was able to be both Eurosceptic and pro-European as he campaigns for a second EU referendum

But he said being critical of 'power' in Europe did not mean he did not believe in the EU project.

Asked about describing himself as a 'bit of a Eurosceptic' on BBC One's Andrew Marr show, he said: 'I am massively pro-Europe but I am also somebody... who is sceptical about people who hold power.

'What we don't want is somebody who is wide-eyed and complacent about taking us out of the European Union, particularly on the hardest version of Brexit that Theresa May appears now to have chosen.'

His comments came amid reports that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said Mrs May was from a 'different galaxy' on Brexit.

Mr Farron went on: 'We are utterly clear about the fact that Britain's best future is inside the European Union and our job is to make sure we get the best outcome possible from any potential deal.

'We are most likely to get the referendum we want on the deal if the Liberal Democrats do as well as we are proposing in this election and actually become the opposition to the Conservatives.'

Former business secretary Sir Vince, who is campaigning to regain his Twickenham seat, called for the public to have another say on the 'disastrous exit' strategy.

Mr Farron was joined by dozens of Lib Dem activists on the banks of the Thames today as the party hopes to unwind devastating losses two years ago

Veterans Sir Vince Cable (left) and Sir Ed Davey (right) hope to re-enter Parliament in June, joining Sarah Olney (centre) who won the Richmond by-election in February

'Let the public have another say on this disastrous exit that we are pursuing.'

The Lib Dems were also campaigning in Sutton and Cheam, and Hornsey and Wood Green, as they seek to tip the scale in marginal constituencies.

Sutton and Cheam appears to have a more even split of Remain and Leave voters, but Mr Farron has planned to visit in the hope that the Lib Dems can take back the seat it lost to the Tories in 2015, having previously held it since 1997.

The party leader also intended to take the fight to Labour in Hornsey and Wood Green, where he was expected to reprise attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, given that it is held by his ally Catherine West.
An Italian teenager has been found dead in her London flat when her terrified mother raised the alarm after not hearing from her for four days.

Benedetta Podeseta, who had been working in a pub in Tottenham Court Road while studying, was found 'lifeless' by friends after she was not heard from for almost a week.

Miss Podesta, who was known as 'Bibi', had been away from work complaining of feeling unwell before her sudden death.

The 18-year-old, from the Italian port city of Genoa, was found by a friend who had been asked to check up on her by the girl's devastated family.

Tragedy: Italian student Benedetta Podeseta, 18, has been dead in her London flat after her mother failed to here from her for four days

Heartbroken: Benedetta was known as 'Bibi' to her family who say they have been 'destroyed' by her sudden death

Some reports said that she may have died two days before she was found and had been complaining of 'fever and headaches'.

Future: Miss Podesta was improving her English on her 'dream' stay in Britain but had planned to return to Italy to enter university.

Her father Claudio has told the Italian press their family has been 'destroyed' by her death, which is reportedly not being treated as suspicious.

He said: 'Surviving your children is a chilling thing that should never happen. Bibi was a wonderful girl, full of life.'

Friend Massimiliano D'urso wrote on Facebook: 'I still do not believe it. Rest in peace little angel.'

Miss Podesta was improving her English on her 'dream' stay in Britain but had planned to return to Italy to enter university.

Genoa's deputy prosecutor Federico Manotti has opened a file over her death but the post-mortem examination and inquest will be carried out in Britain.

'Bibi' is second young Italian found dead in London in the past month.

Just two weeks ago, 24-year-old Italian student Francesca Bezuayehu Bisco was discovered by her unnamed roommate at their flat in Dalston, Hackney.

'Bibi' is second young Italian found dead in London in the past month after Bezuayehu Bisco, 24, was also found dead in her flat in Dalston

She had come to London from the Italian town of Adria in the Veneto region of northern Italy to study computer science and improve her English.

Francesca had been in London for around a year and a half and had worked part-time in a fast-food restaurant to finance her studies. Her cause of death is also currently unconfirmed.




Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has taken a jab at the ABC over how they handled the fallout from Yassmin Abdel-Magied's Anzac Day Facebook post on Q&A.

Joyce was admittedly outraged over the post from the ABC presenter Yassmin Abdel-Magied on ANZAC Day claiming on the program Australians were 'up and down the street absolutely furious'.

Joyce previously said it was 'exceedingly difficult' to justify increased taxpayers' funding of the national broadcaster following the fallout over the post that read: 'Lest. We. Forget. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine...)'.

He added that there were 'a lot of people' who believed the ABC leaned 'too far to the left' and didn't have a proper balance in political views.

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Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (pictured far left) said he was outraged by Yassmine Abdel-Magied's Facebook post on ANZAC day

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce (left) and Q&A host Tony Jones (right) traded comments over the ABC's handling of Yassmin Abdel-Magied's Facebook post

During the Q&A program on Monday night Barnaby Joyce took the opportunity to take aim at the public funded broadcaster for leaving her out to dry.

'I don't know all the details, but Natasha Exelby lost her job because she missed an autocue,' he said, in reference to the ABC journalist who was reportedly banned from appearing on-air following a daydreaming gaffe during a news bulletin.

'She was off air briefly and she's back now,' host Tony Jones replied. 'She didn't lose her job. You're not suggesting Yassmin Abdel-Magied should lose her job?'

'People in some instances are outraged because of this,' the deputy prime minister responded.

'The ABC just sort buried themselves under a rock.

'You didn't come out and say, ''This is our view on it?'' You just left Yassmin to deal with it herself in the media. The ABC management was nowhere to be seen.'

Tony Jones (pictured far right) questioned why Barnaby Joyce said the ABC's culture is at odds with Australian culture on Q&A

On Tuesday afternoon Ms Abdel-Magied wrote: 'Lest we forget Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine'

Host Tony Jones asked Joyce why he previously stated that he thought the culture of the ABC is at odds with the culture of Australia.

'Why didn't you come out and make a statement?' Joyce replied.

After Jones told Joyce the ABC did release an immediate statement Joyce backtracked and claimed it was beyond acceptable behaviour.

'I do believe it was way beyond the pale of what is expected,' Joyce said.

'I can tell you right now Tony, people up and down the street are absolutely furious about it.'

Social media were quick to notice the intense debate between Tony Jones and Barnaby Joyce.

Many viewers were quick to highlight the comments traded between Barnaby Joyce and Tony Jones on Q&A
A Fyre Fesitval goer is suing organizers Ja Rule and Billy McFarland for $100million, claiming the disastrous island event left him with 'significant emotional pain and suffering'.

Daniel Jung filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles on Monday on behalf of all those who bought tickets to the Bahamas festival last week.

He accused McFarland, Rule and co-organizer Jeffrey Atkins of fraud and breach of contract, claiming they continued to sell tickets to the event despite knowing it was doomed.

His attorneys say he and everyone else who had bought tickets were put in danger by 'refugee camp' conditions and the lack of food water or transport on the island.

They even attributed risk to the region's famous swimming pigs, a tourist attraction many visit the islands to see, describing them as 'wild animals' which were seen 'in and around festival grounds'.

Daniel Jung is suing Fyre Festival organizers Billy McFarland and Ja Rule (right together in December last year) for $100million on behalf of everyone who bought tickets to the disastrous event

The tickets cost between $1,200 and $200,000 and the event was billed as an exclusive weekend of music, luxury cuisine and celebrities. It was promoted by It girls on Instagram and promised those who could afford it that they'd be partying in style in plush accommodations on ground once owned by Pablo Escobar.

Hundreds bought into it and flocked to Fyre Cay, the 'private' island in the Exumas, where it was being held, on Thursday but were met with unfinished tents with no furniture and a dangerously low supply of food and water.

Organizers have issued an apology after furious and frightened customers shared the experience on Twitter and Instagram and have promised everyone a refund.

In his lawsuit, Jung's attorneys said the conditions 'rivaled a refugee camp' and that being stranded there was 'tantamount to false imprisonment'.

He accuses the organizers of continuing to sell tickets despite knowing the event was doomed and warning celebrities including Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski to stay away.

From the offset, they say organizers oversold the event.

'The festival was even promoted as being on a "private island" once owned by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar - the island isn't private as there is a "Sandals" resort down the road and Pablo Escobar never owned the island,' attorney Mark Geragos wrote.

Jung claims he experienced 'significant emotional pain and suffering' by turning up to the event in The Bahamas last week to find unfinished campsites and low supplies of food and water. Above, the festival site which his attorneys said 'rivaled a refugee camp'

In the lawsuit, the attorneys presented sketches of the campsite which organizers used to sell ticket. Attorneys compared them with images taken from the actual tents

The attorneys even said the region's famous swimming pigs were cause for concern. They included this photograph shared by another festival-goer who visited the pigs

Hundreds of festival-goers flocked to Fyre Cay on Thursday for the event but they were met with chaos

All of the festival-goers were stranded and had no money to get off the island because organizers told them not to bring cash

Jung's attorneys say organizers knew the event would not be finished but let everyone arrive anyway

As the festival date approached, the attorneys claim organizers knew they were ill-equipped and say they warned celebrities and performers not to attend but allowed the hundreds who had bought tickets to board planes from Miami.

Once they'd arrived on the island, the situation became an emergency, he said.

'The festival was a disaster immediately upon the attendees' arrival. Concert-goers' luggage was unceremoniously dumped from shipping containers and left for them to rifle through in order to find their personal belongings.'

They even listed the region's famous swimming pigs, which some festival goers visited to pass the time, as a hazard.

They said the fact organizers warned It girls including Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski (second and third left), who they had paid to promote it, not to attend shows they knew it would fail

Bella (above during a promotional trip to the site earlier this year) has since said she feels 'so badly' about the saga

'In addition to the substandard accommodations, wild animals were seen in and around the festival grounds,' Geragos wrote, accompanying the complaint with an Instagram picture shared by one festival-goer of the animals.

The lawsuit goes on to include photographs of social media posts shared by others on the island of the unfinished lockers and basic sandwich meals guests were confronted with.

It also blasts the lack of event staff present and highlights the fact that none of the guests had cash with them to take local taxis or pay for accommodation because organizers told them not to bring any money.

'Festival-goers were unable to escape the unfolding disaster because of their reliance upon Defendants for transportation and because Defendants promoted the festival as a "cashless" event... [they] instructed attendees to upload funds to a wristband for use at the festival rather than bringing any cash.

'As such, attendees were unable to purchase basic transportation on local taxis or buses, which only accept cash.'

They blamed these poor logistics for one festival-goer losing consciousness.

Both Billy McFarland (left) and Ja Rule (right) have since apologized for the disaster and offered ticket holders a refund

The organizers tried to explain their shortcomings in a statement, writing: 'We thought we were ready, but then everyone arrived.'

While there was no escaping the conditions once festival-goers arrived on Thursday, the attorneys say McFarland, a tech entrepreneur who has since deemed the disaster the 'worst day of his life', knew it was going to fail and warned celebrities to stay away for their own safety.

'Mr McFarland and Mr Atkins began personally reaching out to performers and celebrities in advance of the festival and warned them not to attend - acknowledging the fact that the festival was outrageously underequipped and potentially dangerous for anyone in attendance.'

They said the the entire event was 'nothing more than a get-rich-quick scam' designed to 'fleece' willing attendees and that everyone who bought tickets in good faith deserves to be compensated for the ordeal.

Jung is suing on behalf of the hundreds of others who attended, claiming he 'experiences emotional pain and suffering from being stranded in a foreign country' as a result.

Both McFarland and Ja Rule have apologized for the ill-fated event and promised to refund everyone who bought tickets.

They have vowed to host the festival next year but say it will take place in the United States.
Schools won't have to cut the salt in meals just yet and they can serve kids fewer whole grains, under changes to federal nutrition standards announced Monday.

The move by the Trump administration rolls back rules championed by former first lady Michelle Obama as part of her healthy eating initiative - and was announced in a press release headlined 'making school meals great again'.

And the same time, the Let Girls Learn initiative has been abolished, Peace Corps employees were told.

As his first major action in office, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the department will delay the requirement on lowering the amount of sodium in meals while continuing to allow waivers for regulations that all grains on the lunch line must be rich in whole grains.

That means that they are more than half whole grain.

Abolished: Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has lunch with children at Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, VA, after rolling back Michelle Obama's food standards rules

Launch: Michele Obama went with Rachael Ray to Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia, in January 2012 to start her meals roll out - but it ran into nationwide controversy

Star power: Michelle Obama had used celebrities to reinforce her Let Girls Learn initiative, including Charlize Theron, who she took part in a 'global conversation' win in New York in 2015

On tour: In July 2016 the then first lady visited Monrovoa, Liberia, telling girls to fight to stay in school to further their education

Schools could also serve 1 percent milk instead of the nonfat now required.

'If kids aren't eating the food, and it's ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition - thus undermining the intent of the program,' said Perdue, who traveled to a school in Leesburg, Virginia, to make the announcement.

Perdue, a former governor of Georgia, said some schools in the South have had problems with grits, because 'the whole grain variety has little black flakes in it' and kids won't eat it.

'The school is compliant with the whole-grain requirements, but no one is eating the grits,' Perdue said. 'That doesn't make any sense.'

Leesburg mayor Kelly Burk and about 20 others protested outside the school ahead of the announcement.

'Some people don't like regulations, but these are important regulations that impact kids,' Burk said.

Perdue said the department will work on long-term solutions to help schools that say the Obama administration standards are too restrictive.

The changes reflect suggestions from the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition directors and companies that sell food to schools.

Questioned: The five years of lunch rules had provoked examples of food which children were given which complied with the rules but seemed inedible.

HOW WILL MY KID'S LUNCH CHANGE? In - 1 per cent milk Out - Further salt reductions - All whole grain rule on rice, breads and other grains such as grits is not happening Unchanged - Children have to take fruit or vegetables Advertisement

The group often battled with the Obama administration, which phased in the healthier school meal rules starting in 2012. Obama pushed the changes as part of her 'Let's Move' campaign to combat childhood obesity.

The Obama administration rules set fat, sugar and sodium limits on foods in the lunch line and beyond.

Schools have long been required to follow government nutrition rules if they accept federal reimbursements for free and reduced-price meals for low-income students, but these standards were stricter.

The Trump administration changes leave most of the Obama administration rules in place, including rules that students must take fruits and vegetables on the lunch line. Some schools have asked for changes to that policy, saying students often throw them away.

As the healthier school meals have now been in place for five years, many schools have gotten used to them and children have developed more of a taste for the healthier foods.

But schools have said some parts of the law are still causing them trouble, such as finding tasty foods that are high in whole grains. Some school nutrition directors have said they have a hard time finding whole grain pastas, biscuits and tortillas that kids will eat.

No need for a free lunch: Michelle Obama is now on the speaking circuit, charging an estimated $200,000 for an appearance in Orlando, Florida, at an architects' convention

Health advocates who have championed the rules are concerned about the freeze in sodium levels, in particular.

School lunches for elementary school students are now required to have less than 1,230 mg of sodium, a change put in place in 2014. The new rule would keep the meals at that level, delaying a requirement to lower sodium to 935 mg this year.

'By forgoing the next phase of sodium reduction, the Trump Administration will be locking in dangerously high sodium levels in school lunch,' said Margo Wootan, a lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

At the same time as the moves on school lunches, the Trump administration also abolished Let Girls Learn.

In a letter to Peace Corps employees first revealed by CNN, its acting director Sheila Crowley said 'we will not continue to use the Let Girls Learn' brand or maintain a stand-alone program'.

Mrs Obama and her husband had launched the initiative in 2015 to encourage education for adolescent girls in developing world countries.

'Let Girls Learn' provided a platform to showcase Peace Corps' strength in community development, shining a bright light on the work of our Volunteers all over the world,' the letter said.

'We are so proud of what 'Let Girls Learn' accomplished and we have all of you to thank for this success.'

Mrs Obama has hit the speaking circuit since leaving office, making her debut last week at the American Institute of Architects conference in Oralndo, Florida.

She is reported by Axios to be demanding $200,000 a speech - half what her husband has charged for his two appearances so far, one to Wall Street bankers he had previously reviled as fat cats.
A charity is looking for people to befriend paedophiles to stop them getting lonely, MailOnline can reveal.

The Circles UK is looking for sensible people with a 'mature outlook' to commit to spending time with sex offenders on a regular basis after they leave prison.

Volunteers spend around an hour a week with the paedophiles, drinking cups of tea and taking part in activities while holding them to account for their views and actions.

The charity is advertising for volunteers on its website. Last year it received a 2,040,394 grant from the Big Lottery Fund.

The Circles UK is looking for sensible people with a 'mature outlook' to commit to spending time with sex offenders on a regular basis after they leave prison. Pictured is its website

But the project has attracted criticism from survivors of child abuse who say it is up to the police and the government, rather than volunteers, to protect the public.

Sianne Mann, 37, was abused as a child by her babysitter's boyfriend and bravely waived her anonymity in the hope of helping victims come forward.

She said it was concerning to hear The Circles UK was opening a branch in her home county of Suffolk and said she believed no paedophile could truly be rehabilitated.

Victim Sianne Mann, 37, was shocked to learn about the charity

She said: 'I have to say I am shocked to learn the lottery is funding a project like this, it should be helping the victims, not the abusers.'

The mother of one said: 'I think this is putting too much responsibility onto the volunteers. Good on the people volunteering to befriend them but these offenders need psychiatric help - and not from everyday people off the street.'

'I would say it's Government's responsibility not the charity's in my opinion.'

She added: 'People like my abuser don't deserve to be allowed back into society.'

The Circles UK said it could not comment.

A spokesman for the Big Lottery Fund defended their involvement with the project and said: 'The Circles UK programme aims to create safer communities and seeks to reduce re-offending rates. Circles UK is one of the 12,000 projects we fund every year, all with the aim of improving people's lives and communities.

'Our experienced funding staff follow a robust process when assessing grants. This includes a thorough evidence based assessment, which Circles UK was able to provide.'

Ms Mann's abuser called her his 'special girl' and singled her out while looking after her at her family home in Stowmarket in Suffolk, when she was just seven years old.

'He would take me upstairs to the bedroom or follow me up as I was going for the toilet, anything to get me away from the babysitter,' she said.

'To everybody else he was a normal lad that was polite, he used his pleases and thank-yous. Nobody would have known any different than his first impressions, he was a nice, quiet lad that wasn't causing any problems,' she said.

She revealed it wasn't until she started at secondary school did she realise what had happened to her.

'I didn't know what he had done to me was wrong until I started learning about sex education at secondary school, then it suddenly clicked and it really confused and upset me,' she said.

The ordeal cast a lasting shadow across Ms Mann's childhood and into her teenage years where she 'acted out' and got into trouble with the police.

Ms Mann (pictured as a child) was shocked to hear The Circles UK was opening a branch in her home county of Suffolk and said she believed no paedophile could truly be rehabilitated

'I was completely messed up because of it, it affected me into my school years then I got a criminal record for silly things and then it's very hard to go from that straight into a job,' she said.

And now, even years after the abuse took place, Ms Mann said it had left a lasting impact.

She said: 'It has been difficult. I would rather die than be abused by him again. It worries me to think these people are out in society.'

Lottery funding should be helping the victims, not the abusers

But the future is looking brighter for Ms Mann, who is now studying psychology part-time. She said she hopes to train as a professional councillor to help others.

Circles UK runs groups across Britain and more than 800 people are volunteers.

Last year the identity of one of Britain's most notorious paedophiles was uncovered after friends noticed she had been given a Christmas card from The Circles UK.

But despite criticism, the project and volunteers insist they are acting in the welfare of the community

The only paedophiles allowed on the programme are those who have shown 'remorse', the organisation says.

Ms Mann said the government not volunteers should rehabilitate paedophiles

An anonymous volunteer revealed that despite the stereotypical profile of an offender, they actually came from all walks of life.

He said: 'It isn't just shifty men lurking around playgrounds. There really is no stereotype to what they look like or what backgrounds they come from. You see all sorts of people.

'I have come across people who are middle-class to others with special needs. Some people have been in the care system or abused themselves.'

'It takes quite a lot of stamina to be a volunteer and you have to hear some hard truths which can be tough.

'But the way I see it is, we are there to stop any further victims.'

The controversial scheme was first devised in Canada in 1994 and moved its way to the UK in 2005.

A volunteer who wishes to be known as Laurence, a retired head teacher, estimates he has worked with more than 20 ex-sex offenders since becoming a volunteer.

He said the paedophiles often ask him what is he doing there and whether he is getting paid.

He said: 'We say, 'Well, for two reasons. One is we want to prevent further victims being created and second we want to see if we can help you to change your life,' and they find that quite difficult to come to terms with for a while.'

'The more they talk and tell us things about themselves and the more we relentlessly go back every week and are not put off by whatever they tell us, eventually the trust gets built up and that is quite extraordinary and very empowering.'

Another volunteer Alethea has been working in the South West and said she viewed her role as helping children from coming for further harm.

Furious parents last week ashed out at a different charity that hosted a family fun day to help rehabilitate paedophiles. No convicted sex offenders were at the event

She said: 'We meet once a week, carefully balancing our role of supporter and 'watchdog'. Most sexual offenders are released from prison back into our communities.

'Many experience social isolation and loneliness which can result in further offending.

'A circle can prevent this by working with the offender to support and also hold them to account by challenging attitudes and behaviours which signal a risk to the community.'

Last week furious parents lashed out at a different charity that hosted a family fun day to help rehabilitate paedophiles.

Photos from the day show children and teenagers playing and jumping around at Keyworth United's ground, Nottinghamshire. No convicted sex offenders were at the event

The event was held in aid of The Safer Living Foundation, which says it aims to help people who are 'sexually attracted to children'.

A poster for the fun day advertised bouncy castles, face painting, and an 'It's a Knockout' style assault course.

But local residents who attended say it was not made clear where the proceeds were going, with some claiming they would never have gone if they had known.
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Left wing protesters unfurled banners of Joseph Stalin and called for 'class war' at a May Day rally addressed by Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell today.

Hundreds of activists took to the streets of central London for the annual demonstration, with some chanting the names of infamous communist leaders as they walked through the city.

Beneath communist hammer and sickle placards and a flag of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Trafalgar Square, Mr McDonnell, who wants to head the Treasury after the next election, read the crowd a message from Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But when he posted a picture of his big speech on Twitter, he appeared to crop out the flags.

John McDonnell delivering a speech at Trafalgar Square in London under the flag of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and another flag carrying the communist symbol of the hammer and sickle

When John McDonnell MP posted a picture of his speech on Twitter, the flags did not appear, leading many to accuse him of deliberately cropping them out

Activists brandishing hammer and sickle flags and waving red flares filed into Trafalgar Square today for a May Day rally. It is not known whether or not this man was arrested

Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell addressed demonstrators in Trafalgar Square after the march today

After Mr McDonnell's speech calling for 'solidarity', a Left wing activist told the rain-soaked crowd to 'keep clapping'

Among the marchers were some carrying banners with pictures of Jose[h Stalin, the communist dictator who killed millions during his time as leader of the USSR

Quoting his party leader, Mr McDonnell said: 'Workers together won rights to organise together and be represented. The policies we've announced on rights at work this week all have their origins in working class organisations and demands. United, we can win. Jeremy Corbyn.'

In his own speech, he vowed to make the June General Election 'the end of May' and to protect trade union rights if his party are elected.

The picture he uploaded with the caption Happy May Day 2017 drew a massive backlash on social media, with one user Gerry Marriott saying: 'Nice photocropping, Comrade...and you seriously want to be in government?'

Fellow Labour MP Neil Coyne said he believed he or his team had cut the photo deliberately after being criticised.

The member of parliament for Bermondsey and Old Southwark said: 'Assad apologists and other Communist airbrushers should have no part in the Labour Party.'

Mr McDonnell did not immediately respond to a request for comment by MailOnline.

Mr McDonnell ended his speech saying: 'This is our opportunity brothers and sisters. Some of us have worked for this for all our lives. The message is this: Carpe Diem. Seize the moment. This is our chance. Take it brothers and sisters. Solidarity.'

Another activist then took the microphone and told the crowd to 'keep clapping', before asking: 'Did we hear what we want to hear?'

Many of the crowds waved communist hammer and sickle flags. Others wore t-shirts with pictures of Stalin on them

While some proudly waved red flags above the head during the march, others held umbrellas to keep off the rain

Demonstrators carrying communist flags marched through Clerkenwell ahead of the rally in Trafalgar Square

Some of the crowd hid their faces behind red scarfs, sunglasses and hoods as they set off through central London

Members of the Communist Party of Great Britain were among the anarchist and Left wing groups involved

On a drizzly Bank Holiday Monday, the demonstrators were also addressed by Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the public sector union, the PCS.

The speeches came after crowds marking International Workers' Day marched down Clerkenwell Road, Theobald's Road and Aldwych on their way to Trafalgar Square.

Some chanted 'class against class!' as they walked through the city, and others shouted: 'Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin!'

The protesters joined activists around the world marking May Day with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman told MailOnline one person had been arrested for an incident involving a flare, but that the protest was otherwise peaceful.

Police detained 70 people in Istanbul, businesses in Puerto Rico were boarded up and, in Paris, police fired tear gas and used clubs on rowdy protesters at a march that included calls to defeat far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

The march was made up of a mishmash of different groups protesting everything from political issues in Iran to war in Ukraine

Groups from international groups including the Kurdish PKK group joined demonstrators for the march this morning

This activist held a banner proclaiming: 'Corbyn can win with socialist policies' at the rally in central London today
Experienced skydiver Carl Marsh died after being injured in a jump. He is pictured giving a thumbs up gesture before a jump

An experienced skydiver and parachutist who 'loved life to the full' has died after being injured in a jump.

Carl Marsh was hurt during the jump at Black Knights Parachute Centre in Cockerham, Lancashire, on Saturday and was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.

His family have now paid tribute to Mr Marsh, describing the 46-year-old father and grandfather as someone who 'loved life to the full'.

In a statement they said: 'On Saturday 29th April 2017 our family tragically lost a big part of our lives. Carl was taken away from us so suddenly, that this just doesn't feel real.

'Carl was a much loved husband, father, grandfather, son, brother, uncle and nephew to all of us and we all loved him very much.

'Carl had a big personality and a positive outlook on life. He was full of jokes and laughter and always had a huge smile on his face.'

They added that Mr Marsh, from Knutsford, Cheshire, loved 'nothing more than to have a laugh and joke with us all'.

'He never failed to bring a bright light into our lives,' they said. 'His enormous heart was big enough for every one of us and he loved life to the full.

'He was a role model for many and had recently achieved the level of Category System Instructor with the BPA.

'His passion for sky diving was something he got a great deal of pleasure out of.'

The family said he was a 'leader' who was widely admired, including by his son Craig says, who thought of him as his 'hero'.

'It is hard to imagine how life will be without Carl,' they continued. 'He has left a massive hole in our lives and we will never forget him.

'Carl was an inspiration to us all and his zest for life was demonstrated every day in his love for his family, his strong work ethic and his happy personality.

'We miss you Carl and love you forever.'

Daz Smith, who was photographed by Mr Marsh as he completed his first ever jump last week, said: 'I only met him that one day but I will never forget him.

Mr Marsh was hurt during the jump at Black Knights Parachute Centre in Cockerham, Lancashire (pictured), on Saturday and was pronounced dead shortly afterwards

'He was very reassuring and constantly checking on me on the plane to make sure I was okay. He was very funny too.

'I'm gutted about what's happened. He was a top man.'

DI Simon Ball from Lancaster Police said: 'Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Mr Marsh and in particular those who witnessed this tragic incident yesterday.

'During our initial investigation at the scene, we saw nothing that suggested any sign of suspicious activity.

'We are working with the British Parachute Association who are now in charge investigating the incident and have been conducting enquiries on their behalf.'

A post mortem examination will take place to establish the cause of Mr Marsh's death.

In 2012, married father-of-three Lee Arthur Clifford, 40, from St Helens, Merseyside, was killed instantly at the same centre when he came down in a field close to where horrified spectators were watching.

Mr Clifford, also an experienced parachutist, had been taking part in a display as part of the annual Cockerham Gala in Lancashire, with members of the Black Knights Parachute Centre.

It is thought his main chute became tangled and by the time he had managed to cut it free he was too low to successfully deploy his emergency canopy.
A frantic search is underway in Hungary for a young British dad who vanished while on a stag weekend.

Sam Clancy, 24, from Rochdale, has not been seen since Friday, when was seen getting into a taxi.

He was part of a 22-strong group who flew out to the Hungarian capital for the long weekend, and became separated just hours after arriving.

Friends last saw Mr Clancy, who has a two-year-old daughter, getting into a taxi near a bar in District 6 of the city at around 9.20pm. His family are anxiously waiting for news of his whereabouts.

Mr Clancy, who has a two-year-old daughter, has not been seen since 9.20pm on Friday

Mr Clancy's friends have been checking local hospitals and police stations but have still found no sign of the factory worker.

His mobile phone is going straight to voicemail, and he did not have his passport with him.

Mr Clancy's father Carl and fiancee Rebecca are both flying out to Budapest to join the search.

The stag party was due to fly back today but several of the group are remaining in Hungary to carry on looking for him.

Sam's brother Matthew told the Manchester Evening News the family are 'losing their minds' with worry and has urged anyone in Budapest with information to contact him.

He said: 'This is completely out of character. He would never leave it this long to get in touch unless something was wrong.

'So we're all worried sick, my mum is losing her mind. We're doing everything we can. But the Hungarian police are not being particularly helpful.

'We're trying to get hold of CCTV so we can trace the taxi and things like that. The police over here are involved now as well so we're hoping they can help us make some progress.

'We'd just appeal for anyone who's out there, or knows anyone that is, to look out for him and if they've got any information get in touch ASAP.'
A mother-of-three is fighting for her life after a shark bit off a large chunk of her leg while she swam off the coast of Southern California on Saturday, her family said.

Leeanne Ericson, 35, was in the sea in San Diego when a shark ripped out the back of her thigh 'from her glute to her knee,' her mother, Christine McKnerney Leidle, wrote on GoFundMe.

'She is a single mom with three young children who depend on her,' Leidle wrote on Sunday. 'She has a long rode [sic] ahead with several surgeries to go.'

Leeanne Ericson (pictured with her children), 35, lost a large chunk of her thigh on Saturday when she was mauled by a shark at San Onofre State Beach in Camp Pendleton, San Diego

She sank into the water before she was rescued by surfers, and airlifted to hospital. She was placed into a medically induced coma. Pictured: The beach, with warning sign, on Sunday

Leile continued: 'I don't know how much this will cost, but shes going to need all the help she can get.

'The Doctors also say that she drowned when the shark pulled her under,' she added. 'She's now in Scripps Memorial Hospital fighting for her life.'

Ericson was swimming with her boyfriend at San Onofre State Beach in Camp Pendleton at 6.30pm when the shark attacked.

Family friend Laura Smith told CBS 8 that she was rescued by a nearby surfer.

'He jumped and dove off the board and went looking for her and found her on the bottom and brought her up on the surf board,' she said. 'He truly saved her life.'

Thomas Williams, who pulled the woman ashore with his friends Grant Parker, Wade Nevitt and Hunter Robinson, told the Orange County Register: 'All of the back of her leg was kind of missing,

'If she didn't receive immediate care, it was life-threatening.'

Williams, a 29-year-old from San Clemente who recently passed his EMT training test, said the woman was conscious and talking while onlookers used a rubber surfboard leash as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

'She was not calm, of course,' he said. 'But she was coherent.'

She was then airlifted to Scripps, where Smith said she was placed in a medically induced coma.

The injury was likely caused by a great white (left) or a seven-gill shark (right), said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach

Ericson (right, with friend) had a tourniquet made from a rubber surfboard leash to stem the blood loss while medical help could arrive

Grant Parker, Wade Nevitt, Hunter Robinson and Thomas Williams (left to right) pulled her ashore and gave her medical assistance. She would have died without their help, a friend said

The injury was likely caused by a great white or a seven-gill shark, said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. Several sharks have been sighted in the area recently.

Nearly a year ago a woman was bitten by a shark while swimming off Corona del Mar, about 25 miles to the north of the Saturday attack.

Experts estimated the shark was at least 10 feet in length, judging from the bite marks, which spanned her chest, hip and shoulder.

Beachgoer Amber Booth was headed to San Onofre to watch the sunset Saturday with her family when a ranger told her the stretch of ocean was closed because of the shark attack.

Booth, who often surfs at San Onofre, said the incident made her worry about her eight-year-old daughter, who boogie-boards often in the area.

'There's so many kids in the water at San O,' she said. 'You don't really want to think about (sharks) when you're out in the water.'

The beach was expected to remain closed until Monday.
In a new interview, President Donald Trump mulled over the Civil War and suggested President Andrew Jackson could have prevented it.

'I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War,' Trump told the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito, for an interview broadcast on her SiriusXM POTUS channel show 'Main Street Meets the Beltway.'

Jackson, a populist who Trump often gets compared to, was elected in 1828 and died in 1845, 16 years before the war began. He was also a slave owner.

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President Trump mused about the Civil War in a recent interview, suggesting President Andrew Jackson could have prevented the bloodbath, even though he had already died

Jackson, Trump said, 'was a very tough person, but he had a big heart.'

And Jackson was 'really angry' with 'what was happening with regard to the Civil War,' the president continued.

'He said there's no reason for this,' Trump continued.

'People, don't realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it why? People don't ask that question,' the president said.

'But why was there the Civil War?' Trump told Zito. 'Why could that one not been worked out?'

'People don't ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not been worked out?' Trump asked.

Trump had been talking to Zito about his trip to Tennessee in March, in which he visited Jackson's home the Hermitage and laid a wreath at the dead president's tomb.

A portrait of Jackson now hangs in Trump's Oval Office.

President Andrew Jackson was elected in 1828 and was dead by 1845 - 16 years before the Civil War began

Dead soldiers were photographed on July 5, 1863 in the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg. Casualties on both sides were extremely high with about 51,000 dead

During the interview, Trump called Jackson a 'swashbuckler.'

'They said my campaign is most like, my campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson with his campaign and I said "When was Andrew Jackson?" Trump said, responding his own question by saying 1828.

'That's a long time ago. That's Andrew Jackson,' Trump said. 'And he had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately it continued.'

Zito pointed out that Jackson's wife died.

Rachel Jackson died of a heart attack after surviving the brutal campaign.

'They destroyed his wife and she died,' Trump said. 'You know he visited her grave every day.'

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton challenged Trump's comments noting that 'slavery' is the primary reason for the Civil War

The Atlantic's David Frum referenced comments the president previously made, suggesting Frederick Douglass is alive. He is not

The New York Times' TV critic James Poniewozik suggested the right-leaning Fox & Friends would defend President Trump's statement and CNN's Jake Tapper chimed in

There was an almost immediate outcry on Twitter to Trump's comments about the Civil War.

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton challenged Trump's statement with a tweet.

'1 word answer: Slavery,' she wrote.

'Longer: When Andrew Jackson died in 1845 (16 yrs before the Civil War began), he owned 150 men, women and children,' the young Clinton added.

Alluding to Trump's previous statement that suggested Frederick Douglass is alive and kicking, the Atlantic's senior editor David Frum tweeted, 'On a positive note, at least Trump does seem aware that Andrew Jackson is dead.'

The New York Times' TV critic James Poniewozik pointed out, 'The great thing about this is that now Fox & Friends will have to make a case for it.'

CNN's Jake Tapper chimed in and said, 'Andrew Jackson's ghost was a very strong haunter in the 1860s. Everyone knows that.'
Malia and Sasha Obama spent their last night in the White House in true teen fashion - with a sleepover.

All the down-to-earth girls wanted for their last night was chicken nuggets, pizza and their friends, mom Michelle revealed at a conference in Florida last week.

'They had a sleepover, because of course on Inauguration Day, because my girls are so normal, they're like, "Well, eight girls are gonna be sleeping here because it's our last time, and we want pizza and we want nuggets." And it's like, really?' the former first lady said Thursday at the American Institute of Architects conference.

Michelle Obama said at a conference last Thursday that her daughters (Sasha, 15, left, and Malia, 18, right) spent their last night in the White House having a sleepover with friends. Above, the Obama family in their 2016 Christmas card

The former first lady made the comments at a conference last week in Florida (above)

Mrs Obama said Inauguration Day was difficult for her daughters, ages 18 and 15, who had to leave the home they've lived in for the past eight years.

'Right before the doors opened and we welcomed in the new family, our kids were leaving out the back door in tears, saying goodbye to people,' she said, adding that she did her best to remain composed.

'I didn't want to have tears in my eyes because people would swear I was crying because of the new president,' she said.

Mrs Obama also revealed a few details about their new home in Washington, DC.

She says that friends are now surprised when she answers the door, and that the family's dogs, Bo and Sunny, were confused at first because they had never heard a doorbell.

She also reiterated that she has no intention to run for office, saying she wouldn't want to put that on her children again.
A Haka-mad toddler has captured the internet's heart with his own rendition of the famous Maori war dance.

The two-year-old stamps his feet on the ground, looking especially fearsome as he plays with his plastic war stick.

The lionhearted-lad sticks out his tongue and does his own version of the famous Haka war cry.

His father, who is filming, chants Maori words to further encourage the boy on.

The video was posted on Facebook and has proved an instant hit, with thousands watching the pint-sized All Black.

Paehoro Boynton commented: 'Gosh my lil brutha, I'm getting goosebumps.'

Kimoro Taiepa said: 'Wicked cool! Don't muck around with this little man! #bigontheinside'

The toddler's brave war dance has captured hearts on social media

Another commentator posted: 'I'll be having kiwi babies just so I can teach them this.'

The Haka is a traditional Maori war dance that has been made world-famous by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team.

But it's not just a dance associated with the sport.

The baby stomps his feet on the ground and has a fierce battle cry

On September 11 in 2016 New Zealand firefighters performed their own haka to honour the firefighters who had died in the World Trade Centre attack.

In 2012 New Zealand soldiers were filmed honouring a fallen comrade with a Haka.

The video has been viewed more than five million times on Youtube.
A man who attempted to rob a gas station cashier at gunpoint was caught on video crashing into shelves after trying to flee the scene.

Footage of the incident was released by the Henry County Police Department in McDonough, Georgia and shows a young white man enter a Texaco off Eagles Landing Parkway in Stockbridge on February 9.

The suspect, dressed in a red sweatshirt, red Lacoste hat and jeans, first enters the store looking nervous.

Footage released by the Henry County Police Department in McDonough, Georgia shows a young white man attempting to rob a gas station

His plan fails, however, when the cashier behind the counter manages to grab the gun away from him and the suspect trips over shelves on his way out of the store

The man clings to the shelves as he falls into them, before messily picking himself up and running away

He is shown taking a long look at the checkout area, and then picking up an item from a case at the back of the store.

When he returns to the cashier, he pulls a long pistol from his waistband with his right hand and begins to grab handfuls of cash from the now-open register with his left.

The employee, however, lunges for the gun pointed at him and the two briefly wrestle over the weapon.

When the employee finally takes the pistol, the robber attempts to flee, but trips and knocks over several shelves in the process. Packages of candy and other food go flying as he messily escapes from the store.

Anyone with information about the crime or the identity of the suspect is urged to contact Detective Stanley Fisher.
A Sacramento mom knew during her pregnancy that her son would have an above-average weight, but she never expected baby Valentino to become one of the largest newborns ever delivered in Northern California, tipping the scales at a whopping 13lbs, 11 ounces.

Kelly Corsetti, her husband Scott and their two older children welcomed the latest addition to their family on Friday at Sutter Davis Hospital.

Despite her son's impressive size, Mrs Corsetti delivered baby Valentino naturally, without having to resort to a C-section, after spending just two hours in labor.

Scroll down for video

Whoa, baby! Valentino Corsetti was born on April 28 weighing a whopping 13lbs, 11 ounces

'When we put him on the scale and I saw the look on my sister-in-law's face and she said 13 pounds, 11 ounces, I was pretty shocked,' Kelly Corsetti told the station KPIX.

Doctors at Sutter say the bouncing baby boy, whose birth weight was that of an average three-month-old, is healthy, and so is his mother.

Gary Zavoral, a Sutter Health spokesman, said Valentino Corsetti is likely the largest baby ever to be born at the Sutter Davis Hospital and among the largest in the region, according to Sacramento Bee.

Corsetti's sister-in-law, Tiffany Allen, who is the lead nurse at the hospitals Birthing Center and was present during the delivery, said the expectant mom was 'all belly' during her latest pregnancy but no one had expected her son to be quite so hefty, earning him a 'celebrity' status at the hospital.

Surprise! Mother-of-three Kelly Corsetti (left) says she was 'shocked' when she learned her son's birth weight. She delivered the infant naturally after less than two hours of labor

Party of five: Kelly and her husband, Scott, also have a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Taylor, and a 17-month-old son, Giovanni (pictured together)

Corsetti, a stay-at-home mom from Western Sacramento, also has a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Taylor, and a 17-month-old son, Giovanni.

Both of Corsetti's older children had been born naturally; Giovanni's birth weight was also above average, coming in at 10lbs, 14 ounces, while Taylor tipped the scales at birth at just over 8lbs.

FACTS ABOUT BABY BIRTH WEIGHTS: The average infant is born between 6 to 8 pounds

One out of 1,000 infants are born over 11 pounds

The largest baby ever recorded was born 23 pounds, 12 ounces to a Canadian Giantess in 1879 Advertisement

The mom-of-three says she has no plans to try for baby No 4, at least for the time being.

'Im going to be taking two years off and then well talk,' Mrs Corsetti quipped.

The average infant is born weighing between 6 to 8 pounds, and boys tend to be heavier than girls.

According to Guinness World Records, the largest baby born on record was 23 pounds, 12 ounces to a Canadian Giantess named Anna Bates in 1879, but he died just 11 hours later.
A group of men arrested in Indonesia for holding a 'gay party' could face up to 15 years in prison, it has emerged.

Officers took 14 people into custody after bursting into two hotel rooms in Surabaya, the second biggest city in the country.

Since Sunday's arrest, police have named eight suspects, two of whom could face 15 years behind bars for organising the event.

The group of men, covering their faces, were arrested for holding a 'gay party' in Indonesia on Sunday

Two of the organisers could face up to 15 years in prison under harsh anti-pornography laws

Some of the men were watching gay porn and performing 'deviant sexual acts', said Shinto Silitonga, Surabaya police's head of detectives.

Preliminary charges have been filed under Indonesia's tough anti-pornography laws. Six of the arrested men were released.

'This is the first time we enforce the law and arrest gay people in the city,' Silitonga told AFP.

Except for Aceh province, which upholds sharia law, gay sex is not illegal in Indonesia, which mainly follows a criminal code inherited from former colonial ruler the Netherlands.

However, there was a backlash against the country's LGBT community last year with government ministers publicly making anti-gay statements.
An Australian woman locked up in Colombia for allegedly trying to smuggle 5.8 kilograms of cocaine out of the country could be in danger from drug cartels.

Senior lawyers said cartels may decide to murder Cassandra Sainsbury, 22, in retaliation for her family insisting she was unwittingly turned into a drug mule.

Her sister Khala and mother Lisa Evans maintain she thought the package she was handed by her English guide in Bogota was 15 pairs of headphones he arranged to buy for her at a discount.

Scroll down for video

Australian woman Cassandra Sainsbury, 22, faces 25 years in jail after she was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine at an airport in Colombia

But legal sources told The Australian the young woman could be at risk in the notorious El Buen Pastor women's prison as a result.

Cassandra's fiance Scott Broadbridge was also understood to be concerned about the impact public attention, and rumours on social media, might have on her case.

The couple were planning a wedding for next February, and he was believed to talk to the young woman by phone every night from prison.

Mr Broadbridge, 23, a bodybuilder-turned personal trainer who has dated her for just over 18 months, proposed in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

The young woman's family started a fundraising page asking for donations to help her fight the charges, claiming she was a personal trainer in the country on a working holiday.

The woman (pictured with her fiance) was detained on April 11 at Bogota Airport just as she was about to fly back to Australia after a working holiday

However, Australia and Colombia do not have a working holiday agreement, and Ms Sainsbury's fiance Scott Broadbridge, revealed she hasn't worked as a personal trainer this year.

Khala said her sister was tricked into being a drug mule by a man she just met who handed her a package containing the concealed drugs

'Although Cassie is a PT, she is not currently personal training and hasn't been for 6 months. I don't know why that was mentioned at all,' Mr Broadbridge wrote online.

'She helped manage a commercial cleaning business that had both national and international clients.'

Though the page has raised about $4,000 so far, her family's explanation for her arrest was viciously trolled with most of the more than 500 posts overwhelmingly negative.

'Got to love a website where a family can ask strangers for money to help their drug trafficking relative out of a jam,' one wrote.

'How about you and your family get a job and pay for her fees instead of bludging off the public. No one believes this lame ridiculous excuse,' another wrote.

'She is greedy and wanted to make a quick few thousand dollars. Do the crime, pay the time.'

'I wouldn't give you $1 of my money! Those who are supporting this atrocious attempt to scam money to help exonerate a drug mule, really should give their money to a worthy cause! The story is so badly flawed it hurts,' a third wrote.

Many people also questioned the difference in weight between the earphones and the drug parcel.

'Everyone knows that a extra 6kgs in headphones wouldn't feel right,' one person said.

'Always check your packages before putting them in your bag,' said another

Her family says she is innocent and being 'set up'

The family's fundraising page also claimed the Colombian government 'is corrupt' which has seen them receive angry comments from those who live there.

Don't call my country corrupt when she was caught with the good in her bag. You have lied twice in your fundraising intro, Ern Perez said.

Why are you lying, and it seems your family is trying to put sympathy to the Australian public in making false statements.

Khala wrote in the fundraising page that her sister was a volunteer firefighter with Country Fire Service in Adelaide, but the organisation has said she hasn't worked with them for three years.

'Hi Khala, although SA Country Fire Service appreciate you helping your sister through this, we are concerned you are stating that she is a member of SA Country Fire Service,' Alison Martin a senior publicity officer wrote on the fundraiser page.

'She has not been a volunteer for the past three years and we would appreciate you taking all material relating to CFS from this profile.'

The page has raised $2,995 in four days but most of the comments appear to be negative towards the 22-year-old.

Khala said her sister (pictured) found a Colombian lawyer but he suggested pleading guilty to lesser charges to avoid an up to 25-year jail sentence

A message on the fundraising site from her fiance

Her mother, Lisa Evans, has maintained her daughter is innocent, saying she had been 'naive' in trusting a Colombian man to help her get a good deal on headphones

The young woman's family told Daily Mail Australia she thought the parcel contained headphones for her bridal party and friends back home.

However Bogota residents, where she was caught with the drugs, say technology is expensive in Colombia  and headphones would be hard to find in the city.

'Colombia is not a country like Thailand where they have headphones in the market places like Dr. Dre Beats,' an Australian in Colombia said.

'Technology is considered expensive to buy here.'

The woman who claimed to have spent 'a lot of time in Bogota' said she had never seen headphones for sale there.

Khala said her sister (pictured) found a Colombian lawyer but he suggested pleading guilty to lesser charges to avoid an up to 25-year jail sentence

Her family says she is innocent and being 'set up'

Khala said her sister was tricked into being a drug mule by a man she just met who handed her a package containing the concealed drugs

Mr Broadbridge at a music festival, the woman's fiance claims she was a manager of a cleaning business

Ms Sainsbury was an aspiring model before leaving for the South American country and had built her own starnow profile which invited potential client to view her Instagram account.

Working holiday visas to Colombia are only issued to citizen of France who are aged 18-30 and

The references to the firefighting service remain in the public cry for help.

Cassandra was planning a wedding to her fiance and 'love of her life' Scott Broadbridge (L) after they got engaged in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia

'She is just so scared that she is caught up on the other side of the world for something she didn't do with no support over there, no nothing,' Ms Evans told the Today Show.

The Adelaide woman was denied bail and is being held at the El Buen Pastor prison, which houses over 50,000 women.

Ms Evans said Ms Sainsbury's Colombian lawyer, who used to be the Mayor of Bogota, has advised the young woman plead guilty to avoid 25 years behind bars at her hearing in two months.

She said the 'best case scenario' is a minimum six-year sentence with a guilty plea.

'If Cassie gives information about the person that gave her the package it may come down a bit to four,' Ms Evans told KIIS 1065's Kyle & Jackie O on Monday.

The distraught mother said her daughter told her she had trusted a Colombian man who offered to be her translator and find gifts for her family.

'She mentioned these headphones she wanted to get and this man said 'I know a guy and if you buy 16 or 18 of them he can give you a really good price',' Ms Evans said.

'The day of her departure he gave her the package wrapped in black plastic and she put it in her luggage'.

The former personal trainer from Adelaide was denied bail and is being held at the overcrowded El Buen Pastor women's prison (pictured) until her hearing in two months

Ms Sainsbury's older sister Khala was to pick her up from the airport on Easter Saturday and didn't realise Cassandra's predicament until the morning of Good Friday.

'The trip was at least in part to promote her personal training business,' her sister told Daily Mail Australia.

The mother-of-four insisted her CFS volunteer sister was innocent and being 'set up'.

'Anyone that knows her, would say she is a kind, loving, happy kind of girl. She would help anyone out in need,' she said.

'Our hearts break, because we know she is innocent, but stands little chance of proving it in such a corrupt country.'

'I'm devastated that my little girl is in this place. I'm scared to death for her. Our family just wants her home safe,' her mother Lisa Evans (L) said

The cocaine was concealed in the packing of more than 15 headphones Ms Sainsbury said she was given the morning of her flight home.

'It came to her already packaged and concealed and she put it straight in her suitcase. She's very naive,' Khala told 9 News.

Cassandra grew up on the Yorke Peninsula before moving to Adelaide and has three huskies Buster, Bella and Rex living with her and Mr Broadbridge.

'She has her full life ahead of her, and now its all put on the line because of this. We miss her so much, and since we have very little contact with her its very hard,' her sister said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing assistance to an Australian woman arrested in Colombia in accordance with the Consular Services Charter.

'Due to our privacy obligations, we are unable to release further information,' it said.

Prison inmates are searched in the El Buen Pastor women's prison at Bogota
Guzzling fizzy pop and chocolate bars, these five illegal immigrants enjoyed their first taste of life in Britain.

The exhausted men were catered for by policemen who caught them jumping from a lorry at the Leicester Forest East service station on the M1 northbound.

They hadn't eaten for days so compassionate police nipped into the services to buy them something to eat and drink before arresting them.

Guzzling fizzy pop and chocolate bars, these five illegal immigrants enjoyed their first taste of life in Britain

An officer posted a snap of the men recovering on the Twitter account of the Tactical Roads Policing Team, made up of officers from Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.

He said: 'They had got out of a lorry at the lorry park and were just walking across to the services.

'Details of the lorry driver were passed to immigration services and they will follow up matters.'

It is not known where the men had travelled from but they barely spoke English.

Leicester Forest East is a hotspot for lorry drivers flouting immigration laws to dump their human cargo. Others are unaware of their stowaways and they manage to escape as they park up.

A lorry load of Afghan migrants from Calais' Jungle camp were saved from certain death at the same service station last year after one of them - a seven-year-old boy - texted a charity to tell them they were running out of oxygen in the back of an HGV.

They were traced to the service station in Leicestershire where cops broke in and saved them.
Four teenagers including a boy of just 15 have been arrested over the murder of a 37-year-old who was stabbed in the early hours of the morning.

The man from Manchester passed away in hospital after he was attacked around 3am on Sunday at a home in Prince Edward Avenue in Rhyl, North Wales.

Three other men were treated in hospital for non-life threatening injuries, and a 43-year old has also been detained by North Wales Police.

Police closed off the road in Rhyl, North Wales, and officers were seen moving in and out of the home on Prince Edward Avenue

The four boys, aged 15, 16, 16 and 17, and the 43-year-old man have been arrested on suspicion of murder and public order offences, while five others from outside North Wales have been held over public order offences.

The victim has been named as Amarjeet Singh, known as VJ, by the local paper the Daily Post.

He is said to have run a designer clothes shop in Rhyl's White Rose Shopping Centre and was a popular figure across markets in North Wales.

Kane Berkeley, 24, who worked for Mr Singh told the Daily Post: 'He was the most genuine person you could ever meet. He would go out of his way to help anyone.

'The love and support has been amazing. It just shows what good man he was and how much he touched everyone he came in contact with.

'It's a tragedy. He was a hard working family man who lived for his children and family and they will be affected most by this, so my thoughts are with them in these unthinkable times.

'We will never get over this. A pure soul taken too early. The good die young - may he rest in paradise.'

Hundreds of people left messages for the man they affectionately called VJ on social media, including Aiden Turnbull, who shared a picture of his former boss and said: 'Woke up hoping this was all a bad dream.

'I cannot stand the fact I'm never gunna see you smiling up at me again bro, but I can promise I'll forever be looking up smiling at you.

'You were an amazing guy and got me out of some right states an I can't thank you enough for that.

Sending all my love to your family an friends - taken far too soon.'

A forensic officer wearing white overalls and purple gloves approaches a tent in the fron garden of the house

Superintendent Sian Beck said: 'This was a shocking incident in which a man has sadly died.

'Our thoughts are with the victim's family at this extremely difficult time.

'We are aware of the impact such a case has on the community, and would like to reassure the public that we are increasing patrols over the coming days.'

This afternoon, North Wales Police were granted extensions of 36 hours by Llandudno Magistrates to question the ten people in custoydy at St Asaph Police Station.

Detective chief inspector Simon Williams added: 'At this time we are not looking for any more suspects as part of the investigation.

'However, I continue to appeal for witnesses or anyone with information to call us on 101 or Crimestoppers 0800 555 111 quoting ref V061153.'

'I'd like to thank the public for their support thus far and continue to appeal to anyone with any information which may be relevant to contact us.'
A young mother-of-three has been shot dead in front of her children, allegedly after an argument with her boyfriend.

Ashanti Hunter, 32, was gunned down as she sat in the front seat of her cousin's SUV outside an apartment complex in Houston on Sunday.

Hunter's 11-year-old was in the backseat at the time when the man - allegedly her partner, 31-year-old Albee Lewis - fired a number of shots through the front passenger window.

Harris County sheriff's Sgt. Greg Pinkins said the children quickly fled the scene, racing away so quickly they 'ran out of their shoes'.

Ashanti Hunter, 32, was gunned down as she sat in the front seat of her cousin's SUV outside an apartment complex in Houston on Sunday - allegedly by her boyfriend, Albee Lewis, 31

Hunter's son was inside at the time and called 911 from an upstairs room.

The 32-year-old's cousin, Myriane Rodriguez, said she just dropped the children back at the apartment when she heard Hunter and Lewis arguing.

She then desperately tried to get help, but it was too late.

'I knocked on everybody's door, nobody answered their doors,' Rodriguez told KHOU.

'I heard gunshots and it was my cousin in my passenger seat.'

Hunter was shot outside this apartment on Sunday. The SUV she was sitting in at the time is seen with a door open

This picture shows what appears to be six bullet holes in the front passenger window of the car Hunter was sitting in when she was shot dead

'Why, why would he do this. She loved her three beautiful kids.'

Pictures from the scene show the white SUV with what looks like six bullet holes in the window.

Shoes that were being worn by the children when they left were also seen in the parking lot.

Police said the gunman, alleged to be Lewis, then fled the scene. Investigators said he drove to a motel a few miles away, before calling police to surrender.

Lewis is pictured walking into court during his initial hearing in Houston

During his brief hearing, the judge was told Lewis said to police, 'I must have shot her' - but he did not remember doing so

Lewis is charged with murder, and he appeared in probable cause court on Monday, Click2Houston reports.

During his brief hearing, the judge heard Lewis admitted to arguing with Hunter and grabbing the gun. The court was also told he said he did not remember pulling the trigger, but said: 'I must have shot her.'

Bond was not set for Lewis.

A sandal that was worn by one of Hunter's children is seen. Harris County sheriff's Sgt. Greg Pinkins said the kids 'ran out of their shoes' as they fled the shooting
Jeremy Corbyn has insisted 'I am leading this party' as Labour marks 20 years since its biggest ever win and Tony Blair announced his return to politics.

If scores of opinion polls are correct, the current Labour leader is facing the prospect of leading his party to its worst ever defeat on June 8.

May 1 in 1997 was the day of the general election in which Mr Blair won his first and largest majority, becoming the first Prime Minister to ever win more than 400 seats.

After several years spent mostly out of the limelight, Mr Blair has spent six months re-emerging on the political scene - insisting Brexit meant he wanted to 'get his hands dirty'.

Prime Minister Theresa May dismissed the comments today, insisting on the campaign trail she was 'interested in Conservative voices of the future not Labour voices of the past'.

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured campaigning in Clapham today) has insisted 'I am leading this party' as Labour marks 20 years since its biggest ever win and Tony Blair announced his return to politics

Prime Minister Theresa May (on the campaign trail today) dismissed Mr Blair, insisting she was 'interested in Conservative voices of the future not Labour voices of the past'

Comeback: Tony Blair has pledged to re-enter politics, even if he gets a 'bucket of wotsit' thrown over him, and insists derailing Brexit is not 'defying the will of the people'

And campaigning on housing in south London, Mr Corbyn told the Mirror: 'It's absolutely up to him what he decides to do.

'I'm leading this party - half a million members. We're out there every day knocking on every door to get a Labour victory on June 8.

'And do you know what? I'm loving doing it.'

Mr Corbyn declined to say if he could emulate the 1997 victory - but paid tribute to the achievements of Mr Blair's government.

He replied: 'Listen, we've got six weeks to go. We're out on the streets every day. We've got a very large party membership who are very enthusiastic.'

Mr Blair made his dramatic return to the front line today insisting it was worth it even if he gets a 'bucket of wotsit' thrown over him.

The former premier insists derailing Brexit is not 'defying the will of the people'.

The former prime minister said he would not return to Parliament but Brexit had persuaded him to rejoin the political scene, although he admitted he finds it hard to be hated by some people.

He has called on Labour voters to consider backing pro-EU Tories and Liberal Democrats and insisted Brexit was 'bigger than party allegiance' and even suggested voters look at who is their most pro-EU candidate locally - even if they are Tories.

Last night he told the Daily Mirror: 'You need to get your hands dirty and I will. This is not about defying the will of the people. It is saying the will of the people may change when they see the final deal.'

He added: 'My prediction is it may take another generation but at some point we will want to be back in the EU'.

Tony Blair poses with his wife Cherie outside 10 Downing Street on May 2, 1997. Today he said that Labour has spent a large part of its time 'trashing its own record' since he left power

In an interview with the Daily Mirror to mark the 20th anniversary of his 1997 election victory, Mr Blair added: 'This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics.

'We don't know yet what the final deal on Brexit will be. We are advocating a very simple British common sense position, which is to say: 'Let's see what the Tories come up with first'. Because there is a bit of the Tory Party determined to deliver Brexit no matter what the cost.

BLAIR: I'M NOT AS RICH AS YOU THINK Tony Blair again insisted today that rumours he is worth between 30million and 50million are wide of the mark. He said the real amount was 'a lot less', and he had given 10million to his charitable foundation. Mr Blair said most of his fortune was in 'very nice' homes in London and the countryside, but there were mortgages attached to both. 'The equity in those is the bulk of my wealth. I have given away more than I am worth,' he added. Advertisement

'The single market put us in the Champions League of trading agreements. A free trade agreement is like League One. We are relegating ourselves.'

He added: 'I am going to be taking an active part in trying to shape the policy debate and that means getting out into the country and reconnecting.

'I know the moment I stick my head out the door I'll get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me, but I really do feel passionate about this. I don't want to be in the situation where we pass through this moment of history and I hadn't said anything because that would mean I didn't care about this country. I do.

'It is not frontline politics in the sense I am not standing for Parliament. I am not sure I can turn something into a political movement but I think there is a body of ideas out there people would support.'

His interventions in recent weeks have not pleased many of Jeremy Corbyn's supporters.

Voicing his frustration with the way Mr Corbyn and his supporters denigrate Labour's achievements in government, Mr Blair said: 'The Conservatives are so much better at defending their own history.

'The Labour party has spent a large part of its time trashing its own record'.

But he has also admitted he finds it hard to be hated by some people.

The former prime minister, who swept to power on a surge of popularity 20 years ago, also insisted the image of him concentrating on making money around the world since he left office in 2007 was wrong.

Asked how he felt about being considered toxic by some and totally hated by others, Mr Blair told GQ: 'Yep, it's hard. It's all about coming to terms with the fact that when you're running for power you can be all things to all people.

'But when you achieve power you have to make decisions and when that happens, and the process of government is your life, you become less popular.'

Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, the PM urged voters to consider the 'national interest' when they decide whether she or Jeremy Corbyn should be in charge after June 8

'And then, in a much bigger way, saying New Labour basically deserted our principles. The very reason for modernising the Labour party was to make it capable of answering the challenges of the new world and a changing society.

'We retreated at first slowly and then with ever greater pace from that essential notion.

'People began to see the process of modernising as a betrayal of principle.'

A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times yesterday gave the Tories a 13 point lead over Labour, on 44 per cent to 31 per cent for Mr Corbyn's party. The advantage had narrowed slightly from 16 points.

PRESCOTT: BLAIR COULD BE KICKED OUT OF LABOUR PARTY Lord Prescott has suggested Tony Blair could be expelled from Labour for hinting at support for other parties. The former PM has said curbing Brexit is the priority in the election. He said that 'may mean' backing the Liberal Democrats in some areas - while insisting he was not advocating tactical voting. In his Sunday Mirror column, Lord Prescott questioned whether the comments were compatible with the terms of Labour party membership. 'When Tony was leader, we expelled people for advocating voting for other parties. I can't see what he is doing is any different,' he said. The Labour peer compared the former PM to a 'faded striker shouting from the sidelines'. Advertisement

Meanwhile, Opinium research for the Observer found the Conservatives 17 points ahead by 47 per cent to 30 per cent.

Last week one of the Labour leader's former close aides to demand that he is kicked out of the party.

It came after Tony Blair refused to endorse Jeremy Corbyn for prime minister yesterday and admitted Theresa May is almost certain to win the election.

The former party leader said the best that supporters could hope for was the election of a strong opposition to challenge Mrs May over Brexit.

He said the polls were so clear that the question was not who was going to win on June 8, but making sure the government was held to account as it negotiates the deal to leave the EU.

Mr Blair has sparked anger from left-wingers by arguing that people should consider voting for candidates dedicated to stopping hard Brexit  from whichever party.

However he said he himself would be voting Labour, even though he is a firm critic of Mr Corbyn and his unelectable hard-left policies.

In another interview yesterday  with the Observer  Mr Blair claimed he was not as rich as thought. He said he was worth 'a lot less' than the 30million estimated by some and had also put 10million into his campaigning group.

'I've actually spent the vast bulk of my time since leaving office on pro-bono charitable work in Africa and elsewhere and all I can say about my so-called wealth is the reports of it are greatly exaggerated,' he insisted.

Asked by the newspaper whether he was worth 50million or 30million, he replied: 'I'm certainly worth neither of those things. A lot less.

'I've got a very nice house in London, nice house in the country, each with significant mortgages. The equity in those is the bulk of my wealth. I have given away more than I'm worth.'

Mr Corbyn (pictured at a campaign event in London yesterday) is struggling to avert a complete catastrophe for Labour on June 8, with polls showing the party is trailing the Tories by a huge margin

Mr Blair said he had put 10million into his institute to pursue his causes and to support younger politicians.

The ex-PM also claimed he was tough on immigration  even though he rejected curbs on Eastern Europeans coming to Britain after 2004.

Mr Blair denied this decision had led to the Brexit vote, saying: 'Some of the first legislative battles I had were on reforms to immigration.

'I advocated identity cards precisely because I understood people wanted rules around immigration and I knew that without rules there would be prejudices. So I completely get people's concerns on immigration.'

In the interview he claimed Labour could return to government and leave the Tories 'flat on their backs' if it regained the centre ground of politics.

But he said that because of Mr Corbyn's leadership, the choice for voters was between 'a hard Brexit Tory party and a hard left Labour party', leaving millions of voters politically 'homeless'.

The Mail revealed last week that Mr Blair was planning a comeback. He told Labour voters to back Remainers of no matter what party at the election.
A respected film locations manager who worked on the Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean movies took his own life at a five star hotel while battling depression, an inquest heard.

Michael Harm, 51, was found dead in the bath in a suite at the plush Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, central London, the hearing was told.

Mr Harm had posted a suicide note to his partner, Vishal Raghuvanshi, at their home the day before, the inquest heard.

A respected film locations manager who worked on the Harry Potter (pictured) and Pirates of the Caribbean took his own life at a five star hotel while battling depression, an inquest heard

Mr Raghuvanshi called the police who carried out a welfare check at the hotel just after 3pm on January 19 this year, Westminster Coroners Court was told.

Mr Harm's body was found in the bathroom with a ligature around his neck...he was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Mr Harm, who was born in the Netherlands, came to the UK in the early 90s and worked on well known films including Elizabeth, Notting Hill and Dirty Pretty Things.

He worked as a location manager for the Harry Potter franchise and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides before working with Brad Pitt on zombie movie World War Z.

Coroner's Officer Stephen Earl said Mr Harm was described by friends as 'the kindest, most considerate, loving and loyal person you could meet.'

Mr Earl added: 'On January 19, his partner received a letter from him saying he was at the hotel at the time and that he intended to take his own life.

Mr Harm worked as a location manager for the Harry Potter franchise and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (pictured)

'His partner notified the police who attended the hotel to conduct a welfare check.

'They entered the room and the police found him in the bath.'

Corner Dr William Dolman said he had seen medical reports from Mr Harms physicians that 'talked about his illness, including depression and suicidal risk'.

Mr Harm, from Kilburn, north west London, had gone to see doctors and reported feeling low and depressed in 2013 and had been on medication for symptoms of ADHD.

Mr Raghuvanshi told the inquest: 'I received the letter on January 19 at about 2pm, 2.30pm. It had been posted the day before.

'He was telling me it was around 8pm on the 18th and he had reached the end. It was clear what he meant.'

He said Mr Harm had trouble sleeping and had felt anxious since the death of his brother in the Netherlands from cancer the year before.

Referring to his partner's health issues, Mr Raghuvanshi added: 'It was something we were fighting together.'

Police declared the death as non-suspicious and said there was no third party involvement.

Toxicology revealed there was no alcohol in his system and low levels of methamphetamines, which may have been from his prescribed medication, and low levels of drug GHB.

The Coroner said in order to reach a conclusion of suicide he must be sure that the deceased undertook the act to himself knowing the consequences and that there was evidence of self harm.

He said: 'Firstly there is no evidence there was a third party involved and he undertook the act himself.

The respected locations manager went on to work on Brad Pitt movie World War Z (pictured) but he had been battling depression, the inquest heard

'Second issue is intent and we have cogent evidence in the letter he wrote to his partner, causing him to raise the alarm and a number of other letters found at the hotel.

'Also we have a psychological reports indicating that he had been suffering from depression.'

He gave the cause of death as compression of the neck by ligature in his verdict he said: 'I record a conclusion of suicide. He was suffering from an illness.

'I therefore record it as suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed. That acknowledges that he had been suffering a psychological illness for some time.'

Following the news of his death earlier this year location manager Sue Quinn, who had worked with Mr Harm, said: 'He was the most delightful, handsome, decent, creative person. We always had a laugh - he had a wicked sense of humour.

'He was always 100 per cent committed and conscientious and he was a brilliant organiser. He always wanted to please.'

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123, visit a local Samaritans branch, or visit www.samaritans.org.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he may turn down an invitation by Donald Trump to visit the United States, as he welcomed three Chinese warships to his home town.

Duterte, who has loosened the Philippines' long alliance with the United States while strengthening ties with China and Russia, said he could not commit to the American president because of a busy schedule that included a trip to Moscow.

'I am tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia, I am supposed to go to Israel,' he told reporters when asked about Trump's invitation made in a telephone call on Saturday.

Duterte expressed concerns about not being able to fit in a visit to Trump even though no firm date has yet been proposed for it.

Unsure: Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte said he has not yet accepted President Trump's invitation. He greeted a visiting Chinese navy warship in Davao on Monday

'Friendly': The White House said that the president's call to the hardline leader of the Phillipines had been positive

Nevertheless, Duterte said relations with the United States were improving now that Trump had taken over from Barack Obama, who criticized the Philippine president for his anti-drug war that has claimed thousands of lives.

Rights groups have warned Duterte may be orchestrating a crime against humanity, with police and vigilantes committing mass murder. But Duterte insists his security forces are not breaking any laws.

Duterte last year branded Obama a 'son of a whore' in response to the criticism. He also declared while in Beijing last year that the Philippines had 'separated' from the United States.

The White House said Monday that the Philippines could play a crucial role in US efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear program, and that is why Trump wants a relationship with the foreign leader who has been accused of human rights abuses.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer declined to explain why that is, other than the fact that it is both economic in nature and 'multi-faceted.'

'I think it is an opportunity for us to work with countries in that region that can help play a role in diplomatically and economically isolating North Korea,' he argued. 'And frankly, the national interest of the United States, the safety of our people and the people in the region are the number one priorities of the president.'

The United States is the Philippines' former colonial ruler and the nations are bound by a mutual defense treaty.

Duterte said Monday that his efforts to loosen the alliance were only a response to the drug war criticism.

'It was not a distancing (of relations) but it was rather a rift between me and the (US) State Department and Mr. Obama, who spoke openly against me,' he said.

'Things have changed, there is a new leadership. He wants to make friends, he says we are friends so why should we pick a fight?'

The White House said Monday that the Philippines could play a crucial role in the fight against North Korea and that is why Trump wants a relationship with Duterte

Duterte's comments came shortly after he visited three Chinese warships visiting his home town, the southern city of Davao on Mindanao island.

'This is part of confidence-building and goodwill and to show we are friends and that is why I welcome them,' he said.

He has pursued closer relations with the Chinese government even though Beijing has taken control of a fishing shoal and built artificial islands in parts of the South China Sea that are within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

China claims nearly all of the strategically vital waterway, even waters approaching the coasts of its neighbors.

Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have claims in the sea.

China's expansionism in the waters have triggered concern regionally and in the West, with its new artificial islands capable of serving as military bases.

Duterte has repeatedly said the Philippines and other nations are helpless to stop the island-building, so there is no point challenging China in diplomatic and legal circles.

He has instead promoted what he says will be billions of dollars' worth of investments from China that he expects will result from the improvement in bilateral relations.

US President Donald Trump has invited Philippines president Roderigo Duterte to Washington

Duterte on Monday also repeated that he was open to joint military exercises between the Philippines and China.

'I said I agree. There can be joint exercises,' said Duterte, who has scaled back regular war games with the United States.

He and President Trump had discussed the ongoing war against drugs in the Philippines, which has drawn international condemnation, as well the alliance between the two nations, during their Saturday call.

According to the White House, Trump and Duterte had 'a very friendly conversation' that included discussion about the Philippine government's efforts to 'rid its country of drugs' and the regional security threat posed by North Korea.

'President Trump also invited President Duterte to the White House to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction,' the statement said.

The White House said Trump 'enjoyed the conversation' with Duterte, and looked forward to attending the key US-ASEAN and East Asia summits in the Philippines in November.

Spicer told reporters on Monday that he wasn't 'going to get ahead of their discussions' about North Korea.

'But I would suggest to you there are multifaceted ways and areas in which, not just the Philippines but other countries in the region can help play a role both economically, diplomatically and otherwise to help deter the threat that they pose,' he said.

Vice President Mike Pence had announced earlier this month that Trump would attend the Asian meetings as a sign of 'unwavering commitment' to the region.

Philippine police have reported killing 2,724 people as part of Duterte's anti-drug campaign, although authorities insist the shootings have been in self defense.

Many thousands of others have been killed by shadowy vigilantes, according to rights groups.

A Philippine lawyer last week filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of mass murder, alleging his war on drugs had led to about 8,000 deaths.

Duterte said last year that the murder of journalists is justified if they are corrupt.

'Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a b****,' he said. 'Freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.'

At Spicer's daily briefing a member of the White House press corps asked Trump's spokesman if the president was aware of those comments when he extended his invitation.

'The president gets fully briefed on the leaders he's speaking to, obviously, but the number one concern of this president is to make sure we do everything we can to protect our people and, especially, to economically and diplomatically isolate North Korea,' he responded.

'I'm not going to tell you every single thing that's in his brief, but he's well aware when he speaks with a leader, he gets briefed on a lot about what they're doing, what they've done. That's all part of the brief,' he argued.

Duterte's pledge to stop the country turning into a narco-state has proved wildly popular with millions of Filipinos looking for a quick solution to crime and corruption.

Over the weekend some Southeast Asian leaders attending a regional summit in Manila also expressed support for the drug war, including Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo.
A Chinese city has been ordered to 'urgently' recruit Korean translators to deal with a possible military clash between the nuclear state and the United States and a resulting influx of refugees.

The city of Dandong on the border with North Korea has reportedly been told to find the Korean-Chinese interpreters to work at 10 departments in the town.

The interpreters are reportedly needed to work in the offices of border security, public security, trade, customs and quarantine.

The city of Dandong (pictured) on the border with North Korea has reportedly been told to find the Korean-Chinese interpreters to work at 10 departments in the town

Experts say the move suggests that China is bracing for a possible military conflict between the United States and North Korea, according to the Korea Times.

Dandong, which has a population or more than two million people, is crucial to North Korea's economy because a significant portion of the nation's international trade passes through the city.

Tensions have been rising in the Korea peninsula in recent weeks and just yesterday America's National Security Advisor Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster said the country should be 'prepared' for military operations in North Korea.

Experts say the move suggests that China is bracing for a possible military conflict between the United States and North Korea (Stock image)

Dandong, which has a population or more than two million people, is crucial to North Korea's economy because a significant portion of the nation's international trade passes through the city

McMaster told Fox News on Sunday of his hopes that the US will join forces with other countries to thwart any plans Kim Jong Un has for nuclear weapons.

'We have to do something with our partners in the region and globally and that involves enforcement of the UN sanctions that are in place.

'It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further and it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary,' McMaster said.

A US official also revealed a ballistic missile, thought to be a mid-range KN-17, was fired from a location in the South Pyeongan province in the early hours of Saturday morning local time

A US official also revealed a ballistic missile, thought to be a mid-range KN-17, was fired from a location in the South Pyeongan province in the early hours of Saturday morning local time.

It blew up over land before it ever reached its target of the Sea of Japan, landing around 22 miles from Pukchang airfield, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The US has already sent the USS Vinson, an aircraft carrier, and the USS Michigan, one of the world's largest submarines, to the waters surrounding North Korea.
The star of gritty 90s movies like Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Heat and Natural Born Killers is back at work and set to return to the big screen after more than a decade long absence.

After a very public battle with drug addiction, run-ins with the police and a lot of soul-searching, Tom Sizemore is fit, healthy and approaching almost four years sober.

And in a candid and extraordinary interview with DailyMail.com, Sizemore reveals the shocking depths to which he plunged while consumed by cocaine, heroin and crystal meth.

Tom Sizemore reveals the shocking depths to which he plunged while consumed by cocaine, heroin and crystal meth in an interview with DailyMail.com. He is sober and set to return to the big screen after a decade

Sizemore has undergone a state-of-art medical procedure involving removing hair follicles from the back of his head and implanting them where his hair is thinning, leaving no scars

Sizemore co-starred with Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan

He recalls seeing his successful acting career  starring alongside the likes of Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro, Woody Harrelson and Al Pacino - crumble around him, his bank balance and the trappings of fame vanish overnight, and tells how he hit rock bottom when forced to squat for two years in a building with no electricity or running water, whiling away the days smoking crystal meth.

My lifes gotten a lot better, its been a real chronicle, but Ive got a long history of substance abuse, I was in a really bad place, he explains.

And Im coming up on four years sober, it was really difficult, the first two years were miserable I thought Id never smile again.

But I am smiling again, youve got to stick around until you feel better.

And Sizemore, 55, knows that if he keeps it together the work will flood in.

Im good at this acting thing, he says with a wry smile.

The enigmatic actor says hes lost nothing off my fast ball when it comes to his art.

Im a pitcher, an older pitcher now, and I used to throw 98 mph and I still throw 98 mph when Im acting.

But hes also realistic that he needs to stay away from drugs and booze

If I cant stay sober, put me in a field and get rid of me, Im no good anymore.

Drugs are a progressive disease, if I do drugs again I go right back to where I was before, I was ineffectual, I could barely get dressed, I was hopeless.

Sizemore admits, however, that moving in showbiz circles does mean he is presented with the temptation of drugs - something he knows will be difficult to avoid.

Recently he met with legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards  a name synonymous with rock 'n' roll excess.

The pair met at the Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood and Richards was incredulous at his acting friends sobriety.

He said Tom, what the f***, you dont do any drugs at all?

Sizemore (second from left) is the eldest of four brothers and a sister and admits to being a mommys boy - speaks to his mom (in striped robe) two to three times a day. Letting his mother, now 71, down when he was doing drugs is Sizemores biggest regret

The actor also rubbished claims that he was left homeless by his addiction, homeless my a**, he says.

But he describes his rock bottom where he lived in his car and then a squat for two years.

I wasnt homeless but I had to fast sell my $7 million house. This is how f***ed up I was, I could have bought something else, like a condo or something, but I wanted a house again.

So I was driving around in my car for a couple of weeks, I mean I was on drugs, I was thinking Im gonna get the money to buy a $5million home and Im asking certain people for money. I asked Jack Nicholson, can you loan me $10million, and he said, In a word, no.

Sizemore said he drove up to Sylmar, California where a friend had a ramshackle guesthouse and he moved in.

I was living in a squat, in Sylmar, up in the woods, with no water, no electricity. Im pretty handy though, so I stole some electricity from the telephone pole, redirected some water. That was not cool.

That was in 2009 and Sizemore said that spurred him into getting help and he entered a treatment program.

I didnt get clean, he recalls.

What Sizemore learned about himself during his drug years was that hes a survivor.

Every day that goes by I feel better, and having my hair done gives me the self-confidence every actor needs, he said

To demonstrate his transformation from one time drug-addled Hollywood pariah back to tinsel down darling, Sizemore invited DailyMail.com to see his surgery at top cosmetic clinic, the Beverly Hills Hair Group

I dont care who knows about my hair Im very proud of it. I feel great, Im exercising five times a week, Im in good shape and Ive not looked as well as I have for some time'

He says that coming from a rough part of Detroit and landing in Beverly Hills surrounded by the trappings of fame, only then to lose it all again, was was difficult to bare.

It was pretty quick from coming through adolescence to becoming a big star so I had nothing and then I had everything, he says.

To have everything, a 24 hour cook, a 24 hour maid, the whole ball of wax. Several million dollars in the bank and job after job after job, then to have it so abruptly stop.

Sizemore compared his experience to that of close friend Robert Downey Jr.

He recalls visiting Downey in 1999 at California State Prison in Corcoran  otherwise known as the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison or Corcoran II.

'I remember walking into that prison and thinking, how in the world did the finest actor of my generation end up like this.

If somebody had killed me he would have gotten some kudos, "I killed Tom Sizemore, that actor."

'He's the most inventive and creative actor I've ever met and now this guy is flat broke, hopelessly addicted to heroine and crack and he's doing two years in California State Prison.

'And I walk in there and the sobering reality of what had happened to his life and I said to myself, I will never let this happen to me.

'And then lo and behold in 2005 I'm there too, I had a brief stay at Corcoran.'

Sizemore details his hell behind bars and how - targeted because of his Hollywood status - he had 11 fights in his first week in a bid to stay alive.

'I grew up in a tough area, I'm not afraid to fight, I don't wanna fight, but I had to fight, he recalls.

'I didn't really win any fights but I didn't back down,

It was so scary, I was gonna get hurt.

'If somebody had killed me he would have gotten some kudos, "I killed Tom Sizemore, that actor," and he's like a hero.'

Sizemores hair transplant surgery was carried out by Dr. Ben Talei, facial plastic surgeon and medical director at the Beverly Hills Hair Group . Dr. Talei uses a refined version of the revolutionary procedure called follicular unit extraction (FUE), which gives a natural look, without scarring and costs between $5,000-$20,000

Sizemore says he stayed alive by listening to one of the old timers on his row who told him not to leave his cell.

'He was right, the inmates want to break your heart because they're hearts have been broken, so I didnt leave my cell for the next seven months,' he said.

He recalls passing the time by writing film scripts, from memory, down on paper.

It kept my mind sharp. My favorite was Hamlet, I'd recite Hamlet in my cell.'

Sizemore said he didn't start taking drugs seriously until his early 30s - after arriving in Hollywood.

As a teenager his mother had always told him to stay away from drugs.

The star recalls the first time he ever took cocaine was at a party at the home of an A-list actor (whose name he wont divulge).

Cocaine was being passed around the room and he took it because everyone else did.

'I walked out on to the balcony and it really felt like Christmas and my birthday and the first time I got a piece of a** all rolled up into one.

He admits he already had a drug problem when he filmed Natural Born Killers in which he played the part of Detective Jack Scagnetti. He decided he had to stop doing drugs - but that proved difficult

My head exploded, everything was more colorful and I was like, "this is what I've been missing, this is why everyone is so happy."

It made me feel like this is who I am, I'm with it now, I'm connected, I'm excited.'

But two weeks later, after continually taking the drug, Sizemore found himself in the throes of addiction.

His next role was Natural Born Killers  in which he played the part of Detective Jack Scagnetti - and he decided he had to stop doing drugs - but that proved difficult.

'I threw all my drugs away, I didn't want to mess this up, but the next morning I couldn't get out of bed. I immediately called my drug dealer,' he said.

At the same time, Sizemore also tried to tell his mother, Judith, about his addiction.

'I ran all these things through my head what I was going to say to her, but then I saw her face, I just couldn't ask her for help, I couldnt tell her about the drugs,' he said.

Sizemore  who is the eldest of four brothers and a sister and admits to being a mommys boy - speaks to his mom two to three times a day.

The 71-year-old retired member of the city of Detroit ombudsman staff, lives in Dearborn, Michigan and is her sons biggest fan.

'I got away from talking to her when I was using, when I did call she'd say, "Tom you are doing those drugs baby, I can hear it," I'd say, "no I'm not mom", then of course I'd get caught doing them and test dirty and I got tired of lying to her, that was awful, I never lied to my mother my entire life until I was using. I love her more than my own life.

Letting his mother down is Sizemores biggest regret.

'It's hard to think about how much I disappointed her, although she never said one word to me, she never said Tommy you let me down, or Tommy you made me unhappy, he said, his voice breaking and tears welling in his eyes.

'My mom has never said a bad word to me my entire life.

Fit and sober Tom Sizemore, pictured at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills

Sizemores drug problem worsened after Natural Born Killers.

He realized he could still function while filming a big picture and before long he progressed to taking heroin and crystal meth.

Over the years he has been in and out of rehab several times and was arrested in 2007 and 2009 for drug-related charges, spending 16 months in total in prison.

The star was even caught attempting to fake a drug urine test using a prosthetic penis known as a Whizzinator.

He chronicled his harrowing drug tales in his memoir By Some Miracle I Made It Out Of There, after getting clean briefly in 2010 on Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.

While he seemed to get his life back on track after the show, two videos of the troubled actor smoking drugs emerged.

It wasnt until 2013 that he finally got clean for real.

Sitting in a luxury suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills - the scene of many a drug-induced meltdown in the past - the actor is now slim, tanned and sporting a noticeably thicker hairline after having surgery to battle the effects of age.

Every day that goes by I feel better, and having my hair done gives me the self-confidence every actor needs.

To demonstrate his transformation from one time drug-addled Hollywood pariah back to tinsel down darling, Sizemore invited DailyMail.com to see his surgery at top cosmetic clinic, the Beverly Hills Hair Group.

The state-of-art medical procedure, which involves removing hair follicles from the back of his head and implanting them where his hair is thinning leaving no scars, has worked wonders.

Every day that goes by I feel better, and having my hair done gives me the self-confidence every actor needs, he said.

I dont care who knows about my hair Im very proud of it.

I feel great, Im exercising five times a week, Im in good shape and Ive not looked as well as I have for some time.

But mostly, I like myself again and I feel good again, for an actor thats so important, if you dont have self-confidence you cant act, if you dont believe in what youre doing.

Sizemore is set to appear in an upcoming movie called Felt alongside stars Liam Neeson and Diane Lane.

The spy thriller is based on the true events around FBI agent Mark Felt who became an anonymous source, known as Deepthroat, for reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and helped in the investigation leading them to the Watergate scandal.

Sizemore plays Bill Sullivan in the movie, one of two of Felts rival FBI agents.

He is also one of the leads in the Twin Peaks re-boot and appeared on the USA Network drama Shooter.

His road to recovery was marred briefly in July last year when he was arrested following an incident with a woman at his apartment in LA.

In January he pleaded no contest to two domestic violence charges in a deal that allows him to avoid a 210-day jail term.

Sizemore says, with a wide Hollywood smile: Im back, Im so excited about the future, Im clean. I was an actor, then I was a drug addict, and now Im an actor again. Im a son and a father and Im gonna stick there. Im embracing Act II of my life'

Sizemore is realistic about his progress.

Felt, Twin Peaks, Shooter, f*** up, back good, he says.

Before adding that he was targeted by a friend of an ex-girlfriend over money. Its a subject that angers him.

I have never hit a broad in my life. I dont know why she did it, she wanted to get on TV and sue me, or something.

Its over, it was thrown out because they didnt believe her, but I had to do six months of anger management.

Sizemore says his lawyer advised him to take a plea deal rather than go to trial and be dragged through the press again.

One of the other things the actor is in the process of repairing is his relationship with his 12-year-old twin sons, Jayden and Jagger, who live in Palm Springs with their mom Janelle McIntire.

HAIR TODAY, AND TOMORROW! Tom Sizemores hair transplant surgery was carried out by Dr. Ben Talei, facial plastic surgeon and medical director at the Beverly Hills Hair Group. Dr. Talei uses a refined version of the revolutionary procedure called follicular unit extraction (FUE), which gives a natural look, without scarring and costs between $5,000-$20,000. He says his clinic has done hundreds of transplants for the rich and famous. The classic world of hair transplants involved doing big cuts on peoples heads, moving skin around, trying to chop up hair follicles and putting them back in as big plugs or patches, he explains. Sizemores hair transplant surgery was carried out by Dr. Ben Talei, facial plastic surgeon and medical director at the Beverly Hills Hair Group We are way beyond that now and we are doing much more minimally invasive procedures where we extract the hair follicle by itself with nothing else around it. We re-implant those into tiny microscopic needle sites that mimic the exact hair growth youve had on your scalp the rest of your life. So the hair growth becomes completely natural and normal. Dr. Talei said Sizemore had been losing hair over years and was thinning out diffusely. Our plan for him was to reinforce the entire hairline to make it look better, not only in person, but when hes doing movies, TV or any kind of media photography, you would not be able to tell anything was done no matter how closely you look. The doctor also says the recovery time for hair transplants has been significantly reduced, with most people back at work within three days of having the procedure. With Tom our goal was to keep it age appropriate but much more virile looking, he's very happy with the result. Advertisement

Were cool, I like being a dad, he says. But I cant believe I missed out on a bunch of stuff in their lives.

I wasnt present when I was on drugs, I couldnt hear you, I couldnt read what you want, everything becomes kind of grey and flat. Thats no way to live, it didnt make me an a**hole, it made me an invisible man when I was around people I cared about.

Sizemore feels that at times it seems like someone else lived the past 12 years of his life.

But finally he has learned to forgive himself.

He says, with a wide Hollywood smile: Im back, Im so excited about the future, Im clean.

I was an actor, then I was a drug addict, and now Im an actor again. Im a son and a father and Im gonna stick there. Im embracing Act II of my life.
This is the moment a suspect fleeing from police was hit by a cruiser after darting into the road while trying to run.

Police in Dayton, Ohio on Thursday released dashcam footage of suspect Brandom Lamar Mann, 27, being struck by a police car as he unsuccessfully tried to run from the cops.

The incident on April 18 began when police spotted a car they suspected of involvement in illegal weapons dealing.

Police said they were pursuing a vehicle suspected in illegal weapons deals when the driver, Brandom Lamar Mann, bailed out of the car and tried to flee on foot

Dashcam video shows Mann (circled) fleeing from the abandoned vehicle as police give chase

Mann darts into the roadway in front of a police cruiser as he tried to flee from another unit

The suspect vehicle, a silver sedan, had gotten away after an attempt to pull it over the day before, and this time police decided to pursue with multiple units.

As one patrol car chased the suspect fleeing at high speed down a residential street, bystanders pointed after him to help guide police.

The suspect vehicle, a silver sedan, had gotten away after an attempt to pull it over the day before, and this time police decided to pursue with multiple units.

As one patrol car chased the suspect fleeing at high speed down a residential street, bystanders pointed after him to help guide police.

The pursuit car rounded a corner to find the suspect vehicle rolling across the road abandoned by the driver, with the driver's door hanging open.

At the same time, another unit involved in the chase saw Mann on foot just seconds before he tried to run across a busy four-lane road.

'I tried to avoid him but he ran right in front of me,' the cop driving the car that struck Mann can be heard saying immediately after the collision

Mann remains conscious immediately after the collision and raises his hands in the air

Police handcuff Mann and arrest him for failure to comply, resisting arrest, and obstruction

Mann darted in front of the police car, which struck him, and flew dazed to the pavement.

'I tried to avoid him but he ran right in front of me,' the cop driving the car that struck Mann can be heard saying immediately after the collision.

Mann remained conscious and police arrested him for failure to comply, resisting arrest, and obstruction.

He was transported to the hospital for medical treatment before booking.

Court records show that Mann has an extensive history of felony charges, including multiple drugs and weapons charges.
Donald Trump said Monday that if the circumstances were right, he would be 'honored' to meet with North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un.

The comments, in an interview with Bloomberg News, came on the same morning the president warned in a sit-down with the Fox News Channel that 'no one is safe' from the dictator's nuclear missile ambitions.

The conflicting messages seem difficult to reconcile, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson floated the idea last week of direct negotiations with Pyongyang  if Kim were to take steps toward abandoning his quest for a weapon of mass destruction that could reach all of southeast Asia and beyond.

'If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely,' Trump told Bloomberg in the Oval Office on Monday. 'I would be honored to do it.'

President Donald Trump said Monday that he would be 'honored' to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un

Kim is pursuing a nuclear missile program that is standing in the way of any diplomatic relations with Washington

'If it's under the  again, under the right circumstances,' he cautioned. 'But I would do that.'

Press secretary Sean Spicer reiterated the caveat during Monday's briefing, saying that 'I think that's the key thing  "Under the right circumstances.".'

'We've got to see their provocative behavior ratcheted down immediately,' Spicer declared. 'There's a lot of conditions that I think would have to happen ... clearly conditions are not there right now.'

Addressing the president's use of the word 'honored,' Spicer said Kim 'is still a head of state, so it is sort of  there's a diplomatic piece to this.'

'The president understands the threat that North Korea poses,' he insisted, and unless Pyongyang is committed to 'completely dismantling its nuclear capability' no meeting with the U.S. would ever happen.

Trump understood the gravity of what he was saying, calling it 'breaking news' and boasting that 'most political people' would never propose a meeting with the brutal dictator.

'But I'm telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him,' he said.

A meeting with the U.S. president would be Kim's first face-to-face with a foreign leader since he took the reins of his isolated country after his father's 2011 death.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus threw cold water on the idea during a Monday morning interview on 'CBS This Morning,' saying there was little chance of it 'right now.'

'We've got to see their provocative behavior ratcheted down immediately,' White House press secretary Sean Spicer declared

The North Korean regime has been testing long-range ballistic missiles  with no success so far  but Trump says ultimately America would be less safe if they figure out how to do it right

Unless Kim were 'willing to disarm and give up what he's put in mountainsides across the country, and give up his drive for nuclear capability and ICMBs, I think the answer is probably not,' Priebus said.

In his Fox News interview, Trump said the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas continues to be a flash point that could erupt into a shooting war  and things would worsen if the North were to become nuclear-armed.

'Nobody's safe. I mean, who's safe? The guy's got nuclear weapons,' Trump said of Kim's existing arsenal.

'I'd like to say they're very safe. These are great brave solders, these are great brave troops and they know the situation,' he said. 'We have 28,000 troops on the line and they're right there.'

'And so nobody's safe,' Trump added, saying of America's long-term security that 'we're probably not safe over here.'

'If he gets the long-range missiles, we're not safe either.'

'So we have to do something about it and well see what happens,' Trump said in a sit-down with Fox News Channel's Eric Bolling.

The U.S. and North Korea have no existing diplomatic relations. The closed-off communist nation has become an unusually urgent national security threat.

Despite international sanctions, Kim has persisted in developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. Although the test launches have uniformly failed, North Korea is on track to have a nuclear-enabled missile capable of reaching the continental U.S. by 2020.

Pyongyang also conducted two nuclear tests last year, and was expected to complete another last week before substituting another disastrous missile test instead.

North Korea said Monday that it could hold that nuclear tests 'at any moment.'

Talking to Bolling, Trump said he viewed North Korea as the No. 1 global threat he was facing as president.

'I think probably, yes,' Trump said. 'Look we have ISIS, we're doing very well on ISIS, we have made tremendous strides in our fight against ISIS. And we have no choice, not that we want to do this, we have no choice.'

'There's an evil there and we have to solve that,' Trump said of the terror group.
TV chiefs have spiked episodes of hotel show Four in a Bed after a contestant was jailed for seducing an underage schoolgirl in one of his own four-star bedrooms.

Hotelier Nathan Pearce, 25, invited the girl into his room for sex after he appeared on the Channel 4 series.

Pearce claimed he thought she was over 16 but the girl told police she was underage 'by six or seven weeks' at the time of their sexual activity.

TV chiefs have spiked episodes of hotel show Four in a Bed after contestant Nathan Pearce (pictured) was jailed for seducing an underage schoolgirl in one of his own four-star bedrooms

Pearce, manager of the King's Head hotel in the Welsh country town of Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, was jailed for 30 months.

He featured in the popular daytime TV guide to hotels, where four different hotel owners rate each other, in May last year before his arrest.

But the court heard that just three months later he bedded the 15-year-old in his own hotel and even begged her to do a striptease on camera.

Channel 4 chiefs scrapped plans to repeat the series and removed the episodes from their catch up iPlayer after being told of his conviction.

Pearce, 25, invited the girl into his room for sex after he appeared on the Channel 4 series

Swansea Crown Court heard Pearce boasted he could disable the CCTV cameras at the hotel.

The girl told the court: 'He wanted me to do a striptease but I refused.'

Pearce accepted he knew she was a schoolgirl but thought she was in a sixth form or a college.

He agreed she had been in his room at the hotel but said all they did was sit on a bed and watch television.

Pearce, manager of the King's Head hotel (pictured) in the Welsh country town of Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, was jailed for 30 months

He then put 100 in the girl's pocket even though she said she hadn't wanted any money from him.

Pearce, who lives at the hotel, was found guilty of three offences of sexual activity with a child and possessing 13 indecent images of children.

The court heard that the images, found on a storage device within a computer, appeared to be from 'a professional shoot' of a girl aged between nine and 11.

Recorder Ifan Wyn Jones said: 'The sad feature of this case is that you have shown no remorse whatsoever.

Pearce (left) claimed he thought she was over 16 but the girl told police she was underage 'by six or seven weeks' at the time of their sexual activity

Pearce(left), who lives at the hotel, was found guilty of three offences of sexual activity with a child and possessing 13 indecent images of children

'You are a man who sees nothing wrong in the sexual exploitation of children.

'In my judgement the difference in ages between you and her is significant.

'It is clear to me that your interest in the girl was at least partly because she was in fact 15.

'These were repeated offences committed three times. This is not a case where one isolated offence was committed.

The Four in a Bed series is often repeated - but Channel 4 chiefs pledged the episode with Pearce will never be screened again

'Sexual intercourse took place on all three occassions. On the first occasion you gave her 100 pounds in cash. That in itself is an aggravating feature.'

Pearce was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order.

The Four in a Bed series is often repeated - but Channel 4 chiefs pledged the episode with Pearce will never be screened again.

A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: 'The episodes featuring this man will not be shown again in the light of the criminal conviction.'
Two North Carolina high school students have been accused of 'catfishing' a veteran male teacher on a dating app to obtain his nude photo and then showing it to other students.

Brian Anderson and Brittney Luckenbaugh, both aged 16, were arrested last Wednesday in Onslow County and charged with misdemeanor disclosure of private images.

According to the Onslow County Sheriff's Office, the case began unfolding on April 11 when investigators received information that the two students had distributed a nude photo of a teacher at Swansboro High School.

Teens in trouble: Brian Anderson (left) and Brittney Luckenbaugh (right), both aged 16, are accused of 'catfishing' a high school teacher to obtain his nude photo

'The image of the middle-aged teacher was obtained by the suspects by misrepresentation on a social media site,' stated a press release from the sheriff's office.

The release did not specify the site, but a local media report has revealed that it was a dating app.

Target: The middle-aged veteran educator at Swansboro High School was allegedly tricked into sharing his personal photo with the teens, which was then distributed among other students

Anderson and Luckenbaugh then allegedly shared the X-rated image depicting the foreign-language teacher to their classmates, resulting in the duo's arrest last week.

Anderson and Luckenbaugh were given a $5,000 unsecured bond and their next court date is scheduled for June 15.

The veteran teacher at the center of the case has been suspended with pay pending an internal investigation into the alleged 'catfishing.'

'Catfishing' is a social media phenomenon involving a person creating a fake online persona for the purpose of deceiving someone.

On Wednesday, the Swansboro school district released a statement saying it has completed its investigation and has taken 'appropriate action' but would not go into detail.

It also said it planned to review guidelines for social media use by students and staff.

The educator allegedly targeted by the teens has been with Swansboro High School since 2002, according to his profile featured on the school's official website.

The Daily Mail is not disclosing the name of the alleged victim to protect his privacy due to the sensitive nature of the allegations.

Luckenbaugh (left and right) and her suspected accomplice have been charged with misdemeanor disclosure of private images

The handling of this incident by the school district has left the Swansboro community divided, reported the Jacksonville Daily News.

One Swansboro High School alumnus has launched a petition in support of the teacher, described by the organizer of the online initiative as 'amazing' and 'a hero to students in need.'
A married couple from Michigan were critically injured when their son's pit bull attacked them in suburban Detroit, leaving both parents with what police described as 'horrific' injuries.

Roseville police responded at around 9pm Sunday to a report of a dog mauling and found a 52-year-old woman covered in blood outside a home in the 30000 block of Normal Street.

She said she was attacked by her 28-year-old son's dog and officers then found the woman's 51-year-old husband lying unconscious in the living room and bleeding profusely from his wounds.

Police responded to a home in the 30000 block of Normal Street in Roseville, Michigan, (pictured) Sunday and found a woman covered in blood and dog bites

Police say the one-year-old male pit bull suspected in the mauling was 'extremely aggressive' and wouldn't allow emergency crews to get past, so they distracted the animal by banging on the rear door of the residence.

Rescuers tried to remove the severely injured man from the home and the dog returned, so they used a stun gun on the animal to subdue it long enough to extract the male victim from the house.

The husband and wife were taken to a hospital with bites to their faces and arms. The man was later airlifted to the University of Michigan Hospital, and both have undergone surgeries.

'This attack is one of the most vicious any of our officers have ever seen,' said Roseville Police Chief James Berlin, according to Detroit Free Press.

Police say the pit bull and another dog were captured by Macomb County animal control officers. There is no word at this time on what will happen to the animals.

It is believed a one-year-old male pit bull (not pictured) belonging to victims' grown son attacked the couple

The incident comes two weeks after the Roseville couple had been attacked by the same pit bull and required hospitalization.

Their 28-year-old son - the dog's owner - was issued two tickets in connection to that earlier mauling for harboring a dangerous animal and failure to license his dog. The son was not home during Sunday's attack.

Prosecutors will review the case to determine is any charges will be filed in this case.
A dramatic pile-up of 15 pro-cyclists - some flipping high over their handlebars - was caught on video in New York on Saturday night.

The Red Hook Criterium women's final had recently started when the pile-up halted many riders' progress.

The 22 lap race which had 100 cyclists was held on Saturday night in Brooklyn where unsuspecting onlookers got a little more action than they bargained for.

At first, the cyclists glide smoothly past the camera until one cyclist appears to hit the rail and slips which causes the most dramatic pile up.

Riders and their bikes first fold under each other like crashing dominoes but as the pile of people and bikes mounts up quickly, people who hit the group fly up into the air before joining their fallen competitors on the cold, hard concrete.

Crash landing: One cyclists first falls accross the path of other competitors, who then fall too which sets off a domino-like chain reaction causing a dramatic pile-up on the concrete

Some cyclists looked like they hit the concrete hard and lay on the ground as the carnage continued behind them. Some cyclists flew over their handlebars as they hit the pile up

The video definitely proved how one small glitch in a larger system can bring the whole thing crashing down violently.

Some of the riders catch some serious air before the more intrepid crash victims jump up and continue with the race.

Slowly, those slightly more dazed - and possibly injured riders - get up and rejoin the race.

One cyclist deftly smashes her seat back into place as it had twisted askew in the dramatic crash before joining the race again.

Other cyclists ask each other if they're ok, and one rider asks the onlookers for a multitool - a metal penknife-like object - to fix her bike.

The Red Hook Crit is an annual criterium cycle race held in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

London - at the at the Greenwich Peninsula, Barcelona and Milan also host the race.

The riders started to get up after the initial shock wore off and some of them got back on their bikes again and rejoined the race

Some cyclists asked each other if they were okay after the crash, and one rider asked the onlookers for a multitool to fix her bike which was presumably damaged in the crash
Bananas hung by string nooses were found in three places on American University's campus on Monday, according to school reports.

The letters 'AKA' were written on the bananas, a likely reference to the Washington, DC university's historically black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. The organization was established in 1908 at Howard University and is the first Greek-letter institution started by African American women.

One banana also had the phrase 'Harambe bait' scrawled across it in thick black marker, in reference to the gorilla who was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo last year.

Fanta Aw, the interim vice president of campus life at AU, reassured students that the school was investigating the most recent racial threat.

Bananas tied up by string nooses with the letters 'AKA' written on them were found at American University on Monday

One banana also had the phrase 'Harambe bait' scrawled across it in thick black marker, in reference to the gorilla who was shot dead at Cincinnati Zoo last year

The letters appear to be in reference to Alpha Kappa Alpha, the university's historically black sorority

'American University was alerted to a racist incident that occurred in our community. Bananas hanging from string in the shape of nooses were found in three places on campus, and were marked with the letters AKA.

'Photos began circulating on social media this morning. These racist, hateful messages have no place in our community.

'The safety of our students is paramount. The American University Department of Public Safety is investigating.'

This is not the first time students at American University have been met with racist messages.

Just last September, several black freshman women reported that rotten bananas were being thrown outside their doors and, in one occasion, even at them.

Student Government President Taylor Dumpson, who decided to run for the position after last fall's 'banana incident,' released a significantly longer statement about Monday's act.

Just last September, several black freshman women at the university reported that rotten bananas were being thrown outside their doors and, in one occasion, even at them

Alpha Kappa Alpha was established in 1908 at Howard University and is the first Greek-letter institution started by African American women. Pictured, founders Harriet Josephine Terry, Joanna Berry Shields, Margaret Flagg Holmes and Beulah Burke

'It is disheartening and immensely frustrating that we are still dealing with this issue after recent conversations, dialogues, and town halls surrounding race relations on campus.

'But this is exactly why we need to do more than just have conversations but move in a direction towards more tangible solutions to prevent incidents like these from occurring in the future.

'As the first black woman AUSG president, I implore all of us to unite in solidarity with those impacted by this situation and we must remember that "if there is no struggle, there is no progress  Frederick Douglass.

'We must use this time to reflect on what we value as a community and we must show those in the community that bigotry, hate, and racism cannot and will not be tolerated.

'This will not be tolerated now, or ever, on the campus of American University and I will do everything in my ability to ensure that this never happens again,' she wrote.

Anyone with information about Monday's incident is encouraged to visit the AUPD TIPS site or call 202.885.2527.
A Baylor University fraternity has been suspended over its 'racially insensitive' 'Mexican' themed party which saw some guests dress as maids, construction workers and even don brown face.

Skye Thomas, a freshman at Baylor who attended the 'fiesta themed' off-campus Kappa Sigma party in Waco, Texas on Saturday.

But when she arrived, she was shocked to find people 'dressed up so offensively' in mocking stereotypical costumes. She described seeing several guys dressed in bright green construction vests and another who was wearing 'brown face.'

A Baylor University fraternity has been suspended over its racially insensitive 'Mexican' themed party (pictured, a partygoer dressed in a sombrero)

The party has sparked outrage after photos of the event were posted on social media

'Why do you think it's okay to dress up like stereotypes of Mexican culture?!' she tweeted after the party, 'It was beyond offensive.'

Others on social media claimed to have heard the frat boys chanting 'build a wall' although Thomas could not confirm those claims.

While Halley Yzquierdo, who wrote a critical post about the 'ignorant' party after attending it on Saturday, said a frat member had responded saying the fiesta was still going and she was 'free to join the cleaners.'

'I just wanted everyone to see how suddenly I've been subjected to being a house keeper because of my race,' she said, posting the exchange.

'I understand that this party may not have been thrown with the intent of marginalizing a specific group, but with the recent election, I feel it is crucial that we do not proliferate discrimination based on societal misconceptions,' Yzquierdo wrote in a letter to the university, urging the university to expel the student who was allegedly wearing brown face.

Thomas described seeing several guys dressed in bright green construction vests and another who was wearing 'brown face' (although none of those are evident from the photos posted of the event)

The university is now investigating the 'racially insensitive' party and the frat chapter has been suspended

The racially insensitive party sparked a protest, organized by NAACP and LatinX Coalition, to call for change in the school.

Baylor vice president of student life, Kevin Jackson, described the behavior as 'deeply concerning. '

'We do not tolerate racism of any kind on our campus.'

A spokeswoman said Baylor University is now investigating the incident and said they were taking the matter seriously and have taken 'established disciplinary procedures'.

The national Kappa Sigma chapter added that they had suspended all operations of the Lambda-Tau Chapter at Baylor University after learning of the party while they launch an investigation.

'The allegations are inconsistent with the values of Kappa Sigma and upon the completion of the investigation, the Fraternity will address the findings in an appropriate manner. '

The party has sparked outrage after photos of the event were posted on social media.

Skye Thomas, a freshman at Baylor who attended an off campus Kappa Sigma party on Saturday, tweeted. along with many others, that she she was shocked to find people 'dressed up so offensively'

One Twitter user, who said he was of Mexican heritage, was furious that the fraternity had exploited his culture while holding it in contempt.

'So kappa sig threw a 'Mexican' party? yall are bold to yell build a wall but quick to have my culture as a theme for your wack a** party,' he said.

Thomas told Buzzfeed that while she had not heard the chant at that party, it was a regular event for the frat,

'Apparently, they have chanted 'Build the wall' before and then threw a party to 'celebrate' a Mexican holiday, so that is one of the reasons many people were hurt by it,' Thomas said.

'White people dressing up as maids and construction workers to celebrate their holiday is not [cool]' one Baylor student said.

'#DearKappaSig one man's culture is not another one's costume,' another tweeted.

A few tried to defend the frat on Twitter saying that people had simply been trying to celebrate Mexican culture for Cinco de Mayo.

'White people dressing up as maids and construction workers to celebrate their holiday is not [cool]' said one student - who was among dozens who complained about the party on Twitter

'All people did was dress up...for a cinco de mayo party,' one tweeted,.

But others shot them down saying party-goers decision to focus on negative stereotypes of Mexicans, such as portraying them as only having low paid jobs such housekeepers and constructions workers, was racist,

Baylor has come under fire for their attitudes towards racism in the past, after a black student complained a white student had pushed her and told her 'no n****rs allowed.'

The university has also been in the news after Baylor officials were heavily criticized for failing to properly respond to a series of rape and sexual assault reports on campus.

The scandal last year eventually saw local Phi Delta Theta chapter president Jacob Walter Anderson jailed on a sex assault charge.

It is not the first time a college has got into hot water for mocking Latino and Mexican culture.

In 2014, Chi Omega's national organisation shut down its Penn State chapter after a photo was circulated showing members dressed in an offensive parody of Mexicans.

It showed the sisters of Chi Omega at Penn State wearing sombreros, ponchos and fake moustaches while holding up signs saying 'will mow lawn for weed + beer' and 'I don't cut grass I smoke it'.
The sad cheese sandwich that became a symbol of failed Fyre Festival's disappointments may not have been meant for the festival-goers after all.

The infamous sandwich was actually intended for staff at the cancelled Bahamas fest, an unnamed source connected to the festival organizers claimed to TMZ.

The festival was cancelled on Thursday, as guests began to arrive and found the purported luxury festival's grounds in disarray, with reports circulating of dirt-floored refugee tents and feral dogs wandering the beach.

A source connected to the Fyre Festival organizers has claimed that the notorious cheese sandwich shown was actually intended for staff. The sandwich became iconic for the failed fest

It seems some festival goers got the food on the right, which appears slightly more appetizing, while others got the infamous cheese sandwiches shown on the left

But festival attendees, who paid up to $10,000 for tickets, were actually served chicken, pasta, burgers and fries and salad, instead of the drooping cheese on plain bread, the source claimed.

One festival goer disputed the TMZ report however, saying that some attendees did get cheese sandwiches, even if they were intended for staff.

'There were two tents to get meals from and they were right next to each other,' Twitter user William Finley wrote in response to the TMZ article.

'Some people got cheese sandwiches. Some got dinner.'

In fact, there were multiple independent reports from the festival of cheap sandwiches on the menu.

'The "gourmet cuisine" this weekend was included in the ticket cost. We are being fed salads and ham and cheese sandwiches out of this tent,' one festival goer tweeted on Friday.

Twitter user William Finley disputed the TMZ report, saying that there were two food tents

On Monday, one Fyre Festival attendee filed a $100million class action lawsuit against organizers Ja Rule and Billy McFarland, claiming the disastrous island event left him with 'significant emotional pain and suffering'.

Daniel Jung filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles on behalf of all those who bought tickets to the Bahamas festival last week.

He accused McFarland, Ja Rule and co-organizer Jeffrey Atkins of fraud and breach of contract, claiming they continued to sell tickets to the event despite knowing it was doomed.

Hundreds of festival-goers flocked to Fyre Cay on Thursday for the event but they were met with chaos

Jung claims he experienced 'significant emotional pain and suffering' by turning up to the event in The Bahamas last week to find unfinished campsites and low supplies of food and water. Above, the festival site which his attorneys said 'rivaled a refugee camp'

His attorneys say he and everyone else who had bought tickets were put in danger by 'refugee camp' conditions and the lack of food water or transport on the island.

They even attributed risk to the region's famous swimming pigs, a tourist attraction many visit the islands to see, describing them as 'wild animals' which were seen 'in and around festival grounds'.

The tickets cost between $1,200 and $200,000 and the event was billed as an exclusive weekend of music, luxury cuisine and celebrities. It was promoted by It girls on Instagram and promised those who could afford it that they'd be partying in style in plush accommodations on ground once owned by Pablo Escobar.

Hundreds bought into it and flocked to Fyre Cay, the 'private' island in the Exumas, where it was being held, on Thursday but were met with unfinished tents with no furniture and a dangerously low supply of food and water.

Organizers have issued an apology after furious and frightened customers shared the experience on Twitter and Instagram and have promised everyone a refund.
A CIA-hired interrogator revealed on Monday how the agency tracked down Osama Bin Laden by putting together snippets of information let slip by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Dr James Mitchell, the author of Enhanced Interrogation, appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday to mark the eve of the sixth anniversary of Bin Laden's death.

He revealed how he worked with other interrogators to glean information from two of the terrorist's trusted confidantes to find out where he was hiding in Pakistan.

They were put on to his trail by Ammar al-Baluchi who was imprisoned along with his uncle, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammed.

Al-Baluchi let slip during one interview that a courier was delivering letters for the notorious criminal.

Dr James Mitchell appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday to tell how information gleaned from Enhanced Interrogations led the CIA to Osama Bin Laden

When his uncle denied it, investigators went back to him and he insisted he was telling the truth.

'He said, "he's lying, he's lying. I don't know why but he's lying"' Dr Mitchell said.

Muhammed then raised their suspicions by sending out a message to fellow extremists in the prison not to make any mention of the courier during interrogations.

'[He] did something that we were actually happy to see. They had figured out some way they thought was secret to communicate with other detainees.

'He put out a message in what he thought was a clandestine way of communicating with other detainees, to not talk about the courier.

'That signalled at least to the interrogators and to the targeters who were following it that that man was important and we needed to do more.'

The courier was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Eventually, a phone call placed to his phone led investigators to the Abbottabad compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

Ammar al-Baluchi (left) told interrogators about Bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (right)

Al-Baluchi was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay when he was interrogated over Bin Laden's whereabouts

To hone in on him, interrogators relied on a vital clue from another Guantanamo Inmate who told them how he spoke in native Arabic but inserted Pashto words randomly, making his dialogue hard to keep track of.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed denied the courier's existence, sparking investigators' curiosity further

'What actually allowed them to find him using signals intelligence was that there was another person that we did enhanced interrogations on.

'He said well this guy that you're looking for, the courier, it sounds like he has a speech impediment because he talks in native Arabic but he substitutes Pashto words and he does it randomly and it's very difficult so when you listen to him, it sounds like he has a speech impediment.

'So that allowed the people who monitor signals to figure out where that guy was living,' Dr Mitchell said.

He also defended the use of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, telling hosts the SEAL Team 6 raid which killed him could never have taken place without it.

'I think you would have had a very hard time getting some of the information that we got from those detainees that allowed us to protect ourselves without those enhanced interrogations.'

CIA agents traced al-Kuwaiti's phone signals to the Abbottabad compound where Bin Laden was hiding

He also insisted that waterboarding was not used in interrogations to determine Bin Laden's location.

'The waterboarding was used on only three people and never were we asking questions about the location of Bin Laden.

'Waterboarding was really only used to identify and disrupt these catastrophic attacks and finding UBL, although that was very important, wasn't the point of waterboarding.'

Robert O'Neill, the Navy SEAL who claims to have shot Bin Laden, also reflected on his killing over the weekend.
Ja Rule and fellow Fyre Festival organizer Billy McFarland were pictured for the first time since their luxury music event in the Bahamas ended in chaos this weekend - and asked for sympathy for THEM.

The business partners left their Tribeca office on Monday afternoon after spending a short amount of time inside. The office appeared to be completely empty.

'We are going through a lot right now and we are truly sorry,' Ja Rule told DailyMail.com.

McFarland added: 'Thank you so much.'

The duo are now facing being sued for $100 million by a festival goer for 'significant emotional pain and suffering'.

They are also under financial pressure as they have promised to refund all those who bought tickets for the event in the Bahamas - but that has yet to happen.

Shamed: Ja Rule and Billy McFarland surfaced in New York after their Fyre Festival turned into a disaster and one attendee started legal action which could lead to a class action against them

Change of tone: Ja Rule - real name Jeffrey Atkins - had vowed that staff would be 'living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and f***ing like porn stars.' Unfortunately festival-goers said conditions were more like refugee camps and Rule promised refunds as he spoke to DailyMail.com. McFarland did not apologize and said 'thank you so much' to DailyMail.com

Are you being served? Ja Rule and Billy McFarland are facing a $100 million law suit started in Los Angeles by one attendee

Hundreds of festival-goers flocked to Fyre Cay on Thursday for the event but they were met with chaos

Rule, real name Jeffrey Atkins, told DailyMail.com that refunds were on the way.

'We will refund everybody's money,' he said.

'I'm just so disappointed and I'm disappointed for all those people. I wanted this to be an amazing event. We wanted this to be an amazing event.'

Neither McFarland, previously a tech entrepreneur, or Rule, 41, had been seen since the festival went from the promised glamour and luxury to what were compared to 'refugee camp' conditions.

As well as the embarrassment, they now face legal action, with one attendee claiming the disastrous island event left him with 'significant emotional pain and suffering'.

Daniel Jung filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles on Monday on behalf of all those who bought tickets to the Bahamas festival last week.

He accused McFarland, Rule and co-organizer Jeffrey Atkins of fraud and breach of contract, claiming they continued to sell tickets to the event despite knowing it was doomed.

His attorneys say he and everyone else who had bought tickets were put in danger by 'refugee camp' conditions and the lack of food water or transport on the island.

They even attributed risk to the region's famous swimming pigs, a tourist attraction many visit the islands to see, describing them as 'wild animals' which were seen 'in and around festival grounds'.

The tickets cost between $1,200 and $200,000 and the event was billed as an exclusive weekend of music, luxury cuisine and celebrities. It was promoted by It girls on Instagram and promised those who could afford it that they'd be partying in style in plush accommodations on ground once owned by Pablo Escobar.

Hundreds bought into it and flocked to Fyre Cay, the 'private' island in the Exumas, where it was being held, on Thursday but were met with unfinished tents with no furniture and a dangerously low supply of food and water.

Organizers have issued an apology after furious and frightened customers shared the experience on Twitter and Instagram and have promised everyone a refund.

Rule's expression of 'disappointment' to those who went was in contrast to what one worker revealed was his exuberance in March, as festival organizers began expressing doubts.

Chloe Gordon, a talent booker, revealed in New York magazine how Rule had conducted a site visit and concluded it with a toast: 'To living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and f***ing like porn stars.'

In his lawsuit, Jung's attorneys said the conditions 'rivaled a refugee camp' and that being stranded there was 'tantamount to false imprisonment'.

He accuses the organizers of continuing to sell tickets despite knowing the event was doomed and warning celebrities including Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski to stay away.

From the offset, they say organizers oversold the event.

'The festival was even promoted as being on a 'private island' once owned by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar - the island isn't private as there is a 'Sandals' resort down the road and Pablo Escobar never owned the island,' attorney Mark Geragos wrote.

Daniel Jung is suing Fyre Festival organizers Billy McFarland and Ja Rule (right together in December last year) for $100million on behalf of everyone who bought tickets to the disastrous event

Jung claims he experienced 'significant emotional pain and suffering' by turning up to the event in The Bahamas last week to find unfinished campsites and low supplies of food and water. Above, the festival site which his attorneys said 'rivaled a refugee camp'

In the lawsuit, the attorneys presented sketches of the campsite which organizers used to sell ticket. Attorneys compared them with images taken from the actual tents

The attorneys even said the region's famous swimming pigs were cause for concern. They included this photograph shared by another festival-goer who visited the pigs

All of the festival-goers were stranded and had no money to get off the island because organizers told them not to bring cash

Jung's attorneys say organizers knew the event would not be finished but let everyone arrive anyway

As the festival date approached, the attorneys claim organizers knew they were ill-equipped and say they warned celebrities and performers not to attend but allowed the hundreds who had bought tickets to board planes from Miami.

Once they'd arrived on the island, the situation became an emergency, he said.

'The festival was a disaster immediately upon the attendees' arrival. Concert-goers' luggage was unceremoniously dumped from shipping containers and left for them to rifle through in order to find their personal belongings.'

They even listed the region's famous swimming pigs, which some festival goers visited to pass the time, as a hazard.

They said the fact organizers warned It girls including Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski (second and third left), who they had paid to promote it, not to attend shows they knew it would fail

Bella (above during a promotional trip to the site earlier this year) has since said she feels 'so badly' about the saga

'In addition to the substandard accommodations, wild animals were seen in and around the festival grounds,' Geragos wrote, accompanying the complaint with an Instagram picture shared by one festival-goer of the animals.

The lawsuit goes on to include photographs of social media posts shared by others on the island of the unfinished lockers and basic sandwich meals guests were confronted with.

It also blasts the lack of event staff present and highlights the fact that none of the guests had cash with them to take local taxis or pay for accommodation because organizers told them not to bring any money.

'Festival-goers were unable to escape the unfolding disaster because of their reliance upon Defendants for transportation and because Defendants promoted the festival as a 'cashless' event... [they] instructed attendees to upload funds to a wristband for use at the festival rather than bringing any cash.

'As such, attendees were unable to purchase basic transportation on local taxis or buses, which only accept cash.'

They blamed these poor logistics for one festival-goer losing consciousness.

Both Billy McFarland (left) and Ja Rule (right) have since apologized for the disaster and offered ticket holders a refund

The organizers tried to explain their shortcomings in a statement, writing: 'We thought we were ready, but then everyone arrived.'

While there was no escaping the conditions once festival-goers arrived on Thursday, the attorneys say McFarland, a tech entrepreneur who has since deemed the disaster the 'worst day of his life', knew it was going to fail and warned celebrities to stay away for their own safety.

'Mr McFarland and Mr Atkins began personally reaching out to performers and celebrities in advance of the festival and warned them not to attend - acknowledging the fact that the festival was outrageously underequipped and potentially dangerous for anyone in attendance.'

They said the the entire event was 'nothing more than a get-rich-quick scam' designed to 'fleece' willing attendees and that everyone who bought tickets in good faith deserves to be compensated for the ordeal.

Jung is suing on behalf of the hundreds of others who attended, claiming he 'experiences emotional pain and suffering from being stranded in a foreign country' as a result.

They have vowed to host the festival next year but say it will take place in the United States.
The first photos have emerged of a young Australian woman who claims she was tricked into smuggling millions of dollars worth of drugs out of Colombia.

Handcuffed and standing behind 5.8 kilograms of cocaine wrapped in black plastic, Cassandra Sainsbury could face 25 years in a South American jail if found guilty.

The 22-year-old told her family she thought the packages were 15 headphones a local man posing as a translator had arranged to buy for her at a discount.

But she was arrested at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota on April 11 on her way back to Australia after an X-ray search allegedly revealed something suspicious in her luggage.

Lt Colonel Jorge Triana, head of anti-narcotics police at the airport, told Daily Mail Australia he didn't believe Cassandra's headphone story.

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Australian woman Cassandra Sainsbury, 22, faces 25 years in jail after she was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine at an airport in Colombia

The first photos have emerged of Cassandra standing in handcuffs next to her luggage

She was arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine concealed in small packages wrapped in black plastic (pictured)

Lt Colonel Triana said drug mules often feigned ignorance when they were caught.

'It's a commonplace strategy that narco traffickers use to take drugs out of the country,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Her explanation is not credible. Everyone we catch says they didn't know it was in their luggage, but they know what they were doing.'

Daily Mail Australia also understands there were never any headphones in the package and it only contained concealed cocaine.

Lt Colonel Triana said even if Cassandra didn't know about the drugs she likely faced jail time either way.

'She recognised the luggage as hers so whether she knew there were drugs in it or not, it doesn't excuse her actions,' he said.

Top drug cops in Colombia say her explanation is not credible. It's understood there were never any headphones in the packages (pictured) and they only contained concealed cocaine

Senior lawyers claim that drug cartels may decide to murder Cassandra in retaliation for her family insisting she was unwittingly turned into a drug mule

Pictured are the headphones that Cassandra believed she was buying from a man she had just met. Her family claims the man offered to be her translator and find gifts for her family

He said foreigners were increasingly being lured into becoming drug mules by the promise of big payoffs when they made it to their destination - with 19 caught leaving Colombia this year alone.

Cassandra's family insisted she was an innocent victim being 'set up' by a man she had just met.

Her distraught mother said her daughter told her she had trusted a Colombian man who offered to be her translator and find gifts for her family.

'She mentioned these headphones she wanted to get and this man said 'I know a guy and if you buy 16 or 18 of them he can give you a really good price',' she told KIIS 1065.

'The day of her departure he gave her the package wrapped in black plastic and she put it in her luggage'.

The woman (pictured with her fiance) was detained on April 11 at Bogota Airport just as she was about to fly back to Australia after a working holiday

Jorge Mendoza, the ports and airports director for Colombia's anti-narcotic police, told AAP that Cassandra could have been working as a drug mule.



'She could possibly be a drug mule,' he told ABC radio through an interpreter on Tuesday.

'In going through security we found she had 18 packets inside her luggage which even before opening it we found covered in plastic.'

In Australia, six kilograms of cocaine has an estimated street value of almost $2 million.

It comes as senior lawyers claim that drug cartels may decide to murder Cassandra in retaliation for her family insisting she was unwittingly turned into a drug mule.

In Australia, six kilograms of cocaine has a street value of almost $2 million

Legal sources told The Australian the young woman could be at risk in the notorious El Buen Pastor women's prison as a result.

Cassandra's fiance Scott Broadbridge was also understood to be concerned about the impact public attention, and rumours on social media, might have on her case.

The couple were planning a wedding for next February, and he was believed to talk to the young woman by phone every night from prison.

Mr Broadbridge, 23, a bodybuilder-turned personal trainer who has dated her for just over 18 months, proposed in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

Australian author Rusty Young, whose book Marching Powder was based on the three months he spent with an English drug smuggler in prison in Bolivia, has lived in Colombia for eight years and says he doesn't believe authorities there will make an example of Ms Sainsbury.

'Basically, the bigger traffickers are the ones they are after,' he told the Seven Network.

'Small traffickers are just an annoyance for the country.

'Colombia loves foreigners coming in. One of their major industries now is tourism. They do not want the name. They don't want the media attention for drug trafficking.'

Mr Young said conditions inside the El Buen Pastor prison where Ms Sainsbury is being held were 'pretty horrific'.

'There is massive levels of overcrowding inside the prison,' he said.

'The conditions are not very hygienic. She will need money to survive, to get legal representation, to buy medicine - and she potentially could be facing a long stay in prison.'

Cassandra was arrested in Colombia after an airport X-Ray search allegedly revealed something suspicious in her luggage (pictured)

Khala said her sister (pictured) found a Colombian lawyer but he suggested pleading guilty to lesser charges to avoid an up to 25-year jail sentence

Cassandra's family started a fundraising page asking for donations to help her fight the charges, claiming she was a personal trainer in the country on a working holiday.

However, Australia and Colombia do not have a working holiday agreement, and Ms Sainsbury's fiance Scott Broadbridge, revealed she hasn't worked as a personal trainer this year.

'Although Cassie is a PT, she is not currently personal training and hasn't been for 6 months. I don't know why that was mentioned at all,' Mr Broadbridge wrote online.

'She helped manage a commercial cleaning business that had both national and international clients.'

The family closed the fundraising account after receiving just $4232 in donations from 105 people - well short of the $15,000 they hoped to collect to help cover legal bills.

The account was viciously trolled with most of the more than 500 posts overwhelmingly negative.

'I wouldn't give you $1 of my money! Those who are supporting this atrocious attempt to scam money to help exonerate a drug mule, really should give their money to a worthy cause! The story is so badly flawed it hurts,' one wrote.

Many people also questioned the difference in weight between the earphones and the drug parcel.

'Everyone knows that a extra 6kgs in headphones wouldn't feel right,' one person said.

The family's fundraising page also claimed the Colombian government 'is corrupt' which has seen them receive angry comments from those who live there.

'Don't call my country corrupt when she was caught with the good in her bag. You have lied twice in your fundraising intro,' Ern Perez said.

'Why are you lying, and it seems your family is trying to put sympathy to the Australian public in making false statements.'

A message on the fundraising site from her fiance Scott Broadbridge. The fundraiser was cancelled after it received hundreds of negative comments

Her mother, Lisa Evans, has maintained her daughter is innocent, saying she had been 'naive' in trusting a Colombian man to help her get a good deal on headphones

Khala wrote in the fundraising page that her sister was a volunteer firefighter with Country Fire Service in Adelaide, but the organisation has said she hasn't worked with them for three years.

'Hi Khala, although SA Country Fire Service appreciate you helping your sister through this, we are concerned you are stating that she is a member of SA Country Fire Service,' Alison Martin a senior publicity officer wrote on the fundraiser page.

'She has not been a volunteer for the past three years and we would appreciate you taking all material relating to CFS from this profile.'

The young woman's family told Daily Mail Australia she thought the parcel contained headphones for her bridal party and friends back home.

However Bogota residents, where she was caught with the drugs, say technology is expensive in Colombia  and headphones would be hard to find in the city.

'Colombia is not a country like Thailand where they have headphones in the market places like Dr. Dre Beats,' an Australian in Colombia said.

'Technology is considered expensive to buy here.'

The woman who claimed to have spent 'a lot of time in Bogota' said she had never seen headphones for sale there.

Her family says she is innocent and being 'set up' - but Colombian anti-narcotic police believe she may have been a drug mule

Khala said her sister was tricked into being a drug mule by a man she just met who handed her a package containing the concealed drugs

Khala said her sister found a Colombian lawyer but he suggested pleading guilty to lesser charges to avoid an up to 25-year jail sentence.

'She is just so scared that she is caught up on the other side of the world for something she didn't do with no support over there, no nothing,' Ms Evans told the Today Show.

The Adelaide woman was denied bail and is being held at the El Buen Pastor prison, which houses over 50,000 women.

Colombian anti-narcotic officer Mr Mendoza said Ms Sainsbury could face a lengthy jail term if found guilty.

'Depending on the qualities (of the cocaine) we believe the maximum could be 20 years,' he said.

'The punishment for the quantity could be between eight to 12 years.'

Mr Mendoza noted that per capita, Australians are among the biggest users of cocaine in the world. A UN report in 2013 found Australians were the world's eighth highest per capital users of the drug.

Mr Broadbridge at a music festival, the woman's fiance claims she was a manager of a cleaning business

Ms Evans said Ms Sainsbury's Colombian lawyer, who used to be the Mayor of Bogota, has advised the young woman plead guilty to avoid 25 years behind bars at her hearing in two months.

She said the 'best case scenario' is a minimum six-year sentence with a guilty plea.

'If Cassie gives information about the person that gave her the package it may come down a bit to four,' Ms Evans told KIIS 1065's Kyle & Jackie O on Monday.

Ms Sainsbury's older sister Khala was to pick her up from the airport on Easter Saturday and didn't realise Cassandra's predicament until the morning of Good Friday.

'The trip was at least in part to promote her personal training business,' her sister told Daily Mail Australia.

The mother-of-four insisted her CFS volunteer sister was innocent and being 'set up'.

'Anyone that knows her, would say she is a kind, loving, happy kind of girl. She would help anyone out in need,' she said.

'Our hearts break, because we know she is innocent, but stands little chance of proving it in such a corrupt country.'

Cassandra was planning a wedding to her fiance and 'love of her life' Scott Broadbridge (L) after they got engaged in October on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia

The former personal trainer from Adelaide was denied bail and is being held at the overcrowded El Buen Pastor women's prison (pictured) until her hearing in two months

Ms Sainsbury was an aspiring model before leaving for the South American country and had built her own starnow profile which invited potential client to view her Instagram account.

Working holiday visas to Colombia are only issued to citizen of France who are aged 18 to 30.

Australian author Rusty Young, whose book Marching Powder was based on the three months he spent with an English drug smuggler in prison in Bolivia, has lived in Colombia for eight years and says he doesn't believe authorities there will make an example of Ms Sainsbury.

'Basically, the bigger traffickers are the ones they are after,' he told the Seven Network.

'Small traffickers are just an annoyance for the country.

'Colombia loves foreigners coming in. One of their major industries now is tourism. They do not want the name. They don't want the media attention for drug trafficking.'

Mr Young said conditions inside the El Buen Pastor prison where Ms Sainsbury is being held were 'pretty horrific'.

'There is massive levels of overcrowding inside the prison,' he said.

'The conditions are not very hygienic. She will need money to survive, to get legal representation, to buy medicine - and she potentially could be facing a long stay in prison.'

'I'm devastated that my little girl is in this place. I'm scared to death for her. Our family just wants her home safe,' her mother Lisa Evans (L) said

The cocaine was concealed in the packaging of more than 15 headphones Ms Sainsbury said she was given the morning of her flight home.

'It came to her already packaged and concealed and she put it straight in her suitcase. She's very naive,' Khala told 9 News.

Cassandra grew up on the Yorke Peninsula before moving to Adelaide and has three huskies Buster, Bella and Rex living with her and Mr Broadbridge.

'She has her full life ahead of her, and now its all put on the line because of this. We miss her so much, and since we have very little contact with her its very hard,' her sister said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing assistance to an Australian woman arrested in Colombia in accordance with the Consular Services Charter.

'Due to our privacy obligations, we are unable to release further information,' it said.

Prison inmates are searched in the El Buen Pastor women's prison at Bogota
Charlie Gards parents embark today on a dramatic new court battle to save him.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard will plead with Londons Appeal Court to overturn last months High Courts ruling that he should be allowed to die.

They have refused to give up hope for their nine-month-old son who is desperately ill with a rare genetic condition.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard will plead with Londons Appeal Court to overturn last months High Courts ruling that their son, Charlie,(pictured) should be allowed to die

Last night Miss Yates, 31, of Bedfont, south-west London, said: We were devastated by the result of the last hearing.

'But somehow Chris and I have pulled together and picked ourselves up as a family. We had to for Charlies sake.

'Charlie is still strong and stable. He is growing more beautiful by the day and we knew we couldnt just give up on him.

The couple have dispensed with the services of their former solicitors, Bindmans, and have hired a new legal team, led by eminent QC Richard Gordon.

They have refused to give up hope for their nine-month-old son (pictured) who is desperately ill with a rare genetic condition

He is instructed by a new firm of lawyers, Harris Da Silva Solicitors.

The new lawyers did not want to comment ahead of todays application. But it is understood they are exploring whether human rights laws could be used to give Charlie another chance.

Last month, the baby boys parents were dealt a crushing blow when the High Court decided he should be allowed to die.

Mr Gard, 32, sobbed No as Mr Justice Francis concluded with the heaviest of hearts to reject the distraught parents wishes.

Charlies type of mitochondrial syndrome is so rare, he is only the 16th sufferer worldwide.

The condition saps energy from organs and muscles, and he is being kept alive on a ventilator.

But Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital, where he is in intensive care, wants to withdraw the ventilator and allow Charlie to die with dignity.

His British doctors believe there is no hope, but his parents have found a US specialist willing to try an experimental therapy.

The couple have dispensed with the services of their former solicitors, Bindmans, and have hired a new legal team, led by eminent QC Richard Gordon

He is instructed by a new firm of lawyers, Harris Da Silva Solicitors. The new lawyers did not want to comment ahead of Tuesday's application

Before he was hired, the couples new lawyer Charles da Silva wrote on his firms Facebook page the High Court ruling highlights that not only doctors but judges can get it wrong too

Their battle prompted 83,000 well-wishers to donate more than 1.3million to a GoFundMe online fundraising page funding the US treatment.

Before he was hired, the couples new lawyer Charles da Silva wrote on his firms Facebook page that the High Court ruling highlights that not only doctors but judges can get it wrong too.

A Bindmans spokesman was unavailable for comment.
A suspect and his girlfriend have been arrested in the death of a man who plunged to his death off of a bridge.

Cecil Thomas Rice, 26, was charged with deliberate homicide in the Wednesday death of Anthony Walthers, 34, who was seen falling into the Flathead River in Kalispell, Montana.

Walthers' body has not been recovered, but he is presumed dead after being seen sinking below the river's frigid current.

Earlier the same day, Walthers encountered Rice's girlfriend, 25-year-old Heather Joy Meeker, at a church that gives meals to the homeless, where he made an inappropriate remark about the young woman, the Flathead Beacon reports.

Suspects: Cecil Thomas Rice was charged with deliberate homicide in the Wednesday death of a man who allegedly made inappropriate remarks to his girlfriend Heather Meeker

Crime Scene: Anthony Walthers, 34, is presumed dead after plunging into the Flathead River in the vicinity of the Old Steel Bridge near Kalispell, Montana

Both the couple and Walthers were transients, police said.

Around 7pm on Wednesday, a woman fishing near the Old Steel Bridge heard a splash and saw a man, believed to be Walthers, struggling in the water and calling for help, police said.

Another witness saw the man float several hundred yards down the river before his head drop below the water, police said.

Witnesses said they saw a man and woman on the bridge, later identified as Rice and Meeker, along with a third man who is not considered a suspect.

The victim allegedly made inappropriate remarks to Heather Meeker (left and right) earlier on the day of his murder. Meeker is charged with evidence tampering in the homicide

The three figures on the bridge jumped in a maroon van and sped away, but not before Meeker tossed a backback belonging to Walthers from the bridge, police allege.

Meeker has been charged with evidence tampering in the case.

A witness who was on the bridge said Rice pushed Walthers into the river, according to police.

Rice is being held in the Flathead County Detention Center on $500,000 bail. Meeker is being held on $50,000 bail.
Fowzi Nejad, 61, the only terrorist to survive the siege in 1980, cannot be sent back to Iran because of human rights laws so instead lives in Peckham, south London. Pictured in 2008

A terrorist jailed for his part in the Iranian Embassy siege now enjoys a 'playboy' lifestyle funded by benefits.

Fowzi Nejad, 61, the only terrorist to survive the siege in 1980, cannot be sent back to Iran because of human rights laws so instead lives in Peckham, south London.

The chain-smoker became eligible for parole three years ago after serving 28 years in jail and his application was approved in October 2008.

A friend told The Sun: 'He lives off benefits and is on disability because he has a bad back. He also loves a night out in the West End and he has an eye for the ladies.

'He will say, 'I went out, had a drink and got some p****'. It's a proper playboy lifestyle and he loves it.'

Nejad and five other gunmen forced their way into the embassy in West London in April 1980, demanding independence for part of southern Iran and taking 26 hostages.

They killed a hostage after six days, which led then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to order the SAS to storm the building. A second hostage was killed in the attack.

Nejad tried to hide among the hostages, but was caught and sentenced to life in jail for conspiracy to murder, false imprisonment, possession of a firearm and two charges of manslaughter.

Nejad's easy lifestyle in Peckham, the home of Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses, has been documented before.

In 2008, a source told the Daily Mail: 'He will usually be up by 8am. He does a circuit, he is super-fit and might go for a run and to the gym.

Nejad (pictured) and five other gunmen forced their way into the embassy in West London in April 1980, demanding independence for part of southern Iran and taking 26 hostages

Nejad tried to hide among the hostages, but was caught and sentenced to life in jail. Pictured: The SAS storming the Embassy

'In the afternoon he tends to go to the job centre, the pictures or even sight-seeing around London.

'He is leading quite a good lifestyle really. He is so happy to be out that he is doing the tour of London. He's not doing any harm but he has areas where he can't go, for example the Iranian Embassy.'

The source added: 'He was completely understanding that what he did was wrong. He has apologised to those people who were involved. He is completely reformed.'

His release eight years ago triggered angry protests from campaigners and survivors of the siege.

Trevor Lock, the policeman held hostage by the terrorists, wrote to the Government objecting to Nejad's release, saying: 'He shouldn't be allowed to stay in this country. He will be living off taxpayers.'

The Home Office said it could not comment but a Whitehall insider said Nejad was eligible for a full range of benefits including free housing, council tax benefits and jobseeker's allowance, which could total more than 1,000 a month.

MailOnline has contacted the Department for Work and Pensions for comment.
The nervous smiles of the couples and single women at the IVF clinic belie their heartbreaking struggle to have children.

It is open day at the Herts & Essex Fertility Centre, and half a dozen smiling nurses in blue uniforms are offering advice to anxious prospective patients.

On one wall there is a huge collage of at least 50 pictures of newborn babies in pastel romper suits and tiny white bonnets.

There is also a floor-to-ceiling poster of a happy couple holding a baby. No NHS funding for your fertility treatment? There is another way! it states in huge letters. Our Egg Share Programme provides completely free IVF.

The deal seems too good to be true. Desperate couples can often spend tens of thousands of pounds on IVF, bankrupting themselves, begging, borrowing and stealing to pay for a shot at parenthood.

But there is a catch. In return for free treatment, women have to donate half of any healthy eggs they produce to the clinic.

The donated eggs can then be used to treat another couple  who pay as much as 7,500 per cycle.

And, of course, these eggs may result in babies  genetically the children of the egg donor, but brought up by another family.

One of the nurses attempts to make a sale. You just think of them as cells, she says, while serving apple juice, cupcakes and fondant fancies. I always think its like donating blood, isnt it?

An egg isnt a baby. Once it clicks, most people dont have an issue with it. It just needs to click.

The nurse is speaking to an undercover reporter from the Mail Investigations Unit.

Two reporters have spent the past two months posing as a couple to visit clinics that offer such egg-sharing deals.

The donated eggs can then be used to treat another couple  who pay as much as 7,500 per cycle

While these arrangements are legal, staff must ensure prospective donors genuinely want to give their eggs away to other couples for altruistic reasons  not just because they are tempted by free or subsidised treatment they could otherwise not afford.

IVF clinics are banned from paying egg donors outright but can offer up to 750 in compensation to make sure they are not left out of pocket. The Herts & Essex clinic advertises for egg-sharers on Twitter, using the hashtag #FreeIVF.

One senior nurse says: Most women find it OK because its not like your baby. Its not fertilised. It grows in somebody elses tummy.

Egg-sharers at the clinic have one hour of counselling about the implications of other couples raising their genetic children.

But the nurse says this is not a pass or fail thing and is quite routine. Most people of course do it for the money, she adds.

A week later, the Mails reporters visit another fertility centre, the London Womens Clinic in Darlington, County Durham, one of the most deprived towns in the UK.

Couples holding hands in a waiting room are called to the office of IVF consultant Dr Safwat Ashour.

Two reporters have spent the past two months posing as a couple to visit clinics that offer such egg-sharing deals

Inside, there is a picture of a toddler on his computer screen, which is turned to face the patients.

We have plenty, plenty of people for egg-sharing, says Dr Ashour.

It is expensive for you, for me, for anybody, to do the IVF. So if you have an option which can reduce this, everybody will do it. He says everybody on egg-sharing programmes with very few exceptions donates for financial reasons.

When asked by the undercover reporters if this matters, Dr Ashour interjects: You shouldnt put this in writing. We know people donate for [a] few reasons but if you make it clear that it is for financial reasons, you will not be accepted, simply because it is not allowed in this country to donate because youre getting money.

He is clear that donating eggs can have serious consequences, including the donor not getting pregnant while the recipient has a baby with one of the shared eggs.

He outlines how any resulting child has a legal right to find out the identity of its biological parents at 18. If you have a concern, dont do it, he adds.

But Dr Ashour admits the counselling at his clinic is inadequate. Egg-sharers are only required to have one appointment, which can be just half an hour, he says.

One egg recipient became pregnant but could not cope with the idea of carrying another womans child  so she had an abortion. She was not well prepared, Dr Ashour says. We did not counsel her properly. This is our fault.

Asked why the clinic offers egg-sharing, he says: Dont you know the eggs are going to bring to us over 6,000 from another person?

Without your eggs we wouldnt be able to treat her at all. So we are making good profit.

While some clinics source eggs through egg-sharing schemes, other rely on altruistic women who donate because they want to help couples who cannot conceive.

The industry watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), outlines how the law means the UK has a responsibility to ensure that donation is voluntary and unpaid, donors act from altruistic motives and donation is in the spirit of contributing to a wider social good.

The regulator adds: The essence of donation is the act of giving.

But this appears at odds with the attitude of consultant Dr Melina Stasinou at Create Fertility in central London. On a Tuesday evening, she is seeing dozens of prospective patients. Demand is such that women have to wait two hours for a private appointment. The Mails female reporter asks her whether she can share her eggs for free or discounted IVF treatment.

IVF clinics are banned from paying egg donors outright but can offer up to 750 in compensation to make sure they are not left out of pocket

The glamorous Greek explains that the clinic does not offer egg-sharing. But she does have an alternative suggestion  the reporter could be an altruistic egg donor and give eggs to the clinic. She could then be paid compensation and put it to towards her own IVF.

If you want to do something, you can do an egg donation for example, says Dr Stasinou. So to take some money, OK, from this process and then to do your own cycle as well.

You can do this thing. So to save some money.

Asked if this is something many women do, she replies: Its not common but you can do it if you want. Its not something that put you in danger. Its just for financial reasons. Trying to reassure the reporter that donation also benefits the egg recipient, she adds: You do it with good purposes in both times, one for your own fertility, one is for other women who cannot use their own eggs. So its both advantages.

Last night, an HFEA spokesman said: This investigation highlights potential breaches of our code. If we find that a clinic is in breach of our code, we will take regulatory action.

Herts & Essex Fertility Centre denied influencing patients unduly to donate eggs. It said they must see independent counsellors before donating eggs and that the number of sessions was decided by patients and the counsellors.

The clinics consultant gynaecologist David Ogutu added: We are proud to help hundreds of couples have babies who cannot afford fertility treatment and are not eligible for NHS treatment. Only through egg-sharing can some couples have a loving family. We are equally helping hundreds of women who need donor eggs.

London Womens Clinic North East said it treated ten egg-sharers in 2016 and none so far this year, and offered counselling in line with HFEA rules.

It said the counselling prioritises the welfare of the patient and that of any existing or future child. The clinic said egg-sharing was an established and successful technique that had benefited thousands of couples and is underpinned by the mutual acts of giving.

A spokesman added: Studies show the main motivation of egg donors is altruism, not money. The quotes attributed to LWC staff do not represent the reality or spirit of the guidance available to patients.

Create Fertility said its egg-donation procedure fully complied with HFEA rules, and it always made it clear that donors must not give solely for financial reasons. It said the reporters conversation was a brief and informal chat, whereas patients who sign up face full consultations, medical tests and independent counselling.

It said it was not illegal or improper to talk about egg donation, only to accept an egg donor for money beyond the compensation allowed. If there was a suspicion that a woman had unacceptable underlying motivations, she would be refused treatment, it added.
Spanish investigators are probing whether a British woman who plunged to her death during a hen-do in Benidorm may have been sleepwalking, it has emerged.

Kirsty Maxwell, 27, from Livingston, West Lothian, died early on Saturday morning after plunging from a tenth-floor flat in the Costa Blanca resort.

A 32-year-old British man arrested hours later on suspicion of her homicide, known only as Joseph, has appeared before an investigating judge in a private court hearing after two nights in a police cell.

He has reportedly been freed and allowed to return to the UK despite the suspicion his actions may have been responsible for her death.

But in a further twist today, it emerged that investigators are also looking into the theory that the death may have been a tragic accident and that she had been sleep walking at the time.

Kirsty Maxwell, 27, who died after falling from a tenth-floor balcony in Benidorm had got married less than a year before her tragic death, it has been revealed

Her husband Adam, is now said to be distraught as he is forced to arrange for her body to be brought back to her home in Scotland

Earlier, it was revealed how one line of inquiry was that she was trying to flee after entering the wrong apartment.

Investigators were said to be examining whether Mrs Maxwell accidentally walked into a stranger's apartment and then took refuge in the bathroom, where the only window opens onto an internal corridor.

It is suspected she may then have headed to the apartment's balcony and tried to escape by landing in the swimming pool, if indeed she jumped - but made a fateful miscalculation and hit the concrete floor around the pool instead.

This morning, it was claimed that the arrested man was once quizzed by police in the UK over a sex assault allegation.

It is not thought to have resulted in a conviction but has been described as a factor in the Spanish police decision to detain him.

He admitted during police questioning he had been arrested in the UK before but is understood to have told investigators he was the victim of a false allegation which never went to court.

Sources close to the investigation said initially there was no evidence pointing to Mrs Maxwell's death being the result of a criminal act and described the arrest as a 'precautionary' measure.

Today it was reported that the suspect had been freed and told there is no impediment to him leaving Spain despite being the subject of an ongoing homicide investigation.

Local reports said the investigating judge was probing the theory he had thrown Mrs Maxwell to her death or intimidated her into jumping out of fright after she ended up the apartment he was sharing with four other male friends by mistake.

Sources close to the investigation said initially there was no evidence pointing to Mrs Maxwell's death being the result of a criminal act and described the arrest as a 'precautionary' measure

The mens' flat was directly above the apartment where Mrs Maxwell was staying with other hen-do pals.

Well-placed sources have already revealed the Scot, who wed her long-term partner Adam in September, ended up in the apartment after leaving her flat dressed but barefoot and being let in by the suspect.

They have also said that the five men in the flat, all British holidaymakers who were questioned after Mrs Maxwell's death along with nine other people including the dead woman's hen-do friends, had admitted to taking drugs as well as drinking large amounts of alcohol.

They had reportedly just snorted lines of cocaine when Mrs Maxwell appeared unexpectedly on the scene.

Investigators are working on the theory that Mrs Maxwell became disorientated after waking up and leaving her apartment to go and see a friend, possibly to ask for medicine because she felt unwell after her night out drinking.

She is understood to have been filmed by a friend asleep in bed around 7.50am, but disappeared minutes later, leaving her keys and mobile phone in her apartment.

Respected Costa Blanca daily Diario Informacion reported the investigating judge rejected a remand request by a private criminal lawyer hired by Mrs Maxwell's family, and instead released the suspect without charge - and with no travel ban which would stop him returning to the UK - despite deciding to continue probing him on suspicion of homicide.

A reconstruction of the events leading up to the tragedy is already understood to have taken place and a second more detailed reconstruction is expected to be ordered as part of the judicial investigation.

A reconstruction of the events leading up to the tragedy is already understood to have taken place and a second more detailed reconstruction is expected to be ordered as part of the judicial investigation. Mr and Mrs Maxwell are pictured above

This morning, the defence lawyer of the arrested man confirmed his client was being probed on suspicion of homicide but had been released without charge as part of an ongoing investigation.

Roberto Sanchez said he believed the holidaymaker had committed no wrongdoing and would be fighting to clear his name, but admitted the probe could take several months to reach its conclusion. He said: 'I firmly believe in my client's innocence.'

The British tourist is still in Spain but was due to fly back to Britain today.

The fact he opened the door to Mrs Maxwell and had most contact with her in the brief time she was in the wrong apartment - as well as being accused of a sex crime in the UK in the past which Spanish sources said today did not end with a criminal conviction - is believed to have motivated his arrest.

Mr Sanchez said his client was insisting all he did was ask Mrs Maxwell to leave after she knocked on the door of the apartment he was staying in with friends, walked in, went into the bathroom, tried to climb out of a small window and then jumped off the balcony after passing through the living room.

Kirsty Maxwell (left with her husband), 27, from Livingston, West Lothian, died early on Saturday morning after plunging from a tenth-floor apartment in the Costa Blanca resort of Benidorm after a night out to celebrate a friend's hen-do

Insisting there were no physical signs of a struggle on either Joseph or Mrs Maxwell, he said he believed the investigating judge had two options - a homicide charge or archiving the investigation - and he would be fighting for the latter.

The only conditions imposed on Joseph by the investigating judge was that he agree to abide by any future court requests, which could involve a fresh quiz or reconstruction, and keep the court informed of his address in the UK as well as leaving a correspondence address in Spain which is his lawyer's office.

The investigating judge is a woman called Ana Garcia Isabel Galbis, who today turned down a request from Mr Sanchez to have the case archived but also rejected a request from Mrs Maxwell's family lawyer to have Joseph remanded in custody.

The court has been given CCTV footage showing Mrs Maxwell's fall although it is understood the cameras are focused on the swimming pool area and not on the balcony she plunged from.

Official court sources confirmed today that the British man held on suspicion of homicide had been released from custody.

They said: 'Criminal Court of Investigation number 4 in Benidorm on Monday agreed to release the man who had been held, with the requirement that he appears before the judge every time he is required to do so.

'Only a lawyer acting for the dead woman's family asked for him to be jailed. The state prosecutor opposed the application.

Mrs Maxwell was staying in the Apartamentos Payma block (pictured) with a group of around 35 female friends before plunging to her death from the tenth floor

'The man in question is being investigated as part of proceedings to clarify the circumstances in which the woman died. The crime being investigated is not specified as part of these proceedings.

'The results of the police investigation - forwarded to the court - and the preliminary autopsy point to the victim throwing herself to her death.

'There are no current indications of the participation of other people.'

Mrs Maxwell married her partner, Adam, only in September last year. Her young husband now faces the cruel task of having to arrange for his wife's body to be brought home from Scotland.

On social media, family and friends uploaded pictures of Mrs Maxwell - some of her in her wedding gown - and posted tributes to an 'amazing, beautiful girl'.

One friend wrote on Twitter: 'RIP Kirsty Maxwell can't believe what happened, such a shame you had such a big future ahead of you.'

Penny Vidler wrote on Facebook that Mrs Maxwell was 'Such a beautiful girl,' while Maggie Curran said, 'Beautiful inside and out, so loved.'

Natalie Beech added that Mrs Maxwell was 'Such an amazing girl taken too soon.'

And Elaine Urquhart said: 'So sorry to hear this about such a beautiful lady gonna miss you.'

Mr Maxwell changed his Facebook cover photograph to an image of him at his wedding, showing his bride in a stunning lace gown, alongside Mr Maxwell's brother, Paul, and his partner, Nicole Douglas.

Friends set up a JustGiving page saying: 'We are aiming to raise as much money as we can to bring our beautiful friend Kirsty home to where she belongs after this terrible tragedy.. as little or as much you can give will be hugely appreciated by the family.. everyone who knew her would have a loving story to tell about her beautiful life.. thank you x'

The Foreign Office confirmed it was helping the young woman's family following the fatal incident on the Costa Blanca, a favourite of British tourists.

The Foreign Office confirmed it was helping the young woman's family following the fatal incident on the Costa Blanca, a favourite of British tourists

Mrs Maxwell's family are thought to have hired a private lawyer to represent their interests, as in Spain, lawyers hired by relatives of the alleged victim of a crime can conduct a parallel prosecution to the one mounted by a state lawyer

Mrs Maxwell's family are thought to have hired a private lawyer to represent their interests, as in Spain, lawyers hired by relatives of the alleged victim of a crime can conduct a parallel prosecution to the one mounted by a state lawyer.

Michael Harvey, who runs a bar opposite the apartments, said: 'It's tragic and everyone's hearts go out to the girl and her family. It's something you never want to hear. I came to work in the morning and saw camera crews here. I had left work at five in the morning and it happened at about 8am.

'Once we find out the name and the finer details it would be nice to have a memorial for her.'

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We are supporting the family of a British national who sadly died in Benidorm on April 29.'

Regarding the initial arrest, he added: 'We are in contact with the local authorities following the arrest of a British man.'

Michael Harvey, 27, who owns a bar across from the building, told MailOnline: 'It's a very safe and popular building.

'Nothing like this has happened before so it's a bit of a shock really, it's a bit of a shame.

'There is a lot of partying going on but at the end of the day it's Spain and you've got all day to enjoy yourselves.

'Some of the clubs don't close until seven or eight in the morning and it's a very popular destination for the younger crowd so you're going to see more and more drinking.

Police now suspect the unnamed woman may have taken her own life after interviewing her friends and other tourists staying in the block, according to local reports. Pictured above, a file photo of Benidorm Beach

'We had an event last night in the club next door and I left there at 5am this morning.

'The door that I use into the club is literally 10-15 steps away from the entrance to the apartments so if anything peculiar was going on I would have seen it or heard it.

'I think it's just been a terrible, terrible mishap and some poor girl's obviously lost her life and I really do feel sorry for her.'

Last November supermarket worker Danielle Hall, 21, from Newcastle, plunged to her death in the resort after losing her balance on her ninth-floor hotel balcony.

She had travelled to Benidorm to take part in Benidorm's festivities with her boyfriend Jordan Bevan, 23, and his gran.

Danielle's family said in a statement afterwards: 'Danielle was an outgoing and friendly girl who will be greatly missed by all her family and friends.

'She loved children and animals, especially horses and dogs. She enjoyed helping on the family farm, especially at lambing time.'
An Adelaide woman and her five children became ill overnight when coral inside the family's fish tank caused a chemical reaction.

Emergency crews were called to the family's home on Sunday Boulevard in the city's south at 2am after gases were released into the air.

The family-of-seven was rushed to Flinders Medical Centre but are reported to be in stable condition, according to The Advertiser.

Scroll down for video

An Adelaide home has been cordoned off and a family-of-seven have been rushed to hospital after coral in their fish tank triggered a chemical reaction

The family is believed to have 'liberated the spores' of coral they were trying to clean from their fish tank

Firefighters cordoned off the property and closed the street on Tuesday morning as they waited for specialists chemical experts to arrive to determine what sort of gases are in the air.

The family is believed to have 'liberated the spores' of coral they were trying to clean off the tank, County Fire Service regional officer Peter Phillips said.

The spores caused a chemical reaction, CFS SA Hazardous Materials specialist Sam Quigley said.

'We're on a bit of a fact-finding mission as this is a very peculiar incident to us as well,' he told ABC radio.

'It's a very unusual job for us, we haven't come across something like this in South Australia.'

A SA Metropolitan Fire Service spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia emergency crews are also talking with a marine biologist about how to clean up the spores.

Authorities have not yet entered the home, but hazmat specialists found noxious gases inside, according to The Advertiser.
Desperate couples sold extra treatments by fertility clinics are risking miscarriage, premature birth and kidney failure, a report warns.

Couples are often convinced by private doctors to pay for add-ons such as medication to activate their eggs, glue to stick embryos to the womb or egg yolk drips to suppress the immune system.

But some of these add-ons  which cost up to 3,500  can actually harm a womans chances of becoming pregnant.

Desperate couples sold extra treatments by fertility clinics are risking miscarriage, premature birth and kidney failure, a report warns (Stock image)

They are also putting their health at risk, potentially damaging their kidneys and causing septicaemia, according to a report on the top-up procedures by the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

The chairman of the fertility regulator, whose committee produced the draft report, is now questioning whether private clinics should be allowed to charge for such add-on treatments.

Sally Cheshire claimed it was not the right thing to bill desperate people for procedures without any scientific evidence behind them.

The report focuses on nine add-on treatments and rates them with traffic light colours according to how safe they are.

The final ratings will be published in the coming weeks but the Mail has seen the initial findings of an expert adviser.

This includes no green lights, meaning none of the procedures are backed by any high quality evidence that they work.

The regulator warns of a risk of miscarriage from artificial egg activation in which a womans egg is stimulated with chemicals to mimic the trigger for embryo development when it meets sperm.

The report of its scientific committee says: In theory, egg activation using calcium ionophores could cause embryos to have abnormal numbers of chromosomes, which would cause the pregnancy to miscarry.

Assisted hatching, in which clinics use acid and lasers to help the embryo hatch from a thick layer of proteins, risks damaging it. So does pre-implantation screening, used to check for abnormalities that can cause Downs syndrome.

Damage to an embryo can end a pregnancy because it then fails to develop properly, preventing it becoming a baby in the womb.

Worryingly, the HFEA warns that this screening can show up non-existent problems. The committee also warns that a process known as an endometrial scratch can give women harmful infections. The procedure involves scratching the lining of the womb to give an embryo a furrow it can nestle in.

Couples are often convinced by private doctors to pay for add-ons such as medication to activate their eggs, glue to stick embryos to the womb or egg yolk drips to suppress the immune system (Stock image)

The regulator also rubbished immunology treatment to stop a womans body rejecting her child because it is genetically different.

The complete lack of convincing evidence that it works comes with serious risks such as kidney failure, blood clots, septicaemia and premature birth from three kinds of drugs offered by clinics.

These include intralipid infusions, which contain egg yolk, soybean oil, glycerine and water and are used to suppress the immune system. The committee recommends red traffic lights for four add-on IVF treatments with little or no published evidence to support them and four amber ones for which there is only moderate evidence.

Speaking last month at an event held by the Progress Educational Trust charity, Mrs Cheshire called for more clinical trials, adding: If you are asking a patient to pay for a treatment that is not proven when they are absolutely desperate, then I dont think thats the right thing to do, and I will put my hand up and say we need to be really careful about that.

The report follows an expose by the BBCs Panorama last year in which academics concluded 26 out of 27 treatments were of no benefit. After looking at a decade of research, an independent reviewer consulted by the HFEA recommended that four treatments be downgraded to red or amber because of a lack of evidence.

The industrys defence is that some procedures probably do work, but that trials simply cannot get funding to test them properly.

Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: We should be focusing on making sure patients are fully informed about the treatments that clinics are offering, the current evidence for benefit and whether there are any side-effects or risks.

And they charge hundreds of pounds more for drugs you can buy at Asda

By Science Correspondent

Private IVF clinics are selling fertility drugs to couples for hundreds of pounds more than high street chemists.

Clinics are adding a mark-up of as much as 370 compared to Boots or Asda, which prescribe the drugs at cost price.

The Herts and Essex Fertility Centre charges 1,247 for three drugs routinely prescribed to women on IVF. But the same prescriptions in the same quantities cost 876.72 at Boots or 929.22 at Asda.

Couples who buy drugs from the clinics may have no idea they are paying over the odds or that they can get them elsewhere.

Last night, experts accused the clinics of exploitation, calling the way they charge for IVF drugs a complete racket.

Greater numbers of women are being forced to go private for treatment as the NHS cuts back on the number of free IVF cycles they can have.

They are prescribed drugs that stimulate the ovaries to release eggs, which are then harvested by doctors to create an embryo.

But they may not know that the prescription can be taken to a pharmacy instead of being provided by their clinic. The cost of one drug, Gonal-F, is 756.60 at Boots for the typical 2,700 units needed  but 1,116 at the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre.

Create Fertility, which has clinics around the country, charges 900, although it only offers natural or mild IVF requiring around half as much of the drug.

HOW PRICES ROCKET The cost of a basket of three drugs, including 2,700 units of Gonal-F, 250mcg of Ovitrelle, and four packs containing 15 Cyclogest doses of 400mg, varies by up to 370... Boots 876.72 Lister Fertility Clinic 883.47 Asda 929.22 Herts & Essex Fertility Centre 1,247 Advertisement

Gonal-F, at 2,700 units, added to a 250microgram injection of Ovitrelle to trigger ovulation, and four 15-packs of cyclogest, a hormone to thicken the lining of the womb and maintain pregnancy, come in at 876.72 at Boots. The price is 929.22 at Asda, 975 at Create Fertility, 883.47 at the Lister Fertility Clinic in London and 1,247 at the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre.

The London Womens Clinic charges 1,100 to patients at its Harley Street, Kent and Essex branches for these three drugs, plus Orgalutran, which prevents ovulation until the clinic can collect a womans eggs.

While its mark-up is lower, that still comes in at just over 20 more than the charge for the four drugs at Boots and Asda.

The price for all four drugs at the Lister Clinic is 1,176.70  almost 100 more than the high street stores.

IVF expert Dr John Parsons, a retired consultant at Kings College Hospital who worked on the first IVF births, said: Some private clinics will dispense the drugs themselves, with a whopping great mark-up.

People do not realise the extra costs being added to their bill. It is a complete racket.

An Asda worker told the Mail that customers had reported clinics charging up to 540 extra for Gonal-F.

Susan Seenan, chief executive of the Fertility Network UK charity, said: It is of great concern to hear that some private clinics are imposing an exorbitant mark-up on the cost price of necessary fertility drugs.

Professor Geeta Nargund, medical director at Create Fertility, said the prices compared did not apply to its IVF, which is mild or natural, using few or no drugs that can be bought elsewhere, adding: Our priority is to provide treatment at a fair cost.

Boots said: The cost of fertility medicines varies and depends entirely on the individuals treatment and dosage required.

Asda declined to comment.

Herts & Essex Fertility Centre said it was transparent about prices and staff were happy for patients to buy drugs from a pharmacy elsewhere. It said it did not have the buying power of big retailers such as Asda.

A spokesman added: We supply drugs to our patients with needles, syringes and sharps boxes, which are not supplied by supermarket pharmacies.

The London Womens Clinic said: We endeavour to make our prices as affordable as possible. Our medication is sourced from the manufacturer so patients can be confident of its quality, traceability and safety.

A Lister Fertility Clinic spokesman said: We aim to offer competitively priced drugs. There is no obligation to buy them from us.
Britons visiting Mallorca may be banned from all-inclusives hotels because of the multi-million pound cost of false food poisoning claims.

Hoteliers say they are totally fed up with having to pay out as much as 5,000 a time for bogus cases and feel drastic action may be the only way forward.

The claims have reportedly rocketed 700 per cent over the last year and hotel owners claim they may have paid out as much as 42million over the last 18 months.

Britons visiting Mallorca may be banned from all-inclusives hotels because of the multi-million pound cost of false food poisoning claims. Stock image

The Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca says it has pre-warned tour operators about the potential ban in advance of the 2018 season.

'The only way to address this once and for all is by taking drastic measures.,' the group's president Inmaculada Benito has told Spanish newspaper Diario de Hora.

The Federation has been complaining about the false food claims for a year and a half and has held meetings with the Secretary of State for Tourism and the British Embassy in Spain. To date, there has been no change in the law.

However, the British Government is understood to be preparing measures which would include fining any British holidaymaker who puts in a false claim, alleging they contracted food poisoning during a stay in a Spanish hotel. The move is due to be announced shortly.

The Mallorca Federation says tour operators also seem to be changing their stance and many are looking to different markets, such as the French, Swiss and Dutch, in order to fill the gap left by Brits if they are banned.

The claims are being led by so-called British 'law firms' who are exploiting legal loopholes and are touring hotspots in vans or sending representatives to stop tourists outside their hotels or even approach them on the beaches.

The situation is reaching epidemic proportions and is expected to get worse this summer.

Hoteliers in Mallorca estimate they have paid out more than 50 million euros in damages over the last 18 months.

Hoteliers say they are totally fed up with having to pay out as much as 5,000 a time for bogus cases and feel drastic action may be the only way forward. Stock image

Some hotels, including ones in the Canary Islands, are considering asking guests to sign disclaimer forms at the end of their stay to confirm they did not get food poisoning during their stay. Many others have stepped up checks and vigilance.

Some chemists in Spain are being asked not to sell stomach upset remedies to British holidaymakers.

The food poisoning scam, involving thousands of pounds worth of compensation per customer, is now sweeping across all parts of Spain, including the Costa Sol, Dorada and Blanca.

One furious hotel owner has revealed a 5,000 pay-out for each for five members of the same family for alleged gastroenteritis after eating in its restaurant during their holiday.

It's a scandal. Just saying that they have become ill is worth it for them Hotelier from Salou

'It's a scandal. Just saying that they have become ill is worth it for them, ' said the hotelier from Salou. 'Strangely, they were the only ones who got sick despite the fact that the hotel was practically full.' In a bid to curb the claims, hoteliers in Benidorm have already asked chemists not to sell any sort of tummy upset cures to Brits unless they have a prescription.

As the law stands at the moment, only a receipt for a gastroenteritis product is necessary in order to file a claim once the holidaymakers are back in the UK. The local hotel association wants to force anyone allegedly sick to go to the doctor which, it is hoped, will be a deterrent as this will cost them money or a claim on their insurance.

In some areas, false food poisining claims are said to have soared by as much as 700 per cent from last year and with the summer season now looming, there are fears of another epidemic.

Benidorm is one of the British favourites most affected by the scam with around 10,000 claims so far.

Claims, particularly at all-inclusives, have reportedly rocketed 700 per cent over the last year and hotel owners claim they may have paid out as much as 42million over the last 18 months

The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (Cehat) is pressurising the government of the United Kingdom to take action.

Hoteliers say the vast majority of the claims are false but it is easier for them to pay out rather than to fight the case in the courts.

The Spanish hotel industry is estimating the cost to them at 'millions of euros'.

'In many cases, they do not even present official medical evidence of the supposed illnesses caught in the hotels,' said a spokesman. 'They only report that they have become ill from some food poisoning and ask for compensation.' Hotel owners on the Costa Dorada say they feel 'totally defenceless'.

It is also being reported that the representatives of the so-called 'vulture lawyers' are searching social network sites to find pictures of people who have been on holiday in Spain and are approaching them direct to make claims.

The method used is to give standard forms to holidaymakers, saying they caught a tummy bug from their hotel. The average payout is around 6,000 euros.

In some areas, police are being called in because the law firm representatives do not have licences to 'sell' on the street or are harrassing holidaymakers.
Anyone who drives at night knows the problem. An approaching car rounds a bend or crests a hill and a dazzling glare fills the windscreen and you cant see.

It is extremely frightening and several seconds may elapse before your night vision recovers  putting your own life and those of other road users in danger.

The phenomenon is being blamed on carmakers fitting ever more powerful headlights as a safety marketing feature. But research shows that because of the basic mechanics of our eyes, the older you are, the easier it is to be temporarily blinded.

Headlight glare is involved in more accidents and deaths, according to government figures

The danger first arose when soft yellow halogen headlamps (which produce light when a filament is heated) began to be superseded by stronger Xenon or High Intensity Discharge (HID) lights in the early Nineties. These produce a harsh blue light that is typically twice as bright.

An even brighter generation of Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights started to appear in 2006. These work by passing an electric current through a capsule of gas or via electromagnetic energy and are fitted to a lot of new cars.

Headlight glare is involved in more accidents and deaths, according to government figures.

One factor contributing to accidents that British police record is dazzling headlamps.

In 2014, investigators reported this as an influence in ten fatal crashes, nearly 70 serious accidents and more than 250 other accidents. Overall, this was an increase of 11 per cent on 2010.

Campaigners say glare may cause many more minor accidents, which are often unattended by police and go unrecorded.

Roy Milnes, 70, from Pwllheli, North Wales, runs the pressure group Lightmare, which is campaigning to have light levels from modern headlights lowered. We get thousands of complaints, he says. The brightness has gone beyond human endurance.

Glare can even cause a pain-like reaction, according to Dr Peter Heilig, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Vienna.

Glare sends a warning signal to the brain that says Stop!  he says. It is comparable to the pain signal you get when you suddenly overstrain a joint. In response, you may wince or even inadvertently shut your eyes.

Are modern headlights really so much worse? Yes, says Professor Heilig. The stark blue light has much higher energy  ie, it looks much brighter  than halogen bulbs, due to it having a much shorter wavelength.

One factor contributing to accidents that British police record is dazzling headlamps

The effect of the glare of modern lights is greater as we grow older, according to John Marshall, professor of ophthalmology at University College London.

The main problem is light scatter. The eyes lens and cornea are not perfectly clear, so when bright light is shone through them, some gets scattered around the inside of the eye, making images blurred or blank.

It is the same effect you get from trying to look at a bright light through a misted-up windscreen, says Professor Marshall. The older you are, the more changes you get, even to healthy eyes, such as the lens and cornea becoming less clear, so the more problems you will have seeing clearly.

At night your pupil opens wider to let in more light, and when your eye meets a headlamp you get more scatter and cant see.

Disability glare, when light is scattered inside the eye, was identified in 1927. That it is exacerbated by modern headlamps was discovered ten years ago in a report by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This found it can take as long as ten seconds to recover fully.

Car-makers have tried fitting HID lamps with beam-focusing lenses and self-levelling systems, which aim to angle beams down to prevent cars blinding oncoming drivers when cresting hills.

But Rob Marshall, a technical adviser with the UK road safety organisation GEM Motoring Assist, warns these systems are less than perfect: They take time to react, so an oncoming driver can be blinded temporarily.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders maintains there is no evidence that factory fitted high-power lights distract drivers and that lamp-levelling technology ensures they are safe.

It adds that they are particularly important on poorly lit roads.

But the Government acknowledges there may be a problem. The Department for Transport says the UK has won agreement for a glare group as part of the United Nations expert group on vehicle lighting.

The group is set to produce results at the end of this year. However, it is so far only considering standards for the next generation of LED headlamps  ie, those not already in use.

In the meantime, Professor Marshall suggests drivers might consider wearing clear glasses  prescription or not  with a UV-absorbent coating, available from High Street opticians.

You can only tell that spectacles have this coating because they have a slight blue sheen, he says. I wear them myself.
Victims of IRA bombs made with Semtex supplied by Colonel Gaddafi have endured two decades of failure from government, MPs declared last night.

They should be in line for compensation worth millions of pounds but have been let down by successive regimes, said a damning report.

Tony Blair was accused of missing one chance to secure payouts at the time of his 2004 Deal in the Desert when Gaddafi was brought back in from the cold.

MPs declared that victims of IRA bombs made with Semtex supplied by Colonel Gaddafi have endured two decades of failure from government

Another opportunity was by the Coalition in 2011 after the fall of the tyrant, said the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

It warned time is running out for many injured and bereaved victims who have endured massive human suffering with little support.

After the election, Ministers should seek a deal with the Libyan government, said the MPs. If this was not possible, then the UK Government should set up its own compensation fund.

Chairman Laurence Robertson, said this litany of missed chances must not continue.

The report details how over 25 years from the early 1970s, the Gaddafi regime supplied arms, funding and Semtex to the IRA.

The deadly explosive was used in attacks including Enniskillen in 1987 and Docklands in 1996.

The US, France and Germany gained multimillion-pound settlements for citizens impacted by Libyan-directed terrorism.
Sean Hannity says he is not trying to negotiate a way out of his contract at Fox News following the resignation of co-president Bill Shine.

Reports emerged on Monday that Hannity was looking to quit after Shine, who was a long-time ally of the Fox News host, announced he was stepping down.

Sources told the Independent Journal Review he was 'not negotiating' for a departure, which Hannity then confirmed on Twitter.

Hannity tweeted a link to the story and wrote: 'If I have anything to say about @FoxNews I will say it tonight at 10 est. All I'll say now is this is true.'

Sean Hannity says he is not trying to negotiate a way out of his contract at Fox News following the resignation of co-president Bill Shine

It had earlier been reported that Hannity wanted to get out of his contract, which supposedly allowed him to leave if Shine ever left Fox.

Hannity - host of his The Sean Hannity Show - has fired off a number of tweets in recent days referencing meetings with his lawyers.

He had launched a passionate Twitter defense of Shine last week when speculation was rife that his time at the network was coming to an end.

The polarizing host tweeted on Thursday afternoon amid rumors Shine was losing support from the Murdochs - particularly Rupert's sons James and Lachlan.

New York Magazine cited a source close to Shine - who has been with Fox News since its inception - as saying he was 'expressing concern about his future at the network.'

The magazine's writer, Gabriel Sherman, claimed in the piece James and Lachlan Murdoch have refused to publicly back Shine.

Hannity tweeted on Monday afternoon confirmation he was not trying to negotiate out of his Fox News contract

Hannity fired off a series of tweets on Thursday afternoon amid rumors Bill Shine (pictured on April 13) was potentially losing support from the Murdochs - particularly James and Lachlan

They also ignored his request to release a statement supporting him.

Responding to the article, Hannity tweeted at Sherman: 'Gabe i pray this is NOT true because if it is, that's the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done. Best Sean.'

The host then continued to discuss the story, even going as far as to claim Shine was being sabotaged by someone within Fox News.

'Somebody HIGH UP AND INSIDE FNC is trying to get an innocent person fired. And Gabe I KNOW WHO it is. Best Sean.

'I'll change it. #Istandwithshine.'

Shine had reportedly become an unpopular figure at the network in recent weeks, following the ouster of Bill O'Reilly amid a new sex scandal at the right-wing network.

Women were reportedly planning to circulate a petition calling for Shine to be fired before he stepped down Monday, a source told New York Magazine.

Shine, who has been at the company since its launch in 1996 and is described as Murdoch's 'right-hand man', reportedly walked into his boss's office around 9am Monday morning and said: 'What are we doing here?'

Then the two worked out an exit deal, New York Magazine's Gabe Sherman reports.

'Sadly, Bill Shine resigned today. I know Bill was respected and liked by everybody at Fox News. We will all miss him,' Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, said in a memo to staff.

Hannity posted his series of tweets on Thursday night in direct response to the New York Magazine article

Shine has been accused in the past of helping cover up former president Roger Ailes conduct towards Fox News employees by 'silencing and smearing women who complained,' Media Matters reported.

He was also named in former Fox News personality Andrea Tantaros' lawsuit against network executives, who she said operated Fox News 'like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult'.

This comes exactly a week after Shine had a lunch meeting with Murdoch and his co-president, Jack Abernethy.

Shine was promoted to the position of co-president last August, after longtime president Roger Ailes resigned amid a sex scandal.

Since then, Shine has had to deal with the loss of Megyn Kelly to rival NBC News as well as the O'Reilly sexual harassment allegations. O'Reilly was forced out of his job last month, while on vacation.

'I pray this is NOT true because if it is, that's the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done,' Hannity (pictured) wrote in response to an allegation Shine could be on his way out

Rupert Murdoch, second from left, leaves a Manhattan restaurant with Fox News co-presidents Jack Abernethy, second from right, and Bill Shine, right, on Monday, April 24

Shine reportedly advocated to keep O'Reilly, against those gunning for him to go - Murdoch's sons Lachlan and James.

Douglas H. Wigdor, an attorney representing three black women who claim they were racially discriminated at the company, took the news as a win for his clients.

'While long overdue, we are pleased that 21st Century Fox has taken a step in the right direction by permitting Bill Shine to resign and that our recent court filings apparently influenced that decision. Much more needs to be done, however, including holding Dianne Brandi [EVP of business and legal affairs] accountable for permitting a known racist to prey upon our clients and acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the harm our clients have and continue to suffer,' Wigdor said.

Shine's position will now be split between two longtime Fox News executives.

Suzanne Scott, Fox's executive vice president for programming and development, will now be president of programming, while Jay Wallace, EVP of news and editorial, will be president of news.
Actors refused to be involved in a controversial show about the future reign of Prince Charles in case it damaged their chances of receiving an honour.

King Charles III, due to be screened on BBC2 on May 10, shows the funeral of Queen Elizabeth and the ghost of Princess Diana.

The series is based on a popular West End play of the same name, which imagines Prince Charles as king.

The cast of controversial BBC drama King Charles III, featuring Richard Goulding as Prince Harry, Tim Pigott-Smith as King Charles III, Charlotte Riley as Kate Middleton, Margot Leicester as Camilla and Oliver Chris as Prince William

Richard Goulding as Harry, lying on the lap of Tamara Lawrence as Jessica, in the drama. Its director, Rupert Goold, claims that many actors were not interested in the project because they feared it would affect their future relationship with the honours system

Rupert Goold, who directed both the stage and television adaptations, said some actors did not want to be involved with the project, which has already attracted criticism for its subject matter.

Speaking to Radio Times, he said: Even with the stage version, wed been through long conversations with lawyers and certain actors refusing to be involved because of how it might affect their future relationship with the honours system.

The series stars the late Tim Pigott-Smith, who also played Charles in the stage adaptation. It will show Prince William (played by Oliver Chris) and the Duchess of Cambridge (Charlotte Riley) as they plot against the king, with Kate goading her husband to seize the throne.

Mr Gould, pictured, said that there were 'long conversations' with lawyers over the drama

The drama ends with Charless abdication and Williams coronation.

Miss Riley said: I prefer to see her actions as pragmatic, her business-brain understanding that the Royal Family has to remain relevant to the public.

Chris said the scene where he speaks to Princess Dianas ghost was pretty shocking stuff. He added: I hope its done with enough intelligence and sensitivity not to be gratuitous. Im very conscious that its a real person. Richard Goulding will play Prince Harry, with republican girlfriend Jess Edwards (Tamara Lawrance). The play was written before Prince Harry met Meghan Markle, so she is not part of the script.

Pigott-Smith, who died last month aged 70, did not fall out of favour with the royals for his role, receiving an OBE for services to drama after the plays London stage run. Goold has also received an honour, being given a CBE for his drama work.
Generous parents are set to contribute towards 26 per cent of property transactions in the UK this year  or 298,000 deals.

In total, parents will stump up over 6.5billion to help their children buy a new home in 2017.

That is up from 5billion last year, according to the report by Legal and General and the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

Generous parents are set to contribute towards 26 per cent of property transactions in the UK this year  or 298,000 deals. Stock image

The Bank of Mum and Dad is now on a par with the ninth largest mortgage lender in the UK, Yorkshire Building Society, in terms of the amount of money extended to buy property.

The figures underline just how dependent young families have become on older generations to get on the housing ladder after years of rising house prices and muted wage growth.

Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, said: The Bank of Mum and Dad continues to grow in importance in helping young people take their early steps onto the housing ladder.

The intergenerational inequality that creates the demand for Bank of Mum and Dad funding continues to widen  younger people today dont have the same opportunities that the baby-boomers had, including affordable housing, defined benefit pensions and free university education.

Parents want to help their kids get on in life, and the Bank of Mum and Dad is a testament to their generosity, but it is also a symptom of our broken housing market.

The Bank of Mum and Dad is now on a par with the ninth largest mortgage lender in the UK, Yorkshire Building Society, in terms of the amount of money extended to buy property

He added: The UK is experiencing a crisis in housing  we are simply not building enough houses. We need to build more homes for the young, old and families alike  more quickly and cost effectively.

As well as providing much needed new properties, it will also deliver economic growth and new jobs.

The amount of money spent by parents on homes for their children is set to rise from an average of 17,500 last year to 21,600 this year, according to the report.

Parents in the South West of England are the most generous, providing 30,000 of financial support per transaction  even more than the 29,400 offered in London. Welsh parents give the least  some 12,500.

But only 40 per cent of parents provide equal financial support for their children.

Mr Wilson said: The problem is getting worse, not better. Bank of Mum and Dad funding is growing exponentially. This is not a good thing. We need real action to fix the housing market and restore affordability for all.
An FBI interpreter with top clearance traveled to Syria and married the ISIS terrorist she had been assigned to investigate.

In an exclusive report, CNN News unravels the strange case of FBI interpreter Daniela Greene, 38, who went to Syria in 2014 and married the brutal terrorist who had appeared in ISIS propaganda videos holding human heads.

Her husband was Germany-born Denis Cuspert, who rapped under the name Deso Dogg. In Syria, he was known as Abu Talha al-Almani.

Rogue FBI interpreer Daniela Greene, 38 (above), did two years in prison after secretly marrying an ISIS terrorist

Denis Cuspert, (left) known as Abu Talha al-Almani, married an American FBI agent, who fled their relationship after a month

He was considered one of the most violent operatives in Syria, including singing songs of praise to Osama bin Laden, threatening Barack Obama with a throat cutting gesture, and holding a bloody head in a recruiting video.

Within weeks of their marriage, Greene, born in Czechoslovakia and raised in Germany, realized marrying Cuspert was a mistake and fled back to the US, where she was arrested and eventually served two years in prison.

Greene spent two years in prison, much less than the average ISIS sympathizer spends

Greene grew up in Germany and worked for the FBI as an interpreter - she as put on the case of a German terrorist who had joined ISIS, who would go on to become her short-lived husband

She pleaded guilty to making false statements about terrorism and agreed to help the FBI. She was released last summer. Critics say the FBI went light on her, and even people who merely tried to join ISIS have served much longer terms.

CNN said Americans convicted of crimes involving ISIS have served, on average, slightly over 13 years in prison.

'It's a stunning embarrassment for the FBI, no doubt about it,' John Kirby, a former State Department official, told CNN.

He said that an American woman getting into Syria and working her way into the inner sanctum of ISIS, she would have had to have been preapproved by its leaders.

When reached by CNN, Greene only said 'If I talk to you my family will be in danger.'

'She was just a well-meaning person that got up in something way over her head,' said her attorney, Shawn Moore.

Cuspert, above, was a rapper in Germany before he became known for his terror videos for ISIS recruitment, including ones in which he held up freshly-cut off heads

Greene moved to the US as a young adult who'd married an American soldier, and attended college at Cameron University in Oklahoma and graduate school at Clemson University.

In 2011, Dani, as she was nicknamed, became a contract linguist for the FBI.

In January 2014, she was put on the case of a German terrorist known as 'Individual A,' who was Cuspert.

Cuspert was a rapper who had middling success in Germany under the name Deso Dogg, and whose career highlight was opening for rapper DMX in 2006.

In 2010, a near death experience in a car accident saw him quit rapping and turn to Islam. He rapidly accelerated to radicalization, and in 2013, entered Syria.

Meanwhile, Greene, as part of her job, was tracking Cuspert's communications and gained access to several of his online accounts and phone numbers. One Skype number she kept sole access to.

On June 2014, Greene she told the FBI she was going on vacation to visit her family in Germany.

Instead, she flew to Turkey and then Gaziantep, near the Syrian border.

There, she met up with Cuspert and married him, despite still being married to her American soldier husband.

However, by July, the honeymoon period was over. She emailed a friend saying she was having second thoughts.

'I was weak and didn't know how to handle anything anymore. I really made a mess of things this time,' she wrote.

The next day, she continued: 'I am gone and I can't come back. I wouldn't even know how to make it through, if I tried to come back. I am in a very harsh environment and I don't know how long I will last here, but it doesn't matter, it's all a little too late...'

By the end of the month, she was saying 'I wish I could turn back time some days' and how if she returned, she would go to prison.

Meanwhile, her new husband was seen on video beating a corpse with a sandal.

In August, Greene was somehow able to get out of Syria and back to the US, where she was arrested.

In a case that was largely kept sealed and private, Greene pleaded guilty in December and was sentenced to two years in prison.

In October 2015, the Pentagon said Cuspert was killed in an air strike, but nine months later, decided he was alive after all.
The Co-op is to end the sale of imported fresh meat at its stores, including New Zealand lamb, in a drive to back British farmers.

It is adopting a Buy British approach to all fresh meat purchases in an effort to reverse imports, which have doubled over the past 20 years to more than 6billion a year.

The move comes at the same time as research that has found shoppers want to support British brands and products following the Brexit vote.

The Co-op is to end the sale of imported fresh meat at its stores, including New Zealand lamb, in a drive to back British farmers

British farmers operate to high animal welfare standards and have often been undercut by foreign producers which are less rigorous.

Now, the Co-op, which is the UKs sixth-largest food chain, is to throw its financial muscle behind farmers in this country.

The retail giant has 2,500 stores, and has said the claims of other stores to back British farming using flags and posters were often little more than window dressing.

The company claimed it will be the first major retailer to switch all fresh meat  including the meat used in ready meals and sandwiches  to 100 per cent British.

It has called on more supermarkets, fast food chains and restaurants to back homegrown goods.

The move makes economic sense at a time when the pound has fallen in value against other currencies, which has made imports more expensive.

Research by the Co-op shows that the value of meat coming into the country from the EU and elsewhere has risen from 3billion to 6.2billion.

More than 5billion worth of meat is now shipped in from other EU states. Countries in Asia and Australasia account for 804million worth of imports, followed by Latin America at 345million.

Ireland is the biggest beneficiary of EU meat trade with the UK, with 1.45billion of meat arriving in the UK from across the Irish Sea.

It is adopting a Buy British approach to all fresh meat purchases in an effort to reverse imports, which have doubled over the past 20 years to more than 6billion a year (Stock image)

The Co-op already only sells British beef, chicken, ham, pork, sausages, duck and turkey and only uses British meat in all its own-label chilled ready meals, pies and sandwiches.

It will go further from today and sell only 100 per cent British bacon and lamb  dropping Danish bacon and New Zealand lamb.

Almost a tenth of all meat imports come from Denmark, which exports 550million of meat into Britain each year, while New Zealand lamb accounts for 291million worth of UK imports.

Chief executive of the National Pig Association, Zoe Davies, called for other supermarkets to follow. She said: Around half of the pork consumed in the UK is imported.

Fluctuating currency markets and imports which are cheaper because of lower welfare standards can significantly impact the cost of home-produced pork, making it harder for farmers to make a living.

We call on more retailers and food providers to ... go 100 per cent British.

Jo Whitfield, chief executive of food at the Co-op, said: British consumers will be shocked to see how meat imports have grown while at the same time retailers hang out the bunting and claim to back British farmers.

Only the Co-op offers 100 per cent British fresh meat all year round ... We can do this because were owned by members, not shareholders, and can invest long-term in what matters to communities.

The move away from imports will not include cured meats such as chorizo.

A survey published last week found 50 per cent of the population will make a conscious effort to spend more money on British businesses and brands during the two-year Brexit negotiating period.
One of the biggest stresses faced in the modern workplace is that feeling we are just cogs in a machine, unsupported by our superiors.

But a new study suggests that how we approach workplace stress - and the emotional exhaustion which can result - may be a more important factor in our long term happiness.

And the findings could shape how workplaces approach their employees' well-being in the future.

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A new study suggests that how we approach workplace stress - and the emotional exhaustion which can result - may be a more important factor in our long term happiness (stock image)

THE FINDINGS The study found that feelings of being supported by bosses - what the researchers term perceived supervisor support (PSS) - can help prevent emotional exhaustion. But, paradoxically, it can also be harmful if takes away from a person's ability to face stress on their own. And a perception of being unsupported by managers can in fact stimulate an employee to develop strategies to cope - which boost happiness in the long term. Creating your own plan to deal with workplace stress appears to enhance happiness. And managers could benefit from training to help employees develop such strategies. Advertisement

Researchers from the University of East Anglia studied how dealing with emotional exhaustion at work can actually enhance our happiness.

Previous studies have highlighted the harmful consequences of emotional exhaustion - including poor performance and depression.

But this study is thought to be one of the first to investigate how the negative relationship between emotional exhaustion and happiness can be reversed.

The researchers focused on how workers felt their bosses supported them and the effect this has in finding ways to cope with stress.

They found that feelings of being supported by bosses - what the study terms perceived supervisor support (PSS) - can help prevent emotional exhaustion.

But, paradoxically, it can also be harmful if takes away from a person's ability to face stress on their own.

The researchers suggest that creating your own plan to deal with workplace stress - and actively searching for information to enrich that plan - can help enhance happiness and deal with emotional exhaustion.

And managers could benefit from training to help them distinguish between preventing employees' emotional exhaustion and supporting their efforts to cope with it on their own.

Speaking to MailOnline, the study's author Dr Carlos Peralta said: 'One of the key ideas of this paper is that PSS - usually seen as positive - can be unimportant or even harmful if it is not effective in maximising an employees fit to the specific internal context they face.

The researchers conducted three complementary studies involving a total of 500 employees in Portugal and the United States. They found that feeling unsupported by bosses can actually promote planning to deal with emotional exhaustion (EE), as demonstrated in this graph

THE METHOD The researchers conducted three complementary studies involving a total of 500 employees in Portugal and the United States. They worked in multiple occupations including management, architecture and engineering, computer and mathematical, business and financial operations, as well as office and administration support, sales, education and healthcare. The studies used different measures of emotional exhaustion, happiness and perceived support from supervisors and the participants were asked to complete questionnaires. Advertisement

'PSS is a double-edged sword. It appears to hamper the emergence of emotional exhaustion, but also appears to hamper the likelihood that employees will engage in planning to deal with emotional exhaustion once they experience it.'

To find these conclusions, the researchers conducted three complementary studies involving a total of 500 employees in Portugal and the US.

They worked in multiple occupations -including management, architecture and engineering, computer and mathematical, business and financial operations - as well as office and administration support, sales, education and healthcare.

Participants were asked to complete questionnaires and the studies used different measures of emotional exhaustion, happiness and perceived support from supervisors.

Dr Peralta, a lecturer in organisational behaviour, added: 'It is important to note that it is not emotional exhaustion per se, but rather how people cope with it, that is beneficial for individuals.

'Our findings suggest that the activities people engage in have a key role in building happiness from an internally stressful experience and that emotional exhaustion can have a silver lining.'

The findings were published in the journal Work & Stress.
A giant 600-year-old ship dug up from a muddy riverbank will be seen sailing again - as a restoration team is building an exact replica.

The medieval boat was found almost fully preserved when it was dug up on a building site 15 years ago.

And supporters of the historic trading boat, The Newport Ship, want to create a like-for-like replica, that will be river worthy and able to sail.

A giant 600-year-old ship dug up from a muddy riverbank will be seen sailing again - as a restoration team is building an exact replica

THE NEWPORT SHIP The 116-feet long wooden ship was discovered on the banks of the River Usk in Newport, Gwent, in 2002. Experts believe the boat was used for trading missions between Britain and Portugal during the 15th century - and the timbers used in its construction have been traced to northern Spain. The ship was Basque-built, built somewhere on the northern coast of Spain in the Basque Country. Experts believe the timbers were probably cut from the forests behind Bilbao and brought along to somewhere near San Sebastian for the ship to be built, to be in service by 1451. Advertisement

The 116-feet long wooden ship was discovered on the banks of the River Usk in Newport, Gwent, in 2002 when it was unearthed by archaeologists during the building of an arts centre.

Experts believe the boat was used for trading missions between Britain and Portugal during the 15th century - and the timbers used in its construction have been traced to northern Spain.

The giant boat is one of the biggest boats built of its time - and could carry a cargo of 200 tons.

It has since been adopted by Friends of Newport Ship and held at a specialist centre in the city in a climate-controlled environment where it can be visited by schools and tourists.

Friends of Newport Ship are working with a specialist heritage group in Spain to build the replica model but chairman Philip Cox said it would take time to build.

The medieval boat was found almost fully preserved when it was dug up on a building site 15 years ago

The 116-feet long wooden ship was discovered on the banks of the River Usk in Newport, Gwent, in 2002 when it was unearthed by archaeologists during the building of an arts centre

Experts believe the boat was used for trading missions between Britain and Portugal during the 15th century - and the timbers used in its construction have been traced to northern Spain

He said: 'The prospect of having a working replica of the 15th century merchant vessel returning to the Usk would be a wonderful sight.

'It would take around a decade to complete but we think it would be a magnificent sight to see the ship floating on the Usk once again.'

And Mr Cox said Basque group Albola would carry out the recreation work - to link with its European history.

Since the ship was discovered in 2002, precious wooden pieces of the ship have been kept in storage in a climate controlled room

The giant boat is one of the biggest boats built of its time - and could carry a cargo of 200 tons. It has since been adopted by Friends of Newport Ship and held at a specialist centre in the city in a climate-controlled environment where it can be visited by schools and tourists

He said: 'Our ship was Basque-built, built somewhere on the northern coast of Spain in the Basque Country.

'The timbers were cut from the forests probably behind Bilbao and brought long to somewhere near San Sebastian for the ship to be built, to be in service by 1451 - and only in 1451 was Columbus born.'

'For a number of years we have been in contact with Albaola.

Friends of Newport Ship are working with a specialist heritage group in Spain to build the replica model but chairman Philip Cox said it would take time to build

The restoration team thinks that the replica will take around a decade to complete. Pictured is Phil Cox, Newport Ship Chairman, holding a section from the ship

'They've always had an interest because we have the absolute designs for the ship, we have the physical ship, we have the model here in one-tenth scale.

'They can recreate that almost exactly.'

'The original ship will never sail again as it needs to stay in a climate controlled environment but a replica of what might have been would be great.'

Mr Cox said Basque group Albola would carry out the recreation work - to link with its European history

Pictured is the exact replica model of the ship that the restoration team in Newport, Wales,, is working on
Most people usually choose to do the right thing - and now scientists have discovered why.

A new study has found that the brain responds less to money gained from immoral actions than money earned decently.

The researchers hope their findings will help to explain why most people are reluctant to seek illegal gains.

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A new study has found that the brain responds less to money gained from immoral actions than money earned decently (stock image)

THE STUDY Twenty-eight pairs of participants were randomly assigned to be either the 'decider' or the 'receiver'. Deciders picked between different amounts of money for different numbers of electric shocks. Half the decisions related to shocks for themselves and half to shocks for the receiver, but in all cases the deciders would get the money. The shocks were matched to each recipient's pain threshold to be mildly painful but tolerable. The deciders were in an fMRI brain scanner. As they made their decisions, a brain network in a region of the brain called the striatum was activated  a region shown in previous studies to be key to value computation. As they decided between more profitable options or those with fewer shocks, this brain network signalled how beneficial each option was. The network responded less to money gained from shocking others, compared with money gained from shocking oneself - but only in those people who behaved morally. Advertisement

Researchers from University College London looked at the processes in the brain in response to gaining money in different ways.

Dr Molly Crockett, lead author of the study, said: 'When we make decisions, a network of brain regions calculates how valuable our options are.

'Ill-gotten gains evoke weaker responses in this network, which may explain why most people would rather not profit from harming others.

'Our results suggest the money just isn't as appealing.'

The researchers scanned volunteers' brains as they decided whether to anonymously inflict pain on themselves or strangers in exchange for money.

Twenty-eight pairs of participants were randomly assigned to be either the 'decider' or the 'receiver'.

Deciders picked between different amounts of money for different numbers of electric shocks.

Half the decisions related to shocks for themselves and half to shocks for the receiver, but in all cases the deciders would get the money.

The shocks were matched to each recipient's pain threshold to be mildly painful but tolerable.

The deciders were in an fMRI brain scanner.

As they made their decisions, a brain network in a region of the brain called the striatum was activated  a region shown in previous studies to be key to value computation.

As they decided between more profitable options or those with fewer shocks, this brain network signalled how beneficial each option was.

The network responded less to money gained from shocking others, compared with money gained from shocking oneself - but only in those people who behaved morally.

Meanwhile, the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) - a brain region involved in making moral judgments - was most active in trials where inflicting pain yielded minimal profit.

As they made their decisions, a brain network in a region of the brain called the striatum was activated  a region shown in previous studies to be key to value computation (stock image)

In a follow-up study, participants made moral judgements about decisions to harm others for profit, and considered those same trials to be the most blameworthy.

Taken together, the findings suggest the LPFC was assessing blame.

When people refused to profit from harming others, this region was communicating with the striatum, suggesting that the brain's representations of moral rules might disrupt the value of ill-gotten gains in the striatum.

Dr Crockett said: 'Our findings suggest the brain internalises the moral judgments of others, simulating how much others might blame us for potential wrongdoing, even when we know our actions are anonymous.'

Professor Ray Dolan, senior author of the study, added: 'What we have shown here is how values that guide our decisions respond flexibly to moral consequences.

'An important goal for future research is understanding when and how this circuitry is disturbed in contexts such as antisocial behaviour.'
Ahead of a controversial plan to carry out the first human head transplant later this year, scientists have attached the head of a rat onto the body of another.

In the disturbing experiment, researchers in China affixed the heads of smaller, donor rats onto the backs of larger recipients, creating two-headed animals that lived an average of just 36 hours.

The team, which involved the Italian neurosurgeon who is set to perform the hotly-debated procedure on a human, managed to complete the transplant without causing blood loss-related brain damage to the donor.

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In the disturbing experiment, researchers in China affixed the heads of smaller, donor rats onto the backs of larger rats, creating two-headed animals that lived an average of just 36 hours

HOW THEY DID IT The researchers used three rats for each operation: a smaller rat, to be the donor, and two larger rats, acting as the recipient and the blood supply. To maintain blood flow to the donor brain, the connected the blood vessels from that rat to veins of the third rat using a silicon tube, which was then passed through a peristaltic pump. Then, once the head had been transplanted onto the second rats body, the researchers used vascular grafts to connect the donors thoracic aorta and superior vena cava to the carotid artery and extracorporeal veins of the recipient. Advertisement

In the study, researchers from Harbin Medical University in China and controversial neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero built upon earlier head-grafting experiments to figure out how to avoid damage to the brain tissue during the operation, as well as long-term immune rejection.

Previously, scientists have attempted the procedure on dogs and monkeys, which helped to test neural preservation when blood flood to the brain had been cut off, they explain in the paper published to CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics.

But, long-term survival of the specimens was not a priority.

The researchers used three rats for each operation: a smaller rat, to be the donor, and two larger rats, acting as the recipient and the blood supply.

To maintain blood flow to the donor brain, they connected the blood vessels from that rat to veins of the third rat using a silicon tube, which was then passed through a peristaltic pump.

The researchers used three rats for each operation: a smaller rat, to be the donor, and two larger rats, acting as the recipient and the blood supply. To maintain blood flow to the donor brain, the connected the blood vessels from that rat to veins of the third rat using a silicon tube

CRITICS OPPOSE THE HEAD TRANSPLANT Critics say Dr Canavero's plans are 'pure fantasy'. The Italian has been compared to the fictional gothic-horror character Dr Frankenstein and Arthur Caplan, the director of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Centre, has described Dr Canavero as 'nuts'. Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, told CNN: 'I would not wish this on anyone. I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death.' Advertisement

Then, once the head had been transplanted onto the second rats body, the researchers used vascular grafts to connect the donors thoracic aorta and superior vena cava to the carotid artery and extracorporeal veins of the recipient.

According to the team, there was no injury to the donor brain tissue as a result of blood loss in the experiment.

And, after the surgery, the donor head was still able to blink and feel pain.

The two-headed creatures lived 36 hours on average following the procedure, Business Insider reports.

Still, with the addition of the peristaltic pump and vascular grafting to the technique, the researchers say long-term survival could be a possibility.

In the past, Dr Sergio Canavero has said the controversial human head transplant will take place in December 2016.

But, many experts are opposed to the plan, with skeptics arguing that this type of operation is still years away from reality despite successful trials with animals.

Canavero, however, appears to be pressing on.

Ahead of a controversial plan to carry out the first human head transplant later this year, scientists have attached the head of a rat onto the body of another. The team managed to complete the transplant without causing brain damage to the donor

THE CONTROVERSIAL PLAN FOR A HUMAN HEAD TRANSPLANT In September, the controversial neurosurgeon outlined plans to conduct 'Frankenstein' experiments to reanimate human corpses to test his technique. Dr Canavero and his collaborators discussed trials to test whether it is possible to reconnect the spinal cord of a head to another body with tests that will stimulate the nervous system in fresh human corpses with electrical pulses . However, the Russian man who has volunteered to have the first transplant also revealed that his girlfriend is opposed to him having the operation. The aim of the surgery is to first cut the spinal cord and then repair it before using electrical or magnetic stimulation to 'reanimate' the nerves and even movement in the corpse. Dr Sergio Canavero plans to conduct tests on human corpses before performing a human head transplant next year. Russian Valery Spiridonov has volunteered to be the first person to have the operation (pictured right with Dr Canavero, centre, on Good Morning Britain) In an article for the Surgical Neurology International, Dr Canavero and his colleague in South Korea and China drew parallels to the infamous story of Frankenstein, where electricity is used to reanimate the fictional monster. He pointed to experiments conducted in the 1800s using the corpses of criminals who had been hung as proof such tests could be successful. Dr Canavero and his colleagues said: 'A fresh cadaver might act as a proxy for a live subject as long as a window of opportunity is respected (a few hours). 'It also implies that the process of deathly disintegration is not an immediate process. We name this effect the "Frankenstein effect." Advertisement

In November, the neurosurgeon unveiled a virtual reality system that will 'prepare patients for life in a new body.'

The doctor says the procedure could ultimately help people who are paralyzed from the neck down to regain the ability to walk, and Russian wheelchair user Valery Spiridonov has volunteered to be the first patient.

The operation would see his head 'frozen' to stop brain cells from dying and tubes connected to support key arteries and veins.

Created by Chicago-based firm Inventum Bioengineering Technologies, the VR system would enable patients to take part in sessions for months before an operation.
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Joy Taylor Once Married MLBs Richard Giannotti  Inside Look At Her Love Life and Family The erosion of the sexist idea that women have no business in sports broadcasting created a host of women celebrities who attained fame outside of modeling and acting. One of them, Joy Taylor, a radio personality and TV host for Fox Sports 1, has been in the industry since 2009, becoming one of the most ...

What To Know About Conan OBriens Wife, Kids & Family Today The name Conan OBrien is one that jumps right at you almost immediately you start talking about the most popular television hosts in the USA and this is no surprise because the man behind that name has risen to become one of the most admired men in the business. Known for hosting the late-night talk ...

David Letterman  Net Worth, Wife & Son In all of American, one man whose face has been seen frequently by late night TV talk show lovers is none but David Letterman. The comedian and TV show veteran has been hosting late night talk shows for more than three decades. His Late Night with David Letterman show began on February 1st, 1982 aired ...

Demystifying Sssniperwolfs Family Background And The Boyfriends Shes Had Since she launched her eponymously named channel in 2013, Sssniperwolf has been on the rise when it comes to video game influencers. She is one of the biggest names in the online gaming subgenre of YouTube videos. Real name Lia Shelesh, she started with Call of Duty: Black Ops II but has diversified with other ...

Lester Holt  Wife, Family & Net Worth Lester Holt is a multiple award-winning journalist, newscaster, reporter, and actor who has worked for notable media houses like WCBS TV, CBS, MSNBC and among others. His remarkable feat in journalism has endeared him to the hearts of many and earned him some awards and recognitions. Read on to get acquainted with his biography, ethnicity, ...

What Is Louis C.K. Doing Now, Where Are His Family And How Much Is His Net Worth? It is not easy to make it in comedy. It takes more than a funny bone and the ability to elicit a few giggles from a listening audience. For all the complexities that go into making a successful career in comedy, Louis C.K, the Washington D.C-born comedian, did it. For years, he was at the ...

The Progression of Hoda Kotbs Career, Her Ancestry and Family Life Hoda Kotb gained fame as a television host and news anchor for NBC. She anchors the shows signature show Today, and it has been an excellent vehicle for her skills in front of a camera. Kotb has won several awards, including Daytime Emmys and Peabody Awards. Simply put, she is one of the most successful ...

Jerry Seinfelds Family: All About The Amazing Comedians Wife and Kids Apparently one of the highly important entertainers in America, Jerry Seinfeld is a man of many talents. A very funny man, he is considered to be one of the most successful comedians in the USA who has been in the business as a professional rib-cracker for more than 40 years. As an actor, he has ...

The Rigors Of Sarah Silvermans Rise To Prominence And Rundown Of The Men She Has Dated A comedian, writer, and actress, Sarah Silvermans art and craft is as unique as you would ever find. Her poignant use of comedy to discuss social issues such as race, sexism, politics, and religion has gained her an impressive following. As unorthodox as her style is, so is her life experiences. She previously suffered from epiglottitis ...

Who Is Hannibal Buress, Does He Have A Wife or Girlfriend & Why Was He Arrested? Making people laugh when they are tense or not in the mood is a tough order and to ply the trade, it must indeed take some guts and expertise, this is what the humor maker, Hannibal Buress has been able to achieve and sustain after his inital teething process. The African-American is a screen writer, stand-up ...

The Success of John Mulaneys Career Efforts Since His Work On Saturday Night Live and Facts About His Wife John Mulaney had been working as a professional comedian for years before Saturday Night Live changed his status for life and like many who are now his fans, you probably did not know of him then. However, that changed when he joined the sketch comedy show in 2008. Since then, he has been one of ...

Jeff Dunham  Wife, Children and Net Worth Ventriloquism is a very subtle method of making an inanimate object (like a puppet, doll or dummy) appear to be saying words which are actually coming from the person (holding the inanimate object). In effect, the individual throws his/her voice to the puppet and can even appear to be having a conversation with it. Not ...

Ellen DeGeneres  Net Worth, Wife  Portia de Rossi & Parents Ellen DeGeneres is an American female standup comedian who has proven that whatever a man can do, a woman can also do. Since her journey as a standup comedian started in 1981, she has held swirl as one of the finest comedians America and the world at large has seen. She is often referred to ...

Revisiting Joan Rivers Death  The Daughter, Husband & Net Worth She Left Behind Joan Rivers was a renowned American comedian, TV host, writer, and actress. Her brand of comedy consisted of scathing one-liners and no individual or topic is spared. She hosted her own talk shows in the 80s and 90s and was a pioneer for women in stand up comedy. She was the first woman to host a late night ...

The Struggles of Margaret Chos Childhood, How It Influenced Her Career Growth and Love Life Margaret Cho is best described as a comic star who knows how to maneuver everything related to life into a rib-cracking joke. She is also known to criticize every social and political problem, especially those involving race and sexuality. Apart from her talents as a comic actress, she does amazingly well as a singer and ...

Where Is Eric Bolling Today? Who Is His Son & What Is His Net Worth? Eric Bolling who was once a notable figure on Fox News, is an American TV personality, an author, and versatile Journalist. As a political and financial analyst/commentator, he anchored discussions bothering on finance for Fox Business Channel. Here is everything there is to know about his career, family, and allegations that led to his exit ...

Who Is Chelsea Handler and Does She Have A Husband or Boyfriend? Chelsea Handler is one of Americas top female comedians. She is also an actress, writer, television host, producer, and activist. She is known to be very outspoken even with things that are very personal. In separate interviews with The New York Times, Handler revealed that she had an abortion twice when she was 16. She has authored five books ...

How Did Laura Lee Achieve Fame, How Much is She Worth and Who is Her Husband? Laura Lee is a popular American YouTuber, make-up artist and beauty blogger. From posting videos of her makeup routines on Instagram, Lee has transformed into a beauty influencer and a YouTube sensation. Today, her YouTube Channel has over 630 million views and 4.5 million subscribers. Asides having millions of followers across all social media platforms, ...

Madison Gesiotto Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Measurements Madison Gesiotto is no ordinary woman; although she excelled in quite a number of pageants and competitions while she was in school, it is her views on politics and issues in America that has made her name known to most people. She possesses beauty and intelligence in a seemingly equal measure and has been able ...

Who Is Lil Tay? Parents, Brother, Sister, Age, Net Worth, Ethnicity Child stardom is nothing new in the entertainment world. With the advent of social media, we have seen more stars made from the internet than ever before, and Lil Tay is one of them. Her uploaded rap videos trademark is cursing, swearing, cash-throwing, and use of obscene languages. Her fame went wild after she dropped ...

What To Know About Tig Notaros Wife, Kids and Family Today Tig Notaro is an American stand-up comic star, writer, actress, and radio analyst. Since she started her career in 2001, she has become one of Americas best comedians, particularly when it comes to observational comedy. One prominent aspect of her routine involves her family, which includes a wife and two children. Interestingly, Tig Notaro is part ...

Who Is Chantel Jeffries? What To Know About Her Age, Ethnicity & Net Worth Chantel Jeffries is a lady of many talents. Beyond being celebrated as a DJ, she has fared well as a model, an actress, musician, and as an artist. She first rose to fame on Instagram where she has a large following. However, in recent times, she has hit the spotlight for her rumored relationships with some ...

Is Ellen DeGeneres Married, Who Is The Brother  Vance DeGeneres and Family Members? Ellen DeGeneres is one of a kind celebrity in todays world as she has used her wealth for the greater good for many people. She has served a host of famous awards shows like the Grammy, Primetime Emmy and Academy Awards. Moreso, she is probably one of the most decorated entertainment personalities around the world and ...

Carli Bybel Bio  Height, Boyfriend & Net Worth Video blogging is now on the rise and YouTube is the place where most of it happens. If you are a lady who cares about her looks or a guy who likes to help his woman out with her looks, then one person whose name rings a bell when it comes to giving beauty tips ...

Who Is Lexy Panterra? What To Know About Her Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth Lexy Panterra is one of the YouTube personalities whose breakout came through the Twerk dance videos she posted on her social media handles and YouTube which has so far generated over 13 million views for her. From there on, she created her LexTwerkOut workout program in 2014. She is sure very talented as she as moved ...

Who Is AnneMunition? What Is Her Ethnicity & Does She Have A Girlfriend or Boyfriend? AnneMunition is a professional gamer and content creator of American origin. She is one of the most sought-after streamers on Twitch  a popular online platform for watching and streaming videos, especially video games. AnneMunition has almost half a million followers on Twitch and her channel has accumulated at least 13 million views. Her favorite games ...

Norm MacDonald  Former Wife, Son & Net Worth Recently, 59-year-old former Saturday Night Live stand-up comic Norm MacDonald caused a not-so-funny stir when he expressed his personal opinion about the #MeToo movement speaking in defense of Louis CK and Roseanne Barr. Following the backlash of his actions, he is diligently doing damage control for his questionable opinion by posting a public apology on ...

Inside Iliza Shlesingers Life With Husband and How Much She is Worth Now Witty, spontaneous, and truly humorous, Iliza Shlesinger is an American comedian who is clearly proving that the stereotypical claim that women are not really funny is not only incredibly wrong but completely outrageous. Having been in the game for more than 10 years, Shlesinger has grown bigger with each step, stunning fans with her incredible ...

Who Is Nessa Diab? Details of her Parents, Ethnicity & Relationship With Colin Kaepernick Nessa Diab has gained more fame as the girlfriend of different footballers than in her career. She is currently with the popular National Football League (NFL) player, Colin Kaepernick, and has stood by his side during his most trying times. Also known for her mononym, Nessa, she recently engaged in a tweet battle with the ...

Samantha Bee  Inside the Life of Full Frontal Comedian and Presenter We have over the decades seen various brands of humor and personalities who have walked the ropes. One of the formidable forces in the world of comedy is no other than the iconic Samantha Bee of the Daily Show who now runs her own television show on TBS channel. She is a Canadian-American political commentator, ...

What Happened To Jessica Williamss Boyfriend And Which Are Her Best Works? Jessica Williams is a woman who has a lot of feathers in her cap  and keeps acquiring more. The former senior political correspondent of the comic Daily Show, who is also a comedian and actress whose recent movie appearance include starring as a playwright just recovering from a recent split with her boyfriend, Damon, and ...

Who is Nicole Byer? Here are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Comedian Nicole Byer, an American comedian, actress, and writer, made a name for herself after she played supporting roles on MTVs prank show Ladylike and the reality show Girl Code. The latter was a series that featured comedians who analyzed in minute details, all the issues that young women deal with daily, from period to dating, to weird friendship dynamics and questions about sex. Currently, ...

A Closer Look At Bart Kwans Ethnicity, Height & Personal Life Bart Kwan is one of few Asians who is known for being successful in the comic industry at an international level. His fame broke out after the YouTube channel which he created with his close pal Joe Jo garnered up massive followings. The talented duo has been running the channel since 2007 and their success ...

Heres How VanossGaming Achieved Fame Online, His Worth and Other Facts About The Gamer For many years, the decision to drop out of college to pursue an online career was considered to be foolish and self-destructive by conventional wisdom. It was no different when Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, dropped out of college to pursue a YouTube career. However, that radical move paid off, and he stands shoulder to ...

Desi Perkins  Ethnicity, Net Worth & Husband YouTube is littered with videos of makeup tutorials by different people but if you are interested in learning how to do your makeup like a pro, there is just one person on that platform who you must follow. She is none other than Desi Perkins! She is a popular make-up artist, Instagram star, and vlogger. Desi, ...

The Phases of Casey Neistats Pursuits and His Love Story With Candice Pool YouTuber, vlogger, filmmaker, and creator extraordinaire; these are just a few hats that Casey Neistat wears and the story of how he got here is incredible. A native of Connecticut, Neistat started out by making refreshingly-authentic short films and videos that featured content that was based on everyday life and called attention to serious issues. He ...

Connor Franta  Inside The Life of American YouTuber YouTube has produced a lot of young celebrities in modern times and Connor Franta happens to be one of them. Apart from being a YouTuber, the young American is also an entrepreneur, entertainer, and writer. His journey to fame began almost a decade ago when he started a self-named YouTube channel where he uploads content ranging ...

Rhett and Link  Bio, Who are Their Wives, Net Worth and Family Facts Rhett and Link refer to an American comedy duo who are very popular on YouTube. They are known for their comic songs, viral commercials, skits and the daily show, Good Mythical Morning. Good Mythical Morning is the most watched daily show online, averaging 100 million views in a month. The show has featured guests such ...

A Walk Through The Maze of Ryan Higas Career Pursuits And Relationship With Arden Cho Ryan Higa is not only celebrated as a YouTube star, but he is also famed for appearing on television screens as an actor and comedian. Nigahiga, his Youtube channel, has gathered over 20 million subscribers and billions of views with his different comic acts, short films, and music videos uploads. With the rise in his career, ...

What to Know About The Shows That Made Craig Ferguson a Star and His Family Ties Rising to the top of your profession can sometimes be a hard and difficult process. It requires days and nights of working consistently hard to be better than what you were yesterday. It requires not giving up when all of your experiences seem to be pushing you to quit. It is because of these challenges ...

David Dobrik Married Liza Koshy for One Month  Inside His Family and Relationships David Dobrik is a YouTube sensation who has garnered fame not just for his vlogs but his love life too. Given his career as a YouTuber, his channel is one place where he shares his romantic escapades. With a cute boyish look like his, this Slovakian young man is definitely a good catch, and not ...

Merrell Twins Bio  Ethnicity, Parents & Boyfriend One of the beautiful things about modern life is social media. As rudimentary as it might seem, it could turn out to be the greatest thing that would be invented in the next 50 years because of its impact on human life. Very few tools have revolutionized human behavior and culture as much as social ...

Who Is Bunny Meyer, Is She Married & What Is Her Net Worth? Bunny Meyer is a YouTube celebrity who has amassed over 8.8 million subscribers with 1.5 million viewers on her channel. She is popularly known as Grav3yardgirl and is one of the highest-paid YouTubers in the world. She initially started out as a fashion designer and later chose the path of a YouTuber. Grav3yardgirl has used her knowledge on fashion, makeup, ...

Ninja  Inside The Life of The American YouTuber and Internet Personality Ninja is a talented video game player known for his mastery of Fortnite and other seemingly difficult games he plays with ease. The video gamer made a career out of what is ordinarily the hobby of many people and has since then amassed a huge online following. Find out about him here, including the controversies that ...

What Is Eva Gutowskis True Sexuality and How Did She Rise So Fast As an Influencer? Ever since Eva Gutowski joined YouTube in 2011, it has been an interesting journey for her, moving from one milestone to the other. Backed by an army of young women and teenage girl fans known as Evanators, she has risen to become one of the most-talked-about personalities in the digital stratosphere. She has also leveraged ...

Emma Chamberlain Biography  Age, Height & Net Worth Before now, people in the entertainment industry could only achieve popularity after many years of dedication and hard work but since social media came into the scene, massive success and overnight popularity became possible. That is the story of Emma Chamberlain who encountered fame as a fifteen-year-old. Emma is one of the many young people who became ...

Anna Akana  Ethnicity, Boyfriend & Net Worth There is a new crop of YouTubers known by their different contents with a very strong uniqueness that stands every one of them out, some upload video games, some fashion while some others have comedy video contents to showcase on their channels. Anna Akana has used her platform to showcase her comedy contents to the ...

Revealing Truths About Lilly Singhs Ethnic Background, Family and Her Relationship With Yousef Erakat Lilly Singh is an Indian-Canadian YouTube personality, actress, and comedian also known as Superwoman. She kicked off her YouTube career in 2010 with the launch of her channel IISuperwomanII and followed it up with a vlog channel in 2011. This paved the way for her fame and success which led to a world tour. The ...

Who Is Andrea Constand, Is She Married and What Is Her Connection With Bill Cosby? Many people got sexually molested but could not voice out due to the stigma victims suffer and what will become of them thereafter. Very few of the victims danm every consequence to seek justice and bring the perpetrator to the book, like Andrea Constand. She never got any media buzz, not until her friend cum molester; ...

Who Is Lazarbeam (Lannan Eacott)? Here Are Facts You Need To Know Lannan Eacott became a person of interest after his YouTube channel, LazarBeam pulled him to the limelight. Initially, he started with uploads of Madden Challenge videos before deciding to build his own channel in January 2015. Within the space of three years, his YouTube channel had gathered over 7 million loyal subscribers. Today, he has not ...

Puzzling Facts About Wengies YouTube Success and More About Her Fiance Among the many YouTubers who have succeeded in winning the hearts of millions of people is Wengie. She is a Chinese-Australian YouTube personality, vlogger, singer, and voice actress. Wengie is famous for a lot of things, from her simple life hacks, DIYs, craft ideas to fun experiments, tricks and pranks. Her content portfolio also includes hair tutorials, diet & fitness tips, lookbooks, ...

Is Jeffree Star A Billionaire and How Much Does He Make On YouTube? If looks can be deceptive then theres no other person who proves this maxim better than Jeffree Star. A quick look at Stars pictures would likely leave you wondering whether or not to tag him a male or female. But who says being controversial has to be a curse? For Star, his looks have caught ...

The Place of Rosanna Pansinos Career Hats In Her Rise To Fame and Facts About Her Personal Life There are a few phrases that could summarize Rosanna Pansinos rise to fame. None of them can do it better than the famous axiom, no knowledge is lost. Her popularity YouTube comes out of her foray into other professions, specifically acting. Although acting now occupies one of the major professional hats in Rosannas resume, it was ...

Muselk (Elliott Watkins) Biography  Age, Girlfriend and Net Worth The new and best in-thing in terms of career is video gaming and we have over time seen young men and women make massive income from an activity that was purportedly designed to serve as a hobby or a relaxation activity. One of such individuals is the Australian-born YouTube Celebrity and Twitch streamer, Muselk, whose ...

PopularMMOs Biography: 5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know We have over the years seen social media millionaires, especially on the YouTube social platform. These celebrities cum millionaires have made names for themselves after carving out niches on the internet, and a typical example of one of such exciting media personality on the YouTube is American Minecraft gamer and YouTube star, PopularMMOs whose channel ...

Jason Nash Once Married Marney Hochman  What To Know About His Ex-Wife and Kids The now-defunct video-sharing app Vine was the path that led Jason Nash to fame. With it, he built an audience of over two million followers, which he parlayed into a significant YouTube career. That move has seen him become one of the most popular personalities on the internet, with the cash income to go with ...

Where Does Dantdm Live? What Do We Know About His Net Worth, Wife and Brother? Most parents buy video games for their kids to occupy their time leisure, while other parents frown at their kids when they play video games. Despite the disparity, every parent would be proud of their child if he/she eventually turns a celebrity or millionaire through playing video games like Dantdm. Biography of Dantdm Dantdm was born Daniel ...

LaurDIY  Biography: 5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTuber LaurDIY is the YouTube channel of Lauren Riihimaki which she created on December 1, 2011, when she was still a college undergrad with the sole aim of giving Do It Yourself (DIY) as well as practical fashion and beauty tips to her followers. She has used the channel to establish herself as a YouTube personality ...

Lachlan Ross Power  Bio And Family Life Of Australian The YouTube Star It is amazing the varied sources of income that the internet has made possible in this day and age. Internet fame can get its holder a whole lot of monetary and social benefits, but it must be noted that it does not come easy or cheap. For those who desire fame, content is the sacrifice ...

Alfie Deyes  Bio and Net Worth: Everything You Need To Know Alfie Deyes is one internet personality you definitely would like to know about. He boasts of over 10 million subscribers on three of his YouTube channels and has three bestseller books to his name. He is probably the most renowned young personality on YouTube today and his vlogging empire continues to grow by the day. ...

Colleen Ballingers Love Story With Husband Erik Stocklin and How Much She Is Worth Now Colleen Ballinger is an American comedian and YouTuber who is a very funny, adventurous, and highly talented woman. She is also an actress, singer, and writer. Collen is widely known for her work on YouTube where she posts content on her channel, Miranda Sings. The comedian has gained many subscribers over the years and has ...

Who Are The Dude Perfect Members and How Much Are They Worth? Entertainment in the 21st century can be digested in many forms and with platforms like YouTube, the creators and purveyors of entertainment have been democratized. Today, one of the most popular platforms to exhibit ones creative talents is YouTube, even though there are other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, who suffer in comparison to YouTube because ...

Who Is Rudy Mancuso, What Is His Earning Power and What Do We Know About His Girlfriend? Rudy Mancuso started his internet journey on Vine. He would later transition to YouTube where he solidified his place among the internets most beloved comedic creators. He is now regarded as one of the renowned internet personalities in the world, with a presence in mainstream TV and film projects like Comedy Centrals Drunk History and ...

Vsauce (Michael Stevens) Biography and Net Worth: All You Need To Know The advent of YouTube and the internet as a whole revolutionized how human beings consume information. With each passing year, the percentage of learning that is done in a traditional classroom decrease as a seismic shift to internet-based learning happens in our education industry. From open courses online to YouTube classes and videos, there are ...

How did Jake Paul Make His YouTube Big Break and Who is His Wife? One of the most interesting Social Media personalities of the 21st century is the young and popular Jake Paul whose elder brother is the famed Vine star, Logan Paul. Jake has utilized the power of the internet to bring himself to the limelight with a channel named JakePaulProductions that has amassed up to six billion ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About Reaction Time (Tal Fishman)  The American YouTuber Before 2015, the leading meaning of reaction time was the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, until Tal Fishman started his channel, Reaction Time on YouTube and the dominant meaning changed. Today, a google search of Reaction Time would deliver Tal Fishmans videos and YouTube channel link with a few physics ...

Grace Helbig  Net Worth, Boyfriend and Family Life of The YouTuber Grace Helbig is an American internet personality, comedian, actress, and writer. She became popular due to her daily vlog series, DailyGrace, which ran on My Damn Channel from 2008 to 2013. Helbig is also popular for her own indie series on YouTube, ItsGrace, which she launched in 2014. Her vlogs which feature random stuff such as ...

Mark Wiens Bio  Ethnicity, Wife and Parents Food is a great way to connect with people. We all love to eat, if not for the pleasure of food, the satisfaction of quenching hunger, and the very process of providing and sharing that food is part of the strongest bonds that bind humanity together. Maybe it is our historical connection to food, where ...

Is Filthy Frank Dead, What Happened To Him and How Much Is He Worth? As George Kusunoki Miller, he was a nobody. However, as Filthy Frank, George was one of the most famous internet personalities on the planet. The Filthy Frank Show, a sketch series on his YouTube channel, TVFilthyFrank, was one of the platforms most influential creations. He is the reason a crazy dance song, Harlem Shake, made it ...

CaptainSparklez Bio  Net Worth, House and Cars of The Famous YouTuber Sometimes, what society wants from its citizens is quite different from what the citizens want for themselves. This is evident in the life and career of video blogger and American YouTube personality, Jordan Maron famous for his YouTube channel CaptainSparklez. He dropped out of school after discovering his talent in playing an online game called Minecraft. ...

Who is Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg)? Here are Facts You Must Know Canadian Youtube personality, Simply Nailogical (Cristine Rotenberg) originally started out polishing and designing nails even before it became a trendy culture in the social media. Simply Nailogica started out her showbiz career in her early days as a child actress, acting in commercials for game and toy companies. Aside from acting, she is blogger, vlogger, specializing ...

5 Interesting Facts You Need To Know About Huda Beauty In the world of entrepreneurship, it is interesting when an individual has a mentor who he/she looks up to, this yield more productivity on the part of the individual. The iconic and rich American beautician and makeup artist Huda Kattan nicknamed Heida is the founder of the Huda Beauty blog which is number one Instagram beauty blog ...

Is Dino MasterChef Gay? Details About His Ethnicity, Girlfriend, Where He Is Now Food, for the better part of the early years of human life, was nothing more than what we needed for survival. There was no artistry or curation to the method of cooking. The scarcity of food left no room for artistic expression until we figured out agriculture and we could make as much as we ...

Who Is Gabbie Hanna And How Did She Become Famous? As the world shifts to digital media and depends more and more on streaming services for its news and entertainment content, YouTubers have become one of the leading creators in the new media world. Their understanding of the online audience: how to create, maintain, and increase followers, are all handy skills that have primed them ...

Jacksepticeye  Height, Girlfriend & Net Worth Jacksepticeye is a YouTuber and actor who gained popularity with a series of gaming videos he uploads on his channel to the delight of millions of his subscribers. He is Known primarily for his comic video game series titled Lets Play and his vlogs. His channel was formerly ranked 46th in the list of most subscribed ...

Chris Heria Personal Details: About His Wife, Height & Ethnicity Background In this generation, keeping fit has become one of the major criteria for being hale and hearty. In fact, most occupations these days are majorly concerned with ones body mass, weight and looks. Unlike the past where most people have to register in a gym to keep fit, social media has made it quite easy ...

Everything You Need To Know About Game Grumps Gaming is becoming incredibly popular on YouTube these days with game vloggers make millions of dollars out of them yearly. One of the most popular up-coming gaming YouTube channels is Game Grumps. The Lets Play series was created in 2012 and celebrated its fifth anniversary on July 18th, 2017. In six years of its existence, the ...

Daithi De Nogla Biography, Girlfriend and Net Worth YouTube has created an avenue for many to make wealth and become famous from the comfort of their homes while having fun. Many have built a career out of the platform, uploading numerous videos that have earned them the admiration of viewers across the globe. For Daithi De Nogla, he is loved for his humorous commentary on ...

Does Phoebe Robinson Have A Boyfriend or Husband and What Do We Know About Her Family? Phoebe Robinson is a New York-based comedian, writer, and actress. She is best known as the co-creator and co-host of the WNYC Studios podcast 2 Dope Queens. Just like some other female comedians, she never had any original plans of becoming a stand-up comedian even though, according to her, she took a class on a whim at Carolines on Broadway. After ...

Who Are Lex and Alana from Listed Sisters? What Is Their Ethnicity & Is the Show Cancelled? America is a country built on diversity. Everywhere you look all over the country, a countless number of immigrants or children of immigrants have become an integral part of the fabric of the country. From entertainment to business, immigrants are creating a niche for themselves and climbing to the summit of their respective professions. One ...

Riveting Facts About Danielle Lombard And What She Is Best Known For The American entertainment industry is one that provides many avenues for aspiring hopefuls to express their talents and become famous. From films to television shows and game shows, there is no shortage of ways for men and women who desire fame to pursue and earn it in the United States of America. Another tested medium ...

Unearthing New Details About The YouTube Success And Personal Life of Alex Burriss of Wassabi Productions Wildly hilarious and truly audacious, Alex Wassabi is an American YouTuber who has become a very popular face on the video-sharing platform after having garnered millions of subscribers over the years by keeping people glued to his channel with his witty parody video releases. If you have always loved parody videos, there is every chance ...

Everything You Need To Know About H2O Delirious H2O Delirious whose full birth name is reported to be Jonathan Gormon Dennis has successfully kept himself mystified by hiding his face behind the masks leaving his loyal fans speculating who he really is for many years. The American YouTube star is easily identified by the Jason Mask Style with make-up which he wears on his ...

Who Is HolaSoyGerman and What Happened To Him? German Garmendia has certainly seen it all when it comes to internet success. His channels, HolaSoyGerman and JuegaGerman are in the top twenty most subscribed channel on YouTube. The Chilean YouTuber found a way to tap into one of the worlds greatest inventions and make a living from it. He has been able to build ...

Who Are Glenn Becks Family, What Is His Net Worth And What Happened To Him? The American political commentary space is filled with different personalities. A few of them, through their rhetoric, charisma, and resources have been able to build a large following of men and women who listen to them for insight and direction for various political and social issues in the United States. For Conservatives, the story is ...

Following Charissa Thompsons Rise Through The Ranks Of Sports Casting and All About Her Boyfriend Superstar TV host and sportscaster, Charissa Thompson, has been hailed as one of the highest-profile women journalists in America, and the reason is there for all to see. She has worked for popular establishments such as Versus, Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, GSN, and Big Ten Network. She currently hosts the popular pre-game show, Fox NFL Kickoff, ...

Is Chris Kattan Gay or Does He Have A Wife? What Is His Net Worth? Chris Kattan is a popular American comedian and actor. He has appeared in several comic movies and TV series such as The Middle, A Night at the Roxbury and Bunnicula. Kattan is, however, most popular for his six-year stint as a cast member of Saturday Night Live. During his time on the legendary show, he ...

Everything You Should Know About the Rise of Insta Star Claire Abbott and Why She Gave It All Up A lot of young Americans have shot into the limelight for uploading different kinds of videos on YouTube. Some of these young stars include Connor Franta, Desi Perkins, Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan Twins (Ethan and Grayson), and Claire Abbott. The latter became a social media celebrity for uploading sexy bikini pictures of herself on social media. Apart from ...

5 Facts You Need To Know About The YouTube Channel  h3h3Productions H3h3Productions is a YouTube channel that specializes on Comic responses or reactions of other contents or trendy stories. The celebrity couple that created the channel has over time racked up sizable views for their commentaries and contents. Even though they had their own fair share of copyright cases, thankfully they scored an unprecedented victory in all ...

Lilypichu Bio  Height, Brother and Love Story With Albert SleightlyMusical Chang Like most popular internet celebrities, Lilypichu is one of those Twitch streamers who spend their lives on camera. From daydreaming about the possibility of becoming a full-time professional streamer, she grew to live out her dreams on the popular live streaming platform where people play games, make crafts, and showcase their day-to-day activities. Given the rise of ...

KSI  What To Know About His Girlfriend, Brother  Deji Olatunji & Net Worth Assuredly, when Internet inventors Vint Cerf and Bob Khan created the technological masterpiece, they probably did not know how massive the creation will be harnessed by many for different purposes including as a platform for earning money through content creation. One of such person who smiles to the bank regularly today for spending time creating ...

The Interesting Progression and Highlights of Carrie Keagans Career as a Host and Actress Carrie Keagan has garnered huge fame through her various stints on television. She is not just your regular TV host but one with a difference. Keagan has hosted several high profile events and TV shows, including VH1s Big Morning Buzz Live and Fox News Channels Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld. However, not many know she ...

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Virgin Galactic has successfully tested the 'feathering' of its spaceship for the first time since a fatal crash in 2014.

The firm hailed the milestone as the next step towards sending passengers paying $200,000 a ticket into space.

'We've learned enough from our past test flights to safely take the next step forward in our thorough test flight program, Virgin Galactic said in a statement.

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The firm hailed the milestone as the next step towards sending passengers paying $200,000 a ticket into space. Today's test flight was the fourth glide flight (and eight flight overall) of VSS Unity, the spacecraft that replaced the crashed craft, and the 227th flight of WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve.

WHAT IS FEATHERING? The unique design of Virgin's spaceship allows its twin tail booms or 'feathers' to be reconfigured in flight. The twin tails of the craft fold up to providing aerodynamic braking on reentry, allowing the craft to slow before turning into a conventional glider for landing. Advertisement

'That step happened on a successful test flight conducted this morning from the Mojave Air and Space Port, during which we tested VSS Unity's 'feather' re-entry system in flight for the first time.'

The firm's first craft was destroyed on 31 October 2014, during a testflight in Mojave.

Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashedVirgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as earlyas this year.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigatedthe accident, determined that the co-pilot prematurely releasedlocks that pin the ship's rotating tail section into place.

Thenew spaceship includes a pin that prevents the pilots fromunlocking the tail section too early, before aerodynamic forceshave built up to keep the tail from rotating on its own.

'This test follows after extensive testing of the feather system on the ground,' Virgin Galactic said.

'Full analysis of the data from today's flight will, as always, take time; but initial reports from the pilots and from mission control are extremely encouraging.'

Today's test flight was the fourth glide flight (and eight flight overall) of VSS Unity, and the 227th flight of WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve.

The unique design of Virgin's spaceship allows its twin tail booms or 'feathers' to be reconfigured in flight. Pictured here, today's test

The firm said 'Once data reviews are complete, we will move forward with our testing programpressing onward with additional glide flights designed to expand our envelope of flight weights and centers of gravity.'

Richard Branson recently announced plans to launch people into space in 2018, with the first test flights beginning this year.

The Virgin Galactic boss said he would be 'very disappointed' not to go into space himself in 2018 and hopes his space tourism programme will be up and running in the same year.

Last year Professor Stephen Hawking unveiled Virgin Galactic's new SpaceShipTwo craft, called VSS Unity.

'We are entering a new space age, and I hope this will help to create a new unity,' he said, launching the craft via a video message of behalf of Virgin boss Richard Branson.

Today's test flight was the fourth glide flight (and eight flight overall) of VSS Unity, and the 227th flight of WhiteKnightTwo VMS Eve.

'If I am able to go & if Richard will still take me, I would be very proud to fly on this spaceship,' he said.

The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km).

It replaces the craft Virgin lost following 2014's fatal crash, when Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year.

With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (175,000) a ticket, it is aimed at super rich thrill-seekers and celebrities, as well as researchers and commercial customers.

Virgin Galactic's own manufacturing arm, The SpaceshipCompany, already was well into construction of the secondSpaceShipTwo of the fleet when the accident occurred.

The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km).

The biggest difference between the two vehicles is theaddition of a pin to prevent a pilot from unlocking the ship'srotating tail section too soon before descent, which is whattriggered the breakup of the first spaceship, said GalacticChief Executive George Whitesides.

Other changes include a device to prevent pilots fromreleasing the ship's landing gear too early and a variety ofswitch changes to make them more distinct.

'We learned a lot from the accident, and we made a lot ofchanges,' said Mike Moses, a former NASA shuttle manager who nowoversees spaceflight operations for Galactic.

Branson poses in front of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket after it was unveiled on Friday. The company is preparing to resume flight testing for the first time since a 2014 accident destroyed the original and killed one of its two pilots

The unveiling at the Mojave Air and Space Port sets thestage for a round of test flights for the spaceship. Whitesidessaid he expects to rapidly repeat milestones the first spaceshipreached, then incrementally test the new ship at higher speedsand altitudes.

The first spaceship had not yet traveled beyondthe atmosphere.

'All the math, simulations and analysis says this vehicleshould be nice and stable and behave itself, but we need to goprove that,' Moses said.

The renewed push comes just 16 months after Virgin Galactic suffered the loss of a test pilot in a fatal accident with the first plane.

The firm is reportedly moving ahead with plans to build its own space launchers, including the new passenger vehicle and LauncherOne rockets designed to lift small satellites starting as early as next year.

Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson (2-L) is joined by Virgin Galactic workers and Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTWO during its unveiling in Mojave

Branson poses with employees in front of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket after it was unveiled on Friday

Branson's rivals in the commercial space race include SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Speaking yesterday at the LaunchOne design and manufacturing plant in Long Beach, California, the entrepreneur told Reuters: 'To have three or four people who are fairly entrepreneurial competing with each other means we'll be able to open up space at a fraction of the price that governments have been able to do so in the past.'

The venture has been grounded since its firstspaceship, designed and built by Northrop Grumman Corp's Scaled Composites, was destroyed on 31 October 2014, during a testflight in Mojave.

Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashedVirgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as earlyas this year.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigatedthe accident, determined that the co-pilot prematurely releasedlocks that pin the ship's rotating tail section into place.

Thenew spaceship includes a pin that prevents the pilots fromunlocking the tail section too early, before aerodynamic forceshave built up to keep the tail from rotating on its own.

The Spaceship Company, or TSC, a wholly owned subsidiary ofVirgin Galactic, already had taken over manufacturing of thesecond spaceship in a planned fleet of five when the accidentoccurred.

'Ultimately, we want to be able to produce our ownpoint-to-point aircraft,' said Branson.

'The best way to do thatis to be involved with every aspect of the experimentation andthe build.'

Richard Branson (pictured) said his Virgin Galactic venture is eager to rejoin the race to to send passengers and satellites into space. With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (175,000) a ticket, it is aimed at super rich thrill-seekers and celebrities, as well as researchers and commercial customers

Virgin Galactic's craft ill use a winged rocket plane dubbed SpaceShipTwo (illustrated), successor to SpaceShipOne.The new spaceship includes a pin that prevents the pilots from unlocking the tail section too early, before aerodynamic forces have built up to keep the tail from rotating on its own

Branson's London-based Virgin Group and Aabar Investments,run by the Abu Dhabi government, combined have invested morethan $500 million (350 million) in Virgin Galactic, said company ChiefExecutive George Whitesides.

More than 700 people - including Hollywood A-listers Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio - are reported to have already bought tickets for Virgin Galactic space flights, which sell for $250,000 (175,000) each.

The renewed push comes just 16 months after Virgin Galactic suffered the loss of a test pilot in a fatal accident with the first plane. The first SpaceShipTwo (pictured) was destroyed in an accident during a test flight in 2014

Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident (wreckage pictured), which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year

However, the crash of the first SpaceShipTwo in 2014 led to Princess Beatrice to pull out of the scheme, alongsider an asset manager called Peter Ulrich von May from Switzerland.

But Virgin Galactic is up against fierce competition from the likes of private firms Blue Origin and Space X.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is the most advanced of the firms, and already has several satellite launches - and failures - under its belt.

Its Dragon capsule is set to begin ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017.

More than 700 people are said to have signed up for a ticket for Virgin Galactic's space flights, including Leonardo DiCaprio (left) and physicist Stephen Hawking (right)

The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane (pictured) has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km)

Blue Origin, owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, recently conducted a test launch from Texas in which the rocket dubbed New Shepard performed a vertical landing, slowing its descent by relighting its engine as it fell back to Earth.

In January, the company launched the same rocket and it again landed intact. Blue Origin claims that during flights passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness after the capsule separates from the booster.

Passengers will be able to leave their seats and float about the capsule before a signal tells them to be reseated for landing.

Blue Origin, owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos (pictured), recently conducted a test launch from Texas in which New Shepard rocket performed a vertical landing

Virgin Galactic looks set to combine both words, and will focus on both tourist trips and launching cargo.

It recently unveiled an upgraded booster to launch satellites.

The firm has stated that today's launch of SpaceShipTwo will be a 'ground-based' celebration, and will be a while before the space plane takes to the skies.

In a statement released yesterday on the Virgin Galactic website, the firm wrote: 'Our new vehicle will remain on the ground for a while after her unveiling, as we run her through full-vehicle tests of her electrical systems and all of her moving parts.'

Elon Musk (pictured) heads up SpaceX, the most advanced of the firms. It already has several satellite launches - and failures - under its belt. Its Dragon capsule is set to begin ferrying astronauts to the International Space station in 2017

The test team remain cautious and will need to reach a number of milestones before the craft can take passengers into suborbital space, with test flights to increase the altitude.

It added: 'When we are confident we can safely carry our customers to space, we will start doing so. We feel incredibly honoured that our earliest paying customers already number more than the total number of humans who have ever been to space.

'Our first spaceflight with paying customers; our first flight full of research experiments; our first flight with a full complement of eight (a feat that has only been accomplished once before in all of history, by the Space Shuttle on mission STS-61A); the dozens of times we will fly the first ever astronaut from a given nation  each of these will be exciting milestones in the history of space exploration.'
Brits visiting Mallorca may be banned from hotels, particularly all-inclusives, because of the multi-million pound cost of false food poisoning claims.

Hoteliers say they are totally fed up with having to pay out as much as 5,000 a time for bogus cases and feel drastic action may be the only way forward.

The Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca says it has pre-warned tour operators about the potential ban in advance of the 2018 season.

Brits visiting Mallorca may be banned from hotels, particularly all-inclusives, because of the multi-million pound cost of false food poisoning claims

'The only way to address this once and for all is by taking drastic measures,' the group's president, Inmaculada Benito, has told Spanish newspaper Diario de Hora.

The Federation has been complaining about the false food claims for a year and a half and has held meetings with the Secretary of State for Tourism and the British Embassy in Spain. To date, there has been no change in the law.

However, the British Government is understood to be preparing measures which would include fining any British holidaymaker who puts in a false claim, alleging they contracted food poisoning during a stay in a Spanish hotel. The move is due to be announced shortly.

The Mallorca Federation says tour operators also seem to be changing their stance and many are looking to different markets, such as the French, Swiss and Dutch, in order to fill the gap left by Brits if they are banned.

The claims are being led by so-called British 'law firms' who are exploiting legal loopholes and are touring hotspots in vans or sending representatives to stop tourists outside their hotels or even approaching them on the beaches.

Hoteliers say they are totally fed up with having to pay out as much as 5,000 a time for bogus cases and feel drastic action may be the only way forward. The Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca says it has pre-warned tour operators about the potential ban in advance of the 2018 season

The situation is reaching epidemic proportions and is expected to get worse this summer.

Hoteliers in Mallorca estimate they have paid out more than 50million euros in damages over the past 18 months.

Some hotels, including ones in the Canary Islands, are considering asking guests to sign disclaimer forms at the end of their stay to confirm they did not get food poisoning during their stay. Many others have stepped up checks and vigilance.

Some chemists in Spain are being asked not to sell tummy upset remedies to British holidaymakers.

The food poisoning scam, involving thousands of pounds worth of compensation per customer, is now sweeping across all parts of Spain, including the Costa Sol, Dorada and Blanca.

One furious hotel owner has revealed a 5,000 pay-out for each of five members of the same family for alleged gastroenteritis after eating in its restaurant during their holiday.

'It's a scandal. Just saying that they have become ill is worth it for them,' said the hotelier from Salou. 'Strangely, they were the only ones who got sick despite the fact that the hotel was practically full.'

In a bid to curb the claims, hoteliers in Benidorm have already asked chemists not to sell any sort of tummy upset cures to Brits unless they have a prescription.

As the law stands at the moment, only a receipt for a gastroenteritis product is necessary in order to file a claim once the holidaymakers are back in the UK. The local hotel association wants to force anyone allegedly sick to go to the doctor which, it is hoped, will be a deterrent as this will cost them money or a claim on their insurance.

In some areas, false food poisoning claims are said to have soared by as much as 700 per cent from last year and with the summer season now looming, there are fears of another epidemic.

Benidorm is one of the British favourites most affected by the scam with around 10,000 claims so far.

The Spanish Confederation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (Cehat) is pressurising the government of the United Kingdom to take action.

Hoteliers say the vast majority of the claims are false but it is easier for them to pay out rather than to fight the case in the courts.

The Spanish hotel industry is estimating the cost to them at 'millions of euros'.

'In many cases, they do not even present official medical evidence of the supposed illnesses caught in the hotels,' said a spokesman. 'They only report that they have become ill from some food poisoning and ask for compensation.'

Hotel owners on the Costa Dorada say they feel 'totally defenceless'.

It is also being reported that the representatives of the so-called 'vulture lawyers' are searching social network sites to find pictures of people who have been on holiday in Spain and are approaching them direct to make claims.

The method used is to give standard forms to holidaymakers, saying they caught a tummy bug from their hotel. The average payout is around 6,000 euros.

In some areas, police are being called in because the law firm representatives do not have licences to 'sell' on the street or are harassing holidaymakers.
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From the carefully curated celebrity guest list to the bespoke couture gowns, the Met Gala is a party like no other.

And 2017's edition of the famed fundraiser certainly didn't disappoint, with a parade of the hottest A-listers strutting down the fittingly chic white carpet at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This year fashion's new favorites took over the party of the year, with sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid and their pals Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin showing just why they are on every designer's call back list.

Move over, Gisele! Young guns Gigi, Bella, Kendall and Hailey battled to rule the red carpet as fashion's A-list rolled out for extravagant Met Gala in New York on Monday

Fun with fashion: Gigi struts up the stairs in her asymmetrical Tommy Hilfiger gown which boasted a dramatic train

Leggy behaviour: Gigi showed off her long pins under her designer dress, teamed with fishnets and towering heels

What a Bella! Miss Hadid showed she's more than just Gigi's little sister in her sparkling, body-baring catsuit

Walk this way: Kendall Jenner gave Hailey a run for her money, in her sheer La Perla Haute Couture gown, which left little to the imagination

The Emperor would be proud: The beauty boasted that her outfit was made without fabric - with just thread and crystals used to create the body-baring design

Belle of the ball: Kendall couldn't help but turn heads as she climbed the stairs at the famous venue in her towering heels

Cheeky! The top model showed off her derriere in all its glory as she twirled and posed for the hundreds of cameras

The four ladies first became known for their famous parents, but have since established themselves as serious players in the modelling world.

But despite the young competition, it was clear veteran model Gisele Bundchen wasn't ready to step aside just yet.

The 36-year-old mother-of-two showed off her perfect figure in a sparkling grey Stella McCartney dress, which clung to every curve.

Here comes Kim! Kardashian didn't disappoint the fashion world, in her white, deceptively simple Vivienne Westwood gown

In the spotlight: The cameras couldn't get enough of the fashion icon as she worked her best poses

Looking booty-full! Kylie Jenner rocked the fringed look in her sparkly flapper dress by Versace

Working her angles: Kylie was full of confidence as she showed off her jaw-dropping ensemble for the cameras

Dressed by the best: Kylie posed with her dress designer Donatella Versace as the pair arrived at the ball

Pretty in pink: Hailey wore a custom ensemble by Carolina Herrera, a structural tiered skirt and crop top, both in a blushing pink shade, with the top showing off her trim waist

All that glitters: The blonde beauty teamed her ballerina style dress with Lorraine Schwartz diamond choker, platinum diamond earrings and diamond rings, and bling adorned veil

Faced with a bank of cameras flashing away, the confident beauty grabbed hold of her beefy sports star husband Tom Brady, giving a perfectly timed kiss to her amenable partner.

Not that Brady was just there for decoration.

The Patriots star was tasked with co-chairing the famed event, along with Gisele and Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams.

Veteran vixen: Despite the young competition, it was clear Gisele Bundchen wasn't ready to step aside just yet

It's party time! The 36-year-old mother-of-two showed off her perfect figure in a sparkling grey Stella McCartney dress

Ready to frock and roll! Gisele kisses husband Tom Brady, who co-chaired the famed event

Born to sparkle: The handsome couple looked totally at ease, as they embraced in front of a bank of watching cameras

Gisele and Tom weren't the only ones to put on a PDA as they arrived, with Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez sharing a kiss as they made their first official outing as a couple. The two, who have not long been dating, kissed and embraced, with wide smiles on their faces.

Pop star Selena Gomez and her new man The Weeknd were also snapped embracing as they arrived at the exclusive invite-only party.

The two were first linked last year - to the reported dismay of The Weeknd's recent ex Bella Hadid.

PDA time! Selena Gomez and The Weeknd made the glitzy gala a date night, with predictable results

Monday mayhem: The young couple posed together as they walked the white carpet; Selena wore an embellished beaded dress by Coach, designed by creative director Stuart Vevers

I wanna hold your hand: Selena and her man couldn't keep their hands off one another as they made their way inside

The thought of running into her former flame and his new woman may have inspired the 20-year-old's choice of attire, a sparkling, sheer net Alexander Wang bodysuit.

But while Bella's outfit clung to every inch of her perfect figure, it was relatively conservative when compared to Kendall Jenner's choice of costume.

The young model's gown was created by La Perla, the lingerie company.

Only got eyes for you! Jennifer Lopez gazes at her new man Alex Rodriguez as the pair pose; this was their first red carpet

Blue moon: J Lo looked her very best in her baby blue Valentino dress

All eyes on her! An aide rushed to help Jennifer Lopez as she made her way toward the stairs in her billowing dress

The look of love: Jennifer could barely contain her excitement as she made her red carpet debut with her beau

Predictably, for a dress designed by an undergarments specialist, the outfit showed off as much of the 21-year-old's perfect figure as possible.

That was in no small part due to the concept behind it - with the designer boasting of using no fabric, only thread and crystals, to create the one of a kind black garment.

While the description may sound reminiscent of the plot for Hans Christian Andersen's fable Emperor's New Clothes, Kendall's fantastic figure meant she had every confidence in her look, as she strutted her way inside the venue.

Just another casual night out: Rihanna didn't hold back in her fabulous Commes des Garcons gown, that she paired with rings by Le Vian and DVANI

She's certainly gone for the wow factor! The pop star turned heads as she was one of the few to stick to the night's theme

Red alert: Katy Perry, gala co-chair , covered up in chiffon - her Maison Margiela Artisanal look was designed by John Galliano

Witness! The pop star covered her face with a veil, however the conservative nature of her outfit was deceptive, with sheer panels showing her figure

Stealing the show: The fashion fan stood out among the understated vibe adopted by most celeb guests at the 2017 gala in the tulle and wool number, which featured a lengthy veil, and a polished chrome headpiece. She accessorized with Lorraine Schwartz diamond rings

Meanwhile Kendall's younger sister Kylie Jenner wore a bespoke Versace gown, arriving with the label's vice president Donatella Versace.

Like her sister the teen put her figure on display. Her flapper-style dress sparkled and glittered with plenty of embellishment, while in keeping with her 20s look, she wore her hair in a chic bob.

Surprisingly, for once Kendall and Kylie's big sister Kim Kardashian chose not to compete with her younger siblings when it came to baring her body.

Red alert! Joan Smalls showed off her slimline figure in a body-baring Topshop gown with a daring thigh-high split and a plunging neckline. She accessorized the ensemble with a pair of dazzling Stuart Weitzman shoes

Those boots were made for walking! Lily Aldridge dazzled in a very daring Ralph Lauren outfit that was made up of scarlet thigh-high boots, a cut-out white gown, and a pink veil across her face

Red red Rose: Byrne looked majestic in her eye-catching Ralph Lauren ballgown which featured a plunging neckline and a full red skirt, matching her daring hairstyle, which also added plenty of volume to the overall feel of her look

Mom's the word! Pharell, Gala co-chair, with his wife Helen Lasichanh; the couple, who welcomed triplets back in January, were both wearing unique Commes des Garcons outfits. Helen's onesie came straight off the Fall 2017 runway

Hollywood Royalty: Emma Roberts kept in classic in her red satin, figure-hugging Diane Von Furstenberg gown, while popstar Rita Ora was all tied up in a bow dress by Marchesa and Lorraine Schwartz 30 carat diamond earrings

Scarlet ladies: Katie Lee, left, wore a red CD Greene gown with pink accents, while Natasha Poly's Michael Kors dress featured cut outs at the waist, and Thandie Newton matched her custom Monse one-sleeve, drawstring dress to a fabulous fascinator

Red hot! Turning heads as she arrived at the calendar highlight, Rita, 26, who was born in Kosovo, but considers herself to be British, stepped out in a woven silk red ribbon Marchesa dress which tied in an oversized bow at the shoulder

Hands in pockets: Doutzen Kroes smiled for the cameras in her '80s style- off the shoulder scarlet gown by Brock Collection. But although the color suited her perfectly, the fit of the baggy frock left a little to be desired

Instead, the 36-year-old mother-of-two chose a simple white Vivienne Westwood dress, which despite a low neckline was relatively - and uncharacteristically - conservative.

Kim left her jewelry at home, going bling-free - a deliberate choice in reaction to her devastating robbery in Paris last year.

While the big names turned out in force, there was plenty to delight the more sartorially minded.

Flower power: Lace, chiffon and tulle came together in a fairytale moment to create Chrissy Teigen's Marchesa ball gown

Date night: Chrissy, who was joined by her singer husband John Legend, coordinating with his wife in white, showed off the full train of her dress while ascending the lengthy set of stairs to the Costume Institute's annual ball

Bleached and beautiful: Kate Hudson glowed in Lorraine Schwartz diamonds and her white Stella McCartney gown, which clung to her curves and showed off her long neck thanks to the asymmetric design

Girls' night out: Kate joined her pals, Naomi Watts and designer Stella McCartney on the red carpet, all sticking to a monochromatic theme in dresses created by the British designer

All eyes on her: Next representing blondes in white was model Stella Maxwell, who put on a seriously saucy display in a daring plunging custom gown by H&M, which featured a semi-sheer skirt and plenty of tassel detailing

She's all white! Behati Prinsloo looked ready to walk the aisle in her strappy gown, which was created especially for her by Topshop, just like her fellow Victoria's Secret model Joan Smalls

Reliving her youth! Gwyneth Paltrow rocked the 90s look in a pale pink Calvin Klein By Appointment dress, created by the brand's new designer Raf Simmons as a tribute to the slip-style dress she wore to her first Met Gala in 1995

Unlikely pair! Gwyneth Posed with ASAP Rocky who contrasted the stunning star in all black, which was also created by Raf Simmons at CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC

Having a blast! Julianne Moore was certainly enjoying herself; she wore a pink Calvin Klein By Appointment feathered dress, accessorizing with matching earrings, a pair of white strappy heels and a chic box clutch

They're all white! Carly Steel wore an elaborate metallic headdress, which sparkled with jewels, to accessorize her Christian Siriano gown, while Game Of Thrones star Sophie Turner wore a sparkling white Louis Vuitton gown and Diane Kruger wore an embellished Prada gown

Totally grammable! Ashley Graham made her Met Gala debut in a custom H&M creation, featuring bold red ruffles, white bodice and a fishtail skirt that hugged her hourglass figure perfectly

Vintage find: Claire Danes wore a laced up black and white outfit by Monse that left fashion critics totally divided, thanks to its somewhat over-the-top, disheveled appearance

Sparkling in silver: Michelle Monaghan wore a long, high-necked Paco Rabanne dress, while Cara Delevingne dazzled in a Chanel suit. Sofia Coppola mirrored Michelle's style in a Marc Jacobs version, and Sofia Richie stunned in a Topshop gown

Futuristic: Brit model Cara shunned a dress in favour of a dazzling silver Chanel suit, featuring a very low-cut neckline and a belt to show off her tiny waist. She finished her look with silver Christian Louboutin heels

That was surely due to the night's theme, with ground-breaking Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakuboas chosen as the inspiration for the gala, and the accompanying exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum Of Modern Art.

Indeed one of the most flamboyant outfits on the carpet was that of Rihanna - who wore a hot off the runway Comme des Garcons design, one of the few celebrities to pick an ensemble created by Rei Kawakubo, who was being honored at the event for her daring avant-garde creations.

The fabulously over-the-top gown was certainly perfect both for the theme of the evening - showcasing the designer's flare for the dramatic - and for the unconventional pop star, who is known for pushing the boundaries.

Bold in blue: Reese Witherspoon wore a stunning custom Mugler dress with Tiffany & Co. jewelry and a vintage Mugler clutch. The asymmetric silhouette flattered the actress' figure perfectly

Couple goals: Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds pose together as they make their arrival, Blake dazzling the crowds in her gold Atelier Versace dress, which featured beautiful blue and gold feather detailing on the train

Fancy in feathers: The actress's gold and blue Atelier Versace gown clung to the starlet's curves and featured a daring low-cut neckline, balancing out this risque element with long sleeves

Lights, camera, action! Blake posed patiently for the hundreds of cameras who wanted to get the perfect snap of Blake in her ornate dress

Feeling blue: Aymeline Valade made a bold statement in a custom Marni pantsuit, Tracee Ellis Ross - who also dared to be bold in a Comme Des Garcons design, and Emily Ratajkowski in a pretty Marc Jacobs sequined number

Blue Elle! Fanning looks pretty in a chiffon Miu Miu gown, accessorised with a sparkling head piece, making her look like a Disney princess as she made her way down the carpet and into the event

Green goddess: Serena Williams flashes her diamonds, and that bump, in a figure-hugging Versace number, which showed off her growing belly to full effect

Oh baby! The tennis star, who noted that she had chosen the color because of its vibrancy, was joined by her Reddit fiance Alexis Ohanian as she beamed on the white carpet

So yellow: Jessica Chastain looked breathtaking in very pale yellow chiffon by Prada, while Natalia Vodianova was dressed by Diane von Furstenberg, who also wore her own design, opting for a vibrant yellow palette

Bright and bold: Lupita Nyong'o stood out for all the right reasons in a strapless feathered Prada gown, while Lily-Rose Depp wowed in strapless pink vintage Chanel Haute Couture. Meanwhile Felicity Jones donned in a ruffled lilac Erdem dress

The elaborate design verged on art, featuring delicate circles of red, pink, purple and floral fabrics, stitched together to form a sculptural-like creation.

Speaking to Vogue's Andre Leon Talley on the red carpet at the event, Rihanna noted that the outfit - although it looked incredibly complicated - wasn't actually all the difficult to wear, or put on.

'It's just booty shorts and then you buckle some snaps...' she explained.

But Rihanna certainly didn't stop at the dress itself, finishing off the ensemble with a pair of thigh-high lace-up heels, which she joked took her 'an hour to get into'.

Tokyo-based designer Kawakubo has been deemed worthy of the solo focus of this year's gala - which inaugurates the museum's eagerly-awaited accompanying exhibit, Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between.

Known for bold, experimental clothing, Kawakubo's designs have an austere aesthetic and a cult following.

Fit and flare! Like many of her model friends, Candice Swanepoel opted for a custom Topshop number; the black gown highlighted the model's tiny waistline

Having a ball! Adriana Lima looked ready to party as she swung her Alberta Ferretti dress around on the carpet, showing off her long legs with a very daring split, which left a lot of skin on show

Major girl power: Candice Swanepoel, Sofia Richie, Sistine Rose Stallone, Behati Prinsloo, and Joan Smalls were all dressed in custom Topshop, and took the time to show off their coordinating designs together by posing for a group picture

Bold and beautiful: Katie Holmes posed with her dress designer Zac Posen, who created a stunning deep teal number for the actress. The gown, which was fitted to her waist, showed off her figure to full effect

Stand out styling: Hailee Steinfeld showed off her legs in a Vera Wang design, while Karlie Kloss also opted for a high hemline in her Carolina Herrera shirt and jacket, which she accessorized with Christian Louboutin shoes, and Forevermark Diamonds. Kerry Washington, meanwhile, went for a metallic look in Michael Kors

Beauty in black: Dakota Johnson wore a gown created for her by the Italian designer Alessandro Michele. The unique gown featured several black straps across the top part of her body, as well as some large floral embellishments at her shoulders

Little black dress: Mandy Moore wore a unique one-shouldered Michael Kors dress that came complete with a long black glove. Laura Dern wore a custom Gabriela Hearst gown, which featured a quirky neckline, cut-outs at the waist and a dazzling train, while Evan Rachel Wood wore an Altuzarra sheer dress over a pair of black satin pants

Late debut: Celine Dion wore Versace as she attended her very first Met Gala, showing off some leg in the design, which featured a thigh-high split in the full black skirt, as well as some unique buckle detailing at the waist and shoulders

Strike a pose! Model Naomi Campbell showed off her famous long legs in an Alaia number with a high slit, comic Amy Schumer went for a leather-like look in a Zac Posen, and actress Naomi Watts proved black doesn't have to be boring in a Stella McCartney with a crystal netting design down the back and sides

Photo pose: Actress Brie Larson got experimental in a sequined Chanel with a dropped waist and full skirt, while Michael Jackson's daughter Paris, who just signed with IMG, leaned toward a classic look in a full-skirted Calvin Klein midi dress - that surprisingly flaunted a hint of underboob with a cut-out in front

Leggy ladies: Yolanda Hadid didn't show quite as much skin as her daughters but did flaunt her sex appeal in a black Tommy Hilfiger with sheer insets. Mary J. Blige chose a lingerie-like La Perla Haute Couture gown with a mesh bodice, over 300 carats of Lorraine Schwartz diamonds and an Ofira Jewels double finger diamond ring, and Lara Stone went super-short in a Christopher Kane mini with metallic ring details and matching lace booties

Keeping it classy: The super-slim Kate Bosworth pulled off a voluminous Tory Burch gown with fanned fabric along the sleeves and hem

Her often repeated comment 'red is the new black' had obviously inspired many of those in attendance, from Katy Perry in her dramatic veiled gown, to the more revealing dresses chosen by stars such as Rose Byrne and Emma Roberts.

Kawakuboas, 74, officially founded her cerebral design house in 1973 to critical acclaim - and was dubbed 'anti-fashion' for challenging the notions of beauty with her innovative aesthetic.

Feeling blue: Mindy Kaling ticked off several trends in her Prabal Gurung gown, which had a sequined bodice, off-the-shoulder neckline, and fringed skirt. Salma Hayek, as always, played up her hourglass figure in a cinched-at-the-waist Balenciaga halter, adding bold blue boots by the designer for an unexpected pop of color. Lorraine Schwartz jewelry completed her look.

Golden girl: Part jumpsuit, part dress, Halle Berry rocked an Atelier Versace creation creation with a long train and mirrored metallic details, which were also mirrored - aheam - in her gold-platformed Jimmy Choo shoes

Icon: Super-concentrated beading - and likely some skin-tone undergarments - protected her modesty in the barely-there black and gold number

Spot the star: Madonna went camo, trailing an odd matching netting behind her and slipping into leather gloves. She also accessorized with plenty of chunky jewelry and, as she did at last year's Gala, a grille in her mouth

Declaring war on fashion: The music and fashion icon looked like she may actually be heading to a war zone after the event, loading up on utilitarian accessories and, it appears, a water bottle in a satchel

Helping hand: Madonna shared a joke with a very helpful Sarah Paulson as she gave a bit of assistance with the star's train

Designer date: Bond girl Monica Bellucci vamped it up in black velvet and lace, offer a peek of thigh, as she arrived with designer Valentino

Work of art: Zendaya slayed in a painted silk her Dolce & Gabbana gown with one of the biggest skirts of the night and a romantic off-the-shoulder neckline. The star also rocked big, natural hair, which fell glamorously around her shoulders

Ruffled lady: Broadway star Laura Osnes wore a long ruffled skirt in a dazzling pink, teamed with a tiny black top to offset the voluminous bottom

Oh, this old thing? Quantico stunner Priyanka Chopra needed a team of assistants to look after the train of her Ralph Lauren trench dress, which was one of the most talked about on social media

Quick clean: The khaki number earned positive reviews but also a few jokes from people who noted that she could sweep up after the event with her train

Staying afloat! Solange wore an eye-catching Thom Browne puffer coat and matching dress, which looked like it also could have converted into a sleeping bag should she have decided to spend the night

Leggy lady: While some stars donned both dresses and jumpsuits, Nicki Minaj eschewed both in what looked like a bodysuit and long cloak by H&M, that she accessorized with opulent rings and bracelets designed by several high-end jewelers including Hearts on Fire, Mattia Cielo, DVANI, Le Vian, Ldezen by Payal Shah, and Lydia Courteille

The custom look was especially designed to fit the theme of the event and included the face of Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakubo on an obi belt, a kimono-style top, and Swarovski crystals

Angelic: Janelle Monae looked like she was walking on a cloud in a fluffy white Ralph and Russo gown with a lace bodice

Conveyor belt: Brushing near Janelle on the carpet was Miranda Kerr in a Grace Kelly-esque metallic Oscar de la Renta number with a red floral pattern

Fashion's new favorites: (Left to right) Presley Walker Gerber, Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, Sofia Richie, Jordan Kale Barrett, Sistine Rose Stallone, Joan Smalls, and Behati Prinsloo represented millennials, with the ladies all showing plenty of cleavage in their skin-skimming Topshop gowns

Comme des Garcons has been showing collections in Paris each season since 1981. Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton, told AP that Kawakubo is considered the world's 'most important and influential designer' of the moment and 'has consistently defined and re-defined the aesthetics of our time.'

It is the first time the gala and accompanying exhibit has focused on one living designer since 1983, when it highlighted the work of Yves Saint Laurent.

The Metropolitan Museum in New York is displaying 120 Comme des Garcons womenswear designs by Kawakubo, spanning the past 35 years, since her first Paris show.

Those Girls! Lena Dunham chose an Elizabeth Kennedy ball gown with a plaid punk-rock twist - appropriately accented with a black mani and kohl-rimmed eyes - while co-star Jemima Kirke topped a tulle-skirted Chanel with a flower in her hair

Matchy-matchy! Lena and Joe Jonas could have been prom dates in their matching black-and-burgundy outfits

Sister, sister: Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen stepped out in their signature boho grandma looks, each wearing loose-fitting lace dresses, chunky beads, and rings on their pointer fingers

Gothic in pink: Lily Collins gothed up her drop-waist Giambattista Valli Couture gown with a dark bob and matching lipstick, while Zoe Kravitz chose the same color combo from Oscar de la Renta gown - though the style was more '50s movie premiere than '50s school dance

In train-ing! Bee Shaffer looked incredibly slim in a silk floor-sweeper by Alexander McQueen

Polka dot princess: Brit fashion queen Alexa Chung wowed in a halter-neck spot maxi dress by Diane von Furstenberg

She's all white! Kristin Cavallari had to pick out the right undergarments to wear this sheer white chiffon dress by Roberto Cavalli, opting to wear a Hanky Panky bralette under the design to protect her modesty

En Vogue! The magazine's Director of Special Projects, Sylvana Ward Durrett, showed off her baby bump in a strapless maroon gown with a mullet hem, while businesswoman and philanthropist Isha Ambani looked lovely in Christian Dior Haute Couture and presenter Keltie Knight picked rose-colored ruffles

The hostess with the mostest: Vogue's Anna Wintour defied her 67 years in a custom beaded Chanel number with feathers around the legs

Pattern time: Maggie Gyllenhaal went big one embellishments in a sequind, checkered Marni jumpsit, Elizabeth Banks played an optical illusion game with photographers in a black-and-white print Michael Kors, and Wendi Deng - who was accompanied by her teenage daughters - wore a long-sleeve powder-pink number with floral embroidery

Date night: The Crown star Matt Smith made the gala a date night with Downton Abbey's Lily James (in a polka dot Burberry gown with cotton fil-coupe net), while The Americans couple Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys coordinated to perfection, Keri going the tuxedo route in a custom Rag & Bone ensemble

Stunning: Matt's The Crown co-star Claire Foy let her custom floral Erdem frock - with its regal golden train - take center stage by forgoing jewelry

Glam couple: Elizabeth Chambers and Armie Hammer wowed in their head-to-toe black looks

The look of love: Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne couldn't take his eyes off his gorgeous wife Hannah, who glittered in a beaded purple number

In awe: Sean 'Diddy' Combs took a moment to admire a stunning Cassie in her dramatic dress, which featured a lace-accent bodice, beaded hips, and a bold fringed train

Model looks: Brit runway star Jourdan Dunn posed with Future in a deconstructed H&M look featuring a white shirt and pinstripe skirt that paid homage to the Comme des Garcons aesthetic. She accessorized with over 250 carats of Lorraine Schwartz diamonds
She's a busy mom to two kids under the age of three.

And on Sunday, Jordana Brewster brought along her little ones - Julian and Rowan - for the We All Play FUNdraiser, hosted by the Zimmer Children's Museum.

The 37-year-old actress looked elegant in a polka dot printed wrap dress while walking the carpet at the Zimmer Children's Museum in Los Angeles.

Devoted to her family: Jordana Brewster brought along her little ones - Julian and Rowan - for the We All Play FUNdraiser, hosted by the Zimmer Children's Museum on Sunday

The Fast And The Furious star highlighted her slim frame in the ankle grazing frock, which featured a fitted waist and a v-neckline.

The mom of two's white and black patterned dress was perfectly complemented by her dark stilettos and delicate necklace.

Jordana styled her long black hair pulled back into a casual ponytail, with pink lip gloss and shimmery eye makeup.

Her three-year-old son Julian wore a button up with graphic bottoms while 10-month-old Rowan looked adorable in a checkered shirt and grey shorts.

What a lady: The 37-year-old actress looked elegant in a polka dot printed wrap dress while walking the carpet at the Zimmer Children's Museum in Los Angeles

The Fast And The Furious star highlighted her slim frame in the ankle grazing frock, which featured a fitted waist and a v-neckline; pictured with Rowan

Last week, Jordana wowed in a colorful floral mini dress for the Natural Resources Defense Council's Stand Up! for the Planet Benefit.

The Lethal Weapon actress, who turned 37 on April 26, highlighted her trim legs and her svelte frame in spring ready look, adding black tasseled heels.

Jordana styled her shiny locks in waves with strong brows and minimal makeup, revealing her natural beauty.

Beautiful: The Fast And The Furious star highlighted her slim frame in the ankle grazing frock, which featured a fitted waist and v-neckline

In bloom: Last week, Jordana wowed in a colorful floral mini dress for the Natural Resources Defense Council's Stand Up! for the Planet Benefit

Jordana, who became a household name after starring as Mia Toretto in the Fast & Furious franchise, is married to producer Andrew Form.

The lovebirds met on the set of the 2006 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Begining and wed in May 2007 in the Bahamas.

They welcomed both of their children via a gestational surrogate.

Golden: The Lethal Weapon actress highlighted her trim legs and her svelte frame in spring ready look, adding black tasseled heels

Stunning: Jordana styled her shiny locks in waves with strong brows and minimal makeup, revealing her natural beauty

Jordana spoke to Yahoo! News in 2015 about surrogacy and revealed that while she 'didn't feel judged,' she 'felt awkward.'

She told the publication: 'I didn't really have a choice about being open, since it was obvious I wasn't pregnant. And for me it wasn't a choice, I needed to use a surrogate.'

Adding: 'Sometimes I feel a little left out when other moms talk about what their birth experience was like, and I feel the loss of not having carried or having been able to carry.'
On camera, contestants on My Kitchen Rules are constantly engaged in bickering and crowning new 'villains,' while the judges appear to avoid the chaos.

But behind the scenes, Manu Feildel, 42, is reportedly 'ready to walk away' from the increasingly madcap show as a different depiction of his relationship with co-host 'Paleo' Pete Evans emerges.

'He hates all of Pete's crazy s**t,' a Seven insider has claimed to Woman's Day, referencing the 'bad press' his Paleo lifestyle generates.

Ready to say goodbye? MKR's Manu Feildel is reportedly 'ready to walk away from the show' due to conflict over Pete Evans's 'crazy s**t' and declining ratings

And it's not just frustration over the show's direction that is reportedly spurring the French chef's 'shock exit,' with the publication also citing the program's declining ratings in the face of increased competition from Nine's Married At First Sight.

'Manu has been pushing for Pete to be replaced very forcefully, and even threatening to walk if they don't listen,' a close source reportedly told the magazine.

'He hates all of Pete crazy s**t and the bad press it generates, and has been having meetings on the down low to talk about a replacement for Pete.'

It has previously been reported by the publication that tension is 'so bad' between the pair that they are forced to travel separately.

Can't handle the Pete? 'He hates all of Pete crazy s**t and the bad press it generates,' a source said of Manu's conflict with his co-star

But Pete, 43, has denied earlier rumours of a rift, taking to Sunrise in January with his co-star to put up a united front.

'We do love each other,' the Paleo-enthusiast told presenter Edwina Bartholomew, adding that they have a 'deep relationship.'

'We do love each other apart from what some people will write about us,' Pete insisted live on-air, wrapping one arm around Manu's shoulder.

'We have a very deep relationship with each other,' he continued.

Powers of persuasion? 'Manu has been pushing for Pete to be replaced very forcefully, and even threatening to walk if they don't listen,' a close source reportedly added

Allowing Pete to do the talking, Manu simply replied: 'Yes.'

This week, Woman's Day's source added that Manu carries the star power on the show, and will be listened to by producers.

The source alleged that Masterchef's George Colombaris is the man the Frenchman has lined up to replace Pete.

That seems unlikely to fall in the My Kitchen Rules judge's favour unless something is done to change up the show's increasing focus on contestant's fights and crowning 'villains' like 'seafood king' Josh and 'angry angry man' Tyson.

A likely replacement? The source alleged that Masterchef's George Colombaris is the star the Frenchman has lined up to replace Pete

'We're friends with Pete and Manu and the truth is, would I go and do that show? No! George told The Herald Sun last week.

'We don't let contestants bicker among each other on Masterchef Australia. There is none of that.'

Although recently thrown into the spotlight himself for a pay dispute fiasco within his restaurant company, George has largely maintained a clean record with the media.

Would need to change: But the fighting and bickering between contestants would need to change, with George saying: 'We're friends with Pete and Manu and the truth is, would I go and do that show? No!'

Pete on the other hand, is regularly the ire of medical professionals who believe he is 'unqualified' to provide advice on living a Paleo lifestyle.

According to Woman's Day, more indicators of Manu's waning patience with the reality show comes in the form of his new Sydney eatery Duck In Duck Out.

As the pop-up eatery continues to gain acclaim and revenue, the chances for an exit by the popular chef are seen to be increased.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to My Kitchen Rules representatives for comment.
She's currently putting her relationship with fiance Michael in the hands of the controversial reality show.

And Seven Year Switch's Felicity, 25, has opened up about the painful pregnancy that placed a strain on her struggling relationship 'right from the start'.

The young mum, who fell pregnant with the couple's first child Dakota just three months after meeting her beau, told New Idea: 'I had just turned 22, I could barely walk and I was bedridden.'

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Painful pregnancy: Seven Year Switch's Felicity has revealed she was 'bedridden' during her first pregnancy, which occurred just three months after she met her fiance Michael

Recalling being 'in and out of hospital the whole time,' the mother-of-two explained that she suffered 'severe morning sickness' the entire pregnancy.

The couple were faced with challenges 'right from the start,' one of which included 'falling pregnant instantly and having no honeymoon period.'

'It was never an easy relationship - we were fighting and it was always a stressful environment,' the brunette added.

'In and out of hospital': The 25-year-old recalled suffering 'severe morning sickness' throughout her first pregnancy at age 22

'Stressful environment': The brunette told New Idea their relationship was strained from the start, with the couple constantly 'fighting'

That stress was compounded by yet another surprise pregnancy, just three months after their first child's birth.

Despite the initial shock of becoming parents at a young age, Felicity recently admitted the couple are 'obsessed' with their children.

Speaking with New Idea last week, Felicity admitted that it was her kids that made her want to exit the show.

Young family: Just three months after welcoming their first daughter Dakota, the couple learned they were expecting a second baby

'It was hard, I tried to leave [the show] twice,' she revealed. 'By the end of the third day I was like "I can't do this! It was hard, I missed my kids."'

Felicity, who 'swapped' fiancee Michael for Mark, while Michael was paired up with Kaitlyn admitted that her children are always her first priority.

'We live and breathe our kids - we're obsessed with them," she said. 'Going away for the show was the first time we've ever been away from our kids. That was massive.'

'We live and breathe our kids': Felicity recently admitted she was tempted to leave the show twice as she missed her children
She's the former Bachelorette who sometimes pops up as a panelist on Studio 10.

And Georgia Love has been left feeling embarrassed after reportedly being snubbed by her Channel 10 colleagues at the recent Logie awards.

According to a report in Monday's issue of New Idea, Georgia, 29, was left 'red faced' after waving to her 'sometimes colleagues' from the show, with only Sarah Harris acknowledging the reality TV star at the ceremony.

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Left out: Georgia Love has been left feeling embarrassed after reportedly being snubbed by her Channel 10 colleagues at the recent Logie awards

Sarah later rubbished claims, calling them 'FAKE NEWS' and joking that the story forgot to mention her 'pushing Georgia down the stairs in a jealous rage'.

Meanwhile, Georgia was seen at the event having plenty of fun with Channel Nine news presenter Amber Sherlock.

Georgia took to Instagram on Friday to post a hilarious side-by-side photo of her with Amber that made light of the 'jacketgate' scandal.

The pair made light of the leaked video, which showed Amber berating fellow reporter Julie Snook for not wearing a jacket so that the pair, along with a third guest, were not all wearing white on air.

Snub? New Idea has reported that Georgia, 29, was left 'red faced' after waving to her colleagues, with only Sarah Harris (left) acknowledging the brunette reality star

Good times: While she may have been left out in the cold by her Studio 10 colleagues, Georgia was seen at the event having fun with Channel Nine news presenter Amber Sherlock

Georgia couldn't help but make fun of the situation when the pair bumped into each other at the awards.

The pair posed together for two photos, with Georgia uploading a comparison of her with and without a black jacket.

'One of you is going to have to put a jacket on,' she cheekily captioned the post.

She added, 'Good on you for being able to have a laugh about #jacketgate @ambersherlock9 and for still rocking white'.

Funny side: Georgia took to Instagram on Friday to post a hilarious side-by-side photo of her with Amber that made light of the 'jacketgate' scandal

With Georgia offering up a very non-plussed expression in the 'jacketed' photo, her followers were quick to see the funny side.

One fan offered a simple: 'brilliant,' while another said: 'hahaha good to see you both have a sense of humour.'

Georgia has appeared on Studio 10 as a guest host, filling in for series regular Sarah Harris over the summer.
Roxy Jacenko was photographed kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal at his apartment in Sydney on Saturday night.

And on Monday, the Sydney publicist was spotted for the first time since Daily Mail Australia published the sensational pictures.

Roxy, who is still married to jailed husband Oliver Curtis, looked stylish as she arrived at Sweaty Betty PR's Paddington offices.

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On Monday, Roxy Jacenko was spotted for the first time since Daily Mail Australia published sensational pictures of the married Sydney publicist kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal

She didn't let scandal get in the way of making a fashion statement - pairing dark sunglasses with tight black jeans and a flashy watch.

Roxy finished off her chic look with a pair of black high heels and a white T-shirt, styling her blonde hair in loose waves.

The 36-year-old was notably not wearing her wedding ring - and has made a habit of taking the jewellery off for public appearances in recent months.

Incognito: Roxy, who is still married to jailed husband Oliver Curtis, looked stylish as she arrived at Sweaty Betty PR's Paddington offices

The kiss: Roxy was photographed kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal at his Sydney apartment on Saturday night

Close bond: The former couple had dinner together before returning to his home with friends

She carried a Nescafe promotional shopping bag with her ubiquitous mobile phone in her hand as she arrived at her office in the eastern suburbs.

Roxy and Nabil dated 'seriously' before breaking up in 2010, two years before she married Oliver in a lavish ceremony in 2012.

They were seen in public together in October last year, grabbing coffee as they strolled the streets of Sydney.

Spotted: But she didn't let scandal get in the way of making a fashion statement - pairing dark sunglasses with tight black jeans and a flashy watch

Work mode: She carried a Nescafe promotional shopping bag with her ubiquitous mobile phone in her hand as she arrived at her office in the eastern suburbs

During that occasion, Roxy was seen dressed in activewear and without her wedding ring while Nabil was in a suit and tie.

They were last seen together in December, when they headed out for dinner at Otto's restaurant in Woolloomooloo.

Whispers surrounding their friendship intensified in April when the Sydney Morning Herald reported Nabil 'gifted' the blonde a 'diamond eternity ring over Christmas'.

Low-key: Roxy and Nabil were last seen together in December, when they headed out for dinner at Otto's restaurant in Woolloomooloo

Rumours: Whispers surrounding their friendship intensified in April when the Sydney Morning Herald reported Nabil 'gifted' the blonde a 'diamond eternity ring over Christmas'

Roxy denied the claims, telling the publication she has owned the diamonds for several years.

In recent interviews, she has downplayed split rumours, telling The Morning Show in March she was 'still married' to her husband.

The couple share two children, five-year-old Pixie and two-year-old Hunter.
They are frequent visitors to the city of Miami.

And Shanina Shaik and DJ Ruckus showed off their fit and fabulous physiques during a trip to the beach on Sunday.

The engaged couple were joined by friends, including social media sensation Yes Julz, as they walked hand-in-hand on the sand and frolicked in the waves.

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Lovebirds: Shanina Shaik and DJ Ruckus showed off their fit and fabulous physiques during a trip to the beach on Sunday

The lovebirds strolled along the beach before sharing a tender moment, then proceeded to take a dip in the water.

Shanina, 26, wore a beige two-piece paired with an animal print gypsy skirt while she carried gold sandals in her hand along with an iPhone and YSL purse.

Her brunette locks were styled up in a topknot bun and she wore an array of gold jewellery, including oversize hoop earrings and multiple chains.

Serene: The lovebirds strolled along the beach before sharing a tender moment, then proceeded to take a dip in the water

Casual: Her brunette locks were styled up in a topknot bun and she wore an array of gold jewellery, including oversize hoop earrings and multiple chains

Going strong: The lovebirds, who are engaged, spend an ample amount of time in Miami and other exotic locations

Her boyfriend went shirtless and flaunted his washboard stomach in a pair of striped board shorts.

The international DJ wrapped an oversize blue and white striped towel around his chiseled waist and wore white and silver flip flops.

The glamourous duo went for a swim and were joined by friend Yes Julz, who wore a skimpy bikini and rose-coloured glasses.

Good times: The engaged couple were joined by friends, including social media sensation Yes Julz, as they walked hand-in-hand on the sand and frolicked in the waves

Coupled up: They are frequent visitors to the city of Miami

Fit and fabulous: Her boyfriend went shirtless and flaunted his washboard stomach in a pair of striped board shorts

The duo were in the southern city for work and play, with the Victoria's Secret model taking snaps for social media from the set of a photo shoot earlier in the weekend.

The jet-setting pair have been known to spend time in a luxury $10.4 million holiday home in Miami, which features six beautiful bedrooms and breathtaking bay views.

The waterfront $100,000-a-month rental property is privately owned and serves as Shanina and Ruckus' regular 'crash pad' during their regular visits to sunny Miami.

Down time: The duo were in the southern city for work and play, with the Victoria's Secret model taking snaps for social media from the set of a photo shoot earlier in the weekend

Luxe: The jet-setting pair have been known to spend time in a luxury $10.4 million holiday home in Miami, which features six beautiful bedrooms and breathtaking bay views

Opulent: The waterfront $100,000-a-month rental property is privately owned and serves as Shanina and Ruckus' regular 'crash pad' during their regular visits to sunny Miami

The Melbourne-born beauty has spoken of her love for warmer weather, previously telling Daily Mail Australia she's looking for a bridal gown to suit a 'location wedding'.

She admitted of the couple: 'We are just very "go with the flow" but its definitely going to be a beach (wedding). I love the beach'.

With no official date and venue revealed to the public so far, she has said 'the most glamorous day of my life will be my wedding day'.

Plans: Shanina admitted of the couple: 'We are just very "go with the flow" but its definitely going to be a beach (wedding). I love the beach'
They've become a staple at the Met Gala.

But Kim Kardashian will have to dress to impress by herself as it is reported her husband Kanye West will not be attending the annual fashion ball this year.

On Sunday, a source told People: 'Kim will be going solo. Hes still very much enjoying his time off from public events.'

All by herself: Kim Kardashian, 36, will have to dress to impress by herself as it is reported that Kanye West, 39, will not be attending the Met Gala this year; (pictured 2016)

The 36-year-old reality star and her husband, 39, were expected to attend together as they have in recent years.

However, family obligations have come into play.

'Hell be staying back in L.A. with their kids,' the source said, referring to daughter North, three, and son Saint, one.

Solo trip: A source told People : 'Kim will be going solo. Hes still very much enjoying his time off from public events'

Reveal: Kim shared never-seen-before behind-the-scenes photos from getting ready for Met Gala 2015 on her website

'Everything is great with him and Kim and hes supportive of her going solo,' the source continued.

The source also adds that Kardashian West will be wearing a design from Vivienne Westwood.

Meanwhile, Kim shared on kimkardashianwest.com three behind-the-scenes shots from her appearance at the 2015 Met Gala.

Clever: She said of her 2015 appearance: 'I was two months pregnant with Saint at the time, so I was trying to hide it.'

'For the 2015 Met Gala, I wore a custom Roberto Cavalli gown by Peter Dundas,' the siren began.

She added: 'I was two months pregnant with Saint at the time, so I was trying to hide it.'

This year's Gala theme is Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between, an exhibit that examines the work of the famed 74-year-old Japanese fashion designer over the span of 40-some years.
Karl Stefanovic had one of his famous giggle fits after a guest poked fun at his relationship with Jasmine Yarbrough.

On Monday's episode of Today, Karl joked to guest Nick Giannopoulos that he'd like to appear in Wog Boy 3 on a boat docked 'in the South of France'.

'No more photos of you on boats mate!' Nick responded, which made the 42-year-old TV host start laughing.

'No more photos of you on boats mate!' Karl Stefanovic (left) couldn't stop laughing on Today when a guest joked about his infamous paparazzi photos with girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough

As the show went to commercial, Karl was clutching his chest and wheezing with laughter, unable to speak.

Nick appeared to be referring to images of Karl and girlfriend Jasmine, published in February, which revealed the pair's romance to the world.

Seemingly not trying to hide their romance, the couple appeared affectionate in the pictures, first published by The Sunday Telegraph.

One image showed Jasmine, 33, sitting next to Karl with her arms across him as he tried to take a selfie of the pair.

Gags: Nick appeared to be referring to images of Karl and his girlfriend Jasmine, published in February, which revealed the couple's romance to the world

In another photo, the couple were seen on the bow of the luxury yacht, sipping champagne as they enjoyed an intimate conversation.

It is understood the couple, who met at a previous boat party, were out celebrating a mutual friend's birthday with 50 other friends.

After the boat docked at Rose Bay wharf, they were seen getting into the same car.

Model ship mates? It is possible Nick might also have have been referring to a boat party in December, attended by Karl, Buddy Franklin and Michael Clarke

It is possible Nick might also have have been referring to a boat party in December, attended by Karl, Buddy Franklin and Michael Clarke.

Jasmine, who is based in Los Angeles, is believed to have started dating the Channel Nine personality in December.

Karl separated from his wife-of-21-years Cassandra Thorburn last year.
Roxy Jacenko was photographed kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal at his Sydney apartment on Saturday night.

And as questions are raised about their 'friendship', it appears there may have once been tension between the PR queen and Nabil's family.

In the biography Blonde Ambition: Roxy Jacenko Unfiltered, by journalist Annette Sharp, it is alleged Nabil's mother was not convinced Roxy would be a good match for her son.

Unsuitable? A biography of Roxy Jacenko alleges her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal's family once had doubts about their relationship. The former couple were spotted kissing on Saturday

Tension: Blonde Ambition, by Annette Sharp, alleges that 'some of the members of the Gazal family' felt Roxy was 'a bit brash'. Pictured: Nabil Gazal Jr (left) with his father Nabil Gazal

The book claims 'some of the members of the Gazal family' felt that Roxy was 'a bit brash' for the wealthy and intensely private family.

'While Old Nabil admired Roxy's pluck well enough, his wife Maud had misgivings about the relationship,' it is claimed.

The biography claims Maud's concerns about Roxy dating her son stemmed in part from a 2008 incident where Roxy's sister, Ruby Davis, claimed in a police report Roxy punched her in the face at a Kings Cross nightclub.

Incident: The biography (pictured) claims Nabil's mother was concerned about Roxy dating her son, in part, due to a 2008 incident where Roxy's sister, Ruby Davis, claimed in a police report Roxy punched her in the face at a Kings Cross nightclub

The incident saw police take out an interim Apprehended Violence Order against Ruby, which was later revoked and dismissed.

Blonde Ambition claims Roxy's break-up with Nabil was difficult for her. She reportedly asked her parents, Doreen and Nick, to comfort her at her Sweaty Betty's offices.

They apparently sat in a car together and talked things over for 'hours and hours'.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Roxy for comment.

Forbidden moment? Roxy was photographed kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal at his Sydney apartment on Saturday night

Close bond: The former couple had dinner together before returning to his home with friends

Split: It is claimed Roxy's break-up with Nabil in 2010 was difficult for her, and she reportedly asked her parents, Doreen and Nick, to comfort her at her Sweaty Betty's offices

Roxy and Nabil dated until 2010, and little is known about their relationship besides the fact he was one of her 'more serious' boyfriends.

She later married investment banker Oliver Curtis in 2012 and they share two children together - five-year-old Pixie and Hunter, two.

Oliver, who was jailed in 2016 for insider trading, is due for release from Cooma Correctional Centre in just under eight weeks.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia last week, Roxy insisted that it would be 'business as usual' when Oliver returns home.

'I'm not really about making a fuss over something that shouldn't be celebrated,' she said.
They play a mother, daughter and grandmother in the film, 3 Generations.

And on Sunday, Elle Fanning joined Susan Sarandon and Naomi Watts for a screening of their new movie in New York.

Elle and Susan coordinated in their springtime print frocks, while Susan was a stark contrast in black leather.

Promoting their work: On Sunday, Elle Fanning, 19, joined Susan Sarandon, 70, and Naomi Watts, 48, for a screening of their new movie in New York

Elle was dressed appropriately in a floral print, ruffled dress with button details.

The 19-year-old wore her blonde locks down, parted to one side, and held back with a collection of bobby pins.

Naomi, who plays her mother in the film, chose a long-sleeve, floral-print dress and pink platform heels for her look.

Susan, who plays Elle's grandmother, wore a head-to-toe black ensemble, consisting of a blouse, leather jacket, pants and dress shoes.

Spring is here! The teen was dressed appropriately in a floral print dress with button details

Elle, Susan and Naomi play a mother, daughter and grandmother in the film, 3 Generations

Pretty: The 19-year-old wore her blonde locks down, parted to one side, and held back with a collection of bobby pins

Sienna Miller also came out for the event.

The New York born British star dazzled in a Frame ankle length leather coat and pink pumps.

During the evening, the 35-year-old met up with the film's director, Gaby Dellal, as the two shared a hug on the carpet.

Always a stunner: Sienna Miller also came out for the event. The New York born British star dazzled in an ankle length Frame leather coat

Friendly greeting: During the evening, the 35-year-old met up with the film's director, Gaby Dellal, as the two shared a hug on the carpet

3 Generations is a film about a teen who wants to transition.

In order to do so, she must get both her mother and father's approval; and she has been estranged from her father for years.

Elle stars as Ray, Susan as grandmother Dolly and Naomi as Ray's mother, Maggie.

Looking great, ladies! Kelly Rutherford, 48, was classy in a black blouse layered underneath a blazer. Susan continued to look ageless with her neutral make-up and curly, red hair
She split from her Bachelorette beau Sasha Mielczarek last December and recently sparked speculation of a romance with Home And Away star, Orpheus Pledger.

But Sam Frost says she is happy with her current single status, claiming: 'I really enjoy being on my own'.

Speaking to TV Week, the 28-year-old addressed her move back into the dating scene and spoke about her health after battling depression.

Flying solo: Sam Frost says she is happy with her current single status, claiming: 'I really enjoy being on my own'

Sam admitted to the publication that she had gone on dates with other people since her break-up with former flame Sasha, but hadn't done so in months.

'The last time I went on a date was back in February,' the radio host announced.

She added that the encounter didn't go so well either, stating: 'Unfortunately things didn't work out.'

Seeing people: The 28-year-old addressed her move back to the dating scene since her split with Sasha Mielczarek, telling TV Week that she hasn't had a date since February

It comes as rumours emerged that she had been getting close to 24-year-old soap star Orpheus, after the two were spotted together at Melbourne Airport the day after the Logies.

The day after the event, Today Extra host Sonia Kruger claimed she spotted the former Bachelorette still in her Logies dress walking through the hotel foyer at 6.41am Monday morning.

Orpheus stirred up further talk last Wednesday, when he shared a photo of the pair arriving back in Sydney together to his Instagram account.

He captioned the moment: 'Cool pic - on a mission.'

Rumours: It comes as reports emerged suggesting she had been getting close to 24-year-old soap star Orpheus, after the two were spotted together at Melbourne Airport the day after the Logies

Controversy: Orpheus stirred up further talk last Wednesday, when he shared a photo of the pair arriving back in Sydney together to his Instagram account

Having been through a tough few months since parting ways with her former beau, Sam also told the magazine that when it came to hear health she was 'really, really well'.

Just last month the blonde bombshell discussed her mental struggle, telling the Herald Sun that she had 'reached breaking point'.

'I was like, "Oh my goodness I am really, really struggling with my mental health",' she remarked.

With her personal and professional life going through big changes, Sam told News Corp she spent time with friends and family in Melbourne, before turning to a psychologist to help get her life back on track.
She was photographed kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal on Saturday night while her husband Oliver Curtis remains in jail.

And the photographer behind the sensational photos taken in Sydney on Saturday night, has described Roxy Jacenko's moment with with Nabil as 'passionate'.

'This was no one-off friendly kiss. It was a passionate, long, lingering snog,' the paparazzo who witnessed the moment told Daily Mail Australia.

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'This was no one off friendly kiss': The photographer who witnessed Roxy Jacenko's steamy kiss with her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal on Saturday night has weighed in on the shock moment

'Whatever the history these two are obviously still into each other,' the snapper added.

He also laughed off suggestions that the kiss was purely platonic, quipping: 'If you're suggesting it was merely a little kiss between friends then I wish I had friend like that.'

The PR boss meanwhile, declined to comment when approached by DMA in regards to the images.

'Whatever the history these two are obviously still into each other': The snapper told Daily Mail Australia that the former couple had undeniable chemistry

Unfazed: Despite the big glass window and the attention of their friends, Roxy and Nabil seemed unfazed as they continued to show affection

Roxy, 36, was pictured wrapping her arms around Nabil's neck whilst the pair kissed during celebrations at the millionaire's lavish apartment.

The pair appeared unfazed by the attention of their surrounding friends as they beamed while in each other's arms.

Earlier in the evening, the bubbly blonde stunned in a white dress as she dined with her ex-beau and pals at Bar Machiaveli in the affluent suburb of Rushcutters Bay.

Celebrating something? The 36-year-old PR queen seemed in high spirits as she dined with the property mogul and several friends at an up-market Sydney restaurant earlier in the night

Her wedding and engagement rings from husband Oliver Curtis - who is serving out his jail sentence for insider trading - were notably missing as she cosied up with Nabil.

She did, however, wear a diamond eternity ring on her right hand, which is widely rumoured to be from Nabil. Roxy has denied the bling is from her former beau.

It appeared to be an evening of celebrations, with Roxy seen raising her glass to take part in a toast.

Former flame: Nabil dated Roxy 'seriously' prior to their split in 2010, and the pair have been spotted during several catch-ups in recent weeks, while Roxy's husband Oliver Curtis is in jail

The dinner date was the latest in a series of catch-ups Roxy and her former flame have had since husband Oliver was jailed last June.

Nabil has been described as one of Roxy's more 'serious' past boyfriends, and the pair dated until 2010. However, little is known about their relationship prior to the split.

Meanwhile, Oliver and Roxy married in 2012, and are parents to five-year-old Pixie, and two-year-old Hunter.
Caitlyn Jenner arrived at the Los Angeles Times Ideas Exchange to talk about her new memoir.

The former Olympian, 67, wore a bright orange dress and a leather jacket as she sat down to discuss her new book.

She styled her brown tresses in big waves and a side parting for the day.

Getting candid: Caitlyn Jenner arrived at the Los Angeles Times Ideas Exchange to talk about her new memoir

All ears: The former Olympian, 67, wore a bright orange dress and a leather jacket as she sat down to discuss her new book

She also made sure to contour her face and add a touch of lip gloss and mascara.

Her new book has been a hot topic of late and it has certainly caused riffs with the Kardashian and Jenner clan.

Meanwhile the Jenner's are experiencing their own dramas.

Simple: She styled her brown tresses in big waves and a side parting for the day

The whole thing: She also made sure to contour her face and add a touch of lip gloss and mascara

Touchy subject: Her new book has been a hot topic of late and it has certainly caused riffs with the Kardashian and Jenner clan

Kendall Jenner lost patience with her father Caitlyn over her obsession with her little sister Kylie during Sunday's episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

'You talk about it a lot. I am here. I am not good enough?' Kendall, 21, asked her as she admitted Caitlyn was hurting her feelings.

Caitlyn earlier organized a trip to buy horses for Kendall and Kylie after building a barn to encourage them to visit her more often at her Malibu home.

Bold colour: Caitlyn decided to go for an eye catching orange

Taking tips from Kim? She also accessorized with a leather jacket

KUWTK: She also appeared on the latest episode of the E! reality drama

'I am excited that the ball is rolling and we can start riding again,' said Kendall.

Kylie stood up Caitlyn but stalwart daughter Kendall arrived at the meeting to look at horses to buy and immediately jumped atop a horse and started galloping around.

Kendall sweetly asked her father to take a picture of her on the horse, but she instead fielded a call from Kylie who bailed out of the meet up.

Kylie said she couldn't make it and blamed her skipping out on gatherings by saying that she was 'working every single day'.

Feelings hurt: Kendall Jenner was hurt over father Caitlyn obsessing over her younger sister Kylie during Sunday's episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Shocked reaction: Caitlyn was shocked when Kendall called her out for complaining about Kylie

Good times: Kendall earlier met up with Caitlyn to look at horses to buy

On the phone: Caitlyn ignored Kendall to field a call from Kylie

Kendall then rode away ignoring Caitlyn as she called out her name.

'I get my dad missing hanging out with Kylie but I do make an effort to meet up and hang out with her. She is just obsessing over Kylie and ruining the time we are spending together,' Kendall said.

The top model later shared her emotions after Caitlyn again moaned about not seeing Kylie.

Riding around: Kendall immediately jumped on a horse and started galloping around

Taking off: Caitlyn called out to Kendall who ignored her and rode off

'You keep complaining and it is making me not even want to be around you,' Kendall told her as she said she was done 'bottling up' her feelings.

Caitlyn apologized and told her she thought she would be able to help in her relationship with Kylie.

'I get pretty insecure at times with all the kids and everything I have been through. Even with all my insecurities you have always been there for me and I appreciate that,' Caitlyn told her.

Candid conversation: Caitlyn apologized to Kendall after she opened up about her feelings

Stalwart daughter: Kendall was told by Caitlyn that her support was appreciated

Kendall told the cameras she appreciated Caitlyn acknowledging the situation.

'She has had a little bit of a struggle bonding with all of the kids and I appreciate her opening up,' said Kendall.

Kim Kardashian also brazenly confronted a 'tramp' that Scott Disick brought to his Dubai hotel room on the latest episode titled Guilt Trip.

Hot drinks: The top model revealed that she gets the hiccups after drinking hot beverages

The 36-year-old reality star found the 'groupie' hiding in the bathroom of Scott's suite and told the 'whore' she was having her booted out by security.

The drama unfolded as Scott relapsed with alcohol as he was told by a friend that Kourtney was 'hooking up' with someone in Los Angeles.

Kim discovered the girl after returning to the hotel from her comeback make-up event.

Good eye: Kim's assistant Stephanie Sheppard noticed a black purse and questioned its ownership

On it: Stephanie was on it immediately and Kim's own intuition soon kicked in

'What the f***, this cannot be. Something is up, Scott is pacing, something came over me, like Scott has a girl hiding somewhere and we are going to find her,' she said.

Kim then asked if she could go into Scott's room to take a picture with the aquarium and Scott could be heard off camera whispering to a producer 'There's a girl downstairs.'

'I'm gonna have a heart attack. This is going to be really awkward,' Scott said.

Cardiac arrest: Scott Disick said that he was going to have a heart attack as Kim started searching

In Scott's suite Kim found that the bathroom was locked as Kim shouted she was going to kick down the door to find 'what f***ing whore is in there.'

'The bathroom is locked and I'm not f***ing stupid,' Kim yelled so Scott could hear her.

Kim then burst into the bathroom and found the girl hiding in the toilet.

Bathroom bust: Kim busted into the bathroom to confront the 'groupie'

'What the f*** are you doing here? Seriously you are just like a whore, such a tramp. Get your things and get the f*** out of here. F***ing groupie. Get your things and security will escort you the f*** out of here.'

And in clips from next week's episode on the group trip to Costa Rica the family confronts Scott about bringing another girl with him.

The episode began with Kris jokingly showing off her bondage bondage skills by tying Scott's hands together with a silky '50 Shades of Grey' restraint.

Calling security: The mother of two told the groupie that she was calling security to have her kicked out

Scott told Kim and Khloe that he and Kourtney had enjoyed their trip to Aspen, and that she had even wanted to go to dinner without the kids.

'Kourtney and I have been spending a lot more time together so i decided to take her and the kids to Aspen and she agreed to go, so for me that is a big thing,' he said.

Scott told the girls it was the first trip in a long time when they had 'felt like a family' and it reminded him of 'the old days.'

Tied up: Kris Jenner tied up Scott with some bondage gear early in the episode

Big spread: Scott was greeted by Kim and a large food spread at the hotel in Dubai

'I am happy,' he told them.

'I feel that all Kourtney ever wanted from me was to be sober and healthy and just be there to take care of my family. I have been really present and not drinking. A year ago I feel like there was a point when we did not see or speak to each other so that feels good,' Scott said.

Kim asked him if Kourtney ever knew Scott had bought her an engagement ring back in the day and he told her she did.

Family vacation: Scott talked wistfully about the family vacation in Aspen

Scott told them he had proposed but the pair 'had got scared' of the media reaction and they put the ring aside for 'another day.'

'I am really happy to see Kourtney and Scott in a good place. At the end of the day if Scott got his s*** together do I believe he and Kourtney would be together? Yes,' said Kim.

'He has been so good. I think Scott just has to keep it up.'

So good: Kim remarked that Scott had been doing 'so good' and just need to 'keep it up'

Kim told the cameras she was getting back to normal life after her Paris ordeal and told Scott and Kourtney she had been on social media for the first time since the robbery.

'I am slowly coming back,' she said.

Kim then talked about how 'nervous' she was at 'freakish things happening' as she got back to work with her Dubai trip.

Comeback appearance: The reality star traveled to Dubai to give a master makeup session

Question and answer: Kim fielded questions from the audience in Dubai

Fan favorite: The reality star told the audience that she hoped they learned a lot from her

'To say I am nervous or scared is an understatement but I am going to try and get back to normal,' she said.

Kim got used to being back in the public eye in Dubai and admitted 'anxiety' at being in a busy restaurant as people took her picture.

'I think that my sense of what is going on around me is times 100 of what it used to be. I can just feel people around taking pictures or talking or saying my name. I don't want to be this crazy person saying people can't take a photo of me, I am in a public restaurant why can't they? I am trying to ease into it but it is just how I feel,' Kim said.

Public eye: Kim admitted noticing her surroundings more since the Paris robbery ordeal

Taking pictures: Fans were shown taking snaps of Kim while she ate out

Kim then told the cameras how Scott had heard a rumor that Kourtney was 'hooking up' with someone.

'Kourtney is so secretive that I honestly have no idea what it is,' she said.

Kim then told her friends over lunch that Scott was trying to 'win her back.'

Keeping secrets: Kim admitted that she didn't know anything about Kourtney dating

'It must not be easy for him to take news like this, they just had the best time in Aspen. I was definitely like ''Okay they are back together.'' I feel so bad for him.

'It really sucks as he has had an amazing four months. He has said to me that he is doing it for himself and will stay the course,' Kim said.

Scott then addressed the issue and finding out about Kourtney.

Tough time: Scott addressed the issue of finding out Kourtney was out with someone

'I am here across the world in Dubai and I find out that Kourtney is with somebody else. I am trying to be friendly to all these people that came to see me at this appearance but little do they know I am dealing with something much bigger than anything right now. This is probably like the worst thing I could ever hear - ever,' said Scott dramatically.

'I don't think she realized a friend of mine saw her. Of course I called her and asked what is going on and she blatantly lied to me. It was somewhat heartbreaking. I did not see things going this direction. I feel like everything I have been working so hard for is kind of done now,' Scott said.

While out shopping Kim admitted to feeling panicked by a crowd that built up outside the store she was in.

Promotional appearance: The reality star kept up his public appearance

Getting anxious: Kim said she was feeling anxious in crowds

'It gives me such anxiety,' she said before exiting out of the back of the store.

As Kim prepared for her beauty event in Dubai her security team texted her and said that Scott was drunk at the hotel.

'I think this has a lot to do with what he thinks Kourtney is up to and that really sucks,' said Kim as she called Kourtney.

Mother and daughter: Kourtn played with daughter Penelope while Scott was in Dubai

Her sister told her that Scott was not her problem any more and that he could not be controlled.

Kim told Kourtney that she needed to make sure there were no mixed messages between her and Scott over the status of their relationship.

'Kourtney should have been a little bit more honest and said ''Look we are not together' because he genuinely cares so much and I feel so bad for him,' said Kim.

Calling in: Kim called Kourtney to let her know that Scott was drunk

Before her appearance Kim told her friends about her anxiety.

'It doesnt change the way I feel about the world now. I live my life so publicly but after Paris I just feel like is this what I should really be doing?' she said.

'Is it worth me having all of this anxiety. I mean I don't know if I even want to do this any more.'

Having doubt: The reality star wondered if the public appearances were worth the anxiety

And Kim told the cameras that doing public appearance 'was not worth it' just seconds before taking to the stage but in the end was 'comfortable' during it.

Back in LA, Kourtney told the cameras that Scott now had 'to take responsibility for his own actions' before enjoying a play date with Travis Barker from Blink-182.

KUWTK returns next week on the E! network.
Angelina Jolie treated son Pax, 13, to lunch at a pricey restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Sunday.

The Hollywood star looked happy and relaxed as she arrived at the eatery on Pacific Coast Highway with her Vietnam-born teen, whom she adopted in 2007 when he was three.

Angelina, 41, who was dressed in a loose-fitting black outfit, wore her long brunette locks tied back from her face and accessorized with diamond stud earrings.

Just the two of us: Angelina Jolie looked happy and relaxed as she treated son Pax, 13, to lunch at a pricey restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Sunday

Pax was dressed in a white t-shirt and black jeans along with black sneakers.

He added a baggy camo jacket and showed off his asymmetrical hair style - shaved on one side and longer on the other.

The youngster, who has five brothers and sisters, appeared happy to be spending some quality one-on-one time with his mother.

Teen style: Pax was dressed in a white t-shirt, black jeans and black sneakers. He added a camo jacket and showed off his asymmetrical hair style - shaved on one side and longer on the other

Sunday vibes: Angelina, 41, who was dressed in a loose-fitting black outfit, wore her long brunette locks tied back from her face and accessorized with diamond stud earrings

The actress, who is in the midst of divorcing Brad Pitt, likes to spend time with each of her kids individually when she can.

Just a few days ago, she was seen shopping with daughter Shiloh, 10, who picked out a ukulele after a trip to a music store.

Angelina is also mom to Maddox, 15, Zahara, 12, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.

Working mom: Angelina is also mom to Maddox, 15, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne with her now estranged husband Brad Pitt. The family is pictured in 2015

Meanwhile, it was reported by In Touch Weekly last Wednesday that the children had their first over night visit with dad Brad since Angelina filed for divorce seven months ago.

The children along with their two nannies stayed at the actor's Loz Feliz neighborhood home in LA where the 53-year-old star hosted 'a family dinner around the table.'

In March, a source told ET that Brad had been speaking directly to his estranged wife about doing what's best for their children.

'It's still in the process of being resolved,' the source said of the couple's divorce, noting that they are making progress privately. 'Brad knows Angelina is a really good mom.'
She recently feasted on a scorpion on a stick while working in China.

But no doubt Alessandra Ambrosio enjoyed some more appealing dishes as she enjoyed a meal with her family in Malibu on Sunday.

The Latina lovely was joined by her children and fiance Jamie Mazur as they ate out at Nobu in the California celebrity enclave.

Family feast day: Alessandra Ambrosio was joined by her brood as she ate out in Malibu Sunday

Professional clotheshorse Alessandra, 36, looked in fine form indeed, showing off her stunning stalks in tiny denim hotpants, while also wearing a white T-shirt following a day out at the beach.

The yummy mummy was also spotted carrying her favourite fashion accessory, her three-year-old boy Noah.

She was also joined by her adorable mini-me daughter Anja, seven, who took great delight in larking around before heading to the family SUV.

No doubt she was enjoying feasting on conventional fare following some culinary adventures abroad, snacking on a scorpion on a recent trip to China.

The model had been in the Far East country on a promotional trip to open the new Victoria's Secret store in Chengdu.

Nice peace: The professional clotheshorse flashed a V-sign as she headed home

Mini-me you complete me: The resemblance was striking between Alessandra and Anja

Favourite fashion accessory: Alessandra carried son Noah to the family car

Water carrier: Her fiance Jamie Mazur was left holding the bucket, spade and beach towels

Away from her duties as an Angel, Alessandra had been seeing the sights and enjoying the local culture and cuisine which includes dining out on a cooked arachnid.

The Brazilian beauty uploaded a photo of herself chowing down on the scorpion on a stick on her Instagram account.

The accompanying caption read: 'Snack time #WheninChina (sic)'

Alessandra also used her account on the photo-sharing website to reveal what a great time she had at the opening of the lingerie specialist shop.

She wrote: 'Amazing China #vsloveschina #VSstoreopening #chengdu ... Sending love from the new @victoriassecret store in #chengdu (sic)'

Shady lady: She completed her look with trendy circular sunglasses

Having a moment: The poseurs of Malibu were thrilled to meet the Brazilian beauty

What a leg-end: The Latina lovely showcased her stunning stalks in tiny denim hotpants
Bella Hadid flashed underboob Sunday while headed to a rapper's birthday party in New York City.

The 20-year-old model donned a tan sleeveless cropped top that couldn't contain her as she attended a birthday celebration for rapper Travis Scott who turned 25 on Sunday.

The blouse featured a lace-up front and criss-cross straps over her flat stomach, to draw attention to her impossibly petite waist.

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Party attire: Bella Hadid flashed underboob Sunday while attending a rapper's birthday party in New York City

Gorgeous: The 20-year-old model donned a tan sleeveless cropped top that couldn't contain her as she attended a birthday celebration for rapper Travis Scott who turned 25

She completed her outfit with matching pants and accessorized with sparkling dangling earrings, necklace and a few rings.

She joined her younger brother Anwar, 17, at the bash along with friends Kendall and Kylie Jenner.

Kylie, 19, has been inseparable from Travis this month after recently splitting from 27-year-old rapper Tyga.

Slender: The blouse featured a lace-up front and criss-cross straps over her flat stomach, to draw attention to her impossibly petite waist

Co-ordinated: She completed her outfit with matching pants, which featured funky lace detailing and lengthened her already leggy figure with their high-rise waist

Finishing touches: She accessorised with sparkling dangling earrings, necklace and trendy round sunglasses as she arrived with Cara Delevingne and Kendall Jenner (L-R)

Mingling: Bella headed to the bash with close friends Kendall and Kylie - with the latter rumoured to be dating rapper Travis since her split from Tyga

Bella and her model sister Gigi, 22, have been longtime friends with Kendall and Kylie.

The pretty brunette took to social media Saturday to address the Fyre Festival debacle after promoting the music festival in the Bahamas.

Bella made it clear that it 'was not her project whatsoever' and that she 'wasn't informed about the production or process.'

'...I initially trusted this would be an amazing & memorable experience for all of us, which is why I agreed to do one promotion...not knowing about the disaster that was to come...,' she posted.

Big sister: Bella shared a video on Instagram on Sunday of herself feeding brother Anway

'I feel so sorry and badly because this is something I couldn't stand by, although of course if I would have known about the outcome, you would have all known too.'

'I hope everyone is safe and back with their families and loves ones...xo...'

Bella and stars such as Emily Ratajkowski and Elsa Hosk last December were invited to the islands last December to help promote the two-weekend event.

Festival fiasco: The Bahamas festival backed by a host of A-list models and with packages costing up to 10,000 ($13,000) descended into chaos amid reports guests have been stranded at an unfinished site overrun by feral dogs. Models (left to right) Elsa Hosk, Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid, Lais Ribeiro, Gizele Oliveira and Rose Bertram were invited to the island in December 'to give feedback' on the festival launch

Ja Rule, 41, and tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland, 25, organized the musical festival that was cancelled as guests arrived to garbage-strewn grounds, disaster-relief housing and limited electricity and water.

Festival headliner Blink-182 announced via Twitter on Thursday that they were pulling out after losing confidence about the festival experience for their fans.

Ja Rule in a public message Saturday said all festival goers would receive a refund and free VIP passes to next year's festival that will be held at a US beach venue.
He's the burgeoning cook who took out the $250,000 prize with sister Amy during the grand final of My Kitchen Rules on Sunday.

But winning the hit reality show hasn't gone to Tyson Murr's head, with the former Uber driver rolling up his sleeves to work as an apprentice chef at the Hotel WestEnd in Brisbane the following day.

Tyson was seen turning up for work at the establishment on Monday, with the dust barely settled around his and Amy's mammoth win.

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Winners are grinners: MKR star Tyson Murr has gone back to work as an apprentice chef at the Hotel WestEnd in Brisbane after winning the reality TV show on Sunday night

Back in the kitchen: Tyson was seen turning up for work at the establishment on Monday, with the dust barely settled around his and Amy's mammoth win

Dressed casually in a blue collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of dark grey chinos and a pair of brown leather shoes, the reality star looked happy and confident as he walked into his new place of work.

Hotel manager Dan Begley told Daily Mail Australia that Tyson had been performing well in his duties while remaining quite humble about the recent win.

'Obviously it's great to find someone who has a passion for food and Tyson definitely has that,' he said.

Can't tear them apart! Returning to work on Monday, Tyson could be seen in one photo arriving for work at the hotel while his sister Amy also exited a cab

Learning curve: Hotel manager Dan Begley told Daily Mail Australia that Tyson had been performing well in his duties while remaining quite humble about the recent win

'He's going great - also he's humble enough to realise that he still has a lot to learn about the industry. He's got a lot of flair and creativity and we're glad to have him on board,' he added.

Returning to work on Monday, Tyson could be seen in one photo arriving for work at the hotel while his sister Amy also exited a cab.

Another photo shows Tyson leaning on the bar and taking some pointers from his new boss Dan while he is seen clinking champagne with another chef at the hotel, possibly celebrating his recent victory.

Confident: Dressed casually in a blue collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of dark grey chinos and a pair of brown leather shoes, the reality star looked happy and confident as he walked into his new place of work

Congrats: Tyson toasted his win with a chef at the establishment

It looked to be quite a celebratory day at the hotel, with another photo showing Tyson being embraced by the chef as they shook hands in the kitchen.

Tyson also is seen 'high-fiving' the chef in another photo while the pair smile broadly.

After hearing the news that he and Amy had won the substantial prize in Sunday night's grand final, an emotional Tyson said he couldn't have done it without his sister.

Well done: It looked to be quite a celebratory day at the hotel, with another photo showing Tyson being embraced by the same chef

'I'm just so proud of what Amy and I have achieved together. We couldn't have done it alone and I'm just happy to be sharing it with her,' he said.

'Being crowned the winner makes my dreams of becoming a chef a reality. It's going to happen,' he added.

The Queensland-based pair ended the night on a formidable 57 points out of 60, while runners-up Valerie and Courtney ended their run on 52 points.

High five! Tyson took out the grand finale of My Kitchen Rules on Sunday night

The brother-sister team also managed to get perfect tens from judges Pete Evans, Liz Egan and Karne Martini.

Their winning five-course meal that consisted of: Parmesan and truffle mousse with mushrooms; pea and ham soup; butter-poached marron with Jerusalem artichoke and rhubarb; veal sweetbreads and marrow; while finishing off with an after-dinner mint.

At the start of Sunday's grand final, Tyson expressed just how much he wanted to win the show and pursue a career in the kitchen.

Narrow victory: Tyson and Amy ended their MKR grand final run on a formidable 57 points out of 60, while runners-up Valerie and Courtney ended their run on 52 points

Perfection: The brother-sister team also managed to get perfect tens from judges Pete Evans, Liz Egan and Karne Martini
Denisov is the head of Rosoboronexports delegation at the FAMEX 2017 international aerospace exhibition being held at airbase No. 1 in Santa Lucia in Mexico.



"Rosoboronexport cooperates with almost all Latin American countries. Russia does its best to strengthen its positions on the market, offering not only contracts for ready-made systems, as many other countries do, but also after-sales maintenance, spare parts and repair. Russia is also offering to train Latin American personnel to operate, service, upgrade and even produce hi-tech military hardware under license," Denisov said.



In addition to Rosoboronexport, Russias state hi-tech corporation Rostec, Russian Helicopters Group and Irkut Corporation are taking part in the FAMEX 2017 exhibition. The exhibition in Mexico is being attended by more than 500 companies from dozen countries.



According to Denisov, this has shown that "Russia is gradually strengthening military and technical cooperation" with Latin American countries.



"Russian-made planes, helicopters, air defense systems and Army equipment remain the focus of attention for our Latin American partners for many years," the Marketing Activity Departments head said.



The successful performance of Russias air task force in the counterterrorist operation in Syria has aroused interest in many military hardware items.



Rosoboronexport has displayed more than 160 items of Russian-made military hardware, including the full-scale examples of the Mil Mi-17 (NATO reporting name: Hip) helicopter in service with the Mexican armed forces and the Gorets-M armored vehicle manufactured by Russias Special Hardware Research Institute. In early March, the Gorets-M vehicle was delivered to Mexicos Federal Protection Service for temporary use.


If fans of the Neil Gaiman book were worried about what would be left on the editing floor of the small screen adaptation...they need not fret.

American Gods gave viewers an eyeful on Sunday night as they included a graphic sex scene from the first chapter of the fantastical book, which perfectly captures the brilliant weirdness of the novel.

A somewhat innocuous hookup off of a dating site turns both supernatural and murderous in the first episode of the Starz show titled The Bone Orchard.

Supernatural: American Gods gave viewers an eyeful on Sunday night as they included a graphic sex scene from the first chapter of the fantastical book

A man meets a woman off a dating website and ends up in bed with her.

The scene, which is taken from the first chapter of the 2001 book, takes an unexpected turn when the woman swallows the man whole with her vagina.

The woman is no mortal as she is Bilquis, who in Gaiman's universe is a goddess based on the biblical character more commonly known as the Queen of Sheba.

A somewhat innocuous hookup off of a dating site turns both supernatural and murderous in the first episode of the Starz show titled The Bone Orchard

Pretty typical at first: A man meets a woman off a dating website and ends up in bed with her

The scene, which is taken from the first chapter of the 2001 book, takes an unexpected turn when the woman swallows the man whole with her vagina

Meanwhile, a storm is brewing in Starz's gritty new series American Gods, as deities old and new gear up for a battle that reverberates with topical issues in the real world.

Immigration, race, religion and sexuality are all examined in 'merican Gods through the saga of Shadow Moon, a convict who is released to the news of his wife's death. He is hired to be the bodyguard of an old grifter named Mr. Wednesday, the disguise of the Norse god Odin.

The series is based on British author Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel of the same name, a surreal story of how the old gods of folklore struggle to be revered and remembered in an age of new gods like technology and media.
He's recovering after being rushed to hospital last Wednesday after a health scare.

And according to Woman's Day, Patti Newton holds grave concerns for her husband, TV legend Bert Newton, 78.

The publication reports that Patti, 72, is 'terrified that this time he won't make it.'

Stressed: According to Woman's Day, Patti Newton holds grave concerns for her husband, TV legend Bert Newton, 78, as he recovers in hospital after his latest health scare

A source - described as a close friend of the Newton family - told the magazine about Patti's concerns.

'His breathing is laboured and the stress of it all is affecting his heart,' they said.

After Bert missed the Logies because of the scare, the source added that is lacking motivation and energy.

Her partner: The publication reports that Patti, 72, is 'terrified that this time he won't make it'

'He's just so tired of life, which isn't like him.'

They added: 'He hasn't been out of bed for days.'

The magazine reports that their daughter Lauren, 38, is Patti's rock throughout the ordeal.

The source claims Patti 'wouldn't cope' without her husband if anything was to happen to him.

On Friday, Patti took to Instagram to share an update with her and Bert's fans.

Supportive: The magazine reports that their daughter Lauren, 38, is Patti's rock throughout the ordeal

She shared a shot of Bert smiling as he rested in his hospital bed, with grandson Monty by his side.

'Monty always puts a smile on his face,' Patti wrote underneath the sweet snap.

'Thanks for all your well wishes xx,' she added.

Patti and Bert have been married for decades, having tied the knot in November 1974.

Bert has been suffered a number of health scares over the last few years, since undergoing a quadruple heart bypass in 2012, including being hospitalised in March for pneumonia.

Ready to go! It comes as Bert was unable to attend the Logie Awards on Sunday, with Patti wearing a gold sequinned jacket with Bert's face on it

It comes as Bert was unable to attend the Logie Awards on Sunday, with Patti instead joined by daughter Lauren as they hit the red carpet.

But Patti made sure that although Bert could not be there physically, he would be there in spirit, wearing a gold sequined blazer with the Good Morning Australia's Gold Logie win on the back.

'Even though Bert's not well I'm taking him to the Logies,' she wrote on Instagram.

Happily posing for a snap with Patti in her outfit before she left, Bert smiled and pointed to the picture of his more youthful self, as his wife tenderly placed her arm on his chest.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Bert's representative for comment in relation to this story.
One of her most iconic movie moments saw her emerge from the sea in a tiny orange bikini for Die Another Day.

And, 15 years on, Halle Berry proved she still has her enviable Bond Girl figure as she flashed her toned stomach in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Strolling through LAX airport, the 50-year-old actress looked impossibly youthful as she prepared to catch her flight.

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Ab fab! 15 years on from Die Another Day Halle Berry proved she still has her enviable Bond Girl figure as she flashed her toned stomach at LAX airport in California on Sunday

Flaunting her impeccable abs, the Oscar-winning actress donned a sheer black top that also offered a look at her lacy bra.

Layering up, the star also donned a sheer cardigan, whilst she flashed glimpses of her tanned and toned pins in a pair of distressed bleached jeans.

Ensuring her accessories tied together her ensemble, Halle also donned a pair of suede grey ankle boots which complemented her fedora cap.

Chic and cheerful! Layering up, the star also donned a sheer cardigan, whilst she flashed glimpses of her tanned and toned pins in a pair of distressed bleached jeans

Whilst Halle has a vast and varied film career - including an Oscar win for Monster's Ball - one of her most iconic roles was as Jinx, in the Bond film Die Another Day.

The mother-of-two starred alongside Pierce Brosnan in the 2002 flick and famously slipped into a tiny orange bikini two-piece for one sizzling scene.

She later revealed that whilst it may have come across a sultry shot, the reality was far from glamorous.

Bond babe! Whilst Halle has a vast and varied film career - including an Oscar win for Monster's Ball - one of her most iconic roles was as Jinx, in the Bond film Die Another Day

Halle told The Mirror: 'The sea was freezing. I had to get in and climb out quite a few times and I went in the water and I kept coming out of the water. Then I had to walk up the beach in "a certain way".

'All the film crew could hear were instructions being shouted at me saying "Can you be sexier?"

'I was like shouting back at the director "this is all the sexy I got". Im gonna get a hip displacement if I try and make myself any sexier!'
She welcomed her second child a mere seven weeks ago.

But Billie Faiers proved she'd had no trouble snapping straight back into shape as she shared a sizzling bikini snap on Monday.

Soaking up the sunshine on her trip to Dubai with sister Sam and mum Suzanne, the 27-year-old reality star looked sensational as she cosied up to her family.

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Yummy mummy: She welcomed her second child seven weeks ago. But Billie Faiers proved she'd had no trouble snapping back into shape as she shared a sizzling bikini snap on Monday

Donning a snakeskin bikini, the former TOWIE star showed off her impeccably flat stomach and toned figure less than two months after she gave birth to son, Arthur.

Sam, 26, who is mother to 17-month-old son Paul - also looked incredible in a red bikini top and printed palazzo pants as she blew a kiss for the camera.

And showing exactly where the Faiers girls get their good genes from, mum Suzanne, 48, revealed her own impeccable figure in a peach two-piece.

Beach babe: Donning a snakeskin bikini, the former TOWIE star showed off her impeccably flat stomach and toned figure less than two months after she gave birth to son, Arthur

The whole Faiers family touched down in Dubai on Monday to spend some quality time together.

And Billie looked every inch the doting mother as she cradled her seven-week-old son Arthur on Tuesday.

Styling a pair of embroidered shorts in the baking heat, the starlet devoted her attention on her second child.

Mum's the word! Billie looked every inch the doting mother as she cradled her seven-week-old baby son Arthur on Tuesday when on the Faiers family holiday in Dubai

While she is also away with her two-year-old daughter Nelly and fiance Greg Sheppard, the mum-of-two has been inseparable from her baby boy since giving birth.

Billie has shared a series of cosy snaps of the two of them enjoying pool days in the Middle Eastern heat with her legion of 1.4million fans.

But she isn't the only one in holiday mode as her younger sister Sam flaunted her flat stomach in her holiday gear, a tiny off-the-shoulder embroidered cropped top.

The young mum showed she was bikini body ready as she soaked up the glorious sunshine, showing her legs had already started to tan with a sun-kissed glow.

Together: While she is also away with her two-year-old daughter Nelly and fiance Greg Sheppard, the mum-of-two has been inseparable from her baby boy since giving birth

Cosy! The former TOWIE star has shared a series of cosy snaps of the two of them enjoying pool days in the Middle Eastern heat with her legion of 1.4million fans

Sam revealed her one-year-old son Paul Tony Jr. and Billie's daughter Nelly are 'loving' the family getaway.

She told her Instagram followers: 'These two little cuties loving our family holiday.'

Her handsome real estate developer boyfriend Paul Knightley and mum Sue Wells also jetted off on the exotic break.

Sizzling: But the 27-year-old isn't the only one in holiday mode as her younger sister Sam, 26, flaunted her flat stomach in her holiday gear

Family time! The 26-year-old revealed her one-year-old son Paul Tony Jr. and Billie's daughter Nelly (pictured above) are 'loving' the getaway

The Faiers family are in the midst of filming for the second series of ITVBe reality show, Sam Faiers: The Mummy Diaries.

Family-focused Sam recently discussed how she felt 'pressure' to give birth to a boy as her beau 'really, really wanted a boy'.

But the reality star confessed it would not have mattered as the joy of welcoming a child into the world is overwhelming.

She told Channel Mum: 'But when I gave birth, girl or boy at that moment it would not have mattered in the world because the baby is there and it's healthy.'
The new season of MasterChef Australia premiered on Monday night, and it seems it's going to be one of the best seasons yet.

On the show, the judges were left utterly impressed by 19-year-old university student Michelle, who whipped up an intricate chocolate golden ball dessert, which they said could be served in a 'Michelin star' restaurant.

Michelle - or Mich as she preferred to be called - made it through auditions and got an apron, with Gary Mehigan being so impressed, he told her: 'You're a bit of a freak!'

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Will she win? MasterChef Australia judges were left shocked after university student Michelle, 19, made an intricate chocolate golden ball dessert which they called 'Michelin star' quality

'Lovely freshness from the raspberries,' Gary said.

'That mousse is so super-light, but not kind of overly rich. Chocolate is outstanding,' he added about her dessert.

Ahead of tasting the dessert, Matt Preston remarked: 'I think the last time I saw that, it was in a two-star Michelin restaurant. That is wonderful.'

'You're a bit of a freak!' Michelle served a chocolate ball with different desserts inside

So many elements: The chocolate ball contained food including a raspberry mint jelly, two-cheese mousse, mascarpone and cream cheese, white chocolate and popping candies

Michelle made the chocolate ball with a raspberry mint jelly, two-cheese mousse, mascarpone and cream cheese, white chocolate, chocolate shards, French crepes popping candies, raspberry coulis and edible flowers inside.

Gary couldn't believe that Michelle made the dessert being so young.

'Mich, at 19 years old, if you can cook like this, the world is your absolute oyster,' he said.

In the know: Pictured are judges Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston (from L to R)

Matt added: 'You're secretly not 85 years old and some pastry master from France, are you?'

Michelle said she looks up to Reynold Poernomo, a previous MasterChef contestant, saying she wants to open a dessert bar in future.

'He's Indonesian as well,' Michelle added about Reynold, with a laugh.

Michelle made the top 24 contestants, with hopefuls having to cook their signature dish in a bid to make the cut and win an apron.

The winner of the show will receive a whopping $250,000.

Any of the judges could vote to get an entrant through, but if the entrant got three 'no's' from the judges, they would fail to make top 24.

Will they make the top 24? Hopefuls had to cook their signature dish in a bid to make the cut and win an apron

Another hopeful who made it through to the top 24, was contestant Elouise, who served the judges ricotta doughnuts with a lemon and mandarin curd, with whisky.

'It sort of tastes like a burning pirate ship,' Elouise said, making the judges laugh.

Another stand out contestant was Josh, who revealed he failed to make last year's auditions as his car was stolen and he was injured in the incident.

Going for it! Another hopeful who made it through to the top 24, was contestant Elouise

'It tastes like a burning pirate ship!' She served the judges ricotta doughnuts with a lemon and mandarin curd, with whisky

'It was a traumatic brain injury, so I was in hospital for nine weeks,' Josh said.

'So, it's pretty damn good to be here, cooking for the judges,' he added.

Josh cooked a Japanese duck dish which he called 'duck in the wetlands'.

'I'm just happy to be standing here, in front of you guys and able to present my dish how I wanted it,' Josh told the judges.

Josh made it through to the top 24, with Matt telling him: 'You've waited a really long time to cook that dish. We've waited a really long time to eat it. It was well worth it. That was delicious. And that's why this apron is yours.'

Having another go: Another stand out contestant was Josh, who revealed he failed to make last year's auditions as his car was stolen and he was injured in the incident

Struggles: Josh said he suffered a brain injury after the incident and made it to the top 24

Another stand out contestant was nurse Jess, 29, from Melbourne, who works with patients who have spinal chord injuries.

'I have always had a passion for looking after people and being there for them at their most difficult times in life,' Jess said.

'I am passionate about nursing and I'm...I would consider myself a very loyal nurse. But really, my passion lies in cooking,' she said.

The blonde cooked a Japanese dessert which she called the tea ceremony, with a matcha panna cotta.

Exploring her new passion: Another stand out contestant was nurse Jess, 29, from Melbourne, who works with patients who have spinal chord injuries

Matt was a fan of the dessert, and said: 'I think it's genius.'

'The dryness of the matcha with the sweetness and the earthiness of the beetroot is beautiful,' before writing on her recipe book how much he loved the dessert, writing 'yes' underneath it.

The judges gave her an apron, with George saying: 'It's one of the best things I've tasted this year.'

Meanwhile, solicitor Benjamin got emotional as the judges ate his food, as he wants to chase a career in the industry.

Chasing his dreams: Meanwhile, solicitor Benjamin got emotional as the judges ate his food, as he wants to chase a career in the industry

He broke down and got teary, saying his parents haven't been too supportive of his new food dream, and got an apron.

'My parents weren't really supportive for a few years..but it's just what I love,' Benjamin said.

He said after making the cut: 'This is the most unbelievable I've ever felt!'

Meanwhile, 18 year old Callan also impressed the judges and earned an apron.

He revealed at 15-years-old, he did a pop up restaurant to raise funds for breast cancer research, as his grandmother has the disease.

He made salmon tartare, with Gary asking him his full name, saying: 'Everyone is going to remember that name.'
They're currently filming upcoming blockbuster Aquaman on the Gold Coast, in Australia.

And on Monday, Amber Heard and co-star Jason Momoa posed up for a fun snap on Instagram, hiding their famous faces in sunglasses and hats.

Amber shared to shot online with her more than 192,000 followers, writing: 'Undercover Down Under.'

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'Undercover Down Under': On Monday, Amber Heard and Aquaman co-star Jason Momoa posed up for a fun snap on Instagram, hiding their famous faces in sunglasses and hats

Amber gave a glimpse of her washboard abs in the snap, wearing high waisted jeans with a belt, and a Rolling Stones crop top and jacket.

The beauty had her blonde and pink locks out and over her shoulders and wore dewy foundation.

Game of Thrones star Jason covered up his ripped frame in a black top and hooded jacket.

Upcoming: The pair are starring in Aquaman alongside the likes of Nicole Kidman and Patrick Wilson

The pair are starring in Aquaman alongside the likes of Nicole Kidman and Patrick Wilson.

It centres around the character Aquaman, created by DC Comics.

Aquaman is a superhero, with Jason in the lead role.

Amber is in Australia alongside co-star Jason and her new boyfriend, billionaire Tesla inventor Elon Musk.

She has all but confirmed their relationship, sharing a shot of the pair having dinner on Instagram.

Quality time: Amber is in Australia alongside co-star Jason and her new boyfriend, billionaire Tesla inventor Elon Musk (pictured)

They were also spotted in April, going zip-lining on the Gold Coast at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, packing on the PDA together.

Elon is worth a reported $14.9 billion according to Forbes.

It's Amber's first time back in Australia, since appearing in court with ex-husband Johnny Depp on the Gold Coast, over dog smuggling charges.

The pair caused an uproar after illegally bringing her pet dogs into the country in 2015.

Controversial: It's Amber's first time back in Australia, since appearing in court with ex-husband Johnny Depp on the Gold Coast, over dog smuggling charges

Amber and Johnny, who was filming Pirates Of The Caribbean, smuggled their terriers Pistol and Boo into the state via their private jet.

During the debacle, Australian politician Barnaby Joyce threatened to have the former couple's dogs euthanised if they failed to take them out of the country.

A video of the duo saying they are 'truly sorry' for sneaking their Yorkshire terriers into Australia was presented before a magistrate gave Heard with a one-month good behavior bond and a $1,000 fine over the incident.

In May last year, news emerged Johnny and Amber had called time on their relationship after 15 months of marriage.
She first shot to fame with her role as Kate Ramsay on Neighbours.

But now Ashleigh Brewer had become an international household name after landing a role as Ivy Forrester on Bold and the Beautiful.

The 26-year-old is now no stranger to the public eye, as she showed off her elegant style at the annual Daytime Emmy Awards on Sunday.

A star is born! Ashleigh Brewer showed off her effortless style at the annual Daytime Emmy Awards on Sunday

Ashleigh wore a plunging dark metallic mesh dress with a deep V-neck that showed off her assets.

The top of the dress was embellished with sequins while small grey beads decorated the seams.

The dress had a cinched corset-style waist, before falling from her hips and resting on the ground.

Elegance: Her makeup look was kept simple and natural but a burnt orange smokey-eye drew attention to her striking light green eyes

The grey material lighter in centre before becoming a darker shade were it was pleated at the end of the dress.

Ashleigh's brown hair was swept back into a loosely curled bridal-style updo while her bangs flew freely.

Her makeup look was kept simple and natural but a burnt orange smokey-eye drew attention to her striking light green eyes.

It's in the details: The top of the dress was embellished with sequins while small grey beads decorated the seams

Her nude lipstick was a perfect compliment to the outfit as it let the daring dress stand out.

Her silver jewellery made a statement with her dangling earring that were made up of three tiered diamond roses.

She also wore a diamond ring on her right hand and showed off her perfectly manicured nails with a dark purple nail polish.
She always manages to turn heads on a night out.

And Katie Holmes proved she looks just as breathtaking in her daily life as she headed to the Film Forum cinema in New York on Sunday.

Coffee in hand, the 38-year-old seemed to have a spring in her step as she strolled around the city.

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Chic: She always manages to turn heads on a night out. And Katie Holmes proved she looks just as breathtaking in her daily life as she headed to Film Forum in New York on Sunday

Looking effortlessly chic for the outing, Katie donned a pink striped midi dress that flattered her lithe frame and revealed a flash of her tanned and toned pins.

She teamed the garment with a bleached denim jacket, dressing down the ensemble with a pair of converse trainers.

Proving that less is more, the Dawson's Creek star opted for a neutral make-up palette, whilst her chestnut coloured locks were left loose and tousled to frame her pretty face.

Pretty in pink! Looking effortlessly chic for the outing, Katie donned a pink striped midi dress that flattered her lithe frame and revealed a flash of her tanned and toned pins

Katie has been at the centre of awards buzz recently after receiveing high praise for her role as Jackie Onassis on the limited Reelz series The Kennedys: After Camelot.

Amid her glowing reviews has been buzz that Katie could be the first actress to win an Emmy for playing the former First Lady.

Gold Derby is among the sources speculating that Katie's revival of her 2011 role could score her a nomination at the 2017 Emmys.

Onto a winner? Katie has been at the centre of awards buzz recently after receiveing high praise for her role as Jackie Onassis on the limited Reelz series The Kennedys: After Camelot

Kim Kardashian was also a fan of the performance, and gave the actress a rave review for her portrayal as John F Kennedy's widow.

'This show Kennedy's After Camelot is really so good. I love Reelz. Katie Holmes is the perfect Jackie O,' she tweeted.

Katie first starred as the icon in the prequel to this television event, The Kennedys, which aired on the same network in 2011. She stars alongside Matthew Perry, Kristen Hager and Alexander Siddig in the follow-up.

As well as starring in the drama, Katie also directed one episode.
They fell in love on a sun-drenched island.

And Olivia Buckland and Alex Bowen looked on cloud nine as they enjoyed their holiday in another summer hotspot - Cape Verde.

The Love Island lovebirds have been keeping their followers up to date with their long lazy days, with Olivia, 23, showing off her figure in another set of racy bikinis on Sunday.

This is the life: Olivia Buckland showed off her sensational figure in a denim bikini as she enjoyed another blissful beach day in Cape Verde with her Love Island beau Alex Bowen

One Instagram shot posted by the blonde reality star, shows her posing up a storm in a skimpy denim bikini.

Flaunting her tiny waist and ample assets in the tie-side number, Olivia captioned the sizzling shot: 'Sun, Sand & Mojito,' as she cooled off with a tipple.

The social media fan also uploaded plenty of updates on her Instagram stories, flashing her assets in a bright yellow two-piece, and showing off her makeup-free complexion.

Beach babe: The social media fan also uploaded plenty of updates on her Instagram stories, flashing her assets in a bright yellow two-piece, showing off her makeup-free complexion

Olivia also uploaded shots of herself in a burgundy bikini, as her cheeky boyfriend Alex started kissing her chest.

While the star has continued to post racy snaps from her hols, she seemed a little emotional on Sunday night as she blasted trolls.

'Fed up with people sticking their unknown noses into my life. Some people will say I asked for it being on reality but IM A REAL SOUL,' she angrily tweeted, adding:

PDA: Olivia also uploaded shots of herself in a burgundy bikini, as her cheeky boyfriend Alex started kissing her chest

Come here you: The Love Island lovebirds couldn't keep their hands or lips off of each other

'I have feelings man. Seriously like I ain't an actress. My life is real. Am a young women who feels s**t same as everyone else. Be nice x'

No doubt the stunner is excited to wed co-star and fiancee Alex Bowen in the ITVBe show's first-ever wedding after they met filming in Mallorca last year.

She will tie the knot with her scaffolder beau, 24, in September 2018, with Love Island's host Caroline Flack, 37, as a guest and Olivia's best pal from the series, winner Cara De La Hoyde, 26, bridesmaid.

Hitting back: While the star has continued to post racy snaps from her hols, she seemed a little emotional on Sunday night as she blasted trolls

Engaged: Olivia captioned another shot 'Hubby to be' as she cosied up to her fiance

Speaking to Closer magazine, Olivia revealed that she wants 'party animal' Caroline to come - despite the TV presenter being accused by viewers of being flirty with Alex in the 2016 show's finale.

Olivia said: 'Caroline Flack needs to come to the wedding! She's a real party animal so we need her there. We're inviting all the Love Island producers too, as they made it happen.'

The reality star did not mention whether fellow Love Islander Zara Holland, 21 - who slept with Alex on his first night in the villa, resulting in her losing her Miss Great Britain crown - would be on the guest list.

Loving life: No doubt the stunner is excited to wed co-star and fiancee Alex Bowen in the ITVBe show's first-ever wedding after they met filming in Mallorca last year

Olivia revealed she has started planning her dream day with former co-star and best pal Cara De La Hoyde - who won Love Island in 2016 alongside Nathan Massey, before confirming their split last week.

Olivia also divulged that Cara is set to be a bridesmaid on the big day, telling Closer: 'Of course Cara is going to be my bridesmaid.'

Olivia is keeping tight-lipped about details of the wedding, but admitted that it will be in the UK so the pair's friends and family don't miss out, and they will plan a 'fab honeymoon abroad' after.

The curvaceous reality TV star has finished filming Say Yes To The Dress, so fans will have a sneak preview of what her dress is like before the big day.

Poser: Olivia showed off her phenomenal figure in a high-cut neon pink swimsuit

Olivia and Alex announced their engagement during a New Year's Eve break in December, despite only being a couple for five months.

Hunky scaffolder and fitness model Alex ignored claims that the couple were only a "showmance" and popped the question after whisking Olivia away to a romantic trip to New York.

Despite coming in second place to Nathan and Cara, the couple won over the hearts of the nation.

The pair got off to a rocky start in the villa when Alex bedded former Miss Great Britain winner Zara Holland on his first night, a move that resulted in her being stripped of her beauty queen crown.

Tanned pins: Olivia asked her followers to judge whether her legs looked like hot dogs

Inked beauty: She also showed off her tattoos which sprawl over her thighs
They have embarked on a number of raunchy scenes in the hit financial drama so far.

And it seems things are only going to hot up between Malin Akerman and Damian Lewis in Billions, as the pair embark on yet another steamy scene under the sheets.

The actress, 38, is seen stripping completely topless for the titillating episode, as she and the British hunk, 46, get hot and heavy as onscreen couple Bobby and Lara Axelrod.

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Hotting up: It seems things are only going to hot up between Malin Akerman and Damian Lewis in Billions, as the pair embark on yet another steamy scene under the sheets

Setting pulses racing: The actress, 38, is seen stripping completely topless for the episode, as she and the British hunk, 46, get hot and heavy as onscreen couple Bobby and Lara Axelrod

The Swedish beauty sets pulses racing as she goes completely topless for the scene, which sees her and her onscreen husband Axe in bed together.

Meanwhile Homeland star Damian flashes an equal amount of skin as well as his muscular physique as he stretches his arms out from beneath the sheets.

Chatting as they lie beside each other, the hunk is then seen stealing a few kisses from his wife as the scene progresses to raunchier levels.

Hot and heavy: The Swedish beauty sets pulses racing as she goes completely topless for the scene, which sees her and her onscreen husband Axe in bed together

Hunky: Meanwhile Homeland star Damian flashes an equal amount of skin as well as his muscular physique as he stretches his arms out from beneath the sheets

The show, which is currently in its second series, follows ambitious hedge fund manager Bobby 'Axe' Axelrod, as one of the only survivors in his company following the September 11 attacks in New York.

In the drama he faces Charles 'Chuck' Rhoades Jr, played by Paul Giamatti - a US Attorney who is trying to expose Axe as a financial criminal.

The situation is then complicated by Charles' wife Wendy - who also acts as Axe's trusted adviser, and finds herself in the midst of their fraught relationship.

Pucker up: Chatting as they lie beside each other, the hunk is then seen stealing a few kisses from his wife as the scene progresses to raunchier levels

Dramatic: The show, which is currently in its second series, follows ambitious hedge fund manager Bobby 'Axe' Axelrod and his battle against US Attorney Charles 'Chuck' Rhoades Jr

Transformed: Malin stars as Bobby's devoted wife Lara, who comes from a lower-class upbringing but has left her old life behind for a lavish existence

Malin meanwhile stars as Bobby's devoted wife Lara, who comes from a lower-class upbringing but has left her old life behind for a lavish existence with the city worker.

Finding huge success with its first two seasons, it was announced last month that BIllions was to return for a third series.

The show debuted to record numbers for network Showtime in January 2016, and continued to bring in average audiences of more than a million each week of its 12 episode run.

Comeback: It was announced last month that BIllions was to return for a third series, after continuing to bring in average audiences of more than a million each week

Relatable: Malin recently spoke to Haute Living about her character (above) and admitted she identifies with Lara as her rise from a humble beginning parallels her arrival in LA as an actress

Malin recently spoke to Haute Living about her character, and admitted she identifies with Lara as her rise from a humble beginning parallels her arrival in LA as a young actress.

She said: 'Where we are similar is that we both come from humble beginningsLara finds herself in this new world of hedge funds and billionaires.

'For me, it was coming to the new world of Hollywood; I can relate to that, how she brought her street smarts and survival skills to get through it.'
The Bastion PATSAS was used by Saudi Special Forces units during the Saudi-Jordanian military exercise "Abdullah 5". The Abdullah 5 drill between the Jordanian and Saudi armed forces is part of a series of joint training programs between the armies of the two countries.

The three-week military drill was being carried out simultaneously in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia during April 2017. It included day and night tactical firing, anti-terrorism and sniper shooting, coastal scout missions and raids.

The Bastion Patsas was unveiled by the French Company ACMAT during the Defence Exhibition DSEI 2010 in United Kingdom. The Bastion Patsas has already been tested by French Special forces, and several other countries have already shown interest for the vehicle. It is also in service in Chad and Togo.

The Bastion Patsas is a wheeled armoured vehicle developed and designed by the French Defence manufacturer ACMAT (Now a subdivision of Renault Trucks Defense) to answer to the new requirements of Special Forces and reconnaissance units.

The Bastion Patsas is open-top vehicle for the crew and the troops compartment, this special feature allows the deployment of heavy weapon and missile platforms, the fitting of reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition systems as well as performing check-point missions and any special operations.

The Bastion Patsas is equipped with 360 ring-mounted at the rear of the crew cab which can be armed with a 12.7 mm machine or 40mm automatic grenade launcher. A single swivel weapon station for 5.56 mm machine gun is available at the front of the vehicle for the commander and two at the rear.
She's had a rough couple of weeks trying to ensure her sex tape doesn't get released.

But Mischa Barton looked like she was trying to put the drama behind her as she enjoyed dinner in Beverly Hills with some friends over the weekend.

The 31-year-old star chose a entirely white ensemble that she covered with an oversized black blazer for night out.

Moving on: Mischa Barton, 31, tried to put her sex tape drama behind her as she enjoyed dinner in Beverly Hills with some friends over the weekend

The former OC star tucked a white lacy shirt into a pair of white slacks that she paired with shiny gold ankle boots.

She covered up most of the white look with a large black blazer and finished off the demure look with a black and white handbag.

Wearing very little makeup, Mischa looked pretty with just a splash of eye makeup and mascara to make her eye pop.

She wore her blonde shoulder-length hair loose around her face and looked happy to be enjoying her night out.

Bold outfit: The former OC star tucked a white lacy shirt into a pair of white slacks that she paired with shiny gold ankle boots

In mid-April, DailyMail.com revealed that she had been granted an extension to restraining orders against two former boyfriends she believes are trying to sell an explicit sex tape of her, according to legal documents.

And the legal filing shows that the two men are at loggerheads, blaming each other for trying to shop the x-rated material.

According to the paperwork, filed by Barton's lawyer Lisa Bloom at Los Angeles Superior Court, the requests for extended domestic violence restraining orders against Jon Zacharias and Adam Spaw, previously known as Adam Shaw, were submitted to the court.

Privacy fight: Barton has been involved in a sex tape scandal where she has had to fight to prevent a tape featuring her from being sold to the highest bidder

The footage was being touted to online porn companies, with a number of porn industry giants still considering the offer.

The latest court documents state: 'At his deposition, Mr. Spaw testified that Mr. Zacharias had taken videos of Ms. Barton without her knowledge or permission.

'Mr. Spaw admitted to making multiple copies of these tapes and compressing a copy to make it easier to email to an unnamed third party.'

Jon Zacharias, 30, is a technology and marketing expert from Illinois who dated Barton for several months in 2016 and is thought to be the man on the sex tapes

Barton's lawyer, leading civil rights attorney Lisa Bloom, told DailyMail.com Monday: 'Every day that the images are not released is a victory for us. We are pleased the judge has extended the orders for a few weeks so that we can track down Mr Zacharias, who seems to be evading service.

'We will not rest until we have permanent orders in place protecting Ms. Barton's rights to the privacy of images of her own body.'

Zacharias, 30, is a technology and marketing expert from Illinois who dated Barton for several months in 2016.
She's been open about her lifelong battle with alcoholism.

And now 20/20 star Elizabeth Vargas is speaking about being 'horrible panic attacks' that she has been 'unable to control.'

The 54-year-old ABC news anchor, as part of a new campaign with the Child Mind Institute, explained on Monday: 'I couldnt control it [the anxiety] and I couldnt explain why I would sob and cry.'

Struggle: Elizabeth Vargas has spoken personally about being 'unable to control' her anxiety and 'horrible panic attacks'

Vargas People video is part of a larger series the Child Mind Institute is launching, in which celebrities including Emma Stone, Michael Phelps, Lena Dunham talk about their personal experience with - and the stigma surrounding - mental illness.

The journalist explained that her panic attacks started 'every single day' when her father Rafael Vargas, a colonel in the U.S. Army, was deployed to Vietnam when she was a six-year-old child.

'My earliest memories as a little girl are infused and filled with worry and fear. Not all the memories, but many.

Mental health campaign: Vargas People exclusive video is part of a larger series the Child Mind Institute is launching

'They were horrible, I couldn't control it and I couldnt explain why I would sob and cry and plead and beg for my mom not to leave me every day.

'This wasnt a time when people were paying a lot of attention to the children of soldiers at war. No one asked me why I was panicking and I kept my panic a secret. I felt ashamed of it. I hid it as I grew older.

'But those feelings of fear and worry and insecurity never left me'.

Traumatic childhood: The journalist explained that her panic attacks started 'every single day' when her father was deployed to Vietnam when she was a 6-year-old child

Frank admission: 'They were horrible, I couldn't control it and I couldnt explain why I would sob and cry and plead and beg for my mom not to leave me every day'

Crippling situation: She explained that even as an adult 'those feelings of fear and worry and insecurity never left me'

Family: The star revealed that her father (pictured left) was stationed in Vietnam in 1969, which triggered her anxiety

Her family were stationed in Okinawa in 1969, and with the army she was overseas for much of her childhood.

But even as she got older, she explains that the negative feelings didnt leave her. In fact, Vargas revealed in 2014 that her crippling bouts of anxiety were a major contributing factor in her long struggle with alcoholism.

'If I could tell my younger self one thing it is this: you are not alone. You are not the only one who feels this way, not by a long shot.

'Everyone feels insecure, or scared or worried or like they're not enough at some point.

'We all just hide it from everyone else. It's OK to feel that way,' she concludes on the clip.

Professional life: Vargas admitted previously that she battled alcoholism throughout her life - she co-anchored 20/20 with David Muir

Vargas is a well-respected television journalist who got her start at Chicago's WBBM before joining NBC News in 1993 as a correspondent for Dateline.

She told the viewers of the video: 'Im Elizabeth Vargas. Im a news anchor at ABC News and I suffer from anxiety. I have all my life.'

When Vargas and Bob Woodruff took over World News Tonight as co-anchors, she was the only woman anchoring an evening news program and the first Latina to ever to occupy the chair.

Her story: 'My tenure at the top of the list for big interviews was over,' she writes in her autobiography, 'I wasn't even on the list anymore. I personalized it' (pictured Sept 2016)

On January 29, 2006, Woodruff suffered a severe brain injury from an IED explosion in Iraq, and Vargas continued on with Charles Gibson until the day she was humiliating fired from the anchor position.

She was seven months pregnant when ABC news chief, David Westin, brutally informed her that Gibson was being named sole anchor, saying, 'If you wish to leave the network you can.'

Other news outlets reported that Gibson had muscled her out of the anchor spot. She retreated to '20/20,' co-anchoring with David Muir, a job she had wisely not relinquished. But when Vargas returned to work after maternity leave, she was confronted time and again by her changed status.

'My tenure at the top of the list for big interviews was over,' she writes in her autobiography, 'I wasn't even on the list anymore. I personalized it.'

Ex: She was married to Marc Cohen for 12 years, they share two children (pictured Dec 2012)

One night home alone with her two sons with Marc Cohen, Zachary and Sam, she drank so much she had to be hospitalized to detox.

In November 2013, Elizabeth announced she had battled her alcohol addiction for a decade, and admitted it had taken her years to admit she is an alcoholic. In August 2014, the married mother of two checked into a rehabilitation center in California, where she stayed for a week, followed by outpatient treatment. She also had sought treatment for alcohol addiction last November.
She recently admitted that she feared developing early-onset Alzheimer's.

But Davina McCall temporarily put her worries to one side as she worked up a sweat with her friends on Monday.

Sharing a snap of the trio post-workout, the 49-year-old presenter showed off her impeccably toned abs and youthful physique as she beamed down the lens.

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Tanned and toned: Davina McCall worked up a sweat with her friends on Monday. Sharing a snap of the trio post-workout, the 49-year-old presenter showed off her impeccably toned abs

Sporting a black crop top, the star's years of hard work were evident as she displayed her tanned and toned figure.

Going make-up free, the mother-of-three also allowed her natural beauty to shine through as she radiated with a healthy glow following the exercise.

She captioned the snap: 'sweaty and happy thank you sarah for the workout! @westvillagewanderer and I are feeling it already!!!!!'

Ab fab: Davina is a health and fitness guru and often shares snap of herself showing off her abs in a bid to motivate her fans to follow in the footsteps of her healthy lifestyle

The outing came after she admitted her fears she could have early-onset Alzheimers disease.

The presenter, whose father and grandmother both have dementia, revealed she has twice broken down and telephoned her GP to raise her concerns.

Her doctor, however, has put her short-term memory losses down to cognitive overload  a condition more normally seen in schoolchildren.

Working up a sweat: Davina has been continuing to maintain a healthy lifestyle and work out as much as possible amid her fears that she could have early-onset Alzheimers disease

Davina told Good Housekeeping magazine: My dads positive attitude is quite extraordinary. In certain aspects he is getting worse  his short-term memory is really a struggle.

My lovely granny is very confused now, but she is happy. They are both pretty inspirational.

She said: [But] I have called my doctor twice, in floods of tears saying, Ive definitely got Alzheimers disease. She is so nice to me and says, If you had Alzheimers, you wouldnt be calling me about it.

Afraid: The presenter, whose father and grandmother both have dementia, revealed she has twice broken down and telephoned her GP to raise her concerns about Alzheimer's

She has told me Im only forgetful because my inbox is full and I have cognitive overload.

I dont drink, I dont smoke and I am in good health. If I get ill, I get ill  its a lottery. None of us knows whats going to happen around the corner. You just have to enjoy life.

Davina's father, Andrew, was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year while her 97-year-old paternal grandmother is understood to have been suffering with dementia for the past two years.

Davina has described her grandmother, Pippy  who brought her up in Surrey from the age of three after her parents split up  as an inspiration and the matriarch of the family. Best known for presenting Big Brother and The Jump, she has become a campaigner, regularly raising awareness for the Alzheimers Society.

Family affair: Davina, pictured above with her beloved grandmother, described the affects the disease had had on her family

Last night Dr James Pickett, head of research at the Alzheimers Society, said: As we age, there can be natural changes in thinking and memory skills.

Memory problems, like going upstairs and forgetting what you went up for, can be just a slip rather than a sign of something more serious.

But sometimes they can be an early sign of a medical condition like dementia. When these problems start to affect everyday life and close relationships its important to seek help.

Anyone worried about their memory should not delay a visit to their GP for advice, guidance and referrals to a specialist.

Upsetting: Davina's dad Andrew, was diagnosed with Alzheimers last year while her 97-year-old paternal grandmother is understood to have been suffering with dementia for two years

In the past, stigma around people visiting the doctor to discuss dementia has delayed a diagnosis for months or even years. But speaking to a GP can provide reassurance, and rule out other causes of memory problems.

Cognitive overload is a term coined in the 1980s by Australian psychologist John Sweller.

Cover girl: Davina is on the front of June's edition of Good Housekeeping magazine

It refers to the theory that the brain can cope with only so much information at any time before effectively shutting down and being unable to process new memories.

It is often seen in children or the elderly and is thought to have grown more common with the rise in smartphones and tablets bombarding us with information.

Talking about her determination to stay positive, Davinasaid: Its so important for women to be out there showing other women that it doesnt all end at a certain age. It keeps going on as long as we keep going on.

The full interview appears in the June issue of Good Housekeeping, on sale next Wednesday.
She spent a number of weeks in bikini as she found romance on Love Island.

Now continuing to flaunt her enviable figure, Kady McDermott, 21, sizzled in her latest swimwear as she soaked up the sun in Marbella, Spain on Monday in a daring Instagram snap.

The ITV2 reality star looked sensational in the slinky aqua blue halterneck bikini top that accentuated her ample cleavage as she posed strewn across her poolside bed at the seaside resort's renowned Nikki Beach Club.

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Vibrant: Kady McDermott, 21, sizzled in her latest swimwear as she soaked up the sun in Marbella, Spain on Monday in a daring Instagram snap

The eye-catching bikini set featured gold clasp and tie-side detail on the figure-hugging bottoms that highlighted her toned curves.

Captioning her glamorous display, the fresh-faced beauty wrote: 'When you're the colour of the towel..

'Two holidays in two weeks feeling very blessed and happy right now! Way too much champagne yesterday but when on holiday hair of the dog takes place.'

Kady's latest holiday display comes weeks after she returned from an idyllic getaway to the Maldives with her boyfriend Scott Thomas.

Blue-tiful: The ITV2 reality star looked sensational in the slinky aqua blue halterneck bikini top that accentuated her ample cleavage and highlighted her toned stomach

Red hot! Kady flaunted her enviably toned figure on Saturday as she partied the day away at Ocean Club in Marbella

The Love Island star took to Instagram to document her day of partying at the swanky Ocean Club Marbella - with her enviably toned and slender physique clear for all to see in the sizzling snaps.

The reality star set pulses racing in a glitzy red bikini as she draped herself across a sunbed for her first bikini snap of the day.

Pulling into a halterneck, adorned with chunky gems of red and silver, the top then dipped into a low-cut triangle neckline to give a glimpse of her delicate cleavage.

Paired with matching bottoms and a tiny red sarong tied at her hips, the brunette then left her enviably toned stomach and gym-honed waist on show as she smouldered for the camera.

Glam girl: The reality star set pulses racing in a glitzy red bikini and matching sarong as she draped herself across a sunbed for her first bikini snap of the day

Not letting her glamourous style falter even in swimwear, she teamed her bikini with chic white raffia wedges and a lavish Louis Vuitton beach bag.

She swept half her hair up into a messy bun, to keep her look youthful and trendy, and sported a trademark sweeping of bronzer to emphasise her striking features.

With the party getting into full swing, Kady later posted an array of fun-filled photos to her Instagram story as she topped up her tan with friends.

Tanned and toned: The skimpy bikini left her enviably toned stomach and gym-honed waist on show as she posed for a mirror selfie with a friend

One saw her pose with an equally stylish pal in front of a mirror, bringing her toned abs to the forefront once again, while another saw her playfully standing on her sunbed with a bottle of champagne in each hand.

Kady appears to be having a ball on her girls' holiday - having just returned from a romantic break in the Maldives with boyfriend Scott.

First meeting on Love Island last year, the pair appear to still be going strong - with Kady hinting she'd like her man to propose in a recent interview with OK! magazine.

Party girl: Another snap saw her playfully standing on her sunbed with a bottle of champagne in each hand

Speaking about her dream proposal, the TV star said: 'I wouldnt want it to be in front of anyone because Id get embarrassed.

'Id want it just us two, preferably in a hot country, on the beach with rose petals and candles everywhere! Romantic, cute and private would be perfect.

Scott added: I think it will have to involve towels again like when I asked her to be my girlfriend on Love Island!

For now, the pair are content with their new life together, living in their rented three-bedroom house in Cheshire.
Amicable co-parents Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey were spotted Sunday taking their twins Moroccan and Monroe to Disneyland for their sixth birthdays.

The pop diva's been a fixture on Nick's Instagram page lately - though always with the children - and rumors are swirling that he and Mariah are back together.

Yet the comedian's denied rekindling a romance with his ex-wife, insisting as much during a full-hour guest shot on The Wendy Williams Show this past Thursday.

Iconic: Mariah Carey donned a rain poncho when she and her ex-husband Nick Cannon took their twins Moroccan and Monroe to Disneyland for their sixth birthdays on Sunday

For their Sunday out, Mariah, 47, wore a typically busty black top beneath a cropped orange jacket that matched the orange belt emphasizing her waistline.

Her seemingly airtight jeans featured tears down each leg, and she'd added a splash of glitz to the ensemble by way of a necklace and gleaming hoop earrings.

Slits ran up the sides of the jeans, though they were covered over with crisscrossing straps, and she'd completed the look with a black pair of chic stiletto boots.

Speculation: The pop diva's been a fixture on Nick's Instagram page lately - though always with the children - and rumors are swirling that he and Mariah are back together

Putting the kibosh: Yet the comedian's denied rekindling a romance with his ex-wife, insisting as much during a full-hour guest shot on The Wendy Williams Show this past Thursday

The look: For their Sunday out, Mariah, 47, wore a typically busty black top beneath a cropped orange jacket that matched the orange belt emphasizing her waistline

Meanwhile, her 36-year-old ex-husband showed off his toned, tattoo-sprawled arms in a sleeveless button-down top featuring purple checks over a pink background.

Accessorizing with a pair of aviators and a pink turban, Nick - who's got an affinity for turbans these days - had clashed dark jeans stylishly with sand-colored boots.

They were spotted with their children ambling about, as well as hopping aboard such iconic rides as Splash Mountain, the Matterhorn and Space Mountain.

A bit of dazzle: Her seemingly airtight jeans featured tears down each leg, and she'd added a splash of glitz to the ensemble by way of a necklace and gleaming hoop earrings

Hinting: Slits ran up the sides of the jeans, though they were covered over with crisscrossing straps, and she'd completed the look with a black pair of chic stiletto boots

Casually stylish: Meanwhile, her 36-year-old ex-husband showed off his toned, tattoo-sprawled arms in a sleeveless button-down top featuring purple checks over pink

By the time she clambered onto the Splash Mountain carriage, Mariah'd ensured the safety of her hairdo and outfit by pulling on an immense transparent rain poncho.

Nick, meanwhile, posted an Instagram photo of the birthday twins, each standing at a Disney-themed cake, and the proud father captioned: 'We Lit!!'

Nick and Mariah had begun their marriage, his first and her second, back in 2008, but he filed in 2014 for a divorce that was ultimately finalized this past November.

Trademark: Accessorizing with a pair of aviators and a pink turban, Nick - who's got an affinity for turbans these days - had clashed dark jeans stylishly with sand-colored boots

Refreshing herself: Mariah was seen sipping from a lidded beverage cup while at the park

What happened: Nick and Mariah had begun their marriage, his first and her second, back in 2008, but he filed in 2014 for a divorce that was ultimately finalized this past November

Mariah had previously had a go at matrimony with music executive Tommy Mottola, whom she'd been married to from 1993 and 1998 with no children to show for it.

Since splitting from Nick, the infamously mercurial songstress has kept busy, including via a now-shattered engagement to Australian billionaire James Packer.

After Mariah and James were over, she apparently veered into a dalliance with her backup dancer Bryan Tanaka, but in early April, People reported they'd broken up.

Beforehand: Mariah had previously had a go at matrimony with music executive Tommy Mottola, whom she'd been married to from 1993 and 1998 with no children to show for it

In the past: Since splitting from Nick, the infamously mercurial songstress has kept busy, including via a now-shattered engagement to Australian billionaire James Packer

Since...: After Mariah and James were over, she apparently veered into a dalliance with her backup dancer Bryan Tanaka, but in early April, People reported they'd broken up

Not at Disneyland that day: Nick's love life has been even more eventful: he welcomed a baby son called Golden 'Sagon' with dancer, actress and beauty queen Brittany Bell this February 21

Nick's love life has been even more eventful: he welcomed a baby son called Golden 'Sagon' with dancer, actress and beauty queen Brittany Bell this February 21.

When he sat opposite Wendy Williams on her show this week, the talk-show hostess asked her guest outright: 'So, Nick, are you and Mariah still sleeping together?'

The onetime radio shock jock said: 'In my mind, I believe you are, and thered be nothing wrong with that,' to which Nick replied: 'There would be nothing wrong with that, but that's not the case,' audibly disappointing the studio audience.

Fun for the whole family: Mariah, Nick and their children got in a bit of posing alongside 'cast members' dressed as Pluto, Minnie Mouse and a couple of Chipmunks

Cozying up: The twins and a friend of theirs stood for photos with a chef version of Goofy

Buddies: Pluto, also wearing a chef's hat, knelt down so Monroe could touch the fabric nose

Mugging: Monroe and Moroccan stood between their respective birthday cakes

Wendy displayed an Instagram photo he'd recently posted of himself and Mariah laying in bed as she read their children a bedtime story - and he, as he noted, dozed.

'Listen, after midnight...' Wendy prodded, prompting Nick to laugh and add: 'Once the kids are in bed,' whereupon Wendy soldiered on with her theory.

'Once the kids are in the bed, and the wine is flowing - we know she likes to have a drink - and whatever you do. And look, she's in a negligee!' said Wendy.

Treated: Both kids seemed quite taken with their birthday desserts

Boxes: Nick held his daughter in his lap as his son looked at what appeared to be some gifts

Radiant: Mariah seemed to be having a joyous time at her children's birthday celebrations

'Gorgeous. Amazing,' said Nick, as Wendy continued: 'She never calls you: "Hey, Nicky," and then you come in, and she lets it drop?' pointing out: 'Come on, it's nice to go back to a comfortable place.'

'It is,' Nick allowed, 'and there's nothing but unconditional love there. I mean, she's gorgeous, but you know, I'm respectful. I put the kids in bed and I go home.'

The crowd started with the 'Aww's, but Wendy stoutly insisted: 'I don't believe you,' to which Nick spread his arms incredulously and asked: 'Why not?'

'I just don't. Listen, I'm rooting for you guys to get back together in five years, and I said that on Hot Topics,' said Wendy, to an eruption of applause from the room.

She put it to Nick that he'd wind up returning to Mariah 'after going to your set and seeing all those gorgeous women,' who are 'just throwing themselves around.'

Conceded Wendy: 'You could have any pick of the litter, and I know that you're picking and littering, you know, and I see you around town and stuff.'

That is the question: When he sat opposite Wendy Williams on her show this week, the talk-show hostess asked her guest outright: 'So, Nick, are you and Mariah still sleeping together?'

His side of the story: Nick replied: 'There would be nothing wrong with that, but that's not the case,' audibly disappointing the studio audience

Some time to go: 'Listen, I'm rooting for you guys to get back together in five years, and I said that on Hot Topics,' Wendy has said to Nick

Still in the window: The 52-year-old told Nick: 'You need five years to just, like, get out there and do it, and then come on back home to Mama'

The 52-year-old told Nick: 'You need five years to just, like, get out there and do it, and then come on back home to Mama. Yes,' she added, as the crowd cheered.

When Nick pointed out: 'What about her?', Wendy countered that 'She needs time, also, but you've already broken up two of her relationships that we know.'

'I broke 'em up?' said Nick in apparent disbelief, and Wendy shot back by claiming Nick had contributed to Mariah's romantic splits ''cause you're always around!'

Necessity: By the time she clambered onto the Splash Mountain carriage, Mariah'd ensured the safety of her hairdo and outfit by pulling on an immense transparent rain poncho

Fun day out: The parents had got their children a beverage and some cotton candy

Mother-daughter: Mariah had got Monroe in a similar rain poncho in front of her as well

Quartet: The parents and their twins seemed to be having a lively and enjoyable conversation as they sat together in a carriage on the Space Mountain ride

Having a marvelous time: Nick and Mariah, as well as their children, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves as they sat on the Tomorrowland attraction

Quoth Wendy: 'When she was with the billionaire, you broke them up, along with, in my mind - ,' but Nick spluttered: 'I wasn't - I want her to be with the billionaire!' and joked: 'Let's give some more yachts for everybody!' with the crowd having a ball.

Wendy pulled back to the gossip, saying: 'Along with the diva antics, though, I do think that you run a lot of interference,' and throwing out: 'I dont believe that that was a real relationship with the background dancer, Bryan Tanaka.'

On that subject, Nick's maintained to Wendy: 'I dont know. I - really, I dont get involved in that. Im just there to support my children. Thats all its about.'

Laying it down: Wendy claimed that Nick had contributed to Mariah's romantic splits ''cause you're always around!'

Ubiquity: Quoth Wendy: 'When she was with the billionaire, you broke them up, along with, in my mind - '

Counterargument: Nick spluttered: 'I wasn't - I want her to be with the billionaire!' and joked: 'Let's give some more yachts for everybody!'

Smiling ear to ear: Wendy pulled back to the gossip, saying: 'Along with the diva antics, though, I do think that you run a lot of interference'

'But you're always around!' she said, and the father of three insisted his frequent reappearances in Mariah's life were 'For my children! And I - whatever she wants to do in her personal life, I support. I salute. I just want her to be happy.'

'Well, then,' said Wendy, forthright as ever, 'why did you divorce?' and when Nick asked: 'You want the real?' she gave, of course, the natural answer: 'Yes!'

Nick's thinking about romance, as he explained, is that 'when two people are in a relationship, it should be about growth, right? You should be - it should be a situation where everyones becoming a better human being in the relationship.'

Which is to say that 'when you get to a point where theres no longer any growth, and youre not bettering each other, and especially as youre building a household to become one  cause thats what marriage is all about  I felt like it was probably best, especially for our children, since theyre the number one priority.'

Reasoning: Nick's insisted his frequent reappearances in Mariah's life were 'For my children!'

Explaining the split: Nick's thinking about romance, as he explained, is that 'when two people are in a relationship, it should be about growth, right?'

No longer improved by marriage?: A relationship may need to end, he seemed to say, 'when you get to a point where theres no longer any growth, and youre not bettering each other'

Said Nick: 'If I could be the best human being and the best father from outside of that house, thats what I had to do,' whereupon an audience member said: 'Preach!'

Wendy replied: 'got it. By the way -,' and when Nick interjected: 'It was my fault. I did it!' Wendy said to him: 'No, that's - you're a man, mookie. Yeah, you are!'

As their interview careered from subject to subject, eventually Wendy steered the conversation back to Mariah, asking: 'Do you ever sleep over the house?'

When Nick said: 'Yeah, I do,' Wendy pressed: 'In close proximity to her room?' at which point Nick specified that 'I sleep in my kids' room.'

Placement: Said Nick: 'If I could be the best human being and the best father from outside of that house, thats what I had to do,' whereupon an audience member said: 'Preach!'

Dishing: When Nick admitted to occasionally staying over at Mariah's, Wendy pressed: 'In close proximity to her room?' at which point Nick specified that 'I sleep in my kids' room'
She has successfully made the transition from Bollywood to Hollywood.

But Priyanka Chopra, 34, revealed that she was racially bullied in her first experience of living in the United States as a teenage schoolgirl.

The Quantico star, who is covering June's Glamour magazine, told the publication that she was picked on badly at high school, so returned to her native India.

Name-calling: Priyanka Chopra, 34, revealed that she was racially bullied in her first experience of living in the United States, as a teenage schoolgirl

The beauty - who went on to win Miss World in 2000 - explained that she came to live in America with an aunt when she was 12 years-old.

'I went with my cousin to her school, and it was so fascinating to me. Nobody wore uniforms. You had lockers. What my cousin was studying was really easy. I was like, OK, I dont even have to study, and I would get As.

'So I had this devious plan in my head [to move from India]. I sat with my mom, and Im like, I want to go to school here. Mausis OK with it. I shuttled between my aunt and uncle. I lived in Iowa, then New York, then Indianapolis, and then Boston.

Last laugh! The Quantico star, who is covering June's Glamour magazine, told the publication that she was picked on badly at high school, so returned to her native India

However, she says that the negative aspects outweighed the positives and she returned to India after three years, because of racist bullying at school.

'There was this girl who was a major bully.....She made my life hell. She used to call me names and would push me against the locker. High schools hard for everybody, and then theres this woman.'

'That girl in school used to call me curry.', she told the publication, adding, 'Youre scared of those things. Were afraid of letting people see the glory of who we [as Indians] are.'

Purple reign: The beauty - who found Hollywood success as agent Alex Parrish in ABCs drama Quantico - showcased her stunning looks in a sexy semi-clad shoot for the magazine

Chopra said she doesn't think there's a huge understanding of Indian culture in the United States.

'I dont think a lot of people understand what Indians are. And thats our fault, a little. We tend to forget our roots a bit. As kids [we think], If Im too Indian, Ill be put in a box, and people will think of me as different. Theyll think Im weird, because I eat Indian food or my name is difficult to pronounce.'

The beauty - who found Hollywood success as agent Alex Parrish in ABCs drama Quantico - showcased her stunning looks in a sexy semi-clad shoot for the magazine.

Sexy: Priyanka is seen looking sultry with her shapely limbs on display, and dark tresses in bed-head waves

She posted the cover on her Instagram page, captioned: 'Hello Summer! Thank you @GlamourMag for a beautiful June cover! It's a great way to kick of the official Baywatch countdown...25 days to go! #GlamourCoverGirl #BeachReady #BeBaywatch'.

Priyanka is seen looking sultry with her shapely limbs on display, and dark tresses in bed-head waves.

The star - who makes her U.S. film debut as villain Victoria Leeds in this summers action comedy Baywatch, says she was happy that she didn't have to wear the iconic red swimsuit in the re-imagining, which also stars Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

'I didnt have to be in the swimsuits, because Im the antagonist....Im so glad I didnt have to eat one olive and one, like, almond!'

Trailer: She makes her U.S. film debut as villain Victoria Leeds in this summers action comedy Baywatch

Packing a punch: She says her character is 'driven' in the Dwayne Johnson movie

She explained that she related to her character, who is a driven self-made woman.

'I take over the beach. I open up a club. Im this big shot billionaire chick who plays hardball in a mans world. And what I love about Victoria is that shes not baselessly evil. She thinks shes just driven.

'She had the business acumen, but her family business went to her brother, because he was a boy. So she has a point to prove. Theres this amazing line in the [script]: Zac [Efron] says, Youre such a bitch! And Im like, If I were a man, youd call me driven.'

She told the publication that ambition is too often a dirty word, when it comes to women.

'Ambition is a word associated with women negatively. People say, Shes too ambitious. Why is that a bad thing?' she stated.

Action role: Priyanka stars as agent Alex Parrish in ABC's Quantico

'Staying in your lane - I heard that so much. I want to make my lane! And yes, its an extremely scary time [in relation to the upswing in violence toward minorities, specifically Indian Americans].

'Maybe I, being on the platform that I am, can say this louder than the kid who has to get on the subway and go to school: You dont need to be afraid of who you are. I dont want any kid to feel the way I felt in school. I was afraid of my bully. It made me feel like Im less - in my skin, in my identity, in my culture.'

Priyanka - whose tattoo reading Daddy's Little Girl - is visible in the photoshoot, lost her father Ashok in June 2013, and she explained that his death still doesn't feel real.

'You make friends with grief. My dad was my biggest cheerleader. Any awards show, he would be my date. Every time I won anything, hed be like, Yeah! as if hed won. I was like, Dad, just turn it down by 10. He enjoyed my achievements more than I did.'

Stunner: The exceptional beauty won Miss World in 2000, aged just 18

The beauty - who won't say whether she's single - revealed that her Baywatch co-star The Rock would make up parts of her perfect partner.

Explaining the traits of her perfect match, she said he would have 'Dwayne [Johnson]s drive. I find drive in men very attractive, OK? Also, Dwaynes gentlemanly pull-out-a-chair-for-a-girl vibe. Mix that with Zac [Efron]s abs, Jake McLaughlins eyes, and my co-actor in India Ranveer Singhs rebelliousness.

Despite her success in Hollywood, Priyanka said she still doesn't get equal pay with her male counterparts.

'I was told that female actors are replaceable in films because they just stand behind a guy anyway. Im still used to being paid - like most actresses around the world - a lot less than the boys.

'Were told were too provocative or that being sexy is our strength, which it can be, and it is, but thats not the only thing we have. So there are so many things that you will be told. Itll be scary. There will be strife. But women have incredible endurance and incredible strength. Your ability to deal with it is within you.'
Her latest role has seen her take on a now iconic member of the royal family.

And Charlotte Riley's transformation into the Duchess of Cambridge for the BBC's adaptation of King Charles III is almost uncanny.

In new stills of the drama - released ahead of its air date on May 10 - the Peaky Blinders star, 35, channels Kate Middleton's iconic style in a sophisticated navy dress and her brunette tresses in soft glamorous curls.

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Striking resemblance: Charlotte Riley, 35, transforms into the Duchess of Cambridge in new BBC drama King Charles III set to air on BBC on May 10

Uncanny: With her tumbling locks and blue dress, Charlotte and Kate look eerily similar (pictured in November 2010)

Perfectly poised, Charlotte is stood clutching one hand in the other while adorned in jewels, including a ring to match Kate's blue sapphire and diamond engagement ring bestowed on her by her husband Prince William.

The Duke of Cambridge is played by Oliver Chris in the drama and in a group shot of the cast in character, he is stood alongside Charlotte sporting a pale blue shirt and burgundy tie underneath a navy suit.

Harry Gould, meanwhile, takes on the role of Prince Harry while Camilla is played by actress Margot Leicester and the late Tim Pigott-Smith - who passed away earlier this month - is the lead King Charles III.

The drama is based on the fictional Laurence Olivier award-winning play of the same name and stars Margot Leicester, the late Tim Pigott-Smith, Oliver Chris and Richard Goulding (L-R)

Controversial: It tells the tale of Prince Charles' (Pigott-Smith) accession to the throne and he is at loggerheads with Prince William (Chris) and Kate Middleton (Riley)

Dead ringer: Charlotte's perfectly coiffured brunette tresses and contoured cheeks bear a striking resemblance to how the Duchess of Cambridge looked when her engagement was announced

Excited: Charlotte has said about playing the Duchess of Cambridge: 'She is a really interesting woman, particularly within the context of this play, and it is a challenge I am really looking forward to'

The drama will air as a 90-minute one-off programme and is based on the fictional Laurence Olivier award-winning play of the same name.

Pigot-Smith had starred in the theatre production, along with Chris, Goulding and Adam James as the Prime Minister.

Charlotte - who is married to actor Tom Hardy - is a new addition to the cast and speaking about taking on the role of Kate, she has said: 'It's such a unique project, to be both modern and rich in verse and to play someone who is real but yet totally re-imagined for this story.

King Charles III: The drama will be a 90-minute one-off episode that will chart the new King's progress and depict bitter personal rivalry between the Royal Family

Under fire: Prior to airing, the drama has come under criticism for the way it portrays Prince Charles and his family

Not happy: Tory MP Andrew Bridgen has condemned the show, which will be shown on BBC 2, and said he hoped the BBC would make clear it is a production of 'pure fiction'

'Kate Middleton is a really interesting woman, particularly within the context of this play, and it is a challenge I am really looking forward to.'

The drama imagines Prince Charles' accession to the throne and charts the progress of the new King as he seeks to influence government policy.

It portrays the Royal Family with bitter personal rivalry and throughout the episode the King is at loggerheads with son William, who has been told by the ghost of his mother, Diana, that he will make a great monarch.

Before even airing, King Charles III has come under criticism.

'The public knows the difference between fact and fiction': The BBC, meanwhile, have defended their decision to air their adaptation of the award-winning fictional theatre play

The real deal: Princes Harry, Charles and William attend the Responsible Business Awards Gala Dinner at the Royal Albert Hall in 2014

Authentic: Every effort has been made to ensure the costumes look as genuine as possible

One is most impressed: Prince William (L) is portrayed by strikingly similar Oliver Chris

Controversial: Kate Middleton is depicted as a scheming Lady Macbeth figure who will stop at nothing to usurp Charles in favour of her husband and in shocking scenes, Camilla is seen slapping William

Romance: Prince Harry will be seen embarking on a relationship with republican Jess Edwards - played by Tamara Lawrance

Drama: In the episode, the media put Jess at the centre of a sex scandal while Harry wishes to become a commoner

Dead ringers? The challenging task of playing Prince Harry (L) is given to actor Richard Goulding (R) in the new drama

Main man: A fictional rendering of Prince Charles takes centre stage in the new production

Kate Middleton is depicted as a scheming Lady Macbeth figure who will stop at nothing to usurp Charles in favour of her husband and in controversial scenes, Camilla is seen slapping William.

Addressing the slap, royal biographer Penny Junor has said that it 'would not have happened in a million years'.

She added: 'Charles will come to the throne with so much life experience.'

Dramatic: In one scene Prince Charles shouts as an aide looks on

Government references: Adam James, who starred in the original theatre production, will play the Prime Minister in the episode, while Priyanga Burford plays Mrs Stevens - the wife of Mark Stevens Leader of the Opposition

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, meanwhile, has condemned the drama, which will be shown on BBC 2, and said he hoped the BBC would make clear it is a production of 'pure fiction'.

'It is unfortunate that the BBC would seek to promote this flight of fantasy, which many licence-fee payers will find distasteful and which I believe denigrates and undermines our Royal Family,' he claimed.

A spokesperson for the BBC has said in response: 'The public knows the difference between fact and fiction and King Charles III is a one-off BBC2 drama of the award-winning fictional play.

Reacting to the backlash: The stars of King Charles III, meanwhile, have made sure to throw their support behind the BBC and insisted the episode has been dealt with 'great sensitivity'

Defence: Supporting the BBC, actor Gould (pictured far right as Prince Harry) told the Radio Times: 'Given what things could have been like, the BBC was very good'

The stars of King Charles III, meanwhile, have made sure to throw their support behind the BBC and insisted the episode has been dealt with 'great sensitivity'.

In an interview with Radio Times, Gould revealed: 'We changed one line in Diana's prophecy about Charles as king because it somehow felt too mocking.

'Given what things could have been like, the BBC was very good.

'We'd been through long conversations with lawyers and certain actors refusing to be involved because of how it might affect their future relationship with the honours system.

Chris, meanwhile, added: 'I'm very conscious that it's a real person and a real family.'
Sarah Paulson and her girlfriend Holland Taylor were spotted riding the New York subway before Monday night's glamorous Met Gala festivities.

At 74, the Philadelphia-born blonde is 32 years older than the Tampa-born brunette but that hasn't slowed down their romance.

The Emmy-winning couple - who went public in 2015 - donned denim and suede booties for their casual outing, with the Feud guest star rocking Prabal Gurung's $195 feminist T-shirt.

Hello! Sarah Paulson and her girlfriend Holland Taylor were spotted riding the New York subway before Monday night's glamorous Met Gala festivities

May-December love: At 74, the Philadelphia-born blonde is 32 years older than the Tampa-born brunette but that hasn't slowed down their romance

They went public in 2015: The Emmy-winning couple donned denim and suede booties for their casual outing, with the Feud guest star rocking Prabal Gurung's $195 feminist T-shirt

On Sunday night, Sarah and Holland had a date night seeing the 'extraordinary play' A Doll House at Manhattan's Golden Theatre.

Paulson - who boasts 1.7M Twitter/Instagram followers - captioned her martini snap: 'Greatest day with my sweetheart!'

The PDA post came four days after the Front Page thespian gushed about her ladylove on Twitter: 'Such beauty, such composure, such a spell binder.'

'Greatest day with my sweetheart!' On Sunday night, Sarah and Holland had a date night seeing the 'extraordinary play' A Doll House at Manhattan's Golden Theatre

Paulson's PDA post came four days after the Front Page thespian gushed about her ladylove on Twitter: 'Such beauty, such composure, such a spell binder'

As for expanding their family, Sarah told ET last month: 'Jury's out. I don't know. I'm getting a little old, so there's cobwebs going on in them ovaries. So, we'll see what happens.'

The Blue Jay actress previously dated Cherry Jones from 2004-2009 and was once engaged to playwright Tracy Letts.

The Golden Globe winner teased she and her stylist Karla Welch might be selecting a Rodarte dress for the Comme des Garcons-themed Costume Institute Ball.

Met Gala 2014: The Golden Globe winner teased she and her stylist Karla Welch might be selecting a Rodarte dress for the Comme des Garcons-themed Costume Institute Ball

Met Gala 1998: Paulson told Vogue on Thursday, 'Have you seen [Rodarte's] spring 2017 stuff? It's boho magic. I never met anything with a sequin, lace, a daisy, a bow, a ribbon, a grosgrain, a rhinestone that I wasn't excited about'

'Have you seen the spring 2017 stuff? It's boho magic. I never met anything with a sequin, lace, a daisy, a bow, a ribbon, a grosgrain, a rhinestone that I wasn't excited about,' Paulson told Vogue on Thursday.

'[I want to see] everyone! I just feel excited I get to shake their hand, and they have to shake mine back. It's a total pinch-me moment.'

Sarah will head up the 2016 presidential election-inspired seventh season of FX's American Horror Story - premiering this September - alongside Evan Peters and Billie Lourd.

Premiering this September! Sarah will head up the 2016 presidential election-inspired seventh season of FX's American Horror Story alongside Evan Peters and Billie Lourd

Finding Holden: The Blue Jay actress will also play J.D. Salinger's (Nicholas Hoult) loyal agent Dorothy Golding in Rebel in the Rye, which IFC Films will release this fall

The AADA grad will also play J.D. Salinger's (Nicholas Hoult) loyal agent Dorothy Golding in Rebel in the Rye, which IFC Films will release this fall - according to Variety.

Meanwhile, Holland will next reunite with her colleague David E. Kelley, who created The Practice and Ally McBeal, to play Ida Silver in his new series Mr. Mercedes.

The detective show - which is based on Stephen King's 2014 novel - premieres this fall on the Audience network.

Back at it! Meanwhile, Holland will next reunite with her colleague David E. Kelley, who created The Practice and Ally McBeal, to play Ida Silver in his new series Mr. Mercedes
He has previously said his former co-judge Mary Berry, 82, will be 'deeply missed' on The Great British Bake Off.

But seeming quite content while flying solo on the Berkshire set of the baking competition on Saturday, Paul Hollywood was all smiles as he got to work on the new series.

As he headed into the much-loved tent, the celebrity chef, 51, flashed his pearly whites while cutting a casual figure in jeans and a quilted coat.

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All smiles: Paul Hollywood, 51, appeared in high spirits while back on set of The Great British Bake Off as filming kicked off on Saturday in Berkshire

He is the only original star from The Great British Bake Off to stick with the show following its move to Channel 4, as Mary and hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins decided to quit out of loyalty to the BBC.

Channel 4 reportedly paid 75million for a three-year deal starting in 2018, as the Great British Bake Off ended its seven series run with the BBC in September last year.

The channel had been unable to match rival broadcaster Channel 4's big money bid and were forced to see the show head elsewhere.

Same location: The tent has been erected in its usual location in the grounds of Welford Park estate

Doing what he does best: Celebrity baker Paul cut a casual figure in jeans and a quilted jacket as he resumed work on the baking competition following its channel move

New home: The Great British Bake Off ended its seven series run with the BBC in September last year and will now air on Channel 4 after the network's reported 75billion bid for the show

Despite the controversy that followed the Bake Off's move, Paul looked right at home as he strolled around the show's set over the Bank Holiday weekend.

It has remained at its usual location and the Bake Off set has been erected once again in the grounds of Welford Park, Berkshire.

Joining Paul for filming had been his new co-judge and fellow celebrity chef Prue Leith, 77.

She too appeared excited to be getting started on the Bake Off and was smiling while deep in conversation with comedian Sandi Toksvig.

Finding her feet: Paul was joined by his new co-judge and fellow celebrity chef Prue Leith, 77, on set

Good spirits: She appeared excited to be following in Mary Berry's footsteps as she strolled alongside the show's new host Sandi Toksvig

Ready to go: Despite the not-so-pleasant weather, the sight of the Bake Off tents back up and running is sure to put a smile on the faces of fans of the show

Familiar grounds: Despite a brand new lineup, viewers will find some familiarity on the show as the baking tent remains the same

Prue kept the chill at bay in a blue quilted coat and matching scarf, while sporting a pair of silver Ugg-like boots on her feet.

It seems the actual set itself hasn't had many alterations either and still included a separate tent - decorated like a tea room - for Paul and Prue to share their thoughts on the show's contestants.

The Channel 4 series will be presented by comedians Sandi and Noel Fielding, but their addition to the show didn't come without a backlash from Bake Off viewers.

Keen to get started: Sharing his thoughts on his new co-stars, Paul has previously said, 'When I heard the names read out, I was really excited'

He continued: 'I'm a big fan of Noel and Sandi actually. I did know about Prue but I didn't know about the others at all, but its perfect'

Back in business: The mini tent that will see Paul and Prue discuss the new contestants was seen back in action in the grounds

Fans took to Twitter at the time to slam the line-up, with one user venting: 'Noel Fielding is an unfunny creep and he's going to RUIN BAKE OFF. THIS IS THE WORST DECISION #gbbo.'

Noel, meanwhile, didn't let the negative comments get to him and speaking about his new presenting role, he has said: 'GBBO is one of my favourite shows.

'I've always loved brightly coloured cakes and Sandi Toksvig so this is a dream come true for me! It's basically the double.'

Paul, meanwhile, made sure to defend his new co-stars and insisted the line-up is 'perfect'.

Controversial line-up: GBBO faced backlash from fans after confirming Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding (pictured centre) will take over as the show's presenters

Ignoring the backlash: The comedian has said that it is a 'dream come true' to be fronting the Bake Off on Channel 4 as it's his 'favourite show'

He said: 'I'm really excited. Obviously it's a big thing for the country and when I heard the names read out, I was really excited.

'I'm a big fan of Noel and Sandi actually. I did know about Prue but I didn't know about the others at all, but it's perfect. I'm really, really excited.'

During an appearance on The Jonathan Ross show in December last year, Paul explained why he had chosen to stick with the show, unlike his former co-stars.

Parting with Mary Berry: Explaining his decision to stay on the Bake Off without the 82-year-old chef, Paul said, 'It came down to the fact my job was still there and I didn't want to lose my job'

The baker explained that he wasn't ready to give up his job and insisted Mary had actually urged him to stay and claimed she would have done so, if she was his age.

'It came down to the fact my job was still there and I didn't want to lose my job,' he admitted.

'I love doing what I do... I've got a family and I'm just coming to the end of my career I suppose, I'm 50 odd - I haven't got long left.

'I'm not going to last like Mary... I'll never last, but while it's here, I will carry on doing my job as a judge.'
Multi-media mogul David Geffen has sold his Malibu property for $85 million.

It will break a record for the most expensive single residential transaction in Malibu history.

The estate  which once belonged to Doris Day  comprises five parcels of land and was bought by a 'financial guy' as reported by TMZ on Monday.

Bling: Multi-media mogul David Geffen has sold his Malibu property for $85 million it was reported on Monday

The property sits in the tony area aptly nicknamed Billionaire's Beach which used to house such celebrities as Janet Jackson and Courteney Cox.

The walled and gated compound comprises a two-story grey-shingled main residence with several ocean-side verandas plus an outdoor living room with fireplace.

There's a separate grey-shingled guesthouse with wrap around porch and a petite pool house.

Amenities include a professional-grade screening room, a couple of well-watered expanses of tree-shaded lawns, a picturesque lily pond, and a beachside swimming pool and spa.

Record breaker: The transaction will break a record for the most expensive single residential transaction in Malibu history

Glitzy neighbors: The property sits in the tony area aptly nicknamed 'Billionaire's Beach' which used to house such celebrities as Janet Jackson and Courtney Cox

Geffen, 74, fought with the city for years to keep people away from his massive spread along Carbon Beach.

California law says a part of all beaches are legally required to be open to the public which Geffen tried to prevent.

He even built garage facades to eliminate the street curb which would stop the public from parking in front of his house.

Fake out: He even built garage facades to eliminate the street curb which would stop the public from parking in front of his house

Strict: California law says a part of all beaches are legally required to be open to the public which Geffen tried to prevent

Bitter battle: Geffen, 74, fought with the city for years to keep people away from his massive spread along Carbon Beach; (pictured February with a friend)

After years of these kinds of antics both practical and legal, he finally agreed to open up a bit of the public beach in 2007, getting a 'privacy buffer' in return.

He also owns a house just down the beach, which he bought for the second in time in 2008, for $9.8 million. His main LA house is the fabulous Jack Warner estate in Beverly Hills, which he's owned since 1990.

It's been reported that he spends most of his time at his properties on the East Coast, including enjoying a few of his super yachts.

Treaty: After years of antics both practical and legal, he finally agreed to open up a bit of the public beach in 2007, getting a 'privacy buffer' in return; (pictured September with Ivanka Trump)
Before becoming president, Donald Trump graced the New York tabloids for years and his celebrity status grew when he starred in the NBC reality show, "The Apprentice."

That, according to Syracuse University professor Kendall Phillips, is what sets Trump apart from his predecessors in the White House.

"He came with a deeper understanding of what celebrity can accomplish," Phillips said in an interview with The Citizen. "Every president and presidential candidate becomes a celebrity. Trump is really the first person to come as a celebrity into the presidency in the modern era."

Phillips, a communications and rhetorical studies professor, provided his analysis of Trump's first 100 days in office by focusing mainly on the intersection between the Manhattan real estate mogul and popular culture.

Trump's connection to pop culture will be the subject of a course Phillips will teach in the fall at Syracuse University.

Among the observations made by Phillips is that Trump has been more public as president than past occupants of the White House. When presidents typically make key decisions, the issues are discussed in the background before any public announcements are made.

Trump has broken that tradition by being public with what's on his mind. Using Twitter, he's tweeted thoughts on many issues ranging from North Korea to trade.

"Most presidents have felt that their public face is very important and they have weighed what they say in public and how they say things in public very carefully," Phillips said. "With Trump's presidency, lots of ideas are floated randomly and chaotically."

Trump's use of Twitter isn't necessarily a negative for him, though. Phillips noted that it's not unprecedented for a president to attempt to deliver unfiltered messages to the masses. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example, used fireside chats to communicate to the American people.

By using Twitter, Trump can take his message directly to the people and avoid the press, which he's referred to as "dishonest" throughout his presidential campaign and since being sworn in as president.

"It absolutely fits in with his campaign narrative about himself," Phillips said. "He's unfiltered. He's not a politician. He's not trying to please everybody. In terms of his base, they see the Twitter tirades of being a genuine example of someone who's not going to play nice as most politicians do."

Trump's tweeting, which can come at all hours of the day, also gives newspapers more to write about and cable news stations something to cover. For that reason, Phillips views Trump as the "perfect president" for the 24-hour news cycle.

He compared Trump to former President Barack Obama, whose White House was more deliberate with its media strategy. It's not that there was a lack of headlines about the Obama presidency, but Trump, Phillips said, gives media outlets "news that can fill 24 hours."

"Trump gives people a news story almost hourly  a new executive order, something he says," Phillips said. "He is constantly sending material. He's the perfect president for that (news) cycle. We just want to see what he's going to say next."

And that's one way Trump's first 100 days has altered the presidency. Phillips said Trump, from a news and pop culture standpoint, is "absolutely central to everything."

The big question, though, is whether Trump can be successful. Phillips didn't assess Trump's policies, but did say that the first few months of the president's term demonstrates why high political offices need people who understand politics.

Trump's success could persuade other high-profile business leaders or celebrities  Mark Zuckerberg, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson  to run for political office.

"It's just a fascinating moment in American cultural history where we really are asking questions about what the presidency is meant to be and recognize that the presidency is not a fixed office," Phillips said.
He has been a fixture in Emmerdale for eight years, playing bad boy Adam Barton.

But Adam Thomas's days on the soap may be numbered as TV insiders report he is quitting after bosses refused to give him time off for a 100,000 panto role.

The actor, 28, was allowed time off last year to appear in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! but sources say ITV chiefs were not keen to accommodate his panto part.

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Leaving the Dales: Emmerdale actor Adam Thomas is reportedly quitting the soap after ITV bosses refused to allow him time off for a 100,000 panto role

A source told The Sun newspaper that Adam heard from soap colleagues that pantos could be a lucrative side hustle.

'The soap community is quite a small one and Adam had heard from stars on other shows that doing a panto run is a great little earner.'

But Emmerdale bosses were not thrilled at the prospect of writing around his absence, the insider continued.

Ultimatum: Although Adam was granted time off to appear in I'm A Celebrity last year, ITV bosses refused to allow him leave to take up the lucrative role and told him to choose between panto and Emmerdale

'But ITV wasn't happy with him wanting to do both and said he had to choose.'

Adam reportedly decided it was time to leave the soap set in the Yorkshire Dales but producers have not ruled out a return, the insider claimed.

'It's a great payday for him and he's a popular character on Emmerdale, so the bosses had to let him make his decision in the hope he may come back in the future.'

The actor has appeared in the soap since 2009. In his most recent storyline, his character Adam Barton was told he would never be able to have children.

Soap bad boy: Adam has played scrap metal merchant Adam Barton on the soap set in the Yorkshire Dales for eight years

In emotional scenes, Adam is told he has an extra chromosome which makes it impossible for him to have children with his wife Victoria Sugden, played by Isabel Hodgins.

In spoiler news, Adam and Victoria's marriage will crumble after the diagnosis with Adam seeking support from his ex-girlfriend Vanessa Woodfield, played by Michelle Hardwick.

MailOnline has reached out to Adam's representative and ITV for comment.

Heartbreak: Adam's latest story line was hard hitting as it was revealed he was unable to have children, causing him and his wife Victoria (played by Isabel Hodgins) great disappointment
They are one of Australian television's power couples.

And Richard Roxburgh and Silvia Colloca recently skipped the industry's night of nights, the TV WEEK Logie Awards, to welcome their first daughter Luna.

The actor, nominated for Best Actor and Most Outstanding Actor for his role as Clever Greene on Rake, and his TV chef wife announced the birth via Instagram.

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Third time's a charm! Richard Roxburgh and Silvia Colloca recently skipped the industry's night of nights, the TV WEEK Logie Awards, to welcome their first daughter Luna

'So... this happened on Friday! It's a girl and her name is Luna! All happy and healthy,' wrote Silvia in a caption accompanying a photo of the newborn holding her finger.

The ABC presenter, 39, had hundreds of well-wishers rush to the image's comments section to congratulate the couple on their new addition.

'Beautiful name Silvia, all the best for your lovely family. You are in my kitchen a lot as I cook my favourites from your book, so thinking of you all now,' wrote one fan.

'So... this happened on Friday! It's a girl and her name is Luna! All happy and healthy,' wrote Silvia in a caption accompanying a photo of the newborn holding her finger

'So happy for you and the boys! I bet they are all so in love. Rest up, gorgeous mumma,' gushed another supporter.

Silvia and Richard are also parents to two sons, Raphael, nine, and Miro, five.

The Milan-born author recently spoke out in favour of child vaccinations after Miro became ill with 'high fevers and nasty coughs' and was tested for whooping cough.

'So happy for you and the boys! I bet they are all so in love. Rest up, gorgeous mumma,' gushed another supporter

Advocate: The Milan-born author recently spoke out in favour of child vaccinations after Miro became ill with 'high fevers and nasty coughs' and was tested for whooping cough

'If you choose not to vaccinate, please be mindful not to expose the community to your choice,' she wrote in a passionate Facebook post.

'If you or your child develop a cough, stay home from work and keep your children home from school and day care until you/they are better,' she continued.

Richard recently told The Daily Telegraph the celebrity family's lifestyle is 'pretty private [which is] whats so special about living on [Sydney's] northern beaches'.
Blac Chyna spent her Sunday evening judging a twerking contest.

The 28-year-old star, whose full name is Angela Renee White, lent her expertise in an appearance at Atlantic City Harrah's Pool After Dark, and a clip of the proceedings were posted on TMZ.

In it, the mother-of-two walked out on the stage to a rousing ovation, clad in a white mini-skirt with grey and pink vertical bars. She had her black locks down and wore a pair of white block heel sandals for the outing.

Not a step behind: Blac Chyna, 28, judged a twerking competition Sunday at Atlantic City Harrah's Pool After Dark

During the randy event, set to the tune of the 2 Live Crew's Hoochie Mama, a few women demonstrated their twerking skills to the crowd while Chyna judged from an overlooking platform.

When one of the dancers got overzealous and teased she would expose herself to the crowd - causing Chyna to smile and laugh - a security guard stepped in and stopped the twerker from further showing off.

The salon owner was returning to the venue after there appearing last year. Other noted celebs who've appeared at the glitzy resort recently include Paris Hilton, Jersey Shore's DJ Pauly D and Brody Jenner.

Fashionista: The mother-of-two wore a striped skirt that accentuated her curvy figure

Sunny day: The salon owner was beaming when she was snapped shopping in West Hollywood last week

No stranger: The Washington, D.C. native appeared last year at the New Jersey resort

Miley who? The one-time exotic dancer showed off her legendary twerking skills via Snapchat Sunday

On a similar note, the Washington D.C. native took to Snapchat on Sunday to show that she's not just one to judge twerkers - she's the reigning queen.

In it, the mother of two - five-month-old baby daughter Dream with Rob Kardashian and four-year-old son King Cairo with rapper Tyga - wore a black sleeveless catsuit, sidling up next to a friend who was dancing and showing off her twerking skills.

As the calendar turns, it's getting close to Chyna's birthday, as she turns 29 on May 11. The beauty has been promoting her birthday tour, advertising to promoters she's available for hosting parties on the club circuit.
Kristin Cavallari looked more like Kristin Kardashian as she left her New York City hotel for the Met Gala on Monday.

The 30-year-old star wowed in a white lace dress that was completely sheer and featured a long train.

Kristin's sheer dress and pulled back hair was reminiscent of Kim Kardashian's 2015 Met Gala look, in which she wore Roberto Cavalli.

Kardashian kopy?: Kristin Cavallari is seen leaving for the Met Gala in a long white gown that resembled Kim Kardashian's 2015 Roberto Cavalli Met Gala gown

Kristin protected her modesty by adding a Hanky Panky bralette to the ensemble, wearing the lacy $57 lingerie under the sheer dress to ensure she remained fully covered throughout the evening.

The former reality star of Laguna Beach fame wore her hair pulled back into a long, knotted ponytail.

'#MetGala hair on point thanks to @owengould,' she captioned a photo showcasing the hairstyle.

She was on hand as a fashion correspondent for E! News' live red carpet coverage.

On my way: The Laguna Beach star's train trailed behind her as she got into her car for the bash

The Met Gala is the highlight of the fashion calendar.

And with ground-breaking Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakuboas named as this year's theme, the famed fund-raiser is sure to provide plenty of spectacle.

The Tokyo-based designer has been deemed worthy of the solo focus of this year's gala - which inaugurates the museum's eagerly-awaited accompanying exhibit of her label.

From the front: The mother-of-three showed off almost every inch of her incredible figure in the sheer garment, wearing a Hanky Panky bralette underneath

It is the first time the gala and exhibit has focused on one living designer since 1983, when it highlighted the work of Yves Saint Laurent.

Vogue editor Anna Wintour co-chairs the gala, joined by Katy Perry, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and Pharrell Williams.

Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton, told AP that Kawakubo is considered the world's 'most important and influential designer' of the moment and 'has consistently defined and re-defined the aesthetics of our time.'

Getting knotty: The Hills star posted this shot of her Met Gala hairstyle

Known for bold, experimental clothing, Kawakubo's designs have an austere aesthetic and a cult following.

The 74-year-old officially founded her cerebral design house in 1973 to critical acclaim - and was dubbed 'anti-fashion' for challenging the notions of beauty with her innovative aesthetic.

Comme des Garcons has been showing collections in Paris each season since 1981.

The Metropolitan Museum in New York - where the annual gala is held - is displaying 120 Comme des Garcons womenswear designs by Kawakubo, spanning the past 35 years, since her first Paris show.
She is know for her chic and sometimes conservative style.

But Rose Byrne was intent on turning heads at the Met Gala in New York on Monday evening.

The Australian actress took the plunge in a very low-cut red Ralph Lauren gown as she graced the red carpet with longtime partner, Bobby Cannavale.

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Racy Rose! Actress Rose Byrne took the plunge in a VERY low-cut red backless gown at the Met Gala on Monday night with partner Bobby Cannavale

The frock featured layers of delicate tulle and cut out detail at the sides of the garment to show off Rose's trim tummy.

Thanks to the gown's backless design, the brunette beauty flashed even more flesh as she posed for the cameras.

The Bridesmaids star teamed the ensemble with an Edie Parker clutch, and styled her auburn locks in voluminous curls.

Flashing the flesh! The gown also featured cut outs at the sides to show off her trim midsection

While her gown was a standout on the red carpet, it was hard not to notice the sparkling diamond ring on her left hand wedding finger.

Rose has been wearing the bling since November last year, sparking rumours she's engaged to her long time partner and father of her child, Bobby.

Meanwhile, the Boardwalk Empire star looked dapper alongside Rose in a black suit, tie and shirt.

Delicate: The gown was made of delicate tulle and featured a sexy backless design

The duo looked ready to enjoy a night off parental duties with their son Rocco.

The theme of this year's event is ground-breaking Comme des Garcons designer Rei Kawakubo.

Meanwhile, Rose is set to star in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks opposite media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

The Australian actress plays the role of journalist Rebecca Skloot, who wrote the New York Times bestseller that inspired the TV film.

The story follows an African-American woman who becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs thanks to her incredible cells.

The Bridesmaids star teamed the ensemble with an Edie Parker clutch, and styled her auburn locks in voluminous curls
Its fourth season came to a dramatic conclusion last week on BBC One.

And now the massively popular cop show, Line Of Duty, looks to make a transition across the pond to the US.

The series has developed a cult fanbase via Hulu - an American TV subscription service - and this has peaked the interest of Hollywood TV bosses.

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Off to LA? Line Of Duty set for American adaptation after Hollywood TV execs are wowed by the latest season on BBC

Similar to veteran shows such as LAPD Blue, The Wire, The Shield and Law & Order, execs thinks it will draw in millions; rumour has it that Amazon and Netflix are also keen.

An insider told The Sun: 'Theres been a lot of interest with the show  especially recently with the move from BBC One to BBC Two as a lot more people have watched the last series and caught up with the previous three.

'Big players in Hollywood have been impressed by the gripping nature of the show and think they can set it in the US and add more layers with a bigger budget.

The series has developed a cult fanbase via Hulu - an American TV subscription service - and this has peaked the interest of Hollywood TV bosses

'It follows their remakes of The Office, Broadchurch, Shameless and some would say Sherlock, so its bound to happen with one of the US companies.'

As the fourth series of Line of Duty closed last Sunday, fans of the programme heaped praise on the action-packed finale with some calling it 'the best drama ever.'

Eight million viewers are expected to have tuned into the BBC One show.

On Twitter, super fan Saira wrote: 'Just simply THE BEST Drama ever!!! #LineofDuty Well done BBC. Just can't wait now for next series - please don't leave it too long!!'

As the fourth series of Line of Duty closed tonight, fans of the programme heaped praise on the action-packed finale with some calling it 'the best drama ever'

Christine Kimber wrote: 'The best cop show I've ever watched... I was shouting at the telly it was so gripping!'

Steve Palmer said: 'Best finale ever!'

Meanwhile Emily White added: 'Are you allowed to stand up and applaud your television? Because Line of Duty deserves it.'

In tonight's episode, although the identity of one key figure  Balaclava Man  was revealed, the fact he was just a common criminal was an anti-climax for viewers who were guessing who he was from the characters they knew.

Furthermore, it soon became clear there was more than one Balaclava Man.

The addictive programme also saw DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton) confess to killing Tim Ifield and in a shocking twist exposed ACC Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins) as a corrupt copper involved in a clandestine criminal ring.

But although some loose ends were tied in the hour-long episode  plenty more came apart and frustrated viewers who will have to wait for the fifth season to have their questions answered.

The questions involving DCI Huntley who, after taking time out of work to raise a family felt under pressure to solve Operation Trapdoor and find the murderer and rapist behind a string of offences, are concluded as she confesses to killing forensics expert Ifield.

The addictive programme also saw DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton) confess to killing Tim Ifield

Talking about the next Line of Duty series, series creator Jed Mercurio hinted the show will revisit the lives of the programme veterans

Although she tries to implicate her husband, anti-corruption unit AC-12, headed by Superintendent Tim Hastings (Adrian Dunbar), managed to uncover her tracks and find the blood-sodden clothes linking her to the crime, she is forced to confess.

DCI Huntley, who is given ten years for manslaughter, tells DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) she had no choice but to try to save herself, saying: I am not a bad person. Maybe you would have done the same.

Talking about the next Line of Duty series, series creator Jed Mercurio hinted the show will revisit the lives of the programme veterans.

He said: We definitely have a fifth [series], not a sixth... but we havent started working on it yet. I need to think what the character is first.

I want to look at the personal lives of all the regulars in series five - theyve taken a backseat in this series to Roz Huntley, so it would be good to explore that side of things a bit more.

Guns blazing, plot twisted to perfection, Line of Duty goes out with a bang - but you'll have to wait for the NEXT series for all the loose ends to be wrapped up

Review By Christopher Stevens For The Daily Mail

They all dunnit! Line of Duty ended with a string of suspects in cuffs, or dead. Even the mysterious masked murderer, the so-called Balaclava Man, did not turn out to be a single individual but just one of many anonymous pawns, their faces hidden at the bidding of a gangland overlord.

In other TV police shows, this trick would have been an anti-climax  a cop-out, in fact. Here, however, although Im sure many viewers would have been frustrated by the conclusion, I believe it provided a solution that was twisted to perfection. Indeed, it was so complex that only a trademark interview by the fictional anti-corruption unit AC-12  taking up nearly half the episode  could untangle it.

Whereas last years Line of Duty finale strayed unconvincingly into action-thriller territory, with DS Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) in an armed chase to snare the villain, this time the drama was set in the office. By doing so, the battle to catch and convict slippery, one-handed DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton) and her venal boss Derek Hilton (Paul Higgins) was much better television.

They all dunnit! Line of Duty ended with a string of suspects in cuffs, or dead

Unlike most crime series, Line of Duty is never about the clues. What matter are the interrogations. And so, the finale opened with a classic example of how not to conduct an interview, as ham-fisted detectives from the murder squad muscled in to quiz Rozs husband, the wimpy Nick (Lee Ingleby).

Nick was accused of killing forensics officer Tim Ifield and chopping the fingers off the corpse. Anyone could see he was so feeble, hed faint if he was asked to carve a roast chicken.

The more desperately he tried to tell the truth, the more officers stuffed words into his mouth. The only surprise was that they didnt steal his lunch money before chucking him into the cells. It was left to the experts for a real demonstration of how to conduct a face-to-face inquiry, as for the first time this series all three of AC-12s key players entered the interview room together.

In due course, during one tense confrontation, Kate, her oppo DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston) and their boss, Supt Ted Hastings, cracked the case.

Hastings, played by the magnificent Adrian Dunbar, had been on the brink of accepting defeat from the woman he called a wee witch (a most un-PC attitude, it must be said, towards a woman colleague from a former PC). It was dogged work from his juniors that saved him.

With viewing ratings climbing steadily, a fifth series of Line of Duty has already been confirmed

Their grilling of Roz started halfway through the episode and seemed it would never end, as streams of her lies were exposed like miles of coloured handkerchiefs pulled from a conjurors hat. What made this scene especially gripping was a secret that viewers presumed that none of the characters had guessed  Rozs own solicitor was part of the criminal conspiracy.

But she did know. Thandie Newton looked as if this was the most thrilling piece of acting shed been asked to do in her career, as she switched from abject confession to attack, shrugging off the charges against her to expose not only her crooked brief but the rackety Assistant Chief Constable Hilton. Within moments, the disgraced new boy at AC-12, DC Jamie Desford, blundered into the trap and revealed himself as another conspirator.

Suddenly, all the contradictions of the plot made sense. They were all guilty, the only possible answer  but I defy any viewer to honestly claim they had worked out the answer beforehand.

For weeks, viewers have been wrestling with the identity of Balaclava Man. But we finally learned that there are lots of them  anonymous minions in woolly masks. One dropped in at the police station lobby and was shot in the head. When the balaclava was removed, he was no one we recognised  just a disposable, identikit villain, a goon for hire.

There could be dozens more like him, controlled by a shadowy master villain. But does that criminal controllers name begin with an H? For his part, Superintendent Hastings was keen to stress that H stood for Hilton, who was found dead from shotgun wounds, apparently self-inflicted. Perhaps the Super was a little too eager, given that his surname shares the same initial.

With viewing ratings climbing steadily, a fifth series of Line of Duty has already been confirmed. Sadly, the work of rooting out corrupt coppers seems never-ending.

This is beginning to feel like a lifes work, Hastings grumbled. Albeit in fiction  not in our real-life police forces  we can only hope so.
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It's a night that never fails to disappoint on the sartorial front.

Stars swept the famous steps outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the heart of New York's 5th Avenue for the annual style-studded bash and leading the glamour for the Brits across the pond were Rita Ora, Cara Delevingne, Lily Collins, Daisy Ridley and Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner.

The girls made a statement in their striking gowns, with Rita and Lily drawing all eyes on them thanks to their daring stylistic choices.

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Leading the Brits: Rita Ora, Cara Delevingne and Lily Collins led the glamour as stars swept the famous steps outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the style-studded Met Gala bash held at the MOMA on Monday night

Following suit: Actresses Daisy Ridley stunned in a Oscar de la Renta creation and Sophie Turner followed suit in a striking Louis Vuitton gown at the bash in the heart of New York 's 5th Avenue

Turning heads as she arrived at the calendar highlight, Rita, 26, who was born in Kosovo, but considers herself to be British, stepped out in a woven silk red ribbon dress which tied in an oversized bow at the shoulder.

Her intricately cut number saw the How You Do singer go braless underneath as she teased a look at her enviable frame.

Covering up her impressive collection of body art for the evening with cleverly applied make-up across her arms, the vocal talent - who is never afraid to take risks when it comes to her red carpet wardrobe - ditched her usually tumbling blonde tresses for an edgy cropped look.

Red hot! Turning heads as she arrived at the calendar highlight, Rita, 26, who was born in Kosovo, but considers herself to be British, stepped out in a woven silk red ribbon dress by Marchesa which tied in an oversized bow at the shoulder

New 'do: The vocal talent - who is never afraid to take risks when it comes to her red carpet wardrobe - ditched her usually tumbling blonde tresses for an edgy cropped look

Wowing onlookers: Her intricately number saw the How You Do singer go braless underneath as she teased a look at her enviable frame

Striking: Rita proved why she was chosen as host of America's Next Top Model as she posed fiercely and effortlessly for cameras

Her locks were hidden under an unusual cropped blonde headpiece which gave the illusion of a dramatic haircut.

A long chiffon train on her gown added further glamour as she posed up a storm for photographers. With a slick of ruby red lipstick and diamond earrings, Rita's look was incredibly well put together.

Next making a bold statement was model Cara Delevingne - who dazzled in a glittering silver suit, and matching body paint across her newly-shaven head.

The actress, 24, certainly caught attention in her shimmering co-ord, which saw her team together a traditional blazer and skinny cigarette trousers of metallic silver and black flowers.

Dramatic: A long chiffon train on her gown added further glamour as she posed up a storm for photographers, commanding attention on the carpet

All that glitters: Next making a bold statement was model Cara Delevingne - who dazzled in a glittering Chanel silver suit, and matching body paint across her newly-shaven head

Sparkling: The actress, 24, certainly caught attention in her shimmering co-ord, which saw her team together a traditional blazer and skinny cigarette trousers of metallic silver and black flowers

Saucy style: Sporting nothing underneath the blazer, Cara gave a flash of her delicate cleavage and smooth skin beneath - which she dressed with a slick of body glitter to up the glamour of the look even further

Androgynous: Tying her look together in an effortless fashion, she accessorised with a chunky belt of matching hue, to cinch in at her petite waist and make the suit more feminine

Sporting nothing underneath the blazer, Cara gave a flash of her delicate cleavage and smooth skin beneath - which she dressed with a slick of body glitter to up the glamour of the look even further.

Tying her look together in an effortless fashion, she accessorised with a chunky belt of matching hue, to cinch in at her petite waist and make the androgynous look more feminine, and added further height to her frame with co-ordinating metallic court shoes.

Turning the most heads however was her striking hair-do, which saw her newly-bald head covered in a thick slick of silver paint, to give the illusion of a cropped pixie cut.

The star, who rid herself of hair last week for her new role in Life In A Year, then added glittering gems to the paint in a glamorous finishing touch - drawing further attention to her naturally striking model features with the dramatic style.

Striking: Turning the most heads however was her striking hair-do, which saw her newly-bald head covered in a thick slick of silver paint, to give the illusion of a cropped pixie cut

Stunning: The star, who rid herself of hair last week for her new role in Life In A Year, then added glittering gems to the paint in a glamorous finishing touch - drawing further attention to her naturally striking model features

Lily, 28, looked unrecognisable while sporting a sleek black wig to channel the evening's unusual Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons theme.

Hiding her usual brunette tresses underneath her blunt raven 'do, Lily edged up her ensemble with a dramatic make-up look that boasted a strikingly dark lip.

She made sure to flaunt her slender frame in a show-stopping gown that teased a glimpse at her assets thanks to its low-cut bandeau neckline.

While the black bodice of her frock highlighted the actress' minuscule waist, it soon blossomed into a huge full skirt that featured frilled detailing above the knee and a voluminous petticoat that reached down to the floor.

Unrecognisable: Lily Collins, 28, wowed onlookers with her striking appearance on the steps outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the heart of New York's 5th Avenue as she attended the Met Gala on Monday night

Interesting design: Lily's dress boasted a black bodice that highlighted her minuscule waist and soon blossomed into a huge full skirt that featured frilled detailing above the knee and a voluminous petticoat that reached down to the floor

Posing with her hands on her hips, the actress caused a stir among those that had gathered on the red carpet as she had thrown herself into the gala's theme

Daring to bare: The actress gave onlookers a glimpse at the tattoo that sits on the bottom of her neck, thanks to her gown's bandeau neckline

Perfectly poised: Lily struck up a pose for photographers on her arrival to the star-studded annual event which hosted a Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons theme

Posing with her hands on her hips, the actress stopped for waiting photographers and caused a stir among those that had gathered on the red carpet as she had thrown herself into the gala's theme.

As she turned to head inside, the starlet flashed a look at the tattoo that sits at the bottom of her neck while making her way up the carpet-lined steps.

She was joined by fellow actress Daisy Ridley, 25, who made a statement in a bold floral flock.

Opting for a minimal look on the beauty front, Daisy kept her brunette locks slicked back into a chic up-do and chose to flaunt her natural beauty by wearing subtle shades for her make-up.

Like Lily, the Star Wars actress wasn't afraid to steal a look at her body art and flaunted her inking of three stars that sits on the outside of her foot while sporting pointed court heels.

Another bold look: She was joined by fellow actress Daisy Ridley, 25, who made a statement in a bold floral flock that featured a billowing ruffled skirt

Minimal beauty look: Daisy kept her brunette locks slicked back into a chic up-do and chose to flaunt her natural beauty by wearing subtle shades for her make-up

Stunning: The starlet's gown included a scooped neckline and wowed onlookers thanks to its ruffled monochrome skirt

The British actress, best known for her role as Rey in the hugely popular science fiction franchise, inevitably commanded attention while posing for photos before making her way inside.

With a form fitting upper half providing dramatic contrast to its generously cut skirt, the ensemble proved to be a red carpet high point on a night dedicated to bold style statements.

Opting for limited accessories restricted to understated earrings, Daisy ensured her wardrobe was not overshadowed, while conventional black stiletto heels rounded things off.

Sophie Turner certainly proved her star quality as she oozed understated elegance in a stunning white and gold gown.

So chic! Sophie Turner certainly proved her star quality as she oozed understated elegance in a stunning white and gold gown

Elegant: The opulent piece was embroidered with delicate sequins and pattern embellishments, while it featured a plunging neckline and two slits slashed high on her thighs

Final touches: Accentuating her bright blue eyes with statement black eyeliner, the British actress- who is dating singer Joe Jonas, ensured her outfit was complete

The opulent piece was embroidered with delicate sequins and pattern embellishments.

Featuring a plunging neckline and two slits slashed high on her thighs, the number boasted pretty frill detail on the back.

With her blonde hair sleeked back off her face and flowing down her back, she added a touch of glitz with diamond drop earrings and cuffs.

Accentuating her bright blue eyes with statement black eyeliner, the British actress- who is dating singer Joe Jonas, ensured her outfit was complete.

Adding height to her stature she donned a pair of impressive silver-heeled platform shoes.

All eyes on her: Next representing blondes in white was model Stella Maxwell, who put on a seriously saucy display in a daring plunge gown with a semi-sheer skirt by the desiners at H&M

Sexy: The stunner, who was born in Belgium but raised by Northern Irish parents, was not afraid to show off plenty of skin and her enviable model frame in the daring dress, which cut incredibly low at the front and at the back

Next representing blondes in white was model Stella Maxwell, who put on a seriously saucy display in a daring plunge gown with a semi-sheer skirt.

The stunner, who was born in Belgium but raised by Northern Irish parents, was not afraid to show off plenty of skin and her enviable model frame in the daring dress, which cut incredibly low at the front and at the back.

Cinching in at her waist, the dress then extended into a sexy semi-sheer white skirt, layered atop a fitted pink bodysuit, to draw attention to her sensationally slender figure and impossibly long legs.

Giving the look a more glamorous feel, the gown then featured an overlay of delicate pearl fringing, which fell softly against her back before cascading all the way to the floor.

She finished her ensemble with a soft pink box clutch and an elaborate up-do, to draw attention to her striking model features and gorgeous, glowing complexion as she fiercely posed on the carpet.

Classic glamour: Giving the look a more glamorous feel, the gown then featured an overlay of delicate pearl fringing, which fell softly against her back before cascading all the way to the floor

Dynamic duo: The beauty proved her model prowess as she posed beside fellow catwalk queen Ashley Graham

The Theory of Everything's Felicity Jones stunned on her arrival as she stepped out clad in a vintage inspired pastel blue gown.

The intricate design sported a sheer overlay that included a corset underneath and was embellished with a plethora of purple flowers and frills that travelled down the skirt and along its train.

It boasted a ruffled neckline and sleeves to match and Felicity dolled up her attire with a pastel pink lip and kohl liner to frame her eyes.

She wore her brunette locks down in a sleek style and finished off her red carpet style with a warm smokey eye that accentuated her strikingly beautiful facial features.

Striking: The Theory of Everything's Felicity Jones stunned on her arrival as she stepped out clad in a vintage inspired pastel blue gown by ERDEM

Stunning: She wore her brunette locks down in a sleek style and finished off her red carpet style with a warm smokey eye that accentuated her strikingly beautiful facial features

Gorgeous: The actress looked truly beautiful as she softly smiled for cameras in her feminine gown

Next proving her model prowess on the carpet was Naomi Campbell, 46, who arrived alongside the newly-appointed Editor In Chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful.

The iconic supermodel showed off her famously statuesque figure in a classically stylish black gown, formed of a sleek velvet bodice and striking pleated maxi skirt, striped with metallic strips of silver.

Cutting straight across her chest into statement shoulders, the dress was then made far sexier by a daring thigh-high split on one side, to give a glimpse of her famously long legs to all as she posed with ease.

She finished her look with sky-high black heels, adorned with silver studs, and a bold cropped bob as she posed beside the new leader of the iconic fashion magazine.

What a pair: Next proving her model prowess on the carpet was Naomi Campbell, 46, who arrived alongside the newly-appointed Editor In Chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful, wowed in a thigh-split alaia gown

Commanding attention: She finished her look with sky-high black heels, adorned with silver studs, and a bold cropped bob as she posed beside the new leader of the iconic fashion magazine

OBE Edward meanwhile, who was appointed Editor-In-Chief of Vogue last month, suited and booted up for the event, sporting a traditional tailcoat layered atop a bright white waistcoat and crisp shirt.

Adding to the fray was British beauty Jourdan Dunn, who arrived with rapper Future in her own chic gown version of a traditional pinstriped suit.

The star looked truly stunning in the quirky ensemble, which cut into a bardot neckline across one shoulder to flash plenty of her gorgeous, glowing skin and delicate decolletage.

With a single pinstripe strap securing her white shirt bodice on one side, the custom H&M gown then extended down into a distressed fishtail skirt - featuring slits across the front to tease at her long legs underneath, before falling into a quirky ripped and knotted train.

Stealing the show: Adding to the fray was British beauty Jourdan Dunn, who arrived with rapper Future in her own chic H&M gown version of a traditional pinstriped suit

Gorgeous: The star looked truly stunning in the quirky ensemble, which was custom H&M - cutting into a bardot neckline across one shoulder to flash plenty of her gorgeous, glowing skin and delicate decolletage as she posed with the rapper

Enchanting: All eyes were on Jourdan as she exuded natural glamour and beauty on her way across the carpet

The Greenford native added further height to her already leggy frame with simple black strappy sandals, and accessorised with statement pearl drop earrings as she posed beside the rapper.

Future meanwhile jazzed up the traditional suit by sporting a cropped black tailcoat, adorned with striking navy satin lapels.

Co-ordinating his look from head to toe, he then layered a matching blue shirt underneath, before making the look more trendy with a pair of retro rounded sunglasses.

Also arriving in a black and white ensemble was Cinderella star Lily James, who oozed glamour and confidence as she posed for cameras with boyfriend Matt Smith.

Wow: Also arriving in a black and white ensemble with a statement back bow was Cinderella star Lily James, who oozed glamour and confidence as she posed for cameras in her stunning Burberry creation

Gorgeous: Pairing the bold belt with a matching black choker, the actress achieved the perfect balance between old-fashioned and model as she smouldered for cameras

The dress highlighted the 28-year-old's impressively toned waist and slim figure by featuring a tight strapless bodice, which then bounced out into a structured skirt, embroidered with spots all over.

Packing more of a punch however was the back of the dress - which saw a giant black bow tied at an angle to contrast the soft white material.

Pairing the bold belt with a matching black choker, the actress achieved the perfect balance between old-fashioned and model as she smouldered for cameras.

She slicked her straight her to the side and accessorised with glittering silver earrings and a dark smoky eye - enhancing her natural beauty and showing no signs of fatigue, having jetted in from the UK where she is currently filming new flick Guernsey.

Stylish couple: The fashion darling was joined on the carpet by actor boyfriend Matt Smith, 34, who opted for a traditional black suit - but maintained his typically trendy style with its subtle lace material

Sweet: The pair were later seen clasping hands as Matt bid his beauty farewell to mingle with fellow guests

Stunning: Matt's The Crown co-star Claire Foy let her floral Erdem frock and its golden train take centre stage as she pared things back on the beauty front opting for just a strikingly bold red lip

The fashion darling was joined on the carpet by actor boyfriend Matt Smith, 34, who opted for a traditional black suit - but maintained his typically trendy style with its subtle lace material.

The pair looked more loved-up than ever as they posed together on the carpet, gazing lovingly into each other's eyes as the cameras flashed before them.

Meanwhile Thandie Newton, 44, showed off her edgy style in a scarlet gown and flower embellished head piece as she posed up a storm at the bash in NYC.

Cutting an elegant figure, Thandie displayed her slender physique in one-armed sequin encrusted red dress, which featured a daring split slashed to the thigh.

In keeping with the vibrant colour theme, the mother-of-three teamed it with a pair of strappy killer heels and a flower-adorned headpiece.

Red hot: Meanwhile Thandie Newton, 44, showed off her edgy style in a scarlet gown with thigh split by Monse and flower embellished head piece as she posed up a storm at the bash in NYC

Striking: In keeping with the vibrant colour theme, the mother-of-three teamed it with a pair of strappy killer heels and a flower-adorned headpiece

Working a smoky eye to perfection, she showed off her stunning bone structure and completed her ensemble with an array of creole earrings.

Alexa Chung, meanwhile, cut an elegant figure in a floor-length polka dot design that cinched in at the waist and featured a plunging neckline.

The halter-neck style dress made for a dazzling display and beauty, 33, showed off her willowy frame in the elegant design which revealed her flawless decolletage and sculpted shoulders.

The presenter kept her chestnut hued tresses down in tousled waves to graze her shoulders and finished off her attire with a nude lipstick across her lips.

Sending guests dotty: Alexa Chung, meanwhile, cut an elegant figure in a floor-length polka dot design from Diane Von Furstenberg that cinched in at the waist and featured a plunging neckline

Ethereal: The halter-neck style dress made for a dazzling display and beauty, 33, showed off her willowy frame in the elegant design which revealed her flawless decolletage and sculpted shoulders

She ensured that all eyes were on the ethereal gown by rocking a natural look with minimal make up and styling her brunette tresses into a fuss-free wavy shoulder-length bob with a fringe.

Alexa, who is a contributing editor for Vogue, accessorised her delicate dress with a black silk clutch.

James Corden brushed aside his nightly commitments on his hugely popular talk show The Late Late Show and was joined by glamorous wife Julia Carey at the Met Gala.

Sporting a smart black tuxedo suit and crisp white shirt, James, 38, looked dapper as he posed for pictures alongside Julia outside the cavernous venue.

Dapper: Nightly commitments on his hugely popular talk show were brushed to one side as a smart looking James Corden made an appearance at the 2017 Met Gala with glamorous wife Julia Carey on Monday evening

Pulling out all the stops: Sporting a smart black tuxedo suit and crisp white shirt, James, 38, looked dapper as he posed for pictures alongside Julia outside the cavernous venue

A white bow tie and matching waistcoat added to the look, while highly polished black dress shoes rounded things off.

Standing alongside her husband, Julia looked suitably glamorous in a plunging gold dress adorned with sequinned floral embellishments.

The floor length design drew attention to her slender physique, while the vibrant red clutch she held in her left hand offered an added splash of colour to an already distinctive ensemble.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them star Eddie Redmayne made sure to put in appearance at the lavish event with wife Hannah Bagshawe on his arm.

The couple were both sporting Prada ensembles, with Eddie suited and booted in a tailored navy suit and bow tie.

Designer loving pair: Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them star Eddie Redmayne made sure to put in appearance at the lavish event with wife Hannah Bagshawe on his arm

Stylish: The couple were both sporting Prada ensembles, with Eddie suited and booted in a tailored navy suit and bow tie

Hannah, meanwhile, couldn't have looked more glamorous in her embellished violet gown that she teamed with her lightened tresses swept over to one side in soft waves and a jewelled necklace that caught the eye.

They no doubt rubbed shoulders with Eddie's former co-star Felicity - as the pair had starred together in 2014 release The Theory of Everything that tells the story of Professor Stephen Hawking.

The guests joined the evening's leading lady Anna Wintour inside the gala - the American Vogue editor is the chairwoman of the annual event and guests must be personally approved by her, with former attendees including Madonna, Kim Kardashian, Anne Hathaway, Kanye West and Rihanna.

The theme of this year's Met Gala is Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons, with the focus being on the avant-garde designer's technique with silhouettes, draping and fit. The 74-year-old Japanese fashion legend is the second ever living designer to be the sole subject of the Met's fashion exhibit since Yves Saint Laurent in 1983.

Leading lady: American Vogue editor Anna Wintour is the chairwoman of the annual event and guests must be personally approved by her

Golden girl: In keeping with the evening's theme, Anna's dress included an array of textures, featuring fur and embroidery and was custom made by Chanel

Glittering: Anna looked truly glamorous as she arrived on the carpet

Next generation: She was joined by her daughter Bee Shaffer, 29, who recently announced her engagement to the son of late Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani

In keeping with the theme - Anna's dress included an array of textures, featuring fur and embroidery.

She finished off her look with a chunky necklace, a pretty pink lip, and her trademark sleek bob - choosing, wisely, to leave her infamous dark glasses at home for the ritzy occasion.

She was joined by her daughter Bee Shaffer, 29, who recently announced her engagement to the son of late Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani.

The glitzy bash, formally known as the Costume Institute Gala, borrows its name from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the location for the annual NYC event.

In 1946, the gala was launched, in a bid to raise money for the Mets Costume Institute. This year's lucrative fundraiser will see less that 600 glamorous attendees appear. Tickets market for up to $30,000, while tables cost $275,000.
Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano, is facing claims of misuse of royal finances

One of Nigeria's most prominent Muslim leaders is under investigation on suspicion of embezzlement, fuelling rumours that some want him removed after he made a series of comments about the need for social reforms.

Anti-corruption investigators are looking into the accounts of the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, following allegations of gross mismanagement of royal finances.

"We have gone far in the investigation... to safeguard the honour and prestige of the emirate council," the head of the anti-corruption unit in the northern state of Kano, Muhyi Magaji, told AFP.

The treasurer and secretary of the state-funded royal court have been summoned for questioning on Tuesday, he added.

A source familiar with the investigation said the probe centred on the use of six billion naira ($19 million, 17 million euros) of palace funds to pay for luxury cars, chartered flights, phone and internet bills as well as other personal expenses.

The council has denied the allegations.

"The emirate council has never bought a Rolls Royce for the emir," treasurer Mahe Bashir Wali told reporters last Monday. "These cars were given as gifts by his friends after he became emir."

Wali maintained that the emir always bought his airline tickets with personal money and that the state government approved all his spending.

- Courting criticism -

The emir, who is revered in Nigeria's Muslim-majority north and whose guidance is sought in spirital and temporal matters, was appointed in June 2014 after the death of his predecessor, Ado Bayero.

In the last three years, the Western-educated ruler has broken with royal tradition, speaking out about the need for social reform in a fiercely conservative region.

To some extent, that is unsurprising.

In his previous job as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, as he was then known, caused shockwaves by alleging a $20 billion fraud at the state-run oil company.

In response, the president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan, suspended the trained economist and banker in what many saw as politically motivated retribution.

As emir, Sanusi has said that men without sufficient means should not take more than one wife, prompting protests from clerics and residents in a city where polygamy is deeply entrenched.

He has also hit out at the federal government's economic policies, saying they have led to poor governance and lack of development in the north, setting him on a collision course with the authorities in both Abuja and Kano.

Recently he publicly criticised the governor of the neighbouring state of Zamfara, who blamed divine retribution and "fornication" for a mass outbreak of meningitis that has killed more than 800 people in the north.

- 'Truth to power' -

The Kano emirate dates back more than 1,000 years, during which time it has developed norms and etiquette to which every emir is expected to adhere.

That includes maintaining a dignified silence and avoiding open confrontation with political leaders, instead cultivating them in private for the greater public good.

A Zamfara senator, Kabiru Marafa, has accused Sanusi of "derailing from the tradition laid down by the former occupants of the throne he is sitting upon now".

"He is no longer a whistleblower or a university lecturer," he was quoted as saying by The Punch newspaper in an interview.

Sanusi's supporters reject the assertion.

"Telling truth to power is in his blood, it runs in his lineage and nothing can make him change," one of the emir's aides said.

"This is raw politics and nothing more," added Nura Ma'aji, an anti-corruption activist based in Kano.

"The emir has come out bluntly and told truth to power... (and) the state government is using the anti-corruption commission to disgrace him."

- History repeated? -

The appointment of traditional rulers in Nigeria is agreed by a committee of "kingmakers" and subject to the ratification of the state governor, who also reserves the right to remove them from office.

Sanusi's grandfather, Sir Muhammad Sanusi, found himself in a similar situation in 1963 after nine years as emir.

He wielded power as one of Kano's most charismatic emirs but was forced to abdicate, allegedly for embezzling tax funds and insubordination to political authority.

"The truth of the matter is that (he) was removed because of his arrogance and refusal to accord the then regional government the respect it deserved," said journalist and blogger Jaafar Jaafar.

"His indictment by a report of a commission was only used as a pretext to dethrone him. And from all indication his grandson is following in his footsteps."

The current emir has yet to make any comment on the claims.
Musical comedy Baghdaddy tells the true story of Iraqi defector Curveball, whose claims about weapons of mass destruction became justification for the US-led invasion in 2003

The Iraq war may not sound like musical comedy, but an Off-Broadway revival is spinning intelligence failures and tragedy into a farce that offers potent messages for Donald Trump's America.

"Baghdaddy" officially opens on Monday, telling the true story of an Iraqi defector, code named Curveball, whose claims about weapons of mass destruction became justification for the US-led invasion in 2003.

"If you put 'Hamilton' and 'The Office' in a blender you would have this show," says producer Charlie Fink of the Broadway smash hit about American founding father Alexander and the US television sitcom.

The plot opens in the present day with disgraced CIA spies gathering at a support group -- think Spooks Anonymous -- as they seek understanding and redemption for mistakes that haunt them years later.

The action then switches back in time to Frankfurt airport, where the informant offers to trade apparent secrets about Saddam Hussein's presumed bio-weapons program for political asylum.

Musical comedy Baghdaddy is said to mix elements of the Broadway smash hit "Hamilton" and TV sitcom "The Office"

German intelligence consults the CIA, where analysts driven by ambition, office crushes and intransigent bosses see Curveball as a ticket out of everyday routine and a fast-track to promotion.

But the growing farce quickly gives way to the 9/11 attacks, swapping comedy for tragedy and the onset of a war still being fought today, 14 years after an invasion found no weapons of mass destruction.

It's a fast-paced script woven into a tight score that blends traditional musical theater and camp dancing with hip-hop tracks that carry a stark warning that history should not repeat itself.

Fink says it is more relevant than ever in today's climate of "fake news" and "alternative facts" as some fear that Trump could drag the country into another conflict, if not in Syria then over North Korea.

"It has an immediacy that it didn't have in 2015 and a sense that we're doing this all again," says Fink, referring to a short run two years ago.

- 'Scary' -

"It feels like a time when rules are being rewritten and authority is listening to its instincts, rather than listening to facts and analysis. And that's scary," says Fink.

"Baghdaddy" in rehearsal -- the musical comedy is said to be more relevant than ever in today's climate of "fake news" and "alternative facts"

The first preview on April 6 coincided with the day that the president ordered a cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase, the first direct US action against the Syrian regime.

Low budget and in the works for 10 years, there are just eight actors playing six main roles. "Baghdaddy" returns at the height of the Broadway season, competing with more than a dozen other new shows.

It also spreads responsibility for the 2003 invasion far and wide, not just at the door of then president George W. Bush or the US government but the country as a whole and its Western allies in general.

"We all messed up," says Marshall Pailet, director, co-writer and composer. Far from seeing comedy as inappropriate, he says it's a great vehicle to get New York theater-goers thinking.

"Because we open up their minds and their hearts with comedy, we're able to slip in substance, story, character and a lesson."

A.D. Penedo, who wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book, admits it was daunting to turn the subject into a musical that both entertains and sends people away with a clear message.

"We want them to be entertained and moved," he said. "But we want them to take away... that even though you feel like you don't matter, you really do, and there's ramifications for your actions."

The show is scheduled to run until June 18 at St Luke's Theatre, a basement venue just steps from Times Square.

But never does the show laugh at war itself. More than 4,500 US troops have died in Iraq since 2003. Some estimates for the number of civilians to have perished range from 173,916 to nearly half a million.

"We all own it," says Fink. "A wound in the world that is not going to be healed with tears or laughter."
US forces accompanied by Kurdish People's Protection Units fighters patrol the Syria-Turkey border late last month

By launching air strikes against Syrian Kurdish fighters and threatening more action, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking to send a tough message to Donald Trump in the hope of bringing about a major U-turn in US Syria policy.

Turkey last week bombed targets of the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, earning the wrath of its NATO ally Washington and on Sunday Erdogan warned more action could be imminent.

"We can come unexpectedly in the night," said Erdogan. "We are not going to tip off the terror groups and the Turkish Armed Forces could come at any moment."

The YPG has been seen by the United States as the best ally on the ground in the fight against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in Syria and Trump has inherited a policy from Barack Obama of actively supporting the group.

Turkish airstrikes in Syria have targeted Kurdish People's Protection Units -- Turkey considers the group a terror outfit

But Ankara says the YPG is a terror outfit and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have waged an insurgency since 1984 inside Turkey that has left tens of thousands dead.

- 'Sign of impatience' -

Analysts say the dispute will be the number one issue when Erdogan meets Trump for the first time as president on May 16 in the United States. Failing to resolve the problem could seriously harm US efforts to destroy IS in Syria.

"The strikes are manifestly a sign of impatience by Turkey and part of a long line of appeals telling the US to stop supporting the YPG," said Jean Marcou, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies.

Since Trump's election, Turkey had indicated it wanted a "change in US policy on the YPG support. But in reality Erdogan has obtained nothing for now," he said.

US support for Kurdish groups in Syria will liklely dominate discussions when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets President Donald Trump

The cooperation between Washington and the YPG, which saw the United States send a limited number of forces to work with the group, led to bitter tensions between Ankara and Washington in the dying months of the Obama administration.

The US backed the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the YPG but also including Arab fighters, yet Ankara contends it is merely a front from the Kurdish group.

In an unusual move after days of border clashes between the Turkish army and YPG that followed the air strikes, the US sent military vehicles to the Syrian side of the frontier to carry out patrols in an apparent bid to prevent further fighting.

Erdogan said the sight of American flags in the convoy alongside YPG insignia had "seriously saddened" Turkey.

- 'Tensions help IS survival' -

The Turkish president, fresh from winning the controversial April 16 referendum on enhancing his powers, has indicated that the rewards for Washington in breaking up with the YPG could be high by spurring Turkish involvement in a joint operation to take the IS fiefdom of Raqa.

Together the United States can "turn Raqa into a graveyard for Daesh (IS)," Erdogan said on Saturday.

But Ankara has made clear it will have nothing to do with any operation involving the YPG and analysts say Turkey could even be a threat to a Raqa operation if it is not included.

"Washington was reluctant to launch the Raqa operation before Turkey's April 16 referendum to avoid potential complications with Ankara," said Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

He said the Turkish air strikes -- which were combined with strikes against the PKK in Iraq -- brought "another unanticipated challenge" to coalition efforts against the jihadists.

"Tensions among coalition members have been one of the key factors for the Islamic State's continued survival," he said.

- 'Singular dilemma' -

The International Crisis Group (ICG) said in its latest report on the Syria crisis that the US had "a singular dilemma" on the future of its relationship with the YPG

It said the YPG "is indispensable" to defeat IS but there is also "no avoiding the fact" that the US is backing a force "led by PKK-trained cadres in Syria while the PKK itself continues an insurgency against a NATO ally."

It said that Turkey had pressed ahead with the air strikes despite US objections and this "should serve as a warning for what could lie in store."

But it said while the YPG was counting on American and also Russian support as a bulwark against Turkey, the importance of the country will mean Trump will have an ear for Erdogan's concerns.

Ultimately Washington "will likely view relations with Turkey -- a NATO member and critical ally -- as more important to its broader strategic interests," it said.
ARISE is putting the finishing touches on our Annual Conference, "A Voice of Our Own," scheduled for June 29.

As in the past, this year's conference will feature a wide variety of topics. 2017 conference workshops include:

"Social Security Administration Work Incentives: A Message of Hope for SSA Beneficiaries"

This presentation will focus on the difference between Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, and work incentives that can help individuals transition to work successfully. Learn how beneficiaries can maintain healthcare coverage and benefits for a period of time while attempting the return to work. Additionally, learn how individuals can be supported in the return to work through SSA's Ticket to Work program.

"Vocational Rehab 101"

This session will give a brief overview of Adult Career and Continuing Education Services-Vocational Rehabilitation and available services. The presentation will touch on what qualifies as a disability for ACCES-VR services, the process to qualify for vocational rehabilitation services and what those services may be. There will be handouts, applications and plenty of time for questions and answers.

"Peers: Agents of Change in the Transition Process"

New York Association on Independent Living, in collaboration with its member independent living centers, administers a unique peer and family support program available to individuals interested in transitioning from institutional settings to community living. Peers provide individualized, self-directed peer support and assist people in building their social capital as they return to the community. Attendees will also learn about the transition services and supports available to individuals through the Open Doors Transition Center Project and the Olmstead Housing Subsidy.

"Psychopathology 101"

This session will provide a brief overview of several issues in the area of adult psychopathology, specifically dual-diagnosed adults with intellectual disabilities. The session will prove the basic tools for gathering information and interpreting information, details on the classification of psychological disorders using the DM-ID-2 and an overview of the most common psychological disorders (e.g. anxiety, depression and schizophrenia).

"Elder Abuse 101: What Service Providers Need to Know"

This workshop will examine a variety of topics related to elder abuse, neglect and exploitation, including types of abuse, indicators and dynamics. State reporting laws will be discussed and community resources will be highlighted.

"Self-Advocacy at the Grassroots"

The Self-Advocacy Association of New York State is an organization run by and for people with developmental disabilities. We are a grassroots organization and we derive our authority to speak for people with developmental disabilities from the grassroots structure of our organization. Listen as members of the Madison County Motivators Self-Advocacy Group speak about their journey into advocacy, and their successes advocating for services at the agency level on up to the governor's office.

Our luncheon keynote speaker this year will be Connor McGough, ARISE Foundation board member. The summer before his senior year at RIT, Connor incurred an injury that left him with a high spinal cord injury. After years of rehabilitation and perseverance, Connor was able to slowly return to a more independent life. Drawing from his past and personal experiences, Connor discusses accident prevention and how to overcome adversities in life.

At the event, ARISE will also host a trade show with information from area businesses, government agencies and nonprofits throughout our region who work with people with disabilities. Trade show and advertising opportunities are available for purchase on our website, ariseinc.com/conference.

ARISE will be offering several sponsorship packages; please feel free to contact us if you are interested in sponsoring any portion of our conference this year!

The conference will be held at the Auburn Holiday Inn, 75 North St., Auburn. Visit our website at ariseinc.com/conference for more information, or to register online. You may also contact me at 255-3447 ext. 318 for additional information.
Sunwolves' Jamie-Jerry Taulagi (L) is given red card during their Super Rugby match against Chiefs, at FMG Stadium Waikato in Hamilton, on April 29, 2017

Sunwolves winger Jamie-Jerry Taulagi was banned for five weeks Monday after pleading guilty to a dangerous tackle during the weekend's tense Super Rugby loss to the Waikato Chiefs.

Taulagi was shown a red card for a shoulder charge targeting the head of Chiefs outside back Shaun Stevenson in the dying moments of the match in Hamilton.

The SANZAAR judiciary said the Auckland-born player was facing a suspension of up to seven weeks but it was reduced to five due to his early guilty plea and remorse.

While Taulagi is suspended until June 10, a round 12 bye and Super Rugby's mid-season break means he will miss only three matches.

The next match he will be available for is the Sunwolves' clash with the Golden Lions in Johannesburg on July 1.
Thailand's former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power three years ago, anointing himself prime minister and ushering in the kingdom's most autocratic government in a generation

Thailand's junta chief has accepted an invitation to visit the White House from President Donald Trump, his spokesman said Monday, the latest autocrat to be embraced by the US leader.

The offer came during a phone conversation on Sunday night, part of a flurry of calls Trump made to Southeast Asian leaders over the weekend trying to shore up regional support over the troubled Korean peninsula.

On Sunday he extended a White House invitation to Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, whose brutal anti-drugs campaign has claimed thousands of lives and led to warnings from rights groups about possible crimes against humanity.

"The Prime Minister thanked and accepted President Trump's invitation to visit the United States," junta spokesman Major General Werachon Sukhonhapatipak said in a statement, adding that the offer to visit had been reciprocated by Bangkok.

Thailand's former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power three years ago, anointing himself prime minister and ushering in the kingdom's most autocratic government in a generation.

The coup strained ties with the Barack Obama administration as the military jailed dissidents, banned protests and ramped up prosecutions under the kingdom's draconian lese majeste law.

But the generals who now run Thailand -- a former staunch US ally that has moved closer to Beijing since the coup -- know they are now less likely to be berated for their dismal rights record under Trump, who has had much fewer qualms about embracing autocrats.

He also recently called Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a controversial referendum that will dramatically increase his powers.

And Trump's rhetoric towards China, a popular punching bag during the campaign, has noticeably softened since his meeting with President Xi Jinping in Florida last month.

Many Southeast Asian nations have looked to the Trump administration with some trepidation.

He has shown little appetite for his predecessor's Asia "pivot" and he swiftly scrapped the TPP trade deal after taking office.

Trump is due to visit two regional summits -- in Vietnam and the Philippines -- towards the end of the year.

The Thai junta statement was light on specifics but said Trump "had confidence in the Thai government" and that the two countries were ready to "enhance bilateral cooperation in all dimensions".

Like Trump, the arch-royalist general Prayut enjoys berating the media and speaking off the cuff at length, including during weekly "Bringing Happiness Back to Thailand" speeches that are broadcast on all channels.
Nepal has had nine governments since the end of the civil war in 2006, with each successive administration seeking to fill key positions with their loyalists

Nepal's first female chief justice has been suspended after the government filed a motion to impeach her, triggering protests within the fragile ruling coalition.

The two main parties in the coalition accused Sushila Karki of interference after the Supreme Court last month overturned the government's choice for chief of police.

"We have decided to impeach Chief Justice Sushila Karki... after she visibly started taking sides in cases," Min Biswakarma, a member of the ruling coalition who proposed the motion, told AFP on Monday.

Hours later, Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi resigned in protest. One of the smaller coalition parties has also threatened to quit the government.

Karki's supporters say she has taken a strong stance against corruption during her year-long tenure as head of the supreme court.

A committee will now be established to investigate the allegations of bias, after which parliament will vote on whether to impeach her.

But the process is unlikely to get that far as she is due to retire in June when she turns 65.

The government had appointed Jaya Bahadur Chand as police chief, but the court ruled that the highest-ranking officer Navaraj Silwal should take the top job.

Nepal has a history of political interference in key civil appointments such as the head of police.

The impoverished Himalayan country has had nine governments since the end of the civil war in 2006, with each successive administration seeking to fill key positions with their loyalists.

Political analyst Lok Raj Baral said the coalition government was held together only by the desire of its constituent parties to stay in power.

"There is constant bargaining (within the parties) for them to strengthen their position," he told AFP, describing the impeachment of the chief justice as another attempt to remove any obstacles.

Local elections are due later this month, followed by provincial and then national elections by the end of the year.

The parties that make up the current coalition are expected to perform badly as disillusionment mounts with the constant political bickering and slow pace of change.
Aeroflot is Russia's flagship carrier

Passengers on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Thailand were slammed into the ceiling after their aircraft hit a patch of severe turbulence injuring 27 people, some of them suffering fractured bones, witnesses and officials said Monday.

The terrifying ordeal occurred when the plane flew through a pocket of "clean air" turbulence -- so-called because there is no cloud warning of its presence -- shortly before landing in Bangkok after midnight, the airline said.

Denis Antonyuk, an official at Russia's embassy in Bangkok said 24 Russian nationals and three Thais were injured.

"Fifteen Russians and two Thais are still in hospital," he told AFP, adding the rest had been discharged.

Passenger phone footage broadcast by Rossiya 24 state television channel showed a scene of chaos inside the cabin, with injured passengers on the floor, smears of blood on luggage racks and oxygen masks hanging down.

"We were hurled up into the roof of the plane, it was practically impossible to hold on," a passenger who gave her first name Yevgenia, told Rossiya 24 by phone.

"It felt like the shaking wouldn't stop, that we would just crash," she added.

The head of the Russian embassy's consular department Vladimir Sosnov told RIA Novosti news agency that some of the injured were undergoing operations but he could not give exact numbers.

He added that none of the injuries were life-threatening.

"All the injured were taken to a local hospital with injuries of varying degrees of severity -- mainly fractures and contusions. Some need an operation," the Russian embassy in Bangkok said in a statement.

Officials at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport did not respond to requests for comment.

Thailand has become a very popular destination for sun-seeking Russian tourists with dozens of flights a day from across the country.

Numbers dropped off a few years back when the rouble weakened but they have since bounced back.

Last year just over one million Russians visited the country, most flocking to the southern beach resorts.

Early May is an especially popular time of the year for Russians to head abroad with two public holidays in the first two weeks of the month.
A member of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces removes an Islamic State group flag in the town of Tabqa, about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, on April 30, 2017

US-backed fighters cornered the Islamic State group in a last part of Tabqa on Monday, after tearing down a huge jihadist flag that had fluttered over the northern Syrian city.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, were left in control of all but a fifth of Tabqa, a monitor said.

The city sits on a strategic supply route about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of IS's main Syrian stronghold Raqa and served as a key IS command base.

The SDF broke into Tabqa from the south a week ago and steadily advanced north, squeezing IS in three contiguous neighbourhoods on the bank of the Euphrates River.

At dawn on Monday, IS fighters withdrew from the western-most district towards the other two neighbourhoods, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

"The SDF now controls more than 80 percent of Tabqa," Abdel Rahman said, with IS only holding the two northern neighbourhoods of Hurriyah and Wahdah.

At least 35 IS fighters were killed since Sunday in clashes and air strikes in Tabqa, the Observatory said. It had no immediate information on casualties among SDF fighters.

Syria

In the aptly named Flag Roundabout in Tabqa's west, an AFP correspondent on Sunday saw an SDF fighter climb a ladder propped on a huge flagpole.

He triumphantly pulled down an enormous black IS flag, dropping it to the rubble-littered street as fellow fighters cheered and took pictures.

"We've brought down Daesh's flag and we'll hang our own -- the flag of the Syrian Democratic Forces," SDF fighter Zaghros Kobane told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Other IS propaganda could still be seen around the city, including a billboard of a balaclava-wearing jihadist with three warplanes behind him.

"We will be victorious despite the global coalition," the billboard read.

- 'Toughest battle' -

A general view shows the town of Tabqa after members of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces recaptured several neighbourhoods in the town, which lies about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, on April 30, 2017

Tabqa is home to an estimated 85,000 people, including IS fighters from other areas. Many families have fled the incoming offensive, lugging jerrycans, packed suitcases and blankets as they marched out of the city.

But other civilians have stayed on in neighbourhoods newly seized by the SDF, and AFP's correspondent saw women and toddlers timidly peering out at SDF fighters from behind the gates of their front yards.

The city is also adjacent to the strategic Tabqa dam, which remains under IS control.

The SDF said their hard-fought advance had seen jihadists surrendering in large numbers.

"Tabqa is the toughest battle we've ever waged," said SDF commander Jako Zerkeh, nicknamed "The Wolf".

Zerkeh said the SDF had used new tactics -- including the waterway supply line and an airlift behind enemy lines in late March -- to kickstart the offensive.

No caption

"These were a huge surprise to them and shattered their morale... Dozens of Daesh (IS) fighters have surrendered. There were more surrenders here than any other town," he told AFP.

In an online statement Monday, the SDF said its fighters had seized three IS tanks as well as a bomb-making factory in Tabqa.

- 'Wrath of the Euphrates' -

The assault on Tabqa began in late March when SDF forces and their US-led coalition allies were airlifted behind IS lines.

The SDF surrounded Tabqa in early April before pushing into the city on April 24, as part of their flagship offensive for Raqa further east.

That assault, dubbed "Wrath of the Euphrates", was launched in November and has seen SDF fighters capture swathes of countryside around the city.

(FILES) This file photo taken on April 4, 2017 shows an unconscious Syrian child receiving treatment at a hospital in Khan Sheikhun, a rebel-held town in the northwestern Syrian Idlib province, following a suspected toxic gas attack

In a new report, Human Rights Watch said government forces had used deadly nerve gas in Khan Sheikhun and in three other recent attacks, as part of a "clear pattern" of chemical weapons use that could amount to crimes against humanity.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces are also stepping up chlorine gas attacks and have begun using surface-fired rockets filled with chlorine in fighting near Damascus, the US-based group charged.

At least 92 people including 30 children died in the suspected sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhun -- a rebel-held town in northwest Syria's Idlib province -- on April 4, according to local residents and activists.

Last month, Assad told AFP in an interview that the Khan Sheikhun attack was "100 percent" fabricated, serving as a pretext for US missile strikes on a Syrian air base.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the country's war began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

The US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and Iraq said on Sunday that its strikes had unintentionally killed 352 civilians since the intervention began in 2014.

Critics say the real total number of civilian deaths is much higher.
Israeli soldiers stand in front of a commemorative plaque honouring fallen members of the armed forces on Remembrance Day, on May 1, 2017

Israelis stood silent for two minutes while sirens wailed across the country on Monday marking an annual day of remembrance for fallen troops and slain civilians.

Speaking at a ceremony at Mount Herzl national cemetery in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to return the remains of two soldiers believed to have been killed in the 2014 Gaza war.

Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, is believed to be holding the remains of the soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.

Over the past year, 60 Israeli civilians and security force personnel were killed, according to the defence ministry.

In total, Israel remembers 23,544 servicemen and civilians killed since 1860, the year it considers to be the start of the conflict with the Palestinians, when Jews founded the first neighbourhood outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.

Remembrance ceremonies began at sunset Sunday and continue until nightfall Monday, when the sombre mood gives way to raucous celebrations for Independence Day.

It will mark 69 years since the declaration of the Israeli state in 1948 as the national home of the Jewish people.

"Tonight, when the flag returns to the top of the mast, we'll know that the state of Israel is true consolation, the fulfilment of a dream of many generations," Netanyahu said.

New statistics figures released ahead of Independence Day showed Israel's population now stands at 8.68 million.

Of that number, 6,484,000, or 74.7 percent, are Jews. Another 1,808,000, or 20.8 percent, are Arabs.

The figures include around 300,000 Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.

The remaining 388,000 listed as "other" comprise non-Arab Christians, members of other religions and those unclassified in the population register.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947 but both lay claim to the entire territory

Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers in disputed Kashmir on Monday and mutilated their bodies, India's army said, calling it a "despicable act".

In a statement, the army said Pakistan's border force attacked a patrol operating between two border posts on the de facto frontier known as the Line of Control in the remote Himalayan region.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the statement said, warning of an "appropriate response".

It also accused Pakistan of what it called "unprovoked" rocket and mortar firing across the heavily militarised Line of Control but gave no further details.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947 but both lay claim to the entire territory.

The incident is likely to further raise tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought two of their three wars over control of the territory.

The two sides have accused each other in the past of mutilating the bodies of each other's soldiers.

Army spokesman N. N. Joshi said the victims were a junior officer and a border guard.

Another guard from India's Border Security Force was injured in the initial firing from Pakistan, Joshi said.
Syrian children receive treatment in the town of Maaret al-Noman, following a suspected chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhun, a nearby rebel-held town in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, on April 4, 2017

A new UN body tasked with identifying individuals guilty of atrocities in Syria should start work shortly, a key step towards holding war crimes suspects to account, the UN rights chief said Monday.

A prominent judge or international lawyer to head the panel will be named "soon", after funding for the post and a deputy was secured, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein told reporters in Geneva.

An initial budget of $13 million (11.9 million euros) has been nearly half funded but there is optimism about achieving the full amount after "quite a lot of countries" began contributing, Zeid added.

The panel approved by the UN General Assembly in December has been denounced by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government as unacceptable interference in the country's affairs.

But proponents said it became necessary after veto-wielding UN Security Council powers China and main Assad ally Russia blocked repeated attempts to refer the Syrian conflict to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The new panel, based in Geneva, will work with evidence already compiled by a UN-backed Commission of Inquiry for Syria as well as testimony and documents compiled by civil society groups.

It will aim to go further than merely condemn the war crimes committed in Syria -- something UN officials have done repeatedly through the conflict.

It will instead strive to name specific individuals responsible for those crimes and, ideally, assign their cases to courts that may have standing to prosecute.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favour independence or a merger with mainly Muslim Pakistan

Seven people including five policemen were killed Monday when suspected militants attacked a bank van carrying cash in Indian-administered Kashmir, police said.

"All the seven in the van, five policemen and two bank employees, were killed," director general of police S. P. Vaid told AFP.

The van was returning to a bank in the village of Pumbai in Kulgam district, around 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of the main city of Srinagar, when it came under fire, Vaid said.

Another police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity that the attackers made off with cash and weapons.

Suspected militants in recent months have targeted banks across the restive Kashmir valley, where several armed groups have been fighting against Indian rule for decades.

Last week police said they foiled a bank raid in the southern district of Anantnag by two men who opened fire on paramilitary guards.

One of the attackers was arrested while another managed to escape.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favour independence or a merger with mainly Muslim Pakistan.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947 but both claim the territory in its entirety.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (C) returns a salute from a Chinese naval officer as Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana (R) looks on during Duterte's visit to the Chinese warship Chang Chun in Davao on May 1, 2017

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he may turn down an invitation by Donald Trump to visit the United States, as he welcomed three Chinese warships to his home town.

Duterte, who has loosened the Philippines' long alliance with the United States while strengthening ties with China and Russia, said he could not commit to the American president because of a busy schedule that included a trip to Moscow.

"I am tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia, I am supposed to go to Israel," he told reporters when asked about Trump's invitation made in a telephone call on Saturday.

Duterte expressed concerns about not being able to fit in a visit to Trump even though no firm date has yet been proposed for it.

Nevertheless, Duterte said relations with the United States were improving now that Trump had taken over from Barack Obama, who criticised the Philippine president for his anti-drug war that has claimed thousands of lives.

Rights groups have warned Duterte may be orchestrating a crime against humanity, with police and vigilantes committing mass murder. But Duterte insists his security forces are not breaking any laws.

Duterte last year branded Obama a "son of a whore" in response to the criticism. He also declared while in Beijing last year that the Philippines had "separated" from the United States.

The United States is the Philippines' former colonial ruler and the nations are bound by a mutual defence treaty.

Duterte said Monday that his efforts to loosen the alliance were only a response to the drug war criticism.

"It was not a distancing (of relations) but it was rather a rift between me and the (US) State Department and Mr Obama, who spoke openly against me," he said.

"Things have changed, there is a new leadership. He wants to make friends, he says we are friends so why should we pick a fight?"

- 'Confidence building' -

Duterte's comments came shortly after he visited three Chinese warships visiting his home town, the southern city of Davao on Mindanao island.

"This is part of confidence-building and goodwill and to show we are friends and that is why I welcome them," he said.

Duterte has pursued closer relations with the Chinese government even though Beijing has taken control of a fishing shoal and built artificial islands in parts of the South China Sea that are within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.

China claims nearly all of the strategically vital waterway, even waters approaching the coasts of its neighbours.

Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have claims in the sea.

China's expansionism in the waters have triggered concern regionally and in the West, with its new artificial islands capable of serving as military bases.

But on Sunday Duterte issued a chairman's statement, after hosting a 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, which took a soft stance towards Chinese actions in the sea.

The statement merely took note of "concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments in the area".

It ignored an international tribunal ruling last year which said China's claims to most of the sea were unlawful.

It also did not carry wording from previous ASEAN statements calling for a "respect for legal and diplomatic processes" in resolving the dispute.

Duterte has repeatedly said the Philippines and other nations are helpless to stop the island-building, so there is no point challenging China in diplomatic and legal circles.

He has instead promoted what he says will be billions of dollars' worth of investments from China that he expects will result from the improvement in bilateral relations.

Duterte on Monday also repeated that he was open to joint military exercises between the Philippines and China.

"I said I agree. There can be joint exercises," said Duterte, who has scaled back regular war games with the United States.
AUBURN  Black women at the turn of the 20th century pushed for a broad range of social and political reforms and formed their own advocacy groups, many of which have largely been excluded from the dominant narrative of white women gaining the right to vote, an author and professor said at a Cayuga Community College lecture on Sunday.

Dr. Susan Goodier, a lecturer in the history department at SUNY Oneonta, spoke to about 30 people at Centering Black Women: Race in the Woman Suffrage Movement in New York State, a talk sponsored by The Harriet Tubman Boosters, the Osborne Center for Social Justice and CCC.

The professor explored recently discovered details about many black suffragists and explained the difficulty of finding details about black women in the late 1800s who have largely been overlooked or remained unknown.

There are a lot of stories that remain to be told, Goodier said. There will continue to be gaps, but I believe very strongly that we can fill them as we know more, as we learn more, as we listen more.

To fill some of the gaps that exist in the black womens suffrage movements in the late 1800s, Goodier pored over newspaper articles, books and more for her forthcoming book, "Women Will Vote, Womens Suffrage in New York State," which is scheduled to be published in September by Cornell University Press.

Over the course of her research, Goodier uncovered details of 25 black womens previously unknown ties to the black womens suffrage movement, which she said was often a broader movement for social justice than groups of white women who were focused largely on the right to vote.

The mainstream story of womens suffrage, Goodier said after her lecture, is centered around a strict timeline and groups that worked almost exclusively for the right to vote because the women believed it would solve many of their problems.

But for black women, at the time, Goodier said, they dont have the ability to focus on just one thing because there are so many other things to do.

The National Association of Colored Womens Clubs, for example, was founded in Washington D.C. in 1896 and served as a conglomerate of organizations that worked on a wide range of issues to improve life for African-American women.

Womans suffrage is a component of what they do, Goodier said. Its woven into the other racial uplift work they do.

They did not need white women to tell them what to do, she added. They had their own organizations  often through the church  and they already did their own activism.

At the same time, many prominent black women attended the meetings of majority-white suffragist groups while maintaining organizations that advocated for black women in more ways than solely pushing for the right to vote.

Charlotte Ray, the first black woman lawyer, graduated from Howard University Law School and was admitted to practice in 1872. She attended the National Woman Suffrage Associations convention in 1876, as did many other women, including Sojourner Truth in 1878, Goodier said.

The historical denial that there [were] African American women at these meetings, Goodier said, shows how systemic racism continues to pervade many layers of American history and its retelling.

Susan B. Anthony, who co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had a mixed record on race, Goodier noted. The prominent suffragist was largely respected on the local level, Goodier said, but favored politics over racial equality on the national level, once telling Fredrick Douglass to not join a meeting because he would keep southern white women from attending.

The oft-told narrative of women gaining the right to vote in New York in 1917 and then nationally in 1920, Goodier said, omits that there was a very strong and broad network among black women who rarely focused exclusively on womens suffrage.

As more newspaper clippings, journals and other historical records are digitized, more information will surface about movements outside of the mainstream, Goodier predicted.

This research has started from a line in a book here, a line in an article there  an article that maybe has two or three names in it  and has built up into something thats still very exciting to me, she said. In five years or 10 years, I think were going to be able to find out more.
US President Donald Trump speaks during a 'Make America Great Again' rally in Harrisburg on April 29, 2017

The US Senate's top Democrat has needled Donald Trump through a playlist on Spotify, selecting songs that pointedly question the president.

Marking Trump's first 100 days in the White House, Senator Chuck Schumer over the weekend released his list of song choices over the world's largest streaming service.

The Senate minority leader shows a taste for classic pop artists but, even more, a delight in song titles that deliver a political punch.

His picks include The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and two tracks by Stevie Wonder, "You Haven't Done Nothin'" and "He's Misstra Know-It-All."

Several songs allude to Trump's relationship with truthfulness -- "Lies" by Thompson Twins, "Lyin' Eyes" by the Eagles and Beyonce and Shakira's collaboration "Beautiful Liar."

Schumer may also be hitting out at Trump's fondness for flying to his Florida estate. He chose Loverboy's "Working for the Weekend" and Dolly Parton's "9 to 5."

Trump has a longstanding but inconsistent relationship with Schumer, a fellow New Yorker. Trump mocked Schumer after the senator teared up when addressing the new administration's efforts to bar travelers from a number of Muslim-majority countries.

In a likely rejoinder, Schumer's Spotify playlist features "The Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles.

And the playlist nears its end with a possible message to Trump -- Drake's megahit "Hotline Bling" with its signature line, "You used to call me on my cellphone."

Schumer, like Trump, is not known for his technological prowess. The 66-year-old senator still uses a flip-phone, which is unlikely to offer Spotify access.
Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit attends the Mediterranean Dialogues (MED) in Rome on December 1, 2016

Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit warned Monday that Iran and Israel were the main beneficiaries of turmoil across the Arab world, which he described as the worst he has ever seen.

"I have never seen anything worse than what we are now seeing," Abul Gheit said at the Arab Media Forum in Dubai.

"Iran is enjoying what the Arab world is going through. There are those in Iran who are watching and waiting for us to destroy ourselves."

Ties between Iran and Arab states have grown increasingly tense in recent years, with Tehran backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Yemen's Shiite Huthi rebels and armed Shiite groups in Iraq.

Arab governments largely back Syrian opposition groups.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have for the past two years battled the Huthis, who control the capital and strategic ports along the Red Sea coastline.

Israel also stood to benefit from conflicts across the region, Abul Gheit said.

"Israel was under enormous pressure to find a solution with the Palestinians," he said.

"If I were the prime minister ... I would have thought these were the happiest days for Israel."

Long-stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been overshadowed by global concerns over the Syrian war and Islamic State group jihadists.
South African President Jacob Zuma's cabinet overhaul exposed deep divisions within the ANC

South African President Jacob Zuma abandoned a Mayday rally on Monday after he was booed and jeered by trade union members demanding he step down.

He was heckled by crowd members who sang anti-Zuma songs as he prepared to speak at the rally in the central city of Bloemfontein, organised by the country's powerful Cosatu trade union federation.

Organisers terminated the event at the Loch Logan Park and no other speakers were permitted to take to the stage to address the crowd of thousands.

Zuma was shown on live TV hastily leaving the event in a heavily secured motorcade.

Scuffles broke out between some members of the crowd calling for Zuma to step down and others who were chanting in support of the president, local media reported.

Zuma had been due to share a stage with Cosatu president Sidumo Dlamini and South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande. Organisers' attempts to calm the crowds were unsuccessful.

"It is sad that after a successful march which was well attended by the workers... chaos from members prevented us from proceeding with the programme," Dlamini told the News 24 website.

Cosatu, a key coalition partner of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), last month called for embattled Zuma to resign following a deeply unpopular cabinet reshuffle.

Cosatu's largest affiliate, the National Health Education and Allied Workers Union, wrote to Cosatu ahead of the event demanding that Zuma be replaced as the keynote speaker by his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa.

Cosatu, along with the SACP and the ANC, was at the forefront of the effort to dislodge white-minority rule in South Africa that led to non-racial elections in 1994.

It has openly backed Ramaphosa, who led Cosatu during the anti-apartheid struggle, to succeed Zuma in 2019 when the president must stand down.

Zuma's cabinet overhaul exposed deep divisions within the ANC, and officials from the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party are hoping to recruit enough support from ruling-party MPs to unseat the president if there is a vote of no confidence.
Lawmakers increase military spending in a deal to fund the US government through September

US President Donald Trump is "pleased" with a bipartisan deal to fund government through September, the White House said Monday, even though several of his top priorities were left out of the agreement.

The newly-unveiled congressional deal includes Trump's call for increased military spending, but rejects his demand to fund a border wall and maintains spending levels for key government operations including the State Department that he had proposed gutting.

The agreement was struck late Sunday after weeks of tense negotiations fueled the threat of a government shutdown just as Trump was marking his 100th day in office.

Congress is expected to vote this week on the new bill, which provides $1.163 trillion in overall federal spending, ahead of a Friday night deadline when government funding would expire absent a new agreement.

"There's a lot that he's pleased in," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said of Trump, citing increased military spending and added funding for border security operations.

"We couldn't have our entire way on this, but we're five months away from having a 2018 budget, and I think the president's priorities will be reflected much more in that."

The agreement would keep federal operations running through September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Leaders in the Republican-controlled Congress will need support from Democrats in order to pass the legislation.

The opposition party has hailed the spending bill as a victory because Trump's administration punted on several elements named as priorities during his presidential campaign.

Notably, it includes no money for Trump's border wall.

Trump made building the wall along the southern US border with Mexico a core election pledge, insisting it would begin within his first 100 days, a milestone that came and went on Saturday.

But Republicans are pleased because the bill adds some $1.5 billion in funding for other security efforts along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218-kilometer) border, and boosts military spending.

Of the trillion dollars in the bill's discretionary spending, $598.5 billion is slated for defense -- an increase of $25 billion, or 4.5 percent, above fiscal year 2016 levels, and 3.8 percent above the request by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama last year.

It also funds an authorized 2.1 percent pay raise for the military.

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney insisted the agreement "lines up perfectly" with Trump's priorities, despite lacking wall funding.

"We realized it was almost impossible if not impossible to actually get bricks and mortars on the ground in five months, so why start fighting about it now?" Mulvaney said on a press call.

- Trump held in check -

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi branded the deal a "defeat for President Trump."

Democratic negotiators prevented 160 "poison-pill riders" -- controversial provisions that could sink the legislation -- from being attached to the bill, and included priorities like assistance for debt-saddled Puerto Rico, Pelosi said.

The measure adds $2 billion in new funding for the National Institutes of Health and, despite calls by social conservatives, maintains funding for women's health care provider Planned Parenthood.

Trump's proposed cuts for the State Department were largely ignored, and the deal inserted $1 billion for famine prevention and relief into the department's budget.

The deal also maintains 99 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, in what can be interpreted as another broad victory for Democrats.

Trump had proposed slashing EPA funds by more than 30 percent, which would have cost thousands of jobs and reduced critical programs like grants for public water systems.

The two parties managed to come together to extend health benefits for retired miners, and agreed to increase 2017 funding by $650 million to address America's opioid addiction crisis.

The cooperation comes as Trump seeks another shot at passing legislation that repeals and replaces most of Obama's landmark health reform law.

After an embarrassing setback last month when a Republican health bill collapsed over disagreements among moderates and conservatives, Trump sought to revive the effort last week with an amendment that would allow states to opt out of some Obamacare guidelines.

But House Speaker Paul Ryan held off, acknowledging he did not yet have the votes, as some Republicans remained skeptical of the revised legislation.

Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, told CBS News he was optimistic the health bill can reach the House floor "this week."
Donald Trump made a political pilgrimage in March to the Tennessee home of Jackson, America's first populist president

US President Donald Trump took a fresh shot at his predecessor Barack Obama and suggested the US Civil War could have been avoided, in a series of media interviews broadcast Monday.

Trump told the Sirius XM POTUS radio channel that his president hero, the "swashbuckler" Andrew Jackson, could have avoided the Civil War had he not died a decade-and-a-half before.

"Had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart," Trump said. "He was a swashbuckler."

"People don't realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?"

More than 600,000 people died in the conflict that convulsed America between 1861 and 1865, which was triggered in large part by disputes over the future of slavery and has framed much of the nation's politics in the centuries that followed.

In March, Trump made a political pilgrimage to the Tennessee home of Jackson, America's first populist president who himself owned scores of slaves.

Trump praised "the very great" Jackson's willingness to take on "an arrogant elite."

However Trump has been less complimentary about his immediate predecessor, Obama, appearing to renew controversial allegations that the 44th president bugged his phone.

"You saw how everybody saw what happened, and I think that was inappropriate," Trump told CBS in a separate interview.

In March, Trump tweeted claims that Obama had wiretapped the phones at Trump Tower in New York.

Pressed on that allegation, which has since been rebutted by intelligence agencies and even Congressional Republicans, Trump was evasive.

"I think you can take it any way you want. Our side has been proved and everybody is talking about it.

"I think that is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think it's a very big topic. And it's a topic that should be number one. And we should find out what the hell is going on."
At least 30 children died and many more were injured in the suspected sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhun on April 4

Syrian government forces used deadly nerve gas in Khan Sheikhun and in three other recent attacks, Human Rights Watch said Monday, describing a "clear pattern" of chemical weapons use that could amount to crimes against humanity.

President Bashar al-Assad's forces are also stepping up chlorine gas attacks and have begun using surface-fired rockets filled with chlorine in fighting near Damascus, the US-based rights group said in a new report.

"The government's use of nerve agents is a deadly escalation -- and part of a clear pattern," said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director.

"In the last six months, the government has used warplanes, helicopters, and ground forces to deliver chlorine and sarin in Damascus, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo."

"That's widespread and systematic use of chemical weapons," he said.

Last month, Assad told AFP in an interview that the suspected sarin attack in Khan Sheikhun was "100 percent" fabricated, serving as a pretext for US missile strikes on a Syrian air field.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 60 witnesses and collected photos and videos providing information on the suspected April 4 attack, and on three other alleged uses of nerve gases in December 2016 and March 2017.

The rights group said at least 92 people including 30 children died from exposure to sarin in Khan Sheikhun and hundreds more were injured. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights has put the death toll at 88.

Residents said a first bomb believed to be carrying the deadly agent sarin was dropped near the town's central bakery and was followed by three or four high-explosive bombs a few minutes later, the report said.

Dozens of photos and videos provided by residents of a crater from the first bomb showed a green-colored metal fragment that Human Rights Watch said was likely the Soviet-produced KhAB-250 bomb.

- Three suspected attacks in Hama -

Human Rights Watch said 64 people died from exposure to nerve agents after warplanes attacked territory controlled by the Islamic State group in eastern Hama on December 11 and December 12.

Khan Sheikhun residents said a first bomb believed to be carrying sarin was dropped near the town's central bakery followed by three or four bombs a few minutes later, HRW says

Activists and local residents provided names of the victims, while Human Rights Watch interviewed four witnesses and two medical personnel about the alleged attacks.

A third suspected nerve agent attack in northern Hama on March 30 caused no deaths but injured dozens of civilians and combatants, according to residents and medical personnel, the report said.

All four suspected nerve agent attacks were in areas where anti-government fighters were threatening Assad's military air bases, according to Human Rights Watch.

The alleged attacks were systematic and in some cases directed against civilians, which would meet the legal criteria to be characterized as crimes against humanity, the rights group said.

HRW's Roth told a news conference that the string of suspected attacks cast doubt over Syrian and Russian claims that toxic agents were released in Khan Sheikhun after a bomb struck a chemical weapons depot on the ground.

It would be "utterly impossible" for warplanes to hit chemical caches repeatedly across the country, Roth said.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has said its experts were investigating 45 cases of alleged use of toxic gases in Syria since late last year.

Citing mounting evidence of repeated chemical weapons use, Human Rights Watch said the UN Security Council should once again ask the International Criminal Court to open a war crimes investigation.

Such a move by the council in 2014 was blocked by Russia, Assad's top ally, and China.
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal (C), pictured in 2015, is to introduce an update to the group's charter

Hamas was to unveil a new policy document on Monday that eases its stance on Israel after earlier calling for the country's destruction, party officials said.

The announcement was due to be made in the Qatari capital Doha, where exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is based, at a press conference scheduled for 1745 GMT.

Leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement have long spoken of the more limited aim of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without explicitly setting it out in its charter.

But after years of internal debate, the party leadership is to publish a supplementary charter that will formally accept the idea of a state in the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967, a senior Hamas official has said.

The original 1988 charter will, however, not be dropped, just supplemented, and there will be no recognition of Israel, as demanded by the international community, officials have said.

Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and the new document is aimed in part at easing its international isolation.

The announcement of the new charter was originally scheduled for 1545 GMT but was delayed by two hours because the hotel where the event was to take place backed out of hosting it at the last minute, Hamas said in a statement.

It was also to be broadcast live in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave run by Hamas.

One Hamas leader, Ahmed Yusef, has told AFP the updated charter was "more moderate, more measured and would help protect us against accusations of racism, anti-Semitism and breaches of international law".

It will "differentiate between Jews as a religious community on the one hand, and the occupation and Zionist entity on the other", he said.

It will also distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, to which it was closely linked when formed.

Israel was not convinced, however, with a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying "Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed".

"They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians," David Keyes said in a statement, referring to rockets fired from Gaza and tunnels used to carry out attacks.

Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have fought three wars since 2008.

The strip has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years.

UN officials have called for this to be lifted, citing deteriorating humanitarian conditions. Israel says it is needed to stop Hamas from obtaining weapons or materials that could be used to make them.

Hamas remains deeply divided from Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas based in the occupied West Bank.

Hamas's announcement comes ahead of Abbas's first face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday.
A US oil drilling company loses a bid to sue Venezuela in US courts for nationalizing its rigs after the US Supreme Court rules against it

Crisis-ridden Venezuela received a bit of good news Monday when the US Supreme Court ruled against an American oil firm whose equipment was expropriated under late president Hugo Chavez.

In a unanimous decision, the court rejected the basis of a suit against Venezuela brought by Oklahoma-based Helmerich & Payne International Drilling, which asserted that the 2010 seizure of 11 of its oil rigs was illegal.

At the time, the "Bolivarian revolution" was in full swing under Chavez, a former army paratrooper famous for railing against "Yankee imperialism" while promising to lead Venezuela into "the socialism of the 21st century."

From agribusiness to energy to the nation's banks, the Chavez regime nationalized whole sectors of the economy, forcing multinationals to pull back.

Helmerich, a relatively small player in the oil-drilling sector compared to giants like Schlumberger and Halliburton, had installed its own derricks and other equipment in the South American country.

So when Chavez took steps in June 2010 to prevent the company from removing its equipment, Helmerich sued.

The question before the Supreme Court was under what precise conditions one can sue a sovereign state -- in this case Venezuela -- in an American court.

Sovereign states have long been shielded from being sued in US courts, with only limited exceptions.

Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, it is however possible to sue a foreign country if it has seized American goods or if its actions have directly affected the commercial functioning of the United States.

Based on that language, the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia had found that Helmerich had the right to sue Caracas over the expropriation.

The Venezuelan government, however, maintained that the drilling rigs were always the property of Helmerich's Venezuelan subsidiary, and thus Venezuelan property.

The Supreme Court ruled that the arguments advanced by the American firm were outweighed by the rules of international law.

The ruling, read by Justice Stephen Breyer, thus overturned the lower court's finding.

Conservative justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined the court only recently after his appointment by President Donald Trump, did not take part in the ruling.

In this sensitive case, the Venezuelan government paradoxically was supported by the United States itself, concerned about any erosion in the sacrosanct principle of the sovereign immunity of states.

Indeed, last year, then president Barack Obama vetoed a law allowing victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, homeland to most of the attackers, arguing that the legislation could open the US to a raft of lawsuits by citizens abroad.

Congress decisively overturned the veto.
Hamas has announced it is taking a softer stance on Israel, having for years called for the state's destruction, in a dramatic shift in policy - but says it still views it as an occupier.

A new policy document said the group - which has previously been branded a 'murderous terrorist organisation' by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu - it is not seeking war with Jewish people, but will still fight for Palestinian liberation.

In a dramatic twist, however, the group said it is willing to accept 1967 borders - before Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

But it has not gone as far as recognising Israel. In response, a spokesman for Netanyahu accused Hamas of trying to 'fool the world'.

Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said Hamas is ready to support Palestinian liberation based on 1967 borders, without recognising Israel

Hamas said it is still intent on liberating Palestine and will continue to oppose Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip

The move comes ahead of a face-to-face meeting between US President Donald Trump and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose Fatah party is deeply divided from Hamas.

Hamas' exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said at a press conference: 'Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights.'

'We in Hamas believe that renewal and reinvention is a necessity,' Meshaal said at the event in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by stating: 'Hamas is attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed'

A Palestinian boy, pictured in 2012, removes possessions from the rubble in the Gaza strip following an Israeli airstrike

While the new document does not amount to recognition of Israel as demanded by the international community, Hamas officials say, it formally softens its stance in a few key areas.

Hamas leaders have long spoken of the more limited aim of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without explicitly setting this out in their charter.

But after years of internal debate, the new document formally accepts the idea of a state in the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

It also says its struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier.

'We are not fighting against the Jews because they are Jewish,' said Meshaal.

'We are waging this struggle against the aggression of Zionists.'

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House this week. His Fatah party is deeply divided from Hamas

The Hamas leader has called on Trump's administration to 'act with more seriousness on the Palestinian cause and change its misconceptions about the Palestinian people'

However, the organisation's original 1988 charter - which calls for Israel to be obliterated - will not be dropped, just supplemented, in a move some analysts see as a way of maintaining the backing of hardliners.

Asked if Hamas would negotiate directly with Israelis, Meshaal replied: 'Our policy is we will not engage in direct negotiations with the Israelis because nothing in the conditions and circumstances convinces us that any conclusions can be reached.'

Speaking to AFP, Meshaal said he hoped the new US administration would 'act with more seriousness on the Palestinian cause and change its misconceptions about the Palestinian people'.

The press conference was also broadcast live in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas, and the document was posted on the movement's website.

Khaled Meshaal (right) speaks with Hamas officials ahead of their conference in the Qatari capital, Doha, yesterday

Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. The strip has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years

Hamas is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and the new document is aimed in part at easing its international isolation.

One Hamas leader, Ahmed Yusef, earlier told AFP the updated charter was 'more moderate, more measured and would help protect us against accusations of racism, anti-Semitism and breaches of international law'.

It also does not refer to the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Hamas was closely linked when formed.

Israel was not convinced, however, with a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying: 'Hamas is attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed.'

'They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians,' David Keyes said in a statement, referring to rockets fired from Gaza and tunnels used to carry out attacks.

Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. The strip has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years.

UN officials have called for this to be lifted, citing deteriorating humanitarian conditions, but Israel says it is needed to stop Hamas from obtaining weapons or materials it could use to make them.

Hamas remains deeply divided from Abbas's Fatah, and speculation has mounted over who will succeed the 82-year-old as Palestinian president.

Abbas's first meeting with Trump in Washington takes place on Wednesday.

The bitter split between Fatah and Hamas has taken a new turn in recent days.

Some analysts say it seems Abbas is seeking to increase pressure on Hamas in the impoverished Gaza Strip, but he risks being blamed for worsening conditions in the enclave of two million people.

In one example, Israeli officials say the Palestinian Authority dominated by Abbas's Fatah has begun refusing to pay Israel for electricity it supplies to Gaza.

Rights activists say exacerbating an already severe power shortage in the strip could be catastrophic.
Khaled Meshaal (R) released a document which states that Hamas' struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier

The six-page Document of General Principles and Policies unveiled Monday by Hamas, accepts a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders while refusing to recognise Israel.

The document underscores the Palestinian Islamist movement's right to armed resistance against Israel.

But it says its struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier.

Here are some key extracts from the English-language text of the document:

- "There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity."

- "Without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967... to be a formula of national consensus."

- "Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds".

- "Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage."

- "Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity."

- "The right of the Palestinian refugees and the displaced to return to their homes from which they were banished or were banned from returning to - whether in the lands occupied in 1948 or in 1967 (that is the whole of Palestine), is a natural right, both individual and collective... It is an inalienable right and cannot be dispensed with by any party, whether Palestinian, Arab or international."

- "Hamas affirms that the Oslo Accords and their addenda contravene the governing rules of international law in that they generate commitments that violate the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people."

- "Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people."

- "Hamas rejects the attempts to impose hegemony on the Arab and Islamic Ummah (nation) just as it rejects the attempts to impose hegemony on the rest of the worlds nations and peoples. Hamas also condemns all forms of colonialism, occupation, discrimination, oppression and aggression in the world."
A protestor hits a paper mache head of US President Donald Trump during May Day demonstrations in Chicago, May 1, 2017

Thousands marched Monday on the streets of downtown Chicago, in a May Day protest against the policies of the Donald Trump administration.

The marchers in the de facto capital of the US Midwest represented a wide variety of causes, including activists for immigrant rights and the environment, labor unions demanding a higher minimum wage, and supporters of reproductive rights.

There were colorful rallies before and after the two-mile march, with attendees carrying American and Mexican flags, the familiar rainbow flag representing gay rights, and signs such as "Stop the Trump Agenda."

"The election of Donald Trump is a challenge to all of us, whether we will stand up and speak up for our values," said US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat.

Labor groups representing laborers, hospital and home nursing care workers, food workers, teachers and others, called for a higher minimum wage.

Abortion rights supporters held up sings in support of Planned Parenthood - the non-profit health provider which Republicans and the Trump administration have wanted to defund.

Protestors march through the streets during May Day demonstrations in Chicago, May 1, 2017

Police reform and racial justice groups criticized the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, including unsuccessful attempts to ban refugees and immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries.

"We have to come together and we have to stop this guy. He is not the king of the United States," said attendee Oscar Cruz, 58, describing himself as a Mexican immigrant who has lived in the United States for 28 years.

President Trump has ordered more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, sped up deportations, and ultimately wants to erect a wall along the US-Mexico border.

"It's criminalization of our communities, black, Latino, Asian, Arab, that is the problem. That is what we're organizing against," said Barbara Ransby, a professor at the University of Illinois.

Durbin said the challenge protesters face is to "take this energy and this emotion, and translate it into political action" to elect sympathetic candidates into office.

"That's why we march today and many days to come," he said.
PICO RIVERA, Calif. (AP) - Authorities are searching for two men who stole a woman's SUV on Saturday, then went on a shooting rampage through several Los Angeles suburbs, killing one man and injuring up to three other people.

"It doesn't appear they were target-specific or gang related," said Deputy Ryan Rouzan of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, adding that the investigation is ongoing.

The rampage began when the men - at least one of them armed - forced a woman from her green SUV in Pico Rivera, a community southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

The two suspects then fired at three or more people in neighboring communities. Rouzan said one man shot in the rampage was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

It's unclear what the shooting victims were doing when they were shot, something Rouzan said would be revealed in the ongoing investigation.

Investigators later recovered the unoccupied SUV at a park in Whittier. The woman's condition was unknown, but Rouzan said she had not been shot.

The condition of the other victims was not immediately available.

___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/
BEIJING (AP) - Alexander Levy of France beat Dylan Frittelli in a playoff Sunday to win the China Open.

The 2014 champion began the final round seven shots behind overnight leader Frittelli. Levy birdied the par-5 18th for 67 to finish on 17-under 271 and force a playoff with the South African.

Frittelli sent his second shot on the last hole over the hospitality tent and had to settle for par in a 2-over 74 and a trip back up the 18th.

Levy then found the fairway off the tee while Frittelli sent his drive into a bunker. But after the Frenchman ended in sand with his second, both men were left with birdie putts.

Frittelli missed his attempt and Levy rolled home from 15 feet to claim victory.

"That's an amazing feeling to be back in the winner's circle," Levy said. "This means a lot because it was the first tournament I won on the European Tour."

Pablo Larrazabal began the day as Frittelli's closest challenger and the Spaniard closed with a 72 to finish third at 16 under, a shot clear of Austrian Bernd Wiesberger and England's Chris Wood.

Wiesberger - last week's winner after a playoff in Shenzhen - carded a closing 67 while Wood shot 68.
An adviser to President Donald Trump will be leaving the White House

A senior administration official says Sebastian Gorka, a former counterterrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as a counterterrorism adviser, will be leaving the White House in the coming days.

The official says that Gorka had initially been hired to play a key role on the Strategic Initiatives Group, an advisory panel created by Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon to run parallel to the National Security Council.

Sebastian Gorka, a former counterterrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as a counterterrorism adviser will be leaving the White House. He was part of the transition when he posed with the incoming president in Trump Tower

Sebastian Gorka (left) poses for a photo with Jeanine Pirro (right) the host of Justice with Judge Jeanine, on the Fox News Channel, which he had frequently appeared on before being brought into the Trump campaign

In the White House: Sebastian Gorka poses for photos with Fox News personality Jesse Watters and first daughter Ivanka Trump

But that group fizzled out in the early months of the administration.

Gorka was unable to get clearance for the National Security Council after he was charged last year with carrying a weapon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The official spoke anonymously to discuss private personnel matters.

When pressed upon it at the White House briefing today, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said there was no personnel announcement to make.

'I have no belief that he's leaving the White House,' Spicer told reporters. 'There's nothing to update you on at this time.'

A White House source told the Washington Examiner that Gorka's role had always been unclear and he never had national security issues in his portfolio.

'This guy has always been a big mystery to me,' the Examiner's source said.

The source added that Gorka's only known duties included talking on television about counter-terrorism, 'giving White House tours and peeling out in his Mustang.'

Democrats and liberal groups wanted Gorka booted from the administration over alleged ties to a Hungarian political party connected to the Nazis.

Gorka has denied being an active member of the group.

Attempts to reach Gorka by email for comment were not immediately successful.
Unlike colleges and universities, U.S. elementary and secondary schools are not subject to national requirements for tracking student sexual assaults. But 32 states and the District of Columbia do maintain information, though it is inconsistent and sometimes incomplete, The Associated Press found.

Some states required school districts to log any student sexual assault on school property or at school-sponsored events, but others required reporting of only those assaults resulting in certain types of student discipline. In Michigan, for example, the state counted only expulsions. So one Lansing high school was able to report no sexual assaults in 2015 while AP found a case in which a student was suspended and later charged with criminal sexual conduct. Additionally, some states masked the actual number of student sexual attacks if they fell beneath a certain threshold.

Whether and how an incident was recorded - as sexual assault or something less serious - was often left to school districts' discretion. Education officials in a half-dozen states told AP they didn't think their data reflected the full extent of the problem. In addition, some of the nation's largest school districts - including those with student enrollments over 100,000 - reported no rapes or sexual assaults for multiple years, even though AP identified cases through public records or news accounts.

In the 18 states with no reporting requirements, cases can go unnoticed, such as the 2010 sexual assault of a girl in a Muncie, Indiana, high school bathroom, which resulted in a boy's guilty plea.

AP compared state education agency information from fall 2011 to spring 2015 - across the four academic years for which most reported - counting only the most severe forms of sexual assault, such as rape, sodomy, forced oral sex, penetration with an object or unwanted fondling.

For states with no education data, AP looked to the National Incident-Based Reporting System, a database of participating states' crime reports collected by the FBI. AP used the two most recent publicly available years of NIBRS data - 2013 and 2014.

By mining those records, the AP was able to uncover about 17,000 official reports of student sex assault - an undercount due to the significant under-reporting and spotty categorization.

A state-by-state summary:

___

ALABAMA

The state education department received information from school districts and, in some years, schools on incidents of sexual battery by students, including actual or attempted penetration, fondling and child molestation, especially where the victim was unable to give consent. The department reported 43 assaults over the four-year period and said it generally doesn't try to verify the information.

___

ALASKA

The state education department tracked incidents leading to student suspension and expulsion, but not specifically sexual assault. Reporting was voluntary, and schools sometimes coded student sexual assault as "other-type not listed" behavior. Officials said they didn't believe their reported total of three incidents was accurate because Alaska's overall sexual assault rates were three times the national average. "This in no way represents the true extent to which sexual assault incidents lead to a discipline event in our public schools," Brian Laurent, the state's education data manager, told AP.

___

ARIZONA

Individual schools reported incidents of student sexual assault, defined as forced intercourse or oral sex. The education department provided an annual statewide total but masked the actual number of attacks annually when there were five or fewer, which applied to three of the four years in question. That made the reported statewide total between four and 20. In response to AP's queries, the state will review "the nature and reliability of the school safety data we collect," education spokesman Charles Tack said.

___

ARKANSAS

The state education department did not collect information on student sex assaults on school property. State law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 12 incidents of such assaults on school property for the two-year period. The law enforcement representation in NIBRS covered most of the state's population.

___

CALIFORNIA

The state required every public school to report any offense by a student involving sexual assault or sexual battery, regardless of whether it led to suspension or expulsion. The state defined those offenses broadly to include any forcible oral, anal or vaginal penetration, lewd behavior with someone 15 or younger, and unwanted intimate touching through or under clothes for arousal or gratification. California reported 4,630 such student offenses over the four-year period.

___

COLORADO

The state education agency maintained no student sexual assault records over the four-year period; it began tracking incidents leading to suspension, expulsion or referrals to law enforcement only in the 2015-2016 academic year. But state law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System reported 350 incidents of student sexual assault on school property over the two most recently available years.

___

CONNECTICUT

School districts notified the state education department about incidents of sexual battery, including rape and forced fondling, that led to student suspensions and expulsions. The department masked district-level totals for any given year when there were five or fewer. During AP's four-year study period, the department reported 43 sexual batteries statewide that led to student discipline.

___

DELAWARE

The state required schools to report student sex assaults to the state's education department and local law enforcement in real time. State education officials recorded only severe sex assaults, such as rape, in a category called "violent felonies" and said there was no way to distinguish student sex assaults from other offenses. Law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 70 incidents of student sexual assault on school property during the two most recently available years.

___

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The district's education department tracked incidents of school sex assaults by students, relying on the Metropolitan Police Department's determination of whether a reported incident constituted a forcible sexual act. Its four-year reported total was 26. Not included in the tally were charter schools, which serve about 40 percent of the district's students.

___

FLORIDA

Schools notified the state's education department annually of all incidents of student sexual battery, defined as attempted or actual penetration and, as of 2015, sexual assault, including threats of rape, fondling, indecent liberties, child molestation or sodomy. The actual number of attacks at an individual school or district was masked when there were fewer than 10 a year. Over the four-year period, the state reported 165 such incidents.

___

GEORGIA

Schools reported annually only those incidents of sexual battery that led to suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment or placement in an alternative education program. The education department defined such behavior as unwanted oral, anal or vaginal rape and forcible intimate touching. The state reported 607 such incidents in the four-year period.

___

HAWAII

The state tracked sexual assaults and sexual offenses by students, including acts such as forcible intercourse, oral sex and sexual fondling. It provided annual statewide totals under an official public information request and, over the four-year period, reported 784 such incidents.

___

IDAHO

The state education department kept no specific data on student sex assaults. Officials said such incidents most likely would have been reported as "violence with injury" or "violence without injury." None of the 108 state law enforcement agencies reporting to NIBRS during the two years most recently available used the codes that would denote cases specifically occurring at elementary and secondary schools.

___

ILLINOIS

The state education department did not collect data on student sex assaults, though Chicago Public Schools kept its own citywide accounting. As of 2014, Illinois had only one law enforcement agency - the Rockford Police Department - participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System, and it recorded seven such incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

INDIANA

The state education department did not collect data on student sex assaults. The state police, the only law enforcement agency participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System, recorded just three incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

IOWA

The state education department did not track student sex assaults. None of the state's 232 law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two years most recently available used the codes that identify cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

KANSAS

The state education department did not track student sex assaults. None of the 360 law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two years most recently available used the codes that identify cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

KENTUCKY

The state education department tracked only incidents of rape and sexual assault by students that resulted in discipline, such as suspensions or expulsions. It reported 187 incidents of sexual assault over the four-year period, but no rapes.

___

LOUISIANA

The state education department collected information from school districts on reported student rapes and sexual batteries and said there were 30 such incidents over the four-year period. The department has since stopped collecting that data, citing the expiration of a grant and a state law passed in 2014 that prohibits collection of student information on sexual or illegal behavior unless it is voluntarily disclosed by a parent or guardian.

___

MAINE

The state education department said it tracked sexual harassment, but not specifically student sexual assaults. None of the 22 state law enforcement agencies that reported to the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two years most recently available used the codes identifying cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

MARYLAND

School districts reported incidents of sexual attacks by students that led to suspension or expulsion. Over the four-year period, the state reported 307 such incidents.

___

MASSACHUSETTS

The state education department tracked incidents of sexual assault, such as rape and forcible fondling, only when they resulted in student suspensions, expulsions or other discipline. It provided that information online by school name and, over the four-year period, reported 335 such incidents.

___

MICHIGAN

School districts reported incidents of student sexual assault, such as rape, sodomy or fondling, only when they resulted in expulsions. For the four-year period, the state's Center for Educational Performance and Information reported 54 such cases.

___

MINNESOTA

The state education department tracked incidents of sexual assault by students but allowed districts to decide how to define that. In responding to AP's queries, officials learned that Minneapolis Public Schools had for years miscoded physical assaults as sexual assaults and vice versa. Officials said the district has since corrected its data and the state reported 441 incidents of sexual assault by students for the four-year period.

___

MISSISSIPPI

The state education department tracked incidents of student rape and sexual battery only when they led to suspension, referral to an alternative school or juvenile detention center, or corporal punishment. It masked the total for any given year when the number was 10 or fewer. That applies to rapes for two of the four years in AP's study period. As a result, the state's reported total was between 77 and 93.

___

MISSOURI

The state education department did not track sexual assault, though schools could report it when it led to student discipline under a category called "violent incident." Education officials said they had no way to discern the number of student sexual assaults from other violent incidents. State law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 21 incidents of sexual assault at elementary and secondary schools during the two years most recently available.

___

MONTANA

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual battery, such as rape, forced fondling or sodomy, only when they resulted in discipline. It masked the total for any given year when the number was five or fewer, which it said occurred in two of the four years in AP's study period, making the state's reported total between 17 and 25.

___

NEBRASKA

The state education department did not collect information on sex assaults in its schools. However, Nebraska law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System reported 10 incidents of student sexual assault on school property in the period during the two years most recently available.

___

NEVADA

The education department did not track statewide totals on the number of student sex assaults in its elementary and secondary schools, nor did law enforcement agencies participate in the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

___

NEW HAMPSHIRE

The state education department collected information on aggravated felonious sex assaults in schools, but cannot distinguish whether the offender was a student. State law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 16 incidents of student sexual assault on school property during the two years most recently available.

___

NEW JERSEY

School districts reported all incidents of student sexual assault, defined as forced penetration, and other sex offenses, such as forced sexual contact or exposure meant to degrade someone. Individual schools reported twice a year to the state education department. The state conducted some "targeted" verification of the reports, which it said totaled 900 for the four-year period.

___

NEW MEXICO

The state education department tracked all incidents of student sexual battery that resulted in discipline, including such acts as rape, fondling, child molestation or sodomy. It reported a four-year statewide total of 228.

___

NEW YORK

The state education department tracked incidents involving three forms of forcible sexual contact by students: sexual penetration, with and without a weapon, and other types of inappropriate sexual contact with a weapon. It provides the number of incidents at each school upon request and reported 147 statewide over four years. Starting in 2017-2018, the state will group all sex incidents into one category.

___

NORTH CAROLINA

The state required schools to report student incidents of rape, including forced intercourse with an incapacitated person; sexual assault, forced or unwanted contact without penetration; and sexual offense, defined as penetration by an object or intimate touching with the male sex organ. The state education department reported 860 offenses over the four years.

___

NORTH DAKOTA

The state education department tracked two types of student sex assault: gross sexual imposition-rape, defined as compelling sex by threat of death, injury or kidnapping; and sexual imposition, defined as compelling a sexual act or contact by any threat. The department reported 43 such incidents statewide for the four-year period.

___

OHIO

The state education department did not collect information on sex assaults in schools. However, state law enforcement did participate in the National Incident-Based Reporting System and reported 293 sex assaults on school property during the two years most recently available.

___

OKLAHOMA

In the 2012-2013 academic year, the state education department began collecting information on student sexual assaults, but reporting was voluntary. From 2012-13 to 2014-15, only one incident was reported statewide. Spokeswoman Steffie Corcoran told AP any reported data was unreliable because it was not "certified." Districts could rely on criminal statutes or guidance from the National Center for Education Statistics, which defines "sexual battery (sexual assault)" as oral, anal, or vaginal penetration forcibly or against the person's will or where the victim is incapable of giving consent.

___

OREGON

The state education department tracked incidents of student "sexual battery (sexual assault)" only when they led to suspension, expulsion or removal to an alternative educational setting. It defined the offense as forced or unwanted penetration, including rape, fondling and sodomy. It masked totals of five or fewer in any given year, which it did for one of the four years of AP's study, making its reported statewide total between 25 and 29.

___

PENNSYLVANIA

School districts and charter schools had to report all incidents of student sexual assault, regardless of whether they resulted in discipline. The state required reporting on rape or statutory rape; sexual assault, including attempted rape or unwanted touching of a sex organ; involuntary sexual deviate intercourse; and aggravated indecent assault of someone impaired or younger than 13. It reported a statewide four-year total of 371.

___

RHODE ISLAND

School districts reported to the state education department incidents of student sex assault, including forcible sex, fondling, forced kissing and child molestation, only when they resulted in suspension. The department's reported statewide total was 28, but districts had been required to report sex assaults only since the 2012-2013 academic year.

___

SOUTH CAROLINA

The state education department tracked acts of student forcible sex offense only when they resulted in an out-of-school suspension or expulsion. The department reported a statewide total of 47 over four years.

___

SOUTH DAKOTA

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual battery, including unwanted sexual contact, attempted and statutory rape and child molestation. If any year's total was fewer than 10, the state masked that year's actual numbers. It did so twice over the four-year period so that its reported statewide total was between two and 18.

___

TENNESSEE

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual assault, including rape, sodomy, fondling and child molestation. It reported 462 such incidents during the four-year period.

___

TEXAS

The state education agency tracked only incidents of student sexual assault resulting in suspension, expulsion or referral to an alternative education program. Reportable acts included sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault against students or school visitors; indecency with a child or sexual contact with a student 16 or younger; and continuous sexual abuse of a child on school property, including school-related activities off property. The state masked actual counts less than five, which affected the count of continuous sex abuse cases during three of the four years, making its reported four-year total between 630 and 639.

___

UTAH

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual assault, including rape, attempted rape or sodomy, and forcible fondling. The state reported 268 for the four-year period. Queries from AP prompted the state to review its reporting system; State Board of Education spokesman Mark Peterson said the board was working to address "discrepancies."

___

VERMONT

The state education department tracked all incidents of student sexual assault on school grounds or at a school-related activity. Education officials declined to share the information, saying it would have been masked anyway because the statewide annual total fell below the 11 or fewer threshold for withholding in each of the four years of AP's study. A January 2015 report by the education secretary put the number of sex assaults leading to student discipline at 11 between 2013 and 2015.

___

VIRGINIA

School districts had to report all incidents of sexual assault by students, regardless of whether they resulted in discipline. The state education department tracked four forms of sex assault: rape and attempted rape, sexual battery and aggravated sexual battery, and offensive sexual touching. In public reports starting in 2013-2014, actual numbers for any individual offense category were masked if they were fewer than 10. In response to an AP records request, Virginia reported 4,549 sexual assaults for the four-year period.

___

WASHINGTON

The state education department did not track student sexual assault. Washington law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 42 incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

WEST VIRGINIA

The state education department maintained data on incidents that led to student suspension, expulsion and referral to alternative education, but did not specifically track sexual assault. Schools could report student sexual assault as bullying, harassment or intimidation. None of the state's 245 law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two most recent years available used the codes identifying cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

WISCONSIN

The state education department did not track student sexual assaults. Wisconsin law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 68 incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

WYOMING

School districts notified the state education department annually of incidents of student sexual battery, such as attempted or forced penetration or fondling. Wyoming masked statewide annual totals of 10 or fewer and did so three times over the four-year period, making its reported total between 13 and 40. Data collection director Susan Williams told AP, "We don't think it's super clean. Districts define and report incidents differently." Wyoming's education department stopped asking districts to report sex-related incidents in 2016.

___

Schmall and Dunklin reported from Dallas; Sirolly reported from Philadelphia.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Popular support for a hunger strike by hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel has been gaining momentum with West Bank marches, sit-ins and a social media campaign showing video clips of celebrities from across the Arab world drinking salty water in solidarity.

The strike is one of the largest such protests in recent years, with potential fallout beyond the prisoners' demands for better conditions in Israel lockups.

Still, on Monday, the 15th day of the fast, the number of participating prisoners had dropped to 870, from a high of 1,300 a week earlier, according to an Israeli official.

FILE -- In this April 23, 2017 file photo, a Palestinian protester holds a sling shot as he sits near a banner with a picture of jailed leader Marwan Barghouti that reads, "The architect of the uprising," following a protest supporting prisoners in Israeli jails, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. An Israeli official said Monday, May 1, 2017, that the number of Palestinians prisoners participating in one of the largest hunger strike in years dropped to 870, from 1,300 a week earlier. Support for the hunger strikers who seek better conditions has gained momentum with West Bank marches and a social media campaign and has boosted the Palestinian leadership credentials of its imprisoned organizer, Barghouti. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed, File)

The strike has catapulted organizer Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences, back into the spotlight and boosted his national leadership credentials. Barghouti, behind bars since 2002, has consistently led in polls as the most popular choice to someday succeed 82-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas had attempted to sideline the 58-year-old Barghouti in their Fatah party, despite Barghouti's strong showing in internal leadership elections late last year.

This week in downtown Ramallah, an iconic photo of Barghouti wearing a brown Israeli prison uniform - shackled hands raised defiantly above his head - was plastered on house walls, shop windows and sit-in tents where relatives of prisoners held framed photos of the detainees.

A large rally in support of the hunger strikers has been scheduled for Wednesday, the day Abbas is to meet President Donald Trump at the White House for the first time.

Those involved in mobilizing support for the hunger strikers say they are not trying to upstage Abbas. But the contrast is stark between widespread indifference to another attempt by Abbas to resume U.S.-led negotiations with Israel on Palestinian statehood and the Palestinian public's emotional show of support for the prisoners.

Prisoners have long been a consensus issue among Palestinians.

In the half-century since Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned at one time or another for fighting against Israeli rule, for acts ranging from stone-throwing and membership in groups outlawed by Israel to carrying out attacks that wounded or killed Israelis.

Israel has branded those involved in violence as terrorists.

Currently, about 6,500 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons, including several hundred without charges or trial, according to Palestinian figures. Barghouti was convicted of a role in attacks that killed five people during the second Palestinian uprising; he never put up a defense, refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of an Israeli court.

Assaf Librati, a spokesman for the Israel Prison Service, said Monday that 870 prisoners are still on hunger strike, down from a peak of about 1,300 last week. Librati did not say why more than 400 prisoners had ended the fast.

He said the hunger strikers are being held separately from other prisoners, and that several of them are being kept in isolation. Barghouti's supporters have said he was moved into isolation on the first day of the protest, but Librati would not comment on Barghouti's status.

The spokesman said the hunger strikers are being monitored by medical staff. All their personal items, including books, were taken from them at the start of the protest, he said.

Qadoura Fares, who heads an advocacy group for Palestinian prisoners, alleged that the Israeli authorities are trying to weaken the resolve of the hunger strikers by isolating Barghouti and negotiating separate deals for each prison.

Fares said that Barghouti would continue with the strike "even if he was alone, until he achieves the goal."

In support of the hunger strikers, a general strike last week shuttered shops and schools in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. A campaign called "water and salt," initiated by the Barghouti family, is spreading on social media and at sit-in tents across the West Bank. Participants drink salty water in a show of solidarity.

Several celebrities in the Arab world have already taken part, including the host of "Arabs Got Talent," who drank the salt water at the opening of his popular Beirut-based TV show over the weekend. Others included a prominent Iraqi football player and a Lebanese artist.

Palestinian analyst Ahamd al-Azem said the hunger strike is helping mobilize younger Palestinians who have been largely apathetic in recent years because paths to statehood appear to be blocked.

"This will be a very important step for a new generation to think how we can start again because politically, we are in a crisis," said Azem. "Nothing is working, negotiations are not working, the occupation is continuing."
PARIS (AP) - The Latest on France's presidential campaign (all times local):

7:05 p.m.

French candidate Emmanuel Macron says he "respects" those who oppose his policies but still plan to vote for him Sunday to block far-right rival Marine Le Pen from the presidency.

Supporters cheer during a campaign rally for independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, in Paris, France, Monday, May 1st, 2017. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

Macron said at a Paris rally on Monday: "I am fully aware that on May 7, I'm doing more than promoting a political project - I'm fighting for the Republic and for a free democracy."

Addressing voters from the right and the left who chose other candidates in the election's first round, he said he is fighting to defeat Le Pen in Sunday's runoff "so that you can freely, democratically express your disagreement tomorrow."

Macron also warned against the "trap" of division, saying Le Pen's party is trying to "make us believe one can protect the French people by designating Muslim French people as the enemy."

He promised a "zero tolerance" policy in the fight against terrorism.

___

6:10 p.m.

Centrist presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron is taking the offensive against far-right rival Marine Le Pen, saying her platform would lead to less freedom in France.

Speaking in a Paris hall on Monday, Macron criticized Le Pen's "rude manners" and called her "the heir" to her father's politics.

Jean-Marie Le Pen co-founded the National Front party his daughter now leads. She expelled him in 2015 after he reiterated anti-Semitic comments.

Macron told supporters waving French and European flags: "Don't boo her, fight her! Go and convince (others), make her lose next Sunday."

He says Le Pen's priorities as president would be "to fight against press freedom, "against women's rights, the right to abortion" and "against same-sex couples' rights."

Macron, a former economy minister, is campaigning on strong pro-European, pro-free market, liberal views.

___

4:50 p.m.

Thousands of French union activists are marching through Paris and other cities to demand that France's next president protect worker rights - but they appear divided about how to cast their vote.

Troublemakers on the sidelines of a Paris union march clashed with police and threw firebombs at a row of motorcycles. Some carried banners protesting both far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron. The two face off Sunday in France's presidential runoff.

The moderate CFDT union marked the May Day holiday with a small Paris rally against Le Pen, leader of the National Front party. At a larger union rally nearby, some marchers carried signs reading "Let's block the National Front" - but no one was openly rallying for Macron.

Marchers included far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came in fourth in the first-round presidential vote. He strongly opposes Le Pen gaining power but has also refused to endorse Macron, seen as a pro-business figure who could reduce France's strong labor protections.

___

2:15 p.m.

France far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has accused rival Emmanuel Macron of being a puppet of the world of finance and Islamic fundamentalists.

Cheers of "Marine President!" and anti-immigrant chants rose up in the crowd of thousands for Le Pen's rally north of Paris.

Le Pen, who hopes to mimic President Donald Trump's populist electoral victory, compared Macron to Hillary Clinton. Le Pen also sought repeatedly to puncture Macron's argument that he represents change, calling him a lapdog of unpopular outgoing President Francois Hollande.

Le Pen called Macron the candidate of "the caviar left" and "moralizing snobbery" and warned that his pro-business policies wouldn't create jobs but send them abroad and leave French workers hungry.

___

1:40 p.m.

The founder of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has called on the French to vote for his daughter Marine Le Pen in Sunday's presidential runoff.

The plug from the elderly Le Pen came in a May Day speech at the foot of the statue of his hero, Joan of Arc, in Paris. It also came despite the fact that his daughter has expelled him from the party he co-founded.

Le Pen, 88, said in his speech Monday that "she is not Joan of Arc, but she accepts the same mission ... France."

He said her rival, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, "wants to dynamize the economy, but he is among those who dynamited it." The comment was a reference to Macron's time as economy minister under the unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande.

Le Pen was expelled from the party in 2015 for repeating an anti-Semitic phrase for which he was convicted.

___

12:25 p.m.

The son of a man killed on the sidelines of a 1995 far-right march has joined French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron on a Paris bridge.

Macron hugged Said Bourram, who was 9 when his father was killed.

Bourram, who supports Macron, says his father was targeted "because he was a foreigner, an Arab. That is why I am fighting, to say no to racism."

The National Front traditionally holds a march in central Paris on May 1, and at the 1995 event, skinheads broke away and pushed 29-year-old Brahim Bourram off the bridge into the Seine River. Then-party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen sought to distance himself from the attackers, but the death drew national outrage.

Macron faces Le Pen's daughter Marine, who took over the party, in Sunday's runoff.

___

10:25 a.m.

French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is paying homage to a Moroccan man killed on the sidelines of a far-right march in 1995.

Macron is seeking to remind voters of the dark past of rival Marine Le Pen's National Front party, which she has tried to detoxify. Both face off in Sunday's runoff.

The National Front traditionally holds a march in central Paris on May 1 to honor Joan of Arc, and at the 1995 event, a group of skinheads broke away and pushed 29-year-old Brahim Bourram off a bridge into the Seine River, where he drowned. Then-party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen sought to distance himself from the attackers, but the death drew national outrage.

Macron on Monday is joining Bourram's son and anti-National Front protesters to honor Bourram's memory.

--This item has been corrected to show that Macron joined Bourram's son, not his father.

___

10 a.m.

France's tense presidential race is colliding with May Day labor marches in a campaign dominated by worries over jobs and seen as a test of populism's global appeal.

Less than a week before Sunday's runoff, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding separate rallies Monday.

But Le Pen's efforts to clean up her National Front party's anti-Semitic image could be undermined by a parallel Paris event by her father, Jean-Marie, expelled from the party over his extreme views.

Meanwhile, the traditional May 1 union marches across France celebrating workers' rights will be politically charged this year. Some groups want a united front to keep Le Pen from the presidency, but unions fear Macron will dismantle worker protections.

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen arrives at her meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Former far-right National Front party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen clenches his fist at the statue of Joan of Arc, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Jean-Marie Le Pen is holding the Joan of Arc event again Monday, a march his daughter, French presidential candidate Marine le Pen, wants nothing to do with. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, 2nd left, stands next to Said Bouarram, left, son of Brahim Bouarram, as he pays hommage to Brahim Bouarram, a Moroccan who drowned in 1995 when right-wing extremists threw him from a bridge after a National Front rally, during a ceremony on the banks of the Seine River in Paris, France, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Philippe Wojazer/Pool Photo via AP)

Independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron looks at some of the 2,500 photographs of young Jews deported from France, during a visit to the Shoah memorial in Paris, France, Sunday, April 30, 2017. French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is visiting the Holocaust Memorial in Paris with a somber message: Never again. (Philippe Wojazer/Pool Photo via AP)

Independent centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron makes a sign to bystanders as he leaves the Holocaust memorial in Paris, France, Sunday, April 30, 2017. French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is visiting the Holocaust Memorial in Paris with a somber message: Never again. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Far-right candidate for the 2017 French presidential election Marine Le Pen attend with Nicolas Dupont-Aignan a media conference in Paris, France, Saturday, April 29, 2017. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen says her new campaign ally, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, would be her prime minister if she is elected. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen delivers her speech during a meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen delivers her speech during a meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Members of the global citizen movement AVAAZ wear masks depicting the face of former National Front party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen with the hair of his daughter and French far-right presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, as they stage a protest as part of a May Day rally in Paris, France, Monday, May 1st, 2017. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen delivers her speech during a meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen delivers her speech during a meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A supporters of far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen arrives with a portrait of Marine Le Pen at a campaign meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Supporters of far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen arrive at a campaign meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A riot police officer aims during the May Day march, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. With just six days until a French presidential runoff that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron held high-stakes rallies Monday that overlapped with May Day marches and underscored the fact that jobs are voters' No. 1 concern. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Youth, right, face French riot police officers during the May Day demonstration, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Paris police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on sidelines of May Day workers' march. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

A youth runs during riots as part of the May Day demonstration, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Paris police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on sidelines of May Day workers' march. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French riot police officers face protestors during the May Day demonstration, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Paris police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on sidelines of May Day workers' march. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

French conservative candidate from the first-round election Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, left, and french far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen cheer their supporters at the end of their meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Youth, right, face French riot police officers during the May Day demonstration, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Paris police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on sidelines of May Day workers' march. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, flanked with her body guard Thierry Legier, blows kisses to supporters at the end of her meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A supporter gives 10 euros during a fund raising collection in a french flag at the end of French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's meeting, Monday May 1, 2017, in Villepinte, outside Paris. With just six days until a French presidential vote that could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron are holding high-stakes rallies Monday. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Uber has suspended a driver in Australia while police investigate allegations that he told a passenger he led an organization related to the Islamic State movement and planned to blow up Parliament House, the ride-hailing company said Monday.

The passenger, a woman who declined to be identified out of fear for her safety, said on Monday she was heading home from downtown Canberra after a night out with friends when she caught an Uber early Sunday morning.

The woman said the driver said he was from Pakistan and asked if she had "ever eaten human flesh."

He said he planned to blow up a Canberra shopping mall as well as Parliament House and told her he was not taking her to her home on Canberra's outskirts but to the town of Cooma, 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the south, the woman said.

She said she told the driver to pull over at a gas station so she could use the toilet, and called the police emergency number from there. Two police cars arrived about 10 minutes later, she said.

Police said they searched the Uber car but found nothing suspicious. Police drove the woman home and did not arrest the driver.

"Police conducted initial background checks and established there was no threat to the public or the complainant," a police statement said.

It said an investigation of the woman's allegations was continuing with the involvement of national police and security agencies.

The driver's access to the Uber app was restricted when the company became aware of the allegations, Uber said.

"We'll continue liaising with the police as the allegations are assessed," Uber said in a statement.

The woman said police told her the driver didn't dispute her accusations but explained to them "he was just trying to wind me up."

"It was a terrifying experience. I'm so stressed I can't even explain how I feel," she told the AP on Monday.

"I want Uber to be doing a lot more screening of the people that they're bringing on, because apparently it's not doing enough," she said.

The gas station where the journey ended was on a highway to Cooma, but before the turnoff to the woman's home.

Canberra became the first city in Australia to regulate ride sharing when Uber launched there in October 2015.
Kelly Ripa has finally found someone to fill her co-host seat on Live, nearly a year after the departure of Michael Strahan.

The ABC morning show host announced Ryan Seacrest as her new TV partner Monday morning.

Ripa started the show off by addressing the audience alone, saying 'today the next chapter of the live story is about to be written'.

Scroll down for video

Ryan Seacrest was announced as Kelly Ripa's full-time co-host Monday morning. The show is now called Live with Kelly & Ryan (the two pictured above on Monday)

She took the time to thank all of the men and women who have volunteered their time as her fill-in co-host in the past year, saying they are 'part of the Live family now'.

Seacrest was brought out after the first commercial break to a standing ovation.

The two new co-hosts came out smiling and holding hands before going out to greet audience members.

Seacrest pulled out Ripa's chair as they sat down at their desks for the first time as official co-hosts - then got straight into the show.

Ripa pointed out that Monday is also her 21st wedding anniversary to husband Mark Consuelos, and that now it will be her 'TV wedding day' as well.

Ripa and Seacrest came out holding hands Monday morning and smiling from ear to ear

Seacrest filled in as Ripa's co-host a handful of times in the past year, after Michael Strahan's departure

Ripa started the show by addressing the audience alone, saying she was excited to announce her new co-host

Seacrest then detailed how he broke the news to his close friends about the new gig.

'Kelly and I are friends, we've known each other a long time and when we found out that this was going to happen we were told to keep it a secret, and we're not great at that,' Seacrest said.

'It's hard for us,' Ripa added. 'We are verbal people.'

Seacrest says he sent a text message to some of his close friends and co-workers saying he had big news, but none of them guessed the secret correctly.

He says they guessed he was getting engaged, having a baby or coming out before he finally broke the real news to them.

The show shared footage of Seacrest ducking down in a car on the way into work Monday morning, to conceal the secret

'I said it's none of that, it's this! And I couldn't be more excited to be here with you every single day,' Seacrest said.

The audience erupted in applause before Ripa piped in to get a final laugh.

'And if you want to get engaged or have a baby or come out of the closet, all of those things are possible for you - this is a safe, safe zone,' she said.

The show also shared video showing Seacrest ducking down in a car on the way to work to conceal the secret just a little longer.

Seacrest, who is based in Los Angeles, will be living in New York City during the week and commuting back to his home on the West Coast on the weekends, he said.

Ripa, 46, teased on Sunday that she would announce her new Live! co-host on Monday

Ripa teased the announcement Sunday afternoon, posting a video to Twitter of her taking a sip from a mug that read 'Live with Kelly and ?'

'Tune in tomorrow. Trust me,' Ripa said.

And on Twitter, the show said it was 'growing to two'. Another post had 'announce co-host' on Ripa's 'to do' list.

News of Strahan's exit for 'Good Morning America' last May led Ripa to skip the show for two days in protest of the way the situation was handled.

Numerous celebrities have filled in as co-hosts with Ripa over the past year, including Jerry O'Connell, Fred Savage and Andy Cohen.

Ryan Seacrest hosted American Idol for more than a decade and has guested five times since Strahan left.

The new Live could go up against Megyn Kelly's NBC offering, which will likely air at 9am or 10am when it debuts in the fall.
SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Two Indian soldiers were killed and their bodies mutilated Monday in an ambush by Pakistani soldiers along the highly militarized de facto border that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between the nuclear-armed rivals, the Indian army said. But Pakistan denied any such attack, calling the Indian claims false.

Separately, five police officials and two bank employees were killed when suspected rebels ambushed a bank van in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

Pakistani soldiers fired rockets and mortars at two Indian positions southwest of the Line of Control in the Krishna Ghati sector, the army said in a statement.

It said Pakistani soldiers also ambushed an Indian patrol operating between the two posts and mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers.

The statement called the incident an "unprovoked" firing by Pakistani soldiers and said the "unsoldierly act" would be "appropriately responded."

The Pakistani army denied committing any cease-fire violation along the Line of Control. It said in a statement that Indian allegations of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies were also false.

"Pakistani army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even an Indian," it said.

In the past, both countries have accused the other of initiating border skirmishes leading to the deaths of soldiers and civilians on both sides.

Last year, Indian and Pakistani soldiers engaged in some of the worst fighting along the Line of Control since the two nations agreed to a cease-fire accord in 2003. India accused attackers from the Pakistani side of Kashmir of entering the Indian-held portion and mutilating the body of one of three slain Indian soldiers, leading to days of fighting along the frontier.

India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over Kashmir, a Himalayan territory claimed by both. They have fought two of their three wars over the region since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

The Line of Control is guarded by the Indian and Pakistani armies and divides the two parts of Kashmir. Each country also has a separate paramilitary border force guarding the lower-altitude frontier separating Indian-controlled Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab.

Also Monday, suspected rebels ambushed and sprayed gunfire at a bank van late in the southern Kulgam area, killing five police officials and two local bank employees, including a driver, senior top police officer Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani said.

He said the police were guarding the van and were returning to Kulgam after distributing cash to some bank branches.

There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Indian-controlled Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the rebel uprising and a subsequent Indian military crackdown.

The rebel groups have largely been suppressed by Indian forces in recent years. However, public opposition to Indian rule remains deep and is now principally expressed through street protests marked by youths hurling stones at government forces.

___

Associated Press writer Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
Last week, ESPN sent a loud statement that quality reporting isnt its top priority. On Monday, they made a somewhat quieter statement that good journalism remains important, announcing a new contract for investigative ace Don Van Natta Jr.

Van Natta, a two-time Pulitzer winner, is one of the top writers at ESPN the Magazine. Hes produced a number of memorable pieces, often about the NFL. Most recently, he teamed with Seth Wickersham on a piece on the Oakland Raiders move to Las Vegas called Sin City or Bust.

In the wake of an Everest-sized mountain of bad PR, ESPN is trying to spin Van Nattas new deal as evidence the company is, strengthening its commitment to investigative and longform journalism, which is a little bit hard to take seriously but also seems to contain a kernel of truth.

The fact is, when you scroll through the list of layoffs , you see a lot of team beat reporters and TV analysts and play-by-play announcers and not many long-form writers. Laid-off writers like Dana ONeil and Ethan Strauss have certainly produced good longer pieces, but thats not their principal responsibility. As far as investigative and long-form goes, ESPN seems to have left its magazine pretty much alone and retained the people who write those kinds of pieces.

Van Natta is as good as any investigative sportswriter in the country, as ESPN exec Chad Millman pointed out in the news release announcing his new contract.

Don has a proven ability to dig deep for compelling narratives that reveal truths about the highest-profile issues and personalities in sports, Chad Millman said. Hes helped raise the bar for storytelling at ESPN and its fantastic hell keep doing it for years to come.

After the layoffs, ESPN reportedly offered to renegotiate contracts for employees on the chopping block, and its possible thats what happened here, but it also could be that Van Nattas contract was simply running up and he got a new one.

Regardless, theres been a huge amount of bad news out of Bristol lately, but the fact that Van Natta is sticking around is a small bit of good news.
NEW YORK (AP) - Fox News owner 21st Century Fox and a New York investment firm are in talks to buy TV station operator Tribune Media, according to several reports.

A successful bid would keep Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., another TV station operator that is also reportedly pursuing the company, from snatching up Tribune. Blackstone, a private equity firm, is said to be putting cash toward creating a joint venture, while 21st Century Fox would contribute some TV stations, according to the reports.

21st Century Fox owns and operates the Fox network, FX cable channel and 28 TV stations. Adding Tribune would give 21st Century Fox control over more local TV stations, most of them in major cities. Tribune owns or operates 42 stations across the nation, including WPIX in New York, KTLA in Los Angeles and WGN in Chicago. It also has stakes in the Food Network and job-search website CareerBuilder. Several of the stations that Tribune owns are affiliated with Fox and air the network's primetime shows such as "Empire" and "The Simpsons."

The WGN Radio sign appears on the side of Tribune Tower, Monday, May 1, 2017, in downtown Chicago. TV station operator Tribune Media is at the center of a possible bidding war, following reports that Fox News owner 21st Century Fox and investment firm Blackstone may make a joint takeover bid for the company. Tribune owns or operates 42 local TV stations across the nation, including WPIX in New York, KTLA in Los Angeles and WGN in Chicago. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

"The deal does have clear strategic value for Fox," said Jefferies analyst John Janedis, in a note to clients Monday.

Tribune, Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. and Blackstone declined to comment Monday. The possible deal was first reported by the Financial Times.

Reports of a potential bid from Sinclair, based in Hunt Valley, Maryland, emerged a month after proposals to dial back regulations that kept a lid on such deals were floated by Ajit Pai, the chairman appointed by Trump to head the Federal Communications Commission.

Shares of Tribune Media Co. jumped $2.23, or 6.1 percent, to $38.79 early Monday. Shares of 21st Century Fox, based in New York, slipped 11 cents to $29.75.
MADRID (AP) - Spain's maritime rescue service says it has saved 10 migrants from a small inflatable craft trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar.

The service says that the 10 men of sub-Saharan origin were "visibly tired after hours of rowing."

The rescue boat Arcturus made the rescue in waters off the southern tip of Spain.

Tens of thousands of migrants, most from sub-Saharan African countries, try to make the perilous crossing in boats unsuitable for the open sea to Spain and Italy each year.
ISTANBUL (AP) - The Latest on May Day events around the world (all times local):

10:40 p.m.

Police say they've made multiple arrests in the German capital after far-left demonstrators threw bottles at officers and small skirmishes ensued.

Youth, right, face French riot police officers during the May Day demonstration, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Paris police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on sidelines of May Day workers' march. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

Berlin police said Monday they used pepper spray to subdue some protesters, who also allegedly used flag poles to attack officers.

The dpa news agency reports that about 8,000 demonstrators took part in a two-hour march, of whom about 300 were violent.

Some 5,400 police officers were on hand at the march and in other places around the city.

Elsewhere in Berlin, more than 200,000 people took part in a traditional May Day festival, and some 14,000 participated in a labor rally.

Thousands of others took parts in events at other cities in the country.

___

8:25 p.m.

Police clashed with far-right demonstrators in the eastern German town of Apolda, taking 100 people into custody before declaring the situation under control.

Police told the dpa news agency that about 150 demonstrators who had attended a protest elsewhere started causing problems in Apolda's town center after getting off a train Monday afternoon.

Authorities say they ignored police warnings and then started throwing stones and firecrackers at officers.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Meanwhile, several thousand far-left demonstrators have started a march through Berlin, setting off smoke bombs and firecrackers along their route.

The "Revolutionary May 1 Demonstration" was not registered with authorities as required, but police decided to tolerate the Monday evening march.

Primarily dressed in black, the demonstrators chanted slogans like "flood the G20" - referring to the summit of the Group of 20 major economic powers being held in Hamburg this summer.

Some 5,400 police officers, called in from across the country, were on hand.

___

6:20 p.m.

Police in Istanbul have detained 165 people during May Day events around the city, most of them demonstrators trying to march to a symbolic square in defiance of a ban.

A security department statement said that another 18 people suspected of planning illegal demonstrations and possible acts of violence on Monday were detained in separate police operations.

Turkey had declared Taksim Square off-limits to May Day demonstrations, and major trade unions marked the day with rallies at government-designated areas.

Still, small groups tried to reach the square, leading to scuffles with police.

Taksim holds a symbolic value for Turkey's labor movement. In 1977, 34 people were killed there during a May Day event when shots were fired into the crowd from a nearby building.

___

5:40 p.m.

Thousands of people were celebrating May Day peacefully in Germany's capital, but police were braced for the possibility of violence.

The dpa news agency reported Monday that an estimated 10,000 people gathered in Berlin's Kreuzberg district for a street festival, and police reported no significant incidents.

But 5,400 police officers were mobilized in case the event got out of hand later in the day, when demonstrations were planned. Berlin has experienced major May Day riots in the past, though recent years have been relatively calm.

Still, some 50 officers were hurt last year in a brief, but violent clash.

In the eastern city of Erfurt, about 1,200 supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany rallied, holding signs with slogans like "no mosques in Germany." Police say the demonstration was peaceful.

___

5:15 P.M.

South African President Jacob Zuma was jeered by labor unionists and his May Day speech was cancelled after scuffles broke out between his supporters and workers chanting for him to step down.

Zuma, who is facing calls to resign after a string of scandals, was expected to call for unity between his ruling party, the African National Congress, and labor unions at the rally in Bloemfontein.

Groups in the crowd booed the president and clashed with his supporters before he could speak.

All speeches scheduled for the event then were cancelled by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the country's largest body of unions.

The organization has called for the 75-year-old Zuma to resign.

Zuma once a popular figure among South Africa's workers, was eventually ushered away by his bodyguards.

___

5:05 p.m.

A May Day march in Paris has turned violent less than a week before the runoff French presidential election.

A few hundred protesters started throwing gasoline bombs and other objects at police at the front end of what started as a peaceful union march in the French capital on Monday.

Police responded with tear gas and truncheons. Riot police clubbed some protesters who were pushed up against a wall on a tree-lined avenue.

The violent protesters were not carrying any union or election paraphernalia.

They appeared to be from the same fringe groups that have targeted anti-government protests in the past.

The union activists are still marching separately, although police are interrupting to check bags for gasoline bombs.

___

4:55 p.m.

Two May Day marches have been held in Moscow, both drawing from nostalgia for Soviet times.

First, a crowd that police estimated at about 130,000 people paraded across the cobblestones of Red Square, the site of Soviet-era May Day celebrations.

The tradition was revived in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea and is seen as part of President Vladimir Putin's efforts to stoke patriotic feelings.

The second march was led by the Communists, who over the years have tried to keep the May Day tradition alive. Their march skirted Red Square and drew several thousand people.

Many carried red flags with the Soviet hammer and sickle, but there was little honoring of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin compared to previous years.

___

4:28 p.m.

Police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on the sidelines of a May Day workers' march in Paris.

Scores of hooded youth threw Molotov cocktails at security forces who fired back with tear gas during the march on Monday.

The annual march to celebrate workers' rights this year included calls to block far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen from winning the presidency during a runoff election on Sunday.

Video showed riot police surrounding the protesters disrupting the march after isolating most of them from the rest of the crowd near the Place de la Bastille. However, some continued to lob firebombs that exploded into flames in the street.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was injured in the incidents.

___

4:20 p.m.

A protester has briefly disrupted the start of Cuba's largest annual political event, sprinting in front of May Day marchers with a U.S. flag before being tackled and dragged away.

President Raul Castro watched along with other military and civilian leaders and foreign dignitaries as the man broke through security and ran ahead of the tens of thousands in the pro-government march.

Plainclothes officers struggled to control the man but eventually lifted him off the ground and hauled him away in front of foreign and Cuban journalists covering the parade.

Monday's protest was a surprising breach of security at a government-organized event where agents line the route.

Castro has said he will step down as president in February, making this his last May Day parade as head of state.

___

4:00 p.m.

Businesses in Puerto Rico have been boarded up as the U.S. territory braces for a May Day strike organized by opponents of austerity measures amid a deep economic crisis.

Dozens of people wearing black T-shirts blocked a main road in the capital of San Juan and marched toward the financial center. They banged large wooden placards painted with a black Puerto Rican flag against the ground.

Thousands of protesters are expected Monday as Puerto Rico teeters on the edge of a possible bankruptcy-like procedure.

A measure that has protected the territory from creditor lawsuits expires at midnight, and the government has struggled to reach a deal with bondholders to restructure part of its $70 billion debt.

___

2:30 p.m.

Spain's two major unions called for marches in over 70 cities under the slogan "No More Excuses." UGT and CC.OO unions on Monday demanded that Spain's conservative government roll back its labor reforms that made it cheaper to fire workers and increase wages and pensions.

CC.OO general secretary Ignacio Fernandez Toxo said "Spain has been growing for two years and now it is time for the economy to align itself with the needs of the people."

He spoke at a march of several thousand people in Madrid, which he led alongside UGT leader Josep Maria Alvarez. Thousands more marched in Barcelona, while other rallies were held in Seville, Valencia and other cities.

Under conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Spain's economy has rebounded and unemployment has dropped from 27 percent in 2013 to 19 percent, but that is still the second-highest unemployment rate in the 28-nation European Union behind Greece.

Rajoy thanked Spain's workers on Twitter: "I appreciate your contribution to the economic recovery. The government is working to create more and better jobs."

___

2:30 p.m.

Labor union and left-wing activists appealed for unity in order to oppose Poland's current conservative government as they marked May Day with a parade in Warsaw.

The rally and a march Monday was by the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions and by the Democratic Left Alliance, which lost all parliament seats in the 2015 election that brought the conservative populist Law and Justice party to power.

Sebastian Wierzbicki of the SLD said the left wing needs to protect workers' rights but also focus on civic rights and human dignity.

___

1:30 p.m.

Thousands of garment industry workers in Bangladesh gathered to demand better wages and legal protection.

About 4 million people are employed in the country's garment industry, the second largest in the world. The industry, with about 4,000 factories, earns $25 billion a year from exports, mainly to the United States and Europe, but working conditions often are grim.

Lovely Yesmin, president of the Readymade Garments Workers Federation, one of several unions representing factory workers, said just increasing salaries is not enough.

She said workers must be provided better living quarters and health benefits, and factories must make provisions so the children of factory workers can be educated.

"These are our demands on the great May Day of 2017," she said.

___

1:30 p.m.

In Taipei, thousands of Taiwanese workers hoisted cardboard signs and banners in a march protesting what they said were unfairly low wages and deteriorating work conditions. A number of them staged a fake funeral procession, carrying a coffin with the words "basic annual pension" written on it, while others waved black flags.

Huang Yu-kai, president of the labor union of the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp. and a train conductor, said low wages in Taiwan are "the root of all problems."

"This is why we take part in this march every year," Huang said.

President Tsai Ing-wen said in a post on her Facebook page that improvements are being made even if major changes would take time. "Although reform would not be completed in one step, the progress we have made is not small."

___

11:25 a.m.

Cambodian riot police watched carefully as more than 1,000 garment workers defied a government ban on marching to deliver a petition to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, demanding a higher minimum wage and more freedom of assembly.

The marchers, holding a forest of banners, filled a street a short distance from the parliament complex and advanced noisily until they were stopped by a barricade and lines of police, holding batons, shields and guns capable of firing gas canisters. A standoff of several hours was resolved when a representative from the Assembly came out and accepted the petition.

The workers were from the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union. Among their demands was increasing the minimum wage from $153 to $208 per month. The clothing and footwear industry is Cambodia's biggest export earner.

The major Cambodian labor unions traditionally have been loosely allied with opposition parties, posing a potential political threat to longtime authoritarian leader Hun Sen.

___

11:25 a.m.

Police in Istanbul detained more than 70 people who tried to march to iconic Taksim Square in defiance of a ban on holding May Day events there. The square was declared off limits to demonstrations for a third year running and police blocked points of entry, allowing only small groups of labor union representatives to lay wreaths at a monument there.

Taksim holds a symbolic value for Turkey's labor movement. In 1977, shots were fired into a May Day crowd from a nearby building, killing 34 people.

Main trade unions groups have agreed to hold large rallies at government-designated spots in Istanbul and Ankara but small groups were expected to try to reach Taksim.

___

11:25 a.m.

Several thousand protesters gathered outside Greece's parliament, and unions braced for more austerity measures imposed by bailout lenders.

Two large union-organized rallies are planned in Athens on the holiday, with employees at many public services nominally on strike.

As the marches began, government officials prepared for more talks at a central Athens hotel with representatives of bailout creditors as the two sides were near an agreement to maintain draconian spending controls beyond the current rescue program.

The talks had been expected to end Sunday. Future spending cuts will include additional pension cuts and tax increases for Greeks, already hit by seven years of harsh cuts.

Greece's largest labor union, the GSEE, has called a general strike for May 17 to protest the latest austerity package.

___

11:25 a.m.

A few thousand left-wing activists and laborers marched and held noisy rallies to press for higher wages and an end to temporary contractual jobs that deprive workers in the Philippines of many benefits. In sweltering summer heat, the crowds in Manila also protested alleged extrajudicial killings under President Rodrigo Duterte's drug crackdown.

The activists carried murals of Duterte and President Donald Trump, asking the Philippine leader to stay away from the U.S. president, who has invited Duterte for a U.S. visit. Protest leader Venzer Crisostomo fears an "America First" policy would be disadvantageous to poorer countries like the Philippines. "We would not want Duterte to be in cahoots with Donald Trump in oppressing the country and in implementing policies."

Youths runs through tear gas during clashes as part of the May Day demonstration, Monday May 1, 2017, in Paris. Paris police are firing tear gas at rowdy protesters on sidelines of May Day workers' march. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Protesters holding a poster with portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, centre, and Chechnya's regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov walk past an eternal flame during a rally marking May Day in downtown St.Petersburg, Russia, Monday, May 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Protesters march during a rally marking May Day in downtown St.Petersburg, Russia, Monday, May 1, 2017. The slogan reads 'The thief and his accomplices will be in prison! (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Bangladeshi garment workers shout slogans as they participate in a May Day rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, May 1, 2017. Thousands of workers and activists marched during International Workers Day demanding higher wages and better work conditions. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)

Visitors, some with their children, walk past fences set on the tigers' section at a zoo on the May Day holiday in Beijing, Monday, May 1, 2017. Millions of Chinese are taking advantage of the May Day holidays to visit popular tourist sites. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Visitors are reflected on the protective glass as they watch the ring-tailed lemurs at a zoo on the May Day holiday in Beijing, Monday, May 1, 2017. Millions of Chinese are taking advantage of the May Day holidays to visit popular tourist sites. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

A worker is dressed in a costume representing the world's capitalism during a May Day rally in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, May 1, 2017. Thousands of workers attended the rally urging the government to raise minimum wages, ban outsourcing practices, provide free health care and improve working condition for workers in the country. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)

Protesters clash with riot police as they attempt to force their way closer to U.S. Embassy to mark May Day celebrations in Manila, Philippines, Monday, May 1, 2017. As in the past years, workers mark Labor Day with calls for higher wages and an end to the so-called "Endo" or contractualization. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Police arrest demonstrators as they march during May Day, in Istanbul, Monday, May 1, 2017. Security forces prevented leftist groups trying to reach city's iconic Taksim Square to celebrate May Day. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Protesters clash with riot police as they attempt to force their way closer to U.S. Embassy to mark May Day celebrations in Manila, Philippines, Monday, May 1, 2017. As in the past years, workers mark Labor Day with calls for higher wages and an end to the so-called "Endo" or contractualization. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

Protesters clash with riot police as they attempt to force their way closer to U.S. Embassy to mark May Day celebrations in Manila, Philippines, Monday, May 1, 2017. As in the past years, workers mark Labor Day with calls for higher wages and an end to the so-called "Endo" or contractualization. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

North Korean workers take part in a tug of war as they celebrate May Day at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, May 1, 2017. International Workers' Day, which is also known as Labor Day in some countries, is being celebrated worldwide. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

North Korean workers celebrate May Day at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, May 1, 2017. International Workers' Day, which is also known as Labor Day in some countries, is being celebrated worldwide. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

North Korean workers cheer as they celebrate May Day at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, May 1, 2017. International Workers' Day, which is also known as Labor Day in some countries, is being celebrated worldwide. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)

Participants of the traditional May Day celebrations, organized by the Austrian Social Democrats, SPOE, and trade unions walk with flags and banners in Vienna, Austria, Monday, May 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

Participants of the traditional May Day celebrations, organized by the Austrian Social Democrats, SPOE, and trade unions walk with flags and banners in Vienna, Austria, Monday, May 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

People hold flags during a demonstration initiated by Germany's nationalist party AfD (Alternative for Germany) on the May Day in Erfurt, central Germany, Monday, May 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

Members and supporters of the Lebanese Communist party, chant pro-worker slogans and wave Lebanese flags with Communist symbols, during a demonstration to mark International Labor Day or May Day, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, May 1, 2017. Workers and activists marked May Day around the world Monday with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

A worker takes part in a May Day march to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, on Monday, May 1, 2017. A speech by President Jacob Zuma to workers at a rally was cancelled in Bloemfontein as Zuma was heckled by some members during the gathering singing that he should step down. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Workers gather outside the Johannesburg Stock Exchange after a May day march on Monday, May 1, 2017. A speech by President Jacob Zuma to workers at a rally was cancelled in Bloemfontein as Zuma was heckled by some members during the gathering singing that he should step down. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Police officers confront participants in the unregistered demonstration by the leftist group "Revolutionary May Day Demonstration" in Berlin, Germany, Monday May 1, 2017. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)s
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Islamic militant Hamas on Monday unveiled what had been billed as a new, seemingly more pragmatic political program aimed at ending the group's international isolation.

With the new manifesto, Hamas rebrands itself as an Islamic national liberation movement, rather than as a branch of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood, which has been outlawed by Egypt. It also drops explicit language calling for Israel's destruction, though it retains the goal of eventually "liberating" all of historic Palestine, which includes what is now Israel.

It's not clear if the changes will be enough to improve relations Egypt which, along with Israel, has been enforcing a crippling border blockade against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip since the group seized the territory in 2007.

FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2014, file photo, Khaled Mashaal leader of the Palestinian Islamic militant movement Hamas, that has governed Gaza since a 2007 takeover, speaks during a speech held in Katara in Doha, Qatar. The Islamic militant Hamas has unveiled a new, seemingly more pragmatic political program, Monday, May 1 2017, that the group hopes will help it end years of international isolation. The five-page program, a result of four years of internal deliberations, was presented at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, by outgoing Khaled Mashaal, the Hamas leader in exile. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal, File)

Hamas clung to hard-line positions that led to its isolation in the first place. The group reaffirmed that it will not recognize Israel, renounce violence or recognize previous interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals - the West's long-standing conditions for dealing with Hamas.

The five-page program, a result of four years of internal deliberations, was presented at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, by Khaled Mashaal, the outgoing Hamas leader in exile. The group has said Mashaal's replacement is to be named later this month, after the completion of secret leadership elections.

The document reflects a "reasonable Hamas, that is serious about dealing with the reality and the regional and international surroundings, while still representing the cause of its people," said Mashaal.

A copy of the program was distributed to journalists in Gaza who followed the news conference by video link.

The new platform seemed to cement the ideological divide between Hamas and its main political rival, the Fatah movement of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas drove out forces loyal to Abbas in its 2007 takeover of Gaza, a year after defeating Fatah in Palestinian parliament elections. Reconciliation efforts have failed.

The Hamas manifesto was released at a time of escalating tensions between the two sides. In recent weeks, Abbas has threatened to exert financial pressure, including cutting wage payments and aid to Gaza, as a way of forcing Hamas to cede ground.

Leaders of the group have vowed they will not budge.

The war of words with Hamas was seen as an attempt by Abbas to position himself as a leader of all Palestinians ahead of his first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday. The U.S. president has said he would try to broker Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on a peace deal, despite repeated failures over the past two decades.

In the past, Hamas has sharply criticized Abbas' political program, which rests on setting up a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

In its founding charter, Hamas called for setting up an Islamic state in historic Palestine, or the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, which also includes Israel.

The new program for the first time raises the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines, saying it's a "national consensus formula." However, the wording suggests Hamas considers this to be an interim step, not a way of ending the conflict.

The document does not contain an explicit call for Israel's destruction, but says "Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea."

"There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity," the document says.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, now led by Abbas, exchanged letters of mutual recognition with Israel in 1993.

The Hamas document said it considers armed resistance against occupation as a strategic choice and that the group "rejects any attempt to undermine the resistance and its arms."

Over the years, Hamas has carried out shooting, bombing and rocket attacks in Israel. Since 2008, Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza have fought three cross-border wars. Abbas has been an outspoken opponent of violence, saying it undercuts Palestinian interests.

While the founding charter was filled with anti-Jewish references, the new document stresses that Hamas bears no enmity toward Jews. It says its fight is with those who occupy Palestinian lands.

Mashaal is to step down as Hamas leader later this month. Two possible contenders for the No. 1 spot are Moussa Abu Marzouk, a former Hamas leader, and Ismail Haniyeh, a former top Hamas official in Gaza.

The Mashaal announcement was initially scheduled for 7 p.m. (1600 GMT) Monday, but was delayed after a Doha hotel withdrew consent at the last minute to host the Hamas news conference. Hamas scrambled to find a new venue.

___

Laub reported from Ramallah, West Bank.

FILE -- In this Dec. 8, 2012 file photo, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, left, and Hamas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh wave to Palestinian Hamas supporters during a rally to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Hamas militant group, in Gaza city. The new political program of Hamas, published Monday, May 1, 2017, is meant to help the Islamic militant group break out of its international isolation. The manifesto does not formally replace the group's fiery 1987 founding charter, but adopts more conciliatory language, even if some goals remain unchanged _ such as the eventual "liberation" of all of historic Palestine, including what is now Israel. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa, File)

FILE -- In this Dec 14, 2012 file photo, Palestinian supporters of Hamas hold a picture of leader Khaled Mashaal, during a rally to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the militant group, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The new political program of Hamas, published Monday, is meant to help the Islamic militant group break out of its international isolation. The manifesto does not formally replace the group's fiery 1987 founding charter, but adopts more conciliatory language, even if some goals remain unchanged _ such as the eventual "liberation" of all of historic Palestine, including what is now Israel. (AP Photo/ Majdi Mohammed)

FILE -- In this Dec. 7, 2012 file photo, formerly exiled Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, left, and Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh wave during a news conference upon Mashaal's arrival at the Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip. A new political program of Hamas, published Monday, May 1, 2017, is meant to help the Islamic militant group break out of its international isolation. (AP Photo/Suhaib Salem, Pool)

FILE -- In this Dec. 18, 2016 file photo, masked militants from the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, a military wing of Hamas, attend the mourning ceremony for Mohammed Alzoari, a Tunisian aviation engineer who was shot dead in Tunisia, at the unknown soldier square in Gaza City. A new political program of Hamas, published Monday, May 1, 2017, is meant to help the Islamic militant group break out of its international isolation. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

FILE -- In this Sept. 6, 2016 file photo, Palestinian Hamas security forces, march with their rifles in front of the wreckage of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's helicopter, installed on a structure, during a police academy graduation ceremony in Gaza City. A new political program of Hamas, published Monday, May 1, 2017, is meant to help the Islamic militant group break out of its international isolation. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal in the case of a California police officer whose 2012 killing of an Anaheim gang member sparked riots and protests.

The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that ordered a new trial in the lawsuit brought by the mother of Manuel Diaz.

She sued the city of Anaheim and Officer Nick Bennallack for excessive force in the fatal shooting. Diaz was unarmed, but Bennallack said he thought the man had a gun and was preparing to shoot after a brief foot chase.

A jury ruled in favor of the city and the officer, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge allowed irrelevant inflammatory evidence to be presented at the trial.
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan has extended the house arrest of a senior militant wanted by the U.S. for another three months.

Hafiz Saeed heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity that is widely believed to serve as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The State Department is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah says Monday's extension will give investigators more time to gather evidence against the charity.

Pakistan placed Saeed and four aides under house arrest in January and vowed to act against the charity and an affiliate, both of which have since resumed their work under new names.

Pakistan has long tolerated Lashkar-e-Taiba and other Islamic militant groups, seeing them as a way to project power in the region.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A unanimous Supreme Court on Monday gave the government of Venezuela another chance to fend off a lawsuit alleging the country illegally seized 11 oil drilling rigs from an Oklahoma-based company in 2010.

The justices ruled that lower courts had set the bar too low in allowing the lawsuit brought by Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Company to move forward.

Foreign countries are generally immune from lawsuits in the U.S., but a federal statute makes an exception in certain cases when private property is seized.

Writing for the court, Justice Stephen Breyer said companies must make a stronger argument at the outset of a case that property was actually taken in violation of international law. He said such cases must be more than just "non-frivolous" to avoid being tossed out.

If cases against foreign governments are allowed too easily to proceed in American courts, it could "create friction with other nations and reciprocal actions against this country," Breyer said.

The U.S. government had sided with Venezuela, arguing that ruling for the company could harm foreign relations and lead other countries to retaliate against American interests.

The case began after Venezuela's former president Hugo Chavez issued a decree seizing control of the oil rigs owned by U.S. driller Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. The company refused to operate them after Venezuela's state-owned oil company fell more than $100 million behind in payments.

Chavez said the "forced acquisition" was necessary to put the idled rigs back to work.

Venezuela argued that the seizure did not violate international law because the rigs were owned by a Venezuelan subsidiary of Helmerich & Payne. But a federal appeals court sided with the company, ruling that it could move ahead with a lawsuit claiming the move harmed U.S. shareholders.

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in the case, which was argued before he took his seat on the court.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court has again rejected a challenge to California's ban on so-called gay conversion therapy.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning away an appeal from a San Diego minister and others who argued the law violated their First Amendment religious freedoms.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco had previously upheld the law in dismissing the constitutional challenge.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the ban into law in late 2012. Since then, the Supreme Court has rejected efforts to upend the California law and a similar ban New Jersey.
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) - A mob of people killed two forestry staffers who had arrested about 20 people for hunting illegally in Liberia's Sarpo National Park, authorities said Monday.

The two forestry rangers on Thursday found a new base set up by illegal hunters and arrested 20 of them in the protected rainforest park which covers more than 100 hectares (247 acres) in Liberia's southeast, said Forestry Development Authority managing director Darlington Tuagben.

A mob of community members who support illegal hunting then attacked, killing the two forestry staffers, said Tuagben.

"They ambushed them, using single-barrel shot guns," machetes and sticks, he said.

Tuagben said that rangers monitoring and protecting the park do not even carry pistols. The poachers mainly target deer and monkeys, which are eaten. Animals in the national park though are protected, including elephants, hippos and chimpanzees.

The two rangers' bodies had been retrieved by Monday morning and taken to Greenville, he said.

Police spokesman Sam Collins told state radio Monday they were investigating the incident.
WEST CHICAGO, Ill. (AP) - A plane operating under the regional branch of American Airlines has made an emergency landing at a suburban Chicago airport after reporting smoke in the cockpit.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday morning that it is investigating SkyWest Flight 2936, operated by American Eagle.

FAA officials say the flight departed Chicago O'Hare International Airport at 9 a.m. bound for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and landed 15 minutes later "without incident" about 25 miles west at DuPage Airport in West Chicago, Illinois.

American Eagle is owned by American Airlines. American Airlines spokeswoman Marissa Snow said in a statement that the flight landed safely and passengers disembarked normally. The West Chicago Fire Protection District says no injuries have been reported.

Snow says mechanics will inspect the aircraft.
Q: In theory, I support the idea of spaying or neutering all the cats and dogs but I feel like there should be exceptions. Where's the harm in my cat having just one litter so my kids can get to see the miracle of birth?

A: In theory, if it was "just" your family who was allowing their cat to have "just one litter" the repercussions might not be so bad. Unfortunately, that's not the whole story.

One cats 4-5 offspring multiplied by 1,000 other families creates an additional 4,000 - 5,000 cats that will need to find homes. Not having enough adoptive homes is a major factor in the number of cats who wind up in shelters every year, many of whom must be euthanized because there isnt enough space for them all.

Responsible pet owners understand that by spaying or neutering their pets, and not allowing them to reproduce unnecessarily, they are helping to save the lives of 3-4 million animals each year who are at the shelter and wont have a happy ending!

When thinking of "just one," please think about SAVING "just one" and consider fostering a pregnant cat from the shelter or a rescue organization.

Fosters (people who temporarily care for a cat or dog) are needed especially during kitten season which is typically from April through October. The shelter or rescue pays for all the expenses of the animals care including food, supplies and veterinary care.

The shelter doesnt have a large enough staff to care for pregnant cats or cats with very young kittens and is forced to look at alternatives. This will include euthanasia if there are not enough people who come forward to help. Fostering is truly a win-win because the animals survive, the shelters euthanasia rates stay low and the fosters (including the kids) enjoy all the benefits of have a temporary pet without the long term financial concerns.

If you are willing to foster a cat (or dog) for any length of time, please call Coconino Humane at (928) 526-1076 or the Ark Cat Sanctuary at (928) 773-1330. Either of these organizations can also refer you to other rescue organizations who need fosters.

Q: I recently got a puppy from a friend. Can I get some help to have him neutered?

A: Yes, there are many no-cost and low-cost resources within our community who can help pay for spaying or neutering a dog or cat. Please call Coconino Humane (CHA) at (928) 526-1076 or The Findlay Toyota Pet Resource Line at (928) 300-4510 for more information.

Q: What does the term no-kill shelter mean?

A: Good question, because there is a lot of confusion about this.

A no-kill shelter is typically privately run (no government contracts) and funded through donations and grants. This type of shelter can limit admission to only those animals they feel are appropriate for their shelter. These shelters usually have a higher staff to animal ratio which helps provide a superior level of care, gives staff more time to fully evaluate an animals temperament for placement and helps ensure that any euthanasia is limited to only those animals who are terminally ill.

Open admission shelters can and must take any animal at any time for any reason. They usually have contracts with local governments to accept stray dogs and cats and the animals that owners voluntarily surrender. These shelters take in thousands of animals each year and can be severely understaffed, with poor outcomes, because they tend to rely solely on government funding which is often limited.

A low-kill shelter (which may be open admission, limited admission or a combination) is typically identified as having a live release rate of 90% or greater. The live release rate is the number of animals who are released alive from the shelter either through adoption or transfer to another rescue. A 90% or greater live release rate means that the shelter has a 10% or lower euthanasia rate.

The euthanasia rate of any shelter can vary greatly depending on the number of animals turned in, the resources of the shelter and the involvement of the community in seeking alternatives to euthanasia.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela's embattled president issued a decree Monday for writing a new constitution, ratcheting up a political crisis that has drawn hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters into the streets.

President Nicolas Maduro gave no details on how members would be chosen for a planned citizen assembly to produce a new charter, though he hinted some would selected by voters. Many observers expect the socialist administration to give itself the power to pick a majority of delegates to the convention.

Opposition leaders immediately objected, charging that writing a new constitution would give Maduro an excuse to put off regional elections scheduled for this year and a presidential election that was to be held in 2018. Polling has suggested the socialists would lose both those elections badly amid widespread anger over Venezuela's economic woes.

A demonstrator aims a fire bomb during an opposition May Day march in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government May Day demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Speaking hours after another big march demanding his ouster ended in clashes between police and protesters, Maduro said a new constitution is needed to restore peace and stop the opposition from trying to carry out a coup.

"This will be a citizens assembly made up of workers," Maduro said. "The day has come brothers. Don't fail me now. Don't fail (Hugo) Chavez and don't fail your motherland."

If the constitutional process goes forward, opposition leaders will need to focus on getting at least some sympathetic figures included in the citizens assembly. That could distract them from the drumbeat of near daily street protests that they have managed to keep up for four weeks, political analyst Luis Vicente Leon said.

"It's a way of calling elections that uses up energy but does not carry risk, because it's not a universal, direct and secret vote," Leon said. "And it has the effect of pushing out the possibility of elections this year and probably next year as well."

The constitution was last rewritten in 1999, early in the 14-year presidency of the late Hugo Chavez, who began Venezuela's socialist transformation.

The leader of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Julio Borges, called the idea of a constitutional assembly a "giant fraud" by Maduro and his allies designed to keep them in power at any cost. Borges said it would deny Venezuelans the right to express their views at the ballot box, and he urged the military to prevent the "coup" by Maduro.

"What the Venezuelan people want isn't to change the constitution but to change Maduro through voting," he said at a news conference in eastern Caracas, where anti-government protesters once again clashed with police Monday.

Anti-government protests have been roiling Venezuela for a month, and Borges said more pressure is needed to restore democracy. He called for a series of street actions, including a symbolic pot-banging protest Monday night and a major demonstration Wednesday.

Earlier Monday, anti-Maduro protesters tried to march on government buildings in downtown Caracas, but police blocked their path - just as authorities have done more than a dozen times in four weeks of near-daily protests. Officers launched tear gas and chased people away from main thoroughfares as the peaceful march turned into chaos.

Opposition lawmaker Jose Olivares was hit in the head with a tear gas canister and was led away with blood streaming down his face. Some demonstrators threw stones and gasoline bombs and dragged trash into the streets to make barricades.

A separate government-sponsored march celebrating May Day went off without incident in the city.

At least 29 people have died in the unrest of the past month and hundreds have been injured.

People of all ages and class backgrounds are participating in the protests. The unrest started in reaction to an attempt to nullify the opposition controlled-congress, but has become a vehicle for people to vent their fury at widespread shortages of food and other basic goods, violence on a par with a war zone, and triple-digit inflation. Maduro accuses his opponents of conspiring to overthrow him and undermine the country's struggling economy.

The move to rewrite the constitution underscored many protesters' chief complaint about the administration: That it has become an unfeeling dictatorship. Sergio Hernandez, a computer technology worker who attended Monday's protest, said he would not return to his normal life until Maduro's administration had been driven out.

"We're ready to take the streets for a month or however long is needed for this government to understand that it must go," he said.

___

Hannah Dreier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hannahdreier. Her work can be found at https://www.ap.org/explore/venezuela-undone .

A Bolivarian National Guard water cannon puts out a gasoline bomb that fell on an armored vehicle during an opposition May Day march in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government May Day demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month.. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

FILE - In this Jan. 18, 2017, file photo, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a press conference at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela. President Maduro called on Monday, May 1, for a citizens congress and a new constitution, as he faces an escalating political crisis. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

Police fire tear gas at demonstrators during an opposition May Day march in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government May Day demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Demonstrators clash with security forces at an opposition May Day march in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government May Day demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

An opponent to President Nicolas Maduro holds a sign that reads in Spanish "Maduro dictator," referring to President Nicolas Maduro, at an opposition May Day march in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government May Day demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

A woman screams after a man was run over by a police motorcycle during skirmishes between protesters and police at a May Day opposition march in eastern Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A woman shouts during a May Day march by opponents of President Nicolas Maduro in eastern Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A protester scuffles with police as others shout: "Police don't support the dictatorship" during a May Day opposition march in eastern Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 1, 2017. Venezuelans are taking to the streets in dueling anti- and pro-government demonstrations as an intensifying protest movement enters its second month. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)
MARYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - A man charged with killing a police officer in Tennessee has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 56 years.

News outlets report Brian Keith Stalans entered the plea to premeditated murder and other charges Monday. He is charged with fatally shooting 32-year-old Maryville Police Officer Kenny Moats in August.

Police have said Moats and another officer were responding to a domestic-disturbance call and Stalans began shooting at them from the garage of a home without warning.

The officer's family said during the hearing that their lives would never be the same.

Stalans said he couldn't make things right, but the plea is an attempt to "make some sense out of what tragedy has happened."
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - An opposition protest in Belarus' capital drew about 400 people on Monday even though the event was officially banned and its main organizer was arrested over the weekend.

However, police stood by and allowed the protesters to march through the center of Minsk while calling for the government to step down and for free elections to be held.

Nikolai Statkevich, one of the most prominent figures in Belarus' beleaguered opposition, was arrested on Saturday. His wife, Maria Adamovich, said police told her he would be jailed for five days.

A protester holds a poster reading 'Freedom for the people' and an old Belarus flag, a symbol of protest, during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Monday, May 1, 2017. The protesters marched through central Minsk calling for the government to step down and for free elections to be held. (AP Photo)

The rights organization Vesna said other activists also were arrested to prevent them from participating in the protest.

The protesters lit flares and carried the banned white, red and white-striped flag that represents a free Belarus.

Belarus has been led since 1994 by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has suppressed his opponents.

Statkevich ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 election and was arrested after a large demonstration protesting the results. He spent the next five years in prison.

Another former presidential candidate, Vladimir Neklyaev, said during Monday's demonstration that "only free and fair elections can change the situation in the last dictatorship in Europe."
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Thousands of protesters in Hungary rejected the government's growing ties to Russia on Sunday, the 13th anniversary of Hungary's European Union membership.

Participants marched through downtown Budapest carrying Hungarian and European flags, shouting "Europe! Europe!" and reciting slogans against Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government. The Momentum Movement, a new political party, organized the event.

Orban is "driving the nation toward Moscow," party chairman Andras Fekete-Gyor said. "Instead of the rich, modern and free Europe, he sets the poor, oppressed and underdeveloped Russia as the example for our country."

Participants march during the civic Momentum Movement's protest entitled "We belong to Europe" in central Budapest, Hungary, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP)

In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Hungary for the second time in two years. Critics say a draft law seen designed to stigmatize and intimidate civic groups that receive foreign funding is similar to a law Russia already has.

Moscow is also expanding Hungary's Soviet-built nuclear power plant while loaning Hungary 10 billion euros ($10.9 billion), about 80 percent of the project's cost. Hungary already depends on Russia for much of its imported oil and gas.

Fekete-Gyor also criticized the Hungarian government's "Let's Stop Brussels" campaign, which claims among other things that the EU wants Hungary to raise energy prices and take in potentially large numbers of illegal migrants.

The protest was the latest against Orban's government in recent weeks.

Previous demonstrations have been held over the new requirements for NGOs that receive foreign funding and against amendments to the country's higher education law that could lead to the move or closure of Budapest's Central European University.

The European Union, the Council of Europe, as well as the European People's Party to which Orban's Fidesz party belongs, have called on the government to stick to European rules and suspend or modify the both laws.

"The constant attacks on Europe, which Fidesz has launched for years, have reached a level we cannot tolerate," EPP president Joseph Daul said after meeting Orban in Brussels on Saturday.

Despite the protests, one of which attracted some 70,000 people, Fidesz retains a large lead in opinion polls one year ahead of the next parliamentary election.

Participants gather during the civic Momentum Movement's protest entitled "We belong to Europe" in central Budapest, Hungary, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Zoltan Balogh/MTI via AP)

Andras Fekete-Gyor, second right, chairman of the civic Momentum Movement and supporters attend the protest entitled "We belong to Europe" in central Budapest, Hungary, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Janos Marjai/MTI via AP)

Andras Fekete-Gyor, centre, chairman of the civic Momentum Movement and supporters attend the protest entitled "We belong to Europe" in central Budapest, Hungary, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Janos Marjai/MTI via AP)
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) - West Indies took three quick wickets after tea to leave the second test evenly balanced as Pakistan stumbled from 155 without loss to 172-3 at stumps on the second day, still 140 runs behind on Monday.

Opener Azhar Ali was undefeated on 81 and captain Misbah-ul-Haq 7 not out with Pakistan scoring slowly all day, including 66 runs off 30 overs in the final session at Kensington Oval.

Pakistan dominated the first two sessions, quickly bowling out the West Indies in its first innings for 312 before lunch, and reaching 106-0 at tea. But the West Indies dominated from then on.

Ahmed Shehzad's charmed stay finally ended on 70 off 191 balls when he gently edged Devendra Bishoo's legbreaker to Shai Hope at slip.

Baba Azam lasted only two balls, caught and bowled by Shannon Gabriel for a duck.

Pakistan was soon down to 161-3 and the West Indies had the prized wicket of Younis Khan, whose uncontrolled wallop to short midwicket was held very low by Gabriel off Bishoo. Younis went for a nine-ball duck and Bishoo finished on 2-53.

Captain Jason Holder was the other standout bowler for the hosts, grabbing no wickets but returning 0-8 off 10 overs to restrict Pakistan.

Bad light ended play for the day with 69 overs bowled by the West Indies.

Earlier, Shehzad was saved twice by no-balls after lunch. First, the opener called for a review after being out leg before wicket in the 24th over but Gabriel overstepped in one of his 8 no-balls. Shortly before tea, Shehzad was stumped after carelessly straying from his crease but it was another no-ball, this time by Roston Chase.

Pakistan dismissed Holder in the first over of the day, century-maker Chase in the second over, and conceded only 26 runs to the home side, which resumed from 286-6 overnight.

In his earliest stroke of luck, Shehzad was dropped on 3 by Vishaul Singh at mid on off Gabriel.

Holder was the first wicket to fall off the third ball of the day, without adding to his overnight total of 58, and bringing his and Chase's seventh-wicket rescue partnership to an end at 132 runs. Fast bowler Mohammad Abbas caught Holder in two minds, and he edged behind.

Chase went in the next over, also without adding to his overnight score of 131. He edged fast bowler Mohammad Amir to the slips, where Younis took his third catch of the innings.

Eight down and the tail exposed, the West Indies didn't last much longer.

Abbas finished with 4-56 in 23 overs, Amir took 3-65, and Yasir Shah got his second wicket.

Pakistan, which won the first of three tests, is chasing its first test series victory in the Caribbean.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - One of the Republican lawmakers behind a bill that would require Wisconsin's state universities to suspend or expel student hecklers who disrupt speeches acknowledged Monday that it may be unconstitutional.

State Reps. Jesse Kremer and Dave Murphy, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf are circulating a bill that calls for University of Wisconsin System regents to suspend or expel students who engage twice in "violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, obscene, unreasonably loud, or other disorderly conduct that interferes with the free expression of others."

Critics say the language is so vague that it would be unconstitutional. Kremer told The Associated Press on Monday that he agrees and plans to introduce an amendment that pares down the description of punishable conduct to violence or disorderly conduct. He said he believed the changes would pass constitutional muster.

Critics have also taken issue with another provision in the bill that would require UW institutions to strive to remain neutral in public policy controversies, questioning whether that means UW institutions could no longer lobby. Kremer's office released a memorandum from legislative attorneys on Monday saying the language doesn't appear to amount to a prohibition on lobbying.

The bill comes as free speech issues have grown more contentious on college campuses across the country. Republicans are worried that conservative speakers don't get equal treatment, while some students have criticized invitations extended to speakers who they believe engage in hate-speech.

In Madison, home to the University of Wisconsin's flagship campus, students shouted down and traded obscene gestures with former Breitbart editor and conservative columnist Ben Shapiro during a presentation in November. And the University of California-Berkeley canceled a speech by conservative firebrand Ann Coulter that had been scheduled for this week due to security concerns. Protests broke out at the school in February ahead of a planned appearance by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Administrators decided to cancel the event about two hours before Yiannopoulos was set to speak.

In February 2016, fights broke out at New York University after protesters disrupted Gavin McInnes' speech on campus. McInnes, the founder of a group called the "Proud Boys" and a self-described "western chauvinist," was invited to speak by the NYU College Republicans.

___

Cara Lombardo contributed to this report.

___

Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trichmond1
DALLAS (AP) - The Latest on the Dallas shooting that left a paramedic critically injured (all times local):

4:50 p.m.

Dallas police say a shooting that critically wounded a paramedic started as a dispute between two neighbors.

Dallas Police walk a neighborhood a block away from a shooting in Dallas, Monday, May 1, 2017. Authorities said a Dallas paramedic has been shot while responding to a shooting call. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Interim Police Chief David Pughes said the suspected gunman was found dead in a Dallas home Monday as officers searched the neighborhood following the paramedic's shooting.

Investigators say the paramedic was among those responding to a shooting reported in the neighborhood east of downtown around 11:30 a.m.

Authorities say that as emergency responders treated a civilian who'd been shot, another person approached, opened fire and critically injured the paramedic.

Pughes says officers at the scene were told that the suspected shooter and the person found shot in the street were neighbors who'd had a dispute. He says officers were told "it was just a simple dispute between two neighbors that escalated into a shooting."

A second person also was found dead in the home, though no details have been released about that person.

___

4:15 p.m.

Dallas' mayor says two bodies have been found in a local home, including the body of a person suspected of shooting a paramedic.

Mayor Mike Rawlings said during a news conference Monday that a police robot found the bodies as authorities scoured a Dallas neighborhood following the shooting.

Authorities say the paramedic was shot and critically wounded while helping a shooting victim.

Rawlings says the paramedic is out of surgery and in intensive care. The mayor says the civilian is also in intensive care, but no other details were released.

The mayor says the threat is over in the neighborhood.

___

4 p.m.

Authorities are searching a Dallas neighborhood for a suspect who they believe shot and critically injured a paramedic who was helping a shooting victim.

Dozens of police vehicles have swarmed the largely residential area east of downtown. Police say they believe the suspect is still in the vicinity.

A 33-year-old woman told The Associated Press that her mother lives in the neighborhood and saw SWAT teams arrive Monday, though she didn't hear any gunfire

Brenda Salazar says she was already headed to visit her mother, but called after hearing about the shooting on the radio.

She says her mother told her she didn't hear any shooting but "saw the SWAT guys and police setting up and going into the neighborhood."

While waiting in the shade of a gas station sign across the street from a police barricade, Salazar says her mother was OK and is watching the news, "but this stuff happens here all the time."

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement saying his prayers were going out to all of those affected.

___

2:55 p.m.

Authorities are scouring a Dallas neighborhood for a suspect after a paramedic and a civilian were shot.

The city released a statement saying emergency responders were treating the civilian late Monday morning when another person approached, opened fired and critically injured the paramedic.

Dozens of police vehicles have swarmed the largely residential area and blocked off much of the neighborhood just east of downtown Dallas. Officials believe the suspect is still in the vicinity.

The city says the paramedic is in critical but stable condition at Baylor University Medical Center. Details about the civilian's condition haven't been released.

No details have been released about the shooter or what may have sparked the shooting.

___

1:50 p.m.

Dallas paramedic is in critical condition after being shot while responding to a shooting call, and that the scene remains active and dangerous.

The city released a statement saying officers were responding to a shooting around 11:30 a.m. Monday when a Dallas Fire-Rescue EMT Unit was struck. Dallas police say a paramedic was hit and is hospitalized in critical condition.

Authorities say the shooting occurred near the Dolphin Road Fire Training Academy east of downtown. Dozens of police vehicles have swarmed the mostly residential area.

Police spokesman Warren Mitchell says "the entire area is still active and very dangerous." No details have been released about the shooter or what may have sparked the shooting.

The Dallas Police Association tweeted earlier Monday that officers responding to an active shooter were "pinned down" by gunfire.

___

1:30 p.m.

Authorities say a Dallas paramedic has been shot while responding to a shooting and that the scene remains active and dangerous.

The city released a statement Monday saying officers were responding to a shooting around 11:30 a.m. when a Dallas Fire-Rescue EMT Unit was struck. The city says a paramedic was hit, transported to Baylor University Medical Center and is undergoing surgery.

Authorities say the shooting occurred near the Dolphin Road Fire Training Academy just east of downtown. Dozens of police vehicles could be seen swarming the mostly residential neighborhood.

Police spokesman Warren Mitchell released a statement saying "the entire area is still active and very dangerous." No details have been released about the shooter or what may have sparked the shooting.

The Dallas Police Association tweeted earlier Monday that officers responding to an active shooter were "pinned down" by gunfire.

___

1:10 p.m.

Authorities say a Dallas paramedic has been shot while responding to a shooting call and that the scene remains active.

The City of Dallas released a statement Monday saying officers were responding to a shooting around 11:30 a.m. when a Dallas Fire-Rescue EMT Unit was struck. The city says a paramedic was hit, transported to Baylor University Medical Center and is undergoing surgery.

Authorities say the shooting occurred near the Dolphin Road Fire Training Academy in Dallas. Dozens of police vehicles could be seen swarming the mostly residential neighborhood east of downtown near Interstate 30.

The Dallas Police Association tweeted earlier Monday that officers responding to an active shooter were "pinned down" by gunfire.

Dallas police say a spokesperson was on their way to the scene. No other details were immediately released
BELMAR, N.J. (AP) - New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez says the recent conviction of a longtime friend and campaign donor won't have an impact on the two men's upcoming corruption trial.

Eye doctor Salomon Melgen was convicted Friday in Florida on multiple counts of Medicare fraud.

Menendez told reporters at an event at the Jersey shore on Monday that Melgen's case "has nothing to do with" his case. Menendez wasn't called to testify at Melgen's trial.

Melgen and Menendez face trial in September on bribery and conspiracy charges. Menendez is charged with accepting campaign donations and gifts from Melgen in exchange for using his position to advance Melgen's business interests.

Menendez has said his actions were part of routine legislative duties and protected by the U.S. Constitution.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A journalist for the NPR has been released by South Sudan's government which held him for nearly four days, according to a spokeswoman for the organization.

Eyder Peralta was held for three nights and released on Monday, Isabel Lara, a spokeswoman for NPR told The Associated Press in an email. Peralta has returned to his base in Kenya.

Peralta's South Sudanese assistant is still being held by authorities. "The fixer remains in custody and we are in touch with authorities regarding his release," said the NPR spokeswoman.

South Sudan officials did not respond for requests for comment.

Peralta's detention was the latest in a crackdown on foreign journalists in South Sudan, the East African nation which gained independence in 2011 but has experienced renewed civil war. At least 13 foreign journalists have been denied media accreditation or visas to South Sudan so far this year. An AP reporter was detained and expelled from South Sudan in December.

Media freedom in South Sudan was significantly restricted before fighting in Juba in July killed hundreds of people and kicked off renewed civil war, according to a U.N. panel of experts report released earlier this month.

Since July the situation for journalists has gotten worse, and some journalists have been detained for publishing articles critical of the government, according to the U.N report.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least five journalists have been killed in South Sudan since it gained independence in 2011.

South Sudan ranks 145th in a press freedom survey released last week by Reporters Without Boarders.

South Sudan's civil war began in December 2013, and according to U.N. officials the country is experiencing famine, ethnic cleansing and is close to genocide.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz is returning to the Capitol, weeks earlier than expected following surgery last week in Utah.

Chaffetz had said he would be away from the Capitol for up to four weeks following surgery to remove screws and pins from a foot he shattered 12 years ago.

A spokeswoman said Monday that Chaffetz will return to Washington this week. She offered no explanation for his change of heart.

The decision by the five-term lawmaker gives Republican leaders another yes vote as they seek to approve a contentious bill to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's health care law.

The 50-year-old Chaffetz chairs the House Oversight Committee. He surprised political observers in Washington and Utah last month when he abruptly announced he will not seek re-election in 2018.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump opened the door Monday to a future meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, offering unusual praise for the globally ostracized leader at a time of surging nuclear tensions.

Although the White House played down near-term prospects for such a meeting, Trump's conciliatory comments marked a departure from his more unforgiving tone toward the North in recent days. It marked the latest fluctuation as Trump's administration struggles to articulate its policy for addressing the growing threat from North Korea's nuclear program.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Kennedy Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, May 1, 2017, to the Independent Community Bankers Association. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Clearly aware of the power of his declaration, he added: "We have breaking news."

As a presidential candidate, Trump suggested he was open to meeting Kim, but hadn't repeated the line since taking office. Fresh missile tests by the North and its progress toward developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States have made the isolated communist dictatorship one of America's top national security concerns.

Deeming President Barack Obama's "strategic patience" with North Korea a total failure, Trump and his aides say they're taking a more aggressive approach, at times warning of potential military confrontation if the North doesn't change course. The U.S. has even raised the possibility of a pre-emptive strike if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear test.

Yet on other occasions, Trump's administration has dangled carrots. It has spoken of restarting negotiations with the North and even suggested resuming food aid to North Korea once it starts dismantling its nuclear and missile programs.

On one point, at least, Trump and his team have been consistently clear: A solution requires China, the North's biggest economic partner. Trump is hoping China can pressure the North into a peaceful denuclearization. The Obama administration unsuccessfully sought the same objective for years.

Trump's suggestion of admiration for Kim, however, is something entirely new.

He noted that Kim assumed office in his 20s and has held power despite efforts by "a lot of people" to take it away.

"So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie," Trump told CBS' "Face the Nation" in an interview that aired Sunday.

Tasked with explaining Trump's flattery, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said there would be no meeting with the secretive North Korean leader until circumstances were right and numerous conditions met. He said Kim should have to alter his government's behavior and "show signs of good faith."

"Clearly, conditions are not there right now," Spicer said.

But echoing Trump's gentler tone, Spicer said Kim had "managed to lead a country forward" from a young age. Spicer didn't mention that under Kim, North Korea's government remains strictly authoritarian and dissent isn't tolerated. Much of the country is impoverished and malnourished.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has urged a tough approach to North Korea, warned that Trump would be legitimizing Kim by granting a meeting to the leader of a brutal regime.

"The only time he should meet with him is to get the details of how North Korea will abandon their nuclear weapons program," McCain told reporters.

Trump's musings about a potential meeting with Kim were reminiscent of Barack Obama's declaration during his 2008 campaign that he'd be willing to meet without pre-condition with the leaders of North Korea, Iran, Cuba and other nations long at odds with the U.S. Republicans and Obama's Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, criticized Obama for that statement. As president, Obama ultimately spoke by phone with Iran's leader and traveled to Cuba amid an historic detente with the island nation.

The U.S. maintains no diplomatic relations with North Korea and the two countries are technically at war, as the 1950-1953 Korean conflict ended without a peace treaty. The North makes no secret of its intention to develop a nuclear weapons system capable of striking the U.S. mainland. In recent weeks, North Korea has conducted major military drills, test-fired missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions and taken preparatory steps toward a fifth nuclear test, steps that have fueled growing U.S. concerns and prompted Trump to send an aircraft carrier to the area.

The president's latest comments on North Korea came as his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, was in South Korea, where tens of millions of people live within artillery range of the northern border. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week chaired a U.N. Security Council meeting and urged countries to ramp up sanctions and suspend diplomatic ties with the North to increase pressure.

___

Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report.

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A student with a large hunting knife stabbed at least four people Monday on the University of Texas campus, killing one and seriously wounding the others before surrendering to police, authorities said.

There was no immediate word about a motive.

Student Rachel Prichett said she was standing in line at a food truck outside a gym when she saw a man with a knife resembling a machete approach the person standing behind her.

A man is arrested after a fatal stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Ray Arredondo via AP)

"The guy was standing next to me," Prichett said. "He grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved the knife in it. I just started running as fast as I could."

Police identified the suspect as 21-year-old Kendrex J. White.

University police Chief David Carter described the weapon as a "Bowie-style" hunting knife. He said the stabbings occurred within a one-block area as the attacker "calmly walked around the plaza."

Another student, Ray Arredondo, said he was walking to his car when a mass of students near the gym started running.

"They were just screaming, 'Run! Get out of here!'" Arredondo said.

One person died at the scene near the gym. The others were taken to the hospital. There were reports of additional victims with non-life-threatening injuries, according to tweets from Travis County Emergency Medical Services.

The attacker did not resist when officers confronted him at gunpoint, Carter said.

Lindsey Clark said she saw the suspect get tackled by police as he was running toward the entrance of Jester Hall, a complex of dormitories and classrooms. She described him as wearing a bandanna and gray sweatshirt and said he appeared quiet and subdued as police held him on the ground.

"You could see and hear people running and screaming: 'There he is!'" before he was tackled by officers, Clark said.

Carter said it would be "premature" to discuss the suspect's motive and "what was going through his mind."

Arredondo later saw what looked like CPR being performed on someone outside the front door of the gym. Another student was sitting on a bench being treated for cuts to the head or neck, he said.

Authorities cordoned off the scene as a large contingent of state and local police, including officers in helicopters, swarmed the area.

The University of Texas is blocks from downtown Austin and the Texas Capitol and is one of the nation's largest universities.

White was an active member of the Black Health Professionals Organization student organization on campus, said Melody Adindu, the group's new president. She said White was passionate about his work and was "very interactive and easygoing."

Some of White's former classmates at Killeen High School, near the gates of the Fort Hood Army post in Central Texas, had similar recollections of him.

"He was a really smart guy in high school, he was always nice, had plenty of friends, and was in the International Baccalaureate program. I'm definitely surprised he would do this," Kay'Lynn Wilkerson told the Killeen Daily Herald.

Ex-classmate Angela Bonilla called White "the sweetest guy, laughing and having a good time with people".

Adindu and other students complained on social media it took too long for the campus officials to send a text alert of the attack. Texts to students showed a nearly 30-minute lag between the arrest and warning, even though city and county emergency offices were tweeting about the incident when they first responded.

Carter said White was confronted and arrested within two minutes of the first call to police and the situation was immediately under control. The campus siren wasn't used because there was no need for a lockdown to keep people in place, he said.

"There was no ongoing threat. We had him in custody as soon as we arrived," Carter said.

The attack occurred in the central campus, just a short walk from the administration building and the landmark clock tower that was the scene of a mass shooting in 1966.

"This breaks my heart that any of our students are touched by tragedy. They come here to learn, to look to the future," said university President Greg Fenves.

The stabbings came only a few days after a 19-year-old man armed with a machete wounded two people at a university coffee shop in Lexington, Kentucky.

In the April 28 attack, the assailant at Transylvania University asked about the political affiliations of people at the shop. He was arrested and charged with assault. The victims' wounds were not life-threatening, authorities said.

___

Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.

Law enforcement officers secure the scene after a fatal stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus Monday, May, 1, 2017. (Tamir Kalifa/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Law enforcement officers secure the scene after a fatal stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus Monday, May, 1, 2017. (Tamir Kalifa/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Law enforcement officers secure the scene after a fatal stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus Monday, May, 1, 2017. (Tamir Kalifa/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Emergency personal work near the scene after a fatal stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus Monday, May, 1, 2017. (Tamir Kalifa/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Students wait near the scene after a fatal stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus Monday, May, 1, 2017. (Tamir Kalifa/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

A person is treated by first responders after a deadly stabbing attack on University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Emily Johnson via AP)

A person is treated by first responders after a deadly stabbing attack on University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas, Monday, May 1, 2017. (Emily Johnson via AP)

Officials investigate after a fatal stabbing attack at the University of Texas campus, Monday, May 1, 2017, in Austin, Texas. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

Officials investigate after a fatal stabbing attack at the University of Texas campus, Monday, May 1, 2017, in Austin, Texas. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
NENANA, Alaska (AP) - Alaska's favorite spring guessing contest has concluded.

Nenana Ice Classic manager Cherrie Forness (SHAYR-ee for-NESS) says ice on the Tanana (TA-nah-nah) River went out at 1 p.m. Monday.

For contest purposes, that means the official correct guess for winning the annual contest is 12 p.m. Alaska Standard Time.

The jackpot is $267,444. Forness says the number of winning tickets should be known by the end of the week.

The annual guessing contest started in 1916 when surveyors for the Alaska Railroad bet when the ice would go out.

Thousands of people now pay $2.50 per guess. Organizers split proceeds between payouts and Nenana charitable organizations.

The winning time is determined when a cable attached to a tripod on the river ice trips a clock on shore.
NORTHFIELD, Minn. (AP) - The Latest on protests against racist incidents at St. Olaf College (all times local):

5:30 p.m.

Students protesting recent incidents at St. Olaf College in Minnesota have reached an agreement with the school's president aimed at fighting racism on campus.

Hundreds of students boycotted classes at the Lutheran liberal arts college in southern Minnesota on Monday. They packed an administration building to protest a rash of racist and threatening messages left around the private school's campus, where the student body is 74 percent white.

Protests first erupted this weekend after a black student found an anonymous note on her windshield calling her a racial slur.

After the boycott was announced, the St. Olaf administration canceled classes for the day.

College President David Anderson met with protesters in the afternoon and signed an agreement on how to proceed with addressing issues of racism.

___

9 a.m.

Hundreds of students have packed an administration building for a protest at St. Olaf College as students boycott classes to protest recent racist incidents at the school in the southern Minnesota town of Northfield.

The latest incident happened Saturday when a woman found a note with a racial slur on her car. The note demanded that she "shut up or I will shut you up."

Speakers have been demanding that the private Lutheran liberal arts college adopt a policy of zero tolerance for racism.

The St. Olaf administration has released a statement saying hateful and threatening messages such as the one found Saturday are unacceptable. They say an active investigation is under way. They say someone, somewhere knows who's responsible and asked for help in identifying the individuals involved.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) - An inmate shot two sheriff's deputies, killing one of them, and escaped from an Iowa jail on Monday before he was recaptured a short time later following a high-speed chase across the state border in Nebraska.

Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker said Wesley Williams Correa-Carmenaty, 23, managed to steal a sheriff's deputy's gun after he returned from court and shot the two deputies around 11 a.m.

Then Correa-Carmenaty stole the transport van and crashed through a garage door at the Pottawattamie County Jail in Council Bluffs, which is just across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska.

An Omaha police officer points his rifle in the direction of a vehicle headed eastbound on Cuming Street driven by an inmate who escaped from the Pottawattamie County jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and carjacked a Nissan Sentra, Monday, May 1, 2017, in Omaha, Neb. The inmate was captured after crashing the stolen vehicle during a police chase in neighboring Nebraska. (Chris Machian/The World-Herald via AP)

Danker said it's a tragedy that 43-year-old Mark Burbridge died shortly after noon at an Omaha hospital. The other wounded deputy and a civilian who was shot during a failed carjacking were both in fair condition at a different Omaha hospital.

"He was an excellent man. We're going to miss him," Danker said.

Authorities are still working to determine how Correa-Carmenaty obtained the gun and whether he had been able to free himself from his shackles during the ride back from court. One other inmate was in the van, but Danker said he didn't believe she was involved.

After escaping the jail, Correa-Carmenaty tried to steal a pickup truck and shot the driver, but continued on in the jail van.

Then in a neighborhood about two miles away, Correa-Carmenaty took a woman's car at gunpoint and drove to Omaha where he dropped her off at a liquor store.

The suspect was recaptured after crashing during a high-speed chase. When he was arrested, authorities said Correa-Carmenaty's hands were free, and police found a gun in the car.

Correa-Carmenaty was sentenced Monday to 45 years in prison for his role in a botched robbery in March 2016. He had pleaded guilty in January to voluntary manslaughter, attempted murder and two counts of robbery in connection with the slaying of 22-year-old Anthony Walker.

Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilbur said he regretted making a deal with Correa-Carmenaty even before the deadly escape because of the lack of remorse he showed.

Wilbur said Correa-Carmenaty was "cold and flat" during the hearing.

Correa-Carmenaty is being held in Omaha on suspicion of kidnapping, fleeing to avoid arrest and using weapons. But Wilbur said he will work to bring him back to Iowa to prosecute him on charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Before Monday's escape, there had been only three Pottawattamie County Sheriff's deputies killed in the line of duty since 1848. The most recent death was in 1981.
Loud blasts echoed in Toronto's financial district Monday and smoke billowed from under a busy street, disrupting car traffic and subway service.

Fire department officials said a fire erupting around 5pm in an underground vault holding high-voltage transformers was to blame.

Toronto Fire Services said was caused by an overheated hydro vault, reported CBC News.

Police Constable Allyson Douglas Cook said there were no indications of any terrorism link.

'It's energized, electrical equipment that's in the vault, it overheats, starts melting down ... so that's where you're hearing the crackle and the popping,' Platoon Chief Kevin Shaw told reporters. 'There [were] visible flames out of there probably a half hour ago, but we feel that it's definitely under control now.'

Police block the street as smoke pours into the air following a series of loud blasts were heard in Toronto on Monday

Police said the fire in an underground vault holding transformers was not caused by terrorism

The blast occurred around 5pm, disrupting rush hour traffic and subway service

Brown and black smoke emanated from the street grates, as did purple fire and sparks

Police cleared the normally busy King street in front of the Bank of Nova Scotia headquarters during rush hour. Subways bypassed King Station and streetcars were diverted.

Witnesses said they were heard multiple explosions that rocked the sidewalk beneath them.

'It definitely sounded like some type of explosion, but not like fireworks. I don't know how to describe it - not like fun, you know what I mean?' eyewitness Mike Amsterdam, who filmed the scene with his phone, said.

The area, which contains five major banks, was temporarily completely shut down

The area is where Toronto's five major banks are headquartered.

Miraculously, no injuries were reported.

Billowing brown and black smoke came from under the street and purple flames were seen poking out of a grate, reported City News.

Sparks could also be seen emanating from multiple grates on the sidewalk.

Carbon dioxide tanks were rushed to the scene to control the fire.

There was a report of power going out at RBC tower at 20 King West and people being evacuated.
Princess Charlotte is about to celebrate her second birthday.

The past year has seen the royal youngster undertake her first overseas royal tour, develop a love of horses and say her first public words.

The Queens birthday

The Duchess of Cornwall, Queen Elizabeth II, The Duchess of Cambridge with Princess Charlotte, and the Duke of Edinburgh watching the flypast from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, during the Trooping the Colour ceremony to mark the Queen's official 90th birthday, in central London

Shortly after turning one, Charlotte helped celebrate her great-grandmothers official 90th birthday, making her debut on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the Trooping the Colour parade in June.

Carried by the Duchess of Cambridge, Charlotte, dressed in a pale pink dress with a pink bow clip in her hair, pointed as she spotted the crowds of well-wishers.

Kate revealed a little about her daughters nature at a Guildhall reception, telling a guest: She is very cute, but she has got quite a feisty side.

Canada travels

TRH were delighted to have the opportunity to introduce George and Charlotte to children from Canadian military families #RoyalVisitCanada pic.twitter.com/1w6WMScnDE  The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) September 29, 2016

The Cambridges charmed Canada in September when the Duke of Cambridge, Kate, Charlotte and big brother Prince George carried out their first official overseas tour as a family of four.

Highlights included a childrens tea party where Charlotte was heard saying her first public words including Pop and Dada.

Love of horses

(Andrew Matthews/PA)

Kate told Britains Olympians and Paralympians at a palace reception that Charlotte has inherited a very royal trait, a love of horses.

Equestrian gold medallist Natasha Baker said: She emphasised that Charlotte has this passion about horses, and although she doesnt echo it, shell do her best to champion and encourage it.

Teaching William a thing or two

Princess Charlotte being held by the Duke of Cambridge

In an interview with a Vietnamese chat show in November, the Duke admitted: Bearing in mind I havent had a sister so having a daughter is a very different dynamic. So Im learning about having a daughter, having a girl in the family.

The Duke is already thinking about her 25th birthday

The Duke: "Children born this year-like my daughter Charlotte-will see the last wild elephants and rhinos die before their 25th birthdays"  The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) October 19, 2015

William is a vociferous critic of poaching and voiced fears the African elephant may disappear from the wild as the Princess hits her mid-twenties.

By the time my daughter Charlotte was born last year, the numbers of savannah elephants had crashed to just 350,000, he told campaigners in September.

And at the current pace of illegal poaching, when Charlotte turns 25 the African elephant will be gone from the wild.

Surprising Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck on The Graham Norton Show

Actor Ben Affleck admitted he did not even spot Charlotte and George, when his own child started playing with them at an indoor park.

I noticed this weird vibe from the other grown-ups, he told the BBCs The Graham Norton Show. They were all very well dressed and they had earpieces and I thought, For a kids place this is tight security.

I was the very last person to realise that Prince George and Princess Charlotte were in there playing with my kid.

Christmas Day appearance

Princess Charlotte

Charlotte has not been seen in public for more than four months as William and Kate keep to their pledge to allow their children to grow up away from the media.

The princess last made an appearance dressed in a smart navy coat and red tights on Christmas Day when she went to church with William, Kate, George and the Middletons.

Shes learning to be kind and talk about her feelings

(Chris Jackson/PA )

Kate told a school assembly during a visit in February: My parents taught me about the importance of qualities like kindness, respect and honesty, and I realise how central values like these have been to me throughout my life.

That is why William and I want to teach our little children George and Charlotte just how important these things are as they grow up.

When William promoted the Heads Together drive to end the stigma surrounding mental health last week, he called for an end to the stiff upper lip culture, saying he wanted George and Charlotte to be able to talk about their feelings and emotions.
Victories for Chelsea at Everton and Tottenham against Arsenal meant the gap at the top of the table stayed at four points heading into the final four games.

At the bottom, Sunderlands relegation was finally confirmed with defeat by Bournemouth and Middlesbrough look set to follow.

Here, Press Association Sport picks out five things we learned from the weekends action.

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte celebrates victory after the Premier League match at Goodison Park, Liverpool (Nigel French/PA)

Chelsea nearly there

Nothing better than an another victory with the guys for @ChelseaFC pic.twitter.com/kwLyIawUGK  N'Golo Kante (@nglkante) April 30, 2017

A 2-0 victory over Arsenal made it nine Premier League wins in a row for Tottenham, yet still they remain four points behind Chelsea with time running out. Spurs fans would surely have marked out a trip to Goodison Park as a likely stumbling block for Antonio Contes men but ultimately they cleared the hurdle easily with a 3-0 victory. With Middlesbrough, West Brom, Watford and Sunderland the teams now standing in Chelseas way, north London hopes are fading fast.

St Totteringhams day laid to rest

The perfect derby day send-off for our historic home... #TheLaneTheFinale pic.twitter.com/YjNHZkFHed  Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) April 30, 2017

Finally, at the 22nd time of asking, Tottenham will finish ahead of Arsenal. Of all the frustrations for Gunners fans, the fact they will not be able to celebrate St Totteringhams Day  marking the day each season since 1995 when Spurs could no longer finish ahead of their great rivals  is a minor but painful detail. What was more telling was how easily they were pulled apart by Spurs, with the 2-0 victory taking Mauricio Pochettinos team 17 points clear of their neighbours. The final north London derby at White Hart Lane will certainly be one to remember for the Spurs faithful. Whether it will also be Arsene Wengers last remains to be seen.

Battle for top four to go to the wire

A vital point for Swansea dents Man Utd's top four hopes#MUNSWA pic.twitter.com/RlFfmYPQYO  Premier League (@premierleague) April 30, 2017

While Tottenham and Chelsea fight it out at the top, it continues to be a case of after you for the rest of the Champions League chasers. Liverpool appeared to have shot themselves in the foot with defeat by Crystal Palace last weekend but, ahead of their meeting with Watford on Monday, Jurgen Klopps men remain in third. After drawing with each other on Thursday, Manchester City and Manchester United both had to settle for draws with teams in the bottom three on Sunday. One point separates the three sides and Arsenal are still not out of it either.

Middlesbrough are still doomed

GOAL Boro 2-2 Man City (85 mins). The visitors are level again! Gabriel Jesus rises highest to head in from Sergio Aguero's cross #MIDMCI  Premier League (@premierleague) April 30, 2017

Boro came out of Sundays 2-2 draw against Manchester City with a lot of credit but a point that did little to help their survival chances. A midweek victory over Sunderland  their first in the Premier League since December  had offered a sliver of hope to Boro fans. And when they led City 2-1 with 10 minutes to go, the impossible seemed like it might just be possible. But Gabriel Jesus equaliser left Boro six points off safety with only three games left.

Hughes feeling the heat

 Mark Hughes reacts to this afternoon's @premierleague draw with @WestHamUtd at the bet365 Stadium.



SUBSCRIBE  https://t.co/OAfDvhjaLn pic.twitter.com/Pnwce1tNht  Stoke City FC (@stokecity) April 29, 2017

Stokes season started badly and looks set to finish with tension in the Potteries. Perhaps a real flirt with relegation would have left Stoke fans grateful for mid-table mediocrity instead of turning their ire on manager Mark Hughes. The Welshman has led the Potters to top-10 finishes in the last three seasons and cited raised expectations for the feelings of disquiet among sections of supporters. Saturdays goalless draw against West Ham did little to change the mood and Hughes side have games against Bournemouth, Arsenal and Southampton to raise spirits ahead of the summer.
A man has been charged with murder in connection with a stabbing on a London bus.

Archie Sheppard, 48, was found fatally injured on the top deck of a bus in Marylebone in the early hours of Friday morning after suffering a violent and sustained attack.

Scotland Yard (Sean Dempsey/PA)

Paramedics were called to the Route 189 bus in Gloucester Place but Mr Sheppard, from Neasden, north-west London, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Scotland Yard said they had charged John Doherty, 38, with murder and two counts of possession of an offensive weapon.

Doherty, of Fulham, west London, will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.
Americas CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but would not say for how long.

South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Koreas National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a US aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters.

Japan's helicopter carrier Izumo departs Yokosuka port (Ren Onuma/Kyodo News via AP)

A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort US naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a US supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japans military a greater role overseas.

They said the US ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japans Defence Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a Second World War naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilising the region.

Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world, Mr Turnbull said.

Together, were taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region.

Mr Turnbull is to meet Mr Trump for the first time on Thursday in New York.
Kevin Kisner and team-mate Scott Brown will face Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith in a play-off for the Zurich Classic of New Orleans title on Monday following a remarkable finish on Sunday evening.

Long-time leaders Blixt and Smith had looked set to win the two-man competition  the first official team event on the PGA Tour in 36 years  after finding themselves in a seemingly invincible position on the par-five 18th.

However, Kisner stunned their opponents by chipping in for an eagle from 95 feet to leave Smith needing to hole his short birdie putt to avoid defeat.

Kevin Kisner shows the ball after sinking a chip shot for an eagle on the 18th hole

With darkness closing in at TPC Louisiana following delays of more than six hours because of thunderstorms, the 23-year-old Australian coolly drained his putt to leave both teams on 27 under par for the tournament and set up a play-off on Monday.

Smith and his Swedish team-mate Blixt sat atop the leaderboard after both the second and third rounds, and boasted a four-shot lead coming until Sundays fourballs.

Jonas Blixt seeks his third career PGA TOUR victory.@CamSmithGolf is in search of his first. pic.twitter.com/hZDWQDPtzN  PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 1, 2017

Their impressive final round of 64 included eight birdies, but it was not enough to hold off the challenge of American duo Kisner and Brown, who finished with a 12-under-par 60.

They picked up shots on 10 of the opening 11 holes in a blistering start before Kisners late heroics kept them in contention for the title.

Kisner said of his briskly-hit shot which brought the eagle: We knew we had to have it. All I was trying to do was make sure I didnt leave it short. I couldnt see much. I knew it was breaking a little right, and when it hit the flag I said, Dont you come out of there.'

Blixt said on www.pgatour.com: You have to expect the unexpected.

We have another shot at it tomorrow, and we just have to leave this behind and try to go out there and make birdie or eagle on 18 tomorrow and try and win this tournament.
Anthony Joshua has set his sights on fighting a real villain as he plans his next move after overcoming Wladimir Klitschko in an epic showdown at Wembley.

Joshua added the WBA title to his IBF crown after stopping Klitschko in the 11th round in front of an estimated 90,000 crowd on Saturday night.

I respect anyone that steps into the ring #AJBoxing pic.twitter.com/9HFKGpDs4i  Anthony Joshua (@anthonyjoshua) April 30, 2017

The 27-year-old will now have his pick of opponents to choose from as he looks to further establish himself as the worlds leading heavyweight.

Anthony Joshua

A rematch with Klitschko is a possibility, while WBC champion Deontay Wilder has already said he would relish a unification fight, but it is an all-British showdown with Tyson Fury that would most capture the imagination.

Whoever Joshua comes up against next, he admits he would like to face a villain.

Wellldone @anthonyfjoshua good fight, you had life & death with @klitschko & I played with the guy, let's dance  pic.twitter.com/alLRHPb513  TYSON FURY (@Tyson_Fury) April 29, 2017

The Briton, whose fight against Klitschko was a played out amidst a backdrop of mutual respect and civility, told the Guardian: At the end of the fight they (the British fans) cheered Wladimir but, yes it would be nice to fight a real villain.

We can definitely find someone to dance with again, to bring that sort of attention again. Anyone with a belt is good, to add more to the (collection). We could rematch Klitschko again.

I think that would be good because of the type of fight we had. And I think even guys without a belt would be good. Tyson Fury obviously hasnt got a belt.

(Fury represents) a fight that would bring massive attention from the top to the bottom.

@anthonyfjoshua challenge accepted. We will give the world  the biggest fight in a 500 years. I will play with u. You are a boxers dream.  TYSON FURY (@Tyson_Fury) April 29, 2017

Fury has not fought after beating Klitschko in November 2015 and last year he surrendered the titles he won in that fight to focus on his mental health problems.

It remains to be seen when, or if, Fury returns to the ring but both he and Joshua have been actively urging the other to make a potential showdown between the two undefeated heavyweights become a reality.

A rematch with 41-year-old Klitschko is also a possibility for Joshua and would prove a similarly lucrative and high-profile option to facing Fury.

Really enjoyed the fight, I hope you did too. Thank you for your amazing support. I can truly feel it. Respect&congrats to @anthonyfjoshua  Klitschko (@Klitschko) April 30, 2017

When discussing a potential return with Joshua, Klitschko  whose points defeat by Fury in 2015 means he has lost twice in succession  insisted he had a rematch clause he could choose to exercise.

Klitschko inflicted a first knockdown of Joshuas career with a devastating right hand in the sixth round of Saturdays clash, but in the 11th the Ukrainian suffered his second and third knockdowns of the fight before being stopped on his feet  potentially reducing his desire for a rematch.

Joshua said: I think he will want to (fight me again) because a fighter is the last one to know when its time to stop. But I think the team around him, ie his wife, and they normally wear the trousers, and his brother (Vitali), they will advise him differently.
Jeremy Corbyn has hit out at Theresa Mays Brexit negotiating strategy, warning her megaphone diplomacy would not get a good deal from Britain.

The Labour leader said threatening to walk away from the talks without an agreement was not a sensible way of dealing with countries responsible for half of the UKs overseas trade.

His comments came amid weekend reports that European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker said Mrs May was from a different galaxy after they met last week for dinner in Downing Street.

Theresa May greets European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker

Campaigning in Battersea, south London, Mr Corbyn said a Labour government would approach the negotiations with respect and sense.

She (Mrs May) seems to be sending rather mixed messages.

To start negotiations by threatening to walk away with no deal and set up a low tax economy on the shores of Europe is not a very sensible way of approaching people with whom half of our trade is done at the present time.

Jeremy Corbyn, centre, with Labour's John Healey, left

Of course they are going to be difficult (negotiations), but you start from the basis that you want to reach an agreement, you start from the basis that you have quite a lot of shared interests and values.

If you start from that basis and show respect, you are more likely to get a good deal. But if you start with a megaphone, calling people silly names, it is not a great start to anything.

Reports from Brussels suggested that Mr Juncker warned a summit of leaders from the remaining EU 27 on Saturday that the Brexit negotiations could collapse because of the differences of the two sides on key issues.

A broken Union flag against a backdrop of the EU flag

They followed Wednesdays meeting at No 10  which was also attended by the EU s chief negotiator Michel Barnier  which was said to have gone very badly.

Afterwards, Mr Juncker was said to have telephoned German chancellor Angela Merkel to warn her that Mrs Mays approach to the negotiations was from a different galaxy to the other member states.

His comments prompted Mrs Merkel to issue her own warning of illusions held within the UK that achieving a deal would be straightforward.

Angela Merkel

Mrs May sought to play down the reports, saying they simply showed that the forthcoming negotiations would be tough at times.

However they were seized upon by opposition parties who said the Government was heading for a hard Brexit which would leave people worse off.
Tim Farron has stood by claims of being a Eurosceptic as he vowed to fight for a public vote on the terms of the Brexit deal.

The Liberal Democrat leader urged party activists who braved the rain in Kingston not to weep into your latte over Brexit as he pledged to put staying in Europe at the heart of the campaign.

Tim Farron

As he kicked off the Lib Dems election battle bus tour, he was joined by Richmond Park MP Sarah Olney and former cabinet ministers Sir Vince Cable and Sir Ed Davey, who are both standing in south west London after losing their seats in 2015.

Mr Farron told the Press Association that there should be a public vote on the final Brexit deal and pledged to fight for a second referendum.

Asked about describing himself as a bit of a Eurosceptic on BBC Ones Andrew Marr show, he said: I am massively pro-Europe but I am also somebody who is sceptical about people who hold power.

What we dont want is somebody who is wide-eyed and complacent about taking us out of the European Union, particularly on the hardest version of Brexit that Theresa May appears now to have chosen.

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron tells party activists in rainy Surbiton there is a "vacancy in opposition" #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/7EMcr7l63D  Lizzy Buchan (@LizzyBuchan) May 1, 2017

His comments came amid reports that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said Mrs May was from a different galaxy on Brexit.

Mr Farron went on: We are utterly clear about the fact that Britains best future is inside the European Union and our job is to make sure we get the best outcome possible from any potential deal.

We are most likely to get the referendum we want on the deal if the Liberal Democrats do as well as we are proposing in this election and actually become the opposition to the Conservatives.

Former business secretary Sir Vince, who is campaigning to regain his Twickenham seat, called for the public to have another say on the disastrous exit strategy.

Sir Vince Cable, left, with Sarah Olney and Sir Ed Davey

Referring to a newspaper headline calling on Mrs May to crush Brexit saboteurs, he said: Thats us. The country needs us, it needs an effective opposition that will challenge, and when at the end of this we get a bad outcome or no outcome, somebody needs to say, When you are in a hole, stop digging.

Let the public have another say on this disastrous exit that we are pursuing.

The Lib Dems were also campaigning in Sutton and Cheam, and Hornsey and Wood Green, as they seek to tip the scale in marginal constituencies.

And we're off! Our @LibDems battle bus takes its first journey. It'll be travelling across Britain. #changebritainsfuture pic.twitter.com/TFgNTs30Xn  Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) May 1, 2017

Sutton and Cheam appears to have a more even split of Remain and Leave voters, but Mr Farron has planned to visit in the hope that the Lib Dems can take back the seat it lost to the Tories in 2015, having previously held it since 1997.

The party leader also intended to take the fight to Labour in Hornsey and Wood Green, where he was expected to reprise attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, given that it is held by his ally Catherine West.
Police have fired tear gas at protesters on the sidelines of a May Day workers march in Paris.

Scores of hooded youths threw Molotov cocktails at security forces who fired back with tear gas during the march on Monday.

French riot police officers face protestors during the May Day demonstration

The annual march to celebrate workers rights this year included calls to block far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen from winning the presidency during a run-off election on Sunday.

Video showed riot police surrounding the protesters disrupting the march after isolating most of them from the rest of the crowd near the Place de la Bastille. However, some continued to lob firebombs that exploded into flames in the street.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was injured in the incidents.
Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans title after a play-off with Kevin Kisner and Scott Brown.

Blixt and Smith looked to have the first official team event on the PGA Tour in 36 years sewn up on Sunday before a remarkable finish saw the long-time leaders caught at the last.

Kisner had stunned his opponents by chipping in for an eagle from 95 feet to force extra holes, although darkness at TPC Louisiana meant they had to return on Monday to play them.

Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith won the Zurich Classic.

Playing fourballs, the quartet all parred the first two attempts at sudden-death down the 18th.

The play-off reverted to the ninth where Swedens Blixt pitched to five feet only to then fluff his putt for the win.

However, on the third trip down the 18th, Australian Smith knocked his approach to two feet and birdied to seal his first PGA Tour title and Blixts third.

Smith and Blixt had sat atop the leaderboard after both the second and third rounds and boasted a four-shot lead coming into Sundays fourballs.

Their impressive final round of 64 included eight birdies but it was not enough to see off the challenge of American duo Kisner and Brown, who finished with a 12-under-par 60.
Team Sky have suspended Gianni Moscon for six weeks and given the Italian a formal written warning after he racially abused FDJs Kevin Reza earlier this week.

The incident occurred after the finish of Fridays stage three of the Tour de Romandie  which was won by Skys Elia Viviani.

A statement from Team Sky said: Following a disciplinary meeting with Team Sky concerning an incident at the Tour of Romandie, Gianni Moscon has been given a formal written warning and suspended from racing for six weeks. He will also attend a diversity awareness course.

Team Sky have suspended Gianni Moscon.

Gianni recognises that his behaviour was wrong and how seriously Team Sky take this kind of incident.

He apologised to Kevin Reza after the stage and again to him and his team the following morning, and this apology was accepted. Gianni knows that there is no excuse for his behaviour and that any repeat will result in termination of his contract.

Sky chose not to withdraw Moscon from the race, which concluded on Sunday, following discussions with FDJ.

Moscon, 23, is in his second season with Team Sky.
Ben Stokes blasted his maiden Twenty20 hundred despite a calf concern to lead Rising Pune Supergiant to an Indian Premier League victory over Gujarat Lions.

The competitions most expensive foreign player was back after missing two games with a shoulder injury and he lived up to his 1.7million price tag with a brilliant unbeaten 103 as RPS chased down 161 to win by five wickets.

Stokes knock, which came from 63 deliveries and included seven fours and six maximums, was even more remarkable in that he came in with his team 10 for three and had to fight through cramp in his calf which required treatment out in the middle prior to the last over.

Ben Stokes hit an unbeaten 103.

It was the fourth century of this seasons IPL and only the second by an Englishman after Kevin Pietersen also made 103 in 2012 while it also shattered Stokes previous Twenty20 best of 77 which he made on his Big Bash debut in 2015.

We lost quite a few early wickets, that start didnt help us, but me and MS (Dhoni) were just trying to tick along and get something going and then try and capitalise in the end, Stokes said in a post-match interview broadcast on Sky Sports.

We took it like a numbers game, over by over, realised what we got, tried to go big at the start of the over and if we got there we tried to cool off. It worked  one of the good days.

Its always nice, personal accolades, but were on a roll as a team and if we keep winning these tight games hopefully we can get through to the final.

On his injury, Stokes added: It was just cramp in the calves, just one of those things, I get it quite a lot. My legs arent feeling the best but they will be alright in the morning.

Stokes was only on 26 when he was involved in a mix-up with Rahul Tripathi that saw the latter run out, though it could easily have been his partner had he not scampered through for an attempted second.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Stokes then came together and put on 76 and though it still looked like a tall order, the IPLs most pricey foreign import cut loose alongside Daniel Christian, who won it with a maximum off the penultimate ball.
Two people have been arrested after the death of a man who was stabbed in the chest in south-east London.

The victim, aged 26, died on Friday afternoon following reports of an altercation in Peckham Rye.

Video footage and pictures posted on social media showed four police cars and sirens blaring following the incident as people looked on in the aftermath in broad daylight.

Chaos in Peckham rye. Being told somebody has been stabbed.  pic.twitter.com/7EGG756qbI  Ryan Riley (@RyanRileyy) April 28, 2017

On Monday police said they had arrested a 22-year-old man on suspicion of murder and a 28-year-old man on suspicion of assisting an offender.

DCI Dave Whellams asked anyone who had filmed the altercation to come forward.

He said: I am appealing directly to any witnesses  and in particular any of those people who have recorded footage  to contact police as soon as possible.

The results of a post-mortem showed the victim had been stabbed in the chest and arm, police said.

A man was stabbed to death in Peckham Rye.

Meanwhile a man has been charged following a stabbing on Thursday at Dulwich Park, south-east London.

A 31-year-old-man was found at the scene with a stab wound to his head and police said he remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Jermaine McDonald, 26, of no fixed address, is due to appear at Camberwell Green Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with GBH, robbery, attempted robbery and possession of an offensive weapon.
MEXICO CITY, April 27 (Reuters) - Relations between the United States and Mexico have seen "enormous progress" during the first months of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Thursday.

His remarks followed a Wednesday night call between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in which the leaders discussed the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Videgaray said the call, which was initiated by Pena Nieto and lasted about 20 minutes, focused exclusively on the looming talks over NAFTA's "renegotiation and modernization." He noted that Trump wanted to see the talks accelerated.

"We have generated a respectful dynamic through dialogue ... we've advanced enormously in the correct direction," Videgaray told local broadcaster Televisa in an interview.

He added that the two leaders did not set a date for a summit.

Videgaray struck an optimistic tone despite noting that the U.S. and Mexican governments still had "many well-known public differences."

"I believe that all the conditions to reach a good negotiation exist, that will suit Mexico ... and that is also good for the region, for both Canada and the United States," said Videgaray, who previously served as finance minister.

Trump said earlier on Thursday morning on Twitter that renegotiating NAFTA with neighboring Mexico and Canada was "very possible," but he threatened to scrap the pact if the countries failed to reach a "fair deal for all."

(Reporting by Veronica Gomez and David Alire Garcia; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and W Simon)
It has been a rocky road these past few days - more on roads later in this column - and it is all due to debate on the biennium budget. The Appropriations Committee has spent months preparing the budget proposals. When the committee first began their internal discussions, those members agreed that three priority areas should not be targeted for cuts, in order to prevent irreversible damage to those programs.

The three areas prioritized by Appropriations make up the majority of the state budget. 44 percent of the budget is dedicated to K-12 and higher education. About 35 to 37 percent goes toward aid to individuals like Medicaid, provider reimbursements, etc. And the third area of priority, which takes about 10 percent of the state budget, is the court system, Corrections and the State Patrol.

First, K-12 education was set as a priority and no cuts were made to TEEOSA (state equalization aid). Any cuts to TEEOSA would push K-12 education funding needs to the property tax base. Also included in the education piece is higher education; the universities, state and community colleges. Having quality education from kindergarten through the college level feeds into work force development and a better economy. Any major cuts to higher education would mean students would see significant tuition increases rates. The University of Nebraska did take a $10 million reduction in aid.

The second priority is aid to individuals which comprises almost 37 percent of the budget. This includes Medicaid to the aged, blind, disabled, provider reimbursements and so on. Cuts to these programs would potentially impact the elderly in assisted living and nursing homes, low income families with children and their health care, rates to providers who care for the developmental disabled or those with mental health issues. The committee saw the need to protect this funding.

The last area deemed a priority was corrections, the courts and state patrol. The Department of Corrections is facing large overcrowding problems in state prisons and has been involved in Justice Reinvestment with more programing, more parole officers, and review of sentencing guidelines for certain offenses. The courts and jails did take a reduction of $9.2 million.

The remaining agencies in state government took anywhere from 4 to 8 percent reductions. Money from the states cash reserve or rainy day fund has also helped address the shortfall. Senator Stinner, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, stated that Nebraska is experiencing the 3rd lowest revenue growth rate in the last 36 years. Usually, when there is low revenue growth, the state has a year or two of increased revenue growth to help recover. For the past three years, the state has seen low or negative growth. So the state never had the chance to recover from the previous down-turn.

On April 25, senators began the long discussion of where cuts should and could be made. The first contentious reduction made by the Appropriations Committee was cutting $30 million from the Department of Roads which has a $1.7 billion budget. This cut equates to a 1.75 percent reduction in the Roads budget. Part of the committees rationale was that in 2011, a law was enacted that took a  cent of the state sales tax revenue, approximately $60 million, and dedicated it to roads. Since current funding to roads includes a portion of the states General Fund revenue stream, the committee deemed it appropriate to have this agency help in addressing the budget shortfall. An amendment offered by Senator Curt Friesen of Henderson tried to take money from a Medicaid cash transfer fund to replace the $30 million cut from roads. This amendment was defeated.

On April 26, the Nebraska Economic Forecasting Board came in with an additional $50 million shortfall. The committee and the full Legislature will again need to look at where more cuts can be made. A bill that would look at taxing internet sales is working its way through the legislative process and could have a potential revenue increase of $30-$40 million. However there is a court case that does not allow a state to require a business outside that state to pay sales tax. At the time the courts made these decisions, the internet was only just beginning. A point to be made is Nebraska residents have always been required to track their mail order or on-line purchases and to remit the sales tax to the state. The compliance with this law is marginal at best. Internet sales are hurting our main street stores in our communities. This bill would level the field

The Speaker of the Legislature ended the debate on LB 327, the budget bill, at 9 p.m. Wednesday night after it became stuck in extended debate on Title X womens health funding. Some senators expressed concern that language in the bill could cut funding going to Planned Parenthood agencies in the state. These agencies provide basic womens health services, including such things as cervical cancer screening and family planning services. State law does not allow any state or federal funds to be used for abortions. Senators from the opposing sides will get together before the next round of debate to try to reach a compromise.

The budget should be passed by May 10, and will go to the Governor for any potential line-item vetoes. At that point, senators will once again have the opportunity to review those cuts and consider any over-rides we deem necessary.

I always appreciate hearing from you, heres my contact information: 402-471-2620; rbaker@leg.ne.gov; www.nebraskalegislature.gov.
April 30 (Reuters) - Eike Batista, the mining and oil magnate who was once Brazil's richest man, left prison Sunday for house arrest ahead of a trial on corruption charges.

Batista was jailed since Jan. 30 after spending four days in New York as a fugitive. He will stand trial along with an ex-Rio de Janeiro governor who allegedly took millions in bribes from the former billionaire.

Brazilian Supreme Court justice Gilmar Mendes on Friday ordered Batista's release from jail, saying that the crimes the one-time tycoon faces did not involve violence or threats to others.

Federal prosecutors accuse Batista, former governor Sergio Cabral and seven others of facilitating graft and hiding illegal funds in offshore shell companies.

Five years ago, Batista, 60, had a net worth exceeding $30 billion and ranked among the world's 10 richest people, according to Forbes.

Prosecutors allege Batista paid $16.5 million to the ex-Rio de Janeiro governor for his businesses to win lucrative government contracts. (Reporting by Brad Brooks; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU, May 1 (Reuters) - Nepal's faltering democratic transition has been thrown into turmoil by a clash between the Himalayan nation's Maoist-led government and the head of the Supreme Court that could derail this month's local elections.

The poor, mountainous state of 28.6 million people is nearing the finish line of a decade-long effort to overcome the aftermath of an insurgency and fall of its monarchy that would culminate in a general election later this year.

The interim step of holding the first local elections in two decades, scheduled for May and June, is now in doubt after a top minister in charge of overseeing security for the vote quit his post on Sunday.

Analysts say the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi could increase instability in the coalition and one of the parties in the seven-party coalition government could walk out as a result.

"The local elections are in doubt because of the resignation," said Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times weekly.

The trigger for Nidhi's resignation on Sunday was a clash over a decision by Nepal's first woman chief justice, Sushila Karki, to overturn the government's appointment of a new national police chief two months ago.

The two main parties in the coalition filed an impeachment motion against Karki on Sunday. She has been suspended pending impeachment proceedings in the coming weeks, said officials.

"She has interfered into the domains of the executive and must be removed," said lawmaker Chin Kaji Shrestha of the Nepali Congress party, the biggest group in the coalition.

Analysts say the move to unseat a judge known for delivering judgments free of the influence of politics or personal ties represented an attack on the independence of judiciary.

"It has raised the danger of the parliamentary majority being used against constitutional bodies that don't obey political leaders," constitutional expert Bipin Adhikari said.

Nepal, which adopted a new constitution in 2015, has set elections to 744 village and municipal councils for May 14 and June 14 that would pave the way for provincial and national elections.

The Rastriya Prajatantra Party, the third largest group in the coalition, was due to meet on Monday to consider whether to remain in the coalition if the impeachment motion against Karki is not withdrawn, RPP official Mohan Shrestha said.

The coalition government led by Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda controls 363 seats in the 601-member parliament. The departure of the RPP, which has 37 seats, would leave it with a reduced majority.

The government denied there was any crisis. "We'll hold the local elections as scheduled," Law Minister Ajaya Shankar Nayak told Reuters. (Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Douglas Busvine)
By Michel Rose

PARIS, May 1 (Reuters) - French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron on Monday paid homage to a young Moroccan man who drowned in the Seine 22 years ago after being pushed into the river by skinheads on the fringes of the National Front's traditional May Day rally.

In an anniversary gesture clearly aimed at painting the National Front (FN) as extremist a week before he faces its candidate Marine Le Pen in a run-off vote for the presidency, Macron observed a minute's silence on the riverbank.

"We must never forget what happened," Macron told reporters at the site, a few steps away from the Louvre museum, where he laid a wreath of white flowers in front of a plaque in memory of the victim, Brahim Bouarram.

Macron also relaunched his attack on comments last month from Le Pen, who last week said the French state was not responsible for a mass arrest of Jews in Paris during World War Two.

"I shall never forget, and I will fight up until the very last second not only against her programme but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic" said Macron.

In between the two rounds of the 1995 presidential election, Bouarram, a 29-year old father of two, was thrown into the Seine by a group of skinheads leaving a May Day rally held nearby in Paris by Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was party leader at the time.

Macron's tribute, in the presence of Bouarram's son Said, took place just as Jean-Marie Le Pen, the father of Marine, addressed this year's FN May Day rally near the statue of national heroine, Joan of Arc, a few hundred meters away.

In 1995, the skinheads leaving Le Pen senior's parade pushed Bouarram, who could not swim, into the river and watched him struggle to stay afloat in the swift-flowing current, before then leaving the scene. One was sentenced to an eight-year jail sentence in 1998 and three others to five-year terms.

The tribute to Bouarram was the latest attempt by Macron, a pro-Europe centrist, to remind voters of what he and other critics see as the National Front's racist and anti-Semitic legacy.

He visited a Holocaust memorial in Paris on Sunday and a village burned down by the Nazis in World War Two last week.

The FN has cried foul at Macron's tactics. The niece of Marine Le Pen, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, said on Sunday that he was using death and deportations for political ends and indulging in "World War Two blackmail".

Jean-Marie Le Pen told his supporters on Monday: "Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards. It's a bad sign for him."

Marine Le Pen has sought to cleanse the National Front's image of xenophobic and anti-semitic associations and make it more palatable to a broader electorate.

The 88-year old former paratrooper was expelled from the party's management but remains the party's honorary president and has lent money to his daughter's campaign.

"I have no contacts with him anymore, I'm not responsible for his misconduct, for his unacceptable comments," Marine Le Pen said on Sunday.

Jean-Marie Le Pen has denied any connection with Bouarram's death and called it a provocation staged to discredit his movement. He also called it a common criminal "incident" of the kind he said occurred daily in heavily populated cities.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Andrew Callus)
By Martin Petty and Manuel Mogato

MANILA, May 1 (Reuters) - Across Asia, more and more countries are being pulled into Beijing's orbit, with the timid stance adopted by Southeast Asian nations on the South China Sea at a weekend summit a clear sign this fundamental geostrategic shift is gathering momentum.

U.S. President Donald Trump's flurry of calls at the weekend to the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore might cheer those who fear his predecessor Barack Obama's "pivot" to Asia has been abandoned in favour of an "America First" agenda.

But White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said the conversations were aimed at lining up Asian partners in case tensions over North Korea lead to "nuclear and massive destruction in Asia", and mentioned no broader strategic goal.

Southeast Asian nations will need more than that to convince them the United States still has their backs.

In the meantime, some are leaning closer to China, soft-pedalling quarrels over the disputed South China Sea and angling for a slice of Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" infrastructure investment programme to compensate for the U.S. abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

The unexpected bonhomie that has emerged between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could give Asian countries further confidence to continue their swing towards Beijing.

"Before, most Southeast Asian states wanted to benefit from Chinese regional economic initiatives and from American pushback against China," said Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

"The second part of this balance is now in question. Hence, the pressure to acquiesce to China diplomatically and on security issues is stronger."

"IT'S POINTLESS PRESSURING BEIJING"

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, piqued by the Obama administration's criticism of his human rights record, last year announced his "separation" from longtime ally the United States while on a visit to Beijing.

The White House described Trump's conversation with the firebrand Philippines leader as "very friendly" and - prompting criticism from Human Rights Watch for "effectively endorsing Duterte's murderous war on drugs" - invited him to Washington.

But, underlining his new-found friendship with Beijing, Duterte on Monday inspected a Chinese naval ships docked at his hometown, the first visit of its kind to the Philippines in years.

Duterte, who last year put aside a legal challenge to Beijing's sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea to start negotiating billions of dollars worth of loans and infrastructure investments, chaired the latest summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila.

Several ASEAN diplomats said China sent officials to lobby the Philippines ahead of the summit, and before the leaders had even gathered Duterte said it was pointless pressuring Beijing over its maritime activities.

An early draft of the summit statement seen by Reuters made references to land reclamation and militarization in the disputed waterway, but they were subsequently dropped, as were references to "tensions" and "escalation of activities".

Cook said it was clear that, with the Philippines steering the summit to this conclusion, "it is no longer just Cambodia that is acting as an agent of Chinese influence in ASEAN over the South China Sea dispute".

ASEAN RISKS LOSING LEVERAGE

Thailand and Malaysia have also moved closer to China. Thailand's relations with Washington came under strain during the Obama administration because of concerns about freedoms under its military-dominated government.

Trump invited Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to visit Washington during their call on Sunday, but the former general's government has its eyes elsewhere: last week it approved the first of three submarine purchases from China worth more than $1 billion.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says Washington's new posture has shifted Asia's political and economic balance.

Lee, whose country, like Vietnam, has shown no signs of moving closer to Beijing, stressed to his ASEAN counterparts on Saturday that, despite Trump's "radically different approach", they should balance their ties between the United States and China.

Trump has said he will attend two summits in the region in November.

But Southeast Asian nations are trying to gauge how far they can still rely on Washington as a shield against Chinese assertiveness. ASEAN foreign ministers will be seeking answers at a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington this Thursday.

Uncertainty over Washington's commitment, analysts say, will only draw ASEAN countries further towards China, which can lure them with cheap loans, infrastructure investments and tariff cuts, but with a risk of diminished bargaining power.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said it was imperative for ASEAN to regain leverage by bringing Washington back into the equation and expanding the influence of Japan.

"ASEAN is in a precarious position now with the concessions, accommodation and even appeasement with China," Thitinan said. "If China continues to be shrewd and takes ASEAN on another ride, then ASEAN will be much worse off." (Writing by Martin Petty and John Chalmers; Editing by Alex Richardson)
By Michel Rose and Ingrid Melander

PARIS, May 1 (Reuters) - Centrist presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen traded campaign blows across Paris on May Day, as France's most crucial election in decades entered its final week.

Macron sought for a third successive day to paint National Front (FN) leader Le Pen as an extremist, while she portrayed him as a clone of unpopular outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande, under whom he served as economy minister from 2014 to 2106.

The latest opinion poll showed Macron leading Le Pen by 61 percent to 39 ahead of Sunday's election, which offers France a choice between his vision of closer integration with a modernised European Union and her calls to cut immigration and take the country out of the euro.

"I will fight up until the very last second not only against her programme but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic," said Macron, an independent backed by a new party, En Marche! (Onwards!), which he set up himself a year ago.

He was speaking after paying tribute to a young Moroccan man who drowned in the River Seine in Paris 22 years ago after being pushed into the water by skinheads on the fringes of a May Day rally by FN, then led by Le Pen's father Jean-Marie.

Campaigning in Villepinte, a suburb north of the capital, Marine Le Pen told a rally: "Emmanuel Macron is just Francois Hollande who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle."

Since taking over the party, she has worked hard to cleanse it of xenophobic and anti-semitic associations and make it more appealing to a wider electorate. She said at the weekend she had no more contact with her father and was not responsible for his 'unacceptable comments'.

DIVIDED FRANCE

Le Pen senior gave his own traditional May Day speech at a statue of French mediaeval heroine Joan of Arc, just a few hundred yards (metres) from where Macron commemorated the death of young Moroccan Brahim Bouarram.

"Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards. It's a bid sign for him," he said.

The bitterly contested election has polarised France, exposing some of the same sense of anger with globalisation and political elites that brought Donald Trump to presidential power in the United States, and caused Britons to vote for a divorce from the EU.

The vote in the world's fifth largest economy, a key member of the NATO defence alliance, will be the first to elect a president who is from neither of the main political groupings: the candidates of the Socialists and conservative party The Republicans were knocked out in the first round on April 23.

Between them Le Pen and Macron gathered only 45 percent of votes in that round, which eliminated nine other candidates.

The second round will take place in the middle of a weekend extended by a public holiday. That has fed speculation that a high abstention rate could favour Le Pen, whose supporters typically tell pollsters they are staunchly committed to their candidate.

(Writing by Andrew Callus; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India, May 1 (Reuters) - India's army accused Pakistani troops of killing two of its soldiers patroling the de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region on Monday before mutilating their bodies, and vowed to exact revenge.

Past accusations that Pakistani forces have mutilated dead Indian soldiers have outraged the Indian public and intensified the dispute between the two nuclear-armed neighbours over the Himalayan region.

Pakistan's military denied the allegations. It said there had been no violation of a ceasefire on the Kashmir frontier and that its soldiers had not mutilated the corpse of any Indian soldier.

The Indian army said Pakistani forces fired rockets and mortar bombs at two Indian posts on the Line of Control dividing Muslim-majority Kashmir between the two countries, in the Krishna Ghati sector.

"In a unsoldierly act by the Pak army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the Indian army said in an English-language statement, referring to Pakistani forces.

"Such despicable act of the Pakistan army will be appropriately responded."

Reuters was not able to verify independently the authenticity of the Indian account.

Pakistan's military described its army as a "highly professional force" that shall "never disrespect a soldier, even Indian."

FRAGILE CEASEFIRE

India and Pakistan have faced off for decades across the Line of Control, an old ceasefire line through the region that both countries claim in full but rule in part.

Sporadic cross-border attacks in past months have frayed the region's 2003 truce.

In a separate incident, militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir ambushed a van carrying cash for the state-run Jammu and Kashmir Bank, killing five policemen and two bank officials, a senior police official said. It wasn't initially clear if the militants had looted the cash.

The attack occurred in south Kashmir's Kulgam district, where protests against Indian rule have flared in recent weeks.

Both sides have previously accused each of violating the ceasefire and of beheading soldiers in the past.

India's Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, who also holds the finance portfolio, condemned the latest killings which he called "reprehensible and barbaric".

Peace talks between the two countries have been on hold for years and diplomatic engagement is at a minimum.

India accuses Pakistan of backing Islamist militants and encouraging them to attack Indian forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir and, occasionally, in other parts of India.

Pakistan denies that and says India must hold negotiations on the future of Kashmir. (Additional reporting by Drazen Jorgic in ISLAMABAD, Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Robert Birsel and Richard Lough)
By Ross Kerber and Tim McLaughlin

BOSTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Asset manager AllianceBernstein on Monday fired longtime leader Peter Kraus and replaced him with a new chief executive and a new chairman, but offered little explanation for the unexpected change.

The firm, majority-owned by France's AXA SA, named JPMorgan Asset Management executive Seth Bernstein as its new CEO and Robert Zoellick, previously president of the World Bank and a former Goldman Sachs executive, as chairman.

Kraus, who held the CEO and chairman titles since 2008, was "terminated" from his job as CEO, according to a securities filing.

AllianceBernstein, with $497.9 billion in assets under management at the end of March, gave no hint of changes in the works when it reported earnings on Thursday.

A spokesman declined to comment on the reason for the changes. AllianceBernstein shares fell 2.4 percent to $22.35.

Kraus took over as CEO and chairman in 2008, just as the financial crisis gripped Wall Street. He helped shepherd the firm in the difficult years after the crisis, but it has not fully recovered.

AllianceBernstein's assets of $497.9 billion are well below the $800.4 billion it managed at the end of 2007. It is now dwarfed by companies with a stronger lineup of passive investment products such as BlackRock Inc, which ran $5.4 trillion at the end of March.

On a conference call on Monday morning, AXA Board Chairman Denis Duverne thanked Kraus for his service as CEO.

"After eight years, we decided it was time to put in new leadership," Duverne said during the call. Analysts pushed for more detail on the abrupt leadership change, but Duverne declined to say what, if anything, was lacking during Kraus' watch.

Kraus had given no indication of changes ahead. On a conference call after the company's earnings last week, he said: "We've focused for years on rebuilding our presence and regaining relevance with retail clients and are finally where we need to be with the breadth and performance of our offerings."

The filing also said that on Friday, an AXA unit removed nine directors from the AllianceBernstein board, including Kraus, and the next day named replacements to fill most of the seats on the board, which now has eight members.

Kraus has entered into a "cooperation agreement" with AllianceBernstein, under which he is entitled to termination benefits and salary, according to the filing.

(Reporting by Ross Kerber and Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Bill Rigby)
By Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer

CARACAS, May 1 (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist President Nicolas Maduro announced on Monday the creation of a new popular assembly with the ability to re-write the constitution, which foes decried as a power-grab to stifle weeks of anti-government unrest.

"I don't want a civil war," Maduro told a May Day rally of supporters in downtown Caracas while elsewhere across the city security forces fired tear gas at youths hurling stones and petrol bombs after opposition marches were blocked.

Maduro, 54, has triggered an article of the constitution that creates a super-body known as a "constituent assembly."

It can dissolve public powers and call general elections, echoing a previous assembly created by his predecessor Hugo Chavez in 1999 soon after he won office in the South American OPEC nation.

"I convoke the original constituent power to achieve the peace needed by the Republic, defeat the fascist coup, and let the sovereign people impose peace, harmony and true national dialogue," Maduro told red-shirted supporters.

Only half of the 500-member assembly, or less, would be elected and political parties would not participate, he said.

Opponents fear Maduro would stuff the assembly with supporters and manipulate the elected seats by giving extra weight to pro-government workers and unions.

They said it was another attempt to sideline the current opposition-led National Assembly and potentially avoid elections amid a bruising recession and protests that have led to 29 deaths in the last month.

The opposition had been demanding general elections to try and end the socialists' 18-year rule. A grave-faced National Assembly President Julio Borges on Monday evening called on Venezuelans to rebel, potentially portending bigger protests.

"This is a scam to deceive the Venezuelan people with a mechanism that is nothing more than a coup," Borges said, urging Venezuelans to block streets early on Tuesday and hold another march on Wednesday. Opposition supporters on Monday night were also banging empty pots and pans from their windows in a traditional Latin American form of protest.

Since anti-Maduro unrest began in early April, more than 400 people have been injured and hundreds more arrested.

While Maduro alleges a U.S.-backed coup plot, foes say he has wrecked the economy and become a tyrant.

Tulane University sociologist David Smilde said Maduro's announcement was a "pretty clever" move to dodge conventional elections which could both appeal to government hardliners and ease international pressure on him.

"It is sufficiently complex and ambiguous that it might freeze some countries in the international community who think this might be a concession to the opposition, or represents an autonomous political process and should be respected," he said.

"It is a transparent attempt on the part of the government to skirt elections it knows it will lose," he added.

"WHO CAN STAND THIS?"

Earlier on Monday, National Guard troops shot teargas in a district of west Caracas towards hundreds of opposition protesters standing around waiting to march.

"For no reason, they are starting to repress us," lawmaker Jose Olivares said via a video on Periscope, as demonstrators took cover behind trees and walls and opposition lawmakers streamed video of the protest from their phones.

Olivares was injured in the head by a gas canister, the opposition said. He later tweeted that the wound required a dozen stitches.

Elsewhere, the National Guard blocked marchers pouring towards a major highway in front of the Avila mountain which towers over Caracas' northern edge. Opposition supporters cheered as youths ran to the front, carrying makeshift shields made from trash bin lids, wood and even a satellite dish.

Some, wearing motorbike helmets, swimming goggles or bandanas over their mouths, threw stones and petrol bombs at the security line, with a protester yelling, "No one turn back!"

Others blocked roads in Caracas' wealthier Chacao area with branches and fences. One woman loaded Molotov cocktails from a beer crate onto a motorbike where two men took them to the front line.

As well as elections, government opponents are demanding autonomy for the legislature where they have a majority, freedom for more than 100 jailed activists and a humanitarian aid channel from abroad to offset Venezuela's brutal economic crisis that has food and medicine running short. On Monday evening, Maduro said he had ordered cabinet members to analyze nationwide price freezes. Current price controls are seen as a root cause of shortages as they disincentivize businesses from producing amid steep inflation, so a more widely applied freeze could further hit supplies. In central Caracas, where the socialists have traditionally held their rallies, thousands of government supporters cheered a huge inflatable doll of Chavez and railed against opposition "terrorists."

"The workers are in the street to defend our president against the violent coup-mongers," said Aaron Pulido, 29, a union worker with migration department Saime, in downtown Caracas among a sea of red banners.

The government laid on hundreds of buses for its backers but closed subway stations in the capital and set up roadblocks, impeding opposition mobilization.

Some government workers acknowledged they had been coerced into attending Monday's pro-Maduro rally. "We're here because they tell us to. If not, there are problems," a 34 year-old employee with a state aluminum company, just off a bus after an all-night journey from southern Ciudad Bolivar, told a journalist until a supervisor cut off the conversation.

Millions of Venezuelans are struggling to eat three square meals a day or afford basic medicines.

"Who can stand this? So much hunger, misery, crime ... The prices are going up far more than the salary rises," said social security worker Sonia Lopez, 34, at the opposition demonstration in west Caracas, as she waved a Venezuelan flag signed by now jailed opposition politician Antonio Ledezma. (Additonal reporting by Marco Bello, Diego Ore, Andreina Aponte, Girish Gupta, Diego Ore, Eyanir Chinea and Carlos Rawlins; Editing by Andrew Hay and Mary Milliken)
GENEVA, May 1 (Reuters) - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said on Monday that heavy-handed security measures by Egypt were fostering the very radicalisation it was looking to curb.

Egypt last month was shaken by one of the bloodiest attacks in years when Islamic State suicide bombers targeted two Christian churches, killing 45 people. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency hours later.

Zeid condemned the church attacks at a news conference in Geneva but said that Egypt's approach to combating Islamist militants was exacerbating the problem.

"...a state of emergency, the massive numbers of detentions, reports of torture, and continued arbitrary arrests - all of this we believe facilitates radicalisation in prisons," Zeid said.

She said "the crackdown on civil society" was "not the way to fight terror."

Responding, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid called the remarks an "irresponsible" and "unbalanced" reading of the situation in Egypt, where society is targeted by "terrorist operations," according to a statement from the ministry.

Abu Zeid defended the emergency law as passed by an elected parliament subject to "rules and restrictions" set out by the constitution.

"We don't see the High Commissioner criticising other states implementing states of emergency that are dealing with similar conditions," the statement said.

Sisi, elected in 2014 in part on a pledge to restore stability to a country hit by years of turmoil since its 2011 uprising, has sought to present himself as an indispensable bulwark against terrorism in the Middle East.

Rights groups, however, say they face the worst crackdown in their history.

"National security yes, must be a priority for every country, but again not at the expense of human rights," said Zeid. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
By Dominique Patton

BEIJING, April 28 (Reuters) - A Chinese consumer backlash against genetically modified (GMO) crops is beginning to dent demand for soy oil, the nation's main cooking oil, and could spell crisis for the multi-billion-dollar crushing industry, which depends on GMO soybeans from the United States and elsewhere.

Soyoil sales account for about 36 percent of cooking oils used in Chinese kitchens, more than three times the next highest, and most of it is made from imported soybeans, which are nearly all genetically modified.

The Chinese government says GM foods are as safe as conventional foods, but wealthier urban consumers are replacing soyoil with sunflower, peanut or sesame, all free of biotech raw materials.

A Nielsen survey last year showed about 70 percent of consumers in China limited or avoided at least some foods or ingredients, compared with a global average of 64 percent, with 57 percent naming GMOs as undesirable.

"Everyone says soyoil has GMOs," said Mr Liu, a 70-year-old Beijinger, shopping with his wife in Walmart. "Better not eat too much. Apparently they're not safe. It's like those hormones. I'm just as afraid of eating GMOs as hormones."

That sentiment is already hurting retail sales. Supermarket sales of soy oil fell 1 percent last year to 35.7 billion yuan ($5.19 billion), data from Euromonitor shows, versus growth of between 2 and 6 percent for alternatives.

"Non-GMO oil is gradually replacing (soy oil)," said Johnny An, supply chain director at food-service firm Aramark, which serves meals in banks, government offices and schools in more than 60 Chinese cities.

A few years ago, 10-20 percent of Aramark's customers asked for GMO-free oil, he said. Now it's more than half.

The mood is causing headaches for crushers, said Paul Burke, Asia director at the U.S. Soybean Export Council, forcing them to find new markets for their soyoil, though it had not yet had a noticeable impact on bean imports, as demand for soymeal used for animal feed, the larger byproduct of soybean crush, is still robust as China expands its livestock industry.

PREMIUM PRODUCT

The Nielsen survey found that more than four in five Chinese shoppers would be prepared to pay more for GMO-free products, and a 5-litre bottle of GM-free soy oil already sells at a 20 percent premium to GMO oil, but that isn't translating into a boon for the nation's soybean crushers.

China is the world's top soyoil consumer - it will use 16 million tonnes this year - but the crushers rely on the United States and Brazil, which grow GM-soybeans, for 86 percent of China's 84 million tonnes of soybean imports.

In China, which does not permit planting of GMO soybeans, labour costs are high and productivity low on small farms, making non-GMO beans costly to grow. They sell for a third more than non-GMO beans planted elsewhere.

Processors such as China Agri Industries, a unit of food and grains trader COFCO and one of the country's top crushers, told Reuters it needs to improve its sourcing of non-GMO materials, to meet "escalating market demand".

In the meantime, processors are losing money as increased competition with other edible oils and a ballooning glut has pushed soyoil futures in China down 18 percent so far this year to multi-year lows.

Some crushers are taking radical steps to find more GMO-free beans.

Henan Sunshine Oils and Fats wants to buy as much as 15,000 hectares of land in Ukraine to grow and process crops such as non-GMO soybeans, rapeseed and sunflowers, said Yang Renyi, group vice-president and general manager of the international affairs department.

That would be a very large plot; in the United States, the largest farms average around 1,052 hectares.

Yang's team made two trips to Ukraine last year to look into the feasibility of producing, storing and processing oilseeds there.

"If we managed to get a large area of land to grow oilseeds, we possibly will spend at least 200-300 million yuan there," said Yang.

Non-GMO oils - mainly rapeseed and sesame - already account for a fifth of the firm's sales since it started marketing the new offering late last year, he added.

SHAKEN FAITH

The shift in attitude against GMOs in China has been fuelled by social media and campaigning by high-profile personalities.

The agriculture ministry has sought to assuage consumers' fears, launching education campaigns and banning advertising that promotes non-GMO products as healthier.

But years of food scares have shaken consumers' faith in Beijing's ability to guarantee the safety of the nation's food supply.

Cooking oil is a particularly sensitive topic after a scandal over the use of recycled oil known as gutter oil, a few years ago, so shoppers are wary.

"Before everyone said soybean oil has GMOs, now the advertising is all about non-GMO soyoil. But we still don't buy it," said Maxine Li, a 28-year old bank worker, shopping at the same Walmart. "We think peanut oil is a bit healthier." ($1 = 6.8953 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Dominique Patton. Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom; editing by Josephine Mason and Will Waterman)
n the afterglow of his unexpected victory at the US presidential election Donald Trump the new American president, began his term as US president with a stunning turnaround on his election promises. Since his installation he has suffered a number of embarrassing body-blows, has been prone to stunning turn-a-rounds, setbacks in a Congress controlled by his own party and seen the judiciary overturn his executive fiat.

Trumps campaign was based on three slogans and candidate Trump himself led the crowds in chanting: Build the wall; on the Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it.

Lock her up, promising to appoint a special prosecutor to charge rival candidate Hillary Clinton and imprison her and... Drain the swamp about cleansing Washington-based influence in policy and planning.

On taking up duties as president, he promulgated an executive fiat proposing a travel ban on persons arriving from seven Islamic countries -- Federal courts halted his proposed travel ban.

In an even worse defeat the Republican party controlled Congress rejected his attempts to unravel Obamacare and replace it with his own version of a healthcare programme. Separately Congress rejected the new Presidents demand for a budgetary provision to build a wall on the Mexican border and force the Mexicans to pay for it.



In the run-up to his election Trump referred to NATO as an obsolete organization and threatened to pull out of that grouping unless other NATO members paid their share.

Since then the new President has had to eat his words so-to-say and had assured the NATO countries of continued US involvement.

In like manner the President threatened to tear up trade agreements like NAFTA, which still stands. He demanded partners, Korea and Japan pay the cost of US military protection to their countries. He even demanded S. Korea pay the cost of the deployment of the THAAD missile system in that country.

The President has since assured Japan that he would continue US military partnership. Meanwhile South Korea dismissed his demands for payment for the deployment of THAAD missiles emphasising the systems were managed exclusively by US personnel and the agreement was a provision of land to house the system.



During his election campaign and even after assuming the presidency, Trump consistently lashed out at China. In the aftermath of the euphoria of his election victory, the new President attempted to challenge Chinas one China policy by taking a call from Taiwans president and justifying his action claiming, the US was not bound by the One China policy unless we made a deal with China having to do with other things.

Within weeks the new President was forced to eat humble pie. As he began the usual series of initial calls with leaders from around the world, Foreign Policy magazine reported administration officials concluded that Chinese President Xi would only take a call if Mr. Trump publicly committed to upholding the 44-year old policy.

And so, three weeks after his inauguration, President Trump re-affirmed the One China policy in a phone call with President Xi Jinping. Trumps first act as president with respect to his China policy was to fold in.



President Xi had successfully called Mr. Trumps bluff and proved the US continued to be what the late Chinese leader Chairman Mao Tse-tung described as a paper tiger.

On the bright side, by accepting the One China policy President Trump avoided potentially destabilizing US-China relations.

President Trump therefore needed some action which could help him portray the strongman image he had drawn for himself.

To this end it would appear, Mr. Trump has picked on North Korea  an Asian country at odds with the US and known to have in its possession nuclear weapons, but unproven missile delivery systems and on Syria.

President Assad of Syrias Sarin gas attack on civilians in Idlib presented the new President this opportunity. - President Trump dropped a series of Tomahawk Missiles on an isolated airfield in Syria which caused no real damage.

Had he been in school Trumps report would be riddled with failure. Even his rapprochement policy with Russia is in a shambles.
Minister of Rural Economy P. Harrison said that the media had blown a statement made by the President Maithripala Sirisena regarding the assignment of Minister Sarath Fonseka to a top post out of proportion, but it was a mere joke cracked at the Cabinet meeting held last Tuesday (25).

The minister said this at a workshop held at Galpokuna estate in Kuliyapitiya that he participated in where a delegation of specialists from the Netherlands were also present.

He said said this when questioned by the media about a remark by the President with regards to the new post given to Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka.Not at all. It was manipulated by the media. This was a question the President posed to FM Sarath Fonseka as a joke. This has been misconstrued by the media as a return to the Gotabhaya era where fear and terror is spread within a military-style government. That will never happen.

Expressing his views on the May Day rally to be conducted by the UNP he said they would hold the biggest, best attended May Day rally ever held in the history of the country.

It is not an easy task to fill the Galle Race Green with the people. This time the joint opposition have a tough task ahead of them. MP Bandula Gunawardena announced that they would bring 2 million people to their rally. This time their nakedness will be there for all to see. After May Day several persons will again run to the President.

The minister said further that as a mature party like the SLFP knows how to commemorate May Day without the support of others as they possess sufficient experience in this regard.(Dinesh Upendra)
Typically, refugee camps are temporary living settlements that accommodate displaced persons who have fled their home countries. When it comes to the context of the Sri Lankan civil war, it is a known fact that many local Tamils fled the country at the height of the war, with the hope of returning when a conducive environment is created for peaceful coexistence, free of violence and warfare. However, unfortunately, their settlements seem to have become permanent with their stay counting more than 27 long years.

Api mehe thani wela (we are isolated here), 49-year-old Nimala, a Sri Lankan refugee at the Gummidipoondi camp in Chennai told Daily Mirror recently.

According to the 1951 Refugee Convention of the United Nations and its 1967 Protocol relating to the status of refugees, a refugee is an individual who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his or her nationality, and is unable or unwilling to avail him or herself to the protection of that country.



However, the Tamil Nadu Government, under the directions of the Indian Central Government which had not ratified the aforementioned legal documents, provided Sri Lankan refugees immediate relief when they entered Indian soil in early 1980s.

The dilapidated condition of toilets in a refugee camp

Pix by Shyam Gowtham and Steni Simon

"As a result of the many restrictions imposed on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, securing employment has become more than a daunting task"



Education

Inside the Gummidipoondi camp are some 900 youngsters receiving education. However, they receive this facility only upto the tenth grade, said Mathews (46), a father of two.



Following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, the admission of our children to schools was suspended by the then Tamil Nadu Government. But, later in 1993, our children were given the chance to study upto the twelfth grade in schools in Tamil Nadu. The law is not practiced here. Our children are denied of the right to continue their studies after the tenth grade," he said.



Some parents here fund their childrens higher education at private institutes, although they are facing severe financial constraints and the government has not extended any support monetarily. Either they will do so or give up hopes because they are unable to afford private education. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to see several Sri Lankan refugee parents toiling to finance their childrens education.

"Denial of access to education has severely affected the children of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. Making the situation even worse, the young refugee lads who are forced to discontinue their education from tenth grade, often get addicted to drugs"

Maya (23), the only daughter of Mathews, is currently reading for her MBA in a private college in Gummidipoondi. Even if she completed her studies amidst all difficulties, she will still be unable to secure a government job as that option is unavailable to the children of refugees.



Denial of access to education has severely affected the children of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. Making the situation even worse, the young refugee lads who are forced to discontinue their education from tenth grade, often get addicted to drugs, mainly Cannabis  not to say the situation is identical in every Sri Lankan Tamil refugee camp in the state. When one treads along the shady path of the Gummidipoondi camp, groups of languishing youths could be seen playing Omi, a popular card game, while parents keep worrying about their inability to offer their children a bright future.



Freedom of Movement

We savour no social or political right as we are governed by the 1946 Foreigners Act. We used to have comfortable lives in our country before the outbreak of the gruesome and bloodily war. Today, we are leading a very restless camp life. We cannot leave the camp unless the authorities give us permission to do so. We are allowed to go in the morning, but must return before dusk, said Jothika, a mother of one.



According to her, Sri Lankan refugees who wished to stay outside the camp for more than one day have to obtain written permission from the camp officer, which usually takes a few days.

Commenting on this, Kennedy (52) said they were detained inside the camp. We have no freedom here. We are treated as outsiders. We are neither here nor there. It is not like we are staying here willingly, he said, adding that the feeling of living in ones own country could not be found by living anywhere else in the world.

Ganesh, a refugee compelled to discontinue education.



Employment

As a result of the many restrictions imposed on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, securing employment has become more than a daunting task. They arrived in India without a single document to prove their identity. Even the ones who studied upto a certain stage are unable to produce necessary documents to find a job in Tamil Nadu. They can only find jobs that pay daily wages.



However, a survey conducted by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) stated that as Sri Lankan refugees were permitted to work during day time, many refugees worked on the local railway while many others engaged in bricklaying and painting.

Commenting on this, Samuel (43) from Avissawella who is presently employed as a security guard in a private institution in Gummidipoondi, said men must hunt for jobs that pay well, as it was difficult to survive with the limited financial support extended by the Tamil Nadu Government.

The government has issued refugee identity cards for each of us. The breadwinners of families are given Rs. 1,000 per month. Those above 18 years of age receive Rs. 750 while those under 18, Rs. 300. The sum paid to us has not been revised despite the rising cost of living. We cannot live on with these trivial amounts even for a week. That is why we search for jobs, Samuel said.



Sabhu, a painter and the breadwinner of a seven-member family, said it was very difficult to obtain permission from the authorities to work outside the camp. If you have money, you can bribe the officers and get things done, he added.



Rations, healthcare and other entitlements

Results of the efforts by refugees to improve the conditions of their settlements

The Tamil Nadu Government has issued ration cards among Sri Lankan refugees living in camps in the state. Refugees need to present their cards to obtain rations. Smitha, a mother (52) of five, said the government provided them essential goods at low prices.



Each adult receives twelve kilos of rice per month, while a child is issued three. Every family gets two kilos of sugar monthly. However, the goods issued are inadequate, she said.

The refugees who dwelled in camps which were of dilapidated condition had somehow managed to improve the conditions of their settlements. Terrance, another Sri Lankan Tamil refugee, said they found it extremely difficult to move about in confined camps that were covered with tar sheets. But as families started to expand, they had added some installations to these settlements.

We suffered a lot inside camps during summer and heavy rain. No one was generous enough to help us. As time passed by, we found jobs that helped us earn some money and turn our camps into small houses, Terrance said.

According to USCRI, the Tamil Nadu Revenue Department is recording the purchases made by Sri Lankan refugees. Whatever the additions they make to the settlements, they do not own them. According to the law, they cannot bring anything to Sri Lanka on their return. We dont have the right to legally own a house, property or vehicle. We left our things in our country, Terrance said.



When it comes to medical care, it is quite satisfying for refugees as they have access to free medical treatment in government -recognised hospitals.

I am not entitled to any ration given by the government. I am living with my elder sister. I dont know the reason. I tried to hold discussions with relevant authorities several times, but to no avail. However, medical services are free for us.



If anyone falls ill, we have to stand in queues for hours. We are forced to remain for longer hours than others because we are not citizens. Often, we have to buy medicine from pharmacies. Some check-ups and scans are recommended to be taken from private institutions. We cannot afford them, said Reeta (68).



It is nothing but disheartening to see Sri Lankans with refugee statuses living in Indian camps with no solution to their plight. The Indian Government has not yet decided to recognise them as citizens of India, as their existing law does not permit it. Some 90% of these deprived Lankans dream about returning to their home country.

The final section of the article series will be serialized this week. It will discuss the pressing issues that hold them back from stepping outside the camps to return to Sri Lanka, and efforts to travel to Australia illegally.
Understanding Ragging

A strategic response looks to the causes of ragging rather than its symptoms. It is based on the answer to the question: why do seniors rag freshers? Andy Schubert of the Social Scientists Association, suggests after reviewing some of the literature that ragging is part of a process of identity creation, building social bonds and indoctrination (see Thela Bedala: Examining the Culture of Student Violence within a State University in Sri Lanka (2012) Dialogue, Volume XXXIX). Dr. Kumudu Kusum Kumara from the Department of Sociology at the University of Colombo, argues in Understanding Ragging Social Phenomenon (Colombo Telegraph - June 29, 2016) that it stems from senior students unmet desire to be leaders.

Drawing from experiences and conversations with students at universities around the country I would suggest that ragging is fundamentally about establishing control and power over freshers. This is used for anything from winning student union elections, to gathering large crowds for student protests, to ensuring that seniors are treated with respect and honour.

The rag is also meant to be a response to social divisions which are carried into the university from outside. It is said to be an equaliser, bringing everyone to the same level - whether rich or poor, from the city or the village, from a national school or a provincial one (ethnic divisions are left untouched, with ragging being racially segregated). This process of equalisation is also used to express class hatred against the privileged students. Ragging is also supposed to create unity, instilling a sense of family within the batch and between freshers and seniors. At universities where Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim students are in a minority this family is often limited to ones community, fuelled by the idea that when in a minority our community must stick together. Last, the rag is also supposed to be the means of inducting newcomers into the subculture of the university. It is part of a transition from school to university, from village life to the city.



Underlying all this, of course, is the idea that force is the best way to get things done. And disturbingly enough, a rag can be effective. Ragging creates a context of shared suffering which can effectively bonds people and break social barriers. The indoctrination about family and unity results in a powerful safety-net for students  their faculty family comes through (willingly or unwillingly) if they face bereavement, illness or academic struggles. Moreover, many seniors and juniors form strong friendships despite the violence the latter face from the former.

Of course this is not universally true. For many students the rag brings nothing positive, and in any case positive ends cannot justify immoral means. Indeed, the means we use to achieve our ends alter and transform the type of ends we eventually arrive at. The use of a rag to break social barriers, create unity, and create a safety-net for the vulnerable eventually distorts those very aims. What is achieved tends to be superficial. Ragging does not overcome structural social and economic divisions. Forced unity, a contradiction in terms, often evaporates once the rag ends, and the faculty family is generally a deeply oppressive, intolerant one.

However, it is precisely the effectiveness of the rag  short-lived, twisted and distorted though it may be  that is the strongest argument in its favour. This is why so many students  seniors and freshers alike  vigorously ensure its continuation. This is the logic that keeps it alive. Unless this idea  that the rag is the only way to achieve these aims  is confronted and defeated, it will remain a problem. How can we do this?



Imagining an alternative

Let me first ask a slightly unrelated question: what is a university for? A university is a place where a critical community of scholars engages in genuine dialogue, questioning any idea, belief or practice. It is a place where new knowledge is created, the big questions in society are interrogated and human flourishing is sought. Students - how they interact with each other and how they see themselves - play a big role in making this happen. Yet each year the students we receive come with deep ethnic, religious, linguistic and caste divisions. They are often still in an A/Level mentality looking to memorise notes rather than to learn to think. Most still consider themselves children rather than adults and struggle to adapt to life away from home. We cannot close our eyes to these problems because they keep us from forming a true university community.

Addressing these issues is essential if we want to make our universities what they ought to be. After all, promoting deep friendships between students from different backgrounds is necessary for a genuine community to develop. Socialisation between juniors and seniors - on an equal footing - is the starting point for dialogue. Making sure that new students have help and support as they get used to life on their own is the first step towards intellectual and emotional maturity. The university should not be neutral about these things - it should actively pursue them!

"For many students the rag brings nothing positive, and in any case positive ends cannot justify immoral means. Indeed, the means we use to achieve our ends alter and transform the type of ends we eventually arrive at"



It so happens, of course, that if we pursue these things we will also be undermining the foundations of ragging itself. The rags legitimacy stems from its claim to be the only way to bring about a sense of equality, unity and family and that it transitions students from school to university. Yet, if universities themselves had engaging bold and creative programmes that aimed at friendship, community, dialogue and maturity, then this claim would be undermined. If we could demonstrate that there are other ways of solving the problems that the rag claims to solve then we would have demolished one of the chief arguments in its favour. We would have countered the pervasive idea that force is the best way to solve problems. We would also have come closer to the kind of universities we want to see.

I have been deeply encouraged by local examples of student-initiated orientation programs that are engaging, promote socialisation and cohesion, and provide essential help to students. They do this through sports, competitive group activities for freshers - including treasure hunts to introduce the university and its environs, puzzles, dramas and quizzes - a well as student mentoring programs. When coupled with a strong program to inculcate the skills needed to transition to university life and the supervision of the staff and administration, these types of initiatives could severely undermine ragging.

Zero-tolerance is a first step. It must be buttressed by a creative alternative that strikes at the crude logic behind ragging and addresses its root causes. This two-pronged response, holistic and strategic, is what will take us forward.

Re-imagining power

Of course there is one thing that such alternative programmes cannot, and should not provide. They cannot give seniors control and power over freshers. This is precisely why they would be opposed by most student unions - or accepted only if they are coupled with ways of maintaining this power. There is no immediate way to eradicate this desire for dominance. In the short-run a policy of zero-tolerance coupled with a creative alternative is the best option. This could work at the foundations of the rag. In the long run, however, we need to reimagine the purpose of power. This would be the most strategic, but also the most difficult, of all our interventions.

What is power for? Our society tells us that it is for the benefit of whoever holds it. It is a chance to amass wealth, collect influence and secure your own position. Whether it is the government official who demands a bribe, or the husband who beats his wife - power is often used in this way in the home, at schools, at offices, in religious institutions, in politics and in government. Our universities, naturally, are not immune. Some lecturers use their power over students grades to make sure they are subservient. Some university administrators ensure that their people get promotions and their opponents are side-lined.

We need a re-imagining of power as something that must be used to serve others. Power as something that must be used for the benefit of the powerless. We need a vision of power as the liberating authority rather than as oppressive authority. The first step in this direction leads to uncomfortable questions for all of us, especially if we work at universities: what do we use our power for? Do we see ourselves as the servants of those whom we have power over? Or do we use our power to maintain our honour, our egos, our influence? After all, students might learn from lectures in the classroom, but they are formed by the way things are done around them. If they see us use power to control, dominate, hurt and oppress, should we be surprised when they follow our example?

Conclusion

The British politician William Wilberforce began the struggle to ban the British slave trade in 1789. Success only came in 1807, after 18 years of gruelling defeats and near-losses. This is not unusual. Durable social change takes time, persistence, creativity and hard work. It is often a matter of three steps forward and two steps back. Ragging goes against everything that a university stands for. It is a many-faceted phenomenon. Can it be ended? If even a part of the effort and resources that universities put into research, teaching and organising events is channelled towards ragging, it could be. The real question is: How badly do we want to end it? Our answer to this, is what would make all the difference.
From left: Krishan Balendra (President, Leisure Sector/Director - JKH), Ajit Gunewardene (Deputy Chairman - JKH), Ronnie Peiris (Group Finance Director - JKH), and Ramesh Shanmuganathan (Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer - JKH) at a panel discussion for the inaugural John Keells X programme last year.

Sri Lankan entrepreneurship is geared to hit the fast-track at the second annual John Keells X Open Innovation Challenge 2017,as teams of aspiring innovators and inventors compete for a chance to win entry into a six-month accelerator programme at JKH that offers Rs. 2 million in seed investment, a curated growth oriented curriculum, office space in Colombo, access to legal, finance and secretarial expertise, access to mentors involving senior JKH leadership, active interaction with JKH businesses, as well as the prospects of further investment during or after the six month accelerator programme.

John Keells X was first launched in 2016 with the goal of boosting creative and intellectual talent through a public competitive format. This years challenge has evolved into a fully-fledged accelerator programme that will holistically educate participants on key factors to hone business performance. This will also include an entrepreneurship curriculum and growth hacking curriculum delivered by leading international trainers with extensive startup experience. Additionally, participants will receive invaluable mentorship from some of the most respected entrepreneurs and business magnates in the country.

The updated format of the open innovation challenge held last year, John Keells X Open Innovation Challenge 2017 will now include extensive support to accelerate business ventures over a six month period, and this was prompted as a result of the strong and enthusiastic response from young entrepreneurial talent at the inaugural event last year.

Commencing from 2 May 2017, competing teams must work to exhibit disruptively innovative ideas that hold the potential to complement the core sectors that John Keells Holdings PLC is currently engaged in, such that growth of their early stage business can be accelerated through aligning with any JKH business unit or industry vertical spanning leisure, transportation, consumer foods and retail, property, financial services, Information Technology and plantation services.

Applications for the John Keells X Open Innovation Challenge 2017 open from 2 May to 25 June, and can be submitted through the event website: www.johnkeellsX.com. There, participants can also discover more information about the accelerator programme, including details of the selection process and basic guidance on how to get started.JKH will host a series of road shows and meet ups in order to provide guidance to the pool of potential applicants.

Shortlisted candidates will go on to a Demo Day where they will pitch their ideas to an eminent panel of judges. The panel of judges for this year will comprise Ajit Gunewardene (Deputy Chairman - JKH), Ronnie Peiris (Group Finance Director - JKH), Krishan Balendra (President, Leisure Sector/Director - JKH),GihanCooray (President, Retail Sector/Director - JKH), Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya (Regional CEO - Axiata Group South Asia/Non-Executive Director - JKH), Jonathan Alles (Managing Director/CEO - Hatton National Bank PLC), and Ramesh Shanmuganathan (Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer - JKH)

Upto seven of the best teams from Demo Day will thereafter be selected to participate in a six month Accelerator Program running from November through to April 2018. Through this programme, JKH will offer access to interact with JKH companies and senior leadership level mentors at JKH along with opportunities for further investment in the selected winning entities during or after the six month Accelerator Program.

Notably, the interaction with JohnKeellsX does not end with Demo Day. The relationships built with JKH will help individuals and teams navigate the tough path of a start-up with much greater confidence. JKH may also support this years most promising startups to secure long term funding provided they are capable of meeting the Groups rigorous internal evaluation criteria.

John Keells Holdings PLC is Sri Lankas largest listed conglomerate in the Colombo Stock Exchange. From managing hotels and resorts in Sri Lanka and the Maldives to providing port, marine fuel and logistics services to IT solutions, manufacturing of food and beverages to running a chain of supermarkets, tea broking to stock broking, life insurance and banking to real estate, inbound and outbound travel, JKH has made its presence felt in virtually every major sphere of the economy. Since modest beginnings as a produce and exchange broker in the early 1870s, it has been known to constantly re-invent, re-align and reposition itself in exploring new avenues of growth.
JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva in an interview with Daily Mirror says his party will make a new political formation with the aim of gaining power. He speaks of geopolitical connotations involved in the Hambantota Port project and the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm project. Excerpts of the interview:

No difference between the present and former rule

Trinco Oil Tank, Hambantota Port, Economic Nerve Centres not to be alienated

Both regimes riddled with rampant corruption, frauds

Q In the context of current political developments, how does the JVP plan for

its activities?

As for the current situation, we find several issues. The economy has virtually collapsed. The govt is embroiled in a serious financial crisis. It is now opting to auction off the national assets of the country as a way out of this crisis. The Hambantota Port and the adjacent lands, the East Terminal of the Colombo Port, the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm are earmarked for selling off. Apart from the Economic and Technology Co-operation Agreement (ETCA) to be signed, the govt has inked yet another Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with India outlining projects to be assigned to India. We are not opposed to mutually beneficial bilateral agreements. Yet, we are against such agreements which are disadvantageous to the interests of Sri Lanka. We do not accept the attempts by the govt to make easy money by selling off the national assets. The JVP has initiated a struggle against this.

In the meantime, the govt is now trying to repress the public upsurge against it. In one instance, the govt tried to limit protest and demonstrations to a site specified for it. The govt is trying to use force against those protesting against garbage disposal in their localities. Now, we learnt of yet another attempt to create a force to deal with emergency situations to be triggered by strike actions. Then, the democracy is at stake.

Though the govt promised to abolish executive presidency, it seems to be abdicating its responsibility in this regard now. For the abolition of executive presidency, we initiated a dialogue with the like-minded parties. We have held talks with Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and with the Communist Party. We intend to have talks with the President soon. Governance, by one party after another since Independence, has failed to address issues of our country. We need a novel form of governance and we will work for it.

"The Joint Opposition moved a No confidence motion against Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake. The JVP also voted for it along with the JO. But MR did not vote. Literally, the MR clan had acted to safeguard the govt, not us, in spite of lashing criticism in public against the incumbent regime"



Q When abolishing executive presidency, there is concern that it would affect the unitary status of the country. It is argued that the loss of Executive Presidents hold on the PCs would lead to separatism gradually. How does the JVP see it?

It is not a correct argument as we see. Then, the President, the Prime Minister and the other forces that rallied behind to unseat the former rule, should have seen such a danger before. The abolition of executive presidency is a key election pledge. It is not the amendments the executive presidency that was promised. Actually, the executive presidency cannot protect the country from being partitioned. In fact, separatism raised its head when the country was ruled by executive presidency. The country is safe from separatism as long as people are empowered, democracy strengthened and ethnic harmony fostered. We reject claims for retaining executive presidency by trotting out such excuses.



Q However, if the executive power in appointing provincial governors is taken out, it will give more independence to the PCs paving way for them to become independent units as argued by some government leaders. How do you see it?

If a new Constitution is introduced, a set of provisions will have to be incorporated to prevent the country from being partitioned at any cost. In the present Constitution, there is no provision to take action in case a PC declares independence. We need new constitutional safeguards to prevent the division of the country. It has to be vested with Parliament.



Q How does the JVP see eye-to-eye on this issue with the SLMC and the TNA?

We have discussed the basic points. There is no broad discussion. This is the best opportunity to work out a new Constitution to strengthen democracy and to ensure peoples rights. All the parties should strive to reach common stand rather than sticking to their guns.



Q The JVP, right from its inception, advocated decentralization of administrative power, but not power devolution. Have you deviated from this position in this manner?

There is no change in our policy. We are against any move that leads to the division of the country. Yet, we have to ensure equal rights for all citizens to ensure stability of the country. Rather than making way for the partition of the country, we have to decentralize administrative powers to the lowest possible level.

We have to work out something in keeping with that fundamental position. At the same time, equal rights should be guaranteed for all.



Q How does the JVP subscribe to the Constitution making process in the Steering Committee?

We are a party to it. It has discussed matters both acceptable and unacceptable to us. We believe in bilateral talks with the political parties to identify areas with common position.



Q There are moves for privatization of national assets as you said earlier. This is against the core of the JVP policy. But, there is public perception that the JVPs role in thwarting such attempts by the govt are minimal. How do you respond?

There are two opinions here. The extremist forces against us accuse us of involving less in this struggle. The govt, on the other hand, accuses us of being oppositional to everything. In reality, and in the past, the JVP stood against the govts move to sell out state assets. In fact, we have managed to pre-empt such moves.

We launched the biggest protest against the move to lease out 15,000 acres of land in Hambantota for Chinese companies. We led from the front against the project to hand over a stake of the Hambantota Port. The govt backtracked from its position afterwards. The JVP trade unions were at the forefront against the proposals to lease out the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm.

"We launched the biggest protest against the move to lease out 15,000 acres of land in Hambantota for Chinese companies. We led from the front against the project to hand over a stake of the Hambantota Port. The govt backtracked from its position afterwards. The JVP trade unions were at the forefront against the proposals to lease out the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm "



Q How certain are you that the govt would not forge ahead with the signing of agreements to implement its projects in Hambantota and Trincomalee involving China and India?

We want the govt to stop it. For that, we will make every possible effort. Actually, the country is going through an acute financial crisis. Our manufacturing base is lost.

These are, in fact, the assets to be utilized to boost our manufacturing base. If we sell them off to foreign powers, the situation would be compounded worse. If we develop the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm, we would be able to reduce our fuel distribution cost. Now, plans are in place to sell it to India. Indian Oil Company is involved in fuel distribution here. So for India, it is useful. But it is important that we should build

our economy.



QDo you see this as part of Indian expansionism once your party had espoused?

This is a policy issue concerning Sri Lanka. We have to look at it that way rather than blaming India. India is actively expanding its trading with the rest of the world. We should also have a policy to get maximum benefit for the country. We should not formulate policies that are in line with other countries. Then, they will have the advantage, not us. We do not have inherent enmity with India otherwise.



Q In terms of geopolitics and also from the JVPs perspective, how detrimental is it for Sri Lanka to have the Hambantota Port leased out to China and Trincomalee Oil Tanks to India?

In fact, these are assets connected with national security. These projects cannot be compared with other investments such as garment factories and tea industry. The port is an economic nerve centre with a bearing on national security. Likewise, the Trincomalee Port and the petroleum project will definitely have a bearing, not only on economy but also on national security. Energy sector is the most powerful economic tool connected with national security. It should be kept fully within SLs control. It should not be alienated. Economic nerve centres should never be alienated to a foreign power.

"Actually, the executive presidency cannot protect the country from being partitioned. In fact, separatism raised its head when the country was ruled by executive presidency. The country is safe from separatism as long as people are empowered, democracy strengthened and ethnic harmony fostered."



Q The JVP played a pivotal role in installing this govt. How do you compare this regime with its predecessors?

It is true that the JVP played a key role and it was accepted by a majority of people as 6.2 million people voted against Mahinda Rajapaksa. It was part of our struggle. The next struggle is to form a progressive govt by defeating the current regime. When compared, we do not see much of a difference between the present and the former regimes in most aspects. Only difference is that this govt is fragile. The former rule had central control. The President, the PM and the Cabinet belonged to the same party at that time. Today, it is different. The President is from one party and the PM from another. As a result, there is no strong decision-making. At the beginning, the govt was less repressive. It is now attempting to suppress dissent against it. The previous govt resorted to privatization, and the current regime does the same too. Both the govts went for borrowings. We find corruption and frauds under both the regimes. However, there is some breathing space in terms of democracy under the new govt. It is also shrinking now.



Q Traditionally, there are two main parties that had ruled this country. One could be ousted from power with the support of the other only. Then, how could the JVP form a new govt independent of these two parties?

The political situation is building in favour of a different force, as we see. Only the capitalist parties called the shots. When one capitalist party was in power, another capitalist party was the main opposition.

Today, both the main parties are in the govt. Then, only the opposition parties can get together to unseat the govt. The MR group cannot attract people again. As a result, the JVP is ready to fill the vacuum. We will make a political formation. It is not a mere political party. It will be a combination of all stakeholders - academics, professionals, artistes and others.



Q There is a public perception that the JVP chooses political strategies in a manner that is advantageous to the UNP. Your party tends to criticize the MR faction more aggressively while trying to protect the UNP-led govt. How true it is?

It is not true. It is an allegation made by the Rajapaksa gang. We built criticism against the MR rule and it cannot cleanse itself of its past wrongdoings. Alongside, we have logically built criticism against the present rule. Only the JVP exposed the Central Bank Bond scam to the country first. The COPE investigations were done successfully under the chairmanship of JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti.

The Joint Opposition moved a No confidence motion against Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake. The JVP also voted for it along with the JO. But MR did not vote. Literally, the MR clan had acted to safeguard the govt, not us, in spite of lashing criticism in public against the incumbent regime.

"Today, both the main parties are in the govt. Then, only the opposition parties can get together to unseat the govt. The MR group cannot attract people again. As a result, the JVP is ready to fill the vacuum. We will make a political formation. It is not a mere political party. It will be a combination of all stakeholders - academics, professionals, artistes and others"
President Maithripala Sirisena said the largely attended and successful May Day rally at Gatambe in Kandy has given a boost to the victorious forward march of the SLFP-led leftist progressive forces in the country. He vowed to transform the SLFP into a pure, corrupt-free, progressive and democratic political force that could emerge victorious. He pointed out that the SLFP was burdened with corruption and malpractices and faced electoral defeats in 2015.

You placed your trust in me as the President of the SLFP. The people placed their trust in me as the common candidate at the Presidential Election in 2015.

I did not take the chairmanship of the SLFP by force. The central committee of the party invited me. In the last two years, I succeeded in gradually transforming it to a pure democratic party and I thank the senior leaders who extended support to me in this endeavour.

He said that as the trade union leaders pointed out the working class received many benefits and privileges during the last two years and added that the SLFP is a political party that always listen to the genuine demands of the workers as a party that represents the working class of the this country. The SLFP policy is to strengthen indigenous producers, workers, peasants, fishermen and other sections of the working class, he said.

Today the word labourer is not used. Instead, we call the skilled workers. Today the skilled workforce is an important asset of any developed country, he said. The government is fully aware of the importance of the people who serve the nation with their labour and is fully committed to ensure their welfare, he said.

Emphasizing the need for communal amity and harmony, President Sirisena said We cannot build a peaceful country by suppressing other communities.If somebody thinks about his own community, forgetting the other communities, this country cannot be built as a prosperous and peaceful country. How much of our unique Sri Lankan feeling was beautifully displayed in the 1940s when we fought for independence? Our Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim leaders fought against the British rule and won the freedom with unity with each other. But after that they separated for power.

He pointed out that intelligence, knowledge, ability, creativity and skilled workforce needed to develop a country and stated that our country has all these elements which needed to develop a country.

Even though some section of the society blamed that the politicians and the political parties are using the May Day, I believe that the workers and the politicians are not two separate entities,and always the politicians should listen to the voices of the working class.

Today, the Sri Lanka Freedom Partys Youth Front could fulfill its duties and responsibilities in an independent and free environment, he said and added that there are no princes or madams and all are equal.

The Government has declared as a policy to introduce 84 days of maternity leave which is currently given to public servants should also be extended to the private sector as well as female shop employees, the President said.

Minister Dr Sarath Amunugamapresented the Economic Policies of the government at the rally. He said the government is totally committed to protect, preserve, strengthen and sustain local agriculture, strengthen local industries, minimize the import of products that could be locally produced and ensure knowledge based, innovative economy and sustainable development. He thanked President Sirisena for the efforts taken to reduce poverty by declaring 2017 as the Year of Alleviation of Poverty and implementing programmes to ensure every citizen is a stakeholder of the economy by opening new opportunities to all.

Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa presented the Environment Policy and two other policies were presented by Ministers Susil Premajayantha and S B Disanayake. President of the SLFP Youth Organization, Shantha Bandara presented the youth policy. The policy with regard to women was presented by Ms Sumedha Jayasena. All of them were unanimously approved. (pmdnews)

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Sri Lanka has embarked on a new journey towards sustainable development, thereby intending to pass on its benefits equally to every citizen in the country, said Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake.

The minister pointed out that the population in the region is ageing faster than the growth of development therefore necessary infrastructure should be in place to meet the demand by ageing population in the future.

The Minister was delivering the keynote address at the 4th high level dialogue of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP) that inaugurated in Bangkok recently.

Representatives from economic and financial sectors of countries from Asia and the Pacific region participated in the conference. Minister Karunanayake was also inducted as the chairman of conference.

Sri Lanka is going through a remarkable transition today powered by a well-crafted medium-term macroeconomic policy framework. Sri Lanka now has a peaceful environment to do business after ending three-decade long separatist movement. But as the new government took office in January 2015 we had to tackle an array of challenges from many fronts,  the minister said.

Our policy is focused towards developing the country containing broad policies of national importance that will assist the achievement of the far reaching reforms. For instance, my theme for the National Budget 2017 was Accelerated growth with social inclusion, which placed great emphasis on the alleviation of poverty in all manifestations beginning 2017.

Social inclusion is a matter of prime concern and the participation of the entire population in the journey for development is a noble objective being a society for all. Such efforts will lay tremendous emphasis on social inclusion and sustainability in economic development, a commitment to achieve the United Nations proclaimed UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 ensuring shelter, safe drinking water and improved living standards for all.

I wish to note that while the government is strongly committed to ensuring growth with social inclusion, the fiscal space remains constrained with historically low revenues of around 10-12 percent of GDP. Thus in the last two years in particular, significant emphasis has been placed on increasing revenue to augment the revenue to GDP ratio to at least 15-17 percent in the medium term. As such, measures have been taken to broaden the tax base through elimination of exemptions. We will also be introducing a new Inland Revenue Act, which has a simplified tax code and it is expected to facilitate better administration and compliance. At the same time, the introduction of Revenue Administration Management Information System (RAMIS) which connects the three revenue institutions with 27 other entities is also expected to generate better efficiencies in revenue collection. The Department of Customs and Excise also has seen structural improvements been introduced.

Our government is working towards encouraging more private sector participation in the equity markets through major reforms which are centered on the introduction of a new Securities and Exchange Act and the Demutualization of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) which is still a member-owned entity. This is expected to create better accountability and confidence amongst the investor community.

It is now abundantly clear that options for financing infrastructure may greatly depend on the medium-term economic outlook and potential headwinds that we may encounter in the global economic environment. In this backdrop, debt-fueled infrastructure development and economic growth may not be a viable option. Hence, the question we all would have to engage in is how governments could unlock any fiscal space for infrastructure spending and other funding requirement for development.

I believe that one of the fundamental challenges for the Asia-Pacific economies, in the medium-term, will be to increase revenue generation. Advanced economies in particular have a long history of using taxes and government spending to smoothen business cycles. If not properly designed and implemented, taxes can harm growth because they distort economic incentives and behavior.

It is noteworthy to consider that the Asia-Pacific region accounts for nearly 40 percent of global illicit financial outflows including tax evasion which was the largest share on a regional basis. The efforts have been initiated since 1970 to implement regional cooperative frameworks for tax administration in Asia Pacific with the establishment of the Study Group on Asian Tax Administration and Research (SGATAR).

We are seeing an increase in the private participation in infrastructure development, attracted by rising demand for quality infrastructure and expectations of high returns. This has been made possible through different variations of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the region. So, PPPs have emerged as a viable procurement method for infrastructure development in the region. We ought to implement PPP related reforms such as enacting PPP laws, streamlining PPP procurement and bidding processes, introducing dispute resolution mechanisms, and establishing independent PPP government units, the minister added.
Cabinet Spokesman and Minister, Rajitha Seneratne earlier confided to the media that President Maithripala Sirisena had asked Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to take over the army for two years to discipline the country. The government ministers are now competing with each other to deny this.

Their explanations are contradictory and ridiculous. Minister Seneratne stands by his remarks and insists that he acted with full responsibility with the blessings of the President and the Prime Minister.

Social Empowerment Minister S.B. Dissanayake believes the president was only joking when he asked the former army chief to take over the army. Rural Economy Minister P. Harrison thinks it was a joke blown out of proportion. Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera says there was neither a proposal by the President nor a request by Fonseka. Labour Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne goes a step further to insist that the president had not even dreamt of offering Field Marshal Fonseka the post of commander of Army.

Apparently, it had struck the government a little too late that reappointing the former army chief to the army to prepare it to tackle civil exigencies would be tantamount to reversing democratic reforms that it had embarked upon. A respectable distance between military and civilian affairs is in the interest of the democratic health of any state. Using the army to discipline the country blurs that separation. Nigerias current president Mohammed Buhari when ruling as a military dictator in the early 80s was known to deploy whip-cracking soldiers to make the public queue up for buses. His era of discipline did not last long, he was ousted in a counter coup and Nigeria went to make a name for its ingenuity in scamming and corruption.



However, in Sri Lanka, a government which promised (and to a certain extent undertook) to dismantle the strongman rule of its predecessor is now handicapped by the relative freedom it ushered in is patently clear. This government strengthened constitutional restraints on its power which effectively limited its maneuverability and has shunned extra judicial means that its predecessor used with brutal efficiency in dispute resolution between the government and other stakeholders. But, it did not lead to social stability.

The recent spree of protests is often misconstrued as an outburst of pent-up emotions that were held back by the former oppressive regime. Perhaps a more dispassionate explanation of the current unrest is that it is a manifestation of numerous vested interest groups with or without party affiliations exploiting the limited state power and political will of the current administration to advance even the most minimalist of their interests. These are not protests, but blackmail. Some of these protests are purely opportunistic.

"The bottom line of state power, in any state, be it democratic or authoritarian, lies in its ability and willingness to use coercive means to achieve legitimate ends, when a negotiated solution is not forthcoming. For instance, had it not been the declaration by a presidential decree of garbage disposal as an essential service, residents of Colombo would by now be living amid heaps of rubbish"



Under the Rajapaksa regime, it would have taken just one phone call from Gotabaya Rajapaksa to make doctors of the Government Medical Officers Association to amend their ways. Back then, villagers did not dare to protest against the governments development initiatives. Squatters moved to alternative houses, having only waged a nominal protest. University students did protest, but not as recalcitrantly as they do now. There is an explanation for that manifest moderation then because any attempt to override the then limits entailed a heftier retributive cost.

Political institutions need to be both accountable and efficient if they are to be sustainable in the long-run. However these two properties entail a trade-off. In a blunt example, Indias is an accountable government with a fragmented authority across the states and the Centre and checked by a myriad of independent institutions, a merciless media and a civil society. But, at the same time, the evolution of its institutions is such that India has been widely acknowledged as one of the least efficient for the most part of its independent history. On the other hand, China is none of the above: It is authoritarian, with no pretense of established norms of checks and balances and highly centralized with an enhanced level of social control. At the same time, China is one of the most efficient states, an efficiency unprecedented for its demographic size.

Trade-offs between efficiency and accountability do not necessarily need to be as black and white as above. But, a government that constrains itself by limits often stipulated in the Constitution has to bargain and negotiate with numerous stakeholders, trade unions, student activists, ethnic minorities, etc. However, how successful this process would be is a function of existing social, political and cultural dynamics of a given society. Some social structures such as the strains of Confucianism dominant in South East Asia is more amenable to respect a centralized authority than South Asians. This is however not unique to us. Margaret Thatcher is both loathed and applauded for decimating the British trade unions which had a penchant to hold the government to ransom. Having done that, she went to make Britain the financial capital of Europe. JR Jayawardene might have had the same objective when he sacked hundreds of thousands of strikers in 1980. But, he failed in the long-run.

There is a general realization within the government that it has failed to confront the rising wave of protests. The explanation for this failure lies in the governments failure to use (legal) means at its disposal to reestablish the status quo. It is the mumbling of different things at different times and offering contradictory solutions. It has failed to act uniformly and cohesively. It tends to think that acting decisively would place it on par with the Rajapaksa regime, from which it seeks to distance itself.



The bottom line of state power, in any state, be it democratic or authoritarian, lies in its ability and willingness to use coercive means to achieve legitimate ends, when a negotiated solution is not forthcoming. For instance, had it not been the declaration by a presidential decree of garbage disposal as an essential service, residents of Colombo would by now be living amid heaps of rubbish.

When faced with future social troubles, the government should evolve a cohesive and effective strategy. Setting up an emergency mechanism to confront strikes would be a good idea. And Field Marshal Fonseka would also be an ideal candidate to head that. Some institutions which are meant to come to a collusive course with certain elements of public need to derive legitimacy not just from the law, but also from the people who run them, if they are to function forcefully and effectively. That is why it was Gotabaya Rajapaksa and not Sajin Vas who could relocate slum dwellers in Colombo with a minimum protest. Similarly, Sarath Fonseka can derive from his legitimacy as the war winning army chief.

The alternative to this is the gradual breakdown of governance, which to put bluntly, for a country at our economic and social level, is more dangerous than the breakdown of democracy. Indeed, the majority of people, especially those in the South are sickened by the spree of strikes than they were in the past by white vans. The government should do something to fix this mess, if not, it would not last much longer in office.



Follow RangaJayasuriya @RangaJayasuriyaonTwitter
In a horrific repeat of its barbarism, Pakistani forces killed two Indian soldiers  Army's Paramjeet Singh and BSF's Prem Sagar  and mutilated their bodies in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district. The Army officially confirmed the mutilation today (May 1) and all talk of "surgical strikes" and isolating Pakistan on terrorism made by the BJP government seemed like, well, mere talk.

Add to that, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who on a visit to India currently suggested "multilateral negotiations on Kashmir", and it looks like a compete repudiation of India's stated stand.

The beheading of the two soldiers in light of a back-channel meeting between Indian industrialist Sajjan Jindal and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last week, as a possible precursor to resumption of bilateral talks, could be viewed as a Pakistan Army veto on talks but it also shows up the huge gaps in our Pakistan policy, careening from one extreme to the other.

The Army has confirmed that Pakistan came 200 metres into Indian territory to Krishnaghati Poonch and carried out the barbaric act. Security experts say that in Islamabad, the all-powerful Pakistan Army could sell it as their "surgical strike".

From Modi's surprise December visit to Nawaz Sharif on his birthday when the two walked hand-in-hand, to the Pathankot siege, to the "surgical strike", relations with Pakistan have been a wild roller-coaster ride.

In Islamabad, the all-powerful Pakistan Army could sell the latest episode as their "surgical strike".

Security experts say there seems to be no calibration, no institutional response, merely ill-advised "spectaculars" geared to garner maximum publicity, but yielding few tangible benefits. These spectaculars range from sitting on a swing with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Ahmedabad in September 2014, to tea with former US President Barack Obama.

While these meetings yielded incredible photo opportunities, they did not bring India any tangible foreign policy benefits.

Whether it's China on its current renaming spree in Arunachal Pradesh, or the road network it has built in Nepal or its infrastructure building in PoK, it seems that Pakistan and China are jointly running rings around India.

China has blocked India's nuclear waiver, repeatedly used its Security Council veto to favour Pakistan, yet we seem to have no answers to deal with either.

Just who is minding the store in the government when it comes to our tricky belligerent neighbours?

Historically, all prime ministers have preferred to be hands-on when it comes to Pakistan and China policy, but they have always been guided by experienced foreign policy hands as national security advisors such as the all-powerful Brijesh Mishra as National Security Adviser (NSA) during Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure as PM.

The current NSA Ajit Doval has absolutely no domain experience in foreign policy as a retired IB official and made the critical mistake of even allowing the ISI in to an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, an operation that he was personally overseeing.

Vajpayee, as an experienced parliamentarian, was well-versed with foreign affairs  unlike Prime Minister Modi, who often used Twitter to call out Manmohan Singh's "effete Pakistan policy" when the UPA government was in power.

Sample one such tweet from his handle then: "Centre is unable to give a strong answer to Pakistan's inhuman acts. Beheading of our soldiers and now Sarabjit's death are two recent examples".

With Kulbhushan Jadhav, whom Pakistan calls a Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) spy and who is even being denied consular access on death row in Pakistan, just what has changed in the relations?

The "surgical strikes", another much-publicised exercise, yielded pretty much nothing as Pakistan continues to ratchet up the strikes in the Valley.

The establishment has no answers to the Pakistan problem which has bedevilled successive governments.

Yet no other government in India's history has worn "nationalism" so much on its sleeve while shutting down all debate and opposition by repeatedly playing the "nationalist card".

China, meanwhile, is upgrading its relationship with Pakistan and Nepal and is now engaged in emerging as Nepal's most important neighbour, a spot that was indisputably India's earlier. From road building to trade it has embraced Nepal in a tight bear hug.

So, while the faux patriot supporters of the government, who vociferously cite the soldier at the border at the drop of the hat, maintain a curious silence, the time has come to ask some hard questions.
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The road wound upwards, past torrential streams, meadows and pine trees. This was Gujjar country, home to seminomadic pastoral communities; their transient lifestyle meant that they remained along the peripheries of Kashmiri society.

Labelled as among those most loyal to India in Kashmir  which, in turn, signified that they were viewed with much suspicion, especially during the 1990s  the dominant impression even today is that the Gujjars have been cultivated by intelligence agencies to act as informers regarding militant activities. But reality is far more complex.

The conflict and occupation impacted their lifestyle and livelihood, and they were denied access to the higher meadows. They also had to bear the brunt of violence and the remote terrain meant their women were even more vulnerable to sexual violence. I got to understand the anguish of Gujjar women during my visit to south Kashmir in May 2013, when my friends and I attempted to locate a young woman called Pakeeza (name changed) who, eleven years earlier, had allegedly been a victim of sexual violence. A little after Sonarshbrar, when we finally left our car and climbed up a bridle path, we found a small mud dwelling.

Here, I joined Pakeeza who had been summoned from the higher meadows where she had been looking after sheep and goats. We sat with another woman in an inner room while the men waited outside. In the late afternoon, shadows lengthened, and as we talked the sense of isolation was almost complete.

We learnt that it was, perhaps, on one such afternoon in 2004 that two army personnel barged into the then 20-year-olds home near Bunishpura. In her narrative, Pakeeza was unable to recall the exact date of the incident.

She could only confirm that it was the maize-harvesting season. This is indicative of how difficult it is to document incidents of violence within communities that record events not according to a western calendar, but by keeping track of natures cycles.

Pakeeza told us that she had been making tea for two of her husbands relatives  believed to be militants  when they saw troops approaching and ran away.

The security personnel, dragged Pakeeza to another room in full view of some members of her husbands family and allegedly sexually assaulted her. Pakeeza said she had no recollection of what ensued. In her words, she "lost consciousness".

Soon after, a security cordon was enforced around the area, making it difficult for Pakeeza to venture out and record the crime. She recounted that a few days later, a senior army officer had offered the family a sum of Rs 5,00,000 in exchange for silence; they were also assured that the perpetrators would be suspended.

This dangling of money was a cynical exercise in manipulation whereby a poor familys sense of honour was commodified. It created marital discord. Pakeezas husband was made to believe that the "compensation" was paid to Pakeezas father. He also told activists that it was this suspicion that drove him to divorce Pakeeza.

In her story, Pakeeza told us that her husband was promised a job if he divorced her. He, in turn, became angry because he was never given one because Pakeeza had fled to Srinagar.

Pakeeza initially wanted to pursue the case in court but the Station House Officer (SHO) asked her to produce witnesses.

This wasnt possible as all of them belonged to her former husbands family. The rupture in familial ties and bitterness over the manner in which she had been divorced robbed her of the will to fight.

She consented to marry another person from the Gujjar family who, she said, knew she had been raped. Her husband, she said, does not bring up the topic.

Pakeezas layered narrative, brought out how rape, honour and compensation played out in patriarchal structures. On the one hand, there was the commodification of her own dignity when the family was made a compensatory offer, without any regard for their expectations of justice.

Then there was Pakeezas own understanding of rape, rooted in patriarchal notions, in the belief that she was, in some way, guilty  evident in the way she suddenly said, "Galti thee kyun ki militants hamaare thay. (We made a mistake, the militants were from our community.)"

While she did sense that rape was being used as a weapon of war, she was still to arrive at the realisation that there was no justification for the crime  that the violation of her autonomy and integrity was not acceptable and is an internationally recognised crime.

We had met Pakeeza thanks to the intervention of a Gujjar elder. Six months later, my friends and I took up his invitation of hospitality by camping in his field for the night.

Surrounded by the bleating of goats, we heard the Gujjar elder speak with sagacity about his communitys role in Kashmiri politics, and of how two of his young sons had joined the struggle for azadi and had been killed.

He added that he regretted the fact that many Kashmiris viewed the Gujjars as outsiders and questioned their loyalty  if the Gujjars had, on occasion, liaised with the army, Kashmiris, too, had become informers and Ikhwanis.

The next morning, as we ambled down the meadow, the Gujjar elder asked me to join his wife for a cup of tea. Pakeeza and a few other women were with her.

As I entered the house, I was told that the elders wife wanted to share something with me. However, she kept deflecting my questions and speaking, in general terms, of the intimidation of the troops in the 1990s.

Finally, when I began leaving the room, she pulled me back and then, after ensuring that the other women were out of the room, pulled the pherans sleeve off her shoulder.

This simple gesture was her narrative. She had been disrobed and raped. I later learnt that she had recounted the event to me at her husbands behest. His encouragement that she "speak out" reminded me that men sometimes take the lead in breaking silences.

***

In 201213, I set out to record cases of sexual violence linked to the conflict in Kashmir. The women courageously agreed to share their stories with me, even though I was a complete stranger.

I had, at first, set out with a sound recorder but soon realised that some of my interviewees felt more comfortable when it was switched off. I also realised that their stories would not flow in a neat, ordered manner, but with hesitation and pauses, as though, even in the telling, they were battling fears of stigma or reprisal, denial and reluctance.

I also noticed that they never alluded to the actual act of rape or violence, but brought it up in a vague manner. Most of them (like Pakeeza) simply said that they had lost consciousness or blanked out.

I tried to respect their reticence. I have come to see that accepting the sounds of silence is a way of acknowledging a womans dignity and pain.

Occasionally, I was puzzled by the lacunae in the telling of stories and seemingly contradictory bits of information. But it was a human rights activist who helped me understand these gaps and how so many women were still trying to come to terms with their trauma.

He said that once he had asked a victim to clarify an apparent inconsistency and she had responded with some bewilderment, "So what should I have told you? How should I tell my story?"

The innocence and poignancy of that question  what should a woman tell or not tell?  was a stark reminder of just how difficult it is for female survivors of sexual violence to recount their tales.

Behold, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmirs Women and Children; Freny Manecksha; Rupa Publications

How does she recall the nitty-gritty details of the violence inflicted on her and revisit dark memories when it is only natural for the mind to blur such moments or shut them out?

How many times is she expected to keep telling her story?

How does she grapple with, not only the violence of the act, but also the violence of a society that shames her, the victim?

How does she remain true to herself and her story, when sections of society have already stigmatised her  viewing her as "ruined", or having brought the crime upon herself?

How does she elucidate the sexual details when she comes from a society where such talk is considered inappropriate?

How does she receive the acknowledgment she needs for the brutal violation of her rights when gender-based violence has been an integral part of armed conflict throughout history?

Most pertinently, what expectations can she hold vis-a-vis justice when judicial institutions have often failed to offer witness protection and when laws like AFSPA provide a protective cover to offenders?

In Kashmir, as in Manipur and other parts of the northeast, where AFSPA is in force, security personnel cannot be prosecuted  not even for a crime as heinous as rape  without the sanction of the Central government.

Although, policemen are not officially covered under AFSPA, a blanket of impunity envelopes them, too.

"Alleged Perpetrators: Stories of Impunity in Jammu and Kashmir" is a comprehensive dossier brought out in 2012 that examines roughly 214 cases of human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, torture, custodial deaths and sexual violence, and the role of 500 "alleged perpetrators", largely from the Indian Army, Paramilitary and Police force. The document notes the overwhelming reluctance to investigate:

[...] in the name of countering militant violence the Indian state authorizes security forces to carry out all kinds of operations, often without adherence to laws and norms. [There is an] overwhelming reluctance to genuinely investigate or prosecute the armed forces for human rights violations. There may be the occasional willingness to order compensatory relief, but not to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In 2013, the J&K government actually announced a victim compensation chart for rape survivors, which classified rape victims under different categories, one of them being "raped in police custody".

Fortunately, the emphasis on compensation rather than punitive action came to be swiftly condemned.

***

In conflict zones, sexual violence is often a strategy of intimidation and is employed in flagrant disregard of international human rights norms.

Within Kashmir, when the perpetrators belong to the security forces, even filing a complaint comes with attendant problems  leaving the victims vulnerable to more violence both by perpetrators and by society.

Amira was called antinational; the man who assaulted Hameeda received a state honour; and Pakeeza, to her horror, found that the lure of compensation, which was never given was used to hush up the case and drive a wedge within her family.

Human rights activists  who often urge women to demand justice for sexual crimes  consequently face a Herculean challenge. Activist Khurram Parvez explained:

"Once, we tried to persuade a woman to file a complaint she had been raped by a police officer in the presence of her jailed husband. The woman asked us if we could guarantee that she or her husband would not be killed while seeking justice. We couldnt.

"Then there was the other question  one that we are always asked. Has a single person from security forces been sentenced? Has justice ever been delivered in this state when the crime has been perpetratred by military personnel? The answer, sadly, is no. Not a single man from the security forces over the last 20 years or more has been sentenced in Kashmir."

(An Indian Army court did find six of its personnel guilty for the Machil killings on September 6, 2015 and sentenced them to life but the accused were not tried in a civil court.)

Its not surprising then that only a few victims of sexual violence come forward with their stories.

Kashmirs noted human rights lawyer Parvez Imroz, who has been fighting for the reopening of a probe into the KunanPoshpora mass rapes, told me the major deterrents to the filing of such cases were the way gender-related allegations were difficult to talk about in a patriarchal society.

Also that several gross violations had taken place in rural areas where there is limited access to the media and human rights groups and finally investigations have a poor track record of getting completed.

While AFSPA requires sanction from the Centre to prosecute perpetrators of a crime if they belong to Army ranks, there is no such limitation while conducting investigations.

And yet, Imroz reminded me "that 90 per cent of FIRs have not even been filed, and only in two per cent of the cases have investigations been completed".

Even if investigations are completed, the cases remain stuck in the court for years awaiting sanction from the Centre to prosecute under AFSPA.

"People are exhausted fighting cases for over fifteen to 20 years. Many are ill or have died. The next generation does not wish to continue because seeking justice is seen as chasing a mirage. That is a serious challenge before human rights activists and lawyers."

Yet, narratives of unyielding hope do appear  as in March 2013, when 50 young women came forward and filed a PIL (public interest litigation), demanding a reinvestigation into the Kunan-Poshpora case.

Although, the PIL itself was dismissed on the technicality that the police had not actually closed the case, it did help bring the spotlight back on to the episode, with the judicial magistrate of Kupwara directing further investigation.

What also followed such legal activism was the formation of a support group for the Kunan-Poshpora survivors. At a public meeting in Srinagar, they spoke out, and the breaking of silence after decades, according to Ather Zia, was a way of taking ownership of the event and recognizing rape as a political weapon.

Zia adds, "Once this gets reinforced I see a lot of women coming forward. This will take time, of course, and mechanisms will have to be put in place to make things flow in an institutional manner  but yes, I foresee a change."

Ifrah Butt, one of the young women who pushed for the PIL and later joined the support group, spoke to me about how the idea was born, and why young women, like her, felt morally obliged to demand justice.

"The night of 2324 February 1991  referred to as a Black Day  could not possibly be forgotten; it remained at the back of our minds. But somehow we did not speak out. Then, as a few of us began thinking of the legal and social ramifications, we saw that this was as much about a group of women suffering, as it was about a land under occupation. This was a struggle, not only for the victims, but for Kashmir. It was time for us to do our bit," said Ifrah.

This realisation came to be echoed by Uzma Qureishi, a student of social work and also one of the petitioners:

"All of us are victims of a certain tyranny. In my particular case, I was once stopped by the forces whilst returning from tuition classes. I was asked to produce my identity card. It hurt and angered me  that I had to prove my identity in my own homeland to the outsiders. This strengthened my resolve to demonstrate solidarity with the women of Kunan-Poshpora."

These women were linking sexual violence with the overall repression. They were also inspiring an older generation. Ifrah recalled that before the PIL could be admitted the women needed to provide their identity cards.

"I was sitting at home with a bunch of identity cards when my mother asked me what I was doing. I explained everything  our efforts, our demands  and my mother told me to add her name to the PIL. She also wanted to be a part of the struggle."

Another important outcome was that discussing sexual violence gained legitimacy in a society that, otherwise, viewed such talk as strictly taboo. Ifrah said that at first she could not even use the word "rape" in front of her father.

"But now he tells others that I work with rape survivors. My relatives have accepted the idea that unmarried girls can fight for the rights of those sexually assaulted or meet them during field trips and become friends."

A similar episode is narrated by activist and social worker Essar Batool. Her family was not only apprehensive when she backed the PIL, but there was consternation because the word "rape" as part of normal parlance was simply not acceptable.

Years ago when Essars 12-year-old brother had asked what "balatkar" (the Hindi word for rape) meant after watching a film on television, her father had mumbled it "was a very bad thing".

Now, Essar was using the banned syllable and with impunity! But as she explained to her parents her reasons for backing the PIL, this time the term "rape" was being employed in its true connotation as a crime and "as something detached from shame and loss of honour".

(Excerpted with the permission of Rupa Publications India from the book Behold, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmirs Women and Children by Freny Manecksha.)
It's nearing a week now since the Naxals ambushed CRPF personnel in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, resulting in the martyrdom of 25 braveheart jawans. Much is being written and debated on air on the tragedy, and the biggest paramilitary force is currently under the scanner to answer its "failure" in losing so many lives.

Security experts, retired Army Generals and many self-styled specialists on anti-Naxalite terror are seizing this opportunity to remain in focus, highlighting CRPF "failures" and seem to be on a fault-finding spree, blaming almost all concerned for the tragedy.

The ongoing blame game includes delay in posting of a regular Director General, lack of adequate equipment, not adhering to standard operating procedures (SOPs) and not appropriating the experience and services of CRPF cadre officers, etc etc. Such scathing and sweeping criticism is more than unfounded, barring some operational issues requiring a detailed analysis.

The sad incident is now a fait accompli and the CRPF, currently in mourning, is not in a position to defend itself as there have been repeated attacks and casualties, almost in the same vicinity. So any explanation or justification from them is unlikely to seem plausible or look to allay apprehensions.

What is needed perhaps is a professional introspection into the incident and putting in place a fail-proof anti-Naxalite plan to prevent recurrence of similar kind. One should move forward with a positive frame of mind with constructive thoughts, instead of hitting out at the force.

What comes to mind as an immediate redressal is perhaps to tone up intelligence to deal with the menace. We are not sure if intelligence within the CRPF is at all playing any role, though the top brass often talks about this subject.

It's hard to imagine a humongous force like the CRPF, with a strength of nearly 3 lakh and principally engaged in fighting Naxals in a particular region, is without any formidable intelligence set up which is Maoist-centric.

Let's take the case of BSF. It has a separate Intelligence branch to cater to actionable intelligence to deal with threats on the long India-Pakistan and India- Bangladesh borders. It must be paying dividends.

Under no circumstances should the sacrifices of valiant CRPF men be allowed to go in vain. Photo: Reuters

It needs to be borne in mind that the BSF was founded in 1965 and today it has an exclusive intelligence wing under a senior IPS officer supervising collection of intelligence. On the other hand, the CRPF came into being way back in 1939 and yet is without a full-fledged intelligence set up. If at all it has one, it looks to be functionally tentative.

In view of the reverses suffered recently, it would appear advisable for the CRPF leadership to float an earmarked Intelligence wing devoting only to Naxalite-related information for obtaining actionable inputs to counter and neutralise any Maoist plans to strike.

The CRPF may be constrained with shortage of officers and men to form the proposed entity. To overcome this, the Union home ministry, being the apex body to oversee paramilitary forces, must ensure that any manpower deficit is quickly made up and the force is a well-oiled machine geared with intelligence machinery to start delivering favourable results.

Significantly, retired and experienced intelligence officers are available, who have in the past dealt with numerous complex problems. A team of retired officers and personnel from the Intelligence Bureau, R&AW and Chhattisgarh Police (intelligence) can be drawn up to assist the CRPF in forming the wing. Retired personnel are proficient in intelligence tradecraft and their experience should come handy.

Pooling in all talent and experience can be the first pragmatic step towards containing the menace. Importantly, there needs to be a smattering of CRPF cadre officers too in the team to benefit from their rich experience.

The CRPF does have competent officers on its rolls. Their bravery is unquestionable. Time and again, they have fearlessly borne the brunt of the worst kind of violence in Kashmir and Naxal-infested regions. Hence, the involvement of retired CRPF personnel is a must. This move, likely to bear fruition, will look to instil confidence in the force, increasing its operational efficacy.

Keeping the spirits of the force to an all-time high seems the need of the hour. The government has just appointed a DG to head the force. Let him have a free hand to steer its rank and file to new heights with a vigorous anti-Naxalite drive to restore confidence not only among the force, but also among the local populace.

Under no circumstances, the sacrifices of valiant CRPF men should be allowed to go in vain. And that's the first challenge of the new DG.

K Vijay Kumar, former DG of CRPF and now adviser to the home ministry on Left-wing extremism, in his address to retired and serving CRPF officers last year (on the occasion of the force's anniversary) had stressed the need for reinforced intelligence.

This point merits to be carried forward now in letter and spirit. The nation cannot afford to lose brave and committed officers every now and then. The Naxals must be dealt a devastating blow and that too a profound one to prevent any repeat of the killings of April 24. These are the operational facets requiring priority.

As regards the calls by human rights groups and NGOs to integrate the Naxals into the mainstream and offering them packages, such goodies can wait. Ad interim, the menace should be addressed with fury by the CRPF and then welfare measures can follow.
A Washington man has admitted to federal charges accusing him of bringing a woman to Billings work as a prostitute.

During a Monday hearing in U.S. District Court, Andrew Anthony Rivera, 23, of Tacoma, pleaded guilty to transportation of a person with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

A plea agreement calls for a second charge to be dismissed at sentencing and for the sentencing range to be between two years and eight years.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Zeno Baucus said evidence would show that a law enforcement operation in April 2016 led to online communications with a person who was offering sex for money. Officers went to the Lexington Inn in Billings at 2 p.m. and identified an individual as S.B.

S.B. told officers that she had traveled from Washington with Rivera to engage in prostitution and that Rivera kept most of her earnings from commercial sex, Baucus said.

Rivera showed up at the motel later in the day and was detained, Baucus said. Rivera had $3,000. Officers also executed a search warrant on Riveras car and found multiple hotel receipts from different cities with S.B.s name on them and a notebook of sex rates and references to S.B., he said.

S.B. also told law enforcement several months later that Rivera took the photos that were posted to her Backpage ads and that ads for her for the Billings area were from April 2016.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan continued Riveras release on conditions. U.S. District Judge Susan Watters will sentence Rivera at a date to be determined. He faces a maximum 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
When Carol Grant was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January, she knew it was serious.

"It puts you in the head of the line," she wrote about her medical treatment on a fundraising website.

Right away, something else jumped to the front of her mind  seeing her daughter, Kelsey Grant, graduate as Terry High School's valedictorian. But things took a turn for the worse about two weeks ago when doctors said there was nothing more they could do.

After her diagnosis...she wanted to see her daughter graduate, said her husband, Terry Grant. With her prognonsis, she isn't likely to live until the May 20 graduation ceremony.

The small Eastern Montana community helped Grant get her wish last week by holding an early extra graduation ceremony at the Prairie Community Hospital in Terry with the school's five graduating seniors, including her daughter.

There's been a lot to be excited about during her daughter's senior year. She was named prom queen this spring, and plans to attend Montana State University Billings and become a pediatrician.

"(Carol) was just electrified," said Terry Grant, when her daughter was named prom queen.

The early graduation was the idea of a pair of Terry residents, Michelle Wolff and Mary Elizabeth Grue. They were talking last week about the school and mentioned that the health of Carol Grant, who is well known as the bartender at the American Legion, took a turn for the worse.

"I'm addicted to Hallmark movies," Grue said. "I said, 'It's too bad a Hallmark movie couldn't be pulled off here.'"

As the two women talked, they realized that maybe it could. Local businesses stepped up with donations for flowers, a cake and a graduation banner, and the school was more than willing to help.

Tuesday's ceremony was a surprise for Grant.

"She clapped and was extremely excited," Terry Grant said. It was nice of them to do something like that.

The fundraising site for Grant's medical expenses is found at www.youcaring.com/carolgrant-737434.
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Nearly 100 Billings businesses and organizations volunteered as Partners in Education this academic year.

The Career Center alone has dozens of partners who help students learn in fields ranging from house construction to health care.

The Career Centers health careers program received support from St. Vincent Healthcare, Billings Clinic, RiverStone, Shiloh Veterinary Clinic, The Animal Hospital, Billings Fire Department City College and Stillwater Mining Co. Donations of money and staff time helped the Career Center launch its first emergency medical technician training program last August. Students soon will be taking national EMT certification tests.

The Billings Home Builders association has partnered with the Career Center for more than 30 years to build a house each school year.

Other partners, such as Valley Federal Credit Union, tutor primary students in reading, and help with school carnivals. Valley partners with Miles Avenue Elementary.

United Way of Yellowstone County works with schools throughout the city on the Attendance Matters initiative. By focusing on a goal of having every student in class every day, staff and volunteers have reached out to families to overcome obstacles to attendance. This school year, student absences have decreased by 17.5 percent while student tardies are down 43.7 percent, compared with the 2015-2016 school year.

ExxonMobil engineers have monthly lunch-and-learns with Bench Elementary fifth-graders to acquaint the kids with engineering careers.

Meadowlark Elementary fifth-graders learned about the design of Ben Steele Middle School from Sanderson Stewart engineers.

Kampgrounds of America is a longtime partner with Ponderosa Elementary where KOA employees host an ice cream social to welcome students back to school, and later in the year sponsor a reading challenge.

Because of partners recruited through the Foundation for Billings Public Schools, 20 of the districts 22 elementary schools and some middle school students have hands-on Science Technology Engineer Math (STEM) lessons. Private donations supplied partial funding for this Project Lead the Way because the school district alone could not afford the supplies and training required.

The elementary levy that is being voted on today and Tuesday will expand and sustain the STEM program in all 22 elementary schools and the six middle schools, including Ben Steele.

Last week, the foundation hosted a luncheon to honor Partners in Education and to applaud the class of 2017 valedictorians and Senior High Platinum Scholars.

There is a strong connection between school volunteers and student success. The mentors, job shadows, math tutors and other volunteers enrich our students education. Volunteers shows students that their community cares about them. Students need to have caring adults in their lives.

All the Partners in Education deserve accolades.

Theres still plenty of opportunity for more partners. Burlington, Poly Drive, Alkali Creek and Beartooth dont have any partners. Other schools would welcome additional partners.

To learn more about Partners in Education, check the link with this Gazette opinion at billingsgazette.com.

Please consider how your business or service organization can volunteer in the schools and contact Krista Hertz, executive director of the Education Foundation for Billings Public Schools at 245-4133 or hertzk@billingsschools.org.

Volunteers usually find that they receive more than they give  when they help students succeed.
Bipartisan leaders in Congress reached an agreement last Sunday to fund the U.S. government through the end of the fiscal year in September, effectively bringing to an end any suspense related to a possible shutdown of the government next weekend.

A vote still must be taken by all members of Congress, but the agreement includes more funding for the U.S. military as well as for security at the border.

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However it does not include any funding for President Donald Trump to build the wall along the border between U.S. and Mexico, which was one of the presidents biggest promises during his presidential campaign last year.

This deal also includes an increase to the funding of the National Institutes of Health even though the White House requested that the budget be lowered for the remainder of this fiscal year.

It allocated millions of dollars in reimbursement costs incurred by law enforcement agencies around the country that protect Trump along with his family. That is big for New York City, which must help protect the Trump Tower.

This spending package, if passed, will be the first bipartisan measure of significance approved by the Congress during the 102 days Trump has been President.

Republicans, despite maintaining control of both the House and Senate, along with the White House, could not pass any legislation of substance during Trumps first 100 days in office.

This agreement should spare GOP members the embarrassment of a shutdown while they are in control of Congress.

However, it gives a good glimpse of how reluctant lawmakers are to bend to the spending priorities of Trump, such as a desire to make steep cuts in medical research funding.

It leaves the wall at the border still over their heads to be fought over in future negotiations for spending, especially of Trump puts more pressure, as he promised to do at a Saturday night rally marking the first 100 days in the White House.

No details were made public about the agreement Sunday night, but many congressional aides outlined some of its key parts. The agreement will be in force for the remainder of this fiscal year which ends September 30.

Congress had taken action prior to keep the federal government operating while they put the finishing touches on the spending bill. Last Friday, Congress approved a spending measure of one week that averted Saturdays scheduled start to the government shutdown.
Domtar Corporation designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes communication papers, specialty and packaging papers, and absorbent hygiene products in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Pulp and Paper, and Personal Care. The company provides business papers, including copy and electronic imaging papers used in inkjet and laser printers, photocopiers, and plain-paper fax machines, as well as computer papers, preprinted forms, and digital papers for office and home use. It also offers commercial printing and publishing papers, such as offset papers and opaques used in sheet and roll fed offset presses; publishing papers, which include tradebook and lightweight uncoated papers for publishing textbooks, dictionaries, catalogs, magazines, hard cover novels, and financial documents; and converting papers for envelopes, tablets, business forms, and data processing/computer forms. In addition, the company provides papers for thermal printing, flexible packaging, food packaging, medical packaging, medical gowns and drapes, sandpaper backing, carbonless printing, labels and other coating, and laminating applications; and papers for industrial and specialty applications, such as carrier papers, treated papers, security papers, and specialized printing and converting applications. Further, it offers absorbent hygiene products, including absorbent briefs, protective underwear, underpads, pads, washcloths, and body patches under the Attends, Indasec, IndasSlip, and Reassure brands; and baby diapers, training and youth pants, and bed mats under the Comfees, Chelino, Nene, and Bambino brand names. The company serves merchants, retail outlets, stationers, printers, publishers, converters, and end-users. Domtar Corporation was founded in 1848 and is based in Fort Mill, South Carolina. As of November 30, 2021, Domtar Corporation operates as a subsidiary of Karta Halten B.V.
Attorneys for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings have asked the bankruptcy judge to approve two matters related Catholic school projects in Billings.

One seeks approval of the sale of Holy Rosary Church and School to Head Start, Inc. The other requests approval of an agreement to address loans by U.S. Bank to fund the new $15.1 million St. Francis Elementary School nearing completion.

Court approval of the requests would ensure the projects continue while protecting parties interests as the bankruptcy proceeds, said court records filed on Friday.

In the first matter, the diocese is proposing to sell Holy Rosary Church and School to Head Start, Inc., which plans to remodel the site into a preschool to open by mid-August, said attorneys for the diocese. The sale price is $1.25 million with closing set for June 2.

Under canon law, which governs the administration and business of the Catholic Church, Mary Queen of Peace Parish owns the property, while the diocese has title to the property under civil law. The diocese believes the property and proceeds are held in trust for the parish.

The diocese is seeking court approval to place proceeds from the sale into an account and to not use the money pending further order of the court or approval of a reorganization plan, court records said.

On Tuesday, the court approved the diocese's request to shorten the notice time for the sales approval because Head Start risks losing a $919,000 federal grant if it is not used in a timely basis. Head Start plans to use the grant to help buy the property.

The second school issue centers on the funding and construction of St. Francis Elementary school, which is for about 700 students in grades K-8. The school, at Woody Drive and Colton Boulevard, is nearing completion and is set to open in August. The school is on about 26 acres, much of which is not being used, court records said.

The new building consolidates the school, which operated in three different locations. Two of the school sites are to be sold, including Holy Rosary Church and School to Head Start, court records.

The second building, which was known as the Kate Fratt School and is located downtown near St. Patrick's Co-Cathedral, also is to be sold. The third site is property owned by St. Pius Parish and it will continue operations as a preschool, court records said.

U.S. Bank is helping to finance $5 million of the new school. So far, about $2.1 million has been drawn on the loan, with $2.9 million remaining. Another $1 million loan request is expected in May.

U.S. Bank has loaned money to the Capital Assets Support Corporation, which is a non-profit corporation that holds funds for the normal operations of the diocese's parishes and missions. The banks loan is secured by all of the corporations assets, which are more than $15 million, court records said.

The corporation then makes mirror loans to the Billings Catholic School Foundation to pay for school construction, court records said.

The diocese owns title to the building and land under civil law, but under canon law, it holds the land in trust for the Billings Catholic Schools. The dioceses position is that neither the school nor the land are property of the bankruptcy estate, court records said.

The victims disagree.

Under a proposed agreement between the diocese and attorneys for the sexual abuse victims, the parties would affirm loans that already have happened and agree to continued loans under certain procedures and conditions, court records said.

What is proposed serves not only to assure the continued and timely funding of the school project, but to protect the parties on a go forward basis should questions be brought up as to whether or not the (corporations) underlying investments are property of the estate, said Bruce Anderson, an attorney for the diocese.

The proposed agreement would preserve each partys right to raise issues while allowing the school construction to proceed as scheduled, Anderson said. The St. Francis school construction began well before the bankruptcy filing, he added.
MISSOULA  The stars shine equally on either side of the Montana-Alberta border, and now visitors to the national parks sharing that border will have a better chance to see them.

The superintendents of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park announced their respective institutions have received the International Dark Sky Associations Gold Tier designation for keeping artificial lights to a minimum in visitor areas.

In a time when one third of the worlds population can no longer see the Milky Way, protecting this resource is essential, Glacier Superintendent Jeff Mow said in a news release Friday. A philanthropic partnership with the Glacier National Park Conservancy has underwritten night-sky viewing and solar viewing parties for more than 30,000 visitors a year, Mow said.

To limit light pollution, each park has been updating and improving its light fixtures in parking lots, visitor centers and other electrified areas. To date, Glacier has retrofitted 29 percent of its fixtures, and has committed to updating at least 67 percent of them within three years.

Excessive artificial light impairs the ability to see starlight both by reducing the human eyes night-vision capacity and by increasing the reflected backscatter from particles in the air. Light fixtures can be designed to put most of their illumination on the ground while limiting the amount of side-and upward glow.

Dark night skies are a source of awe and wonder that many people cannot experience in cities and are integral to the health of nocturnal wildlife, said Waterton Lakes National Park Superintendent Ian Thomas. Since the program began, 15 communities, 46 parks, 11 reserves, two sanctuaries and three Dark Sky Friendly Developments of Distinction have received International Dark Sky designations.

For more information about the International Dark Sky Places Program, visit darksky.org/idsp.
BUTTE  G.G. Verone is ready to come home to southwest Montana. And after years of legal wrangling, the Montana Supreme Court has brought her a giant step closer.

Ever since her aunt, Helen Edwards, died in 2013, Verone, a Butte native who has lived in California for decades after a Hollywood acting career, has been fighting over a will that left almost all of her aunt's $3 million estate, including a ranch near Sheridan, to a caretaker and a handyman, in essence disinheriting Verone, Edwards' only living relative.

Even after Verone won a jury trial in Madison County District Court that found the 2012 will had been made when Edwards, then 95, was under "undue influence, fraud or duress," District Judge Loren Tucker refused to admit the previous will, in Verone's favor, to probate.

Last week, a five-justice panel of the Montana Supreme Court unanimously upheld the jury verdict and found that Tucker had erred in not admitting the earlier will to probate and in refusing to award attorney fees and costs to Verone.

Verone was raised in Butte, but her uncle Jim and aunt Helen were like a second set of parents to her. Ranching at that time west of Butte, Jim Edwards in particular was close to his niece, whom he regarded as a daughter.

"He taught me to ride, to put up hay, to tend the chickens and milk the cows," Verone remembers.

Verone stayed in Butte through high school, participating in drama and winning a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, where her acting career took off. She appeared in numerous movies and television shows, including "Blue Hawaii" with Elvis Presley and the '60s TV hits "My Favorite Martian" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."

She stayed close to her parents  and her aunt and uncle.

In 2007, within a single day, she lost both her mother and her uncle Jim Edwards. Helen Edwards was then all the family Verone had left  and vice versa. Verone visited the ranch when she could, and the two talked by phone constantly.

A few years later, Edwards broke her arm, and Verone knew she needed some help caring for her aunt. She hired Nancy Schulz, wife of then-Madison County Commissioner David Schulz, as a caretaker.

Soon afterward, Verone says, she noticed a different tone in phone calls with her aunt, and after a time Helen Edwards changed her will to leave the ranch and most of the estate to Nancy Schulz and Paul Degel, a handyman and family friend who stayed on the ranch. The new will left Verone $25,000.

The following year, Edwards died, and the fight over the will led to Madison County District Court.

After the jury found that the 2012 will had been the result of fraud or duress, Verone and her attorneys, Ward "Mick" Taleff of Great Falls and Timothy Strauch of Missoula, found themselves stymied. They had won  but Tucker's refusal to admit the earlier will to probate presaged an ugly, protracted fight in his courtroom.

So they took an almost unprecedented step. Even though they had won, they appealed to the Supreme Court.

Taleff said he's been practicing law almost 41 years, and "this is the first time I've ever won a jury trial and then been the one to appeal."

After reading the Supreme Court decision, Taleff said, "We're very pleased. The only thing crazy is that we had to go to the Supreme Court to get this result."

Now, he said, "there shouldn't be any real question" the rest of the way for his client. "Once the will is admitted to probate," he said, "all that's left is to administer and close the estate."

In the meantime, Tucker has retired. Judge Luke Berger has replaced him in Montana's Fifth Judicial District.

Of the high court's decision on fees and costs, he said, "The district judge will have to decide on the amount, but there isn't any leeway in the decision. She will be awarded fees and costs."

Stephanie Kruer of Sheridan, attorney for Schulz, said in a statement Friday, "We are disappointed in the outcome of the appeal, as well as the trial, since the district court did not appoint a personal representative for Helen Edwards to represent her estate. So there was no one at trial to represent Helen or her will.

"Nancy Schulz's only goal at trial and on appeal was to stand up for what Helen wanted."

Kruer added, "We are reviewing the Supreme Court opinion to determine whether a rehearing can be requested under the rules of appellate procedure."

Taleff said his understanding is Kruer and Lyman Bennett, attorney for Degel, have 15 days to request a rehearing, but "the justices would have to have either missed a dispositive fact, or applied a wrong principle, or there would have to be new case law ... I believe none of those are going to remotely apply here."

Verone said she's decided it's time to come home to Montana. She owns her childhood home in Uptown Butte, in the 900 block of West Broadway. But she said she'd prefer to live on the ranch, and turn it into a horse-rescue facility in memory of her uncle.

"I would like to do something with the land that will be an expression of thanks for all the good he did in his life," she said, but added, "I don't know if I'll be able to. It depends on what's left" after the issue of attorney's fees is dealt with.

Regardless, she says, "I feel very good that I ... stuck it out. I can see Uncle Jim smiling."
Sam Bwiseze has spent the last few years at Albemarle High School learning how to make beats.

Every time he goes to the recording studio, located at the back of the schools media center, Bwiseze sits in front of an enormous monitor in the middle of the room. To his left and right are other students writing lines, rapping, recording and producing on the studio equipment at their disposal.

Its the students own fully functional recording studio.

This is where Bwiseze lets his imagination take him somewhere else, away from the school day, to a place where his creativity can shine and he can make music.

On a recent Monday, he played some of his creations for everyone in the room.

Other students are drawn to the rhythm and thump, looking over to his work space as the volume levels bounce on the screen and the slider glides across color-coded audio channels, the speakers emitting a sound uniquely Bwisezes.

I can do my own thing and it just makes me feel good, he said.

AHS and Monticello High School have similar recording spaces, both created with hip-hop in mind. Students in these spaces have the opportunity to work in other digital and visual media, as well.

At A3 House, as Albemarles studio is called, students have access to computer software and studio equipment they wouldnt normally have access to on their own.

Ive never seen a class like this, ever, Anija Johnson, a junior, said. When I came here, I actually was wondering what the studio was, and then when I learned what it was I was so happy to be in it.

At Monticello Highs Stang Station, students produce the school broadcast show, but the space doubles as a haven for art forms such as rap. The space, said teacher David Glover, is designed to cater to artistic expression not traditionally associated with a high school setting.

But for any of this to truly mean anything to the students, it is critical to stress authenticity and not hold students back from their full creative potential, Glover and Albemarle teacher Chance Dickerson said.

For some students, this is the class they care most about.

Jose Antonio, a sophomore at MHS whose stage name is Big Rick, said he spends most of his time tuning the day out with his headphones on. But Glovers class is the one where he can do something that interests him.

This class, I actually get to make music, man, he said. I love it.

***

Implementing studio space at Albemarle and Monticello took time and interest from students, but the studios existence wasnt an ideological stretch for the schools.

Division officials have stressed the importance of students taking ownership of their learning spaces, project-based learning and teachers making meaningful connections with their students.

This gives them an outlet to get their thoughts and their ideas on the metaphorical paper to share those with others, to have access to the tools of creativity, the expertise and the ability to do that, said Chad Ratliff, director of instructional programs for the county schools.

Dickerson started A3 House three years ago, and in that time it has grown from a classroom to a recording label. The typical classroom model didnt work.

[It] doesnt feel, like, real to me, so thats when we launched the record label, and the record label essentially eliminates the need for a classroom, he said. So its no longer a classroom; theres working spaces.

Students said it doesnt feel like school. Instead, its a place for expression where they feel motivated.

Basically, your grade reflects how dedicated you are to being you, said Morgan Rose, a junior at Albemarle.

Were hustling every day, and its great to see that, she said.

Stang Station started at about the same time as A3 House, and is focused on giving students a place to make all kinds of music, but with a special emphasis on hip-hop.

I think in the K-12 world there are opportunities for students who are interested in music in a traditional landscape, but  theres no outlet if youre interested in hip-hop in a traditional, conventional high school setting, Glover said.

***

For hip-hop in education to work, it has to be meaningful and authentic.

Shea Serrano, a writer at The Ringer and author of The Rap Year Book, said he always thought it was corny when teachers tried to force hip-hop into the classroom just to get students interested in a subject.

When Serrano was a teacher, he used rap as a way to connect with students and to be more invested in them as people.

For me, it just always made more sense if I had a kid who I knew was like super into Drake or something, I would just ask this kid some questions about Drake, he said. And that was it; there was no academic stuff behind it. It was just straight-up, lets have a conversation, and then we have that conversation in our history.

Dickerson agreed. If the experience isnt authentic, then its not going to work.

If you de-authenticize hip-hop then youll get this, its almost like a humoristic, playful sort of cartoony application of hip-hop, he said.

The bigger takeaway is how school becomes a place for students to express themselves, discover hidden talents and, for some, find a place in school in which they are interested and feel that they can do something they care about.

Albemarle senior Elisa Maurice found in A3 House a place to leave her comfort zone, and she discovered an inclusive, creative and welcoming space at school.

In a creative class like this, it gives you a break from the standards of curriculum in a high school and you get to be creative and do what you want, she said. But its also original, and people are looking to you to see what you come up with on your own.

Its not some Socratic seminar where everyone is saying the same thing in a circle, and its a break from the confines of education, she said.

Anthony Hoang, a senior at Albemarle, said two of his takeaways from three years at A3 are promoting himself and collaborating with others.

Ive also learned how to actually make my own music and the steps into doing it electronically, so not just being able to write down the notes and then figuring out on your instrument or vocally, youre also able to see the effects , he said.

***

Even though hip-hops influence and presence in pop culture are enormous, for many it still carries a negative image.

I think the stigma is always going to surround the genre, and theres vulgarity in it and theres things that people arent comfortable with, but thats part of creativity, is stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something that raises questions, or doing something that doesnt cater to the [comfort] of other people, Maurice said.

Glover, Dickerson and Bernard Hankins, an A3 House teacher, agreed that there is a balance between letting the students express themselves and guiding their decision making.

Glover said he hates to censor his students. He jokes that they dont have to sound like Will Smith, but they cannot dehumanize anyone.

For some students, the class might be the first time theyve ever been able to speak their minds.

The thing Ive noticed, too, is when you allow everything to come out, youre going to get to the deeper things that that person is hiding, Hankins said, because theres been some things that have been recorded, when I listen to them, I go, Whoa, have you told this to anyone else? Would you have opened up to anyone else in just a normal conversation?

When you feel safe to express who you are through a medium that makes you feel like who you are, youre going to let it out and youre going to let people into a world that you may not normally let them into, he said.

***

A3 House is where Bwiseze found a place to fit in. At the end of the year, he will have to leave it behind.

I just want to stay here, he said. I dont want to graduate no more.

The recording space has inspired him not only to perfect his craft and continue to make music, but its also helped him to find himself.

I never knew I could make a beat on the computer and stuff like that, so it just gives me courage to know I can do anything, pretty much, Bwiseze said.

Shaun Woode, a sophomore at Monticello High who goes by the moniker of Swoodeasu, already knows he wants a career in making music, thanks to Stang Station.

Woode said he hopes what hes experienced can continue to thrive, not just at Monticello High, but at other schools.

I definitely want this to grow because theres so much hidden talent out there and so many people we could potentially work with, he said.
KALISPELL  A 26-year-old man pushed another man into the Flathead River from a bridge last week after the victim reportedly made an inappropriate remark about his girlfriend, prosecutors in northwestern Montana said.

Cecil Thomas Rice is charged with deliberate homicide in the April 26 death of Anthony Walthers, 34, in the river east of Kalispell. Rice's bail was set at $500,000, the Flathead Beacon reported.

One witness reported hearing a splash and seeing a man yelling for help while another witness saw the man disappear under the water, court records said. Walthers' body has not been recovered, but he is believed to be dead due to the high water flows and cold temperatures.

Rice and two other people who had been on the bridge left in a minivan, witnesses said.

The next morning, a man who had been on the bridge told officers that Rice pushed Walthers off the Old Steel Bridge.

Heather Joy Meeker, 25, confirmed the other man's story and said Rice was upset because of something Walthers said about her earlier in the day at a church that offers meals to the homeless. Flathead County prosecutors charged her with evidence tampering for reportedly throwing a backpack believed to belong to Walthers out of the van as they left. Her bail was set at $50,000.

Rice and Meeker are expected to be arraigned on May 25.
GILLETTE, Wyo.  A 32-year-old former therapist in Gillette faces more charges of using his position to get patients to have sex with him.

Joshua Ray Popkin waived his preliminary hearing in Circuit Court and was bound over to District Court last week to face two felony charges of second-degree sexual assault.

The Gillette News Record reports that a trial on an initial charge of second-degree sexual assault had been scheduled to start Monday, but it was postponed until September.

Popkin worked as a psychologist with Campbell County Health from Nov. 2, 2015, to May 25, 2016.

Popkin was arrested on the latest charge April 14 and was freed on a $50,000 cash or surety bond April 17. No date for an arraignment has been set yet.
Poker Run

ABATE of Virginias Culpeper Chapter is hosting a Spring Motorcycle Poker Run through about 100 scenic miles on Saturday, May 6. Sign up starts at 10:30 a.m. at Peppers Grill, 791 Madison Road, Culpeper. The group rides out at 11 a.m., stopping at Cooters Place in Luray and ending at Glory Days in Culpeper.

Caring for Someone with Memory Loss conference upcoming

Join local experts to develop the knowledge and skills needed to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals experiencing memory loss.

The all-day conference will be held Tuesday, May 9 at Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper. Speakers include Dr. Roddy Kibler, licensed mental health professional and known for his innovative approaches to dementia care; Diana Bright, certified dementia practitioner and recent graduate of Teepa Snows Positive Approach to Care training.

Registration for the workshop is $25 which includes breakfast and lunch. Vendors will be displaying materials and resources. CEUs are available through Germannas Workforce Center.

More information and online registration can be accessed via http://tinyurl.com/MemoryCare2017 or by calling Kathi Walker, 540/825-3100 x. 3416. Family and professional caregivers are welcome.

Native American Flute Circle

Windmore Foundation for the Arts proudly announces a new opportunity to participate in a Native American Flute Circle. The sounds of the Native American flute are renowned for making wonderful healing sounds. The purpose of the group is to join together to learn, create, and perform healing music. Prior musical knowledge is not necessary.

Contact Martha Manigross at 703/217-3597 or email at m_manigross@yahoo.com for dates and times as well as other information.

Trinity Baptist Church anniversary

The Trinity Baptist Church of Warrenton will mark 43 years of ministry with Friend Day on Sunday, May 7. Dr. David C. Gibbs, Jr. of Mason, Ohio will be the guest preacher for all services including Sunday school at 9:45 a.m., morning worship at 11:00 a.m., and the evening service at 6:30 p.m.

Gibbs is founder and president of the Christian Law Association, a nationwide ministry of legal helps dedicated to the defense of Christian liberty in America. Recognized as one of the leading constitutional lawyers in the United States, Gibbs has appealed and argued in 15 different state Supreme courts.

Pastor Vinton Williams and the church family extend an invitation to everyone to join them for this special occasion. Nurseries will be provided for all services for children age three and under. Free bus transportation will be available from many parts of Fauquier, Culpeper, and Prince William counties for the Sunday morning services.

Contact the church at 540/347-7640, or visit tbcwarrenton.org for information. Trinity is located at 8803 James Madison Hwy., 2 miles south of Warrenton on U.S. 29.

Prom for local

senior citizens

Aging Together is hosting its 9th annual Senior Program at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 20, at Culpeper Christian School. The free event will feature food, dancing and music and lots of giveaways with a Hawaiian Luau theme. For information, call 540/829-6405 or online at agingtogether.org.
Domestic Violence will affect one in three women across the country and one in five women will be raped at some point in her lifetime, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Also, one woman is fatally shot by a spouse, ex-spouse or partner every 14 hours in America. Since Jan. 1, a total of 206 domestic-related fatalities have occurred across the nation.

Chances are you are a survivor, or you know a survivor.

Services To Abused Families, Inc. will host Survivors Day  For Women on July 28 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Germanna Community Colleges Daniel Technology Center.

The event, which is free and open to the community, will honor the survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault within the Culpeper community.

The National Honor Society of Eastern View and Culpeper County High schools as well as the National Junior Honor Society of Floyd T. Binns Middle school have already collected mini self-care items to be packaged for this upcoming event and dispersed to attendees.

The purpose of Survivors Day is to pamper and honor survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, said Alyssa Stone, sexual assault advocate for SAFE, adding that referrals will be provided in addition to support from the community.

SAFE would like for the community help raise awareness by providing a donation of additional mini self-care items; monetary and/or tangible investments; and/or attend the event in honor of the survivors.

We often underestimate the strength of a survivor. Their pain is constant and their journey to healing is daily. This event is a perfect opportunity for us to come along side survivors to let them know how much we honor their strength and their courage to keep moving forward. That encouragement alone can have the biggest impact. We hope you will join us, said Brooke Chumley, community outreach coordinator for SAFE.

SAFE continues to provide shelter, support, and advocacy to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and has been since 1980 when the first abuse shelter was established. The agencys staff and board are committed to the safety and well-being of the community of Culpeper and surrounding counties; Madison, Orange, Fauquier and Rappahannock. To see more of SAFEs story, please visit our website at www.safejourneys.org And as always if you or someone you know is experiencing any kind of domestic violence or sexual assault please call our 24 hour Hotline at 1-800/825.8876

For more information call Brooke Chumley, community outreach coordinator at 540/825-8876 or email at coc@safejorneys.org.
Jedi are coming to Bismarck to check out the city's first Comic Con.

The free event is slated for 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Bismarck Public Library, which is collaborating with the owner of the only comic book store in town, Juke Joint Comics.

Bismarck's Comic Con, which coincides with national free comic book day, won't be set up like a traditional comic book convention, but is geared toward families and comic book lovers alike. It will feature a costume contest with prizes, themed rooms and "geeky" trivia.

Mike Swenson, owner of Juke Joint Comics, said he decided to join the library's event with hopes it would boost business at his store.

Right now, unfortunately, were trying to prevent closing by the end of May," Swenson said.

The winter storms that dumped a record seasonal total of more than 50 inches of snow in the Bismarck area prevented Swenson's store from getting any new product in time for the holidays.

We had no sales in December, and that set me back way too much," said Swenson, who started a GoFundMe page to make up for declining revenue.

Traci Juhala, head of the library's youth services, said the library will encourage Comic Con-goers to visit Swenson shop, and Swenson will send customers to them.

Library staff have been planning Comic Con since January, but have been talking about it for much longer, according to Juhala.

We are all interested in Comic Con, and we know that other libraries across the country have done it," she said.

Themed rooms include fantasy (think "Lord of the Rings") and Harry Potter, as well as a sci-fi room for fans of "Star Wars" and "Star Trek," including two Jean-Luc Picard cutouts and a handmade cardboard TARDIS, a fictional time machine.

There will also be a chance for the community to see the library's newly renovated Teen Center, which will have video games and anime.

Everyone has their passions, so its nice to create a venue  not only for the staff to express it, but anyone in the community, Juhala said.

Participants are encouraged to dress up, even if they don't want to enter the costume contest, which will be held from 3 to 4 p.m. Dress as a favorite book character, superhero or even Snow White, Juhala suggested.

Matt Hovland, head of circulation, said the event will highlight the library's expanding comic book collection. The Teen Library has a growing manga collection, and adult and children graphics novels are flying off the shelf, too.

Hoovland attributes the growing interest in comic books and graphics novels due to their wide appeal.

They have comic books about all sorts of things now; its not just superheroes  the graphic novels are their own kind of literature, Hoovland said.

Several costumed participants are expected to make an appearance Saturday. Rick Carman, a member of the Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club, said he and other members will be at Bismarck's Comic Con.

The Mandalorian Mercs is a group with more than 1,200 members and more than 50 chapters worldwide, according to its website. Members wear customized Mandalorian armor, designed from the "Star Wars" comic books. The group is a registered nonprofit in the United States that does various fundraising and volunteer events.

Carman has been a member of the Mandalorian Mercs for about two years. He came across the group while researching how to make his own costume, a mixture of metal and plastic which took him more than a year to construct.

Carman said there are nine official members in the North Dakota and South Dakota chapter, and the group is "steadily growing."

"Two years ago, when I got my first official status, there were only two of us in Bismarck. And since then, weve gotten six in Bismarck and weve spread to Jamestown, Dickinson, some in Minot," he said.

Carman said cosplaying, short for costume play, has become a "family thing." His son, Skyler, 15, has armor just like his dad, but in different colors. His wife, Tessa, a teacher in Fort Yates, is working on a Jedi costume.

At Saturday's Comic Con, there will be three Mandalorians, a stormtrooper, Darth Revan, a biker scout and two or three Jedi.

This is a huge opportunity in the city for people who dont even know about comic books, he said. "It also shows that you can be a nerd and still be cool."

Many are hoping Bismarck's Comic Con will not only draw more people into the library, but also serve a niche in the community.

Libraries jobs are to serve our communities, Hoovland said.

More than 600 people have indicated on the library's Facebook event page that they're interested in attending.

With Juke Joint Comics just a few blocks away from the library, Swenson said his store will be giving out free comic books, first-come, first-serve, from noon to 5 p.m. Free comic book day has been his business' biggest day of the year  seeing a total of more than than 300 people last year and a line down the block at opening.
Bank of North Dakota officials touted another record year of profits Monday, when leadership reviewed its 2016 annual report inside the state Capitol.

Profits for the nations only state-owned bank totaled $136.2 million for 2016, eclipsing the previous years high of $130.7 million, Bank of North Dakota President Eric Hardmeyer told North Dakota Industrial Commission members.

Thirteen years of record profits, Hardmeyer said. All in all, a record-setting year on many fronts.

The profits will go to good use, he added. Prior to this years legislative session, up to $100 million was requested to be turned over to the state to help balance the budget. It would be the first time since 2007 a portion of profits would be utilized in this manner.

Bank profits would return to the states coffers in June, if needed. Over the interim, the state dealt with a budget shortfall of about $1.4 billion, requiring two rounds of cuts to generally funded state agencies.

Did that give you guys any pause? Gov. Doug Burgum asked Hardmeyer of the moves made by the bank over the past year.

Hardmeyer said the bank is still in a very strong position and the use of profits wasnt a major concern.

The banks loan portfolio was its largest ever, at nearly $4.79 billion in 2016. This was up $449 million over 2015. There were increases in the banks business, agricultural, student and residential loan categories in 2016.

Total assets at the bank saw a slight decrease to $7.3 billion in 2016, down from $7.4 billion the previous year.

The numbers for 2016 marked the third consecutive years the bank had more than $100 million in profits.

Hardmeyer said early estimates put 2017 profits at $140 million to $145 million.

The Bank of North Dakota 2016 annual report can be found at bnd.nd.gov.
The former Mandan High School building is one step closer to garnering a National Register of Historic Places designation following action taken by a state board.

The North Dakota State Historic Preservation Review Board voted unanimously on Friday to forward the building, more recently known as Mandan Junior High School, for consideration on the federal level.

Architectural Historian Lorna Meidinger with the State Historical Society of North Dakota said a key reason for the group planning to purchase the building for the designation is to access Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit dollars. She said the idea is to convert the building into 35 low-income housing units.

Itll be used, which keeps the building preserved, Meidinger said.

The building, designed by Gilbert Horton in the early 1900s, is also being nominated for its architecture in the Tudor/Collegiate Gothic style. A series of additions were made in subsequent decades.

After the 2008-09 school year, the building closed and students began attending the current high school. The building was eventually sold by the city.

Attaining historical place designation not only allows for access to financial incentives but provides a level of prestige, Meidinger said.

Being listed on the National Register of Historic Places doesnt bar a building from being altered or sold.

Requests for being added to the list typically take up to 60 days for a decision to be rendered, Meidinger said.
Mumbai: AirAsia India flew 8.4 lakh passengers in the January-March quarter of the current year, up 57 per cent from 5.38 lakh in the same period of 2016, aided by new routes and higher capacity.

The Bengaluru-based airline, which is a joint venture between Tata Sons and Malaysia's AirAsia Berhad, raised its fleet size to nine aircraft from six in the first quarter of the previous year, AirAsia India said in a statement today.

The number of passengers carried increased by 57 per cent year-on-year to 0.84 million, with 50 per cent increase in capacity, the airline said. The seat factor, a measure of how full the plane flies, also increased by three per cent to 89 per cent in the quarter from 86 per cent in Q1CY16.

Three new routes, Delhi-Srinagar, Delhi-Bagdogra and Delhi-Pune, were added in AirAsia India's network, it said adding that the frequency on the Delhi-Goa route also increased in the first quarter of the current year.

AirAsia India, which will be completing three years of operations in June, currently flies on 20 domestic routes from three hubs --Bengaluru, Kolkata and New Delhi.
New Delhi: British oil firm Cairn Energy plc has accused a senior finance ministry official of "privately" advising billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group to withhold its dividend income for a potential squaring off of a retrospective tax liability.

Cairn Energy, which is the only company whose assets have been frozen for a retrospective tax demand, has in a written application to an international arbitration tribunal stated that its dividend income from its erstwhile subsidiary Cairn India (now a Vedanta Group firm) has not been paid for last three financial year.

This, it alleged, was done at the behest of an "advise" a senior finance ministry official gave to Vedanta in "private meetings", multiple sources in the tax department and industry said.

It has also written to SEBI on the issue. The income tax department had in January 2014 draft assessment estimated Rs 10,247 crore tax due on Cairn Energy for capital gains it allegedly made on a 2006 transfer of India assets to a newly created subsidiary Cairn India and then listing it on stock exchanges.

Cairn Energy sold majority stake in Cairn India to Vedanta Group in 2011 but retained 9.8 per cent stake which the tax department had barred it from selling. After sending draft assessment order, the tax department had in April 2014 also raised a similar tax demand on Cairn India for not withholding tax in 2006.

Both Cairn Energy and Cairn India have initiated separate international arbitrations contesting the tax demands. Though dividend income can be frozen only after a formal tax demand is raised, which happened only on March 31, 2017 after full assessment was completed and June 15, 2017 was given as the due date for payment, Cairn has not received Rs 670 crore of dividend income for three fiscals.

When contacted for comments, finance ministry said it does not comment on individual cases. Sources however said the tax department will reply to the arbitration panel saying it does not interfere in matters between two companies.

Cairn India spokesperson said: "The dividends due to Cairn Energy Plc for the last three years are lying in an unpaid dividend account as they were subject to an attachment order under section 281B (of Income tax Act).

"We would like to reiterate that these dividends are not available for use by Cairn (now Vedanta)." He further said: "Cairn Energy Plc has also been in touch with us and we have been responding to their mails/letters sharing our predicament in view of the notice now issued to them post the order of the Income Tax Tribunal for payment of tax liability by June 15, 2017."

When contacted, Cairn Energy plc spokesperson confirmed the company also writing to "SEBI and Cairn India in relation to payment of Cairn India dividends." "Both SEBI and Cairn India have confirmed receipt of the letter," the spokesperson said. Originally, Cairn Energy approached the arbitration panel in February saying India is stopping Cairn India from paying dividend.

The tribunal asked the tax department if it had stopped Cairn India from paying dividend. The Tax department in its reply stated that the matter was between the two companies and it had no role to play, sources said.

When replying to that notice, the tax department had internally observed that there can be no attachment of the dividend unless formal tax demand is raised and tax is not paid. Sources said based on tax department statement, the Tribunal gave its verdict that it will not intervene.

This led to Cairn Energy on March 8 stating in a press statement said the tax department has agreed to lift the freeze it being paid dividend by Cairn India, but it will continue to be restrained from selling the residual stake pending a tax dispute.

But the dividends never flowed to the company, prompting it to approach SEBI. Cairn India replied to that letter saying it had deposited the dividend amount in a scheduled bank within five days of declaring the dividend.

However it is awaiting the advise of the revenue authorities whether dividend can be paid. Sources said Cairn Energy also wrote to the tax authorities on why it was not clearly stating its position on freeze on dividend payments. Now, Cairn Energy has written to arbitrators saying a senior finance ministry official in "private meetings" with Vedanta has advised it against payment of dividend.
Mumbai: Google Inc's India-born chief executive officer Sundar Pichai took home a huge $200 million or Rs 1,286 crore salary in FY17. Pichai's pay package for last year has occupied top places in media coverage since Google made it public.

But how much salary in cash Pichai took out of a total $200 million compensation he got at Google? According to reports, Pichai got stock units of worth $198.7 million. The cash element when calculated by discounting stock units gets reduced down to $1.3 million.

In 2015-16, Pichai got stock units worth $99.8 million as part of his total compensation.

The $1.3 million salary when converted into Indian rupees amounts to Rs 8.35 crore which is double the salary Pichai got last year which was Rs 4.17 crore.

Pichai took home $650,000 salary in 2015-16 that is slightly less than $652,000 he got in 2014-15. The cash component of $1.3 million in 2016-17 that is double the amount $650,000 given to Pichai in 2015-16 amounts to Rs 8.35 crore.

Salary 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 In USD 652,000 650,000 200 million In INR 4.19 cr 4.17 cr 1,286 cr Source: Deccan Chronicle

A further detailed calculation (see table) of Pichai's FY15 and FY16 salary packages reveals that he got Rs 4.19 crore salary in 2014-15 and Rs 4.17 crore in 2015-16 annual years. When converted into Indian rupees, $200 million compensation amounts to Rs 1,286 crore.
New Delhi: Having seen the controversy related to Reliance Jio's free trial run stretched too far, Trai today started a consultation process to frame rules for the network testing before full-fledged commercial launch.

"The DoT requested the Authority to provide its recommendations on testing of network before commercial launch of services including enrolment of customers for testing purposes before commercial launch, duration of testing period etc...," Trai's consultation paper said.

Accordingly, this consultation paper has been prepared to discuss issues involved, possible solutions and framework to bring clarity on the matter," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said.

The consultation paper mentioned that till date, the need was not felt to specify various aspects of testing such as definition of test cards, limit of test cards, testing duration etc. "However, in 2016, a TSP (telecom service provider) carried out testing of its long-term evolution (LTE) network on a very large scale and enrolled lakhs of subscribers as test users before commercial launch of its services...Some incumbent operators filed representations through their industry association expressing that this practice is unfair due...," the paper said.

The incumbent telecom operators have expressed concerns that enrolment of subscribers and provision of service free of cost before commercial launch are leading to a non-level playing field.

They also said the volume of voice traffic generated by such test users, due to free offers, is choking points of interconnect, and impairing the quality of service of other operators. The last date for seeking comments on the issue is May 29 and for counter comments June 12.
Saharanpur: Yoga guru Ramdev said today that Patanjali Ayurveda, promoted by him, will steal the march over multinational firms manufacturing consumer products.

Comparing them to the East India Company that had entered the country with a purpose to "loot", Ramdev said that he aims to make India free from the MNCs.

He said that the MNCs here were not working for the country's development, rather their sole objective was to "loot" India.

"Patanjali agle panch varshon mein in videshi kampaniyon ko moksh de degi ( Patanjali will finish the MNCs up from the Indian market in next five years)," he said.

He was speaking at a function organised here to mark the birth anniversary of Yogi Bharat Bhushan.

"In the next five years, Patanjali would educate the farmers about the latest techniques in farming to boost production. We will also offer decent prices for the produce," Ramdev, who also happens to be the founder of Patanjali, said.

Ramdev also hailed the Uttar Pradesh government under Yogi Adityanath, who he said, establishes a good connect with the public.
New Delhi: Reliance Industries Ltd today approached the Securities Appellate Tribunal against a Sebi order, which had banned the Mukesh Ambani-led firm from equity derivative trading for one year and had asked it to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore in an alleged fraudulent trading case.

The Tribunal is likely to hear RIL's appeal on May 3 to decide on admission and further hearing, sources said. In a nearly 10-year-old case, capital markets regulator Sebi on March 24 had banned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year, while accusing the company of making "unlawful gains".

Besides, RIL was asked to disgorge Rs 447 crore, along with an annual interest of 12 per cent since November 29, 2007, which itself would be over Rs 500 crore, taking the total disgorgement amount to nearly Rs 1,000 crore.

The case relates to alleged fraudulent trading in the F&O space in the securities of RIL's erstwhile listed subsidiary Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL). Soon after Sebi's order, RIL had termed the regulator's directions as "unjustifiable sanctions" and had said it would challenge the directive.

The company felt the trades were examined by Sebi were genuine and bona fide transactions and were carried out keeping the best interest of the company and its shareholders in view.

"Sebi appears to have misconstrued the true nature of the transactions and imposed unjustifiable sanctions," it had added. The group had earlier sought to settle the case, but the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had refused.

The proceedings in the long-pending case were expedited in the last few months. Reliance Petroleum was later merged with the listed parent firm. The 12 other entities that were banned by Sebi are Gujarat Petcoke and Petro Product supply, Aarthik Commercials, LPG Infrastructure India, Relpol Plastic Products, Fine Tech Commercials, Pipeline Infrastructure India, Motech Software, Darshan Securities, Relogistics (India), Relogistics (Rajasthan), Vinamara Universal Traders and Dharti Investment and Holdings.

Sebi had said the directions are being passed after taking into consideration the magnitude of the fraud across the markets. As per the Sebi order, RIL by employing 12 agents to take separate position limits of open interest on its behalf by executing separate agreements with each one of them and cornering 93.63 per cent of the November futures of RPL, "acted in a fraudulent manner".
According to an analysis of the data made public so far by the fund houses, the CEO salary given by the top four fund houses -- ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC MF, Reliance MF and Birla SunLife MF -- increased in 2016-17.

New Delhi: CEO salaries have gone up at the country's biggest mutual funds on robust business growth, but several smaller players making losses or little profit have also paid crores to their top executives.

The disclosure follows a diktat from markets regulator Sebi to all fund houses to make public the salaries of their top managements so that investors are aware of the payouts.

While top fund houses like ICICI Prudential, HDFC and Reliance MFs have made clear disclosures in this regard by the Sebi deadline of April 30 for the 2016-17 fiscal, some others appear to have made it difficult for the investors to directly access the information.

Some of them are also asking investors to provide details like folio numbers before sharing the information, while a few others are informing those trying to access the salary information that the details would be sent to them directly in a day or two.

Moreover, some fund houses have enforced OTP (one-time password)/email mechanism to share the remuneration data making it inconvenient for investors to access these information.

According to an analysis of the data made public so far by the fund houses, the CEO salary given by the top four fund houses -- ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, HDFC MF, Reliance MF and Birla SunLife MF -- increased in 2016-17.

Birla Sunlife MF, which is the fifth biggest domestic fund, had appointed Anuradha Rao as its Managing Director and CEO in August 2016 and therefore the figure is not comparable.

The salaries for Chief Investment Officers have also increased for most of them. Surprisingly, some smaller fund houses have paid higher salaries than their bigger rivals, despite making losses or marginal profit.

Among the top players, HDFC Mutual Fund paid its CEO Milind Barve a salary of Rs 6.49 crore for the latest fiscal 2016-17. He had received a package of Rs 6.25 crore in the preceding fiscal. ICICI Prudential MF paid Rs 5.96 crore to its Managing Director Nimesh Shah last fiscal, as compared to Rs 5.4 crore in the preceding financial year.

Further, Sundeep Sikka, the top honcho of Reliance MF, received a pay package of Rs 5.01 crore. He had earned a salary of Rs 3.25 crore in 2015-16. A Balasubramanian, chief executive at Birla SunLife MF, got a salary of Rs 4.11 crore, a surge from Rs 3.73 crore in 2015-16.

In terms of assets under management, ICICI MF is the largest fund house with an assets base of Rs 2.43 lakh crore, followed by HDFC MF (Rs 2.37 lakh crore), Reliance MF (Rs 2.11 lakh crore) Birla Sunlife MF (Rs 1.95 lakh crore) and SBI MF (Rs 1.57 lakh crore). Last month, Sebi had directed fund houses to disclose annual remuneration of all employees earning Rs 1.02 crore or above within one month of a financial year, starting with 2016-17.

Earlier, remuneration of all employees earning Rs 60 lakh in a financial year were required to be disclosed. This is part of Sebi's effort to promote transparency in remuneration policies so that executive salary is aligned with the interest of investors.

While a few mutual fund houses have complied with Sebi's directive and disclosed the information, others still have to comply with the rule.
Mumbai: Critical of rating agencies forgiving India the lowest investment grade rating, eminent banker Deepak Parekh has wondered how a country with such

"strong fundamentals" on both economic and political fronts can be rated so low.

India continues to be rated 'BBB-' -- just a notch above the junk grade and lowest among investment grade ratings -- by most of the global credit rating agencies despite the government pitching hard for an upgrade on the basis of

several reforms initiated over the last few years.

"Why is India, the fastest growing emerging economy for over one year now with all macroeconomic fundamentals being positive, rated just BBB- "On the other hand, Italy and Spain, which are far weaker and smaller, are having much higher ratings than us," Parekh told PTI in an interview here.

"Italian banks are in far worse shape than our banks. Italian government is more shaky and we have a solid political stability now," he said. The top industry leader and Chairman of housing finance major HDFC Ltd, who commands huge respect for his candid views on policy matters, said a credit rating is supposed to be based on both economic and political factors.

"Some times, when economic scenario is good, political situation can be bad and at times when politics is in good shape, economic factors can be bad.

"This time, both (factors) are good for us and are very strong. The foundation is strong and we have a strong government," he said.

Asked whether we should focus too much on rating agencies, who themselves have been facing questions, Parekh said they are still global rating companies but made a strong pitch for an upgrade for India.

Some commentators have already raised questions about the methodologies adopted by the rating agencies, even as they have been defending their views and have ruled out any upgrade in the immediate future.

Taking a dig at rating agencies, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian went on to write a piece in this year's Economic Survey with a headline 'Poor Standards' The Rating Agencies, China and India' -- an apparent reference to the leading agency Standard and Poor's.

He also wrote that the role of ratings agencies has increasingly come into question in recent years. "In the US financial crisis, questions were raised about

their role in certifying as AAA bundles of mortgage-backed securities that had toxic underlying assets. Similarly, their value has been questioned in light of their failure to provide warnings in advance of financial crises - often downgrades have occurred post facto, a case of closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted," he wrote.

Subramanian said S&P in November 2016 had ruled out the scope for an upgrade for India for some considerable period, mainly on the grounds of its low per capita GDP and relatively high fiscal deficit.

Noting that the actual methodology to arrive at a rating was more complex, he wondered whether these variables were right key for assessing India's risk of default. Noting that per capita GDP is a very slow moving variable, Subramanian said the poorest of the lower middle income countries would take about 57 years to reach upper middle income status.

"So, if this variable is really key to ratings, poorer countries might be provoked into saying -- Please don't bother this year, come back to assess us after half a century," he said.
Bengaluru: Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said organically grown millets, black pepper and Byadgi chilli has great scope for exports, and necessary initiatives will be taken in this regard very soon.

"I have assured the minister (Karnataka Agriculture minister) that in the third week of May, I will ensure that we have a meeting with certifying agency APEDA, government of Karnataka and farmers to see how such value addition can be brought," she said.

Sitharaman was speaking at the valedictory of the three-day national conference and exhibition on organic farming and millets, 'Organics & Millets 2017,' organised by the Karnataka Agriculture Department here.

The minister said startups from the sector will now have to look at how to address the aggregation problem, while suggesting that if startups can be of help in aggregation, governments can help in very quickly organising exports of the products and there by getting better price for farmers.

"Governments, both central and state today don't have the power to recruit people for doing this aggregation. I would think a challenge exist for startups...," she said. "If they can have a way in which, they identify and certify farmers, and they link it up to whatever innovations they can bring in, and if aggregation is facilitated, export of goods- certified organic products are not difficult," she added.

Noting that in India organic products are being grown in five million hectares, Sitharaman said out of this, three million hectares are in the forest area, two million in the organized farming and there is immense scope for aggregation, value addition.

Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the three-day 'Organics & Millets 2017' event saw about 48,000 visitors and participation of 11,000 farmers.

About 20 MoUs were signed between companies and farmer federations during the trade fair, he said, adding, business potential worth Rs 100 crore is expected to be generated for farmers in the long term from the fair.

The state government has decided to organize international trade fair on organics and millets in Bengaluru early next year, and to set up a government-industry advisory council to popularise organics and millets, he said.
LOS ANGELES  If you go by the odds, Sierra Williams shouldnt be in college, let alone at a highly selective school like USC.

Many kids in her low-income neighborhood here dont get to or through the 12th grade. Her single mother isnt college-educated. Neither are Sierras two brothers, one of whom is in prison. Her sister has only a two-year associate degree.

But when Sierra was in the sixth grade, teachers spotted her potential and enrolled her in the Neighborhood Academic Initiative, or NAI, a program through which USC prepares underprivileged kids who live relatively near its South Los Angeles campus for higher education. She repeatedly visited USC, so she could envision herself in such an environment and reach for it. She took advanced classes. Her mother, like parents or guardians of all students in the NAI, got counseling on turning college into a reality for her child.

Sierra, 20, just finished her junior year at USC. An engineering major, shes already enrolled in a masters program. My end goal is to get my Ph.D, she told me when I met her recently.

Its now some two decades since the first class of seniors in the NAI graduated from high school and went on to college. More than 900 kids have used the NAI as an on ramp to higher education  more than a third of them ended up at USC  and that number is growing quickly as the NAI expands.

The public school that many NAI enrollees attend, the Foshay Learning Center, was responsible for more new arrivals on the USC campus last fall than any other public or private high school in America. Nineteen NAI alumni started as freshmen; 11 more transferred from other colleges.

And NAI doesnt even represent the whole of USCs efforts to address inadequate socioeconomic diversity at the countrys most celebrated colleges. Although USC has often been caricatured as a rich kids playground  its nickname in some quarters is the University of Spoiled Children  it outpaces most of its peers in trying to lift disadvantaged kids to better lives. Those peers should learn from its example.

According to a recently published study whose data was just a few years old, 38 of Americas top colleges had more students from families in the top 1 percent of income earners than from those in the bottom 60 percent. There are many reasons, principally a failure to identify and recruit disadvantaged kids whose abilities and accomplishments make them perfectly eligible for elite colleges with low acceptance rates. (USCs is now about 16.5 percent.)

But we also dont make enough disadvantaged kids eligible in the first place. We dont guide them through elementary, middle and high school so that they have the necessary grades, scores, skills and mindsets. Administrators at USC figure that they cant just wait for public education to improve and should use some of their considerable resources to chip in themselves somehow.

One recent weekday morning I sat in on an AP English class with 31 students in the NAI. All were minorities. I asked how many had a parent who had graduated from college. Only four hands went up. I asked how many would be the first in their families, including siblings, to enroll in college. Eighteen of the kids raised their hands.

One was Sergio Lopez, 17. His dad, a mechanic, emigrated from Guatemala and his mom, a homemaker, from Honduras.

Sergio was just accepted into USC and will head there next fall. He told me that any nerves he might have felt about college are allayed by how familiar USCs environs have become.

It got comfortable, he said, adding that an NAI-assigned mentor at USC has given him tips on how best to study: Ditch the dorm for the library, which has fewer distractions. That may be a no-brainer for some kids. For others, nothing about college is obvious  or inevitable.
IOC said customers may verify fuel prices by downloading the company app or visiting its website. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: Petrol and diesel prices will be revised on a daily basis from today in select towns in sync with international rates, much like it happens in most advanced markets.

State-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), which own more than 95 per cent of the nearly 58,000 petrol pumps in the country, will launch a pilot for daily price revision in five select cities from 1 May 2017 and gradually extend it to other parts of the country.

A pilot for daily revision of petrol and diesel prices will be first implemented in Puducherry, Vizag in Andhra Pradesh, Udaipur in Rajasthan, Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Chandigarh, IOC said in a statement.

State fuel retailers currently revise rates on the 1st and 16th of every month based on average international price of fuel in the preceding fortnight and currency exchange rate.

Instead of using fortnightly average, pump rates will reflect daily movement in international oil prices and rupee- US dollar fluctuations.

IOC said petrol in Udaipur costs Rs 70.57 a litre and diesel Rs 61.23, while in Jamshedpur petrol costs Rs 69.33 a litre and diesel Rs 60.26.

A litre of petrol costs Rs 67.65 in Chandigarh and diesel is priced at Rs 57.74. In Vizag, petrol costs Rs 72.68 a litre and diesel Rs 62.81. In Puducherry, petrol is priced at Rs 66.02 per litre and diesel Rs 58.68 a litre.

IOC said customers may verify fuel prices by downloading the company app or visiting its website.

Daily price change will remove the big leaps in rates that need to be effected at the end of the fortnight and consumer will be more aligned to market dynamics.

While petrol price was freed from the control of the government in June 2010, diesel rates were deregulated in October 2014.

Technically, oil companies have freedom to revise rates but often they have been guided by political considerations.

Rates differ by only a few paise between pumps of the three state fuel retailers.

With daily changes, which are unlikely to be more than a few paise per litre, the political pressures for not revising rates particularly when they are to be hiked will go, industry sources said.
Mumbai: Most Indians are likely to travel to New York, Dubai and Bangkok in the first half of the current calender year, according to a report. The three cities feature in the top searched destinations for the first half of 2017, said the report by global travel search engine KAYAK.

The data is based on the search results from the Kayak site since last year. London and Singapore were the other two destinations Indians are looking at to travel during the first six months of this year, it added.

Destinations such as Amsterdam, Athens and Male are the top three trending destinations amongst Indian holiday- makers, the report said. Amsterdam remained a hot destination with a 283 per cent increase in the volumes of searches, followed by Athens (185 per cent) and Male (117 per cent), it added.

"Over the past few months, we have observed that Indian travellers are willing to explore newer destinations. We saw a lot of interest being built for destinations like Amsterdam, Athens and Male becoming popular.

"As for travel planning, we saw that Indian travelers continue to plan their travel well in advance. The most interesting nugget of information, however, was on the search timings. Indian travellers seem to make travel searches mostly during noon," KAYAK Country Manager India Abhijit Mishra said.

However, in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, the search hour was indicated to be 3:30 to 4:30 pm, which also was the second most preferred timing for the Indians to make travel plans and book their tickets, he added.

The least preferred time for Indians was revealed to be from 4:40?5:30 pm, the report said. The search highlighted that Indians are willing to take an extra holiday and begin their journey on Friday as compared to waiting till Sunday.

Fridays, the report revealed, remained the most popular journey start day for Indians with Saturday coming a close second, it added. Be it leisure or business travel, the data showed that in 2016, the average trip duration for Indians was seven days.

Travellers from Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad displayed a longer average trip duration compared to tourists from Pune and Jaipur. The average travel duration for Ahmedabad was 11 days, followed by Mumbai and Hyderabad (eight days each), the report added.
New Delhi: Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said that surprise checks will be conducted across India at fuel stations to detect any short-selling of petrol and diesel by petrol pump owners to consumers by tampering with the system in dispensing units.

The instructions to this effect have been given to all concerned, said Mr Pradhan at a press conference called on the issue here. The minister said that the Central government hopes for full co-operation from the states as weights and measures is a state subject and the annual supervision cum certification of fuel delivery units at fuel stations is carried out by the weights and measures departments of the concerned state.

Responsibility to ensure proper measurement lies with the states weights and measure departments but as owners oil marketing companies also have to share the blame, he said.

Mr Pradhan said consumer interest is paramount and that strict action will be taken against those found guilty of tampering with fuel calibration. He said that those dealers violating the marketing discipline guidelines (MDG) will also face strict action mounting to even termination of licences.

The minister said two officials of state-owned fuel retailers in UP have been suspended following the raids. We have initiated action against respective field officers. The strictest possible action will be taken against guilty petrol pumps, including termination of licence, he said.

The minister said that all fuel stations in UP will be re-assessed by a team comprising of representatives from state governments weight and measures department, civil supplies department, special task force and the Oil marketing company.
The actor will soon be seen in 'Toilet- Ek Prem Katha'.

Mumbai: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar today said that government should set up mobile toilets every five hundred metres or at least one km across Maharashtra.

Speaking at `Transform Maharashtra' event here, Kumar said, "Government should plan (putting up) mobile toilets every 500 meters or one km across the state. It will support cleanliness. It should be supported with an app to locate it (the nearest mobile toilet)."

Women in rural areas face a lot of difficulties as there are hardly any public toilets in villages, the actor said. Akshay, whose coming film deals with the issue of lack of toilets, cited a dialogue from the film: "Agar biwi chahiye paas, toh ghar me chahiye Sandaas (if you want the wife to stay with you, ensure you have toilet at home)."

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was also present at the event.
Mumbai: Shahid Kapoors got everything going for him; back-to-back hard-hitting performances, Best Actor awards, a lovely family, fancy cover shoots and of course, that fab and totally drool worthy body!

Well aware of the magic spell his hot bod usually casts on viewers, Shahid likes to tease his fans every now and then by posting shirtless photos on social media site Instagram and they seem to absolutely love it.

Just recently, the Udta Punjab award-winning actor uploaded a portrait like picture, looking all tanned and terrific against the backdrop of a brick wall. The shot is simplicity and hotness personified.

On a professional front, after the lukewarm response to love-war drama Rangoon, Shahid will next be seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansalis controversial period drama Padmavati. Despite the ongoing tension over the script of the film, Kapoor has shot for a major part of the film where he plays the role of Raja Rawal Singh, husband of Deepika Padukones titular character Rani Padmavati.
Nandita Swetha is definitely on a high, with a slew of promising films lined up for her in both Tamil and Telugu. The actress, who celebrated her birthday yesterday, spoke to DC about her next release  Ulkuthu. The real birthday-like celebrations are when my films do well, she starts, adding, I knew director Caarthik Raju right from his Thirudan Police days, and Ive always expressed my interest in working with him. When he approached me with the script of Ulkuthu, I immediately accepted to do the role. Nandita plays the role of a naive salesgirl from Nagercoil, who is the love interest of Dinesh.

Nandita and Dinesh in Ulkuthu

The highlight of my role is perhaps the scenes with Balasaravanan, who plays my brother. The comedy between the two of us has worked out very well. Working with Dinesh again after Attakathi felt nice, as back then I didnt even know the language and was pretty clueless. Our pair had been well received, and Ulkuthu is for those who felt bad that our characters did not end up together in Attakathi! she says.

While the films trailer promises a lot of action, Nandita assured that the film has a mix of all emotions. The actress is currently shooting for the Telugu remake of Tamil superhit Sathuranga Vettai. The telugu audience have welcomed me after Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada, and Im getting many performance oriented roles in Telugu, which is a great thing. Apart from this, Nandita is also acting as a cop in Vanangamudi, and may also reprise her role in the Tamil remake of EPC.
Lets consider the case of an aspiring actor who finally got an opportunity to take up a supporting role in a film. The movie is all set to hit the screens and the actor is anxious to see their hard work onscreen. To their dismay, the one scene for which they toiled for years didnt make the cut. This has been the story of almost every struggling actor. The concerns that arise here are on the need to give upcoming artistes their due credit and the directors being considerate in retaining their scenes. DC talks to supporting actors and directors to understand what goes on at the editing desk. Suja Varunee was probably one of the first actresses to talk about the struggle she went through during the initial stages of her acting career.

She shares, We actors, trust our directors and sometimes the trust is broken. When the film exceeds a particular duration, they cut our scenes without even consulting actors who have worked hard for it. I have been in that position and several directors still do that to me. Why do people waste money or actors or the energy to shoot scenes that wont make the final cut? I hope people remember that an act cannot be executed by the stage and puppet masters alone! Directors always need puppets to bring their characters alive onscreen. Respect your actors! Actor Bharath Reddy, who played a significant role in The Ghazi Attack, believes that the situation is much worse in Tollywood. I started my career in Telugu and its a hero-dominated industry. Your scenes gets chopped off mercilessly. Initially, every actor faces this issue until they break the barrier. I feel both Kollywood and Tollywood should learn from the Hindi industry on how to treat all actors equally. The more supporting actors there are, the better it is for the establishment of the lead character, he asserts.

Director Balaji Mohan, who has been giving importance to the character artistes in his films, echoes Sujas thoughts. He goes on to add, They are actors who dream of getting their big break. But, it is disheartening to see their scenes getting cut. In the films that I have done so far, I make it a point to go for the shoot with a proper script. During the scripting stage, I work on several drafts and edit the story accordingly. There may be minor differences during the final trimming, but I make sure, I retain most of the scenes that I film. However, the Maari director emphasises that it all boils down to the creators call. There are directors who discover the film as they shoot. They might have a four-hour footage, which might require excessive trimming. It is always nice if directors shoot only what ends up in the final copy. But, one cant judge what would happen during the shoot. It is the directors responsibility to look at the bigger picture before cutting down a scene, he says.

Durai Senthil Kumar, who offered a powerful role to Kaali Venkat in his previous project, Kodi, reveals that he would be devastated when he has to chop off a sequence. More than the supporting actors, I feel at loss. Most of the directors do not film scenes for backup. They do it to bring in the emotional drive to the story. Producers are concerned about the movies duration and at times, we need to compromise. When it comes to filming comedy sequences, on-the-spot improvisations wont give control over the timing of a particular scene. In that case, you will have to trim off the unwanted portions. In Kodi, I had to cut out a lot of scenes of Venkat. None of the directors writes a story bearing the final duration of a flick, he maintains.

Kaali Venkat, who rose to prominence with his performance in Thegidi and Irudhi Suttru, claims that directors always include a scene to enhance their film. We cannot ask them not to shoot scenes that wont make it to the final cut. Directors keep the budget in mind and they write scenes only to uplift the final product. When the duration exceeds, it is the comic sequences that get hit. For example, Mundasupatti needed a lot of trimming and it was extremely difficult as the comic sequences go along with the story and not as a separate track, he concludes.
Just over a week or so after the release of Baahubali: The Beginning, Tamil superstar Vijays Jilla had hit the screens across the Telugu states. Interestingly, it was probably the only film that managed to sustain the competition and stayed on for a while in the theatres. In fact, the film even earned the producers, huge profits  apparently double of what they had invested. Now, yet again, the actors recent release, Bairavaa, is set to release just a few weeks after Baahubali: The Conclusion. While this is just a coincidence, it does seem uncanny and many are hoping the magic could repeat. Titled Vijaya Bhairava, the film is set to hit the screens sometime in May, as announced by the films Telugu producer Bellam Ramakrishna Reddy.

Starring Keerthy Suresh as the female lead, the film is directed by Bharathan and has music by Santhosh Narayananan. Vennela Kanti has written the lyrics, while Ghantasla Rathnakumar has penned the dialogues. It is to be seen if this film has a similar story as Jilla.
Atlanta: Overweight and obese people with early-stage type 2 diabetes have more severe abnormalities in brain structure and cognition than normal-weight people with type 2 diabetes, researchers suggest.The study has been published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Having type 2 diabetes and being overweight, then, can combine to have a greater effect on brain structures."There's a general agreement that type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for various types of both structural and functional abnormalities in the brain," said Dr. Donald C. Simonson, a co-author of the study and an endocrinologist specializing in diabetes. "Simple obesity also shows the same type of abnormalities ... in a milder stage. You can see where it's not quite exactly normal but not quite as bad as someone with diabetes.

"So, if you have both, will it be worse than if you have them alone? That's what we looked at in this particular study," said Simonson, who teaches at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. In Kyoon Lyoo, lead author and a professor at the Ewha Brain Institute at Ewha Womens University in Seoul, South Korea, wrote in an email, "As obesity has been known to be associated with metabolic dysfunction, inflammation, and brain changes independently of diabetes, we expected that brain alterations might be more pronounced in overweight/obese participants with type 2 diabetes."

Effects on the brain

Lyoo, Simonson and their colleagues designed a study around 50 overweight or obese people age 30 to 60 who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Fifty normal-weight people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and 50 normal-weight people without diabetes also participated. These additional participants were age and sex matched to the original group. Those diagnosed with diabetes were also matched for disease duration. Standard body mass index ranges defined "overweight" (having a BMI of 25 to 29.9), "obese" (greater than 30) and "normal weight" (18.5 to 25).

The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to examine each participant's brain structure, including the thickness of the cerebral cortex and white matter connectivity. Gray matter in the brain contains the neuron cell bodies, whereas white matter contains bundles of nerve fibers and its job is to process and send signals along the spinal cord.

The researchers chose to study thickness and connectivity "because these could be sensitive markers of diabetes-related brain changes, and could be reliably quantified by using magnetic resonance imaging," Lyoo explained.Participants also were tested for memory, psychomotor speed and executive function, since these are known to be affected in people with type 2 diabetes.The results aligned with the researchers' initial assumptions, Lyoo said.

Clusters of gray matter were significantly thinner in the temporal, prefrontoparietal, motor and occipital cortices in the brains of diabetic participants than in the non-diabetic group, the study found. More thinning of the temporal and motor cortices could be seen in the overweight/obese diabetic group compared with normal-weight diabetics. Separately and collectively, these areas of the brain impact motor control, executive function, body awareness, concentration and other cognitive functions.

"Most of the things we looked at, you could see that there was a progression, and the obese patients with diabetes were worse than the lean patients with diabetes, and they were both worse than the age-matched controls," Simonson said.

In particular, the temporal lobe appears vulnerable to the combined effects of type 2 diabetes and being overweight or obese, the researchers say. The temporal lobe is implicated in language comprehension and long-term memory. The brain has been the last frontier in the study of complications of diabetes, Simonson said.

Similarities to Alzheimer's disease

"Diabetic retinopathy, eye disease, is reasonably well-understood," he said. "The same is true of kidney disease, amputations -- we understand much better what causes them and how to prevent them.

"But the brain has been the proverbial black box. It's incredibly complicated, and you can't directly study it. You can't go in and take samples," he said. "The last several years, the techniques of MRI got good enough that we could really look carefully at the brain."

Most of the initial work in the very late 1990s was done in Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, depression and other classic psychiatric diseases, but then scientists began to look at other diseases including diabetes, explained Simonson. At this point, researchers around the world began to see connections.

"You can see a person with depression has thinning of the surface of the brain in certain areas, and you go in and do the same study with somebody with diabetes, and they have thinning in the exact same areas," Simonson said. And diabetes may be a predisposing or risk factor for developing Alzheimer's, he said.

"You see the same types of abnormalities in a milder form in the brain in people with diabetes that you see in people with Alzheimer's disease," Simonson said. According to Dr. William T. Cefalu, chief scientific, medical and mission officer of the American Diabetes Association, the study is consistent with previous research.

"The presence of overweight and obesity have been shown in other studies to be associated with early structural changes in the brain, and may contribute to cognitive issues," said Cefalu, who was not involved in the new study. "The current study implies that obesity/overweight status in individuals with diabetes may also contribute."

That said, longer-term and more definitive studies are needed to evaluate that aspect.In the end, Simonson said, another question is more important: "What can you do to prevent it? That's the big question."
A 1,200-year-old weaving tradition is on the verge of extinction and no one seems to care! The Ilkal saree, first produced in the 8th century, continues to enthrall saree lovers all over the country and the world for its exquisite designs and intricate work which sets it in a class apart from other sarees. Painstakenly woven on the handloom by families in the little town of Ilkal in Bagalkote district, the hand-woven saree is slowly giving way to powerloom products with the machines able to roll out many more sarees in a jiffy.

Not that the saree is set to suddenly disappear from shop shelves. Even now, in every nook and corner of Ilkal, you can see families engaged in weaving the saree which has a huge customer base in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. And what makes it so attractive to the saree lover? Its the unique manner in which it is woven by joining the body warp and palu warp with a series of loops, called Tope Teni in local parlance.

Its when marriages are round the corner that Ilkal sarees are more sought after as women in both the bride and grooms families prefer to wear them till the rituals are completed. Initially, these sarees were used only by people in rural areas but now, Ilkal sarees are familiar to the urban population too.

A few years ago, as many as 25,000 people in the town toiled on the 5,000 odd handlooms to weave the Ilkal, which was their main source of revenue. These looms are now reduced to around 400 as the earnings from Ilkal weaving no longer suffice to meet a familys expenses. Several people have migrated to big cities in search of jobs due to the high cost of weaving these sarees. Another deterrent is the rising cost of raw material including silk and cotton which has doubled in the last four years forcing them to bid adieu to their ancestral occupation.

The new generation has lost patience and lacks the expertise needed to weave Ilkal sarees. Many of them work as daily wage labourers in the granite industry which has grown in leaps and bounds. The previous BJP government had conceived several programmes to promote Ilkal sarees but they were not implemented. A revolving fund should be set up by the government to provide a support price for the sarees and increase their marketability through wider publicity, said Vijaykumar Guled, a fourth generation weaver.

And its not only the withering interest of the younger generation which is to blame for the declining fortunes of the famed product. Powerlooms are being used everywhere to produce the sarees and the products are flooding the market leaving small handloom weavers helpless. Even the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for hand-woven sarees has not helped as powerlooms can produce 3-4 sarees every day while handloom weavers can hardly produce one in two days. The only consolation: Hand-woven sarees attract a price upto Rs 10,000 owing to their durability and unique design.

The plight of the Ilkal weaver has not gone unnoticed with social activists, writers and environmentalists opposing mechanization and introduction of power looms. They want the Handloom Reservation Act, that reserves 11 cloth products including Ilkal sarees exclusively for handlooms, to be strictly implemented. Leading this movement is writer and theater personality Prasanna, who founded Charaka, a womens co-operative society. But with most weavers shifting to powerlooms, this initiative has hardly had any impact.

Its pure economics at work, a powerloom costs more than Rs 1 lakh which the poor handloom weaver cannot afford. New generation weavers are opting for powerlooms hardly caring for the fact that they produce cheap and inferior quality Ilkal sarees, said Ilkal Handloom and Powerloom Weavers Agitation Committee general secretary Ashok Shavi.

But the connoisseur still looks for the hand woven Ilkal and Internet marketing has helped weavers find markets via social media like whatsapp even in north India. Still, the weaver is disappointed over the appalling lack of support from those in power.

A revolving fund should be set up by the government to provide a support price for the sarees and increase their marketability through wider publicity.

Earlier, textile department officials used to conduct raids if they found coloured clothes used to produce Ilkal sarees in powerlooms as it is reserved only for handloom as per the Act. We were allowed to use only white cloth in powerlooms. Now, there are no such restrictions and this poses a real threat to the the Ilkal saree, said fifty-four year old weaver Ravindra Rayabagi who is a weaver since childhood.

Will the hand-woven Ilkal saree be pushed out of the market like many other products, remaining a distant memory for whose who cherish traditions? Will the machines overrun the town and its handloom weavers? That there are only a few hundred Ilkal weavers left is an agonising thought for women, who have worn the Ilkal and enjoyed its magically crafted designs and alluring charm for decades.

Another deterrent is the rising cost of raw material including silk and cotton which has doubled in the last four years forcing them to bid adieu to their ancestral occupation.

We prefer death to running handlooms

Sixty-three-year-old poverty-stricken Mehboobsab Chalagi has been weaving Ilkal sarees along with his wife for four decades like thousands of households in Ilkal town.

But things have now changed and the couple is struggling hard to bring up their seven children. The marriage of three daughters has left them in deep debt as the earnings from the two handlooms hardly suffices to have a square meal a day.

Wiser from years of experience, they deliberately preferred not to impart the Ilkal weaving technique to their children who have chosen other professions. The one saree the couple weaves every two days, is sold to the handloom weavers co-operative society that supplies cotton and silk to them.

They have to incur an expenditure of Rs 800 for raw material to produce one saree and sell it for Rs 1,000. Its only in March, April and May-the marriage season-when they have work. Their four sons have dropped out of school and now work in auto garages or the construction industry as daily wage earners.

The cost of silk has increased to Rs 5,500 per kg as against Rs 3,000 just four years ago. We cannot afford to buy powerlooms by spending lakhs of rupees. Sometimes I feel death is far better than running handlooms at this age, rued Mehboobsab Chalagi.

Ilkal town has more than ten weavers co-operative societies which were established since 1950. Each society has around 1,000 members who enrolled over 6-7 decades. But 90 per cent of them have become inactive as they have stopped weaving the saree and have migrated to other cities in search of livelihood.

The rich tradition of wearing these sarees is vanishing as the new generation is attracted towards western styled garments. Low-cost polyester sarees too are a potential threat to the Ilkal saree. I really feel that the government should do a lot more to safeguard the Ilkal tradition, which is the pride of North Karnataka, said Gopal Pasalkar, secretary, Markandeya Weavers Co-operative Society.
This is Up and Down, where we give a brief thumbs up and thumbs down on the issues from the past week.

Up

North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Carol Ronning Kapsner will leave office on July 31 after serving in her job for 18 years. Shes enjoyed her time on the bench and we hate to see her go. Gov. Doug Burgum will appoint someone to replace her and that person will eventually have to run for a 10-year term. Kapsner decided to leave office before her term ends so her replacement will be vetted by a nominating committee and the governor. Thats how she became a member of the Supreme Court. We wish her well in retirement.

Down

Ward County taxpayers have footed a big bill for the county jail not meeting standards. An investigation by the state Department of Corrections into the death of Dustin Irwin, who had been an inmate at the jail, uncovered the problems. It has cost more than $322,821 for jail and legal issues related to the jail. County residents should be asking how the jail situation was allowed to reach such a low level.

Up

In a sign of a growing community, Beulah broke ground last week for a new wellness center. The $6.5 million project comes on the heels of a new swimming pool and middle school. The facility will have something to offer every member of the family. This is not just a gym; its a lifestyle change for our community, according to Maverick Thompson, president of the foundation behind the project. Its an important lifestyle change because it promotes healthy opportunities for the youngest to the oldest members of the community. It should help the area grow and the residents live longer.

Down

The death of Linton native Lori Pohanka-Kalama in a Texas dive recovery operation reminds us of the danger first responders and law enforcement officers often encounter. Pohanka-Kalama was considered a phenomenal diver who didnt let a mans world hold her back. Her children can be proud of her courage and the example she set for everyone. The tributes she received from law enforcement and others were well deserved. This is a down because of the loss of a fine person.

Up

Dunn Center is putting some of its oil revenue surge funding to good use. The community is using $1.1 million to build a 150,000-gallon water tower on the towns south side. The tower will give the town enough pressure in a fire hose to meet insurance ratings. So the tower is expected to give them fire protection and help spur growth. A good water supply is essential in attracting new businesses and residents and Dunn Center should have it available sometime in July.
Many girls were given a banned drug and raped and sold to brothels. (Represntative Image)

New Delhi: The staff of a state-run shelter home in West Delhi has been accused of molesting at least 10 teenage girls, and forcibly injecting them with unexplained drugs and beating them if they tried resisting.

The government-run place, which is supposed to be a home for rape survivors and people rescued from citys streets and brothels has turned into a house of horror, a report in the Hindustan Times read.

At least two girls have allegedly accused the officials of molesting them. Another girl said that she was starved for days after she accused a staff member of torturing her. The girls also accused some officials of injecting medicines, which were allegedly stimulating premature growth.

The girls were allegedly given an Oxytocin-type substance that stimulates changes in their body. Police conducted a medical examination of syringe marks and registered a case. The officials are being questioned, HT quoted its sources as saying.

Many girls who were given this drug were raped and sold to brothels, said the report.

The banned drug is a favourite among human traffickers who inject it into their prepubescent victims to spur their growth hormones and give them appearance like adults.

One of the girls wrote about this horrific incident to the Delhi Legal Services Authority and brought it into light, said the report. She also spoke about the human rights violations and torture which took place. The letter followed similar complaints from nine more girls, which prompted the authority to alert the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).

Chief of DCW Swati Maliwal visited the home on April 8 and immediately wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, alleging that the girls told her team they were beaten and harassed.

An FIR was registered on April 16 by the police after which the officials were charged with criminal intimidation, causing harm by poisoning, criminal conspiracy and laws under the juvenile justice care and protection act.

Maliwal in her complaint accused the officials at the shelter of locking the door and refusing to let her enter when she went to meet the girls for the second time.

The girls allegedly lived in squalor  without adequate and nutritious food and proper clothing. They were forced to wear the same set of clothes every day, a DCW spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Five J&K policemen and two bank employees were killed when gunmen attacked a cash van in southern Kulgam district on Monday afternoon. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

Srinagar: Five Jammu and Kashmir policemen and two bank employees were killed when gunmen attacked a cash van in southern Kulgam district on Monday afternoon. The authorities have blamed the gory incident on separatist militants.

Kashmiri separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen has claimed the responsibility for the attack.

The officials in Srinagar said that the cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank was intercepted by the gunmen outside Kulgam's Pombai village.

The van was heading towards Anantnag town after unloading cash at the bank's Nehama branch, when gunmen opened indiscriminate fire, resulting into the death of five policemen including a sub-inspector and two bank security guards. Another policeman was injured in the firing but succumbed to his injuries later.

They had sustained multiple bullet wounds and had died due to blood loss, said a hospital official.

The assailants, who had suddenly appeared from a roadside apple orchard, took the service weapons of the policeman including four INSAS rifle and one AK 47 Rifle with them after committing the crime, police officials said. The security reinforcements have launched a massive manhunt for them.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir range) SP Pani said that it was a group of about half a dozen militants, being led by Hizbul Mujahedin commander Omar, which attacked the police.

The gunmen stopped the cash van and asked those on board to get down. They found the van empty and apparently in fit of anger shot the policemen and the bank guards in cold blood, an official said.

The slain men have been identified as ASI Bashir Ahmed, Selection Grade Constable Farooq Ahmed and Constables Muhammad Qasim, Muhammad Yusuf and Ashfaq Ahmed and J&K Bank security guards Javed Ahmed and Muzaffar Ahmed.

Though the suspected militants have looted cash from different branches of mainly Jammu and Kashmir Bank in the Valley on several occasions in the past, it is for the first time that the bank employees or the policemen escorting them in a cash van have been targeted.
When contacted, Khan said the whole campaign was 'scripted' and added that he will attend the scheduled meeting. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Senior AAP legislators on Monday demanded the expulsion of Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan from the party, vowing to not relent till the axe falls on him.

It has been learnt that few MLAs of the party have signed a letter, urging the top leadership of the party to expel him. A separate letter, with the same demand, has also been released by a Punjab MLA of the party.

A senior leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity, alleged that apart from his recent attempt to drive a wedge between Kejriwal and Vishwas, Khan had also "worked against the party's interests" in the recently held municipal polls, where the AAP received a drubbing.

Delhi Ministers Kapil Mishra, Imran Hussain, Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri are among the signatories to the letter, a party source said. "Amanatullah has lost his mental balance," Hussain tweeted.

The party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC), chaired by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, is expected to take a call on the issue tonight. Incidentally, Khan is a member of the PAC.

When contacted, Khan said the whole campaign was "scripted" and added that he will attend the scheduled meeting. He said barely "four to five MLAs" supported the signature campaign against him.

The development comes days after Khan had alleged that Kumar Vishwas was trying to "usurp" the AAP and that he harbours ambitions of leading the party.

"If he has proof then he should present it to the PAC. The charges that he has levelled are serious and if he fails to produce any evidence to back it up then he should be expelled from the party," Chandni Chowk MLA Alka Lamba said.

Earlier, Vishwas had differed with Kejriwal on the issue of EVMs. He had refused to attribute the AAP's recent poll upsets to alleged manipulation of EVMs and had instead stressed on the need to introspect.
New Delhi: The Army on Monday tweeted about the mutilation of the bodies of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan army, but refused to divulge details about such incidents under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, citing "national security" concerns.

Information Commissioner Diya Prakash Sinha, a former intelligence officer had ordered the army to disclose "the available details ... of soldiers killed in action... whose bodies were found mutilated" in response to an RTI application filed last year.

The Central Information Commission, however, rejected the army's contention that the information was related to national security.

"People of the country have the right to know about soldiers who lay down their lives in the line of duty," Sinha had said in his order.

In compliance with the order, the army had responded by merely providing the list of personnel who were killed in action along the Line of Control, a temporary border between India and Pakistan, without disclosing if the bodies had been mutilated.

On Monday, however, the army posted on Twitter a statement from the Northern Command on the mutilation of two soldiers.

"Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and forward mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," the Northern Command of the Indian army said in the statement. BAT is the Pakistan army's Border Action Team.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived in India on a two day visit, was granted a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. (Photo: ANI Twitter)

New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived in India on a two day visit, was granted a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan ahead of his delegation level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

Erdogan then proceeded to lay a wreath at Mahatma Gandhi's Samadhi at Raj Ghat. A number of agreements are expected to be signed in several areas after the talks.

The Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also call on the Turkish President.Key bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade are expected to be discussed during his visit.

India-Turkey economic and commercial cooperation constitutes an important dimension of the bilateral relationship.

Trade has increased significantly in the preceding decade and a half. Bilateral relations have been strengthened by the exchange of high level visits of leaders of both countries in recent times.

These include visits by President Pranab Mukherjee to Turkey in 2013 and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's working visit in 2015.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a referendum in his country earlier this month which gave him more executive powers as President.

Ahead of his visit, Erdogan expressed his desire for constructive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad in order to find a solution to the burning conflict over Jammu and Kashmir.
Chennai: The health of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, who has been out of public life for the last six months, was stable with doctors monitoring him continuously, his son and party Working President MK Stalin said on Monday.

"Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) will meet everybody if doctors give permission," Stalin said when asked if the nonagenarian leader will participate in his birthday celebrations next month.

Karunanidhi, who will be celebrating his 94th birthday on June 3, has been facing health issues since October last and has not participated in public functions.

During October last year, Karunanidhi was diagnosed with allergy caused by a medicine he had used and was then advised rest.

He was discharged from a private hospital on December 23 after a week-long treatment for breathing difficulty caused by throat and lung infections and since then has been recuperating at his home here.

During hospitalisation, the party patriarch had undergone tracheostomy to optimise breathing.

The DMK General Council meet originally scheduled for December 20 last year, had to be cancelled in view of Karunanidhi's hospitalisation.

However, the council meet held in January this year named Stalin, long considered the political heir of Karunandhi, as the Working President, a new party post.
New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has gagged senior leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and has called a meeting of legislators on Monday to discuss statements made by them over the weekend.

The AAP chief on Sunday sought to quell speculation of a rift between him and Kumar Vishwas, days after the senior party leader differed with him over EVM tampering as the reason behind the AAP's recent poll defeats.

Party chief Kejriwal also warned party leaders against trying to create a divide between him and his "younger brother" Vishwas, after AAP's Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan alleged earlier on Sunday that Vishwas was trying to "usurp" the AAP and that he harbours ambitions of leading the party.

On Friday, contrary to the party line that EVM rigging was behind AAP's loss in the Punjab Assembly and MCD polls, Vishwas had pointed to reasons other than alleged tampering of Electronic Voting Machines and said there is a communication gap between the top brass and volunteers.

He also said AAP was getting "Congressised" to an extent.

The AAP bagged only 20 seats in the Punjab polls, much below its expectations, and suffered a humiliating in the MCD polls, its home turf.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Labour Minister Gopal Rai alleged rigging of EVMs was to blame for the party's poor electoral show in Punjab and Delhi.

Khan, a member of the party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC), Aam Aadmi Party's apex decision-making body, also claimed that poet-turned-politician Vishwas has been calling MLAs to his residence and coaxing them to rebel against Kejriwal or to join the BJP.

"Kumar Vishwas is trying to usurp the AAP and break the AAP. He is calling MLAs to his residence and saying that he should be made the party convener. Or else, they (MLAs) can join the BJP which is ready to pay Rs 30 crore to each MLA.

"This is what (Swaraj India President and expelled AAP leader) Yogendra Yadav also wants. I think this is happening at the behest of the BJP. It has deployed four MLAs to take AAP legislators to Kumar Vishwas' house. This has been confirmed to me by at least 10 party MLAs," Khan said in a message circulated to the media.

"Yesterday, a minister also convened a meeting of four MLAs," he added.

When contacted Khan did not elaborate on the message and said he will "spill the beans" at an appropriate time.

The message, however, did not go down well with Kejriwal who said some people were trying to create a rift between him and Vishwas.

"Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are trying to create a rift between us. Such people are enemies of the party. They better mend their ways. No one can separate us," Kejriwal tweeted.
New Delhi: Ousted AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, along with his aide Mallikarjuna was on Monday sent to judicial custody until 15 May.

On Sunday, the Delhi Crime Branch recovered Dhinakaran's five bank accounts from Chennai through which transactions of huge amounts had been carried out. Police sought for further remand of the ousted AIADMK leader after the discovery.

As per sources, most of the amounts were paid to a Hawala Operator. Dinakaran's Chartered Accountant was also called by the crime branch for questioning in the matter.

The crime branch officials also recovered mobile phone of Sukesh Chandrashekhar from Chennai and also found the details of communication between Sukesh and Dinakaran.

Earlier on Friday, a Delhi Court sent alleged middleman Chandrashekhar to judicial custody till May 12.

Dinakaran had reportedly, through Chandrashekhar, sought to keep the 'Two Leaves' symbol of the AIADMK by allegedly trying to bribe an Election Commission official.

The Crime Branch recovered approximately Rs. 1.3 crore, two luxury cars, a BMW and a Mercedes from Chandrashekhar.

Chandrasekhar was picked up from the Hyatt hotel and was produced at the residence of Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry, who allowed the Delhi Police's plea to interrogate the accused for eight days.

During his third day of interrogation by the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police yesterday, Dinakaran finally accepted that he met Chandrashekhar, the man alleged to be the middleman in his bribery dealing with the Election Commission.

Dinakaran, sources said, initially refused to have known Sukesh. He later accepted meeting him when Sukesh himself gave the details of his meeting with the former. He, however, maintained that he did not pay any money to Sukesh.
New Delhi: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday raked up a controversy, accusing Telangana police of radicalising Muslim youths and encouraging them to join the

Islamic State by setting up a "bogus" website of the terror group.

Singh claimed that the state police set up the website to trap Muslims youths and it is "radicalising and encouraging them to become ISIS modules".

He asked Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao if he had authorised the state police "to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join the IS".

"If he has then shouldn't he own the responsibility and resign? If he hasn't then shouldn't he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime (sic)," he said in a tweet.

The Congress leader said on Twitter that it was based on Telangana police's information "that Madhya Pradesh police arrested those who were responsible for a bomb blast in a train in Shajapur district" on March 8.

He said the information had also led to the killing of terror suspect Mohammad Saifullaha in an encounter in Uttar Pradesh the same day.

Singh was on Saturday removed as office bearers in-charge of Congress units in Goa and Karnataka.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asserted that India was never a more promising investment destination than it is on Monday as his government completes three years in office later this month.

The BJP-led NDA government stormed to power in May 2014, winning by a huge majority.

Addressing the India-Turkey Business Summit in Delhi, Modi said that since coming to power in this very month three years ago, the government has launched several initiatives to reform the economy and administrative processes.

The government also launched several flagship programmes like Make in India, Startup India and Digital India.

"Today, Indian economy is the fastest growing major economy in the world. In addition to maintaining this pace, our focus is to remove the inefficiencies from the system," the prime minister said.

The government, Modi said, is in the process of building a New India, adding that the focus is on improving ease of doing business by reforming policies, processes and procedures.

Seeking Turkish investments, the prime minister said there is a huge potential and opportunity to enhance bilateral engagement.

This, he felt, is possible through trade and FDI inflows, technology tie-ups and cooperation on various projects.

"Let us work together for enhancing the level of our economic activities for welfare of our people. From the Indian side, I welcome you with open arms. I can say with confidence that India was never a more promising destination than it is today," the prime minister said.

He called on the chambers of commerce and industry of both sides to engage with each other pro-actively and work closely, both at the government and B2B levels.

"I know that Turkish construction companies have successfully undertaken many construction and infrastructure projects in other countries. Our infrastructure requirements are enormous, including core as well as social and industrial infrastructure," he said.

Referring to opportunities in India, Modi said the country plans to build 50 million houses by 2022, metro rail projects in 50 cities and high-speed trains in various national corridors.

The two-way trade has gone up to USD 6.4 billion in 2016, from USD 2.8 billion in 2008.

"While this is encouraging, the level of present economic and commercial relations is not enough against the real potential," Modi said.

He spoke of energy, mining, textile, automobile and food processing as other areas that offer great promise.

In his address to the Summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a free trade agreement with India to expand the ambit of bilateral economic ties.

He also suggested that the two should explore the possibility of trade in local currency to deal with exchange rate fluctuations.

Hardselling his country as an ideal tourist destination, the president said Indian families are increasingly organising wedding ceremonies in Turkey in recent years.

"Therefore, we would like to host more Indian tourists in Turkey... you can come to Turkey for honeymoon. We would like to host you in Turkey," he added.

The visiting president said Turkish companies can participate in India's project to develop 100 smart cities.
Gov. Doug Burgums veto of a bill requiring carbon monoxide detectors in certain rental properties drew a rebuke from a Colorado man who advocated for the legislation after losing his daughter to the odorless gas.

The North Dakota House sustained Burgums veto on House Bill 1201 on Wednesday. It required residential rental property that includes a wood or other fuel-fired fireplace, heater or appliance or an attached garage to be equipped with carbon monoxide alarms, with some exceptions.

Don Johnson of Windsor, Colo., testified in favor of the bill earlier in the session. His daughter, Lauren, died of carbon monoxide poisoning in 2009 while attending graduate school at the University of Denver.

Since then, Johnson has advocated for carbon monoxide detector requirements in other states, and stood next to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as he signed legislation last year requiring detectors in apartments and new homes.

Between 2011 and 2015, 20 North Dakotans died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, and Johnson said the bill would have brought rental property in line with existing requirements for other residences.

Johnson said he was shocked and dismayed by Burgums veto.

(Burgum) has made a decision that will cost lives and will result in injuries to innocent people, he said in an interview Monday.

In his veto letter, Burgum cited the principle of individual responsibility and noted carbon monoxide detectors are available at retail stores.

While carbon monoxide represents a very small, yet measurable life safety risk in residential rental property, this risk can and should be managed by local building codes, property owners and renters themselves, rather than burdensome statewide regulations, he said.

Burgums spokesman, Mike Nowatzki, said the governor wouldnt have any further comment beyond the veto letter.

Rep. Kathy Skroch, R-Lidgerwood, agreed with the first-term governor. She said people have a personal responsibility to protect themselves.

We, as a government  I think have to be mindful of not imposing regulations on private enterprise, Skroch said on the House floor last week. If you have ice on your sidewalk, you should probably salt it. But its a personal responsibility.

The bills primary sponsor, Rep. Gary Sukut, R-Willison, said he was surprised by the governors veto and called the bill a no-brainer. He said the bill simply intended to ensure landlords provided a safe environment for their tenants.

Kari Newman Ness, president and CEO of the Jamestown-based Newman Signs, lost her father to carbon monoxide poisoning in 2014 after he accidentally left his car running in the garage. Although he didnt live in a rental unit, Newman Ness was still disappointed in Burgums veto.

But I understand he has a job to do, she said. These things are not personal for the governor. Theyre kind of personal for those of us who have lost people this way.

Newman Ness said she may take the governors suggestion about local control to heart and advocate for changes in local building codes. She said Newman Signs, which her father Harold founded in 1956, will probably conduct an awareness campaign on the importance of carbon monoxide detectors.

Its very important that people have them, Newman Ness said. Whether its rental units or single-family homes, whatever the living situation is.
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy scoffed at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for calling on constructive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad, saying the former has numerous issues to tackle in his own country and should better focus on that.

"He should mind his business. He should read our constitution. There is not even one inch of Indian Territory that we will give. As per the Parliamentary resolution 1994, we will never ever rest till every inch of India is restored including that part which is in occupation by Pakistan. So, what is the point of wasting time in this issue? He has lot of issues to face in his own country," Swamy told ANI.

Swamy further said that if Turkey wants to help to restore its own internal issues then India is ready to help them, but flatly ruled out Turkey's mediation in the matters of Pakistan.

"The opposition in Turkey are beaten black and blue, they are rigged. All kinds of problem the Turkish President has to tackle. ISI is waiting to enter Turkey. He should worry about his own country. Coming and saying that he will mediate in dialogues with Pakistan is the joke of the century," he said.

Earlier in the day, Turkish President Erdogan expressed his desire for constructive dialogue between India and Pakistan in order to find a solution to the burning conflict over Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking to the media before departing on his Indian visit on Sunday, Erdogan called for a negotiated settlement of the dispute between Islamabad and New Delhi.
The soldiers who were killed were part of a team on patrol between two forward posts in Udhampur along the Line of Control. (Photo: PTI/File)

Srinagar: The Pakistan Army mutilated bodies of two jawans after killing them following a ceasefire violation in Poonch of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, the Indian Army said.

The Indian army posted a statement regarding the incident, warning of appropriate response for the "despicable act."

Armys Udhampur-based Norther Command, in a statement, said the soldiers were killed in Pakistani firing and their bodies were mutilated in a simultaneously launched attack by its Border Action Team (BAT).

Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts, the statement said. In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, it added.

In an unsoldierly act by Pakistan Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated: Army pic.twitter.com/z5b2z1Ikya  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

The soldiers, who were killed, were part of a team on patrol between two forward posts in Poonch along the Line of Control, Northern Command said in a press statement.

A Junior Commissioner Officer (JCO) of the Army and a Border Security Force (BSF) head-constable were killed and another BSF jawan was injured when Pakistani troops fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled-grenades to target an Indian forward post along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmirs Poonch district on Monday morning.

The condition of the injured BSF jawan is stated to be stable.

The officials in Jammu said that the Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked shelling at the BSF post in Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector at 8:30 am. The two critically injured jawans were removed to a nearest medical facility but were declared brought dead on arrival.

Officials in Jammu while confirming the incident, said that BSF head-constable Prem Sagar and Army's Naik Subedar Paramjeet Singh who were critically injured in the Pakistani firing and shelling succumbed on way to the hospital.

They also said that second BSF jawan injured in the firing and shelling is out of danger. The firing has stopped, reports received in Jammu said. But it is not clear as yet if the Indian troops retaliated to the Pakistani firing or not.

The Krishna Ghati sector often witnessed skirmishes between the facing troops.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets waiting officials upon arrival in New Delhi, India, Sunday, April 30, 2017. Erdogan is on a two-day visit to India. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: Hours before landing in New Delhi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called for a multilateral dialogue on Kashmir, with Turkeys involvement, said reports.

Erdogans stance is likely to be upsetting to India, which has always maintained that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between itself and Pakistan.

Expressing concern at the standoff between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, Erdogan said in an interview, We should not allow more casualties to occur and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multilateral dialogue, I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, which will benefit both countries.

On a question whether the Organisation of Islamic Cooperations references to self-determination for all peoples should be applied universally, whether in Kashmir or in settling the Kurdish and Tibetan problems, Erdogan said, OIC has its area of influence. It has economic and political strengths, it has a say in global matters and it can contribute to world peace. If something has been approved by all member-states, it should not be criticised or questioned. OIC members also have weight in the United Nations. Turkey supports India to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Erdogan arrived in New Delhi on Sunday and will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday on key bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

Apart from his wife Emine Erdogan, the Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

Ahead of his visit, India had played down proximity between Turkey and Pakistan as well as Ankara's statements on Jammu and Kashmir, saying the government is aware that Turkey has a very close relationship with Pakistan and it is their bilateral matter.

"We have always emphasised that India-Turkey relations stand on their own footing and, we believe, the Turkish side reciprocates our sentiment," Ruchi Ghanashyam, Secretary (West) in the External Affairs Ministry, said, adding that India's position on the state of J&K is very well known that it is an integral part of the country.

However, she did not respond when asked if India will raise the issue.

With Turkey being a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the issue of India's membership bid for the elite group is likely to figure during the talks between the two leaders.

"We remain engaged with Turkey," she had said when asked if the Indian side will raise the country's NSG bid during talks.

Turkey is not directly opposed to India's NSG membership but has been maintaining that the powerful bloc should come out with a system to consider the entry of the countries which are not signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as also supporting Pakistan's case, diplomatic sources said.

The two sides are also expected to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism during the presidential visit here.

After a failed coup in July last year to topple Erdogan, Turkey had blamed Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation (FETO) for it and said the outfit has "infiltrated" India.

Turkey had also asked India to take action against the organisation.

Asked about the action taken by India so far, she said Turkey had raised it with the government, which has noted their concern.

Calling the FETO a "secretive transnational criminal network" with presence around the world, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, during a visit here last year, had said, "Unfortunately, the FETO has also infiltrated India through associations and schools."

Issues relating to regional security, situation in the Middle East, particularly Syria, are likely to figure during talks between Modi and Erdogan.
Chennai: The Panneerselvam faction of AIADMK on Sunday set Tuesday as the deadline for talks with the ruling E Palanisamy camp of the party.

It also announced that the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister would undertake a statewide tour soon.

Mettur MLA S Semmalai, who had organised a meeting of party cadre last week, was quoted in a report as saying that, "He (Panneerselvam) will commence the tour from Kancheepuram."

A senior member from the committee formed by the Panneerselvam camp for talks reportedly added that, "whichever way the talks go, we expect to arrive at a clear picture. In fact, our deadline is Tuesday".

He also claimed that there is a possibility of some members of the Palanisamy camp coming over to the Panneerselvam side in the next few days.

However, another report claimed that the Panneerselvam tour would begin in the first week of June.

At Semmalais meeting last week, some party cadre reportedly expressed disapproval of talks with the Palanisamy camp. Panneerselvam will embark on the tour from May 5 to increase his support, and also to prepare the faction for local body polls, said a report.

He may also appoint district-level officers during the tour.

Panneerselvam is likely to speak at a public meeting on Monday, to drum up support among the public.

The OPS camp has put forth two demands which it says must be fulfilled for talks to commence. The first is the ouster of AIADMK chief Sasikala Natarajan and her nephew TTV Dhinakaran from the party. The second is a CBI enquiry into late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaas death.
The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF.

Jammu: Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir and beheaded two Indian security personnel on Monday, officials said.

The Indian army patrol, whose two members were killed, might just have walked into a death trap laid by the enemy, official sources told PTI.

The incident occurred when a joint team of the army and BSF had gone to check the veracity of an intelligence report that landmines had been planted by Pakistani troops on the Indian side.

As they were looking for landmines, the patrol was taken by surprise by Pakistan's Border Action Team (BAT) that had laid an ambush over 250 metres deep inside the Indian territory.

The Indian Army has vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicable act", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the mutilation of the bodies was "reprehensible" and an "extreme form of barbarism".

He said the armed forces will react appropriately to the "inhuman act" and their "sacrifice will not go in vain".

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army.

They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

"The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them," the official said.

"Their target was a 7 to 8-member patrol party, which had come out of the post," the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

"Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated," the official said.

"Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning," a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Simultaneously, a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistani Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said, adding "Such a despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded".

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

As per reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

As per a senior BSF officer, at about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from the Pakistani army posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons.

"They attacked with rockets a forward BSF post (which lies) ahead of the fencing and opened heavy fire from automatic weapons. They violated the ceasefire," the BSF officer said.

"It is an attack directly hitting a posts (listening post)", he said.

Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittenly.

In April this year, there were seven ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops along the LOC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.

On April 19, the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch sector.

Two days prior to that, the Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by firing and shelling mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector along the LoC in Rajouri district, according to Indian army officials.

They had broken the ceasefire in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

In Digwar sector of Poonch, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

On March 9, army jawan Deepak Jagannath Ghadge was killed when Pakistani soldiers initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing along the LoC in Poonch.

In 2016, there were 228 instances of ceasefire violation along the LoC, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violation along the International Border (IB).
New Delhi: Coming down heavily upon Pakistan for mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday said Islamabad was inviting its own ruin.

Naqvi promised that the Indian forces would give a befitting reply to Pakistan.

"Pakistan is inviting its own ruin. Our security forces will give a befitting reply to Pakistan," said Naqvi.

On the other hand, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Subramanian Swamy said it was a mistake to have created Pakistan, adding that India was ready for a war.

Swamy opined that India should retaliate by bombing Pakistan's camps, whatever the consequences be.

Swamy said the civilian society in Islamabad was captive and the actual show was run by savages of the ISI and the Taliban.

"This is not new. They have done it in the past. They did it in the Kargil. It's a rogue state. It is not a civilised country. It was a mistake to have created this country at all.Therefore, we have to retaliate. This time the retaliation should be bombing of their camps, no matter what the consequences be. Be ready for war. Indian people are ready for sacrifice," Swamy told ANI.

Pakistan today mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers who were killed earlier today in a ceasefire violation at Jammu and Kashmir's Krishna Ghati sector.

The Indian Army confirmed the news, releasing a statement on Twitter.

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector.

Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.

Earlier, two defence personnel were killed, as Pakistan violated ceasefire by opening fire on Border Security Force (BSF) posts in Poonch.

The firing began at 8:30 am as Pakistan used rocket launchers and automatic weapons on Indian posts.

An Indian Army personnel was killed, along with a BSF head constable, who succumbed to his injuries.
'International powers should take actions on this and should declare Pakistan as a terrorist nation,' BJP leader Ravindra Raina said about the mutilation of bodies of Indian soldiers. (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi/Srinagar: Strongly condemning the mutilation of Indian soldiers' bodies by the Pakistan Army, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday called upon the international powers to declare Pakistan a 'terrorist nation'.

"The Pakistani forces once again violated the international treatise and the way they violated the worst kind of human rights and laws is very unfortunate. We condemn such barbaric acts. International powers should take actions on this and should declare Pakistan as a terrorist nation," BJP leader Ravindra Raina said.

Asserting that India would give a befitting reply to Pakistan for the barbaric act, Raina further said that they would not tolerate such acts.Venting his ire over the same, BJP leader Nalin Kohli said that India would make sure that such a 'despicable' act does not go unpunished.

"Pakistan is increasingly becoming from its act, a state which appears to be where barbarism and inhumanity is the norm. We are confident that the statement of the Army sums up what is to be done. This despicable act will not go unpunished. Prime Minister Modi ji, the Army and soldiers have free hand to do what they deem appropriate," Kohli said.

The BJP leader further saluted the contribution of brave soldiers and extended condolence to their family members.

In a development that is set to further worsen the already strained ties between New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers who were killed earlier on Monday in a ceasefire violation at Krishna Ghati sector here.

The Indian Army confirmed the news, releasing a statement on Twitter.

The Army, in its statement, has vowed to give a befitting reply to Pakistan "in the same language."

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector. Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated . Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.
New Delhi: The Rajasthan BJP's working committee meeting began with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje presiding over it. Over 200 members of the party is participating in the two-day meeting.

Discussion on the GST issue and on the organisational structure of the state unit of the BJP will be held at the meeting tomorrow. After the meeting, Raje will hold a road show.

Addressing the meeting today, state BJP chief Ashok Parnami said, "The party has instilled a trust in the people of the country that only the BJP can lead the nation on a fast-paced growth and development in all spheres."

He also praised the chief minister for inking of the revised MoU of Rs 43,129 crore with state oil firm HPCL and the Rajasthan government for an oil refinery in Barmer district and said Rs 40,000 crore was saved after the renegotiation.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday reviewed the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the Naxal-affected states in the wake of recent violence there.

Singh was briefed about the ground situation in J-K, particularly along the border, where the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by Pakistan Army. In another incident, five cops and two civilians were also killed in Kulgam in an attack where suspected militants tried to loot a cash van.

Top security brass, including Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and chiefs of intelligence agencies, briefed the home minister about the steps taken to tighten security along the border, official sources said.

The home minister directed the top officials to ensure strict vigil along the International Border, which is guarded by the BSF.

In the Naxal-affected states, the home minister has been told, the security forces were continuing their operations against the ultras in areas like Sukma, where 25 CRPF personnel were killed by the Left-Wing Extremists on April 24.

The home ministry has already directed the security forces engaged in anti-Naxal operations to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures to foil Maoists attempts to attack them.

Continuing unrest in Kashmir valley was also discussed in the meeting.

Tension in the valley has been continuing since the April 9 bypoll to the Srinagar Lok Sabha when large-scale violence took place that claimed eight lives.

After a few Kashmiri students were threatened in some parts of the country, the home minister had asked all state governments to provide security to Kashmiris living in their states.

He had also asked the states to take strongest possible action anyone harassing Kashmiris.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered a medical examination of Calcutta High Court judge Justice CS Karnan, and also said a medical board would be constituted to examine his mental condition.

The apex court added that the medical board would examine Karnan on May 5 and submit their report by May 8. It also fixed the next date of hearing in the case as May 18.

No one can say such things and get away, the bench said on Monday after Karnan did not heed its summons to appear before it.

It also ruled that all of Karnan's orders were invalid, and that no tribunal or court of justice shall take cognisance of them.

Karnan on Friday deferred the hearing of his case against seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, said a report.

However, Karnan, against whom the CJI has issued a contempt notice, also directed the Air Control Authority in New Delhi not to permit the seven judges to fly abroad till the case is disposed off, since their offence involves caste discrimination against him.

Earlier this month, Karnan had directed the 7 judges to appear before him on Friday for caste discrimination against him.

But in his fresh order on Friday, Karnan said, Today the above mentioned accused 1 to 8 are called absent hence their matter is re-posted to 01. 05. 2017 (Monday) to enable their reappearance. In the meantime, this court directs the Air Control Authority (referring to the Airports Authority of India) New Delhi, not to permit the said accused 1 to 8 from going abroad until the disposal of this crucial issue, since the nature of the offence, that is caste discrimination, is not only a heinous crime but also a very cruel atrocious act of heinous crime, and is punishable as per the Constitution.

Karnan thus also included an eighth judge in his order, the identity of whom is not known.

Bizarrely, Karnan then claimed that the reason for his order directing airport officials to prevent the judges from flying abroad was, if the accused are permitted to travel abroad, there is the probability of the virus of caste discrimination spreading in the said country by such perpetrators.

In February, the Supreme Court had issued a contempt notice to Karnan for degrading the judicial institution after Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi called for contempt proceedings against him for scurrilous letters against sitting and retired judges of the High Courts and Supreme Court.

Justice Karnan had written to the Prime Minister and accused several retired and sitting judges of corruption. Following the apex court order, Karnan 'summoned' 7 Supreme Court judges including the CJI to his 'residential court', and accused them of caste discrimination.
WASHINGTON, D.C.  Livestock advocates in the Upper Great Plains say it's too soon to know how a District of Columbia ruling that sided with environmentalists will change legal risks for feedlot operators.

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on April 11 issued a ruling that vacates an Environmental Protection Agency rule that exempts some feedlots from pollution reporting requirements.

The case is Waterkeeper Alliance et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It overturns an EPA rule in 2008 that exempted all but the largest facilities  confined animal feeding operations  from some requirements related to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.

"Now that the D.C. circuit court has ruled, it will be up to Congress to pass legislation clarifying their intentions," says Scott Ressler, environmental services director with the North Dakota Stockmen's Association.

If that should fail, beef industry lobbyists will need to push for appropriation language that "prohibits the EPA from using funds to enforce CERCLA reporting requirements against farms," he says.

Scott Yager, environmental counsel for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, says the requirements don't take effect for 45 days, until late May.

"This might not be the end of the story as far as the lawsuit goes," he says, noting there are judicial, administrative and legislative options.

Preliminary "back-of-the-envelope" estimates by the NCBA, the National Pork Producers Council and others show that cattle operations of as few as 208 animals might produce enough ammonia to trigger reporting, Yager says. He adds that EPA officials didn't want to impose the rules on livestock because their impact is more diffused than things like chlorine gas explosions, for which the rules were initially created.

"It was designed for reporting acute releases for public health," he says.

Counting cost

Ressler says that if the ruling stands, it is possible that it is impractical or excessively costly to determine whether their emissions exceed thresholds. He says it also shifts regulatory authority onto the Department of Emergency Management, which has no history with applying the rules to the livestock industry. He says some of the emissions reporting might be inappropriate for the colder climate in the Northern Great Plains.

Julie Ellingson, executive director of the North Dakota Stockmen's Association, says it's another case of the courts and environmental groups "pushing us" to report on rules that are appropriate to manufacturing operations.

All sizes now

The ruling means feeding operations of all sizes are subject to CERCLA and EPCRA hazardous substances reporting requirements.

Murray Feldman, a partner in the Holland & Hart LLP firm in Boise, Idaho, says he's telling his clients that the reporting rules apply to all livestock producers, regardless of size. He says even if the industry manages to cut funding for EPA enforcement, that doesn't prevent non-governmental organizations and citizen groups from pursuing actions against producers in court.

The past exemption roughly followed the EPA definitions of CAFOs for water discharge permits  1,000 or more cattle, or 250,000 poultry, for example. Now, the reporting will apply to smaller producers.

Feldman says the added paperwork in itself may not be burdensome in isolation" but just "adds another step" for the livestock industry. The reports could be as simple as applying estimates of release based on agricultural extension service publications.
New Delhi/Srinagar: Launching a scathing attack at the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) over the mutilation of Indian soldiers' bodies by the Pakistan Army, Congress leader Kapil Sibal asked whether any saffron party leader would now send bangles to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Union Minister Smriti Irani wanted to gift former prime minister Manmohan Singh during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime following a similar incident.

"When a similar incident took place during the UPA regime, a BJP MP wanted to gift bangles to the then prime minister. I would like to ask her that will she now do the same and gift bangles to Prime Minister Modi after this mutilation," Kapil Sibal told ANI.

A few years ago, then BJP MP Smriti Irani, while delivering a speech in Indore during the UPA regime, had said that she would send "bangles" (a sign of feminity) to then prime minister Manmohan Singh after terrorists attacked the Indian Army in 2013.

Hitting out at the Congress, Irani had said that "10 attackers came and attacked us while the central government did not take any step."

Earlier, Pakistan mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers who were killed earlier today in a ceasefire violation at Krishna Ghati sector here.

The Indian Army confirmed the news, releasing a statement on Twitter.

"Pak Army carried out unprovoked Rocket and Mortar firing on two forward posts on the line of control in Krishna Ghati Sector. Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated . Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the Indian Army's statement.
Raipur: The Chhattisgarh government on Monday appointed the wife of a CRPF jawan, who was killed in a Maoist attack in Sukma district last week, as an assistant sub inspector (ASI) of police, an official said.

"Chief Minister Raman Singh on Monday visited the house of martyred jawan Banmali Yadav in Dhourasand village in Jashpur district and handed over the appointment letter to his wife Jiteshwari," a government official said here.

The chief minister was in the region as part of his government's 'Lok Suraaj Abhiyaan', a mass contact programme that seeks to address peoples' grievances and take stock of the implementation of development works and schemes, he said.

Constable Yadav was among the 25 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans, who were killed in a naxal ambush in Burkapal area of the state's Sukma district on April 24.

During the visit, Singh expressed his condolence and later handed over the letter of appointment as ASI in the state police to the wife of the jawan.

Singh also handed over a cheque of Rs 28 lakh to her, the official said.

"Singh also announced that the primary school in the village will be named after martyr Yadav. Besides, he also sanctioned a residential quarter to the family in Jashpur district headquarter town," he said.

Jashpur district administration officials also provided a financial assistance of Rs 3.50 lakh to his wife and the amount was deposited in the name of their 18-month-old daughter Kushboo, he said.

"The CM said that the amount will help the baby in her future education. Kushboo will receive about Rs 10.35 lakh after passing out class X," the official informed.

The CM also sanctioned solar energy-based irrigation pump for the agriculture land of martyr's father Rogoram.

Rs 2.63 lakh were sanctioned for repairing his well and agriculture land. Forest Rights pattas will also be allotted to the family soon," the official said.
Shimoga (Karnataka): Amid the bitter feud brewing within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Karnataka unit, state party chief BS Yeddyurappa on Sunday pinned his hope on his colleague P Muralidhar Rao and said the saffron party's only aim was to secure majority in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Rao, who is in-charge of the BJP's affairs in Karnataka, has been sent by BJP president Amit Shah to sort out the warring factions - one headed by Yeddyurappa and the other by KS Eshwarappa.

"I don't want to discuss anything about the present development. Our president Amit Shah has already sent Muralidhar Rao, the state in charge, to judge the situation and submit a report.We just have the target of 150 in our mind. Nothing else," Yeddyurappa told ANI.

The former Chief Minister's remark came even as 4 BJP office-bearers were relieved from their functions from the party on Thursday.

Party functionaries MB Bhanuprakash, Nirmal Kumar Surana, M.P. Renukacharya and G Madhusudan were relieved of their posts.

"In the backdrop of the recent developments in the party, Vice Presidents of state unit Bhanuprakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana, Vice President of Raitha Morcha M P Renukacharya and Spokesperson G Madhusudhan have been relieved from all responsibilities of the party with immediate effect," State BJP General Secretary N Ravi Kumar said in a statement last night.

On Thursday, around 24 party leaders held a 'Save BJP' conference under Eshwarappa and criticised the leadership of Yeddyurappa.

While Bhanuprakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana had shared the stage with Eshwarappa at the convention, Renukacharya and G Madhusudhan considered close to Yeddyurappa had made public statements targeting National Joint General Secretary (Organisation) BL Santhosh.

Calling the convention an "anti-party activity," Yeddyurappa had also blamed Santhosh, considered to hold significant sway over party affairs in the state, for scripting it.

Resentment has been brewing within the party over Yeddyurappa's alleged "unilateral" style of functioning following the appointment of party office-bearers and over "ignoring" loyal workers and the old guard of the party.

Fissures within the Karnataka unit have become a problem for the central leadership which is hoping for revival of party's fortunes in the Assembly polls early next year.

Forming its first-ever government in the south, BJP had ruled the state from 2008 to 2013 which saw three chief ministers, factional wars and corruption charges leading to Congress's return to power.
The much-awaited Chennai Smart City project is all set to get some fresh ideas from Australia with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) collaborating with the state institutions here in Chennai.

Chennai: The much-awaited Chennai Smart City project is all set to get some fresh ideas from Australia with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) collaborating with the state institutions here in Chennai. Senior official P. W. C. Dawidar, principal secretary, Tamil Nadu Urban Finance Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd, who inaugurated a workshop in this regard urged the stakeholders to provide technology platforms and applications that would boost development of Chennai.

According to a press release, professor Chris Pettit, Department of Urban Science, UNSW who is interacting with the officials here had introduced various tools and technologies including City Dashboards, City Data Stores, Bike Analytics, Smart Card Transit Analytics and Geodesign that can be used for smart city. Professor Helen Lochhead, Dean, Built Environment, spoke about addressing issues related to urbanization and climate change. He also recalled the sustainable development works taken up in Sydney during the recent workshop, the release added.
BJP national president Amit Shah welcomes former Patancheru Congress MLA Nandishwar Goud in the party fold in New Delhi on Monday in the presence of senior party leaders from TS Bandaru Dattatreya and Dr K. Laxman. (Photo: DC)

Hyderabad: BJP national president Amit Shah will begin his three-day tour of TS from May 23. Amit Shah met TS BJP leaders in New Delhi on Monday and finalised the tour programme.

Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya, TS BJP president K. Laxman, BJP general secretary Muralidhar Rao and others were present at the meeting.

The ongoing chilli farmer issue and other problems of farmers, strengthening of the party from the grassroots level, focus on Lok Sabha seats, especially on the Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency represented by MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi and other related issues were discussed.

Dr Laxman told DC from New Delhi that during Amit Shahs tour of the state, the focus will be on strengthening the BJP from the grassroots-level with emphasis on the 2019 polls.

Amit Shah will stay put in TS from May 23 to May 25 and interact with sections of the people and party leaders, especially booth-level leaders. He will address a meeting in Hyderabad Lok Sabha constituency, Dr Laxman said.

On the occasion, former Patancheru Congress MLA Nandishwar Goud joined the BJP in the presence of the party president.

To a question, Dr Laxman said that the Central government has agreed to provide 50 per cent assistance to TS for purchase of chilli from aggrieved farmers in the state. The TS government should bear 50 per cent of the assistance, he said.
Hyderabad: Jubilee Hills MLA Maganti Gopinath on Monday lodged a complaint against senior Congress leader in-charge of TS affairs Digvijay Singh with the Jubilee Hills police, following the latters post on Twitter that the TS police was radicalising Muslim youths to join the terrorist outfit ISIS.

The police will be taking legal opinion on the complaint. Mr Gopinath, in his complaint, said that Mr Singh levelled baseless allegations against the TS and the state police, which will demoralise the police force and also created unrest among people.

It will create law and order problems in the state by creating animosity between minorities and the police. It will further tarnish the image of the state police and also the image of the Telangana state government, the complaint said.

DCP West Zone A. Venkateswar Rao said that the complaint has been forwarded for legal opinion.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday said that the state government will soon bring a stringent Act to curb sale of spurious seeds, fertilisers and pesticides under which offenders will be booked under PD Act. He said an Ordinance in this regard would be promulgated shortly.

Mr Rao asked agriculture officials to take up survey of agriculture lands in all districts from May 10 to June 10 to prepare an accurate database for implementation of the Rs 8,000 per acre (Rs 4,000 for kharif and Rs 4,000 for rabi) per year financial assistance to farmers from next year.

The CM also wanted stringent measures against those adulterating food items and said that such persons should be severely punished.

Mr Rao said farmers should be encouraged to grow quality vegetables, fruit and food items and food processing also should be done by them.

The CM requested Union minister for fertilisers and chemicals Ananth Kumar over phone to ensure adequate supply of fertilisers for the coming kharif season.

The CM held a review meeting on devising the policy to give input expenditure to the farmers, supply of seed, constitution of farmers associations, food processing and attaining self sufficiency in food production and other related issues.

Agriculture extension officers will have to tour villages from May 10 to June 10. They have to collect comprehensive details on agriculture lands. Based on this data input expenditure is given to the farmers. The government will take stringent action if the information gathered is wrong. Agriculture officers will visit each farmer and the farmers should give all the required information and cooperate, the CM said.

The CM also instructed officials concerned to collect the required fertiliser for the monsoon during the summer itself and stock it.

The officials informed the CM that 16 lakh tonnes of fertiliser was needed during the rainy season and as on date, 8 lakh tonnes was available. Some fertiliser is available locally, they said.
The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF.

Srinagar: Pakistan Armys Border Action Team mutilated the corpses of two Indian jawans after they were killed in an attack on forward posts along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Poonch sector, the Army said.

A jawan was injured in the attack during which the Pakistani troops used automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades to target Kripan post and an adjacent post of the Border Security Force in Kerni area of Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector, the officials said.

The Army said Pakistans BAT mutilated the bodies of Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh and BSF head constable Prem Sagar after killing them following an unprovoked firing in the latest violation of the November 2003 ceasefire agreement. It posted a statement regarding the incident, warning of appropriate response to the despicable act.

The Armys Udhampur-based Northern Command in a statement said that the soldiers were killed in the Pakistani firing and their bodies were mutilated in a simultaneously launched attack by the BAT of the neighbouring country.

The statement said, Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and forward mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts.

The statement added, In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated.

Will react appropriately to the act: Jaitley

Army Officials in Jammu said that the Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked shelling at the Indian posts being manned by Armys 22 Sikh Regiment and the BSFs 200th Battalion in Kerni area of Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector at 8.30 am.

Earlier reports had said that the two critically injured were removed to a nearest medical facility but were declared brought dead on arrival. The Army added that the soldiers who were killed and injured were part of a team on patrol between two forward posts in Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector. This sector often witnessed skirmishes between the facing troops and each time the rivals blame each other for starting firing.

In Delhi, the government and various political parties condemned the mutilating of the Indian soldiers with BJP MP R.K. Singh who is a former Union home secretary asking for a tit-for-tat response. He said. Pakistan understands only one language and, therefore, we need to kill more Pakistani soldiers and give them the same treatment. Defence minister Arun Jaitley while denouncing the barbaric act said that such attacks do not take place even during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

He said, Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The Government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act.

He added that sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vain and reiterated, This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place (even) during war.

In Islamabad, the Pakistan Army rubbished the allegation of mutilating Indian soldiers bodies and said it would never disrespect a soldiers body.

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on the Line of Control or a BAT [Border Action Team] action in the Buttal sector (as Krishna Ghatti sector is known across the LoC) as alleged by India, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.

It added, Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers bodies is also false. According to the statement, the Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier even Indian.

Pakistans Foreign Office spokesman M. Nafees Zakaria tweeted Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false.

In November 2016 also, the Pakistani Army was accused of mutilating the body of one of the three soldiers after they were killed in Macheal sector along the LoC in Kupwara district and had vowed heavy retribution for the cowardly act.
Hyderabad: The 21st convocation of Dr B.R. Ambedkar Open University was held here on Monday. During the ceremony held at the university campus candidates who qualified from 2013 to 2016 received their degrees, diplomas and certificates. 1,32,476 candidates have passed various examinations of the university.

As many as 96 research scholars were awarded M.Phil and PhD degrees at the convocation ceremony. Also 381 prisoners from Cherlapalli Central Prison, Rajahmundry Central Prison, Warangal Central Prison and Kadapa Central Prison received UG and PG degrees.

The university will focus on choice based credit system (CBCS) at the under graduate level from academic year 2017-18 and will also introduce new courses.

Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan, the Chancellor, was scheduled to present M.Phil and PhD degrees, gold medals and prizes. But he couldn't attend due to engagements in New Delhi. Prof. N.R. Madhava Menon, Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEP&A), New Delhi, awarded the degrees to students and delivered the convocation address.

They didnt give up on life

Education is always available to those who are interested. This was once again proved by the prisoners of Cherlapalli, Rajahmundry and other central jails.

The prisoners who received degrees from Dr BR Ambedkar Open University on Monday at the universitys 21st convocation decided to give education a try and 381 prisoners, including 30 women, took up the universitys courses. One of the students bagged a gold medal and four bagged special prizes.

P. Satyam Babu, a man who lost his youth behind bars, even though he was not the culprit in the rape and murder of 17-year-old Ayesha Meera of Vijayawada, received his BA degree on Monday.

Satyam Babu was in Hyderabad on Monday to receive his degree. He said, 'I lost my youth behind bars. I want to become a lawyer to fight for innocents so that no one becomes a victim like me. I wanted to start farming again. But my body won't allow me. So I am looking for a college to pursue law. Satyam Babu was convicted by the Vijayawada womens special sessions court in 2010 and was sentenced to life. The HC acquitted him on March 31.

G Yogender, 35, a prisoner from Kadapa Central Jail, bagged a gold medal in BA. 'I could not study. Now I have a degree and am looking forward to working so that I can support my family, he said.
Hyderabad: Congress leader Digvijay Singh stirred a controversy on Monday when he alleged that the state police was luring Muslim youths to join the Islamic State.

An angry minister K.T. Rama Rao denounced Mr Singh's allegations, saying, Most irresponsible & reprehensible thing coming from a former CM. Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence. (sic)

Mr Rao warned that if Mr Singh failed to tender an unconditional apology to the police, the government would take action. He sought the reaction of AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi on Mr Singhs claim.

DGP Anurag Sharma said, Unfounded allegations from a senior responsible leader will lower the morale and image of police engaged in fighting anti-national forces.

In a series of tweets, Mr Singh alleged that the Telangana state police had set up a bogus ISIS site which was radicalising Muslim youths and encouraging them to form ISIS modules.
CROSBY  A driver who admitted to police that hed been distracted by his cell phone moments before causing a crash that killed a man from Noonan and his two daughters last summer has been sentenced to five years in prison.

William Koehler apologized to Lesely Gundersons family Monday during a court hearing in Divide County, where Northwest District Judge Robin Schmidt handed down the sentence after hearing from attorneys on both sides and from victims family members.

Koehler, 50, pleaded guilty to three counts of manslaughter in February on the day that his trial was to start.

He admitted again on Monday to Gundersons relatives that hed been distracted by his cell phone while driving on Highway 5 in Divide County the evening of Aug. 23.

I feel awful for what has happened, I apologize for being distracted and driving, he said. I myself, I wish I would have died in the accident instead of them.

Crash reconstruction reports show that Koehlers pickup truck crashed into Gundersons car, which was stopped for a construction flagger, at more than 60 miles per hour, Divide County States Attorney Seymour Jordan said, adding that the investigation found Koehler passed signs alerting drivers of the construction zone ahead about 23 seconds before the crash.

Gundersons daughters Shelly, 8, and 2-year-old Shayleigh were pronounced dead at the scene, and Gunderson, 30, died a day later in a Minot hospital.

His 4-year-old son was also injured in the crash.

A number of Gundersons family members attended the hearing, during which his mother, father, and wife addressed Koehler and Schmidt.

Briana Gunderson, Lesely Gundersons wife and mother of the three children, thanked Koehler for apologizing, and said that she hopes he will realize how deeply the crash affected her family.

I want you to think of me and think of the way you have changed my life, she said, asking him to please be sorry, please be sincerely sorry.

The losses were made more painful, Tamara Monteyne, Lesely Gundersons mother, said, because the crash could have been avoided.

There has not been a day that has gone by that I have not replayed this accident over and over and over in my head. Ive tried to understand what had you so distracted. You had many choices to make that day, she said, citing Koehlers cell phone use and speed. My son made one choice  he chose to stop at a place where he was supposed to stop.

Lesely Gunderson, Gundersons father, took issue with a lack of prior apology from Koehler, and the plea of not guilty that he maintained until potential jurors were called in for a trial that was cancelled after he entered a last-minute guilty plea.

This was senseless, stupid and uncaring, and (you have seemed) unresponsible for your actions that day, he said. The last words my son said to me, he said I love you Dad, and I said I love you guys too, and the love is still there, but theyre gone.

All three family members asked Schmidt to impose the five years in prison recommended by Jordan, rather than the 100 days Koehlers attorney, Tom Slorby, asked for.

We are very, very hurt by this and you want 100 days in jail You want minimal time. Your Honor, I dont know whats right but I dont feel thats right, the senior Lesely Gunderson said.

Slorby referenced two similar cases in McKenzie County involving fatal traffic crashes, in which each driver ended up serving less than a year in prison.

I think its important to do justice so that we have a level of consistency, he said.

Schmidt, who presided over both of the prior cases that Slorby mentioned, acknowledged both sides request for justice, but called the five-year prison term fair.

I dont think theres justice in these cases in the way you think of it, because we cant bring these people back who you loved so much, she said.

Jordan declined to comment after the hearing.
New Delhi: India has told visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the main issue in Kashmir is that of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and that it is ready to discuss the political aspect of the issue bilaterally with Islamabad as per the Shimla Accord and Lahore Declaration.

The ministry of external affairs said Turkey listened with care and attention to the Indian side during talks between the two countries.

Interestingly, President Erdogan had, just before his visit, suggested a multi-lateral dialogue on Kashmir.

In an interview on Sunday, Erdogan had said, It saddens me that the issue of J&K has not been settled for 70 years. India and Pakistan are our friends. We are for strengthening dialogue between stakeholders. We should not allow more casualties to occur and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multi-lateral dialogue I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, which will benefit both countries.

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

India categorically conveyed to Turkey its position that Kashmir was essentially a terrorism issue, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

He also said India told Turkey it is ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan, including Kashmir.

After the Modi-Erdogan meet, the two sides exchanged three pacts, including one between their telecom authorities.
Lucknow: UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Monday, asked party workers not to welcome him and his ministers with flowers during their visits to districts.

Instead, you should welcome us with a cleanliness campaign. A day before a minister visits a district; you should carry out a cleanliness campaign and then take the minister there. I will also come and then you can tell me about the problems specific to that area, he said inaugurating the two-day state executive meeting of the UP BJP here.

The Chief Minister said that this would not only give an impetus to the Swachh Bharat campaign but would also ensure the involvement of the common people. We have the model of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and we simply have to follow it, he said.

He said that the era of nepotism and appeasement had ended. Yogi Adityanath further referred to his decision of banning illegal slaughter houses and said that it was beyond his comprehension why the previous government had not implemented the NGT order.

Some people told me that the ban would adversely affect the health of people. I am a vegetarian but am not less healthy than others. In fact, I am more energetic when it comes to working, he pointed out.
EC bribery case accused TTV Dhinakaran, leader of the AIADMK (Amma), carries his bag in Chennai airport, as he is being taken back to Delhi by flight by police on Saturday.

Chennai: After three days of grilling in Chennai, AIADMK (Amma) leader TTV Dhinakaran and Mallikarjuna, the two suspects in Election Commission bribery case, were taken back to Delhi by Delhi police on Saturday evening. The two suspects and six police personnel, including assistant commissioner of police Sanjay Sherawat left the city by a 7.40 pm flight while five other policemen left Chennai to Delhi in an afternoon flight. The two were in five days police custody and will be lodged in a jail in Delhi by Monday morning. TTV Dhinakaran and Mallikarjuna were kept in a guesthouse in Rajaji Bhavan in Besant Nagar and questioned since Delhi police brought the two to the city on Thursday afternoon.

The two were also taken to Dhinakaran's house in Adyar where the police quizzed his wife Anuradha and her PA Janardhanan alias Jana. On Friday the Delhi police teams had summoned a retired PWD officer, manager of a private mobile phone service provider company and a lawyer for enquiry. The Delhi police are on a money trail after they registered a case against Dhinakaran alleging that he tried to bribe an unnamed election commission official to get undivided party symbol of two leaves for his faction of AIADMK. Dhinakaran and his associate Mallikarjuna, were arrested by the Delhi police on Tuesday night after four days of questioning. Dhinakaran was arrested after his 'agent' Sukash Chandrasekhar was arrested from a hotel in Delhi on April 16 with Rs.1.3 crore cash.

On Friday Delhi police had also arrested one Naresh a hawala agent in Delhi. He had allegedly transferred Rs.10 crore to the account of Sukash on behalf of Dhinakaran.
Hyderabad: After nine years, the Bholakpur tragedy rises from its ashes to bite the civic officials. The central crime station (CCS) has sent a prosecution permission request to the principal secretary, home, of Telangana state against five water board officials, saying it was their negligence that had led to the death of 14 residents in Bholakpur due to water contamination. The residents had registered a case against the water board, and it has come alive after a long wait.

In May 2009, tragedy struck Bholakpur when 14 persons died due to intake of contaminated water. It turned out later that a deadly cocktail of poisonous heavy metals and dangerous coliform bacteria resulted in the Bholakpur tragedy.

The residents of Bholakpur had lodged a complaint against the five officials of the water board at the Musheerabad police station, within weeks, blaming them for the deaths due to water contamination. Later, the case was shifted to CCS for investigation.

After a year, in 2010, CCS arrested the five officials, including the chief general manager Manohar Babu, deputy general manager Rajasekhar Reddy, additional general manager Praveen Kumar, the Bholakupur area in-charge lineman David Raju and division in-charge Uma Maheswara Raju. However, all the five got bail.

Since then, the case was pending. Investigations took so long that out of the five held responsible, two officials have retired from the metro water board while the rest have been promoted despite the charges pending against them.

The case has now been brought alive. Said Avinash Mohanty, deputy commissioner of police, central crime station, said, A prosecution permission against the five officials have been sent to the principal secretary  Home.

Following an approval from the home department, a charge sheet will be filed, under Section 304 (causing death due to rash or negligent act), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 166 (a public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to a person) under the Indian Penal code.

Source have revealed that the officials have given a representation to the state government, pleading that they not be prosecuted. The file is pending with the principal secretary.

A Deadly concoction

14 Deaths

500 people hospitalised in May 2009

Poisonous heavy metals and dangerous coliform bacteria were responsible for the Bholakpur tragedy.

Residents consumed water containing coliform bacteria, that was 24,000 times in excess of the permissible limit.

Reports said the deaths were due to biological contamination.

Incidentally, the toxicities caused by heavy metals and coliform bacteria led to a synergetic effect on the health of the residents.

Arrests under sections

304-A (causing death due to rash or negligent act)

270 (malignantly doing an act that was likely to spread infection dangerous to life)

266 (being in possession of false weights and measures for fraudulent use)

166 (a public servant disobeying law, with intent to cause injury to a person) under the Indian Penal Code (IPC)

Revisiting the past
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday refused to meet the family of jailed rape-accused former minister Gayatri Prajapati at his residence here, according to family members of the SP leader.

Prajapati's wife, who was accompanied by two daughters, said a minister present at the venue assured them that their grievance would be heard.

"We wanted to meet the chief minister, but he did not meet us," Prajapati's wife told reporters outside the 5- Kalidas Marg residence here of the CM where he was meeting people during the 'Janata Darshan' programme to listen to public grievances.

"I am confident that my husband will get justice. We will make another attempt to have a word with the chief minister," she said.

Prajapati's sobbing daughter claimed her father was being implicated in the case.

"He is innocent. We want justice. We hope the chief minister will listen to us and ensure justice to our family," she said.

The controversial SP leader was granted bail by a special court last week in a rape and molestation case. But the Allahabad High Court stayed the bail granted to Prajapati by Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court judge O P Mishra.

The high court administration suspended the judge for granting the bail and ordered a departmental inquiry.

Considered close to SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Prajapati failed to walk out of jail as he was sent to judicial remand in two other cases.

Prajapati was a minister in the previous Akhilesh Yadav government. The former Samajwadi Party MLA from Amethi had lost the recent election.

The alleged rape of the woman and molestation of her minor daughter had attracted a lot of media attention in the run-up to the assembly election.

The victim from Chitrakoot district had approached Gautampalli police station here on February 17 alleging that she was raped by Prajapati and his two accomplices for several months.

Prajapati had gone missing after the election and an FIR was lodged against him on February 27 on the Supreme Court's directive. He was arrested from Ashiyana area of Lucknow on March 15.

He had approached the Supreme Court to get a stay on his arrest. But the apex court asked him to approach the court concerned.

At the time of his arrest, Prajapati had claimed that he was innocent and alleged the charges were a conspiracy to malign him.

The allegations against Prajapati were raked by the BJP during the state assembly elections to attack the then Akhilesh Yadav-led government.

The Supreme Court order to file a police complaint against Prajapati had come just two days before the third phase of polling in the seven-phase state elections which saw Samajwadi Party winning only 47 of the 403 assembly seats while the BJP and its allies bagged 325 seats.

The BJP had accused Akhilesh Yadav of shielding his tainted minister, a charge refuted by the Samajwadi Party.
Rampur (UP): Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Monday lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Muslims are being troubled in the country and he should be ready for the consequences if the community approached the UN.

"Muslims are being harassed in India and if the community approached the United Nations and narrated their ordeal, then Modi will not be able to show his face anywhere. Stop it otherwise be ready to face the consequences, he told reporters here.

"Muslims follow the holy Quran and will continue to obey it till their last breath, whereas the prime minister is neither aware of Islam nor Hinduism," Khan said.

Hitting out at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, he said there is a big difference between his statements and actions.

Khan said the chief minister talks about acting against illegal land possession and encroachments but he has not acted against a minister in his government who has carried out "unauthorised construction" worth crores of rupees of his house.
Is US President Donald Trump backsliding on democracy-promotion and propping up dictatorships? Friendship with authoritarian leaders has been a prominent feature of his foreign policy in his first 100 days in office. Much to the chagrin of liberal observers and commentators, he has heaped praise on his peers who are notorious for repressing their own populations and invited them to the White House. Besides hosting Egypts military dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in the Oval Office last month, Mr Trump has lined up an array of controversial rulers like Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte to be his official guests in the coming weeks. These three blood-soaked leaders have won lavish applause from Mr Trump, who loves to contradict and mock mainstream Western lore which deems them as rogues. The unwritten rule in the contrarian Mr Trumps playbook is that whoever is the whipping boy of the liberal Western establishment must be an asset for the new America, which he is shaping.

Over and above the rhetorical Twitter appreciations and hyperbole, the US President has also sought to strengthen Americas economic and strategic links with illiberal regimes by shedding any compunctions about their domestic governance records. Instead of hectoring and chiding governments that are abusive, he has embraced them with a candour that befits classic realpolitik behaviour at the cost of morals and value judgments. In some instances, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, even if there is no overlap of interests with America, Mr Trump has adopted an ideologically tinted rightist view of admiring and desiring to collaborate with strongmen. To his detractors, Mr Trump loves tyrants because he is himself of that mould and dreams of vast power by bypassing or weakening checks and balances to pursue his core objectives without shackles. Having run into steep resistance from American courts, bureaucracy and legislature to his signature policies like the Muslim visa ban and the repeal of Obamacare, he may be envying Mr Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and their ilk for unchallenged statures in their respective countries.

The nationalistic, anti-globalist fervour that Mr Trump exudes through his America first doctrine creates feelings of kinship with a Duterte or an el-Sisi, who carry the I care a damn for international opinion badge loudly to mobilise their conservative constituencies at home. By placing human rights and democracy on the backburner, Mr Trump is aiming at building an alternative coalition of tyrannies which can shift global norms away from liberal ideals and thereby give him more leeway within the US to push through his populist agenda.

Critics have slammed Mr Trump for legitimising foreign autocrats by felicitating and doing business with them. But the obverse also works, wherein Mr Trumps own mission to downsize the liberal order in America depends on carving out a new international system based on rejection of free trade, open migration, non-discriminatory treatment of citizens and separation of powers.

When Mr Trump resumes military aid to Bahrain and Egypt that his predecessor had restricted, increases coordination with Turkey in spite of the latters dubious role in the war in Syria, and offers to strengthen the US alliance with the Philippines despite Mr Dutertes extra judicial killing spree, he is consciously or unwittingly forming a club of what he views as non-nonsense leaders who go about ruthlessly achieving their goals. It is now obvious that there is a choreographed good cop bad cop routine in place in the Trump administration. The President himself talks from his heart and revels in the company of dictatorial and violent counterparts, complimenting them for fantastic jobs and giving them important economic or military concessions. In order to sugarcoat this open courtship of problematic regimes, his top diplomats, like the secretary of state Rex Tillerson and his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, project the conventional line of America as a defender of human rights and democracy. Ms Haley has boasted that the US remains the moral conscience of the world and Mr Tillerson has vowed to hold to account any and all who commit crimes against the innocents anywhere in the world.

Both these central purveyors of Mr Trumps foreign policy happily ignore cases where their boss is coddling dictators and focus on those authoritarians who are antagonistic to the US to prove Americas moral credentials. Kim Jong-un of North Korea, the Castros of Cuba, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela and Bashar al-Assad of Syria directly challenge American interests or do not fit into Mr Trumps idiosyncratic worldviews and hence do not get the same sympathy from the Trump administration as a Duterte or an el-Sisi. Proponents of Mr Trump argue that, unlike earlier US Presidents, at least he is not a hypocrite and is doing a service by dropping all pretensions of America being a moral policeman of the planet. But the rampant mixed messaging that emanates from him and his aides does contain severe inconsistencies and contradictions on democracy and human rights. On one hand, Mr Trump wants to deter Mr Assad for allegedly gassing babies and compel Mr Maduro to release political prisoners. But on the other hand, he does not mind cooperating with an el-Sisi butchering thousands of Egyptians or an Erdogan jailing hundreds of thousands in mass purges.

In a way, much has changed under Mr Trump, especially his unapologetic willingness to sup with the proverbial devils. But in a broader comparative sense, very little has changed. The same double standards that motivated both Democratic and Republican Presidents during the Cold War and after it are still around. Tyrants like the Khalifa dynasty of Bahrain are good dictators for Mr Trump because they serve American interests, while Mr Assad deserves to be overthrown because he is part of Irans sphere of influence that resists the US. Chinas most despotic leader since Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping, is to Mr Trump a very good person because Mr Xi might help the US to pressurise North Korea and also due to the great chemistry Mr Trump has developed with him on a personal level. But whenever it is expedient or jarring to Mr Trumps ideology, he selectively attacks certain authoritarian regimes. Analysts have been scratching their heads about Mr Trumps whimsical foreign policy flip-flops. Understandably so. But there is one constant, be it Mr Trump or any of his predecessors. America is not and has never been a true, universal champion of democracy and human rights. Those who treat it as a beacon for advancing a more moral world order and rue how Mr Trump has ruined all, live in an illusory and historically misguided bubble. Mr Trump is a continuation of Americas long, deceptive record as an opportunistic power.
In 1947 members of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) developed the symbolic Doomsday Clock after the horrific US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  which remain the greatest single acts of terror in human history. If the Doomsday Clock strikes midnight nobody will be there to record it. Human history will have ended. The clock was first set at seven minutes to midnight. The closest it came to midnight was in 1953 after the US and the USSR conducted hydrogen bomb tests. It was two minutes to midnight! Another close encounter was during the Cuban missile crisis. Since then, the most dangerous moment has been the election of an ignorant, belligerent and unstable person as President of the US. The clock today shows two-and-a-half minutes to midnight.

Mr Trump says human-generated climate change is a liberal hoax. He is de-funding and dismantling the Environment Protection Agency (EPA). He has effectively withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. Scientists are in almost unanimous agreement that if the global temperature rises more than two degrees Celsius above what it was at the beginning of the industrial revolution irreversible developments would cause irreparable damage to life systems on Earth.

Current reports of the US developing a global first-strike nuclear capability could herald the end of the world. Mr Trump says he will go to war to prevent Iran or North Korea developing nuclear weapons while abetting Israels illegal nuclear arsenal. In Syria, Mr Trump has attacked a joint Syrian/Russian airbase on the basis of unproven allegations. Together with provocative US-led military exercises on Russias borders in the Baltic, these developments have compelled Moscow to anticipate and prepare for war. The US also dropped a 21,000 kilogramme mother of all bombs in Afghanistan as a warning to Russia and China. The most immediately dangerous situation, however, is North Korea. Mr Trump has sent an armada and is threatening a devastating military assault if North Korea continues to test nuclear-capable missiles. In turn, North Korea threatens a pre-emptive war. It prefers to threaten war if China cannot stop Pyongyang. Despite American military supremacy, China has made clear it will resist an American military assault and/or engineered regime change in North Korea. China is ready to be a strategic partner of the US for global and regional peace. But the US must decide whether or not it accepts China as an equal strategic partner, especially in East Asia and the Western Pacific. Mr Trump cannot bully and threaten if the world is to move away from midnight on the Doomsday Clock. Pakistan is among the countries most exposed to climate change, unmanageable population growth, leadership corruption, criminally irresponsible governance, economic collapse and nuclear catastrophe. With a Prime Minister temporarily reprieved but permanently discredited by the supreme judiciary, ask not for whom the Doomsday Clock shall toll. Tick-tock.

By arrangement with the Dawn
A two-year-old dalit child from Chhattisgarh succumbed to injuries in the burns ward of the Sion Hospital (a public hospital) in Mumbai on April 22. The shock of 35 per cent burns was just too much for her. She was given a Christian burial by the social workers who came forward to receive the body, as her family was too poor to meet the expenses. No newspaper reported this death. The kids mother also succumbed to injuries. They were not the primary targets of the ghastly incident that had taken place in a dalit basti in Bandra on April 14  the day Christians mourned the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and dalits celebrated Ambedkar Jayanti. They were only collateral damage. The primary target was 18-year-old Reena (name changed), who had spurned the advances of a guy several times. The spurned suitor poured petrol on her as an act of revenge. When she felt the warm liquid dripping down her spine, Reena screamed acid dala and ran away before he could ignite her. With great alertness of mind, she managed to find some water and poured it on herself to wash away the petrol. But as she ran back to her hut, she saw her mother in flames and fainted. The mother, a 40-year-old dalit, Amravati Harijan, sitting outside her hut, bore the major brunt of the attack and suffered 95 per cent burns. Her younger daughter too became an accidental victim.

The neighbours rushed the three victims to the nearby Holy Family Hospital. After an agonising wait for a few hours, they were referred to Sion Hospital in the suburbs. As the hospital took a lot of time to sort out the admission formalities, Amravati was rushed to Masina Hospital in south Mumbai. All this travel was done in an ordinary tempo, not in an air-conditioned well-equipped ambulance. Admission into Masina required money and the family had none. So they ran helter-skelter collecting it. This was only the beginning. More money was required for medicines and other expenses. And it only increased without respite; after all, it was a private hospital. After assessing the damage, the hospital gave a rough estimate of Rs 18 lakhs as the cost of initial treatment, an amount far beyond the reach of Amravati or her family. A few NGOs offered to help, they even started a fundraising drive and also approached the government for medical assistance from the chief ministers funds. But just when the funds were to be released, Amravati breathed her last on April 27. The hospital has refused to release her body until all dues are cleared. Reena is now left alone to cope with the guilt and the trauma.

The incident has raised many questions about the manner in which gender crimes are registered. It has also become evident that when it comes to the poor and the marginalised, well-intentioned measures can be so easily be flouted. Though the police recorded the incident of April 14, the meticulous planning of the accused to take revenge upon the family for ticking him off while he was stalking Reena for over a year did not find a mention. The family had approached the police but the accused, Deepak, was let off with a warning. Without this history, a gender crime becomes a simple case of homicide. Another glaring flaw is that though the three victims were doused with petrol, the police did not add the critical section  Section 326A of IPC, which was inserted in 2013 when the criminal law was amended after the Nirbhaya incident. This section addresses acid attack cases, but its wording is broad enough to include cases of burning. The explanation makes it very clear: For the purposes of this section, acid includes any substance which has acidic or corrosive character or burning nature, that is capable of causing bodily injury .

This is a serious lapse because the scheme for financial support to survivors of sexual assaults and acid attacks, Manodhairya, mentions the compensation that needs to be paid when these sections are mentioned in the FIR. Questions are being raised in official quarters about the decision to shift the patient from the public hospital into a private hospital. But here we have a very strong precedent. In the Shakti Mills gangrape case, the victim had admitted herself into the top-end Breach Candy Hospital. But since it was a high-profile case, there was no hesitation in shifting her to a VVIP room and meeting all her medical expenses. Can the State now shrug off its responsibility towards Amravati? There is also the responsibility of all private charitable hospitals that are duty bound to admit poor patients and reserve 10 per cent of beds for such cases. The scheme formulated by the Bombay high court in 2006 is flouted by all private hospitals. In an audit of 11 leading private charitable hospitals in the city, the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India has found that seven were wrongly billing poor patients and charging hefty deposits during admission.

The question that begs for an answer  does the State have a responsibility to protect the lives of its citizens? What avenues are left for citizens if the State fails in its obligation of providing basic support, emergency care and support to victims of gender crimes? Questions also need to be raised about the role of the media. Why did it not give due publicity for this ghastly incident? Is it because it was not a case of gangrape, or an acid attack? Does burning by petrol lacks sensational value? Is it because the 18-year-old did not become the victim and hence it was not sensational enough to report? Is it because the three lives that were affected did not merit media attention? Is it that the affected families were poor and not from the middle class? We need to understand why the media selectively covers incidents.
Entrepreneurs will now get the opportunity to learn directly from Google engineers who will share product usage insights.

Google has unveiled the new Solve for India initiative primarily for two-tier cities such as Pune, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi, Indore, Nagpur, Nashik, Kanpur, and Chennai. The program is directed towards entrepreneurs and developers of the country.

Google has stated, The program will provide a platform for developers, entrepreneurs in tier II cities to hear from experts and learn about the latest Google Technologies and get access to direct monitoring and support from Google.

Entrepreneurs will now get the opportunity to learn directly from Google engineers who will share product usage insights, how to develop mobile first solutions with strong offline and language capabilities and also assist them to build solutions in many sectors.

The sectors include agri-tech, healthcare, transportation, education, sanitation, and more. These developers and entrepreneurs will also have access to the Google Launchpad programme which will support creation and acceleration of early stage product ideas.

The Launchpad program comes with a 6-month mentorship program along with $50,000 worth of equity-fee investments. The company has also stated that it would provide over $20,000 of Google cloud credits as well.

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To access the new feature, tap your email provider from the welcome screen, use your Gmail, Outlook or AOL email address to create a Yahoo account, and give Yahoo permission to sync your email messages in the Mail app. Start enjoying an organized inbox experience immediately.

Yahoo has announced the opportunity to experience the Yahoo mail app, without having to switch to a brand new email address. Users can now use the app with their Gmail, Outlook or AOL email address. These features will help make reading, organizing and sending emails easier.

To access the new feature, tap your email provider from the welcome screen, use your Gmail, Outlook or AOL email address to create a Yahoo account, and give Yahoo permission to sync your email messages in the Mail app. Start enjoying an organized inbox experience immediately.

The new features on the Yahoo Mail app include:

Relevant search results: Now, when users search their email using a keyword, the app highlights the most relevant messages.

Users will get notified only when they receive a new email from a person, not companies or newsletters.

Customizable swipes: Choose which action appears when you swipe left or right on a message, including delete, archive, move and more.

Contacts: Yahoo Mail displays editable contact cards, powered by Xobni, that detect all the email addresses and phone numbers associated with that person. Yahoo also pull photos from Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Users can make their inbox more personalized with custom themes and notes more modern with stationery from Paperless Post.

Users can enable Account Key for secure, password-free sign in.

If users already have a Yahoo email account, they can easily connect and manage email accounts from Gmail, Outlook.com, Hotmail and AOL.

The new Yahoo Mail app is available in the App Store (iOS 4.15) and Google Play (Android 5.15). Check it out and let us know what you think  just go to Settings and tap Send Feedback.

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Samsungs Galaxy S8 has managed to garner a lot of attention. Unfortunately, it appears like the device is plagued with problems. In the past few days, reports of red-tinged displays and issues regarding the Bixby home button were circulating the internet. Now, it appears like users are experiencing yet another problem wherein their Galaxy S8 devices are repeatedly restarting by themselves.

User Lazazy posted the complaint on Samsung community website: I have had it for about 10 hours now and it has already restarted seven times while I was using it. It happens when Im using an app like the camera or Samsung Themes and it doesnt matter if the phone is charging or not. All of a sudden the app freezes, the screen shuts off, and a few seconds later, it re-starts.

Her post has received 181 replies from users who are experiencing the same problem.

Samsung hasnt commented on the issue as of yet.

Like mentioned previously, users have also reported the red-tinged screens in their Galaxy S8 smartphones. Samsung is apparently offering an early software update to address the issue.

Samsung has decided to release a software update starting from this week which will provide consumers with a further enhanced ability to adjust the colour setting to their preference, the company said in a statement last week.
Samsung will fix the issue by upgrading the colour optimization feature through an OTA (over-the-air) software update

Samsung is rolling out software update fix for Galaxy S8s red-tinted display issue for the Indian units a week before their release in the country.

After receiving complaints about the red-tinted display from some customers in S. Korea and reviewers, Samsung is taking primitive measure for the Galaxy S8 units in India before it goes on sale in India on May 5.

A picture showing red-tint display of Galaxy S8 smartphone (Photo: Yonhap News Agency)

In a press conference earlier last week, Samsung claimed the reddish tint did not result from any hardware failure, it is natural for Super AMOLED display, and could be rectified by tweaking display colour range in the colour optimisation setting of the device.

Samsung will fix the issue by upgrading the colour optimization feature through an OTA (over-the-air) software update. The update will also provide additional setting under Adaptive Display screen mode. The new options released with fix will allow customers to adjust the range of colours according to their preferences.

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Samsungs Bixby is allowed to let users control at least 10 applications using Bixby Voice, including the Gallery, Calculator, Weather, Reminder, Messages, Settings, Camera, Contacts and more. (image: TechTheLead)

When the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ were revealed to the world a month back, one of the phones most anticipated feature wasnt available for public usage at the time. We are talking about the Bixby voice assistant that Samsung claims to eradicate button usage for simple tasks (its basically Samsungs iteration of Google Assistant). However, its been some time and Bixby is ready to rock.

Samsung has rolled out Bixbys voice recognition abilities for Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ units in Korea for now. Samsungs Bixby is allowed to let users control at least 10 applications using Bixby Voice, including the Gallery, Calculator, Weather, Reminder, Messages, Settings, Camera, Contacts and more.

Bixby can also be used to make payments in Samsung Pay by enabling Bixby Labs. Some third party apps like Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp can also work with Bixby.

Until now, Bixby was limited to reminding events and using the Bixby Vision  a feature that lets users point the camera towards an object, which makes Bixby point out related results.

According to Softpedia, the Bixby voice recognition feature will be extended to devices in the US and other countries shortly.

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Washington: The White House press corps gathered on Saturday for its annual black-tie dinner, a toned-down affair this year after Donald Trump snubbed the event, becoming the first incumbent US president to bow out in 36 years.

Without Trump, who scheduled a rally instead to mark his 100th day in office, the usually celebrity-filled soiree hosted by the White House Correspondents Association took a more sober turn, even as it pulled in top journalists and Washington insiders.

Most of Trumps administration also skipped the event in solidarity with the president, who has repeatedly accused the press of mistreatment. The president used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.

I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away, he told a crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, calling out The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC by name.

In Washington, WHCA president Jeff Mason defended press freedom even as he acknowledged this years dinner had a different feel, saying attempts to undermine the media was dangerous for democracy.

We are not fake news, we are not failing news organizations and we are not the enemy of the American people, said Mason, a Reuters correspondent.

Instead of the typical roasts  presidents of both parties have delivered their own zingers for years  the event returned to its traditional roots of recognizing reporters work and handing out student scholarships as famed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of Watergate-fame presented awards.

Thats not Donald Trumps style, NBC News Andrea Mitchell told MSNBC, referring to the self-deprecating jokes presidents in the past have made despite tensions with the press.

Instead, the humour fell to headline comedian Hasan Minhaj.

Welcome to the series finale of the White House correspondents dinner, Minhaj, who plays a correspondent on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show program, told the crowd.

He also joked about Trump, despite organizers wishes, saying he did so to honour US constitutional protection of free speech: Only in America can a first-generation, Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president.

In a video message, actor Alec Baldwin, who has raised Trumps ire playing him on NBCs Saturday Night Live program also encouraged attendees.

Few other celebrities graced the red carpet, although some well-known Washingtonians, such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and republican representative Darrell Issa of California, appeared.

Trump attended in 2011, when then-President Barack Obama made jokes at the expense of the New York real estate developer and reality television show host.

In an interview with Reuters this week, Trump said he decided against attending as president because he felt he had been treated unfairly by the media, adding: I would come next year, absolutely.

In Pennsylvania, Trump told supporters the media dinner would be boring but was non-committal on whether he would go in 2018 or hold another rally.

Late night television show host Samantha Bee also hosted a competing event  Not the White House Correspondents Dinner  that she said would honour journalists, rather than skewer Trump.
Two police officers arrived and confronted the gunman, who exchanged gunfire with the officers before he was shot, a witness said. (Photo: Representational)

San Diego: A man gunned down seven people at a birthday pool party in an apartment complex near the University of California, San Diego, killing one woman before officers shot and killed him, authorities said.

Police said the suspect, Peter Selis, 49, shot four black women, two black men and one Latino man Sunday. Investigators don't yet know why Selis, who was white, opened fire, Chief Shelley Zimmerman told reporters.

Several victims underwent surgery, and others were in critical condition late Sunday, she said. One man was taken to the hospital after he broke his arm running away.

Rikky Galiendes, 27, heard gunshots around 6 p.m. and went to look outside his sixth-story apartment. He spotted a man bleeding and running near the pool below. Galiendes said he called out to ask if the man needed help when his roommate grabbed him, yanked him down and pointed toward a man sitting in a chair with a gun.

"When we looked over the balcony, he was just sitting down with a gun on his lap," Galiendes said. "He was calm, you know. I mean from my perspective, the guy was ready to do whatever he was going to do. He shot at people having a good time and having a party."

Galiendes and his roommate ran back inside and called police.

A police helicopter arrived first, and the pilot reported seeing multiple victims on the ground and that Selis appeared to be reloading in the pool area, Zimmerman said.

Three officers arrived and shot Selis after he pointed a large-calibre handgun at them, she said.

Police believe Selis and one of the partygoers lived in the complex, police said.

"This is truly a horrific act of violence that took place here today," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a news conference. "Our entire city, all of our thoughts and prayers, all San Diegans' thoughts and prayers, are with the victims and their families tonight."

Galiendes and his roommate stayed indoors until neighbours yelled that it was safe to come out. He said the scene was horrifying.

"As soon as I heard the gunshots, I had goosebumps and the whole thing was really emotionally draining  seeing blood everywhere, seeing bodies on the ground, hoping they survived, seeing bloody footsteps you know of people who ran away. There was just so much blood. It was so surreal."

Galiendes, a student at UC San Diego, said he has lived in the complex in the upscale San Diego community of La Jolla since September.

"It was chilling," he said. "La Jolla is known to be really safe, and this is a family neighbourhood."
A Delta employee handed over the recording to a supervisor later. (FIle Photo)

New York: A Delta Airlines pilot slapped a woman who was fighting with a fellow passenger as he tried to break up a fight between them in the aircraft, according to a media report.

The incident happened on April 21 when passengers were deboarding a flight in Atlanta in the US and two women got in a physical altercation.

A nearly 30-second recording shows one woman throw a piece of clothing at another woman at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, New York Daily reported.

The women begin shoving each other, knocking bystanders out of the way - almost toppling a woman in a wheelchair.

The two begin to roll on the ground of the jetway and pull each other's hair before the pilot intervenes, striking one woman in the face then walking away, the report said.

A Delta employee handed over the recording to a supervisor later.

The airline suspended the pilot as soon as it found out about the video. He returned to work after investigators found "his actions deescalated an altercation," a Delta spokesman said.
Washington: The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's decision to invite Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington, saying his cooperation was needed to counter North Korea, even as the administration faced human rights criticism for its overture to Manila.

Trump issued the invitation on Saturday night in what the White House said was a very friendly phone conversation with Duterte, who is accused by international human rights groups of supporting a campaign of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines.

There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than whats happening in North Korea, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told ABCs This Week during a weekend in which Trump sought to firm up support in Southeast Asia to help rein in North Koreas nuclear and missile programs.

Priebus insisted the outreach to Duterte doesn't mean that human rights don't matter, but what it does mean is that the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure we have our ducks in a row.

The invitation for Duterte to the visit White House at an unspecified date appeared to be the latest example of the affinity Trump has shown for some foreign leaders with shaky human rights or autocratic reputations.

For instance, he expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 presidential campaign, hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the White House and has had warm words for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who Trump is pressing to do more to rein in its ally and neighbor North Korea.

On Sunday, Trump also extended a White House invitation to Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general who heads a military government that took power in a 2014 coup. Prayuths administration had strained relations with Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

Celebrating a man who boasts of killing his own citizens and inviting him to the White House, while remaining silent on his disgusting human rights record, sends a terrifying message, said John Sifton, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

By effectively endorsing Duterte's murderous war on drugs, Trump has made himself morally complicit in future killings, he said.

A Trump administration official insisted, however, that the invitation was not a reward to Duterte or an endorsement of his policies but a decision that engagement with the Philippines, an important longtime US ally, was better than withdrawal which could intensify bad behavior by Duterte.

Its not a thank you, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Its a meeting.

The official denied a New York Times report citing administration officials saying the State Department and the National Security Council were caught off-guard by the invitation to Duterte and were expected to object internally. "We were not surprised. The guys who prepared for the call were unified on this," the official said.

'On the same page' on North Korea

Priebus made clear that North Korea was the top priority. If we dont have all of our folks together  whether theyre good folks, bad folks, people we wish would do better in their country, doesnt matter, weve got to be on the same page on North Korea, Priebus said.

But taking a swipe at Trump for his invitation to Duterte, Democratic US Senator Chris Murphy tweeted: We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash."

Thousands of Filipinos have been killed since Duterte unleashed his fierce anti-drugs campaign nearly 10 months ago. Police say they have killed only in self-defense, and the deaths of other drug dealers and users was down to vigilantes or narcotics gangs silencing potential witnesses.

Human rights groups say official accounts are implausible and accuse Duterte of backing campaign of systematic extrajudicial killings by police. The government denies that.

Duterte was infuriated by the Obama administration's expressions of concern about extrajudicial killings after he took office last year and threatened to sever the long-standing US defense alliance.

Duterte spoke positively about Trump, a fellow populist, after the U.S. presidential election in November, and the new administration has sought ways to mend the alliance.

In a summary of Saturdays phone call between the two leaders, the White House said the two discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world. The White House statement included no criticism of Dutertes methods.
US Congressional leaders on Monday unveiled a bipartisan deal funding government through September, with a compromise that includes President Donald Trumps call for increased military spending but ignores his demand to fund a border wall.

The agreement was struck late Sunday after weeks of tense negotiations fuelled the threat of a government shutdown just as Mr Trump was to mark his 100th day in office.

Congress is expected to vote this week on the new bill, which provides $1.163 trillion in overall federal spending, ahead of a Friday night deadline when government funding would expire absent a new agreement.

The leaders in the Republican-controlled Congress will need support from Democrats in the Senate in order to pass the legislation. Despite Republicans running Congress and the White House, the opposition party has hailed the spending bill as a victory because the Trump administration has punted on several elements that Mr Trump had deemed priorities during his presidential campaign.

Notably it includes no money for Mr Trumps border wall.Mr Trump made building the wall along the southern US border with Mexico one of the primary pledges of his campaign, insisting it would begin within his first 100 days, a milestone that came and went on Saturday.

But Republicans are pleased because the bill adds some $1.5 billion in funding for other security efforts along the nearly 3,218-km border, and boosts military spending.

Of the trillion dollars in the bills discretionary spending, $598.5 billion is slated for defense  an increase of $25 billion, or 4.5 per cent, above fiscal year 2016 levels.
The Sheikh, who belongs to the Nabi Akram Islamic Centre in Granville, said to his followers that he needed to hold his prayer beads to control himself. (Photo: Facebook)

Sydney: An Islamic cleric in Sydney took sleazy pictures of random woman at an airport and mocked her over her outfit on a Whatsapp group with his followers.

According to report in a Daily Mail, Sheikh Zaid Alsalami took picture of random woman from behind who was in a low-cut top and posted them on social media for his followers, commenting it on as I swear to Allah. No bra.

The Sheikh, who belongs to the Nabi Akram Islamic Centre in Granville, said to his followers that he needed to hold his prayer beads to control himself.

In another such incident, the cleric had clicked a picture of another womans legs, making a seedy comment about the womans attire, calling her mutt-able.

Here, according to the Islamic description, Muta is the term for a temporary marriage in Islam, which can also mean prostitution.

He also allegedly told his followers in a Whatsapp message that he becomes uncomfortable sitting beside a woman in plane. He said that he literally feels like his body is poisoned.

Sheikh, also being a video blogger, had made a viral video for his Facebook page, which instructs both young men and girls on how to dress. Notably, he is allegedly accused of supporting militant outfit Hizbul mujahideen as he has been pictured with its leader.
Meridian Energy Group, developers of a crude oil refinery near Theodore Roosevelt National Park, has amended its air quality permit application with a new design it believes will lower emission rates and construction cost.

The company submitted its original application for a 55,000 barrel per day, two-phase project in October. It pulled that application April 5 in favor of one with a new design in the midst of a permit review by the State Health Departments Air Quality Division.

Craig Thorstenson, air quality environmental engineer, said the department had invested quite a bit of work and the review process will essentially start over and require from six months to a year.

The company plans to build the refinery in two, same-capacity phases, but is applying for a permit for both phases at the same time. It had hoped to go live in 2018, though nothing is yet constructed on its location between Belfield and Fryburg in Billings County, about 3 miles from the park.

Meridian expects to operate Davis Refinery with a state-issued Synthetic Minor Source permit, meaning the facility would emit less than 100 tons annually of each criteria pollutant, such as sulfur, nitrous oxide, particulate matter and carbon monoxide that affect ambient air quality standards. It would also emit less than a combined 25 tons annually of hazardous air pollutants, including benzene, cyanide, arsenic, mercury, selenium and formaldehyde.

Thorstenson said the department had questions about the refinerys proposed pollution numbers under its first application for a minor source permit, though the amended one was related to a new design only.

I believe they changed their application because of design, not our initial review, he said. I believe their (pollution) numbers did go down.

Meridians CEO Bill Prentice said the redesign affects the refinerys second phase, which will occupy a one-third smaller footprint than originally conceived. The new plan utilizes hydro-cracking technology to break down molecules for reformation into various fuel products and uses available heat sources to do it.

By getting rid of that heater unit, there is less piping, valves, fugitive emissions; it all adds up. Its the latest and greatest, less heat-intensive technology, Prentice said.

A greenfield project, like this one, allows the company to take advantage of new technology that is primarily now retrofitted to existing facilities, according to Prentice.

A lot has changed in the industry. All that new technology in a single plant, it does look extraordinary when compared to industry averages. With all the modifications and upgrades, the industry could completely redo itself, he said.

The final design is for a smaller, sleeker refinery and one that will cost less to capitalize, he said. The refinery will have gasoline, ultra- and low sulfur fuel oil, diesel and aviation fuel in its product stream and flexibility to change output based on seasonal demand.

Phase one will utilize the more standard fluid catalytic cracking technology using a natural gas-fired heater burner.

Prentice said the change became obvious when the design team started pulling the second phase into sharper focus. Accelerating the final design, paid off for everybody, though likely not people who are displeased with having a refinery anywhere around the park, he said.

A minor source permit requires the same rigorous review as a major source of pollution, but is subject to less authority from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Thorstenson said, though the EPA will still review and comment.

Besides meeting ambient air quality standards, the refinery will be subject to stringent Class I air quality standards because of its proximity to the national park.

One primary standard for Class I air is prevention of significant deterioration, which is measured in extremely small increments of deterioration.

The increment they can add is very low; its a very stringent standard, Thorstenson said.

The companys application says it will not exceed those increments.

Thorstenson said he still expects the company will be challenged to meet the criteria for a minor source.

Its going to be difficult for them to meet that threshold. Its a relatively large refinery to be a minor source. Based on the location and the type of facility, I expect the review process to be very significant, he said.
The officers detained the driver to question him about his accusations about ISIS (File Photo)

Canberra: In order to refuse a trip, an Uber driver in Australias Canberra claimed to a woman passenger that he had been part of the Islamic State (ISIS) and wanted to blow up the Australian Parliament and shopping centre.

According to a report in a Daily Mail, the 26-year-old woman, who chose to remain unnamed, booked an Uber ride to her home in Theodore after a party on Saturday.

Despite the driver boasting about his association with ISIS, she drove along with him.

However, the woman was petrified when the driver asked her if she'd ever eaten human flesh. The woman tried to call Triple-0 but wasnt successful.

Then the woman asked the driver to pull over near service station with an excuse to go to the loo.

She called up police to inform them about the incident. Minutes after her call, officers arrived to speak to the driver.

The officers detained the driver to question him about his accusations about ISIS. He replied them he was 'joking to wind [her] up' as he wasnt in the mood to drive her.

Meanwhile, the authorities also confirmed that the driver is being investigated and has been banned from driving with Uber until 'allegations are assessed'.
Rome: Matteo Renzi, staging a political comeback less than five months after resigning as Italy's prime minister, easily regained the leadership of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) on Sunday with an overwhelming victory in a primary election among party supporters.

According to partial results, Renzi had about 72 percent of the vote, held in makeshift polling booths around the country. About 2 million party members voted in the primary. Justice Minister Andrea Orlando had 19 percent while Michele Emiliano, the governor of the southern Puglia region, had about 9 percent.

Both of his opponents, as well as Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, called to congratulate him, and Renzi gave a long victory speech at party headquarters.

"Forward together," Renzi said to applause.

Renzi, 42, resigned as prime minister in December after a crushing defeat in a referendum over constitutional reforms aimed at streamlining lawmaking. He was replaced by Gentiloni, his foreign minister, but he quickly began planning a comeback.

With a national vote due by May 2018, polls show the ruling PD has slipped behind the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, which questions the country's euro membership. Renzi's ability to counter the 5-Star surge may be crucial to fending off an existential threat to the euro zone.

However, under Italy's proportional representation voting system, no party currently looks likely to win enough seats in parliament to govern alone.

Renzi, with his confrontational leadership style, has become a divisive figure, and there is no guarantee he would be named prime minister of a future coalition government even if the PD were to win the most votes during the election.

While Renzi remains the most popular politician among PD voters, the party and his own appeal look much weaker than during his heyday as prime minister, after he failed to convert his ambitious reform agenda into reality.

Renzi's current personal approval rating is about half of the 50 percent he posted three years ago, according to the Ixe polling institute.

Polls show 5-Star now has around 30 percent of the vote and a lead of between 3 and 8 percentage points over the PD after a dispute between Renzi's loyalists and left-wing traditionalists caused a party split in February.

"I voted for Renzi because he's got more drive and determination than the others, but I'm not convinced he'll get back into government," said computer engineer Luigi Mancini, a PD supporter in Rimini on the Adriatic coast.

"With the (proportional representation) voting system we've got, it seems unlikely that anyone will get a majority," he added.
Emmanuel Macron, the frontrunner in Frances presidential election, has warned that the EU must reform or face Frexit  Frances exit out of the bloc. In an interview with the BBC, the The 39-year old centrist said that while he is pro-EU, the European project is in need of reform. Im a pro-European ... But we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable. So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform, in depth, the European Union and our European project, he told BBC.

Meanwhile, his rival and far-right leader Marine Le pen branded him a pro-EU extremist. Ms Le Pen has promised a referendum on Frances membership in the bloc if elected.

Mr Macron is currently favourite to become Frances youngest ever president, leading Ms Le Pen by 19 points, but she has shown she is a canny campaigner. Some militants have formed a movement they have called Social Front to block both candidates and marched on Monday under a banner saying: Rock and a hard place: Social Front, it will be won in the streets.Round 2 of the presidential election is on May 7.
It seems it was set ablaze from the outside, the TT news agency quoted police spokesman Lars Bystrom as saying, adding an investigation was under way to determine if the motive was political.

Swedens largest Shiite Muslim mosque was badly damaged overnight in a suspected arson attack, police said on Monday.

Flames were engulfing the outer facade of the Imam Ali Islamic Centre in the northern Stockholm suburb of Jakobsberg, a police spokesman said, although there were no reports of any injuries.

It seems it was set ablaze from the outside, the TT news agency quoted police spokesman Lars Bystrom as saying, adding an investigation was under way to determine if the motive was political.

This is Swedens largest Shia mosque with thousands of faithful... They are really concerned, mosque spokesman Akil Zahari told broadcaster SVT.

Several mosques in Sweden have been the target of arson attacks in recent years.
Merkel told journalists that she had pressed the Saudis on women's rights, the war in Yemen and other sensitive issues. (Photo: AP)

Jeddah (Saudi Arabia): German Chancellor Angela Merkel snubbed the strict Saudi Arabia dress code as she arrived in the country without a without a headscarf for talks with the oil-rich kingdom's monarch King Salman.

Merkel, who chose not to cover her hair or wear a traditional flowing black robe, was greeted by King Salman and other top officials upon her arrival at Jeddah, reports the Independent.

However, she is not the first western woman, who did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom, as Hillary Clinton, Theresa May and Michelle Obama had also not covered their hair in Saudi Arabia.

Women in Saudi Arabia are required to wear a full-length robe and covering their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Merkel told journalists that she had pressed the Saudis on women's rights, the war in Yemen and other sensitive issues.

This is Merkel's first visit to the kingdom in seven years.

Merkel had also called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".

She had said that it should be banned, wherever it is legally possible.
Merkel said Berlin is offering diplomatic support aimed at resolving the Yemen conflict and has been in contact with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about its proposal. (Photo: AP)

Dubai: Germany has offered diplomatic help to try to end the war in Yemen, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday as she ended a two-nation Gulf tour taking in the Arab world's largest economies with a stop in the United Arab Emirates.

Merkel arrived in the seven-state federation following a visit to neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where she held talks with King Salman and other senior leaders that touched on regional conflicts as well as women's inequality and other human rights issues.

She said Berlin is offering diplomatic support aimed at resolving the Yemen conflict and has been in contact with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about its proposal, according to a transcript of her remarks provided by her office.

"Germany has offered to support this UN process with its own diplomatic possibilities," she was quoted as saying. "That has met with the approval of Saudi Arabia. We will now move ahead with the necessary coordination with the UN secretary-general."

A Saudi-led coalition backed by significant Emirati support has been bombing and battling Yemeni rebels for more than two years in support of the impoverished country's internationally recognised government.

Shiite powerhouse Iran supports the rebels, known as Houthis, and the Sunni-ruled Gulf states view the fight as a way to limit Iran's involvement in their backyard.

While in Saudi Arabia, Merkel had said she does not believe there can be a military solution to the war, which has killed more than 10,000 civilians and created a humanitarian crisis in what was already the Arab world's poorest country.

The UN recently said some 18.8 million people in the country need humanitarian help or protection. The German leader was greeted by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan upon her arrival on Monday in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi. The crown prince is the half-brother of the country's ailing president and his presumed successor.

Emirati officials did not allow foreign journalists based in the country to witness Merkel's visit. German officials have said Merkel would press Gulf rulers to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries. Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

Trade is high on Merkel's agenda too. Her delegation includes prominent German business leaders looking to strengthen ties with the country's two largest trading partners in the Middle East.

Her meetings in the Emirates, which include the Mideast commercial hub of Dubai, would include discussion of a free-trade agreement between the Gulf states in the European Union and "how we can move ahead and intensify our economic relations still further," she said.
The countrys Official Gazette published the decrees on Saturday evening. (Photo: AP)

Istanbul: Turkey passed two new decrees on Saturday  one that expelled more than 4,000 civil servants and another that banned television dating programs.

The countrys Official Gazette published the decrees on Saturday evening.

The first named thousands of civil servants to be dismissed, including nearly 500 academics and more than 1,000 Turkish military personnel. The decree also reinstated 236 people to their jobs.

The second decree, among other things, bans radio and television programs for finding friends and spouses.

The state of emergency that followed last summers coup attempt has allowed the Turkish government to rule by decrees.

Since then, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 have been purged for alleged connections to terror organisations.

Turkey has said US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen orchestrated the coup attempt. He, however, has denied the allegations.
Islamabad: Pakistan Army on Monday refuted the allegations that it violated ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmirs Poonch district and later mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector as alleged by India," Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) of Pakistan Army said. "Allegation of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false; Pak Army shall never disrespect a soldier," it added.

The Indian Army on Monday released a statement, said the soldiers were killed in Pakistani firing and their bodies were mutilated in a simultaneously launched attack by its Border Action Team (BAT). It has warned Pakistan of appropriate response for the "despicable act".

The soldiers, who were killed, were part of a team on patrol between two forward posts in Poonch along the Line of Control, Northern Command said in a press statement.

The officials in Jammu said that the Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked shelling at the BSF post in Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector at 8:30 am. The two critically injured jawans were removed to a nearest medical facility but were declared brought dead on arrival.

Officials in Jammu while confirming the incident, said that BSF head-constable Prem Sagar and Army's Naik Subedar Paramjeet Singh who were critically injured in the Pakistani firing and shelling succumbed on way to the hospital.

They also said that second BSF jawan injured in the firing and shelling is out of danger. The firing has stopped, reports received in Jammu said. But it is not clear as yet if the Indian troops retaliated to the Pakistani firing or not.

The Krishna Ghati sector often witnessed skirmishes between the facing troops.
Islamabad: Pakistans army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Sunday visited the Line of Control and said his country would continue to support the political struggle of the Kashmiris for the right of self-determination.

Bajwa, who toured the areas in the Haji Pir sector, was briefed about the alleged ceasefire violation by the Indian troops and the state of preparedness of the army to face any aggression.

The army chief said Pakistan would continue to support the struggle of the Kashmiris.

We will always stand by their (Kashmiris) rightful political struggle for the right of self-determination and recourse to basic human rights, Bajwa said in an interaction with troops.

He accused India of state-sponsored terrorism in Kashmir.

Bajwa alleged that India was not only involved in aggression against the people in Kashmir but also against the people living on the Pakistani side of the LoC and the Working Boundary.

India has repeatedly rejected Pakistans allegations of rights violations in Kashmir.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday invited Turkish companies to invest in Indias vast and promising infrastructure sector. He urged for mutual cooperation between the two countries in hydro carbon, wind and solar energy sectors for enhanced bilateral commerce.



Addressing India-Turkey Business Forum here, the prime minister said that time has come to make more aggressive efforts to deepen economic ties between the two countries. He said trade between the two countries has grown from $2.8 billion in 2008 to $6.4 billion in 2016 but the level of the present commercial engagement was not enough.



Our infrastructure requirements are enormous and we are keen to build it at a faster pace. Turkish companies can participate in that. India also plans to build 50 million houses by 2022. For this we have re-defined our FDI policy in the construction sector, the prime minister said. He said India is planning metro rail projects in 50 cities and high speed trains in various national corridors.



Modi said India is putting up new ports, modernizing old ones and through an ambitious plan called sagarmala. We are removing inefficiency in the system and reforming policies and procedures. Our enhanced FDI flows, trade and cooperation can help deepen ties, Modi said as he urged the Chambers of Commerce of both the countries to work together for better business ties. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogen demanded rebalancing of trade ties which he said was heavily tilted in Indias favour.


"He is innocent. We want justice. We hope the chief minister will listen to us and ensure justice to our family," she said. The controvesial SP leader was granted bail by a special court last week in a rape and molestation case. But the Allahabad High Court stayed the bail granted to Prajapati by Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court judge O P Mishra. The high court administration suspended the judge for granting the bail and ordered a departmental inquiry.



Considered close to SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Prajapati failed to walk out of jail as he was sent to judicial remand in two other cases. Prajapati was a minister in the previous Akhilesh Yadav government. The former Samajwadi Party MLA from Amethi had lost the recent election. The alleged rape of the woman and molestation of her minor daughter had attracted a lot of media attention in the run up to the assembly election.



The victim from Chitrakoot district had approached Gautampalli police station here on February 17 alleging that she was raped by Prajapati and his two accomplices for several months. Prajapati had gone missing after the election and an FIR was lodged against him on February 27 on the Supreme Court's directive. He was arrested from Ashiyana area of Lucknow on March 15. He had approached the Supreme Court to get a stay on his arrest. But the apex court asked him to approach the court concerned.



At the time of his arrest, Prajapati had claimed that he was innocent and alleged the charges were a conspiracy to malign him. The allegations against Prajapati were raked by the BJP during the state assembly elections to attack the then Akhilesh Yadav-led government.



The Supreme Court order to file a police complaint against Prajapati had come just two days before the third phase of polling in the seven-phase state elections which saw Samajwadi Party winning only 47 of the 403 assembly seats while the BJP and its allies bagged 325 seats. The BJP had accused Akhilesh Yadav of shielding his tainted minister, a charge refuted by the Samajwadi Party.



Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today refused to meet the family of jailed rape-accused former minister Gayatri Prajapati at his residence here, according to family members of the SP leader. Prajapati's wife, who was accompanied by two daughters, said a minister present at the venue assured them that their grievance would be heard."We wanted to meet the chief minister, but he did not meet us," Prajapati's wife told reporters outside the 5- Kalidas Marg residence here of the CM where he was meeting people during the 'Janata Darshan' programme to listen to public grievances. "I am confident that my husband will get justice. We will make another attempt to have a word with the chief minister," she said. Prajapati's sobbing daughter claimed her father was being implicated in the case.
BJP MP K C Patel is in the eye of a storm after a court ordered Delhi Police to investigate allegations of rape against him but the Gujarat lawmaker insists he was "drugged and filmed" for money. Patel, an MP from Gujarat's Valsad, approached police last week claiming that he was drugged and filmed by a woman and her gang who later demanded Rs five crore from him for not making public the objectionable pictures and video.



The woman, however, approached the court seeking investigations claiming that police refused to register a case on her claims that the MP raped her in his official residence on 3 March when she went there on a dinner invitation. She also claimed she was sexually assaulted several times earlier. "These are all false allegations. I have full faith in law, I will cooperate with the investigation," Patel said.



The woman responded to Patel's remarks saying, the MP was trying to use his power to save himself. He is making the allegations after I filed the complaint and court ordered investigations. Patel landed in problem despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi warning his party MPs against sting operations and other means to trap them.



In his police complaint, Patel claimed that the woman had sough his help and took him to a Ghaziabad house where he was served soft drinks laced with sedatives and filmed. Delhi Police immediately registered a case of extortion after getting the complaint. Investigators said a special team has been formed to look into the case and the culprits would be arrested soon.



"We are investigating the case. We have been asked by the court to submit a report on May 12. By then we will crack the case and arrest whoever is on the wrong side," a senior police official said. Police is also looking into whether the woman is a serial blackmailer and verifying information that she had similarly trapped an MP last year also.



The modus operandi, sources suggested, is that the woman befriends MPs and click pictures in objectionable positions to threaten the MPs later. If they refuse to pay up, they said, she would threaten to lodge rape cases against them.




Police today detained two persons in connection with the alleged lynching of two suspected cattle thieves in central Assam's Nagaon district but refrained from terming it as a case of 'cow vigilantism'.



District Superintendent of Police Debaraj Upadhay told PTI, "We have picked up two persons in this connection and after investigation as to whether they were involved in yesterday's lynching incident, we will arrest them."



Yesterday's incident was an outcome of "mob fury leading to the brutal killing of the two persons suspected to be cattle thieves", he said.



Asked if it was a case of 'cow vigilantism', the SP said, "Not at all. There is no communal issue involved in the incident. It was a case of mob being angry and beating up the two suspected thieves".



"The owner of the cattle in Kasamari village saw two men taking away his cows and shouted for the local people to stop them. The people there came out and chased the two before the angry mob beat them up, injuring them seriously," Upadhay said.



The police team which arrived at the site rushed the two to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries, he said. Stating that the deceased have been identified as Abu Hanifa and Riyazuddin, the SP said their parents have registered a complaint with the police and investigations are on.



Although some incidents of cattle thieves being thrashed by the mob have been reported from Assam earlier, this is the first casualty after cases of cow vigilantism have been reported in recent times across the nation.
In a provocative attack, Pakistani soldiers on Monday crossed into the Indian territory near Line of Control (LoC) in Krishan Ghati sector of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir killing two Indian soldiers and mutilating their bodies.



Army Northern Command in a statement said Pakistan army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the LoC in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an un-soldierly act by the Pak army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, the statement said. Warning that they will avenge the Pakistani action, the Army said, Such despicable act of Pakistan army will be appropriately responded.



Three more soldiers, who were injured in Pakistani firing, have been shifted to hospitals, officials said. The slain soldiers have been identified as JCO Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Havaldar Pram Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF.



Sources told DH the ambush, carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistan army, took the Indian troops by surprise. As heavy firing from Pakistani side was going on, the BAT wearing black combat uniform crossed over the LoC and mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers, they said.



The BAT, besides Pakistani Army regulars, consists of commandos and dreaded terrorists from Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad outfits.



The BAT managed to escape from the spot after carrying out the deadly attack. As Indian posts are closer to Pakistan in Krishana Ghati sector, the rugged terrain and thicker forests gives infiltrators an advantage to escape, sources added.



This was the second such attack in the same area as earlier on January 8 2013, Pakistani BAT had decapitated bodies of two Indian soldiers - Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh after entering into Indian territory in Krishna Ghati sector.



During the Kargil war in 1999, Captain Saurabh Kalia, soldiers Arjunram Baswana, Mula Ram Bidiasar, Naresh Singh Sinsinwar, Bhanwar Lal Bagaria and Bhika Ram Mudh of the 4 Jat Regiment were captured by Pakistani troops and brutally tortured to death.



The latest attack comes a day after Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited the LoC and said his country would continue to support the political struggle of the Kashmiris for the right of self-determination.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today assured India of his country's full support in the fight against terrorism as he held "extensive" discussion on this evolving threat with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who described it as a "shared worry".



Holding that "no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism", Modi, at a joint press event with Erdogan, said the two sides have decided to work together to deepen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace.



In an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror groups, Modi said countries across the world need to "work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists". They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence, the prime minister added.



Condemning the Naxal attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 in Sukma, in which 25 of them were killed, Erdogan said, "Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."



Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.



"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he had told a TV channel in an interview. The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.



Modi and the visiting dignitary had comprehensive discussion and took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.



Referring to changing times where societies face new threats and challenges every day, Modi said the context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are "our common concern".



"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," the prime minister said.



The two leaders, who addressed a India-Turkey business forum earlier in the day, also pitched for enhanced trade and business ties. Observing that India and Turkey are two large economies which present an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages, Modi said at the level of the two governments, there is a need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner.



"Our bilateral trade turnover of around 6 billion dollars does not do full justice to convergences in our economies. Clearly, the business and industry on both sides can do much more," he added.



Erdogan also emphasised the need to increase the bilateral trade to at least USD 10 billion, as soon as possible, and added that the countries will look at ways to expand cooperation in the energy and infrastructure sectors, in particular.



After Modi-Erdogan meet, the two sides exchanged three pacts, including one between their telecom authorities.



This is Erdogan's first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers. The Turkish leader arrived here yesterday on a two-day visit.
Five policemen and two guards from a private company were killed when militants mounted a deadly attack on a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank in southern Kulgam district on Monday.



Sources said a group of five to six heavily armed militants, camouflaged in army uniforms, had laid a naka (trap) near Pombai village of Kulgam, 78 kms from here, and as soon the cash van reached the spot at around 3.25 pm, it was attacked. Before the policemen could understand the situation, the militants started indiscriminate firing on the van, resulting in death of five cops and two private security guards, they said.



The militants, they said, fled with four INSAS rifle and one AK 47 rifle of the slain cops. As the militants had planned to loot weapons and money, they found the cash van as easy target. The militants took away Rs 50 lakh from inside the van, sources added.



Officials said the van was dispensing cash to local branches and was returning to a bank in Pombai, when it was attacked. Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir range) SP Pani said that it was a group of about half a dozen militants, being led by Hizbul commander Omar, which attacked the police.



Indigenous militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujhadeen claimed the responsibility of the deadly attack. A local news agency CNS quoting Burhanuddin, spokesperson of Hizbul said the attack was carried out by a special squad of the outfit who besides inflicting casualties also snatched four service rifles from the policemen. In the last three-years south Kashmir districts of Kulgam, Anantnag, Shopian and Pulwama have become the hub of militant activities, where large armed groups roam the countryside unchecked.



Policemen have been targeted frequently and robbed of their weapons while Kashmir has witnessed a surge in bank looting cases ever since demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 last year.



But it is for the first time that the bank employees or the policemen escorting them in a cash van have been targeted. The attack took place on a day Pakistan army, in an act of extreme provocation, mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers killed in firing at the Line of Control in Poonch district.



Commenting on the spiralling violence in the state, former Chief Minister and Opposition National Conference leaer Omar Abdullah tweeted: Terrible 24 hours in J&K. 2 soldiers killed & mutilated near the LoC. 5 policemen & 2 bank employees shot in a robbery bid in South Kashmir (sic).



On April 27, three soldiers, including a young captain, and two unidentified fidayeen (suicide) militants were killed while five troopers were injured, when ultras launched a pre-dawn attack on an army installation in north Kashmirs Kupwara district.


In a radio address on July 24, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to the 100-day session of the 73rd United States Congress between March 9 and June 17, a session that produced a record-breaking volume of new laws.

Despite the fact that the 100 days referred to a legislative session and not the beginning of a presidency, the term has become a metric for what a new president can accomplish and how effective they will be during their term. For this reason, president-elects often lay out a proposal for what they hope to accomplish during the early days after the Inauguration.

During a speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania last October, Donald Trump laid out his own plan for what hed do in his first days.

Below is a summary of all the actions related to economics that Trump promised to tackle in his Hundred Days and an evaluation of what he actually accomplished:

EXECUTIVE ACTIONS

The following are actions Trump said he would take either through the executive orders or through the other powers of his office:

Promise: Issue a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.

Evaluation: Promise kept. Ten days after taking office the president signed an executive order titled, Reducing Regulation And Controlling Regulatory Costs. One of the provisions of the order is that whenever an executive department or agency publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it must identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed.

Promise: Announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205.

Evaluation: Promise deferred. According to Trump, he was all set to announce his intent to renegotiate NAFTAand then had his mind changed by phone calls with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.

Promise: Announce that the United States will be withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Evaluation: Promise kept. Trump withdrew from the trade agreement three days after taking office.

Promise: Direct his Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.

Evaluation: Promise broken. Theyre not currency manipulators, Trump told The Wall Street Journal in April.

Promise: Direct his Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately.

Evaluation: Promise kept. In April Trump signed an executive order calling for the completion of a large-scale report to identify every form of trade abuse and every non-reciprocal practice that now contributes to the U.S. trade deficit.

Promise: Lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.

Evaluation: In process. Trump signed an executive order to that will begin rolling back some of the energy restriction put in place by President Obama.

Promise: Remove any obstacles to vital energy infrastructure projects (e.g., the Keystone Pipeline) so that the projects can move forward.

Evaluation: Promise kept. Four days after taking office Trump signed a memo clearing the way for construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Promise: Cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix Americas water and environmental infrastructure.

Evaluation: Pending. Trump included this in his proposed budget, but its unclear whether Congress will cancel the payments.

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS

The following are proposals for economic-related legislation that President Trump said he would send to Congress:

Promise: Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act  An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.

Evaluation: Partial credit. In an attempt to get something out before the Hundred Day deadline, the Trump administration released a one-page outline on tax reform. No detailed plan yet exists, though, and nothing has been sent to Congress.

Promise: End The Offshoring Act  Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Promise: American Energy & Infrastructure Act  Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Promise: School Choice And Education Opportunity Act  Redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.

Promise: Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act  Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.

Evaluation: Promise deferred. Neither the Trump administration nor Republicans in Congress have a way to fully repeal Obamacare, and the current plan to make changes has been rejected by both Democrats and conservative Republicans.

Promise: Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act  Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.

Evaluation: Promise broken. No legislation has been proposed by the Trump administration.
Days after Uttar Pradesh petrol pumps were caught dispensing less fuel using remote-controlled electronic chips, Centre has decided to conduct surprise checks at fuel stations across the country.



Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said strict action will be taken against those found guilty. He said licence of petroleum dealers will be cancelled if they were found flouting marketing discipline.



Strict action will be taken against those found guilty of tampering with fuel calibration. Those dealers violating the marketing discipline guidelines (MDG) will also face strict action mounting to even termination of licences, Pradhan told media persons here.



The move came days after Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) conducted raids on petrol pumps in Lucknow and seized remote-controlled electronic chips installed inside fuel disbursing machines which dispensed 60 ml less petrol per litre. Remote controllers were also recovered from the managers of nine petrol pumps.



STF had found the petrol pumps reaping profits using chips which cost about Rs 3,000 each. STF had also arrested a person who had developed the chip which was installed in the petrol dispensers to cheat customers.



It was estimated that with the help of the chip the petrol pump owners earned profits to the tune of Rs 14 lakh per month.



Pradhan said all fuel stations in Uttar Pradesh will be re-assessed by a team comprising representatives from various state governments departments and oil marketing companies.



The minister informed that of nine guilty fuel stations, three belonged to Indian Oil Corporation while six of them were affiliated to Bharat Petroleum ltd. He said that two officials of state-owned fuel retailers have been suspended following the raids.


Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said today he may turn down an invitation by Donald Trump to visit the United States, as he welcomed three Chinese warships to his home town.



Duterte, who has loosened the Philippines' long alliance with the United States while strengthening ties with China and Russia, said he could not commit to the American president because of a busy schedule that included a trip to Moscow. "I am tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia, I am supposed to go to Israel," he told reporters when asked about Trump's invitation made in a telephone call on Saturday.



Duterte expressed concerns about not being able to fit in a visit to Trump even though no firm date has yet been proposed for it. Nevertheless, Duterte said relations with the United States were improving now that Trump had taken over from Barack Obama, who criticised the Philippine president for his anti-drug war that has claimed thousands of lives.



Rights groups have warned Duterte may be orchestrating a crime against humanity, with police and vigilantes committing mass murder. But Duterte insists his security forces are not breaking any laws.



Duterte last year branded Obama a "son of a whore" in response to the criticism. He also declared while in Beijing last year that the Philippines had "separated" from the United States. The United States is the Philippines' former colonial ruler and the nations are bound by a mutual defence treaty.



Duterte said today that his efforts to loosen the alliance were only a response to the drug war criticism. "It was not a distancing (of relations) but it was rather a rift between me and the (US) State Department and Mr Obama, who spoke openly against me," he said.



"Things have changed, there is a new leadership. He wants to make friends, he says we are friends so why should we pick a fight?"



Duterte's comments came shortly after he visited three Chinese warships visiting his home town, the southern city of Davao on Mindanao island. "This is part of confidence-building and goodwill and to show we are friends and that is why I welcome them," he said.



Duterte has pursued closer relations with the Chinese government even though Beijing has taken control of a fishing shoal and built artificial islands in parts of the South China Sea that are within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone.



China claims nearly all of the strategically vital waterway, even waters approaching the coasts of its neighbours.

Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have claims in the sea.



China's expansionism in the waters have triggered concern regionally and in the West, with its new artificial islands capable of serving as military bases.
The Indian army patrol, whose two members were beheaded by Pakistani special forces today, might just have walked into a death trap laid by the enemy, official sources said.



The incident in Krishna Ghati sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir occurred when a joint team of the army and BSF had gone to check the veracity of an intelligence report that landmines had been planted by Pakistani troops on the Indian side.



As they were looking for landmines, the patrol was taken by surprise by Pakistan's Border Action Team (BAT) which had laid an ambush over 250 metres deep inside the Indian territory.



While the Pakistani troops attacked two forward posts with rockets and mortar bombs, the BAT personnel lay in wait for their targets. The Indian army patrol too came under fusillade of gunfire, resulting in the death of two soldiers. The BAT personnel quickly moved in and beheaded two fallen soldiers, official sources said in New Delhi. It was still not known if landmines had indeed been planted in the area.



K K Sharma, the Director General of BSF, one of whose personnel was killed in the attack and decapitated, met Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and briefed him on the incident.



"It was a pre-planed operation by Pakistan army. They had pushed in the Border Action Team over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up the ambush for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior officer said in Jammu. "Their target was a patrol party of 7-8 members, which had come out of a post," the officer said, adding that as the posts were engaged, the patrol team members ran for cover.



Two troopers--one of the army and another of BSF-- were targeted by the BAT.



Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army were killed and their bodies mutilated. The BAT is specifically employed for trans-LoC action.



In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in the form of surreptitious raids.



There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated. On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector.



In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by BAT. It also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF suffered injuries in the attack.



In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by BAT in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.



During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.



In February, 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian army's 'Ashok Listening Post' in the Nowshera sector and killed seven Indian soldiers.



Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.
Lemurs are primates that look something like a cat crossed with a squirrel and a dog. These animals are unique to the island of Madagascar and are famous for their unusual and interesting behaviour like singing like a whale or dancing across the island like a ballet dancer.



Madagascar is over 5,000 km away from India, and therefore, it is hard to believe that an animal like lemur that is unique to this one island could have been, many moons ago, living in the Kashmir region of India. But that is exactly what has been discovered by fossil hunters after six years of tireless work, thus filling an incredible biogeographical gap never before documented.



The fossil discovered in the Ramnagar region of Jammu and Kashmir is an inch and a quarter partial jawbone of a primate. The scientists inferred that it belongs to a species that weighed less than five kg and lived between 11 million to 14 million years ago in this region. The experts further believe that this primate could be an ancestor of the present day lemur  primarily eating leaves, and the size of a house cat. In honour of the eminent Indian palaeontologist, Ashok Sahni, the newly discovered primate has been named Ramadapis sahnii. In palaeontology terms, these atypical primitive primate fossils from the region are collectively called Sivaladapids.



Favoured site

The lower Shivalik ranges of Ramnagar have long been a fossil hunters favoured site in India for digging out primate fossils. Till 2013, 46 mammalian species had been recorded from this area, which includes the famous first primate fossil discovery made by American bone collector Barnum Brown in 1924 when he found an important fossil jaw of an early great ape, which is a close relative of the orangutan. Ashok Sahni and an American colleague later in 1979 found first primate fossil belonging to a Sivalidapid here. Thus, the discoveries have revealed that India was once home to primitive orangutans and lemurs.



Even though people have been collecting fossils at Ramnagar for almost 100 years, our study demonstrates that the areas still hold potential to produce new specimens and inform us about primate diversity and evolution in India approximately 11 to 14 million years ago, says Christopher C Gilbert, lead author of the new study that appeared in the Journal of Human Evolution. Dr Biren Patel, a part of the team and associate professor of clinical cell and neurobiology Keck School of Medicine of USC, USA, says, In the past, people were interested in searching for big things. A lot of the small fossils were not on their radar. It is indeed this tiny discovery that fits like a piece of puzzle into the very path of evolution of humans as we too are primates, cousins of the great apes and related, even if distantly, to Ramadapis sahnii.



Evolution mysteries

New primates are always a hot topic, and this one is the first of its kind from its area in Asia, which has significant consequences for understanding primate evolution in the Old World, says Michael Habib, assistant professor of clinical cell and neurobiology at Keck School of Medicine of USC, USA. This new primate is a cousin of species found in North America, Europe and Africa millions of years ago. In fact, what surprised the team was that the Indian species might have been living in North India at a time when its relatives in other continents had already disappeared! While many anthropoid primates (early monkey relatives) went extinct in Asia around 34 million years ago, these primates survived until six million years ago until more modern monkeys and apes arrived from Africa.



What is of equal interest is the region where the discovery was made. The place today is a rocky terrain but discovery of the primate indicates that it was a tree dweller, and mostly ate leaves. This leads to the theory that Ramnagar, millions of years ago, could have been a forested region. Ashok thinks that this fossil belongs to a primate that lived at a peculiar time in history. It was when the land we know as India today was drifting away from Africa and Madagascar and was slowly moving towards the Asian plate. The fact that the species became extinct in other places but managed to survive here indicates that it had special conditions in India that allowed its survival.



Another significant lead this fossil provides is for geneticists who can now pinpoint more accurately on the time when two similar species diverged into separate groups in history. The experts say that just like the discovery of the orangutan-like species in the 1980s provided a time to when they might have drifted from Africa, this lemur-like species points to its separation and presence in Asia.



Old world monkeys and new world monkeys, lemurs and the great apes like bonobos, chimpanzees, and orangutans are all connected through a common evolution history with each other and with us humans. A small piece of relic found in a testing terrain like Ramnagar can thus have far-reaching consequences in changing our knowledge about our ancestors and binding us even more strongly to the animal world we sometimes treat as separate entities.
A cactus in bloom is pure poetry  particularly that famous line by Walt Whitman: Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. In the desert at Anza Borrego, California, USA, the thick, spine-studded paddles of a beavertail cactus look as surly as always, ready to smack you into next week if you get within striking distance.



Yet now, in a superbloom spring that many judge the best in decades, the paddles are topped by dazzling fuchsia flowers the size of teacups, which beckon you closer to feast on the view. The fish hook cactus lives up to its name, its surface covered with long, curved barbs and a snarl of fibrous hairs; but now it wears a festive garland of creamy white petals smartly trimmed in rouge. Keep away. Come closer. You got a problem with that?



If somebody had taken me from rural Illinois, where I grew up, and dropped me here into this desert landscape to see all these fat succulent things, said Jon P Rebman, chief botanist at the San Diego Natural History Museum and a cactus taxonomist, I would have thought I was on Mars. Jon said he was coerced into studying cacti as a graduate student, but the arranged marriage took place. Cacti are weird and attractive, and their giant, satiny flowers are stunning, he said. I fell in love, and I never looked back.



For Jon and other researchers who study the cactus family, Cactaceae, the 20-grit charm and mulish creativity of their subjects are always compelling, whether the plants are flowering wildly in response to rain after a sustained drought, as happened this year in California, USA and parts of the Southwest US, or simply doing what cacti do best, which is persist in some of the worlds most parched and hostile environments for decades or longer.



How cacti adapt

While the basic contours of the cactus survival plan have been known for some time, researchers are still unearthing surprising details about how the plants adapt to adversity, and how they subtly manipulate the niches they inhabit and the other creatures they encounter to suit their defence and propagatory needs. Recently, for instance, scientists have found that as many as 100 species of cacti are essentially breasts for ants, exuding through tiny nipples in their flesh a minute but irresistible supply of sweet nectar that persuades the insects to nest at the cactal base. The besotted ants in turn defend their green udder against potentially destructive insect predators; clean away pathogenic fungi and bacteria; fertilise the soil with their nitrogenous waste; and spread the cactus seed to new sites.



Other researchers have discovered that a cactus roots can operate like sensitive fingers, able to detect when the soil surface has grown dangerously hot and then contracting to yank the entire plant into a lower, slightly cooler position before its too late. Scientists propose that a better understanding of the tricks cacti apply to handling relentless heat and aridity could prove all too relevant in a world of rising temperatures and water scarcity. Not that cacti are immune to the effects of human avidity. In late 2015, an international group of researchers reported that nearly one-third of cactus species were at the risk of extinction, making cacti among the most threatened taxonomic groups assessed to date.



In addition to habitat loss and the conversion of cactus wilderness to agave plantations, the authors and other biologists cited excessive human affection as a driver of these extinctions. People can be fanatic about cacti, said Gretchen North, a professor of biology at Occidental College, USA. Cactus rustling and illegal cactus collecting are real problems and a big business, and thats one of the major causes of endangerment, especially to rare species and lovable giants like the readily anthropomorphised saguaro. Humans are not alone in their cactus love. Scientists have begun decoding the complex badinage between cacti and pollinating bats.



Reporting recently in the journal PLOS One, Tania P Gonzalez-Terrazas of the University of Ulm in Germany and her colleagues showed that, whereas most echolocating bats use sonar to hunt moving targets like insects, the neotropical nectar feeding bat, Leptonycteris yerbabuenae, livestreams a volley of high-frequency clicks and cries as it approaches a flowering columnar cactus. The bats goal: to pinpoint the exact spot on each tubular flower where it can insert its snout, lap up the pollen-salted nectar inside and then back off again. Sure, the flower may be stationary, but a mistaken approach, a random flit to the side, could prove fatal.



The bat is flying in the middle of a windy desert, at night, and its feeding from plants with really big spines, Tania said. It has to be superprecise. Shes seen the impaled evidence to prove it. For their part, cacti like Pachycereus pringlei, the Mexican giant cactus, have adapted their blooms to suit their pollinators GPS. Its flowers are exceptionally hard and waxy, the better to bounce a bats call back to

its ears, Tania said. The symmetrical arrangement of the petals makes it

relatively easy for a bat to calculate the midpoint of an echo, and hence to find the floral opening.



Minimising sun exposure

Behind the success of the cactus family is its prodigious dry wit, its talent for maximising water uptake and minimising water loss. Cacti are succulents, which means their tissues are fleshy and designed to hold moisture, an essential trait for surviving in a place like the Atacama Desert of Chile, where annual rainfall averages half an inch. Cactus roots spread wide and shallow, rather than deep, and are equipped with specialised nodules. On first exposure to moisture after a dry spell, the nodules quickly sprout a network of pale, spidery rain roots, allowing a cactus to suck up every possible droplet from a light desert sprinkle. When the showers are through, the rain roots are jettisoned but the nodules remain, poised to sprout anew.



Cacti are shaped to minimise sun exposure. Rounded barrel cacti have low surface area, relative to their succulent storage capacity, while columnar cacti or prickly pears expose only their thin edges at the tops or sides to direct sunlight. Because photosynthetic leaves are a serious source of water loss in most plants, cacti have transferred their sugar production services to their bodies, and in many cases, have transformed their leaves into spines. Those spines serve assorted tasks, depending on species.



But in general, they are less about defence against desert animals, as is commonly believed, and more about water management. A mat of spines and hairs holds in moisture and slows the movement of evaporative air across the cactus surface. If you get out of your shower and run naked through your yard, whats the last part of your body that dries? Jon said. Anywhere you have hair. Spines and hair do the same for a cactus.
With militant attacks and street protests on spiral, Army chief General Bipin Rawat Monday reviewed the prevailing situation in Kashmir Valley with field commanders. Gen Rawat, who arrived here on a two-day visit, was briefed on the security situation and recent operations conducted by the security forces by the senior army commanders. Sources said the Army Chief analysed the situation post the mutilation of two Indian soldiers at the Line of Control (LoC), earlier this morning.



Worried over the rising casualties to soldiers, General Rawat directed his men to go tough against militants. He also stressed on a well-coordinated plan among security agencies to deal with street protests at sites of gunfights between militants and forces, they said.



A defence spokesperson said the Gen Rawat accompanied by the Northern Army Commander and Chinar Corps Commander visited Panzgam garrison where he was briefed about April 27 fidayeen (suicide) attack in which three soldiers, including a young captain, were killed. The Army Chief took stock of the enhanced security measures, he said.



Later Gen Rawat took a security review meeting at Chinar Corps headquarters,here and underlined the need to maintain high vigil. General Rawat also visited the Army Base Hospital, where he enquired about the health of soldiers recuperating and wished them all a speedy recovery, the spokesperson said.



He also reviewed the collaborative measures of security forces towards ensuring peace and calm in the region. The Army chief interacted with local commanders and troops urging them to continue discharging their duty with utmost professionalism.
The Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC) has called off the short-haul weekend summer special trips aboard the luxury express train, Golden Chariot, citing poor response.



The corporation had announced the start of special trips on April 7. But it got no response in the first two weeks of April. The third week saw just two bookings which were eventually cancelled as the train didnt take off. For May, there were just eight bookings. Looking at the poor response and after waiting for a month, we have called off these trips, Kumar Pushkar, Managing Director, KSTDC, told DH.



Under the scheme, the KSTDC was offering short-haul trips to Mysuru, Belur, Halebid and Shravanabelagola, Badami and Pattadakal, Hampi or Goa. It was the first time the corporation had experimented with short-haul trips for the two-month-long summer vacation.



The idea was to help more people get a glimpse of the train. Unless people experience the train, its bookings and publicity will not increase. But it failed to catch the attention of people, Pushkar said.



The corporation had included the Hampi trip following feedback from foreign tourists who wished to experience the train more and spend less time outside, like in the case of other luxury trains such as Palace on Wheels.



Pushkar said the KSTDC would now continue the regular package tour, Pride of South, between Bengaluru and Goa.



The corporation also got lukewarm response to the wedding and honeymoon tour offered on the luxury train. It instead got inquiries about the three-day special trip to Hampi and Badami. The KSTDC is now in talks with corporate companies to promote the train for meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE).



Special trips for schoolkids

To encourage schoolchildren to travel in the natures lap, the KSTDC is offering special package two-night and three-day trips to Madikeri and Mysuru from June to September, besides a day-long package tour around Bengaluru. The three-day trip includes pick-up and drop-off, stay at a KSTDC hotel, breakfast and dinner, besides trekking on regulated trek routes in Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu, Pushkar said.
Huge rallies, processions and public events by workers unions marked World Labour Day in the city on Monday. Members of May Day celebration committee took out a march from Town Hall to Jnana Jyothi auditorium on the Central College campus of Bangalore University.



Writer and activist B T Lalitha Naik, speaking on the occasion, said the Narendra Modi government was appeasing capitalists and had ignored the working class. Writer Bargur Ramachandrappa stressed the need for Dalit, farmers and workers movements to unite to fight injustice.



All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) members also took out a procession from Bannappa Park to Government Arts College grounds, which culminated in a public meeting.



Writer Dr Marulasidappa urged the working class to fight any attack on the freedom of speech and authoritarian regime. The members also resolved to push for a legislation for the compulsory recognition of trade unions, reservation for the locals in the private sector and to secure the rights of workers in the unorganised sector.



The Karnataka Workers Union held a rally from Minerva Circle to Freedom Park, demanding equal pay for equal work and housing for workers in the unorganised sector.

DH News Service
A 29-year-old engineer at a mobile phone company in Bengaluru committed suicide by hanging himself at a hotel room here on Sunday night, police said.



Tejvir had come to Noida with his senior, Amit Kumar, and both were staying at a sector 2 hotel in separate rooms. Tejvir, who got married just a month ago, called his girlfriend and said he was going to commit suicide, said Anil Shahi, the incharge of Sector-20 police station.



The woman got the hotel number online and alerted the hotel staff. The hotel staff informed Kumar who rushed to Tejvirs room and knocked on the door but there was no response, Shahi said.



When the door was opened with duplicate keys, Tejvirs body was found hanging from the ceiling fan. Police have sent the body for post-mortem and started investigation in the case.



Tejvir is said to have been in a relationship with a woman who ditched him and he had to marry another woman under family pressure, according to the officer.

PTI
A small-time actor has reported being abused and molested by a male friend at a medical store on KTG College Road in Hegganahalli, north Bengaluru, on Sunday evening.



In a complaint to the Rajagopalanagar police, the woman said her estranged friend Sachin called her a whore, tore up her clothes and molested her at the medical store run by a common friend named Ashok.

He fled as passersby rushed to the store after she raised an alarm.



The woman said she had befriended Sachin and his brother Praveen while living in Hegganahalli about three years ago. She later moved to Vijayanagar.



The woman had complained to Ashok about Sachin and Praveen as they were making advances at her. She said the brothers often sexted her or sent erotic videos. They got upset when she didnt reciprocate.

Around 6.40 pm on Sunday, Praveen telephoned her and chatted her up. He also sent her sexually explicit text messages, she said in the complaint. She then went to meet Ashok at his store and requested him to pull up the brothers. Ashok called up Praveen and warned him sternly.



Praveen narrated the incident to his brother who got angry and headed straight for the store where he is reported to have molested her.



The inspector of Rajagopalanagar police station said Sachin had been booked under IPC Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and they are looking out for him as well as his brother. The woman will be questioned, too.

DH News Service
Three trees marked to be felled for widening of Dommasandra-Attibele Road will now be transplanted, thanks to the efforts of Sarjapur Residents Welfare Association, which has raised money through crowd-funding to save them.



A tree was felled near Sarjapur bus stop nearly two months ago. We later learnt that more than 200 trees will meet the same fate for widening of Dommasandra-Attibele Road. We then urged the PWD and the Forest department officials to transplant them. But they said that would cost them dear and declined our request, said Sarjapur RWAs environment secretary Raicy Mathew.



"We then decided to call B Ilango, who brought hundreds of trees that were uprooted by cyclone in Chennai to life and Vijay Nishanth, known as the tree doctor. Both said three trees in Sarjapur and Yamare could be saved," Mathew added.



RWA president Jagadish Kottur Shettar said the process will be expensive. A crane is needed to shift the trees and river sand is required to plant them in their new home. We also need to hire a tractor.



We estimate the cost to reach Rs 3 lakh and decided to raise money through crowd-funding.

"We published a request on an online platform and received good response. We have already collected Rs 2.5 lakh in donations. Deputy Conservator of Forests Deepika Bajpayee has offered to help us. We have identified the new spot and are planning to shift them next week, Mathew added.



Shettar demanded that the government allocate funds for tree transplantation, since many projects were taking a toll on the environment. As many as 83 trees will be cut to widen Sarjapur-Attibele Road. According to arborists, at least 38 of these trees can be transplanted. The government should evince interest to transplant them, he said.



Vijay Nishant, urban conservationist, said the citizens initiative to save the environment should open the government's eyes.

DH News Service


The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) will raise a major part of the cost for the Metro line project between KR Puram and Central Silk Board (Phase 2A) through innovative funding and leasing its land.



As per the gazette notification, the state government has set a three-year deadline for the Rs 4,202-crore project connecting two key traffic junctions on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) corridor.



Rs 500 cr

The government has promised Rs 500 crore and the BMRCL has been told to raise Rs 1,100 crore through innovative funding and Rs 500 crore by leasing out its land. The BMRCL will borrow the remaining Rs 2,100 crore.



As part of innovative financing model, the BMRCL will provide direct connectivity to various IT parks from Metro stations through bridges. Advertising, commercial and naming rights for the stations are other means, besides various cess and fees which are expected to generate a quarter

of the project cost.



While noting that the project should be expedited and completed along with the Phase 2 in 2020, the state government has, however, set a rider. The BMRCL has been told to begin work on the project only after raising Rs 250 crore through leasing of land and get firm commitment of Rs 250 crore in the innovative funding model.



13 stations

The 17-km line has 13 stations with KR Puram and Silk Board stations functioning as junctions connecting other Metro lines. Once operational, the line is expected to carry more than 3.5 lakh people.



An additional 2.5 km line will connect Baiyappanahalli depot to the line. As part of Phase 2, the BMRCL will build a depot at Kadugodi for which the state government has agreed in principle to provide 50 acres.



KR Puram-Silk Board Metro

Length - 17 km

Stations - 13

Cost - Rs 4,202 crore



Junctions: KR Puram and

Silk Board stations to

connect other lines

Serving Depot: Additional

2.5 km line to connect KR

Puram to Baiyappanahalli depot
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has finally found a way to dispose of 20,000 tonnes of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) accumulated over years at waste processing plants. The local agency will utilise RDF for its waste-to-energy plants which would be set up soon.



The RDF, which could be used as fuel for incinerators at cement factories, had no takers owing to cost factor.



BBMP Joint Commissioner for Solid Waste Management (SWM) Sarfaraz Khan said, The factories offered to pay Rs 2,500 per tonne of RDF. Hence, we decided to utilise the RDF at our own plants that will be set up in the coming days. RDF, which is the residue of various types of waste is a great source of energy."



Khan said that the accumulated RDF will be stored in a quarry spread across around 3.5 ares at Bellahalli.



Four plants

Palike officials said that four waste-to-energy plants will be coming up at Kannahalli, Yelahanka, Mavallipura and at a location in North Bengaluru. An official said that tenders had been floated for these plants and clearances sought from the government.



Meanwhile, NS Ramakanth, member of the committee appointed by the Supreme Court for solid waste management, said that the Palike had not consulted the panel about for storing of RDF and hence, he was unaware of the proposal.

DH News Service
Weeding at the 910-acre Bellandur lake in southeastern Bengaluru has slowed down because of delay in arrival of three floating machines that can remove about 60 tonnes of the wild plant in a day.



The slow work means the state government has little to show in terms of cleaning the polluted lake almost two weeks after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered it on April 19 to clean the waterbody within a month. The NGT ruling had spurred the government into action with Chief Secretary Subhash Chandra Khuntia and Additional Chief Secretary (Urban Development Department) Mahendra Jain visiting the lake and ordering officials to pull their socks up.



A senior official in the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), which is the custodian of Bellandur lake, said the floating machines were to arrive on Friday but were delayed in transit. The road transport authority held up the vehicle carrying the dismantled floating machine for verification. Since its a large vehicle, officials needed to check the transit papers. The authorities took some time to sort it out, he told DH. The BDA has entrusted weeding to Harvins Constructions Private Limited at a cost of Rs 3.35 crore. The company is bringing three special floating machines from Mumbai for the purpose.



The first machine is set to arrive in Bengaluru by Tuesday afternoon while the other two will take a day or two more (again because of permit issues). Presently, two earthmovers are carrying out limited weeding on the banks of the lake. Once the machines come, around 60 tonnes of weeds can be cleared every day, the official said.



No takers for weeds & silt

Meanwhile, the government seems to be keen on clearing weeds from the lake, not disposing them. The cleared weeds are lying in the catchment area of Bellandur lake near Yemalur. Presently, we are just piling up the weeds and silt on one side of the lake. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was asked to take the weeds and silt to quarry pits, but it is yet to respond. The urban development department hasnt directed us what to do with the weeds. So, we have just left them around the lake until future orders, the BDA official said.

DH News Service
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday described the Pakistans action of mutilating the bodies of two Indian soldiers as reprehensible and inhuman act, which do not even take place during war.



Two of our soldiers in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch have been killed and their bodies were mutilated by our neighbours. This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such acts dont even take place during war, let alone in the peacetime, Jaitley said in a statement.



Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The Indian government strongly condemns this act and the whole country has full confidence and faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to this inhuman act. The sacrifice of these soldiers will not go in vain, he stated. The defence ministers reaction comes in the backdrop of Pakistans border action team ambushing an Indian Army-BSF patrol team, and killing two soldiers. The Pakistan army has denied its involvement.
State BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa expressed confidence on Monday that the crisis and confusion in the party would be resolved over the next three to four days.



He was speaking to reporters in the city. To repeated questions on the dissidence within the party, the former chief minister only said the central leaders were observing all the developments and all confusions would be cleared soon.



When asked about the statements by K S Eshwarappa, leader of the opposition in the Council, Yeddyurappa said he would not like to discuss internal matters of the party. He said all confusions would end today and would they would never recur.



The state party chief exuded confidence that the BJP would win 150 of the total 224 Assembly seats in the state in next years elections.




Bharatiya Janata Party MLC M B Bhanuprakash, who was removed as state vice president of the party on Saturday, has said that he is prepared to sacrifice everything including his membership of the Legislative Council if that would help the party state president B S Yeddyurappa to win the 150 seats in the next Assembly polls.



Speaking to reporters here on Monday, Bhanuprakash made it clear that he would not question the decision of the state president.



I was not hurt over my removal as state vice president. But the way it has been done to a worker who has struggled to build the party over the last 30 years has hurt me the most. The party president released the copy of suspension letter to the media before informing me. It is interesting that I was sacked from the post for discussing the rift in the party with the media. But the president shared the suspension issue, the most internal affair of the party, with media before informing me. If what I did is wrong, then is what they did is right? he questioned.



He said it pains him that he was jailed for questioning the then prime minister Indira Gandhis attack on democracy during the Emergency. Now, he has been punished for demanding internal democracy in the party.



Referring to the suspension letter, he said it only states that I have been removed

from all responsibilities with immediate effect. There is no details of responsibilities.



I assume I have been removed from three responsibilities: the post of state vice-president, in-charge of Chikkamagaluru district and from the membership of Deendayal Upadhyaya Birth Centenary Committee. For the benefit of the workers, I am sharing this information.



Expressing his disappointment over the similar treatment meted out to BJP leaders M P Renukacharya and Go Madhusudhan, he said they have been removed from their position for criticising BJP national general secretary (Organisation) B L Santosh.



Nirmal Kumar Surana and me have been removed for striving to safeguard internal democracy in the party, he added.


Senior BJP leader K S Eshwarappa is firm on continuing the activities of Sangolli Rayanna Brigade. On Monday, he began making preparations for the Brigades office-bearers meeting scheduled to be held in Raichur on May 8.



Eshwarappa is touring Vijayapura and Raichur districts to meet people associated with the Brigade and chalk out plans for spreading the activities of the Brigade.



When contacted by DH, the BJP leader said, The Brigade wants to strengthen its base at Assembly segment levels. We will be selecting two toppers from as many as 5,013 junior colleges across the state and felicitate them. We will be giving a cash award of Rs 5,000 to each student. Nearly 10,000 students would be feliciated in June-July.



Asked why he is going against BJP General Secretary Muralidhar Raos direction to the BJP men in the state not to carry out any activities outside the party forum, Eshwarappa said he has been adhering to the instructions given by the party president Amit Shah.



Rao had said in Bengaluru on Sunday that there is no need for anybody to float any organisation outside the party  call it forum, call it brigade or give any name. This is the instruction from the party leadership, Rao had said.



However, Eshwarappa said, Shah, on January 27 after holding a meeting with me and Yeddyurappa in New Delhi, had said the Brigade should not hold any political activities. But Shah said he has no objection if I continue my work with the Brigade. His words are being followed. The Brigade is into cultural and educational activities.



Asked whether Rao, who is in-charge of the party in Karnataka, has not been able to broker a truce between him and Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa said, Rao seems to be listening to Yeddyurappa and not Shah. As per the instruction of Shah, Rao should have conducted a meeting of the four-member committee constituted by Shah to address the problems in the state unit. The deadline given to him was February 10. But so far not a single meeting has been held. So, who is defying Shah? Why Rao has not applied his mind to solve the problem? Should we not listen to the president?



On what could be the possible solution to resolve the feud between him and Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa said Shah would have to step in. If the problems remain even after May 10, then the party old-timers would go ahead with their plan of organising a convention on May 20.



To another query, he said that on his own he would not submit any memorandum to the central leadership. But if invited for talks, he would attend.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said that India's absence in the United Nations Security Council was not a healthy sign.



India, with a population of 1.3 billion, is not a part of the UNSC. Over 1.7 billion people live in the Islamic world, but they too are not a part of the UNSC. This is not a healthy sign, Erdogan said at the Jamia Milia Islamia University in New Delhi after he was conferred an honorary doctorate by the chancellor of the varsity Mohammed A Zaidi.



Turkey has been a member of Uniting for Consensus (also called Coffee Club), which has been opposing bids by India, Germany, Japan and Brazil (a bloc known as G-4) to get permanent membership of an expanded UN Security Council.



Erdogan said that the UNSC should have 20 to 30 members at a time, but none of them should hold a permanent seat on the council.



The decision of Jamia Milia Islamia university to confer the honorary doctorate on the Turkish president evoked mixed reactions within the varsity.

DH News Service
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday turned down Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans proposal to help resolve India-Pakistan dispute on Kashmir through multilateral talks.



Modi told Erdogan that India was always ready for bilateral dialogue with Pakistan in an atmosphere free of terror, not only on Kashmir dispute, but also on other outstanding issues.



He made it clear to the Turkish president that no third party could have any role in resolving India-Pakistan bilateral disputes.



Erdogan had rubbed New Delhi the wrong way by suggesting in an interview before his arrival that India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir should be resolved through multilateral talks and Turkey could stay involved through a multilateral process to resolve the row.



The Indian side also made it clear that the entire Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India and would remain so in future; but a part of the state had been under illegal occupation of Pakistan.



It was conveyed to the Turkish president that India remained ready to resolve the issue in a peaceful manner through bilateral dialogue with Pakistan in accordance with the Shimla Agreement of 1972 and Lahore Declaration in 1999, Gopal Baglay, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, told reporters.



Modi and Erdogan agreed that all forms of terrorism should be condemned. We agreed that no intent or goal, no reason or rationale can validate terrorism, the prime minister said after the meeting.



Without directly blaming Pakistan for export of terror to India, Modi stressed on the need for all nations to work together to put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists.



Erdogan, however, did not touch upon the issue of cross-border terrorism while addressing mediapersons and rather condemned the recent attack on security personnel by Maoists in Sukma.

Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed.



Modi and Erdogan signed three pacts  a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in information and communication technologies, cooperation between foreign service of India and diplomacy academy of Turkey and a cultural exchange programme.

DH News Service
Police in Uttar Pradeshs Moradabad town exhumed the body of a horse almost a fortnight after it was found dead in mysterious circumstances. Its owner said the animal was poisoned.



According to sources, the body of the horse was exhumed on Sunday and sent for postmortem. The action was taken after its owner Bablu Kumar lodged a complaint with the police saying the horse was killed by two people who had enmity towards him.



Kumar accused Sahib Singh and his younger brother of killing the horse. He said the brothers had administered poison to the animal. I had a heated exchange with Sahib Singh and his brother a few days ago, after which they have held a grudge against me, Kumar told the police.



Sources said the police had brokered a compromise between Kumar and the brothers. The duo had apparently agreed to compensate Kumar, but didnt keep their word. Following this, Kumar lodged a complaint.



Police officers said the viscera of the horse will be sent for forensic examination. Further action will be taken after the examination report is received, an officer said.



DH News Service


Days after being divested of charge of Karnataka and Goa, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday kicked up a storm by claiming that the Telangana Police were running a fake IS website to radicalise Muslim youth.



The police have set up a bogus IS site which is radicalising Muslim youth and encouraging them to become IS Modules, Singh, AICC General Secretary in-charge of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, said in a series of posts on Twitter.



He sought to link these modules to the train blasts in Shajapur district of Madhya Pradesh in March, claiming that the Telangana Police had tipped off their Madhya Pradesh counterparts on the alleged perpetrators.



Singhs remarks drew instant denial from Telangana minister K T Rama Rao. Even the Congress distanced itself from the remarks. I have seen neither the website nor the statement. Digvijaya Singh can explain his remarks, AICCs senior spokesman Anand Sharma said.



Rao dared the Congress leader to provide evidence to back his claims or withdraw the comments unconditionally. Most irresponsible and reprehensible thing, coming from a former chief minister. We demand that he tender an unconditional apology to Telangana Police or provide evidence, Rao told reporters here.



I&B Minister M Venkaiah Naidu condemned Singhs statement. It is a bizarre statement on Telangana Police. It is a serious allegation; he must either substantiate or apologise, Naidu said.



Telangana Director General Of Police Anurag Sharma said unfounded allegations from a senior, responsible leader will lower the morale and image of police engaged in fighting anti-national forces.



Unruffled by the controversy, Singh later told reporters that he stood by his statement and his sources had told him that the issue did figure at a meeting of central officials and state police officers.



I want to ask KCR (Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao)  didnt this issue come up during an anti-terror meeting convened by the Centre last week, he asked on the sidelines of a function here.



The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim youth in becoming IS modules by posting inflammatory information? Is It Ethical? Is it Moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim youths and encourage them to join ISIS, Singh tweeted.
As the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) stares at internal strife following the debacle in Delhi civic polls, its chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has read the riot act by issuing a gag order on its leaders.



The direction to keep quiet came following remarks by senior leader Kumar Vishwas and Delhi MLA Amanatullah Khan, which created trouble for the party.



While a meeting of the all-powerful Political Affairs Committee (PAC) is likely to be held on Monday night, a section of AAP MLAs from Delhi and Punjab is learnt to have written to the party leadership to take disciplinary action against Khan for his comments against Vishwas. Both Vishwas and Khan are members of the PAC.



Vishwas questioned the AAP leadership on a variety of issues, while Khan had accused the former of trying to usurp leadership from Kejriwal.



A section of MLAs and leaders also reportedly supports Vishwas coming to the party leadership and Kejriwal focusing fully on the government.



Trying to douse the fire, Kejriwal had on Sunday tweeted, Vishwas is my younger brother. Some people are trying to create a rift between us. No one can separate us.



Sources said Kejriwal has now asked Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to broker peace between Vishwas and his opponents in the party.



The feeling in the Vishwas camp is that Khans remarks were part of a strategy of a section to create roadblocks to ensure that he does not get more role in the party.



As the spat spilled over to public domain, Kejriwal warned the leaders against making remarks on any forum other than that of the party.



The chief minister is of the view that indiscipline cannot be tolerated. Khan was miffed at the party chiefs open support for Vishwas when the latter had criticised the chief minister in public. Khan claimed that Vishwas was planning to quit the AAP and join the BJP, if he is not made party chief and that he held a meeting with AAP leaders and MLAs at his residence.



Amanatullah resigns from PAC

AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan resigned from the partys PAC on Monday, PTI reports. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the party leadership was upset with both Khan as well Vishwas for airing their differences in public. He said the PAC has accepted Khans resignation.




President Donald Trump cut short an interview with the host of Face the Nation on CBS after being asked about his unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped his campaign, saying he was entitled to his own opinions.



Trump, speaking during a prerecorded interview in the Oval Office with John Dickerson that was broadcast on Monday on CBS This Morning, grew agitated as the host pressed him on a number of issues, and he reached his breaking point when Dickerson asked about his bombshell Twitter post from early March describing Obama as a sick man.



You dont have to ask me, the president said, cutting off Dickerson in mid-sentence.

Why not? the host asked.



Because I can have my opinions and you can have your own opinions, Trump shot back.



With that, Trump terminated what had been an otherwise genial interview.



OK, its enough, the president said.


Newly appointed AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal is expected to arrive in Bengaluru on Tuesday. Venugopal was handed over the charge of party affairs in Karnataka on Saturday.



My job is to get everyone along and win the Assembly elections next year, Venugopal told DH.

Venugopal is a Lok Sabha member from Alappuzha Parliamentary seat in Kerala. He sits next to Rahul Gandhi in the Lower House and is also the deputy whip of the party.



He said he would first meet party leaders in Bengaluru and get himself acquainted with the issues in the state.



Besides Venugopal, Congress president Sonia Gandhi also appointed four AICC secretaries  former Telangana MP Madhu Yaskhi Goud, former Tamil Nadu MP Manickam Tagore, former Kerala MLA P C Vishnunadh and former Andhra Pradesh minister Sake Sailajanath  to supervise election preparations in Karnataka.



Venugopal and the four AICC secretaries are expected to meet Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and discuss issues related to the state.



The immediate tasks before Venugopal would be to address the issues of factionalism, nomination of four members to fill the vacancy in Legislative Council, organisational restructuring, and finalising the new KPCC chief.



Venugopal will be pitted against an aggressive BJP that has already set a target of winning 150 seats in the House of 224 with B S Yeddyurappa as its chief ministerial candidate.
The Supreme Court on Monday decided to get Calcutta High Court judge Justice C S Karnan medically examined. The apex court wants to ascertain if Justice Karnan was fit to defend himself in the contempt proceedings initiated against him.



The court said the judge has been expressing further disrespect ever since a contempt notice was issued to him on February 8.



A seven-judge bench, presided over by Chief Justice J S Khehar, ordered the Director, Health Services, West Bengal government, to constitute a board of doctors from Pavlov Government Hospital, Kolkata, to examine Justice Karnan.



The court directed the West Bengal DGP to form a team of police officers to help in Justice Karnans medical examination on May 4.



The tenor of the press briefings, as also the purported judicial orders passed by Justice Karnan, prima facie suggest that he may not be in a fit medical condition to defend himself in the present proceedings. We, therefore, consider it appropriate to require him to be medically examined before proceeding further, the bench said.



The court directed the medical board to submit its report on or before May 8. The court put the suo motu contempt proceedings initiated against Justice Karnan for consideration on May 9. The court also gave him one more opportunity to respond to the notice issued on February 8.



In case he does not choose to file a response on or before May 8, 2017, it shall be presumed that he has nothing to say in the matter, the bench said.

At the outset, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi submitted that the judge was in gross contempt as he went on issuing directions and holding press conferences against apex court judges after writing scurrilous letter to the prime minister. He has called judges as accused. It seems he has lost his mental balance... judiciary cant become a laughing stock, Rohatgi said.



He is ridiculing judges. There is nothing left to doubt. His conduct is completely unacceptable, Rohatgi said.



On this, the bench, also comprising Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph, said, We have given him an opportunity to defend himself... we must now start action forthwith.



The bench, however, said if he was found medically fit, he would continue to face the contempt proceedings, which would go on even after his retirement.



In its order, the bench directed that no court or tribunal in the country should take cognizance of the orders passed by Justice Karnan after February 8, when the contempt proceedings were started against him.

------------------------------------

Justice C S Karnan on Monday said he will not undergo a medical examination as ordered by the Supreme Court, PTI reports from Kolkata.



He also threatened to suspend the DGP of West Bengal if the latter functioned against his wish.



He said in signed order: I further direct the DGP, New Delhi, to take all the seven judges and produce them to a psychiatric medical board attached to the AIIMS Hospital, New Delhi, to conduct appropriate medical tests on the seven accused and submit a copy of the report on or before May 7, 2017.



Justice Karnan: This kind of harassment order against my sanity is an additional insult to an innocent Dalit Judge, who is of sound health and mind.


Five policemen and two guards from a private company were killed when militants mounted a deadly attack on a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank in southern Kulgam district on Monday.



Sources said a group of five to six heavily armed militants, disguised in army uniforms, had laid a naka (trap) near Pombai village of Kulgam, 78 km from here. The cash van reached the spot around 3.25 pm when it was attacked.



Before the policemen could gauge the situation, the militants started firing indiscriminately on the van, killing five policemen and two private security guards. However, the driver of the van escaped miraculously, they said.



The militants, they said, fled with four INSAS rifles and one AK 47 rifle of the slain cops. The militants had information about the police party carrying weapons coming in the cash van, they said.



The van was returning after depositing cash at one of its branches.



The attack took place on a day when newly appointed Chief Secretary B B Vyas, along with State police chief and high profile officers chaired a meeting in Anantnag and Kulgam districts.



J&K Bank Chest Officer, Kulgam, Muhammad Ayub said that no cash was looted from the van as it had already deposited it at Manzgam branch and was returning to Kulgam. Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir range) S P Pani said that it was a group of about half a dozen militants, led by Hizbul commander Omar, which attacked the police.



Indigenous militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the deadly attack. A local news agency, CNS, quoting Burhanuddin, spokesperson of Hizbul, said the attack was carried out by a special squad of the outfit, who besides inflicting casualties also snatched four service rifles from the policemen.



In the last three years, south Kashmir districts of Kulgam, Anantnag, Shopian and Pulwama have become the hub of militant activities, where large armed groups roam the countryside unchecked.



Policemen have been targeted frequently and robbed of their weapons while Kashmir has witnessed a surge in bank looting cases ever since demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 was announced on November 8 last year.



But it is for the first time that bank guards and policemen escorting them in a cash van have been targeted. The attack took place on a day Pakistan army, in an act of extreme provocation, mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers killed in firing at the Line of Control in Poonch district.



Commenting on the spiralling violence in the state, former Chief Minister and Opposition National Conference leader Omar Abdullah tweeted: Terrible 24 hours in J&K. 2 soldiers killed & mutilated near the LoC. 5 policemen & 2 bank employees shot in a robbery bid in South Kashmir (sic).
Amid the widening differences between BJP Karnataka unit chief B S Yeddyurappa and senior leader K S Eshwarappa, the party top brass is expected to convene a meeting of the warring groups soon to resolve the crisis.



In his first account of the goings-on in Karnataka BJP unit, partys national general secretary P Muralidhara Rao on Monday conveyed to national president Amit Shah that twin factors were behind the crisis and sought central leaderships intervention.



Sources in the party told DH that the party top brass is expected to summon both Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa to the national capital soon and give them a stern warning. However, it is not clear whether Amit Shah will chair the meeting or he will assign the task to someone else.



First, Yeddyurappas soft corner towards his former party leaders like Shoba Karandlaje and, secondly, Eshwarappas open defiance of Yeddyurappas leadership had led to the current situation.



Rao, is learnt to have told Shah that several state leaders accused Yeddyurappa of giving too much importance to his previous Karnataka Janata Party leaders, including Karandlaje, who is now an MP from Udupi-Chikkamagalur, instead of loyal party leaders. They wanted the partys top brass to intervene so that Yeddyurappa could be advised not to ignore the loyalists. Rao, who returned to the capital from Bengaluru after meeting both the sides, is learnt to have held Eshwarappa equally responsible for violating the partys discipline by going to the media and attacking his rivals.



Those opposed to Eshwarappa wanted the central party to gag him, strongly advising him to speak only within the party forum.Rao was critical of Eshwarappa continuing his association with the Sangolli Rayanna Brigade even after the party top brass directed that no unit should function independent of the BJP in Karnataka.



Rao is learnt to have suggested that the party top brass must intervene to resolve the crisis. Yeddyurappa's camp should be told to be more accommodating towards senior leaders from all sections. A truce worked out between Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa earlier, at the behest of Shah, had come a non-cropper virtually, according to Rao.



A committee, which was set up in January after the truce, was yet to start functioning. The panel consisting of Yeddyurappa, senior leader Ravi Kumar, RSS nominee Santosh and Rao was supposed to review the BJP set-up in every district to resolve issues. But it had not held a single meeting so far.



Eshwarappa's camp conveyed to Rao that the central leadership must ask Yeddyurappa to address the organisational issues by May 10.



Meanwhile, the Eshwarappa camp said it will organise a save party rally in Bengaluru under the banner of Sangolli Rayanna Brigade on May 20, if the party high command failed to redress their grievances. It was also unhappy with Rao's handling of the crisis as he appeared to be "soft" towards the Yeddyurappa camp.

Eshwarappa remains defiant

BJP senior leader K S Eshwarappa is in a defiant mood. On Monday he declared that he would continue to be associated with Sangolli Rayanna Brigade to conduct non-political activities. He also said Muralidhar Rao, party general secretary in-charge of Karnataka, seems to be taking instructions from B S Yeddyurappa rather than implementing the direction of Party National President Amit Shah.
In an unprovoked action, Pakistani soldiers on Monday killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.



The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistan Army under the cover of heavy mortar shelling on two forward posts in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district, said a statement from the armys Northern Command.



A BAT action was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers were mutilated, the statement said.



Warning that they will avenge the Pakistani action, the army said, Such despicable act will be appropriately responded (to). Three more soldiers, who were injured in the firing, have been shifted to hospitals, officials said.



The slain soldiers have been identified as Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Havaldar Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF.



Troops surprised

Sources told DH that the ambush took the Indian troops by surprise. As heavy firing from the Pakistani side was going on, the BAT, wearing black combat uniforms, crossed over the LoC and mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers, they said.



Sources in army headquarters, however, said it was not immediately clear whether the team that carried out Mondays action comprised only Pakistan Army regulars or Pak-backed ultras.

The BAT, besides Pakistan Army regulars, usually consists of commandos and dreaded terrorists from the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad outfits.



Movement watched

Army sources pointed out that when the Pakistan Army firing began around 8.40 am, the 9-member patrol team  four from the army and five from BSF  functioning under the operational command of the 10 Brigade, was moving from one post to another at a distance of 700-800 metres.



That was the time when the BAT, that moved almost 200 metres inside the Indian territory, ambushed the patrol team. The patrolling pattern was possibly watched by the Pakistan Army for several weeks before they zeroed in on the time and place of action.



Pakistan Army posts are located at dominating positions in the area. Because of continuous firing from rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortars, the entire patrol team first ducked for cover and then took position for counter-firing.



The two Indian soldiers, who were at a distance from other team members. The BAT managed to escape from the spot after carrying out the deadly attack. As Indian posts are closer to Pakistan in Krishna Ghati sector, the rugged terrain and thick forests give infiltrators an advantage to escape, sources added.



This was the second such attack in the same area after January 8, 2013, when the Pakistani BAT had decapitated bodies of two Indian soldiers  Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh  after entering into the Indian territory. This is the third instance of mutilation of bodies of Indian soldiers in the last six months after the ones in October and November 2016.



The latest attack comes a day after Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited the LoC and said his country would continue to support the political struggle of Kashmiris for the right of self-determination.





Security reviewed

Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday reviewed security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the Maoist-affected states in the wake of recent violence. Singh was briefed about the ground situation in J&K, particularly along the border, where the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by the Pakistan Army.




The leaked images were taken in Shenzhen China, by an alleged OnePlus 5 with the model number A5000

A set of camera samples have surfaced online, which are allegedly taken from an unlisted OnePlus device. The four pictures which were leaked online do not show details about the phone, but there is some information about the device in the EXIF data. According to the EXIF data the images have been taken by a OnePlus A5000 model. Going by the model number, it could be the OnePlus 5, since OnePlus 3 devices are listed under the model number A300X. The data also suggests that the images were taken in Shenzhen, China, which seems plausible since OnePlus is based there.

It is to be noted that EXIF details can be manipulated and like the previous image leak of OnePlus 5 showing dual cameras at the back, this might be a false leak as well. That being said, according to true-techs image analysis, the phone might feature a dual camera setup after all. Their report suggests this, citing noticeable amount of depth comprehension in the images. The report further suggests that the two sensors could have the same megapixel count with one being wider. Although, we would suggest to take this information with a grain of salt.

Previous rumours suggest that the OnePlus 5 might carry 8GB of RAM. It is safe to assume that the processor of choice will be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, which is likely to be launched in India with the HTCs U 11. Rumors also suggest that to compete with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the LG G6, the OnePlus 5 might feature a sleeker design and a QHD panel.

It is widely believed that OnePlus will be skipping the number 4 altogether as according to Chinese beliefs it brings bad luck. However, if rumoured specifications are anything to go by, OnePlus might be preparing another flagship killer to take on the likes of Samsung's Galaxy S8, LG G6 and even the upcoming HTC U 11 or the Apple iPhone 8.
 Xperia SL English > + Compare + Compare    13-May-2016

Market Status : DISCONTINUED Expected Date : 18 Sep, 2012 Official Website : Sony Digit Rating 80 Out of 100 Key Specifications Screen Size 4.3" (720 x 1280)

Camera 12.1 | 1.3 MP

Memory 32 GB/1 GB

Battery 1750 mAh Variant/(s) Color  Xperia SL Price in India:  23,291 set price drop alert See All Prices  Xperia SL Alternatives

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Review

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Photos

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Digit Rating for  Xperia SL 80 design 90

performance 80

value for money 80

features 70

 Xperia SL Full Specifications Basic Information Manufacturer : Sony Model : Xperia SL Launch date (global) : 19-09-2012 Operating system : Android OS version : 4.0.4 Type : Smartphone Status : Available Colors : default Product Name : Sony Xperia SL Display Screen size (in inches) : 4.3 Display technology : TFT LCD Capacitive touchscreen Screen resolution (in pixels) : 720 x 1280 Pixel Density (PPI) : 342 Scratch Resistant Glass : Yes Camera Rear Camera Megapixel : 12.1 Maximum Video Resolution (in pixels) : 1080p @ 30fps Front Camera Megapixel : 1.3 Front Facing Camera : Yes LED Flash : Yes Video Recording : Yes Geo-tagging : No Digital Zoom : No Autofocus : Yes Touch Focus : No Face Detection : No HDR : No Panorama Mode : No Battery Battery capacity (mAh) : 1750 Talk time (in hours) : 7 Removal Battery (Yes/No) : N/A Sensors And Features Multi touch : No Light Sensor : No Proximity Sensor : Yes G (Gravity) Sensor : No Finger print sensor : No Orientation Sensor : No Accelerometer : Yes Compass : Yes Barometer : No Magnetometer : Yes Gyroscope : Yes Dust proof and water resistant : No Connectivity SIM : Single 3G Capability : Yes 4G Capability : N/A Wifi Capability : N/A Wifi HotSpot : Yes Bluetooth : N/A NFC : N/A GPS : Yes DLNA : Yes HDMI : Yes Technical Specifications CPU : Qualcomm Scorpion CPU speed : 1.7 Ghz Processor cores : Dual RAM : 1 GB GPU : Adreno 220 Dimensions (lxbxh- in mm) : 128 x 64 x 10.6 Weight (in grams) : 144 Storage : 32 GB removable storage (yes or no) : No removable storage (included) : N/A removable storage (maximum) : N/A

Error or missing information? Please let us know.

 Xperia SL Brief Description  Xperia SL Smartphone  4.3  TFT LCD Capacitive touchscreen  720 x 1280    342  .   1.7 Ghz Dual      1 GB  .   Xperia SL  Android 4.0.4   .     :  Xperia SL Smartphone   September 2012

 Single  Smartphone

   Yes   .

  Qualcomm Scorpion .

    1 GB  .

   Xperia SL Smartphone  4.3  TFT LCD Capacitive touchscreen  720 x 1280    342  .   1.7 Ghz Dual      1 GB  .   Xperia SL  Android 4.0.4   .     :  Xperia SL Smartphone   September 2012  Single  Smartphone    Yes   .   Qualcomm Scorpion .     1 GB  .     32 GB  .       N/A     .   1750     .     Xperia SL  : ,GPS,HotSpot,    12.1 .. .  Xperia SL s   :Auto Focus,,Video Recording              1.3

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 Xperia SL FAQs What is the starting price of  Xperia SL ? The starting price of  Xperia SL is 23,291 for the base variant with 1 GB 32 GB. What is the screen size of  Xperia SL ? The  Xperia SL features a 4.3 inches TFT LCD Capacitive touchscreen with 720 x 1280 resolution. What is the Battery capacity of  Xperia SL ? The  Xperia SL has a 1750 mAh battery. What is RAM size of  Xperia SL ? The  Xperia SL is available with 1 GB sizes to choose from. What is Storage capacity of  Xperia SL ? The  Xperia SL is available with 32 GB sizes to choose from.

Disclaimer: Digit, like all other media houses, gives you links to online stores which contain embedded affiliate information, which allows us to get a tiny percentage of your purchase back from the online store. We urge all our readers to use our Buy button links to make their purchases as a way of supporting our work. If you are a user who already does this, thank you for supporting and keeping unbiased technology journalism alive in India.
In India, real and reel life go hand in hand. Some people dream of getting a chance to be in front of the camera. No wonder that OPPO has decided to launch its series of selfies centric phones in the city to ensure that people can be in front of the camera any time they want, and look good while doing it. In order to strengthen the bond between it and India even more, the company has partnered with one of the countrys biggest releases of the year, Baahubali 2. However, the movie wont be the only big release as OPPO is also planning to launch something big. Well have to wait until May 4 to know more.

The next generation of OPPOs selfie centric devices, the OPPO F3 is scheduled to launch on May 4 and it seems like we might have a blockbuster on our hands. The OPPO F3 will come with a dual-front camera setup, similar to what we saw in the F3 Plus. This means that youll get one front camera to take standard selfies, and another one to take wide angle shots. With the wide angle lens, you and your friends will not have to huddle together to take a selfie. Youll have plenty of space for each of you to do your thing. A phone as powerful as the OPPO F3 Plus packed into a more ergonomic form factor is something that everyone would definitely appreciate.

With the launch of Baahubali 2 and the OPPO F3, it seems like India has two very good reasons to get excited!

[Sponsored]
The new update went live in South Korea today and will slowly expand to other countries as well.

The Samsung Galaxy S8( 38000 at amazon) and S8+ smartphones were launched with a new built-in AI assistant named Bixby. This new digital assistant which is supposed to compete with Googles Assistant, Amazons Alexa, Apple's Siri and more, did not feature voice control at launch. However, Samsung released a new update earlier today in Korea, adding the much anticipated voice control functionality. Currently, the update only adds support for the Korean language and hence is only available in Korea. Bixby's voice update will be available in more countries in the coming days.

Bixbys main feature, as Samsung claims, is its ability to take actions within apps so that you dont have to touch the screen. Bixby currently works within native apps such as gallery, videos, music and more. However, you can ask Bixby to open various apps and even the flashlight for that matter, and it works just like the Google Assistant. Bixby can also detect what the user is looking at and recognises things to offer shopping cards, translate foreign text, read QR codes and more.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ have a dedicated button to launch Bixby, which also gives you relevant daily information such as weather, news, appointments, etc. Samsung has also locked the button, so that if you aren't using Bixby, you won't be able to remap it to an app or service. However, developers have come with solutions for the same.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 duo go on sale from May 5 and are available for pre-booking on Flipkart. The phones are powered by an Exynos 8895 SoC, feature 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. There is a 12MP camera at the rear, with dual pixel autofocus and an 8MP camera with autofocus at the front. The Samsung Galaxy S8 is priced at Rs. 57,900 and the S8+ is priced at Rs. 64,900.

Source: Yonhap news
Donegal based businessman, Peter Casey, says it's vital for Donegal's economic future that Ireland's fishing industry be 'at the very forefront' of upcoming negotiations over Brexit.

And the former 'Dragon's Den' investor suggested if we are to get a good deal for the county our local elected representatives 'seriously need to up their game'.

Pointing to a recent KFO statement which revealed that in Ireland the First Sale value of fish is 500 million - which translates into 560 million worth of exports - Mr. Casey queried why our politicans are not already at the head of the queue to make their voices heard.

He commented: "If Border areas like Donegal are going to get badly hit by Brexit let's get moving now to mitigate these affects. Or will it be the usual case that our political representatives wait until the damage is done and then whinge how badly we got treated?

'Go in hard and go in now'

"My advice is go in hard and go in now because this is really important to us. Let's demand meetings with ministers and officials. Let's get a big publicity campaign going. Let's get the facts out to the people just how much fishing matters to a rural county like ours. Don't wait until it's all signed, sealed and delivered.

He pointed out that according to the official figures from 2015, Irish imports of seafood from the UK were worth 148m, while Irish seafood exports to the UK were worth 71m. We need, he felt, to not only up our game and see what opportunities there are to level this trade up more but also to protect what we already have.

Mr. Casey, who has a home in Greencastle, also pointed out that in many isolated maritime communities the only jobs available to locals were in the fishing industry. There were, he pointed out, no 'IDA factories' with hi-tech jobs rushing to locate in Inishowen or Glencolmcille or wherever so it was vital the 11,000 jobs associated with the fishing industry in this country be protected."

He added: "From speaking to fishermen in Greencastle recently I'm aware the representatives of the fishing industry, such as KFO, are using their considerable influence at every opportunity to drive home the message to government, development agencies, marketing bodies and the industry itself that not a day can be lost in the effort to ensure fishing is to the forefront in working out a deal to protect the long-term future of the sector."

Major problem

The boss of the international recruitment firm, Buncrana based Claddagh Resources, said it was important that on each and every occasion 'the serious nature' of the major problem facing Ireland should be spelt out. The three key areas which will need to be addressed, he suggested, are access, quota share and trade. In the event of a 'hard Brexit' lack of access to UK waters would pose an enormous threat.

He concluded: "My understanding is that we currently share many of our quota stocks with UK, including the two biggest and most valuable Irish fisheries, mackerel and Nephrops. Post Brexit, that might be very different. However, the trade figures I have already quoted underline the importance of the linkages between trade, aceess and quota share. Due to its geographical position, and to a certain extent its political relationship with the UK - we are the only country with a land border with the UK - Ireland is, most definitely, in the frontline on this occasion."
OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Four juveniles have been arrested with burglary and breaking and entering after the theft of guns and cash from an Ocean Springs home Saturday night.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell says the four juveniles -- ranging in age from 12-15 -- are accused of kicking in the door of the home and then stealing three guns and a glass jar full of coins.

Two of the weapons and the money were recovered, Ezell said. Investigators are searching for the third weapon, which they believe was tossed into Ft. Bayou.
They began arriving before 5 p.m. Some wore gowns and tiaras. A few of the men were in tuxedos.

It didnt matter if they were hosts or guests. They all came to the Joy Prom to spend time with each other.

The prom is designed for people ages 13 and older with developmental or physical impairments. More than 120 guests registered for the event. Its the second year Calvary Baptist Church has hosted.

Pastor Paul Thompson said the gathering is a way of letting special needs families know that the church is a place where they are accepted, especially this time of year when school proms and other gatherings are held.

We feel like this is a part of the population that gets a bit overlooked, Thompson said. Were doing this for those families, the moms and dads and grandparents.

On a bigger scale, he wants the families to know they have a place in the church.

Theyve spent their whole lifetime watching people react poorly to their children, he said. We want to show them something different.

The prom was a community event, with people inside and outside the church pitching in to make it happen.

Emily Shiver, one of the coordinators, said about 140 students, 200 members of the church and others worked to stage the gathering.

As the guests began to arrive, Melinda McClendon urged the volunteers to be as welcoming as possible.

Smile, be grateful, be gracious, be accepting, be loving, be Christ-like, she said. At the end of the night I want these folks to go home and go to bed with tears in their eyes because they had such a great time.

McClendon said its not just the special needs attendees who benefit.

Its these other teenagers, she said. They get out of their bubble for a few minutes and see what the real world is about.

Clarence Yocis and Wendy Schofield were crowned this years Joy Prom king and queen. Songs like Billie Jean and Sweet Home Alabama helped people get busy on the dance floor, but We Are Family echoed the spirit of the event.

The message for the guests was simple.

We just want them to feel loved and accepted, Shiver said.
But it's keenness to have a player in the rampaging tradie ute market is understandable: three dual-cab utes  Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Mitsubishi Triton  finished among the top five in overall new vehicle sales across Australia in March.

Mazda is one of the smooth, high-flyers of the industry, producing the iconic MX-5 roadster as well as some of the best small passenger cars and SUVs to be made in Japan. It is currently number two in overall sales in Australia.

Isuzu is no glamour brand. Its raison d'etre is engineering and building impressively durable heavy-duty trucks and bullet-proof work utes and off-road SUVs.

Last year Mazda  best known for its passenger and sporty cars  announced it wants its fellow Japanese brand Isuzu to provide the drivetrain and superstructure of its next-generation ute to replace the sad-selling BT-50.

At first it looks like a weird relationship.

Mazda BT-50 4x2 XT single cab chassis. Photo: Supplied

Details of the cooperative effort are still being thrashed out, Yoichi Masuda, the president and senior executive officer of Isuzu Motors International Operations, told the Australian media. Negotiations are ongoing, but at this stage the 10-year collaboration will be limited to just the one-tonne ute.

In other words, the next-generation Isuzu D-MAX ute will spawn the successor to the current BT-50, which is a Ford Ranger-based product on sale here since 2011.

The BT-50 and Ranger are alike under the sheetmetal, but the Mazda has failed to fire in the showrooms, perhaps mainly due to its daring yet polarising styling. Mazda has been pursuing a doctrine of smaller-capacity more economical engines and some within the company were not happy with having to stay with a 3.2-litre five cylinder Ford engine.

Ford and Mazda have now split after being partners for decades.

The new ute collaboration, will allow Isuzu to enhance its product competiveness (thanks in part to Mazda's money) while Mazda will strengthen its product line-up in a vital and booming market segment where it has been weak in recent years.

Isuzu Motors will dominantly engineer the new ute, which will be built in Thailand. It will be sold globally but not in North America.

The Isuzu D-MAX, which was upgraded in February, and current Mazda BT-50 are expected to remain on sale without much further change until 2020.

For Isuzu, one as-yet-unacknowledged potential benefit of the tie-up with Mazda could be a reciprocal rebranded Mazda-based smaller SUV, to play in a segment growing like wildfire and one in which Isuzu is not represented.
Although change is not without its challenges, business leaders cannot afford to bury their heads in the sand as technology advances at an exponential rate  to do so means certain doom.

This was the key takeaway message from Telstras recent Future of Business roundtable, which drew together leading futurist Ross Dawson as well past Telstra Business Award winners. The session was facilitated by Telstra Business Group Managing Director, Paul Tyler and Executive Director, Sales and Service Channels, Brendan Donohoe.

First to speak was Dawson, who described the increasing divergence, in terms of performance, between organisations that leverage new technologies  including innovations that unleash the full potential of their people or result in a more personalised customer service  and organisations that dont. In support of this, he pointed to ABS data indicating that higher rates productivity and growth are strongly correlated with self-reported innovation and expenditure on technology.

Dawson stressed that innovation doesnt necessarily have to be internally-driven for an organisation to excel: One of the most important aspects of innovation today is this idea of open-innovation. You dont have to come up with brilliant technologies internally, you can find what is relevant in the universe and bring that into your organisation thats also innovation. Any change  the making of the new  is innovation to my mind.

Dawson said the fact that business technology is increasingly affordable, scalable and easy to implement (owing, partly, to the emergence of the as a service model) means the playing field is not just being levelled, SMEs have a distinct advantage. He explained that SMEs, by virtue of their size, are able to adapt to change with greater agility than large corporations, noting theres no such thing as a nimble large corporation.

Following on from Dawsons insights, attendees heard from representatives of Cargo Crew (Vic), Abode Homes (NT) and Red Robot (ACT) about the business opportunities and challenges arising from new technologies.

Opportunities: ability to reach a global market

Narelle Craig, director, client services at Cargo Crew, said the fashion-focused uniform company, founded by her sister Felicity Rodgers in 2002, evolved away from its roots as a backyard business over time before launching an ecommerce store five years ago. This contributed to the companys growth, with its workforce ballooning from four to 25 people. Today, online sales now account for 30% of the business with 15% of that coming from overseas. Craig explained, Ecommerce has given us the ability to scale. Were heading to 10,000 businesses wearing our uniforms this financial year. [More generally], technology has enabled us to collaborate with manufacturers, clients and partners. Were able to work with different kind of people around the world. For instance, our content strategist is based in South Africa and we communicate via Skype.

Red Robots co-founder Phil Preston touched on how technology has helped the product design company, which produces compact, flat-packed photo booths for the rental market, reach a global audience.

Weve set up close to 600 people across the world to run a photo booth business, he said. Were having to manage that many people as a small, seven-person team. Its been crucial to use technology to reach and support these people and otherwise run the business. Were using cloud systems, including a smart inventory management system, to manage our jobs and [prevent problems such as] supply chain issues before they happen. Theyre designed so we can be as effective here as they are in another state or across the other side of the earth.

Challenges: data security, change management

Despite the efficiencies Red Robot has gained through technology, Preston admitted change management is an ongoing challenge, even for his small (albeit global) operation, with Ross acknowledging that companies are having to invest more in managing change brought by technology than the actual technology. Donohoe said Red Robots advantage, as a small business, is agility: If youre finding it challenging with seven staff, imagine if you had 70, 700, 7000  it becomes a lot harder.

Change management wasnt the only challenge arising from technological advancements. The roundtable also touched on IT security, including the evolution of both cyber threats and security solutions, with Donohoe noting that while cloud has its risks, it also provides the answer in the form of cloud-based security solutions.

On the topic of security, Craig recounted the details of the sophisticated crypto-locker attack on Cargo Crew in February, describing it as the companys biggest challenge to date. She said management believed the companys IT security was sufficient until it was locked out of its warehouse and financial systems, located on their local server. When the culprits demanded bitcoins to release systems, the company forked out AUD$1000 for the ransom, believing it was a small enough sum to risk losing. Unfortunately, the culprits didnt relinquish control of the systems. According to Craig, it was if she and her colleagues had been locked out of [their] house.

For basically a week, our whole business was crippled, she explained. We couldnt dispatch any orders from our online store, we couldnt raise any quotes and we had our whole team asking, Wow, what are we going to do? We didnt want to promote [the incident], even though our online store hadnt been hacked so we end up sending out an email saying weve had some technical issues, thank you for your patience, were doing our best, and if there is anything urgent please contact us. We went back to manual processes that we did prior to the implementation of our warehouse system. It blew my mind that we ever operated like that.

Donohoe, who was in touch with Cargo Crew in the wake of the attack, arranged for Telstras security team to rescue the companys backup data and got the business back up and running. The security team also implemented risk management strategies and tools to ensure the incident wasnt repeated. Donohoe noted that the attackers hadnt gained access to any sensitive material or data; rather, they had inconvenienced the business by preventing them from operating. Still, it was an expensive inconvenience for the small business, costing it around $100,000.

Following on from Craigs story, Justin Gill, director of Abode Homes (NT) revealed his company had experienced its own data scare around seven years ago.

We received a middle-of-the-night phone call from the police telling is our office was on fire, he said. Now, at that stage wed just put in a $30,000 sever on site  it housed all our backups, everything. Our biggest concern was that all our data was lost. As it turned out, the fire was in the building next door to ours. Still, it was a big wakeup call for the. Now, we run everything on the cloud. We dont run a server, we run thin clients throughout the business. The reasons are flexibility and security as well as peace of mind.

Change is risky, so is not changing

Despite acknowledging the challenges around implementing new technologies and the fact that SMEs might be concerned they wont get a return on their investment, Dawson was blunt: not taking that risk means being left behind and not being competitive.

Although technology has left organisations vulnerable to new competitors from adjacent and overseas markets, due to lower barriers to entry, he said there are also opportunities for organisations facing disruption to become new competitors to someone else in another industry, geography, in another country.
thumbnail_Ingalls Shipbuilding Team Sealegs Mission Possible_Mandy Debbie Edmond Kathy.jpg

Mandy Therrell, Development Coordinator, National MS Society: Alabama-Mississippi Chapter (L) and Kathy Scarbrough, 2017 Walk MS: Mississippi Gulf Coast Chair (R) present a Mission Possible Award to Team Sea Legs (Ingalls Shipbuilding), represented by Debra McClendon and Edmond Hughes. Mission Possible Award winners raised $2,300 or more, representing $1 for each of the 2,300 people in Mississippi living with MS.

(Walk MS photo)

OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Local volunteers who attended the recent Wrap-Up Celebration learned the 2017 Walk MS: Mississippi Gulf Coast raised a record $31,200 to benefit the Alabama-Mississippi Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The announcement was made by Kathy Scarbrough, Walk MS Chair in both 2016 and 2017, speaking to an audience of walkers, sponsors and people living with MS who gathered at Phoenicia Gourmet to learn the results of their efforts and be recognized during an awards ceremony.

This year's walk was held March 11 at Fort Maurepas Park in Ocean Springs and participants were given until the wrap-up event to collect donations to be credited to the final tally. It's the first time the walk's fundraising efforts topped $30,000, but setting a new record is not what's important, according to Scarbrough.

"It's about making more research possible and making life better for those living with MS and their families," she said.

"Walk MS is the most accessible event we do," said Mandy Therrell, Development Coordinator, National MS Society: Alabama-Mississippi Chapter. "I'm excited to make a significant impact on the lives of those living with MS right here in South Mississippi. Helping them live their best lives is what we are all about."

Andy Bell, Alabama-Mississippi Chapter President, attended the celebration to thank Coast volunteers and give an overview of the latest advances in research. He shared the mission of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Alabama-Mississippi Chapter: to mobilize people and resources to drive research for a cure and to address the challenges of everyone affected by MS.

Therrell recognized the Walk MS Planning Committee, comprised of Chairman Kathy Scarborough with Navigator Credit Union; co-chairman Doug Adams with the Pascagoula Police Department; Yvette Barr, Jackson County Chamber of Commerce; Pam Burnett, Navigator Credit Union; Cheryl Cooper, CC Cooper Communications; Debbie McLendon, Ingalls Shipbuilding; Walter Moore, Navigator Credit Union; and Marlene Tompkins, retired from Navigator Credit Union. She then asked Scarbrough to join her in presenting the evening's awards for the top fundraisers.

The Mission Possible Award recognizes teams and individuals raising $2,300 or more, representing $1 for each of the 2,300 people in Mississippi living with MS. Marlene Tompkins, an MS patient who chaired Navigator Credit Union's team, received an individual Mission Possible Award, as did Edmond E. Hughes, Vice President, Human Resources & Administration (HR&A) for Ingalls Shipbuilding.

Teams receiving this highest local award included the Harrison County Public School System, Mississippi Power Community Connection, Sea Legs (Ingalls Shipbuilding) and Navigator Credit Union.

Individuals recognized as $500+ Fundraisers included Melanie Holcombe, John Taylor, Lisa Fayard, Jason Burgdorf, Christy Garlotte, Ann Linville and P.J. Wylie. $500+ Team Fundraisers were MS Walkers, Team Lee Lee, Team YaYa, Fran's Sole Team Walkers; JT Money Makers and Captain Melanie's Team. $1,000+ Teams were Team Christy and Making Strides for Shannon.

A special recognition of 2017 Walk MS Chairman was presented by Edmond Hughes in his role as a member of the National MS Society Board of Directors. Hughes cited a number of Scarbrough's personal and professional accomplishments, crediting her for having "a significant impact on the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's mission here in South Mississippi as well as the community as a whole."

"In 2016, we were lucky enough to have her join Walk MS: Mississippi Gulf Coast in a significant, impactful way," Hughes said, adding that as chair of the event, her leadership increased participation and fundraising. "This year, the walk's fundraising and sponsorships topped $30,000 for the first time ever."

"The National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the communities of South Mississippi are made better by her involvement and her leadership," Hughes continued. "It is for that reason that tonight I would like to thank and honor Kathy Scarbrough for her role as Chairman of the 2016 and 2017 Walk MS: Mississippi Gulf Coast and for all she does for her community every day."

He presented her with a floral arrangement featuring the colors orange and green, the signature colors of the National MS Society.

Those attending also viewed the premier of the 2017 Walk MS video, created by Ocean Springs Mayor's Youth Council member Kate Wilson, and a slide show of photos from this year's walk featuring the work of John Deal. Approximately 35 people attended the Wrap-Up Celebration and Awards Ceremony.

The Alabama-Mississippi Chapter offers education, a support community and a variety of programs and services to address the needs of the more than 6,000 people in the two states living with MS and their caregivers. Walk MS is one of the organization's most important fund-raising events.

Multiple sclerosis is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body. Symptoms range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis.

Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, with at least two to three times more women than men being diagnosed with the disease. MS affects more than 2.3 million worldwide.
UPDATED

Federal lawmakers have agreed to relatively small spending increases for Title I programs to districts and for special education, as part of a budget deal covering the rest of fiscal 2017 through the end of September.

Title I spending on disadvantaged students would rise by $100 million up to $15.5 billion from fiscal 2016 to fiscal 2017, along with $450 million in new money that was already slated to be shifted over from the now-defunct School Improvement Grants program.

And state grants for special education would increase by $90 million up to $12 billion. However, Title II grants for teacher development would be cut by $294 million, down to about $2.1 billion for the rest of fiscal 2017.

The bill would also provide $400 million for the Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grant program, also known as Title IV of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Title IV is a block grant that districts can use for a wide range of programs, including health, safety, arts education, college readiness, and more.

Total U.S. Department of Education spending, including both discretionary and mandatory spending covering K-12 and other issues, would fall by $60 million from fiscal 2016, down to $71.6 billion.



Congress is expected to vote on this budget deal early this week, the Washington Post reported . The federal government has been operating on a resolution that kept fiscal 2017 funding at fiscal 2016 levels. This resolution was slated to expire on April 28, leading to the possibility of a government shutdown, but Congress passed a one-week extension late last week to provide time for a budget deal.

Lawmakers appear to be sending early signals of independence from the Trump administration on education budget issues. For example, in the fiscal 2018 budget proposal Turmp released several weeks ago, the president also sought to eliminate just over $1 billion in support for 21st Century Community Learning Centers in fiscal 2018. However, this budget deal for fiscal 2017 would give the program a relatively small boost of $25 million up to nearly $1.2 billion. Trump had also wanted to cut Title II funding in half in fiscal 2017 , far more than this agreement, before eliminating it entirely in fiscal 2018.

And programs designed to serve needy students like TRIO and GEAR UP would also get small increases in this fiscal 2017 deal. Several of Trumps proposed fiscal 2017 cuts were to programs that had already been consolidated under ESSA.

The budget deal doesnt appear to include a new federal school choice program, a top K-12 priority for the Trump administration, although Trumps request for such a program appears in his fiscal 2018 proposal and not his fiscal 2017 blueprint.

One more thing about that Title IV funding: The $400 million in funding in the bill is a lot less than the $1.6 billion envisioned for Title IV under ESSA. To make sure that the grants will still be useful to districts, the bill would allow states to distribute them competitively. Just like under ESSA, at least 20 percent of the funding would have to be spent on activities that would help students become safer and healthier and at least 20 percent would be used for activities aimed at helping children become more well-rounded, such as arts education. The big difference from ESSA is that these percentages would apply at the state level, rather than to individual grants.

The change is only supposed to be in place for one year. Lawmakers are hoping that they can provide more money for the program after that.

And in a shift from ESSA, districts that choose to spend the money on technology could dedicate up to 25 percent to technology infrastructure. (Thats up from 15 percent in the original law.)

Here are some other numbers from the budget deal:



The departments office for civil rights would get a small increase of $1.5 million up to $109 million.

Pell Grants would be flat-funded at $22.5 billion, and year-round Pell Grants would be supported.

Head Start programs, which are administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, would get an $85 million increase to $9.3 billion.

The Education Innovation and Research fund would be cut by $20 million down to $100 million.

Impact Aid for schools affected by federal activities would get $1.3 billion, a $25 million increase.

The District of Columbias voucher program would also be extended through the rest of 2017.

You can read additional figures here, starting on page 20 .

Reactions Vary

The overall deal is disappointing in several respects because it doesnt contain more cuts and actually contains several K-12 funding increases, said Neal McCluskey, the director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington think tank.

Youd think thered be more enthusiasm for cutting K-12 with this Congress and White House, McCluskey said. (Both are controlled by Republicans.)

He said that the increase for Title I aid is disappointing, and he said the increase for 21st Century programs is mystifying, while the extension of the D.C. voucher program is a win in McCluskeys book.

By contrast, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement that while the deal is by no means our ideal budget, she praised it for increasing funds to Head Start, community schools, and special education grants.

Congress should follow this blueprint to invest in public schools in the 2018 budget as well, Weingarten said.

Both Weingarten and the Education Trust, a civil rights advocacy group, also praised the budget for re-instituting year-round Pell Grants.

Assistant Editor Alyson Klein contributed to this post.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
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The Kent, Wash., school district has immediately halted all international field trips over concerns that stricter border enforcement could prevent undocumented students from re-entering the country , the Seattle Times reports.

A district spokesman told the Times that U.S. Customs and Border Protection staff informed a school board member that there was a very high chance that students traveling abroad would be detained at the border if they lack proof that they are United States citizens, the Times reported.

The policy change led the district to cancel a band trip to Canada and an education exchange to Japan, the Associated Press reported.

A Kent schools spokesman told the newspaper that it has students from 100 countries. The district has a page on its website with links to resources for immigrant and refugee families.

We understand that, due to recent political developments in our country, our students may be experiencing fear, stress, and unhappiness, a statement on the page read. Because these emotions can negatively affect a students ability to learn in class, it is important for our teachers, school administrators, and district office staff to create safe environments that offer care, compassion, and mutual respect.

In March, officials with school system in Toronto, Ontario said they will no longer plan trips to the United States over fears students will be unfairly stopped at the border because of their heritage or country of birth, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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As Trump Weighs Fate of Immigrant Students, Schools Ponder Their Roles

Educators to Trump: ELL, Immigrant Students Need Safe, Well-Funded Schools
Despite the Chinese governments assurances that genetically modified (GMO) foods are safe, Chinese consumers are growing increasingly wary of the products, fueling a looming crisis for the countrys lucrative soybean crushing industry as non-GMO alternatives become more popular, Reuters reported.

Sales of the nations primary cooking oil, soy oilmost of which is made from imported GMO soybeanshave taken a hit. According to data from Euromonitor, retail sales of soy oil fell one percent last year to 35.7 billion yuan ($5.19 billion), compared to a growth of between two and six percent for alternatives such as non-GMO soy, sunflower, peanut or sesame.

Johnny An, the supply chain director of Aramark, which services more than 60 Chinese cities, told Reuters that non-GMO oil is gradually replacing (soy oil).

More than half of Aramarks customers are now asking for GMO-free oil, compared to 10-20 percent just a few years ago, An added.

A Nielsen survey last year found that 70 percent of consumers in China limit or avoid at least some GMO foods and ingredients, compared with a global average of 64 percent.

China has strict rules against GMO cultivation but permits the import of a few varieties, including soybeans which are used for animal feed and for oil.

But China Agri Industries, one of the countrys top soybean crushers, told Reuters it needs to improve its sourcing of non-GMO materials to meet escalating market demand.

In recent years, the Chinese government has been spending billions on research and promoting GMOs as a means to boost agricultural productivity. President Xi himself called for the domestic cultivation of GMO crops in 2014.

However, Chinas well-known food safety woes have caused widespread consumer distrust of domestic food products.
Those of you who participated in Saturdays Peoples Climate March have 181 more reasons to protest.

New research shows that the 180 climate-denying members of Congressplus President Trump, who famously denounced global warming as a hoaxhave received more than $82 million from fossil fuel industries.

Researchers from the Center for American Progress Action Fund calculated that the Republican president, 142 representatives and 38 senators, who do not accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity causes climate change, have received a total of $82,882,725 from coal, oil and gas industriesan increase from the $80,453,861 total in the previous report.

According to the new report, the top three recipients were Arizona Senator John McCain, who opposes the Environmental Protection Agencys finding that greenhouse gases are pollution; Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, who once said, For everybody who thinks its warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isnt; and Texas Senator John Cornyn, who actually acknowledges that humans have an impact on the environment but doesnt think its the responsibility of the government to do anything about it.

For the report, the researchers defined a climate denier as any lawmaker who has:

 Questioned or denied the scientific consensus behind human-caused climate change;

 Answered climate questions with the Im not a scientist dodge;

 Claimed the climate is always changing (as a way to dodge the implications of human-caused warming);

 Failed to acknowledge that climate change is a serious threat; or

 Questioned the extent to which human beings contribute to global climate change.

Trump himself received $1,132,996 in dirty energy money.

Last years analysis found that 202,803,591 people were represented by a climate denier in Congress. Now, the entire population of almost 325 million Americans is represented by a climate denier with the election of Donald Trump as president, the report stated.

The presidents first 100 days in office has been widely considered as disastrous, especially for the environment. From appointing cabinet members with noted ties to the fossil fuel industry to signing a slew of executive orders that roll back key environmental regulations.

Center for American Progress Action Funds new analysis was presented in an interactive map and accompanying data sheet.
Millennium Bulk Terminals of Longview, Washington, is making plans for a facility along the Columbia River that would export up to 44 million tons of coal a year to Asia, increasing U.S. exports of coal by 40 percent. But, the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) of the proposed coal-export terminal has residents fearing for the health of people and the planet.

The FEIS, which was conducted by the Washington State Department of Ecology and Cowlitz County, states that there could be an increased risk of cancer from coal dust, the possibility of train derailment and other accidents, and up to 2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions once the coal is burned in Asia.

All of those issues are concerning, but especially the impact to peoples health is problematic, ecology department director Maia Bellon told Phys.org.

If the project is passed, it would mean eight fully loaded coal trains a day traveling from Wyoming to Longview, spreading toxic coal dust through local communities along the way and up to 1,680 additional bulk cargo vessels would be traveling on the Columbia Riverthe second largest river in North Americaevery year.

The multiple findings of significant, adverse impacts that cannot be mitigated mean that Ecology and Cowlitz County should deny Millenniums permit applications, Jan Hasselman, staff attorney with Earthjustice, stated. Any other outcome would be scientifically and legally unsupported.

Indigenous communities, environmentalist groups and locals have been battling Millennium Bulk for years. In January, the Washington Department of Natural Resources denied the company a necessary sublease due to its unclear business plan and history of bankruptcy. But, with President Trumps campaign to try and revive the coal industry, they fear that the study wont be enough to deny the proposal once and for all.

Doctors, parents, farmers, business owners and many others have spoken out in unprecedented force against Millenniums dirty coal export project, Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, co-director of the Power Past Coal campaign, said.

This environmental review validates many of their concerns about how coal export will harm our climate, health and Columbia River. Now we look to state leaders to stand up to the coal industry and deny all permits for Millennium.

But, Millennium CEO Bill Chapman said the company has carefully designed the project to protect air and water quality, fish and wildlife, groundwater and people in accordance with regulatory requirements.

However, Chris Hill of Landowners and Citizens for a Safe Community said, the coal industry cannot be revived. Its being replaced across the country and around the globe by renewable energy. Longview needs real economic solutions, not a dead-end industry that pollutes our air and clogs our railways.

The Army Corps of Engineers will release a review of the proposal later this year and from there, officials will decide the fate of the project.

Key FEIS findings include:

Mitigation Cannot Eliminate Significant Adverse Impacts

 The FEIS found unavoidable and significant adverse environmental impacts for nine environmental resource areas: social and community resources; cultural resources; tribal resources; rail transportation; rail safety; vehicle transportation; vessel transportation; noise and vibration; and air quality.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

 Simply operating this terminal would have the GHG equivalent of adding 8,300 cars to the road every year.

 The FEIS concludes that the GHG impact of exporting 44 million tons of coal varies significantly based on different assumptions but suggests that under the preferred scenario, the impact would be just under 2 million tons of CO 2 equivalent annually. This amount is very significant (equivalent to adding 425,000 cars to the road annually) and far above the thresholds of what should be considered acceptable at a time when the state is committed to reducing carbon pollution. Under some scenarios, emissions could be as high as 55 million tons of GHG, substantially higher than Washington states entire GHG footprint from all sources.

Public Health

 A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is underway and, in turn, the FEIS does not incorporate the HIA findings. Even without the HIA, Ecology and Cowlitz County conclude that the projects impacts on public health are unavoidable and significant. S-58.

 Increased Cancer Risk for People Living Near Terminal: Based on the inhalation-only health risk assessment, diesel particulate matter emissions primarily from Proposed Action-related train locomotives traveling along the Reynolds Lead, BNSF Spur, and BNSF main line in Cowlitz County would result in areas of increased cancer risk. The maximum modeled cancer risk increase in the City of Longview would be 50 cancers per million in the Highlands neighborhood, a low-income and minority community. This impact would constitute a disproportionately high and adverse effect on minority and low-income populations and would be unavoidable and significant. S-14.

 Based on an inhalation-only health risk assessment, coal exportterminal operations and Proposed Action-related trains would increase the cancer risk associated with diesel particulate matter emissions. S-35.

 Noise: If the Federal Railroad Administration does not approve a Quiet Zone [near the terminal], the impacts would be unavoidable and significant. S-14.

Impacts to Tribes and Tribal Fishing

 Unavoidable Impacts: The FEIS concludes that coal trains would travel through usual and accustomed fishing areas and could restrict access to tribal fishing areas in the Columbia River. The FEIS does not address the significance of impacts related to treaty rights. S-42, S-48.

 Activities related to Millenniums project could reduce the number of [Columbia River] fish surviving to adulthood, which could affect the number of fish available for harvest by the tribes.

 The FEIS acknowledges the projects impacts on access to tribal fishing sites along the rail route, noting [p]roposed Action-related trains also could delay tribal fishers access to these unmapped traditional fishing locations. S-17.

Rail Traffic Impacts

 Traffic delays for public and emergency response: If no improvements are made to reduce vehicle delay at these crossings, this disproportionately high and adverse effect on minority and low-income populations would be unavoidable and significant. S-14.

 In a 24-hour period, trains for the Proposed Action would increase the probability of emergency response vehicles being delayed by 10% at crossings along the Reynolds Lead and BNSF Spur with current track infrastructure. S-32.

 Other Rail Traffic: Proposed Action-related trains could result in an unavoidable and significant adverse impact on rail transportation  and rail safety. S-30-31.

Safety and Accidents

 The project would result in a 27% increase in vessel traffic in the Columbia River (massive coal bulkers would transit through the Columbia River 1,680 times per year, nearly 5 times a day), increasing the risk of accidents and consequent environmental risks. S-33. Oil spill risks during refueling would also increase.

 The addition of 18 unit trains carrying coal each day would increase the risk of rail accidents by 22% in the County and statewide. S-31.

 If a vessel accident occurred, the impacts could be significant, depending on the nature and location of the incident, the weather conditions at the time, and the discharge of oil. Although the likelihood of a serious Proposed Action-related vessel incident is very low, there are no mitigation measures that could completely eliminate the possibility of an incident or the resulting impacts. S-43.
Deep inside the Apuseni Mountains youll find the Scarisoara Ice Cave in Transylvania, the oldest cave glacier in the world. Youll also find some pretty incredible climate data from the last 10,000 years.

An international team of scientists from several institutions, including the University of South Florida, University of Belfast and Stockholm University, reconstructed winter climate conditions using ice cores from the cave that were indicative of the Holocene epoch. The Holocene was a period of more than 11,000 years from the present, but many climate scientists say weve moved into a new epoch, the Anthropocene, a geological period in which human activity profoundly shapes the environment.

The cave was an ideal place to study for winter conditions because it had precipitation data from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea that seeped in and formed deposits in the ice over a course of 10,500 yearsalmost as long as the Holocene itself. Those deposits, which consist of tiny fragments of leaf and wood, provide information about the shifts in temperature and precipitation.

The Great Hall in the Scarisoara Ice Cave, where researchers extracted ice cores. A. Persoiu

Before this study, scientists had little to no information about holocene winters. Most climate data is pulled from warm months by analyzing tree rings, pollen and small organisms preserved in fossils.

Most of the paleoclimate records from this region are plant-based, and track only the warm part of the yearthe growing season, Candace Major, program director in NSFs Directorate for Geosciences, said in a release. That misses half the story. The spectacular ice cave at Scarisoara fills a crucial piece of the puzzle of past climate change in recording what happens during winter.

Panoramic view of an ice cliff inside the Scarisoara Ice Cave, where the research was done. Gigi Fratila & Claudiu Szabo

Now, the scientists have a much more complete understanding of holocene climate. They learned that temperatures reached a maximum during the middle of the epoch about 7,000 to 5,000 years ago. During this period of warming, vegetation changed rapidly and neolithic people were able to migrate north toward Western Europe. Then, the temperature began to gradually decrease as the planet reached the Little Ice Age about 150 years ago.

Our data allow us to reconstruct the interplay between Atlantic and Mediterranean sources of moisture, Bogdan Onac of USF said. We can also draw conclusions about past atmospheric circulation patterns, with implications for future climate changes. Our research offers a long-term context to better understand these changes.

The team will continue to reconstruct the data and hopefully come up with a consistent climate map that can date back more than 13,000 years.
President Trump plans to sign an executive order today intended to aggressively expand drilling in protected waters off the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.

The new EO will direct U.S. Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke to review the current offshore drilling plans, which limits most drilling to parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskas Cook Inlet, and reexamine opening parts of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans to drilling. The EO will also roll back President Obamas permanent ban on drilling in the Arctic, issued in the last full month of his presidency. Zinke cautioned reporters that implementation of the EO will be a multi-year effort, and several groups have pledged lawsuits to further slow down the process.

Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke is dead wrong, said Greenpeace USA senior climate and energy campaigner Diana Best.

Renewable energy already has us on the right track to energy independence, and opening new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling will lock us into decades of harmful pollution, devastating spills like the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and a fossil fuel economy with no future. Scientific consensus is that the vast majority of known fossil fuel reservesincluding the oil and gas off U.S. coastsmust remain undeveloped if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Best added that Trumps latest executive order does not have popular support, and instead caters to Trumps inner circle of desperate fossil fuel executives.

Holing up at Mar-a-lago may protect Trump from an oil spill, she said, but it will not protect him and his cabinet of one percenters from the millions of people in this countryfrom California to North Carolinawho will resist his disastrous policies.

Waterkeeper Alliance Executive Director Marc Yaggi agrees. This attempt to greatly expand offshore drilling into the Arctic and Atlantic is a blatant prioritization of fossil fuel profits over the health of our climate and coastal communities, he said. President Trump is ignoring the cries of citizens who have said offshore drilling poses too great a threat to their economies and ways of life.

For a deeper dive:

New York Times, AP, Axios, Politico, NPR, LA Times, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Hill, ThinkProgress

For more climate change and clean energy news, you can follow Climate Nexus on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for daily Hot News.
By Lauren McCauley

A wildfire broke out in the highly radioactive no-go zone near the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant over the weekend, reviving concerns over potential airborne radiation.

Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reported that lightning was likely to blame for sparking the fire Saturday on Mount Juman in Namie, which lies in the Fukushima Prefecture and was one of the areas evacuated following the 2011 meltdown. The area continues to be barred to entry as it is designated a difficult-to-return zone due to continually high radiation levels.

Local officials were forced to call in the Japanese military, the Ground Self-Defense Force, to help battle the blaze, which continued to burn on Monday. At least 10 hectares of forest have burned so far.

A total of eight helicopters from Fukushima, Miyagi and Gunma prefectures as well as the SDF discharged water on the site to combat the fire, The Mainichi reported. As the fire continued to spread, however, helicopters from the GSDF [Ground Self-Defense Force], Fukushima Prefecture and other parties on May 1 resumed fire extinguishing operations from around 5 a.m. [local time].

An official with the Ministry of the Environment said Monday that there have been no major changes to radiation levels in the region, according to the newspaper, but added that they will continue to closely watch changes in radiation doses in the surrounding areas.

In a blog post last year, Anton Beneslavsky, a member of Greenpeace Russias firefighting group who has been deployed to fight blazes in nuclear Chernobyl, outlined the specific dangers of wildfires in contaminated areas.

During a fire, radionuclides like caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium rise into the air and travel with the wind, Beneslavsky wrote. This is a health concern because when these unstable atoms are inhaled, people become internally exposed to radiation.

Contaminated forests such as those outside fallout sites like Fukushima and Chernobyl are ticking time bombs, scientist and former regional government official Ludmila Komogortseva told Beneslavsky. Woods and peat accumulate radiation, she explained, and every moment, every grass burning, every dropped cigarette or camp fire can spark a new disaster.

https://twitter.com/ORION_20110311/statuses/858880888314109952

Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.
Oregon has decided to drop the Smarter Balanced exam at the high school level, a move that has not only practical but symbolic significance, since the state served as a home base for the consortium, and played a leading role in its development.

Oregon will continue to administer the Smarter Balanced exam to students in grades 3-8 and 11 through the spring of 2018, state education department spokeswoman Tricia Yates told Education Week in an email. Starting in 2018-19, only students in grades 3-8 will take the test, she said.

For high school students, Oregon will explore using a nationally recognized test, such as the SAT or ACT, she said. Yates said the department would also consider other assessment options, but didnt name specific tests. The state will issue a request for information this spring to collect ideas from the field, and then issue a request for proposals later this summer, Yates said.

The decision to change high school exams came as a result of input from stakeholders, Yates said. The state board of education would have to approve any new test.

Federal law has long allowed states to use college-admissions exams in place of other summative tests for accountability, but few states have done so. The Every Student Succeeds Act invites states to use a nationally recognized high school test for accountability instead of state-developed or consortium-designed exams.

Forty-five states had pledged to use tests by PARCC or Smarter Balanced in 2010, when the two federally funded consortia were at the peak of their popularity. This year, only 20 states and the District of Columbia are using tests by those two groups . Rhode Island has announced that it will drop PARCC next year.

The popularity of the consortium tests has eroded particularly at the high school level. Trying to cut back on testing time and boost students motivation to do well on a high school test, states are increasingly opting to use the ACT or SAT.

Smarter Balanced issued a solicitation in February to see if it could partner with a big testing company presumably ACT or the College Boardon an assessment that could essentially kill two birds with one stone: It could provide information states could use in accountability reports, and also serve as a college-admissions exam.

Leaders of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium drew heavily on Oregons experience with computer-adaptive testing when they set out to craft the new exam in 2010. The groups work, while national, was based largely in Washington state, Oregon, and California.

For more on the assessments each state uses, see:

Testing Landscape Continues to Shift
Statistics lessons arent just for math class anymore, and early-education experts are finding new reasons and ways to incorporate these topics in the early grades.

All students should be taught at least basic statistics, said Ginger Rae Lynn Wilson, a 3rd grade teacher in Griffin, Ga. You hear so much talk about STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] and making sure our children are competitive globally; well, I dont know how they would be competitive in a global sense if they dont know how to interpret information and compute data.

From understanding economic changes to deciding whether or not to believe a political poll, statistics have gained a higher profile latelybut its not certain most American students understand them.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, for example, asks 4th graders to determine the chart that best fits certain data or to explain how an outlier will affect an analysis of data. It also may ask 8th graders to determine probabilities or use a chart to identify an incorrect statement. According to NAEP data, 4th graders average scale score in statistics and data topics fell significantly, from 241 in 2005 to 238 in 2015, on a scale of 500. Performance by 12th graders in statistics was flat during the same time.

Thats a problem, because in the world beyond school, statistics is booming. Statistical jobs are among the top-10 fastest-growing occupations and are expected to continueto be through 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And fields from health and science to journalism and psychology increasingly require understanding of statistics.

Tighter Focus

The Common Core State Standards, which have been adopted by a majority of states, change the typical approach to teaching statistics, which traditionally has been in a data and measurement unit in most elementary school grades. The common core moves formal introduction to probability up to middle school, narrowing the elementary focus for statistics considerably.

Denise Spangler, a professor in early-childhood math education at the University of Georgia, approves of the change. It used to be taught in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and in high school, and you still got kids in college who didnt understand it.  But what underlies probability is randomness, and thats a very difficult concept to understandeven for adults, Spangler said. Students need to build a solid foundation of how data can be collected and categorized before looking at formal probability, she said.

Looking Ahead Projected percent change in employment among statisticians and math science occupations. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections Program

While revised common-core math standards also move the introduction of formal statistical concepts like finding a mode or median to middle school, instruction in collecting, organizing, and describing data is in some ways more frequent in the lower grades now, as nonfiction reading and science studies also ask students to make sense of graphs and data at younger ages. Similarly, the Next Generation Science Standards call for deeper quantitative literacy, involving data analysis and statistics in the course of learning other concepts.

Wilson, who has previously taught kindergarten and 2nd grade, said she has found it helpful to give students exposure to graphs and data collection across a broader variety of subjects.

That was something that was a mistake early on in my teaching, that I had a separate unit on data and graphing, and then we never touched it again, Wilson said. Instead, now its sprinkled into each unit, so its relevant for whatever else you are doing. Ive found more success in the topic when its purpose-driven. If you teach it in connection to other mathematics or science, you have better understanding and better achievement. They are really investigating data to recognize trends.

Asking Why

Tightening the focus on statistics in the early grades should give teachers room to help their students think more critically about the subject, rather than relegating it to the last two weeks of the yearif I have time, said Beth Chance, a statistics professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

Statistics can confuse students by inverting their concept of how math works, Chance said: Traditionally, a lot of math is taught as, Follow the rules, get a number you can check at the back of the book. Statistics are all about context, about getting students to think, Is this a reasonable answer? and then justify it. Its getting students to think of how the answer would change in different contexts.

Spangler points to one common 1st grade activity, asking students to make a chart of their classmates shoes. Counting and charting the various sneakers and loafers and identifying the most common type is a good start, but making a bar graph in class is a really time-consuming process, so we are trying to get teachers to get more out of it once we have it, Spangler said.

Often what happens is the teacher has already decided what the question is going to be, and one of the most important things is to understand there are a lot of concepts taught by letting the students formulate their own questions, she said. What do we want to ask? How do we define this to minimize errors?

Chance and Spangler both recommended that teachers ask their students to spend more time analyzing data once they have it. With regard to the shoe survey, for example, Spangler said, Often, teachers stop with what is the most popular kind of shoe in the class. But teachers can engage kids to ask more questions about the data: Do you think we would get the same results if we took this survey in the second week of January or just before summer? Would students in Japan have the same results? How could we find out? Getting kids to think about why the data looks this way gets at the idea of variability.

Data collection and graphing can help students understand concepts like grouping and the importance of defining scales, which also are helpful in later algebra and geometry. The statistical ideas can give the mathematical ideas the context for understanding, Chance said. Not everybody needs calculus; they need mathematical reasoning.
To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020.
San Antonio, Texas

Much research on social-emotional learning relies on surveys to gauge students self-control or academic persistence, but the skills only matter if they make a difference in what students actually do.

Thats why researchers at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association here are exploring ways to replace surveys of social-emotional skills with performance tasks that may better predict both short-term goals like learning in the classroom and, in the long run, even whether they complete college.

The problem with, for example, asking students to report whether they have good self-control or grit is, the students with the most stringent standards are likely to judge themselves as worse than they are, and more lax students will judge themselves as better than they are. When Joseph OBrien of the University of Texas at Austin and David Yaeger of Stanford University looked at nearly 1,300 high school seniors in 15 schools that specifically focused on grit and self-control, they found the schools where students reported the lowest scores for self-control and grit were actually the ones where students later had the highest rates of college attendance and persistence.

Its the Dunning-Kruger effect in action; if you are surrounded by goof-offs and you at least turn your homework in on time most of the time, you probably feel pretty diligent. But if you are a super-hard-working kid in a school chock full of overachievers, you often feel more like a slouch by comparison. When looking just within each school, where students were comparing themselves against the same standard, Yaeger and OBrien found that students self-reports did predict their later college persistencebut comparing between schools gave the wrong result. Asking students in a later study to compare themselves specifically to the best or worst students in their schoolor the worldhelped somewhat, but not enough to significantly improve the results.

The Proof Is in the Performance

So how can educators make sure they arent measuring students own biases (or those of their teachers or parents)? By giving them the opportunity to live up to their own expectations. Marissa Hartwig and her colleagues at Washington State University-Pullman and the University of California-Davis asked about 660 high school students to complete a set of challenging math problems after tutorials in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, telling them it would help them practice and cement their understanding of the materialthe typical reason teachers tell students to finish their homework. But the researchers also made sure the students had plenty of distractions available, in the form of video games and videos that students were allowed to use whenever they wanted.

Were interested in what students are actually doing during their study time, Hartwing said.

They found that students who initially reported having a higher growth mindsetthe belief that skills are not inborn, but can be improved over time with practicedid better on the subsequent tests. But that effect was mediated by how long students stuck it out during the practice sessions.

Pesistence is a key reason why mindsets matter, Hartwig said. Having growth mindset is associated with higher sustained learning, as is longer persistence. Students time on task can provide some insight into students willingness to persist.

In a separate study, Maria Cutumisu of the University of Alberta, Canada, similarly found that high-performing middle school students in Chicago and New York were more likely to ask for critical feedback on a poster project, and to revise it when they had the opportunity, than students who were lower-performing.

Students academic persistence can depend on the subject, though, cautioned Brian Galla of the University of Pittsburgh and his colleagues. Without exception, students recognized that academic work was more important to their long-term goals than anything else they could be doing ... and yet at the same time they were almost desperate to be doing almost anything else, Galla said. Students were less happy, less confident, and they were far less intrinsically motivated when they were doing academic work than anything else ... even sleeping.

Like Hartwigs group, Galla and his colleagues asked 900 high school students to complete a series of extremely boring but skill-building math problems designed to simulate the real-world choices students must make in their day-to-day lives around academic diligence.

How long students persisted in the practice problems, they found, predicted not only how likely they were to graduate high school six months later, but students with longer persistence also had increased odds of being enrolled in a full-time degree program after high school.

Interestingly, the researchers found in a follow-up study of more than 300 8th graders, persistence varied depending on whether the practice questions were math, spatia,l or verbal tasks, with students able to persist significantly longer in the verbal questions. Taken all together, the three time-on-task scores predicted the students end-of-year grade point average, but Galla noted that, Doing math homework and English homework were about as important to the students, but students found English homework more enjoyable than math homework. Math was reported as more mentally effortful than English homework. This can help to explain this difference between math and reading grit tasks.

For more on using performance tasks, see www.noncog.org.
Rhode Island lawmakers are considering legislation that would ban immigration enforcement agents from school grounds.

The legislation would prohibit what it describes as sensitive locations, including churches, hospitals, and courts, from granting access to federal agents who want to question or detain people suspected of living in the country illegally. Due for a hearing in the state House Judiciary Committee this week, the bill would create an exception if theres a warrant out for the person.

The federal government currently offers similar protections for students: a 2012 Immigration and Customs Enforcement memorandum, known as the sensitive locations memo, prohibits agents from conducting enforcement activities on school campuses unless high-ranking federal authorities give prior approval.

Immigration advocates are concerned the Trump administration may rescind the policy, which began during the Obama administration.

In light of that, some K-12 districts and leaders have pledged to protect the rights and privacy of undocumented students amid concerns over ramped up deportations of immigrants living in the country illegally. The districts vow that their schools will serve as safe places where educators wont cooperate with authorities to identify or take action against students who dont have legal immigration status. But schools must cooperate with federal officials as required by law.

The policies in most districts affirm that schools will do everything within their legal power to protect student privacy, including barring the release of information about immigration status unless there is parental consent, or if federal agents produce a warrant, subpoena, or similar court order.

Back in March, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined that Providence, Rhode Islands capital city, is among jurisdictions across the country that have enacted policies which limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, television station WPRI reported.

Related Stories

Immigration Enforcement Will Happen Over My Dead Body, Superintendent Says

How Much Can Schools Protect Undocumented Students?

Educators and Advocates Brace for Harsher Stance on Immigration Under Trump
If I were Gov. Jerry Brown, Id read the research report about implementing Californias Local Control Funding Formula that was released last Friday. Its implications threaten the legacy of the governors signature education legislation.

Thats my conclusion after reading a report by the Local Control Funding Formula Research Collaborative, a group of researchers who have been tracking Californias finance system. That system devolves money and responsibility to local schools and districts, following Browns belief in the Jesuit ideal of subsidiarity.

The LCFF law was passed in 2013, but implementation is still considered a work in progress.

Moving Toward Equity

The good news is that as districts implement the LCFF, they are working toward more transparency, coherence, and equity than was possible under the previous law, said Julia Koppich, one of the members of the LCFF Research Collaborative. The older system of categorical financing, she noted, was sometimes ineffective and often ignored student needs.

LCFF replaced scores of programs where relatively small amounts of money targeted for specific purposes, and school districts were held accountable for spending the funds within narrow bounds. Accountability was built around tracking inputs. In its place, the state created a larger base of funding for all districts and supplemented that with extra funds for students in poverty, English learners, and foster youth. Schools with a high percentage of these students received an additional concentration grant.

The report, Paving the Way To Equity and Coherence? The Local Control Funding Formula in Year 3, is the third is a series of studies of eight unnamed school agencies: seven districts and a charter management organization.

It notes that districts made good faith efforts to allocate supplemental and concentration grants to the targeted students by, for example, hiring more counselors and social workers, adding tutors and specialized teachers as well as expanding Advanced Placement offerings.

Moving Toward Collaboration

As earlier reports found, budgeting appears to be more collaborative. Instructional and business offices in school districts are working more closely together. Six of the eight districts moved some resource allocation decisions to schools.

Educators and community members like the new system. We spent three years trying to find someone in the state that wants to go back to the old system and we havent found that person yet, said Daniel Humphrey, a member of the research team.

Impatience and Suspicion

But the fact that educators like the system hasnt lessened the impatience for results and suspicion that the school districts are not creating the equity the law demands. While State School Board president Michael Kirst counsels persistence, patience, and humility , pressure from legislators and advocates is likely to recreate elements of a categorically funded, compliance-managed system.

Case in point: AB 1321, won approval of the Assembly Education Committee this past week. Authored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) with the support of Children Now, Education Trust-West, and numerous other organizations, the announced purpose of the bill is to track supplemental and concentration grant funds into the schools to see if they are being spent on the students the law intends to support.

As the bill analysis by committee staff says, Supporters argue that the disaggregation of LCFF funds required by this bill will finally enable the transparent reporting of supplemental and concentration grant expenditures for each local education and each school in California.

To me, it looks like regulatory overreach thats likely to prioritize compliance thinking about allocating inputs rather than strategically thinking about how to best use resources to produce desired outputs. The new state dashboard and the local control funding formula template are trying to incentivize districts concentrate on outputs.

Parents Need To Know

Ryan Smith, the executive director of Education Trust-West sees the bill differently. In response to a query, he said, We also think budget transparency is a key aspect of subsidiarity and the California Way. In order for parents and locals to engage in the LCFF process they have to know their school site expenditures.

My purpose here is not to debate the merits of Webers bill, but to illustrate the difficult politics faced by the states grand experiment in pushing money and responsibility to the local level. The natural instinct of legislatures is to legislate, and the natural instinct of civil rights organizations is to profoundly distrust local governments and to promote stronger regulatory oversight.

Although it does so in very measured language, Paving the Way, suggests that there is still confusion about the meaning of equity in the law and a dramatic lack of capacity about how to create a coherent system that links knowable inputs to measurable outputs.

Define Equity

The report noted that most districts defined equity as the law intended: equity as equal opportunity through differentiated supports. That was the case particularly in districts with large percentages of targeted students. But there was also evidence from one of the case study districts in particular that equity meant equal funding regardless of need.

For example, all students SAT [test] fees were paid for out of supplemental and concentration funds regardless of need because this was the fair thing to do. The goal in this district was to ensure resources are provided equally to all students, including those in wealthier neighborhoods, because those schools that do not receive Title I funds would otherwise be treated unfairly.

Even if the intent of the law is clear, Paving the Way clearly suggests that the capacity to implement it is not: Our research has shown that the LCAP cannot achieve the multiple purposes assigned to it: 1) stakeholder engagement and communication, 2) strategic planning and budgeting, and, 3) accountability for equity.

To put this a little more bluntly: Districts and schools need more help than they are getting from the California Department of Education and the State Board of Education. To protect the integrity of the law and its continuity beyond the Brown administration, they need that help now.

Time To Step Up

Heres where I think the state and philanthropic organizations could step up their game:

Provide guidance. Guidance is not regulation. It does not have to be written in such a way that each school and district must tick off the same boxes, but schools and districts (and county offices) need help in figuring out how they should spend their money to meet equity goals.

Glen Price, California Department of Education chief deputy, said in an interview, Weve been gearing up. Our prime focus will be working with counties and CCEE.

I think its time to move beyond gearing up and pop the clutch.

Schools and districts also need help in making connections between inputs and outputs. In Thomas Kuhns classic book on paradigm shifts, he noted that one sure way to know that a new idea had supplanted an old one was that someone would write a text about how to operate the new system.

Provide help: The researchers that undertook Paving the Way know that there are exemplars in California districts. The study itself was done with pledges of anonymity to participating districts and schools, but nothing prevents the research collaborative from gathering together the best examples of current practice.

Techniques exist to make coherent connections between inputs and outputs. The well tested learning to improve  techniques developed by Anthony Bryk and the Carnegie Foundation for Teaching come to mind. Michael Fullan, the Canadian educator, has been advising California school leaders about how to use the system Coherence, the book he wrote with Joanne Quinn.

Paving the Way, underscores the urgency in making these tools available to every school in the state. The California Collaborative on Educational Excellence has wisely been taking measured steps at building district capacity for self help. Its director, Carl Cohn, understands that improvement is a long slog and that the first step is to understand what caused achievement problems in the first place.

But progress beyond the pilot stage is needed this year. The legislature and the stakeholders need a signal that there is a system in place that will help schools get better, that educators find the system useful, and that stakeholders find it fair and beneficial.

Empower communities. The new finance system was designed to substitute vigilant communities, who understood the local context of schooling, in place of state compliance officers.

Education Trust-West has a tool kit for budget engagement. It has established a community-based research hub in San Bernardino County. Children Now has a handy timeline and links to resources from other organizations. Families in Schools offers a well-tested parent engagement curriculum and training.

Id love to see the states philanthropic community double down on supporting the organizations that are teaching parents civic engagement.

I want to see Californias bold steps into reforming finance and accountability work. I want to see school districts and their stakeholders get smarter about how to spend scarce resources. I want to see teachers and their unions engage the budgetary process with the same vigor that they engage traditional collective bargaining.

I dont want to see nervousness and mistrust of the process undermine its eventual success. But I fear that I will, and Governor Brown should share my fear.
The duty of a man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads andattack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.

~ Ibn al-Haytham (965-1040 CE)

In the Dark Ages (when I went to school), the focus was on knowing science: memorizing facts and formulas with little inquiry, translation or application.

Fortunately for most American students, the focus has shifted to doing science: conducting inquiries and constructing understanding. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have supported this shift by suggesting a three-dimensional approach:



Crosscutting Concepts have application across all domains of science. They include patterns, similarity and diversity; cause and effect; scale, proportion and quantity; systems and system models; energy and matter; structure and function; stability and change. These concepts need to be made explicit for students because they provide an organizational schema for interrelating knowledge from various science fields into a coherent and scientifically based view of the world.



Science and Engineering Practices describe what scientists do to investigate the natural world and what engineers do to design and build systems. The practices better explain and extend what is meant by inquiry in science and the range of cognitive, social and physical practices that it requires. Students engage in practices to build, deepen and apply their knowledge of core ideas and crosscutting concepts.



Disciplinary Core Ideas are the key ideas in science that have broad importance within or across multiple science or engineering disciplines. These core ideas build on each other as students progress through grade levels and are grouped into the following four domains: Physical Science, Life Science, Earth and Space Science and Engineering.

NGSS reflects the interconnected nature of science as it is practiced and experienced in the world. The standards focus on deep understanding as well as the application of concepts. The new standards encourage a rethinking of how high school science is organized.

The figure below outlines courses based on a conceptual progression or core ideas.

How Are Leading Schools Using NGSS?

The Teton Science Schools use the standards as guides for their school network, the graduate program and its science field education courses. We have a strong emphasis on science and engineering practices through our place-based education core of inquiry and design thinking, said Nate McClennon, VP of Education and Innovation. We preach often that science is a verb (action) rather than a noun (collection of facts). Too many students leave science classes with a belief that science is only a set of facts to be memorized.

At Teton Valley Community School, the middle school is competency based and project driven. NGSS guides the competencies, which then are addressed during the projects.

All of our graduate students are taught to use the inquiry process (scientific method) and design thinking as a teaching approach for place-based education, said McClennon. This framework is beginning to be systematically applied to all of their programs across all levels.

Teton Science is conducting research on the Nature of Science --a perspective incorporated into the standards. Their early research suggests that project- and place-based education (#PlaceBasedEd ) improves student science knowledge, self-efficacy and attitudes toward science

McClennon has been advising the government of Bhutan on their approach to STEM. Below is a picture from a recent trip that included a challenge to build the tallest possible structure with ten pieces of paper.

High Tech High is known for engaging students in what director Kaleb Rashad called seriously wicked (open-ended) problems that require investigation, collaboration, sense-making, testing, iterations, making connections across subjects and generating new knowledge.

High Tech High projects are generally NGSS aligned but start with a compelling topic--immigration, the future of work, principles of flight, heart disease, astrophotography or rocketry--rather than a standard (see this recent blog and podcast ).

Design Tech High in Silicon Valley also features inquiry-based hands-on projects. Founder Ken Montgomery said, like High Tech High, they will sacrifice coverage for depth but also said, The challenge is that the rest of the educational ecosystem is not aligned to support this philosophy. He adds, Our students have to do some intense SAT test prep because we dont cover everything thats on the test.

Design Tech transcripts list Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Engineering for similar reasons. We dont want to have to do too much translation as we align ourselves with UC expectations, said Montgomery. Its the constant challenge of real K-16 alignment and managing the constraints created by college admission requirements.

Buck Institute For Education (BIE) is the leading advocate for high-quality project-based learning. Rody Boonchouy, who directs innovation and partnership for BIE, finds NGSS aligns with PBL learning values. He appreciates the crosscutting concepts (below) because they offer opportunities for depth over coverage and for looping of content.

NGSS Crosscutting Concepts That Bridge Disciplinary Boundaries 1. Patterns. Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them. 2. Cause and Effect: Mechanism and explanation. Events have causes--sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts. 3. Scale, Proportion and Quantity. In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion or quantity affect a systems structure or performance. 4. Systems and System Models. Defining the system under studyspecifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that systemprovides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering. 5. Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles and Conservation. Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of and within systems helps one understand the systems possibilities and limitations. 6. Structure and Function. The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions. 7. Stability and Change. For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.

DSST is a school network in Denver that combines a focus on STEM with a focus on character development. Shared values include respect, responsibility, integrity, courage, curiosity and effort. Its commitment to discerning the truth and possessing confidence and resolve to take risks and make right decisions in the face of pressure and adverse or unfamiliar circumstances is generally missing from NGSS.

Whats Next? Data & Automation

NGSS include eight practices--scientific method meets design thinking (below). The one practice that is becoming more important in every field is #4: analyzing and interpreting data.

NGSS includes eight practices of science and engineering: 1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering). 2. Developing and using models. 3. Planning and carrying out investigations. 4. Analyzing and interpreting data. 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking. 6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering). 7. Engaging in argument from evidence. 8. Obtaining, evaluating and communicating information.

Eric Lander said in a few years every biologist will be computational. The same is true for doctors, engineers, ecologists and economists. Impact entrepreneurs in every field are creating value by picking a problem, developing some domain expertise, building a dataset and applying smart tools. We call it Cause + Code and it often works like this :

Whats new and different is the cost of storage and computing is basically zero, making it possible to gather gigantic data sets and run computationally intensive machine learning models. As a result, the new step three (planning and carrying out investigations) often involves building public/private partnerships to assemble massive datasets, and the new step four (analyzing and interpreting data) is picking smart tools and pointing them at the data set.

Ahmed Alkhateeb , a molecular cancer biologist at Harvard Medical School, thinks the automation of the scientific process could greatly increase the rate of discovery. If science is algorithmic, then it must have the potential for automation, he said.

He explains that the challenge with the automating science is that the three main steps of scientific discovery occupy different planes: observation is sensual; hypothesis-generation is mental; and experimentation is mechanical. He adds, Automating the scientific process will require the effective incorporation of machines in each step, and in all three feeding into each other without friction.

Combining reductionist data-mining techniques with inductive computational models could transform our understanding of the natural world by generating and testing millions of novel hypotheses. Ahmed thinks it would also provide a much-needed reminder of what science is supposed to be: truth-seeking, anti-authoritarian and limitlessly free.

Conclusions

NGSS are an important contribution to science education. It encourages interdisciplinary inquiry and impact-oriented design.

It includes (but doesnt adequately emphasize) the growing importance of data wrangling to every field. Cause + Code is the new impact formula. On a recent visit to Teton Science Schools, our partner in the #PlaceBasedEd campaign, I met Tyler, a Stanford ecology graduate student. His South American rainforest preservation projects were aided by big assembled data sets and his fluency in R, a language and environment for statistical computing. Tyler is an example of a young scientist applying the Cause + Code formula: passion for a cause, domain expertise, computational thinking, data wrangling, coding and effective advocacy.

In the next few years, every step of the scientific process will be aided then automated by smart machines. The rise of automated science will require updates--not just to science standards but to our conception of what graduates should know and be able to do.

Exponential technologies are raising economic and ethical issues that will impact the lives and livelihoods of all young people (see our #AskAboutAI series ). Leading districts and networks combine inquiry-based science with a strong culture based on shared values. New science learning expectations should be adopted along with a graduate profile that encourages critical thinking, collaboration, and social contribution.

For more, see:
Plastic roads which are not just environment-friendly are now being tested in the UK. The said technology is also expected to be incorporated in other countries' highways.

According to The Drive, MacRebur; a Scotland-based company was able to come up with a way to construct roads that are made of recycled plastic. The said highways are stronger and longer-lasting when compared to usual asphalt-based roads.

The roads which are constructed by MacRebur with plastic materials are called the MR6. This gets mixed with other road-making supplies to bond the street together. The said method replaces the need for the oil-based element which is known as bitumen. Usually, the roads are made of 90 percent rock, sand, limestone and 10 percent bitumen. But then with MacRebur's substance, it replaces the requirement of the last wasteful material.

The MR6 is manufactured fully using waste materials that get mixed into asphalt to construct durable roads. According to MacRebur, the roads that were built with MR6 are less likely to crack compared with the conventional roads. The company claimed that it also lessen the resistance, which could help increase fuel economy for any automobiles using the highway.

Furthermore, Digital Trends has interviewed U.K. entrepreneur and engineer Toby McCartney and he describes the technology as a real win-win across the industry. This was because it decreases the dependence on fossil fuels due to the decline in oil that is needed to be used as part of the formulation. He further claimed that it helps reduce the waste plastic going to landfill, and it also improves the streets.

Aside from that McCartney stated that it saves money for all complexes. In fact, the companies that sell the waste plastic can save money by not being taxed for transporting the material to landfill. The local governments also save money because it can get a long-lasting road which needs fewer repairs. Drivers can also save money since they will be driving on improved roads, with fewer fissures.

The news outlet also stated that McCartney said that this technology is expected to hit other countries. In addition, he noted that the integration of plastic based roads should be done the right way.
Scheana Marie and Mike Shay who both starred in the "Vanderpump Rules" got married in 2014. Now, the ex-couple had confirmed their relationship as husband and wife already ended.

According to E! Online, the "Vanderpump Rules" stars Scheana Marie and Mike Shay's divorce has been confirmed this week. The same news outlet has learned that Marie has to pay her ex-husband close to $50,000 to balance out their properties.

It was also revealed that Marie will hold on to a 2016 Ford Explorer that has a $49k note. The actress will also keep a 2009 Nissan worth $19k, a bank account with $1k in it and lastly a retirement fund worth $31k. Meanwhile, her ex-hubby will hold on to his 2005 GMC Sierra.

It can be recalled that it was in November when the couple filed for divorce after less than two years of marriage. In an interview that ex-couple has stated that "While we have made the difficult decision to move forward separately, our story will continue on through the love and mutual respect that we have cultivated throughout our 15-year friendship."

The "Vanderpump Rules" stars also stated that even though they failed as a husband and they are still committed to succeeding as friends. The two also promises to continue supporting each other's personal contentment and of course professional achievements.

Furthermore, Mail Online has noted that Marie and Shay have experienced problems in their marriage when the latter was caught 'sexting' another woman, according to his ex-wife. Nevertheless, during the "Vanderpump Rules" reunion he stated that "The texts were inappropriate and a little further than just a friendship but it was definitely a connection that I didn't have with her."

Shay even accused his wife of throwing him under the bus when she conversed his assumed drug use on the show. On the other hand, Marie has already moved on with what happened to her marriage with Shay. As a matter of fact, she is dating actor Robert Valletta.
Christians are the least judgmental people By Rachel Alexander

The left has gotten away for too long with the false assertion that Christians are judgmental. It is at a frightening level that is progressing toward totalitarianism. But they know if you call a red crayon blue enough times, people will start to believe it. This is to deflect from their own high level of judgmentalism, which I described in a previous article. The truth is Christians are not aggressively trying to prosecute and sue people based on who they are. It is the left that is viciously targeting Christians, including First Lady Melania Trump. Several fashion designers said they refuse to design clothes for the First Lady, citing conscientious objections. Why isn't the left filing lawsuits against these designers? They rush to court when Christians, also citing conscientious objections, decline to service same-sex weddings. The left's zealousness against these Christian business owners has forced them out of business or facing huge fines. Even more disturbing, Christians who conscientiously object are now being criminalized. The Bible teaches Christians to treat people kindly, not judgmentally. The left likes to cherry pick Bible verses, particularly from the Old Testament, and point to them as proof Christians are judgmental. They deliberately ignore the fact that Jesus ushered in a new era of forgiveness regarding many of the Old Testament laws. So much that the left is ironically fond of claiming Jesus was a leftist. Although the left cites Old Testament laws to condemn Christians as harsh "eye for an eye, judgmental people, the New Testament Jesus came in to the world to "save" it, not condemn it. (John 3:16,17) By his death, Jesus ushered in a "New Covenant" that emphasized the redeeming and transforming change of a person's spiritual nature when he or she came to faith in Christ. Although the Ten Commandments were never repealed (they would form the moral base of New Testament Christianity), the over 600 Old Testament laws were now replaced by only two laws: 1), love God and 2) love your neighbor as yourself. It is true that God punished people in Old Testament days, but Jesus taught redemption and forgiveness. You cannot read the Old Testament without taking into account the New Testaments softening effect. Christianity emerged with Jesus. To blame Christians for actions that occurred prior to their existence is a bit duplicitous. Jesus told a prostitute that he didnt condemn her and to go and sin no more. While being crucified, he responded to one of the criminals on the cross next to him who asked him to remember him, Today you shall be with me in paradise. There are many stories and parables like this. Jesus was kind, and taught Christians to emulate him. The Bible doesnt approve of adultery, homosexuality and other types of behaviors. Yet Christians arent trying to punish people for those types of activities. In fact, government laws on the books prohibiting that kind of behavior have gradually been repealed in recent years.

The left will point to historical instances where Christian churches justified violence and draconian punishments, such as the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades. Christians have learned from mistakes some of them made the past. It is not how Christians treat people today. Regardless, the Bible says no one is perfect, including Christians. The late 20th century conflict in Northern Ireland is often portrayed as a religious war between Catholics and Protestants, but that is not accurate. According to an educational site, The conflict is primarily a social and cultural one, very similar to the hostile relations between different ethnic groups migrating to early America. Religious teachings are not an issue between the Catholics and Protestants. Christians are some of the kindest, most giving people. They open their churches, hearts and homes to the world. They listen to the struggles of others, responding with prayer and often take kind actions to help the ones struggling or suffering. The Bible instructs them to. If there are still a few bad apples here and there, they do not speak for Christianity. Better the hypocrites are in the church than outside of it, because perhaps the church tempers them a bit. Hypocrisy doesnt invalidate the religion, because the Bible teaches no man is without sin. On the other hand, the left gives Muslims a free pass when it comes to judgmentalism. Unlike Christianity, that religion has draconian penalties for many of the behaviors considered a sin in the Bible, including death. There are additional behaviors addressed that are not found in the Bible, such as a severely restrictive lifestyle forced on women. The penalties for women not complying include death. Much of the religion hasnt abandoned previous violence, but instead expanded it in recent years. Today, radical Islamists regularly murder thousands of Christians and other Muslims. Muslim doctors in the U.S. were caught this past week performing genital mutilation on young girls, but the left was silent. War is peace. Freedom through slavery. Ignorance is strength. Might as well add to writer George Orwells list of totalitarian oxymorons: Christians are judgmental. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative. She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, and other publications. Home
Fidels Cuba leaves indelible scars By Charlotte Cuthbertson

Jesus de Leon remembers clearly when his spirit finally shattered. He was 13 years old. It wasnt an obvious wound like a broken leg, but rather a deep cut to his soul after years of indoctrination and violence that slowly warped his thinking and stole his innocence.

Jesus de Leon at his home in New York on March 16, 2017. De Leon defected from Cuba in 2004 and moved to the United States in 2012 after winning a green card in the lottery. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) De Leon was born in Cuba in 1966, almost a decade after Fidel Castro seized power and purged dissenters. I was at the heart of the revolution, de Leon said at his home in Brooklyn on March 16. I was raised with being indoctrinated within the communist system. From the first days of primary school, de Leon said he had to swear allegiance to and salute Castro every day. We had to repeat, We are pioneers of the communist party like Che [Guevara],' he said. Now that Im an adult, I realize that every day I repeated that as a child, it became part of memy body, mind, blood. De Leon attended the Lenin High School in Havana. It was the pioneer of vocational boarding schools and the nations most eliteit was officially opened by the general secretary of the Soviet Union Communist Party Leonid Brezhnev. During orientation, de Leon was told that Castros goal for the school was to form pure communist students. His six years there were traumatic and horrendous, he said. The worst time for de Leon was in 1980 during the six-month exodus of 125,000 Cubans to America, known as the Mariel boatlift. Destroying Friendship Anyone who wanted to leave Cuba had to get permission through their workplace, and because all jobs were state-run, that meant the whole government apparatus was immediately alerted. It was impossible to leave without the government knowing. Families who wanted to leave were labeled as traitors or worms, and punishment was meted out swiftlybefore the families could actually depart. De Leon and his classmates were required to be part of the punishing force. He was 13 the first time he was loaded onto a school bus and taken to the house of a family that was about to emigrate. We threw rocks at the house and smashed it up. The goal was to break into the house, de Leon said. I participated in this sometimes several times a day. One time we went onto the roof and started throwing rocks at the people in the house, while they were eating a meal, he said, noting that even neighbors would participate. There was no question of not joining in. He said: They will poison your spirit from day one, so you do what everybody else does. You have so much fear. You didnt even question it. De Leons classmates and friends were no exception, and he was forced to turn against them as well. What happened here changed my life completely. From that moment on, I never believed in friendship. This dehumanizes you, he said. Everything becomes normal to beat up people and smash their homesits legal. When parents came to the school to advise the authorities their child was leaving, the students would beat the parents, de Leon said. One time, a group of us threw rocks at the father of a fellow student and one smashed his head, he said, his kind eyes quickly cast down. I remember one time at school they put a girl on a stage and everybody was yelling at her. They attacked her, ripping her clothes off, and she ran with her parents to their car to escape. The teachers encouraged us to do this and participatedthe principal and dean as well. De Leon said it was during this time that he abandoned the concepts of trust and friendship. Even though Ruben could be my best friend today, he could be my enemy tomorrow, he said. I didnt care after that, and I felt very lonely. Every neighborhood had a Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). The CDR was the domestic spy apparatus for the Cuban regime. The CDR knows everything about every household, their schedule, what school they go to, their workplace, how they thinkeverything, de Leon said. Each household was given a rations booklet for buying food and clothingthe government wrote exactly what families could getsuch as beans, eggs, clothes, and so forth. It was super hard to get food in Cuba, de Leon said. We had to always choose whether to buy food or clothes; we could never really clothe ourselves properly. His father often did odd jobs to get cash for black market purchases. Leaving With No Goodbyes De Leon went on to graduate as a lawyer in 1995 and worked at the Cuban Office of Intellectual Property. He was a womanizer and a drunk, and his work seemed dishonest. I realized I was becoming degenerated as a person, he said. I could still tell right from wrong, but I couldnt act in a different way. I wanted to change my life. I didnt want to live in a communist country. His job meant he occasionally traveled overseas for work, so he was one of the very few Cubans who was given a passportwhich became his ticket out of a life he detested. In 2004, right before he traveled to Brazil on a work trip, de Leon made the decision to defect. He was getting a lot of pressure to join the Communist Partyit was very rare for someone of his career position to not be in the Party. He couldnt say goodbye to his family because he knew he might be found out. I remember the exact moment I left. It was very painful, he said. It was not normal, not human. Trying to Rebuild In Brazil, de Leon left his swanky hotel in Rio de Janeiro and went to live on the street. He met an Argentinian woman and traveled with her to Argentina. They later married. He was glad to get out of Brazilthe government had an extradition agreement with Cuba, and he was afraid they would track him down. He could also speak Spanish in Argentina. When I left Cuba, I never drank alcohol again, I was never promiscuous again. I underwent a lot of changes, de Leon said. But he didnt magically sweep into a free and fabulous life post-Cuba and put it all behind himsome fundamental things were still too ingrained in his psyche. I couldnt go forward. I had no hope, he said. His recollection of his nine years in Argentina is vague, and for years he was sick and depressed. I lost everything: my country, my family, my friends, my career. His inability to have proper relationships and his apathy toward life continue to haunt and damage him. Even now, I cant trust anyone, he said. I believe thats the most harmful part of communismthe lack of trust. Because you always feel alone. De Leon won a U.S. green card in the lottery and moved to the United States in December 2012. He gets upset when non-Cubans romanticize life in Cuba. Those people have never lived in Cuba. They live in very free societies where they have the liberty and freedom to fantasize. Its part of freedom: They can choose. And they are not willing to lose everything and go live in Cuba. I was born in Cuba and the regime imposed the system on me. And when I tried to choose, I lost everything. De Leon posed a sobering question to romantics: Why do Cubans throw themselves into the sea to leave Cuba? And for all he has lost in life, de Leon is very quick to say he will never return to Cuba, even if they offer me again what I had before. Charlotte Cuthbertson is a writer for Epoch Times where this originally appeared. Home
U.S. Army  Courageous Men of faith and character need not apply By Mark Alexander

In August of 1776, George Washington issued the following General Orders to his military leaders: "The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty  that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men." Those words were written long ago, but in fact the hour is always fast approaching when our military Patriots, who have sworn "to Support and Defend" our Constitution and the Republic it established, may face enormous challenges. Indeed, that hour has often come with little or no warning. For this reason, those placed in positions of military leadership should have a proven record of courage and integrity, and they should demonstrate the highest order of moral character. That notwithstanding, the previous administration made a practice of appointing military leaders who were wholly unqualified for leadership  just as the commander in chief who appointed them. In addition to the appointment of inept leadership, Barack Obama spent eight long years using our military ranks as a Petri dish for his social policies, most notably his gender-bending diktats. What's more, he constantly sought to undermine faith in those ranks  that is, when he wasn't busy painting the White House in rainbow colors. Of course, these policies were part of a shrewd political calculation. The two most reliable voting blocs of the Democratic Party are blacks and those afflicted with Gender Disorientation Pathology. While black voters represent 12% of the population, the gender-confused represent less than 3.5%. However, the latter group has the sympathy of a majority of the largest voting bloc in the nation, women. This is why Democrats spend so much energy and political capital pandering to their LGBT constituents and its "Rainbow Mafia." It will take years to undo the damage to our nation's security and the ranks of those charged with defending it. But the tide has certainly turned under our new commander in chief  arousing enormous opposition from leftists. Last month, continuing his pattern of nominating outstanding leaders, particularly military leaders, Donald Trump announced his nominee for secretary of the Army, Dr. Mark Green. His confirmation hearings begin in mid-May. Why nominate a doctor? A quick review of Green's official bio provides a hint. Before he became a doctor, Green graduated from the USMA at West Point ('86), with a "soft degree" in quantitative business. As an infantry officer, he served as rifle platoon leader, scout platoon leader and battalion personnel officer in the 194th Separate Armor Brigade, and later as a Ranger and airborne rifle company commander in the famed 82nd Airborne Division. Green later earned a graduate degree in information systems from the University of Southern California, and then went on to earn his medical degree. He served tours in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He came to my home state of Tennessee as an Army Special Operations Flight Surgeon assigned to the 160th Special Ops Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky border. While with the 160th SOAR, Green planned and flew on many covert operations, one of them as the flight doc for Operation Red Dawn, the 2003 mission to capture Saddam Hussein in December. In fact, he interviewed Saddam for six hours on the night of his capture. Green departed active duty with, among other awards, a Bronze Star, Air Medal with "V" for valor under enemy fire, and the Army Aviation Association Flight Surgeon of the Year award. He then used that old West Point business degree to launch a very successful medical practice and a medical company, Align MD, a hospital and emergency room staffing company, which he grew to more than $100 million in annual revenues. He was also elected to the Tennessee State Senate Republican majority in 2012 and has been a rising star in that capacity. As a state senator, he received annual recognition from the Department of Defense for legislation supporting veterans. In a conversation with Mark last year, we talked about our love for Tennessee and our early years. He grew up with very modest means, on "red clay dirt roads" across the Mississippi line from Memphis. But at age 52 from humble roots, he's had an enormously successful military, medical and business career, along with some proven political experience. Yet despite these successes, I believe what's most impressive about this man is his strong faith and devotion to his family. All that being said, the announcement of Mark's nomination gave me some heartburn, because it takes him out of the running to become Tennessee's next governor  a campaign that was underway prior to Trump's announcement. Arguably, he would've been the most qualified gubernatorial candidate in our state's history (with apologies to one of my better-known ancestors, Sam Houston). His nomination is causing some heart attacks in other quarters but for very different reasons  namely, his standing as a Patriot of the highest moral character, his faith and integrity. The LGBT Rainbow Mafia, with Hillary Clinton emerging from her rat hole to lead the charge, is attempting to derail Green's nomination because he once stated that some medical professionals believe there is a pathological basis for gender disorientation issues  and because he thinks men need to stay out of women's restrooms. According to Clinton, Dr. Green is an "outspoken opponent" of the LGBT agenda. "We may not ever be able to count on this administration to lead on LGBT issues," she wailed, adding, "The progress that we fought for, that many of you were on the front lines for ... may not be as secure as we once expected." (Again, this is about pandering to female voters, not the tiny LGBT constituency.) This, combined with the fact that Green is a man of strong faith, has the gender-challenged brigades running around like their hair is on fire. They even tagged Mark "Creep of the Week." That's right, as Donald Trump is endeavoring to clean up serious threats from North Korea's nuclear sociopath, Kim Jong Un  whom Obama empowered by ignoring and thereby enabling  and the nuclear terrorism threat posed by Iran  whom Obama empowered by pretending the threat did not exist (and abetting with hundreds of millions of dollars)  the LGBT legions are busy protesting an extraordinarily qualified nominee to head the United States Army. Regarding his nomination, Green says, "President Trump nominated me to do one job: Serve as his Secretary of the Army. If confirmed, I will solely focus on ensuring our Army is the most lethal fighting force in history. Politics will have nothing to do with this job." To his opponents, Green says: "As someone who proudly served our nation in the Army with men and women of all backgrounds and beliefs, my concern is nothing more than building the best Army with the best soldiers who are willing to prepare, fight and, if necessary, win in combat, regardless of their political beliefs, ethnic background, religious beliefs or sexual orientation or identity. Every American has the right to defend their country, period. And I have always held that belief." It's an old maxim that in politics, you're best known by your enemies. That being the case, then add one more credit to Mark Green's long list of qualifications. Monday, LGBT poster celeb, Bruce, er, uh, "Caitlyn" Jenner, announced that he, er, uh, whatever, is "very concerned" with Mark's nomination. That amounts to a ringing endorsement! For eight long years, the previous administration sought to morally emasculate our military. That's not a statement about generations of women who have honorably served our great nation, but about those who would undermine the moral integrity of our Armed Forces. In his 1981 address to the graduating class at West Point, Ronald Reagan declared, "A truly successful army is one that, because of its strength and ability and dedication, will not be called upon to fight, for no one will dare to provoke it." Leftists are intent on undermining that strength and ability and dedication. The LGBT protests are a continuation of that undermining. As noted by military analyst Lawrence Sellin, PhD, "Green's confirmation is a litmus test for President Trump and the Republican Congress, a choice between military readiness or enforced political correctness." "The hour is fast approaching," as General Washington warned, and Dr. Mark Green's nomination as secretary of the Army should be approved by the Senate without reservation. There will be a handful of LGBT veterans who show up waiving rainbow flags, and some senators who will appease their protests. But beyond those wretched few, be warned: We're taking notes! Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post. Home
My pilgrimage, Chapter Eleven: The New World Order Confederacys Sweet Smell of Success By Michael Moriarty

The film Sweet Smell of Success! What has that to do with a New World Order Confederacy? American ambition. Nothing paints American ambition in grittier or, quite frankly, in seamier detail than the, by now, American classic, Sweet Smell of Success. It is mesmerizingly ugly.

An Iago and Richard III of American Ambition. But then again, so is American ambition at its most shamelessly and lawlessly liberated. Here is the most treasonous of American ambitions delivered to us amidst the hell of Presidential good intentions. And why? The ambition of an entire quartet of American Presidents, from George H. W. Bush to Barack Hussein Obama, to surrender American sovereignty to a New World Order run by the United Nations. America is and has been, for most of its over two hundred years of existence, defined by the Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution and its Bill of Rights. That all changed with George H. W. Bushs repetitious insistence upon handing America over to a New World Order. The smarmiest-sounding voice in the history of American politics, that of George H. W. Bush, was selling Americans not only a questionable war in the Middle East but, more frighteningly, an entire rearrangement of traditional American values for the sake of a New World Order. A grandiose scheme, hatched out between American Presidents and the leaders of what had recently been a dictatorship called The Soviet Union: the transformation of all the nations on earth into a New World Order. Since the phrase New World Order has, to say the least, become suspect, we now have other improvements to the same conspiracy: The Progressive New World Order. Depopulation being one of the P.N.W.O.s main components. Following a viewing of the above video on the P.N.W.O.s depopulation plan?! Sweet Smell of Success seems utterly irrelevant! No, it is not irrelevant! The petty and ugly souls examined in that film?! Their ambitions are a small but microscopically examined, evil microcosm that eventually drives the blind and grandiose insanities of the P.N.W.O.. Is the entire human race really as inescapably suicidal as the P.N.W.O. and its Bilderberg, P.N.W.O Elite claims it must be?! If you buy the lies of Global Warming, indeed it is. The lies that Tony Curtis character, Sidney Falco, hands the world are, at least in Falcos mind, only what the world, as defined by the powers and style of monster columnist, J. J. Hunsecker, deserves. Ragingly poisonous might briefly describe the lethally ambitious world within Sweet Smell of Success. However, this pre-Sixties Manhattan of 1957 is a mere corner of the swamp that the President of 2017, Donald Trump, now says must be drained. A man of power so-like J. J. Hunsecker in so many ways, but whose blistering contempt for a corrupt America has been profoundly justified, President Trump is an equally abrasive Hunsecker that a rotten world desperately needs in order to drain not the swamp but to utterly empty the seemingly bottomless cesspool that the United States has been falling into for over twenty years. At the heart of the United States reptilian corruption, however, is Americas Established Liberal Press and its co-conspirator in the Republican Party, the Bush Family. Most of the Third Millenniums legendary opinion writers and their informers  many of them not-so-secretly like J. J. Hunsecker and Sidney Falco, target President Trump as if he were Martin Milners Steve Dallas, the character who won the affections of Hunseckers sister Hunsecker, is incestuously obsessed with his own sister. The Liberal media, with the invaluable help of the Bush Familys Republican Party  thus creating an incontestable majority of American political leadership  have claimed possession of the United States as if it were a misguided sister they own and completely control. Their plan for America? To become the surprisingly docile partner in a Progressive New World Order to be run by the United Nations. When we succeed, and we will, declares former President George H. W. Bush. The Progressive New World Order CONFEDERACY ?! Yes. We are now knee-deep into The Second American Civil War. President Donald Trump is convinced he must play not only a Civil War President Lincoln to bring the United States home to the American Constitution and Bill of Rights but also take on the roles of both Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Trumps recent confrontations with both Syrias al-Assad and North Koreas Kim Jong Un  not to mention the inevitable nightmares of Iran  will seem minor compared to the unrelenting struggle the President will face with Americas Second Confederacy. The forces of The Progressive New World Order and the violence that its street thugs are already vomiting up in places like Berkley, California?! Yes! I am positive that all this increasing Civil War violence is driven by the Progressive New World Order Oligarchy of men such as George Soros and their billions of trouble-making dollars. Will America survive?! It has to. Trumps America is the only thing that stands between the entire human race and the lying tyrannies of a Progressively Evil New World Order, one that hunts, with increasing desperation, for the Sweet Smell of Success! Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home
Time to act in Syria By Slater Bakhtavar

There is no denying that, in the present time, the nation of Syria is in a state of chaotic turmoil. It is ostensibly ruled by the dictator Bashar al-Assad, but his grip on power is tenuous due to the fact that his own people have had quite enough of him and are now in open revolt, leaving the nation in civil war. This is rather understandable, because al-Assad is a monster who uses heavy-handed police state tactics to dominate the Syrian people with an iron fist. When he doesnt get his way, he has been known to bomb his own subjects. Its estimated that since 2011, he has murdered some 400,000 people. Most of these have been innocent civilians, collateral damage to his policy of targeting population centers in his attempts to weed out the rebels. Of course, the Syrian situation is complex, as the Islamic State also has a tremendous presence in the nation (particularly now, as they have lost many of their Iraqi holdings). Russian military forces are also involved, as allies of the brutal al-Assad regime that enjoys close ties with Vladimir Putins government. It is the IS factor in particular that has led some to call for the United States to back al-Assad as well, as he is ostensibly opposed to the Islamic radicals (who would, given their own way, seize power for themselves). In recent days, Richard Haas, American diplomat and President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has expressed this opinion. It is an ill-advised adaptation of the enemy of my enemy is my friend philosophy that suggests that anyone opposed to the adversaries of the day is to be backed  regardless of whatever atrocities of which they themselves may be guilty, and Haas of all people should know better. It is morally unacceptable for the United States to align itself with a brutal tyrant like al-Assad. This country simply cannot continue to claim that it stands for liberty and the rights of all people to be free when it simultaneously gets behind a madman with no regard for basic human rights. The Islamic State  a true and terrible threat, without question  will be combated and put down, and in time other dangers to national security will no doubt present themselves. The US should be ready to stand against them as a nation of principles, committed to fighting for whats right; not a nation of convenience, joining forces with whatever monsters might (or might not) offer an advantage in the moment. The honor of the United States is also at stake, because its position on Syria and Bashar al-Assad has always been clear. This was made only more stark under President Barack Obama, who famously drew a red line against al-Assads potential use of chemical weapons against his own people. It is unfortunate  both for US integrity and for the victims of chemical assaults  that Obama lacked the courage and conviction to back up his words, for when al-Assad did indeed deploy chemical weapons against civilian populations, there were no repercussions from the United States. At least, until recently. Not long ago, al-Assad did it again, launching a savage, inhumane chemical attack against civilians in trying to harm the rebels. Realizing that inaction was not a viable option, the current American President, Donald Trump, quickly ordered cruise missile bombardment against the airbase from which the weapons were initially launched. That facilitys capacity to act as a source for chemical attacks has now been neutralized. Obviously, American military involvement of any kind in the Middle East is to be viewed with tremendous skepticism and treated with enormous caution. The last thing either that region or the US needs is for America to engage in another full-on Iraq-style war that builds a vast death toll, causes untold human suffering, and ultimately accomplishes nothing positive. But in this case, a quick surgical strike that involved no ground troops and carried no commitment for further American hostilities was able to put a brutal tyrant on notice that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated, damage his ability to do it again in the future, and keep a promise whose originator lacked the intestinal fortitude to stay true to it himself. President Trump made the right move, and he has been widely lauded and congratulated for his decisive action. But beyond the practical benefits for the United States and for all people in discouraging chemical weapon use, there is a deeper, moral obligation in opposing the al-Assad regime and supporting its removal. This is the government of a brutal, reprehensible madman who thinks nothing of horrifically murdering his own people, and to tolerate his continued rule in Syria (or anywhere) is an affront to basic human decency. He must go, and the United States must do what it reasonably can to see him gone. The way to accomplish this, however, is not with a war hawks fantasy of full-scale invasion. That was already tried in Iraq, proving for all the world that such a strategy is an unmitigated disaster. Change must come from within, from the people of Syria themselves, and they have already taken the first steps by choosing to rise up against the regime under which they struggle. They are to be commended and supported for their courage  not undermined by catastrophic American alliances with their tormentor. Slater Bakhtavar is an attorney, foreign policy analyst, author and political commentator. He is author of "Iran: The Green Movement". He has appeared as a guest on numerous network radio shows, including G Gordon Liddy, Crosstalk America, Les in the Morning, NPR, Jim Bohannon Show and VOA. Home
Treason and patriotism in Canada and the current-day world (Part Five) By Mark Wegierski

In terms of any potentially emerging civil conflict in the Canadian context (which in Canada, would likely be Canada vs. Quebec), the stance of the Canadian armed forces, as is the case in any such situation in any country, would be very important. Until the election of the Conservative government in 2006, Canada's stance towards its military was one where it most manifestly diverged from traditional notions of patriotism. The funding of the military had been punitively cut over the last four decades, to the point where defence spending had reached little more than 5% of the annual federal government budget. The point had virtually been reached where the Canadian armed forces were "a joke", yet they were still being continually assailed and devalourized in the mass media, academic, and government circles. At that unfortunate time, considering that probably over half of the combat-worthy land forces were French-Canadian, very many of them might have been tempted to cross over to the Quebec cause, where they might have thought they had better chances of receiving widespread social respect, decent pay, and up-to-date equipment. Furthermore, most of the rest of the military were English-speaking Canadians of British descent. Liberal Canada had been waging a long war against British traditions in Canada, proclaiming itself a multicultural society, and aggressively devalourizing straight white males. Would they have wanted to lift a finger to defend this new Canada which had continually repudiated and assailed them? So Harpers revitalizing and re-valourizing of the Canadian military should be seen as one of the most important achievements of his government. As the major global superpower, the U.S. perforce treats its military much better. Yet there, one could see some obvious problems in the 1990s. To many U.S. soldiers and officers, Clinton had very little moral authority as Commander-in-Chief, because of his obvious draft-dodging record. This was not helped by his evident penchant to send U.S. troops on U.N. missions that many Americans perceived as having little to do with real U.S. interests. There was an interesting case where a U.S. soldier refused orders to deploy to the Balkans, claiming that U.S. troops were being put under foreign command and deployed overseas without Congressional approval -- a manifest violation of the Constitution. He was quickly thrown out of the military. George W. Bush gained considerable support when he talked during his campaign of a more humble foreign policy. Unfortunately -- in the aftermath of 9/11 -- his Administration was directed onto a course of war against Iraq. This was clearly a misdeployment of American strength, that some critics have called a Sicilian Expedition. Also, the intervention in Afghanistan  however necessary in the aftermath of 9/11 -- was built up into a multi-year (or possibly multi-decade) nation building undertaking, rather than a quick punitive strike. In his 2003 hatchet-piece in the new National Review, David Frum pointedly accused a disparate group of conservative and libertarian figures critical of unlimited foreign interventions by the U.S., as unpatriotic. It could be argued that Canada is a society which, before the 1960s, was largely more conservative and tradition-minded than the United States, but which, in the aftermath of the 1960s, has become far more liberal and progressive-minded (except for some residues of civility and politeness which should properly be credited to Canadian social conservatism). It is important to ask how Canadian nationhood was traditionally defined. This is a question which many persons in Canada today are unwilling or unable to ask. Indeed, Canadian identity is today seen as a kind of conundrum or puzzle. Up until the 1960s, Canada was conceived in far different ways than it is today. At the most basic level, Canada was conceived of as a British country. This was a combination of both the British political traditions (Monarchy, Parliament, the British Common Law), and the fact that, for the last two hundred or so years, persons from the British Isles had formed the majority of the population. The obvious exception to Canada's Britishness was the province of Quebec, with its large, French-speaking, Roman Catholic population. As Lord Durham had presciently warned in 1840 (although his proposed, fanatically anti-French solution of complete assimilation turned out to be unworkable) this has led to a situation of "two nations warring in the bosom of a single state." As a kind of response to the prevalent, dynamic, English-speaking culture, French Quebec had largely turned inward, centered on its Roman Catholicism and a largely rural existence. However, in the twentieth century, nascent Quebecois nationalism expressed itself mainly in support of the Liberal Party, rather than what were characterized as the "Tory Orangemen" of the Conservative Party. Once thought as solid as the rock of Gibraltar, the British Imperial concept has melted away like snow during a spring heat-wave. It has turned out that this notional system was more-or-less coterminous with the reign of Queen Victoria, and quickly dissipated thereafter. For Canada, the decline of the British Empire, the British Imperial idea, and increasingly now, even of the stature and place of the British Monarchy in England itself, has exacerbated the onset of a permanent identity crisis for English Canada. Furthermore, the support the federal Liberal Party commonly received from Quebec after the federal election of 1896 (since the end of the nineteenth century) has ultimately allowed the Liberal Party to undertake a thoroughgoing reconstruction of Canada, in opposition to "the British connection." Beginning in 1965 with the repudiation of the Red Ensign (Canada's traditional flag, on which the Union Jack figured prominently), the Liberal Party was able to take Canada through a series of radical restructurings, culminating in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. The submission of all Parliamentary legislation to judicial review based on an absolutized written rights document is largely alien to British constitutional principles. The result is the undermining of the cornerstone of the British (and Canadian) system  the Sovereignty of Parliament. Indeed, the influence of the Charter  driven by an activist judiciary and legal apparatus which political scientist Ted Morton has called the Court Party -- has unleashed a massive tide of multifarious social and cultural change in Canada that has yet to abate. The question for an English-speaking Canadian traditionalist invariably becomes -- to which Canada is he or she expected to hold allegiance? Interestingly enough, the current Canadian Citizenship Oath refers only to allegiance to the Monarchy. Unfortunately, this is increasingly seen as a dark relic of the past, and will probably soon be replaced with an oath which will most likely call for allegiance to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and to "Canada's diversity." An English-speaking Canadian traditionalist, although a person who sees him or herself as the most ardent Canadian patriot, would have difficulty holding such an allegiance in good conscience. And, indeed, Canadian left-liberals would label persons ambivalent about the very latest aspects and interpretations of the Charter -- those who refused to accept this newly-imposed Canadian identity -- as "un-Canadian."



To be continued. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. Home
Trumped for a hundred days? By J.K. Baltzersen

A hundred days have now passed since the inauguration of President Trump. There were some hopes, some of which I addressed on July 4 last year. Lets have a look at status. We hear statements that are tantamount to saying that it is the end of the world  and of freedom. There are  granted  severely problematic issues with Trump, but the end of the world. Seriously? Karen Kwiatkowski back in January said that Trump is the perfect President, in large part because suddenly everyone is wide awake and nervous, whereas previously people supported the government. The inauguration was praised, amongst others, by Gary North. He debunked the reigning political regime, saying Washington was broken, with the outgoing President and a few other former Presidents sitting just few feet behind him. It has been claimed that Trump is a poor speaker. That may be so, but at least he fills his speeches with distinct content, not establishment claptrap. Obama was a good speaker in form  at least when he had a teleprompter. Did that make his terms good for America and the world? There is always the question of whether an incoming President with a new agenda will actually implement any of his new policies, or if things in practice will be business as usual. This time we saw  at least initially  clear tendencies of action in a different direction. Eric Margolis told us there were some good cuts. Reportedly Steve Bannon has vowed to deconstruct the administrative state. He has reportedly also dismissed Austrian economics and limited government. When Democratic politicians nominate Hispanics or non-whites as justices of the law, it is apparently OK to refer to the nominees ethnic background and its relevance for the service to be. But when its turned on its head, i.e., when the ethnic background is used against the judge, by a presidential candidate, its all bad. How the Trump administration rails against the judicial branch may be problematic. It must, however, be kept in mind that we are living in some sort of mix between legislative tyranny by legislatures and extensive legislating from the bench by judges. Some seem to suggest that we are in a golden age of the rule of law, and that Trump is threatening to end it. Hardly! Charles Murray said at an event in Oslo on Thursday last week that the judiciary isnt really a bulwark against whats unconstitutional, but rather a bulwark against what the judges deem as unacceptable. President Trump has met with Judge Napolitano. You can say a lot about Donald Trump and his policies. There are indeed troublesome features in the mix. It is a mixed bag. There are problematic inconsistencies. Even some consistencies are problematic. But I do not think it is very exaggerated to say that other Presidents would not touch people like Judge Napolitano with a barge pole. Neil Gorsuch has probably been amongst the very better choices made my President Trump. Judge Napolitano concurs it was a good choice. Trump also met with John Allison, former CEO of the Cato Institute, follower of Ayn Rand, and proponent of a gold standard, ahead of his pick for Treasury Secretary. Now, we should always retain an amount of skepticism towards such phenomena. We should not let ourselves be easily flattered by such meetings, but the fact that the President-to-be, now sitting President, meets with such people is a small sea change. The sitting POTUS may be the closest we might have hoped to come to a remedy against the crazy easy money policies of the federal capital on the Potomac. But David Stockman, Reagans OMB Director, says there is troubled water ahead. There have been signs that Trump would be reasonable when it comes to the Keynesianism on steroids, but here too there have been inconsistencies, and it is not easy to tell where we have the President. Global trade has been a target of the new President. Tho Bishop is very correct when he writes: While the Trump administrations embrace of anti-trade policies is a very real concern for the global economy, it is worth noting that the G-20s desire for free trade was every bit as sincere as the UNs commitment to human rights. What the G-20 members call free trade is really government managed trade, complete with complex multinational trade agreements that Trump is right to oppose. And then we have the immigration issue. Lew Rockwell recently addressed this issue. Certainly there are problems ahead with more restrictions at borders. The stories we hear about visitors being requested to hand over cell phone codes, online account passwords, etc. do not promise well. Will building a physical wall solve the problem of over-stayed visas? Probably not. There are a lot of problems with restricting immigration, but there are a lot of problems with unrestricted mass immigration as well. Wanting to live largely amongst those of your own culture and language does not anti-freedom make. Wrote Stefan Lundberg back in January: I hope when Trump becomes president he acts more mature and bombs 7 different countries and drones American citizens instead of sending out mean tweets all the time. There is not much to add on the question of Twitter aggression compared to real aggression. Unfortunately, it turned out real aggression came along too. One of the big hopes for the new administration was foreign policy. The establishment, hawkish foreign policy was challenged by Trump. Regrettably, this got a big blow in early April, in the centennial week of the U.S. declaration of war on Imperial Germany and decision for America to militarily enter World War One. Surprising? No, not really! We know Trump was not coherent on this issue, as with many other issues. Disappointing? Yes, indeed! Walter Block, who initiated Libertarians for Trump and Scholars for Trump, is now considering rooting for the impeachment of Donald Trump. The new foreign policy ended before one hundred days had passed of the new President. Sad! But neoconservative foreign policy may still have gotten a permanent blow. A considerable number of supporters did not support this turnaround, notably Ann Coulter. Its still too early to tell, but public discourse on foreign policy may have changed permanently, which also may be thanks to Ron Paul. Writes Stefan Lundberg: A small silver lining of encouragement is seeing overwhelming opposition to military escalation in Syria, even from prominent Trump supporters. The principled anti-war libertarians and progressives will always be vocal about peace, but now combine those groups with the rest of the left who will undoubtedly condemn Trumps actions considering they go so far as to criticize the way he eats his steak. Have the majority of Americans changed their attitude on intervention? Lets hope. We certainly want to avoid World War Three. We want no confrontation with North Korea. There is a lot of talk of Donald Trump having his finger on the nuclear button. While the checks on the American commander-in-chiefs ability to launch nuclear arms on his own are probably often understated in public discourse, a good thing that might come out of the Trump presidency is the increase of such checks. Donald Trumps relationship with truth has been a constant theme of his critics. Maybe he has taken lying to a completely new level. But consider what consequences the lies have and what proportions they have. Wrote Stefan Lundberg back in February: Ill reserve my outrage for if and when Trump makes a lie like: Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or If you like your doctor you can keep him, or if he decides to blame a terrorist attack on a YouTube video. This may change with the April Syria intervention. Speaking of which, all of a sudden the skepticism towards fake news turns around and becomes a complete embrace of what could be an unverified claim that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attacks. You might say it was certain that it was Assad? Shouldnt we have learned by now at least to be skeptical of such claimed-to-be-certain information in times of war? Perhaps the principle is: Dont believe anything you hear that contradicts the establishment agenda, but if it supports necon foreign policy, ignore or turn off all warning lights. Moreover, if something runs contrary to the climate change orthodoxy, never listen, no matter how convincing the material is. Some people believe that they impose their progressive agenda on society, and that that is in keeping with democracy, but if the people choose another direction that is not democratic. Is it not ironic that the main opposing candidate to Donald Trump was the wife of a former President who gave a speech going out stating the the people are supposed to be in the drivers seat? Now a considerable number of her supporters cant accept the election of the President through the rules that exist to elect the President for a Union of States? Instead of having the people choose policy, theyre supposed to be in on the identity politics. But perhaps not voluntarily? Other nations have had women both as Presidents and Prime Ministers for decades. And we were supposed to be impressed that the first woman President of the United States was to be a wife a former holder of the same office?!? And certainly in a democracy, of which a representative democratic republic is one form, the people are not to be able to choose a totally different set of policies. One could wonder if electing Trump would disqualify people from electing a head of state. But would that not disqualify them on a permanent basis? What are the qualifications of the electorate really? Jeff Deist says it perhaps most clearly: Why doesnt the #neverTrump movement take its arguments to their logical conclusion, and insist an electorate that would install Donald Trump never be allowed to vote again or have any say in organizing society? The reality is becoming clear, even as it remains uncomfortable for many: democracy is a sham that should be opposed by all liberty-loving people. Voting and elections confer no legitimacy whatsoever on any government, and to the extent a democratic political process replaces outright war it should be seen as only slightly less horrific. Donald Trump is married to his third wife. Some make this an issue. I dont endorse the revolution that has taken place over the recent decades in this field. The question is what priority does it have with all the mess we have in the political system. Carol and Ron Paul celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary this year. Where were the opponents of Donald Trumps marriage history when Ron Paul ran for President in 2008 and 2012? Trump does not have excellent character, but that is way too often blown out of proportions compared to everything else that matters. If only people could care as much about policy issues as they do about non-policy issues, and that includes the issue bringing in his daughter and son-in-law to advisor positions. Jared Kushners policy positions are a far more serious concern than his being the Presidents son-in-law. Im not saying nepotism and taking care of personal and family interests as the head of state do not matter at all. What I am saying is that compared to policy matters they are much less important. Not too long ago, I told a friend that there are a lot of problems with Trump, but there are also a lot of problems that need a bit of a shaking. He responded swiftly by saying that there were a lot of problems in Germany of the 1930s, but that didnt imply Hitler being the solution. Is Trump the new Hitler, a term, by the way, that has become a form of crying wolf? I doubt it. Sure, we should always stay wide awake. New fascism may come sneaking, and before we know it, it may be there, too strong to do away with. Friends of liberty, such as the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, are doing an important job in keeping an open eye. The sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, once said: Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to ruleand both commonly succeed, and are right. It is tempting to paraphrase: The #NeverTrump movement claims Trump is unfit to rule. Trump supporters claim the #NeverTrump movement is unfit to rule. Both are right. J.K. Baltzersen writes from the capital of the Oil Kingdom of Norway. He is the editor of the forthcoming book Grunnlov og frihet: turtelduer eller erkefiender? (in Norwegian and Swedish; translated title: Constitution and Liberty: Lovebirds or Archenemies?), with Cato Institutes Johan Norberg amongst the contributors. Follow him on Twitter. Home
@USDA is taking steps towards more local control of school meal menus, since we all want kids to have nutritious meals that also taste good. pic.twitter.com/nsOI3ykXzY -- Sec. Sonny Perdue (@SecretarySonny) May 1, 2017

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Monday an interim rule designed to provide flexibility to schools in meeting school meal nutrition standards adopted by the Obama administration.

The rules, championed by former first lady Michelle Obama, require schools to cut back on salt and fat and to serve more whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables.

The standards, created under the authority of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, were praised by organizations concerned about childhood obesity, but education and industry groups said compliance has been costly and difficult for many schools.

The changes fall short of the aggressive scale-back that some conservative members of Congress have pushed for in recent years. Under the rules announced Monday:



States can grant exemptions during the 2017-18 school year from requirements that all grain products served in school meals are whole-grain rich if schools are experiencing hardship in meeting them. That extends previous flexibililty the agency granted after schools complained it was difficult to find whole-grain foods like pastas to meet the rule. The federal agency said it will take all necessary regulatory actions to implement a long-term solution related to whole grains.

Through 2020, schools will be considered in compliance with sodium rules for school foods if they meet target one requirements. The original nutrition standards included a schedule of sodium restrictions that limited salt more and more over time. Schools are currently scheduled to meet target two requirements. Some schools said the limits made meals less desirable for students.

Schools will be able to serve 1 percent flavored milk.

When the rules were originally created, the intent was that they should be regularly reviewed to see how they are implemented, Perdue said as he announced the changes at Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, Va. The interim changes came with a promise that the USDA would look for longer-term ways to alter the school nutrition regulations. The USDA estimates that the requirements cost school districts and states an additional $1.22 billion in the 2015 fiscal year, he said.

This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals, Perdue said. If kids arent eating the food, and its ending up in the trash, they arent getting any nutritionthus undermining the intent of the program.

He announced the changes alongside Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, who chairs the Senate agriculture committee, and leaders of the School Nutrition Association, an industry group that has pushed for changes to school meal rules.

School Nutrition Association is appreciative of Secretary Perdues support of school meal programs in providing flexibility to prepare and serve healthy meals that are appealing to students, SNA CEO Patricia Montague said in a statement. School nutrition professionals are committed to the students they serve and will continue working with USDA and the Secretary to strengthen and protect school meal programs.

Groups who support the nutrition standards said they were disapointed in the changes.

Its discouraging that just days into his tenure, one of the first things that Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue will do is to roll back progress on the quality of the meals served to Americas children, said Margo G. Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Ninety percent of American kids eat too much sodium every day. Schools have been moving in the right direction, so it makes no sense to freeze that progress in its tracksand allow dangerously high levels of salt in school lunch.

You can watch all of Perdues remarks in the video below.

Further reading about school lunches and student nutrition:

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War does not bring peace By Dr. Robert Owens

I am a supporter of our troops. I believe they are patriots and Americas best. I dont question the bravery or skill of our troops its the imperial foreign policy which sends them as sacrifices on the altar of political ambition that I question. The cruel calculations of political elites using our service men and women as pawns on their partisan game board are shameful. The most shocking example of this was President Obama announcing a surge in troops at the same time he announced the exit strategy for leaving the country. What could be more counterproductive than telling an asymmetrical enemy, If you hang on long enough we leave and you win. Look at Iraq. We went to war to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction which even President Bush eventually admitted were never there. We went to war because our leaders intimated that Iraq had a hand in the sneak attacks of 9-11 based on a rumored meeting between an Iraqi agent and Mohamed Atta another claim that has since been repudiated. Did we go to war to correct the partial victory we gained in Gulf War I under George I? Did we go to war as George II later claimed to make the Mideast safe for democracy? Whatever the reason for invading Iraq, a nation we supported for years, a nation which had not and was not planning to attack us, what did we accomplish and what do we have now that we are gone? What about Afghanistan? After the sneak attacks on 9-11 we had every legal and moral right to attack the nation that harbored and protected Al-Qaeda. The whole world supported our right to punish those who had so cruelly attacked us. However, to keep faith with the Constitution a declaration of war should have been obtained. Instead we followed the pattern of all military actions since WW II a guns and butter approach where war is waged off somewhere in the distance. It is shielded by a compliant media and the fog of official pronouncements so our elites can keep the political landscape manageable at home. Our armed forces waged a brilliant campaign that dismantled the Taliban regime in short order. Then instead of saying, If it happens again well come back again, and leaving we have stayed for more than a dozen years squandering hundreds of billions building a nation for people who dont see themselves as a nation. They are a collection of tribes grouped together by the necessities of international politics surrounded by a porous border and a history of ungovernable conflict. Does anyone doubt that after we leave Kabul the Taliban will return? Does anyone doubt that the training and weapons that we have given to our Afghan allies which are turned against us on a regular basis will form the bedrock of future Taliban strength? Does anyone doubt that as we roll out the front door our Afghan puppets will be taking 747s filled with their plunder of American taxpayer cash on their way to a luxurious exile at our expense? The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive right to declare war. This limitation on the prerogative of our chief executive to commit America to war without the consent of the citizens was considered one of the most important strengths of the document. The founders of our nation came from a society in which autocratic kings had often plunged their nations into wars based on their own desires, whims, and political machinations. Those who wrote the Constitution to be the framework for a new type of nation determined that we should never go to war unless it was the expression of the people through their elected representatives. They believed this would limit war to the defense of the Republic and its vital interests. There hasnt been a declared war since World War II and yet our sons and daughters have fought and died in countless battles around the world. With the war in Afghanistan winding up and down the Neocons and Progressives are beating the war drums daily for intervention in North Korea, Syria, Iran, and even war with Russia and China. The Obama Administrations policy of supporting Islamic Radicals, supplied weapons to the Al-Qaeda led Syrian rebels for years. I contend the Mission in Benghazi and its satellite CIA Safe-House was in reality a conduit for transferring untraceable weapons from the captured Libyan arsenal through Turkey to the rebels. So when it comes to Syria we are already there and we have been since the beginning. We have had special forces on the ground. We have trained so-called moderate Islamists who to a man have taken the training and weapons to ISIS as quickly as they could. Now our Neo-con cheerleaders want us to directly intervene. The same goes for Iran. There is a shadow war that has been raging for years between Israel with American support and Iran. This shadow war consists of assassinations of nuclear scientists, bombing nuclear facilities and uploading computer viruses into computers used to control the cyclotrons used to enrich uranium on the part of the allies. The response has been attacks against Israeli citizens around the world and even a bombing attempt in Washington D.C. This was not enough. America has been goaded into imposing draconian sanctions against Iran. Sanctions which if imposed on us we would be consider acts of war. Once again this was not enough. The Neocons were working day and night to get us to deliver some shock and awe all over Iran all in the name of peace. The Iran deal paying off the Ayatollahs may have pushed this brewing confrontation to the back burner but make no mistake McCain and Company still have their cross hairs trained on Tehran. Iran has not attacked another country in the memory of anyone who is alive today. Or in the lives of the ancestors going back hundreds of years. Americas intelligence agencies unanimously tell us, Congress, and the Administration that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Iran is a signer of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and as a part of that treaty it is guaranteed the right to develop nuclear power for peaceful means and we have no proof that they are doing anything else. In other words, we have paid them hundreds of billions to stop doing something our own intelligence services say they werent doing. As far as Iran is concerned we were told Containment is off the table. Now we are told All options are on the table. Why was containment off the table? It worked during the Cold war when we faced off with an enemy many times larger with thousands of nuclear weapons on delivery systems aimed at our cities. Why wont it work against a nation that at this point has no nuclear weapons? Why was it acceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons but not Iran? Does anyone think the Ayatollahs are crazier than the boy dictator of the Kim dynasty? There is no doubt that the United States military has the ability to destroy Irans conventional defensive and offensive resources within a short time. It is obvious we could, Bomb them both back to the stone age as the saying goes. However, that wouldnt necessarily mean that some of the stones thrown later in the contest might not hurt. Iran and North Korea both have unknown asymmetrical war capabilities. Its believed that their allies in Gaza and Lebanon would immediately attack Israel. The Iranians would also do all they could to interrupt the supply of the oil upon which we continue to allow ourselves to depend. They would attempt to attack the oil fields of their neighbors, to close the Straits of Hormuz, attack nearby American bases, and possible stir up rebellions in Sunni ruled countries with either sizable Shiite minorities or in some cases majorities. North Korea would immediately shell Seoul and inflict perhaps millions of casualties. Our troops, over 20,000 strong are right in the line of fire. Their massive wall of artillery is protected by sophisticated SAM sites that would exact a high price from our Air Force. And with a million-man army of fanatic loyalists a land invasion would be daunting to say the least. We might even face terrorist attacks here in the Homeland. This war would not be a cake walk. The military and economic consequences would be immediate and they would be dire. However, as dire as these consequences would be these are not potentially the most troubling. War opens the door for domestic changes that would not be possible during normal times. While we have been and are engaged in a multi-generational seemingly endless series of wars this war might be different. While all our other wars have been fought over there the civilian population continued to live as if Americans were not in harms way even though they were. In other words, we managed to have both guns and butter, war overseas and peace at home. In the case of a war with Iran, North Korea, Russia, or China we might face a situation that could bring the war home to America in multiple ways. Economically gas could skyrocket causing dislocation in our fragile economy. On the military front terror sleeper cells could be activated in America or terrorists could come in through our porous borders. Both the economic impact and terrorist activities would open the door for drastic government action which could well negatively impact our lives. Rights are often curtailed in times of emergency. The cost of war is often seen in the growth of government power and the loss of freedom at home. We might even have to institute a military draft. Does anyone think the snowflake generation would meekly march off to boot camp? Does anyone think they might melt at the first day in boot camp? Where are our safe zones? I should be in the WACS! The drill sergeant looked at me and now I feel threatened. Our worldwide military presence is not keeping us safe and in many ways its provocative. Peace and equitable trade with all is the course recommended by our founders. It was the foreign policy of every administration until McKinley and the default position until FDR. Let us return to our traditions and reject these endless wars for peace. Let us quit supporting other economies with our foreign bases. Let us end the many entangling agreements that bind us to fight for others who should instead fight for themselves. With real peace we could perhaps deal with the domestic issues that are tearing us apart and driving us into bankruptcy. Every patriot should recognize the danger new fronts in our never-ending war will have on our current battle to maintain personal liberty, individual freedom, and economic opportunity here at home. Consequently, patriots should do everything in their power to stop the stampede to war. Stand up for real peace and not for more wars for a peace that never comes. No matter how they package it war does not bring peace. Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  2017 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens Home
Hacker Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, of Vilnius, Lithuania, was arrested last month and charged with stealing more than $100 million from Facebook and Google, according to a Fortune report.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest on March 21 without naming the companies affected.

According to the Justice Department, Rimasauskas incorporated a company in Latvia that had the same name as an Asian hardware manufacturer, then targeted the two victim companies, both of which regularly conducted transactions with the hardware manufacuter, with phishing emails.

The phishing attacks successfully tricked the victims into wiring over $100 million in funds to the Latvian company.

Rimasaukas then transferred the stolen funds into separate bank accounts in Latvia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary and Hong Kong.

A Wake-Up Call for Companies

This case should serve as a wake-up call to all companies  even the most sophisticated  that they too can be victims of phishing attacks by cyber criminals, Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said in a statement. And this arrest should serve as a warning to all cyber criminals that we will work to track them down, wherever they are, to hold them accountable.

Fortune identified the two companies as Google and Facebook, both of which confirmed that they had been targeted.

Facebook recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation, a Facebook spokesperson told Fortune.

We detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities, a Google spokesperson said. We recouped the funds and were pleased this matter is resolved.

Rimasauskas is currently in Lithuania, awaiting extradition to the United States. His lawyer, Linas Kuprusevicius, told Fortune that he denies the allegations and believes he cant expect a fair trial in the U.S.

The uncertainty is further increased taking into account the behavior of FBI agents during the interrogations of Mr. Rimasauskas, frightening him with long years in U.S. prisons, and the transfer of computers to U.S. law enforcement officials, which was made without the presence of the owner, Kuprusevicius said.

The Importance of Security Training

Tripwire senior systems engineer Paul Norris told eSecurity Planet by email that phishing continues to be an effective attack method because both humans and software have trouble identifying a well-crafted phishing email.

However, the bigger problem across the board is user awareness, Norris said. Organizations should implement training programs that help their users understanding aspects of spam, phishing and malware. A little bit of training can go a long way in this area.

A recent CompTIA survey of business and technology executives at 350 U.S. companies found that 58 percent of companies offer security training during new employee orientation, 46 percent perform random audits, and 35 percent offer live fire hands-on labs.

Only half of all companies offer training on an ongoing basis, and just 33 percent feel that they have a very high level of security understanding within the organization.

In a rapidly changing environment, simple one-time efforts such as new employee orientation or posting security policies for review will have low efficacy, the CompTIA report states. Instead, businesses must consider comprehensive security training programs; ideally, these programs will assess the level of security awareness and will be customizable for industry and job role.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.
I hope this is the appropriate place to post this question - it's not strictly an ex-pat question, but is related as you'll see.



First, a little background about my employment situation (if you are familiar with the concept of working through an umbrella company in the UK, you can probably skip this paragraph):



I currently work through an umbrella company in the UK on an assignment for a UK company (I'll call them the customer) and have been doing so for over a year. I am technically a PAYE employee of the umbrella company, who invoice the customer weekly based upon timesheets I submit to the umbrella company. The customer pays these invoices to the umbrella company, who deduct a margin for themselves and all of the usual UK Income Tax and NI (and Student Loan etc), before paying me the remainder as my net income. This is a relatively common arrangement that a lot of workers in the UK are engaged in.



The customer has offices in the US and I have visited these on multiple occasions in the past for periods of a week or two (and on one occasion I was in the US for a total of a month, a 2 week vacation first, then 2 weeks in one of the offices) and have never had any issue with immigration, just using the ESTA and VWP to gain access. I have also visited purely for vacations - in total this calendar year, I have only spent a week in the US (for a vacation, not a work trip). I can dig out more details about my previous visit history in previous years if it's relevant.



So now the customer has expressed that they would like to place me into one of the US offices for a longer period of 1-3 months. I realise that under the ESTA/VWP I can only stay for a maximum of 90 days, so it would be a maximum of just under 3 months in reality. I can see no problem with this as it appears to me as just an extended version of the trips I have done before. I will have round trip tickets (as I believe this is technically a requirement for entry under VWP/ESTA) and the trip will be between 30 and 90 days in duration.



The main complication is that we want my wife to accompany me on this trip for the duration. We are both UK citizens and residents and her travel to the US this calendar year so far is identical to mine, although she is about to spend a week in the US for a vacation. She isn't currently employed, so it a stay-at-home housewife, if that's the right term. The customer is willing to pay for her flights and out accommodation on top of the day rate they will continue to pay to the umbrella company (and therefore indirectly to me) and she will also have return flights booked prior to arrival etc.



In addition to this, I expect I will need to return to the UK for one weekend during the 90 day period. My understanding is that this is not prohibited, although it will not reset the 90 day period for the purposes of my VWP/ESTA situation, which is fine as I am not attempting to do so. It is likely that my wife will also take a domestic flight or two during the period we are in the US, each time travelling with a return flight already booked. We also both plan to travel to the US separately later in the year (November) for a week each on a vacation.



So (sorry about the long preamble), my question: is there anything I should be concerned about in undertaking this trip? Am I likely to experience any issues with customs/border control? Is the fact that my wife is not working (or the fact that I am) likely to cause any issues and is there any particular way we should explain the trip if questioned to ensure it is understood that we have no plans to overstay or seek employment within the US during our stay? Are there any other considerations I'm forgetting about (will my UK driving licence be acceptable for a 90 day lease/rental of a car for example, do I need to consider any special travel/health insurance for the duration of the trip, or anything else)?



Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and I'm more than happy to provide any further detail as it might be required.
The Trump administration will discontinue Let Girls Learn, an initiative launched by former first lady Michelle Obama to help address barriers to girls education around the world, CNN reports.

The program was an interagency effort that included work by Peace Corps volunteers in focus countries to help girls with hygiene, transportation, and financial issues that may keep them out of school. Globally, about 62 million girls are not in school, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

According to CNN:

The "Let Girls Learn" program, which she and President Barack Obama started in 2015 to facilitate educational opportunities for adolescent girls in developing countries, will cease operation immediately, according to an internal document obtained by CNN. While aspects of the initiative's programming will continue, employees have been told to stop using the "Let Girls Learn" name and were told that, as a program unto itself, "Let Girls Learn" was ending. "Moving forward, we will not continue to use the 'Let Girls Learn' brand or maintain a stand-alone program," read an email sent to Peace Corps employees this week by the agency's acting director Sheila Crowley.

Peace Corps will continue to address girls education issues as part of its work, the agency tells CNN.

In a 2015 interview, Michelle Obamas chief of staff, Christina Tchen, explained how Let Girls Learn would allow U.S. teachers to partner with Peace Corps volunteers through fundraisers, teleconferencing, and specialized lesson plans. The aim was to build global awareness and empathy among U.S. students.

One big piece, and the first lady has talked about this, is that we hope kids in the United States will get inspired to rededicate themselves to their own education as they learn about the challenges that these girls around the globe are facing, Tchen said at the time.

Secondly, I think this is a great way to be sure that our students grow up to be global citizens. ... That value of being connected and caring about other parts of the world is a value they will carry with them into adulthood.

Photo: Michelle Obama hugs Sohang Vean, a high school student in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The first lady was in Cambodia in 2015 to promote Let Girls Learn, her effort to remove obstacles that keep 62 million girls around the world from attending school. --Wong Maye-E/AP-File

Related to Let Girls Learn:

Follow @evieblad on Twitter or subscribe to Rules for Engagement to get blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.
Would really appreciate if someone can advice or suggest from their knowledge or experience, as it might help a lot others in same situation.



I completed my Masters Degree(Zoology/Science) almost 15 years back and since then, I have been teaching full time as a science teacher. I then applied for a admission for Masters degree course in 'Early Education' in Monash uni in Melbourne in 2013, as I wanted to enhance my career in the field of teaching education. I got the admission from Monash Uni, and then I applied for the study VISA with my spouse and 2 kids. After some time passed and having an un-expected interview call on the phone (which did not went too well), my VISA was rejected, and main reasons of rejection that were stated were no International Travel history, not a genuine purpose to study etc.



I then completed a 1.5 year diploma from my own country in the field of education in 2015, and kept on doing Teaching job. I then also travelled outside of my country for a visit for the first time in 2016 (Malaysia). Now I am thinking again to apply for study VISA in AU for a diploma in early education to enhance my career, and there is no equivalent of that diploma in my home country.



I am also visiting Australia this year in June (got visit VISA approved) to my brother who is a PR in Australia, and I am planning to apply my diploma VISA onshore while I am on a visit in AU.



I have talked to the some agents for the likelihood of my visa grant for diploma in AU, and they only show following concerns..



1) I applied and got rejected for Masters study VISA in AU back in 2013, and now I am applying for study VISA for shorted course (diploma) in AU which might me odd for the VISA/Case officer.



2) Study gap between my last masters which was 15 years ago (but I think my internationally recognised diploma that I did in 2015 should make this gap lesser)



I am from Pakistan.



Thanks for reading this long post. Looking forward to your opinion.
Hi Guys,



This thread is dedicated for people applied for 189/190 from Singapore.



Hence, anyone living in Singapore and looking to move to Australia may join this group. Ask questions regarding anything from EOI, visa lodging, skill assessment, English test, medicals, visa grant and any other that you think you need help.



All are welcome. All the best.



Ark





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
The golden visa scheme in Spain, which allows foreigners from outside of the European Union to be granted residency for investing in property and other assets, has attracted thousands of investors.The law offering residency permits to investors was introduced in Spain in 2013 and similar programmes are offered in other EU countries including Portugal, Cyprus Malta and Greece.  The latest figures show that most non EU nationals who go down the so called golden visa route invest in property. Under the scheme they can qualify for residency by investing a minimum of 2 million on Spanish treasury bonds, or 1 million in stocks or deposits in Spain, or purchase property valued at more than 500,000.Business projects that generate jobs, have a wider positive impact on an area, or contribute to technological or scientific innovation are also accepted as investment. But it is property that has proved most popular with 72% of the 2.16 billion invested going into real estate.The Government figures show that three years on from its launch the scheme had attracted2,236 investors who also have the right to residency for family members, which means at total of 27,301 new residency permits.The golden visa scheme has been most popular among Chinese and Russian investors who have accounted for 59.4% of total investment with 714 Chinese investing 716 million in property, financial assets and business projects and Russians 685 visas after investing 567 million.During the first year of the scheme, only 500 or so investors applied, providing around 700 million. Given the limited uptake, in 2015, the Spanish Government relaxed the conditions, allowing spouses, children and elderly relatives to be included on visas, as well as extending the period of residency from two to five years.The latest figures show that the number of investors has risen fourfold since 2014, with the amount they have invested increasing three times in the same period. The data also shows that the most popular locations are Barcelona, Malaga, Madrid and Alicante.It has now emerged that British people could be interested in the scheme once the UK leave the EU. There is already a large British expat population in Spain and despite the Brexit process having begun negotiations have been put off until after the British general election on 08 June there have been no indication of what their status will be.Portugals golden visa scheme has also proved popular with 4,000 applications successful since it was launched in 2012 with Chinese nationals making up the biggest group of foreign investors.However, Portugals scheme has more limits that the one on Spain. For example, visa holders are only allowed to live in Portugal and not in other EU countries and the process of applying for citizenship is tougher.Greece is a cheaper option with the minimum investment in property put at 250,000, but there is still considerable economic uncertainty in the country with international investors put off by the possibility that the country could still drop out of the Euro.
Tacoritos is as packaged and branded as a Torchys Tacos, but its flame-stamped tables, its all-sports graphics package, its full bar with decent draft beer picks and its dozen flat-screen TVs are all in service to this single location on a shaded corner by the Walmart on Nacogdoches. The potential for commercial washout is high, but a strong San Antonio ownership team  along with chef and general manager Manuel Cortez helps this franchise-ready taco shop stay connected to its roots.

Tacos: Tacoritos makes some of the citys most adventurous breakfast tacos, in particular the El Paso, with fried tortilla strips, eggs, pico de gallo, avocado cream and chorizo. Call it what you like  the El Paso, migas with chorizo, chori-migas  but call it a solid collection of morning flavors for just $1.95.
Genres : Comedy, Drama, Romance

Starring : William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis, Ed Begley, and Bill Pullman

Director : Lawrence Kasdan

Plot Synopsis

Where to find your favorite fast-food hamburger in Paris? How many laundry-soap packets does a trip to Atlanta require? Ask Macon Leary, whose guidebooks are revered by home-loving business travelers who loathe being in transit. About matters of the heart, don't ask Macon. He doesn't have a clue. At least, not yet.



This funny, tender film of Anne Tyler's best seller reteams director Lawrence Kasdan with his Body Heat stars William Hurt and Kathleen Turner as misfiring Macon and wife Sarah, and showcases Geena Davis in her Best Supporting Actress Academy Award- winning* role of romantically inclined dog-trainer Muriel. Chosen as the year's best movie by the New York Film Critics Circle and a nominee for three other Oscars, including Best Picture, The Accidental Tourist will leave you glowing.
Decades ago, Trinity University was without a stable home. Settling first in Tehuacana near Waco and then Waxahachie, the college was plagued by cramped space, insufficient funding and declining enrollment. At one point, Trinity was in danger of closure, so great were the universitys troubles.

But then James Laurie took the helm as president in 1952, just as Trinity was moving from another spot in San Antonio to its final home, atop a hill that looked out onto the city. Laurie had a different future in mind  a transformation for the private university.

While Southwest architect ONeil Ford was tasked with carving a campus out of what was once a limestone quarry, Laurie set about boosting the schools endowment and academic profile. Over time, Laurie and Fords partnership, and their vision for the university, came to be known as the miracle of Trinity Hill.

This year, the university will attempt to honor that vision as it puts together an application to designate two-thirds of the campus a district on the National Register of Historic Places. If approved, the designation would coincide with Trinitys 75th anniversary in San Antonio. Submitted through the Texas Historical Commission, the universitys application will be considered at a public hearing in Austin in early fall.

By placing Trinity alongside revered institutions such as Princeton University and Harvard University, President Danny Anderson hopes becoming a historic district will raise the universitys national profile while also recognizing its connection to the San Antonio community.

We want the state of Texas to be proud of us, Anderson said. We want the city of San Antonio to be proud.

The designation will also open the door for Trinity to reap tax credits from renovation expenses and apply for grants with organizations that support historic preservation.

Ford, who was known for infusing elements of European modernism into Texas architecture, would go on to design virtually every building on Trinitys campus. For the exteriors, he chose a red brick consistently used across campus. He modeled the campus layout after an Italian village, populating it with connecting walkways and artful landscaping. Two of his creations, Murchison Tower and Margarite B. Parker Chapel, became campus landmarks.

What we have is just a remarkable sense of cohesiveness, a true single feeling of what our campus is, Anderson said.

In San Antonio, Ford also left his mark on La Villita and the Tower of the Americas.

ONeil Ford really was a person who celebrated craft and those little details that really make a building interesting, said Diane Graves, university librarian and chair of Trinitys campus master plan committee.

In Texas, few universities are included in the National Register of Historic Places, Graves said, aside from portions of Texas Tech University.

The decision to pursue historic designation grew out of the development of the universitys strategic plan, which called for a campus master plan. That plan aims to renovate older buildings and enhance Fords legacy through the creation of a front door for the campus, redevelopment of Coates University Center, improvement of student housing and establishment of a corridor between the upper and lower portions of the campus.

Moving forward, Graves said, a historic designation will help address how best to honor what Ford started, working with the best elements of his vision while ensuring the campus continues to evolve.

lcaruba@express-news.net
WASHINGTON  U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro said Monday that he wont seek the Democratic nomination next year to challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, clearing the way for a likely Senate contest between Cruz and U.S Rep. Beto ORourke of El Paso.

Castro, of San Antonio, said in a statement that he intends to remain focused on his work in the House, where his committee assignments include a coveted seat on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

With the threats posed by Russia and North Korea, coupled with the reckless behavior of this administration and their failure to invest in economic opportunity for the American people, at this time I believe I can best continue that work by focusing on my duties in the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, his statement read.

Castro thanked those who had encouraged him to run and said he would be traveling in Texas for Democratic candidates. He made no mention of ORourke in his statement, but an aide said it was likely that Castro would be working on ORourkes behalf.

This is just the beginning, so keep it up. Our work is just getting started, Castro said to those who offered him encouragement at rallies.

Castro, 42, is viewed as one of Texas most popular and aggressive young Democrats, along with twin brother Julian, a former San Antonio mayor who returned home in January after 30 months heading the Housing and Urban Development Department in the Obama administration.

A recent poll showed Joaquin Castro slightly leading Cruz among registered Texas voters in a hypothetical matchup.

But Castros decision suggests an awareness of potential damage to his career from losing to Cruz, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination last year and has cultivated a national following among ardent conservatives despite sitting in the Senate for less than a full term.

Castro, first elected to the House in 2012, declared last summer that he intended to weigh a campaign against Cruz, and he has done so during a tumultuous period for politics and national security.

President Donald Trumps negative ratings early in his presidency and the failure by Congress with key initiatives thus far suggest potential midterm election peril for GOP candidates.

Meanwhile, a Texas Lyceum poll conducted early last month showed Castro with more support than Cruz, 35 percent to 31 percent, just outside the polls margin of error. The poll showed Cruz and ORourke running neck and neck.

But the early survey also found that nearly one-third of voters hadnt thought enough about the Senate race to have an opinion.

Castro might have held an advantage over ORourke in a primary, given his work to rebuild the Texas Democratic Party, which hasnt won a statewide race since 1994.

But the winner of that Democratic contest likely would have emerged bruised and drained of a portion of the significant resources needed for the run at Cruz.

Texas Democratic strategist Matt Angle observed that unseating Cruz likely will be a stiff challenge.

By everybodys measure, its an uphill slog, said Angle, executive director of the Lone Star Project, an organization that promotes Democrats in Texas.

Its going to take creativity and a fresh approach. He (ORourke) is being very forthright and very frank and very genuine. It presents such an important contrast to Ted Cruz, whose every move is calculated, Angle contended.

ORourke, a three-term congressman, often has taken an unconventional path, stressing his independence and relying heavily on social media to deliver his message.

He has continued that practice in the campaign, using Facebook and Twitter as his primary means to communicate.

In a fundraising solicitation Saturday, ORourke said hed received 19,487 contributions thus far while visiting 22 cities and traveling over 4,000 miles since declaring his candidacy March 31.

O'Rourke said in a statement Monday that he had spoken earlier in the day to Castro, who he referred to as an extraordinary member of Congress.

He said he told Castro he understood the decision, adding, I know that we will continue to work together for a long time to come and I am grateful for that.

In recent days, Cruz has trumpeted his newly filed legislation that calls for using assets of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera and other drug lords to finance a proposed wall along the border with Mexico. Guzman, who had escaped prison twice in Mexico, recently was extradited to the U.S. to face charges.

The Justice Department declared in January that it would seek forfeiture of over $14 billion in Guzmans drug profits sent from the U.S. to Mexico. Cruz has cited that figure in promoting his legislation and fundraising, but it is unknown how much of those proceeds remain or how much of that could be retrieved from Mexico.

blambrecht@express-news.net
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When Maya Crenshaw reports to work at the Childrens Shelter, shes ready for a day of playful conversations with youngsters, keeping order and soothing fears.

For the past two years, shes worked as an assistant supervisor at Zachry Cottage, a 66-bed emergency dorm for children, from birth to 16 years of age, removed from their homes by Child Protective Services or local law enforcement officers. On this day, her first stop was tending to a toddler with a cold; his T-shirt read, Dont worry, Im invincible.

Come on, papa, Crenshaw said as she led him to the medical room. Come over here so I can take your temperature.

A digital thermometer flashed a reading of 99.1 degrees. She had him drink a small cup of honey and lemon juice before a staff member walked him to the clinic.

By the time Crenshaw had settled behind the front desk, she had hugged several children, helped talk a boy down from a table top and brokered a truce between two preteen girls.

Each shift presents ever-changing scenarios for Crenshaw and fellow staff members who work hard and fast to build relationships with the youths. They tailor their approach to each child, who can have outbursts or bouts of silence, both triggered by traumatic memories.

Our kids put on a brave face, said Crenshaw, 24. Its not easy for them at all.

Year-round support

Youth specialists, volunteers and donors provide comfort and stability year-round for the youngsters who come through their doors. Officials said 90 percent of staff members have reported that they stay because they have found an intrinsic value in helping the children heal.

The Childrens Shelter is an independent nonprofit that has a contract with the state to provide trauma-informed care, temporary to long-term, for children removed from their homes because of abuse, abandonment or neglect. Founded in 1901, the shelter is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Its staffed with 222 full-time employees, whose mission is to provide a nurturing environment for children in the South Texas region. Each child undergoes basic medical and dental exams upon arrival; newborns to those 2 years of age have a developmental exam to identify particular needs.

Last fiscal year, the shelter cared for 343 children, from infants to 16. The average stay was 49 days, and the average age was 4 years old.

In 2006, after a $14 million fundraising campaign, the nonprofit moved from its old location at 133 Cedar St. to the Glenda Woods campus at 2939 W. Woodlawn Ave. The 10-acre campus on the West Side includes a cafeteria, school, early childhood center, gym, art studio and the Harvey E. Najim Hope Center, which provides mental health services for the children and their families to address abandonment, neglect and abuse issues.

The shelter is one of five properties the nonprofit owns. Others include a center that offers family strengthening programs at 1209 S. St. Marys St. and a thrift boutique at 1407 S. St. Marys.

The children are under the watchful eye of youth specialists who communicate via walkie-talkies and monitor the kids in the cottage and around campus through multiple live video feeds.

Their stay can vary from 30 to 90 days, depending on whether relatives can take them in. Family members and potential foster families undergo background checks, screenings and pre-placement visits at the shelter. With approval from CPS, some family members have supervised visits with their children.

Help from the state

Gov. Greg Abbott made protecting children an emergency issue for the Legislature this session, and both chambers had committee hearings on bills that would overhaul the child welfare system. Proposed plans include more emphasis on local nonprofit agencies playing a larger role in casework, behavioral health care and foster care.

Anais Biera Miracle, the shelters vice president of external affairs, said the shelter works with CPS to reunite children with their biological parents when its safe and provide physical, mental and social support to keep families together. She said the states bills could give organizations with a demonstrated successful history in the community more license to provide safety, well-being and a permanent home for children.

There is a big push to place them in homes, with kinship families and relative families, Miracle said. And those families still need the same equivalent of support that any other family needs. The circumstances the children have endured have caused them to exhibit behaviors and symptoms as a result of their experiences.

When the children come to the shelter, the staff works to peel back the layers so they can enjoy their childhood, she said. The child is behaving out of a need and there is a deficit. Its not just love they need, but intervention. A sense of trust has been taken from them. These children are the human part of what we do.

Focusing on the children

Upstairs in the two-story cottage, emergency shelter case manager Javier De Hoyos office resembled a one-stop shop for anything a child might need if he or she is distressed.

A small Buzz Lightyear toy was on his desk. The legs of a Spider-Man action figure jutted from the top of a bookcase filled with soap, bottles of lotion, a first-aid kit, a stuffed backpack and a box of tissues.

We give the child an opportunity to grow, said De Hoyos, who has worked at the shelter for 27 years. And let them know that they have it within themselves to make changes along the way. We just want a normal life for these kids.

De Hoyos said staff members are trained to use words that redirect bad behavior and support the children when theyre upset. The specialists attend three-day trust-based intervention classes and learn de-escalation techniques. They also offer comfort in other ways including privacy, soft music, a journal in which to write about their feelings and one-on-one talks with De Hoyos or other staff members.

The job is not just for anybody, he said. Its not a normal day care setting. Unfortunately, everybody comes with some type of story or baggage, and its tough to work with children raised differently than normalcy. Theyre getting by with what they learned and what they know. Were hoping with all of the positives we share with them that eventually theyll catch on to one thing that will help them be successful once they leave here.

He recalled a teenage girl who found it hard to stop straightening her bedspread and leave her area. She had never had her own bed; at her home, she slept outside in a tent.

And De Hoyos recalled the day a 14-year-old girl brought him her report card to show him how she had improved in her classes.

Wow, I am impressed, he said. As and Bs, that is good. I want you to keep it up.

You know what Mr. Javier? Im going to try even harder to get all As, he recalled the girl saying.

De Hoyos said the words of inspiration the children hear tells them that someone believes in them.

Help from the community

A large share of support comes from volunteers, donors, local residents and organizations.

Having loving, fun holidays is an important part of providing normalcy, and Christmas is perhaps the biggest one for the kids. Last Christmas, volunteer T.J. Johnson and several students from the University of Texas at San Antonio, among others, hosted a pajama party for 28 children at the Courtyard Marriott SeaWorld ballroom, where toys, donated by volunteers, dotted the floor.

A boy with a Batman mask pressed a remote control pad, making a truck rumble over a plastic dinosaur. Girls doted on new dolls while two boys on skateboards zipped by Johnson, wearing a Santa hat, Superman T-shirt and red pajama pants.

Johnson started volunteering in 2012 after he noticed the shelters campus on his way to church. During his first year, he met a young girl at the residential center who sang Jesus Take the Wheel, and he broke down.

Hearing her sing was my stamp of approval from God, he said.

Now, Johnson and his friends are part of a volunteer network that hosts holiday parties.

Youd be amazed how generous this city is when it comes to these kids, Johnson said.

Johnson knows the emotional upheaval the kids experience. He grew up in a crack house in Killeen, and for a short time stayed at a shelter. He still remembers nights sleeping on a cot, wishing for a bed of his own. Johnson said memories of good deeds people did for him gave him hope and that now he wants to help create memorable moments for the kids at the shelter.

Thats my purpose, he said, to present light to them in a dark situation.

Nighttime challenges

The most challenging time for many of the children is at night. Thats when room monitors, who stay in the sleeping areas, reassure young ones visited by ghosts of the past. Its a time when monitors sing lullabies to restless toddlers and the only sound that breaks the silence are periodic beeps from front desk computers.

Amber light gleamed through the cottage windows as Maria Vasquez rocked a 22-month-old boy in her lap. It was the second night that the tot, with a blanket slung over his shoulder, had sought someone to hold him. She stroked his forehead softly with her fingers until he shut his eyes. When Vasquez rose to get up, he pointed for her to sit back down.

She said the children are distracted by activities during the day and dont have to think about anxieties that arise when the lights dim.

Its so impactful to see kids who have seen more than the average child, Vasquez said, and seen things no child should be exposed to.

Days before Christmas, inside the toddler room, youth care specialist Alma Ojeda looked over the small ones asleep, curled up in their cribs. She said unlike past years, the shelter had received an early Christmas gift  empty beds throughout the cottage.

It means hopefully that people are taking care of their children, Ojeda said.

When overnight shift supervisor Thelma Mize arrived, Vasquez told her about CPS caseworkers who called at 6:48 p.m. saying they were bringing two brothers, 4 months old and 2 years old. The boys were removed because of neglectful supervision and concern that they were being abused.

At 10:45 p.m., a CPS caseworker buzzed the gate from her car and identified herself and a co-worker to the front desk monitor. One caseworker carried a wide-eyed infant, the other walked with a toddler bearing an unblinking, stunned look on his face.

Jennifer Tolar, 55, took the boy to the toddler bathroom, where she bathed him and cleaned his dirty fingernails. Tolar said many children cry when she cleans them. The toddler didnt utter a word.

Mize, 58, took individual photos of the boys for their files, noting any scars and marks.

Youth care specialist Brenda Farias hummed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, as she cradled the infant in a rocking chair. Tolar walked the 2-year-old to his bed, where he smiled for the first time and raised his eyebrows as he jabbed a finger at the smiling Monsters Inc. bedsheets and pillowcase. Meanwhile, at the desk, Mize and the caseworkers exchanged documents and filled out a stack of paperwork.

Working it out

After two hours on her shift, a steady tide of little ones had passed Crenshaw, who sat across from the storage room, lined with shelves of care products and the childrens personal items.

I really love it here, Crenshaw said. Its rewarding. We get to be the difference, and thats exciting. It hurts the most when I cant help and you can see the hurt in their eyes.

Later, she greeted a 4-year-old boy known to blurt out curse words and then promptly correct himself, saying, I know, I know, use good choices. She said the staff feels a sense of pride when they see children recognize bad behavior and echo their words. The boy now substitutes swearing with words such as flowers and thank you.

One recent day, Shirley Harris, 56, wrapped her arms around the youngster during a lunch hour where the children chatted and munched on their meals.

During 26 years at the shelter, the woman the kids call Mama Shirley has seen her share of young ones who have born signs of abuse.

It was an encounter in 1990 with a girl who was beaten by her mother and bore the imprint of a mans boot on her face that prompted her to action.

When she asked the girl what she needed, the youngster said shed like a pretty red dress and bows. With help from a woman at Wells Fargo, Harris secured 200 red dresses and started the Girls Walk in Red program.

As kids skipped to the playground, the boy now reformed from shouting expletives followed a girl and teased her, until Harris had him sit with her.

Trust me, she said, hugging him, Lets be nice, OK?

He nodded his head as he gnawed on a banana.

Celeste Longoria, 23, just started working at the shelter in February. In the infant room, the expectant mother slipped a sleeper on a baby girl who wailed until the room monitor fed her a bottle of milk.

She said its been an eye-opening experience.

Its heartbreaking, Longoria said, holding the infant, swaddled in a blanket. You would never think that these things would happen to little kids.

vtdavis@express-news.net
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Edward Benavides waved to hundreds of thousands of people in the Texas Cavaliers, King William, Battle of Flowers and Fiesta Flambeau parades this year. For the last two, he was on the lookout for his own family sitting along Broadway.

Its a family Fiesta tradition. But the chief executive officer of the Tricentennial Commission isnt the first in his family to wave at crowds during those parades. As a child, he recalls waiting excitedly for his grandfather to appear.

It was the highlight for us, he said.

Manuel Benavides then worked for the city of San Antonio, operating one of the large street sweepers that closed out each procession in grand fashion. I remember looking forward to it myself.

Fiesta was so important to him he took out a small loan each spring to make the celebration possible for his family. It included his 10 children, his grandchildren and now his great-grandchildren.

San Antonians, especially native ones, have similar stories of Fiestas long past filled with people long gone who made memories as easily as they made friends. They were the first to shell out cash for tickets and food coupons and werent opposed to stocking ice chests and hauling them.

They left tender, hilarious memories that come back with every crack of a cascaron, every raspa, every noisy horn. They were examples, and we honor their memories by gathering in their names.

That was the kind of guy that Ace Tinch was. Amy Woods father loved Fiesta so much, he volunteered to work booths at Night in Old San Antonio for decades, selling souvenirs and pouring beer for the San Antonio Conservation Society.

He was the embodiment of Fiesta 365 days of the year, Wood said. He died suddenly in 2009, and the next year the family began another tradition, buying a spot along the San Antonio River to host 60 guests to watch the parade.

This year they gathered under a banner with his picture on it. Hes shown wearing a sombrero. Woods mother, Joyce, wasnt the only one who said Ace would have been thrilled so many people had such a blast last Monday night.

Terry Carmona, along with her husband, Fred, helped co-found the Fiesta Flambeau Parade Association, which he also served as president. Fiesta was everything to him, she said, and getting the Flambeau to where it is now  its the largest Fiesta parade and the largest illuminated parade in the country  was in part his doing. He died in 2011.

The Kazamba Dance and Drum Group especially sets off memories for her. I do a lot of stuff for Flambeau as a tribute to him, she said. It can be a tough time, but at the same time I know how happy it made him.

Maria D. Robles Fiesta memories revolve around her parents, Manuel and Angelita Robles, because they worked so hard to give their children the celebration. Her dad would park a truck off Broadway and 10th near the VFW early Friday morning, and it would stay put until Saturday night.

Hed take his family to the carnival, too. I cannot remember the exact game we played, she said. But (one year) the prizes were live goats. He won several. They stayed in the garage. But only until mom decided what to do with them.

My Fiesta memories revolve around my parents, too, who scrimped to provide many joyous experiences, including Fiesta. My aunts Emma and Nina were co-conspirators.

My brother Albert and I grew up loving Fiesta, in spite of its history and exclusionary roots. As an adult, he was at the center of it, decorating parade floats, making costumes and teaching dance routines. One year he found a white drum majors jacket he embellished with silver and gold beads. He looked grand atop a float.

After he died in 1999, I waited for just the right person to keep celebrating Fiesta in that jacket.

When my friend Michael Quintanilla joined the San Antonio Express-News, he inherited Alberts jacket, which has had many transformations since the late 1980s.

This year, Michael served as grand marshal of the Peoples Parade at Fiestas opening ceremonies, and he wore the jacket. I try not to cry when I see it every year at all the events to which Michael is invited.

And I remind myself that Albert made me promise to make memories. So, this Fiesta thats exactly what we  and his jacket  did. I hope you did, too.

eayala@express-news.net

Twitter: @ElaineAyala
Canadian artist Maud Lewis lived in a tiny house covered in her paintings, which she sold door to door in Nova Scotia. A biopic of her life, Maudie, is a surprise hit in theaters, reports the BBC.

The film's success has also been spurred by a rather serendipitous find: an unknown Maud Lewis painting found in a thrift shop is being auctioned off for charity, with bids topping C$125,000 ($91,500, 70,685). The work was authenticated by Mr Deacon, a retired school teacher who is now somewhat of a Maud Lewis sleuth. 

Typically characterised as a "folk artist", Lewis was self-taught and lived her whole life in poverty. Unable to afford things like canvas, she'd paint on anything from scraps of wood and plywood to thick card stock. Her subjects were the things she saw in her everyday life  fishermen, wildlife, flowers and trees.

"Maud was not a person who travelled to other galleries or saw other art, so there's a kind of naivete to it," Noble told the BBC.
Wolfen stars Albert Finney as a detective assigned to figure out why a rich developer gentrifying the Bronx got mutilated and spread over an acre of Battery Park. Set at the turn of the 1980s, it was the first movie with a clear vision of what should be done with Donald Trump.

Starting out as a gritty urban-wasteland slasher flick, it unfolds over blighted neighborhoods and under gray skies, slowly evolving into something far weirder. The coroner finds canine hair on a corpse, but it isn't from a known species. Political pressure to blame anticapitalist terrorists hinders the investigation. Further victims show no obvious connection to one another.

Dewey learns that a cabal of Wolfenintelligent creatures that may be psychically connected to clued-in humansare defending their turf. Unraveling their motives, he is first told by Native Americans that they are powerful beyond his understanding, but finally realizes that they are something like himself, like the city, overwhelming yet fragile and unsure of how to accommodate themselves to the inevitable.

Directed by Michael Wadleigh, this exceptionally odd and ingenious movie approaches greatness. It's too slow and bloated to get there, but it lives beyond its limitations and is completely shameless. It loves an idea of nature, but it loves New York, too. Perhaps this is why it's so ambivalent and appealing. Consider the many "let's look at Wolfen again" articles like this one, each with a somewhat different take (some of them very smart), all because the historical context that gave it meaning in the first place was gone in a flash.

James Horner's music is great, and contains phrases later perfected in the Aliens score. Lancashire lad Finney sometimes bothers to put on a decent American accent. The city looks grossly decrepid and depopulated, but unlike other films of the era, Wolfen knows the money is coming back. The supporting cast works hard; there's a bad romance subplot.

Here you can see Predator-vision in its prototype incarnation, right down to the synthesized "fwoosh!" noise that plays when you get snapped into it. Predator's execution offers the viewer a gripping voyeuristic tension. But in Wolfen, where seeing the action from the hunter's viewpoint suggests a spiritual connection, it means something more.1

The movie doesn't spare the well-meaning humans who identify with wolves. They get eaten too. Wolfen is an unsentimental movie, at least when it comes to us. At a glance it might seem a paradoxically New Age survival-of-the-fittest parable. But it's not. It's saying: nature does not care if you idealize or identify with it. It just needs to eat.

I saw this at 12 on an awful VHS copy, so Wolfen is one of my lightening bolts  among the things that turned me on to the weird and (very broadly speaking) the queer. As Olmos's Native American activist tells Dewey in the denouement scene: "You got your technology but you lost your senses". And maybe he means souls, too and maybe he's looking, too.

What I didn't get as a kid is how political Wolfen is, how lefty. This seems very on-topic right now. The anti-capitalist message is as strong and trenchant as Robocop's, though nowhere near as funny. But Wolfen arrived as its brand of radical politics was collapsing, years before a new one formed.

Native Americans are the key to Dewey's education, but their portrayal will be a stumbling block to modern viewers. They are wise yet poor. They drink at a bar called "The Wigwam". Representation of spiritual beliefs hovers in an uncomfortable place between othering and idealization. Wadleigh cast multiple native actors in prominent, speaking roles, though, and white people's hearts end up in the right place: torn out.

The relationship between Wolfen and Native Americans is a central enigma of the movie, and it is left this way: the script suggests that the Wolfen are a species higher on the food and soul chain, but even after it deals with the detective's suspicion that Native characters are literally werewolves, the camera can't quite let go of that imagery.

Wadleigh says he should have adhered more to Whitley Streiber's novel, where native characters are themselves predated by Wolfen, and that he wanted less of the Wolfen seen in the first place. But he was overruled by producers, so it may be that the imposition of a rougher creative vision forced these ambiguities upon his film. The scenes where you see "Wolfen" snarling or howling, for example, were inserted in post-production by John Hancock, hired to make the film more commercially appealing.

Worse is the sluggish pace and editing. It invites you to hate it. Roger Ebert's perceptive review ("it's not about werewolves, it's about souls") noted this and tried to justify it artistically, but 30 years of hindsight make the cutting-room ineptitude obvious. Wadleigh yearns to make a director's cut that restores its political and dramatic clarity. 2

So there's my problem with Wolfen: It doesn't go far enough. The movie invites you to see things from the Wolfen point of view, but isn't quite sure what to let you know of it. Wolfen are posed as metaphors for both ecological harmony ("In their world, there can be no lies, no crimes," says an old man) and capitalist voracity. It'd be tough work making sense of that, and the movie shrinks from it entirely in favor being a mysterious supernatural slasher flick.

Take the big showdown, between Dewey and the boss Wolfen. It builds well: there's accommodation and unresolved tension. There's man and nature, wary of one another, irreconcilable even at the moment of understanding, when he sees himself through their eyes.

But by then making the South Bronx redevelopment stuff the final dramatic themeFinney smashes a model of skyscrapers and the Wolfen vanisheverything is reduced to a concession so simple a planning official could have made it.

It shows the Wolfen as awake to human business, yet open to rational compromise. It provides a neat ending that lets us retreat back to the human point of view and regard the Wolfen as a faction to be negotiated with rather than manifestations of an ecological yet spiritual imperative of which we are ourselves another intrinsic expression.

In terms of story, this sells us short. It's pessimistic, too: the Wolfen become a neighborhood anti-gentrification committee with attitude.

Still, though, what an attitude!

I'm not saying this movie centers on Donald Trump or how his class set out to revive and devour New York in the 70s, or the sort of people he didn't want living in his developments, or why he thinks "Pocahontas" is such a hilarious insult, though it is about all those things.

I'm just saying we should think, maybe, about why a movie from 35 years ago had a stand-in for him ripped up under the Battery Park windmill by nature's last secret, to stop him becoming a politician.

Wolfen [Amazon]

PAWNOTES

1. With a few decades' familiarity with CG technology under our belts, Wolfen-sight has drifted from an alien viewpoint to one signifying machine vision. This was surely not intended in 1982, but it sharpens a metaphor that was intended: when cops interrogate a suspected terrorist with a fancy digital polygraph, the failure of science to recapture a lost instinct is made clearer.

2. Could Wolfen be remade? Sure. It's who remakes it that matters. If we do remake it, the wolfen-sight should be beautiful infrared dreams, as in these photos by J.C Reyes and others.
The White House sent a letter to Congress pledging a commitment to the robust and thorough enforcement of the Global Magnitsky Act.

Congress adopted the Global Magnitsky Act in December 2016. It gives the President power to impose visa bans and freeze U.S. assets against anyone who suppresses basic human rights or targets whistleblowers exposing corruption.

The Global Magnitsky Act  its full name is the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act  targets any foreign citizen responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals in any foreign country.

The President can also impose sanctions on foreign officials engaged in significant corruption, including the expropriation of private or public assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, bribery, or the facilitation or transfer of the proceeds of corruption to foreign jurisdictions.

In his April 20 letter to Congress, President Trump said his Administration is actively identifying persons and entities to whom the Act may apply and is collecting the evidence necessary to apply it.

Over the coming weeks and months, the letter said, agencies will undertake thorough interagency vetting to ensure we fulfill our commitment to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses and corruption accountable.

The President said the United States will continue its leadership role in championing fundamental human rights and sound, transparent governance.

The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act expands the Magnitsky Act adopted in 2012.

The Magnitsky Act was aimed at Russian officials and others involved in the detention or death of Sergei Magnitsky, or anyone who tried to cover it up.

Magnisky was a Russian lawyer who exposed a $230 million tax fraud.

He died in a Moscow jail in 2009 at age 36. His family and former client, William Browder, the CEO of Hermitage Capital, said Magnitsky was tortured and denied medical care.

The Russian government said he died of natural causes.

Under the Magnitsky Act, the United States sanctioned 39 individuals, including Russian government officials and alleged mobsters.

* * *

Heres the full text of the Presidents letter to Congress:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

April 20, 2017

A Letter from the President to Certain Congressional Committee Chairs

TEXT OF A LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

TO THE CHAIRMEN OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE COMMITTEES ON APPROPRIATIONS AND THE JUDICIARY,

THE HOUSE COMMITTEES ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND THE SENATE COMMITTEES ON FOREIGN RELATIONS AND BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS



Dear Mr. Chairman:

In accordance with section 1264 of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Subtitle F, Public Law 114-328)(the Act) I have enclosed the initial report on its implementation. This report, compiled by the Departments of State, the Treasury, and other relevant executive departments and agencies (agencies), outlines my Administrations support for this important legislation and makes clear our commitment to its robust and thorough enforcement.

As noted in the report, my Administration is actively identifying persons and entities to whom the Act may apply and are collecting the evidence necessary to apply it. Over the coming weeks and months, agencies will undertake thorough interagency vetting to ensure we fulfill our commitment to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses and corruption accountable.

As we implement this legislation, the United States will continue its leadership role in championing fundamental human rights and sound, transparent governance.

Sincerely,

DONALD J. TRUMP

___

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Kim Kardashian West will attend the 2017 Met Gala without husband Kanye West.

Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West at Met Gala 2016

The 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' beauty will reportedly not have the 'Famous' rapper there for support at the annual bash, which gets underway in New York City this evening (01.05.17), as he is still weary of attending public events following his stint in hospital for exhaustion in November.

The 39-year-old musician will instead be looking after his and the 36-year-old reality star's three-year-old daughter North and seven-month-old son Saint at their Los Angeles pad.

A source told PEOPLE magazine: "Kanye West will not be attending the Met Ball tomorrow.

"Kim will be flying solo. He's still very much enjoying his time off from public events.

"He'll be staying back in L.A. with their kids.

"Everything is great with him and Kim and he's supportive of her going solo."

It is the first time the pair haven't attended the star-studded bash together since they made their debut in 2013.

Last year the couple rocked matching silvery outfits.

The metallic dress Kim wore was actually a combination of two Balmain gowns created by Olivier Rousteing and fitted the party's Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology theme perfectly.

Kanye revealed at the time: "Thank you Olivier for making 4 dresses for Kim to choose from which we chopped 2 in half (sic)"

Meanwhile, Kim recently admitted her "heart dropped" when she found out Kanye had been hospitalised after a breakdown.

She said: "I get a call from one of Kanye's friends and my heart drops. They're not telling me anything and I am so scared and I don't know what to do. He's crying on the phone to me and he wouldn't say what's wrong and I'm like, 'Tell me what's wrong.' I just don't know what to do."
My friend Yasuo Amano, whose themed magic I've posted here before, visited The Tokyo Disney Resort for two days and sampled their seasonal Easter events. If you've only been to a Disney park in the United States, the incredible theming they do at the two parks in Tokyo will blow you away. There are Easter decorations everywhere at Tokyo Disneyland, a full Easter parade at Tokyo Disneyland and a special show at Tokyo DisneySea, hundreds of pieces of Easter merchandise, and even special food for the event.

Amano not only shot a great montage of the Easter festivities (which continue for three months), but he also created some special Easter-themed magic and incorporated it into his visit.

Above, an official video showing the Easter celebrations at the parks. Below is Amano's video of his personal visit and Easter-themed magic tricks.
Despite not even hitting cinemas across the globe yet, Wonder Woman is already being discussed for a sequel by the director behind the upcoming flick, Patty Jenkins.

Wonder Woman hits cinemas this June

Speaking to The Toronto Sun, she explained: Im excited for her to come to America and become the Wonder Woman we are all familiar with from having grown up around her as an American superhero.

She added of a potential sequel: Id like to bring her a little farther along into the future and have a fun, exciting storyline that is its own thing.

Starring Gal Gadot in the titular role, Wonder Woman will bring the character to life following her guest appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and ahead of the Justice League superhero team-up movie later this year.

The movie is expected to not only bring Dianas origin story to viewers, but a story from World War I and a third that takes place in the present day, with Steve Rogers (Chris Pine) and the Amazonian Princess teaming up.

Jenkins added of the solo film: I always thought the origin story would be the great way to go. I love origin superhero stories and I love the simplicity you can have with that journey.

Also, there was the fact that no one had done her story and the fact that I love her. So it was a treasure trove of potential.

Wonder Woman hits UK cinemas on June 1, ahead of its US release on June 2.

by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk

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The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.

The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.#

The new website will drive the Montreal-based company's ecommerce goals and boost cross-category sales to grow Aldos popularity in footwear and accessories.

The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.#

"We are committed to designing a universal digital experience: accessible, responsive, social, human-centered, and most of all, easy to evolve and scale. We involved our consumers at each step of the creative process, focussing on flows and details to go beyond convenience and build meaningful services for style seekers," said Gregoire Baret, GM of Experience Design. Baret also led the foray of Aldos new connected test stores.

The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.#

The revamped global storefront goes live in several global markets including the US, Canada and Europe. Visitors to the site get an experience that is lightning-fast, giving shoppers the speed they expect today in e-commerce experiences. The site presents a new visual design language and stunning fashion photography and is functional across devices. It is connected to the "new and now", with styling tips from social media influencers.

The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.#

The move comes as Aldo transitions leadership, with company founder Aldo Bensadoun naming son David Bensadoun the new CEO earlier this month. It's also part of Aldos laser-focus on showing shoppers that it's a digitally-centric brand.

The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.#

Jennifer Maks, VP Omnichannel, said: Our new digital experiences are aimed at inspiring people to explore more from Aldo and make it a primary destination for shoes, bags and accessories. Our new ecommerce website acts as the core engine for our omnichannel strategy, as a natural complement to our stores.

The Aldo Group, a world-leading creator and operator of desirable footwear and accessory brands, has launched a new responsive website and e-commerce platform that raises the bar for retail online, in-store and mobile channels. The move marks the latest phase of digital transformation in the company and will push strong momentum in its mobile transactions.#

In creating Aldos new site, we focused on elevating the brand to ensure shoppers get a rich, premium experience. At the same time, the new digital presence is simple and fast --letting them find and purchase exactly what they're looking for in a matter of seconds. We're proud to be part of Aldos evolution to a seamless experience across stores, its website, mobile, customer service and the employee experience, said Rachel Bogan, a partner at digital product agency Work & Co. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brands Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

The app, available in four languages, is also the first to integrate the Hilfiger Club loyalty programme.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

Tommy Hilfiger is such an iconic global brand with a loyal following. The functionality and ease-of-use of its new mobile app offers a unique way for customers to connect with the brand, and provides an opportunity for fans to develop a deeper connection with its brand ambassador Gigi Hadid, said Nitin Mangtani, founder and chief executive officer of PredictSpring.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

In an era of mobile first, consumers are spending most of their time on mobile devices, and mobile apps provide an instant, direct-to-consumer shopping experience seamlessly blending content and commerce, Mangtani said.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

Notable features of Tommy Hilfiger's new European mobile app, powered by PredictSpring, include shop-the-look on Instagram which allows consumers to browse and purchase from the Tommy Hilfiger Instagram feed, seamlessly integrated into the app, including styles from the TommyxGigi capsule collection. A "buy button" encourages purchase and makes checkout fast, simple, and secure.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

Members of the Hilfiger Club can login to their loyalty accounts via the app and receive personalised messages, promotions and event invitations. Consumers also have immediate access to loyalty rewards. The in-store item scanning feature allows app users to scan tags in-store to check product availability and order items directly through the app.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

The app presents enhanced personalised features with consumers receiving push and geo-fence notifications, allowing them to access wishlists, purchase history, and a store locator feature within the app.

PredictSpring, a mobile commerce leader, has entered into a partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, a premium lifestyle brand, to build and launch its first mobile app targeting the European market. The app offers consumers in 17 countries the ability to shop looks directly from the brand's Instagram feed, including looks from the TommyxGigi capsule collection.#

Our mission was to democratise the runway and make every look immediately available to all consumers around the world. Our social channels amplify the dynamic, engaging story around our runway shows, and we wanted to take this to the next level with the integration of shopping functionality via a dedicated mobile app. The PredictSpring approach creates a seamless consumer experience that reflects how the current generations of digital natives are using social media and interacting with their favorite brands today, said Avery Baker, chief brand officer, Tommy Hilfiger. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Cover Story of Future Style Lab, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Future Group, has plans to expand its business with the launch of its own online platform by the end of 2017. Aiming to achieve top line growth of over 200 per cent in the financial year 2017-18, the fashion brand which has completed a year in April, will also launch 20 new stores.

Cover Story will increase its total retail footprint to 20 exclusive stores and 60 plus shop in shops. 2017 will be the year of brand building and creating brand presence. The key focus in 2017 will be to launch cover story exclusive stores across major malls / markets across the country," CEO, Future Style Lab, Manjula Tiwari told a leading daily.

The fashion brand has also bagged one of the best performing brands recognition retailed in Future Groups large format store Central. Cover Story has expanded its business across Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Surat last year. "Cover Story will also increase its visibility and availability on the Internet, where the brand will be available on multiple online sites apart from our own Internet site which is scheduled to go live soon," added Tiwari.

"There is a sweet spot to be taken with Indian consumers- global trends adapted to Indian sensibilities.There is a desire for variety other than the usual available in the market. Consumers still want to follow the trends, but they want options as to where they get that from. The Indian woman is becoming more financially independent and is smart with her money  she understands value, and demands the best her money can afford," said Tiwari. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The participants at Pakistan's 10International Textile Machinery and Garment Technology Exhibition (Igatex 2017) have vowed to start joint ventures. At the recently concluded textile exhibition, foreign companies at large have assured to associate with Pakistani companies for business. Various business deals were also developed during the programme.

"The 10th exhibition was the most successful event of the series where many companies have announced to return to to participate in the Lahore exhibition to be held on the same dates next year. The response of the event was way beyond our expectations," Saleem Khan Tanoli, chief executive officer of Fakt Exhibitions, told the media.

"More than 550 companies from 35 countries, including Germany, Italy, UK, USA, China and Switzerland, participated in the exhibition, which was a record participation," Tanoli said. Visitors to the expo represented buyers from department stores, retail chains, and independent retailers, wholesalers, trading houses, agents, importers and more.

The fair was an opportunity for textile manufacturers to directly market their equipment to quality buyers and decision makers in an exceeding competitive global business environment. Igatex 2017 gave businesses a platform to showcase their product and manufacturing capabilities to an audience of quality buyers. The show included working and stand alone demonstrations of various cutting edge industry tools and technology.

Nearly 73 Italian, 50 Chinese, 70 German, 25 Turkish and 80 Pakistani companies showcased their products at the international expo. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Tavemex SA de CV of Mexico has become the second denim producer in the world to install a Monforts Eco Denim Line, and the first to use the technology for finishing denim fabrics of up to 300 g/sqm. Early this year, the company completed the installation of the Eco Denim Line which reduces the usage of water by 80 per cent for denim finishing.

Tavemexs installed capacity is now 2 million metres per month. A portion of its current production is gradually being moved from the existing stenters to the new Eco Denim Line. "Our main reason for investing in the Eco Denim Line at this time was to satisfy those of our customers who have been requesting us, more and more, to use less water in dyeing and finishing. They themselves have been trying to use less water in their garment production, to the point in some instances of softening fabrics to break the starch and avoid using water. Their need is to meet stringent environmental standards, and also to respond to strong customer demand for more environmentally friendly products," said Arturo Ornelas Elizondo, Tavemexs industrial director.

"We use our own well for water supply, so the water cost is relatively low, but we are saving more than 80 per cent on water usage, and this will enable our customers to label their products in the stores respectively," added Elizondo.

Tavemex SA de CV of Mexico has become the second denim producer in the world to install a Monforts Eco Denim Line, and the first to use the technology for finishing denim fabrics of up to 300 g/sqm. Early this year, the company completed the installation of the Eco Denim Line which reduces the usage of water by 80 per cent for denim finishing.#

The Monforts Eco Line innovation uses a modified Thermex Hotflue Chamber that generates the necessary moisture and temperature for making the denim stretchable, whilst incorporating a soft stretching of the fabric by using many rollers instead of only the one or two in a traditional stretching unit. This consequently saves on the volume of water needed to generate the steam, and also saves on the amount of energy required to convert the water to steam.

"We are still in the process of transferring the production from the traditional stenters to the Eco Denim Line, but we estimate that ultimately we shall save between 20 and 30 per cent on steam generation," said Elizondo.

The new installation includes a Monforts Eco applicator, which applies the chemicals, replacing a conventional padder. This reduces the drying needs and therefore energy consumption, due to the fact that the Eco applicator applies less moisture to the fabric.

"Less water usage also means less wastewater, and again although this has little effect in financial savings, the environmental aspects are very beneficial. This will also give us the opportunity to improve our wastewater plant to the latest European standards," he added. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
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Press Release

Spark is upgrading its core infrastructure with a three-year strategic partnership with Nokia, including the industry-leading 7250 Interconnect Router R6 (IXR-R6) to address capacity and embrace architectural evolution on the path to 5G, ultra-broadband and IoT

Spark to meet the unprecedented growth in mobile and fixed network services for its over 2 million customers, prepare for adoption of 5G and IoT

14 June, 2017

Espoo, Finland - Nokia and Spark are partnering to prepare New Zealand for the future with a "step change" in the capacity, flexibility and agility of Spark's core and backhaul IP/MPLS network. Unprecedented growth in demand for mobile and fixed broadband is driving the need for an upgrade, as Spark prepares for the move to 5G, ubiquitous ultra-broadband connectivity and rapid growth in IoT.

Spark is committed to making New Zealand one of the first countries globally to be ready for 5G. Spark has already seen a tenfold increase in network traffic with the introduction of its broadband over wireless service, which is primarily based on a Nokia IP/MPLS network. It plans to further expand the capacity and agility of its transport network over the next two years to prepare for 5G.

Demand for mobile and ultra-broadband services continues to accelerate in New Zealand, driven by Internet-based video as well as new applications, such as augmented and virtual reality. The expansion to 5G will also enable the fulfilment of the government's goals for rural expansion of broadband services, while helping Spark to lower delivery costs. The expanded capacity and agility of the network will also help spur innovation and new services, especially around the promising application of IoT technologies.

The Nokia IP solutions are deployed in hundreds of networks worldwide, and offer the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of purpose-built IP/MPLS mobile solutions. Nokia's commitment to continuous innovation makes it an ideal partner for a network leader such as Spark.

The Nokia 7250 IXR-R6 addresses key network requirements for traffic growth and major architectural changes on the path to 5G. It features terabit capacity and high-port density delivered in a compact, ruggedized form factor. The Nokia 7250 IXR-R6 comes with advanced security features and a wide choice of interconnectivity options ranging from legacy SDH/SONET to high-speed, latency sensitive Ethernet, suitable for next-generation fronthaul interface (NGFI). The 7250 IXR-R6 enables cost-effective transport of both latency-sensitive and 'bursty' traffic, which makes it equally suitable for ultra-broadband as well as for new IoT-based services.

Key facts:

Three year strategic partnership with Nokia providing best in class IP and Optics equipment and software to the Spark network, including the new Nokia 7250 platform

This deal follows closely on the heels of Spark's launch of 200 Gb/s per wavelength fiber link using the Nokia PSS1830 Optical Transport Network

Rajesh Singh, General Manager of Partnering, Procurement and Vendor Management at Spark, said: "This strategic partnership is a key step for us to realize our vision of a data-driven future for New Zealand. Nokia is helping us to achieve worldwide leadership in preparing for 5G. It will allow us to offer our customers the most advanced mobile and fixed broadband services anywhere, efficiently and securely."

Kent Wong, head of Nokia's IP business in Asia Pacific, said: "We are very pleased to continue our strategic partnership with Spark, which is committed to keeping New Zealanders at the cutting edge of technology. Spark's investment will safely accommodate future growth as they benefit from Nokia's global reach, expertise and agility. We are excited to help them be among the first customers to begin the move to 5G."

About Spark New Zealand

Spark New Zealand provides digital services to over two million New Zealanders and thousands of New Zealand businesses. As one of New Zealand's largest listed companies, Spark New Zealand is made up of a number of core business units (Spark Home, Mobile & Business, Spark Digital, Spark Ventures and Spark Connect). Spark's ambition is to unleash the potential in all New Zealanders through its leadership in mobile and broadband communications and thereby contribute to all aspects of its community as a good corporate citizen.

About Nokia

We create the technology to connect the world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.

From the enabling infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, to emerging applications in virtual reality and digital health, we are shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. nokia.com (http://www.nokia.com)

Media Enquiries:

Nokia

Communications

Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: press.services@nokia.com (mailto:press.services@nokia.com)

This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: NOKIA via Globenewswire


The PV plant is one of the country's first merchant solar projects after the energy reform was introduced. The project's required investment was $14 million.The government of the Mexican state of Jalisco has inaugurated an 8 MW merchant PV plant in Zacoalco de Torres, close to the logistic center of Jalisco, the state's capital. The $14 million plant, which will sell power to the facility, is one the first merchant PV projects developed after the energy reform was introduced in Mexico. The Jalisco 1 solar plant was built by Mexican developer Fortius Electromecanica, while modules ...

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Company announcement No 22/2017- 1 May 2017





On 9 March 2017, Royal Unibrew initiated a share buy-back programme, cf. company announcement no. 12/2017 of 8 March 2017. The programme is carried out under Art. 5 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on market abuse (the Market Abuse Regulation - MAR) and the resulting delegated legislation. The share buy-back programme is expected to be realised in the period from 9 March 2017 to 28 February 2018. The total share buy-back in the period will not exceed a market price of DKK 560 million.



The following transactions have been made under the programme:



Number Average purchase Transaction value, of price DKK shares -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Accumulated, last 192,589 291.68 56,173,982.16 announcement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 April 2017 1,156 304.21 351,671.27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 April 2017 2,500 305.07 762,672.50 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 April 2017 27,460 304.29 8,355,808.89 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27 April 2017 0 - - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28 April 2017 11,150 296.09 3,301,360.02 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Accumulated under the 234,855 293.57 68,945,494.83 programme --------------------------------------------------------------------------------



With the transactions stated above Royal Unibrew owns a total of 1,776,542 shares, corresponding to 3.3% of the share capital. The total amount of shares in the company is 54,100,000, including treasury shares.



Please direct any queries to me at tel. +45 29 23 00 44.



Yours sincerely



Royal Unibrew A/S



Lars Jensen



CFO



Encl.



Attachment:

https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=628860

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/01/17 -- Mooncor Oil & Gas Corp. (the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: MOO) is pleased to announce that it has released its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2016. The financial statements, notes to the financial statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2016 are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

"The Corporation is pleased to report that the total production for the Month of April is 1,039 Barrels of Oil. The corporation will continue to work on the Company's two Lloydminster wells as both wells require further work, 04-28 well requires a Flush - by as soon as the weather cooperates and the 03-28 well requires a bottom hole pump changed or upgraded to handle all the Sand," stated Allen Lone, CEO of Mooncor Oil & Gas Corp

About Mooncor Oil & Gas Corp.

Mooncor is a junior oil and gas exploration company. Mooncor holds interests in lands in the Pondera and Teton Counties in Northwestern Montana, the Muskwa / Duvernay liquids rich shale gas area in Hamburg, Alberta, and in southwest Ontario where the focus has been on conventional oil and gas opportunities.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements, including Mooncor conducting extended production tests on two suspended wells by September 31, 2015, or at all. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward looking statements. Although Mooncor believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, Mooncor disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise.

Contacts:

Mooncor Oil & Gas Corp.

Allen Lone

Chief Executive Officer

905.275.7570

atlone@mooncoroil.com




QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 05/01/17 -- H2O Innovation Inc. ("H2O Innovation" or the "Corporation")

(TSX VENTURE: HEO)(ALTERNEXT: MNEMO:ALHEO)(OTCQX: HEOFF) announces that it will release its financial results for the 2017 third quarter on Monday, May 15, 2017 at approximately 8:00 a.m. (EDT). The Corporation will also host a conference call, on the same day, at 10:00 a.m. (EDT).

Financial analysts and investors are invited to attend this conference call during which the 2017 third quarter results will be presented. The call will begin with a presentation by management followed by a question-and-answer period. A slide presentation will be available on the Corporate Presentations page of the Investors section of the Corporation's website.

Time and date: Monday, May 15, 2017 at 10:00 a.m. (EDT) Dial in number: 1-877-223-4471 or 647-788-4922

About H2O Innovation

H2O Innovation designs and provides state-of-the-art, custom-built and integrated water treatment solutions based on membrane filtration technology for municipal, industrial, energy and natural resources end-users. The Corporation's activities rely on three pillars which are i) water and wastewater projects; ii) specialty products and services, including a complete line of specialty chemicals, consumables, specialized products for the water treatment industry as well as control and monitoring systems; and iii) operation and maintenance services for water and wastewater treatment systems. For more information, visit www.h2oinnovation.com.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) nor the Alternext Exchange accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Source:

H2O Innovation Inc.

www.h2oinnovation.com



Contact:

Marc Blanchet

+1 418-688-0170

marc.blanchet@h2oinnovation.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 05/01/17 -- Microbix Biosystems Inc. (TSX: MBX) ("Microbix" or the "Company") a developer and marketer of biological products and technologies, announces that it has consulted with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (the "FDA") regarding the Company's plans to return its thrombolytic biologic drug, Kinlytic Urokinase ("Kinlytic"), to the U.S. market.

Microbix believes the results of its consultation will accelerate its work to obtain financing, complete its re-launch program and then submit an application to FDA for re-approval in the U.S. market. The Company has already received expressions of interest to license or acquire Kinlytic and to provide full funding for its re-launch program. Following its consultation with FDA, the Company now intends to accelerate its work to conclude such an agreement. Microbix has also established that Kinlytic may be produced via contract manufacturing, a factor that should shorten the timeline of its return to market. The Company plans to retain a significant interest in the economics of Kinlytic following an agreement to enable its re-launch program.

The global use of thrombolytic drugs (a.k.a., clot-busters) has been increasing every year. In the United States alone, thrombolytic sales now exceed US$1 billion per year. Urokinase was previously used in major worldwide health care markets, but there is now a monopoly. Currently only one thrombolytic drug (tissue plasminogen activator or "tPA") is available for dissolving blood clots in hospitals and clinics. Microbix believes that there is significant need for another therapeutic option, both to provide an alternative choice for care providers and patients and to mitigate the risk of supply disruptions.

Urokinase was originally launched by Abbott Laboratories and was the leading thrombolytic drug in the market until a manufacturing disruption. Abbott then sold the NDA regulatory file and all assets to another party, from which Microbix later acquired them. Microbix has previously manufactured this natural human protein at commercial scale and performed numerous biochemical and functional analyses on the product that demonstrate its ability to undertake the reintroduction of this drug into the marketplace.

Vaughn Embro-Pantalony, President and CEO of Microbix, commented on the relevance of the FDA consultation to the Company, "Interested investors, including potential licensing partners, were awaiting the outcome of our consultation with the FDA. We believe the outcome of our consultation indicates the planned path to approval of our lead indication is worthwhile, information that will help us conclude a development agreement to enable the re-launch of Kinlytic."

Mr. Embro-Pantalony continued, "Microbix has preserved and worked to update the U.S. and Canadian regulatory files for Urokinase in order to enable its return to market. The need for an alternative thrombolytic agent continues to grow."

About Microbix

Microbix Biosystems Inc. specializes in the development of proprietary biological and technology solutions for human health and wellbeing in the global therapeutic, vaccine and diagnostic markets. The Company manufactures a wide range of highly purified infectious microorganism antigens for the global diagnostics industry, with such sales now exceeding $10 million per year. The Company also applies its biological expertise and technology platforms to create other innovative products and technologies. Currently it is commercializing two such proprietary products, (1) Kinlytic Urokinase, a biologic thrombolytic drug used to treat blood clots, and (2) Lumisort, a technology platform for ultra-rapid and efficient sorting of somatic cells that can be used to enrich cell populations of interest, such as in sexing semen. Established in 1988, Microbix is a publicly traded company, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes "forward-looking information," as such term is defined in applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, the risks associated with its revenue business, development projects such as those referenced herein, operations in foreign jurisdictions, engineering and construction generally, production (including control over costs, quality, quantity and timeliness of delivery of products), foreign currency and exchange rates, maintaining adequate working capital and raising further capital on acceptable terms or at all, and other similar statements concerning anticipated future events, conditions or results that are not historical facts. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations; they are not guarantees of future performance. The Company cautions that all forward looking information is inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Accordingly, actual future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. All statements are made as of the date of this news release and represent the Company's judgement as of the date of this new release, and the Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking information.

Please visit www.sedar.com for recent Microbix Biosystems Inc. filings.

For further information, please visit www.microbix.com.

Contacts:

Microbix Biosystems Inc.

Vaughn C. Embro-Pantalony

CEO

(905) 361-8910 x 350

vaughn.embro-pantalony@microbix.com



Microbix Biosystems Inc.

Jim Currie

CFO

(905) 361-8910 x 255

jim.currie@microbix.com



Microbix Biosystems Inc.

Stephen Kilmer

Investor Relations

(647) 872-4849

stephen.kilmer@microbix.com




SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/01/17 -- IDdriven, Inc. (OTCQB: IDDR), an innovative provider of cloud-based Identity and Access Management ("IAM") solutions, today announced the launch of the Company's channel program which will see the company's solutions made available through Ingram Micro and ioSafe resellers including Insight, CDW and SHI. The strategic business move will immediately expose IDdriven to the ioSafe distribution and channel network and enable the company to create new partnerships with resellers and customers around the world.

"We are excited to be moving into distribution," said Arend Verweij, IDdriven's CEO. "Leveraging ioSafe's distribution network consisting of more than 20,000 resellers in the USA and around the world will enable us to cultivate new relationships and significantly accelerate our growth."

IDdriven's IAM solution delivers Role Management, Access Certification, Reporting, Zone Based Access Control and License Management capabilities for both on-premises and cloud-based applications via an economical per-user monthly subscription model.

"While IDdriven can be used by enterprises of any size, it is the first IAM solution to be offered at a price-point small to mid-sized businesses can afford," said Verweij. "As ioSafe's distribution network is very much focused on that sector, utilizing their distribution network will enable us to introduce IAM to an as yet untapped market."

"Until now, IAM has been cost prohibitive for smaller businesses," said Robb Moore, CEO of ioSafe. "Integrating IDdriven into our channel program will enable our resellers to create new revenue streams by providing their small to mid-sized business customers with an affordable, easily managed, enterprise-class IAM security solution."

About IDdriven

With its next-generation IDaaS program of the same name, IDdriven, Inc. is at the forefront of the new breed of Identity Management and Access Governance solutions. Taking the complexity and upfront costs out of implementation, IDdriven automates access security for vulnerable company assets by seamlessly integrating with the solutions from Microsoft, and other cloud providers like Amazon. Founded in 2013, IDdriven is headquartered in Sacramento, California. To learn more, visit: www.IDdriven.com.

About ioSafe

ioSafe designs and builds award-winning fire- and waterproof data storage, backup and hybrid cloud solutions for businesses of all sizes. Like an aircraft black box for critical data, ioSafe improves recovery point and time objectives while reducing costs and simplifying infrastructure.

ioSafe products are designed and built in Auburn, California. To learn more, visit www.iosafe.com.

Forward-Looking Statement Disclosure

This news release contains "forward-looking statements." Such statements may be preceded by the words "intends," "may," "will," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "projects," "predicts," "estimates," "aims," "believes," "hopes," "potential" or similar words. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond IDdriven's control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with (i) commercialization of our software programs, (ii) development and protection of our intellectual property, (iii) industry competition, (iv) we may need to raise capital to meet business requirements. More detailed information about IDdriven and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward looking statements is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission which are available on our website and at http://www.sec.gov. IDdriven assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

Investor Relations:

Dorchester Group Inc.

investors@IDdriven.com

+1-201-567-4415




Europe's largest traveler loyalty program operator implements a high-performance container-based environment for deploying new microservices

RED HAT SUMMIT 2017 Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, announced today that Miles More GmbH, operator of Europe's largest frequent flyer and awards program, now uses Red Hat's container and cloud technologies to deliver a scalable and automated Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) environment. The new architecture is designed to support Miles More GmbH to realize innovations and to bring new microservices-based applications more quickly to the market.

Based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Miles More GmbH is a fully-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. With the program, participants can earn and spend with almost 40 airline partners, including 28 airlines belonging to the Star Alliance, as well as with more than 270 companies such as hotels, rental cars, cruises, banks and insurance providers. Previously, for its interfaces with partners outside of the air travel sector, the company used a middleware solution.

Together with Red Hat, the company developed a new platform based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to implement innovations more easily in the future. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is the first and only container-centric, hybrid cloud solution built from Linux containers, Kubernetes, Project Atomic and OpenShift Origin upstream projects and relies on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform provides a more secure and stable platform for container-based deployments without sacrificing current IT investments, enabling mission-critical, traditional applications to coexist alongside new, cloud-native and container-based applications.

Alongside Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Miles More GmbH has deployed:

Red Hat JBoss Fuse , a robust, flexible, and easy to use platform for integrating applications, data, and services.

, a robust, flexible, and easy to use platform for integrating applications, data, and services. Ansible by Red Hat , a simple, agentless IT automation platform that supports provisioning, application deployment, complex workflow orchestration, and configuration management for IT systems, networks, and applications.

, a simple, agentless IT automation platform that supports provisioning, application deployment, complex workflow orchestration, and configuration management for IT systems, networks, and applications. Red Hat JBoss AMQ, a standards-based messaging platform for exchanging information between applications.

For the planning, architecture design, and the technical implementation, Miles More GmbH worked closely with Red Hat Consulting, Red Hat's Technical Account Management team, and its service provider partner.

With the new IT architecture, Miles More GmbH can integrate its partners more flexibly and easily into its loyalty program and manage them more efficiently. In addition, the architecture also enables the company to bring new services to market faster and to scale its application requirements. Initial evaluations by the company indicate that the time-to-market for its services has improved by 15 percent and a new microservice can be developed much faster and transferred to the live system without interrupting the system. Miles More has already developed 40 microservices for communicating with its partner companies, including the 'Earn miles' and 'Spend miles' program. In the future, the company expects to carry out all new projects as microservices and is specifically planning to implement a microservices architecture for its website: http://www.miles-and-more.com.

Supporting Quotes

Ralf Gernhold, director IT, Miles More GmbH

"With our improved infrastructure based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, we can now quickly offer additional services, tap into new business opportunities, and generally enhance our position as an attractive partner for companies outside of the air travel sector. Our decision to go with Red Hat was primarily motivated by technological concerns, and has allowed us to enjoy the best of two worlds: a cutting-edge open source solution as well as reliable and secure enterprise support."

Ashesh Badani, vice president and general manager, OpenShift, Red Hat

"We are proud that a renowned company such as Miles More decided to use Red Hat solutions for its extensive modernization project, especially since the company set high requirements for the solution architecture regarding performance, agility, scalability, and security features. The success of this project has demonstrated once again that Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform puts us in an excellent position to help customers implement container and microservices architectures."

Additional information

Learn more about Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Learn more about Red Hat JBoss Fuse

Learn more about Ansible by Red Hat

Learn more about Red Hat JBoss AMQ

Learn more about Red Hat Consulting

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Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to provide reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As a connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; delays or reductions in information technology spending; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; the effects of industry consolidation; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Shadowman logo, JBoss, OpenShift, and Ansible are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005487/en/

Contacts:

Red Hat, Inc.

John Terrill, +1-571-421-8132

jterrill@redhat.com
Europe's third largest airport works to create great passenger experience with new digital services; Creates multi-cloud platform based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Red Hat JBoss Fuse, and Red Hat 3scale API Management to create and support new services

RED HAT SUMMIT 2017 Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Europe's third largest airport, is using Red Hat solutions to expand the range of services it offers passengers, supporting its goal of becoming the world's best digital airport. With help from Red Hat, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is creating a self-service, multi-cloud platform for its internal IT team and its business partners, slashing development time as it creates new services for travelers.

Servicing more than 63.6 million passengers and processing more than 1.7 million tons of cargo last year, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is Europe's third largest airport in terms of passenger number and cargo volume. The 100 year-old airport aims to continue its position as a top airport in Europe and to do so, the airport set forth its bold ambition to become the world's best digital airport by 2018. To create a great passenger experience with technology, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has focused on creating digitally-minded culture, introducing a range of new technologies and digital services all aimed at simplifying and improving the passenger journey and the airport's operations.

As part of this effort, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol reviewed its IT services strategy, and wanted a scalable application platform to accelerate the development and deployment of its new digital services across its hybrid environment. They required a cloud-agnostic, open platform that could not only enable application portability, offering Amsterdam Airport Schiphol greater flexibility and the ability to avoid lock-in on a cloud platform, and which could also integrate with partner services through APIs.

After a detailed review of competitive solutions, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol chose Red Hat to support its needs for a modern and agile platform aligned with its technology vision, including new cloud-native applications and digital services based on open APIs.

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is creating a hybrid, multi-cloud development platform based on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform deployed across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its on-premise virtualized environment. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is the first and only container-centric, hybrid cloud solution built from Linux containers, Kubernetes, Project Atomic and OpenShift Origin upstream projects and based on the trusted backbone of the world's leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform provides a more secure, stable platform for container-based deployments without sacrificing current IT investments, enabling mission-critical, traditional applications to coexist alongside new, cloud-native and container-based applications.

Using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform across its multi-cloud environment, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol can also meet its high availability and scalability challenges during its busiest times, including holidays. And, with the highly scalable, container-native storage solution provided by Red Hat Gluster Storage integrated with Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was able to manage the complexities of persistent storage.

Key to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol's digital strategy are the services it delivers via APIs, including its Flight API, which provides information for passengers such as gate, terminal and check-in time. The APIs are also shared with its partners for enhanced passenger services. The airport had already been using Red Hat JBoss Fuse for its on-premise infrastructure as the airport's main service bus. Now, it has connected this on-premise service to JBoss Fuse integration services running on Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to exchange data between its main systems and APIs running in the cloud. With JBoss Fuse-based API services in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat 3scale API Management, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol reports that it can create new APIs 50 percent faster.

Supporting Quotes

Ashesh Badani, vice president and general manager, OpenShift, Red Hat

"Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is an excellent example of an organization embracing a more flexible open source platform to support its digital transformation. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has an ambitious goal to become the best digital airport by 2018 and has recognized that doing so not only requires a more modern technology stack, but also a shift in processes and people's mindset. Red Hat is excited to be Amsterdam Airport Schiphol's technology partner, and as they progress toward this goal, the combination of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, JBoss Fuse, Red Hat 3scale API Management, and Red Hat Gluster Storage offers them a more agile platform to speed the delivery of new services."

Mechiel Aalbers, senior technical application coordinator, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

"Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, truly, has stolen my heart, because the platform is innovative, I can deploy quickly, and I am in control of the containers. We want to have stable solutions that are sustainable for the coming years, but we need things to happen quickly. Our developers don't have to wait for development or test environments now, so we can add more business value more quickly. We have shifted risk from our mission-critical systems to a solution which we believe is future-proof, and which we are planning to use in the coming years for our cloud strategy."

Additional Resources

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About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As a connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.

Red Hat's Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to the ability of Red Hat to compete effectively; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Red Hat's intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, Red Hat's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in Red Hat's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent Red Hat's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while Red Hat may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Red Hat specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Red Hat's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Red Hat, the Shadowman logo, JBoss, OpenShift, Gluster and 3scale are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005497/en/

Contacts:

Red Hat, Inc.

John Terrill, +1 571-421-8132

jterrill@redhat.com
NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SkinCeuticals is born from science, rooted in the belief that knowledge is power, and committed to doctors in the field of skin health and aesthetics.Through its new partnership with ReSurge International, the brand announces an initiative for Pioneering Women in Reconstructive Surgery, to technically train, professionally mentor, and develop in leadership first generation female surgeons in order to increase access to reconstructive surgical care in under-served parts of the world.

For people in developing countries who suffer from burn injuries or congenital conditions, a change in their appearance can change their lives--enabling them tofully participate in their communities, attend school, and provide for their families. For these people, reconstructive plastic surgery is transformative at many levels - yet 5 billion people worldwide lack access to safe, timely surgical care. SkinCeuticals believes that equality of medical training is essential to meeting this need. Today, there are only three female surgeons for every 1 million people in low income countries, often due to a lack of equal access to significant technical training or obstacles to gaining acceptance in their field. SkinCeuticals and ReSurge International aim to correct this imbalance.

ReSurge International was founded in 1969, and since its inception, it has provided more than 100,000 reconstructive surgeries for patients in developing countries. In 2014, the ReSurge International Global Training Program & Academic Faculty was introduced. The program is led by Dr. James Chang, who serves as the consulting medical officer for Resurge International and is Stanford University's chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery. The Global Training Program embraces a "teach to fish" philosophy, working with world class medical faculty to educate and train local surgeons in reconstructive care.

Through visiting educator programs, leadership training, mentorship support, and funding of supplies, Pioneering Women in Reconstructive Surgery will help female surgeons grow their knowledge and as a result, provide networks of reconstructive surgical care within their communities. The first year of the partnership will focus on five up-and-coming female surgeons - Dr. Faith Chengetayi Muchemwa of Zimbabwe, Dr. Celma Marina Teles Issufo of Mozambique, Dr. ShiluShrestha of Nepal, Dr. Lorena Escudero Castro of Ecuador, and Dr. Farzana Bilquis Ibrahim.

Says Dr. Chang of the program, "These women are not only learning surgical skills, but how to navigate a male-dominated field, with specialty curriculum in reconstructive surgery and career advancement through our partnership with SkinCeuticals. It was a similar story in the US one generation ago - now more than half of medical students are women and of my 18 faculty at Stanford University, 8 are women. It is an issue critical to me as a father of three daughters. We would like to mentor and empower these pioneering women surgeons for future generations."

Leslie Harris, Global General Manager of SkinCeuticals, adds, "Today, reconstructive surgical care is out of reach for 2/3 of the population. If we want to change this statistic, we need to change the number of women surgeons in low income countries who often face unique barriers to entering the field. This mission is an evolution of Dr. Sheldon Pinnell, our founding scientist's, commitment to the medical community and spirit of philanthropy. We are honored to partner with Resurge International in the years to come."

More information on the program goals can be found at http://www.skinceuticals.com/surgeon. SkinCeuticals will be facilitating the involvement of their community through social sharing, awareness-building, and easy access to donation portals.

ABOUT SKINCEUTICALS

Founded inDallas, TXin 1997, SkinCeuticals discovers, develops, and delivers an advanced line of scientifically backed cosmeceutical treatments. As leaders in antioxidant and sun protection technology, SkinCeuticals products have been shown to dramatically improve skin health by protecting skin from environmental damage and visibly improving skin clarity, tone, and texture to minimize the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. For more information, visit the brand on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or at www.skinceuticals.com.

ABOUT RESURGE INTERNATIONAL

Resurge provides people in developing countries with access to life-changing reconstructive surgical care that is safe, timely and affordable. We train the next generation of reconstructive surgeons in Africa, Latin America, and Asia; work with them to create a sustainable business model; and together, we provide high quality reconstructive surgical care to people living in poverty and in remote areas. As a result of our work, our patients' lives are transformed-they are able to more fully participate in their communities, attend school, and provide for their families.

Contact: Laura Cummins at SkinCeuticals: (212) 984-4907/LCummins@skinceuticals.com

Kristin Breen at ABMC: (212) 230-1800/kristin@alisonbrodmc.com

Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/495957/SkinCeuticals.mp4
NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- (Marketwired) -- 05/01/17 -- Editors Note: There is a photo associated with this press release.

Winning Brands Corporation (OTC PINK: WNBD) www.WinningBrands.com and Supreme Sweets, Inc. of Toronto www.SupremeSweetsInc.com have entered into negotiations regarding the cooperative launch and marketing of branded food innovations - a growing field due to health and lifestyle segmentation, such as the increasing demand for new gluten-free products. The cooperation arises from the Innovators Community initiative of Winning Brands, by which innovators gain unique advantages through joint-venturing with Winning Brands, www.InnovatorsCommunity.com. Winning Brands and Supreme Sweets will target leading U.S. and Canadian retailers and food service vendors, who are already responding favourably to the new product launch proposals.

Supreme Sweets is a new food sector venture for founders Barbara and Mario Parravano, who have previously created new and profitable branded baked goods solutions for top retailers in North America under various brands and organizations. Mrs. Parravano has in the past been honoured amongst listings of top women entrepreneurs by Profit Magazine, Chatelaine and in other ways. Mr. and Mrs. Parravano have both been multiple food service award winners and have operated professional, unionized production facilities. Since its founding in 2015, Supreme Sweets has already established new customers in the U.S., including supermarket distribution, as well as Canadian food service sales to well-known chains. Supreme Sweets has its own production facility in Toronto and is presently manufacturing. The innovative couple are now taking their product development experience, relationships and ideas to new level via public company joint venture arrangements with Winning Brands. The contemplated joint venture with Winning Brands is designed to accelerate success for both companies through expanded reach to new stakeholders, enhanced exposure and innovative operational structure.

Both parties have executed an Exploratory Discussion Agreement providing a period during which both teams will seek to finalize an operating agreement and proceed. Winning Brands announces its Exploratory Discussion Agreements for Innovators Community projects in order to avoid rumours, openly mobilize expert assistance and to increase awareness of the prospective projects for the benefit of both announcing parties.

In such joint venture launches, Winning Brands will deploy a portion of its contemplated public financing proceeds to support innovation launch opportunities and contribute the work of subject matter experts. Winning Brands has formed an "adaptive network" model that assigns specialists to launch projects according to their sector experience. Innovators, such as Supreme Sweets, consider the joint-venture model of cooperation with Winning Brands appealing because Winning Brands focuses on revenue sharing with launch partners rather than encroaching upon their equity. Innovators otherwise find their technology or company ownership heavily encroached by traditional venture capital. Supreme Sweets' association with Winning Brands is particularly suitable because of the diversity of Supreme Sweets launch concepts awaiting realization. These include spin-offs that expand beyond baked goods or even food. The U.S. market is targeted by the proposed JV as an important driver of growth. The JV's financial objective is to maximize future profits by avoiding waste, adding value and deploying superior organizational design.

Winning Brands CEO, Eric Lehner, comments: "Our mutual objective is to share expertise, work together and to meet ambitious goals. The Parravanos personify the enormous talent and energy of innovation 'winners'. It's an honour for Winning Brands to develop a joint venture relationship together. Further announcements in this file are anticipated in coming weeks."

Winning Brands maintains a CEO weblog for the benefit of shareholders at www.WinningBrandsCorporation.com/blog. It is a journal of the company's mission, providing answers to many shareholder questions. It is a regular source of public information pertaining to the company pursuant to SEC Fair Disclosure guidelines. Mr. Lehner also maintains a Twitter presence: www.Twitter.com/WinningCEO.

ABOUT SUPREME SWEETS, INC.

Supreme Sweets Inc is a new private Canadian corporation whose founders have vast experience in developing new branded food products with and for major North American retailers. With its own physical production facility in Toronto, the company already has the means to manufacture marketable baked goods innovations and related products for widespread distribution. With a strong interest and competence in gluten free product development, Supreme Sweets is uniquely qualified to tap into this multi-billion dollar segment of the continuously growing baked goods sector. The company's anticipated innovation launches will in future go beyond baked goods to make fullest use of diverse innovation insights in the company's possession, including patent pending concepts.

ABOUT WINNING BRANDS CORPORATION: Winning Brands is expanding its scope to include cooperative product launches with innovators whose projects can benefit from public company partnership. www.InnovatorsCommunity.com. Winning Brands has previously been, and continues to be, a manufacturer of record for advanced environmentally oriented cleaning solutions such as ReGUARD4 fire service cleaner, KIND, 1000+ Stain Remover, World's Most Versatile Cleaning Solution, and others through its subsidiary Niagara Mist Marketing Ltd by means of contract packaging. 1000+ is an alternative to conventional cleaning solvents for consumers because of its unique desirable properties; VIDEOS Link; WEBSITE Link . The versatility of 1000+ Stain Remover can be seen on FACEBOOK. 1000+ Stain Remover is available to U.S. NAVY personnel at 7 NEX depots in Japan, Spain, Italy and the Middle East; in the U.S. at HOME DEPOT (online), WALMART (online), DO IT BEST HARDWARE stores and many independent retailers. In Canada, the leading chain retailer is LOWES HOME IMPROVEMENT:. 1000+ Stain Remover is also available in select international markets including Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, UK, Serbia and the Caribbean. TrackMoist, ReGUARD4 www.ReGUARD4.com and BRILLIANT www.BRILLIANTWetCleaning.com are industrial products by which Winning Brands serves specialized professional markets.

Safe Harbor: Statements contained in this news release, other than those identifying historical facts, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Safe Harbor provisions as contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements relating to the Company's future expectations, including but not limited to revenues and earnings, technology efficacy, strategies and plans, are subject to safe harbors protection. Actual Company results and performance may be materially different from any future results, performance, strategies, plans, or achievements that may be expressed or implied by any such forward-looking statements. The Company disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. TrackMoist, 1000+, KIND, ReGUARD4 and BRILLIANT are trademarks of Niagara Mist Marketing Ltd in connection with indicated uses.

To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link:http://www.marketwire.com/library/20170430-SupremeSweets.JPG

Contacts:

Winning Brands INFORMATION and INTERVIEWS:

Eric Lehner

CEO

(705) 737-4062

eric@winningbrands.ca




010517SEVENTY THREE CANDIDATES

By Aloysius Laukai



A total of SEVENTY THREE candidates have nominated to contest the four Bougainville seats in the 2017 PNG General elections.

Nine candidates are contesting the Bougainville regional seat whilst Twelve candidates have nominated to contest the South Bougainville open seat.

TWENTY ONE candidates are running for the Central Bougainville Open seat whilst THIRTHY ONE candidates will be fighting for the North Bougainville open seat.

There are also women contesting for the seats of South Bougainville, Central and North Bougainville whilst only male candidates have nominated for the Bougainville Regional seat.

Women candidates are, ROSE PIHEI for South Bougainville, LYNETTE ONA and GLORIA G. TERIKIAN contesting the Central Bougainville Open seat and RACHAEL OPETI KONAKA and ELIZABETH BURAIN are contesting the North Bougainville open seat.

Out of the Seventy three candidates FORTY- ONE candidates are running under Political parties whilst THIRTY TWO candidates are running as independents.

One interesting case is that the SOM PIONEER party has fielded more than one candidate in the four Bougainville seats.

Two in South Bougainville, Two in Central Bougainville, four in North Bougainville and one for the Regional seat.



Ends
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - May 01, 2017) - Advanced Proteome Therapeutics Corporation ("APC" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: APC) (FRANKFURT: 0E8), a biotechnology company focused on producing technologies to perfect the use of antibody drug conjugates for the treatment of various cancers, is pleased to announce it has been accepted into Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS @ Toronto.

Advanced Proteome Therapeutics, currently operating in Boston, MA, will join other select early stage companies at the state of the art facility in Toronto starting May 1.

"Being selected by the Johnson & Johnson Innovation team to join JLABS @ Toronto and locating among a talented and diverse peer group is both an honour and extremely validating for our company," said Randal Chase, CEO of Advanced Proteome Therapeutics. "The work space and facilities allow us to continue advancing our research while being surrounded by fast growing and emerging companies."

JLABS @ Toronto is a 40,000 square-foot life science innovation center. The labs provide a flexible environment for start-up companies pursuing new technologies and research platforms to advance medical care. Through a "no strings attached" model, Johnson & Johnson Innovation does not take an equity stake in the companies occupying JLABS and the companies are free to develop products -- either on their own, or by initiating a separate external partnership with Johnson & Johnson Innovation or any other company.

About APC

Advanced Proteome Therapeutics Corporation (APC) is developing a proprietary technology to directly target cancerous tumors and avoid destroying normal cells. This type of agent is capable of greater potency, higher specificity, and lower toxicity than other therapies that can also attack healthy cells, Advanced Proteome is working to streamline the process by which these agents are prepared, which to date, has been extremely cumbersome, limiting the potential of this type of agent.

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 communication contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the Company's business, which can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "estimates", "believes", "expects", "may", "will", "should", "future", "potential" or similar expressions or by a general discussion of the Company's strategies, plans or intentions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause our actual results of operations, financial position, earnings, achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, earnings or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, prospective investors and partners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. We disclaim any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements to reflect future events or developments.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:



Advanced Proteome Therapeutics Corporation

Dr. Randal D. Chase

President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: 905-252-3629

http://www.advancedproteome.com



Advanced Proteome Therapeutics Corporation

Babak Pedram

Investor Relations

Virtus Advisory Group Inc.

Tel: 416-644-5081

bpedram@virtusadvisory.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Cameroon government has ended a three-month long Internet ban in the English-speaking regions of the country. The government had implemented the three-month long internet ban in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon in response to fierce anti-government protests. According to the government, people were using social media to spread false information. The cut off by the government led to protests and days of unrest in the region. Several thousands of people led protests in the south- and northwestern provinces of the country since October 2016 disputing the use of the French language in schools and courthouses in the Anglophone region of the country. The UN called the blackout as a rights violation, while proponents said the government ordered the shutdown to prevent more protests. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Crude oil futures tumbled Monday, extending recent losses amid doubts over whether OPEC can handle the lingering global supply glut. OPEC is expected to extend its supply quota plan this month, but with U.S. production surging and President Donald Trump allowing drilling in the Arctic, analysts say global supplies will continue to build. WTI oil was down 49 cents, or 1%, to settle at $48.84/bbl, the lowest in more than a month. In economic news, Personal income in the U.S. rose slightly less than expected in the month of March, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Monday. Personal income rose by 0.2 percent in March after climbing by a downwardly revised 0.3 percent in February. Meanwhile, growth in U.S. manufacturing activity slowed more than expected in the month of April, the Institute for Supply Management revealed in a report released on Monday. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
DETROIT, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 7, 2017, Strategic Staffing Solutions announced the promotion of Colonel Ken Huxley (USAF, Retired) to Vice President of Talent Acquisition. His responsibilities include S3's recruiting operations, recruiter and account manager selection, training and professional development, and he directs S3's military veteran and military spouse outreach programs.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/506410/Strategic_Staffing_Solutions___VP___Ret_Colonel_Ken_Huxley.jpg

In addition, he leads S3's Central Sourcing Team, comprised of 28 talent acquisition and redeployment specialists (mostly military veterans) that support S3's national recruiting team.

Colonel Huxley joined S3in January 2007 after 26 years of military service, and successfully implementing and managing the military veteran recruiting program for a Fortune 200 financial services company. Since the inception of the Central Sourcing Team in 2013, the team has helped deliver 3,138 consultants and overhead staff to external and internal customers.Nearly 25% have gone on to other roles within the company with the remaining singularly focused on delivery.

Col. Huxley is a nationally recognized expert on Military Veterans and has been featured in Staffing Industry Analyst Staffing Stream and Hiring our Heroes. His discussions stem from his own experiences as a veteran as well as his success with S3 in developing veteran talent. Col. Huxley's topics reflect national statistics in relation to veteran hiring and frequently discuss how companies can better gather and harness their veteran talent. S3's Central Sourcing Team's success speaks to his expertise at recruiting, developing, and retaining veterans.

For several years now, S3 has made it a top priority to seek out veterans. S3 founder and CEO Cindy Pasky knows how invaluable veterans can be to a team saying, "We know that military veterans and their spouses are among the best and brightest thinkers; they are quick learners, adapt easily, build solid relationships, and have strong ethics."

In addition, Col. Huxley has recently aided in expanding S3's veterans reach to its International branches in Lithuania and the Baltics.In December, he traveled to Vilnius to present S3's veteran hiring initiative to Military Veterans Employment Initiative (MVEI) members, as well as government officials. It was not long after that S3International hired its first Lithuanian veteran to join the special service delivery team. In addition, Huxley spoke in front of Lithuanian Parliament in late April to address the benefits of hiring military veterans.

Col. Huxley's tremendous efforts have elevated S3 into a greater tier of efficiency and effectiveness. His new position, coupled with his perspective and ideas, will allow him to have his hands on even more S3 processes, undoubtedly stimulating further success in his wake.

Strategic Staffing Solutions (S3) is an international, woman-owned, $350 million IT and business services corporation based in Detroit. With a composite average annual growth rate of 21%, S3 is fiscally sound and debt free. S3 has had $2.4 Billion in sales since its inception with $1.2 billion of those sales occurring in the last 5 years. It is ranked 17th among the largest staffing firms in the US by Staffing Industry Report and is one of three companies nationally certified as a Charter Partner with Staffing Industry Analysts.S3 is also ranked as the sixth largest diversity staffing firm in the US by Staffing Industry Analysts and one of the top 25 among woman-owned business in the nation by Women's Enterprise USA Magazine.

S3 provides staff augmentation, direct hire recruiting, workforce programs, and outsourced solutions with global industry expertise in energy/utility, healthcare services, insurance, communications, and financial services.It has more than 3,000 direct consultants in 49 out of 50 states in the U.S. and 11 countries Europe and the Americas.
FORT WORTH, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 05/01/17 -- Interstate Restoration LLC, the team of large-loss recovery experts who help businesses with their restoration and reconstruction needs, has completed a deal with West Palm Beach, Fla.-based Restoration Alliance that will allow Interstate to expand its presence and operations in the Florida market just in time for hurricane season.

The transaction is one in a recent series in which Interstate Restoration has established itself as the nation's go-to organization for response to disasters such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, fires and earthquakes. Interstate has focused in recent months on expanding its resources throughout North America. The combination of Restoration Alliance and Interstate will build upon that expansion and provide Florida customers with the best aspects of two top-tier teams. Together, the organizations will improve efficiency and response times statewide.

"Any time a business experiences a devastating damage to property, we want to have our experts on the scene within an instant," said Interstate CEO Stacy Mazur. "With hurricane season right around the corner, we are especially sensitive right now to the needs of the business people and residents of Florida and other coastal states. Our goal is to get affected businesses back up and running in the least amount of time."

Terms of the deal with Restoration Alliance were not disclosed.

Investing in critical programs such as Colorado State University's Tropical Meteorology Project, Interstate Restoration has made extra efforts to alert hurricane-prone areas to the need for vigilance. Interstate also recently announced that it has expanded the use of their high-tech V-Alert system that gives businesses a stronger warning about storm dangers.

About Interstate Restoration

Founded in 1998, Interstate Restoration LLC is an emergency restoration and general contractor specializing in repairing commercial property nationwide. Ft. Worth-based Interstate helps businesses recover quickly from fire, flood, and other natural and manmade disasters. This means companies and people can focus on the important stuff -- like getting back to business and back to life. Go to www.InterstateRestoration.com.
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2ND EDITION!!! I hope to have some news soon about the 2nd edition of hole in my heart. Sorry for the delay!

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From the New York Times



"Lorraine Dusky, a writer who relinquished a daughter as a young single mother in New York State in 1966, supports opening the records. She reported in her 2015 memoir that in the handful of states that offered women the opportunity to remove their names from original birth certificates, only a small fraction of women  fewer than 1 percent  chose to do so." -- Dont Keep Adopted People in the Dark by Gabrielle Glaser, June 19, 2018

From the New York Times "On FirstMotherForum.com, a blog that discusses issues among women who had given children up for adoption, Lorraine Dusky, one of the sites authors, praised the series (ABC's 10-episode Find My Family): 'Maybe this will be heard by people who think it is unloyal somehow for a person to search out his or her roots, parents, family, when it is a most natural desire of consciousness.' --Two Reality Shows Stir Publicity and Anger"--Dec. 6, 2009.

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"It shouldn't take a miracle to find people you are related to by blood."--Jenn Gentlesk

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New Delhi - The much-awaited Real Estate Act comes into force from Monday (1 May 2017) with a promise of protecting the right of consumers and ushering in transparency but only 13 states and UTs have so far notified rules.

The government has described the implementation of the consumer-centric Act as the beginning of an era where the consumer in king.

Real estate players have also welcomed the implementation of the Act, saying it will bring a paradigm change in the way the Indian real estate sector functions.

The government has brought in the legislation to protect home buyers and encourage genuine private players.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2016 was passed by Parliament in March last year and all the 92 sections of the Act comes into effect from May 1.

"The Real Estate Act coming into force after a nine-year wait and marks the beginning of a new era," Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said.

The Minister said the law will make "buyer the king", while developers will also benefit from the increased buyers confidence in the regulated environment.

"The Act ushers in the much-desired accountability, transparency and efficiency in the sector, defining the rights and obligations of both the buyers and developers," Naidu said.

The developers will now have to get the ongoing projects that have not received completion certificate and the new projects registered with regulatory authorities within 3 months from Monday (1 May 2017).

Under the rules, it is mandatory for the states and UTs to set up the authority.

However, only 13 states and UTs have so far notified the rules. The states that have notified the rules are Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharasthra, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

The housing ministry had last year notified the rules for five Union Territories -- Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, and Lakshadweep -- while the urban development ministry came out with such rules for the National Capital Region of Delhi.

The other states and UTs will have to come out with their own rules.

A HUPA ministry spokesperson said the ministry has been taking up the matter with all the states and UTs for implementation of the Act, requesting them to ensure action as per the provision of the Act within the time limit.

The ministry had earlier formulated and circulated the model rules to the states and UTs for their adoption and it is their responsibility to notify the rules, the spokesperson said.

Those states which have not notified the rules will face public pressure and even people could approach the court in the matter, he added.

On reports that key provisions have been diluted by some states, he said it was pointed out to those states and they have assured the ministry that it would be corrected.

According to a report in The Times of India, the rules notified have kept most of the ongoing projects out of the ambit of the law, thus favouring the builders rather than the buyers.

The report notes that Haryana rules do not mandate builders to disclose the plan, layout and other specifications, which undermines the very objective of bringing in transparency in the sector.

In Maharashtra, the rules allow builders to exit a project once the occupancy certificate is issued. According to the report this would mean builder can pull out of a project before completing the amenities promised to the buyers.

The Indian real estate sector involved over 76,000 companies across the county.

Some of the major provisions of the Act, besides mandatory registration of projects and real estate agents, include depositing 70 percent of the funds collected from buyers in a separate bank account for construction of the project.

This will ensure timely completion of the project as the funds could be withdrawn only for construction purposes.

The law also prescribes penalties on developers who delay projects. All developers are required to disclose their project details on the regulators website, and provide quarterly updates on construction progress.

In case of project delays, the onus of paying the monthly interest on bank loans taken for under-construction flats will lie on developers unlike earlier, when the burden fell on home buyers, said real estate service provider JLL India CEO and Country Head Ramesh Nair.

RERA also states that any structural or workmanship defects brought to the notice of a promoter within a period of five years from the date of handing over possession must be rectified by the promoter, without any further charge, within 30 days, he added.

If the promoter fails to do so, the aggrieved allottee is entitled to receive compensation under RERA, Nair said.

Other highlight of the Act is imprisonment of up to three years for developers and up to one year in case of agents and buyers for violation of orders of appellate tribunals and regulatory authorities.

As per industry data, real estate projects in the range of 2,349 to 4,488 were launched every year between 2011 and 2015, amounting to a total of 17,526 projects with investments of Rs 13.70 lakh crore in 27 cities, including 15 state capitals.

About ten lakh buyers invest every year with the dream of owning a house.

Real estate industry bodies CREDAI and NAREDCO said the implementation of this law will bring paradigm change in the way Indian real estate functions. They expect property demand to rise but supply may get affected in the near term.

"It will bring a paradigm change in the real estate sector. It will protect buyers who have purchased flats in the past. The regulator under the RERA should find ways to help complete ongoing projects and provide relief to home buyers," NAREDCO Chairman Rajeev Talwar said.

CREDAI President Jaxay Shah said RERA will increase transparency in the sector and boost confidence of both domestic and foreign investors.

He, however, said there will be some "teething problem" initially in implementation of this law.

Asked about the impact on prices, Shah said, "Supply will dip during this year but demand will improve as buyers will have increased confidence about investing in the property market".

The real estate prices will remain stable now but rates could rise by 10 percent in the next six months, he added.

With PTI inputs
The dust has finally settled on RERA or the Real Estate Regulation & Development Act. From Monday (1 May 2017) it comes into force across India, and the day will be remembered as a special day for home buyers who have been committing the largest chunk of their life savings to an industry which has been free for all.

A press release from the Housing Ministry stated how this day marks the end of a 9-year-long wait; and for the first time 76,000 companies engaged in building and construction activities across the country will become accountable for quality and delivery. Union Minister for Housing Venkaiah Naidu in his tweets called it the beginning of a new era making buyer the king, while the developers benefit from the confidence of a King in the regulated environment.

Buyer the King was the hope with which groups like Fight For Rera have waged this decade long struggle to get the rules in place. But as of now, this dream is a bit stretched, considering there are many gaps in the final rules announced by states like Maharashtra, UP and Gujarat. And key states like Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab,Haryana, Tripura, Karnataka, West Bengal, Telangana and Tamil Nadu have missed the deadline of notifying the final rules, completely.

My attempt is to tone down the celebrations and expectations around the Real Estate Act and bust some myths.

Myth 1RERA will bring relief to over 1 lakh home buyers stuck in severely delayed projects across India.

It wont. Several state RERAs have made it pretty kosher for ongoing projects to escape the net. The Gujarat government may altogether excluded all ongoing projects. Theres enough talk that Gujarat is likely to cover only those projects under the ambit of RERA which have been launched on or after 1st November 2016.

According to Maharashtra Rules, Occupation Certificate (OC) and Completion Certificate are interchangeable. This is a worrying dilution and opens a window to exclude incomplete projects on the basis of OC.

In UP if a Completion Certificate has been applied for, and sale/lease deeds of 60 percent of the apartments/ houses/ plots have been executed, the builder is out of RERAs ambit. These rules were finalised under the erstwhile Akhislesh Yadav-led SP government. In fact various Noida buyer groups put tremendous pressure on Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and his son Pankaj Singh who won the Noida assembly seat, right before the state elections, threatening to abstain from voting all together, for these dilutions. UPs new government, we hear, is taking a relook at the rules.

Haryana, the other State where buyer stress is evident in several delayed projects, only a set of draft rules were issued as late as 28 April 2017 by the Town and Country planning department. These rules are diluted as well and seek to exclude projects which have applied for occupancy certificates or part completion certificates, if that is granted by the competent authority within 3 months of the application.

If at all, final rules are notified with this exemption, it will be an absolute raw deal for the home buyers, sitting on one-sided buyer seller agreement which also grants them a measly compensation for any delays.

Most desperate are the buyers stuck for years in projects like Amrapali, Jaypee & Unitech in NCR, DreamzGK in Bangalore, Aliens Group in Hyderabad, to name a handful. These developers have already diverted the money collected from the buyers. And where bank accounts are empty, a Regulator can at best, get the builder imprisoned. But will that yield any results?

Consumer and Civil Courts in several cases pertaining to these builders, have already prescribed throwing promoters into jail or penalties to be paid. Very few of these measures have yielded results.

What is needed in such dire cases is for each state regulator to step in soon after being formed; undertake a complete financial analysis case by case, of the developers books to assess whether theres any money left to complete the projects. If not, the bankruptcy laws must kick in, and with the help of the regulator and the government, incomplete projects and land should be auctioned to the highest bidder to return the money collected equally to all buyers. If there are no takers for the incomplete projects, one could also bring in a government backed body with construction credentials like NBCC to complete these projects. These moves though need more changes in the law and cant be done under current form of RERA.

Myth #2

Home buyers are protected in new projects launched post 1st May, 2017.

Puncturing this balloon of home buyers' belief, hurts the most. The Central Act notified in May 2016 was perfect in all respects. And Union Minister of Housing, Venkaiah Naidu also issued several warnings to states to not dilute any rules. Yet states, including BJP-ruled ones like Maharashtra, have come notified the most disappointing set of rules.

Several clauses under rule 3 of the Maharashtra RERA dilute the term sanctioned plan. Maharashtra rules mention only a proposed plan. They further allow developers to get away with disclosing at the time of registration, if the sanctioned FSI (Floor Space Index) is different from the proposed FSI. This totally violates the spirit and intent of Central RERA which calls for builders to disclose the final sanctioned plans at the time of taking bookings. And the builder is not permitted to make any changes without approval of 2/3 flat purchasers.

Maharashtra rules also give discretionary power to the authority, to withhold any information or document from uploading on the website for public viewing. RERA was enacted to bring complete transparency in the sector. These kinds of discretionary powers defeat the objective of the Act.

In Gujarat, RERA rules seem incomplete. No rules have been framed prescribing even the basics like forms, documents and procedures required for registration of real estate projects. There are no rules for revocation of registration either.

States like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Telangana, which have cities which are among Indias top 8 real estate markets-- Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkatta and Hyderabad--have not come out with final rules, despite being ready with the draft rules.

So lets not kid ourselves into believing that the buyer in new projects will be fully protected. Not yet.

Myth #3

RERA will bring down new project launches and prices of homes will start rising.

This is what some of the industry lobbies have been saying. But it is doubtful.

Sure. New launches have dropped to 33,000 units in 2016, compared with the peak launch of 87,500 units in 2012 according to data intelligence firm Propequity. But is there enough demand to absorb the already launched apartment units?

The current unsold inventory in Indias top 8 markets, including Gurgaon and Mumbai will take 36 plus months or 3 years plus to be cleared. So new launches or not, theres enough supply in the market to keep prices moderate.

Even today, buyers are willing pay a premium to trusted brands like K Raheja, ATS, Brigade, Ambuja Neotia, and a Tata. But to say, prices in general will start climbing, post RERA Act comes into force, is a big stretch.

So heres my humble take.

This is the very beginning of transparency which Indias real estate sector desperately needs. Overnight redemption for stuck buyers is too big a hope from the Regulator. Each State Authority will need to rethink and refine the laws and also find the right kind of civil servants/ professionals to man the tribunals  to ensure buyer protection and industry growth needs are both met.

Why bother at all about the industry? Because it is after all Real Estate Regulation & Development Act. The development part has been submerged in all the noise surrounding the plight of the shortchanged home buyers. The real estate industry too faces some big challenges. Approvals for housing projects from urban local bodies across India are ridden with delays and graft. They have all been excluded from any accountability under RERA. So it helps neither the home buyer nor the economy to make the Regulator a draconian body and slowdown a sector gasping for breath.

The author hosts a show, Urban Reality, on CNBC-TV18, every Thursday 10 pm.
New Delhi: Hindi film superstar Aamir Khan on Sunday launched yesteryear actor Asha Parekh's autobiography Asha Parekh: The Hit Girl, co-written with film critic Khalid Mohamed.

About the book, Asha told IANS, "I had never thought of writing my autobiography, but Khalid came over to my place one day and he suddenly said 'Why don't we write a book on you?'"

Aamir thanked the 74-year-old actor for giving an insight to her prolific career. "Thank you Asha aunty for opening yourself up because so many film personalities who I've met usually say 'abhi kahan book karengay'.... everyone is really hesitant to do that...," he said.

About penning the book, Mohamed said, "...Maybe another sequel can be made from Asha ji's travel...Writing biographies are relatively easier...you are picking up another people's thoughts and achievements."

The event was also attended by veteran actor and politician Shatrughan Sinha, who has shared the screen space with Asha in films like Heera and Sagar Sanam. Praising the Teesri Manzil actor, he lauded her as a 'self-made personality'.

The book has been published by Om Books International.
Since Saturday, a photo shopped image of Amarendra Baahubali and Devasena, the lead characters of Baahubali 2 in Muslim attire has been doing the rounds on different social media platforms. A twitter handle @Atheist_Krishna called it 'Babu-Ali'.

The suggestion is that only the Muslims will not like a movie like Baahubali because the film as they saw it, celebrates Hindu traditions and way of life. Another said the movie will "boost Hindu pride". One more tweep insinuated that the person who did not like it "will have great things to say about Lipstick Under My Burkha."

Director SS Rajamouli is a self-confessed atheist so it is unlikely that he even remotely intended Baahubali to be a celebration of Hindu faith.

But a movie seemingly set in a timeless era and inspired largely by Amar Chitra Kathas, has now strangely become the poster-boy of the Hindu right. So much so that reviewers or just about anyone, who has anything negative to say about Baahubali is attacked with venom, questioning the critic's religion. If he or she happens to be Hindu, they are dubbed as fake Hindus and spreading hatred against Hindus.

In this 'Baahubali for Hindus' chorus, some believers have even interpreted the movie as proof that the "Hindus are consolidating''. They see in Devasena and Sivagami, characteristics of what "Hindu women stand for''.

If in the reel world, Baahubali spilled blood in the kingdoms of Mahishmati and Kuntala, in the digital space, it has given trolls a weapon to beat the opponents with. No one has been banished to Pakistan yet but I guess the battle over Mahishmati will ensure, that happens soon.

Not that the Hindu character wasn't evident in Baahubali - The Beginning.

The image of the younger Prabhas as Sivudu lifting the massive Shiva linga to place under the waterfall for 'jal abhisekham' is perhaps the most striking image of the first part that stays with you. It reinforced the image of a religion, that is both grand and macho.

Admittedly, Baahubali - The Conclusion focused on the religiosity of the characters and the Hindutva setting far more through its optics.

If the Elephant God is clearly the presiding deity at the kingdom of Mahishmati, Devasena's kingdom prays to Lord Krishna. This is a break from the fictitious Goddess who makes an appearance at the battle with the Kalakeyas in Part One.

Anand Neelakantan, author of the book `The Rise of Sivagami', says the movie is set in the period before gunpowder was invented which roughly correlates to the Chola period around the 7th or 8th century. "It is set in a particular time and period so the writer had to show integrity and reflect the social values of that time. That period saw the revival of Hinduism through the construction of many grand temples. So in that sense, Baahubali is not strictly a fantasy fiction film,'' says Neelakantan.

There is even a sequence involving bull-taming by Amarendra Baahubali, with the hero riding on two bulls, perhaps inspired by Jallikattu and Kambala. On the big screen, it was traditional Indian culture going pop, aided with the best VFX.

"I am not surprised that it is being hijacked,'' says Carnatic vocalist TM Krishna. "The movie is politically contextual to our times. And the timing of the film in terms of its political consciousness is aiding and abetting a virulent engine in operation.''

Telugu filmmaker Mahesh Kathi says with the modules and imagery borrowed from epics like Mahabharata - he calls Prabhas' character a mix of the Pandavas put together - it is not surprising that Baahubali is being seen as a Hindu film.

"As far as the BJP is concerned, it is their film as well,'' says Mahesh. "Why else would you give half a film, as in just the first part of Baahubali, the National award for the best feature film? This is not to say that Rajamouli had a Hindutva agenda while doing the film.''

But should all of this become the defining motif of Baahubali so much so the Hindu extreme right on social media takes over the post-release marketing responsibility?

On the other hand, should it really matter to critics that "there is not a single non-Hindu culture" in Baahubali 2?

"To me, Baahubali is a movie not bound by either history or geography. It simply is a fantasy film that has explored the space for folklore that goes beyond the popular epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata,'' says L Ravichander, a connoisseur of cinema and writer.

Indeed, because if movies were to be branded as Hindu and Muslim, many of Amitabh Bachchan's movies in which he said, "jo kabhi bhi mandir ki seediyan nahi chada, wo aaj tere saamne haath phelaye khada hai'' should be considered 'Hindu' movies, to stretch the ridiculous argument. Mughal-e-Azam then would be a Muslim movie and let us not even get into which slot Amar Akbar Antony would fit into.

What seems to set Baahubali apart is the use of top-notch technology to tell a very Indian tale. Pride over Indian content presented with cutting edge world-class sophistication is justified.

"It is the victory of the Indian mind to be able to recreate this kind of a visual spectacle on a Hollywood scale,'' says Krishna.

What it has resulted in is a desire to go back to mythology and story telling to recapture a certain sense of religious superiority, that flows from the bombast and larger than life images of Baahubali. A case of cinematic myth powering the idea of a grand civilisation of a bygone era.
"This has been one of the strangest events I've ever done in my life," The Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj said late in his set at Saturday's White House Correspondent's Dinner, before going on to say he felt like a tribute in the Hunger Games, waiting to see 'if Steve Bannon is going to eat me.'

It was part of a good, but odd, performance from the comedian, who was hampered by the fact that the person he spent the most time making fun of  President Donald Trump himself  wasnt in the room. (For his part, Trump accused the media of spreading 'fake news' and said they deserved a 'big fat failing grade' during a rally for supporters the same evening in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.)

This is not the first time he is making fun of Trump though. The comedian is a senior correstpodent and a integral part of Trevor Noah's The Daily Show, and has provided scathing insights to Trump in the past. Here's a piece from The Today Show where he talks about Trump as 'the white ISIS.'

If you take a look at the website of the comedian, actor, and writer in New York, you will see a bio that explains his surname. 'Not related to Nicki.' he states (referring to pop sensation Nicki Minhaj, the hitmaker who has come up with songs like 'Anaconda' and 'Super Bass')

Minhaj, 31, whose parents hail from Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, also has an one an hour-long stand-up special for Netflix, titled Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King is the story of 'New Brown America,' is based on true events from Minhaj's first generation Indian-American experience. Navigating between two worlds, it follows Minhajs arrival in the U.S., interracial love, racism, bullying, and his familys quest to achieve the elusive American Dream. The show will premiere on 23 May:

Excited to announce my first special #HomecomingKingShow debuts on @Netflix May 23rd! pic.twitter.com/CoU8BizfAE  Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) April 18, 2017

delivered a memorable entertaining speech at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner which for the first time since 1981 was not attended by the US president. The young comedian made fun of Trump for his perceived proximity with the Russians, his attack on the media and several of his campaign rhetoric.

(with inputs from agencies)
Lahore: Hindi film superstar Salman Khan's much awaited film Tubelight might not hit the screens on Eid in Pakistan as some local filmmakers have started a movement to stall the release of the film.

The filmmakers along with the Film Distributors Association and the Film Producers Association want to ensure better business for Pakistani films during the Eid holidays.

The distributors, producers and filmmakers say they want to protect the interest of Pakistani movies as two big films, Yalghaar and Shor Sharaba, along with others in the pipeline, are slated for an Eid release.

"If Tubelight also releases on Eid, it will certainly hit the business of these Pakistani films and that will not help our industry," actor Mustafa Qureshi said.

Those trying to stall the release of the Salman Khan-starrer are citing a law passed by the Federal Ministry of Information in 2010 which forbids the release of any Indian film on a Muslim holiday. "If required we can even go to the court," producer Altaf Hussain said.

Hussain said the associations are planning to send an official letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as well. He confirmed a meeting was held in Lahore at which it was decided that the entire Pakistani film industry will join the planned protest to stop the release of Tubelight on Eid.

"It has been decided that all those related to the Pakistani film industry will support the Pakistani films that are supposed to release on Eid-ul-Fitr," Hussain added.

Sohail Khan, the producer of Shor Sharaba, said, "My film is supposed to release on Eid-ul-Fitr and if the government doesn't stall Tubelight, I will not release it as a mark of protest."

Tubelight stars Salman, his brother Sohail Khan, the late Om Puri, Chinese actor Zhu Zhu and a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan. It is directed by Kabir Khan and co-produced by Kabir and Salman Khan Films. It is slated to release on 25 June.
On April 27, 2017, actor-politician Vinod Khanna passed away.

Human Decency died before him. Three weeks earlier or thereabouts.

She will be back, of course. Decency, after all, has died many deaths and been reborn each time due to her good karma. She has died down the ages in world wars, riots and concentration camps, each time women and Dalits have been assaulted over the centuries, whenever a pedestrian does not help an old person cross a road, when a healthy young passenger does not offer a seat on the Metro to a pregnant woman, when a man was killed on suspicions of having beef in his fridge in 2015 and this year when another was murdered for transporting cows to a dairy farm.

Privacy is a different creature altogether. She has been gasping for oxygen ever since the mainstream media explosion at the turn of the century in India and the emergence of the social media. Human beings have intruded on each other in the past too, but this is a last straw. She may now never again walk in our midst.

Somewhere around the first week of April, approximately 20 days before Vinod Khanna passed on, Human Decency and Privacy died too.

He was exquisite, with the appearance of strength that could wallop many men at one go. If this were his obituary, a discussion of Khannas work would get precedence over his looks, but in the context of his demise, his enduring beauty merits a primary reference because the visual has dominated the art in the public eye in recent weeks.

Also read: Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and the Dostana that almost was

Even if you are just a casual social media user, you are unlikely to have escaped that photograph of Khanna in hospital in what turned out to be his dying days: not the strapping fellow we once knew, but a frail, pale shadow of his former self, embracing his wife Kavita who stands on one side while on the other, a young man leans fondly against him. It was shared and re-shared scores of times on Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms with the caption: can u identify this famous cine star-cum-politician....? He is Vinod Khanna... Suffering from advanced stage of urinary bladder cancer (sic).

Three things struck me as I watched with horror people invading a weak old mans personal space.

One, the photograph does not seem to have been surreptitiously taken. Two, although it captured an intensely private moment (Khanna is not even fully clothed in it), someone thought it fit to pass it on. Three, once it was out in the public realm, it was circulated ad nauseam by individuals and media platforms, by those expressing shock at his decline and even by some expressing shock that others were sharing it without seeing the irony in their disapproval.

Taken together, this triad of circumstances tells us a lot about the society we have become and how we must guard against ourselves.

Learning to say no in the social media age

In the photograph under discussion, Kavita Khanna is looking straight at the camera  unless that happened accidentally, it suggests that the picture was taken with permission, not from a peephole or a hidden device. We do not know yet whether that is indeed the case, and whether the family posed willingly for their own album or, as happens so often these days, reluctantly in an instant of social awkwardness when someone whipped out a camera in a private space and asked for a photograph. Perhaps we will find out some day.

Whatever be the case, the point is, the ubiquitousness of cellphone cams and social media junkies today means that you do not have to be a VIP at a public function to find yourself routinely in situations where people are clicking without asking.

Even at gatherings of family and close friends, it is possible that just seconds after shovelling a spoonful of biryani into your mouth or dancing with gay abandon as if no one but your best buddies are watching because, well, you genuinely thought no one but your best buddies were watching, you could find yourself tagged on Facebook or Instagram in a picture freezing that scene for posterity.

If you spot the taker and ask them to stop, you risk being labelled a snob or a spoilsport, but if you do not object, keep this in mind: if it is shot, chances are it will be uploaded online; and if it is online, chances are it is being viewed by a general population, most of whom do not really give a damn about you.

It is one thing for this to happen in happy circumstances, but a friend recently told me with disgust of a funeral she attended where people took pictures of the body and posted them on Facebook. The world is going crazy in its rejection of earlier norms of privacy.

It is not easy, but if we want the private to remain private, we must learn to say no. Life is not a popularity contest. True friends will understand, and those who do not are probably among those who would write below your holiday photograph with your husband on Facebook, hot coupleso much love! before turning to the person seated next to them and saying, Do you know he is having an affair with the neighbour?

So, say no for yourself and on behalf of those dear to you who are too vulnerable to put their foot down. Because if you stop to worry about how the other person might react, what happened to Khanna could very well happen to someone you love  even if not on the scale it happened to him due to his movie-star status.

Even if you have faith in the person who took that snap, that video or audio recording, once it is taken, it is out of your hands, possibly even theirs. A million things could go wrong  cellphones get lost, computers get hacked, technology plays up. What if you trusted the right person but they trust the wrong person? What if you chose the wrong person to trust?

If there is a video, still pic or audio recording we are sure we would never ever want anyone else in the world to see or hear, maybe it is best not to allow it to be taken in the first place. After all, the spouse with whom you made that sex tape may break up with you and go rogue.

Once that picture is out there

My first reaction on seeing that image of Khanna was to ask, If it was your father, would you have distributed this picture?

Wrong question, because in a fast-changing India, there are folks out there whose answer might be, yes. We live in an era when honeymooning couples post photographs of themselves in bed together and parents upload naked pictures of their kids on social media. So the question has to be: what gave you the right to share that picture on a public platform without the subjects permission?

Hindi television actor Kiran Karmakar was among those who protested when Khannas picture was being tossed around. STOP POSTING VINOD KHANNA'S PHOTOS. Dont bother him. HE'S OUR HERO. LET HIM BE .., he wrote on his Facebook page.

Most of his followers agreed, but one, a lady called Jagruti Desai Shah, dug her heels in and demanded to know: What is wrong in praying for him? I am not able to understand logic behind this. When you are hero, people paid to buy magazines to look at them and worship them. Now they are in bad health people have write to see them and express their feelings. People need to think about this when you enter public life. You can not be selective about your public presence. It is all or none. (sic)

All or none? Unthinking though it is, this is a commonly held position. So if no line is drawn, is it okay to place hidden cameras in hotel rooms and bedrooms where celebrities are having sex or spending time alone with their children? To fly helicopters over private property in France for a photograph of Kate Middleton topless, as European paparazzi have done? Or to race Diana, Princess of Wales, down a road in Paris for a photograph of her with her boyfriend?

In any case, it is unclear why fans need a visual of a sick celeb to pray for him. Artists do not enter public life to allow us into their bedrooms, bathrooms and hospital rooms, nor do we get to demand this of them. They enter public life to let us in on their art. Anything beyond that is a bonus they may choose to offer, if at all they do. And unless they are indulging in criminal or socially detrimental activities, we have no right over their personal lives.

Success is not a favour society grants to artists. Success is a reward for their hard work and the joy they have given us.

Some well-meaning journalists and others focused their objection to the publication of Khannas photograph on their desire to remember him by his youthful looks, holding that the invasive hospital photograph marred our memories of his handsomeness. They are missing the point.

Age can be and is lovely, even if illness is not. Could it possibly be their contention that old people should be hidden away from our gaze? The debate here is about choice and consent. We do not get to make decisions on behalf of others in the matter of privacy.

No one had any business being with Khanna in that hospital room except those he wished to have around him  no one, not even our prying eyes gazing at that photograph.

The fact that he did not issue a statement about his illness should tell us that he considered it a private matter. However much we may disagree with that decision, to have shared that picture in such circumstances was an act of extreme insensitivity.

In a tribute published after his death, senior journalist Bharathi S. Pradhan wrote: In his last days, nobody but Vinods family was encouraged to visit the hospital, which was entirely understandable. Anyone who knew Vinod Khanna would know that he prided himself on his Punjabi robustness and would have opposed letting anyone see how the disease had shrunk him out of existence.

Yet, when someone chose to photograph him at his weakest, scores of people claiming to be well-wishers chose not to respect his wishes. Vast sections of the media too carried that photograph, under the guise of reporting the online leak. (Note: Firstpost did not publish the aforesaid photograph on the grounds that, as mentioned in an April 7 article, it would have constituted a gross violation of the actors privacy, as well as that of his family.)

In 1997, when Diana was killed in an accident following a paparazzi chase, the late legendary journalist Vinod Mehta was on television discussing the difference between the Indian and Western media, and why Dianas death could not have happened that way in India. He recalled a Western newsperson expressing amazement to him about the fact that the Indian press had spared Sonia Gandhi  the young, attractive widow of a young, attractive late prime minister instead of swarming around her home, investigating possible affairs and so on. Soon afterwards, Atal Bihari Vajpayee became Indias PM for a third time, but his long-time live-in companion was not even mentioned in newspapers till she passed away in 2014. Indian news platforms still avoid speculating about our politicians romantic liaisons, keeping their eyes firmly focused on netas lawfully wedded spouses. However, coverage of movie stars hook-ups and break-ups  once only the subject of film gossip magazines  is now regular fare in the mainstream media.

In the 20 years since 1997, we have been inching inexorably towards the disgraceful paparazzi culture of the West.

We are still not there. We are still not planting photographers in trees opposite the homes of screen idols or flying aircraft over their mansions. Hordes of camerapersons still do not station themselves outside hotels and restaurants to take random shots of emerging guests in the hope that they may, just may, catch a star  minor or major  that a media publication would pay for. This is the Western reality that the Indian media has thankfully not yet imbibed.

Still, with this episode involving the photograph of a dying man, India turned a dismal corner in the mainstreaming of tabloid sensationalism and societys participation in it.

R.I.P. Vinod Khanna.

R.I.P. Human Decency and Privacy.
By David Gaffen

| NEW YORK

NEW YORK Oil edged slipped more than 1 percent on Monday, as rising crude output with Libya hitting its highest production since 2014 and increased U.S. drilling countered OPEC-led production cuts aimed at clearing a supply glut.Signs of slower-than-expected growth in manufacturing in China and a weaker figure for U.S. manufacturing sentiment also weighed on expectations for oil demand and the market. Global benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 for July was down 54 cents at $51.51 a barrel by 11:50 a.m. EDT. U.S. crude for June CLc1 dropped 53 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $48.81 a barrel."The market continues to hunt for a bottom," said Gene McGillian, manager of market research at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut.

U.S. crude has lost nearly 9 percent since April 11, weighed down by the market's impatience with the slow pace of inventory drawdown around the world even after major oil producers agreed late last year to cut production by 1.8 million barrels per day for the first half of 2017.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and participating non-OPEC countries meet on May 25 to discuss whether to extend that reduction. Given that inventories remain high and prices are half their mid-2014 level, OPEC members including top exporter Saudi Arabia support prolonging the curbs.

Libya's National Oil Company said production has risen above 760,000 bpd, highest since December 2014, with plans to keep boosting production. That OPEC member had been excluded from production cut estimates because armed conflict had sapped overall production.Despite OPEC's efforts, the oil glut has been slow to shift.

"With four months of the cutting in effect we haven't seen a sizable reduction in global oil fuel inventories," Tradition's McGillian said. "It's not sizable enough to see some proof, and the market is having trouble holding most of its gains since 2016." Iran's oil minister said on Saturday that OPEC and non-OPEC producers had given positive signals for an extension of output cuts, which Tehran would back.U.S. drillers added nine oil rigs last week, bringing the count to the most since April 2015, energy services company Baker Hughes said on Friday. Crude output C-OUT-T-EIA in the United States is at its highest since August 2015. (Additional reporting by Alex Lawler in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
In yet another ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC), an army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed on Monday after Pakistani troops fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post of the BSF, India Today reported. The ceasefire violation took place around 8:30 am in the Mendhar sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

The two were injured in the Pakistani rocket attack but later succumbed to their injuries. Another BSF jawan was also injured in the firing.

"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer told PTI. Troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, the officer added.

Pakistan had violated the ceasefire seven times in April.

Pakistani troops had violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on 19 April and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on 17 April.

Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir by resorting to firing on forward posts on 8 April, drawing retaliation from Indian Army.

"Pakistani Army fired indiscriminately from small arms and automatic weapons from 1545 hours today on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Noushera belt of Rajouri district," a defence spokesman had said.

On 5 April, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch district by shelling forward posts with mortar bombs. On 4 April, Pakistani Army fired mortar shells on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri district. On 3 April, Pakistani troops had shelled mortar bombs on forward posts in Balakote sector of Rajouri district.

In the second ceasefire violation on 3 April, Pakistani troops had shelled Indian posts along the LoC in Digwar area in Poonch sector.

As per the reports, heavy mortar shelling in Digwar area had created a fear psychosis among the area dwellers. In the same area, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed by an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on 1 April.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

On 19 March, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by resorting to shelling and firing along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali area of Poonch district.

On 13 March, Pakistani troops had resorted to mortar shelling and firing by automatic weapons along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch sector. On 12 March, Pakistani troops had violated the ceasefire by resorting to firing and mortar shelling in Krishnagati and Chakan Da Bagh sectors along the LoC in Poonch district.

Pakistani shelling had caused damage to the LoC Trade Facilitation centre and LOC travel and trade was suspended for a few days.

On 9 March, army jawan Deepak Jagannath Ghadge was killed when Pakistani soldiers initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing along the LoC in Poonch.

In 2016, 228 instances of ceasefire violations along the LoC were reported while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violations along International Border (IB).

With inputs from PTI
Days after leading BJP to an emphatic victory in the MCD Elections, Delhi BJP unit chief and MP Manoj Tiwari's bungalow was ransacked by unidentified people late on Sunday. The police have arrested two suspects in connection to the case, which looks like that of road rage. However, earlier media reports suggested four arrests in the case.

According to the police, the incident occurred around 1.15 a.m. following a car accident in which one of Tiwari's staff-member was involved. After a heated exchange, occupants of the other vehicle forcibly entered Tiwari's North Avenue residence and thrashed his cook and personal staff. The police officials said that the attackers were also from the same neighbourhood and they had called in some of their friends to aid in their attack.

"We have arrested two persons and a case has been lodged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)," Delhi Police spokesperson Madhur Verma told IANS.

The sections include trespassing, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and acts of common intent. The officer also said that there was no political angle in the incident.

Taking to Twitter, Tiwari added that his bungalow had been attacked by some people. He also filed a complaint with the police immediately after the ransacking. According to News18 Hindi, the unidentified attackers beat up two members of Tiwari's personal staff while ransacking the bungalow. Tiwari was not at home when the attack took place.

Ye jaanleva humla hai, mere do log injured hai: Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari after his house in Delhi ransacked late last night pic.twitter.com/T2vu3zqZlP  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Meanwhile, the Delhi Police released the CCTV footage of the suspected attackers just before they ransacked the Bhojpuri star's official residence.

#WATCH: CCTV footage from the premises of Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari's residence, before his house in the capital was ransacked pic.twitter.com/GyZNb0qp1T  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

According to an eye-witness, the attackers were abusive and showed no fear of the police. The intention behind the attack was not clear too.

Don't know their intention or the reason behind but they were very abusive, were not scared of police. They were 7-8 in number: Eye witness pic.twitter.com/JyeNTxHXxD  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

The actor-politician claimed the attack to be a conspiracy against him and added that the role of the police in this case is "doubtful".

With inputs from IANS
New Delhi: Three persons, including an Assistant Sub-Inspector of Delhi Police were shot dead and a constable was injured, in an apparent case of gang rivalry, police said on Monday.

ASI Vijay, Bhupendra and Arun  died on the spot in West Delhi's Mianwali Nagar area when a total of 39 rounds were fired in the attack.

Constable Kuldeep sustained injuries, police said.

"The incident happened on Sunday night around 11:15 pm in the National Market of Mianwali Nagar, when all four persons were fired at by bike-borne assailants while sitting in a sedan," MN Tiwari, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), told IANS.

"Prima facie, it seems to be a case of gang rivalry. We are examining the CCTV footages and an investigation is on," Tiwari said.

Bhupendra, whose wife, Rajrani was earlier killed by rival gang member in Punjabi Bagh area, was under police protection.
New Delhi: A BJP MP from Gujarat's Valsad has filed a complaint with Delhi Police against a woman alleging he was honey-trapped and filmed in an objectionable position after being given a spiked drink.

Police has launched a massive manhunt to trace the woman and her associates in the alleged case of extortion.

The MP, KC Patel, alleged that the woman threatened to leak the video clips online if she was not paid Rs 5 crore, police said.

The woman has also approached a Delhi court alleging she was raped by the MP.

Patel in his complaint to Delhi Police Commissioner, Amulya Patnaik, has alleged that the gang was being operated by the woman, who took him to her house in Ghaziabad.

A case was registered against the woman and her gang in North Avenue police station on Saturday.

"KC Patel alleged that the woman gave him a spiked drink in her residence and later filmed him in objectionable positions after he fell unconscious. She later started to threaten him to make those clips viral. She demanded Rs 5 crore from him," a senior police officer said.

The woman, who had also approached a Delhi court, has accused Patel of raping her at his official residence on 3 March when he invited her to dinner. She said she was allegedly raped on several other occasions in various places by Patel, the officer added.

The woman alleged that the MP had threatened her with dire consequences if she approached police. She claimed that she approached Delhi Police but it refused to register her FIR.

Patel has denied the allegations. "These are all false allegations against me. I have full faith in the law. I will cooperate in the investigation with police."

He said the woman approached him seeking his assistance, but later he realised that he was honey-trapped after she showed him the objectionable video clips and demanded money.

The police have registered a case of extortion against the woman and her accomplices.
Lucknow: In a bid to improve education quality in state-run schools and ensure regular attendance, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wants images of faculty members pasted on school walls.

This will be done to check and then cross-check from the students whether those whose pictures were displayed attend schools regularly and teach or not.

Adityanath took the decision at a meeting in Gorakhpur late on Sunday.

The chief minister expressed worry over the falling standards in the primary and junior high schools in the state.

He said officials would conduct surprise inspections and reviews in the schools. Students would be queried on the regularity of their teachers.

He said some teachers in these schools use proxies to teach while they themselves draw hefty salaries without doing any work. This would no longer be tolerated, Adityanath told officials.

He was determined to ensure that the standard of education in the state-run schools improved even if it meant taking out-of-the-box steps or tough measures.
In yet another incident of discrimination against Dalits, the upper caste villagers in Madhya Pradesh's Mana village poured kerosene into a well used by the Dalits for "overstepping their boundaries".

The incident took place, near Agar Malwa district, about 200 km from the state capital as the villagers of the upper caste category were unhappy with Chander Meghwal, who invited a band party for his daughter's wedding on 23 April since the Dalits in different societies in the country are no longer observing witless caste taboos. The well supplied water to nearly 500 Dalits according to a report carried out by NDTV.

Forty five-year-old Meghwal had invited a band party despite getting a warning of facing a boycott as these acts of magnanimity and splendour are reserved solely for the suvarnas (people belonging to the upper caste.) Additionaly, the groom had come riding a bike, he had even used the main road, flouting the diktat of the upper caste villagers. The traditions of Mana village do not permit such things with special reference in the case of Dalits and they only approve a 'dhol' to welcome the groom.

Meghwal had been expressly warned that if he defied "rules", his family would not be allowed to draw water from the common well and would be barred from entering the local temple.

Following the threats, Meghwal had informed the cops and the marriage took place under tight security. Policemen, armed with rifles, batons and teargas, had been stationed to keep the peace. But two after they left, the retaliation started.

Kerosene oil was poured in the well to avenge Meghwal of his audacity for ignoring the warning of the upper caste members. With the village well polluted, the Dalits had to make alternative arrangements for potable water. Apart from this, the community also used pumps to separate the kerosene from the well water.

The well, constructed 1.5 km away from the habitat, was originally used for irrigation. But with water becoming scarce and tube-wells drying up in the village, it was the only source of drinking water."We are now forced to draw water from Kalisindh river, four km from the village," Meghwal told The Times of India.

After the well was cleaned, district collector Durvijay Singh and superintendent of police RS Meena went to the village and drank water from the well used by Dalits in order to reassure them. The collector also announced that two borewells would be dug in the area where the Dalits live. However, these promises will take time to materialise, until which time the well is the only source of potable water for the Dalits in the village.

The officers also had a word with the members of the upper caste to find out who was behind the incident. "No one admitted who put the oil or kerosene in the well. The elders were perturbed by the happenings," the district administration was quoted by The Times of India as saying. Singh further said that the recent incident has escalated tension in the village, adding that this was the first time he has witnessed such an attempt to polarise a peaceful society. The officials, Singh said, are keeping a watch on the situation.

Singh, a senior official, told NDTV that incident was "not such a big issue" since the various communities in the village have been living in amity. "Obviously someone has done this deliberately. It will eventually come out who was responsible," he said.

But no case has been registered in the matter and no investigation has been started, although the police have been stationed again in the village to provide protection to Dalits.
New Delhi: The army on Monday tweeted about the mutilation of the bodies of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan army, but refused to divulge details about such incidents under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, citing "national security" concerns.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

An RTI application seeking to know the number of soldiers whose bodies had been mutilated by intruders on the Line of Control was stonewalled by the army last year.

The Central Information Commission, however, rejected the army's contention that the information was related to national security.

Information Commissioner Diya Prakash Sinha, a former intelligence officer, ordered the army to disclose "the available details ... of soldiers killed in action... whose bodies were found mutilated."

"People of the country have the right to know about soldiers who lay down their lives in the line of duty," Sinha had said in his order.

In compliance with the order, the army had responded by merely providing the list of personnel who were killed in action along the Line of Control, a temporary border between India and Pakistan, without disclosing if the bodies had been mutilated.

Today, however, the army posted on Twitter a statement from the Northern Command on the mutilation of two soldiers.

"Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and forward mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," the Northern Command of the Indian army said in the statement. BAT is the Pakistan army's Border Action Team.
In a fresh turn to a bitter war raging between the Supreme Court of India and Justice CS Karnan, the apex court has raised doubts over Calcutta High Court judge's sanity.

A seven-member bench of the Supreme Court has ordered a medical examination for Karnan on 4 May, to ascertain whether the high court judge is mentally ill. The medical board, to be set up by the government hospital in Kolkata, will have to submit its report in the Supreme Court by 8 May.

"No one can say such things and get away," a report in Hindustan Times quoted the Supreme Court bench as saying after Karnan did not heed summons to appear before it.

The Supreme Court has also asked the West Bengal DGP to form a team of police officers to assist the medical board in examining Justice Karnan. The apex court has given Karnan another chance to file his response to the order, adding that if Karnan decides not to file his response, the court would presume that he has nothing to say.

Taking a stern approach against the rebel high court judge, the apex court also directed all courts, tribunals, and commissions across the country not to consider any order passed by Karnan after 8 February, when it had restrained him from taking up judicial work.

Justice Karnan in January had named 20 "corrupt judges", seeking probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the judiciary. The Supreme Court took this as contempt of court and issued a contempt notice on 10 March to Karnan for writing letters casting aspersions on several judges. It had also said Justice Karnan would not discharge any judicial and administrative functions during the pendency of the proceedings.

After Karnan failed to appear before the bench hearing the contempt proceedings, the Supreme Court served a bailable warrant to the sitting high court judge on 17 march to ensure his presence before the court.

It is for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court that it has invoked powers to initiate contempt proceedings against a sitting judge of a high court.

Within a couple of hours after the Supreme Court passed this order, Justice Karnan spoke to the media at his residence in Newtown of North East Kolkata and asked President Pranab Mukherjee to recall the "unconstitutional" and "illegally issued" warrant, arguing contempt proceedings cannot be initiated against a sitting high court judge.

"It is unconstitutional... Only a motion of impeachment can be initiated against a sitting judge of the higher judiciary before the Parliament after due enquiry under the Judges Enquiry Act.

"Consequently I ask the President of India to recall the bailable warrant illegally issued by the Supreme Court against me and lift non-work allotment ban of portfolio allocation," he said.

Signing a suo-motu order before the mediapersons, and issued to President Mukherjee and CBI director among others, Karnan directed that a case be registered under appropriate sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act and other penal provisions against the seven judges, including Chief Justice Khehar, and Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi.

"I direct the CBI director to register, investigate and file a report," said Karnan, mentioning that he was invoking his inherent power under the High Court to "prevent abuse of process of any court and secure ends of justice".

"I further direct the Secretary-Generals of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to place the entire facts of the case before the Speaker for appropriate enquiry under the Judges Enquiry Act," he said.

He alleged that he was being targeted after he made representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about some judges who had committed "illegal activities".

"This warrant is arbitrary, deliberately issued to ruin my life, my career. A Dalit judge (is being) prevented from doing work in a public office. That is atrocity," he said.

The bench on 8 February had directed Justice Karnan to appear in person to explain why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him.

With inputs from agencies
Srinagar: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday strongly condemned the beheading of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani forces in the Poonch sector and also the killing of five cops and two bank officials by terrorists in the Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.

In a statement, the chief minister condemned the killing of two soldiers in the Krishna Ghati sector of the Poonch district.

On the incident in Kulgam, Mehbooba said that a cash disbursement party had gone to the local bank branch office in a village and their killing reflects the dangerous turn towards criminalisation the society is taking.

She also expressed grief over the death of a civilian in a grenade attack in a Khanyar area of Srinagar.

Mehbooba said she has been warning of the ill consequences of violence time and again and made an appeal to the civil society to rise to the occasion to make the future of the younger generation peaceful.

The Jammu and Kashmir Congress Committee also condemned the killing of police personnel and bank employees in south Kashmir.

A spokesperson of the Congress termed the killings an "irreparable loss" and asked the police higher ups to ascertain the identity of the killers for handing out stern punishment to them.
Chandigarh: A threat publicly issued to Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh by pro-Khalistan elements during an event in Surrey city of Canada's British Columbia province recently has drawn an official protest from India.

Sources here told IANS that the Indian High Commission in Canadian capital Ottawa has lodged a "formal complaint" to Global Affairs-Canada, the foreign office last week, following the open threat to Amarinder Singh and hate speeches.

Videos of the 'Vaisakhi Parade' in Surrey on 22 April have been sent to the Canadian foreign ministry as proof of the open threats issued to Amarinder by Sikh hardliners.

The communication has also objected to the public display of Khalistan floats with images of slain separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other terrorists, pictures of Kalashnikov rifles and photographs of former and serving army and police officers who are on the hit-list of Sikh radicals.

It is learnt that the Canadian authorities were cautioned about the "anti-India propaganda" of the Khalistani elements by the Indian authorities, who were anticipating such trouble, on April 13 itself. The Canadian foreign ministry, responding to the early warning, said it will take "necessary action".

However, the Khalistani elements were allowed to have a free run and even issued threats on loudspeakers to Amarinder Singh in front of hundreds of people from the Indian community who participated in the 22 April parade. The Canadian provincial police and security agencies were present when all this happened, the sources told IANS.

It is learnt that the complaint pointed out to two Khalistani activists, Inderjit Singh Bains (an ex-office bearer of the Dashmesh Gurdwara, Surrey) and another person from the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) organization.

British Columbia premier Christie Clark had also attended the parade. The Punjabi Diaspora, particularly Sikhs, form a major vote-bank in the election-bound province.

"These kinds of open and cheap threats show the extent of radicalisation in a relatively small section of the Sikh community in Canada. They endorse our stand of pro-Khalistani leanings of such elements in the Canadian Sikh community. Such brazen threats, and that too against the elected chief minister of a state in another country, should have no place in a democratic polity. It is up to the Prime Minister of Canada and the authorities there to rein in such elements and take preventive action to ensure that things do not get out of hand," Raveen Thukral Media Advisor to the Punjab chief minister told IANS.

The Amarinder Singh government cold shouldered visiting Canadian Defence Minister of Indian-origin, Harjit Singh Sajjan, 46, as he visited various places in Punjab last month.

Amarinder refused to meet Sajjan, the first Sikh to be the defence minister of a western country, accusing him and other ministers of Punjab origin in the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of links to radical elements demanding a separate Sikh state of Khalistan.

No minister or senior officer of the Punjab government either went to welcome Sajjan or even accompany him during the visit.

Amarinder had pointed out that "Sajjan and several other ministers and top leaders in Canada were sympathizing with those indulging in anti-India activities, notwithstanding Canada's claims to the contrary", adding that he would "not meet any Khalistani sympathisers".

"I will personally not entertain the Canadian minister as I have concrete information about his being a Khalistani sympathiser, just as his father Kundan Sajjan, a board member of the World Sikh Organisation, was," Amarinder had said earlier.

"Not only Sajjan but other ministers and MPs, including Navdeep Bains, Amarjit Sohi, Sukh Dhaiwal, Darshan Kang, Raj Grewal, Harinder Malhi, Roby Sahota, Jagmeet Singh and Randeep Sari, were well known for their leanings towards the Khalistani movementaa I will not be seen hobnobbing with a Khalistani sympathiser," Amarinder pointed out.

Amarinder has been annoyed with the Canadian government since April last year when he was denied permission to visit that country, which has a sizeable Punjabi diaspora, in the run-up to the Punjab assembly elections. The SFJ had complained to the Canadian government against Amarinder's visit.

The Congress leader had to cancel his trip after being told by the Canadian authorities at the last minute that he could not allowed to visit the country for holding political rallies and meetings. The visit was aimed at wooing influential Non-Resident Indian (NRI) groups in Canada.

Amarinder had shot of an angry letter to Trudeau protesting against the "gag order". He was informed by Foreign Secretary S Jaishanker of the Canadian government's stance.

Trudeau's prdecessor, Stephen Harper, had visited Punjab in 2012 and 2009 in an apparent bid to woo the Punjabi and Sikh community in Canada.
Seven people including five policemen were killed Monday when suspected militants attacked a bank van carrying cash in Kulgam area of Kashmir, police said.

"All the seven in the van, five policemen and two bank employees, were killed," director general of police SP Vaid said. The Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack. A Hizbul spokesman, calling himself as Burhan-ud-Din, made the claim over telephone to a local news agency.

Senior police and paramilitary officers rushed to the spot after the killings.

The cash van had deposited cash in the Neehama village branch of the bank and was returning to Kulgam town when it came under attack.

The van was returning to a bank in the village of Pumbai in Kulgam district, around 70 kilometres (43 miles) south of the main city of Srinagar, when it came under fire, Vaid said.

Another police officer said on condition of anonymity that the attackers made off with cash and weapons.

Suspected militants in recent months have targeted banks across the restive Kashmir valley, where several armed groups have been fighting against Indian rule for decades.

Last week police said they foiled a bank raid in the southern district of Anantnag by two men who opened fire on paramilitary guards.

One of the attackers was arrested while another managed to escape.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, where most people favour independence or a merger with mainly Muslim Pakistan.

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947 but both claim the territory in its entirety.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday saluted the determination and hard work of workers on International Labour Day, , saying they play a big role in the country's progress.

"Today, on Labour Day we salute the determination and hard work of countless workers who play a big role in India's progress. Shrameva Jayate!" Modi said in a statement issued in Delhi.

International Labour Day, also known as Labour Day, is celebrated on 1 May and marks the victory of workers' movement. The Prime Minister also wished Gujarat and Maharashtra on their foundation day.

With inputs from agencies
News / Africa

by Staff reporter

The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) in Limpopo has lambasted Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa for donating buffalos to a game farm in Makhado, near troubled Vuwani.Spokesperson for the Limpopo ANCYL, Matome Moremi, said "buffalos will not vote for the ANC in the next coming national elections".He said this was the reason they would not attend the event at Matsila village where Ramaphosa donated three buffalos.He argued that Ramaphosa should have donated schools in the area instead, because more than 30 schools were torched and damaged by angry residents in Vuwani who demanded that the area be disassociated from the new Malamulele municipality known as LIM345 in the Vhembe district.Local chief Kgoshi Livhuwani Matsila of Matsila Village confirmed that Ramaphosa would donate three buffalos, 15 impala and 10 eland to the Matsila Wildlife Economic Project, a community game farming project.Matsila said the 500 hectare game farm was now worth about R5 million, because it currently has on it eight buffalo - including the three Ramaphosa donated - as well as 25 antelope, in 15 impala and 10 eland Ramaphosa donated."This project will assist members of the community to pilot radical economic transformation. We appreciate the efforts of the deputy president to assist the members of the community to boost their economy," Matsila said."Most people are of a view that this industry of game farming is mostly for white people, but that's not the case. We want to see more black people being involved in wildlife farming. We requested assistance from the deputy president and he assisted us."But these developments ruffled the feathers of the youth league who blasted Ramaphosa who has been critical of President Jacob Zuma, calling for the judicial inquiry on the State Capture Report as recommended by former public protector Thuli Madonsela.Moremi said: "The ANCYL in Limpopo declines the invitation and refuses to be part of buffalo parade in Matsila village. A stone's throw away, that village at Vuwani still stands (with) over 27 schools burnt and hungry people. Let's see if they vote for ANC," he said.Ramaphosa's spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said: "Chief Matsila requested the donation of the wild animals to the community and he did exactly that. This event is a joint venture with a SANParks contribution. Ramaphosa has been involved with the community in farming."He added: "In his farm at Lephalale he has been buying cattle from the community to assist them to support their families to get basic needs. He is doing it again this time at the request of the local chief. He is passionate about assisting the community and this time he is involved in game farming and wildlife. He wants to see the community being involved in wildlife."
Bhupesh Roy is from Assam but he is a long way from home. He has been working in the southern state of Kerala in the construction sector for the past four years and earns around Rs 500 a day, for an average of 20 days a month. Two months ago, I fell sick. I had food poisoning and was admitted to hospital. I had fever too. For a week, I was admitted to a small private hospital. But then also, bills were around Rs 7000. My friends had to collect money to clear the bills, laments Roy.

His story is not unique, he says. Medical bills eat into the meager earnings of migrants like Roy, leaving them with little to send back home. Recently, one of my friends met with an accident at the workplace. He fell down from a scaffolding. He suffered severe injuries. We gave him initial medical treatment here for a month and sent him back to Assam. One month of treatment had cost us around Rs 80,000. If we had some kind of insurance support at that time, it would have been a great relief for us, added Roy.

Its almost as if the Kerala government has heard Roys wish. Around 30 lakh such migrants in Kerala will get insurance coverage soon, as state officials will start the field work for implementing the same by end of May, according to a senior official. By the end of May, we will start collecting proper numbers of internal migrant workers. We have planned to issue them cards and provide insurance coverage, A Alexander, Additional Labour Commissioner (Enforcement) at Keralas Labour Department, told Firstpost, adding that Kerala will be the first state in the country to implement such a kind of scheme.

According to the senior official, the migrants, who are mainly blue-collar workers in the state, will get free medical treatment up to Rs 15,000 at state selected hospitals and they will also be able to claim Rs 2 lakh as accident death compensation.

It will be a scheme which will be renewed every year. The state government has already allocated Rs 10 crore for the scheme and we have roped in a firm through fair selection procedure to provide the best for workers, Alexander added.

No safety net for migrants

A study sponsored by the Kerala Institute of Labour and Employment and released in 2016 reveals that 87 percent of these migrants do not have health insurance.

Like Roy, Krishan Chand is a migrant form West Bengal who has been working as a hair stylist for the last six years in Thiruvananthapuram. Chand agrees that they are the least protected workers in the state and if the government implements such a scheme it would be a blessing for them.

I dont face much hassle at my workplace. But majority of my friends are in the construction sector and carry out risky jobs. When they meet any accident at work place, they are left on their own. Most of the time contractors disappear, Chand said adding that if government is coming out with an insurance scheme, it would be a great relief for them to foot the medical bills when they fall sick.

Even if it is for the treatment of fever, one visit to hospital will cost around Rs 500 including medicines, Krishan added.

A paper released by the International Journal of Commerce, Business and Management in 2016 states around 60 percent of internal migrants are workers in the construction sector and the rest in the hospitality, manufacturing, trade and agriculture sectors.

The majority of the internal migrant workers in Kerala are from West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. They remit more than Rs 17,500 crores to their states from Kerala, the paper adds.

Mini Mohan, a trade unionist in Kerala, said that health insurance coverage for internal migrant workers is the need of the hour. As majority of these workers take up work which is hazardous in nature without much safety and protection, chances of them getting hurt or falling ill is more. And when something bad happens, they struggle to get treatment on time without financial support, said Mohan who is with the Kerala Kettitada Nirmana Thozhilali Congress, which is affiliated to the International Labour Organisation. Majority of the places of stay of these kind of workers are also unhygienic. So, such a kind of insurance coverage is the need of the hour, Mohan added.

A research conducted by Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation for the Kerala Government in 2013 reveals that there are over 2.5 million internal migrant workers in Kerala with an annual arrival rate of 2.35 lakh.

According to the Gulati Institute, 14 percent of migrant workers in Kerala are from Uttar Pradesh, 17 percent from Assam, 20 percent from West Bengal, 18 percent from Bihar, 6 percent from Orissa and the rest are from other states.
Mumbai: The 57th Maharashtra Day was celebrated across the state on Monday, with the main ceremony taking place at the sprawling Shivaji Park here. Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis attended the event. On the occasion, the Governor announced the launch of Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority MahaRERA under which housing projects in the state will be registered.

He said the new Act will make the process of buying and selling of houses transparent, trusted and accountable. Union Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale, diplomats from various countries, senior officers of the armed forces, serving and retired government officers and citizens were present. The Governor unfurled the national flag, inspected the ceremonial parade and accepted salute presented by the marching contingents.

Under the Jalayukta Shivar Abhiyan launched by the state government to tackle water scarcity, over 2.5 lakh works had been completed and that 12 lakh thousand cubic meters of water storage potential has been created, Rao said. Around 11,000 villages in Maharashtra had become droughtfree by conserving water in village watershed, he said. About Rs 33115 crore crop loan was disbursed to over 48 lakh farmers in the state, the Governor said. Crop loans of 6.85 lakh farmers were restructured, he added.

The World Bank-assisted Nanaji Deshmukh Krishi Sanjeevani Project is being rolled out to make 4,000 villages of Vidarbha and Marathwada drought-free, he said. Altogether 225 cities and towns in Maharashtra have been declared 'Open Defecation Free', he said, adding the entire urban Maharashtra will become 'Open Defecation Free' by 2nd October this year.

All new legislation and amendments will be made available in Marathi language, he said. The government wants to increase use of Marathi language in the judiciary, he added. Year 2017 is being celebrated as Visit Maharashtra year, he said.

The Governor also attended the Maharashtra Day celebrations organised by Mumbai Mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar at the mayors bungalow. Fadnavis also offered floral tributes to martyrs at

the Hutatma Smarak in South Mumbai. Maharashtra was formed on May 1, 1960. Each year Maharashtra Day is commemorated with a parade at Shivaji Park in Dadar where the Governor gives a speech. The State Reserve Police Force (SRPF), Mumbai Police and Home Guards personnel take part in this parade.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh has called a "high-level" meeting on 8 May in New Delhi to discuss "strategy" following last week's brutal killing of 25 men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) by Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district. Will it throw up new and out-of-the-box ideas? Unlikely, if one goes by Singh's response immediately after the massacre.

Barely hours after the attack, Singh told the CRPF he wants "targetted" operations against the Maoists. He also reportedly said the CRPF should resolve its "inherent" problems like "weaponry, logistics and intelligent gathering mechanism to ensure lethality and better results by avoiding casualties", one news report said. Another quoted him as saying: "Tell me how many men you want, how much money you want, how many arms you want." Very gangsta!

But what does he mean by "targetted" operations? Have they not been "targetted" until now? What "inherent" issues does the CRPF have with weaponry, logistics and intelligence? Does the home minister believe the force has not enough arms and intelligence? How long has it been this way?

The 24 April attack is not the first and, sadly, won't be the last. On 11 March, the Maoists had killed 12 CRPF men in Sukma district. Why didn't Singh then order an urgent resolution of all these issues? Did his ministry take any corrective steps in the intervening six weeks since? If the CRPF lacks mojo, why has the government been sleeping on it?

Then, for the home minister to ask the CRPF to "ensure lethality and better results by avoiding casualties" is such a bummer. Are we to believe that the CRPF has been shying away from "lethality"; do they not shoot to kill? Is the CRPF lax in ensuring fewer casualties of its men?

If we translate this in simple English what Singh has reportedly told the force, is this: Make sure you don't get killed, not at least in such high numbers; use more guns; improve your intelligence; and kill the damn Maoists.

Really? How much more non-revelatory can you get with instructions? Hasn't the CRPF's only remit been to kill the Maoists and secure the region? Hasn't it utterly failed to achieve that goal despite its heavy presence there for years?

To be fair, Singh's cluelessness is not unique. Former Home Minister P Chidambaram was no less vague and imprecise as home minister under the previous government. After the Maoists killed 75 CRPF men - the largest casualties ever in an attack by the Maoists - in April 2010 in Dantewada district, his response had been similarly hollow. His successor, Sushil Kumar Shinde, too, deployed the same rhetoric  "we will avenge the attack"  when 11 CRPF personnel and four policemen were killed in March 2014, weeks before the Lok Sabha election. Ditto when the Maoists had killed 27 people, including Congress party leaders, in Sukma, in May 2013.

Last week's massacre was caused not by insufficient ammo or a lack of targeted strategy, or even failed intelligence, as Singh's reported statement indicates, though these factors exist, too. No.The CRPF men repeatedly end up as lambs to the slaughter because they are caught in an impossible  for want of a better word  war that, try as hard as they may, they cannot win.

They are doomed to fail because their presence is not backed by any practical and pragmatic assessment of the ground realities in Bastar, the Maoist-"infested" region of Chhattisgarh, where the high-intensity, overwhelmingly one-sided battle between the rebels and the security forces has raged for more than a decade with little success for the latter. The recycled responses of successive ministers betray a bankruptcy of creative solutions. The government has failed to acknowledge the obvious failure of the exclusive "military solution" and the need for a Plan B in its place.

For one, the CRPF men are badly disadvantaged as they have zero knowledge of the terrain. While the ragtag Maoists can sleepwalk across this land on a moonless night, the CRPF's ill-paid, ill- equipped and ill-trained men, who are non-locals without even a passing acquaintance with the landscape, make heavy duty marching a mile from their camps on a hot summer day.

Look at where the CRPF men were killed on 24 April: barely 1 km from their camp, just as those killed on 12 March had been from theirs. Those killed in April 2010 in Dantewada had been marching near their camp when attacked.

Chidambaram had then thoughtfully surmised that they appeared to have "walked into a trap". Anonymous officials have repeated "walked into a trap" analysis this time, too. How exactly do you walk into a trap a kilometer from your camp? When Maoists attack you so close to home, they aren't trapping you; they're stalking you.

Incredibly, the only counterinsurgency strategy in Bastar  a region larger than Kerala  has been to build mammoth CRPF camps in the middle of nowhere. Among the world's most fortified with their larger-than-life presence in a sparse and verdant vista, the camps are visible from afar. Officials have acknowledged that the Maoists probably keep a watch before striking.

The camps are virtual prisons whence inmates rarely venture out; never in ones or twos but only as a patrol. They are like the tethered goat in Jurassic Park for the dinosaur to grab and eat. To have these uniformed men guard road construction, as the CRPF men killed last week and on 12 March were supposedly doing, or have them march around their camps regularly - "area domination exercise" is the ironic phrase- is like putting out radio ads of their locations.

As a reporter I had reached Jagdalpur, the district headquarters for Dantewada, within hours of the massacre of 75 CRPF men in April 2010. It was surreal to witness CRPF jawans saw ply-board and nail together coffins for their fallen comrades. Nearby, hapless doctors silently carried out mass autopsies. One of the three survivors I met at the hospital revealed he lacked any meaningful counterinsurgency training. None of his colleagues had had a familiarizing tour of Bastar. Incredibly, the little training his batch had had in jungle warfare had been in Punjab.

If the CRPF men are not safe on any occasion they step out of their camp and are attacked so near it, one can imagine how impossible would be any kind of outreach into the local communities, who alone can help the CRPF with intelligence and ground support. The CRPF men don't speak the local language, Gondi, and it has not occurred to the government to make them compulsorily learn it. Mass contact with civilians for confidence building is not part of the strategy. In 2014 when I traveled to an interior village to investigate a killing I found that the communication gap between the civilian tribals and the security forces was wide as ever. The police were bent on arresting more tribals, and the tribals hated even the sight of the uniformed men.

The approach of the CRPF towards the civilian tribal people has historically been adversarial. The CRPF men (along with the state police) are routinely accused of arson, torture, rape and murder of civilians. On Friday, an audio statement reportedly released by the Maoists claimed that the 24 April killings were "revenge" for the (alleged) rape of tribal women by uniformed men.

In January, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said it had found "prima facie" evidence that 16 tribal women had been "victims of rape, sexual and physical assault by state police personnel in Chhattisgarh" in Bijapur district in October 2015. It said "prima facie, human rights of the victims have been grossly violated, for which the state government is vicariously liable."

Notwithstanding the machismo of their rhetoric, the governments of neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi and nor his predecessor, Manmohan Singh, ever called a comprehensive reassessment of counterinsurgency ops in Bastar to find and plug gaps. Had they done that, they would have found a total disconnect between the patrolmen and the local communities.

Once upon a time security forces claimed they had access to the Maoists' networks via the Salwa Judum, the barbarous tribal militia that Chhattisgarh police raised over a decade ago to counter the Maoists. But the militia had alienated the tribals with their unrestrained violence long before the Supreme Court ordered it shut in 2011. Former Judum members have now regrouped in another shape and form but, predictably, civilian tribals continue to hate them.

The biggest paradox is that there is a tremendous scope to build a bridge with the tribal communities, who have suffered much violence at the hands of the Maoists, too. In May 2016, a fact-finding team of four eminent social and political activists - who can by no stretch of imagination be labeled as proxies for the government - reported that in many places tribal villagers have been trying to fight the Maoists, too, some by using axes and arrows.

In fact, some villagers even sought police protection against the Maoists - one village wanted a CRPF camp set up near it - but without success. Instead, the police torture villagers to force them to confess that they are Maoists. Especially since Mr. Modi came to power in May 2014, the police have gone on a hyperdrive in Bastar. Allegations of police assaults and torture have shot up. Police have allegedly forced hundreds of innocent tribals to "surrender" as Maoists. This, obviously, is doing little to improve an already disreputable image of the police and the CRPF there.

The irony is that the government has accused one of the four activists who have documented the tribal resistance to Maoists of being a Maoist herself. Chhattisgarh police have even implicated Nandini Sundar, a professor at Delhi University and a tireless campaigner against human rights violations by the forces, in a murder case, a charge that she obviously denies.

"A proper dialogue process and a genuine people oriented democratic model of development is essential for the well being of the people of Bastar," the activists said in a statement. "In the current context neither the state nor the Maoists are addressing this urgent need."

We can't and shouldn't expect the Maoists to listen to the voice of reason, for even if they aren't winning the war they're certainly scoring every battle they fight with the security forces. But surely the government can't be so far gone in its mindless pursuit of a "bullet-for-bullet" approach that it cannot see how miserably that has failed for decades? Prime Minister Modi needs to break this cycle of hopelessness and bring some real solutions to the table.

After all, as has been said, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
New Delhi: The mutilation of the bodies of two Indian soldiers by Pakistan is an act of barbarism and the armed forces will react to it appropriately, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday.

In a strong reaction, Jaitley said such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of a barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.

He said sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vain.

"This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during a war," he said.
The Assam Police on Monday detained two people in connection with the mob lynching of two youths, which occurred on Sunday, suspected to be cow smugglers, Times Now reported. The report added that the police is interrogating the two suspects.

In a first case of cow vigilantes going to the extremes in Assam, a mob on Sunday had allegedly lynched two men in Nagaon district suspecting them to be cattle thieves.

Senior police officials said the men, aged between 20-25 years, were severely beaten up by the mob, who alleged that they were involved in cow theft. "When the police reached the spot, they were being thrashed by a mob of villagers near Kasamari grazing reserve under Nagaon police station," Nagaon superintendent of police Debaraj Upadhay had told PTI.

"The team immediately took the men to hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries," he had added.

The mob continuously thrashed them with sticks while chasing them for about 1.5 km, from Kasamari in Nagaon police station area to Jajori police station area, he said.

Upadhay said the men were identified and their parents have registered a complaint with the police.

An FIR has been lodged and investigation is on, the SP had said. Asked if it is a case of "cow vigilantism", the senior official had said a lot of cattle theft incidents have happened in Nagaon.

"In this case, I got reports that some people saw the two men trying to take away cows from the field and called more people from the village. When a large crowd gathered, they started thrashing them badly," he said.

The SP had assured of an "impartial enquiry" into the episode.

Although some incidents of cattle thieves being thrashed by mob have been reported from Assam earlier, this was the first casualty after cases of cow vigilantism were reported in recent times across the nation.

With inputs from PTI
Islamabad: Pakistan Army on Monday denied mutilating the bodies of two Indian security personnel, which has evoked a sharp reaction in India.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false," a statement from the Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations wing said.

"Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier," it said.

In a barbaric attack, an army junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a Border Security Force head constable were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan's Border action team (BAT) crossed into the Indian side as the Pakistan Army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.

The incident evoked a sharp reaction in India with Defence Minister Arun Jaitley saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. Government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.
It is just not done. Perhaps terrorists have no such compunctions and get their jollies by mutilating bodies but professional soldiers always show the enemy respect. Professional soldiers find nothing admirable about such heinous acts.

The mutilation of bodies after capture or during combat is unacceptable. A good soldier would find it against his moral fiber to engage in such a dastardly act.

Even war has rules. And technically, this is a time of peace between India and Pakistan. The dead are supposed to be returned with honour. If that is not possible, then they are to be buried or cremated with proper ceremony.

In 1971, in Shakargarh, a Pakistani infantry platoon charged an Indian position through the minefield. The brave Lt Col who led the charge was shot dead by Indian troops. After the battle, a white flag was flown. The war was halted so that the Indians could return his body to the Pakistan Army on a stretcher.

Compare that to the latest ghoulish report: Two Indian jawans being killed and torn apart. It's enough to make one ill. It seems clear that such an incident is indicative of the Pakistani Army losing its values and no longer obeying the basic tenets of warfare.

Article 34(1) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I provides: The remains of persons who have died for reasons related to occupation or in detention resulting from occupation or hostilities  shall be respected Article 16, second paragraph, of the 1949 Geneva Convention IV provides: As far as military considerations allow, each Party to the conflict shall facilitate the steps taken  to protect [the killed] against  ill-treatment.

There is nothing ambiguous about this. What part of this does the Pakistani Army not understand as it engages in such savagery? Such atrocities call for global condemnation. One can appreciate the sense of outrage that the Northern Command and all of India feels.

What possible advantage can one get from mutilating a dead soldier in uniform? These BSF men were on border patrol. These soldiers often pass one another at a pass the cigarette distance. Even if there was an exchange of fire, a certain sanctity must be maintained.

Writing in Crimes of War, author Wayne Elliot says, The main obligation to the dead is now found in Article 15 of the First Geneva Convention. The thrust of that article is the need to aid the wounded. However, it also provides that the parties must at all times, and particularly after an engagement search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled. The article also says that whenever circumstances permit, an armistice should be concluded so as to facilitate the search for the wounded. Of course, while searching for the wounded, the dead would also be found. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Commentary to the Geneva Convention says that the dead must be brought back with the wounded. One reason for this is that on the highly charged atmosphere of the battlefield, it might not always be possible to determine who is really dead and who is seriously wounded.

What India has to understand is that there are no limits to the provocation that Pakistan will engage in to harass its foe. If they can do this in a time of peace, one can only imagine their actions during the white hot heat of battle.

Coming so soon after the Jadhav mockery, it is patently obvious that these acts of aggression will continue even as we nurse a fond but misplaced hope that somewhere within Pakistan is an intent to live in peace.

The sooner we rid ourselves of this notion, the better.
Jammu: Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel on Monday, officials said.

The Indian Army vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicable act", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris. The Pakistan army denied that it was involved in any attack.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the "sacrifice (of the two killed) will not go in vain" and the Indian armed forces will react "appropriately" to the "inhuman act" of the Pakistani troops.

"This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during war," he said.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army.

They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

"The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them," the official said.

"Their target was a 7 to 8-member patrol party, which had come out of the post," the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

"Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated," the official said.

"Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning," a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Simultaneously, a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistani Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said, adding, "Such a despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded to."

According to reports, at 08:25 hours, Pakistani army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by an attack on another forward post in the same area.

A senior BSF officer said that at about 08:30 hours, there was heavy firing from the Pakistani army posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons.

"They attacked with rockets a forward BSF post (which lies) ahead of the fencing and opened heavy fire from automatic weapons. They violated the ceasefire," the BSF officer said.

The Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittently.

In Islamabad, the Pakistani Army said it did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector. Meanwhile, some official sources have said the Indian army patrol, whose two members were beheaded might just have walked into a death trap laid by the enemy. The incident in Krishna Ghati sector along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir occurred when a joint team of the army and BSF had gone to check the veracity of an intelligence report that landmines had been planted by Pakistani troops on the Indian side.

There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which Indian jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated.

On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian Army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector.

In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by a BAT. It had also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion had suffered injuries in the attack.

In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.

During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.

In February 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Army's 'Ashok Listening Post' in the Nowshera sector to kill seven Indian soldiers.

Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.

In April this year, there were seven ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops along the LOC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan mutilated bodies of two Indian soldiers, who were killed in Poonch firing near the Line of Control (LoC) at Udhampur on Monday, said media reports. According to CNN-News 18, this time, Pakistan launched a double attack of ceasefire violation and Border Action Teams (BAT) on the patrolling Border Security Forces (BSF). "The Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the LOC in Krishna Ghati sector. In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of the two soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the Northern Command said in a statement.

In an unsoldierly act by Pakistan Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated: Army pic.twitter.com/z5b2z1Ikya  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

The "despicable act", the Northern Command said, and warned of "appropriate response" to "an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army". The incident occurred hours after media reported the ceasefire violation along the border and a day after Pakistan Army General Qamar Ahsan Bajwa visited the LoC.

A report by the NDTV quoted the Northern Command and reported that the soldiers who were killed were part of a team patrolling between two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector along the LoC that were attacked by Pakistan. "Pakistan is inviting its own ruin," said Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi adding that the army will exact revenge.

Early on Monday, a soldier and a BSF head constable were killed in firing by along the LoC. The Pakistan Army had resorted to "unprovoked" firing in Poonch district at 8.30 am, defence ministry sources said.

Rockets and automatics were used to target Indian positions. The two were injured in the Pakistani rocket attack but later succumbed to their injuries. Another BSF jawan was also injured in the firing.

"A BSF head constable and an army soldier were killed in the ceasefire violation," an officer had confirmed. "Indian troops effectively retaliated and firing exchanges are going on between the two sides," he added.

According to the NDTV report, the 2003 ceasefire declared by India and Pakistan along the LoC which is the de-facto border has been rendered futile over the last two years with frequent violations.

Pakistani troops had violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on 19 April and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on 17 April. The troops had violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir by resorting to firing on forward posts on 8 April, drawing retaliation from Indian Army.

On 5 April, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch district by shelling forward posts with mortar bombs. On 4 April, Pakistani Army fired mortar shells on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri district. On 3 April, Pakistani troops had shelled mortar bombs on forward posts in Balakote sector of Rajouri district.

With inputs from agencies
Following the massive attack by US Forces on Afghanistan, using the MOAB or the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, US South Asia experts have been falling over themselves to explain the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a bid to claim an influence on President Trumps somewhat mercurial policy making fits. This included an op-ed by the head of an influential (but now sidelined) think tank, testimonies to House Committees dealing with terrorism, and seminars at various prestigious institutions. While there is general agreement on the difficulties in stabilizing Afghanistan and the dangers arising from the activities of various assorted terrorist groups operating in the area, there are some readily discernible standardized views of these experts and of others before them.

One of these is the argument that while Pakistan does continue its patronage of the Taliban and terrorists of all hues, it does so due to its dire need to defend itself against Indian influence in Afghanistan. It is unclear whether this logic arises from a defense of the underdog  where Pakistan is clearly so much smaller than India  , or simply from the acceptance that there is nothing much that the US can do to get Islamabad to stop assisting terrorists. Thus Pakistan is labeled as an important actor in the region, with US experts apparently listening unmoved to the repetitive tirade from Pakistani officials that Islamabad has been abandoned to face the repercussions of the war that the US started. This logic, well intentioned or otherwise, has so many holes, its difficult to know where to start.

First, Pakistan began this whole bloody ( pun intended) cycle of war in Afghanistan, well before the US was aware of it as anything more than a largish spot on a map. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto thought it a good idea to support a group of jihadis as early as 1977-78, to send a message to Kabul that it had better recognize the Durand Line as a border, or else. As may be recalled, the Durand Line was imposed on Afghanistan by the British, long before Pakistan came into existence. Bhutto apparently thought it a good idea to invoke the Islam card to overcome Pashtun nationalism, probably hoping that religious fervor would dampen ethnic loyalties. Therefore the brutal fact is that the US, didnt start this jihad inspired seemingly endless war. Pakistan did.

Second, as Afghanistan deteriorated into chaos following the exit of the Soviets in 1989, it was the then Interior Minister of Pakistan, Nasirullah Babar who virtually created the Taliban, and provided the wherewithal and military advice to push it quickly into Kabul. Babbar publicly claimed credit for this achievement, leaving no room for any doubt as to whos was the hand that fuelled the jihadi fire. Islamabad could not possibly have had India in mind when taking this decision. At the time, Indian presence was almost completely absent, as was any interest in Afghanistans travails. New Delhi was struggling with a restive Punjab and Kashmir, while Finance Minister Manmohan Singh was crafting ways to pull India out of an economic trough. So the Taliban phenomenon was conceived, aided and abetted by Pakistan for its own reasons, which was to dominate and degrade a neighbouring country.

Third, the present reality is that the whole Afghanistan adventure has become part and parcel of the Pakistani state at various levels. At the lower levels for instance, is the perennial problem of the madrassas. Pakistan now hosts about 35,000 madrassas of various hues. Pakistans grandiosely named  National Action Plan requires the government to implement reform plans for these madrassas, which critics say, lies at the heart of the counter terrorism policy. However officials are reluctant to do this, partly due to religiosity, and partly due to fears of a backlash from religious leaders. Madrassa networks after all mean money  and lots of it  to religious leaders who are likely to kick at losing this lucrative source of funds. These madrassas therefore continue to churn out ill educated youth by the hundreds. Most of these land up in the arms of the Taliban who need fresh cannon fodder for their regular offensives.

Another instance is the issue of the money that is pumped into the black economy due to the Afghan adventure. Intelligence agencies push in unaccounted money for operations that includes payment to sources on the ground, and for the whole expense of 'launching' fighters into enemy territory. Such expenses are naturally inflated at every level. There have been enough laments by militants that the money meant for them was being siphoned off by the ISI. Intelligence men are growing richer by the day. More or less on the same level, money is going to organisations that are involved in this business. That includes the Frontier Corps, whose role as a rear operational support base has rarely been examined by public sources. There is also the money earned by local business, shops, and vendors from the Taliban movement. Foreigners with riyals/dinars/dollars to spend are always welcome.

Most importantly, the whole enterprise fuels the Pakistan economy. Continuing US involvement in Afghanistan ensures that Washington has to pay various Pakistani institutions, including the Pakistan Army for expenses incurred in support of US operations. Analysts on both sides have long pointed at the double counting and sheer fraud in claims made by the Pakistani forces. At stake is about a yearly $ 1 billion, with the Trump Administration continuing these payments with $550 million paid so far. Pakistans State Bank acknowledges that the Coalition Support Funds (CSF) as such funds are called, has been crucial in reducing the current account deficit, which had surged due to a steep rise in imports of capital goods for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor(CPEC). That the CSF should help pay for CPEC is irony enough, but fact that the funds pay for US operations against a Taliban armed and funded by Pakistan borders on satire. The bottom line is that Pakistan needs to keep the US engaged in Afghanistan, for it to sustain its objectives elsewhere.

Finally, terrorism of all kinds sustains Pakistans diplomatic objectives. Russia, Uzbekistan, UK, US and others have had to kowtow to Pakistan's intelligence and army circles to get their terrorists back. The UK has long quietly acknowledged that it owes Pakistan for its assistance in foiling terrorist plots hatched against the UK. Pakistans all weather friend China has also had Uighurs sent back to its own prisons, but  being Beijing  mostly on its own terms. Terrorism is part of Pakistans diplomatic trade, and countries who are quick to condemn Indian brutality in Kashmir, have never seen it fit to not just condemn, but stop Pakistans aerial bombing of its own citizens in the name of counter terrorism.

The world therefore continues to buy into the theory that Pakistan supports the Taliban due to fears of Indian domination in Afghanistan, because it is easier to buy Pakistan's line, and hopefully get it to cooperate on the ground. These hopes have been continuously dashed against the reality that the vested interests within Pakistan will never allow a neutral and peaceful Afghanistan. Indias own narrative remain unheard, lost as it is in a mire of bureaucracy, where the Ministry of External Affairs is the lone voice pointing out the fallacies inherent to such arguments. A concerted campaign to disprove these arguments is necessary, especially at a time when it appears that the great powers are increasingly eyeing the Taliban as the lesser evil. For Pakistan, persistence palpably pays.

The author is former director of the National Security Council Secretariat
News / Africa

by Staff reporter

Johannesburg - The divisions in the tripartite alliance over the ANC's succession battle played out at Cosatu's nationwide May Day rallies with President Jacob Zuma and his "allies" booed while his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa was cheered and welcomed.Ramaphosa was once again endorsed as the preferred candidate to take over from Zuma.Zuma, African National Congress national chairperson Baleka Mbete and deputy-general secretary Jessie Duarte faced a torrid time in front of the labour federation members.Zuma faced the worst embarrassment since ascending to ANC presidency in 2007 when unrelenting Cosatu members heckled and chanted anti-Zuma songs in his presence.This forced the federation to prematurely end its main Worker's Day celebrations in Bloemfontein. In an unprecedented move all speeches were cancelled and the event abandoned.'Gupta' chantsIn Durban, Mbete tried to put up a brave face and continued with her speech despite repeated boos from the crowd who gestured for her to leave the stage.They chanted "Gupta" and despite attempts by SACP second deputy-general secretary Solly Mapaila and local leaders to calm the crowd. Responding to the rejection Mbete claimed that national ANC leadership expected the hostile treatment."We anticipated this as leadership. We met a week ago and discussed it. But we were ready to come and conduct ourselves in terms of our role as leadership,'' she told News24.Duarte didn't have a good day at the office either with the crowd barring her from addressing them. Gathered in Polokwane in Limpopo, Duarte was booed by hundreds of Cosatu members when she was introduced to speak.She told News24 afterward: "This is about supporting a candidate, the ANC has not decided on candidate yet, none of us has preferences. We have not taken a decision yet.''This was in sharp contrast to Ramaphosa, who was again affirmed as next ANC president at the rallies that went ahead. Cosatu leaders who spoke said they will work the ground to ensure he was elected as the next ANC president.Ramaphosa delivered his speech in Nkomazi, Mpumalanga during a heavy downpour with Cosatu members rooted in the rain listening to his entire speech.Cosatu's first deputy president James Tyotyo said government would not need to build him a home-an indirect jab to government spending R250m to upgrade Zuma's private Nkandla home."He will not steal government money. Government will not build him a house because he already has his own house. As Cosatu we want to repeat it today, we say the president [Zuma] must step down because on daily basis he commits blunders. His blunders will make us lose the elections in 2019," said Tyotyo.Ramaphosa for presidentAt the Gauteng Cosatu rally general-secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali said they will campaign to ensure Ramaphosa takes over the ANC presidency."We as the workers want Cyril Ramaphosa to be president, we will elect him in December," Ntshalintshali said.Political analyst Susan Booysen said the events were a "watershed moment for the ANC and the Zuma faction within the ANC in particular as they were rejected by a key constituency of the ANC"."We didn't see an outright rejection of the ANC, we saw people like Cyril Ramaphosa being welcomed in Mpumalanga and that was in contrast to Zuma, Mbete and Duarte - they met a groundswell of angry rejection and it was not white, it was not middle class. This was rejection from the heartland of the ANC," Booysen said.Booysen's view was echoed by Professor Somadoda Fikeni: "This collapses the view that people who do not support the president are either middle class, monopoly capital or racists. It shows that you have a cross-section of people for a variety of reasons who are unhappy," Fikeni said.Cosatu was at the forefront of ensuring that Zuma was elected president in 2007 at the Polokwane elective conference and pushed for Mbeki's recall the following year.However, they now want Zuma to go after he reshuffled his cabinet without consulting them. They have also not scored any major policy changes under Zuma's administration including their call for e-tolls to be scrapped, labour brokers to be banned and radical changes in the economy.Booysen said while it was early days in the succession battle, the Worker's Day events were a major setback for ANC NEC member Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's campaign for the ANC top spot.TacticsShe is backed by Zuma and his allies-the ANC Youth League and Women's League."Things can always turn again, but today from groundswell of anti-Zuma reaction there was in part succession battle being decided. It may turn again, but today's indication it was devastating setback for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Zuma,'' Booysen said.Fikeni said the anti-Zuma group were using the same tactics applied by Zuma supporters.The ANC Youth League recently booed and disrupted speeches by former finance minister Pravin Gordhan, ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize and Mapaila's address during a Chris Hani memorial."Remember for some time it's been well organised, pro-president booing down opponents; other side has now taken the same tactic, to show displeasure. It may then degenerate into no-go areas; you choose areas assured of supporters, or may lead to disruption of June or December conference," Fikeni said.The ANC earlier blamed alliance leaders for "prematurely speaking on leadership preferences" for the chaos that led to Zuma being prevented to speak.Spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said the incident should not be allowed to happen again."This is precisely the reason why we have cautioned Cosatu and other alliance structures including our leagues against premature announcements in public because they have an impact and bearing on our efforts to foster unity," Kodwa said.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh chaired a high-level meeting on Monday to discuss Jammu and Kashmir and the situation following the killing of 25 CRPF troopers by Maoists in Chhattisgarh.

The meeting was attended among others by Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Intelligence Bureau chief Rajiv Jain, RAW chief Anil Dhasmana and Central Reserve Police Force chief Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar.

Informed sources said the meeting discussed the fresh trouble in Jammu and Kashmir, where a spike in stone-pelting incidents by students have caused a law and order problem.

Singh was briefed about the ground situation in J-K, particularly along the border, where the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by Pakistan Army.

Top security brass, including Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and chiefs of intelligence agencies, briefed the home minister about the steps taken to tighten security along the border, official sources said.

The home minister directed the top officials to ensure strict vigil along the International Border, which is guarded by the BSF.

In the Naxal-affected states, the home minister has been told, the security forces were continuing their operations against the ultras in areas like Sukma.

The home ministry has already directed the security forces engaged in anti-Naxal operations to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures to foil Maoists attempts to attack them.

Continuing unrest in Kashmir valley was also discussed in the meeting.

Tension in the valley has been continuing since the 9 April bypoll to the Srinagar Lok Sabha when large-scale violence took place that claimed eight lives.

After a few Kashmiri students were threatened in some parts of the country, the home minister had asked all state governments to provide security to Kashmiris living in their states.

He had also asked the states to take strongest possible action anyone harassing Kashmiris.

The meeting comes days after Rajnath Singh reviewed the status of 2015 developmental package announced for Jammu and Kashmir by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and directed its expeditious implementation.
London: Three teenage women were on Sunday arrested by Scotland Yard as part of a continuing counter-terrorism investigation.

The suspects, two aged 18 and one aged 19, were held after raids by Scotland Yard's Counter-Terrorism Command in east London.

The Metropolitan Police said the arrests were made in connection with last Thursday's anti-terror arrests on Harlesden Road in north London.

"The arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation in connection with an address on Harlesden Road," the Met Police said.

The three women, who were arrested under the country's terrorism act, are currently in custody at a police station outside of London.

They were arrested after counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police Force carried out warrants at three addresses in east London.

Meanwhile, the 21-year-old woman shot during the counter-terror raid last week was discharged from hospital yesterday before being arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts.

A further six people were also arrested in connection with the incident, including five at or near the Willesden address and one in Kent.

Met Police Indian-origin Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu confirmed after Thursday's raid that an active terror plot had been foiled.

One of those arrested at the address was 21-year-old Yemen-origin Mohamed Amoudi.

It was revealed earlier that he had previously been quizzed by British authorities under suspicion of trying to travel to Syria to join Islamic State (ISIS).

The other people taken into custody alongside Amoudi were a 20-year-old woman, a 16-year-old boy, and a man and woman both aged 28.

Another woman, aged 43, was arrested from a property in Kent.

Terror suspects can be held for a maximum of 14 days, with judicial approval.

On Saturday, Met Police were given court authorisation to detain the suspects at a south London police station until after the long Bank Holiday weekend, which ends on Tuesday.
Editor's note: Firstpost is covering various aspects of the near-calamitous drought situation in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. This is the eighth article from a series of ground reports on the ongoing water crisis in south India. In this piece, the author writes about the heatwave in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and the political power play over it.

As the mercury soared to a new 10-year record of 43 degrees Celsius in Hyderabad recently  a heatwave for the third consecutive year  the demand for spicy buttermilk or masala majiga too soared. This product of Heritage, a unit owned by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, notched an all-time high business of nearly 12 lakh sachets being sold by 17 April. It also kicked off a political satire on social media that summer did not take note of bifurcation of state and that it did not differentiate between people of Telangana and Andhra.

As both the Telugu states called April a cruel month, experts warn that May is likely to be even worse. A scientific study has, in fact, attributed the soaring mercury levels for the third year running, to climate change. Global warming has increased the likelihood of a heatwave in the region from being a once-in-a-hundred-year event to a once-in-a-decade event. The study, Raising Risk Awareness, presented by environmental experts at an international conference in New Delhi in February also blamed the extreme heatwaves in the continent to what they termed human-induced climate change.

Similarly at a workshop organised by CMS-Vatavaran, Ministry of Environment & Forests and a German Institute in Hyderabad early this month, several experts were categorical that the issues like severe droughts, farmer suicides, climbing temperatures, and rising pollution had their roots in climate change. Though government officials failed to confirm, experts say that since 2012, sunstroke has claimed nearly 6,000 lives in the two states, particularly in the vulnerable groups of the elderly, children, women, farm labourers, slum dwellers and the destitute. A keynote address by an official of the National Disaster Management Authority at the conference also recorded that heatwaves had claimed around 20,000 lives across the country in the past two decades.

At least 176 people have died due to sunstroke in Telangana (90) and Andhra Pradesh (86) as of 20 April this summer. Thousands of animals have also died in the scorching heat. The unprecedented heatwave deaths, in the beginning of summer, drove the government to send out advisories that people should stay indoors between 12 noon and 3 pm. As dog days are ahead, it is essential for people to avoid exposure to the sun and stay indoors, said AP Home Minister Chinarajappa.

The Met office at Hyderabad and Vijayawada which have been giving out daily status reports, recorded a steady rise in day temperatures from March from 38 degrees up to 43 degrees Celsius on average, touching 45 degrees in the coal belt of Warangal, Adilabad and Karimnagar in Telangana as well as the sand and mineral belt of East and West Godavari, YSR Kadapa and Prakasam districts in AP. The heatwave this year is above normal. It was 40-42 degrees last year. This is mostly due to global warming and huge infrastructure projects being unveiled in both states, said Raja Rao, of the weather office (IMD) at Hyderabad.

On 23 April, the Met Department issued an advisory of 2-4 percent increase in average day temperature of 43 degrees until 26 April.

Massive irrigation projects, Mission Bhagiratha and Mission Kakatiya projects (worth over Rs 27,000 crores in Telangana) and the building of Andhras new capital Amaravatis irrigation and road laying works (worth about Rs 32,000 crores in AP) have added to the heatwave conditions. Both the states are competing in felling trees, converting fertile lands into canals, capital city and also roads in total disregard to advisories of National Green Tribunal (NGT) and other environmental bodies, said Yelamanchali Shivaji, spokesperson of a farmers federation environmentalist.

AP disaster management commissioner, Dhanunjaya Reddy said for the first time, the district administration has taken up the provision of oral rehydration kits, salts and intravenous fluids at public places at over 100 locations in 13 districts (more in Rayalaseema, East and West Godavari districts). While unofficially the heatwave deaths were over 2,600 in 2015, they touched almost 2,000 in 2016. But the revenue administration has pegged it to just 450 in 2015 and about 320 in 2016. To avoid payment of compensation to families of hapless heatwave victims by taking advantage of the loophole that such claimants should file an FIR first, the government is pegging down sunstroke deaths, alleged YSR Congress MLC and spokesperson C Ramachandraiah.

How the two states are tackling drought

The Andhra Pradesh government has already declared 245 mandals as drought-hit in 2016 and prepared an action plan for provision of drinking water, fodder for animals and also ambali (gruel) centres to help the aged and the destitute. Naidu, experienced in handling drought and cyclones, has already pressurised the NDA government at the Centre to send funds and geared the administration to provide succour to the people. In Andhra Pradesh, the chief minister has already pushed proposals for Rs 1,200 crores for relief funds from the Centre and directed the disaster management department to take up activities on a war footing.

But the Telangana government, which is not keen to declare many mandals as drought-hit, has only made a token request to the Centre for assistance. Asked why Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao delayed the process, a senior IAS officer told Firstpost, The state government wants to do better without Centre's assistance and hence show that it is not dependant on the NDA government.

Following delay by Telangana government, Governor ESL Narasimhan summoned the chief secretary of Telangana Panchayat Raj and Rural Development (PR&RD) SP Singh and sought details of drought relief measures. The secretary said that the Centre had given just Rs 100 crores for drought relief in 231 mandals of 31 districts. In 2016, the state sought Rs 3,064 crores from the Centre for drought relief but New Delhi sanctioned only Rs 791 crores, of which only Rs 400 crores has been released till date.

Telangana BJP state president K Laxman though blamed the state government for lack of focus on drought relief. There is no point in blaming the Centre when you are lethargic. At least Rs 5 crores has to be spent in each mandal by Telangana government this year, if it wants to put an end to heatwave deaths, he said.

In 2016, when Telangana suffered drought for the second year in a row, there was large-scale migration of farm labour to neighbouring districts. We see the same trend this year also, said S Malla Reddy, vice-president of All India Kisan Sabha, who alleged that last year, 1.4 million labourers from rural areas had migrated to neighbouring Karnataka, AP, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. They migrated mostly to Pune, Mumbai, Bhiwandi, Ahmedabad, Bellary and Surat to work as construction labour, say farmer leaders of both states.

Joint Action Committee chairman M Kodandaram said the situation was scary in all of Telanganas districts where farmers were selling livestock, homes and land to make a living elsewhere. Most farmers of Mahbubnagar, Warangal, Medak and Nalgonda districts have sold 70 percent of their cattle to slaughtering houses near Hyderabad, he said, blaming the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government of indifference and negligence. Why does the TRS government not want to own up to the drought and provide succour to affected farmers? he asked.

In response to this charge, senior officials in the Telangana Secretariat told this reporter that the government was of the view that after providing so many incentives to farmers and welfare programmes for the poor, it would become a laughing stock to cry drought. We are spending nearly Rs 40,000 crores on welfare budget in 2017. At this rate there should be no starvation deaths or farmers suicides which are precursors to heatwaves and drought conditions, they argued.

The TRS government said that it has directed all district collectors to take appropriate steps without even waiting for drought conditions. KCR continued the midday meal scheme for school children even after declaring early summer holidays for schools and at residential educational institutions. We have the best welfare budget, and massive irrigation works are underway and hence there is no need to declare drought and seek Centre's support which we know is not wholehearted, he said at the recent plenary of the party in Hyderabad last week.

Unless both states rise above petty politics and stop use of droughts and floods for political opportunism, the tragic conditions of the farmers and the poor will never change, said a political analyst of Kurnool K Radhakrishna Rao.

The TRS plenary also announced free fertilisers worth Rs 4,000 per acre for both Rabi and Kharif crops. The AP government too has been doling Chandranna Kanuka package (welfare goodies) to the poor in villages.

Both the Telangana and AP governments have instead made an ardent plea to the Centre to link agriculture with the MNREGS to curb migration of agriculture labour. It is the migration that causes starvation and heatwave deaths of the aged and the destitute as the young workers leave them behind in villages, explained Changal Reddy, a spokesman of Farmers Federation of AP.

Ironically, both states with abundant water resources, have failed to harness 14 rivers for meeting the drinking and irrigation needs of the people. Almost 400 tmc-feet of Godavari water flows as waste to the sea as it is not well harnessed in both Telangana and AP, said Vidyasagar Rao, a former chief engineer, now appointed as irrigation advisor to the Telangana government.

Part 1: Five states face severe water crisis made worse by the onset of summer

Part 2: Chennai slum dwellers forced to beg for water, authorities remain helpless

Part 3: Parched lands in Nagapattinam lead to distress migration

Part 4: Water crisis in Tamil Nadu is a manifestation of climate change, say experts

Part 5: As Karnataka reels under severe water crisis, residents brace unofficial rationing

Part 6: Parched rural Karnataka sees mass migration but officials stay in denial

Part 7: Kerala's efforts to revive water bodies bear fruit at grassroot level
Raipur: The Chhattisgarh government Monday appointed the wife of a CRPF jawan, who was killed in a Maoist attack in Sukma district last week, as an assistant sub inspector (ASI) of police, an official said.

"Chief Minister Raman Singh today visited the house of jawan Banmali Yadav in Dhourasand village in Jashpur district and handed over the appointment letter to his wife Jiteshwari," a government official said.

The chief minister was in the region as part of his government's 'Lok Suraaj Abhiyaan', a mass contact programme that seeks to address peoples' grievances and take stock of the implementation of development works and schemes, he said.

Constable Yadav was among the 25 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans, who were killed in a naxal ambush in Burkapal area of the state's Sukma district on 24 April.

During the visit, Singh expressed his condolences and later handed over the letter of appointment as ASI in the state police to the wife of the jawan. Singh also handed over a cheque of Rs 28 lakh to her, the official said.

"Singh also announced that the primary school in the village will be named after Yadav. Besides, he also sanctioned a residential quarter to the family in Jashpur district headquarter town," he said. Jashpur district administration officials also provided a financial assistance of Rs 3.50 lakh to his wife and the amount was deposited in the name of their 18-month-old daughter Kushboo, he said.

"The CM said that the amount will help the baby in her future education. Kushboo will receive about Rs 10.35 lakh after passing Class 10," the official informed.

The CM also sanctioned solar energy-based irrigation pump for the agriculture land of martyr's father Rogoram. Rs 2.63 lakh were sanctioned for repairing his well and agriculture land. Forest Rights pattas will also be allotted to the family soon," the official said.
New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday at Hyderabad House ahead of delegation-level talks between the two sides.

Modi and Erdogan held comprehensive discussions and took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.

Terming constantly evolving threat of terrorism as "a shared worry", India and Turkey on Monday said that no reason or rationale can validate terrorism and pitched for strong action against those who provide shelter and support to such forces.

Addressing a joint press event with Erdogan, Modi said, "We live in times where our societies face new threats and challenges every day. The context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern."

"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," he said.

Modi also strongly pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror outfits.

"President (Erdogan) and I agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace," the prime minister added. On his part, Erdogan said, "His country will always be with India in its battle against terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."

Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he had told a TV channel in an interview.

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

This is Erdogan's first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on 16 April that further consolidated his executive powers. The Turkish leader arrived here Sunday on a two-day visit.

"New impetus to a multifarious relationship," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted with a picture of the two leaders at the venue.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan where he was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour.

Later, Erdogan paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish president and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry bodies CII, Ficci and Assocham in which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties.

On Monday evening, President Mukherjee will host a banquet in honour of Erdogan.

Erdogan last visited India in 2008 when he was the Turkish prime minister.
Bhopal: Union minister Uma Bharti has said that during her stint as the Madhya Pradesh chief minister in 2003-04, a plan had been prepared to implement liquor ban in

the state.

She also said that the present dispensation in Madhya Pradesh led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan seemed to be implementing the plan prepared during her time. "I had asked the officials to prepare a liquor prohibition plan when I was the chief minister of the state. I wanted to implement prohibition secretly. I think Shivraj Singh knows about that plan and he is now implementing the same," she told reporters at Sagar on Monday.

She extended her support to the state government's liquor prohibition efforts. The Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation said that she had become the chief minister at a time when the financial position of Madhya Pradesh was not sound.

"The state was in poor financial condition when I became the chief minister. I had asked the officials how it would affect the financial condition of the state, if the

government implements the liquor prohibition. A plan was prepared in this regard," she added.

Earlier in the day, Bharti and Shivraj Singh Chouhan performed a puja of river Narmada at Kaneri village in Dindori district as part of the ongoing 'Namami Devi Narmade- Sewa Yatra' and also participated in Jan-Samvad (dialogue with public) programme.

"The irrigation area of the state has increased thanks to the completion of pending irrigation projects on priority basis. This has led to a jump in the state's growth rate. This initiative of Chouhan is a role model for the country," she said at the Jan-Samvad programme.

She said the union government has started a drive to complete 99 pending irrigation projects in the country within a definite time-frame and the decision will enhance the

irrigated area by one crore hectares. According to her, the Narmada Sewa Yatra that was launched to protect nature and environment with the active support of society, reveals the "saint-like nature" of Chouhan.

She said that Narmada water and cow milk will be the base of Madhya Pradesh's prosperity.
New Delhi: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's wife on Monday withdrew her application from a special court in which she had urged the court not to take cognisance of a CBI chargesheet filed against the couple into a disproportionate assets case.

After she withdrew the application, Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal put up the matter for 3 May for decision on taking cognisance of the final report filed against Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and others alleging that the Chief Minister had amassed assets worth Rs 10 crore which were disproportionate by 192 percent to his total income during his tenure as a Union Minister.

The court allowed Pratibha Singh's counsel to withdraw the plea, giving him liberty to move it again at a later stage if he wished to. In her application moved before the court on 24 April, the politician's wife had urged that the court to first decide whether the material relied upon by the CBI in its final report, which was reportedly collected during its probe in the state without taking the Himachal Pradesh government's approval, can be considered for the purpose of cognisance by the judge or not.

In her plea, moved through advocate Vijay Aggarwal, she had claimed that the consent of the concerned state government was a mandatory pre-requisite for the CBI to derive jurisdiction for carrying an investigation in any area within the territorial limit of the state. The court was hearing the matter in which the CBI had filed a charge sheet against nine people on 31 March for

alleged offences of abetment and forgery, punishable under Indian Penal Code and other offence punishable under Prevention of Corruption Act. The agency has arrayed around 225 witnesses and 442 documents.

Besides the 82-year-old Congress leader and his wife, the CBI has also named LIC agency Anand Chauhan, Universal Apple Associate owner Chunni Lal Chauhan, stamp paper vendor Joginder Singh Ghalta, MD of Tarani Infrastructure V Chandrasekhar among others as accused, charging them with criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption among others. Chauhan was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from Chandigarh on 9 July last year in a money laundering case filed it on the basis of CBI complaint and is currently in the judicial custody. The court had on 7 September last year taken cognisance of the final report against him.

The apex court had on November 5 last year transferred politician's plea from Himachal Pradesh High Court to Delhi High Court. Both charge sheets by CBI and ED are the outcome of the

same offence as alleged by the two agencies. In the final report filed by the ED, the chief minister has not been arrayed as an accused but a witness. The ED charge sheet was filed for offence of money-laundering, punishable under Prevention of Money Laundering Act Act.

The ED has said Singh "while serving as a Union minister had invested huge amounts in purchasing LIC policies in his own name and those of his family members through Chauhan".
New Delhi: AIADMK (Amma) faction leader TTV Dinakaran and his close aide were sent to judicial custody on Monday for a fortnight by a special court in the Election Commission bribery case.

Special Judge Poonam Chaudhry sent Dinakaran and his aide Mallikarjuna to Tihar Jail till 15 May after the police said that the accused were not needed for custodial interrogation.

The police told the court that a number of witnesses were yet to be examined in the case and the investigation was still going on in the matter. Both were produced before the court after expiry of their police custody.

The court also extended the judicial custody of alleged hawala operator Nathu Singh till 15 May after he was produced before it on the expiry of his one-day judicial custody.

It also directed Tihar Central Jail authorities to produce the politician and his associate before the court through video-conferencing after the defence cited security reasons.

Dhinakaran was arrested here on the night of 25 April after four days of questioning for allegedly attempting to bribe an unidentified EC official to get the undivided AIADMK's 'two leaves' election symbol for his faction for a by-election to the R K Nagar Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu which was later cancelled by the Election Commission.

The EC had frozen AIADMK's 'two leaves' symbol after two factions led by Sasikala and former chief minister O Panneerselvam staked claim to it.

The AIADMK (Amma) faction leader has been accused of allegedly arranging the amount from undisclosed sources and getting it transferred from Chennai to Delhi through illegal channels.

The court had on April 26 remanded Dhinakaran and Mallikarjuna to the five-day custody of Delhi Police which said it needed to unearth the money trail and the entire conspiracy in the case.

Mallikarjuna, who had been accompanying Dhinakaran everywhere ever since the arrest of alleged middleman Sukesh Chandrasekar on April 16, was arrested for facilitating an alleged Rs 50-crore deal between Dinakaran and Chandrasekar.

Chandrasekar is in judicial custody till 12 May.
New Delhi: The Home Ministry has turned down a request by the Election Commission for additional security forces for the Lok Sabha bypoll in militancy-hit Anantnag saying it could only spare 30,000 personnel.

This was conveyed to the Election Commission, which is likely to take a view on whether to hold the bypoll on 25 May or defer it yet again. The parliamentary seat was to go to polls on 12 April which were postponed due to violence during the 9 April polling for Srinagar Lok Sabha seat in which eight people were killed.

A home ministry official said the EC has been told that around 300 companies of paramilitary personnel could be arranged for deployment during the Anantnag bypoll. A company of paramilitary comprises around 100 personnel.

The EC may take a view on Wednesday after taking into account the opinion of the home ministry and report of its members who had visited the Kashmir Valley for an on-the-spot assessment.

Last week, the EC had asked the home ministry that 740 companies of paramilitary forces be put at its disposal by May 12 so that proper deployment of forces could be undertaken.

The demand seemed unprecedented as the poll body had sought 70,000 paramilitary forces for deployment in the recently-concluded assembly elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, which has 403 assembly constituencies and 80 Lok Sabha seats.

Earlier, the EC had sought 30,000 paramilitary personnel for the bypoll to Srinagar and Anantnag Lok Sabha seats.

There are around 10 lakh paramilitary personnel under the home ministry's command, but it is difficult to assemble them from different parts of the country on such a short notice, the official said.

The PDP, the ruling coalition partner in Jammu and Kashmir, has urged the EC to defer indefinitely the bypoll to the Anantnag Lok Sabha constituency in the wake of the "volatile situation" prevailing there.
New Delhi: Eyeing the main opposition role in West Bengal, the BJP on Monday claimed that "nationalist" leaders from the Congress and the Left in the state will join the saffron party as they are feeling insecure with the "appeasement politics" of TMC chief and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who was with party president Amit Shah during his recent three-day tour to Bengal, said the local population is feeling "threatened" due to Banerjee's "vote bank politics".

Vijayvargiya, who is also the BJP in-charge for the state, indicated that the saffron party will use the plank of the 'native vs illegal immigrant' there like Assam, where it rallied the Hindu voters by taking up the issue of the alleged large-scale illegal immigration from Bangladesh.

"The local Bengalis are finding their identity under threat due to Mamata Banerjee's appeasement and vote bank politics. They find it hard to celebrate Diwali and Durga Puja," he told reporters, in an oblique reference to the state's Hindu populace which is about 70 percent of its total population.

With the strength of the Congress and the Left parties declining, their nationalist leaders will look for an option and the BJP will be their choice, he said. He claimed that over 1.5 crore infiltrators from Bangladesh have been living in the state illegally.

Winning over leaders from other parties has been a key tactic of the BJP and it used that to big effect in recent assembly elections in states like Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The TMC has accused the BJP of communalism with Banerjee saying that it was polarising voters in the state for political gains.

Vijayvargiya said the state's bureaucracy has been politicised under her government and police stations have become an extension of the Trinamool Congress office.

The state with 43 Lok Sabha seats has been identified as a key growth region for the BJP by Shah who will visit it again in the coming weeks.

The party could win only two seats there in 2014 but has seen an increase in its vote share in various by-elections.

Though the TMC remains the dominant force, the BJP has come second in several polls and believes that it can be a force to reckon with by the 2019 general election, replacing the Left and the Congress as principal challengers to the TMC.
News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

Subscribe for $2 to Simbarashe Sithole's 'Indaba News' group on whatsapp - 0733819355

There was drama at Tobacco Sales Floor in Harare on Friday morning after a cheating couple reportedly got stuck to each other during sex.The love birds who are both said to be from Mount Darwin were unlucky and exposed in a runyoka\Ulunyoka event.Sources familiar with the development allege the man who was a transporter and the woman a farmer convinced each other to indulge in sex between tobacco bales on Thursday night but their shenanigans was seen Friday morning.A source who spoke to Bulawayo24.com said "The two are from Darwin, the man is a transporter while the woman is a farmer, she left her husband home and the transporter's wife is here at TSF.""They slept together on Thursday night but we saw them stuck on Friday and were rushed to Harare hospital where they both died yesterday," said the source.Cases of infidelity are mushrooming at TSF as last week a farmer from Uzumba caught his wife being at it with another man in a car.
Last week, when Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti sat with her partys core group members and legislators at her Fairview residency at Gupkar Road, she told them New Delhi was going to start a dialogue with all the stakeholders, but that the normalcy must first return.

Give me a roadmap on how to come out of the ongoing crises and I will make sure New Delhi starts dialogue with all stakeholders. If they dont, I wont hesitate to leave the government, Mehbooba told her party leaders, according to a senior PDP leader, who spoke to Firstpost on condition of anonymity.

But on Saturday, Mehbooba was rebuffed by the leaders of her own alliance partner, the BJP, saying they are not ready to start any dialogue with those who oppose India, including Hurriyat Conference.

BJP president Amit Shah, and national general secretary Ram Madhav, the architect of the PDP-BJP alliance, both reiterated that they are against holding dialogue with Hurriyat leaders and, the government should, instead, act tough against what Madhav accuses separatist leadership of using Valley as guinea pigs in their reprehensible politics of violence and separatism.

Amid growing differences between the two parties, Madhav met the CM on Sunday afternoon as the wedge between two parties is widening over dialogue with Hurriyat.

A day before the meeting, in a Facebook post, Madhav had said that the Union government has "categorically" told the Supreme Court that there is no plan to hold any talks with "the separatists and those who are not loyal to India".

These remarks by the BJP leader have not only left their alliance partner, the PDP, red -faced but it is also slowly dawning on the latter that it may have to pay a heavy price for its aligning with the Hindu right-wing party.

Madhav, the national general secretary of the BJP, is also the architect of the BJP-PDP's 'Agenda of the Alliance' which clearly states: Following the principles of "Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat and Jamhooriyat" of the earlier NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the state government will facilitate and help initiate a sustained and meaningful dialogue with all internal stakeholders which include political groups irrespective of their ideological views and predilections. It also adds, "The coalition government will facilitate sustained dialogue with all stakeholders irrespective of their ideological views.

I cant say anything on behalf of the BJP but the agenda of alliance document is the basis for this coalition to come into being. This is a very important document for us and we will stick to it, and make sure it is implemented. That also includes holding dialogue with all the stakeholders chief spokesperson of the PDP, Mehboob Beg, told Firstpost on Sunday.

Senior National Conference leader, Ali Mohammad Sagar, said the mainstream political parties have issues that can be addressed within the ambit of the constitution. "It is the Hurriyat leadership, which needs to be engaged in the dialogue, he said.

National Conference patron and former chief minister Farooq Abdullah, the MP from Srinagar, told party leaders and workers at NC headquarter in Srinagar that the stand of Government of India (of not holding talks with separatist) is extremely dangerous for future of Kashmir. I want to make one thing clear to them (New Delhi) that dialogue is a must; there is no alternative to talks, he said.

On the other hand, BJP president Amit Shah, who is in Jammu for a two-day visit, told party leaders that nation comes first and the government second. Despite repeated attempts by alliance partner to initiate dialogue with separatists on Kashmir, the repeated denials by the Center is eroding the credibility of the PDP, sparking speculations about a possible break-up.

It leaves an already shattered Mehbooba Mufti in a huge dilemma. This is not a Jammu-based small-time leader denying dialogue but two very important people of a party which is ruling India. Noor Mohammad Baba, senior political analyst based in Srinagar, said.

Senior PDP leader and Minister for Education Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari on Sunday said that dialogue cannot have a rider or any pre-conditions in a democratic set-up. He said dialogue at all levels needs to be inclusive and cannot be conditional.

Dissent is the essence of democracy. Exclusion of the voices of dissent is against the spirit of a democratic polity. A lack of inclusive dialogue can only add to frustration and over time, generate rejection and more rebellion, Bukhari cautioned.

PDP believes that inclusive dialogue is the only way out. Unfortunately instead of taking such an initiative, we have been made to believe that central government has a lackadaisical policy with regard to Kashmir. This perception needs to be changed on the ground, he remarked.

The PDP is paying a huge price for its alliance with the BJP. The refusal by the Centre to hold dialogue with the Hurriyat has pushed the PDP in an awkward and a dangerous position from which survival appears difficult. The party is caught between the proverbial devil and the deep sea.
The Sunday Express on April 30 carried a news item with the headline: Congress: Farm tax talks expose Modi govts anti-farmer mindset." The report said: The Congress on Saturday accused the Centre of 'backstabbing' farmers by talking about levying a tax on their agricultural income.

The report quoted Congress veteran and the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad saying: The complete apathy and insensitivity of the government, which is trying to impose tax on farmers through the backdoor is exposed by the fact that while finance minister Arun Jaitley tried to contradict NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroys proposal, the CEA (Arvind Subramanian) wholeheartedly supported taxing farmers.

Azad added, All this talk was aimed at testing the waters and creating an environment to impose a tax on farm income.

The Congress which has practised vote bank politics for decades  but it currently finds itself bereft of any vote bank  is clearly itching to find an issue to take on the BJP at a time when the saffron partys stars are ascending. But the BJP, it seems, is not going to oblige the Congress. It is as firmly committed to vote bank politics as the Congress is.

Despite the Congress leaders skewed argument, the fact remains that both the politicians, Azad and Jaitley are on the same side and both the economists  incidentally, both are on the payroll of the government  are on the opposite side of these two politicians.

This difference is because both the economists are only speaking in terms of national interest; they believe, if India has to prosper, bad politics must not be allowed to triumph over good economics. But for the politicians, irrespective of whether they belong to the BJP or the Congress, national interest can be sacrificed at the altar of partisan politics.

Congress followed this dictum for decades that it was in power at the Centre and in the states. The only difference now is that the BJP has replaced the Congress at the helm of national and state politics.

Both the parties have used poverty of the marginal farmer as the ruse not to tax the agricultural income. But the political leaders conveniently gloss over the fact that those who ask for the taxation of the agricultural income  Debroys and Subramanians  do not want the marginal farmer to be taxed; they want those agriculturists who live in palatial houses, ride luxury cars and go on expensive foreign jaunts not to be able to escape taxation just because their income solely derives from agriculture.

As per the records, in 2015-16, an estimated 2,746 individuals and entities had declared agricultural income of at least Rs 1 crore each. Is there any logic why these individuals and entities should not be brought under the purview of taxation?

It is nobodys case that an overwhelming majority of farmers who barely make both ends meet should be brought under the tax net. As such, as per the records, in 2012-13, Indias 90 million agricultural households had an annual average earning of Rs 77,112. These households would be automatically excluded from the purview of the income tax. But what about those who show their annual agricultural income as Rs 1 crore or more? Should they also enjoy the income tax exemption?

Leave individuals alone; what is a greater irony is those multi-millionaire companies which engage in agricultural activity are also benefitting from the "no farm tax" rule. A Biju Janata Dal MP, Bhatruhari Mahtab, said in Parliament: What is quite known is that there are more than 4 lakh taxpayers claiming exemption from agriculture income in the assessment year 2014-15. The biggest were seed giants like Kaveri Seeds  which claimed Rs 186.63 crore exemption and made a profit of Rs 215 crore before tax and multinational Monsanto India, which claimed Rs 94 crore as exemption from agricultural income and earned Rs 138 crore profit before tax.

"Not taxing the agriculture produce of the farmers is one thing but not taxing the companies who are earning thousands of crores of rupees? Individual farmers or companies farming more than 50 acres, they are given agricultural income exemption. It makes no sense, Mahtab said.

Subramanian had made the same point when he said that a distinction must be made between the rich and poor farmers while taking a call on taxing agriculture income. Debroy echoed the same sentiment when he said that the government must decide the threshold over which an agriculturist will have to pay tax on his income.

Debroy made a specific suggestion: Whatever is the threshold on personal income side on urban side, should be exactly the same on rural side. He said that there should be no artificial distinction between urban and rural income.

The KN Raj committee in 1975 and Kelkar Committee in 2002 had made similar recommendations. The latter, in fact, had made a specific suggestion that states should be persuaded to pass a resolution under Article 252 of the Constitution authorising the Centre to impose tax on agricultural income; the states ought to have no objection as the stipulation was that all such taxes collected by the Centre would be assigned to the respective states. That would have taken care of Jaitleys excuse that the Centre was not entitled to levy tax on agricultural income.

Dr BR Ambedkar, for whom both BJP and Congress governments seem to have high regard, had also supported taxing agricultural income. He enunciated his view on the basic principle of taxation of general income: income tax is levied on the recognised principle of ability to pay; those having income below a certain minimum level are exempted from tax payment; same should be the case with the agriculture sector. There should be no difference in the method of levying a tax on income from agriculture or business, he had said.

But the Congress government refused to pay heed to the advice because it knew that the rural rich have a great sway over the "rural vote bank". Taxing the rich farmers would mean alienating them and losing their political support. The congress, which had thrived on vote bank politics, did not have the courage to rise over partisan interest for the sake of the larger national interest.

The BJP government is turning out to be no different. Despite its hype on nationalism, it has no qualms in sidelining nations interest to buttress the party interest. It crows about the need to augment the nations resources. But it ignores the call to tax agricultural income to mobilise additional resources.

According to a report by Kavita Rao and DP Sengupta, economists at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, in 2007-08 alone, taxing agricultural income at par with other incomes would have yielded revenue of around Rs 50,000 crore. Imagine how much more revenue would be generated today, with the increasing mechanisation and productivity in the large firms.

The BJP government is also making a great deal of noise about black money. It surely knows that many rich businessmen and politicians in our country are laundering their black money using the pretext of the income from agricultural land. The modus operandi is for them to maintain large farms. The reality is that agricultural income being outside the tax ambit has resulted in large-scale tax evasion with a lot of non-farm income being shown up as farm income.

But the BJP government of today knows, as did the Congress in its heyday that it could not afford to alienate the big farmers who control the vote bank. That explains why Jaitley was quick to refute Bibek Debroy so that any talk of taxation of agricultural income is nipped in the bud.

Clearly, the BJP is proving to be same as the Congress: for both, considerations of vote bank politics take precedence over national interest.
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh was on Saturday held accountable for the partys failure to form a government in Goa even after winning more seats than the BJP in the recent assembly election.

Singh, a former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, was sacked as the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary in charge of Karnataka and Goa. Singh was punished for his Goa failure, though he continues to be in charge of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. While KC Venugopal, a Lok Sabha member from Kerala, will take Singhs place in Karnataka, the Goa responsibility has gone to A Chellakumar, a former Tamil Nadu MLA.

All this should come as a no surprise to Singh. This is not the first time that the word accountability is being bandied about in whispers in the Congress. Singh knows that. The action against him must have reminded him of the fate of a leader no less than Pranab Mukherjee, current President of India, who was sacked as the partys general secretary for his alleged bungling in Haryana in 1999, which later led to the partys defeat in that state.

The axing of Mukherjee was touted as one of the first tough actions taken by Sonia Gandhi after she took over as the Congress president in 1998. Her minions and admirers in the party had said that she would straighten up the Congress. Since then, the word accountability has been, on and off, hanging like a sword of Damocles over the necks of Congress general secretaries in charge of states, the partys state unit presidents and Chief Ministers. The warning: perform or perish.

The 'accountability' sword has dropped a few more times since Mukherjee's sacking but often too late and sometime on the wrong necks. One such wrong neck belonged to Ghulam Nabi Azad. As the AICC general secretary and the High Commands trouble-shooter, Azad ensured the partys victories in Karnataka and Maharashtra in 1999, in Kerala and Puducherry in 2001 and in Uttaranchal and Jammu and Kashmir in 2002. But, after the party lost Uttar Pradesh in 2002, he was shown the door.

In the past, I watched Azad in close quarters as he managed and manipulated Congress affairs in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. His integrity is not of the kind that would set the Dal lake on fire, and he has been accused of wrongdoing, but he knows better than most Congress leaders what oils the party machine right from the High Command to the grassroots workers. Though he failed to bring out a truce between warring Kerala leaders AK Antony and his sworn enemy K Karunakaran, his success rate in dousing faction flames elsewhere in the party has been high.

Yet, Azad was punished, partly because he boasted of his abilities too often and too loudly and partly because some Congress leaders, fearing he was growing too big, carried tales that were both real and fictional to the coteries that surrounded Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Why Digvijaya Singh was axed

In the case of Digvijaya Singh, he asked for trouble, though it has been slow in coming. After the partys disastrous performance in the last years assembly polls, Singh recommended a Major Surgery. (dont miss the capital M and S)

Today's results disappointing but not unexpected. We have done enough Introspection shouldn't we go for a Major Surgery ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 19, 2016

And after the partys poor show once again in March this year, Singh went on record to say: Time for (mere) introspection is over, it is time for action... He even said it was time to build a new leadership. In other words he wanted the Damocles sword of accountability to come crashing on a wide range of necks. Instead, it has now fallen on his own.

Though Singh made sense when he called for a surgery on the Congress, his own doings in Karnataka after he was put in charge of the party in the state in June 2013 left a lot to be desired. Having replaced Madhusudan Mistri, who had held the Karnataka responsibility since 2011, Singh made the mistake of siding with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The enemies of the Chief Minister  and he has plenty within his own party  identified Singh with him. A central leader, whose main job was to bring together factions, could only invite trouble by siding with  or even appearing to side with  one of them.

Besides being ridden by scam after scam, Siddaramaiah executed an ill-planned reshuffle last year when he dropped as many as 14 ministers and inducted 13 others. Even if the choices were right, the exercise was carried out with what can only be called arrogance, and it brought bickerings in the party into the open.

The Congress has never defined the role of general secretaries in charge of states, leaving them to function according to their whims and fads. In theory, a general secretary in charge of a state is the bridge between the partys state unit and the central president

Worse, the anti-Siddaramaiah elements were convinced that the reshuffle was the handiwork of Singh. They lost faith in his ability to function as a fair referee. Its not surprising that some leaders like Janardhana Poojary and Jaffer Sharief were openly critical of Singh.

An uncaring God and corrupt poojaris

The Congress has never defined the role of general secretaries in charge of states, leaving them to function according to their whims and fads. In theory, a general secretary in charge of a state is the bridge between the partys state unit and the central president ( = high command). In effect, it boils down to much more than connecting two dots. With the state unit invariably divided into factions and, in states where the party is in power, the Chief Minister promoting his own fiefs, the general secretary is subjected to multiple pulls and pressures.

But some general secretaries do no more than make flying visits to state capitals and summon senior leaders to their plush rooms in five-star hotels for undisclosed discussions.

Worse, a general secretary sometimes either sides with one faction or even creates and nurtures his own. Some central leaders have even been known to develop their own vested interests in the states they are in charge of, raking in the moolah with help of one or the other faction. Allegations of general secretaries, or the secretaries that the party appoints to assist them, pocketing money in return for election seats or other favours are not uncommon in Congress. In such cases, the general secretary merely becomes a corrupt poojari between an uncaring God (High Command) and the devotee (a state leader).

Merely shuffling office-bearers wont do

Of course, the grand old party needs much more than reshuffling of general secretaries to stop India from turning Congress-mukt. As for Karnataka, the Congress has a tough job on its hands if it wants to win the 2018 assembly election. Though Siddaramaiahs stocks in the party went up after recent victories in the Gundlupet and Nanjangud assembly by-elections, the public perception of the government being uncaring and corrupt is difficult to erase in the one year before the election.

Enough has been said about what Congress must do in the rest of India to save itself from extinction. We are, of course, presuming that the Congress is indeed serious about reinventing itself, about turning itself into a credible party with a credible leadership and a credible programme, about offering itself to people as a dependable alternative to the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

If thats what the Congress really wants, its Damocles sword of accountability should spare nobody, not even its vice-president Rahul Gandhi if he is the one who is thought to be responsible for the partys electoral shame.
Midnapore (WB): A West Bengal BJP leader on Sunday described Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a eunuch, while accusing her of practising the politics of appeasement.

While addressing a party meeting at Chandrakona in West Midnapore district, the party's state committee member Shyamapada Mondal alleged that Banerjee has been doing what Muslims do as their religious practice.

"Mamata Banerjee is practising the politics of appeasement and indulging in theatrics. We cannot understand whether Mamata Banerjee is a man or a woman. I would say she has become a 'hijra' (eunuch) as you see them in trains and buses," he said amid laughters by party supporters.

Asked to comment on the episode, Trinamool Congress secretary general Partha Chatterjee said the BJP was creating an unhealthy political environment in the state.

"By making such remarks, they are thinking that they will make their party stronger," Chatterjee told PTI.

"But they should remember that it is Bengal. This will not be so easy here. People will give them a befitting reply," he said.
Seoul: North Korea on Monday warned that it will carry out a nuclear test "at any time and at any location" set by its leadership, in the latest rhetoric to fuel jitters in the region. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high for weeks, with signs that the North might be preparing a long-range missile launch or a sixth nuclear test  and with Washington refusing to rule out a military strike in response.

A spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said Pyongyang was "fully ready to respond to any option taken by the US". The regime will continue bolstering its "preemptive nuclear attack" capabilities unless Washington scrapped its hostile policies, he said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA news agency.

"The DPRK's measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership," the spokesman added, apparently referring to a sixth nuclear test and using the North's official name, the Democratic Republic of Korea.

The North has carried out five nuclear tests in the last 11 years and is widely believed to be making progress towards its dream of building a missile capable of delivering a warhead to the continental United States.

It raises the tone of its warnings every spring, when Washington and Seoul carry out joint exercises it condemns as rehearsals for invasion, but this time fears of conflict have been fuelled by a cycle of threats from both sides.

The joint drills have just ended, but naval exercises are continuing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) with a US strike group led by the aircraft carrier US Carl Vinson. The Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman said if the North was not armed with "the powerful nuclear force", Washington would have "committed without hesitation the same brigandish aggression act in Korea as what it committed against other countries".

The statement reasserts the North's long-running rhetoric on its military capabilities. Seoul also regularly warns that Pyongyang can carry out a test whenever it decides to do so. Pyongyang's latest attempted show of force was a failed missile test on Saturday that came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed the UN Security Council to do more to push the North into abandoning its weapons programme.

Tillerson warned the UN Security Council last week of "catastrophic consequences" if the world does not act and said that military options for dealing with the North were still "on the table".

In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS television network's "Face the Nation" programme, Trump said that if North Korea carries out another nuclear test "I would not be happy".

Asked if "not happy" signified "military action", Trump answered: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."
Riyadh: German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Saudi Arabia's King Salman and his successors in her first visit to the kingdom in seven years, saying she pressed them on women's rights, the war in Yemen and other sensitive issues.

After her meetings in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, she told German journalists travelling with her that she raised human rights concerns with Saudi leaders, including the rights of women.

She said Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen also was discussed. For more than two years, the kingdom has been bombing Yemeni rebels aligned with Saudi Arabia's regional Shiite rival, Iran.

The conflict there has driven the Arab world's poorest countries to the brink of famine, with 27 million people needing humanitarian or protection assistance.

"We don't believe there can be a military solution to the conflict," Merkel said.

Saudi Arabia and Iran also back opposite sides of the conflict in Syria, and Germany was one of six international powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran to which Saudi Arabia objected.

As is customary, Saudi officials did not comment on the details of the meetings.

After her meeting with the Saudi king, Merkel held talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who oversees security forces and counterterrorism, and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has a vast portfolio overseeing defence and the economy.

During the meetings, Merkel said, she specifically discussed the kingdom's death penalty. Saudi Arabia has one of the world's highest execution rates and executes people for non-lethal offenses such as drug smuggling.

She also raised the case of Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger whose public lashing drew international condemnation from even the kingdom's closest Western allies. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for blog posts critical of the country's powerful religious establishment.

Having scheduled a meeting with Saudi businesswomen during her two-day visit, Merkel acknowledged there have been "significant changes in the role of women" since her last visit in 2010. She cited the historic first-time participation of women in Saudi Arabia's only elections for local council seats in 2015.

She noted, however, that women in Saudi Arabia still face many restrictions.

"I have the impression that the country is in a phase of change and that a lot more is possible now than some years ago, but it's still a long way away from having achieved what we would understand as equality," Merkel said.

Like other high-profile female visitors, Merkel did not cover her hair or wear a traditional flowing black robe upon arrival in the kingdom.
By Martin Petty and Manuel Mogato

| MANILA

MANILA Across Asia, more and more countries are being pulled into Beijing's orbit, with the timid stance adopted by Southeast Asian nations on the South China Sea at a weekend summit a clear sign this fundamental geostrategic shift is gathering momentum.U.S. President Donald Trump's flurry of calls at the weekend to the leaders of the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore might cheer those who fear his predecessor Barack Obama's "pivot" to Asia has been abandoned in favour of an "America First" agenda.But White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said the conversations were aimed at lining up Asian partners in case tensions over North Korea lead to "nuclear and massive destruction in Asia", and mentioned no broader strategic goal.Southeast Asian nations will need more than that to convince them the United States still has their backs.In the meantime, some are leaning closer to China, soft-pedalling quarrels over the disputed South China Sea and angling for a slice of Beijing's "One Belt, One Road" infrastructure investment programme to compensate for the U.S. abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.The unexpected bonhomie that has emerged between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could give Asian countries further confidence to continue their swing towards Beijing."Before, most Southeast Asian states wanted to benefit from Chinese regional economic initiatives and from American pushback against China," said Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore."The second part of this balance is now in question. Hence, the pressure to acquiesce to China diplomatically and on security issues is stronger.""IT'S POINTLESS PRESSURING BEIJING"

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, piqued by the Obama administration's criticism of his human rights record, last year announced his "separation" from longtime ally the United States while on a visit to Beijing.The White House described Trump's conversation with the firebrand Philippines leader as "very friendly" and - prompting criticism from Human Rights Watch for "effectively endorsing Duterte's murderous war on drugs" - invited him to Washington.But, underlining his new-found friendship with Beijing, Duterte on Monday inspected a Chinese naval ships docked at his hometown, the first visit of its kind to the Philippines in years.Duterte, who last year put aside a legal challenge to Beijing's sweeping territorial claims in the South China Sea to start negotiating billions of dollars worth of loans and infrastructure investments, chaired the latest summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila.Several ASEAN diplomats said China sent officials to lobby the Philippines ahead of the summit, and before the leaders had even gathered Duterte said it was pointless pressuring Beijing over its maritime activities.

An early draft of the summit statement seen by Reuters made references to land reclamation and militarization in the disputed waterway, but they were subsequently dropped, as were references to "tensions" and "escalation of activities". Cook said it was clear that, with the Philippines steering the summit to this conclusion, "it is no longer just Cambodia that is acting as an agent of Chinese influence in ASEAN over the South China Sea dispute".ASEAN RISKS LOSING LEVERAGE

Thailand and Malaysia have also moved closer to China. Thailand's relations with Washington came under strain during the Obama administration because of concerns about freedoms under its military-dominated government.

Trump invited Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to visit Washington during their call on Sunday, but the former general's government has its eyes elsewhere: last week it approved the first of three submarine purchases from China worth more than $1 billion.Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says Washington's new posture has shifted Asia's political and economic balance.Lee, whose country, like Vietnam, has shown no signs of moving closer to Beijing, stressed to his ASEAN counterparts on Saturday that, despite Trump's "radically different approach", they should balance their ties between the United States and China.Trump has said he will attend two summits in the region in November.But Southeast Asian nations are trying to gauge how far they can still rely on Washington as a shield against Chinese assertiveness. ASEAN foreign ministers will be seeking answers at a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Washington this Thursday.Uncertainty over Washington's commitment, analysts say, will only draw ASEAN countries further towards China, which can lure them with cheap loans, infrastructure investments and tariff cuts, but with a risk of diminished bargaining power.Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said it was imperative for ASEAN to regain leverage by bringing Washington back into the equation and expanding the influence of Japan."ASEAN is in a precarious position now with the concessions, accommodation and even appeasement with China," Thitinan said. "If China continues to be shrewd and takes ASEAN on another ride, then ASEAN will be much worse off." (Writing by Martin Petty and John Chalmers; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Germany: When Britain quits the EU, Gadheim will find itself at the geographic centre of the bloc, according to the IGN geographic institute.

A European Union flag snapping in the wind in the tiny German village of Gadheim is the only hint at why the world's media are beating a path to this out-of-the-way spot.

Its handful of houses are set in the rolling hills of Bavaria's wine country, clustered around a solitary road wending through fields overlooked by a clutch of wind turbines.

When Britain's two-year negotiations on leaving the EU end in 2019, Gadheim's 89 inhabitants will find themselves at the geographic centre of the bloc, according to the IGN geographic institute in Paris.

Most here first heard the news on the radio, says Juergen Goetz, mayor of nearby Veitshoechheim -- Gadheim being too small to have a Buergermeister (mayor) of its own.

"We thought it was an April Fool's joke at first," Goetz laughs, as he recounts the story around a table in the village hotel.

There's no doubt that locals are proud to see their countryside in focus, with its vineyards, endless fields and the winding Main river.

"My husband has always said that we were the centre of the world," jokes Inge Diek, the village representative of the German Farmers' Association.

"There's a pretty saying, 'God kissed the Earth only once, and that's where Veitshoechheim is'. Gadheim is a part of that," beams Goetz.

Gadheimers have set up a WhatsApp group to marvel at their newfound fame and mull how to mark the spot.

Most surprised of all was Karin Kessler, dark-haired, slightly weather-beaten and dressed in warm, practical farming attire.

Her son sent her a message with a map of the exact coordinates -- which she at first thought were on her neighbours' land.

"No, it's in your field!" her son shot back.

Bittersweet feeling

Kessler may be amused to find the centre of the EU in her unremarkable field of rapeseed.

But "the fact that it's only happening because of this Brexit is a bit of a shame for me," she says.

Like others in the village, Kessler still hasn't got over her disbelief, first that British voters would choose to quit the club, and that the process will now be seen through to its end.

For her, the most tangible impact of the EU -- castigated for decades in some of the British press as a burdensome foreign yoke -- is the fact that there are no border checks when she drives to France on regular holidays.

"And then I think, my father was in World War II. He was a prisoner of war in France. That gives me good reason to value" the EU, founded to bind historic enemies together, she explains.

Some gathered around the table wonder whether Britons might change their minds before it's too late -- or whether Scotland's simmering independence movement might keep a part of the island nation in the currently 28-member union.

If, and when, Brexit is final, Kessler is looking forward to pointing out to her father the flags marking the EU's centre flying in her field -- although she muses that "if the British think again then I'll be happy too".

Moving on

In Westerngrund, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) to the northwest, mayor Brigitte Heim also rues the British decision, not least because it will cost her small town its status as the centre of the EU, gained when Croatia joined in July 2013.

That cachet put it squarely on the regional government's radar too.

Since the centre has been here, "they know in (state capital) Munich that Westerngrund is still part of Bavaria," Heim says, despite the locals' dialect and fondness for Apfelwein (cider) -- both of which owe something to neighbouring Hesse state.

When local school pupils checked in 2015, around 6,000 people from 93 countries -- some from as far away as Australia and Mongolia -- had signed visitors' books kept at the neat lawn laid down to mark the spot, with a row of town, region, state, German and EU flags overlooking tranquil hillside fields.

"We thought Chinese buses would be coming there every week. It didn't really turn out that way," says local baker Christoph Biebrich, who crafted ring-shaped loaves with the hole representing the navel of the EU, surrounded by stars.

Still, locals and tourists love picnicking there, or hiking and mountain biking along the trail linking Westerngrund to the previous EU centre point in nearby Meerholz, he goes on.

Biebrich's advice for the people of Gadheim? Not to get too attached to their place in the sun.

"Sometime it will move again, just like it was in Meerholz before, and now it's been with us. That's just the way it is," the baker says.

But people in both Westerngrund and Gadheim hope that the next time the centre of the EU moves, it will be because of a new member -- not another exit, as mulled by French far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen.

"Brexit is a step backwards. Things can't go on like this," says Mayor Heim. "Of course we hope that France doesn't take the same step."
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Tom Finn

| GAZA/DOHA

GAZA/DOHA The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Monday dropped its longstanding call for Israel's destruction, but said it still rejected the country's right to exist and backs "armed struggle" against it.In a policy document presented in Doha by its leader Khaled Meshaal, Hamas also said it would end its association with the Muslim Brotherhood, a move apparently aimed at improving ties with Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which view the Brotherhood as a terrorist group.Israel responded to the announcement by accusing Hamas of trying to "fool the world", while the group's main Palestinian political rival, the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas, also reacted coolly to the policy shift.The publication of the policy document comes two days before Abbas is due to visit Washington, and days after President Donald Trump told Reuters he may travel to Israel this month and sees no reason why there should not be peace between Israel and the Palestinians."We don't want to dilute our principles but we want to be open. We hope this (document) will mark a change in the stance of European states towards us," Meshaal told reporters.Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, said in the document it agreed to a transitional Palestinian state within the borders of 1967, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a war with Arab states. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005."Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights," said Meshaal, in a shift that brings Hamas more into line with the position of Fatah."TERROR TUNNELS"

Israel said the document aimed to deceive the world that Hamas was becoming more moderate. "Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," said David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. This is the real Hamas." Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Egyptian Islamist movement, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories.Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Meshaal said Hamas's fight was not against Judaism as a religion but against what he called "aggressor Zionists".Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasme upbraided Hamas for taking decades to join Fatah in accepting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, a position Hamas used to criticise Fatah for. "Hamas's new document is identical to that taken by Fatah in 1988. Hamas is required to make an apology to Fatah after 30 years of accusing us of treason for that policy," Qawasme said.It remained unclear whether the document replaces Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israels destruction. Meshaal said the document would "guide Hamas's daily political activity".

Abbas's Palestinian Authority has engaged in peace talks with Israel on the basis of seeking a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, although the last, U.S.-mediated round collapsed three years ago.There was no immediate comment on Monday from Egypt and Gulf Arab states to the Hamas document."For Hamas ... it's a signal of their desire to align with conservative Sunni elements in the region and create some immunity (from Saudi pressure)," said Beverley Milton-Edwards, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre and author of a book on Hamas.But while the document could strengthen Hamas's position in the Palestinian Territories and the Middle East, she said, it was unlikely to lead "to any definitive swing in opinion in the group's favour in the United States or even Europe."Meshaal said Hamas remained part of the Muslim Brotherhood's "intellectual school" but was "an independent Palestinian organisation".U.S.-allied Arab states including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia classify the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation. The 89-year-old Brotherhood held power in Egypt for a year after a popular uprising in 2011, but was then removed by the army after mass street protests.The Brotherhood denies links with Islamist militants and advocates Islamist political parties winning power through elections, which Saudi Arabia considers a threat to its system of absolute power through inherited rule. (Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Tom Finn

| GAZA/DOHA

GAZA/DOHA The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will drop its longstanding call for Israel's destruction as well as its association with the Muslim Brotherhood in a new policy document to be issued on Monday, Gulf Arab sources said.Hamas's move appears aimed at improving relations with Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which label the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, and mending a rift with the main Palestinian faction headed by President Mahmoud Abbas.It comes two days before Abbas is due in Washington, and days after President Donald Trump told Reuters he may travel to Israel this month and sees no reason whatsoever why there should not be peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But the document, to be announced later on Monday, will still reject Israel's right to exist and back "armed struggle" against it, the Gulf Arab sources told Reuters.Israel rejected the reported shift, calling it an attempt by Hamas to delude the world that it was becoming a more moderate group. "Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," said David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians," he said. "This is the real Hamas."

DECADES OF CONFLICT

Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Egyptian Islamist movement, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories.Many Western countries classify it as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

The Gulf Arab sources said Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, will say in the document that it agrees to a transitional Palestinian state along the borders from 1967, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a war with Arab states. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.A state along 1967 borders is the goal of Hamas' main political rival, the Fatah movement led by Abbas. His Palestinian Authority has engaged in peace talks with Israel on that basis, although the last, U.S.-mediated round collapsed three years ago.It remained unclear whether the document replaces or changes in any way Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israels destruction and is the Islamist group's covenant.

A Hamas spokesman in Qatar declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from Egypt and Gulf Arab states."For Hamas... it's a signal of their desire to align with conservative Sunni elements in the region and create some immunity," said Beverley Milton-Edwards, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre and author of a book on Hamas.But she said while the document could strengthen Hamas's position in the Palestinian Territories and the Middle East, it would "unlikely lead to any definitive swing in opinion against them in the U.S. or even Europe." U.S.-allied Arab states including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia classify the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. The 89-year-old Brotherhood held power in Egypt for a year after a popular uprising in 2011, but was then removed by the army after mass street protests. The Brotherhood denies links with Islamist militants and advocates Islamist political parties winning power through elections, which Saudi Arabia considers a threat to its system of absolute power through inherited rule. (Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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News / National

by Mary Charamba

Potholes have become watering holes for pigeons along Princess Road in Harare.Pictures have surfaced in social media platforms of birds circling around the potholes.In January, Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere said he would seek President Robert Mugabe's help in dealing with Harare's dilapidated road network, which is characterised by gaping potholes.Most of Zimbabwe's roads have outlived their life-span, as they were constructed in the colonial era.
Washington: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets on Monday in massive May Day events across the US, mostly protesting the policies of President Donald Trump, the media reported.

May Day  also known as International Workers' Day  has spawned protests around the globe in past years highlighting workers' rights. But on Monday, the impetus for the US marches span from immigrants' rights to LGBT awareness to police misconduct, the USA Today reported.

"There's a real galvanisation of all the groups this year," said Fernanda Durand of political advocacy group Casa in Action, which will lead a march of about 10,000 people for immigrants' rights through Washington.

"Our presence in this country is being questioned by Donald Trump. We are tired of being demonised and scapegoated. We've had enough."

Durand's protest is part of the "Rise Up" umbrella movement that will hold 259 events in more than 200 cities in 41 states focusing on immigrants' rights, she said.

Another widespread effort, dubbed "Beyond the Movement", will feature a collection of racial-justice groups and include protests and marches in more than 50 cities, from Portland to Miami.

Trump released a statement on Friday declaring 1 May "Loyalty Day" as a way to "recognise and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles" upon which America was built, calling on all government buildings to display the US flag and schools to observe the holiday with ceremonies, reports the USA Today.

Originally a pagan celebration dating back two millenniums and heralding the return of spring, May Day has morphed into a global observance of workers' rights. But its emergence as an international workers' rights day actually arose from a 1 May, 1886, Chicago strike for the eight-hour workday.

In 2006, the focus of May Day demonstrations shifted to immigration when roughly one million people, including nearly half a million in Chicago alone, took to the streets to protest federal legislation that would have made living in the US without legal permission a felony.
By Larry King

| LONDON

LONDON Europeans took to the streets on Monday, celebrating the international workers' holiday of May Day with an assortment of rallies and demonstrations, which in France turned violent as protesters threw petrol bombs at police.One Paris police officer was seriously burnt and two others injured in confrontations with protesters. In Turkey, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to break up demonstrations and arrested hundreds.A small group of Italian demonstrators clashed with police as they tried to break through a police barrier in the northern city of Turin. The spokesman for Belgium's Workers Party was knifed in the leg at a rally in Liege.Elsewhere, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma abruptly left a rally he was due to address as workers booed him and fights broke out between his supporters and opponents.

In the United States, unions and activists planned protests against U.S. President Donald Trump.In Paris, protesters threw petrol bombs and makeshift missiles at police, injuring at least three officers. Television showed police officers trying to shake out flames from their riot gear and clouds of tear gas enveloping the streets around the Bastille monument.

The clashes foreshadowed the approaching confrontation between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the two winners of the first round of France's presidential election. They will meet in a second-round vote on Sunday, and each verbally attacked the other at May Day rallies.The centrist Macron evoked the memory of a May Day 22 years ago as he tried to paint the eurosceptic, anti-immigration Le Pen as an extremist. On that day, a young Moroccan man drowned after being pushed into the River Seine by supporters of Le Pen's National Front, led then by her father, Jean-Marie.For her part, Le Pen portrayed Macron as a clone of the outgoing president, the highly unpopular Francois Hollande. She called for France to reclaim its "independence" from the European Union, an institution Macron supports.

Similarly, the violence in Turkey echoed clashes in last month's referendum between those who backed giving President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers and those who opposed him. Erdogan narrowly won that referendum.May Day protests are an annual event in Turkey, but this year's holiday takes place in the uneasy aftermath of last July's failed coup, in which 240 people died. Since then, about 120,000 people have been suspended or sacked from their jobs in a series of purges. More than 40,000 have been arrested.Turkish unions said they would not attempt to march this year on Taksim Square, a traditional rallying point for anti-government protests that has been declared off-limits for demonstrators. Nonetheless, dozens of people were rounded up for trying to get to the square. More than 200 were detained overall, police said. (Reporting by Ed Stoddard, Jonathan Allen and Tom James, Yesim Dikmen and Mehmet Emin Caliskan, Michel Rose, Ingrid Melander, Sophie Louet and Sudip Kar-Gupta, Philip Pullella and Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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UNITED NATIONS Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Syrian government forces of likely dropping bombs containing nerve agents at least three times elsewhere in the country before an April 4 attack that killed dozens of people and sparked a retaliatory U.S. strike.The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. The Syrian U.N. mission was not immediately available to comment on the allegations by Human Rights Watch, which cited interviews with witnesses and medical personnel. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, a global watchdog, has said sarin or a similar banned toxin was used in the April 4 strike. Human Rights Watch said that before the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun, government warplanes also appeared to have dropped nerve agents on eastern Hama on Dec. 11 and 12, 2016, and northern Hama, near Khan Sheikhoun, on March 30, 2017.

"All four of these attacks were in areas where opposition or ISIS forces were launching an offensive that threatened government military air bases," Human Rights Watch Executive Director Ken Roth told a news conference at the United Nations. "The decision to ratchet up to this level seems to have been related to that unfavorable battlefield situation," he said. The report said an opposition-affiliated activist and local residents provided the names of 64 people they say died from exposure to chemicals in the December attacks, which were in an area controlled by Islamic State militants.

It said no one died in the March 30 attack but dozens of people were injured, according to residents and medical workers. "The pattern shows that the Syrian government retained sarin or some similar nerve agent after its August 2013 eastern Ghouta attack despite having agreed to hand over all chemical weapons to U.N. inspectors," Roth said.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Moscow and Washington.Roth said Human Rights Watch found that the remnants of a bomb at the site of the April 4 attack "appear consistent with the characteristics with a Soviet-made air-dropped chemical bomb specifically designed to deliver sarin." The report said the remnants of the bomb appears similar to a KhAB-250.Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo and targeted sanctions on Syria and refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC).Russia and China blocked a Western bid for a referral to the ICC in 2014 and this February blocked a bid to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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Los Angeles: Two persons, including the gunman, were killed and six others were injured when a drunk man opened fire at a San Diego apartment complex pool in the US, police said on Monday.

A woman and Peter Selis, 49, were killed after the latter critically injured adults attending a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments swimming pool on Sunday night, CNN quoted police chief Shelley Zimmerman as saying.

The gunman appeared to be reloading his large-caliber handgun when three officers arrived at the scene and shot him dead.

It was unclear how many people were at the pool at the time of the shooting.

It was earlier reported that eight persons were shot but the figure was later revised to seven. Police believe the gunman and at least one of the party-goers lived at the apartment complex.

"We don't know if he knew any of the victims," Zimmerman said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, a resident said he was in his apartment when he heard gunshots followed by yelling and screams. He ran to his building's clubhouse where he could see the pool. He said the shooter seemed at ease, while bloodied victims struggled.

"He had his beer in one hand and his gun in the other," said the witness. Zimmerman said it was unclear what motivated the shooting.
STOCKHOLM Swedish authorities arrested a man brought in for questioning about possible arson on Monday after a fire damaged a Shi'ite mosque on the outskirts of Stockholm overnight, a police statement said.Nobody was injured in the fire in the Jarfalla suburb of the Swedish capital.

Police said the man had been placed under arrest but gave no further information. It did not identify the suspect.

Swedish authorities are wary of possible reprisals after a man rammed a hijacked beer truck into a busy downtown pedestrian mall last month, killing five people. An Uzbek whose asylum request was rejected is being held as the main suspect.

Islamic State, a radical Sunni group that has targeted Shi'ites in several countries, claimed responsibility for a fire last year at a small Shi'ite mosque in Malmo in southern Sweden.The main suspect in the case was accused on terrorism charges but has been acquitted. (Reporting by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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Tornadoes ripped through an East Texas county on Saturday evening, killing at least four people and injuring dozens of others, and authorities warned the number of casualties could rise. Three tornadoes were confirmed by the U.S. National Weather Service in Canton, a city about 60 miles (95 kilometers) east of Dallas in Van Zandt County. The winds flipped over cars, snapped trees, destroyed houses and left roads strewn with debris and fallen power lines, according to photographs and video published by the Dallas Morning News."We have at least four fatalities," Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett said at a news conference on Sunday, adding that number could rise. "The damage was extensive in the affected area. It is heartbreaking and upsetting." Forty nine people had been treated for injuries, she said.Earlier a Canton fire department captain said he believed five people had been killed.

The mayor urged people to stay away from a sprawling flea market known as First Monday Trade Days, as crews tried to clean up debris.Texas Governor Greg Abbott deployed a search and rescue team to the area.The storms caused floods in neighboring states, killing a 72-year-old woman in southwestern Missouri who was washed away in her car, according to local media reports. Another woman was killed when a tree fell on her mobile home in DeWitt, Arkansas, CNN reported.

Downpours that began on Friday were so intense the ground was unable to absorb the rainfall, making flooding likely, said meteorologist Kenneth James of the Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service.More than six inches of rain fell in some areas, flooding roads and prompting evacuations, meteorologists said.

The governors of Missouri and Oklahoma declared states of emergency due to flooding.In the St. Louis area, severe thunderstorms were forecast through Sunday. Some people were told to evacuate and 33 rescues were conducted, mostly in the state's central and southwestern regions, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens said.Parts of Indiana received up to 8 inches (20 cm) of rain while areas in Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas were drenched with up to 4 inches (10 cm), James said.Heavy rainfall in the Midwest was expected to continue on Sunday, along with wind gusts of 60 miles (95 km) per hour.Flash floods and strong thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday, the National Weather Service said. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Andrew Hay)

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New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday suggested multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region, ahead of bilateral talks with India.

Erdogen, who arrived in Delhi ahead of talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also favoured India's bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides that of Pakistan, said India should not have an objection to it.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he told WION news channel in an interview.

The Turkish leader said that it is in the interest of India and Pakistan that they should resolve this issue and not leave it for the future generations who will have to suffer.

"All around the world, there is no better option than keeping the channel of dialogue open. If we contribute towards global peace, we can get a very positive result," he said.

Erdogan said India and Pakistan were both friends of Turkey and he wanted to help strengthen the dialogue process among the stakeholders for resolving the Kashmir issue which has been festering for the last 70 years.

Replying to questions on the Kurdish problem in Turkey, he said it could not be compared with the Kashmir issue.

"We have no problem with the Kurdish people. We have a problem with a terrorist organisation," he said.

"It (the Kurdish problem) is a territorial dispute. In Jammu and Kashmir, the situation is different. Let's not make the mistake of comparing them," he said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in Delhi on a state visit to India. In an interview to an Indian TV channel a few days prior to the trip, Erdogan spoke about Indias desire to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and the expansion of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). His views highlighted some basic differences in Indian and Turkish approaches and the congruence of Turkish and Pakistani positions.

More significantly, Erdogan emphasised the need to find a solution to the Jammu and Kashmir issue, stressed the importance of India-Pakistan dialogue, praised his good friend Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and spoke of the possibility of multilateral negotiations on J&K. There was no hint of a reference to Pakistani sponsored terrorism. All this basically reflects what Pakistan has urged the international community on J&K.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that Turkey has caused India difficulties just before a state visit. A few weeks prior to the state visit of its then President Abdullah Gul in 2010, Turkey decided not to invite India to a regional conference on Afghanistan that was held in Istanbul. It did so at Pakistans insistence. This caused great unhappiness in Indian official circles and some senior officials strongly felt that Guls visit should be postponed if not cancelled. However, this view was considered too drastic. During the discussions, Gul was firmly told that no country could disrupt Indias ties with Afghanistan. The message went home. The Istanbul conference evolved into the Heart of Asia process. India is its full partner and chaired its last conference which was held in Amritsar last December. Firmness and patience pay.

Why did Erdogan then express views that could only embarrass his Indian hosts? The fact that Pakistan-Turkey ties have always been close is well known. But can that alone explain Erdogan singing Pakistans tune on the eve of a trip to India? While this is a factor, the fact is that the Turkish President is now brimming with confidence.

Erdogan has recently won a narrow victory in a popular referendum which has changed the Turkish constitution to invest the Presidency with vast executive powers. He has dominated Turkeys public life for over a decade and a half as prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and thereafter as president. In this process, he has successfully ended the Turkish armys role as the arbiter of Turkish politics; he quelled a half-hearted military last year. The army considered itself as the upholder of Kemal Attaturks secularism and Euro-centric approach. However, Erdogans inspiration seems to stem from the Ottoman Sultans even though he defines his policies within the terms of Turkish conservatism. Perhaps all this makes him feel that he can intervene in sensitive international issues.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi could not have been pleased with Erdogans gratuitous comments on J&K nor by his openly equating India and Pakistan in the NSG context though his reiteration of Turkeys position on UNSC reform is a part of the country's overall policy and not solely caused by its concern for Pakistan. However, Modi seems to have taken the Turkish presidents comments in his stride and focussed on what India and Turkey can do bilaterally in different fields, especially in trade and investments. Modi is especially keen to have Turkish private sector's participation in infrastructure. Modi also focussed on terrorism which he said is a common threat faced by both countries.

There is merit in Modis approach. Turkey and Pakistans relations are solid and will not get diluted in the near future. This does not mean that India should not pursue bilateral ties. As Ruchi Ghanshyam, the new Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs said, On their own footing. Indeed, this is how the diplomatic game should be played.

Turkey is an important regional country and has a significant geostrategic location. It is playing an important if controversial, role in West Asia and aspires to become a global player. However, Turkey is disappointed that it has made little headway with joining the European Union, and now with Erdogans increasing disregard for European values, it is impossible for Europe to accept Turkey. In this background, it is in Indias interest to keep bilateral ties going while recognising that Turkey and India are far apart on many international and regional issues such as in West Asia. For instance, Turkey is implacably opposed to the continuation of Bashar al-Assad as Syrias President while India continues to have good ties with him.

While building bilateral ties, the Turks have to be firmly informed that India will never accept any third party mediation on J&K, and therefore, it is pointless for them to comment on the issue at all. Also, they have to be made to understand that the Indian public finds such remarks unacceptable. Hence, such comments are not conducive to building bilateral ties. For instance, on Monday when the Pakistan army mutilated the bodies of two Indian jawans Erdogans remarks praising Nawaz Sharif in his interview to the Indian TV channel only reveal his lack of understanding that it is the army in Pakistan that makes security policy decisions and that Nawaz Sharif is an impotent spectator.

Neither Modi nor Erdogan made any reference to the NSG issue. This reveals that no agreement was reached on it. That Turkey will stand by Pakistan in this matter is obvious. India has to factor this in as it pursues the NSG objective.

Notwithstanding the personal chemistry between Erdogan and Modi which the formers advisors claim is very good, India and Turkey may move ahead on trade and investments but Pakistan will remain an albatross in the relationship.
One doesn't need to look any further than Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's comments on Kashmir to understand how miserably India punches below its weight as an 'emerging Asian giant' and a 'global soft power'. It is tempting to believe in these highfalutin words and suffer from a delusion of grandeur that 'our moment has come'. One only has to scratch the veneer to reveal a nation still at odds with power  a mind struggling to rid itself of colonial hangover.

Would the visiting Turkey President have dared to raise questions on One China policy ahead of flying to Beijing?

It is laughable to assume that Erdogan is innocent of India's stated position. Yet not only did he raise the 'K' word just ahead of boarding the flight to New Delhi, the Turkish President went on to suggest "multilateral dialogue to solve Kashmir dispute" in a blatant disregard for India's sovereignty and territorial integrity even as we were getting ready to spread the red carpet. It does not matter whether or not Erdogan is Nawaz Sharif's childhood buddy or his fastest friend. International relationships are built on the bedrock of mutual respect.

It is staggering to think that Erdogan  who wields power as a repressive, paranoid autocrat and has cemented his position through a dubious referendum - has the temerity to lecture a democratic India on 'human rights'. Following a failed coup last July, the tin-pot dictator has gathered unprecedented powers in his hands, subverting every state institution to establish himself as Turkey's supreme leader.

In the "purge" that followed the failed coup d'etat, over 40,000 people including soldiers, judges, rights activists have been jailed, 20,000 teachers and 15000 education staff have been suspended as Erdogan has mounted a rapid drive to erase the secular moorings of Kemal Ataturk's Turkey and turn it into an Islamist nation.

The Turkish media has been muzzled with over 150 houses shut and over 120 journalists jailed on charges of "terrorism". Columnist Kadri Gursel made the mistake of flouting Erdogan's diktat against cigarettes and urged readers to light one in protest. He now rots in jail, facing charges of terrorism. As The New York Times report points out, "Turkey now has handily outstripped China as the world's biggest jailer of journalists, according to figures compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Turkish dictator has declared himself as the "only fit protector" for courts, military, executive or legislature. He has crushed every dissenter in his country and threatened those outside it with jail.

He has got for himself the right to "hire and fire judges and prosecutors, appoint a cabinet, abolish the post of prime minister, limit parliament's role to amend legislation and many more," writes Martin Chulov in The Guardian from Istanbul. In fact, were the "parliament to call an early poll during his second term, Erdogan would be eligible to run for a third. That could keep him in the job until 2034, on top of the 14 years he has already served."

After assuming dizzying powers and muzzling every voice of protest within his country, Erdogan now wants to be an interlocutor in "Kashmir problem". It is rivetting to notice Erdogan's cockiness during the interview to a Turkish TV channel just ahead of India trip.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur, and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multilateral dialogue, I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all," he said, according to The Indian Express. On NSG, too, he appeared to be either unaware (unlikely) or in a mood to needle India by saying, "Both India and Pakistan have the right to aspire for NSG membership. I think India should not assume such an attitude. If Turkey was fair enough to support Pakistan, it was fair enough to support India. We are very objective and positive to the NSG process."

Before I delve on the Indian response to this one-sided provocation, let me digress a little and recall how the Chinese has dealt with questions on One China policy. Before assuming formal duty, a cocky Donald Trump had accepted a 'congratulatory phone call' from Tsai Ing-wen, the President of Taiwan, reversing a 37-year-old diplomatic tradition of not recognizing the country as separate from China. Following that 10-minute phone call, the maverick US Preisdent-elect suggested in media interviews that US doesn't need to be bound by One China Policy and tied it to Beijing's efforts in stopping currency manipulation and what he claimed were "unfair trade practices".

China took just a day to post its response. "There is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory," Lu Kang, China's foreign ministry spokesperson, was quoted as saying in a statement on ministry's website. Its state-controlled media took a more virulent, threatening line against Trump.

Swift sommersault followed. Trump, in a subsequent phone call, promised to honour China's sentiments. In a statement, the White House said Trump and Xi "discussed numerous topics, and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our One China policy."

How has India reacted to Erdogan crossing the red line?

On Sunday, shortly after media reports emerged on Turkey president's remark, India's external affairs ministry said: "We have always emphasised that India-Turkey relations stand on their own footing and, we believe, the Turkish side reciprocates our sentiment." The Times of India report also quoted Ruchi Ghanashyam, EAM secretary, as saying that "India's position on the state of J&K is very well known that it is an integral part of the country."

Erdogan, his wife Emine and a delegation of senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation were received by the Prime Minister and President. The Turkey president was accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at Rashtrapati Bhavan and later in the day, Narendra Modi extended the welcome by singing paeans in favour of mutual friendship and calling for strengthening of economic ties.

This is not to suggest that bilateral relations should be held hostage at the altar of heightened sensibilities. However, as an aspiring power, India must send unequivocal signals about the sanctity of its red lines. For a President fighting a brutal Kurdish uprising and presiding over a rotten human rights record, Erdogan has little maneuvering space on taking a moral position on Kashmir. In the interview mentioned above, he loses cool when a parallel is drawn between Kashmir and Kurdistan and whether OIC will speak in favour of referendum on Tibet.

Yet Erdogan chooses to provoke India and is received in full state honours and warmth in return. The point is simple. No one respects a nation that does not respect itself. As the proponent 'ek Bharat, srestha Bharat', Modi should know that.
By Alistair Smout

| LONDON

LONDON British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday dismissed an account of a difficult meeting between her and the head of the European Commission as "Brussels gossip", reiterating that the meeting had gone well.But while May played down friction with the EU, it came after a weekend that saw the EU-27 adopt a united stance on Brexit and urge Britain to be more realistic in its approach, suggesting that tough negotiations are in store.May and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker met last Wednesday for dinner, ahead of talks over Britain's departure from the European Union that are expected to begin in June. Both sides said afterwards the meeting had been constructive. However, Juncker was quoted on Sunday by Germany's FAS newspaper as saying he was "leaving Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than I was before", in an account which suggested that he and May did not see eye to eye on a range of issues.A spokesman said the British government did not recognise that account of events, and May addressed the issue directly in comments to supporters during an election campaign stop in north-west England. Britain faces a national election on June 8.

"I have to say, that from what I've seen of this account, I think it's Brussels gossip," May said, adding again that the meeting had been constructive. TOUGH TALKS LOOM

Despite this, there have been mounting signs of a growing gap in perception of how smooth talks will be between London and Brussels.

EU leaders endorsed stiff divorce terms for Britain on Saturday and warned Britons to have "no illusions" that a deal to retain access to European markets will be swift and easy.Last week German Chancellor Angela Merkel said some in Britain still had illusions over what it could expect from the talks, while Donald Tusk, head of the European Council that groups EU national governments, has urged Britain to get serious.May said that the account in FAS showed once more how difficult talks would be.

"It... shows that these negotiations at times are going to be tough," May said during her campaign stop.British opposition leaders criticised May's approach to the talks with the EU following the FAS story, including her renewed threat to walk away without a deal."The revelations overnight show Theresa May being guilty of astonishing arrogance and complacency," Tim Farron, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, told Sky News. Opinion polls show May's ruling Conservatives winning the parliamentary election on June 8 with an increased majority. (Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Opinion / Columnist

"The MDC-T VP Thokozani Khupe has come clean and said she is in politics because of money," reported Ray Nkosa in Zimeye."Addressing MDC supporters in Slough in the UK she declared that everyone is here because they want money. "We are in politics because of money and we use politics as a stepping stone to create a conducive environment for those who want to do business. The truth is ersonally I love a better life, and life is good when you have money," she said to an applause from the crowd."Well there is someone finally being honest for a change. What she should have gone on to say but did not is that Mugabe bribed her and her fellow MDC friends with all the trappings of power to kick the reforms into the tall grass during the GNU. Even when it was self-evident that Zanu PF was going to rig the 2013 elections MDC leaders still contested the flawed elections for a chance to be back on the gravy train, David Coltart admitted as much."The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn't now do the obvious  withdraw from the elections," explained Senator Coltart."The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility."Least we forget, MDC leaders were elected on a ticket to deliver democratic change; people have risked life and limp for this and not so that once in power these MDC leaders can pursue their own selfish agenda of enrichment at the expense of doing nothing regarding the reforms.What did the MDC MPS and Senators accomplish in the last four years since the 2013 elections, other than giving the Zanu PF regime the legitimacy and enjoy the gravy train perks? Nothing. They have not managed to get even one reform implemented?Ms Khupe knows with not even one reform in place next year's elections will be rig just as readily as the 2013 elections. Yet she and her fellow politicians are as keen as ever to contest the flawed elections for the same reason the contested the 2013 elections - she loves money and is in politics for money.There is no doubt that Tsvangirai, Khupe and the rest of the MDC leaders sold-out during the GNU because Mugabe bribed them generous salaries, allowances, ministerial limos, $4 million Highland mansion for Tsvangirai, former white owned farms for others, etc. So instead of them implementing the democratic reforms the nation has been dying for all these years they forgot.MDC leaders "were busy enjoying themselves during the GNU they forgot why they were there!" remarked the SADC leaders after the rigged 2013 elections in sheer exasperation. SADC, as the guarantor of the agreement that led to the creation of the GNU, had spent the five years trying to get MDC leaders to implement reforms to no avail.No doubt SADC leaders were disappointed by the ordinary Zimbabweans themselves' failure to put pressure on Tsvangirai & co. to implement reforms during the GNU. It is tragic that many Zimbabweans still have no clue what the reforms are and why we need them much less that primary task of opposition politicians like Ms Khupe's primary task is to implement the reforms, not to enrich themselves. Even now with the benefit of GNU hindsight these Zimbabweans still have no clue; they would have never applauded Khupe's admission she is in politics to enrich herself!SADC washed their hand of Zimbabwe after the rigged 2013 elections. If Zimbabweans allow the 2018 elections to go ahead with no reforms then the rest of the world will follow SADC and wash their hands of Zimbabwe and accept the Zanu PF regime as fait accompli!In President Donald Trump we have the most inward looking, "America First!", American administration in history. If America lifts all the target sanctions on Mugabe and his cronies, to hell with the human rights and free and fair elections, the rest of the Western countries will follow suit. America has lost a lot of political and economic ground to the Chinese and Russian, especially in Africa, in the past because it allowed its high morals affect their foreign policy, President Trump is putting America first, second and last in all his decisions.Besides, Zimbabwe has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship since the targeted sanctions were imposed in 2002 but have wasted them because the Zimbabwean people themselves could not be bothered to get the job done. If the cheering Slough crowd are happy with the status quo in Zimbabwe, why should the rest of the world be the one calling for democratic reforms!It was relatively easy to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU with SADC and international community backing. At the end of the GNU the task of implementing reforms increased a hundred fold but if the next elections go ahead, and the international community give up on us, Zimbabweans will have to kiss good bye to democratic free and fair elections for several generations!Stopping the 2018 election going ahead until reform are implemented may well be our last chance to save this nation from the chaos of decades of corrupt and tyrannical future regimes.Ignorance is a curse. Still ignorant MDC supporters are blessed in that whilst they, like the rest of us, continue to suffer the consequence of the continued corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship they are blissfully unaware that it is their own party leaders who, because of their insatiable greed money, are keeping Zanu PF in power.
What if the H1B pay scale is upgraded to irrelevance?

Of all the omens looming overhead basis the heightened scrutiny of temporary work visas in the first 100 days of the Trump reign, the dominant foreboding is now is about the H1B salary cap.

Those who are already here are kind of okay, the new crop will have it rough if they increase the base salary to $100,000 or $120,000, says an H1B worker in New York who has just applied for premanent residence via his employer and has requested anonymity for quotes in this story.

There is general consensus that the clamour against H1B visas has shone light on how the systemic sanctity of the H1B has been sketchy at best on two cardinal principles:

Salaries paid to H1B workers

Educational qualifications / skills of H1B applications and workers.

Taking up the issue of salaries first, not two but three camps emerge easily - employers of H1B workers which means the company that holds the H1B workers, the end client and the H1B worker.

Now, the questions:

If the H1B worker is being paid say $ 75,000, is that the rate being paid to the worker or his principal who holds his visa. The same question can be asked about a $100,000 pay check.

Do (American) companies care whether its an H1B worker or a local doing the job? If the American worker looks at a job ad that says 75,000 and passes it by but an H1B shop is ready with staff at that rate, then theres a business case for any company, not just American, to get more people at lower rates.

Right now we are not getting into whether America has the people who tech companies need - that requires a separate deep dive.

You have any idea how much I was being paid when I first came here? $ 40 an hour when my company was making $115 an hour for my work. They kept $ 75 for every hour I put in. I got to know this later, of course, says a former H1B worker who went back to India after a stint on the US West Coast.

This person was making about $ 49,000 per annum at best while the company was making a decent packet. Straightaway you see how its not just about the base salary but about the layers that make the deal viable for all parties - the H1B worker, his employer company in the home country or a body shop in the US plus the end client.

So, when you hear about a worker being paid $60,000, it may just be a smokescreen for a fairly elaborate house of cards.

This is just one kind of layered cake in the H1B world and there are many other arrangements all of which are allowed by the rules according to legal experts who deal with H1B on a daily basis.

This is why H1B workers are bracing for any change in the base rate.

One of the most read bills pending in the US Congress - Americas lawmaking institution - is the Darren Issa sponsored HR 170 bill headlined this way: To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to modify the definition of exempt H1B nonimmigrant

In its simplest form, the sting in this bill lies in this block of text:

the term exempt H1B nonimmigrant means an H1B nonimmigrant who receives wages (including cash bonuses) at an annual rate equal to at least the greater of $100,000 or the applicable adjusted amount under clause.

This in turn, derives from the concerns of American lawmakers over the unintended consequences of the H1B visa which are explained like this in the HR170 bill:

The unintended consequences of the H1B visa program enabled a small number of companies to hire large numbers of H1B workers relative to their United States worker populations.

In 1998, Congress passed new enforcement provisions to the H1B program in order to prevent companies from displacing United States workers with lower-cost foreign professionals.

The 1998 revisions defined a new class of H1B-dependent employers and established addi- tional conditions on their business and hiring prac- tices unless they paid sufficiently high wages.

The 1998 revisions, however, did not index wage requirements to keep pace with wage growth, and, as a result, the strength of provisions designed to protect workers and employers committed to hiring United States workers was reduced significantly.

The purpose of this Act is to close a loophole in the H1B visa program by requiring H1B-dependent em- ployers once again to pay sufficiently high wages to ensure the protection of the workforce in the United States and to remove other impediments to proper H1B visa enforcement.

Yet, it is also true that not a single word has changed in the original H1B law. Not yet.

Nothing has changed so far. Trump issued an EO in which there are a few lines on whtat directing his Cabinet dept to conduct studies either to give jobs to American workers or to foreign workers at much higher wages. All that is fine but you cannot really change the law through an executive order. Congress has to change the law and if they have to be minor changes, the regulations have to be tweaked, that requires notice and comment. So the EO does not change anything, things remain the same, says Cyrus Mehta, a top immigration lawyer based in New York.

Link: The legislative process in the USA

So many governments have come and gone. Nothing has happened in 20 years, says a Queens, NY based lawyer who does only H1B related filing.

Thats on paper.

But ask any H1B worker the mood at immigration checkpoints in the USA.

Theyll tell you the worlds most controversial visa is now a pin cushion.
If this Silicon Valley food-tech startup has its way, its lab-grown meatwhich includes chicken, duck and beefwill be on a supermarket shelf near you within the next five years.

[Were] trying to put products on the shelves by 2021/2022, Uma Valeti, Memphis Meats co-founder and CEO, tells FOX Business.

In March, the company announced that it created the worlds first chicken strip from animal cells, following their animal-free meatball debut in 2016. Lab-grown beef was previously developed in 2012 by a group of Dutch scientists.

Essentially, we are taking a number of animal cells, giving them clean and nutritious food and then we watch them grow into a muscle. We harvest that muscle and then cook it, Valeti says.

The whole process from start to finish takes about four to six weeks, depending on the texture. Valeti says the companys current main goal is to raise capital and lower their production costs, in order to quickly bring the product to market.

Were not allowed to disclose our investors, but we are raising a round now and we are looking to continue to lower the costs  another 10 to 20 fold in the next 18 months  so we can start bringing this closer to reality, he says.

Production costs currently run about $6,000 per pound of meat, which is drastically down from a year ago, when it was $18,000 per pound. However, Valeti says a lot of work still needs to be done to meet traditional store-bought meat production costs at about $4 or less.

Memphis Meats is one of many startups aiming to disrupt the $200 billion meat and poultry industry. Companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat already have meat substitutes (made from plants, not animal cell tissue) on store shelves.

What we have done is figure out a way to take those same type of materials from plants and run them through a process of heating, cooling and pressure to create a piece of meat. So, youre getting essentially the same things in terms of proteins, fats and water but its coming directly through a system that comes from plants versus going through the animal, Ethan Brown, CEO and co-founder of Beyond Meat, told FOX Business in October.

Beyond Meat has also caught the eye of big investors like billionaire Bill Gates and the worlds biggest meat producer, Tyson Foods (NYSE:TSN), which announced earlier this year that they took a 5% stake in the company. Tysons CEO Tom Hayes told FOX Business in March that he sees plant-based protein as a big part of the food industrys future.

If you take a look at the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) stats, protein consumption is growing around the world  and it continues to grow. Its not just hot in the U.S.; its hot everywhere. People want protein, so whether its animal-based protein or plant-based protein, they have an appetite for it. Plant-based protein is growing almost, at this point, a little faster than animal-based, so I think the migration may continue in that direction, Hayes told FOX Business.

Additionally, the company launched a venture capital fund worth $150 million to invest in startups focusing on meat alternatives.

But when it comes to the more controversial lab-grown meat, some meat industry insiders argue it will never compete with the real thing.

More than 95% of Americans love meat and taste is one of the top drivers. While we havent tasted lab-grown products that claim to substitute for meat, we do know these products have some tough competition when it comes to taste, texture and nutrition, a spokesman for the North American Meat Institute tells FOX Business.

When asked what he would tell critics with ethical objections to eating something made in a lab, Valeti says he wants consumers to keep an open mind.

It is the most ethical way of producing meat by far, and I would invite anyone to come and tell me why its unethical. But more importantly, for critics  or anyone who has never really heard about this, I understand its new  I think the magical moment happens when they come see it being cooked and they smell it and taste it. Then they say, we get it, he says.
The Latest on the bill being negotiated on Capitol Hill to fund the government through September (all times local):

11:30 p.m.

The $1T budget deal that congressional negotiators have reached this weekend will keep the government running through September and includes some wins for both political parties.

The measure funding the remainder of the 2017 budget year eliminates cuts to popular domestic programs like medical research and infrastructure grants. Trump did obtain $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds. And he got a $15 billion down payment on his efforts to strengthen the military.

GOP leaders also did not try to use the must-do spending bill to "defund" Planned Parenthood and the White House backed away from language to take away grants from "sanctuary cities" that do not share information about people's immigration status with federal authorities.

The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week. The House and Senate have until midnight Friday to pass the measure and thereby avert a government shutdown.

___

10:45 p.m.

Republicans and Democrats have reached agreement on a $1 trillion plan funding the government through September. The deal denies money for President Donald Trump's border wall and rejects his cuts to popular domestic programs.

The measure funding the remainder of the 2017 budget year also eliminates cuts to medical research and infrastructure grants. Trump did obtain $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds. And he got a $15 billion down payment on his efforts to strengthen the military.

The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week. The House and Senate have until midnight Friday to pass the measure and thereby avert a government shutdown.

___

10:35 p.m.

The top Democrat in the Senate is welcoming the deal on a $1 trillion spending bill to fund the government through September.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York says the pact is a "good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table."

The bill rebuffs President Donald Trump's request for a down payment on the border wall with Mexico. Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that Mexico would foot the bill for the wall and Mexico says it will not.

Schumer says the measure ensures that "taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall." He also says unrelated policy provisions have been omitted and the bill funds medical research, education and infrastructure.

___

9:45 p.m.

Top Capitol Hill negotiators have reached a hard-won agreement on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through September.

Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations. It's expected to be made public Sunday night.

The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during President Donald Trump's presidency. It denies Trump a win on his oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but it gives him a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military.

The measure rejects White House proposals to cut popular programs such as funding medical research and community development grants. It adds $1.5 billion for border security.

___

4:15 p.m.

Top Capitol Hill negotiators are reporting progress toward a long-sought agreement on a massive $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through Oct. 1.

Aides say lawmakers closely involved in the talks have worked through many sticking points in hopes of making the measure public as early as Sunday night. The House and Senate have until Friday at midnight to pass the measure to avert a government shutdown.

The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during President Donald Trump's short tenure in the White House, but it denies Trump a win on his oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Gold prices have been all over the place in the past one year, but some gold stocks have moved in only one direction: south. As of this writing, Canada-based gold miner Eldorado Gold (NYSE: EGO) is down a whopping 66% in one year. South African miner Sibanye-Stillwater (NYSE: SBGL) is swiftly closing in, having shed as much as half its value with the bulk of the decline coming in just the past couple of months. Among the larger gold miners, Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC) is down about 11% in one year, or 15% year to date.

Are any of these gold stocks worth buying now? A case-by-case analysis should help you decide.

There's some hope here

Kinross Gold wouldn't have made it to this list if not for the stock's drop in recent months. Kinross was, in fact, one of the top-performing gold-mining stocks in 2017, but the market hasn't found a reason to pump more money into the stock so far this year.

Kinross shares took a deep dive earlier in the year after the miner reported fiscal 2017 numbers. Here's how it fared.

Metric FY 2016 FY 2017 Gold production (in ounces) 2.67 million 2.79 million Revenue $3.3 billion $3.47 billion Net profit/loss $445.4 million ($104 million) Adjusted net profit $178.7 million $93 million All-in sustaining cost (AISC) per gold equivalent ounce $954 $984

For fiscal 2018, Kinross expects:

Gold production of 2.5 million ounces

AISC of $975 per ounce

Capital expenditure of $1.1 billion compared with $897 million in 2017

While asset impairments reversal and sale proceeds helped Kinross earn a big profit last year, lower production and higher cost estimates for 2018 didn't go down well with the market. Higher capital expenditures could also mean lower free cash flow (FCF) -- Kinross generated $54 million in FCF last year.

In May, the market pummeled Kinross again for lower first-quarter profit. In reality, Q1 was a strong quarter, with revenue climbing 13% and AISC dipping to a record low of $846 per gold-equivalent ounce. Kinross' key phase one expansion at Tasiast is near completion and expected to boost throughput capacity to 12,000 tons per day during the latter half of the year. Other projects, including Round Mountain and Bald Mountain in Nevada and Fort Know Gilmore in Alaska, are also on schedule and budget.

I don't see anything wrong with Kinross: It has a strong pipeline of projects that should boost production and lower costs over time, has ample liquidity at hand, strong cash flows, and no debt maturing until 2021. Gold investors might want to put Kinross' ill-timed investments in the rearview mirror and put the stock on their radar.

Little safety in this stock

Sibanye-Stillwater is in a free fall for the worst possible reason: the death of several workers within months. Twenty of the 45 fatalities in the South African mining industry so far this year have occurred at Sibanye's mines, as the nation's mineral resources minister, Gwede Mantashe, recently pointed out. Not surprisingly, the stock is tumbling.

Sibanye had already drawn investors' ire mid-last year when it announced a rights issue at a steep 60% discount to the then market price to raise funds to pare down a humongous $2.65 billion loan that it took to acquire platinum and palladium miner Stillwater Mining.

Management is planning to restructure operations, lower headcount, and enter streaming agreements in the near future to boost cash flows. Yet, it's a sorry state of affairs at Sibanye, more so with the onus to prove its commitment toward the safety of its workers larger than ever.

The recent fatalities will also likely hit production and could compel Sibanye to downgrade its full-year production guidance from 1.24 million ounces-1.29 million ounces of gold from South African operations and 1.1 million ounces-1.15 million ounces of platinum. Those estimates are lower than the miner's 2017 actual production, which leaves me with no reason whatsoever to recommend Sibanye today.

This gold stock has hit the danger mark

First thing first, let's see how Eldorado Gold fared operationally in the past year or so.

Metric Fiscal 2017 Fiscal 2016 Q1 2018 Q1 2017 Gold production (in ounces) 292,971 312,299 89,374 $75,172 ounces Revenue $391.4 million $432.7 million $131.9 million $111.9 million Net profit/loss ($9.9 million) ($344.2 million) $8.7 million $6.8 million AISC (per ounce) $922 $900 $878 $791

Eldorado Gold's net loss may have shrunk last year, but its loss from continuing operations (the miner sold off Chinese assets in 2016) were still higher. The miner clearly has a problem at hand: rising AISC.

The market blew up and sent Eldorado shares tumbling 40.9% in October last year after the miner downgraded its fiscal 2017 production estimates for its flagship Kisladag mine at Turkey for the second time. Investors were already worried about a more serious concern: The Greek government's initiation of arbitration proceedings against Eldorado to settle disputes over its key developing projects, including Skouries and Olympias mines.

The recent positive news from Greece and good Q1 numbers haven't helped as investors are clearly running out of patience, more so as there's been no update ever since the Greek government announced intentions to "reach an agreement in the coming weeks" more than a month ago. Meanwhile, Eldorado shares have already broken the crucial $1 mark at the time of this writing. If sustained, the company could be forced to go for a reverse stock split to stay listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That's not a great sign, and until there's substantive progress in Greece or some encouraging news coming out of Eldorado's second-quarter report due in a month's time, the stock remains a risky bet.

10 stocks we like better than Sibanye-StillwaterWhen 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 quadrupled the market.*

David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Sibanye-Stillwater wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

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*Stock Advisor returns as of June 4, 2018

Neha Chamaria has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
President Donald Trump loves Lockheed Martin's (NYSE: LMT) "fantastic new F-35 jet fighter" -- at least now that Lockheed Martin has cut its price on the F-35, he does. That said, last we heard, the president still wanted Boeing (NYSE: BA) to price out a "comparable F-18 Super Hornet" so that he can comparison-shop.

And Boeing is only too happy to do that.

Boeing is pitching an Advanced Super Hornet as an alternative to Lockheed's F-35. Image source: Boeing.

Paper chase

In recent weeks, word has been filtering out of a new "white paper"being circulated around Washington, D.C., which touts Boeing's F/A-18 Super Hornet as a better value proposition than Lockheed's F-35 -- and makes the case for the U.S. Navy to buy more of the former and less of the latter.

As reported on DefenseOne.com last month, the white paper in question states the case thusly: "TheU.S.Navy currently plans to have a Carrier Air Wing mix of 3 squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets and 1 squadron of F-35Cs in 2028 transitioning to 2 squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets and 2 squadrons of F-35C in 2033." (Plus supporting sub-hunting, electronic-warfare, and airborne early warning aircraft.)

Boeing, however, argues that buying all the F-35s required to obtain the air-wing mix as described "will be prohibitively expensive" and "leaves the Navy with a significant inventoryshortfall" in the near term, because of production delays with the F-35C.

So what is Boeing's solution?

Glad you asked...

Buy more F/A-18s, of course. Specifically, Boeing in this white paper argues that the Navy should buy some 120 current-model F/A-18E/F fighters and substitute 200 units of a new and improved, stealthier variant of its Super Hornet -- which it calls alternately the F/A-18XT, Block 3 Super Hornet, or Advanced Super Hornet -- for F-35Cs that the Navy would otherwise buy. (The Navy's total planned purchases of F-35Cs number 350 units,so Lockheed would still sell some F-35Cs -- just not nearly as many as it had hoped.)

Now what would all this mean to investors? Lockheed Martin's F-35C currently costs about $122 million. That's about $43 million more than the $79 million Boeing says it would charge for an Advanced Super Hornet.Thus, by switching out 200 purchases of F-35s for 200 purchases of Advanced Super Hornets, Boeing says the Navy could save about $8.6 billion. What's more, Boeing also says its Advanced Super Hornet would be easier to maintain. Factoring savings from operations and maintenance costs into the equation adds up to "about $30 billion" saved over 20 years.

That's enough to buy the Navy two brand-new Ford-class supercarriers with the savings -- which is a proposition attractive enough that it might persuade the Navy to give Boeing's proposal a listen.

What it means to investors

Now what does all this mean to investors? If Boeing succeeds in persuading the Navy to follow its strategy and buy 120 current model F/A-18s at about $70 million each, plus 200 Advanced Super Hornets instead of 200 F-35Cs, the revenue opportunity for Boeing would be immense -- about $24.2 billion. At the 9.8% operating profit margin that Boeing currently earns on its military aircraft (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence), that would work out to an additional $2.4 billion in profit for Boeing. (Granted, Boeing's white paper doesn't say how long it would take to build these planes and book these profits, but with 62% of the Navy's F/A-18 fleet currently out of service, requiring parts or major repairs, one imagines that the time frame for buying new planes -- whatever the type -- is fairly urgent.)

On the flip side, losing 200 F-35C sales would be disastrous for Lockheed Martin. For one thing, at Lockheed's operating profit margin of 10.5%, the $24.4 billion in revenue expected from 200 F-35C sales implies $2.6 billion in operating profit -- all of which would be lost if Boeing's white paper wins traction in the Pentagon. For another, shrinking the overall number of F-35s built would mean Lockheed cannot spread research and development costs out among as many aircraft -- increasing the cost per plane, and making the F-35 less attractive to future buyers, creating a snowball effect of higher prices leading to fewer sales, and vice-versa.

That's what's at stake here, as Boeing makes its full-court press against Lockheed's fighter-jet business. While there's no guarantee Boeing will succeed with this gambit, now you know why it's still trying.

10 stocks we like better than Boeing When 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 Boeing wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017

Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Best VPN Services For Every Situation

The Best VPNs To Protect Your Privacy, Whoever And Wherever You Are

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

Whether you're simply browsing the internet (the government's ISP betrayal decision), visiting a dating site you thought was safe or sharing nude pics with your partner, you just can't ignore the need to protect your internet privacy anymore.

Fortunately, there are options, although there isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy. They do all begin with choosing a safe and secure password, though, as the easiest way for someone to hack your personal information is to simply guess your weak password!

The unanimous choice if you really want to be a ghost online is to download the free Tor browser used by privacy advocates and Dark Web criminals. Tor anonymizes your IP address, so no hacker nor government can track your online activity. The problem with Tor is that it's not very fast (especially for watching videos), you can't use it to for torrenting and it can sometimes be blocked.

Another option for cyber security is to scramble your search history to throw prospective hackers, ad companies and governments off your trail. But services that do that are more of a Band-Aid fix.

The most popular and convenient option for protecting your online privacy is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, which encrypts your browsing and shields you from creeping eyes.

But finding the right VPN for you isn't easy. There are tons of options and they come with a wide variety of features and at different price points (sadly, the free ones tend to be a get what you pay for type of thing). Picking one can be a headache, so let this list guide you.

Best VPNs For...

1. Gaming

Whether you love to play World of Warcraft, Overwatch or Dota 2, VPNs are some of the best investments a gamer can make. A VPN can protect you from malicious DDoS attacks (competitive eSports can get real serious). Or, it can add an extra layer of protection for your payment info. A VPN can also help if a game is banned in your location (WoW is banned at some schools while Pokemon Go is a no-go in Iran) and give you the option of playing a game before it's released in your country. The problem with a VPN for gaming is all that encrypting can make your internet slower  and that's not something you want when you're grinding as Yasuo in League of Legends.

NordVPN

$11.95/month, 6 months $7/month, 1-year $5.75/month

NordVPN is a terrific all-around VPN and it's a great choice for gamers. Anti-DDoS servers, fast speeds, six simultaneous connections and servers in 56 countries make NordVPN a good call for pretty much anything you want to do online. Plus, last I checked, it's offering a one-year membership for $48 instead of $69 if you punch in promo code VIP70 or two years for $72 with promo code 2YSpecial2017.

Find Out More At NordVPN.com

VyprVPN

Basic - $9.95/month, 1-year $5/month. Premium - $12.95/month, 1-year $6.67/month

Golden Frog-owned VyprVPN has eSports competitors in mind with high speeds and a commitment to blocking DDoS attacks, but it can do so much more. With more than 200,000 IP addresses to choose from, a built-in NAT Firewall to keep your privacy on lock, unlimited data usage and a three-day free trial, this VPN is great for gamers.

Find Out More At Goldenfrog.com

PureVPN

$10.95/month, $8.95/six months, 2 years $2.95/month

Many VPNs claim to be the fastest  but in speed tests, PureVPN often comes away as the winner. The Hong Kong-based service has specialized gaming servers that run at lightning fast speeds (which you can see before you click) and come with protection from DDoS attacks. However, despite its speed, PureVPN doesn't match up as well with some other services based on privacy and price. For instance, you need to pay extra for a NAT Firewall.

Find Out More At PureVPN.com

2. Netflix and Streaming

If you go abroad, you might be shocked to find that your favorite Netflix show isn't available outside the States. In fact, some countries get a really sad catalog (ask an expat in Hong Kong about this). Being able to stream Netflix, Hulu and BBC iPlayer is a major reason people get VPNs, but media companies are cracking down and blocking more VPN services by the day. Unfortunately, a Netflix VPN service that works today might not tomorrow, so keep that in mind and take advantage of free trials to see if your preferred streaming service works. You might also want to make sure the VPN works with devices like Chromecast, Roku or Apple TV before you get it.

ExpressVPN

$12.95/month, 6 months $9.99/month, 1-year $8.32/month

ExpressVPN operates in 94 countries and has over 145 cities to choose from, which makes it one of the most robust and popular VPN operators. It also cares about you watching the newest season of your favorite Netflix show. ExpressVPN is fast enough for HD streaming and has made it their business to combat Netflix's VPN crackdown. However, despite giving you pretty much all the security bells and whistles you could ever ask for, ExpressVPN is on the pricey side.

Find Out More At ExpressVPN.com

Buffered

$12.99/month, 6 months $9.99/month, 1-year $8.25/month

You'll easily be able to watch the next season of Stranger Things with Buffered when it comes out, but if you want to watch, say, a Bollywood movie, this VPN can't help you as it only works for U.S. Netflix. Buffered is also great for your Apple TV or AirPort Extreme, although it may take a little techy router maneuvering to get it going on either of those.

Find Out More At Buffered.com

Hotspot Shield

$12.99/month, 6 months $8.99/month, 1-year $5.99/month, Lifetime $109.99

Hotspot Shield used to get Netflix on its free version, but now you need to pay if you want to stream House of Cards. Still, Hotspot Shield is a decent option despite having fewer servers than the others. It's quite fast, has malware protection and you can get a great deal on a lifetime subscription. But before you jump on the lifetime deal, keep in mind that Netflix may end up blocking it one day.

Find Out More At Anchorfree.com

3. School

From USC to Duke to NYU to Michigan to Harvard, there's a good chance you're using a campus email to get onto your school's VPN. However, as students know, school VPNs can be super restrictive on what they allow you to do online. Schools have been known to block porn sites, torrenting, online games and even Facebook to keep your eyes on your studies. Sadly, bypassing VPN restrictions can be tough because schools can locate popular IP addresses and block them. One way to get through this is to use your phone data with a personal hotspot to your computer, but that can get costly. Otherwise, you'll need to use some lesser-known VPNs.

Tunnelbear

Free up to 500MB, $9.99/month, 1-year $4.17/month

This Canadian VPN has been making waves lately, but it's still relatively lesser known than the others so it might not be blocked by your school just yet. The best part about Tunnelbear for students is it's budget friendly price  free. However, you'll only get 500MB a month for the free service. To get unlimited you'll need to pay up.

Find Out More At Tunnelbear.com

Private Internet Access

$6.95/month, 6 months $5.99/month, 1-year $3.33/month

With over 3,000 servers in 25 countries, Private Internet Access (PIA) makes evading school VPN blocks possible. Plus, it's got a really competitive price, especially yearly.

Find Out More At Privateinternetaccess.com

4. Torrenting

While torrenting might not be legal, what you download might very well be piracy. Still, I'm not gonna tell you what you can and can't do, except that you if you're going to download or upload torrents, you'd better protect yourself.

TorGuard

$9.99/month

This is the VPN you want if you upload torrents and remain anonymous. TorGuard doesn't keep any logs of your activity whatsoever, lets you pay anonymously with cryptocurrencies like BitCoin and allows BitTorrent and P2P traffic on all its 1600+ servers. For more details, check out TorGuard's interview with Torrentfreak.

Find Out More At TorGuard.com

Hide.me

Free up to 2GB, $4.99/month up to 75GB, $9.99/month unlimited

A "no logging, ever" policy is a good start and its high speeds is a good finish for any torrent user. Hide.me's premium unlimited plan also offers five simultaneous connections, which is helpful. If you want to make sure it's right for you, having the first 2GB free is another great feature.

Find Out More At Hide.me

5. Remote Browsing

Chances are your local coffee shop is packed with people glued to their laptops. And chances are many of these people are susceptible to a man-in-the-middle attack, which could lead to anything from taking over your webcam to stealing your password info. If you're going to work from a public place like a cafe, airport or Wi-Fi hotspot in a park, you need a good VPN, period. And if you do online banking from your phone, a VPN app would be a good idea as well.

IPVanish

$10/month, 3 months $8.99/month, 1-year $6.46/month

It's not cheap, but IPVanish is one of the top VPN services around. It has a whopping 40,000+ IPs on 700+ servers in 60+ countries and is great on security with a no logs policy. IPVanish will work on your browser or smartphone  and if the price is bothering you, you can test it out with the 7-day trial for free.

Find Out More At IPVanish.com

6. Global Travel

Yes, the U.S. is bad for internet privacy, but many countries are worse. If you do some traveling, you're going to want a VPN with experience fighting government's spying agencies. You might also want one that has a large number of servers in the country if your job requires it. Here are some options for VPNs in China, Canada, Australia, Russia, the United Kingdom and India.

China, Japan, India:

ExpressVPN

$12.95/month, 6 months $9.99/month, 1-year $8.32/month

ExpressVPN has been doing battle with The Great Firewall of China for years and it's become a trusted service in the country. It also has a great reputation in Japan and India.

Find Out More At ExpressVPN.com

Canada, U.K:

NordVPN

$11.95/month, 6 months $7/month, 1-year $5.75/month

With over 60 standard VPN servers in Canada and the U.K. as well as over 260 in the U.S, this popular VPN is a great option for both Brits and Canucks.

Find Out More At NordVPN.com

Australia:

IPVanish

$10/month, 3 months $8.99/month, 1-year $6.46/month

Over 40 Australian servers make IPVanish a safe bet Down Under.

Find Out More At IPVanish.com

Russia:

Hide My Ass

$11.52/month, 6 months $8.33/month, 1-year $6.55/month

The Russian Federation has become synonymous with nefarious online activity, so when you're there you're definitely going to want to protect yourself. Hide My Ass has servers in virtually every country on the planet with over 1,000,000 IP addresses. Chew on that Kremlin!

Find Out More At HideMyAss.com

7. Privacy

If you want a VPN to visit porn sites or do some online dating you don't want anybody to know about, aforementioned VPNs like VyprVPN, NordVPN, IPVanish and ExpressVPN will do you well. But if you're not into one of those for one reason or another, these two are terrific alternatives.

RELATED: How To Watch Porn Safely

VPNArea

$9.90/month, 6 months $8.33/month, 1-year $4.92/month

Relatively new on the scene, Bulgaria-based VPNArea is getting a ton of praise for its no logs policy and the fact that it's hosted out of Switzerland. Essentially, like cash from corrupt politicians, your privacy will be safely in the vault.

Find Out More At VPNArea.com

Avast SecureLine

$59.99/year

If you care about online privacy, there's a good chance you have antivirus software. And if you're cheap, you probably have Avast SecureLine's free antivirus. SecureLine VPN comes with Avast, although for a price, and does a solid job at keeping your online activities safe.

Find Out More At Avast.com

8. Voice Chats

Believe it or not, voice chatting software like Skype isn't permitted in every country; Saudi Arabia being one of them. If you happen to be in a country where VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is restricted and have a business call to make (or a long distance partner to keep up with), you're going to need a quality VPN.

SaferVPN

$8.99/month, 1-year $5.99/month, $3.49/month

SaferVPN is based in Israel, so it knows about Skype blocks in the region. This VPN is a great option due to its competitive speeds, ease of use and cheap price if you commit for over a year. Iffy? You can try SaferVPN free for 24 hours.

Find Out More At safervpn.com

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Negotiators in the U.S. Congress reached a deal late on Sunday on around $1 trillion in federal funding that would avert a government shutdown later this week, while handing President Donald Trump a downpayment on his promised military build-up.

The full House of Representatives and Senate must still approve the bipartisan pact, which would be the first major legislation to clear Congress since Trump became president on Jan. 20.

Prompt passage of the legislation was expected this week.

The funds, which should have been locked into place seven months ago with the start of fiscal 2017 on Oct. 1, would pay for an array of federal programs from airport and border security operations to soldiers' pay, medical research, foreign aid, space exploration, and education.

"The agreement will move the needle forward on conservative priorities and will ensure that the essential functions of the federal government are maintained, said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.

If it is not enacted by midnight Friday, federal agencies would have to lay off hundreds of thousands of workers and require many others to continue on the job providing law enforcement and other essential operations without pay until the funding dispute in Congress is resolved.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

He said the measure would increase federal investments in medical research, education, and infrastructure.

House and Senate appropriators worked into the night to draft the legislation for lawmakers to review.

A senior congressional aide said the Pentagon would win a $12.5 billion increase in defense spending for the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30, with the possibility of an additional $2.5 billion contingent on Trump delivering a plan to Congress for defeating the Islamic State militant group.

Trump had requested $30 billion more in military funds for this year after campaigning hard on a defense build-up during the 2016 election campaign.

NO WALL MONEY

Several other important White House initiatives were rejected by the Republican and Democratic negotiators, including money for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump has argued is needed to stop illegal immigrants and drugs.

Instead, congressional negotiators settled on $1.5 billion more for border security, including more money for new technology and repairing existing infrastructure, the aide said.

Trump, in excerpts from a CBS News interview to air later on Monday, said a separate infrastructure plan would come within three weeks.

The Trump administration had earlier backed away from a threat to end federal subsidies for low-income people to get health insurance through Obamacare, the program that Trump had pledged to repeal.

Republicans are struggling over a repeal and replacement plan for former President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law and it was unclear whether they would be able to bring such legislation to the House floor soon.

While Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, Democrats scored other significant victories in the deal.

Puerto Rico would get an emergency injection of $295 million in additional funding for its Medicaid health insurance program for the poor, according to the aide who asked not to be identified. The impoverished island, which is a U.S. territory, is facing a severe Medicaid funding shortfall.

Democrats also fended off potential cuts to women's healthcare provider Planned Parenthood, while House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi applauded a nearly $2 billion hike in funds for the National Institutes of Health this year.

Coal miners and their families facing the loss of health insurance next month would get a permanent renewal under the spending bill.

While Trump has urged Congress to impose deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, most of its programs would be continued for at least the remainder of this year, according to the aide.

The House is likely to vote first on the package, probably early in the week, and send the measure to the Senate for approval before Friday's midnight deadline.

If the legislation is enacted by week's end, Congress would then have to begin focusing on a series of bills to fund the government at the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Paul Tait)
In this segment from Market Foolery, Mac Greer is joined by Ron Gross and Jason Moser as the cast discusses the latest developments at Southwest (NYSE: LUV), the popular low-cost airline. Though costs are rising for everything from labor to fuel, that doesn't mean the team is bearish on this well-run Foolish company, which just announced a customer-centric change to its policies.

A full transcript follows the video.

10 stocks we like better than Southwest AirlinesWhen 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 Southwest Airlines wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.

Click here to learn about these picks!

*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017

This video was recorded on April 27, 2017.

Mac Greer: Time to talk my favorite airline, Southwest Airlines.Down on earnings here, Ron. There's aninteresting story here now with Buffett, becauseBerkshirehas a $2 billion stake in Southwest, that stakegetting a little smaller today.

Ron Gross:Little smaller. My favorite airline as well.I'm a big fan of the company. But it was a disappointing quarter. For thosefinance people out there, if your revenues grow 1% but your costs grow almost 9%, that's bad. It really is an expense story here. Labor costs were up, they havenew contracts in place with pilots andflight attendants, socost for salaries and wages were up about 13%, cost of fuel was up 8%, and revenues, as I said, were only up 1%. So, we havea little bit of a mismatch in terms of revenue and expenses here. But it is, as we said, a very well-run company. It is a Foolish company,in terms of the way they treat their customers and their employees and their shareholders. Love to see that, love to reallyparticipate with companies like that. Andthey will be fine. Profitstook a smack, they were down about30%, that's not great to see, but I don't view this as a long-termdegradation of their business model, oreven the industry in general.

Greer:Jason,today, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said the airline will no longer overbook its planes. That'spretty groundbreaking, isn't it?

Jason Moser:I doff my cap to that decision. I think that's one of the most customer-centricmoves they could have made at this point in time. I think thebiggest question a lot of people have hadover the past few weeks is,why in the world are these airlines overbooking to begin with? And we know it's all aboutmaximizing, fill up that plane, if people cancel or whatever. So, they take a chance there. It isinherently a chance that they're taking every time they overbook. And we've seen how bad that can actually get. To me, like Ron was saying, these are the types of businesses that we really like to be a part of, and they are businesses that,generally speaking, will make decisions that in the short rundon't seem necessarily in line with near-term success. Youhave to let time play out, to let those decisions play out.I think this is one of those decisions where, in the near-term, certainly, itcould affect capacity there, it certainly could affect profitability. But this is a business that'sobviously thinking far beyond that. It cares about its customers, it cares about its employees, it cares about its status in the world. I applaud the decision.

Gross:From a Buffettperspective, he's taken a betacross the industry,he's not just betting on Southwest. He purchased the big four --American,Delta,United, and Southwest -- thinking that the terrible 20th century airlinedebacle is behind us,the industry has consolidated andthey can get back to betterprofitability, and he can do well on the industry as a whole. It's a tough business, these margins are thin, andit remains to be seen if the bet will work. But don't bet against Buffett too much.

Greer:Yeah,because at one point, Buffett called airlines adeathtrap for investors. I thinkdeathtrap, for a lot of us, has anegative connotation.

Moser:[laughs] On the whole.

Greer:I'll tell you what I love about Southwest Airlines, getting back to how customer-centric they are. I fly them a lotwhen I fly to Houston to see my family. Little things, they doall the little things. When I fly with my two sons,Southwest Airlines puts lids on the drink and puts straws in the drink. And it means you're not worried about spilling. Little stuff like that. And theydon't drag you off the plane.

Gross:[laughs] The details. Yeah,just this week my daughter flew and gotdiverted to Pittsburgh because of weather. The next day, a $100 voucher showed up for $100 worth of tickets next time she flies, and a heartfelt -- literally a heartfelt -- apology. Great company to own and put your money to as a consumer.

Moser:We say it all the time. Thosebusinesses where leaders are so focused on the customer, they are businesses that tend to really do well over long periods of time. It seems really simple. Figure outwhat your customers want and then give it to them. It's justnot always executed very well.

Jason Moser owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). Mac Greer has no position in any stocks mentioned. Ron Gross owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway (B shares). The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The Latest on May Day events across the United States (all times local):

10:15 p.m.

Seattle police say five people were arrested in May Day protests downtown.

Seattle police tweeted Monday night that those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 51. A 26-year-old man was arrested after reportedly throwing a rock as a group of Trump supporters met up with other protesters in Westlake Park.

Police Chief Ronnie Roberts in Olympia, Washington, said Monday night that nine people were arrested in a May Day protest-turned-riot and that all were booked on a felony riot charge.

Roberts says rioters hit nine police officers with rocks or marbles flung out of slingshots but no one was seriously injured thanks to helmets and other gear.

___

7:30 p.m.

Thousands of union members and activists were marching in the shadow of some of the biggest resorts on the Las Vegas Strip during a May Day event organized to push back against Trump administration policies.

The loud and colorful demonstration Monday on Las Vegas Boulevard drew stares from tourists from Chicago, Boston and California, and remained peaceful.

In Olympia, Washington, police ordered protesters to disperse, calling them "members of a mob" as some threw bottles, used pepper spray and fired rocks from slingshots at officers.

___

7 p.m.

Seattle police have arrested one person during a May Day rally.

Seattle police said on Twitter that the suspect was arrested early Monday evening for reportedly throwing a rock as a group of Trump supporters met up with other May Day protesters in Westlake Park.

Meanwhile in Portland, "numerous people have been arrested" in a May Day rally and march turned riot because of anarchists, police said.

Reporters from multiple media outlets in Portland were tweeting photos of broken and cracked windows at businesses including Target and J. Crew as well as at Portland City Hall.

___

5:18 p.m.

Portland, Oregon, police say officers have arrested at least three people during a downtown May Day rally and march that they say became a riot.

Police said on Twitter Monday that anarchists destroyed a police car, damaged numerous windows and property, started fires in the streets and attacked police.

Police were telling people to leave the area or risk arrest after canceling a permit obtained for the May Day event.

It wasn't immediately clear if anyone had been injured.

___

4:45 p.m.

Police in Portland, Oregon, say the permit obtained for the May Day rally and march there was canceled as some marchers began throwing projectiles at officers.

Police said on Twitter that all participants were encouraged to leave the march as smoke bombs and other items continued to be thrown at police Monday afternoon.

Police say the permit was being canceled "due to numerous incidents of thrown projectiles, incendiary devices, and other unsafe conditions."

No injuries had been reported.

Portland was among many major cities where thousands of people were demonstrating, but it was among the only spots where there was unrest.

___

4 p.m.

About 200 people in Portland, Oregon, including some families with children, joined many thousands of others across the country in pro-labor, pro-immigration and anti-President Donald Trump rallies on May Day.

In Portland, dancers in bright, feathered headdresses performed to the beat of drums on Monday afternoon.

Several dozen people dressed entirely in black and wearing black bandanas and ski masks on their faces stood around the fringes of the gathering holding signs that read "Radicals for Science!" and "No cuts! Tax the rich!" as police officers looked on.

Across the country in Providence, Rhode Island, about the same number of people gathered at Burnside Park before a two-hour protest that touched on deportation, profiling and wage theft. The group followed a flatbed truck that stopped for speeches and booing in front of the sites such as the Federal Courthouse and City Hall.

In Los Angeles, dozens of pro-Trump protesters stood across from a large crowd of May Day marchers, waving American flags and blasting patriotic songs. The group left before any clashes or trouble emerged between the two sides.

___

2:15 p.m.

A march toward downtown Chicago on May Day is taking up several city blocks, with organizers estimating an attendance of 20,000 people.

One of the participants is artist Brian Holmes, who says Monday's demonstration is the latest step in fighting policies issued by President Donald Trump. Holmes says he has participated in several marches, including a rally Saturday to protest Trump's agenda in rolling back environmental protections.

Many signs in the crowd call for an end to deportations. But advocates of several organizations are pushing for numerous causes, including workers' rights, environmental justice and a higher minimum wage.

A handful of Trump supporters wearing baseball caps with his campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" are in attendance.

___

2:05 p.m.

Activists and immigrant advocates are marking May Day with another day of action in the Phoenix area after a weekend of marches and rallies that called for support of immigration and labor rights.

Organizers for Promise Arizona met with legislators at Arizona's capitol Monday to deliver postcards with messages of hope regarding International Workers' Day.

The group will hold a phone bank event later Monday to urge legislators and members of Congress to support immigrant families.

Immigrant advocates say the events will bring attention to President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration during his first 100 days in office.

David Ayala-Zamora is the state field director for Promise Arizona. He says Trump is "terrorizing our communities" through his immigration policies.

___

1:40 p.m.

Crowds have gathered in a park on Chicago's West Side to call for immigrant and workers' rights on May Day.

Among them is 28-year-old Brenda Burciaga, a U.S. citizen whose mother is set to be deported to Mexico soon.

She says her mother has lived and worked in the U.S. for about two decades. Burciaga says no matter what, immigrants deserve respect from President Donald Trump's administration.

Activists from labor groups, anti-police brutality organizations and groups seeking a higher minimum wage rallied Monday before a march downtown.

The atmosphere was festive, with local rappers riffing about peace, drummers warming up the crowd and labor advocates giving speeches.

Several area businesses with immigrant ties closed for the day or allowed employees to participate without being penalized.

The park rally followed demonstrations citywide.

___

1 p.m.

Police in California say they have arrested four activists who chained themselves together to block the entrance to the county administration building in downtown Oakland on May Day.

Police are threatening more arrests Monday at the Alameda County Administration Building as more than 100 protesters demand an end to what they call collaboration between county law enforcement and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Organizers want the county to become a sanctuary for immigrants, workers and people of color targeted by law enforcement policies under President Donald Trump's administration.

The protesters are beating a drum and chanting, "The people united will never be defeated" in English and Spanish.

The group also wants an end to the Urban Shield SWAT training exercises and a stop to a planned expansion of the county jail system.

___

11:05 a.m.

With chants of "We are here to stay!" immigrants and labor leaders are marking International Workers' Day with marches and rallies in the Boston area.

Some 200 people gathered in front of the Statehouse on Monday to call on state lawmakers and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to designate Massachusetts a "sanctuary state." The proposal would restrict state and local law enforcement officers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

Democratic state Sen. Jamie Eldridge is the bill sponsor and said it wasn't enough for individual communities to become sanctuary cities because workers must cross city lines to get to and from jobs.

Activists plan to march later Monday to Chelsea City Hall for a rally.

May Day rallies are being held nationwide to oppose President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

___

10:55 a.m.

At least 200 people are protesting in New York City's Washington Square Park ahead of a much larger demonstration to oppose President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

The crowd on Monday listened to various speakers and performers who are focused on workers and immigrants. They're carrying signs that say, "No person is illegal" and "We won't tolerate Trump's fascist policies."

Brenda Enriquez says she's participating in a protest for the first time because "Trump is threatening to kick us out." The 27-year-old Queens resident is originally from Bolivia and lived in the U.S. illegally.

A coalition of immigrant rights groups, labor and religious leaders has organized what they're calling a "massive" rally for 5 p.m. in Lower Manhattan.

Demonstrations are being held across the world to mark May Day.

___

8:25 a.m.

Labor and immigrant rights groups along with some local elected officials are planning a march to the White House to oppose President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Groups around the country have a variety of demonstrations planned to mark May Day on Monday. In Washington, a march is planned Monday afternoon from Dupont Circle to the White House.

Some businesses in the area were closed Monday in support of the effort.

Salvador Zelaya owns a commercial construction company with offices in Washington and Alexandria, Virginia, and says he's paying his workers to take a day off and attend the march to the White House. Zelaya says his 18 workers are spending the morning making banners.

___

8:15 a.m.

About 1,000 Philadelphia school teachers are protesting as May Day demonstrations begin across the U.S.

The teachers began picketing Monday morning outside city schools, and rallies and marches are planned throughout the day. Many took sick days to protest. Supportive parents are picketing at some schools and are expected to march later.

The educators have been working nearly four years without a contract and nearly five without a pay raise. Schools are open and the district says it's working with principals and the company that provides substitute teachers to ensure there will be no disruptions in the classrooms.

Immigrants and union members will participate in a series of strikes, boycotts and marches on Monday to mark International Workers' Day and protest against President Donald Trump's policies.

___

12:25 a.m.

Immigrant and union groups will march in cities across the United States to mark May Day and protest against President Donald Trump's efforts to boost deportations.

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies are expected to rally Monday in cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also are planned for dozens of smaller cities from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Portland, Oregon.

In many places, activists are urging people to skip work, school and shopping to show the importance of immigrants in American communities.

Around the world, union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers' rights. The day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the U.S. since demonstrations were held in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.
From its beginning as an independent company in 2008, Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) stock has produced excellent returns for investors. With the rights to produce and sell Marlboro cigarettes everywhere outside the U.S., Philip Morris International has been able to generate strong profits by using the power of its worldwide brand awareness. Those efforts have produced dividends for shareholders, but now, Philip Morris is seeking to go beyond traditional tobacco products to capture an even bigger piece of the pie. In particular, there are four things that every investor should know about Philip Morris International.

1. Cigarettes make up the vast majority of its business...

The power of the Marlboro name and other well-known brands has been essential to Philip Morris, and even with all the talk of moving toward reduced-risk products, regular cigarettes still represent the bulk of the tobacco giant's business. In terms of sales volume, Philip Morris shipped 173.6 billion cigarettes during the first quarter of 2017. By contrast, the company saw shipments of only 4.4 billion units of its modified-risk heated tobacco products, nearly all of which came in Asia.

From a revenue perspective, the gap isn't quite as large, but it's still substantial. During the quarter, combustible products sales, including cigarettes, came to $5.63 billion. That compared to $435 million for reduced-risk product sales. Even as talk of transforming the company continues, it's important for shareholders to keep this key fact front and center in their analysis.

Image source: Philip Morris International.

2. ... but growth in reduced-risk products has been extremely impressive.

Despite the current dominant role for cigarettes at Philip Morris, the question long-term investors have to ask is how long that will last. The pace of growth for the reduced-risk product category has been extremely swift, and the company is devoting more resources to production and sales that could dramatically alter its overall product mix quickly.

For context, cigarette shipment volume fell by 11.5% year over year in the first quarter. Heated tobacco unit sales jumped by nearly 10 times. In terms of dollar revenue, combustible product sales fell 4%, while reduced-risk products mounted a nearly eightfold increase. If that pace of growth continues, it won't take long for reduced-risk products to play a substantial role in Philip Morris' overall business.

3. Marlboro isn't quite as dominant as one might think.

The Marlboro brand is a key one for Philip Morris, but not to the same extent globally that it is in the U.S. under the aegis of former Philip Morris parent Altria Group (NYSE: MO). In the U.S., Altria gets the huge majority of its cigarette sales from Marlboro, but for Philip Morris, Marlboro shipments amounted to just over a third of total cigarette movement during 2016. The L&M brand represented about 12% of total volume, and other key brands like Parliament, Bond Street, Chesterfield, Lark, and the namesake Philip Morris brand combined for about another quarter of the company's overall shipments. With the need to cater to international tastes and local preferences, Philip Morris has to maintain a wide stable of brands to satisfy its customers.

4. Dividend growth is staying slow.

Many investors choose Philip Morris because of the dividend power that the tobacco industry has traditionally wielded. But currency-related hits have punished Philip Morris investors in terms of dividends. From a history of paying 10% to 20% dividend increases annually, Philip Morris has seen its annual dividend growth slow to just 2% in each of the past two years.

PM Dividend data by YCharts.

In good news for investors, Philip Morris has said that it anticipates much less negative impact from foreign currency fluctuations during 2017, and that should allow the company to capture more of its growth in local-currency terms on its dollar-denominated financial statements. That alone won't solve all of the industry challenges that Philip Morris faces, but it should put the tobacco giant in a better position to accelerate dividend growth in the years to come.

Philip Morris International has had great success in its decade-long history as an independent company. With strong stock performance in the past, Philip Morris is working hard to keep its positive momentum going and continue to deliver good results for its shareholders long into the future.

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The United States will begin an investigation into whether thermoplastic components used in some Japanese and German vehicle models sold in the country violate its patent laws, trade authorities said late last week.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) on Friday listed 25 companies in the probe, including BMW, Honda Motor, Toyota Motor along with Japanese parts suppliers Aisin Seiki and Denso Corp.

The probe was initiated by patent holding firm Intellectual Ventures II, which in March filed a complaint alleging that thermoplastic parts used in motors, water pumps, electronic power steering units and other powertrain parts made by or used in vehicles sold by the companies infringe on its patents.

Used in parts which come in contact with high-temperature auto components, thermoplastics are more lightweight and durable compared with other materials used in vehicle powertrains, helping to increase efficiency and improve fuel economy.

The complaint affects vehicle models sold in the United States including the 2016 Toyota Camry, 2017 Honda Accord and the 2016 BMW 228i, according to the patent company.

The USITC said it would set a target date to complete its investigation within 45 days of starting the probe.

Shares in Honda and Toyota were little changed during the Tokyo session on Monday.

A Toyota spokeswoman declined to comment on the issue, while officials in Japan at BMW, Honda, Aisin and Denso were not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
President Trumps anti-regulatory stance continues to be at the forefront of the administrations policies as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking to roll back the Obama-era net neutrality rules.

The 2015 regulations bar internet service providers from creating so-called fast lane connections.

In an exclusive interview with FOX Business Trish Regan, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said allowing the free market control the internet is better for consumers and will lead to more competition.

The core question is who do you want to control how the internet operates  if you want it to be bureaucrats or lawyers in Washington, then you adopt heavy handed rules that were inspired to regulate the Ma Bell monopoly in the 1930s. But if you want a more market-orientated approach, the approach that has produced the internet economy thats the envy of the world, then you want light-touch regulation. You want the market making those decisions and for the government to step in when theres a particular problem, he said.

According to the FCC Chairman, the light-touch regulatory approach that was established during the Clinton presidency will allow companies such as Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) to grow and thrive.

First and foremost, it will lead to more investment in infrastructure by the companies that build the nuts and bolts of the Internet. Secondly, it will lead to more competition. What we've heard is that some of the smaller companies that were looking to build these networks have either held back on investments or stop investing altogether because of these regulations, he said.

Pai said he has seen no evidence supporting consumers concern of paying more to watch their favorite shows on platforms such as Netflix if the net neutrality rules are repealed.

One of the things we want to do going forward is to make sure there is more competition and the way to do that is to inspire more investment by more companies looking to build those networks that I think is the best way to ensure price competition, he said.

Pai also weighed in on the FCCs commitment to enforcing policies that provide a competitive medium market.

I've consistently said that we need to take a realistic view of what the video marketplace is like and take a look at all of the competitors in that space and try to figure out the market structure in order to decide, you know, whether or not a particular deal should go forward or whether regulations need to be adjusted to match the realities in the modern world, he said.
In order to make the most of his next 100 days in office, President Donald Trump must find more common ground within the Republican Party and find ways to appeal to a broader segment of voters, beyond his base.

I suggest a simple, unifying goal: Make small business great again. Putting the interests of small business first will be a political winner across voting segments (small business is a popular institution, outranking most groups in opinion polls) that is consistent with both the presidents populism and economic goals. It also fits perfectly with Republicans interest in the free-market principles of limited government. Plus, if Americas leaders do the right thing for small business on pending issues like health care and tax reform, they will unleash the sectors unique powers of job creation  the holy grail of political success.

VIDEO: Latino Coalition Chairman Hector Barreto Trump pitches gas tax hike to fund infrastructure

A small-business message will also resonate with the aspirational nature of many minority groups, especially the Hispanic community, which has a strong entrepreneurial streak  Hispanics are 1.5 times more likely than the general population to become entrepreneurs and Hispanic-owned businesses are growing at 15 times the national growth rate. The Latino communitys support of pro-small-business policy initiatives would be a grassroots boon and may even help earn the votes of Congressional Democrats  a stated goal of the White House. A nod to the Hispanic community now could even pay some immigration-reform dividends later.

It is easy to picture Trump rallies  an important grassroots tool the president should employ more often  structured around a theme of small business and entrepreneurship. As a business owner himself, the president has tremendous credibility with the small-business community  meaning that a group of people who rarely take a vacation, or even a day off, might just close shop early to hear their president talk about tax reform or health care. Coverage of these events would make very good television.

On taxes, small-business owners will want to hear the president talk about individual rates because they dont pay corporate taxes, they pay individual taxes, and they pay them at often-astronomically high rates (they arent the rich, but their rates can approach 40 percent for federal taxes alone). They also hate the death tax  because even if its threshold is high enough to never impact them, the concept of double taxation, and the taxation of success and inheritance, are anathema to what they do and who they are.

On health care, small-business owners are almost a one-note tune: cost, cost, cost. Its a song theyve been singing for thirty years, and Washington hasnt listened. Instead, Obamcare delivered premium and deductible increases that have added insult to injury. To be politically successful, Obamacare repeal and replace must be about cost; the president should make this the chorus of his next push for reform.

The Trump Administrations promise to small business is already on the table. At a recent meeting of The Latino Coalition, Vice President Mike Pence told the group of independent business owners: The Trump Administration will be the best friend American small businesses will ever have, because when small business is strong, the American economy is strong.

For economic reasons, the president must make this statement come true. A concerted effort on behalf of small business will encourage and inspire new business formations, which is essential for new jobs in the short term and a more resilient economy over the long term.

For political reasons, making small business a big priority in his second 100 days could help the president lead his party by giving the GOP the common ground they desperately need to govern.

Hector Barreto is the Chairman of The Latino Coalition and the former Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The Trump administration has named a discernible enemy in its war on gangs and criminal cartels: the infamous and strengthening MS-13, known for its violence and brutality.

MS-13 is on one of its most deadly tears through Long Island, New York since it took root there 20-30 years ago, linked to at least eleven murders in the region since mid-2016, according to the Associated Press. Most recently the gang is believed to be connected to four brutal killings in Central Islip, N.Y. last month.

Despite the administrationas promised crackdown, security experts warn it wonat be easy infiltrating what has become an underground economy fueled by illegal immigration. The gang abuses the unaccompanied refugee minors program (URM), which allows immigrant children to come into the country and settle with sponsors, to both shuttle in and recruit members.

aThe unaccompanied minors come across the border, theyare detained and sponsors are found for them across the country, usually if they are from El Salvador in an El Salvadorian community, which we have in Brentwood, Long Island. And the unaccompanied minors arenat vetted, the homes are vetted, but some of those homes, there are MS-13 members living there,a Suffolk County police sheriff Vincent DeMarco said Monday during an interview with FOX Business.

Between October and February 31,407 unaccompanied minors were released to sponsors in the United States, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. In some cases, members are recruited before they even enter the United States, Michael Balboni, founder of securities firm Redland Strategies and former homeland security advisor for New York State, told FOX Business.

MS-13 is not a particularly well-funded organization and it traditionally resorts to theft, human trafficking, sex trafficking, selling drugs and extortion for financing, as reported by FOX Business. However, on Long Island it has afostered this underground economy that [for 20-30 years] we havenat been able to reach,a Balboni said, noting that challenge extends nationwide.

Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com

MS-13 is remarkable in the sense that it has been aan incredibly persistent problema over the years throughout the parts of the country where it has a robust presence, Balboni said.

Law enforcement officials have had trouble cracking down on this gang in particular because of its unique organizational structure.

aMS-13 works in cliques a theyare not like the Gambino crime organization where they have regional reach a Which is what makes them harder to get, because theyare not coordinated,a Balboni said. Traditional measures a including the use of informants, undercover agents and surveillance a havenat been successful, he added.

The gang, started by Central American immigrants in Los Angeles in the 1980s, is known for its ruthless and violent tactics. Most of the founding members were from El Salvador and fled to the U.S. during the countryas civil war that lasted 12 years, from 1980-92. Since then the gangas membership has ballooned to at least 10,000 members in the United States and more than 30,000 worldwide, according to the FBI and Treasury Department.

MS-13 may feel more of the Trump administrationas ire as officials look to infiltrate its underground economy.

President Trump addressed the gang by name during his speech at the NRA Friday, where he pledged to protect athe freedoms of law abiding citizens.a

aWe are going after the criminal gangs and cartels that prey on our innocent citizens, and we are really going after them,a Trump said.

On the same day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited Central Islip, N.Y., the sight of MS-13as latest murder spree.

aI have a message for the gangs that target our young people: We are targeting you and we are coming after you,a Sessions said during a news conference Friday.

When it comes to action, the Trump administration might have the right idea targeting illegal immigration, experts say.

Sheriff DeMarco said Monday he would like to see the federal government aattack the economya of MS-13, which he said thrives because athe border is open.a

Balboni said in order to combat the growth of MS-13 law enforcement needs to spend more on joint gang task forces and revamp the immigration loophole that allows members to come here unvetted.
Congress will consider a new bill this week aimed at hitting North Koreas shipping industry with fresh sanctions, as the White House says shutting down the pressing military threat from Pyongyang is a top priority.

The president is going to do what he has to do  to take [the North Korean] threat down. That is his number one priority right now, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday afternoon.

President Trump told Bloomberg News on Monday that he would be willing to meet with leader Kim Jong-un under the right circumstances, despite heightening international tensions.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday the administration is keeping a close eye on its fiscal policies regarding North Korea, during an interview with FOX Business.

We have put sanctions on North Korea, we will continue to look at this  the sanctions programs are very important to our national security, Mnuchin said.

Mnuchins comments came as North Korea hinted Monday that it would continue to advance its nuclear program, after conducting another failed missile launch Saturday, despite growing global opposition and intimidations. Some foreign policy experts are concerned sanctions will not prove sufficient to deter Pyongyang from continuing its quest for nuclear weapons.

North Korea already is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. Tighter, tougher sanctions are a necessary part of the mix of tools the U.S. should employ, but of themselves they have proven to be insufficient to change North Korea's calculus, Stephen Yates, professor of international business and politics at Boise State University and former deputy national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, told FOX Business.

While multiple administration officials have insisted all options are still on the table when it comes to thwarting North Koreas nuclear power grab, Mnuchin hinted the administration is focused first on working toward a peaceful resolution. Amid criticism over the effectiveness of financial penalties, he said U.S. sanctions programs work.

[When the U.S. implements sanctions] we are cutting them off from the U.S. financial system and we are encouraging our partners around the world to do the same thing, he said.

Trump has looked to China, North Koreas single most important trading partner, to help put pressure on Kim Jong-un. China accounts for an estimated 70% of Pyongyangs total trade, including essential goods and services like food and energy, according to 2016 data from the Congressional Research Service. In 2015 North Korea imported $2.95 billion worth of goods from China, and exported $2.83 billion there, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

If China fails to aid the U.S. in its efforts against North Korea, Yates said the most effective way to diffuse the situation would be to enact sanctions against China.

The more effective course of action is to impose sanctions on third party enablers of North Korea's weapons and illicit finances, especially China. Not risk free, precedent exists demonstrating that it can work, Yates said.

In a tweet, President Trump framed North Koreas failed nuclear launch Saturday as a direct offense against China.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the U.S will remain vigilant against the threat of North Koreas nuclear weapons program.

We have put sanctions on North Korea we will continue to look at this, Mnuchin told the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo.

He said he has worked closely with the National Security Council to impose 250 new sanctions on Syria, Iran, Russia and North Korea.

Sanctions are about making sure that where people are supporting terrorist activities or weapons of mass destruction, that we are cutting them off from the U.S. financial system and we are encouraging our partners around the world to do the same thing, he said.

Mnuchin also pointed out how on occasion secondary sanctions can be used as a very, very powerful tool.

What secondary sanctions say is that institutions must honor them or they are cut off from the U.S. financial system, he said.

The U.S. has enlisted the help of North Korean ally China, put military options back on the table and is considering more economic sanctions. While its unclear how the U.S. will proceed to confront North Korea, Mnuchin was confident in the Treasurys ability to continue to work closely with the intelligence community.

The sanctions programs do work, and they are powerful tools, and we will continue to use them, he said.
Military man and former Dancing with the Stars competitor Alek Skarlatos, who with his two friends bravely tackled and disarmed an alleged terrorist on a Paris-bound train, has a lot to be grateful for.

Skarlatos told Fox News about his famed August 2015 brush with terror in Europe, "I still think about it every day. I get nightmares from time to time."

The Oregon Army National Guardsman, who served in Afghanistan, and his pals Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler rose to fame after overpowering Ayoub El Khazzani on a train traveling to Paris from Amsterdam.

El Khazzani shot and seriously wounded a passenger, but then Skarlatos yelled to Airman First Class Stone, "Get him!"

Stone attacked the alleged gunman and Skarlatos followed his friend, grabbing El Khazzani's rifle and pounding him in the head with the muzzle until he was unconscious. Sadler, their buddy from childhood who wasn't in the military, helped subdue the suspect.

Since the scary incident, El Khazzani, an alleged Moroccan ISIS recruit, has been in custody in France.

Skarlatos and his two friends wrote a book about the massacre they averted, called "The 15:17 To Paris: The True Story Of A Terrorist, A Train, And Three American Heroes." And it's been reported that the legendary Clint Eastwood will direct an upcoming Warner Bros film based on the memoir, scheduled to start production later this year. The prospects for success look strong, as Eastwood directed the massive 2014 hit movie "American Sniper," based on Chris Kyle's memoir.

Skarlatos told Fox News just days before Eastwood's participation in the project was reported, "We're kind of in the beginning stages of it now. I can't say too much about it 'cause of nondisclosure but it's hopefully going to happen."

Looking back on the terror attack that changed his life, Skarlatos recalled, "It was just kind of a gut response. I guess I was just lucky that I was able to do something and not freeze up. That was the biggest thing I was grateful for because when you think about something like that, you never really know how you're going to react until you actually do and so I was grateful I didn't just sit there in shock."

Skarlatos, who will leave the military after he fulfills several more months of Army National Guard duty, said what he remembers most is "the very time I saw the guy. It's kind of a feeling that sticks with you when you realize what exactly is going on. Your heart sinks and you can't believe it's actually happening all it once.

"It's still something that I definitely can picture pretty vividly when I think back on it."



Skarlatos, Stone, and Sadler went back to Paris last summer for a reunion with Embassy employees who gave the trio awards and Mark Moogalian, the American-born Frenchman who had been shot in the neck on the train and later recovered.

When asked by Fox News about how terror can be dealt with in Europe, Skarlatos said, "I don't want to get too political but I obviously don't think they should be letting in unvetted refugees by the hundreds of thousands.

"I think Europe has made a lot of mistakes and I think now the people of Europe are suffering the consequences. I hope they can fix it 'cause obviously it's not turning out so well for them over there.

"It angers me that nothing really major has happened to resolve any of this -- terrorist attacks in Europe and the Middle East. It's still an issue almost two years later [after the train incident].

Skarlatos said once the movie project with his two friends is done, he hopes to work in law enforcement. The military man, who appeared on the ABC reality show "Dancing with the Stars" in fall 2015, finishing third, rejects talk that he's a hero.

"I don't feel that way. In the end, we were trying not to diesaving ourselves. So the fact we saved other people is great but in the end, I only went to Spencer when Spencer went [to fight the gunman] and Spencer went because I told him to. It's just about survival."

But love of country comes naturally to Skarlatos.

"Obviously patriotism means a lot to me because I went to Afghanistan and fought for this country. Im very proud to be an American. To say what it means to me would probably take too long!" he said.
When neonatal intensive care units in northeastern Brazilian hospitals started to fill up with babies with misshapen and abnormally small heads in late 2015, the first question everyone wanted answered was: What is causing this?

As pictures of the babies started circulating around the world, a second question quickly followed: What would life be like for these infants?

Within a few months, the international scientific community concluded that Zika virus infection in pregnancy, especially in the first trimester, could trigger devastating brain destruction in a developing fetus. Zika congenital syndrome, as it is now called, can manifest itself in profound ways  a cratered skull, whole sections of brain tissue missing  or subtler deficits such as hearing loss and vision problems.

More From Stat News Another night in the hospital: the unrelenting struggle of raising Brazils Zika babies

In the months since these babies began to be born, their families and the medical professionals treating them have been charting the progress of the survivors. For some, there is hope that brain plasticity  neuronal workarounds  will limit the damage. For others, development goals may not just be delayed, but missed entirely.

Read more: Another night in the hospital: the unrelenting struggle of raising Brazils Zika babies

To date, Brazil has confirmed Zika-related birth defects in more than 2,600 babies; another 3,200 suspected cases are still being investigated.

STAT recently revisited two affected babies and their families. Maria Eduarda Pereira  known as Duda  was one of the first Zika infants born in Recife; she is now nearly 18 months old. Dr. Regina Coeli, of the Oswaldo Cruz University Hospital there, measures what would be small milestones for other children  learning to swallow, sitting up with support  as big gains for Duda.

I would say Duda was one of the worse cases I have cared for, said Coeli, who said the little girl was in and out of hospital for the first nine months of her life. Even so, she has shown great development that you might have thought impossible for a child with that level of brain damage, so that spectrum can change throughout time.

Eduarda Alvess daughter Sophia recently celebrated her first birthday. Like Duda and many other babies with Zika congenital syndrome, Sophias vision has been affected. Still, shes learning and developing. Sophia cant yet sit up by herself, but can hold herself in a sitting position if placed in one, and can stand if supported.

Said Alves: Were going at her pace.
A Caribbean vacation sounds like a pleasant way to pass the time and catch some rays, but a Pennsylvania woman returned with more than a beachy glow: Two weeks after coming home, she developed a raised, itchy rash on her knee, which turned out to be the result of a parasite burrowing beneath her skin, according to a recent case report.

The 45-year-old woman's rash was "textbook example" of a type of parasitic infection called cutaneous larva migrans, said Dr. Chaiya Laoteppitaks, an emergency medicine physician at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and the senior author of the case report.

The wavy, snake-like lines that appear on the skin are the trail left behind by the parasitic worm as it burrows around beneath the skin, Laoteppitaks told Live Science.

Cutaneous larva migrans is caused by a hookworm infection, according to the case report, which was published online April 8 in The Journal of Emergency Medicine .

Up to 740 million people worldwide have hookworm infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Hookworm infections, along with whipworm and roundworm infections, are among the most common parasitic infections in the world, according to the World Health Organization .

Hookworms are normally found in warm, moist climates, Laoteppitaks said. Normally, a hookworm infects a person when the worm's larva burrows into the skin, Laoteppitaks said. The larva travels through the body, and eventually makes it to the small intestines, where it develops into an adult and lays eggs, according to the CDC. These eggs are expelled from the body in a person's stool, and the life cycle can start again, the CDC says.

But in the woman's case, the infection was caused by a hookworm that doesn't normally infect humans, Laoteppitaks said. There are two hookworm species that may have been responsible for the woman's infection: Ancylostoma braziliense or Ancylostoma caninum, according to the report.

These are hookworms that normally infect dogs and cats  humans aren't a "definitive host" for the worms, Laoteppitaks said.

That means that if one of these hookworms ends up in a human, it's the end of the line for them: Because they can't complete their life cycle, the worms just burrow through the skin for a while until they eventually die, Laoteppitaks said. But when the human immune system attacks the worm, it causes intense itching, he said. In the medical literature, the type of rash is sometimes called "creeping eruption," according to the report.

The worms can move a couple of centimeters each day, and in some cases, a person can actually observe the line of the rash extending, he added. When this happens, it's possible for doctors to perform a biopsy and find evidence of the worm, he said.

The woman was treated with an antiparasitic drug, and Laoteppitaks noted that she is now doing quite well.

Originally published on Live Science .
The warm weather that is arriving in the U.S. is bringing mosquitos and, following last years outbreak of Zika, states hard hit by the virus are stepping up their efforts to prevent the spread of the bug-borne illness even as the future of federal funding to combat it remains in jeopardy.

In 2016, Zika  which is known to cause neurological defects in developing fetuses  was found in pregnant woman in 44 states across the country and caused large-scale outbreaks in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Florida and Texas. A CDC report released earlier this month found that one in 10 pregnant women with Zika gave birth to a child with serious birth defects. In the U.S. alone last year, 77 babies died in the womb due to Zika, while 51 babies were born with Zika-related birth defects.

A warm winter in many of the states heavily affected by Zika could mean the survival of more eggs of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species that transmits the virus.

Last month, federal officials at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta told health officials from six states hard hit by the virus that Zika funding envisioned to last five years will instead likely run out this summer.

A Senate panel last week approved a bill that authorizes an additional $100 million in grant funding to battle Zika, but the bill still needs to be voted on by the full Senate before summer begins.

With Zika season quickly approaching and a vaccine for the virus still far away from being publically available, Fox News took a look at what some of the states that struggled to fight the virus last year are doing as temperatures rise.

Florida

Despite Gov. Rick Scott declaring that the virus was no longer spreading in Florida, experts have warned that conditions in the Sunshine State are ripe for Zika to continue to plague residents as the species of mosquito that transmits the virus can travel easily and a warm winter means that their eggs have better chances of hatching.

After seeing 1,093 cases of Zika picked up by people traveling abroad and another 279 infected as Zika spread in Florida  most occurring in densely-populated Miami-Dade County  mosquito control districts want the state to dole out $3.8 million to pay for research and help in counties with small anti-mosquito budgets.

Lawmakers in Tallahassee put $2.6 million into this years budget to combat the spread of Zika, and Scott has asked for the same amount to be spent on the 2017/18 budget, but experts and some state legislators say more is needed  especially if the virus spreads to new parts of the state.

In order to be effective, our local mosquito control efforts must have the necessary funds, Florida state Rep. Matt Caldwell, a Republican from North Fort Meyers, told the Miami Herald. Increasing that as a response to a threat is important.

New York

While more temperate states like Florida and Texas have gotten most of the attention when it comes to Zika, New York was actually the second hardest hit state by Zika after Florida with 1,021 symptomatic cases reported, according to the CDC.

Through February of this year, New York state dropped $2.1 million on Zika prevention and it is still developing its budget to address prevention this summer. New York City, which saw more confirmed cases of Zika in pregnant women than the rest of the state combined, committed $21 million over three years to fight Zika, with $12 million of that being dedicated to mosquito control.

Unlike in Florida and Texas, Zika was not transmitted by mosquitos in New York State, but from women traveling to areas where the virus is transmitted locally such as Puerto Rico. That is why both city and state officials have focused much of their efforts on educating women about the risks of traveling to Zika-infected areas.

The single most important thing is, we really want to make sure that women of reproductive age know that there continues to be a risk of Zika virus, Jay Varma, the New York City Department of Healths deputy commissioner for disease control told Politico. Really, if the woman is not on any sort of durable birth control [she should] think carefully about going to those areas.

California

Much like New York, nobody in California contracted Zika from a mosquito, but at least 444 people were infected with the virus between January 2015 and April 26, 2017, and there are concerns that the bugs could soon start transmitting the disease.

Californias first line of defense in keeping the virus at bay is mosquito control. To do that the state has enlisted the help of Buddhist organization Tzu Chi to try to spread the word about Aedes mosquitoes in the 12 counties where the Zika-carrying bug is found.

The main attempt to curb the Aedes mosquito population is sending workers door-to-door to check every home for standing water, but pilot projects in El Monte and the Central Valley have also released male Aedes aegypti mosquitos that are infected with a bacteria that prevents mosquito eggs from hatching.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is also putting surveillance sites at clinics in areas that could be susceptible to a local outbreak, including the San Gabriel Valley and East Los Angeles, but officials say it will be difficult task to locate the source of an outbreak if one occurs.

We cannot go to every single house and look for every single bottle cap, Gimena Ruedas, an assistant vector ecologist with the San Gabriel Valley vector agency, told the Los Angeles Times.

Other States

Florida, New York and California may have seen the most symptomatic Zika cases in the U.S., but numerous other states are working to combat the virus as warm weather approaches.

Texas is recommending that all pregnant women in the six counties where Zika-carrying mosquitos live get tested for the virus and is also asking any pregnant woman who has a rash and at least one other Zika symptom  fever, joint pain, or eye redness  to get tested as well.

There are also concerns that Puerto Rico  called last year the perfect storm for the virus  is underreporting its number of Zika cases.

Puerto Rico has reported only 16 cases of congenital defects associated with Zika, even though more than 3,300 pregnant women are known to have contracted the virus and several times that number are believed to have been infected.

By contrast, U.S. states and the District of Columbia, where the threat posed by Zika was thought to be much lower overall, have registered congenital defects in 63 fetuses or newborns among 1,300 pregnant women who have contracted the Zika virus.

Some observers believe Puerto Rico, which is heavily dependent on tourism, is downplaying the scale of its Zika problem.

Puerto Ricos not escaping this. Theyre just hiding, one former US official said of the situation. The individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said months ago it was clear dozens and dozens of babies in Puerto Rico bore the hallmarks of Zika damage. But territorial health officials declined to label most of them cases of Zika congenital syndrome.
An 18-year-old student from Mexico won the top prize at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) this weekend for his creation of EVA, an intelligent bra that can help in the early detection of breast cancer.

Julian Rios Cantu said he was inspired by his mothers struggles as she repeatedly battled the disease and eventually had both breasts removed.

The bra, which he developed with three friends through his company Higia Technologies, is equipped with around 200 biosensors that map the surface of the breast and monitor its temperature, shape and weight.

He said the device was conceived primarily for women with genetic predisposition to the disease.

.@JulianRiosCantu Premio al Estudiante Emprendedor @EO_GSEA 56 paises Felicidades al gran equipo de @PrepaTec que hizo posible este logro! pic.twitter.com/cCEfNL3i6G  Salvador Alva (@Salvador) April 30, 2017

Why a bra? Because it allows us to have the breasts in the same position and it doesnt have to be worn more than one hour a week, he said in an interview with El Universal.

Rios Cantu, an engineering student from Monterrey, explained that the biosensors map the surface of the breast and can determine thermal conductivity by specific zones. More heat would indicate more blood flow, he said, therefore indicating that those blood vessels are feeding something  usually some type of cancer.

"EVA is a network of biosensors that covers the womans breast, takes the temperature data, analyzes them, and sends the information to an application or any computer, Rios Cantu said, as quoted by Infobae.

As soon as there is a malformation in the breast or a tumor, there is an over-vascularization; so to more [flow of] blood, the higher the temperature," he added.

Rios Cantu took home $20,000 after beating out 13 other student entrepreneurs from around the world. He had previously won the first edition of Mexicos Everis Award for Entrepreneurs.

This years GSEA award was presented on Saturday at a ceremony in Frankfurt, Germany.
You change the oil in your car so it doesn't poop out on you, you go to the gym so you can walk up a flight of stairs without passing out, and you feed and walk your dog so that you have many healthy years together covered in dog hair.

Taking care of your relationship is kind of the same thing. You've gotta put some love into it to get sweet, sweet lovin' out of it.

While there's no surefire way to divorce-proof your relationship, there are plenty of things you can do to lower your riskstarting with maintaining the emotional health of your partnership, says Michael D. Zentman, Ph.D., director of the postgraduate program in marriage and couple therapy at Adelphi University in New York

"The most common symptom that precedes a breakup is serious emotional alienation between partners," says Zentman. "When a good emotional connection has become a thing of the past, divorce may be just around the corner." Mayday, mayday!

Here are the simple ways you and your S.O. can create an unbreakable bond.

1. Do things alone.

"In every relationship, there are three parties involved: two individuals and the relationship itself," says Joshua Klapow, Ph.D., an Alabama-based clinical psychologist. As much as you need to focus on your relationship and nurture it, you must also nurture yourselves," he says. "Otherwise, neglect in one area of the triad can spill into the others, causing your relationship to unravel." So go shopping by yourself or read a magazine in the bathtub. Just do the things that make you feel amazeballs about yourself, and your relationship will reap the benefits. On the flipside, try to give him space to do the stuff that makes him feel good. It's a win, win.

RELATED: WILL THIS SUPER-COMMON HABIT REALLY CAUSE PROBLEMS IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP?

2. Let him know youre there for him.

Check in as a gentle reminder that you have each other's backs. Squeeze or massage his shoulders, give him a hug after you get home from work, and just straight-up ask how he's doing at the end of the day, says Jane Greer, Ph.D., author of What About Me? Stop Selfishness From Ruining Your Relationship. Let him unload about his day and what is on his mind so you can continue growing together. Checking in also helps you understand where any stress-related arguments are coming from (and vice versa). That way you'll be able to come from a place of compassion, instead of getting defensive when he freaks out about the dirty dishes in the sink.

3. Meet each others top needs.

We all have certain needs that we consider to be a top priority, such as affection, intimate convos, or getting busy. So tell your partner what the number one thing you need from him in your relationship is. Then ask for his numero uno, says Wyatt Fisher, Ph.D., a Colorado-based licensed psychologist. By finding out what each of you needs to get the most out of your bond, you'll be able to come through for each other, he says. This is especially helpful since people who don't get what they need out of their relationship tend to seek fulfillment from outside sources, says Fisher.

4. Step up your texting game.

Sure, texting to make sure your S.O. doesn't forget to pick up dinner or to find out when they're coming home is a solid way to keep the status quobut it can also be a romance killer, says Greer. Boost your bond by sending special texts every so often (about how much you love them or how excited you are to see them) that could also reference something important you share together (like an inside joke or moments that remind you of them) as a subtle way to boost your bond.

RELATED: HOW TO MAKE A RELATIONSHIP RUT WORK IN YOUR FAVOR

5. Speak up when youre annoyed.

"Couples are asking for trouble when they keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves," says Kathryn Esquer, Psy.D., Florida-based licensed psychologist. If your dude's habit of talking with his mouth full sends you off the deep end, speak upbut do it tactfully. The key is to focus on how that annoying thing is impacting you, says Esquer. For example: "When you talk with food in your mouth, I get distracted from the conversation we're having. I'd really like to give you my full attention, so would you mind chewing first, then talking?" Instead of: "You look like a slob when you chew with your mouth open." This should keep him from getting defensive or feeling bad about himself. At the same time, voicing your frustrations will prevent your feelings from building up and trickling into other areas of your relationship, says Esquer.

6. Say, Thank you.

The longer you're together, the easier it is to start taking each other for granted. "Don't forget to say thank youeven for the little things like doing the dishes or making coffee in the morning," says Greer. But don't just take her word for it. Research from the University of California, Berkley suggests that demonstrating appreciation on the regular can make for a happier, longer-lasting partnership.

RELATED: 5 SIGNS YOUR BROKEN RELATIONSHIP IS STILL FIXABLE

7. Commit to an annual checkup.

"Set aside one day a year where you can check in on the status of your relationship," suggests Esquer. "Talk about the strengths and weaknesses of your bond, as well as what you'd like to improve on in the next year." Making this check-up a priority will keep you on the same page as your partner and prevent surprises from throwing your relationship off course. "As always, don't hesitate to seek help from a psychologist if you need guidance," says Esquer. "Not all couples need therapy, but all couples could benefit from therapy."

First published on WomensHealthMag.com
Its apparently okay to read history books at Northern Arizona University, but not the Good Book.

Mark Holden, a 22-year-old history major, tells me he was ordered to leave a lecture hall after his professor objected to him reading the Bible before the start of the class.

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Holden alleges that Professor Heather Martel ordered him to put away the Good Book around six minutes before a scheduled history class. Its unclear why she objected to the reading of Gods Word.

According to her biography, Professor Martel is a noted scholar who is working on an essay titled, The Gender Amazon: Indigenous Female Masculinity in Early Modern European Representations of Contact. She also teaches classes on Global Queer History and Feminist Theory.

When Holden declined to stop reading his Bible, the professor summoned Derek Heng, the chairman of the department. Heng then proceeded to explain the situation.

Holden recorded the conversation and turned it over to congressional candidate Kevin Cavanaugh. In turn, Cavanaugh provided me with a copy of the audio.

So Professor Martel says that she doesnt want you sitting in front of her because you put, you know, a Bible out, right? Heng said.

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So she doesnt want me in the front because I have my Bible out, Holden replied.

No, I think she, I mean, well why do you have your Bible out anyway, Heng asked.

After a bit more back and forth regarding the dynamics in the classroom, the chairman of the department got to the heart of the issue.

So, will you, will you, will you, put your Bible away, Heng asked.

The incident occurred back in February, but just recently became public after Campus Reform reported on controversy.

Holden had previously drawn the ire of his professor during a classroom discussion on assimilation.

All the students agreed with her that assimilation is oppressive and evil, Holden said. I suggested there are both positive and negative aspects to assimilation.

As an example, he referenced a report about two Muslim men in California who reportedly said the Koran justified doing terrible things to women.

She told me I was a racist and she would not tolerate that kind of racism in the class, Holden said. I told her Islam was not a race and I was only talking about what the two Muslims men as individuals said  I was not making broad claims about Islam or my interpretation of the Koran.

After a bit of back and forth, Holden said the professor told the class, Welcome to Trumps new America  where straight white males can say prejudicial things without being reprimanded for it.

I reached out to Holden and university officials for their side of the story  but so far they have not returned my calls.

However, I did obtain an email Martel sent to Holden warning him about disruptive behavior.

For the remainder of the class, I will ask you to move to one of the desks along the wall by the door, she wrote. The roll sheet will be passed to you. You will make sure that students who come in late sign in. I will also require that you respect me and the other students in the class by acting in a civil manner.

In a separate email addressed to the entire class, Martel vowed to re-instate civility in the classroom.

I want this to be clear: hate speech does not meet the definition of respectful discussion and will not be tolerated, she wrote. In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group.

Something tells me Christians and Conservatives are not considered to be a protected group at Northern Arizona University.

If you are a Christian, you are being targeted, Cavanaugh told me. Christians are being silenced.

Cavanaugh said he got involved in Holdens case because stopping the radicalization of public universities is a part of his campaign platform.

If free speech is not permitted on a public university campus, federal funding should be refused, he told me. If you want to limit free speech, dont take federal money.

We have seen on this campus and across the nation that people are being punished for their Christian views, Cavanaugh said.

That may or may not be the case here  but based on that audio recording  theres not much wiggle room.

The cold hard reality is a student was yanked out of a classroom for reading the Bible. Woe be unto us, America.
Editor's note: The following column originally appeared in The Hill newspaper and TheHill.com.

For all the talk about how President Trump has stumbled in his first 100 days in the White House, there has been almost no examination of how the Democrats are doing as the party of opposition.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., summed up liberal sentiment about Trumps administration when she recently exclaimed, God, it's like dog years or something. It feels like so much has gone on!

Warren added: We've got to get focused on what we're going to do in the next week, in the next month. This man is truly dangerous.

As a Democrat I feel your anger, senator.

But despite disgust with Trumps Russia scandals and failure to keep campaign promises, the hard fact is that Democrats have yet to prove they can revive their political prospects in the next two years, or stop Trump from winning a second term.

In fact, a Washington Post/ABC News poll last week concluded that in a rematch right now against Hillary Clinton, Trump would win the popular vote 43 percent to 40 percent.

Democrats have to admit that Trump has consolidated his political power and established himself as the undisputed leader of the Republican Party.

Independent voters are moving away from Trump. But according to the most recent Gallup poll, 86 percent of self-described Republicans approve of the job he is doing.

In April, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced a record fundraising haul of $41.5 million for the first quarter of 2017.

Meanwhile, the Democrats troubles begin with the fact that they have no clear leader.

Former President Barack Obama is still a towering figure in the party, as is Hillary Clinton. But their presence threatens to starve a new generation of Democratic leaders of oxygen.

Warren is certainly vying for the mantle of leadership, crisscrossing the country to promote her new book.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer , N.Y., and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., have maintained unified opposition on Capitol Hill.

The new chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Tom Perez, is high energy and gets good marks for his tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.. But it will take more than a tour to bring the partys left wing together with its establishment.

According to the most recent FEC filings, the DNC is way behind the RNC in terms of fundraising. It has just $10.8 million cash on hand and $2.8 million in debt.

In two special elections, in Kansas and Georgia, Democrats failed to translate Trumps historic low approval ratings into wins for their candidates. Comedian Bill Maher quipped that the partys new slogan should be Democrats: Now losing by slimmer margins!

Fifty-nine percent of Americans in the Washington Post/ ABC News poll said Trump does not have the kind of personality and temperament to serve effectively as president. Fifty-eight percent said he is dishonest and untrustworthy. And 56 percent said he lacks the judgment to be an effective president.

So why did the poll find that Trump would still beat Clinton in an election rematch?

Well, 67 percent said the Democrats are out of touch with ordinary Americans. Thats more than the 62 percent who said the Republican Party is out of touch or the 58 percent who said the same about Trump.

Voters may not like Trump, but Democrats have yet to come up with a positive alternative vision. All the Democrats have going for them is the anti-Trump enthusiasm of their grassroots, the so-called resistance.

Taken together, all signs are looking up for the movement, New York Times columnist Charles Blow argued in a recent column. The Trump administration, from pillar to post, is an unmitigated disasterAmericans are not taking it lying down.

The Womens March in January, the pro-ObamaCare disruptions at GOP town halls and the recent nationwide tax day protests show there is populist energy that Democrats could be tapping to change their electoral fortunes.

Over the next seven months, Democrats have the opportunity to win House seats in special elections in Georgia, Montana and South Carolina. Polls show they stand a decent chance of winning back the governors mansion in New Jersey and holding the Virginia governorship.

But Democratic voter turnout in midterm years is traditionally low, giving the GOP a huge advantage in Congressional elections.

It is the job of the Democratic Party and its leaders to translate the raw, visceral anti-Trump energy that exists in the country into votes for their candidates.

But for all of Trumps self-destructive ways, there is little evidence that Democrats have found the right counterpunch to knock him out.
Free speech and hate speech are becoming alarmingly close neighbors in these Divided States of America. Thats not good for anyone.

In Boulder, Colo., for instance, there is an ugly confrontation between energy companies who want to use hydraulic fracturing  fracking  to harvest underground oil and gas, and those who want to stop it  some, apparently, at any cost.

Last month, activist Andrew J. OConnor sent a letter to the editor of the Boulder Daily Camera. Titled A moral responsibility to fight fracking, it said in part: If the oil and gas industry puts fracking wells in our neighborhoods, threatening our lives and our childrens lives, then dont we have a moral responsibility to blow up wells and eliminate fracking and workers?

When the online version of that quote drew protests, the Daily Caller did something that made the problem worse  it changed the quotation to dont we have a moral responsibility to take action to dissuade frackers from operating here?

Five days later, OConnor followed up with another letter, this one to the Colorado Springs Gazette, that said: I wouldnt have a problem with a sniper shooting one of the workers at a drilling site.

Those sentiments are revolting enough. What is even more surprising is that they were printed, and, in the first instance, altered. Which raises an ethical question: Should news organizations censor hateful expressions, or should they let their customers hear what was said, and draw their own conclusions?

Howard Kurtz, Fox News media critic, sums up the situation neatly. For a newspaper to publish an outright call to violence, no matter what the issue, is just plain irresponsible and crosses a very bright line. And the journalistic felony is compounded if the same paper then changes a quote in an effort to soften it. Altering someone's quotes is absolutely forbidden in the news business.

Dave Krieger, the editorial page editor of the Daily Camera, acknowledges his mistake in publishing the letter but makes an interesting point: We view our editorial page as a speakers corner, Krieger told me. We publish climate skeptics and some people dont like that. But we think that within the bounds of good taste, people should be able to say what they want.

About switching the quote, he says: We have the right to edit readers letters and op-eds. In this case, we decided we were willing to entertain the philosophical question but not the incitement to violence, and so thats what we did.

The Boulder situation is important, because it is a microcosm of a national plague: Americans no longer want to interact with anyone with whom they disagree. On college campuses, and now here in Colorado, so-called resistance protesters think that having a different opinion [is akin] to an actual act of violence, says Kathleen Sgamma, the president of Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas companies in the West. They say it is unsafe for you to voice an opinion that is different from mine. Yet those who are claiming that your opinion is violence have actually engaged in violence or are claiming that violence is justified against someone who disagrees with them.

Krieger, the editor, says the tension between energy advocates and anti-fracking activists is becoming more apparent. As long as both sides restrict themselves to arguing, thats fine. Calling for violence, though, is fracking wrong.
North Korea is surging to the brink. Advancements in their missile technology and nuclear weapons program will soon put the United States in the crosshairs. As Senator John McCain recently remarked: A North Korean missile tipped with a nuclear warhead, capable of reaching our homeland is no longer a distant hypothetical, but an imminent danger.

A policy built around angry diplomatic statements and passive observation is no longer viable. The United States must seriously anticipate the use of force to eliminate this rogue nations offensive nuclear capacity. This is far from a simple task.

When dealing with North Korea, it is critical to appreciate everything comes down to keeping Kim Jong Un and his family in power. That is why diplomatic measures, economic isolation, and international commendation have proven ineffective. As long as the leadership structure remains intact, everything else is of a secondary concern.

While China, North Koreas primary ally, controls 90% of its trade, Chinese leaders are reluctant to take a hard line on the North, fearing a collapsed regime that would precipitate a refugee crisis and a potentially hostile unified Korea.

Nuclear weapons are deemed the penultimate point of leverage preventing the United States and its allies from toppling North Korean regime. Make a move against Kim Jong Un and you will likely face a nuclear response. Nor are nukes North Koreas only ace in the hole. They have fortified the border with a huge array of offensive conventional armamentsartillery, missiles, and more. Should a conflict erupt, Seoul, South Korea, which lies just thirty five miles from the boarder, will be subject to an overwhelming attack.

This leaves the United States in a difficult position. Lacking economic or diplomatic points of leverage, military action increasingly looks like a likely path. Unfortunately, the capabilities required to successfully defeat North Korea are in short supply.

Ever since the Berlin Wall fell, the United States has failed to invest in a balanced set of military technologies necessary to engage against a potent foe like North Korea. While it is true that significant funds were expended for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, capabilities optimized for counter-insurgency warfare are wholly inadequate for a high-end conflict. A surface campaign fighting mile-by-mile up the peninsula would afford Kim Jong Un more than enough time to decimate the South and launch nuclear strikes.

Instead, the United States needs to consider options that would collapse the North Korean threat as fast as possible. That means hitting targets in a concurrent, decisive fashion to prevent wholesale devastation in Seoul and a nuclear launch. Doing so demands Americas most advanced combat aircraft--the B-2 bomber, F-22 fighter, and F-35 fighter. Their stealth technology is necessary for survival and their advanced sensor capabilities will allow them to locate their targets in an incredibly dynamic environment.

There is just one catch: the US failed to procure enough of these airplanes because they were deemed to be outdated, expensive Cold War assets. While it is true that the Cold War is over, that does not mean adversaries stopped investing in advanced defenses. In fact, the world is far more dangerous than it was thirty years ago. This is a major problem given that the United States only has 20 B-2s, 185 F-22s, and a handful of F-35s in the inventory. Out of these, the F-35 is the only one currently in production. It is time for the nation to acknowledge this capability gap and accelerate their acquisition. The same holds true for the newly designed B-21 stealth bomberan aircraft that will replace planes that are decades old.

The threat posed by North Korea is not theoretical, it is reality. Decisions made over the last several years have left the country in a precarious position. While the bravery of our men and women in uniform is beyond question, dedication to duty and sacrifice can only go so far. We must properly equip them to fight and win. Failing to make such investments will leave the country woefully unprepared to execute a mission where the alternative to a rapid, decisive victory is unthinkable.
City Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod will host a community forum on the issue of short-term vacation rentals.

The forum will be May 8 at 6 p.m.

It will be at the Glenwood Youth and Family Development Center.

The council is considering a new ordinance on the issue.
Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is retiring from Congress, Fox News learned Sunday.

Ros-Lehtinen has been a House member since 1989 and will not seek re-election next year. She is a former chairwoman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The Congresswoman explained her decision in an interview with The Miami Herald on Sunday. She called it "a personal decision based on personal considerations."

"The most difficult challenge is not to simply keep winning elections; but rather the more difficult challenge is to not let the ability to win define my seasons."



Ros-Lehtinens congressional district will be a battleground in 2018. Democrat Hillary Clinton won it over Donald Trump by 20 percentage points, and Ros-Lehtinen was able to win it by 10 percentage points.

She said she's confident that she would be re-elected if she chose to run again.



"I will not allow my season in elected office be extended beyond my personal view of its season, simply because I have a continuing ability to win. We all know, or should know, that winning isn't everything. My seasons are defined, instead, by seeking out new challenges, being there as our grandchildren grow up, interacting with and influencing public issues in new and exciting ways."

Ros-Lehtinen is considered a moderate Republican, who has not supported House Republican leaderships recent ObamaCare overhaul plans and is not a strong supporter of President Trump.

Born in Havana, she is well-known for being a fierce critic of Cuban politics. The late Fidel Castro nicknamed her "la loba feroz" or "the big bad she-wolf."



For years, Ros-Lehtinen represented the Florida Keys, including gay-friendly Key West, and advocated for LGBTQ rights. Eventually, her transgender son, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, made his way into the public spotlight. Last year, he and his parents recorded a bilingual public-service TV campaign to urge Hispanics to support transgender youth.

In her remaining 20 months in Congress, Ros-Lehtinen said she will keep pushing for one of her long-running goals for Germany to offer restitution to Holocaust victims.



"And I will continue to stand up to tyrants and dictators all over the world," she told The Miami Herald. "I take that as a badge of honor, when they blast me and don't let me in their countries."



News of her retirement swept through Florida political circles.



Not only is @RosLehtinen a tireless advocate for freedom & human rights - she is my friend. Florida will miss her. https://t.co/oTxaUyD6Os  Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) April 30, 2017

Congresswoman @RosLehtinen has fought hard for FL families throughout her service in D.C. Her strong leadership will be greatly missed!  Rick Scott (@FLGovScott) April 30, 2017

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee used her announcement to criticize her party. "It's been clear for years that the Republican party was out of step with the values of Miami families, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's retirement announcement is testament to the fact she recognized how wide that gap had grown."

"Illeana Ros-Lehtinen is simply a force of nature, said Ohio GOP Rep. Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which helps get party members elected and re-elected to the House. She represented her South Florida district well and she will be dearly missed in Washington. I wish her and her family the best."

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., called her a "trailblazer."



"She's been a relentless advocate for human rights, and a powerful voice on the need to address the dangerous Iranian regime, defend allies like Israel, and so much more," he wrote. "Ileana's retirement is well-deserved, but I'm glad we are not losing her yet. We've got important work to do for the American people over the next year and a half, and I know Ileana will continue to play a leading role."

Ros-Lehtinen currently chairs the subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, and sits on the intelligence committee.



Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this story.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that he would not seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, attempting to quell speculation raised by an early post-election visit to New Hampshire.

Biden was in the first-in-the-nation primary state to honor the nation's first all-female, all-Democratic congressional delegation at the state Democratic Party's annual dinner in Manchester.

"When I got asked to speak, I knew it was going to cause speculation," he said to big applause. "Guys, I'm not running."



The crowd booed and at least one person shouted, "Run, Joe Run," before Biden continued with his speech. He said that he was ready to start raising money and campaigning to help get Democrats elected at every level of government. He also touted some of his post-White House policy work including heading up the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.

Biden told the crowd to abandon the false narrative that Democrats have to choose between progressive idealism and being a party that stands up for the working class. Instead, he said, there is nothing keeping the party from being both.



"What's the core reason why you're a Democrat?" he asked. "Because you abhor the abuse of power. Whether it's financial power, psychological power, physical power."



Biden also told those in attendance that they needed to remind "the 172,000 voters we needed" in the 2016 election that the Democratic Party has not forgotten them and understands them.



"A lot of them wonder whether we've forgotten them. They are being abused by the system. They are as decent as any one of us are," he said. "So folks, let's go win it back."



The former Delaware senator caused a minor furor in December when he told reporters, "I'm going to run in 2020. So, uh, what the hell, man?"

FLASHBACK: BIDEN SAYS 'I'M GOING TO RUN IN 2020'

When Biden was asked if his statement was serious, he initially said, "Yeah, I am. We're going to run again." He then appeared to backtrack, saying that he was "not commiting not to run. I learned a long time ago fate has a funny way of intervening."

Biden would be 77 years old on Election Day 2020. If he won the presidency, he would be 78 on Inauguration Day.

Biden's visit comes just days after Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who unsuccessfully sought the 2016 GOP nomination, was in the state to promote his new book.

Biden has remained visible since his two terms as vice president ended, rallying with Democrats at the U.S. Capitol last month on health care and criticizing Republican President Donald Trump's coziness with Russia. He's also been promoting the Cancer Moonshoot effort.

Biden's possible late entry into the 2016 presidential race was a subject of fevered speculation. However, the vice president ultimately opted not to run, clearing the way for Hillary Clinton to secure the Democratic nomination before losing to Republican Donald Trump in the general election.

Biden recently told students at Colgate University that he believed he could have won the 2016 presidential election had he run but didn't believe he was ready so soon after his son Beau's 2015 death from cancer. He said he regrets not having been president.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers have forged a $1.07 trillion spending package that would fund the government through the end of September, Fox News has learned.

The House and Senate have until 11:59 p.m. Friday to approve the bill, which would avert a government shutdown. If passed, the catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during President Donald Trump's short tenure in the White House.

The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week, but it's unclear how much support the measure will receive from GOP conservatives and how warmly it will be received by the White House.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-.NY., said in a statement. The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle-class relies on, like medical research, education, and infrastructure.

The proposed legislation has no funding for Trump's oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but does set aside $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds. It does give Trump a $12.5 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military, a figure which could rise to $15 billion should Trump present Congress with a plan for fighting the Islamic State terror group. The proposed $15 billion amounts to half of Trump's original $30 billion request.

It also rejects White House budget director Mick Mulvaney's proposals to cut popular programs such as funding medical research and community development grants.

Among the final issues resolved was a Democratic request to help the cash-strapped government of Puerto Rico with its Medicaid burden, a top priority of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi and other Democrats came up short of the $500 million or so they had sought but won $295 million for the island, more than Republicans had initially offered.

"From the beginning, Democrats have sought to avert another destructive Republican government shutdown, and we have made significant progress improving the omnibus bill, Pelosi said in a statement.

The bill also maintains federal money for Planned Parenthood, and Democrats praised a $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health -- rejecting the steep cuts proposed by Trump -- as well as additional funding to combat opioid abuse, fund Pell Grants for summer school and additional transit funding.

A provision extending health care for 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families was on track to provide permanent health benefits, a priority of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other Appalachia region lawmakers.

Republicans had pressed for policy wins with so-called riders related to other abortion-related issues and blocking environmental regulations such as Obama's sweeping expansion of the Clean Water Act. They also hoped to chuck new financial rules. But Democrats pushed back, rejecting a whopping 160 items they deemed "poison pills," though House Republicans succeeded in funding another round of private school vouchers for students in Washington, D.C.'s troubled school system.

The measure also taps $68 million to reimburse New York City and other local governments for costs involved in protecting Trump Tower and other properties, a priority of lawmakers such as Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

Fox News' Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers forged a $1.07 trillion spending package that would fund the government through the end of September, but does not include some of President Trumps cornerstone promises including funding for a border wall or funding cuts to sanctuary cities.

The proposed legislation has no funding for Trumps oft-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but does set aside $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds. It does give Trump a $12.5 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military, a figure which could rise to $15 billion should Trump present Congress with a plan for fighting the Islamic State terror group. The proposed $15 billion amounts to half of Trump's original $30 billion request.

Trump said at nearly every campaign stop last year that Mexico would pay for the proposed 2,000-mile border wall, a claim Mexican leaders have broadly rejected. The White House sought nearly $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars for the wall and related costs in the spending bill, but Trump later relented and said the issue could wait until September.

With language about the border wall omitted, Democratic leaders praised the effort.

"The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoed Schumers praise, saying in a separate statement the omnibus does not fund President Trump's immoral and unwise border wall or create a cruel new deportation force.

The White House also backed away from language to take away grants from sanctuary cities that do not share information about peoples immigration status with federal authorities.

The House and Senate have until 11:59 p.m. Friday to approve the bill, which would avert a government shutdown. If passed, the catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during Trump's short tenure in the White House. The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week, but it's unclear how much support the measure will receive from GOP conservatives and how warmly it will be received by the White House.

Democratic votes will be needed to pass the measure even though Republicans control both the White House and Congress. The minority party has been actively involved in the talks, which appear headed to produce a lowest common denominator measure that won't look too much different than the deal that could have been struck on Obama's watch last year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump said in an interview Monday that he absolutely would meet with North Koreas Kim Jong Un under the right circumstances.

If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it, Trump told Bloomberg News, adding: If its under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.

The comments come as he and his advisers grapple with how to rein in the North Korea threat. Trump has declined to take military action off the table, but has been urging China to pressure Pyongyang into changing its behavior -- as Congress moves on a separate front to apply new sanctions.

Tensions with North Korea have escalated dramatically in recent weeks as American and other intelligence agencies have suggested the country was readying for a possible nuclear test.

Trump acknowledged to Bloomberg that most political people would never say theyd meet with Kim, a reclusive leader who has not met with foreign leaders since taking over. But Im telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news.

Trump earlier told The Washington Examiner that he sees Kim Jong Un as "very threatening, and we have to be prepared for the worst.

"We have to be prepared to do what we have to do. We cannot allow this to go on, Trump said.

And his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told Fox News Sunday that its important for all of us to confront this regime.

The Trump administration, Congress and the international community continue to consider multiple options, however, for cooling the tensions with North Korea, not the least of which is Trumps bid to court China to exert pressure on Pyongyang.

MILITARY OPTION ON TABLE WITH N. KOREA?

The North Korea situation stands as perhaps Trumps most pressing international concern, even as he looks to notch legislative achievements in Washington on health care and tax reform -- two goals that eluded him during his first 100 days.

On Capitol Hill, the House plans to debate and vote on a new North Korea sanctions bill early this week. The new push would target its shipping industry and those who employ North Korean slave labor abroad.

With international support, the Trump administration said last week it wants to exert a "burst" of economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea that yields results within months to push the communist government to change course from developing nuclear weapons.

Susan Thornton, the acting top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, said there's debate about whether Pyongyang is willing to give up its weapons programs. She said the U.S. wants "to test that hypothesis to the maximum extent we can" for a peaceful resolution.

But signaling that military action remains possible, Thornton told an event hosted by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies -- the Washington think tank has advocated tougher U.S. policies on Iran and North Korea -- that the administration treats North Korea as its primary security challenge and is serious that "all options are on the table."

"We are not seeking regime change and our preference is to resolve this problem peacefully," Thornton said, "but we are not leaving anything off the table."

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took a similar stand in the Fox News interview Thursday, saying: "We do not seek regime change in North Korea. ... What we are seeking is the same thing China has said they seek -- a full denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

In a separate interview with National Public Radio, Tillerson said the U.S. remains open to holding direct negotiations with North Korea. Multi-nation negotiations with North Korea on its nuclear program stalled in 2008. The Obama administration attempted to resurrect them in 2012, but a deal to provide food aid in exchange for a nuclear freeze soon collapsed.

As Trump tries to settle the North Korea situation, he continues to work to enact his domestic policy agenda -- with a lengthy to-do list remaining.

Most immediately, a senior White House official told Fox News they could see a vote on a new ObamaCare replacement plan on Wednesday, claiming its down to a handful of votes.

Capitol Hill sources did not rule out Wednesday, but suggested Thursday is more likely provided they can corral the votes.

"As long as things stay where they are with the vote count," one source said.

House Republicans were unable to advance an initial version of their health care bill in March, forced to pull it from the floor in the face of resistance from conservatives and Democrats alike. Amid the push to pass a revised package, Republican and Democratic lawmakers claim to have reached agreement on a separate must-pass spending package ahead of a Friday deadline.

The $1 trillion-plus measure does not include some of Trumps cornerstone promises, including funding for a border wall or funding cuts to sanctuary cities, but could help clear the docket so Congress can concentrate on health care.

Fox News John Roberts and Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump, in an interview Monday on the premiere of The Fox News Specialists, named North Korea as his biggest foreign policy concern but stopped short of declaring what his red line might be with Kim Jong Un.

I don't like drawing red lines but I act if I have to act, Trump told host Eric Bolling.

The president said Monday that nobodys safe in the face of Kim Jong Uns repeated tests of a nuclear weapon and missiles that might someday be able to carry a warhead beyond its borders with South Korea, where U.S. troops are stationed.

We have 28,000 troops on the line and they're right there, the president said. If he gets the long-range missiles, we're not safe either.

Still, Trump continued to stay mum about what he might do to stop Pyongyangs pursuit of nuclear weapon or what action on North Koreas part might trigger a military response.

I'm not like President Obama where you draw a red line as you said a red line in the sand and then lots of bad things happen and he never goes over the red line, Trump said.

He called Kims recent statements very inflammatory and horrible, but suggested he did not want to telegraph possible military action.

I've been pretty well known for saying like nothing when it comes to the military, Trump said.  So when people say well, I was asked the question yesterday, well I mean exactly when would you go in, at what time would you go in? I mean it's ridiculous. I don't want to talk about it. I can say this, hes very threatening, hes a big threat to the world.

To be sure, Trump acted with little warning last month to order strikes on an airfield held by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, after he used chemical weapons on residents in a countrys years-long civil war.

I actually covered [Obamas] red line for him in Syria, Trump said Monday.

He also suggested that the Obama administration publicly announcing plans to defeat the Islamic State terror group in the Iraqi city of Mosul turned a projected brief battle into an extended one.

It's still going on because the enemy knew they were coming, Trump said.

Trump, meanwhile, acknowledged that North Korea is becoming his No. 1 foreign policy concern  I think probably, yes, he said  while claiming the U.S. is making tremendous strides in the separate fight against the Islamic State.

There's an evil there and we have to solve that, he said. When I first saw the heads being chopped off I said to myself, I've never seen that  since medieval times.  So we have to solve the problem.

Trump, in the Fox News interview, also sounded off on the media. Asked about his oft-repeated charge that some outlets are peddling fake news, Trump said, I'm not talking, not all of the media. I'll tell you just, that is unfair the way they cover me because they say I'm against the media. I'm not against the media; I'm against the fake media.

He continued to claim he can take media criticism when merited. So I love the media. I think the media is great. If I do something bad, treat me badly. But they don't tell it like it is, he said.

While the North Korea situation stands as perhaps Trumps most pressing international concern, he is looking to notch legislative achievements in Washington on health care and tax reform -- two goals that eluded him during his first 100 days.

Asked whether he could get health care passed, after an initial bill failed in March, Trump told Bolling, Im doing the best I can.

He said the latest plan, which could come for a vote as early as this week, is an improvement.

The one mistake I made with the health care. You know, we have one plan thats going through. Its been getting better and better and better and someone said the people voting for Trump arent getting good  theyre gonna get the greatest! Trump said.

These are the greatest people. Were either gonna have a great plan or Im not signing it. And Ive said from day one, the best thing I could do is let ObamaCare die and then come in with a plan.
President Trump, in an interview with Fox News Eric Bolling set to air Monday on the premiere of The Fox News Specialists, said nobodys safe amid mounting tensions with North Korea.

As Trump weighs his options for trying to blunt Pyongyangs nuclear advancements, Bolling asked how safe U.S. troops along the demilitarized zone and South Korea allies are at this time.

Nobody's safe. I mean, who's safe? The guy's got nuclear weapons, Trump responded. I'd like to say they're very safe. These are great brave solders, these are great brave troops and they know the situation. We have 28,000 troops on the line and they're right there. And so nobody's safe. We're probably not safe over here.

Trump added, If he gets the long-range missiles, we're not safe either.

WATCH THE PREMIERE OF THE FOX NEWS SPECIALISTS MONDAY AT 5 P.M. ET.

The Trump administration, Congress and the international community continue to consider multiple options for cooling the tensions with North Korea, not the least of which is Trumps bid to court China to exert pressure on Pyongyang.

On Capitol Hill, the House plans to debate and vote on a new North Korea sanctions bill early this week. Trump and his advisers have indicated that military action is not off the table, though.

While the North Korea situation stands as perhaps Trumps most pressing international concern, he is looking to notch legislative achievements in Washington on health care and tax reform -- two goals that eluded him during his first 100 days.

Asked whether he could get health care passed, after an initial bill failed in March, Trump told Bolling, Im doing the best I can.

He said the latest plan, which could come for a vote as early as this week, is an improvement.

The one mistake I made with the health care. You know, we have one plan thats going through. Its been getting better and better and better and someone said the people voting for Trump arent getting good  theyre gonna get the greatest! Trump said. These are the greatest people. Were either gonna have a great plan or Im not signing it. And Ive said from day one, the best thing I could do is let ObamaCare die and then come in with a plan.
The White House is facing fresh criticism following an invitation President Trump extended over the weekend to controversial Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, who has been accused of numerous human rights violations in his southeast Asian country.

Not only were U.S. lawmakers left scratching their heads at the Duterte invite, but The New York Times reported that officials at the State Department and the National Security Council were caught off guard and that its likely to spur internal objections.

Dutertes leadership in the Philippines and his controversial war on drugs has led to a sharp spike in extrajudicial killings. Hes been accused of masterminding mass killings and is facing a complaint for alleged mass murder before the International Criminal Court.

Hes also threatened to kill Filipino journalists, bragged about personally executing people and has spoken about his willingness to commit rape. Hes also compared himself to Adolf Hitler.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday the president is fully briefed on leaders and that when Trump speaks with leaders he gets briefed on what theyre doing, done.

Democratic lawmakers quickly slammed Trump for first praising and then inviting Duterte to the White House.

President Trump weakens American values when he fails to stand up for human rights, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said in a written statement Monday. President Duterte has overseen the illegal killing of thousands of his own people in the Philippines. By welcoming Duterte to meet with him in the White House, Trump risks giving Dutertes actions  and his brutal human rights violations  an American stamp of approval.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, tweeted, We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash.

U.S. and Philippine officials said Trumps calls and invitations to several Asian allies including Duterte were aimed at discussing the escalating nuclear crisis in North Korea.

A White House statement described the Saturday call between Trump and Duterte as very friendly and said the alliance between the two nations is now heading in a very positive direction.

Trumps chief of staff, Reince Priebus, defended the call on ABCs This Week on Sunday when he said the U.S. needs to deal with Duterte, despite his human rights records, in order to help calm escalating tensions in North Korea.

Late Monday afternoon, the State Department said it has discussed Dutertes policies on multiple occasions with the Philippine government.

We have encouraged the Philippines to investigate credible reports of extrajudicial killings and note that authorities have taken some steps in this direction, the State Department said, adding that a constructive relationship with the government of the Philippines is critical to supporting the frank and open communication that characterizes our longtime alliance.

Manila is about 1,800 miles from North Korea and its navy doesnt have a strong defense force, leaving some to question how it would fit into a regional strategy for the U.S. Pyongyang regularly threatens to aim its weapons at South Korea and Japan but hasnt gone after the Philippines.

Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., in a statement, said Trump's invitation was "unnecessary" for addressing the North Korea threat.

President Trump's decision to welcome the Philippines leader to Washington at a time when thousands of Filipinos are being slaughtered in the streetsat President Dutertes directioncalls into question long held American policy of promoting human rights and the rule of law, he said in a statement.

John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, took it a step further and said Trump is morally complicit in future killings.

Although the traits of his personality likely make it impossible, Trump should be ashamed of himself, he added.

Duterte once told former President Barack Obama to go to hell for criticizing his bloody policies. During Obamas last few months in office, the Philippine leader actively built closer economic ties with Russia and China while repeatedly threatening to cut military ties that had been in place for years with the United States.

Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens told Fox News the pushback by Democrats seemed a little hypocritical.

Where was the criticism from all of these Democrats when the Obama administration sent John Kerry to the Philippines to meet with Duterte nine months ago? he asked.

But foreign policy experts warn that having a working relationship with a country like the Philippines is far different than showering praise on it and could have serious repercussions down the line.

Weve always had relationships with governments that are problematic, but we hold them accountable on it and we dont lavish them with praise this way, said Ilan Goldenberg, a former State Department official under John Kerry, told Politico.

Despite the invite uproar, Duterte reportedly could not commit to any meeting.

I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia; I am supposed to go to Israel, he said, according to Yahoo News.

Fox News Rich Edson contributed to this report.
A newfound alien world is quite Earth-like in some ways, but you wouldn't want to live there.

The exoplanet, known as OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb, is about as massive as Earth and orbits its star at about the same distance Earth circles the sun. But OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb's parent star is tiny and dim, meaning the alien planet is likely far too cold to host life, its discoverers said.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb is not in Earth's neck of the cosmic woods; the alien world lies nearly 13,000 light-years away. The astronomers spotted it using a technique called gravitational microlensing, which involves watching what happens when a massive body passes in front of a star. The closer object's gravity bends and magnifies the background star's light, acting like a lens. [7 Ways to Discover Alien Planets]

In many cases, the foreground object is a star as well. If this star has orbiting planets, their existence can be inferred based on their influence on the background star's light curve. And that's indeed what happened with OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb.

More From Space.com 7 Ways to Discover Alien Planets

The planet's microlensing signal was first spotted by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), a ground-based survey managed by the University of Warsaw in Poland (hence the newfound world's name).

The discovery team then used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network  a system of three telescopes, one each in Chile, Australia and South Africa  to track and study the microlensing event.

These combined observations revealed the existence of OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb, and allowed researchers to calculate its mass and orbital distance. That mass is remarkable, it turns out.

"This 'iceball' planet is the lowest-mass planet ever found through microlensing," Yossi Shvartzvald, a NASA postdoctoral fellow based at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. Shvartzvald is lead author of the study announcing the new planet's existence, which was published online April 26 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. (You can read the paper for free at the journal's website.)

The team was also able to determine that OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb's host star is tiny, containing just 7.8 percent the mass of Earth's sun.

That's so small that the parent may not be a proper star at all, researchers said: Its mass is right on the boundary between the "failed stars" known as brown dwarfs and ultracool dwarf stars such as TRAPPIST-1, which hosts seven recently discovered Earth-size planets.

Three or four of the TRAPPIST-1 planets may be capable of supporting life, but they orbit much closer to their star than OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb does. Indeed, all seven of the known TRAPPIST-1 worlds would fit inside the orbit of Mercury, if they were transported to our own solar system.

Like two other planets detected by Spitzer via microlensing, OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb lies in the Milky Way galaxy's flat disk, not its central bulge.

"Although we only have a handful of planetary systems with well-determined distances that are this far outside our solar system, the lack of Spitzer detections in the bulge suggests that planets may be less common toward the center of our galaxy than in the disk," study co-author Geoff Bryden, an astronomer at JPL, said in the same statement.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+ . Follow us @Spacedotcom , Facebook or Google+ . Originally published on Space.com .
If we hope to someday inhabit other planets, astronauts will need more sources of nourishment than the packets of freeze-dried space food they can take with them. It's not just the nutritional value of fresh produce that has NASA interested in growing greens -- researchers think that astronauts would also get a psychological boost from farming.

To that end, NASA collaborated with researchers at the University of Arizona to design an inflatable greenhouse that can be deployed in space and offer astronauts a sustainable bounty of fresh vegetables.

The greenhouse prototype was built as a "bioregenerative life support system" -- meaning it recycles air, waste, and water. As astronauts breathe out, they release carbon dioxide, which the plants use to generate oxygen through photosynthesis. Water flows through the roots and back to a storage tank where it's oxygenated and fortified in a constant cycle. To avoid radiation, the greenhouses would likely be buried under soil, and so would require an artificial light source.

"We're mimicking what the plants would have if they were on Earth and make use of these processes for life support," Gene Giacomelli, director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona, said in a statement to NASA. "The entire system of the lunar greenhouse does represent, in a small way, the biological systems that are here on Earth."

One of the main goals of future space travel is to carry as little cargo as possible by using things found along the way, a principle called in-situ resource utilization. It's expensive to launch a rocket. The lighter the cargo, the cheaper the costs. NASA hopes to collect resources like water from regions off Earth rather than carrying it all along.

Moving forward, the researchers will use similar greenhouse prototypes to determine if produce grown in the eighteen-foot-long, eight-foot-wide cylinders could sustain a group of astronauts.
A report released by Facebook this week "does not contradict" the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligences assertion that Russia attempted to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

The Facebook report, released Thursday, describes so-called information operations whereby governments and non-state actors attempt to exploit the social network for propaganda purposes. These operations can use a combination of methods, such as false news, disinformation, or networks of fake accounts aimed at manipulating public opinion, it explained.

During the 2016 presidential election, the social network said that it responded to several situations that fit the pattern of information operations. One aspect of this included malicious actors leveraging conventional and social media to share information stolen from other sources, such as email accounts, with the intent of harming the reputation of specific political targets, the company said.

FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE GOT HIT WITH A $100M EMAIL SCAM

The number of information operations during the presidential election was statistically very small compared to overall engagement on political issues, according to Facebook, which said that it could not make a definitive attribution about the sponsors behind the activity.

While the Facebook document does not identify Russia by name, it does acknowledge a report by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence that said Moscow attempted to influence last years election.

Our data does not contradict the attribution provided by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence in the report dated January 6, 2017, explained Facebook, in its report.

FACEBOOK ROLLS OUT FEATURES TO CURB FAKE NEWS

Facebooks report is a notable step by the company. In November, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the idea that bogus information on Facebook influenced the U.S. presidential election was "pretty crazy." In December though, during a Facebook Live video chat with COO Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg acknowledged Facebook does "a lot more than just distribute the news," and has become "an important part of the public discourse."

This weeks report also illustrates how the world's biggest social network has been forced to grapple with its outsized role in how the world communicates, for better or for worse.

In the report, Facebook said that it is taking a number of steps to tackle malicious actors such as constant monitoring, identifying fake accounts and expanding security and privacy settings. The company is also educating at risk people of the best ways to keep their information safe.

Facebook rolled out a series of features earlier this month to curb fake news.

FOR THE LATEST TECH FEATURES FOLLOW FOX NEWS TECH ON FACEBOOK

The Russian government has not yet commented on the Facebook report.

However, in a briefing last month Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted a growing number of fake Facebook accounts claiming to be Russian foreign missions. "Fake accounts created for our embassies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia published incendiary and misleading items on high-profile issues in the focus of users attention," she said. "We have noticed the extremely high professionalism of these fake accounts authors."

"Instead of blocking these fake accounts after our requests, the Facebook administrators and moderators blocked the official account of the Russian Embassy in Slovakia and preserved the fake account created by cybercriminals," she added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
Turkey blocked access to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, on Saturday, through a court measure used to block access to pages or entire websites to protect national security and public order.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) said an Ankara court ordered that a protection measure related to suspected Internet crimes be applied to Wikipedia, a collaborative online reference work.

In response, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tweeted his support for those who labeled the decision censorship of social media: Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people I will always stand with you to fight for this right.

Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people, I will always stand with you and fight for this right. #turkey https://t.co/5ZAsc9coVX  Jimmy Wales (@jimmy_wales) April 29, 2017

Turkey Blocks, an internet censorship monitor, said users in Turkey have been unable to access all language editions of Wikipedia since 8 a.m. local time Saturday.

Confirmed: All editions of the #Wikipedia online encyclopedia blocked in #Turkey as of 8:00AM local timehttps://t.co/ybFolRmsOs pic.twitter.com/hI9tn4bHe5  Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) April 29, 2017

The loss of availability is consistent with internet filters used to censor content in the country, the monitor said.

TURKEY BLOCKS POPULAR SOCIAL NETWORKS

Turkeys official news agency, quoting the Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications, said Saturday the site was blocked for becoming an information source acting with groups conducting a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said officials had warned Wikipedia to remove content likening Turkey to terror groups but the site persistently did not.

Turkey had demanded that Wikipedia open an office in the country, act in line with international law and abide by court decisions and not be part of blackout operation against Turkey, according to the agency.

Anadolu said if these demands are met and the content removed, the site would be reopened.

HACKERS HIJACK TWITTER ACCOUNTS WITH SWASTIKAS, 'NAZI HOLLAND' MESSAGES

Turkeys status is listed as not free on the 2016 Freedom on the Net index by independent rights watchdog Freedom House. It says over 111,000 websites were blocked as of May last year.

The country on Saturday also banned television dating programs. The decree banned radio and television programs for finding friends and spouses by adding a clause to the article on protecting children in Turkeys media law. The shows will not be allowed to air without television content rating symbols.

Dating programs, which draw high ratings and large ad revenues, have been a hot topic this year. Petitions have called for their bans and lawmakers across the political spectrum have criticized the programs as having a negative influence on families. Government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus has described them as contrary to Turkish customs and religion.

The state of emergency that followed last summers coup attempt has allowed the Turkish government to rule by decrees. Since then, more than 47,000 people have been arrested and 100,000 have been purged for alleged connections to terror organizations.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.
The owner of the giant rabbit who died in the care of United Airlines last Tuesday says the scandal-scarred airline cremated her bunnys remains so she would never know the truth about how it died.

The whole thing stinks of a cover-up, breeder Annette Edwards, 65, told The Sun.

I had been asking United over and over again for his body so that I can have him examined here in Britain but they never got back to me. All I want to know is how he died.

Edwards, a UK rabbit breeder, was flying the 3-foot-long Continental Giant rabbit, dubbed Simon, from London to Chicagos OHare Airport to deliver him to his new owner in the US when he inexplicably kicked the bucket.

United claimed the rabbit was alive when it was taken out of the cargo section of a Boeing 767.

The airlines CEO, Oscar Munoz, tried to apologize after the rabbits death, but drew fire for likening the pet to misplaced bags.

United, which has been fending off PR nightmares left and right in recent weeks, told Edwards on Friday there could be no autopsy because the animal had been incinerated, the Sun reported.

A source told the outlet that bumbling Chicago airport workers killed the bunny by mistakenly leaving it in a freezer overnight.

But United claimed in a statement Sunday that no such thing had ever happened.

The assertion that Simon died in a freezer is completely false, the airline said. Simon was cared for at the PetSafe kennel facility which is kept at room temperature (on average 70F). He arrived at Chicago OHare airport in apparent good condition at 10:25 am (local time). He was seen by a representative of the kennel facility moving about within his crate about 11:00am. Shortly thereafter, a kennel representative noticed Simon was motionless and determined that he passed away.

Click for more from the New York Post.
Police say four men are dead  including the suspected gunman  after a shooting at a home in Topeka, Kansas, that is part of a private business providing in-home care for people with special needs.

Police Lt. Colleen Stuart tells the Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/2pyvFgg ) that dispatchers received a report about the shooting late Sunday afternoon from a call from the home. Stuart said the four men were pronounced dead at the scene and another male victim was taken to the hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening.

Stuart says the suspected gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

None of the names of the deceased were identified pending notification of kin. Stuart said the shooter and all the victims were associated with the home but declined to elaborate.
At least 13 people had died and two children were missing late Sunday as a result of tornadoes and flooding in the South and Midwest, brought by a storm that also dumped a rare late-season blizzard in western Kansas.

Tornadoes hit several small towns in East Texas, killing four people. Three people were killed by flooding and winds in Arkansas, with officials saying two more people are missing. Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri; and a death was reported in Sunday morning storms that raked Mississippi.

Flooding closed part of Interstate 44 near Hazelgreen, Missouri, and officials expected it would be at least a day before the highway reopened. Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed because crews were waiting for snow falling at 3 to 4 inches an hour being blown by 35 mph winds to subside.

An Arkansas volunteer fire department chief was killed while working during storms in north-central Arkansas, state police said.

Cove Creek/Pearson Fire Chief Doug Decker died shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday after being struck by a vehicle while checking water levels on Highway 25 near Quitman, about 40 miles north of Little Rock, Trooper Liz Chapman said. It wasn't known if he will be included as a storm-related death, she said.

A 2-year-old girl in Tennessee died after being struck by a heavy, metal soccer goal post that was blown over by high winds, The Metro Nashville Police Department posted on its Twitter page on Sunday evening.

Melanie Espinoza Rodriguez was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead, according to a second post from the department.

Middle Tennessee was hit by a strong line of storms that knocked down trees and power lines earlier Sunday.

Rescuers in northwest Arkansas continued Sunday to look for an 18-month-old girl and a 4-year-old boy who were in a vehicle swept off a bridge by floodwaters in Hindsville, the Madison County Sheriff's Office said.

In northwest Arkansas, a 10-year-old girl drowned in Springdale and the body of a woman who disappeared riding an inner tube Saturday was found in a creek in Eureka Springs. Also, a 65-year-old woman in DeWitt in the eastern part of the state was struck and killed in her home by a falling tree, officials said.

In Texas, search teams were going door to door Sunday after the tornadoes the day before flattened homes, uprooted trees and flipped several pickup trucks at a Dodge dealership in Canton.

"It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least," Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett told reporters at a news conference Sunday morning.

The storms cut a path of destruction 35 miles long and 15 miles wide in Van Zandt County, Everett said. The largely rural area is about 50 miles east of Dallas.

The National Weather Service found evidence of four tornadoes with one twister possibly on the ground for 50 miles.

The first reports of tornadoes came about 4:45 p.m. Saturday, but emergency crews were hampered by continuing severe weather, said Judge Don Kirkpatrick, the chief executive for Van Zandt County.

"We'd be out there working and get a report of another tornado on the ground," he said.

The storms rolled through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday with strong winds causing isolated pockets of damage. In Durant in central Mississippi on person died in the storms. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency didn't give details. Later Sunday the agency reported the death of a child from Rankin County, 20 miles east of Jackson, who died from electric shock in flood waters. The Rankin County Sherriff's Department reported that a 7-year-old boy had unplugged an electric golf cart and dropped the cord in water on the ground and was shocked.

Alexa Haik went to bed Saturday night expecting just rain, but heard the sirens Sunday morning and turned on the television to see the tornado warning. She rounded up her pets and hid in a hallway with her family, then was stunned to emerge to trees down all in her neighborhood in Clinton, Mississippi, about 20 miles west of Jackson.

A trip up the road showed how isolated the worst of the storms were. "I really thought when we got out of our neighborhood, there would be damage everywhere. But our little subdivision was the only one hit," Haik said.

Near Clever in southwestern Missouri, a man tried to save his 72-year-old wife from floodwaters that swept away their vehicle Saturday, but her body was found when the water receded, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

A second death from weekend flooding was announced Sunday by Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens but he did not release any details about the victim or the circumstances of the death.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Florida authorities have charged a woman with prostitution after she agreed to perform a sex act on an undercover detective for $25 and chicken McNuggets.

The Miami Herald reports (http://hrld.us/2qifQeA) 22-year-old Alex Direeno was being held Sunday without bond at the Manatee County Jail on charges of prostitution, possession of drug paraphernalia and on outstanding warrants.

Records show that the incident happened last week. An undercover detective told the woman he wanted oral sex and she agreed to do it for $25. As they briefly went back and forth on the price, she finally agreed to perform the act for $25 and chicken McNuggets.

It's unclear whether Direeno has retained an attorney.

___

Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com
A suburban Philadelphia pastor accused of sexually assaulting and impregnating a teenager has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to three to six years in prison after a judge rejected an earlier plea agreement as too lenient.

Thirty-five-year-old Jacob Malone, of Exton, was sentenced Friday after entering guilty pleas to institutional sex assault, corruption of minors and child endangerment. He also must register as a sex offender for 15 years.

Malone and prosecutors had reached an earlier plea deal that called for a two-year minimum jail term, but Judge Jacqueline Cody rejected that deal a month ago.

Malone was working at Calvary Fellowship, a nondenominational church in Downingtown, when authorities say he began sexually assaulting the girl in the fall of 2014, when she was in her late teens. She gave birth a year ago to their daughter. She maintained he took advantage of her "mentally, physically, spiritually."

In court, Malone admitted he gave the girl alcohol but said the sexual encounters were consensual. He apologized, saying his "failures and weaknesses" had hurt her, her family, and his family.

"She admired me and trusted me, and I betrayed that," he said.

Cody called the case "one of the times when the court system fails" and said even with the stiffer sentence in the new plea agreement Malone would be "serving a sentence much lighter than the crime deserves."

The original charges against Malone included rape. His defense attorney Evan Kelly said in a statement that Malone "has always been adamant" he did not rape the teenager but has admitted to other crimes. "And for that he is embarrassed, ashamed and truly remorseful," Kelly said.

District Attorney Emily Provencher said the woman is pleased an additional year was added to Malone's minimum jail term.

Malone will get credit for the more than one year he has served since his arrest in January 2016.
Authorities in Florida say a 12-year-old girl is recovering after being grazed in the head by a bullet during a sleepover for a friend's birthday.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office say the girl was sleeping on a couch when the shooting occurred around 2 a.m. Sunday. Investigators tell First Coast News (http://fcnews.tv/2oXxQpM ) that the homeowner's 11-year-old nephew who suffers from a mental illness shot the gun. He is under a 72-hour mental evaluation.

Officials say the bullet grazed the child, went through the couch and the living room wall. The girl was taken to a hospital but her injury is not thought to be life-threatening.

The homeowner told investigators the shooting was an accident. About eight children were at the home for a birthday party.
Roy Jones Facebook page says matter-of-factly that his concealed weapons training is not your typical gun class.

That is an understatement.

Jones, 67, has taught most of his more than 5,000 students over the last decade in churches across Oklahoma. Whats more, he weaves biblical passages into his talks about how to handle a gun, and the legal fallout that can follow discharging a weapon in self-defense.

Church values and self-defense, Jones says, are not contradictory. Jones says that being a church-goer and a person of strong spiritual values does not mean refusing to strike back when ones life is threatened.

He notes that Psalm 144 says: Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.

We will turn the other cheek, Jones told Fox News. Im the least likely guy to pull out a gun in a fight. But we will not turn the other cheek if youre going to assault my family or cut off my head in the process.

Jones certification course takes eight hours and includes lectures that cover handling a weapon, Oklahoma laws regarding gun ownership and shooting in self-defense, practice at the instructors private range and a 15-question exam.

Jones says that while people should not go looking for trouble, they should be ready when it looks for them.

He cites the case of a woman in his state who was killed by two pit bulls last month, and another woman who was fatally stabbed at a food distribution center in 2014 by a coworker who had been fired.

We will not turn the other cheek if you're going to assault my family or cut off my head in the process.  Roy Jones, concealed weapons instructor

If they had been armed, Jones says, they would likely be alive today.

If theyd had a legal gun and been trained to use it, Jones said, referring to the woman who was stabbed, can you imagine what went through her mind the last few minutes of her life?

His former students, who have included lawmakers, lawyers and spouses of police officers, have praised his course.

One student, Wendy Johnson, took Jones course after a friend was mugged.

One day, my co-worker did not show up for work, Johnson told WQAD. Someone had attacked her in a parking lot and had literally beaten her face. I dont want to see anyone else in the ER with a swollen face because someone hit them in the head for their purse.

Jones stresses that he is not a pastor, a misperception some have when they learn of his style of sprinkling biblical teachings in his lectures.

But some students have actually grown interested in religion after listening to the verses, he said.

One of the most important things he tries to teach his students is how to avoid being jailed after firing in self-defense.

He tells his students not to consent to a police officers request to search their property.

You show the officer respect, he said, but you never consent. You have to articulate that you were the victim, but you say, With all due respect, you will have my full cooperation after I seek my legal counsel.

Jones has his critics, to be sure. He has been accused of using the Bible to make money.

People say, Youre getting rich by using Gods name, he said. Im just one little guy. Do I make a little money? Yes. But Im not doing this to get rich.
A tranquil setting to unwind along the water.

A local couple thought they had found just what they were looking for in Colfax, but soon after they unpacked here on Easter weekend, their storybook stay at the Bear River Campground felt more like the storyline in a horror film.

"My boyfriend described being pulled aside by the older guy," the female victim said.

They say a group of male campers with a rusted truck, BB guns and a chainsaw complimented their music and even invited them over for beer. But later said it was their territory and threatened if they didn't leave by sun up they'd raid their tent and rape the woman.

"Ended it by making sure my boyfriend knew they planned on raping me in the morning," she said.

The woman only agreed to speak with FOX40 over the phone because she's terrified they will find her. In part, because she wrote a very detailed letter about the encounter that she posted to Facebook, Yelp and in the restrooms at the campground. She also got Placer County and its sheriff's office involved.

"As a husband and father, you read something like that, and it's the stuff nightmares are made of, so we take it very seriously," said Andy Fisher, Placer County Parks administrator.

Fisher said they've never received a complaint quite this aggressive before at Bear River.

"Two summers in a row we've been chased out of here," camper John Jewell said.

Jewell wasn't surprised by the woman's story when he was tagged in it on Facebook.

"First summer we were chased out of here by a group who was crazy," Jewell said.

He said he is surprised that the accused campers have not been caught since he sees rangers patrol the area frequently.

"With this new reservation system, we'll be talking with our board," Fisher said.

Fisher said Placer County is already trying to update its parks reservation system so that visitors have to register their information online -- leaving a record of who comes in and who comes out.

Click for more from Fox 40.
Obama Will Come Back To Chicago Wednesday For 2 Events: Report [Updated]

By Stephen Gossett in News on May 1, 2017 7:20PM

Updated May 3 at 12:00 p.m.: You can watch the livestream for Obama's Presidential Library roundtable here:



Update, 3:50 p.m.:

Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle will take the lid off a conceptual model design of the Obama Presidential Center during his trip to Chicago on Wednesday, a source told Tribune architecture critic and reporter Blair Kamin.

Barack and Michelle Obama to unveil conceptual model for Obama Presidential Center on Wednesday in Chicago, a person familiar w/ plans says.  Blair Kamin (@BlairKamin) May 1, 2017

An advisory from the Obama Foundation sent out on Monday notes that Barack and Michelle Obama will join Mayor Emanuel, alongside other local officials, for a "community event," at 11 a.m. Chicago time, at the South Shore Cultural Center on Wednesday. "President Obama will host a roundtable discussion to update the community on the progress of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park and hear directly from members of the community on their ideas for the Center," the release states. Attendance is invitation only.

Original:

When Barack Obama returned to his University of Chicago stomping grounds for a speech and conversation last week, it was billed as the first step toward greater post-White House visibility. Sure enough, that seems to bearing out further, as the former president will return to his adopted hometown Chicago for two events on Wednesday, the Tribune reports.

Obama will visit the Chicago Club on Wednesday evening, a source told the Tribune. According to the Sun-Times (which first reported that appearance), an invitation states that Obama will share his thoughts and vision for the Obama Presidential Center as well as some reflections on his administration. Also, Forty-Four will appear at an event at the South Shore Cultural Center that same day, a source told the Tribune.

Neither event has yet officially been made public by Obama's office.

The report comes just one week after Obama made his much-anticipated (and heavily critiqued) return to the public eye, when he made his first public speech since leaving the White House. Last Monday, Obama led a discussion with a panel of students and young people about civic engagement. Some on the left criticized the speech for being too choreographically evasive of President Donald Trump and his policies. Others made the argument that poking too hard might only unite the oft-divided GOP against the one thing on which they seem to always agree: not liking Barack Obama.

And in case you wondering, after Obama's recent $400,000 speaker fee flap, Obama is not being paid at least for the Chicago Club event, according to the Sun-Times.

We'll provide more details as they become available.
The man suspected in shootings that wounded at least three people in Dallas, including a paramedic and a police officer, was found dead Monday in a home nearby, the mayor confirmed, ending the manhunt that gripped a neighborhood in the eastern part of the city for hours.

ONE KILLED IN STABBING ON CAMPUS OF UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Police sent a robot into the home where they found the bodies of two men, including the man believed to have fired the shots, investigators said. They added that the gunfire apparently stemmed from some kind of dispute with the shooter's neighbor.

Emergency responders rushed to the scene late Monday morning to treat a civilian who was shot when the gunman approached and opened fire at the first-responders, police added.

SAN DIEGO POOL SHOOTING: KILLER CALLED HIS EX DURING RAMPAGE, POLICE SAY

The paramedic, described as a firefighter in initial reports, was out of surgery, in critical but stable condition at Baylor University Medical Center, city officials said. Both the paramedic and civilian were in the intensive care unit.

The injured police officer was treated at the scene, Mayor Mike Rawlings told reporters Monday afternoon. "Every day these first responders put their lives on the line," he added.

Sources told Fox 4 earlier the gunman may have had a girlfriend living in the area.

Dozens of police vehicles rushed to the largely residential area and blocked off much of the neighborhood. Aerial footage showed officers with police dogs outside the home.

Several people from a nearby neighborhood and some relatives of people who live in the barricaded area gathered at a nearby gas station wait for updates from police. The Dallas Police Association tweeted earlier Monday that officers responding to an active shooter were "pinned down" by gunfire.

The shootings unfolded hours before an attacker stabbed at least three people on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. "Our prayers go out to all those affected by today's tragic events," Gov. Greg Abbott said.

Click for more from Fox 4.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Dallas police say a firefighter has been shot and is being transported to a local hospital.

Dozens of police vehicles are swarming a residential neighborhood near Interstate 30. The Dallas Police Department tweeted that a member of Dallas Fire Rescue had been shot, but no details about the circumstances have been confirmed.

Police said the firefighter was being taken to a hospital early Monday afternoon. Police say a spokesperson was on their way to the scene, though no other details were immediately released.

The Dallas Police Association tweeted that officers responding to an active shooter were "pinned down" by gunfire.
A wrong-way driver was killed after he collided with a gasoline truck on Interstate 75 in Dayton, Ohio, triggering a huge blast.

The Sunday crash, which was captured on video by the Ohio Department of Transportation, shows a car on fire with thick black smoke filling the air. Seconds later, a large fireball erupts, sending flames to the other side of the highway, where other cars were passing.

DEADLY LOS ANGELES WRECK SNARLS INTERSTATE 5

After the eruption, cars driving near the explosion slowed down and steered away from the area.

The driver of the truck that was hit suffered minor injuries, the Dayton Daily News reported.

Authorities say the interstate could be closed for days as crews work to evaluate and fix damage to the pavement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


A Detroit police officer was still in critical condition Monday, hours after he was shot in the head during a puzzling attack by a man who answered the door at an apartment complex, officials said.

The officer and his partner arrived at the apartment building on the citys west side after a woman called to report a domestic incident around 10:30 p.m. When the cops knocked on the complex door, the man  armed with a .380 nickel-plated pistol  began shooting.

This is a sobering reminder of the dangers our officers face each and every day, Police Chief James Craig said during a Monday morning news conference.

The shooter didnt appear to have any connection to the domestic incident, and Craig said surveillance footage showed the man left his apartment  walking unsteadily  with the gun in his hand.

Craig said the officer fired at the shooter and both men fell simultaneously to the ground. The injured officers junior partner, who had only been on the force about six months, also fired, immobilizing the suspect and then dragging the wounded cop several feet away to safety. EMS was already on the scene due to the reported domestic dispute.

Neither the officer nor the gunman, who died, was publicly identified.

Craig called the actions of the junior officer textbook.

Our officer out of the academy just six months performed in an outstanding manner, he said.

The officer in critical condition is a 14-year veteran of the department and followed in the footsteps of his stepfather, who served as a Detroit cop for 22 years.

His son enjoyed this job each and every day and looked forward to going out and serving the citizens of this city, Craig said.

Though the officers who answered the domestic call were in uniform, Craig said the shooting did not appear to be a targeted attack.

This is random, Craig said. This is not an orchestrated attack on police officers.

Craig said it was the eighth time since September that a Detroit officer had been injured or killed in a shooting.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


At least two dogs died and three others were sickened after eating poisoned meat left on properties near a Nevada park last week, officials said.

The dogs ingested poisoned meat tossed onto the owners' yards near Comstock Park in Pahrump last Wednesday, according to Nye County Sheriff's Office.

Five dogs were hospitalized after suffering severe poisoning symptoms. At least two of the dogs passed away. The others remain in critical condition at the animal hospital, police said.

COLORADO DOGS FOUND BEHEADED WERE HIT BY TRAIN, INVESTIGATORS SAY

Sabrina Buckley, whose dogs died from the poison, told Fox 5 Las Vegas that she felt "numb" about the horrific situation.

"It's horrible, absolutely horrible," Buckley told Fox 5 Las Vegas.

"I can't even express everything that this person has stolen from me in these last few days," she said.

VIRGINIA POLICE INVESTIGATING UNWANTED SHAVING OF CATS

Police are still searching for the suspect, but believe it could be the same person linked to a similar dog poisoning incident that happened in 2015. Those dogs died after eating poison left in the same area, according to police.

"These happened close together, all these cases, same situation, same scenario, kidneys have been affected," Dr. Maninder Herr of the Homestead Animal Hospital said.

Officials, however, were never able to make an arrest in the 2015 case.

Read more from Fox 5 Las Vegas.
The killer who opened fire at a pool party in San Diego called his ex-girlfriend during his rampage so she could hear the panic and chaos that he was causing, police revealed Monday, giving new details about the gunman's state of mind.

Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people, killing one woman, police said. Officers shot and killed Selis after he fired at a police sergeant, according to investigators. Another man suffered a broken arm while running from the chaos.

BODY OF MISSING ARKANSAS BOY, 9, FOUND IN WOODS; SUSPECT IN CUSTODY



The gunman had broken up with his girlfriend days earlier, Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said at a news conference Monday. She said relatives were aware that he was "depressed" -- but had no idea he'd completely snap.

Selis was sitting on a lounge chair at the pool when he called his ex and told her he'd shot two people, and that police had just arrived. He apparently wanted her to keep listening as he kept firing, Zimmerman added.

Selis shot four black women, two black men and one Latino man, police said. The gunman was white; however, Zimmerman said there was "zero indication" race played a factor in his decision to open fire.

FOUR DEAD, INCLUDING GUNMAN, AFTER SHOOTING AT KANSAS HOME

The killer seemed unfazed during his rampage, witnesses said. Shahrayar Jeff told the San Diego Union-Tribune he learned from his 8-year-old granddaughter that the gunman was sitting and drinking a beer and relaxing and shooting.

All of the remaining wounded were expected to survive, although two were in critical condition, Zimmerman said.

Selis had filed for bankruptcy in 2015, the newspaper reported. The filing showed he was a car mechanic and a father. He and at least one of the partygoers apparently lived at the complex not far from the University of California, San Diego, Zimmerman added.

"This is truly a horrific act of violence that took place here today," Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a news conference. "Our entire city, all of our thoughts and prayers, all San Diegans' thoughts and prayers, are with the victims and their families tonight."

Zimmerman said a police helicopter arrived to the scene in the upscale neighborhood of La Jolla at around 6:07 p.m. local time. The pilot reported seeing multiple victims on the ground and that Selis was still in the pool area holding a large-caliber handgun and appeared to be reloading.

Rikky Galiendes, 27, heard the gunshots and went to look outside his sixth-story apartment when he spotted a man bleeding and running near the pool below. Galiendes told The Associated Press that he called out to ask if the man needed help when his roommate grabbed him, yanked him down and then pointed toward a man sitting in a chair with a gun.

"When we looked over the balcony, he was just sitting down with a gun on his lap," Galiendes said. "He was calm, you know. I mean from my perspective, the guy was ready to do whatever he was going to do. He shot at people having a good time and having a party."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Four people are dead, including the gunman, after a shooting at a special-needs home in Topeka, Kansas on Sunday.

SAN DIEGO POOL SHOOTING: MOTIVE UNCLEAR AFTER GUNMAN KILLS 1, WOUNDS SEVERAL OTHERS

Four men were pronounced dead at the scene while another male was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The suspected gunman died from a self-inflicted gunshot, police Lieutenant Colleen Stuart told The Topeka Capital-Journal. Police had received a report of the incident via a call from the home.

BODY OF MISSING ARKANSAS BOY, 9, FOUND IN WOODS; SUSPECT IN CUSTODY

At least 12 police officers and detectives were at the scene of the shooting within minutes of receiving the call, according to WIBW News. Kansas Highway Patrol troopers were also called in to help take statements and to block off a portion of the road.

Both the shooter and all of the victims were linked with the home but Stuart did not reveal their specific associations.

Staff members and residents were taken out of the home as part of the investigation.

The victims were identified as 64-year-old Jesus Galvez, 29-year-old Larry Gueary, and 20-year-old Soren Galvez.

Joshua Gueary, 25, was identified as the gunman.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Authorities say a man fatally shot his girlfriend in Houston, firing at her repeatedly while at least one of her children watched.

Harris County sheriff's Sgt. Greg Pinkins says the shooting Sunday caused other nearby children to flee, running "out of their shoes."

Pinkins says the 32-year-old woman was arguing with the man in an apartment before she left, taking her three children.

She was in the passenger seat of a car with her 11-year-old child in the back when the 31-year-old man shot her.

Pinkins says another of the woman's children called 911 and that the gunman surrendered. He is being held at the Harris County jail. Authorities have not released his name.

Pinkins says the suspect is the father of one of the children.
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The photo taken by a netizen shows the recreational airplane before crashing into a tree, killing two people and injuring another on April 30, 2017, in north China's Shanxi Province. [Photo: Wechat]

A small recreational airplane crashed into a tree, killing two people and injuring another on Sunday in north China's Shanxi Province, local authorities said.

The accident occurred at 5:41 p.m., when the airplane carrying two passengers attempted to land following a sight-seeing trip above the Huihe reservoir in Quwo County, according to the county government.

A person on the ground was injured by the crash.

The cause of the accident is under investigation.
An Iowa sheriffs deputy died from his injuries Monday after being shot by an inmate who escaped from county jail, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

The inmate, Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, 22, shot two Pottawattamie County sheriffs deputies before taking a police van and driving away. He later carjacked a female motorist and led police on a chase from the Iowa jail into Omaha, Neb., with speeds reaching 80 mph, according to the paper.

SAN DIEGO POOL SHOOTING: KILLER CALLED HIS EX DURING RAMPAGE, POLICE SAY

The car driven by Correa-Carmenaty, who was wearing a prison-issued yellow jumpsuit, later crashed at an intersection. Police were able to apprehend Correa-Carmenaty, who was uninjured.

Correa-Carmenaty received on Monday a 45-year prison sentence on charges of attempted murder, second-degree robbery and voluntary manslaughter. Shortly after his courtroom appearance, he was on his way back to jail when he shot the two sheriffs deputies and escaped.

The name of the slain deputy was expected to be released after the officers family was notified, Council Bluffs Police Chief Tim Carmody said.

About a dozen schools in Council Bluffs were put on lockdown while the incident was breaking, a school district official said.
The archdiocese covering the Kansas City, Kansas, region and much of the eastern part of the state said Monday it is severing ties with Girl Scouts and urging an end to cookie sales, citing philosophical concerns with the organization.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas announced in a statement that Girl Scouts is "no longer a compatible partner in helping us form young women with the virtues and values of the Gospel," The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/2pB59ms ) reported.

The archdiocese said it is switching its support to a 22-year-old, Christian-based scouting program, American Heritage Girls.

American Heritage Girls, with 1,005 troops and more than 47,000 members, has become an option for those who claim Girl Scouts has turned too liberal and has relationships with organizations that don't share traditional family values. The Girl Scouts deny that.

"I have asked the pastors of the archdiocese to begin the process of transitioning away from the hosting of parish Girl Scout troops and toward the chartering of American Heritage Girls troops," Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann said in the statement.

Naumann said pastors have the option of making that shift "quickly, or to, over the next several years, 'graduate' the scouts currently in the program," and to form American Heritage Girl troops this fall.

Naumann, in a January letter to the archdiocese's priests, also called for an end to Girl Scout cookie sales in the archdiocese, effective after the current school year ends.

The action has angered some Girl Scout leaders and parents in the archdiocese who consider Girl Scouts a respected program and view Naumann's move as punitive and unfair, treating girls in their troops like second-class citizens.

"This is frustrating; parents are very irritated," Maria Walters, a former Girl Scout leader in the archdiocese and mother of two Girl Scouts, told The Star. "I feel we should all be together as one in the community. This does nothing but divide us.

"I don't know why you would take an organization out of a school when it provides an option for girls to feel like they're part of a group."

Last year, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson urged priests to sever ties with the Girl Scouts, also saying the organization promotes values "incompatible" with Catholic teachings.

Carlson's letter then to priests, scout leaders and other Catholics said the archdiocese and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have been investigating concerns about the Girl Scouts of the USA and the parent organization, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, for several years.

Carlson said he worried that contraception and abortion rights were being promoted to Girl Scouts. His letter also said resources and social media "highlight and promote role models in conflict with Catholic values, such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan."

Steinem, 81, is a feminist, journalist and political activist. Friedan, who died in 2006 at age 85, was a feminist and writer.
The Latest on an inquest into the dehydration death of an inmate in the Milwaukee County jail (all times local):

3:35 p.m.

A Milwaukee jury is deliberating whether to recommend charges against sheriff's office employees for an inmate's dehydration death last year.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office wrapped up its inquest Monday after six days of evidence and testimony on the events leading up to Terrill Thomas' death in April 2016.

District Attorney John Chisholm told jurors that jail staffers had many "missed opportunities" to help Thomas during the seven days the 38-year-old spent alone in his cell with his water shut off.

Milwaukee's medical examiner ruled Thomas died of "profound dehydration."

Sheriff's officials have said Thomas' water was shut off after he stuffed a mattress in a toilet to flood his previous cell.

___

12:30 p.m.

Milwaukee prosecutors say the county sheriff's office continued using water deprivation as a form of punishment at its jail even after an inmate had died of dehydration.

The District Attorney's Office presented jail logs to jurors Monday showing two inmates were disciplined by having water to their cells shut off in the weeks after Terrill Thomas died.

Prosecutors say the 38-year-old Thomas died April 24, 2016, after he was deprived of water for seven days because he had flooded a cell.

Prosecutors are conducting an inquest for a jury to determine whether criminal charges against jail staff are warranted.

Sheriff David Clarke runs the jail. He has repeatedly declined to comment on Thomas' death aside from highlighting the inmate's criminal record.

The prosecution expects to conclude its case later Monday.
Thousands of immigrants and union members across the United States banded together on Monday under a rallying cry against President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

The White House proclaimed May 1 as "Loyalty Day," a time to "recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles" upon which America was build and express pride in those ideals.

The United States stands as the world's leader in upholding the ideals of freedom, equality, and justice. Together, and with these fundamental concepts enshrined in our Constitution, our nation perseveres in the face of those who would seek to harm it," according to the proclamation released on Friday.

TRUMP PROCLAIMS MAY 1 AS 'LOYALTY DAY'

The day, however, still focused on immigrants in the U.S. Immigrant groups joined Muslim organizations, women's advocates and others on Monday to speak out against the orders and show the value of immigrants in American communities. The protests centered on Trump's executive orders for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries.

"We have never seen such an outpouring of support since we have since the election of Donald Trump," said Kica Matos, a spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

Trump called on Americans to observe the day with ceremonies in schools and other public places, but rallies in major cities, including New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles, ran into the late evening.

Demonstrations were held in dozens of cities, from Miami to Seattle.

In Washington, D.C., commercial construction company owner Salvador Zelaya paid his employees to take the day off and attend a march. The Salvadorian business leader said his 18 workers were spending the morning making banners to take to a rally that will end in front of the White House.

"All of us, we are immigrants. We came to this country. We work hard," Zalaya said. "We build up our own business. We employ people. We pay taxes and we make America great."

In Philadelphia, about 1,000 school teachers picketed at schools around the city. Parents joined the teachers, many of whom took sick days to protest. Schools were open and the district said it was working with principals and substitute teachers to make sure classes would not be disrupted.

Immigrant rights activists in communities in Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere are calling for strikes to show Americans the demand for immigrant labor and immigrants' purchasing power.

Immigrant advocates said they hope their message will reach Trump, congressional lawmakers and the public, as well as provide a sense of unity and strength to those opposed to the administration's policies. Despite Trump's avowed crackdown on illegal immigration, many said, they hoped a show of strength would help persuade politicians to rethink their plans.

Tom K. Wong, a professor of political science at University of California, San Diego, said the Trump administration's focus on immigration is generating more support for immigrant rights advocates.

"Every pivot back to the issue of immigration gives the immigrant rights movement another opportunity to make its best pitch to the public," he said.

Rallies, protests and marches, from the Philippines to France, were not as peaceful. Police in Paris deployed tear gas on hundreds of hooded protesters who threw Molotov cocktails and objects at the officers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
THE FOX NEWS SPECIALISTS DEBUTS ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL AT 5 P.M. ET

The Fox News Specialists  hosted by Eric Bolling, Katherine Timpf and Eboni K. Williams  will debut tonight at 5 p.m. ET. The new one-hour political talk show will air live each night and in its first episode will feature a one-on-one interview between Bolling and President Trump. Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban and journalist Mark MacKinnon will also join the Specialists. The Story with Martha MacCallum will also premiere tonight at 7 p.m. ET.

MEET THE FOX NEWS SPECIALISTS

THE GREG GUTFELD SHOW: TRUMP KICKED MEDIAS RUMP, GUTFELD SAYS

THE COVERAGE IS NOT FAIR: SPICER CALLS OUT MAINSTREAM MEDIA

LAWMAKERS REACH DEAL ON SPENDING BILL, BUT BORDER WALL FUNDING NOT INCLUDED

Republican and Democratic lawmakers forged a $1.07 trillion spending package that would fund the government through the end of September, but does not include some of President Trumps cornerstone promises including funding for a border wall or funding cuts to sanctuary cities. Though funding for the wall is not included, the package sets aside $1.5 billion for border security measures such as additional detention beds. It does give Trump a $12.5 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military, a figure which could rise to $15 billion should Trump present Congress with a plan for fighting the Islamic State terror group. The proposed $15 billion amounts to half of Trump's original $30 billion request.

HARDLY A SUCCESS: SCHUMER RIPS TRUMP OVER FIRST 100 DAYS

TRUMP GUARANTEES NEW OBAMACARE PLAN COVERS PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS

1 DEAD, 6 WOUNDED IN SHOOTING AT SAN DIEGO POOL PARTY

One person was killed and six others were wounded when a gunman opened fire at a San Diego complex pool during a birthday party Sunday afternoon. The shooter was identified as 49-year-old Peter Selis, but no motive had been revealed behind the rampage. Witnesses said that there were about 30 people in the pool area at the time of the shooting and that Sellis looked relaxed and was holding a beer in one hand and a gun in the other. Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said several of the victims were critical.

FOUR DEAD, INCLUDING GUNMAN, AFTER SHOOTING AT KANSAS HOME

8 INJURED AFTER BEING STRUCK BY VEHICLE IN FLORDA

JUAN WILLIAMS: A NEW FOUNDING FAMILY FOR TODAYS AMERICA

To my mind, the great men and women of postwar America include Eleanor Roosevelt, Thurgood Marshall, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ted Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Bill Bratton, Billy Graham, and many others. To understand them is to understand America in the twenty-first century. It is the story of a familya new founding family for todays America. They have kept faith with the ideals of the Founding Fathers while reshaping the country. They advanced the Founding Fathers audacious concept of a nation of free people forever able to maintain their own independence and liberty. These recent innovators have met the never-ending challenges, even threats, to the idea of a strong, free, creative people.

MCMASTER: US MUST PREPARE FOR MILITARY OPERATIONS IN NORTH KOREA

National security adviser H.R. McMaster said in an interview on Fox News Sunday that President Trump is seeking international support in trying to stop North Koreas pursuit of a nuclearize weapon, reasserting Trumps vow that the U.S. will no longer be the worlds policeman. McMaster on Sunday set out several options toward ending North Koreas efforts -- a combination of nuclear tests and trying to develop a rocket that could carry a nuclear weapon. He said world leaders could enforce existing economic sanctions, impose additional ones or possibly taking military action.

MCMASTER SAYS US WILL PAY FOR THAAD DEPLOYMENT IN SOUTH KOREA

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF THE CRISIS OVER NORTH KOREA

COMING UP ON FNC

9:30 a.m. ET: Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, joins Americas Newsroom.

12:00 p.m. ET: May Day Rally takes place in New York City. Watch on FoxNews.com.

2:00 p.m. ET: May Day Rally takes place in Washington. Watch on FoxNews.com.

5:00 p.m. ET: The Fox News Specialists debuts with Eric Bolling, Katherine Timpf and Eboni K. Williams.

7:00 p.m. ET: The Story with Martha MacCallum premiers.

COMING UP ON FBN

6:20 a.m. ET: John Koudounis, Calamos CEO will be on Mornings with Maria.

7:00 a.m. ET: Steven Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary will be a guest on Mornings with Maria.

2:00 p.m. ET: Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman will be a guest on The Intelligence Report.

FOX BUSINESS COVERAGE

IBM CEO ROMETTY SAYS A LOWER TAX RATE, TERRITORIAL TAX SYSTEM WILL ENABLE GROWTH

IBM President and CEO Ginni Rometty said Sunday that America needs a revamp of its tax system, particularly the corporate rate, in order to improve growth and make the country more competitive.

TAX CUT PARITY FOR ALL BUSINESSES WILL SUPERCHARGE THE ECONOM: NFIB CEO DUGGAN

Naysayers of President Trump's tax plan have it wrong.
A Perry County girl was killed Sunday morning, while camping in Lancaster County.

It happened around 8:30 a.m. at Oma's Family Campground on Kirkwood Pike in Colerain Township. State Police say the 10-year old was asleep inside a camper, when a tree fell, trapping her inside.

Emergency crews arrived and were able to free the girl, but she died from her injuries.

The owner of the campground, Connie Masse, said the tree hit two other campers and the tree had ants inside.

"You know you come camping to enjoy, relax and you know just unwind. You never expect something like this to happen," she said.

Read more from FOX 43.
Phoenix Police have now identified the escaped sex offender from the Arizona State Hospital as Randy Layton.

Layton of Arizona State Hospital's Arizona Community Protection and Treatment Center at 34th Street and Thomas escaped from a "regularly scheduled off-site treatment related activity" on Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m.

During the escape, the patient was able to dodge hospital staff and remove the GPS tracking device. The ankle monitor was located at Central and Dunlap.

The patient had completed the prison sentence and was being reintroduced into society.

Police confirm the patient is a moderate risk patient for potential harm to others, and is a sex offender.

ACPTC is a program mandated by the Arizona legislature to provide supervision, care, and treatment to men adjudicated as sexually violent persons who have already completed their prison sentence.

The description of Layton is that he's a white male, 37-years-old, 5 foot 8 inches, 210 pounds with tattoos. He was wearing a black long sleeve shirt and black shorts.

Read more from FOX 10 Phoenix.
Authorities in Virginia say a Newport News police officer shot and killed an armed man at a restaurant.

News outlets report Newport News police spokesman Brandon Maynard says officers received a call Saturday about a violent person at the Pondo Cafe. Arriving officers heard a gunshot from inside the restaurant, but couldn't immediately enter because it was locked.

Once inside, the tactical team engaged the suspect and an officer fatally shot him. He died on scene and remains unidentified.

Maynard says police are looking into how many shots were fired and whether the suspect raised his weapon at the officer who shot at him.

The person who called police was also shot before the tactical team responded and was taken to the hospital.

The officer is on administrative leave while investigations take place.
In Fruitvale, Ame York walks along US Highway 80, a rural stretch of East Texas uprooted by tornadoes over the weekend. York, a parishioner at the Fruitvale First Baptist Church, her son and several others stop at each impacted property in the area, handing out doughnuts and coffee.

You know it is ashes right now. It looks like a war zone, York says, pausing in front of a car flipped upside down next to a gutted home. But there is beauty. Beauty In those ashes.

York is focused on all of the help and support the community has received over the last 48 hours, a silver lining after a fatal weekend.

SEVERE WEATHER: AT LEAST 6 KILLED IN TORNADOES, FLOODING ACROSS SOUTH, MIDWEST

Residents continue to reel across East Texas after four tornadoes ripped through Van Zandt County Saturday evening. The National Weather Service has determined two of the tornadoes were EF-0s, the other two were EF-3s with wind speeds up to 165 miles per hour.

Four people were killed in Canton, an hour east of Dallas, and more than 50 were sent to nearby hospitals. A local car dealership took a direct hit, several trucks were tossed miles down the road. Theres debris everywhere; trees stripped bare and snapped in half; dozens of homes destroyed or severely damaged.

Dawn and Reagan Sumner are two lucky survivors. The married couple built the Rustic Barn, a red-roofed building just outside of Canton, so their son could have a nice wedding venue. Planning for retirement, the Sumners then turned the Rustic Barn into an event hall that was set to host the local prom Saturday night.

SEVERE WEATHER: AT LEAST 5 SUSPECTED TORNADOES REPORTED IN GEORGIA, SOUTH CAROLINA

Forty-five minutes before the dance, the Sumners and a dozen others inside the barn received text alerts about tornadoes touching down in the area. They immediately took shelter inside two bathrooms and a half-sized closet underneath a set of stairs. The building shook and the power went out. Minutes later, all 15 emerged from their protective refuges and realized half the barn had been destroyed.

When I walked out of that restroom and I looked to the left and saw sky, daylight and nothing, everything was just caved in... I almost lost it then, Dawn Sumner said. Shes thankful the tornado did not hit the building during the prom when as many as 80 people may have been inside.

On Sunday afternoon, Governor Greg Abbott toured the hardest hit areas by helicopter.

It looked like it in areas that were filled with trees, that were forests, it looked like they had been ripped down like tinker toys, just completely knocked down, the governor told the media.

Van Zandt County has issued a disaster declaration and the cleanup has only started. At Fruitvale First Baptist Church, the pastor has stocked up on food and water as members of his church continue to help victims and pray for a quick recovery.
A student at the University of Texas Austin attacked his fellow undergraduates Monday with what authorities described as a "Bowie-style hunting knife," killing one and injuring three others.

UT Austin Police Chief David Carter identified the suspect as 21-year-old Kendrex J. White, who was taken into custody without incident near a gymnasium.

Picture of the suspect outside Gregory. pic.twitter.com/fEQQxscXhm  The Daily Texan (@thedailytexan) May 1, 2017

Late Monday, the deceased victim was identified as Harrison Brown, a UT freshman from Graham, Texas. There was no immediate word on the conditions of the other victims.

Authorities had no word on a possible motive for the attack. Carter noted that three of the victims were white males and the fourth was an Asian male. The suspect is black.

University President Greg Fenves decried what he called an "unconscionable violent attack" and announced that all classes and activities had been canceled for the day.

"This breaks my heart that any of our students are touched by tragedy," Fenves said. " They come here to learn, to look to the future."

DALLAS MANHUNT: PARAMEDIC SHOT, CRITICALLY WOUNDED

The stabbings began at around 1:45 p.m. Central Time near Gregory Gym, home to the university's women's volleyball team. Carter said an officer responded to an initial report of a stabbing and arrested the suspect at the scene. The chief said that three other victims were found approximately a block away and added that the suspect "calmly walked around the plaza" during the spree.

Student Rachel Prichett told the Associated Press she was standing in line at a food truck outside the gym when she saw a man with a large knife approach the person standing behind her.

"The guy was standing next to me," Prichett said. "He grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved the knife in it. I just started running as fast as I could."

Another student, Ray Arredondo, said he was walking to his car when a mass of students near the gym started running.

"They were just screaming, 'Run! Get out of here!"' Arredondo said.

Lindsey Clark said she saw the suspect get tackled by police as he was running toward the entrance of Jester Hall, a complex of dormitories and classrooms. She described him as wearing a bandanna and gray sweatshirt and said he appeared quiet and subdued as police held him on the ground.

"You could see and hear people running and screaming: 'There he is!"' before he was tackled by officers.

Fox 7 reported that White was a biology major and was expected to graduate in 2018. He was an active member of the Black Health Professionals Organization student group on campus, Melody Adindu, the group's president, told the Associated Press. She said White was passionate about his work and was "very interactive and easygoing."

The Austin American-Statesman reported that White had been arrested on April 4 for DWI after he was involved in a wreck on campus. White allegedly told the officers that he was taking "happy pills" and had his blood drawn as part of the arrest. That case is pending.

Some of White's former classmates at Killeen High School, near the gates of the Fort Hood Army post in Central Texas, had similar recollections of him.

"He was a really smart guy in high school, he was always nice, had plenty of friends, and was in the International Baccalaureate program. I'm definitely surprised he would do this," Kay'Lynn Wilkerson told the Killeen Daily Herald.

Ex-classmate Angela Bonilla called White "the sweetest guy, laughing and having a good time with people".

SAN DIEGO POOL SHOOTING: KILLER CALLED HIS EX DURING RAMPAGE, POLICE SAY

Adindu and other students complained on social media it took too long for the campus officials to send a text alert of the attack. Texts to students showed a nearly 30-minute lag between the arrest and warning, even though city and county emergency offices were tweeting about the incident when they first responded.

Carter said White was confronted and arrested within two minutes of the first call to police and the situation was immediately under control. The campus siren wasn't used because there was no need for a lockdown to keep people in place, he said.

"There was no ongoing threat. We had him in custody as soon as we arrived," Carter said.

The University of Texas is blocks from downtown Austin and the Texas Capitol and is one of the nation's largest universities.



The attack occurred in the central campus, just a short walk from the administration building and the landmark clock tower that was the scene of a mass shooting in 1966.



Click for more from Fox 7.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Last month, Peru resident Mike Arbuckle was the victim of a disheartening crime. His cross containing the ashes of his 19-year-old son, Patrick, was stolen from his truck.

Arbuckle said he never expected to see that cross, or the last remaining trace of his son, ever again. But on Friday evening, he says a miracle happened.

Where my seat is, where my steering wheel is, it was laying right on the seat right there, said Arbuckle.

Since the cross was first stolen, hes been leaving his truck unlocked, hoping whoever stole it would put it back where they found it. And thats exactly what it appears that person did.

I lost him once, and then for this to be taken, was like losing him all over again, said Arbuckle.

He said hes not sure what prompted the crook to return the precious keepsake.

I dont know, maybe he had a guilty conscience or something, said Arbuckle. Everything else can be replaced, but this couldnt have been.

Arbuckle said last month all he wanted was the cross back, no questions asked and he wouldnt go to police. Now that its back he said he is standing by that promise.
The Supreme Court has again rejected a challenge to California's ban on so-called gay conversion therapy.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning away an appeal from a San Diego minister and others who argued the law violated their First Amendment religious freedoms.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco had previously upheld the law in dismissing the constitutional challenge.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed the ban into law in late 2012. Since then, the Supreme Court has rejected efforts to upend the California law and a similar ban New Jersey.
The Florida Highway Patrol says a 56-year-old man was intoxicated when he crashed into eight servicemen from the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.

The crash occurred around 8 p.m. Saturday on Perdido Key, which is near Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle. Eric Watt is charged with DUI involving serious bodily injury and officials say he may face additional charges.

Troopers said in a news release that the eight men were taken by ambulances to area hospital with various injuries. Only one, 24-year-old Jordan Lo, remained hospitalized Sunday. He was listed in critical condition.

Watt was released from the Escambia County Jail on a $40,000 bond Sunday morning. A lawyer wasn't listed on records.

An investigation continues.
A 47-year-old former Chinese prisoner has identified himself as the writer of a plea for help that was found inside a box of Halloween decorations by an Oregon woman last year.

The Beijing resident, who was an inmate at the Masanjia labor camp in Shenyang and only goes by the surname of Zhang  to protect his identity -- made the admission during an interview last month about the camps conditions, the New York Times reports.

He said the letter was one of 20 he secretly wrote over the course of two years and hidden inside English packaging, hoping someone would find them.

For a long time I would fantasize about some of the letters being discovered overseas, but over time I just gave up hope and forgot about them, he told the New York Times.

Julie Keith, 42, of Portland, bought a Halloween graveyard kit from Kmart in 2011 and tucked it away in a storage box. When she opened the kit in October 2012, she found the letter, apparently written by Zhang, tucked in-between two Stryofoam headstones.

If you occasionally buy this product, please kindly resend this letter to the World Human Right Organization, the unsigned letter read. Thousands people here who are under the persicution [sic] of the Chinese Communist Party Government will thank and remember you forever."

The letter also detailed how laborers work for 15 hours a day and made only $1.61 a month.

In December, Keith had told FoxNews.com that she believed the letter wasnt a fake.

I fully believe it is real, she said, describing how the headstones where the letter was found were sealed and the box was closed with tape. It had to have come from where they said.

Click for more from the New York Times.
Samsung Heavy Industries say a crane has collapsed at its shipyard in South Korea, killing six workers and injuring 22.

The South Korean shipbuilder, the world's third-largest, said rescuers were searching for people trapped under debris after the 32-ton crane fell on a ship Monday at its shipyard on Geoje island. The company said the crane collided with another crane before it collapsed onto the ship.

All of those killed were workers hired by various subcontractors at Samsung. Three of those hurt suffered severe injuries.

The accident occurred as many around the world were joining May Day marches for workers' rights.

South Korean workers are entitled to a paid holiday on May 1 but in practice many go to work anyway.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey will decide in a referendum whether to continue pursuing membership in the European Union.

In an interview Monday on India television, Erdogan accused the EU of not being "sincere or honest" and of making Turkey wait at its gates.

Erdogan said: "Turkey will choose the next path of a Brexit-like referendum."

Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation that straddles the Bosporus, began EU membership negotiations in 2005 but talks have made little progress.

Ties with EU nations soured before a divisive Turkish referendum in April on expanding presidential powers, with Erdogan voicing harsh criticism of several EU nations.

The EU said this weekend that Turkey must provide clearer signals on whether it intends to meet EU criteria on human rights and the rule of law.
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Russian police have detained several gay rights activists in St. Petersburg during a protest against the reported abuse of homosexuals in Chechnya.

An Associated Press photographer saw three women being detained during Monday's protest. The Fontanka.ru news portal reported about 10 detentions in all on Nevsky Prospekt, the city's central avenue. No official information was available.

Gay activists and others have been alarmed by reports accusing police in Chechnya of detaining and torturing about 100 men suspected of being gay. The predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia is led by Ramzan Kadyrov, whose security forces have long been accused of torture and extrajudicial killings.

Fontanka.ru reported that the activists detained Monday had shouted "Kadyrov to The Hague!" a reference to the International Criminal Court located in the Dutch city.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with its top leaders Sunday -- but she chose not to wear the traditional headscarf and full-length robe that women and girls who live in the country are forced to wear.

It was Merkel's first trip to Saudi Arabia in seven years. Women visiting the country are not legally required to cover their hair or wear a robe, but diplomatic officials have advised them to do so or face possible arrest.

AFTER SAUDI STOP, MERKEL HEADS TO NEIGHBORING UAE

Merkel isnt the first female leader to skip the traditional garb. Former first lady Michelle Obama, British Prime Minister Theresa May and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all picked pantsuits instead of robes.

While meeting with Saudi Arabias King Salman and his successors, Merkel said she pressed them on human rights concerns, The Telegraph reported.

I have the impression that the country is in a phase of change and that a lot more is possible now than some years ago, but its still a long way away from having achieved what we would understand as equality, Merkel said.

Merkel previously has spoken out against the wearing of full-face veils and argued that they should be banned in Germany "wherever it is legally possible."

She's also supported a ban prohibiting civil servants from wearing such veils. Many Saudi women wear the full face veil, known as the niqab, in line with the kingdoms conservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.
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Thousands of protesters in Hungary are rejecting the government's growing ties to Russia on the 13th anniversary of Hungary's European Union membership.

Participants marched through downtown Budapest on Sunday carrying Hungarian and European flags, shouting "Europe! Europe!" and reciting slogans against Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government.

The Momentum Movement, a new political party, organized the event.

In February, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Hungary for the second time in two years. Critics say a draft law allegedly designed to stigmatize and intimidate civic groups that receive foreign funding is similar to a law Russia already has.

Moscow is also expanding Hungary's Soviet-built nuclear power plant while loaning Hungary 10 billion euros ($10.9 billion), about 80 percent the project's cost.

Hungary already depends on Russia for much of its imported oil and gas.
KABUL, Afghanistan - He has spent more than a decade in mountainous combat zones collecting intelligence for the Afghanistan National Army (ANA), but nothing could have prepared Abdul for what happened last Friday when the Taliban carried out its bloody reign of terror against his military base, Camp Shaheen, in northern Afghanistan.

Although considered one of the nation's most secure bases in the now relatively peaceful city of Mazar-i-Sharif, two pickup trucks with at least eight Taliban fighters disguised immaculately as ANA soldiers passed through multiple checkpoints undetected, flashing fake military identification cards to obtain access. The attack, with seemingly every detail planned, was a sophisticated slaughter.

"Their uniforms were proper, right down to their shoes. The attackers were clean-shaven. In the backseat, was a pretend wounded soldier who was all bloody and bandaged and acting like he was in pain," the prominent intelligence officer and survivor of the attack -- who is also privy to the ongoing investigation and requested he only be identified as Abdul -- told Fox News. "They said it was a medical emergency, insisting that they needed to be let into the base immediately to save the soldier."

That final checkpoint, Abdul stressed, did not have any type of barricading and only had cones manned by three guards. Those three nervous guards promptly called their headquarters to find out if the army hospital was expecting the urgent case, and with the disguised insurgents pressuring them to hurry, names were likely not adequately cross-checked.

The guards were instructed to let them in straight away but to inform them that they must leave their cache of weapons -- supposedly rocket-propelled grenades, M16 rifles and M240 machine guns -- at the gate. As it turns out, Abdul said, their weapons were even ANA-issued ones, believed to have been seized by the Taliban from captured Afghan soldiers in a battle in Sar-e-Pul province, 120 miles away, two years ago.

The insurgents refused to leave their weapons, and a fierce fight with the guards broke out. "The enemy," as Abdul called the Taliban attackers, shot all three guards. Two died and a third remains in a critical condition.

If it wasn't for this altercation, however, it is likely the casualties would have been far higher. The intention of the attackers was to breach the mosque just before 1 p.m. and open fire during final prayers -- where 1,500 unarmed personnel would have been easy prey in one enclosed space.

Rather, the terrorists -- with a potent PKM machine gun installed on the roof of at least one of their trucks to spray bullets into the crowd -- made their way in just as prayers had ended and people were making their way outside.

"I heard the gunshots, two minutes later I heard a massive explosion and I knew it came from the gate near the front," Abdul said calmly, gripping the prayer beads in his lap. "I knew then we were under attack by the Taliban."

And then yet another explosion cracked the air. While still reeling from the shock, Abdul vividly recalled running away from the random shooting amid the "absolute chaos" of screaming victims. As he ran two others ran beside him, one had blood gushing from the left side of his head and the other was bleeding from his waist, his pants drenched red.

Nearby, an apparent Afghan Army soldier was calmly directing terrified recruits "to safety" by ushering them inside. Scores poured in, trusting that familiar uniform. Minutes later, he blew himself up -- killing more than 20.

According to Abdul, there are many components of that day that officials are still trying to piece together. The section of the dining hall where people were being lured in is "always locked" but for some reason on that afternoon, it was open. Furthermore, the guards at the checkpoints outside all insist that there were only eight infiltrators in the vehicles, whereas eyewitnesses and attack victims have all said the number of attackers was at least 10.

To maximize the effectiveness of their plan and ensure none of their own were killed in the rampage, the attackers apparently tied red cloth around their arms as an ID symbol.

Around 250 feet from the mosque there was another detonation, causing more stricken witnesses to pour back inside their sacrosanct space. However, the enemies followed them in and murdered them mercilessly. One survivor detailed how he played dead, lying face down in a pool of his fellow soldiers' blood. After 10 minutes, there was a sudden lull and a voice called out that "it was over" and "survivors stand up." Slowly, several did. Then they were shot dead.

Still frozen with fear on the floor, that one survivor overheard the insurgents discuss that their next attack was to be the military hospital. They left for a few minutes and came back, double checking all were deceased -- any slight movement resulted in being shot -- before the Taliban realized some had fled into hiding in the imam's private room and barricaded the door with a refrigerator. That was met with bullets sprayed through the door and a grenade launched through the window, according to another survivor who huddled inside and was still left "burned but still living."

At that time, others hid in an adjacent washroom where soldiers wash their hands and feet before prayer. Another 20 to 25 were slain inside by a suicide bomber before Afghan commandos and a quick reaction team entered the battle zone and engaged "the enemy" for quite some time, before silence finally fell.

"One of the commandos stood outside the mosque," Abdul remembered. "He asked if anyone was alive."

But in a mass of countless limbs and broken bodies, just three emerged. One officer said the death toll from that day was 160 and eight more died this week, according to the registry that compensates their families. Some 130 of the victims were young recruits who had only just graduated from military school.

The tragedy induced a surprise visit to Kabul by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this week as Washington formulates its new strategy for the conflict-rippled country. As many as eight ANA personnel have since been arrested and more remain under investigation, adding to concerns of inside assistance to carry out the attacks and Afghanistan's defense minister and Army chief have resigned.

"A lack of leadership caused this. Those appointed to high ranks are based on links and lobbies and not the best at the job. Change must come from the top down," Abdul added. "I see this as a major victory for the Taliban, it will boost their morale. We cannot have this happen to us again. We cannot."
An Israel official says that on the 15th day of a hunger strike, the number of Palestinian prisoners participating in the protest has dropped to 870, from 1,300 last week.

The strike is one of the largest such protests years. The strikers demand better conditions in Israeli prisons.

Support for the strike has gained momentum with West Bank marches and a social media campaign showing celebrities in the Arab world drinking salty water in solidarity.

The strike catapulted imprisoned organizer Marwan Barghouti back into the spotlight and boosted his national leadership credentials.

Israel Prison Service spokesman Assaf Librati did not elaborate Monday on why over 400 prisoners quit the strike. He says the strikers are held in separate wings, monitored by medical staff. He says several are held in isolation.
Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has called elections for June 3, a year early, to test his popularity amid a scandal swirling around his family.

With Monday's announcement, Muscat defied opposition demands for his resignation.

He has denied allegations that his wife owns an offshore company set up secretly in Panama. A magisterial inquiry has been launched. Having an offshore company isn't illegal, but the revelations triggered a political storm.

Muscat expressed concern that the political ugliness could harm Malta's economy. Unemployment stood at a low, 4.2 percent in January.

By voting, Muscat said Malta's citizens can choose if they "want to move forward with me" or with others he contends want to sully his reputation.

Malta currently holds the rotating EU presidency's helm. Its tenure expires June 30.
Police in Paris deployed tear gas on hundreds of protesters during a May Day workers' march on Monday, less than a week before the runoff French presidential election.

Four officers were injured when hooded demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails, firebombs and other objects at the police near Place de la Bastille, BFM-TV reported. Officers deployed tear gas and thruncheons as riot police clubbed protesters against a wall on a tree-lined avenue. Video showed riot police surrounding the protesters disrupting the march.

The violent protesters, who did not carry any union or election paraphernalia, appeared to be from the same fringe groups that have targeted anti-government protests in the past.

The union activists continued to march separately, though police began conducting bag checks for gasoline bombs in the crowd.

Both candidates in France's May 7 runoff election responded to the violence shortly after, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen calling it a "disgrace."

LE PEN VISITS FRENCH FACTORY, MACRON WINS ALLY BEFORE RUNOFF

"It's this disgrace and this laxity that I don't want to see on our streets," Le Pen wrote on Twitter.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the injured police officers by calling for the crowd at a Paril hall to stand up and applaud them, according to BFM-TV.

SLIDESHOW: MAY DAY DEMONSTRATIONS, RALLIES AND CELEBRATIONS AROUND THE WORLD

Dozens of protests, rallies and celebrations took place worldwide on Monday during May Day, marked as International Workers' Day.

German police braced themselves for possible violence at a street festival in Kreuzberg district where about 10,000 people gathered. More than 5,000 police officers mobilized at the festival were a demonstration was planned.

Berlin has experienced major May Day riots in the past, though recent years have been relatively calm. Still, some 50 officers were hurt last year in a brief, but violent clash.

In the eastern city of Erfurt, about 1,200 supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany rallied, holding signs with slogans like "no mosques in Germany." The demonstration was peaceful, according to police.

In Istanbul, police detained 165 people during May Day events around the city, most of them people trying to march to Taksim Square, which was labeled off-limits to demonstrations. Scuffles broke out between police and small groups trying to reach the square.

Taksim holds a symbolic value for Turkey's labor movement. In 1977, 34 people were killed there during a May Day event when shots were fired into the crowd from a nearby building.

A security department statement said that another 18 people suspected of planning illegal demonstrations and possible acts of violence were detained in separate police operations.

South African President Jacob Zuma's May Day speech was canceled after fights broke out between supporters and workers demanding Zuma to step down.

The scandal-ridden president was expected to call for unity between his ruling party, the African National Congress, and labor unions at the rally in Bloemfontein. But Groups in the crowd booed the president and clashed with his supporters before he could speak.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions canceled all scheduled speeches.

A protester briefly sprinted in front of May Day marchers in Cuba with a U.S. flag during the start of the country's largest annual political event.

President Raul Castro watched along with other military and civilian leaders and foreign dignitaries as the man broke through security and ran ahead of the tens of thousands in the pro-government march.

Plainclothes officers struggled to control the man but eventually lifted him off the ground and hauled him away in front of foreign and Cuban journalists covering the parade.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Iranian media say a speeding minibus has overturned on a slippery road, killing two German tourists and injuring 18 other people.

The semi-official ISNA news agency quotes Col. Ahmad Ahmadi, police chief of the southern Fars province, as saying that two of those injured are in critical condition.

Mohammad Reza Alimanesh, the head of provincial emergency services, says a rescue helicopter and eight ambulances have been dispatched to the site.

Road accidents in Iran kill or injure some 17,000 people a year. The high figure is widely blamed on poor enforcement of traffic rules, the presence of old and poorly maintained vehicles, and the lack of adequate emergency services.
As tensions continue to escalate between Washington and Pyongyang, North Korea said on Monday that it will strengthen its nuclear force to the maximum.

MCMASTER SAYS UNITED STATES MUST BE PREPARED FOR MILITARY OPERATIONS IN NORTH KOREA

A spokesman for the North Korea foreign ministry claimed its latest threat came in direct response to mounting warnings by the U.S. that it would no longer stand by while North Korea tests its nuclear arsenals.

Last week, President Donald Trump said a major, major conflict with North Korea has been a possibility. The U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier group to the waters off North Korea to carry out drills with South Korea.

PARENTS OF OTTO WARMBIER, AMERICAN CITIZEN DETAINED IN NORTH KOREA, WANT SON TO BE PART OF NEGOTIATIONS

"Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called 'maximum pressure and engagement', the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence," the spokesman told KCNA news agency.

The spokesman then said measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken by the countrys leadership, Reuters reported.

On Saturday, North Korea conducted another missile test. In total, the secretive regime has launched at least five nuclear tests and several missiles in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions.

National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told Fox News Sunday that Trump was reaching out to countries across the world to join him in the effort to destroy North Koreas fledging nuclear weapons program.

Its an open defiance of the international community, McMaster said. Its important for all of us to confront this regime . None of us can accept a North Korea with a nuclear weapon.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A senior U.S. envoy is in Macedonia to urge political leaders to form a new government after months of political deadlock and protests.

The tiny Balkan country has been without a government since a parliamentary election five months ago. Tensions boiled over last week following disagreement over the election of a new parliament speaker.

On Monday, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hoyt Brian Yee told reporters in the capital of Skopje that "political leaders have to find the ways to allow the majority in parliament to pose a government and government program."

Protesters stormed Macedonia's parliament building and assaulted several lawmakers last week, starting clashes that left more than 100 people injured.
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South African President Jacob Zuma was jeered by labor unionists and his speech was cancelled after scuffles broke out between his supporters and workers chanting for him to step down at a May Day rally on Monday.

Zuma, who is facing calls to resign after a string of scandals, was expected to call for unity between his ruling party, the African National Congress, and labor unions at the event in Bloemfontein but groups in the crowd booed him and clashed with his supporters before he could speak.

All speeches were cancelled by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the country's largest body of unions, which has called for Zuma to resign.

Zuma, 75, once a popular figure among South Africa's workers, was eventually ushered away by his bodyguards.
Amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. Air Force is set to conduct another long-range missile test on Wednesday, three U.S. officials told Fox News.



The new test of a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile comes one week after a similar test, and in the wake of a series of defiant actions by the rogue North Korean regime.

AIR FORCE TEST-FIRES ICBM TRAVELING 4,000 MILES TO SOUTH PACIFIC

The Minuteman III missile to be launched Wednesday by the Air Force will be unarmed, officials said.

Pentagon officials said this new missile test, like the last one, is long planned.

NORTH KOREA THREATENS TO STRENGTHEN NUCLEAR FORCE 'TO THE MAXIMUM'

The Air Force will use the same launch point and test range in the Pacific again on Wednesday, officials said.

Last week, a Minuteman III was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and traveled roughly 4,200 miles before splashing down in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.

The new ICBM test comes days after another failed North Korean missile test on Saturday and as the USS Carl Vinson has arrived off the Korean Peninsula to train with South Koreas navy.

The 30th Space Wing commander, Col. John Moss, said Minuteman launches have been essential to verify the status of the U.S. nuclear force and to demonstrate the national nuclear capabilities.

In a Minuteman test, a so-called re-entry vehicle travels more than 4,000 miles downrange to a target at Kwajalein Atoll near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

"Team V is once again ready to work with Air Force Global Strike Command to successfully launch another Minuteman III missile," Moss said. "These Minuteman launches are essential to verify the status of our national nuclear force and to demonstrate our national nuclear capabilities. We are proud of our long history in partnering with the men and women of the 576th Flight Test Squadron to execute these missions for the nation."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A decorated U.S. Army paratrooper killed while fighting ISIS last week in Iraq has been identified by the Pentagon.

1st Lieutenant Weston C. Lee was killed after an improvised explosive device detonated during a patrol outside of Mosul on Saturday. He was the third Army soldier killed battling ISIS last week after two other soldiers died during a firefight in eastern Afghanistan.

PENTAGON NAMES ARMY RANGERS KILLED FIGHTING ISIS IN AFGHANISTAN

The 25-year-old Lee, from Bluffton, Georgia, was an infantry officer assigned to the 1st Battalion, 325th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

1st Lieutenant Wes Lee was an extraordinary young man and officer. He was exactly the type of leader that our Paratroopers deserve, Colonel Pat Work, the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said in a statement. Our sincere condolences and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.

Lee joined the Army in March 2015. After completing the Infantry Basic Officer Leaders Course he was assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division as a platoon leader. His first deployment was to Iraq in December 2016.

Lee was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, and the Meritorious Service Medal. He had also received a series of other awards and decorations including the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Ranger Tab, the Parachutist Badge, and the Army Service Ribbon.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
KEEP AN EYE out for workers this week at the intersection of State Route 3 and Cool Springs Road in Stafford County.

Crews are scheduled to be at the intersection changing the pavement markings to implement a new traffic pattern, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation.

The change will be made on Cool Springs Road for traffic turning left onto eastbound State Route 3.

The current setup requires drivers to be in the left lane to get into the dual left-turn lanes onto eastbound Route 3. The new setup will allow traffic in both lanes to access the two turn lanes. Traffic in the right lane will still be able to continue straight toward Jett Drive or to get into the turn lane to make a right onto westbound Route 3.

VDOT says the change should improve safety and traffic flow.

There likely will be brief delays on Cool Springs Road while the new striping is added to the roadway.

Dear Scott: How many more years must we have to look at the debris, construction equipment and otherwise totally unsightly mess at the U.S. 17/Interstate 95 ramp?

They have even built a covered lean-to on the property.

I know road construction equipment has to be parked some place, but how many years has it been there?

I know it is not VDOT equipment, but the VDOT shop is just around the corner. Why not there? They should at least clean up the trash.

R. Huston Davis, Stafford

The writer is correct, that area on U.S. 17 heading out of town is a contractor staging area. Its also a spot where Virginia State Police inspect tractortrailers.

But the issue here involves the contractor, and VDOT has taken steps to have the area cleaned up.

After this question was sent to the highway department last week, VDOT personnel visited the staging area and demanded it be cleaned up.

After the inspection, VDOT required the contractor to correct numerous items immediately, including removing trash, tarps and temporary structures, and straightening up barrels and other equipment, according to local VDOT spokeswoman Kelly Hannon.

She went on to explain that the staging area was chosen because of its location near numerous bridges that require regular maintenance and repair. A pair of examples include the southbound Interstate 95 bridge over U.S. 17 and the Chatham Bridge over the Rappahannock River, both of which have required concrete repair in recent years, and that work calls for a large staging area for both equipment and supplies.

The U.S. 17 staging area wont be going anywhere soon, partly because of ongoing bridge maintenance on the U.S. 17 overpasses. But it will be heavily used also for upcoming work on the massive southbound I95 crossing project, which will include the replacement of those overpasses.

Hannon said VDOT will closely monitor the staging area to ensure it remains neat and presentable.
 Flash

A place in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal before the earthquake [File photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn]

The China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), a Chinese NGO, started rebuilding a quake-damaged school in Nepal on Sunday.

The groundbreaking ceremony of the Mahendra Adarsha Vidyashram public school was held in Nepal's Lalitpur district with the presence of Chinese delegates, local leaders, students and their parents.

The school is being rebuilt by the CFPA under the financial support from He Daofeng and his wife Angela He. He is the former executive vice president of the CFPA.

The program is expected to provide a safe study space for almost 1,000 students.

"This school is for common people and families. It can provide opportunity of quality education and vocational training to needy. I always want to help the people who need it the most," He told Xinhua.

Mahendra Adarsha Vidyashram, founded in 1958, is a well-known public secondary school in the Valley. Out of two buildings damaged during the devastating earthquake in 2015, one building is being constructed under the Chinese support while the school management committee will construct another one.

The construction of the new two-storey building is expected to be completed within a year.

The Chinese delegates also distributed bags and stationery items to the students.

Expressing appreciation to the Chinese organization for helping the education sector of quake-hit Nepal, the school officials said such assistance will strengthen the people-to-people ties.

Pampha Bhusal, chairman of the school committee, said "We are very happy to get this support. We were in dire need of school building and the support came from people of our neighboring country, so we are very thankful to them."

In addition, the foundation also handed over a computer lab donated by the South South Education Foundation to enable students to have more access to information and advanced education.

The CFPA, which has been focusing on education and health sector of Nepal right after the 2015 disaster, is investing 2.7 million yuan (390,000 U.S. dollars) for reconstruction of two school buildings in Kathmandu valley.

It has carried out more than 15 projects in the sectors like disaster relief, food, water and sanitation, disinfection treatment, health care and materials distribution.
One of two Army Rangers killed April 27 in Afghanistan has family ties to Culpeper.

Sgt. Cameron H. Thomas, 23, of Kettering, Ohio, is the son of Andre and Heather Thomas, who recently moved into the longtime home in Rixeyville of his late grandparentsNed and Anne Leggat. Sgt. Thomas last visited with his parents and siblings at the family home in Culpeper during Christmas.

He was among 50 Army Rangers and 40 Afghan commandos inserted by helicopter into the Mohmand Valley around 10:30 p.m. April 26, according to the Department of Defense. The location is near the border with Pakistan where U.S. forces dropped a large bomb on April 13.

Thomas and another Ranger, Sgt. Joshua P. Rodgers, 22, of Illinois were mortally wounded at the start of an intense, three-hour firefight, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters last week, according to DoD News. The operation targeted the leader of ISIS-K, Abdul Hasib, who is believed to have been killed in the raid.

Those at the scene reported close-quarters fighting and enemy fire coming at them from 360 degrees, the captain said. The possibility that the Rangers were struck by friendly fire is also being investigated.

Andre Thomas told the StarExponent Monday he and his wife were told by the two officers who were with their son in his final moments that it was not friendly fire that killed him.

They both reassured us that he was a fighter to the end, that he died ferociously, said Andre Thomas, an Air Force veteran. He was fighting until his last breath.

Cameron grew up in a military family and decided he wanted to join the service as a sophomore at Kettering Fairmont High School in Ohio, his father said. He enlisted at the age of 18.

Thats what he wanted to do and from that point forward he started lifting weights to bulk up, joined the swim team to master his swimming skills, worked out with recruiters once or twice a week doing physical training, said Andre Thomas. Thats all he lived and breathed.

His son was one of the youngest members of the elite troupe, at age 19, to be pinned with the Rangers tab, signifying the completion of an intensive training course.

At the start of training, he weighed 220 pounds, said his father, and by the time we saw him he was 160-something. The training is that grueling. Everything he has tried to do, he did it.

Thomas had recently graduated from sniper school and had been selected by his commander for the mission in Afghanistan, said Andre Thomas.

It was a very important mission for the DoD, he said. We were told our son was involved in a mission that will save many lives.

Sgt. Thomas died trying to help Sgt. Rodgers after he got shot in the leg, Andre Thomas said.

This is what he wanted. He wanted to be a Ranger. We talked about the risks of giving his life and he was well aware of that, he said.

Andre Thomas said the care and reception the military has afforded their large family since Camerons death has been overwhelming and humbling.

After this experience, we know that those young men and their leaders, many of whom are under the age of 30, are brothers and family, he said from the family home in Rixeyville. They have told us, You are our family, and we are here for you forever. 

The family was there for the dignified transfer of Sgt. Thomas flag-draped casket at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

It was like walking into a temple. It was so beautiful and the spirit was so strong, Andre Thomas said of the level of respect. The people were so wonderful and kind. It was so dramatic seeing your son come from overseas the way he did. They just made it so special.

Sgt. Thomas had 11 siblings, including seven who were adopted and four biological brothers and sisters.

Andre Thomas remembered visiting with his son for the last time at the home in Rixeyville, recalling his positive energy.

He has such bright, bright blue eyes, a contagious smile and a quick wit, he said. His heart and his love were as big as the man.

Whenever Sgt. Thomas would leave his friends in Ohio for another mission, they were always worried he wouldnt come back, his father said.

Cameron would say, Nah, dont worry about it. Im mean and tougher than they are,  said Andre Thomas. So he would leave and they always knew he was coming back.

His grandfather, Edward Ned Leggat, served 21 years in the U.S. Navy and fought in both World War II and Korea before retiring to a wooded spot in Rixeyville.

Sgt. Cameron Thomas, and his fallen comrade, Sgt. Rodgers, were both assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based in Fort Benning, Ga.

Funeral services for Thomas will be private.
Nan Boyd is always on the lookout for interesting items to feature in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts gift shop.

When she spotted Gaye Copleys polymer clay necklace on a VMFA trip to Europe, she immediately wanted to know who made it and where she got it.

Copley introduced her to Peggy Marshall, a Fredericksburg resident who makes such statement necklaces in the basement of her home on Princess Anne Street, mainly as gifts for friends such as Copley. Boyd convinced her to do a trunk show in connection with the museums upcoming Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style exhibit.

I really like her work a lot, said Boyd, who is the Richmond museums gift shop special events and trunk show coordinator. Its very distinctive. We dont have any jewelry like it. She does really interesting, distinctive things. I think people will really love it.

Marshall, who said she was blown away by the opportunity, will be at the museum gift shop during the members preview for the exhibit Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday when it opens to the public.

VMFAs gift shop holds trunk shows by Virginia artists 10 to 12 times a year, usually in conjunction with major exhibits such as Yves Saint Laurent. Marshall has spent the past months pouring over the exhibit catalog to get ideas for the pieces shell be showing.

Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, revolutionized the fashion industry during his roughly 50-year career. Marshall was inspired by his sexy tuxedo dresses and pantsuits to create black-and-white necklaces, and his color-blocked dresses a la Piet Mondrian to add small squares of red, yellow and blue outlined in black to some of her pieces.

Her favorite, though, is one done in olive, teal, gold and deep emerald green. The colors were taken from one of Saint Laurents evening gowns in the exhibit.

Marshall discovered polymer clay about a decade ago when a friend suggested that they take a class in making polymer-clay jewelry. Polymer clay is a modeling clay based on the polymer polyvinyl chloride, from which PVC pipe is made. Different colors can be combined into canes, then cut into thin slices and shaped or rolled into balls to make beads that are hardened in an oven.

Its the coolest medium, Marshall said as she deftly demonstrated how to wrap a thin piece of black polymer clay around a thicker white strand to make a cane. People were just starting to explore how to use it then. Were all learning how to stretch the limits.

These days shes focusing on making beads shaped like leaves, potato chips and ping pong balls. Strung together, they form ruffles of eye-catching color around a wearers neckline. To keep them from being too heavy, Marshall fashions large clasps of hammered brass or aluminum. Each necklace takes about a day to make, and she sells them for around $100 to $250.

VMFAs Boyd, who said shes really picky about the artists she selects for the gift shops trunk shows, said that if Marshalls jewelry does well she might want to carry it permanently.

Trunk shows are a great way for us to get to know new artists, she said, and keep the gift shop very fresh.
Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Sen. Frank Wagner, R7th, has a story for every occasion: about his soon-to-be son-in-laws career, about the businesses that used to populate Virginias thoroughfares and about his own companies in Hampton Roads.

But the anecdote that rang most true to Fredericksburg-area businesspeople during a visit to the city by Wagner on Monday was how he got stuck in traffic for hours on Interstate 95 on the way to a recent weekend event.

The visit was part of a series of events planned by the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance and the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce to introduce gubernatorial candidates to the areas key issues before taking office.

Curry Roberts of the FRA presented Wagner with the unique challenges the Fredericksburg region faces with its persistent out-commute of workers and by being split into different Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

And Paul Agnello of FAMPO presented Wagner with traffic data showing significant choke points in the Fredericksburg region and which projects, such as the remaining Rappahannock River Crossing bridge that is yet to be funded for the interstate, Virginia Railway Express needs, and the possibility of a regional transportation authority.

Wagner told those gatheredincluding Kim McClellan of the Fredericksburg Area Association of Realtors; Mark Taylor, county administrator of Spotsylvania; and Angela Freeman of City of Fredericksburg Economic Developmentthat transportation is the key to making Virginia competitive and that he wants to support making VRE sustainable and doubling the gas tax to fund projects.

It all starts with money. We need to be able to fund these projects first, he said.

He said North Carolinas key to competitiveness lies in its gas tax, double what Virginias is, and the commonwealth should follow suit.

Every candidate wants to grow and diversify the economy, but do we have the transportation to support it? he said.

During the visit, Wagner told locals about his record in state government with transportation, having supported a gas tax floor and having proposed alternate interstates to I95.

He also spoke about his support for career and technical education in the hopes of making the Virginia economy sustainable.

The series presented by FRA and the chamber has already hosted candidates Ralph Northam and Ed Gillespie.
A man who shot two people inside their Fredericksburg apartment last year was convicted of four charges Thursday, but was cleared of five others.
Most of the voters who cast a ballot for President Donald Trump still support him, according to a nationwide poll commissioned by University of Virginias Center for Politics.

Trumps approval rating with those voters is 93 percent, with 42 percent saying they strongly approve and 51 percent saying they somewhat approve of him.

The poll, conducted by the research group Public Opinion Strategies, surveyed 1,000 Trump voters online earlier this month. The estimated margin of error is 3 percentage points.

Public Opinion Strategies also conducted a series of in-person focus groups with Trump supporters, Republicans and independents who voted for Hillary Clinton or a third-party candidate.

Highlights of the poll include:

 Two-thirds of respondents said the country has been improving since Trump took office. About 70 percent of them said they believe the country is headed in the right direction, while 22 percent said its on the wrong track.

 About 72 percent of respondents said building a wall on the Mexican border is at least somewhat important to them. When given the choice between building the wall or fixing health care, about two-thirds of them said theyd rather spend the money on health care.

 Roughly 57 percent said they voted for Trump more because they supported him, and less because they disliked Clinton.

The full report is available at centerforpolitics.org.
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Gerald D. Solfest IIIs attorney said Solfest should avoid a jail sentence for burglary because he needs to have both of his hips replaced due to a severe form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis.

Its a serious offense. Its a felony offense, theres no doubt about it, defense attorney Lester Liptak said of the March 2016 burglary of DJs Mart in Chippewa Falls, a charge that Solfest had pleaded guilty to on March 27. He understands the significance of the charge.

Because of the operations Solfest will need to have and the time he will need to recover, Liptak suggested giving Solfest 100 hours of community service instead of time in jail.

Judge Steve Cray listened to Liptak on Monday, and then asked Chippewa County Assistant District Attorney Chad Verbeten to list Solfests prior offenses.

Verbeten replied that Solfest had been placed on probation for misdemeanor driving a motor vehicle without the owners consent, and had been convicted for retail theft, hit and run of an attended vehicle, misdemeanor bail jumping and resisting an officer. Then there are three ordinance convictions, Verbeten said.

Thats a fairly significant criminal record for a 28-year-old man, Cray said. I do believe incarceration is necessary, Cray said, With that, he placed Solfest on probation for 48 months and ordered him to spend eight months in jail. He stayed four months of that jail term. Cray also told Solfest to meet with staff at the Chippewa County Jail to see if Solfest qualifies for electronic monitoring during the jail term.

Solfest was also ordered to not to drink alcohol, go into bars and to only use prescription drugs. He was ordered to pay $527 in costs and restitution.

According to a criminal complaint:

A Chippewa Falls Police officer saw a man in blue jeans walking eastbound from the DJs Mart store on Park Avenue. The man was carrying a bag with beer and pop.

Solfest did not stop after being told to do so by the officer. After a struggle, Solfest was placed in handcuffs.

He said that another person he said was a black individual had broken into DJs Mart and he was told by that person to carry out the merchandise he had in his possession.

A glass door at the store had been smashed. Glass was scattered on the stores floor, and some items inside the store were knocked over.
WASHINGTON  In the outpouring of commentary on President Trumps first 100 days in office, his greatest single achievement is almost never mentioned, which is itself a sign of what a major triumph it is: We are not talking much about whether Russia colluded with Trumps campaign to help elect him.

Our distraction was not inevitable. Recall that just a little over a month ago, FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee that the bureau was investigating possible cooperation between Trumps team and Russias hacking and disinformation campaign to undercut Hillary Clinton. As The New York Times wrote, Comeys testimony created a treacherous political moment for Mr. Trump. Yet the president slipped by.

In mid-February, the administration should have come under sustained inquiry when Michael Flynn, Trumps first national security adviser, was forced to resign because he misled White House officials about the nature of his contacts with Russias ambassador to the U.S.

Flynn, who had led the Republican National Convention in Lock her up! chants against Clinton, turned out to have received $65,000 from companies linked to Russia, and $600,000 to lobby for the Turkish government, even as he was advising Trump. And, as Politico reported this week, the man who paid Flynn to work for Turkey had business ties to Russia.

The episode raised a slew of questions, not the least being what Vice President Mike Pence, whom we presume was vetting administration appointees, knew about Flynns activities. As for Trump, he believes in extreme vetting for immigrants, but apparently not for members of his administration. Unless, of course, he was fully aware of what Flynn was up to.

The Flynn story is obviously heating up again, but lets pause to ponder how Trumps genius at evasion, diversion and prevarication helped him to keep the Russia story at bay. It should disturb us more than it seems to that the 100th day of Trumps presidency on April 29 will also mark the beginning of the ninth week since Trump sent out his March 4 tweet-to-end-all-tweets charging that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory.

There was no evidence then for that accusation and none now because the evidence doesnt exist. Thoughtful souls, conservatives as well as liberals, saw something terribly off about Trump swinging so wildly and with such indifference to verifiable fact. This is what happens when the White House prioritizes winning the daily news cycle above all else, wrote Jim Geraghty in National Review. This is the natural result of an amazingly shortsighted approach to governing.

I couldnt agree more, but guess what? Trumps gambit worked. First, Trumps lieutenants got Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, involved in a Keystone Kops routine at the White House in which Nunes kind of, sort of suggested he had information giving support to Trumps claim, which he didnt. Nunes eventually had to recuse himself from the committees investigation of Russian interference, but the whole episode may have fatally wounded  and certainly delayed  its inquiry.

And there is this core Trump principle: A lie is as good as the truth as long as you can get your base to believe it. And sure enough, the new Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted last week found that by a margin of 52 percent to 32 percent, Republicans believe that the Obama administration intentionally spied on Trump and members of his campaign during the 2016 election campaign. This should keep Trump going for a while.

Fortunately, as John Adams taught us, facts are stubborn things, and the Russia story cannot be suppressed forever. Indeed, there was progress on Tuesday when  in a display of bipartisanship that is truly astounding at this moment  Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., of the House Oversight Committee jointly asserted that Flynn may have violated the law by not fully disclosing his Russian business dealings when seeking a security clearance.

At least as significant, both also expressed alarm at the White Houses refusal to turn over any documents on Flynns hiring and firing. There may be limits to Trumps cagey sorcery.

But its still pretty impressive. Given the substantive emptiness of Trumps presidency so far, his greatest achievement is that he is still standing there, making pronouncements as if he means them and moving noisily but without any clear plan from one thing to the next. Every day he can postpone his reckoning with Russia is a victory.
Irish War Cry had early odds of near 6-1 to win the 2017 Kentucky Derby , but in a hotly contested field, he is actually among the co-favorites along with Always Dreaming and Classic Empire.

Irish War Cry has a few wins under his belt already including the Holy Bull and the Wood Memorial.

It was the only time I worked him since the Wood, by design. That's what I do. We don't usually breeze until three weeks after a race, Motion said. I told Rajiv to try and go off in 13 [seconds] which is right what they did on the money, and he finished up in 13 and change. I don't think it could have gone any better. It was perfect.

The post position draw was expected to alter the odds come mid-week.

Below are your very early odds.

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The North American Free Trade Agreement must be replaced with a transparent trade agreement that ensures farmers in all three nations, Canada, Mexico and the United States, receive fair prices for their production, that consumers are guaranteed the right to know the content and origin of their food and that strong environmental protections are put in place to protect the sustainability of rural communities.

While the current structure of NAFTA has increased trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States, farm profit margins did not increase. Multi-national grain traders made huge profits dumping subsidized U.S. corn on Mexico, crushing much of Mexicos farm economy to the point that Mexican Catholic Bishops said that NAFTA was leading to the cultural death of their nation. Trade agreements should promote fair trade that supports farmers of all countries, not just the financial interests of multi-national agribusiness corporations.

To give just one recent example of how rural communities suffer from reckless trade policies that promote corporate profit at the farmers expense, Grassland Dairy Products  the nations largest butter maker  informed 75 Wisconsin dairy farmers April 1 that, as of May 1, their milk would no longer be needed because, due to changes in the Canadian milk pricing system, Canadian buyers had canceled contracts to import the equivalent of one million pounds of milk per day.

Grassland management had been aware of forthcoming changes in the Canadian milk pricing system for at least several months, but Grassland gave their farmers minimal warning and left them with very few marketing options.

U.S. processors, like Grassland, had been exploiting a loophole in the trade agreement that allowed them to ship ultra-filtered milk to Canadian cheese plants tariff-free since it was classified as an ingredient at the border. Once it arrived at the plants, its classification was changed to dairy to legally meet Canadian cheese production standards.

Canada imposed no new taxes or tariffs on U.S. dairy imports, it simply created a new class of milk that is priced at the world market price, just as the U.S. imports were. Given this price equalization, Canadian cheese makers can now buy Canadian milk.

Canadians want to buy Canadian just as Trump says we must buy American. Canada currently imports U.S. dairy products worth five times the value of its dairy exports to the U.S. U.S. processors and producers assumed NAFTA promised them a never-ending market for their excess production  reckless trade policy.

As Canadians note, the real problem with the U.S. dairy industry is massive overproduction.

Because U.S. dairy farms continue to expand and push for ever greater production, at some point, (now) there is no room in market, the market is saturated and farmers will suffer. However, processors like Grassland will not. They decry Canada canceling their contract, but have no problem doing the same to their farmers.

Ironically enough, Grassland has also been bankrolling the 5,000-cow factory farm expansion of Cranberry Creek Dairy in Dunn County to further flood the domestic milk market. And as noted by Darin Von Ruden, president of Wisconsin Farmers Union, Grassland was cutting its milk purchases as part of the plan to build this corporate-owned 5,000-cow dairy.

Trade deals like NAFTA thrive on such commodity speculation that boosts corporate profits, while bankrupting family farmers, price gouging consumers and destroying the environment.

NAFTA should be replaced with a new Fair Trade agreement, one that ensures farmers receive prices that, at a minimum, meet their costs of production plus a living wage. Farmers should not be pitted against each other in a race to the bottom. They deserve to have access to their own domestic markets and to be protected from imported commodities that are unfairly priced below the cost of production (dumping). Furthermore, people of all participating countries should not be subject to trade rules that restrict their right to: reject imports that do not meet their preferences on GM content, pesticide use, food labels or protect their local food systems.

The basic human rights of farm workers  fair wages and working conditions  must be protected by trade rules that support jobs and rural development in all three countries.

Food is a human right. Food sovereignty cannot be compromised by trade agreements designed by corporate interests. All nations have a right to decide what they will eat, how it will be grown and who will control it. No one should be forced to accept agricultural products they do not want.
*Editors note: Kellie Weber has withdrawn from the race for Zone 2

Four people are competing to represent Zone 2 on the Lebanon School Board this May.

Kellie Weber, who was appointed in September 2016 to finish the term left vacant when Liz Alperin moved away, currently holds the seat and is running for election.

She is being challenged by Linda McLucas, Tom Oliver and Donnie Witherspoon.

The Democrat-Herald asked each candidate to talk about major issues they see facing the district and how they would respond.

The paper also asked what, if anything, the candidates would do to address recent controversy over perceived lack of transparency from board members regarding a personal relationship between the superintendent and another principal.

More complete information on their backgrounds and responses can be found at the Democrat-Herald's online version of this story.

All four candidates said they have experience with budgeting and want the district to be as efficient as possible with its funding. All said they would carefully prioritize each dollar in terms of what must be done immediately for student needs and what can wait.

They differ on what they see as the board's responsibility toward residents concerned about a personal relationship between Superintendent Rob Hess and a district principal. Some board members knew of the relationship when it became official two years ago, while others did not and have questioned how the information was handled.

Oliver, Weber and Witherspoon all said they believe board and district communication should be improved, but they differ on actions to take.

Oliver said he recommends an independent investigation to determine what was known, by whom and when, and whether any evidence exists of preferential treatment because of the relationship. Weber said she recommends direct and open communication with people who believe the district's climate has been affected by a perceived lack of transparency.

Witherspoon said he doesn't believe the relationship is anyone's business as long as no laws or policies were violated, while McLucas said she does not feel she knows enough about the situation to offer a course of action.

A look at the four candidates and their other desires for the district:

McLucas, 69, has lived in the district for 10 years and has been a volunteer reader at Hamilton Creek. A nurse, she currently works part time through the Department of Human Services.

The board seat would be McLucas' first direct experience in a government position, but she spent two seasons on the board of directors for her church, Lebanon Foursquare, and said budget, communication and confidentiality challenges are similar.

McLucas said as a board member, she would tackle bullying and work hard to make sure schools offer a welcoming space for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, religion, sexuality or gender identification. Making sure gender-neutral bathrooms are accessible is one specific priority.

"Unless you're in a healthy setting, you can't really be there and learn well. You have to feel safe," she said. "I want to help with the process."

Oliver, 41, is director of engineering for Consumers Power and worked for nearly nine years for the city of Lebanon as its information technology director. He has a Lebanon graduate and two other children in the district.

He applied for the open position to which Weber was named last fall. He said he has long considered running for the board but only now has the time to add it to his schedule now that his tenure has finished as chairman of the Boys & Girls Club of the Greater Santiam. He also has served with numerous other community service organizations.

"I have been managing people and projects and budgets for 18 years," he said. "I feel like I have a good combination of background and experience to understand the challenges and provide some guidance into the appropriate course of action."

Recruiting and retaining strong staff members and making sure schools offer "relevant" education are among Oliver's priorities. He said he supports strong trade skills programs and would revisit the district's 2020 vision plan to make sure expectations and goals are clear and that the district is held accountable.

Weber, 50, is a homemaker with seven sons, including four Lebanon High School graduates and three still in the district.

She said she initially applied for the open position because "there was an opportunity, there was a need and I felt qualified," and said she wants to stay because, "I think there are some problems in our school district and I want to try to solve them."

Chief among Weber's concerns is teacher retention. "I think the best way is to advocate for them," she said. "They need more money, they need more respect, they need to be heard."

She also supports expanding career and technical education opportunities. She said she feels she's proven herself an advocate for the things she feels are important, such as passing a policy to begin drug-testing student athletes.

Witherspoon, 39, has been self-employed since 2005. He owns AAA Custodial Services and Witherspoon Industries, a custodial supplies business. He has served as a reserve police officer and a Cubmaster with the Scout program, but this would be his first experience on a government board.

Witherspoon said he and his wife have chosen to home-school their nine children  a personal family goal, he said  until they reach high school. The family currently has a freshman at Lebanon High and will have two more this fall.

Core academics, particularly math and reading, should be the district's focus, Witherspoon said. He particularly wants to see a stronger emphasis on both subjects in elementary grades and sees smaller class sizes as the best way to accomplish that. He plans to petition the state for more money for teachers.

Those classes aside, Witherspoon said he wants to find a way to bring both band and choir to seventh- and eighth-graders at Hamilton Creek and Lacomb, the district's two rural schools. He said he believes students should have equal opportunities throughout the district and wants to keep performance programs strong at Lebanon High School.
Oct. 21, 1937  April 25, 2017

Good Morning! was always the first greeting you would hear from Phil, no matter the time of day. This cheerful and resounding salutation will be dearly missed by the family and friends of Phil Lewellyn, who passed away on the evening of Tuesday, April 25, 2017.

Phillip Verlin Lewellyn was born on October 21, 1937 to Albert and Edna Lewellyn. Phil had two sisters, Carol and Mary. Albert was employed in the logging industry and the Lewellyn family moved many times wherever Alberts work took them including, Sisters, Lowell, Airlie, Philomath, and Monmouth.

Growing up, Phil was involved in the Boy Scouts of America and earned the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout.

Phil attended high school at Central High School in Independence, where he was involved in 4-H and earned a blue ribbon for his angel food cake! Phil graduated high school in 1955 and then attended college at Oregon College of Education, now Western Oregon, before he joined the National Guard. Phil completed training at Fort Ord in California and served in the National Guard for two years.

Throughout his professional career, Phil worked as a Civil Engineer. He was first employed by the Oregon Department of Forestry in Coos Bay. From 1964 until his retirement, he worked for the Oregon Department of Transportation Highway Division. He began his career with ODOT working in Baker City and then was transferred to Klamath Falls.

While living and working in Klamath Falls, Phil met and married the love of his life, Mary, on March 11, 1968. The couple gave birth to two sons, Gregory and Kenneth.

During Phils career, the family moved to The Dalles, Salem and Bend. After his beloved wife, Mary, passed away in 2000, Phil moved to Jefferson to be closer to family.

Throughout his life and retirement, Phil enjoyed many hobbies. He earned his amateur radio operating license. Phil loved being outdoors and enjoyed gathering mushrooms with his wife, Mary and hunting and fishing with his sons, Greg and Ken.

Phil also had a passion for traveling both near and far. He did not allow his age to slow him down. He acted as the Wagonmaster in his chapter of the Good Sam Club and was always planning his next great adventure! Some of his favorite trips included Japan, China, Panama, Europe and Hawaii, many of which he had taken fairly recently.

After Phil retired, he also went back to college to learn to speak, read and write both Japanese and Chinese.

Phil was a jubilant and energetic man, who loved his family and friends dearly. He enjoyed organizing his annual family reunion and many camping trips and outdoor adventures, attending barbecues and gatherings and would never show up empty handed. He enjoyed baking and would often show up with homemade pies  lemon, chocolate, apple or peach  all equally delicious.

Along with his energetic demeanor, he always had a twinkle in his eye, a mug of coffee in his hand and a story ready to be told, advice to be given, or a helping hand to lend.

Phil was preceded in death by his parents Albert and Edna Lewellyn and his beloved wife, Mary Lewellyn.

He is survived by his sons: Greg (Diana) Lewellyn of Scio and Ken Lewellyn of Salem; grandchildren: Stefanie Simionidis of Oceanside, California, Sgt Kristofer (Jay) Schmidt of Okinawa, Japan, Nikolas (Hannah) Schmidt of Scio, Katrina Schmidt of Eugene; great-grandchild, Bradley Simionidis of Oceanside, California; sisters: Mary (Pat) Doyle of Albany and Carol Walther of Silverton and many nieces and nephews.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Phils honor to the Boy Scouts of America.

A Celebration of Life will be held Thursday May 4, 2017 at 2:00 PM at the Aasum-Dufour Funeral Home, located at 805 Ellsworth St SW, Albany, Oregon.
UN in Bonn : The area around the UN site is private ground

BONN The municipal operator is giving out parking tickets around the World Conference Center.

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For Michael Kleine-Hartlage, haphazard parking at the Platz der Vereinten Nationen (UN Square) between the Marriott hotel, the former parliament buildings and the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB) has long been a thorn in his side. Cars are often parked in such a way that a fire engine or ambulance would not be able to get through, reports the Managing Director of BonnCC GmbH, the company in charge of managing the WCCB. But now, from his point of view, there is more order in the area. The company, which on behalf of BonnCC operates the nearby WCCB car park, is also in charge of administrating the area and has put up signs accordingly.

From now on, hotel residents and visitors to the WCCB coming by car are only allowed to stay for a maximum of half an hour to collect or drop people off, or make deliveries, explains Kleine-Hartlage. Parking fines will be given to those who do not respect the rules. We have set up a system like shopping centres have, he says. This is possible due to a change in the ownership rights at the Platz der Vereinten Nationen: Since 2014, as deputy spokesman for the city council Hoffmann explains, the streets at the Platz der Vereinten Nationen have been included in the road laws. This means: the square is no longer a public traffic area, but a private plot of land belonging to the city. In the land use plan, there is only one entry for pedestrian access rights, says Hoffmann. In any case, road traffic regulations are applicable just as before, because the public has entry. Vehicles are only allowed on the square at walking speed.

The WCCB building extension was handed over from 1. November 2016 to the municipal subsidiary and operation of the Platz der Vereinten Nationen is part of the WCCB. Therefore, the WCCB is entitled to control the parking regulations as it deems fit, says Hoffmann.

This change has no effect on the authorisation of demonstrations, says Hoffmann. Permission for temporary set-ups such as the large events which are standard at the WCCB must also be applied for at the municipal public order office. As reported, the WCCBs accreditation scope is no longer sufficient due to the increased security requirements, so that additional tents or containers for the security checks must be set up.

For this reason, police on Friday prohibited a demonstration of Bayer opponents at the Platz, when around 3500 Bayer shareholders held their general meeting at the WCCB and discussed the merger with controversial American agricultural company Monsanto. The opponents were speaking of an illegal Bayer protest mile, because in March Bonn city council had given the company permission to seal off the area. In two expedited proceedings against the ban and the blocking-off of the area, the protestors lost their case at the administrative court in Cologne as well as the higher administrative court.
An opportunity for foodies and beer lovers to get lost in a world of food and drink from a hand-selected range of food trucks and breweries from around New Zealand.
Christ for all Nations and AZUSA NOW Partner for a Massive Prayer and Gospel Event Contact: Sam Rodriguez, Christ for all Nations , CfaN, 407-854-4400, srodriguez@cfan.org ORLANDO, May 1, 2017 / Christian Newswire / -- Evangelist Daniel Kolenda of Christ for all Nations will be partnering with Lou Engle in a Night of Prayer and Salvation at the Azusa Now prayer gathering in Cleveland, Ohio (July 22-23, 2017), a free event open to the public. Birthed in response to a divine vision to break the barriers of unbelief and pray for Revival in America, Azusa Now Cleveland will be two nights of prayer, fasting, worship, and salvation, bringing together people from all 50 states of the United States. On the second night of this powerful prayer gathering, Evangelist Daniel Kolenda will preach the Gospel and minister to the participants. For those who are believing for friends and loved ones to be saved, don't miss this opportunity to invite them to be a part of this gospel crusade. Lou Engle's ministry is among the top in the world at mobilizing people to pray and reach their generation for Jesus. CfaN has been active for 40 years, successfully winning people to the Lord (over 76 million decisions to date). Daniel Kolenda, Lead Evangelist of Christ for all Nations, is excited about this partnership with Lou Engle to Revive America. For several years now, Reinhard Bonnke the ministry founder has felt the Lord impress upon his heart that "America Shall be Saved." In response to this stirring, CfaN has done many Gospel crusades in America, along with its large gatherings in Africa. The partnership with Azusa is perfectly aligned with CfaN's vision. Russell K. Benson, CfaN's International Director affirms, "We feel this partnership is strategic and historic and can only imagine the impact that will be felt in Cleveland, Ohio and the whole of America. We believe that this event will spark a mass harvest movement in our nation. America shall be saved." In the natural political world, as the battleground state of Ohio goes so goes the nation. In the same way, Lou Engle believes prophetically that this 2-day massive prayer push will spark a revival, not just in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati but in the entirety of Ohio state and eventually the rest of America. Lou's faith is big, and he has found the right partners to help him execute: Daniel Kolenda and CfaN. But together, they need the help of the Body of Christ, not just to believe and pray with them but to rally behind them with every support they can offer. CfaN needs 1,500 altar workers, and will be working with local churches of the surrounding regions (Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Indiana and Kentucky). Click here for the Volunteer Registration Page information . Join our partnership and see thousands come to faith in Christ. About Christ For All Nations CfaN is a non-denominational missions organization aimed at taking the Gospel message to the world. Christ for all Nations is primarily known for its historic crusades in Africa and recently surpassed a historic milestone of 76 million documented decisions for Jesus Christ at major events in Africa and other parts of the world. CfaN has offices in countries around the world including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States.



The ministry offers theological courses and Bible study programs from its website, as well as the Fire Conferences and other training events. The CfaN website also offers a variety of books, booklets, DVDs, CDs, posters, bundle packs and more. CfaN books have been published around the world in over 140 languages. To learn more about Christ for all Nations, visit CfaN online at www.cfan.org , email srodriguez@cfan.org or call 407.854.4400.

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OTTAWA, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Its Melanoma Monday and the Canadian Dermatology Association (CDA) is returning to the Hill to hold its annual skin cancer screening for all Members of Parliament and Senators.



The annual observance, which takes place as Canadians head outdoors for warm-weather activities, draws attention to the most serious form of skin cancer, and reminds the public of the need to check their skin regularly for danger signs. This years event comes only months after the death of cultural icon Stuart McLean, following a losing battle with melanoma.

While Mr. McLeans death was a national tragedy, it was by no means a rarity, said CDA President Dr. Mariusz Sapijaszko. It is estimated that in 2016, 6,800 Canadians were diagnosed with melanoma and 1,200 died from the disease. And the numbers keep going up year after year.

The Parliament Hill screening is Co-hosted by Geoff Regan, Speaker of the House of Commons, and Bill Casey, MP for Cumberland-Colchester, and organized by the CDA. Mr. Casey was diagnosed with Melanoma at a skin screening clinic on the Hill many years ago and was then able to get prompt treatment to beat the disease. The event was hosted by Dona Cadman, the widow of Chuck Cadman, an MP who died of melanoma.

In addition to the early detection of cancer in parliamentarians, the screening event aims to make people aware of skin cancers early warning signs and simple steps for prevention. The early detection and timely treatment of melanoma, basal cell and squamous cell skin cancer can lessen disfigurement and even prevent death in the case of melanoma. As well, avoiding risky practices like tanning beds can reduce the likelihood that skin cancer will occur at all.

Incidence rates of melanoma have increased in both men and women over the past several decades, with recent increases of 2.4% per year in men between 2001 and 2010, and 2.8% per year among women between 2004 and 2010. Exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation through exposure to sunlight, tanning beds and sun lamps appears to be a major risk factor for melanoma. Other risk factors include number and type of moles, having a fair complexion, personal and family history of skin cancer, a weakened immune system and a history of severe blistering sunburn.

Research shows those at risk for melanoma who had a friend or family member help with checking their skin found the disease at a much earlier stage and had a 63 per cent lower death rate compared to those who did not check their skin.

These and other facts about skin cancer prevention can be found at the CDA website, dermatology.ca.

About Melanoma Monday

Melanoma Monday is an internationally recognized day of skin cancer awareness which aims to raise awareness of melanoma and other types of skin cancer, and to encourage early detection through regular self-exams.

About the About the CDA

The Canadian Dermatology Association, founded in 1925, represents Canadian dermatologists. The association provides easy access to the largest, most reliable source of medical knowledge on dermatology. CDA exists to advance the science and art of medicine and surgery related to the care of the skin, hair and nails; provide continuing professional development for its members; support and advance patient care; provide public education on sun protection and other aspects of skin health; and promote a lifetime of healthier skin, hair and nails. By doing so, CDA informs and empowers both medical professionals and the Canadian public.

To learn more about what the work CDA does visit www.dermatology.ca or join the conversation on www.Twitter.com/CdnDermatology or www.Facebook.com/CdnDermatology.
home US Rare coin that was donated to Indiana church fetches $517K at auction

An extremely rare coin donated by an anonymous woman to a church in Indiana to help finance a new building for its congregation has been sold for $517,000 at an auction on Thursday.

The value of the 1866 proof Liberty Head double eagles coin that was donated to GracePoint Church in Valparaiso was initially estimated at $300,000, but it fetched $517,000 at a public auction in Illinois.

GracePoint, which was founded in 2009, has been conducting its services at an elementary school. The anonymous woman donated the coin earlier this year as "seed money" for the construction of its own church building, NBC 5 reported.

According to mint records, only 30 proof Liberty double eagles were struck in 1866, and the coin donated by the woman was one of only 10 survivors.

"The coin is one of only 10 known surviving Liberty Head double eagles from 1866 with the 'In God We Trust' motto engraved in it," Sarah Miller, director of numismatics for Heritage Auctions, stated.

"It is expected to sell for $300,000 or more in a public auction in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois and online, April 27, 2017," she noted in a news release earlier this month.

Prior to the auction, Heritage wired $150,000 as an advance payment toward the final price of the coin, enabling the church to begin construction on the new building.

The church was able to avoid missing a crucial financial deadline for the project because of the donation. However, the donation almost did not happen as someone tried to steal it from the donor's home four years ago.

Ben Lamb, the church's pastor, said that the woman considered the coin as a "thorn in her side," but he described it as an "incredible gift in God's story."

The woman told CBS News that the coin was bought for $125,000 decades ago by her late husband who was an avid coin collector.

"Although this gold piece brought grief to the widow for many years, ultimately it brought incredible joy," he said.

"It's ironic that the last few hours before our financial deadline, the congregation had to do exactly what the coin's motto said over a hundred years ago: trust God," Lamb added.

Plans for the new church building include an auditorium for more than 500 people, a kid's center, and a lobby.
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Supermarket colleagues became family for Andy Hughes, who has died with no known next of kin.

So staff and friends at Stroud's Tesco supermarket have stepped up, and are organising the wake to celebrate the life of their colleague Andy Hughes.

And the Tesco's team are desperate to trace any members of his family.

They've stepped up into the role of family, and even hope to create a memorial at the store in Stratford Road, where Andy worked for 27 years. They'd like to put a memorial bench and rose bush in a quiet corner of the car park.

Andy was one of the original members of staff who had worked there since the store opened in 1990.

He died aged 55, on March 26 of respiratory failure.

Since then his colleagues have been desperately trying to trace any of his family.

Tesco's records list his mother, who lived in Chalford, as his next of kin, but she died around a decade ago.

In order for us to give Andy a memorial we need any family to come forward," said Helen Skinner, people manager at Tesco in Stroud.

We're looking for any long lost relatives. We just want to give Andy the remembrance he deserves.

The supermarket is already hosting a wake for Andy on Friday.

His funeral service will be at Gloucester Crematorium on Friday 5 May at 10am, and will be followed by a wake for friends and colleagues at Tesco on Stratford Road to which all are welcome.

He was a much-loved member of the team said Helen.

There wasn't anyone here who didn't know Andy. He was always enthusiastic about getting involved. He would dress up for any of the special events we had, like Children in Need.

We have a photo of him in a bath of beans.

He also used to love spending time making models, particularly planes, trains and automobiles."

Andy lived in sheltered accommodation in Gloucester and died on March 26. Since then Tesco's team has been trying to trace family, including employing a genealogist.

It's only right that we look after one of our own. He thought of his colleagues here as family and we have had many customers asking about him," said Helen.

Previously Andy lived on Stratford Road and his late parents lived in Chalford.

Anyone with details about relatives of Andy Hughes should email Helen.Skinner@uk.tesco.com.
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Primark looks set to launch a new range for brides.

The retail giant has teased the collection on social media this week, posting pictures of a few items, as spotted by the Liverpool Echo.

From what could be seen, the range includes bridal underwear, with a dressing down embellished with 'Mrs' on the back.



Cushions and mugs also look set to be included to help celebrate your big day. The items in the range are set to cost between 5 and 10.



No sign yet of an actual Primark wedding dress, though.

And sexy lingerie for the wedding night

Despite the fact the range has not been released yet, the range has caused something of a stir on Twitter already.

Primark has confirmed the launch date for its shops in Ireland, but it is yet to confirm when it will be arriving in the UK.
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'Willy', 'thingy', and 'flower' are just some of the nicknames parents use to describe their children's body parts.

But the NHS are now trying to put a stop to this.

Sexual health experts are warning that using nicknames to describe genitals can inhibit young children's natural curiosity about their bodies and stop them from asking questions.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) explained on their website that using terms like 'pee-pee' or 'mini' instead of penis or vulva can be "really confusing."

Instead, they suggest that parents should be more straight forward with their language, even with children of an early age.

Jill Wilson, health improvement lead at Scotland's leading sexual health clinic, Sandyford, said, "Many adults were not taught these words growing up and can feel uncomfortable using them as they can be thought of as 'sexual' words.

"Young children do not have these associations and usually consider these words to be as normal as 'hand' and 'leg'.

"Most parents want their kids to direct their curious questions to them but sometimes we need a hand with how to answer them."

A short video has been released on a brand new website, alongside advice on how to tackle the topic, with hopes it will encourage parents to use 'proper' language with their children.

In the clip, a dad looks shocked as his daughter describes male and female genitalia as "penis" and "vulva" but later agrees that these are the correct terms to use.

The NHS Choices website confirms this adding that, "Children are naturally curious about their bodies and other people.

"By answering any questions they ask, you can help them understand their bodies, their feelings and other people's feelings. This is a good basis for open and honest communication about sex and relationships, growing up and going through puberty."
Market Growth in an Aging Japan

Replay

The worlds most aged society is facing an unprecedented demographic shift, with important lessons for other developed countries. The share of Japans population over the age of 70 is expected to surge to 24% by the end of the decade, while its young and working-age populations shrink and immigration stagnates. Goldman Sachs Researchs Sho Kawano explains the potential economic implications, from greater healthcare demand to M&A activity in Japans small-business-dominated economy.
Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture Exchange: CZX) is pleased to announce that it has finalized plans for the upcoming 2017 exploration program on the Akie property. The Company has outlined a comprehensive up to 7,500 metre diamond drill program that will focus primarily on its Cardiac Creek deposit.

The Company owns 100% of eleven, large, contiguous property blocks that comprise the Akie and Kechika Regional projects. The Companys flagship Akie Project is host to the Cardiac Creek deposit. The Kechika Regional Project includes the Pie, Yuen, Cirque East and Mt. Alcock properties extending northwest from the Akie property for approximately 140 kilometres covering the highly prospective Gunsteel Formation shale; the main host rock for known SEDEX zinc-lead-silver deposits in the Kechika Trough of northeastern British Columbia. These projects are located approximately 260 kilometres north northwest of the town of Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada.

The 2017 Exploration Plan

Logistical planning for the 2017 exploration program is currently underway with contractual arrangements being finalized with several service providers.

The Company has engaged Canadian Helicopters Ltd. of Edmonton, Alberta, to provide helicopter services for the duration of the exploration program. Canadian Helicopters Ltd. has bases located throughout the interior of British Columbia including; Smithers, Fort St. John and Terrace, and is strategically located to support the program. Canadian Helicopters Ltd. recently provided similar services to Teck at its Cirque Project located approximately 20 kilometres from the Akie property; as such they are familiar with the local terrain and expected weather conditions.

The Company has also engaged Western Exploration Drilling Ltd. of Kamloops, British Columbia to once again provide drilling services to the project. Western Exploration Drilling Ltd. has provided drilling services to the Akie project over the course of four exploration seasons since 2011 and has been instrumental in allowing the Company to effectively and efficiently define the Cardiac Creek deposit, and explore the Akie property. In addition to the drilling and helicopter companies the Company is currently finalizing arrangements with several other key service providers.

Diamond Drilling Program

The 2017 exploration program will focus on the Cardiac Creek stratiform Zn-Pb-Ag deposit located on the Akie property. The Company plans on mobilizing two drills to the Akie property to complete a comprehensive up to 7,500 metre diamond drilling program in 2017. Up to 5,000 metres of drilling will target the Cardiac Creek deposit with a focus on expanding the down-dip limits of the high-grade core of the deposit as well as other expansion targets down-dip and along strike. An additional up to 2,500 metres of drilling will be allocated for infill targets across the deposit with the primary objective of providing additional material for subsequent metallurgical lab testing.

Additional exploration drill targets across the Akie property will be considered and include: the North Lead Zone where previous drilling intersected extensive intervals of bedded pyrite mineralisation that were highly anomalous in zinc and a thin massive sulphide lens; the South Zinc Anomaly which is defined by a large (~2 kilometre by 500 metre) zinc-in-soil anomaly; and the Sitka Showing located on the eastern edge of the Akie property that is characterized by a thick barite sequence hosting disseminated coarse grained galena and sphalerite.

The diamond drill program is expected to start early June and continue through to end of September.

Mr. Peeyush Varshney, President and CEO of the Company, stated, "We are pleased with the progress we have made in finalizing our exploration targets at Akie and look forward to soon mobilizing the drill rigs for commencement of drilling.

The Akie Zn-Pb-Ag Project

The Companys flagship Akie property is situated within the Kechika Trough, the southernmost area of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.

Drilling on the Akie property by Canada Zinc Metals since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead-silver SEDEX mineralisation known as the Cardiac Creek deposit. The deposit is hosted by siliceous, carbonaceous, fine grained clastic rocks of the middle to late Devonian Gunsteel Formation.

The Company has outlined a NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource at Cardiac Creek, including an indicated resource of 19.6 million tonnes grading 8.2% zinc, 1.6% lead and 13.6 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut-off grade) and an inferred resource of 8.1 million tonnes grading 6.8% zinc, 1.1% lead and 11.2 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut-off grade).

Ken MacDonald P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.

The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

CANADA ZINC METALS CORP.

PEEYUSH VARSHNEY

PEEYUSH VARSHNEY, LL.B

CEO & CHAIRMAN

To view this press release as a PDF file, click onto the following link:public://news_release_pdf/CanadaZincMay12017.pdfSource: Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture:CZX)

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Copyright  2017 Filing Services Canada Inc.
LAKEWOOD, Colo., May 1, 2017 /CNW/ -- General Moly Inc. (the "Company" or "General Moly") (NYSE MKT and TSX: GMO) announced its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017. The Company ended the quarter with a cash balance of approximately $7.1 million as compared to $8.5 million at year-end 2016. The Company is well positioned with financial liquidity to fund its current business activities and working capital needs into the second quarter of 2018.

First quarter highlights:

The Company maintained the quarterly cash burn rate for Corporate and Liberty Project costs at an estimated $1.5 million per quarter. The Company forecasts that it has the ability to fund its current business plans and working capital into the second quarter of 2018, excluding potential additional equity investments from AMER International Group Inc. ("AMER") or other potential strategic partners;

At the Mt. Hope Project, our 80% owned joint venture operating company Eureka Moly, LLC ("EMLLC") ended the first quarter of 2017 with a restricted cash balance of $12.0 million (100% basis) compared to $13.0 at year end 2016 in a cash reserve account, and remains self-funded through 2021 based on projected care and maintenance expenses.

The Company reported a net loss for the three months ending March 31, 2017 of $1.9 million ($0.02 per share), compared to a net loss of $2.2 million ($0.02 per share) for the same prior year period. The decrease in quarterly net loss was primarily due to the Company's ongoing cost-cutting measures.

Bruce D. Hansen, Chief Executive Officer, said, "We remain focused on progressing efforts to reinstate our permits for water rights at the Mt. Hope Project and working with the Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") to resolve the technical deficiencies noted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ("Ninth Circuit") concerning the baseline air quality requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA") and complete a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to obtain the reissuance of our Record of Decision ("ROD"). In addition to advancing the Mt. Hope Project, we are continuing to progress efforts with our strategic partner AMER and others as we review value accretive base metals and molybdenum related opportunities. We have seen the molybdenum price increase by over 30% year to date to trade at approaching $9/lb and anticipate an improved molybdenum market going forward as we see the oil market stabilize and energy related steel production increasing. In addition, general construction and infrastructure development bodes well for the molybdenum market as global steel production grew over 5% in the quarter."

Mr. Hansen continued, "On April 17, 2017, the Company and AMER entered into a First Amendment to the AMER warrant extending the deadline two months for satisfaction of all conditions to vesting of the warrant. We appreciate our continuing relationship with AMER, and agreed to a short extension of the expiration of the warrant while we discuss a longer-term modification of our agreements, supportive of our strategic partnership."

Lastly, Mr. Hansen concluded, "As we look forward, we continue to take decisive cost-cutting actions that better position our Company to advance development when market conditions improve and expect to average approximately $1.5 million in spend per quarter going forward in 2017."

Table 1: Financial Summary

($ and Shares in 000, Except Per Share and Molybdenum Price) 1Q 2017 1Q 2016 1Q YOY

Variance Exploration & evaluation expenses $ 137 $ 546 -75% General and administrative expenses, including non-cash stock compensation 1,508 1,362 11% Total Operating Expenses 1,645 1,908 -14% Interest expense (288) (249) n.a. Net Loss $ (1,933) $ (2,157) -10% Net Loss Per Share $ (0.02) $ (0.02) 0% Avg. Weighted Shares Outstanding 111,087 110,356 1%

Table 2: Balance Sheet Summary

($ in 000) Mar 31, 2017 Dec 31, 2016 Cash and Cash Equivalents $ 7,136 $ 8,470 Current Assets 7,232 8,559 Current Liabilities 1,482 1,520 Working Capital 5,750 7,039 Restricted cash held at EMLLC 12,016 13,025 Other restricted cash 1,867 1,957 Total Assets 335,563 337,286





Long term debt 1,340 1,340 Sr. convertible notes 5,646 5,540 Return of contributions payable to POS-Minerals 33,641 33,641 Other liabilities 12,947 12,912 Long term liabilities 53,574 53,433





Contingently Redeemable Non-controlling Interest 172,649 172,659 Total Shareholders' Equity $ 107,858 $ 109,674

Mt. Hope Project Water Rights and Permits Update

As described in the Company's previous news release, on December 28, 2016 the Ninth Circuit issued its Opinion rejecting many of the arguments raised by the Plaintiffs challenging the Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS") completed for the Mt. Hope Project, but issued a narrow reversal of the BLM's findings related to air quality analysis. Because of this technical deficiency, the Court vacated the ROD, and will require additional evaluation of air quality impacts and resulting cumulative impact analysis under NEPA before a supplemental EIS can support a new ROD. The Company is confident in the BLM's process and is working closely with the agency to resolve technical matters with air quality baseline studies raised by the Ninth Circuit. Thereafter, we look forward to completing the necessary NEPA public review of the supplemental EIS to receive a new ROD for the eventual construction and operation of the Mt. Hope Project.

Regarding Mt. Hope water rights, on March 14, 2016 we received the District Court for the County of Eureka, Nevada's Order, on remand from the Nevada Supreme Court, vacating the Monitoring, Management, and Mitigation (3M) Plan, denying the water applications and vacating the water permits issued by the Nevada State Engineer. The State Engineer has filed an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court concerning the District Court's interpretation of the Supreme Court's Opinion and has also argued that the District Court acted in excess of its judicial authority in violation of Nevada's Constitution and Statutes. The Company has filed a similar appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. The Nevada Supreme Court recently ordered oral argument, reset to take place on Monday, May 1st, the date of this release. We look forward to receiving the decision by the Nevada Supreme Court and continue to seek opportunities to work with the State Engineer to define a process for reobtaining permits for water rights at the Mt. Hope project.

Mt. Hope Project Engineering and Equipment Procurement

Engineering remains approximately 65% complete at the Mt. Hope Project. Currently, there is no ongoing engineering and procurement effort. The Company anticipates it will re-initiate its engineering and procurement programs once market conditions allow for full Mt. Hope Project financing.

Through March 31, 2017, $87.4 million in payments on equipment orders have been funded by EMLLC, which has now ordered or purchased most of the long-lead milling equipment, haul trucks, and mine production drills, and has maintained an ongoing letter of intent preserving deposits and indexed pricing for the purchase of two electric shovels.

The Company has extended these agreements to delay delivery of the haul trucks, drills, and electric shovels until late 2017/2018 and will continue to work with these vendors to further extend if necessary until the Company obtains financing for construction of the Mt. Hope Project.

2017 Outlook and Priorities

General Moly's priorities for 2017 are to:

Prudently manage financial liquidity and flexibility to sustain the Company over the medium term, including continued stringent cost management throughout the organization, rescheduling of equipment procurement, and funding of current business activities into the second quarter of 2018, excluding potential additional equity investments from AMER or other potential strategic partners.

Leverage the Company's technical and financial skills and expertise to work jointly with AMER and others to identify value-accretive acquisition opportunities with a focus on base metal and ferro-alloy prospects in the western hemisphere;

Effect reinstatement of the ROD, and reissuance of permits for water rights at the Mt. Hope Project which would lead to the Tranche 2 investment of $6.0 million by AMER, contingent on a molybdenum price trading at or above $8 per pound for 30 consecutive calendar days, and the restoration of our water permits by the State Engineer.

About General Moly

General Moly is a U.S.-based molybdenum mineral development, exploration and mining company listed on the NYSE MKT and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol GMO. The Company's primary asset, an 80% interest in the Mt. Hope Project located in central Nevada, is considered one of the world's largest and highest grade molybdenum deposits. Combined with the Company's wholly-owned Liberty Project, a molybdenum and copper property also located in central Nevada, General Moly's goal is to become the largest pure play primary molybdenum producer in the world.

Contact:

Scott Roswell

(303) 928-8591

info@generalmoly.com

Website: www.generalmoly.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements herein that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and are intended to be covered by the safe harbor created by such sections. Such forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated, expected, or implied by the Company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to metals price and production volatility, global economic conditions, currency fluctuations, increased production costs and variances in ore grade or recovery rates from those assumed in mining plans, exploration risks and results, political, operational and project development risks, including the Company's ability to obtain a re-grant of its water permits and Record of Decision, ability to maintain required federal and state permits to continue construction, and commence production, ability to raise required project financing, ability to respond to adverse governmental regulation and judicial outcomes, and ability to maintain and /or adjust estimates related to cost of production, capital, operating and exploration expenditures. For a detailed discussion of risks and other factors that may impact these forward looking statements, please refer to the Risk Factors and other discussion contained in the Company's quarterly and annual periodic reports on Forms 10-Q and 10-K, on file with the SEC. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/general-moly-reports-first-quarter-2017-results-300448196.html

SOURCE General Moly Inc.
CALGARY, ALBERTA and HONOLULU, HAWAII--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - Eguana Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:EGT)(OTCQB:EGTYF) announced today that it has received an additional C$2.5M purchase order for its residential AC battery for the Hawaiian Customer Self Supply program from its partner E-Gear LLC.

"E-Gear installations began within days of being granted the expedited permitting approval process for the AC Battery and we are now seeing predictability within the sales and ordering cycle for solar+storage in Hawaii," said Justin Holland, CEO of Eguana. "Creating consistent and growing baseline demand with our factory integrated and certified AC Battery was a crucial step for the Company and our expectation is to see quarter over quarter growth from the Hawaiian market as the state drives toward its 100% renewable energy target."

The Company also noted that E-Gear LLC has begun signing dealers in California and continues to expand its network in the State with installations planned for this summer. California installers are scrambling to adopt more sophisticated energy storage solutions to meet the advanced Rule 21 interconnection requirements which are set to become mandatory in September 2017. Many of the power control solutions that have been utilized for backup power focused systems in the past currently do not meet the new grid interactive requirements. The Company has confirmed development and testing has been completed for the AC Battery and BiDirex platforms to meet all Rule 21 interconnection changes. "The flexibility in our patented technology allows us to respond very quickly to constantly changing grid interconnection requirements, both platforms already meet or exceed the new rules" Holland added.

About E-Gear, LLC

E-Gear, LLC is a renewable energy innovation company offering proprietary patented and patent pending edge-of-grid energy management and storage solutions. These systems provide intelligent real-time adaptive control, flexibility, visibility, predictability and support to energy generating customers, renewable energy solution providers, energy service companies (ESCO's) and Utilities.

About The AC Battery:

The Eguana AC Battery is a certified, grid ready power control solution pre-integrated with LG Chem Li-ion batteries. Our solution can be seamlessly integrated with a local energy management system or a distributed fleet control network using open communication protocols to provide a fully functional energy storage installation. The AC Battery provides maximum flexibility for system aggregators which want to deploy it as a standalone product, as part of new solar storage installations, or as a retrofit to solar PV installations already in place.

About Eguana Technologies Inc.

Eguana Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE:EGT) designs and manufactures high performance power controls for residential and commercial energy storage systems. Eguana has more than 15 years' experience delivering grid edge power electronics for fuel cell, photovoltaic and battery applications and delivers proven, durable, high quality solutions from its high capacity manufacturing facilities in Europe and North America.

With thousands of its proprietary energy storage inverters deployed in the European and North American markets, Eguana is the leading supplier of power controls for solar self-consumption, grid services and demand charge applications at the grid edge.

To learn more, visit www.EguanaTech.com or follow us on Twitter @EguanaTech

Forward Looking Information

The reader is advised that some of the information herein may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning assigned by National Instruments 51-102 and other relevant securities legislation. In particular, we include: statements pertaining to the value of our power controls to the energy storage market and statements concerning the use of proceeds and the Company's ability to obtain necessary approvals from the TSX Venture Exchange.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and involves a number of risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements, or future events or developments, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speaks only as of the date hereof. Readers are also directed to the Risk Factors section of the Company's most recent audited Financial Statements which may be found on its website or at sedar.com The Company does not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions to forward-looking information contained herein to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - West Kirkland Mining Inc. (TSX VENTURE:WKM)(OTCQB:WKLDF) ("West Kirkland" or the "Company") today announces that a Limited Liability Corporation Agreement (the "LLC Agreement") governing the Hasbrouck Gold Project (the "Hasbrouck Project"), located near Tonopah, Nevada has been executed between the Company and Clover Nevada LLC, a Nevada limited liability company and 100% subsidiary of Waterton Precious Metals Fund II Cayman, LP ("Waterton"), who acquired a 25% interest in the Hasbrouck Project in 2015. West Kirkland owns a 75% interest and is the operator of the Hasbrouck Project. The LLC Agreement formally ratifies the relationship between the two owners. Under the terms of the LLC agreement Waterton is required to fund their 25% share of expenditures on the Hasbrouck Project incurred subsequent to September 1, 2016. Waterton has indicated their intention to fund their 25% share of expenditures. However, should Waterton choose not to fund their share of expenditures, their interest will be diluted according to a prescribed formula in the LLC agreement.

The Hasbrouck Gold Project has received all the permits to construct and operate the first phase of the open pit, heap leach gold recovery operation at the Three Hills pit. Work continues on the permitting for the second phase of the project at the larger Hasbrouck pit.

A 2015 Pre-Feasibility Study estimated open pit reserves for the Hasbrouck Project. The mineral resource and reserve estimate was prepared in conformance with NI 43-101 by Mine Development Associates ("MDA"). Proven and Probable reserves (based on 100% of the project) total 45.3 million tons containing 762,000 ounces gold and 10.6 million ounces silver as detailed below:

Hasbrouck Project Reserves June 3, 2015, Mine Development Associates Three Hills K tons Grade

(oz Au/ ton) K oz Au oz Ag/ton K oz Ag 0.005 opt

Au cut-off Proven - - - - - Probable 9,653 0.018 175 - - P&P 9,653 0.018 175 - - Hasbrouck Variable Proven 6,242 0.020 127 0.410 2,562 Probable 29,374 0.016 461 0.273 8,007 P&P 35,617 0.017 588 0.297 10,569 Total Hasbrouck Project Variable Proven 6,242 0.020 127 0.410 2,562 Probable 39,028 0.016 635 0.205 8,007 P&P 45,270 0.017 762 0.233 10,569

Notes:

The estimation and classification of Proven and Probable reserves have been prepared by Thomas L. Dyer, P.E., of MDA following CIM standards.

Reserves are estimated based on $1,225/oz gold and $17.50/oz silver.

Cutoff grades used for reserves are: Three Hills 0.005 oz Au/ton, Hasbrouck Upper Siebert 0.008 oz Au/ton, and Hasbrouck Lower Siebert 0.007 oz Au/ton.

It is MDA's opinion that the sampling, assaying, and security procedures used at Three Hills and Hasbrouck follow industry standard procedures, and are adequate for the estimation of the current mineral reserves.

MDA completed audits of the database, performed a site visit, reviewed QAQC data and confirmed historic assays. After performing their review, they consider the assay data to be adequate for the estimation of the current mineral reserves.

MDA has reviewed and verified the data disclosed in the above table to be in conformity with generally accepted CIM "Estimation of Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves Best Practices" guidelines in accordance with NI 43-101.

ABOUT THE HASBROUCK GOLD PROJECT

Hasbrouck Gold Project consists of two all-oxide gold-silver deposits eight kilometers apart. Both deposits will be mined in open pits having low stripping ratios and minimal pre-stripping should the project proceed to production.

West Kirkland's independent consultants, MDA, produced an updated Pre-feasibility Study in September 2016 which is available on SEDAR and at www.wkmining.com. All necessary permits to construct and operate the Three Hills Mine are in hand, and work to obtain permits for the Hasbrouck Mine is ongoing, with submission of a Plan of Operation to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) targeted for Q4, 2017.

QUALIFIED PERSON

R. Michael Jones, P.Eng, CEO for West Kirkland Mining is a non-independent Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. He has reviewed the information contained in this news release and has verified the data by hiring qualified geologists and engineers and has completed a review of the detailed technical information. Mineral reserve information in this news release has been developed and approved by Thomas L. Dyer, P.E., of MDA following CIM standards.

QUALITY ASSURANCE/QUALITY CONTROL

West Kirkland Mining utilizes a well-documented system of inserting blanks and standards into the assay stream and has a strict chain of custody. Assays are completed at independent laboratories which have internal quality assurance and quality control systems and procedures. Assays were performed by ALS Chemex Labs Ltd., by fire assay and ICP methods.

ABOUT WEST KIRKLAND MINING INC.

West Kirkland owns a 75% interest in the Hasbrouck Gold Project in Tonopah, Nevada. A Pre-feasibility Study with construction-level drawings and all federal and state permits for the phase-one Three Hills Mine provides a ready-to-construct project. Drilling for potential expansion is underway. West Kirkland also holds a 60% interest in the open pit heap-leach TUG Gold Project in Utah in joint venture with Newmont.

On behalf of West Kirkland Mining Inc.

R. Michael Jones, Chief Executive Officer

For further information, please see the Company's website at www.wkmining.com or contact us by email at info@wkmining.com.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "postulate" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Forward-looking information in this news release includes, without limitation, the completion of the Prefeasibility Study, the project approach of the Prefeasibility Study and exploration and all information under the heading "Prefeasibility Study Detail", including the Prefeasibility Study budget. Although West Kirkland believes that such timing and expenses as set out in this press release are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations and estimates will prove to be correct. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by the Company is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking information as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the state of the financial markets for the Company's equity securities, the state of the market for gold or other minerals that may be produced generally, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, the Company's ability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies and other risks associated with the exploration and development of mineral properties. The reader is referred to the Company's public filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects which may be accessed through the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
On May 13th Cubariqueno Cigar Company will soft launch its new 2017 releases at Berkeley Humidor in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. At the same time, Cubariqueno will also launch a new brand called Guadalupe  which will be a limited edition shop exclusive for Berkeley Humidor.

The Guadalupe will be a come in one size  a 6 x 52 box pressed Toro packaged in ten count soft bundles. Details of the blend are not being disclosed. Like all offerings from Cubariqueno Cigar Company, the cigar is being produced at Erik Espinosas La Zona factory in Esteli, Nicaragua.

In addition to the debut of Guadalupe, Cubariqueno is soft launching the new Connecticut Shade Protocol Themis and the new Protocol Probable Cause Lancero. Erik Espinosa, owner of La Zona will be in attendance for the May 13th event along with Cubariqueno partners Juan Cancel, Bill Ives, and Bill Agathis.

Image Credit: Cubariqueno Cigar Company
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Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett began to sob in a federal courtroom Friday as she struggled to explain where "the tipping point" was that led her down a path of corruption.The pressure of leading the nation's third-largest school system was enormous, she said. The mayor had shuttered dozens of schools, there was a bitter teachers strike, relentless budget issues and students dying virtually every day from gun violence. Still, those stresses were no excuse for lining her own pockets, she said."Oh, your honor, I wish I had magic words or a better explanation," said Byrd-Bennett, her voice cracking as she stood at the lectern reading from prepared notes.Prosecutors, however, said the motive was simple to explain: "Naked greed."In the end, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang sentenced Byrd-Bennett to 4 1/2 years in prison for scheming to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks in return for steering lucrative contracts to SUPES Academy, an education consulting firm where she had formerly worked.The hourlong hearing capped a stunning fall from grace for Byrd-Bennett, who was considered a star in urban education when Mayor Rahm Emanuel handpicked her to lead the city's cash-strapped school district.In handing down the sentence, Chang said he needed to send a message to other public officials and corrupt vendors that they face significant time behind bars if they're caught defrauding the public for their own financial gain. It's a message that so far has not gotten through, the judge said."It's distressing that Chicago has not -- and seems unable to -- shed its image of public corruption," Chang said to dozens of spectators packed into his 21st-floor courtroom. "The people are waiting to find out if Chicago can ever be a city that works for its people and not for corrupt officials and people willing to pay bribes."Despite the stern talk, Chang's sentence was three years less than what prosecutors had requested and also well below the seven-year term given to SUPES co-founder Gary Solomon, who has been described by prosecutors as the mastermind of the kickback scheme but was not a public official.In cutting her somewhat of a break, Chang cited Byrd-Bennett's age -- she turns 68 in July -- and ultimate cooperation with authorities in the investigation, as well as the dozens of letters he received extolling her life's work as an educator.Still, Byrd-Bennett needs to serve significant prison time because her corruption "infected the public education system" and made citizens more cynical that city officials are working on their behalf, Chang said."You know better than most that this is not some abstraction," Chang told Byrd-Bennett. "It's a real and concrete problem."Earlier Friday, Chang sentenced Byrd-Bennett's co-defendant, former SUPES official Thomas Vranas, to 18 months in prison for his role in the massive bribery scandal.Byrd-Bennett pleaded guilty in October 2015 to a single count of wire fraud. She admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors to steering more than $23 million in no-bid contracts to SUPES.In exchange for Byrd-Bennett's influence, Solomon and Vranas gave her tickets to sporting events, meals and other perks, but no cash actually exchanged hands. Instead, Byrd-Bennett was promised hundreds of thousands of dollars as a "signing bonus" once she left her duties at CPS and rejoined SUPES as a consultant, her plea deal said. The bonus was to be concealed in trust accounts set up in the names her twin grandsons -- with the cash available to her once she left CPS.A CPS committee set up to evaluate no-bid contracts initially balked at awarding SUPES a noncompetitive deal but later approved the plan, records show.In pushing for the contracts, Byrd-Bennett admitted she lied to other CPS administrators, telling them she had no financial connection with the company. When one district official raised concerns about the no-bid deal, Byrd-Bennett effectively had him fired, according to court records.Much of the case centered on emails sent between Solomon and Byrd-Bennett that seemed to make no effort to conceal the alleged kickback scheme.Solomon told Byrd-Bennett in one 2012 email, "If you only join for the day, you will be the highest paid person on the planet for that day. Regardless, it will be paid out on day one," according to court records.In another message, Byrd-Bennett implied she needed cash because she had "tuition to pay and casinos to visit," records show.In court Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Church said the email exchanges gave the whole scheme an air of ridiculousness."How could anyone be so stupid to send emails that are so open, so brazen about exchanging money for official action?" Church said.Chang agreed, saying he was startled by the "casualness" of the corruption."The emails were even sprinkled with humor, of all things," Chang said. "It sends a signal to the court that you and Mr. Solomon didn't think you were going to get caught."While Byrd-Bennett became the public face of the scandal, the Tribune had reported previously that Solomon's ties to the Emanuel administration go back to the beginning of Emanuel's tenure in office, predating the arrival of Byrd-Bennett. In fact, Solomon helped recruit Emanuel's first schools CEO, Jean-Claude Brizard, at the request of the mayor-elect's transition team in February 2011.Solomon went on to recommend Byrd-Bennett, who was the lead trainer at SUPES when CPS hired her as chief education officer in April 2012.Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins said in an emailed statement Friday that Byrd-Bennett had "betrayed the public trust.""She broke the law," Collins said. "She turned her back on the very children she was entrusted to serve, and the children of Chicago are owed much better than that."Byrd-Bennett left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse without comment Friday, ignoring questions from reporters as she stepped into a gray minivan waiting on South Dearborn Street. Chang ordered her to report to prison on Aug. 28.Before he was sentenced earlier Friday, Vranas, 36, read a short statement to the court, apologizing to the schools, the students "and the citizens of Chicago" for all the harm he caused."What I did was wrong," Vranas said as his wife cried softly in the courtroom gallery with relatives and supporters. "I will regret it for the rest of my life."In arguing for probation, his attorneys noted that it was Vranas' truthful cooperation that allowed prosecutors to uncover the scope of a fraud that Byrd-Bennett initially lied about when confronted by FBI agents two years ago.But Church, the prosecutor, said Vranas played an important role as "the guy behind the scenes getting the work done," hiding money and making sure that Byrd-Bennett was taken care of with payoffs they expected to still be coming for years in the future."He was all-in, judge," Church said. "This wasn't a simple mistake or a one-time lapse in judgment."
The Affordable Care Act (ACA), a signature achievement of President Obama, represents one of the biggest overhauls of the modern health system. Implementing it was, and still is, one of the greatest challenges facing policymakers and health-care leaders alike.Regardless of its fate as Congress tries to repeal and replace the law, and regardless of a person's feelings about what many call "Obamacare," there are lessons to be learned from the execution of such a large-scale and wide-ranging change to government and industry.To get a sense of those lessons, two health policy experts surveyed a variety of state leaders -- including governors, legislators and Medicaid directors. Their findings were published last month by the Milbank Memorial Fund.For states, the creation of online marketplaces and the expansion of Medicaid -- if they chose to do so -- required the biggest undertaking. Policy analysts had to be hired; IT contracts had to be procured; and educational campaigns had to be launched."Even states with large bureaucracies and a tradition of policy innovation could not be expected to possess all the needed professional expertise, the human and financial resources and the institutional infrastructure required for this extraordinary situation," the report notes.Exchanges are up and running, and every state has had a decrease in the number of uninsured because of the law. But getting to that point was more difficult for some states than others.Oregon, for example, had such substantial technical difficulties with its exchange that it was mired in lawsuits with the contractors who built it and eventually abolished it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the three critical factors that officials said swayed the degree of success they had were money, expertise and political support (or lack thereof).It was clear in some states, without that input from the executive office, nothing would have happened, says Pierre-Gerlier Forest, co-author of the report and director of the school of public policy at the University of Calgary.This is most evident in states' decisions on whether to expand Medicaid to more low-income people. Without the support of a governor, Medicaid expansion was dead on arrival. In many states, governors were on board with the idea but couldn't convince their lawmakers. In some of these states, legislators eventually warmed up to Medicaid expansion and agreed to implement it, just later than their peers.Seven years after the law was first signed, these debates are still happening. Several states have re-examined the prospect of expanding Medicaid since congressional Republicans' first replacement bill failed to garner enough support to be voted on.In Kansas, for example, Gov. Sam Brownback recently vetoed a Medicaid expansion bill. The legislature has signaled that it will revisit the issue, but David Helms, co-author of the study and professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University, says that without the governor's support, its hard to move."In some states, disagreements between the governor and lawmakers pushed policy changes forward. Just look at Arkansas.The state's leaders cooperated and compromised to "make parts of this law work for all of us," says John Selig, the former head of the state's Department of Human Services. Together, they pioneered the so-called private option, which became a model for several other states with split leadership.Leaders in Kentucky, another state with split leadership at the time, came together to create what many say was the national example for a well-run marketplace. It was dismantled, though, by newly-elected Gov. Matt Bevin in 2016.Health care is complex, and many of its experts work outside of government. One of the other huge obstacles to a smooth implementation, officials commonly said, was not being able to afford the best and brightest minds in the field.How do you acquire qualified enough staff when you have procurement standards that dont afford the ability to hire the people you want? says Forest.In some instances, officials complained that it wasn't necessarily the quality of their staff but the quantity.Its clear to me that a legislature that tries to reduce the size of government generally removes policy and analytical positions, and that removes the capacity to get things done, says Chuck Hunter, former minority leader of the Montana state House.When states did struggle to afford the necessary brainpower, a somewhat hidden player often stepped in: foundations. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund and the Kaiser Family Foundation are a few examples of organizations that filled either financial or analytical gaps.There is no equivalent elsewhere in the world," says Forest. "Its a real strength of the U.S. system that it has these national foundations as levers."The Milbank Memorial Fund created the Reforming States Group, a bipartisan group of state leaders who met regularly to discuss challenges in implementing the ACA. State leaders say those opportunities to meet and talk freely were invaluable.That kind of networking in a nonpartisan way exposed me to what was and wasnt working in other states," says Hunter. "I can say it was critically important to what we ended up doing in Montana."Helms, the report's co-author, says the law has forced some state lawmakers to put their own political careers on the line. Its something he says policymakers haven't been given enough credit for.We havent fully appreciated what it was like for these state leaders under such political pressure, especially in states with split control in their state legislatures. They were always under the political gun. Now we have 24 million more people covered."The Milbank Quarterly.
Alaska is the largest state in the nation yet it has one of the smallest populations. Because of how rural and spread out it is, health-care providers are hard to find, expensive air ambulances are commonly used for transporting people in emergencies, and many patients have to travel 2,000 miles away for specialists in Seattle."It's not a good recipe for affordable health care," says Tim Jost, emeritus professor of health policy at Washington and Lee University.Indeed it isn't. The state has the nation's highest premiums, at an average monthly cost of $904 , for people who use the health exchange marketplace set up by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as "Obamacare."At a time when the national average premium for this year was expected to rise 25 percent, Alaska was staring down a 42 percent increase. State leaders knew they had to intervene quickly. They came up with a plan that reduced the rise in premiums to just 7 percent, and it's now being touted as a model for other states.Instead of continuing to send all of its tax revenue from insurance plans to the general fund, Alaska diverted $55 million into a reinsurance fund that pays for high-cost claims from the sickest patients with Premera, the states only insurer on the marketplace. The changed convinced Premera to lower its premiums by $56 million, saving money for consumers and the federal government, which subsidizes most marketplace premiums.But it's just a two-year deal. Going forward, the state wants the federal government's help.In December, Alaska asked the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS) to fund the reinsurance program for the next five years. In a letter to governors last month , Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price referred to Alaska's proposal as "an opportunity for states to lower premiums for consumers, improve market stability, and increase consumer choice."Lori Wing-Heier, Alaskas insurance commissioner, expects the Trump administration to approve the waiver and fund around 85 percent of their request.It wont be dollar-for-dollar, but its a significant portion of what we need to fund it, she says.The idea is already catching on in other states and will likely attract more attention if the feds agree to offer financial aid.Minnesota released a draft of its reinsurance waiver application on Friday and will let the public comment on it for 30 days. In Oklahoma, where premiums increased 76 percent this year, a bill that would also create a reinsurance program similar to Alaska's is making its way through the legislature. The state is waiting on an actuarial assessment that will determine how much it would actually cost and how much it would save.Pending positive results on those two fronts, Oklahoma will send its reinsurance waiver to CMS as soon as possible. Mike Rhoades, the state's deputy insurance commissioner, says that federal officials have expressed openness to expediting the application process.Were not as far along as Alaska, but were ahead of the curve, he says.Before every state insurance commissioner drafts plans for a reinsurance program, there are some things to consider. Since Alaska has such high premiums, other states might not see as big of a return, and the feds might not be as willing to fund it. In addition, some health-care experts say such a solution may be premature.We had a pricing problem at the beginning of the ACA, so some insurers felt they had to play catch-up last year," says Sarah Lueck, health policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. But, she says, "theres reason to think that marketplaces are actually going to become more stable.Not all reinsurance programs are ideal for insurers. Some reimburse insurers for expensive claims as opposed to paying upfront. To maximize insurers' incentives for dropping premiums, Wing-Heier encourages states considering the reinsurance option to do what Alaska did and pay the claims from the beginning.But amid all of these discussions on marketplace stabilization, theres an elephant in the room: whether or not Congress will replace the ACA and what they'll replace it with. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill want to get rid of the subsidies that fund care for about 80 percent of people on the marketplace. Without those subsidies, it's safe to assume that many would stop using the marketplace, rendering reinsurance programs useless.As Congress remains knee-deep in their deliberations, health policy experts recommend states take as many actions as they can to lower premiums.Do everything you can to get people to enroll in the marketplaces. Expand Medicaid if you havent already because the states that did typically have lower premiums," says Jost. "And yes, look at what Alaska did, and think about your own reinsurance program."
The governor is headed for a showdown with state lawmakers over felon voting rights.Gov. Pete Ricketts vetoed a measure Thursday that restores the voting rights of felons immediately after they complete their sentences. He maintained that the Legislature violated the Nebraska Constitution by assuming the power to pardon that properly belongs to the executive branch of government.Any effort to restore a civil right revoked in the Nebraska Constitution requires changing the Nebraska Constitution, the governor said in a message announcing his first veto of the session.State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, the sponsor of Legislative Bill 75, said he would file a motion to override the veto. An override requires votes from at least 30 of the 49 senators.Wayne has some work cut out for him. On Monday the bill passed on a 27-13 vote with seven senators abstaining and two with excused absences.Current law requires felons to wait for two years after finishing their sentences before they can resume voting. That law was enacted in 2005 over the veto of then-Gov. Dave Heineman.Thirty-eight other states allow felons to vote after they complete their sentences. Iowa is one of three states that permanently ban felons from voting.
About half of the 675 immigrants picked up in roundups across the United States in the days after President Trump took office either had no criminal convictions or had committed traffic offenses, mostly drunken driving, as their most serious crimes, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.Records provided by congressional aides Friday offered the most detailed look yet at the backgrounds of the individuals rounded up and targeted for deportation in early February by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assigned to regional offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York.Two people had been convicted of homicide, 80 had been convicted of assault, and 57 had convictions for dangerous drugs. Many of the most serious criminals were given top billing in ICE news statements about the operation.The largest single group  163 immigrants convicted of traffic offenses  was mentioned only briefly. Over 90 percent of those cases involved drunken driving, ICE said Friday. Of those taken into custody in the raids, 177 had no criminal convictions at all, though 66 had charges pending, largely immigration or traffic offenses.The raids were part of a nationwide immigration roundup dubbed Operation Cross Check, which accounts for a small portion of the 21,362 immigrants the Trump administration took into custody for deportation proceedings from January through mid-March.
A federal judge in Houston Friday issued a scathing denouncement of Harris County's cash bail system, saying it is fundamentally unfair to detain indigent people arrested for low-level offenses simply because they can't afford to pay bail.In a 193-page ruling released Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal ordered the county to begin releasing indigent inmates as early as May 15 without posting cash bail while they are awaiting trial on misdemeanor offenses.Rosenthal concluded the county's bail policy violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution, and granted "class-action" status to the case, meaning that her findings will apply to all misdemeanor defendants."Liberty is precious to Americans and any deprivation must be scrutinized," the order states, citing a comment from Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan.The ruling -- a temporary action that will stay in place until the lawsuit is resolved -- will not apply to those charged with felonies, or those who are being detained on other charges or holds.First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard said late Friday that officials are reviewing the orders."No decision has been made at this time concerning an appeal of the preliminary injunction," he said.District Attorney Kim Ogg and County Commissioner Rodney Ellis -- both of whom filed statements of support with the court for the lawsuit -- praised the ruling."This is a watershed moment in Harris County criminal-justice history," Ogg said in a statement late Friday. "From now on, people can't be held in jail awaiting trial on low-level offenses, just because they are too poor to make bail. ... We welcome the ruling and will comply fully with it."Ellis said he was pleased with the ruling."Harris County's bail system is unconstitutionally discriminatory and morally indefensible -- and we now have a federal court ruling telling us so," Ellis said in an email. "It's time for us to fix a broken justice system that favors the privileged and punishes the poor for being poor."The ruling came five weeks came after a lengthy, high-profile hearing in which more than a dozen witnesses took the stand, including several judges and Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.Monetary bonds have been used for generations across the country to ensure people arrested by police return for court dates, and several jurisdictions around the country have begun to rethink how bail should be set.The ruling came five weeks came after a lengthy hearing in which more than a dozen witnesses took the stand, including several judges and Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.The lawsuit was filed last year by two civil rights group -- Texas Fair Defense Project and Civil Rights Corps -- and local law firm Susman Godfrey law firm on behalf of Maranda Odonnell, a single mother who was held for two days on a charge of driving without a valid license because she couldn't afford the $2,500 bail.The suit names top county officials and a string of judges and hearing officers. Similar lawsuits filed on behalf of two other people were merged into the case in August.The ruling notes that the case is "difficult and complex," and is among many similar cases filed across the country challenging bail practices.The order notes that the judge reviewed "many hours of footage" from 2,300 recordings of misdemeanor probable cause hearings that were placed into evidence. The ruling cites two videos as being "illustrative" of the problems face by misdemeanor defendants.In one case, a man whose criminal history was wrongly calculated by the hearing officer eventually pleaded guilty to gain release. In another, the hearing officer laughed and made a "wisecrack" that he felt better that the man was returning to jail.The ruling also cites reports showing that of the 50,000 people arrested in Harris County on Class A or Class B misdemeanors in 2015, fewer than 10 percent were released on unsecured personal bonds.She concluded that even if hearing officers were not acting deliberately, the county had been using money bail as a form of preventive detention.Gonzalez, through a spokesman, said his office would immediately begin looking into how to implement the order. The sheriff also filed court papers indicating he supports an end to costly bail for indigent defendants.The ruling drew praise from others pushing for change to the bail system."It's my hope this decision and decisions like it will eradicate the notion of wealth-based detention from our legal system," said Alec Karakatsanis, of the Civil Rights Corp.Neal Manne, a managing partner at Susman Godfrey, which is donating its services, said the judge recognized the crushing impact that cash bail can have on poor people."We showed in effect the money bail system was being used to achieve something the Texas Constitution does not permit," Manne said.Christina Swarns, head of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York, likewise praised the ruling."One's punishment should fit their crime, not their bank account," Swarns said. "Harris County's bail practices unlawfully create a cycle of poverty for those who cannot afford the cost of their freedom."Tarsha Jackson, the criminal justice director for the Texas Organizing Project, urged the county to not challenge the ruling."Harris County would do right to accept the judge's ruling and not appeal. Unfortunately, we expect an appeal," Jackson said.The judge indicated Friday she would rule on the legality of the current system before July 1.Harris County has already spent more than $2 million fighting the lawsuit, and recently hired an additional attorney to help with appeals.Soard said the county had retained veteran D.C. appellate lawyer Charles Cooper to represent the interests of 15 county criminal court of law judges who oppose the lawsuit.Cooper will advise whether the judges should appeal the ruling. The remaining court of law judge testified at the injunction hearing that although he is a defendant in the lawsuit, he supports changing the way bail is issued.The remaining defendants for the county have appellate counsel from the firms who will review the question of an appeal, he said.
Liberal sanctuary cities in California and elsewhere may well win their legal battle against President Donald Trump thanks to Supreme Court rulings once heralded by conservatives, including a 2012 opinion that shielded red states from President Barack Obama's plans to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income Americans.On Tuesday, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked enforcement of Trump's sanctuary city executive order, resting his ruling on high court decisions that protected states and localities from federal meddling.In the 2012 case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said it was unconstitutional for Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress to demand that Republican-led states expand Medicaid or face the threat of losing federal Medicaid money. That is akin to "a gun to the head," Roberts said, leaving the states no choice but to comply.The same is true with Trump's executive order on sanctuary cities, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick said in Tuesday's decision. Trump's Jan. 25 order declared that jurisdictions that do not fully comply with federal immigration enforcement laws "do not receive federal funds, except as mandated by law."It was not clear what funds would be withheld, but Trump in a TV interview said he could use "defunding" as a "weapon" to force the cities to get in line.Orrick said San Francisco and Santa Clara County took the threat of a funding cutoff seriously, just as the Republican states said they feared a cutoff of their Medicaid money. This threat is "unconstitutionally coercive," he said. "The executive order threatens to deny sanctuary jurisdictions all federal grants, hundreds of millions of dollars on which the counties rely."Orrick, an Obama appointee, also quoted at length from a 1997 opinion by the late Justice Antonin Scalia that shielded county sheriffs from conducting background checks on new gun buyers. The Brady Act required local police chiefs to check to see if new buyers were eligible to own a handgun, but county sheriffs in Montana and elsewhere refused, arguing the federal government could not force them to comply.By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court agreed. "The federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program," Scalia said. It may not "command the states' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce federal regulatory program."Scalia's words about federal background checks apply equally to the federal government's effort to arrest and detain immigrants who are subject to deportation, Orrick said. Although cities and counties may choose to aid federal immigration officers, "the executive order uses coercive means in an attempt to force states and local jurisdictions to honor civil detainer requests," he wrote. He said this violates the 10th Amendment, which leaves some power "reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., described Orrick's decision as "an important victory for both federalism and separation of powers. Some conservative Republicans may not like the outcome of this specific case," he wrote on the Volokh Conspiracy blog. "But they will have reason to celebrate it the next time a liberal Democratic president tries a similar move."On Wednesday, Trump called the decision "ridiculous" in a tweet. "First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities _ both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court," he wrote.Trump's lawyers say the administration is simply trying to enforce a provision of federal law that says a state or local government "may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual."The executive order pledges to enforce this provision to the "fullest extent of the law." However, the order did not carefully define what is a sanctuary city and what officials must do to be in compliance with the federal law.Because Orrick is a district judge in San Francisco, the administration will appeal first to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If it loses there, it can appeal to the Supreme Court.Next month, the 4th Circuit Court in Virginia and the 9th Circuit Court in California will hear the Trump administration's appeals of a pair of judges' rulings that blocked the revised travel ban on people coming from six mostly Muslim countries. There, Trump's lawyers can argue that the Constitution and federal law gives the executive branch broad power to restrict who enters the country.By contrast, the dispute over sanctuary cities turns on the president's power over states and localities. Trump's lawyers may face an uphill fight.In Orrick's courtroom, Trump's lawyers tried to save the executive order by arguing that it was legally meaningless and would not threaten funds going to San Francisco or Santa Clara.Somin said Trump's lawyers will face a stiff challenge."If the case gets to the Supreme Court, which I am not at all sure would happen, I think it's likely that either the court would rule along the same as lines as Judge Orrick," he said, or perhaps opt for the administration's view that the order is exceedingly narrow and "largely meaningless."
On Sunday, in the afternoon, at St Andrews Uniting Church, Brisbane, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC attended the Heart Foundations annual Thanksgiving and Memorial Service.
WaterWarriors, which developed a system for arming middle and high schools with testing kits to take samples from the Lake Erie watershed and the test them for phosphorus and nitrogen using spectrometers.

Hydrosense, which designed a buoy that contains a sensor for detecting harmful toxins in the water.

Fish.IO.AI., which is looking to catalogue as many fish as possible in Lake Erie, which will help track the growth and whereabouts of invasive species. The project team, which includes data scientists from Progressive Insurance, are using technology that allows photos of fish to be downloaded to a website called whatismyfish.net.

(TNS) -- CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland Water Alliance is bringing experts on water, the environment and technology to Cleveland this week for an innovation summit designed to find scientific solutions to Lake Erie's problems.The inaugural ErieHack Water Innovation Summit will include days of speakers. But the centerpiece will be the finals of the ErieHack competition , where one of nine big ideas designed to parlay an environmentally challenged lake into a business proposition will win $50,000 in cash and assistance.Representing Northeast Ohio are:Among the other participants in the finals is a Toledo team that is developing a solar-powered drone to provide continuous monitoring of the lake.That's just the kind of innovation that Jeff Reutter wants to see. The former director of the Ohio Sea Grant Program and Stone Lab on Put-in-Bay says the No. 1 problem harming Lake Erie is harmful nutrients running off farms into tributaries of the lake.At issue is phosphorus, he said, which fuels the growth of harmful algal blooms, he said, and the Maumee River pumps four times more phosphorus into the lake than any other tributary.Nitrogen is a problem because it enhances the toxicity of the blooms."I'm really excited about ErieHack," said Reutter, one of the early speakers Tuesday. He hopes the event builds on itself over the years.The alliance is encouraging people of all stripes -- from industry representatives to watershed managers to elected officials -- to attend the summit at the Global Center for Health Innovation, with tickets ranging from $49 for students, to $109 for government and non-profit attendees, to $159 for industry representatives. The ticket prices do not include processing fees.Here's who else you can expect:Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in California: He'll kick off the summit and focus on the importance of water worldwide and factors that are impacting it. .Also on Tuesday will be Mads Warming, who works for a Danish company that has helped developed an energy-neutral water cycle: The process treats sewage and converts it to clean water, creating all the electricity it needs to operate.Eew, right? Water is removed from the sewage, leaving physical waste that is then treated with bacteria, Warming said. The bacteria devours the waste, creating methane gas that can be burned to create electricity to run the system, he said.What's really special about the process, he said, is the use of computers and sensors to optimize the efficiency of the water system.Another Tuesday speaker will be Rebekah Eggers, global water leader at IBM, who will address the need for data analytics to better manage the Great Lakes.Serial Entrepreneur Jeff Hoffman will be the keynote speaker Wednesday morning. He will encourage entrepreneurs to seek technological and business solutions to water challenges.
Sauber looks set to work closely with both McLaren and Honda in 2018 and beyond.

Long rumours that the Swiss team is becoming Honda's first power unit 'customer' were finally confirmed at Sochi.

"I expect a closer collaboration with Honda than with Ferrari," team boss Monisha Kaltenborn told Speed Week. "But maybe the comparison is a little unfair.

"For us it is another form of cooperation."

Indeed, Auto Motor und Sport reports that in addition to the Honda power unit, Sauber - having stopped producing its own gearbox after the BMW era - will also use the entire McLaren transmission and rear end from 2018.

McLaren's Eric Boullier says everyone will benefit.

"With two (Honda) teams, development will be faster," he said. And even Fernando Alonso sounded positive, telling Spain's Movistar: "It's good news for Sauber, and good for Honda to have another team as well."

It is also reported that the McLaren-Honda deal will cost Sauber significantly less money from 2018.

"The negotiations were a long process," Kaltenborn revealed. "As well as some engineers, I've travelled to Japan since the first talks took place last year."

In fact, she admits that one possibility is that Sauber will also take a driver from Honda for 2018.

"It's too early to say that," Kaltenborn said, "but if you enter into such a partnership, it is a duty to look at all possibilities.

"The bottom line is that the responsibility of the race team is to have the best drivers possible."

(GMM)
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The Radar analyzes the transformation via 25 selected indicators in five dimensions: Customer interest (e.g. via more than 10,000 end-user interviews); regulation; technology; infrastructure; and industry activity. The Roland Berger team analyzes all indicators 10 different countries and will update the Radar on a regular basis.







Top: The 25 indicators of the Radar. Middle: The global view. Bottom: the US, with the global results shown by the heavy outline. Source: Roland Berger. Click to enlarge.

The first edition of the Radar finds that autonomous driving and electric cars enjoy widespread acceptance among the global customer base. As many as 46% of consumers worldwide would not buy a car again if they had self-driving taxis, otherwise known as robocabs, at their disposal at lower cost. Moreover, 37% of consumers are already considering buying an electric vehicle for their next car.

Customers in Singapore and China express the strongest interest in new mobility concepts. 84% of study participants in Singapore and 83% in China said that they knew at least one person who had not bothered to buy their own car. Car sharing and ride sharing models meet with less of a positive response in other leading economic nations like the UK (37%), France (34%) and Japan (29%). The USA ranks last here with 22%.

It is particularly consumers in countries with a high population density such as The Netherlands (59%), Japan (56%) and Singapore (51%) who can imagine using robocabs and not having their own car. Germany follows closely with almost 47%. Customers in large countries like the USA (35%), India (33%) and China (27%), on the other hand, are less open to the idea.

Electromobility is another area in which the Automotive Disruption Radar highlights significant regional variation. Customers from China express an overwhelmingly positive attitude toward electric vehicles. 60% are considering buying an EV as their next car. In South Korea too (54%) more than half of respondents would consider an electric car. Customers from Europe, Japan, South Korea and the USA view the high prices as the main barrier to the purchase of such a vehicle.
Some of our president's favorite foreign leaders are authoritarians who restrict the media, among other exercises of power.

Donald Trump has often expressed admiration for Russia's Vladimir Putin, and lately he's raved about what a fine fellow he's found Chinese President Xi Jingping to be.

Last month, he called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him for gaining near-dictatorial powers, and Erdogran responded by stepping up his crackdown.

Over the weekend, Trump had a friendly chat with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and invited him to the White House. Press freedom is precarious in the Philippines right now, among other concerns.

At the same time, Trump and his top aides continue to talk about imposing new restrictions on press freedom in our country. According to White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, even changing the Constitution is "something that we've looked at." The example of egregious press reporting he cited in his ABC interview is about "all these contacts with Russia."

No one should make up "news." President Obama was born in Kenya, the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax and Hillary Clinton was running a child prostitution operation out of a Washington pizza parlor were fake stories that all got traction with segments of the public.

Trump objects to truthful reporting and wants to clamp down on it. He admires foreign leaders who exert control over the media in their countries  and, by the way, who can also stop public protests and demonstrations.

He won't succeed in our country, but he certainly has followers who will support his efforts to shape the news as he wants it rather than as it is.
The salaries and incentive pay for Capital Bank Financial Corp.s top executives were unchanged during fiscal 2016, the bank reported in a regulatory filing.

Capital, based in Charlotte, has a significant North Carolina presence in the Triad and Triangle. It paid $52.5 million in October 2012 to buy Southern Community Financial Corp. of Winston-Salem and its 22 branches.

Eugene Taylor, chairman and chief executive, was paid $700,000 in salary for a third consecutive year and incentive pay of $525,000 for the second consecutive year.

However, Taylors total compensation mushroomed to $2.12 million, up from $1.42 million, based on stock awards valued at $875,000 on the date they were awarded. A similar sharp rise in stock awards was received by Capitals other named executives.

All other compensation was valued at $21,769, consisting of $9,970 for life insurance, $7,382 for health insurance, a $3,500 company match to his 401(k) account, and $426 for disability insurance.

The executive compensation was released as industry rumors swirl that Capital is pursuing a buyer.

Capital reported having $10.1 billion in total assets on March 31.

The $10 billion threshold brings heightened regulatory oversight and expenses that have compelled some regional banks, such as Yadkin Financial Corp., BNC Bancorp, Park Sterling Corp., and Paragon Commercial Corp., to agree to be bought by out-of-state regional banks.

Capital Bank is eighth in N.C. deposits market share at $4.4 billion. It would be one of just four N.C.-based banks into the top-10 if the Yadkin and BNC deals are closed.

Tony Plath, a finance professor at UNC Charlotte, expects Capital to announce another deal in the next several months that will help them fly quickly over the $10 billion mark to achieve the greater scale economies theyre going to need to deal with the added regulatory costs theyll soon face.

Plath said not to rule out a merger of equals, whether in North Carolina or in its other markets in the Southeast.

Capital disclosed in its 2017 proxy statement that Taylors employment agreement, starting Dec. 31, automatically renews for one year annually with a base salary of at least $700,000 and an annual bonus of up to $700,000.

If Taylors employment is terminated without cause by the bank, or by good reason by Taylor, he would be entitled to severance and accelerated vesting of certain equity awards. He also would be subject to restrictive covenants, including non-competition and non-solicitation of employees, customers and certain other parties with business relationships with us, while employed by us and for the one-year period following his termination of employment with us.

None of Capitals Top 5 executives received an increase in salary, although total compensation did rise for each.

Christopher Marshall, chief financial officer, was paid $480,000 in salary, a $360,000 bonus and total compensation of $1.46 million, up 49 percent.

Bruce Singletary, chief credit officer, received $330,000 in salary, a $247,500 bonus and total compensation of $1.01 million, up 51.6 percent.

Kenneth Kavanagh, consumer banking executive, was paid $300,000 in salary, an $112,500 bonus and total compensation of $665,771, up 44.2 percent.

Kenneth Posner, chief of strategic planning and investors relations, received $275,000 in salary, a $206,250 bonus and total compensation of $840,517, up 49.4 percent.

There are no shareholder proposals for the annual meeting, which is scheduled for 10 a.m. June 14 in Charlotte.
May 1, 2011

In 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by elite American forces at his Pakistan compound, then quickly buried at sea after a decade on the run. Because of the time difference, bin Ladens death came May 1, U.S. time. On nights like this one, President Barack Obama told the nation in a live TV broadcast, we can say that justice has been done. Obama said a small team of U.S. operatives launched a targeted assault on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad where months of intelligence work had established that bin Laden was living. Bin Laden was killed after a firefight, and the troops took custody of his body. The killing ended a 10-year search in which bin Laden repeatedly eluded his pursuers, deeply frustrating the Bush administration and counterterrorism officials.
GREENSBORO  The coolest university professors with the hottest lectures tour the country, and the event is coming to Greensboro May 13.

But at this university, you wont find homework, tests, or studying.

One Day University, now in its 10th year, has a pool of about 200 professors who rotate giving talks in different cities, said Steven Schragis, the director and founder of the program. The events vary from city to city.

Nothings exactly the same, Schragis said. There are usually four (professors) speaking, though, and we try to pair four that go well together. Each are renowned on their campuses.

One Day University partners with newspapers, such as The Washington Post, and a few other organizations to bring the program to a community. The News & Record is the partner for the Greensboro event.

On May 13, Catherine Sanderson from Amherst College will speak about positive psychology and the science of happiness; Marc Lapadula from Yale University will be speaking on four films that changed America; Richard Billows from Columbia University will discuss what we can learn from the ancient Greeks and the first democracy; and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong of Duke University will discuss the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Schragis got the idea for One Day University when he was taking his daughter to Bard College 11 years ago.

Professors were scattered around college, and a lot of (adults) said they wished they were going to college, he said. Were trying to recreate that here.

The professors selected for One Day University are recommended by students at the universities.

We go to schools and stop kids, asking them whos the coolest, best professors, Schragis said. If 40 to 50 percent give the same answer, you have a good name.

This is the first year One Day University has come to Greensboro. Its one of 52 cities, including stops in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Charlotte, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit and New Orleans.

For the first time in a new city, Schragis said, the program will bring in professors who are proven to be overwhelmingly successful in other cities.

Catherine Sanderson is wildly popular, he said.

Schragis said Sinnott-Armstrong of Duke University was selected because hes well-liked by attendees and because its also nice to have someone whos relatively local.
EDEN  Abandoned homes may become a thing of the past across the city, thanks to the N.C. General Assembly and the Eden City Council.

On April 18, the council unanimously approved a provision from new state legislation that will enable the citys planning and inspection department to give the owners of derelict dwellings a year to fix up the houses. If it doesnt happen, the city council will decide whether to demolish or repair and sell

The state dictated that the law is for communities of at least 90,000 people, but additional legislation lets the City of Eden use the law as well.

Planning and Inspections Director Kelly Stultz said abandoned homes are not good for our housing stock, the community or safety.

Stultz can send a letter to owners of derelict properties, giving them one year to do the work. After that time, if a property owner abandons the intent and purpose to repair, alter or improve the dwelling, according the new local law, or demolish it altogether, the city council can declare it abandoned and can direct the city to take action.

This just gives a length of time that [a house] can just sit in a neighborhood boarded up, she said. I can think of a few that have been like that for a decade.

Stultz said there is a plethora of houses on which the city has taken action, which property owners have vacated and boarded up.

This happens every single month these dilapidated old houses are all over the city, and with the slum lords and all the other stuff you have to deal with this will help, Mayor Wayne Tuggle told Stultz.

Councilman Jerry Epps noted one seemingly abandoned house that was boarded up but now the front door stays wide open, which is unsafe for children.

Stultz said the city wont necessarily demolish every abandoned house; there may be some that the city could repair and sell, recouping some of the costs.

In other action, council unanimously permitted dog and cat boarding in the citys Business-Highway #1 District.

Jerry Haymore, whose wife has groomed dogs for 10 years, made the request. Their current shop is located at 711 Washington St., but the business, Macy Js, will soon relocate to the former Farm Bureau building on Kings Highway. Haymore said theyd like to add another building to the property, which backs up to some residences on Highland Park Drive.

As the dog grooming industry has grown, so has our need to provide for it, Stultz said. Such a business still has to adhere to the citys noise ordinance, with violations incurring penalties.

The council also changed a zoning ordinance to allow food service to the general public in the citys Office and Institutional districts. This request was made by Osborne Baptist Church, which has operated the One Way Cafe for about nine years. Pastor Steve Griffith said the church wants to be in compliance with zoning requirements.

Seven-year cafe customer Mike Neal, interim pastor of First Baptist Church of Draper, spoke in favor of the zoning change.

Stultz said since this was a zoning amendment request and not a special use permit request, it will open up to other facilities in O&I districts to serve food to the general public.

Council members decided to continue a discussion on the regulation of using large trailers the size pulled by semi trucks as storage facilities on citizens property. The discussion should continue at the May 16 council meeting, which starts at 6 p.m. at city hall, 308 E. Stadium Dr.
GREENWICH  The Connecticut General Assembly is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a bill that would ban the controversial practice of change therapy and Selectman Drew Marzullo said he will be on hand to support it.

Change therapy attempts to use therapy or counseling to change a persons sexual orientation from homosexuality or bisexuality to heterosexuality. It has been linked to psychological damage and suicide, particularly among LGBTQ youth.

LBGTQ youth are more likely to commit suicide at a much higher rate than other teens, Marzullo said on Monday. The very fact of placing youth in conversion therapy is a signal to them that there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. These kids are scared, vulnerable and misguided and some are forced because of their parents to seek help from profiting con artists who inflict pain and everlasting psychological trauma. Its practice of abuse is a multi-million dollar industry.

Marzullo, the first openly gay selectman in Greenwich history, said he will be traveling to Hartford Tuesday in anticipation of the vote on House Bill 6695.

The bill calls for an official ban on the therapy: no public funds could be used for it and health care providers in Connecticut that engage in it would be subject to disciplinary action.

Marzullo, a Democrat, is considering candidacy for lieutenant governor in 2018 but has made no final decision.

Conversion therapy has been heavily criticized by medical experts and LGBTQ rights supporters. The bill defines the therapy as any practice or treatment administered to someone under age 18 that seeks to change the persons sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to change gender expression or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward people of the same gender.

The bill specifically does not forbid counseling intended to assist someone undergoing gender transition, any counseling to provide acceptance, support and understanding to the person or counseling to facilitate the persons coping, social support or identity exploration and development, including any therapeutic intervention that is neutral to sexual orientation and seeks to prevent or address unlawful conduct or unsafe sexual practices.

I do expect this bill to pass and pass overwhelming, Marzullo said. There is not one single reason why it should not.

The bill was introduced in the assembly by State Rep. Jeff Currey, a Democrat whose district covers East Hartford, South Windsor and Manchester. He said on Monday he was very optimistic about its chances for passage, saying more than 100 bipartisan co-sponsors were attached.

This is only my second term. but people who have been around a lot longer than I have been have said theyre surprised to see so many names attached to it from both sides of the aisle before it even gets to the floor, Currey said.

Currey said it was important for Connecticut to send a message by making the bill law.

It will show we are willing to stand up and protect some of the most vulnerable citizens in our state, Currey said. Whether its one person or 100, we have to take action to stop this.

State Sen. Beth Bye, a Greenwich native now representing West Harford as a Democrat, has introduced the bill in the state senate.

Greenwichs legislative delegation has pledged to support the ban if it comes up for a vote.

I have supported the bill from day one, State Rep. Livvy Floren (R-149th) said. There is no evidence, scientific or humanistic, that the therapy has any merit whatsoever.

State Rep. Fred Camillo (R-151st) said during a previous public hearing on the bill that no examples could be cited of the therapy taking place in Connecticut but that there is no harm in the state voicing its opposition to the practice and getting the law on the books.

Camillo said he had initially felt the ban was unnecessary but changes his mind after doing more research.

I do think that the practice, wherever it is done, does harm, Camillo said.

State Rep. Michael Bocchino agreed, saying, Its an archaic form of therapy that should no longer be used.

The ban is also got the nod by state Sen. L. Scott Frantz (R-36th), who said he was conceptually ... in favor of the ban.

If the bill is passed, the ban would go into effect immediately. Gov. Dannel Malloy, who testified in favor of the bill in March, has pledged to sign it.

According to Marzullo, Many falsely believe conversion centers shut down decades ago, but there are still hundreds across the U.S. and extremely hard to track. Many operate underground away from public eye. While I do recognize conversion therapy in Connecticut is not common practice, banning such will hopefully spark a long overdue national conversation.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
STAMFORD  Stamford Police charged a Waterbury man with firing a handgun near a large crowd of bar patrons early Sunday morning. The incident took place as crowds left a West Park Place night spot recently involved in a nonfatal triple stabbing and closing-time sidewalk fights.

It is worth noting that it has been the source of several problems now, said Stamford Police Capt. Richard Conklin, head of the departments Criminal Investigations Division.

Stamford police officer John Derisme chased and apprehended Deandre Greene, 28, of Waterbury around 1:51 a.m. Sunday after seeing Greene raise his right hand and fire a silver handgun on Clark Street near the bar and then run off, according to Conklin. A crowd of people who had left the bar was nearby, Conklin said.

Derisme, with assistance from Officer Daniel Kokkoros, subdued Greene near the Bell Street garage, and, during a search of the suspect, found a .38 caliber Davis Industries handgun with a black handle in his right front pocket, Conklin said.

A large number of police arriving at the scene after the reported gunshot broke up the crowd milling on Clark Street, where several fights were threatening to spark a melee, Conklin said.

Stamford Police Lt. Michael Noto, the commander on the shift, singled out Derisme and Kokkoros for their quick action and the responding officers in general for handling the crowd.

I commend John Derisme for doing a tremendous job with diligent, brave and measured police work, Noto said. I also single out officer Kokoros and other officers in this quickly unfolding dangerous situation and am extremely proud of them for taking down a dangerous subject and getting another illegal gun off the streets.

Conklin said police have yet to determine if Greene was targeting any particular person with the shot.

Greene was charged with reckless endangerment in the first degree, possession of a firearm without a permit, illegal discharge of a firearm and criminal possession of a firearm, Conklin said.

Greene was held in lieu of $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford May 12.

On March 12 police responded to the nonfatal stabbing of two men from Bridgeport and a third from Stamford early that Sunday morning as the Glamour Bar let out.

On April 2, a 26-year-old East Side man was critically injured in a shooting targeting one of the stabbing victims in a West Side barbershop. The incident occurred in the wee hours of the morning, when a gunman fired five or six rounds through the shops window.

A week later on April 9, police dispersed a large crowd leaving Glamour Bar after several fights broke out among a large crowd at closing time.
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WESTPORT  What a comeback.

Down to just six Connecticut nests in 1972, the osprey is back in big numbers to the states shoreline, and Westport is no exception.

Last month, the Aspetuck Land Trust installed osprey platforms in town at the Taylortown Salt Marsh preserve and at the Allen Salt Marsh preserve.

We preserve local habitats, so this is something easy we can do on our salt marshes to provide a better habitat for the plants and the animals that happen to pass by, said David Brant, executive director of the Aspetuck Land Trust.

The majestic fish hawks were almost put out of existence by the pesticide DDT. Ospreys would inadvertently consume DDT and transfer the chemical to their eggs, causing them to weaken and break, resulting in deaths, Brant said.

In 1972, when DDT was banned, the number of

osprey nests across the state were down to just six, according to Milan Bull, senior director of science and conservation at the Connecticut Audubon Society.

Since 1972 the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has monitored the birds to ensure the species made a comeback.

In 2013, Bull was tasked with keeping track of the birds and working to increase the population. Now there are 625 nests across the state, a number that continues to grow.

More Information OSPREY (Pandion haliaetus) Habitat: Seashore, coastal marshes, lakes and rivers Weight: Males, 2 to 3.5 pounds; females, 2.75 to 4.25 pounds Length: 21 to 25 inches; wingspan: 54 to 72 inches Food: Almost entirely fish See More Collapse

The osprey nests are going up by 25 or 30 a year, Bull said.

Bull developed the program Osprey Nation in 2014, a citizen-science monitoring program by the Connecticut Audubon Society and in conjunction with DEEP. Comprised of over 250 volunteers, Bulls program maps all the osprey nests in the state and actively monitors them. The program, Bull said, is the largest volunteer science project in the state.

Residents can expect to see ospreys building their large and bulky nests at the newly installed Westport platforms.

We know that by putting the platform there that it will be utilized and will provide some pretty neat viewing for the public, Brant said. The Aspetuck Land Trust plans to build more platforms at other locations.

Osprey nests can be found along the entire coast of the state from Stonington to Greenwich, and along rivers such as the Connecticut River, where there is a large population of ospreys, and smaller bodies of water like the Saugatuck River.

The birds presence is a harbinger of clean water.

The reason why this is such a great project is because everyone seems to love ospreys. For us, they are really good indicators of water quality because they only eat live fish they catch themselves, and their population is totally dependent on the abundance and diversity of fish in the Long Island Sound, Bull said.

@chrismmarquette; cmarquette@bcnnew.com
This doesnt look promising. Photo: Patrick Wymore

There are just five chefs left, which is a reminder that a show like this feels very quick when there were only seven contenders to begin with. Does is seem like the kitchen is a little bigger today? threatens Alton Brown, channeling his inner Disney villain. Oh, no. There are just fewer of us in here. That will continue. Harsh, but true!

But first, chairman Brown has a few musings on the nature of the universe. Some believe that the universe is split in two. There is yin and yang. Light and dark, he philosophizes. In the culinary world, our yin and yang are sweet and savory! For tonights Chairmans Challenge, each chef will use a single ingredient  blue cheese, sesame seeds, fish sauce, beets, or black beans  to create two separate but equal dishes, one sweet and one savory.

I know: Who could have seen this coming?

Chef Gulotta is gunning for the fish sauce  classic dessert ingredient, the chocolate of the sea!  but chef Nakajima gets to it first, leaving poor chef Gulotta to settle for the Gorgonzola. Its a good lesson: In life, we all must settle for the Gorgonzola sometimes. Chef Grueneberg books it for the beets  solid choice  and chef Dady takes the sesame seeds, which leaves poor chef Izard with the black beans. I have no idea what Im going to do. I literally have no idea what Im going to do! I will level with you: I have no idea what she is going to do, either.

The problem with blue cheese is that it can steal a show if you let it, reflects chef Gulotta. So even though it is a blue-cheese challenge, youve got to know how to rein it in. Accordingly, he will be doing a caramelized blue cheese, beet, and crab salad (savory), and a blue-cheese-cardamom ice cream with bacon, candied squash, and pumpkin-seed brittle (sweet). I can imagine this could be good, kind of! Meanwhile, chef Nakajima, who got the coveted fish sauce, is now coming to terms with the fact that fish sauce is indeed very fishy. For his savory course, he is braising shellfish in sake, fish sauce, and sesame oil, which is simple; for his sweet dish, he is making yogurt with berry-and-fish sauce topped with candied pecans, which is not.

You know who had a good idea? Chef Grueneberg, when she went for the beets. Across the kitchen, she is grating beet pieces into milk for a beety panna cotta (sweet), and also deep-frying panko-breaded beet rounds for some beet schnitzel (savory). Chef Dady, king of the sesame seeds, is taking Alton Browns yin-yang thing very seriously, and is at work on two black-and-white dishes: a white-sesame cheese cake with halva and black-sesame coulis; and a soba-noodle combo served with a duo of sesame dipping sauces, one black and one white. Im not really all that nervous about this challenge so far, he says, calmly tossing his sesame seeds. This is the kind of confidence that worries me! Chef Izard is also worried, specifically about her black-bean dishes, on account of how she still isnt totally sure what they are: black-bean-miso ice cream, and  something else TBD. This challenge is making me extremely nervous, she grimaces. Does anyone else want to hurl right now, or is it just me?

Time is running out, both for this competition, and in our lives. Luckily, chef Izard has managed to invent a new dish, which is Indian chaat, only with black beans instead of chickpeas, which sounds  fine? The main thing it has going for it is that it exists. And time! It is possible that chef Nakajimas clams are irredeemably salty, and his savory dish is ruined. Alas, there is nothing to be done now but hope.

Chairman Brown makes the rounds. In general: not terrible! He is very impressed with chef Gruenebergs awesome beet schnitzel, and if her beety panna cotta didnt quite set right, it is at least very beet-forward. On the whole, a strong and Iron Chef-y showing! Alton Brown is somewhat less taken with chef Izards combo: her black-bean ice cream with tamarind-pomegranate caramel is surprisingly delicious, despite the unfortunate plating, but the chaat is overwhelmingly sour and inadequately beany.

Stressful! Photo: Patrick Wymore

Brown loves chef Nakajimas fluffy, fishy yogurt, but alas, he does not love his braised-shellfish salt fest, and unfortunately for everyone else, its all downhill from there. Chef Dadys yin-yang concept was a flop  his black-sesame seeds were good, but his white-sesame seeds were not  and while Alton was truly moved by chef Gulottas cardamom-Gorgonzola ice cream, even if it was too salty, he found the crab-and-cheese salad oily beyond repair.

There is no time for false deliberation: The winner is chef Grueneberg, for the second week in a row. Just when Alton Brown thought he had seen all possible preparations of beets, she showed him more. It is inspirational, in a way. Unfortunately, where there are winners, there are losers, and tonights loser is poor chef Gulotta with the greasy blue cheese. He did not see this coming. I thought I was near the head of the pack! he says, bereft. This puts chef Grueneberg in the awkward (but advantageous) position of choosing who must go up against him in the Secret Ingredient Showdown. I honestly have a sick feeling. I dont want to do this, she says, but then she gets over it and picks chef Nakajima. For the second week in a row!

All Alton Brown has ever wanted in his life is to say, Release the kraken, and together, we bear witness to this dream coming true. Release the krrraaaakkken! he bellows, revealing a large tray of assorted octopus. Finally, chef Nakajima gets the seafood he has been waiting for! It is only a shame it is under these circumstances.

Chef Nakajima wastes no time bludgeoning a row of quick-cooking but fibrous baby Thai octopuses with a sake bottle, much to the amusement of everyone (except the octopuses). The plan is to cook them with turnips blanched in chicken stock  dashi would be ideal, but then, what is life if not a series of compromises? Everyone is very concerned, though, because chef Nakajima also grabbed one of the big octopuses, and he hasnt even started it yet. The twist is that hes only using the suckers, which hes pickling in vinegar. Surprise!

As for chef Gulotta, hes busy painting chorizo-harissa oil onto an octopus, which will become part of his cuttlefish ink-dyed paella negra. Also, he is whipping up lime-leaf aioli, also with cuttlefish ink. Additionally, he is smashing together curry paste. For good measure, he is marinating cherry tomatoes using a vacuum sealer. What I am trying to say is that there is a lot happening.

Soon, its over. Here are the dishes that will determine their fates.

Chef Gulotta: octopus salad with fresh tomato curry and fried avocado; baby octopus over cuttlefish-ink aioli with tomato-olive-citrus marmalade; paella negra with octopus and assorted shellfish; and lime-leaf aioli.

Ready to bring it. Photo: Eddy Chen

Chef Nakajima: tempura-fried octopus and shimeji mushrooms, and a single, fried shiso leaf; salt-pickled cucumbers with fried octopus suckers in a simple soy vinaigrette, and topped with flying-fish roe; braised baby octopus with turnips and a miso vinaigrette.

It all comes down to the thoughts and feelings of tonights judges, chef/cookbook author/restaurateur/television personality Giada De Laurentiis, and registered Iron Chef Marc Forgione. Giada loves the marinated tomatoes in chef Gulottas octopus salad, but Marc feels that perhaps the dish was not so much an octopus curry as a nice gazpacho that just happened to have some octopus in it, which would be fine if this werent the octopus challenge. They are both rather taken with the punchy grilled baby octopus  Giada loves the tomatoes, which is the thing about Giada, but she feels strongly that the paella didnt have enough octopus; and, if he is honest, Marc does not disagree.

Chef Nakajimas tasting gets off to a rough start, because he cannot properly communicate how much lemon the judges should squeeze over their tempura-fried-octopus-wrapped shimeji mushrooms. First, he tells them to squeeze the lemon, and then he tells them not to squeeze the lemon. Its too late, though. Theyve already squeezed the lemon. Giada De Laurentiis will never forgive him, you can tell in her eyes. (Marc liked it.) The pickled octopus suckers, though, are a mutual hit  its not every day that you turn an octopus into a pickle, Giada observes, correctly  and they agree that braised octopus and turnips exude elegance and finesse.

Hope for the best and expect the worst, chef Nakajima tells himself, but that will not be necessary. Though the judges are split, the numbers do not lie: He is the decisive winner, with 32/40 points, to chef Gulottas 27/40. Sometimes, its just luck, chairman Brown tells fallen chef Gulotta, meditating on the randomness of success, and of failure. Its a bummer, he agrees, before disappearing behind the iron curtain. And the saddest part is that he will never look at blue cheese the same way again.
The location thats now on lots of angry peoples ban list. Photo: Google

A police union in Raleigh has some explaining to do after falsely accusing workers at a North Carolina barbecue chain of singing N.W.A.s Fuck Tha Police while officers ate there. The groups president made the claim last week, writing in a Facebook post that workers at the Garner location of Smithfields Chicken N Bar-B-Q, which has about 30 locations statewide, did the rendition knowing several cops were in earshot, and that the manager on duty even joined in, too. The manager promptly apologized, and the restaurant promised to investigate the matter and terminate anyone involved.

It turns out that the union exaggerated things just a tad. Yesterday, Raleigh PD issued an official statement saying that, in fact, There was no singing. Two officers witnessed one employee make eye contact with them and mouth the words F the Police, the release says. There were no other employees involved. Because of the subtle nature of this act, it was not witnessed by anyone else in the store.

In the unions (now deleted) Facebook post, the groups president sarcastically thanked the locations employees for their class and professionalism as you sang F- the police as my brothers at Raleigh Police Department attempted to eat at your restaurant  Do you really feel that was appropriate? He added: This is something that, unfortunately, officers have to deal with now on a regular basis.

That much was true  it is an all-too-frequent occurrence. Last October, a dishwasher at another barbecue spot in Houston blasted the same song, which is certainly among any police forces least favorite tunes, to greet a group of officers whod entered his establishment. That stunt didnt go unpunished, but neither did the incident that allegedly went down at Smithfields. The restaurant received an immediate onslaught of negative Facebook comments, many in the vein of this guys: May you MOFOs roast in hell. If you had the best food in the world and it was free, i would walk 1,000 miles to eat something else. Drop dead!!! Its Facebook page fell to a 1.4-star rating after 737 one-star ratings, and still hasnt budged.

As Gizmodo pointed out, cops, relatives of cops, people who like the idea of cops, and bandwagoning racists set up shop in the comments section of just about every post on the page. Most ended up looking similar to this:

The locations owner, David Harris, says they fired the singular employee dumb enough to mouth the N.W.A. lyrics, but that now hes gotten very emotional about the thought that there are law enforcement officers who think we allowed or condoned this.

This post was updated throughout after police called B.S. on the unions story.


Bowery Roads pork adobo with corn crepes. Photo: Liz Clayman

Every month in New York, theres a bewildering number of new dishes to eat, drinks to imbibe, and food-themed events to attend. Often, the hardest part is just figuring out whats really worth your limited time. So Grub kicks off each month with a curated collection of dishes, drinks, and events that should absolutely be on your agenda. Make your plans now.

1. Eat Mexican-Filipino pork adobo.

On May 1, the team behind Casa Apicii and Bar Fortuna will open their latest: American brasserie Bowery Road and the next-door cocktail bar Library of Distilled Spirits. (Both are located at 132 Fourth Avenue.) Like Apicii, Bowery Road is meant to be a neighborhood place. Thats reflected in the all-day, crowd-pleasing menu, with its spiced banana bread for breakfast, jerk-chicken sandwich with mojo aioli for lunch, and dishes like blooming mushroom (a bloomin-onion riff) for dinner. Meatheads will also want to make a note of a pork dish that mixes and matches elements of the Filipino and Mexican versions of adobo.

2. Head to Mimi Chengs for a soup dumpling inspired by Daniel Humms roast chicken.

Its not every day that you eat a dumpling created by Daniel Humm. But you can every day for the month of May at Mimi Chengs, whose owners have snagged the chef for their latest collaboration. This is one to get excited about: Its the NoMads famous roast chicken in soup-dumpling form, the kind of deluxe culinary fusion you can really get behind.

3. Get Tracy Obolskys varsity-level pastries in the Rockaways.

Summers coming. For your first trip out to Rockaway this summer, go to Tracy Obolskys Rockaway Beach Bakery, which, after opening midsummer last year, now has an actual space at 87-10 Rockaway Beach Boulevard. Obolsky made a name for herself serving playful takes on American desserts at places like North End Grill and Cookshop, and that means youll be eating sweets that are made with fine-dining skills, with the added benefit of being on the beach.

4. And also check out the pastries (and sandwiches) being served at Cafe Altro Paradisos cafe.

In West Soho, Ignacio Mattos and Thomas Carter have introduced a lunchtime only cafe menu at Cafe Altro Paradiso. There are small sandwiches ($8) ideal for a midday snack, like prosciutto and ramp butter on focaccia, and a demi-baguette with slices of medium-boiled egg seasoned with anchovies and chopped herbs. Speaking of top-tier pastries, Flora Bars Natasha Pickowicz  a rising star in New Yorks pastry world  has brought her talents (and formidable sticky-bun skills) downtown. Shes also offering other sweets like a pistachio-butter cookie ($4), as well as a tasty cacio-e-pepe biscuit ($3).

5. Eat real-deal Sichuanese food in Williamsburg.

With Cafe China, Xian Zhang and Yiming Wang helped turn midtown into an unexpected destination for Sichuanese cuisine. The restaurateurs expanded downtown with the Shanghainese China Blue, and now theyve crossed the East River into Williamsburg. At Birds of a Feather, Ziqiang Lu is serving traditional Sichuanese dishes like tea-smoked duck ($14) and cumin lamb ($22), alongside dishes like baby squid with pickled chili pepper ($18). Also in Williamsburg, on May 5, the guys behind the popular, scenic Loosie Rouge will open Loosies Cafe (93 South 6th Street), a daytime cafe serving matcha-spirulina doughnuts that morphs into a cocktail bar at night.

The baby squid with pickled peppers at Birds of a Feather. Photo: Liz Clayman

6. Attend a dinner and discussion about undocumented workers, featuring acclaimed chefs.

South Phillys Barbacoa has received national acclaim for its food (Bon Appetit named it a Best New Restaurant in 2016), and its chef-owners Cristina Martinez and Ben Miller have also been vocal advocates for the rights of undocumented workers. On May 1 at Downtown Art, theyll come to New York to cook for the first #Right2Work dinner and discussion hosted outside of Philadelphia. Martinez and Miller will collaborate on the meal with La Moradas Carolina Saavendra, Maison Pickles Harold Villarosa, Four Salt Spoons Yewande Komolafe, and others. Drinks will be sponsored by St. Germain, and the discussion on the lives of undocumented works will be held by Social Justice Lawyering Clinic director Jennifer Lee, chef Tunde Wey, and Cosechas Lucia Allain. Admittance to the dinner is (tax deductible) donation based, and the money thats raised will help take the series national.

7. Catch a screening of Anthony Bourdains documentary about legendary chef Jeremiah Tower.

After its debut last year at the Tribeca Film Festival, Zero Point Zeros The Last Magnificent has finally premiered for the public. The Anthony Bourdainproduced documentary about Jeremiah Tower, directed by Lydia Tenaglia, explores the life of Americas original celebrity chef and his role in shaping modern American cuisine. Celebratory without glossing over the difficult aspects of Towers personality and life, its been earning lots of praise. Find out what the buzz is all about for yourself and head to the Sunshine Cinema, where its being shown throughout the day right now.

8. Hang out in one of Brooklyns nicest backyards, while eating great food and drinking amazing mezcal.

Fort Greenes Colonia Verdes hacienda-like backyard is about as pleasant as it gets in this city. During summer Sundays, the owners host Sunday Asados, a sort of fancy, food-world backyard barbecue  bringing in great chefs from New York, around the States, and Latin America. The first one is this weekend, and itll be back again on May 21. The cook this round will be Monterreys Andrea Martinez, executive chef of Comuna, and the event will celebrate and feature women in Mexican food. There will be wines from Maria Rivero of Rivero Gonzalez, Daniela Santoss Caramela chocolates, and Yola mezcal. Tickets (food and wine included) will be available at $55 starting two weeks before the event, but can also be purchased at the door for $60.

9. Take a tour of the fantastic Indonesian Food Bazaar with one of the events key vendors.

Elmhursts New York Indonesian Food Bazaar is extremely popular in its community, and famous among outer-borough food nerds. When the weather is good, its New Yorks best place to slurp laksa and nibble on Javanese peyek, a deep-fried savory cracker flavored with peanuts and seafood (such as anchovies or baby shrimp). On May 6 from noon to 5 p.m., Culinary Backstreets will offer tours through the bazaar ($7.50 each) for groups of two to ten people.

10. Outdoor-eating season is back, so eat parantha downtown.

Another option for eating outside this month: Bowery Market has added Smorgasburg veterans Parantha Alley to its lineup. The vendor specializes in eponymous Indian flatbread  which it offers stuffed with fillings like spicy ground chicken, potato, and green peas  and specials like spicy plantain and coconut, and bacon, egg, and cheese.

11. Make one last trip to Hudsons Bonfiglio & Bread before it closes.

Hudsonites and upstate weekenders were no doubt sad to hear that Bonfiglio & Bread, the charming and consummate small-town cafe, will close its location there and relocate to Athens, New York. Theres still time to pay a visit, though, as the cafe wont close until May 8, meaning youve got one more weekend to visit the original store for some Roman-style pizza, cinnamon-swirl bread, and a few loaves for the road.

12. Check out a great New York bars new cocktail menu.

Donna is one of New Yorks most enjoyable places to drink, especially during summer, when the warmer weather better matches the bars breezy, tropical-ish look. Which is a good enough reason to head to the bar for, say, an excellent mai tai. An even better reason is that head bartender Karen Fu and her crew have debuted a new spring menu, with drinks like the Lions on the Beach ($14; Bimini and Plymouth gins, Avua Amburana, pamplemousse, elderflower, coconut, lemon) and Wildberry Glory ($15; Del Maguey Crema de Mezcal, Monkey 47 Gin, Kina LAvion dOr, Lustau Vermut, strawberry).
For a new ad, Finnish coffee company Paulig asked artist Lucas Zanotto to make them a cup of coffee using just one bean. Maybe they had an under-caffeinated hamster on their hands? Who knows, but the result is absolutely ideal for teeny-tiny hands:

The cute little cup was prepared in a somewhat painstaking manner: A nail file serves as a grinder; theres no electric kettle, so water gets heated by tea light; and Zanotto has even fashioned a miniature cone filter. Purists trying to find fault might see signs of under-extraction, but we can see a future where the single-bean mini-shot has become a phenomenon, popping up at cafes (and on Instagram accounts) all over town.
American Museum of Natural History. Photo: Liz Clayman

Hitting up a childrens museum can bring about great family memories or a kill-me-now migraine, depending on your circumstances. Because no matter how fascinating the exhibit or sophisticated the tot, toddlers will need to run around, and num-nums (a.k.a. snacks!) will need to be welcomed, or provided (see: MOFAD). Older kids will want to engage in the art of discovery, diving deeper into hobbies like trains or tutus. Fortunately for parents itching to get out of the house and feel good about exposing their little ones to big culture, New York is loaded with fabulous museums that kids  as well as their minders  will enjoy. Here are the absolute best.

The Absolute Best 1. American Museum of Natural History

Central Park West, at 79th St.; 212-769-5100 This iconic New York landmark is impossible to beat, whether youre 2 or 92  and thats why its the best. Theres endless intrigue to be had by all  but especially by little explorers. Kids can dig for dinosaur bones, research their relatives in the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins, parade around in masks, and engage with live animals  butterflies, lizards, and other species, depending on the exhibit. Theres a 94-foot-long blue whale just begging to be gawked at, and a massive wing of lifelike mammals. For the youngest visitors, the Discovery Room has playthings like puppets and costumes. Not to mention the Hayden Planetarium, and light shows in the Big Bang Theater. The AMNH is known for its ongoing Gateway Storytime in the Discovery Room and Night at the Museum Sleepover parties, where the lights dim, and kids head out with flashlights in search of adventures. Do note, while this is the absolute best kids museum, it is also the absolute biggest. Its easy to get lost  and to lose your mind  so do yourself a favor: come with a tight plan and a Tylenol.

2. MOFAD Lab

62 Bayard St., nr. Lorimer St., Brooklyn; 718-387-2845

The Museum of Food and Drink is a nonprofit (with serious foodie power behind it) whose goal is to create the worlds first large-scale food museum  with exhibits you can eat. Kid-centric highlights include a giant curtain of 7,250 takeout boxes that children can bask in  each box represents 7 of the estimated 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S. As well as a fortune-cookie machine that makes fortune cookies in front of amazed eyes (kids can take as many as they want, right off of the conveyor belt, warm from the oven). They have an exhibit called the Smell Synth that allows kids to create over half a million different smells by pressing arcade buttons. Theres even an upcoming kimchee workshop! MOFAD is best for kindergarten-plus kiddos and any little  or big  human lovers of food. The 5,000-square-foot warehouse of tastes, smells, textures, history, and yummy-in-my-tummy moments is truly an ambitious and unique treat.

3. Brooklyn Childrens Museum

145 Brooklyn Ave., at St. Marks Ave., Brooklyn; 718-735-4400

Founded in 1899, Brooklyn Childrens was the countrys first museum specifically made for children. And it hasnt lost its allure in the least. Kids bolt right into the large, spaceshiplike vault, where Brooklyns diversity is celebrated via a mock Mexican bakery, kosher market, and old-school Italian pizzeria. The museum is highly energizing and interactive (germophobic parents wont be thrilled), with the concept of touch and play at the heart of each station. The museum also has a spinoff, Spark, on the Dumbo waterfront, which is small but kidtastic, with talented on-site artists working one-on-one with the little ones  and its free on Thursdays!

4. New York Transit Museum

Boerum Pl., at Schermerhorn St., Brooklyn; 718-694-1600

An homage to New York Citys transit system, this highly immersive destination in Downtown Brooklyn is  more than anything else  gods gift to rambunctious kids on a rainy day. Stationed in a former subway station (decommissioned in the 40s), there are real subway trains and turnstiles from the beginning of the subway system until today. Its great for running around and burning energy, while learning a lot about how true New Yorkers have approached public transportation in every era. Added bonus: The gift shop is terrific.

5. Museum of the Moving Image

35th Ave., at 36th St., Queens; 718-784-4520

MOMI is the perfect excuse to hang out in Astoria, and adults obviously love this film-buff and film-buff-wannabe destination as well. But with a growing kid-focused initiative, MOMI is a huge attraction for kids, too (but probably not toddlers). Children can practice moviemaking on their own via kid-filmmaker workshops. They have regular family-friendly screenings on most weekends. And during the summer, there will be kid-friendly matinees throughout the week. Coming later this year is a Jim Henson Exhibition, which will be permanent, and include many Henson-related programs and screenings for all ages.
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Haiti - Economy : Textile sector could create 300,000 jobs in 8 years





The Association of Haitian Industries (ADIH) is calling for better exploitation of the Hope/Help Act in force until 2025 to create more jobs in Haiti. For Georges Sassine, ADIH President, there are many opportunities around the world in the textile sector, however Haiti will have to make a lot of effort to exploit them.



Businessman Andy Apaid, responsible for coordinating communication with the various sectors of national life, the textile sector alone can provide more than 300,000 jobs in the next 8 years and generate $ 6 billion in exports per year. "Other countries that do not even own 50 per cent of the opportunities of Haiti manage to emerge economically thanks to this sector, thanks to the determination and the will of their leaders".



Georges Sassine recalls that thanks to the Hope / Help law, Haiti can buy raw materials all over the world to process them on its territory and then export the finished product to the United States (until 2025) without paying customs duties. Vocational training for a skilled workforce is important, we are building at the SONAPI a Service and Training Center with the assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID - Haiti). A training center was also built in Caracol with the help of the South Korean Government https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-10707-haiti-training-establishment-of-the-garment-technology-training-center-in-caracol.html In three months, these two Centers will be in operation to meet the training needs of the workers.



TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Haiti still under threat of de-risking

Claude Pierre Louis, Head of the Professional Association of Banks (APB) urges the Executive and the Parliament to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that Haiti is in line with international bodies to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, indicating that Haiti was still under the threat of "de-risking" because of this situation.



FIFA, Latortue asks for a stadium of more than 50,000 places

On Saturday, Senator Youri Latortue met with Gianni Infantino, the President of FIFA. The Senator seized the opportunity to make two requests: the approval of the existing stadiums and the construction by FIFA of a large stadium of at least 50,000 places in Haiti. The President of FIFA has been open and supportive of these two requests... https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20803-haiti-politics-moise-receives-new-fifa-president.html



30,000 unclaimed passports

The Immigration Department reveals that 30,000 passports in Haiti have not yet been claimed by their owners and some for so long that they have expired...



Towards a Haitian Biodiversity Fund

Pierre Simon Georges, the Minister of the Environment intends to create a "Haitian Biodiversity Fund", to finance the safeguarding of protected areas.



Police officers in training in Chile

During his 48-hour stay in Chile, Michel-Ange Gedeon, the Director General of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) met with Commander Hector Espinosa Valenzuela, the Director of the School of Investigations of Chile and his team. During this meeting Gedeon took the opportunity to meet with Haitian police officers in training in Chile for several months.



Gerald Oriol Jr. at the Fair Agricultural

On Sunday, Gerald Oriol Jr., Secretary of State for the Integration of People with Disabilities visited the booth of the Office of the Secretary of State BSEIPH at the Agricultural, Industrial and Artisanal Fair in Champ de Mars in order to encourage some artists and craftsmen living with a disability who exhibit and sell their craft products. On the eve of Labor Day, Gerajd Oriol encouraged the massive integration of disabled people into the labor market in accordance with the law of 13 March 2012.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2017/04/30 | Source

Increasingly popular overseas travel often whets young Koreans' appetite for a new life abroad, and dreaming about it can offer respite from the grim realities at home.

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The main reason is that a growing number of younger people spend time overseas studying, traveling or getting job experience on working holiday visas, which opens their minds to other places and cultures.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization, the number of youngsters between 11 to 20 who travel abroad grew to 1.52 million last year, to some 3.82 million among 21-30 year-olds, and to 4.4 million among those aged 31 to 40.

The Education Ministry says the number of Korean students who went to school abroad has risen by over 200,000 a year since the year 2000.

One young person who has caught the travel bug is Park Sung-eun (25), a freelance writer involved in a crowd-funding project through tumblbug. Over the last three years, Park has been to Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Switzerland, where he took pictures for people longing to return to these places themselves.

The photos are then turned into postcards, posters and other materials, and already 106 people have contributed more than W2 million over the last two months (US$1=W1,129). "I planned the project to share my happy memories while traveling through Europe and I was surprised by how many people contributed", Park said.

Chat rooms have mushroomed on social media where people who have spent time abroad can reminisce and share their experiences. One 27-year-old who is looking for a job said, "I can often forget the depressing reality and reminisce about my days studying in the U.S. as I chat with other people who have experienced life overseas".

Ham In-hee at Ewha Womans University said, "Young Koreans want to remember, even for a brief moment, happy experiences they had overseas as they are faced with a tough job market and bad news on TV every day".

And Hyun Taek-soo of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs said "People in their 20s and 30s, who grew up in an age of globalization, are much more open to foreign cultures than older people and are quick to absorb new practices and beliefs. Many of them feel more comfortable in the U.S. or Europe".
By Lily Lee | Published on 2017/04/30 | Source

It's no secret who have taken over my ears lately. IU's new album is on the infinite repeat on my Spotify playlist, to and from work, while I take a shower, while I eat, opening my day with her songs and ending my day with her songs! She is such a genius in writing these songs and her voice is the voice of an angel.

Advertisement

Right as her songs were revealed to the world, IU held a private fan meeting called "LiveONE Palette" with 300 fans who were selected to attend.

Here it is!

The entrance was packed with many flower tree/ rice tree stands gifted from her fans and staffs.

As the meeting started, here comes our lovely IU! Yes, her four fingers are saying that she returned with her 4th album.

She was so happy to hear her fans scream with joy at her presence.

The meeting was scheduled for a 60 mins, but it became a mini concert + fan meeting, going near 2 hours long.

Even though IU was probably tired from her busy schedule with her return, it couldn't stop her love for her fans. IU is known for being a great communicator with her fans and taking care of them.

She rained the fans with many gifts as she introduced each songs. For the song "dlwlrma" meaning "this moment", she took a selfie with a Polaroid camera, capturing this moment. She then gave away the picture to a randomly selected fan.

Many fans also received signed CD with their name on it.

For those who couldn't be there due to the limited capacity of the meeting, there was a live video through SNS. She did not forget the fans watching from the live video and kindly addressed the questions given from the viewers.

Replying to her fans' request, she ran up to the audience and took group pictures. Since she got so close to them, she even did a quick interview too. (I'm so jealous of them!! Haha)

The anticipated album was revealed! And YES, true to the album's name, palette, she wanted the entire album to resemble an actual painting palette.

(CLAP CLAP CLAP)

She ended the meeting with singing her new songs live! Ahh, hurry and give me the ticket to South Korea right now. I must hear her beautiful voice in person!

Just as I thought I couldn't love her more than I already am, I'm falling in love with her more and more!

By. Lily Lee
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HSTA Slush Fund State Property Tax:

SB683 SD2 Proposes amendments to the Constitution of the State of Hawaii to advance the State's goal of providing a public education for the children of Hawaii by authorizing the legislature to establish, as provided by law, a surcharge on residential investment property and visitor accommodations. (SD2) UPDATE April 11 House vote 49-0 with two excused to approve. April 13: Senate disagrees with House amendments. Next Stop Conference Committee.--UPDATE April 21, 2017: HSTAs $500M Property Tax Slush Fund Killed





SB686 SD2 Establishes an education surcharge on residential investment properties and visitor accommodations for the purpose of funding public education. Effective July 1, 2050. (SD2)--UPDATE April 11 House vote 49-2 to approve McDermott and Tupola vote 'No'. April 13: Senate disagrees with House amendments. Next Stop Conference Committee.--UPDATE April 21, 2017: HSTAs $500M Property Tax Slush Fund Killed





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Income Tax Hike:

(NOTE: Unlike these bills, HB670 HD1 and HB932 HD1listed above--reduce taxes on the poor without hiking income taxes on small business owners.)

HB209 HD1 Expands the low-income household renters income tax credit based on adjusted gross income and filing status. Establishes a state earned income tax credit. Restores the income tax rates for high income brackets that were repealed on 12/31/15. Removes the sunset date for the refundable food/excise tax credit. (HB209 HD1)--Passed 3rd Reading in Senate with Amendments April 7. House disagrees with Senate amendments April 11. Next stop conference committee. -- Conference Committee approves amended bill -- scheduled for House and Senate votes Tues May 2. HB209 HD1 SD1 CD1 will restore Hawaii's highest-in-the-nation Income Tax rates while providing far smaller benefits to low income taxpayers.

SB648 SD1 Establishes a state earned income tax credit. Changes income tax rates after 12/31/16. Repeals the sunset date for amendments made to the refundable food/excise tax credit by Act 223, SLH 2015. Appropriates funds to DOTAX for certain tax preparation assistance outreach programs. Effective 8/30/2050. Applies to taxable years beginning after 12/31/2049. Appropriation effective 7/1/2050. (SD1)-- No Motion Since March 9

HB690 HD1 Decreases income tax rates by approximately 25 percent for all but the top income earners. Reinstates higher income tax brackets and rates similar to those that were repealed on 12/31/2015. (HB690 HD1)-- No Motion Since March 9

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TAT on TVRs:

HB1471 HD3 Requires large transient accommodations brokers and permits all other transient accommodations brokers to register as tax collection agents to collect and remit general excise and transient accommodations taxes on behalf of operators and plan managers using their services. Ensures that the subject property is in compliance with applicable land use laws. Allocates $1,000,000 of TAT revenues to each county for FY 2017-2018 to comply and enforce county ordinances regulating transient vacation rentals. Creates a surcharge tax on transient accommodations brokers. Sunsets on 12/31/2022. (HB1471 HD3)--Unanimously approved by Senate vote April 11. House disagrees with Senate amendments. Next stop conference committee.--Update April 20, 2017: Competing Airbnb Bills Set Off Lobbying Battle -- No action in Conf Ctte, bill dies for session.

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Eliminate Mortgage Interest Deduction:

HB486 HD2 Eliminates the mortgage interest deduction for second homes under the Hawaii Income Tax Law. Specifies that the revenue gain attributable to this measure be deposited into the Rental Housing Revolving Fund. Requires the Department of Budget and Finance, in consultation with the Department of Taxation, to submit reports on the administration of this measure to the Legislature prior to the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 Regular Sessions. (HB486 HD2)-- No Motion Since March 9

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Obamacare Individual Mandate Tax:

SB403 SD2 Ensures certain benefits under the federal Affordable Care Act are preserved under Hawaii law, including: preserving the individual health insurance mandate for taxpayers; preserving the premium tax credit for individuals and families with low or moderate income; requiring all health insurance entities, including health benefits plans under chapter 87A, HRS, to include ten essential health care benefits, plus additional contraception and breastfeeding coverage benefits; extending dependent coverage for adult children until the children turn twenty-six years of age; prohibiting health insurance entities from imposing a preexisting condition exclusion; prohibiting health insurance entities from using an individual's gender to determine premiums or contributions; and prohibiting health insurance entitles from discriminating with respect to participation against a health care provider acting within the scope of that provider's license or certification. Effective 7/1/2050. Individual mandate requirement repeals 6/30/2021. (SD2)-- No Motion Since March 9

HB552 HD1 Ensures that benefits of the Affordable Care Act are preserved under State law in the case of repeal of the ACA by Congress. Preserves the individual mandate, minimum essential benefit requirements, extended dependent coverage, and prohibitions on preexisting condition exclusions and gender discrimination in premiums and costs. Establishes a trust fund and procedures to reimburse insurers for unrecouped costs of providing minimal essential insurance benefits. (HB552 HD1)--April 11 Senate votes 24-1 to approve Rivere votes 'No' April 13 House disagrees with senate amendments. Next stop conference committee.-- April 20, 2017: HB552: State Obamacare Bill to become Study? UPDATE: HB552 HD1 SD2 CD1 becomes a study for future tax hikes--"Establishes the Affordable Health Insurance Working Group to plan for and mitigate adverse effects of the potential repeal of the federal Affordable Care Act by Congress."



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REIT Tax:

HB1012 HD2 Temporarily disallows the deduction for dividends paid by real estate investment trusts for a period of 15 years, but with an exception for dividends generated from trust-owned housing that is affordable to households with incomes at or below 140 per cent of the median family income. (HB1012 HD2)-- No Motion Since March 9

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Cell Phone Tax:

SB887 SD2 HD1 Establishes a prepaid wireless E911 surcharge of 1.5 per cent of prepaid wireless service purchased at the point of sale. Allows sellers to deduct and retain 3 per cent of the surcharges collected to offset administrative expenses, but requires sellers to remit the balance of surcharges collected to the Enhanced 911 fund on a specified periodic basis. (SB887 HD1)--Passed CPC March 24

HB206 HD2 Establishes a prepaid wireless E911 surcharge at the point of sale. Allows sellers to deduct and retain for administrative purposes 1.5% of the surcharge that is collected. Requires deposit of surcharge balance in the enhanced 911 fund. Requires a report. Sunsets on June 30, 2022. (HB206 HD2)--April 11 Senate approves unanimously. April 13 House disagrees with Senate amendments. Next stop conference committee.--No action, dies.



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Keeping Excess Funds Away from Taxpayers:

SB103 SD2 Implements the state constitutional amendment of Senate Bill No. 2554 of the Regular Session of 2016 that authorizes the disposition of excess general fund revenues to pre-pay general obligation bond debt service or pension or other post-employment benefit liabilities. Takes effect 6/30/2017. (SD2)--Enrolled to Governor April 7--Signed into law as Act 006 April 26, 2017.

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Vehicle Taxes and Fees and Fuel Taxes:

HB1587 HD1 Replaces the state vehicle weight tax with a tax based on the assessed value of a vehicle. (HB1587 HD1) Passed CPC, referred to WAM March 23

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Internet GE Tax:

SB620 SD2 General Excise Tax; Businesses Without Physical Presence in the State--Amends the definition of "business" in the State's general excise tax law. (SD2) --April 11 House votes 44-7 to approve. April 13 Senate disagrees with House amendments. Next stop conference committee.--Dies in Committee.

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Marijuana Tax:

HB263 HD2 Amends provisions related to licensed medical marijuana dispensaries by imposing GET on a percentage of dispensaries gross proceeds or gross income and allocating a portion of GET revenues received from dispensaries to the Medical Marijuana Registry and Regulation Special Fund. (HB263 HD2) -- No Motion Since March 9

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Not Quite a Tax Hike:

SB704 SD2 Establishes an online vacation rental working group to develop effective data collection methods that can assist state and county governments in monitoring the impact that short-term vacation rentals have on tax collections, housing stock, and the State's brand as a vacation destination; address compliance and enforcement challenges; and create effective proposals to ensure certain housing remains in long-term rental or eligible rental use for a mandatory time period. Appropriates funds for the working group to perform its duties. Effective 7/1/2050. (SD2) --April 11 House votes to approve 44-7. April 13 Senate disagrees with House amendments. Next stop conference committee.--Dies in Committee.

SB657 SD2 Amends the prorated amount of vehicle license and registration fee and weight taxes that rental car companies may pass on to lessees. Requires the motor vehicle rental industry to report to the legislature prior to the regular session of 2019 and defines vehicle license recovery fee for purposes of the report. Effective 3/1/2050. (SD2) -- No Motion Since March 9

HB735 HD2 Allows lessors of rental motor vehicles to pass on to lessees a government assessed fee. Defines government assessed vehicle fee and vehicle license recovery fee. Requires a report by the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism. Sunsets on June 30, 2018. (HB735 HD2) --April 11 Senate votes unanimously to approve. April 13 House disagrees with Senate amendments. Next stop conference committee. --Amended bill approved in Conf Cttee, set for House and Senate votes Tues May 2.

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Formerly Included a Tax Hike:

HB574 HD2 Provides that royalties from state land leases for basalt cinder and trap rock manufacturers shall be paid into the Basalt Materials Research Account within the Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems Special Fund. Sunsets December 31, 2030. (HB574 HD2)-- No Motion Since March 9
4-year-old woman has been awarded more than $1 million after she injured herself by falling from a safety step at a Coles supermarket.The ACT Supreme Court heard she fell on her right side and injured her hip. After a range of different medical treatments, the hip had to be replaced.The incident happened when she was working in a Canberra store for one month in 2009.Nicole Harris claimed she had no training in using the step and had just observed what a fellow worker had done and copied her movements.Lawyers for Coles told the Court the safety step was used by supermarkets across Australia, and was an obvious piece of equipment for which no training was necessary.Moreover, Coles denied her claims the company had been negligent, breached its duty of care or failed to provide a safe workplace.However, Justice Linda Ashford disagreed that the training wasnt necessary and did not believe Harris was exaggerating the extent of the symptoms."I do not accept there to have been the requisite training in the use of the step and there appears to have been no supervision or monitoring of the plaintiff in the performance of her work whilst using the step, she wrote."The defendant submits the plaintiff to be exaggerating her symptoms. I did not believe the plaintiff to be other than straightforward in her evidence."Clearly this has been a significant injury and the plaintiff will have continuing problems with her hip, leading almost inevitably to further hip replacement surgery."She added that calling a step a safety step does not make it so.At first blush, this seems a straightforward item in common use, yet the defendant's spreadsheet indicates 47 per cent of accidents using the step occurred in getting down from the step, she wrote.This is not an exercise in hindsight. This is not a dangerous step, per se, but this was an accident the defendant, as an employer, should have and could have avoided by proper supervision and training of the plaintiff and other employees.Harris was awarded $1,088,468.53 in compensation, with $570,229 to cover past and future economic loss, $222,200 in general damages and $236,039 for past and future medical expenses.
(Reuters) A former Eaton Vance Corp portfolio manager has agreed to plead guilty to having engaged in a fraudulent scheme involving call options that enabled him to illegally make $1.9 million, according to papers filed in Boston federal court on Monday.

Kevin Amell, 45, a onetime vice president at the Boston-based asset management firm, agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud and forfeit $1.95 million as part of a deal in which prosecutors would seek a prison sentence of no more than 27 months, the documents said. A lawyer for Amell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

To read this article:
The Centre Party on Thursday announced that it has nominated Jari Leppa, a 57-year-old farmer and fifth-term Member of Parliament from Eastern Finland, to take over agriculture and forestry matters.

The three ruling parties have announced their nominees to take on the new ministerial portfolios created in an attempt to reduce the workload current cabinet members.

Leppa, who is also a long-term chairperson of the Parliaments Agriculture and Forestry Committee, estimates that deteriorating profitability is the single greatest concern among farmers in Finland. Itll be crucial to promote [agricultural] exports. The functioning of the food market is another thing: I don't think that its at a high-enough level, he stated in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat on Thursday.

We have the cleanest ingredients in the world and excellent processing capabilities. More research and development investments are needed in the food market in order to open up new markets, he added.

Agriculture and forestry issues currently fall within the remit of Kimmo Tiilikainen, who will continue to serve as the Minister of the Environment.

The Centre Party also announced that ownership steering matters will be transferred from the portfolio of Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) to that of Minister of Economic Affairs Mika Lintila. Lintila will be relieved of his duties as the cabinet member responsible for energy issues in order to prevent a conflict of interest.

Energy issues, in turn, will be integrated into the portfolio of Tiilikainen.

The Finns Party on Thursday confirmed that Minister for Foreign Affairs Timo Soini will hand over his responsibilities as the cabinet member responsible for European affairs to Sampo Terho, 39, the chairperson of the Finns Party Parliamentary Group.

Terho has pledged to continue to defend national interest and maintain his hawkish stance on the European Union.

His ministerial portfolio will also include culture and sports, a domain that is currently part of the portfolio of Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (NCP), the Minister of Education. Terho said he is honoured to take on the responsibility for cultural affairs  especially as the country celebrated its one-hundredth year of independence.

Related posts: Lindstrom ready to hand over justice minister portfolio (12 April, 2017)

The Finns Party, in exchange, agreed to cede the responsibility for justice affairs to the National Coalition. The responsibilities currently fall within the remit of Jari Lindstrom (PS), who will continue to serve as the Minister of Employment. Lindstrom was recently forced to take a roughly ten-day sick leave due to his heavy workload.

The National Coalition announced that the portfolio will be assigned to Antti Hakkanen, a 32-year-old first-term Member of the Parliament from Eastern Finland. He was appointed as one of the partys deputy chairpersons last year and has previously served as a special advisor to both Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen and Paula Risikko, the Minister of Transport and Local Government.

Hakkanen revealed to Helsingin Sanomat that he is willing to continue the efforts launched by his predecessor to canvass public satisfaction with the current punitive standards.

I think the penalties for violent and sex crimes have been relatively lenient in recent years. They must be re-examined in the scope of this project. Im not commenting on whether or not they should be tougher, he said.

Hakkanen and Lindstrom see eye-to-eye also on another much-discussed issue: a trial to abolish Swedish as a mandatory school subject should be launched in Finland.

The ministerial appointments are to be confirmed in a presidential session on Friday, 5 May, 2017. Sipilas government will thus consist of 12 male and five female ministers, taking it one step further away from its objective of having an equal number of men and women.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Martti Kainulainen  Lehtikuva
Terho has floated the possibility of holding a membership referendum and, overall, seemed reluctant to quell speculation over the countrys future in the bloc.

Finlands policy towards the European Union will not change as a consequence of the appointment of Sampo Terho (PS) as the Minister of Culture, Sports and European Affairs, asserts Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre).

He is to formally assume his ministerial duties on Friday. The responsibilities will include representing Finland in the looming negotiations over the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the European Union. Terho served as a Member of the European Parliament in 20112015 and is currently campaigning to succeed Timo Soini (PS) as the chairperson of the Finns Party.

The Finnish Government does not subscribe to his views on the EU, stresses Sipila.

It certainly does not. The government programme sets forth our policy towards Europe, and together we have agreed to stick to our policy. You should expect no changes in the policy towards the EU, Sipila stated to media outlets ahead of an extraordinary meeting of EU heads of state in Brussels on Saturday.

The Government decided in its mid-term session to create three new ministerial portfolios in order to reduce the workload of certain ministers. The ministerial appointments are to be confirmed in a presidential session on Friday, 5 May, 2017.

European affairs currently fall within the remit of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Soini.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
THE Piggott School in Wargrave has donated almost 800 to the village branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

The branch holds an annual car boot sale at the school in Twyford Road.

Chairman Michael Porter, who was presented with a cheque, said: We are extremely grateful to the school for its continued support, both by way of this collection and by allowing us to run our car boot sale.

This years sale will take place on Sunday, May 21 from 8am to 1pm.
Plans to replace the Tivoli Theatre with tourist accommodation has angered local residents.

Many do not want the Liberties area turned into "another Temple Bar", said Dublin's Deputy Lord Mayor.

The theatre on Francis Street, best known for its Christmas pantomimes, is the subject of a planning permission application by owner Anthony Byrne.

He is seeking to turn the former 1930s cinema and bingo hall into a six-storey, 283-bedroom apart-hotel for city visitors.

A revised planning application has included a "performance space".

However, local Labour councillor and Deputy Lord Mayor Rebecca Moynihan said the proposal got a chilly reception from local residents when a revised planning application was discussed.

Under Dublin city planning rules, apart-hotels cannot be used for permanent accommodation. There is a strict limit of two months' stay for any guest.

Yet the area - like many others in the capital - needs permanent housing, said Ms Moynihan.

Local residents not only want more permanent homes in their community, they fear that if the application were granted, it could turn the residential area into a tourist quarter.

"The feeling is there should be housing in the area and not another Temple Bar," Ms Moyniham told the Herald.

Cathedral

Separately, Hodson Hotel Group is seeking permission to build a four-star hotel near St Patrick's Cathedral and a 500-bed student accommodation in "a traditional residential area," said the Deputy Lord Mayor.

The heritage organisation An Taisce was among five objectors to the Tivoli Theatre project when the original planning application was submitted shortly before Christmas.

Opponents had concerns over the height of the building, an increase in traffic in the area and the "transient population" it would attract.

Dublin City Council's conservation office also urged city planners to reject the proposal on the grounds that the site should not lose its cultural identity.

It cited numerous redevelopments in the area that have seen "the removal of all cultural assets and character" and warned that this "should not be repeated" at the theatre.

The office urged the planning department to reject the proposal on the grounds the theatre is "a local, city-wide and national landmark" which not only houses a 500-seat theatre but is a vital night-time venue.

However, after planning consultants revised the proposal to include a new "performance space" that would act as an "occasional" outdoor cinema and venue for performances, An Taisce slammed the revised version as "a tokenistic response to the loss of the Tivoli".

An Taisce heritage officer Ian Lumley said the revised plans for a public area to be called Tivoli Square are unclear.
More CCTV cameras are set to be introduced on Dublin's most popular party streets - months after a man was convicted of rape after CCTV footage was utilised.

A review by gardai of coverage in Dublin's south inner city at the end of last year found a need for "greater CCTV coverage".

Among the streets to benefit from the additional cameras are Harcourt Street, Camden Street and Montague Street, which is next to the lane in which a woman was left with severe injuries after she was attacked.

Last November, rickshaw driver Rafael Tiso (31), from Brazil, was jailed for 13 years for the rape in Montague Lane in January 2016.

Tiso, who was operating in the Harcourt Street area, was captured on CCTV leaving a nightclub with the intoxicated victim and walking with her down a side street before going into the lane with her. He left the lane 40 minutes later and returned to drink in the same bar.

A passer-by heard a moaning noise and discovered the woman lying on the ground between a truck and a car.

Authorities say that the increase in footfall in the area has triggered the move for more CCTV, which will be installed in the coming months.

In response to a request from Dublin City Council, gardai at Pearse Street said that they are currently modernising communications and incident management systems.

Once this is completed there will be a capacity for an "increase in CCTV monitoring and proactive observation".

Benefit

The statement added: "Gardai at Pearse Street carried out a review of the public CCTV system during 2016 to take into account and reflect the change in dynamics and usage of areas of the district.

"Montague Street and the wider area of Harcourt Street and Camden Street was identified as an area which would benefit from greater CCTV coverage, particularly in light of the significant increase in night-time economy in the area.

"The additional CCTV cameras in this area will be a joint approach between An Garda Siochana, Dublin City Council and possibly local business interests."
The families of two teenagers who died in a traffic collision at the weekend are said to be "absolutely distraught".

Shocked friends and loved ones have paid tribute to the two young men from Buncrana in Donegal who were travelling home from a night out with three other pals.

The bodies of the friends, Nathan Fullerton (17) and Nathan Farrell (18), arrived back home yesterday evening and they will be buried at St Mary's, Cockhill, in Buncrana, later this week.

Distraught

They were killed when their vehicle collided with a wall between Quigley's Point and Whitecastle on the R238 at 3.35am on Saturday.

One teen was pronounced dead at the scene while the second was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital where he died.

Mr Fullerton was believed to have been leaving for a job in Scotland today and was returning from a night out at the Bailey nightclub in Redcastle.

Three other young men, Jimmy McKenna, Ronan Boyd and a third friend, were also in the car at the time but are said to be in a stable condition in hospital.

"I've been talking to some of the family members and they're absolutely distraught; they're in shock, disbelief," said Councillor Rena Donaghey.

"They went out to go to a disco but they never came home.

"They were all very young, they were all under 20, they had everything to live for. They were just starting out in life, really. One of them was starting a job in Scotland on Monday.

"My thoughts are with the ones who are in hospital as well.

"We just hope that they have a speedy recovery and get back to full health again."

Witnesses

Very Rev Francis Bradley reported that there was a "stunned silence" at the news of the accident, adding that people were shocked at the loss of life.

"Unfortunately this isn't a set of circumstances that we're unfamiliar with, we are all too familiar with it," he said.

"But nevertheless it's different people and different families and for that reason it is a fresh tide of grief."

Gardai are appealing for witnesses, particularly anyone close to the scene between 3am and 3.40am on Saturday.

They are asked to call Buncrana Garda Station on 074-9320540, the confidential line on 1800 666 111 or any garda station.
Wes Moore makes history as Maryland's next governor

Maryland's 2022 election is history-making with Wes Moore. Only two other Black politicians have ever been elected governor in the U.S.
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On April 24, Maoists killed 25 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in Sukma, Chhattisgarh. The ambush took place only a kilometre away from a CRPF post at Burkapal, which was established in 2013 by the Chhattisgarh Police (CP) and later taken over by the force to bridge the 12-km gap between Chintagufa and Chintalnar. Both these places have police stations and CRPF camps.

On the day of the attack, the CRPF personnel left from the Burkapal post at around 6 am and were attacked by Maoists at 12.55 pm. It is not a planned attack but a chance ambush. The Maoists are adept at such attacks and claim to have converted guerrilla warfare into mobile warfare. The main characteristic of mobile warfare is the agility of troops to move swiftly and regroup in large formations in a short time. The most daring attack was in Taadmetla (2010), not very far off from Burkapal, in which no less than 76 jawans of the CRPF were killed. Twelve jawans were recently killed near Bhejji.

The deployment of forces in the largely hilly and forested district of Sukma is peculiar. It is mostly done in a linear manner along two roads: The Sukma-Konta national highway and the Dornapal-Chintalnar-Jagargunda state highway. The absence of well-spread and networked police stations and security camps gives Maoists an advantage.

The availability of precise intelligence input is extremely important for any successful operation. In a hostile environment, the forces face a herculean task of keeping themselves alert all the time. In the absence of roads for transport and mobile connectivity, the flow of information often gets delayed and so security forces are unable to take timely action. Further, it is also difficult to verify such information and many a times the anti-Maoist operations are launched based on general inputs.

The scenario, however, has been changing steadily. The tardy speed of road construction has improved. With more delegation of power at the field level, local contractors have undertaken construction works, though in patches. When all other construction agencies failed, the task of road construction, along the most challenging routes (including the under-construction Dornapal-Chintagufa-Jagargunda highway) was taken up by the Chhattisgarh Police Housing Corporation. Both central and state police forces provide security for these works.

The mission of establishing 146 new mobile towers in the Maoist-hit areas has been accomplished. More are coming up. With more villages connected to the communication network, intelligence will improve. Besides, three All India Radio stations are coming up in the southern districts of Bastar; regional programmes could help revive tribal cultural ethos and change the hostile atmosphere.

We are also recruiting personnel for India Reserve battalions of Chhattisgarh from the Maoist-affected districts so that the problems related to local language, cultural gap and knowledge of terrain are minimised. The CRPF is also raising its Bastariya battalion to improve its local connect. Community policing programmes will also help in improving the security forces relations with the affected populace.

The next step is to use technology. For example, air surveillance of affected areas needs to be set-up at a battalion level. Plus we need more forces to reverse their mobile war. The central task of the Maoists still remaining the same i.e.; to capture political power through protracted armed struggle with peoples support, there is no other option than to implement the governments two-pronged policy of security with development in letter and spirit.

In an article in HT, former police officer Prakash Singh alleged that the state police forces lean heavily on the shoulders of the central armed police forces and are in a shambles. This is not true: The state police forces have not only gradually increased their strength threefold since 2000 but have also occupied most of the forward camps. They have also taken on the challenge without parting away with their responsibilities. The states ownership is total and complete.

RK Vij is additional director general of police, Chhattisgarh

The views expressed are personal
In a Facebook interview with the Hindustan Times, UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh had said in a lighter vein, Some Muslim women said they voted for me as they liked the dimples on my cheeks.

But its more than the dimples. The reports coming in from different corners of the state indicated a softening of the Muslims stance towards the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party that had become an anathema for the community after the 1992 demolition of Babri mosque in Ayodhya and 2002 riots in Gujarat. Since then the community ruthlessly voted to defeat the BJP.

It could well be a judicious move by the Muslims who have now realised the political potency of the BJP, both at the state and the centre. A Muslim BJP leader, who has stuck to the party despite the anger of the community opines, The 2017 mandate has changed their mindset. People, who till the other day avoided meeting me have started sending invitations.

The Shias came on board first and now some Sunnis may also explore the saffron party despite its subtle thrust on the Hindutva agenda.

The All India Shia Personal Law Board has explicitly supported all the three controversial moves of UP chief minister Yogi Adiyanath  a negotiated settlement of the Ayodhya dispute, a ban on triple talaq and cow slaughter, the third literally breaking the financial backbone of the community notwithstanding. Some of them had even celebrated the BJPs victory and Samajwadi Partys defeat as yaun-e-nijjat (day of riddance).

The 8% Shias have generally toed a different line from the Sunnis.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has however rejected government interference in matters of Muslim personal laws and an out -of-court settlement of the Ayodhya dispute.

Although the AIMPLB has strongly censured the social practice of triple talaq and called for social boycott of those who misused it, Muslim women are increasingly veering to the governments stand to end the humiliating practice.

It is not a small achievement for the party that had not fielded even a single Muslim candidate, both in the Lok Sabha and the UP Assembly elections, for the simple reason that their Muslim candidate would not have been able to muster support of his own community, especially when the BSP had fielded 100 Muslims and the SP and the Congress had stitched an alliance to retain their support.

What seems to have worked for the BJP is its commitment to the social problem that Muslim women are facing  triple talaq, which they could not oppose out of fear of earning the wrath of the maulanas and their men folk.

Tamil Nadu has a unique system of jamaats, affiliated to the local moque, which settle domestic issues like dowry, divorce and domestic violence. But there was a time when most of the jamaats neither had a woman member on the board nor did they allow them to represent their own cases and thus delivered one-sided judgments that favoured men. I remember meeting womens rights activist Sherifa Khanum in the mid-1990s. After years of demonstrations she had succeeded in forming women jamaats to deliver justice to the battered women. The maulanas relented after public pressure.

Not everywhere in the country can a Muslim woman get her petition redressed. Thus when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah decided to incorporate triple talaq in their elections sankalp patra, Muslim women started hoping for some succour from talaqs given on phone, mail or verbally. Maulanas resisted the BJPs promise but a fraction of women gave silent support to the party they had despised. The three other political parties  SP, BSP and Congress which are partly dependent on maulanas support in the elections  had never ever thought of touching the sensitive issue even with a barge pole.

However, public pressure is growing. Armed with government support, more and more women are challenging their husbands unilateral decisions and taking to the streets. Its quite likely the maulanas may also be compelled to adopt a more conciliatory approach.

Ironically, a few Muslim organisations and individuals have come out openly in support of the ban on cow-slaughter, with some even promising to invade minority dominated areas where cows are slaughtered. Interestingly, they are also getting the support from their own community.

A few months before the elections, triple talaq, yoga in school curriculum and cow slaughter were seen as polarising issues in the elections. No more, much to the consternation of the secular parties. With the BJP penetrating the minority vote bank, howsoever minuscule, and the majority community resisting minority appeasement, its time they change their political narrative to come back in the electoral competition.
The Iraq war may not sound like musical comedy, but an off-Broadway revival is spinning intelligence failures and tragedy into a farce that offers potent messages for Donald Trumps America.

Baghdaddy officially opens in New York on May 1, and tells the true story of an Iraqi defector, code named Curveball, whose claims about weapons of mass destruction became the justification for the US-led invasion in 2003.

If you put Hamilton and The Office in a blender you would have this show, says producer Charlie Fink of the Broadway smash hit about American founding father Alexander and the US television sitcom.

The plot opens in the present day with disgraced CIA spies gathering at a support group  think Spooks Anonymous  as they seek understanding and redemption for mistakes that haunt them years later.

The first preview of Baghdaddy on April 6 coincided with the day that the US president ordered a cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase. (baghdaddymusical.com)

The action then switches back in time to Frankfurt airport, where the informant offers to trade apparent secrets about Saddam Husseins presumed bio-weapons programme for political asylum.

German intelligence consults the CIA, where analysts driven by ambition, office crushes and intransigent bosses see Curveball as a ticket out of everyday routine and a fast-track to promotion.

But the growing farce quickly gives way to the 9/11 attacks, swapping comedy for tragedy and the onset of a war still being fought today, 14 years after an invasion found no weapons of mass destruction.

Its a fast-paced script woven into a tight score that blends traditional musical theatre and camp dancing with hip-hop tracks that carry a stark warning that history should not repeat itself.

Fink says it is more relevant than ever in todays climate of fake news and alternative facts as some fear that Trump could drag the country into another conflict, if not in Syria then over North Korea.

It has an immediacy that it didnt have in 2015 and a sense that were doing this all again, says Fink, referring to a short run two years ago.

Back to the future

It feels like a time when rules are being rewritten and authority is listening to its instincts, rather than listening to facts and analysis. And thats scary, says Fink.

The first preview on April 6 coincided with the day that the US president ordered a cruise missile attack on a Syrian airbase, the first direct US action against the Syrian regime.

Low budget and in the works for 10 years, Baghdaddy returns at the height of the Broadway season, competing with more than a dozen other new shows. And there are just eight actors playing six main roles.

It also spreads responsibility for the 2003 invasion far and wide, not just at the door of then president George W. Bush or the US government but the country as a whole and its Western allies in general.

We all messed up, says Marshall Pailet, director, co-writer and composer. Far from seeing comedy as inappropriate, he says its a great vehicle to get New York theatre-goers thinking.

Because we open up their minds and their hearts with comedy, were able to slip in substance, story, character and a lesson.

AD Penedo, who wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book, admits it was daunting to turn the subject into a musical that both entertains and sends people away with a clear message.

We want them to be entertained and moved, he said. But we want them to take away... that even though you feel like you dont matter, you really do, and theres ramifications for your actions.

The show is scheduled to run until June 18 at St Lukes Theatre, a basement venue just steps from Times Square.

But never does the show laugh at war itself. More than 4,500 US troops have died in Iraq since 2003. Some estimates for the number of civilians to have perished range from 173,916 to nearly half a million.

We all own it, says Fink. A wound in the world that is not going to be healed with tears or laughter.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more.
After Morocco and Vienna, the team of Tiger Zinda Hai will shoot in Abu Dhabi over a 65-day schedule from May 4 at multiple locations in the city. A set is being designed by some of those workers who helped to build the Star Wars set in 2013.

The Yash Raj Films (YRF) project is a sequel to the blockbuster film Ek Tha Tiger. Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, it features superstar Salman Khan and actress Katrina Kaif, who are both happy to be shooting there.

Salman said in a statement: Tiger Zinda Hai is a film of sizeable scale and context. Abu Dhabi, with a variety of locations, and gracious hosts, is ideal to shoot for a film like this one. I hope that the entire unit will enjoy our time here.

Katrina said, I look forward to shooting in eye-catching locations and on the impressive set here, she added.

Work has begun on the construction of a 20,000 sq metre space for the movies sets. The set is being designed by Rajnish Hedao from Acropolis DMG, and over 150 workers will be on site to create the films main set, many of whom helped to build the Star Wars set in Abu Dhabi in 2013. The production unit will also film at several other locations around Abu Dhabi before moving onto the set.

twofour54s Film and TV Services division will provide production services for the movie, with a crew of 300 expected to work on the movie. Government support will come from the UAE military, which will provide military equipment, including choppers during the shoot.

The films director said, A film like Tiger Zinda Hai requires a certain scale, which we found in Abu Dhabi. Keeping all the practical measures in mind, the kind of support we got on the infrastructure was phenomenal. That along with some stunning real locations, makes shooting in Abu Dhabi special.

Officials in Abu Dhabi note Bollywoods increasing attraction towards the city as a shooting destination.

Maryam Al Mheiri, CEO of Media Zone Authority - Abu Dhabi, said: Abu Dhabi is gaining traction in India as the emerging new home of Bollywood, as a result of what we can offer this dynamic industry: a generous 30 per cent rebate, a huge variety of locations, and crew with Bollywood experience.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, carrying the companys first satellite for the U.S. military, and breaking a 10-year monopoly held by a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The 23-story tall rocket took off from its seaside launch pad at Kennedy Space Center at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT.)

It will put into orbit a classified satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, an agency within the Defense Department that operates the nations spy satellites.

Nine minutes after takeoff, the rockets main section touched down on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, just south of NASAs spaceport.

Last month, Space Exploration Technologies Corp flew its first recovered booster on a second mission, a key step in company founder Elon Musks quest to cut launch costs.

The National Reconnaissance Office bought SpaceXs launch services via a contract with Ball Aerospace, a Colorado-based satellite and instrument builder. The terms of the contract were not disclosed.

Musk battled for years to break the monopoly on the militarys launch business held by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

SpaceX sued the U.S. Air Force in 2014 over its exclusive multibillion-dollar contract with United Launch Alliance. The company later dropped the suit after the military agreed to open more launch contacts to competitive bidding.

SpaceX has since won two launch contracts from the Air Force to send up Global Positioning System satellites in 2018 and 2019.

Mondays launch was the 34th mission for SpaceX and the fifth of more than 20 flights planned for this year.

The privately owned firm, based in Hawthorne, California, has a backlog of more than 70 missions, worth about $10 billion.

(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Bernadette Baum)
Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan ordered on Monday an inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh and random checks on others across the rest of the country, responding to a massive racket that cheated customers in the northern state.

He warned of strict action against unscrupulous dealers and officials, after Uttar Pradesh authorities raided petrol pumps last week over allegations that they were stealing petrol and diesel by manipulating fuel dispensing machines through remote-controlled electronic chips.

The chip, costing around Rs 3,000, is designed to control the outflow from the machines and give the customers nearly 10% less petrol or diesel for every litre purchased.

The petroleum ministry has issued an order for inspection of all petrol pumps in UP and random checks in other states to check tampering in DU (delivery units), Pradhan said in a series of tweets.

He said the states weights and measure department must ensure the filling machines were not tinkered, but oil marketing companies (OMCs) should be equally responsible and share the blame for any malpractice.

We have initiated action against field officers. Strictest action will be taken against the culprit retail outlets in accordance with the marketing discipline guidelines, he said.

Seven petrol pumps have been sealed after the UP police special task force (STF) raids, and about 14 people were being questioned.

The cheating got exposed after STF officers caught an electrician, based on a tip-off, on Wednesday night. He allegedly used to install the chips, which decrease the fuel discharge.

These petrol pumps were allegedly earning Rs 14 lakh a month by duping the customers, said Arvind Chaturvedi, a senior police officer who is with the UP STF.

Officials of state-run oil companies will accompany teams from the STF, the weights and measure department and the food and civil supply department for inspection of all retail outlets.
The Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016, the landmark realty law to protect home buyers from unscrupulous developers, will become operational from Monday, nine years after it was conceived.

The act was cleared by Parliament in March last year. Under the act, states had to notify the realty rules and set up Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) by April 30. Without notifying the rules, the law will not become operational.

However, as on April 30, just 13 of the 32 states and Union territories, including Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Delhi, and Andhra Pradesh have notified the rules.

Only one state  Madhya Pradesh  has set up RERA while 9 others including Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi have set up interim regulators.

Housing ministry officials maintain that remaining states have been directed to notify their rules at the earliest.

Heres all you need to know about the new realty law:

 It makes it mandatory for all builders - developing a project where the land exceeds 500 square metre - to register with RERA before launching or even advertising their project. Developers have been given time until July 31 to register.

 Not doing so will invite up to a maximum imprisonment of 3 years or fine of up to 10% of the total project cost.

 Developers will have to submit as well as upload project details, including approved layout plan, timeline, cost, and the sale agreement, that prospective buyers will have to sign to the proposed regulator.

Only developers who fulfil this disclosure clause would be permitted to advertise their project to prospective buyers.

Real Estate Appellate Tribunals to be set up in every state.

As of now, the real estate sector was largely unregulated in India. If a consumer had a complaint against a developer they had to make rounds of consumer or civil courts. Now, in case of any grievance, the consumer can go to the real estate regulator for redressal.

 Developers will have to put 50% of the money collected from a buyer in a separate account to meet the construction cost of the project. This will put a check to the general practice by developers to divert buyers money to start a new project instead of finishing the one for which money was collected. This will ensure that construction is completed on time.

 The law is likely to stabilise housing prices. It will lead to enhanced activity in the sector, leading to more housing units supplied to the market.

 It will weed out fly-by-night operators from the sector and channelise investment into it.

 Builders will also benefit as the law has penal provisions for allottees who do not pay dues on time. The builder can also approach the regulator in case there is any issue with the buyer.

How it works in other countries

United States

Real estate in the US is regulated at numerous levels. There is no single regulatory body, but a series of bodies that regulate different ownership and usage aspects. To safeguard the interest of the end-users, the US department of housing and urban development (HUD) has rules under the real estate settlement procedures act to protect consumer interests pertaining to residential properties.

If a buyer enters a contract with the developer, and the developer does not deliver on the terms agreed upon in the contract, the developer can be taken to court for breach of contract. In the US, there are state real estate licensing laws and a code of ethics in place.

United Kingdom

There is no regulator to monitor development. The financial services authority (FSA), which is now part of the Bank of England, regulates almost all investments in real estate. The Property Misdescriptions Act, 1991, prohibits making false or misleading statements on property matters in the course of estate agency business and the property development business.

(Source: Realty decoded: Investing across borders by Ernst & Young and Ficci)

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Reliance Industries Ltd today approached the Securities Appellate Tribunal against a Sebi order, which had banned the Mukesh Ambani-led firm from equity derivative trading for one year and had asked it to disgorge nearly Rs 1,000 crore in an alleged fraudulent trading case.

The Tribunal is likely to hear RILs appeal on May 3 to decide on admission and further hearing, sources said.

In a nearly 10-year-old case, capital markets regulator Sebi on March 24 had banned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and 12 others from equity derivatives trading for one year, while accusing the company of making unlawful gains.

Besides, RIL was asked to disgorge Rs 447 crore, along with an annual interest of 12% since November 29, 2007, which itself would be over Rs 500 crore, taking the total disgorgement amount to nearly Rs 1,000 crore.

The case relates to alleged fraudulent trading in the F&O space in the securities of RILs erstwhile listed subsidiary Reliance Petroleum Ltd (RPL).

Soon after Sebis order, RIL had termed the regulators directions as unjustifiable sanctions and had said it would challenge the directive.

The company felt the trades were examined by Sebi were genuine and bona fide transactions and were carried out keeping the best interest of the company and its shareholders in view.

Sebi appears to have misconstrued the true nature of the transactions and imposed unjustifiable sanctions, it had added.

The group had earlier sought to settle the case, but the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had refused.

The proceedings in the long-pending case were expedited in the last few months.

Reliance Petroleum was later merged with the listed parent firm.

The 12 other entities that were banned by Sebi are Gujarat Petcoke and Petro Product supply, Aarthik Commercials, LPG Infrastructure India, Relpol Plastic Products, Fine Tech Commercials, Pipeline Infrastructure India, Motech Software, Darshan Securities, Relogistics (India), Relogistics (Rajasthan), Vinamara Universal Traders and Dharti Investment and Holdings.

Sebi had said the directions are being passed after taking into consideration the magnitude of the fraud across the markets.

As per the Sebi order, RIL by employing 12 agents to take separate position limits of open interest on its behalf by executing separate agreements with each one of them and cornering 93.63% of the November futures of RPL, acted in a fraudulent manner.
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of External Affairs that visited the border region and other important establishments today, said he was not in sync with the Centre on ties with Pakistan, and India should snap all relations with its neighbour. Singh said he will officially register his dissent regarding relations with Pakistan. His comments come on a day when news of Pakistani forces mutilating the bodies of two Indian soldiers sent shock waves across the country.

As the committee visited the local passport office and also the Integrated Check Post to see Indo-Pak trade and interacted with troops, Amar Singh said, India must not keep any ties with Pakistan. India has always gone ahead with positive gestures but Pakistan has only responded with back-stabbing and terror.

He said until Pakistan behaves itself, India should not keep any cultural, sporting or trade ties with the country. Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee went with a Dosti bus as goodwill gesture and Pakistan responded with Kargil. Even now PM Modi went to Nawaz Sharif on a surprise visit, but our jawans were attacked soon afterwards. Pakistan must be made to understand in a language that it comprehends, he added.

However, chairman of the Parliamentary Committee and senior Congressman Shashi Tharoor was not in favour of snapping all ties. Commenting on cutting off trade relations, Tharoor said, I dont think that will be right. One has to think ahead. If today we end all ties then what tomorrow. Keeping one line is not good.

He said the committee was visiting the ICP to review border trade between the two countries and would also be going to the Attari-Wagah joint check post. We will interact with the security forces and then submit our report. We dont want it to be a rushed affair, said Tharoor.

Reacting to this, MP Amar Singh said, I have a viewpoint that all ties with Pakistan must be snapped. I will officially give my dissent to the committee.

Pak wrong in Jadhav case: Tharoor

Hitting at the Pakistan Government on the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, Shashi Tharoor said, Whatever Pakistan did is against the international rules. How can you just pick up a person and announce such a punishment. Even consular access was denied to Jadhav. In which country is such a law followed, asked Tharoor. He said that all Indians are united in the Jadhav case. The MEA committee also paid obedience at the Golden Temple and visited the Jallianwala Bagh.

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The powerful RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has called for a nationwide ban on cow slaughter, describing this as a sacred duty, and adding that in states where the RSS has dedicated swayamsewaks in power, strong laws are already in place.

In 1954, when Congress MP Seth Govind Das moved a resolution in the Lok Sabha for a total ban on cow slaughter, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru reacted with acerbic firmness as he did against all forms of religious fundamentalism  declaring I would rather resign than accept this nonsensical demand. He warded off similar demands from the President of India Rajendra Prasad, dubbing banning cow slaughter unimportant and reactionary. We have such travelled a very long way as a nation since then.

However it must be admitted that the rot had set in much earlier. Congress chief minister Sampurnanand of Uttar Pradesh in 1955 introduced a law to ban cow slaughter in open defiance of Nehrus explicit wishes. Nehru described it as a wrong step, but the law was possible because cow slaughter prohibition was included under the Directive Principles of an otherwise progressive Constitution. Nehru and Ambedkar had themselves reluctantly compromised by allowing this, only ensuring that the language of Section 48 did not justify the proposed ban on the grounds of respecting majoritarian Hindu sentiment but instead the alleged imperatives of scientific animal husbandry. Socialist Jayaprakash Narayan in 1966 wrote to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi seeking a ban on cow slaughter, declaring I cannot understand why, in a Hindu majority country like India, where rightly or wrongly, there is such a strong feeling about cow-slaughter, there cannot be a legal ban. Indira Gandhi refused then, resisting a nation-wide agitation by many Hindu organisations. But in 1982, in line with many steps to appease Hindu religious sentiment, she wrote to 14 Chief Ministers urging that the cow-slaughter ban be enforced in letter and spirit, and not allowed to be circumvented deviously. Prime Minister Morarji Desai had earlier admitted a move to bring a national cow-slaughter ban into the legislative competence of the central government.

Today most states have passed laws that prohibit cow slaughter, except Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Lakshadweep; Assam and West Bengal permit the slaughter of cows over ages of 10 and 14 years respectively. India Spend estimates that 99.38 percent of the countrys population is covered by cow slaughter laws. Laws banning cow slaughter in nearly half of these states are roughly 50 years old, enacted during the tenure of the Congress. Election speeches are today laced with innuendos attacking the pink revolution of an alleged surge of beef exports. The Haryana government has even created a uniformed police force unit for cow protection. The Gujarat legislature recently approved life imprisonment for killing cows. UP Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath had as an MP introduced a private members bill in Parliament seeking a nation-wide ban on cow slaughter, and his first major drive in office has been in closing numerous abattoirs, casually imperilling the livelihoods of tens of thousands. BJP MP Subramaniam Swamy has introduced a bill seeking death penalty for those convicted for cow slaughter.

It is particularly unfortunate that Swamy invoked Mahatma Gandhi while seeking capital punishment for those who kill a cow in this proposed law. There is no doubt that Gandhi was deeply devoted to the cow. Gandhi said he would defend its worship against the whole world, that cow worship is central to Hinduism, and even that she is superior to our biological mothers. Our mother, when she dies, means expenses of burial or cremation. Mother cow is as useful dead as when she is alive. We can make use of every part of her body  her flesh, her bones, her intestines, her horns and her skin. But still he stoutly opposed a legal ban on cow slaughter. I have been long pledged to serve the cow but how can my religion also be the religion of the rest of the Indians? It will mean coercion against those Indians who are not Hindus. We have been shouting from the house-tops that there will be no coercion in the matter of religion. To therefore appeal to Gandhi while advocating a nationwide ban on cow slaughter with death for those who defy the ban is disingenuous and unjust. He was very clear that to impose such a ban on non-Hindu Indians would amount to bullying by the majority which would run counter to the spirit and the promises of the freedom struggle, that India would belong equally to all regardless of their faith, caste, gender and language.

The gentle cow is no doubt beloved to millions of Indians. But the campaign today that claims to defend her has nothing to do with love of any kind. The cow is just recruited as another highly emotive symbol to beat down Indias minorities into submission and fear. Other symbols are a grand Ram temple to replace a medieval mosque, charges that Muslim men are sexual pillagers and reproductively irresponsible, scaremongering of a Muslim population explosion, allegations of their sympathy for terror, demands for curtailments in Muslim personal law, and claims of runaway Christian evangelism. It is instructive to look at four private members bills that Yogi Adityanath had introduced in Parliament.

Apart from the one seeking a nationwide ban on the slaughter of the cow and its entire progeny, another sought to amend the Indian Constitution to replace India, that is Bharat with Bharat, that is Hindustan, presumably to underline this to be a nation of Hindus. One more sought to ban religious conversions in India, and yet another to secure a uniform civil code throughout India. Adityanath, with his agenda and history of aggressive minority-baiting, one that would teach them to submit to life as second-class citizens, was handpicked to lead a state which if independent would be the fifth largest in the world.

In this environment permissive of hate speech and violence, both the Muslim and the Dalit have been demonised as the cow-killing other, and vigilante attacks and extortion targeting have become commonplace across the land. The lynch mobbing of an ageing Muslim dairy farmer in Alwar, Rajasthan is only the latest of these outrages, followed predictably by denials and victim blaming by senior politicians and police officials. With bigotry sanctioned from the top, this placid pastoral animal is being used today to pit one Indian against another. Too much blood has flowed already.

Harsh Mander is author, Looking Away: Inequality, Prejudice and Indifference in New India

The views expressed are personal

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Dehradun: In a move that may go a long way in boosting tourist flow to Uttarkashi, the Centre has asked the Uttarakhand government to prepare an action plan to free parts of Gangotri area, including the Harsil town along the India-China border, from the inner line permit regime.

Owing to its location along the international boundary, tourists need inner line permit to go the area. Also, the foreign tourists cannot stay overnight in the military cantonment area in Harsil.

Inner line permit system calls for formal permission from union home ministry as ITBP is the controlling authority of these areas for their proximity with Indo-China border.

As per the sources, the Centre in a recent communication to the state government and Uttarakashi district administration has asked the latter to prepare a plan to free the Harsil meadows, Bagori village close to Gangotri and Mukhba, from the protected regime for strategic reasons. Mukhba is the alternate seat of Goddess Ganga when the idol of the deity is brought down from Gangotri, which is rendered inaccessible during winters.

The communication comes days after state tourism minister, Satpal Maharaj, wrote a letter to the Centre to free these areas from the protective regime, especially for the foreign tourists. At present, the tourists have to secure an inner line permit from the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA) as the area is under the control of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

In his letter, copies of which were marked to the MHA and the Union tourism ministry, Maharaj cited the example of Sangla valley at Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh that is situated barely 40 kilomters from Indo-China border but was freed from the inner line permit rule. He said the three locations in Uttarakhand were located more than 100 kilometers from the international border.

Apart from these three areas near the Gangotri, even Nelong valley that was rendered a no mans land after 1960 Indo-China war but opened for Indians two years ago needs to be freed from the inner line permit regime. This will give a big push to foreign tourist inflow. Quashing of the protective regime will help in developing a mega tourism hub in the state, Maharaj said.

The minister said that once the inner line permit system was lifted, the state tourism department would develop 200 houses in Mukhba village as home stays that will directly help the village economy.

I will soon meet Union home minister Rajnath Singh and tourism minister Mahesh Sharma to discuss the issue and urge them to expedite lifting of the inner line permit norms from Gangotri area and Nelong Valley, he added.

This is not the first time that the state government has sought lifting of the protective regime from the area. A request to this effect was sent to the Centre by the previous Congress government in 2016 but no action was taken despite an assurance by Union MoS for Home affairs Kiren Rijiju.

Harsil town, situated at an altitude of 2,620 meters in Uttarkashi, is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and remains a favourite among mountaineers and trekkers. The area turned into a tourist hotspot after a major portion of 1985-blockbuster Ram Teri Ganga Maili was shot here.

The town was put under the restricted areas list while Nelong valley was sealed by the government after the 1962 Sino-Indian war.
DEHRADUN: Former chief minister Harish Rawat on Monday came out for the first time after the humiliating defeat in the Uttarkhand elections, and staged a sit in protest against the Centre for doubling the prices of PDS foodgrains meant for APL families.

On one hand, the Narendra Modi-led government misses no opportunity in patting its back for distribution of LPG connections under its Ujjawala scheme but increased the price of LPG by more than Rs 300 per cylinder, he said.

The Modi government has squeezed out the people of their share of LPG subsidy. It raised the price of wheat from Rs 4 per kg during the Congress rule to Rs 8.60 per kilogram and the price of rice from Rs 7 to Rs 15 per kg. Its amply clear that the BJP governments have no concern for the poor and downtrodden section of the society, Rawat said to Congress workers at Gandhi Park near the party headquarters.

We, the Congress led UPA government, provided cheapest food grain to the people while this government is doing opposite.

Rawat said the BJP government in Uttarakhand has treaded the path shown by Modi government in Delhi. They have burdened the people of Uttarakhand by increasing water and power prices. We will keep fighting against it. The Congress workers will have to fight non-stop for victory but unlike BJP, ours will be by democratic means and not by hook or by crook. They have tampered EVMs for winning elections, but we will defeat their machinations, he said.

The former chief minister also requested Congress state president Kishore Upadhyay to launch a statewide campaign against the PDS foodgrains price rise.
The Uttarakhand government has recommended pilgrims visiting the Char Dham  located at high altitude Himalayan region - to get medical tests done at their native places to ensure that they are fit for trekking to the holy shrines.

The health department has overturned its last years order that made it mandatory for pilgrims above 50 years of age to undergo health check-up at various centres before setting off for high altitude treks to Kedarnath and Yamunotri.

The department has done away with the compulsory screening in view of heavy rush of pilgrims and shortage of doctors, an official said.

Last year, over 14 lakh pilgrims visited the Char Dham - Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri - pilgrimage circuit in Uttarakhand.

It was practically impossible to screen each and every pilgrim amid such heavy rush. So, this time we are asking them to get themselves medically checked from their native places itself, Dr Tripti Bahuguna, the additional director of the health department, told HT on Monday.

We have set up medical centres en-route Yamunotri and Kedarnath shrines and those who wish to get themselves checked can do so there, said Bahuguna, who is looking after health related issues on Char Dham routes.

The Char Dham Yatra began with opening of portals of Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines on April 28, while portals of Kedarnath and Badrinath shrines will be thrown open to pilgrims on May 3 and 6, respectively.

The department is also distributing pamphlets carrying Dos and Donts regarding medical precautions to be followed by pilgrims while trekking to high-altitude shrines, at various barriers set up en route the Char Dham shrines.

The department has deployed over 105 doctors, including 45 specialists, on the pilgrimage route on a monthly rotation basis.

Also, 11 medical relief posts or temporary health centres have been set up on the 16-km-long Kedarnath trek route to take care of the pilgrims healthcare needs, Bahuguna said.

Experts, however, feel the new system may put the safety of pilgrims to risk.

Char Dham Yatra attracts pilgrims from all over the country. Not many pilgrims may be aware of the health risks involved before setting off for the Yatra, said Raghu Nautiyal, an activist based in Rudraprayag.

The government should make it compulsory for pilgrims to carry fitness certificates from their native places and widely publicize this requirement beforehand.

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DEHRADUN: Pressing on their demand that the BJP government roll back prices of subsidised ration for the 45 lakh above poverty line (APL) families, Congress legislators staged a walkout from the Uttarakhand Assembly on the first day of the two-day session on Monday.

Leader of the Opposition Indira Hridayesh moved an adjournment motion, crititcising the Trivendra Rawat governments decision to almost double the prices of ration as highly irresponsible. This rather unthoughtful decision has caused panic and distress among the poor who cannot afford to purchase costly ration, Hridayesh said, demanding the BJP government immediately bring down the prices of the subsidised rice and wheat to the earlier slab.

The APL families will have to shell out Rs 8.60 and Rs 15 to buy wheat and rice per kg respectively, for which they used to pay Rs 5 and Rs 9 before the price hike. To add to their woes the government has also banned the supply of subsidised sugar for them.

Hridayesh claimed that the previous Congress government introduced the State Food Security Act to ensure that 45 lakh APL families could easily access subsidised ration. The legal provision was introduced for the left-out APL families which couldnt be covered under the National Food Security Act.

Former minister Pritam Singh took a dig at the Rawat government, saying doubling the prices of subsidised ration for the poor was its only achievement since it formation a little over a month ago.

Parliamentary affairs minister Prakash Pant defended the governments decision to hike prices. The prices were hiked in view of the market situation and the paying capacity of the APL families, he said.

Unconvinced by the reply, angry Opposition members trooped into to the well of the House while sloganeering against the anti-poor Rawat government. In the din that followed, Speaker Prem Chandra Aggarwal rejected the oppositions demand for a debate on the issue of price hike of the subsidised ration.

Angry opposition members staged a walkout in protest. The House witnessed uproarious scenes during zero hour as well. As soon as it began, BJP legislator Deshraj Karnawal thanked the Chair for accepting his request to put Dalit icon BR Ambedkars portraits on the walls of the Vidhan Sabha Bhawan.

His statement evoked a sharp reaction from the opposition members who again trooped into the well of House to protest. An irate Congress legislator GS Kunjwal drew the Houses attention to vandalisation of Ambedkars statues in Pithoragarh and Almora.

The former Speaker questioned Karnawal for not raising such a sensitive issue. This led to heated arguments from both sides, forcing Pant and Hridayesh to intervene. The legacy left behind by Babasaheb belongs to all of us. So, no one should try to appropriate that legacy, Hridayesh said.

Later, Pant tabled the Uttarakhand Cooperative Committee (Amendment) Bill, 2017 in the House, which was passed by a voice vote. He also tabled the State Goods and Services Tax Bill and the State Contingency Fund Bill. Both the bills are likely to be passed in the House on Tuesday.

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A day after Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal denied rift within the Aam Aadmi Party and called Kumar Vishwas his younger brother, senior party leader Manish Sisodia on Monday said the party leadership, including its convener Kejriwal, is hurt by the actions of Vishwas.

Speaking after a late night meeting of the partys political affairs committee (PAC) that also saw AAPs Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan resign as a member of the committee, Sisodia said, Objections were raised over Amanatullahs statement against Kumar Vishwas. He himself put down the papers and his resignation has been accepted by the party.

Amantullah had called Vishwas an agent of BJP and RSS, who was allegedly trying to split up the party. Over 30 AAP MLAs had signed a letter urging the top leadership to expel Khan after he alleged Vishwas was plotting a coup against the party for its top leadership.

Sisodia further said the PAC also discussed the matter of Vishwas giving TV interviews and releasing videos.

There was disappointment over this also. Arvind and other PAC members are sad that people are giving statements outside the party, he said.

Sisodia said that the party members should talk to Kejriwal and other leaders if they have any objection to the party.

We have three years to work on Delhi. We need to do that. Because of these statements by various leaders, the confidence of party workers is going down, he said.

Khan and Vishwas both are members of PAC. While Vishwas gave the PAC a miss, Khan resigned from the committee even as the meeting was underway.

In the public sphere, Kejriwal might be putting up a strong face of unity within the Aam Aadmi Party, but internal rifts are far from over. The constant bickering among its members left the partys top leadership in a huddle on Monday with both AAP convener Kejriwal and deputy chief minister Manish Sisoda holding a series of meetings.

A key point of discussion was Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan, who on Sunday levelled allegations of horse trading against senior party leader Kumar Vishwas. More importantly, ties of Kejriwal with Vishwas too seem to be strained now. However, any action against him is ruled out as Kejriwal and Sisodia are trying to sort it out through discussions. One of the founders of the party, Vishwas, has been a close aide of Kejriwal.

Even as Kejriwal defended Vishwas on Twitter by calling him his brother and saying no one could separate them, sources said the CM is quite disappointed with him for speaking to TV channels instead of the party leadership about their internal problems. Following this, Kejriwal also issued a gag order for senior AAP leaders.

There is no question of Arvind Kejriwal leaving the post of party convener. Amanatullah should apologise for his statement or action should be taken against him, culture minister Kapil Mishra had told HT.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)s national president Amit Shah will address the newly elected councillors of the party in the three municipal corporations in Delhi on Tuesday. The meeting will take place at North and South Municipal Corporations headquarters at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre.

Apart from these 181 councillors, invitations have also been sent to party candidates, who lost in the recent municipal elections and the assembly polls in 2015, former councillors and MLAs, state office bearers, district in-charges, and party leaders from outside Delhi, who were appointed to supervise municipal elections.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, state affairs in-charge Shyam Jaju, secretary organization Siddharthan and other leaders will also be present at the occasion.

A senior party functionary said Shah will give them a pep talk and guide the new members of the corporations to perform better than the last term.

Around 1,300 party leaders and workers, including elected members of three municipal corporations and four MLAs, will be present. It is to acknowledge diligent efforts made by them that ensured partys success in municipal elections. Our workers were of the view that Shah had inaugurated the municipal elections process by addressing booth level workers meet at Ramlila Maidan. So, he should also culminate it. Hence, the event has been planned, Rajesh Bhatia, general secretary, Delhi BJP said.

A party insider said after the meeting with elected councillors, eligible candidates for the coveted posts in three civic bodies such as mayor, deputy mayor, and chairman standing committee will also be picked for which elections are likely to be held in next week.

A senior official of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation said it may take at least two weeks to organise elections for the mayoral and other posts. A notification pertaining to the election has already been issued. The matter is with the Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal. As and when his office takes a decision, dates for the election process will be fixed. It may take some time, said Yogendra Singh Mann, Director, Press and Information, North Delhi Corporation.

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Two brothers  Jai Kumar and Jaswant  were arrested for allegedly barging into Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwaris house, threatening and assaulting his staff, but their family members on Monday accused the Delhi Police of partiality and acting against them under pressure.

The family alleged that even as complaints of assault were filed by both the parties, police took action on the complaint of Tiwaris staff, while the brothers complaint was not even entertained.

And this happened despite my brother Jai Kumars hand got fractured when his WagonR turned turtle after Tiwaris driver rammed his Scorpio. The occupants of the Scorpio began assaulting Jai just because he protested against the rash driving, said Jai Kumars brother Jagdish Kumar, who claims to be a cook at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Jagdish Kumar claimed that it was Jai Kumar who first made the PCR call and reported about the accident and attack on him. Asked about the video footage in which Jai Kumar and Jaswant were seen assaulting Tiwaris staff at his house, Jagdish Kumar said that it was a natural retaliation from their side. He, however, did not justify the assault on Tiwaris staff and said that his brothers should have avoided such a situation.

On the allegation that his brothers, other family members and associates broke into the MPs house and ransacked it as seen in the video footages, Jagdish Kumar said that those seen inside the premises were not his brothers or anybody known to them. How can some outsiders ransack an MPs house? That too, in the presence of a policeman who had arrived in a police van to attend the distress call made by my brother? Jagdish Kumar said, adding that his brother made a counter-complaint of being assaulted as well, but the police did not file an FIR.

The WagonR driver should have waited for the police to come and refrained from assaulting the staff of the parliamentarian. We would have taken action against Tiwaris driver. But since they took law in their hands, we registered a case against them, said Braja Kishore Singh, DCP (New Delhi).

Dependra Pathak, chief spokesperson of Delhi Police, said they will probe why the policeman accompanied outsiders into the MPs house. If found guilty, action will be taken against the officer, he said.

Meanwhile, some female members of the family of the accused met Tiwari and requested him to withdraw the case.
The body of a 16-year-old boy was found in south west Delhis Chhawla area on Monday afternoon. The boy was apparently stabbed to death.

Police said the boy, who was in school uniform, was stabbed in his chest with a sharp object. Police suspect a compass, part of a geometry set used by students, was used in the crime.

The boy was a student of Class 11 in Veda Vyasa DAV public school in west Delhis Vikaspuri. He lived with his family in Vikaspuri. The boy was murdered around 10 kilometres away from his school.

A case of murder has been registered at the Chhawla police station. Initial probe has hinted that the murder took place over a tiff, he had with some boys. A senior police officer said that the incident came to light around 3.30 pm when a local resident, who heard the boy screaming near a drain in Goyla Dairy, ran towards him and saw him bleeding on the ground. The local then called the police control room.

A police team reached the crime scene and rushed the boy to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced him brought dead. Some locals claimed that the police had seen some young boys fleeing from the spot where the victim was stabbed.

Surender Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (south west), said that they are probing the case from all angles. He said that some students of the school are also being questioned.

DCP Kumar said that the victim had left the school premises by telling his teacher that his father was waiting for him outside the gate. Kumar said some eyewitnesses claim to have seen the boy leaving the school on a scooter with two other boys.
Three men, including an on-duty policeman, was gunned down in a daring attack in outer Delhis Paschim Vihar late on Sunday night.

The attack comes a day after an undertrial was gunned down outside Rohini court.

Police said that the assailants used different weapons to fire more than 40 rounds at their targets, leaving the three men dead at the spot. The Maruti Ciaz car, in which the victims were travelling, was later found at the spot with more than 14 bullet holes. Several bullet marks were also found on shops and shutters around the murder spot.

Investigators said the prime target of the attack appared to be Bhupender alias Monu, a financer, who was known to have a bad character as he had several criminal cases lodged against him.

An assistant sub-inspector, Vijay Kumar, who had been assigned as Monus personal security officer, and Monus friend Arun were the others killed in the incident. A police constable, Kuldeep, who was also travelling in the car, escaped with bullet injuries to his hand.

MN Tiwari, DCP (outer), said multiple teams had been formed to identify and nab the killers, after a case was registered at Mianwali police station. By late Monday evening, the case had been transferred to the special cell. Police said several suspects had been detained for questioning.

Among other angles being probed, police are trying to determine if Monus killing was an honour killing or if gang rivalry and personal enmity over property was involved.

Police said Monu had married his friend Sonus cousin, Rajrani, in 2006, much to the displeasure of her family.

Sonu had allegedly made two attempts on the couples lives after the marriage, leading to a court awarding police protection to Monu and his family.

Around 11 pm on Sunday, Monu, his friends Arun and Yogesh, and the two personal security officer, assistant sub-inspector Vijay Kumar and constable Kuldeep, visited National Market in Paschim Vihar.

The incident took place when Monu was sitting in the front seat of the car, with the two policemen guarding him sitting in the back seat.

Yogesh and Arun had allegedly stepped out of the market to buy snacks.

According to eyewitnesses, three men on a motorcycle approached the car and first fired at Arun and Yogesh who were standing near the vehicle, hitting the former.

On hearing gunshots, the two policemen opened the car door and tried to rush out. However, assistant sub-inspector Vijay was shot as he was getting out. Constable Kuldeep managed to escape, said the DCP.

The men then opened fired at Monu, killing him on the spot, before escaping.

Though eyewitnesses said the three men had come on one bike, police said two motorcycles were involved. Footage from CCTV cameras in the market is being scanned for clues.
At least 10 teenage girls in a state-run west Delhi shelter home have accused its staff of molestation, forcibly injecting them with unexplained drugs, and beating them into submission if they tried to resist or complain.

The government home is for girls who are either rape survivors or rescued from the citys streets, human traffickers and brothels. But their rehab has turned into a house of horror.

At least two girls alleged that they were molested by the officials. Another girl, in her statement to police, alleged she was starved for days as punishment because she accused a member of the staff of torturing her.

Also, the girls accused the officials of injecting medicines, which were allegedly stimulating premature growth.

The girls were allegedly given an Oxytocin-type substance that stimulates changes in their body. Police conducted a medical examination of syringe marks and registered a case. The officials are being questioned, a source said.

Oxytocin is a favourite among human traffickers who inject the banned drug into their prepubescent victims to spur their growth hormones and give them appear like adults. Most of these girls are raped repeatedly and sold to brothels.

The horrific ordeal at the Delhi shelter got exposed when one of the girls wrote to the Delhi Legal Services Authority in the first week of April about the human rights violations and torture.

The letter followed similar complaints from nine more girls, which prompted the authority to alert the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).

Womens commission chief Swati Maliwal visited the home on April 8 and immediately wrote to police commissioner Amulya Patnaik, alleging that the girls told her team they were beaten and harassed.

Police registered an FIR on April 16, charging the officials who ran the shelter with criminal intimidation, causing harm by poisoning, criminal conspiracy and laws under the juvenile justice care and protection act.

Maliwal in her complaint accused the officials at the shelter of locking the door and refusing to let her enter when she went to meet the girls for the second time.

The girls allegedly lived in squalor  without adequate and nutritious food and proper clothing.

They were forced to wear the same set of clothes, a DCW spokesperson said.

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Iconic structures Hall of Nations and Hall of Industries in New Delhi were razed despite various concerns raised by heritage conservationists, urban planning and conservation consultants and architects from India and abroad.

About half a dozen bulldozers worked overnight on April 23 at Pragati Maidan to pull down five iconic buildings  Hall of Nations and Hall of Industries (a cluster of four buildings).

The five structures  one of Hall of Nations and four of Hall of Industries  were commissioned in 1972 and the architect claims that these were the worlds first pillar-less concrete frame structures.

Zurichs Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the Federation of Swiss Architects wrote to the commerce minister Niramala Sitahraman in February asking the government to preserve these buildings and termed them as part of Indias cultural heritage and an example of engineering marvels.

International Union of Architects (UIA) had earlier written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to ensure protection, preservation and maintenance of the trio. UIA is a global federation of national associations of architects from more than 120 countries representing more than 1.3 million architects worldwide.

These iconic structures are living testimony to Indias contribution to contemporary architecture and engineering excellence known internationally. Hall of Nations, Industries and Nehru Pavilion are national assets and a heritage in the making which should be preserved, protected and maintained, wrote Ar Esa Mohamed, UIA president, in his letter to the PM.

Designed by architect Raj Rewal, 80, structural engineer Mahendra Raj and project engineer Dorai Raj in 1971, Hall of Nations and Industries together spanned across 2 lakh sq feet, all in concrete frame. Over 1,000 labourers were involved in constructing the three structures.

Awarding the Hall of Nations a sobriquet of worlds first Concrete Space Frame, the Federation of Swiss Architects said, This building was worlds first Concrete Space Frame and continues to be the largest until today. Precise planning by the structural engineer Mahendra Raj and architect Raj Rewal as well as manual execution of the structure by innumerable construction workers are unparalleled achievements in the field of engineering...

Raj Rewal had earlier said the Hall of Nations accounted for 2% of the 123 acre area of Pragati Maidan and all three buildings together about 7%.

In Pics: The Hall of Nations: A lost heritage of Delhi

I dont understand why cant a small patch be spared demolition and these buildings be protected, preserved and hence promoted as cultural heritage monuments, he said

A joint statement issued by Rewal, Raj, former convener of INTACH, Delhi Chapter AGK Menon and president, Indian Institute of Architects Divya Kush on Monday said, The independent body of the Indian Institute of Architects and the different Associations of Engineers had requested the authorities to preserve these buildings for posterity for their unique achievements. INTACH had pleaded in their court case to do the same.

On Monday, the ITPO CMD LC Goyal said the layout plan of IECC, which inevitably involves demolition of these structures, has already been approved by the concerned statutory authorities like Delhi Urban Arts Commission, South Delhi Municipal Corporation and National Monuments Authority.

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BJP parliamentarian KC Patel has accused a woman lawyer in the Capital of honey-trapping and blackmailing him to cough up Rs 5 crore, threatening that she would make public a video clip of him in a compromising position.

The MP for Valsad in Gujarat filed a complaint with Delhi Police after the lawyer accused the lawmaker of rape.

Patel said the woman befriended him and took him to her home in Ghaziabad to meet her family. He alleged that she gave him a drink laced with sedatives and he fell unconscious.

There were allegedly a few more people in the house but he couldnt remember as he passed out after the drink, a police officer said.

Patel approached police on Thursday, alleging that the woman drugged him, clicked photos and recorded videos, and blackmailed him to pay Rs 5 crore. She allegedly threatened to press rape charges against him if he refused to pay.

Police registered a case of extortion and began investigation on the basis of his complaint.

The woman too approached police the same day and alleged that the MP had raped her multiple times. But a case of rape was not registered, prompting the woman to allege police inaction in a lower court.

The woman said she was sexually assaulted several times and she had taken photos and recorded videos as proof, a police officer said.

It has been alleged that the woman filed a similar complaint against a Haryana MP three years ago, and she retracted her complaint later.

Special commissioner of police Mukesh Meena said: It has come to light that there were similar allegations made by the woman before, but later retracted. I wont disclose details. The probe is on.

The woman told reporters that the MP had assaulted her too.

I made a CD because he was threatening me and I wanted to keep it as a proof. Police refused to register my FIR so I had to move court.

Lawmaker Patel denied the charges and accused the woman of running a racket that lures parliamentarians.

These are all false allegations, I have full faith in law; will cooperate in the investigation, he said.

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Real estate firm Unitech said on Monday that it had no liquidity to pay back those who had invested money in their incomplete projects.

The submission was made while the company urged the Supreme Court to entertain its petition filed under Article 32 of the Constitution  a jurisdiction invoked when ones fundamental right is violated  seeking direction to Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC) to return Unitechs money deposited in 2008 as a part of an agreement to develop land in Hyderabad.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal told a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra that Unitech must get the money back because the project for which the deposit was made never took off. According to him, the government owes the firm Rs 600 core, of which Rs 165 crore is the principal amount. He said if the amount is refunded, Unitech can include it in the compensation scheme it has to prepare on SCs orders.

Read: Gurgaon: Unitech plot buyers hold protest, threaten bigger movement

Sibal said the scheme has to be presented before the top court by May 5. Unitech doesnt have the liquidity to pay back to the consumers. And this amount is an admitted liability since its a part of an agreement entered into between the company and AP government, Sibal argued.

However, the bench showed no interest in entertaining the petition. We cannot show indulgence to a defaulter under Article 32. You can move the High Court, the bench said, rejecting the petition. The bench even declined to fix a time limit for the HC to finish hearing the matter, if Unitech approaches it. It (HC) will take years to decide, Sibal complained.

According to Unitech, it could not start work on the residential project because of discrepancies in the title deed. Under the agreement, the government was under obligation to refund the money in such a situation.

Last week, the SC had directed Unitech to deposit 14% interest on Rs 16.55 crore invested by 39 home buyers for its project in Gurugram. The firm, already under crisis after its directors were arrested in connection with a cheating case, was warned that failure to meet the deadline could invite attaching the realtors property.

It refused to grant more time to Unitech Residential Resorts Ltd, which has delayed handing over of flats to these home buyers.

The interest amount shall be calculated from Janauary 1, 2010 till August 2016, SC said. Unitech has already deposited the principle amount, which the top courts registry disbursed to the 39 buyers who have opted out of the project on the ground that Unitech did not keep up the promise to deliver the flats by 2012.

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Fourty-year-old Bhupender alias Monu, who was gunned down inside his car in outer Delhis Paschim Vihar on Sunday night, had fallen for his best friends cousin and married her in 2006, much against her familys wishes.

Police said that they have launched a probe to find out if or not the marriage had led to Monus brutal murder or whether a possible rivalry with some other gangs led to the killing.

What is certain though, is that marriage with a girl from his own village had left Monu a constant target of honour killing attempts.

Monu and Sonu, residents of Dariyapur village in outer Delhi, were close friends since childhood. Monu was into finance and real estate business. Sonu too ran his own business, even as the two friends faced a host of criminal charges against them.

It was in 2006 that Monu took a liking for Sonus cousin, Rajrani. Their friendship was opposed by Rajranis family, but the couple went ahead and tied the knot.

Since the bride and groom belonged to the same village, many people were of the opinion that Rajrani was technically Monus sister. The relationship had left Sonu the most bitter, but he decided to live with it, said a police officer.

But a few weeks after the wedding, an argument between the two friends turned ugly when Monu allegedly teased Sonu that he was now his saala (brother-in-law). Sonu took offence to the comment and started looking for an opportunity to kill the couple.

A few months later, as Monu and Rajrani were driving in a car in west Delhi, Sonu and his men allegedly targeted them near the Punjabi Bagh Flyover. The assailants fired multiple shots at the couple before fleeing. Monu was hit four times and his wife twice, but both survived.

Sonu and nine others were subsequently arrested and jailed on charges of attempt to murder. When Sonu was being taken to jail, he had threatened that he would kill the couple the day he was freed, a close friend of Monu told HT on Monday.

Since Monu and his wife continued to receive threats in the months after the attack, they sought police protection which was granted to them by a city court. The security was allotted to all the family members who were a witness in the attempt to murder case. But the policemen were taken off often without any reason, leaving Monu exposed to attacks, alleged Vishal Chopra, Monus lawyer.

A year later, Sonu was granted interim bail. He used the opportunity to go underground. In 2008, Sonu shot dead my other son Sudhir in Najafgarh. He wanted to kill our entire family because of the marriage between Monu and Rajrani, alleged Monus father Phool Singh.

On Sunday night, Monu, his friend Arun, along with two policemen guarding them, were attacked by unidentified assailants in Paschim Vihar. According to MN Tiwari, DCP (outer), the first needle of suspicion pointed towards Sonu because of the history he shared with the family.

But we are keeping ourselves open to other possibilities as well, said the DCP, adding Monus rivalries with other gangs in the area as well as his involvement in land disputes are also being probed.
United States President Donald Trump celebrated his first 100 days in office with a speech in which, among other things, he promised to further dilute his countrys commitments under the Paris agreement on climate change. Mr Trump claimed that China, India and Russia have a free pass under the Paris agreement until 2030, repeating similar charges made by members of his administration earlier. He has already signed an executive order asking US federal agencies to ignore earlier regulations about emissions for power plants and incorporating climate impact in government environmental reviews. Now, it seems, Mr Trump plans more such actions.

Unsurprisingly, the US presidents comments are factually incorrect when it comes to what India and China have committed to doing under Paris. Unlike the earlier Kyoto Protocol, the Paris agreement requires actions by both rich and poor nations. China committed to reduce carbon emissions 60-65% unit of GDP by 2030 from 2005 levels. India, whose per capita income is much smaller than those of the US and China, nonetheless made a similar promise of 30-35% reductions. Even under President Barack Obamas Paris pledges, the US would have probably fallen just short of the 26-28% reductions by 2030 required by the agreement. Mr Trumps earlier executive order, if fully implemented, would have seen the USs emissions reductions fall to 14%. If Mr Trump goes further, such as watering down US vehicle emissions standards or reducing tax credits for renewable energy, the US will fall further behind on its Paris commitments.

There are few world leaders as aware of the danger posed by climate change as Prime Minister Narendra Modi. While he is not an instinctive multilateralist, Modi should consider taking a more proactive role in rallying the rest of the world to save Paris. One part of this policy would be to engage Mr Trump and point out some of the fallacies in his arguments. Among other things, the US is a world leader in green technology and would benefit economically from Paris. Another part would be to turn to the European Union, Japan and China on how they could work together to plug any holes the US may leave behind. Providing additional climate funding for the least developed and island countries could be a start. At home, New Delhi should redouble its efforts to get its star-crossed nuclear energy plans and natural gas investments up and going  both would help reduce Indias energy carbon footprint. It seems likely Mr Trumps anti-green policies are going to face considerable legal and local political resistance at home. But that does not mean India can afford to be complacent.
Notification for the Tamil Nadu Engineering Admission (TNEA) has been released and the application process will start from today (May1).

The admission process enables about 1.5 lakh candidates to join Tamil Nadus engineering colleges through a single window counselling. Successful candidates will be eligible to enrol with Anna University, government and government -aided engineering colleges and for seats surrendered by self-financing engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu.

Duration of programme:

BE, BTech: Four academic years comprising eight semesters

BE (Sandwich) five academic years comprising 10 semesters.

Where will successful candidates be admitted?

Successful candidates will be eligible for the following seats: BE and BTech colleges in university departments and constituent colleges of Anna University; BE and B Tech degree courses in government, government aided and seats surrendered by self-financing engineering colleges, which has two categories:

Category 1:

a: Seats in government engineering colleges

b: In aided courses in government-aided engineering colleges

c: In Central Electro Chemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi.

Category 2:

a: Seats in self-supporting courses in government-aided engineering colleges

b: Seats surrendered by self-financing engineering colleges

c: Seats in Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET).

Instructions for applying for TNEA

Candidates have to submit only one online application for all courses/colleges/institutes mentioned above.

Those seeking admission under special reservation should also enclose a special reservation form for each special reservation category with the main online application.

Who is eligible?

1.Tamil Nadu candidates who have passed Class 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 in Tamil Nadu. They do not have to enclose a nativity certificate

2. Tamil Nadu native candidates who have passed any of the Class 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 or equivalent examination from schools outside the state can apply. They have to submit nativity certificate in electronic form or a digitally signed e-certificate

3. Children of Central government employees, provided their parents or guardians (if both parents not alive) have served in Tamil Nadu continuously for the past five years at the time of application submission. A certificate from employer of parent or guardian has to be enclosed.

4. Children of employees in public sector or government-recognised institutions employed in Tamil Nadu for the past five years. Certificate from employer has to be enclosed. It should state that the person is a permanent employee of the firm or institution concerned with evidence of IT return, PF slip etc; and working in Tamil Nadu continuously for the last five years

5: Sons and daughters of the All India service Tamil Nadu cadre officers

6: Other state candidates who have studied in Class 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 in Tamil Nadu are also eligible and do not have to enclose nativity certificate

For more details,check www.tnea.ac.in.
Any aspirant irrespective of their academic background can realise the dream of clearing the Union Public Service Commissions civil service examination (CSE) and join the most elite services of the country by preparing well.

But there are some mistakes that most UPSC CSE aspirants makes and thus fails to clear the hurdle.

Here are the 10 mistakes and how to avoid them:

1. Not sticking to the syllabus

One of the biggest myths every CSE aspirant carries with him at some point in time is that the syllabus of CSE is unlimited and anything can be asked under the sky. To some extent this is true but taking your eyes completely off the syllabus can prove fatal in long run and can cost you your resources, time, money, and energy. Most of the aspirants start off without going through the syllabus prescribed by the UPSC and within no time find themselves in no mans land.

The syllabus is the roadmap of preparation. It should be the Bible of any aspirants course of preparation for this highly coveted exam. Therefore, it needs to be followed and referred at every step of preparation.

2. Not referring to previous years question papers

If the syllabus is the roadmap, referring to previous years question papers is like indicators for the right turn at the right time during the journey of the CSE preparation, which most of the students realise at a very later phase of the time.

Every step of preparation (unit/section/chapter) should be followed by an instant reference to the questions asked in the recent years (both prelims and mains) pertaining to the respective article. This helps the aspirant to mould his/her preparation in accordance with the latest trends of the questions put up by the board.

3. Collecting books

Mukherjee Nagar and Old Rajinder Nagar are often termed as the Mecca and Medina of UPSC preparation in India and the local markets of these UPSC hubs are flooded with various books of numerous authors and publications. However, only handpicked books are genuinely relevant for the effective preparation of the examination but due to incomplete knowledge of the UPSC CSE preparations most of the students end up piling books in their room turning it into a junkyard instead of an ideal place of learning.

An aspirant should consult seniors who have cleared the examination (preferable), experienced mentors and genuine/reliable sources and then go for buying of resources and study material so that instead of becoming a waste it turns into a proper investment.

4. Underestimating NCERT

This is the most microscopic and grave mistake committed by almost a huge majority of the competing crowd. Ignoring NCERT and directly jumping on a heavyweight book can be the beginning of the end of your UPSC CSE preparation.

For example, if an aspirant directly starts up with DD Basu for Indian Polity and Constitution of India, he is bound to end up in a soup. Instead, it has to be steadily initiated with basic reference from Class 8-12 NCERT social science textbooks, a subject which is popularly termed as civics.

5. Lack of writing practice

The preliminary stage of the examination is not considered as selection criteria for enlisting the final merit list for service selection and cadre allocation. The Mains stage is the main part of the whole selection process which does not only require mere writing answers but the aspirant has to equip himself with a fluent flow of knowledge, facts and wisdom in a very precise and skilful manner. Lack of writing skill, which aspirants find it to be the most difficult part to overcome, if not rectified within correct time, is a sure guarantee of failure.

To avoid this, writing practice on daily basis rigorously and religiously is a must. However, for real-time results, aspirants must stick to exam oriented writing instead of blogging which will definitely increase the typing skills instead of writing skills.

6. Illicit manner of choosing optional

Availability of books and study material in the market, ongoing marking and scoring trends of the subject, length and extent of the syllabus and last but not the least, overlapping with the general studies paper. These are the views and opinions which generally run around an aspirants mind while choosing an optional which at the end may cause utterly disastrous results.

Interest and inclination towards the subject should be the core entities of thought process while choosing the optional. Have a look at the syllabus, go through the previous years question papers and most importantly if you can invest hours after hours with the subject without looking at the ticking clock, your inner conscious itself will give you the answer of UPSC CSE preparations most important answer of choosing an optional.

7. Not understanding the crux of newspapers

Trying to go through multiple newspapers with an overview instead of creatively surfing anyone. Collecting and relying on magazines for current affairs (except The Yojana) as magazines can be a supplement to a newspaper but not a substitute for it. And not understanding how to read and what to read in a newspaper reaps low yields in the long run.

Every newspaper has 3 components if viewed from examination point of view.

Events: This gives you facts. For example, Booker Prize of the year

Issues: This provides you with views and reviews and helps to develop your individual understanding and opinion over various subjects conventional and contemporary. For example, Syrian war crisis and refugee rehabilitation (IR), Naxalism and insurgency in the northeast (internal security).

Gossips: Page 3.

In addition to this, newspaper articles can be categorised under various segments of news viz. international, India and the world, national, states, business, science and technology, defence, space, sports, persons in the news, prizes and awards and many more which will also enable an aspirant to frame well structured Essays (Paper I). Therefore, effective utilisation of newspaper can provide soul to the whole body of an aspirants UPSC CSE preparation subject to careful and persistent efforts.

8. Not analysing SWAT

In the long run, students not only fail to maintain the tempo and enthusiasm but also often find themselves in the middle of unbalanced wrong directional preparation because they dont undergo the analysis of their strength and weakness as the nature and the requirement of the examinations demands high dynamism and adaptability from the candidates as every subject has to be approached in their own unique ways (For example, history and geography).

Therefore, it becomes indispensable for an aspirant to consistently keep cross checking the progress and depressions, the grip over strong areas and loose fist over the weaker sections of the syllabus through regular mock tests and classroom test series from time to time.

9. Lack of proper time management

Any ambition without a time frame is nothing more than a fantasy. Since aspirants invest years for this prestigious examination, time management and completing the targets within the stipulated time frame is one of the most essential necessities for clearing this examination which most of the students fail to cope up with due course of time. Time management can act as a horse or a hurdle; it all depends on the rider (the aspirant).

To cleverly clear up with this parameter, every aspirant should have a very sound difference between a task or a target which is URGENT and IMPORTANT. The day an aspirant realised the crystal clear difference between the two, it will eventually result in comfortable prioritising of short-term tasks and targets to gain long term fruits and benefits.

10: Avoiding consistent revision

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. But the essence of reliving information on the examination day is to making a habit of retaining the information first. In simple words, students read, read and read but very often dont revise what they read which may result in poor information retention and to the point delivery of the facts and figures on the day of examination.

Revision is the key. There has to be a very well maintained cohesion between what you read and revise what have you read till date. Video lectures, subject audios and group discussions (group study) can prove to be a boon for an aspirant of UPSC CSE.

(Mishra is the founder and chairperson of Chanakya IAS Academy. Views expressed here are personal).
The next time someone tells you to stop worrying, ignore them. If scientists are to be believed, worrying might actually do you great good. According to new research, the act may help people recover from traumatic events and depression and prompt them to take up activities that promote health.

Despite its negative reputation, not all worry is destructive or even futile. It has motivational benefits, and it acts as an emotional buffer, said Kate Sweeny, psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) in the US.

Researchers from UCR broke down the role of worrying in motivating preventive and protective behaviour, and how it leads people to avoid unpleasant events.

They found that worrying is associated with recovery from traumatic events, adaptive preparation and planning, recovery from depression and partaking in activities that promote health as well as prevent illness.

Worry can also benefit ones emotional state by serving as an emotional benchmark. (Shutterstock)

Researchers also found that people who report greater worry may perform better in schools or at workplaces, seek more information in response to stressful events and engage in more successful problem solving.

Researchers noted three explanations for worrys motivating effects.

First, worry serves as a cue that the situation is serious and requires action. People use their emotions as a source of information when making judgements and decisions.

Second, worrying about a stressor keeps the stressor at the front of ones mind and prompts people toward action.

Third the unpleasant feeling of worry motivates people to find ways to reduce their worry.

Even in circumstances when efforts to prevent undesirable outcomes are futile, worry can motivate proactive efforts to assemble a ready-made set of responses in the case of bad news. In this instance, worrying pays off because one is actively thinking of a plan B, Sweeney said.

Worry can also benefit ones emotional state by serving as an emotional benchmark. Compared to the state of worry, any other feeling is pleasurable by contrast.

In other words, the pleasure that comes from a good experience is heightened if preceded by a bad experience, researchers said.

If peoples feelings of worry over a future outcome are sufficiently intense and unpleasant, their emotional response to the outcome they ultimately experience will seem more pleasurable in comparison to their previous, worried state, Sweeny said.

The study was published in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more.
The arrest of a notorious criminal in Himachal Pradesh during routing checking has helped Gurgaon police crack two murder cases in the Palam Vihar police station area. While one of the murders in Bajghera was the result of a gang war, the other at ITM University, now known as Northcap University, in Sector 23, was the result of a personal rivalry between two criminals and a girl was used to honey-trap the victim, the police said.

Gurgaon police said Anshul Dhankhar (24), a resident of Jhajjar, who has several criminal cases against him in Delhi, was arrested on April 8 at Sunder Nagar in Himachal Pradesh. As the accused was allegedly named in connection with the murder of Vikrant, a resident of Delhi who was killed on February 5 in Bajghera, the crime branch unit of Palam Vihar sought the production warrant of Anshul on April 28 and brought him to Gurgaon.

The accused had been named in connection with Vikrant who was killed in Bajghera. It was the fallout of a gang war. On sustained interrogation, he also revealed his involvement in the murder of another Delhi resident, Rahul alias Rinku, who was honey-trapped at the behest of another gangster Vikas Dalal, said Sumit Kuhar, DCP Crime, Gurgaon police.

A case of murder under IPC Section 302 and Arms Act has been registered against the accused. An unlicensed pistol has also been recovered from the accused.

Read I Gurgaon: Cab driver from Delhi shot dead in Palam Vihar

At the behest of Anshul, the police on Sunday arrested Deepak alias Dhaula, a resident of Rohtak and who also has a criminal background, in connection with the murder of Rahul at ITM College. Inspector Sajjan Singh, in-charge, Palam Vihar crime unit, said that Tigma, the girl used to honey-trap him, had befriended Rahul using Whatsapp and even faked an affair with him to the extent that he was even planning to marry her.

However, on March 15, the woman called Rahul to Gurgaon for celebrating her birthday and the victim borrowed a car from his friends and came to ITM College. Four persons, including Vikas Dalal and Tigma, who were in a car, and Anshul and Deepak on a bike, were waiting for him.

As soon as he came out of the car, the duo on bike fired on him from close range and killed him, said Kuhar. The case was proving difficult for the police to crack as the woman used only Whatsapp to communicate with the victim and the assailants snatched his mobile while fleeing the spot.

The girl is a student of a nursing centre in Chandigarh and originally hails from Himachal. She escaped from her residence before the police could reach her.

Rahul and Vikas Dalal had developed an enmity over some issues in the past. The victim also has a criminal past and had spent some time in Tihar jail, the police said.

While police has managed to arrest the two shooters in connection with the honey trap and murder, prime accused Vikas and his girlfriend Tigma are still absconding. The two will also be arrested soon, said Kuhar.

The police will seek Deepaks remand for further questioning.

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The murders in Palam Vihar and adjacent areas testify to the spillover of the fierce gang war that has broken out between gangs of Manjeet Mahal and the one led by Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu. While the major players and leaders are inside jails, the battle is being fought by foot soldiers such as Vikas Dalal, Rahul Dhankhar, and Deepak alias Dhaula, who have carried out various crimes at the behest of their gangs.

The three are associated with Manjeet Mahal gang and are known to scare off or eliminate rivals.

Police officers said that there were two reasons the criminals in Delhi were preferring Palam Vihar and adjacent areas to carry out crimes. Firstly, the likelihood of witnesses and getting caught in Gurgaon is less as compared to Najafgarh and Dwarka. And secondly, the gangsters want the cases registered in the city, as they want to be sent to Bhondsi jail instead of facing their enemies in Delhis Tihar jail, said the police.

Vikas Dalal is a key member of the Manjeet Mahal gang and has been carrying out crimes at his behest. Anshuls mother and brother were recently killed at the behest of the Nandu gang and he has carried out killings to take revenge. All these crimes are a fallout of the battle between Manjeet Mahal and Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu, said Inspector Sajjan Singh, in charge, crime branch Palam Vihar.

Read I Gurgaon: Mother of murder accused shot dead, police suspect gang rivalry

While Anshul Dhankhar was arrested by Himachal police during a routine checking at Sunder Nagar, Dalal who was accompanying him, managed to flee the spot and is hiding somewhere in Himachal, sources said.

To avenge the murder of his mother and brother, Anshul killed Naresh Alias Fauji in March 2017. In the same month, the Anshul accompanied by Vikas Dalal and others had attempted to kill Pramod Dalal. In February, Anshul, along with his associates, killed Dinesh alias Mangu at Chhawla bus stand.

Sources, meanwhile, said that as a number of hardened criminals from both sides were housed in Tihar jail, there was apprehension among them that they could be killed in custody or during court hearing, as was evidenced by the recent murder of gangster Vikas Dhurmut at Rohini court while being escorted by Haryana police personnel.

Sensing danger during such long transit, gangster Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu, who is in Tihar jail and was in a Gurgaon court last week for a hearing, is said to have stated his preference for being shifted to Bhondsi jail where Mahal is lodged. The gangsters feel Bhondsi is safer as compared to Delhis Tihar jail and want to be shifted there, said an official who did not want to be named.

Sumit Kuhar, DCP (crime), however, maintained that they would keep a check on the activities of these gangs so that they did not proliferate in Gurgaon. The setting up of a new police station at Bajghera will definitely improve the situation as more personnel will be available for policing, he said.

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A class 7 student of Delhi Public School Ghaziabad (DPSG), Sushant Lok 1 was injured on Thursday after a water cooler fell on her while she was having water. She has been admitted to a private hospital in Palam Vihar where she is undergoing treatment. Her parents alleged that the school took her to a private hospital in Sushant Lok 1 and provided first-aid but did not go for further medical check-ups.

Ocean Rajshree (11), the student, received four stitches on her head and three on her chin after the school rushed her to a private hospital.

Her parents alleged that despite their complaint, police has not taken action against the school even though the girl had a severe head injury and the school authorities did not get a CT scan done.

According to her family, Rajshree was drinking water when the water cooler, which is reportedly very old, fell on her. Her friends dragged her out from under it and informed the teachers, they said.

I received a call from the school around 2:40 pm that my sister is injured and I can pick her up from the school or the hospital. I rushed to the hospital and found her condition critical. I tried speaking to the doctors, but the school staff did not let me do so and asked me to take her home, said Rajshrees sister Shaifali Parmar.

She added that she called the police control room to report the incident and was asked to lodge a formal complaint at Sector 43 police post. I handed over a complaint to the police post and took a receiving (slip) from them. The school management kept trying to compromise and asked me to take my complaint back, but I refused. Most shocking is that the police are not registering the case despite negligence by the school, said Parmar.

On Saturday, Rajshree again complained of weakness, abdominal pain, and severe headache, after which the family took her to a private hospital in Palam Vihar, where she is still admitted.

We immediately got her CT scan, X-ray, and ultrasound done. Reports revealed that she had abdominal injury and swelling in brain, said Parmar.

Gaurav Phogat, SHO, Sushant Lok, said, We have received the complaint and are investigating. During preliminary investigation, it is not established that it was negligence of the school. It was an accident.

Sudhir Chitnis, senior administrator, DPSG said, There was water on the floor due to which the girl slipped and the water cooler also fell down. The machine was in a good condition and there is no negligence.

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Parents of children studying in Delhi Public School Ghaziabad (DPSG), Palam Vihar, and representatives of the school held a meeting with sub-divisional magistrate (SDM), north, Bharat Bhushan Gogia at his office at the mini-secretariat on Monday.

The meeting came after directions by Haryana public works department (PWD) minister and Badshahpur MLA Rao Narbir Singh to hear the grievances of the parents who are opposing the fee hike mandated by the school.

Parents from many private schools in Gurgaon have been holding protests for over a month against hikes in tuition fee and various other charges by schools. They have been doing the rounds of district authorities and education officials.

On Monday, after hearing both sides, the SDM said the authorities of DPSG school in Palam Vihar will not take action against the students who have not deposited their fee and also told the school not to charge late fee till the matter is resolved.

In the meeting, the parents told Gogia that they had admitted their wards to Chiranjeev Bharti School in Palam Vihar taking into account their financial status, but suddenly the school was taken over by DPSG. While the earlier school was run by a trust, DPSG is a private, self-funded school.

The parents said the school management suddenly hiked the fee this year and took it beyond their means, as a result of which they have been forced to launch an agitation.

They added that taking their wards out of the school and getting admission elsewhere was also beyond their financial ability and so they wanted the government to prevent a massive fee hike. Some parents also said that more than one of their wards study in the school, making it all the more difficult to bear the hiked fees.

Yashesh Yadav, a parent, said, We used to get a heavy rebate in fee if children from a single family were studying in the school. This has also been stopped by the new management.

Parents contended that it was illogical to increase the school fees by almost 60 to 70% and demanded a roll back. After hearing the parents side, Gogia asked the school management to take a humanitarian view of the problems being faced by them and the students and also voluntarily provide services such as midday meal.

The SDM suggested to the school authorities to form a parents-teacher association, after conducting elections, that would help in resolving such issues. He also directed the formation of a committee that would conduct an inspection of the school in the first week of July.

Another meeting of the school management and parents has been called on Wednesday to resolve the matter.

On Monday, a team of parents also met Amit Shah at BJPs Delhi office. Parents told him about their problems and the protest against private schools. They also alleged rude behaviour by school authorities and told him about expulsion of wards from schools when parents raise their voice. He assured us justice and advised us to wait for two months as the government is coming out with a strong ordinance for regulate the fee said a parent.

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A vigilance team of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitaran Nigam (DHBVN) detected power theft at residences of three police officials at recruitment training colony (RTC) located near Bhondsi jail early on Monday.

The discom later slapped a fine of 1.22 lakh on defaulters. The fine, officials said, would have to be paid within 24 hours failing which, legal action would be initiated. The trio are of head constable rank.

Manpal Dhull, sub-divisional officer (SDO), DHBVN who headed the vigilance team in early hours of the day, said three police officers were drawing power illegally from a high voltage line passing by the houses. Dhull said the three officials had electricity meters installed at their homes, but they were drawing power illegally at night.

Sanjiv Chopra, chief engineer (CE), Smart Grid Project (DHBVN-Gurgaon), said, We will lodge police complaints against the defaulters on Tuesday. If they pay fine, the complaints will be withdrawn. However, our vigilance teams are working round the clock to crack down on power theft in government localities.

We have not received any complaint of power theft until now, said an official at Bhondsi police station.

Earlier on April 25, the DHBVNs vigilance team had lodged FIRs against 13 police officers for illegal electricity connections and found five other officers guilty of meter tampering. The meters were sent for laboratory test at Police Lines colony, which is located near the Gurgaon Civil Hospital.

Read I Gurgaon reels under 8-hour power cuts, officials cite maintenance work

The power theft and line loss have been a prime concern for the Haryana government, as it has been causing long hours of outages across the state.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, on April 29, had directed officers of the power utilities to keep an eye on the homes of politicians and senior state officials to ensure electricity is not pilfered.

If politicians and officials are guilty of drawing power illegally and robbing the state exchequer, the law should come down heavily on them as it does on ordinary people who indulge in power theft. The law is the same for every one. No one is above the law, the CM said.

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Workers unions in the city are not pleased with the Haryana governments decision not to observe Labour Day on May 1 and instead do so on Vishwakarma Day, a day after Diwali. Various unions held protest rallies in the city on Monday against the decision.

May 1 is observed as Labour Day or International Workers Day in many countries and has been a longstanding practice in India too.

However, Nayab Singh Saini, Haryanas labour minister, had on April 27 announced in Chandigarh that the state government would not observe Majdoor Diwas (workers day) on May 1 and instead do so on Vishwakarma Day.

Representatives of various trade and workers unions have censured the governments decision and said they will not accept the change.

Among the unions that held a protest in the city on Monday, the Maruti Udyog Kamgar held a procession at Sector 18 holding placards and distributing pamphlets among workers censuring the state governments decision.

We are not happy with the governments decision. Irrespective of the decision, we have decided to continue with our procession to pay homage to the martyrs who died in Chicago in 1886 (the Haymarket affair) and have distributed pamphlets. Labour Day is an important day for us and we cannot celebrate it on any other day, said Kuldeep Janghu, general secretary of the union.

The Indian national trade union Congress (Intuc) also held a procession on Monday evening that started at the Intuc office at Kaman Sarai and went all the way up to Sohna Chowk. Around 700 union members and workers participated in the procession, protesting against the government move.

The government said it would not celebrate Labour Day on May 1, but we do not accept their decision. There is a reason behind celebration of Labour Day on May 1. They cannot change it as per their convenience. The government has a hidden agenda behind this, said Amit Yadav, state president, Intuc.
Industry representatives from Manesar have suggested to the Haryana government to pay Rs300 crore to the Kherki Daula toll operator through the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in order to get the toll plaza shifted.

The industrialists have long been complaining about traffic jams and other problems due to the toll plaza.

Manmohan Gaind, president, Manesar Industries Welfare Association (MIWA), said, We have written to Sudhir Rajpal, principal secretary, industry, Haryana, to consider this proposal. We spoke with him in this regard a week ago.

He said the issue was discussed with a senior state government official who told him that the toll generated an average annual income of Rs100 crore for the operator.

The toll plaza officially has five more years to go as per the agreement, so the total amount for that period stands at Rs500 crore. If the government pays the amount five years in advance, the interest has to be waived off and the remaining amount then stands at around Rs300 crore. This is not a large amount and the Haryana government or the Haryana state industries and infrastructure development corporation (HSIIDC) can easily do it in the larger interest of the people, Gaind said.

Read I Haryana chief secretary to head committee on Kherki Daula Toll removal

Calls and messages to Rajpal for his comment did not yield any results.

The proposal was also discussed with former principal secretary, industry, Devender Singh, who had assured industrialists of conveying the message to NHAI chairman YS Malik endorsing the MIWA suggestion.

Singh was transferred to the aviation department recently. Interacting with industrialists at his farewell function in Gurgaon a few weeks ago, he had assured industry owners in the presence of HSIIDC officials that he would talk to Malik in his personal capacity.

I am not heading the industry (department), but I have been deeply concerned about this issue and have always felt that the toll plaza should be shifted immediately for smooth growth of industries. The toll plazas yearly income is roughly the same as expressed by MIWA and theirs is the best solution, Singh had said on the occasion.

Industrialists feel the toll is causing huge losses to industries in Manesar and nearby areas. They have also been thinking of moving the Supreme Court demanding an audit of the toll operators accounts if they did not get support from the state government.

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New Delhi: The worlds largest hypertension screening begins in India today, with 25 lakh people being screened in May for high blood pressure, a condition that kills an estimated 2.6 lakh of its people each year.

As part of the global May Measurement Month (MMM) 2017, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), along with Public Health Foundation of India (PFHI), Centre for Chronic Disease Control, Army Medical Corps, Indian Medical Association etc. launched the month-long screening campaign on Monday.

Hypertension is a major risk factor for developing coronary artery disease that can lead to life threatening episodes like heart attack and stroke.

Nearly 100 countries have signed up for the screening, including India, says Professor Neil Poulter, president, International Society for Hypertension (ISH).

The global initiative that aims to screen 25 million people world over during this month will be done under the aegis of ISH and the World Hypertension League (WHL).

More than 500 sites have been identified across India, including All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Armed Forces Medical College and private physicians to screen people between the age group of 18 and 65 years who have not had their blood pressure measured in last one year.

Hypertension is one of the most common lifestyle silent killer diseases of modern times, with every third person suffering from it. International data suggests that fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of their condition. Many of those who die of hypertension never knew they had it.

A vast majority of people dont have any symptoms. Early detection of high blood pressure is a key to controlling it and its complications both at an individual and population level, says professor D Prabhakaran, vice president- research and policy, PHFI.

The data from each country will be analysed along with the results of millions of others worldwide, and would be used to form a blue-print action plan to tackle hypertension globally.

Hypertension cannot be cured but it can be controlled with lifestyle modifications and medicines. Simple measures such as salt intake reduction, healthy eating, avoiding alcohol and increasing physical activity help a great deal in controlling high blood pressure, says Prof. Poulter.

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Elarica Johnson, to Indian audiences, is the girl who played the gorgeous waitress serving Harry in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now that shes coming to India to host pop star Justin Biebers maiden concert in this country, its Johnsons turn to be served daal and naan, chicken Biryani and lot of other spicy stuff.

The 27-year-old actor-model, who has done a lot of TV work in America, will appear next in Potter author JK Rowlings Cormoran Strike series, which goes on air at the end of this year. She tells us, Ive always wanted to go to India, so I can hardly contain my excitement for this trip. I hope to see and explore as much of the history and culture as possible, hang out with friends, and do a lot of shopping.

Johnsons connection with India began at the age of seven, when she watched the classic Mughal-e-Azam. Growing up, she loved Bollywood. My friend Chandni made me watch Bollywood films with her all the time. Also Lagaan (2001; starring Aamir Khan) was a huge favourite of mine, along with My Name Is Khan (2010), which had my favourite male Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan. Im also a very big fan of Priyanka Chopra and Jacqueline Fernandez, says Johnson.

Meeting Priyanka Chopra at an event in London was a very interesting experience for Johnson, especially now that Priyanka is an international star, with Quantico and Baywatch. She told me about her home and how often she gets to go back, considering her busy schedule. We met at a dinner in London. She truly is one of the most beautiful women Ive ever met, a down-to-earth individual. I dont know whether it will be possible to meet her when I am in India, because I think she is far too busy! But it would be lovely to see her again, says Johnson.

If Bollywood beckoned, Johnson would come. She says. There are so many amazing directors in Bollywood and Id be excited to work with any one of them. Karan Johar did a great job with My Name Is Khan and it would be amazing to work with him. And with Imtiaz Ali, too, as I enjoyed watching Tamasha (2015). Also, Varun Bahl, Manisha Malhotra, Tarun Tahiliani and Masaba Gupta are all spectacular designers with an eye for stunning fashion.

Currently, she is shooting for a movie, but cant reveal much about it, except that she is very excited to be a part of an upcoming blockbuster. Her focus, of course, is on the Bieber concert. Hes a great all-round artist with an amazing voice. Justin never seems to disappoint me with his songs! My favourite at the moment has to be Sorry it always gets me dancing! says Johnson, a self-confessed Bieber fan.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Two security personnel were killed on Monday along the Line of Control (LoC) when Pakistani forces fired at Indian posts, in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district.

Naib subedar Paramjit Singh, a junior commissioned officer (JCO), and Border Security Force head constable Prem Sagar received critical splinter injuries and were rushed to the Garrison Hospital in Poonch, 250 km from Jammu, where they died, official sources said.

The Pakistani army began firing at 8.25am, injuring four security personnel, including the head constable and the JCO, injured.

Pakistani troops opened fire using small arms and automatic weapons... Indian forces to retaliate in equal measure, a senior army officer said .

Officials said it was personnel of Pakistans 647 Mujahid Battalion deployed on the forward defence line. They fired four rounds of rocket-propelled grenades and three to four bursts of automatic weapons on Kripan-1, manned by the BSFs 200 Battalion.

Indian troopers at Kripan-1 retaliated with automatic weapons at 8.40am. The firing lasted till 9am.

BSF head constable Prem Sagar belongs to Deoria district in UP. One of the injured was identified as BSF constable Rajender Kumar, while the identity of the fourth trooper, who received minor injuries, is yet to be revealed.

India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC but it is violated frequently. Pakistani troops routinely target Indian posts, often  Indians officials say  to give cover to militants trying to cross over.

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Militants killed five policemen and two bank guards in an attack on a cash van in Phambai area of Kulgam in South Kashmir on Monday while students protests raged across the valley and two soldiers lost their lives on the Line of Control in the Krishna Ghati sector.

The cash van was returning after dispensing cash to local bank branches when it was attacked. Bank officials denied reports that the militants looted Rs 50 lakh from the van. The five Jammu and Kashmir policemen and the two guards killed in the attack were locals.

The policemen were identified as assistant sub inspector Mohd. Yousaf, Farooq Ahmad, Ishfaq Ahmad, Mohammad Qasim and Muzaffar Ahmad.

The two security guards killed were Javeed Reshi and Muzaffar Ahmed Laway.

Militant outfit Hizbul Mujhadeen claimed responsibility for the attack. However, a spokesperson told local news agency CNS that the victims were shot dead by securitymen.

We didnt attack the vehicle with intent to loot the cash. We have enough cash. We condemn the killing of the bank employees and want to clarify that they were shot dead by the securitymen, Hizbul spokesperson Burhanuddin said.

Earlier in the day, two Indian soldiers were killed by rockets and mortars fired by Pakistan along the southwest of the Line of Control in the Krishna Ghati sector in Jammu and Kashmir.

In the southern district of Pulwama, scores of school and college students hit streets on Monday against the arrest of some of their colleagues during earlier protests.

Police in Pulwama said students gathered outside the police station in the town and raised slogans.

Locals said that the police used tear gas shells to disperse the protesters who then resorted to stone pelting.

Students came out of a higher secondary and then they went to Degree College Pulwama and later they started throwing stones at the police station but no one was injured, said the districts superintendent of police, Rayees Mohammad Bhat.

Following the clashes, people closed their businesses and shops in the town.

In Srinagar, a few dozen students of Kothi Bagh Girls Higher Secondary and Womens College also held separate protests against the state and its forces.

Students protests have become a new challenge for the administration in Kashmir where the security situation has gone downhill after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani in July 2016 and the subsequent crackdown on protesters.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the arrival of EPI  Every Person is Important  during Mann Ki Baat on Sunday, he added yet another acronym to a fast-growing list of such abbreviations.

Modi was talking about the need to end the VIP culture and what goes with it. His government has decided to do away with the use of beacons atop vehicles, an ultimate symbol of power. The ban that kicks in on May 1 allows only emergency services to flash lights to cut through traffic.

While campaigning for the Lok Sabha election, Modi came up with several acronyms to take on political opponents and to spell out his vision of governance.

He took over as the Prime Minister in May 2014 but the wordplay continues.

Here are some famous Modi coinages:

ABCD: At the peak of the Lok Sabha campaign, Modi targeted the Congress with the ABCD barb, listing the scandals that rocked the country on the rival partys watch. A was for Adarsh housing scam, B was the infamous Bofors gun bribery scandal, C was for the alleged large-scale irregularities in coal block allocation and D was Damad, a reference to Congress chief Sonia Gandhis son-in-law Robert Vadra, who was embroiled in an alleged land scam in Haryana and Rajasthan.

RSVP: The Congress first family came under fire again as Modi mocked the partys RSVP -- Rahul, Sonia, (Robert) Vadra and Priyanka -- model of development. Addressing a poll rally, Modi said the Manmohan Singhs government followed RSVP model under which a person was able to multiply his earnings from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 400 crore in five years, a veiled reference to Vadra.

3AK: Modi trained guns on Arvind Kejriwal after some of AAP chiefs colleagues called for a referendum in Kashmir. He said three AKs were popular in Pakistan: AK-47, AK Antony and AK-49. The last one was aimed at Arvind Kejriwal, who stepped down as the Delhi chief minister after 49 days.

SCAM: This abbreviation is of recent vintage. As he led the partys campaign for Uttar Pradesh that voted for a new assembly in March, the Prime Minister clubbed together rivals Samajwadi Party, Congress and Mayawati, accusing them of corruption.

In the same campaign, he abbreviated his partys plans for the state to VIKAS (development in Hindi). Vikas expanded to Vidyut (electricity) Kanoon (law) and Sadak (road).

P2G2: At the BJPs national executive meeting in the coastal state of Odisha last month, Modi set another target for the party and his government -- P2G2, a pro people, good governance to achieve socio-economic development by 2022.

3-S, 5Ts and more

During the Lok Sabha campaign, Modi came out with many more acronyms such as 3S for Skill, Scale and Speed to equip the countrys young population to take on China. To build Brand India, he stressed on  Talent, Tradition, Tourism, Trade and Technology, or 5Ts. Democracy, Demography and Demand  3Ds  have been counted as Indias three big advantages by Modi in his pitch for his governments ambitious Make in India programme.

From NiTi to Usttad

The Modi government has launched or renamed several schemes and institutions. The Planning Commission, a Soviet era relic, made way for NiTi Aayog. NiTi, which in Hindi means policy, stands for National Institution for Transforming India. The government turned to Usttad (teacher) to upgrade and promote the skills of artisans from minority communities. The acronym stands for Upgrading Skills and Training in Traditional Arts/Crafts for Development.

To modernise Indias cities, Modi came up with Amrut (nectar in Hindi), or Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation. For preserving and restoring Indias cultural heritage, the government has launched Hriday, or Heritage City Development Scheme. Hirday translates to heart in Hindi.

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An Indian Army patrol team was taken by surprise by a group of Pakistani special forces who had set up an ambush more than 250 metres deep inside Indian territory early on Monday morning and beheaded two security personnel.

Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) set up the ambush and waited for a long time for the patrol team, while Pakistani troops attacked two forward posts with rockets and mortar bombs along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

It was a pre-planned operation by Pakistan army. They had pushed in the Border Action Team over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up the ambush over a long period to carry out the attack, a senior officer said.

Their target was a patrol party of 7-8 members, which had come out of a post, the officer said, adding that as the posts were engaged, the patrol team members ran for cover. In the process, two members were left behind and targeted by the BAT.

Head constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army were killed and their bodies mutilated.

The BAT is specifically employed for trans-LoC action.

In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in the form of surreptitious raids.

There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated.

On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian Army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector.

In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by a BAT. It also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion suffered injuries in the attack.

In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.

During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.

In February, 2000, militant Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Nowshera sector to kill seven Indian soldiers. The Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.

Past incidents of mutilation of Indian soldiers May, 1999: Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war.

Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war. Feb, 2000: Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan.

Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan. June, 2008: A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later.

A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later. Jan, 2013: One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Oct 28, 2016: A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army.

A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army. Nov 22, 2016: Suspected Pakistani troops killed three soldiers and mutilated one of the bodies during a gunfight in the Machhil sector along the LoC in Kupwara.
The BJP is fighting a storm of criticism in West Bengal after a state-level party leader described chief minister Mamata Banerjee as a eunuch for participating in Islamic religious rituals.

The ruling Trinamool Congress and other parties have called the comments as indicative of the BJPs rotten culture and Kolkatas transgender activists have condemned what they see as an undesirable attitude towards the community and a woman politician.

These days Mamata Banerjee is attending Namaz, wearing hijabs and shouting Allah Ho Akbar there....Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether the chief minister is a male or female.... Our chief minister is such a eunuch, the BJP leader said.

BJP leader Shyamapada Mondal made the reference while addressing a meeting in West Midnapore district of West Bengal on Monday.

These days Mamata Banerjee is attending Namaz ,wearing hijabs and shouting Allah Ho Akbar there. All these amount to drama. Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether the chief minister is a male or female. We come across eunuchs in trains. Our chief minister is such a eunuch, Mondal said at the meeting.

This is not the first time that BJP leaders have showered abuses on the chief minister.

Only in the second week of April youth BJP leader Yogesh Varshney announced a reward of Rs 11 lakh for anybody who beheaded Mamata Banerjee. Last December, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the chief minister should be pulled by her hair.

Lashing out at the BJP leaders comment, Trinamool Congress secretary general and state education minister Partha Chatterjee said that such a culture was unthinkable in West Bengal. Such comments are unheard of in the political culture of West Bengal. It is BJP who is trying to induct such rotten culture in the state, Chatterjee told HT.

City-based activist Raina Roy also hit out at Mondal for the remarks. Does he want to imply that the people of the transgender community are beggars? Stories of successes from the community are present in all professions. He should do some homework, Raina said.

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The Madhya Pradesh unit of the BJP has suspended one of its leaders from Gwalior - Raj Chaddha from the party on Sunday and issued a show cause notice for a Facebook rant on corruption.

State BJP chief Nandkumar Singh Chauhan issued the suspension order after Chaddhas recent post on Facebook which dragged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan into the row.

Mr Chief Minister, Corruption is at its peak in the state. Condition of hospitals is intolerable. Please improve this or sack lakhs of party workers like us who sacrificed everything to fulfill the dream of Pt Deendayal Upadhyay, Chaddha had written.

Infuriated by the post, the BJP hit back with a suspension and a show cause notice. But Chaddha seems unfazed and unrelenting in his posture and attack.

O God! Save my party. It is beholding in high esteem those who are working against it and showing its door to those who sacrifice for it, Chaddha wrote on his Facebook page on Monday following the show cause notice.

He didnt stop there and escalated his attack saying, They say party is superior to an individual and the country is superior to party but they consider themselves the party and the country.

If you shut the door of hospitals for the poor and pay homage to Pt Deendayal Upadhyay under a tent worth crores of rupees it is just an insult to him (Pt Deendayal Upadhyay), he wrote.

BJP spokesperson in Madhya Pradesh Rajneesh Agrawal told HT that none of the party workers and leaders was above the party. Hence, the partys action against the leader was justified.

But the Facebook comments of Chaddha, a former district BJP president in Gwalior and also president of Gwalior Vyapam Mela Authority stirred a hornets nest for the direct attack on the chief minister and invited huge response on his FB page to support his charges.

About 300 people liked the post, 32 shared it and more than 100 posted their comments. Only a few of them disapproved Chaddhas comments. Certain comments hit the CM hard and some did not spare his wife either.

When Gangotri itself is polluted then who will stop the corruption, commented one Vishnubhagwan Sharma.

Other responses were equally scathing. BJP leaders have converted power into their shops. As big a leader as big his shop, Madhya Pradesh has been converted into a laboratory of corruption, In Shivrajs regime BJPs chal, charitra aur chehra is exposed were some of the responses.

The BJPs desperation to contain damage caused by Chaddas comments comes barely a fortnight ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis likely visit to Amarkantak to declare conclusion of Narmada Seva Yatra started by chief minister Chouhan more than three months ago. The CM has been in the Oppositions firing line for the massive Vyapam scam which is being probed by the CBI.

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A select team of senior officials from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are stationed in London where they are holding talks with British prosecutors pursing the extradition of businessman Vijay Mallya.

The team is headed by CBI additional director Rakesh Asthana.

Sources privy to Mallyas case said while the investigating agencies are coordinating with their counterparts in the UK, the liquor barons extradition will also be discussed during talks between home secretaries Rajiv Mehrishi and Amber Rudd, who are to visit India later this week.

Sources said the talks, both in London and in Delhi, are part of a two-fold strategy formulated based on the possibility that Mallya might seek a political plea to halt his possible extradition.

The agencies are anticipating that Mallyas counsel might tell the UK courts that his is a case of political vendetta as he was an MP during the Congress-led regime.

Agency officials said Mallya might argue that his case was rather a civil offence and not a criminal one as impressed upon by Indian investigation agencies.

We are anticipating that a person of Mallyas stature will employ all means to avoid extradition. Both the CBI and ED have been coordinating with each other and with the prosecutors in London since Mallya was arrested last month. Besides , the agencies are briefing authorities at the highest level to plug loopholes that can be used by him, a government official told HT.

He added, The home secretary-level talks will ensure the UK government is on board with Indian authorities. 

A senior official of the ED elaborated on the basic requirements which the Indian authorities need to fulfill to make Mallyas extradition possible.

The most important requirement is to prove dual criminality. The provisions under which he is booked in India are similar to those in the UK, so it should not be that difficult. The other requirements include that the alleged crime conduced by Mallya should not attract capital punishment and the prison time in India should be between 1 to 7 years. As we know, cases of fraud do not attract capital punishment in India, the ED official said.

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Forget Kashmir or the Northeast, this may be the most dangerous mission an Indian government official has undertaken.

For the first time since Independence, scores of state government officials are being sent to collect data and talk to local population in the heart of Indias Maoist-hit territory in Chhattisgarhs Abujhmad.

The thickly forested region where government presence is sparse and often in name is also overrun by landmines and booby traps, creating a situation former prime minister Manmohan Singh described as Indias gravest internal security threat.

Revenue department officials are now taking cycles and motorbikes down dirt tracks, often ringed by dozens of security personnel, to survey land, record land holdings and create maps.

The exercise is aimed at helping the government quickly build roads and other facilities to push back Maoist rebels, and bring in a wave of development to loosen the insurgents hold on local population.

The aerial survey of the region was done in recent years but ground survey is being done for the first time since Independence, Narayanpur district magistrate TS Sonwani said. The process began last week and findings of the aerial survey would be corroborated during the field survey for deciding ownership and boundaries of a land, he added.

Spread over about 4,000 square kilometres, the heavily forested Abujhmad is considered the citadel of Maoist insurgents, who are said to run camps and training facilities in the cover of the inhospitable terrain. Government presence is not visible for miles, and the last sign of state administration ends a mere 15 kilometres from district headquarters of Narayanpur.

This is the region the government wants to penetrate in its efforts to wipe out Maoists after back-to-back attacks on paramilitary personnel. In March, 12 men were killed in an ambush. Last week, a near-identical attack killed 25 Central Reserve Police Force personnel. The government has vowed revenge and last week suspended road construction and transferred all personnel to anti-Maoist operations.

The government knows the security challenges. Hours before the survey began, a prominent local leader helping security forces was found murdered. The exercise has hovered around the fringes of Abujhmads formidable forests that contain 200-plus villages.

But with 200 security personnel assisting a dozen revenue officials and more reinforcements planned, the government is determined to push ahead.

The idea is complete the mapping process in next few years. This is true that the process is dangerous and will take time, said the magistrate.

(with agency inputs)

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A civilian was injured when some terrorists opened fire in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama on Sunday late night.

Victim Nisar Ahmad was immediately shifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Attacks by terrorists are on a rise in the valley.

The incident comes after three Indian Army personnel lost their lives after terrorists attacked an Army camp in Pangzam area of Kupwara district on Thursday. At least two attackers were killed in the retaliatory firing by military forces in the region.

Earlier on Friday, two militants opened fire after entering Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Mehandi Kadal in Anantnag.

A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) head constable sustained bullet injury in his right hand while the other militant, who was carrying a weapon, escaped.

Police said the security personnel deployed there tried to apprehend the militants, but they opened fire.

One of the terrorists was apprehended while the other is absconding.

An investigation is currently on in this regard.
Clashes erupted between security forces and students on Monday after they took out a protest march against the alleged high-handedness of security personnel at a college in Pulwama in south Kashmir, the police said.

A number of students of Boys Higher Secondary School and Pulwama Degree College took out a joint march against the security forces action on April 15, a police official said.

When the march reached near Pulwama police station, some of the students threw stones at security personnel, who lobbed teargas shells to disperse them, the official said.

There are no reports of any casualty in the clashes, which were going on till reports last came in.

There were unconfirmed reports of some students hoisting Islamic State flags and pasting posters of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, who was killed in an encounter with security forces in July last year, on the building of the degree college.

Meanwhile, shops and other business establishments were shut in the area in view of the clashes.

On April 24, several protesters and security personnel were hurt as students clashed with police as colleges had opened in Kashmir after a five-day shutdown.
The Congress and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal demanded on Monday decisive action from the government to the mutilation of two Indian soldiers bodies by the Pakistan army near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Congress demanded that the Centre wakes up from its slumber and end the diplomatic vacuum between the two nations.

We have seen enough rhetoric. It is high time for a decisive policy and a decisive line to tackle terrorism Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said.

The main opposition party criticised the government for its inability to deal with Pakistan, criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for lack of credible leadership in the country.

It (the incident) shows a serious lapse in national security on part of the BJP government, Surewala said on Monday.

Delhi chief minister Kejriwal tweeted on Monday: I strongly condemn the barbaric and inhuman mutilation of our soldiers. We must react strongly and firmly.

I strongly condemn the barbaric and inhuman mutilation of our soldiers. We must react strongly and firmly.  Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 1, 2017

A Pakistani special forces team killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies along the Line of Control on Monday morning, the armys Northern Command said while promising to appropriately respond to the despicable act. The army said Pakistan violated the ceasefire and opened fire in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

The government too reacted strongly to the incident, with finance minister Arun Jaitley saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act... This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during war, he said.

Pakistan denies that its army had fired on Indian troops and said Delhis claim of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Monday triggered a controversy, alleging that the Telangana Police were trapping Muslim youth by encouraging them to join Islamic State.

In a series of tweets, Singh, who is the Congress in-charge of Telangana and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, alleged that the police in the southern state had set up a bogus ISIS site and were posting inflammatory information to trap young Muslim men.

Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

It was on their information that MP (Madhya Pradesh) police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP. It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day, he said.

It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

The senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister was talking about a suspected IS man who was killed in an anti-terror operation in Lucknow in early March.

Singh, who was on Saturday relieved of Karnataka and Goa charge for his inept handling of party units, questioned if Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had authorised his police to ensnare Muslim youth.

It is not clear what brought about the outburst from the Congress leader who addressed a public meeting in Telanganas Warangal district on Sunday.

The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

I agree but what about the Telangana Police which is posting inflammatory postings to radicalise Muslim Youth through their fake ISIS site?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Is it ethical? Is it moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS? he tweeted, referring to the terror group by its other name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Rao should order an investigation and punish those responsible for the heinous crime and if police were following his orders, he should take responsibility and resign, he said.

Telangana minister for information technology and industries KT Rama Rao, who is the chief ministers son, demanded that the Congress leader withdraw his comments unconditionally. Most irresponsible & reprehensible thing coming from a former CM. Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence, he tweeted.

Most irresponsible & reprehensible thing coming from a former CM. Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence https://t.co/cg7p7Ym48X  KTR (@KTRTRS) May 1, 2017

Telangana police chief Anurag Sharma refuted Singhs charges. I dont know on what basis he (Digvijay Singh) has made such wild allegations. They are utterly baseless and we strongly deny his comments, he told HT.

The Telangana Police had never said they were behind the arrest of those responsible for the bomb blast in Madhya Pradesh. We are doing our duty sincerely. We are offended with his comments, the director general of police said.

On March 8, the UP anti-terrorist squad killed a suspected IS member Saifullah allegedly on a tip-off provided by the Telangana Police.

Saifullah was linked to a blast in a Bhopal-Ujjain train in MP in which 10 persons were injured.

This is the second time in a week that comments by Singh, who is known to shoot his mouth off, have triggered a row. Hours after Maoists killed 25 Central Reserve Police Personnel in Chhattisgarhs Sukma on April 24, Singh accused chief minister Raman Singh of helping the insurgents.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday invited Turkish companies to invest in sectors and industries such as railways, ports, airports, textiles, auto, energy, tourism and housing.

Addressing a business summit with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Modi said while it is encouraging that the two sides enjoy good economic ties, the level of present economic and commercial relations is not enough against the real potential.

As we strive to build stronger political ties, the time has come to also make more aggressive effort to deepen the economic relations, he said, pointing to new areas of opportunities opened up by the knowledge-based global economy.

Pitching for foreign direct investment in sectors like housing and railways, he said, We have planned to build 50 million houses by 2022. For this purpose, we have repeatedly refined our FDI policy in construction sector.

We are planning metro rail projects in 50 cities and high speed trains in various national corridors...We are putting up new ports and modernising the old ones through an ambitious plan called Sagarmala.

The prime minister pointed to hydrocarbon, solar and wind energy sectors as common areas of interest for India and Turkey.

He urged chambers of commerce and industry of India and Turkey to engage with each other pro-actively. Turkish businessmen should take advantage of Indias low cost manufacturing capabilities, Modi said.

While Modi noted that bilateral trade has gone up to $ 6.4 billion in 2016 from $2.8 billion in 2008, Erdogan said that steps should be taken for trade balance between India and Turkey.

Turkey wants a free trade agreement and a comprehensive economic partnership agreement to bridge the trade gap with New Delhi.

This meeting marks a new era of business relations, Erdogan said, adding the two countries should move to achieve actual business potential of their ties.

India and Turkey can complement each other in several areas including research, the Turkish president said, adding his country can assist in Indias need for rapid infrastructure development.

Joint trade volume should be balanced. Steps should be taken to achieve that, Erdogan said.

Earlier in the day, Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour at Rashtrapati Bhavan, where President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi received him.

India is delighted to welcome President Erdogan of Turkey. Will hold talks with him and also address a business summit, Modi said in a tweet.

Later, Erdogan paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also called on the Turkish President and discussed bilateral issues.

Erdogan, who arrived on Sunday on a two-day state visit to India, is expected to sign a series of agreements after delegation-level talks with Modi on various issues including terrorism.

Erdogans visit comes after winning a referendum in Turkey on April 16 that gave him additional executive powers as President. His last visit to India was in 2008 when he was the prime minister.

Mukherjee visited Turkey in 2013. Modi also met Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015. (With inputs from agencies)

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A group of Indias top defence, strategic and intelligence experts has urged the Narendra Modi government to take urgent steps to improve cyber security standards in the country.

This group of about 80 experts, including former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief PC Haldar, retired defence brass including Admiral Arun Prakash, former air chief PV Naik, and former diplomats Shyam Saran and Ronen Sen among others, has expressed concern over the governments digital drive amid poor cyber security standards.

The experts noted while the Centre and many state governments were rapidly adopting cyber technology and asking their ministries and departments to go online, the overall cyber security standards in the country were very poor.

These deliberations were held at the second annual Pune Dialogue on National Security (PDNS) convened by Air Marshal Bhushan Gokhale (Retd.) on September 7-8, 2016.

Taking a review of Indias challenges and opportunities in cyber space, key recommendations made to the government included the establishment of four Cyber Security Clusters in the country with cutting edge capabilities and the creation of a Cyber Deterrence Doctrine on the lines of Indias Nuclear Deterrence Doctrine.

The PDNS recommended that the nations first cyber security cluster could be established in Pune which has a vibrant ecosystem of IT and cyber security companies, academic institutions, defence and government labs. Government funding and technology support is required to develop this first nascent cluster so as to establish a national template for further replication, the PDNS-2016 report said.

Countering Islamist Radicalisation

On the subject of radicalisation and violent extremism, the PDNS noted that India has been, and is, the focus of a premeditated, concerted, abundantly-resourced attack, planned by expert practitioners of statecraft and state-destabilisation. The PDNS said the goal of Pakistan, especially the Army and its Islamist collaborators was nothing less than to bring about the destruction of India and the conquest of India, and to that end, to impair and damage India by as many and whichever ways feasible.

The national security experts emphasised that in order to tackle the problem of Islamist radicalisation and violent extremism, the institutions of the state and Civil Society needs to be fully aware that a meticulously planned, heavily resourced, closely coordinated effort is underway, chiefly Pakistan-based with abundant Arab funding, and some indigenous collaboration for the destruction and subjugation of India.

The mainstream media, including radio and television, it said, failed to address this issue effectively. It recommended that the government should review its news management policy, especially with regard to panel discussions and talk shows which are watched each day widely.

It also suggested that instead of ruling party spokespersons, a cadre of government spokespersons, fluent in English and Hindi, should be created to participate in TV debates and inform the public of various aspects of official policy and action taken to deal with Islamist radicalisation.

Strained civil-military relationship

The security experts also called for a more regular, more formalised interaction between the prime minister and the three services chiefs, a lot more cross-postings of bureaucrats and defence officials and the creation of a specialist cadre for acquisitions and procurements of arms and armaments.

There has to be emphasis on specialists manning the ministry of defence. Hence, special emphasis must be laid on specialists who have the required knowledge, who have the training, and who have the empathy and respect for the armed forces, and the uniform, the PDNS report said.

It said that like the Foreign Service, the defence civilian officers must also be a specialised cadre and that the general lack of knowledge about the armed forces among the civilian bureaucracy could be addressed by one or two years attachment with the armed forces for everybody.

Maritime Security

The national security experts strongly recommended the creation of a full-fledged ministry of maritime affairs under the charge of a cabinet minister to act as a focal point for Indias maritime policies and interests. Given the salience of the Blue Economy, a Maritime Commission or Maritime Authority will no longer suffice, it said, while pointing out that Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had already created such ministries.

There was a broad agreement on the critical No First Use (NFU) aspect of Indias nuclear doctrine. The PDNS report said NFU is the most stabilising strategy since it places the onus of the risk of retaliation and escalation on the adversary. NFU also supports non-proliferation and disarmament which are key aspects of Indias nuclear strategy, the report said.
Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) wants the government to give the army a free hand to deal with separatists and stone pelters in Kashmir. It sought to buttress its demand citing Mondays mutilation of the bodies of two Indian troopers by Pakistani forces along the Line of Control.

Our cadre is incensed by todays attack and demand a fitting reply, said Vinod Bansal, VHP spokesperson said.

The outfit plans to hold demonstrations across the country on Tuesday to protests against the continued attacks against security personnel in the Valley.

A memorandum will be submitted to President Pranab Mukherjee, (who is the supreme commander of the armed forces) to allow the army to deal with separatists, the stone-pelters and their direct and indirect supporters with a free hand, Bansal said.

The VHP and the Bajrang Dal, affiliates of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been demanding stern military action against those who attack the security forces.

These stone-pelters and those who are backing them should be dealt with in the same way as those who attack the army, Bansal said.

Read more: VHPs Pravin Togadia says govt should carpet bomb Kashmir to stop militants

And despite the outrage over the blindings caused by the use of pellet guns to disperse stone pelting protesters, the Hindutva outfits say there is no reason why the government must put restrictions on the armed forces to counter violence against the state.

VHP chief Pravin Togadia caused a nation-wide outrage last week, with his demand that the government should carry out carpet bombing in the Valley to stop the attacks on security forces by militants.

After attacks on Army camps in Uri and Kupwara, our government should carry out carpet bombing in Kashmir Vally area to stop such attacks. The attacks on Army camps and the incidents of stone-pelting should be considered as a war and the government should carpet bomb these areas, news agencies quoted Togadia speaking in Gujarat.

On whether the Hindutva groups will also protests against the deadly ambush on a CRPF contingent in Chattisgarhs Sukma that left 25 troopers dead, Bansal said, a demonstration was not on the cards, but the government has been asked to deal sternly with Naxals.

There is widespread terror in Sukma from Maoists and their sympathizers the communists; the Church is sponsoring religious conversion and attacks against the security forces are increasing; yet a large section of political leaders are silent on it. The government needs to take action, Bansal said.

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Shimla police arrested a government officer and three others for illegal drug trade near Shogi, 15 km from the capital town, on Sunday night.

The accused have been identified as Mahinder Kumar, regional manager of Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) Solan; and Kangra residents Vikas Kumar, Rajiv and Gyasuddin.

On a tip off, police intercepted the official vehicle of Mahinder Kumar, coming from Solan towards Shimla.

While checking his vehicle, police recovered 4.4kg chitta (a colloquial for heroin).

Preliminary probe suggested that the officer was in possession of drugs for delivery.

Forensic investigation confirmed that the seized substance is chitta, said police sources.

It is also suspected that the manager misused his official vehicle for smuggling drugs earlier too.

Police said a Jammu and Kashmir resident had provided the drug to Kumar.

Further investigation is on.

Shimla superintendent of police (SP) DW Negi said police may arrest more people in the case as the investigation has just begun.
A week ahead of the meeting of Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC ad-hoc), both Jhinda and Nalvi factions are claiming support of majority members required for the control of the Sikh body in the state.

Newly elected president Didar Singh Nalvi claims that he has the required support in the 41-member HSGMC House to get the top post, but Jagdish Singh Jhinda said Nalvi does not have any right to challenge his authority and all the members are backing him (Jhinda).

The meeting was necessitated after 28-member executive committee of the HSGMC appointed Nalvi as its president on April 9, removing Jhinda from the post. Now Nalvi has been told to prove the majority in a meeting, to be held in Kaithal on May 7.

Though I am not dying for the presidents post, I have enough members in my favour and I will prove it on May 7, Nalvi told Hindustan Times.

Asked about the numbers, he said, I cannot disclose this yet but numbers will be sufficient to prove the simple majority.

On the other hand, ousted president Jhinda said, There is no logic behind this meeting and proving majority. They do not have any right to remove me before the Supreme Court delivers its judgment on formation of HSGMC.

All HSGMC members are in my support and I will continue my fight for a separate Sikh body in Haryana. Some people, who are eyeing the chair of president, are working to divide HSGMC members.

He added, How a group of 10-12 people can elect president of HSGMC and oust a president who was appointed in 2014 with the consent of all 41 members.

Jhinda, however, did not disclose whether he will attend the meeting, but sources in the HSGMC said Jhinda and 15 other members of his group are unlikely to attend the meeting.

They will require two-thirds majority for the selection of new president and we have more than the required majority. We will prove it after their meeting, a close aide of Jhinda told HT.

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Around 19.6 million women in India dropped out of the workforce between 2005 and 2012, with the fall being higher in rural areas, shows a World Bank analysis of data from the National Sample Survey Organisation and Census of India.

Only 27% women were in the labour force in 2013, with Indian womens workforce participation being closer to 24.6% in Pakistan and 23.3% in the Arab World, compared to 79.9% in neighbouring Nepal and 63.9% in China.

With increasing stability in family income and a fall in low-paying unskilled jobs, more women are choosing to focus on care within the family instead of joining the workforce, says the World Bank policy research paper.

When developed economies transited from agriculture to manufacturing, there was a fall in womens participation in the labour force, but participation increased as wages went up in the next transition from manufacturing to services took place. Though the transition to services has happened in India, there was no corresponding increase in workforce participation from women, says Vinoj Abraham, associate professor, Centre for Development Studies, who is one of the authors of the paper.

When family income gets regular from permanent jobs, families start investing more in childrens education and health, which results in the womens role changing from a provider to carer. Women then start focusing on their familys status production, which is maintaining and enhancing familys social standing. Their role as carers becomes more valued and if they dont play out, their status in the household goes down, which disincentivizes them from joining the workforce, says Abraham.

The World Bank paper, titled Precarious drop: Reassessing patterns of female labour force participation in India, recommends focusing on policies that promote the acceptability of female employment and investing in economic sectors more attractive to women.

Though fertility has fallen and education has gone up, there has been no corresponding increase in women employment, with labour participation almost stagnating in urban centres and dropping in rural areas, says Nalini Gulati, country economist, International Growth Centre. Women with better education need productive employment and better wages from manufacturing and services sectors in rural India, which is not happening.

Adding to the complexity is the Indias young demographic, where there are enough young men competing for jobs, unlike in countries like Nepal, where the migrant economy often leads to women becoming the de-facto head of households.

Apart from providing better education, skill development and legal provisions, India needs to create jobs for women that provide higher wages along with social support in the form of playschools and creches for children, says Gulati.

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After a lifetime of hardship and poverty, Kalabai Sehariya had thought her life had finally turned a corner. The 70-year-old widow was eligible for a government grant under the Prime Minister Housing for All Scheme (rural), and could fulfill her dream of a pucca house.

In February, she demolished her hutment in Madhya Pradeshs Bhopal district and started building her house with two instalments of Rs 40,000 each under the scheme. Very soon, she thought, she and her mentally challenged son would have a permanent roof to live under.

That was not to be. In March, the state administration told her she had been struck off the list of beneficiaries because she owned a three-acre irrigated land with a well.

Not just that, she was ordered to return Rs 80,000, despite her belonging to a primitive tribe category that is supposed to be prioritised under the scheme. A hapless Kalabai says she would get less than an acre after the land is divided within the family and that she is struggling under this new debt.

I dont have anything other than a cooking gas but administration feels that I am not poor. How will I prove my poverty? she asks, tears streaming down her sunken cheeks.

Kalabai is not alone. Scores of villagers across the state are struggling to pay back government installments after the administration abruptly cancelled their benefits because the people were deemed ineligible.

Under the scheme, a beneficiary can be struck off the rolls for 13 reasons. Owning a car or motorbike, a fridge, a Kisan Credit card with limit of at least Rs 50,000 or 2.5 acre irrigated land are some of the criteria.

Villagers say they were given two installments but before releasing the third tranche of money, the rural development department noticed the exclusion criteria and hastily cancelled the transactions.

The government rubbishes these charges and says most of the people complaining wanted to cheat the system and were caught. The rules existed from the very first day but when we received complaints, we asked the officers to conduct a survey and cancel the names of ineligible people. They are protesting to save themselves from action, panchayat and rural development department additional chief secretary Radheshyam Julaniya said.

He also denied that many people had been affected by the move, saying that only a few people were declared ineligible.

But the assurance is unlikely to come as any solace to Ramesh Kushwaha, who has had to abandon his home construction after he borrowed Rs 50,000 under Kisan Credit Card and got excluded. Without any roof over his head, he worries for his family during the monsoon.

Another resident of the village, Hariprasad Ahirwar, was excluded as he recently purchased a motorbike second hand.

I earn Rs 150 a day as a labourer but soon my family will face starvation because I would be sent to the jail for not returning Rs 80,000, he says.

Either I have to return Rs 80,000 or face criminal charges. To return the money, I have to work 530 days without spending a penny on food.

But how did this happen? Village heads say the state government listed about 532,000 beneficiaries in December  based on the 2011 census -- in a bid to achieve the target of 100,000 houses till June, 2017 under the scheme, possibly without adequate scrutiny.

When the first installments were released in February, local panchayat leaders asked people to raze their hutments and immediately begin construction on new buildings.

On March 23, the department released an order to exclude people on the basis of the 13-point exclusion process. Village heads and government agents were ordered to make a list of ineligible people and ask them to return money or face criminal action. In the haste, villagers allege there is no clear number of the people who have been struck off the list.

When (Union minister) Narendra Singh Tomar clearly stated that all the beneficiaries would be selected on the basis of 2011 census, why does the MP government now have a problem with it? asked Janpad president in Bhopal Manmohan Nagar. Janpad is a local cluster of villages.

We are not denying that the economic condition of some improved in seven years but most are living in poverty. To declare some people ineligible is injustice to genuine people, said Dayalbai Sahu, a village head.

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India and Afghanistan are likely to sign a bilateral motor vehicle agreement in May to put pressure on Pakistan, which is blocking New Delhis regional connectivity plans.

Government sources said that the pact is likely to be signed during the forthcoming visit of Afghan foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani to New Delhi to review the bilateral cooperation within the third week of May.

The agreement will help Afghanistan goods vehicle to cross Attari, check-post and come to Delhi, which would boost both bilateral trade with Afghanistan, besides bolstering regional connectivity.

As far as the bilateral trade is concerned, connectivity has remained a huge stumbling block, resulting in the sluggish pace of bilateral trade. According to the latest available government figures, the bilateral trade was $684 million for 2014-15 ($422 million export and $ 262 million import by India).

However, the trade relations can realise its true potential if the Wagah-Attari route is opened for bilateral trade. The Pakistan-Afghanistan trade and transit pact was of no help in this regard, said an official.

He said since with this transit agreement, Afghanistan can better leverage Indian policy of giving greater market access to the least developed countries from the SAARC region. So for the pact to be successful, Pakistan will have to come on board.

In the absence of a bilateral motor vehicle agreement with Pakistan, Indian vehicles cannot enter Pakistan.

Afghanistan has already signed the transit and trade agreement with Pakistan in 2010 that allows both countries to enter each others territory. But in absence of a pact with India, Afghanistan vehicles could come up to Wagah, the last check-post on Pakistan side, unload their goods and return.

From Wagah, the goods were again transported to Attari from where they were picked up by Indian transporters. But the larger aim seems to be Afghanistan nudging Pakistan to let Indian vehicles travel to Afghanistan and central Asia.

The move will give some more leeway to Afghanistan to bargain with Pakistan. Pakistan has wanted to go to Central Asia via Afghanistan but the move has been resisted by Afghanistan. The latter demanded reciprocity vis-a-vis India, said a Union road transport and highways ministry official.

India had earlier planned to sign the agreement during Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghanis visit to India in 2015.

Talks to have a bilateral MV agreement between India and Afghanistan started after Pakistan backed out from an ambitious project for South Asian road connectivity in November 2014. The Saarc motor vehicle pact would have allowed free movement of passenger and cargo vehicles within the eight-member Saarc nations: India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

India, Iran and Afghanistan have already signed the Trilateral Transport and Transit corridor agreement in May 2016 during PM Narendra Modis visit to Iran.

Sources said an Indian delegation is also visiting Iran in the second week of May to discuss the protocol for the agreement, which will allow Indian goods to enter Iran through Chhabar port. From there the goods can be transported through road and rail link to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

India has a container terminal at Mundra, which is some 550 nautical miles from Chhabar port. Its nearest to Chhabar and once the port is ready, container vessels carrying goods can reach Iran in approximately two days, said a shipping ministry official.
The Indian army - BSF patrol, whose two members were beheaded by Pakistani special forces on Monday, might just have walked into a death trap laid by Pakistani troops, official sources said.

The incident in Krishna Ghati sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir occurred when a joint team of the army and BSF had gone to check the veracity of an intelligence report that landmines had been planted by Pakistani troops on the Indian side.

As they were looking for landmines, the patrol was taken by surprise by Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) which had laid an ambush over 250 metres deep inside the Indian territory.

While the Pakistani troops attacked two forward posts with rockets and mortar bombs, the BAT personnel lay in wait for their targets. The Indian army patrol too came under fusillade of gunfire, resulting in the death of two soldiers.

The BAT personnel quickly moved in and beheaded two fallen soldiers, official sources said in New Delhi.

It was still not known if landmines had indeed been planted in the area.

KK Sharma, the Director General of BSF, one of whose personnel was killed in the attack and decapitated, met Union home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and briefed him on the incident.

It was a pre-planned operation by Pakistan army. They had pushed in the Border Action Team over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up the ambush for a long period to carry out the attack, a senior officer said in Jammu.

Their target was a patrol party of 7-8 members, which had come out of a post, the officer said, adding that as the posts were engaged, the patrol team members ran for cover.

Two troopers--one of the army and another of BSF-- were targeted by the BAT.

Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army were killed and their bodies mutilated.

The BAT is specifically employed for trans-LoC action.

In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in the form of surreptitious raids.

Past incidents of mutilation of Indian soldiers May, 1999: Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war.

Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war. Feb, 2000: Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan.

Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan. June, 2008: A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later.

A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later. Jan, 2013: One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Oct 28, 2016: A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army.

A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army. Nov 22, 2016: Suspected Pakistani troops killed three soldiers and mutilated one of the bodies during a gunfight in the Machhil sector along the LoC in Kupwara. There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated. On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector. In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by BAT. It also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF suffered injuries in the attack. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by BAT in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India. In February, 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian armys Ashok Listening Post in the Nowshera sector and killed seven Indian soldiers. Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.
A defiant Kolkata high court judge CS Karnan on Monday ordered the psychological examination of the Chief Justice JS Khehar and other judges who directed a medical test on him by a board of doctors at a government hospital in Kolkata.

The top court directed the West Bengal director general of police to set up a team of officers to assist the medical board and submit a report on or before May 8. It also declared all orders passed by Karnan invalid, and said no court or tribunal shall take cognisance of his directions.

Karnan has accused a number of top judges of corruption, triggering the first-ever contempt proceeding against a sitting high court judge.

The high court judge reacted to the order by setting up a court at his New Town residence in the eastern fringe of Kolkata once again. He called the media to his residence and passed a two-page suo motu handwritten order on his official letterhead addressed to all the press media.

I set aside this Supreme Court order. It is erroneous, ridiculous and bad in law. My earlier suo motu order (in which Karnan had directed the CJI and other judges to appear before him on Monday) cant be set aside by the seven-judge bench because they are the accused, Karnan said.

I will not conform to any test. If the DGP or any doctor tries to force me to face a test I will order their suspension and make them co-accused in this case, he added.

Karnan said by ordering a medical examination, the top court had insulted an innocent Dalit judge and claimed that his wife and sons were very much satisfied with his mental and physical health.

I set aside this Supreme Court order. It is erroneous, ridiculous and bad in law. My earlier suo motu order (in which Karnan had directed the CJI and other judges to appear before him on Monday) cant be set aside by the seven-judge bench because they are the accused.

He ordered the director general of Delhi Police to take the CJI and the 6 other judges to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi for a psychological test and submit the report to him on or before May 7.

Justice Karnans clash with the judiciary started when he accused several judges of the Madras HC - where he earlier served - and an SC judge of corruption, nepotism and casteism. His allegations triggered contempt proceedings, the summons for which he ignored before issuing counter orders against the Supreme Court.

The escalation led to an unprecedented arrest warrant being issued against him on March 10. But he refused to receive it  when a team of Bengal police led by the DGP reached his home  and summoned the apex court judges instead.

The HC judge has so far passed 5 suo motu orders against the CJI and other judges. In April, Karnan even directed the Air Control Authority, New Delhi, not to permit CJI Khehar and 7 other judges to travel abroad.

Karnan is a Dalit and his orders against the judges are based on laws protecting the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe people. He has alleged that he is being targeted for his caste.
India informed visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday that a solution to the Kashmir issue can only be found through bilateral talks with Pakistan, tacitly rejecting his suggestion for multilateral dialogue on the matter.

The Kashmir issue has a prominent dimension of cross-border terrorism that needs to be stopped by those who are perpetuating it, external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said without naming Pakistan.

Erdogan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a detailed discussion on terrorism and the two leaders agreed there could be no justification for terrorism wherever it is committed. They also urged all countries to disrupt terrorism networks and financing and stop cross-border movements of terrorists, Baglay said.

The Turkish leader had ruffled feathers in Delhi by suggesting in an interview before his arrival in India that there should be a multilateral dialogue to find a solution to the Kashmir issue. The remarks were seen as a riposte to Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades call for India to help in the reunification of the part of his country that is controlled by Turkey.

Our case essentially was Kashmir is an issue of terrorism that has dogged us for 40 years, cross-border terrorism and state-sponsored terror, Baglay told a news briefing.

As far as the issue is concerned, we are ready to address any issue between India and Pakistan bilaterally through peaceful means as has been stipulated in the Simla Agreement and Lahore Declaration.

While presenting its views on terrorism and Kashmir to Erdogan, the Indian side made it clear that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. Baglay said, This position that the issue of Kashmir is essentially an issue of terrorism, we presented it very clearly.

India has always been prepared to discuss Kashmir and all other issues with Pakistan so that peaceful solutions can be found bilaterally, he added.

The Turkish side raised its concerns about the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO) linked to the US-based preacher Muhammad Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused by Erdogan of instigating a failed coup last year. Turkey has been demanding that schools in India linked to Gulen should be shut down.

As far as the Turkish concerns about FETO are concerned, they were mentioned to us. Any organisation in India, whether it is Indian or foreign, obviously has to work within the parameters of our laws and our norms and regulations, Baglay said.

The Turkish side also expressed supported for Indias bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Two girls set ablaze a motorcycle in Ludhiana on Sunday night following an altercation with a couple of boys whom they accused of ogling them , police said.

Male companions of the girls also assisted them in the crime, eyewitnesses claimed.

After the incident at the citys Rajguru Nagar main market, the girls fled in a car with their male friends.

According to local shopkeepers the girls were consuming liquor with their friends since evening and were in an inebriated condition.

Arshdeep Singh, whose bike was gutted, said he was standing at the market place with one of his friends when the girls picked up a fight accusing them of staring at the two.

Singh claimed the male companions of the girls attacked them with bricks, forcing them to flee the area.

The girls then cut the fuel pipe of his motorcycle and set it on fire.

Singh said he jotted down the registration number of the car in which the attackers fled and informed the police.

Inspector Sumit Sood of Sarabha Nagar police station said they are investigating the incident.

Some eyewitnesses said the male companions of the girls also assaulted some onlookers who tried to record the incident on their mobile phones.
Recovery of a huge haul of arms, two lakh cartridges, wild animal hides, trophies and other materials during the directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) raids at the residence of a retired army officer in Meerut on Saturday and other locations in Delhi and Gurgaon, have led sleuths deeper into the network of an international syndicate of arms traffickers and poachers.

The DRI officials have issued a look out notice for the retired army officer Col Devendra Kumars son, Prashant Vishnoi, who is a professional skeet shooter and is still at large. The officials seized his passport during the raid to prevent him from escaping to another country.

Meanwhile, Col Kumar had assured the law enforcement agencies of his support. I was not aware about my sons activities and if he has done anything wrong, action should be initiated against him, he said.

The DRI seized more than 100 firearms, including weapons of high quality global brands like Glock (Austria), Beretta (Italy), Arsenal (Italy), Benelle(Italy) and Blaser(Germany), during its raids in Meerut, Delhi and Gurgaon.

Many of the seized firearms are prohibited for public use and it is believed that the shooter and his aides collected these through their foreign connections. Expensive cameras and thermal imaging binoculars were also seized, which indicates that the syndicate members were using these for poaching.

Issuing details of the seized items and the syndicate of arms traffickers, additional director of DRI, Delhi Zone, Raj Kumar Digvijay said, The syndicate was busted after the DRI officers intercepted three passengers, including a Slovenian national and an arms supplier, at the Indira Gandhi International airport last week. These people were travelling with Turkish airlines, carrying 25 illegally imported lethal weapons. They had mis-declared the quantity and the value of the arms and ammunition to the customs and were trying to get them cleared by misusing the scheme and the import policy meant for renowned shooters.

On the basis of the revelations of the arrested persons, raids were carried out in Meerut, Gurgaon and Delhi , which led officials to this syndicate of arms traffickers and poachers.

Sources said that the leopard hide confiscated from Col Devendra Kumars house belonged to an animal killed recently near the Jim Corbett National Park, and the process of skinning was done at his residence.

The raiding team also recovered 117 kg raw meat from the army officers residence. Chief conservator of forest (west zone) Mukesh Kumar has directed his staff to send a sample of the recovered meat to the wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for testing. Efforts are on to nab the absconding Vishnoi.

A case has been registered against Kumar and Vishnoi under different sections of the Wildlife Act.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan used a joint appearance on Monday to condemn terrorism, with the visiting leader seeking Indias help to contain the network he accused of orchestrating last years failed coup.

Erdogan said Turkeys $6.5 billion annual trade volume with India is not enough and should be boosted.

Nations of the world need to work as one to disrupt terrorist networks and their financing, and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, Modi said, adding he had an extensive conversation with Erdogan on the subject.

We agreed that no intent, goal, reason or rationale can validate terrorism, Modi said, after the two sides inked a host of agreements.

Countries need to stand and act against those who create, support, shelter and spread terrorism, Modi said, adding, President and I decided to work together to strengthen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace.

For his part, Erdogan lashed out at the movement of Fethullah Gulen, which he held responsible for the failed coup of July 15, saying he hoped India would take steps to expel the domestic network of the Muslim cleric.

He said the Gulen network is active in over 100 countries in the world and accused it of infiltrating various organs of government, while thanking Modi for his support in the wake of the coup.

While condemning recent terror attacks in India, Erdogan said Turkey would always be in solidarity with India in battling terrorism. Terrorists will be drowned in the blood they spill, he said and cited a quotation from Mahatma Gandhi to make his point.

Batting for Indias quest for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, Modi said, both of us recognise the need for the UNSC to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the century gone by.

Both leaders vowed to strengthen economic co-operation, with Modi saying, President and I are clear that strengths of our economies present an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen our commercial linkages. We need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner.

Modi encouraged stronger partnership of Turkish companies with Indias flagship programmes and to tap into diverse and unique opportunities in the India growth story.

Erdogan said the bilateral trade volume, which is currently at $6.5 billion is not enough, and expressed desire to increase it to $10 bln as soon as possible.

He pitched for raising investment in energy and infrastructure and said the frequency and destinations of Turkish Airlines in India should be increased.

He also said the two countries can do business in their own currencies.

Erdogan also warned against the rise of populism and divisions on the basis of sex and religion, noting that the East-West differences are now much more highlighted.

In the context of cultural xenophobia taking root, Erdogan said differences should be embraced, not feared.

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The economics of life has not been impressive for Azmat since he was attacked along with Pehlu Khan and three others by cow protection vigilantes in Rajasthans Alwar for allegedly smuggling the bovines for slaughterexactly a month ago.

The group, traditionally dairy farmers hailing from Jaisinghpur village in Haryanas Nuh district, had bought cows from the cattle fair in Jaipur and were returning when they were attacked.

While Pehlu Khans family has received financial assistance from some organisations after his death, bed-ridden Azmat and Rafeeq are staring at a livelihood crisis and rising debts.

The former, who is recovering from a spine injury sustained in the attack, had purchased three cows for Rs 75,000. The attackers also snatched Rs 35,000 from me, he says, shooing away flies settling on his face.

His brother Yusuf, who works in Mathura, says that they have spent nearly Rs 1.5 lakh already on Azmats treatment. I have to take him to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, every 3-4 days for treatment, and each trip costs about Rs 5,000. All our savings have dried up and we are running into debts, he says.

There is no milk in the house. Whatever little we get, we dilute it and give it to Azmats little child (his one-year-old daughter), says Azmats mother.

A grave stone with markings in Hindi describes Pehlu Khans grave outside his home in Jaisinghpur village of Haryanas Nuh district. (HT PHOTO)

Although doctors say that Azmats spine injury will heal in two to three months, he has been told not to lift anything heavy or take up strenuous jobs for life. For Azmat, whose work involved much manual labour, the doctors words have spelt doom.

The other victim, Rafeeq too is bedridden and has a broken nose. He had gone to the Jaipur cattle market but did not buy anything as he found them beyond his budget.

The money that he was carrying with him was stolen by the attackers, he said.

Rajasthan home minister Gulab Chand Kataria described the attackers as cow worshippers and the victims as cow smugglers.

Irshad, 24, the eldest of Pehlu Khans eight children, is still not adept at dairy-farming, the occupation that engages most people in the village, including his family.

You dont know enough about cattle yet. Ill come with you and identify the right one myself, Khan had told Irshad on the morning of the fateful day. They had planned to buy a buffalo, but being pricey at Rs 80,000-90,000 each, they settled for a pair of cows for Rs 45,000, Irshad recalled.

Hussain (left), Pehlu Khans uncle, and other villagers in Jaisinghpur village are angry at the police for not having arrested the attackers yet. (HT PHOTO)

786 / 3-4-17 / Pehlu Khan / Khuda Hafiz / 786, reads the unruly paint in Hindi on the bright yellow gravestone on Pehlu Khans grave in the barren ground in front of his house.

Kahaan se bachta Pehlu (How could he have survived)? asks Hussain, Khans uncle as he walks back from the grave to the house.

If you saw the video, the man in blue shirt had a key in his fist and was pounding Pehlus head with that, he says, referring to a video of the incident that emerged later.

Khans 85-year-old blind mother Angoori Begum has been weeping inconsolably since morning. My Pehlu did not even tell me once that he was going... my Pehlu... my Pehlu, she wails.

Khan wanted his youngest daughter, Huzina to become a school teacher. The shy 11-year-old says she was his favourite. Huzinas mother remains in seclusion as she is in Iddah, a waiting period to be observed by a Muslim woman after the death of husband or divorce.

Pehlu and others had ravannas (purchase receipts) from the cattle market, but not the permits needed to transport the cows out of the state. The officer authorised to issue the permits had earlier expressed ignorance about any such authority. I dont issue the permits, nor have I ever issued any, Baldev Ram Bhojak, SDO Amer, had told HT.

Pehlu Khan wanted his youngest daughter, 11-year-old Huzina to become a school teacher. (HT PHOTO)

The horror of the incident has stymied their hope for justice. Police have not yet arrested any of the six mentioned in the FIR lodged on the basis of Pehlu Khans statement. They have not recorded the statements of other victims either.

Rafeeq said the police, who took them to the hospital, did not ask them even once about who beat them up or why they were beaten. After Pehlu Khans death, police took Azmat from the hospital ICU to the police station where he spent the entire night, with the spine injury, lying on the floor.

Nobody in Jaisinghpur talks about avenging the attack. With fear deepening, villagers are unsure about the prospects of dairy farming, something that they have done for ages. Pehlu Khans death might just change the character of not just the sleepy hamlet, but a lot of other villages in the Mewat region.
A paragliding pilot at Himachals adventure tourism destination of Bir Billing has been booked for molesting a woman tourist from Mumbai during a flight.

Police said the pilot was being questioned after the woman submitted a video clip to buttress her complaint. The woman has complained that the paraglider pilot molested her during a tandem paragliding flight. We are analysing the clip and have recorded her statement, Kangra SP Sanjeev Gandhi said.

In tandem paragliding, two people, including the trained pilot, fly in a single paraglider.

The woman filed the complaint online after she returned to Mumbai. An FIR was registered against the pilot under section 354 (assault or criminal force against a woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the IPC.

The SP said the identity of the accused cannot be revealed until the charges are verified.
The mutilation of the bodies of two Indian soldiers by Pakistan is an act of barbarism and the armed forces will react to it appropriately, defence minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday.

Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel, officials said earlier in the day.

In a strong reaction, Jaitley said such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act, Jaitley said.

He said sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vein.

This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during war, he said.

The Indian Army vowed an appropriate response to the despicable act, which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

Condemning the deaths of Indian soldiers, the Congress said unacceptable actions like these wont help Pakistan in improving its internal situation.

We condemn what Pakistan did. It must stop terrorism and realise that these actions are unacceptable, Congress leader Anand Sharma said at a press conference in New Delhi.

Noting that the Pakistani forces were attacking Indian posts even after the surgical strikes in September last year, he said it was a cause of concern.

Six major attacks have taken place since the surgical strikes were carried out. 41 soldiers have been killed... its an issue of concern, Sharma said.

He criticised the central government for having no plans to stop repeated attacks by Pakistan on Indian interests.
Hostile trade unions poured water on labour ministrys plan to celebrate the International Labour Day together on Monday.

The Narendra Modi government has been accused by labour unions of pushing policies that undermine workers rights in the name of reforms.

This was the first time the Union government planned to rope in trade unions for its Labour Day programmes.

They (the government) wants to show that things have improved in the labour front. We will not fall in their traps, said DL Sachdeva, general secretary of Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC).

The programme includes the launch of some schemes by the Employee Provident Fund Organisation and Employees State Insurance Corporation.

It (the government) has made a mockery of the tripartism in practice in the country through years of struggles by the working class, said a statement from Left- and Congress-affiliated trade unions.

The relation between the unions and the government deteriorated over a number of issues, such as the push for labour codes that drastically diminishes unions role in labour disputes.

Last year, the trade unions were furious when the government, almost unilaterally, decided to hike minimum wages of central industrial workers to take the steam out of the unions general strike.

The NDA government, however, continues to get support from RSS-affiliated Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, unlike the Congress, whose own trade union wing revolted against the UPA government and joined the Opposition ranks.

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Describing the Presidential elections in July as an acid test for Opposition unity, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury stressed on the need for non-NDA parties to ensure the victory of a candidate who can uphold the Indian Constitution in letter and spirit.

Yechurys call found several takers, as leaders of several parties pitched for a common candidate at a conclave of Opposition parties convened on Monday to mark the 95th birth anniversary of late socialist leader Madhu Limaye.

Chastened after the BJPs overwhelming victories in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and the Delhi municipal polls, Opposition leaders displayed rare bonhomie by making a combined appeal for unity to challenge the growth of the saffron party.

Among the participants at Mondays function were Sharad Yadav (JD-U), Digvijaya Singh (Congress), Atul Anjaan (CPI), DP Tripathi (NCP) and Danish Ali (JD-S).

Yechury said the challenge was to build a narrative of real nationalism versus the Hindutva nationalism of the BJP. The Marxist leader said the saffron party had brought about a fusion of its communal agenda with the developmental theme.

Facts of the case are at variance from what the BJP propagates. One per cent citizens held 49% of the countrys wealth when the BJP took office. The same one per cent today controls 58.5% of the wealth. The rich have been getting richer. The Opposition parties need to build an effective counter narrative, Yechury said.

Speaking in similar vein, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said the Opposition campaign should be centered on a positive narrative. The Grand Alliance idea must be pursued as a war of ideologies, rather than being focused on personalities, he said.

Singh insisted that the phase of anti-Congressism was over, and said that just two ideologies were relevant today: The fascist, communal ideology versus the secular, democratic ideals.

Former JD (U) President Sharad Yadav said there was a need to aggressively push for inclusive political ideologies at a time when minorities across the country were feeling insecure.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi is likely to convene a meeting with leaders of non-NDA parties in the second week of this month to fine tune plans for a common candidate for the Presidential elections.

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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi launched the partys election campaign in Gujarat on Monday with a promise to give a government that would listen to `Mann Ki Baat of people while he took pot shots at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for catering only to the rich.

Addressing a rally in Dediapada of Narmada district in Gujarat Monday, Gandhi unveiled his pro-poor agenda as he raised several issues including the Patidar agitation, land acquisition bills and demonetisation.

On November 8 (when Modi announced demonetisation) Modiji told you that I am your PM and listen to my Mann ki Baat. And from today Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in your pockets are not valid, said Gandhi adding, The Congresss government in Gujarat will listen to your Mann Ki Baat. It will be the government of all and not one person. We will fight the next elections with all our might and defeat Modiji and the BJP in Gujarat.

Assembly elections in Gujarat, where in the BJP has been in power for 22 years, are due in November-December. The Congress believes it has an edge given the anti-incumbency factor coupled with agitations for the OBC reservations by the Patidars who have traditionally formed a vital vote share for the BJP.

Read more: Rahul Gandhi visits temple in Narmada district ahead of Congress rally in Gujarat

Dediapada has sizeable population of tribals. Before his address, Gandhi offered prayers at Dev Mogara Mataji temple. The Congress had mobilized thousands of locals for the rally, which was culmination of Adivasi Adhikar Yatra started by the party on April 3 from Ambaji. In February, the BJP had taken out 10-day Adivasi Gaurav Yatra, which had ended at Ambaji.

Nearly 30 seats in South and North Gujarat belt have significant tribal population. Traditionally seen as Congress stronghold, the BJP has been able to make inroads here in recent years.

Gandhi said that Patidars, who are supporters of the BJP, complained to him that they do not get admission in colleges. And when they asked for it, the police had beaten the women members of their community.

The Congress vice president also targeted Modi on the land acquisition bill. Here the chunks of land have been given to industries. We brought Land Acquisition Bill. And, when Modiji won the elections he tried to scrap it through an ordinance.

He further said, He (Modi) makes big speeches and does marketing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to create two crore jobs a year. Last year, only one lakh jobs were created. The Modi governments reality is different from their marketing and tall talks.

Gandhi further said, Todays Gujarat is being ruled by some 10-15 people and you know their names.

Patidar youth told me that entire education sector is controlled by 10-15 people close to Narendra Modi. In Vibrant Gujarat, nobody except those 10-15 people and have got any real benefits, he said.

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Pakistani forces killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies after a targeted attack on frontier posts in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday morning  an act the army described as despicable and promised appropriate response.

The slain soldiers were naib subedar Paramjit Singh, a junior commissioned officer (JCO) with the armys 22 Sikh Regiment, and head constable Prem Sagar of the BSFs 200 Battalion.

The 42-year-old Singh was from a village in Punjabs Tarn Taran district, while Sagar was a native of Deoria in Uttar Pradesh.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

The government strongly condemns this barbaric act and the country has full confidence and faith in the armed forces, which will react appropriately, defence minister Arun Jaitley said.

This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks dont happen even during a war, let alone peace  The sacrifice of these soldiers will not go in vain.

The armys northern command said the Pakistanis fired mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns at Indian posts in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district along the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries.

The shelling provided cover fire to members of the Border Action Team (BAT)  allegedly made up of a mix of Pakistani army regulars and militants. They attacked a 10-man Indian patrol comprising soldiers from 22 Sikh Regiment and the BSF.

Sources said the Pakistani rogue squad struck within 200 metres inside the Indian side of the LoC. The soldiers were patrolling across the border fence.

Pak army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts ... Simultaneously a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pak army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, the army statement said.

Singh, the senior-most member of the squad, was leading the patrol.

The Pakistani army denied mutilating the bodies, saying theirs is a highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier.

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers bodies is also false, a statement from the neighbouring countrys inter-services public relations wing said.

Other than Singh and Sagar, another two BSF soldiers came under attack but they survived. Constable Rajender Kumar was one of the wounded, while the others identity is yet to be revealed.

The Pakistani army has violated a 2003 ceasefire agreement between the two countries 65 times in four months this year.

Sources said Pakistans 647 Mujahid Battalion, deployed on the forward defence line, was responsible for the firing that began at 8.25am.

At least four rocket-propelled grenades and bursts of automatic weapons were fired towards the Kripan-1 outpost, manned by the BSF. Indian soldiers retaliated with automatic weapons at 8.40am, officials said. The firing lasted almost an hour.

It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistani army. They had pushed BAT members into India and set up ambushes to carry out the attack, a senior army officer said.

Border skirmishes and mutilation of Indian soldiers are not a new thing, but its a first this year after two incidents last October and November. The BAT wasnt involved in October, though.

Militants crossed the LoC on the night of October 28, killed Mandeep Singh and hacked the 30-year-old sepoys body in the Macchil sector of Kashmirs Kupwara district. The Pakistan army provided the militants cover fire.

Almost a month later, Pakistanis killed three soldiers and savagely cut to pieces one of the bodies, prompting the Indian Army to vow retribution.

The BAT is accused of killing and mutilating the body of lance naik Hemraj, and beheading lance naik Sudhakar Singh in 2013. Earlier in 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by BAT in the Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later.

Past incidents of mutilation of Indian soldiers May, 1999: Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war.

Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war. Feb, 2000: Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan.

Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan. June, 2008: A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later.

A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later. Jan, 2013: One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Oct 28, 2016: A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army.

A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army. Nov 22, 2016: Suspected Pakistani troops killed three soldiers and mutilated one of the bodies during a gunfight in the Machhil sector along the LoC in Kupwara.
Pakistani forces killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies along the Line of Control on Monday morning, the armys Northern Command said while promising to appropriately respond to the despicable act.

The Pakistani side opened fire on the Indian posts in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district, and members of their Border Action Team (BAT) attacked a patrol party, the Indian Armys Northern Command said in a statement.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

Pak army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector... Simultaneously a BAT (border action team  an amalgam of terrorists and Pakistan army regulars) action was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pak army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, the statement said.

The Indian government strongly condemns this barbaric act and the country has full confidence and faith in the armed forces, which will react appropriately, defence minister Arun Jaitley said.

This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks dont happen even during a war, let alone peace  The sacrifice of these soldiers will not go in vain.

Pakistan, however, said its army was not involved in any ceasefire violation, adding Indias blame of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false.

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false.  M. Nafees Zakaria (@ForeignOfficePk) May 1, 2017

Earlier, army sources identified Naib subedar Paramjit Singh, a junior commissioned officer (JCO), and Border Security Force head constable Prem Sagar as the dead. Two other BSF soldiers on patrol with them survived .

The firing began at 8.25am, they said, identifying Pakistans 647 Mujahid Battalion deployed on the forward defence line as the source.

Four rocket-propelled grenades and three to four bursts of automatic weapons were fired on Kripan-1, manned by the BSFs 200 Battalion.

Indian troopers at Kripan-1 retaliated with automatic weapons at 8.40am, officials said. The firing lasted till 9am.

BSF head constable Prem Sagar belongs to Deoria district in UP. One of the injured was identified as BSF constable Rajender Kumar, while the identity of the fourth trooper, who received minor injuries, is yet to be revealed.

India and Pakistan have agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC but it is violated frequently. Pakistani troops routinely target Indian posts, often  Indians officials say  to give cover to militants trying to cross over.

Past incidents of mutilation of Indian soldiers May, 1999: Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war.

Six soldiers on patrol in the Kaksar sector of Jammu and Kashmir were taken captive by the Pakistan army on May 15, 1999. They were tortured for weeks before being killed and their mutilated bodies were handed over to India on June 9. It triggered the Kargil war. Feb, 2000: Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan.

Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri led a raid on Indian Armys Ashok Listening Post in the Noushera sector, killing seven Indian soldiers. He took back to Pakistan the head of one Indian jawan. June, 2008: A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later.

A soldier lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani border action team in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded a few days later. Jan, 2013: One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed into the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Oct 28, 2016: A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army.

A soldiers body was found mutilated in Kupwaras Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistans army. Nov 22, 2016: Suspected Pakistani troops killed three soldiers and mutilated one of the bodies during a gunfight in the Machhil sector along the LoC in Kupwara.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday called for more aggressive efforts to deepen economic ties between India and Turkey, saying the present level of economic and commercial relations between the two countries are not enough.

PM Modi was speaking at an India-Turkey business summit with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting New Delhi. Erdogans India visit on Sunday and Monday comes at the start of a diplomatic blitz he is embarking on after winning a referendum on April 16 which gave him more executive powers as the president.

India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion, which officials say is much below potential. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.

With chances of Turkey becoming a European Union member diminishing, Ankara is actively looking to Asia in terms of economic development and security - and India is seen as a major partner in this regard.

As we strive to build stronger political ties, the time has come to also make more aggressive effort to deepen the economic relations, Modi said.

Presenting India as an economy, which is the fastest growing and therefore a promising destination for investment and doing business, the Prime Minister said the governments focus apart from maintaining this pace, is also to remove inefficiencies from the system.

India has been wooing nations to invest more by easing the norms of doing business and promising to make the environment easier and more conducive to trade.

Todays knowledge-based global economy is continuously opening new areas. We must factor this in our economic and commercial interactions, Modi said.

The PM also gave the visiting dignitary an overview of the administrative reforms aimed at giving the economy a fillip.

We have planned to build 50 million houses by 2022. For this, we have repeatedly refined our FDI policy in construction sector We are putting up new ports and modernising the old ones through an ambitious plan called Sagarmala, he said.

He referred to the areas of possible cooperation and said the hydrocarbon sector is a common area of interest for both countries and spoke of possible coordination in the solar and wind energy sectors.

Asking the Chambers of Commerce and Industry of both sides to engage with each other pro-actively, PM Modi also made a reference to the softer diplomacy areas such as tourism adding that the number of Indian tourists going to Turkey has increased in the last few years.

The issue of Indias membership bid for the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) is likely to figure during the talks between the two leaders as Turkey is a member of the elite group.

Turkey is not directly opposed to Indias NSG membership but has been maintaining that the powerful bloc should come out with a system to consider the entry of the countries which are not signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as also supporting Pakistans case.

Erdogan last visited India in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

(With agency inputs)

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Home minister Rajnath Singh chaired a high-level meeting on Monday to discuss Jammu and Kashmir and the situation following the killing of 25 CRPF troopers by Maoists in Chhattisgarh.

The meeting was attended by home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, intelligence bureau chief Rajiv Jain, RAW chief Anil Dhasmana and Central Reserve Police Force chief Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar.

Informed sources said the meeting discussed the fresh trouble in Jammu and Kashmir, where a spike in stone-pelting incidents by students have caused a law and order problem.

The meeting comes days after Rajnath Singh reviewed the status of 2015 developmental package announced for Jammu and Kashmir by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and directed its expeditious implementation.

Security in areas of Maoist influence was also discussed, the sources said.
In the 43 days of the Yogi Adityanath regime in Uttar Pradesh, as many as 93 bahubalis (dons) have been shifted to different jails in an attempt to make their crime machinery ineffective.

Mukhtar Ansari, Munna Bajrangi, Atiq Ahmed, Shekhar Tiwari, Maulana Anwarul Haq, Mukim alias Kala, Udaibhan Singh alias doctor, Titu alias Kiranpal, Rocky alias Kaki and Alam Singh are among those who have been shifted to far-flung jails from prisons in their home districts.

Though the dons are behind bars, their gangs let loose a reign of terror  committing murders, kidnapping, dacoity and extortion  with ease.

A bahubalis call from jail was enough to terrorise businessmen, contractors and even government officers. Those who refused to follow their diktats were threatened, attacked or killed.

In his first law and order review meeting held on March 30, the chief minister propelled the police and prison officers into action.

Mukhtar Ansari was shifted from Lucknow jail to Banda, Atiq Ahmed from Naini central jail to Deoria, Munna Bajrangi from Jhansi jail to Pilibhit and Shekhar Tiwari from Barabanki to Maharajganj jail. Sources said the jail superintendents of Banda, Pilibhit and Deoria were nervous when they received the orders for shifting the dons.

The senior jail officers instilled confidence in them and were told not to buckle under the pressure but to deal strictly with the criminals.

To put pressure on the jail officers of Pilibhit, Munna Bajrangi, a dreaded contract killer, allegedly told them that he had details of their families and of even the schools and colleges where their children studied.

But the jail officials were told to follow Yogi Adityanaths orders and not be apprehensive.

Additional director general of police (prison) GL Meena said, Though behind bars, a majority of the criminals had established their crime network in the area. The jail administration received information that the gang members used to meet in jail and plan incidents of crime from there. The jail officers were under pressure due to the influence of the mafiosi. During surprise raids, mobile phones and SIM cards were recovered from the cells of criminals.

The Special Task Force (STF) and Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) monitored the activities of the jailed dons and alerted the jail administration about their nefarious activities. Some of the jail officers were also involved in the nexus and the jail administration suspended the superintendents of Mainpuri and Fatehgarh jails, Meena said.

A BJP leader said, Yogi is fulfilling Prime Minister Narendra Modis promise made at a public meeting in Mau, the home turf of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari on February 27. Modi had alleged that jails in UP were virtually converted into a palace for criminals where they enjoyed all facilities and luxury. The gangsters can be seen going to jail with a smile and have photo sessions. Being in jail, they also get legal protection from the consequences of the crime committed by their gang.

UNDERTRIALS IN HOSPITALS

Meena said the jail administration had prepared the list of the undertrials who are admitted in hospitals across the state.

I have sought a report from the medical officers of the hospitals in which the undertrials, majority of them notorious criminals, are admitted. Gulshan Yadav, an accused in the killing of deputy superintendent of police Zia-ul- Haq in Pratapagarh district, was admitted to SRN Hospital, Allahabad. The medical report said he was suffering from a backache.

Babu Singh Kushwaha, accused in a multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam, was admitted at the Ram Manohiar Lohia Hospital. When the jail administration sought a report from the hospital, the doctors discharged the trio and sent them back to the jail, Meena added.

During probe, the jail administration found that several undertrials used their influence to get medical certificates stating that they were suffering from some mental disorder.

The jail administration on Saturday sent letters to mental asylums in Varanasi, Agra and Bareilly, directing them to send a report about the health status of the undertrials.

Fearing that they will be caught, the doctors have started discharging the undertrials, Meena said.

The state home department has also directed district magistrates and the superintendents of police to check use of mobiles by the undertrials in jails.

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Turkish President Erdogan to meet PM Modi today

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on key bilateral and regional issues, including Indias NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade. This is Erdogans first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers. Apart from his wife Emine Erdogan, the Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum. Ahead of his visit, India had played down proximity between Turkey and Pakistan as well as Ankaras statements on Jammu and Kashmir.

Read the story here.

Rahul Gandhi to address Adivasi rally in Gujarat

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi will address a rally at Dediapada in Narmada district that is expected to be attended by a large number of Adivasis from the region. Ahmed Patel, political secretary to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who is supervising preparations for the rally said the event holds immense significance for his party. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani belittled the event saying that public meetings by the leader of the sinking Congress party will only benefit the BJP. The Congress is a sinking boat. It is a proven fact that the Congress loses election wherever they organise Rahul Gandhis rally. We urge the party to organise his rallies at maximum places in Gujarat during the next three months, said Rupani, taking a dig at Gandhis rally.

ABCD to EPI: Narendra Modis wordplay continues

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the arrival of EPI  Every Person is Important  during Mann Ki Baat on Sunday, he added yet another acronym to a fast-growing list of such abbreviations. While campaigning for the Lok Sabha election, Modi came up with several acronyms to take on political opponents and to spell out his vision of governance. He took over as the Prime Minister in May 2014 but the wordplay continues.

Read the story for more Modi coinages such as ABCD, 3AK here.

Delhis house of horror: Teen girls allege molestation, growth injection at shelter home

At least 10 teenage girls in a state-run west Delhi shelter home have accused its staff of molestation, forcibly injecting them with unexplained drugs, and beating them into submission if they tried to resist or complain. The government home is for girls who are either rape survivors or rescued from the citys streets, human traffickers and brothels. But their rehab has turned into a house of horror.

Read the story here.

Petrol, diesel prices to be revised daily in 5 cities from today

Petrol and diesel prices will be revised on a daily basis from Monday in five cities as a part of a pilot project. Puducherry, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Udaipur in Rajasthan, Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Chandigarh will go through the daily change to be in sync with international rates, much like it happens in most advanced markets.

Read the story here.

Battling unrelenting drought, Kerala women dig 180 wells to quench thirst

Life is wilting in large swathes of southern India under an unrelenting drought, but a motley crowd of ordinary women are also helping hope to sprout with their doggedness in the face of adversity. Scores of them have come together to dig wells in Keralas Palakkad district and rewrite their destiny amid the unprecedented dry spell. Successive monsoon failure has left their land parched and robbed them of their livelihood. Though many are going hungry, very few are thirsty, thanks to the unique initiative by the womens collective.

Read the story here.

Maharashtra govt wants to restrict hookah parlours, bring them under local cops

A cash-strapped state government is considering regulating hookah parlours by issuing licences for them in the state. The finance department of the state government has written to the home department to study if framing the rules to regulate the parlours and bring them under the ambit of the local police was possible. The home department will begin the process by seeking opinions from various departments, including the law and judiciary, urban development and police commissionerates of various cities.

Read the story here.

2.3 million pregnant women in Rajasthan missing between 2011 and 2016

Rajasthan lost track of 2.3 million registered pregnant women in five years since 2011 after they went off the health departments radar, a comptroller and auditor general (CAG) report revealed. The CAG found fault with the government for failing to keep a track of all would-be mothers in a state struggling with high maternal and infant mortality rates. The gap between pregnant women registered for ante-natal checks and deliveries in the state was detected during a performance audit of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was carried out.

Read the story here.

Attempt on my life, says BJP Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari after attack on house

BJP leader Manoj Tiwaris house in the national capital was ransacked late on Sunday night, with police arresting four suspects by Monday morning, ANI reported. The BJP s Delhi unit chief posted about the attack at around 2 am on Twitter, claiming that eight to 10 people had attacked his house located on 159 North Avenue in central Delhi. He later claimed the incident was meant to be an attack on his life.

Read the story here.

J-Ks firebrand CM Mehboobas image is taking a beating over the current crisis

The clamour for governors rule in violence-hit Kashmir is growing. Be it the opposition parties in Kashmir or a section of the BJP administration in Delhi, many seem to be in favour of chief minister Mehbooba Mufti stepping down. The once-firebrand Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader, who was credited with bringing her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed back into the states mainstream politics, has become irrelevant. People at both the state and central levels have expressed displeasure over the way she has handled the Kashmir situation.

Read the story here.
Heres a list of top 10 stories to bring you up to date.

1- Turkeys President Erdogan calls for multilateral dialogue to resolve Kashmir issue

Hours before arriving in India for an official visit, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a multilateral dialogue with Turkeys involvement to resolve the Kashmir issue. The remarks, made during an interview with WION news channel, are expected to ruffle feathers in New Delhi. Expressing concern at the stand-off between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, Erdogan offered to get involved in settling the issue. We should not allow more casualties to occur and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multilateral dialogue, I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, which will benefit both countries, he said.

Read the story here.

2- Trump attacks climate pact, accuses India, others of freeloading

President Donald Trump celebrated 100 days in office Saturday with a campaign-type speech that will be parsed around world capitals for the attack on the Paris Climate Accord, which he said was one-sided, and for accusing India, Russia and China of not paying enough towards mitigation of greenhouses gases. On the climate change accord the president said, Our government rushed to join international agreement where the United States bears the costs and bears the burden while other countries get the benefit and pay nothing and this includes deals like the one-sided Paris Climate Accord where the United States pays billions while China, Russia and India have contributed, and will contribute, nothing.

Read the story here.

3- Mumbai attack accused Hafiz Saeed to remain under house arrest for 90 more days

Mumbai attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed will remain under house arrest here for 90 more days after the expiry of his three- month detention period on Sunday night. Pakistans Punjab government on Sunday decided to extend the duration of the house arrest of Saeed and his four aides under the countrys anti-terrorism act and the notification for it will be issued soon, an official of the Punjab governments home department said.

Read the story here.

4- Flight risk: 2016 most unsafe year for Indian aviation, 40% spike in near-miss cases

Experts say that recent initiatives to boost the aviation sector will only weaken air safety standards, beset at present by a shortage of manpower, training and airspace for civilian traffic. On August 22 last year, an air traffic controller saw Indigo flight IGO258 and Air Indias AIC995 approaching the same altitude over New Delhi. Flight AIC995 was asked to turn left to avoid a collision, but that put the plane on the path of another Indigo aircraft, IGO528. The incident was among 32 cases of near miss in 2016, highest for any year in the history of the countrys civil aviation, according to government data obtained by HT through the Right to Information law.

Read the story here.

5- AAP crisis: Kejriwal says theres no rift, Kumar Vishwas is his younger brother

Aam Aadmi Party national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal warned those who are showing that there is a rift between him and senior leader Kumar Vishwas and said they were enemies of the party. Putting to rest speculation, Kejriwal said Vishwas was his younger brother and no one can separate them. Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are showing that there is a rift between us, they are enemies of the party. They should refrain from this. No one can separate us, he tweeted. Kejriwals tweets came hours after AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan took to social media alleging that Vishwas was trying to take over the party.

Read the story here.

6- One civilian killed, four policemen injured in grenade attack at Srinagar

A 65-year-old man was killed and five others, including four policemen, were wounded in a grenade attack by suspected militants in Srinagar on Sunday evening. Police said a grenade was lobbed near the office of the superintendent of police, North City. A police official identified the slain civilian as Ghulam Mohammad Khan, a resident of Ilahibagh in outskirts of the city. Eyewitnesses said that Khan was passing by on a bicycle when suspected militants targeted a police party who were conducting searches of the vehicles in Khanyar.

Read the story here.

7- With Digvijaya Singhs ouster, Congress begins restructuring party after election losses

The Congress appears to have responded to calls from its rank and file to initiate organisational changes and fix responsibility for a string of electoral losses since the 2014 national elections. It has slowly begun the process of restructuring  evident from the sacking of party general secretary Digvijaya Singh as its in-charge in Goa. Such action from the high command, replacing a senior functionary on state leaders demand, is rare in the Congress.

Read the story here.

8- BJP workers forge Jayant Sinhas signature to dupe unemployed youths

Some BJP workers in minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinhas constituency forged his signature to trick local unemployed youths into paying money for jobs, Hazaribagh police said on Sunday. A complaint lodged with Barkagaon police station of Hazaribagh by one of the duped youths stated that a few local BJP workers assured jobs to ten unemployed youths in the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) for which they had to pay a certain amount of money. The party workers showed the letter to the unemployed persons as proof of their job recommendation and extorted money, police said.

Read the story here.

9- Much ado about grammar in UKs new 5-pound note

A new polymer 5-pound note issued by the Bank of England in September 2016 has been much in the news: from its supposed indestructibility to the use of beef tallow in its production to rare serial

numbers  now a new one concerns grammar in its text. Fans of the iconic Winston Churchill say he would not have minded what the British news media called a major grammatical blunder, but quite a few grammar fundamentalists dont quite like the fact that his famous quote in the notes text does not include quotation marks.

Read the story here.

10- David Warners 126 helps Sunrisers Hyderabad floor Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL

Swashbuckling opener David Warner smashed a whirlwind century to guide Sunrisers Hyderabad to a comfortable 48-run win over table-toppers Kolkata Knight Riders in their IPL encounter on Sunday. Warners 59-ball 126-run innings was studded with 10 fours and 8 sixes to power defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad to an imposing 209-3. Chasing the target, KKR were reduced to 12-2 in 2.3 overs with both their openers -- Gambhir (11) and Sunil Narine (1) back to the pavillion.

Read the story here.
While Maharashtra and Gujarat celebrated their foundation day on Monday, the neighbouring states were pitted against each other on the cricket field in a battle for supremacy. (Updates)

Rising Pune Supergiant -- who had lost to Gujarat Lions in the three encounters they have played till date -- finally won on Monday, thanks to a stunning unbeaten 103 by a hamstrung Ben Stokes.(Scorecard)

After Rising Pune Supergiants Imran Tahir (3/27) and Jaydev Unadkat (3/29) restricted Gujarat Lions to 161 in 19.5 overs, all-rounder Ben Stokes registered his maiden IPL ton as the hosts registered a five-wicket win with one ball to spare at the MCA Stadium on Monday. (IPL 2017 full coverage)

At 42 for four, the stage was set for Stokes and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (33-ball 26) to live up to their top billing. The 76-run partnership between them for the fifth wicket put Rising Pune Supergiant back into the game after a flurry of wickets early on.

Mondays innings was crucial for Stokes, considering his Rs 14.5 crore price tag, and the string of low scores since his half-century knock against Kings XI Punjab in RPSs second match.

Stokes, making a comeback into the playing XI after missing the last two games due to fitness issues, started with a sublime straight drive off Pradeep Sangwan. Instead of going for flashy strokes, Stokes operated smartly by concentrating on rotating the strike with Dhoni.

Stokes finally let loose, smashing Ravindra Jadeja for consecutive sixes to take 15 runs off the left-arm spinners over.

Ben Stokes shared a 76-run stand with MS Dhoni, who contributed with 26 off 33 balls. (BCCI)

Dhoni consumed some balls in the beginning and added to the pressure, resulting in him holing out straight to McCullum at long-off with 44 required off 24 balls.

Stokes and Dan Christian, with his big hits, brought the equation down to 25 off 12 and then eight off the final over. Christian finished it off with a six over square leg off the penultimate ball.

Rising Pune Supergiant were off to a horrendous start with their top-four batsmen dismissed in single digits. Pradeep Sangwan, with his steady pace, sent back Ajinkya Rahane (4) and skipper Steven Smith (4) in the first over of the innings.

In the second over, young pacer Basil Thampi dismissed in-form Manoj Tiwary, out leg-before, for duck. Just before the powerplay overs ended, RPS opener Rahul Tripathi was run out even as a stunning silence gripped the stadium.

Dhoni at his best with gloves

Dhonis run out of Suresh Raina (8) was a master class. The Gujarat Lions skipper sprinted for a second run with Rahanes throw from deep midwicket being quite flat. A watchful Dhoni kept his hands as close to the bails as possible and as soon as he collected the ball, the bails were whipped in a flash with Raina short of his ground.

In the final over, Dhonis direct hit sent back Dinesh Karthik for 29 as he tried to steal a single.
Chief minister Vasundhara Raje on Monday exhorted the party workers to gear up for the next round of elections in Rajasthan and ensure 25 Lok Sabha seats and 180 plus Assembly seats.

The BJP chalked out a roadmap for the state assembly elections scheduled next year during the two-day state-level working committee meeting.

According to the roadmap, the party plans to launch a publicity blitz across the state to highlight the achievements of the state and central governments. The role of the party workers would also be activated to strengthen the organisational structure of the party to achieve the election goals.

Addressing the media persons here on Monday, state party president Ashok Parnami said that on the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a Congress-free India, BJP has set upon mission 2018 (in Rajasthan) after stunning victory of the party in Uttar Pradesh.

The party aims at 180 plus seats in the state assembly election scheduled next year, Parnami said. There are 200 state assembly constituencies in the state. About 225 officials of the party in presence of national level officials took a vow to be ready for the target. The district presidents of the party would not contest elections, Parnami said, adding that the sole task of the district presidents would be to ensure victory for the contesting party candidates. In reply to a query, Parnami hinted that the party might not allot the tickets to elderly candidates and said the prime minister has asked for the retirement to the candidates who are more than 75 years.

Political and economic proposals were also passed in the working committee meet, he added. An analytical and comparative study of the current ruling government and the previous government led by Congress was presented. It highlighted the development by Vasundhara Raje led government in different sectors. Parnami refuted the allegation that the government was ignoring Jodhpur district for it being the native place of former CM Ashok Gehlot. In response to a question, Parnami, while referring to data said more than 72% announcements made in the election manifesto have been fulfilled and assured remaining announcements would also be fulfilled.

Earlier, while addressing concluding session of the meeting, chief minister said that the consistent successes by BJP prove that the public is completely disillusioned with the Congress. The public now wants nationally oriented, progressive and development prone politics instead of false, caste based politics, she said. Raje also exhorted the ministers to be more active on the social media. The chief minister and senior BJP leaders then took part in a road show in Jodhpur.
Indias first captive breeding centre for Great Indian Bustards (GIBs) -- Rajasthans state bird -- will be set up at Sorsan in Kota district, and a hatchery centre at Nokh in Jaisalmer.

At a workshop held here on Friday, Wildlife Institute of India (WII), World Wildlife Fund and state forest department officials and experts recommended the places. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje approved the recommendation.

The experts included Keith Scotland from the United Kingdom, Juan Carlos Alonso (Spain), Ranjit Singh, Asad Rehmani, YB Jhala and Suthirtho (WII), Valmik Thapar (naturalist, conservationist) and Harsh Vardhan.

In a month or two, a memorandum of understanding will be inked between government of India, WII and the state government. The MoU was prepared by WII and sent to the state government; we have incorporated a few points and submitted it back, a senior forest department official said.

The Centre had decided last year to set up such centres in Rajasthan considering the declining population of GIBs, listed as critically endangered under the wildlife Act, 1972. The WII had identified around 10 locations in Rajasthan to set up the breeding centre.

From more than 1000 a few decades back, the number of GIBs (Ardeotis nigriceps), locally called Godawan, dropped to 745 in 1978, 600 in 2001, 300 (2008) and 125 (2013), according to the 2014 census. Rajasthan records the highest population of GIBs, though they are found in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

The birds lay eggs in the wild, which cannot be shifted immediately and need to be placed in a hatchery. It will take around two years to build the captive breeding centre, so initially work will start in Jaisalmer, the official said. Sorsan is the best site for captive breeding as weather is humid, which is good for breeding.

On experts involvement, he said, Scotland is already running a Houbara Bustard breeding centre in Abu Dubai, and Alanso is working on bustards for many years.

On the need for setting up a breeding centre, the official said, In natural conditions, the breeding of GIBs is slow and even their survival chances are less, be it due to predators or other reasons.

Taking note of the declining population of the GIBs, the Centre had initiated the Species Recovery Programme (SRP) in 2015-16, and sanctioned 108.93 lakh in 2015-16 and 129.94 lakh for 2016-17.

To protect the species, the state government is developing additional closures and grasslands, and constructing predator-proof fencing in breeding areas, the official said.

Till date we have renovated old closures on 4700 hectares and constructed new ones on 3175 hectares. More closures will be developed on 1000 hectares.
Rajasthan has kicked off preparations for its first river-interlinking project  ensuring flow of excess rainwater in Chambal and Brahmani rivers to Bisalpur dam  to meet drinking water and irrigation requirements.

Once operational, the project will ensure smooth drinking water supply to 19 towns and around 3000 villages in Jaipur, Ajmer, Tonk and Nagaur districts, officials said.

A detailed feasibility report (DFR) of the project has been prepared at a cost of 4.73 crore, and sent to the public health engineering department (PHED) for assessment of its technical and financial viability.

The project, once approved, will cost around 6000 crore and take five to seven years to complete, a senior official of the water resource department told HT on condition of anonymity.

The DFR recommended construction of a dam to store monsoon flows in Brahmani river; a diversion system to take water from the Brahmani dam to Bisalpur dam; a pump house to lift water from Jawahar Sagar dam on the Chambal river; a transmission system to bring water from Jawahar Sagar dam to diversion system and Brahmani dam; and from here, water will be sent to the Bisalpur dam through a 54km tunnel, which will have a 20km open channel, the official said, explaining the project concept.

In order to make Bisalpur dam a sustainable surface water source and for utilisation of excess water of Brahmani river, the project has been prepared by the water resource department through a consultancy firm PDCOR.

The official said the plan to utilise 938.64 MCM (million cubic metre) of Bisalpur water includes 317.12 MCM drinking water for Jaipur section, 141.57 MCM (Ajmer section); 226.5 MCM (irrigation), and 253.41 MCM (evaporation and seepage losses). The demand-supply gap is going to be huge looking at the water inflow in the last 18 years.

The official said, After the Bisalpur dam was built, the rain pattern, catchment area characteristics and upstream interception have undergone radical changes. Since major projects are made with 75% dependability of water availability considering inflow in last 10 years or more, the demand gap by 2045 will be huge. The project will provide 200 MCM water on 50% dependability, which can be stored in dam.

The Bisalpur dam, completed in 1999 on the Banas river, caters to water needs of Ajmer and Jaipur.

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Monas upper arm measures 105mm. In January this year, the one-year-old was diagnosed with a case of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and advised to be taken to the nearest malnutrition treatment centre (MTC). But, four months later, her mother said has been unable to visit the centre as she was busy with work.

SAM is identified with a middle upper arm measurement of less than 115mm. In healthy children, its 125mm or more.

Akash, who is 31 months old and whose middle upper arm circumference is 110mm, is also suffering from SAM, but her parents are concerned about earning daily wages than taking him to an MTC.

The youngest of eight siblings, 19-month-old Razia was identified with SAM when her arm measured a mere 100mm. Theres a marginal improvement now  it measures 107mm  but her parents, too, are busy earning a living and cant take her for malnutrition treatment.

These children in Baran districts Kishanganj block in south-east Rajasthan were identified when the government started a Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programme for children who are between six and 59 months old. The programme ran in 13 districts, including Baran, from December 2015 to June 2016 as a pilot.

Under the programme, children suffering from SAM were provided nutrition at their doorstep, eliminating the need for them to visit MTCs, where they are admitted for a minimum of 20 days affecting wage days of their parents.

Sanjay Kumar, the advocacy manager of ACF International, which is committed to saving lives of malnourished children, said that after the programme ended, children with SAM were left untreated as their parents couldnt take them to a treatment centre.

ACF partnered with the Rajasthan government for CMAM last year. Other partners were Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and UNICEF.

Treatment at home is two times more effective than that at a hospital, said chairperson of the inter-ministerial task force on SAM, Dr MK Bhan. More than 80% children recovered through CMAM, and this recovery rate is better than the global standards, he added.

Rajasthan is planning to run the second phase of the programme soon in seven new districts and aims to cure at least 16,000 SAM cases in 20 districts.

Dr Bhan, however, warned that a phase wise approach wont help and the government needs to run the programme. National Health Missions chief in Rajasthan, Naveen Jain, too called for a national policy for making CMAM a continuous programme.

Health minister Kali Charan Saraf has said that he will speak to the Centre soon.

But until CMAM becomes a regular programme or Rajasthan starts the second phase, Mona will have to wait for her parents to find time to take her to a treatment centre.

(All names have been changed to protect identity.)

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When five women visited a cubicle-sized tattoo parlour, tucked in the green environs of Hauz Khas Village, it wasnt their clothes, but their scars that garnered much attention. These acid-attack survivors, for the first time, went to get inked and learn the art of tattoo making.

Referring to the scars of her body, acid-attack survivor, Laxmi says, When I was told that we can learn tattoo-making, I thought, our bodies are already tattooed, whats the need for this? But then, this art might be a good medium to create jobs for us and even raise awareness to stop acid attacks.

The experience to get inked began with Rupa, opting for her mothers name to be written on her forearm. With inhibitions gradually dying down, soon all made a beeline to get tattooed. Im planning to open my own beauty salon and if Im able to also create tattoos then my clientele will be happy, says Soniya, another acid attack survivor.

Acid attack survivors Soniya (L) and Rupa click a selfie as Laxmi discusses the intricacies of tattoo making with Vikas Malani. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

Tattoo expert Vikas Malani, who spearheaded the day-long activity says, On Womens Day, while thinking about my late mother, I saw a picture that I could connect with.Later that I found out that the girl in the photograph was Laxmi  the acid attack survivor. I had decided to bring a smile on their faces and its only now that I have been able to accomplish that.I inspired them to learn the art and become tattoo artists themselves, says Malani, who has offered the survivors to get trained under him.

Some survivors practised making tattoos on synthetic skin. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

After the day-long workshop, two survivors - Ritu and Madhu  showed interest in learning further and providing tattoo-making facility at Sheroes cafe  operated by acid attack survivors. After discussing and selecting a few among themselves, they along with a few others plan to come back to pursue this passion and get trained in the art.

I know that tattoos can even help me hide my scars. But I wont do that because these scars are my identity and till the time Im alive, I want the society to see them and feel ashamed about them.

Laxmi says, I have got a tattoo of a fairy aiming for a crescent moon; on my forearm. I know that tattoos can even help me hide my scars. But I wont do that because these scars are my identity and till the time Im alive, I want the society to see them and feel ashamed about them.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more

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The central board for excise and customs has deployed staff to guard their defunct office in Mahim, which has become a den for drug addicts in Mumbai.

Last week, the anti-narcotics cell of the Mumbai crime branch raided the spot, arresting 11 men who frequented the spot to consume drugs. The Mahim police later caught 15 men from the spot.

Milind Idekar, senior inspector, of Mahim police station, said, It is a continuous drive.

Read more: Mumbai customs depts office becomes a den for drug addicts, cops raid the spot, arrest 11

Mahim residents had approached chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Mumbai police commissioner Datta Padsalgikar, requesting them to crack down on drug addicts in the area.

Irfan Machiwala, one of the local residents, said, On April 7, we wrote to the Central Board for Excise and Customs, informing them about the menace. On April 28, they replied to us saying they will take appropriate action.

In its email the department said, Action has been initiated to sanitise the precincts and put the said structure to regular use. Staff has been deployed to guard the structure.
Egyptian Eman Ahmeds weight loss regime, which includes a plan to treat the rare gene mutation suspected to be the cause of her weight gain, will now be conducted by VPS healthcare officials in Abu Dhabi.

The medical trial scheduled by Saifee Hospital, where Eman underwent a weight reduction surgery, will now proceed at the behest of her new doctors in Abu Dhabi.

We gave Emans new medical team her reports to sign, but havent received any updates from them yet. We were in the process of scheduling a medical trial with US-based pharmaceutical companies, which are the only manufacturers of the drug that can possibly treat Emans gene mutation. However, her doctors in Abu Dhabi will take over, Dr Muffazal Lakdawala told HT.

Eman, who lost more than 300kg in Mumbai, has a rare genetic defect that causes severe obesity. A study had revealed that a mutation in the gene responsible for instructing a protein involved in the regulation of body weight was causing Emans weight gain.

There is currently no specific treatment for this condition. However, a drug called MC4R Agonist, manufactured only by a single pharmaceutical company in the US, might help Eman. The drug has been tested on three paediatric patients. Eman will be the only adult to receive the drug, if she undergoes treatment. The plan is to track her weight loss for six months and then decided whether to change her line of treatment once her condition stabilises, added Dr Lakdawala.

Doctors said the drugs may be able to at least partially bypass the signalling block in her brain. However, it is too early to say if the outcome will be successful. If she has access to these drugs and they are effective, then we have a solution. If not, she may need a more radical surgery, which may cause malabsorption  a process in which the intestine cannot adequately absorb certain nutrients into the bloodstream, said a doctor.

Dr Lakdawala had confirmed that he was in the talks with the agency to sign up Eman and three children from Gujarat for the medical trial, which was supposed to begin six months after Emans surgery.

Despite numerous attempts, VPS officials remained unavailable for comment.
Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao marked the foundation day of the state on Monday by outlining various measures taken by the Maharashtra government to tackle the agrarian crisis.

Addressing the Maharashtra Day function at Shivaji Park, Rao said that the ambitious Jalyukta Shivar scheme which aimed to tackle the drought situation was progressing smoothly. I am glad to mention that under the Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan, more than 2.5 lakh works have been completed and about 12 lakh thousand cubic metres of water storage potential has been created. I am sure, the farm pond on demand scheme and such other initiatives will go a long way in fulfilling our dream of sustainable agriculture, Rao said.

He added, I am happy to note that about 11,000 villages have already become drought free by conserving water in village watershed.

The government has been stressing on the measures it took to tackle farmer suicides on the backdrop of the aggressive demand of the loan waiver put up by the opposition parties.

The state government has distributed crop loans amounting to Rs33,115 crore to more than 48 lakh farmers and crop loans of 6.85 lakh farmers have been restructured.

Rao also said that another project  Nanaji Deshmukh Krishi Sanjeevani Project  which was partly being funded by the World Bank would be introduced to make 4,000 villages of Vidarbha and Marathwada drought free.

Speaking about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, The governor said that 225 cities and towns in the Maharashtra have been declared free of open defecation.

My government reaffirms its commitment to make urban Maharashtra open defecation free by 2 October, 2017, Rao said.

He added that to eliminate, malnutrition among tribal children, the state government has broadened the scope of Bharat Ratna Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Amrut Aahar Yojana where pregnant women and lactating mothers are provided a meal per day.

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Egyptian woman Eman Ahmed, once considered to be the worlds heaviest woman, will be shifted from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi for further treatment in a day or two, said officials from Saifee Hospital

HT tells you how Eman will travel to Abu Dhabi:

1. Day not decided: Although sources from Saifee Hospital have been saying she will be moved out in a day or two, they are yet to confirm the day and time

2. An air ambulance is ready: An air ambulance team visited Eman on Saturday, after which Saifee hospital doctors said they were preparing to transfer of their celebrity patient

3. Data transferred: Five folders containing 10,000 medical records will be given to experts from VPS Healthcare in Abu Dhabi, where Eman will be treated. Doctors have also prepared a detailed report of Emans health, which is to be signed by officials from VPS Healthcare

4. Hale and hearty: The doctors have prepared these documents as part of the procedure to sign over Emans treatment to doctors from VPS Healthcare. Amid all the controversies, they will stand as proof that Eman is leaving India healthy.

5. Chartered aircraft: Medical experts from VPS Healthcare are in the process of selecting a chartered aircraft to move Eman out of Mumbai. She will need a chartered aircraft. We are examining the best options, said Sanet Meyer, director, Medevac, VPS Healthcare.
The Bombay high court on Sunday stayed the recent government resolution (GR) introducing 67.5% reservation for students domiciled in Maharashtra and 25% reservation for backward categories for post-graduation (PG) deemed medical and dental colleges. A person born in Maharashtra or has lived in the state for 15 years has domicile status.

The judgment came in response to a plea opposing the GR filed by some students who graduated from medical colleges in the state, but are now living outside Maharashtra. They are seeking admission in PG courses in colleges in the state. A division bench of justice Shantanu Kemkar and justice Anant Badar stayed the April 27 GR terming it arbitrary and unreasonable because it changed the eligibility criteria mid-way through the admission process. The bench found the GR was prima facie unsustainable in the eyes of the law and stayed its operation until further orders.

According to the GR, 50% seats for PG courses in private and deemed medical and dental colleges, in addition to half of the 35% institution quota seats  17.5% seats  were to be filled with students domiciled in Maharashtra. For the first time, 25% of the seats in deemed medical and dental institutes were also reserved for candidates from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Vimukta Jati, Nomadic Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

Currently, the government and private institutes have 50% and 25% of their seats reserved for these students. While the online admission process for post-graduate medical courses in all government, civic and private medical colleges across Maharashtra started in January 2017 and the first merit list was to be published on April 30, the medical education department issued the GR, which in one stroke made several candidates who did their MBBS courses from colleges in Maharashtra ineligible for admission to post-graduate medical courses in the state.

Five such students, who are not domiciled in Maharashtra, approached high court through advocate Pooja Thorat challenging the controversial GR. They said the state had no authority to modify the earlier rules at a later stage in admission.

The counsel for the state, on the other hand, contended that at a time when the selection list has already been published, there should be no interference in the admission process. The state justified that a higher number of medical practitioners domiciled in Maharashtra are needed to provide healthcare in the state.

However, the court decided to provide interim relief to the petitioners and asked the state to file its reply within two weeks. The court also directed the medical education department to take appropriate corrective steps, in view of the fact that the first merit list was already published on Sunday (April 30) by the time the order was passed.

The state, which was planning to come up with a similar GR for undergraduate (UG) courses, will now move the Supreme Court (SC) against the HC order. We will see what the SC has to say on the matter. Based on that, we will issue new rules for UG courses, said Pravin Shingare, director at the states directorate of medical education and research (DMER).

Colleges had also criticised the government control over their admission process and were planning to intervene in the matter. Due to domicile reservation, the deemed colleges may find it difficult to fill their seats. Their high fees will deter many Maharashtra-domiciled candidates from seeking admission there in these institutes. The state should provide them ample time to fill their seats with students from outside the state, in case the reserved seats remain vacant, said a parent.

Deemed colleges have welcomed by the judgment. Whatever rules are to be framed, should have been framed early on. If the rules are changed at the eleventh hour, everyone from students to parents will panic, said the spokesperson for a deemed medical college.

It remains to be seen whether the state will issue a fresh list for selection. We will plead before HC to give us some time to implement its order. In that period, we will try to get a stay on the order. Otherwise, we will have to issue a fresh list, said Shingare.
Maharashtra governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao unfurled the national flag at the ceremonial parade to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the states formation, at Shivaji Park in Dadar on Monday. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and other dignitaries attended the event.

On the occasion, the governor announced the launch of the Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority, under which housing projects in the state will be registered. The new Act will make the process of buying and selling of houses transparent, trusted and accountable, he said.

The World Bank-assisted Nanaji Deshmukh Krishi Sanjeevani project will make 4,000 villages in Vidarbha and Marathwada drought-free, he added. Citing the 225 cities and towns in Maharashtra that had been declared open defecation free so far, he said the whole of urban Maharashtra would be free of open defecation by October 2.

He added that so far, crop loans worth Rs33,115 crore were disbursed to more than 48 lakh farmers in the state.

All new legislation and amendments will be made available in Marathi language, he added.

Rao also attended the Maharashtra Day celebrations organized by Mumbai mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar at his bungalow. Fadnavis offered floral tributes to martyrs at the Hutatma Smarak in South Mumbai.

Every year, the government declares May 1 a public holiday to commemorate Maharashtra Day.

The parade at Shivaji Park. (Pratik Chorge)

Cultural events showcasing the states rich heritage and traditions are conducted throughout the day.

(with agency inputs)
The Sewri police arrested a 51-year-old man for raping his stepdaughter several times over the past year and impregnating her. The 15-year-old girl alleged that her father would offer her soft drinks mixed with sedatives. After she felt dizzy and fell unconscious, he would rape her, said police.

Police said the girl lives with her mother and two younger brothers. Her biological father died when she was three years old. The accused, who works as a labourer, married her mother soon after. He would rape the girl when she was alone at home, said police.

The man would take advantage of his wife and sons absence. When his wife left for work and his sons went to school, he would offer his stepdaughter soft drinks mixed with sedatives. When she fell unconscious, he would rape her. He even threatened her. She was reluctant to talk about her ordeal as she was afraid of him, said an officer from the Sewri police station, who did not wish to be identified.

The incident came to light when the girl started complaining of stomach pains. Initially, her mother would massage her stomach and put her to bed. However, after she complained that the pain had increased, her mother took her to a local hospital. Tests revealed that she was three-and-a-half months pregnant.

The girl and her mother approached the Sewri police, who registered a case against the father.

A team was dispatched and the accused was arrested, said an officer.

The accused was booked under sections 367 (rape) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence) of the Indian Penal Code. He was produced in court and remanded in judicial custody.

READ

53-year-old held for molesting minor daughter in Mumbai

Twisting a womans hand during fight not outraging her modesty, says Bombay HC

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Despite being the mayor of the richest civic body in Asia, Vishwanath Mahadeshwar is unlikely to get the plush residence he had demanded either at Malabar Hill or Carmichael Road in South Mumbai. As bureaucrats are unwilling to vacate these bungalows, Mahadeshwar may be forced to choose a spot to set up his new official residence from a list of vacant plots in suburbs.

The Shivaji Park bungalow at Dadar, a grade II heritage structure, will be converted into a memorial for Shiv Sena founder, the late Bal Thackeray. Mahadeshwar must move out before renovations begin. The civic administration had started renovating a vacant heritage bungalow at Byculla Zoo, expecting him to move in soon. However, in a blow to their plan, he was unwilling to move, citing the bungalows small size and the fact that it falls in a silent zone.

Mahadeshwar wrote to civic chief Ajoy Mehta, demanding that he be moved to the additional municipal commissioners plush bungalow at Malabar Hill, next to the water reservoir. On Tuesday, Mahadeshwar told HT that he would like to move to Mehtas Carmichael Road bungalow.

We are still trying to convince the mayor to move to the Byculla Zoo bungalow, which is vacant and currently undergoing renovations. Asking bureaucrats to move from their current residence is not something we are in favour of. If Mahadeshwar wants a structure that suits his stature as mayor of the richest civic body in Asia, we will construct one in the suburbs. We will submit a list of plots, of which he can choose one, said a senior civic official.

I am yet to receive any communication from the administration, said Mahadeshwar.

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After last months agitation against fee hikes in schools, parents from over 25 schools in Mumbai are set to stage another protest on May 21 against institutions that increased its fees exorbitantly for the new academic session 2017-18. They plan to move the Bombay high court against parents teachers associations (PTA) of schools that approved illegal fee hikes proposed by the school managements.

The parents said that they decided upon this course of action at a meeting held in Dadar on Monday after schools continued to hike their fees without their consent.

According to the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011, private school managements must seek PTA executive panels approval for any fee hike six months before the start of the new academic year.

But activists complained that in many schools, PTA has approved fee hikes without consulting the fee Act.

Many components of the increased fee structure are in violation of the fee regulation Act so we will send the PTA representatives a legal notice, said Jayant Jain, president of NGO Forum for Fairness in Education. They are also planning to file a public interest litigation (PIL) in Bombay high court against schools selling books and uniforms even though it is prohibited by the government.

On April 20, the parents protested at Azad Maidan but it did not yield any results. Our complaints to the education officials are falling on deaf ears, so we need to take legal action, said Jain.

Another group of parents are set to meet education minister Vinod Tawde ton Tuesday to request the government to amend the school fee regulation Act. There are certain aspects of the Act which are unclear and we would like the government to fix it, said Anubha Sahai a member of Parents of Private School of Maharashtra (POPSOM) -- a parents organisation.

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After University of Mumbai conducted a day-long training session on digital assessment for some of its teachers across affiliated colleges, it will now train the rest on the job.

This means, many examiners will learn how to assess papers digitally when they start the actual process next week.

Therell be no more training schedules for teachers, but we plan to train them on the job. Each assessment centre will have an expert from the online agency to guide teachers as and when required. The process is pretty simple so teachers should have no problems, said MA Khan, registrar, MU.

According to a circular released by the university, answer papers will be scanned from May 4. Since it will take some time to scan more than 20 lakh answer sheets, MU officials hope to start the process by next week. As of now 142 assessment centres have been recognised by the MU for digital assessment and it has also invited other colleges with a capacity of more than 50 computers in their labs to register as micro-centres.

Under the new system, papers will be scanned and put up on a software on the computer screen. Teachers will mark them on the screen and upload the marks on a common system.

If sheets are assessed manually, the assessment should begin within three days after the exam is conducted, and results have to be announced within 45 days. This year, assessments which should have start in the last week of March have not yet begun. Keeping in mind the four-week delay, students fear that results are likely to get affected. College principals fear that results might not be announced till July, especially for faculties like BCom, BSc and BA, which have a large number of students .

Not only is the assessment getting delayed, work will be slow even when it begins, especially as MU plans on training us on the go, said a senior professor from a south Mumbai college. She added that several teachers have not yet been called for assessment training, and the list includes some very senior teachers as well. Many who are not tech savvy will be struggling with the process because MU does not have time to train everyone, she added.

Principals have also questioned the mathematics of this process that is put together by the university. Keeping in mind that over 22 lakh answer sheets have to be scanned, MU is planning to use 50 scan machines and 250 employees to scan 1.50 lakh answer sheets on a daily basis.

Manually and technologically, it is a far-fetched idea, but looks like we have no choice. Most teachers are unhappy about giving away their holidays to this delay, which has been introduced by the university itself, said the principal of a suburban college.

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The RAK Marg police arrested an Ola cab driver on Thursday night for kidnapping and molesting a 32-year-old woman from Sewri.

Police said the accused, Shadabh Mohommad Ibrahim Shaikh, is a Ghatkopar resident. The woman is a homemaker.

On April 10, the woman was on her way to pick up her seven-year-old son from school. En route, she was approached by Shaikh, who coerced her into sitting in his cab, said police.

READ: Ola sacks Mumbai driver who lured, kidnapped woman, then asked her to be his friend

Shaikh told her he was looking for a babysitter. After they spoke for a while, he convinced her to sit in his cab, said an officer of the RAK Marg police, who did not wish to be identified.

Once the woman sat next to him, the driver pounced on her and asked her to be his friend. He insisted that she give him her mobile number and even snatched her phone. When the woman resisted, Shaikh started the car. She tried to raise the alarm, but realised that he had locked all the doors and rolled up the windows, he added.

Read: Mumbai man held for raping, impregnating 15-year-old stepdaughter

The police said the woman grabbed the cabs steering wheel, but Shaikh overpowered her. She finally managed to open one of the cars doors and intended to jump out though Shaikh was driving fast. It was then that he finally parked the car. The driver got scared on seeing that the woman was about to jump. He stopped the vehicle. The woman asked him to return her phone. When he refused, she fled, said an officer.

Police traced the driver through the womans mobile phone.

Shaikh gave the womans phone to his wife, who sold it for Rs500 as she needed money to pay for her sons treatment. We traced the shop owner when he started using the phone. He told us who he bought the phone from, which led us to Shaikh, said an officer from the RAK Marg police.

The accused was booked under sections 354 (assault on woman to outrage her modesty), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person), 392 (punishment for robbery) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the IPC.

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A total of 33 women in the city died after undergoing tubectomy  a female sterilisation surgery  in the last ten years. The data was accessed through a query filed under Right to Information (RTI) Act by activist Chetan Kothari, who alleged that these deaths were an outcome of poor facilities in the public hospitals. Tubectomy is a permanent contraceptive method for women and is promoted by the government as an effective method for family planning.

Bombay has one of the most advanced medical facilities in the country, yet most of these deaths happened at public hospitals. The medical staff at these hospitals lacks knowledge to identify patients who are eligible for these surgeries, he said.

The data also revealed that not a single death owing to vasectomy  the male sterilisation procedure  was reported during the same period.

While no senior official from the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corporations (BMC) public health department was available for comment, a doctor associated with the BMC said that despite vasectomy being considered safer, as compared to tubectomy, it had few takers.

Unlike vasectomy, tubectomy requires abdominal incision which increases the risk of infection. Yet, many men avoid vasectomy fearing impotency. The government needs to actively promote male sterilisation procedures, he said.

Dr Arun Nayak, professor of gynaecology at civic-run Sion hospital said it is likely that out of the total deaths reported, only a few must have resulted directly from tubectomy.

Most deaths that happen after tubectomy are owing to other underlying health problems. Very few deaths happen because of surgery-related complications, such as bleeding from the fallopian tube and bowel injuries, he said.

Nayak added that it was crucial that women, who were at high-risk of developing complications after the surgery, be identified beforehand.

Also, the use of newer range of contraceptives, such as intrauterine devices need to be promoted as they have minimal side effects, he added.
Mumbai police have found photographs of models during a search at the house of Shifu Sunkriti cult leader Sunil Kulkarni, who was arrested last month on charges of trafficking and pushing girls into drugs, leading them to believe he may have exploited them.

Kulkarni was arrested on April 20 after the Bombay high court heard petitions filed by families who alleged that the group had ensnared their daughters and pushed them into drugs.

Officials investigating the case said they found several pictures of models, who were photographed during photo sessions conducted by Kulkarni, during a search at his residence. Police suspect Kulkarni allegedly lured them and added they need to investigate whether he extorted money from these models or exploited them.

They added they need to trace boys and girls who got in touch with him. They said Kulkarni allegedly made profiles of young girls on his group Shifu Sunkritis Facebook page. The police are probing whether he allegedly cheated someone using the girls account.

The Facebook page contains provocative images and sexually explicit messages such as Experience your naked body and naked emotions, reads a plea filed in the Bombay high court. (HT)

Kulkarni was arrested following the high court order after three couples alleged Kulkarni had lured their daughters  four women in their twenties  into taking drugs and made them leave their homes. The couples claimed that their daughters were refusing to come back home because Shifu Sunkriti, which operates on social media, had entrapped them.

Soon after Kulkarnis arrested, the police conducted a search at his Bandra residence and found sex clip on Kulkarnis mobile phone and pen drive and sex book from his residence.

Before he was arrested by the Mumbai Police, Kulkarni was facing several cases of cheating and extortion in Delhi, Nagpur and Pune. He had duped several students by promising them admissions to MBBS colleges in the same cities, according to police.

They said Kulkarni spent 19 days in Tihar jail for repeatedly raping a 17-year-old girl from Delhi.

The Mumbai Police have filed a case under sections 328 (causing hurt by means of poison with intent to commit an offence), 370 (trafficking), 292 (sale of obscene books act), 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and other sections of the information technology act at the Malad police station.

The case was later transferred to the crime branch for investigation.
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA) came into effect in 13 states and united territories, including Maharashtra, today.

Here is how the law will help you:

Registration: The law makes it mandatory for every builder to register his project with the housing regulatory body. The developer has to submit the project details, his credentials, plans and approvals.

What this means: Homebuyers wont be cheated by fraudsters, who make false promises

Disclosure: A builder cant advertise his project without getting a nod from the regulator. He has to put up details of the project on the website

What this means: The homebuyer will get easy access to information. This will help him make an informed choice.

Payment: For years, buyers have been paying 20% of the amount as booking amount. The amount has now been reduced to 10%, which should be paid only after registering the agreement for sale with the builder. The agreement can be terminated only if the buyer defaults on payment thrice, that too after giving him a 15-day notice.

What this means: Homebuyers will get more time to arrange for funds.

Delayed possession: The builder has to hand over the apartment as promised in the agreement. If he delays handing over the possession, the onus of paying the EMIs will fall on the builder. The builder will have to pay a fine, until he gives possession to the buyer.

What this means: Developers will made more accountable. Also, homebuyers wont have to suffer owing to the delay caused by the builder.

Quality of construction: RERA protects homebuyers against quality defects for five years after possession. The builder has to rectify the flaws within 30 days of a complaint

What this means: Better service for homebuyers.

No discrimination: Homebuyers cant be denied flats on the basis of religion, caste and gender.

What this means: The practice of building homes for a particular group or restricting others from buying homes in a project, which has become routine in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, will come to an end.

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Mumbai

Applications to the seats reserved under the Right to Education (RTE) quota have multiplied  from 1,936 to 9,426  in the past four years, but the number of admissions have not increased at the same pace.

With this years admission process concluding on Saturday, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to probe into the reasons for the poor turnout.

Students from economically and socially weaker sections are entitled to free education from classes 1 to 8 in 25% seats in non-minority, unaided schools under the RTE Act. Around 7,449 seats were available in 334 schools in the city this year.

While the figures released by the BMC show that awareness on the quota has increased since the inception of online admission process in 2014-15, the rate of admissions is comparatively poor.

In 2014-15, out of 1,930 applicants, as many as 1,069 secured admissions. In 2015-16, only 1,688 out of 4,096 applicants took admission. In 2016-17, out of 6,409 aspirants, 2, 506 confirmed their seats. In 2017-18, out of 7,449 students, only 2, 798 took admissions.

BMC education chief Mahesh Palkar said they would analyse the trend and come up with solutions to improve the turnout.

Within a couple of days, we will conduct an in-depth study of what is going wrong in the admission process, said Palkar.

Although the BMC conducted five admission rounds between March 6 and April 29 this year, 5,000 seats were left vacant.

It is surprising that so many RTE seats are remaining vacant even after multiple admission rounds, he said.

According to the BMC, the rate of admissions began decreasing after the Supreme Court exempted minority and aided schools from following the RTE quota. This might have brought down the number of good quality schools offering RTE seats, said Palkar. But a detailed analysis will help us find the exact cause and work on rectifying it.

Education activists said a probe into the admission process was necessary and long due. They said that admission rates are poor because schools reject candidates allotted to them. Schools are unwelcoming towards RTE students. They guide them and are always looking for excuses to turn them away, said Sudhir Paranjape, member of Anudanit Shiksha Samiti, a non-governmental organisation, that works for disadvantaged groups.

He added that some schools cancelled admissions of students last year, stating that they had submitted fake income certificates but they were not taken back even after they produced original documents.

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The Coastal and Marine Biodiversity Centre, a first-of-its-kind centre to study Indias marine ecology, was inaugurated at Airoli on Sunday.

The Rs 15-crore project will be open to citizens for free on May 1  Maharashtra Day. After Monday, adults will have to pay Rs50 and children will be charged Rs25 to enter the centre.

It is the countrys first state-wide unit and its creation has increased coastal activity, said minister of state for forest, Sudhir Mungantiwar.

He added, It has audio-visual displays and touch screen media stations, which will educate the visitors.

The minister added that the centre will be open to everyone for free on Monday.

Each week, two municipal schools will also be allowed free of cost , he said.

Visitors take a selfie at the flamingo enclosure. (Bachchan Kumar)

The centre is part of the Indo-German (GIZ) Project collaboration on Conservation and Sustainable Management of Marine Protected Areas.

The centre will have displays of marine and land ecology. There is a coastal and marine interpretation room, interactive display and souvenir shop. The outdoor attractions will have a mangrove nursery, crab pond, board walk, a view of the creek and flamingos, among others.

The 7,000 square foot centre has been divided into two parts. The first section is dedicated to coastal biodiversity, with exhibits on mangroves and aquatic life found on the coasts of the country. The other section will showcase marine biodiversity and will have exhibitions on whales, dolphins and turtles among others.

A security officer checks one of the exhibits. (Bachchan Kumar)

N Vasudevan, additional principal chief conservator of forests, mangrove cell, said that phase two of the centre will be inaugurated shortly.

The project is going very fast and is almost complete. Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has sanctioned an additional Rs10 crore, which would be spent on the second phase,he said.

Read more: India to get its first marine mammal museum by end of 2017
In a move that is likely to ease the tax burden on residents of Thane near Mumbai, the general body of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has rejected the proposal for hike in property, water and solid waste tax.

In the budget for 2017-18, civic commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal had proposed to increase the property tax by 10%, which would have increased the revenue income by Rs40 crore .

The Shiv Sena, on the other hand, had promised to waive property tax on houses with an area less than 500 sqft. While the Sena could not waive the taxes as promised, they have refused to allow any increase.

The general body, however, approved the Rs3,390-crore budget estimate tabled by the civic commissioner on March 30.

The property tax hike proposal was tabled by leader of the house Naresh Mhaske and was seconded by Opposition leader Milind Patil.

Mayor Meenakshi Shinde said, The administration should immediately cancel the property tax hike.

The Sena chose to stay mum on its poll promise.

Mhaske said, We have kept most of the promises we made to Thane residents and will continue to do so. In the next five years, all our poll promises will be fulfilled.

Patil said, While approving the final budget, we have ensured common man is not burdened with any new tax or hike in taxes.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has initiated the process for the extradition of former IPS officer Jyoti Belur, in connection with the Bhojpur fake encounter case.

She is presently in the United Kingdom and had already been summoned as a co-accused by a CBI court in Ghaziabad in September 2007 in connection with the case.

In February 2016, the CBI court in Ghaziabad had sentenced the four accused UP police personnel to life imprisonment in connection with the killing of four youngsters in a fake encounter in November 1996 at Bhojpur. The former IPS officer, Belur, was on her first posting as the assistant superintendent of police in Ghaziabad during the incident.

Her case is now being pursued as a separate case in the CBI court.

On April 28, a CBI team approached the CBI court in Ghaziabad for verification of an extradition related dossier. The dossier was verified by the court and the CBI has started the process for her extradition. Belur faces charges under sections of 302 (murder), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 193 (for giving false evidence) of IPC.

The extradition dossier was attested by the court on April 28. The attestation by the court was required for ensuring the authenticity of the documents. The process for extradition has been initiated and will be done through the appropriate channel, a CBI source said.

In the Bhojpur fake encounter case, a bullet recovered from the body of Jasbir, one of the four victims, was found to have been fired from the service revolver issued to Belur. Her name was not among the persons chargesheeted in the case but the Ghaziabad court summoned her as a co-accused, under section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), on September 14, 2007.

She had taken recourse to legal remedies through her lawyers against the CBI courts summons but failed to get relief from Allahabad high court and the Supreme Court. Still, Belur is yet to make a personal appearance before the CBI court in connection with the case.

She is stated to be in London where she teaches in the Department of Security and Crime Science at a university. After the judgement of the Bhojpur fake encounter case, HT had approached Belur over the phone but she had disconnected the call without any comments on her status as an accused.

The CBI court in Ghaziabad has already issued a non-bailable warrant against her. The warrant was reissued on January 16, 2016, but is yet to be exercised.

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A trivial matter  the door of a car parked on a roadside brushing against another car claimed the life of a 30-year-old man at Vasundhara locality of Ghaziabad late on Sunday night.

According to the police, three persons  the deceased Amandeep Dhillon, his cousin Amandeep Singh and friend Amit Bainsla  had come for dinner at a roadside dhaba in Sector 4 at around 9.30 pm. They parked their Swift car next to a Honda City, in which Sanjeev Singh, resident of Rajendra Nagar in Ghaziabad, and his friend Prince, resident of Vasundhara, were seated.

According to police, Sanjeev and Prince were under the influence of beer they consumed in the latters office, at the time.

When they opened the door, it brushed our car and we objected. They entered into an argument and soon started beating us. Both of them took out pistols and fired. One bullet hit Dhillon and he fell down. Another bullet brushed against Bainslas chest and he was injured. We rushed Dhillon to the hospital, but he doctors declared him brought dead, said Amandeep Singh.

Prince is into property business and has his office just across the road where the incident took place. Police have booked a case for murder and attempt to murder against Sanjeev and Prince. They have arrested Sanjeev, while Prince is absconding.

We have recovered two used cartridges from the crime scene. Both the pistols were licensed, but only the one belonging to Sanjeev was recovered. He holds an arms license from Uttarakhand. Our team will probe if he had permission to use the weapon in UP or not. If not, he will face a case under the Arms Act. Prince is absconding and we suspect him to have run away with his licensed weapon. We are searching for him, said Anil Kumar Yadav, circle officer (Indirapuram).

The victim and kin were also into property business and had arrived from Noida before proceeding to their friends house at Sector 3, police said. Dhillon and Singh hail from Kapurthala, while Bainsla is a resident of Faridabad.

Meanwhile, Sanjeev, who was arrested by the police, sustained 21 stitches on his head said it was the other team who had fired first and he and Prince had retaliated in self defence.

I dont know who fired the shot which led to the death. After my car door brushed their car, they came and started the altercation. They beat me up with rods and sticks which caused 21 stitches on my head. Another blow landed on my arm. I fell unconscious and a PCR van took me to the police station, said Sanjeev.

Meanwhile, wife of Prince said that police summoned her and their 16-year-old son to the police station and made them sit there through the entire Sunday night and Monday morning in order to pressurise Prince to surrender.

The circle officer said that they were called for questioning and were allowed to leave. Police have seized the Honda City.

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Naib subedar Paramjit Singh was to reach his village, Vein Poin, around 22 km from the district headquarters, on holiday on May 10.

Eagerly awaiting his arrival, the family was in shock when the news of his demise reached on Monday.

Naib subedar Paramjit Singh (Photo: Family album)

Paramjit Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment was one of the two soldiers who were killed and their bodies mutilated by the Pakistan Army along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of J&K.

Earlier, the family was told Paramjit was injured in the unprovoked action along the LoC, but later a call confirmed their worst fears.

The 42-year-old soldier has left behind his aged parents, wife Paramjit Kaur and three children: daughters Simerdeep Kaur, 14, and Khushdeep Kaur, 12, and son Sahildeep Singh, 12.

His father, Udham Singh, who was in tears ever since the news broke, said he was proud of his son, but Pakistan Armys action had left him in pain.

Similar were the reactions of most of the villagers, who rushed to Udham Singhs house on the village outskirts on hearing the news.

Give army free hand to avenge Pak action

Mixed emotions of pride and anger prevailed in the whole village. Though many were proud of Paramjit for sacrificing his life for the nation, there was anger for the way his body was mutilated.

With tears in his eyes, Paramjits elder brother Ranjit Singh said: Today the village is proud that my brother lost his life for the nation, but we are angry that his body was mutilated. The government should ensure all his organs are intact.

Urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give the army a free hand to hit back and avenge Paramjits death, he said: Modi has not lost his brother We cannot tolerate such treatment being meted out to our jawans every day. Its time to wake up.

The slain soldiers uncle Mukhtiar Singh was also aghast over the Pakistan armys unsoldierly act. Pakistan must be paid back in the same coin, he said.

Villagers also wanted India to snap all ties with Pakistan for it was not stopping its dirty acts.

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Now you can get all your queries related to drugs answered by experts from the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). In a first-of-its-kind initiative, services of the drug information unit are being started for common man and doctors working outside the PGIMER can also clear their doubts related to treatment of patients and medicines.

Community service is an integral part of drug information centres in western countries. The service is being launched for the first time in India for better and safe use of medicines.

CONTACT INFO Phone: 0172-2755245 and 7087008937 email ID: druginformationunit@gmail.com Facebook page: Drug Information Unit Pgmier The services are available five days a week (Monday to Friday) from 9 am to 5 pm for others

Most of the time, doctor-patient communication remains incomplete and patient is not vigilant enough for possible side effects of the prescribed medicines. We, at the department of pharmacology, are trying our best to help people know their treatment better, said one of the doctors from the department.

The common questions, which doctors have started getting from the public, are related to common side effects of medicines, which tests they should undergo to keep a track of side effects , should they take medicines empty stomach or after taking food, and can they take a medicine in the afternoon if they have skipped it in the morning?

We do not comment on medicines prescribed by a doctor. We cannot give you guarantee on the linkage between drug use and side effects telephonically, states an official statement.
A weeks deadline to the management of Banur-based Gian Sagar Medical College to respond the state governments show-cause notice ended on Monday.

With the management failing to respond to the notice, the government is left with no option but to cancel all permissions granted to the collage, said sources. An official said while the matter to shift 1,500 students will soon placed before the chief minister office for approval, the government was keeping an eye on the Punjab and Haryana high court proceedings in the case.

If the court orders shifting of students in subsequent hearings, it will be easier for us to take up the matter with the Medical Council of India. But it does not mean that the state is not free to take an independent decision. We are sensitive about the matter and expect a final decision at the earliest, said the official.

Meanwhile, Varinder Kumar, who claims to be the new trustee to the college, said salaries were being distributed among the staff. The lower-rung staff has already been given two months salary and the dues of the MBBS and BDS wings staff will be cleared by Thursday, he said.

To this, the protesting staff said against the liability of nearly 20 crore, the staff has been paid only 20 lakh.

On not choosing to reply to the government notice, Varinder said backing out of BJP leader Swaran Salaria diverted their focus towards the revival plan. But now we are hoping of some breakthrough and will accordingly reply to the government in the next few days, he said.

Meanwhile, the protest by the college staff entered fourth month on Monday. On February 1, the staff had announced indefinite protest against the college management for not clearing their dues.

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Even two years after the Union ministry reallocated the Pachwara coalmine in Jharkhand to Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), it has failed to make it operational causing a loss of Rs 300 crore annually.

The mine, which was reallocated to the PSPCL in April 2015, has been shut since March 31, 2015, as the corporation has failed to select a new operator. The PSPCL tender to hire the new operator has hit a legal tangle as four of the five bidders, who failed to qualify the tendering process, moved court. The PSPCL is losing Rs 300 crore annually in terms of non-generation of electricity and paying higher price to Coal India Limited, said a power corporation official.

He said now the PSPCL power engineers have suggested the management float fresh tenders. This will not only bring the PSPCL out of the legal tangle but will also increase competition, he said.

The state owned PSPCL has three coal-fired power generating units  Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant, Lehra Mohabbat, Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant, Bathinda, and Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Power Plant, Rupnagar  with a combined power generation capacity of 2,640 MW. All three plants are getting about seven million tonnes of coal from the Panem coalmines, also in Jharkhand, against the annual requirement of 13.6 million tonnes. The rest is supplied by Coal India Limited.

The three state-owned power plants need to go full steam to meet the summer demand as the 1,800-MW Talwandi Sabo Power Plant has been out of operation since April 17 after a minor fire.

The PSPCL has written to Coal India Limited to release additional 12 lakh tonnes of coal to meet the requirement this summer. The corporation gets 5.5 lakh tones of coal every month. The additional 12 lakh tonnes of coal can be adjusted during winters, when the power demand is low in the state, said a PSPCL employee.

Another PSPCL official said the board of directors has already decided to take a legal opinion on the previously called tenders. Hopefully, fresh tenders would be called by May-end and the mine operation will start by December, he said.

PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director A Venu Prasad could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

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A week after suicide by a hosteller for alleged pressure by faculty, the Khalsa College management on Monday announced to postpone final examinations of 7,000 students indefinitely. The exams were scheduled to start on Tuesday.

As the agitation entered its sixth day on Monday, hundreds of students and parents raised slogans outside the college, demanding arrest of three staff members, including the principal, who have already been booked. Teachers have been counter-protesting to demand withdrawal of the suicide-abetment case.

Khalsa College Governing Council president Satyajit Singh Majithia (right) and others addressing the media in Amritsar on Monday, May 1. (Sameer Sehgal/HT)

Khalsa College Governing Council (KCGC) president Satyajit Singh Majithia reached Amritsar and declared the postponement of examinations until normalcy returns. This unfortunate incident has saddened us all immensely, but the fallouts after the incident have aggravated the problem, he said, To solve this problem I have come all the way from Delhi; but it calls for cooperation from every front, including students, teachers, administration and Harpreets family.

However, Harpreets father Yadvinder Singh, while speaking with HT, reiterated that the management was responsible for his sons suicide, and alleged that the college authorities were unfair with Harpreet, a B.Sc (agriculture) student. Yadvinder, who got the FIR registered, and others have been demanding the arrest of principal Mahal Singh, registrar Devender Singh, and HoD Randeep Kaur Bal. The management has already appointed an acting principal, HoD and registrar, but that has not ended the protest.

I hold the college responsible for my sons death because there was no other reason for him to take such a step, he said, Harpreet was not only my son but my friend. We used to share everything. There was nothing which was bothering him on the personal front. And there was no stress from the family too. I am a simple farmer and in our homes we do not pressurise our children when it comes to studies. I will support students who are standing for justice for my son.

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None of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders from Punjab will attend the partys political affairs committee (PAC) meeting scheduled for Tuesday in New Delhi. The PAC is partys highest decision-making body.

State unit convener Gurpreet Singh Waraich Ghuggi, and MPs Bhagwant Mann and Sadhu Singh are PAC members. Mann, who is out of the country, had last week blamed the top leadership for the partys disappointing show in Punjab.

After the Punjab polls, this is the first PAC meeting, and Punjabs issues are expected to crop up, especially when the partys senior leadership is facing flak. Sanjay Singh and Durgesh Pathak, who were in charge of Punjab AAP, resigned from their posts last week.

Ghuggi told HT, I am not going because this is not a state-specific meeting. Sadhu Singh said, Neither am I invited nor am I going. In case they want my views, they can contact me over teleconference.

Some party leaders commented, on the condition of anonymity, that Sadhu Singh is a non-entity and in the past, too, used to remain silent at the PAC meetings.

However, a a senior party leader said, After Delhi, Punjab has the highest number of elected representative of the AAP in Parliament and state assembly. State leaders should attend the PAC meet to discuss issue concerning the state.

Top leadership of the party promised introspection on Punjabs loss, and state leaders even demanded more action after removal of Sanjay and Durgesh. Party sources revealed that the party might discuss the appointment of new state in-charge in place of Sanjay.

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The Panjab University (PU) syndicate on Sunday decided to retain the evening law course, though it will now start in the afternoon to conform to the Bar Council of India (BCI) regulations on teaching hours. Senator Prof Navdeep Goyal said now there would be two shifts: one from 8am, and second from 1pm.

A number of service-class people, including bureaucrats, used to take admission in the three-year evening law course at PU.

The Bar Council of India, in its letter dated November 30, 2016, told PU that no permission was taken from it for running the evening law courses. The letter said: Earlier the concept of law courses was to get basic knowledge of law and there was no restriction on running of courses as the students were getting degree and later practising law. Now, after the new Legal Education Rules, 2008, the restriction has been made keeping in mind upgrading the standard of legal education by fixing the hours of study each day and period during which (the course) can be run.

ONLINE ADMISSIONS FOR 2017-18 The syndicate on Sunday also ratified the process of online admissions through cloudbased online admission management services for the 2017-18 session on the campus as well as Regional Centres. The services shall also include the facility for payment of fee through various channels, ie, internet banking and debit/credit card.

Now, under the new rule not only textual study is undertaken but students have to compulsorily participate regularly in moot court and legal aid cell and attend courts, added the letter.

The evening shift used to run from 5:30 pm to 9:15pm (3 hours and 45 minutes), whereas the BCI wanted it to be 30 hours per week (6 hours per day, with a 30-minute break). In a meeting of the law faculty held on December 13, 2016, it was decided that the evening course could not work and from 2017-18 the classes would run in the morning shift only.

But now, the syndicate has ruled for two shifts. The BCI rules say the classes can run between 8am to 7pm on the premises that is not fully residential.

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The leader of al-Qaeda branch in Yemen says his militants have often fought alongside Yemeni government factions  remarks that could embarrass the US-backed coalition fighting the impoverished Arab countrys Shia rebels.

Qasim al-Rimi leads the group known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered by Washington to be the most dangerous offshoot of the global terror network.

He says al-Qaeda militants have on occasion fought alongside Yemeni government factions, including the Muslim Brotherhood and also our brothers among the sons of tribes against Yemens Shia rebels known as Houthis.

Al-Rimi, who is on the US most-wanted list with a $5 million reward for his capture, spoke to AQAPs media arm al-Malahem on Sunday.

He succeeded Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who was killed in a US drone strike nearly two years ago.
The British Parliaments home affairs committee on Monday strongly criticised social media companies for failing to take down and take sufficiently seriously illegal content, saying they are shamefully far from taking sufficient action.

The influential committee recommended that the government consult on a system of escalating sanctions to include meaningful fines for social media companies which fail to remove illegal content within a strict time-frame.

The committee said in a report that social media companies that failed to proactively search for and remove illegal material should pay towards costs of the police doing so instead. It also wants the companies to publish regular reports on their safeguarding activity including the number of staff, complaints and action taken.

The committee said it found repeated examples of illegal material not being taken down after they had been reported, including terror recruitment videos for banned jihadi and neo-Nazi groups still live even after being reported by the committee; anti-semitic hate crime attacks on MPs even after being raised by MPs themselves; and material encouraging child abuse or sexual images of children, even after being reported by journalists.

Yvette Cooper, chair of the committee, said: Social media companies failure to deal with illegal and dangerous material online is a disgrace. They have been asked repeatedly to come up with better systems to remove illegal material such as terrorist recruitment or online child abuse. Yet repeatedly they have failed to do so. It is shameful.

These are among the biggest, richest and cleverest companies in the world, and their services have become a crucial part of peoples lives. This isnt beyond them to solve, yet they are failing to do so. They continue to operate as platforms for hatred and extremism without even taking basic steps to make sure they can quickly stop illegal material, properly enforce their own community standards, or keep people safe.

The committee said it recognised the effort to tackle abuse on social media, such as publishing clear community guidelines, building new technologies and promoting online safety for example for schools and young people, but added that it nowhere near enough is being done.

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An Iraqi commander expects to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul in May despite resistance from militants in the densely populated Old City district.

The battle should be completed in a maximum of three weeks, the armys chief of staff, Lieutenant General Othman al-Ghanmi, was quoted as saying by state-run newspaper al-Sabah on Sunday.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support for the offensive in Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, which fell to hardline Sunni Muslim fighters in June 2014.

Islamic State has lost most of the city since the offensive began in October and is now surrounded in the northwestern districts, including the historic Old City centre.

The United Nations believes up to half a million people remain in the area, 400,000 of whom are in the Old City with little food, water and medicine.

The militants have dug in among the civilians, often launching deadly counter-attacks to repel forces closing in on the Old Citys Grand al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The hardline group persecuted non-Sunni communities and inflicted harsh punishments on Sunnis who do not abide by its extreme interpretation of Islam.

SLAVERY

A group of 36 Yazidi survivors has been rescued after three years of slavery under Islamic States rule, the United Nations said on Sunday.

Since Friday, the women and girls from the group have received lodging, clothing, medical and psychological aid in Duhok, a Kurdish city north of Mosul, said a statement from U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande.

The Yazidis, whose beliefs combine elements of several Middle Eastern religions, were the most persecuted community under Islamic State which considered them devil-worshippers.

The U.N. estimates that up to 1,500 Yazidi women and girls remain in captivity, suffering abuse.

Iraqi forces estimate the number of Islamic State fighters still in Mosul at 200 to 300, mostly foreigners, down from nearly 6,000 when the offensive started. They are still capable of deadly counter-attacks on the tens of thousands of soldiers and paramilitary groups arrayed against them.

A Federal Police brigade commander and 18 other members of the Interior Ministry force were killed in attacks on two positions at the edge of the Old City on Friday, military sources said.

Federal Police took back the positions on Saturday but the ministry has sacked a commander for failing to fend off the counter-attacks, the sources said.

The Federal Police said it had since strengthened fortifications around the Old City with concrete blocks to prevent suicide attacks on its forces.

The U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service and Federal Police are the main forces fighting inside Mosul. Regular Iraqi army units are taking part in battles outside the city, alongside Shiite volunteers trained and armed by Iran, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Sunni tribes.

The total number of fighters aligned against Islamic State in Mosul exceeds 100,000.

Islamic State announced attacks on Sunday the Shiite paramilitary northwest of Mosul and on an Iraqi army position in Akashat, near the Syrian border, an area where its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be hiding, according to the Iraqi military.

The Iraqi army said its ground and air forces pushed back the attack, killing eight militants.

Several thousands of people have been killed so far in the battle, both civilians and military, according to international aid organisations. The total number of people displaced from Mosul since October is close to 400,000, about a fifth of the population before its capture by Islamic State.

Even if defeated in Mosul, Islamic State will remain in control of vast swathes of land in the border area with Syria.
A Japanese naval destroyer left port on Monday on a reported mission of escorting US military ships off the coast as Japan tries to increase its military role amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula.

The helicopter carrier Izumo departed from the Yokosuka port near Tokyo in the morning.

The destroyer was to meet up and escort a US supply ship in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo later on Monday, a new mission under the new security legislation allowing Japans military a greater role in overseas activity, according to Japanese media reports. They said that the US supply ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson strike group, currently in the region.

Japans defence ministry only said that the Izumo left on Monday to eventually participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

Tensions have increased as North Korea pushes to develop its missile and nuclear weapons programs in defiance of international sanctions and President Donald Trump warns of the potential threat Pyongyangs action pose to other countries.

Trump sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier toward the region, and the US and South Korea also started installing the THAAD anti-missile system that is supposed to be partially operational within days.

South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying THAAD, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1 billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trumps national security adviser, HR McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the US alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the Souths presidential office said.

The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.

Trump stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and make sure all are on the same page if action is needed, a top White House official said.

In a further show of force, the Carl Vinson arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday.

The dispatch of the Carl Vinson was a reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Koreas ruling Workers Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn North Korea against military threat.

Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world, Turnbull said. Together, were taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region.
A new low-maintenance water filtration system has been developed at the University of British Columbia and aimed at remote communities in Canada and India with scarce access to potable water.

The breakthrough technology, which combines beneficial microbes and gravity, was developed by Professor Pierre Berube, of the civil engineering department at the UBC.

Funded by the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability or IC-IMPACTS, the project commenced nearly four years ago and is undergoing commercial-scale pilot testing at a partner community near Vancouver, close to Berubes laboratory.

The technology was developed specifically for use in small and remote communities, Berube told HT.

Its backbone is ultra-filtration membranes for water treatment, which is a very fine screen that removes not just particulate matter but also large molecules, like disinfectants or herbicides and pesticides.

Its also very effective in removing contaminants from water such as microbial pathogens like protozoa and viruses and bacteria. Working in concert with a community of bacteria, a second line of defence, breaking down anything that is biodegradable, it offers 99.9% efficacy in removing contaminants in the water.

But the real benefit comes in the manner in which the system is operated, one that is particularly useful for small communities.

Berube explained: What happens over time is those contaminants accumulate at the membrane surface and you need to remove them. And its the removal of the contaminants and not the treatment of the water, thats complex. So to remove the contaminants you commonly use pumps and chemicals and blowers.

What weve developed is the use of that same membrane technology without any of that complexity. What we use is simply gravity to reverse flow and to induce turbulence which is very effective at cleaning the membrane and we use a microbial community to eat away at the contaminants that cant be removed by that turbulence, Berube said.

University of British Columbia professor Pierre Berube explains the new system of water filtration aimed at small and remote communities in Canada and India. (Image courtesy: University of British Columbia)

His process also removes the requirement for experienced personnel to work the mechanical aspect of maintaining a water treatment system. Instead, members of the local community can be trained to ensure the system is kept clean. The biggest impact is on operational cost and operational complexity, Berube said. And doing away with parts like blowers or motors makes the system compact, with a relatively small footprint.

One of our units can supply two to ten cubic metres per day, so thats enough for a cluster of homes or an apartment building, Berube pointed out.

This system can be effective in dealing with surface water, such as rivers, lakes, and shallow groundwater. Pilot trials have been going on for about a month now, all very promising Berube said.

On the horizon is also bringing the technology to India, as originally planned, though that will depend on Berube being able to find communities and universities to partner with. Were hoping that after weve pilot tested in a small First Nations community on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the next step will be pilot testing in India, Berube said.

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British Prime Minister Theresa May expects divorce talks with the European Union to be tough, she said on Sunday after EU leaders agreed stiff terms and voiced alarm at illusions in London that may wreck a deal.

What this shows, and what some of the other comments weve seen coming from European leaders shows, is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough, May told the BBC a day after her EU peers agreed on demands they want met to avoid chaos when Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.

At Saturdays Brussels summit of the 27 other EU states, EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker accused unnamed pro-Brexit figures of underestimating the complexity of the task and German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeated her concern that London still harboured illusions about negotiating a quick free-trade pact.

May, who came to power after Britons decided last year to leave the EU, has called an election for June 8 in the hope of strengthening her position, repeated her insistence that no deal would be better than a bad deal  a position many in Brussels view as bluff, arguing that the legal void that would dawn on March 30, 2019, would hurt Britain much more than the others.

But Juncker, quoted on Sunday by Germanys FAS newspaper, highlighted growing fears that the two sides are talking past each other, raising a significant risk of negotiations collapsing.

Im leaving Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than I was before, the Frankfurt paper quoted the European Commission president as saying after he and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier met May in London over dinner on Wednesday.

He was so alarmed at what he said were British officials who underestimate the technical difficulties that he alerted Merkel, the EUs main power broker, in an early morning call to Berlin on Thursday. She then used a speech in parliament to warn against British illusions that it could retain much of the benefits of EU membership after Brexit.

Brussels is also concerned about the level of preparedness in London for talks that are due to start after the June 8 vote and which Barnier says need to be essentially wound up within 16 months to ensure ratification ahead of Brexit in March 2019.

Barnier briefed leaders on his concerns, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern told reporters. The Commission and Barnier ... have really done their homework well, Kern said. One can say that the British have not done so with the same intensity.

EU officials said they were still unsure who would conduct the negotiations with Barniers team, saying that May had told Juncker that she herself would be in charge.

That, EU officials said, left it unclear who would actually be taking the many decisions required during months of day-in, day-out talks in Brussels over the coming two years. British Brexit Secretary David Davis has been expected to take a lead.

Asked about her insistence that no deal would be better than a bad one, May told ITV television: I wouldnt have said it if I didnt believe that.

With the right strong hand in negotiations, we can get a good deal for the UK.
The government of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda received a blow on Monday after one of its coalition partners  the Rastriya Prajatantra Party  announced it was withdrawing support, citing the impeachment motion registered in Parliament against Nepals Chief Justice Sushila Karki.

The motion to impeach Karki was registered on Sunday after a dispute arose over the appointment of the Nepal police chief, with allegations that the judge tampered with the performance evaluation of candidates for the post.

The decision to impeach Karki... is an attack against the judiciary, so the party does not support such a move, the RPP said in a statement.

The motion to impeach Karki, moved by two of the seven ruling parties - the Nepali Congress and the CPN-Maoist Center - has led to widespread uproar in the Himalayan nation, and the RPPs decision is just the latest show of defiance by a member of the ruling coalition.

On Sunday, home minister Bimalendra Nidhi, who heads the Nepali Congress, had tendered his resignation, expressing his reservation over the decision.

The government is in danger of being reduced to a minority if another partner, the Madhesi Jana Adhikar Forum, decides to pull its support. The partys central committee will meet on Tuesday to take a final call, said one leader.

There was no immediate reaction from Prachanda on the fate of coalition.

The political upheaval comes just a fortnight before the first phase of elections to local government bodies  the country votes on May 14 and June 14. The Election Commission has set Tuesday as the date for filing nominations for the first round, and Prachanda has said the election will be held at any cost.

However, the home minister is in charge of overall security of the country and RPP chairman Kamal Thapa leads the local development ministry in-charge of coordinating 477 local units.

A meeting of the Nepal Army brass has further fuelled speculation about the situation  army chief Gen Rajendra Chettri called an emergency meeting on Sunday night to assess the political situation and ordered extra vigilance across the country.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas unveiled Monday a new policy document easing its stance on Israel after having long called for its destruction, as it seeks to improve its international standing.

The document notably accepts the idea of a Palestinian state in territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

It also says its struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier.

However, Hamas officials said the document in no way amounts to recognition of Israel as demanded by the international community.

...Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus, it says.

The movements leaders have long spoken of the more limited aim of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without explicitly setting it out in its charter.

But after years of internal debate, the new document formally accepts the idea of a state in the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, remains deeply divided from Fatah, the more moderate party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas based in the occupied West Bank.

Hamass announcement comes ahead of Abbass first face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday.

The new document was posted online as exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was due to hold a press conference on it in Doha.

The press conference was also being broadcast live in the Gaza Strip.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Saudi Arabias King Salman and his successors in her first visit to the kingdom in seven years, saying she pressed them on womens rights, the war in Yemen and other sensitive issues.

After her meetings in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, she told German journalists travelling with her that she raised human rights concerns with Saudi leaders, including the rights of women.

She said Saudi Arabias war in Yemen also was discussed. For more than two years, the kingdom has been bombing Yemeni rebels aligned with Saudi Arabias regional Shiite rival, Iran.

The conflict there has driven the Arab worlds poorest countries to the brink of famine, with 27 million people needing humanitarian or protection assistance.

We dont believe there can be a military solution to the conflict, Merkel said.

Saudi Arabia and Iran also back opposite sides of the conflict in Syria, and Germany was one of six international powers that negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran to which Saudi Arabia objected.

As is customary, Saudi officials did not comment on the details of the meetings.

After her meeting with the Saudi king, Merkel held talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who oversees security forces and counterterrorism, and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has a vast portfolio overseeing defence and the economy.

During the meetings, Merkel said, she specifically discussed the kingdoms death penalty. Saudi Arabia has one of the worlds highest execution rates and executes people for non-lethal offenses such as drug smuggling.

She also raised the case of Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger whose public lashing drew international condemnation from even the kingdoms closest Western allies. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for blog posts critical of the countrys powerful religious establishment.

Having scheduled a meeting with Saudi businesswomen during her two-day visit, Merkel acknowledged there have been significant changes in the role of women since her last visit in 2010. She cited the historic first-time participation of women in Saudi Arabias only elections for local council seats in 2015.

She noted, however, that women in Saudi Arabia still face many restrictions.

I have the impression that the country is in a phase of change and that a lot more is possible now than some years ago, but its still a long way away from having achieved what we would understand as equality, Merkel said.

Like other high-profile female visitors, Merkel did not cover her hair or wear a traditional flowing black robe upon arrival in the kingdom.
British Prime Minister Theresa May raised the issue of violent offences against minorities during her visit to India in November, a minister revealed during a recent debate in the House of Lords on the alleged rise in extremism following elections in Uttar Pradesh.

Foreign office minister Joyce Anelay also revealed in the debate titled India: Extremism on April 24 that minister for Asia Alok Sharma had raised the issue recently when an Indian minister visited the United Kingdom, but the Indian minister was not named in the House.

Mays trip to India was her first bilateral visit after taking over as prime minister. The visits focus was on increased trade relationship with India after Brexit, and the issue of May raising the issue of violent offences was hardly mentioned at the time.

Asked by Nazir Ahmed (non-affiliated) what assessment the May government had made of the rise of extremism in India following the state elections in Uttar Pradesh, Anelay said it was aware of concerns over religious intolerance and community relations following the elections.

Sharing concern expressed by lords, she said the British high commission in New Delhi discusses human rights issues with institutions such as the National Commission for Minorities and state governments.

The UK government, she added, worked directly with the Indian government to build capacity and share expertise to tackle challenges, including the promotion and protection of human rights. This includes working with India on its universal periodic review in May.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that every citizen has the right to follow any faith, without coercion, and vowed to protect all religious groups. We welcome this statement. The Indian government has a range of policies and programmes to support minority groups, and we support Indias commitment to the fundamental rights enshrined in its constitution, Anelay said.

Responding to concerns that focusing on trade relationship with Indian should not dilute the UKs focus on human rights, the minister said: It is for the benefit of both countries that we develop our trade relationshipbut, as I mentioned earlier, it is our firm belief that good relations and strong human rights are the underpinning for successful economic development.

William Wallace (Liberal Democrats) said events between faith communities in other countries could spill over into the UK, particularly between disapora communities, and noted that Bradford had a significant Indian community.

He said: They are mainly Gujarati. Some are Muslim, some are Hindu. Relations are good, but on other occasions and with other faiths we have seen how, when events in the countries from which their ancestors came worsen, relations in this country can worsen Is this not something with which the government should engage, and should they not point out to the Indian government that this is not a matter simply for them?

Anelay said that ensuring good relations in the diapora communities was a serious issue: How could I think otherwise coming from Woking, where such a significant proportion of the community brings with them the strength of their background in the Punjab and enriches our community? It is important that, across the United Kingdom, faith should join us, not break us up.

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A threat publicly issued to Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh by pro-Khalistan elements during an event in Surrey city of Canadas British Columbia province recently has drawn an official protest from India.

Sources here told IANS that the Indian High Commission in Canadian capital Ottawa has lodged a formal complaint to Global Affairs-Canada, the foreign office last week, following the open threat to Amarinder Singh and hate speeches.

Videos of the Vaisakhi Parade in Surrey on April 22 have been sent to the Canadian foreign ministry as proof of the open threats issued to Amarinder by Sikh hardliners.

The communication has also objected to the public display of Khalistan floats with images of slain separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other terrorists, pictures of Kalashnikov rifles and photographs of former and serving army and police officers who are on the hit-list of Sikh radicals.

It is learnt that the Canadian authorities were cautioned about the anti-India propaganda of the Khalistani elements by the Indian authorities, who were anticipating such trouble, on April 13 itself. The Canadian foreign ministry, responding to the early warning, said it will take necessary action.

However, the Khalistani elements were allowed to have a free run and even issued threats on loudspeakers to Amarinder Singh in front of hundreds of people from the Indian community who participated in the April 22 parade. The Canadian provincial police and security agencies were present when all this happened, the sources told IANS.

It is learnt that the complaint pointed out to two Khalistani activists, Inderjit Singh Bains (an ex-office bearer of the Dashmesh Gurdwara, Surrey) and another person from the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) organization.

British Columbia premier Christie Clark had also attended the parade. The Punjabi Diaspora, particularly Sikhs, form a major vote-bank in the election-bound province.

These kinds of open and cheap threats show the extent of radicalisation in a relatively small section of the Sikh community in Canada. They endorse our stand of pro-Khalistani leanings of such elements in the Canadian Sikh community. Such brazen threats, and that too against the elected chief minister of a state in another country, should have no place in a democratic polity. It is up to the Prime Minister of Canada and the authorities there to rein in such elements and take preventive action to ensure that things do not get out of hand, Raveen Thukral media advisor to the Punjab chief minister told IANS.

The Amarinder Singh government cold shouldered visiting Canadian defence minister of Indian-origin, Harjit Singh Sajjan, 46, as he visited various places in Punjab last month.

Amarinder refused to meet Sajjan, the first Sikh to be the defence minister of a western country, accusing him and other ministers of Punjab origin in the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of links to radical elements demanding a separate Sikh state of Khalistan.

No minister or senior officer of the Punjab government either went to welcome Sajjan or even accompany him during the visit.

Amarinder had pointed out that Sajjan and several other ministers and top leaders in Canada were sympathizing with those indulging in anti-India activities, notwithstanding Canadas claims to the contrary, adding that he would not meet any Khalistani sympathisers.

I will personally not entertain the Canadian minister as I have concrete information about his being a Khalistani sympathiser, just as his father Kundan Sajjan, a board member of the World Sikh Organisation, was, Amarinder had said earlier.

Not only Sajjan but other ministers and MPs, including Navdeep Bains, Amarjit Sohi, Sukh Dhaiwal, Darshan Kang, Raj Grewal, Harinder Malhi, Roby Sahota, Jagmeet Singh and Randeep Sari, were well known for their leanings towards the Khalistani movementaa I will not be seen hobnobbing with a Khalistani sympathiser, Amarinder pointed out.

Amarinder has been annoyed with the Canadian government since April last year when he was denied permission to visit that country, which has a sizeable Punjabi Diaspora, in the run-up to the Punjab assembly elections. The SFJ had complained to the Canadian government against Amarinders visit.

The Congress leader had to cancel his trip after being told by the Canadian authorities at the last minute that he could not allowed to visit the country for holding political rallies and meetings. The visit was aimed at wooing influential Non-Resident Indian (NRI) groups in Canada.

Amarinder had shot of an angry letter to Trudeau protesting against the gag order. He was informed by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishanker of the Canadian governments stance.

Trudeaus prdecessor, Stephen Harper, had visited Punjab in 2012 and 2009 in an apparent bid to woo the Punjabi and Sikh community in Canada.
US President Donald Trump walked out of an interview at the Oval Office after he was asked about the wiretapping accusations he made against his predecessor Barack Obama.

The interview, aired on Monday, began with CBSs John Dickerson asking Trump whether Obama had given him any advice since taking office. Trump said Obama was initially very nice but said that there had been some difficulties between them since. Words are less important to me than deeds, and you saw what happened with surveillance, he said, referring to claims that Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign.

When Dickerson pressed for details about the surveillance, Trump responded, You can figure that out yourself. When Dickerson repeatedly asked the question so that it isnt fake news, Trump merely said that everyone was entitled to their opinions.

However, when Dickerson asked him about the accusation again, Trump walked off, saying Okay, thats enough. Thank you.

Earlier this year, White House press secretary Sean Spicer, falsely claimed the British spying agency GCHQ had bugged Trump Tower, citing an unsubstantiated report on Fox News. Fox later distanced itself from the report and the GCHQ called the claims ridiculous.

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Via the Daily Observer: Greenville Calm But Confused over Strange Deaths. Excerpt:

The City of Greenville is calm, but remains confused over the recent deaths of 11 persons in the Tiah Town Community. The confusion came from the delay by authorities to tell community dwellers what really killed or caused the deaths of all those persons in one day.

The Daily Observer, on a fact finding mission, was not able to ascertain the actual cause of the deaths.

Rev. Robinson Dweh of Greenville told the Daily Observer that, Up to today, I dont actually know what killed my wife; I am still confused about it.

He said his wife had complained about her foot and pain in her body, for which she was repeatedly taken to the hospital, where she was initially diagnosed with hypertension (pressure), and was treated and discharged on the same night.

Then, on Monday, April 24, Mrs. Dweh came down with a strong fever, vomiting and crying from pain in her foot and headache. Rev. Dweh said she was taken to the hospital at 11p.m., and again her pressure was high, until she met her demise on Tuesday, April 25.

My son also came down with a strong fever while we catered to his mother, but he survived. My wife did not tell me of eating anything anywhere as it has been speculated; all she could say was pain in her foot.

My wifes body was not in a bad condition like the other bodies where their tongues and eyes came out of them, with some in very bad condition, he added.

Some of the healthcare officers, who did not want to be named because they are not clothed with the authority to speak to the press, described the condition of some of the bodies as very terrible, decomposing, with swollen stomachs.

Rev. Dweh blamed his wifes death on recklessness and the incompetency of the nurses who handled her case. According to him, the County Health Team said at a town hall meeting that those who died were almost dead at home before their relatives took them to the hospital.

Meanwhile, a 17-year old survivor told this newspaper that on Saturday, April 22, while she was selling roasted corn, her friend gave her a Savanna Dry alcoholic drink, which she believes resulted in serious stomach pains and headache, followed by vomiting and a sore throat the next day. She said she was then given anointing oil and later treated at the hospital.

Authorities here are tightlipped on the actual cause of the deaths or on how the victims might have contracted the unknown disease, but speculation here is that authorities have warned the community dwellers to remain silent on what happened.

But many people here believe that the deaths started at the wake keeping and funeral of one Domah on Friday and Saturday respectively, which is yet to be verified. However, the late Domahs family has refused to talk to the press about what led to his demise.

Some of the dead included children and the elderly.

Since the local radio station in the city is off the air, many myths surround the Greenville situation, thereby creating more uncertainty and uneasiness among the residents.

Local authorities on April 30 called a town-hall meeting to clear the air on what was happening in the county. Liberty Radio station manager David Dee Kpangbala quoted the County Health Officer as telling the residents that the victims died from food poisoning. He added that the government is investigating to establish the type of poison.

Meanwhile, a representative of the residents said, Most of those who died came to the hospital very sick and in critical condition.

It may be recalled that in 2005, several miners died at one of the diamond mining camps in Sinoe after their drinking water was allegedly contaminated with poison.

Schools have been closed since the Greenville incident started last week; and according to locals, parents are hesitant to allow their children to attend classes, despite being encouraged to do so.

Meanwhile WHO officials said on Friday that they are investigating the troubling report, describing it as a cluster of unexplained illnesses and deaths in Sinoe.
Call me a traditionalist. Each morning as I walk past my tie rack, I pause to admire the vividly colored collection of Ferragamo and Brioni masterpieces, all neatly hanging in ordered rows and beckoning me to 'tie one on'. Alas, though, the office-casual nature at my workplace is far more amiable to the sweater and jeans attire, with nary a collared shirt even under the slightest of considerations. And so whenever the opportunity comes my way, a tie is knotted around my neck without a moment's hesitation, partly for the pleasure of dressing up but also for the nostalgia of a bygone era when this piece was all but compulsory.

Being of a more 'scholarly' age, donning a suit and tie comes naturally to me. Looking in the mirror, I selfishly feel at least a bit more professional in demeanor with a psychological boost in tow. What is equally refreshing is how often I encounter hoteliers who are similarly dressed  both male and female, most likely in supervisory roles and ranging from their mid-20s to their late 60s. In this new millennium of anything goes fashion-wise, hospitality may become the last bastion of classical couture.

Lately, however, even I have eschewed the formality of a necktie in favor of the de rigueur style of Silicon Valley  a sport jacket with t-shirt underneath. Presenting at conferences in this garb has been met with little pushback from the hosts and audiences alike, but, as it concerns the everyday hotelier, does this trendiness support an authoritative tone? Broader, do the clothes maketh the man (or woman)? Here are my thoughts on the necktie and the accompanying collared shirt in the modern hotel workspace:

If you're the GM, always wear a shirt and tie. You are the leader. Set an example of the highest standard. Even if you are GM of a purported lifestyle property, I see nothing wrong with sporting an appropriately patterned tie. The one possible exception may be a tropical beach resort where the heat can be cumbersome, but if your office has adequate air conditioning then this should not be a problem. If you're hoping to be a GM one day, dress the part. No one will criticize you for being professionally dressed. You can always take the tie off to recognize a post-work, more relaxed environment. Conversely, you will definitely be noticed for a lack of necktie in situations where they are warranted. Plus, there is a matter of getting into a good routine whereby the suit and necktie become your uniform to the point where you are wholly comfortable wearing these clothes on a regular basis. If you're selling your services to the hospitality industry, show respect. Wearing a tie shows deference to this community of traditionalists and will underscore the importance of your presentation. Better to dress above your audience, then chance being below. Moreover, by dressing the part, it will help to quickly build rapport with your target audience. If you're interacting with guests, demonstrate that you are professional. A necktie commands authority, personal control and knowledge. The simple act of wearing a tie when the guest is not will reflect a strong commitment to service. Plus, this look will set a good tone with customers, subtly reassuring them that all their needs will be met. If you're going to Europe, formality is the name of the game. Remember to bring a good selection of ties with you as well as one nicely fitted suit at a minimum. If you forget them, you'll find yourself at a nearby boutique restocking your selection. This may cost you a pretty penny but ostensibly this continent has the best haberdasheries in the world so you may actually benefit from a bit of clothes shopping!

You may think after reading this that I am some sort of Neanderthal, pushing back against the millennial-I'm-brilliant-no-matter-what-I-do-or-wear generation. Yes, your fashion sense is a personal expression, and not necessarily representative of your knowledge base or work ethic. However, people will judge you by the clothes on your back, so strike the best pose possible by dressing in a manner befitting our time-honored industry.

(Article by Larry Mogelonsky, published in eHotelier on March 1, 2017)

Larry Mogelonsky

Hotel Mogel Consulting Limited

View source
Like the 1st and 2nd World Fora on Gastronomy Tourism, this forum will provide an opportunity for leading

experts in gastronomy tourism to discuss the current situation and challenges in Gastronomy Tourism worldwide. Areas of management, the organisation of events and innovation in channels of communication will be discussed, in order to boost the professional development of the sector.

This forum will be held in the new and unique format, with different events being held in various gastronomy

hubs across the Basque Country, showcasing the variation of products offered.
WASHINGTON, D.C. and MCLEAN, Va.  A stylish, contemporary hotel located just six blocks from the White House and around the corner from the trendy 14th Street corridor is the newest member of the exclusive Curio Collection by HiltonTM, the global portfolio of upper upscale independent hotels and resorts.

The Darcy Washington D.C., Curio Collection by Hilton, joins the rapidly-growing collection brand of locally authentic hotels as its first property in the nation's capital. A destination unto itself not far from the cosmopolitan Logan Circle neighborhood, The Darcy - which takes its name from a well-dressed and well-traveled fictional character - is a short walk from four Metro stations and D.C.'s noted landmarks and monuments.

"The Darcy Washington D.C. is as eclectic and remarkable as the District it serves, delivering a truly authentic experience for guests looking for one-of-a-kind discoveries," said Mark Nogal, global head, Curio Collection by Hilton and Tapestry Collection by Hilton. "Newly recreated, The Darcy exudes the spirit of its destination as do all Curio Collection by Hilton hotels, particularly through its unique ambience and local partnerships."

Eclectic, Elegant and Energetic

The Darcy Washington D.C.'s contemporary and sophisticated design - led by Lead Designer Christian Schnyder, owner and principal of the prestigious Beleco Designs in Los Angeles - is inspired by the American Beauty Rose, the city's official flower. Its look intersperses European-inspired elements of mixed wood with distressed metals and bright colors, creating a high-end yet energetic, edgy vibe reflective of the dignified architecture and trendy restaurants that neighbor the hotel.

Visitors are drawn to the singular lobby, which has been fashioned to approximate a handsomely restored yet purposeful living room, with such classic architectural touches as rose carvings on wooden archways, honeycomb-panel flooring, black-painted exposed brick and patterned wallpaper. Displayed throughout the hotel's 226 guest rooms and public spaces are numerous contemporary artworks - ranging from botanical photographs to abstract sculptures and prints - that pay homage to Washington's rich history.

"The Darcy - like Washington, D.C. - is stately and contemporary, delighting guests with its distinctive flair and thoughtful comforts," said Tobias Arff, general manager, The Darcy Washington, D.C., Curio Collection by Hilton. "By joining Curio Collection, we will be free to have an independent spirit while enhancing it with Hilton's globally-recognized services and reputation."

Hotel Highlights

Alluring Cuisine

A Siren's Song: Siren features a distinctive menu from acclaimed chefs Robert Wiedmaier, Brian McBride and chef de cuisine, John Critchley, with a focus on seafood reeled in from the world's waterways. This includes everything from Alaskan King Crab and White Ivory Salmon, to delicate Sea Urchin from Japan, to the succulent fish and crustaceans found in the North Sea. The seasonally grounded menu drives the culinary team to source many of its locally available ingredients from nearby, whenever possible. The dining experience is enhanced by live jazz; a blue/gray interior with a sleek, zinc counter surrounding the "raw" bar and an outdoor dining area.

Siren features a distinctive menu from acclaimed chefs Robert Wiedmaier, Brian McBride and chef de cuisine, John Critchley, with a focus on seafood reeled in from the world's waterways. This includes everything from Alaskan King Crab and White Ivory Salmon, to delicate Sea Urchin from Japan, to the succulent fish and crustaceans found in the North Sea. The seasonally grounded menu drives the culinary team to source many of its locally available ingredients from nearby, whenever possible. The dining experience is enhanced by live jazz; a blue/gray interior with a sleek, zinc counter surrounding the "raw" bar and an outdoor dining area. Funky Fresh:Lil' B Coffee & Eatery is a street-level hangout serving a Southern inspired menu from celebrity chef David Guas. Fresh baked goods and sweets, signature casual eats, and loaded, seasonal sandwiches that give a nod to his native city of New Orleans are complemented by hand-crafted coffee drinks and a range of locally brewed beers, meads and wines.With its semi-industrial design, exposed brick and handcrafted wood tables and counters, the corner spot is both comfortable and cool.

Signature Services & Amenities

Cocktails Galore:

Each night in the lobby, The Darcy hosts its guests for complimentary cocktails, featuring its signature drink with area favorites, Green Hat Gin and Element [Shrub]: The Darcy Double. The hotel also offers a traveling Cocktail Cart, with mixologist, for custom-mixed in-room cocktails.

Each night in the lobby, The Darcy hosts its guests for complimentary cocktails, featuring its signature drink with area favorites, Green Hat Gin and Element [Shrub]: The Darcy Double. The hotel also offers a traveling Cocktail Cart, with mixologist, for custom-mixed in-room cocktails. Haberdashery: Guests may purchase or borrow cufflinks, tie clips and pocket squares provided by Read Wall, a DC-based American-tailored men's clothier.

Guests may purchase or borrow cufflinks, tie clips and pocket squares provided by Read Wall, a DC-based American-tailored men's clothier. Darcy Kids: Adventurous young guests may check out a locally-themed backpack designed to hold their attention during family treks about the city. Complimentary scooters and bicycles are also available.

Adventurous young guests may check out a locally-themed backpack designed to hold their attention during family treks about the city. Complimentary scooters and bicycles are also available. Pop-Up Flower Bar: In a nod to Washington's many gardens and parks, The Darcy will host a bi-monthly flower bar through a partnership with local start-up UrbanStems to invite guests to build their own bouquets and locals to pick up fresh flowers.

Meetings & Events, Intimate or Grand

Flexible Meeting Space: Named after prominent D.C. area artists, socialites and activists, five meeting, breakout and board rooms bathed in natural light can accommodate gatherings for up to 80 seated or 100 standings guests.

Named after prominent D.C. area artists, socialites and activists, five meeting, breakout and board rooms bathed in natural light can accommodate gatherings for up to 80 seated or 100 standings guests. Logan Ballroom: For events on a grander scale, Logan Ballroom is a sophisticated backdrop for up to 200 guests. An enchanting outdoor patio is also available.

To receive instant access to the benefits they care about most - including exclusive discounts, free Wi-Fi, Digital Check-In and Hilton Honors Points towards free nights - guests are encouraged to join Hilton Honors and book directly through preferred Hilton channels.

The Darcy Washington D.C., Curio Collection by Hilton, is owned by KHP Capital Partners and managed by Sage Hospitality.

Media may access high-resolution images and additional information about The Darcy Washington D.C., Curio Collection by Hilton at news.curio.com/darcy.

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Ja Rule has been barred from doing business in the Bahamas by the countrys Ministry of Tourism in light of his role in this weekends disastrous Fyre Festival, TMZ reports. His business partner Billy McFarland has also been banned.

The public relations disaster caused by the Fyre Festivals epic failure will likely cost the Bahamas tourism industry millions of dollars. The festival declined the Ministry of Tourisms offer to help with logistics, and now the country is reportedly planning to implement a stricter vetting system with festivals intending to set up shop there in the future.

This Bahamian ban is the least of Ja and McFarlands problems; Celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos has filed a class-action lawsuit against Fyre Festival that intends to recoup over $100 million in damages.

Ja Rule
Ja Rule has already apologized and promised to issue refunds to those unlucky enough to attend the Caribbean dumpster fire that was Fyre Festival 2017. TMZ reports that prominent lawyer Mark Geragos has filed a class-action lawsuit against Ja and his fellow Fyre Festival organizer Billy McFarland for misrepresenting the festivals accommodations and jeopardizing the festival-goers safety.

Geragos points at FEMA tents repurposed as luxury cabanas and alleges that Ja and McFarland knew the festival would be a disaster and warned celebrity guests not to attend ahead of time.

Fyre Festival branded itself as a boutique music festival on the Bahamian island of Exumas and got endorsements from models like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. Guests paid thousands of dollars to attend, and the woefully underprepared festival descended into anarchy within a matter of hours. Witness the carnage here.

UPDATE: A more detailed report from Variety explains that Geragos filed the lawsuit over the weekend on behalf of his client Daniel Jung, who is seeking $5 million in damages for alleged fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith and negligent misrepresentation. Geragos anticipates that the suit will amass over 150 plaintiffs and ultimately seek a minimum of $100 million in damages.

Fyre Festival
Fyre Festival, a luxury event founded by Ja Rule, began and ended with disaster this weekend. The Bahamas-based music festival was so poorly organized that it led to an evacuation of the island before all attendees had arrived, and the chaos of it all was closely documented on social media.

As some tickets cost as much as $12,000, there has been some worry that attendees will not be refunded. Ja Rule has now made an official statement to set the record straight.

Relieved to share that all guest[s] are safe, and have been sent the form to apply for a refund. Our deepest apologies, he wrote on Twitter Sunday. Meanwhile, the official Fyre Festival Twitter account also expressed apologies to all those disappointed by the outcome of the fest. #FyreFestival is a dream & vision we poured our hearts & souls into creating, reads the statement. 2017 fell dramatically short of even modest expectations.

Ja Rule and Fyre Fests Tweets can be found below. The Festival has been postponed to 2018. Hopefully, everyone had learned their lesson.

According to the Fyre Festival website, this years attendees will not only be granted a full refund, but will also be given VIP passes to th3 2018 festival. After all the disaster, it seems that Fyre Fest will have the sponsorship it requires for next years event. Read an excerpt of the statement below.

The support from the musical community has been overwhelming and we couldnt be more humbled or inspired by this experience. People were rooting for us after the worst day weve ever had as a company. After speaking with our potential partners, we have decided to add more seasoned event experts to the 2018 Fyre Festival, which will take place at a United States beach venue. All festival goers this year will be refunded in full. We will be working on refunds over the next few days and will be in touch directly with guests with more details. Also, all guests from this year will have free VIP passes to next years festival.

Ja Rule
Complexs Joe La Puma recently caught up with Post Malone at Flight Clubs Los Angeles location for another episode of Sneaker Shopping in which Post talked about (and trashed) the signature sneakers of some of the NBAs biggest stars, and discussed what his signature sneaker would look like if a brand came calling.

He also spoke about the Eminem Air Jordan 4s, what it was like being on tour with Justin Bieber and how the Biebs had countless pairs of all-white Huaraches at his disposal.

In the end, he brought out his dad to help him with the actual sneaker shopping portion of the episode and walked out with three pairs of kicks totalling over $1,700.

Check out the clip below.
WASHINGTON - For years, international ships and crews have traveled in and out of the Gulf of Mexico to construct the offshore platforms and deep-sea pipelines that allow oil and gas thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean to get to market.

But now a long-running fight between U.S. energy and maritime companies about what work international crews can do under U.S. law has come to a head, forcing a decision from the Trump administration. At issue is whether to require offshore oil and gas drillers to shift work handled by international construction crews to domestic ones, something oil lobbyists warn could decimate deep-sea drilling in the Gulf.

For President Donald Trump, who has promised to both grow the domestic energy industry and preserve American jobs for American workers, finding a path forward is fraught with political pitfalls. Whatever decision he makes, he is bound to end up alienating one of his key constituencies.

"It is the quintessential buy American, hire American law," said Aaron Smith, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, a trade group representing U.S. vessel owners and operators. "How they get away from that is beyond me."

At the center of the conflict is the seemingly small but lucrative matter of how equipment and other materials are moved around the offshore Gulf of Mexico.

Under a century-old law known as the Jones Act, only U.S.-owned vessels are allowed to perform such work within American waters. But over the decades U.S. customs officials made a series of exemptions, allowing oil and gas companies to employ foreign vessels to perform specific tasks such as moving the fluid that drillers use to lubricate wells between sites or laying down massive subsea equipment that can weigh hundreds of tons.

Then in 2009, former President Barack Obama ordered a review of those rules, setting off a panic in the offshore industry that gradually abated over the next eight years as no action was taken. Then, just days before leaving office, the Obama administration released a proposal that would repeal decades of U.S. Customs and Border Protection rulings that allowed the exemptions, forcing offshore oil companies to use U.S. ships and crews.

'Incredibly serious'

The oil and gas industry, however, maintains the American merchant fleet does not have the equipment and technical capacity to replace a larger and better capitalized international fleet that works in deepwater oil and gas fields all over the world and maintains large operations all along the Gulf Coast.

"This is incredibly serious," said Allen Leatt, CEO of the London-based International Marine Contractors Association, which represents ships and operators from outside the United States. "You remove all these rulings and put nothing in its place, these projects will have to stop. Industry cannot risk being in violation of the Jones Act."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency, which postponed a decision by two months to allow more time for public comment, is scheduled to rule by May 18.

In response, the U.S. oil and gas industry has undertaken a fierce lobbying campaign to block a repeal. The American Petroleum Institute recently released a study forecasting 30,000 job losses in this year alone, mostly in the Gulf region, and a 23 percent drop in U.S. oil and gas production by 2030.

But around U.S. shipyards along the Gulf, that's all just noise. Since the steep drop in oil prices in 2014, the amount of work on offshore Gulf projects has mostly dried up. What's left typically goes to foreign crews, whom American captains and mariners maintain work for a fraction of the rates they command.

Jill Friedman, a 55-year-old captain living in Lake Jackson, has returned to school, hoping that if she can't sail, she might at least find work teaching search and rescue and other skills.

"I want to be out on the water," she said. "There's no work for us out there right now. Dozens and dozens of people I can name right now are out of work: captains, mates, deck hands. The foreign people work a lot cheaper than we do."

Preparing U.S. ships

In the minds of American mariners, when the Obama administration said it was reviewing the Jones Act rulings, the oil and gas industry was put on notice that its days of using foreign ships to move materials and equipment between drilling sites were at an end. Over the past eight years, the U.S. offshore marine industry - often referred to as merchant marines - has invested $2 billion retrofitting more than 30 ships to perform the deepwater work currently performed by international ships, said Smith, the president of the American maritime group, arguing his fleet was up to the task.

"We didn't have the vessels to do the work, so we went into U.S. shipyards and began building them. These are 300- to 400-foot-long vessels, with cranes that weight between 60 and 250 tons," he said. "This is about cost. A good U.S. captain in my industry makes $600 a day. A foreign captain makes $200 a day."

The Jones Act was created following World War I, to protect a U.S. merchant fleet considered essential to supplying American soldiers abroad with guns and other equipment in the event of war. To this day, foreign flagged ships are not allowed to transports goods between American ports.

Over the years, however, it was not uncommon for the U.S. government to allow exemptions in times of need, said Michael Sturley, a maritime law professor at the University of Texas-Austin. For example, after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010, BP received a Jones Act waiver to hire foreign ships to bring spilled oil back to shore.

"There's a much smaller U.S. fleet on now (than during WWI)," he said, "but what there is now depends much more on the existence of the Jones Act," to prevent customers from hiring cheaper ships from abroad.

'Nice propaganda'

Meanwhile, international ship owners and crews continue to make the case in Washington that without them, offshore work in the Gulf would come to a halt.

Among the arguments used by U.S. maritime companies is that oil and gas drillers prefer international crews, which might be drawn from the less prosperous countries like the Philippines or Eastern Europe, because they are cheaper. Leatt, chief executive of the international maritime group, described that assertion as "nice propaganda."

He said the international crews are paid just as much as American ones, arguing it is their technical skills that oil and gas companies seek. As a result, he added, if they were forced to leave U.S. waters, oil companies would shift investment to deepwater fields in other countries where the crews could work.

"Some people might think they'll have a large slice of the pie," Leatt said. "But the reality is the pie will be a lot smaller and everyone loses."
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Kindred Hospital Town and Country in West Houston notified the Texas Workforce Commission on Friday that it would eliminate all 133 staff positions beginning June 27.

In a statement issued Monday, Kindred said it then plans to close the hospital. It also said it has stopped accepting new patients.
Kindred Healthcare will close a facility it operates in west Houston this summer, marking the fifth shutdown in the last three years. The company on Friday notified the Texas Workforce Commission it would eliminate all 133 staff positions at its Kindred Hospital Town and Country by June 27, then shutter the location.

Kindred district chief operating officer Stephanie Madrid, in a letter to the commission, cited "a strategic decision to consolidate its Houston Integrated Market operations" and wrote that "all positions at the hospital will be eliminated."

In a statement, Kindred said it has stopped accepting new patients at the hospital.

Based in Louisville, Ky., Kindred is the nation's largest provider of long-term, acute-care services for patients, often elderly, with serious medical problems who require intense or rehabilitative treatment over weeks or months.

In 2016, the company closed Houston-area locations on Holcombe Boulevard and in Baytown. In 2014 it closed hospitals in Channelview and north Houston.

That's happened even while Houston's medical market underwent a large expansion, with major hospital chains adding suburban locations and a peppering of standalone urgent care and emergency rooms popping up around the city.

Eric Johnson, Houston-based national director of health care advisory services for commercial real estate firm Transwestern, said long-term, acute-care facilities have struggled most to implement some provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, particularly regarding cutbacks in reimbursements.

Because long-term care facilities largely serve elderly patients, the operators rely heavily on Medicare.

"I think it's a right-sizing, what we're seeing," Johnson said. "The ACA is forcing hospitals to really look at their operations and their footprints and their balance sheets."

Kindred struck a similar note, calling the closure a consolidation of services into nearby Kindred hospitals.

"We are always evaluating our portfolio and looking for opportunities to reposition our assets so that we can provide services where and when patients need it most," the company said in a statement.

After the closure, the company will still operate eight facilities locally. The Town and Country location, near the northwest corner of the I-10 and Beltway 8 interchange, sits on some prime real estate.

"Being at I-10 and the Beltway, you get really great exposure. It's an attractive location," Johnson said. "It's a pretty expensive site."

The facility used to be the physician-owned 36-bed long-term acute-care Triumph Hospital Town and Country, until Memorial Hermann bought the property in 2007 and leased it to Kindred.

A Memorial Hermann spokesman said the hospital chain was evaluating its options.

"I think Memorial Hermann will find something suitable" to replace Kindred, Johnson said.

Kindred also said in a statement Monday that it would work with the 133 employees left out of work by the closure.

"We are equally committed to working with our hospital's employees in an effort to assist them in their efforts to seek new employment, including positions within Kindred. Our goal is to retain as many of our valuable employees as possible, and we anticipate being able to retain the bedside caregivers."

After the closure, Kindred will operate 18 facilities in Texas.

It also closed a facility near Dallas in November.

Kindred also provides home health, hospice and non-medical home care in Houston.

In November, the company announced it would leave the skilled nursing facility business after posting a quarterly loss of $685.6 million.
It's a popular belief: The more educated a person is, the less religious he or she likely will be.

And it's mostly right, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center surveys released Wednesday.

"It's certainly our sense that, if anything, that might be the conventional wisdom that higher levels of educational attainment are linked with religiosity. That said, I am aware there are scholars, sociologists, who in recent years have begun to call that into question," said Gregory Smith, associate director for research at the Pew Research Center.

"This is our attempt to weigh in with data from the Religious Landscape Study."

Americans adults with higher levels of education do report lower levels of religious commitment by most measures, according to Pew's analysis.

'It's complicated'

"I think the answer is, 'Well, it's complicated.' On the one hand, if you just look at the public as a whole, there's no question people with the highest levels of educational attainment tend to be less religious than those with lower levels of educational attainment," Smith said.

Fewer than half of college graduates, or 46 percent, say religion is "very important" in their lives, compared with 53 percent of those who have completed some college and 58 percent of those with no more than a high school education, according to Pew. College grads also are less likely to say they believe in God "with absolute certainty" and pray daily.

But there are exceptions.

A 'big however'

The "big however," Smith said, is that Christians - the majority (71 percent) of American adults - don't seem to fit the pattern at all.

Christians with higher levels of education (70 percent, combining all measures) appear to be just as religious as those with less schooling (73 percent of those with some college and 71 percent with some high school), according to the analysis. They are almost equally likely at all education levels to pray daily, attend worship services weekly and say they believe in God with absolute certainty.

In fact, highly educated Christians are most likely (52 percent) to say they are weekly churchgoers, compared with 45 percent of those with some college and 46 percent with at least some high school, according to Pew.

Fully three-quarters of college graduates still are affiliated with some religion, not much different from those with some college (76 percent) or high school (78 percent), for example, according to Pew. College graduates also report attending weekly religious services at similar rates as Americans with less education.

But more college graduates identify as atheist or agnostic: 11 percent, compared with 8 percent with some college and 4 percent of those with no more than a high school education, according to the analysis.

Those aren't large numbers, but Smith pointed out that still makes college graduates almost three times as likely to identify as atheist or agnostic than those who have no more than a high school education.

While none of the numbers are huge, they are statistically significant, he said. Most of the data analyzed comes from Pew's 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of more than 35,000 Americans reached on randomly dialed cellphones and landlines. The margin of error for results based on the full sample in that survey is plus or minus 0.6 percentage points.
Bassem Youssef once praised Flint, Michigan, as the city faced a water crisis, for running such an "innovative anti-immigration strategy."

Because of the water  and the crime and unemployment, too  he said, "People don't want to immigrate to Flint."

He was joking.

Kind of.

"Satirists make fun of the powerful," he says. "They talk truth to power."

That's something he's been doing since early 2011. A heart surgeon by training, the Egypt-born Youssef was inspired by the revolutions of the Arab Spring, during which protests ripped through northern Africa and the Middle East. He was responding at first as a medical professional during those protests, but he was inspired to switch careers: The laundry room in his Cairo condo became the stage for a web series broadcast on YouTube that mocked the government, religion, celebrities, the media and the military.

"Tyrants and dictators get threatened by comedy and satire," Youssef says. "They are thin-skinned. And they are surrounded by a fake kind of respect and a fake kind of fear. Satire takes that away from them."

More Information What: Bassem Youssef, The Joke is Mightier than the Sword When: Monday, May 1, at 7 p.m. What: The Power of Political Satire: A Conversation with Bassem Youssef and Jon Gnarr When: Tuesday, May 2, at 3 p.m. Where: Lyndall Finley Wortham Theatre at the University of Houston. Free and open to the public. Click here for more information. See More Collapse

The series became wildly popular, finding more subscribers than any other channel in Egypt. And it led to the production of a network television show, "Al Bernameg" (or "The Program"), that was fashioned in the style of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," with sarcastic set pieces and interviews.

On air and online, "Al Bernameg" would become one of the most widely watched shows in the world, totaling almost 150 million viewers.

Like Stewart, Youssef wears a smirk well. (In fact, if you Google Youssef, you'll see that he's often called "the Jon Stewart of Egypt.") The two men share more than a passing resemblance. But unlike Stewart, Youssef was operating in a much different political climate. The station that broadcasts "Al Bernameg" received constant complaints. Youssef was sued for insults and defamation. He received death threats. Once, he was arrested and detained and questioned for six hours. He recently told David Remnick of The New Yorker that he lost friends and family members who disagreed with his views.

Eventually, as pressure mounted, "Al Bernameg" was terminated, after a run of 104 shows.

Now, Youssef is living in the U.S. He produced a series, "Democracy Handbook," in which he made the comments about Flint. This month he publishes a memoir, "Revolution for Dummies," and a documentary film about him will be released.

Sunny Martini

This week, the University of Houston has brought him in for a series of events that will explore the relationship between satire and politics. For Youssef, it's an uneasy relationship. "I think people put too much weight on satirists to be saviors or political activists," he says. "Satirists have a very limited role, and it ends at the border of the screen and the border of the stage."

"You will not find a single satirist claim he's an activist or a political leader," he says.

He'll explore these ideas in more detail in a talk Monday night. On Tuesday, he'll be in a conversation with Jon Gnarr, who, in some ways, represents a challenge to the opinion that satirists aren't activists or political leaders. In Reykjavik, Iceland, Gnarr, who had been a writer and a comedian, formed "The Best Party" and ran a satirical bid for mayor  and won. Now, he's trying to raise awareness about climate change.

Who is satire for, then? Is it meant to be heard by politicians, or is it meant to be enjoyed by the people? Youssef doesn't see a disconnect between the rhetoric of his shows, or Samantha Bee's "Full Frontal," or the Onion, and the rhetoric of contemporary politics. Though it can often seem as the two aren't speaking the same language.

For Youssef, it's clear. "Trump looks at satirists the same way that Obama would be looking at Fox News," he says.

So why satirize Trump?

One episode of "Democracy Handbook" answers the question in an indirect way. It aired during the 2016 presidential election. Youssef poked fun at Trump supporters and the "Make American Great Again" slogan that defined the campaign.

There's an invitation to laugh. Or shake your head, maybe. Or sigh. But there's no call to action. There's nothing explicit.

That's because activism isn't what satirists do, as far as Youssef is concerned. "Satirists don't change things. They might change ideas, and people then change things. But it's up to the people," he says.

Bookmark Gray Matters. It wears a smirk well.
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Officers late Monday spotted a stolen white Ford Mustang. Members of an interagency robbery task force already knew the car's owner was carjacked Sunday, and they believed a group of teenagers was using it in a spree of armed robberies in northwest Harris County.

Calling for backup, the officers followed the Mustang to a Jack in the Box restaurant along Texas 6.

The teenagers' car pulled to the rear of the restaurant about 9:40 p.m. and dropped off three people who ran toward the restaurant toting a handgun and a rifle, police said. Inside, the trio threatened employees and stole money from cash drawers.

Just then, officers in tactical gear came through the front door and ordered the teens to drop their weapons. Instead, they opened fire, police said.

The ensuing shootout left a 16-year-old suspect dead and the other two suspects, ages 15 and 17, wounded. None of the officers or store employees was injured.

Deputies said the trio, along with the 18-year-old getaway driver arrested in the parking lot, likely was responsible for at least 10 armed robberies in the last month at fast-food restaurants and convenience stores.

This group and others have targeted these types of businesses, drawing more police attention. Robbers across the Houston area have struck at least 37 fast-food restaurants since last Sept. 30, according to Chronicle reports and HPD data. The Chronicle found at least 10 Subway franchises were robbed in this period, more than any other chain.

Monday's confrontation illustrates the potential for violence inherent in armed robberies, which previously spurred the creation of a joint task force that brings together Houston police, Harris County sheriff's deputies, state troopers and federal agents. Another example came in February, when a robber fatally shot a teen protecting his mother at a Subway store in southeast Houston where they worked together.

"We're trying to put a dent in these types of crews," said Thomas Gilliland, spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

3 more places hit

Yet, within an hour of the Jack in the Box shootout, another group struck, about 13 miles to the east. Two masked men carried firearms into a Denny's at the northwest corner of Loop 610, took control of the restaurant and robbed customers as well as the business. Over the next few hours, the pair hit two more restaurants: an IHOP and another Denny's, both along the Northwest Freeway. The robbers got away, but no one was injured.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo has called for a focus on violent crimes, even those that don't result in death.

"When people are shooting people, we need to treat that as if it were a murder, because the person that commits an aggravated assault today is the same person that's going to commit a murder," he said in an interview earlier this year.

The long-standing task force that interrupted Monday's robbery includes HPD, the sheriff's office, the state Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Acevedo said the shootout involved three HPD officers and four state troopers.

'Traumatic experience'

Speaking at the scene early Tuesday, Acevedo decried armed robberies and their impact on victims like the Jack in the Box workers.

"They're in there trying to make a living, and these violent robbers come in - heavily armed - and put them through what I would consider a very traumatic experience," he said.

The wounded suspects were taken to area hospitals. One, identifed as Xavier Cox, 17, was in stable condition, the sheriff's office reported. The 15-year-old suspect was in critical but stable condition.

The 18-year-old alleged getaway driver, Javalon Robinson, was the only suspect with an adult criminal record; juveniles' crimes generally do not appear in public records. He left jail April 12 on a $5,000 bond following a charge of deadly conduct after police alleged he fired a gun toward a woman. He pleaded guilty last year to stealing two laptops and a tablet.

10 robberies suspected

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed aggravated robbery charges against Robinson and Cox. Gilliland said federal prosecutors may seek additional charges. Robinson remained in the Harris County Jail as of Tuesday evening.

Deputies suspect the crew carried out at least 10 robberies, including four since Sunday along FM 1960.

The Houston Police Department officers who shot were Sgt. C. Andersen, Sgt. K. Bounds and Officer W. Peverill, according to an HPD news release. Anderson has been on the force for almost 37 years, Bounds for 24 years and Peverill for almost five.

Since Monday's shootout happened outside Houston's city limits, the sheriff's office will lead the follow-up investigation. HPD will conduct an internal investigation of its officers' use of force, as it does with all officer-involved shootings. The three officers will work desk jobs until that investigation concludes.
President Donald Trump said Monday he would be "honored" to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "under the right circumstances."

Trump's comments came amid heightened tensions with North Korea, whose nuclear weapons program has sparked deep concerns in the international community, and just a day after Trump said he would not rule out military action against North Korea.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News in a Monday interview. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."

The president acknowledged that his willingness to meet with a dictator known for oppressing his people - comments that are sure to spark an outcry from everyone from diplomats to the human rights community - was more than a little unconventional.

"Most political people would never say that," Trump said in the Bloomberg News interview, "but I'm telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news."

The president has a history of praising, and even seeming to admire, the strongmen dictators who more typically earn international condemnation that begrudging respect. His relationship with and seeming fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin dogged his campaign and now continues to distract in his administration.

And Trump hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi at the White House last month, despite Sissi being barred from the White House under President Barack Obama, after coming to power through a military takeover. On Saturday, he invited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to visit the White House, despite the leader's controversial war on drugs that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of Filipinos.

The president has also praised Kim before. In an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Trump said Kim was "a pretty smart cookie" because "at a very young age, he was able to assume power."

"A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else," Trump said on the Sunday show. "And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie."

Kim had his uncle executed in 2013. He is also widely believed to have had his half brother assassinated in February.

And during the campaign, Trump expressed a willingness to meet with Kim should he visit the United States, saying, "What the hell is wrong with speaking?"

"I wouldn't go there, that I can tell you," Trump said a campaign rally in June. "If he came here, I'd accept him. But I wouldn't give him a state dinner like we do for China and all these other people that rip us off."
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Two armed men took over a chain restaurant in northwest Houston last week, robbing customers as well as the business before moving on to do it again at two other eateries within a few hours.

That spree began less than an hour after an attempted fast-food robbery not far away ended in a shootout with police that left one teenaged suspect dead and two wounded.

READ MORE: Restaurant shootout ends teens' robbery spree at fast-food restaurants near freeways, a common target

Despite the alarming events on April 24 - and the tragic death in February of an 18-year-old Subway employee who tried to protect his mother during a robbery - Houston police data shows that restaurant robberies have steadily decreased in the past two years.

In the first three months of 2017, HPD tallied 52 robberies of fast-food restaurants, down by a third compared to the same period last year, which also saw a drop from the 121 reported in the first three months of 2015. However, each of the past three years tops the 41 counted in the first three months of 2014.

Police and other experts say many vulnerable restaurants have adopted best practices that deter robbers, reduce their haul and help police catch the culprits.

Two veteran Houston police officers in the robbery division, Lt. Cathy Richards and Senior Police Officer Jeff Brieden, said the decrease may also owe to investigators getting time to track down past perpetrators.

Tactical units on the west and north sides of town have worked with robbery investigators, surveillance images and police data to find robbery rings and their leaders.

"They've taken their units to another level in identifying these crews," Richards said. "I think our guys are doing a really good job over time, taking it slow and gathering all the facts."

The tactical units operate out of patrol stations but don't have to answer most calls for service, giving them the luxury of time to review suspects' interviews, do research and gather intelligence. They also can watch over susceptible locations at high-risk hours like 7 to 10 p.m., when Brieden said nearly half of restaurant robberies happen.

Richards said many robberies can be traced back to a single enterprise whose mastermind rarely or never participates in the actual holdups.

For example, police in recent years figured out that a surge in robberies of mobile-phone stores mainly owed to just two criminal organizations whose leaders recruited teens to do the work, she said. Arresting the organizers helped stem the tide of such robberies.

However, the decrease in Houston could mean that more robbers are striking in Harris and Montgomery counties outside of city limits. To combat that balloon effect in which crime is squeezed into other nearby areas just outside the city, Richards said HPD formed a task force last year to cooperate with the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Robbers may also be deterred by measures that more restaurant owners have adopted in recent years. Most fast-food restaurants now use surveillance cameras; many keep a minimum amount of cash on hand or decline to accept bills larger than $20; some will immediately drop any large bills into a time-delayed safe visible to anyone casing the restaurant as a possible target.

"I think the secret is if, in some way, you can communicate to these robbers before they pull their guns that there's very little money here, there's less risk of a robbery," said Chris McGoey, a California-based security consultant who has worked with chain stores.

Surveillance cameras should be prominent, even if it may undermine the image that restaurants want to convey, said McGoey, who runs the "Crime School" website and podcast.

He also suggested posting signs that explain the cash-handling rules, such as not accepting large bills. Still, it's hard to deter every robber from every restaurant.

"It's largely a cash-based business, it's open late hours if not 24 hours, and they're often located along major freeways for convenience' sake," he said. "What makes it convenient for the customer also makes it good for armed robbers."

In a review of news reports and Houston police data, one restaurant chain stands out as suffering far more robberies than any other: Subway. Of 37 robberies at fast-food restaurants in the Houston area in the last six months, 10 were Subway.

"I hate to pick on Subway, but they've been one of the most-robbed franchises for four decades," McGoey said. "It's a small store, (and) they're usually in small shopping centers. You can park your car and see through the front."

The small shops usually just have one or two employees on duty, and robbers can exit quickly, McGoey said. It's easy to find a comfortable routine.

The sandwich shop's popularity owes at least in part to its market dominance. Last year the chain had 27,000 franchises in the United States, according to industry magazine QSR - more than McDonald's and Starbucks combined. Still, the chain was overrepresented even given its numbers.

Yi-Chin Lee/Staff

Subway restaurants are owned by franchisees, but the franchisees' association directed questions to the corporate headquarters, where a spokesman declined to make any official available for an interview.

"The safety and security of our guests and the restaurant employees is very important to us," the spokesman said in an email. "Subway makes extensive safety and security training available for franchisees to use."

In addition to training from parent companies, restaurant owners turn to local business groups and nearby police, said Melissa Stewart, president of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association.

Stewart said the most proactive owners get to know the officers who patrol their area and ask them to check that security cameras are deployed effectively.

Because of security measures like time-delayed safes, Stewart added, "Anybody who thinks this is going to be an easy path to cash needs to know that that is not correct."

The officers in HPD's robbery division said such tactics have made restaurant robberies less profitable, which might deter first-time perpetrators from making a habit.

"They're not making out with what they think they're going to make out with," said Brieden, who's spent nearly a decade in HPD's robbery division. "And eventually, they all get caught."

Surveillance video and images often draw tips from the community - sometimes even from the perpetrators' friends and families. Sometimes people call Crime Stoppers for the reward money. But other times it's worried relatives.

"You'd be amazed at how many moms call," Brieden said.

Overall, the officers and experts said that restaurant robberies remain uncommon, especially the takeover-style holdups that also target customers.

"It's still a very rare and infrequent event," Stewart said. "When we have one that's as dramatic as we had this week, it makes us think we have them all the time, but we really don't."
It felt like deja vu to many of the 150 people who packed into Tinsley Elementary School's auditorium Wednesday evening.

Facing another controversial Houston ISD school finance referendum, speakers debated two unfavorable options, both of which will cost the school district millions of dollars.

Wednesday's forum served as the latest update in a school finance saga that has pitted Houston ISD against the state after 62 percent of local residents voted in November against paying the state millions in so-called recapture fees.

Board President Wanda Adams, who hosted the town hall, thanked those present for voting against recapture in November. But she asked them to vote in favor of writing a recapture check. "Because of your no vote, you actually won. We were the first district ever to tell the state no, the first to say we will not write a check until you fund public education," Adams said.

The Houston ISD Board of Education voted in February to hold a second referendum on the issue May 6 after the state lessened the amount HISD would pay in recapture fee and threatened to "detach" commercial properties.

Glenn Reed, general manager of HISD's Budgeting and Financial Planning, said this referendum is different than the one that appeared in on the November ballot.

"This is not a vote on recapture; it's a vote on how you want us to pay it," Reed said.

Angry over payments

The recapture elections stemmed from anger over the state's complicated school finance system, which sees property rich school districts pay the state millions each year to buoy school districts in more rural or property-poor areas through a process called recapture.

The TEA originally told the district it must pay $162 million in recapture, but lessened that amount to $77.5 million after it agreed to take 50 percent of the money HISD loses to a generous homestead exemption off of the district's recapture bill.

If the district does not pay recapture willingly, the TEA said it will detach $7.7 billion worth of commercial properties and givetheir taxes to property poor districts, including Aldine ISD locally. At a school board workshop earlier this month, district officials said losing those commercial properties could cost the district $98.4 million in revenue in the next fiscal year.

The new referendum will read: "Authorizing the board of trustees of Houston Independent School District to purchase attendance credits from the state with local tax revenues." A vote "for" purchasing attendance credits would mean the district would willingly pay the state's recapture fee. A vote "against" would mean the state would detach some local commercial property.

Trustees said the November recapture election spurred action in Austin. In January, the Senate Finance Committee announced it would create a work study group that would look into overhauling the state's school finance system. Earlier this month Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Humble, filed a bill that would provide $1.6 billion in additional state funding to schools and would lessen recapture payments by $163 million in 2018 and $192 million in 2019.

Linda Scurlock, who spoke during the question-and-answer portion of the town hall, said she would vote against paying recapture in May because businesses affected by detachment could put more pressure on the Legislature to change the school finance system.

"With state Legislature, you can never say never," Scurlock said. "I believe if pressure is put on them to do this recapture, the (influential) people downtown will say no and the law will be changed. It will hit the corporate people who run the Legislature."

Business owner would sue

Small-business owner Becky Edmondson said she would sue the state if the TEA were to detach her commercial property, although she acknowledged it was an unlikely prospect due to the size of her business. Adams said during conversations with business leaders who would be affected by detachment, there was an unwillingness to sue the state.

"That's not going to be an option for them," Adams said. "They'll be paying a higher tax rate (if they're detached). If I'm a business owner and know my tax rate is about to go through roof, am I going to spend money suing the state, which could take years, or am I going to spend money on lawyers trying to lessen my property values?"
ROMA - Juan Montalvo bought 1.6 acres of riverfront property on the edge of this border city decades ago. Looking into the future, he saw his grandchildren and great-grandchildren inheriting the land.

Now the U.S. government wants to take it - and pay the family $700 - to build President Donald Trump's border wall. Montalvo's daughters Noelia Munoz, 69, and Sylvia Ramirez, 67, had refused to sign over the land in 2008, and they refused again when the new offer arrived a few weeks ago.

"We did not want to sell from Day One, and we still don't," said Munoz, a retired teacher who lives a few blocks from the Rio Grande. "We will challenge them, but I know they can take it away if they want."

During the last period of fence building, nearly a decade ago, more than 300 condemnation cases were filed in federal district court in Brownsville. More than 90 cases remain unresolved, though the wall was built long before many landowners settled on compensation.

Congress on Friday approved a stopgap spending bill to avoid a government shutdown for a week. Funding for Trump's wall has been excluded from the budget for now, but as the administration moves ahead with plans for 34 miles of fencing in the Rio Grande Valley, many landowners are resigned to the eventuality of a wall.

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized construction of about 700 miles of levee wall and fence - 650 miles were completed - but it was the federal Declaration of Takings Act that allowed the government to quickly take possession of land even as landowners challenged it in court.

The fence went up so fast in one San Benito neighborhood that residents had little time to mount an effective resistance. After years of living in the shadow of the fence, most still are waiting for compensation.

"It was built before anything was agreed on or signed," said Sergio Garcia, 49. His mother and aunt own property in the neighborhood and expect to receive $1,000 for a sliver of their land. "Opposition isn't going to take it away. It's not going to remove it. It's rather futile."

Ground zero

Customs and Border Protection spokesman Carlos Diaz said the Border Patrol has yet to finalize its recommendations for placement of new sections of border wall. Addressing landowner compensation before the agency submits its report would be premature, he said.

Separately, Diaz said the Justice Department cannot move forward on dozens of unresolved cases, most of which date back to 2008, until final title reports and surveys are complete. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

These days, Starr County swarms with border agents and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers. Both agencies have identified the embattled county as ground zero in the effort to secure the border.

As Noel Benavides sees it, the government will brush aside concerns like it did so many others to build the existing 54 miles of fence and wall in the Valley. His wife Cecilia's land will be no exception. Her family has laid claim to the land since 1767, given in a grant by the king of Spain.

Over the years Benavides, 74, has led Boy Scouts on camping excursions and countless trips to the river's edge to fish and swim. Now the government wants to take 5.7 acres that would maroon much of the property south of the fence. The Benavideses ignored the condemnation notice a decade ago, but there will be no stopping it this time, he said.

"It's going to come," he said. "Why delay? Just get it over with."

Resigned to losing their land, the landowners are more focused on getting a fair price. While many cases still are pending, the government eventually was forced in court to dole out $78 million to compensate landowners for property it took 10 years ago.

One Cameron County landowner initially offered $233,000 for 3.1 acres eventually was paid about $4.7 million after a three-year court battle.

No one quite knew what to expect back then, said Efren C. Olivares, racial and economic justice director for the Texas Civil Rights Project in Roma. People signed waivers without challenging the government offer, probably because they were unaware that they had the right to a jury trial to determine just compensation, he said.

The civil rights group is offering its services to as many landowners as possible this time to help make their claims.

"Many don't realize there are ways to push back," Olivares said. "And if there is a true compensation process, that can significantly delay the wall."

'We don't want a wall'

Among the recent recipients of condemnation notices are 56 property owners of 10 tracts of land in and around Roma. In nearby Hidalgo County, others also have been informed that the government intends to revive dormant plans to take their land for the wall.

During the 2007 wave of condemnations, Starr County residents worried then that an imposing structure would cost them precious ecotourism dollars. The hilly geography of the county also raised flooding concerns. Not much has changed in the decade since, except that many now believe it is only a matter of time before the wall is built.

"We're not opposed to selling to them, even giving the land to them, but we don't want a wall," said Cristano Salinas, Roma's city manager. "We're fighting the type of structure they're building, not the fact of the building."

Salinas used to count undocumented immigrants running past his office window. Since the buildup of security, including Homeland Security Department troopers and Border Patrol agents, the illegal traffic has dropped sharply, he said.

The city paid more than $40,000 when it bought a bluff overlooking the river years ago and converted it into a World Birding Center, which has become a popular tourist attraction.

'Come and take it'

Beyond the financial concerns of lost tourism are unanswered logistical issues. The federal government wants to take a 60-foot-wide strip between the river and the bluff, which Salinas believes is a flooding hazard.

Moreover, the city's water is pumped from the river to a treatment plant, then into homes and businesses.

"What if the pump dies, and there aren't any Border Patrol around?" Salinas asked, wondering how the equipment would be accessed in such a case. "That's a major problem."

For Ramirez and her sister, a barrier of any sort would effectively cut them off from their land. No longer could they walk from their home to the river's edge. And they wouldn't feel safe trapped in a no man's land between fence and river. Ramirez likened their struggle to the Battle of the Alamo.

"We're not going to just give it to them," Ramirez said defiantly. "They'll have to come and take it."
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President Donald Trump's road to the White House, paved by big, sometimes impossible pledges, has detoured onto a byway of promises deferred or left behind, an AP analysis found.

Of 38 specific promises Trump made in his 100-day "contract" with voters - "This is my pledge to you" - he's accomplished 10, mostly through executive orders that don't require legislation, such as withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

"I've done more than any other president in the first 100 days," the president bragged in a recent interview with AP, even as he criticized the marker as an "artificial barrier."

In truth, his 100-day plan remains mostly a to-do list.

Associated Press

Energy and environment

 Lift President Barack Obama's roadblocks on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

 Lift restrictions on mining coal and drilling for oil and natural gas.

x Cancel payments to U.N. climate change programs and pull out of the Paris climate accord.

Economy and trade

x Pass a tax overhaul. Trump has scrapped the tax plan he campaigned on, and his administration's new package is in its early stages.

xDesignate China a currency manipulator, setting the stage for possible trade penalties.

xBacktracked on his intention to renegotiate or withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

 Direct his commerce secretary and trade representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that hurt American workers.

x Slap a 35 percent tariff on goods from companies that ship production abroad. Force companies like Apple and Nabisco to make their products in the U.S.

xEmbark on a massive $1 trillion effort to rebuild the country's infrastructure, including airports, roads and bridges.

Security, defense and immigration

x Immediately suspend the Syrian refugee program.

 Inform his generals they have 30 days to submit a new plan for defeating the Islamic State group. It's unclear what the plan is since it has yet to be made public.

x Suspend immigration from "terror-prone regions" where he says vetting is too difficult. Trump's effort to bar immigration temporarily from some Muslim-majority countries has been stymied by courts.

 Implement "extreme" immigration vetting techniques.

The Homeland Security Department is considering a number of measures.

 Build an "impenetrable physical wall" along the length of the southern border, and make Mexico pay for it.

The government has been soliciting bids and test sections could be built as soon as this summer.

Mexico is not paying for this work.

x End federal funding to "sanctuary cities" - places where local officials are considered by Washington to be insufficiently cooperative in arresting or detaining people in the country illegally.

 Immediately deport the estimated 2 million "criminal aliens" living in the country, including gang members.

Deportations have not increased. Arrests of people in the U.S. illegally are up and illegal border crossings are significantly down.

xCancel visas for foreign countries that won't take back criminals deported by the U.S.

x "Immediately terminate President Obama's two illegal executive amnesties," one of which allows young people brought into the country as children to stay and work.

Government and the swamp

 Ask agency and department heads to identify job-killing regulations to eliminate.

x Propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress.

 On his pledge to curb the power of special interests, Trump has so far used an executive order to prohibit political appointees from lobbying the government for five years after serving in his administration and to ban outgoing officials from representing foreign governments.

 Impose a hiring freeze on federal employees, excluding military and public safety staffers. This was one of Trump's first actions. But the freeze has since been lifted.

Require that two regulations be eliminated for each new one imposed.

Foreign affairs

x End the strategy of nation-building and regime change.

x Move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

x Negotiate the release of all U.S. prisoners held in Iran, even before taking office. Renegotiate or leave the Iran nuclear deal.

x Create a safe zone in Syria for refugees, paid for by the Gulf states.

Health care, courts, guns

x The bill to replace "Obamacare" was pulled from Congress because it lacked support. He will try again with a revised plan.

 Select a new Supreme Court judge to fill the court's vacancy.

x Eliminate gun-free zones in schools and on military bases.

Really?

 "I promise I will never be in a bicycle race."

xBar his generals from being interviewed on television.

x "I'm not going to have time to go play golf."

? "If I become president, we're gonna be saying Merry Christmas at every store. ... You can leave 'happy holidays' at the corner."

As president-elect over the holidays, he sent a "Merry Christmas" tweet.
A look at recent Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) dirt prep races in the United States could determine if any potential bias toward a particular running style on the main track existed on particular race days.

One less thing for handicappers to worry about? Note that all tracks for race days involved were listed as fast.

Sunland Derby (G3), March 26 at Sunland Park

Of the six races contested at two turns on the card, five were won by horses from off the pace, suggesting a strong bias toward closing-type runners. Irap who raced close to the pace in the Sunland Derby to finish fourth, came back to upset the field in the Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G2), further evidence that a closer bias existed on Sunland Derby day.

Hence rallied from 10th to win the Sunland Derby, likely benefitting from the bias, but he did win. A bigger concern would be a closer who failed to take advantage of the bias. I note horses winning with the bias, but the best a horse can do is win, so it's not a fault against the horse.

TwinSpires.com Louisiana Derby (G2), April 1, Fair Grounds Race Course & Slots

In the eight races on the dirt this day, a variety of running styles earned trips to the winner's circle. That trend suggests there was no bias in the Louisiana Derby that saw Girvin rally from fifth early, six lengths back.

Xpressbet Florida Derby (G1) April 1 at Gulfstream Park

While a horse won on the front end, and two horses, including Florida Derby winner Always Dreaming, both won from just off the pace, half of the six dirt races this day were won with big closing moves. While the other three race outcomes can't be ignored, I think the track was at least slightly favoring closers.

I'll give extra credit to the effort of Always Dreaming who raced near the lead throughout on his way to the five-length victory. A slight downgrade to Gunnevera who closed from 10th to third.

Wood Memorial Stakes presented by NYRA Bets (G2), April 8 at Aqueduct Racetrack

While there were a variety of running styles represented in the winner's circle this day, half the races were won by horses on the front end. With that in mind, I think this track was at least slightly favoring front runners, and I'll award a bit of extra credit to Wood Memorial winner Irish War Cry, who tracked in fourth early before drawing off to the 3 1/2-length score.

Toyota Blue Grass Stakes (G2), April 8 at Keeneland

I didn't see any track bias on this card. A variety of running styles were represented in the winner's circle with Irap tracking in second early in the Blue Grass before scoring a three-quarter-length upset win.

Santa Anita Derby (G1), April 8 at Santa Anita Park

This track was strongly biased toward front runners on this day and I'm awarding big extra credit to Santa Anita Derby winner Gormley, who rallied from 5 1/4 lengths out and fifth position to win the 1 1/8-mile race. No winner of the card made a bigger move in a dirt race.

Consider two of the races on the card. One saw Rockport Babe challenged by two different horses while racing on the front end and winning at 18-1. The other race that caught my eye was the Echo Eddie Stakes that saw a three-horse battle early with two of those horses, Mr. Hink and B Squared, finishing a nose apart at the wire.

The Santa Anita Derby reinforces my opinion as Battle of Midway and Royal Mo, after battling through a quarter-mile in :22.66, continued well to the wire to finish second and third.



Benoit Photo



Arkansas Derby (G1), April 15 at Oaklawn Park

With eight of the 12 winners on the card coming from off the pace, I rate this as a closer favoring track. As I said earlier, I don't discount horses that ran with the bias to win, as did Classic Empire. Runner-up Conquest Mo Money ran well against the bias and deserves extra credit going toward his planned start in the Preakness Stakes (G1).
Opportunity

Regarding "Developers bemoan UT plan failure" (Page A1, April 12), we have benefitted greatly from the forward looking, behind the scenes leaders: Brown, Jones, Wortham and others, whose primary objective was to give Houston a positive direction for growth and prosperity.

Innovative and important new projects further solidify Houston's role of leadership in multiple fields and further diversifies Houston's economic engine. This project had the potential of challenging existing entities to raise the bar for their own institutions.

The proposed project offers the very real potential to raise that bar, and all area institutions would have benefitted unless they were incapable. The criticism that UT should have divulged the nature of the project prior to acquiring the land would only have ensured failure beginning with the attempt to acquire the entire property.

With proper preparation, tenacity and extra effort, the impossible becomes possible. Developing this project is possible.

John Herrin, Houston

Magnate school

Regarding "A deal's a deal" (Page A18, Friday), I think it is a good idea to keep the name of the school immutable and focused on its purpose: to educate students in the arts while naming either the building itself or a theater after the Kinders.

We have already seen the awkwardness of repeatedly renaming institutions in Houston as the principle donors or occupants change such as Enron Field becoming Minute Maid Park, which will likely change again someday.

Some institutions should have descriptive names that do not change through the decades such as the Astrodome, which created memories for many generations of Houstonians. St. Thomas High School honors its donors with names on specific buildings. Perhaps this model would be the best lasting tribute to generous donors.

Deborah Moran, Houston

Arts study

Regarding "Naive cuts" (Page A13, April 25), it is a great error not to provide some public funding for the arts. A quick review of history reveals that arts and sciences have always flourished at the same time. This was true of Periclean Greece; it was true of the Italian Renaissance; it was true of the scientific and industrial revolutions. And it is certainly true of the modern era.

Free expression of the arts stirs and exercises the imagination and new visions of life. Science implements the imagination and new visions of life and creates our future. The two cannot exist without each other.

Refusing to support the arts publicly or privately risks reducing our society to banal mediocrity.

John L. Indo, Houston

Bad bill

Regarding "'Sanctuary cities' ban advances" (Page A1, Friday), this bill may as well have been titled the "Destroy trust in the police and worsen public safety act," because that will be the result. If people are afraid to speak to the police - which this act will accomplish - how will the police be able to solve crimes and find criminals hiding in the community?

What is worse is that this will allow a few bad apples in the department to start harassing everyone with brown skin, and the chief will have lost the power to discipline them. This will not enhance public safety but will accomplish the opposite. It is a truly bad bill.

Alan Jackson, Houston
AUSTIN -- Gov. Greg Abbott will get many big wins in the next couple of months. Ahead of his re-election campaign in 2018, he is well on his way to signing a so-called sanctuary cities ban in a few weeks. Hell probably get some kind of Convention of States bill and legislation to reform the Child Protective Services, too. The governor also will get a host of symbolic legislation.

Case in point: On Monday, Abbott will sign his first bill of the 2017 legislative session. House Bill 89, dubbed the Anti-BDS bill, would prohibit state government entities from contracting with companies that boycott Israel, as well as restrict certain state investments in companies that do.

It sailed through the legislature without much opposition. On April 20, a House committee approved it unanimously, and it won a full chamber vote of 131-0. A week later, Senate committee voted it out 7-2, with a full chamber vote of 26-5.

BDS stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions -- a global movement that seeks to pressure the Israeli government to comply with international law regarding their treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.

This is only possible because of international support, its website reads. Governments fail to hold Israel to account, while corporations and institutions across the world helped Israel to oppress Palestinians.

Texas would become the 20th state with such a law, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Even California, Abbotts perennial punching bag, approved a BDS ban before Texas, though critics said that bill was largely toothless by the time it got to Gov. Jerry Brown.

This long has been a goal for Abbott, who visited Israel in 2015 and met with the countrys prime minister to discuss Texas and Israels robust trading relationship. At the time, on the heels of former President Barack Obamas Iran nuclear deal, Abbott said he wanted a bill that would explicitly bar local and state governments from making direct investments in or contracting with companies that do business with Iran.

Given all the flaws that are inherent in the Iran deal, Texas is absolutely committed to maintaining its sanctions against Iran, he wrote in a letter to the nations governors months after his trip, urging them to reject Obamas calls to reconsider state bans in light of the compact. The Texas Prohibition on Investment in Iran Act currently bans state pension and retirement systems from investment in Iran or entities that do business with Iran. But there is more that Texas can -- and will -- do.

To be clear, state law currently bans state pension and retirement systems from investment in Iran and entities that do business with Iran. Broader bills to that effect have not gotten quite as far as HB 89, but they well could find their way to the governors desk in the last few weeks of the session. Even if they do not, bill-signing season will kick off Monday with HB 89 as a mostly symbolic gesture in which Abbott tries to put a bow on a major early talking point of his term.
Houston police are investigating reports of counterfeit money surfacing in the community.

An officer was dispatched at about 8:15 p.m. April 20 regarding a report of a woman trying to pass a counterfeit $100 bill at Walmart.

The officer was told by store personnel that the woman (32, of Licking) had tried to send funds via a money transfer and was still at the serve counter. The woman was read her Miranda rights and stated she received the bill from her boyfriend, of Springfield, and that she knew it didnt look right.

The bill was seized as evidence and a report was sent to the county prosecutor.

On April 6, an officer investigated a report of two white male suspects making a purchase at Walmart using two counterfeit $100 bills.

Photographs provided by store personnel showed a man about 40 years old and a teenager making the purchase. Close inspection of the bill revealed that real $1 bills were used to create the fake 100s.

The following day, Licking police reported someone trying to pass a counterfeit $100 bill in their jurisdiction. The photo of the older Walmart suspect was sent to Licking, and authorities identified him as a Licking resident.

The case is still being investigated, and Licking Police Chief Scott Lindsey said the 40-year-old man is also currently facing other charges.
Vocational education has been a topic of discussion at the last several board meetings and in the community for probably longer than that. College education is important, and we as the Houston R-1 District need to be preparing our students to enter that postsecondary avenue. However, not all our students will choose that route after high school, nor should they. We do a disservice to our students and our community in thinking that all students should be college ready and not providing appropriate vocational training for postsecondary vocational training or immediate entrance in to the work force. What I am hearing from the community is that we need more health workers, more auto mechanics, more shop skills, and other skills not currently provided.

We have some excellent programs already. Houston offers vocational courses in business, FACS (Family and Consumer Sciences), agriculture and building trades. These programs should continue to be supported and strengthened. However, we also have a great need for training in health sciences, auto mechanics, auto body, creative computer design, culinary arts and more. While we cannot support all of these needs within the Houston district alone, we are looking at ways to do some of this training locally. Keep in mind that adding even one program involves expense. To add one beginning teacher amounts to approximately $40,000 in expense per year for the Houston School District. This increases with experience of the teacher. This also does not include equipment, materials, space and other expenses to begin a program. Therefore it is also not just a question of Can we fill these classes?, but can we afford to offer all of these?

To that end, I have also looked at the three nearest area vocational schools. Rolla, Mountain Grove and West Plains. All of these locations have good programs, with some variation due to demand and size of the school. There is a difference in travel time: West Plains 51 miles, Rolla 47.8 miles and Mountain Grove 27 miles. The main difference, however, is cost. Tuition for the three schools are as follows: West Plains $1,780, Rolla $2,915, and Mt. Grove $1,750. In addition, both Mountain Grove and Rolla require us to join their consortium which means we would turn over our federal Perkins money amounting to $19,000-$22,000 per year. West Plains will allow us to send students only by paying tuition. Therefore, the expected cost of sending 20 students to West Plains would be around $45,000 for tuition and transportation. This option gives us more flexibility as well as savings of the $20,000 in Perkins money already utilized by our existing vocational programs. If we send students and the program is not appealing, we are not bound to continue the following year. Further, while courses in Welding and Building Trades are offered at these schools, we have solid programs here with equipment that makes it appealing to keep our existing programs here and only send students for programs we are not able to offer at this time.

Another question that comes up is what will students lose by having to travel for almost two hours a day? Currently, Lutie, Winona and Summersville all send students to West Plains and have a similar length of drive time for students. How do students get their required credits? There is no doubt the drive is long, however schools sending students, such as Houston, are allowed to determine how much credit is given for attending a vocational school. Most award 2-3 credits with at least one school granting 3 and a half credits per year. Vocational schools also offer an imbedded one-half credit for English or Math based on the rigor and curriculum offered within their vocational program.

This is not necessarily the final answer. The City of Houston, local business leaders, the Houston School District and area community members are all working at seeing what resources are available, or can be made available to promote training right here in Houston. However, in the meantime, this is too important to put off another one-three years waiting to see what can be done. Eligible sophomores and juniors took a trip Friday, April 28, to tour the SCCC campus in West Plains. Students and two board members were able to see the programs, labs and facilities offered. Sending students to West Plains for the 2017-2018 school year will be a proposal to the board on May 9.

Another possible change being considered for next year includes dropping speech as a credit requirement for graduation. Few schools now require this as credit for graduation. Further, the Missouri Learning Standards incorporate speech criteria into the current ELA standards. This along with adding drama/speech as an after-school program are hoped to give some additional boost to the program. This would also free up at least some space for students wanting to pursue vocational training or another path. Students who have already taken speech would have that credit applied as an elective. This would not change the total number of credits needed to graduate.

Finally, please dont forget the Give Ozarks Day on May in which the Houston Education Foundation is raising money to purchase Chromebooks for the Houston sixth grade class. Checkout the website https://giveozarks.org/2017/houstonr1foundation.

Dr. Allen Moss was hired in 2016 as the superintendent of the Houston R-1 School District. You can contact him at 417-967-3024.
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Several dozen people gathered on the Carlisle square for a Rally of Solidarity and Unity with a focus on refugees, immigrants and workers.

We are here to celebrate May Day and to celebrate international workers and laborers and also to celebrate our immigrant workers, who do the work that no American wants to do and yet gets persecuted, Anna Drallios said. We are here to support them and thank them for their hard work.

Drallios immigrated to the United States from Greece with her parents when she was a teenager.

My parents worked really, really hard, she said. I know what hard work is and I know what its like working 80 hours a week to support your family and educate your kids and to build a life in the United States. This is what the immigrants and undocumented are doing here.

According to a Facebook post announcing the event, members of the Carlisle community joined a movement of progressive organizations committed to resisting and defeating hate and rising up for all people.

I think the biggest misconception is that (immigrants) are a source of crime in our community, said Salim Makhlouf, who immigrated to the United States from Lebanon with his parents when he was 4 years old. ... Immigrant communities actually have a lower crime rate.

A study published in 2007 by the National Bureau of Economic Research found immigrant populations between 18 and 39 years old had an incarceration rate less than half that of their native born counterpart.

Immigrants are blamed for the crime and for taking all the jobs, Makhlouf said.

He said he believed the pain people feel from not being able to find work was real, but said immigrants are used as scapegoats for larger economic changes like a move to automation in industries like manufacturing.

During the rally, Makhlouf passed around a petition to make Carlisle a welcoming community, which includes requesting the police not inquire about a persons residency or immigration status.

It is currently not the policy of Carlisle Police to request this information, said police chief Taro Landis.

Landis said there is no expected policy change on this matter.

Those who rallied in Carlisle were also asked to join a statewide rally in Harrisburg at the Capitol Monday.

Immigrants and their allies rallied across the country to mark May Day and protest President Donald Trumps efforts to boost deportations. In many places, activists are urging people to skip work, school and shopping to show the importance of immigrants in American communities.

Around the world, union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers rights. The day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the U.S. since demonstrations were held in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Two sets of doors were always closed before Sen. Don Meredith felt comfortable starting any meeting in his office across Parliament Hill.

The first leads to a shared hallway, the second to Meredith's desk. Shutting them both seemed to give him a sense of privacy and control.

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Staff members found it bizarre, but they did what their boss asked. Constant paranoia was a running theme in the office, one former female aide said.

Behind those doors, they claim, the senator began inappropriately touching his female employees.

Once the doors close  which was not able to be opened from the outside if it was locked  well, I felt like I was trapped and he was able to touch me and be very ... all over me, alleged another former female staffer.

Listen to an excerpt from one of her interviews with HuffPost Canada. Her voice has been changed to protect her identity:

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Meredith, who is also a pastor, would declare that they should pray together, according to the ex-worker.

The way that his religion prays is to actually put a hand on the person next to you  and he would use that excuse to touch me more than just putting his hand on my shoulder for the prayer, she said, alleging the senator used the intimacy of prayer to touch her breast and her bottom.

She said it was sickening and made her feel violated every time.

In an ongoing investigation, HuffPost Canada has uncovered some alarming workplace behaviours alleged by Merediths former staff members. Three of them agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity, citing professional and personal concerns.

Sen. Merediths office declined an interview request by HuffPost Canada, and his lawyer, Bill Trudell, did not reply to inquiries to speak to him about his client.

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Meredith is being probed by the Senate Ethics Office for multiple reports of sexual harassment and workplace bullying. Over the last three years, HuffPost Canada has learned details of alleged incidents both inside and outside his office.

These claims are separate from an explosive report in March that found Meredith abused his power and broke Senate ethics rules by pursuing a two-year sexual relationship with a teenager.

A different Senate ethics inquiry  which is still ongoing  was launched in 2015 into the claims of sexual harassment from former members of the Toronto senators office. They allege Meredith has a pattern of harassing, sexually abusing, and threatening employees since his 2010 appointment.

When asked to describe working with Meredith, a male ex-employee answered: Just a horrible professional experience.

He followed that with a list of adjectives about his former boss: Narcissistic, dishonest, deceitful, selfish, narrow-minded, self-centred. I know that some are redundant, but just an all-around horrible, horrible person.

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Terror kept former aide quiet

The former aide who alleges she was repeatedly groped at work said Meredith told me he would hunt [me] down if I ever would talk.

These incidents happened in Merediths Ottawa office and on a Senate business-related outing, according to the ex-staffer. Terror kept her from filing an official complaint in case Meredith found out.

I never reached out to anybody because he put so much pressure on you  for you to not tell anybody, she told HuffPost Canada.

To deter staff from reporting the abuse, Meredith suggested employees consider his influence as a senator. He sometimes went as far as to threaten to ruin their careers in and outside of government, the former employees all claim.

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Staff  men and women  began to confide in each other. The former male employee said he saw female co-workers crying after altercations with the senator quite, quite often.

For some female staff with years of political experience under their belts, there was a harsh reality check. Once they realized they were victims of workplace sexual abuse, there were emotional repercussions to contemplate, and career and financial risks to consider.

I was just so scared, said the former employee who claims Meredith groped her. She said she felt powerless against the institution.

I never reached out to anybody because he put so much pressure on you  for you to not tell anybody.  Former aide to Sen. Don Meredith

It seemed like a lose-lose situation.

She knew enough about Senate policy to understand that filing an official complaint with human resources didnt guarantee job security or protection against Meredith. But she was also aware if she didnt come forward, the alleged harassment and abuses would most likely continue.

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So either way, making an official complaint or not was bringing me to the same spot, she said.

Meredith also discouraged staff from claiming overtime, and allegedly blurred the lines between government resources and non-parliamentary work.

Several ex-employees claim they were tasked to help Meredith  a Pentecostal pastor  draft speeches he would deliver from church pulpits.

If you go and take a look and did a forensic analysis of the hard drive, youll see those products were requested and delivered on Government of Canada time, said the former male aide.

Staff mostly complied because there was little point to challenge the assignment. His response, as boss, would have been, This is what is done and this is how its gonna be done, said the ex-worker.

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You think you can survive it

So why didnt they just quit immediately?

You get caught up in there, and the psychological pieces come to bear whereby you dont want to quit or you need your job, he said. You need to make bills. You have family. You think you can survive it, but then over the long haul, its like torture.

He said, like many federal employees, he wanted to make a difference, and so he stuck it out. In the end, he left the senators office after six months.

Listen to an excerpt from one of his interviews with HuffPost Canada. His voice has been changed to protect his identity:

Senate alerted to office concerns in 2014

Merediths office has seen a high turnover of staff in recent years  the revolving door of employees seemed so unusual that then-Senate speaker Pierre Claude Nolin ordered a workplace assessment in 2015. Ex-staffers allege its because of Merediths long pattern of bullying and forcing himself onto female employees.

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(Im) not under any investigation whatsoever, Meredith told Robert Fife of CTV News in June 2015, in what appears to be the senators only public comment on workplace-related probes. This is news to me.

However, sources told CTV at the time that Meredith had been interviewed as part of the workplace assessment.

Emails obtained by HuffPost Canada show Merediths own party and Senate human resources were informed about his alleged workplace behaviour as early as spring 2014.

It took until June 2015 for the Conservative party to oust him from the caucus after news of his affair with a teenager made headlines.

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Merediths former staff members say its disappointing to continue to see the senator keep his honourable title, three years later. And theyre frustrated by the pace of the Senates inquiry into the workplace allegations.

The Office of the Senate Ethics Officer told HuffPost Canada on Friday that an inquirys duration depends on the issues that are involved, its complexity, the number of individuals that are required to be interviewed, scheduling issues, the number of process issues that are raised by the various parties and the time that is required in order to properly canvas and dispose of relevant issues.

Still awaiting an outcome, Merediths former employees strongly feel that if youre a federal worker in the Senate who has been harassed or sexually abused by a senator, justice is not guaranteed to arrive swiftly  despite what the rules say.

The Senates official policy on preventing and resolving workplace harassment is to handle complaints with sensitivity, promptness and discretion.

Its definition of harassment is:

Any improper conduct by an individual, that is directed at and offensive to another person or persons in the workplace, and that the individual knew or ought to have known would cause offence or harm. It comprises any objectionable act, comment or display that demeans, belittles, or causes personal humiliation or embarrassment, and any act of intimidation or threat. The conduct may be done on a one time basis or in a continuing series of incidents.

The wording is clear about repercussions faced by Senate employees (up to and including termination of employment) if harassment is confirmed. But the institution lacks equivalent rules to discipline senators who behave inappropriately toward employees.

Merediths fate in the upper chamber has been up in the air since the the Senate ethics officer found he abused the power of his office in a relationship with a 16-year-old.

That probe headed by Lyse Ricard also concluded that Meredith breached two sections of the Senates revamped ethics code, which was updated after the expense scandals of senators Patrick Brazeau, Mike Duffy, and Pamela Wallin.

Graphic details of the interactions and messages between Meredith and the teen over two years prompted calls by his peers and MPs for him to resign.

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The senator has refused to step down  calling his relationship with the teen a moral failing and explaining that hes since been under the guidance of spiritual advisors and has read the Senates new code of ethics.

The Senate standing committee on ethics and conflict of interest has been reviewing Ricards report on the teen relationship and deciding on a course of action to recommend to the Senate.

We want to be fair. We want to weigh all of the interests: the institution, the senators, the public and Senator Meredith. And so, while we have to prompt, we also have to be correct in following the process and being fair to everyone and the process, committee chair Sen. Anita Raynell Andreychuk told reporters on Thursday.

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She indicated the committee intends to file its recommendations later this week. Some senators say the panel is taking its time  its been nearly two months  because it wants to get things right.

They are determined not to take any shortcuts, one senator who requested anonymity told HuffPost Canada.

That stems in part from the upper chamber's experience with kicking out Senators Brazeau, Duffy, and Wallin over their controversial expense claims without any criminal findings of guilt. Duffy was cleared by an Ontario judge, while the charges against Brazeau were dropped, and Wallin was never charged by the RCMP.

"The amateurs have f**ked this up," the senator said.

Precedent-setting

David Tkachuk, a Conservative senator since 1993, said he didn't want to share his opinion on what should happen to Meredith before the ethics committee has released its recommendations.

Tkachuk said he doesn't think any senator would argue with suspending Meredith, but removing a senator without a criminal charge is a big, big issue that could set a precedent.

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Inaction would be the worst case scenario, he said. I think there would be a revolt.

After being appointed by a sitting prime minister, senators have the privilege of serving the institution until they reach the age of 75. After their term expires, they qualify for a comfortable taxpayer-funded pension to buoy their finances for the rest of their lives. Meredith is 52.

They wouldnt know accountability if it jumped up and bit them in the ass.  NDP MP Nathan Cullen

NDP MP Nathan Cullen isnt convinced the Senate will protect federal employees over one of its own. At its core, he believes the patronage-protecting institution operates from another century under outdated transparency rules.

They wouldnt know accountability if it jumped up and bit them in the ass, Cullen said in an interview at his Ottawa office. The Senate wants to remain untouchable.

Cullen is disappointed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau  who has taken his message that hes a proud feminist to global audiences  is hesitant to directly condemn Meredith, even after the senators own admissions of the sex scandal.

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Trudeau has stuck to his message that its up to the Senate, as an independent institution, to determine Merediths fate. But the PM has suggested that the senator seriously consider the weight of his actions.

Speaking to reporters in Houston the day after Ricards report, the prime minister said politicians must prove themselves worthy of serving the public.

And I certainly would expect there are reflections going forward on how people are serving and fulfilling that public trust, Trudeau said at the time.

Still, Cullen isnt pleased with Trudeaus chosen tact.

The MP from northwestern B.C. said when he speaks to victims of sexual violence, and the conversations shifts to why they did or didnt come forward, its a very common story about how the systems fail.

Hes concerned women will view the politicking around the Meredith cases as another example of how crappy it is to have [an alleged] sexual predator come at you from a position of power.

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For the woman who claims she was repeatedly sexually harassed by her former employer, Ricards first report was bittersweet. She said she recognized patterns of abuse outlined in the write-up that aligned with her own alleged experiences with Meredith.

I feel like it was like proof that it did happen and that I was not the only one and hes doing the same thing, saying the same things, she said. But those initial feelings of relief and peace were fleeting.

She said if the Senate doesnt recommend Merediths expulsion over his sexual indiscretions involving a teenager, then maybe the anticipated workplace assessment report  with damning testimony reportedly from more than two dozen federal employees  will force the institution to take its responsibility.

The tone of her voice shifts into frustration.

Were in 2017 now and employees should not be treated like animals, she said. Everything that happened to me could have been avoided. Easily avoided.

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With files from Althia Raj

This is an ongoing investigation by HuffPost Canada. If youre a government worker who has been bullied or sexually harassed by an elected official, contact reporter Zi-Ann Lum in confidence at ziann.lum@huffingtonpost.com
If you had the chance to watch your kids in school all day, would you take it?

That's the option being offered to parents across China, as surveillance cameras installed in schools increasingly broadcast kids' lessons, from kindergarten all the way through university, reports the New York Times.

"Many parents want to understand their children in the classroom performance and learning situation," said a statement from Shuidi Zhibo, one of the largest carriers of these videos, according to NextShark. "Schools and teachers understand the demands of parents and understand they want to see their childs classroom performance."

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A livestream from one of Shuidi Zhibo's channels

With a few hundred live-streaming websites available to people throughout the country, many in China are used to recording their every move, but the increase in filming students  especially on sites open to the public  has raised concerns among both the children and the general public. On Shuidi Zhibo, real time classroom videos can be found under the topic of "Education."

China Daily quotes a principal as saying these cameras were requested by parents to encourage better behaviour and prevent bullying, but there's a strong possibility that lessons could be negatively impacted by the students and teachers being observed. As well, as the New York Times notes, bullying has increased in some circumstances, due to the comments left under the videos.

"It may increase stress on students and is likely to damage their relationships with their parents. No one wants to be monitored all the time," Zhao Yueling, deputy head of Henan institute of mental health, told China Daily.

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"No one wants to be monitored all the time." Mental health advocate

For some parents whose children are attending school far away from them because of work constraints, this can provide a link to their children, but also does give them a sense of unease.

"It doesn't feel safe and leaves no privacy at all," said one parent to The Paper. "For example, kids have to take off clothing for their midday nap, and thats not something for the whole world to gawk at."

Cameras in classrooms aren't entirely unknown in Canada, as many private daycares are equipped with such technology to "reassure" parents who want to check in on their kids throughout the day, according to a CBC story from 2012.

Private high schools, and even some public ones, have also installed closed circuit televisions (CCTVs) for security measures over the past few years.

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And while there are disparate opinions on whether or not that's a necessary addition to children's education, the main difference is that those feeds are accessed through private accounts, with the school controlling who can see them.

As Sixth Tone reports, lawyer Zhao Bo in central Chinas Henan province noted that in the case of Chinese classrooms, live-streaming broadcasters will need to reach an agreement with the students about showing them onscreen, or they could be violating their rights.
The Chinese government is trying a new method of catching corruption suspects now living overseas: naming and shaming.

The state-run newspaper China Daily published the names, photos, and locations of 22 corruption suspects living abroad, mainly in Western countries like Canada, the United States, and Australia.

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The notice issued Friday appears to be an attempt to pressure the suspects to reveal themselves, and the countries they live in to turn them over, according to the Associated Press. Many of these countries don't have extradition treaties with China.

Liu Jianchao, international cooperation bureau director for the ruling Communist Party's discipline inspection commission, told China Daily that the party is hoping the public will provide information about the fugitives.

"These corrupt fugitives used illegal means to grab a large amount of public funds and escaped abroad to avoid punishment, which has seriously harmed people's interests and undermined our credibility and social justice," Liu said.

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The 22 suspects were all part of an Interpol red-notice list of 100 of China's "most-wanted" criminals, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

The government released a statement that said passports and visas issued to the suspects should be revoked.

"China respects the laws of other countries and is ready to cooperate with them," the statement read.

"We urge specific countries not to pursue their own economic interests by issuing passports and visas through investment immigration schemes when applicants are suspected of corruption."

Real estate developer lost bid for Canadian refugee status

According to the release, the five Canadian-based suspects are all presumed to be living in British Columbia, and are accused of fraud, embezzlement, or misappropriation of public funds.

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One of the suspects, Cheng Muyang, also known as Mo Yeung (Michael) Ching, is a Vancouver real estate developer who lost his bid for refugee status in 2015 as a result of China's embezzlement allegations against him.

The South China Morning Post obtained documents from the Panama Papers investigation that revealed Ching was also a director and owner of two offshore companies set up in the British Virgin Islands.

President Xi Jinping's ongoing anti-corruption campaign has been criticized by political dissidents and scholars, who say it has been used to eliminate the Communist Party's political enemies and settle scores, according to the Post.

With files from The Associated Press

Also on HuffPost
What started as a long-distance love story ended in the most heartbreakingly bittersweet way possible.

Isaac and Teresa Vatkin were married for 69 years and on April 22, they died holding hands, just 40 minutes apart.

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"They were always in love, literally to the end. To the last second," Rabbi Barry Schechter said during a joint funeral service the following Monday at Shalom Memorial Funeral Home in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

According to the couple's granddaughter Debbie Handler, the Vatkins were being cared for at Highland Park Hospital in Illinois. When the pair were found unresponsive and breathing shallowly, staff brought the couple together and placed their beds side by side.

"I didn't want them to be scared," Handler told The Daily Herald. Handler also put the elderly couple's hands together. "I thought maybe if they knew the other was there, it would help," she said.

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When Teresa, 89, died first, Isaac, 91, waited less than an hour to join his dearly departed wife, and just minutes after staff removed his wife's hand from his.

"Their love for each other was so strong, they simply could not live without each other," the couple's daughter, Clara Gesklin, said at the funeral.

The couple, who met in Argentina, first had a long-distance relationship communicating mostly through letters. Eventually, they married and moved to the U.S. where they raised three children and started their own business. But they always remained focused on each other.

After Teresa developed Alzheimer's disease, Isaac, who was already in his 80s, learned how to use a computer so he could research cures. Eventually, when Teresa moved to a full-time care facility, Isaac even visited and cared for his wife on a daily basis.

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It's not uncommon for long-lasting couples and close relatives to pass away in quick succession, though it is rare for couples to pass away within minutes of each other making the Vatkins' love story all the more extraordinary.

Also on HuffPost
Volunteers from the Rotary Club of Carlisle spent the day Friday installing a learning trail at Heberlig Palmer Park in Carlisle that they believe will give area children a head start on their education.

An initiative of the United Way, the Born Learning Trail is a series of nine learning activities that promote fun and games. It is based on the latest early childhood research and approved by national early learning experts. It offers an interactive, playful engagement tool to help parents, caregivers and communities support early learning by helping boost childrens language and literacy skills, and encouraging families to be active.

One station along the trail, for example, asks parents and children to point to the letters painted on the ground and to say the sound it makes or think of words that begin with those letters.

Research tells us children are literally born learning. That means five years of education take place before they ever enter kindergarten. We know that what happens in a childs early years matters, both for success in life and for school readiness, said Lucy Zander, executive director of the United Way of Carlisle and Cumberland County.

Bill Blankmeyer, past president of the Rotary, said the project started two years ago when Brenda Landis of the West Side Neighbors contacted him seeking support for the project. Rotary agreed to assist, but the project was put on hold as renovations to the park were made.

Once that work was completed, Blankmeyer said the project was brought before the board a second time, and it was approved unanimously. The Rotary Club donated $1,500 to purchase the Born Learning Trail kit.

One of our areas of focus is supporting education, Blankmeyer said. This is right up our alley.

Zander said the park is the perfect location in that there is an existing walking trail, and it is a secure place for children that is frequented by people in the neighborhood.

Sign posts

On Friday morning, John W. Gleim Jr. Excavating donated the use of an auger to give the volunteers a hand with installing the sign posts. Blankmeyer said the Home Depot provided the posts at a discount and PPG Paints donated the seven colors of paint needed for each station along the trail.

The Born Learning Trail will be the first in the county, and one of a handful in the state.

Pennsylvania is just getting to know about these things, Blankmeyer said.

Zander hopes this trail is the first of many to come to the area within the United Way of Carlisle and Cumberland Countys service area, which includes Carlisle, Newville, Plainfield, Mt. Holly Springs, Boiling Springs and New Kingstown. Suitable locations would have to be found, and there would have to be commitment from the local municipality if the trail were in a municipal park.

If this project goes well and we see some results, I expect it would replicate elsewhere, Zander said.

Blankmeyer said he believes the Rotary will assist with the creation of trails at other parks in its footprint.

This has been a very fun project, and everybodys very motivated, Blankmeyer said.

The trail officially opened on Saturday with a ribbon cutting scheduled to coincide with the West Side Neighbors Associations annual Neighbors Helping Neighbors Community Service Day.

In the coming weeks, Zander said the trail will be promoted to childcare centers in the area that frequently take children outside during the summer.

Zander also said the United Way plans to maintain the trail through its annual Day of Caring event.
OTTAWA  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's efforts to avoid scrutiny will likely mean future prime ministers are held less to account, opposition MPs warned Monday.

The Liberal government announced late Sunday that it plans to press ahead and unilaterally change some of the rules of the House of Commons. Government House Leader Bardish Chagger said the Grits campaigned on the promise to have the prime minister answer all questions once a week and will enact that change with or without the opposition's support.

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The Conservatives and New Democrats say that would break 100-year-old tradition where Commons rules are changed only with the consent of all parties.

Its clear that they want to have the ability to give the prime minister permission to only be in the House of Commons to answer questions one day a week for one hour, Tory house leader Candice Bergen told reporters.

They dont have to change the rules. If he wants to be here all day on Wednesday, they could be doing that. But its clear that they want licence so that he doesn't have to show up any more than that one hour, one day a week.

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In April, Trudeau started responding to all opposition MP questions on Wednesdays. Nothing in the current standing orders  the rules of the House  prevent him from answering all the questions during question period. But nothing in the rules force him to show up either.

By parliamentary convention, the prime minister is expected to be present to answer for his governments behaviour several times a week.

Its pretty rich. Its hypocritical.

Chagger told reporters Trudeau plans to be in question period more than once a week, but she didnt specify how many days he planned to show up.

The opposition warned that over time, prime ministers will just stop attending the daily accountability period and the public will no longer be able to see the leader of government address scandals, big international events, or an economic downturn.

I presume what they will do is have the prime minister come Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and so forth but over time, you know, it will just be Wednesdays because that is what the standing orders say, NDP House leader Murray Rankin said.

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And then, another government comes in and it will become the Wednesday rule and the prime ministers need to be there, and answer the Canadian people on important issues of the day, will have disappeared. That is how things changed.

HuffPost Canada asked Chagger about that possibility but she dismissed it, saying: I would believe that all prime ministers want to be held to greater account.

Watch a press conference Chagger held on Monday embedded below:

Bardish Chagger News Conference On Parliamentary Reforms Government House Leader Bardish Chagger explains the Liberals change of strategy on Parliamentary reforms. Posted by HuffPost Canada Politics on Monday, May 1, 2017

The Conservatives and New Democrats pledged to continue to filibuster and use all the tools at their disposal to pressure the Liberals to abandon their changes.

We are more united than ever, Bergen said.

Chagger warned the government will likely use time allocations to push Liberal legislation forward.

Bergen responded that the Liberals were using the rule changes as political cover to employ legislative tricks such as time allocation and omnibus bills  things that they criticized the previous Conservative government of doing.

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Its pretty rich. Its hypocritical.

Also on HuffPost
I haven't blogged about education in a while. And I won't lie -- it's been a glorious break. Writing about all the bad parts of my job isn't fun. Letting myself think about the difficulties doesn't make me excited to go to work and be the best teacher I can be.

But today I need to talk about education. About the premier's deflection of all questions about more than a decade's worth of underfunding. About how she keeps saying that B.C. students are ranked number one internationally for reading.

Because the fact that we rank number one in reading means nothing.

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I teach English. I work my brain to mush teaching teens how to infer meaning, defend opinions, and think critically about the information their eyes transmit to their brains.

So, yes. I would hope they rank reasonably well. But the honest truth is that a lot of them don't. And every time the premier brags about how well B.C. students are ranked in reading, I have anxiety inducing flashbacks to the English class I was teaching during one of the years she's so proud of.

I was teaching English 10. That's the same grade level as the randomly selected handful of teens who write the PISA test the premier is talking about. And it was not a success.

I had 28 students in that class.

Eleven had previously failed English 10. Some had failed twice.

Two were beginner English Language Learners. One ended up pulled from my class in October. The other remained, with the understanding that there was no way the student would be able to pass. But there was nowhere else to put them.

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Three were intermediate English Language Learners.

One had a life threatening health condition and designated learning disabilities.

One had learning disabilities severe enough that their Individualized Education Plan called for someone to read and write for them. But learning disabilities don't qualify for an Education Assistant. So this student had no support in the class. They had no reader or scribe.

One student was finally tested for learning disabilities the semester they were in my class. Their cognitive ability -- what some might refer to as IQ -- tested well below average. So low that this student would not have been in a "regular" class years ago. But they were. And they did not qualify for an Education Assistant.

But these are just the students who had a designation or other on-file concern that they brought with them to class each day.

But two of these 28 students also had well-documented anger management issues and multiple suspensions.

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Five of them had attendance issues necessitating frequent intervention.

In truth, of this class of 28 students, only 14 would fit into the description of an "average" student -- and I'm including self-sufficient students with mental or physical health designations.

So, in one of the years the premier is holding up as a success, a full half of my class was struggling in ways that I could not support as a single classroom teacher in what was then a course that ended with a provincially mandated, standardized test. A test that some of these students didn't even show up for, because they knew there was no way they could pass.

And I wanted desperately for them to do well. But classroom management was a never ending gauntlet. I was in constant contact with counsellors and principals. Providing feedback and suggestions for improvement took ages. Class discussions were impossible. I re-structured my entire way of teaching to counter half a class's apathy caused by the school system that had failed them.

Yet some students did extremely well. Somehow, despite their teacher's exhaustion and their peers' attempts to derail lessons, they excelled. And they will continue to excel. Because that's who they are as people.

So, yes. Some students in B.C. are exceptional at reading. But that's their success. It's not their government's.

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And it sure as hell isn't shared by all those kids who were stuck in English 10. The kids who were floundering while their teacher did everything she possibly could. The kids whose failures the premier is calling a success.

Note: this class would not have even existed if the B.C. Liberals hadn't illegally discarded the teachers' contract, then spent years fighting the BCTF in court. Under the old contract, English classes are capped at 25 students -- fewer when there are students needing extra assistance.

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It feels great to face a challenge head-on and succeed. It's even better when you can share your experience with others so they can benefit from the things you've learned.

This has been top of mind for me since we unveiled Primus' new brand last fall. Having spent a considerable amount of time serving the telecom needs of many small businesses, I realized that there are lessons from our own experience that are helpful to any entrepreneur trying to stand out from the pack.

I know, you've likely seen management books about building a brand to supercharge your business. And it's understandable if a small business owner asks earnestly, "How can I possibly find the money or expertise to launch a new compelling brand identity?"

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I can tell you that we asked ourselves the same question as we approached the idea of rebranding the company. We were immersed in rewriting our business plan to refine our focus and compete for residential and small business customers against the deep-pocketed telecom companies.

Within a constantly evolving marketplace, we needed a way to drive our business forward while continuing to be bold and responsive to our clients. But how could we do that as efficiently and effectively as possible? Here are the top things we learned along the way:

It's not just about the logo: It might be tempting to invest in a flashy new logo or to hoist a giant sign on your roof that few customers will ever see. But these ego-building gestures are certainly 'nice to haves' if funds allow. If not, it makes sense to focus your dollars on the strategic plan to identify the right-fit brand for your business and the marketing tactics that will leverage the brand and make the biggest-impact.

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Define your position and promise: Designing a distinct brand begins with careful consideration as to who your customer is, what their needs are and how you can uniquely-position your brand to satisfy them. This may sound like basic business planning, but this thought process must drive your brand identity.

At Primus, facing a mountain of look-alike telecom giants, we talked to the people who knew us best - our loyal customers and employees - to set out our new brand position. We agreed upon: "To provide connectivity with a difference by delivering excellent customer service, the most relevant products, promises fulfilled and a better deal." We boiled this down to a simple brand promise, "Connectivity without compromise."

Prove your promise: A well-worded brand promise is inspiring, but how can you translate those words into real functional and emotional benefits for your customers? And how do you deliver products and services that deliver on your promise?

We based our brand on the things we did well, such as delivering innovation to customers for a great value. In fact, as the first telecom company in Canada to introduce VoIP services in 2004, known in the market as Digital Home Phone, and now the only Canadian carrier to help consumers effectively block nuisance calls with its patented Telemarketing GuardTM solution, we have a long history as an industry pioneer.

The most successful companies create an employee culture that is rooted to being true to their brand every day.

For your business, you need to carefully consider if and how you will credibly deliver on your promise to your customers.

Place your pins with precision: Primus did not have a big budget for branding. While the marketing team may tell you to splash your brand everywhere to create a buzz, we knew that wasn't an affordable option. Instead, we focused our spending on the handful of things that mattered most to customers. For us, that meant updating the assets that customers interact with most often, such as invoices and customer materials. We focused heavily on digital properties that have substantial customer reach, like our website, rather than physical assets, like building signage. Anything else could wait until it comes time to renew or restock existing supplies or materials.

Create consistency at every touch-point: Your brand investment is money down the drain if your customers don't get that same experience each time they call or click. You need to think through every 'touch-point' your customer has with your business. Besides your friendly customer service rep, consider everything from your voice mail system to your customer forms and statements. Ask whether they are 'user-friendly' and how they support your brand promise. Do they align with your brand's voice?

For a nation-wide communication carrier like Primus, that meant providing every employee with the goals and rationale for the change, an overview of the brand's position, and the tools to integrate it easily into their everyday activities. This ensures that we constantly look at things differently and ask ourselves things like, "Are we being responsive?" "Are our solutions dependable?" and "Are we easy to do business with?"

Create a true culture: The most successful companies create an employee culture that is rooted to being true to their brand every day. Then, from team gatherings to one-on-one meetings, they reinforce the message internally at every opportunity.

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For Primus, our employees have always been the key to delivering a better customer experience, and we've made it clear that we want to hear their suggestions and feedback to help us stand out. In fact, they played an integral role in every aspect of our transition, from brand development through to its launch.

Today, the new Primus brand promise reminds us how we are different from the large incumbent providers, as well as how we will deliver smarter connectivity and offer better choices to businesses and individuals. For any small business looking to conquer new markets and battle big competitors, your competitive advantage is your brand: well-thought out, carefully-executed, and consistently-delivered from every customer touch point, and embraced internally by every employee.

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How do you reform Canada's criminal justice system? Canadian Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and her provincial and territorial counterparts held an urgent meeting on April 28 to discuss "priority responses to further reduce delays in the criminal justice system."

There was scant information available to the public about the meeting. It appears, however, that there was no agreement on any substantive solutions. All we know is that several key areas face some kind of revision. Mandatory minimums, the bail process, the reclassification of offences and the administration of justice all seem to be on the table. Sadly, the reckless elimination of preliminary inquiries is also still an option.

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The ministers have gone so far, it seems, to label their efforts as "transformational" -- at least that is how their objectives are described in the Canadian Intergovernmental Secretariat News Release.

Indeed, depending on what is proposed, many of the prospective changes are necessary.

Necessary, but ultimately inadequate. Necessary but insufficient in resolving the inefficiency, the delays and the inhumanity of our criminal justice system. Necessary, but not "transformational."

That is because what our criminal justice system needs is not mere fixes that further entrench the status quo and the adversarial, punishment-oriented and individualistic process we have now, but true transformational change. We need transformational change that will not only dramatically reduce delays and backlogs in our criminal justice system, but will revolutionize it to make it more meaningful to both victims and offenders.

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The most imperative of these transformative options is the mainstream implementation of restorative justice. Restorative justice is a process that brings together (in appropriate cases) the offender, the victim and their supporters with highly trained and professional facilitators for one or more meetings, usually conducted in a circle. During these encounters, the victims tell their story, describe how the offence impacted them and seek answers from the offender. In turn, the offender listens, and relates his or her own story. The focus is on "why" rather than on "who," and on healing rather than on punishment. The group often works together to find a resolution, not a punishment.

By and large, restorative justice works. There is plenty of proof, including in Public Safety Canada's own records, that restorative justice is a better alternative to our system. It helps victims recover more quickly from post-traumatic stress disorder. It sometimes results in collaboration between the offender, the victim and the connected community to assist both the offender and the victim move forward. It holds offenders accountable and gives them a better chance at moving in a more positive direction.

And restorative justice seems to reduce recidivism. This is all in stark contrast to the impact of our current criminal justice system: costly, dehumanizing and generally ineffectual in rehabilitation, reintegration, and in reducing recidivism.

Rather than have accused persons (and victims) go through a harsh, degrading and impersonal court process and face a punitive, overly individualistic response, we should bring both willing accused and willing victims into the restorative justice process at the earliest possible stage. We should replace our adversarial, punishment-oriented system with restorative justice -- and not simply at the sentencing stage, which is where the dearth of our restorative justice activity lies now.

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While replacing our court process with a restorative process would be transformative and revolutionary for our western notion of justice, restorative justice, itself, is not revolutionary. It has its roots in many Indigenous communities. It has been tried, in one form or another, in other jurisdictions, from England to New Zealand (where restorative justice has replaced the adversarial system for youth since 1989), and on a smaller, more timid scale across various parts of Canada, as a part of the sentencing process.

More judges, more Crown attorneys, eliminating preliminary inquiries... they are all diversions.

Other solutions, such as reducing the number of charges laid and the number of cases that wind their way through the courts, eliminating solitary confinement, and keeping the mentally ill out of the criminal justice system are essential and will also significantly make the criminal justice system more just, more efficient and less costly. Yet none of these appear to have formed part of the discussion of our ministers of justice last Friday. Ultimately, no other "fix" will be as transformational as restorative justice.

Restorative justice is such a meaningful response to our criminal justice woes that any other solution pales in comparison. More judges, more Crown attorneys, eliminating preliminary inquiries... they are all diversions. They are Band-Aid solutions implemented when we (and our elected officials in particular) lack the will to confront the foundational challenges to our notion of justice and the courage to implement transformational change.

Our ministers of justice will be looking for fixes to our broken justice system. Instead, they should focus on creating a new one. A truly just justice system.

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When I read that the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) and the Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA) came out in favour of a cap on referral fees this week, I was very surprised. Referral fees are a more polite term for a finder's fee, and the idea lawyers would limit any kind of fee is certainly not consistent with my own experiences.

What lawyers are paying each other to find, of course, is the pain and suffering of accident victims like me. I sorely wish such a cap was in place when I needed legal help following my accident.

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In the latest piece of their ongoing series on personal injury lawyers, the Toronto Star published an article discussing a report from LSUC, which called for changes to how referral fees are charged in Ontario. Earlier in the same series, the Star revealed that the face of personal injury lawyers, Diamond and Diamond, had never tried a case.

His firm attracted clients with an abundance of advertising, passing those cases on to other lawyers to do the actual work, and collecting a referral fee for what would generously be called their "effort."

It is not hard to imagine how such a system could be taken advantage of by less than ethical lawyers. It is also easy to see how accident victims would feel they did not get the justice promised by a flashy bus ad when their case is immediately auctioned off to the highest bidder. Both OTLA and LSUC are right to support a cap on referral fees, and contracts that clearly outline referral fees ahead of time.

The question is, why would they want to stop there?

If referral fees run the risk of being used by the more shady members of the legal profession for their own gain, and clients deserve some protection in the form of a cap, what is so different about contingency fees?

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Like the proposed referral fees cap, contingency fees are put on a sliding scale based on the amount awarded in a settlement. Lawyers more concerned with their own pocketbooks than the well-being of their clients, have time and again taken ridiculous percentages in contingency fees, costing accident victims money meant to help with their own recovery.

In my own case, thanks to a confusing contract and his lack of a conscience, my lawyer took nearly half of my settlement.

In his private member's bill, MPP Mike Colle called for a ban on referral fees as one of the measures needed to protect accident victims like me. Lawyers groups like OTLA and LSUC seem to think he has a point, even if they have a different solution. Meanwhile, some personal injury lawyers are so opposed to Colle's bill - which calls for a cap on contingency fees as well - they hired high priced lobbyists to stop the bill from ever passing.

If lawyers can see the risk that referral fees present for their own profession and the victims they are supposed to protect, there is no reason LSUC and OTLA shouldn't support a cap on contingency fees as well. Such a cap would protect accident victims like me, and protect the legal profession's reputation from the members of their profession more concerned with money than justice.

There are a lot of similarities between referral fees and contingency fees, and one important difference. One key distinction between referral fees and contingency fees is that the latter tend to be thousands of dollars higher than the former. That may explain why lawyers are fine capping one, but not the other.

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According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, in Vaughan the average price of homes sold in March 2017 was a record high of $1.2M, up 31.8% from February 2016.

The housing market in the GTA has demonstrated unprecedented growth over the last few years. Canadians have become wealthy on paper due to property appreciation while maintaining their day-to-day job. Many are earning a lot more from their homes appreciating than their 40-hour work weeks.

Along with the growing housing market, we've seen a rise in pre-construction condo projects in the Greater Toronto Area. Is the condo market working its way up to be a lucrative investment as much as detached or semi-detached homes? Let's investigate.

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If we look at just the GTA we see dozens of pre-construction condo projects gaining significant momentum. Whether it's in downtown, Toronto, or Vaughan's new landmark Transit City project, to M City in Mississauga, the rise in pre-construction buildings is evident.

At a time when Ontario launched the fair housing plan to cool the market, pre-construction condos have become a popular option as real estate investments for first time purchasers. Pre-construction condo projects often have a modern lifestyle in mind when constructing, so it particularly appeals to the younger generation.

Let's look at Transit City Condos for instance, one of the largest condo development projects in North America. This 55-storey high-rise building will be interconnected with countless amenities, parks, community centers and most importantly transit. With a single unified owner of the site, the master planned 100-acre project will address all important aspects of a comfortable and mobile lifestyle.

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This profound concept we now see replicated and endorsed by municipal and federal bodies, working to grow the downtown areas of Toronto's prominent suburbs. This as a result transforms the entire area to be self-sustaining and increases economic contribution.

I had the chance last week to sit with Shab Rajabzadeh, Co-Founder of Cornerstone Marketing, the realty group managing sales for Transit City Condos. Shab continuously emphasized and alluded to the importance of having a modern and interconnected community. He emphasized that one eminent feature of Transit City Condos is the transportation, which for the first time in forty years is linking across municipalities. The project will be in the heart of Vaughan, with an underground path towards the subway from different buildings and directions.

Mayor of Vaughan, Maurizio Bevilacqua, describes the process as "creating a true downtown Vaughan."

This 100-acre project, Transit City, will be revolutionizing the city of Vaughan making it arguably the next most high demand place to live in the upcoming few years.

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The next big question is how to get your hands on one of these prestigious condo units? Unlike traditional resale, you cannot go directly to the builder. You have to purchase these units through what we call platinum brokers (Yes, I'm one of them). These platinum brokers have been working with builders for many years and now have developed enough trust to sell many units at the same time. There are also excellent websites out there such as www.TransitCityCondosDeals.com which offer clients with a full Transit City Condos package.

Many people often ask if investing in pre-construction condos is actually worth it?

As an analytical realtor who focuses heavily on market-based statistics, I've started to understand the growing shift towards pre-construction condos. Millennials now pretty much don't have any shot at purchasing a house with the current appreciation in the market, despite the government's efforts to slow things down. Even purchasing condos may be a stretch for some. Getting into pre-construction condos however, is the golden ticket.

And that's why I expect Transit City Condos to sell out in a week.

Jari Qudrat is a generation Y realtor and Vice President of CondoGen. He is a graduate from the Schulich School of Business. He can be reached at jari.qudrat@live.com

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It took the impact crater of a tomahawk missile for many of us to take U.S. President Donald Trump seriously. When the attack on Syria was followed by dropping the "Mother Of All Bombs" in Afghanistan a week later, it became crystal clear that that was the point.

With American ships sailing close to North Korea, and threatening tweets resounding through cyberspace, his critics are seeing their jokes about the folly of giving Trump access to nuclear weapons become a real concern, even while his supporters see his recent militaristic streak as a fulfillment of the type of action he promised to take during the first 100 days of his presidency.

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While much ink has been spilled about justifications for these attacks, such discussions are a distraction. By asking if an attack was justified, we imply that these attacks may have in fact been just, despite the fact that America is not technically at war in Syria, or even Afghanistan (America has not actually declared war since the Second World War). No unilateral military action outside of war has any hope of being deemed justifiable under any definition of Just War, not to mention violating numerous international treaties and laws including the United Nations Charter.

Let's be clear: while a sarin gas attack is a disgusting breach of international law and of humanity itself, in responding with military force outside of any formal war the United States has breached more international laws than the gas attack did. Whether or not the U.S. was effective in stopping any further gas attacks in Syria, whatever the motivations of president Trump, and even whether or not the attack was necessary, we should not be lulled into some sense that unilateral military action is OK.

What is perhaps more concerning than the United States taking illegal military actions is the way that the rest of the world responds to it. Not only are these strikes part of ongoing proxy wars involving the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Iran and China (to name a few), but they are condoned -- however cautiously -- by virtually all of America's allies and friends, including Canada.

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Donald Trump's contempt for internationalism, including the UN and NATO, is well known, and fuelled by the notion that the international community is both slow to act and ineffective. That this is perhaps most obvious in its continual failure to address America's long history of undeclared war and unilateral military actions is somewhat ironic, but very concerning.

The various wars and factions (and even nations) in the Middle East were largely created by past Western actions in the region, and Syria's internal conflict is greatly exacerbated by nations that are openly friendly even as they not-so-secretly manoeuvre for advantage over each other. That several of these nations have permanent seats on the UN Security Council ought to be cause for shame on their parts.

We know from experience that empowering factions with weapons and training not only prolongs wars, but also easily backfires.

The international community must call these nations together and make it clear that peace in the Middle East is a strategic advantage for everyone. A political solution in Syria will not only save thousands of lives there, but will also create greater stability in the region, whereas a military option will likely allow extremist militias to rise from the rubble as ISIS did in Iraq.

We must not do nothing about the terrible violence in Syria, but we must resist any sense that it is better to do anything at all. We know from experience that empowering factions with weapons and training not only prolongs wars, but also easily backfires (lest we forget that Osama bin Laden was armed and funded by the CIA as part of a proxy war against Russia).

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We also know from experience that winning wars in the Middle East is no less difficult than brokering peace: so far, we haven't managed to do either effectively. Nonviolence is often derided as an impractical ideal, but even as an ideal it is foundational to the charters of both the United Nations and the Global Greens; the Green Party of Canada would like to apply that ideal through concrete policies encouraging nonviolent conflict resolution and prevention, but in the current state of things, simply saying "we will not give the military blanket authorization to drop a massive ordinance air blast at will outside of an official state of war" is actually progressive.

So, what would a nonviolent approach look like?

Numerous ceasefires, which are the start of any non-violent solution, have collapsed; clearly there is a role for the international community to play other than egging on their favourite factions. Syria needs help to reinforce those ceasefires, create safe zones for civilians fleeing violence, and establish sufficient stability to permit effective international aid and host fair elections.

This is the only viable way toward a pacific settlement of Syria's disputes and a more unified front against ISIS, and would set a new and just tone for engagement in the Middle East (and perhaps North Korea). If the UN member nations are serious about their own Charter, and if the US is serious about its claim to be working toward peace and stability, then it is time to condemn all acts of violence, however necessary they seem at the time, and commit to political, nonviolent conflict resolution in Syria.

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In recent weeks, I was part of the GLOBE Capital Summit in Toronto. Leaders from both the private and public sectors came together to discuss how to mobilize and accelerate the funding necessary to transform into a lower carbon economy. I was also in Washington meeting with leaders on Capitol Hill to discuss how Canada and the United States can work together to provide responsibly produced energy.

In my conversations with senators and policy advisers, I heard that the U.S. is eager to work with Canada to develop a sustainable energy supply and how the greening of the Canadian oil sector can help facilitate that outcome.

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The conversations in Washington and Toronto further validated the need for investment in Canadian infrastructure that will contribute to a greener future. We know that cleantech companies are developing and testing innovative technologies that have the potential to change the energy industry for the better. These companies, however, require buy-in from both the government and the industry to move to the next stage of implementation.

Nsolv, a made-in-Canada solution for sustainable in-situ heavy oil extraction, is one example of clean technology that has been tested and proven in the field. Its pilot plant, which is now winding down after three successful years, produced more than 125,000 barrels of oil while generating minimal greenhouse gas emissions and using no water. The solvent technology is proven and ready for a commercial-scale partnership.

We should really be worrying about the risks of not taking immediate action.

In my last post, I noted that commercialization is a major hurdle for any small or medium-sized technology company, especially in Alberta's oil and gas industry. Many companies are often content to leave their oil and gas assets underground until new technologies are de-risked by others.

This "first adopter syndrome" is detrimental to the future of our industry, and society as a whole. While it is positive that we are having conversations on a global, national and provincial scale, what we really need to see is action. The longer we wait for larger-scale adoption of cleaner technology, the longer we will have to wait to reap the benefits. While industry and government are worried about the risks of implementing these new technologies, we should really be worrying about the risks of not taking immediate action. We are missing out on the potential exponential growth of economic and environmental benefits -- and it's going to cost us in more than one way.

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Environment

As we wait for the large-scale adoption of clean technologies, Canada continues to be among the top 12 global emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Among the provinces, Alberta is by far the largest contributor of GHGs. While both the federal and provincial governments are introducing measures such as carbon caps and levies, these are punitive measures and they will not be enough to bring about change. A fundamental shift needs to happen to allow industry to continue producing the country's resources, while also significantly reducing its environmental footprint.

An example of a significant environmental risk is the use of water in the oil sands. One of the challenges of steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) operations is managing the volume of water that is used to bring oil to the surface. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the industry uses an average of 0.4 barrels of fresh water for every barrel of in-situ bitumen produced. In 2014, that amounted to a total of 75 million barrels, or 3.17 billion gallons, of freshwater consumption.

There is a huge opportunity for companies to take bold action in cutting emissions while also reducing their supply cost in the long term.

While much of the water is recycled in the SAGD process, generating steam is both high in cost and can have a negative impact on the environment. Steam generation consumes large volumes of water and generates considerable greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, technology companies like Nsolv have developed alternative solutions that use a solvent to cut water out of the recovery process entirely while minimizing any greenhouse gas generation.

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Supply costs

Supply cost is the constant dollar price needed to recover all capital expenditures, operating costs, royalties and taxes, and earn a specified return on investment. The goal for oil sands producers today is to lower their supply costs and improve their environmental footprint while also supporting oil sands development and remaining competitive.

According to a CIBC Institutional Equity Research Report, the supply cost for a SAGD project based on a 15-per-cent internal rate of return is estimated at more than US$65 per barrel. In comparison, solvent-only projects have the potential to lower supply costs to below US$50 per barrel. Based on these projections, there is a huge opportunity here for companies to take bold action in their commitment to cutting emissions while also reducing their supply cost in the long term.

Royalty revenue

While producers have an opportunity to reduce supply cost, government has an opportunity to generate more revenue in the form of royalties. Over the next 20 years, the oil sands industry is expected to pay $1.2 trillion in provincial and federal taxes which includes royalties. These royalty revenues contribute to government spending on infrastructure, social services and other important programs across the country.

According to analysis conducted by Nsolv, over the 30-year life of a 30,000-barrel-per-day plant, which is typical for a SAGD commercial-scale project, solvent-only based technology would bring in over one billion dollars more in royalty revenue than a SAGD project. Solvent-only processes would pay out faster and generate more profit for the industry. This means government would earn more in royalty revenue and would have the funds necessary to build the infrastructure our country needs.

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Added revenue provides an opportunity for government to introduce tax or monetary incentives for first adopters of clean technology solutions. By working together with the industry, the government can help push our climate goals forward while also earning more revenue and providing support to small, cleantech companies.

Competitive edge

Canada as a country faces many risks if we continue on this path of slow incremental change. While many countries are taking bold action to reduce their environmental footprint, the current U.S. administration is planning to take a different approach. Canada needs to decide where we stand. Are we going to follow the U.S.? Or are we going to be leaders who use innovative technologies to cut emissions and move closer to our climate goals?

As a current leader and the most secure supplier of energy products to the U.S. including crude oil, refined petroleum, natural gas, electricity and uranium, Canada can remain competitive in this market. We have technologies that can allow Canada to lead and become more competitive with less responsible energy producers. We just need to allow industry, the government and technology providers to overcome the challenges facing first adoption.

The solution is within grasp, and Canadians should be asking the industry and government why it isn't happening.

The risks of not enacting change significantly outweigh the risks of implementing new technologies. Holding back is already costing us money and causing further damage to the environment, and the longer we wait, the worse it will get. Canada has an opportunity to be a leader and to show the world that it is possible to combat these larger-than-life challenges we face. Replacing the first adopter syndrome with a trailblazing attitude is a first step.

Government and large industry have a role to play in speeding up the adoption of technologies to solve the environmental and economic problems of heavy oil extraction. Leadership is required in this area to meet environmental objectives and create an economically sustainable oil and gas industry.

After my discussions with leaders in Washington and Toronto, I can say with confidence that there is alignment in our goals to work towards a cleaner energy future. Clean technology is the clearest path forward, and the sooner we act, the sooner we will begin to build the momentum that is needed to make significant change over time. The solution is within grasp, and Canadians should be asking the industry and government why it isn't happening.

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Sometimes atheists, feminists and LGBTQ rights activists create a new orthodoxy when they demean those who do not share their views. In their critiques they also dictate how allies should think and when they should talk. Battling others for being judgmental and lacking compassion, they become the very embodiment of what they oppose.

Not all traditionally conservative people are judgmental, sexist or homophobic. They may reject a worldview without God and traditional rules of ethical conduct while being compassionate neighbours and friends.

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Disagreement is part of the human experience. Therefore, belittling allies in aggressive tones, dictating their conduct and thought process as if we were the fonts of wisdom by virtue of being oppressed is unwarranted.

Muslim activist Amanda Quraishi aptly captures this new culture of constant haranguing as follows:

"The problem with giving a shit about anything is that as soon as people see that you do, they start complaining that you don't give enough of a shit ... or that you should be giving more of a shit about something else. This never happens to people who give no shits at all."

In order to resist this toxic culture of demeaning others we have to harness the spirit of simple gratitude. Here is a list of unsung straight Muslim allies who have stood by the LGBTQ Muslim community against Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia in their respective capacities.

1)Ayman Fadel

Muslim activist Ayman Fadel has carefully reviewed our Journal of Homosexuality article and the book Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions. He caught errors that escaped our eyes and painstakingly edited and formatted our text. Post-Orlando, he promoted our book, suggesting that Muslim communities should keep it in their libraries.

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Fadel is very intellectually honest and an excellent human being. In his blog "My Journey from Homophobe to Less Bad of a Human!", he wrote:

"I knew how to pray, fast, read the Qur'an and abstain from pork and alcohol, but I did not know to avoid insulting people. ... I wish I could claim that through repentance and study and prayer I changed, but it was actually a non-Muslim friend who told me that the next day she would be identified in the student newspaper at University of Virginia as a leader of an LGBT group on campus. She was worried what I'd think, no doubt because she had heard me spouting off with anti-gay slurs. I immediately told her it would not change my affection for her in the least."

2)Laury Silvers

Muslim academic Laury Silvers helped co-found the religiously plural, gender-equal and LGBTQ-affirming prayer space in Toronto known as the el-Tawhid Juma Circle. She has participated in several dialogues and initiatives on Muslim LGBTQ concerns and contributed to a chapter in the book, "Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives."

She includes discussions on sexual minorities in the courses she teaches at the University of Toronto. This year, she invited me to speak to her class. She often asserts:

"LGBTQ Muslims have been in the forefront of supporting Muslim women's rights. ... Yet they are often left out of our telling of that history. ... Too many progressive Muslim women (and men) see LGBTQ Muslims as the third rail in 'progress' because either they make them feel uncomfortable or they are afraid of alienating more conservative elements."

"Dads with hennaed beards and dark sadjah marks have turned out to be some of the most fervent supporters." -- Nakia Jackson

3)Nakia Jackson

Muslim activist Nakia Jackson is a proud mother of an autistic son. She has been quite active on issues pertaining to Muslim women, black Muslims, LGBTQ Muslims and their intersections. She has led prayers in gender equal and LGBTQ affirming Muslim spaces on the basis on what she calls "shared authority." Supporting a bisexual Muslim on coming out, she wrote:

"Be prepared to be surprised. Wine-drinking Muslim moms have proven to be curiously homophobic or biphobic. Dads with hennaed beards and dark sadjah marks have turned out to be some of the most fervent supporters of their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children."

4) Ani Zonneveld

Ani Zonneveld of U.S.-based Muslims for Progressive Values has been a staunch ally of LGBTQ Muslims. She works relentlessly on the issue and has offered affirming resources along with officiating Muslim same-sex unions.

5)Shahla Khan Salter

A single mother and a lawyer, Shahla Khan Salter of Canada based Universalist Muslims has marched in Pride parades, offered reflection for Pride service and continues to offer her unstinted support to LGBTQ Muslims. Writing against bullying of LGBTQ students, she mentioned:

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"In Muslim communities, we may not all agree on whether same-sex sexual relations are permissible. Certainly discord on this issue is not unique to Muslims. But all that schools are doing to promote tolerance must not be undone in the name of religion. There is no room for hatred and intolerance in any religion -- and in my humble opinion, especially in Islam."

One hopes that as the LGBTQ Muslim community matures, they will remember and honour these courageous straight Muslim allies.

6)Khaleel Mohammed

Imam Mohammed developed and taught a course in Muslim sexuality at San Diego State University. He has given several presentations on LGBTQ concerns in Islam and has offered "methods of arguing against the fundamentalist interpretations of proscription."

7)Jeewan Chanicka

In 2015, a Muslim school principal in Toronto, Chanicka, resisted conservative parents when they attacked the sex education curriculum in Ontario. He firmly expressed that "in the school system, children must learn that there are different kinds of families and to learn to respect those differences."

He expressed his solidarity again when he rallied dozens of Muslim organizations and faith leaders across Canada to sign onto a public statement against homophobia and transphobia in the wake of the Orlando shooting.

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However, this is not an exhaustive list of straight Muslim allies. One hopes that as the LGBTQ Muslim community matures, they will remember and honour these courageous straight Muslim allies.

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ANNVILLE  Nestled on a wooded hillside at Fort Indiantown Gap is a one-of-a-kind home  and it comes with a one-of-a-kind price tag to taxpayers.

The 2,400-square-foot lieutenant governor's residence off Fisher Avenue in East Hanover Township may be the only residence that any state provides to its second in command.

The typically ignored home became the center of an unusual political controversy last month when Lt. Gov. Mike Stack responded to reports that Gov. Tom Wolf had ordered an investigation into allegations that Stack verbally abused staff and asked state police to use lights and sirens while driving him in nonemergency situations.

Even in the best of times, critics insist the mansion is an extravagance taxpayers can't afford. The state has spent more than $340,000 already this year from a fund assigned to the home, which serves as the residence for an official with limited constitutional duties.

Eric Epstein, coordinator of state watchdog group Rock the Capitol, suggested the lieutenant governor should live in the governor's mansion on Front Street in Harrisburg.

"In America, we call that a duplex," Epstein said.

But former lieutenant governors and their families say the Gap home  called the State House  has strategic and historical significance that shouldn't be underestimated.

Former Lt. Gov. Mark Singel said he often lightened the governor's load by greeting visitors from other states and countries at the State House on his behalf. He once took a phone call from President Bill Clinton while in its home office.

"I believe it's a treasure, and Pennsylvania ought to keep it," Singel said.

Three floors and pool

Current staffing at the residence includes one full-time employee who performs maintenance and landscaping work; an as-needed cook for official lieutenant governor functions; and cleaning personnel who provide housekeeping activities twice per week "as resources allow," said Pennsylvania Department of General Services Press Secretary Troy Thompson.

There are other employees assigned to the home, but they are actually working elsewhere, Thompson said. That means the actual cost of maintaining the home is less than the $340,000 Pennsylvania taxpayers officially paid for it in the 2016-17 fiscal year, he said.

Julia Hurst, director of the National Lieutenant Governors Association, said she isn't aware of any state other than Pennsylvania providing a residence for its second-in-command. Kentucky used to have a lieutenant governor's residence but turned it into a museum in 2002.

While no comprehensive list of housing arrangements for lieutenant governors exists, some states provide a housing allowance, Hurst said.

The first floor of Pennsylvania's State House includes a library, living room, formal dining room, a powder room, a primary kitchen and a prep kitchen, according to Monica Kline, daughter of former Lt. Gov. Ernie Kline. When the Klines lived there, the first floor was primarily used for the lieutenant governor's formal functions, while the second floor and third floor attic included a master bedroom and bedrooms that housed their seven children. The home comes with a swimming pool.

Still, critics like Bob Warner of Common Cause Pennsylvania say it's an extravagance Pennsylvanians can't afford given the state's ongoing pension crisis.

"He could find an apartment for himself and pay for it," Warner said  especially given the lieutenant governor's $162,373 annual salary.

A working home

Former lieutenant governors, however, say the home has strategic significance. Located on the Gap property, it allows the lieutenant governor to get in the air quickly in the case of an emergency, former governor and lieutenant governor Mark Schweiker said.

Located in a rural area, it also helps the lieutenant governor become aware of the needs of rural life that is central to Pennsylvania, Schweiker said.

The home has been a working residence for some lieutenant governors. Because of its "park-like" setting, it was a good place to host informal receptions, Singel said. The entire cabinet sometimes visited for picnics in the summer.

When Singel became acting governor as then-Gov. Bob Casey Sr. battled a serious illness, he stayed at the State House for symbolic reasons rather than moving to the governor's mansion.

"I wanted to send a message very clearly that while I was performing the duties of the governor, I wasn't interested in any kind of a self-aggrandizing display," he said. "I was operating on the assumption that he was going to return, and I was simply steering the ship of state until that happened."

If two houses are considered an extravagance, Monica Kline recommends getting rid of what she called the "ugly" governor's mansion in Harrisburg instead and keeping what she believes is the more attractive and historic Gap home.

A job to do?

For critics like Epstein, the mansion is insult to injury for a position that is a bit of an extravagance anyway. The lieutenant governor's only official duties are serving as president of the Senate and chairing the Board of Pardons and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Council.

Many cabinet officials have far more important jobs, yet they aren't given a residence, Warner said.

Yet Singel said that even if lieutenant governors never get the top job, the position is "underrated." The lieutenant governor typically has a group of projects they are working on and a full schedule of community and speaking events. Singel served on eight boards and commissions on behalf of Casey and often greeted visitors from other states and countries on his behalf.

"I like to think I lessened his burden a bit," he said.

In recent decades, two lieutenant governors were called upon to run the state: Singel and Schweiker, who assumed the governor's duties when Tom Ridge was tapped by former President George W. Bush to be the first secretary of homeland security.
The first week of May, in Canada, is mental health awareness while in the U.S., the entire month of May is devoted to mental health. Then, in October, we have mental illness awareness in Canada and in the U.S.. I'm not sure why we have two but the one group that is left out of both are the families -- the long suffering heroes for many people with mental illness and, in particular, those with serious mental illness.

The other evening, I saw a commercial for UNICEF saying that no parent should watch their child suffer and they are right but the parents of those with serious mental illness do that every day while they struggle to help their adult children in an environment that often disdains families.

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In his excellent book Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill, author DJ Jaffe points out the insane consequences to the parents and families. He and his wife had taken in his young sister-in-law who was having problems. When she spent hours one day screaming at the voices in her head, they took her to the emergency where she was admitted. She was diagnosed, medicated and provided with rehabilitative therapy and released.

But, in a commonly misguided attempt by the doctors to protect her privacy, Jaffe and his wife were not told anything even though she lived with them and depended upon them for support. She soon stopped taking her medications and was eventually re-hospitalized after she became catatonic. It was only then that they accidentally heard from a nurse that she had schizophrenia.

The European Federation of Families of People with Mental Illness (EUFAMI), a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of family carers, conducted an international survey on the impact of serious mental illness on families.

The results are not pretty!

The survey of over 1000 people was conducted in 22 countries including Canada.

Four in ten respondents were dissatisfied with the support they received from doctors and one in three were dissatisfied with support from nurses. Only three in 10 were happy with the help they received from their social workers. Two thirds of people complained that they were not considered in important decisions being made for their family member and more than 60 per cent did not feel that the system professionals took them seriously.

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EUFAMI points out that the shift away from hospital-based care makes the role of the caregiver essential in the support of their family members and yet they are often left out and ignored. Those who replied to the survey had been involved for over 15 years and were typically females aged 60. Three quarters of them are caring for a child and many feel depressed, lack proper sleep have feelings of anxiety and an inability to cope.

As Jaffe points out, "the moms and dads are the heroes, with siblings and children of the ill not far behind... but they are looked on as pariahs by the mental health industry." Doctors and others spout platitudes about the importance of family involvement until the family disagrees with their decision to deny their loved one care. "Then, all bets are off. The family doesn't understand or we have to empower the patient."

In March, I wrote about a Richmond Hill, Ontario mother who filed a complaint against her son's psychiatrist and I argued her case before the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board. One of the details was that the medication was ineffective and the family wanted what was being prescribed reviewed. The doctor refused to listen and told the family to leave his office while he discussed the prescription with his patient. He was found at fault by his regulator and ordered to write a 2,000 page paper and it is the lightness of that penalty that is being appealed. He refused to take into consideration the observations of the family who live with the patient and preferred his own observations based on four visits per year of 15 minutes duration.

An even sadder case that, by luck, was resolved without death, is that of Judy Szeman. She had been discharged from a hospital only on the basis that she have a Community Treatment Order to ensure that she remained treated and taking her medication. These orders have to be reviewed regularly and at one review, her family was not told of the meeting. Ms Szeman's lawyer had the order removed since no family member was there.

She went off her medications and disappeared with no wallet, money, credit cards or cell phone. The Toronto Police held out little hope that she would be found alive while the Peel Regional Police conducted searches of ravines and rivers in the area of her family home. Two months later, she was found in a group home in Hamilton, ON.

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At the core of this disdain showed to families is privacy legislation. Many jurisdictions have legislation that handcuffs professionals from talking to families about their ill relatives. Privacy is important but when it is the family and they are, as one author Jaffe quotes, "the new mental institution" providing shelter, case management, financial and moral support, they deserve to be consulted. Instead, many clinicians hide behind this privacy.

Privacy legislation aside, "Another reason why some clinicians are reluctant to share information with families is the lingering belief that families are a cause of the patient's illness." That was written in a recent journal article by Dr Richard O'Reilly and colleagues at Western University in London, Ontario. They suggest that the clinician ask their patient if they can include the family. Rarely, they say, is this ever done. The clinician simply makes the assumption that the family is not to be included. If the clinician asks and explains the reasons why, most patients will agree.

"Some patients," they say, "may have specific information that they do not want disclosed, such as details of sexual behaviour. Most of these patients agree to family involvement when reassured that these details will not be shared. In some cases, clinicians might suggest meeting family in the patient's presence; this often allays a patient's fears. These steps are similar to an approach recommended in the United Kingdom and to recommendations made by the Mental Health Commission of Canada."

If consent is not forthcoming under any circumstances, the clinician can still listen to the concerns of the family in order to gain a greater understanding of what his/her patient is going through.

The bottom line is that outcomes for people with serious mental illness will be improved if clinicians bothered to listen and to include them. The stress faced by family caregivers would be significantly reduced as well. So, when thinking about mental health week/month or mental illness awareness, give some thought to the difficult and brave role that families play.

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Give a family member a hug.

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There are three problems with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission's (CRTC) decision on differential pricing or so called zero rating or free internet data. Restricting the ability to differentiate prices can limit internet adoption, especially among the poor and elderly. Second, the CRTC has not performed an assessment of its framework on incentives to invest in networks. Finally, in creating the regulation, the CRTC appears to have prioritized one group of Canadians above others.

My reaction gathered attention because I served on the President Elect Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission in the USA.

While my views should not be construed as government policy, they do reflect the findings of my research and my learnings from Canadian teachers and colleagues at Aalborg University in Denmark. I received no financial compensation to participate in the CRTC hearing or to engage in the discussion.

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My goal is to encourage regulators to use evidence-based approaches to policy, for example studying empirically whether zero rating deters entry into the marketplace or harms competing applications. I suggest that regulators use analytics tools to investigate internet traffic. I am one of few academics who has performed empirical studies of zero rating and free data, which I submitted to CRTC.

I also highlighted incorrect information submitted by the Canadian Media Concentration Research Project, a group which supports the new framework. From its statement, the CRTC downplays, if not rejects, empirical research to develop the framework.

The role of free data in the provision of mhealth and egovernment services

My research documents that at least 10 million people use zero rated internet services for AIDS and prenatal care. In emerging countries, some 2000 women and children die daily in childbirth, deaths that are largely preventable through prenatal care enabled in part through free internet messaging.

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AIDS sufferers in emerging countries rely on similar services to ensure their medications are not counterfeit. While many mhealth mobile apps have been launched, some never get traction because many low income users cannot afford the cost of a subscription.

Sadly in 2016 India's Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRAI) banned the very technologies that allow the poor to access health care information for free. Meanwhile India's neighbors employ free data and have significantly higher rates of Internet adoption among their poor. It's odd that TRAI took such a turn after having created one of the world's great regulatory stories, something I experienced having worked in India. Beginning in 1999, TRAI liberated the mobile market with differential pricing, and a decade later, subscriptions had increased 500 fold while prices fell by 95 percent.

In spite of its software industry success, India still has one of the lowest rates of Internet adoption of any country. As a result of the CRTC's ruling, Canada, like India, have some of the most restrictive regimes in the world for zero rating. It would seem that the better way for the CRTC to support Canadians would be to partner with Health Canada to enable free mobile video for prevention and management of the costly chronic diseases, rather than to micromanage the marginal pricing practices of firms.

The ability to offer a price is itself a form of communication, if not of speech. The freedom to differentiate product, service and price is at the heart of a market economy.

Differential pricing as an incentive for 5G network investment

While wireless networks cover the world, investment must continue to maintain and upgrade networks. Following 4G is 5G or, Fifth Generation wireless systems. 5G will allow users to experience unprecedented speeds, "fiber to the phone" so to speak. For the period of 2000-2012 Canada invested more than any country per capita in communications networks, save Japan.

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During this period, Canada had a leading role in the rollout of new network technology as well as broadband adoption, according to the OECD. I describe how wireless networks underpin the world's greatest bilateral trading relationship between the US and Canada.

However the CRTC's new framework gives short shrift to the importance of investment, suggesting that investment is nothing more than adding more pipes to manage undifferentiated data flow. The CRTC paradigm of so-called "neutral" or "dumb pipe" connectivity in which broadband providers sell subscriptions based only on speed and volume is incompatible with the 5G intelligent networks in which billions of human and non-human users need discrete amounts of data with guaranteed quality of service. It is precisely the ability to differentiate in value, offer, service, technology, and strategy that drives a company to invest.

The CRTC's restrictive pricing framework presents a significant disincentive for investors. Supporters of the CRTC's decision argue that the Internet is a public utility, and therefore should be managed by the government. If that is the case, the government should nationalize broadband networks and give the shareholders their money back. In a market economy, the CRTC's differential pricing framework amounts to a price control which reduces return on investment and is a form of government taking without compensating owners.

Prioritizing one group above others

In the process to create its framework, the CRTC leveraged Reddit to create the appearance that its regulations were embraced by all Canadians. Reddit is a cool platform, but using it in a so-called expert, independent regulatory proceeding, marginalizes other groups, particularly the elderly who are less likely to be online.

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To be sure, the Canadian users of Reddit are likely pleased with the CRTC's framework, at least in the short run. Its primary users, described as males aged 18-29, may favor mandated flat rate internet service. But users with different needs and budget, and those who have never tried the internet may well appreciate a differentiated service. First internet time users now have yet another barrier to try the Internet, the prohibition of a free trial.

The ability to offer a price is itself a form of communication, if not of speech. The freedom to differentiate product, service and price is at the heart of a market economy. Courts in Netherlands, Sweden, and Slovenia have struck down restrictions on zero rating. For the most part, the world's telecom regulators are permissive, if not encouraging, of a practice that creates competition and allows different people to meet their needs at different price points. Indeed free data has been around for more than a decade and is embraced in Denmark, a leading digital nation.

The CRTC is going in the opposite direction of the world's telecom regulators; it seems to believe that it knows better than the user herself.
Canada's military veterans are suffering another condition of late: envy. They watch National Defence Ombudsman Gary Walbourne, relentlessly petition government to improve the lives of soldiers. Veterans long for their Ombudsman, Guy Parent, to have the same backbone.

In six years, Parent has held just two press conferences unlike most other oversight appointees. He prefers his personal blog and the occasional news release as the primary vehicle for informing the public. Parent's most recent release titled Budget 2017 Addresses Veterans Ombudsman's Recommendations was characteristically hasty to compliment government before he knew the details of new programs: "I am pleased that the Government is taking my recommendations seriously and is moving forward on several of them."

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Parent has never made this appeal, preferring a buddy-to-the-minister approach that has rarely sparked bureaucrats into action. Six years into Parent's mandate, systemic problems still plaque the bureaucracy while inadequate programs afflict veterans and their families.

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My first published column 12 years ago called for a veterans' ombudsman and was widely cited in the Conservative platform that resulted in the establishment of Parent's office. In fact, along with trailblazing advocates like Louise Richard, we were the first to publicly call for the creation of an independent office, not one beholden to the very Department it is mandated to oversee.

Parent praised the Conservative government for making "great strides" in helping veterans. He publicly stood beside former Minister O'Toole at the announcement of new programs, enthusiastically endorsing government and those programs when no one, including the Minister, knew the details of whether the programs were of benefit to veterans. This highly suspect act alone should have prompted his removal.

A sycophantic agenda is repugnant for an "impartial, arms-length and independent officer." When asked to resign by the current Liberal government, he refused. Meanwhile, Minister of Veterans Affairs, Kent Hehr, remained silent. Parent's performance, not to mention potentially breaching his professional ethical code should have been scrutinized by both veterans and Parliament.

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His recommendations are often just as confusing and meandering as the bureaucracy he claims to oversee. Furthermore, he takes credit for changes that likely would have occurred faster and more substantially without his office's existence. His repeated fawning of government of any stripe allows bureaucracy to continue at its snail's pace without worrying whether an ombudsman might bite them publicly. Minsters can claim they are listening to the "voice of veterans."

Parent turns 70 this year and has never worked outside the military or public service culture since he was 17. Such lifelong deference to authority creates lapdogs who dare not violate the taboo of pushing government beyond polite reports and mostly ignored and ineffectual blog postings. He is an inveterate bureaucrat whose loyalty to not publicly offend government relegates any loyalty to veterans into last place He is not unlike most federal oversight officers in this regard who are bureaucrats asked to police bureaucrats. Such practice perpetuates wrongdoing and mismanagement and has widely been condemned in the private and public sector.

Nevertheless, it is time for Guy Parent to find another public service job.

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After announcing a snap General Election last week, Prime Minister May was quick to announce that she would not participate in any leadership debates. Even with the talk of broadcasters threatening to 'empty chair' May, she has still failed to commit to participating in what has become an election hallmark, with debates being a vital way for the electorate to make their democratic decision. Jeremy Corbyn has since followed in suit, declaring that without the presence of the Prime Minister he also would not make the direct appeal to voters that a leadership debate involves.

Since the televised leadership debate was introduced by John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential Election, it has globally become a permanent fixture that voters have become accustomed to, it has become a vital part of choosing whom to vote for. One only has to look to our transatlantic neighbours to see the impact and success of leadership debates in engaging potential voters, with over 80 million individuals tuning into each of the three US Presidential debates. In the UK, televised debates were highly successful during the 2015 General Election and the recent EU Referendum, providing an opportunity to engage a mass electorate who would not normally have such access to the political system.

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Prime Minister May has argued that there is no need to participate in a leadership debate as she engages in debate with the opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn every Wednesday in Parliament. However, I argue that this is not enough, leadership debates should not be optional as they have become something that the electorate both wants and needs in order to make their democratic decision. With the vast percentage of the electorate not being able to watch PMQs each Wednesday, with work and educational commitments inconveniencing viewing ability, a prime-time televised leadership debate is needed and can be expected if the voters are to make an informed decision.

Importantly, a televised leadership debate allows for a chance for all voters and especially first time voters and the younger demographic to actively engage with the political system. Seeing the party leaders on prime-time television, rather than just reading about them in newspapers, allows the leaders to take on a more human and accessible approach to the voters. This provides an opportunity for politicians to reach out to the blank-slates, the first-time voters with no previous political ideology. These are the individuals who need aiding in becoming the democratically engaged citizens that can help in avoiding an apathetic future for our nation. The importance of televised leadership debates in educating and engaging the electorate means that they should become a stable part of any election process.

Four organisations have teamed up to address this problem and appeal to the youth demographic through this engaging and democratically important method. 45forthe45th, Undivided, Simple Politics and Talk Politics are working together to organise and host a leadership debate specifically aimed at 18-24 year olds. The youth political engagement organisations have teamed up in the hope that a televised debate addressing the political issues that matter to young people will motivate and politically engage an often unacknowledged, ignored and apathetic demographic.

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They propose a #GE17YouthDebate, which will be a fantastic opportunity for the parties to speak directly to young people and encourage the increased political involvement of the generation that will make up our future. They are calling on the leaders to engage in dialogue with these pioneering organisations and reach out to potential young voters and debate for the younger generations of Great Britain.

We should support and praise the work of the four organisations tackling this problem and do all we can to ensure the success of their attempts. What we need is for the party leaders to acknowledge the importance of political debates. We need both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn to respect the electorate's wants and needs, understand the importance of young voters and participate in a televised debate for young people.

#GE17YouthDebate
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As the founder of the anti-Muslim hate monitoring and support service, Tell MAMA, the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee on social media companies and their inaction to remove extremist and illegal material is a breath of fresh air and a vindication for many of us who for years have been brushed aside by the arrogance of social media corporations and their public relations teams. For years we highlighted how their platforms have been used to humiliate people because of their identities and to promote extremism, as well as anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hatred. The response from social media companies like Google, Twitter and You Tube in particular, has been bluster, public relations spin and media lines that have done nothing to help victims who have suffered so much on their platforms.

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The Home Affairs Select Committee today publishes its long awaited report entitled, 'Hate Crime: abuse, hate and extremism online'. If ever social media companies should feel humility, it should be now and through this report. I am reminded of Hans Christian Anderson's tale of the 'Emperor's New Clothes'. The difference here though is that social media companies have done everything in their power to construct a narrative that they have been acting on hate speech and within the laws of the country. This false construct has been their defence and their clothing and social media staff in public relations departments have even bought into it, parading and strutting their wares when those of us working at the coal face of supporting victims of hate crimes, could see that they had no clothes on. What they were doing, was spinning a well-rehearsed ruse.

In a press release from the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) accompanying their report, the opening title states that the 'biggest, richest social media companies are shamefully far from tackling illegal and dangerous content'. Yvette Cooper, the chair of HASC said what many of us had been saying for years, though to large corporations like Google, You Tube and Twitter in particular, we were just aberrations given that they listened and carried on regardless. People's lives, their reputations and their emotional and psychological well-being cared little to well-paid public relations staff. However, they can't carry on as normal after this statement from the chair:

"Social media companies' failure to deal with illegal and dangerous material online is a disgrace. They have been asked repeatedly to come up with better systems to remove illegal material such as terrorist recruitment or online child abuse. Yet repeatedly they have failed to do so. It is shameful. These are among the biggest, richest and cleverest companies in the world, and their services have become a crucial part of people's lives. This isn't beyond them to solve, yet they are failing to do so. They continue to operate as platforms for hatred and extremism without even taking basic steps to make sure they can quickly stop illegal material, properly enforce their own community standards, or keep people safe."

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Racist Material and Inaction from Google

I can tell you from personal experience that corporations like Google have simply obfuscated and done everything in their power to take no action in delinking their search engine from racist and illegal material. On the other hand, Twitter have simply failed to act on extremist accounts for years, even when colleagues in Tell MAMA notified them to remove extremist far right accounts. The HASC report mentioned the Pakemon campaign that targeted British Muslims of Pakistani heritage and which took place in November 2016. The racist campaign was circulated through Twitter and Google's search facility continued to point to racist sites running and highlighting this abhorrent campaign even when Google and Twitter were notified that the material was illegal. In fact, I was one of the individuals, along with the Mayor of London, who were targeted in the racist campaign and because of my work challenging anti-Muslim hatred. Yet, having notified Google in January 2017 of the need to delink to such sites, their response was that because I was a 'public person' they could not delink their search facility from such sites. In other words, because I founded a national hate crime campaign countering racism, intolerance and prejudice, I should put up with it. This was their response and with further advice that I should look elsewhere to seek remedy. It is precisely this callous disregard for the law and individual rights that the HASC report highlights has been the standard position adopted by social media agencies such as Google, You Tube and Twitter.

Or take the fact the HASC report found that You Tube was the 'vehicle of choice' for spreading terrorist propaganda and where videos of proscribed jihadist groups such as ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and Jund al-Aqsa could be found with extremist material from neo-Nazi groups such as Combat 18, the North West Infidels and National Action (now a proscribed organisation). This once again tallies with our experience when we have reported in extremist far right hate material to Google, with one video in particular, now remaining online up for five months. HASC's statement on this should thoroughly embarrass Google staff. HASC stated, "It is shocking that Google failed to perform basic due diligence regarding advertising on YouTube paid for by reputable companies and organisations which appeared alongside videos containing inappropriate and unacceptable content, some of which were created by terrorist organisations. We believe it to be a reflection of the laissez-faire approach that many social media companies have taken to moderating extremist content on their platforms."

Successes

There are some successes in this monumental struggle against corporate social media companies. When I presented to the HASC in December 2016, one of the things that I had suggested, has been taken on board. Since founding Tell MAMA in 2011, it became clear to me that the cost to the State and to civil society groups of social media platforms was running into the tens of millions. Policing costs, evidence collection, work by civil society groups and personal and economic impacts to victims all meant that there were financial, reputational, emotional and physical costs to society. Yet, none of the social media platforms were investing hard cash into the problems that were percolating through them.

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I made clear to the committee that this could not continue and that social media companies had to set aside a fund to support work on countering hatred or to ensure that the police costs were reimbursed. No longer could such large profit making corporations pass off the costs onto the public purse or the public. The HASC committee made the following recommendation and they stated that, "Social media companies that fail to proactively search for and remove illegal material should pay towards costs of the police doing so instead." They went to add that, "Social media companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to remove illegal content. There are too many examples of social media companies being made aware of illegal material yet failing to remove it, or to do so in a timely way. We recommend that the Government consult on a system of escalating sanctions to include meaningful fines for social media companies which fail to remove illegal content within a strict timeframe." It is clear that after the recent Times articles on Google and Facebook, the best way to hit social media companies is in their pockets.

Twitter's Laissez Faire Approach

The report also rightly rounds on the inaction of Twitter, probably one of the worst offenders of inaction. For example, over four years, Tell MAMA had reported specific anti-Muslim hate accounts that pumped out hundreds of anti-Muslim and anti-Islam tweets a day. It took four years for action on one account and on another, it took 18 months before this account was closed, this despite reporting in through the normal channels, including specifically writing on numerous occasions to their Twitter representative, Nick Pickles. The second account was suspended just before Pickles gave evidence and it has been this relaxed, careless attitude to the lives of victims has led to the public humiliation of these platforms by the HASC. This case was highlighted in the HASC report which is published today.

Additionally, apart from the wilful disregard to take immediate action on illegal content, Twitter's platform has had a fundamental failure within its operating model, something that it has tried to keep quiet though which continues to affect the lives of victims of online harassment. Even if accounts are shut down, Twitter cannot stop the same individual from opening up another account and continuing with their hateful activity. We have seen this time and time account and so what we had in the form of social media companies, were individuals and entrepreneurs who developed a platform with little thinking about potential issues that may come up. Twitter has recently stated that it is trying to find a solution to this problem, some eight years after the platform started operating. Shambolic is the term that comes to mind.

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Transparency

The HASC account also berated social media companies on their lack of transparency. Social media companies have told us that their platforms will 'increase transparency, ensure probity and widen greater understanding'. Yet, the HASC report specifically cites their 'secretive' nature, in particular to the "level of resources that they devote to monitoring and removing inappropriate content". The committee went onto add that, "Social media companies are highly secretive about the number of staff and the level of resources that they devote to monitoring and removing inappropriate content. Google, Facebook and Twitter all refused to tell us the number of staff that they employed for such purposes". So to sum up, whilst social media companies expect their platforms to increase transparency and probity, they simply are not willing to be honest to the public about their own affairs.

Anyone who has used social media and who has been targeted for hatred, intolerance and prejudice should warmly welcome the HASC report out today. Yvette Cooper MP and her colleagues have done us all proud and social media companies are on notice. Change or people power in the future will ensure that you are hit in your pockets, which seems to be the only thing that ensures you remove illegal content.
India to give Rs 35 cr to children of freedom fighters in Bangladesh

Published: May 1, 2017

India will give Rs. 35 crore rupees to children of freedom fighters in Bangladesh under the new Muktijodha scholarship scheme in the next five years. Under the scheme, students at higher secondary level will get a one-time grant of Tk 20,000 (Rs 15,370) and students at the undergraduate level will get a grant of Tk 50,000 (Rs 38,430). In addition, all freedom fighters will be eligible for multiple entries on Indian visa for a period of five years. Also, every year 100 of them will be entitled to free medical treatment in Indian hospitals.

Background

Muktijodha Scholarship Scheme was initiated in 2006 to support the descendants of the 1971 Freedom Fighters. So far, more than 10,000 scholarships worth Tk150 million have been granted to the descendants under the scheme. It is India who aided Bangladesh to gain independence from Pakistan in 1971.

During Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas recent visit to India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that India will provide scholarships to another 10,000 students under the new Muktijodha scholarship. During the visit, India and Bangladesh had signed 22 agreements in various fields such as defence, nuclear cooperation, judicial sector, earth sciences, navigation, peaceful uses of outer space, to boost bilateral cooperation. India also announced concessional Line of Credit (LoC) of $4.5 billion to Bangladesh for projects in priority sectors. Moreover, India also gave LoC of $500 million to Bangladesh for defence purchases.

Bangladesh gives away Friends of Bangladesh Liberation War Award to individuals and organizations who had extended the most crucial support for Bangladeshs independence struggle. Former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was the first to be honoured with this award. The other prominent recipients include President Pranab Mukherjee and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Month: Current Affairs - May, 2017

Topics: External Assistance  India-Bangladesh  India-International Relations  International

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Kansas governor's race remains too close to call

Results in the Kansas governor's race remained too close to call as Gov. Laura Kelly clung to a 21,000 vote lead over Attorney General Derek Schmidt.
  , 14    :     40     ; 3      
The survey was conducted in 24 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland, Republic of Korea, South Africa, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, the UK and the US.

Nearly 50% of internet users surveyed do not trust the internet and this lack of trust is affecting the way they use it. The findings of this years Cigi-Ipsos survey underscore the importance of taking action now to build stronger online trust by addressing users concerns and using technologies such as encryption to secure communications, said the vice-president of Global Policy for Internet Society, Sally Wentworth.

The top sources of concern for the users polled were cybercrimi- nals (82%), internet companies (74%) and governments (65%).

The propensity to use online payment systems on mobile phones varied greatly by country, with most G-8 countries near the bottom of the list, and emerging economies near the top.

South Africans are 68% more likely to use their phones for online payments.

Trust in the government to act responsibly online also varied, with Indonesia and India leading the pack.

About 39% of South Africans trusted the government to act responsibly online.

The survey results suggest that the resulting impact on trust is hindering further development of the digital economy, said the researchers.

The director of Cigis global security and politics programme, Fen Osler Hampson, said trust was the lifeblood of the internet, and when that was damaged, the consequences for the digital economy were nearly irreparable.

The results of this global survey offer a glimpse into why policymakers should be concerned, and why there is a strong link between user trust and the health of e-commerce, he said.

Lack of trust is most likely to keep people off e-commerce platforms in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, suggesting that the potential gains of e-commerce are not spread evenly around the globe.

The survey also revealed great differences in e-commerce behaviour when it came to how users are purchasing goods online.

For example, in China, India and Indonesia, more than 86% of respondents expect to make mobile payments on their smartphone in the next year, compared with less than 30% in France, Germany and Japan.

The director of the DUT-based National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (Nemisa) KZN e-Skills Colab, Dr Surendra Thakur, said that potential customers needed compelling incentives to use online interfaces.

Many South Africans prefer to do their interactions in line as opposed to online because they are afraid of losing out.

He explained that companies needed to invest in better security measures so that people would use their sites.

In South Africa, data charges are also an impediment to people using e-commerce facilities.
Pittsfield Police Field 4th Report of Groping

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Police are launching extra patrols in the downtown area after yet another report of a woman being "groped" while out walking.

Police say on Thursday at about 9:27 a.m. a 19-year-old woman said she was groped by a man while she was walking on South Street near the Colonial Theatre. The woman describes the man as being a "white male, dark brown colored hair, clean shaven, with a scrawny thin build."

"This incident is the fourth reported assault in recent weeks. The Pittsfield Police Department asks residents and visitors to be vigilant while walking alone and to immediately contact police if they suspect they are being followed. The Detective Bureau is investigating the incidents and patrol officers are conducting extra patrols of the downtown and outlying areas," wrote Capt. Jeffrey Bradford in a release issued to the media on Monday.

Police have received numerous reports of walkers and joggers being accosted in the southeast side of the city. None of the victims have been reported to have injured and it is unknown if it is the same man every time.

In the previous instances, the perpetrator has been described as being in his 20s, of Caucasian or Hispanic descent, with dark hard, facial hair, and a thin to medium build.
Kindergartners in Robin Poirot's class at Cheshire Elementary School celebrate a Mexican fiesta in 2014. Poirot is one of four teachers who have received MCLA's Berkshire County Educator Recognition Award.

MCLA Names Recipients of Berkshire County Educator Recognition

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has announced the recipients of the seventh annual Berkshire County Educator Recognition Award. This award, given by MCLA in collaboration with Berkshire County K-12 superintendents and Berkshire Community College, was created to honor the regions exceptional teachers.

This year's recipients will be recognized on Thursday, May 4, at 5:30 p.m. in Murdock Hall room 218, on the MCLA campus. The event is free and open to the public.

The recipients are Lisa Kelly Kane (Early Childhood  Community Setting), director of St. Paul's Children Center of Stockbridge; Robin Poirot (PreK-Grade 2), a kindergarten teacher at Cheshire Elementary School in Cheshire; Allison Fisher (Grades 3-6), a special education teacher for the fifth and sixth grades at Monument Valley Middle School in Great Barrington; and Stephanie Kopala (Grades 7-12), a social studies/history teacher at Drury High School in North Adams.

"Each year, MCLA is proud and pleased to recognize the dedication and commitment of exceptional teachers who work diligently to teach, guide and encourage our children to become the best that they can be," said MCLA President James F. Birge. "We are delighted to honor and celebrate this years award recipients, whose efforts have benefitted so many children through their love of teaching and exemplary service to the profession and the community."

Kane began her career at St. Pauls Children Center in Stockbridge in 1984 as a preschool teacher, and became its director in 1987. To achieve her goal of accreditation for the Center by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, she took courses in leadership at BCC and created a wonderful network of teachers for its staff, according to Dr. Jake Eberwein, dean of Graduate and Continuing Education at MCLA.

Kane holds a bachelor of science degree in elementary education and early childhood education from the former Westfield State College, now Westfield State University.

Poirot has been a teacher for nearly 30 years. As a kindergarten teacher at Cheshire Elementary School, it's been her goal to show each of her students that she deeply cares for them, Eberwein said. In doing so, he continued, she has created a compassionate classroom environment with clear purpose and high expectations. Described as a selfless educator, Poirot is a teacher leader, active in her school and community in raising funds for local causes, recognizing local heroes, and supporting her students in and outside of the classroom  always going above and beyond, according to Eberwein.

A graduate of Hoosac Valley High School, Poirot earned her bachelor of arts degree in elementary education from the former North Adams State College, now MCLA, and a license in special needs in education from the former Westfield State College, now Westfield State University. She went on to complete her master of arts degree in education with a focus on integrating arts in the classroom at Lesley University in Cambridge.

Fisher teaches special education for grades five and six at Monument Valley Middle School in Great Barrington, where she is a project leader for assessment. Her responsibilities include teaching English language arts, reading and mathematics, and supporting the needs and ensuring the success of students with individualized education plans  both inside and outside of the classroom. She is a fierce advocate for her students, most of whom have learning disabilities, Eberwein said, leading her peers and her school community in embracing inclusive and effective practices that catalyze the growth and achievement of her students.

A certified reading specialist, special education, social studies and in English teacher, Fisher earned a bachelor of arts degree in social studies education from the University of Albany in Albany, N.Y., and a masters of science degree in education, with a major in education, from Simmons College in Boston. In addition, she completed the Reading Specialist Licensure Program at MCLA.

Kopala is a social studies teacher for grades eight through 12 at Drury High School in North Adams, where she also is an 8-12 history team leader and a College Board Advanced Placement (AP) World History Reader. In addition, she is the K-12 social studies curriculum coordinator for North Adams Public Schools, serves as president of the North Adams Teacher Union, and sits on the Districts Teaching and Learning Team.

According to Eberwein, as a team and curriculum leader, Kopala has driven curriculum renewal, and explores and implements leading edge pedagogies in her classroom and across the school. She is passionate and committed to the success of her students and, in doing so, is shaping the future of her community. She earned a teaching license and Bachelor of Arts degree in history, summa cum laude, from MCLA, a Master of Education degree in reading from MCLA, and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS) from the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine.

The celebratory event will also recognize MCLA education students who are preparing to become educators, and the many cooperating classroom teachers who support them through field experiences and an intensive, semester-long, student teaching placement. Additionally, this event coincides with National Teacher Appreciation Week in commending all Berkshire educators who commit their time and talents to ensure the growth and progress of students across our region.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I have been faced with the harrowing decision of taking my great-uncle off of life support. He has no other living and willing relatives to take care of him, so I am essentially making this decision on my own. Nobody has taken any interest in either direction, but there is a slim chance of him making it out of his coma. He is 92 already, and I have no idea what I want to do.

I do not want to kill him, but I would feel incredibly guilty keeping him alive if all he wants to do is die. Should I force family to get involved so I don't bear the brunt of this decision alone? -- All Alone, Dallas

DEAR ALL ALONE: First, be clear about what your great-uncle's desires are. Did he tell you he is ready to die? If you know this for a fact, then you already know what you should do because he has asked you to take care of him.

You also need to be clear that you will not be killing your uncle if you take him off life support. Artificially keeping someone alive via a machine is an amazing option in the world of modern medicine, but it is an unnatural reality. Also, sometimes people do regain consciousness when they are in a coma and life support is removed.

Talk to your great-uncle's doctors to learn what they believe his prognosis will be. Then definitely speak to your family members to let them know what the doctors have said. While they may not be willing to make a decision, they should be willing to listen to whatever decision you have made.

Do yourself a favor and find out if your great-uncle has a will and whether his papers are in order. It appears your next steps will be handling his affairs upon his eventual passing. That takes a lot of effort and can be emotionally draining. Good luck.

DEAR HARRIETTE: I am a 77-year-old woman who is losing her mobility. I walk with a cane now, and I feel terrible for whoever has to walk alongside me because I remember how frustrated I would get with slow walkers when I was younger.

I want to keep up with my grandchildren and still be seen as the fun grandma. My son tells me if I get a mobility scooter it will be the death of my ability to walk since I won't be doing much of it. Should I take this next step, or will I be losing too much independence by not exercising my legs anymore? -- Hot Wheels, Atlanta

DEAR HOT WHEELS: Talk to your doctor about recommendations for mobility. You may want to get physical therapy to strengthen your body. The reality, though, is that many older people move more slowly than their grandchildren. You must figure out a pace with your family that works for everyone. Choose activities that are fun but not super active. You may also want to use a wheelchair or scooter only for particular activities, like visiting a museum, walking in the park or other things that require prolonged walking. Limited use shouldn't weaken your body.

DEAR HARRIETTE: My son has been growing out his hair recently. I don't mind long hair as long as it is well-kept, but his high school has contacted me saying he is breaching the rules of the dress code by having hair longer than shoulder-length. My son is not confrontational, but he wants to keep his hair. Should I fight the school or have "Kyle" succumb to the rules? -- Long Hair Don't Care, Bedford, Mississippi

DEAR LONG HAIR DON'T CARE: It is unlikely that you can get your son's school to change the rules around hair. This does not necessarily mean that your son has to cut his hair, though. Get creative. Many men wear their hair in buns these days. This is a perfect solution for him when he is at school. The so-called "man bun" is so popular it just got added to the dictionary.

Have your son agree that he will always wear his hair in a bun that does not fall out when he is at school. In the evenings, on weekends and whenever he is not at school, let him know he should feel free to wear it however he likes. If the school balks at the bun, you and your son should point out that you are following the rules. Ask them to respect that.

DEAR HARRIETTE: My ex and I co-parent our children, and we constantly get questioned by our family about the nature of our relationship. We have not been together for over two years, but our friendly discourse always causes my siblings to ask me if "Dale" and I are back together. I could see us reuniting one day, but for now I know we do better apart.

Does everyone deserve to know the details of our relationship? We are rocky enough as it is without family getting involved. -- Tired of Rumors, Cincinnati

DEAR TIRED OF RUMORS: Talk to Dale about how you want to handle the questions from family and friends. Agree on a strategy that protects your children and each other, and stick to that. I would recommend that you agree not to talk about your personal relationship with them at all. When they ask if you are getting back together, push back and tell them that what you are doing is parenting your children. You both are mature adults who love your children unconditionally, and you have committed to figuring out how to care for them so that they will be happy and healthy.

When people make comments about how well you two look together or how they can envision you being a couple again, you can thank them for their positive comments and leave it at that. Do not feel the need to explain yourself or your rapport with your ex. Should the day come that the two of you decide to test the waters again, do so discreetly until you are sure of what you want to do. Keeping folks out of your business may create space to rekindle something very special.

Harriette Cole is a lifestylist and founder of DREAMLEAPERS, an initiative to help people access and activate their dreams. You can send questions to askharriette@harriettecole.com or c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106
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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
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The designer handbags that bring in the most cash when re-sold have been revealed by a firm specialising in vintage and pre-loved fashion.

Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Dior are among the brands which appear on a list highlighting the bags that make the best returns compiled by luxury fashion website Vestaire Collective, according to Mail Online.

The classic Chanel flap handbag, characterised by its CC logo and quilting, costs 3,840 when bought new. But the rarest styles, for example those made with crocodile skin, can be re-sold for up to 33,000.

A rare Classic Handbag by Chanel can fetch tens of thousands of pounds (Chanel)

Buy now

The list follows a recent study which found that it can make more economic sense to invest in a Chanel 2.55 handbag than in the stock market. The JustCollecting Rare Handbag Index, which tracks investment-level bags, found that in the 12 years from 2004 to 2016, the Chanel 2.55 Medium Classic Flag bag had spiked by 230 per cent in value, the Financial Times reported.

Scroll down below to find out which bags made the Vestaire Collective list.

Chanel 2.55

(Chanel (Chanel)

The 2.55, whose chains are inspired by the caretaker's keys at the orphanage where Coco Chanel spent her childhood, costs 3,900 new. But it can be sold off for 6,000.

Buy now

Chanel Boy

(Chanel (Chanel)

The Chanel Boy, with its adjustable strap, will set back a buyer 3,300 if new. But the right bag can make a seller as much a 2,300 at 5,600.

Buy now

Louis Vuitton Speedy

(iStock/evemilla (iStock/evemilla)

The Louis Vuitton Speedy, with its iconic monogram print, was the first bag that the brand created. A new bag costs 696, but can fetch up to 2,500 if it sold on.

Buy now

Louis Vuitton Neverfull

(Louis Vuitton (Louis Vuitton)

The Neverfull comes in all shapes and sizes and has seen collaborations with a long line of top artists including Yayoi Kusama and Stephen Sprouse. Bought new, a Neverfull can cost 880. But the most sought after can be sold on for up to 2,500.

Buy now

Dior Lady

(Dior (Dior)

This bag has been linked with the late Princess Diana since the then-First Lady of France Madame Bernadette Chirac, gifted it to the monarch in 1995 - a year after its creation. A new Lady costs 3,900. But the rarest and best kept bags can be sold for as much as 18,000.

Buy now

Celine Trapeze

(Celine)

The Trapeze is one of the world's most recognisable bags, thanks to its box flap and wings. New, it costs 1,750 and can make an owner 1,500 if it's sold on.

Buy now

Hermes Kelly

(Hermes) (Herms)

Hermes bags are among the most coveted in the world - and the Kelly is no exception. Named after the actress and princess of Monaco Grace Kelly, a new bag can cost 6,000 but can fetch up to 42,000 when sold again.

Buy now

Valentino Rockstud

(Valentino (Valentino)

The Rockstud bag, which showcases a tough-luxe aesthetic, costs 1520. However, if a seller is lucky it can bring in a return of 580.

Buy now

Givenchy Antigona

(Givenchy (Givenchy)

Launched in 2010, the Antigona is characterised by its double-rolled handles and exposed stitching. A new bag will set a buyer back 1,590, but can be re-sold for as much as 16,000.

Buy now
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A woman has warned others against using essential oils before tanning, after she says she suffered third degree burns to her skin.

Elise Nguyen uses DoTerra essential oils regularly as part of her skin routine. But she didn't realise that the product can cause an adverse reaction to the skin when exposed to sunlight and UV rays.

Sharing her story in a Facebook post, Nguyen, from the US state of Wisconsin, wrote that she applied the oils to her wrists and neck before attending a hot yoga class. An hour after the class, she used a tanning bed.

The next day, I noticed irritation where I applied the oil. Initially I thought it was a reaction to a new laundry detergent. Well over the next couple of days, I developed nasty blisters due to a chemical burn, she said.

I developed second and third degree burns from the oils.

22 days after using the sun bed, Nguyen still had painful, open wounds on her neck and wrists.

Nguyen admitted that she had not noticed a caution on the DoTerra oil bottle, which warns users to avoid sunlight and UV rays for 12 hours after application.

I'm not blaming the company, it was my own damn fault. But every yogi that I've talked to has no clue that this could have happened, she added.

Please, please read the bottles of anything you put on your skin. I wouldn't want this to happen to anyone else. It's been hell.

Nguyens warning has been liked on Facebook over 41,000 times, and shared by over 141,000 accounts.

Spring Skincare Show all 8 1 /8 Spring Skincare Spring Skincare By Terry, Baume De Rose Face Cream, 70 net-a-porter.com Spring Skincare Elizabeth Arden, Eight Hour Cream Sun Defence SPF 50, 26 feelunique.com Spring Skincare Sunday Riley, Tidal Brightening Enzyme Water Cream, 60 cultbeauty.co.uk Spring Skincare Oskia, Renaissance Cleansing Gel, 29.50 spacenk.com Spring Skincare La Mer, Moisturising Soft Creme, 115 selfridges.com Spring Skincare Liz Earle, Gentle Face Exfoliator, 15.75 boots.com Spring Skincare Kiehls Ultra Facial Cream, 45 kiehls.co.uk Spring Skincare Emma Hardie, Moisutre Boos Vitamin C Cream, 45 spacenk.com

Thank you for sharing your story to educate others! said one Facebook user below Nguyens post.

I am so sorry this happened to you. Thanks for sharing and reminding people to check for warnings, wrote another.

Recommended How to transition your skincare from winter to spring

However, health experts warn against using sunbeds and tanning in the sun, as the skin can be damaged in a way that isnt visible to the naked eye.

Official UK health guidelines warn that there is no safe way to tan, as overexposure to sunlight can cause sunburn and skin cancer.

A DoTerra spokesperson told The Independent that it has attempted to reach out to Nguyen to find out more about her experience because the firm collects a record of adverse reactions.

"As a reminder, we recommend that everyone use properly-diluted application techniques and, as Ms. Nguyen noted, DoTerra cautions users to avoid contact with the sun (or tanning beds) for up to 12 hours after applying cold pressed oils, including citrus oils," the spokesperson added.
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Any good parent wants their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults.

And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success.

Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents.

Here's what parents of successful kids have in common:

1. They make their kids do chores.

"If kids aren't doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them," Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford University and author of 'How to Raise an Adult' said during a TED Talks Live event.

"And so they're absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole," she said.

Lythcott-Haims believes kids raised on chores go on to become employees who collaborate well with their co - workers, are more empathetic because they know first - hand what struggling looks like, and are able to take on tasks independently.

She bases this on the Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study ever conducted.

"By making them do chores  taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry  they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life," she tells Tech Insider.

2. They teach their kids social skills.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant correlation between their social skills as kindergartners and their success as adults two decades later.

The 20-year study showed that socially competent children who could cooperate with their peers without prompting, be helpful to others, understand their feelings, and resolve problems on their own, were far more likely to earn a college degree and have a full-time job by age 25 than those with limited social skills.

Those with limited social skills also had a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for public housing.

"This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future," said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release.

"From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted."

3. They have high expectations.

Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment.

"Parents who saw college in their child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets," he said in a statement.

The finding came out in standardised tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to college.

This falls in line with another psych finding: the Pygmalion effect, which states "that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy."

In the case of kids, they live up to their parents' expectations.

4. They have healthy relationships with each other.

Children in high-conflict families, whether intact or divorced, tend to fare worse than children of parents that get along, according to a University of Illinois study review.

Robert Hughes, Jr., professor and head of the Department of Human and Community Development in the College of ACES at the University of Illinois and study review author, also notes that some studies have found children in non - conflictual single parent families fare better than children in conflictual two-parent families.

The conflict between parents prior to divorce also affects children negatively, while post-divorce conflict has a strong influence on children's adjustment, Hughes says.

One study found that, after divorce, when a father without custody has frequent contact with his kids and there is minimal conflict, children fare better. But when there is conflict, frequent visits from the father are related to poorer adjustment of children.

Yet another study found that 20-somethings who experienced divorce of their parents as children still report pain and distress over their parent's divorce ten years later. Young people who reported high conflict between their parents were far more likely to have feelings of loss and regret.

5. They've attained higher educational levels.

A 2014 study lead by University of Michigan psychologist Sandra Tang found that mothers who finished high school or college were more likely to raise kids that did the same.

Pulling from a group of over 14,000 children who entered kindergarten in 1998 to 2007, the study found that children born to teen mums (18 years old or younger) were less likely to finish high school or go to college than their counterparts.

Aspiration is at least partially responsible. In a 2009 longitudinal study of 856 people in semirural New York, Bowling Green State University psychologist Eric Dubow found that "parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later."

6. They teach their kids math early on.

A 2007 meta-analysis of 35,000 preschoolers across the US, Canada, and England found that developing math skills early can turn into a huge advantage.

"The paramount importance of early math skills  of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order, and other rudimentary math concepts  is one of the puzzles coming out of the study," coauthor and Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan said in a press release. "Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement."

7. They develop a relationship with their kids.

A 2014 study of 243 people born into poverty found that children who received "sensitive caregiving" in their first three years not only did better in academic tests in childhood, but had healthier relationships and greater academic attainment in their 30s.

As reported on PsyBlog, parents who are sensitive caregivers "respond to their child's signals promptly and appropriately" and "provide a secure base" for children to explore the world.

"This suggests that investments in early parent-child relationships may result in long-term returns that accumulate across individuals' lives," co - author and University of Minnesota psychologist Lee Raby said in an interview.

8. They're less stressed.

According to recent research cited by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post, the number of hours that mums spend with kids between ages 3 and 11 does little to predict the child's behaviour, well-being, or achievement.

What's more, the "intensive mothering" or "helicopter parenting" approach can backfire.

"Mothers' stress, especially when mothers are stressed because of the juggling with work and trying to find time with kids, that may actually be affecting their kids poorly," study co - author and Bowling Green State University sociologist Kei Nomaguchi told The Post.

Emotional contagion  or the psychological phenomenon where people "catch" feelings from one another like they would a cold  helps explain why. Research shows that if your friend is happy, that brightness will infect you; if she's sad, that gloominess will transfer as well. So if a parent is exhausted or frustrated, that emotional state could transfer to the kids.

9. They value effort over avoiding failure.

Where kids think success comes from also predicts their attainment.

Over decades, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered that children (and adults) think about success in one of two ways. Over at the always-fantastic Brain Pickings, Maria Popova says they go a little something like this:

A "fixed mind - set" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens that we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.

A "growth mind - set," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of un-intelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.

At the core is a distinction in the way you assume your will affects your ability, and it has a powerful effect on kids. If kids are told that they aced a test because of their innate intelligence that creates a "fixed" mind - set. If they succeeded because of effort, that teaches a "growth" mind - set.

10. The mums work.

According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.

The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money  23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.

The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found  they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.

"Role modelling is a way of signalling what's appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe," the study's lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.

"There are very few things that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother," she told Working Knowledge.

11. They have a higher socioeconomic status.

Tragically, one-fifth of American children grow up in poverty, a situation that severely limits their potential.

It's getting more extreme. According to Stanford University researcher Sean Reardon, the achievement gap between high- and low-income families "is roughly 30% to 40% larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier."

As "Drive" author Dan Pink has noted, the higher the income for the parents, the higher the SAT scores for the kids.

"Absent comprehensive and expensive interventions, socioeconomic status is what drives much of educational attainment and performance," he wrote.

12: They are 'authoritative' rather than 'authoritarian' or 'permissive.'

First published in the 1960s, University of California, Berkeley developmental psychologist Diana Baumride found there are basically three kinds of parenting styles [pdf]:

Permissive: The parent tries to be non - punitive and accepting of the child

Authoritarian: The parent tries to shape and control the child based on a set standard of conduct

Authoritative: The parent tries to direct the child rationally

The ideal is the authoritative. The kid grows up with a respect for authority, but doesn't feel strangled by it.

13: They teach 'grit.'

In 2013, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth won a MacArthur "genius" grant for her uncovering of a powerful, success-driving personality trait called grit.

Defined as a "tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals," her research has correlated grit with educational attainment, grade point average in Ivy League undergrads, retention in West Point cadets, and rank in the US National Spelling Bee.

It's about teaching kids to imagine  and commit  to a future they want to create.

Read more:

 The 10 most important things in the world right now

 AI and Robots will dramatically change the business landscape  here's why

 There's a huge shift in the way the richest people in Britain accumulate wealth

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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If you can't imagine starting your day without smashed avocado on toast, get ready to pay a hefty price for your breakfast.

An avocado shortage and reduced harvests from major producers have been pushing up prices in recent weeks.

According to data from the Mexican government, cited by Bloomberg, a 10kg box of hass avocados from Mexico's biggest producer now sells for around 530 pesos (21.80). This is more than double compared to a year ago and the highest in 19 years.

Recommended Avocado chocolate is now officially a thing

Prices are expected to remain high through the summer as a result of a grower's strike in Mexico, which has already forced retailers and restaurants in the US to take the fruit off their shelves and menus.

Mexico is the major supplier for avocados into the US but shipments from there have fallen in recent weeks and are expected to drop even further, according to data from the Hass Avocado Board.

Yet demand for the highly exportable fruit has never been higher. The US is the main importer of Mexican avocados but the EU also has a trade deal with the South American country which is particularly favourable.

Food and drink news Show all 35 1 /35 Food and drink news Food and drink news Healthy living makes us more inclined to binge, research suggests Gluten-free breads, dairy-free milks and other plant-based products have been some of the most favoured foods in British supermarkets this year. However, while were busy filling our shopping trolleys with gluten-free goodness, were also jamming it with junk food and alcohol, new research suggests Getty/iStock Food and drink news Growing list of Vegan celebs Making the switch to veganism is a major lifestyle choice, one that many claim can improve energy levels, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and clear up any skin issues. Beyonce, Natalie Portman and Jessica Chastain are among the growing list of Hollywood stars who have eschewed animal products from their diets in recent years. Theres also been an increasing number of professional athletes who have gone vegan, such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and David Haye, thus debunking the myth that following a plant-based diet will leave you feeling weak and malnourished. AFP/Getty/NARAS/iHeartMedia Food and drink news McDonald's has announced the launch of a new vegan burger on its menu in Germany This will mark the first time the German franchise of the fast food chain has offered a vegan burger to its customers. The Big Vegan TS burger consists of a patty made from soy and wheat. It is served in a classic sesame seed bun, and contains salad, tomato, pickles and red onion. McDonald's Germany Food and drink news Drinking too many protein shakes could lead to an increased risk of obesity and a reduced lifespan, a new study has claimed Researchers from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre carried out an investigation to determine the impact excessive consumption of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) has on the body. BCAA supplements are often consumed in the form of powder, which is then added to water to make a shake. Published in journal Nature Metabolism, the study found that while BCAAs help to build muscle, they can also negatively impact an individual's temperament, cause weight gain and lead to a shortened lifespan Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Britain consumes more chocolate than any other country Most people love chocolate but it turns out no one does more than the Brits  with the average Brit found to have consumed 8.4 kg of chocolate in 2017, according to new data. Chocolate consumption around the world is on the rise, according to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD), which found that in the past year alone, Easter chocolate production has risen by 23 per cent Food and drink news 'Easter eggs should be banned for children under four' Dr Becky Spelman, chief psychologist at Harley Streets Private Therapy Clinic, is calling for Easter eggs to be banned for consumption for children under the age of four, claiming that giving them the opportunity to binge on chocolate so young will give them an unhealthy relationship with food later on. "This is a nightmare situation for parents of this generation as they have no idea how to teach their children to delay their response to cravings, she said, explaining that too many young kids binge on these chocolates because their parents dont know how to stop them. "Once a child starts overeating behaviour at a young age its very hard to turn things around for them in terms of food and their eating habits moving forward, leading to obesity from at very young age," she added PA Food and drink news Pineapple overtakes avocado as the UK's fastest-selling fruit According to Tesco, pineapple has overtaken avocado as the UKs fastest-selling fruit, with sales increasing by 15 per cent in 2017. In comparison, avocado sales rose by just under 10 per cent last year. The popular supermarket says the surge in popularity comes as shoppers buying the versatile fruit are beginning to use it as a main ingredient in everything from curries and barbecues, to juices and cocktails Getty Food and drink news Marks & Spencers launches stoneless avocados Rather than the result of genetic modification, the avocados are formed by an unpollinated avocado blossom. The fruit develops without a seed which in turns stops the growth, creating a small, seedless fruit. Whats more, the skin is actually edible, unlike a regular avocado. The flesh is much like that of a normal avocado - smooth and creamy, pale in colour and rich in flavour M&S Food and drink news Office teabags contain 17 times more germs than a toilet seat, reveals study The average bacterial reading of an office teabag was 3,785, in comparison to only 220 for a toilet seat. Other pieces of kitchen equipment also stacked up highly in their findings, with the bacterial readings averaging at 2,483 on kettle handles, 1,746 on the rim of a used mug and 1,592 on a fridge door handle Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New study shows drinking more coffee leads to a longer life There is good news and a final hope for coffee addicts and lovers. You will now be able to drink coffee for longer as new study shows its can lead to a prolonged life. Scientists showed that those who drank between two and four cups of coffee a day had 18% lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers. PA Food and drink news Coke Zero is replaced with Coke Zero Sugar Coca-Cola is pulling the plug on its Coke Zero. The much loved drink will be replaced with a new improved taste. The move, backed with a 10 million campaign, is said to come from Coca-Cola supporting people to reduce their sugar intake. Coca-Cola want people make this move while not sacrificing sugary taste of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Food and drink news Starbucks introduce new avocado spread The avocado craze has grown from hipster brunch restaurants to Starbucks. Starbucks have introduced their new avocado spread earlier this year and it has the internet in debate. Some argue that it not a spread but guacamole while others question if there is any avocado in there at all. When buying the new spread you can also buy an optional toasted bagel. It is a must try for all avocado connoisseurs. Starbucks Food and drink news New Mars chocolate bar The iconic British chocolate bar is about to get its partner in crime. The new bar, named Goodness Knows, will replace the gooey caramel goodness of the mars bar with oats. It is said to be more like a Florentine biscuit with a thin dark chocolate bottom. While being moderately healthy Mars says that is has good intentions. One pack has 154 calories and will sell for about 90p. Mars Food and drink news Wine prices could increase because of Brexit Wine lovers across the UK might soon have to shell out close to a quarter more for their favourite tipple after Brexit, as a weaker pound and sluggish economy takes its toll, a new study shows Rex Food and drink news Chocolate may be good for the heart A new study, published in the British Medical Journal: Heart, found that moderate chocolate intake can be positively associated with lessening the risk of the heart arrhythmia condition Atrial Fibrillation Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Brits throw away 1.4 million bananas each year British families are throwing away 1.4 million bananas that are perfectly good to eat every day at cost of 80m a year, new figures have shown PA/Armin Weigel Food and drink news Rosemary sales spike over exam time There has been a surge a surge in sales of the herb rosemary after a recent study found it helps improve memory. According to high street health food chain Holland & Barrett, sales of the herb have increased by 187 per cent compared to the same time last year Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Gluten-free diets 'not recommended' for people without coeliac disease Avoiding wheat, barley and rye in the belief that a gluten-free diet brings health benefits may do more harm than good, according to a team of US nutrition and medicine experts Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Starbucks launches two new coffee-based drinks Starbucks is launching two new coffee-based drinks in the UK, as it strives to tap into consumers growing appetite for healthy beverages. The Cold Brew Vanilla sweet cream and the Cappuccino Freddo, will both be available in stores throughout the UK from the start of May Twitter/@SbuxCountyHall Food and drink news Cadburys Dairy Milk Tiffin is making a permanent comeback after 80 years The Cadbury Dairy Milk Tiffin, first produced in 1937, is making a permanent comeback to the UK. The raisin and biscuit-filled chocolate bar is being launched after a successful trial last summer saw 3 million chocolate treats  at the cost of 1.49 for each 95g bar- purchased by nostalgic customers Cadburys Food and drink news Pizza restaurant makes worlds cheesiest 'Scottie's Pizza Parlor' in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Facebook/Scottie's Pizza Parlor Food and drink news A pizza joint in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Why not eating before a workout could be better for your health A study published in the American Journal of Physiology by researchers at the University of Bath found you might be likely to burn more fat if you have not eaten first Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New York restaurant named best in the world A New York restaurant where an average meal for two will cost $700 has been named the best in the world. Eleven Madison Park won the accolade for the first time after debuting on the list at number 50 in 2010. The restaurant was praised for a fun sense of fine-dining, blurring the line between the kitchen and the dining room Getty Images Food and drink news Why you crave bad food when youre tired Researchers at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago recently presented their results of a study looking into the effects of sleep deprivation upon high-calorific food consumption. Researchers found that those who were sleep-deprived had specifically enhanced brain activity to the food smells compared to when they had a good nights sleep Shutterstock Food and drink news Drinking wine engages more of your brain than solving maths problems Drinking wine is the ideal workout for your brain, engaging more parts of our grey matter than any other human behaviour, according to a leading neuroscientist. Dr Gordon Shepherd, from the Yale School of Medicine, said sniffing and analysing a wine before drinking it requires exquisite control of one of the biggest muscles in the body Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news British dessert eating surges after people ditch healthy eating in February : In heartening news for anyone feeling guilty about quitting their New Year diet, it seems lots of us have given in to our sweet tooths once again. New data from nationwide food-delivery service Deliveroo reveals there was a surge in Brits ordering desserts in February compared to the first month of 2017 Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news US congress debates definition of milk alternatives A new bill has been created that seeks to ban dairy alternatives from using the term milk. Titled the DAIRY PRIDE Act, the name is a tenuous acronym for defending against imitations and replacements of yogurt, milk, and cheese to promote regular intake of dairy every day. It argues that the dairy industry is struggling as a result of all the dairy-free alternatives on the market and the public are being duped too Getty Images Food and drink news Cadburys launches two new chocolate bars UK confectionary giant Cadbury has launched two new chocolate bars, hoping to lure those with a sweet tooth and perhaps help combat some of the challenges it faces from rising commodity prices and a post-Brexit slump in the value of the pound.The companys new products will be peanut butter and mint flavoured. They will be available in most major super markets as 120g bars, priced at 1.49, according to the company Cadburys Food and drink news You can now get a job as a professional chocolate eater The company responsible for some of your favourite chocolate brands  think Cadbury, Milks, Prince and Oreo  have officially announced an opening to join their team as a professional chocolate taster. The successful candidate will help them to test, perfect and launch new products all over the world. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news MSG additive used in Chinese food is actually good for you, scientist claims For years, weve been told MSG (the sodium salt of glutamic acid) - often associated with cheap Chinese takeaways - is awful for our health and to be avoided at all costs. But one scientist argues it should be used as a supersalt and encourages adding it to food. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Lettuce prices are rising Not only are lettuces becoming an increasingly rare commodity in supermarkets, but prices for the leafy vegetables seem to be rising too. According to the weekly report from the Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a pair of Little Gem lettuces had an average market price of 0.86 in the week that ended on Friday, up from an average of 0.56 in the previous week  thats an almost 54 per cent increase. Getty Images Food and drink news Do-It-Yourself restaurant To encourage more people to cook and eat together, IKEA has launched The Dining Club in Shoreditch  a fully immersive Do-It-Yourself restaurant . Members of the public can book to host a brunch, lunch or dinner party for up to 20 friends and family. Supported by their very own sous chef and maitre de, the host and their guests will orchestrate an intimate dining experience where cooking together is celebrated and eating together is inspirational Mikael Buck / IKEA Food and drink news Ping Pong menu with a twist Gatwick Airport has teamed up with London dim sum restaurant Ping Pong to create a limited edition menu with a distinctly British twist; including a Full English Bao and Beef Wellington Puff, to celebrate the launch of the airports new route to Hong Kong Food and drink news Zizzi unveil the Maamgharita Unique pizza art has been created by Zizzi in celebration of the Queens 90th birthday. The pizza features the queen in an iconic pose illustrated with fresh and tasty Italian ingredients on a backdrop of the Union Jack Food and drink news Blue potatoes make a comeback Blue potatoes, once a staple part of British potato crops, are back on the menu thanks to a Cambridge scientist turned-organic farmer and Farmdrop, an online marketplace that lets people buy direct from local farms. Cambridge PhD graduate-turned farmer, Adrian Izzard has used traditional growing techniques at Wild Country Organics to produce the colourful spuds, packed with healthy cell-protecting anthocyanin, which had previously disappeared from UK plates when post-war farmers were pushed towards higher-yielding varieties

The fruit, known for its health properties, is also becoming popular in China with exports from Latin American nations growing by about 250 per cent a year, from just 154 tonnes in 2012 to more than 25,000 tonnes in 2016.

Last year, avocado, along with almond milk and e-cigarettes, enjoyed a surge in demand among UK shoppers as a trend toward healthy eating gathered pace. Figures from data providier IRI, which specialises in helping retailers to understand consumer demand, showed sales of avocado added 28.3 per cent to a whopping 187m.
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Dubai has become the first city in the world to get its own front, the government announced on Sunday.

The type face, simply called Dubai Font, comes in both Arabic and Latin script and will be available in 23 languages.

It was created in partnership with Microsoft and is now available to Microsoft Office 365 users around the world.

In a tweet, the Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum described the font as a unique project that reflects the heritage and culture of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and reaches out to the world with the hashtag #ExpressYou.

In a statement accompanying the launch of the font, officials said: Self-expression is an art form. Through it you share who you are, what you think and how you feel to the world. To do so you need a medium capable of capturing the nuances of everything you have to say.

The Dubai Font does exactly that. It is a new global medium for self-expression.

Dubai, the largest city in the UAE and home to the worlds tallest tower, has championed technology and innovation as it looks to broaden its appeal.

However, the region has also drawn criticism for its poor human rights record and its restriction on free speech.

The Human Rights Watch says the UAE often uses its affluence to mask the governments serious human rights problems. The government arbitrarily detains, and in some cases forcibly disappears, individuals who criticized the authorities.

In March, prominent human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, who repeatedly drew the ire of authorities in the UAE by calling for a free press and democratic freedoms, was arrested.

Last year, a 25-year-old British tourist faced jail in in Dubai after telling the police she had been raped.

Dubai's new 3bn theme park Show all 6 1 /6 Dubai's new 3bn theme park Dubai's new 3bn theme park The Bollywood theme park Dubai Parks and Resorts Dubai's new 3bn theme park The Legoland Water Park Dubai Parks and Resorts Dubai's new 3bn theme park The Boardwalk area housing retail and food outlets Dubai Parks and Resorts Dubai's new 3bn theme park The Motiongate area Dubai Parks and Resorts Dubai's new 3bn theme park Motiongate Dubai Parks and Resort Dubai's new 3bn theme park A map of the entire complex Dubai Parks and Resorts

When she reported the rape at a police station, she was detained and charged with extra-marital sex, a crime punishable by jail, flogging and stoning to death in the strictly conservative country.

She was later released, but only following international outcry.
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US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has said that Donald Trump is not planning on striking a deal with China that would take American jobs away in exchange for the Asian country dealing with North Korea.

Mr Ross made the comments, after Mr Trump had said he was willing to accept a less than ideal trade deal with China if they worked to deescalate tensions between North Korea and the West brought on by nuclear weapons tests. The US is having constructive discussions with China on trade, Mr Ross said.

Weve been having some very constructive discussions on trade with the Chinese in parallel to discussions on North Korea," told CNBC. I think what the president was trying to say is that were trying to say is that were trying to have an overall constructive relationship with China on a variety of topics, the most pressing of which, because it directly involves human lives, is the North Korea situation. I dont think he meant to indicate at all that he intends to trade away American jobs just for help on North Korea."

Mr Trump said on Sunday during an interview with CBS News Face the Nation that, frankly, North Korea is maybe more important than trade. He continued to say that he may use trade as a method to convince China to use its strong connection to Pyongyang and the regime of Kim Jong-un.

Tensions between North Korea and the US have escalated recently after several nuclear weapons tests were conducted by Mr Kims military. The latest, on Saturday, was the eighth since the American president was sworn in and the third in April. That missile failed shortly after launch, just like the two other tests in April, US and South Korean military officials said.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

When asked why the North Korean missile tests keep failing, Mr Trump declined to discuss the issue. He said that he doesnt tend to discuss his military strategy in advance. It is a chess game. I just dont want people to know what my thinking is, he said.
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Ambulances are failing to reach thousands of seriously-ill patients within the eight-minute target time, despite a dramatic reduction in the number of calls classified as urgent, The Independent can reveal.

Unions warned that lives are being put at risk by slow response times, even as the system is being manipulated to make it easier to hit government-imposed targets.

The revelations of worsening performance come from a trial being run in three of the countrys 10 ambulance trusts, which is aiming to streamline the service and ensure the sickest patients are dealt with quickly.

The number of calls categorised as needing an urgent response has been radically cut to enable ambulances to respond to 75 per cent of cases within eight minutes  a requirement that has not been met nationally since January 2014.

But exclusive figures obtained by The Independent show even though tens of thousands of cases have been stripped out of the urgent category, ambulances are still failing to meet the target.

In Yorkshire, the percentage of the most serious calls responded to within eight minutes fell to 67 per cent between May 2016 and January 2017, down from 71 per cent a year earlier. During the same period, the number of calls classified as requiring an urgent response fell from 235,200 to 53,300.

The number of most urgent calls taken by the South Western ambulance service between May 2016 and March 2017 compared to the year before was reduced from 308,000 to 44,600. But the proportion of calls hitting the eight-minute target remained stagnant at 70 per cent.

Ambulance staff union GMB accused NHS England of manipulating targets, saying: At the end of the day, someone, if they havent already, is going to die from a lack of care.

The targets are being manipulated so there are fewer urgent calls  and if there are fewer urgent calls, surely you should be able to hit the targets, the spokesman added.

I dont think reducing the number of calls classed as emergencies is the way forward. The way to deal with response times is more ambulances and more properly-trained paramedics.

The most urgent calls in the other ambulance trusts are currently split into two groups depending on their severity: red 1 and red 2.

Red 1 is used for patients who are not breathing, do not have a pulse, or in other highly time-sensitive situations such as cardiac arrest or severe bleeding. Conditions such as stroke, sepsis and major burns are in the red 2 category, used for serious but not the most life-threatening conditions. Both require an eight-minute response.

Data from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service indicates that thousands of calls previously classed as red 2 now have a response time of 19 minutes.

 Theresa May challenged whether 350m NHS funding promise from Leave campaigners will exist

Debbie Wilkinson, chair of Unites ambulance staff committee, said staff shortages, rising demand and a lack of extra funding meant the Ambulance Response Programme (ARP) trial was always going to fail.

The trial  which is also running in the West Midlands  was originally a good idea but had failed to show improvement, she added. Ms Wilkinson also raised concerns that the reduction in the total number of calls classed as top priority meant were missing things we should be getting to.

When the ARP was first announced, Keith Willett, national director for acute care at NHS England, said the programme was not about relaxing standards but ensuring that patients were provided with the correct level of care.

Some conditions in the red 2 category have been upgraded to red 1 status in the trial, which also involves giving call handlers more time to better assess emergency situations.

The full results of the trial are expected to be published in the coming months in an independent report by Sheffield University.

Richard Webber of the College of Paramedics said the organisation was generally supportive of the changes because too many cases are currently classified in the most urgent category.

The problem has been that currently across the country there are around 40 per cent of calls in the most life-threatening category, which clearly isnt right. he told The Independent. We know about 10 per cent of 999 calls are probably life-threatening.

He added that commissioners need to review investment in the ambulance services to give the new targets system the best chance of success.

Paul Evans, Director of the NHS Support Federation, told The Independent: The eight-minute target is based on the clinical reality that if you dont get to a patient with heart failure in a certain amount of time, youre not going to save them.

Any change to that would have to have some clinical evidence. Its not just a matter of saying, well, we cant get to everybody, so why dont we reassess what we can do and then we are more likely to meet it.

The bottom line is people die if you dont get to them quickly enough.

Health news in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 Health news in pictures Health news in pictures Coronavirus outbreak The coronavirus Covid-19 has hit the UK leading to the deaths of two people so far and prompting warnings from the Department of Health AFP via Getty Health news in pictures Thousands of emergency patients told to take taxi to hospital Thousands of 999 patients in England are being told to get a taxi to hospital, figures have showed. The number of patients outside London who were refused an ambulance rose by 83 per cent in the past year as demand for services grows Getty Health news in pictures Vape related deaths spike A vaping-related lung disease has claimed the lives of 11 people in the US in recent weeks. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 officials investigating the cause of the mystery illness, and has warned citizens against smoking e-cigarette products until more is known, particularly if modified or bought off the street Getty Health news in pictures Baldness cure looks to be a step closer Researchers in the US claim to have overcome one of the major hurdles to cultivating human follicles from stem cells. The new system allows cells to grow in a structured tuft and emerge from the skin Sanford Burnham Preybs Health news in pictures Two hours a week spent in nature can improve health A study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a dose of nature of just two hours a week is associated with better health and psychological wellbeing Shutterstock Health news in pictures Air pollution linked to fertility issues in women Exposure to air from traffic-clogged streets could leave women with fewer years to have children, a study has found. Italian researchers found women living in the most polluted areas were three times more likely to show signs they were running low on eggs than those who lived in cleaner surroundings, potentially triggering an earlier menopause Getty/iStock Health news in pictures Junk food ads could be banned before watershed Junk food adverts on TV and online could be banned before 9pm as part of Government plans to fight the "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Plans for the new watershed have been put out for public consultation in a bid to combat the growing crisis, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said PA Health news in pictures Breeding with neanderthals helped humans fight diseases On migrating from Africa around 70,000 years ago, humans bumped into the neanderthals of Eurasia. While humans were weak to the diseases of the new lands, breeding with the resident neanderthals made for a better equipped immune system PA Health news in pictures Cancer breath test to be trialled in Britain The breath biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients Getty Health news in pictures Average 10 year old has consumed the recommended amount of sugar for an adult By their 10th birthdy, children have on average already eaten more sugar than the recommended amount for an 18 year old. The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. Obesity is a leading cause Reuters Health news in pictures Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty Health news in pictures Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults at higher risk of heart disease, study claims Researchers at the Baptist Health South Florida Clinic in Miami focused on seven areas of controllable heart health and found these minority groups were particularly likely to be smokers and to have poorly controlled blood sugar iStock Health news in pictures Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty Health news in pictures Potholes are making us fat, NHS watchdog warns New guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body which determines what treatment the NHS should fund, said lax road repairs and car-dominated streets were contributing to the obesity epidemic by preventing members of the public from keeping active PA Health news in pictures New menopause drugs offer women relief from 'debilitating' hot flushes A new class of treatments for women going through the menopause is able to reduce numbers of debilitating hot flushes by as much as three quarters in a matter of days, a trial has found. The drug used in the trial belongs to a group known as NKB antagonists (blockers), which were developed as a treatment for schizophrenia but have been sitting on a shelf unused, according to Professor Waljit Dhillo, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism REX Health news in pictures Doctors should prescribe more antidepressants for people with mental health problems, study finds Research from Oxford University found that more than one million extra people suffering from mental health problems would benefit from being prescribed drugs and criticised ideological reasons doctors use to avoid doing so. Getty Health news in pictures Student dies of flu after NHS advice to stay at home and avoid A&E The family of a teenager who died from flu has urged people not to delay going to A&E if they are worried about their symptoms. Melissa Whiteley, an 18-year-old engineering student from Hanford in Stoke-on-Trent, fell ill at Christmas and died in hospital a month later. Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. Nephron Health news in pictures Babies' health suffers from being born near fracking sites, finds major study Mothers living within a kilometre of a fracking site were 25 per cent more likely to have a child born at low birth weight, which increase their chances of asthma, ADHD and other issues Getty Health news in pictures NHS reviewing thousands of cervical cancer smear tests after women wrongly given all-clear Thousands of cervical cancer screening results are under review after failings at a laboratory meant some women were incorrectly given the all-clear. A number of women have already been told to contact their doctors following the identification of procedural issues in the service provided by Pathology First Laboratory. Rex Health news in pictures Potential key to halting breast cancer's spread discovered by scientists Most breast cancer patients do not die from their initial tumour, but from secondary malignant growths (metastases), where cancer cells are able to enter the blood and survive to invade new sites. Asparagine, a molecule named after asparagus where it was first identified in high quantities, has now been shown to be an essential ingredient for tumour cells to gain these migratory properties. Getty Health news in pictures NHS nursing vacancies at record high with more than 34,000 roles advertised A record number of nursing and midwifery positions are currently being advertised by the NHS, with more than 34,000 positions currently vacant, according to the latest data. Demand for nurses was 19 per cent higher between July and September 2017 than the same period two years ago. REX Health news in pictures Cannabis extract could provide new class of treatment for psychosis CBD has a broadly opposite effect to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component in cannabis and the substance that causes paranoia and anxiety. Getty Health news in pictures Over 75,000 sign petition calling for Richard Branson's Virgin Care to hand settlement money back to NHS Mr Bransons company sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an 82m contract to provide childrens health services across Surrey, citing concerns over serious flaws in the way the contract was awarded PA Health news in pictures More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively Getty Health news in pictures Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels. On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year. Reuters Health news in pictures Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock Health news in pictures You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even metabolically healthy obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Health news in pictures Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock Health news in pictures Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the napercise class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Health news in pictures 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said Getty Health news in pictures 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Health news in pictures Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years Getty Health news in pictures Cycling to work could halve risk of cancer and heart disease Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests  but campaigners have warned there is still an urgent need to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty

Demand for ambulance services, fuelled by an ageing population and rising levels of obesity, has grown by an average of 5.2 per cent a year since 2011-2012, according to a National Audit Office report.

In November, NHS England admitted a system-wide problem after it emerged that every ambulance service in England had failed to meet targets for the previous 16 months.

A similar trial is taking place in Wales, where the eight-minute target did apply to around 40 per cent of calls received by the Welsh Ambulance Service, but now applies to just four to five per cent of calls.

The Welsh target of 65 per cent of these calls to be reached in eight minutes has been met since the trial began, and in March 2017, 77.9 per cent of immediately life-threatening calls were reached within eight minutes, up from 74.6 per cent in February.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: Despite Jeremy Hunts promise of better efficiency and improved outcomes for patients, the Governments reckless handling of ambulance targets has left record numbers of patients suffering and in discomfort.

Recommended May and Corbyn square off over NHS and national security in last clash

Since Theresa May became Prime Minister the decline in standards for NHS patients has been appalling. Targets have been missed across the board and her Government is in complete denial as to the fundamental failings of their sustained underfunding of our NHS.

A performance report from the South Western Ambulance Service in February suggests the new way of working will continue for the time being and may be implemented elsewhere.

The Ambulance Response Programme is now at the end of its testing phase, it said. It has been recommended that ambulance services continue to operate under ARP conditions until a decision is made on full implementation.

A spokesperson for NHS England said: The Ambulance Response Programme trials are still being evaluated and any recommendations on changes to the existing standards will be made in due course. More than 10 million calls have been included and analysed in these trials, with no adverse effect on patient safety.

Additional triage time has led to fewer ambulances being stood down and more vehicles and crews being available to answer 999 calls, enhancing service efficiency.
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Facebook has come under fire after leaked documents revealed the social media site has been targeting potentially vulnerable children.

The allegations suggest the company is gathering information on young people who need a confidence boost to facilitate predatory advertising practices.

Confidential documents obtained by The Australian reportedly show how Facebook can exploit the moods and insecurities of teenagers using the platform for the benefit of advertisers.

By monitoring posts, the newspaper said Facebook could determine when users as young as 14 feel defeated, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, nervous, stupid, silly, useless or a failure.

This information, which Facebook calls sentiment analysis could be used by advertisers to target young teenager when they are potentially more vulnerable.

The document was reported to have been put together by two Australian Facebook executives, and includes information on when young users and most likely to feel certain emotions.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

The company said claims made about targeting site users were "misleading" but has since issued an apology and said an investigation would be launched into the matter.

In a statement, Facebook said: "The analysis done by an Australian researcher was intended to help marketers understand how people express themselves on Facebook. It was never used to target ads and was based on data that was anonymous and aggregated.

"Facebook has an established process to review the research we perform. This research did not follow that process, and we are reviewing the details to correct the oversight."

A spokesman told The Independent no known studies of a similar nature had taken place in the UK and that British parents had "no reason to feel concerned".

Facebook - one of the largest companies to dominate the advertising industry alongside Google  has been at the centre of internet privacy concerns in previous years, with many suspecting the company to be capable of using personal data in this way.

In 2012, the company received fierce backlash after it conducted an experiment on nearly 700,000 unsuspecting users.

By using an algorithm to determine whether a post was negative or positive, Facebook was able to alter which status updates appeared on an individual users news feed.

The aim was to determine whether the selected groups mood could be influenced, becoming sadder the more negative posts they saw.

The results were published in a scientific journal but the company was criticised for playing with peoples emotions for commercial gain.
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Scientists have carried out a successful head transplant on rats ahead of plans to attempt a similar operation on a human later this year.

During the procedure, the head of a smaller rat was attached to the body of a larger rodent. Rather than simply replacing the head, the team attached the donor head to the body of the larger rat, creating an animal with two heads.

The operation involved three rats in total: the donor, the recipient and a third used to maintain the blood supply to the transplanted head.

Recommended First human head transplant could take place in the UK next year

A pump was used to transfer blood from the third rat to the donor head in order to ensure the brain was not starved of oxygen.

After the procedure, the rat whose head had been transplanted was able to see and feel pain, showing the brain was functioning despite having been detached from its original body.

The experiment, reported in the journal CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics, was designed to investigate issues relating to blood flow to the brain and the possibility of the immune system rejecting the new organ  problems that could arise during a human transplant.

The procedure was carried out by a team including Sergio Canavero, the controversial Italian neurosurgeon who has pledged to carry out a human head transplant by the end of 2017.

Mr Canavero had previously announced that his patient would be Valery Spridonov, a Russian man who suffers from the degenerative muscular condition Werdnig-Hoffmans disease, but the doctor has since said it is actually likely to be an as yet unselected Chinese person. The reasons for the change are unclear.

The neurosurgeon and his collaborator, Xiaoping Ren from the Harbin Medical University in China, have between them previously carried out a series of experiments involving head transplants.

Discoveries that change the way you see the world Show all 30 1 /30 Discoveries that change the way you see the world Discoveries that change the way you see the world Million-year-old human footprints discovered Million-year-old human footprints have been discovered on the beach as Happisburgh, Norfolk Discoveries that change the way you see the world The world's oldest face Scientists discovered the worlds oldest face, which belongs to this 419 million-year-old fish - an ancient sea predator that might also re-write the history of our evolution from the seas Discoveries that change the way you see the world Discovery of the ancient forest Ancient forest revealed by storms. The recent huge storms and gale force winds that have battered the coast of West Wales have stripped away much of the sand from stretches of the beach between Borth and Ynyslas. The disappearing sands have revealed ancients forests, with the remains of oak trees dating back to the Bronze Age, 6,000 years ago. The ancient remains are said by some to be the origins of the legend of Cantrer Gwealod , a mythical kingdom now submerged under the waters pif Cardigan Bay Discoveries that change the way you see the world Bowhead whale genome, linked to cancer resistance, DNA damage repair and increased longevity, mapped by scientists In a UK-based study, scientists working together with scientists in Alaska, Denmark, Ireland, Spain and South Korea successfully mapped the genome of the bowhead whale - the longest-living mammal - identifying a number of genes that are linked to cancer resistance, DNA damage repair and increased longevity PA Discoveries that change the way you see the world Researchers develop 'imaginary meal' pill An 'imaginary meal' pill called fexaramine has been developed by researchers at the Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory Discoveries that change the way you see the world Scientists prolong lifespan of flies Scientists at the Institute of Cell Biology, in Switzerland, have successfully managed to prolong the lifespan of flies, activating a gene that destroys unhealthy cell Discoveries that change the way you see the world Green tea can help cure oral cancer Green tea can help kill off cancerous cells, say researchers Discoveries that change the way you see the world Mars once had a large ocean covering a large portion of its northern hemisphere Almost half of the northern hemisphere of Mars was once covered by a large ocean that held 20 million cubic kilometres of water: more than the Artic Ocean Discoveries that change the way you see the world Offices playing natural sounds can boost worker moods and improve cognitive abilities Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute learned that offices which play natural sounds such as ocean waves, trees and bird calls can boost the moods of workers and improve their cognitive abilities, as well as providing privacy (by masking speech) Discoveries that change the way you see the world Impact glass may exist on Mars Brown University researchers found that spectral signals indicate the existence of impact glass on the surface of Mars, with specific deposits conserved in craters Discoveries that change the way you see the world Fathers experience weight gain Fathers have been found to experience weight gain and a rise in their body mass index (BMI), according to a research conducted by Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine. The study, which followed over 10,000 men throughout a 20 year period, also revealed that the men who didnt become fathers actually lost weight Discoveries that change the way you see the world The world's oldest skull Divers Alberto Nava and Susan Bird discover the world's oldest skull found in an underwater cave in Mexico, believed to be the earliest trace of first Americans Discoveries that change the way you see the world Scientists create intelligent mice that do not experience fear or anxiety Scientists participating in a joint University of Leeds and Mount Sinai Hospital study managed to alter a gene within mice; improving their intelligence and reducing their ability to feel anxious or fear. The discovery could prove instrumental in research into age-related cognitive decline, such as Alzheimers or schizophrenia Discoveries that change the way you see the world Paralysed man walks again The brain-computer interface system will be improved by developing an implantable version, say experts. A 26-year-old male who had suffered a spinal cord injury which had paralysed him from the waist down was given the ability to walk again by scientists, who rerouted brain waves to electrodes on his knees.The doctors responsible said that he was the first person with paraplegia caused by a spinal injury given the ability to walk without relying on manually controlled robotic limbs Discoveries that change the way you see the world Discovery of the medieval royal palaces Archaeologists in southern England have discovered what may be one of the largest medieval royal palaces ever found  buried under the ground inside a vast prehistoric fortress at Old Sarum. The probable 12th century palace was discovered by archaeologists, using geophysical ground-penetrating x-ray technology to map a long-vanished medieval city which has lain under grass on the site for more than 700 years Discoveries that change the way you see the world The world's rarest diamond This rare diamond that survived a trip from deep within the Earth's interior confirmed that there is an oceans worth of water beneath the planets crust Discoveries that change the way you see the world Virtual reality can revolutionise healthcare Cardiologists at the Institute of Cardiology in Poland have successfully used virtual reality to restore blood flow to a blocked artery, leading the way for it to revolutionise certain aspects of healthcare, in surgical procedures and during training. Using wearable virtual reality equipment, similar to that of Google Glass, developed specifically for the surgical procedure, doctor completed the difficult procedure Discoveries that change the way you see the world Puppies born by IVF in the US After years of failed attempts, scientists at Cornell University successfully bred the world's first puppies born through IVF, allowing for research into the conservation of endangered breeds and protection of those that are at risk of disease Discoveries that change the way you see the world Cancer is caused by environmental factors Research into the causes of cancer concluded that, on the whole, it is due to environmental factors, not, as was previously thought, bad luck Discoveries that change the way you see the world Fossil fight 'Astounding' fossil find from Montana revealing two dinosaurs locked in mortal combat Discoveries that change the way you see the world Fusion reactors could become economically viable Researchers at Durham University and the Oxfordshire Culham Centre for Fusion Energy have found fusion reactors could become economically viable ways of generating electricity in just a few decades, telling politicians and policy makers to begin the process of planning for their introduction and the replacement of nuclear power stations. Analysis by these researchers has found that the costs associated with fusion power shows its feasibility, when compared with traditional fission reactors, generating electricity at a similar price Discoveries that change the way you see the world Discovery of the whale skeletons Chilean and Smithsonian paleontologists study several fossil whale skeletons at Cerro Ballena, next to the Pan-American Highway in the Atacama Region of Chile Discoveries that change the way you see the world Discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls are almost 1,000 biblical manuscripts discovered in the decade after the Second World War in what is now the West Bank. The texts, mostly written on parchment but also on papyrus and bronze, are the earliest surviving copies of biblical and extra-biblical documents known to be in existence, dating over a 700-year period around the birth of Jesus. 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Since the 1700s, archeologists and historians have argued over the existence of the huge sarsen stones, which were unearthed at the site of the world's biggest prehistoric stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire Discoveries that change the way you see the world Ancient gold found near Stonehenge Gold fitting for a dagger sheath (around 1900 BC.) found near Stonehenge Discoveries that change the way you see the world The Rosetta Stone discovery The Rosetta Stone is a basalt slab inscribed with a decree of pharaoh Ptolemy Epiphanes (205-180 BC) in three languages, Greek, Hieroglyphic and Demotic script. Discovered near Rosetta in Egypt Discoveries that change the way you see the world We are made from stardust In 1957, a paper was published which said we are all made of stardust. Well, not quite that, but almost. Four scientists of the University of Cambridge, Fred Hoyle, William Fowler and Margaret and Geoffrey Burbidge, had conducted extensive research into stellar nucleosynthesis, the theory that all elements are created in the oldest chemical factories in the universe - stars. This paper, called Synthesis of the Elements in Stars, but better known as B2FH because of the initials of its authors, was at odds with the theory common at the time that all the elements were synthesised during the Big Bang. B2FH argued that when a star ages and dies it will enrich the interstellar medium with heavier elements, from which new stars - and, presumably, we - are formed Discoveries that change the way you see the world Optical fibres discovery The internet is a truly incredibly thing, but we all hate it when it works too slowly. Thats where optical fibres come in. Made of a high quality extruded glass called silica, they guide light through a process of refraction, and in doing so are able to transmit bandwidths at a remarkably high speed and over remarkably long distances. As such, they are used in telecommunications and computer networking to speed up internet connections, able to do so due to the fact that the total internal refraction of light means very little data is lost. And the best thing about optical fibres is when at Imperial College London they were first demonstrated to be able to bend light by Harold Hopkins and Narinder Kapany, dubbed the founding father of fibre optics

Their method involves using a very sharp knife to cut the spinal cord and then placing the body in a state of hypothermia to allow it to heal.

In one, they claimed to have severed 90 per cent of a dogs spinal cord before re-attaching it. In another, a head transplant was reportedly carried out on a monkey, and a third experiment saw the spinal cords of mice being cut and then reattached in such a way that the animals were able to recover their ability to move.

The pair also claim to have experimented with human head transplants using dead bodies.

None of the experiments were peer reviewed and Mr Canavero has a number of critics in the scientific community who accuse him of sensationalism.

His latest studies have been announced via press releases before they were published in the journals to which they had been submitted. The editor of one of the journals, Surgery, told Motherboard that significant work was needed on the draft paper before it could be published.

Other experts say there is not sufficient evidence that a human head transplant would work.

Hunt Batjer, the president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, has criticised Mr Canaveros plans to transplant a human head.

"I would not wish this on anyone, he said. I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death."
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President Donald Trump says that he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if it is "under the right circumstances".

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it," Mr Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News.

The comments come amid concerns in the US, as well as regional neighbours, about the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons programme in the wake of a number of recent failed missile tests.

Tensions have escalated dramatically in recent weeks as American and other intelligence agencies have suggested the country was readying for a possible nuclear test.

The Trump administration has said all options, including a military strike, are on the table.

North Korea so far has executed five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests, defying UN Security Council and unilateral resolutions. In January, Kim Jong-un said that North Korea had entered the final stage of preparation for a test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would have the capability of reaching the US. Trump tweeted in response at the time: "It wont happen!"

In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video

Mr Trump said on Monday that "most political people would never say" they'd be willing to meet with Mr Kim. But he adds: "I'm telling you, under the right circumstances, I would meet with him. We have breaking news."

Responding to Mr Trump's comments at a daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said that the conditions for a meeting between the US President and Mr Kim "were not there yet" and that a number of things  including North Korea's "provocative" actions and statements would need to be "ratcheted down immediately". Mr Spicer also said that North Korea's leadership will need to commit to dismantling the nuclear programme that poses a "threat to the region and to the US".

When asked why the president said he would "be honoured" to meet with Mr Kim, who has threatened to destroy the US, Mr Spicer responded that Mr Trump understands the threat that North Korea poses.

"[Mr Kim] is still a head of state," Mr Spicer said. "There is a diplomatic piece to this, but the bottom line is that the president is going to do what he has to do. Right now he's building a coalition in the region to isolate North Korea both economically and diplomatically to take that threat down."

President Trump's latest comments follow an interview at the weekend with CBS programme Face the Nation, in which Mr Trump said that the "small missile test" that North Korea executed over the weekend was not against his warnings about the consequences of further tests.

"I didn't say, 'Don't test a missile'," Mr Trump said, adding that Mr Kim is "going to have to do what he has to do. But he understands we're not going to be very happy."

Mr Trump said he would not be happy if North Korea performed a nuclear test, but was uncertain whether the US would respond with military action: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."

 President Trump coy on possibility of military action against North Korea

The President did offer praise for Mr Kim in that interview, calling him a "pretty smart cookie" for being able to keep hold of power in his country  but said that he "had no idea" as to whether the North Korean leader was sane.

The Trump administration has been working with China, Japan and South Korea to decide on the best strategy to deal with North Korea. North Korean media has repeatedly used war-like rhetoric to say that the country's military will defend itself against any aggression from the US.

Mr Trump and others officials have said that diplomacy  particularly pressure from China, the North's biggest ally in the region  and tighter sanctions on the regime of Mr Kim is the preferred method for dealing with the volatile situation. Mr Spicer said that the aim was to "isolate North Korea both diplomatically and economically to bring the threat down" in partnership with allies in the region.

One of the other means for dealing with potential aggression from the North is the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile defence system that the US military has installed in South Korea. That system has reached an initial operating capability to defend against North Korean missiles, US officials said on Monday, forging ahead with the system despite staunch objections from China.

Beijing has opposed activating the THAAD system, arguing the system's radar could be used to spy into its territory. Local residents have worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles. Officials said that the system  which the US has assured South Korea they will pay for  will not be fully operational for a number of months.
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A food bank in north-west Glasgow has launched a social media campaign to get donations after warning it did not have enough food for the next day.

Donations began flooding in after the food bank, which has seen its busiest year since opening four years ago, sent a series of tweets about the shortage.

Urgent we are running too low now on supplys.not enough for the week. if you can donate please do xxx, one tweet read.

Another added: we have provided just under 20,000 food parcels to those in need. Our shelves are near empty this week. please if u can donate xxx

The Glasgow North West location has seen a 62 per cent rise in demand after an independent food bank closed recently, explained Adrian Curtis, the Foodbank Network Director of the Trussell Trust.

It is just one of 420 in the UK run by the Trussell Trust, which altogether provided close to 1.2 million food packages, designed to last three days, over the last 12 months alone.

The local food bank has handed out almost 7,000 three-day food supplies in the last financial year.

We understand that the food bank is low on certain items such as tinned potatoes, tinned fruit and tinned vegetables, he told The Independent.

Following a social media request for donations, the food bank has been heartened to see the public donate food and money. The food bank is keen that donations continue in order to help them meet the current demand for emergency food.

More than 90 per cent of donations are given by members of the public.

The banks provide a lifeline to people who have low incomes, or who have seen their benefits delayed or changed.

Other common reasons people rely on food banks include debt, homelessness, mental health issues and domestic abuse.

The appeal from the food bank follows awkward comments on the subject from Theresa May, who responded to Andrew Marr that the UK needs a strong economy to ensure demand for food banks across the UK does not keep rising.

There are many complex reasons why people go to food banks and I want to create an economy where we have a strong economy where we pay for public services that we need but we are also creating secure jobs, she said.
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You can read it on the official Find Madeleine website: the statement of Kate and Gerry McCann from last years tenth anniversary of their daughters disappearance.

Madeleine, our Madeleine, write the parents of the missing girl. Ten years a horrible marker of time, stolen time.

You can watch their heartbreaking  interview with the BBCs Fiona Bruce, marking the tenth anniversary of three-year-old Madeleines disappearance from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on 3 May 2007.

Or you can consider the words of Kate and Gerrys web statement: We are bracing ourselves for the rehashing of old stories, misinformation, half-truths and downright lies which will be doing the rounds in the newspapers, social media and special edition TV programmes.

[We] truly hope that those reporting on the story over the next couple of weeks will have a conscience.

Then you can read the newspapers: Maddie cremated  heartbreaking new slur by Portugese ex-cop; Maddie body hidden in coffin [the same ex-cop, who is involved in a long-running legal battle with the McCanns]; and World exclusive: prime suspect is a woman (as followed by this website and many, many others.)

Then, if you want, you can read the online discussion forums, still going strong after all these years, where every story is dissected, and where some feel able to assert, with the unshakeable confidence of those convinced they know the truth  (though they might not know, or have met, the McCanns)  that revolting exploitation and deceit are involved.

 Kate and Gerry McCann vow to do 'whatever it takes for as long as it takes' in search for Madeleine

And if you fear you might have missed something, your friendly newsagent may still be able to supply you with one of the pull-out supplements that some newspapers have produced for the most recent anniversary of little Maddies disappearance.

How you view it all probably depends on your hunch  (and who doesnt have one?)  about what happened to Madeleine.

Some will praise fearless public interest investigation, possibly emphasising that most of it has been done by those outside the mainstream media (MSM).

Others will suggest the story has only been kept alive by slick PR beyond the resources of less savvy, less middle class parents with less photogenic children. Sometimes this is swiftly followed by the accusation that the parents, both of them highly intelligent doctors, have something to hide.

Still others will despair that Madeleine McCann has become an industry, making money for journalists, commentators and lawyers  while doing precious little for the missing girl herself.

Those seeing it as an industry may  fairly or unfairly  seek to examine one of those special edition documentaries broadcast last month by Australias Sunday Night programme.

First there was the headline-generating build-up: a cinematic trailer promising major new developments and a groundbreaking TV event.

Then came the show itself, mentioning theories that Madeleine had been killed by a drunk driver, or snatched by human traffickers, and saying that detectives wanted to talk to a Praia da Luz resort worker who may know more than they have so far divulged.

 Madeleine Mccann documentary claims to have 'groundbreaking' new evidence

The show also discussed a claim that MI5 might have helped hide Madeleine  it came from Goncalo Amaral, the talkative Portugese ex-cop behind the Maddie cremated line, who was sacked as lead investigator in the case in October 2007 after accusing British detectives of only chasing leads the McCanns wanted following.

Then came the programmes aftermath: no arrests, so far, but a statement from the lawyer of one of the experts featured in the show.

US-based criminal profiler Pat Brown has said she was misrepresented, and has, according to her attorney, identified multiple claims against the programme makers  who may well be instructing their own lawyers to challenge the allegations.

This comes six years after other lawyers got involved over Ms Browns self-published book casting doubt on the McCanns account of how their daughter disappeared. After Amazon heard from libel law firm Carter-Ruck, acting for the McCanns, the book was withdrawn from the online bookseller.

In a lengthy blog post, Ms Brown has now explained how she became a television commentator and why she participated in the Australian documentary.

I never expected to be on television, she wrote. But, after I started working in criminal profiling, I got a call from one of the big cable networks. They were in a panic because the guest they had invited couldnt make it at the last moment.

I did the interview. I started getting calls for more interviews.

The Madeleine McCann case Show all 25 1 /25 The Madeleine McCann case The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann One of the last photos of Madeleine before her disappearance EPA The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann Madeleine McCann was three when she was abducted during a family holiday in 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Top worn by a man that detectives investigate with connection to disappearance of Madeleine McCann A computer generated image of the distinctive burgundy long sleeve top worn by a man that detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are looking for The Madeleine McCann case Apartment in Portugal from where Madeleine went missing An aerial view of the Ocean Club apartments and pool where Madeleine McCann went missing Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Kate McCann Kate McCann speaks to the press outside the court house in Lisbon on 12 September 2013 following the first audience of the McCann couple's libel proceedings against former inspector Goncalo Amaral for a book written about the case of their missing daughter The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Kate McCann and Gerry McCann before the start of the 'Miles for Missing People' charity run in Regent's Park in London, 2011 The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Kate and Gerry McCann make an appeal at a press conference in the holiday resort of Praia da Luz, Portugal 7 May 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann The McCann's give an interview with a Spanish television channel at their home in Rothley The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Madeleine McCann was abducted in Portugal in May 2007 AP The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Preliminary forensic analysis on samples recovered from the McCanns' hire car raised the possibility of a match with Madeleine's DNA profile, according to the leaked report Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Pope Benedict XVI blesses a photo of four-year-old abducted British girl Madeleine McCann, while meeting her parents Gerry and Kate McCann, after his weekly general audience at the Vatican, 2007 Reuters The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Gerald McCann and Kate McCann speak to the press on 4 May 2007 at the Ocean club appartement hotel in Praia de Luz in Lagos after Madeline vanished while her parents were out to dinner The Madeleine McCann case Portuguese police search for Madeleine Dozens of Portuguese police aided by dogs search for missing three-year old British girl Madelaine McCann in front of the Ocean club appartment hotel in Praia de Luz in Lagos The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann Gerald McCann and Kate McCann walk holding their two other children outside the Ocean club apartment hotel in Praia de Luz in May 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann Madeleine McCann pictured at the age of three, left, and as she might have looked aged nine PA/Teri Blythe The Madeleine McCann case Kate and Gerry McCann The parents of missing Madeleine McCann have described as "pure speculation" reports in the Portuguese press suggesting that a chief suspect in the disappearance of their daughter was killed in a tractor accident four years ago. PA The Madeleine McCann case Tribute for missing Madeleine in Rothley, Leicesteshire Three year old Cally prepares to add a yellow ribbon to a floral tribute for missing Madeleine McCann in Rothley in Leicesteshire, 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Support for the missing Madeleine Everton captain Lee Carsley (L) leads his team onto the field, followed Mikel Arteta (C) and Manuel Fernandes (R) wearing Tshirts bearing a message of support for the missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, prior to the English Premiership match between Chelsea and Everton, at Stamford Bridge in London, 2007 The Madeleine McCann case Madeleine McCann A poster appealing for information about Madeleine McCann at a Spanish railway station PA The Madeleine McCann case BBC's Crimewatch reconstruction of Madeleine McCann's disappearance Former porn star Mark Sloan (L) was cast in the BBC's Crimewatch reconstruction of Madeleine McCann's disappearance BBC The Madeleine McCann case Clarence Mitchell holds two artist's impression of the new suspect McCann family spokesman Clarence Mitchell holds two artist's impression of the new suspect on 20 January 2008 in London. The description has come from British woman Gail Cooper, who was staying with her family close to the McCann's apartment in Portugal The Madeleine McCann case Image of a woman sought in the case Clarence Mitchell, the press spokesman for the McCann family, releases a photofit image of a woman sought in the search for missing Madeleine McCann Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Suspect in disappearance of Madeleine McCann Police released two e-fits of suspect in disappearance of Madeleine McCann Getty Images The Madeleine McCann case Raymond Hewlett Convicted paedophile Raymond Hewlett, who is being sought in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann PA The Madeleine McCann case A picture of a suspect An artist's impression of a suspicious man seen by a witness apparently watching the McCann family's apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, the day before Madeleine McCann went missing Channel 4

Fifteen years later, she said, she has made more than 3,000 media appearances  far from all of them about Madeleine McCann. As well as current investigations, she has been a valued expert in the documentaries The Unsolved Death of Cleopatra and Mystery Files: Jack the Ripper.

What I wanted to do, she explained, Was change methods of crime analysis so we would not have so many cold cases languishing in every state in the country.

Her participation in the Australian show, she stressed, was not about the money.

I doubt any participants were paid, she said, And, if they were, believe me, these kind of shows are cheap.

She acknowledged there would be two schools of thought: Pat Brown is not a real profiler. She is a McCann hater and published her book because she wants to make money off the pain of the parents and an innocent missing child.

And among her supporters: Pat Brown is the one professional outside of Goncalo Amaral who has not backed down from speaking the truth.

I did the show, she said, Because I wanted the truth out there in the MSM. It was an opportunity to speak out on the Madeleine McCann case, something that had been off limits for over seven years in the MSM.

The idea that the case is off limits to the mainstream media might amaze some, including the McCanns.

In November 2011 they told the Leveson Inquiry that British newspapers had declared open season on them.

At least in the early days, some reports seemed to do little more than repeat speculation in the Portuguese and Spanish press, with the addition of quotation marks and words like allegedly to give a little bit of legal distance from the initial allegation.

Some editors, it seemed, had noticed how a McCann splash could generate the kind of interest hitherto reserved for the latest sensational twist in the Diana, Princess of Wales story.

 Madeleine McCann 10 years on: Detectives still pursuing critical leads

We had anecdotal evidence from the British journalists in Praia da Luz that the story of Madeleines disappearance had caught the imagination of the British public and was driving sales in the UK, Gerry McCann told the Leveson Inquiry. As a result those journalists were under intense pressure from their newsdesks to file more copy.

It is possible, however, that the involvement of the lawyers has taken at least some of the edge off the media frenzy.

In March 2008 the Daily Express and the Daily Star had to make front page apologies after the McCanns started libel proceedings in relation to more than 100 articles published by the two daily newspapers and their Sunday sister editions. The High Court heard the false claims included allegations that the McCanns killed their daughter, sold her to pay off debts, or were involved in wife-swapping.

Then in July 2008 the McCanns started proceedings against Mr Amaral after he published his book The Truth of the Lie, in which he claimed the McCanns faked the abduction of their daughter after she died because of an accident in the familys holiday apartment.

The McCanns won an initial libel case against Mr Amaral in 2015, but this was overturned on appeal and in a judgement in Portugals Supreme Court. The McCanns told Fiona Bruce they will now be appealing to the European courts because the rulings against them were terrible.

The ongoing legal disputes, then, may have persuaded journalists to tread carefully  but it seems there is no shortage of material allowing them to plod on.

The known, indisputable facts may be few: Madeleine was reported missing at 10.14pm on the evening of 3 May 2007; her parents said they had left her sleeping in the apartment and gone to dinner with friends at a tapas bar 50 yards away, with one of the group checking on the toddler every half hour.

But out of that has grown a near infinity of leads or blind alleys  as well as incessant questioning from critics armed with hindsight and demanding to know why the McCanns didnt play safe and get a baby sitter (especially after it emerged there had been burglaries in a resort described in the first, sympathetic reports as a secure middle-class haven).

On 25 April, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the man in charge of Operation Grange, Scotland Yards six-year, 11m review of the case, wrote of his team having examined over 40,000 documents, out of which thousands of enquiries were generated.

We continue to receive information on a daily basis, he said. The team has looked at in excess of 600 individuals who were identified as being potentially significant to the disappearance.

There was, he added, to a television interviewer, a significant line of inquiry which is worth pursuing.

Ourselves and the Portuguese are doing a critical piece of work and we dont want to spoil it by putting titbits of information out publicly.

Of course, such a tantalising hint became a headline.

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Look hard enough, and you will find stories about how lessons have not been learnt about the failure to find Madeleine, and about how all the speculation has drowned out debate about how to respond to a similar child disappearance in the future.

But such stories seem to gain far less traction than the latest hugely significant new clue or sensational new development or even  What was Madeleines cuddle cat and how important was it to the police investigation?

And Madeleine is still missing.

This article was first published on 1 May 2017
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Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have identified a female suspect who they believe could be the key to solving the case, reports suggest.

Investigators are said to have searched all over Europe for the woman, who was seen close to the apartment in Praia de Luz, Portugal from which Madeleine was taken. Sources say officers will soon be in a position to question the suspect.

Detectives have scoured Europe looking for this woman who is thought to hold the key to solving the entire case, a source told the Sunday Express.

 Madeleine McCann 10 years on: Detectives still pursuing critical leads

After months of tireless police work they will soon be in a position to move in and finally get some answers after a decade of dead ends. It is a hugely significant line of inquiry that officers hope could lead to an arrest.

It was revealed earlier in the year that Metropolitan Police officers working on the case, codenamed Operation Grange, had identified a new person who they wanted to question and had been given an extra 85,000 by the Home Office to pursue the lead. The investigation, which to date has cost 11m, had been due to be closed but will now continue until at least September.

Madeleine, then three years old, disappeared from her familys holiday apartment in the Algarve on 3 May 2007. Her mother, Kate, discovered her missing when she went to check on her during a meal with friends and found the window open and her oldest daughter gone.

The disappearance sparked one of the biggest missing person investigations of all time, with teams in both the UK and Portugal assessing hundreds of potential lines of inquiry and persons of interest.

The latest development comes as Madeleines parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, vowed to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to find out what happened to their daughter.

Madeleine McCann: Unfinished business Show all 2 1 /2 Madeleine McCann: Unfinished business Madeleine McCann: Unfinished business pg-16-madeleine-1-pa-blythe.jpg PA/Teri Blythe Madeleine McCann: Unfinished business pg-16-madeleine-2-pa.jpg PA

During an interview with BBC presenter Fiona Bruce to coincide with the ten-year anniversary of Madeleines disappearance, Ms McCann said:Weve come a long way and there is progress and there are some very credible lines of inquiry that the police are working on.

Whilst theres no evidence to give us any negative news, hope is still there.

 Kate and Gerry McCann vow to do 'whatever it takes for as long as it takes' in search for Madeleine

Mr McCann added: Theyve managed to pull so much together and sift through so much information, so now we do seem to be on just several lines of inquiry rather than tens/hundreds.

"We just have to go with the process and follow it through - whatever it takes for as long as it takes. There is still hope that we can find Madeleine."
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Theresa May has dismissed reports in a German newspaper about a disastrous meeting with Jean Claude-Juncker as "Brussels gossip".

German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung said the European Commission (EC) president walked out of Brexit talks in London last week saying he was "10 times more sceptical than before".

It led to a flurry of criticism of Ms May's Brexit negotiating strategy, with opposition parties warning the UK was heading for a "disastrous hard Brexit".

The reported disclosures were attributed to sources at the EC.

Ms May responded to the reports on Monday evening, repeating the line that the Downing Street meeting had been "constructive".

I have to say from what I've seen of this account I think's its Brussels gossip - and just look at what the European Commission themselves said immediately after the dinner took place, which was that the talks had been constructive," she said.

According to the report, when the Prime Minister told them "Let us make Brexit a success", Mr Juncker replied "Brexit cannot be a success".

He then produced copies of Croatia's EU entry deal and Canada's free trade deal, which runs to 2,000 pages, to show how complex any future deal would be.

Theresa May held talks with the head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in Downing Street days after calling a general election (Reuters)

Ms May was also said to have angered the EU side when she warned that the UK could not be forced to pay a "divorce bill" for leaving because there was no requirement under the treaties.

As he left, Mr Juncker was said to have told her: "I leave Downing Street 10 times as sceptical as I was before."

No 10 earlier on Monday said it did not recognise the account of the meeting which took place over dinner last Wednesday.

A Government spokesman said: "As the Prime Minister and Jean-Claude Juncker made clear, this was a constructive meeting ahead of the negotiations formally getting under way."
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The British government should abandon the fairy tale it will be better off after Brexit, Germany's Europe minister has said.

Michael Roths made the claim in both English and German on Twitter.

The British government must finally say goodbye to the fairy tale that after Brexit everything will go better for all Britons, he wrote in his native tongue.

Reverting to English he changed the words "fairy tale" to "myth".

His public intervention added to several recent criticisms from senior German politicians about the UK governments approach towards the Brexit negotiations.

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine reported Theresa May appeared to be unprepared for a meeting with European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker  who said he left "10 times more sceptical than before" about the process.

Ms May received a barrage of criticism following her meeting with Mr Juncker, who said she was on a different galaxy.

Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer called the reports deeply worrying. The government said it did not recognise the reported account of last weeks dinner meeting.

Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said some people the UK had illusions about what could be achieved by the country after exiting Europe, while the country's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said there was no free lunch for the UK.

 Theresa May accuses remaining 27 EU members of lining up to oppose Britain over Brexit

"We don't want to weaken Britain. But we also don't want that the rest of Europe is weakened," Mr Schaeuble said. "Britain should not have advantages after the exit that other countries don't have."

A special meeting of all European countries saw all the remaining 27 member states swiftly agree on negotiation positions.

It is believed that among these will be the condition that the UK must pay any money owed to the EU - estimated to be around 51bn - before a new trade deal can be considered.
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Labour has pledged a "consumer rights revolution" which will introduce legal minimum standards for all rental homes because people currently have "fewer rights renting a family home than you do buying a fridge-freezer".

Shadow housing secretary John Healey said the plans will empower renters to "call time on bad landlords" by setting standards to ensure homes are "fit for human habitation".

The proposals, which Labour would introduce if it wins the general election, include requirements for safe wiring and appliances, freedom from damp and vermin infestation, "appropriate" water and sewage facilities, appropriate facilities for preparing and cooking food, and general good repair.

The party would also introduce new powers for councils to license landlords and hit those who break the rules with "tough" fines, citing the example of Labour-run Newham Council in east London, where landlords paid 150 per property for a five-year licence and faced fines of up to 20,000 if they failed to do so.

But Tory housing minister Gavin Barwell said the licensing scheme amounted to a "tenants' tax" which would lead to landlords pushing up rents to meet the cost.

Labour's housing pledges were announced alongside its own analysis which it said showed the cost of England's 1.3 million sub-standard private rented properties.

Tenants are spending 800 million a month on homes the Government classes as "non-decent", and around a quarter of this, some 2.3 billion a year, is paid by housing benefit, according to Labour's research, based on the 2014 English Housing Survey and conducted in consultation with the House of Commons library.

The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Show all 7 1 /7 The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Zed Pod A ZED Pod is a small, low cost energy efficient starter home intended for housing young people within city boundaries over existing areas of parking or garages. This avoids having to purchase land to create affordable homes. zedfactory The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Who is ZED POD for? The occupancy will vary depending on the location of the ZED Pods. The Pods flexible nature allows them to serve as short term accommodation, such as for holiday makers, as well as in a long term scenario for young professionals, or single people wishing to get on to the property ladder in an affordable manner. zedfactory The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Terraced-Pod By minimising the demand for energy and water, and placing a translucent waterproof solar canopy over the space between the homes, it is possible to provide zero energy bills for the these homes as well as providing zero emissions electricity to charge points integrated in the parking spaces zedfactory The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis The tiny homes could sell for between 50,000 to 60,000 or rented as one bed homes for young couples for around 750 month with around 50 bills on top, according to the architects estimates.The development costs are reduced as there is no need for land acquisition. zedfactory The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Shanghai POD - Shanghai Art & Design Exhibition Further benefits extend to the prefabricated nature of the pod, which significantly increases speed of construction without effecting the durability of the pod. A typical Pod community can be erected and commissioned in under a month, and within a week on sensitive sites. zedfactory The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Shanghai POD - Shanghai Art & Design Exhibition The eco-friendly houses, around 74 square feet of floor space, would be complete with solar panel roofs, water recycling systems and electric vehicle charging. zedfactory The pod homes that sit on stilts above car parks designed to crack the housing crisis Communal space under the canopy It is cheap to live in, gives young people privacy, has good shared communal spaces, has good access to public transport and saves key workers from long commutes into city centres with high property values, Bill Dunster OBE told the Independent zedfactory

Mr Healey said: "Our homes are at the centre of our lives but at the moment renters too often don't have basic consumer rights that we take for granted in other areas. In practice you have fewer rights renting a family home than you do buying a fridge-freezer. As a result, too many are forced to put up with unacceptable, unfit and downright dangerous housing.

"The number of families renting from a private landlord has soared since 2010 but decisions made by Conservative ministers have made it easier for a minority of bad landlords to game the system.

"Most landlords provide decent homes that tenants are happy with, but these rogue landlords are ripping off both renters and the taxpayer by making billions from rent and housing benefit letting out sub-standard homes.

"After seven years of failure the Conservatives have no plan to fix the housing crisis. The next Labour government would go further and call time on bad landlords. We'd introduce proper minimum standards to put renters back in control, and give councils the powers they need to tackle the worst offenders."

The world's least affordable cities for housing Show all 10 1 /10 The world's least affordable cities for housing The world's least affordable cities for housing Hong Kong The world's least affordable cities for housing Sydney The world's least affordable cities for housing Vancouver The world's least affordable cities for housing Auckland The world's least affordable cities for housing Melbourne The world's least affordable cities for housing San Jose The world's least affordable cities for housing San Francisco The world's least affordable cities for housing London The world's least affordable cities for housing San Diego The world's least affordable cities for housing Los Angeles

But Tory Mr Barwell hit back: "This is just another misjudged and nonsensical Jeremy Corbyn idea: a town hall 'tenants' tax' that would hit every tenant in the pocket with higher rents.

"We want to help people have good quality housing, which is why we have taken targeted action against the small minority of rogue landlords, without hitting every single home with expensive municipal red tape that will force up costs and reduce supply.

"With strong and stable leadership from Theresa May and the Conservatives we can continue that work."

Press Association
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Labour today branded leaked reports of a Brexit meeting between Theresa May and Jean Claude Juncker as deeply worrying.

Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer brushed aside Downing Streets claims that the face-to-face with the EU Commissions President was constructive and said the leaks proved Ms May had misjudged her hand in negotiations.

Sir Keirs words were echoed by the SNP and Liberal Democrats, whose leader Tim Farron said the furore had blown a massive hole in Tory arguments for Brexit  and accused the PM of astonishing arrogance.

Recommended Former UK ambassador applying for Irish citizenship because of Brexit

According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper's report, EU officials and Mr Juncker were surprised Ms May did not appear to be fully briefed for the meeting last week, claiming she had unrealistic expectations.

Sir Keir said: This is a deeply worrying account and further evidence that Theresa Mays rigid and complacent approach to Brexit negotiations risks leading Britain over a cliff edge.

He added: [She] talks about strengthening her hand, but in reality she has misjudged her hand at every turn, weakening Britains position.

By refusing to acknowledge the complexity and magnitude of the task ahead the Prime Minister increases the risk that there will be no deal, which is the worst of all possible outcomes.

Ms May responded on Monday by dismissing the reports as Brussels gossip and repeating the line that the talks had been constructive.

According to the German paper, Ms May told EU officials she expected to be elected Prime Minister next month and wanted to make Brexit a success, but was told that would be difficult because the UK would be worse off in the future as a third country outside of the EU.

The PM was also reported to have said that she wanted to deal with Brexit talks in four-day blocks every month, and keep discussions confidential, but Mr Juncker apparently pulled two piles of paper from his bag - Croatias EU entry deal and Canadas free trade deal - highlighting how complex these talks would be.

There was a clash over the Brexit divorce bill with Ms May insisting there was nothing in the treaties saying the UK should pay. The Prime Minister was also said to have told the EU officials she wanted to clarify the rights of UK citizens in Europe at the EU Council in June, but the idea was dismissed by Mr Juncker as too soon for something so complex.

The morning after the Wednesday meeting, Mr Juncker called German Chancellor Angela Merkel and reportedly said Ms May lived in another galaxy and was deluding herself.

A Government spokesman said: We do not recognise this account.

As the Prime Minister and Jean-Claude Juncker made clear, this was a constructive meeting ahead of the negotiations formally getting underway.

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said he is clear this Government has no clue and is taking the country towards a disastrous hard Brexit.

He added: Theresa May chose a divisive hard Brexit, with Labour's help, and now has no idea what to do next.

This election offers us a chance to change the direction of our country, keep Britain in the single market and give the people the final say over what happens next.

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

Scotlands Minister for UK Negotiations with the European Union Michael Russell said the account of the meeting had been devastating.

He added: [It] lays bare the reality of the Tory Governments weak and chaotic leadership of Brexit  having seen first-hand how the Tories negotiate on EU matters, I am frankly not surprised by anything reported here.

Behind the facade and the robotic sound-bites the Tories are quite clearly not being straight with people about their plans for Brexit.
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Former Prime Minister Tony Blair and said he was returning to politics to fight Brexit, but has shown no sign of relenting his criticism of current leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Blair said he would not be standing in the 8 June General election, but he told the Daily Mirror newspaper that he wanted to speak out and have influence on policy as Britain negotiates to leave the European Union.

The 63-year-old, who won the 1997 General election in a landslide and whose multiple terms came to be dominated by the Iraq War, said he knew he would face criticism for plunging back into politics.

After the Iraq War, he became a Middle East peace envoy but he came under fire for working with controversial leaders and magnates in those countries. He resigned in 2015 after making little headway in eight years.

He has also commanded around 100,000 on the speech circuit around the world since he left office.

In contrast to current Labour leadership, he stated that voters should have the chance to change their mind once the final EU deal becomes clear.

This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics, he told the Daily Mirror.

 Tony Blair: Theresa May will be Prime Minister on June 9th

You need to get your hands dirty and I will.

I know the moment I stick my head out the door I'll get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me, but I really do feel passionate about this.

I don't want to be in the situation where we pass through this moment of history and I hadn't said anything because that would mean I didn't care about this country. I do.

I am not sure I can turn something into a political movement but I think there is a body of ideas out there people would support.

 Tony Blair: 'Consider voting Tory or Lib Dems over Brexit'

Mr Blair said he did not agree with Prime Minister Theresa Mays intention to leave the single market and seek out a free trade agreement, which would be relegating ourselves from the top spot.

In a separate speech last week, he also said Labour could win at any point it wants to and just needed to make the decision to do it. He warned that voters would be left homeless if they had to choose between a hard Brexit Tory Party and a hard left Labour Party.

His words come as the Tories' margin over Labour has slipped as much as 10 points in a week, but still runs ahead in the polls with a lead of around 17 points.

Mr Blair, who won three consecutive elections after Tory Prime Minister John Major, represents the most centrist strain of the party, and has had major disagreements with leftist leader Corbyn.

Mr Blair has repeatedly criticised the current leader, accusing him of faciliatating Brexit, failing to vote against triggering Article 50 and claiming that giving Mr Corbyn the top job at Downing Street would be a very dangerous experiment.

Mr Corbyn has in return slammed Mr Blair for his unhelpful plan to reverse Brexit, and told him to respect the result from 23 June.

I would ask those to think about this  the referendum gave a result, gave a very clear decision on this, and we have to respect that decision.

"Thats why we didn't block Article 50, Mr Corbyn said in February.
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More than 50,000 Haitians are at risk of being deported to a country still reeling from a series of natural disasters, after Donald Trumps immigration agency recommended ending their temporary right to live in the US.

Up to 55,000 Haitians are living in America under so-called temporary protected status (TPS), initially granted to them after the 2010 earthquake, that killed an estimated 150,000 people.

The status has been updated every 18 months, as Haiti has confronted the challenges of a cholera epidemic triggered by UN peacekeepers, a sexual abuse scandal involving those peacekeepers and political uncertainty following the postponing of elections that eventually saw Jovenel Moise become president.

But James McCament, acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, has recommended Mr Trump end the protection. He said there should be a temporary, six-month extension to allow a period of orderly transition but that people should then return.

The revelation, first reported by the Miami Herald, has triggered intense concern among the Haitian community in the US, and their supporters.

Anxiety is extremely high. They are calling me and asking me what they should do, Emmanuel Depas, a former president of the Haitian American Lawyers Association of New York, told The Independent.

The temporary status is not necessarily a path to a green card, but it gives people the right to work here.

Campaigners said the threat of deportation could result in the splitting up of families, if the parents of children born in the US were forced to leave. Others have questioned whether Haiti, where more than 1,000 people were killed last October by Hurricane Matthew, the most powerful storm to make landfall there since 1964, is able to handle the return of so many people.

 Hurricane Mathew leaves Haiti orphans homeless

Nana Brantuo of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, said: From what weve heard, they are going to terminate this status. Then these people will be undocumented, and likely to be deported.

She added: As black immigrants, they are in a state of vulnerability.

The decision on whether or not to end the Haitians temporary protected status falls to with Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary, John Kelly. His department said in a statement: "Secretary Kelly hasn't yet made a decision and we don't discuss pre-decisional documents."

In his letter to Mr Kelly, Mr McCament said a review of the situation in Haiti led his organisation to conclude the conditions no longer support its designation for TPS.

Although Hurricane Matthew recently caused a deterioration of conditions in Haitis south-west peninsula, overall conditions in the country have continued on an upward trajectory since the 2010 earthquake, he wrote.

Jovenel Moise was elected Haiti's president last November (AP)

The institutional capacity of Haitian government to respond to the lingering effects of the earthquake remain weak, but the US government is actively working to strengthen the Haitian civil service and government service delivery.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with an average per capita annual income of about $1,700 (1,365). Educational and medical facilities are inadequate and overburdened. Around 3.2m people  approximately 30 per cent of the population  suffer from food insecurity.

The US, the regional power, has long interfered politically in the country, less than a two-hour flight from its coastline. In 1991, the first democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was ousted in a coup backed by the CIA. He was returned, under a deal brokered by Bill Clinton, only to be forced into exile again in 2004, with his opponents once more receiving the backing of elements in Washington.

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. 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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. 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In recent years, UN peacekeepers have been accused of indiscriminate killing of civilians. In the aftermath of the earthquake, UN peacekeepers from Nepal were almost certainly responsible for an outbreak of cholera that killed at least 10,000 people and made more than 700,000 ill.

Indeed, Mr McCaments letter pointed out the country is still facing problems in housing, health, the economy, sanitation services, gender-based violence and overall security.

Haiti is the poorest country in the hemisphere and it had enormous problems before the 2010 earthquake, he wrote. Even before the earthquake, the Haitian government could not, or would not, deliver core functions to the majority of its people.

Reaction to the proposal to end the TPS has met with criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.

Haiti is still struggling to recover from two major natural disasters that killed more than 200,000 people. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world and right now its unable to support the roughly 50,000 Haitians that are currently receiving protected status here in the US, said Democratic senator Bill Nelson of Florida. The US should be focused on helping Haiti recover, not sending people back to a country that cant support them.

Republican senator Marco Rubio, also from Florida, was among a bipartisan group that has written to Mr Kelly urging him to extend TPS.
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Donald Trump, a man who peddled conspiracy theories about John F Kennedys murderer while campaigning for the White House, must make a decision as to whether to reveal thousands of classified documents surrounding the former Presidents death.

Kennedy was shot dead in his car in November 1963 in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald and it is still not known exactly what intelligence agencies knew about him before the assassination and what links Oswald had with Fidel Castros government in Cuba.

The unsealing of these documents, which may answer these questions and which could have a significant impact on US history, comes down to Mr Trump, a man who often gives weight to conspiracy-theory outlets like Infowars and hardline right-wing publications such as Breitbart.

More than two million documents have already been declassified, many of which were withheld by intelligence agencies from the original Warren Commission in 1964.

The commission concluded that there was no evidence of conspiracy, but the 1991 film JFK, by Oliver Stone, revived the popular fascination with a possible cover-up.

Consequently, a 1992 law was signed by George W Bush to provide transparency within 25 years.

Mr Trump has until the deadline on 26 October to make the 3,600 documents public, or request that the deadline be extended.

These never-seen-before documents, which were collated by a temporal agency called the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), are now part of national archives.

Experts hope they could fill missing gaps about why Oswald was monitored by the CIA during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination, and why he went to the Soviet and Cuban embassies there.

Historians largely agree that he was trying to obtain a visa to defect to Cuba, as he had tried to move to the Soviet Union.

Mr Trump has not indicated what he will decide.

Last month the CIA and the FBI acknowledged they were reviewing the documents scheduled for release but did not say whether they planned to appeal the deadline.

On the 2016 campaign trail Mr Trump repeatedly pointed to an article in the National Enquirer that linked Oswald to the father of the Republican senator Ted Cruz, Mr Trump''s former presidential rival. The story was based on one photograph of Oswald and another man handing out pro-Castro leaflets shortly before the assassination.

That was reported, and nobody talks about it, but I think its horrible, Mr Trump told Fox News last May.

Mr Cruz denied that his father, Rafael Cruz, was the man in the photo, and called Mr Trump a pathological liar.

The archived documents will identify US and foreign spies and other sources who gave information about Oswald and the murder and were granted anonymity as a result.

Around 400 pages will also reveal information about the former CIA operative E Howard Hunt, who became a conspirator to the Watergate scandal and who claimed before his death that he knew Oswald would murder Kennedy.

This adds to 86 pages on a CIA-backed, anti-Castro exile group that Oswald might have tried to infiltrate in his hometown of New Orleans to gather information that might be useful to the Castro government.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

The bizarre chapter, as it was described by the fomer ARRB chairman John Tunheim, was a report that Oswald openly bragged to Cuban officials that he was planning to kill the President and that he had an affair with a Mexican woman who worked at the consulate. The woman was suspected to be a CIA operative, according to the American ambassador to Mexico at the time.

The Mexico documents were kept secret at the request of intelligence agencies as Mexico was a key US ally during the Cold War. Under President Trump, however, relations have turned frosty as Mr Trump has called Mexicans drug dealers and rapists and has badgered Mexico to pay billions for the border wall.

Nearly 54 years later and with a broader context of history, the revealed names, places and events might serve to either undermine conspiracy theories or add fuel to the fire for those who believe in them.

Martha Murphy, the Archives official, told Politico that although researchers could not determine if they had discovered any bombshells within the documents, they provided a really interesting snapshot of the Cold War.
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Congressional negotiators reached an agreement late Sunday on a broad spending package to fund the government through the end of September, alleviating fears of a government shutdown later this week, several congressional aides said.

Congress is expected to vote on the roughly $1 trillion package early this week. The bipartisan agreement includes policy victories for Democrats, whose votes will be necessary to pass the measure in the Senate, as well as $12.5 billion in new military spending and $1.5 billion more for border security requested by Republican leaders in Congress.

The agreement follows weeks of tense negotiations between Democrats and GOP leaders after President Trump insisted that the deal include funding to begin building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump eventually dropped that demand, leaving Congress to resolve lingering issues over several unrelated policy measures.

The new border-security money comes with strict limitations that the Trump administration use it only for technology investments and repairs to existing fencing and infrastructure, the aides said.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure."

Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., boasted that they were able to force Republicans to withdraw more than 160 unrelated policy measures, known as riders, including those that would have cut environmental funding and scaled back financial regulations for Wall Street.

Democrats fought to include $295 million to help Puerto Rico continue making payments to Medicaid, $100 million to combat opioid addiction, and increases in energy and science funding that Trump had proposed cutting. If passed, the legislation will ensure that Planned Parenthood continues to receive federal funding through September.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

The package includes $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the cost of protecting Trump when he travels to his residences in Florida and New York, a major priority for the two New York Democrats involved in the spending talks, Schumer and Rep. Nita Lowey.

Among the bipartisan victories is $407 million in wildfire relief for western states and a decision to permanently extend a program that provides health-care coverage for coal miners.

"The agreement will move the needle forward on conservative priorities and will ensure that the essential functions of the federal government are maintained," said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J.

House Republicans have struggled in recent weeks to keep their members focused on spending as White House officials and conservatives pressed leaders to revive plans for a vote on health-care legislation. The health-care fight became tangled last week in spending talks as leaders worried that forcing a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act risked angering Democrats whose votes are necessary to avoid a government shutdown.

Leaders worked last week to determine whether the House has enough votes to pass a revised health-care bill brokered by the White House, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a top member of the moderate Tuesday Group.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and his top lieutenants announced Thursday that they did not have sufficient votes to be sure the measure would pass but vowed to press on.

"We're still educating members," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters after a late-night health-care meeting last week. "We've been making great progress. As soon as we have the votes, we'll vote on it."

Author Information:

Washington Post
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A powerful earthquake has been felt in western Canada close to the border with Alaska.

The quake, which the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said measured 6.2 in magnitude on the Richter scale, struck early on Monday.

The temblor, hit northwest of Mosquito Lake, a hamlet with a population of about 300 that lies 55 miles west-northwest of Skagway, Alaska, the USGS said on its website. Soon after it struck, the USGS made a preliminary estimate of 6.5.

At least three aftershocks have been recorded, geophysicist Amy Vaughan told the Associated Press, and Ms Vaughan expected more.

She said this type of quake has the potential to cause damage but that the location dropped the chances of major problems. Vaughan says it would have jarred people awake and knocked items off shelves.

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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. 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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. 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Jaimie Lawson, a dispatcher with the Skagway Police Department, says the remote town hadn't received calls about damage or injuries.

The geological survey website has recorded hundreds of reports of people feeling the shaking from the quake, one of more than 13,000 recorded in Alaska this year, according the Alaska Earthquake Center.

Reuters
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A judge in Kentucky has announced he will not preside over adoption cases involving gay parents, saying he does not believe gay adoption is ever in the best interest of the child.

Judge W Mitchell Nance issued an order to all lawyers who practice in his counties, saying that as a matter of conscience he believes that under no circumstance would the best interest of the child be promoted by the adoption by a practising homosexual." He informed the lawyers they would have to request a special judge for adoption cases involving gay people.

Same-sex marriage and adoption are legal in all 50 states.

In his order, obtained by The Independent, Mr Nance cites a judicial ethics rule that states judges must recuse themselves from any cases in which they have personal biases. He writes that his "conscientious objection to the adoption of a child by a practising homosexual" could constitute personal bias, and in some cases put his put his impartiality in question.

Lawyers tell USA Today that the judge is highly religious, and even opposed to divorce.

Dan Canon, a Louisville lawyer who helped win same-sex marriage rights in Kentucky, said Mr Nances decision to recuse himself is in the best interest of children and gay couples.

It's obviously better that the judge recuse himself from these cases rather than potentially wreck the lives of children who desperately need loving, adoptive parents, Mr Canon told USA Today.

The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe Show all 15 1 /15 The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 15. Italy Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 14. Macedonia The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 13. Poland Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 12. Liechtenstein The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 11. Lithuania The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 10. Latvia This content is subject to copyright. The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 9. San Marino The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 8. Moldova The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 7. Belarus Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 6. Ukraine Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 5. Monaco The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 4. Turkey Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 3. Armenia The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 2. Russia Getty Images The top 15 worst countries to be gay in Europe 1. Azerbaijan Getty/AFP

But Mr Canon also called it disturbing that a judge would reach this conclusion about gay adoption, and added that if Mr Nance cant fulfil his duties because of his personal biases, he should resign.

In an interview with the Courier-Journal, Mr Nance stood by his decision.

"I stand behind the law I have cited, the matter of conscience I addressed and the decision I have made, he said. He was unable to cite any research proving his position that homosexual couples make inferior parents.

A review of 75 research studies on gay same-sex parents by the Columbia Law School Public Policy Research Portal found that existing studies form "an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on over three decades of peer-reviewed research, that having a gay or lesbian parent does not harm children."

Mr Nance declined to comment further to The Independent.

I have said everything in the order that I have to say on the subject," he said.

The Alabama Senate recently passed a law allowing faith-based adoption groups to refuse to place children in homes with gay parents. Senators said the law would allow these faith-based agencies to continue operating in a field where the need is "so high."

"These faith-based agencies have been forced to close their doors because they refuse to place children in homes that go against their faith," Representative Rich Wingo, the bill's sponsor, told Alabama.com. Critics called the bill "prejudice cloaked in religion."

South Dakota, Michigan, North Dakota and Virginia have all passed similar laws.
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America's National Security Adviser has said America should be prepared to take military action against North Korea.

Lieutenant General HR McMaster called on other world powers to prevent the rebellious regime from developing a nuclear arsenal, saying the state was acting in "open defiance of the international community".

Although he said the Trump administration would prefer to "work with others" to resolve the issue "short of military action", he said the US must be prepared for its armed forces to intervene.

North Korea poses a grave threat to the United States, our great allies in the region, South Korea and Japan ... but also to China and others. And so it's important, I think, for all of us to confront this regime, he said in an interview with Fox News.

This regime that is pursuing the weaponisation of a missile with a nuclear weapon. And so this is something that we know we cannot tolerate ... The President has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or another."

He added: It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further and it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary."

President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would "not be happy" if North Korea carried out another missile test, adding that his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping would likely feel the same.

He refused to say whether this meant military action, saying: "I don't know, I mean, we'll see." He added: We shouldn't be announcing all our moves. It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is.

In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video

Mr Trump also called the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un a pretty smart cookie for being able to hang onto power after taking over the isolationist state at a young age.

On Saturday, a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile appeared to fail shortly after launch, the third such failure this month.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's drive to produce a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the US mainland.
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At least one person has been killed and three more possibly seriously injured following a mass stabbing and assault on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

Police took one person into custody after the stabbing and warned students and the public via social media channels to stay away from the area. The Austin Police force and the University of Texas at Austin Police Department worked together to respond to the incident.

Local emergency responders said that there were three victims who came in as patients and that one of them was in critical condition, local media reported.

Confirmed details about the suspect and their motive were not immediately available after police took them into custody.

Students in the nearby Gregory Gym were reportedly evacuated for their safety, according to reports from local news organisations. No further threat to campus safety were reported, the University of Austin Police Department said via Twitter.

The universitys campus is loaded just streets from downtown Austin and the Texas capitol building. The school is one of the largest universities in the United States.
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Donald Trump has been ridiculed for comments that appear to display a lack of knowledge about the US Civil War and the reasons that led to it.

In an interview broadcast on SiriusXM, the 45th president said that the countrys 7th president, Andrew Jackson, could have stopped it, had he served later.

I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, Mr Trump said.

He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said There's no reason for this.

Mr Trump was immediately criticised for his comments that appeared to suggest a lack of basic knowledge about the civil war, and one of his predecessors in the White House.

Mr Jackson, who was a slave owner, died in 1845, 16 years before the outbreak of the US Civil War, which was fought essentially about the American souths desire to retain slavery.

 Trump's security adviser says North Korea will be solved 'one way or another'

Jackson died in June 1845. He did not have any opinions about the Civil War. He was also a slave owner, Kevin Kruse, Professor of History at Princeton, told The Independent.

This highlights a lack of knowledge about basic familiar history.

During the interview with Salena Zito of the conservative Washington Examiner, Mr Trump questioned why the country could not have solved the issues between the north and south, rather than embarking on four years of brutal fighting that resulted in more deaths than those in World War I and World War II combined.

People dont realise, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why, he said. People dont ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

During the interview, the president also compared his win to that of Jackson.

My campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson, with his campaign. And I said, when was Andrew Jackson? It was 1828. Thats a long time ago.

He added: He had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately, it continues.

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It was not the first time that Mr Trump has drawn comparisons between his campaign and that of Jackson.

The Hill said that ahead of a March rally, the president compared his presidency to Jacksons while marking the birthday of the seventh president.

Speaking outside The Hermitage, Jacksons estate in Nashville, Tennessee, Mr Trump referred to Jackson as the peoples president.

It was during the revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite. Does that sound familiar?
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Barack Obama is willing to campaign for the Democratic Party, Joe Biden has said, indicating the former US President does not plan to retire from politics just yet.

At an annual party dinner, Mr Biden extinguished rumours he will run for President in 2020, but said he and Mr Obama would do whatever they can to help shape the public debate.

Im ready to help raise money, recruit candidates, campaign  so is Barack  wherever you want, just let me know, he said, reported The Hill.

Since leaving the White House just over 100 days ago, Mr Obama has been spotted on holiday in the Caribbean and recently made his first post-presidency speech at a community youth event in Chicago, where he did not mention political events or his successor Donald Trump.

Crowds at the state Democratic Party dinner in New Hampshire booed when Mr Biden addressed suggestions he might run for President.

When I got asked to speak, I knew it was going to cause speculation, he said to big applause, which transformed into boos and calls of run, Joe, run after he added: Guys, I'm not running.

The former Vice President said he was committed to do what I can do to help shape the public debate, including the really, genuinely important cause of helping more Democrats be elected.

 Joe Biden had the best reaction when Obama awarded him the Presidential medal of freedom

Mr Obama has so far kept quiet about the prospect of a political comeback, telling the University of Chicago panel event: Im spending a lot of time thinking about what is the most important thing I can do for my next job.

The single most important thing I can do is to help in any way I can to prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world.

Previous presidents have pursued other interests after leaving office: George W Bush has taken up painting, while Jimmy Carter founded a centre for democracy and human rights.

Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Show all 15 1 /15 Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden watch Barack Obama's farewell speech on 11 January. Obama called Biden his 'brother' Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years US President Barack Obama speaks alongside US Vice President Joe Biden about the Affordable Care Act AFP/Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama Getty Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years President Obama listens to Joe Biden speak of his work on defeating cancer on 18 October in the White House Reuters Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years U.S. President Barack Obama is applauded by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden while delivering his final State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington Reuters Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years U.S. Vice President Joe Biden interjects as President Barack Obama delivers remarks at a reception for the 25th anniversary of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics at the White House in Washington REUTERS Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Obama and Vice President Joe Biden react after a heckler was removed for their extended interruption (Reuters) Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R) as Vice President Joe Biden looks on Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Barack and Michelle Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden observing a moment of silence outside the White House to mark the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Barack Obama and Joe Biden putt on the White House putting green Getty Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years President Barack Obama and Joe Biden in April 2013 AFP/Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years January 1, 2013: U.S. President Barack Obama winks as he arrives with Vice President Joe Biden (L) in the briefing room Reuters Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and others receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House May 1, 2011 in Washington, DC Getty Images Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Vice-President Joe Biden, right, confirmed that the US was looking at ways of taking legal action against Julian Assange - back in December 2010 GETTY IMAGES Joe Biden and Barack Obama through the years Joe Biden, left, and retired military officers watch President Barack Obama sign orders to close down the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2009 GETTY IMAGES

Bill Clinton continued to campaign for the Democratic Party after his presidency ended, supporting his wife Hillary on the campaign trail last year.

Former attorney general Eric Holder hinted Mr Obama might return to politics in March, saying: Its coming. [Presdient Obama is] coming. And hes ready to roll, reported the Daily Beast.

The 55-year-old has chosen to remain in Washington DC with Michelle Obama and their two daughters Sasha and Malia.
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Donald Trumps administration is set to relax rules on the nutritional standards of school meals, dismantling legislation Michelle Obama fought hard to introduce during her time as First Lady.

The National School Lunch Programme, which provided nutritionally balanced meals to children for free or for a reduced price, was set up under the Obama administration to help tackle childhood obesity.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was expected to announce a new rule allowing more regulatory flexibility in the school lunch programme on Monday at Catoctin Elementary School in Virginia.

He was scheduled to eat lunch with students there, along with Senator Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

It is unclear what the new rule will entail or what effect it will have on school meals, but conservative Republicans have long sought to reverse the programme. Many have complained about the cost of the initiative, which allowed schools with students living in poverty to provide free breakfasts and lunches without requiring proof of an individual child's family income.

The law required the government to use recommendations from the Institute of Medicine to make meals in schools more nutritious, including more fruit and vegetables and less salt and meat. It also prevented schools from selling snacks high in salt, sugar and fat in cafeterias and vending machines.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

Nancy Brown, chief executive of the American Heart Association, responded to the announcement by saying the regulations had begun to work and that 99 per cent of schools were complying with them.

Improving children's health should be a top priority for the USDA (US Department of Agriculture), and serving more nutritious foods in schools is a clear-cut way to accomplish this goal, NBC reported Ms Brown as saying.

Rather than altering the current path forward, we hope the agency focuses more on providing technical assistance that can help schools get across the finish line, if they haven't done so already.
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A senior national security adviser to Donald Trump is stepping down just months into the job, amid claims of links to far-right groups and weeks after he was forced to deny being anti-Semitic.

British-born Sebastian Gorka, a former Fox News pundit, will leave the role in the coming days, according to an official in the Trump team, speaking anonymously.

Mr Gorka, a former editor at the right-wing news outlet Breitbart, had initially been hired to play a key role on the Strategic Initiatives Group, an advisory panel set up by Mr Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon to run alongside the National Security Council (NSC).

But that group fizzled out early on in the administration, and Mr Gorka was said to be unable to get clearance for the NSC after he was charged last year with carrying a weapon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

He has not commented on the reports.

Mr Gorka, who was forced to deny being anti-Semitic after he was spotted wearing a medal associated with Nazi sympathisers, is one of the best-known faces of the new administration.

The counter-terrorism analyst, whose official title is deputy assistant to Mr Trump, has maintained a hostile relationship with the media and his public critics, coming to blows with journalists and those who question his or the Trump administrations actions.

 Sebastian Gorka defends wearing a medal linked to Hungarian Nazi sympathisers

Mr Gorka often appears as a mouthpiece for the President on television, including in a Newsnight interview in February when he clashed with presenter Evan Davies on whether the new Presidents behaviour was unhinged.

Last week Mr Gorka reportedly stormed out of a cyber-security conference after allegedly yelling fake news at student protesters.

He walked off the stage during a panel discussion at Georgetown University after being questioned by students over his alleged links to a nationalist group in Hungary with wartime links to the Nazis.

That followed scrutiny of his decision to wear a military medal linked to Hungarian Nazi sympathisers.

Mr Gorka, who is of Hungarian descent but was born and raised in the UK, was pictured wearing the controversial badge at an inaugural ball for Mr Trump, and at several other events.

But he said he wore it in memory of his family and the suffering they endured, adding that his father had been tortured and imprisoned by Hungarian communists in the late 1940s after he founded underground organisations of pro-democracy, anti-Communists to work about the Soviet dictatorship.
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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte says that he may have to turn down an invitation from US President Donald Trump to visit the White House.

Mr Duterte, who has pivoted his country away from its strong alliance with the United States in favour of an increased focus on ties with China and Russia, said that his busy schedule would keep him from making a stop in Washington even though a firm date had not been set for a trip to the US.

I am tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia, I am supposed to go to Israel, Mr Duterte told reporters when they asked if he planned on accepting the White House invite.

Recommended Trump invites controversial Philippines president to White House

Mr Trump extended the invitation to Mr Duterte during a telephone call on Saturday. The White House released a statement about the call later in the evening, describing it as a very friendly conversation. That call was criticised by human rights groups who have criticised Mr Duterte for a violent anti-drug campaign in his country that has resulted in over 7,000 killings at the hands of Philippine National Police officers and unidentified vigilantes.

By essentially endorsing Dutertes... war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings, John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times about the call. Although the traits of his personality likely make it impossible, Trump should be ashamed of himself.

The White House defended the invitation amid criticism from human rights groups and others, saying that the phone call was one of several calls made after the administration began getting signals from leaders in Southeast Asia that they felt neglected by the president's focus on Japan and China because of increased tensions with North Korea. The White House said that Mr Trump also extended invitations to the leaders of Thailand and Singapore during phone calls on Sunday.

The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Show all 9 1 /9 The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On killing drug addicts These sons of whores are destroying our children. I warn you, dont go into that, even if youre a policeman, because I will really kill you. If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Message to China I will go there on my own with a Jet Ski, bringing along with me a [Phillipino] flag and a pole, and once I disembark, I will plant the flag on the runway and tell the Chinese authorities, Kill me  AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Christmas message to law-breakers If you do not want to stop, and just continue committing crimes, then this would be your last Merry Christmas AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On sex life I was separated from my wife. Im not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On the drugs trade None of my children are into illegal drugs. But my order is, even if it is a member of my family, kill him'" AP The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting the Pope We were affected by the traffic. It took us five hours. I asked why, they said it was closed. I asked who is coming. They answered, the pope. I wanted to call him: Pope, son of a wh**e, go home. Do not visit us again AFP/Getty Images The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Joke about rape I saw her face and I thought, 'What a pity... they raped her, they all lined up. I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first AFP/Getty The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte Insulting Barack Obama "Mr Obama should be respectful and refrain from throwing questions at me about the killings, or son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum" REUTERS The most controversial quotes from Rodrigo Duterte On Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants "If I have to face them, you know I can eat humans. I will really open up your body. Just give me vinegar and salt, and I will eat you. If you annoy me to the fullest... I will eat you alive. Raw" EPA

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, when asked about the Duterte invitation, said that a meeting with the Philippines leader would help the US isolate North Korea and that doing so would help to ensure the safety of American lives.

"Obviously there's a human rights component. It's a question of balance," Mr Spicer said. "Top priority is protecting the American people."

Though he said he may decline his invitation to come to Washington, Mr Duterte indicated that the relationship he has with the US has warmed since Mr Trump took office. Mr Duterte opened up a major rift between former President Barack Obama last year, telling the president then that he could go to hell and calling him a son of a wh***.
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The administration of President Donald Trump is pushing for a vote to overhaul US healthcare law this week  with White House officials saying they are confident legislation will be successfully pushed through soon.

In one of a number of television interviews by officials seemingly aimed at ramping up the pressure to get the legislation onto the floor of the House of Representatives, White House economic advisor Gary Cohn told CBS News that the administration "were convinced" that they have enough votes in the House of Representatives to pass the bill.

I think it will happen this week, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told the same network, in the wake of a tweet from Mr Trump that said the new bill was "on its way".

Republicans have had difficulty gathering support for the new legislation  despite the party controlling both sides of Congress. While maintaining some parts of Obamacare, the American Health Care Act (ACHA) gets rid of the insurance mandate and changes the size and recipients of subsidies. By 2026, the AHCA would increase the number of uninsured people by 24 million, the Congressional Budget Office reported in its analysis of the last version of the bill in March.

That version failed to gather enough potential votes in the House, partially as a result of strong opposition from the House Freedom Caucus Republican group. The caucus demanded that the new law repeal more of Obamacares insurance mandates to truly lower premiums.

The group of roughly three dozen conservative hardliners said they would endorse the revised version of the healthcare bill last week, following the introduction of the MacArthur Amendment, which would allow states to opt out of certain Obamacare requirements.

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

With at least an additional 30 guaranteed yes votes on the bill, the fate of the repeal likely lies in the hands of moderate Republicans, many of whom have not supported the legislation because of its deep cuts to the Medicaid programme and the number of people that could be left uninsured.

For example, states could allow health insurers to charge people with pre-existing conditions higher premiums  rather than the current provisions which mean sick and healthy people are charged the same rates  if those jurisdictions have an alternative way to provide or subsidise coverage for people with serious illnesses.

We are having those member-to-member conversations right now, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Republican conference, said on Fox News.

Ms McMorris Rodgers said Republican members needed time to understand new tweaks to the bill. She declined to elaborate on how close leaders were to having enough support to pass the legislation, saying: We're very close.

Mr Trump has tried to make clear that pre-existing condition provisions will not be reduced, telling Bloomberg News on Monday that the new healthcare plan "will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare". That followed up a tweet he sent over the weekend which said the revised healthcare plan will have much lower premiums & deductibles while at the same time taking care of pre-existing conditions!

But the American Medical Association said in a letter to the House last week opposing the bill that even protections in the MacArthur Amendment may be illusory and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network expressed concern that the plan could return the US to a patchwork system that drives up insurance costs for the sick.

Later on Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer appeared to try and damp down expectations, saying We're not there yet, but added that the Trump administration is getting closer and closer every day. The office of House Speaker Paul Ryan said that no vote was scheduled as of Monday and that a it would be scheduled "when we have the needed votes".

Certainly some moderates believe those votes are not yet secured. Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, said he still had problems with the latest plan and suspected there were not enough votes to pass it.

Too many Americans are going to be without coverage, Mr Dent told MSNBC, adding that the plan could make things even worse for vulnerable Americans.

Although Jim Jordan, a member of the House Freedom Caucus is more confident. "This bill doesnt get all the way there but its a good step," he told CNN. "[It is] the best we can get out of the House right now".
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The White House says there have been no changes to the Let Girls Learn initiative.

"There have been no changes to the program," Kelly Love, a White House spokeswoman, told CNN, hours after the network reported on internal documents which stated that the stand-alone program would be shut down immediately.

Statements from the Peace Corps and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to CNN and The Independent, respectively, indicated that the program would stop operating at full capacity, effective Monday. But a second spokesperson at USAID emailed The Independent hours after the first statement was received, saying that the program had not been changed.

Neither the White House or the USAID spokesperson indicated how long the program would continue, nor did they address why the memo had been sent.

The White House originally referred questions from CNN about the program to representatives of first lady Melania Trump, who declined to comment.

The news network had obtained internal emails directing Peace Corps employees not to use the Let Girls Learn name or branding. The emails, from Peace Corps acting director Sheila Crowley, said that while they may continue some Let Girls Learn projects, the Peace Corps would no longer maintain a stand-alone Let Girls Learn program.

In an initial statement, a spokesperson from USAID told The Independent the agency is "committed to empowering women and girls around the world" and are "continuing to examine the best ways to do so."

 Michelle Obama 'shaken to the core' by Donald Trump comments

Ms Obama launched the $250 million initiative in 2015 with the aim of using public and private partnerships to fund new efforts to expand educational opportunities for girls  including in areas of conflict and crisis.

In the two years since its formation, the program has invested at least $1 billion in programming in 50 different countries. Much of that funding came in the form of donations from more than 100 companies and 11 other nations  some of which gave up to $600 million.

The Obama administration had attempted to fortify the program last year, announcing $5 million in private sector donations to Let Girls Learn projects. Tina Tchen, Ms Obama's former chief of staff, told CNN the programme had secured several more years worth of funding.

"We were hopeful that given that, it could continue, Ms Tchen said. But obviously elections have consequences, and nobody knows that better than we."

Michelle Obama as the First Lady Show all 11 1 /11 Michelle Obama as the First Lady Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty Michelle Obama as the First Lady Getty

Announcing the discontinuation of the programme, Ms Crowley said her agency was proud of what the program accomplished.

'Let Girls Learn' provided a platform to showcase Peace Corps' strength in community development, shining a bright light on the work of our Volunteers all over the world," Crowley wrote in her email to employees.

The Peace Corps did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Mr Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, has largely taken on the role of advising the president on women's empowerment. The first daughter, however, seems more focused on empowering women in business. She hosted a dinner party for CEOs to discuss women in the workforce in February, and orchestrated the creation of a joint US-Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs.

On a trip to Germany this month, Ms Trump announced the creation of a fund to benefit female entrepreneurs around the world.

Critics expressed their dissatisfaction with the discontinuation of "Let Girls Learn" using Ms Trump's signature hashtag.

"It's harder to have #WomenWhoWork if you don't #LetGirlsLearn," former Organising for America communications director Jesse Lehrich tweeted.

Also on Monday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue rolled back parts of Ms Obamas other signature project, the National School Lunch Program. Republicans often complained about the burdens of the program, which required all school meals to meet Institute of Medicine nutritional guidelines.

Mr Perdue said the Trump administration would relax those regulations going forward.
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A well known white nationalist claims that he shoved a black woman at a Donald Trump campaign rally because he was acting pursuant to the directives and requests of Mr Trump.

Matthew Heimbach, a 26-year-old white nationalist, who was filmed apparently shoving African American protesters at a Louisville, Kentucky, rally because Mr Trump himself had encouraged the crowd to forcibly remove them.

After one of the protesters filed suit against Mr Heimbach and another man accusing them of assault and battery  while also trying to hold Mr Trump accountable for the violence  Mr Trump filed a challenge to the case that was quashed by a federal judge. That judge noted that prior Trump rally violence meant that the then-Republican nominees directive to supporters was particularly reckless.

Get em outta here! Trump said at the rally, before the violence from his supporters.

Recommended Donald Trump to decide whether to release John F Kennedy assassination

Mr Heimbach now argues that, because Mr Trump had encouraged crowds in past rallies to knock the c*** out of protesters and had promised to pay any legal fees that would result, the Trump campaign should be responsible for financing his defence.

Any liability, Mr Heimbach, who is representing himself, wrote in a counterclaim denying the charges levied against him, must be shifted to Mr Trump.

The white nationalist movement has frequently been connected to Mr Trump and his campaign rhetoric. A little over 100 days in office, a group of white nationalists and members of the white supremacy group the Ku Klux Klan also say that the presidents election has helped their cause and encouraged their views.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

With Donald Trump as president, it has given the white people, especially the white Christian people, a voice, Will Quigg, the KKKs California Grand Dragon, told 60 minutes in a report released Sunday.

Mr Heimbach, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is considered by many to be the face of a new generation of white nationalists.

Mr Heimbach did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not adhere to the strict Saudi Arabian dress code for women during talks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Sunday.

Saudi law generally requires women to wear a full-length robe and cover for their hair in public places, but Ms Merkel became the latest in a succession of female Western politicians to leave her hair uncovered on her visit to the Western city, Jeddah.

Theresa May declined to wear the traditional abaya costume on her visit to the country earlier this month, while Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have also previously refused the protocol.

Last week, the German parliament voted for a draft law banning women working in some public sector roles from wearing burqas.

Ms Merkel has said that the full-face veil should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

The German Chancellor said she raised human rights concerns with Saudi leaders, such as the countrys system of capital punishment and its role in the Yemeni Civil War, which has displaced at least 2 million people, according to the United Nations.

As well as conferences with the countrys rulers, Ms Merkel also met with Saudi businesswomen.

"I have the impression that the country is in a phase of change and that a lot more is possible now than some years ago, but it's still a long way away from having achieved what we would understand as equality," she said.

Saudi Arabia is one of Germanys largest trading partners in Middle East, and CEOs of major German companies have travelled with the government delegation to Saudi Arabia.

German newspaper Deutsche Welle reports that the countrys exports to Saudi Arabia were worth more than half a billion euros in 2016 alone.

The German-Saudi arms trade has been criticised by activists, opposition politicians and religious leaders, due to the countrys role in Yemen.

Germany also offers training to Saudi police, security forces and border guards.

The official Saudi Press Agency reported the two counties signed a number of memorandums to enhance cooperation in the fields of technology, energy, business and security.
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The director of the CIA has made an unannounced visit to South Korea as tensions in the region ratcheted up.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday that appeared to fail shortly after launch  the third botched attempt this month. Despite the North's tests seeming unsuccessful, they have provoked hostilities with its Asian neighbours and the US.

Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, an embassy official said, although they refused to say how long the visit lasted.

 Trump's security adviser says North Korea will be solved 'one way or another'

The CIA chief arrived in the country over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office, according to South Korean media reports.

North Korea suggested on Monday it would continue its nuclear weapons tests, saying it would build-up its nuclear forces "to the maximum" in a "consecutive and successive way at any moment".

Meanwhile, in a show of its military power, the US sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to waters off the Korean Peninsula to take part in drills with the South's naval forces.

Japan's navy dispatched its largest war ship reportedly tasked with escorting US military ships off the Japanese coast.

The helicopter carrier Izumo departed the Yokosuka port near Tokyo earlier on Monday.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a US supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas.

They said the US ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson.

Japan's Defence Ministry said only that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video

President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would "not be happy" if North Korea carried out another missile test, adding that his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping would likely feel the same.

He refused to say whether this meant military action, saying: "I don't know, I mean, we'll see." He added: We shouldn't be announcing all our moves. It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is.

Associated Press contributed to this report
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An Indian state has handed out hundreds of wooden bats to newly married women to use as a weapon if their husbands become abusive.

Gopal Bargava, a Minister in the state of Madhya Pradesh, handed out the paddles, traditionally used to get dirt out of clothes in old-fashioned laundries, to around 700 brides at a mass wedding.

The nearly foot-long paddles have messages on them that read For beating drunkards and Police wont intervene.

Mr Bhargava told Agence France Presse he wanted to draw attention to the domestic abuse of rural women receive from their alcoholic husbands.

He said: "Women say whenever their husbands get drunk they become violent. Their savings are taken away and splurged on liquor.

"There is no intent to provoke women or instigate them to violence but the bat is to prevent violence."

He has ordered nearly 10,000 bats to distribute to newly wed women.

The governor said he decided on the move after a woman asked him if she should beat her husband with a bat to stop him drinking.

In the state a group of feminist vigilantes called the Gulabi Gangs, who wear pink saris and carry wooden sticks, have started a campaign to stop vendors selling alcohol and to shut down illegal moonshine operations, the Daily Telegraph reported.

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

Many Indian states have launched crackdowns on alcohol in recent years by banning or restricting its sale in an attempt to prevent violence.

In 2016 the government of Tamil Nadu state said they would introduce a ban during a state election campaign after the measure proved popular with women voters who blame alcohol for much of the states domestic and sexual violence.

The has been increasing concern about widespread misogyny across India.

Crimes against women increased 34 per cent between 2012 and 2015 according to the National Crime Records Bureau.

Last year the federal transport minister announced all buses would be fitted with panic button alarms to help protect people on public transport.

The buttons will send an emergency alert to the control room at a local police station.

The move followed the brutal gang-rape and disembowelment of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi in December 2012 which sent shockwaves around the world.

The attack provoked furore in India and lead to swift legislative action, but the reactions of some men showed the extent of the problem.

The bus driver during the incident, Mukesh Singh, told the BBC in 2015 that a decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night and boys and girls are not equal.
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Japan's navy has dispatched its largest war ship reportedly tasked with escorting US military ships off the Japanese coast amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula.

The helicopter carrier Izumo departed the Yokosuka port near Tokyo earlier Monday.

Japanese media say the destroyer is set to escort a US supply ship in the Pacific Ocean south of Tokyo later Monday, a new mission under the new security legislation allowing Japan's military a greater role in overseas activity. The US supply ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson strike group, currently in the region.

Japan's defense ministry only says the Izumo left to eventually participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

It came after the US Embassy in Seoul confirmed reports America's CIA director was making an unannounced visit to South Korea, amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but wouldn't say for how long. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office. The US official, however, wouldn't confirm any meetings beyond ones with officials at US Forces in Korea and the US Embassy.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a US aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters. A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort US naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo in the morning.

In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a US supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas. They said the US ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japan's Defense Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilizing the region.

"Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world," Turnbull said. "Together, we're taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region."

Turnbull is to meet Trump for the first time Thursday in New York.

AP
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Blood was left on the ceiling and passengers were shaken around like rag dolls after turbulence reportedly hit a plane flying to Bangkok.

Babies were said to be among the 27 people injured, some of whom were left in a moderately severe condition aboard the Aeroflot aircraft, which was due to land in the Thai capital after travelling from Moscow.

Fifteen Russians and two Thais were hospitalised. Their ages were not disclosed and their injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

 Plane missing wheel makes dramatic emergency landing

Footage of the event showed passengers lying in the aisles and debris strewn across the plane. Another image showed blood smeared on an overhead compartment.

Out of nowhere we hit turbulence, that was so bad that it was throwing people around like crazy, passenger Rostik Rusev wrote on Instagram.

Blood everywhere, people with broken bones, noses, open fractures, babies with head injuries, I can keep going and going. Thank God we are alive! I really hope Aeroflot will do right by everybody!

I can honestly say I have never been so scared in my life before.

However, Mr Rusev also praised the response of the crew, calling them heroes.

Another passenger told broadcaster Rossiya 24: "We were hurled up into the roof of the plane, it was practically impossible to hold on. It felt like the shaking wouldn't stop, that we would just crash."

The 10 least safe airlines Show all 10 1 /10 The 10 least safe airlines The 10 least safe airlines Batik Air The 10 least safe airlines Blue Wing Airlines The 10 least safe airlines Citilink The 10 least safe airlines Kalstar Aviation The 10 least safe airlines Lion Air The 10 least safe airlines Sriwijaya Air The 10 least safe airlines TransNusa Air Services The 10 least safe airlines Trigana Air Service The 10 least safe airlines Wings Air The 10 least safe airlines Xpress Air

And passenger Evgenia Zibrova wrote online: Numerous air pockets one hour before landing led to broken bones, internal and external bleeding.

Babies are covered in bruises, people lost consciousness. Thankful that we are still alive. Aeroflot, please help these people.

While Aeroflot played down the extent of the injuries, saying no one suffered spinal compression fractures, Russias Health Ministry said their conditions were somewhat serious.

"The condition of all victims is assessed by medics as moderately severe, there is no threat to life," ministry spokesman Oleg Salagay, told the Tass news agency.

Aeroflot maintained the pilots were highly experienced and said the injuries occurred after the Boeing 777 flew into clear-air turbulence.

Such turbulence occurs without any clouds, in clear skies with good visibility, and weather radar is unable to alert of its approach, a statement by the carrier said.

In such situations, the crew is unable to warn passengers of the need to return to their seats. There are around 750 cases of clear-air turbulence recorded in civil aviation every year.

Vladimir Sosnov of the Russian embassy in Thailand, said: "Apparently, those who were injured did not have their seat belts fastened."
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A man who claimed to be the worlds oldest person has died at the age of 146, it is claimed.

Mbah Gotho, from Indonesia, was said to have documentation that showed he was born in 1870.

A lifelong heavy smoker, Sodimedjo - as he was also known - was taken to hospital last month for an undisclosed health complaint.

He discharged himself six days later and ate only porridge until he died a few days later, his grandson Suyanto told the BBC.

Recommended Oldest tree in US dies after standing for 600 years

"Since he came back from the hospital, he only ate spoonfuls of porridge and drank very little," the relative said.

However, doubts have been raised about his claim as Indonesia did not begin to record new births until 1900.

Mr Gothos claim to be the worlds oldest human hit the headlines last summer when officials at the local record office in his home town of Sragen, Central Java, said they had been able to verify his age.

He told reporters at the time that he began preparing for his death in 1992, including having a gravestone made: What I want is to die.

Mr Gotho has outlived all his siblings, wives and children (YouTube/Candra Yanuar)

He outlived all 10 of his siblings, his four wives and his children.

Mr Ghoto was buried on Monday morning in a plot he bought several years ago and using the pre-prepared gravestone, his grandson said.

"He didn't ask much. Before he died, he just wanted us, his family, to let him go," Suryanto said.

Without verifiable documents his claims won't be officially recognised (Donal Husni/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock)

According to the Guinness World Records, the oldest person to have lived is 122-year-old French woman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in a nursing home in 1997.

Mr Ghotos claim would add 24 years to that record, a fact that is likely to add to speculation that the Indonesian mans papers are incorrect.

A number of people also claim to have broken Ms Calments record, including Nigerian James Olofintuyi, who claimed to have made it to 171, and Dhaqabo Ebba from Ethiopia, who claimed to be 163.

Without verifiable documents none of their claims will be officially recognised.
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Emmanuel Macron, the frontrunner in Sundays French presidential election, has said he would consider pulling France out of the European Union if the bloc does not reform.

In a marked shift in comments that brings him closer to his rival Marine Le Pen on the issue of European integration, Mr Macron warned of the prospect of Frexit.

"I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation, he said.

"But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.

"So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project."

His comments, in an interview with the BBC, came as Ms Le Pen accused her centrist rival of being a radical EU extremist during a rally in Paris.

With less than a week to go before voters go back to the polls for the final round of Frances presidential election on 7 May, the far-right candidate was on the offensive.

French Presidential Election Show all 20 1 /20 French Presidential Election French Presidential Election Voters line up to cast their ballots REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Police patrol polling stations in France REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election SAA/ French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen casts her ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election Early ballots are read as results continue to come in Reuters French Presidential Election Macron supporters react as results come in early in the evening AP French Presidential Election Supporters of Front National leader Marine Le Pen cheer as early results come in Reuters French Presidential Election Alamy French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen takes to the stage to address her supporters as fans cheer Reuters French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron greets supporters on Sunday night AP French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux celebrate the incoming results EPA

Speaking at a rally in Villepinte, in the north of the capital, Ms Le Pen put sovereignty and security at the forefront of her project.

She attacked Mr Macrons pro-EU stance while repeating her promise of a referendum, and said she would renegotiate with Brussels to regain Frances sovereignty.

The two candidates have opposing policies on the EU, with Mr Macron being congratulated by Brussels for his first-round victory.

But Mr Macrons latest remarks suggest he is toughening his stance on Europe in a bid to win over voters attracted to Ms Le Pens brand of Euroscepticism.

Mr Macron has made the reassertion of the European project a key part of his programme but following his recent visit to the Whirlpool factory in Amiens, northern France, where workers face unemployment as the factory is due to relocate to Poland, the founder of En Marche adopted a more nuanced view.

He warned failure to reform the union would make France leave the EU and would play into the hands of Ms Le Pen.

Thousands of people cheered loudly and waved French flags at Mondays rally as Ms Le Pen pledged to give back sovereignty and greatness to the French people.

She accused Mr Macron of being the candidate of the financial sector, who will make France submit to the will of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Ms Le Pen has capitalised on a growing anti-EU feeling in France and she hailed the US and Brexit UK as bastions of liberty.

Under her slogan In the name of the people, Ms Le Pen has long said traditional parties only served their own interests and was keen to depict Mr Macron as more of the same.

Mr Macrons way is En Marche [walk on] or die, she said, referring to the centrists slogan.

Making a double offensive against current French President Francois Hollande, Ms Le Pen said Mr Macron was the rock on which the current president was trying to hold onto power like a mollusc.

Reacting to Mr Macrons efforts to portray himself and his wife Brigitte as a presidential couple, Ms Le Pen said he had spent more time thinking about his public image than the nations security, a key issue in the campaign.

Mr Macron has taken more time to think about the status of his First Lady than his programme to tackle terrorism, she said.

I will fight against terrorism and in doing so my hand will never shake.

 Emmanuel Macron pays tribute to wife Brigitte during speech after entering round two

Mr Macron responded by saying Ms Le Pens platform would lead to less freedom in France.

"Don't boo her, fight her! Go and convince (others), make her lose next Sunday, he said, adding that her priorities would be "to fight against press freedom, against women's rights, the right to abortion" and "against same-sex couples' rights.

Elsewhere, Ms Le Pens father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the Front National party, was at his own rally in Paris to commemorate Joan of Arc.

The 88-year-old had some difficulty delivering his speech, losing his notes and being interrupted by sound problems.

Speaking about his daughter reaching the second round of the election, he said: I have done it myself, so it is possible.

Mr Le Pen got through the second round of the French presidential election in 2002 against conservative Jacques Chirac.

Polls still give Mr Macron a 20 point lead, on 60 per cent, with Ms Le Pen trailing on 40 per cent of the vote.
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Fierce clashes between police and protesters on the streets of Paris left riot officers injured after the fringes of an annual trade union demonstration turned violent.

A water cannon was deployed and tear gas filled the air on the sidelines of the march as masked youths threw Molotov cocktails at security forces.

Protesters called for action to stop Marine Le Pen, of the far-right Front National, winning Sunday's final round of the French presidential election in a run-off against centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron.

"I am against Macron, but the most urgent thing is to stop the Front National from winning. So I will vote for him," a protester called Sophie told Le Monde. "After the second round, we'll fight against Macron."

Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Show all 8 1 /8 Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Protesters launch a burning trolley towards French CRS anti-riot police officers during a march for the annual May Day workers' rally in Paris on 1 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Police fired tear gas at protesters on the sidelines of the May Day march in Paris Reuters Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Masked demonstrators gather ahead of labour unions at the traditional May Day labour march in Paris Reuters Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 A demonstrator holds a placard with the message, "No to normalised Fascism" near gendarmes securing an area at the protests Reutesr Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Scores of hooded youths threw Molotov cocktails at security forces AFP/Getty Images Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 The annual march to celebrate workers' rights this year included calls to block far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen from winning the presidency during a run-off election on Sunday AFP/Getty Images Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 People hold banners as they march among fumes of smoke bombs AFP/Getty Images Protesters clash with police in Paris on May Day 2017 Members of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), hold a banner reading "against the employers' offensive, the trade union response! self-governance!" AFP/Getty Images

Thousands of trade union activists marched through the French capital and in other cities to demand that France's next president protect workers' rights.

Video showed riot police surrounding the protesters disrupting the march after isolating most of them from the rest of the crowd near the capital's Place de la Bastille.

However, some continued to lob firebombs that exploded into flames in the street.

Far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon joined the march to applause from protesters. Mr Melenchon, of the 'La France Insoumise' party was knocked out of the presidential race after coming fourth in the first round.

He strongly opposes Le Pen gaining power but has also refused to endorse Mr Macron, seen as a pro-business figure who could reduce France's strong labour protections.

The moderate CFDT union, or French Democratic Confederation of Labour, held a small rally against Ms Le Pen in Paris, while protesters at the larger march nearby carried signs that read: "Let's block the National Front".

However, according to Associated Press, no one was seen openly rallying for Mr Macron.

Meanwhile, thousands of Le Pen supporters gathered for a rally north of Paris, where the presidential candidate compared Mr Macron to Hillary Clinton and accused him of being a puppet of the world of finance and Islamic fundamentalists.

Cheers of "Marine President!" and anti-immigrant chants were heard as she called Mr Macron "the caviar left".

A couple and their two children marching against Le Pen in central Paris said: "The situation is serious enough that we're out on the streets; it's like people have forgotten it's the Front National," said their father David.

He recalled the 2002 elections, when Ms Le Pen's father Jean Marie Le Pen ran for President against Jacques Chirac and activists came together to block Mr Le Pen from victory.

"No one has the right to tell me I'm not at home here," said David.

Paris police said three officers had been injured in the clashes, according to Le Figaro, while other reports suggested two had been hurt.

"I pay tribute to the two CRS [riot police officers] injured in Paris. It's this chaos and permissiveness I don't want to see any more in our streets," tweeted Ms Le Pen in reaction to the news.
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Swedens largest Shia mosque has been partially destroyed by fire in what police are treating as an arson attack.

Police spokesman Lars Bystrom said the fire, in the Stockholm suburb of Jakobsberg, appeared to have been lit from the outside".

No one was injured in the blaze at the Imam Ali Islamic Centre on Sunday evening, which caused major damage to the facade.

Recommended Hate crimes against US mosques double so far in 2017

Photos showed the charred exterior of the warehouse building.

The mosque hosted around 500 people at a celebration earlier in the evening but there were only a handful of people inside at the time the fire broke out.

A police statement said forensic tests were being carried out.

Mosque spokesman Akil Zahiri told Swedish media he was "very troubled" by the suspected attack as the mosque "felt like another home.

This is the largest Shia mosque in Sweden, with thousands of members, and there are already dozens of members here on the spot right now, he said.

They are very worried. I feel terrified, stressed and sad.

Swedish police say they are investigating the fire as possible arson (AP)

As migrants have arrived in Sweden, xenophobic attacks have been increasing, including 112 fires last year at refugee reception centres, most of them arson.

Swedish authorities are wary of possible reprisals after a man rammed a hijacked truck into a busy pedestrian shopping centre last month, killing five people.

An Uzbek whose asylum request was rejected is being held as the main suspect.

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

However, Isis has also targeted Shia sites in several countries. Last year the group claimed responsibility for a fire at a small Shia mosque in Malmo in southern Sweden.

Last December, a 16-year-old boy was charged with arson after a fire caused 6m worth of damage at a mosque in south London which describes itself as the largest in western Europe.

Seventy fire-fighters tackled the blaze in September 2015 at the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden.

Additional reporting agencies
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Palestinian militant group Hamas leadership will drop its call for Israels destruction and distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, in an apparent attempt to rebrand the organisation as more moderate.

Although it has historically engaged in violent resistance against Israel, a new policy document leaked to press in Lebanon and other Arab states, says that the organisation will agree to a Palestinian state along borders agreed in 1967 when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a war with a number of Arab states.

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, although a number of illegal settlements have since been built in the West Bank East Jerusalem and Golan Heights.

A future state encompassing Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem along 1967 borders is the goal of Hamas' main political rival, the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

His Palestinian Authority has engaged in peace talks with Israel on that basis, although the last, US-mediated round collapsed three years ago.

Hamas' move appears aimed at improving relations with the West, Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which label the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

The revised political document will still reject Israel's right to exist and back "armed struggle" against it, the Gulf Arab sources told the Reuters news agency.

This stance has lead many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group.

 Gaza marks 10 years of Israeli blockade

It is thought document was being released ahead of a planned visit by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Washington on 3 May, when Donald Trump's administration is expected to make a renewed push for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

But David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Hamas was "attempting to fool the world", but he warned "it will not succeed".

He said: "They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. This is the real Hamas."

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories since it was founded three decades ago.

It remained unclear whether the document replaces or changes in any way Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israels destruction and is the Islamist group's covenant.

A Hamas spokesman in Qatar declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from Egypt and Gulf Arab states.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Laughing and waving French flags, the atmosphere in the queue to enter Marine Le Pens rally was effervescent.

Chanting Marine Presidente, thousands had made their way from across France to the exhibition hall in the northern Paris suburb of Villepinte  a diverse area where the majority voted for far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, so it is far from a stronghold for Ms Le Pen's Front National party.

But that didn't seem to matter to those who turned out for the far-right candidates last major rally before the final round of the French presidential election on Sunday.

As queues formed in front of two kiosks selling sandwiches and hot drinks, one man said: At least here they sell French crepes instead of kebabs.

Friends, families and young children were among the crowd, which was made up mostly of young people  some of whom were too young to vote.

Dressed in blue and red stripped T-shirts, a group of school pupils, aged between 14 and 17-years-old, were franticly waving French flags and boards with Ms Le Pens slogan Choose France.

We are Frances future and this is what we want, said one of the girls, from the wealthy area of Versailles in the south west of the French capital.

To save France, said another boy in the group, who was also too young to go to the ballot box. Whatever is going on now cannot continue.

Many echoed Ms Le Pens key campaign pledges including controlled borders and the revival of Frances political and economic sovereignty and security

A Marine Le Pen supporter holds her daughter at Marine Le Pen's rally (The Independent)

Marine Le Pen supporters cheer and wave their flags (The Independent)

Some of those younger activists, who reject the traditional left and right-wing parties, have found a place of their own within the Front National party by running for local offices across the country.

Marie Desmazieres, 27, a Front National elected representative for a region in northern France, told The Independent issues around French identity and the love for her country prompted her to take an active role in the party.

There are many young people like me, who are holding public offices," she said. "Young people are very attracted by the Front National because it is mainly young people, who feel concerned about mass immigration. They are living it every day.

The Front National also believes in young people because it believes in the future and it gives a place to young people. The party has trusted me by putting my name on a ballot paper and like me there are dozens of young people being elected into office for the party.

Because of the traditional parties that have been in power for a long time, the situation in France is getting worse by the day. We are young and we want to try something else.

 Marine Le Pen steps down from National Front leadership

A 20-year-old student from Marseille, who preferred not to be named, said he decided to follow Ms Le Pen because she was the only candidate to be able to give us back the keys to our sovereignty and the keys to our liberty.

We do not detest the EU but we want a union that takes into account the demands of the French people," he said. Ms Le Pen also proposes to create jobs and as a student that is what is important for me."

Wearing a long navy blue dress in the colour of Ms Le Pens campaign, Laure Jouniaux agreed young people were listened to and trusted in the party.

The 26-year-old said concerns around French sovereignty pushed her to join in 2014.

When I saw that the traditional parties were not doing anything to protect and defend Frances interest in the face of multinationals and the EU, I decided to join the Front National," she said. Since Francois Holland has been president, France has suffered a great number of terrorist attacks and many people have died. The day has come for us to stop these policies. I do not want my children to live in a world of insecurity.

Asked whether she believed Ms Le Pen could win on Sunday, she said: Absolutely, I believe it 100 per cent.

Concerns about insecurity were echoed by Camille Ghesquere, 23, a member of the Front Nationals youth group in the north of France.

For years the Front National has condemned mass immigration and we are now paying for the consequences, she said.

Omnipresent in the rally, young and educated adults personalised Ms Le Pens efforts to widen the partys appeal and relinquish her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Holocaust denial and allegedly racists views

French Presidential Election Show all 20 1 /20 French Presidential Election French Presidential Election Voters line up to cast their ballots REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Police patrol polling stations in France REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux REUTERS French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election SAA/ French Presidential Election REUTERS French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen casts her ballot REUTERS French Presidential Election Early ballots are read as results continue to come in Reuters French Presidential Election Macron supporters react as results come in early in the evening AP French Presidential Election Supporters of Front National leader Marine Le Pen cheer as early results come in Reuters French Presidential Election Alamy French Presidential Election Front National leader Marine Le Pen takes to the stage to address her supporters as fans cheer Reuters French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron greets supporters on Sunday night AP French Presidential Election Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte Trogneux celebrate the incoming results EPA

For many here, Ms Le Pen, known as Marine, embodies a new political project, which is different from the political party founded in 1972.

Nicolas Matuszewski, 29, who praised the UK for having voted for Brexit, said: Even with a Polish name, we can support Marine.

In front of the exhibition hall, volunteers were selling Ms Le Pen memorabilia. Lighters, pens, and mugs with the face of the candidate were on sale for a few pounds while inside the hall donations forms were widely available.

Despite attracting ever-growing numbers of supporters and competing in the second round of the election, Ms Le Pens Front National is in dire need of funding.

But its emphasis on national identity has not changed.

Whether Ms Le Pen can sway enough young people to win remains to be seen.

A recent study by Ipsos, found that in the first round of the election, 30 per cent of young people aged between 18 and 24-years-old cast their ballots for for far-left candidate Mr Melenchon, 21 per cent voted for Ms Le Pen and 18 per cent for her remaining rival, Emmanuel Macron.

But whatever the result, the far-right candidate has created a place for young people to engage in politics and she is benefiting from their wave of energy.
Size matters. Big countries with big home markets can get rich without doing much international trade. Small countries can't.

Ireland proves that rule. Its economic performance has been closely linked to its trade performance. The country was poor when it was relatively closed to international commerce up until the 1950s. The opening to trade (and investment) in the following decades led to an improved overall economic performance. Since the 1990s, and in parallel with accelerated globalisation and Europeanisation, exporting has been central to driving Ireland's prosperity levels closer to those of our peers in northern Europe.

But understanding the dynamics driving trade is far from easy. There are many factors at play. A recent study*, using unpublished statistics, casts new light on Ireland's merchandise export performance, including by product and by foreign market. (It is important to note that all discussion below is of goods exports only. The important services sector is not included.)

The study, by economists at the ESRI, is particularly timely given the challenges of Brexit, which make market diversification (away from the UK) something close to a national imperative.

What makes this study different is the level of detail it goes into on export performance by firm ownership - Irish and foreign. Up to now, the only reporting on the differing performances of the two sectors was the Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact (ABSEI), carried out by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation.

But as that survey only includes client companies of the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, its sample does not include all exporters. The new ESRI study is based on unprecedented access to the Central Statistic Office's relevant data, which makes the sample used wider than that of the ABSEI.

The major takeaway from the study is the (further) proof it provides to show that foreign companies account for almost all of Ireland's exports - the authors politely describe this as "Ireland's unique position with respect to different export behaviour by indigenous and foreign-owned firms".

The hard facts in the report are starker. It finds that 87pc of export earnings in 2015 were generated by foreign companies. That, as it happens, is in line with the results of the ABSEI figures over many years.

The historically poor export performance of Irish-owned companies reflects a wider issue that needs to be highlighted so that as much as possible can be done to address it.

As this column has said a number of times in the past, often to the annoyance of those who would prefer to believe that Ireland's entrepreneurial culture is in rude health, available comparative data show startup rates are not high. Irish companies have too often sold out instead of scaling up. Nor is the level of innovation in Irish companies what it should be given our levels of education and the spillover effects of decades of high tech foreign direct investment. Penetrating foreign markets is about the most important innovation a company in a small economy such as Ireland's can do, and clearly that is not what it should be.

If addressing the causes of weak entrepreneurialism has long been a challenge that has not received enough attention, a much more recent challenge - Brexit -is getting plenty in the short term. On that issue, the findings of the new ESRI report can only heighten concerns. Here are some of its most important and relevant findings:

nBritain remains by far the most important market for Irish-owned companies. Over the course of the current decade (2011-15) the UK market absorbed 42pc of their non-food exports. It took just under half of their food exports.

nBeef accounts for almost one-quarter of the value of Irish companies' exports, making it by distance the single most valuable product sold abroad by the indigenous sector. Not only does beef top the export list, it has become more dominant over the past two decades. In 1996 it accounted for 14pc of homegrown companies' exports.

nThe second-most valuable export in 2015 was also meat. What is described in the detailed classification as "prepared or preserved meat, meat offal and blood" accounted for 8pc of indigenous exports. Its share of the total has remained stable over the past two decades.

nIn the rest of the top 10 exports, other meat products take the fourth, fifth and ninth slots. Other kinds of food products take a further five of the top 10 positions. Only one of the top 10 indigenous exports is non-food.

These points underscore just how massive a threat Brexit is. As the home-grown export sector is still hugely focused on the UK, a British exit from the single market will mean new tariff barriers.

If there is also an exit from the customs union, there will be non-tariff barriers too. If post-Brexit Britain unilaterally cuts tariffs on meat from outside the EU, as it will be entitled to do, the implications for everyone involved in that industry look dire.

There is no rosier way to put it.
Fianna Fail has dismissed claims by British Prime Minister Theresa May that the UK could end up pulling out of the Brexit negotiations without a deal.

Mrs May yesterday said she expects the upcoming negotiations with the EU will be "tough" and that she is prepared to walk away from the talks if she does not like what is on offer from Brussels.

"What this shows, and what some of the other comments we've seen coming from European leaders shows, is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough," Mrs May told the BBC.

The Tory leader issued the warning after the 27 EU heads of state agreed a set of stiff terms ahead of the formal negotiation process.

The guidelines included a commitment that Northern Ireland could rejoin the EU in the event of a united Ireland, which is being viewed as a significant political win for Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

However, Mrs May's warning that she could walk away from the talks has significantly raised the stakes as the divorce period gets under way.

Speaking on RTE's 'The Week in Politics', Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan expressed concern over the remarks, adding: "Brexit is bad for the UK, bad for Europe, and bad for Ireland."

Read more: Bertie Ahern warns against trying to force a border poll in Northern Ireland

But Fianna Fail last night dismissed Mrs May's warning that the UK could pull out of talks.

"The British brought about this situation and it is important Theresa May and her government are reminded of that," the party's Foreign Affairs spokesman Darragh O'Brien told the Irish Independent.

"The idea that she would simply walk away with nothing and allow Britain to go off a cliff is not going to happen," he added.

Meanwhile, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has expressed his fears that the two sides could fail to strike a deal at all.

"I'm leaving Downing Street 10 times more sceptical than I was before," Mr Juncker is quoted as telling Germany's 'FAS' newspaper.

Mr Juncker and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier met Mrs May over dinner on Wednesday.
The US beef and grain giant Cargill is to sell of its remaining feed lots and focus on becoming a protein provider.

The feed lots in Kansas and Colorado have a capacity of approximately 155,000 cattle at any point in time and will be sold to Green Plains, an ethanol producer that already had a number of feed lots but is subject to a regulatory review.
About Me Victor Reppert I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. View my complete profile

Blog Archive
Irish renewable energy firm Amarenco has acquired a stake in a French crowd-funding firm as it continues to roll out solar farms in France.

Amarenco chief executive John Mullins, a former boss of Bord Gais, told the Irish Independent the firm has taken less than a 10pc stake in Lumo, which is based in La Rochelle.

Lumo specifically enables people to invest in renewable energy projects.

Taking the stake in Lumo ensures that Amarenco continues to be able to tap into the French company's fundraising activity, said Mr Mullins.

"We'll get looked on more favourably by the French authorities," he said. Community or crowd-funded projects in France result in a slight uplift in the tariff paid to energy operators.

He said Amarenco is also in the process of buying a Toulouse-based firm that has already helped it roll out solar farms in France. That deal is likely to be concluded towards the end of this month.

Amarenco already has eight solar sites and has another seven currently in various stages of active development. That will bring the total number of solar farms to about 15 separate sites later this year, producing a total of 125 megawatts of power.

Amarenco already has planning permission for a number of solar farms in Ireland.
The escalating demands by central banks around the world for banks to have in place "fit for purpose" AML and countering financial terrorism (CFT) procedures are increasingly onerous. Stock Image

Late last year we predicted in these pages that the fine imposed of 98,000 on Bray Credit Union by the Central Bank for failures in its anti-money laundering (AML) procedures would be "the thin end of a very large wedge as the Central Bank signals a no-nonsense attitude to anti-money laundering (AML) practices by financial institutions".

With the announcement this week of a 2.3m fine levied on AIB for similar offences, that prediction now seems credible to say the least.

The escalating demands by central banks around the world for banks to have in place "fit for purpose" AML and countering financial terrorism (CFT) procedures are increasingly onerous, yet the resolve of the regulators, as evidenced by recent enforcement measures, seems clear. "In particular, we expect that our retail banks, as gateways to the financial system, have in place exemplary anti-money laundering systems and controls," noted the Central Bank's director of enforcement, Derville Rowland, in relation to the AIB case.

Similarly, appeals on the grounds of insufficient resources are unlikely to be heard sympathetically.

AIB was reprimanded for and admitted to six breaches of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering & Terrorist Financing) Act 2010 (CJA 2010). Two breaches were highlighted: failure to report suspicious transactions and failure to conduct customer due diligence (CDD).

In respect of reporting suspicious transactions, the failures centred around AIB's acquisition of EBS in July 2011.

The Central Bank found "AIB failed to apply adequate resources to ensure alerts of potential suspicious activity (in a 'backlog' generated by its EBS business), were promptly investigated and, where necessary, reported to An Garda Siochana and the Revenue Commissioners. Notably, AIB's centralised AML unit, responsible for investigating and reporting suspicious transactions, took more than 18 months to fully address the backlog which at one point stood at over 4,200 alerts outstanding for 30-plus days".

AIB also failed to conduct customer due diligence (CDD) on customers who had accounts prior to May 1995 ('Pre-95 customers') when the first Irish laws on anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism became effective.

In reality, the two issues are interrelated. Suspicious transactions are more often than not the result of inadequate due diligence and the latter the result of insufficient - but more pertinently, inefficient - resources being applied.

With the Central Bank resolve and its determination to enforce with punitive measures so evident, banks and credit unions must now reassess the cost/benefit equation of deploying sufficient resources to the task. The cost side of that equation may make many managers wince.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Technology provides the answer, in particular at the crucial customer onboarding stage.

Here at 'StubbsGazette' we have partnered with HooYu to deliver almost-instant online ID verification, doing away with the costs and complications of manual verification.

Anyone who has tried in the past to open a bank account knows full well the inconvenience and potential frustration involved: from submitting proof of address to having passport photos stamped at the local garda station. Small wonder that up to 70pc of bank customers asked to go in-branch to provide ID documentation drop out of the process.

The mobile device is at the heart of the 'StubbsGazette'/HooYu system. The bank texts the prospect to establish initial contact. The user then takes a selfie of themselves using their phone. This image is plotted and matched against the passport image and any anomalies identified. The system (on user opt-in) allows the bank to examine the eight major social media platforms in a customer context. PayPal and Facebook provide rich material.

This social media dimension dramatically increases the level of scrutiny at verification time. It is this combination of digital footprint, with ID documentation and facial biometrics that delivers an extraordinarily robust yet extremely efficient onboarding process that satisfies AML/CFT requirements.

Proper deployment promises to end fraud at the ID stage.
Google is flexing its muscles at the moment, in an effort to cut down on bad ads and fake news. It has changed its search algorithm to combat fake news, and is reportedly going to add ad blocking to its Chrome browser. People searching for news online should be shown more reliable stories, and they should be less likely to have to wade through pop-ups and pre-roll ads to consume it. It's win-win, right?

Well, certainly for Google and probably for users too. However what Google's up to illustrates two changes - each at opposite ends of the digital news ecosystem that illustrate the dangers of one company having so much influence. Who gets squeezed in the middle? You guessed it - the publishers.

Let's take Google's latest plans for its Chrome browser. Last week reports emerged that Google planned to add an ad-blocking feature to the mobile and desktop versions of Chrome - by far the most popular browser on the planet, according to NetMarketShare. Ad blocking would be switched on by default, meaning Chrome users would no longer see unacceptable ads. So what ads are unacceptable, and who makes that call?

The answer is the Coalition For Better Ads - an industry group comprising big brands, publishers and ad tech companies. Facebook, Newscorp, Omnicom, Digital Content Next, and the Washington Post are all onboard. So too is Google.

The coalition has found four types of desktop ads and eight types of mobile web ads that should be axed. These include auto playing video ads with sound, pop-up ads, and large sticky ads.

In theory, this should be good news for publishers. The less annoying their ads, the more likely they are to retain users. And across the board, if the online advertising industry stops peddling crappy ad experiences, surely those with the most to gain are the biggest websites. But the most irritating ads are often the most effective ones from an advertiser perspective. This is especially if advertisers are measuring success through basic metrics like viewability and clickthroughs and not considering the quality of their campaigns - which is often the real reason why online ads are such a poor experience. One other point of note. It's unclear how the Chrome ad blocker will function. It may block any ad formats that have been blacklisted, or it's also been suggested it may block any sites which carry blacklisted ads. Websites with any offending ads, therefore, could be blocked entirely on Google's browser.

Let's forget about ad blocking for a minute and move over to fake news. This week Google updated its search algorithm to make fake news harder to find, and authoritative sources more visible. Links to false and offensive stories will be lower down in search results and Google's army of raters that assess the validity of search results are now flagging "low-quality" content. Google has also updated its auto-complete function. This feature which completes search queries based on popularity will no longer generate offensive search suggestions, and users will be able to flag problematic search suggestions.

But here's the thing. Google hasn't gone into any specifics. There's no detail on how a page is deemed to have more authority on one subject than another. The algorithm will decide what's most relevant, most authoritative and most true. And the algorithm is a mystery. Here's how Ben Thompson, who writes brilliantly on technology and business strategy, put it : "The single most important resource for finding the truth, one that is dominant in its space thanks to the fact that being bigger inherently means being better, is making decisions about what is true without a shred of transparency."

Despite the lack of transparency, online news publishers may have reason to celebrate. You'd expect them to be given a leg up by Google when it comes to deciding on authority. But here's the thing: what happens when Google starts prioritising one source - say an outlet with a particular editorial bias - over other websites? How will Google differentiate between different versions of the truth?

The net effect of Google's ad blocking and algorithm updates is this: Google is increasing its control over the ads that are served to users, while at the same time it has a virtual monopoly on the technology that publishers use to serve those ads - almost all news publishing sites use, and pay for, Google technology to serve their ads. At the same time it is upping its influence on search results for news related searches, but with less and less transparency. Google is turning the dials at either ends of the news business - changing how consumers find the news they search for on the open web, and changing how publishers can monetise their audience through advertising.

The search giant is doing nothing wrong here. Indeed, it has users' interests at heart. But the algorithm update and the change to Chrome illustrates how much control Google has over the news industry. There may be unintended consequences for publishers which rely on Google for both reach and revenue. Smaller niche publishers may find it harder to survive. Larger publishers may see revenues fall. Others may become more reliant on the likes of Facebook as a distribution channel. Media plurality may suffer. When Google sneezes, some news organisations may freeze.
Temporary measures to encourage social media sites to quickly remove abusive material will have to be introduced while "complex" laws are drawn up for a digital safety commissioner.

Communications Minister Denis Naughten has pledged to follow through on plans for an internet watchdog with the power to compel Facebook and Twitter to take down offensive posts.

But he told the Irish Independent: "The legislation is complex and slow. It's not going to happen overnight but we have a number of options. We're in talks with the industry to see if we can fast-track elements of it."

Mr Naughten has held preliminary discussions with Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and Children's Minister Katherine Zappone on the issue and may introduce a 'Code of Practice' with sanctions "that might be effective in the short term".

Facebook is facing mounting pressure to do more to tackle offensive or discriminatory posts.

It has been at the centre of global controversy in recent days after the murder of a Thai baby was shown on Facebook Live.

A fortnight ago Facebook launched a review of how it handles violent videos and other objectionable material, saying it needed to do better after a video of a murder in Cleveland remained on its service for more than two hours.

Read more: Bogus accounts pretending to be Irish model agencies target children, teens and young women urging them to send bikini pictures

At an event in Google Headquarters, Mr Naughten said "maintaining the status quo" in relation to child protection online is not viable.

"The premise behind the office of a digital safety commissioner would provide legal power to compel social media platforms to take down abusive or offensive material in a 'timely' manner," he said, adding that his office wanted to hear from "all stakeholders in the field".

Mr Naughten also made reference to the recent high-profile case of Canadian Jashua Robert Tremblay, who flew to Ireland twice to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he groomed on the internet.

"It's not like a stranger pulling up in a car offering a lift. This was the main concern of our parents growing up - that we would be snatched by a stranger. Now strangers are snatching our children by their fingertips in the virtual world of computers, not cars," he said.

He noted that cyberspace was described by many academics and law enforcement agencies as a "giant city with no police force".

"I recognise that Google and Facebook continue to introduce new ways of trying to protect children and all users online and I commend them for their work in this regard as there is no place for complacency or maintaining the status quo when it comes to the protection of children," added Mr Naughten.

Children's Minister Katherine Zappone told the Irish Independent she would back efforts to clamp down on social media abuse.

"There can be no hiding place for those who wish to harm our children. We must be vigilant in society, in our communities and online.

"Bullies, abusers and predators are putting children at risk with fake profiles, lies and deceit," she said.

Ms Zappone said "a whole-of-Government response" was required.

"I am confident that together we will formulate a vigorous response involving laws, protocols and regulations.

"The internet and social media has transformed our lives. There are huge benefits - but there is also a darker, more sinister side which cannot be ignored," the minister said.
Facebook is facing major criticism following the length of time it takes it to remove offensive and illegal content.

To test how efficient its security system is, I reported a total of six Facebook pages which I thought violated its 'Community Standards'.

They were:

Weed in Dublin;

Irish Escorts;

Columbine Hero (a page glorifying the notorious Columbine High School shooters);

Everybody draw Mohammed Day;

Pro-Fat Shaming;

I f***ing hate Islam.

This week the social network took more than 24 hours to take down the horrific live-stream video of a 20-year-old Thai man murdering his 11-month-old daughter.

This video was viewed by nearly 400,000 people before being removed.

A week earlier, the Facebook Live murder of an elderly man in Cleveland, Ohio, was taken down two hours after it was posted.

I wanted to see how long it took Facebook to respond to the pages I had flagged.

The process was a lot easier than I expected.

Once you click the 'report' button on the offending page you are given a list of five options why you deem it inappropriate.

If you select 'I don't think it should be on Facebook', it gives you another list of options asking why.

These range from sexually explicit content, hate speech or involving the buying and selling of illegal products.

After you make your selection, Facebook gives you a choice to submit the page for review or instructions on how to block it from appearing on your timeline.

In under an hour, three of the reports I made on pages were dismissed as they were not deemed to violate its community standards.

The pages were 'Everybody draw Mohammed Day', 'Pro-Fat Shaming' and 'I f***ing hate Islam'.

I also received an automatic message following its response.

"We've looked over the page that you reported, and although it doesn't go against any of our specific community standards, we understand that the page or something shared on it may still be offensive to you.

"We want to help you avoid things that you don't want to see on Facebook."

Although I was surprised that these pages did not get taken down, the three others I reported took considerably longer for Facebook to make a decision.

Eventually, after approximately 15 hours, the social network informed me that 'Weed in Dublin', 'Irish Escorts' and 'Columbine Hero' were removed.

I also received an automatic report from the social network following its decision for each page.

One read: "We've reviewed the page that you reported for promoting graphic violence. As it violated our community standards, we've removed it.

"Thanks for your report. We've let Columbine Hero know that their page has been removed, but not who reported it."

Fianna Fail spokesman on communications Timmy Dooley said: "It seems to me that the process of reporting unacceptable content on Facebook is too cumbersome, and that Facebook don't make it easy for users to ensure that inappropriate content is removed in a timely and efficient manner."

Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to do more to prevent offending and illegal content from being posted or streamed live on its site.

A spokesperson for Facebook told the Irish Independent: "We have built an extensive reporting infrastructure that enables people to report other individuals and suspicious activity quickly.

"Every piece of content, profile, group or page on Facebook can be reported to us and is reviewed on a 24/7 basis by members of our large, expertly trained community operations team based in locations around the world."
A politician who is a humanist and atheist, qualified as a vet and established as a farmer, a documentary maker and broadcaster, twice married, could surely not have been involved in Irish politics?

The rare breed of man that was Justin Keating (1930-2009) is conveyed in eloquent, passionate and humorous tone through his notebooks, as if a voice from the grave is reminding the reader that little has changed in Irish politics since the 1950s, but encouraging change for the better.

He lets rip in the chapter on Women, Religion and Sexuality. With the recent controversy over religious orders in mother and baby homes, and maternity hospitals, his comments on de Valera and Archbishop McQuaid are as relevant today as they were in the Free State. He describes the new State under their influence as bigoted and Church-dominated and that the Church expected and encouraged the parents of unmarried pregnant daughters to drive her from her home to hide her shame in a city or abroad.

His prescience is evident in other topics, he understood the need to nurture the earth before environmental legislation was introduced, he acknowledges the importance of a federal Europe, observes corruption in An Garda Siochana and callous extremities of the Irish Catholic Church, even the decline of the United States is addressed.

Keating was also a senator, scientist and journalist who wrote a regular column for the Sunday Independent, and was appointed Labour Party Minister for Industry and Commerce in 1973. As the son of the great Irish romantic-realist painter, Sean Keating and his radical-left mother, May, it is not surprising his vision was way beyond his time. Fellow politicians  about whom he candidly engages  include Noel Browne, Sean MacBride, Garret FitzGerald, Charles Haughey and Conor Cruise OBrien.

John Boorman recalls that Keating was, so far removed from the tribalism and village pump politics of Ireland of the day that one wondered how on earth he had got into government. He was Boormans hero since the film director was preparing to shoot Zardoz at Ardmore Studios with Charlotte Rampling and Sean Connery. With the Troubles in the North at the time, importation of guns, even as props for a movie, was banned. The carpenters at the studio were also on strike, so Boorman turned in desperation to the newly appointed minister. Keating, ultimately, bought the studio for Ireland.

His narrative voice is vivid and conversational and he comes across as an empathic intellectual with no holds barred. In the chapter Snakes and Ladders he mourns his decision to leave vibrant London in 1955 and return to a stagnant Dublin where he joined the veterinary college in Ballsbridge. He was distraught at the haphazard faculty, run by civil servants from the Department of Agriculture, with no serious budget or direction. In the alternative, his praise for architect, Andy Devane, who designed his house in Tallaght, is superlative. He describes Devane as one of the noblest, kindest and generally most decent men I ever met. Devane was also one of the most devout Catholics that Keating had ever met, and after the traumatic death of his wife, Devane gave up architecture and went to work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta. Of the nun, Keating was inclined to agree with Christopher Hitchens, and wrote: I think she is a phoney, more concerned with snatching souls than with saving bodies. As an atheist, he felt that Judaism, Christianity and Islam demonstrated a hatred of women.

And that, because of the sin of Eve, women were condemned to bring forth children in pain and danger.

When he and Loretta decided to have children back in the 1950s, they began investigating painless childbirth and discovered the book LAccouchement sans Douleur by Dr Fernand Lamaze. They managed to practice the technique, which involved the father being present at childbirth, something that really only began to occur in the late 1980s. Love is an enduring theme in his notes, there is much detail about his youthful marriage and his three children, and his last 17 years with Barbara Hussey.

While still in his 40s, Keating was diagnosed with Pagets disease, a progressive, destructive and very painful bone condition, resulting in deafness, damage to the heart and the loss of his balance at times.

He died a few days before his 80th birthday and at the heart of his posthumous message is a reminder for each of us to continuously question the set of assumptions and beliefs we were born into: our paradigm. It is a point of honour, he says, not to remain true to my beliefs. On the contrary: the honour lies  if you show me better  in changing.

It is perhaps a sad reflection on Irish politics today that such advocates for social justice will never run the gauntlet of an election campaign. Keating was one of Irelands most outward looking intellectuals. The type we are at a loss without today.
Actress Shannen Doherty has announced that she is in remission from breast cancer Photo: PA/PA Wire

Hollywood actress Shannen Doherty has revealed she is in remission from breast cancer.

The former 'Beverly Hills 90210' actress (46) said she had "no idea how to react" after hearing that she had beaten the illness, which she discovered in 2015.

She wrote on Instagram: "Moments. They happen. Today was and is a moment.

"What does remission mean? I heard that word and have no idea how to react. Good news? YES. Overwhelming. YES."

Doherty, who has documented her battle with the disease on social media, announced earlier this year that she had completed chemotherapy and was playing the "waiting game".
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Maz and Bricks comes at a particularly timely moment: it debuted just days after the Citizens Assembly voted overwhelmingly to allow abortion in Ireland.

Fishambles latest play tells the story of Maz (Eva OConnor), a young woman attending a pro-choice march, and Bricks (Stephen Jones), a Tallaght father on his way to pick up his four-year-old daughter. The two meet on the Luas, and as the day unfolds, form an unlikely bond.

Maz and Bricks variously challenge each other in bristly conversation and speak to the audience in rhyming monologues. And yet, they seem to be in different plays.

OConnor, who wrote the play, gives Jones all the best lines, and he easily steals the show with excruciatingly funny jibes and impressions of his ex-girlfriend, his brother and even his daughter, which manages to be only a little ridiculous.

Expand Close Eva O'Connor and Stephen Jones in Fishamble's MAZ AND BRICKS - Photo by Patrick Redmond / Facebook

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Maz, by contrast, is far less engaging. While Bricks is allowed to be playful, angry, sad and frustrated, Maz has two modes: snapping rage or histrionic misery. Shes a deeply unsympathetic character, relying on an inevitably tragic backstory.

OConnor has a powerful skill for delivering searing monologues, but the success of the play rests on the strength of the two characters on stage, and there is a striking imbalance.

The set, designed by Maree Kearns, is spare, a spread of tiered platforms with neon underlighting. It can make the space seem more dynamic as they walk around the city, but the sound and lighting act as cues for the audience rather than giving any real or immersive sense of where the scene takes place.

The play is let down by a disappointingly convenient ending, playing as poignancy-by-numbers. Jones performance alone, however, is worth the ticket price.

Running until May 13
After an unfinished version of Orange is the New Black season 5 was leaked over the weekend, the episodes have apparently been stolen along with many others from Hollywood-based audio post-production company Larson Studios.

Hacking group The Dark Overlord (TDO) was behind it, and is now threatening to make other new seasons of shows available for torrent.

TDO told DataBreaches.net it had discovered "hundreds of gigabytes of unreleased and non-public media", from networks including FOX, IFC, NAT GEO and ABC.

"It's nearly time to play another round," it posted on Twitter shortly before time of writing, along with a list of the shows it claims to have stolen:

A Midsummers Nightmare  TV Movie

Above Suspicion  Film

Bill Nye Saves The World  TV Series

Breakthrough  TV Series

Brockmire  TV Series

Bunkd  TV Series

Celebrity Apprentice (The Apprentice)  TV Series

Food Fact or Fiction  TV Series

Video of the Day

Handsome  Film

Hopefuls  TV Series

Hum  Short

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia  TV Series

Jason Alexander Project  TV Series

Liza Koshy Special  YoutubeRed

Lucha Underground  TV Series

Lucky Roll  TV Series

Making History  TV Series

Man Seeking Woman  TV Series

Max and Shred  TV Series

Mega Park  TV Series

NCIS Los Angeles  TV Series

New Girl  TV Series

Orange Is The New Black  TV Series

TDO appears to have stolen the shows in the hope of receiving a ransom fee. It apparently demanded 50 Bitcoin from Netflix (65,000), a sum it said in a very colourful letter was "modest" in comparison to the amount the studio stands to lose from the leak.

A statement from Netflix regarding the leak of the new Orange is the New Black season reads: "We are aware of the situation. A production vendor used by several major TV studios had its security compromised and the appropriate law enforcement authorities are involved."
In defence of the 'illegals': Taoiseach Enda Kenny presents US President Donald Trump with the traditional bowl of shamrock in the White House for St Patrick's Day. Photo: Gerry Mooney

Just in case we might have mistaken him for an impartial reporter, Matt Cooper began Trump V Ireland (TV3) by asking "How did the Americans elect this guy?"

Not only that, the US president was an "egomaniac", his behaviour towards women was "highly objectionable" and his attitude towards migrants was "despicable".

Personally, I've no problem with any of these opinions, but then I'm not the presenter of a two-part documentary in which a more balanced approach mightn't have gone amiss. Indeed, even Jeremy Paxman, who fronted Trump's First 100 Days over on BBC1, wasn't so forthright, confining himself to wondering "What makes him tick?" and to such non-verbal signifiers as those familiar arched eyebrows and that trademark curl of the lip.

Yet Cooper's film yielded a good deal more than that of the former Newsnight anchorman (which told us nothing we didn't already know about the first three months of the Trump presidency), though I could have done without an awkwardly staged opening encounter in which Cooper supposedly just bumped into right-wing journalist Mary Ellen Synon at Dublin Airport and the two of them bickered about the stance he'd be taking on his American trip.

But when he got to the States he met people with interesting things to say, not least journalist and academic Dave Hannigan, who pointed out that Trump supporters included a lot of right-wing Irish immigrants who shared his views on undocumented "illegals", even though Taoiseach Enda Kenny had spoken in defence of such immigrants during his recent St Patrick's Day visit to the White House.

Orla Kennedy of the Irish Centre in New York spoke of the "anxiety" of many US-based Irish people who now feared for their status in America, while novelist Colum McCann felt "we should be ashamed" about the dominance in the Trump administration of figures with an Irish background.

Cooper seemed especially, indeed inordinately, smitten by Labour's Aodhan O Riordain, who had decried Trump as a "fascist" in the Seanad and who went on to help organise an Irish-based event in a Manhattan church, though time was also given to Trump-friendly voices, too.

The documentary was at its best in the first instalment, the second adding little to what had been covered the night before. At at the very end, Cooper met up again with Mary Ellen Synon, confessing to her that his opinion of Trump had "changed a bit" and that now he viewed him as a "wuss" who was "not quite as scary as we might have thought".

Really? Well, he still scares the rest of us.

With much advance hype by TV3, The McCanns and the Conman turned out to be something of a con job itself. Misleadingly billed in the schedules as 'Madeleine McCann: 10 Years Missing', the film had little to do with the little girl who'd been abducted from an Algarve resort 10 years ago next week, or with the ongoing investigation into her disappearance.

Instead it was all about Irish-born fraudster Kevin Halligen, who described himself as a global security consultant and who persuaded the desperate McCanns to part with 1m on the assurance that he'd solve the mystery of their daughter's fate.

Convicted of fraud in the US, jailed for almost four years and then deported, the conman made for a shifty interviewee. The story was not uninteresting, but end credits informed us that the film had been made for Channel 5 in 2014. Nothing new then, so why was TV3 intent on passing it off as new? In the pilot episode of Genius (National Geographic), the ageing Albert Einstein's young assistant, with whom he'd just been having exuberant sex, gave him a lecture: "For a man who's an expert on the universe, you don't know the first thing about people."

Video of the Day

The clunky dialogue continued as the action veered back and forth from the early life of the great scientist to his later world renown, but Geoffrey Rush brought persuasive life to the later Albert, while Johnny Flynn gave an engaging turn as his former self, and director Ron Howard kept it all running smoothly. Whether it will retain viewers remains to be seen.

Line of Duty (RTE1) is certainly holding on to its audience, and although the plot twists have become increasingly outlandish, not many viewers will want to miss tomorrow night's final episode, if only to discover whether Thandie Newton's villainous cop gets her comeuppance.

Meanwhile, Better Call Saul (Netflix) continues on its coolly masterful way. In this week's episode, the laconic Mike came face to face with Breaking Bad's Gus Fring on a desert highway, while Jimmy found himself in jail courtesy of his scheming brother. It's all getting gradually darker as we await Jimmy's transformation into Saul Goodman.

And where will that leave the lovely Kim, who didn't feature in Breaking Bad? I do hope that Vince Gilligan, who created both shows, affords her the dignity she deserves.

In The Peter Mark VIP Style Awards (TV3), a lot of bright young things, and a few older ones too, gathered outside Dublin's Marker Hotel to be interviewed by Glenda Gilson.

"This is the highlight of my year!" trilled Rory Cowan from Mrs Brown's Boys. He should really think about getting a life. RTE's Kathryn Thomas was interviewed twice, using both occasions to puff the designer of her frock, while among the other glitterati were Rosanna Davison, Twink, Baz Ashmawy and half the cast of Dancing with the Stars.

There were also scores of others whose names and faces were unfamiliar to me, even though some of them won prizes. I must be mixing in the wrong circles.
Sinn Fein's deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald is standing by her demand for the abolition of the Special Criminal Court - despite publicly welcoming the conviction of her former protege.

Ms McDonald has found herself at the centre of fresh controversy following the conviction of ex-Sinn Fein politician Jonathan Dowdall, who "waterboarded" and "tortured" another man.

The all-judge Special Criminal Court was originally set up to hear cases involving suspected IRA members, but in recent times has been used to deal with a wider range of charges.

Last week, the court heard how the former councillor threatened to feed his victim, Alexander Hurley, to dogs and burn his head at the stake.

Mr Hurley, who has prior fraud convictions, pleaded for his life as Mr Dowdall covered his face with a cloth and doused his head with water, while his father Patrick Dowdall threatened to cut his fingers off with pliers "knuckle by knuckle".

The court heard how Jonathan Dowdall told his victim he was a "stupid dumb f*** to mess with the head of the IRA".

Read more: 'Grim and harrowing' - Former Dublin councillor filmed waterboarding and threatening to 'chop up' man who came to buy motorbike

The victim claimed Mr Dowdall told him he was a friend of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and Ms McDonald.

The father and son, who pleaded guilty to threatening to kill their victim, are due to be sentenced later this month.

But Ms McDonald has now found herself at the centre of a political row after she released a statement welcoming the ruling of the Special Criminal Court - despite repeatedly calling for it to be scrapped.

She has also been accused of "a new low" after she tweeted pictures of Mr Dowdall in the company of her constituency rival and former lord mayor Christy Burke.

Ms McDonald is one of a number of Sinn Fein politicians who have called for the abolition of the juryless Special Criminal Court.

Despite her party's demand for its abolition, Ms McDonald released a statement backing last week's verdict in relation to her former close ally.

"I welcome the conviction of Jonathan Dowdall," she said. "The details of the attack perpetrated by him are deeply shocking. I hope the sentence reflects the seriousness of the offence and the trauma endured by his victim."

Last night, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock said the case clearly illustrates Sinn Fein's links to criminality. He accused Ms McDonald of hypocrisy.

"It's incredible Sinn Fein now finds one of its former councillors in the dock for waterboarding and torturing a member of the public. He's on trial, in fact, in the very same Special Criminal Court that Mary Lou McDonald's Sinn Fein wanted to abolish," Mr Rock said.

"It's quite clear that with Sinn Fein past and present, you are not far from criminality. It's simply unbelievable that it wanted, and still wants, to abolish the Special Criminal Court."

Last night, a Sinn Fein spokesperson said: "Deputy Rock is playing cheap politics with a serious crime. Sinn Fein's concerns with the operation of the Special Criminal Court are shared by Amnesty International, the ICCL and the UN Commission on Human Rights. Perhaps Deputy Rock opposes these groups as well."

Ms McDonald's statement last week was followed by a tweet which showed Mr Dowdall in the company of Mr Burke.

Cllr Burke accused his constituency rival of stooping to a "new low" and said he has been approached by Sinn Fein supporters who expressed their disgust at her actions.

Ms McDonald yesterday defended the tweet and reiterated her backing for the court's decision.

"It is a matter of public record that Mr Dowdall left Sinn Fein, went on to support and work for Cllr Burke and campaigned against Sinn Fein.

"The photographs I posted reflect those facts. Cllr Burke needs to make clear his position on the actions of Jonathan Dowdall," she said.
Rescue workers take doctors and nurses to Corks Mercy Hospital during flooding in the city in 2009. Photo: Daragh McSweeney

For more than a century, Cork has ranked as Ireland's most flood-threatened city.

Built on low-lying islands and marshlands where the River Lee splits into several channels, the city's location is both a blessing in terms of its visual appeal and a curse in terms of the tidal flooding threat it regularly poses.

That was graphically illustrated on November 20, 2009, when a combination of factors left the city facing the worst flooding in its 800-year history. One city centre quay wall collapsed, a hospital had to be evacuated, and the city's main water treatment centre was swamped, leaving more than 50,000 people without drinking water.

Dozens of businesses closed due to flooding and never reopened. The damage was estimated at close to 100m - and major losses were also suffered by both the city's main courthouse and University College Cork.

Since then, Cork has suffered further floods - albeit far less severe in nature - in October 2012 and in both January and February 2014.

One prompted a personal visit by President Michael D Higgins, who wished to show solidarity with the devastated traders involved.

The city is now the focus of the most ambitious flood relief scheme in the history of the Office of Public Works (OPW). Originally costed at around 80m, the scheme is now estimated to cost 144.7m and will take more than four years to complete.

The OPW estimates that almost 2,200 properties are at flooding risk in Cork city centre and some suburbs. With the city's population of 125,000 expected to grow to 150,000 over the next decade, the scale of at-risk properties is set to increase unless the major overhaul of flood defences is completed.

Barrier

To protect against tidal flooding surges, the Government and OPW opted for a plan based on riverside defences rather than a Thames-style tidal barrier, because the latter could cost up to 1bn. This sparked controversy with the Save Cork City (SCC) group, which opposes high quay walls as damaging to the city's visual heritage. SCC claimed that the tidal barrage would cost closer to 200m - and is the best solution to the flood problem.

Flood Defence Works Interactive Map This tool sets out the cost of installing flood defences, the damages which might arise and number of properties under threat, in the most at-risk areas across the State. It is based on data from the draft Flood Risk Management Plans, produced by the Office of Public Works (OPW), following extensive surveys of 90 coastal communities, and more than 6,500kms of river channel. The country is divided into 29 Units of Management (UoMs), which are areas covered by a single river basin or covered by a group of smaller rivers. Given its size, works required along the Shannon are set out in three UoM. Clicking on the icons show the works required in each area. The urban area is highlighted at the top, and the UoM beneath. The cost of proposed works is set out in m. The damage uncapped figure relates to the total cost of damages to properties and infrastructure which would arise if nothing was done. The damage figure is based on the value of the properties at risk. This figure is used to determine if a scheme should go ahead  if the cost of the damage is less than the cost of providing defences, the scheme may not go ahead. This is the cost-benefit ratio. If its less than one, the scheme doesnt make financial sense. The final figure is the number of properties protected. Some icons contain less information. For example, Tullig in Kerry is part of the Castleisland flood defence scheme so no information is contained. The OPW has also identified other areas as being at low risk, or says the existing flood defence regime should be maintained. In other cases it notes the need for a forecasting system, or says if a scheme is underway. Further information is at http://maps.opw.ie/floodplans/



However, OPW Minister Sean Canney said he was confident the OPW scheme will deliver. The OPW denied that the new quay walls will leave the city centre enclosed within a concrete ring.

Its plan also includes the covering of some vulnerable culverts and work to both bridges and drains to enhance water flow at peak discharge periods.

All open railings around the city quays will either be replaced with walls or supplemented by portable flood barriers. The scale and complexity of the scheme has meant plans have taken much longer than expected to prepare. The OPW plan will also involve careful water management between Cork councils and agencies, such as the ESB, which operate dams in the upper Lee valley.
Health Minister Simon Harris has asked for a period of time to come up with a solution on the maternity hospital debacle. Photo: Colin O'Riordan

Health Minister Simon Harris has said the issue of ownership of the planned National Maternity Hospital must be addressed as the debacle continues to jeopardise the 300m project.

In a significant shift in stance, the Government is now considering the option of a long-term lease agreement to circumvent current legal prohibitions on the Order of the Sisters of Charity selling or gifting the hospital to the State.

One source last night likened the lease option, which could run beyond 900 years, to the agreement surrounding the ownership of the Guinness storehouse in Dublin.

The minister is also understood to be preparing proposals for Cabinet which are designed to tackle the issue of ownership of other hospitals aside from St Vincent's.

"We may need to go down the same kind of route as we did with schools," a source told the Irish Independent.

Read more: 'I want time to pursue solutions' - Health Minister to report back on hospital deal 'at end of May'

Government ministers are becoming increasingly concerned over the bitter dispute surrounding the use of St Vincent's campus for the new maternity facility. Last week, the former master of the Coombe Hospital, Professor Chris Fitzpatrick, stepped down from the NMH project board.

His resignation took place 24 hours after Dr Peter Boylan also quit the board. Dr Boylan accused the board of being "blind" to the consequences of relocating from Holles Street to St Vincent's.

But in a bid to defuse the row, Mr Harris last night said he believed there was the potential to devise "acceptable solutions" in relation to the contentious issue of ownership.

"This week, I asked for a period of time to allow me and my officials to work with both hospitals and report back to the Government, the Oireachtas and to the public at the end of May," Mr Harris said.

"I want to be very clear that I want this time to pursue solutions that address the issue of the ownership of the facility, that is the new NMH."

Mr Harris said that the agreement reached between the hospitals "recognised that the State will require a 'lien' on the new facility in accordance with whatever funding agreements are in place by the State for such capital projects".

A 'lien' in this instance acts as a stop on the nuns selling the hospital site at Elm Park to another buyer without the State's approval.

Creative

"Different options have been used in the past in doing this and I believe there is potential to devise creative and acceptable solutions that will provide further reassurance regarding the ownership of these facilities which will be paid for by the State," Mr Harris said.

In relation to the ownership options, the prospect of a 900-year lease will be examined.

Read more: 'When the next woman dies, how will the conversation go then?' - Holles Street Master Rhona Mahony says maternity deal must go ahead

While Opposition TDs have called for the State to initiate a compulsory purchase order, sources said that this could result in a legal challenge.

"The sisters are not going to simply sit back and allow the State to swoop in and take the land," said a well-placed source.

Speaking on RTE's 'The Week in Politics' yesterday, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan acknowledged that the issue of the ownership of the NMH has caused considerable public concern. "I acknowledge the element of public concern and I also acknowledge that there is an urgency regarding this hospital," he said.

Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald called on the religious order to gift the land to the State.

"I also happen to think that the sisters, out of a sense of commitment to the public and out of a sense of understanding of their own history and the bad relationship that they had with so many mothers and their babies, that they might actually do the right thing," she said.
The clinical director of the National Maternity Hospital has said the Order of the Sisters of Charity will have "absolutely no say" in the running of the facility.

Professor Declan Keane said that treatments such as IVF, sterilisation and potentially abortions will still be practised despite the land being in the ownership of the religious order.

He insisted that medical staff would have "complete clinical autonomy" once the 300m hospital was built on the St Vincent's hospital campus.

"The new maternity hospital at St Vincent's campus will have the ability to practise as we currently do on our current national maternity hospital site," Prof Keane told RTE's 'This Week' programme.

"That will include the provision of sterilisations, of IVF procedures, of gender reassignment and, if the law of the land changes in time following last week's Citizens' Assembly, terminations as well."

Read more: Mulvey: It's not possible for nuns to hand over maternity hospital land as it is 'tied up with loans'

Prof Keane said that he himself had practised sterilisation treatments at St Vincent's in the past.

"I'm very sensitive and I'm aware of this discussion over the last two weeks of the public's concerns and it does seem no matter how much reassurance we can give the public, that we believe we will have complete clinical autonomy on the site, that there is still concern that it's moving to a site that is owned by the Sisters of Charity," he said.

"But I am in no doubt that the nuns will have absolutely no say in the running of the new National Maternity Hospital."

However, consultant oncologist Professor John Crown said he has encountered what he described as "subtle" religious influence at St Vincent's.

"I've been asking my colleagues in the relevant specialties 'have you ever been stopped?'

"It's sort of subtle - I don't want people to think it's some sort of Taliban-like theocracy - it's not like that. On a day-to-day basis people would have no awareness of it," he told Ivan Yates on 'Newstalk'.

Independent senator Ronan Mullen said he believed the order had been portrayed as a "sinister force" since the controversy began.

"I think this is a real sad mess. And I think I would prefer if this hospital wasn't being built on this particular site at this stage," he said.
Controversial plans to no longer treat patients with health insurance in public hospitals were backed today by private hospitals.

The need for drastic action to tackle spiralling waiting lists for public patients- which have a record 658,677 in some form of queue - has sparked the dramatic plan.

The proposal to remove private patients from public hospitals, except where specialist treatment is needed, is set to be one of the key recommendations of the Oireachtas committee drawing up a blueprint for the future of the health service.

The move would free up beds for public patients while tackling spiralling waiting lists and the trolley crisis.

In a significant statement today the Private Hospitals Association , which represents private hospitals across the country, said they would welcome the move and can cater for the majority of private patients instead.

Simon Nugent, the organisations chief executive said : It makes sense to take patients with private health insurance out of the public system and this initiative could be implemented very quickly.

The transfer of patients could commence in the first year of a new strategy rather than waiting until year two as suggested by the Oireachtas Committee.

The latest hospital waiting lists for public patients are out of control with a staggering 658,677 people in some form of queue for care, jumping by 15,000 between February and March alone.

The committee believes that this could be dramatically reduced if private patients were not allowed occupy public beds- but it would mean a 621m drop in income from insurers for public hospitals.

Mr Nugent said today: Private hospitals have the cutting-edge diagnostics, beds, personnel at consultant level and the outcomes to justify such a move. We make approximately 1 million bed nights available to the Irish healthcare system each year and employ over 8,100 healthcare professionals across Ireland.

The growing capacity and range of specialities of the private system contrasts with that of its public counterpart. The public system has fewer beds than it did in 1980 and this initiative could free up much needed beds to help treat public patients.

This would be a significant step in disentangling our mixed systems and helping patients access treatment quickly.

He argued that the committees plans for healthcare reform should also bring about a level playing field between the private and public systems.

He said the current system of charging private patients who end up in a public bed in public hospitals is flawed.

Previously, patients with health insurance was placed in a public rather than private bed their insurance company was not charged the full rate but that was changed in recent years.

This undermines confidence in the value of private health insurance and directly raises premiums. Such increases trigger a downgrading of policies, shifting demand back towards public hospitals.

He called on the Government which is carrying out a mid-term review of its capital plan, setting out its building priorities for health facilities, to provide more supports to stimulate construction in private hospitals.

Private providers stand willing to invest in additional beds, operating theatres and other facilities if there was policy certainty that a greater number of privately insured patients would be referred to such hospitals, he added.
British royal couple Prince Charles and Camilla, who will visit Dublin, Kildare and Kilkenny later this month. Photo: Frank McGrath

A major policing operation is being devised ahead of a visit to Ireland later this month by Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are due to visit Dublin, Kildare and Kilkenny as part of their third formal trip to Ireland in less than two years.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Prince Charles and Minister Heather Humphreys in Glasnevin Cemetery. Pic Credit: Steve Humphries Prince Charles shakes hands with Sein Fein leader Gerry Adams Prince Charles in Glasnevin Cemetery Prince Charles in Glasnevin Cemetery Prince Charles during a visit in Glasnevin Cemetery. Pic Credit: Steve Humphries Prince Charles and Minister Heather Humphreys in Glasnevin Cemetery Prince Charles in Glasnevin Cemetery. Pic Credit: Steve Humphries Prince Charles in Glasnevin Cemetery. Pic Credit: Steve Humphries Prince Charles, HRH the Prince of Wales, and Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Pic Credit: Steve Humphries Prince Charles, HRH the Prince of Wales, and Taoiseach Enda Kenny / Facebook

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During a recent visit, Prince Charles toured Mullaghmore in Co Sligo, where his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA in 1979.

A high-level security plan is being drawn up ahead of the latest visit, which will include Garda checkpoints and road closures.

Clarence House, the official residence of the couple, declined to comment on the trip, which has been planned for several months.

Closures

It's expected the couple will hold a meeting with President Michael D Higgins, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and other senior Government figures during their three-day visit which starts on May 10.

Fine Gael figures last night said Mr Kenny's hosting of the royal couple would be an ideal engagement to seal his departure from office.

The Office of Public Works (OPW) has in recent days notified politicians in Dublin of certain road closures, including around Glasnevin Cemetery where the couple are due to visit.

It is understood Prince Charles and Camilla will be shown the Cross of the Sacrifice, which commemorates the beginning of World War I.

However, local Fianna Fail councillor Paul McAuliffe last night criticised plans to close a section of the N2 during early morning rush hour to accommodate the British royals.

Councillors have been notified of plans to implement the closures between 7am and 1pm.

"While I, of course, support the visit by the couple to Glasnevin Cemetery itself, the timing of the closures will cause great inconvenience for people trying to get to work or bring their children to school.

"It will also affect some bus routes. I see no reason why the ceremony itself could not be moved to a later time," Mr McAuliffe told the Irish Independent.

"Members of the public can formally object to the closures by midday on Tuesday and I encourage them to do so."
For Massachusetts State Senator Marc Pacheco, tackling climate change is not just about protecting the environment - it's also a national security issue.

But even if US President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to pull one of the world's largest emitters out of the Paris climate accord, it will not scupper actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Democrat senator says.

"Everybody looks at national policies through the federal agenda, but it is not necessarily always the case," he says. "There's a lot of energy and support for a green energy future in the US at the state level. Regulatory actions at the state level, and laws at the state level, represent over 200 million people in America.

"We've come a long way. It started out many years ago with a number of state leaders like myself and others who were told we were off our rocker in trying to go down this road, at a time when climate issues were not seen as real at all.

"We're still unsure on what he's [Trump] going to do on a range of issues, but I would hope the administration would see the benefit of staying in the Paris agreement.

"Climate change is the number one issue facing us internationally. You have to look at terrorism and other issues affecting the world, but climate change is also a national security issue.

"We've seen climate refugees and other issues which impact. The Department of Defence has been in support of the climate accord. That's why recommendations have come from national leaders to the Trump White House to stay in the accord, and to continue forward with the work the US has been doing in this regard."

An Al Gore climate leader and founding chair of the Massachusetts State Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, the senator was in Dublin to speak at the launch of the GreenGasCert research project.

This aims to develop quality standards for renewable or green gas, produced by food wastes and other materials, and which will comprise 20pc of all natural gas used in Ireland by 2030, under ambitious plans from Gas Networks Ireland.

Massachusetts is on the same track, Mr Pacheco says. "We took all commercial food waste in the commonwealth and banned disposal in landfill which has created a market for anaerobic digestion (the process used to produce green gas). Otherwise it's just creating waste emissions.

"Our law brings down greenhouse gas emissions by 80pc by 2050, with interim targets in between, and we are looking at any energy source to meet those standards."

There has been notable successes. In Massachusetts, some 6,700 businesses are in the green economy, and it's a $11.8bn (10.8bn) industry. The commonwealth is a long-standing leader in energy efficiency and roll-out of solar and wind, and emissions are falling while the economy grows.

He says there is enormous potential for job creation across the clean tech sector.

"The economy has changed. There was 6pc growth in the clean tech sector in Massachusetts last year. There's well over 105,000 private sector jobs created since 2008," he said.

"We just passed offshore wind procurement legislation, and we're looking at hydroelectricity. That will create thousands of jobs. This is no longer a pipe dream. It's real and happening."

Part of the reason is the drive from business.

"The market trends have already begun to shift in the US and internationally. The investors and venture funds have started to move a growing piece of the investment portfolio into renewables," he said.

"Those smart investors are seeing the significant liabilities in terms of the old technologies, including health risks. You're seeing support from leaders in the private sector, coming forward and saying they want to be part of a set of solutions.

"We have something now which is economically the better option in the long term."

Nationally, renewable energy standards or targets are in place across 37 of the 50 states.

There are no policies in those with an abundance of fossil fuels such as Alaska and Texas (oil and gas) and Wyoming (coal), because citizens will not benefit from moving to renewables, and so their politicians don't push for change.

But politics is changing, with most new members of the state senate now committed to a clean energy future.

"It might not be from an environmental perspective, but from a public health one. We're starting to see people becoming concerned because there's places along the coast where you cannot get a property insured," he said.

"The insurance industry was not founded to be taking a bet against certainty. Now that we are seeing more and more extreme weather events, it is becoming unpredictable for that sector of the economy.

"To try to stop the worst effects [of climate change] we need to muster the political will to stay the course, and put in place clean energy policies for the future.

"We're in a very different place today than 10 years ago. Emissions are going down. We've seen quite a lot of innovation in the private sector. And with the public we're in a better place to win the argument, because the jobs we said would be created have been created."
Party leader Michelle O'Neill takes part in a Sinn Fein commemorative parade to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of IRA activists in Loughgall, in the village of Cappagh, Northern Ireland. Photo: REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Sinn Fein's leader in the North has defended her participation in an event to commemorate the deaths of eight IRA men killed in Loughgall, Co Armagh, in 1987.

Michelle O'Neill insisted there was no contradiction in commemorating the IRA dead while also reaching out to unionists.

Ms O'Neill took part in the republican parade yesterday to mark 30 years since the ambush by elite troops of the IRA men.

Eight IRA men were shot dead when they smashed a stolen digger containing a 200lb bomb through the gates of Loughgall police station in Co Armagh in May 1987.

Ms O'Neill told the crowd she had been criticised by unionists and the media for commemorating IRA Volunteers.

But she said: "Make no mistake about it: I will always remember and commemorate our patriot dead and each of our fallen comrades who gave their lives for Irish freedom."

The leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, said she was disappointed by Ms O'Neill's decision to attend the event.
A hairless Sphynx cat was crowned Overall Supreme Winner in the country's national cat show.

Balinteer Community School in south Dublin played host to hundreds of cat lovers at the 26th Supreme Cat Show yesterday hosted by The Governing Council of the Cat Fancy of Ireland.

Of the 74 cats on show yesterday, Lithuanian-born Gustas Dovainys (17) and his remarkable cat Liala won the Overall Supreme Exhibit prize.

Liala, who is one year old, "gets a lot of attention and loves to play" with Gustas and his little brother Matas (7).

The striking cat also won the Supreme Adult award.

Gustas, who lives in Cork, said "she has no hair so at least there's no hoovering up".

Expand Close Gustas Dovainys and his brother Matas with his champion Sphynx cat Liala. Photo: Colin O'Riordan / Facebook

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Despite the lack of hair he said "she goes outside of her own accord and always receives so much attention, everyone loves her.

"In the house we have to keep the heating at 18 degrees, otherwise she will just get too cold," he said.

Surprise

This was just Liala's second show ever, and Gustas said before receiving the prize he didn't expect to win anything.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Shauna Breslin from Swords and Ciara Delveen from the Navan Road, Dublin, with Persian cat Kazbara at the 26th Supreme Cat Show in Ballinteer, Dublin. Photo: Colin ORiordan Denise Kernaghan, Newry, with her Exotic cat Marley. Photo: Colin O'Riordan Tatianna Michalek, Galway, with American Tail Sara. Photo: Colin O'Riordan Amber McCarthy, Portrane, with her Maine Coon cat Hero. Photo: Colin O'Riordan Quentan Cherry Land, a British Lilac, with his owner. Photo: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos / Facebook

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Whatsapp Shauna Breslin from Swords and Ciara Delveen from the Navan Road, Dublin, with Persian cat Kazbara at the 26th Supreme Cat Show in Ballinteer, Dublin. Photo: Colin ORiordan

Keeping up the grooming is tough work though and he said Liala "gets a bath week to week" to keep her in great condition.

There were a number of cats on show with a variety of breeds including Persian, Birmans, Exotic, Maine Coons and Russian Blues.

Also on show was Hero in the Making, a one-year-old Maine Coon cat who was named after the 1916 Rising.

Owner Amber McCarthy (40), from Portrane, north Dublin, said she bought Hero, originally known as Katez, after attending the Easter 1916 celebrations. "I originally thought about naming her Pearse or Connolly or something like that, but I thought it would be apt to name her after all of them, so it was Hero," she said.

Ms McCarthy said Hero was "very relaxed and brilliant to have inside the house" even though she has two dogs.

Newry woman Denise Kernaghan (38) was in attendance to show off Marley, her Exotic cat who was on her third show.

Marley, also known as Kernakitz What a Charmer, "gets groomed every day" by Ms Kernaghan as well as bathed a week before every show.

"I clean her face every day as sometimes she can have some tears which need to be wiped away," she said.

Marley received a prize for second in her breed's class, but Ms Kernaghan said she was "delighted as it is her first adult show".
Nathan Fullerton, far left, and Nathan Farrell, far right, were killed in the crash in which their pals Jimmy McKenna, second left, and Ronan Boyd, second right, were also hurt.

The families of two teenagers who died in a traffic accident over the weekend are said to be "absolutely distraught".

Friends and family paid tribute to the two young men from Buncrana, Co Donegal, who were killed while travelling home from a nightclub in the early hours of the morning.

Nathan Fullerton (17) and Nathan Farrell (18) were travelling in the car with three of their friends.

The remains of Mr Fullerton and Mr Farrell were brought home yesterday evening, and they will both be buried at St Mary's, Cockhill, in Buncrana later this week.

The teenagers were killed when their vehicle struck a wall between Quigley's Point and Whitecastle on the R238 at 3.35am on Saturday.

They were returning from a night out at the Bailey nightclub in Redcastle when the incident occurred.

Expand Close A garda at the scene of the fatal crash in Co Donegal. Photo: Trevor McBride / Facebook

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The road re-opened yesterday after an examination was conducted by the Garda Forensic Collision investigators.

One of the young men was pronounced dead at the scene while the second was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

It is believed that Mr Fullerton was due to leave Ireland today for a job in Scotland.

Read more: 'Funny and kind' pals were 'celebrating a new job abroad' before they were killed in horror crash

Three other friends were also in the car at the time, but they are said to be in a stable condition in Altnagelvin and Letterkenny Hospital.

"I've been talking to some of the family members and they're absolutely distraught, they're in shock, disbelief," said local councillor Rena Donaghey.

"They went out to go to a disco but they never came home. They were all very young, they were all under 20, they had everything to live for. They were just beginning out in life really, one of them was starting a job in Scotland on Monday."

"My thoughts are with the ones who are in hospital as well. We just hope that they have a speedy recovery and get back to full health again," she added.

Very Rev Francis Bradley said there was a "stunned silence", adding that people were shocked at the sudden loss.

"Unfortunately, this isn't a set of circumstances that we're unfamiliar with, we are all too familiar with it. But nevertheless it's different people and different families, and for that reason it is a fresh tide of grief," he said.

"People mourn the loss of two young lives, they are saddened by the pain that this brings to the families and all their generation, from grandparents to parents to siblings to circles of friends."

The accident occurred in the same place where five young men, who were also from Buncrana, were killed in 2005.

Gardai released a statement asking any "witnesses and in particular anyone who may have travelled this road between 3am and 3.40am [on Saturday] to contact Buncrana Garda Station on 074-9320540".
Gardai search for the remains of Willie Maughan and his girlfriend Ana Varslavane

A jailed gang boss who ordered the murders of a couple who disappeared two years ago has boasted that their bodies will never be found.

The shocking revelation came after gardai finished a dig for the remains of Willie Maughan and his pregnant girlfriend Ana Varslavane.

The search, near Monasterboice, Co Louth, ended late on Saturday night without any new evidence coming to light.

As Mr Maughan's heartbroken father spoke of his devastation that the searches had yielded no clues, the Herald learnt that the gangster has been saying the couple will never be found.

"He was telling his prison pals over the weekend that the cops will never find those bodies," a source said last night.

Cremated

"He was actually laughing at them for searching where they were. He was saying it was a complete waste of time and he's confident he's got away with the double murder."

Underworld sources are adamant the couple were not buried after being shot dead in April 2015.

Expand Close Willie Maughan and his girlfriend Ana Varslavane / Facebook

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It has been said their bodies were "totally cremated" in a massive bonfire in Co Meath just hours after they were murdered.

The Herald previously revealed that the gang boss taunted and laughed at gardai as they searched for the missing couple in Co Meath in the summer of 2015.

Before gardai carried out Saturday's unsuccessful searches in Co Louth, officers raided the property where the gangster lived before he was locked up in Wheatfield Prison for separate offences earlier this year.

On Wednesday morning a team of detectives spent time at the property questioning members of the jailed mobster's family. No arrests were made.

It is understood the search was carried out by Ashbourne gardai who were acting on new information after a cold case review of the murders.

Mr Maughan (34) and his 21-year-old Latvian girlfriend are believed to have been abducted and murdered by the gang after they went missing on April 14, 2015, in Gormanston, Co Meath.

The couple were planning on moving back to the Maughan family home in Tallaght on the day they went missing.

Speaking to the Herald last night, the missing man's father, Joe Maughan, said he was disappointed that the search did not find any trace of his son and his girlfriend.

"The scumbag who is responsible is in jail and he is well-known," he said.

"All I want to say is that I and my family are very disappointed tonight that the search did not find anything.

Feud

"Our hopes were up during the weekend, but now we're disappointed again."

The jailed gangster was previously arrested in relation to the murder of Benny Whitehouse.

Mr Whitehouse was shot dead in Clonard Street, Balbriggan, on September 25, 2014, in front of his partner as part of a separate feud.

The same gang is being investigated for a pipe-bomb attack at the home of Willie Maughan's sister in Rathfarnham in October 2015.

The mob are suspects for a sickening incident last August when the grave of Willie Maughan's brother was dug up at Bohernabreena Cemetery in Tallaght.

The sinister incident came only a day after the family appealed for information to help find the remains of Mr Maughan and his girlfriend.

It is understood that the dig for the remains of the missing couple was ordered after a review of the original investigation carried out in the aftermath of their disappearance.
At the Guinness Theatre in St. James's Gate Brewery, Guinness launch 'Guinness Light', a new, lighter version of its world famous stout. 26/06/1979

The curator of the new Museum of Failure is asking the people of Ireland to help him track down an elusive Irish item for his exhibition: Guinness Light.

The brew infamously launched in 1979 with two hubris-infused catchphrases.

One was, They said it couldnt be done which proved prescient.

The other featured footage of the first moon landing, with the not so modest claim that What one small step did for mankind, weve done for beer.

But despite a heavy PR push  which saw women dressed like Barbarella descend from a giant silver space ship at St James Gate  Guinness Light died a death.

However, it wasnt a complete loss of time and money as now Dr Samuel West, curator of the Museum of Failure in Sweden, wants to add a bottle of the black stuff to his exhibition.

The museum houses 51 items that tanked spectacularly including Colgate toothpastes decision to launch a line of frozen beef lasagne ready-made meals and Harley Davidsons bold marketing ploy to unveil a line of perfume  because who doesnt want to smell like gasoline, sweat and regret?

Bics For Her pens (pink pens specially created for lady hands), Coke BlaK (coffee-flavoured cola), Lego Fibre Optics, and Trump: The Board Game which failed to sell well back in 1989 (but may do better these days) are also on display.

According to West, tracking down the items has been nothing short of a complete f**king nightmare. Turns out brands are not that keen to recall their biggest disasters  funny that.

So I am still on the hunt for a bottle of Guinness Light, Dr West said.

Anyone who sends me one can come visit the museum and I promise to buy them a very expensive Swedish beer in exchange.

While the beer may be the item that West is most interested in  there is a cornucopia of Irish catastrophes and cock-ups that could fill the museum; Dustin the Turkeys failed Eurovision entry, a brief history of Irish Water, the short-lived Aran trouser, and Garda Siochanas Segway patrol.

Like in the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop? Dr West asks incredulously.

Yes, I reply. Exactly like Paul Blart  but less threatening.

But that would be so ineffectual. Not much gets past the Swedes.

Another contender for the museum would have to be Berties e-voting machines that cost us 54m, and were never used. Michael Noonan said they should be shoved in the corner of a themed Oirish bars but they werent even afforded that fate, and ultimately 7,500 bulky machine were tossed in a junkyard heap.

Its sad to think that there are none of them knocking about these days.

After all, didnt Sam Beckett tell us all to fail, fail again, fail better?

Perhaps we shouldnt be quite so quick to sweep all our national mishaps under the rug, and smudge them out of history.

Innovation requires failure, Dr West said. Learning is the only process that turns failure into success, he says.

So if anyone has a bottle of the Guinness Light knocking about their potting shed  do get in touch  you never know it could end up sitting pride of place beside the Apple Pippin, a pair of Google Glasses or a Orbitoclast Lobotomy.

Oh, and youll get a crisp refreshing pint of Narke Kaggen Stormaktsporter Borbnahallon to sweeten the deal.

info@museumoffailure.se
In the 2014 movie, Chef, Carl Casper, played by Jon Favreau, walks out of the kitchen at a high-end restaurant in Los Angeles, after too much creative interference from the owner, played by Dustin Hoffman, results in a poor review - and an ill-advised rant against a powerful restaurant critic that goes viral. In Miami, while he's figuring out his next move, Carl joins forces with his ex-wife, best friend and son to launch a food-truck business, which reignites his passion for cooking, as well as, says the blurb, "his zest for life and love".

God knows how many people have given up sensible, pensionable jobs to follow their dream of a life in food after seeing the film, but I'll wager it's quite a few. The food-truck scene is a phenomenon born out of tough times: lower start-up costs - as compared to bricks-and- mortar premises - make food trucks an attractive option for those wanting to dip a toe into the restaurant business without having major financial backing. The hope behind many of these ventures is that they will become successful enough to secure permanent homes, but progression is not guaranteed and many don't make the transition.

Kerala Kitchen started out as a food truck in Donegal in 2009, with Londoner Lewis Cummings, who had fallen for the freshness and vibrancy of south Indian food while travelling in Kerala in 2005, selling his food from a van. Word spread, queues formed, and Kerala Kitchen became a local hit. Encouraged by their success, Lewis and his Irish wife, Grainne, moved to Dublin and set up a stall in the lunchtime market at Mespil Road, and quickly became a hit with local office workers.These days you'll find them at weekly markets at East Point, Spencer Dock, Mespil Road, Percy Place and Sandyford, and their hand-painted trailer at summer festivals including Body & Soul, Longitude and Electric Picnic. It's hard to miss their signature bright pink elephant.

Despite all this, I hadn't eaten Kerala Kitchen's food until I moved house last year, and their restaurant on Baggot Street, just down from the bridge (it's the one that says 'Fresh Indian Food' in the window) turned out to be around the corner. Over the space of a few months, it's become our default option for takeaways, although you have to get there early to beat the lunchtime queue, which is always populated by a reassuring number of Indian people who must work in the area.

On the ground floor of the Georgian building is the kitchen and takeaway counter, while upstairs in the high-ceilinged first-floor front reception room is the dining room, where customers have the choice of eating at one of the large communal tables or one of the smaller tables for two. The walls are painted a dark hue of grey and there's a smattering of Indian antiques; I can't think of anywhere else in the city that looks like this and it's quite charming.

On a Wednesday evening, every space in the dining room is taken. The four of us take an end of one of the large tables and, because we are super-hungry and have the excuse of being on a review, order all around us. Our lovely waiter explains that they don't serve starters and main courses as such - probably because he has to carry all the food up the stairs from the kitchen, which seems fair enough - and that all our food will arrive at the same time.

First up are complimentary mango lassis, served in metal beakers with a straw, that are too sweet for my palate but not for the others. The poppadoms come with three dips: sweet mango, tangy tamarind and minty yoghurt, and are light, crisp, fragrant and not at all greasy.

There's a prawn ambur biryani with deep flavours of cinnamon, star anise, cardamom and coriander, lamb seekh kebab that has heat and intensity, and a robust Nadan curry (from Tamal Nadu) rich with coconut, fresh curry leaves, mustard seeds, chilli and pepper - southern Indian food uses lots of coconut - that we declare our joint favourite of the night's dishes. (The other is the day's special aubergine and potato curry - aloo baingan - that we've had before as a takeaway dish and wish was on the permanent menu.) Tandoori chicken on the bone is tender and flavoursome from overnight marinating.

Kerala Kitchen makes its dhal with four different kinds of lentil tempered with mustard seeds, curry leaves and red chilli and it's as heartily comforting as one could hope.

The garlic and coriander naan breads are pleasantly light with a nice char, and the only disappointment is a dish of karara jinga - six "succulent mildly spiced tempura prawns" - that is way overpriced at 12 and curiously bland. I don't understand why prawns continue to warrant premium prices on Irish menus, as they are no longer an expensive ingredient unless their sourcing is exceptional.

Kerala Kitchen doesn't have a beer licence; the wine selection is limited and could do with some thought. We drank a bottle of serviceable Argentinian Malbec (26) and our bill for four, with a couple of soft drinks, came to 131.75 before service. There were enough leftovers for lunch for two the next day.

THE RATING

8/10 food

8/10 ambience

8/10 value for money

24/30

ON A BUDGET

Saag paneer - spinach curry with green chilli and fresh Indian cheese - and chana saag - chickpeas with spinach, cumin, fennel and spices - each cost 10 or 8 to take away. (I eat one of these for lunch at least once a week.)

ON A BLOW-OUT

Karara jinga prawns and prawn biryani for two, with shared garlic and coriander naan, rice and a side of dhal, plus a bottle of Elephant Hill Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (30), will cost 100 before service.

THE HIGH POINT

Unpretentious food, charming service.

THE LOW POINT

Plastic containers for the dips.
Jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet is something Mark Luttrell never thought he'd be doing. The father and grandfather is afraid of heights, but he's not going to let a small thing like that stop him in his bid to raise money for Feileacain - the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Association of Ireland.

While taking a sky dive might be more suited to adrenaline junkies than a hard-working lorry driver, Mark says it's his role as a grandfather that prompted his brave endeavour. The father of seven and grandfather of 22, he was so deeply affected by the loss of five of his children's babies that he was galvanised into action to raise awareness of miscarriage and stillbirth and to raise money for Feileacain, which he says provided the most wonderful care to his family when it was needed.

Mark decided to speak to Health&Living about his experience of two of these losses from the perspective of a grandparent, because he believes grandparents are often are at sea when faced with their own child's huge grief.

Three years ago on May 31st 2014, Mark was celebrating his 50th birthday and awaiting the arrival of a grandchild. His son David and David's wife Carol had gone into hospital in Portlaoise - where they were living - to have their first child. One moment Mark was enjoying his birthday celebrations with his family and friends all around him; the next his family was plunged into despair - David and Carol's baby daughter had died.

"I remember the candles on the cake and I came into the room. I could see my wife Ellen was on her knees on the floor. I thought she had collapsed. My eldest son just said 'Holly's gone - she's passed away'. There was just total devastation. The music was playing, it was all surreal. You could see people's faces wondering what was going on. I was trying to get the music turned off. I had to take a microphone and tell everyone the bad news. I just said 'my granddaughter has just died,' " says Mark, recalling all the details of what should have been a special night.

David and Carol had learned that during a scan no heartbeat could be found. Three days later, on June 3, Carol delivered baby Holly and the family gathered around to support one another. "I remember thinking this should never have happened to them. David asked me to take some photos of Holly and at that point the heartbreak didn't really come into it. This was my little granddaughter. I wanted to do this for them with love and care. It wasn't until after the funeral that it hit me," says Mark.

"As a parent and as a grandparent it's hard because you're watching your own child go through this. You have to try and be strong for them but I honestly didn't know how I would get over the heartache after Holly. I broke down with my wife and I just felt I wasn't strong enough for this," he says.

Mark says he doesn't know how they would have made it through that time without the support of Feileacain. He says they provided a cuddle cot for Holly and helped them through what were the darkest of days.

"I'd love to see things change for people who have experienced a loss like this. Hospitals should have private areas for people who have lost a baby. What they are dealing with is hard enough without having to bump into people with their babies and hearing babies crying in the next room," he says.

Mark and his wife Ellen had experienced their own losses earlier in their lives. Baby Patrick was stillborn at 38 weeks some 33 years ago and they suffered a miscarriage 25 years ago. They grieved and immersed themselves in their family. But the loss of Holly plunged them into a deep grief that Mark didn't think he'd be able to get out of.

Two years ago, when Mark found out his youngest daughter Melissa was pregnant at the age of 19 he was, by his own admission, a little bit thrown by the news. He describes Melissa as his and Ellen's miracle baby. Ellen had to undergo surgery for cervical cancer when she was in the early stages of pregnancy. The doctors told her there was a 50/50 chance Melissa wouldn't survive it. But survive she did, and here she was expecting her own baby.

However she suffered a miscarriage at 13 weeks. A scan showed the little heartbeat had stopped. Mark believes Melissa's suffering was compounded by the fact that some people were insensitive to her loss. "I know doctors see this every day but they've got to remember people don't go through this every day. People who are miscarrying don't see it every day. Melissa was very clear that from the minute she was pregnant, she was a mother to her baby. The miscarriage changed her totally. She was so outgoing but after the miscarriage she went totally into herself," says Mark.

He felt the only way to cope with his grief was to do something to remember the losses, not just those close to him but for others who might find themselves in a similar situation. After Melissa lost her baby, the family released a Chinese lantern in the night sky and took pictures as it floated away. The seeds for what would become Light up the Sky were sown.

Light up the Sky is now in its third year. It's a simple releasing of lanterns and balloons for anyone who has lost a baby through miscarriage. This year's ceremony will be held on August 26 at 7pm beside Tallaght's leisure centre.

"We kept asking ourselves what else we could do and we came up with the Tree of Angels. It's really just a Christmas tree and we put up angels on the tree to remember all the babies who have been lost. It's spread from Tallaght to Carlow and we'd love to see more people take it on," says Mark, who would love to see communities around the country have their own tree of angels at Christmas time.

Mark's next endeavour is his skydive. His tandem jump will take place on July 15, in Edenderry and he hopes to raise 5,000 for Feileacain in the process. His daughter Melissa, who gave birth to baby Mia over a year ago, has come on board and decided to jump as well. His son David, who welcomed baby son Riley to the world nearly two years ago, has also decided he will join them too.

Mark says Feileacain will always be close to his heart because of the fantastic support they give to people who have lost babies. As for the jump Mark says he'll be closing his eyes and counting to 10 but it will be worth it to be able to give just a little bit back to help Feileacain.

"I know my way of coping is to do things. Sometimes it's hard to see light at the end of the tunnel. What I do helps me to cope with my grief. But there are times when it really comes up against you," he says.

"There are no answers. People search for them and sometimes there just aren't any. I still don't know why these things happened but I would say to people to reach out and connect with other people who've been there. Contact Feileacain, join groups like Light up the Sky, reach out and talk to people who know what you are going through," says Mark.

"I know it's hard for grandparents. You don't have to say anything - just be there for your son or daughter. Let them know they have your support. People have to talk about their children whether they are here or not. Let your child talk and just listen to them," he says.

* To connect with Mark, you can visit his Facebook page: Light up the sky/tree of angels. You can donate to his fundraising skydive by going to justgiving.com/Mark's jumpfortheangels.

* INM has a dedicated section independent.ie/babyloss where parents of all ages can share their stories of miscarriage, stillbirth and neonatal death. The section will serve as a testament to the women and men who share their stories, a memorial for the babies lost and as a resource for other people who have gone through or are going through the experience.

Your stories can be anonymous or on the record and nothing will be published in any format without prior consultation with you. If you would like to be part of this and tell your story, email Yvonne Hogan at yhogan@independent.ie
I'm renovating my house which includes making my kitchen bigger. I want to know if it is possible to remove the interior wall which is 10m-long and replace it with a steel beam to make the kitchen/sitting room open plan. It is a two-storey house and this is not a load-bearing wall but supports the ceiling joists.

A: To answer your question correctly I'd need to visit your home to see the existing layout, etc. But, as a guide, here are some things to consider:

1: Removing a 10m-long wall is possible and ambitious and a new steel beam and frame will need to be designed by a suitability qualified engineer. It's important that any structural alterations are designed and signed off by an engineer otherwise you can have a real issue when you go to sell your home at a future date. The correct paperwork needs to be in place and equally you need to be safe in the knowledge your home is not going to develop any structural defects.

2: As you say, the wall is supporting the ceiling and this in turn supports the first floor and perhaps the roof and, it's safe to assume, it's a structural wall. When removing such an extent of wall, there will need to be a frame provided with vertical posts at either end, like a goalpost frame. A midpoint post might even be required. This will provide stability to the existing house and perhaps any adjoining house. It's worth noting that loading comes not only from above but that side forces need to be considered - hence the 'goalpost frame'. Think of a deck of cards. Again an engineer is best placed to design this.

3: On the design side, there are other ways to provide open space without the need of taking so much wall away and also to allow you to close rooms off when required for kids or to watch TV. Simple ways to do this are by ung large single or double doors that fold back on to walls via parliament hinges so the doors are out of the way when open. Equally, sliding doors can achieve the same result and can create dynamic spaces.

4: Assuming that some form of steel beams is required - and to avoid the typical extension look - consider where the new steel beams are located within the ceiling. The cheaper way is to place the beam below the floor/ceiling but you will end up with a down-stand beam. An alternative, but more expensive solution, is to place the beam within the ceiling zone, creating flush ceilings with spaces flowing seamlessly, rooms feeling bigger. It also helps blur the line between the new and old.

5: One other small but typical issue with opening up rooms into one space is that there can be different floor levels between the rooms, particularly in older properties. It can usually be resolved but is worth noting as it may add to your costs and will affect design.

6: In terms of layouts, it's also worth considering different locations for the main fixed object, the kitchen. Placing things in the right spot can free up more space, bring more light in and give the impression of a larger space, so explore all possible locations.

7: It's always worth considering that you may not need to extend and this is where the skills of an architect can come in to advise on what can be achieved with and without extending. It's cheaper to explore ideas on paper rather than when you get to site.

8: If a decision is made to extend, consider where you will put your roof lights. Place them as close to the existing back wall as possible to allow the middle areas to be brighter. Placing your roof lights butting up against walls will allow light to bounce off the walls and illuminate the rooms better than a central rooflight which creates a shaft of light like in a Gothic cathedral. Equally consider the location of an extension, where does the sun come from, can you bring the light in, create a courtyard, is there something to focus on, a tree, etc?

9: Lastly, to be able to provide specific advice to your project, consult a registered architect and, in turn, an engineer to make sure your home is safe and sound, during and after the works. An architect can develop good layouts to maximise the space within the available budget.

If you are considering changes to your home, work with a registered architect. Check riai.ie, the registration body for architects in Ireland.

Gary Mongey is a registered architect and a director of Box Architecture (which celebrates 20 years in business this year) and has worked on many domestic projects over this time; box.ie.

Fancy a one-to-one consultation with a member of the RIAI about a residential project? For a fee of just 90 - roughly one-third of the usual cost - you will receive an hour's one-to-one consultation with an RIAI member, dedicated to your specific design query. Every cent of your 90 fee goes to the RIAI Simon Open Door project, helping provide accommodation and meals in a transitional house for 10 nights; to fund a home starter pack for someone moving to independent living with basics such as crockery, kettle, linen and household goods; or to provide the Simon Communities rough sleeper team with three emergency packs for those sleeping on the streets. The offer is available for just one week, from Saturday, May 13 to Friday, May 19, and members of the RIAI are giving their time for free. Log on to simonopendoor.ie to book a participating architect near you.
They say that what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas. Being a clean-living boy, I'm not quite sure what that means, but driving the Audi Q2 in Vegas Yellow last week brought such head-swivelling attention that I quite wished the colour had stayed in the place for which it was named.

However, on the other hand, when we came back to the massive Crone car park last Sunday after a walk in the Dublin Mountains, there was no missing just where our vehicle was parked. The only competition was the gorse which is now coming into its own and was indeed "yellow on the heath".

When I was growing up in Cornwall, the coming of the gorse was a big deal and on May 1 a sprig of it was a traditional gift between young lovers. Whatever about love, it probably wasn't the car to be seen in in the august surrounding of All Hallows College last Tuesday when attending the alumni meeting of the DCU MA in Ethics.

When I was doing the course a few years back, I normally would cycle up to lectures. The jibes about ethics, motoring correspondents and never the twain shall meet were a bit hard to take. But last Tuesday I threw caution to the wind, much to the amusement of a few of my fellow alumni.

For the much-awaited Q2 was a delight to drive and being a small SUV, it is just the size I like. It is impressively built with great attention to detail and feels like the premium car it is. And it should. The biggest let-down with the Q2 is the price. The company might like to claim that prices start at 30,100 - or 309 per month on a PCP - (20,790 in the UK) but extras start to push that into the stratosphere. The test car was the 1.4TFSI 150bhp S-Tronic and with a lot of spec on board, came in at 45,448. Now that is out of reach of the normal family, however it might suit "golden generation" executive downsizers who still want the premium feel of an Audi, but now they are retired, are happy with something that sits between a SUV and small saloon.

It is light years away from cars like the Nissan Juke and Renault Captur but not such a family car as popular offerings like the Hyundai Tucson and Nissan Qashqai. It claims to be a five-seater but it isn't except for very short journeys as the child or small person in the centre seat will be very uncomfortable indeed.

Yet the luggage area is very good indeed and adaptable. It probably can rightly claim to be the best car of its type on the market, although the Peugeot 3008, which is much more an all-round family SUV, has a massive premium feel about it.

The test car's responsive automatic took eight seconds to reach 100kmh and it's great to drive, although it is very harsh over bumps even under all the different settings. And the bigger the wheels, the worse it will be, although the big alloys give the car real presence. Consumption is good and I think 45 mpg is realistic. The satnav on the test car was brilliant with aerial views of the mountains through which we were travelling. There's no doubt that the Audi Q2 will stand out in the crowd even without being in its garish colours. It is a refined, well-designed car. Pity about the price.

And don't forget what day it is tomorrow. As Charlotte Smith wrote: "The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath, The silver wreath, of May." But on the other hand, seize your moment, for remember "kissing's out of fashion when the gorse is out of blossom".

Drive safely this bank holiday weekend.
Premium

John Downing Opinion New British prime minister Rishi Sunaks succession proves an important milestone in British political inclusivity

There is an old saying in British politics that goes: The right looks for converts while the left seeks out traitors. It comes to mind when one reflects upon the election of Rishi Sunak as the UKs first non-white prime minister in a party traditionally seen as most opposed to mass immigration and the dilution of national identity via multiculturalism.
Any way you look at things, Enda Kenny was entitled to hold his head high leaving the opening of EU-Brexit talks in Brussels. Ireland's cause in these talks, scheduled to take another 23 months to complete, is up in lights. It is a very rare occasion when the word "Ireland" features so prominently in so many EU leaders' statements.

The most eye-catching assertion was special recognition of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and the ultimate potential for a united Ireland in the fullness of time. There is good sense attaching to the need to deal with the prospect of the end of partition - some day into the future.

It means that in such an eventuality Northern Ireland would not find itself in an EU membership queue, some distance behind many long-time aspiring nations. But it is probably the most long-term of the key priorities which the Dublin Government must now doggedly pursue.

The most immediate issues relate to trade within the two jurisdictions on this island and between the two islands of Ireland and Britain. There is also the common travel agreement between these islands, which stretches back beyond the foundation of the European Union in all its manifestations.

It is also reasonable to speculate that Mr Kenny's assiduous attendance at the Christian Democrats' EPP gatherings for the past 15 years was no load in this entire process. There was a sense that the strong mentions of Ireland by EU principals Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the policy-guiding Commission, and Donald Tusk, head of the law-making Council, were a tip-of-the-hat in the Taoiseach's direction.

There is little room for sentiment in politics generally, and at this high level of international relations especially.

But Mr Kenny and Ireland have kept faith with the European project through many recent difficulties, and here, surely, was evidence that this was being recognised.

The tone of these opening talks in Brussels has been undeniably harsh. We can discount a deal for opening bids on both the British and EU sides. We must also recognise that three key countries are now in election mode.

French voters are back on Sunday to choose their president, and equally important parliamentary elections follow next month. British voters go to the polls in six weeks' time, and German federal elections are fixed for September. All this domestic politics must clearly impact on the "rhetoricometer" as these talks start in earnest in mid to late June.

It is good to hear the case of Ireland being rated alongside priorities like the UK's EU budget obligations, and the need for a guarantee on the rights of EU citizens currently living in the United Kingdom. That is a very good start by any yardstick.

Let us never fail to recall, however, that this is just "a good start" to these negotiations and the final outcome, which will shape the lives of this and many future Irish generations, is really what counts. In sum, the score now could be rated "Advantage Ireland". But it is only now that a long road of the toughest negotiations in this State's history finally looms into view.

In simple sporting parlance: we are on the pitch, well togged-out and looking good - but we have won absolutely nothing yet. We now need continued political focus and unprecedented perseverance.
May 1 is International Workers Day.

People across the world take to the streets on May 1 each year to commemorate International Workers Day.

Heres everything you need to know about the marches.

Why do marches take place on May Day?

May Day, which is a public holiday in some countries, is often used to commemorate workers or protest for their rights.

The origins of May Day go back to the 1880s in the US, when unions pushing for better workplace conditions began advocating for an eight-hour workday with demonstrations and strikes nationwide.

In May 1886, a labour rally in Chicago turned deadly when a bomb was thrown and police opened retaliatory fire. Several labour activists, most of them immigrants, were convicted of conspiracy to incite violence among other charges and four of them were hanged.

Unions later recommended that May 1 be designated to honour the workers who were charged.

Are there any marches this year that we should know about in particular?

Less than a week before the run-off French presidential election between Emmanuel Macron and former National Front leader Marine Le Pen, one May Day march in Paris was disrupted as scores of hooded youths threw firebombs at riot police in full gear, who responded with tear gas and truncheons. One policeman was seen spraying a troublemaker in the face.

Two police officers were reported injured, according to French television.

The violent protesters were not carrying union paraphernalia or anything linked to the French electoral campaign, appearing to be from fringe groups that have targeted anti-government protests in the past.

The march was also used by some as an anti-Le Pen demonstration. Some urged French workers to vote for Macron but others refused to make that call, including far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon who was eliminated in the first-round vote on April 23.

Tear gas was also used by police in Turkey, along with plastic bullets, to disperse around 200 May Day demonstrators as they attempted to defy a ban and meet at Taksim Square.

Protesters held anti-government banners against the result of last months referendum, which gave President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers.

What was the May Day march in London like?

Crowds assembled at Clerkenwell Green from midday where they marched to a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Speakers at the rally included shadow chancellor John McDonnell and PCS union general secretary Mark Serwotka.

Many of those marching carried signs and banners.

Some people appeared to use the march as an opportunity to show their support for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

And in America?

Immigrant and union groups were expected to march in cities across the United States to mark May Day and protest against President Donald Trumps efforts to boost deportations.

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies are due to rally in cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also are planned for dozens of smaller cities from Ft Lauderdale, Florida, to Portland, Oregon.

In many places, activists are urging people to skip work, school and shopping to show the importance of immigrants in American communities.

The day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the US since demonstrations were held in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.
There are reports the European Commission President walked out of talks in Downing Street saying he was 10 times more sceptical than before.

Theresa May has dismissed claims she is at loggerheads with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker over her Brexit negotiating strategy as just Brussels gossip.

Heres everything you need to know about the reports and Mays response.

What did the reports say exactly?

The Prime Minister came under fire following reports Juncker walked out of talks last week in Downing Street saying he was 10 times more sceptical than before.

A detailed account in the German press of their dinner suggested Juncker left fearing the negotiations would end in failure.

The following morning Juncker reportedly rang German chancellor Angela Merkel to warn her that Mays approach was from a different galaxy and that she was deluding herself.

Merkel responded by rewriting a speech she was giving that day to warn that some in Britain were still harbouring illusions about the Brexit process.

So how exactly has May dismissed the claims?

Campaigning in Ormskirk in Lancashire, May said: From what I have seen of this account, I think it is Brussels gossip.

Look at what the European Commission themselves said immediately after the dinner took place which was that the talks had been constructive.

The Prime Minister sought to exploit the report to drive home her message that she  not Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn  can provide the strong leadership needed to secure the best deal for Britain.

It also shows that these negotiations are at times going to be tough and in order to get the best deal for Britain we need to ensure that we have got that strong and stable leadership into those negotiations, she said.

When it comes June 8 people have a clear choice.

There will be 27 European countries on one side of the table  who do they want to see standing up for Britain on the other side? Me or Jeremy Corbyn.

What have other politicians said since the accounts of the dinner?

Corbyn, campaigning in Battersea, south London, warned that Mays negotiating strategy was unravelling.

To start negotiations by threatening to walk away with no deal and set up a low tax economy on the shores of Europe is not a very sensible way of approaching people with whom half of our trade is done at the present time, he said.

Of course they are going to be difficult (negotiations), but you start from the basis that you want to reach an agreement, you start from the basis that you have quite a lot of shared interests and values.

If you start from that basis and show respect, you are more likely to get a good deal.

But if you start with a megaphone, calling people silly names, it is not a great start to anything.

Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron said: Its clear this Government has no clue and is taking the country towards a disastrous hard Brexit.

For the SNP, Scotlands minister for UK negotiations with the EU Michael Russell said: Leaving the EU with no deal  and no agreement on access to the single market  would be an unprecedented act of self-harm which would devastate the UK and Scottish economy.

Meanwhile, pro-Brexit Conservatives dismissed the report as an attempt to destabilise the Government ahead of the negotiations.

Former party leader Iain Duncan Smith told Channel 4 News: The reality is there is no trouble because this is all pre-negotiation guff really, at the end of the day, so it should be put in that basket and then well get on with the negotiation.
And its been stinking out a conservatory in Canada.

Just as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, a corpse flower would stink the house out whatever you call it.

Amorphophallus titanum got its colloquial name from the fact it smells like rotting flesh, but that didnt stop people turning out in droves when one bloomed in Canada.

Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton has nicknamed its specimen Putrella, and she bloomed the first time since 2013 over the weekend.

Programme manager Alex Hamilton told globalnews.ca: It was really exciting to know it was blooming. The real challenge with a corpse flower bloom is its a little like a baby being born  we know its coming, we just dont know when.

Muttart Conservatory

Hey all! Still plenty of time to come check out Putrella today! Were open until 11 pm tonight, so make sure you stop on by! Right now the lines are short too, so its a great chance to sneak in

The conservatory stayed open for longer to give people the chance to witness the rare occurrence  the flower only blooms for around 48 hours once every two years.

Putrella measures a little over six feet tall, but Amorphophallus titanum can grow to double that height. The flower is native to Indonesia.
Virginia Smith had to give up her pet cat of nine years when she moved into a home  but then her son discovered robot cats were a thing.

A son has shared the heart-warming moment he gave his mum a robot cat after she had to give up her pet cat of nine years.

Virginia Smith, who has mild dementia as well as mobility problems and needs 24-hour care, had owned cats for as long as her son James Allen Smith could remember.

But two years ago, following the death of their father, James and his brother realised Virginias health was deteriorating. At first, she was in assisted living facilities, but eventually moved into an adult family home in Seattle  and sadly the 81-year-old had to leave her cat with her son back in Texas.

It was incredibly difficult for her, said James. We were looking into assisted living facilities that allowed for cats but we found quickly that she was already giving them a real run for their money just on her own, and then adding a cat into the mix was going to make it impossible.

James added: Shes just super, super connected to cats. Nearly every time weve talked over the last year and a half shes mentioned in one way or another that she would really love to be able to have a cat.

So, when Virginias birthday came around this year, James joked to his wife they should buy his mum a cat. He said they started googling robot cats almost as a joke but discovered that Hasbro makes them for around $100 (77).

Its hers, it moves, its super responsive so I was just really excited to see it, said James about handing over the toy to his mum.

And James said Virginias instantaneous connection with the robot cat was fantastic to see.

I started rolling within 20 seconds of handing her the cat and to see her expression on her face, to see her looking at it instantaneously as if it was a real cat, kind of made my heart melt.

It was just a look that I hadnt seen on her face for a really long time, so it was really moving and totally amazing.

While Virginia has only had the cat for a day, James said he knows she will continue to love it.

I spoke to her this morning again and shes just overjoyed with it still, she said it slept on all night and purred on her belly while she petted it, he said.

She named it Robbie  you know, its no longer an it, its a he.

I imagine shes going to continue to love it and Im probably going to have to get one or two back-ups to make absolutely sure shes going to have that cat.
Nine executions in Ohio, including that of a child killer, have been delayed due to a court fight over the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection process.

Next month's execution of Ronald Phillips was postponed until July 26 and eight other procedures were also put back.

Phillips was scheduled to die on May 10 for raping and killing his girlfriend's three-year-old daughter in Akron, Ohio in 1993.

Republican state governor John Kasich, who announced the delays, said they were necessary due to the timing of arguments before a Cincinnati federal appeals court which is hearing Ohio's appeal against a federal judge's order finding the state's latest execution process unconstitutional.

He issued a similar delay in February to give a three-judge panel of the appeals court time to hear similar arguments.

That panel sided with the lower-court judge. In a rare move, the full court said it would hear the case and set arguments for June 14.

The centre of the arguments is expected to be the contested sedative midazolam used in problematic executions in at least three states.

Convicted killer Kenneth Williams was executed in Arkansas last week, lurching and convulsing 20 times in a lethal injection process that started with midazolam.

The sedative was used in Ohio in January 2014 when Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted during a 26-minute procedure, the state's longest.

Monday's delay by Mr Kasich was another setback for death penalty supporters who hoped that new supplies of drugs obtained by Ohio last year would allow executions to move forward after a delay of more than three years.

The state has said it has enough drugs for four executions, but records indicate Ohio could have enough on hand to put dozens of killers to death.

Attorneys for death row inmates challenging Ohio's use of midazolam say it does not render inmates fully unconscious, leading to an unconstitutionally high risk of harm.

The state argues that the massive dose planned in Ohio of 500 milligrams - 10 times what it used on McGuire - is more than enough to ensure inmates do not feel pain.

The state also says the US Supreme Court permitted the drug's use in a 2015 ruling out of Oklahoma.

Arizona inmate Joseph Wood gasped for air and snorted and his belly inflated and deflated during the nearly two hours it took for him to die when the state executed him in July 2014.

Both Ohio and Arizona used a two-drug method - starting with midazolam - that each state has since abandoned. Unlike Ohio, Arizona agreed not to use midazolam in future executions.

AP
America's CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but would not say for how long.

South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a US aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters.

A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort US naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a US supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas.

They said the US ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japan's Defence Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a Second World War naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilising the region.

"Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world," Mr Turnbull said.

"Together, we're taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region."

Mr Turnbull is to meet Mr Trump for the first time on Thursday in New York.

AP
Eminem is locked in a copyright court battle over his hit song Lose Yourself

US rapper Eminem is suing New Zealand's ruling political party over a music track it used for a campaign ad.

The star's Detroit-based music publishers claims the song was used in the 2014 advert by the National Party, was an unlicensed version of Lose Yourself, one of his biggest hits.

But the party's lawyers argue it was actually a track called Eminem-esque which they bought from a stock music library.

The two tracks were played in court on Monday when the copyright case began.

In 2014 when the case was filed, lawyer Steven Joyce said he thought the use of the song was "pretty legal," and that Eminem's team "are just having a crack and a bit of an eye for the main chance because it's an election campaign".

Spokesmen for both Joyce and the National Party said on Monday they would not be commenting while the case was before the court.

Garry Williams, the lawyer for Eminem's music publishers Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated, told the High Court in Wellington that the National Party had wanted a song that was edgy and modern but showed the party was dependable. He said the music fared better with focus groups than a classical piece.

He quoted from National Party emails, including one in which the song is described as an Eminem "sound-alike" and another in which an agent for the party wrote "I guess the question we're asking, if everyone thinks it's Eminem, and it's listed as Eminem Esque, how can we be confident that Eminem doesn't say we're ripping him off?"

Mr Williams said the emails showed it was "utterly clear" the party knew it was using a copyrighted song.

Outside court, Joel Martin, a spokesman for Eminem's music publishers, said he was surprised the two sides had not reached a settlement before the case began and that going to trial against an entity like a governing political party was unusual and extraordinary.

"The bottom line is we would never have permitted the use of the song in any political advertisement," he said.

He said the political views of the National Party were not a factor: "We are Americans and we don't know about politics in New Zealand," he said.

The judge-only trial is expected to last about six days.

AP
With just six days until a French presidential run-off which could define Europe's future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron have held high-stakes rallies which overlapped with May Day marches.

Ms Le Pen was endorsed by her father, while Mr Macron held an emotional meeting with a Moroccan man whose father died years ago when he was thrown off a Paris bridge by far-right skinheads.

France votes for a new president on Sunday in a ballot being watched closely by financial markets and France's neighbours as a test of the global populist wave.

One May Day march in Paris was disrupted as scores of hooded youths threw firebombs at riot police in full gear, who responded with tear gas and truncheons. One policeman was seen spraying a troublemaker in the face.

Two police officers were reported injured, according to French television.

The violent protesters were not carrying union paraphernalia or anything linked to the French electoral campaign, appearing to be from fringe groups which have targeted anti-government protests in the past.

Workers in the march aimed to block Ms Le Pen from getting into power, but disagreed on the method. Some urged French workers to vote for Mr Macron but others refused to make that call, including far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon who was eliminated in the first-round vote on April 23.

Ms Le Pen was praised by her 88-year-old father Jean-Marie, the co-founder of her National Front party whom she expelled in 2015 after he reiterated anti-Semitic comments.

In a speech before the gilded statue in Paris of Joan of Arc, his heroine, Jean-Marie Le Pen urged French voters to back his daughter in Sunday's run-off.

He said: "She is not Joan of Arc but she accepts the same mission ... France."

He denounced Macron as a "masked Socialist" backed by the highly unpopular Socialist president Francois Hollande.

"He wants to dynamise the economy, but he is among those who dynamited it," the elderly Mr Le Pen said, referring to France's stagnant economy and its unemployment rate of around 10%. Mr Macron once served as Mr Hollande's economy minister.

Marine Le Pen, speaking in a hall north of Paris, also skewered Mr Macron, a former investment banker, calling him a "puppet" of the world of finance and Islamic fundamentalists.

Anti-immigrant chants rose in the crowd of thousands for Ms Le Pen's rally.

Ms Le Pen, who hopes to mimic Donald Trump's populist electoral victory, compared Mr Macron to Hillary Clinton. She also sought to puncture Macron's argument that he represents change, calling him Mr Hollande's lapdog, the candidate of "the caviar left".

She also claimed that his pro-business policies would not create jobs but send them abroad and leave French workers hungry.

Mr Macron, seeking to remind voters of the National Front's dark past, paid homage to a Moroccan man thrown to his death in the Seine River amid a far-right march over two decades ago.

Mr Macron joined the man's son and anti-National Front protesters at an annual commemoration near the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The National Front traditionally holds a May Day march in Paris to honour Joan of Arc. But at the 1995 event, some skinheads broke away and pushed 29-year-old Brahim Bourram off a bridge into the Seine River, where he drowned. The death drew national outrage.

Standing on the same bridge on Monday, Mr Macron hugged Mr Bourram's son Said, who was nine when his father was killed.

Said, a chauffeur who supports Mr Macron, said his father was targeted "because he was a foreigner, an Arab. That is why I am fighting, to say 'No' to racism".

Mr Macron said, despite Marine Le Pen's efforts to distance herself from her father's anti-Semitism, "the roots are there, and they are very much alive".

Mr Macron declared: "I will not forget anything and I will fight to the last second, not only against her project but against the idea she has of democracy and the nation."

Polls consider Mr Macron the front-runner in the run-off but the race has been unpredictable.

Over the weekend, Ms Le Pen was endorsed by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a conservative candidate who lost in the first round of voting. Mr Dupont-Aignan shocked many by agreeing to be Ms Le Pen's prime minister if she wins the presidency.
Passengers en-route to Thailand were left with serious injuries after the plane they were travelling on hit turbulence.

At least 20 people were injured on the flight a Russian official told Tass, the state news agency.

The Aeroflot plane was travelling from Moscow to Bangok he head of the Russian embassy in Thailands consular department, Vladimir Sosnov, said.

"Those injured suffered multiple fractures. There are Russians and foreigners among them,"he said.

"Apparently, those who were injured did not have their seat belts fastened."

The injured were taken to hospital in Bangkok and will be aided by officials from the Russian Embassy there.

The UK Daily Mail is reporting that some of the injured include babies who were forced from their mother's arms due to the force of the turbulence.

One passenger said on social media that some were covered in bruises and had broken bones, according to the paper.

Footage posted on social media shows passengers lying injured in the aisle of the plane after hitting the ceiling. Food and other rubbish can be seen strewn around the cabin.

The Boeing 777 ran into "severe turbulence" 40 minutes before landing at the Thai capital on Monday, the Russian airline said in a statement.

The airline said the crew was unable to warn passengers of the approaching danger as the turbulence occurred in a clear sky.

"Several passengers were injured," the statement said.

Additional reporting by agencies
A Trump supporter sticks out her tongue at the media as the US president addresses a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

US President Donald Trump admits he has "no idea" if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is sane but claims he is a "smart cookie" for having survived the power struggle after his father's death.

Amid escalating tensions over the threat from the country's nuclear weapons programme, Mr Trump said: "He was a young man of 26 or 27 ... when his father died. He's dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others.

Expand Close Shooting targets depicting former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were on sale outside the Trump rally Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images / Facebook

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"And at a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie," Mr Trump said.

The comments came after North Korea launched a mid-range ballistic missile on Saturday, which broke up a few minutes after launch, the third test-fire that failed in April. The programme's repeated failures over the past few years have given rise to suspicions of US sabotage.

In a TV interview, Mr Trump was asked why North Korea's rockets keep blowing up.

"I'd rather not discuss it," Mr Trump said. "But perhaps they're just not very good missiles. But eventually he'll have good missiles."

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped weapon that can hit the US mainland. North Korea's regional neighbours South Korea, China and Japan are also on high alert.

Elsewhere, Mr Trump's National Security Adviser Lt Gen HR McMaster said Mr Trump "has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or the other," but that the president's preference was to work with China and others to resolve it without military action.

That means, Lt Gen McMaster said, working to enforce current UN sanctions and perhaps ratcheting them up.

"And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary," he said.

The blitz of television coverage came after weeks of escalating tensions over the actions of North Korea, with the Trump administration never decisively saying that military action would be forthcoming.

Retaliation

When asked, Mr Trump said Mr Kim would eventually develop better missiles, and "we can't allow it to happen".

But, Mr Trump would not discuss the possibility of military action - saying "I don't know ... we'll see" when asked if another missile launch by North Korea would mean retaliation.

"It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is," he said.

Meanwhile, South Korea has contradicted Mr Trump's assertion that Seoul would pay for the $1bn (916m) cost of deploying the anti-missile system in the capital to defend against North Korea.

Mr Trump insisted last week he wanted South Korea to pay for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile battery, which raised questions about his commitment to the two countries' alliance.

However, South Korea officials said they have now been told by Lt Gen McMaster that costs would be shared.

"He explained that the recent statements by President Trump were made in a general context, in line with the US public expectations on defence cost burden-sharing with allies," an official South Korea statement said.

Major elements of the advanced THAAD system were moved into the planned site in Seonjgu, in the south of the country, last week.

The deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar, which can penetrate its territory, will undermine regional security, and from local residents worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact California's ban on "gay conversion" therapy aimed at turning youths under age 18 away from homosexuality, rejecting a Christian minister's challenge to the law asserting it violates religious rights.

The justices, turning away a challenge to the 2012 law for the second time in three years, let stand a lower court's ruling that it was constitutional and neither impinged upon free exercise of religion nor impacted the activities of clergy members.

The law prohibits state-licensed mental health counselors, including psychologists and social workers, from offering therapy to change sexual orientation in minors. The Supreme Court in 2014 refused to review the law after an appeals court rejected claims that the ban infringed on free speech rights under U.S. Constitution's the First Amendment.

California outlawed gay conversion therapy in 2012, calling it ineffective and harmful. New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont, New Mexico and the District of Columbia have similar laws on the books, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The Supreme Court turned away a challenge to New Jersey's law in 2015.

Gay conversion therapy methods range from counseling, hypnosis and dating-skill training to aversive techniques that induce pain or electric shocks in response to same-sex erotic images, according to California officials. Such treatments stem from a belief that homosexuality is a mental illness, a view that has been discredited for decades, the state said in court papers.

Lead plaintiff Donald Welch, an ordained minister and licensed family therapist, oversees counseling at Skyline Wesleyan Church, an evangelical Christian church in the San Diego area that believes sexuality belongs only in a marriage between a man and a woman.

Welch, along with a Catholic psychiatrist and a man who underwent conversion therapy and now aspires to perform it on others, sued the state claiming the law is unconstitutional.

After their free speech challenge failed, the plaintiffs' pressed their claim that the ban violates their right to freely exercise their religion. Last October, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their arguments.
One person is dead and three others have been taken to a hospital after a stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus.

One person is dead and three others have been taken to a hospital with "potentially serious injuries" after a stabbing attack on the University of Texas campus, emergency services say.

Austin police say one person is in custody following the incident.

Travis County Emergency Medical Services has tweeted that one person is dead at the scene near the campus' Gregory gym and three others have been transported.

The agency notes there also are reports of additional patients with non-life-threatening injuries.

The University of Texas close to the centre of Austin and the Texas capitol building, and is one of the nation's largest universities.
Part of a crane that collapsed at Samsung Heavy Industries' shipyard on Geoje Island, South Korea (Lee Jung-hoon/Yonhap via AP)

Six workers have died and 22 others were injured after a crane collapsed at a Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea.

The South Korean shipbuilder, the world's third-largest, said rescuers are searching for people trapped under debris after the 32-tonne crane fell on a ship at its shipyard on Geoje island.

The company said the crane collided with another crane before it collapsed onto the ship.

All of those killed were workers hired by various subcontractors at Samsung. Three of those hurt suffered severe injuries.

The accident occurred as many around the world were joining May Day marches for workers' rights.

South Korean workers are entitled to a paid holiday on May 1 but in practice many go to work anyway.
With or without Donald Trumps help, Kim Jong-un could easily plunge the planet into its third world war inside a century.

Of course this one would be vastly more destructive than the Great War, where even the use of aircraft was in its infancy  though sadly not chemical weapons  or World War II, which ended with the first and so far only use of nuclear weapons in war.

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To date Donald Trump has played a strong hand. He has installed anti-missile defences against the North inside South Korea. He is doing, more or less, what President Kennedy did in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and what President Reagan did in the Cold War in the 1980s: practising brinkmanship, demonstrating strength, displaying resolve. The South Koreans are having elections now, and their new government, after 9 May, may not be as resolute as its predecessor and the Trump administration. Yet while Pyongyang has the capacity to raze Seoul to the ground  even without nuclear weaponry  they may not protest too loudly.

Like Kennedy and Reagan, Trump could prevail. Yet it is not tricky to see how things could spin out of control. Feeling abandoned and exposed, Kim could loose off a few missiles of his own, maybe towards Japan  always a popular target. True to recent form in Afghanistan (the MOAB job) and Syria, President Trump could retaliate with a surgical and proportionate strike on some North Korean facility. Then what? North Korea sinks a South Korean war ship. There are skirmishes on the ground. Some North Koreans manage to get themselves shot to ribbons. He chucks another missile over the border and it kills American troops. Trump escalates to bombing  conventionally  government buildings and those absurd statues of Kims dad and granddad. Kim sees his regime lethally threatened. He now sees no alternative, nothing to lose. A rat cornered, he unleashes his huge conventional forces, supported by Chinese and Russian diplomacy, hoping to get the Americans to back off and leave him in power. Tanks overwhelm the DMZ, American troops are massacred. The US is drawn in. China is faced with gigantic floods of refugees and refuses to permit American troops beyond a certain point near its border. What happens if Japanese, Australian, Nato and other troops fight to defend South Korea? What would Vladimir Putin do?

The Second Korean War will have begun, with the Third World War not far behind; the long-delayed playing out of the last legacies of the Second World War and the Cold War.

Theres no shortage of ammo. In that corner of the world meet the planets biggest and most powerful military forces. The US, pre-eminently, but also Russia, so far content to be more of an observer than a player for now, but another nuclear power. It has long since dropped away from being the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas ideological mentor and economic support (dating from when Khrushchev denounced Stalinism, when Mao did not; Pyongyang never looked back). Still, it has a land border with North Korea.

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The third nuclear power and the DPRKs more recent Communist friend, China, is more intimately concerned. Taking Donald Trump at his word, it is worried enough to publicly chastise North Korea and push for harsher sanctions. There is South Korea too, rapidly growing its armed forces, and of course North Korea, with a vast army and whatever nuclear and missile technology it has been able to develop. Japan too, though technically limited to self-defence has substantial armed forces. It would not take this advanced rich power long to develop nuclear technology if the need arose. In the whole of human history there has never been a bigger powder keg. Nor men so strange playing with a box of matches near to it.

Kim Jong-un is not crazy. He, like his dad, is not a nutty despot portrayed so amusingly in Team America or The Interview. He is ruthless though, and paranoid, as we have seen with the elimination of his rivals and critics. If he thinks he has nothing to lose; if America is set on deposing him just the same as Saddam or Gaddafi, and he thinks he will end up being publicly hanged or dismembered anyway, then what is there to stop him taking a few million Koreans and Japanese, plus a few thousand Yankee soldiers, with him?

That is where the danger for President Trump lies. Trump has cleverly made some noises about America not wanting regime change in Pyongyang. But what use are words to Kim? The reason Kim wants his nukes and enjoys playing with them so much, like a cunning kid with matches or fireworks, is precisely to freak out the grown-ups all around him, leaders who actually do care about human life and the future of their nations. What Kim sees is a world where America  plus cronies such as South Korea, Japan, the EU and even China or Russia in this case  will get rid of you if you are dumb enough to disarm yourself, or let them interfere with your weapons programmes. So that is why Gaddafi and Saddam are no longer with us; but why Kim and the Iranians are still sitting pretty.

The danger is not so much Trump personally, but what any American president must do if they feel the vital security of the US is at stake, and past policies have failed. And that is to get involved in a gigantic game of chicken. I hope that is not trivialising it. Basically, though, what we are talking about here is the sacrifice of South Korea and Japan in order to eliminate some threat of a North Korean missile murdering Americans sometime in the next five years or so. That threat can be assessed as possible, probable or certain, and will shift over time, but seems unlikely to disappear of its own volition, e.g. through massive economic collapse (which is perhaps what the policy of strategic patience pursued under Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama was secretly all about). It is not a prospect that any president can feel comfortable with however. No president can allow a hostile state to be in a position to hit San Francisco with a nuclear-tipped ICBM if it can stop it from happening.

If Trump felt he had no alternative but to make a surgical strike, the consequences are incalculable. Like Kim has in the past, Trump could opt for a low level act of aggression  sinking a North Korean warship, say, or dropping a big conventional bomb on some North Korean facility. It is just impossible to know if Kim would react in kind, escalate matters or just shout a lot. If escalation did begin then when would it go critical? How many lives would be destroyed? How much misery? How much contamination? How much damage to the global economy?

For sure, the costs in human life and treasure would be unprecedented.

We know that, dont we? I wonder. The UN Security Council reminded the world yesterday that the East Asia region now accounts for about two-fifths of the worlds population and GDP  so it is bigger than the United States or the European Union. Depending on how hairy things get, millions will die, more will be injured and entire economies laid waste. If to think that two consecutive quarters of negative growth constitute an economic recession, terrifying governments, and that a slump is something that lasts for years, consider the prospect of whole nation states and their industrial and financial activities being wiped out for ever. Whereas Germany, Russia and Japan rebuilt after the Second World War, and the two Koreas did so after the horrific wars on their territory that (sort of) ended in 1953, there will be no rebuilding on the decimated toxic nuclear winter that may be left behind in Japan and South Korea this time round. It would make the last financial crisis look tame. Such are the economic relationships between China and the US  the global imbalances where the Chinese keep lending the Americans the cash to live beyond their means  it could wreck America too, financially if not physically. Our world, apart from the odd hermit state such as North Korea, is more interdependent than ever before in more ways. That would also make World War III the most global of conflicts.

The major players, even North Korea have much to lose in all this. And yet the situation, with its threats and escalations, its mobilisations and skirmishes, its rhetorical gestures and misunderstandings resembles nothing so much as the Balkans in the volatile months and years leading up to 1914. Weve even had the assassination of a near-heir to a throne  albeit this time Kim Jong-uns brother, Kim Jong-nam, rather than Archduke Franz Ferdinand. No-one should draw the parallels too closely, but if Donald Trump has been compared to Kaiser Wilhelm II  proud, unpredictable, outspoken and gripped by an inferiority complex  then Kim has no simple parallels in the Edwardian era. Thats not good. Watching the fairly calm currency and stock markets and the orderly proceedings of the United Nations, it is plain that, as in 1914, the world has not woken up to what is happening in a perplexing region where the background noise of perpetual crisis is so loud and has been going on for so long that weve simply learned to ignore it. President Trump has shown that he is not ignoring it, but he has no good choices. Let us hope he is a skilful brinkman.
Danville Community College students headed to the courthouse Wednesday morning as they conducted a mock murder trial and received praise for their efforts from Danville Circuit Court Judge Joseph Milam.

I wish our lawyers would be so direct in their arguments, Milam told the students after the trial. Its refreshing.

DCC Professor John Wilts law class conducted a mock trial Wednesday at the Danville Courthouse. DCC students played the prosecuting and defense attorneys, as well as several witnesses in the faux murder case of the Commonwealth of Virginia v. Britt Reynolds.

Milam began the proceedings by allowing prosecutor Chris Chandler and defense attorney Essense Price to give their opening statements. Chandler said he hoped to prove Reynolds was guilty of first-degree murder of her school friend, Ann Marcus, and robbery.

I hope to prove that my client Britt Reynolds is not guilty of these charges and this was just a horrible accident, Price responded.

The two attorneys then presented evidence by calling various witnesses to the stand, such as Reynolds friends, the coroner, police officers and others.

Chandler presented evidence suggesting Reynolds murdered her friend by striking her with a rock in the fictional Sandlewood Canyon after the victim threatened to reveal that Reynolds cheated in class, while Price presented the event as a rock climbing accident that led to the victims death.

A major point of contention against Reynolds was she knew about Marcus head wound even though she claimed to not be present during the death  a detail Chandler hammered home in his cross examination. Milam said he was impressed with how Chandler focused on the detail.

Price finished off her witness interviews with a former coroner, who said the wounds on the victim were consistent with a fall, not blunt force trauma. Milam approved of her choice to interview the coroner last.

Its always important to finish strong, whether youre the prosecution or defense, Milam said.

He also liked how focused Chandler was in questioning the defendant.

Theres no need to provide them with self-serving testimony, Milam said. Hit them with what hurts them and move on.

Ultimately, Milam said that he thought there was not enough evidence for a jury to convict Reynolds of either of her fictitious charges.

These facts come down to a critical principle, Milam said, In our system of justice, proof has to be beyond possible and beyond very possible.

Wilt said he also was impressed with his students, and hoped some of them would consider a future in the criminal justice system.

Its a great opportunity to get into the circuit court, he said.
The third edition of Tax, Accounting and Audit in India is updated for 2017, and provides an overview of the f...
Xiaomi second largest smartphone brand in India, shipments quadruple in Q1

Smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi leads the Chinese juggernaut in the Indian mobile phone market after emerging as the second largest retailer. They are followed by compatriots Vivo, Lenovo, and Oppo. Korean manufacturer Samsung retains the top spot, albeit with a more or less stagnant market share.

Xiaomis performance is particularly dynamic: it shipped 3.8 million handsets in the first quarter of the 2017 calendar year, a jump up from three million in the previous quarter. Xiaomis market share is 14 percent currently; it was 3 percent in the first quarter of 2016.

According to research by Singapore-based Canalys, Chinese brands dominated market share with a combined 40.3 percent in the first quarter of 2017, while Samsung accounted for 22 percent and Micromax at less than six percent market share.

Indian firms failed to feature in the top five for consecutive quarters. Irrespective of their first mover advantage, they continue to struggle to meet Indian consumer demands and manufacture the right phones for existing segments, ultimately losing out on brand differentiation. The Chinese-Korean rivalry, on the other hand, is reaping the benefits of constant innovation, low cost production, and in-depth market research.

RELATED: Indias Digital Payments Future

India can leverage WhatsApp user base, develop business solutions

Out of a total of 1 billion using the WhatsApp internet messaging apps, 200 million are based in India. This makes India the biggest market for the Facebook-owned company, opening up possibilities for developing innovative, local business solutions, as has been the experience of similar platforms like WeChat in China.

Currently, WhatsApp is free for consumers, and the company is looking for ways to monetize the platform. Towards this, WhatsApp is gradually developing tools that could enable businesses and organizations  like banks and airlines  to communicate with consumers. India being a key market and IT hub could emerge with crucial solutions.

RELATED: Pre-Investment, Market Entry Strategy Advisory

IT infrastructure grows in northeast India

Northeast India has long suffered neglect due to a confluence of socioeconomic and political factors. However, under the present governments ambitious economic growth agenda, the region is poised to play an important role with the development of its infrastructure, industry, and establishing connectivity with neighboring countries.

Recently, six IT parks and hubs were jointly set up by the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and state governments in six capitals in the northeastern states, namely Guwahati (Assam), Shillong (Meghalaya), Imphal (Manipur), Aizawl (Mizoram), Kohima (Nagaland), and Agartala (Tripura). The STPI is an autonomous society under the Union Ministry of Electronics and IT.

More importantly, an International Internet Gateway (IIG) is now set up in Agartala, Tripura through Coxs Bazaar in Bangladesh; Indias third IIG after Mumbai and Chennai. This development will enhance eastern Indias ability to cater to the global IT market.

Karnataka state most corrupt in India, Himachal Pradesh least corrupt

Karnataka state has been identified as the most corrupt in a survey of 20 states conducted by the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Media Studies (CMS). The CMS Corruption Study 2017 reports that 77 percent of respondents in Karnataka encountered corruption while dealing with the bureaucracy, while only three percent of respondents from Himachal Pradesh responded likewise.

The CMS survey ranked Andhra Pradesh as the second most corrupt state (74 percent), followed by Tamil Nadu (68 percent), Maharashtra (57 percent), Jammu and Kashmir (44 percent), and Punjab (42 percent). Kerala (4 percent) and Chhattisgarh (13 percent) were among the three least corrupt states.

The survey stands in contrast to anecdotal evidence; many businesspeople in India contend that states in northern regions of India are exposed to higher levels of corruption. Critically, the data for this specific statistic is based on respondents willingness and ability to report experiences of corruption, which may also be influenced by the respondents understanding or tolerance of corrupt practices.

Given the level of foreign investment and MNC penetration in Karnataka, it is possible that respondents may be more responsive to the incidence of corruption at local levels.

Dezan Shira & Associates Brochure Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide. An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 An Introduction to Doing Business in India 2017 is designed to introduce the fundamentals of investing in India. As such, this comprehensive guide is ideal not only for businesses looking to enter the Indian market, but also for companies who already have a presence here and want to stay up-to-date with the most recent and relevant policy changes.
The US continues with its policy incoherent on tackling terrorism in Pakistan, and purportedly promoting regional stability in the AfPak and wider South Asian region. On March, 2017, "the Pakistan State Sponsor of Terrorism Act of 2017" (HR1449), was introduced in the House of Representatives proposing that Pakistan be declared a state-sponsor of terrorism. Ted Poe, who heads the House Sub-committee on Terrorism and Non-proliferation, observed, while introducing the Bill, "Not only is Pakistan an untrustworthy ally, Islamabad has also aided and abetted enemies of the United States for years."

Earlier, in December, 2016, however, the US House of Representatives passed a Defence Bill, pledging USD 900 million to Pakistan. USD 743 million has already been approved as military and developmental aid for Pakistan in FY 2017.

It is well known that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) uses part of this aid, as well as a proportion of Pakistan's defense budget, to support terrorist networks in the South Asian region, and that Pakistan's footprint of terror is manifested across the world. As reported in June, 2015, ISI's known budget was about PKR 169.7 billion [USD 1.62 billion].

Interestingly, in October 2016, the US warned the Pakistani establishment to act against terrorists, else Washington would act unilaterally to "disrupt and destroy" terrorist underpinnings in Pakistan backed by the country's spy agency, ISI. Adam Szubin, the then US under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligences stated,

The problem is that there are forces within the Pakistani government - specifically in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI - that refuse to take steps against all the terrorist groups active in Pakistan, tolerating some groups or even worse. This is a distinction we cannot stand for... We continue to urge our partners in Pakistan to go after all terrorist networks operating in their country. We stand ready to help them. But there should be no doubt that while we remain committed to working with Pakistan to confront ongoing terrorist financing and operations, the US will not hesitate to act alone, when necessary to disrupt and destroy these networks.

Astonishingly, in April, 2017, despite global misgivings regarding Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism, Russia, Pakistan and China came closer to seek an 'Afghan Solution', purportedly to stabilize the war-torn country and to destroy the growing influence of the Islamic State (IS). Pakistan is seeking to restore its influence over Afghanistan through its Taliban proxies, now with Russian and Chinese support, even as the US has relied repeatedly on Islamabad to secure a settlement with the Taliban.

This is despite the acknowledgement by all the involved external powers, and indeed, the global consensus, that ISI remains active in Afghanistan, seeking to establish its fiat through terrorist proxies, and disrupting the rebuilding process.

In April 2016, Rahmatullah Nabil, the former chief of the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), released documents and evidence detailing the nexus between the ISI and terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the documents, Pakistan was directing US aid to the banned Haqqani Network and other elements of the Taliban, and also used madrasas (Islamic Seminaries) in Pakistan for fresh recruitment to terrorist formations operating in Afghanistan. There are an estimated 150,000 madrassas in Pakistan and only 25,000 of these are registered. Incidentally, the chief of Police of Afghanistan's Kandahar Province, General Abdul Raziq, claimed that the Haqqani Network, backed by ISI, was behind the January 10, 2017, bomb attack in the Kandahar. Another report in April 2016 claimed that ISI paid USD 200,000 to the Haqqani Network for a suicide attack on a CIA camp in Afghanistan in 2009. Seven American agents and contractors and three others, were killed according to a declassified State Department cable.

It is, by now, well known that ISI has been trying to set up bases in countries of South Asia not only to encircle India, but also to spread extremism in other parts of the world.

The island nation of Sri Lanka has it's own strategic importance in the Indian Ocean region and also in South Asia, with India and China establishing their presence in the Trincomalee and Hambantota ports, respectively. Pakistan, on the other hand, has sought to establish a jihadi outpost in the country on its own strategic calculus. It is now being assessed that the ISI's primary and apparent objective in using Sri Lanka as an intelligence operations hub is aimed at encircling India from all sides, and specially have access to its southern parts, to possibly scout for terror networks as also to recruit fresh cadres. Also, an October 2016 report from Sri Lanka has exposed ISI's use of the country as a staging post in this mission. ISI's primary and apparent objective is to encircle India from all sides, and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its charitable wing, the Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (IKK), have been its principal proxies to radicalise Sri Lankan Muslims. In 2004, when the tsunami struck parts of Sri Lanka, LeT-IKK contingents visited Sri Lanka and the Maldives under the cover of a humanitarian charitable effort, but established networks to recruit potential Jihadis. The report revealed that many youth from these areas headed to Pakistan and were found in LeT training camps in the Punjab province and in the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Significantly, towards the end of 2014, Indian Intelligence officials had successfully managed to identify and neutralize a terrorist module and spy ring operating within the Pakistan High Commission in Sri Lanka. The job of creating a spy ring and then launching a 26/11 styled attack in Chennai had been handed over to the consular officer in Sri Lanka, Amir Zubair Siddiqui. Further investigation revealed that Siddiqui's job was to set up a full-fledged terrorist module in South India. It was also learnt that he had brought in a charity outfit to open shop in Sri Lanka to help build a base for LeT. India had sought action against Siddiqui and had even moved to question him. However, Pakistan immediately extracted him from the Mission under diplomatic cover, and he returned home.

In a recent incident, however, cooperation among Sri Lankan, Chinese and Indian intelligence agencies led to the arrest of a Pakistani currency smuggler, Faiz Muhammad, in China's Guangzhou province in October, 2016. Fake currency has been a critical instrument in Pakistan's resourcing of terrorism in the region. This trilateral sharing of intelligence has left Pakistan, especially ISI, alarmed at the possibility of intelligence cooperation, particularly between its arch-enemy, India, and its 'all weather friend', China.

Pakistan has also established a dangerous footprint in the Maldives as well, contributing to a long process of Islamist radicalization and a 'blooding' trained cadres in the conflict in Afghanistan. Maldives has now contributed a major share in Islamic State (IS, also Daesh) recruitment, as a result of these protracted processes of radicalization. Some 200 Maldivian recruits had joined Daesh, as per 2016 estimates. Large numbers of Maldivians were provided free education in radicalized Pakistani madrassas, joined the jihad in Afghanistan and subsequently within Pakistan, and returned to propagate a hardline Islamism significantly at variance with indigenous practices. A July 2016 report suggested that Pakistan had sent about 200 doctors to the Maldives to extend ISI operations in the country. Cyber profiling of these doctors and inputs with intelligence agencies suggest they had been in regular touch with the ISI and also with LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM). Pakistani agencies had trained these doctors on the cultural milieu of the island nation according to Maldives sources. The numerous islands in Maldives provide easy connect to South India through Sri Lanka and makes it an ideal destination to launch terror attacks on our coastal cities.

ISI's Nepal connection was once again exposed when three operatives, Moti Paswan, Uma Shankar Patel and Mukesh Yadav, were arrested by the Bihar Police in the Adapur Police Station area, on January 17, 2017. The trio allegedly confessed to having worked for a Nepalese contact suspected to be connected to the ISI to target the railways. As a result, the role of the ISI in the November 20, 2016, train disaster in Kanpur was suspected. The three had been paid INR 300,000 by a Nepali, Brajesh Giri, who allegedly had connections with Shamsul Hoda of Dubai. Hoda is believed to be linked to ISI. The money was paid to them to plant a bomb on the railway tracks at Ghorasan in East Champaran District, bordering Nepal. Further, an Intelligence source disclosed the linkages between the ISI and international Street Daawah were also being probed for the case. Street Dawah has been linked to the Islamic State and terrorism in several location, is active in the Terai region of Nepal, and recruits non-Muslims for its terror agenda, including suicide bombings. In 2014, India had apprised Kathmandu of the issue of checking anti-India activities by religious schools funded and supported by Pakistan's ISI.

The ISI-Bangladesh linkages run deep, and, before the Sheikh Hasina Governmentcracked down on terrorist groupings in the country, there had been numerous attacks in India mounted from, or with the assistance of, networks operating from Bangladeshi soil. In March, 2017, H.T. Imam, Advisor to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, observed, "There has long been the influence of ISI and Pakistan sympathisers in Bangladesh. So the first thing we decided was that we must get rid of ISI bases here, and their supporters."

The ISI has been trying to strengthen its influence in the Indian state of West Bengal, and this has been emphasized by Bangladeshi officials on a number of occasions. In December, 2015 officials stated that, over the preceding years, the ISI had been as active in Bangladesh as it had been India. With operational difficulties mounting in Jammu and Kashmir, the ISI had apparently turned its attention to Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. A senior Bangladeshi officer noted,

The ISI is exploiting efforts by the JMB (Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh) and other organisations to create unrest both in Bangladesh and the eastern States of India. West Bengal is primary in the scheme of things as there has been long-standing talk of jehadioutfits planning a Caliphate in Bangladesh after incorporating the districts of Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia of West Bengal. Pakistan and the ISI in particular has a lot to gain from the acts of violence perpetrated by the terror outfits... By creating trouble in this region, Pakistan can make both Bangladesh and India suffer as unlike in northern India, the borders in the east are more porous.

ISI has also been channelizing funds for several terrorist outfits operating from Bangladesh with an anti-India agenda. Farina Arshad, Second Secretary at the Pakistan High Commission in Dhaka, was charged by the Bangladeshi establishment of financial terrorism and hastily recalled in December 2015. Bangladeshi authorities asked the diplomat to leave for reportedly having "extended financial support to a suspected militant who faces spying charges." The Police stated that a JMB operative, Idris Sheikh, alleged in a Dhaka court that he had links with Arshad and had received 30,000 taka (USD380) from him. Earlier, in January 2015, Mohammad Mazhar Khan, a Pakistani diplomat was expelled from Dhaka for allegedly funding various extremist formations. An intelligence report alleged that Mazhar Khan, in collaboration with some colleagues at the High Commission, used to channel money earned through the fake currency to Bangladeshi militant organisations such as Hizb-ut-Tahir, Ansarullah Bangla Team and affiliates of the Jamaat-e-Islami.

The ISI Directorate, formed in 1948 following the Indo-Pakistan war of 1947, has dramatically augmented its capacities, both within Pakistan, and across expanding theatres abroad. Backed by USA's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through the anti-Soviet Campaigns in Afghanistan after 1979, the ISI came to control huge - often unaccounted - finances, executing a range of sustained covert operations, including the creation and support of a multiplicity of terrorist groupings, across the South Asian neighbourhood.

The ISI is also trying to launch anti-India missions from Myanmar, taking advantage of the ongoing Rohingya problem in the country. December 2016 reports indicated that ISI had been planning to open a new front in eastern India to launch attacks. Intelligence assessments suggest that ISI had made a tactical shift in its strategy for India and had set up a terror camp in Marisot (situated on Thailand-Myanmar border), using Taliban 'fighters' to train Rohingya Muslims. Intelligence sources indicate that ISI was channeling 'huge funds' and weapons for these activities and had also arranged a meeting between Maulana Abdul Kuddus (a Rohingya Muslim of Pakistani origin who heads the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Arkana: HuJI-A) and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed. Kuddus is also believed to be close to the Pakistan Taliban. In June 2015, a senior Indian intelligence official noted, "ISI-backed terror outfits like Lashker, Jamaat ud Dawah and Falah-I-Insaniyat Foundation (FiF) have been hobnobbing with Rohingya community leaders and organizing jehadi training along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border."

With the incoherence of Western policy and continuing, albeit diminishing, financial and military support pouring into Islamabad, even as Pakistan is ascribed a lead role in the search for a 'solution' in Afghanistan, there has been no decisive disincentive to ISI's continuing subversive activities across the region. Pakistan'sfootprints of terror are visible across the world, but Islamabad continues to operate with complete impunity, and there are no signs of any dramatic change in strategy or orientation that could reverse this deleterious trend.

Image:Wikimedia commons
Kabul, May 1 (IBNS): At least eight Taliban insurgents were killed in an air strike carried out by the US military in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province on Monday, local Khaama Press reported.

The operation was carried out in Chaparhar district of the province, the agency quoted local officials as saying.

Meanwhile, in another clash between the ISIS and Taliban militants in the same province, at least 30 insurgents were left dead or wounded.

The Taliban is yet to comment on the report.
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KYC is one time exercise while dealing in securities markets - once KYC is done through a SEBI registered intermediary (broker, DP, Mutual Fund etc.), you need not undergo the same process again when you approach another intermediary.

No need to issue cheques by investors while subscribing to IPO. Just write the bank account number and sign in the application form to authorise your bank to make payment in case of allotment. No worries for refund as the money remains in investor's account."

www.indiainfoline.com is part of the IIFL Group, a leading financial services player and a diversified NBFC. The site provides comprehensive and real time information on Indian corporates, sectors, financial markets and economy. On the site we feature industry and political leaders, entrepreneurs, and trend setters. The research, personal finance and market tutorial sections are widely followed by students, academia, corporates and investors among others.
Researchers in China may have developed a system that enables smartphones to monitor blood glucose and induce insulin in humans as well!

Researchers in China have developed a system that enables smartphones to control the release of glucose-lowering hormones in mice by engineered cells, paving the way for the development of an automated way for monitoring blood glucose levels and delivering insulin in humans too.

bccl/representational image

There are an estimated 415 million people worldwide living with diabetes who frequently need to inject themselves with insulin to manage their blood sugar.

bccl/representational image

The findings, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, showed that cells engineered to produce insulin under the command of a smartphone helped keep blood sugar levels within normal limits in diabetic mice.

Combining living tissues and technology, Jiawei Shao of East China Normal University in Shanghai, and colleagues created custom cells that produced insulin when illuminated by far-red light. These are the same wavelengths emitted by therapy bulbs and infrared saunas.

bccl/representational image

These designer cells were transfected with optogenetic circuits, which enabled them to produce the hormones in response to far-red light.

A smartphone could adjust far-red light intensity and duration with help from a control box.

afp/representational image

Implanting hydrogel capsules containing both engineered cells and light-emitting diode light sources provided a semiautonomous system that maintained glucose homeostasis over several weeks in diabetic mice.

This study illuminates the potential of cell-based therapies. The researchers believe that successfully linking digital signals with engineered cells represents an important step toward translating similar cell-based therapies into the clinic.
Whether its punishing people on their alleged involvement in the failed attempt of coup last year, or the lately the referendum on the changes in Turkish constitution, Indians who are interested in global politics lately have got to know much about the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

AFP

On Sunday, when President Erdogan landed in India to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his critics back home were thrown in jails. Though Erdogan is here for one day, to meet PM, President and later to get conferred with a doctorate by Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI), a few hours he spends in India carry a lot of weight.

People (both, back home in Turkey and India as well) are protesting against his policies that are arguably curbing the freedom and secular nature of Turkey. Just before leaving for India, Erdogan banned Wikipedia and popular TV dating shows, which completely pissed off the people.

Many of his critics compare him and his policies with that of Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi, primarily because both of them are said to have used religious and cultural sentiments of the majority community to move up to the ladder in their respective countries.

AFP

Erdogan seems to have very carefully chosen a very less time to stay in India because he knew that there are protests against his visit and over the honorary doctorate he will receive from central university Jamia Millia Islamia.

Here are some of the facts about Erdogan which would enable readers who understand who President Erdogan, how he rose through the ranks in Turkey and why his visit isnt that trivial for India.

1. He has been a successful Mayor of Istanbul (1994-1998)

AFP

2. He left his mentor Necmettin Erbakans party to form an Islamist party, Justice and Development Party in 2001 (Known as AKP in Turkish).

3. He was elected the Prime Minister of Turkey twice (2003-2014).

AFP

4. He has just won a referendum for constitutional amendments in the country (Read all about it here)

5. Erdogan wants a multilateral talk on Kashmir. This is one thing that India might not like.

6. Erdogan supports Indias inclusion in NSG, but also bats for Pakistan to be a part of it.

7. Erdogan will receive an honorary doctorate from JMI (JMI runs many courses on Turkish language and culture).

8. Erdogan has announced many scholarships for Indian students. There are already many Indian students studying in Turkey .

AFP

9. In his recent crackdown on Fetullah Gulen movement (Fetullah Gulen is the person accused of conspiring the failed coup), some Indian academics (who were working with the institutions run by Gulen movement) had to leave the country because of the fear of being arrested.

10. Erdogan has announced new business ventures with India.
Delhi Police has launched a manhunt for a "high-profile" woman after a Lok Sabha MP complained to the top brass that he was drugged and filmed in an objectionable position by a gang led by the woman, who demanded extortion money of Rs 5 crore, sources told TOI.

PTI/Representational Image

The gang has allegedly threatened to release his pictures and videos if the demand was not met. The woman has also threatened to implicate the MP in a rape case, it was learnt.

When contacted, special commissioner Mukesh Meena confirmed that the case was under investigation. Police are treating the case as top priority and arrests are likely soon. An FIR has been filed under section 384 (extortion) of the IPC.

In his complaint, the MP has claimed that the woman had sought some help from him and asked him to accompany her to a house in Ghaziabad, where he was given sedatives mixed in a soft drink. The MP passed out. He realized he had been trapped when he regained his senses. After getting the complaint, the police chief immediately ordered the registration of an FIR.

Representational Image

A special team has been formed to crack the case. If required, the case may be transferred to the crime branch or special cell, the officer added.

Initial probe has revealed that the woman allegedly runs a blackmailing ring and works with a number of associates, an officer said. "We have found that her modus operandi is to approach parliamentarians on the pretext of seeking help and then befriend them by her smooth talk. She then takes them to her house for tea and then clicks their pictures in objectionable poses. After that, she demands money or a high flying job. If refused, she threatens to register a fake case of rape," an investigator said.

The woman had allegedly lodged a false case against another MP last year, police sources claimed. The details of this case are being verified.
In a horrific revelation, the staff of a government-run shelter home in West Delhi has been accused of molesting at least 10 girls. It has been revealed that the girls were being forcibly injected with unexplained drug and physically assaulting them if they tried to resist.

At least two girls have accused the staff of the shelter home for rape survivors of molesting them. A report in The Asian Age says that one of the girls was starved for days after she accused a staff member of torturing her.

reuters/representational imageThe shelter home is supposed to be a safe house for rape survivors, girls rescued from streets and brothels.

The girls have also accused some officials of injecting medicines to stimulate premature growth.

The report by Hindustan Times reveals that many girls were given these oxytocin-type substance injections to stimulate growth and were then raped and sold off to brothels again.

BCCL

DCW chief Swati Maliwal visited the shelter home on April 8 and wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik to take immediate steps.
Oh Dubai, you beauty!

clydeco

History testifies to Dubai's chase for world's first. Not content with having the world's tallest building and biggest shopping centre, Dubai has now become the first in the world to get its own Microsoft font.

#Dubai unveils its own typographic #font designed with help of @Microsoft, first of its kind to be created & named after a city.#DubaiFont pic.twitter.com/PDiL3uc1LM  All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) April 30, 2017



What's unique about this new font?

The typeface, which has been exclusively designed by Microsoft will come in Laton and Arabic script. The font will also be available in as many as 23 languages.

It is now available worldwide in office 365 and you can download the font here.

I am pleased to present #DubaiFont to the world, a new digital way to #ExpressYou pic.twitter.com/lQcfnBnl7O  Hamdan bin Mohammed (@HamdanMohammed) April 30, 2017

All the government bodies in Dubai have been asked to use this font in official correspondence.

'Create harmony' Dubai's Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum told BBC that he had been personally involved in "all the stages" of the development of the font.

It was "a very important step for us as part of our continuous efforts to be ranked first in the digital world," he added.

"We are confident that this new font and its unique specifications will prove popular among other fonts used online and in smart technologies across the world".

The government further claims that the typeface design reflects the modernity of the city and is inspired by the city's essence. The font, as claimed by them, has been created to fabricate harmony between Latin and Arabic.

@HamdanMohammed has officially launched #DubaiFont - a font inspired by the city that inspires its residents and tourists. #Expressyou pic.twitter.com/w7qIt7qBof  Dubai Font (@DubaiFont) April 30, 2017

"Through it, you share who you are, what you think and how you feel to the world." To do so you need a medium capable of capturing the nuances of everything you have to say.

#DubaiFont was created in partnership with Microsoft & is designed to harmoniously integrate Arabic & Latin scripts #ExpressYou  Hamdan bin Mohammed (@HamdanMohammed) April 30, 2017

The official website further claims that the very font celebrated the union of heritage and innovation, giving the world access to a new form of high-quality typography.

However, the font is already beginning to draw loads of criticism for its irrelevant contribution in building harmony.

#DubaiFont expresses a perfect balance between tradition & modernity in both Latin and Arabic scripts. https://t.co/3qe6SBepDK pic.twitter.com/qDtv8vJwbW  BAFCO (@bafco) May 1, 2017

Human Rights Watch (HRW) claims that the font has no effect on the daily lives of the citizen; owing to escalating numbers of arrests, mute the voices of dissent and human rights violation.

Nevertheless, this looks like quite an innovation! Kudos Dubai!
From oppressive dress codes to the male guardianship rules, Saudi Arabia is notorious for laws subjugating women. But in a bid to protest the sexist rules, German Chancellor Angela Merkel chose not to wear a headscarf during her meeting with Saudi Arabian King.

Reuters

Merkel was greeted by King Salman and other top officials upon her arrival at the western city of Jiddah.

She follows the footsteps of Theresa May, President Donald Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama who also shunned the headscarf protocol.

AP

"Saudi Arabia has made marginal improvements on womens rights in recent years, primarily in employment and access to higher education, but such changes have been hindered or even nullified because authorities have allowed the male guardianship system to remain largely intact, enabling men to maintain control over female relatives lives, said Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch ahead of Merkels arrival, reports RT.

Merkel's move was to inspire women of the country to be fearless in opposing the orthodox system.

Reuters

Reports state that Merkel has called also called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county". "It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible," she said.

The German parliament last week voted for a draft law banning women working in the civil service, judiciary and military from wearing full-face veils. Burqas will be prohibited in select professions as part of the legislation, once approved by the Bundesrat state parliament.

With Agency Inputs
With an aim to build awareness about the Sikh culture and tell the world about what it means, the Sikh community in America celebrated Turban Day.

Apart from being a sign of compassion, universal acceptance, humanity, and nobility, these colorful turbans carry the ardor of Punjab.

Just recently, folks in New York celebrated this Turban Festival on the streets and the entire city got lit. Not just Punjabis and Indians, but everyone participated in the event and expressed how happy they were.

Don't believe us? Look at these happy faces!

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#nikon #digitalphotography #streetphotography #street #philadelphiaphotoleague #philadelphiaphotographer #nyc #timessquare #turbanday A post shared by jsolarclPHotography (@jsolarcl) on Apr 25, 2017 at 2:19pm PDT

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#nikon #digitalphotography #streetphotography #street #philadelphiaphotoleague #philadelphiaphotographer #nyc #timessquare #turbanday A post shared by jsolarclPHotography (@jsolarcl) on Apr 25, 2017 at 2:19pm PDT

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#nikon #digitalphotography #streetphotography #street #philadelphiaphotoleague #philadelphiaphotographer #nyc #timessquare #turbanday A post shared by jsolarclPHotography (@jsolarcl) on Apr 25, 2017 at 2:19pm PDT

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Shot on Sikhs of NY and Turban Day, April 15th! How many Turbans do you see? Official Testimonial Video coming soon... #TurbanDay #IamaSikh #IamSikh A post shared by Chanpreet Singh (@singhsofny) on Apr 24, 2017 at 4:43am PDT

Also, watch the full video here:





Thank you, people, for taking Punjab to New York. We are sure NY fell in love with it like we did.
The Barrel Bomb Conundrum

By Craig Murray

April 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Virtually every mainstream media article or broadcast on the United States aerial massacre of Syrian government troops, manages to work in a reference to barrel bombs as though this in some way justifies or mitigates the US action.

It is a fascinating example of a propaganda meme. Barrel bombs are being used by Syrian government forces, though on a pretty small scale. They are an improvised weapon made by packing conventional explosive into a beer barrel. They are simply an amateur version of a conventional weapon, and they are far less effective  meaning devastating  than the professionally made munitions the UK and US are dropping on Syria, or supplying to the Saudis to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Yemen, or to Israel to drop on children in Gaza.

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If a bomb were to drop near me, I would much prefer it to be a barrel bomb as it would be less likely to kill me than the UK and US manufactured professional variety. If however my guts were to be eviscerated by flying hunks of white hot metal, I would not particularly care what kind of bomb it was. The blanket media use of barrel bomb as though it represents something uniquely inhumane is a fascinating example of propaganda, especially set beside the repeated ludicrous claims that British bombs do not kill civilians.

It is of course only part of the media distortion around the Syria debacle. Western intervention is aimed at supporting various Saudi backed jihadist militias to take over the country, irrespective of the fact that they commit appalling atrocities. These the media label democratic forces. At the same time, we are attacking other Saudi controlled jihadists on the grounds that they are controlled by the wrong kind of Saudi. You see, chopping off the heads of dissidents and gays is OK if you are one of the Saudis who directly controls the Saudi oil resources. It is not OK if you do it freelance and are one of the Saudis who is merely acting at the covert behest of the other Saudis who control the Saudi oil resources.

I do hope that is clear.

Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk
Do Americans Have No Shame?

Putting aside the lack of any proof of Russian interference in U.S. elections, Americans have some nerve complaining about outside meddling when they have violated the sovereign rights of much of the planet. Americans owe the world heartfelt acts of contrition. There ought to be a march of apology from Americans to people in Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and yes in Russia too.



By Margaret Kimberley

Some of those who said Trump is not my president applauded his bombing of a Syrian air base.

The charge that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election is presented as fact in the corporate media and by the Democratic Party. Their collusion accomplishes two goals at once. The imperial project which has long sought to weaken Russia is given legitimacy. The Democrats divert attention from years of electoral failure which culminated in Donald Trumps victory. Democratic Party rank and file members seethe about Vladimir Putins alleged misdeeds when they ought to ask their leadership hard questions.

Something is seriously amiss when Congressional Black Caucus talking points enshrine the FBI and CIA as beneficial and reliable sources of information. Democrats irresponsibly speak of an act of war and in so doing may bring about the real thing. The corruption and overreach are obvious but there is another important issue that has gone unaddressed.

Why is it worse for Americans to suffer a fate their government has meted out to others all over the world? The list of coups, invasions, and electoral fraud committed against other countries by the United States is a long one and encompasses every continent on the planet. American expressions of outrage should not be taken seriously.

Democrats irresponsibly speak of an act of war and in so doing may bring about the real thing.

The United States directly subverted the will of the Russian people in 1996 when Bill Clintons operatives assisted Boris Yeltsins reelection campaign The current animosity between Russia and the United States results in large part from interference in Ukraine which ousted president Victor Yanukovych in 2014. The coup would not have taken place absent Obama administration support. If anyone should be crying about interference it is the Russians.

But the list of skullduggery is ignored in favor of argument about what is provable and what is not. There should also be discussion about why Americans refuse to acknowledge the wrongdoing they support either tacitly or actively. There is an opportunity being missed, an opportunity to express contrition and to change the temptation for Americans to support their governments worst acts.

Many of the liberals so quick to cast aspersions at Russia are also quick to support American state sponsored violence. Some of those who said Trump is not my president applauded his bombing of a Syrian air base.

If anyone should be crying about interference it is the Russians.

It is time for Americans to grow up but that is easier said than done in a country for which historical amnesia is a founding principle. Most liberals want to be flag waving patriots and they are loath to concede the wrongdoing which goes on in one presidency after another. They refuse to admit their own complicity in excusing war crimes with vapid talk of lesser evils.

If Americans are so upset about the prospect of being treated the way their government treats millions of people they should always condemn these violations. They ought to foreswear support for the wars of aggression committed in their name. Democrats go on foolishly speaking of an act of war committed by Vladimir Putin. This latest propaganda term is not just stupid, it is extremely dangerous and posits that Americans have rights that they do not accord to others.

So far this year there have or will be marchers wearing pink hats, supporting science or fighting climate change. There ought to be a march of apology from Americans to people in Grenada, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, and yes in Russia too. Millions of people have lost their homes, health and lives whenever an American president decides that another leader must go or claims that national interest demands intervention or endless war.

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There isnt any democracy left for the Russian government to damage.

It is time for people in this country to stop acting like aggrieved children. The temper tantrums about their sovereignty and their democracy are not just hypocritical but also tell lies about how this political system really works. There isnt any democracy left for the Russian government to damage. And even if there were Americas guilty behavior abroad makes a mockery of it.

If Vladimir Putin hatched a plot to get Trump into office he didnt do anything worse than American presidents have done. People in this country ought to reflect on their history instead of behaving as if they are entitled to rights they routinely disregard elsewhere. The Russia haters must stop whining about their supposed grievance. But first they should apologize to people around the world and fight to stop Americas attacks on them.
Prez Trump: You Can't Fight the Whole World

By Eric Margolis

April 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Maybe the president believes hes won a great victory over the wicked Syrians by lobbing cruise missiles at one of their underused air bases. Maybe Trump believes that hes scared the evil Russians and the too big for their sampans Chinese into obedience.

His 22,000 lb MOAB terror bomb on Afghanistan should keep those pesky Taliban quiet for a while even though the Pentagon claimed the intended target was a group- Khorosan  that may not actually exist.

Those major malefactors, the crazy North Koreans, could be about to feel Americas full military might if they so much as twitch.

Not content with nearly stirring up a new war with North Korea, President Donald Trump is now waving the big stick at another of Washingtons favorite bogeymen, Iran. For the Trumps, Iran is poison.

In recent days, President Trump has threatened to renounce the six-power nuclear agreement to freeze or shrink Irans nuclear infrastructure. This sensible pact was signed during the Obama administration by the great powers: US, Britain, France, Russia, Germany and China. Trump appears willing to abrogate the treaty and outrage the other great powers just because he hates Iran for some reason and, it appears, Muslims in general.

The Trump administration seems increasingly influenced by Israels far right Netanyahu government. In fact, PM Netanyahu often appears the most moderate member of his rightist coalition which is dominated by militant West Bank settlers.

Trump has surrounded himself with ardent supporters of Israels right. One of his major bankrollers is casino mogul Sheldon Adelson who is a key supporter of Jewish expansion on the illegally occupied West Bank.

Israels right has made a hate fetish of Iran and incessantly calls for war against the Islamic Republic. However, the mighty US Israel lobby twice failed to push the Obama administration to attack Iran. The US Congress, by contrast, is totally under the thumb of Israels American lobby and pays more respect to PM Netanyahu than the president. He who pays the piper.

In fact, Congress sought to block sales of Boeing civilian airliners to Iran worth $16.6 billion even though it would have cost thousands of American jobs. Congress has been trying to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal ever since it was signed, putting American national interests on a collision course with those of Israels right.

But now President Trump says hes found a new reason to sabotage the six-power deal: Iran, insists Trump, supports terrorism and has bad intentions. This charge has been around for decades, cited by Israel as a compelling reason to attack Iran because Tehran supports the terrorist Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

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The terrorist label is slapped onto all enemies of Israel and the United States. Its a handy, meaningless sobriquet that automatically denies those so named political or moral justice.

I was with the Israel army when it invaded Lebanon in 1982 and saw first-hand how its arrogance turned formerly pro-Israel Shia Lebanese in the south into anti-Israel fighters. Israel actually encouraged and may have secretly financed the growth of Hezbollah and Hamas hoping they would drain support from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanons Amal militia.

Israel hates Hamas and Hezbollah and is determined to eradicate them. The principal supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah has long been Syria. Large parts of Syria have now been destroyed by a US-engineered uprising and bands of Saudi-financed mercenaries. That has left Iran as the main supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, and a principal backer of Syrias Assad government. The PLO has become a puppet of Israel and the US.

So Israel is now determined to destroy Hezbollah in its strongholds in Lebanon and then crush Hamas with Trumps blessing, so ending any dreams of a Palestinian state. Iran is now being blamed for all Washingtons problems in the Mideast. So war fever against Iran is again mounting.

Interestingly, Iran, which has 79.1 million people, is not cowering before this threat. Like North Korea, Irans air force and navy are sitting ducks. But Iran has strong infantry, some 500,000 men including Revolutionary Guards. They are armed with outdated weapons but showed redoubtable fighting spirit in the Iran-Iraq War. Any US invasion would be met by fierce resistance.

An Iranian commander told me, let the Americans come and invade. They will break their teeth on Iran. Then we will drive them out of the Mideast.

Boastful, yes, but not impossible. Iran could prove more than the US can handle. President Trump does not know this yet and is still having fun with his new military toys. Problem is, he just cant decide where to attack first.

Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation  Pakistan, Hurriyet,  Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2017
Home The Relentless Push Towards War



This time with North Korea. Why?



By Chris Martenson The only real constant to be found in both European and US politics is war. A steady feature of both regions for the past 20+ years has been small, lucrative conflicts waged against countries unable to effectively defend themselves. It doesnt seem to matter whos in office in the US -- Republican/Democrat, conservative/liberal -- theres a war machine constantly running. My concern is that there's a building risk that one day that war machine is going to bust apart. And when it does, the long relative peace that the US and Europe have enjoyed (even as theyve visited a lot of death and destruction elsewhere) will be shattered. As Ive written extensively in the past, as was the case with Russia last fall, this push to war includes a series of carefully-crafted talking points being endlessly repeated over the print and airwaves. Its an ever-present condition of living in our manufactured reality, where what we are told to care about is beamed at us around the clock in a rather tediously but emotionally-manipulative way on the news. For a short historical review, recall that it wasnt that long ago that we were asked to be in a near state of panic about: Ebola

Irans nuclear capabilities

Libyas terrible strongman (who turned out to be way better than the thugs who replaced him)

Terrorists

Russia How many of those are now front and center' in your concerns? Probably none. Today's big bogeyman is North Korea. Have you wondered why? The news about North Korea is at a fever pitch. Again, we have to ask, why now? Trump says 'major, major' conflict with North Korea possible, but seeks diplomacy Apr 28, 2017 The Trump administration on Wednesday declared North Korea "an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority." It said it was focusing on economic and diplomatic pressure, including Chinese cooperation in containing its defiant neighbor and ally, and remained open to negotiations. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday a major conflict with North Korea is possible in the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs, but he would prefer a diplomatic outcome to the dispute. "There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely," Trump told Reuters in an Oval Office interview ahead of his 100th day in office on Saturday. Nonetheless, Trump said he wanted to peacefully resolve a crisis that has bedeviled multiple U.S. presidents, a path that he and his administration are emphasizing by preparing a variety of new economic sanctions while not taking the military option off the table. "We'd love to solve things diplomatically but it's very difficult," he said. In other highlights of the 42-minute interview, Trump was cool to speaking again with Taiwan's president after an earlier telephone call with her angered China. He also said he wants South Korea to pay the cost of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense system, which he estimated at $1 billion , and intends to renegotiate or terminate a U.S. free trade pact with South Korea because of a deep trade deficit with Seoul. U.S. officials said military strikes remained an option but played down the prospect, though the administration has sent an aircraft carrier and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region in a show of force. Any direct U.S. military action would run the risk of massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea and among U.S. forces in both countries. ( Source ) Okay, lets parse all that out: There are no direct negotiations between the US and North Korea

Trump is talking tough

Kim Jong Un is insane

Trump wants South Korea to pay for a $1 billion US piece of hardware

Trump wants to renegotiate or terminate the trade pact with South Korea

If things go hot, a lot of casualties are expected

Both China and North Korea are very alarmed by the THAAD anti-missile system the US has installed in South Korea

The US is maneuvering military assets into the region, including an aircraft carrier and sub, among other displays of suggested force Lets see herewhat could possibly go wrong? How about everything? Heres some more on the THAAD anti-missile defense system, which wasn't well received by the locals in South Korea who, for some reason, have no interest in being dragged into a war with their immediate and heavily-militarized neighbors by a careless US administration: US sets up missile defense in S. Korea as North shows power Apr 26, 2017 SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  In a defiant bit of timing, South Korea announced Wednesday that key parts of a contentious U.S. missile defense system had been installed a day after rival North Korea showed off its military power. The South's trumpeting of progress on setting up the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, comes as high-powered U.S. military assets converge on the Korean Peninsula and as a combative North Korea signals possible nuclear and missile testing. About 8,000 police officers were mobilized , and the main road leading up to the site in the country's southeast was blocked earlier Wednesday, Yonhap reported. About 200 residents and protesters rallied against THAAD in front of a local community center, some hurling plastic water bottles. North Korea conducted live-fire artillery drills on Tuesday, the 85th anniversary of the founding of its million-person strong Korean People's Army. On the same day, a U.S. guided-missile submarine docked in South Korea. And the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier is also headed toward the peninsula for a joint exercise with South Korea. The moves to set up THAAD within this year have angered not only North Korea, but also China, the country that the Trump administration hopes to work with to rid the North of nuclear weapons. China, which has grown increasingly frustrated with its ally Pyongyang, and Russia see the system's powerful radars as a security threat. ( Source ) I consider having to deploy 8,000 police officers to deter possible protestors as a strong sign of just how unpopular a move it is for the THAAD system to be installed. North Korea is rattling its sabers, the US is moving assets in, China is both alarmed and trying to be helpful at the same time, probably preferring to let a sleeping dog lie. This is an incredibly volatile moment, especially considering that Kim Jong Un has been anything but rational his entire life. So, again, we have to ask: Why now? Why has beating North Korea into submission become such a sudden national priority? Before address that, it bears repeating that most of what passes for news in the West is actually well-crafted talking points put out by self-interested people who have discovered a fantastic way to remain in power and accumulate wealth. Read more about this in our prior report: We Are Being Played. Well, that's true at least as long as we consent to follow along and dutifully remain ignorant of these tricks of persuasion by propaganda. Theres really no good excuse for being fooled, except mental laziness. The tricks of this trade are neither subtle nor difficult to spot. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter Meanwhile, the actual things that are deteriorating alarmingly are not even talked about -- ever -- in the main news outfits. Alarming species extinction rates, the loss of phytoplankton in the oceans, the loss of terrestrial soil fertility into oceanic dead zones, and the largest wealth gap in all of history created on purpose by central banks -- very real crises like this are nearly completely ignored. These are all very dangerous to our future, but they aren't talked about because doing so won't sell more weapons. Nor will it advance any political careers, or goose banking profits next quarter. So for a system that demands continuous conflict in order to function, to manufacture a new war you need a good sales agent, and none are so closely tied to that racket than the New York Times. Here they are recently using the same dumb tricks that worked the last time, and the time before thatand so on: NYTs Impossible to Verify North Korea Nuke Claim Spreads Unchecked by Media Apr 26, 2017 Buoyed by a total of 18 speculative verb formsfive mays, eight woulds and five couldsNew York Times reporters David E. Sanger and William J. Broad ( 4/24/17 ) painted a dire picture of a Trump administration forced to react to the growing and impending doom of North Korea nuclear weapons. As North Korea Speeds Its Nuclear Program, US Fears Time Will Run Out opens by breathlessly establishing the stakes and the limited time for the US to deal with the North Korean nuclear crisis: Behind the Trump administrations sudden urgency in dealing with the North Korean nuclear crisis lies a stark calculus: A growing body of expert studies and classified intelligence reports that conclude the country is capable of producing a nuclear bomb every six or seven weeks. That acceleration in paceimpossible to verify until experts get beyond the limited access to North Korean facilities that ended years agoexplains why President Trump and his aides fear they are running out of time. The front-page summary was even more harrowing, with the editors asserting theres dwindling time for US action to stop North Korea from assembling hundreds of nukes: From the beginning, the Times frames any potential bombing by Trump as the product of a stark calculus coldly and objectively arrived at by a growing body of expert[s]. The idea that elements within the US intelligence community may actually desire a waror at least limited airstrikesand thus may have an interest in presenting conflict as inevitable, is never addressed, much less accounted for. The most spectacular claimthat North Korea is, at present, capable of producing a nuclear bomb every six or seven weeksis backed up entirely by an anonymous blob of expert studies and classified intelligence reports. To add another red flag, Sanger and Broad qualify it in the very next sentence as a figure that is impossible to verify. Which is another way of saying its an unverified claim. ( Source ) Unverifiable evidence, anonymous sources, and the broad appeal of many experts. Sound familiar? It should, its the exact same playbook used by the war machine to bomb and invade Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and, someday soon, Iran and Russia. It brings to mind this quote by Arundhati Roy: What Im saying is that its the exact same trick used over and over again. Either the New York Times is the stupidest crew of reporters and editors ever with completely flat learning curves, or they are in on the racket. More likely the latter than the former, I'm convinced. The New York Times hasn't seen a war it couldnt support (especially in the oil-rich Middle East). Why Now? So the big question is why now? Why is North Korea suddenly such a concern? Theyve been peskily doing what they do for a very long time; developing crude nuclear devices and lobbing test missiles into the sea. If you happen to be the ocean around North Korea, you have to absorb a wayward rocket now and then. But theres not much of a threat beyond that at the moment. None of the articles Ive read have given any credible insight into why North Korea is considered a clear and present danger to US interests at the moment. More than that, no analysis has been proffered to explain how any potential military action doesnt just end in a bloodbath for the poor people of South and North Korea. The conventional military capabilities of North Korea are pretty staggering if you live in Seoul South Korea, at least: When it comes to soldiers based on the North Korean border, the US only has about 20,000 troops permanently stationed in South Korea, as well as about 8000 air force personnel and other special forces. There were also about 50,000 military personnel based in Japan. Compare this to North Korea, which has 700,000 active soldiers, but a whopping 4.5 million reserves. Prof Blaxland said North Korea had also massed about 20,000 rockets and missiles on the border with South Korea, and when you are playing a numbers game, technology doesnt always win. Theres a saying quantity has a quality all of its own, he said. North Korea has massed artillery and missile capability adjacent to the demilitarised zone, close to Seoul, which puts it in range of a population about the size of Australia  its pretty scary. ( Source news.com.au ) As a reminder, Trump campaigned on a peace platform. So this sudden belligerence has to be coming form some heavy internal pressure; or hes simply flip-flopped (or wasnt honest) on a very important matter. Hes done so much flip-flopping that this tweet struck me as funny: Continuing with the mystery of Why now?, we note that the potential consequences of a kinectic conflict for South Korea are staggering. The simple fact is that, no matter how many jets and cruise missiles a carrier group launches, or what countermeasures South Korea and embedded US military bring to bear, theres little chance of them wiping out anything but a very small percentage of North Koreas conventional artillery and rocket capabilities. Think of 500,000 rounds of artillery landing in a major, packed capitol city that has the population of Australia and you can begin to appreciate the scale of the catastrophe that could ensue: Trump, who clearly and unequivocally campaigned on a peace platform, is now sending a  very powerful armada  to the coast of the DPRK. Powerful as this armada might be, it can do absolutely nothing to prevent the DPRK artillery from smashing Seoul into smithereens. You think that I am exaggerating? Business Insider estimated in 2010 that it would take the DPRK 2 hours to completely obliterate Seoul . Why? Because the DPRK has enough artillery pieces to fire 500,000 rounds of artillery on Seoul in the first hour of a conflict , thats why. Here we are talking about old fashioned, conventional, artillery pieces. Wikipedia says that the DPRK has 8,600 artillery pieces and 4,800 multiple rocket launcher systems. Two days ago a Russian expert said that the real figure was just under 20,000 artillery pieces. Whatever the exact figure, suffice to say that it is a lot. The DPRK also has some more modern but equally dangerous capabilities . Of special importance here are the roughly 200000 North Korean special forces. Oh sure, these 200,000 are not US Green Beret or Russian Spetsnaz, but they are adequate for their task: to operate deep behind enemy lies and create chaos and destroy key objectives. You tell me  what can the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group deploy against these well hidden and dispersed 10000+ artillery pieces and 200,000 special forces? Exactly, nothing at all. ( Source ) Clearly thats a very unsettling prospect for South Korea. Just imagine a favorite major city of yours with a completely unstable leader within artillery range just to its immediate north. Its a frightening prospect. Again, I cannot find a single credible reason for Why now?. And so, we have to simply speculate. Possible reasons range from an itchy military industrial complex that is disappointed that it cannot seem to goad the US into war with Russia and North Korea just happened to be next on the list, to the idea that Trump is really seeking trade deal concessions from South Korea and is using the North Korean situation as leverage. The latter is not out of the realm of the possible, with Trump having said he wants South Korea to pay for the THAAD system being installed and that he wants to renegotiate our balance of trade with them, too. Who says stuff like that at a time when war might break out? Someone who doesnt really appreciate the gravity of the situation, I'd suggest. I mean, if its a negotiating tactic, its one that could end up with a lot of people losing their lives and a ruined economy. If its a negotiating tactic stapled to a crisis, its still an odd thing. Conclusion Tensions with North Korea are about as tight as can be right now. And the wild card is the apparent instability of Kin Jong Un. Who knows what he might do? Any equally-perplexing mystery, which for now I'll have to file under central banks control the markets is why the KOSPI (South Korea's stock index) is up so much on the outbreak of these very serious tensions? Either the central banks are propping it up here to keep the masses calm, or the central banks are to blame for pouring so much liquidity into world markets that even the risk of obliteration is insufficient cause for a stock market to go down. So take your pick: either its a controlled market or its a sign of just how outrageous the bubble mentality across the world has become. One feature of bubbles is the inability to entertain the idea of an asset ever going down in price. So they go up; news and data be damned. I just find it extremely strange that the South Korean stock index is powering higher through all of these tensions. It's very, very strange. Stocks are not supposed to like uncertainty. The post-French election stock buying spree was explained on that very basis: the French elections removed uncertainty and therefore stocks went up. But now we're being forced to accept how stocks are going up as uncertainty increases. Since it really makes no sense, other reasons are being given. But its just too strange for the rational mind to believe them. Its just not normal; and therefore we dont live in a normal world anymore. If a full shooting war breaks out with North Korea, there will be massive casualties on all sides. To think that peace depends on Trump negotiating with Kim Jong Un is a particularly comic-book-worthy plot line. It seems absurd. But here we are. If you live in Seoul, you should consider getting out for a while. Take a vacation, or work remotely, and bring your family. Just for a while -- maybe a couple of weeks. If you cant do that, then be sure all of your loved ones know the rally points and basement shelters that apply. Review your basic contingency plans and then hope that they won't be required. Remember, any outbreak of war is going to be a very bad thing for the globe at this particular moment in history. Debt levels are stretched to the limit, GDP is weak, and it wont take much to upset the economic and financial market apple carts. For everyone else, read our report How To Prepare For War that was prepared for the possibility of a war with Russia. Its not a pleasant topic, nor one I like to keep raising. But theres a crew in charge in DC that is intent on starting wars, and they are not about to stop now. I believe they span administrations and they are very influential. I also happen to believe that they will eventually pick a fight we all regret very much. So be prepared. https://www.peakprosperity.com/ The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load. What's your response? - Scroll down to add / read comments Please read our Comment Policy before posting - It is unacceptable to slander, smear or engage in personal attacks on authors of articles posted on ICH. Those engaging in that behavior will be banned from the comment section. Click here to comment on our Facebook page
The Commissioner of Police, Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Command, Musa Kimo, has warned the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, against its planned protest in Abuja.

Mr. Kimo gave the warning in a statement issued by the commands spokesperson, Usen Omorodion, in Abuja on Sunday.

He said as a professional organisation, the command would not fold its arms and watch criminal elements hide under the guise of such protest to cause breakdown of law and order.

Mr. Kimo advised residents to go about their lawful duties without fear and molestation.

In a related development, Mr. Omorodion said the command arrested a member of an armed robbery syndicate at Robochi, Abuja on April 26.

He said Usman Mai-moto, 24, a principal suspect, was arrested with a stolen motorcycle by police operatives on routine patrol.

The spokesperson said the suspect confessed to have participated in the snatching of several motorcycles at gunpoint.

Mr. Omorodion said the suspect had given the police useful information that led to the arrest of one of his cohorts, Wisdom Peter, 18, who was arrested while trying to sell a stolen motorcycle.

He said the two stolen motorcycles had been recovered from the suspects.

Frantic effort is being made to arrest their cohort said to be in possession of the firearm used by the syndicate for its robbery operations.

Mr. Omorodion said the command had also arrested three suspects who specialised in house breaking.

The suspects are: Mansur Aminu, 24, Emmanuel Aboki and Dauda Isa.

Items recovered from them include, two clippers, 11 SIM cards and one generating set.

He said the suspects would be transferred to the Command Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for discreet investigation and prosecution.

Source: NAN
The attack on Mercy Aigbe by her husband took place on Easter Sunday, so she has had time to heal. And according to new reports, Lagos state government might prosecute the actress husband, Lanre Gentry, after she dragged him to the Lagos Ministry of Women Affairs for the alleged battery. The state agency responsible for domestic violence has begun investigation into the matter

The case is with us. It was reported here by the victim herself, and because of the governors zero tolerance for domestic violence, we are as a matter of urgency investigating the whole drama. It is a good thing that it has also been brought to the public eye. Were still very much on top of the matter and well get it to its logical conclusion, a top official at the agency said
Governor Abiola Ajimobi has promised to spare no effort in ensuring that the state clears the four-month salary arrears of workers in the State.

Ajimobi stated this on Sunday in a congratulatory message to workers on the occasion of May Day 2017 by his Special Adviser on Communication and Strategy, Mr. Yomi Layinka.

He urged the workers to continue to put in their very best and key into the state governments reform agenda aimed at enhancing productivity and ultimately the Internally Generated Revenue, IGI.

I congratulate the entire workforce in Oyo State including those in the private and informal sectors. This years Day has provided another opportunity for you all to take stock and assess your performance.

I can say without any equivocation that workers in Oyo State are among the very best you can find anywhere in the country. But, for the few yet to embrace the new order of hard work, accountability, dedication and commitment I urge you join the train.

On our part as government we are exploring many opportunities to enhance the internally generated revenue of the state. We will spare no effort to ensure that we clear the four-month salary arrears. I urge you to play your part dutifully to achieve this.

No doubt, times are hard because of the pervading poor state of the economy. I feel your pains and Im optimistic that we shall soon sing a new song of prosperity and abundance. May none of you be missing by that time.

Ajimobi prayed for a hazard-free 2017 for the workers in the state as the year enters the second quarter, while he also prayed for good health for the workers to celebrate more workers days to come.

Source: Dailypost
Students of Queens College, Yaba, Lagos, were in high spirits weekend as they returned for the completion of the 2nd term following a two- month shutdown even as there were expressions of dissatisfaction among some parents about the resumption arrangements.

The school was shut in February by the Lagos state Ministry of Education, following an outbreak of diarrhoea that claimed the lives of three students and left several others hospitalised.

When Vanguard visited the school premises Saturday and Sunday, several parents were seen accompanying their wards and assisting them to unpack their bags and baggage for screening at the school gate.

Expressing joy over the resumption, a parent, Mrs. Ngozi Obidiwe Chibuzor, who brought her daughter  Favour  a Senior Secondary Two student said she was elated the school had finally reopened and that her daughters long stay at home was finally over.

 You can see that am happy to bring my daughter back to school after the unfortunate incident that kept students at home for two whole months. I must commend the efforts of school management, the PTA Chairman, Queens College Old students Association, and the government to find it fit to re-brand the school in all ramifications.

My only plea is that there should be better understanding and cooperation between the school management and parents. This will go a long way ton forestalling any future incident of this magnitude.  she added.

Another parent, Dr Babayele Lookman, a Geologist who brought down his ward, Wejihat Babayele, all the way from Ogun state, observed that the school management should look beyond the euphoria of a happy resumption, but rather, seek measures to keep up the standard of the school and also put the sad incident behind.

I am happy about the resumption. I must also call on all stakeholders to constantly see that the schools standards are maintained at all times. There should be regular monitoring and evaluation of the school activities by parents. Beyond this, the issue of apportioning blame over what happened should be set aside, Babayele noted.

Speaking on behalf of the students, the Head Girl, Ngozi Onwunze, noted that with the new development in the school and the openness of the new Principal, Mrs Bola Are, Queens College would be better than it was before the epidemic that ravaged it.

While I cant blame anyone over what happened, I can say that communication and relationship between the students and grandma  Mrs Are -is like that of mother and child. We have easy access to her and we can air our views without any restriction. So, despite my completion of my studies in QC, the students are in safe hands,  Onwunze remarked.

There was mild drama exhibited by some parents that complained over what they described as insensitivity on the part of the school authorities for denying their children into the school because they failed to meet all the requirements set for resumption.

It would be recalled that the school management had instructed parents and guardians to bring along with their children new mattresses, mosquito nets and a five litre gallon for water for the safety of the children.

An angry parent told Vanguard that the schools denial of the students was unfair, even as he cited factors such as finance, and non-specification of the size of mattresses to bring as responsible for inability of some parents to comply.

Yes, I got the text messages sent by the school management that the students should bring mattresses , mosquito nets and a five litres gallon for water. But, I never knew they will demand for a new mattress .

The school should consider that not all fingers are equal. And distance is another issue. For instance, I came from Ikorodu with my daughter. How do they want me to go back home with her? He lamented.

Reacting to the complaints, the Chairman of the Parents Teachers Association, PTA, Sir John Ofodike, who was accompanied by the Chairman, Association of Civil Servants of Nigeria, Queens College chapter, Comrade Sarafadeen Oladejo, and other top management members of the school, explained that the school had to comply with the instructions of the Lagos state Ministry of Education for the safety of all.

It is not that the school authority is insensitive, Ofodike said. These directives were given by the Ministry of Education for the safety of the students and to curtail the spread of infection that may arise due to bedbugs in old mattresses.

 Life is precious and going out of the way to preserve it should not be questionable. We made our messages explicit that only students with new foams, new nets and new gallon of water will be allowed into the school, the PTA chairman said.

It was gathered from a top management source that the school may compensate families of students who lost their lives during the outbreak of diarrhoea. Already, an insurance plan is being put in place for the bereaved families.

Source: Vanguard
A man has been shot dead by another man in broad daylight inside an Ogun State community over a really simple matter.

A gunman has shot dead a young man at a car wash centre located along Sam Ewang Estate, Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Premium Times reports.

The suspect alleged that the fuel tanker the man was working with blocked his path.

A witness said the killer brought his Sienna car to the car wash, and on completion of the wash, approached the man to look for the truck driver to remove the fuel tanker from where it was parked.

The trailer, registration number TTD 456XA with inscription NIPCO, was also brought to the car wash centre for washing, and parked opposite the centre, awaiting when there would be a parking space.

The driver was said to have taken a stroll within the vicinity, when the gunman approached the man sitting inside the truck.

The man, identified as Aro, was said to be pacifying the suspect, who subsequently pulled out a gun and shot the him at close range resulting in instant death.

The development caused pandemonium at the car wash centre, as people took to their heels, while the gunman manoeuvred his way and escaped with his car.

When contacted, Ogun State Police Command Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, said the command was going to commence forensic investigation into the murder.

It is true, the Commissioner of Police has ordered that forensic investigation be carried out. He has also directed that homicide section of the state investigation and intelligence department should
A teacher in Lagos State identified as Mrs. Titilayo Shodipo have been murdered by her husband according to the wifes family , in the Ikorodu area of the state, have said the suspect might have killed her for an evil purpose.

The mother of Maria Ahinaje,has called on the police authorities and the state government to arrest the suspect and bring him to justice.

It was reported that Omolaja, 40, and the late wife had been married for the past seven years and had four children together.

The relationship was said to have been fraught with disagreements and fights.

It was learnt that last Monday, the suspect allegedly beat up his wife and stabbed her to death after another disagreement at their home on Insurance Crescent, Logunlogun village, Igbo Olomu, Ikorodu, Lagos State.

Neighbours were said to have found the 39-year-old in a pool of blood, after which policemen from the Owutu division were invited.

The corpse was moved to the Ikorodu General Hospital mortuary, while the suspect was declared wanted.

The family of the deceased on Friday told our correspondent that they had asked Titilayo to quit the relationship but she refused because of her children.

Her mother, Maria, alleged that Omolaja was a drunk and an absentee father, adding that they were the reasons for most of their disagreements.

She said, My daughter endured seven years of hardship and pain. When they started their relationship, I told her not to marry him, but she said she loved him.

When they got married, he started beating her on a regular basis. He drank a lot and had extra-marital affairs. He would buy little foodstuffs for the family and when the food is exhausted, my daughter and her four children would start begging for food on the street.

Most times, I had to send them foodstuffs and send money into her account for them to survive.

She explained that when Titilayo was pregnant with her second child, Omolaja assaulted her.

Maria, who said their family hailed from Ipokia Local Government the Area of Ogun State, and not Benin Republic, said the deceased left Omolaja and started living with her then.

She said, One day, she said she wanted to visit her family clinic in Ikorodu. Her father said she should use our hospital in Ketu and even gave her N3,000, and she agreed.

Before we knew it, she called her father and said she was not returning again because her in-laws had intervened and persuaded her to return to her husband.

I stopped going to their house three years ago because my daughter told her husband bad things about me, saying I didnt encourage their union. Because of that, the man started misbehaving towards me.

He probably used my daughter for evil purpose before stabbing her to death.

She told our correspondent that the couples four children had been taken by the suspects elder brother, urging the government to take custody of the kids.

Titilayos father, Apostle Simeon Ahinaje, said although the family wanted justice for the deceased, it was not ready to pursue any case.

We want government agencies to do their jobs and prosecute the suspect. The law should take its full course. They should find him and deal with him. However, we have decided not to pursue any case; we have handed over judgement to God as true Christians. Nothing will restore the life of our daughter, he added.

He described Omolaja as a hoodlum who did not deserve his daughter, adding that like the mother, he also warned against the union.

But when our daughter insisted on marrying him, we had to let her have her way, he said.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, said investigations were ongoing into the case, adding that the command was still searching for the suspect.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode has reaffirmed that the state government will not rescind its decision to ban Yellow buses, popularly known as Danfo in the state as a mega city state like Lagos deserves a better means of transportation.

The governor re-assured the people of Lagos that the plan to phase out Danfo buses will not lead to massive job losses, saying that it would instead create more jobs in the transportation sector.

The governor, who spoke at the May Day Rally held at the Agege Stadium, in Agege, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria to commemorate the 2017 Workers Day Celebration, said the Bus Reform Initiative, aimed at introducing over 5,000 air-conditioned buses to replace the Danfo buses would open new vista of opportunities, while also redefining the means of road transportation in the State.

Responding to the fears raised by the Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Lagos Council, Comrade Idowu Adelakun and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Comrade Francis Ogunremi on the implications of the initiative to drivers, conductors, mechanics and other artisans, Ambode assured that it would benefit all Lagosians on the long run.

He said: If Lagos is to be globally competitive, we need to change the outlook of the way the city runs. What is of paramount interest to this government is to make sure that every Lagosian has a comfortable means of moving from one point to the other. But I promise you there will be no job losses.

The Governor is not interested in driving all the new buses. It is the same bus drivers, the technicians, the mechanics that will also still be employed and trained to use these new buses. Instead of job losses, we are going to employ more people for the greater number of the buses and it will make the city more beautiful and more comfortable for all our workers.

Ambode, who also addressed the request of the labour leaders on workers welfare, assured that as the States Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) continues to increase, his administration would work out modalities to improve the welfare of workers in line with his mantra of all-inclusive governance.

The governor said that his administration was ready to look into the plight of pensioners as regards the pace of paying pension, assuring that the process would be fast tracked immediately.

Just like we have said, we have provided vehicles for the unions but again it has not gone round and it has also not gone round to the private sector unions, we will complete the whole scheme before the end of the year, he said.

The governor said as part of the celebration of 50 years of the State, his administration would provide a befitting State Secretariat for the NLC, while government would also work on local and international training for labour leaders to make them relevant to the growth of the economy.

Ambode also assured that the officers of the State Public Service, who according to him, were the real drivers of the development in the State, would continue to be equipped with the necessary competencies and skills in order to deliver effective and efficient service to the people.

Commending the choice of this years May Day celebration themed, Labour Relations in Economic Recession: An Appraisal, the governor said the leadership of Labour unions had demonstrated a responsible sense of stakeholding in the joint enterprise to improve the society and leave lasting legacies for the generations to come through the creation of sustainable wealth and value.

Besides, the governor enjoined the organised labour to continue to show understanding, while rightly insisting on the due and just entitlements of their members, saying that any industrial unrest will compound the challenges of economic recession.

I wish to commend the example of Lagos State to the entire nation in respect of industrial harmony. In Lagos State, both the government and organised labour believe that negotiations are more democratic and effective than unilateral impositions by the government or unilateral demands by the workers, he said.

While alluding to the fact that his administration would not have been able to fulfill the electoral promises without the support of the most versatile, resilient and innovative Public Service in the nation, he noted that the immense contributions of all workers in the private sector was also chiefly responsible for the pride of place that Lagos occupies in our nation, in Africa and in the world at large.

Earlier, Comrades Adelakun and Ogunremi commended Governor Ambode for his commitment to workers welfare and the determination with which he had been transforming the State, describing the governor as an accomplished accounting professional, creative intellectual, skilled planner and focused implementor.

The May Day Rally featured March pasts from various Labour Unions, Trade Organisations and its Affiliates who trooped out en-masse despite the heavy downpour and were excited to see the Governor celebrate the day with them.

Source : ( PM News )
There was panic today (Monday) at the mortuary of Plateau Specialist Hospital in Jos, when the corpse of a man being prepared for burial suddenly grabbed his living brothers hand.

The incident happened as the deceased, identified as Choji Zeng, was being dressed up by his brother, in preparation for burial.

Family members who had participated in the washing of the corpse ran out in panic as they saw the dead Choji Zeng holding tight to his younger brother, Mr. Gyang Zeng.

The pandemonium attracted mortuary attendants, who came in to separate the two brothers.

The two brothers had lived together at Ungwan Jumaa abattoir in Jos metropolis. Choji Zeng, 35 years old, died after a brief illness, relations said. He was said to have suffered from a liver disease.

Gyang Zeng confirmed the unusual incident to the News Agency of Nigeria. He said that after bathing his brother, he was dressing him in white cloth when his corpse grabbed his hands.

He said he had to call the mortuary attendants for help. The mortuary attendants forced the dead hands off him.

Relations and neighbours who witnessed the incident also confirmed it to The News Agency of Nigeria.

Gyang also revealed to NAN that when the deceased held his hands, he asked him, Choji, why did you hold my hand? Do you want me to join you, or what?

One of the mortuary attendants said it was not the first time such a thing would be happening in the mortuary.

Mr. Benjamin Oche, a neighbour of the two brothers who also witnessed the incident, told NAN that before Chojis death, both brothers had a misunderstanding.

He said both of them had quarreled over the land they inherited from their parents.

No foul play is being suspected in Choji Zengs death, however.
Notable Nigerians along side other Nigerian civil society leaders have called the attention of President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately take medical leave to attend to his health.

Several activists, including notable lawyer, Femi Falana, and Jibrin Ibrahim, said the president should heed the advice of his personal physicians without further delay.

As we join the Nigerian people of goodwill to pray for a speedy recovery of President Buhari, we are compelled to advise him to heed the advice of his personal physicians by taking a rest to attend to his health without any further delay, they said in a statement Monday.

Others who signed the statement are Debo Adeniran, Chris Kwaja, Y. Z. Yau, Chom Bagu, Olanrewaju Suraju, Ezenwa Nwagwu, Anwal Musa Rafsanjani, David Ugolor, Sina Odugbemi, Muhammed Attah and Adetokunbo Mumuni.

Read the groups full statement below:

When President Mohammadu Buhari was recently in the United Kingdom on a medical vacation, which lasted 59 days, many public officers said that he was hale and hearty. But upon his return to the country President Buhari disclosed that he had never been that sick in his entire life. Even though the President did not disclose the nature of his ailment, he revealed that he went through blood transfusion. While thanking the Nigerian people for their prayers, the President announced that he might soon travel back for further medical treatment.

A few weeks ago, the Governor of Kaduna state, Mr. Nasir El-Rufai urged Nigerians to give President Buhari time to recover from his sickness. The plea was made after the Governor had visited and presumably assessed the state of the President at the presidential villa in Abuja. However, due to the apparent deterioration in the Presidents health condition, he has neither been seen in public in the last one week nor attended the last two meetings of the Federal Executive Council. His absence at the last Jumat service in the villa has fuelled further speculations and rumours on President Buharis medical condition.

But instead of embarking on regular briefing on the actual state of the health of President Buhari, officials of the federal government have continued to assure the Nigerian people that the is no need for apprehension over the matter. In defending the absence of the President at the last FEC meeting and other state functions, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu stated that the presidents doctors have advised on his taking things slowly, as he fully recovers from the long period of treatment in the United Kingdom some weeks ago.

As we join the Nigerian people of goodwill to pray for a speedy recovery of President Buhari, we are compelled to advise him to heed the advice of his personal physicians by taking a rest to attend to his health without any further delay.

Source : ( Premium Times )
The Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, has disclosed that the administration of his predecessor, Ibrahim Shema, operated over 100 savings accounts in various banks.

Mr. Masari made this known on Sunday at an interactive session with the states indigenes living in Abuja at Shehu YarAdua Conference Centre, Abuja.

The governor also disclosed that he met only N7.9 million in the governments salary account, as he gave a vivid picture of the financial situation of the state as at the time when he took ofiice from Mr. Shema at the end of May 2015.

We inherited N7.9 million only in the salary account in May, 2015, the previous administration operated more than 100 savings accounts in various banks.

Now we have serious problem in Katsina State. Federal allocations of most of our local government areas are not sufficient for them to even pay salaries. Even the state government in many cases has to wait for interventions like bailout and budgetary support from the federal government to execute some projects, Mr. Masari said.

He also said his government met most schools, hospitals and many public structures in a dilapidated condition, lamenting that the situation was deplorable beyond our expectation.

Mr. Masari said his administration is still battling with over-staffing and over-payment of salaries, pension and gratuities.

He called on stakeholders to invest in the state to provide job opportunity to the teeming youth of the state.

In terms of poverty, Katsina ranks third position in Nigeria. But we have no reason to be where we are. We are where we are because we chose to be where we are. Let us come together and make Katsina great again and restore its lost glories.

Seven commissioners and two heads of parastatals presented records of their achievements to the gathering that attracted many prominent indigenes of Katsina state.

During his presentation, Secretary to the State Government, Mustapha Inuwa, who is also the head of task force on security, narrated how some traditional rulers, politicians and businessmen connived with cattle rustlers.

We have reports where these people will buy a cow at the cost of N30,000 only, knowing very well that its market value was N150,000.

Source : ( Premium Times )
Former vice president and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Atiku Abubakar has again backed calls for the establishment of state police, but said to guarantee that, Nigeria has to critically examine its current structure with a view to practising real fiscal federalism.

Abubakar who also warned against inter-agency rivalry, made the submissions on Sunday in a paper, Good Governance and Development: Notes on Nigeria which he delivered at the 2nd Annual Convention of the Abia State Medical Association Alumni Association in London.

To improve good governance in Nigeria we also need to restructure the countrys federal system. This include fiscal federalism, devolution of powers to federating units and the restoration of state police to states that so desire, he said.

According to him, good governance requires proper coordination of the organs of government. You cannot have different agencies of the same government working at cross-purposes or contradicting each other on very important policy issues, and personnel selection.

Speaking further, the former vice president said in contemporary Nigeria, good governance would involve addressing the countrys economic stagnation and crisis, including transitioning the economy to a post-oil/commodities trajectory, ensuring security, fighting corruption and restructuring the polity, including the structure of the federation and government institutions.

In a democracy, a vibrant and constructive opposition, including opposition political parties and independent news media, are critical in ensuring good governance because they help to inform and mobilize the citizens and hold the government to account. And above all, perhaps, good governance requires a vigilant and demanding electorate.

We also have to improve security, including anti-terrorism, anti-kidnapping and anti-armed robbery, and efforts to end the herdsmen-farmers clashes. Fortunately, progress has been made in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency by the Buhari administration, but we need to also make progress on the others. All these security issues are broadly linked to economic challenges, and improvements in the latter will help in that regard.

We might consider using the current geo-political zones as federating units since they are large enough to be more viable or we may consider a means-test for viability of states such that existing states that are unable to generate a specified percentage of their revenues from internal sources will be collapsed into other states. This will encourage the federating units to once more engage in productive activities and healthy rivalries, Abubakar submitted.

Dignitaries present at the event included representative of the governor of Abia state and Commissioner of Health, Dr. Gozie John Ahukanna, Chief Medical Director of Abia State University Teaching Hospital (ABSUTH), Prof Chuks Kamanu, Pioneer Provost, Abia State University College of Medicine (who represented the Vice Chancellor of Abia State University), Prof Francis Akpuaka Prof Uche Ikonne, Dr. Ibrahim Imam, Consultant Neurologist, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Trust, Dr. Thaddeus Iheanacho, President ABSU Medical Alumni USA/Canada, and the event organizer, Dr. Chile Ogugua.

Source: Vanguard
Suspected Cultists have killed the former youth leader in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers,Isaac Obe, and another person have been killed gunmen suspected to be cultists, who stormed Alode c ommunity and unleashed mayhem.

According to reports, It was gathered that the incident, which happened at about 7pm on Saturday, made Alode youths to protest the action of the suspected cultists

The angry youths, according to the State Police Command, went on the rampage after they learnt that two persons from the community had been shot dead by cultists.

It was also gathered that about 10 houses, including the one belonging to a community chief, Donald Awala, were set ablaze by the youths.

Though the identity of the second victim had yet to be ascertained, Southern City News gathered that some indigenes of Alode scampered to safety when they heard gunshots.

A source from Eleme said the former youth leader was shot while he was about to enter his residence, adding that the second persons killed was a visitor to the community.

The source, who preferred not to be identified, said, These things are very complex. They have their own internal community problems, both chieftaincy and youth council problems. So, it is difficult to say what is responsible.

The guy that was killed was a former youth president and a friend of his, who came in with him from Port Harcourt. Then his people now went on the rampage. About 10 houses were burnt.

One of the houses belonged to the chief of the community, Donald Awala. The community might have felt that it was about their local chieftaincy matter and they went to houses to destroy things.

When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Nnamdi Omoni, confirmed the incident and said security operatives had retored peace to the area.

Omoni said, I dont know the identity of the two persons that were killed, but I can confirm to you that the incident happened at about 7pm on Saturday in Alode community.

An area commander went there and peace has returned. The youths had earlier gone on the rampage over the incident.

The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Zaki Ahmed, according to him, had directed that an investigation be carried out urgently on the matter.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
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.
The states civil servant of Gombe State will have something to smile about after the state governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo assured the workers that of Gombe State that his government would immediate implement the proposed N56, 000 national minimum wage, if the federal government approves it.

Mr. Dankwambo gave the assurance at the commemoration of 2017 Workers Day in Gombe on Monday.

The governor was represented by his deputy, Charles Iliya, who is currently the acting governor.

As soon as the Federal Government approves the new minimum wage, our administration will implement it within the limit of our resources, he said.

He called on the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Nigerians to be resilient and support government efforts aimed at moving the country out of current economic recession.

Our administration accords top priority to the welfare of civil servants whose selfless service contributed immensely to the socio-economy development of our dear state, he said.

Earlier in his remarks, Aliyu Kamara, the state chairman, NLC, appealed to the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency approve the new minimum wage submitted by the technical committee.

He said that approval of the new minimum wage became necessary, considering the current economic recession and the attendant high cost of goods and services in the country.

Mr. Kamara also appealed to state government to consider all issues presented to it during the interactive session held between labour leaders and government.

He noted that this year theme entitled, Labour Relations in Economic Recession an Appraisal could not have come at a better time, considering the numerous challenges facing Nigerian workers.

Mr. Kamara, however, commended the state government for prompt payment of salaries and allowances of civil servants, employment and the release of N2 billion for the payment of gratuities to retirees.

Also in his remarks, Daniel Musa, the states head of service, called on workers to continue to support the government.

Mr. Musa assured the workers that with the authentic data of the civil servants, identification cards with pin number would soon be issued to civil servants.

He expressed optimism that the effort would improve the service and detect lazy workers.

Source : (NAN)
A final year Computer Science student of Anambra State University, Ulli campus, has been murdered by unknown gunmen suspected to be cultists in yet another tragic news reported online.

A Facebook user identified as Ikejiuba Olivia, has taken to the social networking platform to post some shocking photos and share the heartbreaking story of a final year Computer Science student of Anambra State University, Ulli campus, identified as Mohammed Umar, who was recently murdered.

According to Olivia, the deceased from Kogi State was killed by unknown gunmen believed to be cultists on Friday night, April 28th, in her presence on their way back from an event organised by the Students Union Government.

See the graphic photos;
The whole drama behind the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as the law makers are ready to go the full length with the President.

The upper chamber of the National Assembly is considering placing an embargo on approval of appointments by the President until the legislature and the executive resolved the lingering crisis between them.

It was gathered on Sunday that the Senate would make the move based on the recent comment by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, who said he agreed with human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), that Section 171 of the Constitution empowers the President to make some appointments without National Assemblys approval.

An impeccable source in the leadership of the Senate told our correspondent that a constitutional crisis was brewing in the country.

According to the source, the legislature and the executive have conflicting interpretation of the Constitution on their powers and responsibilities.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said while an intervention by the judiciary would be needed, the executive should go to court and not the legislature.

The Presidency and the Senate had clashed over the retention of Mr. Ibrahim Magu as acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission despite the rejection of his appointment by the legislature.

The Senate had, on March 28, 2017, suspended the consideration of the 27 nominees by the President as Resident Electoral Commissioners of the Independent National Electoral Commission for two weeks.

The move was to protest the Presidencys insistence on Magu as the acting Chairman of EFCC.

Osinbajo had ruled out the possibility of Buhari replacing Magu with another nominee, adding that the President did not find the DSS report, which was the basis for Magus rejection, as a strong reason to replace the EFCC boss.

He said despite being rejected twice, the government was still at liberty to renominate Magu.

Speaking to our correspondent on Sunday, the National Assembly source stated, There is going to be a constitutional crisis in Nigeria because the Senate is now at a crossroads on what to do with the nominations made by the President for which he is seeking the confirmation by the Senate.

Going by what Osinbajo said on Magu, it means that the nations Presidents from 1999, who sent nominations to the Senate for confirmation, had all breached the Constitution. Even Buhari, who has been sending nominations to the Senate, was not properly advised.

Senate President Bukola Saraki had, at the plenary on Wednesday, read three letters from Buhari, seeking the confirmation of some of his appointments, including three non-career ambassadorial nominees,

The President, in another letter, sought confirmation of the appointment of five members for the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The President also wrote the Senate separately to seek the confirmation of the appointment of the Chairman, National Electricity Regulation Commission.

Also, the lawmakers have yet to screen and confirm the two ministerial nominees sent to the Senate by Buhari.

The source added, They may not (be considered, including those of the CBN, NERC and others just sent to the Senate, because of the claims made by the Vice-President. He spoke as if he was speaking the mind of the President.

The source added, They (Presidency) should proceed to court to seek endorsement for their position. It is their business to go to the court, not the Senates. The Vice President has already stalled the nomination and confirmation processes by his unguarded statements.

He somehow agreed with Falana that there is no need for legislative confirmation for the appointments. With the Section 171 claim by the Vice-President, the Senate is now at a crossroads on whether to go on with the confirmation (of appointments) or adopt the new claim by the Presidency.

The National Assembly follows established laws, which have been used for all dealings with the other arms of government. If they now have a contrary view, they should go to court.

But a member of the Senate expressed his anger over the plan in an interview with our correspondent.

The All Progressives Congress lawmaker lamented that some recent decisions by the chamber were not enjoying the support of most members.

The lawmaker said, Between you and I, that is rubbish. The issue of Magu is rubbish; the issue of (the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service) Hameed Ali is rubbish.

If some of us insist on Magus removal and Ali should appear before the Senate in uniform, how does that put food on the table of Nigerians? And we are supposed to focus on what can improve the life of the average Nigerians; we are not doing that. But we are busy with Ali, Magu and other issues. It is so unfortunate.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, could not be reached for comments on the latest development.

While he did not return our correspondents calls on Saturday, the lines indicated that they had been switched off on Sunday.

But the Vice-Chairman, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, said the Senate would address all issues relating to the relationship between the lawmakers and the Presidency.

He said, By Tuesday, Senator Sabi (Abdullahi) will speak on the issue as reflected by the joint decision of the Senate. Nobody can take any individual position (on the matter); the Senate will take the position.

When asked to speak as the deputy spokesman for the Senate, Murray-Bruce replied, Sabi will take that position because I have not gotten any official communication from the Senate and I dont have any opinion (on the matter).

President Buhari had set up a reconciliatory committee chaired by Osinbajo, which has as members ministers, who were at a time, members of the National Assembly as members.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang; and Samaila Kawu (House of Representatives) are also members.

But while the Presidency said the panel had started to meet with the Senate leadership, Saraki had denied such meetings, saying the committee was not necessary.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, could not be reached for comments on Saturday and Sunday.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has been warned by the Commissioner of Police, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Command, Mr Musa Kimo against its planned protest in Abuja.

The Commissioner gave the warning in a statement issued by the commands Spokesman, ASP Usen Omorodion in Abuja on Sunday.

He said as a professional organisation, the command would not fold its arms and watch criminal elements hide under the guise of such protest to cause breakdown of law and order.

Kimo advised residents to go about their lawful duties without fear and molestation.

In a related development, the FCT spokesman the command arrested a member of an armed robbery syndicate at Robochi, Abuja on April 26.

He said Usman Alhaji Mai-moto, 24, a principal suspect was arrested with a stolen motorcycle by police operatives on routine patrol.

The spokesman said the suspect confessed to have participated in the snatching of several motorcycles at gunpoint.

Omorodion said the suspect had given the police useful information that led to the arrest of one of his cohorts, Wisdom Peter, 18, who was arrested while trying to sell a stolen motorcycle.

He said the two stolen motorcycles had been recovered from the suspects.

Frantic effort is being made to arrest their cohort said to be in possession of the firearm used by the syndicate for its robbery operations.

Omorodion said the command had also arrested three suspects who specialised in house breaking.

The suspects are : Mansur Aminu, 24, Emmanuel Aboki and Dauda Isa.

Items recovered from them include, two clippers, 11 SIM cards and one generating set.

He said the suspects would be transferred to the Command Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for discreet investigation and prosecution.

Source : ( PM News )
Big Brother Niger exhousemate, TBoss is finally talking about the sexual assault that stirred major controversy during and after the just-concluded Big Bother Nigeria Show.

In a new interview with Ebuka Obi-Uchendu on Rubbin Minds, the reality star revealed that the disqualified housemate Kemen has been making efforts to reach her since the show ended but she kept him at bay because she is angry with the way he has handled his interviews since the show ended.

TBoss, real name is Tokunbo Idowu, also addressed the AY Makuns conduct at the AY Live concert as well as former Presidential Aide Reuben Abatis article.

See the excerpts as culled from LIB:

On Kemen:

I considered Kemen a friend. He was my go-to guy. He was my buddy, my muscle. He encouraged me. He motivated me. So for what happened to have happened considering all the people that look up to me, it was sad. I was angry. I was humiliated and I did feel violated but I dont play the victim card. I honestly think that the decision that Big Brother took was the only decision that could have been taken. And everything that Kemen has to say about that, na him get him mouth, e fit use am talk wetin him wan talk but he knows and we know.

On her relationship with Kemen since the show ended:

I have seen him a few times but I really dont want to talk to him because honestly the day you (Ebuka) came into the house with Karen, I was thinking what would happen if I see Kemen because I thought there would be a party after then. I just wanted to slap him. I think I even said that but then I came out and I said you know what everyone can make mistake because I am an attractive person but then, I come out and I hear the interviews he has given, today he makes an apology and then tomorrow he comes out to say TBoss knows what happened and that if there was no N25 million involved, hopefully she would tell the truth. What truth are you talking about? You are contradicting yourself. And then you are calling me? He has called me like over 15-20 times but I dont want to speak to him. I am not ready because if I talk, I would say the wrong things. I want to calm down.

On AY Makuns joke:

I totally feel it was insensitive of him. It was very insensitive because like I said, I have a lot to say. Everyone who watched the show knows I am a very emotional person and I am very sensitive and this is not something that can be overlooked or joked about. I see the comments. I sneak into my Instagram and see the comments and I am like look, you are a female. This could have happened to you. This probably has happened to you. This incident was on camera. People saw it and people still chose to make light of this situation and make a joke out of it. If I consent to you touching me, that doesnt mean I consent to you kissing me or going the extra mile. if you do that to me on international tv and someone out there feels it is content for a joke, its unfair. You do not have to have a daughter or a sister or any female that is close to you for you to know that what went down was not ok. You just made a mockery of my emotions and my pain. That was insensitive.

On Reuben Abati:

That was sad, that was just sad. Coming from someone of that calibre.
The wanted leader of a militant group involved in kidnapping in Ikorodu and Epe areas of Lagos State have been killed by Nigerian soldiers in Ondo State.

This was confirmed by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, told journalists on Monday in Lagos that the suspect was killed by soldiers at Ajakpa area of Ondo State.

Mr. Owoseni said he was killed at about 3.00 a.m. on Monday in the course of arresting all members of his gang and other criminals who had made life miserable for innocent citizens.

He said the gang members retreated to their base in Ajakpa because they could no longer lay claim to the creeks in Isawo area of Ikorodu.

At about 3.00a.m. today, soldiers posted to dislodge the militants wreaking havoc in some parts of Lagos engaged the criminals in a shootout at Ajakpa, during which the suspected leader known as Ossy was killed.

Efforts are ongoing to arrest the other gang members, Owoseni said.

In a statement, Abubakar Abdullahi, Coordinator, Joint Media Campaign Centre, said Operation DELTA SAFE carried out the killing.

According to Mr. Abdullahi, the squad repelled an attack in Ajakpa Community in the creeks of Southern Ondo State on Sunday night.

He said the attack was led by the notorious gang leader, Ossy Ibori, who had a hideout at Ajakpa, Ilaje Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The leader was gunned down during the gun duel along with some of his gang members. His body was identified by some of the locals in the area.

Search for other criminals who jumped into the water with gunshot wounds is ongoing. The troops recovered one AK 47 rifle and four magazines, he said.

The Ibori gang had been terrorising parts of Lagos, Ogun and Ondo States.

Last month, the gang killed an army captain and two policemen in Ikorodu, Lagos.

The gang was also blamed for the abduction of students and staff of a secondary school, in Ikorodu area.

The criminals, in addition, carried out several attacks at Ilaje Ese-Odo Community at Ajakpa, Safarogbo and Balowo areas, Mr. Abdullahi said.

Mr. Abdullahi said the need to flush the criminals out from their hideout became necessary to ensure peace and security in Ondo State.

Sadly, in the process, one gallant soldier paid the supreme price while three others sustained gunshot wounds.

They have since been moved to a military hospital for proper medical attention.

While the operation is ongoing, let me appeal to law-abiding residents of the affected communities to remain calm, vigilant and to support our troops with valuable information on whereabouts of other criminals, he said.

(NAN)
The level of child abuse in the country is still on the rise, the latest was the case of a man identified as, Mr. Olanrewaju Bakare, who was arrested by the Lagos State Police Command for allegedly brutalising a 15-year-old girl, identified only as Alaba.

It was gathered that the victim had been taken by her parents to Ibadan, Oyo State, to live with her aunt, who shortly afterwards took her to stay with Bakare and his family on Lowa Estate, in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State.

Bakare was said to have promised to take care of the victim for the time he would serve his family, adding that he would send her to a vocational centre.

The suspect was alleged to have reneged on the promise.

It was learnt that on April 24, 2017, some neighbours heard the cry of the teenager and intervened.

A neighbour, who did not want to be identified, said, She started living with the man and his wife not quite long; but we always heard her cry. When she started crying again this time, we intervened and asked what happened.

She said the man used a part of a disused tyre to flog her for eating her meal with a piece of meat after he asked her not to. She said he became angry and hit her, which made her to sustain injuries on different parts of her body.

The neighbour said residents alerted officials of the Office of the Public Defender in Ita Elewa, Ikorodu.

An official of the OPD, who did not want to be identified, said on receipt of the information, the agency alerted the police to join in the rescue of the victim.

He said, Preliminary investigation showed that the girls mother took her to live with her aunt in Ibadan. She didnt stay long with the aunt before she was taken to live with this couple who had two children.

They promised to take her to a vocational school where she would learn hairdressing, but they never did. Things turned out worse for Alaba, as she was always being abused and maltreated by Mr. Lanre (Bakare). She was rescued by neighbours who heard her cry on the day she was flogged with part of a disused tyre.

The Director of OPD, Mrs. Olubukola Salami, lauded the cooperation of members of the public in the arrest of the suspect.

She said, We will continue to resist child abuse and child labour in Lagos State. I appeal to residents to continue to blow the whistle on their neighbours who are violating the law. This way, the society will be better fr it.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, could not be reached for comment as of the time of filing this report.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
A man identified as Gregory Anyasodo, has been arrested by the Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad, RRS, of the Lagos State Police Command have for impersonating Nigerian Police and extorting money from people in Oshodi.

The suspect, Gregory Anyasodo, 47, from Owerri North, Imo State was arrested on Thursday after stealing N125,000 from one of his victims, a trader in Oshodi.

The unsuspecting victim, Mrs Emmanuella Joseph had approach RRS officials stationed in Oshodi to report Anyasodos threat to arrest her and the confiscation of her hand bag containing N125,000.

A search around the area led to the arrest of Anyasodo and the recovery of a radio that appeared a walkie  talkie and a Police Identity card, which portrayed him as an Inspector with the number 14873, attached to Lagos Taskforce and Special Anti-Robbery Squad.

Confirming the crime, the suspect acknowledged seizing the traders bag but did not steal her money as alleged by the victim.

I have been in the trade since December 2016. I came to Lagos before Christmas in preparation for The Lords Chosen convention in Lagos, which was held in February, 2017 at Ijesha.

My early coming for the programme was for me to seize that opportunity to look for job in Lagos. When I couldnt get a job, I ventured into impersonating the police, he explained.

He stated further: I have been arrested six times in Owerri for impersonation. I have impersonated WAEC and JAMB officials. I have been arrested thrice by Shell Camp police, Owerri for impersonation.

I am a father of six. I left my wife with six children when I was coming to Lagos. I have been sleeping in hotels since I got to Lagos.

Occasionally, people allow me to sleep on the balconies and corridors of their house after I had convinced them that am a stranger. I make between N10,000 to N15, 000 daily parading myself as police officer and extorting innocent people, he stated.

What I do is move closer to them and tell them, mostly traders. I show them my identity card and I threatened to invite my colleagues if they failed to settle me. I collect the money and I move away. I am sorry, I have not sent a dime to my wife in Owerri to take care of the six children I left in her possession but occasionally, I call her. I thought of impersonating police because it would fetch me more money.

Also arrested with Anyasodo were the graphic artist who designed Police identity card for him and the owner of the business centre.

The three suspects have been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Yaba.

Source: ( PM News )
The organizers of Africas Greatest Retail Experience are delighted to announce Maria Okan as the official host for the Innovation edition of Cocktails & Dresses 2017, scheduled to hold on Sunday May 7, 2017 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Maria Okan, multi-media personality currently co-hosting The Morning Rush on Beat FM will emcee the 3rd edition of Cocktails & Dresses. Maria Okan takes over from past Cocktails & Dresses hosts- Mimi Onalaja and Kaylah Oniwo this May.

This years event would also have Calabar-born Ex- Big Brother Nigeria 2017 Housemate,Bassey Ekpenyong popularly known as Bassey & MTV Base VJ KOla as the official Black Carpet host. The Eclectic Black Carpet Rave at Cocktails & Dresses starts at 12 Noon capturing the prestigious nature of the event, from the glamorous made in Africa outfits to the notable personalities.

In the wake of the #MadeinNigeria Campaign by the Nigerian government in ensuring the upliftment of the nations culture and to promote Made-in-Nigeria textile products. Hence, all eyes will be on this fashion industry event, while having notable personalities and world-class speakers.

Last years keynote speakers, Senator Ben Murray Bruce and Prof. Pat Utomi used the platform to make some gentle but pointed statements about magnifying and globalizing the very best of made in Africa fashion, beauty and home-goods; as the movement continues to grow, the stakes are increasingly high for Cocktails & Dresses to deliver another outstanding event this year whilst boosting President Buharis support for the Made in Nigeria campaign.

Attendance is FREE! The event will air on EbonyLife TV, Spice TV, Vox Africa and Rave TV.

Free drinks from Amarula and Redbull all day long.

Where would you be on Sunday, May 7th, 2017?

Dont miss Africas Greatest Retail Experience
A Nollywood fictional thriller that depicts security agencies patriotic fight against terrorism and other crimes in the society has hit cinemas in Abuja, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

The film titled Conscripted, is a production of Capital Pictures, and was premiered on Saturday night at the NAF Conference Centre.

Mr Aik Odiase, the producer of the movie tells the story of insecurity as a global challenge, and why people should appreciate the unique sacrifices paid by security men in the service to their fatherland.

He said: Conscripted is a call-up to a sacrificial service to defend ones country, and that of victory of good over evil.

The story plot was culled from the Society, what the world and Nigeria in particular, is doing to surmount terrorism and all forms of insecurity.

There were bombings, kidnappings, rapes, armed robbery and other security challenges threatening the peace of Nigerians.

Because of the increasing rate on security challenges in the country, three selfless officers were drafted and specially trained by the relevant authorities to combat crime.

The gallant officers include: Brown who is in charge of schematic, Pinky who is in charge of interrogation and Edge the head of the Special Anti-Crime Unit of the Police Force,he said.

Odiase noted that like many security officers, the anti-crime squad members paid some costly prices in their passionate service to their country.

He added that the scenario was to reassert the need to appreciate and support security officers in ensuring a safe society for all.

In the process, Edge lost his daughter, and Brown lost his mother who was kidnapped.

Pinky on her part, lost her relationship when she found out that her man was one of those terrorising the state.

All these clearly express the fact that our security men are human after all, they and their families also need protection.

The anti-crime movie featured iconic Nollywood stars, Aik Odiase as Edge, Chinyere Onah as Pinky and Preach Bassey as Brown.

Other casts include Sir K, Mikky Odey, Sunny Williams and Lizzy Ofuani, among others.

Mr Sunny-Ken Awoji, the Vice Chairman of Abuja Chapter of the Association of Movie Producers (AMP), who also collaborated in the Conscripted project, commended the initiative.

He noted that the movie was a big boost and would open new frontiers for the film industry in Abuja, since it was one hundred per cent produced in the territory.

This movie is a clear reflection of the potential that abound in the Federal Capital Territory, in terms of filmmaking.

All the actors, producer, director, and even the equipment and locations used in the movie are from within Abuja.

This is the first time this is happening, as what we usually see is to see someone come with casts and shoot a movie and then leave

We have used Conscripted to create a niche for the movie industry in Abuja. he added.

Awoji noted that the movie had received several nominations for both international and local awards.

Actors, producers and other stakeholders in Nollywood across the country were among those present at the premiere.
I have never done Oxy but my little sister did after surgery. She told me she will never take Oxy again and she is a public school teacher heavily involved in her Christian church.



edit: I did not know Demerol was an opiate but when I won a bar fight the pinky knuckle on my right hand got broke and went to the emergency room because the Doctor was my next door neighbor. Dr. Esler, Vietnam Vet, said that is a classic boxer break and told the nurse to give me a big shot of Demerol before he set it. I got in an arm wrestling contest with him and won when he was setting it. Is Demerol a synthetic morphine? Just asking because I don't know.
As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Day on Wednesday, April 26, 2017, stakeholders in the film industry took their campaign to Alaba International Market, the acclaimed hub of piracy activities in Africa.

Led by the Audio-Visual Rights Society of Nigeria (AVRS), a company approved by the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) as a Collective Management Organization (CMO) for Cinematograph Films in Nigeria, the delegation which was received by the Chairman of Fancy and Furniture section of the market, Mr. Emeka Mozoba, include Chairman of AVRS, Mr. Bond Emeruwa, actress and Guest Speaker at the event, Hilda Dokubo, Chairman of Film and Video Producers/Marketers Association of Nigeria (FVPMAN), Emeka Aduah, Secretary of Yoruba Video Film Marketers Association of Nigeria (YVFMAN), Tunji Adetola, Aina Kushoro, Lilian Amah- Aluko, Fidelis Duker, Nobert Ajaegbu, Okey Ogunjiofor, Emma Isikaku and Paul Okoli among others.

Dokubo who talked tough at the event, urged the marketers to desist henceforth, from replicating the works of filmmakers without permission, saying it amounts to robbing the right owners of their source of livelihood, while it also hinders investors from partaking in the economic advancement of the creative sector.

So if you ask me, what is the property that has brought us here today? In my hand is a CD; it is a property. That is because it belongs to somebody, it is someones investment. It is somebodys life and wealth. It can lead to someone being alive or killed, she said.

Continuing, Dokubo said, To those who decide to make us poor; because when you steal from us, you are actually ripping us off. Which means you have kept away investors from this business; both locally and internationally.

We are all looking for international partners and treaties, so for those who pirate our work, they will kill those treaties and investment. So you are keeping partners away from us.

This market is big enough to accommodate all of us, if we all agree to work together. I will tell you how this stealing works; because all of you will say you do not pirate.

When you buy a copy and go and duplicate and give it to the boys who push them around in wheel barrows for sale, you are a thief. You are killing people, she declared.

Chairman of Fancy and Furniture section, Mr. Emeka Mozoba, who admitted that piracy activities exist in the market, promised to work hand in hand with the government, NCC, AVRS and other anti-piracy regulatory bodies to fight piracy in Nigeria.

Earlier, the AVRS boss emphasized on the theme of the event for 2017: Innovation  Improving Lives, noting that, for him, the greatest innovation of recent times remains Nollywood. A gentle fusion of technology and the African art of storytelling  making it possible for a simple campfire story to be seen and heard across nations  informing, educating, fostering unity, peace, love and most of all, entertaining.

According to Emeruwa, filmmakers will soon have cause to smile, as their intellectual rights are being enforced for relevant returns.

This is an exercise that we have been pursuing vigorously and we promise that soon, filmmakers will have cause to smile. We have engaged with hotels, broadcast organizations and other users of your works and the response has been very encouraging. We implore other users of cinematography works to ensure they are licensed as we are set to use all means within our power to enforce our rights. The lives of our filmmakers must be improved, he said.

He urged the Federal Government to speed up the process of implementation of the Copyright Levy (on Materials) order 2012 which he said was signed and left unimplemented since 2012 to the detriment of Nigerias creative economy.
Seven persons who are suspected to be cultists have been arrested by the Rivers State Police Command over alleged involvement in a cult clash that claimed five persons in Omudioga Community in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State.

The Police Public Relations Officer of the Command, Mr. Nnamdi Omoni, disclosed that seven suspects were apprehended during the operation of a special security team in the community.

Omoni, who is a Deputy Superintended of Police, stated that the police team visited and had restored peace to the community.

He also noted that lives were lost as a result of cult war, stressing that the development led to the drafting security operatives to the community.

He said, There was a case of cult war in that community, but there is presence of police in the community. As it stands now, there is normalcy.

The police have arrested seven people. They are helping the police in the investigation. We are warning cultists to repent or face the full weight of the law.

Deygbam and the Icelander cult groups had on Wednesday clashed over who would control Omudioga community.

But a source in the community told Southern City News that the Deygbam cultists invaded the community and killed some persons believed to be members of the Icelanders cult group.

The Omudioga Youth President, Mr. Chinyere Amadi, told our correspondent that residents of the community had yet to return home after the shooting.

Amadi named some of the victims of the attack as Ezeka Nwadike and Prince Omata, and requested continued security presence in the community.

Source :( Punch Newspaper )
The 15-year-old boy that was used as a collateral for N8,000 loan last week by his parents has been rescued by the Lagos State Police Command.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the police had already transferred the victims parents and others alleged to have been involved in the case to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Yaba.

Our correspondent had reported that Samuels parents ran into a financial crisis after his mother became sick and the stepfather lost his job.

The family was said to have given him to a Lagos trader, Iya Meta, and collected N8,000 for him to work for the woman for two months.

Iya Meta was alleged to have further loaned him to three women on Lagos Island, collecting N72,000 for his service.

The trio were alleged to have further given him out to a woman in the Mushin area.

It was alleged that two policewomen from the Ijora Badia division were involved in the illegal deal.

Iya Meta, who called our correspondent on Thursday, had said she caught one of the women and the matter was moved to the Adeniji Adele Police Division.

It was later transferred to the Ijora Badia Police Division.

A source in the station said the victim was loaned to a family in Mushin.

He said, It is a messy case. The parents used the boy to work and collected money. The woman passed him to another set of women who then passed him further to a 70-year-old woman. We rounded up all of them and transferred them to the SCIID where they will be prosecuted.

The victim told us in his statement that his father was still alive and it was his stepfather and his mother that used him to make money because of poverty. He said where they took him to, they were using him like a slave.

It is not true that policewomen from this division aided some of the suspects in the case. We have nothing to gain in it. It is an attempt to smear the division, which has been investigating some high-profile crime cases.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Olarinde Famous-Cole, said investigations were ongoing, adding that the suspects would soon be charged to court.
Residents of Ifetedo Estate, Omu Arogun village, Mowe, Ogun State, on Sunday stormed Kingsway International Christian Centre, Lagos, to protest against the alleged unlawful demolition of their houses.

They said their buildings were reportedly demolished by a gang in company with policemen, who were said to be acting on the orders of the KICCs authorities.

The protesters assembled at the entrance of the KICC, Lagos, around 10am while the Sunday service was ongoing. They were, however, denied access to the premises.

They displayed placards, some of which read, Unlawful demolition of properties in Omu Arogun by Pastor Ashimolowos agents, We are sleeping outside with our families since the demolition and We legally bought our land from Morufu Odusola, among others.

PUNCH Metro learnt that the gang brought a bulldozer to demolish houses on the estate around 11am on Thursday, while riot policemen, numbering about 15, supervised the operation.

It was said that the incident happened when most landlords had gone to their workplaces, with no fewer than 24 houses reportedly brought down.

The protesters told our correspondent that they differently bought parcels of land from one Morufu Odesola, saying they were surprised to discover that the same land had been acquired by the pastor.

One of them, a widow, Mrs. Grace Apkama, whose three-bedroomed flat was demolished, said she built the house with the gratuity of her late husband, a police officer.

She said she had been thrown into distress since the demolition, adding that she had nowhere to go with her four children.

She said, I bought a half plot from Morufu (Odesola) for N250,000 in 2010. I used the gratuity of my husband to build the house. It was a three-bedroomed flat. I lived there with my four children. I sell drinks to cater to my children. Two of them are in universities.

On Thursday, I went to buy something in the neighbourhood. I was there when somebody came to tell me that some people were demolishing my house. I rushed home and met some riot policemen. They initially prevented me from entering into the house. I begged them to let me pick my belongings.

I was in shock while I was packing. I was only able to remove some of my belongings. My children were not around. I watched as they demolished my house.

There was no prior notice. I approached one of the policemen and told him that my husband was also a police officer. He said Pastor Ashimolowo had bought the land. He said it was not his fault and that they were sent from Abuja. I dont know where to go. I have nothing.

Another resident, Olabisi Rahmon, a carpenter, said he lost a four-bedroomed flat to the demolition. He said he was at work when he got the bad news, lamenting that his house had been levelled by the time he got home.

He said, I left my house around 5am that day to work in Ayobo, Lagos State. Around 11am, I got a call that my house was being demolished. By the time I returned home, all my property, including a plasma television, a washing machine, a refrigerator and clothes had been destroyed.

A woman, Iyabo Babatola, said her husband, who had gone to work in Lagos on that day, did not believe it when she informed him about the incident.

Another landlord, John Joshua, said, I have a two-bedroomed flat. I bought the land from Morufu Odesola. I started living there in February 2016. I was not aware that our houses would be demolished. I have a wife and three children. We now sleep in the open air. The policemen told us that they were sent by Pastor Ashimolowo.

An agent, Kayode Soboiki, said three buildings, which belonged to his clients who lived outside the country, were also affected, noting that one of the owners had been threatening him since he informed him of the demolition.

I dont know what to tell the other two now. I dont want to be punished for what I knew nothing about, he added.

An electrician and father of three children, Adesina Ismail, said, I moved into the house in September, 2016. It was a four-bedroomed flat. By the time I got home, I was only able to pick a few things. I am appealing to Pastor Ashimolowo to look into our situation. We are peace-loving people and bought the land legally.

An official of the church, who identified herself as an administrator, Modupe Mujota, enjoined the protesters to put their grievances in writing.

She said, This is not going to work; I can tell you that. Please, do not embarrass him (Ashimolowo). If you do, then you have played your last card. That is the truth. The proper thing is for you to write a letter; deliver it to this institution and we will ensure that he gets it. He is not here right now.

I am not aware and I will not speak about your grievances. But whatever your grievances are, this is not the way.

Odesola, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, confirmed that he sold the land to the landlords, saying that the matter was in court.

He said, I was also surprised when I was told that the pastor sent some people to demolish the houses. There is a case over the land at the Ogun State High Court, Abeokuta, with Pastor Ashimolowo. The next adjourned date is May 25, 2017. The court has not delivered its judgment.

I have all the papers to prove that the land belongs to my family and I have shown them to the police. Immediately I learnt about the demolition, I reported at the Mowe Police Division. But by the time policemen from the station got there, they had left.
Nigerian comedian, Basketmouths wife, Elsie, took to social media to heap early morning curses on all side chics across the universe.

She wrote:

Some daft chics will be waiting for your marriage to crash, so they can move in I dont know who i am speaking to, but while you are waiting, nd lightning will strike you dead .

See image below:
It was the last day of the month but unfortunately it was also the last day on earth for these two men, who lost their lives in a robbery attack along the Kaduna-Abuja road yesterday April 30th.

According to reports, the robbers reportedly opened fire on the commercial bus the men were traveling in. See the photos after the cut.

Source: ( Linda Ikeji )
Controversial Nollywood actor, Uche Maduagwu has taken his trolling of his female colleagues to the doorstep of Mercy Aigbe who was reportedly assaulted by her husband, Lanre Gentry.

The actor has set May 2017 as the month when the actress marriage finally ends.

This is according to an Instagram post he published today.

Maduagwu, who is now enjoying his I told you so chant wrote:

One more marriage will crash after this next month.

Shame on all my celebrity friends who doubted me some weeks ago, when I said a particular actresses marriage was about to crumble like the wall of Jericho, thank goodness it has come to the public now, also, earlier this year, I made a prophecy that many female celebrity marriages will crash in Nigeria.

To all those who criticized and called me names, shame on you all.. I told you all about this actresses case some time ago, but you all didnt believe me.

Anyways, there is another female celebrity whose marriage is also going down next monthwatch out, its also because of domestic violence.

Thats what you get when you marry an aspiring boxer as a husband.

This confirms earlier rumours concerning a domestic abuse report associated with the actress who posted a black eye image on Instagram with the caption, Say no to domestic violence. Only a Coward hits a woman! REAL MEN dont HIT!.
Taiwan's Tsai thanks British minister for support AP - Wed Nov 9, 1:41AM CST President Tsai Ing-wen has thanked British Trade Minister Greg Hands for Londons support for Taiwan after he became the latest foreign official to defy Chinese pressure and visit the self-ruled island... $SPX : 3,828.11 (+0.56%) $DOWI : 33,160.83 (+1.02%) $IUXX : 11,059.50 (+0.75%)

Gold (GC) Broke Weekly Chart Descending Wedge Resistance Tradable Patterns - Wed Nov 9, 1:24AM CST Gold (GCZ22) is consolidating after yesterdays massive near 3% surge, breaking above descending wedge resistance (on the weekly chart). GC is in the advanced stages of forming a major bottom and is... GCZ22 : 1,708.9 (-0.41%) GLD : 159.45 (+2.31%)

Livestock Report Walsh Trading - Tue Nov 8, 8:27PM CST Cattle markets drift

Wheat, W. D. Gann natural support and resistance levels ONE44 Analytics - Tue Nov 8, 5:17PM CST The Charts below are natural support and resistance levels that are based on W. D. Gann's "Law of Vibration".
Two individuals and an Albany business have received the 2016 Human Relations awards from the city of Albany Human Relations Commission.

The awards were presented to Dania J. Samudio, Keith Kolkow and Ochoa's Queseria at the April 26 meeting of the Albany City Council.

Samudio has served on the Linn-Benton Hispanic Advisory Committee for 19 years. She was honored for her work in the committees sponsorship of families in need during the year-end holidays and for garnering donations from local businesses in support of La Fiesta and its successor event, Festival Latino.

Kolkow was honored for his work on a variety of activities that promote and focus on historic downtown Albany, including organizing a Pokecrawl for Pokemon Go players; supporting Historic Preservation Month; Movies at Monteith; Christmas parlor tours; and serving on the city of Albany Landmarks Advisory Commission.

Ochoas Queseria, the first Mexican-style cheese factory in Oregon, was founded by Zoila and Froylan Ochoa and is operated today by their son, Francisco. Ochoa products are sold throughout the country and have received multiple awards in contests sponsored by the American Cheese Society.

The awards recognize individuals and organizations or businesses in Albany that have worked to promote harmonious relations among the citizens of Albany. Selection is based on a demonstrated commitment to promoting human relations, diversity, and/or equality through community programs and activities.

The Human Relations Commission was established in 2007 to promote harmonious relations among Albany citizens. Commission members are appointed by the Mayor and City Councilors.
Update 9/13/19  U-Haul will hold a community open house on Sept. 14 at the Waukesha self-storage facility to celebrate completed renovations, including 576 updated units, new security features and an enclosed loading/unloading area. The company had been running services out of a temporary showroom, according to a press release.

The open house, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., will include a behind-the-scenes facility tour and giveaways. A free lunch will be served on a first-come basis.

"Our facility is located 1.3 miles from Carroll University and is right on the edge of a growing neighborhood with new subdivisions and apartment complexes," said Christine Laclaw, general manager. "Waukesha is a thriving community with diverse demographics. We're excited to expand our reach here to meet the self-storage demands of our customers."

5/1/17  Phoenix-based U-Haul International Inc., which operates more than 1,300 self-storage locations across North America, has acquired two self-storage facilities in the Greater Milwaukee area for $17 million: The Vault of Menomonee Falls and The Vault of Waukesha. The properties are within 15 miles of one another and 20 miles from Milwaukee.

The Menomonee Falls facility at N58 W15500 Shawn Circle is near U.S. Route 45 and Interstate 41, and adjacent to the Bruceton Manor neighborhood and several retail stores. Built in 2016, it comprises 39,573 rentable square feet of storage space in 451 units. Phase two of the project, which is under construction and expected to be complete within the next 12 months, will expand the site to 80,230 net rentable square feet and 768 units.

The Waukesha site at 1450 S. West Ave. was built in 2014 and expanded to twice its original size a year later. It comprises 64,648 rentable square feet of space in 582 units. The property is less than a mile from Wisconsin Highway 59, less than five miles from Interstate 94, and within two miles of Carroll University. It faces the residential community Sunset Heights and a McDonalds.

"We are very excited to be a part of this acquisition," said Mike Schneider, president of the U-Haul Co. of South Eastern Wisconsin. "There is a big demand for U-Haul products and services in Menomonee Falls and Waukesha. We also have unique services including wine storage, safe deposit boxes and weapons storage."

The sale price for these two assets is the highest on record for a self-storage portfolio in the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis Metropolitan Statistical Area, according to a press release from Marcus & Millichap, the real estate firm that brokered the deal.

After a thorough national marketing campaign, we had multiple offers from both the public and private sectors. The level of interest in these facilities, although still in lease-up, was commensurate with the quality of these best-in-class assets, said Sean Delaney, first vice president of investments in the Marcus & Millichap Chicago-Oak Brook, Ill., office. Despite the fact that we are still in an uncertain and changing market, this transaction clearly demonstrates the continued demand by investors for quality assets.

The buyer and the seller, a private investor, were represented in the transaction by Delaney and Michael Mele, senior managing director of investments in the Marcus & Millichap Tampa, Fla., office as well as members of The Mele Group.

The acquisitions were driven by U-Hauls corporate sustainability initiatives, which support infill development to help local communities lower their carbon footprint, according to a company press release. U-Hauls adaptive reuse of existing structures eliminates the amount of energy and resources required for new-construction materials and helps local cities diminish their unwanted inventory of unused buildings, U-Haul officials said.

Established in 1945, U-Haul has more than 44 million square feet of storage space at its owned facilities throughout North America.

Founded in 1971, Marcus & Millichap is a commercial-property investment firm with more than 1,500 investment professionals in offices throughout Canada and the United States.
Size doesnt matter when it comes to diversity in the insurance industry, a new report has revealed.Lloyds released their latest diversity benchmarking report, which found that 71% of firms on the Lloyds marketplace have training or development in place that includes diversity and inclusion.Since the inaugural report last year, Lloyds has also found that 37.5% of firms have diversity and inclusion councils or steering committees, up from 20% last year. Some 53% have a formal diversity and inclusion policy in place.Dominic Christian, chair of [email protected] s and CEO of Aon UK, said that it is not just the biggest firms in the market that are looking to increase their diversity.Results show that perhaps counter-intuitively, you dont need a huge workforce and big budgets to progress successfully, Christian said.In fact, the smallest firms in our sample all have formal D&I policies in place.The new interim report provides an update on the progress of diversity and inclusion at Lloyds businesses and draws on the responses of 30 companies.Pauline Miller, head of diversity and inclusion at Lloyds, said that, whilst the results of the latest survey are encouraging, the marketplace must always temper our successes by acknowledging how much work there is still to do.For business outside of the Lloyds market, Rob Anarfi, global head of compliance and chair of diversity and inclusion steering committee at Beazley , said that there are several keys to ensuring a business becomes more welcoming and diverse.First of all, set a vision that key internal and external stakeholders can understand and some measurable goals and actions to take you there, Anarfi said.You also need to accept that it could be a long journey.
Its been a full year since the devastating Fort McMurray wildfires tore through northern Alberta, destroying 2,579 homes and triggering the worst insurance loss in Canadian history. Approximately $3.8 billion was paid out as a direct result of the blaze.



There were roughly 48,000 insurance claims from the fire, largely made up of 12,000 auto and 25,000 home claims, averaging $80,000 per claim. On the first anniversary of Canadas worst natural disaster in recent memory, Swiss Res head of underwriting for Canada, Balz Grollimund, reflected on lessons learned for an insurance industry still shaken from what happened in oil country.



For the insurance industry to be proactive, being on the ground quickly and working together with authorities is key following natural catastrophes. This worked really well in Fort McMurray and should serve as a template for future events, Grollimund said.



At the same time, natural disasters in Canada can be much more challenging for the insurance industry than the Fort McMurray wildfire. For instance, a big earthquake affecting the Vancouver region would pose a significantly bigger challenge in terms of the number of affected homes, businesses and therefore claims. Much remains to be done to be ready to respond to such an event.



Want the latest insurance industry news first? Sign up for our completely free newsletter service now.



A potential event of the same or similar magnitude is becoming more likely because of climate change - but Canadas preparedness hasnt matched the rising threat levels.



Unfortunately the true value of insurance reveals itself only after a big event such as Fort

McMurray, Grollimund said. While many homeowners impacted by the Fort McMurray fire did have property insurance, there remains a significantly larger protection gap for other perils such as flood and earthquake. For instance, only 3% of all homeowners purchase earthquake insurance in Quebec, leaving 97% of all homeowners exposed to the full financial impact of earthquake damage in that province.



Insurers incurred losses of previously unseen magnitudes during Fort McMurray and the message is that it could happen again  but then thats what insurance is all about.



The insurance industry should strive to cover as much of the financial burden as possible following large catastrophes by narrowing the gap of uninsured property owners, Grollimund said. Helping societies to recover quickly after catastrophes by helping to finance reconstruction is a core purpose of the insurance industry. This requires proper quantification and compensation for the insured risk.




A Kentucky lawyer is facing theft charges over settlements that were not remitted to his clients.Paducah personal injury attorney James Grant King will be arraigned today over charges filed by former clients who never saw a cent of the insurance settlements he negotiated on their behalf.The McCracken Country Sheriffs Department initiated an investigation following a complaint filed by a couple who said that King did not remit the settlement paid to them by Nationwide Insurance.According to The Paducah Sun, King allegedly failed to pay them the $93,000 settlement paid by the insurance company to settle their claim. When the couple confronted King about it after learning of the settlement from Nationwide, he said that the error was due to misplaced paperwork and that their money was being held in escrow.The couple then filed a complaint against King with the authorities.A paper trail revealed that King deposited the $93,000 in separate increments into a bank account in March and April 2016, and toward the end of April, all of the money had been withdrawn from the account. Documents also show that the money was used to pay for payroll, personal expenses and possibly money King owed to other clients.Investigators also said that they were unable to find records to show that the settlement was remitted to his clients.A second victim came forward after news of the complaint broke.The Sun said that the client hired King to negotiate an insurance settlement after an accident in April 2015. King ceased to contact the client for a year, who then contacted the insurance company in September 2016 and learned that the claim had been settled months earlier for $17,500.Bank records show that the money was mostly used to foot Kings personal expenses, the report also said.King is now charged with three counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of property.
The state of the cyber insurance market couldnt be stronger, according to industry heads. Customers are flooding the market but so, too, is competition.Mike Palotay, chief underwriting officer at NAS, said the market seems to be expanding at near light speed.Ive been doing this for 10 years and its always been growing fast on a year-on-year basis and its really showing no signs of slowing down. The small and middle market space seems to be growing like Ive never seen it grow before, Palotay said.NAS is more heavily-weighted with small-mid market accounts, he said, with some larger accounts.I think with things in the news and the understanding that anyone can really suffer a significant loss  whether it be from a data breach, or from phishing, or from some kind of fraud attack, wire transfer fraud, crypto-locker viruses, a lot of these things that arent only targeted towards really large, multi-national companies  I think the awareness of that has really percolated more than Ive ever seen it before, he explained.And with that understanding comes just a lot better penetration. Id say that 80% of the accounts that we write as new business are new first-time buyers. So a lot of new buyers are still coming into the marketplace, which is fantastic. The losses are ticking up [too], were seeing increased frequency  so its not all good news  but we definitely think its a good area for us to continue focussing on.NAS is writing about 50-100 new small business accounts a month, Palotay said, while covering about 900-1000 cyber breaches a year. But while the cyber insurance market is flush with new customers, it is also being flooded with insurance companies offering coverage, he said.Theyre flooding in, it seems like, faster than the insureds are flooding into the market, he said. Its one of the few areas in insurance thats growing rapidly. So if youre running an insurance company and you dont have a cyber solution, theres some, I think, career risk. But that doesnt mean that all the policies and all the offerings are equal. Theyre certainly not.There are still areas to grow, though. Palotay is currently polishing the wording off on a new policy to provide coverage for injuries sustained by hacked machinery, he said. There arent many providers offering this yet, he added, but it was likely to be a big area in future  as hospital and manufacturing IoT machines were increasingly patched into the internet, where they could potentially fall prey to malicious attacks.Right now, were going to be rolling out bodily injury coverage, so bodily injury as a result of a cyber breach, he noted. Theres a big concern for that, and thats a big hole right now, because most insurance policies have exclusions for cyber-attacks. So were rolling out a solution for that in the next couple months that we think will be good.Erica Davis, senior vice president and head of specialty products E&O at Zurich , agreed the cyber market remained strong, as it grows and strengthens.The security and privacy marketplace continues to evolve. I would say it was fairly volatile in 2014 and 2015, but in 2016 it began to stabilize with a new wave of buyers, she said.As with any young product, its now begun to evolve to fit customer needs, and those customers include industries outside of those classes. Definitely I would say everybody, at this point, has a cyber exposure. The product is more mature now. Weve got more exposures, the threats are changing. And as an industry, that allows us the opportunity to increase our role and help businesses become more resilient.
An Oregon regulator is suing Zoom Health Plan for $3 million over the insurers exit from the states insurance marketplace.The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS), which is overseeing the companys exit, is suing to recover $3 million from a company affiliated with the insurer, according to The Lund Report. Zoom Management told regulators in 2016 that it had paid $3 million to bolster Zoom Health Plans capital levels. However, the DCBS claims the company never made the payment.This funding is critical for Zoom Health Plan to meet its obligations to policyholders, DCBS director Patrick Allen said in a statement.Zoom Health Plan claimed in its annual financial report that its capital and surplus levels at the end of last year were $2,873,168, according to The Lund Report. But without the $3 million payment, DCBS claims Zoom was actually in the hole by $126,832  which meant that the health plan was insolvent.Zoom spokesman Len Bergstein told the publication that the company had $9 million in the bank, but the companys available cash and the health plans capital are two different numbers. Bergstein blamed Zoom Health Plans impending exit largely on the uncertainty the insurance industry has felt since President Donald Trump took office.We lost some money the first couple years; however we thought that in the context of the ACA and likely reforms that might occur under the administration that would be elected in 2016, there was hope that the stability of the system and the flexibility of the system could allow an innovative company like us to survive with both a delivery system and an insurer, Bergstein told The Lund Report. That didnt happen. The person everybody expected didnt get elected. The person who did get elected was unable, even in the beginning, to provide stability, and Congress was unable to repeal and replace.  For a young, cash-short company with a thousand bodies insured or so, this is not the marketplace for us to be. Too risky.
JORDAN  Stayton-area artist-in-residence Paul Toews spins a continuing tale as elementary students at Lourdes Public Charter School bend their heads over blank pieces of paper.

Draw what the story makes you think of, he urges, reviewing what they've heard so far: the boy who left his adopted village in search of the edge of the world, the endless waterfall pouring over that edge and the mysterious people, the Edgewalkers, who make their home there.

Toews' voice darts and shades as some of the students use their pencils to dart and shade the story he unfolds: the boy on his horse riding through the desert. A fire in a tiny rock-walled cottage. A seemingly endless line of mountains. Others just sit and listen to the tale.

The boy in Toews' story is in search of wider horizons. Art can be the same kind of portal, says Jill Poverud, who team-teaches the Lourdes elementary class with Sue Gerding. That's why the charter school makes it a point to have various artist-in-residence programs, from music to theater to pencil sketches.

"It enriches their education so much," Poverud explains. "These kids are having their world opened up to see what's out there."

For this particular program, students have been working just with pencils. Toews visited on three separate Fridays to lead student in both the elementary and middle school classrooms.

Both groups drew pictures of Multnomah Falls, working from photographs and from Toews' directions as he drew with them.

"Everything has kind of a structure to it," he tells the older students as they fill in trees above the tallest portion of the waterfall. "Even clouds do. If you understand the bones of it, you'll be able to draw it more."

The students follow as he leads, roughing out the lower trees  like popcorn, Toews tells them; everything exploding from the center  and paying attention to the open spaces as well.

"Negative space has its own attraction, has its own beauty," Toews says.

Toews is a longtime mid-valley artist and storyteller whose work can be seen in his Stayton studio, Art Gone Wild, and often heard as part of Scio's annual Sheepskin Revue.

This is the second time he's been part of the Lourdes artist-in-residence program, says Linda Duman, the school's administrator.

Eight miles east of Scio, Lourdes is the oldest public charter school in Oregon, serving first through eighth grades. "Part of our charter is that it's an important thing to build the creativity of students," Duman says.

Students who worked with Toews this session said they appreciated his tips and encouragement.

"I'm learning about landscapes and what makes it look all real," said third-grader Jackson Privratsky, 9.

He said he's now using the side of his pencil to shade and add depth. "I usually just scribble."

"And making the trees like popcorn. I never thought about that," said fourth-grader Morgan Miller, 10.

Second-grader Liam McSorely, 7, said he thinks it's important to offer art at school, among other lessons. "Because that's where you learn to do half of the stuff that you do."
Specialty insurers need to be investing in and providing sensor-based technology to their clients if they want to build and retain valuable, long-term relationships.Thats the view of Rooney Gleason, president of Argo Insurance in the US retail food market.Argo, targeting middle-market supermarket clients with $100 million to $5 billion in sales, is incorporating into its policies a tool for clients to reduce their number one cause of loss: slip-fall claims.Really, what we wanted to do, the vision, is to change the way people buy their property casualty insurance, Gleason explained. Our focus is on really leading with the solution and talking little about insurance, even though that is the financial protection we provide. So, one of the challenges is now our broker partners, when we go to see them, were not talking about what limits or what the forms look like  in this soft market everyone can get there with regard to the product  we try to focus our broker partners on the solution: and our solution is a combination of sensors, to measure behaviour of the [supermarket] employees.The insurance company uses sensor technology to monitor potential safety issues in supermarkets to help its clients manage claims risks, to prevent accidents and minimize their severity.Our whole focus on technology-driven risk management is multi-level, it includes the deployed sensors, and the handheld [device], and the cloud, and then it involves true expertise in adjusting very complex slip-fall claims, and then also to have a best-in-class process for litigation management, he said.And Gleason says technology funded by clients is the way forward for insurers to remain at the head of their field.Were trying to get to predictive analytics, right, to say: guys, were going to send you an alert before something happens, he said. Thats where everyone wants to be. I think the industry is actually way behind in adapting some of this cutting-edge technology. If youre going to be a specialty insurer, then youve got to bring special tools to your end client  because [otherwise] someone else is going to do it.You can become the efficiency expert of the world, and then the next carrier is going to be right there with you, because this is how the industry works  it is just a follow-me industry. So what were trying to do is say, hey, lets change the equation and lets show our clients how they really get at the total cost of risk inside of their organisation, which is driven by losses. Were just starting to see where we can apply sensor technology in different ways to get at the number one cause of loss in whatever youre doing.Gleason mentioned a sensor product elsewhere on the market, as an example, which can tell a client when the weight of snow and ice is nearing a critical point to trigger a roof collapse. The cost of products such as this  and Argos own supermarket technology  should be borne by the insurer if they want to gain that edge in the market, Gleason said.I would say that if were bringing the solution, were paying for it. And that is where the broker partners will find real value and the clients will find real value  in that were thinking before they are about what their major causes of losses are and what we can do to assist them to permanently improve their risk, he said.If you are going to be a big writer of [specialty insurance], why wouldnt you as a carrier get your clients to deploy that [technology] and make a three-year commitment to them, and cover the cost over a three-year period?There are going to be more long term partnerships, not less, between carrier, broker, and client, because the cost of deploying this stuff. We see that as an opportunity.
Third-generation president and CEO Terry Buckner shares withIBA how integrity, honesty and knowledge have been the drivers of 80 years of success for his Utah-based agency.Terry Buckner: The Buckner Company just celebrated its 80th birthday on December 1 of last year. My grandfather started it during the height of the Depression, which was an interesting time to start a new company. My father and my uncle joined the company shortly after World War II, and I joined the firm in 1979.In 1988, I bought my father and uncle out, and then in 2001, we started a little growth spurt. Today, we have 162 employees across five different offices: two in Utah, two in Idaho and one in Colorado, and we write roughly $240 million in premium with $27 million in revenue.I think the biggest challenge our industry faces today is attracting new and young talent to insurance. They think differently, they want different things, and we have to think more creatively on how to attract them. I think that as an industry, we have done a poor job in selling the benefits of the insurance business.Some of the things we are doing to alleviate that is we are getting more involved with various universities. We are also using our younger employees to try to tell our story to their peers  we think they are better at telling the story than we are.How has your agency been able to continually grow and remain successful for 80 years?Having somewhat of an entrepreneurial spirit is critical  not only for me, but also for our individual producers. They need to feel like it is their own business they can grow and generate. I think thats been critical for us.We try to put together a reputation of high integrity and high professionalism that attracts people. We are an industry that is easily misunderstood by a lot of buyers because it is a complex product. Yet we try to be involved in the community and be known for doing business with great integrity and insight, which in the end helps us attract the right people.We have been very verbal about the fact that the checkbook is wide open when it comes to education. We want our people to be lifelong learners, but we dont just encourage education, we pay for it  furthering education has become a part of our peoples career progression model.With our salespeople, we support them with marketing dollars that become their own so they can market their own brand. We try to support them financially on that side, and then the other thing we try to do is really push out our brand to our various marketplaces so that when our producers go out to talk to someone about who we are, its not a real cold call. Theyve heard of us and know about us.What are your agencys goals and plans for 2017?For 2017, my biggest goal is to continue to attract young talent to our industry. We realize that 25% of the million-dollar producers in our industry will be retiring in the next three years. We need to be backfilling that void. This year alone, we are looking to hire between eight and 10 new sales professionals into our organization. We will also build our support sta to bring in new, great talent to this industry. That will be a big initiative for us.Additionally, we fi nished last year with 15% growth over the year before, and we see ourselves continuing to aggressively pursue profitable growth for our fi rm.What makes The Buckner Company unique?What makes us unique is that we are knowledgeable and ethical people. We preach and talk ethics and integrity all day long. We like to think we stand out when people say they do business with Buckner  not because were the cheapest, but because our people are professionals who are honest and who do the right thing for clients always. That is the reputation my grandfather built this firm on, and we strive to maintain that mission regardless of what we do, and that is what makes us stand out.
The South Carolina workers compensation market is strong, according to the state department of insurances most recent report, as the first reform to the states workers comp system in almost a decade readies to complete a full year of enactment and an assessment may be on its way out.

The South Carolina Department of Insurances (SCDOI) annual report Workers Compensation Insurance Coverage: The State of the South Carolina Market, submitted in Dec. 2016, says the states workers comp market is stable, with plenty of coverage availability.

In 2015, there were 979 companies writing coverage in the state in 2015, down from 987 companies in 2014 and 982 in 2013, but the past five years have been stable compared to the net gain of insurance groups entering the workers comp marketplace in the surrounding Southeastern states, the report said. The top five insurer groups  Zurich, Hartford, W.R. Berkley, BCBS of MI, and American Financial  accounted for 39 percent of South Carolinas 2015 workers comp market, up from 36 percent in 2014.

Overall, insurance companies provide 69 percent of South Carolinas workers comp coverage with the remaining coverage provided through group self-insured funds and individual self-insured employers. The states residual plan, the South Carolina Workers Compensation Insurance Plan, wrote 4.1 percent of 2015s total direct premium writings in the state, down slightly from 4.5 percent in 2014.

Workers comp made up 9.1 percent of all the states property and casualty premiums written in 2015. Direct written premiums for workers comp totaled $729 million in 2015 (including $33 million in residual market premium), an increase of $27 million from 2014, with the increase likely the result of increased payrolls, loss cost increase for some job classifications, and occasional increases to company loss cost multipliers.

Loss costs from the state approved rating organization, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), increased by 1.9 percent and 2.5 percent in 2015 and 2016, respectively, after decreasing 7.4 percent in 2014.

The frequency of lost-time claims, a large component and cost driver, was stable over the past few years, the report states. The medical severity was relatively flat from 2010 to 2012 but increased 14.3 percent in 2013, while indemnity increased for the second consecutive year.

The report also notes the new legal requirement passed by the South Carolina Legislature last year, the first reforms made since 2007, requiring all insurers in the state to file to adopt approved NCCI loss costs.

The 2016 legislation made it a legal requirement for workers comp insurers to file loss cost adoptions or loss costs multipliers with the SCDOI. Insurers intent to adopt the rate filing must be submitted within 60 days of the approval date of the new loss costs in accordance with the new law.

Insurers must also now implement the latest NCCI loss costs within 120 days from the new loss cost effective date. SCDOI said in its report the new law, which amends the 1976 Code of Laws of South Carolina relating to rate filing requirements, was in response to concerns raised by SCDOI that the use of older, outdated loss costs was inappropriate.

In addition, the termination of the South Carolina Second Injury Fund (SIF) assessment on insurers is scheduled to be phased out this year in accordance with the states 2007 workers comp reforms that enacted a transition plan to close out the fund beginning in 2013. The report notes that following the 2017 assessment, additional analysis will be necessary to determine whether there is a need for an additional assessment, however, SCDOI is hopeful that SIF assessments will no longer be an issue or a component of loss cost multiplier filings in the near future.

Topics Carriers Legislation Profit Loss Workers' Compensation South Carolina
Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $20 million to a New Jersey woman who blames the companys vaginal-mesh inserts for leaving her in constant pain as the company prepares for a new wave of trials over the medical devices.

A state-court jury in Philadelphia concluded Friday that J&Js TVT-Secur mesh, designed to treat incontinence in women, was defectively designed and caused Margaret Englemans injuries. The panel awarded her $2.5 million and then hit J&J and its Ethicon unit with $17.5 million in punitive damages.

The verdict is the first against J&J over the vaginal-mesh devices in more than a year. The worlds largest maker of health-care products hasnt faced any trials while it sought to negotiate settlements in some of the more than 54,000 lawsuits pending over the inserts. The company faces three more trials in Philadelphia in the next two months.

Kristen Wallace, an Ethicon spokeswoman, said the company will appeal the jurys findings that the devices were defective and that the company failed to provide adequate warnings about the risks.

Properly Designed

We believe the evidence showed Ethicons TVT-Secur device was properly designed, Ethicon acted appropriately and responsibly in the research, development and marketing of the product, and TVT-Secur was not the cause of the plaintiffs continuing medical problems, Wallace said in an emailed statement.

J&J, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has lost at least five jury awards totaling more than $35 million over the mesh inserts since 2014. It has settled other cases, including one for as much as $5 million. The company has won several cases, including a 2015 lawsuit in Texas over its Prosima inserts. J&J is appealing some of the plaintiffs wins.

Carl Tobias, who teaches product liability law at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said J&J should consider a comprehensive settlement to all the cases.

It would be silly to continue taking these cases to trial when they are losing, he said in an interview. Theres no sense in continuing to shell out for the defense costs and suffer the reputation damage that comes with each win by the plaintiffs.

Almost five years ago, J&J voluntarily pulled four lines of mesh inserts, including the TVT-Secur device, off the market after facing a wave of litigation. Ethicon is the J&J unit that sells the mesh.

The decision to stop selling the inserts came six months after regulators ordered J&J and more than 20 other makers of such devices, designed to treat incontinence and shore up weakened pelvic muscles, to conduct further studies about their health risks.

Engleman said the TVT-Secur mesh eroded once it was placed in her body in 2007, forcing her to undergo multiple surgeries to try and remove the mesh. The insert caused her sharp stabbing pain and exacerbated her bladder problems, according to court filings.

Im happy I could be a voice for other women, Engleman said Friday in an emailed statement. Its been a nightmare.

The case is Engleman v. Ethicon, No., 05385, Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for setting fire to his restaurant to collect nearly $1 million in insurance.

The U.S. attorneys office in Rhode Island says 51-year-old Daniel Saad, of Spencer, was sentenced Thursday on arson and wire fraud charges. Saad owned Snows Clam Box Restaurant and Pub in Glocester, Rhode Island.

Prosecutors say a woman lived in an apartment above the restaurant. She reported the fire on Nov. 30, 2014 after fleeing from the building.

They say Saad owed banks, private lenders and venders nearly $2.5 million. They say he set the fire and initiated insurance claims, while telling investigators he was in Massachusetts when the fire occurred.

Saad was ordered to serve one year supervised release and pay $509,000 in restitution.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The investigation into the February death of a Penn State University fraternity pledge who fell down stairs is likely to result in charges against several people for conduct surrounding the death of another person, a prosecutor says in a new court filing.

Centre County District Attorney Stacy Parks Miller said Friday the probe into the Feb. 4 death of Beta Theta Pi pledge Timothy Piazza is nearing its end. Police have said hazing and excessive drinking may have contributed to Piazzas death, and Penn State has permanently banned the fraternity, saying the school found a persistent pattern of excess drinking, drug use and hazing.

The sophomore engineering student from Lebanon, New Jersey, was attending a pledge acceptance ceremony when he fell down a set of stairs, police say. No one called for help until the next day, and he later died at a hospital.

The filing Wednesday was made as part of a legal dispute between prosecutors and the fraternity chapters housing corporation, which is seeking the return of hard drives from security cameras that contain footage from the fraternity chapter house the night Piazza died.

The commonwealth believes and therefore avers that the evidence at issue here will, in fact, be used in the prosecution of a number of individuals associated with the Penn State chapter of Beta Theta Pi, prosecutor Bruce Castor Jr. told the state Supreme Court in the filing, which said a grand jury has been looking into Piazzas death.

A lawyer for Millers office had written in a county filing Monday: It is no secret that subpoenas have been issued to multiple prospective witnesses and that the investigation is progressing. Since this video footage, or portions thereof have been played to the Centre County investigating grand jury, the footage is now grand jury material and is covered by grand jury secrecy.

Castor said in the petition that the office needs the originals for use in future court actions and asked the high court to overturn a county judges order earlier this week to return the hard drives to the fraternity.

The Supreme Court denied the prosecutors request, although Judge Thomas King Kistler said he would be willing to let prosecutors keep the originals and give the fraternity copies.

Attorney Mike Leahey, who represents the housing corporation, said it wants the originals back but would respect a judges order providing only copies.

Along with the criminal investigation, litigation is pending that involves the tapes, Leahey said, and the housing corporation has evidentiary obligations related to the hard drives.

Donald Abbey, a California real estate magnate and alumnus of the chapter, has sued the fraternity, seeking more than $10 million he says he loaned it to renovate the property and help its finances.

Kistler said if the fraternity brothers who voluntarily relinquished the recordings had kept a copy, it would not have been subject to grand jury secrecy rules.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing just raised more than $5.5 billion, giving Uber Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick one more thing to worry about.

Didis record funding round is said to value the company at more than $50 billion and gives it a war chest to ramp up efforts to harness artificial intelligence, build driverless cars, and compete more aggressively in foreign markets. The cash infusion coincides with a rough period for Uber, which is facing lawsuits and an image problem, and follows a detente in China after Uber agreed to essentially cede the market to Didi in exchange for a significant stake.

The bruising battle with Uber taught [Didi] a lot, said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at venture capital fund SOSV. Now its battle-hardened, and can buy the best talent in the world to attempt to go big in China, and also go global.

While Didi confronts many of the same challenges bedeviling Uberboth are bleeding money and battling regulatorsinvestors are still betting both will eventually have fleets of driverless vehicles in cities around the world. Its a daring vision, but perhaps too good a dream to pass up.

The biggest risk any investor faces isnt losing money, says Andy Mok, managing director at Red Pagoda Resources, an executive search firm in Beijing, but missing out on the next Apple or Google.

For Didi and Uber, which offer appealing visions of a future when driverless vehicles shuttle people around cities using artificial intelligence, the technology represents a massive opportunity because of its ability to reduce costs, said Kai-Fu Lee, one of Chinas most prominent venture capital investors.

Profitability is heavily dependent on the success of autonomous vehicles, said Lee, a veteran of both Microsoft Corp. and Google. If you look at the breakdown of the costs of either Uber or Didi, a very large part of the cost  about two thirds  is based on their drivers, on what they pay for drivers, insurance, driver acquisition.

Didi has powerful supporters of its vision, including SoftBank Group Corp., whose founder Masayoshi Son is famous for making big bets. Almost 20 years ago he backed a small Chinese e-commerce outfit that would become Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and deliver a profit of more than $80 billion.

SoftBank is known for making pretty risky investments  like in Alibaba and Yahoo. Sometimes they pay off very big, sometimes they dont, said Duncan Clark, founder and chairman at advisory firm BDA China and author of Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built. Son tolerates very high levels of risk.

The Didi-Uber relationship is complicated  Uber owns about 17.5 percent of Didi, making it the largest shareholder, and also allowing it to benefit from Didis success. But even if they no longer vie with each other in China, they both have ambitions to be big, global players and are poised to clash in other markets.

Didi has expanded outside its home turf mostly by making investments or forming partnerships with ride-hailing companies such as Grab in Singapore, Ola in India and Lyft Inc. in the U.S.

For Uber, which is present on every populated continent, India represents its largest overseas market and a pivotal battleground.As Didi develops its autonomous driving technology, it could have the capacity to knit together a far-flung global network of allies, focused on developing markets in Asia and the Middle East, Bao Bean said.

While both companies have had a meteoric rise, the men in charge of Didi and Uber are very different.

Didi CEO Cheng Wei appears reticent and cautious in public, especially compared with Ubers Kalanick, who has run head first into numerous controversies. In recent months, Kalanick has seen an exodus of top executives as the company investigates claims of sexual harassment, is facing a lawsuit over self-driving car technology from Alphabet Inc.s Waymo and was videotaped arguing with a driver over fee structure.

Didi Chuxing is a four-and-half-year-old app, which is used to hail more than 20 million rides daily in Chinese cities. Its home is a country where car ownership has only recently started to surge  with roughly 800 million urban residents, but only 200 million personal vehicles  and many fast-growing cities still lack efficient subway or bus systems. The pent-up demand for periodic chauffeur-service ensured rapid early growth.

The company was formed through the merger of two Chinese ride-hailing platforms backed by Alibaba and fellow giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. Didi last year reached a truce with Uber after both burnt through billions of dollars in a fight for market share. The Chinese company bought out its rivals business in the country, and then basically shut it down.

That doesnt mean the immediate road ahead is easy. Having secured a near-monopoly in China, Didi is still losing money  even after reducing the subsidies offered to drivers and passengers. The higher prices dont help with customer satisfaction, either.

Local governments have stepped in to curtail who can drive for ride-hailing services. Beijing and Shanghai only allow those with local resident permits to be Didi drivers and the cities also specify what kinds of vehicles can be used.

A lot of cars are off the map. Nowadays its much harder to use Didi. I have to wait quite a long time, and I use the service much less than before, said Ma Tianjie, a blogger in Beijing. I think public perception has soured a bit toward the company; theres less sympathy compared to when it was just getting started and still battling Uber.

With Lulu Yilun Chen

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions China
Two pieces of legislation recently passed by the Illinois House would harm the workers compensation system in the state, a national insurer group says.

American Insurance Association (AIA) said HB 2525 would require insurers to submit rates to the Illinois Department of Insurance and then wait up to 30 days before using them. According to the AIA, the bill removes considerable flexibility for both insurers and their customers from the marketplace, adds unnecessary delays and imposes significant resource demands and costs.

Another measure, HB 2622, would create the Illinois Employers Mutual Insurance Company (IEMIC), a state-sponsored fund to provide workers compensation insurance in Illinois.

AIA is disappointed by the Houses passage of HB 2525 and HB 2622, adverse workers compensation legislation, said Steve Schneider, Midwest region vice president for the AIA.

Illinois is the most competitive state for workers compensation insurance, he said in the groups announcement. More than 300 insurers compete for the right to earn a customers business. Competition is intrinsically good for all Illinois employers who must purchase this mandated, comprehensive coverage. This competition stems from Illinois current open competitive rating law that has been in effect for 35 years. HB 2525 would eviscerate that law and its benefits for Illinois employers.

Schneider also said the creation of a state-sponsored workers compensation insurance company via HB 2622 would not only disrupt the private market, such action would fail to provide meaningful reform to the Illinois workers compensation system. No reason exists for Illinois to create its own to compete against private sector insurers and jobs when no major crisis is present and massive government intervention is not necessary.

Source: AIA

Topics Carriers Workers' Compensation Tech Illinois
Court documents show that Dole Fresh Foods has recently settled two lawsuits filed by families of people stricken by a listeria outbreak after eating salads packaged in Ohio.

The Springfield News-Sun reports settlement terms werent disclosed by the company or the attorneys who filed the federal lawsuits.

One lawsuit said 79-year-old Ohio resident Ellen DiStefano died last year after eating salad packaged at Doles Springfield plant about 45 miles west of Columbus. The other settled lawsuit says resident Kiki Georgostathis fell into a coma after eating listeria-laden salad.

Dole has denied responsibility and has argued the salads were fine when they left the plant.

Federal data shows at least 19 people nationwide were sickened in the outbreak, including a Michigan man who died.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits
A U.S. appeals court on Friday blocked health insurer Anthem Incs bid to merge with Cigna, upholding a lower courts decision that the $54 billion deal should not be allowed because it would lead to higher prices for healthcare.

The ruling will probably kill the proposed merger, which was opposed by the U.S. Justice Department, 11 states and a District Court judge after consumers, medical professionals and others objected to it. In the end, Cigna itself tried to back out.

Still, Anthem and Cigna have the option of trying to save the deal by asking the appeals court to re-consider the case or appealing straight to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shares of Cigna closed Friday at $156.37, up 0.1 percent, while Anthem shares ended at $177.89, down 0.2 percent.

Anthems purchase of Cigna would create the largest U.S. health insurer. Rivals Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. had also sought to merge but that deal collapsed this year amid opposition from the federal government and states.

Insurers made the deals as they adjusted to new pressures from the insurance overhaul of Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act. They now face the potential for another remaking of the industry, though the exact changes are unclear because of Republican disagreements over how to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Anthem, said in a statement late Friday that it was disappointed by the appeals courts decision. We are committed to completing the transaction and are currently reviewing the opinion and will carefully evaluate our options, the company said in a statement.

In a split decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit disagreed with Anthems contention that the Justice Department and lower court improperly rejected its assertions that the deal would lead to billions of dollars in medical savings.

Anthem has not explained why these projected savings would even exist, Judge Judith Rogers wrote in the opinion. The record is clear that Anthem, unlike Cigna, has already achieved whatever economies of scale are available.

In a dissent, Judge Brett Kavanaugh argued that the merger would benefit the biggest customers, mainly large companies with employees in many states. Kavanaugh argued that a combined Anthem/Cigna would require higher payments to manage the accounts but that would be offset by better negotiated rates paid to providers.

Kavanaugh, however, noted that the deal could be stopped based on monopsony arguments that the new company would have too much heft in negotiating with doctors and hospitals.

Anthem, a member of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, is the second biggest seller of medical insurance to big U.S. companies. Cigna is in third place.

Bill Baer, the former head of the Justice Departments Antitrust Division who had made the decision to challenge both insurance mergers, said in an email that the ruling on the Anthem/Cigna deal is a ringing endorsement of the importance of competition in health insurance markets.

The Justice Department, now under President Donald Trump, also said that it was pleased by the decision.

Eric Schneiderman, attorney general of New York, which was among the states that had opposed the deal, also said he was pleased with the ruling.

This is a red letter day for consumers, said David Balto, an antitrust lawyer who opposed the deal.

In another obstacle, Anthem and Cigna have been at loggerheads for months and are suing each other. Cigna has sought to abandon the merger and force Anthem to pay a $1.85 billion breakup fee while Anthem filed a lawsuit to force its smaller rival to go through with the combination.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions USA
Lise Grato is the new executive director of the Albany Downtown Association, and she started the job in mid-April.

Grato, who has volunteered in the area for about 20 years, including for downtown events such as Movies at Monteith and Mixology Madness, said shes now able to devote more of her time to one of her passions.

I have always loved downtown. My husband and daughter and I live downtown, Grato said.

I dont have to balance my free time and my work time anymore, because its all the same, she added.

Grato has previously been employed in marketing and advertising, most recently with Comcast but also with the Democrat-Herald and Gazette-Times.

She takes the reins of the ADA as things are going well for downtown.

We have the carousel progressing nicely and opening this summer. Occupancy is good. Were getting new businesses every month. We have excellent restaurants and a good mix of retail and service businesses, Grato said.

Still, theres a sense that things will get even better, especially with the Albany Historic Carousel & Museum scheduled to open in June.

Its going to be amazing. Were really going to enjoy that increase in tourism, Grato said.

Many downtown businesses are looking to tie-in merchandise to the carousel, to take even more advantage of the facilitys impact, Grato added.

She replaces Peggy Burris, who left for another job in December after leading the ADA for about a year-and-a-half.

Gratos husband Chuck Grato also is an ADA volunteer, and the duo were the Oregon Festival & Events Associations volunteers of the year for 2013 for their efforts with River Rhythms. The couples daughter Sabrina attends West Albany High School.
Legal marijuana shops are linked to higher levels of property crime in nearby areas, according to a nearly three-year study in Denver.

Researchers found that crime isnt higher in the area immediately surrounding marijuana outlets. But adjacent areas saw about 84 more property crimes per year than neighborhoods without a nearby marijuana store.

In Denver, no significant increase in violent crime was seen as a result of marijuana sales.

The results show that legal marijuana sales come with a cost, said Bridget Freisthler, lead author of the study and professor of social work at The Ohio State University.

If youre looking strictly from a public health standpoint, there is reason to be somewhat concerned about having a marijuana outlet near your home, Freisthler said.

Putting this risk in context, marijuana outlets led to similar levels of property crime as bars, liquor stores and restaurants that serve alcohol, data from the study suggests. And businesses that sold alcohol led to much more violent crime than marijuana outlets.

The study was published online in the Journal of Primary Prevention.

The researchers examined crime statistics for 481 Census block groups in Denver over 34 months (January 2013 to October 2015). When the study began, marijuana could only be sold for medical purposes. But beginning in January 2014, marijuana outlets were able to sell to the general public, giving the researchers the opportunity to see if recreational sales were tied to increases in crime.

They examined three types of crime, based on data from the Denver Police Department: Violent crime, property crime and marijuana outlet specific crime.

The change in the law allowing recreational sales did not result in an increase in crime, results showed.

It is the number and density of outlets that is important, not whether they are medical or recreational, Freisthler said.

But there is a caveat to that finding. After the law was first changed to allow recreational sales, only those dispensaries that already were selling for medical purposes were allowed to apply for a license to sell recreational marijuana in Colorado.

As a result, the number of outlets didnt change much.

This is the second study Freisthler and colleagues have published on crime and marijuana outlets. The earlier study, published last year, was done in Long Beach, Calif. In both studies, property crimes didnt increase right next to the outlet, but in the adjacent neighborhood.

Thats probably because the dispensaries often have security guards and cameras keeping an eye out on the immediate area, Freisthler said.

The areas we examined in our study were relatively small (about a third of a square mile), so a guard could conceivably be keeping criminals away from the neighborhood directly surrounding the outlets, she said.

One way to understand the effect of marijuana stores on crime is to compare them to places that sell alcohol.

Data from the study showed that marijuana outlets contributed to 1,579 property crimes in Denver over 34 months, compared to the combined alcohol outlet contribution of 1,521.

The levels of property crimes were similar, although marijuana outlets were responsible for slightly more, Freisthler said.

Alcohol outlets, however, were responsible for about four times more violent crimes during the 34 months of the study than those that sold marijuana (372 vs. 93).

But Freisthler cautioned that a direct comparison is difficult because the effects related to marijuana outlets take into account crimes in local and adjacent areas while the data for alcohol outlets only look at adjacent areas.

Still, she said it is concerning that there is this level of crime associated with marijuana sales, despite the fact that the density of marijuana outlets is much lower compared to that of alcohol outlets. Over time, as marijuana grows in popularity, densities of marijuana outlets may increase, resulting in higher crime, Freisthler said.

While this study did not find a significant increase in violent crime related to marijuana shops, the study in Long Beach did. That suggests it is too early to say that legal marijuana sales dont result in significantly more violent crime, she said.

This new study did find, not surprisingly, that legal sales were linked to an increase in burglaries and other crimes at marijuana outlets themselves.

From the data in the study, the researchers cant tell who is committing the crimes and who the victims are in the nearby neighborhoods. Customers of the marijuana outlets could be the victims or the perpetrators, according to Freisthler.

Thats important to know, because residents may want to mobilize if they are the victims of increased crime. But if it is not the residents being victimized, they may not care as much, she said.

Freisthler said the findings of this, as well as her previous study, suggest there are reasons for citizens to be cautious about legal marijuana sales.

There are definitely negative public health consequences, including increased crime, she said. There may be economic benefits in terms of more tax revenue and money spent in neighborhoods. Citizens have to decide how they want to measure the benefits and costs.

Freisthler conducted the study with Andrew Gaidus, William Ponicki and Paul Gruenewald of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation; and Christina Tam of UCLA.

The research was supported by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Topics Trends Fraud Cannabis Property
U.S. House and Senate negotiators reached a bipartisan deal on a $1.1 trillion spending bill that largely tracks with Democratic priorities and rejects most of President Donald Trumps wish list, including money to begin building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The compromise measure, released early Monday morning, would keep the government open through the end of September. Under House procedures, a vote could be held as early as Wednesday.

GOP leaders eager to focus on health-care and tax overhauls bowed to Democratic demands to eliminate hundreds of policy restrictions aimed at curbing regulations, leaving the Trump administration with few victories.

The White House sought funding to begin building the border wall, as well as $18 billion in cuts to domestic agencies, and both demands were rebuffed. The spending deal includes money for Planned Parenthood, despite Republican demands to defund the group over its provision of abortions.

Trump will be able to point to a $15 billion boost for the Pentagon, although $2.5 billion of that money is contingent on the administration delivering a new plan to fight Islamic State. It also falls well short of the $30 billion he had originally requested.

Border Security

Trump will get $1.5 billion for border security, but it cant be used for the border wall or additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to one congressional aide. There are also no new restrictions on money going to so-called sanctuary cities that dont fully enforce federal immigration laws.

Reports that the package makes a major down payment towards the presidents security priorities are encouraging, John Czwartacki, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement.

Republicans failed to get a number of conservative provisions in the bill, including one that would have blocked the Labor Departments fiduciary rule limiting financial advice to retirees. Congressional Republicans say spending riders have become a less important tool for the party because the Trump administration is already intent on rolling back regulations they dislike and can take many actions on its own.

Overall, the compromise resembles more of an Obama administration-era budget than a Trump one. The National Institutes of Health, for example, would see a $2 billion boost, reflecting the popularity of medical research among lawmakers. The deal includes $990 million for famine aid, along with a $1.1 billion boost for disaster recovery funds.

It is a solid bill that reflects our common values and that will help move our nation forward, and I urge its quick approval by the Congress and the White House, House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey said in a statement early Monday.

Defense Increase

He said the measure represents a $25 billion increase in national defense funding over current levels, when extra money former President Barack Obama secured in December is included. In addition, he noted provisions including an extension of miners health benefits and increases in health research and opioid addiction treatment and prevention.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which Trump has sought to shrink dramatically, would receive a 1 percent reduction of $81 million in funding and no staff cuts.

The deal also includes steady or slight increases in funding for agencies within the Department of Energy, such the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which would get a $17 million increase, and the Office of Science, which would get a boost of $42 million compared to fiscal 2016 funding levels, the aide said. The Advanced Research Projects AgencyEnergy, which aims to fund experimental energy research and has been targeted for elimination by the Trump administration, would get a $15 million increase.

H-2B Visas, Truckers

The omnibus also includes measures of interest to the business community. One provision allows the secretary of Homeland Security to temporarily increase the cap in H-2B visas for temporary labor through the end of September  a provision sought by senators in both parties. The provision frees up space by the maximum amount previously allowed for temporary workers returning to the U.S. from other countries.

The budget also includes a rider on trucker hours and increases for the NASA Space Launch System and Orion important to Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. It does not, however, change the quorum for the Export-Import Bank needed to approve deals over $10 million, so a major backlog will continue until Trumps nominees are confirmed.

Of interest to home-builders and the insurance industry, the bill contains provisions clarifying flood mapping under the National Flood Insurance Program.

Theres also a new $100 million fund to counter Russian influence in Europe.

Notably, agencies Trump has sought to eliminate, like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Appalachian Regional Commission, would get modest increases in funding instead.

National Parks

The deal also includes a 2 percent increase for national parks, including nearly $40 million in new funding to address deferred maintenance and construction needs, according to the aide.

The legislation would classify power produced by biomass, such as wood, as a carbon-neutral renewable energy source, a change backed by groups such as the American Forest & Paper Association, a trade group that represents companies such as Deltic Timber Corp. and Resolute Forest Products, according to a senior congressional aide. Environmentalists have been opposed to the change.

More than 70 anti-environmental policy riders in the bill were defeated, the aide said.

The deal would provide a permanent, $1.3 billion extension of health-care benefits for coal miners. It would be offset by a boost in customs fees. The provision was backed by coal-state lawmakers in both chambers.

The bill contains language that would prevent the Justice Department from restricting the dispensing of medical marijuana in states where it has been legalized. It also contains $323 million for the construction of a new headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The package would provide $68 million extra in local law enforcement funds to reimburse New York City and other localities for protecting Trump.

Democrats Praise

This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday night in a statement. The bill ensures taxpayer dollars arent used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle-class relies on, like medical research, education, and infrastructure.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also praised the deal, saying that Democrats won the removal of about 160 partisan riders. The bill also increases funding for wildfire and federal highway emergency relief, and for Puerto Ricos underfunded Medicaid program, she said in a statement. Under the tentative deal, the island would get some relief with $295 million in unspent money for territories for a limited time, said a congressional aide.

Democrats were pushing for an infusion of at least $600 million, so there could be more fights ahead.

Vote This Week

The bipartisan deal  reached by appropriators in both chambers in coordination with party leaders  would avert a government shutdown when a one-week stop-gap funding bill expires Friday. It would fund the government through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

The House Rules Committee has scheduled a hearing for 3 p.m. Tuesday to consider advancing bill, including setting procedures for a floor vote.

Agreement on the omnibus bill has been delayed by fights over a number of policy areas; Trumps dropping of his demand last week for inclusion of money to begin work on wall along the U.S.-Mexico border was the most important breakthrough.

While Republicans control the House, Senate and the White House, congressional Democrats held some leverage in the talks because their votes will be needed in the Senate, and likely the House, for passage of the bill.

The Senate needs 60 votes to advance legislation, meaning the 52 Republicans will need help from at least eight Democrats.

In the House, passing a spending bill for the remainder of fiscal 2017 was always going to be a challenge. A solid bloc of fiscal conservatives regularly oppose big spending bills, and House Republicans have had to rely on some Democratic votes consistently since taking over the majority in 2011. Sixteen House Republicans on Friday voted against the one-week extension of current spending that kept government open.

Delayed Action

The spending bill package would finish the job of appropriating agency spending seven months after the fiscal year began. The drawn-out fight could have been avoided in December had the incoming administration not instructed Congress to hold off on passing a bipartisan spending measure in order to give it a chance to weigh in.

Beyond the border wall, obstacles to an agreement included White House resistance to demands from Democrats to guarantee the payment of billions in cost-sharing payments used under Obamacare to offset health-care premiums for low-income people.

A stronger chance for a government shutdown could come in October. Trump has sought $54 billion in defense increases paired with $54 billion in domestic cuts. Republican leaders may be less willing to bow to Democrats without the excuse of being more than halfway through the fiscal year.

Congress and the president will also need to agree on a debt ceiling increase in the fall, and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney has said he wants to use the debt ceiling to impose new spending restraints.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics USA Legislation Pollution
Severe storms including tornadoes have swept through several small towns in East Texas, leaving a trail of overturned vehicles, mangled trees and damaged homes.

Authorities believe as many as five people were killed and dozens injured, though they were still assessing the damage from the storms that swept through an area about 50 miles east of Dallas on Saturday evening.

In Arkansas severe storms are blamed for at least one death and flooding thats closed roads in many areas. Police say 65-year-old Julia Schwede was killed when a tree was blown into her home Saturday night.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has declared a state of emergency for all 77 counties after severe storms, flooding, strong winds and snow impacted the state.

Fallin said the storm system delivered widespread rain and high winds, with damage to power lines and power poles as well as trees, roofs and structures. In addition, more than 4 inches of snow has been reported in some areas of the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Five fatalities in the Canton, Texas-area have been attributed to the storms. Canton Fire Department Capt. Brian Horton said the number may go up  once we can get into these areas.

Video from local television stations showed uprooted trees and overturned cars along rural, wet roadways, along with at least two flattened homes. The tornado flipped pickup trucks at a Dodge dealership in Canton and tore through the business.

Fifty-six people were treated at three hospitals and six remained hospitalized Sunday morning, two of them in critical condition, ETMC Regional Health Care Systems spokeswoman Rebecca Berkley said.

According to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, four confirmed tornadoes tore through Northeast Texas on Saturday. The City of Canton, in Van Zandt County, sustained extensive damage from two large, long-track tornadoes in and around the city.

Horton asked that people who didnt need to be in the area to stay out, so that our teams can do what they need to do to take care of these people who are in need. He noted that a triage center was set up at the local high school.

One resident, Ernestine Cook, told Dallas television station WFAA she rushed to a storm center just in time.

It hit so hard, so fast. It just kept moving, she said. Ive never seen anything like it after 22 years of living here.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Texas Windstorm Oklahoma Arkansas
A Florida sheriffs deputy was sleeping Thursday afternoon when his 11-year-old daughter called and asked him to pick her up at her school bus stop. Seconds later, his daughter screamed into the phone. Dad, help me, help me!

Polk County Sheriffs Deputy Jonathan JJ Quintana told reporters at a news conference Friday that he assumed the worst as he jumped out of bed and ran barefoot to the bus stop. He found his daughter safe, but immediately saw the carnage left when a suspected drunken driver hit five of her fellow Dundee Ridge Middle Academy students as they walked home from the stop. One student later died of his injuries.

Quintana, 30, ran back home for his patrol car, yelled for his wife to toss him his keys and some shoes and drove back to the scene to assist the injured children. By then, two nurses had stopped to help the injured students.

The deputy  still limping and visibly shaken Friday  said a witness at the scene pointed out the car that had allegedly just crashed into the children.

Quintana saw the black vehicle had hit another car about 4,000 feet (1,219.2 meters) down the road. The driver then stumbled out of the vehicle. A woman who was four months pregnant was injured in that crash, according to authorities. They didnt release her name.

Quintana arrested John Camfield, 48, of nearby Davenport, a former law enforcement officer who worked for more than 10 different agencies in Mississippi  including Yalobusha County Sheriffs Office, Tunica County Sheriffs Office and the Oxford Police Department  before moving to Florida in 2012.

Officials said Jahiem Robertson, 13, died of his injuries Friday morning in an Orlando hospital. Another child, John Mena, also 13, remains in intensive care with orbital fractures. Three other children  Jonte Robinson, 15; Jasmine Robertson, 14; and Rylan Pryce, 12  suffered minor injuries. It was unclear whether they were related.

Speaking at the press conference Friday, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Camfield refused to take a breath test after his arrest and was critiquing the deputies who were processing his case. He was critiquing the steps they were taking and complimenting them, Judd told reporters on Friday. He said, `You guys know what you are doing around here. 

In fact, Judd added, Camfield was being somewhat lighthearted until a lieutenant advised him that two of the children he hit were in critical condition.

He said, if thats the case, put me under the jail, Judd said.

At that point, he agreed to take a breath test and a blood draw.

Seven hours after the crash, he still read a .14, nearly twice Florida legal limit.

Judd said the bus had driven away just before the crash. He added that the students were not in the road when the car hit them.

They werent misbehaving in any way. They were just being middle school children on their way home, Judd said. This drunk man in a car drove off the road and ran through those children, scattering them like a bowling ball through bowling pins.

Judd said a sheriff in Mississippi who Camfield once worked for described him as one of the very best detectives weve ever had, but he had a problem _ alcohol, the bottle.

Camfield made a first appearance in court Friday afternoon. He faces 11 charges, including DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. He was being held on $600,000 bail. A lawyer isnt listed on jail records. Beverly Kraft, a spokeswoman for the state court system in Mississippi, said there is no record that Camfield has ever been convicted of a felony in that state.

Polk County is between Orlando and Tampa in central Florida.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Florida Auto Personal Auto Education Mississippi
North Carolina lawmakers decided Thursday that hog and poultry operations should get added protection from lawsuits by neighbors complaining that swarms of flies and the intense stink of animal waste create a nuisance.

The Republican-dominated state House gave final approval to legislation restricting how much neighbors of high-density hog and poultry barns could collect if they prove a nuisance. The measure becomes law if it is signed by Gov. Roy Cooper.

The legislation was prompted by pending federal lawsuits involving about 500 rural neighbors against Murphy-Brown LLC, the North Carolina-based hog production division of Virginias Smithfield Foods. They are U.S. subsidiaries of the Chinese company that is the worlds largest pork producer.

Lawmakers changed the original language so that the new limits would not apply to the pending litigation.

The measure restricts compensatory damages in cases where a farm or forestry operation is proved to create a nuisance to the lost property value or rental value plaintiffs. Nuisance claims are the same type of legal action other property owners could bring to force changes if their neighbors garbage attracts rats or rusting cars multiply.

The legislation is designed to undercut the appeal of such lawsuits for lawyers who would pursue cases with little or no upfront payment by plaintiffs and the hope of a big payday if they win a case.

The Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance estimate that about 60,000 North Carolina homes are within a half-mile of livestock operations, the range within which families are mostly likely to pursue lawsuits to stop an alleged nuisance.

Supporters said the new protections are needed for the rural economy of eastern North Carolina, the countrys No. 3 hog state where pork was worth $2.3 billion in 2015, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Sometimes an operation thats being sued was there first, said Rep. Larry Pittman. I feel like if a farm is there first, and you know this is going on, then dont complain.

Opponents called the legislation another example of the politically powerful pork lobby getting its way. Neighbors have complained for decades about the smells from intensive hog production that causes headaches and clings to clothes. Wind-driven spray has been known to coat a neighboring homes exterior in liquefied excrement, some people have said.

Agricultural businesses were getting special legal treatment that doesnt exist for other potentially noxious neighbors, Rep. John Blust argued.

A neighboring property owner of say, a chemical factory, can recover all these compensatory damages that the common law has long recognized, he said, but if its an agricultural operation, a property owner with the same type harm cannot recover those damages.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation Agribusiness North Carolina
Taxpayers are spending more to settle claims for vehicles damaged and wrecked on South Carolinas crumbling roads.

The State newspaper reports Friday that South Carolina has spent nearly $50 million since 2010 to settle lawsuits and claims for vehicle damage and injuries.

About $7 million of that was spent in just the last 10 months. Thats nearly $1 million more than was paid during the prior fiscal year.

Potholes are the biggest culprit. Drivers cited them in more than 60 percent of 15,200 claims filed against the state Department of Transportation since 2010.

The agency handles claims of less than $1,500. Larger claims or lawsuits are paid by the state Insurance Reserve Fund. Since July 1, the government insurance program has paid 10 claims of more than $100,000 each.

These figures directly reflect the poor condition of our roads, state DOT Director Christy Hall told the newspaper.

Business groups are demanding legislators pass a long-term funding solution to fix the roads. The DOT says it needs an additional $1.1 billion yearly over the next 25 years to bring the states roadways to good condition.

The Senate approved its road-funding plan this week. It marked the first time over several years of debate that the Senate has broken a filibuster and passed a bill with a gas tax increase to help fund road construction, allowing for the states first gas tax hike in 30 years.

The House passed its own version earlier this year. Just six legislative days remain for the House and Senate to work out a compromise.

Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, called the rising cost of claims one more reason legislators must pass a bill this session.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Claims Personal Auto South Carolina
Apple Inc. urged California to toughen up its proposed policy on testing self-driving cars, a move that would result in more public data that could help Apple catch up to rivals in the self-driving space by giving it a better window into their strengths and weaknesses.

In a letter made public on Friday, Apple suggested a series of changes to the draft policy that is under development and said it looks forward to working with California and others so that rapid technology development may be realized while ensuring the safety of the traveling public.

Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., Ford Motor Co., Uber Technologies Inc., Toyota Motor Corp., Tesla Motors Inc. and others also filed comments suggesting changes.

California said on Tuesday it would review comments before deciding whether to make changes to the policy that aims to allow companies to test vehicles without traditional steering wheels and controls or human back-up drivers.

The state is at the forefront of a crowded race to develop self-driving vehicles and the proposed changes from automakers and technology companies help provide insight into current efforts.

In its letter, Apple said California should revise how companies report self-driving system disengagements. California currently requires companies to report how many times the self-driving system was deactivated and control handed back to humans because of a system failure or a situation tied to traffic, weather or road conditions that required human intervention for safetyreasons.

But Apple wants those rules to extend to humans stepping in to prevent even minor traffic violations. Apple contends the reporting rules as written leave too much wiggle room for car makers and caused public confusion and misunderstanding, wrote Steve Kenner, Apples director of product integrity.

Apple also asked regulators to revisit language around the definition of an autonomous vehicle to clarify that permits are required in advanced systems even when a safety driver is present.

The exact wording around when permits are needed became a sticking point between Uber and state officials last year when the California Department of Motor Vehicles ordered Uber to cease its self-driving tests in San Francisco.

Apple also said the states rules for development vehicles used only in testing could restrict both the design and equipment that can be used in test vehicles.

A late entrant to the self-driving race, Apple secured a permit earlier this month to test autonomous vehicles in California. Although it has never openly acknowledged it is looking into building a car, Apple has recruited dozens of auto experts. The company declined to comment on Friday.

Tesla said California should not bar testing of autonomous vehicles that are 10,000 pounds (4,535 kg) or more, a move that Apple also joined. Tesla said such a move could stifle innovation, and bar a company from testing a heavy autonomous vehicle that might be used to haul parts on private property rather than on public roads, pushing developers in this sector out of the state.

Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, in 2016 announced plans for new electric vehicles, including a commercial truck called the Tesla Semi and a public transport bus. The electric vehicle pioneer said earlier this month it plans to unveil a commercial truck in September.

Tesla also said California should not prohibit the sale of non-self-driving vehicles previously used for autonomous vehicle testing. Tesla said that under the proposal, if it loads a vehicle with autonomous testing software and then replaces it with conventional production software it could be barred from selling the vehicle.

Uber said California should allow paying members of the public to ride in autonomous vehicles with drivers, saying: There is no reason to deny those riders an opportunity to travel in an autonomous test vehicle and provide honest feedback.

Lyft Inc, a ridesharingservice rival of Uber, asked the state to remove a requirement that it notify local authorities of autonomous vehicle testing.

Waymo asked California to remove its liability proposal. On Tuesday, General Motors Co had said the states proposed liability rules could make automakers liable regardless of fault for any crash. GM also said that automakers should be allowed to reuse autonomous vehicles and parts after testing or if the vehicle is scrapped.

Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG submitted joint comments seeking changes to the extent of data required to be retained in crashes involving self-driving cars.

A number of automakers have said they plan to begin deploying self-driving vehicles, some in commercial fleets, by 2020-21.

(Reporting by Shepardson, additional reporting by Alexandria Sage and Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; editing by Frances Kerry and G Crosse)

Topics California Auto Personal Auto Tesla
LP Insurance Services Inc. has named David Deacon to its Arizona commercial insurance sales team.

Deacon is responsible for developing new business relationships as well as retaining and servicing existing clients.

Deacon was most recently a sales producer at the Leavitt Group before joining LP Insurance. He was an insurance agent and American Family Insurance prior to that.

LP Insurance is headquartered in Reno, Nev. and has additional offices in Elko, Las Vegas, the Gold River/Sacramento and Truckee, Calif. area, as well as Phoenix, Ariz.

Topics Commercial Lines Arizona
Health insurers seeking regulatory approval for 2018 individual insurance plans can file two sets of premium rates as a way to deal with market uncertainty created by Republicans promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, a California state insurance regulator said on Friday.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones told insurers in a letter that they can file a set of lower rates based on the continued enforcement of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obamas signature legislation, and the continuation of government subsidies next year.

Insurers can also file rates that reflect uncertainty over the continuation of Obama-era policies, he said, by specifying the costs associated with losing the government funding for cost-sharing subsidies that members use to reduce out-of-pocket expenses and the requirement that all Americans have insurance.

Jones said that the move would enable insurers to file lower rates as well as the higher rates he expects them to submit.

The California Department of Insurance said rates are due on May 1 for individual insurance. The state is one of about a dozen that run its own online exchange where residents can buy these subsidized plans. Other states use the federal HealthCare.gov system and rates are due in June.

Insurers have warned that they need more certainty to file 2018 rates this spring. Anthem Inc. Chief Executive Joseph Swedish said on last week that he was telling states that he may raise rates by more than 20 percent or pull out of markets for 2018 if he does not have more information by June.

Molina Healthcare Inc. CEO Mario Molina said in a letter to Congress last week that he was ready to pull out of the market altogether and drop up to 700,000 customers as soon as this year.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Bill Rigby)

Topics Carriers California Trends Pricing Trends
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Cleantech and Climate Change Podcast  Interview with Founder and CEO of Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN) Discussing Recent Acquisitions, Rollout and Manufacturing of EV Line of Products

Vancouver, Kelowna, Delta, BC - November 7, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investorideas.com, a global news source and leading investor resource covering cleantech and renewable energy stocks issues a new edition of the Cleantech and Climate Change Podcast, featuring an interview with Mr. David Michery, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Electric Vehicle Company, Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN).

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As a brand with ever increasing global recognition, Netflix continues to embed itself into a growing list of territories around the world.

With the companys international membership having jumped from 35m subscribers in 2016 to almost 48m by the first quarter of 2017, it will soon begin the colonisation of the potentially biggest jewel in its crown  China.

Currently available in 200 countries around the world, Netflix has long eyed Chinas 1.3bn population  and last week announced it had finally begun the process of making commercial inroads there.

However, it will not operate in its usual subscription form, but through a licensing deal with iQiyi, a streaming service with 500m members controlled by Baidu, Chinas largest search engine.

In a country where Government censorship limits the variety of content, the deal includes television dramas, animated series and documentaries, as well as popular shows like Black Mirror, Stranger Things, Mindhunter and BoJack Horseman.

Yang Xianghuang, iQiyi senior vice president, said: All of iQiyis overseas partnerships will strictly adhere to Chinese regulations on film and TV imports.

iQiyi, which operates in a market shared with competing companies like Alibaba and Tencent, has already signed deals Warner Bros and Lions Gate Entertainment to distribute films online. iQiyi also intends spending up to $1.5bn (1.38bn) over the next year to produce super internet TV shows.

While it may not follow the usual Netflix template, the entry to China does take the home entertainment company in a direction it has courted for a long period.

China is an important market for obvious reasons, but is also a challenging market for obvious reasons, said vice president of content acquisition Robert Roy.

For us, it does a couple of things. It gets our content distribution into the territory and builds awareness of the Netflix brand and Netflix content.

The Chinese market has been growing at a very rapid pace, with 75m people signing up for online video subscriptions in 2016, up from 22m in 2015.

India is another important market for Netflix in the long term, due in part to being one of the strongest internet markets in the world. A critical market given its 300m mobile broadband users  each one a potential subscriber  is one of the top three markets for Netflix.

Asked who was Netflix biggest competitor, CEO Reed Hastings said: Sleep. Think about it, when you watch a show from Netflix and get addicted to it, you stay up late at night. Were competing with sleep, on the margin.

Yet, while it has changed the way millions consume entertainment content in shows like House of Cards, Narcos and Better Call Saul, the company is already looking to different horizons for the future.

With over 30 original scripted series in development, programming for 2017 will grow to 1,000 hours, doubling from 2016.

The company plans to spend over $6bn on content this year, up from $5bn in 2016. Netflix are also moving into the unscripted reality arena, led by global competition series Ultimate Beastmaster, produced by Sylvester Stallone and Dave Broome.

Unscripted television is a very interesting business, and we are focusing on shows that are more likely to travel internationally, said chief content officer Ted Sarandos at the recent UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York.

In a format designed to appeal across international boundaries, Ultimate Beastmaster features athletes from six different countries  the US, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Germany and Japan.

Each hour-long episode features 12 competitors, two from each country, running through physically demanding obstacle courses. At the end of each episode, a Beastmaster will be crowned and in the final episode of the season, the nine individual winners will compete against each other to become the Ultimate Beastmaster.

When Beastmaster hits in Korea, theyll never have seen anything like it, Mr Sarandos said.

Mr Hastings predicts that all video in the next 10 to 20 years will be on the internet.

We have seen YouTube, Amazon and even BBC open up globally, and there are now lots of TV networks bring content on the internet. Rather than getting run over by this, we are excited to be  and continue to be  at the forefront.

The challenge is ensuring that its subscribers around the world are able to access the same quality of Netflix experience simultaneously, which is dependent on the internet and mobile networks.

Some people are old enough to remember dial up internet, and now that seems like such a relic, he said.

We want to do that to buffering across the world. Many still know what a buffering looks like  our job is to eliminate that. We want to make buffering a historic relic where your kids say to you, whats buffer? We are going to see that someday the Netflix experience on mobile, laptop and TV is instant.

Since 2012, Netflix has committed over $1.75bn to European productions, including more than 90 original productions in various stages of development.

The content  which spans series, films, documentaries, kids shows and stand-up specials  includes upcoming titles like Dark, Netflixs first original series from Germany, a crime thriller series from Italy called Suburra, and Las Chicas Del Cable, a romantic 1920s inspired drama from Spain.

The company is also co-producing Troy: Fall of a City, Black Earth Rising and The Spy, in association with BBC One, BBC Two and Canal Plus respectively.

After four years of original programming and filming in 18 countries, we know compelling stories can come from anywhere and no matter their origin, can resonate with audiences around the world. In fact, of the European shows available on Netflix last year, more than half of watchers came from outside of Europe, which is why we are confident our upcoming slate of international shows will be enjoyed by viewers in their home countries and beyond, Mr Hastings said.
Such terms are completely at odds with the overwhelming evidence that immigration is positive for destination countries, departure countries, and immigrants themselves.

Far from being a burden or a cost, immigrants are a boon to economies. Ireland would benefit from a more open attitude to immigration, whether those migrants are economic, asylum-seekers, or refugees.

Our recent experience bears this out. Our economy and society benefited from Irelands decision to be one of the few EU members to welcome migrants from the new accession states in 2004.

The World Bank has estimated that increasing immigration by a margin equal to 3% of the workforce in developed countries would generate global economic gains of $356bn (327bn).

One of the most frequent objections to immigration is that immigrants take jobs from locals. This only makes sense if you think that an economy has a fixed number of jobs to be shared around. If an immigrant gets one of those precious jobs, then a local must lose out.

Economies dont work like that. At the end of 1998, there were 1.5m people in employment in Ireland. Just over 10 years later, the number was 2.1m people.

At the end of 2016, there were 2.05m people in employment. The number of jobs is not fixed. Economies are dynamic and immigrants enhance that dynamism.

Far from taking jobs, the evidence indicates that immigrants create jobs. Immigrants are not just workers, but are also consumers. They buy goods and services with the wages they earn, and that consumption creates jobs for others, including for local workers. Immigrants also set up new businesses.

The type of person who takes the risk to move to another country for new opportunities is also the type of person who is entrepreneurial and risk-taking. They are just what an economy needs to grow.

There is also a myth that immigrants are intent on exploiting our welfare state by claiming benefits and being a cost to the hard-working Irish taxpayer.

With alarming lack of awareness, opponents of immigration will argue that immigrants steal jobs and abuse social welfare payments. There is no evidence that immigrants are more likely to receive social welfare payments than the native population.

Immigrants are net contributors to the Irish exchequer, and just a little thought would make it clear why that is so. Most immigrants are young and healthy and so are not users of public health services. They have already completed their education and Ireland benefits from that, though it hasnt paid for it.

Most immigrants to Ireland, like the Irish that go to live abroad, are temporary. The intention may be to work and save, before returning home.

This means the tax paid by immigrants will not even be used to fund their pensions. But immigrants pay taxes at the same rate as every other worker.

The economic and social benefits of immigration are not just based on their financial contribution. They also bring knowledge and skills that may be lacking in the native population. A recent study showed that over half of high-tech start-ups in Silicon Valley had at least one foreign-born owner.

While the benefits to destination countries from immigration are clear, there are also benefits to the countries that immigrants leave. Returning migrants, as has happened in Ireland, bring back skills, networks, and savings.

Remittances to developing countries in 2015 amounted to $432bn. Total development aid for developing countries is approximately $135bn. Remittances also go directly into the pockets of poor people and into their local economies, rather than development aid being filtered through governments and NGOs.

Dr Declan Jordan is senior lecturer in economics at Cork University Business School.
However, a fresh threat by British prime minister Theresa May to walk away from the Brexit talks if a favourable deal looks unlikely has hit hopes in Government about negotiations for Ireland.

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan said he was concerned by Ms Mays threat, which came after a show of strength among European leaders at a weekend summit in Brussels.

Ground rules to govern Brexit negotiations were agreed. Leaders also backed a special declaration the North could rejoin the EU in the event of a vote for reunification. Irish negotiators were satisfied with the so-called Kenny text on the North and the general Brexit terms which support flexible solutions to protect the peace process and avoid a hard border.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed the extra significant legal declaration, saying it was an important recognition of the Good Friday Agreement. He denied trying to trigger a referendum on reunification.

If the provision of unity by peaceful means and by consent and democratic means is invoked at some time in the future, EU membership is assured, he said.

Its an important milestone today, I regard it as such. It marks the beginning of what will be a long and difficult process.

Thats a significant European statement from the European Council for something that may happen some time in the future.

The declaration had been discussed with Ms May and her predecessor, David Cameron, he said.

However, farmers and businesses want to know when talks will begin on how Irelands trade will be impacted with Britain leaving the bloc. There are fears of large tariffs hitting Irish exports when Britain leaves the EU.

Nonetheless, negotiations on these concerns and others will have to wait until sufficient progress on other priorities has been made, EU leaders agreed.

These issues include the status of EU citizens living in Britain and British citizens residing in the union, the relocation of EU agencies and the cost of Britains divorce bill, estimated to be 60bn. EU council president Donald Tusk signalled this as did German chancellor Angela Merkel.

Government figures told the Irish Examiner they hoped the second round of talks on trade or a future relationship could begin before the end of the year. EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier thinks talks on trade will begin next year. Mr Kenny said Ireland wants a tariff-free arrangements but it is too early to say what the outcome will be.

Meanwhile, Ms May yesterday reiterated that she would walk away from any deal on Brexit if it was looking bad for Britain. Mr Flanagan said he was concerned at this and no deal would be bad for Ireland.

Meanwhile. former taoiseach Bertie Ahern yesterday warned any push for a referendum on a united Ireland could backfire.
Health Minister Simon Harris has said a review of the ownership structures in the health sector, expected to include the role of the Church, is now to be undertaken.

This comes after the news that the Sisters of Charity order of nuns was to be granted ownership of the 300m taxpayer-funded hospital, because the order owns the St Vincents Hospital campus on which it is to be built.

Last week, the former master of the Coombe Hospital, Chris Fitzpatrick, stood down from the NMH hospital board and had the support of Peter Boylan, who also resigned last week.

Both resignations were in protest at the plan to allow the religious order to own, and have authority over, the hospital. Prof Fitzpatrick had said he shared the concerns of Dr Boylan about the governance of the proposed hospital.

Furthermore, he said it was critical that there was absolute separation between the Church and medicine, and especially so as regards female reproductive healthcare.

While the Government has called for calm and a months breathing space in which to resolve the dispute, Mr Harris last night confirmed that the issue of the ownership of the hospital was now being examined.

Mr Harris yesterday said: I want to be very clear that I want this time to pursue solutions that address the issue of the ownership of the facility  that is, the new NMH.

The agreement reached between the hospitals recognised that the State will require a lien [a charge on the property] on the new facility, in accordance with whatever funding agreements are in place by the State for such capital projects.

Different options have been used in the past, in doing this, and I believe there is potential to devise creative and acceptable solutions that will provide further reassurance regarding the ownership of these facilities, which will be paid for by the State.

Earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan confirmed that among the options was a long-term lease, by which the State would pay a nominal rent for leasing the land over many years.

Another option would be the gifting of the land to the State by the religious order, but this is fraught with obstacles, Government sources said.

Mr Flanagan confirmed that he believed a compulsory purchase order of the site for the new maternity hospital was a further option, a proposal that Sinn Fein and Labour, among other parties, prefer.

However, this could take years to complete and may also be subject to legal difficulties.

While Prof Declan Keane, the NMH clinical director, supported this route, he also told RTE that the original deal between health authorities and the St Vincents Hospital Group fully protected the clinical independence of the new hospital. This has also been stressed by Mr Harris.

Mr Harris also confirmed, after it was reported in the Irish Examiner last week, that he wants to conduct a review of the structure of health services. This is expected to be similar to a forum set up in 2011 by former education minister, Ruairi Quinn, into the patronage and role of the Church in schools.

Mr Harris said: As weve seen, through this process and most particularly in recent weeks, the structure of our health service is diverse and complex.

A conversation has now started in Ireland regarding this. That is a good thing and I want to separately put in place a process to facilitate that broader conversation, which is long overdue and which will, rightfully, take some time.

This process can be expected to raise a broad range of complex policy issues that will need to be addressed on a general basis within the health service, into the future.
A SWAN sits on her nests within shouting distance of a schoolyard full of energetic primary school children at Timoleague, Co Cork, clearly unperturbed by their proximity. In some parts of the world, it would be captured and cooked on sight. We are indeed fortunate not to be hungry.

A man we met in Ethiopia last month sent me this email yesterday:

Dear Mr Damien, Many refugees are coming in from south Sudan in the western parts of Ethiopia close to 50,000 refugees are coming to the district where I have a project with the local community.

It is about five hours on foot to reach the Sudan border. They will arrive in the next few weeks. What I am thinking is how to deal with the local community and the refugees and I wonder if you can help me find any interested funding organisation.

The issues of refugees is very sensitive and they come in with many problems. Please talk to organisations interested to work on this issues with me. With thanks, Guta Abdi. EFDA Ethiopia.

The website is www.efhda.org.et. If you, dear reader, are in a position to help this good man help these unfortunate people, please contact him. I will do my best to help. I visited an EFDA project in Ethiopia, and saw it was doing genuine good work, teaching local farmers how to better use their limited resources.

Here in Ireland, we have a wealth of natural resources but nature is often mistreated. Last week, I wrote about hill fires on the Cork-Kerry border and wondered how they started, given that burning hillsides is illegal in April. This week, even bigger wildfires raged at Gougane Barra, the famous beauty spot.

Does the Garda believe that they were again started by ghosts, the sun on a bottle or spontaneous combustion? They may try to apply the law but in our outdated culture, we have the idea that in Ireland we have nature to burn? The law-makers of the Heritage Bill 2016 treats wild nature with contempt.

A woman who divides her time between London and Clonakilty told me about her concern to protect the future of the magnificent natural heritage around the town she loves so well. Deirdre Clenet, nee Hurley, born in Clonakilty, where her grandmother lived at Strand House, once ODonovan Rossas home, contacted me  we were contemporaries as children  to explain her intentions.

She rightly says, Clonakilty has looked after its built heritage magnificently, and highlighted it for visitors. No wonder it was voted best town in the UK and Ireland by an international panel of architects, town planners and developers.

But where in the town does information highlight the superb and diverse natural history beyond the urban area, the wetlands at Clogheen Marsh, the dunes at Inchydoney? she asks. The biodiversity is exceptional but few visitors would know its there, nor do many locals appreciate its uniqueness. While attention is drawn to townscape, natures creations are largely left ignored and too often spoiled by human abuse!

I know Clon is gorgeous. Whenever I go there myself, I lean on a bridge of the Feagle  where, in bare feet and short pants, I netted gudgeons as a boy  and watch dippers, grey wagtails, mallard and herons; and, these days, the lovely, flower-bedecked tresses of water-crowfoot drifting in the stream

In the Southern Star of April 22, Deirdre writes about Clonakilty Bay as an EU Protected Wetland, third among Cork wetlands for bird numbers in winter, and asks where are the hides, for visitors to watch them, where the boardwalks in the marshes, where the walks programmes identifying locations and species?

Passionate in the cause of drawing attention to these gems of Greater Clonakilty, she hopes to engage a groundswell of popular concern. Those interested can contact her at clonbiodiversity@gmail.com.

Meanwhile, reports reach me of a cuckoo heard by a reader near Kanturk for the first time in half a century and a tiny wanderer lost in the night, a baby pipistrelle bat.

Last week, Mim Hill, at Droumillihy, Leap in West Cork, found the tiny creature out on the floor of her bathroom; it looked like a withered beech leaf, Id imagine. Anyway, her husband, Peter, put it on a pillar outdoors to let it fly off, but it fell to the ground, unable to take wing.

It began to squeak piteously. I suggested it might be dehydrated and they fed it water, greedily accepted, from a syringe. The first thing distressed creatures generally need is water. They put it in an open shed and found it still alive the next day, hanging from a rafter. Alas, it did not survive, despite its human guardians best efforts.
Late one afternoon I booked into a country hotel on the banks of the River Gacka (this is pronounced gatchka, There seems to be a very loose relationship between spelling and pronunciation in the Croatian language.) I was in karst limestone country  a bit like the Burren with trees  and most of the Gacka flows underground. However, here it was behaving like a normal river and its crystal clear limestone water has a reputation for providing some of the best trout fishing in Europe, which was what had brought me to this rather obscure part of the country.

The hotel had obviously started life as a large water mill and stood at the confluence of the Gacka and a small tributary. I went to check things out as soon as I had dumped my luggage in the room. A pair of pied wagtails were nesting in a sluice house and a dipper whirred away up the tributary. In the main river a group of dab-chicks were busily diving after food. I went for a short walk and heard two birds making very strange sounds but, however hard I tried, I couldnt spot them.
US president Donald Trump doesnt practice traditional diplomacy. As in domestic policy, but with a thicker fog of ignorance, Trump treats each issue of foreign policy or engagement as a separate event, and reacts to it according to his mood.

This behaviour is unlikely to change. If it does not, and Mr Trumps presidency continues, the world, including the important part of it he governs, will become more dangerous.

The considerable good that Americans do abroad will shrink. And the rule-based systems that the US seeks to police will decay and be replaced with more regional and national confrontations and with more failed states.

Mr Trumps shifting moods have produced several notable flip-flops. Most prominent has been Russia, in part because he praised its president, Vladimir Putin, again and again, from mid-2013 to February this year.

That stopped after the Syrian governments chemical weapons attack in early April, when Mr Trump promised retaliation and switched from admiration to distrust of Russia, Syrias main ally.

It was a double switch  on Russia, but also on his non-intervention policy. Mr Trump ordered a missile strike on the base from which the Syrian planes staged their attack. He had vowed not to intervene in foreign quarrels, and had appeared indifferent about Syrian president Bashar al-Assad remaining in power.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump criticised China for manipulating currency and for destroying US industry with cheap imports, but changed his tone after an apparently friendly weekend with Chinese president Xi Jinping at Mr Trumps Florida resort.

He had grumbled before meeting Mr Xi that relations between the two countries had to be radically adjusted. After the meeting, and after receiving some encouragement for his view that China would put pressure on a North Korea threatening nuclear war, Mr Trump shifted once more, asking rhetorically why he would be rude to China on currency manipulation, when it was assisting him on North Korea.

For some in the foreign-policy establishment, hostility toward Russia and cautious overtures to China were a return to the natural order, underpinned by the presidents discovery that Nato was not obsolete after all.

Theres something in that view: Russia was never going to remain a favoured nation of America for long and, as early as his January meeting with British prime minister Theresa May, Mr Trump had appeared to agree when she told journalists that he was 100% behind Nato. But to say hes become a normal foreign-policy president is a stretch.

The basis of mainstream US diplomacy has historically been a warm attitude toward traditional, close allies, cool-to-aggressive toward opponents, and sometimes critical of authoritarian states with which business can or must be done.

These postures are full of moral gulches and vast hypocrisies  many were exposed in Wikipedias publication of US state department cables  but everyone knows how the game is played. Mr Trump isnt like that. He makes no secret of his dislike of some close allies and appears to admire, rather than tolerate, authoritarian leaders.

In their first White House meeting, Mr Trump pressed German chancellor Angela Merkel, the US most important European ally, to meet Natos military spending target, and, in an awkward quip, repeated his claim that he had been wiretapped by the Mr Obama administration.

He abruptly terminated his call with Australias prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, after Mr Turnbull asked Mr Trump to honour the Obama-era commitment to take 1,000 migrants from an Australian detention camp.

Mr rump received Canadas prime minister, Justin Trudeau, more politely, but a few weeks later blamed Canada for trade violations. He held Ms Mays hand as they walked through the White House colonnade, but soon after criticised her secret services for spying on him, with no proof on which to base such a colossal charge.

By contrast, Mr Trump relished the first-round success of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, whose political lineage is racist, anti- Semitic, contemptuous of Muslims, and intent on isolating France from both the EU and the global economy.

He congratulated Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the narrow, and possibly manipulated, victory in a referendum on increasing Mr Erdogans power. This will likely lead to Mr Erdogan arresting and detaining more government officials, military officers, journalists, and academics.

Mr Trump treated Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi like a long-lost friend, though Mr Sisi is much more brutal with internal enemies than his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, was (Mr Sisi helped remove Mr Mubarak.)

Mr Trumps attitude to his southern neighbour, Mexico, has alienated the countrys political class. President Enrique Pena Nieto cancelled a visit to Washington, as Mr Trump repeated his campaign promise to build a wall between the two countries and to deport millions of Mexicans deemed to be illegal immigrants.

This is not mainstream diplomacy. It is, to adapt the presidents customary designation of the press, lamestream diplomacy: Lamed by lack of strategy, experience, and, often, common politeness, his preferences proceeding from a worldview that prizes displays of strength and is contemptuous of liberal allies.

Will this change? Of course, and in every which way. Flip-flops, switches, and change make up the one unchanging theme of Mr Trumps diplomacy.

John Lloyd co-founded the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, at the University of Oxford, where he is senior research fellow
This year marks the bicentenary of when a British doctor first described an illness we now recognise as Parkinsons.

James Parkinson published his research back in 1817 in his An Essay of the Shaking Palsy and his work was awarded by the honour of an eponym and the illness he described was given his name.

The names of celebrated doctors may be familiar to us through their links with well-known diseases, syndromes or conditions, though we may be less familiar with the symptoms themselves.

Being awarded an eponym is considered the standard in Western medicine and an honour bestowed on the doctors, scientists and researchers, who may have devoted a lifetime to the discovery, identification and treatment of ailments and conditions that affect the population.

Typically, the doctors honoured by the eponym were the first to publish an article about it in a recognised medical journal.

Sometimes, though not as common, medical conditions are named after a patient who suffered from it, like Lou Gehrigs disease is the US name for what we know as motor neurone disease. It was called after the American baseball player and member of the New York Yankees who died of the disease at the age of 37.

Alzheimers, Hodgkins lymphoma, Down syndrome, and Chrohns disease are examples of eponyms that are well known  but just how much do we know about the people behind them who have been immortalised in their names?

There are hundreds of eponyms for various conditions, diseases, illnesses and syndromes and women are severely under-represented.

Study identified brain anomalies for diagnosis

Alzheimers disease: Dr Aloysius Alzheimer

The condition:

Alzheimers is a progressive disease, where the symptoms of dementia gradually worsen over a number or years, causing a decline in mental functions that affects memory, thinking, language and behaviour.

It is the most common form of dementia and is thought to account for up to 80% of cases.

Around 40,000 people in Ireland are living with Alzheimers disease but this figure is expected to grow as the population ages.

It is most common in people over the age of 65, although it can affect younger people.

Dr Aloysius Alzheimer pioneered studied that showed how symptoms of dementia can cause decline in mental functions.

The doctor:

The German doctor who lends his name to the condition was born in Bavaria in 1864 and died of heart failure in Breslau, Prussia  modern day Wroclaw in Poland  in 1915, at the tender age of 51.

Aloysius or Alois Alzheimer studied medicine at university in Berlin and Wurzburg before taking up work in the city mental asylum in Frankfurt am Main before moving to Munich.

However, it was while in Frankfurt he met Augusta Deter, a 51-year-old patient, whose medical records and brain formed the basis of his study that would ultimately identify amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, the brain anomalies that would later become the identifiers for diagnosing Alzheimers disease.

The disease didnt come to be known by the eponym until 1910 and one year later, Alzheimers findings were being used to diagnose patients, only four years before his death.

Asperger research went unrecognised

Aspergers syndrome: Dr Hans Asperger

The condition:

Aspergers syndrome or disorder is one of the autism spectrum disorders (ASD) but is considered to be at the high-functioning end of the spectrum and less severe than other instances.

People with Aspergers have normal intelligence but may have difficulty with social interaction of non-verbal communication. Signs usually begin within the first two years.

Irish Autism Action estimates that several thousand people in Ireland have the syndrome, with about nine times as many men as women affected.

Dr Hans Asperger: The Viennese paediatrician first described what we now know as Aspergers syndrome in 1944.

The doctor:

The Viennese pediatrician first described what we now know as Aspergers syndrome in 1944 after observing a group of children who suffered from what he described as autistic psychopathy.

However, because his research was all written in German, his contributions in literature went unrecognised for decades.

Even the eponym Aspergers syndrome only came into widespread usage in 1981.

He never lived to see this, as in died in October 1980, age 74.

Aspergers syndrome was only recognised in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1994 but was removed again in 2013 and included in autism spectrum disorders.

Hodgkin was a pioneer in medicine

Hodgkins lymphoma: Dr Thomas Hodgkin

The condition:

Hodgkins lymphoma (HL) is a cancer of the lymphatic system that generally develops in the lymph glands or nodes, causing them to get bigger and swell. Most commonly, the cancer develops in the neck, armpit or chest though it can develop in any part of body.

On average, over 100 people are diagnosed with the disease in Ireland each year.

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is also a cancer of the lymphatic system and more common than HL. However, NHL is not a single disease but rather a group of several closely related cancers.

Non-Hodgkin can be either low grade or high grade in nature.

Low grade means the cells grow very slowly and may need little or no treatment for months or years, while high-grade NHLs grow more quickly and require immediate attention.

NHL also affects both men and women and over 500 people in Ireland are diagnosed with the condition each year.

Dr Thomas Hodgkin was a pioneer in preventative medicine.

The doctor:

British pathologist Thomas Hodgkin was born in 1798 and considered a pioneer in preventative medicine though he is best known for his account of what we now know as Hodgkins lymphoma, which was first published in 1832.

Born into a Quaker family in Middlesex, Dr Hodgkin died in Palestine 67 years later after contracting dysentery. He was buried in Jaffa.

A geologist, surgeon, and political activist

Parkinsons disease: Dr James Parkinson

The condition:

Parkinsons disease is a progressive neurological disorder caused by a shortage of dopamine, a chemical that helps instructions from the brain cross from one nerve cell to another.

More than 9,000 are living with the condition in Ireland and there is no known cure.

However, Parkinsons is variable in its progression and progresses slower in some people.

The symptoms include tremors and shakings, muscle stiffness, limited movement, and difficulties with balance, but can be controlled effectively for years with medication.

Dr James Parkinson: A strong advocate for the underprivileged, he died in London in 1824, at the age of 69, of a stroke.

The doctor:

Although Dr James Parkinson is most famous for his 1817 work, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, he was also an English surgeon, chemist, geologist, palaeontologist. and political activist.

Born in London in April 1755, Dr Parkinson was the son of a doctor and chemist, who practised in Hoxton Square, London, and later succeeded his father in the practice.

Apart from his scientific pursuits, he was also a strong advocate for the underprivileged and an outspoken critic of the government, writing under his own name and the pseudonym Old Hubert.

He died in London in 1824, at the age of 69, of a stroke.

Syndrome outlined before genetic findings

Down syndrome Dr John Langdon Down

The condition:

Also known as trisomy 21, Down syndrome is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. It is associated with delays to physical growth, characteristic facial features and mild to moderate intellectual disability.

The extra chromosome occurs by chance but the possibility of it occurring increases from less than 0.1% in 20-year-old mothers to 3% in those over the age of 45.

It occurs in about one per 1,000 babies born.

It can be identified in pregnancy through prenatal screening.

Dr John Langdon Down: Facility he founded now houses the headquarters of the Down Syndrome Association.

The doctor:

British doctor John Langdon Down first described the syndrome in 1866 but it wasnt until 1957 that the genetic cause of the condition, an extra copy of chromosome 21, was discovered.

Down was born in Cornwall in 1828 but his father was originally from Derry and his great-great grandfather was the Catholic bishop of Derry.

In 1866 in a paper entitled Observations of an Ethic Classification of Idiots he put forward his theory that different conditions could be classified by ethnic characteristics.

These included what he classified as a Mongolian type, which led to people with Down syndrome also being known by the offensive term Mongoloids.

Two years later he set up a private home for the mentally subnormal at Normansfield in England. Today this is known as the Langdon Down Centre and also houses the headquarters of the Down Syndrome Association.

Crohn collaborated on disease research

Crohns disease: Dr Burrill Bernard Crohn

The condition:

Crohns disease is an inflammatory bowel disease that affects parts of the digestive system that gets swollen and has deep scars called ulcers. It is usually found in the small or large intestine but it can develop anywhere along the digestive tract, including the mouth and the anus.

Symptoms include stomach cramps and diarrhea often causing weight loss.

It is not known what causes the disease but it is more prevalent among certain ethic groups and can run in families.

According to the Irish Society for Colitis and Crohns Disease, around 40,000 are affected with the illness here.

Dr Burrill Bernard Crohn collaborated with Dr Leon Ginzburg and Dr Gordon Oppenheimer on the research that led to categorisation of Crohns disease.

The doctor:

Although Dr Burrill Bernard Crohn is honoured by the eponym, the good doctor collaborated on the research with two others, Dr Leon Ginzburg and Dr Gordon Oppenheimer.

It is thought the condition was named after him because their names appeared in alphabetical order on the paper they published in 1932 describing the features of the then unknown condition.

Dr Crohn, a Jewish American, himself enjoyed excellent health, almost living to the age of 100.

Born in New York in June 1884, Dr Crohn died in Connecticut in July 1983.

Educated at the City College of New York, Dr Crohn received a medical degree from Columbia University in 1907, the same year he became an intern at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was later promoted to head of gastroenterology.

Apart from being a renowned gastroenterologist, who consulted on high-profile patients, including president Dwight Eisenhower, Dr Crohn was also an accomplished painter.

Disorder affects 1 in 3,000 to 6,000 births

Edwards Syndrome: Dr John Hilton Edwards

The condition:

A serious genetic disorder, also known as trisomy 18, caused by an additional copy of chromosome 18 in some or all cells in the body.

In many cases where it occurs, it causes miscarriage or stillbirth.

Of babies who survive to birth, half die within two weeks and only one in every five will survive to three months, though around one in every 12 survives beyond the first year.

It affects around one in 3,000 to 6,000 live births and the risk increases with the mothers age.

John Hilton Edwards found extra chromosome caused trisomy 18.

The doctor:

Of all the featured doctors whose names have become eponyms, Dr John Hilton Edwards in the most contemporary, having only passed away in 2007.

Born in London in 1928, Edwards was the first to report a description of multiple congenital malformations associated with the presence of an extra chromosome.

He was elected to fellowship of the Royal Society in 1979 and was a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and Professor of Genetics at Oxford from 1979 to 1995.

He died in Oxford in 2007.

Rare condition disrupts fetal development

Pataus Syndrome: Dr Klaus Patau

The condition:

Also known as trisomy 13, Pataus syndrome is a rare and serious genetic disorder caused by having an additional copy of chromosome 13 in some or all of the bodys cells.

Pataus severely disrupts development in the womb and in many cases results in miscarriage, stillbirth, or death shortly after birth. About 90% of babies born with the syndrome die in the first year.

It affects about one in every 5,000 births though the risk increases with the mothers age.

It can be detected through prenatal screening.

Dr Klaus Patau detected disorder that can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, or death shortly after birth.

The doctor:

Geneticist Klaus Patau was born in Germany in 1908 and graduated from the University of Berlin with a PhD in 1936, followed by a two-year stint in London before the war.

He returned to Germany and worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Biology until he emigrated to the USA in 1948.

He first reported the extra chromosome in trisomy 13 in 1960.

He died in 1975.
Firmly putting the Irish stamp on the guidelines to the Brexit negotiations has prioritised the countrys interests.

Declaration that the North could seamlessly rejoin the EU with reunification, and a stipulation that flexible solutions are needed to avoid a hard border are a welcome start to the Brexit talks.

Nonetheless, the opposition is warning that it might just be warm words from Brussels.

This isnt the case. But theres no point in popping the Champagne corks over what Fine Gael insiders are touting as the Kenny text.

Mr Kenny punched the air as he strolled out of the iconic Europa building in Brussels, after the summit working lunch. His mojo, as he calls it, was back.

There is no scope for complacency. Ireland will be most negatively hit by the outcome of Britain leaving the European Union, particularly if it is a so-called hard Brexit.

Reduced fishing rights, crippling tariffs on Irish foods, border checks, and a decline in trade are just some of the threats we face.

Nonetheless, Mr Kenny emphasised the special declaration on Irish reunification.

It was an  important milestone, he declared, adding: Thats a significant European statement from the European council for something that may happen some time in the future.

However, critics say all this is provided for in the Good Friday Agreement and that it was inevitable that a united Ireland would see Belfast join the bloc again.

The Government has settled at a level that is very low, said Sinn Feins Mary Lou McDonald, noting that Spain had secured a veto over changes to Gibraltar, the British-owned territory on its coast.

Fianna Fails Stephen Donnelly said the Kenny text was far from a diplomatic coup, adding: We should be aiming higher.

Indeed, negotiations between Brussels and London will begin when trade and future relations are put on the table in the months ahead.

Britains huge divorce bill, EU agencies, and the rights of citizens residing in the bloc, and in Britain, must be resolved first. It will be at least October before trade comes into the negotiations. British elections next month could push that into 2018.

This is when Irish negotiators will need to push for a soft Brexit.

The focus will now move quickly to economic and trade issues, said Mr Kenny. And, clearly, here there are some challenges in respect of Ireland.

Ireland wanted tariff-free arrangements, no fresh borders or queues and delays, but he also admitted: Its too early to say what the outcome will be.

Irelands Brexit battle has just begun.
Enda Kenny himself described the outcome of the European summit in Brussels as a huge endorsement of the Governments approach to the Brexit negotiations and a clear recognition of the unique and specific challenges facing Ireland.

That might be overstating things a bit. Both the council and the European Commission, along with most EU leaders, had already accepted the difficulty posed by a return to a hard border between the North and the Republic while endorsement of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement  which specifically allows for unification  is nothing new. Indeed, a Commission Task Force on Northern Ireland has been in place for more than a decade and has already channeled hundreds of millions of euro to support devolved government in the North.

However, what is new is the acceptance that, should the people of the North choose to unite with the south in the wake of Brexit or for some other reason, the whole of the island will have automatic EU membership.

Mr Kennys use of German unity as a template for this scenario was masterful and he deserves full marks for that. Germany could hardly have objected, given the fact that more than 16m East Germans were given automatic EU membership following German reunification.

The EU endorsement, however, has undoubtedly spooked some unionists. Indeed, former first minister David Trimble has already voiced concerns that the Brussels summits declaration on Irish unity would only stir up nationalist feeling.

The former Ulster Unionist leader told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: From the point of view of the Irish, there is no need to introduce this, its actually playing games with nationalist feelings and I wonder why the Irish Government is doing this and why Europe is going along with it.

According to Mr Trimble, stirring up nationalist feeling is not necessarily a wise thing to do, but what I would like to do is to focus on the real issue, and the real issue in terms of the border is tariffs.

He has a point. Raising the spectre of unification could deflect from the hard work needed to ensure there is no return to a hard border. It is also absurdly premature and poses more questions than answers. While offering loyalists in Northern Ireland a practical reason for unity, it challenges us to reimagine the island of Ireland as a sovereign, independent state.

At the moment we only have one vision of a united Ireland, offered mostly by Sinn Fein: An ultra nationalist, pseudo- socialist, Brit-bashing republic. That is hardly going to endear liberal southerners, let alone unionists.

We need to fundamentally rethink our nationhood, including consideration of issues such as whether the capital of a unified state should necessarily be Dublin and whether we should rejoin the British Commonwealth. These are questions that could take decades to sort out, so, whatever about EU endorsement for unity, dont expect it anytime soon.
Move over, Mirai, another botnet is taking aim at Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The interesting twist is that nobody is sure if the new entrant, Hajime, aims at causing destruction or at preventing Mirai and other botnets from doing so.

Security firm Kaspersky Lab claimed that Hajime, which means beginning in Japanese, is a distributed denial of service (DDoS) botnet that has infected more than 300,000 IoT devices. The botnet has at least a couple of ways of attacking IoT devices, including one that specifically attacks Arris cable modems, says eweek. The botnet is worldwide, but about half of the infected devices are in Iran, Brazil, Vietnam, the Russian Federation and Turkey. Digital video recorders (DVSs) and IoT-connected video systems are the favored targets.

Securelist, a blog from Kaspersky, provides technical information, and differs in some details from eWeek. For instance, it says that almost (not more than) 300,000 devices have been affected. It also replaces China for the Russian Republic in the list of top victims.

The drama around Hajime centers on its raison detre. Securelist puts it simply: The most intriguing thing about Hajime is its purpose. There is speculation that Hajime, which was discovered last year, is aimed at pushing back against Mirai and malware.

Waylon Grange, in a post on Symantecs site, notes that Hajime doesnt have a DDoS module, which implies it is not evil, and closes down four ports on devices that Mirai may use to gain control. It even delivers a positive message (Just a white hat, securing some systems. Important messages will be signed like this! Hajime Author. Contact CLOSED Stay sharp!)

Thats a strong circumstantial case for the conclusion that Hajime is beneficial. Nothing is certain in the scary and fun world of computer security, however. Just because somebody says that their code is good doesnt mean that it is so:

The above message is cryptographically signed and the worm will only accept messages signed by a hardcoded key, so there is little question that this message is from the worms true author. However, there is a question around trusting that the author is a true white hat and is only trying to secure these systems, as they are still installing their own backdoor on the system. The modular design of Hajime also means if the authors intentions change they could potentially turn the infected devices into a massive botnet.

Grange notes that this isnt the first time that white hats (good hackers) have claimed to author vigilante software aimed at helping secure the internet from attackers. Whether Hajime is one of them, or bad malware posing as good, remains to be seen.

Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at [email protected] and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
After Caterina Balcells graduated from the University of Barcelona, she took a traditional career path as a language teacher. Today, shes no longer teaching language to humans. Shes teaching language to computers.

Balcells is the chief linguistic officer at Inbenta, a cloud-based natural language processing and semantic search technology provider in San Mateo. In a recent interview, she said she took the position at Inbenta with no background or training in artificial intelligence. Now that she is immersed in the world of natural language processing as a computational linguist, Balcells has become an expert in training chatbots, the voice thats often on the other end of the line when you call customer service. I asked her if some chatbots are easier to train than others, depending on what language or languages they speak, and she said some languages are inherently more difficult than others:

For example, we have been working for some years now with German, and these very long, compound words that they have can be challenging for us. Chinese and Japanese dont have spaces between sentences, and thats also a bit complicated for us, because we have to know where a word starts and ends. So there are different things in different languages that are easier than others.

Another key factor, Balcells explained, is that there are far more open source tools available for some languages, like English, than for others:

Here at Inbenta we support over 20 different languages, so weve had to develop a lot of the tools ourselves. For example, there is nothing for Catalan, for Basque; now we are working with Norwegian, Swedish, and Asian languages. Most of the tools are available in English, but that doesnt mean that English is easier than other languages  I dont think English is easier than Chinese, for example, although they have many things in common. I just learned that recently, because we have our expert in Chinese here, and she said there are things that are very similar. For example, in both languages the same word groupings can mean different things  in English, ship a book and book a ship have entirely different meanings. The same word can be a noun or a verb, and the same thing happens in Chinese. This is complicated  it can be difficult [to teach a computer] when a word is a noun, and when its a verb.

Speaking with Balcells was especially interesting for me, in that Im a graduate of Georgetown Universitys School of Languages and Linguistics. My own experience in that realm was that a large percentage of students were females who went on to become language teachers. When I brought up the gender topic, Balcells said most of the linguists at Inbenta are indeed female:

Most of us have a linguistics background, so we have studied languages at the university level. Some of us have focused on linguistics, others come from the translation field. These are studies that attract a lot of females  I dont know why. But we also have some male computational linguists here  some of them may have a more technical background. But we dont notice a big difference here, because all of us have this linguistic background, and we all have studied something similar. That said, computational linguists can come from different fields  not all of them have a linguistic background. Some of them have a technical background  and in those cases, yeah, they are mainly male.

Given that the teaching profession is largely female-dominated, at least on some levels, I asked Balcells what it was like for her going from that profession to the very male-dominated technology sector. I mentioned that I couldnt help but notice that shes the only female among the 12 people shown on Inbentas website as being on the leadership team. She laughed and said that was kind of weird for her:

At the top level of companies, you notice that those roles are mainly filled by males, thats true. But here in our company, the team as a whole is half male and half female, so we dont really notice that. For me, changing from teaching to working with computers was kind of like changing from teaching human beings to teaching computers  my feeling is that I am teaching computers here. I used to teach languages to children, and now Im teaching languages to computers. So it wasnt such a big change, because Im still teaching languages.

I wrapped up the conversation by asking Balcells what advice she has for young people who are interested in entering the field of computational linguistics and pursuing a career in artificial intelligence. She said first of all, dont be afraid:

Sometimes people who apply for a job here say, I know how to handle a computer, but Im not an expert. Dont be scared  this is one of the things you can do if you study languages and linguistics, and you like computers and technology. This is a field that changes a lot, so you can learn and invent a lot of new things  there are many things that are there to be invented. Even if you dont have great programming skills, you can find a company like ours where we work hand-in-hand together with developers and engineers. Its a fascinating job  youre building things, and then you see them online and see that theyre helping people, and helping companies sell more. Its very satisfying to see that what you do is helping other people.

A contributing writer on IT management and career topics with IT Business Edge since 2009, Don Tennant began his technology journalism career in 1990 in Hong Kong, where he served as editor of the Hong Kong edition of Computerworld. After returning to the U.S. in 2000, he became Editor in Chief of the U.S. edition of Computerworld, and later assumed the editorial directorship of Computerworld and InfoWorld. Don was presented with the 2007 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity by American Business Media, and he is a recipient of the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for editorial excellence in news coverage. Follow him on Twitter @dontennant.
Acer's new wearable device, the Leap Ware, is a fitness-focused smartwatch that is packed with a host of sensors. It is also budget-friendly, priced at a reasonable $149/139 price point. This latest smartwatch does not use Android Wear, settling instead with custom software that is paired with an iOS and Android combo with the help of the company's Liquid Life app.

The snug-fitting, chic-looking smartwatch includes a heart rate monitor and UV ray exposure sensor. With the firm's MT2511 biosensing chip, it is also capable of delivering stamina, stress and fatigue levels information. Additionally, the buttons on the side of the watch face can also deliver blood pressure readings.

According to the Trusted Reviews, in general, Acer's Leap Ware has got plenty right. The smartwatch's slender design doesn't protrude excessively from the wrist, resulting in an easy-on-the-eye appearance. It is also fairly well built with a circular plastic body, metal edging, and slightly stretchy wristband, making it sit comfortably snug against the wrist.

There are two control buttons that play important parts in using the device, but the main way to interact with this watch is through its touchscreen. According to the Pocket-Lint, there is a pretty quirky feature on this smartwatch in the form of a little light to the side that users can activate by pressing one of the buttons. The wearable gadget can last up to 3-5 days and is an IPX7 water resistant.

Although Acer's Leap Ware is off to a good start with its comfortable fit and simple design, it could frustrate some users with one negative feature -- its agonizingly slow software. Interacting with the touchscreen can make feel like dealing with an ancient device due to the extensive delay in accessing between screens. The product will arrive in North America in July and in Europe in the second half of 2017.
Microsoft released the Windows 10 Creators Update two weeks ago but has decided to just roll it out to users in parts. Today, Microsoft has advised Windows 10 users not to download the software update. According to the warning, users should wait for their computers to become officially eligible for it.

On April 11, Microsoft started to roll out the new software Creators Update for all Windows 10 devices. The first to have this are the new machines followed by the devices that are released in the later years. Hence, Microsoft is requesting all the Windows 10 users to just sit back and wait for the Creators Update to come out automatically.

According to The Windows Club, Microsoft is rolling out Windows 10 Creators Update in phases in order to prevent any issues that may occur. One of the major tasks Microsoft is carrying out during this rollout is to listen to the feedback from users. This makes sense because Microsoft claimed that one of the major tasks of the company is to listen to the feedback from users while this update is rolling out. "This allows us to provide high-quality experiences for the broadest set of users, while also continually increasing the quality and security of Windows 10," said Microsoft in a blog post.

The master plan of Microsoft is when a Windows 10 device gets eligible for the software update, the firm will finally roll out the whole Windows 10 Creators Update automatically. The reason behind this technique is still unknown. However, this procedure is more advantageous, because there will be lesser issues with the renewed versions.

Following the release of Windows 10 Creators Update, there have been several reports on bugs and unknown issue. Microsoft is aware of those. In fact, it prompted the firm to temporarily block some Windows 10 devices from installing the software. "Once identified, we posted this issue to our Windows community forum," said Microsoft. The firm also provided a user guidance on troubleshooting in order to help users if any issues exist.
President Donald Trump is calling for "a long-overdue reform of H-1B visas." But what changes does he want, and can he get Congress to agree?

Here's a look at some some of the key questions around Trump's visa reform effort and his "Hire American, Buy American" executive order.

What's the most important thing that Trump wants to accomplish?

In issuing his executive order, Trump called the "totally random" H-1B lottery "wrong." He wants the visas distributed to "the most-skilled and highest-paid" applicants. He wants to end "abuse."

How much power does Trump have to change the visa lottery?

Not as much as some had hoped.

"The very fact that the executive order was such a nothing order was because they [in the Trump administration] understand how limited their authority under the statute is," said William Stock, an immigration attorney at Klasko Immigration Law Partners and president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

In other words, Trump needs legislation from Congress to make major changes to the H-1B visa program.

The IEEE-USA had argued that Trump had authority to change the lottery administratively without Congress, and urged him to act quickly. But Trump didn't heed this advice.

How will Trump's order affect the H-1B visa approval process?

Immigration attorneys are expecting ever-more scrutiny of visa applications and more "request for evidence" (RFE) from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) examiners. RFE demands -- bureaucratic-speak for more paperwork -- were already on the rise under President Barack Obama's administration.

"The executive order was fairly vague, but it's clear that Trump has H-1Bs in his sights," said Mark Koestler, an immigration lawyer at Kramer Levin. Trump's executive order will be "in the back of every examiner's mind."

Said Stock: "In an environment where the top folks are saying this [approving visas] needs to be restricted, 'no' will never be the wrong answer for somebody to give."

David Jones, an immigration attorney at Fisher Phillips, is expecting more on-site visits to double-check the accuracy of visa applications. The USCIS hires contractors who go to H-1B-using worksites to make sure everything that was stated in the petition was accurate, he said.

Will Trump raise the salaries of H-1B workers?

Wages for the lowest-paid H-1B visa workers are almost certain to rise. The Trump administration believes it can do this administratively, or without Congress.

The goal is to create "a more honest reflection of what the prevailing wages actually are in these fields," said a senior administration official at a background briefing.

H-1B workers must be paid at one of four prevailing wage levels. There is a large gap from level one to four.

In Charlotte, N.C., a relatively higher-paying region, the level 1 wage for a software developer is $63,669, and for level 2 it's $79,331. The mean is level 3, or $94,973. A level 4 software developer is paid $110,635.

The ability of employers to pay level 1 wages, or entry level, is almost certain to be eliminated, and it would not be surprising to see level 2 wages disappear as well.

What does Trump mean when he cites "visa abuses?"

The administration has cited the displacement of approximately 250 IT workers at Disney as its example of abuse. Disney hired offshore outsourcing firms to take over work, and some of the Disney workers had to train visa-holding replacements. It considers this abuse.

What else can Trump do to the visa program without Congress?

The Obama administration gave spouses of some H-1B visa holders the right to work; this applied to those visa holders seeking permanent residency. The rule is being challenged by displaced IT workers in federal court. The Trump administration has asked the court to delay action to give it time to reconsider the spouse work rule.

Another program that may be changed by Trump is the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program. This program initially allowed someone to work on a student visa for up to 12 months. In 2008, President George W. Bush extended it by 17 months for STEM students. The Obama administration increased the STEM extension to 24 months, or 36 months in total.

The OPT extension and spouse rule were created by executive order, which gives Trump the ability to reverse or modify these actions. The Trump administration has not said what it will do -- if anything -- to either rule.

Will the Trump administration attack the H-1B program in court?

There's reason to believe the Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing a legal attack on the offshore outsourcing business model. It recently warned employers not to use the H-1B program "to discriminate against U.S. workers."

U.S. workers who have been replaced by offshore firms have been alleging discrimination in some civil lawsuits. They claim that their replacement by workers mostly from India is a form of discrimination.

The DOJ is encouraging IT workers to file complaints by phone (1-800-255-7688) or by email.

What role will India play in the debate?

Indian officials are calling the H-1B issue a "trade and services issue." India is putting the U.S. on notice; it is telling lawmakers that the work visa is part of a larger trade issue.

If the Trump administration and Congress restrict the visa in a way that hurts India's IT services firms, this country may retaliate on trade. India is a large and growing market for U.S. firms, which gives it clout in Washington.

How will Trump work with Congress?

The Trump administration believes "there's great enthusiasm for H-1B reform" in Congress, said a senior administration official at a background briefing. It is asking federal agencies to prepare recommendations for reform that it will likely take to Congress.

Will Congress work with Trump on H-1B reform?

The Trump administration will face big problems in Congress. For sure, lawmakers in both parties have cited the displacement of IT workers by visa holders as a issue.

"We need to ensure that this system is not manipulated to undercut domestic wages or displace American workers," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

But Hatch is also the tech industry's leading proponent in the Senate, and in exchange for some reforms in how the H-1B visa is used, he will want an increase in the visa cap.

Hatch will likely fight Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a leading reformer, on key issues, namely a requirement to first hire a U.S. worker before hiring a visa worker.

Will Congress act on H-1B reform?

The Trump administration and Congress are not off to a good start. The administration is still seeking health care legislation, and it has numerous fights ahead of it on taxes, the budget and wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

"Watching Washington," said William Stock, the AILA president, "I am really worried about whether they are going to pass a budget, whether they are going to raise the debt ceiling by June."

H-1B legislation may be possible, said Stock, but as he looks at the many other issues before lawmakers he can't help but wonder if it will indeed happen.
Ten years ago: An Island man who had been given up for adoption, enjoyed an emotional meeting 65 years later with the sister he never knew he had.

At a tearful reunion in her Somerset home, Joyce Suter met her long-lost brother, Bill Edwards, 64, of Church Place, Freshwater.

Joyce and three of her four siblings were evacuated from London during the Second World War and did not hear of Bill's birth.

After Bill's mother died, he was adopted and ended up at Totland with his new family, where they ran a guest house.

He said: "I just took it I was an orphan. My adoptive parents were really strict but everything I wanted I had. I couldn't have wished for anything better."



100 Years Ago

April 28, 1917



AFTER a naval battle in The Channel ended with two German destroyers resting on the seabed, Edwin Hall presented a lecture covering war on, under and over the sea.

He laid stress on the excellent work done by stokers, "who have no excitement or sight of battle to urge them on, yet much depends on their devotion to duty."





75 Years Ago

May 2, 1942



The brave action of a nameless soldier saved the life of a boy whose boat had capsized on the River Medina.

The gunner dived to the rescue when he saw a sailing boat capsize with two youths aboard.





50 Years Ago

April 29, 1967



One congregation was left unamused at the prospect of an arcade opening up next door to Newport Congregational Church.

Church treasurer Mr S. W. Wendes objected on the grounds a church was supposed to help young people with religious education, whereas an arcade made money from young people.





25 Years Ago

May 1, 1992



It was announced director Ken Russell, best known for his flamboyant and sexualised work, planned to film a steamy version of Lady Chatterley's Lover on the Island.

He had previously visited the IW to make a documentary and fell in love with the place.

Public relations manager for IW Tourism Jane Jones said: "I wasn't surprised he came back to do another film as he likes it here so much."





10 Years Ago

April 27, 2007



A drinker who hid in the ventilation shaft of a pub lavatory before climbing out and helping himself to cigars and beer pleaded guilty to burglary.

The man had been hiding in the

shaft since 2am but tripped a silent alarm at 6.37am as he was pouring himself a pint.






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The United States and Australia are partners in security, bound together by a historic alliance, said Vice President Mike Pence on his recent visit there.

The military relationship between the two nations stretches back for generations. Even now Americans and Australians serve together, including in Afghanistan and in the fight against ISIS. And around the world, we are deepening our defense collaboration, said Vice President Pence.

In recent years, the United States and Australia have stepped up intelligence sharing, increased emphasis on shared cyber capabilities, and have conducted and will continue to conduct joint military exercises to ensure interoperability and readiness.

Vice President Pence affirmed that the United States and Australia are committed to upholding a rules-based system that is the foundation of peace and prosperity in the Asia Pacific.

In the South China Sea and throughout the region, both nations will defend the fundamental freedoms of navigation and overflight, ensure the unimpeded flow of lawful commerce, and promote dialogue to address issues of regional and global concern.

And the United States and Australia will continue to stand united in confronting the most urgent and dangerous threat to peace and security in the Asia Pacific, the regime in North Korea.

While all options are on the table, said Mr. Pence, the United States will continue to work closely with Australia, our other allies in the region, and with China to bring economic and diplomatic pressure to bear on the regime in Pyongyang until they abandon their nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The U.S. has great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea. But as President Trump made clear, if China is unable to deal with North Korea, the United States and its allies will.

We go forward with faith in our shared values, said Vice President Pence, and faith that the best days for America and for Australia are yet to come.
Im so excited to start sharing images from our trip to Panama. It was an incredible trip and I had so much fun exploring Casco Viejo with Pam. I feel so lucky that I was able to see Panama City with someone that called Panama home for many years (and whose family still lives there). There is so much history and culture in Panama and the food is absolutely incredible. Im working on my travel diary so stay tuned for all of my recommendations. On the day we shot this we explored the fringes of Casco Viejo where newly renovated buildings intersect with old crumbling structures. And of course I spent the entire time stopping to say hello to every cat and dog we encountered along the way.
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May is Older Americans Month.

This year the Administration for Community Livings 2017 Older Americans Month (OMA) theme is Age Out Loud, to give aging a new voice  one that reflects what todays older adults have to say.

This theme shines a light on many important trends. More than ever before, older Americans are working longer, trying new things, and engaging in their communities. Theyre taking charge, striving for wellness, focusing on independence, and advocating for themselves and others. What it means to age has changed, and OAM 2017 is a perfect opportunity to recognize and celebrate what getting older looks like today.

When OAM was established in 1963, only 17 million living Americans had reached their 65th birthday. About a third of older Americans lived in poverty and there were few programs to meet their needs. Interest in older Americans and their concerns was growing. A meeting in April 1963 between President John F. Kennedy and members of the National Council of Senior Citizens led to designating May as Senior Citizens Month, the prelude to Older Americans Month.

Historically, Older Americans Month has been a time to acknowledge the contributions of past and current older persons to our country, in particular those who defended our country. Every president since Kennedy has issued a formal proclamation during or before the month of May asking that the entire nation to pay tribute in some way to older persons in their communities. Older Americans Month is celebrated across the country through ceremonies, events, fairs and other such activities. This year their goal is to amplify the many voices of older Americans and raise awareness of vital aging issues across the country.

Consider taking time this month to recognize or celebrate the older Americans in your life and in your community. If you are interested in getting involved locally to support Older Americans Month contact your local senior services agency by visiting www.ptrc.org.

Q: A friend suggested I get a physical since I am new to Medicare. Is this covered?

AR

Answer: Yes, according to the official U.S. government Medicare handbook, during the first 12 months that you have Part B, you can get a Welcome to Medicare preventive visit. This visit includes a review of your medical and social history related to your health, and education and counseling about preventive services, including certain screenings, shots, and referrals for other care, if needed. When you make your appointment, let your doctors office know that youd like to schedule your Welcome to Medicare preventive visit. You pay nothing for the Welcome to Medicare preventive visit if the doctor or other qualified health care provider accepts assignment.

If your doctor or other health care provider performs additional tests or services during the same visit that arent covered under this preventive benefit, you may have to pay coinsurance, and the Part B deductible may apply.

If youve had Part B for longer than 12 months, you can get a yearly Wellness visit to develop or update a personalized plan to prevent disease or disability based on your current health and risk factors. This visit is covered once every 12 months. Your provider will ask you to fill out a questionnaire, called a Health Risk Assessment, as part of this visit. Answering these questions can help you and your provider develop a personalized prevention plan to help you stay healthy and get the most out of your visit. When you make your appointment, let your doctors office know that youd like to schedule your yearly Wellness visit.

Note: Your first yearly Wellness visit cant take place within 12 months of your enrollment in Part B or your Welcome to Medicare preventive visit. However, you dont need to have had a Welcome to Medicare preventive visit to qualify for a yearly Wellness visit. You pay nothing for the yearly Wellness visit if the doctor or other qualified health care provider accepts assignment. If your doctor or other health care provider performs additional tests or services during the same visit that arent covered under this preventive benefit, you may have to pay coinsurance, and the Part B deductible may apply.

Please refer to the Medicare and You 2017 handbook for additional information and for a list of services covered in these visits. This handbook can be found online at www.medicare.gov
(Editors note: This story originally ran in the Winston-Salem Journal on April 7, 1998.)

Even in its heyday, it wasnt much, a struggling Methodist institution in the country. But the birth and death of Yadkin College is as much about the changes in North Carolina as it is about higher education.

Yadkin College dates to 1851, when what was then called the Methodist Protestant Church decided to start a college. It would be similar to other colleges in the towns of Davidson, Trinity and Wake Forest, training people for the ministry and other professions. The next year, the Methodists approved building a college in western Davidson County.

The spot, although removed from the states cities, would be centrally located in the state, and the land would be free, provided by Henry Walser, a prominent farmer and politician.

So a college rose on the banks of the Yadkin. By 1855, slaves were making bricks for the buildings, and the school opened the next year. The churchs plan was to start it as a preparatory school and then to add a college program. In 1861, it gained the right to confer degrees.

But first came the Civil War. Instead of studying the classics, students were off fighting. The college remained vacant while the war raged. It reopened in 1867 and, 10 years later, conferred its first degree. The village that surrounded the little school renamed itself Yadkin College. The college went coeducational in 1878. Officials began planning a three-story administration building on a hill with a sweeping view of the river.

The college sold itself using its rural location, at the time a few hours ride from Lexington. In its catalog, the college boasted that a village presents fewer causes of diversions from study, fewer temptations to extravagance, and, a thing which is of the greatest importance, fewer temptations to dissipation.

It wasnt enough. The new administration building drove the college into debt, and students of the 1800s, like those of today, wanted more out of college life than Yadkin College could offer. In 1883, after granting a total of 18 degrees, it converted to the equivalent of a junior college.

In 1900, the name was changed to Yadkin Collegiate Institute. The school limped along for 24 more years, changing little and not growing. That year, the Methodists turned their attention to the booming city of High Point and began building High Point College, now High Point University.

Yadkin College closed, this time for good.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has informed the U.S. Congress that through April 18th Iran has complied with its commitments under the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

At the same time, he announced that the United States is undertaking a government-wide review of U.S. policy toward Iran, including whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran under the JCPOA is vital to the national security interests of the United States.

At a press briefing, Secretary Tillerson spoke of Irans alarming and ongoing provocations that export terror and violence, destabilizing one country at a time.

Secretary Tillerson said that left unchecked, Iran has the potential to travel the same path as North Korea, and that the United States does not intend to discover for the second time that strategic patience is a failed approach.

Mr. Tillerson pointed to Irans support for the brutal Assad regime in Syria, which has prolonged a conflict that has killed some 500,000 Syrians and displaced millions more. In Iraq, he noted, Iran has used its Quds Force to undermine security in that country for years. Iran provides weapons, training, and funding to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations dedicated to the destruction of Israel. In Yemen, Iran supports the Houthi rebels who are attempting to overthrow the government, and threaten the southern border of Saudi Arabia.

Other provocative Iranian behavior includes undermining freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf; conducting cyber attacks on the U.S. and its Gulf partners; plotting terrorist attacks throughout the world, including a plot to kill Abdul al-Jubeir when he was the Saudi Ambassador to the United States.

Secretary Tillerson also pointed to the governments human rights abuses against the Iranian people, as well as its record of unjustly detaining foreigners, including U.S. citizens.

After concluding the comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward Iran, Secretary Tillerson said, the United States will meet the challenge Iran poses with clarity and conviction.
WASHINGTON  Ive written a million columns critical of Donald Trump, give or take. This one is in praise.

His campaign was a toxic stew of dog whistles to white nationalists and at times overt anti-Semitism. He continued during his first weeks in office to flirt with the racist fringe; his administration excised any mention of Jews from a statement on the Holocaust; he suggested that the rise in anti-Semitic threats and violence since his election might be a false-flag campaign orchestrated by Jews; he repeatedly hesitated to disavow anti-Semitism; and his spokesman perversely claimed that the Jews Adolf Hitler gassed werent his own people.

But give him credit for this: Trumps speech in the Capitol Rotunda last week for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museums Yom Hashoah remembrance ceremony was spot-on. Some highlights:

The survivors in this hall, through their testimony, fulfill the righteous duty to never forget and engrave into the worlds memory the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people.

For the dead and the living we must bear witness. That is why we are here today, to remember and to bear witness, to make sure that humanity never, ever forgets.

The Nazis massacred 6 million Jews. Two out of every three Jews in Europe were murdered in the genocide. ... Yet even today, there are those who want to forget the past. Worse still, there are even those filled with such hate, total hate, that they want to erase the Holocaust from history. Those who deny the Holocaust are an accomplice to this horrible evil.

Yes, he was reading from a teleprompter a speech somebody wrote for him. His delivery was prosaic and he occasionally repeated a phrase he liked as if reading the speech for the first time, which perhaps he was. So what? At least he gave the speech.

I dont pretend to know whether Trump has changed in his heart. His campaign was so laced with bigotry toward African Americans, Latinos and immigrants that the anti-Semitism was just one outrage. But his Holocaust speech and similar words in a video and a White House statement in recent days suggest that Trump has the capacity to adjust. And thats welcome news.

His first 100 days were a disaster: No health-care reform, no travel ban, a passel of unmet promises, international confusion, historically low support. He has resorted to creating a fake sense of momentum with executive orders  the kind of governing he and his allies decried when President Barack Obama did it.

But Trump has never been a man of consistent principles, and he has shown that hes willing to jettison his campaign program, changing his positions on China, trade, the debt, the influence of lobbyists and others. He has apparently backed down from his promise to build a wall, to avoid a government shutdown. I dont expect some broad transformation, but if hes moving even tentatively or temporarily in the right direction  in this case, shifting from his courtship of Steve Bannons alt-right nationalists  he should be encouraged.

The Hill absurdly criticized Trumps Holocaust remembrance proclamation for using similar wording to the Holocaust Museum website when it said, The Holocaust was the state-sponsored systematic persecution and attempted annihilation of European Jewry by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The White House should be praised for echoing the museums description of the Shoah.

My friend Peter Beinart quibbled in the Atlantic with Trumps speech for failing to acknowledge that the Holocaust creates obligations to protect the dignity of all people, not just Jews. Thats true, but given Trumps history, he needed to make a full-throated acknowledgment of Jews suffering.

After a campaign that trafficked in the filth of anti-Semitism  tweeting an image showing a Star of David atop a pile of cash; retweeting messages from white supremacists; refusing to condemn anti-Semitic threats against Jewish journalists; granting access and interviews to white-nationalist outlets; and closing with an ad showing prominent Jews juxtaposed with warnings of an international banking conspiracy  Trump needed to speak clearly.

Last week, he spoke. Today, we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children whose lives and dreams were stolen from this Earth, he said.  We remember the hatred and evil that sought to extinguish human life, dignity and freedom. And, crucially, he added: Today we mourn, we remember, we pray and we pledge: Never again.

Well said, Mr. President.
Nearly 300,000 working North Carolinians are uninsured because they have no real options to purchase health insurance. They are our veterans, farmers, volunteer firefighters, small business owners, and fishermenjust to name a few. We can and should do something to correct this situation.

One of the reasons I came to the General Assembly was to improve access to quality health care in our state. I believe House Bill 662 does just that. This proposed North Carolina plan for covering the uninsured is a common-sense, conservative solution crafted specifically to address the needs of North Carolinians.

HB 662 is an option to provide health insurance to low-income, working residents of North Carolina under a new product offering known as Carolina Cares. It would establish a program for residents who are not eligible for Medicaid and have been left out of the Affordable Care Act.

This new N.C. insurance product is designed for North Carolinians aged 19  64, whose income does not exceed 133 percent of the federal poverty level and who are not entitled or enrolled in Medicare. Participants must also be employed or engaged in activities to promote employment. This plan would also require participants to pay some affordable premium and to cover co-pays  just like regular insurance coverage. Exceptions to these criteria are very limited.

This North Carolina solution differs from other states routine Medicaid expansion or most insurance products. Coverage will require a commit to preventive care with a wellness emphasis by the insured. For example: The person who qualifies and elects this insurance option must agree to routine physicals and screenings such as mammograms and colonoscopies, and, if obese, participate in weight management programs and routine dental visits. Participants who do not keep current their premiums and/or coverage requirements will lose coverage.

A concern expressed by several of my legislative colleagues is how the state will pay for it. Carolina Cares would not require the use of any state funds or state tax increases. HB 662 proposes to use a mix of participant premium payments and federal funds which the state can draw from to fund coverage for our uninsured population. The balance of costs will be funded through healthcare-related assessments, e.g., hospitals, and other healthcare providers will be asked to contribute something. North Carolinians are currently paying federal taxes that are being used to provide insurance for the uninsured in other states. This practice will allow North Carolina to draw down even more money from the federal government. It is time we get some of that money back.
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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
JURIST Guest Columnist Jillian Blake, an attorney at Blake & Wilson Immigration Law, PLLC, discusses the violation of basic judicial and human rights principle regarding to the creation of the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office

In late April the Trump Administration announced the creation of VOICE, or the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office, which it claims will assist Americans who are victims of crimes perpetrated by immigrants. President Trump has stated that this office is necessary because immigrants are victimizing the US population and those victims are too often ignored. In reality, immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans and the cases of those who are accused of crimes are often highly-publicized and used as an example to generate an unfounded fear of all immigrants. Furthermore, immigrants accused of crimes face harsher consequences, and their basic rights are regularly violated in the judicial system.

One of the fundamental principles of the US judicial system is that a criminal defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. This principle is also a human right enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, the US Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy and public trial for criminal defendants and the right to due process.

Nevertheless, immigrants are often not afforded the presumption innocence. Immigrants accused of crimes are commonly considered guilty before having the chance to defend themselves in criminal court. As immigration enforcement ramps up under President Trump, and he implements programs like VOICE which target immigrants, more and more people will be subject to this unjust system.

After non-citizens are arrested they may be transferred to immigration custody if they are released from criminal custody on their own recognizance or after paying a criminal bond. At this point, they must secure a separate immigration bond from an immigration judge to be released to attend their criminal hearing and defend themselves in criminal court.

The problem with this system is that immigration bonds are much higher than criminal bonds for minor offenses (usually between $5,000 and $20,000). Some immigration judges set high bond or deny bond completely even for misdemeanor charges or suspicion of criminal behavior [pdf]. In these cases, the accused have no chance to defend themselves in criminal court and are stuck in detention purgatory. They cannot get out of immigration detention because they have not yet been found innocent of the charges against them, but they cannot be found innocent because they cannot get out of immigration detention.

The immigration system must respect the basic judicial and human rights principle of innocence until proven guilty by allowing those in immigration detention to attend their criminal hearings. There should be a clear mechanism by which those accused of crimes can be transferred back to criminal custody from immigration custody so that they can defend themselves in criminal court.

In Virginia where I practice immigration law, only the Commonwealths Attorney can issue a writ to bring a defendant back to state custody from immigration custody. If the Commonwealths Attorney declines to issue the writ the defendant can be deported before he or she is ever able to defend against charges in criminal court. Ironically, those accused of more serious crimes are more likely to be transferred back to state custody to get their day in court, while those accused of minor crimes are unlikely to warrant the effort of a prosecutor to bring them back to state custody and therefore may never be able to defend themselves.

This system also opens the door to exploitation. If immigrants can be subject to no or high bond detention based on allegations alone, those who wish to abuse or hold power over them can easily use the threat of a false police report. Those who fabricate allegations need not worry because the accused may never have the chance to defend themselves in court before being deported.

The system must change to respect constitutional and human rights. Those accused of crimes do not lose their humanity because of their immigration status, and we shouldnt lose ours to deny them their most basic rights.

Jillian Blake practices immigration law at Blake & Wilson Immigration Law, PLLC in Alexandria, Virginia.

Suggested citation: Jillian Blake, Immigrants Accused of Crimes Presumed Guilty, JURIST  Hotline, Apr. 30, 2017, http://jurist.org/hotline/2017/04/Jillian-Blake-immigrants-presumed-guilty.php

This article was prepared for publication by Yuxin Jiang, a Senior Editor for JURIST Commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to her at commentary@jurist.org
The Cairo Criminal Court on Sunday gave Muslim Brotherhood [party website] leader Wagdy Ghoneim a death sentence in absentia. He was found guilty [First Post report] of forming an outlaw cell from 2003 to 2015, for obstructing the constitution and state institution, assaulting citizens, and harming national unity. Ghoneim currently lives in Turkey and has rejected [Washington Post report] the ruling stating that he has not been in Egypt since 2001. This case is one of many in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood group. Thousands have been jailed and hundreds were killed following the 2013 government overthrow in Egypt.

Trials against former Muslim Brotherhood members has been ongoing for several years within Egypt. In November, Egypts Court of Cassation overturned [JURIST report] the life sentences of former president Mohamed Morsi and 16 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood for conspiring with militant groups. The same court overturned another of Morsis life sentences in the prior week related to a conspiracy for a prison break. The Supreme Administrative Court in Egypt had banned [JURIST report] the Muslim Brotherhoods political wing in August 2014. Egypt courts sentenced 683 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in April 2014, sentenced 183 Muslim Brotherhood supports to death in February 2015, and acquitted [JURIST reports] 68 activists in March 2015.
US President Donald Trump [official website] on Saturday signed an executive order [text] directing the Commerce Department [official website] and the US Trade Representative [official website] to review all US trade agreements and membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) [official website] to determine the cause of the US trade deficit. The order calls for a comprehensive review of whether previous free trade agreements and membership in the WTO have brought the benefits that were predicted. The order comes three days after Trump announced [AP report] he would not order a withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but would rather renegotiate its terms with Canada and Mexico. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross responded [press briefing] to the order, and stated that an analysis of NAFTA will be a significant part of the required study.

The new executive orders raise the number of executive orders by President Trump since taking office 100 days ago to 32. On Friday Trump signed [JURIST report] an executive order to lift restrictions placed on offshore oil drilling. Earlier this month a federal judge issued a temporary injunction [JURIST report] against Executive Order 13768 which would have allowed the federal government to withhold funds from cities which have been designated as sanctuary cities. Also in April, Trump signed [JURIST report] an order that requires executive agencies to monitor and enforce Buy American laws.
Turkish authorities removed more than 3900 people from their positions in the civil service and military pursuant to a new national security law published [materials, in Turkish] on Saturday. Those removed included prison guards, clerks, academics, and employees of the religious affairs ministry, all of whom the government alleged [MEE report] had links to terrorist organizations. This is the latest action by the Turkish government since a state of emergency was issued after a failed coup attempt [BBC backgrounder] in July of last year. Also on Saturday, Turkey blocked [JURIST report] the website Wikipedia on the grounds that it posed a threat to national security.

Since a failed coup attempt in July the Turkish government has taken several controversial steps to strengthen its power. In October, Human Rights Watch warned [JURIST report] that the emergency decrees put in place after the failed coup had resulted in serious human rights violations. In February, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights urged [JURIST report] Turkey to change course and to display the responsibility and tolerance expected in a democratic society. The commissioners document came amid increased scrutiny of Turkeys treatment of journalists and other members of Turkish society, allegedly leading to the repression of free speech and self-censorship. The Turkish Parliament has approved a plan [JURIST report] to be voted on later this year which would increase presidential power within the country and would allow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stay in office until 2029.
[JURIST] The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein [official profile] said Monday that Egypts recent security measures have been encouraging the very radicalization they were trying to control. In a press conference [Reuters report] in Geneva, al-Hussein criticized the increased security measures Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi [BBC profile] has instituted since the bombings of Christian churches last month. While condemning the attacks, al-Hussien said that al-Sisis declaration of a three-month state of emergency was only going to increase radicalization. Al-Hussein said that the state of emergency was leading to massive numbers of detentions, reports of torture, and continued arbitrary arrests which will facilitat[e] radicalization in prisons. Al-Hussein continued that the crackdown on civil society through travel bans, freezing orders, [and] anti-protest laws is not the way to fight terror. Al-Hussein finished by saying that national security  must be a priority for every country, [but not] at the expense of human rights.

The Parliament of Egypt in April gave its unanimous approval [press release] to a three-month state of emergency in response to two deadly Christian church bombings in the Egyptian cities of Tanta and Alexandria. The Islamic State (IS) [BBC backgrounder] took credit for the bombings. The threat to Christians in the Middle East has heightened in past years as radical extremists have increasingly targeted attacks this religious group. In February 2016, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned [JURIST report] the beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya by IS, characterizing the acts as vile crime[s] targeting people on the basis of their religion. The Egyptian Christians were abducted in two separate incidents, and a released video showed members of IS beheading the captives on a beach. Islamist extremists are believed to be behind attacks [CNN report] such as the burning of churches and property owned by Christians, along with the displacement of Christian citizens. Coptic Christians comprise roughly 10 percent of the countrys 85 million people. These citizens have become a scapegoat for the ousting of Egyptian ex-president Mohamed Morsi [BBC profile], and recent attacks are widely seen as retaliation from Morsi supporters, the Muslim Brotherhood [BBC profile].
Dallas, 05/01/2017 /SubmitPressRelease123/

Although smartphones can be a distraction behind the wheel, they can also be put to good use after a car wreck or truck wreck.

If youre like the 77 percent of Americans that own a smartphone, according to Pew Research, you are learning to balance having one in the car while striking a balance of safety and security behind the wheel.

In the world of personal injury law, we believe smartphones can also be put to good use after an accident  especially if youre involved in an accident with a semi-truck. While its important to take photos following a semi-truck accident, you should only do so if your health permits it, says Amy Witherite, Eberstein Witherite co-founder and principal. If youre injured in the crash, dont compromise your well-being or your safety in an effort to take pictures of the scene.

Here are four reasons why you should use your phones camera to take pictures after a tractor-trailer collision:

Preserve Important Evidence

The reality is that motor vehicle accident scenes take place outdoors. Even just one hard rainfall can wash away important evidence before investigators can get to it. Also, police must work quickly to clear debris from the road to prevent other motorists from hitting it. When you take photos immediately following an accident, the scene where your car wreck or truck wreck took place is forever preserved in the photographs.

Get Accurate Photos

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Photographic evidence of any motor vehicle accident is compelling because it gives people a real-life visual of what happened. When a person reads an account of a crash, theyre forced to imagine what it looked like at the time. With pictures, however, that guesswork goes away. The photos can be a powerful tool for any personal injury lawyer in a settlement or a trial.

Get Evidence of the Surroundings and Environment

In many cases, weather or specific road conditions play a role in a car wreck, truck wreck, or even a large semi-truck crash. After an accident, its important to take photos of every vehicle involved, as well as the road conditions and any other surrounding conditions that may have contributed to the crash. For example, a sharp curve in the road could factor into why a semi jackknifed or lost control. In these cases, its critical to preserve evidence of the conditions surrounding the accident.

Photograph Injuries

In addition to taking photos of the vehicles, the road, and the weather, you should also use your camera to photograph your own injuries following the accident. Also be sure to continue taking pictures for several days after the accident, as many injuries continue to show worsening symptoms as time passes. For example, bruises may actually get worse in the days following an accident.

If you or a loved one has been injured in any motor vehicle accident, you may be entitled to damages for your injuries or losses. Dont wait to speak to an attorney about your rights. Call an experienced Texas truck accident lawyer right away to discuss the next steps in your case.

Sources:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/12/evolution-of-technology/

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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- A Pottawattamie County sheriff's deputy was fatally injured Monday when he was shot at the jail by an escaping inmate.

At a somber 4:30 p.m. press conference, Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker identified the deputy as Mark Burbridge, 43, a 12-year veteran.

Danker said the loss of Burbridge was something that law enforcement officers hope they never have to experience.

"We lost one officer today," Danker said. "Two of our excellent officers were shot."

Another deputy, Pat Morgan, 59, a 10-year department veteran, also was injured in the shooting, which occurred about 10:55 a.m. Morgan was shot in the lower torso, an injury that officials said was not life-threatening.

Danker said Burbridge "always was happy, jovial. He was a good deputy." Burbridge, he said, had worked on road patrol, investigations and, most recently, court security.

The escaped inmate was taken into custody after he led police on a chase into Omaha.

The inmate apprehended in Omaha is Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, who was sentenced Monday morning at the Pottawattamie County Courthouse to 45 years in prison. Danker said the deputies had taken two prisoners back to the jail from the courthouse -- a female and Correa-Carmenaty -- and were taking them out of the van when Correa-Carmenaty got hold of one of the deputy's firearms and shot both of the men. The female prisoner was not involved, Danker said.

Earlier, during his sentencing, Correa-Carmenaty showed no remorse in court and said the man who had died was killed because he was an idiot, said Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber.

The victim's mother was in court, Wilber said, and had to leave because she became emotional.

After assaulting the deputies, Danker said, Correa-Carmenaty took the jail van and crashed through the west garage door of the jail.

Danker said he was at the jail when the shooting happened.

"I was in my office and the chief deputy came over, 'We've got shots in the sally port.'"

"It's just a shocking scene," Danker said. "You walk in there and the van is crashed through the door. You've got two deputies there on the floor of the sally port getting aid administered to them. It's just a shocking scene to walk into."

A few blocks away, at 16th Street and Big Lake Road, Correa-Carmenaty attempted to steal a Chevy S-10 pickup, Danker said. The 30-year-old driver, Jerry Brittain, was shot once in the neck. His injuries are not considered life-threatening, officials said.

The prison van was abandoned at 25th and I Streets in Council Bluffs. Seeing the van on the grass, 31-year-old Amy Kanger stopped to see if anyone was hurt.

Correa-Carmenaty then kidnapped Kanger and took her car, according to a statement from the Sheriff's Office.

Kanger was released in Omaha at a liquor store at 30th Street and Laurel Avenue in Omaha. She alerted Omaha police to what happened, and officers began looking for the car, a Nissan Altima.

Officers spotted the car about 30th Street and Ames Avenue and pursued it south on 30th Street, then west on Cuming Street, through a U-turn at Saddle Creek Road and back east on Cuming. Speeds during the chase reached 80 mph.

Officers tried to stop the car with stop sticks three times, but the car didn't stop until it hit a wall at Cuming and the I-480 entrance ramp.

Minutes later, dispatchers announced that a man was in custody. He reportedly was not injured and was to be taken back to the Bluffs.

Condolences for the slain deputy began showing up on social media even before his death was announced. A Council Bluffs police officer leaving the Bluffs police station said of the deputy, "I knew him, and he was a good guy." He and another officer were putting black bands on their police badges.

Area law enforcement officers also were changing their Twitter profile pictures to a photo of the badge of a Pottawattamie County sheriff's deputy marked by a black band.

Council Bluffs Fire Chief Justin James said three people were transported from the Pottawattamie County Jail after the shooting: the fatally injured Pottawattamie County sheriff's deputy, another deputy and a civilian. The other deputy and the civilian were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center. Those two were listed there in fair condition Monday afternoon.

+12

Pottawattamie County Jail escapee map

Correa-Carmenaty, 24, pleaded guilty to attempted murder in January. He was one of three men involved in the fatal shooting of Anthony Walker on March 7, 2016.

About 6:30 p.m. that night, Council Bluffs police officers arrived at an apartment at 116 Glen Ave. after receiving a report that shots had been fired there.

Officers found Walker dead with a gunshot wound to his chest. They also learned that 32-year-old Patrick Schutz had gone to Mercy Hospital by private vehicle with a gunshot wound to his upper left arm.

A witness told police a man had fled in a black Chevrolet Impala. Police located the car on a nearby street and took Correa-Carmenaty, its driver, into custody. Correa-Carmenaty told police he and another man had gone to the apartment to rob people of "weed and money."

Correa-Carmenaty and two other Bluffs men were arrested and charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and first-degree robbery. Correa-Carmenaty pleaded guilty to amended charges -- in addition to attempted murder, according to court documents, he also pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and two counts of second-degree robbery.

The last Pottawattamie County sheriff's deputy to die in the line of duty was Chief Deputy Duane Otto, who died Oct. 8, 1981, in Minden, Iowa. Otto was fatally injured when a roof of a porch fell on him as deputies entered a home.

The last deputy to be shot and killed in the line of duty was Special Deputy Claude Dail. Dail was accidentally shot Aug. 25, 1932, when a riot gun inadvertently discharged while he was protecting the Squirrel Cage Jail from rioters during the 1932 Farmers Union Strike.

Before the inmate was apprehended Monday, law enforcement officers were stopping cars on West Broadway in Council Bluffs and looking inside the vehicles.

After the chase, Omaha police gathered at 27th and Cuming Streets, underneath I-480, where the carjacked car crashed. Traffic on Cuming was blocked for a few hours.

The area around the Pottawattamie County Jail was locked down by law enforcement Monday afternoon. Onlookers were being kept at a distance.

A garage door at the jail was badly damaged in the escape.

Twelve schools in the Bluffs were put on lockout, said Council Bluffs Community School District spokeswoman Diane Ostrowski. The lockout later was canceled.

A worker at R.L.'s Package Liquor, at 30th and Laurel, said a woman ran in about 10:45 a.m., shortly after the store opened. She was crying and frantic, the worker said, and asked the worker to call 911.

Omaha police arrived in about two minutes.

"It was cops everywhere," the worker said. "They were up and down the street."

World-Herald staff writer Andrew J. Nelson contributed to this report, which also includes material from the World-Herald News Service.
Over the last five years, Nebraska hospitals have lost out on $18.3 million due to a one-sentence Obamacare loophole. Ensuring access to quality care in rural areas is challenging enough without the federal government erroneously diverting needed funds.

This week, I introduced a bill to undo this misguided Obamacare provision, dubbed the Bay State Boondoggle, and help hospitals continue to serve our seniors.

Medicare hospital wage reimbursements are adjusted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as required to reflect the geographic area where services are delivered. Prior to Obamacare, if a hospital transitioned from a critical access hospital, to which the CMS wage index does not apply, to an acute care facility in which it does, the necessary funding reallocation would take place within the state.

However, Obamacare included a provision requiring Medicare wage reimbursements to come from a national pool of money rather than state allocations.

So why is it called the Bay State Boondoggle? The issue centers on a 19-bed hospital in Nantucket, Mass., which was purchased by a large health system soon after Obamacare was signed into law and redesignated from a critical access hospital to an acute care hospital. Because this facility transitioned from a program in which the wage index does not apply to one in which it does, its wages set a new floor for all 81 traditional fee-for-service hospitals in Massachusetts.

Allowing Massachusetts to artificially inflate labor costs based on a single hospital with unusually high wages drove up the wage floor on the CMS index. The result was far more Medicare dollars flowing to Massachusetts hospitals  and away from hospitals in most other states.

By now, more than $2 billion dollars has been diverted from hospitals nationwide. My bill would end this boondoggle and return financial responsibility to the states.

To bring further relief to Nebraska health care providers, I also continue to work on reducing arbitrary and burdensome regulations on rural hospitals. For example, the 96-hour rule requires physicians at critical access hospitals to certify at time of admission Medicare and Medicaid patients will not be there more than 96 hours.

Otherwise, the hospital must transfer the patient or face non-reimbursement. I introduced the Critical Access Hospital Relief Act to remove this provision and ensure rural Americans are not placed at a further disadvantage.

This week, CMS announced it is beginning the process of updating its guidance on enforcement of the 96-hour rule. I am eager to hear from Nebraska hospitals and patients on the proposal but also pleased to see the Trump administration agreeing with the need for changes.

Too often when the federal bureaucracy gets involved, it makes situations worse rather than better. We are seeing prime examples of this problem in rural health care, and I am glad to have the opportunity to propose legislative solutions for patients and providers.

Adrian Smiths 3rd Congressional District encompasses 68 Nebraska counties outside the metro Omaha and Lincoln areas.
President Donald Trump waves as he walks across the south lawn of the White House in Washington late Saturday night, April 29, 2017, on this return from a rally in Harrisburg, Pa. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)
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In medicine, there exists a dangerous condition that affects millions of Americans each year but is woefully underdiagnosed. It affects how long we live and how much we pay for health care. It impacts the way doctors treat us and care for us. Yet, many health care providers are reluctant to acknowledge that this condition exists.

That condition is bias in medicine.

We know that bias and discrimination kill. In politics, the nation is grappling with an openly biased President and confronting longstanding racial and religious divisions. Countless protests have ignited over police violence and the fight for human rights in America. But a lesser known transgressor is the bias that colors the health care industry.

Consider, for example, the following story:

I was a medical student on the neurology service at my medical school taking care of a young patient with sickle cell anemia. When I saw her the morning before her discharge, she was in so much sudden pain that she couldnt walk properly, so I rushed to tell the doctors. My supervising resident dismissed my report, saying something like shes just faking it. And I couldnt convince them otherwise. Later that day, we were urgently called to the little girls bedside. She had suffered a possible stroke. I will never forget the way her mother cried as her daughter writhed in pain on the bed. Though they never explicitly mentioned race, I will never forget that the doctors didnt believe a black girls pain.

This harrowing story happened to me  a medical student working with well-intentioned and caring doctors. Ive tried to reflect on this experience multiple times, searching for an angle where racial bias wasnt a contributor to this little girls fate. Each time, it is impossible for me to conclude that bias didnt impact care  even though I know the doctors I work with are caring individuals.

Research on bias in medicine shows us that professionals who openly deny their bias can still unknowingly discriminate. Studies show that white doctors with strong unconscious racial bias are less likely to prescribe narcotic pain medications to black patients compared to white patients  even when they feel the same amount of pain. Another revealed that white doctors who denied overt discriminatory beliefs, but who tested for strong unconscious racial beliefs, were rated as delivering less quality care to black patients. Yet another study has also shown that bias worsens the treatment of black patients with heart attacks, who are less likely to be prescribed life-saving heart treatments than white counterparts.

These findings are certainly troubling. But research has also identified strategies for correcting these health care disparities for patients. One strategy is to shed light on these prejudices and acknowledge that anyone can have them. The Implicit Association Test (IAT), developed at Harvard University, helps medical students and doctors identify the racial, gender, religious or disability biases they may unknowingly harbor. The test has been an important tool to identify and measure bias  especially in health care, where providers pride themselves on their perceived impartiality. This screening helps individuals identify the many ways that societys prejudices have been internalized as our own, even for individuals who believe they are colorblind.

Another strategy is to engage in discussion about how bias may affect care. Discussion in a nonjudgmental and understanding manner helps people analyze their bias without becoming defensive or stubborn. Studies have demonstrated that raising awareness pushes biases into conscious awareness  allowing us to wrestle with them before they factor into treatment decisions.

Although raising awareness and engaging in discussion both seem straightforward, the stigma around bias in health care can prevent such engagement. Like many other illnesses, treatment of bias is not very effective without identifying its symptoms and acknowledging its existence.

This is why I choose to share my story and get involved with a student-run advocacy organization about bias in medicine. We labeled our effort Systemic Disease because bias acts like any other illness  taking root and causing symptoms involuntarily while creating lasting damage on peoples health. Our community holds advocacy events and audits bias-reporting systems at medical institutions. Most importantly, it offers a storytelling platform about bias, empowering anyone to share a story or teaching moment about bias in health care  like my own.

At this moment in history, Americans are struggling to face the deep fractures of race, gender, religion and class that divide us. As medical students, we see the effects of these social divisions play out all too often in peoples health. The link between our individual experiences and the structural issues at play inspired us to create an online community to raise awareness about this very important issue.

As we confront social injustice as Americans, it is time that we as health care providers, students and patients do, too.

Sofia Noori is a medical student and contributor to Systemic Disease.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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The Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion resulted in unanticipated negative consequences for many patients and physicians in rural, underserved or medically isolated communities across America. Consolidation of health care entities was financially incentivized by the ACA, and slowly my beloved corner of the Pacific Northwest is becoming a medical wasteland.

In a beautiful community on the Olympic Peninsula, just north of where I live and practice, it happened again; another private clinic sold to a large medical corporation. Peninsula Childrens Clinic was a bustling pediatric office meeting the vital, complex healthcare needs of children in Port Angeles, WA for the commercially insured as well as Medicaid patients. Why were they forced to close? A phone call with their office manager six months ago foreshadowed the outcome, We are losing a great deal of revenue seeing Medicaid patients making it difficult to survive.

Peninsula Childrens Clinic was unable to remain financially solvent, so they were purchased, like a horse on the auction block, by the Olympic Medical Center. Their website recently posted the following:

Peninsula Childrens Clinic is now licensed as part of Olympic Medical Center. Patients seeking care at these hospital-based clinics may receive a separate billing for a facility fee. This fee could result in higher out-of-pocket expenses for patients. Patients should contact their insurance company to determine their coverage for hospital-based clinic facility charges.

Hospital-based clinics tack on facility fee charges, which are separate from the bill for the doctors services, for the use of the room in which the patient was seen. One hospital administrator told me to think of it as room rental.

Facility fees bring in a considerable flow of cash and have the secondary benefit of incentivizing hospitals to buy independent practices because then the hospital can charge two to five times more. Buying independent practices, like Peninsula Childrens Clinic, expands the hospitals market share and allows greater leverage when negotiating reimbursements.

Payers must acquiesce and pay the facility fees. As the payers are forced to pay more to the hospitals and hospital-based clinics, guess where they make cuts? They cut their fees to the independent private practice physicians, already struggling to make ends meet. My practice was notified of the impending 50% cut in reimbursement from Kaiser Permanente for specific codes just last week for private providers. In the meantime, as the government incentivized hospitals, are costs getting lower? Are consumers spending less? Are outcomes improving at record speed? Nope, and they wont be anytime soon.

Medicare pays double the amount for office visits at hospital-owned clinics as compared to private physician offices, according to 2012 and 2014 reports by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MEDPAC), an agency that guides Congress on Medicare spending. For example, Medicare paid $453 for an echocardiogram at hospital-owned facilities, yet the same test performed at an independently owned physician office costs, on average, $189, according to the 2014 report. In its 2012 report, MEDPAC found Medicare paid 80 percent more for a 15-minute visit at a hospital-based clinic compared to one at a private practice.

Based on the prediction Medicare spending would increase $2 billion by 2020, MEDPAC lobbied Congress to equalize payments between hospital-based and private physician offices by eliminating the onerous facility fee. Eliminating the facility fee and setting hospital reimbursement equal to that of independent physicians for 66 procedure groups, results in $900 million per year in savings on Medicare costs. However, eliminating the charges has proved daunting, for $3 trillion reasons.

Although MEDPAC has long promoted the idea of site-neutral payments, the hospital lobby deafened Congress to this important recommendation. The American Hospital Association opposes MEDPACs recommendations on several grounds, including facility fees are warranted because they create the financial incentive hospitals need to shore up loss leaders like the ER, where they are obligated to treat everyone, regardless of ability to pay. Hospitals say the money helps make up for low government reimbursement rates and pay expenses outside of patient care ranging from electric bills to hospital administrator salaries.

Consumer groups, such as Health Watch USA, say hospitals are charging patients, insurance companies and Medicare more without reason. Their board chairman, Kevin Kavanagh, has emphasized in many newspaper articles and publications that these fees are essentially double billing, without improving quality or patient outcomes. Many watchdog groups believe the fees have persisted to promote mergers between hospitals and clinics. Organizations, like the Association of Independent Doctors, have emphasized facility fees add zero value for the additional cost.

The facility fee adds billions of dollars to the nations health care costs. Patients with private insurance are responsible for as much as a 15 percent portion of the facility fee. One family in Port Angeles accustomed to paying $125 in out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits saw their costs skyrocket to more than $500 overnight. The increase reflects the new facility fee charge. Now, this family drives two hours each way to see me, because after accounting for gas and time, it costs less to visit my office than to visit Olympic Medical Center.

The movie, Youve Got Mail, succinctly illustrates the differences between small and large practices. Meg Ryan closes the doors to her specialty bookstore, Little Shop Around the Corner, for the last time and wanders over to the newly opened big-box Fox Books to browse the childrens section. In one memorable scene, a desperate mother runs in asking an employee where to find the Shoe Series of books for her daughter. The hapless clerk blankly repeats Shoe books? Meg rolls her eyes and rattles off a list of multiple books in the series from memory, including her recommendation of which to read first, to which the mother was extremely grateful.

I am the Little Shop Around the Corner, as are many surviving, independent physicians across this great nation. We know our patients, their health care, and are effective, efficient, well-oiled machines. Facility fees must be made transparent for patients or abolished like they did by law with Public Act No. 15-146 in Connecticut. Studies continually show small clinics provide better quality care for lower cost, have fewer hospital admissions and keep patients healthier than the hospital-based clinics. We must eliminate the crushing facility fee to level the playing field, eliminate the incentive for hospitals to create monopolies and save Americans hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

Niran S. Al-Agba is a pediatrician who blogs at MommyDoc. This article originally appeared in the Health Care Blog.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Recently, I watched a disturbing video of a fellow physician being dragged out of an airplane. I find it hard to understand how these events unfolded despite Dr. Dao being a customer who chose to fly United, paid hundreds of dollars for his ticket and legally boarded his flight. Whether blame belongs with United or the Chicago Department of Aviation, this was an unsettling occurrence. Yet somehow  I wasnt surprised. For the past few years, I have had moments where I have been less than enamored by the aviation industry. Its not that Im an unreasonable traveler. I understand that safety issues, equipment failures and weather can impact whether or not I will have a successful travel day. However, Ive had enough distasteful run-ins, delayed flights, lost items and heard enough horror stories to keep me wary.

Dr. Daos story got me thinking about the states of customer service in the airline industry versus the health care industry. As a health care provider, it seems like we are being held to a much higher standard of customer satisfaction than other industries. The slightest drop in patient satisfaction has quite real and serious consequences. While the health care industry as a whole is becoming increasingly more obsessive about the satisfaction of its customers, it feels as though some airlines have moved farther and farther away from this concept.

When you think about it, health care is a necessity for society  as an example, ERs must be readily available for the public, and they must function regardless of a patients ability to pay. On the other hand, an airline company is a purely a business service. Its paying customers solely support an airlines; thus customer service should be its number one priority.

The health care industry has progressively become more concerned about patient satisfaction over the past 30 years. Not that I disagree with the general concept  as a physician, I actually do believe that our patients should be happy with their care. Taking care of the consumers needs by providing respectful, professional and quality service are the pillars of customer service and apply as well to treating patients. A patient comes to me during a vulnerable time in their life, and for a service they cannot provide for themselves. As the person leading their care, it is my duty to be empathetic, compassionate, educate them and put them at ease about their care.

In the 1980s, hospital systems and clinics began to realize that patients could take themselves (and their money) elsewhere if they werent happy with their care. They realized that patients were paying for a service provided by their doctors, nurses and staff. With this realization, patient/customer satisfaction became a legitimate concern, and in 1984 the Press Ganey patient satisfaction scoring system became a phenomenon. A large percentage of clinics and hospital systems within the United States offered their patients surveys made by Press Ganey to allow them to grade and review various aspects of their health care experience. This gave some power back to the patients, and I do believe the initial concept of patient satisfaction had genuinely good intentions. However, what started off as a way to reward quality care and identify areas needing improvement soon turned into a runaway train.

These scores are tied to reimbursement, salaries, departmental funding and job security. In some cases, patient satisfaction is a significant source of unhappiness for health care providers because it can interfere with a physicians oath to do no harm. In fear of receiving poor patient satisfaction scores, some providers feel fear in saying NO to patient requests for tests or medication, even when we know they are unnecessary or even dangerous. We now realize the impact of our inability to say NO has had some contribution today to our increased health care costs, the opiate crisis, over radiation of patients and antibiotic resistant infections.

So where the health care industry has had an excessive, and at times almost dysfunctional, emphasis on patient satisfaction  it seems some members of the airline industry have not been compelled by these same desires for customer service. Widespread frustration and concerns by the public are not the motivators it should be for improvement. Of course, there are some airline companies that do try to excel in customer service. Simply, it seems they have grasped the concept of treating their passengers with respect and the fact that these passengers are paying for the service provided by their company. Over the years I have found these airlines to be the minority, not the majority. Simple issues such as seating families together, avoiding overbooking or respectful communication are not the priority they once were. Where is the attention to detail that should come with customer service? We are at the mercy of the airlines to get to our vacations, our loved ones and our business trips, so we suffer through it. We complain to deaf ears, quickly forget how we were disrespected and pay our hundreds of dollars to fly again in the future.

So how has it come to be that a health care provider is being held to a higher standard of customer satisfaction than a member of the airline industry? At the very least they should be equal. A person being treated for the common cold is entitled to prompt and timely care, just as they are entitled to their seat after paying a private company to fly. Why is it that I am held to the normal standards of respect and decency that should be expected from any human interaction when I speak with my patients  but Dr. Dao was not offered that respect when he boarded that plane? How have we gotten to a place where the health care industry cares too much, and at times to their detriment, while the airline industry doesnt care enough?

Dr. M.S. is a physician who can be reached on Twitter @meshmedblog.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
When you run a small business, time is money.

This is why Laredo Community College and the Laredo Chamber of Commerce have partnered to host workshops for small business owners.

Monday kicked off National Small Business Week, which encourages and promotes the importance of small businesses. The workshops focus on ways to grow a business.

Several small business owners attended Monday's workshop, which focused on receiving grant funding.

"It would be for an hour or so, to provide our employers with grant opportunity through the Texas Workforce Commission. To be able to train their employees, to have a better work force," says LCC Executive Director of Economic Development Rodney H. Rodriguez.

For more information on the upcoming workshops, you can contact LCC's Economic Development Center or the Laredo Chamber of Commerce.
SEOUL, May 1 (Reuters) - South Korea's crude oil imports fell 7.9 percent in April from a year earlier to 82.6 million barrels, preliminary data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy showed on Monday.

Final data will be released later this month by state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC).

Details of preliminary imports and previous actual figures are as follows:

(In millions of barrels)

April 2017 March 2017* April 2016* Crude Oil 82.6 95.9 89.7

* Actual import figures

Note: The ministry did not break down imports by country of origin. South Korea's total crude imports in March rose 11.7 percent to 95.9 million barrels year-on-year, according to KNOC data last month. (Reporting by Jane Chung; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
By Ayesha Rascoe and Soyoung Kim | WASHINGTON/SEOUL

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday opened the door to meeting North Korea's Kim Jong Un, saying he would be honored to meet the young leader under the right circumstances, even as Pyongyang suggested it will continue its nuclear weapons tests.

If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it, Trump told Bloomberg News in an interview. "Under the right circumstances I would meet with him," he added.

Trump did not say what conditions would need to be met for any such meeting to occur or when it could happen, but the White House later said North Korea would need to clear many conditions before a meeting could be contemplated. "Clearly conditions are not there right now," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

"I dont see this happening anytime soon," Spicer added.

Trump, who took office in January, had said during his presidential campaign he would be willing to meet with Kim.

His administration has said since that North Korea must agree to abandon its nuclear program.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the U.N. Security Council that Washington would not negotiate with North Korea. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, earlier on Monday, said Trump had made clear "that the era of strategic patience is over."

Later on Monday, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said in a statement: The United States remains open to credible talks on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula; however conditions must change before there is any scope for talks to resume, adding North Korea must abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks driven by fears the North might conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth.

Early on Monday, North Korea said it will bolster its nuclear force "to the maximum" in a "consecutive and successive way at any moment" in the face of what it calls U.S. aggression and hysteria.

North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said it will pursue its nuclear and missile programs to counter perceived U.S. aggression.

Trump warned in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

In a show of force, the United States has sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula to join drills with South Korea to counter a series of threats of destruction from North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called 'maximum pressure and engagement', the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence," a spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency.

North Korea's "measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership," the spokesman said.

Reclusive North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions. It has been conducting tests at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

It test-launched a missile on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful but which nevertheless drew widespread international condemnation.

TIME FOR TALKS 'OVER'

Trump has stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action is needed, a top White House official said.

As part of that effort, he also reached out to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and invited him to meet at the White House, a move human rights organizations condemned.

Washington is also seeking more help from China, the North's only major ally, to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development. Unlike the United States, Beijing has pushed for talks first and action later on North Korea.

"The United States has ... negotiated, had talks, waited patiently. All the while we've seen the regime in North Korea continue its headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons, and a ballistic missile program. And the president said that's over," Pence told CBS News in an interview.

Separately, South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter the North Korean threat, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1 billion battery.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South's presidential office said.

The THAAD deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar that can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from residents of the area in which it is being deployed, worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

The THAAD system in South Korea has reached an initial operating capability to defend against North Korean missiles, U.S. officials said on Monday. It would not be fully operational for some months, however, one of them cautioned.

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Writing by Nick Macfie, Soyoung Kim and Susan Heavey; Editing by Robert Birsel and James Dalgleish)
ANKARA, May 1 (Reuters) - Turkish exports rose 4 percent year-on-year in April, to $11.87 billion, the Turkish Exporter's Assembly (TIM) said on Monday. The assembly releases its figures almost a month before official data from the Turkish Statistics Institute.

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu; Editing by David Dolan)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Monday said he wanted to know whether Iran employs any lawyers for a wealthy Turkish gold trader accused of helping that country evade U.S. sanctions, a team that includes former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

In a brief order, U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan said he planned to ask at a hearing on Tuesday whether Giuliani or any other lawyer for trader Reza Zarrab had been hired by Iran, the United States or Turkey.

Tuesday's hearing will focus on whether conflicts of interest bar Giuliani and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey from representing Zarrab. The trader has pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges that he conspired to conduct illegal transactions through U.S. banks on behalf of Iran's government, violating U.S. sanctions.

He hired Giuliani and Mukasey, to try to negotiate a diplomatic resolution of his case between the United States and Turkey.

Both attorneys have discussed Zarrab's case with U.S. authorities and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has accused U.S. authorities of having "ulterior motives" in bringing the charges. In an affidavit filed last month, Giuliani, an adviser to President Donald Trump, said authorities in both countries were "receptive" to a diplomatic deal.

Prosecutors have said they are concerned about conflicts because eight of the U.S. banks involved in the case have been clients of Giuliani or Mukasey's law firms, and because Giuliani's firm, Greenberg Traurig, is a registered agent of Turkey.

Giuliani and Mukasey said in affidavits filed on April 20 that they did not believe they had any conflicts in representing Zarrab.

Greenberg Traurig was hired in 2014 as a subcontractor for the Gephardt Group, which provides lobbying services to Turkey, according to foreign agent registration records submitted to the court. Members of the firm have discussed U.S.-Turkish relations with U.S. lawmakers and their staff, the records show.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and David Gregorio)
Stephen Daisley writes in The Spectator:

For the benefit of Sky News, standard Christian doctrine says gay sex is a sin. Its the sin that gives sinning a good name. There ought to be a stewards inquiry into why it didnt make it into the Ten Commandments. But, yes, its one of those trespasses we ask to be forgiven.

Skys Darren McCaffrey demanded to know Tim Farrons view on the matter at a Lib Dem event on Monday. In case youre wondering, Farron hasnt proposed banning the love that once dared not speak its name and now wont shut up about it. Nor does he want to roll back any of the gains the gay rights movement has made in the last 20 years. In fact, he has criticised equal marriage legislation for failing to accommodate the rights of trans people and wants to see the spousal veto scrapped.

But Farron is a Christian and, worse, one of those ones who actually believes it all. 

This is not journalism, its bloodsport for secularists. Farron is not proposing a single policy that would adversely impact LGBT people. He is not being asked to clarify his political principles so much as repudiate his faith. It is an ugly business and one that will be causing Farron acute anguish, something which his pursuers must know. The sight of talented broadcasters reduced to tormenting a politician for his religious affiliation makes for unpleasant viewing.
Jo Moir reports:

A crisis meeting is being held by Labours list ranking committee and its likely prospective Labour candidate Willie Jackson will be given a higher place.

Its understood he was given the 21st slot on Labours original list and wasnt happy about it.

Jackson, a high profile broadcaster and former Alliance MP, is said to have flown down to Wellington on Monday morning to take his frustrations to the party first-hand.

The party was expected to announce its list around mid-morning but has now pushed it out to Tuesday morning while the party works through the ranking issues. A Labour Party source said a crisis meeting would be held on Monday night and it was expected Jackson would get a higher list ranking as a result.

Its understood the delay is also because other electorate candidates are disappointed with their list ranking.

Jackson, who had ties to the Maori Party, was shoulder-tapped by Labour leader Andrew Little late last year to run and announced at Waitangi that would he seek a place on the list.

Little threw his support behind Jackson getting a high-list placing.

But Northland and East Coast candidates, Willow-Jean Prime and Kiri Allan, look to have secured list spots ahead of Jackson  likely helped by Labours 50/50 gender policy.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Windy. Cloudy skies will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High near 75F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early then partly cloudy and windy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 64F. Winds S at 20 to 30 mph.
TDCIs Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners awards grants to 13 Tennessee universities





NASHVILLE  The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) announces that the Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners has awarded grants totaling $331,700 to 13 Tennessee universities. Grant funds may be used for computers to be utilized by students, laboratory or instructional equipment, library resources, or to pay intern development program fees or examination fees for students in accredited architectural, engineering, landscape architectural, and interior design programs.



The Board appreciates the opportunity to assist in the education of architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and interior design students, said John Cothron, Executive Director of the Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners. Education lays the foundation for developing the knowledge and skills needed to practice the design professions and to protect the publics health, safety, and welfare.



Receiving grant funds this year are:



 Christian Brothers University - $13,835 to the School of Engineering. Funds will be utilized to purchase a differential scanning calorimeter repair/upgrade, hydrographic surveying equipment, a ground based robotics systems, and an unmanned aerial system.

 East Tennessee State University - $3,000 for the interior design program. Funds will be utilized to pay Interior Design Fundamentals Examination (IDFX) fees for students and to purchase a color laser printer and construction tools. The IDFX exam is typically the first step in the process leading to registration as a Registered Interior Designer (RID), and may be taken by students in the senior year of an interior design curriculum.

 Lipscomb University - $12,777 to the College of Engineering. Funds will be utilized to pay Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination fees for students and to purchase a complete water quality lab and total coliform lab. The FE exam is typically the first step in the process leading to licensure as a Professional Engineer (PE), and may be taken by students in the senior year of an engineering curriculum.

 Middle Tennessee State University - $3,000 to the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences for the interior design program; $13,605 to the Mechatronics Engineering program. Funds will be utilized to pay FE examination fees for students and to purchase a CNC router and 3D printer for the mechatronics engineering program, and resource library equipment and computer-related items for the interior design program.

 OMore College of Design - $3,000 to the School of Interior Design. Funds will be utilized to purchase a desktop laser cutter.

 Tennessee State University - $18,649 to the College of Engineering. Funds will be utilized to purchase equipment to renovate the Civil Engineering laboratory, including a concrete compression machine with controller.

 Tennessee Technological University - $33,725 to the College of Engineering. Funds will be utilized to purchase furniture, computer equipment, networks for Internet access, and work benches for a student design center.

 Union University - $10,962 to the Department of Engineering. Funds will be utilized to purchase a heat treat oven, a printed circuit board (PCB) computer numerical control (CNC) router, components for a wind tunnel, and vertical mill accessories.

 University of Memphis - $22,614 to the College of Engineering; $25,439 to the College of Communication and Fine Arts for the architecture and interior design programs. Funds will be utilized to purchase interdisciplinary design lab equipment (3D printers, laser cutter, color printer, flatbed scanner, oscilloscopes) for the College of Engineering, and security alarm equipment, a projection system, blackout shades, cachet chairs, design+build studio equipment, and a laser printer for the architecture and interior design programs.

 University of Tennessee, Chattanooga - $25,716 to the College of Engineering and Computer Science; $3,000 to the College of Health, Education and Professional Studies for the interior design program; $20,000 for a special project grant. Funds will be utilized to purchase a signals and systems experimentation station and control design applied experimentation stations for the Electrical Engineering department, and to pay IDFX exam fees for students and purchase lighting equipment and design studio supplies for the interior design program. The $20,000 special project grant will be used to develop an interdisciplinary low-income community design studio in Chattanooga in partnership with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

 University of Tennessee, Knoxville - $44,461 to the College of Architecture and Design; $42,825 to the College of Engineering. Funds will be utilized pay FE examination fees for students and to purchase transportation simulation laboratory upgrades, portable materials science laboratory equipment, and 3D laser scanning equipment for the College of Engineering, and plotters, workstations and laptop computers for the College of Architecture and Design.

 University of Tennessee, Martin - $12,800 to the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Funds will be utilized to purchase a servo rotary table.

 Vanderbilt University - $22,292 to the School of Engineering. Funds will be utilized to pay FE examination fees for students and to purchase a professional graphics workstation and 3D printer.



Grant funding is provided from the Boards revenues or reserve funds. The Tennessee General Assembly and Governor Bill Haslam authorized funding for the grants (2016 Public Acts, Chapter 758, Section 7, Item 31). The Board has awarded over $3.5 million in grant funds since the inception of the program in 2002. Published April 30, 2017
By Yoon Ja-young



Exports are picking up at a faster pace, prompting research institutes to raise their economic growth forecasts.



According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, outbound shipments recorded $51 billion in April, up 24.2 percent from a year earlier. That was the second-biggest month in exports ever since October 2014 when the figure reached $51.6 billion.



Imports totaled $37.8 billion, up 16.6 percent from a year earlier, resulting in a $13.3 billion trade surplus and marking a surplus for the 63rd consecutive month.



The country saw growth in most of its main export items. Exports of ships stood at a record-high $7.13 billion, on increasing demand for high value-added vessels.



Shipments of semiconductors totaled $7.14 billion, the second biggest ever. Demand for memory chips has been increasing from smartphone manufacturers. Exports of machinery also marked the fourth-biggest month ever at $4.29 billion.



Exports increased to all regions except the Middle East. Exports to the EU stood at $6.43 billion, the biggest ever.



Exports have been marking double-digit growth for four consecutive months.



"The global economy and trade have been recovering, and efforts to improve the structure of exports seem to be paying off. Exports are expected to continue their recovery in May as well," the trade ministry said.



However, the expansion of protectionism in global trade and volatility in the foreign exchange rate will remain downside risks, it said.



On improving exports and plant investment, major research institutes are turning positive in their outlooks for this year.



The central bank revised its growth rate outlook to 2.6 percent from 2.5 percent.



The Korea Institute of Finance also pulled up its outlook to 2.8 percent from 2.5 percent, while the Korea Development Institute suggested a 2.6 percent growth rate instead of its previous 2.4 percent.



The Korea Economic Research Institute raised its prediction up to 2.5 percent from 2.1 percent.



Plant investment grew 3 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter, while construction investments increased 5.3 percent.



However, consumption hasn't been showing signs of recovery yet, with private consumption growing only 0.4 percent in the first quarter. Economists say there is a decoupling between exports and domestic consumption.



"Exports have been picking up on the global economic recovery and rising natural resource prices. However, domestically the economy is still slow. There is a decoupling between exports and domestic consumption," said Hong Joon-pyo, a senior researcher at Hyundai Research Institute.



He pointed out that the recovery in exports is mostly led by semiconductors and petrochemicals, which focus more on facilities than employment. This means the recovery in exports is not stimulating job creation, as expected.



"The government should strengthen the social safety net and stabilize economic sentiment so the feeble recovery wouldn't be hurt due to unexpected uncertainties," he said.



LG Economic Research Institute noted that growth is likely to slow down in the latter half of the year, with exporters facing U.S. protectionism and China's economic retaliation on Korea's deployment of a U.S. missile defense system.




Mike Pompeo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is on an unannounced visit to South Korea for discussions on North Korea, government sources said Monday.



He is the highest-ranking American official to travel to Seoul since Vice President Mike Pence's trip last month.



Pompeo arrived here on Saturday and had a series of meetings with Lee Byung-ho, head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, and officials at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, according to the sources.



He also had a dinner meeting on Sunday joined by Marc Knapper, the acting U.S. ambassador to South Korea, and Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).



His visit is apparently focused on coordinating an approach toward the provocative North Korea. There were no reports of his meeting with South Korea's presidential candidates with the elections slated for next week.



"We did not even know about his arrival in South Korea (before related news reports). There is no contact (from the U.S.) with us," said an official at the campaign office of Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party. He is the leading contender in the presidential race.



Another official at the Moon camp also said it's not customary for a (South Korean) presidential candidate to meet the director of the CIA, which is not part of formal diplomatic channels.



Even if there's a request for a meeting, Moon is unlikely to accept it, added the official.



The Kookmin Ilbo, a Seoul-based newspaper, reported earlier in the day the CIA chief flew into the Osan Air Base south of Seoul some 12 hours after the North conducted a failed ballistic missile test.



He is scheduled to stay in Seoul until Tuesday, it said, citing "key officials in the political circles."



Another local daily, the Chosun Ilbo, said Pompeo briefed South Korean government officials on details for implementing the Donald Trump administration's new policy on Pyongyang. It quoted multiple intelligence sources.



They also assessed the communist nation's nuclear and missile capabilities and the internal situation of the Kim Jong-un regime, it added.



Pompeo, a former politician, served as a cavalry officer.



Weeks ago, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis made separate trips to Seoul in an apparent show of the Trump government's commitment to the alliance. (Yonhap)




The United States should be prepared for military operations against North Korea, even though the hope is to resolve the situation without resorting to force, National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster said Sunday.

"We do have to do something, and so, we have to do something, again, with partners in the region and globally. And that involves enforcement of the U.N. sanctions that are in place. It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further. And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary," McMaster said on "Fox News Sunday."

President Donald Trump has connected military options to what we're trying to politically, he said.

"For too long, those two things were disconnected from each other. So, you need the viable option, the military option, to help make what you were doing diplomatically, economically, with sanctions, viable, to be able to resolve this problem short of what would be, as the president said, a major, major war and a humanitarian catastrophe," McMaster said.

Asked whether the U.S. is willing to take the risk of North Korean retaliatory attacks against Seoul in the event of a U.S. military strike, McMaster said that what Trump cares most about is the safety of the American people.












South Korea and the United States appear to have differences on the controversial deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery here as U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, right, opened the possibility of renegotiation on who will bear the cost of the deployment, while his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin, left, said the two sides' existing agreement calling for Washington to pay remained unchanged. / Graphic by Cho Sang-won



McMaster hints at renegotiations despite Seoul's denial

By Jun Ji-hye

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster's remarks supportive of President Donald Trump's call for South Korea to pay for a U.S. missile shield reaffirmed that Washington wants to renegotiate the terms of the agreement despite Seoul's denial.

Analysts say the Trump administration's inconsistency will harm the Korea-U.S. alliance and cause stronger public opposition to the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here.

McMaster opened the possibility of renegotiation, saying he would not contradict the U.S. president, during an interview with Fox News Sunday.

In that interview, he also rejected reports that he promised the U.S. will pay for THAAD during a phone conservation with his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin earlier in the day.

"The last thing I would ever do is contradict the president of the United States, you know? And that's not what it was. In fact, what I told our South Korean counterpart is that until any renegotiation, the deal is in place," McMaster said.

The remarks were construed as the White House indicating that it would adhere to the existing agreement between the allies for now, but renegotiation can also take place if necessary.

Controversy regarding the THAAD costs was ignited after President Trump abruptly said last week that Seoul should pay for the deployment that he estimated at about $1 billion  remarks squarely against the allies' previous agreement calling for Seoul to provide the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) with the site for the battery and other infrastructure, and for the U.S. to shoulder the cost of deployment and operation.

McMaster said that Trump is seeking to "have appropriate burden-sharing, responsibility-sharing" with American allies including South Korea and NATO.
By Park Si-soo



A South Korean diplomat has been convicted of taking indecent photos of women.

Seoul Western District Court fined the lawyer-turned-diplomat, 38, identified only as Kim, 70 million won and ordered him to take a 40-hour education program on sexual crimes.

He was apprehended on Aug. 5 last year for taking photos up the skirt of a woman on a bus. Police later confirmed that he had used his smartphone to take photos up women's skirts 16 times between April 2015 and August last year. One photo was taken in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lobby in Seoul.

"He committed the crime even knowing illegal nature of his behavior," said Judge Nam Hyun in a ruling statement. "The verdict was made after taking into consideration that he is deeply remorseful for his crime, has no criminal record and is committed to dealing with his problem."
Nearly a quarter of voters aged 60 and older

By Lee Kyung-min

More than 42.4 million people are eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election, with those aged 60 and older accounting for almost a quarter of the total, the government said Monday.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, out of 51,714,900 citizens, the number of eligible voters aged 19 and older is 42,479,710, up nearly 5 percent or 1.971,868 from the 2012 presidential election.

The number includes overseas voters and those who are eligible to cast absentee ballots. Almost a quarter, or 24.4 percent of eligible voters, is aged 60 or older.

The total number of the oldest age bracket is 10,362,877, up 3.6 percent from the previous presidential election.

Those in their 40s account for the second largest age group with their number tallied at 8,736,420 (20.6 percent), followed by those in their 50s with 8,477,808 (19.9 percent), those in their 30s with 7,473,957 (17.6 percent) and those in their 20s, 6,766,283 (15.9 percent).












Kim Yong-seon, center, Chinese who became a nationalized Korean, calls for naturalized Koreans' active participation in the election during his group's campaign for the Democratic Party of Korea candidate Moon Jae-in in Daerim-dong, Seoul, Sunday. / Korea Times photo by Choi Ha-young





By Choi Ha-young

A presidential election is an important occasion for all Koreans as they can exercise their right to select a new leader whose policies will influence their lives.

In that sense, it is also important and special for naturalized Koreans, who can do the same.

"I am a Korean too," said Lee Rina, 42, a Russian who now has Korean citizenship. "I came here to ensure a better future for my children."

She was participating in campaigning Sunday as a member of the "Rainbow Campaign Team," organized by the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) to support its candidate Moon Jae-in with 20 naturalized Koreans from 10 countries as its members. This is the first-ever attempt to organize a multi-racial campaign team in election history here.

Lee arrived here 18 years ago as a student in the start of the nation's education open-door policy. Last winter, she came from Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, to Seoul, to participate in the candlelit rally to call for former President Park Geun-hye to step down because of the corruption scandal.












Sim Sang-jung, the Justice Party's presidential candidate, waves after announcing her pledges for workers' rights in front of union members at Cheonggye Plaza in central Seoul, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Jung Min-ho

Three of the five major presidential candidates pledge to raise the minimum wage to 10,000 won ($8.8) an hour in three years, while the others promise to do so in five years.

The Democratic Party of Korea's Moon Jae-in, the frontrunner in the race, promised to raise the minimum wage to that level by 2020 from the current 6,470 won, on his Facebook page on Labor Day (Monday).

"I will build a country, where hard workers never have to worry about poverty," Moon said. "I promised you that my government won't demand sacrifices from workers in the name of economic growth. It will prioritize values of labor and workers' rights."

According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in March, more than 25 percent of adolescents who have had part-time jobs said they earned even less than the minimum wage because their employers didn't comply with the law.

Moon said he will create a state fund to compensate such workers, and the government will directly demand overdue wage clearance.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party, vowed to increase the minimum wage to the same level, but at a slower pace. He said he can achieve the 10,000-won mark by the end of his term.

"I will also reinforce education about workers' rights by revising textbooks for students," he told reporters at the party's main office in Seoul.

Ahn planned to pay respect to Jeon Tae-il, a labor activist who burned himself to death in 1970 in protest of miserable working conditions in factories, in front of his statue in central Seoul. But labor union members blocked him from doing so, calling him to stop the "political show."












With just a week left before the presidential election, the candidates are taking their last gasp to overcome weaknesses pointed out by their critics. They are, clockwise from top, Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea, Yoo Seong-min of the Bareun Party, Sim Sang-jung of the Justice Party, Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party and Hong Joon-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party. / Graphic by Cho Sang-won



By Jun Ji-hye

Each candidate in the May 9 presidential election has been making great efforts to woo voters since their campaign began on April 17.

But there are still some serious hurdles for them to overcome in order to emerge a victor next Tuesday.

According to his critics, presidential election front-runner Moon Jae-in's greatest weakness is his "unstable" view on national security and North Korea.

Conservative forces have attacked the liberal candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, saying he is unqualified to defend the nation against North Korean threats, with some far-right opponents even labeling him as a "North Korean sympathizer."

The attack against Moon has especially centered on whether the Roh Moo-hyun administration, in which Moon served as presidential chief of staff, asked the North's opinion before it abstained from a U.N. vote against the Pyongyang regime on human rights in 2007.

Former Foreign Minister Song Min-soon claimed so, fanning the flames of criticism of Moon, saying that if elected, Moon will not take a firm enough stance in dealing with the North, which continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

Moon has rebutted the claim, saying the Roh government only notified the North after making its abstention decision independently. Moon's camp filed a complaint against Song for defamation, saying his claim was untrue and violated election laws.

But despite Moon's explanation, his rivals, especially from the conservative parties, have continued to use to attack him on this issue.

Moon has also faced another controversy after he avoided giving a straight answer to a question from conservative candidate Yoo Seong-min of the Bareun Party about whether or not the North is South Korea's main enemy.

Moon said defining one's main enemy is the job of the Ministry of National Defense, not the president's, saying the president is a person who needs to resolve inter-Korean relations. The conservatives criticized Moon for not calling the North the main enemy, again questioning his capability to firmly respond to the North's military provocations.

The defense ministry deleted the expression "the main enemy" in reference to North Korea from the 2004 Defense White Paper owing to concerns over possible diplomatic friction with neighboring countries; experts said calling the North the main enemy could mean there are other enemies, which could include neighbors such as China, the North's traditional ally and the South's No. 1 trading partner.

Due to the sensitivity of the phrase, former conservative Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye did not call Pyongyang the main enemy, either; nevertheless, the issue is still being used to downplay Moon.

To overcome the controversy, in recent tours and speeches, Moon has been focusing on promoting his ability to maintain the country's strong national security. On Wednesday, he observed a South Korea-United States large-scale joint live-fire exercise at the Seungjin Army Training Center in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, and then vowed the following day to develop the nation's own nuclear submarines, if elected.

He also warned that another nuclear test by the North will worsen already strained inter-Korean relations.

"I strongly warn that the North's sixth nuclear test will only deepen its isolation and throw the regime into difficulties," he said.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party, a runner-up in the presidential race, appears to have become more popular among centrist and conservative voters than Moon. But he is still regarded less influential because some of his supporters are not hard-core fans, but rather support him because of their "anyone but Moon" sentiment that aims to keep Moon out of Cheong Wa Dae.

Those voters can leave Ahn as soon as they find a better candidate who can beat Moon. Ahn should prove himself as a formidable rival against Moon to grab them, but he has already failed to distinguish himself during nationally televised debates, only experiencing a continuous decline in popularity in opinion polls.

Ahn needs the support of centrists and conservatives to have any chance of winning, but his efforts to get this support has also faced difficulties owing to the very liberal policy direction of his party, which is dominated by political figures from the so-called Honam region, including the party chairman Rep. Park Jie-won. The Honam region encompasses liberal forces' traditional stronghold of North and South Jeolla Provinces and Gwangju.

More importantly, Ahn has been bombarded with questions about whether he will adopt the Sunshine Policy, which emphasized inter-Korean economic cooperation and is pursued by his party. The policy was initiated by the late President Kim Dae-jung government, in which Rep. Park served as a presidential chief of staff. But there is an obvious contrast between the policy and Ahn's conservative view on national security.

During the TV debates, Ahn was attacked by conservative candidates when he answered: "There were merits and demerits in the Sunshine Policy." Then, he raised his voice, saying, "Why is it so important whether or not I adopt the policy initiated 20 years ago?"

Mindful of the controversy, Rep. Park vowed not to take any nominative positions if Ahn elected.

Hong Joon-pyo of the conservative Liberty Korea Party probably has been the most controversial candidate owing to his autobiographical essay, published in 2005, in which he wrote about his involvement in an attempted rape while in college. In that essay, Hong confessed that he provided a sexual stimulant used to breed farm pigs to his friend, who wanted to sleep with a coed.

Before this controversy, the former South Gyeongsang governor also drew fire for saying "How can I wash dishes? Men have their own jobs, and women have theirs."

Hong offered an apology for his sexist remarks and involvement in an attempted rape during the TV debates, but he still faces calls from women's rights groups to withdraw his candidacy.

Sim Sang-jung of the progressive Justice Party has been assessed as the most impressive candidate during the TV debates, during which she made some notable remarks that pushed other candidates into a corner. Thanks to her great performance, she has enjoyed an increase in her popularity, albeit her support remains in the low single digits.

Yoo Seong-min of the conservative Bareun Party has also been suffering from low single-digit support, which has led his party members to urge him to withdraw his candidacy and unite with Ahn. This lack of support from his own party members is his greatest weakness.

Even after the presidential election, Sim and Yoo could suffer from financial problems, as only candidates that gain over 15 percent of votes will be fully reimbursed for their campaign expenses by a national subsidy, according to the National Election Commission. For those with over 10 percent of votes, only half of their expenses will be reimbursed. Those who earn less than 10 percent get nothing back.
By Kim Hyo-jin

Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), is maintaining his strong lead opinion polls showed Monday. Two other contenders, lagging far behind the frontrunner, are struggling to take the runner-up position.

As support for Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party is rapidly falling, the new polls suggest that Hong Joon-pyo of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) is emerging as a strong competitor to him.

The latest STI poll conducted over the weekend had Moon with support of 46 percent, while Ahn's had fallen to 19.2 percent, the first time his rating has dropped below 20 percent since the start of April.

Hong was hot on the trail of Ahn with 17.4 percent, his highest rating ever. Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung's support stood at 8.2 percent, as Bareun Party candidate Yoo Seong-min's remained at 4.8 percent.

In the poll, 33 percent of the respondents said they changed their favorite candidates, and 46.6 percent of them, the largest figure, said they shifted support from Ahn to other contenders.

Analysts said that the support base for Ahn is unstable because it consisted of conservative voters who were left as "strays" following the collapse of the Park Geun-hye government.
By Kim Hyo-jin





Ahn Cheol-soo

South Korea must reconsider its sanctions-only policy toward North Korea because it is not effective in curbing the latter's nuclear and missile threats, according to People's Party presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo.

In an interview, Ahn said the country's next government should be ready to hold talks with the North any time, while maintaining pressure in coordination with the international community.

"Sanctions against North Korea should not be the only means to deal with the Kim Jong-un regime. Historically, we can find no example showing sanctions led to the collapse of a regime," Ahn said.

"Seoul should always be ready to resume talks with Pyongyang if they are aimed to denuclearize the country, while maintaining tough sanctions."

Ahn indicated that he will soften the country's policy toward the North if he is elected to the top office. However, he made it clear that such a change will be made in close coordination with the U.S. and China.

"Coordination with the international community is the priority in handling the North," he said. "Most of all, I will closely cooperate with President Donald Trump based on the spirit of the Seoul-Washington alliance."

He said an inter-Korean summit is meaningless if it is only for the sake of "a meeting."

"The Kim regime is unpredictable as we have witnessed. An inter-Korean summit should not be the aim of our policy," he said.

Ahn earlier dropped his long-standing opposition to the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, saying Seoul needs to adapt to the changing situation.

Seeing it an inevitable option, he said the country should set its sights on resolving the row with China. He vowed to make active diplomatic efforts to persuade Beijing, projecting confidence in deterring its economic retaliation to the THAAD deployment.

A possible withdrawal of the battery can even be discussed to placate Beijing's antipathy, he said.

"We will have to make Beijing understand it is a choice for our survival and an inevitable outcome of the South Korea-U.S. alliance," he said.

"Further, I plan to stress the fact that we can consult with the U.S. for the withdrawal of the system if there are improvements in the North Korean nuclear conundrum."

The runner-up contender in the presidential race has voiced ideas about reformation of the economic environment, including rooting out the cozy relations between politicians and conglomerates and correcting unfair business practices.

But he prefers the idea of having a small government in pushing for reform, differing from frontrunner Moon Jae-in who stresses the importance of high-level government involvement.

"In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the government has no ability to govern and respond well in every sector. I don't think we need a big government in clearing out corruption, irregularities and social evils. I will make a reformative, private sector-supporting government," he said.

"Minimum actions, like the launch of an investigative body to look into corruption cases involving senior government officials and strengthening the functions of the Fair Trade Commission, should be enough to achieve the necessary reforms."

He said, if elected, he would prioritize stabilizing state management by minimizing the restructuring of government ministries, a typical move that has been done to delete the legacy of predecessors when a new president takes office.

But he would reduce the size of the presidential office, mindful of the negative public sentiment toward the body since the impeachment of the scandal-ridden former president.

"At least, Cheong Wa Dae should be reduced for more effective operation. I'd also seek to move it to Sejong City, the administrative town, through a revision to the Constitution."
By Lyman McLallen

Is a Hyundai Sonata manufactured at the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama, in the United States, a Korean car? Strictly speaking, no, because it's not made in Korea. "Strictly speaking," though, leaves a lot unanswered about this car. A question that might lead to a better explanation is: "Does a car have to be made in Korea to be a Korean car?" Before you answer, consider the following:

The workers at the factory in Alabama are Americans and the cars they build there are made in America. The managers of the plant, the corporate decisions and the capital to finance the construction and operation of the factory, however, all come from Korea.

The cars and SUVs manufactured at Korean owned and operated factories throughout the world are like the cars and SUVs manufactured at factories in Korea. So even if the cars are not made in Korea, they are manufactured by Hyundai or Kia.

For more than 30 years, Korean corporations have built factories all over the world manufacturing cars, TVs, washing machines, stereos, tires and other products like those made at their factories in Korea.

Once a Korean corporation builds a factory in another part of the world and starts making and selling products, it becomes the source of a money stream that flows to Korea, which was the intention of the corporation in the first place.

Corporations don't go to the trouble and expense of building factories in other countries merely to benefit from cheap labor. Perhaps the workers in the American South and other parts of the world are glad to work for lower wages than the corporations have to pay workers in Korea.

But with robots performing most of the work in these factories overseas today, the availability of inexpensive labor is no longer necessary.

Until the 1990s, a typical auto plant employed 2,000 to 3,000 workers to manufacture 1,000 cars a day. In 2017, with the bulk of the work performed by robots, the factory only needs 300 to 400 workers to detail and finish the cars at the end of production.

With robots, the production is faster and human error is eliminated, significantly raising quality control, resulting in more cars being made with greater reliability but costing much less to produce than it cost when manufacturing was labor intensive.

Today, robots complete tasks few even imagined they would be able to do at the turn of the century. Five years from now, however, the most advanced robots of today will seem slow and awkward compared to the robots that will be developed by then.

Today, Hyundai makes 1.8 million cars a year in Korea and almost 3 million cars in factories overseas. This ratio, though, is steadily rising and not only with cars but with every manufactured item that Korean corporations make here and abroad.

Within a decade, Korean manufacturers will operate twice as many factories worldwide as they do today, sending not just streams of money back to Korea but swiftly flowing rivers. But this isn't happening without forethought and effort.

Operating factories worldwide may look as though it is routine, but when Korean companies started thinking about building them years ago, they faced risks and made miscalculations because they had never done this before. Despite suffering setbacks and failures, they persisted, and their success is evident by all the factories they now operate around the world.

The Koreans who manage these, in addition to being deeply and broadly knowledgeable, are creative, adaptable, tenacious and are superb leaders.

Building factories, hiring the right people to entrust with the work of manufacturing quality products and keeping it going is not easy to do even here in Korea. To run a factory thousands of miles away in another country has got to be a lot more difficult.

The rewards, however, are worth it and not just for the Korean corporations. The host countries benefit from long-term investment in valuable manufacturing facilities, the creation of good jobs, and the production of quality products in their countries that otherwise wouldn't happen if not for the Korean corporations dedicating themselves to becoming thoroughly international.

McLallen graduated from the University of Memphis State. He works as a copy editor at The Korea Times.
"You know, I said we were going to build a wall and Mexico was gonna pay for it. But it turns out, the bad hombres heard about Trump, and they stopped coming. They gave up. So we don't even need a wall. We just needed to let everybody know they're not going to take advantage of us anymore. And believe me, they know it. And why would I make Mexico pay for a wall when they're helping us out like they never did before? You wouldn't believe the cooperation we're getting now. The Mexicans have been tremendous!"



It sounds like Donald Trump, but it's not something he said. It's something he could say, if he wants a lasting way out of a self-created problem.



Until he changed direction this week, the biggest hang-up on a measure to keep the government operating after Friday was his demand that Congress appropriate billions to start construction of that "big, beautiful wall" he promised last year. But he hadn't been getting many takers on Capitol Hill. Democrats are united against paying for the barrier, and plenty of Republicans don't think it's feasible or affordable. Nor is the public convinced: A new Washington Post-ABC News poll has 60 percent of Americans against the idea, which would include some people who voted for him.



So on Monday night, Trump began to climb down from the wall, explaining that he's content to have this fight later. If he again changes tack, another government shutdown could occur  to the exasperation of voters who hoped last year's election would end the partisan gridlock. For the moment, though, Trump has flummoxed critics who hoped his demand for wall funding would lead to a shutdown and a widespread verdict of incompetence.



And here's more good news for Trump: Illegal crossings from Mexico have dropped like a rock  a reaction, presumably, to the "Unwelcome" mat he put out Jan. 20. The number of people apprehended trying to sneak in was down 64 percent in March compared with March 2016, bringing the number to the lowest in 17 years. "The perception of stricter enforcement can change behavior," concludes conservative writer David Frum in The Atlantic.



The case against Trump's favorite idea is familiar. It would be a logistical nightmare to construct a wall across 2,000 miles of terrain, some of it rugged desert and some of it liquid, in the form of the Rio Grande. Land would be expropriated. The project would take years. And the cost would be high. The Department of Homeland Security prices it at $21.6 billion, but a report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee says the tab would be more than triple that figure. And, let's not forget, the Mexican government has unequivocally rejected ever providing a peso for this structure.



The president may also have noted that a growing share of foreigners living here illegally came here legally as tourists or students and simply didn't leave when their time was up. For this cohort, a wall would be irrelevant. Stemming this flow requires putting more resources into tracking such visitors to assure that they depart on schedule. Money that goes to the wall, alas, can't be spent on this and other types of immigration enforcement that hold greater promise.



But spending for other types of enforcement would appeal to more members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle. Trump may not have trouble getting funds for better technology and other border impediments  anything other than a wall. Maybe that's been his gambit as the budget deadline approaches: Talk about a wall, but win appropriations for other security improvements. His supporters aren't likely to object much: The new Post/ABC poll puts his overall approval rating at a weak 42 percent, but among Trump voters, it's 94 percent. Only 2 percent of those who voted for Trump regret doing so.



If this switcheroo is his strategy, it could let him achieve progress on the basic issue without abandoning his campaign pledge. And if he never gets around to fulfilling that pledge, we're confident Trump will find a way to portray that as a victory.





This editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.




By Doug Bandow



PRETORIAPolitical reconciliation in South Africa may have been easy compared to the challenge of more fully bringing those who suffered systematic discrimination and exclusion fully into the economic marketplace.



The poor typically are creative and entrepreneurial, but lack access to many of the essential tools of economic development. The rural poor are at a particular disadvantage since whatever economic infrastructure exists is concentrated in cities. McKinsey reported that worldwide some 2.5 billion people don't use banks or other formal financial institutions.



Such difficulties are ever evident in Africa. Perhaps the continent's greatest hope, beyond the resourcefulness and tenacity of Africa's diverse peoples, is the commercial advance of technology.



For instance, MyBucks, a FinTech (or financial technology) firm, is turning the smartphone into a portable bank. It's an explosive growth area.



Of course, traditional financial enterprises have gone online. But their web activities tend to be an extension of existing practices. It is "hard for traditional banks to change traditional operations," MyBucks CEO Dave van Niekerk told me. His objective was "taking online banking to the next level."



Especially important for a continent like Africa, new technologies mean leapfrogging an existing model that has never served millions of people. Traditional banking for "so many people and so many small accounts" simply is not "economically viable," said van Niekerk.



The potential market is huge. MyBucks is mixing capitalism and philanthropy, seeking to financially empower those who long lacked access to financial services. Van Niekirk said his vision was "In the very near future, the poorest of the poor will use technology to educate themselves and access financial products and services, anywhere and at any time."



The individual benefits are obvious. But so are the larger economic gains. With Africa finally starting to enjoy sustained economic growth, FinTech acts as a financial accelerant.



The firm recently brought me to their South African headquarters to chat about the company and its operations. Tim Nuy, MyBucks Deputy CEO, noted that "in mid-2015 we had an opportunity to buy" Opportunity International's financial enterprises. OI backs local microfinance organizations, offers savings accounts and micro-insurance, and provides financial education, as well as non-financial services and training, all to those in poverty to promote business development.



The partnership has proved mutually beneficial. OI now is better able to serve those in need. At the same time, OI's banks and microfinance lenders allowed MyBucks to enter new national markets, which are still dominated by traditional regulatory structures.



The company wouldn't exist but for new technologies. MyBucks offers as its objective delivering what it officially terms "a basket of financial products that meets the financial needs of our customers throughout all geographies, through technology."



Imagine a farmer in a field conducting business that once required a trip to a bank in the city. MyBucks is working on a plan to give a simple cellphone as part of its financial package.



First, the firm offers a mix of traditional financial services: banking, lending, and insurance. Second, MyBucks provides financial services digitally, without maintaining a large physical presence where it operates.



Credit information is gathered electronically. Much of it comes, with the consumer's consent, from their phone. Artificial intelligence allows almost instantaneous assessment of creditworthiness, with money disbursed typically within 15 minutes. Nuy explained that the technological leapfrog has "taken away any need for infrastructure."



Customers can access MyBucks products through the web or with mobile devices. However, the firm recognizes that access to technology is not uniform. So MyBucks provides "internet service points," or kiosks, in what amount to small branches with trained personnel to assist customers.



The company emphasized its support for corporate social responsibility and community empowerment. However, MyBucks' normal profit-making activity may be its most powerful impact on the poor. The company has brought many un- and under-served Africans into the larger economy.



MyBucks continually looks beyond today's technological achievements. "We don't want to just keep up with technology," van Niekerk told me. "We want to understand what other companies are doing and leapfrog them."



FinTech is enriching the lives of people around the world. MyBucks is an important part of this dramatic economic and social change. It is demonstrating entrepreneurial capitalism's positive economic and social impact on developing nations and disadvantaged peoples.



The problem of international poverty remains enormous. And aid through the independent sector can help.



But the ultimate solution for those currently left behind economically requires expanding the reach of markets to the least among us. MyBucks helps do so, and thereby is doing good while doing well.





Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan.




U.S. President Donald Trump is not letting up on his call for Korea to pay for a U.S.-deployed missile defense system. After his remarks with Reuters triggered huge controversy, Trump repeated his stance in another media interview even though the Korean government refuted his demand that Korea should pay.



"It's a phenomenal protective system, best in the world by far, and that's meant to protect South Korea," Trump said in an interview with the Washington Times. "So I respectfully say that I think it would be appropriate if they paid for it."



It looks like the controversy over who should pay for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery will continue because the Trump administration is sending out signals that it may even seek a renegotiation of a previous bilateral deal committing the U.S. to pay.



U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster said that the current deal is in place "until any renegotiation" during an interview with Fox News. "What the president has asked us to do is to look across all of our alliances and to have appropriate burden-sharing, responsibility-sharing. We are looking at that with a great ally, South Korea."



It is worrisome that Korea and the U.S. are saying different things about the THAAD payment.



Cheong Wa Dae said that the two countries had reaffirmed their commitment to the previous pact on THAAD during a phone conversation between McMaster and his Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin. But McMaster said that he could not "contradict the president of the United States," defying local reports that he promised the U.S. will pay. The Ministry of National Defense and Cheong Wa Dae said Monday that THAAD cannot be renegotiated and reiterated the validity of the existing agreement based on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).



THAAD has already rekindled anti-American sentiment here after parts of it were deployed here without the consent of Seongju residents near the site or a proper environmental impact report. Trump's threats for THAAD payment is making many Koreans doubt whether it is really worth all this trouble.



Our government needs to put the foot down once and for all that we provide the site, but the U.S. is responsible for paying to operate and maintain the system.




Improving labor conditions is presidential priority







Labor Day rallies calling for increased pay and job security took place across the nation Monday, joining workers worldwide for International Workers' Day demonstrations.



Labor Day is an occasion to reflect on the hardships that workers face and what should be done to improve their lives. The lives of many working people in this country went from bad to worse during the Park Geun-hye administration. They are struggling with stagnant incomes and soaring taxes, while the jobless rate has shot up.



It is also problematic that even those who have jobs hold irregular positions. A recent survey shows that the number of irregular workers is on the rise, with one out of five newly-hired people last year being such employees. These workers earn only about half of what regular workers make and are excluded from a wide range of benefits.



Despite the mounting difficulties faced by workers, labor issues have been sitting on the backburner in this presidential election, which has been dominated by security issues amid rising tension on the Korean Peninsula. But undoubtedly, the next president's biggest priority is to pave the way for more people to make a good living with stable jobs.



Presidential hopefuls have made some pledges for improving working conditions. Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea aims to increase the minimum wage to 10,000 won ($8.77) an hour by 2020 from the current 6,470 won an hour. He has made pledges to reduce the percentage of irregular workers, such as switching those in the government and public sector into full-time positions. But this is easier said than done. All of the major presidential candidates have pledged to increase the minimum wage, but this will not be easy due to opposition from businesses.



Other presidential contenders have made pledges to help workers as well, but it is uncertain whether they can actually eradicate the deep-rooted income disparity and discrimination against irregular workers. Foreign workers, many of whom have the so-called 3D (Dirty, Difficult, Dangerous) jobs, have also not received the policy attention they deserve from presidential contenders.



In addition to advancing worker's rights, the next president should promote policies for work-life balance. An OECD report showed that Koreans on average worked 2,124 hours in 2014, which is 1.2 times more than the OECD average. This makes it hard for Koreans to focus on family and personal development. The next president should keep in mind that happy workers make a happy country.



Voters should think hard about which candidate pushes the best policies to improve people's livelihoods, create better jobs and lift irregular workers out of poverty when they elect a new president on May 9.








A user demonstrates the voice-recognition feature of Samsung Electronics' digital assistant service Bixby using a Galaxy S8 smartphone. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



By Yoon Sung-won



Samsung Electronics launched the Korean voice-recognition service for its digital assistant Bixby on the Galaxy S8 smartphone series, Friday.



The world's largest smartphone maker said the artificial intelligence (AI) assistant will soon support languages other than Korean, including English, Chinese and Spanish. Samsung Electronics mobile chief Koh Dong-jin had said earlier that Bixby would start supporting English at the end of this month and Chinese in June.



"Based on the deep learning-based AI, Bixby is an intelligent interface that evolves itself through more use," Samsung Electronics said in a statement, Monday. "It will provide different services compared to other search-based AI assistants."



The digital assistant feature was released alongside the S8 smartphones rolled out on April 21. But it was an imperfect version because the voice-recognition feature was not available at that time.



Expectations are high that Samsung Electronics will be able to prove the competitiveness of its digital assistant service over others such as Google's Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri.



According to Samsung Electronics, the Bixby Voice feature is currently compatible with 10 applications of the S8 and S8 Plus smartphones such as gallery, calculator, weather, reminder, message, clock, voice call and camera.



Users can give verbal orders to change settings, sort photos and bookmark webpages, the company said.



It also added what it calls Bixby Labs to test the compatibility of more diverse apps including the mobile payment service, Samsung Pay, Facebook, YouTube and Korea's most-used mobile messenger Kakao Talk.



To access the Bixby Voice feature, users can either press a dedicated button on the left side of the handset or just call "Bixby," before giving a verbal order to the digital assistant.



"More than 3,000 tasks can be done through Bixby Voice," the company said.
By Jhoo Dong-chan



The number of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vehicles in Korea has been declining over the past five years.



LPG vehicles are considered environmentally friendly since they produce much less carbon emissions than conventional combustion engine vehicles.



But the number has been declining because the government still prohibits the public from buying them.



Currently, only taxi drivers and the disabled can purchase LPG cars.



According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Sunday, 2,185,114 LPG cars were registered last year, down 90,547 from the previous year.



The figure accounted for 10 percent of all vehicles registered in the country.



The number peaked in 2010, but has since declined every year.



The drop has also been widening every year _ 10,584 cars in 2011, 11,745 in 2012, 22,872 in 2013, 55,484 in 2014 and 79,350 in 2015.



Due to their cheap fuel cost, LPG vehicles had enjoyed popularity since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. The number of LPG cars surged by 1.13 million in four years between 1999 and 2002.



The golden era of LPG vehicles, however, came to an end as the government carried out tax reforms on LPG consumption.



The growing popularity of diesel vehicles was also another factor behind the LPG fall since 2011.



Industry insiders say the government should allow the public to buy LPG vehicles.



"The government's regulation on LPG consumption led to a supply shortage," said an industry insider.



"Korea depends on crude oil imports, and LPG accounts for only 3 percent of oil produced via refineries. But we now have shale gas that can lead to more LGP production. Storage technology has also been developed. There is no reason to regulate LPG consumption anymore."



Industry observers also say LPG vehicles are much cleaner and greener than conventional combustion engine vehicles.



The National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) studied and compared the emissions level of gasoline, diesel and LPG vehicles.



During the indoor test, gasoline cars were found to emit double the amount of nitrogen oxides than LPG cars.



Diesel cars emitted seven times more than LPG vehicles.



In the NIER's outdoor test, gasoline and diesel vehicles emitted three times and 93 times more emissions compared to LPG cars, respectively.



Nitrogen oxide is classified as a respiratory and cardiovascular toxicant by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.



Korea is the only country in the world that regulates public purchases of LPG vehicles.



The Unites States designates LPG as an alternative energy, offering consumption tax benefits worth 50 cents per gallon purchased.



The European Union also carries out a similar policy to the U.S., encouraging more use of LPG cars, along with electric vehicles.



Diesel cars gained huge popularity in Korea for their efficient mileage.



The number of diesel cars here stood at about 7 million, accounting for 37.1 percent of the total in 2012.



It surged to 9.17 million, or 42.1 percent of all cars in Korea last year.



The popularity of diesel vehicles continued even after a scandal involving Volkswagen's false diesel emissions tests erupted two years ago.



A total of 106,554 diesel cars were sold in Korea in the January to February period this year.



The figure accounts for about 47 percent of total automobile sales, beating those for gasoline cars.



Given the nation's worsening emissions along with fine dust problems, presidential candidates have promised to ease regulations on the purchase of LPG vehicles.



The environment, transport and finance ministries formed a task force to revise Korea's existing regulations on LPG consumption.



The task force is expected to announce the revision by the end of June.












Dongsuh Foods employees hold bottled Starbucks coffees at the company's factory in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, Friday, as the food firm began to export the ready-to-drink beverages to Taiwan this month. / Courtesy of Dongsuh Foods



By Park Jae-hyuk

Dongsuh Foods said Monday it began to export three types of bottled Starbucks Frappuccino  Coffee, Mocha and Caramel  to Taiwan this month.

The local food firm signed a license agreement with Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005 to produce and market the U.S. coffee chain's ready-to-drink (RTD) beverage products including bottled frappuccinos, canned doubleshot drinks, chocolate beverages and cold cup coffees.

It began to export bottled Starbucks Frappuccino Mint Mocha to Hong Kong in 2009, becoming Starbucks' first Asian partner which pioneered the overseas market.

The three RTD products made at the company's factory in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province, will arrive in Taiwan on Friday and will be distributed nationally. The exported products are the same as those marketed in Korea in terms of tastes, quantity and design.

According to Dongsuh, global coffee experts at Starbucks carefully selected coffee beans and ingredients which are used for the bottled beverages.

"We proved our technical skills, because Starbucks, which is renowned for its high-quality ingredients and strict production management, selected us as a partner," a Dongsuh official said. "We are proud of exporting our products to another country, as our advanced technologies will be recognized globally."

He added, "Based on our excellent technology, we will try our best to export Starbucks RTD products to more countries."

David Hanson, Vice President of China & Asia Pacific Channel Development at Starbucks Coffee Company, praised the achievements of Dongsuh and vowed to continue their partnership to produce better RTD products.

The vice president said that he expects more Taiwanese consumers will enjoy various Starbucks RTD products after the exports.

Since it produced Korea's first brewed coffee and instant coffee, Dongsuh has dominated the domestic market with its famous Maxim and Maxwell House brands. It also led the country's food culture, introducing various brands such as Prima, Post Cereal, Craft Cheese and Oreo.
Parents and children play with LEGO bricks during a LEGO festival at a park in front of Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, Seoul, April 22. Lotte Corporation said it is holding various events for those who visit the tower during the golden week holidays. / Courtesy of Lotte Corporation



By Park Jae-hyuk

Lotte World Tower has drawn 126,000 daily visitors on average in April, becoming Korea's newest tourist hotspot.

The number is set to grow faster this month, as Lotte holds various events around the nation's tallest skyscraper in Jamsil, southeastern Seoul, during the "golden week" holiday.

According to Lotte Corporation, Monday, 3.16 million people have visited Lotte World Tower and its neighboring Lotte World Mall since the tower's April 3 opening.

About 102,000 people per day visited the site on weekdays, while 203,000 per day visited there on weekends.

In particular, Seoul Sky, the nation's highest observation deck located between the 117th and 123rd floors of the tower, was visited by 120,000 people  about 4,800 a day enjoyed the city view from the 500-meter-high deck.

Lotte, which has suffered a decreasing number of Chinese tourists over a missile dispute, now expects to achieve its goal of attracting 60 million tourists a year.

A company official said April's figure is 48 percent higher than that of March, when only the mall was in operation.

The growing number of visitors positively affected sales revenue of facilities there as well.

The aquarium, cinema, shopping mall, department store, discount store and electronics shop in the mall respectively had 33.6, 48.5, 15.8, 10.6, 19 and 61.5 percent more sales in April than a month earlier.

The duty free shop alone suffered a 40 percent sales decrease, due to the Chinese government's de facto travel ban on group tours to Korea.

As more tourists are expected to visit the tower this week, Lotte has begun to hold various events.

Until next Monday, visitors can enjoy the Sweet Swan public art project at Seokchon Lake. Lotte expects the massive swan family sculptures will boost sales of the nearby shops, as the 2014 Rubber Duck project and 2016 Super Moon project did.

Families with children may enjoy a LEGO festival at a park in front of the tower. Four million LEGO parts will be available to visitors during the festival, so they can participate in making an eight- meter-wide and 12-meter-high flower which will be displayed at the park.

Lotte World Tower is also holding exhibitions and classical concerts during the holidays.

"We hope families, friends and couples visit Lotte World Tower this week," a Lotte Corporation marketing chief said. "We will continue to hold various events for tourists who visit the tower and Jamsil to enjoy culture and art."
ELKO  Community members and Great Basin College administration and faculty gathered Thursday to present the 2017 Outstanding Student Awards and the 2017 Regents Scholar Award.

The Regents Scholar Award is presented to one undergraduate and one graduate student, where applicable, from each institution within the Nevada System of Higher Education, to recognize his or her academic achievements, leadership ability and service contributions.

GBCs 2017 Regents Scholar is Bachelors of Arts in Elementary Education student Shiara Holmes of Owyhee.

In 2016, Holmes received an associate degree in early childhood education from GBC. This spring she will receive another associate degree in infant toddler education. Recently, she has been accepted to the Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education program with a 3.91 GPA. Holmes is an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation where she has lived all of her life and donates much of her time giving back.

In the summer months, Holmes works for the Tribes Summer Recreation and Summer Foods Program sponsored by Barrick Gold. Outside of work, Holmes encourages elementary and secondary students to pursue higher education.

Education Professor Lynette MacFarlan explained that Holmes started a community library as part of an assignment for her coursework at GBC.

In the spring of 2015, I asked students to complete a literacy rich project. Most students added literacy elements to existing areas within pre-school or elementary classrooms. Shiara took a different approach, said MacFarlan. Shiara approached the Shoshone-Paiute Human Development Center who offered a vacant room for her project. Together with a student peer, they transformed an ordinary room into an extraordinary community library. She received over 1500 new books appropriate for children ages birth through age 8. The community library is a vivid example of how Shiara exudes integrity and passion in all she undertakes.

The Outstanding Student Award is given to one graduating senior in each degree or certificate program at GBC. Recipients are nominated by GBC faculty members who recognize the student for exhibiting academic excellence within their majors.

This years 2017 Outstanding Student Award recipients are:

Andrea AllisonBachelor of Arts Social Science

Jessica Andresen-PahlBachelor of Science Nursing

Alexis BroskiAssociate of Arts

Radek DvorakAssociate of Applied Science Criminal JusticeCorrections

Ervin ForondaCertificate of Achievement Instrumentation Technology

Ibeth GalvanAdult Basic Education English as a Second Language

Brandon HatchCertificate of Achievement Business Administration

Jeffrey HintzAssociate of Applied Science Emergency Medical ServicesParamedic

Shiara HolmesAssociate of Arts Early Childhood Development

Jolynn HowardAssociate of Applied Science Business AdministrationGeneral Business

Torethia James-HillAssociate of Applied Science Human Services

Jessica JohnstonBachelor of Arts Secondary EducationAgriculture

Safron JonesCertificate of Achievement Medical Coding and Billing

Pamela JungeAssociate of Applied Science Office Technology

Michelle KingCertificate of Achievement Human Resources

Tze (Jenny) LeungBachelor of Arts Integrative StudiesNatural Resources

Patrick Malenosky- Certificate of Achievement Industrial Millwright Technology

Kelsey McClanahanAssociate of Applied Science Computer Programming

Jesse MeyersCertificate of Achievement Accounting Technician

Amanda MurryAssociate of Science

Robin Paul-WooleverBachelor of Arts Elementary Education

Dillon PollockAssociate of Applied Science Electrical Systems Technology

Anna RazoAssociate of Applied Science Business AdministrationAccounting

Ivett RodriguezCertificate of Achievement Computer TechnologiesOffice Technology

Dennis SchuesslerBachelor of Applied Science Management in Technology

Cherish SenrudBachelor of Arts Integrative Studies -Social Science

Dalton ShawAssociate of Applied Science Diesel Technology

Jennifer SouzaAssociate of Applied Science Radiology Technology

Michael VenzorAssociate of Applied Science Industrial Millwright Technology

Tyler VillanuevaAssociate of Applied Science Business AdministrationEntrepreneurship
In response to flooding and the state of emergency declared over the weekend, the Missouri Department of Transportation will allow heavier than normal truckloads of rock, sand and gravel to travel on Missouri highways.

The allowance will help get flood-fighting supplies to communities and expedite needed repairs of roads, levees, railroads, etc. While the waiver is in effect, private and for-hire motor carriers may carry up to 10 percent more than their licensed weight on Missouri highways.

The waiver will remain in effect for through May 31. While the waiver is in effect, participating motor carriers are limited to:

 A loaded, gross weight no greater than ten percent (10%) above the gross licensed weight of the commercial motor vehicle;

 Transportation of rock, sand and gravel only within the State of Missouri;

 Drivers must obey posted bridge weight limits;

 When crossing a bridge, the driver must restrict the vehicle speed to no more than thirty miles per hour (30 mph);

 Travel is only allowed on non-interstate highways. NO TRAVEL IS ALLOWED ON MISSOURI INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS.

All travelers are advised to visit the MoDOT Traveler Information Map at www.modot.org for up-to-date road closure information. A mobile app of the map can be downloaded free. Search for the name MoDOT.
Rye Patch Gold Corp. has poured its first gold from the Florida Canyon Mine that the company acquired last year in Pershing County.

Were really excited, said the companys president and chief executive officer William Howald. Were Nevadas newest producer.

The first pour was on April 25 at the mine that first opened in 1986 along Interstate 80 between Winnemucca and Lovelock.

Gold from the first pour came from the new leach pad constructed since Rye Patch Gold bought Florida Canyon and the nearby Standard Mine from ADM Gold Co. for roughly $23 million in late July 2016. The company has been upgrading facilities and the mining fleet.

We started in September, and despite all the bad weather, we made it, Howald said in a telephone interview.

Florida Canyon had 50 employees doing residual leaching and reclamation when Rye Patch Gold acquired the mine. Howald said there were 175 employees at the end of March, and he expected the number to reach 186 in May.

Crews started mining the Jasperoid open pit on Nov. 1 of last year and started crushing and placing ore on the new leach pad on Dec. 24. Irrigation began in March with cyanide started April 12, Howald said. There also is residual leaching at Florida Canyon and Standard.

He said the company wanted to be sure it could operate Florida Canyon at a gold price of $1,000 an ounce before mining resumed, and the current plan is based on a gold price of $1,000 an ounce for the first two years and $1,150 an ounce in years three through eight. The London P.M. fixing price on Friday, April 28, was $1,266.45 per ounce.

Rye Patch Golds goal is to produce 75,000 ounces a year at Florida Canyon.

Prior to becoming a gold producer, Vancouver-based Rye Patch Gold was an exploration company focused on the Oreana Trend in Pershing County.

We control most of the land from Florida Canyon to Lovelock. Were quite excited. We have more than 45,000 acres on the trend, Howald said. Whats unique about it is we had a large package before we bought Florida Canyon.

Two of the exploration projects in the county, Lincoln Hill and Wilco, are the most advanced.

Now, the capital needed to mine Lincoln Hill and Wilco would be lower because the carbon processing after ore is leached can be done at Florida Canyon, Howald said. The carbon would be trucked to Florida Canyon, eliminating the cost for carbon processing facilities at the sites.

Lincoln Hill is about two miles from I-80 and there would be 17 miles to drive to Florida Canyon on the interstate, Howald said.

Mining Lincoln Hill and Wilco are down the road, however.

Were really focused to get Florida Canyon up and running, Howald said.
PRESS RELEASE

Abe and Putin Conclude Meetings in Moscow, Urge Return to Six-Party Talks on Korea

April 29, 2017 (EIRNS)Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe concluded two days of meetings in Moscow where the tension on the Korean Peninsula was on top of the agenda. The two called for a restart of six-party negotiations as quickly as possible.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula was discussed separately [at the Russian-Japanese talks], as in our joint opinion with the prime minister [of Japan] it has, unfortunately, deteriorated seriously,"

Putin told journalists after their talks. "We are urging all the states involved in regional affairs to refrain from military rhetoric and seek a calm and constructive dialogue," Putin said. "We see the quickest restart of six-party negotiations as a common task," the Russian leader said.

For his part Abe said,

"President Putin and I have agreed that Japan and Russia will cooperate and call on North Korea to fully comply with the United Nations Security Councils resolutions and refrain from further provocations,"

he said.

The principal reason for the meeting was to increase bilateral political and economic cooperation, especially in the context of concluding a peace treaty where the Kuril Islands are a major issue. Both countries consider the islands, currently occupied by Russia, their territory.

They agreed to continue working together and draft a list of priority projects in the near future. While Putin said it was agreed that a Japanese delegation of officials and businessmen will visit the Kuril Islands this summer to explore joint economic opportunities, Abe said the delegation could visit as early as May. Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East Alexander Galushka told Izvestia that Russian officials will meet the Japanese visitors, but the session will not be a high-level one.

Charter flights to the South Kuril Islands will be launched for Japans citizens from Hokkaido, as the topic was actively lobbied for by Tokyo. This would allow former Japanese islanders to visit the graves of their ancestors; currently such visa-free travel is only available by sea. According to President Putin, the parties "expect that this will contribute to creating an atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding between the states."

Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga characterized this saying, "That was a huge success," and that the Abe-Putin talks were "substantive and frank."

Also discussed was the construction of the Sakhalin-Hokkaido gas pipeline.
PRESS RELEASE

OPCW Finally Agrees to Send Team to Syrian Site of Alleged Chemical Weapons Attack

April 29, 2017 (EIRNS)It took them nearly a month, but the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has finally agreed to send inspectors to Khan Sheikhoun, the site in Syria where a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government is alleged to have occurred on April 4.

OPCW director general Ahmet Uzumcu announced that the Assad government has "already stated that they would support this mission, actually they have invited us to go via Damascus." He continued that

"the problem is that this area is controlled by different armed opposition groups, so we need to strike some deals with them to ensure a temporary ceasefire, which we understand the Syrian government is willing to do."

However, it is not yet mandated to also visit the Shairat air base in the central Syrian province of Homs, the base from which the attack was allegedly launched, a visit which the Syrian government and Russia have both demanded, since they argue that it would show that no chemical weapons are or were stored there.

Russia is also still insisting that a "balanced team" of experts go to both locations.

"We have seriously criticized the practice of remote investigations, which has in recent years become familiar to the OPCW mission in establishing facts of the possible use of chemical weapons,"

Mikhail Ulyanov, the head of the nonproliferation department in the Russian Foreign Ministry, said yesterday.

"We insisted that OPCW experts must visit the scene of the incident, select the samples themselves and thoroughly get to the bottom of the details,"

he stressed. He also said that the OPCW investigating team should travel to Khan Sheikhoun as soon as possible, as the time during which the presence of sarin can be detected is limited to about three weeks.

OPCW director general Uzumcu noted that the OPCW has not come to any conclusion as to who was responsible for the alleged attack, but only that sarin or a sarin-like substance was used. Pressed by journalists as to whether or not Assad still has chemical weapons, Uzumcu had to admit:
PRESS RELEASE

Russia and China Urge U.S., South Korea To Revise Decision on THAAD Anti-Missile System Deployment

April 29, 2017 (EIRNS)Both Russia and China are urging the United States and South Korea to revise a decision on deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which is an "additional destabilizing factor in the region," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said at a UN Security Council session yesterday.

"It is not only we who perceived this step very negatively. We are once again urging both the United States and the Republic of Korea to re-consider its expediency and other regional states not to yield to the temptation of joining such destabilizing efforts,"

he said.

"We are urging the North Korean authorities to halt their banned programs and return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEAs [International Atomic Energy Agency] control,"

the Russian diplomat said.

At the same time, Gatilov urged members of the Security Council to be aware that North Korea "will hardly give up nuclear weapons as long as it feels a direct threat to its security."

"This is precisely how North Koreans qualify regular large-scale maneuvers and drills by the United States and its allies in the region, and also the dispatch to that region of a U.S. naval armada as we witnessed this month,"

Gatilov said.

As for China, on April 26 Geng Shuang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, responded to the rush deployment of THAAD in South Korea in the harshest of terms: "Cancel the deployment of THAAD. Otherwise China will decisively take necessary measures," Geng warned. The next day, South Koreas Ministry of National Defense reported that, after the biannual meeting of the Integrated Defense Dialogue in Washington on April 27, the U.S. and South Korea had agreed to institute

"measures available in all aspects, including the regular deployment of U.S. strategic assets." Sputnik noted that "these assets include the U.S. B-52, B-2 and B-1B bombers; F-35 fighter jets; and aircraft carriers usually housed at American bases in South Korea, Japan or Guam."

Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis on April 28 reported that the deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea "is moving very quickly; it will [have] initial operational capability very soon."
PRESS RELEASE

China Is Producing a Family of Cargo Ships To Service its Space Station

April 30, 2017 (EIRNS)At the press briefings April 28, announcing the successful refueling mission of the Tianzhou-1 unmanned cargo craft, Chinese space officials added details to Chinas plans for its future space station. Yang Baohua, deputy general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., explained that two different versions of the Tianzhou cargo craft will be produced, each optimized for a different mission at the station. The first mission last week was specifically designed with extra precautions, since it was the first in-orbit refueling test.

One variant will be used to transport astronaut supplies and small parts needed at the station. Its cargo area will be "hermetically sealed, like the Tianzhou-1," he explained, isolating the cargo from the rest of the vehicle. Its cargo has to be maintained in a pressurized environment. It will also have a cargo area that is partly exposed to space, which allows for more storage, and will carry equipment that does not have to bu protected from the environment of space.

The second variant will be totally open, and will transport large parts, as well as any spacecraft that will be launched from the station. In all variants, Yang said, the propulsion system, which carries toxic and corrosive chemicals, will remain hermetically sealed, as it is on Tianzhou-1. All versions of the cargo vehicle will be sent to burn upon reentry through the atmosphere, as none will be designed to be reusable.

Space officials also announced that the launch of the first, 20-ton core module of the station has been moved to 2019 from 2018. As is the approach of the Chinese program, they will launch when they determine that they are ready. Zhao Guangheng, chief designer of scientific applications at Chinas Manned Space Agency, had said on April 27 that the station crews will conduct 30 research and development projects in eight major fields aboard the station.
Environmental advocates have been holding their breath since Jan. 20 against the moment when the Trump administration started to wipe information about the human effects on climate from the Environmental Protection Agencys website.

That moment arrived Friday, when visitors to the site were greeted with a notice headed: EPA Kicks Off Website Updates.

The changes were being made to reflect the agencys new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt, the notice said. Old pages from the Obama era would be available through the sites archive as is required by law, but outdated language is to be removed from the main pages. Content related climate and regulations is also being reviewed, the notice states.

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As I watched more and more links turned red, I frantically combed the internet for archived versions of our countrys most important polar policies.  Arctic researcher Victoria Herrmann

The changes already implemented on the site range from subtle to flagrant. As the EPA notice stated, the pages developed under the Obama administration are still accessible, but theyre harder to findgenerally via a determined search. Theyve also been archived by environmental groups including NextGen Climate, which displays them here.

But Climate Change has been removed from the menu of Environmental Topics accessible from the agencys home page. The website page for climate change impacts now displays a message stating the page is being updated, as does a link to the main EPA climate change website.

Fridays changes werent the first alterations to the EPA website since the Trump inauguration. The advocacy group Climate Central noticed a number of deletions of or changes to pages devoted to Obama administration climate plans and tribal and international cooperative programs within days of Jan. 20.

Nor are the deletions and changes limited to the EPA website: Arctic researcher Victoria Herrmann reported noticing deletions of data related to Energy Department programs on Arctic climate starting the day after the inauguration. As I watched more and more links turned red, she wrote in the Guardian, I frantically combed the internet for archived versions of our countrys most important polar policies.

Theres nothing innocuous about these changes. Theyre part of a deliberate policy to politicize what is perhaps the most important crisis facing the U.S. and the world and to turn the EPA into a promoter of corporate interests by disemboweling its regulatory functions. Thats a policy adopted by Pruitt, Trumps EPA administrator, in his previous job as Oklahoma attorney general. Atty. Gen. Pruitt made a name for himself by suing the EPA over regulations aimed at cutting emissions, especially from the oil and gas industry, more than a dozen times.

Language on the EPA website documenting the human impact on climate also ran counter to Pruitts views as a climate change denier. Measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and theres tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, he stated during an appearance on CNBC in March. So no, I would not agree that its a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.

That statement flatly contradicted the EPAs own view of the causes of climate change available on its website. There, the agency stated that it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of global warming. The site explained that recent climate changes...cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Research indicates that natural causes do not explain most observed warming, especially warming since the mid-20th century.

As of today, that web page appears to be gone. A search for the page returns a notice that its being updated.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
The revolving door at Fox News headquarters was spinning again Monday as parent company 21st Century Fox once again sought to put the networks sexual harassment scandal behind it.

Bill Shine, the co-president of Fox News who faced mounting criticism over his handling of sexual harassment claims against former Chief Executive Roger Ailes and recently fired host Bill OReilly, became the latest employee to head for the exit.

Shines resignation came less than a week after Rupert Murdoch, the companys co-chairman, took Shine and fellow Fox News Co-President Jack Abernethy to lunch in Manhattan in a high-profile show of support.

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But ongoing static within the division, including the drumbeat of lawsuits and anger and frustration by women who work for Fox News, made it untenable for Shine to continue as co-president, company insiders said.

The hope among the Murdoch family, which holds the controlling shares in Fox News parent 21st Century Fox, is that the executive changes will be enough to quell the ongoing criticism of the network by activist groups and attorneys who specialize in sexual harassment cases. Those parties have said the company has not been aggressive enough in purging those responsible for a culture where sexual harassment of women was accepted.

Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan are also looking to stem the controversy to get the approval of British regulators for 21st Century Foxs takeover of Sky, the highly profitable satellite pay-TV service in Europe.

Cleaning house is central to changing the corporate culture, said Jacob S. Frenkel at the Dickinson Wright law firm in Washington, D.C., and a former counsel in the Securities and Exchange Commission. Best practices in corporate governance usually produce changes in senior management.

The overhaul of Fox News is the latest indication that James and Lachlan Murdoch are increasingly putting their stamp on 21st Century Fox nearly two years after they were installed as top officers at the media company. In the last year, many veteran executives have left the media company as the brothers seek to remold Fox for the digital age. The sons played a pivotal role in the ouster of Ailes, their fathers longtime friend.

Theyre having an impact  a positive impact, said media analyst Laura Martin of Needham & Co. They are cleaning up the mess at Fox News.

With Shine out, Fox News is elevating Suzanne Scott, who will become president of programming at the network. She had been executive vice president for programming. Another executive vice president, Jay Wallace, has been promoted to president of news at the channel. Both will continue to report to Abernethy.

Scott and Wallace are longtime executives from within the organization. But neither has been tainted by the sexual harassment issues that have plagued the company over nine months since former anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against Ailes.

Shine has never been accused of sexual harassment. But as a top deputy of Ailes and a supporter of OReilly, the longtime star anchor who was fired April 18 amid harassment claims, his departure was seen as necessary to move Fox beyond the scandal. Shine is named in several of the harassment lawsuits filed against the network, alleging that he failed to act on complaints about Ailes.

Ailes has denied all allegations made against him. OReilly has denied the merits of the claims leveled at him, even though $13 million was paid in settlement claims to women who complained about his behavior.

Larger financial considerations may have played into Shines exit, coming in the midst of the parent companys efforts to take full control of Sky in Britain.

As part of that review, the Murdochs and Fox must be deemed fit and proper holders of a broadcast license. The ongoing issue of sexual harassment claims at Fox News does not help on that front. A federal investigation into whether the payouts of sexual harassment settlements made by Fox News over the years should have been disclosed to investors could also be troubling to regulators.

Sky is a jewel that the Murdochs, particularly James Murdoch, the chief executive of 21st Century Fox, desperately want to add to the companys portfolio.

Fox earlier had to abandon its pursuit of full control of Sky in 2011 when the illegal phone hacking scandal at the Murdochs London tabloids, particularly the since-shuttered News of the World, generated headlines around the globe.

James and Rupert Murdoch were called before a committee of Parliament, an appearance that Rupert Murdoch called the most humble day of my life. James Murdoch also lost significant standing, which he has carefully rebuilt over the last few years in his stewardship of Fox. The Murdoch family doesnt want a repeat of the 2011 scandal that engulfed the media company.

But the Murdochs also have to be mindful of not disrupting the profit engine that they have built in Fox News, the top-rated cable network.

Shine played a key role in building Fox News Channel into a juggernaut, having joined the company when it first launched in 1996. Shine was extremely popular with Fox News talent and was also known for his ability to identify the hot-button issues that appeal to the conservative viewers who flock to the network.

Shines future was thrown into question last week when Fox News prime-time star Sean Hannity took to Twitter to publicly voice his support for the executive. The tweets were in response to a New York magazine report suggesting that Shine had sought public support from the Murdoch family.

Somebody HIGH UP AND INSIDE FNC is trying to get an innocent person fired, Hannity said. He also tweeted: I pray this is NOT true because if it is, thats the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done.

Hannity is a close friend of Shine, who was a producer of the hosts program before he climbed up the executive ranks.

Shines departure has led to speculation that Hannity is considering leaving the network. But a Fox News representative strongly denied that there has been any discussion on that front.

Hannity recently signed a deal with Fox News that keeps him at the network through 2020. At a salary that exceeds $10 million a year, its highly unlikely that he would walk away voluntarily even if he is upset about a close friend and ally being pushed out the door.

Although Hannitys social media account indicated that Shines departure means a move away from the conservative foundation of Fox News, there is no evidence that the network is shifting its attitude or the political leanings of its commentators. Fox News has a hold on TV news viewers who see other outlets as too liberal.

The strength of that brand attribute is apparent in the ratings. Fox News retained much of its prime-time audience last week despite the loss of OReilly, its most-watched personality.

stephen.battaglio@latimes.com

Twitter: @SteveBattaglio

UPDATES:

6:10 p.m.: This article was updated with additional reaction to Shines resignation.

This article was originally published at 12 p.m.
The Writers Guild of America and the major studios appeared Sunday to be moving closer toward a deal that would avert a strike, with the studios increasing their offers on several contentious issues, including the writers health fund.

But no deal has been announced so far and a strike could still happen if both sides fail to reach an agreement by midnight Monday, when the writers current contract expires. A strike would affect nearly 13,000 film and TV writers and would cause widespread disruption in Hollywood.

The WGA is negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the bargaining organization that represents the major studios and networks.

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The parties made significant progress over the weekend in addressing some of the major sticking points that prompted the WGA to seek a strike authorization vote from members last week. The vote was overwhelmingly approved by 96% of members who voted.

On Sunday, the AMPTP bumped up its offer to the WGAs health plan, making a substantial increase to the $60 million offered in the alliances previous proposal, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to comment on the talks.

The guilds health plan is widely viewed as one of the most generous in the industry. But it faces financial shortfalls, with the guild projecting mounting deficits in the years ahead.

The AMPTP has also increased its offers on issues including the length of TV seasons and writer exclusivity. The shrinking TV season, accelerated by the move toward streaming, has reduced earnings for writers and has been a major concern for the union.

Writers are also constrained by exclusivity clauses, which prevent many of them from working on more than one show per season.

Both the WGA and the AMPTP have imposed a media blackout and werent able to comment.

Underscoring the high stakes involved, top executives from the major Hollywood studios on Sunday took part in a conference call concerning the state of negotiations, according to another person familiar with the negotiations.

Although it remains unclear if the studio chiefs are intervening in the talks, they are believed to be concerned about the progress of discussions this close to the deadline.

Negotiations for the new contract began in March and have broken off twice.

But the down-to-the-wire negotiations over the weekend and the fact that the sides are expected to resume talks Monday suggested they could be closing in on a deal to craft a new three-year contract.

david.ng@latimes.com

@DavidNgLAT
After a month worrying about the fate of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the hundreds of community organizations that the agency supports nationwide, the arts world found hope in congressional leaders agreement Sunday that would not only maintain NEA funding for fiscal year 2017 but increase it by $2 million.

In a statement Monday, the NEA struck an optimistic note, pointing out that the proposed appropriation of about $150 million was the level of funding that it requested from Congress in February 2016.

This morning Congress released the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, a bipartisan agreement that will fund the government for the remainder of FY 2017, the NEA wrote in an email to the Los Angeles Times. In this bill, the NEA is funded at its FY 2017 request level of $149.849 million.  The agency has been operating at its FY 2016 appropriation of $147.949 since October 1, 2016. Congress is expected to pass this bill later in the week, and the President is expected to sign it.

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The city of Los Angeles had joined civic and arts organizations across the country voicing support for the NEA. City leaders recently put forward a resolution to support funding for the organization as well as others threatened with budget cuts, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the National Institutes of Health and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, said Danielle Brazell, general manager of L.A.s Department of Cultural Affairs. Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the document Saturday.

I think any time the City Council puts forward a resolution at this level, it does fall onto the radar of our congressional members and on a priority list for action, Brazell said.

Arts organizations had vowed to protest the elimination of the NEA and they urged supporters to write to Congress. We have to make a stand, Cornerstone Theater Company Managing Director Megan Wanlass told The Times in March, the day after President Trumps budget blueprint was released.

John Echeveste, chief executive of the Mexican American museum and cultural center La Plaza de Cultura y Artes Foundation, said his group has an application pending with the NEA to support the creation of a historical walkway linking Union Station, Olvera Street, La Placita Church and La Plaza  a path telling the narrative of the citys founding through murals, markers and other public artworks.

In early April, Echeveste received a letter from the NEA that read in part, Like most federal agencies, the National Endowment for the Arts is operating under an FY17 Continuing Resolution, which ends on April 28, 2017. The status of applicants grant applications would be delayed, the letter said, pending the resolution of government funding for the remainder of FY17.

On Monday, Echeveste had received no update but was optimistic.

Were essentially in a holding pattern and remain hopeful! he said by email. The project is moving forward without NEA support, but additional funding from NEA will enable us to expand the scope of the project.

jessica.gelt@latimes.com

@jessicagelt

ALSO:

L.A. without the NEA: series looks at what city would lose if funding gets the ax

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Richard Wagners gigantic Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle is no longer a rare creature. Were flooded with recordings of the Ring, and more opera companies worldwide have been staging the whole shebang. Even once-Wagner-starved Los Angeles finally got one in 2010. Consequently, were at the point where hearing mere excerpts from the Ring in concert has become as unfashionable as hearing Baroque music on modern instruments. Our loss.

So it was up to Philippe Jordan, in his belated debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall this weekend, to remind us how fabulous this music can sound with a full orchestra onstage in a good hall.

Of course, you cannot possibly get a full charge of what the Ring is all about from 85 minutes of orchestral passages mostly shorn of the voices and a libretto inextricably tied to Wagners complex web of leitmotifs. But heard this way Saturday night, the Ring thrust the audience into the center of Wagners orchestral sound world to savor the details and to see some of the more unusual aspects. The L.A. Phil went all-out, using five harps, a quartet of Wagner tubas and a set of tuned anvils bonging away in the descent into Nibelheim from the first Ring opera, Das Rheingold.

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Jordan, 42, is the music director of the Opera National de Paris and chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony. He has good Wagner credentials, having led all of the composers operas in the repertory by now. His father was Swiss conductor Armin Jordan, a distinguished Wagner interpreter himself (particularly in Parsifal). He brought the Ring to the Paris Opera in 2013, and he will also be in charge of the Metropolitan Operas New York revival of Robert LePages hotly debated Ring in spring 2019.

For this concert, Jordan presented a distillation of many of the most familiar and potent passages from the Ring, plus a few that arent as well known. Das Rheingold is difficult to excerpt, so Jordan came up with a continuous suite that surveyed some territory not often explored in orchestral versions before finally ascending to Valhalla. The second Ring opera, Die Walkure, was represented by concert versions of Ride of the Valkyries and Magic Fire Music. The third, Siegfried, was represented by a ravishingly beautiful account of the Forest Murmurs. Jordan astutely stopped for intermission here, for Wagner broke off composition of his Ring at exactly this spot, resuming 12 years later.

Irene Theorin (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Gotterdammerung received the most extensive exposure, nearly as much as the rest of the cycle combined, with Dawn and Siegfrieds Rhine Journey melting into Siegfrieds Funeral March and Brunnhildes Immolation. Up until this point, the tall, lean Jordan, working without scores, was taking a mostly propulsive trip through the Ring, which probably made sense because there wasnt much time or opportunity to indulge in introspection.

But in Gotterdammerung, Jordan could relax and luxuriate, building plenty of suspense for the Funeral March climax and tension in order to pull off the final cataclysms. And in the Immolation, he had a voice to work with in the Swedish soprano Irene Theorin, an experienced Brunnhilde who overcame an initially wobbly vibrato with dramatic insight and enough amplitude to rise above the massive orchestra. The L.A. Phil, perhaps drawing upon the Wagnerian DNA implanted from the Tristan Project a decade ago, responded splendiferously.

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L.A. Phil lives up to the hype with electrifying guest conductor David Robertson

'Evan Hansen,' 'Great Comet,' 'Come From Away': Tony contenders gather to hash it out
No less a genius than Stephen Hawking has warned that artificial intelligence will spell the end of humankind.

That existential threat is treated  but only lightly  in Thomas Gibbons Uncanny Valley, now at International City Theatre in Long Beach. Gibbons has smaller fish to fry in his complex, intriguing and frequently funny play about the interactions between a non-biological human (a sentient robot) and the scientist who created him.

The action is set about 30 years in the future when enormous strides in the field of AI have come to fruition with the creation of Julian (Jacob Sidney), the brainchild of brilliant neuroscientist Claire (Susan Denaker), a pioneer in the field. Shes the mentor who schools Julian in the niceties of human behavior.

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The notion of Uncanny Valley refers to the sense of dread individuals feel when confronted by increasingly lifelike robots. And they dont come much more lifelike than Julian. First seen only as a head and shoulders, Julian is carefully cobbled into a fully formed 34-year-old man, complete with all the necessary extremities.

In director caryn desais astute staging, the relationship between Claire and Julian unfolds as a sort of technological romance, platonic but richly layered. Denaker is rewarding as Claire; Sidney turns in a tour de force, carefully charting every detail of Julians progression from the robotic to the convincingly human.

When Claire informs Julian that he has been designed as a vessel to ensure the immortality of a dying millionaire, its a shocker that takes the drama in a wildly different direction.

Gibbons sometimes oversteps his convoluted construct, leaving us scratching our heads about motive and meaning, while his closing metaphor ends the play on an arcane note when a more heartfelt coda would be welcome. Still, its fun to ponder the complications of Gibbons sometimes ungraspable but very entertaining play, which presents disturbing ethical dilemmas that may not be as futuristic as we would wish.

         

Uncanny Valley

Where: International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach

When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Ends Sunday

Tickets: $47-$49

Information: (562) 436-4610. www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

Running time: 2 hours

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Actor and comedian Cheech Marin, who for decades has been a noted collector of Chicano art, is teaming up with the city of Riverside and the Riverside Art Museum to create a Chicano art center.

The proposed museum, tentatively titled the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry, would be housed in a roughly 60,000-square-foot building now occupied by the main branch of the Riverside Public Library, which will be moving to a new structure a few blocks away.

The goal of Marins center  still in the earliest planning stages  would be to provide a permanent home for more than 700 works from his collection, which includes painting, sculpture and photography by Chicano artists from throughout the United States.

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Itll be the one place worldwide that everybody can go to for all things Chicano art, says Marin. And it will not just be display, but it will have an academic feature so Chicano art can be seen and can be studied. There are five universities in the area.

The museum would be a partnership between Marin (who would supply his art), the city of Riverside (which owns the building) and the art museum (which would manage the new center). The proposal is scheduled to be announced at a news conference on Tuesday morning at the Riverside Public Library. On May 16, the three parties will then present a memorandum of understanding to the Riverside City Council, which has to approve any formal negotiations for the use of the building.

Following approval of the memorandum, is approved, Marin, the Riverside Art Museum and the city would have from nine months to a year to work out the particulars: finalizing cost estimates for the renovation of the library building, determining the operating expenses and structure of the new institution and arranging an agreement with Marin for how his collection will be presented. That agreement could include the eventual donation of works.

Itll be the one place worldwide that everybody can go to for all things Chicano art.  Cheech Marin

Riverside City Manager John Russo, left, actor and collector Cheech Marin, Riverside Art Museum Executive Director Drew Oberjuerge and Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey at the Riverside Art Museum. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Once the agreements are ironed out, the City Council will vote again to finalize the deal.

Its a great re-use for the building in the middle of a cultural center, says John Russo, city manager, who notes that the Chicano art center would bolster the citys downtown cultural district, which includes the RAM, the California Museum of Photography (operated by UC Riverside) and the Riverside Metropolitan Museum, which organizes historic and anthropological exhibitions.

It will be a positive thing for the restaurants and hotels in the area, he adds. And it will be very positive for the educational institutions as well. We have a burgeoning art community and this is really going to solidify and bring attention to that art community.

RAM Executive Director Drew Oberjuerge says the proposed center will also help engage the areas Latino population  a pivotal audience for RAM. (Riverside and the greater Inland Empire have populations that are more than 50% Latino, according to statistics compiled by the Riverside city managers office.)

It was this idea that the museums and the cultural institutions hadnt been effectively serving a vast majority of our community, Oberjuerge says. Like most museums, our board and our staff dont reflect the diversity of the region. This was a realistic look at own own sustainability.

Russo says it will be a concept that appeals to a wider audience too. Im the child of parents who were immigrants, he says, noting his familys Italian heritage. This experience of being bicultural, of how cultures intertwine, of what its means to be an American  that is something that rings true.

The concept began to take shape early this year when Marin loaned the museum more than five dozen works for the exhibition Papel Chicano Dos: Works on Paper From the Collection of Cheech Marin (on view through Sunday).

Attendance for the exhibitions opening night drew a record 1,476 attendees, and admission revenue at the museum tripled in the first month.

For people to see this here, to not have to drive to L.A. or Palm Springs, says Oberjuerge, it was really important.

Russo, who had attended some of the programming related to the exhibition, says he was impressed with the enthusiasm he saw  which got him thinking about the librarys midcentury modern building. Plans for a childrens science museum on the site were scrapped earlier this year when the Discovery Science Foundation, which operates spaces in Orange County and Los Angeles, withdrew. Once the library moved (in roughly three years), the building would likely sit empty.

When you look at what our community is, and that the inland area is this growing area that is underserved, in particular, for this heritage population, it all came together in my head, Russo says. I told [RAM curator Todd Wingate], Cheech is looking to place his collection somewhere it could be academically studied  and we have this library that would be a great place for a Chicano art museum.

Marin says he is excited about the possibility of having his collection in Riverside.

Riverside is a cool place, he says. That the city would want to back this, thats a big deal. They want to use this as a big draw for their city.

Moreover, he is also interested in the proximity to universities such as UC Riverside and Cal State San Bernardino, to the north, both of which have Chicano studies programs.

There will be a strong educational component, says Oberjuerge, who adds that education is an important part of RAMs core mission. We really want people, whether its collectors or scholars, to really think of the center as this thriving space where there is research, where there are connections between emerging and established artists. Were looking at an artist residency program, a scholar-in-residence program  these are all things we are interested in.

A visitor to the Riverside Art Museum looks at works from the collection of actor Cheech Marin, known for his collection of Chicano art. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

If the City Council approves the memorandum of understanding, the museum and the city can move forward on developing a formal managerial and curatorial plan and begin raising $3 million toward renovations. (Construction will likely cost more, Russo says, but the team wants to get ahead on the fundraising for construction, which will be paid for with private funds.)

Our board is really excited about this, says Oberjuerge. They know that there is a lot of work that has to be done in the next nine months in terms of working with Cheech and working on developing a capital campaign to fund it, but they are ready to take it on.

And though the institution already has a tentative name, Marin says hes already come up with a nickname of his own.

The intimates call it The Cheech, he jokes. Ill meet you at 3 oclock at the Cheech!

Papel Chicano Dos: Works on Paper

From the collection of Cheech Marin

Where: Riverside Art Museum, 3425 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside.

When: Tuesdays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays noon to 4 p.m. through May 7.

Admission: $5; students and seniors, $3, members, military and children under 12, free.

Info: riversideartmuseum.org

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carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah
Jean Stein, the literary editor and author known for producing engrossing oral histories on topics as disparate as the tumultuous life of an Andy Warhol acolyte and the dastardly intrigues of early Hollywood, has died at 83.

Her death Sunday was confirmed by a spokesperson for the Nation magazine in New York City, where Steins daughter, Katrina vanden Heuvel, serves as editor and publisher.



For the record: An earlier version of this article reported that Jean Stein was raised with a sister and two stepbrothers. They were her half-brothers.

The spokesperson did not reveal the cause of death, but a New York City Police Department official said that Stein had jumped to her death Sunday morning from the 15th floor of a Manhattan tower.

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A spokesperson at Random House, which published her most recent book, the well-received West of Eden: An American Place, issued the shortest of statements in response: Random House is deeply saddened by the death of Jean Stein.

Friends who knew her said she had been unhappy in recent years.

We were very close friends, said Robert Scheer, a Los Angeles journalist and editor of the political website Truthdig, who had known Stein since the 60s. I saw her last month or so. Every time I went to New York, I saw her. And she would come here.

She was pretty depressed, he said. We were all worried.

But even in shock, he recalled a small, soft-spoken woman who harbored an incredibly sharp mind.

She had the respect of the heavy hitters, he said, people who werent interested in the small talk  people like Joan Didion, Jules Feiffer. It was a circle of people who were very tough and demanding.

Her 2016 book West of Eden, her most recent oral history, tracked the development of Hollywood and Southern California through the lives of five powerful Los Angeles families, such as the Warners and the Dohenys  individuals for whom roadways and movie studios have been named.

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It also included a section on her own family: the Steins. Her father, Jules Stein, was the co-founder of Music Corp. of America. She too was a member of Hollywood royalty.

West of Eden had been well-received by critics.

Reviewer Judith Freeman, in the Los Angeles Times, described it as compulsively readable, capturing not just a vibrant part of the history of Los Angeles ... but also the real drama of this town, as reflected in the lives of some of its most powerful players.

In the New York Times, critic Maria Russo wrote that Steins expertly collaged narratives offered a glimpse of what seems like deep truth  as close as were going to come to the real story of anything.

Over her lifetime, Stein also produced two other essential oral histories in collaboration with journalist and editor George Plimpton, who served as editor on some of her projects.

This included her debut oral history American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy, published in 1971 after she rode Kennedys funeral train from New York to Washington. Eleven years later she published the international bestseller Edie: An American Biography, about the life of socialite bohemian actress Edie Sedgwick, who often hung out at Andy Warhols studio in New York and whose life ended in a drug overdose.

Steins interviews were thorough and relentless. For Edie, which didnt just capture Sedgwicks life, but the entire New York artistic milieu of the 1960s, Stein spent a decade interviewing subjects  returning to some individuals as many as 15 times.

Independent book critic David Ulin said the oral histories are eye-opening for the ways the ways in which they played with the conventions of story-telling.

The thing about that form is that it brings together all of those voices, he said. The form allows for a breadth you wouldnt otherwise get. It cant help but become a multi-personality collage.

When the Edie book came out, I read the book even though I wasnt overly interested in Edie Sedgwick, he added. Id written Sedgwick off as this superficial person, but the human portrait is so incredible.

Stein was born in Los Angeles, the eldest daughter of Jules Stein and Doris Babette Oppenheimer. She was raised in a majestic Beverly Hills mansion on Angelo Drive that overlooked the home of Rudolph Valentino.

It was beautiful, Stein told The Times in 1990. You really had a sense of privacy, being alone. It was kind of lonely, too.

She and her siblings (a sister and two half-brothers) were raised by her strong-willed parents and a strict German governess. She later attended the Katherine Branson School in the Bay Area  now known as the Branson School  a place that Stein later described as being located between San Quentin and Alcatraz.

She also attended a private school in Switzerland, followed by a stint at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. But she dropped out to move to Paris and study at the Sorbonne, a move that would lead her to a life in letters.

It was in Paris that she met Plimpton and by the mid-1950s was working at the Paris Review, where she interviewed figures such as novelist William Faulkner (with whom she also had a romantic dalliance).

By the end of that decade she had landed back in New York City, where she worked as an assistant to Clay Felker, the legendary magazine editor who was then the features editor at Esquire and who would ultimately go on to found New York magazine.

By the early 60s, Stein had married attorney William vanden Heuvel, who became an assistant to then-Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy. After Kennedys assassination, the mournful ride on his funeral train to Washington inspired Steins first oral history  which she structured in parallel with the journey by train. The New Yorker called the book serious, credible, and even beautiful.

She and vanden Heuvel had two daughters: Katrina vanden Heuvel and Wendy vanden Heuvel, a film and stage actress. The couple later divorced. Stein got remarried in the mid-1990s to Torsten Wiesel, a Nobel Prize-winning neurophysiologist. That marriage also ended in divorce.

During her decades in New York, Stein was known for hosting regular salons in her Manhattan apartment.

She had that gift for putting people together, Didion said of Stein in 1990, for making things happen, for creating an environment or a climate in which people helped each other.

Scheer described events that featured a wild cross pollination of cultural figures.

I was in her house with Black Panthers and Leonard Bernstein, he said, people who escaped from the Soviet Union and people critical of the American government.

From 1990 until 2004, Stein edited the literary journal Grand Street, known for combining the literary high-brow (work by, say, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery) with the more popular (an interview with actor Dennis Hopper, whom Stein counted as a friend).

It would be a mistake to dismiss Stein as a rich girl with a bohemian streak, Scheer said.

They were the best part of the Hollywood world, he said. They werent the brat pack. They wanted to give back to the world. They really studied at those great schools they were sent to. She really took things seriously.

She didnt suffer fools, he adds. And when I was a fool, she didnt suffer me.

She was also the rare cultural figure who didnt serve as a guardian at the gate, but instead sought to tear some of those gates down.

I am very interested in these different worlds coming together, she told The Times in 1990, so youre not only writing, youre not only art, youre not only science, youre bringing them together.

Stein is survived by her two daughters.

Times staff writer Barbara Demick in New York contributed to this report.

carolina.miranda@latimes.com

@cmonstah

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7:05 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Steins friends and acquaintances.

This article was originally published at 2:55 p.m.
Caitlyn Jenner memoirs version of life with Kris Jenner creates a new rift in the family

(Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images)

As Caitlyn Jenners just-published memoir The Secrets of My Life pulls back the curtain on her gender transition and her life among the Kardashians, not everybody is taking it well.

Especially not Kris Jenner.

Details about the Olympian-turned-reality-stars decision to transition in 2015 from Bruce Jenner to Caitlyn Jenner and confirmation that she had her final gender reassignment surgery are all in the book, but some dishy material about the Kardashian matriarch is reverberating with fans and upsetting the reigning first family of reality TV.

The memoir, co-written by Buzz Bissinger, who penned the Vanity Fair article that introduced Caitlyn Jenner to the masses, has some kind words for the momager, including admiration for Kris connections, her business acumen and her ability to perfectly apply lip liner without a mirror.

However, Caitlyn also said in the book that she told Kris about her gender issues before they got married and said Kris knew that for 4 years before they met, Caitlyn had been on hormones. Additionally, Caitlyn wrote that she told Kris about her gender problems before they would make love.

I told her there had been a woman inside me all my life, she wrote.

The couple announced their split in 2013 and finalized their divorce in 2014. During their decades-long union, Caitlyn cross-dressed in front of her ex but was asked by Kris to do it only while traveling, so that their children wouldnt get wind of it. It was something Caitlyn grew to resent, she said, and she would steal her wifes gowns and purses to wear while traveling. (Their differing takes on their marital woes have been a topic of discussion for years.)

In a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Kris fumed with anger about passages in The Secrets of My Life that claimed she knew Caitlyn was transgender before they wed.

None of it makes sense,Kris said to daughters Khloe and Kim Kardashian. I read it and basically the only nice thing she had to say was that I was great socially at a party one time. ... Everything she says is all made up. Why does everything have to be that Kris is such a bitch?

She added: Ive never been so angry and disappointed in somebody in my whole life.

In response, the Olympic gold medalist said on Good Morning America that the book is extraordinarily honest.

It is my perspective, and obviously when you do a book like that, there are different opinions. I have a lot of friends that know the truth and know what Ive been through and know the whole situation, Caitlyn said.

She told Andy Cohen that in the wake of publishing, Kris said she didnt want to talk to Caitlyn ever again. (Caitlyn also elaborated on her claims that she was a punching bag on the show and a revelation that Kris had been in charge of her finances.)

Honestly, I never had a low point [while doing the show], actually, until the other day when Kris said some of that stuff. It was the first time I was really upset, she said. I had some of the best conversations with my children on that show. ... It forces you to deal with issues. ... It forces you to sit down with your kids and deal with a lot of things.

Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenners second-born child with the late Robert Kardashian, shared her thoughts on the feud on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in an episode that aired Thursday.

My heart breaks for my mom, you know, because I feel like shes been through so much and [Caitlyn is] promoting this book and shes saying all these things, Kardashian said. I just dont think its necessary and I just feel like its unfair. Things arent truthful.

Kardashian said Caitlyn was dishonest with certain things about Kris in the book.

I feel like its taken [Caitlyn] a really long time to be honest with herself, so I dont expect her to be honest about my mom now. But its just so hurtful, she said. I wish her all the success in the world, but not at our expense.

Kardashian said she and husband Kanye West have been avid supporters of Caitlyn Jenners transition and wanted to remain respectful of her, but thought there was no need to bash the family. She said she was hurt by her stepfather, whos dad to her half-sisters Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and hasnt spoken to Caitlyn in a few weeks.

Kendall and Kylie, thats their dad and I think my moms been so respectful for so long and always wanting Caitlyn around and always wanting to have a great relationship with Caitlyn, Kardashian said. But that doesnt appear to be the case for the rest of the Kardashian brood.

Ill always love her. That was my stepdad for so many years. She taught me about character and so much growing up and I just feel like I dont respect the character that shes showing now.

Kim Kardashians younger sister, Khloe Kardashian, is also taking it a little tough, Caitlyn said at a book signing, according to RadarOnline. Everyone on the Jenner side is fine. All this stuff tends to work itself out!

Someone call Ryan Murphy, because this needs to be turned into a Feud series, stat.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

April 27, 3:31 p.m.: An earlier version of this article said Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner finalized their divorce in 2013. They divorced in 2014.

------------
One of the great advantages of a gathering like the Tribeca Film Festival is the sheer variety of whats on offer. Populating screens are not only a wide range of documentaries and narrative films but television and tech programming  not to mention numerous concerts, talks and retrospectives.

From one perspective of course, that can seem like chaos. And granted, the fests many niches can make for an overwhelming, at times muddying affair.

Is Tribeca the festival of nostalgia, where The Godfather and Reservoir Dogs get anniversary screenings and talks (as they did this past weekend), where vintage radio programs are fondly remembered with in-person reunions?

Or is it a festival of the moment, where documentaries like Get Me Roger Stone and the Oregon-standoff film No Mans Land  not to mention a wide selection of new VR and digital efforts  take center stage? (Heck, even Hillary Clinton turned up to support one.)

Should it be considered a more traditional place of cinematic discovery, as a series of narrative films get their world premieres and seek the distribution to help them break out in the wider world? Or is it more about the experience around the movies, with post-screening concerts from the likes of Carly Simon and Puffy, and talks between Tom Hanks and Bruce Springsteen?

The jury is out. And may never, in a sense, come back. But for Tribeca, which Sunday wrapped up its 16th year under the hand of Robert De Niro and producing partner Jane Rosenthal, thats OK. What seems like a throw-it-at-the-wall exercise to some is exactly the kind of tapestry its organizers want  an event that, much like the city it inhabits, offers a little something for everyone.

Heres a small sample of the diversity I experienced over the past 12 days.

The undeniable breakout of the festival was Keep the Change, winner of the jury prize for best narrative feature. Rachel Israels feature debut is an offbeat romantic comedy  but not the kind of offbeat romantic comedy typically associated with film festivals.

Based on an earlier short, Change centers on people on the autism spectrum, particularly David (Brandon Polansky) and Sarah (Samantha Elisofon). The pair meet in a group therapy setting in uptown Manhattan and proceed to navigate a range of challenges as they pursue a relationship. An authentic romance between people who are not neuro-typical is rare enough; making it more distinct is that Israel shot it with non-actors who are themselves on the autism spectrum, building the script around them over an intensive, years-long development process.

Last Friday, Israel sat in the offices of a New York publicity firm and described the unusual journey  and her motivation for making it in the first place.

I was struck by the relationships of this group  their ability to have beautiful, wonderful and dysfunctional relationships to love each other and yell at each other and take care of each other, she said. And I felt like I hadnt really seen that on film before.

Sundance opted not to accept the film, which may be to the Utah festivals detriment: Like another movie about people with behavioral challenges that went elsewhere after Sundance turned it down (2013s Short Term Twelve, which debuted at SXSW), Keep the Change is likely to garner plenty of buzz for itself and Tribeca in the months ahead.

Television is becoming an important part of the festival landscape generally, but Tribeca embraces it a bit more than others. There were screenings for National Geographics Albert Einstein story Genius and Michael Winterbottoms The Trip to Spain, the third series of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydons food-travel adventures, which was shown before a raucous crowd. And Hulus critically acclaimed new series The Handmaids Tale gained a boost before it became available on the service last week with a much-talked-about screening and panel discussion with a dozen principals from the production.

Social media dissected star Elisabeth Mosss comment after the premiere that the Margaret Atwood story is not a feminist story. Its a human story because womens rights are human rights. That debate aside, she left little doubt about her desire to tackle the project; though she wasnt looking for a new post-Mad Men series, I said,I think I should do this. I think I have to do this. Eventually I got to the point where I thought if I dont decide soon, someone else would do it. And that made me so  jealous I had to do it.

Virtual realitys presence continued to grow at Tribeca, with world premieres of several dozen new pieces from creators who test the boundaries of the medium while making worthy and wide-ranging content in their own right. There were films from traditional film types such as Kathryn Bigelow (the endangered-elephant tale The Protectors) and new-era filmmakers Chris Milk (his Within company was behind experiential works such as Hallelujah and Hoverboard). There were actors like Emily Mortimer and Alessandro Nivola (the police-investigation thriller Broken Night) and mainstay cinematic subjects, including the Holocaust, done in potent new ways (Gabo Arora and Ari Palitzs visit-to-Majdanek piece The Last Goodbye).

Technology wasnt just contemplated on new platforms. In the traditional flat-screen documentary AlphaGo, director Greg Kohs looked at how a program created by Google's DeepMind team challenged a champion in the complex game of Go, and what that says about the limitations for humans and new frontiers for machine learning.

Demis Hassabis, the head of DeepMind, was among those who appeared at a post-screening panel the festivals first weekend. For me, AlphaGo was a little bit for [the A.I. world] like the Hubble telescope for astrophysicists, he said. Heres a tool they can use to see the cosmos around them.

Documentary can be at its best when its about nostalgia. And nostalgia rarely feels as strong as when it focuses on radio, a medium practically designed for the feeling. A pair of movies at Tribeca capitalized on this in their own way.

In Daniel Forers Mike and the Mad Dog, the seminal, provocative partnership of Mike Francesa and Chris Mad Dog Russo was explored, a combustible sports-radio pairing that helped create the genre back in the 1980s and 90s. The screening on April 21 morphed into a kind of live call-in show as people in the audience began reenacting bits from before the pair broke up in 2008.

"Hi, it's Mark from Bellmore," said a man at the very back of the theater. "When I come home from a trip," he continued, "it sounds like home. I almost drove off the Grand Central when Piazza signed with the Mets  I almost caused a 10-car accident."

Meanwhile, a station of a different sort was celebrated in Ellen Goldfarbs Dare to be Different, a tale of New Yorks influential and long-defunct WLIR. In the 1980s, LIR, in defiance of popular taste and often international copyright law, became the first station to play imports like U2, Depeche Mode, Howard Jones, A Flock of Seagulls, Joy Division, Duran Duran and other new wave bands.

Run by Denis McNamara, the station was the epitome of cool, if also a kind of, er, low-budget chic; LIR operated at a time when culture was more about discovery than corporations and technology. The film told its story and showed the personalities at its center  McNamara, the musicians, deejays such as Malibu Sue and Larry the Duck. Many from that era turned out last Thursday for what became a kind of high-school reunion of new wave music too. A post-screening event, emceed by McNamara, featured performances from the Alarm, the English Beat and A Flock of Seagulls.

This one I want to dedicate to LIR, Seagulls frontman Mike Score said before playing the bands hit Space Age Love Song. It's gone but the memory lingers on.

It wouldnt be a festival without dramas. Theyre the mothers milk of every movie gathering. And this years Tribeca was flowing with them.

Among the world premieres that stood out are Russell Harbaughs Love After Love, in which Andie MacDowell plays a woman who must keep the family together, in her own way, after the patriarch passes. In Nathan Silvers Thirst Street, a flight attendant enters an obsessive mode after a breakup. And in Azazel Jacobs The Lovers, Tracy Letts and Debra Winger play a married couple who find reconciliation after years of affairs, in a movie that veers between farce and humanist.

Sometimes, as you move away from film, you have to remind people its all about film.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT
Oh my goodness, we love people-watching so we love seeing what everyone is going to wear,  said Halle Bailey of sister-duo Chloe and Halle at the Wearable Art Gala Saturday evening.

The inaugural event, hosted by founders Richard Lawson and Tina Knowles-Lawson, was held at the California African-American Museum in Los Angeles. It did prove to be the place for people-spotting with names such as Samuel L. Jackson, Octavia Spencer, Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, Rep. Maxine Waters, Debbie Allen and Mara Brock Akil in attendance. Naturally, Knowles-Lawsons daughters Beyonce and Solange came to support their mom, but only after photographers had packed up and left.

I think its amazing, Spencer said. Ive always been impressed by what [Tina] does for the artistic community. Im really excited for what theyre going to do in the future. Its a no-brainer that I would be here supporting her with this. I feel like shes always been a supporter of mine. She was definitely a supporter for Hidden Figures; she tweeted and Instagram-ed and were very fortunate for her.

Jackson, wearing a Basquiat shirt, echoed Spencer, saying, Its always great to give back to be able to do what people have done for us when we were coming up and to share our experience. Hopefully, well be able to lend some volubility to what theyre trying to do.

The event also drew actresses Meagan Good , Serayah McNeill, Yara Shahidi and more who reminisced on Knowles-Lawsons most creative designs throughout the years.

One that came to my mind and one that really made me be who I want to be are the soldier outfits from Survivor, McNeill said without hesitation, with Good giving the same answer moments earlier.

For others, choosing just one look was a little more complicated. She has designed so much. Whether youre looking back at Destinys Child outfits or Solanges outfits, theres no choosing. Thats rude to the process, Shahidi said with a laugh.

Beyond the red carpet, there was more to keep guests occupied. If one wasnt admiring the collection from artists such as Derrick Adams or Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle inside, bidding during the silent auction, or dancing with purple and gold handkerchiefs, they were on the hunt for gumbo made by Knowles-Lawson herself.

When Knowles-Lawson arrived in a Mother Earth-themed gown that she designed with Timothy White, she spoke of the urgency of their new nonprofit WACO Theater Center saying, If there were no art programs thered be no voices like Nina Simone, Beyonce or Solange.

Knowles-Lawson also joked of receiving fashion advice from her daughters saying, I dont listen to them much. They tell me dont wear red lipstick, but I wear it anyway.

Launch Gallery: Wearable Art Gala, Los Angeles

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Were running around like crazy people, said Laura Kim on Friday evening. The weekend leading up to the Met Ball is decidedly not one of rest for most designers, and for Kim and Monse/Oscar de la Renta design partner Fernando Garcia, having two brands means theyre that much busier.

My schedule on Sunday starts at 9 and ends at 9, Garcia added, just after stepping off the elevators at the New York Edition hotel, where Farfetch was hosting a dinner with Natalie Massenet and Jose Neves for a collection of designers in town, including Christopher Kane, Simone Rocha, Prabal Gurung, Paul Andrew and Derek Lam.

The logistics of dressing women in both Monse and Oscar de la Renta provides some challenges for the grand red carpet arrival up the Met steps Monday.

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Oh youll see, Garcia said of their entrance plans. Oh I didnt know about this, Kim responded. Im figuring it out as we speak, he told her.

For last years ball, the duo dressed Sarah Jessica Parker in a Monse look that created a stir on social media, leading Parker to respond to commentators on Instagram in defense of her outfit. So is the pressure on for Monday?

No pressure, Garcia said. Were just happy to have hard-working, supportive girls on our side. And I think we wont disappoint.

Im dressing three people, said Rocha, who dressed Chloe Sevigny for last years gala. I work very closely with Comme des Garcons and the Dover Street Market team. As for her own gala plans? Oh Im not going, she said.

Gurung will be dressing two to three women on Monday, and was about 95 percent done with the dresses on Friday night. Someone like Rei Kawakubo, who is someone who you have such reverence and respect for, you dont even try to copy it, he said of the dresses he created. But I like the idea of what she represents. Im excited about it, I really am. She is someone I deeply admire  we all do.

Aside from final fittings, also on the agenda for the gala countdown are some beauty treatments. Im going for a facial  a light facial not a deep one, Gurung said. I wish I could lie to you and say I just wake up, but I dont  and you know what, I love it. I like to enjoy it  its one day of the year. I can actually indulge in the full process. I love every bit of it.

Ive only done one dress  its really great, Kane said. I remember Rei commenting on the dresses of [one of my] collections, so its a reference to the collection. She loved that collection, so we did a little retrospective moment. Obviously, when someone like Rei Kawakubo says something youre like, OK!

He also praised Kawakubo for not being a traditional red carpet designer. When did the fashion industry become about celebrities? he said. It should be about being creative. And the biggest rebels in the industry are her and Miuccia Prada, and for me thats the mantra I live by: be radical. And if you cant wear them, thats OK. Its all about being beautiful and different.

As to what hes wearing Monday? I dont know, he said, before remembering he has a Brioni suit packed for the occasion. My dates on fire so it doesnt matter [what I wear]  I dont give a . Shes got legs up to her armpits, and were showing them off.

Launch Gallery: Farfetch, Natalie Massenet and Jose Neves Host Met Ball Weekend Dinner

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Mistaking the 100-plus-person line outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday morning as one for museumgoers, a few out-of-towners found themselves out of luck, after a security guard explained the museum was closed to the public but open for a press preview.

More than 600 media types  an all-time high  turned out for the big reveal of The Costume Institutes Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: The Art of the In-Between. Patrick Li, Eugene Tong, Cecilia Dean, Simon Doonan and Thom Browne filed through the futuristic design, while photographers and camera crews huddled around curator in charge Andrew Bolton.

Testimony to Kawakubos reputation of being a designers designer, Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, was among the first to take in the exhibit. After peering into one of the circular spheres to check out five designs from the fall 2016 18th Century Punk collection, he said, Its amazing. I have to say, I love her work. I am really impressed to see all of this beauty together.

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My impression [of the show] is not to have a sense of time. Everything can be yesterday, today and tomorrow. I like this idea of no time in fashion. This [show] is something that will last, he said. I feel quietly very touched by the sense of life  the sense that my fabric is birth, marriage and death. There is a sense of life in it.

Having not met Kawakubo personally, Piccioli said he will be very happy to do so tonight. Valentino  as well as Conde Nast, Farfetch, H&M and Warner Bros.  provided financial support for the exhibition and benefit, as did lead sponsor Apple for the second year in a row. In his remarks, the Mets outgoing director Thomas Campbell thanked all of the aforementioned, before introducing one of the Met Galas honorary chairs, Caroline Kennedy. Back in New York after three years as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Kennedy will praise Kawakubo for her commitment to excellence and attention to detail. Kennedy will share her Met Gala duties with Kawakubo, who was also at Mondays event but characteristically remained low-key and silent. (Tonights co-chairs will be Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour.)

After praising Bolton and Campbell for designing for the here and now, Kennedy mentioned how when her children visited her in Japan, they counted on a trip to the Comme des Garcons store to see the latest and greatest. Kawakubo was commended by Kennedy, who told the crowd how she had once welcomed the designer to the U.S. Embassy in Japan and now was honored to be doing so in New York. The former First Daughter also noted how the exhibition has come along at a time in todays world where each of us is considering how to stand for something. She was then ushered out the door with the other VIPs after a quick photo-op.

Had they exited through the Met Shop, adjacent to the exhibition in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall, they would have found the exhibition catalogue by Bolton. Designed by Fabien Baron, the Yale University-published book showcases over 120 examples of Kawakubos womens wear along with quotes from her about her creative process and aesthetic. It also features new work by such photographers as Craig McDean, Inez & Vinoodh and Paolo Roversi. Kawakubo designed that Met Shop in her black signature polka dots recast in a shade of The Mets signature red.

As of Tuesday, The Met Store will have an exclusive retail assortment. The Met x CDG Pocket Shop will offer 11 exclusive Comme des Garcons products, including a new style of the iconic lace sweater from the fall 1982 collection, a NikeLab Air Pegasus 83 for Comme des Garcons sneaker, three unisex exhibition T-shirts, a staff coat, two tote bags, a set of enamel pins and two wallets. Additional exclusive products will be added throughout the run of the show, which goes from May 4 through Sept. 4. To complement the exclusive product offering, The Met Store will offer more than 100 products from the Comme des Garcons Play, Parfum, Wallet and Converse lines that include personal accessories, mens and womens apparel, footwear and fragrance.

Lisa Lockwood contributed to this story.

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Theres no shortage of variety when it comes to different styles and makers of beer; so much so that the simple act of ordering a pint or grabbing a six-pack can be a little overwhelming. How do you know what to buy when presented with a dozen different IPAs? Next time youre fighting indecision in the beer aisle, take a shortcut and grab a brew that gives back. Here are five local beers that benefit charities and nonprofits.

Eagle Rock Brewery

The next brew from Eagle Rock Brewerys Day Trip series of canned beers is 2 North, and it hits this month. Its an American brown ale that balances pine and citrus hop flavors on a rich and toasty malt foundation. A nod to the scenic Angeles Crest Highway  just a quick drive up the 2 North near the brewery  into the heart of the San Gabriel Mountains, the beer is designed to accompany hikes exploring L.A.s wilderness. Sales of the beer help support the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. On May 13, the Eagle Rock Brewery crew  along with local hiking authority, author and founder of ModernHiker.com Casey Schreiner  plans a short day hike and guided tasting of the ale. (Coming in August is another Day Trip beer, called Salvation Mountain gose, will support the non-profit group that maintains the folk-art monument Salvation Mountain). Cans of the Day Trip beers are available at the Eagle Rock Brewery taproom and at local craft beer retailers. 3056 Roswell St., Los Angeles, (323) 257-7866, www.eaglerockbrewery.com.

For the record: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Salvation Mountain gose will benefit the San Gabriel Mountains. The beer will benefit the Salvation Mountain folk-art monument.

Three Weavers Brewing Co.

Brewed on International Womens Day, this tart wheat beer, Magnificent Voices, is a collaboration with several local members of the Pink Boots Society, and its a refreshing choice as the L.A. weather warms up. The Pink Boots Society aims to assist, inspire and encourage women beer industry professionals to advance their careers through education, and proceeds from the brew will benefit the Pink Boots scholarship fund, which provides education and training for women in the craft beer industry. Magnificent Voices tweaks the traditional gose formula with additions of lemon and lemongrass to bolster the tartness along with kombu and pink Himalayan salt. You can find 22-ounce bottles of the collaborative gose at the Three Weavers tasting room, Whole Foods markets, and craft beer retailers.1031 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, (310) 400-5830, www.threeweavers.la.

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Smog City Brewery

Back for another year, the Kumquat Saison collaboration with Food Forward features hundreds of pounds of kumquats harvested from backyard trees across the Southland. Food Forward gleans leftover produce from local farmers markets and organizes volunteer harvesters who rescue backyard fruit that would otherwise go to waste. In its third year, the partnership with Smog City produces a spritzy golden farmhouse ale, called Kumquat Saison, thats big on the bittersweet flavor of the diminutive citrus. A superlative brunch beer that will win the hearts of mimosa lovers, Kumquat Saison is now available on tap at the Smog City Brewery tasting room, and bottles are coming to local beer retailers later this spring. 901 Del Amo Blvd. B, Torrance, (310) 320-7664, www.smogcitybrewing.com.

The Bruery

It can be tough to keep up with all the releases from Orange Countys the Bruery, and some unique brews can slip through the cracks as the brewerys marquee releases grab the spotlight. The Share This series of collaborative brews features bold ingredients, and each release supports a charitable cause. Last year, the Free Wheelchair Mission, which donates wheelchairs to those in need, received $1 from every bottle, and $5 from each keg sold of Share This: Coffee and Share This: Mole. The latter brew, a collaboration with local beer-loving chef Anne Conness (Sausal), is a melange of rich spices and chiles, and its worth hunting down a bottle (check your local Whole Foods). The newest entry in the series, Share This: OC, also benefits the Food Forward organization. The weighty imperial stout mixes in TCHO cocoa nibs and orange zest, and 750-milliliter bottles are available at the Bruery tasting room, via the Bruerys online store and at craft beer retailers. 717 Dunn Way, Placentia, www.thebruery.com.

Golden Road Brewing

Long the best IPA in the Golden Road portfolio, Heal the Bay IPA supports the Heal the Bay nonprofit that works to restore Santa Monica Bay. Since 2013, Golden Road has raised more than $100,000 for Heal the Bay through auctions, partner contributions and sales of the beer. (Golden Roads co-founder, Meg Gill, also sits on the Heal the Bay board.) Light in body and bright in flavor with restrained bitterness, the IPA shows off the tropical bouquet of modern hop varieties, and it is now available on draft and in 16-ounce cans all year long. Find it at any Golden Road location or in four-packs of cans pretty much everywhere. 5410 W. San Fernando Rd., Los Angeles, (213) 373-4644, goldenroad.la.

food@latimes.com

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Tubas and trombones sound in protest down the Las Vegas Strip

Would need a Scorsese-style track a shot to get just portion of #MayDay2017 marchers ready to head down The Strip in Vegas. pic.twitter.com/FKMakHl8ce  David Montero (@DaveMontero) May 2, 2017

So far, Jose Sotelos protest sign has held up through two marches. He said he will probably need it for a few more, because Donald Trump is still in the early days of his presidency.

Im pretty sure this wont be the last one, Sotelo said. He isnt mending the country; hes dividing it.

The sign, which read, Respect My Existence Or Expect Resistance, was in English. His wife, Ashleigh Pacheco, carried one in Spanish.

The couple were among thousands who marched down the Las Vegas Strip on Monday afternoon, joining the worldwide May Day marches. This one was largely organized by Culinary Workers Union Local 226, with 57,000 members who fill jobs at many of the large casinos on the Strip.

Dressed mostly in red, they marched along the right side of the road with the lane coned off so as to not close Las Vegas Boulevard to traffic.

The city didnt stop for the protesters, who brought drums, trombones and tubas  sounding like a cross between a mariachi concert and a college football game. At outdoor patios along the Strip, people sipped happy-hour-priced drinks and watched the marchers stroll by.

Marching past the Mirage, Caesars Palace and then down Flamingo Boulevard, they met honks of support from cars along the busy streets. A large Teamsters truck sounded its horn  a bone-shattering honk that was more train that truck.

Sotelo, a 33-year-old algebra teacher in Las Vegas, said he needed to keep marching to let it be known that Trumps polices on immigration, the economy  well, on everything  were unacceptable.

Hes in over his head, Sotelo said. I dont think he has the slightest idea on what hes doing or how to do the job.
The organizational chart of top management at Californias bullet train authority disappeared from the agencys website about three months ago, sending what now seems like a sign of impending shakeup.

Chief Executive Jeff Morales announced his departure on April 21 in a letter sent to Gov. Jerry Brown and the rail authority. Late last year, the senor deputy officer left, and before that the chief administrator and the computer systems director said goodbye.

A leadership exodus has also roiled the authoritys corporate rail delivery partner, Parsons Brinckerhoff, which makes many of the day-to-day engineering and construction decisions in the effort to build a high speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is critical to the bullet train projects success or failure.

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Gary Griggs, the companys top executive on the California project who has worked on BART, the San Francisco subway, and the Taiwan bullet train, quietly announced his retirement recently. Griggs was preceded by Tony Daniels, Hans Van Winkle, Brent Felker and Jim Van Epps  all since about 2012. A deputy, Gay Knipper, was just let go as well.

It adds up to a senior management upheaval at a time when the rail authority is wrestling with construction falling behind schedule, cost estimates heading higher and a hostile wind blowing from the Trump administration.

As long as Dan Richard is at the helm and Mike Rossi oversees finance, then you are in good shape.  Thea Selby, former rail authority board member

The rail authority has disclosed little publicly about the exits, and after denying Morales rumored departure, had little to say when he revealed that the rumors were true.

There was no particular thing that precipitated his decision beyond determining that it was simply time to move on, spokeswoman Lisa Marie Alley said.

The chief of the state department overseeing the rail agency offers a similar assessment.

Jeff made a call on his own that it is time to do something else, State Transportation Agency Secretary Brian Kelly said in an interview Saturday. Jeff has brought this project a long, long way. And all of us together have been assessing what do we do as we go forward.

Kelly said the rail program is moving from the planning stage to a construction push that has 1,000 workers building bridges and preparing to lay track in the Central Valley  a new phase that will require different leadership skills. An evaluation of the organization began late last year, he said.

A spokeswoman for Parsons Brinckerhoff said it is not unusual for a project of this size and duration to experience personnel changes.

Gary Griggs, she said, is retiring following a successful career in our industry, and Gay Knipper has recently accepted an opportunity with another firm. The project attracts many qualified candidates from around the world who are interested in working on the next phase of this program.

But some construction industry executives, academic experts and officials with direct knowledge of the rail authoritys operations say the exits reflect both tensions within the authoritys ranks and loss of confidence about the projects future.

When you have a large infeasible project, it is better to not be in the room when it comes to a halt, said James Moore, vice dean for academic programs at USCs Viterbi School of Engineeringnoting that his views are not those of the university.

Moore, who heads the schools transportation engineering program, said the technology for high speed rail does not exist to deliver on the promises made for the system, and engineers generally will flee such projects as the future becomes clouded.

Art Bauer, who led the state Senates oversight of high speed rail for years, offers a similar interpretation: The departures are a signal that the project is over with. If this project were booming, people would be clamoring to be part of it. People want to be part of a success and have bragging rights.

When you have a large infeasible project, it is better to not be in the room when it comes to a halt.  James Moore, Viterbi School of Engineering, USC

Among the projects many supporters, the departures cause little concern.

They say their confidence is bolstered, in part, because the rail authority still includes former utility industry attorney Dan Richard and former banking executive Michael Rossi.

As long as Dan Richard is at the helm and Mike Rossi oversees finance, then you are in good shape, said Thea Selby, a former member of the rail authority board.

Supporters also note that the state just sold bonds to pay for work in the Central Valley, and a Superior Court judge tentatively rejected an effort by opponents to block the use of the money, which they contend would violate the terms of a 2008 bond act.

The opponents said they plan to appeal if the ruling is made final.

Meanwhile, political insiders are scrutinizing the details of recent departures for clues as to what may come next.

Morales five-year tenure at the top of the project had ups and downs.

The project did begin construction in the Central Valley, and Morales helped build political support that won additional state funding from greenhouse gas fees.

But the project failed to obtain any private investment and still has a massive $40-billion funding gap. It is falling behind schedule and facing estimates of higher costs as well.

While Morales likely did not get fired, he did battle with the rail authoritys board of directors and came to lose the confidence of at least some of the members, according to multiple officials who are involved in the project.

There was mounting evidence that the project was slipping into trouble that could not be repaired.

Asked about whether there was friction between the board and Morales, Kelly said, In most respects they have been working very much together.

When the 2016 business plan was issued, Morales won a tactical battle to lower the estimated final cost of the project to $64 billion, prevailing over those who wanted a price billions of dollars higher, according to individuals with knowledge of the dealings.

When the Federal Railroad Administration warned in December that the cost of the initial construction segment in the Central Valley could increase by 50% to $10 billion and the estimate became public weeks later, Morales and Richard both asserted that the estimate was part of a risk analysis that was wrong.

Morales resignation letter two weeks ago was addressed to Brown as well as the authoritys board.

A spokesman for the governor said Brown was not involved in Morales decision to leave.

But the executive turnover does offer Brown an opportunity to install fresh management, possibly better skilled at dealing with the immediate problems of managing property acquisition, environmental approvals, large-scale construction and making amends with the Trump administration.

Morales was part of President Obamas transition team, not a background likely to win many friends in the conservative Congress.

Brown has hoped to make the bullet train system a part of his legacy, but he has said little about the programs specific challenges this year and in his State of the State speech said only, We have roads, we have tunnels, we have railroads and even a dam that the president can help us with. He has not acted to fill a vacancy on the rail authority board.

Many project insiders speculate that the governor is quietly considering a restructuring of the entire project before he leaves office after the gubernatorial election next year.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @rvartabedian

UPDATES:

3:07 p.m., May 4: This article was updated to more fully describe Gov. Jerry Browns comments on high speed rail in his State of the State address and other public remarks.

4:47 p.m., May 2: This article was updated to indicate that James Moores stated opinions are not those of USC.

This article was originally published at 2:30 p.m., May 1.
USC names retired aerospace executive Wanda Austin as acting president, announces Nikias departure By Harriet Ryan USC appointed a retired aerospace executive as interim president and laid out a detailed plan for selecting a permanent leader Tuesday, ending speculation about whether outgoing President C.L. Max Nikias might remain in the post. Nikias, embattled over his administrations handling of a campus gynecologist accused of sexually abusing patients, relinquished his duties after a meeting of USCs board. The trustees tapped one of their own, Wanda Austin, an alumna and former president of the Aerospace Corp., to temporarily run the university. The trustees also approved the formation of a search committee and the hiring of firm Isaacson, Miller to coordinate the selection of a successor. A second search company, Heidrick & Struggles, will also advise trustees. Read More Facebook

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Ex-student sues elite Brentwood School after teacher is charged with sexually abusing him By Richard Winton A former student sued the elite Brentwood School on Monday in the wake of a female teacher being charged with repeatedly having sex with the minor, alleging that other faculty members encouraged the unlawful behavior and failed to report it to authorities. The lawsuit accuses the private school, whose students include the children of many of Hollywoods elite and L.A.s powerful, of acting negligently and allowing Aimee Palmitessa to abuse and batter the teenager sexually. The suit alleges that the student was abused in summer 2017 after one of the schools counselors offered words of encouragement to the then-17-year-old, identified in the suit as only John Doe, to engage in an illegal relationship with the teacher. Read More Facebook

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Civil jury vindicates fired Montebello school executives in whistleblower case By Howard Blume The Montebello school district is in dire straits  at risk of insolvency and under apparent criminal investigation. An outside audit in July found some teachers earning more than $200,000 a year, as well as improper raises, excess paid vacation time and inappropriate overtime, sick leave and car allowances. Fixing the district and pinpointing blame could take time. Read More Facebook

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L.A. schools fall short on safety measures, new report warns By Howard Blume After the mass shooting at Floridas Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, Los Angeles school officials reassured parents that much had been done to keep local schools safe. California had tougher gun laws, after all, and the school district paid close attention to students mental health. But a new report issued Monday by a panel convened to take a close look offers some cause for concern, flagging inconsistent campus safety measures, thinly spread mental health staff and inadequate coordination between the school district and other public agencies. With the stakes this high, we must strive to do better, said L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer, who assembled the panel. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school district says more are graduating, but rate may not show it By Howard Blume The L.A. Unified School District has hopes of continuing its winning streak this year with another record graduation rate, but the official numbers may not show it. A senior district administrator warned the board Tuesday that graduation rates were likely to decline 2% to 3% across the state, even though L.A. Unified is likely doing better than ever in producing graduates, he said. The issue is that the state will now count high school students who transfer to adult school as dropouts, said Oscar Lafarga, who heads the districts office of data and accountability. Previously, schools treated these students as though they had simply enrolled in another high school, he said. Read More Facebook

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Betsy DeVos to California: Not so fast on that federal education plan By Joy Resmovits In April, Californias top education officials breathed a sigh of relief. After months of debate and back-and-forth with Betsy DeVos staff, they had finalized a plan to satisfy a major education law that aims to make sure all students get a decent education. The state focused on aligning its plan to fulfill the requirements of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act with Californias Local Control Funding Formula, which gives extra money to districts to help students who come from low-income families, are in the foster system or are English learners. But this week, DeVos team said not so fast. Jason Botel, the U.S. Department of Educations principal deputy assistant secretary, sent California education officials a letter asking for more information in such areas as measuring student progress, graduation rates and English learners. In an unsigned statement, the California Department of Education declared itself surprised and disappointed because officials thought  after a meeting with federal officials in Washington  that they were on the right track to get approval. Now the Every Student Succeeds Act plan will be up for discussion once again at the July meeting of the State Board of Education. The U.S. Department of Education has already approved most state plans. Every Student Succeeds is the Obama administrations 2015 replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act. Facebook

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L.A. school board sets a new goal: prepare every grad to be eligible to apply for Cal State or UC By Sonali Kohli Last month, Los Angeles school board president proposed a spate of highly ambitious mandates aimed at ensuring that every district graduate be eligible to apply to one of the states public four-year universities by 2023. By the time the L.A. Unified school board unanimously approved the resolution Tuesday, the original language had been watered down. The goal is no longer that in five years 100% of students meet the long list of benchmarks, which include not just college eligibility for graduates but first-grade reading proficiency and English fluency by sixth grade for all students who enter the district in kindergarten or first grade speaking another language. The original college-readiness goal, for example, called for 100% of all high school students to be eligible to apply to one of the states four-year universities. Now the goal seems to offer more wiggle room: Prepare all high school graduates to be eligible to apply to a California four-year university. Read More Facebook

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We have been hurt. More women say they were mistreated by USC gynecologist By Richard Winton USC student Anika Narayanan says she vividly recalls her first appointment with Dr. George Tyndall at the campus health center, alleging that he made several explicit comments during an examination she felt was inappropriate and invasive. When she came back for a second visit in 2016 after a nonconsensual sexual encounter, he allegedly chastised her, she said in a civil lawsuit and at a press conference Tuesday. He asked me if I had forgotten to use a condom again,  said Narayanan, 21. At one point, she said, Tyndall asked if I did a lot of doggy style,  she said. Read More Facebook

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L.A. Unified gives inspector general brief contract extension By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school board on Tuesday extended the contract of Ken Bramlett, its inspector general, by three months, though his job is far from secure and questions remain about the future direction of his watchdog office. Board members also unanimously promoted Vivian Ekchian, who had been the runner-up for the superintendents job, to deputy superintendent  the districts No. 2 position. Both moves had elements of peacemaking between different factions on the board. Read More Facebook

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USCs handling of complaints about campus gynecologist is being investigated by federal government By Harriet Ryan The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into how the University of Southern California handled misconduct complaints against a campus gynecologist, the latest fallout in a scandal that has prompted the resignation of USCs president, two law enforcement investigations and dozens of lawsuits. In revealing the inquiry by the departments Office of Civil Rights, officials rebuked USC for what they alleged was improper withholding of information about Dr. George Tyndall during a previous federal investigation. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has been criticized for taking a less vigorous approach to examining sexual misconduct than predecessors, called for a systemic examination of USC and urged administrators to fully cooperate. Read More Facebook

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Judge to sentence woman and her boyfriend for the murder of an 8-year-old that led to L.A. child welfare reforms By Marisa Gerber A woman and her boyfriend are expected to be sentenced Thursday for the torture and murder of an 8-year-old boy whose killing in 2013 provoked public outrage, prompted sweeping reform of Los Angeles Countys child welfare system, and led to unprecedented criminal charges against social workers who handled the childs case. Pearl Sinthia Fernandez, 34, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for her role in the death of her son, Gabriel. A jury decided last year that her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre, 37, should be executed. When paramedics arrived at the boys Palmdale home in May 2013, Gabriel had slipped out of consciousness. He had a fractured skull, broken ribs, burned skin, missing teeth and BB pellets embedded in his groin. A paramedic would later testify that every inch of the boys small body had been abused. Read More Facebook

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L.A. Unifieds spending out of step with similar school systems, task force says By Howard Blume The Los Angeles school district is out of step with similar school systems, spending more on teachers pay and health benefits and less on activities that could enhance student learning, according to a new report by an outside task force. The L.A. Unified School District Advisory Task Force did not make specific recommendations, but instead posed a series of questions it said the district needs to answer to make sure its funding is aimed at providing a full opportunity for all students to succeed. What were trying to say is: Lets put the data on the table. Lets look at the truth. Lets be transparent and here are the numbers, said task force member Renata Simril. This is not to say that  we should cut teachers salaries. Read More Facebook

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Top USC medical school official feared dean was doing drugs and alerted administration, he testifies By Paul Pringle A former vice dean of USCs Keck School of Medicine testified Tuesday that he feared the schools then-dean, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito, could be doing drugs and expressed concerns about his general well-being to the universitys No. 2 administrator before Puliafito abruptly left his job in 2016. Dr. Henri Fords testimony at a hearing of the state Medical Board marks the first suggestion that any USC administrator had suspicions about Puliafitos possible drug use before he stepped down. A Times investigation in 2017 found Puliafito led a secret second life of using illegal drugs with a circle of young criminals and addicts. Puliafito testified about his behavior at the hearing Tuesday, saying he took drugs with one young woman on a weekly basis. Ford said that he decided to alert USC Provost Michael Quick after receiving reports in early 2016 that Puliafito was partying in hotels with people of questionable reputation, and that he came to worry about his mental stability. Read More Facebook

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Why L.A. Unified may face financial crisis even with a giant surplus this year By Jessica Calefati With more than half a billion dollars socked away for next school year, the Los Angeles Unified School District hardly seems just two years from financial ruin. Its a scenario that is especially tough to swallow if youre a low-wage worker seeking a raise or a teacher who wants smaller classes. But budget documents show that todays $548-million surplus cannot be sustained  and that even basic services face steep, seemingly unavoidable cuts because of massive problems barreling the districts way. Theres a disconnect between the rosy short-term picture and what we know is coming, said board member Kelly Gonez. Read More Facebook

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We have failed: Top USC officials try to reassure students amid gynecologist scandal By Joy Resmovits Top administrators at USC are reaching out to students in the wake of misconduct allegations against the universitys longtime gynecologist, acknowledging failings and vowing reforms as they try to address growing outrage over the revelations. Several USC deans have sent out messages trying to reassure students and faculty that the university is committed to changing. We have failed, wrote Jack H. Knott, dean of USCs Sol Price School of Public Policy, in a May 24 letter. What happened is antithetical to everything we know is right. Read More Facebook

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Rick Caruso is named chair of USCs trustees, vows swift investigation of gynecologist scandal By Thomas Curwen The University of Southern Californias board of trustees has elected mall magnate Rick Caruso to be the new chair of the board, giving fresh leadership as the university navigates a widening scandal involving a longtime campus gynecologist. The move marks the latest effort by USC to address the case, which has sparked a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department and dozens of civil lawsuits. More than 400 people have contacted a hotline that the university established for patients to make reports about their experience with Dr. George Tyndall. In his first act as chairman, Caruso announced that the white-shoe L.A. law firm OMelveny & Myers would conduct a thorough and independent investigation into the gynecologists conduct and reporting failures at the clinic. He set an ambitious timeline for the review, pledging it would conclude before students return for the fall semester. Read More Facebook

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UC Berkeley students persistence helps win more liberal rules for in-state tuition By Teresa Watanabe Ifechukwu Okeke thought shed be a shoo-in for in-state tuition when she was admitted to UC Berkeley for fall 2016. She had moved to the United States from Nigeria in 2012 to go to Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. By the time she got her acceptance to transfer to UC to study molecular and cell biology, she had lived in California four years. She had a California drivers license, bank account and rental records as proof. UC Berkeley, however, ruled she was a nonresident  which meant she would have to pay nearly $27,000 more. Read More Facebook

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State medical board calls former County-USC doctor a sexual predator, suspends his license By Matt Hamilton A UCLA cardiologist has been temporarily stripped of his medical license after state regulators described him as a sexual predator who assaulted three female colleagues when he was working and training at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. Read More Facebook

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Global California 2030 aims to get more students learning more languages By Joy Resmovits Tom Torlakson (Andrew Seng / Associated Press) Outgoing state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson on Wednesday announced a new statewide effort to encourage students to learn more languages. Called Global California 2030, its goal is to help more students become fluent in multiple tongues. Torlakson said that by 2030, he wants half of the states 6.2 million K-12 students to participate in classes or programs that lead to proficiency in two or more languages. By 2040, he wants three out of four students to be proficient enough to earn the State Seal of Biliteracy. Torlakson announced the initiative at Cahuenga Elementary School, which offers a dual-language immersion program in English and Korean. Californias public school students speak more than 60 languages at home, and 40% come to school with knowledge of a language other than English. Torlakson called his plan a call to action that invites parents, legislators, educators and community members to pool resources to expand language offerings in schools and get more bilingual teachers trained. He said the state already is working with Mexico and Spain to expand a teacher-exchange program. Fluency, the plan argues, can help students succeed economically  and language acquisition can help their overall critical thinking. The initiative builds on Proposition 58, a ballot initiative passed in 2016 that undid an earlier requirement that English learners be taught in English-immersion classes unless their parents signed waivers. Torlakson recently visited Mexico and met with that countrys education secretary. They later signed a pact to increase collaboration, particularly in language education. This [Global California 2030] is great follow-through on Toms part and very important, Patricia Gandara, a UCLA education professor who hosted the Mexico meeting, said in an email. It hands over a plan to move forward in an area in which California has a unique advantage, but must seize the opportunity. Facebook

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Jury convicts man of murder in 2015 slaying of UCLA student found inside her burning apartment By Marisa Gerber A jury on Tuesday convicted a man in the 2015 slaying of a UCLA student found dead inside her burning apartment  a gruesome stabbing case that led to a fierce rebuke of the police response amid concerns that the killing could have been prevented. The panel deliberated for about six hours before finding Alberto Medina, 24, guilty of murder, arson, burglary and animal cruelty. On Sept. 21, 2015, firefighters found the charred body of Andrea DelVesco inside her apartment after responding to the complex a block from campus. The 21-year-old student  an Austin, Texas, native known to her sorority sisters as a fearless giver who befriended others with ease  was stabbed at least 19 times, authorities said. Read More Facebook

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LAPD begins sweeping criminal probe of former USC gynecologist while urging patients to come forward By Adam Elmahrek The Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday it is investigating 52 complaints of misconduct filed by former patients of USCs longtime campus gynecologist as detectives launch a sweeping criminal probe into the scandal that has rocked the university. LAPD detectives also made an appeal for other patients who feel mistreated to come forward, noting that thousands of students were examined by Dr. George Tyndall during his nearly 30-year career at USC. More than 410 people have contacted a university hotline about the physician since The Times revealed the allegations this month. Tyndalls behavior and practices appear to go beyond the norms of the medical profession and gynecological examinations, said Asst. Chief Beatrice Girmala. We sincerely realize that victims may have difficulty recounting such details to investigators. We are empathetic and ready to listen. Read More Facebook

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At L.A.'s only school for the deaf, parents want leaders who speak the same language By Anna M. Phillips Ever since her son was 6 months old, Juliet Hidalgo has been bringing him to the Marlton School, a low-slung building in Baldwin Hills that for generations has been a second home for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Los Angeles. Marlton staff taught Hidalgos brother and sister, both of whom are deaf. The school was where her deaf son learned to make the signs for milk and food. Hidalgo had planned to enroll her daughter, taking advantage of a popular program that allows hearing children to learn American Sign Language alongside their deaf siblings. But after more than a decade of involvement, she and other family members are considering withdrawing their children. They are not alone. Read More Facebook

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Fueled by unlimited donations, independent groups play their biggest role yet in a California primary for governor By Ryan Menezes An unprecedented amount of money from wealthy donors, unions and corporations is flowing into the California governors race, giving independent groups  unrestricted by contribution limits  a greater say in picking the states chief executive than ever before. The groups have already spent more than $26 million through Thursday, the most ever spent by noncandidate committees in a gubernatorial primary, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance reports. California elections have always been expensive, and the future is even more expensive, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and a former state Republican leader. The stakes are very real. Read More Facebook

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2 hurt in Indiana middle school shooting; suspect in custody, authorities say By Associated Press Authorities say two victims in a shooting at a suburban Indianapolis school are being taken to a hospital and the lone suspect is in custody. Bryant Orem, a spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office, said in a news release that the victims in Friday mornings attack at Noblesville West Middle School are being taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis and their families have been notified. He says no other information is available about the victims. Orem said the suspect is believed to have acted alone and was taken into custody. No additional information about the suspect was made public. Read More Facebook

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For new L.A. schools chief Austin Beutner, some key unions are giving no honeymoon period By Howard Blume In the less than two weeks since Austin Beutner took charge of Los Angeles schools, unions representing teachers and administrators have staged a job action and a protest. Theyve made it clear that they will not give the new superintendent the traditional honeymoon period, and they are bashing him for his wealth and lack of experience running either a school or a school district. Beutner is a billionaire investment banker with zero qualifications, local teachers union President Alex Caputo-Pearl told members in a phone alert urging them to participate in a Thursday afternoon rally in Grand Park. The board is saying that billionaires who made their money blowing institutions up and making money off it know best  not the education professionals who have dedicated our careers to working with students. Read More Facebook

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Pressure grows on Board of Trustees amid USC gynecologist scandal By Paul Pringle USCs large and powerful Board of Trustees is coming under growing pressure to provide a stronger hand as the university faces a crisis over misconduct allegations against the campus longtime gynecologist that has prompted calls for President C.L. Max Nikias to step down. Allegations that Dr. George Tyndall mistreated students during his nearly 30 years at USC have roiled the campus, with about 300 people coming forward to make reports to the university and the Los Angeles Police Department launching a criminal investigation. USC is already beginning to face what is expected to be costly litigation by women who say they were victimized by the physician. So far, the trustees to whom Nikias reports have expressed sympathy for the women who have come forward and launched an independent investigation while also publicly backing the president. Read More Facebook

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UC regents approve leaner budget for Janet Napolitano By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents on Thursday unanimously approved a leaner, more transparent budget for President Janet Napolitano, moving to address political criticism over the systems central office operations. The $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 reflects spending cuts of 2%, including reductions in staffing, travel and such systemwide programs as public service law fellowships, carbon neutrality and food security. Napolitano shifted $30 million to campuses for housing needs and $10 million to UC Riverside to support its five-year-old medical school. She also permanently redirected $8.5 million annually to help enroll more California students, as required by the state. Read More Facebook

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USCs Academic Senate calls on university president to resign after a series of scandals By Matt Hamilton The body that represents USCs faculty called on President C.L. Max Nikias to resign Wednesday in the wake of relevations that the universitys longtime gynecologist faced years of accusations of misconduct by students and colleagues at the campus health clinic. The Academic Senate took the vote late Wednesday afternoon after a fiery town hall meeting attended by more than 100 faculty members, many of whom voiced outrage over Nikias and the Board of Trustees leadership. The vote came a day after the trustees executive committee stood firmly behind Nikias, saying it has full confidence in his leadership, ethics and values. At the town hall meeting, Senate President Paul Rosenbloom said he did not think Nikias or Provost Michael Quick committed wrongdoing but that the university president deserved criticism for a lack of transparency. Read More Facebook

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Californias public universities on the way to getting a big longed-for boost in funding By Teresa Watanabe The University of California and California State University systems are poised to get major funding boosts that will help them enroll thousands of additional state students and eliminate the need for tuition increases in the coming school year. A key Assembly budget panel on Wednesday approved $117.5 million in new funds for the UC. A Senate panel approved a similar sum last week. The same committees recently approved even more funding for the Cal State system. Read More Facebook

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UC regents to scrutinize Janet Napolitanos office budget in a step toward stronger oversight By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents this week plan to scrutinize the budget of President Janet Napolitano, whose office came under political fire last year for questionable spending and murky accounting. Regents will vote on the proposed $876.4-million budget for 2018-19 during their two-day meeting, which starts Wednesday, at UC San Francisco. They also will discuss state funding, financial aid, online education and transfer student policies. Board Chairman George Kieffer said regents are stepping up to exert stronger oversight of the presidents office after a blistering state audit last year found financial problems including an unreported $175 million budget reserve. Read More Facebook

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State legislative panels approve major funding boost for Cal State By Teresa Watanabe After months of intensive lobbying, Cal State University has convinced two key legislative panels to approve funding to enroll nearly 11,000 more students, hire more faculty and expand housing aid to those without shelter this fall. An Assembly budget panel on Tuesday approved $215.7 million more for Cal State, adding to Gov. Jerry Browns proposed $92.1 million general fund increase. A Senate budget panel approved a similar increase last week. The extra funding  which went beyond Cal States own request to the Legislature of $171 million  is still subject to final budget negotiations with Brown. But the actions by the Senate and Assembly panels amount to a demand from Democrats that the governor hike higher education spending. Cal State University is the workhorse undergraduate university serving hundreds of thousands of Californians, said Assemblyman Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento), who heads the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. We need more graduates for the California workforce and higher education is the ticket to the middle class. Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White hailed the actions, but said it was too soon to celebrate. The CSU has a singular focus on helping students earn high-quality degrees sooner, and the entire university community has rallied to reinforce that message to our states lawmakers, he said in a statement. The actions taken thus far by the Assembly and Senate are promising and show that our message is being received, but there is still work to be done. Funding for the University of California was not taken up Tuesday as originally scheduled. McCarty would not comment on sticking points but said he was confident that a resolution would be reached this week. Were looking to provide resources above whats in the governors budget, but negotiations are ongoing, he said in an interview. State per-student funding is not what it once was, leaving both Cal State and the UC in a tough financial squeeze. Both systems raised tuition last year after a six-year freeze on higher costs. For this year, Cal State had asked for funding to enroll an additional 3,621 students, but both the Senate and Assembly panels approved three times that amount. Cal State, the largest public university system in the nation, turned away 32,000 eligible students last year because its campuses werent able to accommodate them. The panels asked that at least $50 million of the extra funding be used to hire more tenure-track faculty to help boost graduation rates. The Assembly panel also approved one-time funding of $5 million to ease hunger on campuses and $14 million for rapid rehousing pilot projects at three campuses, offering needy students rental support and short-term case management. Other items approved include $5 million to support the CSU Long Beach Shark Labs research on sharks and beach safety and $2 million for equal employment opportunity practices. This post has been updated to include comments from Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White. Facebook

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Faculty members call for USC president to step down: He has lost the moral authority to lead By Matt Hamilton Two hundred USC professors on Tuesday demanded the resignation of university President C. L. Max Nikias, saying he had lost the moral authority to lead in the wake of revelations that a campus gynecologist was kept on staff for decades despite repeated complaints of misconduct. Read More Facebook

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Gun battle, negotiations lasted 15 minutes before Texas school shooter was apprehended, sheriff says By Molly Hennessy-Fiske Minutes after a school shooter opened fire in an art class last week, killing 10 people and wounding 13, including a local police officer, fellow officers returned fire in a protracted gun battle before isolating the suspect, the local sheriff said Monday. Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset praised first responders as well as Santa Fe Police Officer John Barnes, who was working as a resource officer at the school the day of the shooting. Their actions, he said, prevented the attack from spreading to other classrooms and potentially claiming additional victims. As officials continue to probe last Fridays shooting at Santa Fe High School, students are worried about returning to the scene of the attack when classes resume next week. Read More Facebook

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6 women sue USC, alleging they were victimized by campus gynecologist By Richard Winton Six women filed civil lawsuits Monday alleging that a longtime gynecologist at the University of Southern California sexually victimized them under the pretext of medical care and that USC failed to address complaints from clinic staff about the doctors behavior. One woman alleged Dr. George Tyndall forced his entire ungloved hand into her vagina during an appointment in 2003 while making vulgar remarks about her genitalia, according to one of the lawsuits. Another woman alleged that Tyndall groped her breasts in a 2008 visit and that later he falsely told her she likely had AIDS. A third woman accused the doctor of grazing his ungloved fingers over her nude body and leering at her during a purported skin exam, the lawsuit states. The wave of litigation comes as USC continues to grapple with the scandal, which legal experts said could prove costly to the university as scores of former patients come forward about their experiences with the gynecologist. Read More Facebook

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Fatalities reported in Texas high school shooting; suspect arrested, officials say By Associated Press Houston-area media citing unnamed law enforcement officials are reporting that there are fatalities following a shooting at a local high school Friday morning. Television station KHOU and the Houston Chronicle are citing unnamed federal, county and police officials following the shooting at Santa Fe High School, which went on lockdown around 8 a.m. The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the reports. The school district has confirmed an unspecified number of injuries but said it wouldnt immediately release further details. Assistant Principal Cris Richardson said a suspect has been arrested and secured. Read More Facebook

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This student followed the new L.A. schools chief on his first-day tour Melissa Barales-Lopez, a senior at Garfield High School followed Supt. Austin Beutner on his first day on the job, as he toured a variety of programs around the Los Angeles Unified School District. Heres what she took from the experience. LAUSD students and staff alike are looking for a personal champion, someone who will address and improve the difficulties afflicting their education.  What LAUSD students need is someone whos willing to listen and learn, someone who can understand the current issues affecting their schools and act to efficiently amend them, someone who can unlock the full potential of LAUSD students and enable them to reach their goals. During the entirety of his first day, superintendent Austin Beutner did indeed demonstrate a willingness to learn. Posing questions to teachers and students, Beutner engaged with the student communities he encountered to gain a better comprehension of the minutiae and nuances that distinguish each school inside an overwhelmingly large district. From inquiries about Grand View Boulevard Elementary Schools dual language program to questions regarding the services of LAUSDs after-school program, Beyond the Bell, Beutner revealed he has a lot to learn about the system. But, Beutner also showcased a willingness to tackle challenges head-on on his first day. Read More Facebook

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USC let a gynecologist continue treating students despite years of misconduct allegations By Matt Hamilton For nearly 30 years, the University of Southern Californias student health clinic had one full-time gynecologist: Dr. George Tyndall. Tall and garrulous with distinctive jet black hair, he treated tens of thousands of female students, many of them teenagers seeing a gynecologist for the first time. Few who lay down on Tyndalls exam table at the Engemann Student Health Center knew that he had been accused repeatedly of misconduct toward young patients. The complaints began in the 1990s, when co-workers alleged he was improperly photographing students genitals. In the years that followed, patients and nursing staff accused him again and again of creepy behavior, including touching women inappropriately during pelvic exams and making sexually suggestive remarks about their bodies. Read More Facebook

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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook

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On his first day as L.A. schools chief, Beutner plans a day of visits across the district By Howard Blume L.A. Unifieds new superintendent, Austin Beutner, will kick off his first day of work on Tuesday with a choreographed tour of the nations second-largest school district, from the San Fernando Valley to Carson. His day is scheduled to begin at 5:15 a.m. at a school bus depot and end more than 12 hours later at a parent meeting at Garfield High School. Along the way, Beutner is expected to be joined by school district administrators, L.A. Unified board members and the vice president of the union that represents school bus drivers. Though he will be covering a lot of ground, Beutners tour has him skipping Tuesdays school board meeting, when board members are expected to discuss labor negotiations in closed session. Read More Facebook

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Cal State trustees to discuss Browns latest budget proposal, which they say still falls $171 million short By Joy Resmovits Just how much money does California State University need to serve its students? In recent years, this question has been front and center for the nations largest public university system. Cal States leaders say that to keep their campuses quality from slipping, they need much more money than the state is giving them. This year, theyre also at odds with Gov. Jerry Brown on the question of whether any extra money should come in one-time bursts or be ongoing. Read More Facebook

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Why a handful of rich charter school supporters are spending millions to elect Antonio Villaraigosa as governor By Ryan Menezes California voters have seen a barrage of sunny television ads in recent weeks touting former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosas record on finances, crime and education, aired by Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018. But the group is, in fact, largely funded by a handful of wealthy charter-school supporters. Together they have spent more than $13 million in less than a month to boost Villaraigosas chances in the June 5 primary  at a time when his fundraising and poll numbers are lagging. Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, jump-started the group with a $7-million check, by far the largest donation to support any candidate in the election. Their efforts are part of a broader proxy war among Democrats between teachers unions  longtime stalwarts of the party  and those who argue that the groups have failed low-income and minority schoolchildren. Read More Facebook

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Talking schools with L.A. Unifieds new superintendent By Anna M. Phillips Austin Beutner, who officially starts Tuesday as the new superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, is taking on a famously difficult job at a particularly difficult time. The school board is divided and did not back him unanimously. The nations second-largest school district has deep-seated problems, including declining enrollment, lagging academic achievement and rising pension and healthcare costs that eat away at its budget. The 58-year-old former investment banker and former L.A. Times publisher has years of experience in the financial world but none as an educator. Earlier this week, he sat down with the Times education team to discuss the challenges facing the district, which has about 60,000 employees and 500,000 students in traditional public schools. He did not talk about his plans  saying repeatedly, stay tuned  but he spoke in broad terms about his mindset in approaching the tough decisions ahead. Read More Facebook

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Suspect detained, authorities search campus after reports of armed man at Palmdale high school By James Queally One person has been detained after a report of an armed man at a Palmdale high school sparked a massive law enforcement response Friday morning. The suspect was spotted at 7:05 a.m. on the campus of Highland High School in Palmdale, according to Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida. The person was detained in a nearby parking lot, according to Nishida, who did not know whether that person was an adult or juvenile. Deputies at the scene are clearing the school methodically, and students will be transported home via school buses once the campus is deemed safe, Nishida said. Read More Facebook

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The education of Bertha Perez: How a UC Merced custodians disenchantment led to a political awakening By Robin Abcarian Its the third day of a three-day strike, and UC Merced custodian Bertha Perez is taking a break from a picket line at the universitys unremarkable entrance, an intersection with stop lights. Photos from other UC campuses this week have shown big crowds of striking service workers  members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees  marching and chanting pro-labor slogans as they try to force the University of California back to the negotiating table. But here, at UC Merced, whose handful of big buildings rise from a flat expanse of farmland, the picket line is tiny, maybe two dozen workers and a few students. Its not a big-city-style show of force. Then again, a union sympathizer is banging relentlessly on a snare drum, so its noisier than youd expect. Read More Facebook

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Ref Rodriguez resigns from teacher credentialing commission By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez appears during a court appearance. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez has resigned from the states Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which oversees the integrity and quality of Californias teachers. Rodriguez faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. Separately, his former employer, a charter school organization, has accused him of improperly authorizing checks to a nonprofit under his control. Rodriguez has denied wrongdoing. Rodriguezs resignation from the state body was effective May 4, days after he cast a crucial vote as part of a narrow majority that voted to authorize contract negotiations with Austin Beutner to become superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District. Beutners first official day on the job is Tuesday. Rodriguez remains in his $125,000-a-year position on the Los Angeles Board of Education. The mission of the state body is to ensure integrity, relevance, and high quality in the preparation, certification, and discipline of Californias teachers. Critics had questioned Rodriguezs continued service on the commission, given that teachers can be suspended from work if they face criminal charges. They also can lose their jobs for lapses in personal behavior, such as excessive drinking, with the potential to affect their performance. Police in Pasadena arrested Rodriguez on a Friday afternoon in March for public drunkenness. He was not charged in the incident and has apologized. The state commission reviews teacher discipline cases and can take action to remove a teachers credential to work in a California classroom. The commission has 15 members. Rodriguezs departure was disclosed in a one-sentence announcement on the agencys website. Facebook

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School board members request for restraining order against blogger is rejected By Priscella Vega An Orange County Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a school board members petition for a permanent restraining order against a Huntington Beach blogger. Attorney Jeffrey W. Shields filed the petition on behalf of Ocean View School District trustee Gina Clayton-Tarvin, 46, who alleged in court documents that Charles Keeler Johnson, 56, has threatened her on social media and at school board meetings, causing her to fear for my own safety and for that of my immediate family members. Johnson, who goes by Chuck and publishes HBSledgehammer.com, said the trustee tried to stifle his freedom of speech. He also contended that Clayton-Tarvin took his blog posts and Facebook comments too seriously and out of context, saying anyone who is afraid of metaphors has serious issues. Read More Facebook

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Deal with workers averts one-day strike that could have shut down L.A. schools By Howard Blume Los Angeles school district and union officials announced a contract agreement Tuesday night that averted a one-day strike planned for next week. The pact, which runs through June 2020, removes one labor problem from the desk of incoming Supt. Austin Beutner  whose first day on the job would have coincided with the strike. Plenty of other challenges remain. Read More Facebook

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UC labor strike expands with show of support from more unions By Teresa Watanabe Fong Chuu is a registered nurse who has assisted with countless liver transplants, kidney surgeries and gastric bypasses during 34 years at UCLA. Working with her are scrub technicians who sterilize equipment, hand medical instruments to the surgeon and dress patient wounds. They are a team, Chuu says, which is why she walked off her job Tuesday in support of those technicians and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299. The 25,000 member AFSCME local, the University of Californias largest employee union, launched a three-day strike Monday. Read More Facebook

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We are humans too: Voices of UCLAs striking custodians, hospital aides and imaging technicians By Joy Resmovits Demonstrators parade in front of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) This week, thousands of UC employees are staging a three-day strike for better pay and working conditions. On Monday, more than 20,000 custodians, cooks, lab technicians, nurse aides and other members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 walked off their jobs. By Tuesday, two more unions joined in sympathy strikes. The union and UC reached a bargaining impasse last year. The university has said it wont meet the workers demands. The strikers said they wanted better pay, more equity in the allocation of work, stable healthcare premiums and an end to the universitys use of contract workers. These are their stories. Read More Facebook

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Massive UC workers strike disrupts dining, classes and medical services By Joy Resmovits A massive labor strike across the University of California on Monday forced medical centers to reschedule more than 12,000 surgeries, cancer treatments and appointments, and campuses to cancel some classes and limit dining services. More than 20,000 members of UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, walked off their jobs on the first day of a three-day strike. They include custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Two altercations involving protesters and people driving near the rallies were reported at UCLA and UC Santa Cruz. At UCLA, police took a man into custody Monday after he drove his vehicle into a crowd, hitting three staff members. They were treated for minor injuries at the scene and released, said Lt. Kevin Kilgore of the UCLA Police Department. Read More Facebook

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Sen. Kamala Harris to skip UC Berkeley commencement in support of striking workers By Teresa Watanabe California Sen. Kamala Harris has canceled plans to deliver UC Berkeleys commencement address this weekend in support of UC workers who are on strike over wages and health benefits. Due to the ongoing labor dispute, Sen. Harris regretfully cannot attend and speak at this years commencement ceremony at UC Berkeley, said a statement from Harris office issued Monday. She wishes the graduates and their families a joyous commencement weekend and success for the future. They are bright young leaders and our country is counting on them. UCs largest employee union, the 25,000-member American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees Local 3299, launched a three-day strike Monday and had earlier called for a speakers boycott. The union and university reached a bargaining impasse last year and subsequent mediation efforts have failed to produce an agreement. The union is asking for a multiyear contract with a 6% annual pay increase while the university is offering 3% annual increases over four years. UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ will deliver the keynote address instead, the university announced. About 5,800 students are expected to participate in the ceremony Saturday. Facebook

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School mural depicting Trumps bloody, severed head sparks controversy By Gary Warth A Chula Vista school mural that depicts the bloody, severed head of President Trump on a spear sparked a controversy that prompted officials to cover it and issue a response distancing themselves from the work. The statement also said the artist will alter the painting. We understand that there was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our schools philosophy of non-violence, read the statement from MAAC Community Charter School director Tommy Ramirez. We have been in communication with the artist  who has agreed to modify the artwork  to better align with the schools philosophy. Read More Facebook

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New blackface incident at Cal Poly prompts calls for state investigation By Kim Christensen Cal Poly San Luis Obispo officials have asked the state attorney generals office to investigate after a new photo of a white student in blackface surfaced on a fraternity groups private Snapchat. I am outraged, Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong said in a video address Friday to the campus. These vile and absolutely unacceptable acts cannot continue. We must not allow these acts to define us as an institution. Armstrong said the latest photo was intended to imitate an incident last month in which a white member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity was photographed at a party wearing blackface. Read More Facebook

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More than 50,000 UC workers set to strike this week but campuses will remain open By Teresa Watanabe More than 50,000 workers across the University of California are set to strike this week, causing potential disruptions to surgery schedules, food preparation and campus maintenance. The systems 10 campuses and five medical centers are to remain open, with classes scheduled as planned. UCs largest employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, plans to begin a three-day strike Monday involving 25,000 workers, including custodians, gardeners, cooks, truck drivers, lab technicians and nurse aides. Read More Facebook

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New L.A. schools chief Beutner pledges to listen, learn and take action By Howard Blume New Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner proved Wednesday that hes a quick learner even without an education background. Like countless public officials before him, he appeared at an important event  his first speech and news conference  with a photogenic background of students. His message  that he would put those students first  seemed heartfelt if hardly original. Nor was it a huge surprise that he pledged to push cooperatively but unflinchingly to improve the districts academic performance and stabilize its finances. As an introduction, Beutner, a former investment banker who made a fortune on Wall Street, offered little flash, but that was partly the point. Read More Facebook

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In a school lockdown, one student takes stock of the stressful scene At the beginning of lunch one day late last month, Duarte High School, Northview Middle School, and California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley were advised by the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department to go into lockdown mode due to police activity in the immediate area. Phalaen Chang, a junior at the California School of the Arts, wrote a series of notes on her iPhone while she sat in a room with her classmates. By the time the lockdown ended an hour later, she wrote, she knew which of her friends would hold open the door for others, be the ones calming others down, be the ones barricading the doors. She knew that all of them have the potential to be such strong people. Read More Facebook

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Tale as old as time: L.A. Unified superintendent pick follows a historical pattern of outside-the-box choices By Joy Resmovits L.A. Unified has long gone back and forth between picking insiders and outsiders to run the nations second largest school district. The choice of Austin Beutner, announced Tuesday, places the district squarely back in the outsider camp  months after a consummate insider, Supt. Michelle King, announced that she had cancer and would not return to the job. Check out this timeline of former L.A. superintendents to see how the school board members have changed their minds, sometimes favoring leaders who come from the world of education and sometimes executives from elsewhere, recruited to shock the system into change. At one point, the district hired someone from the military  retired Navy Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, who served as superintendent from 2006-2008. In hiring Brewer, board members had opted for a non-educator  largely because they sought a fresh thinker, unwedded to the bureaucracy, unafraid to make bold, even unorthodox moves, reads a 2008 Times story. Facebook

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Austin Beutner named superintendent of Los Angeles schools By Howard Blume Austin Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker, on Tuesday was named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nations second-largest school system. His selection was the biggest move yet by a Los Angeles school board majority elected with major support from charter school advocates. The decision came after lengthy public testimony, most of it in support of the other remaining finalist, interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian, who is well known within the school system. Beutner, 58, has no background leading a school or school district. Less than 2 years ago, a school board with a very different balance of power named Michelle King, a former teacher who rose through the district throughout her career, to L.A. Unifieds top job. Read More Facebook

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Hearing delay gives both sides more time in Ref Rodriguezs potential trial By Howard Blume Ref Rodriguez and his attorneys will have more time to prepare their defense against charges of political money laundering, a judge ruled Monday. The preliminary hearing in the case had been scheduled to begin May 9, but that date will now be pushed back to July 23 per the ruling from L.A. Superior Court Judge Deborah S. Brazil. Rodriguez, 46, faces three felony charges of conspiracy, perjury and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school board poised to name Beutner as superintendent By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is poised to select philanthropist and former investment banker Austin Beutner to be the next superintendent of the nations second-largest school system. Barring a last-minute development, the only mystery is whether Beutner emerges with four or five votes from the boards seven members. Terms of his contract already have been under discussion, according to sources close to the process who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak. The selection of Beutner, 58, who has no experience managing a school or a school district, would be a signal that the board majority that took control nearly a year ago wants to rely on business management skills instead of insider educational expertise. Read More Facebook

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Teacher walkouts in Arizona and Colorado continue national debate on money for schools By Michael Livingston Following the lead of teachers who walked off the job in other states in recent weeks, thousands of teachers and their supporters took to the streets in Arizona and Colorado for the second day in a row to demand better pay and more funding for education. Read More Facebook

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Three decades before the #MeToo movement, UC San Diego led the way against sexual assault By Teresa Watanabe When Nancy Wahlig first started her fight against sexual assault, one company was marketing a capsule for women to stash in their bras and then smash to release a vile odor. Because of the very nature of society, the only person who can prevent rape is the woman herself, read a 1981 advertisement for the Repulse rape deterrent. Ideas about how to prevent sexual violence have come a long way since then, and Wahlig has helped lead that evolution on college campuses. In 1988, she started UC San Diegos Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC), the first stand-alone program at the University of California. Today, she remains the systems most senior specialist. Read More Facebook

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Andres Alonso withdraws from consideration for L.A. schools job By Howard Blume Andres Alonso, believed to be one of three remaining finalists to lead the Los Angeles school system, has withdrawn from consideration. The remaining known candidates in the confidential search are former investment banker Austin Beutner and interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian. Alonso, 60, announced his decision on Twitter on Thursday night, saying he had notified the L.A. Unified School District on Monday. The exit of Alonso, the former Baltimore schools chief, seems to solidify the front-runner status of Beutner, who also was a former L.A. Times publisher and a Los Angeles deputy mayor. He held each of those positions for about a year. Read More Facebook

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Heres why the apparent increase in autism spectrum disorders may be good for U.S. children By Karen Kaplan The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder among American children continues to rise, new government data suggest. And that may be a good thing. Among 11 sites across the U.S. where records of 8-year-olds are scrutinized in detail, 1 in 59 kids was deemed to have ASD in 2014. Thats up from 1 in 68 in 2012. Normally, health officials would prefer to see less of a disease, not more of it. But in this case, the higher number is probably a sign that more children of color who are on the autism spectrum are being recognized as such and getting services to help them, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More Facebook

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UC shelves tuition increase for now, in hopes of getting more state funding By Teresa Watanabe University of California regents will not vote on a tuition increase next month, shelving the plan for now in hopes that state lawmakers will come through with more funding. Raising tuition is always a last resort and one we take very seriously, UC President Janet Napolitano said Thursday in a statement. We will continue to advocate with our students who are doing a tremendous job of educating legislators about the necessity of adequately funding the university to ensure UC remains a world-class institution and engine of economic growth for our state. Last week, Cal State Chancellor Timothy P. White said the 23-campus system no longer would consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year. But unlike Cal State, UC officials have not taken a tuition increase off the table entirely. Read More Facebook

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A chemical spill, unchecked eyewash stations, poor training: Audit details Cal States lax lab safety By Joy Resmovits In May 2016, two bottles tumbled off a poorly supported shelf and broke, leading to a chemical spill in a Sacramento State University lab. The liquid got onto one students legs and soaked anothers feet. Five employees cleaned up the mess, even though no one knew for sure what it was and whether it was dangerous. They called fellow employee Kim Harrington, their union representative, to let her know what happened. Read More Facebook

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After blackface incident, minority students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo say they dont feel welcome By Hailey Branson-Potts Aaliyah Ramos was walking through the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus last year when a prospective student approached her. Ramos was the only black person, the young woman said, that she and her mother had seen that day. They asked about the quality of education and the diversity of the student body. Ramos, a mechanical engineering student, didnt want to sugarcoat the truth: Cal Poly long has been predominantly white. But she told the young woman  who also was black  that she didnt want to discourage her from applying, because that wouldnt help with diversity at a school where only 0.7% of students are African American  the lowest percentage of any university in the California State system. Read More Facebook

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El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills wins the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon By Carlos Lozano El Camino Real Charter High School in Woodland Hills has won the 2018 U.S. Academic Decathlon, officials said. The winner was announced early Saturday at a ceremony in Frisco, Texas. More than 600 students from the U.S., Canada, China and the United Kingdom gathered there over the last three days to compete in the 37th annual U.S. Academic Decathlon. Congratulations to El Camino Real Charter High School for another impressive victory, said Vivian Ekchian, interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Your academic stamina and competitive spirit to win is remarkable. The entire L.A. Unified family is so proud of you. Read More Facebook

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Anticipation mounts as L.A. school board meets over superintendent selection By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education is reconvening in closed session Friday at noon as anticipation mounts about the choice of the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. The presumed front-runner is former investment banker and philanthropist Austin Beutner, but interim Supt. Vivian Ekchian and former Baltimore Supt. Andres Alonso also are in the running. Most district insiders appear to be rooting for Ekchian, who has spent her entire career in education within the school system. After her 10 years as a teacher, her roles have included head of human resources, chief labor negotiator and regional administrator for campuses in the west San Fernando Valley. Shes managed the district since September, when then-Supt. Michelle King went on medical leave and chose Ekchian to fill in for her. King, who is battling cancer, never returned and announced her retirement in January. Numerous influential civic leaders have urged  and pressured  the board to select Beutner. Also lending their weight have been advocates for charter schools, which are independently operated, growing in number and competing for students with district-operated campuses. Four of the seven board members  enough to control the outcome  were elected with major financial support from charter supporters. Beutner has two ongoing connections with the L.A. Unified School District. The first is his leadership of an outside task force that is making recommendations on how to improve the school system. The second is his charity, Vision to Learn, which supplies glasses to low-income students. The charity and the school system are in a dispute at the moment over who is responsible for delays in providing services to students as part of a $6 million contract, half of which is paid for by L.A. Unified. Unlike Ekchian and Buetner, Alonso, who currently teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has no deep-seated local constituency, but the prospect of his selection has generated some excitement. While in Baltimore, Alonso was recognized for pushing for progress at low-performing schools, and for being willing to take strong action. While in Baltimore, he also weathered a test-score cheating scandal and occasionally rocky relations with the teachers union. But by the time he resigned, after six years, he and union leaders seemed to be working together without rancor. Leaders of some community groups have split from the pro-Beutner camp. They worry that Beutners approach to confronting the districts financial problems could shut out their voices or involve severe economic cutbacks that would undermine programs that are helping students. Some prefer Ekchian; some Alonso. Theyve been reluctant to speak out publicly because theyll have to work with whoever is selected, but they have tried to get the ear of board members. On Friday morning, one leader of a community group decided to come out in favor of Alonso. L.A. Unified has the opportunity to bring in an instructional leader of color with a history of success, said Alberto Retana, president and chief executive of Community Coalition, which works on behalf of low-income students and families in South Los Angeles. If we have a shot at that, we should go for it  because its in the best interests of our kids and of our community. Retana said his statement was not meant to criticize Beutner or Ekchian but to alert board members that there also is community support for Alonso. Facebook

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Cal State leader shelves proposed tuition hike: Its the right thing to do, but its not without risk By Joy Resmovits Cal State, the nations largest public university system, will no longer consider a plan to raise tuition for the 2018-19 academic year, Chancellor Timothy P. White announced Friday. The decision is a bet that Sacramento will come through in the end. If Cal State loses that bet, it could mean cuts to campus programs. White said in an interview that Californias economy is strong enough that families should not be shouldering the burden of higher college costs. Read More Facebook

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L.A. students to participate in national walkout activities on Friday By Joy Resmovits Students are taking to the streets again Friday to protest gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting. Starting at 10 a.m., students at many schools will spend 13 seconds honoring the 13 people  12 students and one teacher  killed on that day in Littleton, Colo. After that, theyll participate in a host of different activities. Within L.A. Unified, one school is having an open-mic event for students to talk about school violence, and lawmakers are visiting campuses to hear students thoughts. According to a central hub for organizing the protests  written by the students of Ridgefield High School in Connecticut  the walkouts are intended to drive the political change necessary to curb school violence. The day is also a time for students to interact on an elevated platform they have never had before, the site states. It is a day of discourse and thoughtful sharing. Bringing together communities and students to get a national discussion rolling. Organizers have suggested using the event to convey the importance of curbing gun violence to legislators. They are encouraging students to push legislation that would ban assault weapons and tighten up rules around who can buy guns and how. Over 2,500 schools nationwide are expected to participate. In L.A., some students  at campuses including Eagle Rock High School, the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts and Bravo Medical Magnet  plan to walk out. Students from various schools expect to join area marches, including those in Santa Monica and Huntington Park. Other schools are hosting career days and voter registration drives. At 1 p.m., students plan to start a rally in front of L.A. Unified headquarters. For the record: An earlier version of this article stated that 12 teachers and one student were killed in the Columbine shooting. The opposite is true: twelve students and one teacher died. Facebook

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Stabbing of popular student devastates South El Monte High School; teen friend suspected in slaying By Sonali Kohli When administrators at South El Monte High School called Jeremy Sanchezs parents to say he never showed up for class Wednesday, his father began to worry. It was unusual for the 17-year-old junior to miss school, so his father filed a missing persons report and assembled two of Jeremys close friends to look for the popular student-athlete. Their search took them to a scenic stretch of the San Gabriel River Trail, where one of the friends  a 16-year-old boy  made a tragic discovery. Among the bushes in the riverbed near Thienes Avenue and Parkway Drive was Jeremys body, punctured with stab wounds, according to Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. Read More Facebook

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Racist fliers spark outrage at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo By Alene Tchekmedyian Soon after Neal MacDougall arrived on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus Tuesday, the professor noticed university police standing outside a restroom near his office. A racial slur against African Americans had been scrawled in red marker on a stall wall. Later, he discovered a series of racist fliers pinned up next to his door. Someone had also slashed posters hed hung outside his office supporting students in the country illegally. The discovery was the latest controversy on the prestigious campus  which the president said is less than 55% white  that MacDougall said demonstrates a culture of racism at the university. Last week, photographs emerged of white fraternity members, including one in blackface, flashing gang signs. Read More Facebook

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The superintendent waiting game, paying for L.A.'s College Promise, Princetons slave history: Whats new in education By Joy Resmovits Acting LAUSD superintendent Vivian Ekchian is a finalist for the permanent job. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) In and around Los Angeles: The L.A. Unified school board spent 10 hours interviewing and discussing candidates for superintendent. When they adjourned after 10 p.m., they said they would reconvene on Friday. Who is paying for Mayor Eric Garcettis much-touted College Promise, a program that promises two years of community college for LAUSD grads? In California: The Legislature is considering a proposal that would boost K-12 education funding for black students. When the cost of living is taken into account, California has the highest rate of child poverty. Nationwide: The families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School are suing Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never occurred. Princeton will name two spaces  an arch and a garden  after slaves who lived or worked on the campus. Facebook

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L.A. school board meets privately with finalists and debates choice for school district leader By Howard Blume The Los Angeles Board of Education adjourned late Tuesday after spending more than 10 hours interviewing candidates and trying to reach a decision on who would be the next leader of the nations second-largest school system. When the meeting finally recessed at 10:11 p.m., a spokesman announced only that the school board would reconvene Friday at noon. Going into the days meetings, there were apparently four finalists, according to sources who could not be named because they were unauthorized to speak. Read More Facebook

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Two Sandy Hook families sue Alex Jones and Infowars for saying the school massacre never happened By David Altimari Families of two children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School have filed lawsuits in Texas against controversial radio host Alex Jones for continually claiming the massacre never happened. Neil Heslin, the father of Jesse Lewis, and Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah Pozner died in the massacre, filed separate lawsuits late Monday in Travis County, Texas. The lawsuits allege that Jones defamed the parents by constantly calling them crisis actors and insisting the shooting was a false flag operation; they also claim Jones accusations have led to death threats against the Sandy Hook families by Jones followers. Read More Facebook

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Beutner emerges as a top pick for L.A. schools superintendent amid last-minute jockeying By Howard Blume Austin Beutner has emerged as a leading contender to run the Los Angeles school district, with backers saying he is smart enough and tough enough to confront its financial and academic struggles. Though he does not have a background in education, the former investment banker has in the last year examined some of the districts intractable problems, serving as co-chair of an outside task force with the support of then-Supt. Michelle King. Sources inside and outside the school district said Beutner appears to have more support on the seven-member board than other finalists, and his name could come up for a vote as early as Tuesday. Read More Facebook

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Challenge at Chicago school construction site: Watch for 38,000 unmarked graves By Nereida Moreno A 15-year effort to build a school in Chicagos Dunning neighborhood is underway with an unusual complication: Construction workers are taking careful steps to avoid disturbing human remains that may lie beneath the soil. The $70-million school is to be built on the grounds of a former Cook County Poor House, where an estimated 38,000 people were buried in unmarked graves. Among the dead are residents who were too poor to afford funeral costs, unclaimed bodies and patients from the countys insane asylum. There can be and there have been bodies found all over the place, said Barry Fleig, a genealogist and cemetery researcher who began investigating the site in 1989. Its a spooky, scary place. Read More Facebook

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Oklahoma teacher walkout winds down despite lawmakers failure to meet demands By Washington Post Oklahomas largest teachers union has announced an end to a walkout that has drawn thousands of educators out of classrooms and to the state Capitol demanding greater investment in the states schools, which have endured the nations steepest funding cuts. The announcement Thursday from the Oklahoma Education Assn. does not necessarily end the protests at the Capitol, as teachers not affiliated with the union vowed to stay longer. Instead of a walkout, the union and school districts across the state have said they plan to send delegations of teachers to Oklahoma City to keep the pressure on lawmakers. Teachers and their supporters have also promised to push education issues to the forefront of November elections, when the state chooses a new governor. As school districts begin to reopen, the protests may lose steam. The Legislature is not in session Friday, and observers are waiting to see what happens Monday, when lawmakers return. Read More Facebook

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Most Californians are worried about school shooting threats and oppose arming teachers, survey finds By Joy Resmovits Hamilton High School student Aiyana Dabriel holds a sign during a March 14 walkout in support of the Parkland shooting victims. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) Most Californians are worried that a school shooting like the one that occurred in Parkland, Fla., in February could shed blood closer to home, a new survey found. Some 73% percent of adults and 82% of public school parents said they were very concerned or somewhat concerned about school shootings. The Public Policy Institute of California surveyed 1,704 adults in the state by phone just after the March for Our Lives protest against gun violence. Latino and black respondents were significantly more likely to be concerned about school violence than white or Asian respondents, the institute found. Two-thirds of adults and public school parents said they opposed letting more educators carry weapons in school. The response differed across party lines, with 86% of Democrats and 69% of independents voicing their opposition, while 60% percent of Republicans said they would support a measure to arm educators. The poll, which had a margin of error of 3.2% in either direction, also asked Californians about school funding, educational issues in the governors race and the impact of immigration enforcement on students. You can find the full results here. Facebook

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Californias largest virtual charter school network agrees to contract with its teachers By Anna M. Phillips Nearly four years after teachers at Californias largest online charter school voted to unionize, they have reached a deal to increase pay and create job protections, according to a spokesman for the California Teachers Assn. The contract, which is still tentative and subject to ratification, is a victory for the teachers union. Although charter schools are publicly funded, most are privately managed and their employees arent protected by labor contracts. Under the terms of the contract  the result of years of negotiation and legal wrangling  approximately 500 teachers working for California Virtual Academies will no longer be at-will employees who can be dismissed for almost any reason. Their average salary will rise to just over $45,000, according to union estimates, a figure that remains far below the norm for traditional public school teachers. Still, it is an improvement over the previous average of $38,000. The accord also places a limit on the number of students each teacher is responsible for monitoring in online homeroom classes. Were very satisfied with the gains we made, said teacher Brianna Carroll, president of California Virtual Educators United. I think were going to see some extraordinary changes in our schools. According to Carroll, teachers at California Virtual Academies  better known as CAVA  had grown frustrated with the organizations foot-dragging and were making preparations to go on strike when CAVAs leadership agreed to the deal. CAVA and K12, the Virginia-based for-profit company linked to its schools, did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday asking for comment. The network currently operates nine virtual charter schools across California. In 2016, the charter network agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle claims of false advertising, misleading parents and inadequate instruction. The state attorney generals office had also accused K12 of controlling the charters for its own financial benefit. Neither CAVA nor K12 admitted to wrongdoing in the settlement. A year later, the state imposed a $2-million fine on CAVA after an audit found that it had misspent public funds. The network disputed the findings. Facebook

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School board approves a new formula for funding high-need schools By Sonali Kohli L.A. schools will soon get more money if they are located in neighborhoods with such problems as high levels of gun violence and asthma. The Los Angeles Unified school board voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt a new formula to determine how to dole out some funding to schools, based not only on the characteristics of the student populations but on the traumas that affect the communities around campuses. The new formula will be applied to $25 million in funding next fiscal year and about $263 million annually in future years  a small part of the districts $7.5 billion annual budget. Read More Facebook

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Protesters demand Ref Rodriguez resignation outside school board meeting By Sonali Kohli Students, parents, teachers and UTLA marching outside the board meeting chanting "Ref resign" pic.twitter.com/W0LRWZSIXY  Sonali Kohli  (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 A few dozen parents, students and teachers marched outside the Los Angeles Unified School Board meeting Tuesday, some calling for board member Ref Rodriguez to resign the week after news broke that he was taken into custody on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena bar and restaurant. Rodriguez was not cited or charged in that incident, but was held for more than five and a half hours before being released. The school board member faces felony and misdemeanor charges for political money laundering. He is accused of getting more than two dozen people people to donate to his campaign for his school board seat with the understanding that he would reimburse them. He stepped down from his post as school board president after he was charged last fall, but he did not give up his seat on the board. He has pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of conspiracy, perjury, and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, as well as 25 misdemeanor counts related to the alleged campaign money laundering. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May. He cant give his full focus to our students, said Rebecca LaFond, a Highland Park parent whose three children marched with her as she chanted, Ref resign. One daughter marched in front of her, using a drum stick to hit the bottom of a gallon-size empty water jug. Our kids deserve someone who has the utmost ethical standards representing them, LaFond said. The protests continued into the board meeting, where some addressed Rodriguez directly, calling on him to step down during public comment portions of the meeting. Rodriguez, through his chief of staff, declined to comment. Some parents outside the board meeting did not know about the charges against Rodriguez but came out to protest the possibility of sharing their school campuses with charter schools. Protesters also oppose colocation  not all of the parents are here to ask Ref Rodriguez to step down pic.twitter.com/1Co8zQ9zSi  Sonali Kohli  (@Sonali_Kohli) April 10, 2018 Cynthia Martinez said her son, who goes to Christopher Dena Elementary School in Boyle Heights, has been bullied in the past by students from a charter school sharing the campus. She said she didnt know who Rodriguez was. Some parents and teachers are worried about losing computer labs, robotics rooms and fitness centers if they are required to share their campus with charter schools, said Ilse Escobar, a parent community organizer for United Teachers Los Angeles. The issues of Rodriguez and colocation are related, Escobar said. Rodriguez is part of a majority on the school board elected with financial backing from charter school supporters, and many parents, she said, feel that the school board is compromised if he is a part of it. Staff reporter Howard Blume contributed to this post. Facebook

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Delaine Eastin tries to gain momentum in the California governors race, one voter at a time By Seema Mehta Delaine Eastin was a sophomore in high school when a drama teacher urged her to try out for a part in The Man Who Came to Dinner. She hesitated until he told her: This is a metaphor for your whole life. If you never try out, you will never get the part. Eastin auditioned and won the role. Decades later, the advice sticks with the former state schools chief, this time in her unlikely run for governor. Despite calls for more women in leadership roles in state politics following sexual misconduct allegations in Sacramento, Eastin has been largely overlooked in the race, lagging far behind her Democratic rivals in fundraising and the polls. Read More Facebook

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Arizona high court rejects in-state tuition for DACA recipients By Associated Press Young immigrants granted deferred deportation status under a program started by President Obama are not eligible for lower in-state college tuition, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Monday. The unanimous ruling will affect at least 2,000 students attending the states largest community college district and hundreds more at other colleges and the states three public universities. The Maricopa County Community Colleges District and state universities said they would begin raising tuition immediately for the coming school year. Read More Facebook

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New York high school students injured when bus strikes overpass By Associated Press A charter bus carrying teenagers returning from a spring break trip Sunday night struck a bridge overpass on Long Island, seriously injuring six passengers and mangling the entire length of the top of the bus. The crash happened shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday on the Southern State Parkway in Lakeview, according to New York State Police. One of the six injured passengers had very serious injuries, said State Police Maj. David Candelaria. Thirty-seven other passengers suffered minor injuries. Read More Facebook

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Some good news for California in national student test scores By Joy Resmovits Every two years, the nations fourth- and eighth-graders are tested in math and reading  and newly released results from last years tests give California at least a little reason to be pleased. The 2017 results  out Monday night  were mostly flat nationwide compared with 2015, though the average score in eighth-grade reading went up. But while that improvement largely came from the increased scores of the highest-performing students, California eighth-graders showed some reading progress from the lowest levels to the highest. Read More Facebook

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Under state control, Inglewood school districts financial picture worsened By Anna M. Phillips When Eugenio Villa agreed to return to the Inglewood schools for a second tour last summer, he knew the district remained one of Californias most troubled. Inglewood Unified had been nearly insolvent when it was taken over by the state Department of Education in 2012. Six years later, its enrollment was still declining. Its school buildings were tired  some edging into decrepitude. Its test scores and graduation rates were still below the state average. And the public was out of patience. Still, Villa, who had signed back on as the districts chief business official, was shocked at what he found when he arrived in June 2017. Two years earlier, he had left the school system on what he thought was firm ground. Read More Facebook

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Charter school group drops two lawsuits against L.A. Unified By Howard Blume A charter schools advocacy group last week announced that it would end two long-running lawsuits in which it was seeking more classroom space and construction money from the Los Angeles school district. The decision, the California Charter Schools Assn. said, reflects better relations between charter schools and the L.A. Unified School District. But the move also suggests that the litigation, which already contributed to significant gains for area charters, was unlikely to produce much more. It takes time, money and effort to litigate, said Ricardo Soto, general counsel for the charter group. Maybe its better to see if we can find the time and opportunity for collaboration. Read More Facebook

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L.A. school board member Ref Rodriguez is arrested on suspicion of public intoxication By Richard Winton Los Angeles school board member Ref Rodriguez was arrested recently on suspicion of being drunk in public at a Pasadena restaurant, the latest trouble for an elected official who faces political money-laundering charges. Pasadena police took Rodriguez into custody on March 16, according to city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian. Officers arrested Rodriguez at about 4:30 p.m. at the Yard House restaurant and bar at the Paseo Mall and held him in jail for more than five-and-a-half hours. Rodriguez was ultimately released without being cited or charged, Derderian told The Times. Other details about the arrest were not available, she said. Read More Facebook

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Kentucky teachers rally at Capitol over state budget By Associated Press Thousands of Kentucky teachers filled the streets near the state Capitol in Frankfort on a cold, overcast Monday to rally for education funding. Teachers and other school employees gathered outside the Kentucky Education Assn. a couple of blocks from the Capitol chanting, Stop the war on public education and holding or posting signs that say, Weve Had Enough. Were madder than hornets, and the hornets are swarming today, said Claudette Green, a retired teacher and principal. Read More Facebook

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More than 80 firefighters are battling a brush fire on the edge of Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, authorities said. There were no evacuations.

As of 12:11 p.m. most of flames were extinguished and firefighters were continuing to address hot spots and cut scratch lines, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The Beverly Hills Fire Department provided support and the L.A. County Fire Department provided a helicopter and four camp crews, according to an L.A. city fire statement.

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The Los Angeles Fire Department received a call about the fire near 1728 Monte Cielo Court at 11:33 a.m., and it initially covered around an acre. Helicopter news footage showed flames close to a home.

Beverly Hills police shut down traffic on Coldwater Canyon Road between Heather Road and North Beverly Drive and are asking the public to avoid the area, according to a Beverly Hills police alert.

Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.
One woman was killed and seven people were wounded, several critically, when a man opened fire Sunday at a San Diego apartment complex swimming pool where a number of adults were attending a birthday party.

Police rushed to the apartment building in the University City area and fatally shot the man after he pointed his gun at officers, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said.

Authorities received several calls just after 6 p.m. about the shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments, an upscale complex in the 9000 block of Judicial Drive.

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Update: Gunman in San Diego apartment complex shooting was a car mechanic who had filed for bankruptcy>>

1 / 35 Walking to their press conference, victims who were at the shooting during a birthday party celebration last Sunday at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments, called for a press conference to speak with the news reporters. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 35 Lauren Chapman who was at the birthday party celebration last Sunday at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City, believes that Sundays shooting was a hate crime. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 35 Many of those who were at the last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City stood holding hands as they answered questions from news reporters. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 35 Mychael Gary who was at the birthday celebration was the first to speak with new reporters about last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 35 Haley Thames answers question from the news reporters about the last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City. L-R, Mychael Gary, Haley Thames and Allison Latta. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - A view of the corner of the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where Peter Selis, 49, opened fire on a birthday party on Sunday. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - Bullet holes are patched up in the pool area near where Peter Selis was sitting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday. Selig was shot and killed by police after he shot party goers at the pool. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - Bullet holes are patched up in the pool area near where Peter Selis was sitting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday. Selig was shot and killed by police after he shot party goers at the pool. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 35 The pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City was the scene of a shooting on Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, who was seated in the lower left, opened fire on a group having a birthday party at the lower right. Seven adults were shot, one fatally. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 35 The pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City was the scene of a shooting on Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, who was seated in the lower left, opened fire on a group having a birthday party at the lower right. Seven adults were shot, one fatally. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 35 Crews clean up blood on the ground at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where a mass shooting took placeSunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people in the pool area. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 35 Blood covers the ground near where Peter Selis, 49, sat and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 16 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 17 / 35 Peoples belongings remain at the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 18 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 19 / 35 Blood covers the ground near where Peter Selis, 49, sat and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 20 / 35 Peter Selis, 49, sat in this area and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 21 / 35 Crews clean up blood on the ground at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where a mass shooting took placeSunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people in the pool area. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 22 / 35 At the La Jolla Crossroads Apartments in La Jolla, SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman along with San Diego Mayor, Kevin Faulconer brief news reportrs on a gunman shooting 7 victims at the complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 23 / 35 A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 24 / 35 Drew Phillips witnessed the shooter reloading at an apartment complex in University City where the shooter eventually shot 7 victims in the swimming pool area. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 25 / 35 A crowd gathers at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 26 / 35 A unidentified woman is taken away by ambulance near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 27 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman briefs news reporters at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 28 / 35 A SDPD officers position t hemselves near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 29 / 35 A SDPD officer stops to question a couple near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 30 / 35 A unidentified woman is taken away by ambulance near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 31 / 35 A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 32 / 35 SDPD police officers tape off the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 33 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 34 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 35 / 35 A crowd gathers at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The reports were grim: A white man wearing brown shorts was armed with a gun and shooting at what two witnesses described as approximately 30 people around the pool, most of them African American.

A police helicopter reached the area first and, from above, authorities could see a shooter near the pool who appeared to be reloading his weapon, Zimmerman said.

Three police officers arrived and went to the pool area. There, the gunman pointed what authorities described as a large caliber handgun at police, and all three officers opened fire. The gunman, identified as Peter Selis, 49, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Seven people, all adults, were hit by gunfire: four black women, two black men and a Latino man. A woman later died at the hospital. Her name was not released. A man broke his arm while fleeing the shooting, Zimmerman said.

It was unclear what motivated the shooting and police were still interviewing witnesses, including the responding officers. Zimmerman said the gunman and at least one of the partygoers lived at the apartment complex.

A resident at the complex told KFMB-TV, the CBS affiliate in San Diego, that he was in his apartment about 6 p.m. when he heard gunshots followed by yelling and screams. He said he ran to his buildings clubhouse, where he could see the pool.

The shooter seemed at ease, he said, while bloodied victims struggled.

He had his beer in one hand and his gun in the other, said the witness, who provided only his first name, John, to the news station. There were two victims lying on the ground, one trying to crawl toward the other one to help.

Police said the eight victims were taken to the hospital. Witnesses said the group appeared to be celebrating a birthday party in the pool area.

Amberjot Riat, 22, and Kaela Wong, 20, were in the jacuzzi at the apartment complex when the gunfire erupted. Riat said they stayed in the water in hopes of avoiding the shooters attention.

After leaving the jacuzzi, they said, they moved to a wall and heard the gunman speak to young women who were tending to a wounded friend. You can either leave or you can stay here and die, he reportedly told them.

Police were unsure if Selis knew any of the victims.

Records show Selis filed for bankruptcy in 2015. He listed his occupation as car mechanic for a San Diego Ford dealership and said he had two children and a stepson, according to a petition filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts Southern District of California.

A photo of Pete Selis on the dealerships website shows a heavy man with receding black hair smiling at the camera.

Police set up a reunification center near Judicial and Golden Haven drives for loved ones seeking information about family and friends.

San Diego Union-Tribune staff writers Karen Kucher, Lyndsay Winkley and Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Twitter: @MattHjourno

UPDATES:

11:35 p.m.: This article was updated with background on the gunman from court papers.

10:55 p.m.: This article was updated with the identity of the shooter and confirmation that one victim has died.

9:45 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from witnesses Amberjot Riat and Kaela Wong.

8:50 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the victims and the shooting.

This article was originally published at 7:05 p.m.
A Los Angeles police officer who Chief Charlie Beck says should be criminally charged for shooting an unarmed man in Venice is now facing new allegations: that he committed domestic violence against two women in Orange County.

Prosecutors have charged Clifford Proctor with misdemeanor battery in connection with a September incident in Huntington Beach, marking the latest controversy to embroil the nine-year LAPD veteran.

The Los Angeles County district attorneys office is weighing whether to charge Proctor in the 2015 shooting of Brendon Glenn during a scuffle near the Venice boardwalk. The killing was one of the most high-profile shootings by Los Angeles police in recent years and prompted Beck  for the first time as chief  to recommend criminal charges against an officer in an on-duty shooting.

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The nearly two-year review by the district attorneys office has frustrated some residents, who have marched and circulated petitions demanding that Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey prosecute the officer.

Proctor, who has pleaded not guilty to the domestic violence charges in Orange County, appeared in a Westminster courtroom for a brief hearing on April 21. Unlike the clean-cut officer photographed at the shooting scene, he now had long hair and a salt-and-pepper beard.

Outside the courthouse, he declined to comment on the charges, except to say he did not see a correlation with the shooting being reviewed in Los Angeles. When asked about Becks remarks about the shooting, Proctor kept walking.

Chief Beck, he has to do what he has to do, he said. And he has to say what he has to say.

Exactly what led to the domestic violence charges remains unclear. Huntington Beach police and the Orange County district attorneys office have denied repeated requests for more information. The complaint does not fully identify the women; at least one has sought a restraining order against Proctor, but that request was sealed by the court.

It is the second time since the 2015 shooting that Proctor has been the focus of a criminal investigation.

Last year, while he was on leave following the deadly encounter, investigators from the LAPDs internal affairs division presented a case to Los Angeles prosecutors alleging he had been working a side job.

Proctor was allegedly not at home when he was supposed to be, according to a memo from the district attorneys office. The document gives sparse details about the accusation, but says investigators estimated the city had lost about $1,770 as a result.

The D.A.s office declined to file charges, citing the nominal basis for criminal liability and the fact that the alleged financial loss fell short of the threshold of a felony. District attorneys officials instead referred the case to city prosecutors, who said there was insufficient evidence to warrant a criminal filing.

During his career, Proctor has been the subject of at least one other criminal inquiry, focused on whether he filed a false police report after making an arrest in November 2012, according to another D.A.s memo. Although Proctor had omitted witness statements from the report  because they conflicted with what the victim had said, he told a detective  prosecutors ultimately decided he hadnt committed a crime.

Brendon Glenns sister looks through pictures of her brother as their mother, Sheri Camprone, looks on. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

Proctor shot Glenn on May 5, 2015, as he and his partner tried to take the 29-year-old into custody after police say he started yelling at patrons and pushed a bouncer outside a bar on Windward Avenue. Glenn, a New York native, had been staying near the boardwalk during a yearlong trip to find work and adventure in California, his family says.

Proctor told investigators he opened fire because he saw Glenns hand on his partners holster and thought he was going for the gun, according to a report from Beck. But video from a security camera at the bar, along with statements from Proctors partner, contradicted that account, the report said.

The footage didnt show Glenns hand on or near any portion of the holster, the report said. Proctors partner never made any statements or actions suggesting Glenn was trying to take the gun and told investigators he never saw or felt Glenns hand near the weapon, the report added.

The video has not been made public.

Soon after the shooting, Beck put Proctor on paid leave from the LAPD. At some point, the department stopped paying him. His employment status is unclear; the department did not answer inquiries made last week.

In January 2016, Beck revealed that he had suggested that Lacey pursue criminal charges against Proctor. Three months later, the Police Commission ruled the shooting unjustified. At the end of the year, the city agreed to settle lawsuits filed by Glenns family  his mother and young son  for $4 million.

Lacey and her office have not said whether they plan to prosecute the officer. A spokeswoman said last week that the case was still being reviewed.

Rick Rhoads is one of the people frustrated by the delay. He attends services at the Unitarian Universalist Community Church of Santa Monica  located about four miles from where Glenn was killed  and leads a church group that has urged Lacey to file charges.

The church group has organized marches and gathered a few hundred signatures on a petition calling for prosecution, Rhoads said. They recently collected about 360 more signatures, he added, and are hoping to meet with the district attorney to deliver them soon.

When have you ever heard of a police chief saying that the cop should be prosecuted? Rhoads said. This could have been settled so easily without anybody getting shot. Its horrible.

kate.mather@latimes.com

Twitter: @katemather

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The Los Angeles Police Department began laying the groundwork four months ago.

Community organizers were contacted. Plans were shared. Relationships developed.

Through it all, the department had one complicated goal: Be out in force to prevent violence without being the focal point of the May Day protests or becoming part of the drama.

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May Day has long been a key event for political protest in Los Angeles, most notably 10 years ago when police and others clashed at MacArthur Park. That incident became a textbook case of how police should not handle demonstrations, and many of the lessons learned were evident this year.

Authorities were especially concerned about this years May Day, given the rise in activism after the election of Donald Trump, which helped spark violence in Berkeley, Huntington Beach and elsewhere.

But this May Day turned out to be tame. Crowds were relatively modest compared to last year, and the LAPDs strategy of big numbers but minimal interaction appeared to work. Police formed a line on Spring Street that divided pro- and anti-Trump supporters. Insults, and apparently a few plastic bottles, were thrown, but both sides kept the peace.

The police presence was both hard to miss but easy to ignore amid the vocal chants and flag waving, which got all the attention.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said he believed those weeks of preparation  particularly meeting with the various groups to understand their plans and create some ground rules  made a difference.

We spent a lot more time pre-event than we ever have in the past, and thats really important, the chief said.

Its a far cry from what happened 10 years ago, when a rowdy crowd and an ill-prepared police department combined to give the LAPD an expensive black eye.

Officers from the agencys elite Metro Division used batons and fired rubber bullets to disperse what was a predominantly peaceful gathering. Officials said the confrontations were prompted by a group of agitators who threw bottles and other objects at police. Dozens of people, including a number of journalists and officers, were injured. The whole thing was broadcast on television and sparked criticism of LAPDs tactics. The city ended up pay more than $12 million in damages.

A scathing internal LAPD report blamed fateful decisions by police commanders that escalated hostilities and resulted in a widespread breakdown in discipline and behavior by officers.

The LAPD responded with a series of reforms, including some of those employed during the May Day event and several other protests that have occurred in downtown L.A. since Trumps election.

The department won high marks, at least from Trump supporters, who were greatly outnumbered by Trump foes but felt they got their message across.

The LAPD did a real good job of protecting everyones free speech rights, said Ed Baker, a Trump supporter from Antelope Valley, adding that supporters felt more protected in L.A. than in Berkeley, where there have been several clashes between extremists on both sides.

Compared with Berkeley, Mondays protests in L.A. seemed downright tame.

At MacArthur Park, where thousands showed up to rally in the morning, the mood was fervent but festive. Hands beat drums, whistles punctuated the air, a band played from the bed of a large truck. The rough monotone of vuvuzelas buzzed as a group of police officers zipped past on bicycles.

Im proud to be a bad hombre! Tom Morello of the rock band Rage Against the Machine shouted to the crowd before singing a rendition of This Land is Your Land  a song he said was for workers and immigrants.

The group marched to downtown Los Angeles, moving quickly over pavement baked by the sun. Women carried babies on their hips or pushed strollers. Some people danced. Before long, a familiar refrain: El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido, a common stronger together message. And then another: Work, yes. Migra, no!

It felt in some ways like a mashup of previous protests across the country. Some wore T-shirts from the Womens March or that showcased their support for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. A woman carrying a pink Planned Parenthood sign stood next to a man sporting a Climate change is real! shirt and a hat that read FACTS.

The messages had a common target: Trump.

I want him to look this fake news in the face, said 12-year-old Joseph Moreno of Huntington Park, who arrived with his aunt and held a poster that read, If you build a wall, my generation will knock it down.

At Olympic Boulevard and Broadway, where another thousands-strong group marched toward City Hall, a mariachi troupe played rancheras as some demonstrators raised banners that read Unite the Working Class and We Can Resist.

Meanwhile, dozens of Trump supporters were making their way to LAPD headquarters, having gathered at the downtown Federal Building.

I am here to support President Trump as he is the leader of our great country, said Johnny Cadillac, 61, an Army veteran.

Shortly after noon, the group faced off with demonstrators at the corner of 1st and Spring streets where shouts of USA, USA! were matched with Si, Se Puede!

The groups shouted back and forth as a line of LAPD officers in helmets stood between the two crowds.

Nearby, vendors hawked chips, ice cream and bacon-wrapped hot dogs, while onlookers leaned against buildings and took photos.

By midafternoon, authorities estimated that about 15,000 had gathered in downtown Los Angeles, far less than the 100,000-plus they had predicted.

Organizers later put the crowd total at 30,000, but the low numbers were frustrating, said Elizabeth Cordova, 38, who marched the rally route with her mother and husband. Its kind of like embarrassing, because this is our biggest chance to make a difference and to show the government we are not alone.

Similar demonstrations took place across the state and throughout the nation.

Four May Day demonstrators were arrested for breaking into an Alameda County building and hanging a large banner protesting immigration enforcement, authorities said.

Many protesters said it was about honoring their immigrant parents and defending their family. Some brought their children with them for a life lesson.

Among them was Juan Becerra, 58, who waved an American flag while his family stood nearby. He said he encouraged his 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter to attend, because fighting Trumps immigration policies was more important than a day at school.

1 / 24 LAPD officers arrest a protester during a May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 24 Bertha Ramirez, 72 joins thousands preparing to march in May Day immigrationd and labor rallies from MacArthur Park to Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 24 Trump supporters and May Day marchers shout at each other in downtown Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 24 Marchers carry a giant American flag at the start of the May Day march that began at MacArthur Park. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 24 Maria Elena Durazo, center, labor leader, hold hands with immigration attorney Jessica Dominguez, right, in a May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 24 Diana Chavez, Angelica Chavez and Robert Meija, left to right, carry DonaldTrump pinatas as they march on Wilshire Blvd with thousands beginning at MacArthur Park to downtown Los Angeles for the annual May Day march in Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 24 Demonstrators carry signs as they walk on Wilshire Boulevard at the start of the May Day march that began at MacArthur Park. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 24 Anti-Trump protesters yell across the street at supporters as separate May Day marches and rallies converge at First and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles . (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 24 Demonstrators spell out Immigration Reform Now during the May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. ((Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)) 10 / 24 A man carries a cross with his statement during the May Day rally in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 24 Hundreds of marchers make their way up Hills Street during the May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 24 Trump supporters yell at marchers from behind LAPD lines during the May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 24 LAPD officers form a wall between Trump supporters and May day protesters as they converge in downtown Los Angeles (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 24 LAPD officers stand between Trump supporters and people marching in the May Day rally in downtown Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 24 Marchers shout their protests during the May Day rally in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 24 Supporters of President Donald Trump yell across the street at May Day protesters in downtown Los Angeles. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 24 Demonstrators rally during the May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 24 Trump pinatas get a ride during the May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 24 Marchers carry signs as they walk on Hill Street from MacArthur Park to Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 24 Workers take a break on a roof top to watch crowd during May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles TImes) 21 / 24 Marya Ayloush participates in the May Day march in downtown Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 24 LAPD officers form a wall between Trump supporters and May Day protestors as they converge in downtown Los Angeles. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 24 Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti speaks to participants of the May Day march in front of City Hall in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 24 Marchers shout their protests during the May Day rally in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Times staff writers Ruben Vives, Esmeralda Bermudez, Paige St. John, Joseph Serna, Corina Knoll and James Queally contributed to this report.

marisa.gerber@latimes.com

veronica.rocha@latimes.com

kate.mather@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Follow @marisagerber @VeronicaRochaLA and @katemather for crime and police news in California.

UPDATES:

2:10 p.m.: This article was updated to reflect the number of demonstrators and information about Trump supporters.

1:25 p.m.: This article was updated with interviews from protesters.

12:20 p.m.: This article was updated with information about arrests in the Bay Area.

12:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional details from demonstrators at MacArthur Park and comments from LAPD Deputy Chief Robert Arcos.

This article was originally published at 11:15 a.m.
Organized labor and immigration groups are aiming traditional May Day demonstrations in the Bay Area at the Trump administration.

Dockworkers Monday plan to shut down Oaklands waterfront, while demonstrations and marches are set outside federal immigration offices, in front of the Oakland jail and along Bay Area Rapid Transit routes. In conjunction, immigration groups have called on undocumented workers to boycott work, school and shopping, under a social media campaign branded #shutitdown.

Similar demonstrations are planned in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and other major cities.

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In the Bay Area, nearly 70 organizations representing immigration, inmates rights and labor, socialist and environmental causes are supporting a march through Oakland. By Sunday, more than 1,000 individuals had pledged attendance on the Facebook event page hosted by Oakland Sin Fronteras.

The Service Employees International Unions California-based United Service Workers West chapter also called for a general strike. Its members represent some 40,000 service workers, including airport crews, security officers and janitors.

Opposing Trump is not enough. We must stop him, states the Web page created for the strike.

May Day long has been a day of action for the labor movement. This year, Bay Area organizers also seek to protest local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, expansion of the county jail and police adoption of military weapons and tactics.

The call to action posted by Oakland Sin Fronteras echoed that of demonstrators who massed in adjacent Berkeley to oppose a series of provocative conservative speakers: In the Bay Area our communities face increased state and economic violence. Only by building a mass movement in the street that united all of our struggles can we win our fight for justice and dignity.

Similar large demonstrations were held in 2015 but focused on police violence.

Those were largely peaceful until evening, when some demonstrators smashed windows and vandalized vehicles in an Oakland car dealership district.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com
There was something strange about the man seated in the lounge chair at the end of the pool.

He kept quiet, staring straight ahead, while more than two dozen people sipped drinks and barbecued during a 50th birthday party on a pleasant San Diego afternoon.

Demetrius Griffin, 25, took note of him.

It was really hot outside. And he had on kind of a jacket, and a T-shirt under the jacket and some cargo shorts. No computer, no book, said Griffin, who had flown in from Seattle to attend the party.

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The man who was celebrating his birthday Sunday decided to head up to his apartment to grab some more food and drinks for his guests. According to Griffin, the host passed by the quiet man and appeared to say something but got no reply. So he kept walking.

Then the quiet man placed a gun on his lap, Griffin said.

Over the next several minutes, according to witnesses and police, 49-year-old Peter Selis shot seven of the partygoers  one fatally  before he was killed by San Diego police.

During a press briefing Monday, Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said that Selis was despondent over a recent breakup and had called his ex-girlfriend during the shooting rampage.

What started as a celebration of a friends birthday turned into a tragedy of epic proportions, the chief said.

1 / 35 Walking to their press conference, victims who were at the shooting during a birthday party celebration last Sunday at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments, called for a press conference to speak with the news reporters. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 35 Lauren Chapman who was at the birthday party celebration last Sunday at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City, believes that Sundays shooting was a hate crime. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 35 Many of those who were at the last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City stood holding hands as they answered questions from news reporters. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 35 Mychael Gary who was at the birthday celebration was the first to speak with new reporters about last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 35 Haley Thames answers question from the news reporters about the last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City. L-R, Mychael Gary, Haley Thames and Allison Latta. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - A view of the corner of the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where Peter Selis, 49, opened fire on a birthday party on Sunday. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - Bullet holes are patched up in the pool area near where Peter Selis was sitting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday. Selig was shot and killed by police after he shot party goers at the pool. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - Bullet holes are patched up in the pool area near where Peter Selis was sitting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday. Selig was shot and killed by police after he shot party goers at the pool. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 35 The pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City was the scene of a shooting on Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, who was seated in the lower left, opened fire on a group having a birthday party at the lower right. Seven adults were shot, one fatally. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 35 The pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City was the scene of a shooting on Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, who was seated in the lower left, opened fire on a group having a birthday party at the lower right. Seven adults were shot, one fatally. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 35 Crews clean up blood on the ground at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where a mass shooting took placeSunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people in the pool area. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 35 Blood covers the ground near where Peter Selis, 49, sat and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 16 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 17 / 35 Peoples belongings remain at the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 18 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 19 / 35 Blood covers the ground near where Peter Selis, 49, sat and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 20 / 35 Peter Selis, 49, sat in this area and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 21 / 35 Crews clean up blood on the ground at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where a mass shooting took placeSunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people in the pool area. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 22 / 35 At the La Jolla Crossroads Apartments in La Jolla, SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman along with San Diego Mayor, Kevin Faulconer brief news reportrs on a gunman shooting 7 victims at the complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 23 / 35 A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 24 / 35 Drew Phillips witnessed the shooter reloading at an apartment complex in University City where the shooter eventually shot 7 victims in the swimming pool area. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 25 / 35 A crowd gathers at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 26 / 35 A unidentified woman is taken away by ambulance near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 27 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman briefs news reporters at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 28 / 35 A SDPD officers position t hemselves near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 29 / 35 A SDPD officer stops to question a couple near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 30 / 35 A unidentified woman is taken away by ambulance near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 31 / 35 A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 32 / 35 SDPD police officers tape off the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 33 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 34 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 35 / 35 A crowd gathers at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The fact that Selis was white and his victims were either African American or Latino fueled speculation that the attack may have been racially motivated. But Zimmerman said there was zero information to indicate that race played a factor.

The woman who died was identified Monday as Monique Clark. Two of the victims remained hospitalized in critical condition, Zimmerman said.

According to the chief, Selis walked to the pool area about 6 p.m. Sunday and sat in a lounge chair. He opened fire from there, then walked around the pool as he continued to shoot off round after round.

At one point, Zimmerman said, Selis told his ex-girlfriend he had just shot two people. It is apparent that Selis wanted his ex-girlfriend to listen in as he carried out his rampage, the chief said.

The first to be shot, Griffin said, was the guest of honor  who spent his birthday Monday in the hospital after undergoing two surgeries. He was listed in stable condition.

As Selis turned his gun on the crowd, Griffin said, people ran in panic. Griffin tried to flee, but the shock of what was happening left him paralyzed.

I kind of froze because I didnt believe it was real, Griffin said.

When he took off running seconds later, Griffin said, he noticed a woman who had been shot in the legs screaming for help. He and another man dragged her to safety, then Griffin took his shirt off and wrapped it around the womans wounds in attempt to stop the blood.

A resident at the upscale La Jolla Crossroads  in an affluent pocket of the city about two miles from the UC San Diego campus  told KFMB-TV that he had been in his apartment when he heard a series of gunshots and screams. He ran to the buildings clubhouse, from which he could see the pool.

The shooter, who also lived at the complex, seemed at ease, the witness said.

He had his beer in one hand and his gun in the other, he said. There were two victims lying on the ground, one trying to crawl toward the other one to help.

Police received multiple 911 calls at 6:06 p.m., and 20 officers and a police helicopter arrived within minutes, Zimmerman said.

Officers in the helicopter saw Selis standing in the pool area, reloading a large-caliber handgun. As he was approached by a San Diego police sergeant and two patrol officers, Zimmerman said, he shot at them before advancing and pointing the weapon in the officers direction.

All three returned fire. Selis was pronounced dead at the scene.

Selis, who court records show was married with two children and a stepson, was having severe financial problems.

He owed thousands to a number of different medical centers in the San Diego area, and had been subject to claims from a number of credit card companies, according to a 2015 bankruptcy filing. In total, he appeared to be carrying more than $100,000 in debt.

Records also show that Selis had worked as a mechanic at a San Diego Ford dealership since at least 2010. A photo of him on the dealerships website shows a broad-shouldered man with a receding hairline, wearing a half-smile.

On Monday, Zimmerman said that Selis did not have any criminal history. He had legally purchased a .45-caliber Sig Sauer handgun three years ago, the chief said, but she did not specify if that weapon was the one used in the attack.

According to Griffin, Selis did not utter a word before opening fire.

All its ever gonna be is speculation, he said of Selis motivation. What I am gonna say is, this is an act of terror, not necessarily an act of terrorism.

Parvini reported from San Diego and Queally and Hamilton from Los Angeles. The San Diego Union-Tribune contributed to this report.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

james.queally@latimes.com

sarah.parvini@latimes.com

Follow @MattHjourno @JamesQueallyLAT and @sarahparvini for breaking news in California.

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UPDATES:

6:45 p.m.: This story has been updated with additional details.

2:20 p.m.: This story has been updated with details from a witness who attended the party and was friends with many of the victims.

11:30 a.m.: This story was updated with additional details from San Diego police.

8:20 a.m.: This story was updated with comments from Rep. Scott Peters.

This article was originally published at 7:15 a.m.
A woman who was the only official objector to the $25-million deal to settle three Trump University lawsuits said Monday that she would appeal the settlement, a move that could mean months of further litigation and delay any payout.

Sheri B. Simpson filed a formal notice of appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The move was immediately criticized by the lawyer for the other 3,700 or so class members who are eligible to get up to 90% of what they spent on President Trumps defunct real estate success program.

Gary Friedman, the lawyer for Simpson, said the appeal will be based on the argument that a San Diego federal judge who approved the settlement on March 31 erred because class members were not given a second chance to opt out of the case.

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The class members had a right to opt out of the settlement, Friedman said. The notice they received from the court promised them in no uncertain terms they had that right. Then, once the defendant got elected president, it became inconvenient to honor that promise.

Rather than take the more than $15,000 she would get under the terms of the settlement, Simpson wants to take the president to trial individually and seek an award four times that amount or more, Friedman said.

Lawyers for the class members said Simpson and her lawyer mischaracterized language that went out in the class notices, which  when read in the correct context  stated that participants would be able to opt out of receiving a portion of the settlement, not leave the case entirely. By staying in the case, Simpson is bound by the settlement, they argue.

Jason Forge, one of the main lawyers in the class-action suit and settlement, said that the decision to appeal is wrong and could hurt other members of the class who will have to wait to collect their money from Trump.

Its the wrong fight against the wrong people for the wrong reason, he said Monday. My only real concern is we wont have enough time to make it right for everyone. We have a number of senior citizen students here waiting for their money. And given the length of time that appeals can take, we may not be able to get that money to them before they die.

The class-action lawsuits  two filed in San Diego and another in New York  claimed Trump University misled students into thinking it was an accredited university and conned people into signing up for the $35,000 Gold Elite program. The elite status paid for a yearlong mentorship and exclusive access to Trumps resources, which students said were not provided for the most part.

Trump defended his program, saying it provided valuable training and garnered a 98% approval rating among students.

Friedman said Simpson regretted holding up settlement payments. We feel terribly about the delay, he said. But she is not going to be guilted into changing her position.

He said he planned to ask the appeals court for an expedited hearing schedule.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com

Davis and Moran write for the San Diego Union-Tribune
Almost from the moment U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley took the stage at a recent womens conference in liberal Manhattan, jeers and boos erupted.

Haley flashed the crowd a smile, sitting with her hands folded in her lap. She had come straight from the U.N., where she had spoken emotionally about the poison gas attack in Syria that killed scores of civilians, the latest horror in the countrys civil war.

America leading, she said, is what we are trying to do.

MSNBC anchor Greta Van Susteren pressed Haley on the multiple investigations into whether President Trumps current or former aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

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As Haley tried to answer, a heckler interrupted, What about refugees?

It was the kind of crossfire that Haley, 45, has faced repeatedly since she resigned in January as a widely respected governor of South Carolina to join Trumps team. Since then, she has become a high-profile voice on U.S. foreign policy, at times eclipsing Trumps taciturn secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.

Haleys nomination had been a surprise and not only because she had no diplomatic experience: She had endorsed Trumps rivals during the GOP primaries last year, and he tweeted in response that she had embarrassed her state.

Haley already had been on the short list of rising GOP stars with a possible national future. Unlike many potential rivals, her role at the U.N. will keep her in the public eye, for better or worse, in the Trump administration.

Unlike some of her predecessors at the U.N., Haley often displays a down-home charm that reveals her Southern upbringing, peppering her comments with gonnas and wannas.

And what were gonna say is its just not gonna work, she told CBS News when asked about North Koreas threats about using military force.

As a diplomat, however, Haley has been as contrarian as the president she represents.

In her debut speech at the U.N., she warned allies and rivals that they would see a change in the way we do business.

For those who dont have our back, she added, were taking names.

But she also has voiced more concern for human rights abuses than the White House, penning a column that said ignoring the issue leads to a vicious cycle of violence and instability.

She even has appeared to contradict, or at least politely correct, the president.

A day after Trump seemed to jettison decades of U.S. policy and dismiss the possibility of a future Palestinian state, for example, Haley said at the U.N. that the administration absolutely supported a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian nation.

Her relations with Trump are difficult to read.

On April 24, three weeks after the Manhattan event, Haley sat at the presidents side at an ornate table in the White House with ambassadors representing the 14 other nations in the U.N. Security Council.

Trump initially scolded the ambassadors for diplomatic failures in North Korea and Syria, and branded the U.N. an underperformer. He then turned toward Haley, who sat beside him.

Does everybody like Nikki? he asked his guests. Otherwise, she can easily be replaced.

Awkward laughter followed until Trump finally added, Shes doing a fantastic job.

Madeleine Albright, who served as U.S. envoy to the U.N. from 1993 to 1997, thought the episode strengthened Haleys hand in diplomatic circles.

It showed they have a personal relationship, that he can kid her like that, Albright said. She is seen as somebody who can  have influence with Trump.

Some historians liken Albrights headline-grabbing tenure as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under a low-key secretary of State, Warren Christopher, to Haleys high-wattage tenure so far under Tillerson, who deliberately kept a low public profile until recently.

Its a delicate balancing act, Albright said. The U.N. ambassador must explain U.S. policy to the world, but also keep an eye on reactions  and politics  in Washington.

On Friday, Haley definitely took the back seat when Tillerson made his debut speech to foreign ministers at the U.N. Security Council to address the threat from North Korea.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley was born Nimrata Randhama in Bamberg, S.C., and later adopted her husbands last name. She also converted from the Sikh faith to Christianity.

After six years in the state Legislature, she became the first woman and the first person of color to win the governorship of South Carolina in 2010  and then was reelected on a platform that was anti-tax and fiscally conservative. To this day, she wears a silver necklace with an image of the palmetto tree, symbol of her state.

As governor, she voted for bills that restrict abortion. As the child of legal immigrants, she called for greater enforcement of immigration laws, a position that put her in sync with Trump.

Haleys response to the 2015 church massacre of black worshipers by a self-declared white supremacist put her in the national spotlight. As the state mourned, she deftly arranged the gradual removal of Confederate flags from state property, a still-sensitive issue for the state that fired the first shots of the Civil War.

She is a very gifted politician, said Jaime Harrison, chairman of the state Democratic Party, who noted that Haley had refused to commit to removing the flags when demands came up during her 2014 reelection race.

Her political skills were tested at the Women in the World conference in Manhattan, where Trump clearly was not popular. Guffaws broke out when Haley complained that the Russians just make things up, a charge frequently leveled against Trump.

Haley got her most enthusiastic response when she mentioned her predecessor at the U.N., Samantha Power, who had served under President Obama.

Panelists at a later session ridiculed Haley after she left the stage. It was left to summit host Tina Brown, the magazine editor and author, to come to Haleys defense.

She sat there very graciously, very courageously while people heckled, she said. She didnt get agitated about it.

barbara.demick@latimes.com

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

Demick reported from New York and Wilkinson from Washington.

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When the worlds largest drilling machine smashed through a 5-foot-thick concrete barrier, emerging in a cloud of dust from an earthen hole that will become one of the worlds biggest vehicle tunnels, a smattering of cheers floated down from the workers and officials on an observation platform above. One tunnel worker climbed up the machines massive drill head and waved a U.S. flag.

But as historic moments go, it wasnt much of a celebration.

Then again, a band or a parade would have been a jarring incongruity for a 2-mile tunnel project that is four years behind schedule and faces a potential $400 million in cost overruns.

------------

FOR THE RECORD

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May 2, 10:35 p.m.: A project to bore a tunnel under Seattle and construct an underground roadway is $60 million over budget, not $400 million as reported; the contractor is seeking more than $400 million for repair of the boring machine. The project was approved by the Washington Legislature, not by voters, and overall cost is $3.2 billion, not $3.3 billion. The story said tolls were once projected at $1 to $1.25; that was a recommendation by a citizens committee. The state Transportation Commission will determine the tolls. Also, the story may have given the impression that construction of the tunnel roadway has not started, but it is under way.

------------

Eight years after the Highway 99 tunnel got a thumbs up from then-Gov. Chris Gregoire, and six years after Washington voters approved it over other proposals to replace the earthquake-weakened Alaskan Way Viaduct on Seattles waterfront, the debate continues over the tunnels cost and effectiveness.

Many preferred rebuilding or replacing the viaduct, which carries 110,000 vehicles daily, while others said it would be quicker and less expensive to go with a cut-and-cover tunnel  excavating, rather than tunneling, along the waterfront.

Still others insisted the solution was to tear down the ailing viaduct, opened in 1953 and damaged by a 2001 earthquake, and replace it with a revamped surface-street traffic system, bolstered by expanded public transportation. The $3.3-billion project does not include a public transportation component.

Thats always been my complaint, said Jeff Reifman, a city activist and tech consultant who monitors public projects. He lives just off Aurora Avenue, a stretch of Highway 99 that runs through north Seattle not far from the tunnels north portal.

Where I live, [transit] service is poor, no real new transit is planned, he said. The tunnel wont make a difference.

Gov. Jay Inslee says the project, despite delays and growing costs, is nonetheless going to be completed. He called the need to take down the viaduct, which suffered structural damage and is sinking by a quarter- to half-inch annually, a race against the next earthquake. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray prefers to look forward, calling the end of the dig a transformative moment for Seattle.

Laura Newborn, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the work of private contractor Seattle Tunnel Partners, says the agency is hearing encouraging words from the public.

There was a tremendous interest in the breakthrough, Newborn said, referring to the tunneling completion April 4  coincidentally, the 64th anniversary of the opening of the viaduct.

It helps that divided Seattleites found something to like in the $80-million, 326-feet-long tunnel boring machine, known as Bertha. The nickname honors Bertha Landes, Seattles first and only female mayor (1926-28).

Like a character in a sci-fi flick, the massive drill was also followed through the gloomy tunnel by a Bertha Cam, viewable on the Web, and the state gave the machine a Twitter feed, @BerthaDigsSR99. To her 21,700 followers, Bertha was anything but boring.

The drill was manufactured by Hitachi Zosen Corp. in Japan, shipped in pieces to Seattle in 2013 and assembled in the tunnel launch pit. It was soon stalled by mechanical problems for two years, requiring crews to dig down to Berthas cutter head for lengthy repairs. Digging resumed in 2015.

In a continuing court fight, the state and the contractor are blaming each other for the delay and overruns. Now, after burrowing from the citys historic Pioneer Square district to the high-tech campuses of South Lake Union, Bertha is being cut up into 20-ton pieces in a disassembly pit to be recycled or discarded.

Though some saw the tunnel breakthrough as the near-end of the project, theres considerably more to be done. Newborn said the project comprises 32 components; the tunnel is the largest job, and a double-deck highway is yet to be built within. Once the tunnel and other elements are complete in 2019, the viaduct demolition will begin.

Officials cant say yet what the final tab will be, and they are still trying to make the project pencil out. The tunnel, almost 58 feet in diameter  the height of a five-story building  will provide four lanes of traffic on two levels. But there will be no exits to downtown Seattle, as the overhead viaduct provides, and a toll is needed to help pay for the project.

Once projected at $1 to $1.25, the tunnel toll will probably consist of four rates, according to a new analysis provided by state transportation planners: $1 daytime, $1.50 for evening off-peak hours, $1.75 for morning rush hour and $2.50 evening rush hour. Thats for two miles.

Workers celebrate the breakthrough by a massive drilling machine, nicknamed Bertha, for an double-deck, underground roadway in Seattle. (Elaine Thompson / Associated Press)

The state expects the increased toll to raise more than $1 billion over 30 years, which will be used to pay off tunnel construction debt.

Critics have long argued that tolling and lack of exits are impediments to the tunnels purpose: replacing the viaduct and limiting downtown gridlock. To avoid tolls, or get downtown, motorists are expected to take alternative routes off 99 and onto surface streets or Interstate 5. That could lower toll revenue and jam streets even further.

Spending $3 billion on a cars-only viaduct replacement is a huge mistake, Reifman said. The future is public transit. The fact that no one wants to pay to use the tunnel is not unexpected. But it is sadly laughable.

If the tunnel opens for traffic as planned, the viaduct will be replaced by parks and a scenic roadway, visually reconnecting the city to Elliott Bay and Puget Sound, the ferry terminal and tourist businesses along a series of waterfront piers.

Assuming, that is, the schedule is not shaken up by another quake. Experts have said there is a 1-in-20 chance of that within the next five or so years. As Greg Nickels, a former mayor, said, These days, I find myself driving a little faster each time I use the viaduct. You never know.

Anderson is a special correspondent.

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Authorities said Monday that a Dallas paramedic was shot while responding to a shooting call. The scene remains active, police said..

The city of Dallas released a statement saying officers were responding to a shooting around 11:30 a.m. when a Dallas Fire-Rescue EMT Unit was struck. The city said a paramedic was hit, transported to Baylor Hospital and is undergoing surgery.

Authorities said the shooting occurred near the Dolphin Road Fire Training Academy in Dallas. Dozens of police vehicles could be seen swarming the mostly residential neighborhood near Interstate 30.

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The Dallas Police Assn. tweeted earlier Monday that officers responding to an active shooter were pinned down by gunfire.

UPDATES:

11:05 a.m.: This article was updated with a statement from Dallas officials.

This story originally published at 10:35 a.m.
Gay marriage religious exemption

CARSON CITY (AP)  Religious organizations and individual clergy members would have a constitutional right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages in Nevada under a proposal state lawmakers are moving toward the 2020 ballot.

State senators voted 19-2 Monday to pass a measure seeking to delete a defunct provision of the state constitution that says Nevada will only recognize marriage between a man and a woman.

Assembly Joint Resolution 2 would state Nevada will recognize all marriages equally, regardless of gender. The religious exemption was added Monday.

The earliest Nevada voters could consider it would be in 2020.

A 2015 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in every state.

Thirty-one states had enacted laws banning same-sex marriage before the ruling.

Ten other states have since considered deleting those laws. Most remain on the books, though invalid.

Dogs eat poisoned meat at park

PAHRUMP (AP)  Authorities are searching for a suspect who they say left out poisoned meat near a Nevada park, killing two dogs and leaving three others in critical condition.

The Nye County Sheriff's office says Saturday that they were notified Wednesday of the five pets suffering from severe poisoning when they were taken to an animal hospital.

The dog's owners all live near Comstock Park in Pahrump, about an hour west of Las Vegas.

They reported that their dogs ingested poisoned meat that was placed on their properties.

Investigators are trying to identify what kind of poison was involved.

Authorities also say the circumstances are strikingly similar to a series of dog poisonings that happened in 2015.

Utah to build $5 million wildlife bridge on I-80

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  The Utah Department of Transportation is planning to build a $5 million overpass for wildlife along one of the state's deadliest stretches of road for big game.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports department statistics show cars traveling on the 13-mile stretch of Interstate 80 near Parleys Summit killed 122 mule deer, 13 moose, four elk and three mountain lions in the past two years.

Officials recently announced the $5 million project in front of residents in the area who have called for measures to reduce wildlife collisions.

In addition to the wildlife bridge, UDOT will install fencing on both sides of the freeway near the summit and add a lane for semitrailers along the road.

Construction is set to begin early next year.

Mountain lion shot, killed in SLC backyard

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Utah wildlife officials say they fatally shot a mountain lion that had found its way into a residential backyard in Salt Lake City.

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources Sgt. Ray Loken says cougar sightings were reported starting about Friday afternoon in the Glendale neighborhood of southwest Salt Lake City.

Authorities searched for hours until they spotted the animal trying to attack a house cat.

Loken says they chose to shoot the animal to euthanize him because the mountain lion appeared to be hungry and could pose a danger to humans or pets.

The mountain lion was shot about 4 a.m. Saturday.

Loken says tranquilizers are often used but that the shooting was the safest, most humane thing to do.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Monday, May 1, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

A generational shift

Turnover in the Los Angeles Police Department has led to a generational shift. Many young LAPD officers barely remember the 1992 riots even as they work in a department shaped by the unrest. They learn from the people that have learned from 1992, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said of young officers. A change in culture doesnt necessarily mean that the newest recipients of that change in culture understand how it got to where it is. They just know the change in culture. Los Angeles Times

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How Maxine Waters became Auntie Maxine

After 14 terms, 78-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters is more popular than ever, largely because of her refusal to attend President Trumps inauguration. Since then shes become big with the kids, drawing a following of young black activists [who] in particular see a powerful and familiar figure in the impeccably dressed older woman expressing her opinion. Los Angeles Times

Changing treatment

In Boyle Heights, a medical clinic is trying to help reduce the amputation rate for Los Angeles poorest residents. This is a tall order, which requires treating wounds as well as helping people better manage the disease. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

How the riots changed Venice: Gentrification is not a recent fad in Los Angeles. Its been happening here for a long time. Times columnist Robin Abcarian goes inside how the L.A. riots affected tiny Oakwood, a 1.1-mile-square neighborhood, which had been the only Los Angeles beachside community where black people were allowed to purchase homes after Venice was built in the early 20th century. Los Angeles Times

More allegations: The officer embroiled in one of the most high-profile shootings by Los Angeles police in recent years is also facing domestic violence charges in Orange County. Los Angeles Times

An enlightening Uber ride: An Uber ride to LAX allowed one writer to meet some of her neighbors who also happened to have fled from Fairouzeh, Syria. The Daily Beast

South L.A. revisited: For me L.A. isnt heaven, but its also not hell, says one immigrant. New York Times

IMMIGRATION AND THE BORDER

Turnabout: Liberal sanctuary cities in California and elsewhere may well win their legal battle against Trump thanks to Supreme Court rulings once heralded by conservatives, including a 2012 opinion that shielded red states from President Obamas plans to expand Medicaid coverage. Los Angeles Times

Fear is in the air: Reports of domestic violence and sexual assaults among Latinos have dramatically dropped this year, and police officials believe it because of fears about being deported. New York Times

Fear, Part 2: Are Trumps fear tactics on illegal immigration actually working? Washington Post

Driven by grief: The California liberal who is fighting illegal immigration. The Mercury News

Immigrant detained: On Saturday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a Mexican immigrant with a pending asylum case. It was his 18th birthday. Lawyers from the Immigrant Defenders Law Center fought Erik Javier Flores Hernandezs deportation case and helped him apply for asylum. LAist

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Reform it, please? Even though parking cheats who use disabled placards are not the worlds biggest problem, Times columnist George Skelton argues they frustrate the daily lives of many motorists who respect the law and play by the rules. Los Angeles Times

Not so fast: Los Angeles County has a new government-run energy program, but the track records of similar public energy efforts show that the initial cost advantage doesnt last. Los Angeles Times

Get your shots: The University of California had mandated that incoming students must be vaccinated for a host of diseases, but at the last minute it decided to give one final reprieve to the freshman class entering this fall. Sacramento Bee

Listen while you drive: Hear Times reporters discuss the view of the Trump era from the Golden State on the California Politics Podcast. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

A grim scene: One woman was killed and seven other people were wounded, several critically, after an armed man opened fire Sunday at a swimming pool at a San Diego apartment complex. Los Angeles Times

Two arrested after carjacking: Police say two suspects arrested in a stolen car may be tied to a shooting rampage through Los Angeles suburbs that killed one man and left two others wounded. Los Angeles Times

Crash: Authorities say an 18-wheel truck plowed into an occupied apartment complex in Fullerton on Sunday morning. CBS Los Angeles

Pedestrian killed: A man was killed after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver and then by a bus in Van Nuys early Sunday, Los Angeles police said. Los Angeles Daily News

THE ENVIRONMENT

From Canada with love: In March, Canadas top climate official, Catherine McKenna, met with Gov. Jerry Brown, who hoped to bring Canada into his Under2 Coalition, a collection of 170 nations, states and provinces pledging to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius. San Francisco Chronicle

Shark attack: A woman who was standing in the ocean with friends near San Onofre State Beach in northern San Diego County had part of her upper thigh torn off by a shark. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

What makes a chef? Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold explores what it means to be a chef in Los Angeles in 2017. He writes, The access to deep-cut non-European cooking is unparalleled  it is possible in some neighborhoods to find restaurants serving a dozen regional cuisines from China or Latin America within a few minutes walk. Los Angeles Times

My shot: Meet the teachers who waited in line for nearly 24 hours to snag the first tickets to the musical Hamilton in L.A. Los Angeles Times

Fahrenheit 450-what? Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury lived in one house in Cheviot Hills for 50 years. One of L.A.'s most prominent architects, Thom Mayne, and wife Blythe Alison-Mayne knocked it down to build a new home. So whats it like? KCRW

A staple ends: The Venice Beach Freak Show, a bizarre tourist attraction on the boardwalk, is closing. Its last day was Sunday afternoon, and it included a six-hour street performance that served as protest, farewell and fundraiser. Los Angeles Times

Check em out: A collection of photos captures Silver Lake. The Eastsider

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles area: sunny Monday and Tuesday. Sacramento: sunny Monday, partly cloudy Tuesday. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

This weeks birthdays for those who made a mark in California: former Mayor Richard Riordan (May 1, 1930), actor Dwayne The Rock Johnson (May 2, 1972) and Clippers star Chris Paul (May 6, 1985).

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.
Since being elected, President Trump has reversed or softened a number of problematic positions he took during last years campaign. He has decided not to declare China a currency manipulator, he has not withdrawn the U.S. from the North American Free Trade Agreement  as he threatened to do if Canada and Mexico didnt agree to immediately renegotiate its terms  and he hasnt followed through with a promise to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran that placed limits on that countrys nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

Yet on Iran, the president continues to send dangerously mixed signals that could jeopardize the nuclear agreement, divide the United States from its allies and embolden hard-liners in Iran. Trump is right to be concerned about Irans support for militant groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan, and its insistence on testing ballistic missiles that potentially could be used to deliver nuclear weapons. But he can respond to those provocations without repudiating  or hinting that he will repudiate  an agreement that is as much in this countrys interest as it is Irans.

On April 18, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter to Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan informing Congress that Iran was complying with its obligations under the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it negotiated in 2015 with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union. The agreement requires Iran to dismantle much of the nuclear infrastructure it has assembled, provides for intrusive inspection of known nuclear sites and includes a mechanism for the re-imposition of sanctions in the case of Iranian violations.

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Trump continues to send dangerously mixed signals that could jeopardize the nuclear agreement, divide the United States from its allies and embolden Iran.

But, reportedly at the behest of the White House, the letter had been revised to include language that seemed to cast doubt on the United States long-term commitment to the agreement. Tillerson noted that Iran remains a leading state sponsor of terror through many platforms and methods. Then, ominously, he said that President Donald J. Trump has directed a National Security Council-led interagency review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that will evaluate whether suspension of sanctions related to Iran pursuant to the JCPOA is vital to the national security interests of the United States.

Tillerson has continued to sow doubt about U.S. commitment to the accord. At a State Department news conference, he complained that the agreement fails to achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran and only delays their goal of becoming a nuclear state. Its true that many of the specific restrictions on Irans nuclear program are time-limited, but the architects of the agreement rightly believed that a significant delay in Irans ability to break out to achieve a nuclear weapon was preferable to no deal at all. That is still the view of Americas allies.

Trump himself has added to the confusion by asserting that the Iranians are not living up to the spirit of the agreement. Of course, Iran and the other signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (including the United States) are bound by the letter of the agreement, not by its spirit, which is open to any number of interpretations.

Trumps, we assume, is that in exchange for the sanctions relief the agreement delivered, Iran would not only freeze certain aspects of its nuclear program and submit to inspections for a period of years but also would stop the testing of missiles that potentially could deliver nuclear weapons and, for good measure, reduce its support for nations and militias hostile to the West.

We agree with Trump that many of Irans actions are provocative and inimical to U.S. interests. (On the other hand, the Iranians are allies of the Iraqi government that is allied with the U.S. in seeking to degrade and ultimately destroy Islamic State.)

But the U.S. can take steps to discourage Iranian adventurism without calling into question the viability of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or seeking to undermine it. Indeed, in February the Trump administration reacted to Irans testing of a medium-range ballistic missile by imposing new sanctions on 13 individuals and 12 other entities linked to the missile program.

The problem is that some in the administration, and in Congress, would like Trump to go further and punish Iran in ways that would violate the nuclear arms agreement. Perhaps Trump thinks that by floating the possibility that he will abandon the nuclear agreement he will induce Iran to alter its behavior on other fronts; if thats his strategy, its a dangerous and divisive one. He needs to make it clear that, so long as Iran abides by the letter of the nuclear agreement, so will the United States.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook
The last weekend of April delivered one of the more enjoyable spectacles of 2017. It wasnt Donald Trumps tent-revival rally in Pennsylvania. Nor was it the cotillion of self-congratulation known as the White House Correspondents Dinner. It wasnt even the Peoples Climate March, which begged for some Monty Pythonesque splinter factions  the March for Peoples Climate, Climate Marchers for People, whatever.

No, the most amusing show over the weekend was the collective case of the vapors across the liberal left establishment over Bret Stephens first column at the New York Times on the perils of certainty, particularly on the topic of climate change.



For the record: This column originally claimed that Stefan Rahmstorf, a prominent German climate scientist, wrote a letter to the New York Times attacking Bret Stephens column without addressing the specifics of that column. Actually, Rahmstorfs sent his letter before the column was published. He was writing more generally about Stephens career.

Until recently, Stephens was a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. But as that august opinion page made peace with the reality of a Trump administration, Stephens held out like one of those Japanese soldiers who didnt get word that World War II was over (a position I can sympathize with somewhat). The scuttlebutt is thats why he jumped ship  or was pushed  to the New York Times.

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So what was so funny?

First, there was the substantive reaction.

As a fellow columnist, I doff my cap to you, sir.

Stephens wrote that the warming of the earth since 1880 is indisputable, as is the human influence on that warming. The work of climate scientists is scrupulous, Stephens insisted, and went on to clarify that he does not deny climate change.

The reaction? A Slate headline captured it well: Bret Stephens First Column for the New York Times Is Classic Climate Change Denialism.

When someone says that he is not denying climate change and concedes that it is real, that is classic climate change denialism? Huh. What words do we have left for people who call the whole thing a hoax? In civil debates, when someone concedes much of your premise, the proper reaction is not to scream liar! or heretic!

And that brings me to the second, and more amusing, thing about all of this. Youve been trolled, people.

Recall that Stephens left the Journal because he was swimming against the currents of the Trumpified right. What better way to inaugurate his new column than with a splash, earning back some populist street cred by making liberals set their hair on fire and cause an (alleged) wave of cancelled subscriptions? All the while, he invited hordes of conservatives to defend him and mock his critics.

As a fellow columnist, I doff my cap to you, sir.

It wasnt hard to trick liberals into going off-sides. In the past, Stephens was a more acid-tongued critic of climate change research. But the column in question was a model of restraint that, when read by non-ideologues and non-combatants, must seem utterly reasonable, even a tad banal.

The Washington Posts Eric Wemple found it hard to constrain his dismay. May it suffice to say, however, that the many, many people who care passionately for the planet found it an exercise in climate-change denialism. He badgered New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet, demanding to know, in effect, why Stephens didnt write the column Wemple thought he should.

I particularly enjoyed Wemples first question: Please condense the argument that Stephens makes in the piece.

Wemples a clever fellow. Im sure he understands Stephens point about the dangers of certainty, particularly based on sophisticated mathematical models that have been proven wrong in the past.

What I think sailed past Wemple and so many, many people was Stephens subtler point about the sanctimonious condescension of people who claim to be motivated solely by their passionate care for the planet.

Stephens heresy here isnt in denying climate change; its in refusing to concede that one group of people has a total monopoly on defining not just the problem but the acceptable responses to it. Such dissent is not a crime against science; its a threat to a guild. And the guild took the bait.

jgoldberg@latimescolumnists.com

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
President Trump signed an executive order Friday aimed at expanding offshore oil drilling in U.S. waters, including areas in the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean made off-limits by President Obama. For good measure, and no doubt as a poke in the eye to a state that voted overwhelmingly against him, his directive includes the possibility of new drilling leases off the California coast.

The idea, clearly, is to open up U.S. seas not yet tapped like the Gulf of Mexico  Americas energy sacrifice zone  as if the nation were a junkie searching for uncollapsed veins. Dont blame me for that metaphor. It was George W. Bush who in early 2006 said, America is addicted to oil. Bush, his vice president and his national security advisor all had backgrounds in the oil sector. Now, President Trumps secretary of State is the former CEO of Exxon Mobil, the worlds largest dealer of petroleum.

The offshore-oil order followed another executive order, signed by Trump on Wednesday, directing Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review the Antiquities Act. That law, established by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1906, allows presidents to create national monuments, including marine preserves where oil drilling, commercial fishing and mining are not allowed.

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Zinke, who identifies himself as a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist, has called for opening up Americas public lands and waters to hunting, fishing and drilling. Never mind Roosevelts position: The rights of the public to the [nations] natural resources outweigh private rights and must be given ... first consideration.

Since a failed Reagan administration bid to reopen Californias waters to drilling, oil leasing off our coast has been something of a political third rail.

In the fine print, Trumps executive order on Friday also calls for a review of safety rules, put in place after BPs Deepwater Horizon disaster, governing the mechanics of blowout preventers, drilling bores, workplace safety protocols and other systems that have failed in the past. This is another in the administrations attacks on regulations related to environmental protection. Given the offshore industrys history of disasters  from Summerland, Calif., blowouts in the 1890s to the infamous Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969 to Deepwater in 2010  granting more leases while reducing regulations is guaranteed to result in not only more drilling but more spilling.

The debate over coastal drilling used to be largely about energy production versus marine pollution. Today, however, we know that the oil industrys product, used as directed, overheats our planet and acidifies our seas. A 2015 study in the peer-reviewed journal Nature suggested that 33% of known oil reserves, along with 82% of global coal reserves, must be left in the ground and under the seabed if we are to avoid more than a 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature, the safety limit set by the worlds nations.

Were already living in what I call the greenhouse century. Tens of thousands of people have died in hurricanes and typhoons, wildfires, mudslides, expanding tropical-disease vector zones, droughts and drought-linked wars in Rwanda, Syria and South Sudan. Island nations are in legal negotiations over the fate of their submerging lands. And following the three hottest years on record  2014, 2015 and 2016, when one-fifth of the Great Barrier Reefs coral died  the certainty of greater disasters to come is undeniable.

Renewable energy  not more drilling in our coastal waters  is the only sane way forward, a route to a still overheated but not civilization-threatening climate future. To get there, the president would have to remove his undersized thumb from the scales and let the U.S. post-carbon market, particularly in California, catch up with the green energy industrial expansion of China and Germany.

The public outrage caused by dying, oil-coated seabirds and fouled Santa Barbara beaches in 1969 helped start the environmental movement. Since the 1980s and a failed Reagan administration bid to reopen Californias waters to drilling, oil leasing off our coast has been something of a political third rail, despite the power of the industry. In most beach towns, any attempt to transport oil from federal waters to refineries and storage facilities onshore has to be approved by a vote of the people  and the people dont want another spill.

Trumps executive order cant change things immediately, not least because the current price of oil makes offshore drilling much less attractive than it used to be. Nonetheless, Californians have a legacy to protect. We should heed my favorite slogan from the March for Science that took place on Earth Day: While the oceans are rising, so are we.

David Helvarg is executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation and policy group. His latest book is The Golden Shore  Californias Love Affair with the Sea.

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The Democratic Party is in serious trouble. It has lost more than 900 state legislative seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats and 13 Senate seats over the last decade, and a recent poll indicates that it has a lower approval rating than President Trump.

To right this political ship, it must recapture pro-life liberals such as my mother, who was a loyal Democrat until 1996, when President Clinton vetoed the bill banning partial-birth abortions.

The party lost her. And though it never lost me, it sure has done its best to push me out along with all the other pro-life Democrats in the United States, some 20 million in number.

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Abortion activists claim that the fetus is just a mass of tissue, and that women are too weak to succeed without abortion. Not only do pro-life Democrats accept the settled science that shows the prenatal child is a human organism, we know that with the right support, women are more than up to the challenge of difficult or unplanned pregnancies.

We also support a living wage, Medicare, paid family leave, affordable childcare and worker protections provided by strong unions. And we strongly resist a small-government Republican Party that refuses to support women and mothers.

Because of our views on abortion, many of us are intimidated into silence. Indeed, we get stronger pushback from Democratic leadership than from Republicans.

Yet because of our views on abortion, many of us are intimidated into silence. Indeed, we get stronger pushback from Democratic leadership than from Republicans.

I first saw this dynamic in 1990, when I moved to Minnesota and pro-lifers were shouted down at the first Democratic caucus I attended. But I felt it most acutely when I ran for Congress in 2002. Planned Parenthoods executive director spread falsehoods about my position on government funding for contraceptives. Party activists I had worked with only months before explained that they couldnt vote for me or donate to my campaign. Even my Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee team hid my pro-life stance.

As a result, the following year, I joined Democrats for Life of America. Ive since learned that a large number of Democratic legislators hide their pro-life positions in order to get endorsed and raise money. Many others are under tremendous pressure to stay silent, including Muslims, women of color and, yes, members of the white working class.

The partys leadership, located largely in pro-choice bubbles on the coasts, claims that support for abortion is a political winner. This is simply not true, especially given that seven in 10 Americans want to ban abortion in most cases after week 12 of pregnancy. Tellingly, women support restrictions on late-term abortion at higher rates than men.

Democratic politicians shouldnt make sweeping statements about what the country believes without paying careful attention to regions. While polls consistently show that Americans are pretty evenly divided on abortion, opposition in the Midwest is 27% higher than the national average. In the South, its 35% higher.

If the Democratic Party is to become a truly national party  one that can win consistently outside of urban, coastal America  it has no choice but to welcome people with different views on abortion. The number of voters who cite abortion as their single-most-important issue is the highest in the history of Gallups poll. This group is dominated by pro-lifers.

Thankfully, after the Trump election, Democratic leaders seem to understand that they have a crisis on their hands. Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez has undertaken a unity tour with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), with both party leaders acknowledging that any political math for a 50-state strategy must include pro-life Democrats. And although NARAL and other pro-choice inquisitors pounced on Perez and got him to retract his position, a principle of openness to pro-lifers has been reiterated by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

During the 2016 campaign, Sanders rightly pointed out that Planned Parenthood belongs to the establishment, implying that a litmus test on abortion would not be required by the new, exciting, growing edge of the party. There is a legitimate debate about abortion to have within the party, but the progressive Sanders wing is wise to separate the toxicity of that argument from the partys central goals.

If the Democratic Party needs a litmus test, it should be economic justice and civil rights for all. The pro-life Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey said it best: The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

Janet Robert is a founder of Progressive Talk Radio AM 950 Minneapolis and president of Democrats for Life of America.

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To the editor: If we are all getting along well since the 1992 Los Angeles riots despite the facts that poverty here has only slightly diminished in the last 25 years, income inequality is the highest since 1928, and the black-white income gap has persisted, then Angelenos should be congratulated for observing good behavior against all disparities and injustice. (In L.A., more racial harmony, more economic inequality, Opinion, April 28)

And yet a recent poll quoted in a Times article this week shows that 6 out of 10 Angelenos think that another riot is likely to happen soon. Could this mean that patience is running out for those who have been waiting for better opportunities to get out of poverty?

In a city like ours  where nearly one-quarter of the people live in poverty, and where our housing is among the least affordable in the nation, making the American dream attainable for only the few it is a matter of time when the other big one will hit.

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Berta Graciano-Buchman, Beverly Hills

..

To the editor: I did not learn much reading articles about the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King. What I do know is that with racism, police culture and economic barriers to black advancement rampant, nothing much is going to change. With leaders like Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council President Herb Wesson pushing the deceptive police discipline reform initiative Measure C, along with Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey performing just as if she were wearing a blue uniform, I submit that things will not get much better.

Throw in the fact that the average person is not prepared for the incredible speed of technology along with gentrification, and the outlook for Los Angeles not bright.

Arthur P. Nelson Jr., North Hills

..

To the editor: Police brutality seems as old as the police to me. It makes me pity the good cop, who I would like to believe is in the majority.

When the Fullerton police officers who were responsible for Kelly Thomas having been beaten to death were acquitted, I was no less angry as when the Simi Valley jury rendered its verdict in the King beating. My anger, for whatever reason, doesnt manifest itself in violence as a rule; I have a tendency to internalize it. It seems so difficult to process when its cause is founded in something so seemingly senseless as brutality committed by people in authority.

I have to admit that my respect for authority is turning into little more than fear of power, particularly when I think of the sort of bullies who are so often awarded it.

Ronald Webster, Long Beach

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To the editor: Yes, it defies comprehension for President Trump to tout tax cuts that would so overwhelmingly favor his wealthy patrons (and himself) as to devastate the public. But dont dismiss his outrageous proposal as mere cynical grandstanding. (Trumps Candy Land School of Tax Reform, Opinion, April 28)

Keep in mind Trumps ultimate motive: As a self-styled consummate deal-maker, he has high-balled his tax-cut proposals. In truth, hes aiming at more modest cuts. But by initially pushing such unrealistically steep cuts, he creates bargaining space.

Trump soon enough will effect a willingness on the part of Congress to negotiate, and meeting the opposition halfway would yield the deal he wanted from the outset. Its time to re-title his book: The Art of the Scam.

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Christine Hagel, Orcutt, Calif.

..

To the editor: If, as seems likely, the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest in this country persists or even grows, it must follow that those at the top will have to pay an increasing share of their income in federal taxes to maintain any quality of life for those less fortunate.

Reducing taxes for the wealthy or eliminating the inheritance tax not only would exacerbate this situation, but also increase the national debt.

Donald J. Loundy, Simi Valley

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Sen. Kamala Harris says she hasnt considered running for president By Phil Willon U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Despite swirling speculation, Californias U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris said shes not giving any consideration to running for president in 2020. Harris was appearing at the annual Code Conference hosted by the tech news site Recode in Rancho Palos Verdes on Wednesday night when site co-founder Kara Swisher asked if she had eyes on the White House. Im not giving that any consideration. Ive got to stay focused, said Harris, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate in November after serving as Californias attorney general. After she won the seat vacated by former Sen. Barbara Boxer, Harris quickly gained a reputation as a potential presidential candidate in 2020. Harris took questions from Swisher alongside Laurene Powell Jobs, a philanthropist and the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Though she brushed off the presidential rumors, Harris urged Democrats to try harder to make convincing arguments on issues such as climate change instead of just criticizing those who disagree with them. She told the audience at the posh Terranea Resort where the conference is being held that it would be a mistake to dismiss the concerns of Americans who supported Trump in the November election. She said the issues that concern them  good jobs and the future of their families  are the concerns of all working-class Americans. There is a healthy number of people in our country who are feeling displaced, rightly, Harris said. I think we have to deal with that. Still, Harris dished out plenty of jabs at the Trump administration. She criticized Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions for resuscitating the war on drugs and told him to leave Grandmas medical marijuana alone. Harris also criticized the Trump administrations more hard-line immigration policies, and said she was concerned about allegations of collusion between Trumps campaign and the Russian government. These are serious times. These are not issues we can just sit around with a glass of Chardonnay debating and philosophizing about, Harris said. The decisions that are being made right now are impacting real human beings. Watch the entire interview: Facebook

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Trump wouldnt release his tax returns, so lawmakers move to make it mandatory for Californias primary By John Myers (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Legislation to require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order to gain a spot on Californias presidential primary ballot won passage in the state Senate on Wednesday, but only after a tense debate that largely centered on President Trump. Senate Bill 149 was approved on a strict party-line vote, 27-13. The bill now moves to the state Assembly, and was one of the last bills debated during a marathon session at the state Capitol to consider bills before a Friday deadline for action. The bill would require presidential candidates to file copies of their income tax returns with state elections officials for the five most recent taxable years. Failure to do so would mean their name wouldnt appear on Californias presidential primary ballot. The legislation was introduced in December, in the wake of Trumps refusal to disclose his tax returns during the 2016 campaign. The president has continued to reject calls for the information. Hes shaping international policy which could enrich himself, and the American public has no way to know, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) said of Trump during Wednesday nights floor debate. This legislation will help make transparency great again. Republicans denounced the bill as another in a long line of efforts by Democrats in the Legislature to lash out at the election of Trump and the defeat of Hillary Clinton. I get it that some people hate Trump, state Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) said. Weve got to move ahead. Weve got to get over it. Tensions flared after Anderson tried to amend the bill on the floor  first, to require statewide and legislative candidates to also release their tax returns, and then to require a birth certificate from candidates who want access to the states primary ballot. Both were rejected by Democrats. A legislative analysis of SB 149 said some legal scholars believe the plan, which would be the first of its kind in the nation, would pass muster with the U.S. Constitution. Nonetheless, the analysis concluded that it would probably be challenged in court if signed into law. Facebook

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California Senate moves forward with bill that would overhaul Los Angeles County MTA By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) proposed to revamp the Los Angeles County MTA. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The state Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would expand and reshape the agency that oversees mass transit in Los Angeles County. Opponents of the measure include Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the city and county of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. The bill by Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) was sent to the Assembly for consideration after squeaking by with a 22-11 vote in the Senate. The measure would expand the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board from 12 to 15 members. It would also reduce the number of county supervisors on the board from five to two, remove the appointment of two public members and increase Los Angeles City Council member appointments by the mayor from two to five. This will allow for proportional and fair representation, Mendoza told his colleagues, adding that the board currently is made up of haves and have-nots fighting to get their share. Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) opposed the measure because he said he saw it as Sacramento meddling in local policymaking. But Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Palmdale) supported SB 268. Too much power is concentrated in too few people, he said of the current board. Facebook

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Single-payer healthcare is popular with Californians  unless it raises their taxes By John Myers (Rich Pedoncelli / Associated Press) Almost two of every three Californians in a new statewide poll said they like the idea of a single-payer, government healthcare system, but far fewer support the idea if it includes a tax increase. The poll released Wednesday night by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 65% of adults surveyed support the creation of a single-payer state healthcare program to cover all of the states residents, and 56% of likely voters approved of the idea. Opinion was sharply divided between Democrats (75% support) and Republicans (66% oppose) who were surveyed. The single-payer proposal under consideration in the state Capitol, Senate Bill 562, assumes at least $50 billion in new taxes to fund the healthcare system. Asked about taxes, support drops to 42% of the adults surveyed and 43% of likely voters. While a majority of Democrats in the PPIC poll continued to support the idea if it means more taxes, support drops substantially among unaffiliated independent voters. The state Senate is expected to consider the single-payer bill before the end of the week. A legislative analysis put the estimated total cost of a new healthcare system that covers all Californians at $400 billion, while an analysis released on Wednesday by supporters provided a $331-billion estimate. The pending legislation by state Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) does not identify what taxes would be raised but makes the enactment of the plan contingent on a full funding proposal. Facebook

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Knowingly exposing others to HIV should no longer be a felony, state Senate says By Patrick McGreevy The Senate voted to no longer make it a felony for HIV-positive people to donate blood or semen without telling the blood bank they are infected. ( (Toby Talbot / Associated Press)) The state Senate on Wednesday voted to no longer make it a felony for someone infected with HIV to knowingly expose others to the disease by having unprotected sex without telling his or her partner about the infection. The crime would be downgraded to a misdemeanor, and the bill would also apply to people who donate blood or semen without telling the blood or semen bank that they have acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, or have tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the precursor to AIDS. The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, was introduced by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who said it is unfair to make HIV/AIDS the only communicable disease given such harsh treatment by prosecutors. These laws are irrational and discriminatory, Wiener told the Senate, adding that the current felony status is creating an incentive not to be tested, because if you dont know your status you cant be guilty of a felony. The measure was widely opposed by Republican lawmakers including Sen. Joel Anderson of San Diego. If you intentionally transmit something that is fundamentally life-threatening to the victim, you should be charged and go to jail, he said. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Murrieta) said, My friends, its not a gay issue. Its a public health issue. We shouldnt allow someone to play Russian roulette with other peoples lives. Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), a physician, voted for the bill and argued that it undermines public health to imprison those with HIV under the current law. Facebook

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Hillary Clinton: I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win By Seema Mehta Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that she has no plans to run for office again, but she plans to remain involved in civic life, particularly helping the Democrats efforts to regain control of the House in 2018. Im not going anywhere, Clinton said at the annual Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes. I have a big stake in what happens in this country. I am very unbowed and unbroken about what happened because I dont want it to happen to anybody else. I dont want it to happen to the values and the institutions I care about in America. And I think were at a really pivotal point, she said. And therefore Im going to keep writing and keep talking and keep supporting people who are on the front lines of the resistance. The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said she woke up on election day expecting to win. Clinton told the gathering that she was responsible for every decision the campaign made, though she did not believe they caused her surprise loss. She attributed that to several things, including alleged Russian interference in the election and weaponizing stolen information and fake news. She also pointed a finger at the Democrats for falling behind the GOP in using technology and data to target voters, the media for covering her e-mail controversy like it was Pearl Harbor, misogyny and the high expectations many had for her candidacy. I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win, she said, adding that she always expected the race to be close. Trump responded on Twitter, saying that Clinton still refused to accept that she lost because she was a terrible candidate. Crooked Hillary Clinton now blames everybody but herself, refuses to say she was a terrible candidate. Hits Facebook & even Dems & DNC.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2017 Clinton, who has increasingly jabbed President Trump, including at last weeks commencement address at Wellesley College, blasted his reported plan to pull out of the Paris climate accord as really stupid because of the economic implications. She described his personality as impulsive and reactive. And she joked about his peculiar overnight tweet about constant negative press covfefe, saying she thought it was a hidden message to the Russians to laughter from the audience. Going forward, Clinton said that she believes that it was realistic for Democrats to retake the House in 2018, notably by focusing on Republican congressional districts she won  including seven in California. She sounded less optimistic about the Senate. Updated at 6:06 p.m.: This post was updated to add President Trumps response to Clintons remarks. This post was first published at 5:41 p.m. Facebook

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California lawmakers take aim again at establishing statewide rules for drones By Jazmine Ulloa A state senator from Santa Barbara is taking another shot at establishing statewide regulations for the use of drones after the budding industry thwarted her efforts to pass similar legislation last year. Senate Bill 347, introduced by Democratic Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, would limit disruptive drone use near private property and prohibit the weaponization and reckless operation of the unmanned aerial vehicles. It also would require pilots to obtain insurance and to license, register and mark the aircrafts per federal regulations. The bill moved out of the Senate on Wednesday with a 26-13 vote. It heads to the Assembly for consideration. Speaking on the Senate floor, Jackson urged support for what she called comprehensive drone legislation, saying California needs common-sense rules that provide certainty for everyone and keep the public safe. Washington is not going to be acting on this issue very soon, she said, citing a federal appeals court decision that this month found the Federal Aviation Administration doesnt have the authority to regulate the use of drones by hobbyists. Debate has raged in recent years over just where federal authority begins and ends. And Jacksons attempts at drone legislation last year were blocked amid opposition from lobbyists who argued against creating a patchwork of laws that varied by state. Under Jacksons new proposal, violations would be punishable by a fine of up to $250 or a misdemeanor, and the California Department of Transportation would be tasked with developing liability insurance requirements. It has the support of the California State Assn. of Counties, the League of California Cities and the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Assn, but it once again faces tough industry opposition. Facebook

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School districts would be prohibited from shaming students whose parents havent paid for school lunches By Patrick McGreevy Students eat lunch at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School in Los Angeles. (Christina House / For the Los Angeles Times) Students whose parents have not kept their school lunch bills current would no longer go through shaming that includes marking their hand so they cannot be served, under legislation approved Wednesday by the state Senate. The measure by Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) would require school districts to ensure that any student whose parent has unpaid school meal fees is not treated differently, or delayed or denied a nutritiously adequate meal. Hertzberg introduced the legislation after hearing of school districts taking lunch trays from students whose accounts were not current and throwing the food in the trash, embarrassing the students in front of their friends. No more shaming, Herzberg told his colleagues. Dont visit the failures of the parents on their kids. The measure passed on a 39-0 vote and was sent to the Assembly for consideration. Facebook

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Emilio Huerta, undaunted by 2016 loss, is back to challenge Rep. David Valadao By Sarah D. Wire (Sarah D. Wire / Los Angeles Times) Bakersfield lawyer Emilio Huerta came more than 13 percentage points short of winning Californias 21st Congressional District seat in 2016, but he plans to try again in 2018. Huerta, 59, blames his loss to Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) on inexperience and a rash of negative ads at the end of the campaign. We learned a lot in the last campaign. As a first-time candidate there was certainly a lot to learn and I think we did a good job, Huerta said Wednesday. The son of labor icon Dolores Huerta, he has worked for the United Farm Workers union  which his mother co-founded  throughout the Central Valley district. Huerta said Valadaos vote for the Republican healthcare plan shows hes ignoring Valley residents needs because it would end the expansion of the MediCal program, which many of the districts residents use for healthcare. Its going to be a pretty significant issue, he said. He is the first Democrat to announce a bid for the seat. Democrats are heartened by the fact that, while Valadao won the seat with 56.74% of the vote, the district has continued to trend Democratic in voter registration and chose Hillary Clinton for president with 54.72% of the vote. That tells me that there were die-hard Democrats, committed Democrats that vote, Democrats that were not convinced that my campaign should be supported and I think a lot of that has to do with me being a first-time candidate, Huerta said. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has made the seat a target for 2018. The majority-Latino district includes parts of Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown and Democrats say Trump is going backwards if he pulls out of Paris climate pact By John Myers Gov. Jerry Brown warned Wednesday that a decision by President Trump to withdraw the United States from a 2015 global climate change agreement could be tragic, and vowed to keep Californias ambitious efforts in place and on track. Here we are, in 2017, going backwards, Brown said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. It cannot stand, its not right and California will do everything it can to not only stay the course, but to build more support  in other states, in other provinces, in other countries. The governor also criticized efforts to the president to dismantle climate change initiatives launched by former President Barack Obama. Trump is going against science. Hes going against reality, the governor said. We cant stand by and give aid and comfort to that. News that the president had either made the decision to pull the country out of the Paris Accord on climate change or was on the verge of doing so drew swift condemnation from California leaders. Brown and other top lawmakers attended the talks in late 2015 that resulted in the international agreement, and insisted on Wednesday that it would not hurt the states own efforts to sharply curtail greenhouse gas emissions. As with so many other matters, from human rights to healthcare, the Trump administration has continued to surrender our nations longstanding role as a global leader, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said. Others pointed out that a decision to remove the United States from the agreement would leave it in rare company among other nations. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted that such a decision by Trump would be more than just dumb + destructive. Brown, who leaves Friday for a weeklong visit to China to encourage more climate-change cooperation, predicted any decision to step away would suggest the countrys priorities arent clear. It sends a very muddled message, the governor said during an interview in his state Capitol office. Is the message [that] we like dirty cars and gas guzzlers? And were going to have a coal future? That cant happen. And Brown again suggested that Californias experience on the issue offers a road map for others. If we want to retain and enhance manufacturing, we have to do what California is doing, in clean energy and clean technology, he said. Thats the future of jobs, the future of sustainability. And we better get on board. And California will be right there with the best of them. Facebook

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This Orange County congressmans immigration town hall turned chaotic and led to three arrests By Sarah D. Wire The majority of calls into Rep. Lou Correas Orange County congressional office are about immigration worries and what the Trump administrations enforcement policies mean for Correas many Latino constituents. Theres a lot of fear in my district, he said. So the freshman Democrat has held seven town halls, all focused on immigration and explaining immigrants rights. Theyve been peaceful, with representatives from groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and the Mexican Consulate invited to help Correa answer questions. But as the crowd of about 100 people gathered at Santa Anas Delhi Center on Tuesday evening, Correa knew this time would be different. We had some people there, probably a dozen of them, that immediately had signs that were not complimentary to yours truly, he said. Two women arguing about immigration issues had already gotten into an altercation outside the town hall. They were cited for assault and battery, and barred by police from going inside. Correa told the crowd inside he would give a short presentation about immigration policy coming out of Washington and then have a question-and-answer session. About a dozen people were having none of it. Some of the most tense moments came when Correa started talking about green card holders who served in the U.S. military and have since been deported. Maam, Im trying to be courteous here, he said as a woman kept speaking over him. As soon as I started speaking, it became very clear they were not going to let me speak, Correa said Wednesday. They just got louder and louder. Video of the town hall posted on social media shows people in the crowd yelling Americans first and Illegals have no rights. Correa repeatedly asks them to let him speak. Are you guys going to cooperate, or am I going to have to ask you to leave? he said. About 15 minutes in, as some in the crowd continued to shout and their attention turned to berating a group of counter-protesters, Correa declared the meeting over. A handful of people circled around Correa as he tried to leave, yelling Shame, shame and You guys all want welfare. One womans voice can be heard repeatedly yelling Coward! Police emptied the room amid chants of USA. The crowd streamed into the parking lot, where confrontations quickly started between supporters of President Trump and others who appeared to be focused on Native American rights. Videos posted on social media show men shouting at one another, their faces so close their noses are practically touching. Police officers kept trying to separate the groups. (Warning: The video below includes language that some readers might find offensive.) Santa Ana Police Department spokesman Anthony Bertagna said a man struck a Trump supporter on the head with a pole bearing an anti-fascism flag. He was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, Bertagna said. The man was brought to police headquarters, and a group of about 10 people followed along to protest, he said. Shortly after, the town hall peacefully resumed in a different room with a much smaller crowd, Correa said. Several California members of Congress have held similar immigration-specific town halls or workshops in the last few months as questions swirl about changes to federal immigration policies and enforcement. The purpose of the town halls is to let people know how to follow the law, let them know their legal rights and responsibilities, Correa said. Protesters have characterized it as teaching people who are in the country illegally how to avoid deportation and get federal benefits. Facebook

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California plan for 100% renewable energy by 2045 clears key hurdle By Liam Dillon California will receive all of its power from renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, by 2045 under legislation that passed the state Senate on Wednesday. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) touted his bill, Senate Bill 100, as the most ambitious program in the world. Clean energy is the future, De Leon said. SB 100 ensures that California leads into the future. The measure would also speed up the states goal of reaching 50% renewable energy, changing the deadline from 2030 to 2026. SB 100 passed over objections from Republican senators. Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Temecula) criticized the measure as government getting ahead of technological capacity. What if we cant make that mandate that were putting into law today? Stone said. What its going to do is drive up electricity bills for our businesses. De Leons bill now moves to the Assembly. Facebook

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A new proposal on Californias cap-and-trade program emerges as vote is delayed By Chris Megerian Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced), left. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A coalition of business-friendly Democrats is detailing their own ideas for cap and trade, a centerpiece of Californias fight against global warming, the latest bid in a crowded field of efforts to extend the program. Cap and trade requires polluting companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions, and lawmakers have been considering a push from Gov. Jerry Brown to extend the program beyond 2020. The new plan would force the program to sunset in 2025, earlier than previous proposals from other lawmakers. It would also direct revenue from the program toward improving air quality and helping agricultural and trucking companies lower their emissions by replacing aging equipment. The plan is also aimed at keeping costs down for industries regulated by cap and trade, allowing them to support green projects known as offsets instead of reducing their own emissions. California must continue to lead the world by implementing a strong climate policy that ensures both a healthy environment for future Californians and growth in all sectors of our economy, Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) said in a statement. The pro-business Democrats plan is the fourth such effort announced by various factions within the states ruling Democratic Party this year with two others emerging from the Assembly and one from the Senate. The plans offer varying degrees of changes to the existing program, either to prioritize pollution reductions in disadvantaged communities or eliminate offsets. Republican lawmakers also have said they want to be part of the cap-and-trade debate. Brown has pushed for a two-thirds supermajority vote of the Legislature to extend the program by the state budget deadline next month. But Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said at a Wednesday news conference that that wasnt going to happen. Cap-and-trade is a very complex issue, De Leon said. Its very arcane. We want to make sure we get it right. De Leon said he hoped for a deal by the end of the year. Read More Facebook

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Senate fails to back bill to delay the Aliso Canyon reopening, but lawmaker will try again Facebook

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California state Senate advances bill to ban smoking and use of e-cigarettes in government housing By Patrick McGreevy Californians would no longer be able to use tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, in public housing and within 25 of those buildings under a measure approved Tuesday by the state Assembly. Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) said the measure builds on a smoking ban approved last year for federal public housing projects by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In addition to applying the smoking ban to state housing, expansion to include e-cigarettes makes sure the law cover new technology in tobacco use. The bill takes effect by July 30, 2018. Wood said tobacco-related diseases cost taxpayers significant funds each year. This bill will save money but will more importantly save lives, Wood told his colleagues before the vote. The measure is opposed by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which worries it will lead to more evictions. Facebook

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Californians would not be able to buy more than one rifle a month under bill approved by state senators By Patrick McGreevy Terry McGuire, owner of Get Loaded in Grand Terrace, shows a customer a Cobalt Kinetics BAMF rifle about a week after the 2015 shooting rampage in nearby San Bernardino. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times) Californians would be prohibited from buying more than one firearm in any 30-day period under a measure approved Tuesday by the Senate to reduce straw purchasing and circumvention of gun laws. California already bars people from buying more than one handgun a month. The bill by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) expands the limit to also cover long guns, including rifles and shotguns. The measure, which next goes to the Assembly for consideration, seeks to address concerns that some people buy large quantities of guns and then sell them on the underground market to criminals and others not eligible to own guns. There is no need or reason why a person would need to purchase more than one gun a month, Portantino said during the floor debate. Republicans, including Jeff Stone of Murrieta, opposed the legislation. This is yet another example of the government trying to infringe on the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, Stone said. Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Chico) said he has seen no proof that past gun-control measures approved by the state have made the state safer. Its more of the same that will not decrease violent crime, Nielsen said. Facebook

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California state senators want to stop the public from smoking at California beaches and parks By Patrick McGreevy Californians would be barred from smoking or using electronic cigarettes in state parks and at beaches under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Concord) said his bill would address the health problems caused by smoking but also the harm done to the environment by discarded cigarette butts and the fire danger posed by the practice. Cigarette butts contain more than 150 toxic chemicals and although small in size, have a huge negative impact on the environment and the animals that live in them, Glazer told his colleagues. A legislative analysis said the bill does not address the concerns raised by Gov. Jerry Brown when he vetoed a similar bill last year. The veto message read, in part, The complete prohibition in all parks and beaches is too broad. A more measured  and less punitive  approach might be warranted. Facebook

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School day wouldnt begin before 8:30 a.m. in California under bill that clears the state Senate By John Myers (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) California teenagers wouldnt be required to start their school day before 8:30 am under a bill approved Tuesday by the state Senate. The legislation by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) would not fully take effect until 2020, and sparked a lively floor debate over the science on the sleep patterns of middle and high school students, and whether they simply need to go to bed earlier. I expect this would only dispose them to stay up later, said state Sen. Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber). Another Republican lawmaker, Sen. Jean Fuller (R-Bakersfield), said students need to learn what its like in the workforce. Job preparation is what schooling is all about, Fuller said. Unless youre a musician or someone who works nights, you probably did not start in the later morning. Opponents also said the later start time could affect collective bargaining agreements with teachers and other school employees. Supporters, however, pointed to a recommendation for later start times from the American Academy of Pediatrics. A University of Minnesota study linked school start times to sleep deprivation and the rate of car crashes among teenage drivers. The morning sleep time is the most valuable for student health, said Portantino. Their test scores go up, their attendance goes up, their graduation rates go up. The bill would allow rural school districts to obtain a waiver if they couldnt make the change. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) ended the debate with a simple request of the senators on behalf of teenage students. "Lets just let them sleep in a little bit, he said with a smile. Facebook

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More transparency proposed for prescription drug price increases under bill passed by California Senate By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa), shown speaking in March, won Senate approval Tuesday on a bill that would require more transparency on drug prices. (Melanie Mason / Los Angeles Times) Alarmed by skyrocketing prices for some prescription drugs, the California Senate on Tuesday approved a measure aimed at increasing pressure to hold down costs to consumers by requiring more public reporting of price hikes. The lawmakers approved a bill that would require drug manufacturers to notify health plans and state purchasers such as the prison department of increases in the wholesale cost of drugs in writing at least 90 days before the new costs were to take effect. The measure also requires that health plans and insurers notify state regulators of pricing information for the most costly drugs. Were not saying that they cant raise the price. Were just saying notify us, Hernandez said during the floor debate. And if [the price] goes up a significant amount, we should be able to question why. The measure passed by a 26-10 vote with some Republicans, including Sen. Ted Gaines of El Dorado Hills, opposed. Gaines said the pharmaceutical industrys pricing of drugs helps it pay for development of new medications. It funds their research, Gaines said during the debate. The measure next goes to the Assembly, where a similar bill last year failed to win passage. Hernandez said more opponents are talking to him this year about possible compromises, although the bill is opposed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Hernandez said the bill is needed, adding that current regulations allow pharmaceutical companies to reap obscene profits at the expense of the entire healthcare system. Facebook

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California Senate advances bill to make pot use in cars an infraction By Patrick McGreevy San Bruno police officers stop cars at a DUI checkpoint. State officials are proposing to make it an infraction to use marijuana in motor vehicles. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Just months after state voters legalized the recreational use of marijuana, the state Senate on Tuesday voted to prohibit its use in automobiles because of concerns over drugged driving. A bill by Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) makes it an infraction for drivers and passengers to use marijuana in motor vehicles. Stiffer penalties already exist for motorists found to be driving while impaired by drugs. California voters legalized recreational use of marijuana in November although the state does not plan to begin issuing licenses for its legal sale until January. In Washington state, which previously legalized pot, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that the number of drivers who had recently used marijuana before fatal accidents doubled from 2013 to 2014, Hill told his colleagues. Washington serves as an eye-opening case study for what other states may experience with road safety after legalizing the drug, Hill told his colleagues before the unanimous vote to approve the measure and send it to the Assembly for consideration. Facebook

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California lawmakers want to give parents at smaller companies 12 weeks of protected family leave By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California lawmakers are once again seeking to expand the states paid family leave program to smaller businesses after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar measure last year. SB 63, authored by Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), on Tuesday moved out of the state Senate with a 25-13 vote. It now heads to the Assembly for consideration. The legislation, a priority bill for the California Legislative Womens Caucus, would allow parents at companies with 20 to 49 employees to take 12 weeks of leave to care for a newborn or newly adopted child  without fear of losing their jobs. Under the current state law, only workers at businesses with 50 or more workers can take advantage of program. On the Senate floor Tuesday, the debate on the issue echoed that of last year. Republican lawmakers argued the bill would kill jobs and hurt small businesses already struggling in California. Those in favor argued progressive family leave policies attracted a strong and healthy workforce. Jackson said her bill would impact only 6.3% of California companies, while helping 16% of its workforce, a population of 2.7 million residents across the state. With so many women in the workforce than ever before, and with so many struggling, two-income families, this is a critical moment in time, she said. Facebook

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Kimberly Ellis files formal challenge over result of state Democratic Party chairperson election By Seema Mehta (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) The candidate who narrowly lost the race to be the next leader of the California Democratic Party on Tuesday filed a formal challenge of the election result. Kimberly Ellis campaign, which was already in the process of reviewing the ballots cast during the state partys convention two weekends ago, said they were filing the challenge to meet a requirement in the party bylaws that such an action must be taken within seven days of the contested act. Our review process is ongoing. Its critical that all formal processes outlined by the CDPs bylaws are followed at this time so that there can be no concern about raising issues in the manner prescribed by our party, said Hilary Crosby, immediate past controller for the state party and an Ellis supporter. Ellis campaign said challenges were also being filed in races for a vice chair, secretary and multiple regional directors. Chris Masami Myers, state party executive director, acknowledged receiving the challenges and said in a statement that they would be reviewed in accordance with the standard practices described in the bylaws. The partys compliance review commission, made up of six members who were appointed during former Chairman John Burtons tenure, will review the evidence and take oral or written testimony before issuing a ruling in mid- to late June. The state party chair race was the most heated and contentious. Longtime party leader Eric Bauman entered the race with advantages, but Ellis made the contest competitive. In the election, held this month at the state party convention in Sacramento, Bauman beat Ellis by just over 60 votes. But amid allegations levied by her supporters of ballot-box stuffing and ripped-up ballots, she refused to concede the race. Her campaign has been reviewing individual ballots for a week. Bauman did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Updated at 4:57 p.m.: This post was updated to add additional information about how the review will be conducted. Updated at 3:35 p.m.: This post was updated to add a comment from a state party official. This post was originally published at 2:37 p.m. Facebook

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Darrell Issa gets on his office roof to take a picture of protesters. A mild hubbub ensues By Sarah D. Wire Yes, this is really @DarrellIssa on the roof of his district office building. Too afraid to come speak with assembled constituents below. pic.twitter.com/wCYRjO8Ev8  Mike Levin (@MikeLevinCA) May 30, 2017 It began when one of Rep. Darrell Issas 2018 opponents, Mike Levin, posted an image on Twitter, saying the Vista congressman was hiding on his office roof from hundreds of protesters on the street below. The photo of Issa standing on the roof ricocheted around Twitter, with many comparing it to a scene from the popular television show The Office, and left-leaning media outlets quickly publishing headlines like Darrell Issa Appears to Flee to Building Roof to Avoid Protesters. Like most things, what happened at Issas office appears to have been a bit more nuanced. Issa soon tweeted that he had spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic!. Multiple images, including one from Levins account and from Issas account, show the congressman on the street with protesters. Spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic! pic.twitter.com/K2CFdenOIj  Darrell Issa (@DarrellIssa) May 30, 2017 I just received an unprompted call from @DarrellIssa who said he tried, unsuccessfully to speak with protesters outside his district office.  Joshua Stewart (@jptstewart) May 30, 2017 .@DarrellIssa said the protesters wouldnt' speak with him, so he went up to the roof and took pictures.  Joshua Stewart (@jptstewart) May 30, 2017 The protests occur weekly outside Issas Vista district office, and the congressman has come out to speak with the group at least twice since President Trumps inauguration. Issa narrowly won reelection in 2016 over a novice opponent, and Democrats are targeting his seat in 2018. Issas staff said he tried to speak with all the protesters using their sound system, but was rebuffed. Rally organizer Ellen Montanari said she decided not to hand over the protesters microphone so Issa could take questions from the crowd because he refused to shake her hand before the protest began. He refused to do that, and he said, Step away, you are a protester. And I said I am a constituent,  Montanari said. She said he also made disparaging remarks about the protesters and the signs they carry. Issas spokesman, Calvin Moore, said Montanari cant simultaneously organize people to stand outside our office with Where is Darrell? signs and feign outrage how he wont answer her questions  and then deny him the ability to answer his constituents questions, he said. Facebook

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State Senate Democrats pass bills designed to protect against Trumps possible changes Facebook

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Rep. Adam Schiff says alleged Russian meddling in election was an effort to destroy American democracy By Seema Mehta U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, left, discusses Russias threat to liberal democracies around the world at discussion discussion hosted by Erwin Chemerinsky at UCI. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said Tuesday that the alleged Russian meddling in last years presidential election was about far more than favoring one candidate over another. He said it was an effort to undermine the foundation of American democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian regime in Moscow. Now if you look at this as just a one-off intervention, you might be inclined to dismiss the greater significance of it, or if you listen to the president, you might be inclined to dismiss this as simply efforts to relitigate a lost election, Schiff told several hundred people at UC Irvine. But the significance is really far greater. Quite separate and apart from the desire of the Russians to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton was a more fundamental objective, and that was really to tear down at our democracy. Schiff is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is investigating allegations of Russian intervention in the presidential election, including the leaking of hacked Democratic emails and contacts between Trump associates and Russians. Trump has declared the investigation the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history on Twitter. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the former chairman of the committee, recently told hundreds of Republicans at a fundraiser that the investigation is about nothing more than Democrats trying to justify Clintons loss. Nunes stepped down from his position after allegations arose that he mishandled classified information. Schiff said Russian President Vladimir Putin would have reasons for wanting to see Clinton fail and Trump succeed  he believed that the CIA and Clinton were secretly behind mass demonstrations in Russia in 2011, and because Trumps positions on issues such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were more favorable to Russia than Clintons. But Schiff argued the larger point was sowing discord in the U.S., so Putin could argue that American democracy is no better than his government. Talk of rigged elections and surveillance, questioning the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the press  as Trump has done  boost Putins message, Schiff said. And the efforts are not limited to the United States, he added, pointing to allegations that the Russians made an effort to interfere in Frances recent election. The reality is there is new ideological struggle. Its not communism versus capitalism anymore. It is authoritarian versus democracy, he said. This is the broader challenge we are facing. Schiff also warned that there is no way to prevent Russian cyber-spying and that future attempts to interfere with American elections will only be more sophisticated, so voters must be educated. One of the most important conclusions the intelligence agencies have reached is the Russians will do this again, he said. The only real defense is to inoculate ourselves, to educate ourselves about what the Russians have done, why they are doing [it and] what they may do in the future and somehow we have to develop a consensus regardless of which party it helps and which party it hurts  that we will reject it. Facebook

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Rep. Devin Nunes: Democrats are using Russia investigation to justify Clintons loss By Sarah D. Wire (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA) House Select Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told hundreds of local Republicans at a recent private fundraiser that congressional investigations into Russias interference in the 2016 election are about Democrats trying to justify Hillary Clintons loss. The Democrats dont want an investigation on Russia. They want an independent commission. Why do they want an independent commission? Because they want to continue the narrative that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are best friends, and thats the reason that he won, because Hillary Clinton would have never lost on her own; it had to be someone elses fault, Nunes told Republicans the day after he stepped away from leading the House investigation. His remarks were recorded on video and provided to The Times. Read More Facebook

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Californias embattled tax board would lose power over staff and funding under lawmakers plan By John Myers Following months of accusations about mistakes and improper use of power by its elected members, the state Board of Equalization could lose substantial power and gain an independent overseer under legislation introduced in the state Assembly. The bill by Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) would shift much of the power over staff and spending authority away from the independent tax board and create a new inspector general to watch over its actions. What were trying to do is make sure that the reform is transparent, Ridley-Thomas said. Thats what I think the moment demands. The plan, introduced as an amended bill just before the Memorial Day holiday, comes in the wake of audits alleging the tax agency made multimillion dollar miscalculations on revenue allocations and that some of its elected members improperly used staff members who were supposed to be focused on tax collection. Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown called the situation a mess and in April asked for an investigation by the state Department of Justice. Four members of the Board of Equalization are directly elected by voters. The fifth, state Controller Betty Yee, serves in an ex officio capacity. The Assembly bill would transfer significant staff decisions to the agencys executive director and would require the Board of Equalizations members to have their operations funded in detailed line items included in the state budget. It would also create an inspector general office and would require the boards members to disclose all ex parte communications with those seeking action by the agency. I think that these issues can be addressed if we keep them in the sunlight, said Ridley-Thomas. Facebook

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New advertising campaign targets lawmakers over votes for climate change policies By Chris Megerian A coalition of California businesses launched a new advertising campaign on Saturday to pressure lawmakers against enacting tighter policies on climate change and air pollution. The campaign includes online videos and television advertising that warn of higher costs for business and residents. It arrives as Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers are debating whether to extend the cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, and how restrictive the system should be. The first lawmaker being targeted is Assemblyman Ken Cooley (D-Rancho Cordova), accusing him of allowing unelected state employees to raise hidden taxes on gasoline and electricity because he voted last year for a tougher target to reduce emissions by 2030. Other lawmakers could face similar advertisements. Were locked, loaded and ready to go statewide, said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, which is funding the campaign through an advocacy group called Californians for Affordable and Reliable Energy. The roundtable represents the states largest corporations, including oil refineries and manufacturers who have been critical of climate policies. A dollar figure was not disclosed for the advertising campaign, which will represent a balancing act for the roundtable. It supports the cap-and-trade program as an alternative to more restrictive regulations, but it opposes some of the current proposals to extend it. One measure would tie the program to air quality, targeting a wider range of pollutants than just greenhouse gases, and another would make it function more like a tax and charge higher prices for emission permits. Were at a tipping point here, Lapsley said. We need to get this information out into the public in order to try and create balanced policies. Although polls show broad support for fighting global warming in California, concerns about higher costs for constituents could be influential with some lawmakers who recently passed legislation to raise gas taxes to fund road repairs. Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) is facing a recall campaign over his vote. Nonpartisan legislative analysts have said cap and trade could boost the price of gasoline by 24 cents to 73 cents by 2030. Environmentalists have said its inaccurate to tie any single policy to fluctuations in gas prices. Facebook

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California Politics Podcast: The debate among Democrats didnt end at their convention By John Myers The official gathering of California Democrats lasted only three days, but the lingering debate and simmering tensions could keep going well into next years elections. On this weeks California Politics Podcast episode, we look back at the line in the sand drawn at last weeks California Democratic Party convention by some of the partys most passionate progressive activists -- including the blunt speech delivered by an influential labor union leader last weekend. We also discuss big new developments this week on the topic that energized those Democratic activists: a single-payer healthcare system for California. On Monday, a fiscal analysis put a large price tag on legislation to enact that sweeping healthcare change. Im joined this week by Times staff writer Melanie Mason. Facebook

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California lawmakers quietly refuse to stop unlimited cash flowing from political parties to their campaigns By John Myers (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times) An ambitious effort to close a widely used loophole that allows large donations from political parties to be funneled into California races was rejected on Friday. The bill by Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) would have made political party money donated to statewide and legislative candidates subject to the same contribution limits as individuals. Under the language of a voter-approved initiative, Proposition 34, money from political parties is exempt from those existing limits. Its a money-laundering scheme that has completely duped voters, Levine said last fall when he first promised to introduce the bill. The proposal was quietly killed, without a formal vote, by the Assembly Appropriations Committee during its biannual session to act on bills placed on the so-called suspense file due to their estimated costs. Committee staff estimated that Levines AB 1234 would have six-figure costs both for enforcement and for placing the issue before voters in 2018. Facebook

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Veteran Democratic operative criticizes Kimberly Ellis for refusing to concede party chair race By Seema Mehta Supporters of Kimberly Ellis make signs, refusing to accept her loss to Eric Bauman for the California Democratic chair post. (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Veteran Democratic operative Bob Mulholland slammed infighting among California Democrats, and urged Kimberly Ellis, who came up short in a nasty party chair election, to work to unify the party. I  and others did not understand some of your supporters  attacks on those of us who have spent decades or years building the Democrats in California as the most successful political Party in the country, he wrote in an open letter to Ellis on Thursday. He sent the email in the aftermath of the partys rancorous convention last weekend that featured a bitter leadership battle between Ellis, a favorite of newer members including the backers of Bernie Sanders failed presidential bid, and longtime party leader Eric Bauman. After Bauman was declared the winner by a razor-thin margin of just over 60 votes, Ellis refused to concede and demanded an audit of the vote as some of her backers floated rumors of ballot-box stuffing and discarded ballots. Ellis demurred when asked about Mulhollands scathing letter. While our review continues, we are refraining from making any statement that might cause further division, Ellis said. If we hope to truly unify this party, it will require patience by all. Officials with the Ellis campaign have been reviewing ballots this week. A spokesman said they had looked at about two-thirds by the end of Friday and hope to be done by the middle of next week. Joe Macaluso, Ellis strategist, declined to discuss the results and said her team needed to review additional documentation beyond the ballots. Were trying to stay true to our process and not release anything, but were in it, he said. Its an extensive process. Mulholland argued in his public letter that the convention should have showcased the partys message, not intraparty spats. Our annual Conventions should take care of internal business (Platforms, election of Officers, Resolutions, etc.), but more importantly a communication to voters, especially moderate Democrats and Independents about their concerns and issues, Mulholland wrote. If such busy people had a minute to read some news about our Convention, they saw Democrats yelling and arguing about ballots being stuffed, sounding like a Trump event. This Convention failed them. Mulholland listed the partys successes in the state, including Democrats lopsided voter registration edge, its nearly three-decade record of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, its election of female senators since 1992 and its hold of every statewide office, supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature and nearly three-quarters of the congressional delegation. Over the last 29 years, thats a [1.000] batting record, he wrote. Mulholland called on Ellis to hold a news conference with Bauman once she is satisfied with her audit of the vote. Then, he wrote, lets move on. Facebook

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California lawmakers block proposals meant to make it easier to track and report hate crimes By Jazmine Ulloa Graffiti mars the steeple on the Greater Holy Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Compton in January. Cases of vandalism make up close to one-third of reported hate crimes, according to a new report. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) California lawmakers Friday stalled measures meant to help report and track hate crimes across the state, proposals filed amid a wave of incidents reported after the 2016 presidential election. The state Assembly Appropriations Committee shelved bills that would have created new hate-crime reporting requirements for police and a hotline under the attorney generals office for victims wishing to report an attack. Of those bills, a proposal filed by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) initially sought to develop a state government database with the names of felons convicted of hate crimes related to race, religion and sexual orientation. That proposal was amended to instead require every law enforcement agency to forward a summary of a reported hate crime, upon conclusion of an investigation, to the human relations commission within its jurisdiction. But a committee analysis found it could cost the state more than $150,000 to help agencies redact personal information from their records. The committee also shut down bills that would have required police to update policies to address hate crimes and include a checkbox on the front pages of reports that would prominently provide an option to indicate whether a crime was bias-related. Local law enforcement officials have reported a recent rise in reported hate crime incidents. Existing state laws require local and state law enforcement officials to compile hate crime information. California jurisdictions reported a 10.4% statewide increase in those incidents last year. Facebook

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Here were the top six moments from last nights L.A. congressional race debate By Christine Mai-Duc Robert Lee Ahn, left, and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez sparred in a debate Thursday night ahead of the runoff for the 34th Congressional District seat. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times) Attorney Robert Lee Ahn and Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez sparred Thursday night at the first and only debate in the runoff race for the 34th Congressional District seat. The candidates, both Democrats, offered little in the way of policy differences. Both agreed President Trump has racist tendencies, that keeping the Affordable Care Act is a top priority, and that they would fight to protect immigrants rights. Ahn came out swinging, repeatedly calling Gomez an insider whos sponsored by special interests, while Gomez pointed to his work supporting progressive policies in the Legislature and endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. Here are the top six exchanges: The numbers problem: Gomez again criticized Ahn for a response he gave in an L.A. Times questionnaire that suggested he would negotiate with Republicans to protect parts of Obamacare. Gomez said Democrats need to take a hard line and that Ahn was too soft on support for Medicaid. In case you havent noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress, Ahn shot back. Until were able to take back the House, were going to have to talk to the other side.

Gomez again criticized Ahn for a response he gave in an L.A. Times questionnaire that suggested he would negotiate with Republicans to protect parts of Obamacare. Gomez said Democrats need to take a hard line and that Ahn was too soft on support for Medicaid. In case you havent noticed, we have a numbers problem in Congress, Ahn shot back. Until were able to take back the House, were going to have to talk to the other side. Gomez fact-checks Ahns name-check: Ahn made the case that voters should send an attorney to Congress to help in the legal battles against the Trump presidency. I will join fellow attorneys and Congress members Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the fight, Ahn said to the crowd. Gomez, who spent much of the evening bringing up his legislative experience and vast array of endorsements, responded: I hate to mention it, but, you know, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have endorsed me.

Ahn made the case that voters should send an attorney to Congress to help in the legal battles against the Trump presidency. I will join fellow attorneys and Congress members Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff in the fight, Ahn said to the crowd. Gomez, who spent much of the evening bringing up his legislative experience and vast array of endorsements, responded: I hate to mention it, but, you know, Adam Schiff and Ted Lieu have endorsed me. Getting more personal: In discussions about immigration and healthcare, Gomez and Ahn delved a little deeper into their backgrounds. Gomez talked about his young nephew who feared that his mother, a permanent resident, might be deported after Trump was elected. Ahn told the story of how his parents came to the United States with $700 each and cobbled together enough money to open a hamburger stand, eventually building their piece of the American Dream.

In discussions about immigration and healthcare, Gomez and Ahn delved a little deeper into their backgrounds. Gomez talked about his young nephew who feared that his mother, a permanent resident, might be deported after Trump was elected. Ahn told the story of how his parents came to the United States with $700 each and cobbled together enough money to open a hamburger stand, eventually building their piece of the American Dream. Ahn on the attack: Ahn repeatedly criticized Gomez for taking money from corporate interests. Special interests, big pharma, big bankers. ... Its all payback time [for Gomez donors] on Day One, Ahn said. On Day One, I owe the people of the 34th District and thats it. Ahn pitched himself as an outsider who understands the district and whose small-business experience will help him relate to the problems facing everyday residents.

Ahn repeatedly criticized Gomez for taking money from corporate interests. Special interests, big pharma, big bankers. ... Its all payback time [for Gomez donors] on Day One, Ahn said. On Day One, I owe the people of the 34th District and thats it. Ahn pitched himself as an outsider who understands the district and whose small-business experience will help him relate to the problems facing everyday residents. A litmus test: Gomez fought back against the idea that hes a corporate Democrat, primarily by pointing to several endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. If I was so establishment, I dont think Our Revolution ... would actually endorse me, Gomez said of the Bernie Sanders-affiliated group. If you want a litmus test, thats a litmus test if youre a progressive ... if youre actually able to take on the status quo.

Gomez fought back against the idea that hes a corporate Democrat, primarily by pointing to several endorsements hes received from left-leaning groups. If I was so establishment, I dont think Our Revolution ... would actually endorse me, Gomez said of the Bernie Sanders-affiliated group. If you want a litmus test, thats a litmus test if youre a progressive ... if youre actually able to take on the status quo. Gomez gets skewered on gas tax: As part of his argument that he has fought for the little guy, Ahn expressed outrage that Californias gas taxes will increase July 1, saying theres nothing progressive about the gas tax hike Gomez voted for. We already paid 38 cents per gallon. Where is that money going? Ahn said, echoing a line many legislative Republicans have used. Sacramento politicians, this is what they do, they take our money and they spend it and theres no accountability. Gomez responded by saying public safety was at stake and that fixing roads was the responsible thing to do. If you missed it, you can watch the entire thing here. The election is set for June 6. Facebook

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Rob Reiner, Hollywood bigwigs and Netflix co-founder team up to give Villaraigosas campaign a major cash boost By Seema Mehta (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Hollywood heavyweights are set to host a major fundraiser for Antonio Villaraigosas gubernatorial campaign on June 15, ensuring an infusion of large contributions shortly before a key fundraising deadline. Donors are being asked to contribute up to $29,200 to attend a summer reception at the home of media executive Peter Chernin and his wife Megan, the site of a celebrity-studded fundraiser for President Obama in 2013. Co-hosts include Paramount Pictures chief Jim Gianopulos, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, video game honcho Robert Kotick, comedian George Lopez, Sony chief Michael Lynton, NBCUniversal vice chairman Ron Meyer, producer Rob Reiner, super-agent Rick Rosen, producer Orly Adelson, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain James Costos, former White House decorator Michael Smith and attorney Michael Tuchin. Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, entered the governors race in November. Through the end of 2016, he raised $2.7 million, a respectable haul in a short time period when Democratic donors were reeling from the presidential election and distracted by the holidays. But his fundraising lags behind that of his top rivals, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang. So political observers will be scrutinizing his next financial disclosure report, which will cover the first six months of 2017. The fundraiser occurs 15 days before the fundraising period closes on June 30. Read More Facebook

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A delay on cap-and-trade vote would be a victory for Donald Trump, Gov. Jerry Browns office says By Chris Megerian (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Despite hesitance and resistance from state lawmakers, Gov. Jerry Brown is refusing to budge from his goal of reaching a deal next month to extend Californias cap-and-trade program. The latest tug-of-war on the issue came this week in an email exchange circulated among Capitol staff members and advocates working on climate change policies. Kip Lipper, an environmental advisor for Senate leadership, wrote in a Thursday email that there were no plans to take up a cap and trade reauthorization bill anytime soon. Echoing concerns that have percolated among lawmakers, Lipper said senators were gas tax weary about the possibility of another difficult vote after deciding to raise gas taxes to pay for road repairs earlier this year. The cap-and-trade program, which is a cornerstone of Californias fight against global warming, requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions and could boost the price of gasoline. With votes hard to come by, Lipper wrote, the issue should not be rushed. Camille Wagner, Browns legislative secretary, responded on Friday saying there was no reason to delay. Weve all been meeting for months on this issue, she wrote. We know the areas of agreement and disagreement  now is the time to work through those. She added that NOTHING is more important than getting a deal as soon as possible. This is not a time for retreat or a time to give aid and comfort to Donald Trump by undermining a pillar of Californias bold program to arrest climate change, Wagner wrote. If Californias Cap and Trade falls because we fail to act, climate denial wins. Brown had already faced resistance to his push to reach a deal on cap and trade in June, when the state budget is due. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) previously said we dont have to extend it this year. The disagreement over the timeline for reaching a deal is only one of the disputes surrounding cap and trade. Assembly leaders have raised the possibility of pushing legislation with only a majority vote, an idea the governors office rejected. Brown wants a two-thirds vote to insulate cap and trade from legal challenges. There are also varied ideas about how the program should function in the future. Assembly legislation would modify cap and trade so it also targets local pollution, rather than just greenhouse gases. Senate legislation would make the program function more like a carbon tax. Facebook

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The effort to make tampons tax free in California has been delayed until 2018 By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Legislation to eliminate California sales taxes on the purchase of tampons was delayed Friday by the Assemblys fiscal committee until 2018, a blow to advocates who say the tax is an unfair burden on low-income women and families. The delay imposed on AB 9 is the second setback this month for efforts to eliminate taxes on products for women and children. A separate bill that included a tax-free provision for diapers was killed in a legislative committee on May 8. The bill that was held back on Friday, written by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), would have excluded tampons, sanitary napkins and other menstrual products from sales taxes. A legislative committee analysis estimated the proposal would reduce state general fund revenues by $10.5 million a year. Dozens of other bills with a cost to state government were killed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, while AB 9 was instead reclassified as a two-year bill, meaning it is eligible to be heard again in the second year of the legislative session. Gov. Jerry Brown last year rejected a similar measure that sought to make tampons tax-free, writing in his veto message that tax breaks are the same as new spending  they both cost the general fund money. Facebook

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Outside money spills into L.A. congressional race as election day nears By Christine Mai-Duc Spending by outside groups hoping to influence Los Angeles congressional race is picking up, with less than two weeks to go before the runoff for the 34th Congressional District. Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez and attorney Robert Lee Ahn, both Democrats, are competing to fill the former seat of Xavier Becerra in the June 6 election. Becerra stepped down months ago to become the states attorney general. Spending separate from the candidates campaigns is reaching into the six-figure range, with most of the outside money going to support Gomez, the heavy favorite of establishment Democrats. One group funded primarily by an Ahn donor, Citizens for a Better Government, has spent $40,264 on data, printing and postage for mailers, and $8,000 on treasury services to support Ahns bid. The Latino Victory Fund, which has endorsed Gomez, recently spent $29,640 on direct mail and $30,000 on phone banking and voter canvassing for the candidate. Billboard company Outfront Media LLC has spent $1,973 on billboards for him. Also backing Gomez is a group called Middle Class Values PAC. The group spent $19,653 on mailers supporting Gomez despite not having reported receiving any major contributions so far this year. The groups biggest donors last year were a handful of Nevada casino owners and developers, but most of that money appears to have been spent on Democrats running for Congress in Pennsylvania and Nevada. Outside spending in the 34th Congressional District race has been dwarfed by candidate spending. As of March 31, Gomez had spent $446,455 and Ahn had dropped about $767,315 on his run. New campaign finance figures from both candidates are due at midnight Friday. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Browns budget team drops its hotly debated plans to redefine the states spending limit By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) With questions mounting about the legal justification for omitting some $22 billion in expenses from Californias long-standing spending cap, Gov. Jerry Browns administration dropped the plan Thursday while promising to work on the issue again later this year. Browns advisors told the Assembly Budget Committee that this could include some changes in state law to clarify the rules surrounding whats known as the Gann limit, a cap on state spending growth imposed by voters in 1979. The cap has rarely come into play in state budgeting in recent years, as it was loosened by a subsequent ballot measure in 1990. The governors administration said it continues to worry about how the law interacts with other mandates related to school funding. School financing has changed significantly since the limit was first established in 1979, said H.D. Palmer, Browns budget spokesman. Because of that, we continue to believe we need statutory clarifications related to these school funding changes. Legislative analysts warned lawmakers in April that the governor may have been overestimating how much room for spending was left under the cap, a dispute that continued for weeks while lawmakers began drafting plans for formal budget negotiations next month. Earlier this week, state senators again raised concerns about the complex estimates used to determine how much spending the Gann law would allow in the budget year that begins July 1. And they provided an analysis by the Legislatures lawyers that suggested Browns proposal could be unconstitutional. The spending limit is enforced over two fiscal years, which means Brown and lawmakers have time to reconcile different estimates. But absent changes similar to those advocated by the governor, a portion of future tax revenues would have to be split between schools and rebates to taxpayers. Facebook

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California Senate, Assembly advance their own plans on how to spend tobacco tax revenue By Melanie Mason (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Perhaps the biggest budget skirmish that remains unsolved this year is how California should spend revenue from the tobacco tax voters approved last fall. Gov. Jerry Brown wants to put that money to expand overall spending on Medi-Cal, which provides subsidized healthcare for the poor. But the some of initiatives backers, namely doctor and dental groups, have cried foul, arguing that money is meant to go to increasing payments for providers. Now, the Senate and Assembly are weighing in. In plans approved in their respective budget committees this week, both houses stray from Browns proposal to put the money toward general Medi-Cal costs and lay out their own ideas on how to divvy up the revenue. But while both houses reject Browns approach, there are key differences between their proposals. Most significantly, the Assembly would allocate all $1.1 billion in projected tax revenue in the next budget year. The Senate, meanwhile, would spend just under $350 million next year, gradually ramping up spending to $1.1 billion by fiscal year 2020-21. Both houses also would increase provider payments, but in different ways. The Assembly would put around $857 million toward once-yearly incentive payments to physicians and dentists that would be tied to their Medi-Cal and Denti-Cal caseloads. The Senate proposed putting $150 million next year to physician rate increases that would be targeted for those working in high-need areas and specialties. That number would increase in successive years, topping out at $700 million by 2020. The Senate also would put $130 million toward higher rates for dentists. The California Medical Assn., which has been pushing for higher reimbursement rates, praised both houses for including the higher rates, but group spokeswoman Joanne Adams noted that the current Legislature cannot tie the hands of a future governor or Legislature, indicating a preference toward the Assembly approach. Each house would allocate $50 million for reimbursement rates for family planning providers, a priority of Planned Parenthood. And both houses put money toward expanding Medi-Cal to cover young adults up to age 26 who are in the country illegally. The proposal builds on Californias policy of making children without legal status younger than 19 eligible for Medi-Cal, which went into effect last year. Anthony Wright, of the advocacy group Health Access, noted that by expanding coverage for those up to age 26, it would align with Obamacares policy of letting children stay on their parents health insurance until that age. This is a concrete and tangible way to show we are actually taking steps forward in expanding coverage, Wright said. The Brown administration estimates that around 130,000 people would be eligible for Medi-Cal under such a proposal, and such an expansion would cost the state just under $230 million. The Senate proposal would put around $63 million toward that expansion in the upcoming budget year and around $85 million in subsequent years. The Assembly would put $54 million toward the plan. The Brown administration did not take a position on the Medi-Cal expansion proposal, but H.D. Palmer, spokesman for Browns Department of Finance, noted that the Senate was using higher revenue projections than Browns plan, which allows legislators to propose more funding. Palmer said the administration was sticking with its original proposal to use tobacco tax dollars for general Medi-Cal spending. The budgets proposal for Prop. 56 will provide increased funding for healthcare programs and services in a way thats consistent with the measure that voters approved last fall, Palmer said. ------------ FOR THE RECORD May 25, 2017, 4:58 p.m.: A previous version of this article reported that both houses were using higher revenue projections than Gov. Browns budget proposal. The Senate is using higher projections; the Assembly is using the same estimates as the Brown administration. Facebook

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California chief justice says she stands by her decision to speak out against Trumps immigration actions By Jazmine Ulloa California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye on Thursday said she stands by her position that courthouses should be areas where immigration arrests should not occur. Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor who rose through the judicial ranks as an appointee of Republican governors, drew national attention in March after she blasted the federal governments expanded immigration actions, among which she said included stalking immigrants at courthouses. Speaking at a Sacramento Press Club luncheon on Thursday, she said the Supreme Court chambers fielded an outpouring of calls and letters after her comments. Some were profane and angry, from residents living outside the state. Others came from supporters. At Sac Press Club luncheon, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye said she fielded lots of anger, support after courthouse enforcement remarks. pic.twitter.com/6OBrZOfI45  Jazmine Ulloa (@jazmineulloa) May 25, 2017 Many said that as a judge, she should not wade into politics. U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly admonished her in a letter, spurring California state leaders to respond in defense of state policies. On Thursday, Cantil-Sakauye stood by her decision to denounce the actions, saying, If I couldnt speak out as chief justice, I dont know who could. Courthouses in California have numerous programs to encourage people to come forward and ask questions, seek services and mediate issues, Cantil-Sakauye said. If we have a segment [of the population] that is afraid to come, then we are looking at no access to justice, [and] potentially public safety issues, which is antithetical to what the justice system exists for, she said. To me, it is a safe zone, and I ask that courthouses be placed on par with school districts and hospitals and churches. Facebook

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Rep. Darrell Issa says the federal employee insurance program should be expanded to all Americans By Sarah D. Wire Though it wasnt included in the House Republicans healthcare bill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) still believes Americans should have access to the same insurance plans federal employees pick from, and hes hoping the Senate will embrace the idea. In a letter Thursday, Issa asked the Senate Health Care Working Group to consider opening the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program to more, or all, Americans. Its a national insurance idea thats persisted since the program began in 1960, and a proposal Issa has pitched before. The program allows more than 8 million current and retired federal employees across the country to shop among hundreds of health insurance plans and then apply their employer contribution to whatever plan they choose. Private insurance companies have pulled out of several state insurance marketplaces, where people whose employers dont offer insurance can purchase insurance using a federal subsidy. That leaves people with fewer health insurance choices, a common complaint cited by Republicans as a reason to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Its choice. If the government can maximize choice to you and then subsidize where appropriate based on need, then weve met the two bases for government involvement, Issa said. Issa voted for the American Health Care Act, the GOP bill to roll back much of Obamacare that passed May 4 without Democratic support, but he stresses that he did so just to keep momentum. One of the reasons I voted for this in the House was to keep the process alive so we could do reform, Issa said. Leveraging business models that work is the goal that somebody like me wants to do. Find out what works and invest in it, find out what doesnt work and fix it or abandon it. On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office said the bill as passed by the House would cause 23 million fewer people to have health insurance by 2026. The budget office, which Congress relies on to analyze the complex legislation, projected that many additional consumers would see skimpier health coverage and higher deductibles. The Senate has essentially said it will write its own version of the bill. Issas letter to his Senate colleagues also urges members to protect people with preexisting conditions, safeguard coverage for people with mental illnesses and protect people near retirement age from a spike in their premiums. Theres still more to be done. This bill is going to be about compromise, and a down payment on change, Issa said. Facebook

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Senate President Kevin de Leon is busy raising campaign funds  but for what office? By Phil Willon Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leon. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) stirred up speculation about a possible run for governor or U.S. Senate when he released a slickly produced video just before the California Democratic Partys convention last weekend, but he has remained coy about his future political plans. That doesnt mean he isnt padding his campaign war chest, though. De Leon has two fundraisers lined up in Los Angeles in June, presumably for his 2018 campaign for California lieutenant governor. The question is whether De Leon actually will run for lieutenant governor. In the past, he has said he hasnt made a decision. He has also given his supporters the go-ahead to endorse state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa), a longtime political ally, in the race. De Leons campaign account for lieutenant governor had $1.7 million in the bank at the end of last year. He raised close to a half-million this year, according to state political financial disclosure reports. The first fundraiser in June is being hosted by veteran Hollywood executive Peter Guber and his wife, Tara, in Bel Air on June 8, with suggested contributions ranging from $500 to $2,500. The second is in late June at the Palm in Los Angeles. The fundraiser is hosted by Craig Darian, CEO of the Occidental Entertainment Group, and his wife, Kimberly, as well as Albert Sweet, the founder of the company. The suggested donations are the same as for the earlier fundraiser. De Leon made history in 2014 when he was selected by his colleagues as the first Latino to lead the California Senate. The tenure has been marked by significant action on climate change, immigration and gun control. Facebook

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Volkswagens clean car plan falls short in low-income neighborhoods, California regulators say By Chris Megerian (Markus Schreiber / Associated Press) State regulators have asked Volkswagen to revise its plan to invest in zero emission technology in California, a victory for critics who said the automaker wasnt doing enough in disadvantaged communities. The investment plan, which will total $800 million over 10 years, is part of Volkswagens obligation under a multi-billion settlement for evading pollution rules. California, which is struggling to get enough zero emission vehicles on the road to meet its goals, is eager to move forward, wrote Air Resources Board Executive Officer Richard Corey in a Wednesday letter to Electrify America, a Volkswagen subsidiary. However, Corey wrote, we need more information on how the company will meet its target of spending 35% of its investment in disadvantaged communities, a target set by state regulators in hopes of broadening the adoption of electric vehicles. Corey also asked Electrify America to consider supporting hydrogen fueling stations, rather than just electric chargers. Once the company submits an updated version of its plan, state regulators will consider whether to approve it. Electrify America said it is reviewing the letter. Dean Florez, a member of the Air Resources Board, said the original investment plan had significant holes and included no real investment in disadvantaged communities. He praised the decision to request revisions and said the board should hold VWs feet to the fire. This story has been updated with additional comments. Facebook

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Lawmakers scrap effort to make it easier to pass local transportation taxes By John Myers An effort to boost the chances of local ballot measures raising taxes for transportation needs was quietly killed Thursday in the state Capitol. The proposal, which would have ultimately required changing the California Constitution through a statewide vote, was in response to the high hurdle set decades ago for local taxes earmarked for specific projects. Those kinds of taxes in cities and counties require two-thirds of the vote. The constitutional amendment by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would have lowered the vote threshold to 55% of ballots cast for any transportation proposal. Wiener argued the long list of local transportation projects lacking funds wont completely be erased by the $52-billion transportation plan signed into law last month. And he pointed specifically to examples like a transportation tax plan in the Bay Area last year that garnered 62% of the vote  still slightly shy of the two-thirds mandate. While the effort can be brought back before lawmakers adjourn the current session in the summer of 2018, Thursdays action represented a major setback for transportation groups and labor unions that supported it. The measure was opposed by business and anti-tax advocates. Wiener said he intends to re-introduce the measure in the coming weeks. We must improve and expand transportation throughout our state, which has suffered from decades of underfunding, he said in a written statement. Update 1:29 p.m. This story was modified with additional information regarding constitutional amendments and the legislative process. Update 4:10 p.m. This story was updated with comment from Sen. Wiener. Facebook

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Sex offenders will not be banned without exception from school grounds after state bill is shelved By Jazmine Ulloa State Sen. Connie M. Leyva, right. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) The state Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday shelved a bill that would have banned all registered sex offenders from school campuses without exception. Senate Bill 26 by Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) would have made it a misdemeanor for a registered sex offender to enter any school building or grounds without lawful business. State laws keep registered sex offenders from living near schools. But those who have not been convicted of having sex with a minor under age 16 can visit or volunteer with groups or organizations that work with children if they give proper notice, and are granted permission. They cannot work directly with children. The committee advanced another bill by Leyva that would extend benefits under the Safe at Home initiative to former victims of forced prostitution or labor. Senate Bill 597, introduced with Secretary of State Alex Padilla, passed with a unanimous 7-0 vote. Read More Facebook

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Measure to help California students refinance private loans is shelved By Melanie Mason State Treasurer John Chiang, a candidate for governor, is behind a new effort to help people with student debt refinance their loans. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A measure to help Californians saddled with student debt refinance their student loans was shelved in a key fiscal committee on Thursday. The measure by state Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) was touted as a way for the state to coax private lenders to offer more favorable interest. The proposal would have carried a $25-million price tag. We will continue to push for sensible solutions to the student loan crisis that provide real relief to the millions of Californians saddled with too much debt, Allen said in a statement. State Treasurer John Chiang, a 2018 gubernatorial candidate, had championed the bill, SB 674, as a way to try to get [Californians] out of debt as quickly as possible. College graduation is supposed to be synonymous with opportunity and prosperity and not a detour into a modern-day debtors prison, Chiang said in a statement. Although I am disappointed SB 674 will not be moving forward, I will continue to use my position as the states banker to invest in Californias young people and its future with innovative solutions that will make it more financially feasible to obtain a higher education, he added. 3:58 p.m.: This article was updated to add comments from Sen. Benjamin Allen and Treasurer John Chiang. This article was originally published at 11:17 a.m. Read More Facebook

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Where bills go to die: Lawmakers begin clearing the suspense file with hundreds of measures in limbo By John Myers (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) From a sales tax exemption on tampons to healthcare rules and marijuana regulation, a massive stack of proposed laws faces a major deadline Friday morning at the state Capitol. To survive, they must clear whats known as the suspense file -- the place where bills that would cost taxpayers money are held in legislative limbo. By law, bills with a fiscal impact must be sent to the floor of the Assembly and Senate by the close of business on Friday. That means its decision time for more than 800 pieces of legislation. The Senates fiscal committee will decide the fate of bills on Thursday; the Assembly will do so on Friday. Bills are generally sent to the suspense file if their projected cost to the state is $150,000 or more. The procedural move was widely used during Californias deficit years as a way for lawmakers to weigh the pros and cons of proposals in light of limited resources. But government watchdog groups have long pointed out that the clearing of the suspense file ends up hiding some of the legislative sausage-making from public view. Thats because bills that dont clear Fridays hurdle are essentially killed without a recorded vote. And neither chamber offers any explanation for why those bills were killed. Decisions on the fate of the suspense file are made in private, hours or days before the public hearing. In the Assembly, the appropriations committee chairperson will simply tell the public that a decision has been made to hold the bill. In the Senate committee, killed legislation wont even be mentioned during Thursdays hearing. That means that no one will know for sure whether a bill is really killed because of its price tag or its politics. Facebook

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Formal apology sought after U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters was cut off during state convention speech By Jazmine Ulloa (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) In my 20 years as a Democratic Party leader, I have never experienced such the type of behavior as I did at the Sacramento Convention hall on Saturday evening.  Darren Parker, longtime chairman of the African American Caucus The California Democratic Party African American Caucus is asking the state party for a formal apology to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and its members for what it called disrespect by a private subcontractor at its weekend state convention. Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat known for her comments on President Trump, had been speaking at a caucus meeting during the event Saturday night when the sound to her microphone was cut off. SEE THE VIDEO OF WATERS SPEECH> Read More Facebook

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California sees a rebound in cap-and-trade auction, bolstering key climate change program By Chris Megerian (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) State regulators announced strong results from Californias cap-and-trade program on Wednesday, spurring analysts and supporters to say the system remains solid despite questions about its political future. The program requires oil refineries, food processors, power plants and other facilities to buy permits to release greenhouse gas emissions. Nearly all of the permits offered by the state in its latest auction were purchased, generating an estimated $500 million in revenue. Thats a shift from other recent auctions, where most of the permits went unsold, reducing revenue that state leaders have counted on for 
Congressional negotiators reached a bipartisan deal late Sunday to fund the federal government through September, easing the threat of a shutdown but denying President Trump several key priorities  including money for his promised border wall with Mexico.

The estimated $1-trillion omnibus package would provide $12.5 billion in increased military funding, about half the amount Trump requested from Congress. Another $2.5 billion for defense is available if the administration submits a counter-terrorism strategy to fight Islamic State.

But the final deal failed to include the big cuts to domestic non-defense accounts that Trump was seeking, and thus emerged as something of an embarrassment to the White House in his first budget negotiation with Congress.

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It actually would increase federal spending on medical research, green energy programs and other areas that the White House had pegged for sharp reductions. Under it, the National Institutes of Health would see an increase of 6%, or $2 billion.

Though the package does include $1.5 billion for border security, the money is expected to pay for technology and infrastructure repairs along the Southwest border, not more detention facilities or deportation officers.

The legislation is also free of more than 160 policy riders intended to restrict abortion access, loosen financial regulations or serve other Republican priorities that could have doomed Democratic support. It notably would not cut money for Planned Parenthood, a White House target.

Negotiators worked through the weekend to finish the deal, which was described by congressional aides. Lawmakers are expected to vote early this week, before stopgap funding expires Friday.

Republicans were notably quiet as details became known Sunday, a day after Trump celebrated his first 100 days in office, while Democrats boasted that the deal shows the power they can leverage even as the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress and the White House.

Early on in this debate, Democrats clearly laid out our principles, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table, he added. The bill ensures taxpayer dollars arent used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle-class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure.

The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), noted that $68 million was added to reimburse law enforcement agencies for costs incurred helping to protect President Trump and the First Family, including his adult children.

Trump engineered the fiscal standoff shortly after he was elected, insisting late last year that Congress should fund the government for only a few months so he could put his stamp on federal spending as the new president.

Most notably, he wanted money to start construction of the wall along the Southwest border that became his signature campaign issue, even though at the time he promised Mexico would pay for it.

The White House plan quickly ran into opposition from Democrats and some Republicans over several priorities.

Congressional Republicans are routinely forced to rely on Democratic support to pass spending bills because their own party typically cannot agree on federal funding levels. The most conservative Republicans often dissent.

Most Democrats have been willing to increase funding for the military, especially to fight terrorism, but not at the level Trump wanted  and not at the expense of non-defense domestic programs.

As negotiations dragged on, Trump only narrowly averted a government shutdown last week when existing funds ran out as he marked his first 100 days in office. Congress quickly approved a one-week temporary funding bill on Friday to allow talks to finish.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) called the final deal Sunday a sharp contrast to the administrations wish list, noting the bill does not fund President Trumps immoral and unwise border wall or create a cruel new deportation force.

The final deal includes several items that were being negotiated late last week, including permanent federal relief to prop up a coal miners pension fund for retiree healthcare.

The bill also includes $295 million to help assist Puerto Ricos struggling Medicaid program and $2 billion in disaster funding for several states, including California, West Virginia, Louisiana and North Carolina. There is $407 million for fighting wildfires in the West.

Among the new domestic spending is $100 million to stem the opioid drug crisis, as well as money for infrastructure investments in Amtrak, particularly along its East Coast rail service.

Both sides would like to put the threat of government shutdowns aside, especially as Republicans try to mark some legislative accomplishments under Trump after failing  twice  to garner enough votes in the House to bring a proposed replacement bill for Obamacare to the floor for a vote.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) can afford to lose only about two dozen votes from his ranks, but the final budget package is expected to draw wide support from Democrats.

Earlier Sunday, Trump complained that his first 100 days in office taught him that Congress moves slowly, with arcane rules.

In many cases youre forced to make deals that are not the deal youd make, Trump said on CBS Face the Nation. Youd make a much different kind of deal.

Republicans have also been trying to revive their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Democrats, who oppose undoing Obamacare, warned them last week not to link the two efforts.

That dynamic will continue during the week ahead as Republicans want to fund the government but also tackle their other priorities, including the Obamacare repeal.

If approved, the omnibus deal would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

@LisaMascaro

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The Supreme Court expanded the reach of federal housing law Monday, ruling that cities  including Los Angeles  can sue major banks for discriminatory lending practices that hurt low-income neighborhoods during the Great Recession.

The decision gives city leaders a potentially powerful weapon against lenders, including those who were accused of predatory practices that triggered the foreclosure crisis after 2008.

Until now, these legal claims faced an apparent obstacle. The Fair Housing Act forbids racial discrimination against any person. Lawyers for the banks said the law protected only people who suffered discrimination, not cities.

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But by a 5-3 vote, the justices said cities can be an aggrieved person who can sue over the impact of housing discrimination on the citys finances. Justice Stephen G. Breyer cited rulings from the 1970s that interpreted the civil rights law broadly, including by allowing city officials to sue real estate agents who were turning away black and Latino home buyers.

Mondays decision cleared the way for the city of Miami to sue Bank of America over allegations that it intentionally targeted predatory practices at African American and Latino neighborhoods, which in turn led to foreclosures and vacancies that sharply reduced property tax revenues.

Lawyers for the banks had appealed, arguing the suits should be tossed out. But the high court disagreed.

We conclude that the citys financial injuries fall within the zone of interests that the Fair Housing Act protects, Breyer said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

The city attorneys for Los Angeles and San Francisco had told the court they had lodged similar suits against the banks.

But Mondays ruling was only a partial victory for the cities.

The justices said they were not convinced that discriminatory lending caused the citys loss in property tax revenues.

It is true, Breyer said, the housing market causes ripples to flow through the citys economy. But for the city to win damages, it must show some direct relation between the alleged predatory lending and its effect on the citys coffers.

The justices sent that issue back to a lower court to be reconsidered. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Breyer and Roberts in the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the suit should have been tossed out. Thomas said the anti-bias law should be limited to people who have been the victims of discrimination, not cities complaining about the impact of housing bias.

Civil rights lawyers had joined the case on the citys side and applauded the ruling.

With this decision, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the crucial role of municipal governments in protecting residents rights, said Dennis Parker, director of the ACLUs racial justice program. In housing and lending as in other areas, cities can and should serve as a bulwark against discrimination.

Daniella Casseres, a housing lawyer in New York, said the courts ruling gives local authorities a very powerful tool to continue defending against lending discrimination in a political environment where federal enforcement may soon be curbed.

david.savage@latimes.com

On Twitter: DavidGSavage
Mark my words, Donald Trump said when he announced he was running for president nearly two years ago. He would build a wall on the southwest border, and Mexico would pay for it.

That promise, the most indelible aspect of Trumps political branding, has endured. It still generates some of the loudest applause during Trumps speeches, as it did at a weekend rally to mark his first 100 days in office.

But over the past week, Trump gave up on pushing Congress to include the billions needed for the wall in the spending plan that lawmakers expect to pass this week. There is little sign that Mexico will be compelled to pay for it, as Trump has so often vowed. And administration allies are increasingly trying to redefine the wall as something other than what Trump described in the campaign.

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The wall may be the perfect metaphor for Trumps administration so far: It remains a White House priority. Trumps harsh rhetoric about it has probably helped stem the flow of illegal border crossings, stirring widespread fear in immigrant communities. But the physical wall itself remains very much in doubt, in part because members of Trumps party seem unwilling to pay for it and members of his administration do not think it is completely necessary.

It is clearly a defeat for the president for the money not to be in the current spending bill, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that advocates for reducing immigration levels.

At a minimum theres no appetite for it, said Angela Kelley, a senior strategic advisor for immigration at Open Society Policy Center, which favors looser immigration restrictions. That could grow into an allergic reaction.

The $1-trillion deal to keep the government open through September, agreed to by the White House and congressional leaders late Sunday, does not include money for new fencing or new border agents requested by the Trump administration.

It does include $1.5 billion for border security, a concession Democrats might not have made without the pressure from Trump on border spending. But that money is allocated for technology and maintenance of existing infrastructure at the border.

The most notable new barrier in the spending plan: $50 million to upgrade the fence around the White House, requested after a wave of intruders began hopping the existing fence during the Obama administration.

Sean Spicer, Trumps press secretary, said the border security money in the spending plan could help with planning, technology and other preliminary aspects of the wall. He promised that Trump would push for more when he gets a chance to negotiate the 2018 spending bill, his first full-year spending plan.

This is a down payment on border security, Spicer said.

But Republicans in Congress, their spokespeople and even administration officials these days often define the wall as a catch-all for border security, rather than a permanent physical structure.

There are places where a permanent physical barrier, a wall makes sense, said Michael Steel, a former GOP leadership aide. There are other places where its less practical and there are other options. But the overall goal remains the same.

Trumps own homeland security secretary, John F. Kelly, offered a similar assessment in April.

Its unlikely that we will build a wall or physical barrier from sea to shining sea, he testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Under questioning from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), he agreed that the wall could be interpreted as a combination of drones, towers, fences, technology to detect tunnels and other electronic means combined with border guards. The wall is all of that, he said.

That approach would mirror policies pursued by Trumps predecessors and would roughly follow the strategy advocated by officials at the Border Patrol union, who have said, for example, that fences are often preferable to solid walls because they are harder to hide behind.

Even Trump allowed during a speech in Georgia on Friday that the wall would be in certain areas, a departure from his long-held description of a solid uninterrupted barrier that would grow higher by a few feet every time he was doubted.

Obviously, where you have these massive physical structures you dont need  and we have certain big rivers and all, Trump added, cryptically.

Official cost estimates for a wall vary widely  from $12 billion to $38 billion, all the way to a nearly $70 billion estimate by Senate Democrats.

Although popular among Trumps supporters, the wall has never been a top priority for hard-line immigration policy advocates, who argue that a combination of changes, including tougher internal enforcement, would do more to stem illegal immigration.

Nor do most Americans expect Trump to actually build it, surveys indicate. In a YouGov poll conducted last week, 51% of adults said they did not think Trump would build a wall, while only 29% said he was likely to accomplish that goal. The share of adults in the poll who said Trump would likely not achieve the goal was higher than for any of the campaign promises YouGov asked about.

But there is tension between broad public opinion and Trumps supporters. Republicans in the YouGov poll were far more likely to believe the wall would get built. And other polls, which show only about 30% to 40% of Americans want a wall built, show much greater support among Republicans, especially conservatives.

I dont know that they care whether its a Chinese wall, said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has advised Trump. ...They saw it as a symbolic statement that he was going to [crack down on] people crossing into the United States illegally.

Gingrich said those counting out Trumps ability to pressure Congress for more wall funding suffer from historical amnesia that presidents sometimes need time to win their initiatives and the desire to minimize Trump because he didnt get it by waving a magic wand.

Trumps harsh rhetoric and a handful of enforcement changes have helped reduce illegal border crossings without a new barrier. U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that 16,600 people were apprehended and deemed inadmissible at the southern border in March, a 64% decrease from the same month in 2016.

Trump has celebrated that victory, but is wary of resting on it.

You know, we have done so well at the border, a lot of people are saying, Oh, wow, maybe the president doesnt need the wall,  Trump told the raucous crowd at his 100-day rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on Saturday night. We need the wall to stop the drugs and the human trafficking. We need the wall.

Trump, who feeds off his crowds enthusiasm, appeared to veer off script as the audience grew louder. We will build a wall, folks, dont even worry about it, he said. Go to sleep. Go home, go to sleep, rest assured.

Even as Trump talks up the wall, the ground beneath it has shifted. On Saturday, he did not ask, Whos going to pay for it, once a signature line at his campaign rallies that prompted the crowd to chant Mexico in unison.

The Mexican government, which sees the wall as an insult, has insisted it would never entertain funding it, and Trump has not offered a plan that would force the issue.

To pass the spending bill, Trump needed Democrats, both in the Senate where Republicans hold a narrow majority and in the House where hard-line conservatives often vote against spending bills regardless of which party crafts them. Those dynamics will surely continue and could grow even thornier.

Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate predicted that Democrats victory on the latest spending bill will embolden them to demand more in future negotiations. Indeed, some Democrats were openly gloating Monday.

If Congress refuses to fund your stupid wall during your honeymoon period, what makes you think we will ever fund it? tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance).

Trump allies argue that increases the urgency of nailing down the money quickly.

It is essential he wins this, said Krikorian. Even if the wall did nothing, it would be important to get it through, because it is so essential to the message of controlling immigration.



Staff writers Lisa Mascaro and Michael Memoli contributed.

noah.bierman@latimes.com

Twitter: @noahbierman

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Boy Scouts: Top leaders didnt call Trump to praise speech as the president said By Associated Press The Boy Scouts denied Wednesday that the head of the youth organization called President Donald Trump to praise his recent politically aggressive speech to its national jamboree. Trump told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Wednesday, I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. Politico published the transcript of the interview. We are unaware of any such call, the Boy Scouts responded in a statement. It specified that neither of the organizations two top leaders  President Randall Stephenson and Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh  had placed such a call. The White House had no immediate response to the Boy Scouts denial. Surbaugh apologized last week to members of the scouting community who were offended by the political rhetoric in Trumps July 24 speech in West Virginia. Other U.S. presidents have delivered nonpolitical speeches at past jamborees. To the dismay of many parents and former scouts, Trump promoted his political agenda and derided his rivals, inducing some of the scouts in attendance to boo at the mention of former President Obama. I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree, Surbaugh said. That was never our intent. Surbaugh noted that every sitting president since 1937 has been invited to visit the jamboree. Stephenson told the Associated Press two days after the speech that Boy Scout leaders anticipated Trump would spark controversy with politically tinged remarks, yet felt obliged to invite him out of respect for his office. Hoping to minimize friction, the Boy Scouts issued guidelines to adult staff members for how the audience should react to the speech. Any type of political chanting was specifically discouraged. Stephenson, who did not attend Trumps speech, said the guidance wasnt followed impeccably. Facebook

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Mayor of London again calls on Trump to cancel state visit By Christina Boyle (AFP/Getty Images) The mayor of London has reiterated his calls for President Trumps state visit to Britain to be canceled in the wake of the citys terrorist incident, saying his policies go against everything we stand for. The war of words between the two leaders intensified further Monday evening after Trump criticized Mayor Sadiq Khans response to the London Bridge terrorist attack in two tweets, and the mayor said Trump should not be welcomed in the capital. Since Saturday Ive been working with the police, with the emergency services, with the government and others to deal with the horrific attack on Saturday, Khan said Monday evening. I just havent got the time to deal with tweets from Donald Trump. But when pressed on whether he thinks a state visit for later this year should go ahead as planned, Khan was unequivocal. My position remains the same. I dont think we should be rolling out the carpet to the president of the United States in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for, Khan told Channel 4 news. When you have a special relationship, it is no different to when you have a close mate: You stand with them in times of adversity, but you call them out when theyre wrong. And there are many things about which Donald Trump is wrong. Trump initially criticized Khan hours after the London attack posting on Twitter: At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is no reason to be alarmed! Khans office soon pointed out that the president had, in fact, misquoted Khan, who actually said that Londoners should not be alarmed by the increased armed police presence on the streets. Trump took to Twitter again on Monday to slam the London mayor once more. Pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan, who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. MSM [Mainstream media] is working hard to sell it! the president wrote. This is not the first time Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital city, has called for Trumps state visit to be banned. He previously branded Trumps policies on immigration and proposed travel ban on people entering the U.S. from predominantly Muslim countries cruel. An online government petition calling for the invitation to be withdrawn also gathered more than 1.8 million votes. The visit was first announced during Prime Minister Theresa Mays trip to Washington, where she became the first foreign leader to meet the newly-inaugurated president. State visits are personal invites from the British monarch and involve a significant amount of pomp and ceremony, and usually a state banquet. Facebook

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He helped bring down President Nixon. He thinks President Trump is even worse. By Mark Z. Barabak (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times) John Dean is a connoisseur of coverups, a savant of scandal, so he can more than imagine what its like inside the Trump White House right now. Its a nightmare, he said, presiding in a high-backed leather wing chair off the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Not just for those in the headlines  political strategist Steve Bannon, jack-of-many-duties Jared Kushner  but for their unsung assistants and secretaries as well. They dont know what their jeopardy is. They dont know what theyre looking at. They dont know if theyre a part of a conspiracy that might unfold. They dont know whether to hire lawyers or not, how theyre going to pay for them if they do, Dean said in a crisp law-counsel cadence. Its an unpleasant place. Dean was a central figure in Watergate, the 1970s political scandal against which all others are measured, serving at the tender age of 32 as President Nixons White House attorney. In that capacity Dean worked to thwart investigators after the clumsy break-in at Democratic Party headquarters, then flipped and helped sink Nixon by revealing the presidents involvement in the coverup. Read More Facebook

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Two decades ago, Washington state Republicans repealed and replaced a healthcare overhaul there. It didnt end well By Noam N. Levey Republicans in the state of Washington didnt wait long in the spring of 1995 to fulfill their pledge to roll back a sweeping law expanding health coverage in the state. Coming off historic electoral gains, the GOP legislators scrapped much of the law while pledging to make health insurance affordable and to free state residents from onerous government mandates. It didnt work out that way: The repeal left the states insurance market in shambles, sent premiums skyrocketing and drove health insurers from the state. It took nearly five years to repair the damage. Two decades later, the ill-fated experiment, largely relegated to academic journals, offers a caution to lawmakers at the national level as Republicans in the U.S. Senate race to write a bill to repeal and replace the federal Affordable Care Act. Its much easier to break something, said Pam MacEwan, who led a Washington state commission charged with implementing the law in the mid-1990s and now oversees the state insurance market there. Its more difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  And thats when people get hurt. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office echoed that warning last week, when it concluded that the healthcare bill passed by the House last month would destabilize insurance markets in a sixth of the country and nearly double the number of people without health insurance over the next decade. Read More Facebook

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Companies accelerate hiring, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs, ADP says By Jim Puzzanghera A now hiring sign is seen in Baton Rouge, La., on May 5. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) Companies accelerated their hiring last month, adding a robust 253,000 net new jobs in a sign the labor market remains healthy and the economy is strengthening after a weak winter. The private-sector job creation figures reported Thursday by payroll firm Automatic Data Processing far exceeded analyst expectations and was well above the downwardly revised 174,000 net new positions added in April. Job growth is rip-roaring, declared Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, which assists ADP in preparing its report. Read More Facebook

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All jokes aside, Trumps covfefe tweet sparks questions too By Brian Bennett President Trump sparked a global kerfuffle over covfefe with his bizarrely truncated tweet just minutes into Wednesday, spawning countless jokes across Twitter but also more serious questions for which the White House gave no answers. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, during an unusually short 11-minute briefing in which he insisted he not be on camera, declined to give any explanation for Trumps tweet posted just after midnight. Nor would he translate what the president was trying to say in the garbled message that broke off midsentence. But Spicer told reporters that the public should not be concerned that the president sent what the questioner called somewhat of an incoherent tweet. The president and a small group of people know exactly what he meant, Spicer said. Read More Facebook

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Biden launches new PAC, keeping the 2020 door open By David Lauter (Steven Senne / Associated Press) Former Vice President Joe Biden is launching a new political action committee, a platform that will allow him to provide help to favored candidates and, inevitably, boost speculation about a possible run for the Democratic nomination in 2020. The organization, which Biden is calling American Possibilities, will be staffed by a former top political aide to the vice president, Greg Schultz, who is also a veteran of President Obamas reelection campaign. The PAC will allow Biden to raise money that he can use to travel the country, contribute to candidates in governors races this year and congressional and state races in 2018 and generally do the sorts of things that aspiring politicians do to keep their names in the headlines. All that cant help but nurture questions about whether Biden, 74, will try yet again to attain the office he first started running for in 1987. In public appearances, which have taken him to electorally important states, and interviews since the 2016 election, Biden has been sharply critical of the Trump administration, but has also pointed to flaws in his own party. In one interview, he pointed to a bit of elitism thats crept in to the partys approach to working-class voters. At the same time, he has given carefully ambiguous answers when asked about his plans. At a conference in Las Vegas earlier this month, he responded to the question about a presidential run by saying: Could I? Yes. Would I? Probably not. In the announcement for the new group, Biden said that the negativity, the pettiness, the small-mindedness of our politics drives me crazy. Its not who we are. Its time for big dreams and American possibilities, he said. Facebook

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U.S., regions foreign ministers debate Venezuela By Tracy Wilkinson (AFP / Getty Images) The United States and foreign ministers from across the hemisphere met in Washington on Wednesday to attempt to force Venezuelas leftist government and its angry opposition into talks. Hunger and violence have pushed Venezuela to the brink of humanitarian disaster, diplomats say. But Wednesdays meeting of the Organization of American States faced unlikely prospects for success: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not trust the organization and has said his nation will withdraw its membership. Some OAS nations, including several U.S. allies in the Caribbean, have criticized the regional bodys efforts as intervention promoted by Washington. But U.S. officials are hoping the sheer weight of the crisis will unite the region to put pressure on Venezuela. Theres more and more concern about what were seeing, and so more and more countries have gotten over their reluctance to question or go against the wishes of the Venezuelan government, a senior State Department official said in a briefing for reporters. Its really hard to stand by and do nothing in the face of the kinds of institutional steps weve seen in Venezuela, and the increasing humanitarian suffering, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with frequent administration practice. Although the OAS periodically brings its members foreign ministers together, this is the first time a meeting has been convened to deal with a single topic, U.S. officials said. At the conclusion of Wednesdays session, diplomats said they had discussed two resolutions. One, promoted by Caribbean nations, called on Venezuela to reconsider withdrawing from the OAS. A second more pointed resolution authored by the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Panama and Peru urged the Maduro administration not to go ahead with a constituent assembly that would rewrite the Venezuelan constitution. Many fear it would dissolve the few democratic institutions that remain and favor the ruling Socialist Party. Separately, the Venezuela opposition, emboldened by a string of increasingly massive street demonstrations, sharply criticized Wall Street for extending what it called a lifeline to the Maduro government. At issue is the purchase by Goldman Sachs of Venezuelan government bonds for a reported $865 million, a major discount for paper originally worth $2.8 billion. Goldman Sachs confirmed the purchase of the bonds, issued in 2014 by the state oil company PDVSA, after it was reported in the Wall Street Journal. We are invested in PDVSA bonds because, like many in the asset management industry, we believe the situation in the country must improve over time, Goldman said in a statement. The firm added that it made the purchase through a secondary dealer to avoid direct interaction with the Venezuelan government. That distinction meant nothing to the Venezuelan opposition, which accused Goldman of making a buck off the suffering of the Venezuelan people. The Trump administration previously has targeted the Maduro government, slapping economic sanctions on its vice president and pro-Maduro Supreme Court justices. Facebook

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Former FBI director spoke with new special counsel and is cleared to testify before Senate panel By Joseph Tanfani The special counsel investigating possible links between Russia and the Trump presidential campaign has cleared former FBI Director James Comey to testify before a congressional committee about his contacts with President Trump, according to an associate close to Comey. Comey met with Robert S. Mueller III, whom the Justice Department appointed on May 17 to investigate any Russian ties to the Trump campaign, and Mueller said he had no problems with Comeys testifying, the associate said. Trump abruptly fired Comey as head of the FBI on May 9. The president later said in an interview on NBC News that he was concerned about the FBI investigation into what he called the Russia thing. Comey reportedly wrote internal memos after his meetings with Trump. In one, he wrote that the president had requested he ease up on the FBI probe of Michael Flynn, who served as Trumps national security advisor until he was ousted in February for lying about his contacts with Russian officials. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced on May 19 that Comey had agreed to testify after the Memorial Day holiday. The hearing has not been scheduled. The FBI separately declined a request from the House Oversight Committee to turn over Comeys memos. The bureau said it would need to consult with Mueller before making any decisions. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee chairman, said in response that he would not push the matter. The focus of the committees investigation is the independence of the FBI and the events leading to Comeys firing, he wrote. In a separate development, a senior Justice Department lawyer with experience in complex financial fraud investigations has agreed to join Muellers investigation. Andrew Weissman has led the fraud section at Justice, where he oversaw probes into corporate wrongdoing at Volkswagen and Takata. Weissman also is a veteran of the FBI. Weissman is the highest-ranking Justice Department official to join the special counsel office being set up a few blocks from the main Justice building in downtown Washington. Mueller also hired two colleagues from the WilmerHale law firm, where he worked, and brought on a former Justice Department spokesman, Peter Carr, to handle media inquiries. Facebook

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Analysis: In President Trumps wake, divisions mark both Democratic and Republican parties By Cathleen Decker Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez address a crowd at the California party convention in May. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) Six months after President Trump breached long-standing political boundaries to win the White House, the nations major political parties still muddle in his wake. On the sun-swept lawn of the Hotel del Coronado two weeks ago, national Republican leaders sipped cocktails and listened to San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, one of the partys brightest lights in the most populous state, praise a brand of moderate Republicanism that looks nothing like the versions coming out of Washington  either the populism of the president or the more orthodox conservatism of congressional leaders. A week later, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez talked in a Sacramento interview of the remarkably constructive debate underway in his party, characterizing its divisions as largely in the past. Within hours, he and other party leaders were booed as they welcomed delegates to a state convention that would be filled with persistent internal warfare on healthcare and other issues. No political party is immune to disagreement; indeed the path to power often relies on combustible ideological diversity. But Democrats and Republicans alike seem particularly adrift and quarrelsome these days. Read More Facebook

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Trump preparing to pull U.S. from Paris climate accord, amid last-minute lobbying By Evan Halper President Trump hasnt made a final decision on whether the U.S. will quit the Paris Accord on climate change, but White House officials indicated Wednesday that he was headed in that direction, setting off a worldwide reaction. A flurry of leaks, counter-leaks and public statements thrust back into the spotlight a decision that has been agonized and untidy even by the standards of a White House known for internal drama. Wednesday morning, when officials told some news organizations that Trump had settled on pulling out of the climate agreement, seemingly everyone in the world jumped in to try to influence or spin his decision, from the Chinese government to the coal industry to the state of California. That offered a foretaste of the reaction Trump likely will receive if he does follow through on his vow to pull the United States out of the 195-nation pact, which President Obama hailed in 2015 as one of his major achievements. Other nations have swiftly moved to take over the leadership role on climate that the United States would be abandoning. Some states have followed suit, promising they would break with Washington to work with other countries in their efforts to contain global warming. During Trumps recent overseas trip, U.S. allies warned him that Americas broader diplomatic influence would be undercut if the administration gave up its seat at the climate negotiating table. All the public lobbying on Wednesday moved Trump to weigh in himself. He knocked down reports that he had decided to withdraw with a tweet announcing that he was still making up his mind. The mixed messages coming out of the White House left open the possibility that the original news reports reflected the views of officials who were aiming to steer the final outcome by presenting withdrawal as a done deal. Trumps schedule for the day includes meetings with advisors hoping to talk him into staying in the agreement, at least to some extent. If Trump does withdraw the U.S. fully from the Paris pact, scientists warn it will be a tremendous setback to the worldwide effort to contain temperatures from rising an average of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The consequences for the United States would extend beyond global warming. It will be a very big deal all over the world, said Todd Stern, the lead U.S. climate negotiator during the Obama administration. There will be consequential blowback with respect to our diplomatic position across the board. UPDATES 9:27 a.m.: This post was updated throughout with staff reporting and additional details. 6:23 a.m.: This post was updated with Trumps tweet. 6:04 a.m.: This post was updated throughout with additional details. Facebook

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U.S. Supreme Court makes it harder to sue police for barging into homes By David Savage The U.S. Supreme Court made it harder to sue police for barging into a home and provoking a shooting, setting aside a $4-million verdict against two Los Angeles County deputies on Tuesday. The money was awarded to a homeless couple who were startled and then shot when the two sheriffs deputies entered the shack where they were sleeping. The unanimous ruling rejected the so-called provocation rule that some lower courts have used. Under that rule, police can be sued for violating a victims constitutional rights against unreasonable searches if they provoked a confrontation that resulted in violence. Read More Facebook

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Trump lashes out at Germany over NATO spending and trade after Merkel questions the U.S. commitment to its allies By Brian Bennett (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump took aim at German trade practices and defense spending Tuesday following pointed criticism from Chancellor Angela Merkel that Germany may not be able to rely on its allies. We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change, Trump wrote in a tweet. Last week, White House spokespeople had denied that Trump criticized German trade practices after the German newspaper Der Spiegel quoted him as having done so. Trump unsettled Merkel and other allies during the recent NATO summit when, during his remarks, he did not mention the central commitment members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization make to defend each other. We have a MASSIVE trade deficit with Germany, plus they pay FAR LESS than they should on NATO & military. Very bad for U.S. This will change  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2017 Trumps policy toward climate change is another point of contention with many European countries. Trump promised during the election to tear up the landmark Paris climate accord. Merkel said the conversation with the U.S. on climate change last week during the G-7 meetings in Sicily, which followed the NATO summit, was extremely difficult. During a campaign speech in Munich on Sunday, Merkel said Germany must rethink how much it can rely on its allies. The era in which we could rely completely on others is gone, at least partially, Merkel said. I have experienced that over the last several days. In a 2014 meeting, NATO defense ministers agreed that each state would move toward a goal of raising military spending to 2% of its annual economic output by the year 2024. German defense spending is below that goal. The U.S. trade deficit with Germany shrank to $65 billion in 2016 from $75 billion the year before. Facebook

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Consumers spend at fastest pace in four months in a sign of spring economic rebound By Jim Puzzanghera (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Americans ratcheted up their spending in April at the fastest pace in four months, in a sign the economy has rebounded this spring after a lackluster winter. The new data also could help push Federal Reserve officials to hike a key interest rate again when they meet in two weeks. Personal consumption expenditures increased 0.4% in April, up from 0.3% the previous month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Americans had more money to spend, with personal incomes also rising 0.4%  twice the pace of growth in March. Read More Facebook

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White House communications director Michael Dubke resigns By Associated Press White House Communications Director Mike Dubke listens as a reporter asks a question during a press conference in the East Room of the White House on April 20. (Shawn Thew / EPA) White House communications director Michael Dubke has resigned. Kellyanne Conway, White House counselor, told The Associated Press that Dubke handed in his resignation before President Donald Trump left for his international trip earlier this month. In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Conway said Dubke made very clear that he would see through the presidents international trip, and come to work every day and work hard even through that trip because there was much to do here back at the White House. Dubke issued a statement Tuesday morning: It has been my great honor to serve President Trump and this administration. It has also been my distinct pleasure to work side-by-side, day-by-day with the staff of the communications and press departments. A Republican consultant, Dubke joined the White House team in February after campaign aide Jason Miller  Trumps original choice for communications director  withdrew from consideration. Dubke founded Crossroads Media, a GOP firm that specializes in political advertising. -- 6:03 a.m.: Updated with Dubkes statement Facebook

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Should Jared Kushner keep his security clearance? Adam Schiff isnt sure By Laura King The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), says hes not sure that President Trumps son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner, should retain his security clearance. The California Democrat, who has been a sharp critic of Trump, also said in an interview aired Sunday that national security advisor H.R. McMaster, a highly respected military officer, had been tarnished by his association with the White House. Schiffs comments, on ABCs This Week, came amid growing questions about Kushners contacts with Russian officials before Trump took office. Trump has denounced the latest round of news reports, saying that some of them could be based on fabricated sources. Top Trump aides, including John F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, pushed back Sunday against the suggestion that there was anything untoward about establishing back channel communications with the Russians during the presidential transition. Schiff said he regretted that McMaster had done so as well, saying he believed the White House used the solid reputations of people like him to back up dubious actions. Sadly, I think this is an administration that takes in people with good credibility and chews them out and spits out their credibility at the same time, said Schiff, who acknowledged that what McMaster said about back channel communications was true in the abstract. I think anyone within the Trump orbit is at risk of being used, he said. Kelly, in separate talk-show appearances on Sunday, said there was nothing untoward about an incoming administration establishing communications with a foreign power in order to lay the groundwork for better relations. Schiff declined to discuss the substance of the allegations regarding Kushners contact with Russian officials during the transition and whether Kushner had been forthcoming about them, but said enough questions had been raised that his access to top-secret intelligence should be scrutinized. I think we need to get to the bottom of these allegations, Schiff said. But I do think there ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out whether he was truthful, whether he was candid. If not, then theres no way he can maintain that kind of a clearance. Schiff was also critical of continuing involvement in aspects of the Russia probe by fellow Californian Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who stepped aside from the probe earlier this year after the House Ethics Committee began investigating whether he had improperly revealed classified information. Nunes remains involved in decision-making about the issuance of subpoenas, Schiff said, adding: I dont think that he should, given that he has stepped aside or recused himself. The committee is investigating Russian entanglements by figures in Trumps circle, including fired national security advisor Michael Flynn, who has been the target of multiple subpoenas. Facebook

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Trump still wide open on climate change, Pentagon chief says By Laura King With President Trump set to make a decision this week about whether the U.S. should remain part of the landmark Paris climate accord, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Trump remains wide open on the issue. During a visit to Europe that ended Saturday, Trump dismayed European allies by refusing to commit to remaining in the 2015 accord during talks with European Union officials in Brussels and at the Group of Seven gathering in Sicily. The president said in a tweet that he will make a decision this week. Mattis, who was present at some of the Brussels talks, said that Trump is still making up his mind, and that he has been inquisitive about other leaders opinions. The president was open  he was curious about why others were in the position they were in, his counterparts in other nations, the Defense secretary said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS Face the Nation. And Im quite certain the president is wide open on this issue as he takes in the pros and cons of that accord. During his European trip, Trump met privately at the Vatican with Pope Francis, who presented him with a copy of his papal encyclical on environment and climate change. French President Emmanuel Macron, who met with Trump in Brussels, also said he had pressed the issue with the U.S. president, though the White House did not mention that appeal in a summary of their meeting. Facebook

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Homeland Security secretary defends Jared Kushner, blasts Manchester intelligence leaks By Laura King There is nothing inherently wrong with an incoming presidential administration establishing back channel communications with a foreign power such as Russia, Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly said Sunday. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Kelly was asked about reports by the Washington Post and other outlets that President Trumps son-in-law and close advisor, Jared Kushner, sought to set up secret lines of communication with Russian officials prior to Trump being sworn in. The retired general did not confirm the reports, but said the principle of establishing secretive contacts during a presidential transition doesnt bother me and is a legitimate means of building relationships. I think that any channel of communication, back or otherwise, with a country like Russia is a good thing, he said. Kelly did not address a central element of the reports  that Kushner discussed the possibility of using Russian communications channels from a Russia diplomatic outpost to shield from U.S. intelligence surveillance whatever discussions Trump transition officials wanted to have with Moscow. The FBI, a special counsel and multiple congressional committees are probing Russian interference in the presidential campaign and whether the Trump camp colluded in it. The U.S. intelligence community says Russian cyberattacks were meant to boost Trump and harm his opponent, Hillary Clinton. In a separate interview on NBCs Meet the Press, Kelly defended the integrity of Kushner, whose involvement in communications with Russia has brought the investigation closer to Trump personally than has previous scrutiny of others in his campaign circle or the White House. Calling Kushner a great guy, a decent guy, the Homeland Security secretary said the presidents son-in-laws No. 1 interest, really, is the nation. Also in the NBC interview, Kelly excoriated intelligence leaks in the wake of last weeks deadly bombing in Manchester, England. British officials including Prime Minister Theresa May were angered by disclosures about details of the investigation, including the release of the dead attackers name and detailed photos from the bomb scene that were published by the New York Times. Several outlets cited unnamed U.S. officials as the source of the information including the bombers identity. The Times did not say how it obtained the photos. Britain routinely shares intelligence with close allies like the United States with the expectation that it will be kept confidential. Kelly said that failing to keep such secrets could seriously damage intelligence-sharing arrangements with other nations. I believe when you leak the kind of information that seems to be routinely leaked - high, high level of classification I think its darn close to treason, Kelly said. It is not clear what level of classification, if any, the information about the British investigation would have had. Trump himself, who recently caused controversy when he passed sensitive intelligence on Islamic State to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and discussed the location of U.S. nuclear submarines with the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has denounced the Manchester leaks and vowed to track down the source or sources. Facebook

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In tweets, Trump says stories based on White House leaks are fabricated By Laura King President Trump is back  and tweeting. In a Sunday morning series of posts on Twitter, the president repeated his denunciations of the fake media, celebrated the Republican victory in a Montana special election and declared his overseas trip a success. Trump returned to the White House late Saturday after a swing through the Middle East and Europe, the first foreign trip of his presidency. During it, he tweeted only sparingly. While Trump was away, controversy continued to swirl around his White House, with media reports focusing on son-in-law Jared Kushners role in Trump campaign contacts with Russian officials. The GOP healthcare plan and Trumps budget also came under withering scrutiny during the presidents absence. In Sundays tweets, Trump said cascading leaks from within his administration were in fact fabricated lies by news organizations based on sources that did not exist. One tweet was corrected to fix the spelling of exist. It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2017 Trump also complained that the special congressional election in Montana, called to fill the seat vacated when Ryan Zinke became his Interior secretary, was such a big deal to Dems & Fake News until the Republican won. The V was poorly covered, he said, referring to the Republican victory. The victory by Republican candidate Greg Gianforte received extensive coverage. It was widely expected, given Montanas significant Republican edge, but made more suspenseful on the eve of the election when Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault for an incident in which he struck a reporter who had asked him a question. The president received mixed reviews for his inaugural overseas venture. He was praised by some for his outreach to Sunni Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, but continued his administrations practice of making no public criticism of serious human rights violations. In Europe, he rattled allies by declining to explicitly endorse the NATO alliances bedrock common defense pledge or pledge to adhere to the Paris climate accord. Whatever the commentary surrounding the trip, Trump counted it a success. Hard work but big results, he wrote. Facebook

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Trumps international trip underscored what America First looks like on the world stage By Michael Memoli Donald Trump made no secret during the presidential campaign of his disdain for Americas trading partners, his skepticism of longtime alliances and his eagerness to refocus U.S. foreign policy on the single-minded pursuit of American security. That was the largely the president the world got as Trump made his way through the Middle East and Western Europe over the last nine days, Trumps first foreign trip may have produced memorable, and at time cringe-inducing, images of the new president, whether grasping a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia or shoving the prime minister of Montenegro at a NATO meeting in Brussels. But perhaps most profoundly, the trip underscored what America First, as Trump has branded his governing philosophy, looks like on the world stage. Read More Facebook

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Trump says hell decide on Paris climate deal next week By Associated Press Seven wealthy democracies ended their summit Saturday in Italy without unanimous agreement on climate change, as the Trump administration plans to take more time to say whether the U.S. is going to remain in the Paris accord on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The other six nations in the Group of Seven agreed to stick with their commitment to implement the 2015 Paris deal that aims to slow down global warming. The final G-7 statement, issued after two days of talks in the seaside town of Taormina, said the U.S. is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics. Trump tweeted he would decide his stance on the Paris agreement next week. The announcement on the final day of the U.S. presidents first international trip comes after he declined to commit to staying in the sweeping climate deal, resisting intense international pressure from his peers at the summit. I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2017 Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who chaired the meeting, said the other six wont change our position on climate change one millimeter. The U.S. hasnt decided yet. I hope they decide in the right way. Gentiloni said climate was not a minor point and that he hoped the United States would decide soon and well because the Paris accords need the contribution of the United States. French President Emmanuel Macron also chimed in on the climate issue, praising Trumps capacity to listen. Macron said he told Trump it is indispensable for the reputation of the United States and the interest of the Americans themselves that the United States remain committed to the Paris climate agreement. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was more downbeat, calling the G-7 climate talks very unsatisfactory. Facebook

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Everyones a winner! Or what to take away from that special congressional race in Montana By Mark Z. Barabak Republicans were celebrating Friday, and relieved, and it was easy to see why: The party hung on to Montanas sole congressional seat even though its candidate faced a freshly lodged criminal charge for physically assaulting a reporter on election eve. Though they fell short in yet another special election  Greg Gianforte won handily, 50% to 44%  Democrats also found reason to be pleased: Their candidate, flawed as he was, continued a pattern of polling better than might be expected  over-performing, to use the political parlance, and that could hold future promise. Its possible, as elections analyst Nathan Gonzales put it, to lose and still have momentum. Read More Facebook

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In commencement address, Hillary Clinton remembers fallout from Nixon, makes subtle jab at President Trump By Kurtis Lee Hillary Clinton delivers the commencement address at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., on Friday. (Josh Reynolds / Associated Press) Hillary Clinton delivered a subtle dig at President Trump on Friday, offering some parallels between his presidency and that of former President Nixon. While delivering a commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College, a private womens liberal arts school in Massachusetts, Clinton, without naming Trump, recalled how many young people in the 1970s reacted to Nixons reelection and later battles with the Justice Department. We were furious about the past presidential election of a man whose presidency would eventually end in disgrace with his impeachment for obstruction of justice, she said, pausing to note she was referring to Nixon. Actually, Nixon was not impeached, though many in Congress, including members of his own party, called for it. Clinton said Nixons resignation came after he fired the person heading the investigation into him at the Department of Justice. In 1973, Nixon ordered Justice Department officials to fire a special prosecutor who was looking into taped conversations recorded in the Oval Office as part of the Watergate investigation. A year later, in August 1974, Nixon resigned. Some political observers  mostly Democrats -- have compared Trumps recent firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, who was overseeing an investigation of possible collusion between Russians and Trumps campaign, to Nixons actions. Last week, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) called for Trump to be impeached. Clinton, who has made few public appearances since Trump defeated her in last years presidential election, also assailed the Republicans new budget proposal. She called the budget, which proposes cuts to education and Medicaid, an attack of unimaginable cruelty on the most vulnerable among us  the youngest, the oldest, the poorest and hard-working people who need a little help to gain or hang on to a decent, middle-class life. In a statement, the Republican National Committee said Clinton was lashing out after her election loss. Clinton graduated from Wellesley in 1969 and last delivered a commencement address at the school in 1992. Facebook

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At G-7 Summit, a day of clarification for the White House By Michael A. Memoli (Sean Gallup / Getty Images) As President Trump met with leaders of the worlds leading economies here Friday within miles of an active volcano, the White House was working to ease a pair of diplomatic eruptions. Trump was due to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in this coastal Sicilian resort town, amid tensions between their countries, longtime allies, following leaks to U.S. media outlets involving Britains investigation of the Manchester terrorist bombing. Separately, a top White House adviser partially confirmed reports that Trump had said Germany is very bad during Thursdays NATO meetings in Brussels, but clarified that the president was referring only to German trade policies. Trump said, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel, See the millions of cars they are selling to the U.S.? Terrible. We will stop this. Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, acknowledged that Trump made the remark but added that the president doesnt have a problem with Germany. He said his dad is from Germany. He said I dont have a problem with Germany, I have a problem with German trade, Cohn said. Press access to the G-7 meetings has been extremely limited, though the surrounding setting has produced abundant compelling visuals. Editorial press access extremely limited for G7 meetings. But man, pretty pictures & good times for Taormina Chamber of Commerce (via AP) pic.twitter.com/WT2EdKrwJ5  Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 26, 2017 Trump tweeted that he expected to spend the day focused on economic growth, terrorism and security. The summit, and Trumps eight-day inaugural foreign trip, ends Saturday. Other allies here were likely to press Trump on another issue: climate change, specifically whether Trump will carry out his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris climate deal. Trump was hoping to better understand the European position, Cohn said. White House officials have said the president will make a decision once he is back in the United States. He knows that in the U.S. theres very strong opinions on both sides but he also knows that Paris has important meaning to many of the European leaders. And he wants to clearly hear what the European leaders have to say, Cohn said. Facebook

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As Trump wavers over Paris climate accord, European leaders give him an earful By Evan Halper Mining operation near Grevenbroich, Germany. (Martin Meissner / Associated Press) With President Trump balking on his vow to shred the Obama-negotiated Paris agreement on climate change, the last place the pacts staunch opponents wanted to see the president is where he will be this weekend  meeting other world leaders unanimous in their warnings that withdrawal from the accord would seriously damage Americas economy and world stature. Trump has repeatedly delayed fulfilling his campaign pledge to move against the agreement. The longer the White House deliberates over Paris, the more Trump seems to be searching for a face-saving excuse to walk back his previous position. The White House indecision over the climate accord  which has the support of every nation except Syria and Nicaragua  reflects a deeply divided worldview in a Trump inner circle now packed with establishment Republicans. The issue also presents yet another policy reckoning for Trump. On the campaign trail, he vowed to strike blows against the existing world order. But on the Paris agreement, as on other matters, he is finding that political backup for such pledges can fade quickly when the moves lack robust support from major U.S. companies or majority voting blocs. Read More Facebook

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Overcoming assault charge, Republican Greg Gianforte wins Montana congressional seat By Mark Z. Barabak Republican Greg Gianforte overcame a last-minute assault charge to win Montanas special congressional election Thursday, keeping its lone House seat in GOP hands and dealing Democrats a setback in their bid to gain a red-state toehold ahead of the 2018 midterm election. Gianforte, 56, a wealthy businessman who ran unsuccessfully for governor in November, had long been the front-runner against Democrat Rob Quist, a professional bluegrass musician making his first run for public office. With more than 90% of the votes counted, Gianforte was holding a healthy lead with just over 50% support. Appearing at an exuberant victory rally in Bozeman, the congressman-elect hushed the crowd and apologized to the reporter with whom he tangled on election eve, reversing his campaigns initial assertion that the journalist was to blame. Read More Facebook

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FBI investigating Kushner meetings, report says; House leader seeks more Comey documents By Associated Press (Andrew Harrer / Getty Images) The chairman of the House Oversight Committee asked the FBI on Thursday to turn over more documents about former FBI Director James B. Comeys interactions with the White House and Justice Department, including materials dating back nearly four years to the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that the FBI is investigating meetings that President Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had in December with Russian officials. The FBI and the Oversight Committee  as well as several other congressional panels  are looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump fired Comey on May 9 amid questions about the FBIs investigation, which is now being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, a former FBI director. Kushner, a key White House advisor, had meetings late last year with Russias ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, and Russian banker Sergey Gorkov. The Post story cited anonymous people familiar with the investigation, who said the FBI investigation does not mean that Kushner is suspected of a crime. Kushners attorney, Jamie Gorelick, released a statement saying: Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with Congress what he knows about these meetings. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry. Earlier Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe that he wants records of Comeys contacts with the White House and Justice Department dating to September 2013, when Comey was sworn in as FBI director under President Obama. In a letter to McCabe, Chaffetz said he is seeking to review Comeys memos and other written materials so he can better understand Comeys communications with the White House and attorney generals office. Facebook

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Banks want higher debit-card swipe fees, but an effort to allow them has crumbled By Jim Puzzanghera Banks had hoped Congress would let them charge merchants higher fees to process debit card purchases, but an effort to allow that has crumbled  a victory for retailers and, possibly, shoppers who might have had to shoulder those costs. In the latest chapter of a long-running fight, a repeal of federal limits on so-called swipe fees no longer will be part of a House financial regulation bill, said the legislations author, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas). Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he decided to strip the provision from the bill because many lawmakers are balking at removing the limits. Read More Facebook

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Appeals court rules against Trump travel ban By David Lauter A federal appeals court has ruled against President Trumps travel ban, upholding a nationwide injunction barring the administration from enforcing the executive order. The ruling is the latest legal setback for Trump on the travel issue and, like several previous court rulings, the outcome rested heavily on his own words. Trumps order restricting travel from six majority-Muslim countries speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination, Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in his ruling. Read the 4th Circuits decision to uphold the block on Trumps travel ban The 10-3 ruling included numerous citations to campaign statements in which Trump called for a ban on Muslims immigrating to the United States. The plaintiffs who have challenged the travel order have argued that it is a disguised version of the Muslim ban that he called for during the campaign. Trumps statements provide direct, specific evidence of what motivated both EO-1 and EO-2, the court said, referring to ther first and second versions of the travel order: President Trumps desire to exclude Muslims from the United States. The 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., is one of two appeals courts that have recently heard arguments on the travel ban. A similar case is pending before the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco. Read More Facebook

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Obama, in Berlin with Merkel, says world cant hide behind a wall By Erik Kirschbaum Hours before German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew to Brussels to meet with President Trump and other NATO heads of state, she rekindled an old acquaintance with Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama. About 70,000 people packed an avenue by Berlins landmark Brandenburg Gate on Thursday to hear the two leaders speak, with cheers and chants of Barack, Barack! breaking out when the former president took the stage. Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama spoke of the need for universal healthcare and a nuanced approach to immigration in response to security threats. This is a new world we live in  we cant isolate ourselves, the former president declared, with Merkel looking on. We cant hide behind a wall. Obama spoke of this weeks deadly bombing at a pop concert in Manchester, England, saying leaders had to find ways to balance security fears and fundamental rights. One of the biggest challenges is how do you protect your country and your citizens from the kinds of things that we just saw in Manchester, he said. And how do you do it in a way that is consistent with your values and your ideals? Making his first European speech since his presidential term ended, Obama told the crowd he had spent the last four months trying to catch up with my sleep and devoting more time to his family. Im very proud of the work I did as president, he said to more cheers, adding that he considered healthcare reform a signature achievement. Republicans are now in the midst of trying to dismantle his Affordable Care Act. My hope was to get 100% of people healthcare, he said. We didnt quite achieve that, but we were able to get 20 million people healthcare who didnt have it before. Obamas speech was not timed to coincide with Trumps first visit to Europe as president, aides said. The invitation was extended before Trumps trip to Brussels  the fourth leg on multi-stop tour  was scheduled. Facebook

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Macron says he pressed Trump on climate accord By Catherine Stupp French President Emmanuel Macron, who met President Trump for the first time on Thursday, said he urged the U.S. leader to respect the Paris climate accord. The White House, however, did not mention the issue in its readout on Trumps working lunch in Brussels with the newly elected French president. Macron told reporters as he headed into the meeting that climate change would be one of the issues he raised, along with concerns about terrorism and the economy. Afterward, at a news conference, the French president said that in his talk with Trump, he reiterated the importance of the landmark climate accord. No hasty decision on this subject should be taken by the U.S., Macron said. Our collective responsibility is to make sure this commitment remains a global commitment. Referring to the agreement, he added: Its one of a kind. In its readout, the White House said Trump urged Macron to meet NATO commitments on French defense spending and help ensure that the alliance is focused on counter-terrorism. It also said the two leaders talked about the importance of defeating Islamic State and other vital issues. Facebook

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Trump lawyers ask Supreme Court to reject 2nd Amendment claim by men who lost gun rights over nonviolent crimes By David Savage President Trump speaks at an NRA event in Atlanta in April. ( Scott Olson / Getty Images) Trump administration lawyers are urging the Supreme Court to reject a 2nd Amendment claim that would restore the right to own a gun for two Pennsylvania men who were convicted more than 20 years ago of nonviolent crimes. The case of Sessions vs. Binderup puts the new administration in a potentially awkward spot, considering President Trumps repeated assurances during the campaign that he would protect gun ownership rights under the 2nd Amendment. But the Justice Department under Trump has embraced the same position in this case that was adopted under President Obama: to defend strict enforcement of a long-standing federal law that bars convicted criminals from ever owning a gun, even when their crimes did not involve violence. Read More Facebook

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Former Sen. Joe Lieberman withdraws from FBI director search By Associated Press (AFP/Getty Images) Former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut has withdrawn his name from consideration for the role of FBI director. Lieberman interviewed last week with President Trump, who publicly identified him as a leading candidate. But in a letter sent to the White House, Lieberman says hes pulling out. He says he wants to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, given Trumps hiring of one of Liebermans law partners to represent him in the investigation of ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. The White House declined to comment. Several other people interviewed for the job have also withdrawn from consideration. Trump fired former FBI Director James B. Comey earlier this month. Facebook

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At NATO celebration, Trump tells allies to spend more on defense By Michael A. Memoli (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) President Trump used his first NATO meeting to rebuke member nations who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliances defense spending target, saying American taxpayers unfairly are left to pick up the slack. Speaking at dedication ceremonies for NATOs new headquarters, Trump noted that the defense budgets of 23 of the 28 members dont meet a target equal to 2% of each respective nations economic output, while the United States has spent more on defense in eight years than the other 27 combined. Many of these nations owe massive amounts of money from past years, he said. We have to make up for the many years lost. By his scolding, Trump was directly delivering to NATO allies the criticism that was a staple of his nationalist campaign for president. But his lecture came at an event intended to be celebratory, showcasing unity and resolve for the nearly 70-year-old alliance: the dedication of its shining, glass-enclosed new headquarters in Belgiums capital. The ceremony also was meant to call attention to the fact that the only time NATO has invoked its collective defense agreement was on behalf of the United States, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Trump stood beside a section of wrenched steel from the downed World Trade Center Towers, a relic NATO calls the Article V artifact, to signify that post-9/11 invocation of the NATO charters article holding that an attack on any one member would be considered an attack on all. Speaking to reporters before the president arrived, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged that the alliance had a long way to go to meet its goals. But its much better than it was just two years ago, he said. The reality is that when we decrease defense spending when tensions are going down, as we did after the end of the Cold War, we have to be able to increase defense spending when tensions are going up. And now we see that tensions are going up. Facebook

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Watch: Trump lectures NATO leaders on defense spending By L.A. Times staff  As NATO leaders looked on, President Trump told NATO members that they must finally contribute their fair share of defense payments. President Trump lectured members of the NATO alliance on Thursday, urging them to pay their fair share on defense. As NATO leaders looked on during a ceremony at the alliances new headquarters, Trump said that member nations must finally contribute their fair share and meet their obligations. The president has been urging NATO leaders to live up to a 2011 decision to increase spending on defense to 2% of GDP by 2024. Trump said 23 of the 28 member nations are not paying what they should and that the situation is not fair to the people of the United States. Facebook

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President Trump promises to review Manchester investigation leaks after anger from Britain By Noah Bierman Trying to head off a diplomatic rift with Britain, President Trump on Thursday issued a statement promising a complete review of possible intelligence leaks related to this weeks deadly terrorist attack at a Manchester concert. Some British officials have suggested that U.S. officials are leaking sensitive information to American media outlets about the investigation into the attack. The New York Times posted forensic photographs collected from the scene of the Manchester concert bombing, which upset British officials. Whether the photographs were provided by U.S. officials or came from some other source is not publicly known. Trump avoided questions earlier Thursday about the possible leaks. His statement came just before he was set to address NATO at its new headquarters in a speech considered pivotal to his first trip abroad as president. British Prime Minister Theresa May was expected to confront Trump over the issue when they meet later in the day. May told reporters as she entered the NATO gathering that she would make clear to Trump that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. We have a special relationship with the USA. Its our deepest defense and security partnership that we have, she said. Of course that partnership is built on trust, and part of that trust is knowing that intelligence can be shared confidently, and I will be making clear to President Trump today that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure. In his statement, Trump said that the alleged leaks coming out of government agencies are deeply troubling. These leaks have been going on for a long time, and my Administration will get to the bottom of this. The leaks of sensitive information pose a grave threat to our national security. The statement continued with a promise to request the Department of Justice and other relevant agencies to

launch a complete review of this matter, and if appropriate, the

culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Trump also reiterated said there is no relationship we cherish more than the special relationship between the two countries. Separate leaks within his own administration and related to investigations of his campaign ties to Russia have also been a source of anger to Trump. Facebook

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Montanas congressional election: that assault charge, the Trump factor, and why is it on a weird day (Thursday)? By Mark Z. Barabak Its election day in Montana after a wild 24 hours, with voters deciding who will fill the House seat vacated when Republican Ryan Zinke left to head the Interior Department under President Trump. The contest Thursday has drawn nationwide attention and an extraordinary amount of money  and that was before the GOP front-runner was accused of attacking a national political reporter. The events have turned the contest into one of the strangest in memory. Read More Facebook

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Trump ignores questions about intelligence sharing ahead of NATO meeting By Michael A. Memoli (Peter Dejoing / Associated Press) President Trump refused to answer questions Thursday about concerns among key allies on intelligence sharing with the United States, just as he prepares to join many of them here to inaugurate the new NATO headquarters. During a brief photo opportunity at his first meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Frances newly elected president, Trump for a second time remained silent as a reporter asked about a potential breakdown in the U.S.-United Kingdom intelligence-sharing relationship. British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to press Trump on the issue when they meet later Thursday, after the New York Times posted forensic photographs collected from the scene of the Manchester concert bombing. The acting U.S. ambassador to Britain told the BBC that the leaks were deeply distressing. Speaking to reporters at the site of a NATO leaders meeting, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also deflected questions about whether the incident has led him to reevaluate his nations intelligence-sharing arrangements. We will continue to work with all our allies to keep Canadians and all citizens around the world safe, he said. Ahead of a working lunch with Macron, Trump said terrorism was at the top of the agenda, while also offering his congratulations to the 39-year-old for his tremendous victory. All over the world, theyre talking about it, he said. In addition to terrorism and the economy, Macron said he planned to discuss climate change and energy. His nation hosted the climate summit that produced the agreement under which countries pledged to reduce their carbon emissions, of which the Trump administration is considering dropping out. Trump also ignored a question about whether former national security advisor Michael Flynn should cooperate with the investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has no news conference scheduled with reporters for the entirety of his eight-day foreign trip, which ends Saturday. Facebook

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Trump visits European Union headquarters; EU leaders cite some differences By Catherine Stupp Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said Thursday that differences remain between the Trump administration and the European Union on Russia, energy and trade. I am not 100 percent sure that we can say today that we have a common opinion about Russia, Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who is sometimes called the other Donald, said after a meeting with President Trump at EU headquarters. Tusk added that while some issues remain open, like climate and trade, the leaders agreed first and foremost on the need to combat terrorism. EU officials were skeptical in advance of Trumps visit. Their concerns were driven in part by the U.S. leaders positive stance on Britains vote last year to leave the bloc. Trump at the time called it a great idea. However, he has since spoken of the importance of European unity. European officials are also concerned that the Trump administration might withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit global warming, and turn away from trade arrangements with the EU. Trumps visit to Brussels marked the fourth leg of his first overseas trip. Before heading into the talks with Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, he spoke enthusiastically about his earlier stops in Saudi Arabia and at the Vatican. His ceremonial welcome last week in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, Trump told the European officials, was beyond anything anyones seen. The Saudis staged elaborate festivities including a traditional sword dance. And the president called his private encounter with Pope Francis on Wednesday very impressive. The president and the pontiff met privately for half an hour, and Francis presented Trump with gifts including a copy of a papal encyclical on climate change. The pope was terrific, Trump said. After the visit to the EUs sprawling new headquarters, Trump headed to a luncheon with the newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron. The two men were meeting for the first time. During the French presidential campaign, Trump had praised Macrons far-right opponent Marine Le Pen for her tough positions on immigration and borders, but he had stopped short of endorsing her. Facebook

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Manchester attack makes terrorism the focus of Trumps NATO meeting By Michael A. Memoli (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images) The deadly suicide bombing in Britain and threats of more attacks thrust counter-terrorism to the top of President Trumps agenda for talks with NATO leaders here on Thursday, buttressing his bid to enlist the alliance he had called obsolete to join the fight against Islamic State. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, anticipating the alliance meetings, told reporters flying with the president to Brussels from Rome, where Trump met Pope Francis earlier Wednesday, that Mondays attack in Britain is going to strengthen the resolve in this fight against terrorism. Tillerson stopped short of predicting that NATO would agree to formally join the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but said it would be a really important step if the alliance did so. The attack, which killed 22 people at a pop concert and was said to be the work of a 22-year-old British man whose family is from Libya, also figured in Trumps brief meeting with the pope at the Vatican. Read More Facebook

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Analysis says 23 million more people would be uninsured by 2026 under GOP healthcare bill By Noam N. Levey (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) An analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that the Republican healthcare bill that passed the House earlier this month would nearly double the number of Americans without health insurance over the next decade. The report likely will complicate Republican efforts to get the controversial bill through the Senate. Read More Facebook

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By throwing Americas lot in with Sunni Arabs, does Trump miss opportunities with Iran? By Tracy Wilkinson On his first official trip to the Middle East, President Trump has resoundingly thrown Americas lot in with Sunni Arab states and cast Shiite Iran as a global pariah, even as Iranians reelected a president who has offered to work with the West. During his two days in Riyadh, Trumps full-throated support for the autocratic monarchies in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, as well as his fierce denunciation of Iran, allowed him to claim an historic new coalition of interests. In the next two days, in Jerusalem, he doubled down and argued that Israel and the Arabs should join forces against Iran and along the way, resolve Israels conflict with Palestinians in a grand bargain that has eluded diplomats for decades. But as he departed for Rome on Tuesday, Trump had little to show beyond lofty rhetoric, symbolic visits and a shower of flattery from kings, potentates and a prime minister. Read More Facebook

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Fed officials appear ready for another interest rate hike and are considering how to reduce assets By Jim Puzzanghera Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen (Michael Dwyer / Associated Press) Most Federal Reserve monetary policymakers indicated they were ready for another small interest rate hike -- perhaps as soon as next month -- if economic data strengthened as expected following a weak winter, according to an account released Wednesday of their most recent meeting. Fed officials also considered a plan to start reducing the $4.5 trillion in Treasury and mortgage securities and other assets the central bank has purchased since 2008 in an attempt to stimulate the economy. The plan, which they said likely would begin later this year, would involve slowly allowing some of the maturing securities to be cashed in instead of reinvesting the money in new securities, the meeting minutes showed. The goal would be to avoid roiling financial markets and causing interest rates to jump. Read More Facebook

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So whats with the president and Melania Trump holding, or not holding, hands? By Tom Kington First Lady Melania Trump does not say much in public, but her actions seemed to speak louder than words  or at least sent tongues wagging  when she appeared to rebuff the presidents proffered hand as the couple descended from their plane in Rome late Tuesday. As President Trump looked to take her hand on the steps of Air Force One, Melania Trump quickly moved it out of reach, raising it to her head to adjust her hair. That made for two such episodes in two days. She had appeared to brush Trumps hand away at the airport in Tel Aviv during the previous stop in the presidents foreign tour. Video of that scene, often accompanied by snarky commentary, quickly went viral. Compare that to Melania Trumps positively hands-on visit on Wednesday to a Rome childrens hospital, Bambino Gesu, following the couples visit with Pope Francis. After praying to a statue of the Madonna at the entrance to the hospital, the Catholic first lady smiled cheerfully and chatted to children, posing for selfies and providing a very happy, maternal presence, according to one onlooker. Great visiting you! Stay strong and positive! Much love, Melania Trump, she wrote in the visitors book. Staff at the hospital said Melania Trump had been buoyed by her meeting with Pope Francis, and further proof came when photos emerged of the Trumps quick visit to the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday. As the president and first lady stood together to admire Michelangelos 16th century fresco, the Last Judgment, they held hands. Facebook

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House Intelligence Committee will subpoena Michael Flynn, Schiff says By Sarah D. Wire The House Intelligence Committee is preparing to issue subpoenas to President Trumps former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, according to the committees ranking Democrat, following the lead of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said the House subpoenas will be designed to maximize our chance of getting the information we need for the committees investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. I think we need to use whatever compulsory [processes] necessary to get the information that he possesses, Schiff said. Earlier this week, Flynns lawyers said he would refuse separate Senate subpoenas for any records about his former business dealings with Russia, citing his constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. The Senate committee then issued separate subpoenas to two of Flynns businesses, which the panel said were not entitled to 5th Amendment protections. A federal grand jury in Virginia also has issued subpoenas regarding Flynns business dealings with Turkey and Russia, and the newly appointed special counsel investigating the Russia matter, Robert Mueller III, is expected to focus on Flynns role as well. Given the criminal investigations, Schiff said the House panel is highly unlikely to grant Flynns earlier request, through his lawyers, for immunity in exchange for his testimony. He said the panel would need more information about what Flynn would say and whether the testimony would be truthful. It also would need to ensure that granting immunity wouldnt affect the special counsels ongoing investigation, he said. Thats not somthinge I think we would entertain until far later, if at all, said Schiff, a former prosecutor. Certainly count me as very skeptical that we would get to that point. Trump forced Flynn to resign as national security advisor in February after news accounts revealed Flynn had misled White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Russian officials. Schiff spoke to reporters at a breakfast Wednesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Facebook

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Watch live: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos testifies on Trumps budget Follow live coverage from Times education reporter Joy Resmovits: Facebook

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Israel acknowledges pinpoint change needed after Trump intelligence disclosure By Joshua Mitnick After a week of silence, Israel publicly acknowledged for the first time, though in oblique terms, that it was the source of sensitive intelligence that President Trump shared with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week in a White House meeting. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israels army radio on Wednesday that Israeli officials had carried out an internal pinpoint correction after discussing and reviewing the episode. Lieberman did not elaborate, and declined to confirm or deny whether Trumps remarks had endangered an agent of Israel. But he said his government considered the matter resolved. Everything that needed to be clarified with the friends in the U.S. was done, he said. All of the conclusions we had to draw  it was all done. The Israeli defense ministers comments came the day after Trump wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank. When word of Trumps disclosure to Lavrov emerged in U.S. news reports last week, the defense minister and other Israeli leaders confined themselves to expressing public confidence in the two countries intelligence cooperation. Israel did not comment more directly, presumably to avoid embarrassing the U.S. president just before his visit. But Trump himself mentioned the controversy anyway, in an awkward on-camera moment during the trip. With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu biting his lip alongside, Trump volunteered to reporters being hustled out of a news appearance: Just so you know, I never mentioned the word or name Israel. Never mentioned it during the conversation. News reports, however, had not said the president mentioned Israel in connection with the intelligence, only that the specificity of his remarks to Lavrov would in all likelihood have allowed the Russians to determine the source. The White House at first denied Trumps disclosure to Lavrov had occurred as reported, but then the president himself tweeted about it, saying he had the right to share information as he deemed fit. Facebook

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Trump calls meeting with Pope Francis an honor By Michael A. Memoli "A very great honor," Trump says to the pope when they began their meeting in the pope's private study pic.twitter.com/NGsbsahAyT  Carol Lee (@carolelee) May 24, 2017 President Trump held a half-hour private meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, declaring it a great honor despite their past public dissension. The unconventional Republican and the first Jesuit pontiff made for an unlikely pair in the Vaticans Apostolic Palace, where Catholic leaders have presided or centuries and American presidents have come or decades. Francis was silent as the two sat across one another at the popes wooden desk to begin the audience at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time. Exactly a half-hour later, the ringing of a bell signified the end of the private encounter. For the White House, the Vatican stop caps a tour through key sites of the worlds three major religions, following stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, designed to promote tolerance and a united approach to terrorism. When you put it all together, youre really showing that this problem of radical extremism is one of the great problems of our time, a senior Trump aide told reporters Tuesday en route from Israel to Rome, briefing anonymously as is common White House practice. By putting everybody together you can really build a coalition and show that its not a Muslim problem, its not a Jewish problem, its not a Catholic problem, its not a Christian problem, it really is a world problem. In an exchange of gifts after their private meeting, Francis offered the president a medal by a Roman artist of an olive, a symbol of peace. We can use peace, Trump responded. Where Trumps and Francis interests may align on peace and combating terrorism, they disagree sharply on issues like immigration and poverty. Like Trump, the Argentine pope has shown a predilection for unscripted comments that have shaken the staid Vatican bureaucracy, as when he criticized candidate Trumps proposed stricter immigration policies including a border wall as not Christian. Trump fired back, calling the popes remarks disgraceful. Any animosity was not apparent Wednesday, as a meeting between Francis and a larger U.S. delegation ended. Thank you. I wont forget what you said, Trump said. Facebook

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Proposed budget would deeply cut State Department and its programs By Tracy Wilkinson (AFP / Getty Images) The State Department leadership voiced support for President Trumps proposed budget, which would impose deep cuts on spending for diplomacy and foreign aid, but critics vowed to fight to restore the funds in Congress. In a statement, the department said the presidents $37.6-billion request for it and for the U.S. Agency for International Development would support a leaner, more efficient government in line with Trumps America first mantra. If approved by Congress, that would represent a reduction of roughly 30% from the current fiscal year. Nongovernmental agencies that receive State Department support to carry out humanitarian and other work around the globe expressed deep alarm. The State Department statement said its new priorities would include efforts to counter terrorism, support Israel, promote border security and battle transnational crime and the spread of infectious diseases. The statement makes no mention of women-empowerment programs or efforts to fight climate change, issues that rose to prominence under the Obama administration. The proposed budget would allow the United States to remain engaged in the United Nations, but officials would seek a more fair distribution of the funding burden, the statement said. And it would eliminate direct funding for quasi- and non-governmental organizations that serve niche missions. The American Jewish World Service, which fights poverty all over the world through 450 local organizations, said much of its work would be jeopardized. At a time when poverty, human rights abuses, famines and conflicts are wreaking havoc globally, said the groups president, Robert Bank, the United States must not abdicate its long bipartisan tradition of providing development assistance and diplomatic support to the most vulnerable people around the world. Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based development and advocacy organization that works in 40 countries, said gutting development programs was short-sighted and absolutely shameful and could put millions of lives at risk. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, called the budget cruel and mean-spirited and said it would force the United States to abandon our global role as a champion for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. If President Trump thinks the United States can shrink into a defensive crouch without long-term repercussions, hes sorely mistaken, Engel said. Facebook

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Sessions first proposed budget: A crackdown on immigration and violent crime By Joseph Tanfani Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) In the first budget proposal under President Trump and Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department is seeking hundreds of millions in new funding to pay for an immigration crackdown on the border and a surge in resources to fight violent crime. Like the Department of Homeland Security budget, which includes billions for expanded immigration detention, more border agents and technology to catch those crossing the border illegally, the Justice Department budget is a reflection of the new get-tough policies promised by Sessions. The budget asks for another 300 federal prosecutors  230 to focus on violent criminals and gangs, and another 70 to concentrate on filing criminal charges on those crossing the border illegally. The shift in the spending priorities are in line with other policy changes ordered by Sessions, including a renewed focus on seeking stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drugs and other crimes. The $27.7-billion budget seeks 450 new attorneys and support workers for the immigration courts, which are now clogged with a backlog of 560,000 cases. There would also be another $50 million for increased immigration detention, plus 40 new U.S. marshal jobs to help take care of the expected increase in immigrants heading to federal court. With Trumps immigration initiatives tied up in federal court, the budget seeks another 15 lawyers to handle that litigation, plus 12 more to help handle property acquisition needed for Trumps promised Southwestern border wall. Violent-crime enforcement would get another $198 million, with the largest amount, $70 million, going toward setting up more anti-violence and gang task forces. Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod J. Rosenstein said more resources are needed because of what he called an alarming increase in the rates of murder and other violent crimes. The department is also asking for another $40 million for more drug enforcement to combat the opioid epidemic, which he said is spreading havoc throughout the United States. Sessions new policies should lead to an increase in prison population, so the budget contains funding to fully open a new supermax prison in Thomson, Ill., with room for 1,500 to 2,000 inmates. The department also wants to put more resources behind the FBIs efforts to counter cyber attacks and to figure out ways around encryption technology, along with another 50 agents to counter foreign intelligence and threats from homegrown terrorists. Facebook

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Economists say Trumps budget proposal doesnt add up By Don Lee President Trumps inaugural budget proposal claims to eliminate the nations deficit in 10 years, thanks largely to faster economic growth that it projects will come from the presidents sweeping tax cuts. Never mind the overly optimistic projections on economic growth. Or that Trumps tax overhaul has not happened yet. Even allowing for both, economists say Trumps budget still does not add up. The administration is counting on generating $2.1 trillion in additional revenue over 10 years from better economic growth. But Trumps budget proposal leaves out the cost, or the revenue lost, from the massive tax cuts. In other words, the economic gains that the administration has said it would use to pay for tax reform is apparently also being counted on to pay for deficit reduction. Some people call that double-counting. You cant use the same money twice, said Marc Goldwein, a senior vice president for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that advocates keeping government budgets under control. Lawrence Summers, former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and top economic advisor to President Obama, called it an elementary but egregious accounting error. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the proposal did not necessarily mean there was an outright omission or a double-counting. Its possible that the administration is looking for such strong economic growth to drive significantly extra revenue from payroll taxes, he said, or it could be that Trump officials were using different base lines from which they were drawing their results. But on the face of it, he said, the budget and tax-plan numbers dont seem to match. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that Trumps plan to cut corporate and individual taxes would cost the federal government about $5.5 trillion over 10 years, adding more than $6 trillion to the national debt. Details of Trumps tax overhaul, however, are still being developed, and its possible that the administration is assuming a revenue-neutral tax plan  although experts say big tax cuts never pay for themselves. On Tuesday, Mick Mulvaney, Trumps budget chief, did not provide a direct answer or explanation to questions about double-counting. Instead, he told reporters that you have to make assumptions about a budget. He went on to say that one of the assumptions that was not made was to take into account the uncollected taxes every year, which he said amounted to $486 billion last year. And we dont assume an additional penny of that being closed as part of our tax reform, said Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget. Of the 3% annual economic growth assumption, Mulvaney responded that the Obama administration in its first couple of years had based its budget on growth of 4.5%. In fact, Obamas first budget proposal as president, in May 2009, assumed economic growth of between 4% and 4.6% for the budget years 2011 to 2013. Since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009, the U.S. economy has been growing on average about 2% a year, and the Congressional Budget Office, the Federal Reserve and most private economists see the economy advancing at about 2% annually over the next 10 years. Alice Rivlin, a former Fed vice chair and director of the Office of Management and Budget under Clinton, said its true that the Obama administrations growth assumptions proved too optimistic. But she noted that those projections were not unreasonable for that time and period in the economic cycle. Then, there was greater potential for growth with unemployment high and many more people than today available for work. Today, the economy is nearing its eighth year of expansion, and the jobless rate is 4.4%, at or near full employment. With the aging of baby boomers, labor force growth slowing, and lackluster productivity gains, economists see the current moderate growth persisting for the foreseeable future. This has been a very long period of growth and were at the high end already, Rivlin said. If we are so lucky to have continuous, steady growth, its not likely to be at 3% or 4% or 5%. Facebook

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Who wins and who loses in Trumps budget The White House Office of Management and Budget sent Congress the presidents inaugural budget today, projecting spending and revenues over the next 10 years. The fiscal package, which include a partial skinny budget from March, reflects President Trumps priorities for the nation, but lawmakers are sure to reject many of the deep cuts in domestic and foreign affairs programs. The departments of State, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Education and Housing, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, are the biggest losers. The winners are the Pentagon and Homeland Security programs. Even with the increases in defense spending and large tax cuts, the administration projects that economic growth spurred by tax cuts will erase annual deficits by 2027. Take a look at some of the numbers released today. Read More Facebook

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What that Montana special congressional race will  and wont  tell us about Trump and his political problems By Mark Z. Barabak Democrat Rob Quist is a quintessential cowboy who doesnt seem to relish campaigning in Montanas special congressional election. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) On Thursday, the political world will eagerly look to Montana and a closely fought congressional race for the latest test of Democratic strength and Republican resilience in the turbulent age of Trump. The major candidates and outside groups have sunk more than $8 million into the contest, a huge sum in a state where $250,000 pays for a robust week of television advertising. But for all that money and all the outside interest, the election will turn less on national trends than circumstances close to home: on the personalities and histories of the main contestants, their different campaign styles and, perhaps most of all, on who is regarded as the more authentic Montanan. Read More Facebook

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Terrorist attack in England has conservative media focused on safety of allies By Kurtis Lee (Dave Thompson/Getty images ) Its a sight witnessed all too often: an explosion, screams, people sprinting to safety. Late Monday night, this was the scene at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, after a man with possible ties to Islamic State militants set off a suicide bomb, killing 22 people and, once again, setting in motion a global discourse on how to fight terrorism. President Trump, while visiting Bethlehem, said the attack was committed by evil losers in life. Throughout the campaign and early in his presidency, Trump has said defeating the Islamic State is a top priority. (He reiterated that point in a speech Sunday in Saudi Arabia, urging Muslim leaders to plot their own course in combating terrorism.) In recent months, with attacks in Berlin, Paris and London, conservative media have questioned the safety of Europe and warned that the United States could face similar attacks. With the latest attack, some on the right are again homing in on the safety of our allies. Here are some of todays headlines: 2017 has seen a terror attack attempted in Europe every nine days (Breitbart) The attack in Manchester blankets the home page of the right-wing website. Europe has indeed been the location of high-profile attacks this year. In Paris last month, Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack on the Champs-Elysees in which a man fired an automatic weapon, killing a police officer. And in March, a man plowed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, near the British Parliament in London, and then fatally stabbed a police officer. In all, four people were killed and dozens injured in what police called a terrorist attack. The Breitbart piece is an analysis of different terrorist attacks attempted and carried out in Europe since January. Attacks and attempted attacks have taken place in Austria, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Germany, on average every nine days, the piece says. Pences message of civility and open debate lost on those who most needed to hear it (Weekly Standard) The debate over free speech on colleges campuses continues. In recent months, conservative speakers have canceled speeches on college campuses in the face of anticipated protests. And others, who have opted to speak, have faced vocal backlash. On Sunday, as Vice President Mike Pence began to address students at the University of Notre Dame commencement, several dozen stood and walked out of the ceremony. In his speech, Pence talked about civility and open debate, and this piece argues that the m
Newport Beach welcomed nine new sculptures to Civic Center Park on Saturday afternoon. A 10th sculpture will be installed in the park in January.

Several artists discussed the ideas behind their pieces with residents and members of the local arts community. Some of the sculptors participated in a walking tour of the park led by the citys arts foundation.

The Civic Center Park exhibition opened in September 2014 with 10 original sculptures scattered throughout the park. Those artworks will be removed in 2016. The 10 new sculptures will remain in the park until summer 2017.

The new pieces are:

 Re-cycled, by Jarod Charzewski and Sean Mueller, is composed of repurposed bike chain rings. The work is placed where the pathways converge at the primary entrance to the dog park in the upper Civic Center Park.

 Prime Commonality, by Luke Crawley and Quincy Owens, represents the ancestral commonality between humans and chimpanzees. The three 7-foot-tall pillars represent human and chimpanzee chromosomal banding, using panels of aluminum and translucent acrylic. The pillars are at the stairway entrance at the top of the park on Avocado Avenue.

 Decline, by Grant Irish, is part of a larger series made with discarded fragments of machinery from Kauais North Shore. The 15-foot-long steel piece is at the top of the lower parks entry stairs.

 Three Saplings, by Diana Merkessinis, is made of reclaimed steel. It is located along the sloped hillside adjacent to the parking area at the park entrance.

 Double White, by Bertil Petersson, weighs 400 pounds and is 6 feet tall. It is in the upper park and can be viewed from the nearby outdoor seating area.

 Demoiselle, by LT Mustardseed, is a representation of the damselfly, a species native to California. It was created using recycled materials like automotive parts.

 Act/Equator Z360, by Kenneth Capps, is a zinc-on-steel work that the artist describes as a split atom that fell from the sky; incessantly in motion, according to a city news release. The piece is located midway up the lower area of the park.

 Pebble Series, by Edwin Hamilton, is part of a series of work that aspires to tap into a universal human psychic content evoked by ancient stonework in a contemporary sculpture, according to the release. It is near the center view area in the middle of the lower park.

 La Cage aux Folles, by architect Warren Techentin, explores the craft of pipe bending, computational procedure and fields of linear strands. The sculpture is along the entry drive to the Civic Center parking area.

 Sunflower, by Patricia Vader, is a wind-driven kinetic metal sculpture that supports eight windmills representing the petals and heart of a sunflower. It will be installed in January.
The displaced members of St. James the Great Episcopal Church want a guilty verdict for their bishop in his misconduct hearing  but they dont want punishment.

What they really want is their church, which was closed in anticipation of a 2015 sale that ultimately never happened, to be reopened.

The Newport Beach congregation, nearing two years without access to their sanctuary at 3209 Via Lido, took Bishop J. Jon Bruno of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles to ecclesiastical court in March on allegations relating to his attempt to sell the church campus for $15 million to townhouse developers.

In written closing arguments filed last week, church attorney Jerry Coughlan asked that the panel deliberating Brunos fate order the church reopened and reinstate its vicar, the Rev. Canon Cindy Voorhees, without retribution and that the bishop step aside from governing the congregation.

Coughlan recommended that Bruno be suspended from ministry for at least a year, arguing that a lower-level parish priest acting the same way he alleges Bruno did would receive a lengthy suspension.

But a stiff sentence by itself would not help the congregation, the diocese, or the church and likely would exacerbate the situation. It would invite an appeal, further delay and controversy, Coughlan wrote. It is in the best interest of everyone to bring about prompt reconciliation. Therefore, the church attorney recommends that the penalty be stayed if [Bruno] agrees to forgo any appeal.

Should Bruno accept that, Coughlan suggested the following terms: that the judges bar Bruno from any administration of St. James the Great; promptly reopen the church for worship under the direction of an independent member of the diocese; and reinstate Voorhees through 2018, with back credit toward her pension.

In May 2015, Bruno told the congregation that he had committed to selling the site to Legacy Partners, which wanted to raze the campus and build luxury townhomes. That June, Bruno changed the locks on the church.

But Legacys investment partner in the deal decided not to proceed, and Legacy also dropped out.

The congregation filed an ecclesiastical complaint not long after its eviction. Members alleged that Bruno was deceptive and unbecoming of a clergyman when he tried to sell the church site and that he didnt have permission of the diocesan government to do so.

At the March hearing, the congregation claimed that Bruno wanted the money for a real estate purchase the diocese hoped to complete in Anaheim but told the church he would dedicate funds to displaced worshippers and the needy. The diocese instead took out a loan for the Anaheim deal.

In their own brief, Brunos attorneys repeated his defenses: that the church was never actually sold, that he acted on the fiscal information he had at the time and that he never promised the church wasnt subject to sale.

Brunos attorneys said the ecclesiastical complaint, plus a failed civil lawsuit, political actions and social media campaign strategically derailed the sale.

Ecclesiastical law was not intended to be used as a weapon to challenge a diocesan bishops decisions regarding the administration and stewardship of his or her diocese, wrote attorney Julie Dean Larsen. [The law] requires that the church attorney meet certain standards to override the fundamental and moral concept that the accused is innocent until proven otherwise. He has failed on all accounts to meet the burden.

The hearing panel is a five-person board of ordained and lay representatives of Episcopal churches from around the country. The verdict is pending.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD
The famous quote, Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it, is attributed to George Santayana. The phrasing itself certainly is catchy, and I believe the sentiment is true. Since history is often horrific, this saying ought to guide the collective policies of nations. Those who watch closely can see that history does nothing but repeat itself.

In looking at the worlds history, I am led to believe that humanity has evolved from genocide. Rudolph Rummels Death by Government, published in 1995 by Rutgers University, calculates that more than 200 million human beings have been deliberately killed by governmental decree. A greater percentage of the human race was murdered by government during the 20th century than in any previous century.

Will Durant said, So the story of man runs in a dreary circle, because he is not yet master of the earth that holds him. Perhaps thats the most salient of all lessons history has to teach.

After viewing the film The Promise, a love story that depicts the Ottoman governments systematic extermination of 1.5 Armenian Christians, it is apparent to me that when there is no end to butchery, a blanket of silence spreads throughout the civilized word. After all, it was Hitler who said, Who speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

I recall countless family gatherings where my wife Kaitzer and her father Papkin Hovasapian told stories of the Armenian Diaspora when millions of Armenians escaped mass murder at the hands of the Young Turks and fled worldwide.

You have to know your history to know who you are, Kaitzer says. Subsequently, our library has well over 100 books on Armenian history. Kaitzer has also said, The most effective way to destroy a people is to destroy their own understanding of their history.

To many, The Promise is a personal story. Both sets of Kaitzers great-grandparents were murdered by the Ottomans. Three of her grandparents walked through the Syrian desert as young children to escape the massacre. Since we live in an idyllic town, its difficult to comprehend that level of human misery.

Our daughters are named after flowers of Armenian courage, Gayaneh Sabine after the martyr Saint Gayaneh and Gareen Simone after a town whose heroics in resisting the Ottomans is legendary

The Promise has a myriad of themes that resonate throughout the film. Its a love story that sends its viewers beyond the whimsical pleasantries of love to the essence of all human connection. Vulnerability! For much of humanity life teeters on a razors edge. Survival! To survive is to avenge, the heroine says.

Turkey denies the genocide, yet historical accounts abound. Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the genocide wrote, When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.

Taliat Pasha, Enver Pasha and Kamal Pasha, the Turkish architects of the genocide, were involved, per their own accounts. There is no point in using the word impossible to describe something that has clearly happened.

Atrocities refuse to be buried; denial does not work. History is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.

The Promise is indeed worth seeing. The movie should make us understand that we are not responsible for the past; but if we do nothing, we are then complicit in the present that has been created by the past.

JOE PUGLIA is a practicing counselor, a retired professor of education and a former officer in the Marines. Reach him at doctorjoe@ymail.com. Visit his website at doctorjoe.us.
As idyllic scenes rolled slowly by my window  terraced vineyards, red-roofed villages, turreted castles, all set against a background of craggy green mountains  I watched contentedly from my bed.

Who would expect to see such stunning scenery while wrapped in a cozy duvet?

A European river-cruise vacation last summer had brought me to this beautiful part of Austria. I was exploring the Danube, which crosses 10 countries as it snakes 1,770 miles from western Germany to its destination at the Black Sea.

The sliding glass door that revealed that view not only let cool, fresh air into the cabin, but also allowed me to become immersed in the scenery.

I was close enough to smell bread baking at a riverside restaurant, to hear children playing in a schoolyard, to see a monk hurrying along a village street.

For first-time river cruisers, the Danube is a good choice because of the abundance of interesting towns and cities and exceptional scenery along the path of the gray-green river.

Thats how I came to be here. It seemed as though fairy-tale castles and other surprises awaited around every bend.

"It felt like I was walking through a storybook, page after page, fellow passenger Michelle Lossius of Gainesville, Fla., said on the final day of the voyage.

A Danube River cruise takes in the sights of Passau, Germany. (Michael Runkel / Robert Harding) (Michael Runkel/Robert Harding)

River cruising is on an upswing among Americans, driving demand to an all-time high, according to Cruise Lines International Assn. Hundreds of river vessels ply European waters, many sailing on the Danube or Rhine.

But river cruises can also be found in South America, Asia, Africa and the United States.

Passengers can travel on the world's most famous rivers and experience many memorable destinations in a short amount of time, said Cindy DAoust, president and chief executive of the cruise line association.

Most Danube river-cruise itineraries concentrate on the upper reaches of the river, from Germany through Austria and Slovakia to Hungary, where tourist infrastructure is better developed.

I could have toured the Danube by car, train or bus, but a cruise offered a relaxing way to get an overview of an area to which I was a first-time visitor.

I was right: It doesnt get much more relaxing than viewing scenery from your bed. The balcony offered another prime spot to veg out as the world drifted by.

Not that I spent the whole trip lolling in my cabin.

I racked up several miles ashore each day exploring vibrant cities such as Budapest, Hungary, where we ate hearty goulash, drank fruit brandy and toured magnificent Castle Hill; Vienna, Austria, known for its artistic and musical masterpieces; and Austrias Wachau Valley, where we got a close look at the pastoral scenery that earned it a place as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

In every city I visited, I sought out other river cruisers to ask about their journeys. Most loved the trip.

"It's an amazing way to see this part of Europe," said Helga Passau of Sydney, Australia. "Such a nice ambience, such a wonderful way to see historical places and beautiful scenery."

Especially if your guilty pleasure is seeing it with your head propped up on a pillow.

Budapest

The Neo-Gothic Matthias Church in Budapest dates to the Middle Ages and is a vibrant gathering spot. (De Agostini / Getty Images) (DEA / S. VANNINI / De Agostini/Getty Images)

A late flight connection was going to spoil my first look at Budapest, I thought as I arrived at the citys airport.

I had hoped to arrive in the afternoon, but my flight from London was delayed until after nightfall.

I grumbled about it as I grabbed a cab outside Budapest airport. The driver looked at me with amusement.

Why are you upset? he asked.

There wont be anything to see at night, I replied.

He laughed. Just wait, he said. Youll be happy.

He got that right. As fascinating as Budapest is during the day, I learned that its beauty shines brightest after sundown.

I got to admire a dazzling light show put on by the Szechenyi Chain Bridge, Buda Castle and, most impressive, the citys Parliament building.

The driver laughed again. What do you think now? he asked.

Wow, I answered.

I had come to Budapest to board the Viking Var for this week-long cruise on the Danube, which flows through the heart of the city. I would take a formal tour the next day, but that night, I strolled Chain Bridge, which offers wonderful views of the waterfront up and down the Danube.

Then I walked to the Parliament building, joining hundreds of other strollers who were enjoying the balmy weather.

Budapest, Hungarys capital, is actually two cities. In 1873, Buda, on the western bank of the Danube, and Pest, on the opposite bank, were combined to form Budapest.

Locals call it the pearl of the Danube, pointing at its picturesque location, historic buildings and rich folk heritage.

Visitors can tap into the citys culture by stopping at one of its grand old coffeehouses, bathing in the thermal waters at its elaborate spas and exploring some of its famous landmarks: Heroes Square, Castle Hill and Matthias Church.

And dont forget to take an evening stroll to see the lights.

Budapest is a beautiful city that deserves a much longer look than youll probably have time for if you visit it during a cruise. Add a few days to your itinerary and take a closer look.

Wachau Valley, Austria

The path of the Danube River goes through lush scenery in the hills of Austria. (Inti St. Clair / Getty Images/Blend Images) (Inti St Clair / Getty Images/Blend Images)

Richard the Lionheart wasnt fond of Austrias Wachau Valley, but almost everyone else is.

In 1192, Austrian Duke Leopold V imprisoned the crusading English king in this beautiful wine-growing region before turning him over to the Holy Roman emperor, who released Richard for a ransom.

Visitors get better treatment these days, whether theyre exploring by riverboat, bike or vehicle.

The valley, formed by the Danube River west of Vienna, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Austria and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A 20-mile stretch of the Danube, between the towns of Melk and Krems, is a highlight of most Danube river cruises.

Observation decks are crowded with passengers eyeing the villages, churches and castles of the region as vessels glide by.

Fall is particularly impressive, although the leafy green days of summer are beautiful too.

Wine tasting, kayaking and biking are major draws for tourists who arent bound by tight riverboat schedules.

Another popular activity is a visit to 64-acre Gottweig Abbey, founded by Benedictine monks more than 900 years ago.

Besides viewing the monasterys art and facilities, you can watch a pastry chef whip up apricot dumplings or taste the abbeys homegrown fruit juices.

Theyre called marillenknodel, said an abbey chef who was demonstrating her cooking skills when I visited. But its a lot easier to just say apricot dumpling.

Vienna

Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, once a residence of the ruling Habsburgs, is open for tours. (MBPROJEKT_Maciej_Bledowski / iStock Editorial/Getty Images )

Youd better be hooked on The Blue Danube waltz if youre planning to visit Vienna. Theres no escaping Johann Strauss IIs tune, which premiered in 1867.

It plays constantly in the citys shops, restaurants and hotels, and ends most concerts in the Austrian capital.

But if youre sailing through Central Europe on a Danube River cruise, getting a healthy dose of the music is only fitting.

Vienna is music central, birthplace of Schubert, the place where Mozart composed most of his greatest symphonies and home to Beethoven, Haydn, Mahler and Strauss.

But the city also offers parks and palaces besides musical performances. Its an excellent place to see an opera, hear the Vienna Boys Choir or watch the prancing Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish Riding School.

Vienna relishes its past, and it has the attractions to prove it: Visit St. Stephens Cathedral, one of the citys finest landmarks; learn about the long-reigning Habsburg family at Schonbrunn Palace, originally a hunting lodge and later the official Habsburg summer residence; or visit some of the citys first-rate museums.

Looking for a memorable purchase? Vienna is an excellent place for a treasure hunt for rare antiques.

Most cruises spend at least one night here. Theres a lot to do; you just need to find time to do it.

Companies and choices

Servers on the Viking Var riverboat prepare a Champagne toast before passengers disembark at the end of a weeklong cruise. (Rosemary McClure / Rosemary McClure) (Rosemary McClure / Rosemary McClure)

My weeklong trip aboard Viking Cruises' longboat Var traveled from Budapest to Nuremberg, Germany. Several other cruise lines also travel this route.

Prices start about $200 a day per person. (My cruise penciled out at $213.68 per day.)

Youll pay more for a river cruise than for many ocean cruises, which sometimes can cost as little as $50 a day, because perks such as excursions and liquor are often included in the cost of a river cruise.

Besides the popular weeklong trips, there are 10- to 24-day voyages, traveling longer segments of the river and spending more time in ports.

Among the riverboat lines traveling the Danube are AMAWaterways, Avalon Waterways, Crystal Cruises, Scenic Cruises, Tauck River Cruises and Uniworld.

The cruises vary in several ways. AMAWaterways, for instance, has partnered with Back-Roads Touring to offer bike tours on some cruises, enabling passengers to choose to ride along a riverside bike path during the day.

Some lines, such as Crystal and Tauck, focus on higher-end clientele, marketing perks such as butler service. Viking, with more ships on the water, offers the largest variety of itineraries.

If you go

Munich Munich 100 MILES Danube River Danube River Danube River Danube River AUSTRIA AUSTRIA AUSTRIA SLOVENIA SLOVENIA SLOVENIA CROATIA CROATIA CROATIA GERMANY GERMANY GERMANY ITALY ITALY ITALY HUNGARY HUNGARY HUNGARY CZECH REPUBLIC CZECH REPUBLIC SLOVAKIA SLOVAKIA SLOVAKIA Budapest Wachau Valley Wachau Valley Vienna Krems Melk

THE BEST WAY TO THE DANUBE

From LAX, connecting service (change of planes) to Budapest, Hungary, is offered on KLM, Lufthansa, Air France, British, Aeroflot, Emirates, Alitalia, Lot and Austrian. Restricted round-trip fares from $1,103, including all taxes and fees.

From LAX, connecting service to Nuremberg, Germany, is offered on Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, Delta and United. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $998, including all taxes and fees.

WHERE TO STAY

Pest-Buda Hotel, 3 Fortuna utca, Budapest, Hungary; 011-36-1-800-9213. Stay on Castle Hill, away from the hurly-burly of the city, at this stylish hotel, one of the oldest in Hungary. Originally opened in 1696 and renovated in 2016. Doubles from $210 per night.

Hotel Orphee, 8 Untere Bachgasse, Regensburg, Germany; 011-49-941-596020. Feel like a local at this 15-room hotel created in what was once a Baroque mansion. Every room is different; each is furnished with antiques. Doubles from $150 a night.

Le Meridian Grand Hotel Nuremberg, 1-3 Bahnhofstrasse, Nuremberg, Germany; 011-49-9112-23220. Comfortable hotel near the train station. Doubles from $400 per night, including breakfast.

WHERE TO EAT

St. Peter Stiftskeller, 1/4 St. Peter Bezirk, Salzburg, Austria; 011-43-662-84-12-68-0. With 1,200 years of history behind it, this lovely restaurant inside the monastery walls of St. Peter's Archabbey in Salzburg claims to be Europe's oldest. It offers Sound of Music lunch/dinner theater besides regular dining. Touristy but fun. Entrees from $21.

Cafe Lila, 2 Rote-Hahnen-Gasse, Regensburg, Germany; 011-49-941-55552. Sunny cafe in this charming Bavarian city along the banks of the Danube. Choose indoor seating or on the sidewalk. Salads with dessert from $8.

Behringer's Bratwursthausle, 1 Rathausplatz, Germany; 011-49- 911- 227695. If you enjoy bratwurst, you'll be in sausage heaven here. The Bratwursthausle has indoor and outdoor seating with tasty grilled sausages. Add a Dunkel beer and you'll have an inexpensive meal. Prices from $2.65.

TO LEARN MORE

The tourist boards of several countries can help travelers plan a Danube tour. Among them, Hungary; Romania; Austria; and Germany.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
The next mornings Los Angeles Times story reported, She ran from the main entrance and refused to look back as the big chain link gates, topped with barbed wire clanged shut on the past. She was greeted by her sister, Mrs. Wilma Sannar...

California Gov. Earl Warren pardoned Meredith after 2 1/2 years behind bars because of questions about the evidence in her trial for kidnapping her business manager Nicholas D. Gianaclis.

In 1947, Meredith, whose legal name is Marjorie May Massow, was convicted of kidnapping. But in March 1951, the California Assembly Interim Committee on Crime and Corrections issued a report stating Meredith was framed by her former business manager.

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According to a Los Angeles Times story on March 27, 1951, the Assembly committee stated: Had Miss Meredith been properly defended in a court free of prejudice she would have undoubtedly been proven innocent of the crime. ... There is shocking evidence of perjury, suppression of evidence and an almost unbelievable reluctance on the part of defense counsel to investigate the cause of defendant Meredith.

After her release, Meredith sued Gianaclis, winning back her home lost after her conviction. She returned to television acting in the 1950s before retiring in the early 1960s.

This photo appears in the Los Angeles Times book, High Exposure: Hollywood Lives Found Photos from the Archives of the Los Angeles Times.

This post was originally published on Sep. 22, 2010.

See more from the Los Angeles Times archives here
In North Korea, missiles and nuclear bombs are more than a means of national defense  they are, for broad segments of the public, objects of near-religious devotion.

In Pyongyang, the countrys capital, missiles feature constantly in newspapers and on television. They emerge from flower pots in floral exhibitions; loom large in public mosaics; and adorn propaganda posters in factories, farms and schools. Theyre often depicted in mid-flight, framed by bold militaristic slogans.

North Korea is gradually developing the capability to fit a nuclear device on an intercontinental ballistic missile, a technology that could one day enable it to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S., and any other nation that might threaten the survival of the Kim family dynasty.

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Yet a close reading of the countrys propaganda suggests that its goals may be more ambitious  and more aggressive in nature  than foreign observers often assume.

One longtime analyst of the secretive countrys murky ideology says its become clear that North Koreas rulers have come to consider nuclear capability not just a means of defense, but the only way of achieving their most important goal: to rid South Korea of U.S. troops, and reunite the Korean peninsula on their own terms.

North Korea is a radical nationalist state and its committed to anything that anybody in North Koreas position would be  which is the reunification of the [Korean] race, and the reunification of the homeland, said B.R. Myers, a professor at Dongseo University in South Korea who has spent years studying North Korean propaganda and ideology.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula are at their highest point in years. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests since 2006, and could soon conduct its sixth. Its missile tests have become routine, including another attempted launch Friday. The U.S., in response to North Korean tests and threats, has diverted an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean peninsula. North Korea, meanwhile, has responded with a massive artillery exercise and warnings of imminent nuclear war.

Why is this happening? The Norths strategic calculus hasnt changed in decades, Myers said. In 1994, President Clinton contemplated a preemptive strike on the Norths nuclear weapons program  yet he balked in the face of the potential fallout: North Korea has a devastating array of artillery aimed at Seoul, which sits 35 miles south of the countries heavily militarized border, and if a conflict were to erupt, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans could be killed within an hour.

Now, Kim Jong Un, the countrys current leader, has accelerated efforts to enable a strike not just on Seoul, but on the U.S.

The only logical answer is that its pursuing something greater than mere security  and theres only one logical conclusion as to what that is.  B.R. Myers, professor at Dongseo University in South Korea

Why is it doing the one thing that could cause the U.S. to strike North Korea, even at the risk of South Korean fatalities? Myers said. The only logical answer is that its pursuing something greater than mere security  and theres only one logical conclusion as to what that is.

North Korea has been demanding the removal of U.S. troops from South Korea since the Korean War, which ended with an armistice in 1953. In December 1955, Kim Il Sung, the countrys founder-president and Kim Jong Uns grandfather, said in a speech that peaceful unification was the ideal option, and could come about when we grow stronger and the forces of peace, democracy and socialism become more powerful.

If that fails, the problem of reunification might also be solved by war, he said.

Pyongyang is probably confident that it can drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington, Myers said. South Korea will elect a new president on May 9, and both front-runners advocate a relatively lenient North Korea policy.

North Korea is unlikely to get its wish, at least any time soon. The U.S. has shown no sign of withdrawing its military commitment to South Korea, and South Korea is, economically, light years ahead of its northern neighbor.

But we need to distinguish the feasibility of the strategy from the likelihood that North Korea is pursuing it, Myers said. The world isnt going to become an Islamic caliphate, but that doesnt stop the Islamists from pursuing that as a goal. And the North Koreans are pursuing something more feasible than what Islamic State is.

In North Korea, militant propaganda is ubiquitous and shrill. Often, images of missiles are paired with slogans denouncing U.S. imperialists and calling for reunification. Start a war against us, we strike the American bastards first! says one poster, showing missiles destroying the Capitol building in Washington.

One mosaic on Pyongyangs metro depicts Kim Il Sung as the sun, watching over a gleeful scene of reunification under the North Korean flag; another shows the North Korean proletariat, led by Kim, advancing against a backdrop of tanks, planes, and most prominently, flying missiles.

We want Trump to withdraw the troops of U.S. Army from South Korea, said Rim Daesong, 28, a North Korean official, as he stepped onto a train. The U.S. government has to change its policies, in order that our country can reunify independently.

In February, North Koreas state news agency KCNA called a successful ballistic missile test a pride of Kim Il Sungs nation [that] has instilled vitality into the glorious Kim Jong Uns era, adding that getting firmer is the fellow countrymens conviction in the final victory of the cause of national reunification.

Fyodor Tertitskiy, an expert on North Korean ideology at Seoul National University, said that North Korean propagandists often cast the countrys missile program as a defensive measure, in line with rockets that it has used to put satellites into orbit.

Yet North Korean media often represent nuclear weapons as a direct blessing from the Kim family, Tertitskiy said, as a symbol of its infinite wisdom in building the glory of the nation.

They really downplay this in the English-language propaganda, he said, but when you look at the Korean original, its very, very intense.

Daniel Pinkston, an international relations expert at Troy University in Seoul, said the North Korean government has also framed missiles and rockets as historic scientific achievements. The propaganda value is that the regime can take credit for managing these projects that are very visible, he continued. When people look at it, its like, Our scientists did that! Its a kind of pride. The leadership recognize that. They feel it. They know it.

On April 15, North Korea held a military parade to mark the 105th anniversary of Kim Il Sungs birth. Processions of soldiers, tanks and missiles were followed by a line of floats, each one surrounded by hundreds of flag-waving citizens. One float glorified doctors; another athletes; another economic development.

But one of the biggest depicted doves flying over a globe  along with a handful of missiles. In bold Korean script, it read: for the peace and security of the world.

jonathan.kaiman@latimes.com

For more news from Asia, follow @JRKaiman on Twitter

ALSO:

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North Korea on a bun: What the legendary Koryo Burger tells us about North Korea, and ourselves

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Hamas, the Palestinian group that rules the Gaza Strip, unveiled a new manifesto Monday moderating its position toward Israel  if only slightly  and distancing itself from Islamist groups in the Middle East.

The new declaration, an apparent bid to reverse Hamas rising isolation, marks the first revision of the groups charter since it was founded amid the first Palestinian intifada three decades ago as a militant underground faction devoted to a religious war to destroy Israel.

In a shift, the new document formally endorses the goal of establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, with Jerusalem as its capital, as part of a national consensus among Palestinians. While that may be a tacit acknowledgment of Israels existence, the revision stops well short of recognizing Israel and reasserts calls for armed resistance toward a complete liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

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The document was formally unveiled in Doha, Qatar, the base of Hamas politburo leader, Khaled Meshaal.

We are ready to cooperate with Arab or any other international effort to achieve our peoples goals, get rid of the occupation, and establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, Meshaal said. The leader said Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, still rejects the Zionist entity and the Oslo peace accords.

The manifesto is likely to rekindle a long-running debate over whether the organizations political moderates, who have talked of recognizing the boundary lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War and agreeing to a long-term cease-fire with Israel, might one day accept a peace deal with Israel.

To accept the creation of the Palestinian state on the 1967 lines is quite significant  its a de facto recognition that there will be something on the other side, said Bjorn Brenner, a researcher on Palestinian politics at the Swedish Defense University and the author of a book on Hamas.

The manifesto, approved as an addendum to the original charter rather than an entirely new document, recast the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a political battle with the Zionist project  Hamas pseudonym for Israel. Hamas fight, according to the document is not with the Jews because of their religion.

The 1988 declaration portrayed a religious battle between Islam and world Jewry, and invoked the anti-Semitic treatise, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Anything short of recognition of Israel, a renunciation of violence and an endorsement of bilateral peace negotiations  three conditions for recognition established by Western countries  is unlikely to impress Israeli leaders. Israel has also demanded that Hamas dismantle the military bases, rockets and cross-border tunnels it has in Gaza as a condition for easing its blockade of the coastal territory. The new manifesto dismisses any attempt to undermine the resistance and its arms.

Hamas is attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed, said a statement from the Israeli prime ministers office. Daily, Hamas leaders call for genocide of all Jews and the destruction of Israel.

Dore Gold, a former director general of Israels Foreign Ministry, accused Hamas military wing of relying on support from Iran and also working with Islamic State in Egypts Sinai Peninsula.

If you had to ask, Where is Hamas heading, in the direction of political settlement with Israel or in the direction of jihadism, it is definitely toward the jihadi side, Gold said.

The declaration also redefines Hamas as a solely Palestinian movement, rather than as a branch of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood as it did at its founding. The change was apparently an effort to improve ties with Cairos secular government.

The 10-page Document of General Principles and Polices  which took four years to hash out  reflects an effort by the militant group to adjust to the political upheavals across the Middle East in recent years that have bruised ties with allies as well as to internal Palestinian politics. It also comes at a time of transition in its leadership: Earlier this year, the group selected a hard-line military commander, Yayha Sinwar, as its chief in Gaza and is about to announce a successor to Meshaal.

The document is intended to reach out and establish ties with the international community, said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Gazas Al Azhar University.

It will allow Hamas to establish new ties with Arab, Muslim and other countries  but unless Hamas accepts the two-state solution, I dont think the U.S. or the EU will recognize the organization, he said.

The policy manifesto is being released on the eve of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Wednesday meeting at the White House with President Trump. Analysts see the timing as an attempt to shift Palestinians focus from Washington to Gaza, which is suffering from salary cuts and a power crisis after Abbas decided to end Palestinian Authority funding to the territory.

Accepting the June 1967 border is an attempt to bring Hamas position closer to that of Abbas Palestine Liberation Organization, while appealing to broad sentiment among Palestinians who think that their leaders shouldnt disavow armed attacks on Israel as the PLO did when it began the peace negotiations.

Osama Qawasmi, a spokesman for the Fatah movement, to which Abbas belongs, said the new political document is identical to one adopted by the PLO in 1988, and accused Hamas of sowing a split among the Palestinains through 30 years of treachery.

The timing of the Hamas announcement undercuts any momentum Abbas would get on his first visit to the White House in three years, said Grant Rumley, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank focusing on national security and foreign policy. Its to say, Our position isnt so different from Abbas, and while hes in Washington, we are here suffering in Gaza.

Analysts said the document is unlikely to spur a renewed effort toward reconciling a 10-year split between Hamas and the secular Fatah Party, which controls the West Bank and is led by Abbas, because the new manifesto calls for reforms of the PLO. Fatah fears that could be a pretext by Hamas to take over the organization.

Hamas came to prominence with a campaign of suicide bombings in Israel during the second Palestinian uprising, which coincided with the heyday of the peace process with Israel. It criticized PLO founder Yasser Arafat and his organization for recognizing Israel and agreeing to divide historic Palestine.

Although the group got a popular mandate after winning control of the Palestinian parliament in 2006 in an upset over Fatah, Hamas violent takeover of Gaza the next year left it besieged by Israel and virtually shunned by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. It also fought three wars with Israel that have deepened the economic devastation in Gaza.

Unrest across the Arab world has worsened Hamas relations in the region. It lost the support of Syria and Iran as its external leadership decamped from Damascus to Qatar because of Syrias civil war. Its been at loggerheads with Egypt since President Abdel Fattah Sisi ousted the Muslim Brotherhood, declared it a terrorist organization, and launched an offensive against smugglers between Gaza and Sinai.

Hamas is in a difficult situation: They are pressed from the outside and pressed from the inside, Brenner said. The big question is whether they will gravitate toward Iran or Egypt. With this document you get the impression that they are trying to warm up to the Sunni Arab states  and Egypt.

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A small town in Italy was losing population. Now Syrian refugees are key to its survival

Special correspondent Mitnick reported from Tel Aviv and abu Alouf from Gaza City.

@joshmitnick

UPDATES:

4:55 p.m.: This article has been updated with reaction from Israel, others; analysis, background.

This article was originally posted at 7:25 a.m.
Public investment in Spain fell to 1.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016, the lowest level since 1995. Prior to that date, records are not homogeneous, although experts believe that the level of state investment has probably not been this low since the 1980s.

Public investment is at a low point in Spain. JORDI VICENT

According to Eurostat, the European Unions statistical bureau, only Portugal registered lower public investment than Spain, coming in at 1.5% of GDP. Ireland tied with Spain at 1,9%, significantly below the EU average of 2.7%. Even bailed-out countries like Greece and Cyprus invested more of their own output.

In gross terms, investment by Spanish government agencies declined from 26.97 billion in 2015 to 21.55 billion in 2016, in items ranging from infrastructure to R&D, defense and healthcare.

The budget plan that Spain has sent to Brussels puts public investment at 2% of GDP

Government spending on roads has gone down to 1980s levels. Even the Davos Economic Forum has warned Spain about the deterioration of its infrastructure.

As for defense, because a purchase does not count as an expenditure until the item is delivered, there are cases of equipment deliberately left inside the providers premises to avoid counting it as an expense.

And in R&D, grants have slowly morphed into loans  except that universities and research centers are not ready to work on credit, meaning that 40% of the money that the state earmarks for research is not being used.

Public Works Minister Inigo de la Serna says the budget is sufficient for his department. EFE

It comes as no surprise that the economic adjustments made in Spain in the wake of the crisis should have affected public investment most particularly. It is easier to freeze public outlays than it is to make cuts elsewhere and investment cuts are generic, as opposed to cutting individuals and families off from social benefits.

By comparison, public investment was 5.1% of GDP in 2009, or 55.13 billion. Ever since the crisis began, the figure has been falling, with the exception of 2015, when it rose because of existing defense spending commitments and because Eurostat forced the Spanish government to categorize certain investments as public-private.

The 2017 budget plan that Spain sent to Brussels puts investment at 2% of GDP. Experts are warning that this is not enough to maintain existing infrastructure in good condition. Last month, Public Works Minister Inigo de la Serna said that the appropriations for his department are realistic and enough to cover all major works scheduled for 2017.

English version by Susana Urra.
India has long maintained that Kashmir, the Himalayan region that is the object of its long tug of war with Pakistan, is an integral part of its territory.

But amid growing violence, street protests and international pressure for a resolution to the 70-year-old dispute, critics are asking whether India is losing control in Kashmir.

In the latest deadly attacks, seven security personnel and two civilians were killed Monday in Indian-controlled Kashmir, including two soldiers who India said were beheaded by Pakistani commandos.

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Indian defense officials said that Pakistani forces fired across their disputed border and that a special forces team then sneaked across and killed an Indian soldier and a border security guard, whose bodies were found mutilated.

Calling the act barbaric, Indian Defense Minister Arun Jaitley vowed a response, saying the soldiers sacrifice will not go in vain.

The Act of killing & mutilating the bodies of two of our soldiers is the most reprehensible & barbaric. The sacrifice will not go in vain.  Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 1, 2017

Pakistan denied the accusations, saying it had no such commando unit in the area.

The Pakistan army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even [an] Indian, the Pakistani military said in a statement.

Separately, five Indian police officers and two private security guards were reportedly killed when suspected militants attempted to rob a van outside a bank about 10 miles south of Srinagar, the regional capital.

Indian news agencies reported that the assailants made off with at least four rifles belonging to security forces.

Omar Abdullah, the former chief minister of Indias Jammu and Kashmir state, called it a terrible 24 hours in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian state that encompasses Indias portion of the disputed region.

Terrible 24 hours in J&K. 2 soldiers killed & mutilated near the LoC. 5 policemen & 2 bank employees shot in a robbery bid in South Kashmir.  Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) May 1, 2017

Hizbul Mujahideen, a Kashmiri separatist group that opposes the Indian armys presence in the territory, claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes amid worsening tensions between the majority Muslim residents and the Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi.

Since Indian forces killed a charismatic young Kashmiri militant nearly one year ago, families say that more young men have joined the anti-Indian insurgency. Large crowds of civilians have taken to the streets to throw stones at Indian soldiers and paramilitary forces, which have killed hundreds of civilians in a response that has human rights groups say has employed excessive force.

In a sign of Kashmiris growing disillusionment, just 7% of voters cast ballots in an election last month for a parliamentary seat in Srinagar, the lowest turnout on record.

Public outrage increased after Indian forces tied a Kashmiri shawl weaver to the hood of a military jeep and drove through several villages, apparently to warn civilians not to throw stones. Video of the incident went viral and added to widespread allegations that Indian forces have committed serious human rights violations in the territory.

In a bid to quell protests, Indian authorities have attempted over the last week to block use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites  although many Kashmiris are finding ways to circumvent the ban.

India has accused Pakistan of fomenting the violence against its forces, a charge Pakistan denies.

The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two wars over Kashmir since the countries were split upon independence from Britain in 1947. Both countries claim the territory in its entirety.

The violence and heavy-handed military response have led critics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to warn that his government risks squandering the chance at a peaceful settlement to the Kashmir issue.

The path that the government of Jammu and Kashmir and the central government have taken is a perilous path, P. Chidambaram, a leader of the opposition Congress party, said last month. This path will not lead to any kind of peace or any kind of engagement with the people.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan waded into the fray ahead of an official visit to India, calling for multilateral dialogue to resolve Kashmirs status. India has long rejected any outside involvement on the issue, saying that Kashmir is a bilateral dispute that can only be resolved through talks with Pakistan.

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Special correspondent Aoun Sahi contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan.

shashank.bengali@latimes.com

Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia
Chilean casino and hotel operator will go to Europe and the US for $330m in 2022 bonds
Latin Americans who are experiencing violence in some countries in nations like Honduras and El Salvador are fleeing. They initially set their sights on the US but President Donald Trump and his administration are persistent with its federal immigration laws. Instead of going for the American dream, they choose to settle in Mexico instead.

Al Jazeera reports that the Latin countries mentioned are some of the most dangerous places in the world. These countries are filled with surging crime caused by drug violence, criminal gangs and homicide.

Latin American refugees in the past have always chosen the US. However, with President Donald Trump seated and his administration enacting its federal immigration laws, the US seems a little difficult for them to enter with the ban going on. Mr. Trump recently signed an executive order to suspend the entrance of refugees in the US and prevention of people coming in from several majority-Muslim nations coming to the country.

Just recently, more than 50 Latin American women and children are being deported from the US. UPI reports that the immigrants say that they will once again suffer violence and discrimination if they are sent back to their home countries including Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The refugees stated that they entered the US via Texas in 2015 and with their hearing, have been refused to appeal for their cases. The lower court stated that the Latin refugees did not have any right to have their appeals reviewed because they are not American citizens in the first place. Furthermore, they did not qualify as immigrants as well.

The American Civil Liberties Union who represented the Latin refugees objected to the decision. They say that migrants who specifically seek asylum in the US cannot be sent back to their dangerous homelands. Each immigrant should be given fair trial and should not be detained or deported.
Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill have started filming the much-awaited "Mission: Impossible 6."

According to Daily Mail, "Mission: Impossible 6" actors Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill have started filming thrilling scenes in Paris. Cruise is wearing his navy leather jacket as he strolled around on the movie set.

Cruise inspected the set and appears to be in deep discussion with crew members as they worked out how to maneuver the scene. Upon filming some parts of "Mission: Impossible 6", the actor has sported his character Ethan Hunt's signature all-black ensemble and he also wears heavy black boots.

The same news outlet has learned that the "Mission: Impossible 6" actor appeared to be shooting a chase sequence with Superman star Henry Cavill, as the two maneuvered a heavy truck. The two are driving the truck into another large truck, in what appears to be a thrilling action scene in the movie. Meanwhile, keen observant fans had spotted Cavill had grown a thick handlebar mustache for his role in the movie, which is a far appearance from his typical clean-cut look.

For reference, Metro stated in its article that Cruise is back as Ethan Hunt, while Cavill has also signed on in an unspecified role. Nevertheless, it was figured that his character will perhaps be substituting Jeremy Renner's departing William Brandt.

It was also mentioned that it was 21 years since Cruise's Impossible Missions Force (IMF) agent Ethan Hunt first fought his way through what was measured as an 'impossible mission.' Even though specifics are still under wraps for the "Mission; Impossible 6," it was known that the production in Paris will move to New Zealand and London.

"Mission: Impossible 6" is being directed by scriptwriter Christopher McQuarrie. He previously worked with Cruise on movies "Jack Reacher," "Edge Of Tomorrow" and "Valkyrie." Additionally, Alec Baldwin and Rebecca Ferguson will both reappear on their roles from "Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation" as Alan Hunley and Ilsa Faust correspondingly.
Last month, a two world's biggest companies were reportedly fell victim to an alleged scam for over $100 million. The attacked was made by a Lithuanian man who impersonates Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese manufacturer that includes Google, Facebook, and Apple as the company's biggest clients.

According to BBC, Facebook and Google are the victims of this person named Evaldas Rimasauskas, a 48-year old man who conducted million-dollar transactions via fake email add that pretends to be from the Asia-based firm. The scammer deceived the two companies for two years by convincing to make a wire-transfer million of dollars at a time to a fraudulent bank account.

Facebook and Google have confirmed about the scam and have been able to recover most the funds with the help of DOJ. According to Google, the fraud was detected by the company's vendor management team and immediately alerted the authorities. However, the security experts said that the recent cyber attack is a highlight on how sophisticated this kind of email scam that is being used to fool Facebook and Google.

Fortune reported that Rimasauskas and his lawyer denounced that the accused may not have a fair trial in the USA because of uncertain FBI agent's behavior during his interrogations. Because of the said FBI behavior, a spokesperson of U.S. Attorney's confirmed that the accused will be in the custody of Lithuania and both U.S. Justice Department and Lithuania authorities decided not to name any companies aside from Facebook and Google, who infringed Rimasauskas's rights to obtain a fair trial.

It is might be a surprised to find out that the two giant companies Facebook and Google are recently defrauded for over $100 million, this means that everyone must be vigilant against any forms of cyber criminals, from a costly conveyance scams to a fake IT support. Nowadays it is more important to have a double check anything especially when it asks about its personal details or a money. The attacked of Facebook and Google will definitely bring up a picture that might happen for any internet average users.
As Donald Trump moved to the White House, questions were raised on how it will affect the Latin America. Reportedly, it is important that Trump administration should provide equal attention to the region.

According to Post and Courier, Latin America is currently facing a quite disturbing situation in various regions. Violence and economic instability are plaguing Venezuela. The problems that Venezuela is facing today could take the form of a major international crisis for Donald Trump's administration tomorrow.

Apart from that, countries like El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are equally dealing with gang-related violence and severe criminal activities. This may cause a future disturbance if not taken strong measures.

Coca cultivation in Colombia and other regions are unstoppable. Meanwhile, Brazil is witnessing a tremendous rise in corruption level that has left the country and other Latin American regions speechless.

According to Diplomatic Courier, Trump's government hasn't recruited key officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and the new ambassador to the Organization of American States. It has been over 100 days for Donald Trump in office and no steps have been taken yet to explore the vast opportunities Latin America and the US together can partake in.

It is important that the new government reestablish the connection with Latin America. Reportedly, this is high time that President Trump strikes important bargains and deal with the region on issues including security, energy, and infrastructure.

The US can enter into business with Latin America for oil from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Mexico, and Venezuela. This will tremendously decrease America's dependency on the Middle East.

Next, Latin American countries like Argentina and Brazil are a great opportunity for the US in the energy sector. Both the countries posses well-developed ethanol industries.

Both Latin America and the US have to work in tandem to address the rising violence in the region, especially in Venezuela. It is important that the new government do not disengage with the countries on their south and redevelop a strong partnership that will benefit both.
On day 101 of the Trump administration, there is still no start on building t he wall between Mexico and the United States , despite the presidents promise. Instead, at a section of the border where a wall already exists, a small rusty gate separating San Diego from Tijuana was opened and families were able to meet in no mans land for a few minutes to give each other a hug.

More information Y en el dia 101 de Trump, se abrio el muro

For the first time in seven years, Jeanette Lorenzo, 31, was able to put her arms around her mother. While TV cameras filmed the scene, border patrol agents kept a keen eye out, making sure no Mexicans crossed the line onto the US side or vice versa.

Mother and daughter didnt say much through their tears, just that they loved each other. The reunion lasted three minutes  a three-minute embrace after seven years. It was difficult to let go of her when they told me it was time, said Jeanette. It seemed like half a minute. I wanted to tell her so many things and hug her and not let her go.

How is it possible that a little girl has never been able to hug her father? Enrique Morones of Border Angels

The Lorenzo family is one of thousands in southern California that have lost members to the other side of the fence. Those on one side have no papers and those on the other cant cross. Twenty-two years ago, Jeanettes parents entered California with their four children illegally. Now Jeanettes mother Reina is back in Mexico, after she was deported, while Jeanette is protected by Barack Obamas DACA program, which allows illegal immigrants to stay if they arrived as children. This status does not give Jeanette the right of return if she leaves the United States. So she stays in San Diego while Reina remains in Tijuana to be as close to her as possible. The most difficult thing about being here is not having my children with me, says Reina through the border fence where she spent hours talking with Jeanette this morning.

The meeting point is a 20-meter no-mans land between the two borders. On weekend mornings, people pass through the first fence and approach the second to speak to their loved ones in Tijuanas Parque de la Amistad. This second fence, which is right on the line, is covered with a tightly woven mesh that allows people to do no more than touch the tips of each others fingers. On the US side, the mesh is gray. But when the gate is open, you can see a heart has been painted on the other side.

Jeanette Lorenzo hugs her mother at the border. EFE

Jeanette Fernandez lives in Chula Vista, just a few kilometers inside the United States, though she says she might as well be living in New York. She can only see her father, Javier, on weekends through the mesh, which is not much different from visiting someone in jail. This Sunday she was able to embrace her father for the first time in 10 years.

These snatched reunions are the result of an agreement between the border patrol and a local NGO in San Diego called Border Angels whose director Enrique Morones has a good working relationship with the chief of the border patrol in the San Diego region. Three years ago, they agreed to open the gate for the first time, for just two minutes. This Sunday six families were able to reunite for 20 minutes.

The meeting point is a 20-meter no-mans land between the two borders

The first such reunion took place on Mexicos Childrens Day  April 30  and now they believe they can also do it on International Childrens Day in November, making it a bi-annual event. This is the fifth time it has been done in three years. Bit by bit, says Morones. My goal is to be able to do it every weekend.

Morones believes in the power of images. These hugs in no-mans-land are heartrending. And now they are being seen by the entire world, as similar cross-border meetings take place in Texas, with Arizona preparing to follow suit.

This image has to reach Washington, says Morones. I dont care who the president is. The image has to be seen by those who have the power to vote on reforms to migration policy. How is it possible that a little girl has never been able to hug her father?

English version by Heather Galloway.
Forty years ago, 14 women gathered in a Buenos Aires square known as Plaza de Mayo. They were looking for their children, who had disappeared at the hands of the military dictatorship. They were scared, but their desire to find their loved ones was stronger than their fear. They spontaneously decided to join forces in order to force the military junta to give them some answers.

Mothers of Plaza de Mayo on their 40th anniversary. Enrique Garcia Medina

More information La lucha de las madres argentinas mas valientes cumple 40 anos

None of them could have imagined at the time that they were planting the seeds of a movement that would never be eradicated from the square, and which would grow to be known the world over.

These days, the capital of Argentina is organizing music festivals, photography exhibitions, symposiums and documentary screenings as a tribute to the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, those brave souls who became a symbol of resistance against the horrors of the regime.

At first, they would sit on the benches and talk, using their knitting as a cover to throw off the uniformed guards who stared at them suspiciously. Any gathering of three or more people was forbidden under the state of siege, and at one point a police officer told them to keep moving. The women got up and began circling the monument to Belgrano and then the Piramide de Mayo, across from the government palace known as Casa Rosada.

Having fought for life when death has passed by your side gives you courage

Hebe de Bonafini, president

When he told us to keep moving, he triggered an endless dance, says Nora Cortinas, whose son Carlos Gustavo Cortinas was kidnapped, never to be seen again, 15 days before the creation of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo.

Just like him, men and women who were members of guerrilla groups, political organizations and unions were being dragged out of their homes and plucked from the streets and taken to clandestine detention centers. Because no charges were ever brought against them, nor their location disclosed, the people who were sucked up in this way became los desaparecidos, or the disappeared.

The list of crimes perpetrated by the state included kidnappings, torture, baby theft from women who gave birth while in prison, and forced disappearances that took many forms, including the death flights in which detainees were drugged and weighed down before being thrown off aircraft and into the River. Plate.

At first we had high hopes of finding them alive, explains Hebe de Bonafini, president of Madres de Plaza de Mayo. We were certain that we would find them, and that is why we put all our energy and love into that effort.

Marchers show photographs of the disappeared, whose numbers have been questioned by the Macri administration. AFP

We couldnt imagine that it was going to be so brutal, adds Mirta Baravalle, whose daughter Ana Maria was kidnapped in 1976, when she was five months pregnant.

The state repression had begun in 1974, but it surged after the military coup of March 24, 1976. In just a few months, the desaparecidos could be counted by the thousands. At police precints and prisons, women ran into other women looking just as downcast as themselves, and asked: You too?

There were 14 mothers at first; when I joined we were already 20, and the number grew by the week, recalls Cortinas. A few months later they began wearing white headscarves  originally these were their childrens cloth nappies  and the head covering quickly became the symbol of their struggle.

The regime wrote them off as those crazy women, but they didnt care. Week after week they marched around the central monument on Plaza de Mayo to demand that their children be returned to them alive, and given a proper trial if if turned out that they had committed any crimes.

We couldnt imagine that it was going to be so brutal

Mirta Miravalle, mother

The movement did not peter out even when three of its members were kidnapped in late 1977, including founder Azucena Villaflor. They were betrayed by a former navy captain, Alfredo Astiz, who infiltrated the group after passing himself off as the brother of a missing man.

Having fought for life and against death, even when death has passed right by your side so many times, gives you a lot of courage, says De Bonafini.

The association celebrated Argentinas return to democracy in 1983, and the trial of junta members who were sentenced to life in prison. But they kept right on fighting against the impunity that was encoded into laws by the Raul Alfonsin administration (1983-1989), followed by the government pardons awarded by Carlos Menem (1989-1999) to the regime leaders.

Their demands for justice and for the preservation of the memory of the 30,000 people who disappeared under the military regime were bolstered by the derogation of amnesty laws under the Kirchners. Hundreds of trials have since been reopened, turning Argentina into a global role model.

Now mostly octagenarians, the Mothers keep going to the square every Thursday. They have been divided since 1986, when a splinter group broke off and founded Madres de Plaza de Mayo - Linea Fundadora due to disagreements over state compensation and the identification of remains.

But there are still more things uniting them than dividing them. 30,000 disappeared, present! they all chant out from both sides of the square, as though challenging the new administration of President Mauricio Macri for daring to question that figure.

Mothers of the square, the people embrace you, they often hear from passersby. In the meantime, the Madres cling to their belief that one day they will find out what happened to all the missing victims of the repression, and to their hope that the new generations will carry on their fight.

English version by Susana Urra.
Maria Jimena Rico and her girlfriend, Shaza Ismail, arrived in Torrox, Malaga, after being held incommunicado for several days in Turkey, to be reunited with Ricos family in the small hours of Saturday morning.

Maria Jimena Rico embraced by her sister in Torrox. EFE

More information Spaniard who went missing in Turkey puts the blame on homophobia

The London-based couple had gone to Dubai to visit Ismails mother after being told she was ill. But it appears that this was simply a ruse to get Ismail back home. On arrival, Ismails father, an Egyptian businessman who was upset by his daughters lesbian relationship, threatened to kill her. He also reported her to the Dubai authorities.

With the help of Ismails contacts, the pair managed to escape to Georgia where they were discovered by Ismails father before they could catch a plane to London. With other family members in tow, he destroyed Ricos passport in a violent scene that was broken up by the Georgian police.

Arriving in Torrox, Rico and Ismail were too exhausted to speak to the press

Rico and Ismail then managed to escape into Turkey on foot where they took a bus to Samsun on the Black Sea coast, only to be arrested for entering the country without the proper travel documents.

Under police custody, Rico got in touch with her family that same day and told them to contact the Spanish authorities if they hadn't heard from her soon. With no news of the couple for several days, Ricos family moved into action. On Thursday, Rico managed to call home from the detention center and explain she was being held incommunicado with Ismail. Officers from Malaga and Barcelona's Guardia Civil collaborated with the Spanish authorities in Turkey to get the couple deported to Spain.

Arriving in Torrox, Rico and Ismail were too exhausted to speak to the press but Rico was snapped giving her sister a long hug at the gate to her home before going inside to be reunited with her parents.

Looking rested and relieved, Rico posted a video on Facebook on Sunday afternoon thanking everyone for their help as she and Ismail celebrated with friends and family. Thank you very much for all the support we have received, she said. As you can see, Im with my family and childhood friends, and everything is fine and we are all happy.

English version by Heather Galloway.
by

This is a guest post by my friend Colleen Fogerty written by her and based on her recent experience in Cuba. For more on Cuba, check out my 5 Essential Places to Visit in Cuba, Americans Should Manage Expectations on Havana and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: What Its Really Like.

When my friend called me up one day and asked if I wanted to go to Cuba, I said yes with little hesitation. I had only heard great things about the island that recently opened its borders to U.S. citizens, so it really wasnt a difficult question.

When I told my mom I was going, the first thing she asked was, Is it safe? A typical mom question but one as a female traveler Im always hyper-aware of; especially, when traveling alone or with only women.

Overall, my friend and I felt very safe during our time in Havana. But, the unfortunate reality is that female travelers need to be extra careful while traveling. So, here are my tips for female travelers heading to Cuba.

Stay in a highly-rated Airbnb

Female or not, renting an Airbnb in Cuba is the way to go. The hotels are extremely overpriced and you can get a quality home rental for around $30 a night.

For female travelers, Id opt for staying in a private room rather than renting out an entire house. Not only will your on-site hosts be able to give you great advice about Havana, youll have personalized attentionmeaning someone to notice if you dont come home.

Cuba is a poor country and tourism has the power to bring in a lot of money for people. With Airbnb, people can make in a night what others are making in a month. So, they rely heavily on getting a good review. Hosts will go out of their way to ensure you have a perfect and safe stay. Our host even made our beds every morningwhat kind of Airbnb does that? You can trust that the good reviews you read on your booking site have been well earned.

I highly recommend my Airbnb. Oralia and her son were extremely hospitable and taught us so much out what life is like in Cuba. The room was private and clean and the beds were comfortable.

Get used to the cat calls

Youll get lots of them. Sadly, youll have to be OK with hearing kissing noises and be called guapa or linda frequently.

Overall, I felt safe walking around Havana. However, as every woman knows, getting this kind of attention is extremely uncomfortable and every time a man made a kissing noise as I walked by I had to actively resist the urge not to shoot a snarky response their way.

Unfortunately, this practice is something thats deeply ingrained in the Cuban culture and is intended to get your attention. Its best to just ignore it.

Dress down

That doesnt necessarily mean you need to dress conservativelyCubans dont. Its more a reminder that majority of Cubans dont have fancy, new clothes. The more flashy your clothes, the more attention youll get.

The further you veer off the tourist path, the more this becomes true.

Be extra careful with your money

For the most part, Cuba is cash only and what you come with is all that youll have for your trip.

Never walk around with all of your cash. I didnt feel that pickpocketing was much of a threat, but its better to be safe than sorry. Im confident that as American tourism continues to rise, so will tourist scams.

The money you dont have on you should be locked up or divided and hidden in a few different spots.

Download Maps.me

Maps.me is a maps app that works offlineit was a godsend for our trip seeing as our phones didnt work.

Getting lost and aimlessly wandering can be half the fun when youre traveling, but its alway nice to know youll be able to find your way back when youre ready.

Having directions readily available in your pocket helps avoid asking locals for directionsthats not to say talking to locals is a bad thing (Ill touch on that later) but letting strangers know that youre lost and vulnerable can be. The app also gives you peace of mind in cabs, allowing you to see that youre heading in the right direction.

Bring toilet paper and hand sanitizer

Public restroom stalls wont come with equipped with toilet paper. So, before its too late, youll want to grab some from the bathroom tender or have some stashed away in your purse.

I also found that soap is hard to come by. I was extremely thankful that I had packed hand sanitizeryoull need it.

Follow the music

OK, now for the fun stuff. They say in Cuba, everyone is a musicianand that proved to be true.

There are live bands playing every day, at every hour. Some of the best times we had were when we came across a random bar and sat down to listen to the music. For me, this was one of my favorite parts of their culture.

So, follow the music and dont forget to dance!

Enjoy the cheap drinks

Three dollar pina coladas? Count me in.

From mojitos to daiquiris to Cuba Libres (rum and cokes) the rum is constantly flowing and its ridiculously inexpensive. Enjoy yourself and drink responsibly.

Talk to the locals

Head to the local hang outs (Fabrica de Arte Cubano is a must) and talk to the locals. I found that tons of Cubans are dying to practice their English. So engage with them and use it as an opportunity to learn about what its like to live in Cuba.

One night, we talked to a computer engineer. A computer engineer who lives on an island notoriously known for its lack of Internethow crazy is that?

Cuba is dirty, a bit chaotic and so full of color and life. As long as you employ some street smarts and listen to these tips for female travelers heading to Cuba-female travelers will absolutely love Cuba.

Sharing is caring!
May 1, 2017, 2:15pm ET

Mitsubishi considers new pickup, sedan for US market

Nissan could use some of its own factory capacity to return Mitsubishi manufacturing to the US.

Mitsubishi has continued to release more details of its US revitalization strategy, which could include several new models and increased local production.

The brand's future in the US has been shrouded in doubts. After vowing in 2012 to double output from its Illinois assembly plant, the company quickly changed course and shuttered the factory by late 2015 despite growing US sales in recent years.

The company is now under the leadership of Trevor Mann, installed as its new chief executive after his former employer, Nissan, acquired a controlling stake in its scandal-afflicted Japanese competitor. The bailout raised concerns that Mitsubishi might be forced to scale back its US commitment to avoid overlap with Nissan, but the new chief executive actually plans to increase its presence in the country.

Speaking to Automotive News in a recent interview, Mann hinted that Mitsubishi is considering adding a new pickup and a sedan to its US lineup. The incoming models could be based on existing Renault-Nissan Alliance platforms, however, to minimize development costs. Plans to return Mitsubishi production to America will also presumably involve existing Nissan factories.

"As we go forward and start to have common platforms, an alliance pickup platform would be quite an appropriate thing for us to do," he said.

Rumors point to a jointly-developed architecture that could underpin both the next-generation Nissan Navara (Frontier) and Mitsubishi L200 midsize pickups. Mann previously suggested the companies might also share a common platform when designing replacements for the Nissan Patrol (Armada) and Mitsubishi Pajero SUVs.
The trial for a man who had his hand cut off by a machete during an alleged burglary starts Monday in Northampton County.

A bandana-masked William F. Andrews Jr., 55, of Easton, allegedly entered the home of Troy Imbody without permission on July 2, 2016. He attacked Imbody in the basement at 1337 Canal St. in Northampton and Imbody used a machete to cut off Andrews' left hand, police said.

Imbody's father, Robert Imbody, described the attack as a "life or death struggle." Imbody had BB pellets lodged in his forehead after Andrews or his accomplice shot him, according to Assistant District Attorney John Obrecht.

Andrews left his hand behind, police said. Police recovered it and Andrews was airlifted to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for surgery to reattach it, police said.

Following the home invasion, signs were hung on the front door of Troy Imbody's apartment saying "Come wit two, leave wit one" and "Beware of Troy." The signs include a set of traced hands.

Andrews is charged with burglary, criminal trespass, aggravated assault, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.

Andrews' accomplice Ronald Mumbauer, 44, of Warminster, Pa., remains charged with burglary, aggravated assault, simple assault, criminal trespass, recklessly endangering another person and five counts of conspiracy.

Accomplice Christopher Delange, 28, of Allentown, is charged with burglary and criminal trespass.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
A 16-year-old was robbed of a rifle at gunpoint and assaulted by two men Saturday night in a Lower Macungie Township park, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Troopers said the victim knew both of the robbers, whom they identified as Johnathon Gerhart, 20, and David Kline Jr., 19.

When police on Sunday night went to Gerhart's address in the 5300 block of Vera Cruz Road in Upper Milford Township, Kline came out to speak to troopers.

Kline, who lives in Allentown, reportedly said he was with his mother the day of the robbery, and that he did not know where Gerhart was and had not seen him in several days.

Troopers said Gerhart was found in the house, and the pair were arrested.

The men were each arraigned Monday morning on charges of robbery, conspiracy, theft and receiving stolen property. Gerhart was also charged with simple assault. Both men were sent to Lehigh County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail each.

State police said they were called Saturday night for a reported armed robbery in Prater Park on North Hedgerow Drive in Lower Macungie.

The victim told troopers a friend contacted him on SnapChat, and told the teen to grab his rifle and meet at a nearby park.

The victim put the rifle in a backpack and walked to the park, where he said he was grabbed from behind and the man put his arms around his neck.

A man the victim only knew as "D," later identified as Kline, walked up with a gun, put the gun to the teen's chest and demanded "everything he had," according to troopers.

Kline allegedly told the teen to not mess around, the gun was loaded and he "would let it air."

The victim said he dropped the bookbag, and the pair went through his pockets. When they didn't find anything of value, Gerhart allegedly punched the teen four times in the neck.

The pair told the victim to go home and bring something back of value, state police said, then they took the victim's backpack.

A witness reported seeing Gerhart and Kline about an hour after the robbery, in a black Audi in Emmaus. State police said a black Audi is registered to Kline, and was parked in the driveway of Gerhart's home when troopers arrived to speak to them.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Carbon County attorney who ran for state representative in 2016 was surrounded by people wearing "Bikers for Trump" insignias before he was removed by police from Trump's first 100 days rally Saturday night in Harrisburg.

Neil Makhija, who calls himself a "grandson of refugees, a son of immigrants (and a) proud Pennsylvanian," was watching Saturday night's rally at the New Holland Arena in the Farm Show & Expo Center "when I was being shoved out by random people who were not security," he said on Facebook.

The Lehighton man said he wasn't protesting -- although he did hold a sign at an event prior to the speech.

"I figured the guy is in fact president of the United States and so I'd stand in the back and watch," he said on Facebook. "Apparently that's not allowed. Someone told me POTUS said 'get him out' and 'we're going to build a wall anyway'" when the shoving began.

When Harrisburg police arrived they told the bikers to "lay off," Makhija said. He was escorted out of the arena, but pennlive.com said he was allowed to return.

In another posting, Makhija said "Alt-Right activists" approached him earlier while he was holding the sign outside and told him they "wanted an end to all immigration," he said on Facebook.

"Hours later at the president's speech, they sent a group of thugs to assault me, when I was standing there, just being who I am," he said.

He said 1,600 voters in the 122nd district voted for him and Trump in November's election. Doyle Heffley retained the seat in the election.

"I never believed in the caricature of these rallies," he said. "Yet I am deeply concerned about the state of our democracy tonight."

Makhija wasn't the only person removed from the rally. A person screaming "Trump is a traitor" and waving a Russian flag was taken out by police, pennlive.com said. A woman who was near Makhija touched a Secret Service agent and was removed as well, the news website said.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
UPDATE: School massacre threat a hoax, police looking for caller, report says

A threat posted on social media sent police racing to a Carbon County high school early Monday, according to WFMZ-TV 69 News.

Panther Valley High School students have been sent home and police have a student in custody, the TV station reports on its website.

An unnamed student was planning "some type of massacre" at the school and police said a social media post led to them being called "last minute," according to WFMZ.

It was unclear if any weapons were found in the school or in other locations, WFMZ reports.

State police and other law enforcement were preparing to search the school.

The school is located at 912 Coal Region Way in Lansford.

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

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Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

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Armenia-Azerbaijan: EU sets up monitoring capacity along the international borders

PACE co-rapporteurs on Armenia concerned by reports of alleged war crimes or inhuman treatment perpetrated by Azerbaijans armed forces

There is still 35% gender pay gap: Sona Ghazaryan

Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

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The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

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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
A new online GP and medical consultation service is now available to locals in Ballymore Eustace from the convenience of the post office.

Commencing immediately, locals in Ballymore and in the wider community can access a private medical booth, called The Hub to gain a video service to a registered doctor at a cost of 28 per session at Fogartys Quickpick and Post Office.

It is terrific to have this new service here where customers can come in with a complaint and see a doctor within minutes, said Postmaster Sean Fogarty speaking to the Leinster Leader.

We have no full time doctor here in the village so this will be open seven days a week from 8am to 10pm. It is a private service with a medical booth available and for prescriptions you just have to name your pharmacy. At 28 a session it is cheaper than going into a doctors office.

According to Sean the idea for the medical booth came about after a focus sesion held last October identified a need for it in the village.

It started from a listening session held about six months, said Sean who has been a postmaster in the village for the past 20 years.

We had three focus groups whereby people came in from the village to discuss services that could be offered in the community. Video Doc met us in January and they were very helpful and supportive and it went from there. It is the first of its kind in Ireland. It is going to give a feeling of security to people in the village to know that they can have a consultation if someone is sick. It is also a way to sustain the post office.

It is the first offering of its kind for Postmasters, and is expected to form one of the four pilots for additional social services provided by Postmasters, which was recently approved for funding by the Government.

Primarily for minor ailments or straightforward consultations, doctors will have the ability to triage, treat, diagnose, prescribe and follow up with patients.

The booth will also offer access to other health consultations such as dermatology  operated remotely by VideoDoc, with the potential for future inclusion of many other health services.

The Hub will also include additional business, personal and social services such as photocopying, printing, laminating, internet access, phone charging and a coffee area.
The recent Richmond Park by-election was a huge victory for Liberal Democrats, further boosting our credibility and standing in the country with voters and the media. But it was also a great success for Progressive Alliance campaigners, who supported Sarah Olneys excellent campaign.

The decision by the Green Party to stand down and endorse us, along with calls from a group of leading Labour figures for Labour to do the same, helped to recreate the conditions where we could win back the seat by leading a non-conservative bloc of voters to victory. These moves  by Labour figures and the Greens  were made in support of progressives in different parties organising together more generally.

The cross-party pressure group, Compass, is currently publishing a series of essays from members who would like to see a Progressive Alliance from each of the different progressive parties. Written before the announcement of the Election, Ive set out some of my thoughts from the perspective of a Liberal Democrat about why we need a Progressive Alliance, which are published on the Compass site today. Drawing upon psephology, demography and historical precedent, I believe a Progressive Alliance presents by far our best route to implement electoral reform at Westminster, our best chance to prevent a hard Brexit, and best opportunity for liberals to sustain influence over the long term. Ive not reproduced many arguments here, and hope you will take some time to have a look, when you take a break from the campaign trail.

There is no set template that an anti-Conservative alliance must follow. As Richmond demonstrated, candidates could stand down, or they could stand but engage in non-aggression with other progressive candidates, allow their supporters to advocate tactical voting, and otherwise hold their fire for other more important seats. Cross-party cooperation should be negotiated in transparent ways, and be steered by perspectives and knowledge of grassroots activists. They should also be based around a set of common aims  as liberals, we should recognise where individuals in other parties do agree with us on many of the most pressing issues facing the country.

Cross-party working might occur in a seat or over a cluster of seats, where goodwill can be reciprocated. In seats where we arent in a position to win in June, Lib Dems may be able to improve the chance of getting an MP elected for another party who is willing to cooperate with us on key issues in the next Parliament, whilst simultaneously helping ensure Lib Dem target seat candidates elsewhere benefit from cross-party working.

The large majority of our most marginal seats are against the Conservatives, while our membership and potential voter base lean towards the left. We should ensure Richmond isnt a one off. There is a remarkable opportunity to boost the chances of Liberal Democrats in key constituencies in June, if we can continue and recreate this spirit of cooperation.

Along with thinking how we may pursue a Progressive Alliance, I think we should be clear why it is important, hence why Ive sought to set out my thoughts on the Compass site today. As well being a long term project, it also has immediate potential to boost the chances of Lib Dems in our target seats and, through a process of reciprocation, help ensure more people are elected in other parties who agree with us on many of biggest issues. To get more Sarah Olneys elected, and to produce a Parliament that will more likely steer us from a hard Brexit, its time for progressives in different parties to talk to each other and work together.

* Paul Pettinger is a member in Westminster Borough and sits on the Council of the Social Liberal Forum.
Around 300 people braved the drizzle this morning in Surbiton, west London, to welcome the Liberal Democrat battle bus as it embarks on a tour of the country ahead of next months election.

Party leader Tim Farron was joined by Sarah Olney, MP for nearby Richmond Park & North Kingston, along with former cabinet ministers and parliamentary candidates Vince Cable and Ed Davey. The pair are standing in Twickenham and Kingston & Surbiton constituencies, respectively.

Addressing the crowd, Tim Farron acknowledged the Lake District-style weather, before attacking both the Conservatives and Labour.

The worst governments are the ones with the weakest oppositions. There is a vacancy for an opposition in this country, and the Liberal Democrats are here to fill it. This will not be a coronation. This will be a contest.

Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Sarah Olney all made brief speeches, with both Vince and Ed noting the number of times they have been welcomed back by voters on the doorstep.

Following the speeches, all four spoke to both local and national media by the side of the River Thames. When asked by the BBC if he opposes Brexit, Tim replied:

Democracy didnt suddenly stop at midnight on 23 June last year. If you think Britains future is better in the European Union, you should jolly well keep saying so and not roll over and give up. We accept that the majority voted to leave. The Liberal Democrat view is that there should be a referendum on the deal at the end of the process.

One interviewer suggested that Brexit was the best thing to happen to the Liberal Democrats in recent years. Tim said:

As any leader will tell you, in an election, the best position to be in is one where youve got clarity. The British people now know that if you think Theresa Mays approach to Brexit is wrong, the Liberal Democrats are the only party for you.

On the campaign against Zac Goldsmith in Richmond Park, Sarah had this to say:

He stood down last year because he couldnt agree with the Tory policy on expanding Heathrow. That policy hasnt changed, so how is it that now its suddenly alright to represent the Tories again?

When I spoke with her, Sarah expressed frustration at the timing of the election, just over six months after she won her seat. I was just getting settled in, she said. I was starting to define my priorities. Now, that has had to come to a stop.

As he boarded the bus, Tim acknowledged last weeks Spaniel-gate, when he was quoted telling a dog owner to smell my spaniel, by telling a waiting dalmatian: I need to be careful what I say to dogs now.

* Olly Wehring is a trade journalist, reporting on the global drinks industry. He is also a party member, having joined in October last year.
Prior to this interview, I obviously knew who Jo Swinson was and was aware of some of the issues she has championed over her 10 years in office but, while researching her, I was surprised to find that a relatively young politician had been actively involved in so many campaigns. Jos avid use of social media combined with her willingness to openly and energetically support these causes has clearly enhanced her profile. Jo was one of the first politicians to take new and modem forms of technology seriously. She joined Twitter shortly after it went live and a simple YouTube search of her name brings up a seemingly endless array of pages.

I met with Jo at the 2017 Liberal Democrats Spring Conference in York. The exquisite Hilton Hotel in Tower Street kindly offered the use of their Lendal Suite. The interview occurred before Jo announced her candidacy for the upcoming General Election (and indeed before Theresa Mays surprise announcement). Therefore, I was unable to ask about her upcoming challenge to win back East Dunbartonshire from the SNPs John Nicolson. I did, however, question Jo on whether she would return to frontline politics. Also, an issue that Jo has, by her own words, been on an interesting journey with has (again) become a hot topic in the run up to 8 June: women in parliament, more specifically the policy of positive discrimination (last Monday, 24 April, Radio 4 discussed this issue during a programme titled General Election 2017 and Women at Westminster where Sarah Olney was on the panel  available on BBC iPlayer Radio). Jo presents an interesting and critical appraisal of her partys attitude (historic and contemporary) towards positive discrimination.

More broadly, I particularly wanted to discuss Jos tireless work on tackling gender inequality. Although she had (at the time of interview) withdrawn from mainstream politics, Jo was still involved with this issue and is clearly passionate about it. Jo also spoke about some of the other issues she has worked on along with her views on certain topical matters of the day outside of the Lib Dems.

PRE-POLITICS

Can you tell me a bit about your childhood?

I had a very happy childhood. I grew up in the area where I ended up representing  a town called Milngavie in Scotland. It was a lovely quality of life. I was not far from Glasgow or the beautiful countryside of west Scotland. My mum was a primary school teacher, and my dad worked in economic development. I have an older sister who is a psychiatrist. It wasnt a particularly political upbringing. I was interested in debating at school and when my dad started to support the Alliance, Id help him deliver Focus leaflets. But the politics came later in my teenage years. I received unstinting support from my parents and encouragement to keep asking questions. That spirit of curiosity has been very useful in politics.

You became an MP at a very young age, in your mid-twenties. Did you have a working life before that?

Yes. I graduated from LSE when I was 20. I started university at 17, as the Scottish education system is slightly different from the English in terms of the starting age. I worked as a marketing manager for a small company through a scheme with Sheffield Hallam University. Then for an EMAP radio station in Hull. After that, I worked for a high growth start-up media company in Glasgow. Then I was briefly employed by an organisation called the UK Public Health Association (UKPHA) in a communications role. My background is in marketing and PR and mainly in the commercial sector with a combination of large and small companies.

How did these experiences help you in your political life?

The understanding of the business world was certainly helpful. The reason I was attracted to roles in the communication and marketing sphere was because of a natural interest in how to communicate, and thats obviously a big part of politics. My degree was in Business Management, and that was an element I found very attractive to start with. It worked both ways for me. My business career has been helpful politically, but also my political experience has been useful in those jobs. Through doing politics at a young age, and this is the advantages of it for young people who are either still in education or are in the early years of their career, you get the responsibility to organise events, negotiate, work out how to come to policy decisions and to make things happen. You get to do all of this at a level of responsibility that, at that stage, you may not get in a career sense. For example, when I stood in Hull East in 2001 at just 21 years of age, I had to motivate a team of volunteers. I had to ensure we delivered the campaign. If you can motivate a team of volunteers, youve already developed a lot of those skills when you come to motivating a team of paid staff.

Sadly, the last thing on most youngsters minds is running for parliament. Why politics and how come you were so interested at such a young age?

From a very young age, I wanted to challenge injustice where I saw it. This was before I had even considered them political actions. Somewhere in my parents loft, I probably still have the letters I wrote to my MP and the responses I received. This ranged from taxation to fox hunting. I wrote to government ministers about things like sex education in schools. I saw things I wanted to change even on a very small scale. I was on my school council and thought it ridiculous that girls werent allowed to wear trousers as part of the school uniform. I was always in the mode of trying to change things. I didnt join the Lib Dems until I was at university, but I had already identified where my political leanings were. I was cheering them on at the 1997 election, and I wasnt even a member of the party then. It was a pretty good night for us that year, by the way. In the months following, I joined the party. Politics was slowly becoming part of my life. When I joined, a pivotal moment for me was the Activate Weekend, organised by the then Lib Dem Youth and Students now the Young Liberals. This was really an introduction to the party and, crucially, to meet other youngsters who were involved from all ends of the country. This gave me the confidence to attend my first party conference, which was in Brighton, at the age of 18 in 1998. I knew I would at least know a few other people there, and I didnt look back. I was elected onto the Lib Dem Youth and Students National Executive. I made my first speech at the following conference. It snowballed to the extent that, a few years later, someone suggested I stand for parliament so, after thinking about it, I did. At that point, I was not anticipating that it would become a serious job but saw it as an interesting experience. I stood in one of the many seats where a Lib Dem candidate could be very confident they wouldnt win!

Why the Lib Dems?

The two things that attracted me to the Lib Dems were education and proportional representation. This was at the time when we had the policy of a penny on income tax for education. This was the prime example of the partys fundamental commitment to the development of the individual through education, which is the cornerstone to achieving individual liberty. That was a hugely attractive element of the party for me in terms of philosophy. I know I will sound really geeky when discussing proportional representation. While I was growing up, you could not imagine my constituency being anything but Labour. In the west of Scotland, you could have put up any stuffed animal with a red rosette and they would have won. It didnt matter who you voted for you would end up with Labour. Therefore, if you voted Labour your vote wasnt needed; if you voted for anyone else your vote wouldnt count. The irony was that I won the seat through boundary changes then lost it to the SNP. Anyway, Id studied proportional representation in Modern Studies at school, and it was such an obvious no-brainer to me that to adopt it would make our democratic system work better. And it was the Lib Dems who were championing it.

Tomorrow, Jo talks about events from her first Parliamentary campaign in 2001, life in Parliament and some of her campaigns

* Rob May is a Political History PhD student and Lib Dem activist.
Some of you reading this wont even have been born in 1997, or have been too young to take part in the General Election that year.

20 years ago today was a blistering hot day in Chesterfield. I was knocking up all over town.

I had spent most of the campaign doing front of house in our brilliant little office which was happily situated right next door to a pretty decent Italian restaurant. Several times we ordered food from them and they brought it across on proper plates, with real cutlery. A total luxury for an election office.

We had been working hard to get Tony Rogers elected in Chesterfield. Over the previous few years, we had really been challenging the local Labour hegemony, winning by-election after by-election. While New Labour were very much ahead in the polls, it was very much Old Labour who ran the Derbyshire town.

It was such brilliant fun. Very busy, of course. Paul Holmes as agent is never one to under-estimate anyones capacity for work. Legend had it that he took envelopes to stuff to a woman in the early stages of labour. He says he cant remember doing such a thing, but nobody who knows him seems to have much trouble believing it. There was one time during the European campaign in 1994 when he decided that sorting out a million election addresses wasnt enough work for us to do and he got us all stuffing envelopes for a by-election in Bradford South too.

He certainly liked to challenge us. Youd be in the middle of doing something and hed come along with some mailing that needed to go out by the last posting time which was impossibly close. And we always stepped up and did it. We called him lots of names in the process, always to his face and he bore that with good humour.

Although there was much humour to make the hard work more bearable, that election was also tinged with anxiety.

We all thought the Tories were gone in 1992. While New Labour was well ahead in the polls five years later, there was always that frisson of fear that they would somehow manage to retain power.

In those days, printing out the target letters on EARS was so much more of a faff than it is today and was the cause of much swearing and threats of violence. Entering data was time consuming too. None of these fancy barcode scanners that you have today.

I had something like 15 hours sleep in the last 5 days of the campaign. I certainly couldnt do that these days.

We started out 6,500 votes behind Labour and ended up 5,800 votes behind  quite an incredible result to take votes from them on a landslide night like that. In 2001, Paul Holmes, as candidate this time, finished the job and won.

My memories of the count were having a quiet wee tear of joy in the tv room at the thought of us having a Scottish Parliament at last when Tony Benn walked in eating a white chocolate magnum.

We got to bed at about 7 am and I woke up just as Blair was going in to Downing Street.

The whole country seemed to be full of optimism, but I never warmed to him. I didnt believe anything he said. He just left me cold. The only times Ive ever felt moved by anything hes said was when Diana died and his recent pronouncements about Brexit.

So that was my 1997 election. How was yours?

UPDATE: Ive remembered now that the one thing I didnt do on 1 May 1997 was vote. It is the only election at any level that I have not voted in. I was just too busy in Chesterfield. I had intended to nip back mid afternoon but it never happened. I dont think Mrs Pankhurst would have been too upset because I was actually working to change the world, but I was determined never to let that happen again and I have had a postal vote ever since.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
A SINN Fein councillor has called for a united front by councillors to ensure that the selected, direct route for the proposed M20 motorway from Limerick to Cork remains unchanged.

The call, from Cllr Seamus Browne, follows reports that a link from Limerick to Cahir on the M8 Cork-Dublin motorway could be considered as a cheaper option.

Suggestions of a cut-price motorway link between Limerick and Cork by diverting to the M8 motorway would be a disaster for both West Limerick and North Kerry, the Abbeyfeale-based councillor said. It would drive traffic away from the county and effectively lead to further economic isolation. It would also have a very negative impact on potential tourist growth in West Limerick and North Kerry, Cllr Browne said.

We need Limerick politicians of all parties to insist on the direct route connection through Charleville and Mallow which will allow for much greater connectivity with the west of the county, he continued.

Limerick City and County Council needs to speak with one united voice to rule out this shortsighted penny pinching proposal.

Plans for the M20 Limerick-Cork motorway were shelved in 2010 during the recession due to lack of money for the 1bn project but the 105km route selected followed roughly the line of the existing Limerick Cork road.

But there was disappointment in Limerick when it wasnt included in the governments Infrastructure and Capital Investment Plan. However, earlier this year, 1m was allocated to revisit the plans, reigniting hope that it could be included in the governments plan when the mid-term review takes place this September.

Meanwhile, both Limerick and Cork Chambers of Commerce have commissioned consultants in a bid to make a watertight business case for a direct Limerick to Cork route which they say is vital for the creation of  a dynamic and formidable Atlantic corridor.

That report is due next month and will be presented to the government.

But fears have now emerged that revisiting the plans, and financial considerations, could also reopen the route selection.

A motorway connection from Limerick to the M8 at Cahir could be as much as 63km shorter and cost up to 340m less.

However, it would also mean the Limerick to Cork journey would be much longer, at 141km, or 36km longer than the direct route.

Kieran Lehane, director of transport with Limerick City and County Council, confirmed the North/South proposal, approved by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, is the policy of the council.

Consultants to carry out the re-examination are being appointed and due to report before September.

However, a senior engineer with the councils road design team, has cautioned that a revisit of the plans involves looking at all aspects.

It is possible for a different route to be selected.
THE Minister for Social Protection, Leo Varadkar has said he would like to see a comprehensive catch-up plan to boost economic activity in rural towns and villages.

And, he told the Limerick Leader, infrastructure was key to that.

On a visit to Newcastle West last week, Minister Varadkar said:  I do see, travelling around the county, a lot of towns, where particularly retail and other aspects of the town havent bounced. There are a lot of reasons for that. So much retail has gone online.

It has been a two-speed recovery, the Minister said.  What we really need is a catch-up plan. That is down to infrastructure. Roads is a huge issue and rolling out the national broadband plan.

However, he stressed: I think it is important to acknowledge the fact that unemployment in Limerick is almost half of what it was in 2010. Unemployment has fallen faster in Limerick than in Dublin or Cork. While people may not see it everyday in their lives, more people are in work than ever for a very long time.

His visit co-incided with a campaign aimed at reducing welfare fraud.

Any time is a good time to have a publicity campaign, he said, in answer to the question why such a campaign now.

A campaign aimed at the self-employed informing them of their entitlement to free eye-testing had just finished, he pointed out.

And he described the anti-fraud campaign as really encouraging members of the public to report suspected welfare fraud.

We never know for certain how much fraud there is. In any year we recover nearly 110m from fraud and errors, of which 40m is fraud, Minister Varadkar said.

It is definitely worth it. What we recover from fraud and control is about 500m a year. If we didnt do the spot checks on public service cards we would lose 500m a year.

If you think what 40m is, it is enough maybe to double the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance, he added. I wont be doubling it. But I would like to see an increase. The cost of going to school is enormous for parents.

We have no evidence of any fraud being higher in this area or in Limerick, Minister Varadkar said. He had held a series of meetings with the IFA, the ICMSA, West Limerick Resources and Ballyhoura about CE and Tus schemes, he said and was in Newcastle West to meet members of staff of his department.
Apr 30, 2017, 3 PM

This June 1, 1979, registered airmail cover from Tehran to Ibiza includes prerevolution stamps  a single 20-rial Communications Satellite stamp and pairs of 1r Shah and Tehran Refinery and 10r International Mail Day stamps  plus 15r and 19r definitives

Covering the World  By Ken Lawrence

The Islamic revolution in Iran toppled the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, sending the shah into exile Jan. 16, 1979. Most Americans remember it as the time when radical students occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held the residents hostage, dooming President Jimmy Carters re-election campaign.

The franking on the June 1, 1979, registered airmail cover from Tehran to Ibiza, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea, reflects the turbulence of the transition from a secular monarchy to an Islamic theocracy.

Stamps issued before the revolution profiled the shah as the nations sovereign and commemorated Irans participation in international communications: one pictures a communications satellite and another celebrates global postal relations. But two stamps have provisional overprints of the revolution in the form of vertical black bars struck through a gold silhouette of the shah after he had been deposed from power.

At the upper left is a 50-dinar postal tax stamp, with denomination and inscription only in the Farsi language.

The tax had been established in 1950 to support the Iranian Red Cross and Red Crescent, and remained in effect until June 1980. The Scott catalog has two listings for this design (Iran Scott RA1 and RA3), but this is actually the sixth variety, issued in 1976.

This combination of prerevolution, revolutionary provisional, and postal tax stamps was possible only during the one-year transition between the revolutionary seizure of power in early 1979 and the consolidation of power by the ayatollahs a year or so later.

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Serzh Sargsyan congratulates people

PRESIDENT SERZH SARGSYANS ADDRESS ON THE OCCASION OF LABOR DAY Dear Compatriots, I cordially congratulate you on the occasion of Labor Day. On May 1, laborers all over the world traditionally celebrate their holiday and praise honest work. This is truly a holiday of human dignity. Peaceful work, honest gain, and mutual respect are timeless values which because of the rich traditions formed through the millennia have found their steady place in our reality. These values were passed from generation to generation by our parents and forefathers, and we have to pass them on intact to our children and heirs. Today, when Armenia is an independent state, we are obligated to revisit these traditions and reinforce them. Diligence, creative and innovative approach to work, solidarity of the different strata of the society constitute the most solid base for our Fatherlands sustainable development. I am confident that this is the best road towards the implementation in Armenia of fundamental changes and modernization of our economy. Dear Compatriots, The working people  you, are the foundation of our countrys prosperity. I once again congratulate you on this great holiday and wish that your life is full of interesting and productive work, new ideas and enterprising activities which will bring light, warmth, and prosperity to each Armenian family.
Armenia: EU and Armenia Hold annual Dialogue on Human Rights

Todays Shushi, Occupied and Cleared of Armenians, is a Real Example of Turkish-Azerbaijani Policy of Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh

Ookla, the the global leader in internet testing and analysis has awarded Ucom

Sweden will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union

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

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There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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
Seven years old Arpi Ghazaryan wins the Aurora Creative contest

Winners of the Aurora Creative Contest were named on May 1, 2017. Arpi Ghazaryan, a 7-year-old student at the Henrik Igityan Yerevan National Art Center was awarded the first prize in the Aurora Creative Contest. Sofya Yakovleva, a 13-year-old student of Saratov Childrens Art Studio, Russia, took the second place in the Contest, while Anna Kostanyan, an 11-year-old student at Gasparyan Art Studio, came in third. As per the professional jurys decision, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative granted special awards to two participants  Jasmina Hovhannisyan (11 years old, Nerkin Getashen village, Armenia) and Rudolf Avanesyan (14 years old, Yerevan, Armenia). The winners not only took home prizes, but also received an invitation to attend the 2017 Aurora Prize Ceremony to be held on May 28 in Yerevan, Armenia. The number of children participating in the Contest was quite impressive. The Contest gave them an opportunity to understand the value of their works. They learned they were doing something important and they were encouraged. Submitted artworks were evaluated based on their compliance to the theme of the Contest as well as the quality of the work itself. All works were excellent but we still had to choose the best ones. The children who took part in the Contest are all winners, stated artist Tigran Matulyan, Aurora Creative Contest Jury Member. The awarding ceremony of the winners of the Aurora Creative Contest took place in Yerevan Hovhannes Tumanyan Museum during the opening of the exhibition showcasing the best 63 works submitted for the Contest. The exhibition will be open through late May until the end of the Aurora Prize weekend. Children aged from 7 to 14 took part in the Aurora Creative Contest announced in January 2017. More than thousand pieces of artwork were submitted to the Contest from Armenia, Artsakh, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Turkey, USA, Canada, Venezuela and France.
To Khosrov reserve by traces of leopard (video)

Neither mobile connection, nor TV, radio, internet; it is Khosrov Forest State Reserve. This territory of 29196 ha was established in 1958 in Ararat marz in the basins of Azat and Vedi rivers, at 900-2400 meters above sea level for the preservation of unique animals and plants. According to Movses Khorenatsi, by the order of Khosrov II King (330-338) Khosrovakert forest was established in this territory (from here the name reserve) and was inhabited with hunting animals and birds. 1849 out of 3500 types of plants growing in Caucasus grow in this territory; more than 80 species have been registered in Red book. During this season mainly primula has grown; they smell sweet. In the reserve the fauna includes 9 species of fish, 30 species of reptiles, 142 species of birds and 50 species of mammals. In the forests of the reserve there are grey bear, hedgehog, wolf, rabbit, mouflon, Bezoar goat and Caucasus leopard, which traces we followed on April 30. World Wildlife Fund (WWF Armenia) Conservation of leopard in the South Caucasus program organized By traces of leopard information expedition. Alexander Malkhasyan, expert of Armenian branch of World Wildlife Fund, operates GPRS system, in order to orientate in the location. We are moving forward to observe the traces of animals and encounter the traces of wild pigandbears waste. Peoples traces The principles of monitoring carried out by photo-trap are presented Arsen Gasparyan, coordinator of Conservation of leopard in the South Caucasus program of World Wildlife Fund, notes that Khosrov Forest State Reserve is one of settlements of leopard. These animals are misanthrope. There are employees in the reserve, who havent met a single leopard in 15 years, but photo-traps capture them from time to time. In general there are more leopards in Iran, and Armenia-Iran, Armenia-Nakhijevan raods are the main route for leopards. On the border, though, there are lots of problems, and there is much to do for it for making frontier mined territories safe for them. In the south of Armenia four new reserves have been established- Arevik national park, Zangezur and Khustup state reserves and Gnishik preserved landscape, which include the main habitats for leopards. Their total territory is 73229 ha, which makes up 2.5 percent of the territory of the republic. Khosrov Forest State Reserve has problems with mapping. Gilan and Gyolasor settlements, which arent formulated as communities, nevertheless have residents, which birthplace in their passports is Gilan (30 families) and Gyolasor (with 10 Assyrian families). According to the experts, the settlements put the reserve at risk from the point of view of animals migration and poaching. But the state still cannot find a solution to the issue of compensation to these peoples settlements and their transfer to another place. Journalists got acquainted with visitors center and eco tourism services. The center can host dozens of guests; all the living conditions are available. The territory of the visitors center is kept by Bugati. In the evening the journalists were able to see Bezoar goats climbing in the rocks. Wild almond tree At the end of the expedition only the journalists were captured by the photo-trap Andranik was coming back home with us. He works at the reserve for 7 days and nights, then he returns to his house in the neighboring village. The working days are the most peaceful- cut off from all the problems and news, Now when I go home, everybody will speak of their problems- my children, grandchildren, here I live calmly Author of the article, Hasmik Budaghyan, was also captured by the photo-trap
This monster-like creature, as archaeologists call it, was found on the vaulted ceiling of the tomb's corridor.

A blue monster, a winged horse and a nude deity known as the master of wind are just a few examples of fantastic images that archaeologists recently discovered in a 1,400-year-old tomb in China.

"The murals of this tomb had diversified motifs and rich connotations, many of which cannot be found in other tombs of the same period," a team of archaeologists wrote in an article recently published in the journal Chinese Archaeology.

The meaning of some of the imagery is not fully understood. The archaeologists did not speculate on why the master of wind is shown nearly naked while running in the general direction of a burial chamber, or what the vivid-blue, monster-like creature (as archaeologists call it) represents. [See Photos of the Fantastical Murals and Ancient Tomb]

Robbed tomb

Archaeologists first learned of the tomb in the spring of 2013, finding that "the tomb had been recently looted," the archaeologists wrote. A team from Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology excavated the tomb, which is located in modern-day Xinzhou city, in 2013 and 2014.

The archaeologists found that the tomb's burial chamber had been heavily looted, with the bodies of the tomb occupants missing and only a few coffin fragments remaining. However, the team found that parts of a passageway and corridor had not been robbed and a number of artifacts, as well as many well-preserved murals, remained untouched.

The murals the team found included not only fantastic mythical imagery but also more grounded scenes, such as people trading horses, hunting and working in a gatehouse.

"Themes on ascending to heaven, horse trading, hunting, [a] grand gatehouse and the rich styles of costumes all provide valuable information for the [research] on the social life, history, culture and military practices," the archaeologists wrote.

Race against time

Numerous archaeologists have noted that China's hot antiquities market, in which artifacts fetch prices sometimes reaching into the millions (in USD), has fuelled an increase in the looting of ancient tombs.

To give but a few examples, in 2015 archaeologists reported finding the remains of a game board and 14-sided die in a heavily robbed 2,300-year-old tomb, while in 2013, police found a 1,500-year-old tomb just before robbers had finished stealing its murals.

Law-enforcement officers and archaeologists in China have often found themselves in a race against time to discover and excavate ancient tombs before thieves take the artifacts and sell them on the antiquities market, many archaeologists and media outlets have reported. Large law-enforcement operations have also taken place to try to retrieve stolen artifacts. In 2015, the Xinhua News Agency reportedthat one massive law-enforcement operation resulted in the recovery of more than 1,100 artifacts and the arrest of more than 170 people allegedly involved in the looting of ancient tombs.

The archaeologists who recently excavated the 1,400-year-old tomb in Xinzhou reported their findings, in Chinese, in 2015 in the journal Kaogu. That report was translated into English and was recently published in the journal Chinese Archaeology.

Original article on Live Science.
Archaeologists are back at the site of the HMS Terror, a long-sought shipwreck from the Franklin Expedition that went missing in Arctic Canada 170 years ago.

Tipped off by local Inuit knowledge, researchers rediscovered the shipwreck only last year in Terror Bay, off the remote coast of King William Island. On April 28, the Parks Canada Agency announced that a new investigation of the ship had begun.

The site is currently being explored with remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) that will collect photos, videos and scans of the wreck. Parks Canada officials said that information will be used to plan manned dives to the wreck in late summer. The agency's team of underwater archaeologists will also continue their work on the HMS Terror's sister ship, HMS Erebus, which was rediscovered in 2014 in Victoria Strait. [In Photos: Arctic Shipwreck Solves 170-Year-Old Mystery]

Divers have already recovered several artifacts from the Erebus, including buttons, ceramics plates, a bronze bell, a 680-lb. (310 kilograms) cannon and medicine bottles. If the initial reports from the Terror's discovery are any indication, the second shipwreck could yield a bevy of interesting finds as well.

The explorers who piloted an ROV through the wreck told The Guardian last summer that the ship was in perfect condition in the chilly Arctic waters, with plates and cans still on the shelves in the mess hall and the windows still intact.

"I'm very excited that we will soon learn more about the second of the Franklin shipwrecks," Catherine McKenna, the minister responsible for Parks Canada, said in a statement.

Documenting the shipwrecks is part of a wider, decades-long effort to understand the fate of the Franklin Expedition, which left the U.K. in 1845 in search of a Northwest Passage. None of the 129 crew members survived. Researchers know that the ships were abandoned in April 1848, but they still have many unanswered questions about the end of the voyage, such the identity of the final survivors and how they planned to get to safety.

Besides the ships, the crew also left behind a smattering of graves, bones and artifacts in the Canadian Archipelago that scientists and historians are still trying to make sense of. Also in April, researchers published the first results of an effort to extract DNA from the bones of 24 Franklin Expedition sailors. That new genetic database could offer a more accurate count of the number of expedition members who died at different locations, and perhaps eventually help reveal the identities of the unfortunate crew members who never made it to safety.

Original article on Live Science.
Jasmyn Nolasco (left) and Janis Basuga (right) put the leg bone of either a mammoth or mastodon (it's unclear which) into a protective plaster cast.

The discovery of ice age mammal bones  one belonging to an extinct camel and the other to either a mastodon or a mammoth (it's hard to say which)  temporarily stopped construction of Los Angeles' subway line extension last month.

Paleontologists found the fossils just down the street from the La Brea Tar Pits in L.A.'s Miracle Mile district, where a future subway station will be built. On April 12, scientists discovered the camel bone, and on April 13, they uncovered the bone of the proboscidean (the ancient elephant relative).

"It's one thing to read in a history book that these animals used to live all over North America, but it makes it more real when they're found in your city," said Ashley Leger, the paleontological field director for Cogstone Resource Management Inc., a company that surveys sites for paleontological and archaeological remains before construction projects begin. "[For] the people of Los Angeles, this is their history. This is what lived there thousands of years before they were ever there." [Photos: Ice-Age Animal Skull Unearthed During LA Subway Construction]

The bone from the extinct camel (Camelops hesternus) is an exceptionally rare find, Leger said. The La Brea Tar Pits hold the preserved remains of more than 600 species of plants and animals, including the bones of thousands of saber-tooth cats and dire wolves. But researchers have found the remains of only about 40 camels in the tar pits, Leger said.

Camels originated in North America about 45 million years ago before spreading across the world. The last known Camelops died about 13,000 years ago, said Emily Lindsey, an assistant curator at the La Brea Tar Pits.

A drawing of Camelops, Latin for "yesterday's camel." (Image credit: Courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County)

The roughly 20-inch-long (50 centimeters) camel bone is a radioulna  the combination of forearm bones between the wrist and elbow, according to The Source, a transportation blog about the L.A. Metro. The radioulna helped Camelops support itself, allowing the animal to carry its body weight over its front and hind legs, according to The Source.

C. hesternus is related to, but a different from the modern dromedary camel, a one-humped ungulate more commonly known as the Arabian camel. C. hesternus hadlonger legs, knobbier knees and a larger head than dromedary camels do, according to The Source.

The 20-inch-long (50 centimeters) radioulna bone from the extinct camel species Camelops hesternus. (Image credit: Cogstone Resource Management Inc.)

Two other camel genera lived in what is now California during the last ice age: Hemiauchenia and Palaeolama, Lindsey told Live Science.

The other fossil is an approximately 36-inch-long (91 centimeters) thighbone, or femur, of either a mastodon or mammoth. Both animals trampled through what is now Los Angles more than 10,000 years ago, before going extinct, Leger said.

She noted that the mammoth would have been a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), not a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), a shaggy beast that would have preferred the colder climate up north. Columbian mammoths were about the same size as their distant relatives, the modern-day African elephant, and about 15 percent larger than that species' close relative, the Asian elephant, Lindsey said.

Paleontologists will continue to look for more ancient bones as subway construction continues. All of the fossils uncovered during the Wilshire/La Brea station excavation will be donated to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, according to The Source.

Jasmyn Nolasco (left) and Janis Basuga (right) put the leg bone of either a mammoth or mastodon (it's unclear which) into a protective plaster cast. (Image credit: Cogstone Resource Management Inc.)

Leger noted that although the newfound bones aren't completely fossilized (that is, with minerals replacing original bone), they are referred to as fossils because they are 10,000 years old or older.

These aren't the first ice age animal fossils uncovered during the subway extension. In November of 2016, paleontologists found a tooth, tusks and a skull from either a mastodon or a mammoth, Live Science previously reported.

Original article on Live Science.
Actor Val Kilmer recently revealed that he had cancer that left him with a "swollen" tongue, but exactly what type of cancer could have caused this symptom?

On Wednesday, April 26, Kilmer took part in a Reddit AMA ("ask me anything"), and a user asked Kilmer about an incident last year in which actor Michael Douglas suggested Kilmer had oral cancer.

Kilmer replied that he did have "a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen [although] healing all the time."

This is the first time Kilmer has acknowledged that he'd had cancer, although people have speculated about his health. In 2015, the actor was spotted wearing a tracheostomy tube, which is a tube placed through a surgically made hole in the windpipe that can help people breathe when they have conditions that could block the upper airways, according to the National Institutes of Health. In October 2016, Douglas suggested Kilmer had oral cancer, although at the time, Kilmer denied having the illness. It is still uncertain exactly which type of cancer Kilmer had because the actor has not publically revealed the type.

Dr. Dennis Kraus, vice chairman of the Otolaryngology  Head & Neck Surgery department at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said that the use of a tracheostomy tube "could potentially be consistent with" having cancer of the mouth, tongue, base of the tongue or larynx. Kraus has not treated Kilmer, and noted he did not have knowledge of Kilmer's diagnosis or care, other than from reports in the media. [10 Celebrities with Chronic Illnesses]

As for swelling of the tongue, this symptom could be caused by a tumor itself or by radiation or surgery treatment for the tumor, Kraus said. Cancers of the oral cavity and larynx are typically linked with using tobacco, and cancers of the mouth are often linked with drinking alcohol, Kraus said. Cancer of the oropharynx, which is the section of the throat that includes the base of the tongue and the tonsils, is often linked with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, Kraus told Live Science.

In recent years, rates of cancers of both the oral cavity and the larynx have fallen as a result of declines in smoking, but cases of oropharynx cancer tied to HPV infections have increased, Kraus said.

Outcomes for head and neck cancers vary by case, but even patients with advanced tumors that haven't spread to other areas of the body have "significant potential for being cured" of their cancers, Kraus said.

Original article on Live Science.
An inmate at North Country Detention Facility in Santa Rosa stole a few hours of freedom in a Monday morning escape only to be caught in his hometown of Windsor, officials said.

The man, 27-year-old Richard Medina, was only 125 days from his scheduled release, according to the Sonoma County Sheriffs Office.
We're about to have a lot more Ryan Seacrest in our lives.

On Monday morning, ABC host Kelly Ripa announced that Seacrest - former "American Idol" host and inescapable pop culture personality - is her new permanent co-host on "Live," the second-most-watched daytime show on television.

Seacrest beamed as he walked into the studio with Ripa, hugging audience members, as a chyron introduced the show's new title: "Live with Kelly & Ryan."

"Today, the next chapter of the 'Live' story is about to be written," Ripa said, as the audience cheered. Ripa has helmed the talk show with a constantly rotating set of guest co-hosts since last May, when Michael Strahan departed for "Good Morning America."

Though Seacrest has been based in Los Angeles, where he hosts a syndicated morning radio show, he said on "Live" that he's moving to New York. In a news release, Disney-ABC confirmed that Seacrest will not give up his radio gig and will work out of new studios in New York. This means that, in addition to "Live" every weekday morning, Seacrest will be:

- On the radio every day, hosting "On Air With Ryan Seacrest" on weekdays and "American Top 40" on the weekends.

- On the E! red carpet, talking to celebrities before all the awards shows.

- On ABC's "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest" on Dec. 31.

- Behind the scenes on the entire E! Kardashian empire, which he executive-produces, along with a slew of other shows, including Jennifer Lopez's NBC drama "Shades of Blue."

... and doing much more. Seacrest's packed schedule didn't come up during Monday's "Live" broadcast. He had a relatively low-key welcome as he and Ripa bantered about Seacrest's upcoming move to New York and about the reaction from his close friends when he texted them that he had "great news." (Guesses ranged from "You're engaged!" to "You're having a baby!" to "You're coming out of the closet!")

Seacrest has appeared on "Live" many times over the years, serving as guest co-host on multiple occasions. He has known Ripa since the days when they hosted the Disney Christmas Day Parade together a decade ago.

"With Ryan, 'Live' has a new co-host who is a master of live TV, as well as a terrific interviewer with tens of thousands of hours of live broadcasting experience," longtime "Live" producer Michael Gelman said in a statement. "When you combine those attributes with the talents and experience of the incomparable Kelly Ripa, you have two skilled and entertaining broadcasters with great chemistry. Add in an experienced production team and a successful 30-year franchise, and you have the perfect combination."

The pairing is also notable because starting this fall, it will go up against former Fox host Megyn Kelly's new, much-anticipated 9 a.m. ET show on NBC, which means we're in for another dose of morning talk show wars between NBC and ABC, already in the race for ratings with rivals "Today" and "Good Morning America."

Up until now, speculation about Ripa's new co-host - one of the highest-profile jobs in TV - was a popular topic. The announcement comes after a nearly year-long search process. Strahan co-hosted "Live" from February 2012 through May 2016. Previously, Ripa was partnered up with Regis Philbin, who was the host from April 1983 through November 2011.

Strahan's departure started a rare bit of controversy surrounding "Live." After Ripa was notified about Strahan's new job only shortly before the rest of the world, she stayed home from work for a couple days as reports swirled that she felt "blindsided" by the news and what it meant for the show. When Ripa returned to the show, she delivered a candid monologue: She said that she had needed some time to "gather her thoughts" but had been assured by Disney-ABC executives that "Live" was a priority to the company.
WASHINGTON - His voters sent him to Washington to break stuff, and this weekend Donald Trump tried to break the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents' Association. As with some of his business ventures, he was not wholly successful.

"They're trapped at the dinner," the president boomed at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, celebrating his first 100 days in office. "Which will be very, very boring."

Instead, it was just fine. It happened. There's an inertia to these Washington traditions, and a determination to soldier on in the face of - whatever it is we're facing. Everyone survived this weekend without the president, or without the crush of Hollywood celebrities who for years had been decorating the dinner in ever-increasing density, until now.

It was a bit like an off-year high school reunion: diminished numbers and fewer crazy stories but still no shortage of hors d'oeuvres and dancing and gossip. Everyone settled for sightings of Michael Steele and Debbie Dingell instead of Jon Hamm or a Kardashian. In past years, virtually the entire cast of "Modern Family" would come to the dinner; this year, United Talent Agency only secured the kid who plays Luke.

"This is the way it used to be, way back when," said veteran PR maven Janet Donovan at a Saturday morning brunch held under a white tent at the Georgetown home of hotelier Connie Milstein. This year there was actually room to mingle without toppling a stick-thin starlet. There were no Silicon Valley entrepreneurs monologuing at the bloody mary bar.

Was it only a year ago that Barack Obama dropped the mic, literally, at his final correspondents' dinner, as if to put an exclamation point on eight years of media savvy and pop-culture propaganda? He knew his role in this circus. It was Obama's yearly chance to inspire a meme, rib a rival, come off as folksy royalty, remind the public that the media was not the enemy. His cool factor iced out the haters, smudged away red lines, papered over unkept promises. Afterward, the French ambassador's mansion would swell with swells - both conservatives and liberals, all buddy-buddy in private, united by the daytime charade they pulled off together on TV.

Things are a bit different now. Trump knows how to entertain but he has developed his own traditions, and it involves relentlessly mocking the media, not laughing with it, not even for a one-night black-tie cease-fire.

"A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation's capital right now," the president told about 7,000 fans at the not-quite-full arena in Harrisburg.

This was only two-thirds true. There were vanishingly few Hollywood actors at the dinner in the basement of the Washington Hilton (Matthew Modine! Alan Ruck!) but the press was indeed settling for a consolation prize. Journalists communed with journalists in a stalwart and tipsy celebration of the First Amendment - and, of course, themselves.

The guest list suffered not because Trump sent his regrets but, more likely, because of the chance he might attend; he remains dauntingly unpopular with the New York and Hollywood A-list that he had long aspired to join. The pre-dinner receptions, hosted by outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, were staid and perfunctory, absent the usual angling for a sighting of a "Game of Thrones" star.

The thirst for starpower was so intense that the rumor of a Leonardo DiCaprio appearance spread like bird flu. (Yes, he was spotted in town for the Climate March protest earlier in the day, but he was spotted again, hours before the dinner, headed for the next plane out of town.)

Madeleine Albright, in a red gown pinned with a typewriter brooch, ended up being the closest thing to a bona fide star, dominating all the selfies of media-political Washington's Twitter feed.

Tickets for the occasion, in other words, were unusually within the realm of obtainability.

"This is the first time in 20 years I've found parking in the hotel," said columnist Clarence Page.

"I think the guys from the mailroom are here," said one network producer.

The dinner itself featured a dutiful pep talk by Watergate legends Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

"Mr. President, the media is not fake news," Woodward said from the dais, and the media elite applauded.

"CNN and MSNBC are fake news," Trump said in Pennsylvania, and some of the 97 percent who say they'd still vote for him applauded.

Two worlds, talking past each other, from 100 miles apart. The latest prime-time iteration of POTUS vs. Beltway.

But look! There was one emissary of Trump's inner circle hitting the circuit in Washington, and a Cabinet member at that. On Friday evening, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis mingled under a poolside tent at the home of Atlantic owner David Bradley. On the menu: beef tenderloin and North Korea's latest ballistic missile test.

"Some advice to people at dinner," Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg told the crowd as the news of the test spread. "If Jim Mattis leaves suddenly, we're gonna move the party to the basement."

While Trump headed out of town, his opponents retrenched. Tens of thousands of protesters had clogged Pennsylvania Avenue in the disgusting midday heat to raise alarm about global warming. Comedian Samantha Bee, one of Trump's fiercest critics, staged a rogue event for the younger crowd at DAR Constitution Hall titled "Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner."

"As much as I love poking at the media," Bee said, addressing journalists, "I know your job has never been harder: You basically get paid to stand in a cage while a geriatric orangutan gets to scream at you. It's like a reverse zoo."

After Bee's event, an elite slice of her audience took over the rooftop of the W Hotel, with its clear view of the snipers atop the White House, and ate brie sliders and creme-brulee doughnuts. "Trump is like a flashlight shining into dark corners and all the cockroaches are coming out," said actress Chloe Bennett, of the ABC series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."

A few poor souls held signs supporting the media outside the Hilton. "Keep up the good work," said one. Inside, after Woodward and Bernstein's civics lesson on the free press, "Daily Show" correspondent Hasan Minhaj did not spare the absentee president in his keynote roast.

"The leader of our country is not here," Minhaj said. "That's because he lives in Moscow. It's a very long flight. ... As for the other guy, I think he's in Pennsylvania, because he can't take a joke."

BuzzFeed's party at a U Street bar that reeked of onions and tequila, was not showing the dinner on television. Guests instead guzzled "Spicey" margaritas with blue curacao and stumbled to Daft Punk and Bruno Mars. No one seemed to be over 40, and no one seemed to care what was happening at the Hilton.

"We are not fake news," reiterated Jeff Mason, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, as BuzzFeed capitalized on that very epithet by giving away "Failing Pile of Garbage" T-shirts - a reference to a Trump put-down.

As Saturday turned into Sunday, TV journalists and professional pundits began to ascend a grand staircase to the gorgeous salon of the Organization of American States on 17th Street near the Mall. This was NBC and MSNBC's after-party, so the boldfaced names were almost exclusively on-air talent: Dana Bash, Don Lemon, Chris Matthews, Thomas Roberts, Nicolle Wallace. Crystal chandeliers hung over arching palm trees and white-jacketed servers passed iceberg salad bites and tiny takeout boxes of General Tso's chicken.

Back at the Hilton, though, a less-exclusive after-party, sponsored by Thomson-Reuters, was packed to the gills and vibrating with energy, without a single famous face. It was vintage Nerd Prom - couples awkwardly dancing to Wham! while juggling their martini glasses. Journalism survived to drink another day, and so did this party, for now anyway.
Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

Matt Cain appears to be back as a consistently good starting pitcher, and part of the credit goes to backup catcher Nick Hundley for a change he all but ordered Cain to make.

Hundley was catching Cain against the Diamondbacks on April 12, two days after Buster Posey got hit in the helmet by a pitch and a day after Posey went on the concussion disabled list, when Hundley noticed some great sinking movement on Cains two-seam fastball.
There's nothing better than seeing someone on TV and telling your friends, "That guy? He went to my high school."

Well, unless that guy happens to be on TV because he ended up being a serial killer.
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A former senior Border Patrol agent and five Laredoans were among the 13 suspected child predators arrested in 2016 as part of an undercover operation initiated by the Webb County Sheriffs Office, according to records obtained by the Laredo Morning Times.

Operation Child Guardian, an initiative that counters crimes against children, produced the arrests of 13 men between January and December 2016.

Of those arrested, four have been sentenced to serve prison time; four have entered guilty pleas in federal court and are awaiting their sentences; three have pending cases in federal court; and charges against two have been dismissed, according to court records.

Click through the gallery above to see mugshots of some of the men arrested during Operation Child Guardian.

More than 61 child predators have been taken off the streets since the operations inception in 2009, according to the Sheriffs Office.

Children are the victims, and we are bringing justice to them and their families, Sheriff Martin Cuellar said regarding the initiative.

READ MORE: South Laredo man allegedly downloaded, stored 200 child pornography videos

Predators in our community will be brought to justice, he added.

The initiative includes the collaboration of local, state and federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Texas Attorney Generals Office and the Webb County District Attorneys Office.

Those arrested

Alton Zerie Brister, 49, of Harker Heights, Texas, was arrested Oct. 17 after traveling to a local business with the alleged intent of engaging in sex with a 14-year-old girl. During a post-arrest, Brister admitted to sending pictures of his private parts to an undercover agent, according to the criminal complaint.

Brister further stated that he felt it was OK to engage in sexual activity with the 14-year-old girl because it was a family and nobody was going to get hurt, the complaint states.

On March 31, Brister pleaded guilty in federal court to coercion and enticement of a minor. He has not yet been sentenced.

Cobb

Christopher Cobb, 40, of Georgia, was arrested June 24 at a local business after traveling to Laredo to meet a girl he intended to engage in sex with.

Cobb had been exchanging communications for about a month before his arrest with an undercover agent who he believed to be a 14-year-old girl. He allegedly detailed his plans to engage in oral sex with her. Cobb pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor on Sept. 2.

Last week, Cobb was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by 15 years supervision upon his release.

Contreras

Salvador Contreras, 50, of Del Rio, Texas, was arrested Dec. 2 after traveling from Del Rio to Cotulla to allegedly meet who he believed to be the mother of two young girls. Court records state he believed he had been chatting with a mother who would give him access to her girls, ages 8 and 14, to have sex with them.

Instead, he encountered authorities who were waiting to arrest him.

RELATED: 'Target subjects' identified in public corruption probe

Contreras, a former senior Border Patrol agent who was stationed in Del Rio, resigned following his arrest. He pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor March 8 in federal court. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.

Dominguez

Jorge Dominguez, 23, of Laredo, was arrested April 14, 2016 after Homeland Security Investigations special agents received information from the Webb County Sheriffs Office and HSI in Brownsville that an individual residing in the 500 block of Basswood may be in possession of child pornography, according to the Sheriffs Office.

In May, a grand jury indicted him on charges of receipt, distribution and possession of child pornograhy. Dominguez has pleaded not guilty to the charges. On Friday, counsel for Dominguez filed a motion to dismiss the indictment for lack of a speedy trial.

Dunn

Christopher Earl Dunn, 48, of Sweetwater, Texas, was arrested Dec. 16 after having a conversation online with an undercover agent for more than a year before traveling 59 miles with the alleged intent of meeting two underage girls.

From March 5, 2015 to Dec. 16, 2016, Dunn communicated through texts, emails and online chat detailing his intended plans to engage in sexual acts with a 15-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl, the criminal complaint states.

It adds, during these communications, Dunn sent the HSI agent nude pictures of himself and spoke about the nervousness of being detected by law enforcement.

On Feb. 7, Dunn pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor in federal court. He has not yet been sentenced.

Fernandez

Ricardo Elias Fernandez, 30, of Laredo, was arrested May 11 after HSI special agents received information from the Webb County Sheriffs Office and HSI-El Paso that an individual residing in the 2500 block of Jackson Street was allegedly in possession of child pornography.

On June 3, 2015, undercover agents were able to download multiple videos of child pornography from an IP address that originated from Fernandezs residence, the complaint states.

A grand jury indicted Fernandez in June on charges of receipt, distribution and possession of child pornography. On June 15, Fernandez pleaded not guilty to the charges.

A competency hearing for Fernandez is set for May 26.

Fry

Simon Peter Fry, 23, of Laredo, was arrested Jan. 14, 2016 after communicating with an undercover HSI special agent online and traveling to a local business with the alleged intent of having sex with a 13-year-old boy, according to the criminal complaint.

On Feb. 6, a judge granted a motion filed by the prosecution to dismiss the complaint against Fry.

Gonzalez

Jamie Gerardo Gonzalez, 26, of Laredo, was arrested Nov. 3 after authorities executed at federal search warrant at his residence.

On Sept. 12, HSI special agents received information from HSI-Brownsville that an individual residing in the 500 block of Montgomery Street was in possession of pornography, according to the complaint.

The complaint states Gonzalez identified a computer that contained about 100 child pornography videos.

A grand jury indicted Gonzalez in November on charges of receipt, distribution and possession of child pornography. Gonzalez has pleaded not guilty to the charges. A final pretrial conference in his case is scheduled for June 6.

Melton

Daniel Melton, 40, of La Feria, Texas, was arrested April 15, 2016 after traveling to a local business with the intent of engaging in sex with a minor.

Prosecutors said an undercover agent and Melton engaged in sexually-explicit conversations for more than two weeks.

During those conversations, he sent sexually-explicit pictures to the undercover agent and requested they be shown to a minor, reads a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office.

Melton was found guilty by federal jury in July on a charge of coercion and enticement of a minor. On April 7, Melton was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 25 years of supervision upon his release.

Monsivais

Anastasio Monsivais, 56, of Austin, Texas, was arrested April 1, 2016, after traveling to a local business to meet a 13-year-old girl who he believed he had been communicating with online.

According to a special agent, Monsivais said he knew it was illegal and admitted to meeting the undercover agent for the purpose of engaging in a sexual act with the girl. After his arrest, Monsivais told the agent he was enticing this little girl because shes vulnerable and a minor, court records state.

A federal grand jury found Monsivais guilty of coercion and enticement of a minor in August. On April 7, he was sentenced to 10 years and 10 months in prison.

Perez

Cristian Joseph Perez, 34, of Austin, was arrested Oct. 20 after traveling to a local business with the alleged intent of having sex with a 14-year-old girl.

From Oct. 4 to Oct. 20, Perez communicated with an undercover agent he believed to be an adult male who was offering the girl for the purpose of sexual abuse, the complaint states.

On Feb. 7, Perez pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor, records state. He has not yet been sentenced.

Woodland

Jon Matthew Woodland, 41, of Plano, Texas, was arrested June 12 after he traveled approximately 450 miles to Laredo to engage in a sexual act with a minor.

On Sept. 7, Woodland pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor, records state.

Earlier this month, Woodland was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Zamudio

Flavio Eduardo Zamudio, 57, of Laredo, was arrested May 12 after HSI special agents received information from the Webb County Sheriffs Office and HSI-El Paso that an individual residing in the 100 block of Del Mar Boulevard may be in possession of child pornography, according to the complaint.

He was indicted in June on charges of receipt, distribution and possession of child pornography.

On Wednesday, U.S. Senior District Judge George P. Kazen granted a motion filed by the prosecution to dismiss the indictment against Zamudio.
PARIS - They call him the "radical centrist."

This is the way Emmanuel Macron, the photogenic, 39-year-old independent candidate poised to win the French presidency next weekend, is often described in the French and foreign press.

But even Macron's closest advisers say there is little about the political platform of a former investment banker that can be considered "radical." In nods to both the left and the right that mirror the programs of third-way centrists such as President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair from the 1990s, Macron has proposed a middle way that would heavily invest in health and agriculture at the same time as it would trim a costly public sector.

What is "radical" about Macron, his advisers insist, is the candidate himself, a political outsider who, against all odds, is the only option for those who wish to protect France's embattled political establishment. This, they insist, is Macron's not-so-secret weapon in combating the rising tide of populism: if what he proposes is not quite a departure from the political status quo, he is not a familiar face.

"It's an oxymoron, 'radical centrism,' " Jacques Attali, a prominent French economist and public intellectual who has been an informal adviser to Macron for months, said in an interview. "What he is is what you call 'bipartisan.' He's not Marx; his program is not an ideology per se. It's pragmatism."

In certain respects, Macron's "pragmatism" is traditional, the almost predictable orientation of a centrist social democrat or a moderate American liberal. He has called for a massive 50 billion euro ($55 billion) public investment, but, at the same time, he has also vowed to slash as many as 120,000 public-sector jobs and to continue liberalizing the French labor market - despite the immense difficulties the Hollande administration faced when it tried to do the same in 2016.

Not surprisingly, Macron has been called a French Bill Clinton.

But in the global political climate of 2017, those who have advocated ideas like these have not done well. Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the U.S. presidential election with a similar platform, and the British campaign to remain in the European Union was sorely defeated in the Brexit referendum. In both cases, a large number of voters railed against the "system."

Much of that same anti-establishment sentiment has defined the French presidential campaign. Although Macron came out on top in the first round of the vote, a staggering 49 percent of voters ultimately backed populist candidates on the far-right or the far-left whose central message, in different terms, has been anti-establishment fervor.

Furthermore, some of these candidates, especially the far-right Marine Le Pen, have targeted the former investment banker and onetime Socialist economy minister as the very essence of the "system" to be destroyed.

But the strategic problem for Le Pen is that Macron, an entirely unknown quantity just three years ago, cannot quite be written off as an establishment candidate, even if his ideas have captivated a significant number of establishment figures in the process.

Jean Pisani-Ferry, a prominent French economist and public policy expert, was among the principal collaborators on Macron's platform.

Its animating theme, he said, is that it offers a vision of an as-yet-untested future in a society that has rejected, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, both the center-left and the center-right.

"The idea is that we can untangle French society, liberate, unlock - that we can do that, and that we can re-create the potential for innovation and development, a system of social protections that works well in a modern economy," he said in an interview. "That's the aspiration."

To that end, Macron's third-way pragmatism - "neither left nor right," as the candidate frequently reiterates - ultimately comes wrapped in the packaging of lofty idealism. Younger voters often say that it is the idealism - rather than the policies - of the man who would be France's youngest-ever president that ultimately defines his sprawling and, some say, nebulous agenda.

"The project I propose to you, is to build with you a new France, which innovates, searches, creates and lives, a France of prosperity reclaimed and of progress for everyone," Macron's platform reads, promising a new "contract with the nation."

Pisani-Ferry rejected the charge, from across the political spectrum, that pronouncements like these are vague.

"But more vague than what?" he said. "The people who criticize the program for not having all the marks of the left or the right are clinging to traditional approaches in political life."

Strictly speaking, France has never before elected a centrist president. In an electoral campaign otherwise devoted to what the French all "degagisme" - loosely translated as "throw them out-ism" - electing a centrist in 2017 could be the protest analysts and pollsters have anticipated for months.

Attali, the economist, said he does not see a Macron victory - which polls still unanimously predict - as a revolution, but rather as a potential reset for a political system mired in dysfunction.

"It's a parenthesis," he said. "A necessary parenthesis."
A prominent militant who fought with Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine and participated in far-right European politics recently completed U.S. Army training and is serving in an American infantry division in Hawaii, according to Army and other records.

Guillaume Cuvelier, 29, shipped for basic training in January and graduated as an infantryman at Fort Benning, Ga., the records show. In a short exchange with The Washington Post, Cuvelier confirmed that he was actively serving in the U.S. Army.

With his well-documented history of espousing extreme right-wing views and his role in an armed group backed by a U.S. adversary, Cuvelier's ability to join the Army raises questions about the recruitment process and whether applicants are thoroughly screened before they are able to enlist.

Born and raised in France as a dual French and American citizen, Cuvelier spent his formative years alongside French ultranationalists before picking up a Kalashnikov in eastern Ukraine in 2014, according to social media posts, a documentary in which he was featured, and accounts from people who knew him. A year later he fought with the Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq before coming back to the United States.

Following inquiries by The Washington Post, the military has "begun an inquiry to ensure the process used to enlist this individual followed all of the required standards and procedures," said Kelli Bland, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's recruiting command, in an email.

In Ukraine, Cuvelier, also known as Lenormand, fought for the Russian-backed Donetsk People's Republic, the breakaway state subject to U.S. government sanctions and labeled terrorist by the U.S.-allied government in Kiev. Cuvelier's service with the group appears to be in direct violation of a March 2014 executive order that was applied to the republic that June. The order prohibits U.S. citizens from assisting by way of "funds, goods or services," any of the sanctioned entities covered by the order, opening up Cuvelier to possible federal prosecution.

The U.S. Army often forbids those who display "extremist views or actions" from entry, said Lt. Col. Randy Taylor, a spokesman for the Army's Department of Manpower and Reserve Affairs, in an email. Taylor added that "if an Army official determines an applicant has the potential for meeting Army standards, the official may in exceptional cases allow those who have overcome mistakes and past conduct, made earlier in their lives, to serve their country. However, in many cases a history of gang or extremist activity is disqualifying."

Cuvelier said he has changed.

"The [U.S.] army is my only chance of moving on and cutting with my past," Cuvelier said in a text message. "I realized I like this country, its way of life and its Constitution enough to defend it."

"By publishing a story on me, you are jeopardizing my career and rendering a great service to anyone trying to embarrass the Army. My former Russian comrades would love it. . . . so, I please ask you to reconsider using my name and/or photo."

He declined to make any further comment.

As a dual citizen, Cuvelier would be subject to more extensive background checks if he had sought an Army position requiring a security clearance, but he did not need one as an infantryman, Bland said. If Cuvelier had no outstanding criminal activity in the United States and didn't discuss his past, there would have been no reason to bar him from enlisting, she added.

Cuvelier grew up in Rouen, France, and graduated from university there in 2009, according to his Facebook profile, which has since been deleted. His younger brother, Gabriel Cuvelier, said in a series of texts that his family is "fairly complicated," without providing details, but that Cuvelier had always been kind and peaceful and "never sought attention."

Online documents show Cuvelier was an active member in the Party of France, a political body that splintered from Marine Le Pen's National Front, in 2010. Jean-Yves Camus, a French analyst who studies the far-right and has tracked Cuvelier, compared the Party of France to an American white-nationalist group called "National Vanguard."

Cuvelier was also part of the neo-fascist group "Troisieme voie" and an identity movement called the "Young Identitarians," according to Anton Shekhovtsov, a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, who focuses on right-wing movements across Europe and has written extensively about the Ukraine conflict.

Cuvelier's younger brother couldn't explain how his older sibling first got involved with France's far right, but said "his views led him to meet people."

"I believe that when he was in France, he sort of saw that no 'honest' way of going about 'politics' was possible, so he decided to take action differently," the younger Cuvelier said in a text. "That's all I can say."

Upon arriving in Ukraine in the middle of 2014, Cuvelier helped start a French-Serbian foreign fighter unit called the "Unite Continentale." The group's manifesto on its Facebook page states that NATO is "a terrorist military alliance" and that France is "a slave of the American Empire." The group's views are based on an ideology called "continentalism" espoused by the anti-Western Russian political scientist, Alexander Dugin. The group's page also has multiple posts from July and August 2014 that solicited donations directly to Cuvelier's bank account in France.

"Russia embodies a power. A power of resistance, what we want to bring back to the West. A society structured around tradition, family, patriotism," Cuvelier says, explaining his motives for joining the separatists during the 2015 documentary titled "Polite People."

Cuvelier eventually split from Unite Continentale, according to the documentary on Western militants who joined the fight in eastern Ukraine. In the film, Cuvelier's band of fighters adopts the name "Team Vikernes" after the Norwegian black metal artist, self-proclaimed Nazi and convicted murderer, Varg Vikernes.

Videos posted on the Team Vikerne's page show its members firing around the Donetsk airport, the site of a bloody close-quarters fight between Ukrainian troops and separatists in the winter of 2014. Cuvelier declined to answer any questions about his service in eastern Ukraine and when pressed over a series of text messages said, "I was never really in DPR. It was a hologram."

In the documentary, there is a still picture of Cuvelier with a medal pinned to his chest standing shoulder to shoulder with Igor Girkin (who was the commander of the separatists during the summer of 2014). It appears in the documentary that Cuvelier may have been honored with the medal in Moscow in 2015.

Girkin has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for his role with the separatists and on a Russian radio talk show admitted to having looters executed. He is also accused in a U.S. lawsuit of orchestrating the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 over Ukraine in July 2014, killing 283 people.

Following his time in Ukraine, Cuvelier traveled to northern Iraq in 2015 and set up another unit of foreign fighters, this time allied with the Kurdish Peshmerga.

The group, called Qalubna Ma'kum, was located near Daquq in northern Iraq from the end of 2015 to mid-2016.

Robert Lindler, a U.K.-based photographer who followed Qalubna Ma'kum for 10 days said, "They thought they could just show up with guns and start fighting. Instead they just sat in a room for months."

The Peshmerga eventually forced Cuvelier to leave Iraq after an incident in which he was accused of beating an American volunteer with a rifle, according to Heloisa Jaira, a Peshmerga medic, who treated the victim.

Weeks later, he arrived in the United States.

---

Andrew Roth in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Growing up in the 1980s, Brian Brown was taught to think of the communist Soviet Union as a dark and evil place.

But Brown, a leading anti-gay-marriage activist, said that in the past few years he has started meeting Russians at conferences on family issues and finding many kindred spirits.

Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, has visited Moscow four times in four years, including a 2013 trip when he testified before the Duma as Russia adopted a series of anti-gay laws.

"What I realized was that there was a great change happening in the former Soviet Union," he said. "There was a real push to re-instill Christian values in the public square."

A significant shift has been underway in recent years across the Republican right.

From gun rights to terrorism to same-sex marriage, many leading advocates on the right who grew frustrated with their country's leftward tilt under President Barack Obama have forged ties with well-connected Russians and come to see that country's authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, as a potential ally.

The attitude adjustment among many conservative activists helps explain one of most curious aspects of the 2016 presidential race: a softening among many conservatives of their historically hard-line views of Russia. To the alarm of some in the GOP's national security establishment, support in the party base for then-candidate Donald Trump did not wane even after he rejected the tough tone of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who called Russia America's No. 1 foe, and repeatedly praised Putin.

The burgeoning alliance between Russians and U.S. conservatives was apparent in a series of events in late 2015, as the Republican nomination battle intensified.

Top officials from the National Rifle Association, whose annual meeting Friday featured an address by Trump for the third time in three years, traveled to Moscow to visit a Russian gun manufacturer and meet government officials.

Around the same time in December 2015, evangelist Franklin Graham met privately with Putin for 45 minutes, securing from the Russian president an offer to help with an upcoming conference on the persecution of Christians. Graham was impressed, telling The Washington Post that Putin "answers questions very directly and doesn't dodge them like a lot of our politicians do."

The growing dialogue between Russians and U.S. conservatives came at the same time experts say the Russian government stepped up efforts to cultivate and influence far-right groups in Europe and on the eve of Russia's unprecedented intrusion into the U.S. campaign, which intelligence officials have concluded was intended to elect Trump.

Russians and Americans involved in developing new ties say they are not part of a Kremlin effort to influence U.S. politics. "We know nothing about that," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov. Brown said activists in both countries are simply "uniting together under the values we share."

It is not clear what impact closer ties will have on relations between the two countries, which have gotten frostier with the opening of congressional and FBI investigations into Russia's intrusion into the 2016 election and rising tensions over the civil war in Syria.

But the apparent increase in contacts in recent years, as well as the participation of officials from the Russian government and the influential Russian Orthodox church, leads some analysts to conclude that the Russian government likely promoted the efforts in an attempt to expand Putin's power.

"Is it possible that these are just well meaning people who are reaching out to Americans with shared interests? It is possible," said Steven Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after managing Russia operations for 30 years. "Is it likely? I don't think it's likely at all. ... My assessment is that it's definitely part of something bigger."

Interactions between Russians and American conservatives appeared to gain momentum as Obama prepared to run for a second term.

At the time, many in the GOP warned that Obama had failed to counter the national security threat posted by Putin's aggression.

But, deep in the party base, change was brewing.

At least one connection came about thanks to a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years.

Preston said that in 2011 he introduced then-NRA President David Keene to a Russian senator, Alexander Torshin, a member of Putin's party who later became a topofficial at the Russian central bank. Keene had been a stalwart on the right, a past chairman of the American Conservative Union who was NRA's president from 2011 to 2013.

Neither Keene nor Torshin responded to requests for comment. An NRA spokesman also did not respond to questions.

Torshin seemed a natural ally to American conservatives.

A friend of Mikhail Kalashnikov, revered in Russia for inventing the AK-47 assault rifle, Torshin in 2010 had penned a glossy gun rights pamphlet, illustrated by cartoon figures wielding guns to fend off masked robbers. The booklet cited U.S. statistics to argue for gun ownership, at one point echoing in Russian the old NRA slogan, "Guns don't shoot - people shoot."

Torshin was also a leader in a Russian movement to align government more closely with the Orthodox church.

"The value system of Southern Christians and the value system of Russians are very much in line," Preston said. "The so-called conflict between our two nations is a tragedy because we're very similar people, in a lot of our values, our interests and that sort of thing."

Preston, an expert on Russian law whose office features a white porcelain bust of Putin, said he had told Tennessee friends for years not to believe television reports about the Russian leader murdering journalists or dissidents.

Preston was an international observer of the 2011 legislative elections in Russia that sparked mass street protests in Moscow charging electoral irregularities. But Preston said he concluded the elections were free and fair.

By contrast, Preston said he and Torshin saw violations of U.S. law - pro-Obama signs posted too close to a polling place - when Torshin traveled to Nashville to observe voting in the 2012 presidential election.

In Russia, Torshin and an aide, a photogenic activist originally from Siberia named Maria Butina, began building a gun-rights movement.

Butina founded a group called the Right to Bear Arms, and in 2013 she and Torshin invited Keene and other U.S. gun advocates to its annual meeting in Moscow.

The event, where about 200 people gathered at Moscow's convention center, included a fashion show in which models donned "concealed carry" garments with built-in pockets for weapons.

One American participant, Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, recalled that Torshin and Butina took him and his wife out for dinner and gave them gifts that displayed research into their interests - exotic fabric for Gottlieb's wife, a needle-point enthusiast, and for Gottlieb, commemorative stamps that Torshin had received as a member of the Russian legislature.

"They wanted to keep communications open and form friendships," Gottlieb said.

Butina, now a graduate student at American University in Washington, told The Post via email that her group's cause is "not very popular" with Russian officials and has never received funding from the government or from the NRA. She said she's never worked for the government and added that she and the American activists she has befriended simply share a love of gun rights.

"No government official has EVER approached me about 'fostering ties' with any Americans," she wrote.

Hall, the former CIA officer, said he was skeptical. He said he did not think Putin would tolerate a legitimate effort to advocate for an armed citizenry, and asserted that the movement is likely "controlled by the security services" to woo the American right.

When Torshin and Butina attended the NRA's 2014 annual convention, their profiles as scrappy Russians pushing for gun rights were rising. Butina attended an NRA women's luncheon as a guest of one of the organization's past presidents.

Interviewed by the conservative website Townhall, Butina called the NRA "one of the most world famous and most important organizations" and said that "we would like to be friends with NRA."

While Russians are allowed to own shotguns, Butina said her group hoped to reverse a ban on carrying handguns.

That year's turbulent events - in which Russia's incursion into Ukraine prompted the Obama administration to enact strict sanctions against Moscow - illustrated the Russians' alliance with U.S. gun advocates.

Butina argued in a Russian interview that firearm sellers in her country, including the popular Kalashnikov, were among the "most impacted" by sanctions, which specifically blocked its assets.

In Washington, the NRA's lobbying arm blasted the order, saying such restrictions have "long been used by the executive branch as a means of unilaterally enacting gun control."

Relationships between Russians and American conservatives seemed to blossom in 2015, as the Republican presidential race geared up.

Butina posted social media photos showing how she and Torshin gained access to NRA officials and the U.S. politicians attending events. That April, Butina toured the NRA's Virginia headquarters, and she and Torshin met Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R, then a leading White House contender, at the NRA annual convention. Torshin told Bloomberg last year that he had a friendly exchange with Trump at the 2015 convention and sat with his son Donald Jr. at an NRA dinner the following year.

Walker's spokesman said the encounter was brief, as speakers mingled with attendees before their remarks. A senior White House official said Trump may have briefly interacted with Torshin at the 2015 convention but did not recall. At the next year's event, the official said Torshin briefly greeted Donald Jr. at a restaurant.

In June, as Trump announced his candidacy, Butina wrote a column in the National Interest, a conservative U.S. magazine, suggesting that a Republican in the White House might improve U.S.-Russia relations.

She wrote that Republicans and Russians held similar views on oil exploration and that cultural conservatives would identify with Putin's party and its aggressive take on Islamic terrorism.

Butina that summer immersed herself in U.S. politics. In July, she showed up at FreedomFest in Las Vegas, a meeting of libertarians where Trump and rival Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., were speaking.

She made her way to a microphone during Trump's speech and asked in accented English, "What will be your foreign politics, especially in the relations with my country?"

It was the first time Trump had been asked about Russia as a candidate.

"I know Putin and I'll tell you what, we get along with Putin," he said.

Trump would go on to repeatedly praise the Russian president as a strong leader.

But Trump, who at the time was considered a long shot for the nomination, echoed a sentiment then bubbling up from some corners of the conservative grass roots - that Putin was a potential friend.

That was the takeaway for Graham, the North Carolina-based evangelist, following his November 2015 Kremlin meeting with Putin.

The last time Graham had visited Moscow, with his father, Billy Graham, in the 1980s, the practice of religion was prohibited. On this trip, he said, conditions for Christians in Russia remained difficult. But Graham recalled that Putin listened as he described evangelical Christianity and the challenges facing Christians around the world. Putin explained that his mother kept her Christian faith even during the darkest days of atheistic communist rule.

"He understood," Graham said of the Russian leader.

Putin offered to help Graham organize an international conference on Christian persecution in Moscow, Graham said. Instead, a Russian delegation is expected when the conference takes place next month in Washington, Graham said.

At the end of 2015, Butina welcomed a delegation to Moscow that included Keene, by then a member of the NRA board, as well as top NRA donors. The group also included a rising star in GOP politics, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who went on to be a campaign surrogate for Trump and has been mentioned as a contender for a high-level job at the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke did not respond to requests for comment.

The group toured a gun manufacturing company and met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was among the officials sanctioned by the White House following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Keene told the Daily Beast, which first reported the meeting, that the interaction with Rogozin was "non-political" and consisted of touring the headquarters of a shooting group that Rogozin chairs.

After Trump's victory, Torshin returned to the United States with a delegation of prominent Russians to attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February. In addition to his gun-rights work, Torshin also had helped build a similar prayer breakfast in Moscow from an obscure monthly event a decade ago into one more resembling the annual ritual in Washington.

Putin now sends an annual greeting to the Russian event, a recognition of its value in allowing "Russian and American guests to come together under one roof in order to rebuild the relationship between the two countries that has degraded under the administration of President Obama," said the breakfast's organizer Peter Sautov in an email.

Torshin, accompanied by 15 Russian church and government officials, requested to meet the new president before Trump spoke at the event, according to people familiar with the arrangement.

But they said the meeting was canceled as reports surfaced from Spanish authorities alleging that Torshin led an organized crime and money-laundering operation. Torshin has not been charged and denied wrongdoing in an interview with Bloomberg, which first reported the allegations.

A White House official said the requested meeting was never confirmed in the first place. The proposed meeting was first reported by Yahoo.

That night, Torshin gathered for a festive dinner at a Capitol Hill restaurant with conservative thought leaders who have supported warmer ties with Russia.

"There has been a change in the views of hard-core conservatives toward Russia," a participant, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said in an interview. "Conservative Republicans like myself hated communism during the Cold War. But Russia is no longer the Soviet Union."

---

The Washington Post's Andrew Roth in Moscow and Alice Crites and Karoun Demirjian in Washington contributed to this report.

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VIDEO:

President Trump's warm rhetoric toward Russia on the campaign trail is just one instance of a softening stance toward Russia among some U.S. conservatives. The Post examined the relationship between gun rights advocates and religious conservatives in the U.S., and their counterparts in Russia. (Bastien Inzaurralde, Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

--http://wapo.st/2oNkGjV

--<iframe width='480' height='290' scrolling='no' src='//www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/86298e14-2c57-11e7-9081-f5405f56d3e4' frameborder='0' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
The Pentagon has identified the soldier killed by a roadside bomb outside the Iraqi city of Mosul Saturday.

First Lt. Weston C. Lee, 25, of Bluffton, Georgia, was an infantry officer from the 82nd Airborne Division and was on patrol at the time of his death, according to an emailed statement from his unit.

Lee joined the Army in 2015 and deployed to Iraq in December. He was a platoon leader and died on his first deployment.

"1st Lieutenant Wes Lee was an extraordinary young man and officer. He was exactly the type of leader that our Paratroopers deserve," Col. Pat Work, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said in the statement. "Our sincere condolences and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time."

Lee was awarded the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medal posthumously.

Lee's death marks the fifth U.S. combat death in Iraq since the start of the campaign against the Islamic State there in 2014, and the first during the Trump administration. In October, Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan was killed by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Mosul just days after the battle to retake the city began.

Since 2003, 4,519 U.S. troops have died in Iraq from both hostile fire and noncombat incidents, according to the website iCasualties.org.

There are more than 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq assisting the country's military in its fight against the Islamic State. Some of the U.S. forces are in roles that bring them close and sometimes to the front lines. The Pentagon has stressed that the U.S. military is not directly fighting the Islamic State on the ground, instead saying the troops are in fire support and advisory positions. Often, however, U.S. troops are spotted on the front lines calling in airstrikes and assisting local forces.

The Islamic State seized Mosul in June 2014 and has fought doggedly to retain the group's largest stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi troops, backed by U.S.-led air power, have been forced to clear the city from east to west. The city's labyrinth of small streets, alleys and rooftops has proved to be a boon for Islamic State fighters, helping them launch a relentless number of ambushes, suicide vehicle bombings and sniper attacks against advancing Iraqi soldiers.
The lights will stay on in the federal government, and also in the countless laboratories and universities that depend on federal funding for scientific and medical research. That's one upshot of the bipartisan budget deal reached late Sunday by congressional lawmakers.

The bill, clocking in at more than 1,600 pages, is likely to pass both houses of Congress and be signed into law by President Donald Trump later this week. It covers funding through the end of September.

This is welcome news for the research community, which had been shocked and dismayed by Trump's March 16 budget blueprint for fiscal year 2018. What's unclear is whether the 2017 budget deal represents a full-throated repudiation of Trump's goals, or is just an act of political expediency - a rare bipartisan compromise designed to avoid an imminent government shutdown.

Trump's "skinny budget" for 2018 calls for massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. A more detailed 2018 budget from Trump's Office of Management and Budget is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

But in the meantime, Congress hadn't even passed a 2017 budget - something it was supposed to do last year. The government has been operating on temporary spending measures based on the 2016 budget. The administration in late March sent to the Hill some suggestions for cuts to the fiscal 2017 budget. Among the suggestions: Cut $300 million from four programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), $50 million from the NASA science office, and $350 million from the National Science Foundation.

Science and medical research, however, have long enjoyed bipartisan support, and that political reality has not yet changed under the Trump administration.

The new budget deal calls for an additional $2 billion for NIH, including new money for the cancer "moonshot" initiative - the 21st Century Cures Act - championed by former vice president Joe Biden. The funding for the moonshot drew praise from the Association of American Medical Colleges. The budget deal also includes $475 million for the National Cancer Institute.

The new bill includes a small cut to the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fully funded, however, are programs designed to prepare for pandemics or bioterrorism attacks. The CDC will have $35 million in emergency funds to deal with the lead crisis in Flint, Mich. The effort to combat the Zika virus will be allotted $394 million.

The Office of Adolescent Health's Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program received $101 million, on par with 2016 funding. A Health and Human Services Department program to promote abstinence education for teenagers, now renamed "sexual risk avoidance" in the new budget, increased its 2016 funding by 50 percent to $15 million.

The Energy Department's Office of Science will get a $42 million funding hike instead of the $900 million cut called for by Trump in his budget blueprint. The Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) would get a modest increase to $306 million for 2017, which is good news for an agency marked for complete elimination by Trump and his budget team.

The National Park Service will get a boost of $81 million over the 2016 level - money that can be used for long-needed repairs to park infrastructure across the county.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gets $11 million more than last year. Some of that money will be used to boost funding for an effort to remove plants and animals from the endangered species list - a priority of conservatives. The bill maintains a one-year delay on any further Endangered Species Act status "reviews, determinations, and rulemakings" for the greater sage-grouse, according to the summary provided by the House Appropriations Committee.

The U.S. Geological Survey will receive an additional $23 million. Nearly half of the USGS money is marked for an earthquake early-warning system.

Trump had called for a 31 percent cut to EPA's budget for 2018, but the 2017 deal shows a 1 percent cut. The budget plan, as written by lawmakers, does carry with it some demands and restrictions. For example, EPA is prohibited from changing Clean Water Act exemptions for agriculture. It can't regulate lead in ammunition and fishing tackle that has led to eagle deaths and the poisoning of many other species.

NASA will get an increase of $368 million, putting the agency within shouting distance of $20 billion overall for 2017.

"This is a wonderful budget for NASA. This is higher than either the Senate or the House proposed individually," said Casey Dreier, director of space policy for the Planetary Society. The additional money includes funding for two missions to Europa, the intriguing moon of Jupiter. The first would be an orbiter, and the second a lander. Europa is believed to have a subsurface ocean, and a lander would include life-detection instruments. The Trump budget outline in March nixed money for the Europa lander, but such a mission has champions on the Hill.

- - -

The Washington Post's Brady Dennis, Darryl Fears, Lisa Rein and Lena Sun contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - After only six days on the job, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue moved to stall one of former First Lady Michelle Obama's signature accomplishments: stricter nutritional standards for school breakfasts and lunches, which feed more than 31 million children.

Speaking at Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, Virginia, on Monday with Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and Patricia Montague of the School Nutrition Association, Perdue announced that his department would be slowing the implementation of aggressive standards on sodium, whole grains and sweetened milks that passed under the Obama administration.

The measure is similar to a policy rider that House Republicans inserted in this week's appropriations bill. It also echoes a bipartisan compromise made by Senate Republicans and Democrats last year, which did not pass before the end of the session.

"We know meals cannot be nutritious if they're not consumed, if they're thrown out," Perdue told reporters after eating chicken nuggets and salad with a group of fifth graders. "We have to balance sodium and whole grain content with palatability."

It was the second blow to the Obama administration's nutritional legacy in less than a week. On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration signaled its intent to rewrite long-delayed menu-labeling rules passed as part of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee also attached several nutrition-related riders to this week's appropriations bill, including one that targeted voluntary industry sodium-reductions.

The changes will likely be cheered by conservatives, who have long cited the previous restrictions as examples of gross federal overreach. They were also welcomed by the school food lobby, which has said schools need more time and flexibility to meet the stricter rules.

But such rollbacks have been rejected by public health and nutrition advocates, who say the stricter nutrition rules are critical tools in the fight against obesity.

"I feel that we have made such progress in schools meals over the past five years," said Miriam Nelson, a public health researcher who helped advise Michelle Obama's nutrition initiatives. "This progress has contributed to reversing the trend in childhood obesity rates nationwide . . . We want to continue the progress we have made."

School lunches have seen a radical makeover in the past five years. Since 2012, when the nutrition rules mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act went into effect, cafeterias have had to slash the amount of calories, trans-fats, sodium and refined grains in their foods, replacing cafeteria staples like conventional pizza with salt-reduced, whole-grain versions. They are also required to serve fruit, a variety of vegetables, and low-fat or fat-free milk. Schools may serve chocolate milk, but it must be skim milk.

Under current rules, all the grains offered in school cafeterias must be 50 percent or more whole grain. Schools have also adopted new sodium limits, which range by grade, and which were scheduled to continue dropping through 2020. Currently, elementary school lunches may include up to 1,230 grams of sodium. That was set to fall to 640 grams.

Perdue's announcement changes that: Schools will not be required to make any changes to the amount of sodium in the meals they serve until after 2020. The Department of Agriculture will also continue granting waivers to schools allowing them to opt out of a requirement to serve only whole-grain enriched foods, and will soon be permitted to serve chocolate and flavored milk, provided it's reduced fat.

"We're not unwinding or winding back any nutrition standards at all," Perdue said. "We're giving school food professionals the flexibility they need."

Under the Obama administration, the nutrition guidelines for schools that participated in the National School Lunch Program shifted, requiring cafeterias to increase their offering of fruits and vegetables, serve only skim or low-fat milk and cut trans fat from the menu altogether. They also required school cafeterias to cut sodium in the food they were serving.

The changes, championed by Michelle Obama, were unveiled at Parklawn Elementary, a school 30 miles southeast of Catoctin Elementary. Obama said they were an effort to combat the growing problem of childhood obesity - with the Centers for Disease control estimating that one in six children were obese in 2015.

"When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won't be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home," Obama said at the time.

But many cafeteria managers complained that the new requirements made lunches less appetizing to children and said they saw food waste grow and their lunch revenues shrink, posing serious issues for cafeterias that often operate on shoestring budgets. School administrators also opposed the measures, saying they were concerned about the impact on school budgets.

A small number of schools opted out of the federal program, forfeiting federal funds so they can set their own menus. Many Republicans opposed the guidelines and pressed the USDA to temporarily waive requirements for some school districts.

According to the Department of Agriculture, 97 percent of schools are already compliant with the stricter standards -- which qualifies them for an extra six cents per meal in government reimbursements. A 2016 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the nutritional quality of school meals has increased 30 percent, on average.

But despite those successes, the rules have become controversial in some sectors. A critical sticking point has been the stepped, 10-year roll-out of sodium reductions, as well as the requirement that all prepared foods contain 51 percent or more whole grains.

Some school nutrition directors have said those particular changes are expensive and difficult to implement: In some cases, cafeterias have been unable to source compliant versions of student favorites, like pasta and bagels. In other cases, schools have rolled out healthier lunches and seen their profits drop as costs increase and students opt to bring lunch from home. Those effects have been particularly dramatic in wealthier districts, such as Loudoun County Public Schools, where Catoctin Elementary is located.

As a result, the School Nutrition Association, a powerful lobbying group that represents food service workers and directors, has repeatedly asked USDA to revert to a less strict requirement for whole grains and to scrap the pending sodium reductions altogether. Both issues were cornerstones of the association's 2017 policy report, which more than 500 school lunch workers brought to Congressional offices during Hill visits in early April.

"We hear stories from our members about students who bring contraband salt shakers ... into the school to add flavor to the meals," said Patricia Montage, the chief executive of the School Nutrition Association. "[Schools] need more time. That's what we're asking for."

And yet, despite Perdue's reassurance that no rules were being rolled back, many have greeted the announcement with disappointment. About 30 parents protested outside the school on Monday, holding signs signs with slogans like "real food for kids" and chanting "healthy kids, healthy food." Perdue chuckled and waved to the protestors from a distance as he got into his SUV, prompting one woman, who declined to give her name, to yell "give a damn!" after him.

Public health groups who worked on the current nutrition standards, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the American Heart Association, also expressed dismay.

"It's discouraging that just days into his tenure, one of the first things that Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue will do is to roll back progress on the quality of the meals served to America's children," Margo Wooten, the director of nutrition policy at CSPI, said in a statement."Ninety percent of American kids eat too much sodium every day. Schools have been moving in the right direction, so it makes no sense to freeze that progress in its tracks-allowing dangerously high levels of salt in school lunch."

Reformers argue that children are taking in too much sodium in schools, and that the changes are needed to protect their health. The average child aged 6 to 18 years old eats between 2,000 and 3,565 milligrams of sodium each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's nearly 33 percent more than the amount the CDC recommends for adults -- enough to contribute to hypertension.

Under current lunch guidelines, high students can eat as much as 1,420 grams of sodium in one meal -- roughly 62 percent the CDC's daily limit.

Children who eat whole grains are less likely to be overweight and tend to have better nutrient and fiber uptake than their classmates who eat refined grains. Despite that, one recent study found that fewer than one in 10 children eats the recommended amount of whole grains.
The Pentagon said Sunday that the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria killed 45 civilians in airstrikes between November and early March of this year.

The new findings resulted from investigations into nine airstrikes that were part of the broader campaign against the Islamic State. The figures did not include results from an ongoing investigation into a March 17 attack in Mosul that local residents said killed scores of innocent people.

The Pentagon also said that a review of airstrikes dating back to August 2014 found that the U.S. military and its coalition partners were responsible for an additional 80 civilian deaths that had not been announced.

The new numbers for Iraq and Syria include the deaths of 11 civilians killed during an airstrike on an Islamic State checkpoint near the Iraqi village of Hatra in March 2015.

The U.S. military reopened its investigation into that strike last summer after a Washington Post report identified flaws in the initial probe of the attack, which concluded that only four civilians were killed.

The military's first investigation into the Hatra attack was prompted by an email from a woman in Iraq who said that her 2011 Kia Sorento was stopped at Islamic State checkpoint when a "missile of the international air forces struck the checkpoint."

Inside the Kia, along with the driver, were three women and two children, she said. The car was traveling with a GMC Suburban that was also destroyed in the attack, killing the driver and an Iraqi police colonel's wife, his 9-year-old daughter and his two sons, ages 10 and 16.

Military investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the attack and concluded that four civilians, visible in the moments before and after the strike, were killed. But the investigators never contacted Raja'a Zidan al-Ekabee, who wrote the email, alerting them to their mistake.

They also never contacted the Iraqi police colonel who was in Baghdad and was waiting for his family to join him when the GMC was struck.

After the strike, the police colonel's commander took his weapon from him because he worried that the man might attempt suicide. "I never received the bodies," the police colonel said in an interview with The Post last year. "The people of Mosul buried them."

The Pentagon has acknowledged that it is likely to have killed at least 352 civilians over the course of more than 42,000 engagements since August 2014. Military analysts and human rights activists said those figures vastly understate the civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes.

In Afghanistan, for example, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan found that at least one civilian died for every 11 U.S. airstrikes. The current Pentagon figures for Iraq and Syria estimate one civilian fatality for every 120 strikes.
KABUL - Afghanistan's security forces are experiencing "shockingly high" casualties and conflict has displaced record numbers of civilians, a U.S. government watchdog said in a report Sunday on the grim challenge facing the country as it confronts the Taliban and other insurgencies with drastically reduced support from the United States and other NATO partners.

In its quarterly report to Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) urged the Trump administration - which is reviewing U.S. policy toward Afghanistan at a time of sustained Taliban aggression and diminished American assistance - to take a hard look at its programs and priorities and to focus aid more narrowly.

"Security is the most obvious and urgent challenge" to rebuilding the country after 16 years of war, the report said. It noted that since 2002, 61 percent of the $71 billion in U.S. reconstruction aid has gone to train, equip and support the 300,000-strong Afghan defense forces.

Nevertheless, the SIGAR report said, those forces continue to be hampered by internal problems - such as poor leadership and corruption - as well as by an agile and determined foe that is making it difficult for them to control territory. It noted that more than twice as many Afghan soldiers and police personnel were killed in 2016 as the 2,400 U.S. troops lost since 2001.

In an interview here Sunday, Inspector General John Sopko noted that senior U.S. military officials, including Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, have described the conflict as being at a stalemate and have suggested that several thousand more U.S. troops are needed to tip the balance. The current troop level is 8,400.

"If there is a stalemate, the question is why and how it can be improved," Sopko said. "The why is corruption, the why is poor leadership. ... If leadership is poor, the people below don't care, and they wonder why they have to die."

The report said the Afghan armed forces are also plagued by illiteracy, an attrition rate of nearly 35 percent and overreliance on highly trained special forces for routine missions. A previous report by Sopko's office described military officers reselling supplies and food intended for combat troops. Such problems, the new report said, are "corrosive" and can undercut civilian progress in health care, rule of law and efforts to counter the soaring drug trade.

A recent example of the deadly cost of these weaknesses was the Taliban attack on April 21 that killed at least 140 soldiers on a large Afghan army base in northern Balkh province. It was the deadliest single insurgent attack of the war, and some of the contributing factors were the same systemic flaws mentioned in the report.

One factor was poor leadership based on nepotism. Sopko said the commander of the Balkh base was known as well connected but ineffective. Another was shoddy vetting of military personnel; several of the people suspected of carrying out or helping in the attack were military recruits or former base workers. Sopko said a new system of biometric identification had been planned for all soldiers but was taking far too long to implement. And, ultimately, Afghan special forces had to come in and quash the assault though the base trains thousands of soldiers.

The report, titled "Reprioritizing Afghanistan Reconstruction," also described a panoply of problems across Afghan society and government that hinder national reconstruction efforts, even as the international community has pledged substantial new aid through 2020 and wants as much of that aid to be spent and managed by Afghan agencies as possible.

"Opium production stands at near record levels," the report noted. "Illiteracy and poverty remain widespread. Corruption reaches into every aspect of national life. The rule of law has limited reach. Multiple obstacles deter investors. ... The ranks of the jobless grow as the economy stagnates."

Sopko said that the United States has a cooperative and "willing partner" in the government of President Ashraf Ghani and that senior Afghan officials "really care about improving their country," but he said they have been frustrated by old systems of ethnic patronage and palm-greasing that discourage building institutions based on professionalism and merit.

He said that the government has made noticeable progress on some U.S.-backed programs, such as a new anti-corruption task force, but that even this effort has taken only "baby steps" and needs to prosecute some "mafia big fish" to bring real change and build public confidence.

In its recommendations, the report said the White House and Congress need to be prepared to perform "triage" on less successful projects, impose more rigorous standards of management and accountability for all programs, prevent aid funds from inadvertently reaching insurgents, establish a new strategy to combat opium production and drug trafficking, and decide whether reductions made in U.S. military and civilian oversight need to be reversed.
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AUSTIN  State troopers arrested about 20 protesters denouncing Senate Bill 4, the so-called sanctuary cities bill, who refused to leave a state office building after it closed at 5 p.m. Monday

Split into two groups, protesters, including immigrants, faith leaders and elected officials, locked arms and blocked both entrances of the State Insurance Building for several hours. They called on Gov. Greg Abbott to veto SB4, authored by Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock which would require local governments to cooperate with federal immigration officers and hold jail inmates, otherwise eligible for release, for possible federal detention and deportation.

The measure, authored by state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, would require police to enforce federal immigration law by asking for the immigration status of people they detain. Opponents have called it the show-me-your-papers bill.

The protesters conducted teach-ins and chanted, eventually joined by about 200 people who had planned to mark International Workers Day at the Capitol but came to the insurance building instead. The new arrivals, organized by the Worker's Defense, stayed outside, holding signs and playing music.

After 5 p.m. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers began citing protesters who remained inside, warning they would be arrested if they didnt leave.The majority left, but about two dozen protesters still linked arms while sitting down. Those who did not leave after being ticketed were handcuffed, charged with criminal trespass, a Class B misdemeanor, then released.

Troopers called Travis County Justice of the Peace Nicholas Chu to arraign them at the scene to avoid having to book them into jail.

What they said was that because of the volume of cases at the jail, and in order to make this process of so many people being arrested efficient, they brought in (the justice of the peace) here to this building to process us here, said Greg Casar, an Austin City Council member who was among those charged.

Organized by advocacy groups ICE Out of Austin, Austin Sanctuary Network, Grassroots Leadership and RAICES, the protesters attempted to keep people from entering the building by sitting just inside the doorways for about eight hours before it closed at 5 p.m.

At one teach-in, Barbara Hines, an immigration rights attorney, questioned the constitutionality of SB 4. It could allow a person to be placed in custody for 48 hours just because of being asked about their immigration status at a traffic stop, Hines said.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus is among those who have spoken out against the bill.

Police chiefs of Austin, Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio and the Texas Police Chiefs Association released a letter Friday predicting the bill will lead to distrust of police, less cooperation from members of the community and will foster the belief that they cannot seek assistance from police for fear of being subjected to an immigration status investigation.

Members of the National Lawyers Guild monitored the protest. About 15 minutes before the building closed, they started writing the names of those who planned on staying in case they got arrested.

We're here as neutral legal observers being able to provide eyewitness account and documenting what happens during the protest or during civilian encounters with law enforcement, Eva Sikes, a member of the lawyers group, said. We never know what will happen so we want to be able to provide good testimony.

Before being arrested, Casar said the protesters would continue to oppose a dangerous and unconstitutional bill.

Regardless of the governor's threat to tear families apart, we will continue this fight, Casar said. We are not scared of being criminalized or marginalized because we stand with our immigrant communities. The day (Gov. Abbott) signs this bill is only the very beginning of the real fire against SB 4.

elutz@express-news.net
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The Karnes County Sheriffs Office arrested two men Monday accused of stealing about $200,000 worth of property from homes in the area in a burglary ring, including guns, a travel trailer and ATVs.

Jarrod James Stewart, 32, and Jonathan Wade Andruss, 30, both from Stockdale, face two second-degree felony counts of burglary of a habitation, said Karnes County Sheriff Dwayne Villanueva.

The sheriff said more charges are likely pending against the pair.

RELATED: 2 San Antonio firefighters disciplined for marijuana use, drunken driving

The sheriffs office said they have been investigating a string of burglaries in the area for at least six months, and have received numerous tips regarding the crimes.

Recently, investigators learned of the two suspects whereabouts and apprehended them this week. Villanueva said the two were allegedly involved in a string of residential and rural farm burglaries in Gillett, which is about 60 miles southeast of San Antonio.

Investigators recovered about $200,000 worth of stolen items, including a Lacrosse Luxury Travel Trailer, guns, ammunition, three ATVs, five flat-bed trailers, generators, compressors, welders and numerous assorted tools. Those items were found at two residences in the Stockdale/Sutherland Springs areas, Villanueva said.

RELATED: Man slashed across chest at S.A. Jason's Deli, police believe employee is involved

The sheriffs office is continuing its investigation to track down more stolen items.

If convicted, the pair faces up to 20 years in prison for each felony charge.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

twhite@mysa.com

Twitter: @tylerlwhite
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Police on Monday identified the man who allegedly broke into a Northwest Side apartment Saturday during a party and held his girlfriend hostage for more than eight hours.

Joseph Hardeman, 29, is currently facing a charge of burglary of a habitation with assault. He was arrested the day of the incident by SWAT officers and later booked into the Bexar County Jail.

The incident is still being investigated and police said Hardeman could face other charges  such as aggravated kidnapping, assault and family violence  but he was booked only on the charge of burglary of a habitation.

RELATED: Records: Border Patrol agent among 13 arrested in South Texas child sex sting operation

Hardeman is accused of forcing his way into an apartment in the 1400 block of Babcock Road around 2 a.m. while his ex-girlfriend and a group of people were throwing a party inside.

Once he was inside, he allegedly pulled out a gun and told everyone except his girlfriend to get out.

Police arrived to the scene shortly thereafter and noticed someone look at them through the curtains, but no one would answer the front door.

A standoff ensued, with Hardeman inside the apartment with his ex-girlfriend.

"After repeated attempts to make contact with someone inside the location failed, SWAT and the Hostage Negotiators were called to the scene," according to a statement from the San Antonio Police Department.

RELATED: Suspect in an 8-hour hostage situation Saturday took same woman hostage in previous standoff

Around 10:45 a.m., after more than eight hours of negotiations involving at least six police negotiators, Hardeman finally released the woman and gave himself up without incident.

The victim was treated at the scene, and was reportedly "shaken up" but did not suffer any serious injuries, police said.

Police said Hardeman has a history of domestic violence, having done the "same thing" with the same woman last year in Harris County, according to Sgt. Jesse Salame, a spokesman for the San Antonio Police Department.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
On the way to the exhibition by visiting art students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts I saw lots of applied art on the streets of the inviting German community. It's election time and visual artists and writers show their creativity on billboards, advertising candidates.

After such an encounter, it was refreshing to meet real artists and see the result of a one week workshop at ArToll's. The exhibition's title was: Au pays de Herr Joseph Beuys. Contexte(s). ArToll is situated on the compounds of a large 100 year old clinic with buildings spreading over 80 hectares, partly still in use as such.

From the works of the 16 artists I try to highlight 4.

Xiaochuan Wang shows us drawings of the face of the German poet Heinrich Heine. The whole installation is called: "Heine, moi" (Heine, me). Lines of Heine's poems and their translations into Chinese figure as elements in the artist's drawings, pointing to the fragmentary and only fleeting success of trying to live in two cultures, for which Heine gives us a tragic example. Nowadays a widespread human condition and the source of many personal and societal problems.

Yanne Kintgen's "Ailleurs" (elsewhere) shows us a picture an elderly man in a pensive mood. The face of the same person is shown on the opposite wall, but the portrait is spread over various prints of two slightly different postures. Again we have fragments and a sense of falling apart, a time when wholesomeness leaves us, beyond repair.

Seungkyun Noh's "Archives" displays many transparent pictures of artifacts, like old hospital beds, taken in the clinic's history museum. Spread over a glass table they are not very intelligible, especially as a mirror under the table doubles the slides. Yet, looking at this mirror from an angle, the black and white pictures are seen against the white ceiling and become readable. The artist has found a gratifying way of turning a puzzle of only fragmentary readable information into clear vision, making whole what looked scattered.

Nilda Isabel Madariaga Osorios installation Autarcie? was also inspired by the history of the clinic, originally a place where patients with all sorts of disabilities worked on clinic owned farms to sustain the community. Hence, the title self-sufficient. The island character of the compounds shielded the vulnerable from a hostile world, but this cloak of charity turned into a cover for atrocities in fascist times. The question mark behind the word autarcie speaks volumes. Entering the ceiling high cloak, with its smooth skin and soft inside cover, one is sealed off from the environment. After a short moment of bliss, one feels that a prolonged stay might not be healthy. Nilda Isabel also refers to events in her own native country Chile, where crimes were committed in a German colony during the fascist Pinochet regime.

Finally, we visit the installation of Huijun Yang, titled "Larmes" (tears), an artificial eye from which tears drop. Tears may be shed for joy or sadness, but in the context of the above mentioned works of art a certain feeling of sadness prevails. The liberating power of crying however was mentioned by Saint Augustine of Hippo, who after the death of his mother Monica felt into a deep depression because he could not express his sadness, but was finally saved by music which set his tears free. This unique installation will set free different thoughts and emotions in different people, but all will admire the ingenuity of this pretty device.
Local News, Crime, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 01 2017

Defendant Sentenced To Two-To-Six Years In State Prison For Accepting Bribes, Stealing Funds From Educational Program For New Yorkers With Disabilities.

New York, NY - May 1, 2017 - Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced the sentencing of Keisha Relf Davis, a New York State Department of Education vocational counselor, for taking part in a scheme that stole nearly $2.4 million from New York State. In September 2014, a Bronx County grand jury indicted Relf Davis along with co-defendants, Juan Cabrera and Juani Ortiz, who were already sentenced on Grand Larceny charges. Relf Davis was sentenced to two to six years in state prison by the Honorable Justice Steven Barrett.

Those who steal from the state will face serious consequences said Attorney General Schneiderman. Government programs cannot be used as a personal piggy bankespecially ones that are intended to help some of our most vulnerable citizens.

As part of the scheme, Relf Davis, in exchange for cash bribes, approved students for the Office of Adult Career and Continuing Education Services Vocational Rehabilitation Program (ACCES-VR), although these students never applied to the program. The ACCES-VR program was created to help eligible New Yorkers with disabilities and functional limitations gain self-dependence through education, training, and employment. Relf Davis knew that the students she approved did not have disabilities or functional limitations to qualify for this program.

From approximately October 2010 through March 2013, in Bronx County and elsewhere in New York, Relf Davis and others agreed to steal over one million dollars from the ACCES-VR program. When students sought on-the-road commercial drivers license (CDL) training lessons at Roadway and Americana, the co-defendants required the students to provide a copy of their drivers license and social security card. In addition, students were required to pay $300 to $500 in cash for the lessons. These cash payments were paid directly to Relf Davis as bribes. Over the course of the scheme, each driving school paid Relf Davis over $10,000 in bribes.

In exchange for the cash bribes, Relf Davis agreed to fraudulently fill out an application for ACCES-VR services on behalf of each Roadway and Americana student for whom she received a drivers license and social security card from the co-defendants. She forged multiple student signatures and falsely indicated that the students suffered from substance abuse problems, when they did not. For each student Relf Davis approved to receive CDL training at Roadway or Americana, Relf Davis agreed to approve payments from ACCES-VR to the driving schools ranging from approximately $3,900 to $4,930, without requiring documentation or evidence that the schools provided the services contained in the proposals or vouchers.

Relf Davis and others knowingly filed false and forged documents with the State Education Department and with ACCES-VR. Specifically, they falsely filed: applications; certifications of vocational services eligibility; proposals; and vouchers with certifications that Roadway and Americana provided 50 hours of classroom instruction, 40 hours of theoretical instruction, and 35 hours of on-the-road training services for the ACCES-VR purported consumers. Roadway and Americana did not provide these services to the students. The services that students received from the schools were worth far less than the amount that ACCES-VR paid.

The Attorney Generals office thanks the Department of Education for their assistance in this case.
School & Education, Local News, Arts & Culture, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 01 2017

In attendance at the event were the fifteen finalists, their art teachers and families, Artspace curator Tracy Todd Hunter, and local artists who served as judges.

Patchogue, NY - May 1, 2017 - On Friday, April 28, 2017, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) hosted his third annual art reception at Artspace in On Friday, April 28, 2017, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) hosted his third annual art reception at Artspace in Patchogue , where he announced Enru Wang, a high school student at Smithtown Christian School, as the 2017 winner of the Congressional Art Competition for the First Congressional District: The Artistic Discovery Contest. In attendance at the event were the fifteen finalists, their art teachers and families, Artspace curator Tracy Todd Hunter, and local artists who served as judges.

The House of Representatives hosts a nationwide high school art competition every spring to raise awareness of the importance of art programs in our schools, and to recognize and celebrate the creativity and diversity of our art students. The winning artwork for each congressional district is displayed in the United States Capitol for one year.

The fifteen finalists include: Giulliana Lorenzo, Bellport High School, Lynda Hernandez, East Hampton High School, Kathleen McGovern, East Hampton High School, Jonathan Realmuto, East Hampton High School, Janie Oglesby, Longwood High School, Syriah Scott, Longwood High School, Gabriella Hassildine, Mattituck High School, Lori Alouidor, Smithtown Christian School, Donna Cheridor, Smithtown Christian School, Jenna Ciarfello, Smithtown Christian School, Samantha Cubas, Smithtown Christian School, Nadya DaRocha, Smithtown Christian School, Alexandra Pepper, Smithtown Christian School, Austin Sala, Smithtown Christian School, and Enru Wang, Smithtown Christian School.

The winner and a guest will receive a flight to Washington, DC to see their artwork on display in the U.S. Capitol building courtesy of Southwest Airlines.
Local News, Crime

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 01 2017

Michelle Ortega-Bonilla, 14, was last seen at her Elm Avenue home on Friday, April 28.

UPDATE - July 6, 2017 - Police report that Michelle Ortega-Bonilla has been located.

Below is the original report.

Hempstead, NY - May 1, 2017 - The Missing Persons Squad is investigating a Missing Juvenile that occurred on Friday, April 28, 2017 at 8:00 am in The Missing Persons Squad is investigating a Missing Juvenile that occurred on Friday, April 28, 2017 at 8:00 am in Hempstead

According to detectives, Michelle Ortega-Bonilla, 14, was last seen at her Elm Avenue home in Hempstead on Friday, April 28, 2017. Michelle is described as a female hispanic, 50 tall, 130 lbs., curly brown hair, brown eyes and glasses. Her clothing description is unknown. Michelle may be in the Uniondale area.
SCPD Issue Alert for Missing Central Islip Man Last Seen in September, 2016

Local News, Crime

By Long Island News & PR Published: May 01 2017

Nadeem Mohammad, 28, was last seen at Masjid Darul Quran mosque in Bay Shore.

SCPD are seeking Nadeem Mohammad, 28, who was reported missing last week and was last seen in Bay Shore in September.

Central Islip, NY - May 1, 2017 - Suffolk County Police Third Squad detectives are seeking the publics help to locate a man who was reported missing last week and was last seen in Suffolk County Police Third Squad detectives are seeking the publics help to locate a man who was reported missing last week and was last seen in Bay Shore in September.

Nadeem Mohammad, 28, was last seen at the Masjid Darul Quran mosque, located at 1514 East 3rd Ave., Bay Shore in September of 2016. He moved out of his residence in Central Islip , in July of 2016. Mohammeds family reported him missing on April 22, 2017.



Police believe Mohammad is driving a 2006 Mercury Milan, plate FRV 7114, similar to the one in the above photo. Photo Credit: SCPD



Mohammed is Middle Eastern, 5 feet 6 inches tall, approximately 185 pounds with black hair, brown eyes and a beard. He has previously been employed at several gas stations.
Both the Taliban and the Afghan government have slightly increased the number of Afghan districts under their control over the past three months, but the security situation remains virtually unchanged, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in its most recent quarterly report to United States Congress.

The Taliban controls 11 districts and influences 34 of Afghanistans 407 districts (11 percent), while the Afghan government controls 97 districts and influences 146 (60 percent). Twenty-nine percent of Afghanistans districts remain contested. Taliban control of Afghan districts has increased one percent, while Afghan control has increased by 2.5 percent, according to SIGAR.

SIGARs assessment is based on data provided by US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and Resolute Support, NATOs mission in Afghanistan. Both USFOR-A and Resolute Support have underestimated and understated the Talibans control of districts in the past.

Most recently, in March, when the Taliban overran Sangin in Helmand province, Resolute Support denied the district center was overrun and instead claimed it was relocated several miles away while the old complex was bombed to rubble and dirt. Or, when the Taliban seized control of half of Kunduz City in October 2016, Resolute Support claimed the city was under Afghan military control. Resolute Support responded similarly when the Taliban overran Nawa district in October 2016.

The SIGAR report also identified what FDDs Long War Journal has previously described as a belt of bases in the south that stretches across the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, and Ghazni which are used to attack nearby provincial capitals.

USFOR-A identified the regions/provinces with the largest percentage of insurgent controlled or influenced districts as Uruzgan Province, with four of its six districts under insurgent control or influence (a one-district improvement since last quarter), and Helmand with nine of 14 districts under insurgent control or influence (a one-district decline since last quarter), SIGAR noted. The region with the most districts under insurgent control or influence is centered on northeastern Helmand Province and northwestern Kandahar Province, and includes the Helmand/Kandahar border area, Uruzgan Province, and northwestern Zabul.

Less vital areas

Previously, the US military justified the loss of territory to the Taliban by claiming the Afghan governments new Sustainable Security Strategy calls for abandoning districts that are not important. Now, the US military is saying that the Afghan military is placing less emphasis on less vital areas.

USFOR-A attributes the loss of government control or influence over territory to the ANDSFs strategic approach to security prioritization, identifying the most important areas that the ANDSF must hold to prevent defeat, and placing less emphasis on less vital areas, SIGAR notes.

This strategy neglects the fact that the Taliban views these less vital areas as critical to its insurgency. The Taliban uses theses districts to raise funds, recruit and train fighters, and launch attacks on population centers. Additionally, Taliban allies such as al Qaeda run training camps and operate bases in areas under Taliban control. This strategy was explained by Mullah Aminullah Yousuf, the Talibans shadow governor for Uruzgan, in April 2016.

The Taliban has utilized its control of the rural districts to directly threaten major population centers. Last year, the Taliban was able to threaten five of Afghanistans 34 provincial capitals. The government lost control of more than half of Kunduz City for more than an entire week last fall.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of 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.
Lifestyle / Gastronomy

Those in search of new places to visit, can look forward to Mario Batali and Jeremiah Tower opening a new restaurant together in Italy

May 01, 2017 | By AFP Relaxnews

Celebrity chefs Mario Batali and Jeremiah Tower are teaming up to open a restaurant on the Amalfi Coast in Italy together. The project seems to have been borne from what sounded like an off-hand statement from Tower during an interview with Bon Appetit magazine published this week.

Buried at the very bottom of the story, Tower says theres one thing that could lure him back into the kitchen. If Mario Batali would like to open a restaurant on the Amalfi Coast with me, I would do it. Until then, hell be eating tacos.

It seems his taco-eating days in Mexico where he currently lives, may be fewer and far between after Batali took to Twitter to confirm that the project is a go. In reply to a tweet that links to the story, Batali wrote We are in the planning phase. Stay tuned!!

Tower has been doing the media circuit recently to promote a new documentary produced by Anthony Bourdain, that chronicles his career as a rising chef at Chez Panisse in California, and one of the most influential figures in American gastronomy.

Food blog Eater.com confirmed the news with Batalis spokesperson, who said the chefs are looking for beach-front properties between Atrani and Vietri along the Amalfi Coast.
The worlds two largest archipelagos, Indonesia with 14,000 islands and another stunning 7,000 in the Philippines, have had chequered charter histories. Bali and the Nusa Tenggara to its East, plus Borneo, Sulawesi, Maluku and the Spice Islands, have gradually opened up, with more charter yachts available. The Philippines, however, has remained as remote as before and, apart from a few passing superyachts, charter vessels are few and far between.

Now the Dutch owner of a well-kept 32 metre Azimut Grande, Antonia II, hopes to offer a series of itineraries that will surely attract more charter guests. Based between Subic Bay and sometimes Manila Yacht Club, he plans to highlight the Hundred Islands and Lingayan Gulf north of Manila, Manila Bay to Puerto Galera in Mindoro, striking El Nido and Palawan, and various parts of the lovely Visayas, including Boracay, the latter basing from Philippines second city Cebu.

Helping to bring this venture to reality from last month are highly experienced charter agents Sytske Kimman in Hong Kong and Lies Sol in Phuket, both now part of the fast-growing Northrop and Johnson Asia sales and charter network.

Lies advises that Antonia II had one prior American owner from her launch in 2007. He took extremely good care of the vessel,and sailed her mostly in Florida and the Caribbean. The present owner shipped her to Hong Kong, then with a new captain and crew motored across the South China Sea to Subic Bay.

Antonia II has a four-stateroom layout, with the master suite on the principal deck, plus two more doubles and a twin cabin. For an attractive US$75,000-US$85,000 a week plus all expenses, this set-up seems perfect for a family with children, or three or four couples looking for an out-of-the-ordinary boating vacation.

Recent upgrades include a complete respray of the hull and superstructure, and the addition of cleaner and quieter underwater exhausts. Mechanical, electrical and electronic systems have been similarly treated, and the interior has been updated. Other small things, says the owner, include new furniture, best quality bed linen and Versace chinaware.
Uber reportedly tagged iPhones with persistent IDs that allowed it to identify devices uniquely after a phone had been wiped and configured from scratch. The company said it was about fraud detection, but its history makes many people dubious, whether thats true or not.

Bigger issues were raised, however. Its Apple who discovered the violation of its terms, news about which never appeared until last week. Is Apple acting in our best interests as proprietary and quiet stewards of our identities? This tagging also raises the spectre of a silent ban by app makers, in which consumers could buy a second-hand phone previously employed for fraud that cant be used ever again with many services.

Lets start with what happened two years ago, and which would have destroyed Ubers business.

Whats Uber up to?

The New York Times on April 23 said Travis Kalanick, the CEO of the once-darling of taxi replacements Uber, had been called to Apple in early 2015 to meet with Tim Cook. In the storys first draft, it was because Uber had secretly been tracking iPhones even after its app had been deleted from the devices, violating Apples privacy guidelines. Change your app, Cook reportedly said, or itll be pulled from the App Store.

A few hours later, a revised version of the story appeared. Now it read, Uber had been secretly been identifying and tagging iPhones even after its app had been deleted and the devices eraseda fraud detection maneuver that violating Apples privacy guidelines.

To be fair, the change isnt as big as it seems: Uber was tracking iPhonesby their identity, not their location. This detail was explained in depth at the storys endalong with the detail that Uber knew it wasnt conforming to Apples stance on privacy, because its programmers had used geofencing to block out Cupertino, hoping to avoid Apples scrutiny. That failed.

Apple didnt reply to a request for comment for this column. Uber provided a statement that Ill get into, but which doesnt address the geofencing or whether its actions went against the rules of the App Store. Security researcher and entrepreneur Will Strafach posted screen captures on Twitter of code extracted from a 2014 release of Ubers iOS app that confirmed the claims.

There are so many issues raised by this incident. Should Uber have been bumped from the store, as many iOS developers said smaller firms would have been after the news broke? Should Apple have disclosed this device tagging or required Uber to do so? Was user privacy put at risk? Uber now has a long history of sketchy actions related to our whereabouts and actions, which is not just documented, but for some of which Kalanick has apologizedcan its explanation of how it uses device tagging be trusted?

And is it possible that many other developers engaged in similar kinds of tagging without Apple having noticed, or less persistent forms but still beyond user expectations and App Store guidelines?

Fighting fraud

The statement Uber sent to me reiterates the point the Times story tilted towards in its revision and near its end: this is a typical way to prevent fraudsters from loading Uber onto a stolen phone, putting in a stolen credit card, taking an expensive ride and then wiping the phoneover and over again. Similar techniques are also used for detecting and blocking suspicious logins to protect our users accounts. The statement didnt note something mentioned elsewhere: drivers particularly in China coordinated faked rides to obtain bonuses paid out in competition between Uber and Didi Chuxing. (Uber agreed last August to merge its operations with Didi Chuxing.)

Uber also stated, We absolutely do not track individual users or their location if theyve deleted the app. People were suspicious of this claim, because of a change in December 2016 in which Uber continued to track location for up to five minutes after a ride was complete. Shortly after that, it appeared that Uber was tracking all the time, although the company said it was related to Apples Maps extensions, which allow third-party apps to add and offer certain kinds of information, but which can be disabled individually.

Any time theyre breaking the rulesand to be clear, this wasnt just bending the rules, it was breaking the rulespeople assume it was for some reason, often nefarious, said Greg Leppert, an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and a software and services entrepreneur himself.

However, Ubers assertions make logical sense. First, without having an app installed, Uber would need to have some other mechanism in place that would regularly provide them with information. That could be a secret partnership or ownership of another commonly used app, or arrangements with advertising networks to feed location. The former would be difficult; the latter would require associating users, ads, and location together in a useful-enough way to pass on, regulatory and other issues aside.

And Uber is obviously the constant victim of fraud, as are people whose credit-card numbers and Uber account credentials are stolen. A single iPhone that cycles through various scams related to Uber could cost the company hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how long its in use.

Its also hard to see how Uber benefits outside of noticing fraud when a user uninstalls and later reinstalls the app. The user might use a different email address, but there are other markers, including their typical locations for pick-up and drop-off, that likely are just as easy to associate.

Apple barred the use of a built-in unique device identifier, the UDID, in May 2013 from new or updated apps, and later prevented that code from being read by an app in any fashion. Other potentially unique IDs, like the cellular IMMEI, are blocked as well. Apple doesnt mention policies around this in its App Review Guidelines, but it does cover it explicitly in the developer program license agreement: Further, neither You nor Your Application will use any permanent, device-based identifier, or any data derived therefrom, for purposes of uniquely identifying a device.

Leppert said, Its probably a fair assumption that they are still doing it, but they are probably doing it in ways that are compliant with Apples guidelines, and probably a little less reliable than pulling a device ID.

Theres a worry here, however: The idea that the user through legitimate means could end up with a tainted device, Leppert noted. If Uber is part of the critical infrastructure, this puts me at a severe disadvantage. Uber didnt disclose until now that it was tagging devices and seemingly has no appeals banned phone.

Is Uber alone?

It would be naive to assume Uber was the only company that created a UDID replacement, however accurate it was. If its possible for one development team to do it, others would as well. The fact that theres been no widespread removal of apps for this reason, other leaks about similar threats from Apple to pull apps, or broad chatter makes it seem like its either below Apples radar (though perhaps about to change due to the attention from this article), or ineffective.

One developer pointed me to an open-source library of iOS code that provides persistent user identification, even when an app is deleted and later reinstalled in a number of cases, and that many apps use. I asked Apple if the library conforms to its rules, and didnt get an answer.

But that library doesnt survive wiping an iPhone and setting it up from scratch; it only persists with a restore that includes the secure keychain.

And one of the techniques for persistence between delete and reinstall, storing items in the secure keychain, will disappear soon. This seemed to be a flaw, not a feature, that a deleted apps keychain items would remain. A beta of iOS 10.3 deleted these items when removing an app, but its not clear that was rolled out yet in the 10.3 release tree.

Leppert noted that of all the assumptions made about Ubers behavior, few were raised about Apples. Weve all defaulted to thinking theyre in our best interests, he said. He suggested that given Apple didnt disclose Ubers transgressions despite holding a guillotine over Ubers neck, its worth giving Apple a hard look as well.
The great Gold Rush Music Festival returns to the township of Waihi, with the first nuggets of gold dropping for the highly anticipated return of the 2023 festival.
MARTINSVILLE-For the second time in a month, Kristen Westover finds herself on a list of finalists to be a community college president.

This week, the State Board for Community Colleges certified finalists for the position of president at Mountain Empire Community College. Westover, who currently serves as vice president for academic and student services at Patrick Henry Community College, was one of the four.

All total, more than 80 people submitted their name for consideration to succeed Dr. Scott Hamilton, who is retiring as president at Mountain Empire in June. Hamilton, who served as the school's sixth president, has been in the role since 2010.

Mountain Empire has a total of 3,800 credit students and more than 1,000 noncredit students, which typically come from the counties of Lee, Scott, Wise and Dickenson, as well as the city of Norton. The school, which operates in Big Stone Gap, is slightly larger than PHCC. College enrollment at PHCC averages about 2,900.

Westover and the other three finalists will each visit the Mountain Empire campus in May, meeting with faculty, staff, students and community members.

Before coming to PHCC, Westover was the higher education program coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin from 2009 to 2011. She was director of technical programs and curriculum for the Kansas Board of Regents from 2008 to 2009. At Colby Community College in Kansas, she was on the math faculty before being promoted to the colleges vice president for academic affairs. She also has taught high school math.

After dropping out of high school at 16, Westover earned a general educational development (GED) certificate, which is considered the equivalent of a diploma. She later earned a bachelors degree in math plus a masters degree in instructional technology from Fort Hays State University in Kansas, followed by a doctorate in education from Nova Southeastern University in Florida.

Last year, the Aspen Institute chose to include Westover, a Martinsville native, in the inaugural class of its national Aspen Presidential Fellows program for community college administrators.

In an interview earlier this month with the Bulletin, Westover said while she was happy at PHCC, she had developed a strong desire to be a community college president. This position at Mountain Empire is actually the second she's been considered a finalist for over the last month. At the beginning of April, officials announced Westover was also in the running for the president's job at New River Community College.

NRCC has an estimated 4,500 students and serves Montgomery, Floyd, Pulaski and Giles counties, along with the city of Radford.
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beer glasses

Two beer events are on tap this week in Western Massachusetts.

(David Molnar | The Republican file photo)

It's an old complaint from people living in the 413 area code: Folks out in the eastern part of Massachusetts barely know we exist.

While this is true to a certain extent, it seems be changing over the past decade or so. And to further the cause, at least in the craft beer world, some people in the local beer industry are collaborating with a former Western Massachusetts resident to highlight the area's great craft brewing scene.

On May 7, Lord Hobo in Cambridge will feature some tasty Western Massachusetts beers on tap as a teaser to the upcoming Western Mass Beer Week (June 10-17).

Lord Hobo, of course, is a beer bar founded by Daniel Lanigan, a well-known figure in the western part of the state due to his former ownership of such iconic beer halls as the Moan and Dove in Amherst and The Dirty Truth in Northampton.

The beers being featured at this event include Amherst Brewing, Artifact, Berkshire Brewing, Building 8, Brewmaster Jack, Brick & Feather, and Honest Weight. That's quite a superb and diverse lineup, in my humble opinion.

Attendees will be entered into a Western Mass Beer Week swag raffle, with details to be announced.

The beers will be tapped for the venue's opening at 11 a.m., but a meet-and-greet with Brewers will take place between 1-3 p.m. Sounds like a great Sunday day trip out east for beer lovers to show support for their local brewers. The Lord Hobo is at 92 Hampshire St.

Beer notes

* I'll be writing a full piece on this as it gets closer, but just a heads-up about the 13th annual New England Brewfest: the event will take place over three days in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, June 23-25. The weekend will include a blend of social events and workshops, as well as a Saturday night tasting of more than 30 New England beers. For more information or to get an early jump on the proceedings, go to http://www.nebrewfest.com.

* Spencer Brewery at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, the first certified Trappist brewery in the country, just announced it will be releasing a new Trappist ale, Spencer Monk's Reserve Ale, in June. The beer was approved as an official Trappist brew in March by the International Trappist Association.

The beer is a Belgian quadrupel ale with a robust alcohol content of 10.2 percent. The brew will be unveiled at the BeerAdvocate Microbrew Invitational at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston, June 2-3. It will be then be made available to retail distributors on June 12.
Boston police search for car April 30, 2017

Boston Police released photographs of this sedan after they say the driver struck a bicyclist in Back Bay on April 30, 2017

(Boston Police Department )

Police in Boston are searching for a vehicle they say struck a bicyclist Sunday morning in the Back Bay area, leaving the victim with life-threatening injuries.

Officers were called to the area of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street around 3:20 a.m. for a report of an incident involving a cyclist and a vehicle.

The 30-year-old male victim was taken to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said.

Investigators believe a silver sedan struck the victim and fled the scene. The vehicle has damage on the roof and near the driver's side windshield.

Another bicycle rider was with the victim, according to Fox25 News. Police told the television station that the sedan went the wrong way on Berkeley Avenue while leaving the area.

Anyone with information is strongly urged to contact Boston Police detectives at (617) 343-4470.
TEWKSBURY Three people were arrested in Tewksbury Friday night, after the alleged kidnapping of a child from a supervised visit in New Hampshire triggered an Amber Alert.

The Amber Alert was issued after authorities said Erika Wallace took her 2-year-old son from a supervised visit with the New Hampshire Department of Children, Youth and Families at a Manchester mall.

The child is in the custody of the state of New Hampshire, but his parents were allowed supervised visits. It was during one of those visits that the child disappeared from the Mall of New Hampshire in Manchester.

Later Friday night, Tewksbury police saw a white Chrysler Town and Country mini-van similar to one driven by Erika and Joshua Wallace near a Motel 6. Officers approached the van and found the child along with his parents inside.

Erika Wallace is being charged with parental kidnapping, obstruction of justice and conspiracy. She also has outstanding warrants for drug possession, larceny, and motor vehicle violations.

The boy's father, Joshua Wallace faces charges of parental kidnapping, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and outstanding warrants for drug possession and child endangerment.

A third person, Nicolette Russell of Georgetown was charged with obstruction of justice, providing a false name to police after arrest and conspiracy.

The child has been returned to the custody of the state of new Hampshire.
Vermont-based brewing company Keurig is reportedly being slapped with a lawsuit two years after one of its coffee machines sparked a costly fire at an Upton home. Boston-based insurer Liberty Mutual claims the coffee machine is to blame for the $100,000 in damages to the home.

The lawsuit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court, reports the Boston Globe. Liberty Mutual alleges the Keurig K70 model is a defective model that should not have been sold originally.

The legal dispute stems from a fire at the home of Katherine White in 2015, according to the Globe. The fire, which destroyed much of the home, was sparked when her Keurig machine caught fire. White's insurer, Liberty Mutual, reportedly paid for the damages, but is now looking for compensation from the company they say caused the destruction in the first place.

In February 2017, The Vermont Biz reported that Keurig Green Mountain Inc. paid a $5.8 million civil penalty to the federal government after it failed to report a defect from 2010-2014. In those years, the company reportedly received about 200 complaints of machines spraying hot water and coffee grounds at users, who suffered second and third-degree burns. The company also recalled more than 6 million MINI Plus brewers in December 2014.
construction.JPG

CHICOPEE - The Department of Public Works is announcing its upcoming construction schedule for multiple projects to separate storm and sewer lines.

Motorists are being warned that there will be delays on Chicopee and Grattan streets due to paving. Motorists will likely be detoured from Chicopee Street to Meadow Street for most of the week.

During the following week there will be traffic problems on Burnett Road, between Sandtrap Way and the Ludlow border because of the installation of a water line. The city has started an $11 million project to install a redundant water line that brings water from the Quabbin Reservoir into the city. Currently there is only one line and it is aging and if it was to fail many homes and businesses would be without water. The city is one of the few that has only one main that delivers water to all residents and businesses.

This week there will also be a number of streets, especially in Willimansett, that are being graded to prepare for future paving.

The following is a list of locations where construction will be happening over the next few weeks. The schedule is subject to change depending on weather and other factors:



Alden Street: Grading will happen on this street Monday through Friday.

Brooks Street: Drainage will be installed Wednesday through Friday.

Burnett Road: The water main will be installed May 8 through 12.

Chicopee Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone will happen Monday through Friday. Paving is expected May 9 through 15.

Grattan Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone is scheduled for Monday through Friday. This street is to be paved on May 9.

Hope Street: Roadway grading is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Margaret Street: Roadway grading is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Marion Street: Installation of drainage will happen Monday and Tuesday.

Mt. Carmel Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Nassau Street: Roadway grading is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Olivine Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Perrault Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Philathea Street: Grading is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Prospect Street: Sidewalk reconstruction between Buckley Boulevard to Factory Street will happen though May 12.

St. Louis Street: Roadway grinding will happen all week.

Pine Street: Grading is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

St. Louis Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone is scheduled for Monday through Friday.

Summer Street: Water services will be installed all week.

Walnut Street: The sewer main will be installed from May 8 through 12 in the area between the intersections of Church Street and Broadway.

Whitman Street: Grading will happen Monday through Friday.

Yvonne Street: Grading and placement of dense grade stone is scheduled for Monday through Friday.




A multi-generational and ethnically diverse crowd of hundreds marched through downtown Northampton on Monday, May Day, to press demands for social justice and immigrant rights.



The marchers chanted out slogans supporting a living wage, open borders and a public education and opposing draconian immigration policy and rightwing worldview generally down Main Street on the way to City Hall, where speakers addressed the crowd.



Through an interpreter, a Latin American immigrant named Carlos shared his experience of coming to the U.S. alone to find work to support his family back home.



"I was suffering for my family," he said. "All parents know that you will do anything for your children. I was picking up trash, picking up bottles to raise money to send back to my family."



He added, "Fortunately, I made a lot of friends."

Eighteen businesses in Northampton, Springfield and Florence closed their doors Monday to honor the strike and 179 organizations in Western Massachusetts committed to participate, bolstering the crowd seen on the streets Monday.





May Day, celebrated for centuries in western culture as a spring day of festivities, was during the late nineteenth century chosen by workers' organizations as a day of solidarity among worldwide laborers.



Different countries celebrate the day with varying traditions, festivals and showings of community.



In 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower's administration deemed May 1 "Law Day" in an attempt to dampen U.S. participation in a holiday associated with labor struggle, but the move hardly stuck.



The Food Chain Workers Alliance, a Los Angeles-based union representing 300,000, called the national strike of which Monday's demonstration in Northampton was part.



"May 1 is connected to a larger, radical tradition of immigrant women demanding equal pay, the minimum wage, eight hour work days," said Diana Sierra, an organizer with Pioneer Valley Workers' Center. "After this strike, we're not going anywhere. It's just one tactic to continue building the movement."



She added, "We want sanctuary city legislation nationwide. We're calling for the legalization of all undocumented immigrants in the United States, all 11 million. We want overtime for all workers and a minimum wage of $15 an hour. We want an end to state violence against workers, immigrants, women, people of color and LGBT people. We also want to dismantle Immigration Customs Enforcement. It sounds like a radical demand, but we are facing radical conditions. ICE is a racist institution that protects the interest of capitalists. They are 21st century slave-catchers. They are literally chasing and incarcerating undocumented black people."



The march began at Pioneer Valley Workers Center on Hampton Avenue and ended at City Hall with a variety of immigrant speakers, songs and more cries from the sizable audience.






The three dozen Lolo Middle School students who toured two fast-growing tech companies in Missoula on Friday are familiar with the internet, technology, digital advertising and software.

What they arent so familiar with  and what they learned on the tour  is that there are good-paying jobs at companies right here in town that might be desperate to hire them a few years down the road.

June Noel, an experienced digital coder and local chapter director of ChickTech Missoula, brought the kids to her new place of employment, Lumenad https://lumenad.com/ , to give them a taste of some possible careers in the tech field. Lumenad is a digital advertising technology company that has roughly 30 employees and is growing so fast its in the process of remodeling new office space in the Florence Building downtown.

Michael FitzGerald, a co-founder of Missoula tech company Submittable http://www.submittable.com, also gave the students a tour of his companys office and products. The company makes a cloud-based platform that makes it easy for people to accept and review digital content. His message to the kids was that tech companies like Submittable are trying to prevent the best and brightest high school and college graduates from leaving Montana to seek careers elsewhere.

"We hope to have around 500 employees by the time you all graduate high school," FitzGerald told the kids. "You can stay in Montana and share with the world based on the architecture of the Internet."

DAVID ERICKSON [email protected]

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/news/local/local-tech-companies-host-lolo-middle-school-students/article_9131e1fb-a2fa-5819-aeda-3769cf6bb4b4.html
Gov. Matt Mead has chosen business and community leaders from across the state to serve on a board focused on diversifying and strengthening Wyomings economy for the long term.

Mead announced the ENDOW http://endowyo.biz initiative and championed it during the most recent session of the Wyoming Legislature. Ultimately, lawmakers provided $2.5 million for the economic diversification effort.

Mead said ENDOW  which stands for Economically Needed Diversity Options for Wyoming  was critical for the states economy in the long term. He emphasized finding stable streams of state revenue and creating more opportunities for young adults in Wyoming.

Full Story: http://trib.com/business/mead-announces-board-for-economic-diversification-effort/article_5142ab4d-97cb-5117-b363-22652f80966c.html
PFL Tech Inc. is a marketing technology company that provides sales enablement and marketing automation solutions, as well asprinting, mailing, and fulfillment services. They also provide some great Montana Jobs.
Every day Jenn Mayrand wakes up ready to "work hard and throw everything at my business." She knew her job as a contractor wouldnt last forever, and she didnt want to keep working outside all year. She knew it was time for a change, and this pushed Jenn to realize her dream of owning a small business. Jenn launched her jewelry line Badass Babe LLC to reflect her own personal style, all with the mindset that failure isnt an option.

As a business owner myself, I know firsthand Montana is a great place for entrepreneurs. Like many small businesses, our restaurant in Butte is family owned and operated. When my husband was laid up after surgery, my daughter stepped in to keep the place running. We pride ourselves on not only running a business, but building a community, too. I know were not alone in this, as business owners in every corner of the state play big role in building our communities.

Pam Haxby-Cote is the Director of the Montana Department of Commerce.

Full Story: http://commerce.mt.gov/News/PressReleases/honoring-the-backbone-of-montanas-economy
Morgan County Veterans Day Parade slated Nov. 11 Audio Article The Morgan County Veterans Day Parade will be held on Friday, Nov. 11. The parade will form at the Commons, in McConnelsville, at 9:30 a.m. and set out at 10 a.m. The American Legion Post 24 will render honors at the monuments at the Commons, Riecker Building, the Square, at...

A concert with two purposes Audio Article Wednesday, Nov. 30, a concert with dual purposes is being held at the Twin City Opera House in McConnelsville, Ohio. Its a thank-you to healthcare workers, who can attend for free, and its a benefit for the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society. In September 2021, Rick Shriver contracted COVID-19. He collapsed...

BOE reminder of early voting hours and polling location change Audio Article Remaining early voting hours at the Morgan County Board of Elections are as follows: from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov, 2 through Friday, Nov. 4; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5; from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6; and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m....

Lions Club announces annual Wreaths Across America Audio Article On Saturday, Dec. 17, the Chesterhill Lions Club will be joining with National Wreaths Across America in the laying of wreaths at each of the seven cemeteries located in Marion Township. The mission is to honor the local veterans who have served our nation so their families can rest assured...

Governor DeWine awards $6.7 million for domestic violence survivor programs Audio Article Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has announced that he is awarding $6.7 million to support the work of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network (ODVN) to offer mobile and health advocacy services and temporary residential services for domestic violence survivors across the state. The announcement comes during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month....

CDC committee vote wont change Ohio school vaccine requirement Audio Article Ohio Department of Health Director Bruce Vanderhoff, MD, MBA has released the following statement: The CDCs Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendation for the COVID-19 vaccine to be added to the formulary or schedule of vaccines for children does not mandate this vaccine for school children. Ohio law determines...
Workers produce bricks at a Viglacera factory in Thai Binh province (Photo: VNA)



The company plans to set up a joint venture in ceramic and porcelain tiles with chartered capital of nearly USD40 million and total investment of some USD61.8 million.

In the first phase, Viglacera will contribute capital by providing technical services, spare parts replacement and cash to renovate two factories to serve Cuban market demand and export and invest in new production lines of sanitary ware and floor tiles.

In the field of tourism and hotels, Viglacera is also cooperating with domestic partners to attract capital to establish a company, expected to have charter capital of some 3 million USD, to cooperate with Cuban partners.

In addition, the corporation plans to set up a company in Cuba to implement real estate projects, initially to invest and upgrade two hotels owned by two groups in Cuba, at the same time seeking new investment projects.

Viglacera also plans to invest in industrial park infrastructure, with a 168ha project in Cubas Mariel Special Economic Zone.

Last December, Viglacera entered into a joint venture partnership with Cuban giant developer Geicon to manufacture building material in the Caribbean island nation, of which, Viglacera is responsible for upgrading two existing ceramics and sanitary ware plants and investing in two more, four years after the joint venture is operational./.
Usuda Reiko, a member of the association, said that underprivileged kids in Da Nangs Cam Le, Hoa Vang, Ngu Hanh Son districts and Quang Nam province will benefit from the bicycle donation this year.

Da Nang and Hoi An boost cultural exchange with Japan annually by hosting the annual Vietnam-Japan Culture Exchange Festival in August.

Japan plans to open a Consulate General in Da Nang as a way of boosting tourism and exchange between Japan and the central city.

Japanese language teaching has been taught at some junior secondary schools as part of the citys foreign language teaching programme for 2012-20.

Da Nang also reserved a 1.2ha area for developing the Japan-Vietnam Culture Centre in Ngu Hanh Son district as well as launching direct flights from Da Nang to Osaka./.
Replacing the standard vaccines currently recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) - most of which require refrigeration - with heat-stable versions would save money and increase protection of women, children and babies from deadly diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, tetanus, measles and yellow fever, according to a study by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the HERMES Logistics Team (consisting of members from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center at Carnegie Mellon University) published today in the journal Vaccine. This is the first study to analyze the additional clinical and economic impact of heat-stable vaccines.

The time and resources it would take to make existing vaccines heat-stable, or thermostable, so that they do not need to be stored in refrigerators or carried to patients in containers with ice packs, would be worthwhile because, in addition to increasing access for children who live in resource-limited regions where electricity may be unreliable, insufficient or non-existent, it would also save money in the long-run by reducing medical costs related to infections. Specifically, this study looked at the benefits of making twelve vaccines heat-stable, most of which are recommended by the WHO as part of the standard package recommended for all children through the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI). Currently, almost all vaccines need to be kept between 35F to 46F (2-8C) from the point of manufacture to the patient, which is a significant logistical challenge in developing countries where cold storage options are limited and electricity is scarce.

"It's common sense - some of the children most in need of these lifesaving vaccines live in places where health care is already hard to access," said Julien Potet, neglected tropical diseases and vaccines advisor at MSF's Access Campaign. "By making vaccines that are easier to transport in places like Benin, India and Niger, we can save more lives and improve public health. This study shows that the argument against investing in heat-stable vaccines isn't viable. Working to make existing vaccines thermostable will actually save money in the long-run by reducing the need for future medical care for infections from these vaccine-preventable diseases."

The modeling study used the Highly Extensible Resource for Modeling Event-Driven Supply Chains (HERMES) software to construct simulation models of vaccine supply chains - including the conditions in which they were stored and administered, the type of container they were stored in and how they were shipped and transported. It ran detailed simulations of how the supply chain would be affected, how vaccine availability in health centers would be improved and how disease burdens would be decreased over the course of a year when a vaccine was made heat-stable. The simulation, which analyzed how heat-stable vaccines would perform in Benin, India and Niger, also looked at the money that would be saved in logistics costs associated with keeping vaccines cool and medical costs by preventing infections in the first place. Acknowledging that pharmaceutical companies may charge more for vaccines if they invest in making them heat-stable, the study also analyzed the benefits if a heat-stable vaccine cost doubled or tripled in its current price.

The study focused on several standard vaccines, including the BCG tuberculosis vaccine, measles vaccine, oral polio vaccine, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, pentavalent vaccine, tetanus toxoid vaccine, yellow fever vaccine and rotavirus vaccine.

The majority of currently available vaccines must be kept cold at all times or they may degrade, making the product less effective. Maintaining constant refrigeration of vaccines in developing countries that have scarcity of cold storage and face supply chain challenges is a significant obstacle to reaching children in need. However, heat-stable vaccines could make a significant difference. For example, this study found that a heat-stable pneumonia vaccine could increase overall vaccine availability to 86 percent in Benin, compared to the 80 percent baseline availability of all vaccines in Benin. Additionally, the study found an overall increase to 56 percent (baseline availability is 50 percent) and to 58 percent (baseline availability is 46 percent) in India and Niger, respectively.

In addition to lowering the medical costs of treating infections, heat-stable vaccines would help prevent infections and increase life expectancy. It would also help improve productivity by preventing illnesses during adulthood that could force people to quit their jobs, which impacts local economies. For example, the study found that replacing the current pentavalent vaccine with a heat-stable formula could save up to $10,945 per 100 people in Niger.

"Medical care providers like MSF constantly struggle with the task of keeping vaccines cool en route to patients in resource-limited settings where infrastructure is weak and there's no power supply or it's unreliable," Potet said. "In some of the most remote parts of the world, our staff on the ground hand-carry vaccines across rough paths, on the backs of motorbikes and over river crossings, in order to reach patients who need them. This task would not only be significantly easier if vaccines were thermostable, but this study shows that the economic and medical gains would be great."

Previous studies have shown that replacing existing vaccines with heat-stable versions reduces bottlenecks in the vaccine supply chain and increases availability. There are also fewer vaccines wasted with heat-stable vaccines because they don't go bad when taken out of the cold chain.The HERMES Logistics Team, which includes the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) at Carnegie Mellon University contributed to the study.

Article: Economic impact of thermostable vaccines, Julien Potet et al., Vaccine, doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.03.081, published online 25 April 2017.
Finding a cure for a rare type of blood cancer could be accelerated by a new virtual platform that allows researchers easy access to data from patient samples generated by laboratories around the world.

LEUKomics, which has been launched by scientists at the University of Glasgow and the University of Melbourne, is a comprehensive database describing over 100 chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) samples. It is completely free for researchers to use and share.

CML symptoms often include severe fatigue and weight loss, and although it develops slowly, it will eventually progress and prove fatal if untreated. Unlike many other cancers, a single genetic mutation underlies the biology of CML. The fault occurs early on in the development of a type of white blood cell called myeloid cells.

Scientists hope LEUKomics will increase understanding of CML, and lead to new targeted drugs and ultimately a cure. The website has been built as part of the stem cell database Stemformatics, with funding from the charities Bloodwise and the Scottish Cancer Foundation.

Drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors, or TKIs, were introduced in the early 2000s, and are designed to target the genetic mutation that drives CML. Most patients can take a daily pill and live a normal life, but some people experience intolerable side effects from TKIs or develop resistance.

One of the main aims of current research is to design treatments that can target the underlying leukaemic stem cells that can evade TKIs, offering hope of a permanent cure. To do this, researchers need to know more about these elusive leukaemic stem cells, and they believe that the answers lie in the analysis of large scale biological information.

Developed by the teams of Professor Christine Wells at The University of Melbourne and Professor Tessa Holyoake at The University of Glasgow, the LEUKomics database curates high quality information on the gene activity of different CML stem cell samples.

Due to the expense of generating this data and difficulties obtaining these rare CML cells from patient material, single datasets tend to have small sample numbers, which limits their potential to show small changes in the leukaemic samples. With the increased samples size that comes from combining multiple data sets, researchers have the power to detect more subtle changes that may be crucial to the biology of the leukaemic stem cells.

Professor Jeff Evans, Director of the Institute of Cancer Sciences at the University of Glasgow said: "LEUKomics is a very valuable resource and could help us to reveal new underlying mechanisms that drive CML. It has the potential to transform CML research on a global level, as the findings can be downloaded and shared with other researchers across the world. We also hope it inspires new research ideas, and ultimately fuels a global search into finding cures for CML."

The data allows researchers to uncover how active different genes are in leukaemic stem cells and how these interact with each other to affect the blood cancer's behaviour. The online portal also contains samples of healthy blood stem cells, allowing researchers to directly compare the gene activity with leukaemic stem cells.

Dr Alasdair Rankin, Director of Research at Bloodwise, said: "Thanks to research, most patients with CML will now live a normal life by taking a single pill. But treatment is life-long and not everyone can tolerate the side effects from their treatment, or may not respond and see their CML return. There remains a need to develop a permanent cure for all people with this blood cancer. LEUKomics is a highly innovative way to speed up this search for a cure, and should be a valuable asset for the global blood cancer research community. We look forward to seeing its impact in the months to come."

The LEUKomics database can be accessed at: www.stemformatics.org/leukomics
A Western Sydney University study has found that couples counselling can be critical for women in the treatment of severe premenstrual symptoms (PMS).

Leading women's health researchers Professor Jane Ussher and Professor Janette Perz, from the University's Translational Health Research Institute (THRI), compared the impacts of one-to-one and couples counselling for Premenstrual Disorders (PMDs).

The results, which have been published in the prestigious PLOS ONE journal, indicate that couple-based interventions have a greater positive impact upon women's ability to cope with premenstrual distress.

As part of a three-year Australian Research Council (ARC) funded study, 83 women who suffered from severe PMS were randomly divided into three groups: a one-to-one therapy group, a couple's therapy group, and a waiting list group.

The results revealed that couple-based interventions were the most effective in improving coping, reducing relationship difficulties and alleviating premenstrual distress.

84 per cent of those in the couple's therapy group reported increased partner awareness and understanding of PMS, compared with 39 per cent of the one-to-one group and 19 per cent of the wait list.

57 per cent of women in the couple group reported an improved relationship with their partner, compared with 26 per cent in the one-to-one group and 5 per cent of the wait list.

There was an 18 per cent reduction in reports of intimate relationship difficulties within the couple group, compared with a 5 per cent increase in the one-to-one group to a 10% increase in the wait list.

Increased self-care and coping was reported by 58 per cent of women in the couple's group, compared to 26 per cent in the one-to-one group, and 9 per cent of women in the wait list.

Professor Ussher says research consistently shows that relationship issues are deeply connected to women's experiences of PMS.

"Issues within a relationship can trigger PMS symptoms, just as 'that time of the month' can seemly compound and worsen existing issues," says Professor Ussher.

"It's so common to hear that women are dissatisfied by elements of their relationship - whether it is the emotional support that they receive at home, or the dishes that are left in the sink at the end of the day.

"To use the metaphor of a pressure cooker - for women who suffer from severe PMS, these issues can be left to simmer and for three weeks of every month they are able to be repressed or ignored.

"But during that one week, when PMS takes hold, suddenly it all becomes too much. The pent-up anger and resentment finally reaches boiling point and they are no longer in control - leading to significant distress, and of course, relationship issues."

As part of the research, the two therapy groups participated in five 90-minute therapy sessions over a five-month period with a female clinical psychologist, while the women on the waiting list received no immediate treatment.

Each PMDs therapy session was targeted to address the woman's experiences of PMS, introduce a range of positive coping strategies, as well as to explore the role that their relationships played in their premenstrual distress.

Professor Ussher says, following the therapy sessions, women reported lowered premenstrual distress; increased coping; the resolution of relationship difficulties; greater couple communications; and greater closeness.

"Women reported that they were less likely to 'lose control' when expressing their feelings. They had increased awareness of the potential for relationship conflict; described relationship tension as less problematic; and were more likely to talk to their partner about PMS and ask for support," she says.

These improvements were evident in both therapy groups, irrespective of whether or not their partner was involved - indicating that any psychological intervention can have positive relational impacts.

"Even if women do therapy on their own, it can still have a positive impact. The women will still learn self-care and coping strategies, will develop a better understanding of PMS, and will go home and tell their partner about the experiences in therapy," says Professor Ussher.

"However the results of this study clearly indicate that the greatest positive impact is evidenced when a women's significant other participated in the therapy sessions as well."

Professor Ussher says the research further highlights the importance of providing women with access to psychological interventions for PMDs.

As an outcome of the ongoing research in this area, a self-help information pack has been developed to provide all women the opportunity to explore the psychological symptoms of PMS, as well as learn effective problem-solving, relaxation and stress management techniques.

The self-help pack can be downloaded from: https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/pmds_selfhelp
Approximately 25 percent of eyes deemed to be normal based on dilated eye examination by a primary eye care ophthalmologist or optometrist had macular characteristics that indicated age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a study published by JAMA Ophthalmology.

Approximately 14 million Americans have AMD and, as the baby boomer population ages, this public health problem is expected to worsen. Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of irreversible vision impairment in older adults in the United States, yet little is known about whether AMD is appropriately diagnosed in primary eye care. David C. Neely, M.D., of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues conducted a study that included 644 people 60 years or older with normal macular health per medical record based on their most recent dilated comprehensive eye examination by a primary eye care ophthalmologist or optometrist. Presence of AMD was based on imaging (color fundus photography).

The sample consisted of 1,288 eyes from 644 participants (average age, 69 years) seen by 31 primary eye care ophthalmologists or optometrists. A total of 968 eyes (75 percent) had no AMD, in agreement with their medical record; 320 (25 percent) had AMD despite no diagnosis of AMD in the medical record. Among eyes with undiagnosed AMD, 78 percent had small deposits under the retina (called drusen), 78 percent had intermediate drusen and 30 percent had large drusen. Undiagnosed AMD was associated with older patient age, male sex and less than a high school education. Prevalence of undiagnosed AMD was not different for ophthalmologists and optometrists.

The authors note that the eyes with undiagnosed AMD that had AMD with large drusen would have been treatable with nutritional supplements had it been diagnosed.

The study noted some limitations.

"The reasons underlying AMD underdiagnosis in primary eye care remain unclear. As treatments for the earliest stages of AMD are developed in the coming years, correct identification of AMD in primary eye care will be critical for routing patients to treatment as soon as possible so that the disease can be treated in its earliest phases and central vision loss avoided."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Brineura (cerliponase alfa) as a treatment for a specific form of Batten disease. Brineura is the first FDA-approved treatment to slow loss of walking ability (ambulation) in symptomatic pediatric patients 3 years of age and older with late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis type 2 (CLN2), also known as tripeptidyl peptidase-1 (TPP1) deficiency.

"The FDA is committed to approving new and innovative therapies for patients with rare diseases, particularly where there are no approved treatment options," said Julie Beitz, M.D., director of the Office of Drug Evaluation III in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "Approving the first drug for the treatment of this form of Batten disease is an important advance for patients suffering with this condition."

CLN2 disease is one of a group of disorders known as neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs), collectively referred to as Batten disease. CLN2 disease is a rare inherited disorder that primarily affects the nervous system. In the late infantile form of the disease, signs and symptoms typically begin between ages 2 and 4. The initial symptoms usually include language delay, recurrent seizures (epilepsy) and difficulty coordinating movements (ataxia). Affected children also develop muscle twitches (myoclonus) and vision loss. CLN2 disease affects essential motor skills, such as sitting and walking. Individuals with this condition often require the use of a wheelchair by late childhood and typically do not survive past their teens. Batten disease is relatively rare, occurring in an estimated two to four of every 100,000 live births in the United States.

Brineura is an enzyme replacement therapy. Its active ingredient (cerliponase alfa) is a recombinant form of human TPP1, the enzyme deficient in patients with CLN2 disease. Brineura is administered into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by infusion via a specific surgically implanted reservoir and catheter in the head (intraventricular access device). Brineura must be administered under sterile conditions to reduce the risk of infections, and treatment should be managed by a health care professional knowledgeable in intraventricular administration. The recommended dose of Brineura in pediatric patients 3 years of age and older is 300 mg administered once every other week by intraventricular infusion, followed by an infusion of electrolytes. The complete Brineura infusion, including the required infusion of intraventricular electrolytes, lasts approximately 4.5 hours. Pre-treatment of patients with antihistamines with or without antipyretics (drugs for prevention or treatment of fever) or corticosteroids is recommended 30 to 60 minutes prior to the start of the infusion.

The efficacy of Brineura was established in a non-randomized, single-arm dose escalation clinical study in 22 symptomatic pediatric patients with CLN2 disease and compared to 42 untreated patients with CLN2 disease from a natural history cohort (an independent historical control group) who were at least 3 years old and had motor or language symptoms. Taking into account age, baseline walking ability and genotype, Brineura-treated patients demonstrated fewer declines in walking ability compared to untreated patients in the natural history cohort.

The safety of Brineura was evaluated in 24 patients with CLN2 disease aged 3 to 8 years who received at least one dose of Brineura in clinical studies. The safety and effectiveness of Brineura have not been established in patients less than 3 years of age.

The most common adverse reactions in patients treated with Brineura include fever, ECG abnormalities including slow heart rate (bradycardia), hypersensitivity, decrease or increase in CSF protein, vomiting, seizures, hematoma (abnormal collection of blood outside of a blood vessel), headache, irritability, increased CSF white blood cell count (pleocytosis), device-related infection, feeling jittery and low blood pressure.

Brineura should not be administered to patients if there are signs of acute intraventricular access device-related complications (e.g., leakage, device failure or signs of device-related infection such as swelling, erythema of the scalp, extravasation of fluid, or bulging of the scalp around or above the intraventricular access device). In case of intraventricular access device complications, health care providers should discontinue infusion of Brineura and refer to the device manufacturer's labeling for further instructions. Additionally, health care providers should routinely test patient CSF samples to detect device infections. Brineura should also not be used in patients with ventriculoperitoneal shunts (medical devices that relieve pressure on the brain caused by fluid accumulation).

Health care providers should also monitor vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.) before the infusion starts, periodically during infusion and post-infusion in a health care setting. Health care providers should perform electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring during infusion in patients with a history of slow heart rate (bradycardia), conduction disorder (impaired progression of electrical impulses through the heart) or structural heart disease (defect or abnormality of the heart), as some patients with CLN2 disease can develop conduction disorders or heart disease. Hypersensitivity reactions have also been reported in Brineura-treated patients. Due to the potential for anaphylaxis, appropriate medical support should be readily available when Brineura is administered. If anaphylaxis occurs, infusion should be immediately discontinued and appropriate treatment should be initiated.

The FDA will require the Brineura manufacturer to further evaluate the safety of Brineura in CLN2 patients below the age of 2 years, including device related adverse events and complications with routine use. In addition, a long-term safety study will assess Brineura treated CLN2 patients for a minimum of 10 years.

The FDA granted this application Priority Review and Breakthrough Therapy designations. Brineura also received Orphan Drug designation, which provides incentives to assist and encourage the development of drugs for rare diseases.

The sponsor is also receiving a Rare Pediatric Disease Priority Review Voucher under a program intended to encourage development of new drugs and biologics for the prevention and treatment of rare pediatric diseases. A voucher can be redeemed by a sponsor at a later date to receive Priority Review of a subsequent marketing application for a different product. This is the tenth rare pediatric disease priority review voucher issued by the FDA since the program began.

The FDA granted approval of Brineura to BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc.
Research published in Cochrane Review finds standardized tobacco packaging may lead to a reduction in smoking prevalence and reduces the appeal of tobacco.

According to the World Health Organization, tobacco use kills more people worldwide than any other preventable cause of death. Global health experts believe the best way to reduce tobacco use is by stopping people starting to use tobacco, and encouraging and helping existing users to stop.

The introduction of standardized (or 'plain') packaging was recommended by the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) guidelines. This recommendation was based on evidence around tobacco promotion in general and studies which examined the impact of changes in packaging on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. Standardized tobacco packaging places restrictions on the appearance of tobacco packs so that there is a uniform colour (and in some cases shape), with no logos or branding apart from health warnings and other government-mandated information; the brand name appears in a prescribed uniform font, colour, and size.

A number of countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, standardized tobacco packaging. Australia was the first country in the world to implement standardized packaging of tobacco products. The laws, which took full effect there in December 2012, also required enlarged pictorial health warnings.

A team of Cochrane researchers from the UK and Canada have summarized results from studies that examine the impact of standardized packaging on tobacco attitudes and behaviour. They have today published their findings in the Cochrane Library.

They found 51 studies that looked at standardized packaging. The studies differed in the way they were done and also what they measured. Only one country had implemented standardized packaging at the time of this review, so evidence that tobacco use prevalence may have decreased following standardized packaging comes from one large observational study. A reduction in smoking behaviour is supported by routinely collected data from the Australian government. There are data from a range of other studies to indicate that appeal is lower with standardized packaging and this may help to explain the observed decline in prevalence. Researchers did not find any evidence suggesting that standardized packaging may increase tobacco use. No studies directly measured whether standardized packs influence uptake, cessation or whether they prevent former smokers from taking up smoking again.

The amount of evidence for standardized packaging has increased markedly since the publication of the WHO guidelines in 2008. However, given its recency, there are no data on long-term impact. The amount of evidence will continue to expand as more countries implement standardized packaging and as studies assessing the longer-term effects of the Australian policy become available.

Cochrane lead author, and Deputy Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, Professor Ann McNeill from King's College London, said, "Evaluating the impact of standardized packaging on smoking behaviour is difficult to do; but the evidence available to us, whilst limited at this time, indicates that standardized packaging may reduce smoking prevalence. These findings are supported by evidence from a variety of other studies that have shown that standardized packaging reduces the promotional appeal of tobacco packs, in line with the regulatory objectives set. It would appear that the impact of standardized packaging may be affected by the detail of the regulations such as whether they ban descriptors, such as 'smooth' or 'gold', and control the shape of the tobacco pack."

Co-author Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, from the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group, Oxford, UK, added: "Our evidence suggests that standardized packaging can change attitudes and beliefs about smoking, and the evidence we have so far suggests that standardized packaging may reduce smoking prevalence and increase quit attempts. We didn't find any studies on whether changing tobacco packaging affects the number of young people starting to smoke, and we look forward to further research on this topic."
It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover the
IQALUIT

May 1, 2017

Canada

Nunavut

George Hickes

Nunavut

Canada

$189 million

Nunavut

Community wellness programs, such as school-based breakfast programs, mental wellness programming, mentorship activities, cooking classes and physical activities.

Health promotion initiatives, including mental health and wellness and sexual health programming; maternal and child health programs, such as the "Nunavut Baby Boxes" filled with newborn essentials; and tobacco cessation programs.

Community development initiatives that will support recruitment and training for coordinators.

Home and community care programs to ensure a coordinated system of home and community-based healthcare and support services delivered in all Nunavut communities.

Nunavut's

Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut

Nunavut

Health Canada will invest approximately $19 million yearly in the Nunavut Wellness Agreement, for a total of $184.5 million over 10 years.

will invest approximately yearly in the Nunavut Wellness Agreement, for a total of over 10 years. The Public Health Agency of Canada will invest more than $455,000 yearly, for a total of approximately $4.5 million over 10 years.

will invest more than yearly, for a total of approximately over 10 years. In Budget 2017, the Government pledged $54 million to Nunavut to renew and expand the Territorial Health Investment Fund starting in 2017-18. This funding will support territorial efforts to innovate and transform Nunavut's healthcare system and ensure northerners have access to the healthcare they need.

to to renew and expand the Territorial Health Investment Fund starting in 2017-18. This funding will support territorial efforts to innovate and transform healthcare system and ensure northerners have access to the healthcare they need. The previous Wellness Agreement expired on March 31, 2017 , and was first announced in April 2012 .

/CNW/ - The Government ofand the Government ofare committed to a renewed Inuit-Crown relationship to make progress on the issues that are most important, including health.Today, the Honourable Jane Philpott, Minister of Health; the Honourable, Minister of Health, Government of; and Aluki Kotierk, President, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., announced the renewal of the Nunavut Wellness Agreement.The renewed Nunavut Wellness Agreement is focused on supporting Inuit in defining and taking action on their health priorities. This model is culturally respectful and supported by strong partnerships at both the community and territorial level.The Government ofwill providein funding over 10 years to the Government offor community-based programs covering four broad areas: healthy children, families and communities; healthy living; mental wellness; and home and community care. Examples of activities supported under the Agreement include:This renewed agreement allows for longer-term planning, implementation and program delivery across25 communities, and increases flexibility to better respond to community needs. A strong principle of the new Agreement is that Inuit share governance and leadership in the design, implementation and evaluation of health programs across"It is exciting to see all the innovative programs and activities being delivered inthat are supported through this agreement. We know that programs that are community owned and driven are most effective. This agreement provides the opportunity for the people ofto take a leadership role in addressing their unique healthcare needs and circumstances.""The ongoing work in our communities through the collaboration with Health Canada and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., to support wellness programs is welcomed by the Department of Health. This collaboration ensures that communities will be able to continue to focus on community-based initiatives that aim to improve their health and well-being through a community-determined approach that emphasizes the development of cultural knowledge and skills, and promotes Inuit values.""NTI is pleased with the renewal of the Nunavut Wellness Agreement. The multi-year funding approach addresses a challenge that Inuit have expressed as a barrier to delivering consistent programming at the community level. This renewed approach builds upon community capacity to deliver programs based on priorities and need. It is our hope that this multi-party agreement will inspire other government departments to work closely with Inuit organizations so that programs and services are reflective of Inuit goals and objectives in accordance with Article 32 of the Nunavut Agreement."SOURCE Health Canada
SAN DIEGO

May 1, 2017

the United States

April 28

Mexico

Enrique Pena Nieto

Mexico

Stuart Titus

Mexico

Mexico

Enrique Pena Nieto's

Mexico's

Mexico

February 2, 2016

Maldonado

Mexico

Mexico

Mexico

.

CONTACT:

Andrew Hard

/PRNewswire/ -- Medical Marijuana, Inc. (MJNA), the first publicly traded cannabis company in, today announced that it applauds the Mexican Congress for passing legislation onto legalize the use of marijuana and cannabis for medical and scientific needs inThe bill, which overwhelmingly passed in a general floor vote with 371 in favor, seven against and 11 abstentions, will now be sent to Mexican Presidentto be signed into law.According to the Mexican Lower House of Congress, the ruling "eliminates the prohibition and criminalization of acts related to the medicinal use of marijuana and its scientific research, and those relating to the production and distribution of the plant for these purposes.""We applaudlawmakers for taking this significant step to reform cannabis laws to benefit their citizens," said CEO of Medical Marijuana, Inc. Dr.. "We are extremely proud to have been the first company to providecitizens with legal access to a medical product based on cannabis (THC-free hemp CBD). We believe the successful implementation of our product within, plus the overwhelming success of our clinical studies have helped to change the dialogue within the country regarding the safety and therapeutic potential of all forms of cannabis.""Given the Mexican Congress' decision today, we are looking forward to the opportunity to assist an increasing number of citizens that suffer from unsuccessfully treated, debilitating medical conditions," continued Dr. Titus. "Furthermore, we commend Mexican Presidentinitiative to reformGeneral Health Law and the country's Federal Penal Code to continue relaxing laws against the medicinal use of cannabis. With the Mexico Congress' decision today, families will experience fewer roadblocks when it comes to gaining access within the country."Medical Marijuana, Inc., started exporting toto help families gain access to THC-free CBD hemp oil Real Scientific Hemp Oil (RSHO-X), after the Health Department of Mexico, COFEPRIS, issued the country's first-ever government permits on, to two families, including thefamily whose daughter suffered from a severe form of epilepsy.Medical Marijuana, Inc. created its subsidiary HempMeds Mexico after RSHO-X product became the first and only cannabis product allowed for import into the country. HempMedsworks side by side with doctors, patients, and policy makers into ensure those in need of cannabidiol (CBD) have access to it.Follow the link here for more information on HempMedsand here for its historic first-year milestones.Our mission is to be the premier cannabis and hemp industry innovators, leveraging our team of professionals to source, evaluate and purchase value-added companies and products, while allowing them to keep their integrity and entrepreneurial spirit. We strive to create awareness within our industry, develop environmentally-friendly, economically sustainable businesses, while increasing shareholder value. For details on Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s portfolio and investment companies, visit www.medicalmarijuanainc.comTo see Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s video statement, click here. Shareholders are also encouraged to visit the Medical Marijuana, Inc. Shop for discounted products.HempMeds is a corporate portfolio company of Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC PINK: MJNA) and the Company's exclusive master distributor and contracted marketing company, handling sales and distribution.This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties. The statements in this press release have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. The Company does not sell or distribute any products that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act. The Company does sell and distribute hemp-based products.Chief Executive OfficerCMW MediaP: 888-829- 0070andrew.hard@cmwmedia.comwww.cmwmedia.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/medical-marijuana-inc-applauds-mexican-congress-passage-of-legislation-to-legalize-usage-of-medical-marijuana-in-mexico-300448559.html



SOURCE Medical Marijuana, Inc.




High Court of Justice to hold hearing in Merchant vs Naftogaz case on May 2

The High Court of Justice in London on May on May 2, 2017 is to hold a new round of proceedings in the Merchant International Company Ltd. (the United States) versus national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy case, the court has reported.

The debt demanded by the claimant from Naftogaz in the amount of $24.72 million was formed in 1990s. Merchant is the assignee under an assignment agreement dated 1998 of a substantial debt originally owed by the defendants (Naftogaz) legal predecessor to Gazprom.

The court launched proceedings where the claimant is seeking to obtain 5.8% of shares in Britain's JKX Oil&Gas with assets in Ukraine belonged to Naftogaz.

On June 4, 2015 the court satisfied the application of Merchant and appointed the receiver of the shares to execute the default judgment of the British court dated February 28, 2011.

Naftogaz Ukrainy unites oil and gas production assets in Ukraine, and is the country's gas transit, underground gas storage, and oil pipeline transportation monopoly.
The Odesa police has made a significant progress in the investigation of the events of May 2, 2014, during which 48 people were killed and over 200 injured, Dmytro Holovin, the head of the Ukrainian National Police's Main Department in Odesa region, has said at a briefing.

The new investigation team, the third one, "since the beginning of this year, has made more than it was done in the entire past year," he said.

In particular, ten investigators and five operatives are currently engaged in the investigation of the events of May 2, other participants in the briefing said. Over 70 witnesses were questioned in the past four months. However, testimonies of those people are either biased or relatively uninformative due to the time passed since the events, the participants said.

Two new expert evaluations were scheduled during the investigation, the chemical one and the forensic ballistic one. Three persons, who had been involved in the events, have been notified that they are suspect. They were put on wanted lists afterwards. A participant in the events of May 2 was detained and is currently in custody, the briefing participants said.

A total of 14 people are the suspects in the cases investigated by the Ukrainian National Police's Main Department in Odesa region, they are on wanted lists. Investigators are also interested in actions committed by 27 people, who had been involved in the events in Hretska Square, and 50 people, who had been involved in the events in the Kulykove Pole. However, the issues how to qualify their actions and whether to inform them of the suspect status are still under consideration. Identities of 111 persons among those injured were established, the remaining persons out of 212 injured people were not identified due to the fact that they had provided fictitious names in healthcare facilities, participants in the briefing told reporters.

The fire investigation confirmed that the omission of firemen had caused such a large number of victims at the Trade Unions House in the Kulykove Pole, Oleksandr Vakulenko, the Ukrainian National Police deputy chief and the investigation department head, said.

In this regard, the case against three employees of the State Emergencies Service's Main Department in Odesa region has been already handed over to Odesa's Prymorsky District Court, and another two defendants, Volodymyr Bodelan, the former head of the State Emergencies Service's Main Department in Odesa region, and Ruslan Velyky, his first deputy, are on wanted lists.

On May 2, 2014, 48 people were killed and over 200 were injured during mass riots in Odesa. Investigators established that the Odesa mass riots were organized and deliberately planned.

Following the events, several of Ukraine's law enforcement structures initiated about a dozen of criminal cases on various charges. Some of them are currently pending in courts.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed an executive order on expatriation of Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Artemenko, who is charged with anti-state activities, lawmaker Oleh Liashko, leader of the parliamentary faction of the Ukrainian Radical Party, wrote on his Facebook page.

"Today, Ukrainian president signed a decree to deprive People's Deputy of Ukraine Andriy Artemenko of Ukrainian citizenship on the grounds that he voluntarily acquired Canadian nationality in 2005. [...] This case, where a public official has been held accountable for violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, which permits holding only one - Ukrainian! - ID, is unique and first in the 26 years of Independence," he said.

Liashko noted that therefore, he would request the Verkhovna Rada to consider early termination of Artemenko's status of a member of parliament.

Liashko said that he has information that on Saturday morning Artemenko had flown to Vienna, Austria. Liahsko said he hopes that Artemenko would relinquish his Ukrainian passport on return.

In February 2017, The New York Times reported that Artemenko had handed a detailed plan for peace in eastern Ukraine that he said he authored over to U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. The plan suggested holding a national referendum in Ukraine on 'leasing Crimea to Russia for a period of 50 to 100 years'.

Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating a criminal case against Artemenko opened on suspicion of anti-national actions in collaboration with Russia.

On February 20, Oleh Liashko's Radical Party decided to expel deputy Artemenko from its team.

Artemenko is the initiator of the draft law on introducing amendments to the law on citizenship of Ukraine regarding dual citizenship.

Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko said that Artemenko had documented to the prosecutor's office that he has Canadian citizenship, in addition to Ukrainian citizenship: "He said at one of the interrogations that he was a Canadian citizen." Surprisingly, on the investigator's request to confirm this, he said: "Of course, the next time I'll bring the documents." At the same time, Lutsenko showed journalists a copy of the Canadian passport of the parliamentarian.

On April 21, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office requested Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov to initiate the procedure of stripping Artemenko of Ukrainian citizenship with the State Migration Service of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president's citizenship commission at its meeting last week did not consider the issue of stripping MP Andriy Artemenko (former members of the Radical Party of Ukraine) of Ukrainian citizenship, a member of the commission, MP from Petro Poroshenko Bloc, a member of the human rights committee, Valeriy Patskan has said.

"There was a [meeting of the] commission last week where the issue of Mr. Artemenko was not discussed. He also sent me a request as a member of the commission. I do not have the answer now," he said on 112 TV Channel late on Sunday, April 30.

"When the issue is put on the agenda of the commission I would be able to comment on it. Then a decision of the president on the basis of the commission's materials will be made to strip him of citizenship," Patskan said.

He said that amendments to legislation should be made regarding termination of Ukrainian citizenship for persons with dual citizenships and more.
One Ukrainian solider has been killed and seven have been wounded in the anti-terrorist operation zone (ATO) in Donbas in the past 24 hours, Defense Ministry's Spokesman Andriy Lysenko has said.

"As a result of hostilities, one Ukrainian serviceman was killed and seven other were wounded," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Monday.

Lysenko said that the main casualties were in Katerynivka where one serviceman was killed and two wounded in shelling.

In addition, an explosion of an explosive device two servicemen were injured near Krymske, and one each soldier was injured in shelling near Avdiyivka, Maryinka and Vodiane.
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The mystery of Antarctica's Blood Falls has finally been solved  and it's a scientific phenomenon 1 million years in the making.

Blood Falls has long baffled researchers and spooked the general public with its gruesome red flows that ooze upon the stark tundra of Taylor Glacier.

First discovered by Australian geologist Griffith Taylor in 1911 (for whom the aforementioned glacier is named), the fall's fiery hue was initially believed to be the work of red algae.

In 2003, almost 100 years after Taylor first stumbled upon the waterfall, scientists theorized that the color was due to oxidized iron and water, which was likely draining from an underground saltwater lake.

Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Colorado College finally confirmed the oxidization theory in a study published this week in the Journal of Glaciology.

Using echolocation to track the water flow, the researchers discovered a 5 million-year-old lake beneath Taylor Glacier. According to the scientists, when the lake water makes its way to the surface  a process that takes about 1.5 million years  the brine in the saltwater oxidizes upon coming into contact with the air.

Perhaps more groundbreaking than the source of the falls' coloring is the discovery that water can remain in its liquid state while inside a freezing glacier.

"Taylor Glacier is now the coldest known glacier to have persistently flowing water," study co-author Christina Carr told News Miner, a Fairbanks newspaper.

A perpetual hydraulic system enables the water molecules to remain liquid, Carr explained. As the water freezes, it releases heat, which then melts the surrounding ice.

The water system is also host to a series of microbes that can survive in extreme conditions. According to Forbes, these microbes could provide insight into the development of life on planets that lack an oxygen-rich atmosphere like Earth.

Read Michelle Robertsons latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.
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...
After a decade and a half of combat boots designed to pound the desert sand, the next boot in the Marine Corps sea bag may be designed with the jungle in mind.

The Marine Corps started a hunt for a new tropical-weather boot in December 2015 at the behest of Commandant Gen. Robert Neller. At the time, the boot was envisioned as an optional piece of gear that Marines could purchase through their local exchanges based on need. But now, officials are exploring the possibility of tweaking the new tropical design to replace the current hot-weather combat boot, which would make the future tropical boot standard issue for Marines.

"We were given by Gen. Neller two directions: continue working on the tropical boot, and look for ways to improve the current Marine Corps combat boot," Todd Towles, project officer for the clothing team at Marine Corps Systems Command, told Military.com.

Towles said Neller asked officials to enhance durability, cut down on combat boot weight and dry time, and develop a self-cleaning outsole that would shed dirt and mud. He also requested a sole that could be replaced by a cobbler, giving Marines the choice of repairing boots with worn-out soles instead of buying a new pair.

"General Neller is big on providing Marines with options in the footwear realm," Towles said.

It will likely be a year or more before a decision is made about whether to pursue an issued tropical combat boot or keep it optional and modernize the combat boots already available to Marines. During that time, the tropical prototypes will be put through their paces -- literally -- as they undergo intensive wear and comfort testing in Hawaii and in boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego.

Marine Corps Systems Command officials have learned from experience that creating an all-in-one boot that purports to accomplish every task is a tall order. In late 2015, Neller directed a halt to plans to make the Rugged All-Terrain boot -- a staple of combat in Afghanistan -- mandatory for all Marines. The Corps had been set to phase out the Marine Corps Combat Boot in favor of the RAT boot, but reversed course with Neller's order.

The boot excelled in the desert, Towles said, but the outsole lacked the ruggedness needed for training in garrison.

"Although the boot did great in Afghanistan, once you put it on the foot of that recruit and he was doing his close-order drill, left-right-left, 24/7, it just couldn't withstand it," he said.

There are currently four companies who have produced tropical boot prototypes under consideration by the Marine Corps: Rocky Boots, Bates Footwear, Altama, and Danner.

This summer, two separate wear tests will take place involving the prototypes, Towles said. In Hawaii, about 400 Marines from 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines will take part in a multi-month final user evaluation of boots from all four companies beginning the fourth week in June. They'll wear the boots into the fall, and then participate in focus groups and detailed user reports, Towles said.

The second test will involve about 200 San Diego recruits, who will put one of the four prototypes through their paces. The test will be held sometime between July and September and is exclusively designed to test the durability of the boots' outsoles. Though Marines are deployed around the world, Towles said, nowhere do boots see harsher conditions than at the feet of recruits on the drill field.

"It's incredible, the wear and tear that these recruits put on a pair of boots," he said. "So we know, based off of their field training, their close-order drill, and just day-to-day being in that boot for x amount of hours, it's where we need to verify that that boot can withstand the rigors of the Marine Corps."

There's no experience required for this test, Towles said. Officials with Marine Corps Systems Command do not even plan to survey the recruits; they will merely collect the boots and evaluate the wear and tear on the outsole. This test may be what determines whether the tropical boot has a place in the Marine Corps sea bag.

"We might go to the recruit depot and once we put the outsole in that environment, the outsole might fail," Towles said. "So we might identify, well, you know what, it's not designed for that environment. So then we'd focus on different ways to improve the Marine Corps combat boot."

Many decisions have yet to be made. At the end of the user evaluation phase, Marine Corps leaders can either opt to select one of the four bootmakers' prototypes as a ready-to-purchase off-the-shelf option, or they can evaluate survey feedback and write their own internal specification, beginning a new contracting process. Those decisions will likely be made in mid-2018, after officials have completed the intensive process of sorting through a "data dump" of survey feedback, Towles said.

Regardless of whether the planned tropical boot becomes issued gear, development will continue, Towles said.

While Marines once deployed primarily to desert combat environments in Iraq and Afghanistan, units now routinely deploy all over the world, with unit rotations in Japan and Australia, among other destinations.

"The tropical boot, it may not be as durable as the Marine Corps combat boot. Were making it lighter, giving it ways to dry out faster, and possibly giving it a different kind of outsole," Towles said. "Sometimes there's a tradeoff you have to do in this business. But for that Marine in that environment, a tropical environment, it's going to help him complete his mission at a better rate than the Marine Corps combat boot."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
The European Union has said that the Ukrainian parliament should reconsider the new amendments in the legislation governing asset declarations, in particular, concerning the submission of declarations by anti-corruption activists.

"We do, however, have concerns regarding the new amendments in the legislation governing asset declarations. We believe that is important to preserve the asset declaration system for public officials. The parliament should therefore reconsider these amendments as soon as possible," the EU Delegation to Ukraine told Interfax-Ukraine.

The EU Delegation to Ukraine also said transparency rules for NGOs should follow international best practices and we stand ready to share our experiences in this regard.

"The call for increased transparency in the NGO sector is fully understandable. But it should be handled as a separate issue," they said.

The introduction of an ambitious asset declaration system for public officials has been a major achievement on Ukraine's path towards more transparency and accountability in the public sphere, the EU Delegation to Ukraine said.
Upcoming NCOA Job Fairs in Arizona

If you are on active duty, serving in the Guard or Reserve, a veteran, retiree or a military spouse, NCOA military job fairs can help you connect and build networks with both national and local employers. The NCOA May Job Fairs will be held at Luke AFB, AZ on Tuesday, May 09 2017 and Davis Monthan, AZ on Thursday, May 11 2017.

For more details on these fairs, as well as listings of other veteran job fairs across the country, visit the Military.com Upcoming Job Fairs page.
If you think about it, there is not a better time to build a new morning fitness habit than right now with the end of...
A declaration passed by the OSCE Permanent Council on April 27, 2017 is deprived of important elements for safe operation of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine due to destructive work of the Russian delegation.

According to comments of the press service of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, on April 27, 2017 the OSCE Permanent Council passed the declaration of support for the SMM to Ukraine following the tragic incident in eastern Ukraine on April 23, in which an SMM patrol member was killed in the line of duty by an explosion. According to the declaration, the SMM mandate requires it to have safe and secure access throughout Ukraine and called for this to be fully respected. The Council expressed its sorrow and offered deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased patrol member.

"Due to the traditionally destructive position of the Russian delegation the approved documents is unfortunately deprived of important elements for safe work of the SMM  all-side condemnation of any threats and attacks against OSCE SMM monitors and the deliberate creation of obstacles in carrying out their mission, including the restricted access to the temporarily Ukraine uncontrolled territories," the press service said.

The Foreign Ministry said that Ukraine will continue supporting OSCE SMM in its mission.

The ministry said that at the meeting of the UN Security Council on April 27 Russia was the only country opposing the draft statement of the UN Security Council for mass media proposed by Ukraine and the United States.

"All attempts of the Ukrainian delegation to find a compromise constantly faced total disregard by Russia, which chose the delaying tactics and making unconstructive edits in advance," the ministry said.
COOPERSVILLE, MI - For the owners of Pure Mitten Hops, raising the flower where the art of brewing beer begins involves a marriage of hand labor, imported equipment and family.

On a recent afternoon, Justin Dieleman and his brother-in-law, Jay Camp, stood on an elevated platform on a trailer being slowly pulled across their hop yard by tractor driven by Justin's sister, Andrea.

Justin and Jay were quickly tying up long strands of twine made of coconut imported from Sri Lanka to cables suspended 18 feet over the rows of hop plants below. They had to work fast to set the ropes at three feet to match the plants below.

Behind them, Justin's father, Morrie, attached the two of the ropes and used a hand tool to embed the ropes into the middle of each hop plant.

"They'll grow 18 feet in six weeks. They will grow 12 inches overnight," says Justin's mom and Morrie's wife, Mary Dieleman, who is giving a tour of the hop yard.

Their 11,000 hop plants won't grow and bear flowers for making beer until the 22,000 ropes are tied to trellises in their hop yard. That's a labor intensive job to which the Dielemans will dedicate themselves for the next two weeks.

If they don't get the runners up for the vines, the perennial hop plants will run along the ground, casting out rhizomes and runners that can't be harvested later this summer, says Mary Dieleman, who lives in Grand Rapids but grew up on a nearby cattle farm south of Coopersville.

Pure Mitten Hops is one of several Michigan farms that are leading a renaissance of commercial hop operations in the state. Most hops in the U.S. are grown in the Pacific Northwest, where more than 35,000 acres were in production in 2013, according to Michigan State University's Extension Service.

Michigan has become a distant fourth behind Washington, Oregon and Idaho with more than 400 acres in production, according to the extension service. But the growth in demand from the state's growing craft beer industry has driven up interest among growers, who began raising hops in the Traverse City area in 2008.

Michigan's climate is ideal because hops grow best between the 42nd and 45th parallel in the northern and southern hemispheres, Mary Dieleman says.

That puts their Ottawa County farm and most farms in the northern Lower Peninsula in that sweet spot, says Dieleman, who predicts the industry will continue to grow in Michigan.

The Dielemans are planning to set 11 acres of hops this year with plans to set 20 acres next year. They have several varieties planted and hope to add several more to the 30-acre plot they bought three years ago from a neighboring farmer.

Unlike most field crops, hops are perennial plants that come back year after year for up to 20 years, provided they have trellis systems on which to grow.

The Dielemans started from scratch, digging poles and string cable for each year's crops. They bought an old truck with a giant post hole digger from a utility to set the poles for their trellises.

They also had to buy specialized equipment to remove the hop flowers from the vines and twines they cut down in the late summer. Their first harvester was purchased from Germany, shipped over in a container and reassembled.

Now they're awaiting a second larger harvester that will take the hops off the vines at twice the rate. Not only will it speed up the harvest, but they can also service other hop growers who are springing up in West Michigan, Mary Dieleman says.

They also have installed a giant dryer to take the moisture out of the hops within hours of their harvest. Their custom dryer, designed by local welding shop owner Phil Brown, has three stages to evenly dry out the hops without creating hot spots.

The dried hops are then baled into 120-pound bales that are sold to local craft brewers or wholesalers who sell to home brewers and craft brewers, who use the hops for aroma and bittering to counteract the sweetness of the malts, another main ingredient..

Although prices vary depending on the demand by the brewing industry, Mary Dieleman says their hops can fetch up to $12 a pound. Of the six varieties they currently raise, "Crystal" and "Mackinac" are the big sellers right now, she says.
ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor and neighboring Pittsfield Township are among the best suburbs in Michigan, according to consumer data website Niche.

The top spot on Niche's 2017 Best Suburbs to Live in Michigan went to Ann Arbor, which was also ranked the No. 1 best city to live in the United States of America.

Pittsfield Township was named the eighth best suburb to live in Michigan and received an A+ in the 2017 Best Places to Live rankings list.

Niche defines a suburb as a place "located within a Census-defined urbanized area, but outside the principal city with a population of at least 1,000," its website said.

A city is defined as an "urbanized area with a population of 100,000 or more."

Niche uses data from the U.S. Census, FBI, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other sources, as well as reviews from residents, to calculate the rankings for the best places to live across the country.

The list took into consideration factors such as public schools, housing, diversity and nightlife in the community around 36,000 people call home.

Here's how Ann Arbor placed in the rankings

A+ in Public Schools

B+ in Housing

A+ in Good for Families

B in Crimes and Safety

A in Nightlife

A in Diversity

Ann Arbor also placed No. 7 on the Best Suburbs in America for 2017.

Here's how Pittsfield Township placed in the rankings:

A+ in Public Schools

A- in Housing

A+ in Good for Families

B- in Crimes and Safety

A- in Nightlife

A in Diversity

Also noted in the Pittsfield Township ranking is real estate values for both home owners and renters. According to Niche, the median home value in the township is $236,500 compared to a national value of $178,600. The median rent is $944, compared to a national value of $928.

The median household income is $69,164 for Pittsfield Township residents, compared to a national value of $53,889.

One user, who rated Pittsfield Township four out of five stars, wrote the following review:

"One of the best things about my living environment is the cultural diversity. People are free to be different and not feel that they'll be judged for it. Diversity is one of the main reasons we moved to this area, and will be a big factor in any or all other moves I ever make," the user wrote. "Diversity is important in friendships, the workplace and college experiences, so this makes my atmosphere an ideal one for personal and professional growth."

Pittsfield Township officials are offering others the chance to learn more about the community with the Passport 2 Pittsfield Open House from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 7.

Participants can use a passport and get stamps from five township facilities, like Fire Station #3, Public Safety building or the Township Hall for an inside look at local government and public departments. Find more information here.

"In the last eight years, this event has come to symbolize the sense of place and community our administration has not only fostered and celebrated but also instituted successfully, as evidenced by the recent Niche community ratings," said Pittsfield Township Supervisor Mandy Grewal in a news release.

Family-friendly activities planned for the Passport 2 Pittsfield Open House include a live fire safety and sewer camera demonstrations, the Rec City Obstacle Course, a variety of public safety and construction trucks and raffles from local businesses.
SUPERIOR TOWNSHIP, MI - Police are investigating a reported robbery of a cab driver on the evening of Saturday, April 29 in Superior Township.

The incident occurred shortly before 10:45 p.m. Saturday as a cab driver attempted to drop off a client at the Danbury Park Manor apartments, off of the 9100 block of MacArthur Boulevard, according to the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office.

Police say a black female jumped in front of the vehicle, forcing it to stop, after the driver, a 49-year-old Canton man, pulled into the complex, police said. Four black men - described as 5 feet 7 inches tall, 5 feet 5 inches tall and 6 feet 3 inches tall - then approached the cab.

One of the men opened the driver's side door and demanded the cab driver's money, police said. The driver pulled $48 out of his wallet, one of the men took it and all five suspects fled on foot.

The client, who was in the rear of the cab and is not considered a suspect in the matter, was returned home safely, police said.

The incident remains under investigation.
Crash blocks portion of Southbound U.S. 23 on May 1.PNG

A crash blocked a portion of southbound U.S. 23 north of Ann Arbor on Monday, May 1, 2017.

(Courtesy of MDOT)

UPDATE: This crash was cleared about 3 p.m.

ANN ARBOR, MI - A crash blocked a portion of southbound U.S. 23 north of Ann Arbor on Monday, May 1.

The crash, reported about 2:22 p.m. Monday, was blocking the left lane of U.S. 23 after North Territorial Road, exit 49, at 2:30 p.m., according to the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Further information on the crash was not immediately available.
ANN ARBOR, MI - Turning more than a few heads, stopping traffic and drawing the attention of police, dozens of demonstrators wearing red and black marched through the streets of downtown Ann Arbor to celebrate May Day.

The march on Monday afternoon, May 1, was officially known as the Festival of Resistance and it drew a mix of local citizen activists, college students and people from out of town, including some from Flint.

They had several messages, which they chanted in unison during the nearly hour-long march through the streets, including messages in support of the Black Lives Matter movement with anti-police and anti-racism themes.

"No justice, no peace! No racist police!"

"Black lives matter!"

One chant was an apparent reference to the 2014 fatal shooting of Aura Rosser, a black woman, by a white Ann Arbor police officer.

"How do you spell murder? A-A-P-D!"

The Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office determined the 2014 shooting was justified because Rosser came at police with a knife.

Other chants during Monday's march offered support for Palestine and spoke against white supremacy.

Demonstrators also made it clear they don't support Donald Trump's agenda. One of the banners carried by demonstrators read: "No ban, no wall."

Another banner read: "You don't hate Mondays. You hate capitalism."

Another read: "Strong communities make police obsolete."

The demonstrators gathered at Liberty Plaza, where they strategized against any potential attempts by police to stop them, before marching down the middle of Liberty Street to Main Street and up to Washington Street. There, demonstrators blocked part of the intersection of Main and Washington while several of them briefly carried their message inside the lobby of Chase Bank, speaking against investments in oil pipelines, including the Dakota Access pipeline, and in support of Native Americans and clean water.

Outside Gov. Rick Snyder's condo on Main Street, they voiced general displeasure with the governor.

Warning: the following video contains profanity.

Several of the demonstrators wore bandanas covering their faces and declined to give their names. They purposefully stopped cars, annoying some drivers, while other spectators raised a fist in solidarity.

After the stop at Chase Bank, the march continued down Washington Street to Fourth Avenue, where an Ann Arbor police officer exited an SUV and tried to speak with the group, which wasn't interested in stopping and soon began loudly chanting "F*** the police!" Demonstrators chanted that over and over as they marched down Fourth Avenue and back to Liberty Street, and then to State Street, being followed by multiple Ann Arbor Police Department SUVs.

The officers following the demonstrators did not try to stop them, but kept a watchful eye until the march culminated on the University of Michigan's Central Campus Diag, where final words were spoken before the crowd broke for an "open university," with talks and workshops on the Diag, some discussing the history of May Day and next steps for organizing more action.

Booths were set up on the Diag with information about everything from Palestine to the Washtenaw ID project.

According to an event flier, there were to be talks and workshops with titles such as "Intro to Anarchism," "Mass Defense in the Age of Trump," "A Brief History of Fascism in the U.S. and Europe," "Organizing a Racial Justice Campaign," "Poetry of Resistance," "The Sanctuary Movement," "Why We Shouldn't Coordinate with Police," and "The Mass Line: A Communist Method of Organizing." In planning for the May Day event, the flier noted, "we will not coordinate with the city or police in any way, including by requesting permits or sharing march routes ahead of time."

"Our Festival of Resistance is not meant to provide a platform for elected officials, political parties or their candidates," the flier continued.

"We are here for working-class and oppressed communities, and want our soapbox to be a platform for those struggling -- against capital, the state and white supremacy -- for an egalitarian society."

Local activist Alan Haber noted one of the banners carried during the march read: "Commons, not commodities." He said that's relevant in the context of the City Council's recent decision to sell a city-owned property to a Chicago developer for $10 million for construction of a 17-story high-rise and outdoor plaza.

Haber is one of many residents who wanted to see the Fifth Avenue property transformed into a town square, or what he calls a community commons, and he argues city officials instead have made it a commodity to sell.

Haber, one of the older demonstrators, said it was nice to see so many young people marching and calling for change.

"This is May Day," he said, recalling the purpose of the holiday to honor workers and support workers rights.

"It has come to be a focal point for the gathering for worker solidarity all over the world, for changing the system of exploitation to a system of sharing and caring and healing, which is what this is all about."

Ann Arbor resident Peter Linebaugh, a retired University of Toledo history professor, also talked about the history of May Day and the labor movement, including the fight by labor unions to move to an eight-hour work day starting on May 1, 1886, and a protest in Chicago that turned ugly on May 4, 1886.

"Late that evening, a bomb was thrown after 200 police had arrived to shut it down," he said. "To this day, no one knows who threw the bomb, but there were casualties, both among police and protesters, and seven anarchists/socialists were brought to trial. And on the 11th of November, 1887, four of them were hanged. Their names are George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons and August Spies. They're known as the martyrs ... and hardly any American of the USA knows them because the knowledge of that day was suppressed. But it's maintained in the rest of the world, which is why the rest of the world celebrates May Day as a workers holiday, but here at home it's forgotten."

Linebaugh reflected on what the May Day demonstration in Ann Ann on Monday meant to him personally.

"This is a collective day, a day of solidarity with immigrants, with workers, with oppressed people," he said. "And I think today is especially against white supremacy in its various forms, against the growing incarceration of people."
20367319-mmmain.jpg

Crews from Sunset Tree Service worked to clear a fallen tree off the roof in 2011.

(MLive File Photo)

MONITOR TWP, MI -- A Bay County landscaping company has been ordered to suspend its business activities by the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affair.

MIOSHA Director Shelly Edgerton announced Monday, May 1, that Monitor Township-based Sunset Tree Service & Landscaping, 2776 E. Fisher Road, was served a Cease Operations Order for "continuing to operate without abating hazards on the jobsite. MIOSHA also issued 12 citations totaling $222,000 in penalties.

The agency ordered the business come to a halt due to the following unresolved safety issues:

Inadequate guard/distance to feed rolls on the Bandit Chipper,

Unguarded shaft with hex flange projections on the Bandit Chipper,

Operator safety control bar tied back with rope and wire, rendering the device ineffective on the Bandit Chipper,

Traffic control devices not utilized when employees were working in and adjacent to the road,

No cover on access panel for the Bandit Chipper, and

No training on tree trimming operations and safeguards.

MIOSHA conducted an investigation with Sunset, a non-union company, from Jan. 11 to March 15. Six of the citations were for failing to abate, while the remaining six were for willful serious violations, the most serious classification.

Sunset has an extensive history of safety violations, MIOSHA reports.

"Between 2011 and 2016, 14 inspections were conducted at the company, resulting in 48 citations with total initial penalties of $150,000," the agency stated. "It has also been cited nine times for failure-to-abate."

Last May, MIOSHA also executed a Cease Operations Order against the company. That order was lifted after the company abated the violations.

"Sunset's gross negligence of MIOSHA regulations continues to jeopardize the safety of its most valuable asset - its employees," Edgerton said. "While MIOSHA strives to work collaboratively with the employer community, such a pattern of non-compliance requires that we take the necessary enforcement actions."

Sunset Tree Service and Landscaping has six employees and is an ornamental shrub and tree service. The business requires the extensive use of personal protective equipment, hand tools and various powered equipment used in the removal and processing of trees.

The Bay City Times/MLive has left multiple messages for Sunset owner Chad Nichols seeking comment.
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) said it welcomed the progress on a framework of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, according to a chairman's statement following an ASEAN summit in the Philippine capital of Manila on Saturday.

"We welcome the progress to complete a framework of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea by the middle of this year, in order to facilitate the early conclusion of an effective COC," the statement said, underscoring "the improving cooperation between ASEAN and China."

The regional organization reaffirmed the importance of "maintaining peace, stability, security and freedom of navigation and over-flight in and above the South China Sea," adding that peaceful, stable and sustainable development of the sea will generate long-term benefits.

Commenting on the COC, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a press conference on Wednesday that China and ASEAN member states had agreed to seek to conclude the consultation on the draft of a COC framework by the first half of 2017.

"With the joint efforts of China and ASEAN countries, the situation in the South China Sea is cooling down and taking on a positive momentum," Geng stressed. "The relevant parties have returned to the right track of resolving disputes through negotiations and consultations, and are fully and effectively implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) as well as actively advancing the consultation on a COC."

Signed in 2002, the DOC outlines the most important principles in the management of disputes in the South China Sea. ASEAN also underscored the importance of "the full and effective implementation" of the DOC in the statement, drafted by the Philippines, which holds the rotating presidency of the organization.

The statement called on relevant parties to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation. All sides involved should pursue the peaceful resolution of disputes and not resort to the threat or use of force, it emphasized.

Bilateral relations between Beijing and Manila have maintained a largely positive momentum since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's visit to China last October. Before the Manila summit, Duterte, who is the current ASEAN chairman, said there was no point in bringing up China's "island-building" at the meeting.

In response to his comment, Geng said at a press conference of the Chinese foreign ministry on Friday that China will continue to follow the agreement reached between the leaders of the two countries and "properly handle sea-related issues with the Philippines."

Also in the statement, ASEAN said that it welcomed the progress in the negotiations of the ASEAN-Hong Kong, China Free Trade Agreement, which are expected to conclude by the end of the year.
A man carries the body of a dead child at a site hit by airstrike in the rebel-controlled area of Maaret al-Numan town in Idlib province, Syria, June 12, 2016. (Photo/Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, April 30 -- The Pentagon said on Sunday at least 352 civilians were killed as a result of U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraqand Syriafrom August 2014 to match 2017.

In its monthly report of assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.

According to the Pentagon, 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

In addition, the U.S. military reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present which were not previously announced.

"Although the coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimizes the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable," said the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's figures contradict the assessment by London-based Amnesty International, which estimated that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition airstrikes in Syria alone.
(Xinhua) 09:24, May 01, 2017

Photo taken on April 11, 2017 shows military vehicles during the U.S.-South Korea joint Exercise Operation Pacific Reach in Pohang, South Korea. (Xinhua/Lee Sang-ho)

PYONGYANG, April 30 -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Sunday that the U.S.-South Korea joint exercises and U.S. buildup of nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula are the root cause of high tension here.

Explaining the situation on the Korean Peninsula to Russian ambassador Alexander Matsegora, DPRK Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Han Song Ryol said the DPRK will "steadily take measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrence in order to defend the sovereignty and vital rights of the country and peace on the peninsula from the U.S. nuclear war threat."

The Russian side expressed its understanding of the stand of the DPRK and hoped the tension on the Korean Peninsula would be defused as soon as possible, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

Tension has remained very high over the past two months between the United States and the DPRK over the former's threat to stage military attack upon Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile programs.

The United States and South Korea also held their largest ever joint military exercises in the past two months, while the USS Carl Vinson nuclear aircraft carrier task group has arrived in the waters off the peninsula for joint drills with the South Korean military.
Chinese actor Wang Luoyong attends the 50th annual WorldFest-Houston in Houston, the United States, on April 29, 2017. More than 10 Chinese films were awarded here on Saturday at the 50th annual WorldFest-Houston, an independent international film festival, which will end on Sunday. (Xinhua/Zhong Jia)

HOUSTON, April 29 -- More than 10 Chinese films were awarded here on Saturday at the 50th annual WorldFest-Houston, an independent international film festival, which will end on Sunday.

The Chinese films won different awards at the festival, but there is no doubt that it is a great success for "Reset," a science fiction supervised by Jackie Chan.

Yang Mi won the Best Actress Remi Award for her great job in the movie "Reset," which also received the Remi Award-Best in Show.

Five Besties-Divoice Busting, a comedy and romantic movie directed by Chen Jianfei, received the Gold Remi Award.

Masters in Forbidden City, a documentary, won the Special Jury Remi Award while Survival in Shanghai, a documentary, received the Gold Remi Award.

Sun Chun, a famous Chinese film star, also received the Outstanding Contribution Award.

As the third largest film festival in North America, just after San Francisco and New York, the Houston film festival, founded 50 years ago, kicked off on April 21.

The 10-day festival premiered 88 features and more than 100 shorts from more than 30 countries and regions. Of which, Panorama China, a platform especially for showing Chinese films, presented the audience 33 films from China.

Hunter Todd, founder and CEO of Houston Film Festival, told Xinhua that he is glad to set up a platform like Panorama China three years ago as he realized the importance and excellence of the Chinese film-making.

"As one of the largest film producers in the world, China is now producing a lot of films. Chinese films are good and I like them," he said.
(Xinhua) 09:53, May 01, 2017

HOHHOT, April 30 -- Hundreds of firefighters are battling a fire that has engulfed a primeval forest in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, according to local authorities.

The fire broke out at around 5 p.m. Sunday in the woods near the China-Russia border, in the northern Greater Hinggan Mountains.

Heavy smoke billowing from the dense woods impeded an airplane to check the situation.

The temperature in Inner Mongolia this spring is 1 to 2 degrees Celsius higher than in previous years, posing a higher fire risk for the region's primeval forests.
From changes in the way one pays taxes to daily revision of fuel prices to abolition of red beacons, a few new rules will be implemented from May 1.

Here is your guide to the changes that will be effective from today:

RERA is here

The Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) promises to bring transparency and accountability in the sector plagued by delays in home delivery.

Every state and union territory will have its own regulatory authority as per the Act.

Petrol & Diesel Rates Yesterday Petrol Rate in Mumbai Yesterday Current Petrol Price Per Litre 106 106 View more Diesel Rate in Mumbai Yesterday Current Petrol Price Per Litre 94 94 View more Show

While RERA tightens laws for the developers accountability, it also ensures that customers keep their part of the bargain. It says that customers will have to make payments on time.

GST portal trial run

The Goods & Services Tax Network (GSTN) will begin its trial run from May 1 onwards. The trial will be carried out through identified 3,000 tax payers who have enrolled in the system.

GSTN - a special purpose vehicle  with a strong IT backbone will help real-time taxpayer registration, filing of returns, handling of invoices, among others.

Prakash Kumar, chief executive officer of GSTN told Moneycontrol that the portal can handle 2.6 billion transactions every month and even has the ability to scale up volume to 13 million GST tax payers a month.

GST is expected to be rolled out on July 1.

Petrol, diesel prices revision on daily basis

State-owned fuel retailers will launch a pilot project for daily price revision of petrol and diesel. The project will be tried in Vizag, Chandigarh, Udaipur, Jamshedpur and Puducherry initially and will then be extended to other cities.The project, for now, will be implemented in .

Currently, prices are revised on the 1st and 16th of every month.

The move will bring India in sync with international rates.

Ban on lal batti comes into effect

The governments decision to scrap red beacons atop cars of ministers and bureaucrats will be effective from today. The government has also amended the rules for use of blue beacons. These can now be used only by ambulances, police cars and fire tenders.

The move, aimed at ending the VIP culture, is a way to change the mindset of the people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in his Mann ki Baat podcast on Sunday.

Modi also said that VIP culture needs to be replaced with EPI meaning Every Person is Important concept.

Adoption: no pick and choose anymore

Prospective parents will not be able to 'pick and choose' children anymore. As per the new law, parents can only aceept or reject the child offered by the national adoption agency, CARINGS.

Parents will be able to participate in three rounds of referrals before they move to the bottom of waiting list.

Till now, parents could choose from three kids offered by the agency.
U.S. President Donald Trump reacts after signing an executive order on education during an event with Governors at the White House in Washington

US president Donald Trump today suggested that China stopped manipulating its currency as soon as he came into office.

"I did say I would call China, if they were, a currency manipulator, early in my tenure. And then I get there. Number one, as soon as I got elected, they stopped. They're not -- it's not going down anymore, their currency," Trump CBSs 'Face The Nation'.

Trump insisted that the Chinese currency manipulation did stop after he became the President.

"They were doing it before. I mean, there was no question. I mean, they were absolute currency manipulators before," he said.

Responding to questions, Trump said that resolving the North Korean issue has taken precedence over all other issues with China, including trade and human rights.

"I think that, frankly, North Korea is maybe more important than trade. Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade," he said.

"If I can use trade as a method to get China, because I happen to think that China does have reasonably good powers over North Korea. Now, maybe not, you know, ultimate, but pretty good powers. Now, if China can help us with North Korea and can solve that problem that's worth making not as good a trade deal for the United States, he said.
Pakistan today fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post of the BSF along the LoC in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, injuring three soldiers, two of them critically.

The ceasefire violation took place around 8:30 AM. Two BSF jawans and an army JCO were injured in the attack.

"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer told PTI.

A head constable and JCO were seriously injured in the attack.

Troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, the officer said.
In a barbaric act, the bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated by the Pakistan Army which violated ceasefire along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district and attacked a patrol team near the border on Monday.

The Indian Army has vowed an appropriate response to the despicable act.

Pakistan army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector.

Simultaneously, a Border Action Team (BAT) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, a statement by the Indian Army said.

Earlier reports had said that a BSF soldier and a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Indian Army were martyred in firing by Pakistan Rangers. "At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer had said.

It serves as a brutal reminder of two such acts in 2016 when the bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated right after Pakistan initiated cross-border firing.

Pakistani troops had breached the truce along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times last month. They violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on April 19 and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on April 17.

Pakistan had resorted to firing in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.
About three years ago, a special family health insurance policy was introduced for the Jain community by Jain International Organisation. Treated like a group insurance scheme, now private insurers are not too keen to be a part of this.

Under this plan called Shravak Arogyam, individual could purchase an insurance plan for Rs 2 lakh under mediclaim. Also, there was a Rs 10-lakh personal accident policy for an earning member and Rs 5 lakh for a non-earning member for personal accidents.

For families, an insurance plan for Rs 5 lakh against mediclaim for self, spouse and two dependent children up to 25 years of age was also available.

"We have been receiving claims while premiums have remained low. This may not be sustainable on a long term basis," said a senior official of an insurance company associated with this scheme in the past.

From the first year itself, a large part of the community applied for this scheme. To be eligible, an individual needed to produce a religion certificate and the word 'Jain' was required to be mentioned in the school leaving certificate.

If it is a health cover for individuals, the yearly premium has been set at Rs 3320 for an individual below 40 years. For a family floater, unlike regular health products, maternity benefit, psychiatric treatment a nd stem cell transplant is also covered.

Insurance companies use the concept of anti-selection to ensure that a group consists of a mix of people so that other group does not end up compensating for one risky group.

For instance, a group with maximum members above 60 years may be a risky pool with health complications that would lead to claims being regularly paid out of the insurance prenium pool collected from all individuals across the country.

"There is a need to regularly revise the premiums especially since health check-ups are not required. Othewise, it could impact our books since religion-based covers are not exactly similar to a regular group policy," a senior insurance official said.

Currently, large-scale covers for any religious community are not offered by insurance companies though individual churches and gurudwaras do take some member-based personal accident covers.
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,
Ex-choir director in Bucks County pleads no contest to molesting two students, secretly filming another
The body of famous Swiss climber Ueli Steck known as "Swiss Machine" is carried towards hospital after transported from a helicopter at Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal on April 30, 2017. Famous Swiss climber Ueli Steck, popularly known as "Swiss Machine," died on Sunday as he fell to the foot of Mount Nuptse, Nepalese officials and expedition organizing company said. (Xinhua/Sunil Sharma)

KATHMANDU, April 30 -- Famous Swiss climber Ueli Steck, popularly known as "Swiss Machine," died on Sunday as he fell to the foot of Mount Nuptse, Nepalese officials and expedition organizing company said.

It is the first death in this spring season in the Qomolangma region, according to officials of Nepal's Department of Tourism (DoT) which gives permit for mountain climbing.

Steck, 40, was heading toward camp 2 from camp 1 of Mt. Qomolangma, also known as Mt. Everest. The camp also serves as a base for climbing the 7,855-meter high Nuptse as he slipped 1,000 meter down to the foot of the mountain, Khem Raj Aryal, an official at the mountaineering division of the DoT told Xinhua.

The incident took place at the altitude of 6,400 meters from the sea level at around 8 a.m. local time (0215 GMT), according to the Seven Summits Treks company that organized Steck's expedition.

After the incident, his body was brought to Lukla airport and latter to Kathmandu by helicopter.

"His body now has been kept at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu for the postmortem," Nivesh Karki, manager of the Seven Summits Treks, told Xinhua.

According to the DoT, Steck who had received permit to climb the Nuptse on April 13 had headed to the mountain on the same day. He had gone there with 14 other members of an expedition team. There were two Swiss climbers including Steck and Nepalese Sherpa guides, according to the Seven Summits Treks.

Steck, who is famous for his speed records, had won multiple awards for his rapid ascents. The climber had reached the summit of Qomolangma in 2012 without oxygen and in 2015 climbed all 82 Alpine peaks over 4,000 meters in 62 days.

The Swiss climber, who vowed never to return to Mt. Qomolangma after a brawl with local Sherpa guides in 2012, was back in Nepal in 2013 to scale the 8,091-meter Mt. Annapurna.
Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity
'Captain America' star Chris Evans has been named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, and admits his mother will enjoy being able to "brag" about his new title.

10 hours ago
The first Changchun Tai Chi international invitational tournament opened on Sunday at Changchun University of Chinese Medicine, with more than 1,000 people from 31 countries participating.

The tournament's two main events include participants competing in a group or individually. For competing collectively, the 24-form Tai Chi Chuan was the form competitors had to complete in. For individual competitors, they could perform different forms.

A participant from Ghana told Xinhua News Agency that Tai Chi represents the unique traditional culture of China. "It could strengthen health and fitness while at the same time cultivate sentiment. It is an enjoyment to both body and mind."

Zhang Zhenying, Deputy Director of Jilin's Physical Education Office, said that the tournament is set to let more people know about Tai Chi and hence lead to a healthy lifestyle.

The sport is one of the most popular forms of exercise in China, especially for the elderly. The martial art, which combines slow and fluid movements, deep breathing and meditation, has been practiced in China for centuries.

With 5,000 years of history, China has undoubtedly amassed numerous cultural relics and traditions. This includes 37 which are recognized by UNESCO World Heritage. One practice still awaiting recognition is Tai Chi.
An alternative lenders funding problems and intensified fear about the housing markets stability have made themselves felt in Canadas banking stocks.Home Capital Group Inc. has been buffeted by multiple crises including a regulatory probe into its disclosures. The lender said it had hired bankers to help it acquire funding for its hemorrhaging coffers and evaluate its strategic options.Its a crisis affecting a company which happens to be operating in the mortgage market, TD Securities chief macro strategist Fred Demers said, as quoted by Reuters.Demers quickly added, however, that there was little risk of a domino effect that characterized the 2008-09 financial crisis.The developments have led to a noticeable decline in the nations benchmark stock last Thursday (April 27). Toronto Stock Exchanges S&P/TSX composite index dropped by 0.91 per cent or 143.07 points, ending at 15,506.47. Crucially, 7 of the indexs 10 most significant declines were financial stocks, with the financial sector as a whole sliding down by nearly 1.7 per cent. Royal Bank of Canada declined 1.9 per cent to $93.66, and Toronto-Dominion Bank lost 2.4 per cent to $64.17. Meanwhile, Bank of Nova Scotia fell 2.7 per cent to $75.31.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

It is time for the Turkish and Azerbaijani companies to jointly export goods to third countries, Ali Ihsan Genc, chairman of the Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey and Azerbaijan (TUIB) public association, told Trend.

He added that Azerbaijani and Turkish investors can create joint companies abroad.

"Despite the global crisis, the Turkish companies continue their activity in Azerbaijan due to long experience, he added. Economic reforms in Azerbaijan are giving results. There are all conditions for the development of business in Azerbaijan."

He added that Turkish businessmens investments in Azerbaijan help the development of the country.

Genc said that the Azerbaijani economy has reached such a level that it is possible to export goods to other countries.

"Export has become an important sector of the Azerbaijani economy, he added. I believe that financial support for export is inadequate, therefore it is necessary to create an Export-Import Bank (EXIM Bank) in Azerbaijan to support export."

According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Turkey reached almost $553 million in January-March 2017, $308.7 million of which accounted for export to Turkey. Over the year, the trade turnover between the two countries has increased by more than twofold.
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

Cloudy skies. High 69F. Winds NNE at 15 to 25 mph. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy with light rain developing after midnight. Low 63F. Winds NE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%.
Cash out up to $200,000

A maximum loan amount of $1.5 million

A minimum FICO score of 620 (700 for loans over $1 million

No DTI cap (subject to VA requirements, compensating factors apply

No AVM or appraisals on owner-occupied primary residence transactions

Pay off existing VA loan plus closing costs and funding fees

Parkside Lending has announced that its now offering VA home loan programs.Were excited that we can now partner with mortgage professionals to help eligible servicemen and women, veterans and their families become homeowners with a VA home loan from Parkside Lending, CEO Matt Ostrander said. Our program takes a common-sense approach to underwriting, whereby we review each veterans individual situation while making sensible loans.Parksides team has more than 40 years of combined experience in VA loans. The program is headed by Linda Jacopetti, Parksides head of underwriting and government operations. Marcy Neves, Parksides government underwriting manager, heads up the VA underwriting team. Neves is the most tenured underwriter in the VA system, according to a Parkside news release.Highlights of Parksides VA home loan program include:Interest-rate reduction refinance loan (IRRRL) program:


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Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Anakhanum Hidayatova  Trend:

Azerbaijan and Indonesia will discuss expansion of trade and economic relations during a business forum, to be held in Azerbaijans Guba May 3, the Indonesian Embassy in Baku told Trend.

Numerous entrepreneurs representing various sectors of the Indonesian economy will come to Azerbaijan to participate in the forum.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Indonesia amounted to $9.179 million in January-March 2017, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.
We are collating signatures to petition ...
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

Trend:

Joint live-fire tactical exercises of Azerbaijans and Turkeys armed forces started May 1 in accordance with an agreement on military cooperation between the two countries, said the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.

The aim of the exercises, which will continue until May 5, is to improve coordination of actions through the exchange of experience between the Azerbaijani and Turkish armed forces, as well as to achieve interoperability of the two countries military units through improving the readiness and capabilities of the units to conduct operations.

The joint exercises involve armored vehicles, mortars, military and transport helicopters, as well as air defense units and anti-aircraft missile units.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has offered condolences to his Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev.

I was deeply saddened by the news of heavy casualties as a result of a landslide in Osh region, said Ilham Aliyev in his letter of condolences.

On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and loved ones of those who died and the people of Kyrgyzstan, and wish those injured the soonest possible recovery, President Aliyev said.
GET OUR APP Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. Download it here.
On International Workers Day, known as May Day in some countries, millions around the world marched in favor of workers rights.

International Workers Day rallies

Rallies throughout Florida, in Apopka

Calls for fair wage, better treatment of immigrants

Closer to home, the Florida Immigrant Coalition organized a half dozen rallies, one of which was in Apopka.

I hope everyone gets the same message, they know were the same people. They should treat us like they treat their mom and dad, with respect," said Citlalli Cisneros-Rodriguez, 17. They should have rights just like other people. Theyre just normal people, theyre all the same. There shouldnt be any more racism.

Cisneros-Rodriguez was one of dozens who rallied, marching from a local park to city hall in Apopka.

"Maybe it can change someones opinion about something, about us," she said.

Rally begins with prayer for immigrants living in fear, to lawmakers who make decisions affecting the working poor. #InternationalWorkersDay pic.twitter.com/jenxHzxO1A  Julie Gargotta (@juliegargotta) May 1, 2017

Those who marched chanted "Si, se puede," roughly translated into, "Yes, one can," or "Yes, it's possible." They carried handmade signs, many of which the 17-year-old high school student made by hand at the Farmworker Association of Florida over the last week.

Were doing posters to say, were all here. We stay here. Were all equal," she said hours before the march.

I was so mad because Ive seen my parents struggle through everything, so they can give us something," she said.



The daughter of Mexican immigrants, the teen said shes hated the divisive rhetoric about immigration.



Since the election, many people think that immigrants do a lot of bad stuff," she said. "We need jobs. We also have families too.

The Florida Immigrant Coalition organized a half dozen rallies in the Sunshine State, from Apopka and Lakeland, to Tampa and Miami.

Rallies also are going on in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Chicago, where 20,000 attendees marched into the downtown area.

While union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers' rights around the world, the day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the U.S. since massive demonstrations were held on the date in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.

In recent years, immigrant rights protests shrank as groups diverged and shifted their focus on voter registration and lobbying.

Larger crowds returned this year, prompted by Trump's ascension, as immigrant groups join with Muslim organizations, women's advocates and black leaders to push back against the president.

Immigrant advocates said they hope their message will reach Trump, congressional lawmakers and the public and provide a sense of unity and strength to those opposed to the administration's policies.

Many said they hoped a show of strength would help persuade politicians to rethink their plans.

Information from Associated Press was used in this report.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has congratulated Ilir Meta on his election as the Albanian president.

I cordially congratulate you on your election as President of the Republic of Albania, Ilham Aliyev told Ilir Meta in his congratulatory letter.

I hope that we will continue to make joint efforts towards developing friendship and cooperation between Azerbaijan and Albania, noted the president.

I wish you robust health, happiness and success in your activities for the prosperity of the friendly people of Albania, added the Azerbaijani president.
Daniel Cornier and Darko were inseparable in Afghanistan.

Daniel Cornier, Darko K-9 explosive search team in Afghanistan

Darko retired from active duty in 2013 with Cornier

Darko passed away Monday at almost 14 years old

Darko was probably the closest thing I had to a friend, when times were at their worst. When I was alone and doing my thing on my deployment, he was definitely a close friend," said Daniel Cornier, who served in the Marine Corps.



Cornier said when times were tough, Darko was a friend who was always willing to lend an unbiased ear.



He would always listen but never talk back," Cornier explained.



Darko was a bomb-sniffing K-9, a Belgian malinois trained to seek out explosives and help save lives. Cornier, his handler.

His job overseas was to stay out front and clear the area for explosives, Cornier shared.

"I cant think of a more important job overseas, when youve got thousands of troops on the ground and theyre looking to you to clear a path, a safe path in the route that youre going to take," Cornier continued.

Darko also worked with Lucca, a well-known Marine dog featured in the book "Top Dog" by Maria Goodavage.

Darko retired from active duty in 2013. Cornier was able to adopt Darko, eventually landing in Deltona.

&amp;amp;nbsp;

Daniel Cornier is reunited with Darko in 2014, and takes him home. (Daniel Cornier, Soldier Dogs)

Darko gave me a lot of comfort and he was able to guide me through my deployment and give me the comfort while I was overseas," Cornier said. "I figured when I retired him out, Id offer that to him."

"I was his one and only, his friend, his guardian angel, his comfort after the Marine Corps, after service," Cornier added.

However, recent health challenges made it impossible for the nearly 14-year-old dog to walk.

After much reflection, the military working dog was put to rest Monday morning.

If I could say anything to Darko now, I would thank him for his service obviously and for keeping me safe and giving me a comfortable spot to deal with some of the issues that I had overseas. Again, thank him for his service and tell him Im going to miss him and love him very much," Cornier said.
U.S. Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke was in Plainview at Leals Restaurant on Saturday afternoon, speaking to a crowd numbering about two dozen.

On Sunday afternoon, 300 people crowded into the Tornado Gallery in the Depot District to hear the fourth-generation Texan who represents Texas 16th Congressional District in his hometown of El Paso, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

ORourke, a Democrat, told the Avalanche-Journal that he disagrees with President Donald Trump on building a wall along the U.S. and Mexico borders. ORourke points out that the U.S. and Mexico border has never been safer.

The candidate said a border wall will cost tens of billions of dollars -- money that is needed for other pressing priorities. ORourke instead favors something more positive, such as comprehensive immigration reform, which he believes is how true safety could be guaranteed for border communities.

ORourke is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. ORourke said his Senate campaign is the only one running without any help from political action committees, special interest donors and corporate cash.

ORourke drew national media attention and thousands of livestream followers earlier this year during a 1,600-mile bipartisan road trip from San Antonio to Washington, D.C. with U.S Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, after a snowstorm canceled air flights.

Fluent in Spanish, ORourke is a businessman with a family technology company and a musician who played in three punk rock bands during and after attending Columbia University. He and his wife Amy have three children.

Robert Francis ORourke (known as Beto since childhood) won his far West Texas seat by defeating an eight-term incumbent, Sylvester Reyes, who had been endorsed by both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
NORTH HAVEN  If youre British you probably know that swift half is a term for a half-pint of beer enjoyed during a quick visit to the pub.



It is also the name of a new North Haven restaurant-bar at 630 Washington Ave., near the Wallingford town line.



Rick Seiden and Ed Thurschmann, two commercial fishermen from Milford who opened the Three Sheets bar and restaurant in New Haven in 2013, took over the E.J. Nevins Pub space.



Its a unique take on the traditional pub menu that includes Vietnamese banh-mi, Muffuletta and eggplant sammy sandwiches, Seiden said. We make everything from scratch, including homemade ketchup.



The establishment has a front-room bar with a fireplace where craft beer is a specialty, including Connecticut favorites Kent Falls, Two Roads and New England Brewing Co. drafts.



There is also a large dining room with a pool table.



Seiden has hired a staff of 11.



As for the name, the owners explain on their Facebook page it refers to the mythical quick half pint on the way home, or on your way somewhere  never happens.



Swift Half is open seven days a week from 11:30 a.m. to close.






NEW LONDON (AP)  The Eagle is expected to land or more accurately dock  later this week at its home port in Connecticut. The Coast Guard ship is a training vessel for the nearby cadets at the Coast Guard Academy in New London.



The Day reports that the Coast Guard sailing ship will be moored at the citys pier for three days and will be open for free public tours.



The Eagle is the only active square-rigger in U.S. government service, according to a Coast Guard news release. This means it has three masts with square sails that are its primary means of propulsion.



Originally the Eagle was a German navy ship. It was given to the United States as reparations following World War II.






MERIDEN  The city completed a land swap last week giving property at 177 State St. to the Meriden Housing Authority and Pennrose Properties. The closing allows work to begin on the first phase of Meriden Commons.



Pennrose, a developer, and the MHA have been awarded low-income tax credits to build 75 affordable and market-rate apartments and commercial space on the State Street property, which is next to the housing authoritys Mills Memorial Apartments. The Mills complex is expected to be demolished in the fall.



A June groundbreaking ceremony is being planned for the first phase of Meriden Commons, said Juliet Burdelski, the citys economic development director.



As soon as we transfer that over they can begin staging construction, Burdelski said.



In exchange for 177 State St., the city will receive 144 Pratt St. to expand the Meriden Green flood control and park project to Cedar Street.



Another 75 apartments, including three- and four-bedroom units, and more commercial space are planned for the second phase of Meriden Commons. The second phase has not yet received low-income housing tax credits.



The city also received notice last week that a proposed plan for affordable and market-rate apartments at 11 Crown St. also secured low-income housing tax credits.



Manafort Brothers has been selected for the demolition, which is expected to cost $1.36 million. The city purchased the property in 2014, and received a state grant to pay for the demolition.



A pre-demolition ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday.



mgodin@record-journal.com 203-317-2255 Twitter: @Cconnbiz






MERIDEN  The citys CT Next Innovation Place grant application failed to make the short list of finalists, but city and business leaders say the city is moving ahead on several initiatives in the grant application and will try again next year.



CT Next is a wholly owned subsidiary of Connecticut Innovations that draws funding from public and private sources, including the state Department of Economic and Community Development. The city was among 12 finalists that won $25,000 grants to put together a plan that would foster entrepreneurial innovation in its downtown area and research and development sectors along Research Parkway.



The seven finalists were Stamford, Norwalk, New London, New Haven, Hartford-East Hartford, Danbury and a central Connecticut coalition including New Britain, Farmington and Berlin.



From our bigger cities to our smaller communities, each application we received was comprehensive and impressive, reflecting the drive among our local leaders to more deeply establish Connecticut as a hub for entrepreneurism and business growth, said Glendowlyn Thames, executive director of CT Next. So much excitement, engagement and creative thinking came from all 12 participating communities. As we move ahead in the process, we look forward to visiting with each finalist to learn more about their vision and plans for making their local community an Innovation Place.



The citys application focused on encouraging education in food production, health care, manufacturing and the arts. It was put together by a 12-member team that included city officials and business leaders. Central Connecticut State University business professor Drew Harris wrote the application.



Harris noted that most of the seven finalists were already recipients of state funding on a variety of projects, and the grant judges were likely looking at initiatives that could be completed more quickly than Meridens proposals.



Clearly we werent in left field with the nature of things being proposed, Harris said. The town has to catch up to whats been going on.



Much of the citys plan consisted of filling in the gaps downtown, but it needs more private investment to match the public money that has been spent or will be spent soon, Harris said. When the new train station opens and commuter rail service increases, more activity is expected, he said.



One of the things that impressed Harris was the shared vision among the citys leaders and department heads that can facilitate growth and development. He also couldnt ignore the number of city residents who have been awarded patents.



Economic Development Director Juliet Burdelski, Midstate Chamber of Commerce President Sean Moore, Harris, and Meriden Economic Development Corp. President Thomas Welsh will meet to determine how to move forward.



Its not a dead issue, Harris said. Were not finalists this year. But there is an opportunity every year over the next five years. We can go back and say were further along.



Burdelski said the intense planning process revealed strategies that the city can implement with existing resources.



It was a very tough competition, Burdelski wrote in an email. But we are making the best of it. We have allocated $100,000 in CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) funds for the Meriden Matching Grant program that would provide grants to small businesses and property owners in downtown. We are pursuing an adaptive reuse and public art project at 21 Colony St. We will continue to provide small business outreach and assistance to businesses wanting to make their mark in Meriden.



The city is also working with the Connecticut Main Street Center to fund a two-year downtown fellow to organize special events and cooperative marketing activities.



CT Next gave us the opportunity to formulate a lot of great ideas and strategies that we can build upon, Burdelski said.



Over the next two weeks, the CT Next board of directors will visit the finalists sites to view the impact areas outlined in each strategic plan.



The town of Berlin, which is included in the central Connecticut innovation group, hopes to see CTfastrak bus service extended to the Berlin train station. If approved, New Haven-to-Hartford commuters will have direct access to the service via Berlin. The addition could help commuters farther down on the line, including those from Meriden, connect to New Britain, West Hartford, Hartford and the UConn Health Center in Farmington.



mgodin@record-journal.com 203-317-2255 Twitter: @Cconnbiz






WALLINGFORD  A New Britain man faces charges after police say he swallowed a bag of heroin during a traffic stop on Route 5.



Piotr Budziszewski, 38, of New Britain, was charged Friday with interfering with police and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was also cited for not wearing a seatbelt.



An officer stopped the vehicle Budziszewski was in at about 5:50 p.m. Friday after noticing he was not wearing a seat belt. After the officer ordered Budziszewski to keep his hands on the dashboard, he grabbed some heroin and put it in his mouth, according to a police report. He then took a drink of water and swallowed the heroin.



The officer found multiple items of drug paraphernalia in the vehicle.



Budziszewski was released on a promise to appear in Meriden Superior Court on May 12 and taken to MidState Medical Center for treatment.






Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

Trend:

Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev has extended congratulations to Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel.

"On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I congratulate you and your nation on the occasion of the national holiday of the State of Israel  Independence Day", - Ilham Aliyev told Reuven Rivlin in his congratulatory letter.

"I believe that friendship and cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel will further develop and strengthen in the best interests of our nations", - noted the president.

"On this remarkable day, I wish you good health, success in your activities, and the friendly people of Israel peace and prosperity", - added the Azerbaijani president.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) sold $220.8 million at the currency auctions held by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) in April 2017, SOFAZ said in a message May 1.

SOFAZ sold over $1.014 billion in January-April 2017, while, in total, the Azerbaijani banks bought around $4.92 billion from SOFAZ in 2016.

SOFAZ will continue to sell currency through auctions in 2017.

The currency is sold as part of SOFAZs transfers to the Azerbaijani state budget, which are envisaged in the amount of 6.1 billion manats for 2017.
There are enough alternative facts about San Francisco to create an alternative city  maybe when you're surrounded by translucent fog, some of the details are prone to get lost within the shapes.

The true stories, urban legends, and myths are multitude and easy to confuse. San Francisco has had its own United States emperor (true), who banned the use of the word "Frisco" (probably false). There are more dogs than children here (true), and one of those rare children was suspended from school for wishing his teacher a merry Christmas (false).
Ivan Pierre Aguirre/San Antonio Express-News

The U.S. Department of Commerce is investing $1 million at the University of Houston-Victoria to boost the region's economic diversification and entrepreneurial development, the department said Monday.

The Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration is awarding the grant to renovate a portion of the former Town Plaza Mall to establish the Regional Center for Economic Development and Entrepreneurship in Victoria.
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The farmers market on Airline isn't the kind of place where you'll find duck eggs, artisan cheeses or an array of exotic mushrooms for aspiring home chefs.

The decades-old collection of vendors spread over some 18 acres in the northern Heights area has been a mainstay for more traditional produce, along with such Mexican staples as hibiscus flowers, nopales and hot sauces.

But a deal in the works to sell the operation could set in motion plans to expand the market, not only upgrading the existing facilities and parking but also adding more food services and attractions to engage the community, the prospective buyers said.

GUIDE: Most-happening farmers markets around Houston

The local group that has an agreement to acquire the Farmers Marketing Association of Houston says the market will remain like it is for now. Down the road, "we'll have some exciting announcements," said Todd Mason of MLB Capital Partners.

Culinary events

Mason sees the property becoming a local tourist attraction where families from around the area would visit and spend a few hours there. He envisions there being culinary events and live music on weekends.

The sale has not yet closed and details are limited, but initial plans call for cleaning up the well-worn property, improving the bathrooms and the parking area. From a tenant perspective, little is expected to change within the first year, Mason said. New buildings could come later.

TAKEOVER NEWS: Texas organic grocer rallies on report bidder is backing out

The buyers have considered adding meat shops, a bakery and perhaps a brewery.

Given the popularity of the Heights, signs of change - and gentrification - in the areas around it have become common.

Developers are putting up blocky townhomes alongside an old cemetery next to the farmers market property, which was appraised at $8.6 million this year by Harris County - up 21 percent from 2013.

Other neighbors speak to the area's more working-class population.

Airline is dotted with spice and herb stores, pinata boutiques and Mexican seafood restaurants like Connie's and Tampico.

Private corporation

The Farmers Marketing Association, a private corporation whose shareholders are the original farmers or their descendants, owns and operates the acreage.

The market was a co-op when it started in 1942, but the group incorporated in the late 1980s, longtime manager Kevin Kleb said.

"Through the years there have been a few young farmers come aboard, but that's pretty much stopped," Kleb said. "There's little agricultural land left in Harris County."

Canino Produce Co. is one of many produce operations on the property. There's also a key shop and a defunct restaurant called Triple A.

Lawrence Pilkinton, whose family has owned Canino's for 59 years, expanding it from a one-counter operation selling just a few crates of fruits and vegetables, said grocery stores have diluted the business.

Farmer families

The number of local farmers has shrunk to a fraction of what it was in the market's heyday.

"There are about 15 farmer families left in Houston. At one time there was probably 100," Pilkinton said. "Over the years they sell their land because it's so valuable."
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University enrollment is steadily growing, having increased by 21 percent from 1994 to 2004, according to the federal data. While enrollment has risen, so has the cost of college.

Students can now expect to pay $9,650-$33,480 annually on average at a 4-year university, according to CollegeBoard estimates. And that's excluding textbooks and room and board, which CollegeBoard estimates tacks on about $10,000.

Rather than judging a college solely by "quality," Forbes' 2017 list of best value colleges ranks schools by their return on investment.

"For many students and their families, the price of a degree is as important a factor in deciding where to go as its quality," says the study. "Knowing where you can get the most quality for each tuition dollar spent is the goal of this year's Best Value ranking."

Story continues below.

Forbes evaluated 300 universities based on quality, tuition costs, post-grad earnings, graduation success and student debt.

Half of the top 10 schools are in California and four are within the UC system. For the second year in a row, UC Berkeley topped the list.

Forbes says the West Coast's domination proves that "private Northeast institutions have lost their monopoly on the higher education marketplace." Elite universities, such as Harvard, Yale and MIT, cracked the top-10 nonetheless.

About 20 million students currently attend U.S. colleges  about 16 percent of the total population  and in most cases, graduating from college pays off. In 2015, the unemployment rate for college graduates was 5 percent, compared to 10 percent for those without degrees.

Although a job is on the horizon for most college students, that doesn't stop them from worrrying about paying for their degrees. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 1 in 5 young adults (ages 18-29) cited college costs as their biggest financial worry.

Click through the above slideshow to see the top 25 American colleges with the biggest bang for your buck.

Read Michelle Robertsons latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.




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The same weekend that San Antonio chef Jason Dady stormed the Austin Food & Wine Festival and announced he'd be taking over Luke's old spot on the River Walk, he kept the city's fires burning on Week 3 of the Food Network's "Iron Chef Gauntlet."

The show, a reboot of the network's Iron Chef franchise with the irascible food nerd Alton Brown as the chairman, hit the midpoint of its six-week run Sunday night, with five of the original seven chefs from restaurants around the country battling to become the next Iron Chef.

Dady and his competitors hit the opening Chairman's Challenge running, fighting over ingredients like blue cheese, black beans, beets, fish sauce and sesame seeds to make one sweet dish and one savory dish.

Dady did a yin-and-yang savory interpretation of sesame sauces with soba noodles and a white sesame cheesecake with black sesame coulis for the sweet dish. Brown threw shade on both for underplaying the white sesame.

RELATED: Jason Dady opening new restaurant downtown in former Luke space in Embassy Suites

Seattle chef Shota Nakajima grabbed fish sauce for a shellfish bowl that Brown attacked for its saltiness. Houston native Sarah Grueneberg of Chicago's Monteverde went with panko-fried beets on the savory side and a sweet beet panna cotta. Stephanie Izard of Chicago's Girl & The Goat stumbled over black bean ice cream.

Brown declared Grueneberg the winner and threw chef Michael Gulotta of New Orleans under the streetcar for his blue cheese boondoggle. As the winner, the dubious privilege of choosing a chef to face Gulotta in an elimination battle fell to Grueneberg. She put the heat on Nakajima, who faced Gulotta in what felt like an eight-sided octopus challenge.

Gulotta and Nakajima's octopus creations  dishes like tempura-fried octopus and curried octopus salad with fried avocado  faced the scrutiny of Food Network celebrity judges Giada De Laurentiis and Iron Chef Marc Forgione, who declared Nakajima the winner and sent Gulotta home.

RELATED: Pearl Farmers Market is moving come May

Before Sunday night's episode, Dady spent the weekend in Austin, where he and his crew plated almost 10,000 dishes during the three-day Austin Food & Wine Festival, including a beef picadillo Norteno taco for the festival's Rock Your Taco showdown against a who's who of chefs, including TV darling Ming Tsai, Fort Worth's Tim Love and French heartthrob Ludo Lefebvre. Austin sushi impresario Tyson Cole of Uchi ultimately won that battle.

On Friday, Dady announced he is opening a new restaurant called Range in the spot formerly held by Luke at the Embassy Suites. Described as a "modern American chophouse." it's expected to open in late summer.

Dady's been schmoozing with his "Iron Chef Gauntlet" competitors since the series began three weeks ago. Last week, Dady hosted Nakajima for a pop-up dinner at San Antonio's Tre Trattoria. The weekend before, Dady was joined by Grueneberg for a weekly watch party at Shuck Shack.

The four remaining chefs  Dady, with six San Antonio restaurants including Shuck Shack and the new Bin Tapas Bar; Grueneberg; Izard and Nakajima  will compete in next Sunday's episode, "Classic Combos."

On the series' May 21 finale, the last remaining chef will cook against Iron Chef all-stars Bobby Flay, Masaharu Morimoto and Michael Symon for a chance to become the newest Iron Chef.

"Iron Chef Gauntlet" airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on the Food Network. The Express-News will follow Dady's progress.

msutter@express-news.net

Twitter: @fedmanwalking
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Frank, Tim, David and the rest of you weather experts  in my office  NOW!

Last Friday night, the weather report for Saturday said a 20-30 mph wind would blow from the southeast. Fantastic! I was riding in the BPMS150 charity bike from Houston to Austin.

I know my geography. Austin is kind of northwest of Houston. That means a pretty stiff wind would whoosh me along the BPMS150 route to the state capital. I'm barely going to have to pedal. I'm good with that. I'm no hero.

Saturday morning, I headed out from Waller Stadium - that's the BPMS150 starting point for weenies. Waller Stadium is an 8-mile head start over riders beginning from Rhodes Stadium and a 23-mile advantage over riders beginning from Tully Stadium.

Two minutes into the ride  where's this wind beneath our wings, gently propelling us to Austin?

I'm watching the tall grass bending back in our faces. I'm pedaling like a maniac and going nowhere slow.

There have been BPMS150 years when the wind really was at our backs. I scoot along at 15-18 mph. With no wind, I'm a 12-14 mph guy. Speeds are approximate, depending on road surface, temperature, hills and how many Coke Zeros and 5 Hour Energy Drinks I've chugged.

I checked the "computer" on my handlebars (we bikers don't call it a speedometer) and I was pumping uphill, against the wind like Bob Seger (great song) at 8-10 mph. And I had plenty of company. Some riders were getting off their bikes and walking them uphill.

Typical walking speed: 3 mph.

Making matters so much worse, Saturday I volunteered myself for a self-inflicted social experiment. Moments before leaving, still in the Waller Stadium parking, I realized that I had left my phone at home. I checked every pocket, nope, no phone.

Sometimes I leave my phone home if I'm running to the supermarket, or walking my dog around the block. Otherwise, I'm attached to my phone like Lilly on a leash.

Can I survive an all-day bike ride with no phone, no contact with media? It usually takes me till late afternoon to reach the overnight midway point in La Grange. I'm going to be like Nicolas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas" before I'm leaving Waller Stadium.

I'm an addict. I'm an emailer, tweeter, caller and looker-upper. I can't be stranded an entire day - especially a BPMS150 day without my phone. I need Jimmy and John and Paul songs to keep me pedaling. I can't be alone with my thoughts.

You know how, when a hurricane hits and you lose power for a few days, but you still flip on light switches out of habit? That was me Saturday. I kept checking my pants, like my phone would magically appear in a pocket.

I'm a hard-hitting investigative journalist - I'm supposed to post photos from the ride on Twitter and give updates. At a rest stop and at lunch, I borrowed someone's phone and tweeted a couple of photos. I must have pushed a wrong button, the photos were black-and-white. A reader asked if I was suddenly getting arty, "like Ansel Adams."

Yeah, Ansel Adams is famous for taking photos of pulled-pork sandwiches at fast-food joints.

I ran into a few riders at the Dairy Queen in Bellville: Bruce Patterson, Brooks Tueting and Steve Versteeg. They said lunch at DQ was their reward for doing the BPMS150. One of them said it's the only time he eats fast food all year.

I said, "Yeah, me too."

Demonstrating personal growth and a willingness to try new things  instead of ordering my usual burger, fries and Blizzard, I got a pulled-pork sandwich (new at DQ), onion rings and a chocolate shake.

Tip of the day: Ask them to make your shake with hot fudge instead of Hershey's syrup. Your shake will come out extra chocolatey.

Only about 10,000 people rode the BPMS150 this year. I say "only" because the charity ride usually attracts 13,000 riders. Officials say bad weather in recent years and predictions of heavy thunderstorms Saturday night kept the number of riders down.

The MS Society already has collected $11 million in rider donations, with another $5 million expected. It's still the biggest weekend charity in the world.

After lunch, I wanted to stretch my legs, so I walked across the street from the DQ to Newman's Bakery.

Like Jerry in "Seinfeld," all I could mutter was "Newman!" It's not just a bakery, it's a full-service restaurant, with one of the best cookie counters I've ever seen. They had a pile of my favorite cookie, the Black-Eyed Susan, with huge soft drops of dark fudge in the middle.

Next year, Newman's Bakery. Table for two, for me and the cookies.

Signing off

Legendary news anchor Dave Ward will bid goodbye to his 50-year career on Channel 13 during the station's 6 and 6:30 p.m. newscasts Tuesday.

Ward will offer reflections on his life in TV news with anchors Gina Gaston and Art Rascon during the 6 p.m. news. He will give his final commentary at the end of the 6:30 p.m. news.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner will host a ceremony honoring Ward at City Hall at 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Retired Congressman Michael McNulty's brother William was a Navy corpsmen assigned to a Marine unit when he was killed in the Vietnam War. He was not a Marine as noted in a Duty Calls column last week.

Accuracy is a fundamental of journalism, but mistakes sometimes occur. The Times Union's policy is to acknowledge errors as promptly as possible. Mistakes may be brought to the attention of the editors by calling 454-5420.
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STAMFORD  The citys schools superintendent gave a glowing recommendation to a candidate for its new facilities contractor despite his connection to a firm thats under FBI investigation for possible extortion.

Its unclear how much weight Superintendent of Schools Earl Kims recommendation was given in the new contractors decision to hire Richard Lyons, AFB Construction Managements former second in command, but the letter describes him as terrific and undoubtedly the best facilities manager in Stamford.

Rich, like most facilities directors, has long experience in the construction business, and therefore, has a keen understanding of systems and personnel management, Kim wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Advocate through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In addition, he has a work ethic that I admire and depend on. Evenings, weekends, it doesnt matter when, Rich is our Johnny-on-the-spot.

ABM Industries hired Lyons last month after replacing AFB as the districts facilities management contractor, a position the Trumbull-based company led by Al Barbarotta held for more than 15 years.

AFB, which has been under investigation by local police and the FBI for more than year, has been blamed for problems at several Stamford facilities in recent years and has lost contracts with other municipalities and school districts.

Authorities are investigating whether Barbarotta, a friend of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, used his position as facilities director to extort money from another city contractor.

Lyons worked as AFBs No. 2 in Stamford since 2014, when he quit his elected post on the city Board of Education for the job with Barbarotta.

In the March 17 letter, Kim said Lyons has many unique qualities that make him the best candidate for the position. Kim cited Lyons intimate knowledge of our system, which includes the condition of school facilities, the capital projects approval process, project statuses, personnel abilities and collective bargaining agreements.

Rich has a masterful understanding of the convoluted city-school board structure and associated processes, so he is able to shepherd key projects through the system with aplomb, Kim wrote.

Kim also said Lyons has strong relationships with city-side personnel that will enable getting things done in a timely manner.

The schools chief, who started the job last summer after moving from Hawaii, also said Lyons has the ability to quickly resolve issues. He cited a February incident in which a tree knocked out power to two schools  Dolan Middle School and Toquam Magnet Elementary School.

Rich was on top of the situation from the moment we became aware, Kim wrote. He worked with police, fire, school, emergency management and (utility) personnel from the time the incident occurred... I had no worries with Rich in charge.

Board members have said they trust ABMs judgment, but some were concerned when Lyons was hired.

It doesnt look good for the district, board member Mike Altamura said at the time, before vowing to hold the company accountable for its performance in the schools.

John Zito, a former mayoral and school board candidate, criticized the board when he heard rumors of the impeding hire days before it was officially announced. He said the decision would leave a bad taste in taxpayers mouths.

Kim said he met with AFB employees before they left the district to thank them for their contribution and offered on my own accord to write letters of recommendation.

I regret that some in the media and public feel that a person should be judged by the company for which they work, as opposed to their demonstrated commitment to Stamford, job performance and personal character, Kim said in a statement Friday. I nonetheless stand by my recommendation of Rich Lyons.

ABM, which did not return a request for comment, will cost the district about $200,000 less than AFBs last long-term contract in Stamford.

Besides Lyon, the facilities management giant has hired a trades manager, a custodial manager and a systems analyst to work in Stamford.

Its a very diverse team of very talented individuals and Im very confident in them, Andrew Canicatti, ABMs regional vice president of education services, told the school board at a recent meeting.

Canicatti said the firm was still searching for a part-time executive director.

We want to make sure that the person we select is the right person for this job, he said. Thats very important to us.

noliveira@stamfordadvocate.com, 203-964-2265, @olivnelson
WASHINGTON  President Trump has nominated a former top lobbyist for Westlands Water District, the San Joaquin Valley farming powerhouse in Washington and the nations largest water district, to be deputy secretary of the Interior Department.

If David Bernhardt wins Senate confirmation, he will be the No. 2 official at the department, which overseas public lands, wildlife and the Wests vast water system of dams and canals.

The nomination, which was submitted Friday, met intense criticism from Bay Area Democrats and environmental and fishing groups. Bernhardt, who had been on a $20,000-a-month retainer for Westlands, was a member of President Trumps transition team overseeing staffing of the Interior Department, a job he shared with with Rep. Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican primarily known for his advocacy for California farmers before he became chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Bernhardts Washington law firm, Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, Schreck, has also done work on the Cadiz water project, a controversial groundwater mining proposal in Californias Mojave Desert. Bernhardt heads the firms natural-resources practice and also has represented mining, oil and other extractive industries. Bernhardt delisted himself as a lobbyist in November after Trump won the election to avoid running afoul of the new presidents ban on lobbyists joining his administration.

Westlands spokesman Johnny Amaral praised Bernhardt as a man of impeccable integrity and knowledge. The department and the country will be better off once hes confirmed.

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wasnt convinced.

I have serious concerns about the nomination of Mr. Bernhardt due to his numerous conflicts of interest, particularly his lobbying ties to the terrible Cadiz water extraction project that would drain a critical aquifer in Californias Mojave Desert, she said. He is now being asked to help lead the very department that would oversee approval of that project.

Mr. Bernhardts nomination is yet another example of President Trump breaking his promise to drain the swamp. Instead, the president continues to pack his administration with corporate lobbyists who will now regulate the same companies they took money from.

A spokeswoman for the Cadiz project challenged Feinstein, saying Bernheardt has never lobbied on behalf of Cadiz Inc. or the Cadiz Water Project. The projects review and approval has followed every legal process and we trust any consideration of the project by the Interior Department would as well, said Courtney Degener, vice president for communications for Cadiz Inc.

Bay Area lawmakers who represent the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where Westlands gets its water, also denounced Bernhardts appointment.

What an unmitigated disaster, said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. Talk about wolves guarding the chicken house.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said that when Bernhardt was the Interior Departments top lawyer under former President George W. Bush, political appointees were caught illegally rewriting scientific opinions on endangered species by the Fish and Wildlife Service so as to benefit landowners.

In one case, they drew critical habitat lines around one individual persons property, Huffman said. The courts didnt allow it to stand, thankfully, but it was with Bernhardt as the solicitor that it happened. And then he was part of the review team that decided to give Julie MacDonald (a Bush official who resigned over the issue) a cash bonus at the end of all that.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Bernhardts experience in the Bush administration and his legal career is exactly what is needed to help streamline government and make the Interior and our public lands work for the American economy.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead
1 Polar bears: The Supreme Court wont hear an appeal from Alaska and oil and gas industry groups protesting the governments designation of more than 187,000 square miles in the state as critical habitat for threatened polar bears. The justice on Monday left in place an appeals court ruling that said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed the law when it authorized the massive habitat in a coastal area larger than the state of California. Alaska officials, the American Petroleum Institute and others said the designation was too extensive and accused the agency of overreaching.

2 Paramedic shot: A man suspected of shooting and critically injuring a paramedic who was tending to a shooting victim on Monday was found dead in a Dallas home, authorities said. Mayor Mike Rawlings said a police robot found two bodies in a home, including that of the suspected gunman, as authorities scoured a neighborhood east of downtown following the shooting. Rawlings said the paramedic was out of surgery and in intensive care at a local hospital. The civilian whom the paramedic was trying to help when he was shot is also in intensive care. No other details about their conditions were released. The Dallas Police Association tweeted earlier Monday that officers responding to an active shooter were pinned down by gunfire.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Orkhan Quluzade  Trend:

Azerbaijan exported 506.14 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey in February 2017, as compared to 558.49 million cubic meters in the same month of 2016, says a report posted on the website of Turkeys Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK).

In 2016, Azerbaijan supplied 6.48 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Turkey, as compared to 6.17 billion cubic meters in 2015. In January 2017, Azerbaijan exported 590.35 million cubic meters of gas to Turkey.

According to the report, Turkey imported 5.25 billion cubic meters of gas in February 2017, some 3.75 billion cubic meters of which were imported via pipelines, and 1.5 billion cubic meters accounted for the LNG import.

Azerbaijans share in total volume of gas imported by Turkey stood at 9.64 percent in February 2017.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade
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Deep in a 3,000-acre wood tract on the Trinity River, construction continues unabated and undisturbed as Oscar Renda Construction Co. makes headway with the Luce Bayou Interbasin Transfer Project (LBITP).

The current focus is on construction of the pump station being erected at Capers Ridge, the highest point along the Trinity River in Liberty County.

The purpose of the LBITP is to provide additional surface water to end users from Lake Houston, which will include the city of Houston and its customers in Deer Park, Galena Park and other municipalities that purchase water from them.

An order to stop pumping water from the ground because of subsidence forced many of the area municipalities near Houston to purchase surface water from the city.

The second pump in Liberty County will help meet the increased demand for surface water as the metropolitan area continues to grow.

"We're building a pump and intake structure," said Patrick Veale, project engineer. "There will be four pumps at about 50,000 gallons per minute that will transfer water down pipe about three miles to a sed basin and from there it will be pumped down to Lake Houston," he said.

The cost of the pump and intake station at Capers Ridge alone is close to $50 million.

Oscar Renda Construction currently has approximately 20 employees on site working at the pump station.

The cofferdam, a temporary enclosure usually built in pairs across, divides the water away from the construction and allows the area to be pumped dry and allow construction for major work like the pump station.

"We received our notice to proceed in September of 2016 and we'll be here until March 2019 for the finish date of construction," he said.

The impressive structures and 300-foot wide right-of-way, which has mostly been cleared, is an impressive site to behold.

"We have our sheet pile that extends out so that we can excavate behind it now," Veale said. "The actual pump structure foundation goes to minus 10-feet below sea level. Where the crane is sitting now is about 25-foot above sea level. We have to put our sheet pile in so that we can excavate down and construct the pump back behind the river.

"The river will be floating above where we'll be working the entire length of the project so we'll be working under the river," he said.

The construction continues Monday through Saturday each week.

"The bid for the pipeline comes out next month," Veale said, "so we'll take the pipe about 600-feet off the structure and there will be a bid that will take it from there to the sediment basin," he said.

About halfway down the road is a huge area with machines there doing some clearing and that will be the location of the sediment basin that will collect all the muck and grime and the water will be pumped down to the lake from there.

Veale said the pumping station will utilize synchronous motors with only one speed at 600 RPMs.

"They either run wide open, or they don't run at all. Right now we're putting four pumps in at 50,000 gallons per minute for a total of 200,000 gallons per minute," Veale said. "We're building it to hold four more pumps so by the time it's all said and done, it will be somewhere in the 400-450,000 gallons per minute."

Veale said the water level of the river will hardly be noticeable.

"The Livingston Dam releases about 8,000-cubic feet per second so these pumps are going to do nothing for flooding. You would have to have massive pumps to pump down that amount of water in a flood event," he said.

The recent graduate of Ole Miss said the rivers back in his hometown of Mississippi are high tide, low tide.

"This river is really something," Veale said. "This is controlled by the dam. You're dealing with rain water that comes from Dallas or up north."

Keeping the beautiful river out hasn't been easy. Three times this year alone, Veale said they have had to pump the water out of the site and that's no easy task considering the hole they have already dug.

There's already another pumping station south of Dayton on the Trinity River off 4819 FM 1409.

"This is going to be a much larger facility," Veale said. The young engineer, who toured the other facility, said this one is different in that the water will be pumped out of the river where the Trinity River Pumping Station utilizes a canal.

"Their sed basin is 10-15 acres where this one will be closer to 90 acres," he said. "That one won't pump near as much as this one."

The river level is about 24 feet above sea level while the intake structure goes down to 9.5 feet, meaning they'll be working about 15-feet below the normal river level.

"Once we get the permanent wall in, we'll excavate behind those pipes so all of the machinery that you see here [next to the large crevice] will be taken out 20-foot deep and we'll drive the H-beams underneath to support the foundation," Veale said.

The H-beams will be driven down to minus 80-feet elevation just to support the actual structure.

The actual concrete foundation will be about 150-feet north and south and about 60-feet east and west, Veale estimated.

Alan Conner, who has been on the board since 2011 and was most recently reappointed to the board by Gov. Rick Perry to serve on the Coastal Water Authority, said the project has been on the books since the 1950s when the city of Houston bought the original tract of land near Capers Ridge.

"Somebody was thinking way into the future," Conner said.

The Coastal Water Authority's job is just to transport the water from the Trinity to Lake Houston.

Cost of the project is $351 million total.

"With the 300 feet of right-of-way and where the pumping station is there's environmental issues and wetlands so the Coastal Water Authority purchased approximately 3,000 acres," Conner said.

With it, the CWA only retained the acreage necessary for the right-of-way and whatever was left of the acreage was deeded to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife, which will manage it, Conner said.

Moore's Bluff, the site of the other Dayton pumping station, serves the Lynchburg area and used to belong to the Larry Harris family. It built in the mid-1960s south of Dayton.

"Most of that water goes to Lynchburg and services industry along the ship channel," Conner said. "Some of it goes to the city of Baytown and more to rice land close to Barbers Hill irrigated out of the canal."

Liberty County only stands to benefit from an additional dozen or so jobs.

"Those employees will probably trade with our stores and maybe live in our area as well," he said. "We don't get paid for any of the water since the rights belong to the city of Houston."

Conner hopes to remain on the board until the project is expected to be completed and running in March of 2019. He was preceded on the board by Ray Stoesser who served for two years, and prior to Stoesser, the seat was held by Buster French for 17 years.

Veale said there is plans for expansion on the pumping station to add four more pumps in the event the city of Houston requires additional water.

Construction manager on the project is CDM Smith.
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The Woodlands Township Board of Directors took a stand against pending legislation regarding Jones State Forest despite a rewrite of the bill that seems to protect the forest.

In a 6-0 vote, the board opposed Senate Bill 1964 and directed township staff to draft a resolution stating just that. Board member Laura Fillault was in attendance but had stepped away from the meeting during the vote.

The board will revisit the issue when the resolution is complete.

Introduced by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, SB 1964 originally sparked outrage over fears it would bring development to the forest. The wording of the bill would have allowed building for "educational purposes" in a portion of the park, which is owned and operated by the Texas A&M University system.

However, amid the controversy, Creighton has proposed new language for the bill to read "The entire territory of the Jones State Forest must remain natural, scenic, undeveloped and open."

The Texas Senate Education Committee is expected to take action on the legislation later this week.

But while the township board was pleased with the proposed new wording, members agreed the legislation is "rushed."

"We need more time, more public input," board member John McMullan said during the April 26 meeting. "I recognize and appreciate comments that this has gotten better, but I'm not ready to endorse this tonight."

Board member Ann Snyder agreed.

"I commend Senator Creighton for coming back and submitting what he did," she said. "What concerns me is the process. There was no process to include us."

While the township has no jurisdiction over the forest, it is adjacent to the community along its north boundary.

Board member Bruce Rieser said it was good news that the bill does not have a companion bill in the Texas House noting development of the forest would be a "mistake."

"I am certainly prepared to oppose any effort to develop the park," he said. "I think it would be a big mistake for the area and a big mistake for the environment."

Chairman Gordy Bunch noted the township extended an offer to have officials with Texas A&M speak but they were unresponsive.

"Don Norrell and I invited Texas A&M to come down to this meeting to present to the community what their plans are.  They have declined to present," he said. "That is concerning to us. This is not the Aggie way."

Representatives of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and members of a local group called SaveJonesStateForest, both groups that oppose the bill and have expressed doubts about the new wording, said they still remain skeptical.

"There are a lot of concerns that could be put to rest if we weren't thinking about the bad things that could happen," Evelyn Merz, conservation chair for Sierra Club chapter, said in a previous Courier article.

Merz says The Sierra Club will continue to fight SB 1964 unless there is language in the legislation that includes a public master-planning process.

The Sierra Club and others also have questioned that if nothing is going to change with the status of the forest, why have any bill at all.

Group members also have expressed concerns about possible loopholes in the language of the bill and noted there is no mention of protecting endangered species, such as the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, which lives in the forest.

As originally proposed, the bill would have allowed building for educational purposes in up to 10 percent of the 1,722-acre property along FM 1488 and Texas 242.

Because the forest is owned by the Texas A&M University system, some fear the bill is really a scheme to build a new college campus  a claim university officials have denied.
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WASHINGTON - Congressional negotiators reached an agreement late Sunday on a broad spending package to fund the government through the end of September, alleviating fears of a government shutdown later this week, several congressional aides said.

Congress is expected to vote on the roughly $1 trillion package early this week. The bipartisan agreement includes policy victories for Democrats, whose votes will be necessary to pass the measure in the Senate, as well as $12.5 billion in new military spending and $1.5 billion more for border security requested by Republican leaders in Congress.

The agreement follows weeks of tense negotiations between Democrats and GOP leaders after President Trump insisted that the deal include funding to begin building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump eventually dropped that demand, leaving Congress to resolve lingering issues over several unrelated policy measures.

The new border-security money comes with strict limitations that the Trump administration use it only for technology investments and repairs to existing fencing and infrastructure, the aides said.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure."

Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., boasted that they were able to force Republicans to withdraw more than 160 unrelated policy measures, known as riders, including those that would have cut environmental funding and scaled back financial regulations for Wall Street.

Democrats fought to include $295 million to help Puerto Rico continue making payments to Medicaid, $100 million to combat opioid addiction, and increases in energy and science funding that Trump had proposed cutting. If passed, the legislation will ensure that Planned Parenthood continues to receive federal funding through September.

The package includes $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the cost of protecting Trump when he travels to his residences in Florida and New York, a major priority for the two New York Democrats involved in the spending talks, Schumer and Rep. Nita Lowey.

Among the bipartisan victories is $407 million in wildfire relief for western states and a decision to permanently extend a program that provides health-care coverage for coal miners.

"The agreement will move the needle forward on conservative priorities and will ensure that the essential functions of the federal government are maintained," said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J.

House Republicans have struggled in recent weeks to keep their members focused on spending as White House officials and conservatives pressed leaders to revive plans for a vote on health-care legislation. The health-care fight became tangled last week in spending talks as leaders worried that forcing a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act risked angering Democrats whose votes are necessary to avoid a government shutdown.

Leaders worked last week to determine whether the House has enough votes to pass a revised health-care bill brokered by the White House, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a top member of the moderate Tuesday Group.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and his top lieutenants announced Thursday that they did not have sufficient votes to be sure the measure would pass but vowed to press on.

"We're still educating members," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters after a late-night health-care meeting last week. "We've been making great progress. As soon as we have the votes, we'll vote on it."
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A Conroe gang member arrested in January was indicted on three felony charges Thursday.

A Montgomery County grand jury indicted Gene Denton, 33, on first-degree felony aggravated robbery, felony possession of controlled substance and felony unlawful possession of firearm by felon. His arrest came in late January after deputies with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office were searching for him for 24 hours.

Denton allegedly was driving a stolen vehicle in the intersection of Texas 105 and Security Forest Drive on Jan. 26 when the vehicle's owner spotted it. The owner began following his stolen vehicle to a location in the 14900 block of Creighton Road before he called 911.

Deputies responded and caught up with the stolen vehicle, but Denton allegedly took off and led them on a short chase. Denton bailed from the vehicle on Creighton Road, detectives said, and eluded capture.

Detectives with the Montgomery County Auto Theft Task Force recovered the stolen vehicle and returned it to the owner, although it took them a while to catch up with Denton. Detectives with the MCSO Major Crimes Unit also joined in on the search.

But on Jan. 27, detectives found Denton thanks to a tip from a resident. He was driving another stolen vehicle, detectives said, and used a stun gun following another short foot chase before he was arrested.

Denton also was wanted for a home invasion and robbery off Roy Harris Loop. He is in the Montgomery County Jail on almost $140,000 in bonds.

Montgomery County grand jury indictments for April 27:

Bryan Earl Douglas, theft

Jason Desmerell Broussard, engaging in organized criminal activity

James Edward King III, engaging in organized criminal activity

Torez Rodriguez Cooper, engaging in organized criminal activity

Jack Daniel Robles, theft

Robert Charles Palmer, possession of controlled substance

Cameron Bertrand, assault causing bodily injury family enhanced

Karla Rodriguez, engaging in organized criminal activity

Christine Medina, engaging in organized criminal activity

Jose Escoto, engaging in organized criminal activity

Joseph Austin Mitchell, possession of controlled substance

Isidro Guevara Muniz, possession of controlled substance

John Philip Simon, manufacture or possession with intent to deliver controlled substance and money laundering

Cameron Garrett Link, unauthorized use of motor vehicle, possession of controlled substance and evading arrest detention with motor vehicle

Tiffani Shari Williams, possession of controlled substance

Clinton Wayne Johnson, possession of controlled substance

Eric Louis Scanland, possession of controlled substance

Victor Entenza, forgery from elderly individual

Edward Sigford, DWI  third or more

Dillon Jay Shaffer, possession with intent to deliver/manufacture controlled substance, evading arrest detention with vehicle, unlawful possession of firearm by felon, possession of controlled substance and unauthorized use of motor vehicle

Johnny Chance Maddux, credit card abuse and theft

Alexander Coba-Perez, engaging in organized criminal activity

Jose Emanuel German-Garcia, engaging in organized criminal activity

Orlando Enrique Quesada-Oliva, engaging in organized criminal activity

Riley Miles Hayslip, accident involving personal injury/death

Bonifacio Chavez Snachez, cockfighting

Marcelino Hernandez Pena, cockfighting
Immigrant groups and their allies have joined forces to carry out marches, rallies and protests in cities nationwide to mark May Day, saying there's renewed momentum to fight back against Trump administration policies.

Activists in major cities including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles expect tens of thousands of people to participate in Monday demonstrations, starting with morning neighborhood protests and culminating in rush-hour events downtown. Activists also plan an overnight vigil in Phoenix, a farm workers demonstration outside Miami and a White House rally. In Seattle, pro-immigrant events are expected to give way to rowdier, anti-capitalist marches led by protesters who said they plan to shut down a major freeway through the city.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

BP plans to complete the Georgian section of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) by mid-2018, said the company's country manager for Georgia Chris Schlueter.

The Georgian part of the project includes the construction of two compressor stations, a 65-km pipeline and a metering station near the Turkish border.

Work on the pipeline has finished, with one compressor station 95 percent ready and the other compressor station 55 percent complete, Schlueter told Reuters.

Construction of the metering station is underway, he added.

"Later this year we'll start to introduce the gas to the pipeline in order to get it ready for operations," he said.

Schlueter said the project's capital expenditure in 2016 was $550 million. In the first quarter of this year the figure was around $100 million, slightly less than in the same quarter of 2016.

"Peak spending was last year and we will start to slow down (in terms of investment) this year," he said.

Schlueter said peak production from the Shah Deniz 2 is expected to occur several years after 2020.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the EU. It envisages the transportation of gas from the Caspian region to the European countries through Georgia and Turkey.

At the initial stage, the gas to be produced as part of the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field is considered as the main source for the Southern Gas Corridor projects. Other sources can also connect to this project at a later stage.

As part of the Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz development, the gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus Pipeline and the construction of Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Heavy rain is causing concern for parts of Madison County.

Between 3 and 5 inches of rain has fallen since Friday and county officials are concerned for residents in areas of Nameoki and Chouteau townships.

The deluge of water has kept crews busy making sure storm water pumps continue to work in Special Services Area No. 1, which is located in the Mitchell and Pontoon Beach areas, County Administrator Doug Hulme said.

"We've been making sure the pumps stay operational to prevent flooding in the Arlington Lakes area," Hulme said.

Hulme said that Deputy County Administrator Steve Adler has been working to keep equipment operational to prevent water from backing up into residents homes. He said the one pump located in the Arlington Lakes area wasn't enough to keep up.

"We brought in two extra pumps," Adler said. "We rented one and Metro East Sanitary District loaned us one. We doubled he pumping capacity on a short term basis."

He said the stormwater is pumped over the levee into Cahokia Creek.

"As far as the county goes we are doing better than most," Adler said. "Parts of Granite City are inundated and there are streets with water several feet deep."

Although there are a handful of road closures throughout the county, they are in municipal and township areas, County Engineer Mark Gvillo said.

Gvillo said he anticipates there could be one road closure and that is Lebanon Road at Silver Creek, which is southeast of Troy.

He said most of the roads the county maintains are elevated enough to prevent flooding.

The County's Emergency Management Agency is in communication with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, Illinois Emergency Management Agency as well as local police and fire departments.

"We are monitoring water levels and our Incident Management Team is out driving the area, " Todd Fulton, the county's EMA director, said.

Fulton said so far there have been no evacuations. He said emergency personnel are on standby and they are keeping an eye for rising waters near a mobile home park in Chouteau Township.

One of the concern's is high waters reaching the power station and residents losing electricity. The county is working with Mitchell Fire Protections District to make sure residents are evacuated in case it does happens.

"Our priority is to get everyone out safe," Fulton said.

Residents at the mobile home park were evacuated in December 2015 after following heavy rains and flooding.

County officials said motorists should always be prepared when traveling in rain and look for water across the roadways.

"A big cause for concern is when it pours down in a short time," Gvillo said. "It's when flash flooding is most likely to occur and vehicles get swept off the road."

Gvillo said the Sheriff's Department, along with other emergency personnel, are notified of all road closures.
A gunman opened fire at an apartment complex swimming pool in San Diego Sunday evening, killing one person and injuring seven others before being fatally shot by officers, police said.

The gunman, identified as Peter Selis, was pronounced dead on the scene. Police described him as a white male who may have lived in one of the buildings, and said all of the victims were African American or Hispanic. Police said they did not know if race was a factor in the attack.

Officers responded to reports of a shooting around 6 p.m. at the upscale La Jolla Crossroads apartments in San Diego's University City neighborhood, where about 30 people had gathered for a birthday party at the pool.

A police helicopter arrived on the scene first and reported seeing a suspect armed with a handgun, surrounded by "numerous victims," San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said in a news conference. The pilot watched the suspect reload his weapon once and open fire again on the partygoers, she said.

A witness who saw the chaos from his apartment window said the shooter appeared calm as his victims struggled on the ground in front of him.

"We could see the shooter sitting there with a beer in one hand and a gun in the other," the witness, who was not identified, told ABC 10.

Lauren Seed told NBC 7 she was inside her apartment when she heard six or seven shots ring out at the pool.

"We got down, we closed the windows and then about a minute later, six or seven more shots, lots of screaming, lots of people screaming," she said. "From the screams, you could hear that somebody or multiple people were hit."

A sergeant and two officers arrived and cornered the suspect in the pool area. The suspect pointed a large caliber handgun at them, and all three opened fire, killing him, Zimmerman said. She added that the suspect may have fired at police first.

Police said seven people were struck by gunfire: four African American women, two African American men and one Hispanic man. Another African American man broke his arm while running away from the shooting. All the victims were adults.

One of the women died at the hospital. Police did not give her name. Several of the others were listed in critical condition Sunday night, police said. It was unclear if the suspect knew any of the victims.

Zimmerman said it was too early in the investigation to pinpoint a motive. Police were still interviewing witnesses and had not yet spoken at length with the three officers who opened fire, she said.

"Our hearts go out to the victims," she said. "There's a lot of work to be done."

The La Jolla Crossroads apartments are located near the northernmost edge of San Diego, near the University of California campus. Community pools and spas are located throughout the complex, according to the La Jolla Crossroads website.

Witnesses said most of the people at Sunday's party were black.

Amberjot Riat, 22, and Kaela Wong, 20, told the Los Angeles Times they were sitting in a jacuzzi when the shooting began. As they took cover behind a wall, they told the Times, they could hear the gunman say to some of the partygoers, "You can either leave or you can stay here and die."

A resident of the complex told ABC 10 that he was outside when the gunfire erupted.

"It was surreal, you know, because we live here," he said. "We literally saw people jumping out from the fences and running away like crazy."

A man who said he was a guest at the party told the station it took him a few seconds to realize what was happening. There were "more rounds and then more sounds," he said. "And that's when I realized, oh, someone is actually shooting a gun at people. So that's when all the scrambling started."

After jumping a fence, he told ABC 10, he came across a young man clutching an injury and yelling, "I'm hit, I'm hit."

"I said, come here," the witness recalled, "and I picked him up and I just carried him around the corner."
Albany

A look at what's coming up this week:

$7.6 billion for aging plants

Skeptical lawmakers will take another look at Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plan to invest billions of dollars of ratepayer money into aging nuclear power plants.

State energy regulators are expected to defend the subsidies Monday at an Assembly hearing focusing on the policy that will see utility consumers pay up to $7.6 billion in subsidies over several years. Cuomo, a Democrat, argues the money will ensure the nuclear plants remain open and not be replaced by fossil fuel plants while the state shifts to greater renewable energy.

Some environmentalists and consumer advocates have objected, saying the investment amounts to a costly bailout for a hazardous industry.

Some lawmakers have also questioned the plan, saying they and the public were left out of the process.

Solitary confinement

Critics of solitary confinement gather in Albany on Tuesday to push lawmakers to find alternatives to a corrections practice they say amounts to psychological torture.

Three hundred people, including former inmates and their relatives, corrections experts and mental health experts, are expected for the lobbying day.

Legislation pending before the Senate and Assembly would restrict solitary confinement to no more than 15 consecutive days unless the inmate is sent to a special residential rehabilitation unit. The bill would also prohibit solitary imprisonment for young and elderly offenders and pregnant women and set standards for short-term solitary confinement.

Cat declaw ban

A proposal to make it illegal to declaw cats is back before the Legislature.

Animal welfare advocates and veterinarians who oppose the procedure will lobby lawmakers Tuesday for the legislation, which didn't get a vote last year.

The measure has divided veterinarians. Some say declawing is cruel because it involves amputating the first segments of a cat's toes. But others say it must remain legal as a last resort for troubled felines whose scratching behavior can't be controlled.

Administration moves

In another sign that he may be considering a run for the White House, Cuomo this month announced the hiring of Maria Comella as his new chief of staff. Comella is a former top communications aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and worked on the presidential campaigns of Republicans George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Comella replaces Melissa DeRosa, who was promoted to the senior position of secretary to the governor.
The estimated amount of sexual assault on both men and women in the military has declined over the last decade, according to a new Pentagon report.

Because many service members choose not to report assaults, the Pentagon tries to estimate the scope of the problem by carrying out a survey. The results last year found that about 14,900 sexual assaults of some kind occurred in 2016, compared to about 34,000 in 2006. The Pentagon arrived at its findings both by compiling sexual assault reports and carrying out a survey in which more than 150,000 service members responded.

The number of assaults reported inched up to an all-time high, with 6,172 reports in fiscal 2016 compared to 6,083 in 2015, the report said. The figures include everything from groping to rape, and is still believed to represent progress because a Pentagon survey found that the frequency with which a sexual assault victim reports an attack has increased from about 1 in 14 in 2006 to about 1 in 3 last year. That ratio was about 1 in 4 the year before.

Navy Rear Adm. Ann Burkhardt, director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, said that the data suggests the military is on the right track, but more work must be done.

"Everyone must understand that getting help is a sign of strength," she said. She later added: "We're not confusing progress with success."

Women remain at a greater risk of sexual assault in the military because about 85 percent of the force is made up of men, but the number who are attacked has declined from about 6.8 percent in 2006 to 4.3 percent in 2016, the report said. The number of men who face assault has fallen from about 1.8 percent in 2006 to about 0.6 percent now, defense officials said.

The report did not contain all good news, however. While the frequency with which victims report assaults has increased, 58 percent of those who do - and two-thirds of women - still face some form of backlash in their unit, defense officials found. The negativity included retaliation as well as mixed responses from other service members who were aware of the abuse.

Burkhardt said stopping retaliation is a critical area that the Pentagon is still addressing.

The report was released as the U.S. military, and the Marine Corps in particular, copes with a scandal in which nude photographs of service members have been shared online without their permission. Those cases are not reflected in the statistics, but represent sexual harassment that the Pentagon is still coping with, senior defense officials said Monday.

The most prominent way in which service members shared the photographs was through a Facebook group called Marines United. A member of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Special Agent Curtis Evans, told reporters last month that the investigation focused on about 1,200 people, including 725 active-duty service members.
Seoul, South Korea

President Donald Trump said after North Korea's latest failed rocket launch that communist leader Kim Jong-Un will eventually develop better missiles, and "we can't allow it to happen."

In a taped interview broadcast Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," the president would not discuss the possibility of military action, saying: "It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is."

Separately, Trump's national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, said North Korea's most recent missile test represents "open defiance of the international community." He said North Korea poses "a grave threat," not just to the U.S. and its Asian allies, but also to China.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," McMaster said it is important "for all of us to confront this regime, this regime that is pursuing the weaponization of a missile with a nuclear weapon."

"This is something that we know we cannot tolerate," McMaster said.

On Saturday, a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile broke up a few minutes after launch, the third test-fire flop this month. The program's repeated failures over the past few years have given rise to suspicions of U.S. sabotage.

In the CBS interview, the president was asked why the North's rockets keep blowing up.

"I'd rather not discuss it," he said. "But perhaps they're just not very good missiles. But eventually, he'll have good missiles."

He added: "And if that happens, we can't allow it to happen."

Trump also called North Korea's leader "a pretty smart cookie" for being able to hold onto power after taking over at a young age. "People are saying, 'Is he sane?' I have no idea," the president said.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped weapon that can hit the U.S. mainland.

McMaster said that Trump "has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or the other," but that the president's preference is to work with China and others to resolve it without military action.

That means, McMaster said, working to enforce current U.N. sanctions and perhaps ratcheting them up. "And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary," he said.

Trump said he believes China's president, Xi Jinping, has been putting pressure on North Korea over its missile and nuclear weapons programs.

The launch comes at a point of particularly high tension in the region. Trump has sent a nuclear-powered submarine and an aircraft carrier to Korean waters.

The U.S. and South Korea also started installing a missile defense system that is supposed to be partially operational within days.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR exported 489,210 tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in January-April 2017 as compared to 239,540 tons in the same period of 2016, SOCAR said in a message posted on its website May 1.

The company exported 84,790 tons of oil from the Russian port of Novorossiysk in April 2017.

SOCAR exported 1.22 million tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2016 versus 1.27 million tons in 2015.

SOCAR exports the oil produced at its own fields, as well as the oil from joint ventures and operation companies working at Azerbaijans onshore fields, through Russias Novorossiysk port.

Oil is delivered to the port via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline operated by SOCAR.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

Trend:

Azerell Telecom LLC announces Summer Internship Program for the students of SABAH Groups under the Ministry of Education. The program is carried out under the memorandum signed between the parties. According to the terms of the program, third-and fourth-year undergraduate students of SABAH Groups are eligible to apply for Summer Internship Program. Students must visit https://www.azercell.com/az/company/career/development_oportunities/intern_summer_2017/ by May 8. Only applications submitted from @sabah.edu.az domain will be considered. The program provides an opportunity to take 2-month internship at Azercell starting from Juy 1.

Summer Student Internship Program gives the students an apportunity to apply their theoretical academic knowledge in real work atmosphere and environment at Azercell, qualifying as a result of multi-stage selection process they work and gain experience in the company. Thus, students get knowledge straight from the source in telecommunications industry and become involved in exciting and demanding projects. The program helps to assist youngsters in planning and preparing future job oppotunities and plays a great role in their career advancement. It should be pointed that since its first launch in 2008, 112 students have taken internship under Summer Internship program of Azercell and 16 of them have been employed by the company.

Azercell has a history of cooperation with SABAH groups. Last year 50 percent of places in Baku was allocated for SABAH groups under Student Bursary Program. One of the 5 teams qualified for 6-months-long incubation program in Barama Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center consisted of SABAH students. Introductory visit to Azercell Plaza was organized for the student of SABAH groups at the end of 2016. They attended winter sessions about Introduction to GSM technologies, Product Management and Develop your own brand. At the same time, HR Department staff conducted training sessions for students under SABAH Career Winter School in Guba on February 17-20.

SABAH groups is one of the most leading projects established in academic year 2014/2015 in 7 universities with the initiative of the Ministry of Education.

For more information, please contact [email protected]



The leader of the mobile communication industry of Azerbaijan and the biggest investor in the non-oil sector Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijans mobile market Azercells network covers 80% of the territory and 99,8% of population of the country. Currently, 4,5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, 24/7 Customer Care, online customer services, GPRS/EDGE, M2M, MobilBank, one-stop- shop service offices Azercell Express, mobile e-service ASAN signature, etc. Azercell deployed first 4G  LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as Opensignal and Testmy.net, Azercells network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan.
A bloody mugshot from College Station this past week shows the aftermath of a collision between a deer and a motorcyclist accused of drug possession.

On Thursday night around 9:30 p.m. Jimilei Russell Fox, 32, of Iola was thrown from his motorcycle after he collided with a deer in the road, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety report.
Active duty, retired and veteran members of the military, National Guard and Army Reserve can visit the San Antonio Zoo for free this month.

Those looking for free admission must provide zoo officials with a valid military I.D. during the "Zoo Salutes" month. Military members can also bring up to four immediate family members for half off regular ticket prices during May.
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WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro has decided not to seek the Democratic nomination next year to challenge U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, according to Democratic sources, clearing the way for a likely Senate contest next year between Cruz and U.S Rep. Beto ORourke of El Paso.

Castro, of San Antonio, is expected to announce soon that he will bypass the contest to focus on his work in the House, which includes a coveted seat on the House Intelligence Committee.

Castro campaign aides declined to confirm the decision.

RELATED: Ted Cruz touts small businesses, bashes Obamacare at Mi Tierra in San Antonio

Castro declared last summer that he planned to weigh a campaign against Cruz and he has done so during a tumultuous period for national security. Castro also is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Castro, 42, is viewed as one Texass most popular and aggressive young Democrats, along with twin brother Julian, a former San Antonio mayor who returned home in January after 30 months heading the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration.

A Texas Lyceum poll in early April showed Joaquin Castro with more support than Cruz, 35-31 percent, a lead just outside the survey's margin of error. The survey showed Cruz and ORourke running neck-and-neck.

The early poll also found that nearly one-third of Texas voters hadn't thought about the Senate race enough to have an opinion.

RELATED: Senate challenger O'Rourke brings one-man tour to S.A.

Castro might have held an advantage over ORourke in a primary given his work to build the Texas Democratic Party, which hasnt captured a statewide election since 1994.

But whoever won that contest likely would have emerged bruised and drained of a portion of the significant resources needed for the run at Cruz.

Castros decision also suggests an awareness of potential damage to his political future from losing to Cruz, who ran for the GOP presidential nomination last year and has cultivated a national following among ardent conservatives despite sitting in the Senate less than a full term.

blambrecht@express-news.net
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A major step toward completion of Loop 250 was taken Monday at the Midland Development Corp. monthly board meeting.

The board voted 4-0 to execute an advanced funding agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation. Board member Gary Douglas was absent.

The MDC will contribute $2 million toward the construction of a curvilinear overpass at county roads 1150 and 60. The local participation in the project is expected to accelerate the project significantly.

The construction phase has a total cost of $21.5 million, and the total project cost is $29.459 million according to a copy of the agreement received by the Reporter-Telegram.

The MDCs contribution is part of the Type A sales tax organizations effort to leverage funds to get transportation projects completed faster. While a timeline hasnt been offered yet, the development corporations contribution effectively will speed up completion of the project, according to previous Reporter-Telegram reports.

The overpass at county roads 1150 and 60 isnt the only loop project on the MDCs radar. MDC Chairman Brent Hilliard told the Reporter-Telegram that the development corporation is close finishing second advance funding agreement with TxDOT, this time for an overpass at CR 1140. The MDC is also looking at how it can contribute to projects at Interstate 20 and Midkiff Road, as well as Loop 250 and State Highway 191.

TxDOT Odessa District Engineer John Speed thanked the MDC for its contribution. He called it a tremendous opportunity to start the process of continued cooperation.

In recent months. Hilliard has worked closely with the cities of Midland and Odessa, the Permian Basin Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Odessa Development Corp. to cooperate on leveraging money to expedite transportation projects. The ODC recently committed to contributing $15 million over 10 years toward the effort.

The MPO policy board, which programs federal and state transportation funding, must first approve of the overpass projects before they can go forward. The federally mandated organization currently is in the process of reconfiguring its master transportation plan, which lays out priority projects.

IN OTHER BUSINESS

 Program management search: The MDC board voted 3-0 to allow Hilliard, the chairman, to negotiate and execute a master professional services agreement with engineering consulting firms Parkhill Smith & Cooper, Kimley-Horn and Maverick Engineering. The MDC and city are working on a pair of five-year infrastructure plans and want an engineering firm to serve as program manager.

The three aforementioned firms and Santec Consulting Services each gave presentations about their qualifications for engineering and design services and serving as program managers. As part of the vote, the board approved all four firms as qualified.

The MDC chose to pursue a single program manager; however, that doesnt mean the firm chosen will do all of the engineering work. Some firms that gave presentations included others firms as partners in their presentations for the sake of having the best expertise on projects.

City Engineer Matt Carr said its not uncommon for engineering firms to partner with others on projects. Engineering Services Director Jose Ortiz said hiring a program manager is necessary because it will help move projects along.

Hilliard has told the Reporter-Telegram in the past that having the engineering part of projects ready gives the MDC and the city the ability to leverage funds to see projects completed faster, especially now that there is more transportation funding available because of the passage of propositions 1 and 7.

While the citys plan is not yet complete, it has about 60 infrastructure projects so far.

Hilliard abstained from voting because of his close work with the firms on the matter.

 Spaceport Business Park: The board voted 3-0 to approve allowing Hilliard to negotiate contracts with Boler Equipment Services and Jones Bros. Dirt and Paving for projects at Spaceport Business Park at Midland International Air & Space Port.

Boler will receive $325,490 to perform wet utilities work, and Jones Bros. will receive $513,219.50 for paving work.

Hilliard abstained because of his close work with these firms on the matters.

 Sales tax: The MDC collected $675,135.89 from the Type A quarter-cent sales tax in April. It has collected $5.112 million in the fiscal year so far.






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Students in the Gregory Gym area of the University of Texas at Austin found themselves in the middle of a deadly stabbing attack on Monday around 2 p.m.

One person was killed and multiple people were injured, according to officials at the scene. The suspect, who is now in custody, stabbed three people total and assaulted another.

RELATED: At least 1 dead, multiple injured in stabbing attack on UT-Austin campus

As the events transpired, a number of students used Twitter to warn others to stay away from the area and to report what they were witnessing.

Others questioned why they were not notified sooner by the campus about the situation.

"I was at the PCL [Perry-Castaneda Library] while it happened and they didn't even give us a notice until the guy was in custody...we were all in immediate danger," Twitter user @TheRyanOujesky said.

READ ALSO: Police: Dallas paramedic shot, critically hurt; scene active

An official university alert went out to students at 2:14 p.m., the Daily Texan reported. The alert said the suspect was in custody and there was no immediate threat to the campus.

University Provost Maurie McInnis sent an email to students at 3:15 p.m. announcing all afternoon classes at the university were canceled in response to the attack.

Hours after the attack shook campus, some students tweeted their thanks to social media for alerting them to the dangerous situation.

"Unbelievable that the emergency was only announced to the PCL and surrounding areas," said Twitter user roopa nagarajan. "Moody, e.g., clueless until twitter clued us in."

Staff writer Kelsey Bradshaw contributed to this report.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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SAN ANTONIO  A KENS-TV investigative reporter who allegedly blew nearly three times the legal limit on a Breathalyzer test was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of drunken driving, according to Bexar County court and police records.

Priya Sridhar, 32, who came to KENS a year ago, was charged Saturday with driving while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content of 0.15 or higher, a Class A misdemeanor, according to the Bexar County District Clerk's website.

If convicted, she faces up to one year in prison and fines.

"Drinking and driving can be deadly, and it's something we take very seriously at KENS," station General Manager Tom Cury wrote in an email Monday.

RELATED: BCSO: S.A. Univision sports anchor arrested after fleeing police on far West Side

"We ask everyone to think twice before getting behind the wheel.

According to a preliminary police report, the incident happened shortly before midnight Friday. A Hill Country Village police officer was driving on U.S. 281 North when he noticed a "suspect driving northbound all over the road from lane to lane and almost striking other vehicles," according to a San Antonio Police Department report.

The suspect, later identified as Sridhar, was failing to signal, and the officer conducted a traffic stop. Other officers responded to a backup call since the Hill Country Village officer was out of his jurisdiction.

The responding officers found the driver "highly intoxicated," the report states.

Police gave Sridhar a Breathalyzer test. According to the police report, her test results showed a blood alcohol content of .20, nearly three times the legal limit.

"Fortunately, no one was physically injured, including Priya, nor was there damage to any property," Cury said.

READ ALSO: 24-year-old Bexar County deputy arrested on drunken driving charge overnight

The reporter's arraignment is set for May 22, according to the district clerk's website.

Sridhar joined KENS in June 2016 out of Washington D.C. She was hired, according to KENS' website, to pursue investigative stories and help residents with "Eyewitness Wants to Know" reports.

"Any disciplinary action would be based upon a company review of all information related to the incident," Cury said.

In D.C., she worked as a local correspondent for a 24-hour international news channel called Arise News. While there, Sridhar co-hosted a two-hour morning breakfast show every weekend from New York City with Richard Pryor's daughter.

She also previously worked for the Associated Press.

Sridhar holds a master's degree in broadcast journalism from Northwestern University. Though originally from the Boston area, she has family and extended family in the Alamo City.

Sridhar also is a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

twhite@mysa.com

jjakle@express-news.net
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 1

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Turkmenistans President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Japans Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, during their meeting in Ashgabat, expressed confidence in great future of the two countries mutually beneficial cooperation, the Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary state news service reported.

The sides exchanged views on various fields of the two countries cooperation, including on multilateral basis, particularly, through big international organizations and structures.

Noting the closeness or coincidence of points of view on a number of international political issues, Kishida said his country supports the peaceful foreign policy pursued by Turkmenistan and the international initiatives put forward by Ashgabat to strengthen security on a global and regional scale.

Japans Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Turkmenistan Takahiko Katsumata also attended the meeting.

Japan expresses its readiness to develop the cooperation and to further make joint efforts with the countries of Central Asia in order to ensure stability and sustainable development, according to the Turkmen Dovlet Habarlary report.

Japanese companies are involved in various projects to diversify the Turkmen economy. During the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Turkmenistan in October 2015, memorandums were signed to develop natural resources and transport infrastructure of Turkmenistan. Agreements were also concluded on a number of projects worth a total of $18 billion.
Now after a tortuous year, city officials are giving GGP the go ahead with the mall.

Its curious that Norwalks legislators, especially state Senate Head Bob Duff, werent able to secure some state funding assistance to help repair our downtown.
Throughout my 21 years in the Texas Legislature, I have fought to address the needs of my constituents. While a number of issues keep me awake at night, providing students with the tools they need to succeed remains my top priority. Our future leaders deserve our focus as we prepare them to tackle the issues of tomorrow. I am proud to continue this effort by authoring House Bill 2159.

As it stands, thousands of students across our state go without food when their lunch accounts are empty. HB 2159 seeks to solve this by requiring all districts to have a two-week grace period for replenishing lunch accounts and, during that period, allowing students to select a hot lunch.

It is also true that districts place the parents financial burdens on the students. It is unreasonable to deny children a nutritious meal because their parents cannot afford to immediately replenish their accounts. Financial matters should be left to adults, and should never result in a hungry and embarrassed child.

HB 2159 will fix this by requiring districts to make at least three attempts to notify the parent of the situation and provide assistance with an application for free/reduced lunch. If the school is not reimbursed by the end of the school year, the district can pay the balance on the students meal card using private donations that will be maintained in a separate district account.

Studies have shown that a students mental and physical health play a defining role in scholastic success. Not only are hungry children unable to obtain and process information at the same rate as their peers, they are often shamed by the fact that they have no food to eat. Some districts have a policy that gives students one meal after their accounts are exhausted, but that usually consists of a cold sandwich.

When students are embarrassed, their mental health takes a toll as their grumbling stomach reminds them that they cannot afford to eat. It deteriorates their confidence in themselves, and that inferiority complex can hurt academic success.

As legislators, as parents and as adults responsible for equipping the next generation of leaders, we cannot stand by as our children go hungry. As a state, we are capable of feeding our children despite their life circumstances, and I will continue to advocate until no student goes hungry or is left embarrassed.

Let us leave finances to the adults and keep our kids focused on actualizing their dreams.

State Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, represents District 109.
Credit where credit is due: President Donald Trumps tax plan is only one page long and yet contains volumes worth of dumb ideas. And theres fierce competition for which part is dumbest.

Maybe its White House economic adviser Gary Cohns peculiar claim that reducing the number of tax brackets is how you simplify the tax code. The complicated part of doing your taxes is figuring out what counts as income and whats deductible, not looking up the tax rate afterward in a table.

Maybe its the bullet point that promises to eliminate targeted tax breaks that mainly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, immediately followed by three bullet points pledging tax breaks that would almost exclusively benefit the wealthiest taxpayers.

Maybe its Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchins declaration that the plan will pay for itself, even though similar versions of Trumps tax plan were projected to cost trillions of dollars.

Maybe its the suggestion that we need a multitrillion-dollar, deficit-financed tax cut  aka stimulus  when unemployment is 4.5 percent.

But probably the dumbest part of this entire presentation was the proposal to more than halve the tax rate on pass-through income.

It would further enrich the rich, unleash a major tax-sheltering bonanza, and impoverish Medicare and Social Security. It also is unlikely to do anything to kick-start economic growth, as Kansas learned the hard way.

Pass-through income refers to business income that gets paid at individual income tax rates rather than corporate ones. Income earned by partnerships, sole proprietorships and S-corporations  the vast majority of all companies  falls into this category.

Lots of people, including White House officials, associate pass-through entities with small businesses. In fact, according to the Treasury Department, more than 80 cents of every dollar earned by pass-throughs come from big firms (defined as companies with more than $10 million in income).

Because taxes on pass-through income are paid at the individual level at individual rates, the top rate for such income today is generally 39.6 percent. Trumps plan would lower the rate for all pass-through income to 15 percent.

Two-thirds of pass-through income is earned by the top 1 percent of Americans, according to researchers at the Treasury Department, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

Among those many rich beneficiaries, by the way, are people who use the carried interest loophole, a preferential tax rate associated with Wall Streeters that Trump loves to say hes closing. Trump would let them trade one juicy tax break for an even juicier one.

More important, millions of people who are currently employees will start calling themselves companies  for example, to become a sole-proprietor consultancy. A Tax Policy Center analysis of an earlier version of Trumps plan assumed that about half of high-wage workers would eventually become pass-through entities.

And self-incorporating (or self-LLC-ing) would also let them shave down their payroll tax obligations, which fund Medicare and Social Security. Thats because once they turn themselves into a personal holding company, they could shift more of their pay from wage and salary income to corporate profits.

Kansas already tested this hypothesis, and is paying dearly for it.

In 2012, the state undertook a huge suite of tax cuts, including eliminating taxes on pass-through income. That overhaul, too, was supposed to pay for itself.

Instead, many more people took advantage of the loophole than expected, the state economy and tax receipts slowed to a crawl, and a gaping budget hole forced legislators to close schools early. The states credit rating has been downgraded multiple times.

Our laboratories of democracy have already proven what a daft, damaging idea this pass-through proposal is. Yet the White House pushes it still. The only question is whether its being kept alive by ideologues or incompetents.

crampell@washpost.com
STAMFORD  A felon accused of firing a gun outside a downtown bar over the weekend had his bail nearly tripled on Monday.

Judge Auden Grogins ordered a $350,000 bond for Deandre Greene, 28, who is on probation and has 13 criminal convictions on his record.

Greene faces at least two years in prison if convicted of being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Police officer John Derisme said he saw Greene raise his right hand with a gun and take a shot at a crowd of people outside of Glamour Bar on West Park Place early Sunday morning, according to a report of his arrest.

Derisme and other officers were paroling the Columbus Park area as bars were getting out about 1:50 a.m. Sunday.

Police said officers chased down Greene, who was found carrying a Davis Industries .380 caliber semiautomatic pistol, which is known by gun experts to be a true Saturday Night Special, because of its cheap manufacture. The pistol had a bullet in the chamber after it was pulled out of Greenes pants pocket, police said.

Greene pleaded not guilty to criminal possession of a weapon, illegal discharge of a firearm, carrying a pistol without a permit and reckless endangerment.

According to the police report, Derisme said he saw a large group come out of the Glamour Bar and walk toward West Main Street before continuing onto Clark Street.

Derisme said he saw Greene raise his right hand and fire the shot, the report said.

The last time gunfire erupted near Glamour was July 13, 2014.

Stamford resident and security guard Dayron Wills, who had just received a permit to carry his pistol about two days earlier, watched as a fight spilled out of the same bar, then known as Tinos Night Club at 84 W. Park Place.

Wills attorney said his client felt the group was threatening and trying to beat him, the report said.

Police say Wills, who did not have a criminal record, fired 10 rounds and wounded five bystanders on the street.

Wills pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree assault and is scheduled this week to be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com;
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, May 1

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Ashgabat hosted the sixth meeting of foreign ministers of Central Asia and Japan on May 1, a source acquainted with negotiations said.

Turkmenistan has been chairing the dialogue Central Asia+Japan since 2014.

The meeting was attended by Japans Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and foreign ministers of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Discussion was held on issues of ensuring peace and security in a global and regional context, promoting the peaceful development of Afghanistan.

The sides also discussed the trade and economic, investment, environmental, cultural and humanitarian relations in the six-sided format. Following the meeting, a joint declaration was adopted.
A $5.2 million hotel in the St. Paul Square neighborhood one block from the Convention Center is facing foreclosure.

The Best Western Plus Sunset Suites Riverwalk, a historic four-story hotel at the corner of Commerce and Chestnut streets, will be sold at foreclosure auction on June 6, according to foreclosure listing service RexReport.com and a notice posted on the countys website.
1 Terrorism arrests: British police arrested three women Monday as part of a continuing counterterrorism investigation that included a raid last week. The three were arrested on suspicion of planning attacks. Two are 18 and one is 19. They are being questioned at a police station outside London. The arrests are part of an ongoing operation related to a series of arrests that began Thursday when police stormed a house in northwest London. A total of 10 people have been arrested as part of the investigation. None has been charged or identified.

2 Venezuela protests: President Nicolas Maduro called Monday for a new constitution as an intensifying protest movement entered a second month amid clashes between police and demonstrators. After hundreds of thousands took to the streets again to call for his ouster, Maduro announced that he was calling for a citizens assembly and a new constitution for the economically flailing South American nation. He said the move was needed to restore peace and stop his political opponents from trying to carry out a coup. Opposition leaders immediately objected, charging that Maduro was seeking to further erode Venezuelas constitutional order.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, May 1

By Demir Azizov Trend:

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev discussed the issues of implementing the Uzbek-Kazakh agreements during a working meeting in the South Kazakhstan region, the Uzbekistan National News Agency (UzA) reported.

Earlier, President Mirziyoyev paid the state visit to Kazakhstan on March 22-23, 2017. During the visit, a package of documents was signed to develop bilateral cooperation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

"Following that state visit in March, a roadmap was adopted for all areas of joint activity, President Mirziyoyev said.

The Uzbek president stressed that the bilateral meetings directly affect the effectiveness of interstate relations.

The Uzbek and Kazakh presidents stressed that the level of business relations intensified in various sectors of the economy, including the transport and logistics sector, the automotive industry. The trade turnover increased by 37 percent between the countries for the first three months of 2017.

President Mirziyoyev and President Nazarbayev expressed confidence in preserving and further developing the positive dynamics of the Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan cooperation.
Breakfast is so important that people are eating it twice during the morning daypart.

NEW YORK  The most important meal of the day is increasingly being consumed twice, reports the Wall Street Journal, and were not talking about all-day breakfast.

After years of fretting that people had stopped eating breakfast, or simply nibbled on the go, food makers and restaurants are discovering that people want to eat breakfast more than once in the morning, notes the news source.

We see a lot of people grab something when theyre rushing out the door, then they have a second breakfast once they make it to their desk, Siggi Hilmarsson, founder and CEO of Skyr Corp., maker of Siggis yogurts, told the Journal. In January, the Icelandic company introduced its first single-serve yogurt drink and soon realized through social media that consumers were drinking the product as an early morning, pre-work meal. A more substantial breakfast would typically follow later in the morning, he added.

Pret A Manger locations in the United States experience high-traffic volume between 8 am and 9:30 am, and then a second rush around 10:30 am. [Customers] are having that second breakfast, Jo Brett, U.S. president of Pret A Manger, told the Journal. People are eating more little portions, more often.

In response to demand for smaller servings, Pret A Manger is expanding its selection of pots (small portions of foods like fruit, yogurt and hard-boiled eggs), and new pots will include more protein and vegetable options.

Food manufacturers are also realizing that the second breakfast is more than a late-morning coffee break. The Journal notes that Jimmy Dean, for example, brought to market a line of microwavable hash browns stuffed with ingredients like sausage, cheese, bacon and veggies for the growing midmorning meal occasion, according to Tracy Fadden, director of marketing for Jimmy Dean, a unit of Tyson Foods Inc. Fadden adds that portability is also crucial, since most people often eat breakfast while driving or typing.

Nielsen says that increasing popularity of double breakfasts is also boosting sales of convenient breakfast foods, with sales of frozen breakfast entrees increasing 24% over the past five years, and frozen breakfast sandwiches increasing 30%. Its a smaller format that fits in your hand while commuting and fits the idea of the snackification of breakfast, Jordan Rost, Nielsens vice president of consumer insights, told the Journal.

Jeanine Bassett, vice president of global consumer insights at General Mills Inc., commented that the second breakfast tends to be smaller and slightly more savory than first breakfast. This year the company launched Yoplait Dippers, a line of Greek yogurts with snacks for dipping. It really skews second breakfast, Bassett told the Journal.

The companys new Nature Valley line of granola cups, made of peanut or almond butter poured over oats and nuts, are also geared toward the late-morning eaters. This is about food that I can eat when Im working at my computer, when I need something smaller thats less messy and less involved, Bassett said.

Read more about maximizing the morning daypart in the January 2016 NACS Magazine cover story, The Most Important Meal of the Day.
The CoffeeSongbird Connection Scientific American

A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA Nature. Alters the timeline

U.S. Techs Self-Feeding Digital Money Machine on Show This Week Bloomberg

Facebook targets insecure young people Australian Business Review. Interesting:

A 23-page Facebook document seen by The Australian marked Confidential: Internal Only and dated 2017, outlines how the social network can target moments when young people need a confidence boost in pinpoint detail. By monitoring posts, pictures, interactions and internet activity in real-time, Facebook can work out when young people feel stressed, defeated, overwhelmed, anxious, nervous, stupid, silly, useless, and a failure, the document states. After being contacted by The Australian, Facebook issued an apology, and said it had opened an investigation, admitting it was wrong to target young children in this way.

Id want more verifiable technical detail on the actual targeting  this is, after all, a sales pitch  but regardless of what Facebook is actually doing here, should they even want to?

Employees at this Swedish company can get a microchip inserted under their skin World Economic Forum. The process lasts a few seconds, and more often than not there are no screams and barely a drop of blood.

Modis India: Rising and Reshaping The Diplomat

ASEAN Summit: An exercise in omission Lowy Interpreter

Chinese economy cools as key sectors continue to slow Guardian

Japan Labor Shortage Prompts Shift to Hiring Permanent Workers Bloomberg

France

Brexit

Syraqistan

Imperial Collapse Watch

North Korea

Trump Transition

Health Care

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

Our Famously Free Press

Guillotine Watch

Class Warfare

Economics, not identity, is key to reviving American liberalism FT. But is it key to reviving the fortunes of the paid-to-lose Washington Generals liberal nomenklatura?

A Tough-Love Letter to the Left Tne New Republic

The Rule of Law Wont Save Us Jacobin

Strategies for resisting right-wing populism Understanding Society

Democracy on the Brink Foreign Affairs

The five universal laws of human stupidity Medium

Antidote du jour (via):

Canada Warblers returning to the eastern US.

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Lambert here: Its interesting to watch Turner working out how to frame complex, systemic issues in very simple language. See especially the discussion of lead and Flint.

Kim Brown of The Real News Network interviews Nina Turner, a former state senator of Ohio, and a principal surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanderss presidential campaign of 2016.

The transcript:

KIM BROWN: Welcome. Well, as always, were glad to have you here, Nina. So, Senator, lets break this down into sort of two parts, if we could, like the environment at large with rising seas, more powerful storms, and hurricanes and the like, and then environmental justice part, the sort of willful neglect of citizens in communities like Baltimore, like Cleveland, like Flint and countless others across the country.

Lets start here, if we could, with the environmental justice perspective. Why is it that the major parties, both Republican and Democrat, dont seem to make the issues like lead contamination, like air pollution, like all these different public health impacts that are a direct result of environmental toxicity?

NINA TURNER: Mm-hmm. And thank you for that, Kim. The major reason is because those communities that are the most impacted tend to be your poorer and browner communities, and I dont want to leave out our Appalachian sisters and brothers, but they tend to be poorer, and so politicians and politics dictate that you answer to the people who vote the most, and you also answer to the people who give the most money, and that is the unfortunate aspect of politics right now.

KIM BROWN: And lets also take another look at a piece that was published on the grist.org, because its not just the political parties who ignore these communities and ignore these issues. The major media outlets also do a very paltry job of giving time and attention to climate change stories, and stories about environmental justice.

You know, Flint, I hate to put it like this, but was actually pretty fortunate that someone like Rachel Maddow from MSNBC seized upon the story and took it national, although it sort of faded from the headlines, but had it not been for a major news outlet breaking the story for the rest of the country, we would not have known about it. But that is not really typical of these environmental justice problems that are affecting countless communities across this country.

NINA TURNER: Yeah. True that, Kim, and yes, big ups to Rachel Maddow and her team, and I wish more outlets would do exactly what were doing right here at The Real News, because the one thing that we do have in common has human beings, and not just in our country, but all across the world, is that we need a stable environment. We need Mother Nature  we need Mother Earth  to be well, and we are making her sick.

And so extreme weather droughts, all of those things have an impact on how we get food or if we get food, whether or not people are moved by push and pull factors that happen because something is not going right with the environment. And you know, its not sexy enough; it doesnt get as many clicks as some of the other things. One thing in the media, if it bleeds, it leads, well, its not bleeding enough.

But there is going to be a day of reckoning, Kim, and we all know that. And while Flint is the canary in the coalmine  I read a study. I think Rutgers University did it. But that there are 3,000 other municipalities and areas in the United States of America that have higher lead levels than Flint.

And so whether its old pipes or lead in the paint, or lead in the soil where children play in the playground, this is a serious issue because lead can destroy the cognizant capacity or the brain capacity, the quality of life for so many young people. So to me this should be the number one priority because it impacts every single other thing that we care about.

KIM BROWN: And, Nina, thats an excellent point. As you noted, a lot of these frontline communities, here in Baltimore theres been a decades-long problem with lead poisoning of children. In East Chicago, Illinois, they had to

NINA TURNER: Cleveland, too, Kim. Cleveland too.

KIM BROWN: Cleveland. Well, talk about

NINA TURNER: Yeah.

KIM BROWN: Nina, thats something a lot of people dont know. Tell us whats happening in Cleveland on the environmental justice front.

NINA TURNER: Lead paint. We have some of the highest levels in the country, and even around the Cleveland Clinic, and I know many of your viewers have heard of the amazing, wonderful, tremendous Cleveland Clinic  which it is  but the communities in and around the Cleveland Clinic, and I use that for emphasis, have some of the largest lead contamination in the country and nobody thinks about that, and a lot of that has to do with the faulty pipes.

And so as we look at infrastructure reform, Kim, infrastructure investments  we know that Mr. Trump said that he wanted to put about invest about a trillion dollars of our taxpayers money into infrastructure  that is something that I could support  because all of our major cities and areas across this country need infrastructure investment starting with our pipes. We are killing our children and were doing a disservice to future generations, but were really doing a disservice to the children who are living and breathing on this earth right now.

KIM BROWN: Nina, I want to talk to you about political engagement around these issues, particularly coming from communities of color. I was at the March for Science last Saturday, and obviously, The Real News, we are going to be present at the Peoples Climate March happening this Saturday, April 29th, in Washington, and cities around the country. And heres what I saw. I saw a lot of concerned white folks. I saw a handful of people of color. I saw even fewer black people out there.

Now, I know and you know that black communities and communities of color care about the environment that surrounds them. But I dont see us represented in these types of actions. So what is happening here? There seems to be a bit of either a messaging disconnect  I certainly dont think its apathy from these communities. I know these places care about whats happening to them. But I dont see that type of representation when it comes to action on the environmental front in terms of bodies in the street, feet on the ground.

NINA TURNER: Mm-hmm.

KIM BROWN: What can we do to engage these communities in the sense that they are viewed as a political force to be reckoned with when it comes to the poisoning of where they live?

NINA TURNER: Yeah. I mean it is a messaging gap. I think thats part of it, and then its not knowing. You know, theres a scripture that says we pay from the lack of knowledge and we, the collective we, those in the movement, must recognize that they have to do more to bring a little pop of color to this movement, but also do more to communicate what is really at stake.

And I believe like you do that if these communities had more information and were able to connect the dots about why that matters to them, why they should be concernedfrom whether or not its their children being poisoned by lead, or the fact that the infrastructure in most of these major cities are so old that we have to act right now  is really about getting that information and knowledge to them.

And I would argue that the political class has even more of a responsibility that when theyre out there holding these communities forums and these town halls, they should be taking the lead.

But we dont get big ups  to the activist community out there. Theyre really trying to spread the word. We need to have more partnerships with our churches. As you know in the African-American community and in the Hispanic community, the churches are communal a communal activity.

So I think if we bring in some other stakeholders like our faith-based community, that would go a long way into spreading the word and connecting the dots, because what we have to say to people, we have to draw the picture or put down the bread crumbs, if you will, as to why it should matter to them. Why is it connected to them? And I dont think a lot of that work has been done yet.

But we can do it. We should do it and we must do it because those communities are the most vulnerable.

KIM BROWN: When we talk about political accountability, Senator Turner, I am put in the mindset of Bernie Sanderss presidential campaign where he spoke quite often about the need to address climate change and make it a priority.

I dont know about Cleveland, but I know here in Baltimore, there has not been a whole lot of accountability for the lead poisoning crisis. As I said, going back decades. No ones ever been voted out of office because they didnt do enough action around lead testing and lead poisoning prevention.

So how can we make this an issue that politicians and elected officials will be held accountable on, and how can we help to make it more of a priority for the two major political parties?

NINA TURNER: Well, each of us you know, this great change, any great change, whether its here in our country or in Baltimore, Cleveland or in the nation or the world, really comes from the bottom to the top. And so we need the forces, more forces of people power to make sure that our elected officials know that out of all the priorities that are being expressed that environmental justice or climate change should be in the top three.

You know, you mentioned Senator Sanders, Kim, and I remember a debate  and I dont know if you remember this particular debate  but Senator Sanders said that climate change was the number one, and I think they were talking about war at the time, and he said that climate change was the number one threat to our country and to the world. And he almost got laughed off the stage because people wanted to talk about Syria and they wanted to talk about perpetual war, but he laid it out there, and in that moment, showing his leadership that he was going to stick to what he believed was the biggest threat.

And I certainly agree with him on that, that if you have droughts and people cant get food, if you have lack of water, and people cant get something to drink and even when you do have water its tainted water, when were messing with the cycles of spring, summer, fall and winter, all of those things have an impact on our quality of life as human beings.

And you know what, Kim? If we dont  we, the collective we  if we dont do something to change this actively in our own homes, our own communities and this nation, we are giving a death sentence to generations yet unborn, and that is why we all have to care about it.

So can we go put some cool on climate justice, were going to put some cool on this and get more people engaged, because we cannot do it without the grassroots.

KIM BROWN: Well, Nina, let me ask you, from your personal perspective, do you agree with Senator Sanders? Is climate change the number one threat facing the global population, not just the wars that are occurring in different pockets around the planet?

NINA TURNER: I do. I never thought that I would feel that way. You know, you mentioned how communities of color  I mean, for me, its about income and wealth inequality and voting  those have always been my key foundational issues, but when you think about the whole notion that in order for us to fight for any of those things, we have to have an earth that is stable.

We have to have clean water, we have to have fresh air, and this is happening all over the world, and people are being displaced. We think we have a refugee crisis now. Imagine if we had a major catastrophe linked to the earth, linked to major storms. That will impact all of us. So, absolutely, climate change has to be up there in the top three, because it is the nexus to everything else that we care about.

So, yes, the Senator was right, and he was bold and brave not to change his stance on that, even though he was taunted for saying that.

KIM BROWN: And, Senator Sanders definitely pulled his opponent at the time, Hillary Clinton, leftward on those issues. I even think he even spurred President Obama at the time, pulled him a little leftward on that to spur along the Paris Climate Agreement that the United States is a signatory on. So

NINA TURNER: Unfortunately, our current president (laughs) doesnt care about any of that, and thats why we cant wait on him or wait on his administration. We must continue to push, and big ups to the scientists. Now, Kim, you know, now, when you get the scientists upset, youre saying something, and for them to come out as a collective, as a profession, that really cares about this world, and they care about what they do every single day, that is a big deal. We ought to listen to the scientists because they know, and they really are the prophets speaking out before we get to such a crisis that we cant do anything about it.

So, thank you so much, and I hope  Kim, we should tell listen, the viewers should get involved.

KIM BROWN: Well, I think our viewers are definitely engaged. There is going to be a contingent in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, April 29th, for the Peoples Global Climate March and were going to be out there broadcasting live. And this past Saturday, for the March for Science, as you said, Nina, when you make the introverts mad

NINA TURNER: Thats right.

KIM BROWN: when it turns into Revenge of the Nerds, you may have a problem there.

NINA TURNER: There it is. Absolutely.

KIM BROWN: And I call scientists nerds lovingly, by the way. Weve been joined today by former state senator of Ohio, Nina Turner. Look for her upcoming program, The Nina Turner Show, right here on The Real News Network.

Senator Turner, as always, pleasure to speak with you. We enjoyed having you here.

NINA TURNER: You, too, darlin. Thank you so much, and thank you, Real News, for bringing the real news that people can use.
Physicists breeding Schroedinger cat states (Nanowerk News) Physicists have learned how they could breed Schrodinger cats in optics. CIFAR Quantum Information Science Fellow Alexander Lvovsky led the team of Russian Quantum Center and University of Calgary scientists who tested a method that could potentially amplify superpositions of classical states of light beyond microscopic limits and help determine the boundaries between the quantum and classical worlds.

The study was published today in Nature Photonics ("Enlargement of optical Schrodinger's cat states").

In 1935, German physicist Erwin Schrodinger proposed a thought experiment where a cat, hidden from the observer, is in a superposition of two states: it was both alive and dead. Schrodinger's cat was intended to show how radically different the macroscopic world we see is from the microscopic world governed by the laws of quantum physics.

However, the development of quantum technologies makes it possible to create increasingly complex quantum states, and Schrodinger's thought experiment no longer seems too far out of reach.

"One of the fundamental questions of physics is the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds. Can quantum phenomena, provided ideal conditions, be observed in macroscopic objects? Theory gives no answer to this question -- maybe there is no such boundary. What we need is a tool that will probe it," says Lvovsky, who is a professor at the University of Calgary and head of the Quantum Optics Laboratory of the Russian Quantum Center, where the experiment was set up.

Exactly such a tool is provided by the physical analogue of the Schrodinger cat - an object in a quantum superposition of two states with opposite properties. In optics, this is a superposition of two coherent light waves where the fields of the electromagnetic waves point in two opposite directions at once. Until now, experiments could only obtain such superpositions at small amplitudes that limit their use. The Lvovsky group carried out the procedure of "breeding" such states, which makes it possible to obtain optical "cats" of higher amplitudes with greater success.

Co-author and University of Calgary graduate student Anastasia Pushkina explains: "The idea of the experiment was proposed in 2003 by the group of Professor Timothy Ralph of the University of Queensland, Australia. In essence, we cause interference of two "cats" on a beam splitter. This leads to an entangled state in the two output channels of that beam splitter. In one of these channels, a special detector is placed. In the event this detector shows a certain result, a "cat" is born in the second output whose energy is more than twice that of the initial one."

The Lvovsky group tested this method in the lab. In the experiment, they successfully converted a pair of negative squeezed "Schrodinger cats" of amplitude 1.15 to a single positive "cat" of amplitude 1.85. They generated several thousand such enlarged "cats" in their experiment.

"It is important that the procedure can be repeated: new 'cats' can, in turn, be overlapped on a beam splitter, producing one with even higher energy, and so on. Thus, it is possible to push the boundaries of the quantum world step by step, and eventually to understand whether it has a limit," says the first author of the study, a graduate student from the Russian Quantum Center and the Moscow State Pedagogical University, Demid Sychev.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, May 1

By Demir Azizov Trend:

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov on Apr. 30 discussed issues of the development of bilateral relations within the agreements reached during the state visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Turkmenistan in early March 2017, the press service of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry reported.

Kamilov arrived in Ashgabat city Apr. 30 to attend the sixth meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue.

The sides stressed that thanks to the political will of the leadership of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the relations between the two countries reached a qualitatively new level, which allowed to activate mutually beneficial cooperation in the political, trade and economic, investment, transport and communication, cultural and humanitarian, as well as other spheres.

It was also noted that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan intensify cooperation within the framework of international and regional organizations, including the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea currently chaired by Turkmenistan.

Kamilov on behalf of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev conveyed warm greetings and sincere respect, as well as good wishes to the Turkmen president and the Turkmen people.

On the same day (Apr. 30), the Uzbek foreign minister met with Rashid Meredov, deputy chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and foreign minister of Turkmenistan, according to the press service of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.

The two foreign ministers exchanged views on topical issues of bilateral relations, the agenda of the sixth meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue, as well as international and regional issues.
(Natural News) Honeybee colonies were found to be heavily laden with toxic pesticides, according to a recent study. As part of the study, researchers at Cornell University examined 120 honeybee colonies placed near 30 apple orchards around New York state. The bees were allowed to forage for a few days during the flowering season. The research team then assessed each colonys beebread to check for pesticide residues. Beebread refers to the honeybee food stores that were made from gathered pollen.

The research team found that the beebread in 17 percent of honeybee colonies exhibited acutely high levels of pesticide exposure. The study also found that 73 percent of colonies displayed chronic pesticide exposure. According to researchers, more than 60 percent of pesticides found were accounted to surrounding farmlands and orchards that were not sprayed during the blooming season. The studys lead researcher inferred that the pesticides might be coming from other treated crops that surround the orchard. It could also be that pre-bloom sprays have accumulated in nearby flowering seeds, the lead author stated.

Surprisingly, there is not much known about the magnitude of risk or mechanisms of pesticide exposure when honeybees are brought in to pollinate major agricultural crops. Beekeepers are very concerned about pesticides, but theres very little field data. Were trying to fill that gap in knowledge, so theres less mystery and more fact regarding this controversial topicWe found risk was attributed to many different types of pesticides. Neonicotinoids were not the whole story, but they were part of the story. Because neonicotinoids are persistent in the environment and accumulate in pollen and nectar, they are of concern. But one of our major findings is that many other pesticides contribute to risk, said study lead author Scott McArt in ScienceDaily.com.

The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Pesticides can wreak havoc in the human body

A vast number of studies have long established that pesticide use and exposure result in detrimental health effects among humans. A type of pesticide called neonicotinoids, for instance, was known to affect the bodys central nervous system. These synthetic pesticide chemicals do not limit their damage to the nervous systems of insects, warns environmental scientist and lab director Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. Via the same biochemical pathways, these same pesticide chemicals also disrupt and damage the nervous systems of humans, promoting Alzheimers and dementia, Adams warns.

According to a report by the European Food Safety Commission (EFSA), neonicotinoid pesticides inhibit the normal development and function of the human nervous system. The toxic pesticide was also known to cause damage in brain structures and functions essential in learning and memory. As a result, EFSAs Plant Protection Products and their Residues panel has called for a definition of standards that will indicate when developmental neurotoxicity studies can be submitted.

According to the panel, two types of neonicotinoid pesticides  acetamiprid and imidacloprid  were shown to negatively impact the development of neurons and brain structures associated with functions such as learning and memory. It concluded that some current guidance levels for acceptable exposure to acetamiprid and imidacloprid may not be protective enough to safeguard against developmental neurotoxicity and should be reduced. These so-called toxicological reference values provide clear guidance on the level of a substance that consumers can be exposed to in the short- and long-term without an appreciable health risk.

A 2016 review also showed that exposure to the toxic chemical was associated with adverse developmental or neurological outcomes such as autism spectrum disorder and anencephaly. The pesticide was also found to cause a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. Chronic neonicotinoid exposure was also associated with memory loss and finger tremor. The findings were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Furthermore, the National Cancer Institutes Agricultural Health Study showed that farmers using toxic pesticides had higher cancer rates compared with the general population. According to the study, farming communities exhibited higher rates of multiple myeloma, soft tissue carcinoma, leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

EFSA.Europa.eu

EHP.NIEHS.NIH.gov

Cancer.gov
(Natural News) Energy drinks are all the rage these days; estimates suggest that between 2008 and 2012, the energy drink market exploded by a staggering 60 percent. In 2015, it was reported that the market was expected to reach a value of more than $21 billion in 2017. Nowadays, there are more than 500 energy drinks available for purchase.

The energy drink industry has done a great job of making their offerings seem like the cool beverage of choice. And to make matters worse, the industry can even market their products as supplements rather than beverages, which can exempt them from needing to provide a nutrition facts label  and it can be very confusing to consumers for a number of reasons. Some people may even incorrectly believe that these drinks are just as safe as coffee, or that they are a better option than regular soda. Even product manufacturers purport the myth that their beverages are no different than a cup of coffee. But the truth is that energy drinks are emphatically not the same as coffee or cola.

A new study has emphasized this by showing that drinking just 32 ounces of energy drinks a day can cause potentially harmful changes to heart function and blood pressure. These changes go well beyond what caffeine can do alone.

According to the FDA, doses of caffeine equivalent to 400 milligrams, or about 5 cups of coffee, are safe for human consumption. But energy drinks are notorious for containing other proprietary energy blends, which are often comprised of ingredients that are of a questionable nature. Little is known about the safety of these ingredients. Plus, downing several energy drinks a day, as many people do, can easily put someone well over their daily caffeine limit. Sources say that alone can increase your risk of headaches and changes to blood pressure  never mind the issue of what other goodies are put into energy drinks. Some of these drinks may have even led to fatalities.

To measure the safety of these ingredients, researchers compared the physical changes observed in a group of 18 healthy men and women after they consumed a commercial energy drink. The team also recorded the physical changes that were produced after the group consumed a beverage loaded with the same amount of caffeine, but none of the other ingredients featured in the energy drink.

The energy drink used in the study contained 320 milligrams of caffeine, four ounces of sugar, an array of B vitamins, and a proprietary energy blend which consisted of taurine and other ingredients that are practically standard for drinks like Red Bull or Monster. (RELATED: Read more stories about questionable ingredients at Ingredients.news)

The research team used an electrocardiogram (often called an ECG or EKG) to monitor the participants hearts electrical activity during the 24-hour period following the beverage consumption. As reported by NBC News, An ECG change known as QTc prolongation and sometimes associated with life-threatening irregularities in the heartbeat was seen after drinking the energy drink, but not after drinking the caffeine beverage, the study team reports.

The authors of the study say that several drugs have actually been pulled from the marketplace for causing similar irregularities in heart function. The team explains that the study subjects blood pressure increased by up to 5 points after consuming the energy drink, while consumption of the caffeine-only beverage yielded a modest blood pressure increase of just one point.

While the researchers say that these changes are not necessarily harmful for healthy individuals, they could prove hazardous for people with certain heart conditions. While not involved with the study, Dr. Jennifer L. Harris from University of Connecticuts Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, located in Storrs, explains that there are still significant concerns about the beverages, especially the way they are marketed to young boys. She says that ER visits among adolescents and young people in relation to energy drink consumption are on the rise. More than half of the cases of people who got sick from energy drinks between 2010 and 2013 were children.

Harris also noted, Some of these ingredients (including taurine and guarana) have not been FDA-approved as safe in the food supply, and few studies have tested the effects of caffeine consumption together with these novelty ingredients.

Sources:

NBCNews.com

USNews.com
(Natural News) The days of the Veterans Administrations chronic shortfalls and criminal treatment of the nations warriors may be coming to a close, thanks to a recent piece of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald J. Trump. But until the law kicks in and real reforms begin to take shape, many VA hospitals will continue to underserve the very people they are in existence to serve in the first place.

As reported by Off the Grid News, the last known living U.S. survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941  which triggered Americas entry into the global conflagration  was recently denied hearing aids at a VA in Philadelphia for a very common, and wholly unacceptable, reason: Federal bureaucracy. (RELATED: Trump delivers: Taking SWAT team approach to slashing bureaucracy)

The site noted that a paperwork error on the part of the Department of Veterans Affairs was reportedly to blame.

CBS Philly reported further that the vet, Alexander Horanzy, 94, went to the VA to get the hearing aids, and they were sitting in front of him on a table after he was told he had already been approved to receive them and had them tested and fitted.

So I drove him up there and they wouldnt give them to him, said his granddaughter, Joyce Fiore, in an interview with KYW News Radio. They said his medical records were lost in a fire. They had them right there, so he was denied.

The vet himself was not happy about the snafu either. I was so darned mad I couldnt even talk, he said. My granddaughter was there with me, so we just walked out.

Reports noted that Horanzy nearly perished seven decades ago after contracting malaria while fighting in the mosquito-filled jungles on New Guinea. The Greatest Generation Fondation noted further that prior to his combat there, he had seen the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as a young Army private.

Nevertheless, the VA lost his paperwork and because of the VAs fault, Horanzy wasnt able to get the hearing aids Fiore said he desperately needed.

He cant talk on the phone much and [hear] the TV, she said. Its very hard for him, she added, noting without the aids he has difficulty getting through his day.

The Greatest Generation Foundation has set up a GoFundMe page to help Horanzy pay for his hearing aids, which is here. At the time of this writing, $7,868 had been donated; Horanzy only needed $6,500 for the hearing aids.

These kinds of outrages will hopefully become fewer and farther between, thanks to recently passed reform legislation aimed at fixing what has chronically ailed the VA. As reported by The National Sentinel:

In keeping campaign pledges to fix the broken VA system, President Donald J. Trump signed legislation on Monday sent to him by the GOP-controlled Congress that gives vets the choice of seeking care for military-related conditions in the private sector.

The Veterans Choice Improvement Act tears down barriers that Congress had erected around original choice policies enacted in the wake of the 2014 scandal in which a number of veterans had died waiting for care after being placed on phony rosters as a way to make it appear as though the facilities were keeping up with demand. At the time more than 100 facilities around the country were involved in various cover-ups, prompting the two-year pilot program that gave vets some choice but still limited where they were permitted to see private physicians. (RELATED: Drowning in bureaucracy  U.S. has more tax preparers than all police, firefighters combined)

But now, with expanded choice the law of the land, it may just be the relief valve the system needs in order to function better: By shifting a portion of its patient load to the private sector, the VA will be left with fewer vets to treat and thus, the available resources can be stretched further than ever before, The National Sentinel noted.

No solutions are perfect, but this one gets close.

See more outrageous (but true) news stories at OutrageDepot.com.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

Corruption.news

OffTheGridNews.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
(Natural News) If youve been following President Donald J. Trumps Cabinet nominations you know by now that thus far hes chosen people to head up agencies they dont particularly care for.

He appointed Dr. Ben Carson as Housing and Urban Development chief because Carson has been a longtime HUD critic. He appointed former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head up the Environmental Protection Agency though Pruitt sued the EPA during his AG tenure and he doesnt believe in human-caused global warming. He selected South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to be UN ambassador because she doesnt believe the world body has been very fair to the U.S. He appointed former Rep. Tom Price to head up Health and Human Services because he wants to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Hes appointed retired Marine generals to be secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security. He appointed a billionaire investor to become the Commerce Secretary. He appointed a Republican congressman from Montana who thinks the federal government has snatched too much state land to become Interior Secretary. And he appointed school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos to be his Secretary of Education  because shes no fan of federal control over primary education.

Why would the president do this? (RELATED: Trump moves to extract the federal government from education with order aimed at returning schools to local leaders)

Because he has a vision that he ran on: Less federal government involvement in the lives of ordinary Americans, and he has appointed people in Cabinet positions and throughout the federal bureaucracy he believes can best help him do that.

But hes doing his part as well via a series of executive orders aimed at curbing federal power and overreach. In fact, Trump just issued a new one last week aimed at dramatically reducing the federal governments role in K-12 education.

As reported by the Washington Times, the order, titled Education Federalism Executive Order, tasks DeVos and her department with conducting a 300-day review of Obama-era regulations and rules for local schools, and gives the education secretary the authority to change or repeal any rules she believes are an overreach by the federal government.

For too long the government has imposed its will on state and local governments, Trump said. The result has been education that spends more and achieves far, far, far less. My administration has been working to reverse this federal power grab and give power back to families, cities [and] states  give power back to localities.

Trump added that the Department of Education has forced school districts to comply with whims and dictates from the nations capital, but his administration was committed to breaking that cycle.

We know local communities know best and do it best, Trump said in the presence of a number of Republican governors as he signed the order at the White House.

The time has come to empower teachers and parents to make the decisions that help their students achieve success, he added.

While the order is not expected to have any immediate effect on schools, the end result of the 300-day study will likely be the implementation of new policies aimed at reducing Washingtons primary education role. (RELATED: Liberal arts professor says schools should stop teaching algebra because Americas children are too stupid to handle it (but will still be allowed to vote one day!)

For her part, DeVos already possesses the authority to get rid of rules and regulations that have been found to be in violation of federal law. The new order makes clear her mandate from the president to take action to curb federal overreach.

In addition to reducing federal roles in primary education, Trump has said he also wants to expand school choice  something that DeVos worked for prior to joining the administration.

Since the Department of Education was formed in 1979, after then-President Jimmy Carter signed legislation creating it, student outcomes in science, math, and language arts skills have steadily plummeted, even as more money flowed to schools.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

NPR.org

WashingtonTimes.com

Liberty.news
A disturbing new sex trend called stealthing has recently gotten a lot of heat after a study explored the consequences of this alarming sexual act that involves men removing condoms during intercourse without their partner's consent.

According to the study, published in Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, the nonconsensual removal of protection during sex exposes the person involved with risk of diseases (i.e., HIV, AIDS, STIs) and pregnancy. Alexandra Brodsky, the study's author, wrote that stealthing could be categorized as a "grave violation of dignity and autonomy" that breaks civil and criminal laws.

Brodsky interviewed people who experienced stealthing. Most of the women knew something was wrong but did not have the words to describe the action, Huffington Post reports.

Survivors [of stealthing] describe nonconsensual condom removal as a threat to their bodily agency and as a dignitary harm. You have no right to make your own sexual decisions, they are told. You are not worthy of my consideration,'" Brodsky wrote.

The author also argues that the act of stealthing may be rooted in the assumption that man has the natural right to violence. This ideology of male supremacy is evident in online chat forums, where men share their experiences on stealthing and their right to "spread their seeds."

However, could stealthing be considered rape?

Vice noted that in 2016, a 47-year-old man in Switzerland was convicted of rape after removing his condom during sex without the consent of his partner who he met on Tinder. The Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne ruled that stealthing constitutes an act of rape and gave the man a one-year suspended sentence.

Until today, no one from the women that Brodsky interviewed has filed a rape case from their experiences of being stealthed. Forbes said that there are various reasons why rape victims choose to keep their lips sealed instead of going to the police. These include embarrassment, shame and fear that the rapist might get back at them.

Survivors experience real harms  emotional, financial, and physical  to which the law might provide remedy through compensation or simply an opportunity to be heard and validated, Brodsky wrote.
More than 70 percent of Airbnb's short-term rental listings in San Francisco could soon be purged off the site following a settlement between the home-sharing company and its hometown.

Airbnb sued San Francisco in June to block the city from enacting tougher regulations that would slap home-sharing companies with pricey fines and possible criminal penalties if they post rental listings that arent registered with the city.



San Francisco is now claiming victory in that the settlement dismisses Airbnb's legal challenge to the city's short-term rules, thus, clearing the way for unregistered listings to be purged from home-sharing websites.

We have successfully defended San Franciscos common-sense regulations on short-term rentals, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement. This agreement helps protect the citys precious housing supply by obligating these companies to ensure that all their listings are legal and properly registered."

As a result of the settlement, home-sharing companies Airbnb and HomeAway must require their users to provide proof they are properly registered with the city before allowing them to post their short-term rental listings online. The new requirement is scheduled to take effect by September, but current users will have until the start of 2018 to get into compliance.

"Similar to other agreements we have established with cities all around world, this agreement puts in place the systems and tools needed to help ensure our community is able to continue to share their homes," Airbnb said in a statement.



Airbnb and HomeAway also agree to cancel future stays and deactivate listings if notified by the city about unregistered hosts.

The settlement also allows Airbnb and HomeAway to offer its users a way to register with the city using their own websites.

Affordable housing advocates partly blame short-term rentals for driving up home prices in the city. Rental hosts, however, argue home-sharing helps residents afford to live in high-priced San Francisco.



Mayor Lee hopes that the new agreement will help the crack down on illegal hotels.

This protects our rental housing stock while allowing residents who follow the rules to gain income to help make ends meet," Mayor Lee said in a statement.

"When platforms cooperate with the City to only list lawfully registered hosts, we can more effectively enforce our laws and protect our rental housing supply. This settlement is a significant leap forward for enforcement of our short-term rental laws."



The citys attempt to crackdown on illegal listings followed an NBC Bay Area investigation in May that revealed thousands of short-term rental hosts in San Francisco continue to break the law by failing to complete the citys required registration process.

City law defines a short-term rental as lasting 30 days or less. Since February 2015, San Francisco has required short-term rental hosts to register with the city and remain the primary resident of the home they plan to rent out.

Currently, 2,100 hosts are registered with the Office of Short-Term Rentals to legally rent out their homes. However, the Investigative Unit discovered Airbnb alone had 8,800 hosts listing its site as of late 2016. That means at least 76 percent of hosts in San Francisco appear to be breaking the law.

In June, one month after the Investigative Unit aired its original report, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took steps to begin holding home-sharing companies accountable, including Airbnb, for any illegal short-term rentals they post on their websites. The change in law was scheduled to take effect in July 2016 and would have required home-sharing websites to verify that listings are registered with the city before posting them online. Otherwise, companies could face government issued penalties of up to $1,000 per day and potential criminal penalties.

The ordinance, however, never went into effect. The city held off on enacting the new law after Airbnb filed its lawsuit against San Francisco and requested a judge issue a preliminary injunction to halt the new enforcement process.

______________________________________

Watch the entire series in this NBC Bay Area investigation:
A man opened fire on a birthday pool party Sunday at a San Diego apartment complex, killing a woman and injuring seven others, authorities said.

Officials were planning to brief the media on the investigation at 11:15 a.m. Monday. NBC 7 is planning to offer live coverage of the news conference.

The shooter, identified as 49-year-old Peter Selis, looked "relaxed" amid the chaos, a witness told NBC 7.

From the clubhouse, theres a view of the pool area where we could see the shooter sitting there with a beer in one hand and the gun in the other. He looked pretty relaxed, the witness said.

The shooting took place shortly after 6 p.m. at the pool area of the La Jolla Crossroads apartment complex located on Judicial Drive, west of Interstate 805, San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said.

According to witnesses, Selis walked into the pool area where friends were celebrating a resident's 50th birthday. One witness said that when the resident walked up to Selis and invited him to join the festivities, the suspect lifted up his shirt, took out the gun and shot him in the stomach. He continued shooting at partygoers around the pool until he was out of bullets, the witness said.

A police helicopter arrived to the scene first and the pilot reported seeing multiple victims and that the suspect was still in the pool area, and appeared to be reloading.

Three officers on the ground shot and killed the suspect after he pointed a gun at them, Zimmerman said.

The police chief said seven people were taken to area hospitals with gunshot wounds. One woman died of her injuries and several others remain in critical condition, according to Zimmerman, who did not identify the victims.

A man broke his arm while fleeing and was taken to a local hospital, Zimmerman said.

Resident Laurne Seed said she heard gunshots around 6 p.m., got down and closed her apartment windows. About a minute later, she said another round of six or seven shots were fired and people could be heard screaming.

"Lots of screaming, lots of people screaming," Seed recalled. From the screams, you could hear that somebody or multiple people were hit, Seed said. She could see people on the balconies yelling and ducking for cover.

Another tenant told NBC 7 his fiancee is a nurse and both ran down to the pool area to see if they could help. He said when they heard a second round of gunshots the couple ran into the clubhouse to hide.



A woman who said was at the pool area at the time of the shooting said she was able to escape when Selis stopped to reload his gun.

A witness described Selis as calm and said he had a smirk on his face during the shooting.

Selis lived in the apartment complex, police said.



At a briefing on Monday, Zimmerman said Selis was despondent over a recent breakup with his girlfriend. Investigators said Selis called his ex-girlfriend and told her he had just shot two people and the police had arrived on scene.

The suspect stayed on the phone with the ex-girlfriend while the shooting continued, Zimmerman said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.28



By Dalga Khatinoglu  Trend:

Iranian deputy oil ministry Hossein Zamani-Nia said Apr.16 that $50-80B worth of foreign investment is expected to be attracted to Irans energy projects, including $10B into the petrochemical sector in near future.

In total, $185 billion worth of investments is needed, he said.

Zamani-Nia said $85 billion are planned to be invested in the upstream oil sector by 2021.

However, Homayoun Falakshahi, senior Iran analyst at Wood Mackenzie told Trend Apr.28 that "We estimate that National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) would need $115 billion over 20 years to develop the 50 oil and gas fields it has shortlisted for investment under the IPC."

"Despite much interest from international oil companies, it is unlikely that all of these projects will be awarded, so the actual level of investment will be a lot less. Because of ongoing US sanctions, international banks continue to be extremely cautious. This will make it difficult for Iran to attract the required capital, at least for now," he said.

Iran introduced 49 oil and gas fields to foreign investors based on newly designed oil contract, called the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) in 2015, but it hasnt issued tenders on them yet.

Previously, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that about $20-$30 billion worth of foreign investments are expected to be attracted based on the IPC.

About 80 percent of Irans active fields are in their second half life and lose 8-12 percent of productivity every year.

Iran says its old oil fields would lose 0.3 mb/d of productivity during this year, but 0.35 mb/d of oil would be added from new fields, like Azar, oil layer of South Pars, West Karoon block, etc.

Falakshahi says that Irans biggest potential clearly lies in the West Karun fields, which are huge and in early phases of development.

"Fields such as Azadegan or Yadavaran could produce more than 1 mb/d combined. However, new output from other fields is will also make a significant contribution  Azar and the South Pars Oil Layer will produce a combined 90 kbd by 2020".

Iran has prioritized the development of West Karoon block, including North and South Azadegan fields, Yadavaran and North and South Yaran fields with 64 billion barrels of in-situ reserves, which currently share about 3 percent of the country's total crude oil production, halved since December 2016, according to an official document, seen by Trend.

Year 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Crude oil output 3.899 3.963 4.092 4.153 4.206 4.29

* Wood Mackenzies estimations (mb/d)

Year 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 Crude oil and gas condensate output 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.5 4.8 5.4

*International Monetary Funds estimations (mb/d), based on Irans fiscal year, starts on March 21. Irans gas condensate output stands at 560,000 b/d and expected to reach 1 mb/d by 2022.

Falakshahi said that "for 2017 however, incremental output from these fields will be limited to around 100-150 kb/d. NIOC will fight against production decline in ageing reservoirs by drilling more and increasing gas re-injection. Increased gas production from South Pars will be allocated to be re-injected into oil fields".

Currently Iran re-injects about 75-80 million cubic meters per day of gas to oil fields to maintain their production, but the needed re-injection volume is at least three times more than this figure.

Falakshahi said that "our estimate of crude production capacity for 2017 is 3.9 mb/d, although we believe NIOC will abide by the OPEC agreement, which, if extended for another six months, will allow Iran to produce 3.8 mb/d of crude oil."

Coming to a five-year perspective of Irans oil output, which is claimed at 4.7 mb/d by Iranian officials, Falakshahi added that "we believe Irans crude oil production capacity is likely to increase to close to 4.3 mbd by 2022, provided Iran enjoys some success in the IPC process and awards a few major projects to investors (we have included Azadegan South Phase 2 and Ab-Teymour among other projects in this forecast)."
Former first lady Michelle Obama revealed Thursday behind-the-scene moments of how her two daughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, spent their night inside the White House the night before the inauguration.

Obama recalled the night as remarkably typical for a pair of teenagers. Malia and Sasha Obama, 18 and 15 respectively, said farewell to their previous home with a slumber party and pizza with friends.

"They had a sleepover, because of course on Inauguration Day, because my girls are so normal, they're like, 'Well, eight girls are gonna be sleeping here because it's our last time, and we want pizza and we want nuggets.' And it's like, really?" Michelle Obama said.

The disclosure came during a wide-ranging, but relatively politics-free, question-and-answer session at the annual American Institute of Architecture conference in Florida.

Obama said it was difficult for the girls to leave the only home they had known for the past eight years.

"So that moment of transition, right before the doors opened and we welcomed in the new family, our kids were leaving out the back door in tears, saying goodbye to people," she said.
Police in Massachusetts have apprehended a woman who allegedly made threats over social media to shoot a person at random.

Authorities had asked the public to look out for a gray Jeep Cherokee with Massachusetts plates reading "491VE1," driven by a woman named Sarah Curran of Wakefield. Anyone who sees this vehicle or person is asked to call 911 immediately.

At 5:40 p.m., a Bedford Police officer spotted Curran driving along Route 62 and pulled her over. After confirming her identity, she and taken to an area hospital for evaluation without further incident.

Police later said no weapons were found in Curran's vehicle.

Burlington Police said police in Merrimack, New Hampshire, contacted them around 1:20 p.m. about the online threat, and that a trace of Curran's phone indicated she was in Burlington.

Further pings of her phone indicated she was never in Burlington, but was in a North Shore community  first in Manchester-by-the-Sea and then in the Peabody area.

Schools in Burlington were briefly locked down out of an abundance of caution, but authorities lifted the lock-down just before 2 p.m. Classes were not disrupted.

Police said there was no danger to the Burlington community. They would not say whether she was believed to have a gun.

Manchester-by-the-Sea police said they were notified around 2 p.m. that Curran's cell phone had pinged to a location in their town. They conducted a search of the area but did not find her. They said a second ping showed that her vehicle was in Peabody. A third, later ping showed the vehicle in neighboring Middleton.

"There was never any indication that the Town of Manchester-by-the-Sea was a target or that Sarah Curran had a previous connection to this area," Manchester police Chief Ed Conley said. "All we know is that a telephone belonging to Sarah Curran was in Manchester-by-the-Sea, along with other North Shore Communities, at some point today. Officers, however, remain vigilant."
Thousands of people chanted, picketed and marched in cities across America on Monday as May Day demonstrations raged against President Donald Trump's immigration policies. The rallies remained mostly peaceful but became violent in the Northwest.



Around the world, union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers' rights. In the U.S., the event became a rallying point for immigrants in 2006 when more than a million people marched against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.

Immigrant groups and their allies have joined forces to carry out marches, rallies and protests in cities nationwide, saying there's renewed momentum to fight back against the president's policies. They hope large crowds will get Trump and congressional lawmakers to rethink efforts to expand deportations and pressure local governments to assist federal deportation agents.

In California, droves of demonstrators gathered across the Bay Area to draw special attention to immigrants' rights. At a rally in San Francisco, people blocked off an intersection near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office downtown. In nearby Oakland, at least four were arrested after demonstrators created a human chain to block a county building, demanding that county law enforcement refuse to collaborate with federal immigration agents.

In Los Angeles, several thousand people waved American flags and signs reading "love not hate" as they marched downtown from MacArthur Park.

At the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, two groups of protesters clashed, shouting at each other and waving U.S. flags. Some of the participants at the "March for America" event said they came to the site to express support for Trump's policies.

"I'm here to tell the world that we have to give our president a chance," said Elsa Aldeguer, who identified herself as a Trump supporter. "If we elected Trump, why not give him a chance? It's only fair."

Roughly 200 people marched in Portland, Oregon. Police shut down a protest they said had become a riot and arrested more than two dozen people as marchers began throwing smoke bombs and other items at officers. Several dozen people dressed entirely in black and wearing black bandanas and ski masks on their faces stood around the fringes of the gathering holding signs that read "Radicals for Science!" and "No cuts! Tax the rich!"

Police also arrested people in Olympia, Washington. Officials said nine people were taking into custody after several officers were injured by black-clad protesters throwing rocks and smashing windows. Police in the state's capital city had ordered a group of protesters to disperse Monday evening, saying "the group is not friendly" and "this is a riot."

Hundreds of people marched in Seattle as well, chanting "Stand up, fight back." Five people were arrested.

Beside the West Coast clashes, most nationwide protests were peaceful as immigrants, union members and their allies came together for a of strikes, boycotts and marches.

Organizers of demonstrations in Chicago said their focus was on the rights of women, minorities, the LGBT community and undocumented immigrants. The Chicago Teachers Union held a rally at Seward Elementary School on the city's South Side to protest a lack of state funding.

Several hundred teachers picketed outside Philadelphia schools early Monday. Supportive parents joined the teachers, many of whom took sick days to protest. Schools were open and the district said it was working with principals and substitute teachers to make sure classes would not be disrupted.

In Washington, D.C., labor and immigrant rights groups, along with some local elected officials marched to the White House to oppose Trump's immigration policies.

"Theres a real galvanization of all the groups this year," said Fernanda Durand of CASA in Action, which led a march for immigrants' rights through downtown Washington. "Our presence in this country is being questioned by Donald Trump. We are tired of being demonized and scapegoated. Weve had enough."

In Miami, Alberto and Maribel Resendiz closed their juice bar, losing an estimated revenue of $3,000, to join a rally.

"This is the day where people can see how much we contribute," said Alberto Resendiz, who previously worked as a migrant worker in fields as far away as Michigan. "This country will crumble down without us."

He added, "We deserve a better treatment."

In addition to rallies, immigrant rights activists in communities in Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere are calling for strikes to show Americans the demand for immigrant labor and immigrants' purchasing power.

Meanwhile, Trump released a statement Friday declaring May 1 "Loyalty Day" as a way to "recognize and reaffirm our allegiance to the principles" upon which America was built, calling on all government buildings to display the U.S. flag and schools to observe the holiday with ceremonies.

"The loyalty of our citizenry sends a clear signal to our allies and enemies that the United States will never yield from our way of life," Trump wrote in a proclamation on Friday. "We are working to destroy ISIS, and to secure for all Americans the liberty terrorists seek to extinguish."

Around the world, workers and activists marked May Day from Paris to the Philippines with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions.



Police detained 165 people in Istanbul as they tried to march. Garment workers in Cambodia defied a government ban to demand higher wages, and businesses in Puerto Rico were boarded up as the U.S. territory braced for a huge strike over austerity measures.

In Paris, police fired tear gas and used clubs on rowdy protesters at a march that included calls to defeat far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

Police clashed with far-right demonstrators in the eastern German town of Apolda, taking 100 people into custody before declaring the situation under control. Several thousand far-left demonstrators marched through Berlin, setting off smoke bombs and firecrackers along their route. The "Revolutionary May 1 Demonstration" was not registered with authorities as required, but police decided to tolerate the Monday evening march.

A protester briefly disrupted the start of Havana's May Day parade on Monday, sprinting in front of marchers and brandishing a U.S. flag before he was dragged away. The protest was a surprising breach of security at a government-organized event where agents line the route of the march.
He was Chicagos infamous White City devil, a serial killer who stalked the city during the glories of the 1893 Worlds Fair.

But did H.H. Holmes pull off one last ghoulish swindle?

H.H. Holmes was a man who was described as the arch criminal of the century, before they even suspected him of a single murder, author Adam Selzer said. A lot of times people got in the way, knew too much, and they mysteriously disappeared.

History disagrees on the body count for the man born Herman Webster Mudgett, who later took on the Holmes identity. While some ascribe as many as 200 murders to Holmes, and he confessed to over two dozen, the exact number may never be known.

What is known is that his base of operations was a building at 63rd and Wallace, the so called murder castle, which popular lore says was festooned with trap doors, sealed rooms, and a veritable chamber of horrors in the basement where bodies were boiled in acid or even cremated.

It wasnt a pleasant place in any case, Selzer said. There were a number of people who disappeared out of the building.

But this week, digging began at the Philadelphia cemetery where Holmes was buried following his hanging in 1896. It was in Pennsylvania where the law finally caught up with the notorious killer and he was convicted of murder. But some newspaper accounts at the time suggested he had perpetrated one last scam, cheating the hangman and escaping to South America.

This was quite a popular story at the time, said Philadelphia author Matt Lake. A cynical person might say this was just designed to sell more newspapers, and it did sell newspapers!

But it also sold the courts in Pennsylvania on the idea of proving once and for all who is in Holmes grave. Two of the killers great-grandchildren successfully petitioned to have his remains exhumed, in hopes that DNA testing will prove once and for all if hes really the one buried in Philadelphias Holy Cross Cemetery.

John and Richard Mudgett, along with Cynthia Mudgett Soriano confirmed in affidavits that they are direct descendants of the infamous killer.

Hed requested a double deep coffin, and before he was placed in it he wanted a layer of wet cement put in there, Lake noted, quoting popular accounts including a story printed at the time of Holmes hanging in The New York Times. And then the coffin was going to be topped off with even more wet cement.

If somebody went to check later, they couldnt verify that it was his body!

That of course, did not envision the possibility of modern forensic science. A court order dated March 9 in Delaware County Pennsylvania gives Holmes descendants permission to exhume his body, with DNA analysis to be performed by the Anthropology Department of the University of Pennsylvania.

Petitioners shall cause the remains to be re-interred in the same grave site in which they had originally been buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, regardless of whether or not those remains are determined to be those of Herman Webster Mudgett, the order stated. No commercial spectacle or carnival atmosphere shall be created either by this event or any other incident pertaining to the remains.

On its face, the reports of Holmes escape seem the stuff of a 19th century dime novel. One 1898 account, from the Chicago Inter-Ocean asked point blank, Is H.H. Holmes Alive?

H.H. Holmes was never hanged in Philadelphia, the story quoted a purported witness. On the contrary, as he always declared he would do, he cheated the gallows and is today alive and well growing coffee at San Parinarimbo, Paraguay, South America.

The account proceeded to explain that Holmes managed to bribe officials at his prison into substituting a cadaver for his hanging, the reason he grew a full beard in the weeks leading to his execution, to further muddy the waters of future identification.

Within two hours of the hanging an undertakers wagon containing a casket drove out of the prison yard, the article noted. That casket was supposed to contain the body of Holmes. Instead, it contained Holmes living.

Such an account differs radically from other descriptions of the execution, including a detailed article in the May 8, 1896 Chicago Tribune.

Justice followed him with tardy steps for many long years, the Tribune noted. Yet when the end came, it was frightfully scientific, methodical, and expeditious.

Whoever is in the grave, the Delaware County court specifically ordered that the body be returned within 120 days.

The petitioner shall have the site restored with perpetual grave site care, the order stated. In the event it is determined that the remains are not those of Herman Webster Mudgett or are unidentifiable, the Petitioners shall be responsible for purchasing a cemetery marker in addition to requirements for interment.

Selzer, author of the new H.H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil, has never believed all of the more fanciful stories about the murder castle, and says he believes the Holmes body count might have only been between 9 and a dozen individuals.

He was a swindler first and foremost, he said. Right after he was first arrested he suddenly became really, really famous. People were calling him the arch criminal, the master criminal of the century!
CNBCs The Profit and Comcast Business invite you to celebrate Small Business Week, Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street, Hartford, CT.

Join us for a fun evening of networking and engaging discussion moderated by NBC Connecticut anchor, Brad Drazen, along with talented individuals from the small business, startup, and entrepreneurial community.

Interested in a chance to be on CNBCs hit show "The Profit?" There will be a casting booth for you to get your name and business considered. Marcus Lemonis has been called Americas number one business turnaround artist. Hes invested nearly $50 million to save and help small businesses across the nation on his show.

To register visit : smallbizcelebration.com/hartford
Union leaders are drawing attention to a recent report showing 2015 marked the largest number of deaths from work-related injuries since 2010.

The Connecticut Department of Labor says 44 people in the state lost their lives from work-related injuries, an increase from 35 in 2014. The figure is also higher than the state's annual average of 39 work-related deaths.

Members of the Connecticut AFL-CIO Health & Safety Committee, elected officials and labor and management representatives highlighted the report during a Workers Memorial Day ceremony on Friday. Union officials are seeking state legislation this session that provides workers compensation coverage to police officers and firefighters suffering from PTSD.

Ninety-three percent of Connecticut's work-related deaths occurred in the private sector. The highest rate -- 12.9 percent -- was in the construction industry.
New revenue state estimates show Connecticut's budget deficit problems continue to worsen.

The current fiscal year is now projected to end June 30 with an approximate $394 million shortfall while the following two fiscal years are now predicted to have deficits of $2.3 billion and $2.7 billion respectively.

The estimates were released Monday by the budget offices for the General Assembly and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The governor's budget director says the "precipitous drop in revenue" creates "major challenges for the state" throughout the remainder of the current fiscal year and for the following two-year budget, which Malloy and state lawmakers still need to negotiate.

Senate Democrats suggested such talks be held in public, given what lawmakers call "dire circumstances."

Governor Dannel Malloy provided his own explanation for the downturn in income tax receipts, saying the state's highest earners are the ones who ended up paying less, and because of the state's overreliance on them for income taxes, the pain to the state is substantial.

If you look over the three (stock market) years weve had new highs and then followed by raltively lows which is a perfect situation for developing a strategy for avoiding tax payment, legally.

Malloy also said Connecticut's recovery from the Great Recession remains a very fragile one. He said the cries from some of the most liberal members of the Connecticut House and Senate for higher taxes on the state's wealthiest residents and businesses only provide more uncertainty, leading to bad deficit news like Monday's.

Someone had the proposal that we tax the hedge fund industry 19.5 percent," Malloy said. "The mere discussion of it in our state year after year is disruptive of commerce and of peoples thinking.

In the General Assembly, they're already looking at a new kind of venue for budget negotiations: out in public view.

Sen. Martin Looney, the President Pro Tem of the Connecticut Senate, called on Senate Republicans, House Republicans, and House Democrats to hold all future budget talks out in the open, and broadcast live on the Connecticut Network, the state's version of C-SPAN.

We believe that working together in public will enhance the prospect of achieving a bipartisan agreements which serves the public interest, Looney said.

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said he supported Looney's idea.

Republicans wouldn't outright refuse to meet in public, but they did criticize Looney's motives and intentions.

Now theyre just trying to use a shiny object to pull the attention away from their ineptness," said Sen. Len Fasano, the Republican President Pro Tem of the Senate. "They should put out a budget, a line by line budget and they should put all the ideas out.

When asked about the effectiveness of having detailed, often-times contentious budget negotiations in plain sight, Fasano added, You want to have an open meeting and invite everybody in? You think thats going to do something? Knock your socks off.

Democrat and GOP leaders in the General Assembly will meet with Malloy Tuesday afternoon in the State Capitol for a private budget meeting.
A father and daughter were found dead after a standoff on Wilton Avenue in Norwalk, according to police, and they said it appears the 55-year-old man shot his 33-year-old daughter in the head sometime yesterday or last night, then shot himself this morning.

Norwalk police were called to a home on Wilton Avenue at 12:32 a.m. Monday after Melissa Wilkinson's coworkers found her dead, according to police.

They had been concerned because she did not show up for work Sunday evening, so they went to the house, looked through the window and saw her lying on the floor, covered in blood, police said.

After kicking in the door, they found she was dead, according to police.

They also saw a man sitting on a couch, holding a gun, and mumbling to himself, police said.

Police identified him as Melissa's father, 55-year-old Mark Wilkinson, and said he had been staying with his daughter at her home.

Police tried to speak with him, but he refused. A standoff ensued for several hours until officers heard a gunshot.

When they sent in a camera, they saw Mark Wilkinson was dead, police said.

Neighbors were evacuated from their homes to a shelter at the fire department during the standoff. Around 7 a.m. police said residents could return home.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Emil Ilgar  Trend:

Irans oil export to Turkey doubled during the first two months of 2017.

According to the Turkey Energy Market Regulatory Authority, Turkey imported 1.6896 million tons of crude oil from Iran during January-February, which equals 204,967 barrels of crude oil per day.

During the same period of 2016, Irans oil export to Turkey was 845,505 tons, or 102,569 barrels per day.

Iran also imported 656 tons of oil products from Turkey.

The statistics, mentioned on chart above indicates that Turkeys oil imports from Iran decreased dramatically during 2012-2015 due to the sanctions imposed on Iran by the West.

Sanctions on Iran were removed in January 2016. Turkey has resumed oil import from Iran since mid-2016.

Iran also exported about 1.54 billion cubic meters of gas to Turkey in Jan.-Feb. 2017, which is similar with the same period of 2016, according to the statistics of the Turkey Energy Market Regulatory Authority.
Meriden resident Marianne Cifatte thought she got a great deal when she signed up for Frontiers Internet service two years ago. For $49.99 per month, she received 12 megabits per second (mbps), or so she thought, until a casual movie night became too stressful to enjoy.

It would just [show] that buffering freeze, Cifatte said. And it was just so irritating. Youre watching a movie to relax.

Cifatte called Frontiers customer service, and an agent immediately identified the problem: She was only receiving six mbps.

The company sent a technician, who replaced the modem, and got everything back up to speed.

We felt like the last piece of the puzzle was to just call and, you know, request some type of monetary compensation for the fact that weve been paying for one plan for two years and theyve only been providing half of what wed been paying for.

Her price difference was that of $15 a month, for 24 months, or $360.

I was only looking for what I believed we were due, Cifatte said. I wasnt looking to get anything more than that.

Cifatte says a representative told her the most Frontier would offer was three months of compensation, which totaled $45.

So I said to her that I was going to contact the Department of Consumer Protection, and that I was also going to contact NBC Responds, Cifatte said.

One week after NBC Connecticut Responds reached out to Frontier, Cifatte got a call. The company sent her a check for a full reimbursement.

In a statement, a Frontier spokesperson said:

It was unfortunate this occurred, we apologize for the situation, the delay and inconvenience our oversight caused the customer. We were happy to resolve the situation once it was brought to our attention.
Immigrant and union groups will march in cities across the United States on Monday to mark May Day and protest against President Donald Trump's efforts to boost deportations.

Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies are expected to rally in cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also are planned for dozens of smaller cities from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Portland, Oregon.

In many places, activists are urging people to skip work, school and shopping to show the importance of immigrants in American communities.

While union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers' rights in countries around the world, the day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the U.S. since massive demonstrations were held on the date in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.

In recent years, immigrant rights protests shrank as groups diverged and shifted their focus on voter registration and lobbying. Larger crowds are expected to return this year as immigrant groups have joined with Muslim organizations, women's advocates and others in their united opposition to Trump administration policies.

"We have never seen such an outpouring of support since we have since the election of Donald Trump," said Kica Matos, a spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

As Trump approached his first 100 days, he aggressively pursued immigration enforcement, including executive orders for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries. The government has arrested thousands of immigrants in the country illegally and threatened to withhold funding from jurisdictions that limit cooperation between local and federal immigration authorities.

In response, local leaders have vowed to fight back and civic participation has seen a boost, including February's "Day Without Immigrants." The travel ban and sanctuary order were temporarily halted by legal challenges.

In addition to rallies, immigrant rights activists in communities in Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere are calling for strikes to show Americans the demand for immigrant labor and immigrants' purchasing power.

"On this day, we will not go to work. We will not go to school. We will not buy anything," said Francisca Santiago, a farmworker from Homestead, Florida.

Immigrant advocates said they hope their message will reach Trump, congressional lawmakers and the public, as well as provide a sense of unity and strength to those opposed to the administration's policies. In spite of Trump's avowed crackdown on illegal immigration, many said they hoped a show of strength would help persuade politicians to rethink their plans.

Tom K. Wong, a professor of political science at University of California, San Diego, said the Trump administration's focus on immigration is generating more support for immigrant rights advocates.

"Every pivot back to the issue of immigration gives the immigrant rights movement another opportunity to make its best pitch to the public," he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in Van Zandt, Henderson and Rains Counties on Monday, where four tornadoes touched down Saturday killing four and injuring scores of others.

Abbott toured the area Sunday and activated the Texas Task Force 1 and 2 teams to help. But, they are not the only people out in Canton helping search through debris.

At the request of the state, volunteers with Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Disaster Relief team started arriving at Crossroads Church in Canton on Monday.

[NATL-DFW] Tornadoes Leave Trail of Damage Across Three Counties

Assessment teams will be on site, then two cleanup and recovery units will follow.

They will provide everything from chainsaw work, help with damage assessments and just overall support for those who lost everything.

Damage is widespread, and there is a lot of help that will be needed during what will be a long recovery. SBTC disaster relief teams said they will be in Canton for quite some time to help people affected by the tornado get back on their feet.

NBC 5 / Telemundo 39 crews were just east of Canton Saturday evening along U.S. Highway 64 moments after the tornado hit. In this video you can see people rushing to help others that had just been thrown from the storm.

I mean when you think about a disaster, people have lost everything and they dont know where to turn, and a lot of folks dont have hope and we just want to provide hope by helping people in Jesuss name, said Bill Bumpas, Southern Baptist of Texas Convention Disaster Relief.

A Chaplain and other critical support teams will be on site as well.

Disaster relief crews with Texas Baptist Men would assist with recovery efforts in Van Zandt County. The organization said they'll provide meals, chainsaw teams and shower units.

Online: Texas Baptist Men



Monday, the Salvation Army was expected to establish food trucks at Canton High School and the car dealership at Interstate 20 and Farm-to-Market Road 17.

Donations to support Salvation Army efforts can be made by calling 1-800-SAL-ARMY or online at give.salvationarmyusa.org/cantontornado.


Family members of the young woman attacked by a shark off the shore of San Onofre State Beach say she has a rough road ahead.

Leeanne Ericson was in a medically induced coma Sunday night at Scripps Memorial Hospital, her mother Christine McKnerney-Leidle told NBC 7.

I can't imagine my daughter being in that water and the shark taking her under, McKnerney-Leidle said through tears. How scared she was. She must've been so scared, so scared.

The attack happened Saturday shortly after 6 p.m. in a well-known surf spot nearby the San Diego County beach called Church. The surfspot is north of the now-closed San Onofre power plant near Basilone Road and Camp Pendleton.

The family was told the shark was 10 feet long. They don't know what type of shark it was.

The shark took the entire back of Ericsons leg, missing her major arteries but damaging her nerve and tearing out muscle. Its too soon to know what that means for the young mother of three, her parents said.

Ericson was camping with her boyfriend when she decided to swim while he surfed. She was comfortable swimming in the ocean, her mother said, since the family spent every summer surfing or swimming.

The couple saw a seal in the water and her boyfriend turned to swim out to a wave. Just then, Ericson disappeared from the waters surface.

She was gone. So he dived under to try and find her and couldn't find her, Mark Leidle said. He came up and the sharks tail was sloshing in the water and she popped up and he grabbed her and put on the board.

The surgeon told the family that if her boyfriend wasnt there, Ericson wouldve died.

Good Samaritans rushed to help pull her to shore. One of the men had first aid training and used a surf leash to help slow down the bleeding.

Emergency personnel transported Ericson to a nearby hospital by helicopter.

Right now, doctors are watching Ericson for the potential of an infection or pneumonia from the sea foam she ingested in the attack, her mother said.

At this point were just trying to keep her from getting any worse, McKnerney Leidle said.

Once she clears those hurdles, the family is planning to help Ericson through months of recovery, possibly years.

Among the procedures she may face are reconstructive and plastic surgeries.

Walking will be a challenge.

Her whole world is changed now, her mother said. All I can do is help her.

[[420895374,R]]

As for the beach, it will be closed until Wednesday.

"Beach patrons are advised to heed warnings from local authorities to include Military Police, Area Guards and San Onofre Lifeguards as well as signage posted at the beach," the statement from Camp Pendletons Office of Communication read Monday morning.

Last year, there were an estimated 59 shark attacks across the U.S., according to data collected by scientists at the University of Florida.

A GoFundMe page has been set up for Ericson.


Tuition might be expensive, but attending the University of California, Berkeley provides the most bang for your buck, according to a new Forbes report.

The East Bay university topped the list of Forbes' "America's Best Value Colleges" list, which calculates what schools are worth the financial investment. Southern California's University of California, Los Angeles and the East Coast's Princeton University rounded out the top three, respectively.

UC Berkeley wasn't the only institution in the area labeled as a school worth the investment. Stanford University checked in at No. 7 on the list while University of California, Davis grabbed the No. 9 spot.

Not to be left out, Santa Clara University (No. 63), San Jose State University (No. 140), University of San Francisco (No. 176), San Francisco State University (No. 210), Saint Mary's College (No. 234), California State University, East Bay (No. 240) and Sonoma State University (No. 300) also nabbed a spot on the list.



The annual list takes into account "tuition costs, school quality, post-grad earnings, student debt and graduation success," according to Forbes.

An interesting trend noted in the report indicates that roughly 70 percent of the schools listed in the top 100 are research universities, meaning that the education is centered around science, technology and engineering. A STEM-oriented education is defined by Forbes as being increasingly valuable because that's where the jobs are in this day and age.
A sea of humanity moved through the streets of downtown Los Angeles Monday for the annual May Day march, with organizers and participants spurred by a distaste for the presidential policies of Donald Trump.

Thousands of people gathered in MacArthur Park for the march dubbed "Resist Los Angeles," designed to be a show of "resistance, unity and defiance" against such White House policies as ramped-up enforcement of immigration laws and an effort to build a massive border wall.

Various organizations that have planned marches in the past joined forces this year, uniting under the banner "May Day Coalition of Los Angeles" and organizing the march from MacArthur Park to Los Angeles City Hall.

It marks the first time in more than 10 years there has been such unity among organizers of May Day marches. Organizers predicted that more than 100,000 people would participate in the "Resist Los Angeles" event. While thousands of people took part, the crowd fell well short of that goal.

Los Angeles police did not give an official crowd estimate, but authorities told reporters at the scene they were estimating around 15,000 participants.

"This is probably five times larger than last year, but it's not as big as 2006. It is definitely 30,000 to 40,000 people, I heard," Stuart Kwoh, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, told City News Service.

Kwoh, who also addressed the crowd from a large stage that was erected on the Spring Street steps of City Hall, tied the lessons of the Los Angeles riots -- which broke out 25 years ago Saturday -- to Trump's attempts to strong- arm local police forces into cooperating with federal immigration laws by threatening to cut off federal funding to so-called "sanctuary cities."

"In 25 years we have learned that the police cannot be an occupying military force. They have to have the trust of the community. And they cannot have the trust of the community if they are an occupying deportation force either," Kwoh told CNS.

UCLA student and Native American activist Shannon Rivers, who is also a leader of the movement pushing the city to divest its money from Wells Fargo due to its support of the Dakota Access pipeline, said various issues brought people to the march.

"There's all kinds of different issues. Migrant issues, the freedom and right to mobility. People have a human right to be mobile," Rivers told CNS. "We have gay-transgender issues, we have LGBT issues. We have inequality. Those are basic structural things we have to change. I don't know if we can change those things in our current system. We are so xenophobic."

Rivers was also among a long list of speakers who addressed the crowd, including Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles; Rusty Hicks, executive secretary and treasurer of the L.A. County Federation of Labor; and Mayor Eric Garcetti.

"We (teachers) will stand with this movement. We will stand with you for civil rights, for educational justice and this movement is the most important movement in the United States and the teachers are with you," Caputo- Pearl told the crowd.

At MacArthur Park, musician Tom Morello of the band Rage Against the Machine was among those rallying the crowd before the march began. Juan Jose Gutierrez, national coordinator of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition, said the march would send a message to the administration of President Donald Trump that "our just struggle for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship is here to stay until we win it."

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a candidate for governor, was among those taking part in the march.

"This year you're going to see an unprecedented number of people here in Los Angeles, primarily because of what's going on with Trump and his administration -- the ban, the wall, the talk of deporting 11 million people. Nobody's ever done that anywhere," he said. "I think for all of those reasons you're going to see an outpouring of people today."

Marchers carried a large U.S. flag, and many carried signs with messages such as "Rise Up LA," "Stop LAPD cooperation with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)" and "ICE out of California."

A separate late-afternoon march was held in Boyle Heights, beginning at Cesar Chavez Avenue and Evergreen Street and ending at Mariachi Plaza at First and Boyle streets. Meanwhile, a group of pro-Trump activists held a gathering of its own. About 100 Trump supporters stood in front of the downtown Federal Building, chanting and carrying signs and U.S. flags while police kept traffic moving on North Los Angeles Street.

A dozen or so anti-Trump protesters -- many wearing black clothing with ski masks covering their faces -- stood outside yellow police tape occasionally trying to shout down the Trump supporters. One person set fire to an American flag as tensions heightened. One person was later handcuffed and placed into a police van. Police said one person had been detained for trying to set an item on fire, although it was unclear if the item was the flag that was burned near the Federal Building.

There was also reports of a second person being arrested for allegedly throwing items. Trump supporters chanted slogans including "Put America first" and "USA," while some carried signs with messages such as "Repeal Obamacare" and "Trump -- Make America Great Again!" Led by a phalanx of Los Angeles police officers, the Trump group marched from the Federal Building to LAPD headquarters.

Jo Reitkopp, chair of event organizer "Make California Great Again Inc.," said Trump supporters wanted to "step up and stand for our country and its Constitution ... for which millions of USA military men and women have lost their lives." Police set up a skirmish line to separate the pro- and anti-Trump forces in the Civic Center area. Both sides shouted back and forth, often using profanities, but there were no reports of any physical confrontations. After the pro-Trump forces left the area, some masked anti-Trump protesters tore apart signs they left behind as police kept a close watch. There were no immediate reports of additional arrests.

Representatives from some community groups called for a general strike in conjunction with the marches, even encouraging students to either not attend school or walk out of classes. There was even a call for the Los Angeles Unified School District to close for the day, but the district rejected the request.

"At the heart of this decision is our unwavering commitment to keep kids safe," LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King wrote in a letter in early April. "Civic engagement undeniably plays a vital role in our democracy, and we embrace the rights of all students, families and employees to unite and magnify their voices locally so that their messages can resonate on a larger scale. "Nevertheless, schools continue to be the safest places for students to incubate an interest in civic engagement, and we encourage all schools to use May 1 as an opportunity to discuss matters of civic importance," King wrote.


Former Vice President Joe Biden insists he is not making another presidential bid in 2020, despite giving a rousing speech to New Hampshire Democrats about restoring dignity to politics and winning back working-class voters.

Biden returned to the state on Sunday to honor the nation's first all-female, all-Democratic congressional delegation at an annual state Democratic Party dinner. He was joined by U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, as well as U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster and Carol Shea-Porter.

"We know now you've finally earned the title Granite State because you have four women running the show," Biden told the crowd. "Amazing thing, I campaigned for all of them and they won in spite of it."

Such an early post-election visit to New Hampshire fueled speculation about Biden's presidential ambitions in the days leading up to the event. He quickly put those rumors to rest.

"When I got asked to speak, I knew it was going to cause speculation," he said to big applause. "Guys, I'm not running."

The crowd booed and at least one person shouted, "Run, Joe. Run," before Biden continued with his speech. He said that he was ready to start raising money and campaigning to help get Democrats elected at every level of government. He also touted some of his post-White House policy work including heading up the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.

During his evening appearance, Biden discussed the importance of bringing a sense of dignity back to a political system that he referred to as coarse. He said politicians need to get to know each other and not be afraid to work together.

He also encouraged Democrats to not bemoan how hard the next several years are going to be but, instead, embrace the challenge and look at all there is to be hopeful about.

"I know it seems like we're hopelessly divided. I know it feels like we're hopelessly stuck in a political death match and we can't figure out how to get out of it," he said. "But we are better than that. I've always believed that we're strongest when we act as one America."

He told the crowd to abandon the false narrative that Democrats have to choose between progressive idealism and being a party that stands up for the working class. Instead, he said, there is nothing keeping the party from being both.

"What's the core reason why you're a Democrat?" he asked. "Because you abhor the abuse of power. Whether it's financial power, psychological power, physical power."

Biden also told those in attendance that they needed to remind "the 172,000 voters we needed" in the 2016 election that the Democratic Party has not forgotten them and understands them.

"A lot of them wonder whether we've forgotten them. They are being abused by the system. They are as decent as any one of us are," he said. "So folks, let's go win it back."

Biden's visit comes just days after Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich stopped in the state to promote his new book.
A young Miami woman accused of drugging men and robbing them of tens of thousands worth of high-end jewelry and other goods throughout South Florida was granted bond during her first appearance in court Monday.

Yomna Fouad, 21, was given a $50,000 bond but will be placed on house arrest, a judge ruled during Monday's hearing. Fouad said she has hired an attorney but the attorney wasn't at the hearing.

Fouad is facing multiple grand theft charges following her arrest early Saturday on Miami Beach. An arrest report says Fouad was arrested after one of her alleged victims spotted her outside the Rockwell nightclub on Miami Beach around 3 a.m.

"When I saw her with tattoos on her hand that's when I knew automatically that it was her," the man, who didn't want to be identified, told NBC 6. "I was waiting outside to go inside the club and she was going out the club. I walked up to her and I was like 'wait a minute, this can't be what I'm seeing.' She looked at me and said 'I don't know you' and she tried to run away."

The 31-year-old man said Fouad approached him back in March outside of the Dream nightclub on Miami Beach. They started making small talk and she asked to go back his place, he said. Surveillance video showed the pair heading up the elevator.

"We had a couple of drinks, we went upstairs, she started giving me a massage. The next thing I knew I woke up in the morning, she was gone," the man said.

Also gone were his Rolex, cash, clothing, and other jewelry, a total value of more than $32,000.

During Monday's bond court hearing, a detective testified that there are more than 20 local victims of Fouad who claim they were drugged and robbed, including a Miami Beach man who allegedly had his $87,000 Audemars Piguet watch stolen.

Ten police departments including Miami Beach, Miami-Dade, City of Miami, El Portal and New York are investigating Fouad. Detectives expect more alleged victims to come forward.


By Chris Cook, for Trend

What goes around, comes around - a recent meeting in Tehran between two of the founders of the Iran Oil Bourse project perhaps opens the way to a new energy market beginning.

A Middle East Petroleum Exchange?

In 2000  as former Director of Compliance & Market Supervision of the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) - I became aware of routine manipulation of the Brent Crude Oil futures contract settlement price. I reported this to the exchange; its UK regulator (the Financial Services Authority) and UK Treasury. My complaint (subsequently validated) was 'whitewashed' and my career, home and family life was destroyed.

Following this, a UK colleague and I wrote a letter in June 2001 to Iran's Central Bank Governor Mohsen Nourbakhsh (now sadly deceased) pointing out the ongoing take-over of the global oil market pricing platform by Wall Street investment bank after formation of the Intercontinental Exchange. I recommended the foundation of a Middle East Petroleum Exchange and benchmark price. The proposal  which arose out of many years' work at IPE on a Middle East pricing benchmark - met with the approval of Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh and was then taken forward as what became known as the Iran Oil Bourse initiative.

It is worth pointing out here that a myth has been circulated (mainly by gold enthusiasts) that the Oil Bourse constituted an attack on the US dollar. However, I can state categorically that the currency in which oil would be priced was never a consideration, since while Iran had raised the possibility of pricing oil in Euros several times at OPEC meetings, this was always vetoed by Saudi Arabia and their allies.

Iran Oil Bourse

In May 2004, my colleagues and I made a presentation with our partners (Tehran Stock Exchange Services Company) at Iran's Central Bank and we were commissioned to carry out a feasibility study, which was completed by August 2004. This was a radical document in terms of proposed market structure and instruments, reflecting as it did the need for a new networked global market platform and instruments for financial rather than physical energy. Such a network and instruments will link providers of liquidity such as exchanges and will enable energy development financing and operational funding to be raised simply but effectively.

Although our report was used to enable a new conventional exchange the Iran Oil Bourse - to be authorised, my colleagues and I remain unpaid to this day, since this was the simplest way for those opposed to more market transparency to prevent progress. So throughout the deeply corrupt Ahmadinejad regime, no further progress on our proposal for a financial energy bourse at Kish Island was made.

Meanwhile a conventional bourse for marketing physical energy as a commodity was funded by powerful financial interests and has been developed as Irenex. The proposal for Iran's oil and gas to be marketed through Irenex - rather than via Natftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) - is as contentious within Iran's corridors of power as the Iran Petroleum Contract and for the same reasons. Heated criticism and accusations are therefore flying around in respect of both subjects between Reformist and Resistance factions in the current volatile pre-election atmosphere.

Oil Market Financialisation - 2001 to 2008

My gloomy forecast in June 2001 proved justified as the global oil market became dominated by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and the Brent oil futures contract evolved  as new grades of oil were added to maintain liquidity - into the Brent, Forties, Oseberg, Ekofisk (BFOE) complex of physical and derivatives contracts. This complex has become the vehicle for the greatest market manipulation the world has ever seen, or probably ever will see: theBig Long.

Between 2001 and 2008, crude oil ceased to be a commodity and became an asset class, as investors entered the market through new breeds of Index Funds and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). This 'passive' fund participation enabled producers - through use of the deceptive financial structures and instruments developed by Enron  to fund themselves via opaque prepayment for what has been described as Dark Inventory. In other words, the owners of stocks of oil may sell the economic interest in oil via prepayment by investors, and act as the custodian of oil pending delivery.

A financial bubble in oil was therefore created which reached $147/barrel in July 2008, only to collapse and then re-inflate as this massive manipulation entered a new phase when President Obama  who was the servant of US banks rather than oil companies- came to office in 2009. The departure of the financial market in oil from the reality of physical use for transport, heat and so on may be understood by the fact that the oil price rose from $80 to $147, fell to $35 and rose again to $80/barrel within a two year period during which underlying demand for physical oil varied by less than 3%.

Oil Market Financialisation 2009 to 2014 - the Big Long-

Beginning in 2009, the US deployed Saudi finance capital to re-inflate the oil market price and support it above $80/barrel. In exchange the Saudis ensured that US fuel prices  particularly gasoline  did not reach levels at which Obama's re-election chances in 2012 would be endangered.

This was a smart strategy by Obama's administration, and most OPEC members were blinded by greed as dollars rolled in with massive surpluses being invested in US Treasury Bills and other US $ denominated financial assets. As a result of this massive inflow of Petrodollar finance capital, the US was able to finance the rapid expansion of US shale oil production. This wave of largely debt financed investment saw some 5m barrels per day of US shale oil production mobilised within three years, while demand for oil products fell drastically, as renewable energy and energy efficiency measures became profitable.

As a result, the US achieved a crucial geopolitical goal of making themselves independent of Saudi Arabian oil reserves. In mid 2014  as I had forecast in Tehran in late 2011  the oil price collapsed to $45 to $50/barrel when the US dollar liquidity tap (QE) was turned off by the Federal Reserve Bank.

If there is one thing that the history of commodity markets demonstrates it is that if producers can support the market price then they will. Because a relatively small amount of Brent/BFOE oil sets the global benchmark price, it is straightforward for the price to be supported by finance capital such as funds. I have termed the substantial 'long' fund position in crude oil necessary to support the price the Big Long.

Oil Market Now

The oil market is currently in a dangerously fragile equilibrium and price range with the price supported by Saudi capital which is maintained opaquely in specialist energy funds and with liquidity provided by the European Central Bank's  QE. On the supply side any rise in price above $50 per barrel sees shale oil producers selling their production forward, enabling the necessary debt finance to produce shale oil profitably. This financial combination essentially acts to create an additional US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) which operates on autopilot to cap the global market price.

On the demand 'Buy-side' China is essentially acting as a global oil buyer of last resort, preferring to hold oil reserves over dollar reserves. China is therefore building new oil storage to accommodate this SPR at a phenomenal rate of construction. While China appears to be content to allow the Saudis to maintain the price in the organised market above $50/barrel my understanding is that surplus 'marginal' oil being quietly sold (much of it by cheating OPEC members) is selling on the fringes of the market to independent refiners at between $24 and $28 per barrel.

Meanwhile, OPEC's cuts are almost entirely cosmetic and the global oil market glut has continued to build although summer heat will see increased (wasteful) use in the Middle East. It is not a matter of if OPEC members cheat: it is only a matter of how they do so, and Saudi Arabia appears to have brought cheating to a fine art with Wall Street assistance.

Pre-Cheating

Saudi Arabia's energy strategy is to secure demand for their oil through ownership of, or long term relationships with refiners. In the US Saudi Arabia had 50% ownership (now 100%) of Motiva which owned several major refineries, and the Colonial pipeline connection enables oil products from refined Saudi crude oil to be delivered into New York Harbour, which in turn enables manipulate of US oil product benchmark prices.

Meanwhile, one of the major US Strategic Petroleum Reserve facilities at Big Hill (close to the Motiva refinery at Port Arthur) became surplus to requirements. The US has been able to use this reserve  simply by selling and repurchasing ('lending') oil inventory in exchange for a sale and repurchase of Treasury Bills  to enable Saudi Arabia to bypass OPEC commitments through 'pre-cheating' through opaque use of this Dark Inventory. It is essentially a swap for the value of energy over time against the value of dollars over time

The outcome of this colossal market deception has been to create a two tier market between the insiders who are aware of the true ownership of oil, and the majority of outsiders who are not. This disparity ('asymmetry') in market information has enabled fortunes to be made by those aware of the market reality.

However, while it is likely that a Clinton (Wall Street) administration would have continued this deception, it appears that the Saudis are now left to manage the market without active US participation, and in my view, the market price is dangerously fragile, with market risk concentrated in 'too big to fail' clearing houses.

What is to be Done?

I have long believed that the solution to the oil market lies, strangely enough, in the creation of global physical and financial markets in natural gas. Unlike oil (of which there are innumerable varieties), natural gas is pretty much the same everywhere once it has been processed. Again unlike oil, which is relatively cheap to transport, it is extremely costly to transport natural gas thousands of kilometres to market, whether it is pumped via pipeline or compressed into Liquid Natural Gas and then shipped and decompressed.

This is why Iran developed under Zangeneh a policy of substituting natural gas for oil both as fuel (for heat/cooling, power and transport) and feedstock for petrochemicals. Other Persian Gulf nations have increasingly been following Iran's lead, and that is why our proposal for reactivating the Kish Bourse does not involve contentious oil or oil products. It is instead for natural gas pricing and trading via regional 'Balancing Point' pricing similar to the UK balancing point natural gas contract in respect of which I was responsible at IPE for introducing the financial contract in 1995.

An Important Meeting

My Tehran-based colleague who was one of the driving forces behind the Bourse project, recently met Zangeneh's knowledgable adviser who was responsible for commissioning the initial Iran Oil Bourse study which we carried out. This adviser is now in charge of the difficult task of updating Iran's market architecture to reflect President Donald Trump's evolving and ever-changing America First policies.

My simple message to Zanganeh is this. Instead of pricing oil and gas in dollars, collaborate with other producers and consumers to price dollars and oil in gas. Russia and Iran possess more than half of global gas reserves, while China is the world's greatest consumer of gas. It is therefore completely possible for these three nations to collaborate (as the investment banks did almost 20 years ago to create the Intercontinental Exchange) to reach the basis of what could be a new global energy settlement.

Such a collaboration may commence with the creation of the first (Caspian) hub in a new global financial market network in gas, as I have advocated for almost a decade and extend to new hub in the Persian Gulf.

Chris Cook is a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange. He is now a strategic market consultant, entrepreneur and a commentator.
Some customers of Florida Blue had their accounts wiped out after a payment glitch over the weekend.

The health insurance company was working to resolving the payment processing issue that resulted in some members' accounts being drafted multiple times for their May invoice. The payments were processed by a third-party vendor.

Florida Blue is telling affected customers to call the number on the back of their membership cards or visit one of the Florida Blue centers for in-person assistance.

Audrey Rohlehr of Miami Lakes told NBC 6 her account was overdrawn by $32,000 Monday morning.

"I first called my bank when I noticed my payment was processed multiple times," Rohlehr said.

She said her bank filed a claim and she contacted Florida Blue.

"They submitted my payment of $778.97 to my bank approximately 44 times so far today," Rohlehr said. On the health insurance company's Facebook page, multiple people complained about their accounts being debited thousands of dollars. One user said her account was -$50,000.

Florida Blue apologized for the inconvenience and said it will identify all overpayments and refund them properly.

Rohlehr said due to the glitch, she's unable to use her card.

"If I needed food, I can't use the account," Rohlehr said. She is worried that many Florida Blue customers are unaware about the overpayments and may not realize they are unable to access to their accounts.

Florida Blue said it has stopped taking electronic fund transfer payments for the time being and has delayed ongoing automatic payments for the month of May.
In the hours after Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen announced she would leave Congress once her term ends in 2018, politicians from across the state and around the country offered praise for the longest serving representative in Florida history.

House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted out a message shortly after the news broke of Ros-Lehtinen's decision, calling her a "force" and a voice for the voiceless. Florida Gov. Rick Scott tweeted that she had fought hard for Florida families and her strong leadership "will be missed."

Sen. Marco Rubio, who was an intern for Ros-Lehtinen in the summer of 1991, called her a "tireless advocated of freedom and human rights" while Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat from the 22nd district that includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, praised her ability to work with both parties.

"Every Member of Congress should learn something from the way Ileana has conducted herself over the past 28 years," Deutch said in a statement. "She has crossed the aisle to stand up for what she believes is right. She has stood firm in her convictions and stood up for those she represents even when it meant making tough political choices."

Another Democrat, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, echoed those sentiments while adding she was proud to call Ros-Lehtinen a friend and work with her on issues from Israel to Haiti to LGBTQ rights.

Shes always been willing to take the tough stand, and sought to do what was right. Its been an honor to serve with her in CongressShe will be sorely missed, not just around Florida, but throughout Congress and the rest of the country. Mis mejores deseos mi companera y mi amiga.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez tweeted in both English and Spanish that she was a tireless public servant and wished her the best in the next chapter of her life.
With President Trump signing a new executive order to open the Atlantic Ocean and the area around Florida for more drilling, members of both chambers of Congress from Florida want to protect against that expansion.

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson is joining Representatives Debbie Wassermann Schultz and Ted Deutch in trying to come up with ways to shield Floridas coasts from offshore drilling.

Right now, there is a no-drilling zone that reaches 125 miles off of Floridas gulf coasts and it lasts until 2022. Nelson has filed legislation to keep that ban in place for an additional five years.

Drilling off Floridas coast threatens the states multi-billion dollar, tourism-driven economy thats dependent on clean beaches and pollution-free water, said Sen. Nelson in a statement. Thats why I will continue to fight any attempt to lift the current moratorium on drilling in the Gulf and keep oil rigs off of Floridas coasts.

Wasserman Schultz will file a similar bill in the House, where it is co-sponsored by Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican from Sarasota.

We do not have bipartisan agreement on many issues these days. But in Florida, we are almost completely united in opposing drilling off our coasts," said Wasserman Schultz.

Floridas coastal communities depend on a clean and healthy ocean and we shouldnt jeopardize the states economy or environment by gambling on drilling operations that lack adequate safeguards,Buchanan said.

Those against the drilling point to the Deep Water Horizons explosion that took place in 2010 offshore in the Gulf of Mexico as a reason why drilling should not be expanded. The Trump administration says it would increase supply and lower prices for consumers.
What to Know Paramedic is in critical but stable condition after surgery Monday. Medic will need more surgeries, extensive treatment to fully recover

Initial shooting victim is in stable condition at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and is believed to be the neighbor of the gunman

Shooting began as a dispute between neighbors. Suspected gunman, second deceased person found in a home by SWAT using a search robot

A gunman opened fire on emergency responders treating a gunshot victim in a Dallas street on Monday, critically injuring a paramedic and prompting police to lock down the area for hours until the suspect  and another person  were found dead inside a home, according to authorities.

The injured Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedic has been identified as William An. On Monday May 8, 2017, Dallas Fire Resuce said that An continues to recover in the hospital and is in stable condition but no longer critical.

A Dallas paramedic remains in a hospital the day after being shot while providing assistance to another shooting victim Monday.

Over the weekend An thanked the Dallas Fire Department for all their support and offered words of encourgament saying "Keep doing what you do."

The Dallas Firefighters Association has set up a Local 58 Relief Fund for donations to the family.



A GoFundMe account has been established for An to assist his family during his recovery.



Last week Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the paramedic will need additional surgeries and extensive medical treatment to fully recover. An is based out of Station 19, where firefighters are highly-trained members of the Urban Search and Rescue Unit.

[[420963353,C]]



Members of that crew have been assisting search and rescue efforts after the deadly tornadoes in East Texas. Firefighters from around the department have now volunteered to take their place, so they can be in Dallas to support their colleague.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings gave an update on the shooting involving a Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedic, and said the medic will have a long road to recovery.

Dallas police said during a news conference on Monday May 1 the initial shooting in the Dolphin Heights neighborhood was sparked by a dispute between neighbors along the 3200 block of Reynolds Avenue at about 11:30 a.m.

Police said the DFR medic was the first to respond to a shooting call and began providing medical treatment upon arrival. A short time later the medic was under fire.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, interim Dallas Chief of Police David Pughes and Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief David Coatney talk about a DFR paramedic shot, his rescue by police and the hunt for the gunman.

The gunman, Derick Lamont Brown, fled before holing up in a house where investigators believe he fatally shot another person before killing himself. A police robot found the two bodies after authorities barricaded entrances to the community for several hours to allow officers to scour the neighborhood, Rawlings said.

Interim Police Chief David Pughes said police were still interviewing neighbors and witnesses late Monday, but he said officers on the scene were told "it was just a simple dispute between two neighbors that escalated into a shooting."

A Dallas police sergeant rushed the wounded paramedic to Baylor University Medical Center, an act that likely saved the medic's life, Mayor Mike Rawlings said.

Pughes said responding officers found the paramedic and the civilian injured, and "took fire from the suspect as they approached." An officer, later identified as Sgt. Robert Watson, arrived as officers were still maintaining cover  because the shooter was still at large  and rushed in to pull the injured paramedic to safety.

"He went in alone and he pulled the paramedic out, placed him in his squad car and drove him to Baylor hospital," Pughes said. "We believe ... that as a result of those actions, that paramedic's life was saved."

A Dallas police sergeant rushed the wounded paramedic to Baylor University Medical Center, an act that likely saved the medic's life, Mayor Mike Rawlings said.

"Right now I would like to focus on the injured paramedic, citizen and community," Watson said in a statement. "They are in need of all our thoughts and prayers as they, their families and friends have been through a lot today."

Rawlings said he was proud of An, an 11-year veteran of the department, and Watson for taking the actions they did.



"The long and the short of this is we had a paramedic that worked diligently and with great vigor to take care of somebody. We had a great police officer that did the same," he said. "Every day, these fire rescue officers and police put their lives on the line. You saw it today."

The neighbor who was shot was also in critical condition late Monday at Parkland Memorial Hospital.

A Dallas police officer who suffered a minor injury in the shooting was treated at the scene and released.

A Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedic was shot near the fire training academy Monday while responding to a call for help, NBC 5 has learned.

For several hours Monday police described the scene as "active and very dangerous." During that time, officers are believed to have been going door-to-door searching for the suspected gunman. The mood shifted at about 3 p.m. when a number of officers could be seen leaving the area.

At the news conference Monday afternoon, Pughes said officers received a tip the suspected gunman was hiding in a nearby house. Police sent in a robot to have a look and found two bodies, Brown and another unidentified person.

While the medical examiner has not released the name of the second person who died, Johnny Wolf says he lost his close friend.

"He wasn't afraid of anything, and he was, somebody's dark side, that didn't exist to him," Wolf said.

The man's friends said the victim was a peace and social justice activist.

Neighbors and friends are speaking out after the shooting of a Dallas Paramedic, Monday May 1, 2017.

Dozens of police vehicles swarmed the mostly residential area after the shooting was reported.

FBI agents and officers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also were in unmarked vehicles waiting at intersections in the neighborhood. Officials from the local fire department and parks department passed out water and Gatorade to officers blocking the roads.

Brown's sister, DeKisha Bryant, said this was a sad day for everyone involved.

"Be careful the people that you love. You never know what they're going through. Maybe you could prevent something, maybe," Bryant said.

The Shooter: What We Know

An NBC DFW investigation revealed Brown was the national minister of defense for the New Black Panther Party and once served as the chairman of the organization.



The national head of that club, Babu Omowale, told NBC 5 Investigates that he does not believe Brown's involvement with the club or with the Panthers had anything to do with Monday's shooting.

"He was so passionate towards life, and as long as I have known him have never known him to start an altercation. Now, if you started one with him, he would defend himself to the end, so that's why I am trying to say let the facts come out," Omowale said.

Greg Shaffer, a former FBI agent who worked on hostage rescue teams, discusses what police departments face in active shooter situations.

After learning of the shooting, and an unrelated fatal stabbing on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott released the following statement:



Our prayers go out to all those affected by todays tragic events. I have been briefed by the Department of Public Safety on both incidents, and have also talked to University of Texas at Austin President Greg Fenves. As the investigations into these heinous crimes continue, I have offered all available state resources to both Dallas and the University of Texas to assist in any effort, Abbott said.

[[420942243,C]]

The neighborhood where the shooting took place is well-known as one of the more dangerous parts of the city. In 2009, an area nearby was named one of the FBI's most dangerous neighborhoods.

This afternoon, the Dallas fire chief says the wounded paramedic was not wearing body armor and he didn't have a vest with him in his vehicle.

Following the ambush assault on Dallas police officers on July 7, 2016, plans were in place to provide Dallas Fire-Rescue members with ballistic vests and helmets to wear in the field during active situations.

Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief David Coatney said during a news conference Monday that DFR personnel are not issued ballistic vests and they are not carried on rescue units.

This afternoon, the Dallas fire chief says the wounded paramedic was not wearing body armor and he didn't have a vest with him in his vehicle.

NBC 5's Alice Barr, Ashleigh Barry, Scott Gordon, Ken Kalthoff and Noelle Walker, and The Associated Press' Claudia Lauer contributed to this report.


Nearly three dozen New Jersey high school students were arrested for alleged underage drinking at a post-prom bash at a house in New York they had rented for the after-party, authorities say.



Police got a noise complaint from someone on West Saugerties Road Friday around 8:20 p.m. and went to interview the person. When they got to the home, they could hear music blasting from a half-mile away, authorities said.



Police tracked the music to a home on Manorville Road, which they learned had been rented to a group of kids from Wallington High School for a prom after-party. In total, 34 students between the ages of 17 to 19 were arrested for alleged underage drinking; they were released on desk appearance tickets.



Authorities say some of the kids ran into the woods to escape cops, but officers chased after them and everyone was apprehended.



Saugerties Police say their investigation is ongoing and further criminal charges are pending.
The widow of a slain Delaware State Trooper spoke publicly for the first time since her husband was gunned down outside of a Wawa store. Louise Cummings addressed a large crowd in Dewey Beach, Delaware Monday night after the community paid tribute to the fallen hero.

"Initially I didn't want to speak to anyone in the media," Cummings said. "And then I realized that Stephen's story needed to be told."

Cummings described her husband Cpl. Stephen Ballard as a good man who loved his family.

"That wasn't just me and Abigail," Cummings said. "That was you. That was the community. You are his family."



Cummings gave her speech at the same trooper barracks where she and Ballard met and got engaged.

"I chose to speak here because this is where we met," she said. "This is where Stephen started his career at Troop 4. This is where we were engaged at Dewey Beach. This is where we spent a lot of time together."

Cummings thanked the Delaware community for their continued support.

"I know he's smiling down now because he always wanted people to know how much he cared and how much he loved you and this is just incredible," she said. "So thank you. Thank you so much."

Louise Cummings, the widow of slain Delaware State Trooper Cpl. Stephen Ballard, spoke publically for the first time since her husbands death. Cummings thanked the community who showed their appreciation for Cpl. Ballard through a rally and tribute.

Ballard died Wednesday after approaching a vehicle with two suspicious people at the Wawa convenience store on Pulaski Highway in Bear, Delaware. Police said Burgon Sealy Jr. shot and killed the trooper and was ultimately killed after a lengthy standoff.

Police haven't discussed possible motives behind the deadly shooting.

Tributes have been made for Cpl. Ballard since his death and they continued Monday. Hundreds gathered for a rally Monday night in the trooper's memory in Bear, Delaware. Lines of bikers arrived at the Wawa parking lot where Ballard was killed. They were joined by the organization Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS).

"Where is the support for the officer when they're out on the street?" Eleanor Allione, a member of the group, asked. "Why are they being killed?"

After the rally, more people added to the growing memorial of cards and flowers outside the Wawa.

Another event honoring Cpl. Ballard took place Monday morning as a Christiana fire truck hung a flag over the Wawa store. The event featured speeches from fellow Delaware troopers and Ballard's family attended as well.

After the ceremony, mourners walked through the Wawa to see a plaque that will hang in the store that honors Ballard's service. A candlelight vigil also took place Monday night on The Circle in Georgetown, Delaware.

A large memorial continues to grow outside a Delaware Wawa where Delaware State Cpl. Stephen Ballard was gunned down earlier this week. Meanwhile, the FBI and state investigators are combing through the home where one of the suspected shooters barricaded himself inside for nearly a day.

Ballard will be laid to rest Friday following a public viewing and memorial service at the Chase Center on the Riverfront along Justison Street in Wilmington, said Delaware State Police. (Click here for more funeral details.)

Delaware State Police set up a memorial fund Thursday for Ballard at the Delaware State Police Federal Credit Union -- checks should be made out to DSTA-Stephen Ballard Memorial Fund, PO Box 168, Cheswold DE 19936.



A Delaware State Trooper was shot and killed in a Wawa parking lot Wednesday afternoon. Officials identified the trooper as Cpl. Stephen J. Ballard, 32. He was an 8.5 year veteran of the Delaware State Police assigned to Troop 2, Glasgow. NBC10s Drew Smith and Brandon Hudson have the latest details as police continue to surround the home of one...

Wawa also announced that they will be collecting donations of $1 or more at the register of any of its 40 Delaware Wawa stores that will go toward the police memorial fund. Wawa pledged to match the first $50,000 in donations.
A man who served as a rifleman and scout sniper with the U.S. Marines has been released by a Mexican judge after being arrested in Tijuana.

His sister Tracy Yeager issued a statement Monday that a Mexican Judge ordered the immediate release of her brother, Tyler James Yeager, 39, from custody.

On behalf of her family, Ms. Yeager would like to thank the Mexican authorities for their courtesy and professionalism in this matter, the staff of the U.S. Consulate General in Tijuana, Montel Williams and his team as well as Tyler's attorney in Mexico, Fernando Benitez whose willingness to get involved was invaluable," said the statement.

Yeager's need to resume treatment due to his PTSD and addiction issues was emphasized in the statement.

"Mr. Yeager badly needs to resume treatment for his addiction and PTSD, and Ms. Yeager is committed to supporting her brother in ensuring he gets the help he needs," continued the statement.

Yeager was arrested on April 23 and charged in connection with a violent robbery with a gun, said Mexican officials. He was caught outside a Tijuana home that had just been robbed.

The Attorney General's office in Baja was investigating to determine if Yaeger was involved in those robberies as well.
Tehran, Iran, May 1



By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:



The case of an Iranian national arrested in Turkey while carrying missile equipment is suspicious, Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said, without either declining or confirming the Turkish authorities reports about the case.



This might have been an ill-wished act by enemies of Iran and its truth should be clarified before any comments are made, Bahrami told a press conference, Trend's correspondent reported from the event.



Turkish authorities on April 30 arrested an Iranian national, who they say tried to smuggle a Russian-made anti-tank missile system, in parts, aiming to deliver it to a terrorist organization.



The Customs and Trade Ministry said that the man, identified only by his initials E.E., was detained at the port in the Black Sea city of Zonguldak, after officials searched his truck that had arrived aboard a vessel from Ukraine.



A ministry statement said the truck was officially carrying diapers but inside was found the main parts of a Russian-made system used by Kurdish rebels and Islamic State (aka IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) militants.



The ministry said authorities believe the missile parts had probably been sent for repairs and were being returned to the militants.
The two Virginia Democrats hoping to win their party's nomination for governor debated for the first time Saturday in Northern Virginia.

Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam and Tom Perriello, a former member of Congress from Virginia, answered questions about a variety of issues, including traffic in Virginia, Metro funding, raising the minimum wage, campaign ethics and finance, and their governing styles.

Tom Perriello, a former member of Congress from Virginia, and Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam meet for their first gubernatorial debate. Creating jobs in Virginia, the minimum wage, the Redskins, education funding, the cost of college, and Metros future all come up in Part Two of their conversation with News4s Tom Sherwood.

They also discussed the cost of college, abortion and hate crimes.

News4's Tom Sherwood moderated the debate.

The Republican candidates in the gubernatorial race debated on Thursday, April 13 at Liberty University. You can watch the debate here.

The two democrats running for Governor of Virginia touch on road congestion, abortion and hate crimes before delivering closing remarks in Saturday nights debate. Ralph Northam is the current Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. Tom Perriello is a former member of Congress from Virginia.
A Maryland father would trade his late son's life for his own if he could.

Kevin Ballard's son, Delaware State Trooper Cpl. Stephen J. Ballard, was shot and killed Wednesday during an investigation in a gas station parking lot in Bear, Delaware.

Kevin Ballard cried on Thursday as he spoke from his home in Accokeek, Maryland.

"If I could give my life right now to bring him back, I would, because he didnt deserve the fate that he got," he said.

Cpl. Ballard, 32, was shot in the parking lot of a Wawa convenience store as he investigated two men in a suspicious car.

The husband and father of a young child never had the chance to draw his weapon, authorities said.

The trooper's father got to speak some final words to his son. After Cpl. Ballard was shot, his wife put the trooper's father on speakerphone.

"The last words out of my mouth to him was, 'I love you. You can't leave me because you're all I have,'" Kevin Ballard recounted.

He quickly began making his way to his son's bedside. Prince George's County police escorted him to Joint Base Andrew, where he was transported via helicopter.

"I got in the helicopter and I asked the gentleman, 'How's my son?" he said, 'Unfortunately, he passed.' It was like everything inside me just went numb," Kevin Ballard said.

The suspect, Burgon Sealy Jr., 26, was shot and killed by police on Thursday after a standoff that lasted nearly a day.

The father said that once he returned to Delaware, he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from Cpl. Ballard's colleagues and strangers.

Still, it did not eliminate the pain of losing his son.

"I want my son back. I would do anything to get him back right now," he said.

Ballard was raised in Bowie, Maryland. As a teenager, he joined the Civil Air Patrol, the organization that allows young people to work closely with the Air Force. His former mentor, Paul Cienciolo, said Ballard stood out from the beginning.

Ballard went on to attend Delaware State University. He became a state trooper shortly after he graduated.

"He always had a passion to do something in that realm, where he was serving and helping people in need," Cienciolo said.

The gunman's actions hurt a family and the world, Kevin Ballard said.

"He just took away a future from a young man that was promising to the community, promising to the family, and we can't get him back," he said.

Kevin Ballard will speak at his son's memorial service Friday.
The search for an attempted murderer who escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Maryland entered its third day Monday, with the U.S. Marshals Service leading the search.

Police are now offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of 28-year-old David M. Watson.

Howard County Police are assisting the U.S. Marshals Service and Delaware State Police. Police went door to door at businesses in Jessup on Monday, asking business owners to check their properties, vehicles and surveillance video for any sign of a break-in or suspicious activity.

Watson was being transported to Clifton Perkins Hospital Center on Friday for a psychiatric evaluation related to an attempted murder case in Maryland. When a guard opened the van in the hospital parking lot, Watson pushed the guard down and ran into nearby woods, police said.

Authorities searched for Watson in the area surrounding the hospital from Friday through Saturday morning using bloodhounds, K-9 units and helicopters with heat-seeking technology, police said.

"There are no indications that Watson remains in the area, and there have been no sightings," the police department said on Facebook.

Police believe Watson managed to get out of his handcuffs and waist chain inside the van, Howard County Police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said Friday. Both were found outside the van, according to police.

His leg shackles were not found, but his sweatpants were found in tact, Llewellyn said. He would have had to free at least one of his legs from the shackles to remove the sweatpants without ripping them.

Police do not know whether Watson had planned the escape or had any help.

He was last seen in the area of Dorsey Run Road and Patuxent Range Road in Jessup. Some of his clothing was found in the woods, and a K-9 was able to pick up the direction in which he fled.

Police say Watson has ties to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and to Delaware.

He was serving a sentence in Delaware for attempted murder for shooting a police officer's Laurel-area home. He is also charged with attempted murder on the Eastern Shore, where authorities say he shot at two officers' homes.

Watson is white, 5 feet 8 inches and weighs 140 pounds. He has tattoos between his eyes and under his right eye, as well as several on his body.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, is retiring after nearly three decades of representing South Florida in the House of Representatives.

The news was confirmed to NBC 6 by the congresswomans communication director. Ros-Lehtinen will finish out her term through 2018, and will hold a press conference Monday to discuss her departure.

Ros-Lehtinen issued a statement saying, in part, that she was confident she could win re-election, but this was a "decision based on personal consideration."

"I look forward to continuing to work for the betterment of our community and I will always be a voice for issues that impact South Florida," she said in the statement released Sunday. "I am grateful to the United States for embracing me and affording me the opportunity of attaining a blessed life: full of love, purpose, and achievement. I can never repay what this country has given me and I'm honored to have been South Florida's voice in Congress for so many years."



The 64-year-old Republican was first elected to Congress in 1988, taking over the seat once held by another longtime representative, Claude Pepper. She spent eight years before that as a member of both the Florida House and Senate  the first Hispanic woman elected to both chambers.

Ros-Lehtinen came to America when she was seven years old, immigrating with her family from Cuba in 1960. She would later become an educator after earning degrees from both FIU and the University of Miami.

A moderate Republican, she has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and said she did not vote for him in the 2016 election. But, she told the Miami Herald that she would be making this move "even if Hillary Clinton were president."

Ros-Lehtinen became the first woman to chair a congressional committee when she was tapped to lead Foreign Affairs in 2011. Currently, she chairs a subcommittee on the Middle East and serves on the intelligence committee.

For years, Ros-Lehtinen represented the 18th Congressional district, including Key West  where she became one of the few advocates for the LGBTQ community in her party. Her son, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, is transgender and recorded a PSA with his parents to help support transgender youth in the Hispanic community.

Her current district, the 27th, covers areas including Westchester, Key Biscayne, Coral Gables and Pinecrest among others. In 2016, she defeated Democrat Scott Fuhrman by 10 points  her closest race in years.

She's been married to her husband, Dexter Lehtinen, since 1984. The two met while both serving in the Florida House, and now have two children and four grandchildren together.
Barre, Vermont, city councilors are backing down from a bill to create a smoke-free downtown.

The Barre-Montpelier Times Argus reports city council did not have enough votes to pass the year-round ban on smoking. Mayor Thomas Lauzon says he was unwilling to cast a tie-breaking vote.

Lauzon says enforcing a ban that covers both streets and sidewalks ``would prove problematic.''

Instead, Councilor Lucas Herring says he is working on a new proposal to temporarily ban smoking in areas during special events. He is also proposing a 25 feet smoke-free buffer zone around parks and playgrounds. Penalties would be adjusted for those found in violation of the ban.
Hazardous materials teams responded to a reported explosion at a chemical lab Monday afternoon in Andover, Massachusetts.

Firefighters described a strange green cloud outside the Morpho Detection building when they first arrived on scene at about 5:30 p.m.

"I thought it was someone going over a speed bump," said Andrew Kennedy, an office worker who heard the blast from across the street. "It was a large a boom, shook the building a little bit."

According to the Massachusetts Fire Marshal's Office, there was an explosion when two acids appeared to have come into contact with each other at the Frontage Street building.

"An employee placed a chemical inside a waste container which should not have been a problem," said Andover Fire Chief Michael Mansfield. "Theres some belief that there was another chemical inside that waste container."

The company specializes in equipment that detects drugs and explosives in airports.

Nobody was hurt in the explosion but the roughly 100 workers inside had to be evacuated.

"Engineers that are familiar with the materials that theyre working with," explained Mansfield. "And they were very surprised they had some sort of reaction."

NBC Boston reached out to the company for a comment but so far there has not been a response.
With chants of "we are here to stay," immigrants and labor leaders are marking International Workers' Day with marches and rallies in the Boston area.

Some 200 people gathered in front of the Statehouse on Monday to call on state lawmakers and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker to designate Massachusetts a "sanctuary state." The proposal would restrict state and local law enforcement officers from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

The sponsor of the bill, Democratic state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, said it wasn't enough for individual communities to become sanctuary cities because workers must cross city lines to get to and from jobs.

This is not the first rally of its kind in Boston, but organizers are calling it the largest mobilization of immigrants and supporters since the president's election.



Activists also planned a march from Everett to Chelsea.

May Day rallies are being held nationwide to oppose President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
A man was killed Saturday when his vehicle rolled over on Route 140 in Lakeville, Massachusetts, according to state police.

The single vehicle crash happened just before 6 p.m. on the northbound side of the road. Police say Frederick Maxfield, 61, of East Freetown, lost control of his van, causing the vehicle to catch fire and trap him inside.

Maxfield was the only person inside the van.

Several other drivers pulled over and were able to free Maxfield as well as give him emergency medical help before first responders arrived on scene.

Maxfield was taken to Morton Hospital in Taunton, where he later died.

The crash is under investigation.
Baku, Azerbaijan, May 1

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

No report has been received so far about any offensive treatment of Iranian female tourists at Tbilisi Airport, Hassan Qashqavi, the Islamic Republics deputy foreign minister for consular, parliamentary and expatriates affairs, said.

Irans Embassy in Tbilisi has not received any information regarding the issue, Qashqavi said, ICANA news agency reported May 1.

Earlier on April 18, Vali Dadashi, an Iranian MP, claimed that Tbilisi Airport security forces forced a female Muslim Iranian passenger to remove her hijab for frisking.

Qashqavi said that Dadashi has failed so far to submit any evidence regarding the issue for an investigation.

Following the claims, Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Georgia to treat Iranian tourists with respect.

Respecting Iranian tourists and treating Muslim women in general, and Iranian women in particular, with dignity is an absolute necessity for the growth of tourism industry in Georgia, Zarif said in a meeting with Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili in Tbilisi April 18.

The Georgian prime minister expressed surprise at hearing the news of such an offensive behavior, saying he would order an immediate investigation into the incident.
Authorities in West Springfield, Massachusetts, closed a major road as they searched a truck for explosives, detaining its driver, who police say is a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to NBC affiliate WWLP, part of Route 5 was shut down as police searched the pickup truck.

The man, whose name has not been released, has been taken into custody. WWLP reports that he allegedly told police he had four pipe bombs in his truck. A robot was being used to check the vehicle.

It was not yet known whether criminal charges would be filed, as Chief Ronald Campurciani says the West Springfield Police Department is first making sure he gets to a hospital for treatment.

More to come.
A new Maine State Police unsolved homicide unit may only be about a year old, but families of cold case victims say they're already frustrated with their work.

"What have we accomplished?" asked Dick Moreau, president of the Maine Cold Case Alliance.

Moreau's daughter, Kimberly, has been missing for 31 years.

"We're working with a system that is broke," he said.

The Maine Cold Case Alliance is supporting a proposed law that would change how the Maine State Police Unsolved Homicide Unit operates.

The law, sponsored by Rep. Christina Riley (D-Jay), would require police to meet with families of cold case victims at least once a year to provide updates on the investigation. The law would also make police provide a press conference or press release on the case annually. There are currently about 114 cases being reviewed by the state police's unsolved homicide unit.

Additionally, police would be required to provide case information to investigative journalists.

If a case has been open for at least 10 years, the family could require law enforcement to seek help from a federal agency.

"This is about getting victims their rights," said Moreau.

He, and other cold case families, testified in front of the Maine legislature's criminal justice committee Monday.

Maine State Police and the Maine Attorney General's Office are opposed to the bill.

"[The cold case unit] has done an incredible amount of work in 14 months," said Colonel Robert Williams, chief of Maine State Police. "I think we should wait and see what the outcome is in another year."

Col. Williams points to recent success the unit has had, arresting a Farmington man and charging him with the murder of his son 38 years after the death.

"We're doing something right," he said.

Williams told the committee that the requirements in LD 1390 might compromise investigations, forcing police to provide too much information before securing an arrest.

He said the law would also put an unnecessary burden on police that could keep them from doing investigative work.

Lawmakers on the committee may decide to pass the bill on to the full legislature after they complete a work session.
Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage has filed an "abuse of power" lawsuit against the state's Democratic attorney general for refusing to legally represent his administration in court on issues involving President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration.

LePage said in a statement that Maine Attorney General Janet Mills has repeatedly refused to represent the executive branch in court cases she does not agree with politically. He said these refusals have led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside attorneys fees.

"It is no secret that Attorney General Mills and I have differing political views, but that is not the issue," LePage said. "The problem is she has publicly denounced court cases which the Executive Branch has requested to join and subsequently refuses to provide legal representation to the State. This clear abuse of power prevents the chief executive from carrying out duties that, in his good faith judgment, are in the best interest of the people of Maine."

The lawsuit was filed Monday in Kennebec County Superior Court.

"The attorney general has never denied the governor the ability to retain outside counsel in any particular matter. We have simply said that whoever the governor chooses should be licensed to practice law and should carry malpractice insurance, two common sense prerequisites which any prudent business person would employ as well," Mills replied in a statement. "Instead of signing onto another partys brief at no cost to the taxpayers, however, or hiring a lawyer to draft his own brief, the governor has wasted state resources by hiring a lawyer to file a frivolous law suit, complaining that he cannot do exactly what we have told him he can do."



Maine's attorney general is elected by a secret ballot of the Legislature. It is the only state to select its attorney general in this way. Most states hold statewide elections for attorney general or allow the governor to appoint someone to the role.
YMCA Norfolk is set to hold its much anticipated 2022 annual celebration and awards ceremony on November 17, after almost 3 years since the last event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

YMCA Norfolk is set to hold its much anticipated 2022 annual celebration and awards ceremony on November 17, after almost 3 years since the last event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hub manager vacancy at community shop Earlham Community Shop Community Interest Company is looking to appoint a manager for this new venture being developed in the heart of NR5 Norwich. Read more

Abbey Days brings Christmas Magic to Wymondham Visitors to Wymondham Abbeys Christmas fair will be able to treat their children to a magic show and fun baking workshop while they browse more than 60 stalls. Read more

Salvation Armys new Christmas Appeal in Norfolk The Salvation Army has launched their new Christmas appeal across Norfolk which, this year, has evolved from the much-loved Toys and Tins appeal. Read more

Are we storing up treasures on earth? Rising prices affect us all, and Anna Heydon urges us to spare a thought for those who will be struggling with the cost of living this winter. Read more

Latest Norfolk Christian community events Events of interest to the Norwich and Norfolk Christian community happening over the next few weeks are listed. Read more

Covid leaf memorial at Norwich church St Peter Mancroft Church Norwich Presents The Leaves of the Trees an installation by sculptor Peter Walker which provides a memorial for those who died of Covid-19 Read more

Community Chaplaincy Norfolk begins a new chapter Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) celebrated the beginning of a new chapter this week, as the new chair of trustees Chris Tomlinson led his first annual meeting. Read more

Lowestoft Christians launch on-line bible helps app The Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth branch of Good News for Everyone (GNFE), formerly the Gideons, have introduced a new mobile phone app called On-line Bible Helps. Read more

Addicts' rehabilitation centre plan for Drayton Hall Christian addiction charity Teen Challenge London is planning to turn Drayton Hall near Norwich into its headquarters and a rehabilitation centre for men, after it was gifted the freehold of the hall by its owner, the Lind Trust. Read more

The power of positive protest Philip Young encourages us to take a stand for what we believe, and has just written to Therese Coffey regarding climate change and the forthcoming COP 27. He explains why we should be prepared to protest. Read more

Norwich church celebrates with cribs and trees Rosebery Road Methodist Church in Norwich will be holding its annual Cribs and Trees Festival in December. Read more

Transforming Norwich lunch offers ministry tips Ex-Brighton vicar, Rev Phil Moon, will offer tips on how to keep going in ministry to the Transforming Norwich leaders lunch on Wednesday November 16. Read more

Quiet Waters in Bungay offers healing retreat Quiet Waters Christian Retreat in Bungay is holding a gentle day retreat exploring healing in the Kingdom of God. Read more

Norfolk ministry coaching duo are guest speakers Former church leaders and now freelance ministry coaches, Jonathan and Paige Squirrell, are the guest speakers at the next dinner of Norwich FGB on Monday, November 21. Read more

Bringing light to Halloween Anna Price encourages Christians to engage positively with Halloween rather than hide away, on what many see as the darkest night of the year. Read more

First service takes place at Norwich church site SOUL Church hosted around 400 people for a special service on the site of their new building on Heartsease Lane. Read more

Dereham draws up list of warm places for winter As rising energy prices make it harder to heat homes, churches in Dereham are leading the way in creating warm spaces where people can go. Read more
What happens when you take a couple of very seasoned co-founders, investment from some high-profile investors, and an uber-dominant existing vendor? Well, in Wasabis case, you get some pretty outlandish claims. But before we got on to that, lets look at the who and what for Wasabi.

Wasabi is a cloud storage company founded by Jeff Flowers and David Friend. Those names might ring a bell, since theyve started, built and sold five previous technology companies. Most recently they co-founded backup company Carbonite and previously founded Pilot Software.

These two cant seem to stop themselves, and for their latest idea, theyve already raised a ton of cash$8.5 million to date with key investors, including Bill Sahlman, Harvard Business School marketing prof and angel investor; Desh Deshpande, who donated $100 million to MIT for the Deshpande Center; Ron Skates, former CEO of Data General; Jeff Parker, founder of CCBN; and Howard Cox from Greylock Partners.

Those are some high credibility investors, so what attracted them to Wasabi (other than the founders credibility) and what is the plan here? Well, one thing is for sure and that is Wasabi isnt shy of hyperbole. The first sentence of the pitch that Friend sent staked a serious claim: Wasabi is launching cloud storage that is so fast, so cheap and so reliable that it will mark the beginning of cloud storage as a commodity.

Friend goes on to say that instead of industry behemoths doing their best to lock customers into high-priced proprietary storage, Wasabis cloud storage is open, easy to use and 100 percent compatible with the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) API. Friend promises no vendor lock-in and that Wasabi is six times the speed and one-fifth the price of Amazon S3, and even cheaper than Glacier, Amazon Web Services' cold storage offering.

What more do we know? Wasabi is being pitched as a cloud-based object storage service for a broad range of applications and use cases. Wasabi is designed for enterprises and developers that require fast, durable and secure data storage at minimal cost. The offering claims to be 100 percent bit compatible with Amazons S3 API.

Wasabi's Virginia data center is connected to the Amazon core using the AWS Direct Connect service, so AWS-based applications can quickly access data stored in Wasabis cloud. Again, not being shy to talk it up, the company says Wasabi cloud storage is both less expensive than Amazons cheapest storage (Glacier) yet many times faster than Amazons premium S3 storage.

That claim about speed has scant detail, other than this reference:

The 6x faster than Amazon S3 metric was validated using the testing methodologies discussed in Nasuni Corporations cloud storage provider performance benchmark report. Using the testing methodologies described in this report, a series of read, write and delete tests were conducted using 1 MB files over 1 thread as well as 10 threads. The first set of tests were performed against Amazon S3 (as a means of establishing a baseline). The second set of tests were performed against Wasabi. When comparing the two sets of test results, Wasabi consistently showed a minimum of 6x the read, write and delete performance relative to Amazon S3.

My POV

The three big public cloud vendorsAmazon, Microsoft and Googlespend billions of dollars on both capital expenditure and R&D. They have some of the worlds best engineers and developers building their products. That fact alone suggests that while incremental improvements might be made by smart people focusing on a particular problem set or use case, massive improvements in one step are unlikely to be made.

While Wasabi certainly has founder credibility, what theyre talking about here is hardcore engineering results. And while that $8.5 million theyve raised is a lot of money, it certainly doesnt allow Wasabi to build teams that rival the big three.

So, color me skeptical. Im pretty sure Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, isnt shaking in his shoes at the Wasabi launch. But well have to wait and see what eventuates.
I realize that the idea of a Self-driving WAN could seem like science fiction. But if you think of the visions propelling companies like Google, Tesla and Amazon, you can begin to realize how big an impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have in the next few years, both on our personal livesand the way IT runs enterprises.

MOVING FROM AUTOMATED TO AUTONOMOUS

Enterprises are already turning to Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions to connect employees consistently and securely to applicationswhether the applications are in the data center or the cloud.

Automation plays a key role in these current SD-WAN offerings, eliminating many of the repetitive and mundane manual steps required to configure and connect remote offices and branch locations.

But automation has its limitations. Automation is not sufficient to translate high-level business goals or intent into specific actions across the network. And automation is not good at dealing with the many unanticipated situations across production WAN deployments. These are areas where machine learning and AI can come into play.

WHAT WILL A SELF-DRIVING WAN LOOK LIKE?

Its instructive to look at whats happening with self-driving cars. Each self-driving car has hundreds of sensors that collect information to build a real time model of the environment surrounding the car. Artificial intelligence is applied to determine how the car should react at any given moment. A combination of classic control loops and newer machine learning algorithms work in tandem to achieve a high level goal: driving the car safely from point A to point B.

Furthermore, most implementations supplement the car-level intelligence with fleet-level learning. Every car provides data into a central repository where learning across all the vehicles in the fleet is aggregated and applied.

Using data from fleet-learning brings important advantages. One is building more complete and accurate maps. Another is better identifying hazards and reducing false positives. And, perhaps most importantly, fleet learning provides a way to track and improve the cars software performance.

I believe the self-driving WAN will encompass hierarchical learning in the same way. Learning will occur at the network-device level, at the enterprise level, and, for the enterprises that opt-in, learning will occur in aggregate across a fleet of many enterprises.

To take the self-driving car analogy one step further, its interesting to look at what Google has done with their Waymo cars. They removed all the manual controls with the exception of an emergency stop button. At the insistence of the California DMV, Google apparently reinstated a steering wheel. But otherwise, the primary interface for a self-driving car is high level goal or intent based: safely transporting occupants from point A to point B via the most efficient route.

As we move towards the self-driving WAN, the same kind of transition can happen. Instead of having to understand an alphabet soup of protocols and manual CLI commands applied device-by-device, the WAN will be driven by high-level business intent. The network administrator will be able to focus more on the services the network is intended to deliver, and their impact on the business, and less on the underlying details of how that happens.

At Silver Peak, we believe that automation is just beginning for SD-WAN. We are working hard on finding ways to more effectively translate business intent into actionwith an autonomous, adaptive self-driving WAN. In fact, in my next blog Ill describe a specific instance of a new Silver Peak technology for application classification that embodies some of the ideas Ive outlined here.

Meanwhile, I invite you to share this blog with any of your colleagues.
Smartphone cameras are about to get even better.

Peyman Milanfar, a Google software engineer who had worked in the computational photography group, posted a lengthy analysis about using a smartphone camera to shoot nighttime photos with the same quality of an expensive DSLR.

Milanfars post chronicles his quest for high-quality nighttime images taken with a smartphone. DSLR cameras do well in this application, but smartphone cameras struggle. A DSLR can take good quality photos at night because it has a very large sensor that collects more light. The Nikon D500 DSLR boasts a 20.9 million pixel sensor with a pixel size of 4.2m. The D500 sensor is enormous compared to the top ranked Google Pixel phones sensor with 12.3 million pixels that are 1.55m. It also has a large, adjustable and precise lens that captures and focuses more light from the field of view on the sensor, reducing visual distortion, compared to the Pixels constrained, fixed camera lens assembly.

Capturing more light and better focus were the two smartphone camera problems Milanfar sought solve. It is hard to overcome the limitations of the Pixel and Nexus 6P phone hardware used in the experiment, but it is not impossible. This 51-second video explains how software can enhance limited light.

Milanfar solved the nighttime photo problem by writing a camera app that allowed him to manually control the camera settings:

Exposure time: the length of time when the film or digital sensor is exposed to light

ISO: measures the sensitivity of the image sensor

Focus distance: the range of distance over which the camera can focus

Exposure time and ISO settings affect the amount of light. Milanfar set the exposure time to an unusually long time, 4 seconds, and set the ISO to a very sensitive 1600. A tripod was necessary to isolate the phone camera from handheld jitter. He set the focus distance to infinity.

He shot 32 burst images, then covered the lens and shot 32 more entirely black frames. The burst images were processed computing the mean values of all the pixels to remove the graininess. The black frames were used to remove faint grid patterns introduced by imperfections in the sensor.

The quality of the image of Point Reyes Lighthouse created with this process is very good.

Google

For reference, the image below is the same scene shot with the phone held by hand using HDR+. The inset rectangle has been brightened in Photoshop to roughly match the previous picture.

Google

Milanfar challenged himself with even more extreme shots through the experiment he chronicled, including nighttime stars on a clear dark night that left trails in the image because of the very long exposure time that he managed to remove with computational photography methods. If there is one conclusion, a talented software engineer can write software that enhances images to improve the quality images taken with a phone camera. It will never be possible to shoot the images used in the examples without a tripod, but machine learning can deliver much-improved photos taken with phones.

Applying machine learning to photos

Rapid and Accurate Image Super-Resolution (RAISR) was introduced last November by Google in a research paper. It uses a machine learning technique to produce high-quality versions of low-resolution images. The images are better than super resolution methods and are processed ten to a hundred times faster. RAISR is fast enough to run on a typical mobile device in real-time.

RAISR is a machine learning model, trained with low- and high-resolution images to learn to complete low-resolution images to look like high-resolution images. The image below shows how RAISR enhances the low-resolution image to look like a high-resolution image.

Google

It is a process of adding missing pixels, not too different from a restoration artists repair of a work of art. The important point is that machine learning models can be trained to enhance a variety of low-quality images due to resolution, too little light because of an incorrect exposure time, or ISO setting or focus distance setting. The technology is still at a research paper stage; consequently, it may take a while before this technology works on consumer phones.

Machine learning models typically run on powerful GPU clusters have been adapted with a variety of techniques to run on smartphones. A good example is Facebook Applied Machine Learning groups Camera Effects Platform, demonstrated earlier this month at the companys F8 developer conference, that turns 2D images into 3D images using a machine learning technique called simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Slam identifies planes and estimates volumetric space with just a smartphone camera. The 1-minute, 21-second video below demonstrates how a simple smartphone camera can discern depth in a field of view in roughly the same way a person would.

Research into understanding images by decomposing them to pixels dates back 30 years to Bell Labs. And research at NYU, the University of Toronto, the University of Montreal, Stanford and other top schools has been given much attention and big budgets by Amazon, Google and Facebook. Machine learning works.

Google photos, categorized by subject and image editing features, demonstrate this. Snapchat and Facebooks theme transfer do, as well. Most of this runs on fast and sometimes specialized machines in the cloud, though now there is a race to distribute the models to run on phones, wearables and even Raspberry Pis. It is just a matter of time before the image-enhancing machine learning features reach smartphones to improve photo quality.
Its easy to criticize Wikipedia for a lot of things. Besides being the source of many a plagiarized term paper, its crowd-sourced nature also means its occasionally subject to internecine warfare and political infighting over articles.

Wikipedia the largest general reference on the net

But now Turkey has blocked the self-described largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, under a vague law that allows the country to block access to individual web pages or entire sites for the protection of public order, national security or the well being of the public, according to The Guardian.

The New York Times said a statement published by the Anadolu Agency, Turkeys state-owned news wire, justified the ban by claiming Wikipedias articles constituted a terrorism-related smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena. Apparently, Wikipedia had declined to remove content that the Turkish government considered fabricated.

And many news outlets noted that the Wikipedia action came on the heels of the Turkish leaders narrow victory in a referendum giving him broad new powers, and it was accompanied by the firing of another 4,000 public servants, bringing the total to approximately 140,000 since the failed coup last July.

Is Wikipedia the real issue?

I get that theres a lot at stake here, but, really, blocking all of Wikipedia? How are Turkish school kids going to do their homework? Whos going to settle arguments in cafes?

More important, Turkeys action once again the highlights the inherent tension between increasingly nationalistic concerns of various countries around the world and the international reach and global perspective of many internet-based sites and services.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales posted on Twitter (which itself has been banned at various times in various countries) that Access to information is a fundamental human right. Turkish people, I will always stand with you and fight for this right.

That Twitter thread quickly became a forum for an ongoing argument between people who thought the ban was justified and those who didnt.

Heres the thing, though. Wikipedia, and by extension the internet as a whole, is uniquely valuable. Whether or not certain parts of it may be problematicand I am not addressing that issue hereno one can question the utility of easy access to the giant trove of accumulated knowledge held in Wikipedia.

Blocking Wikipedia, or Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever site or service is in question, comes with a costin money, time, innovation and so onto the people who lose access. And the more information and communication that gets blocked, the greater that cost. Those costs are real, even if theyre not always immediately visible or easy to measure.
News aggregator and fan community Reddit frequently hosts an Ask me Anything (AMA) live discussion where people can ask questions of celebrities, technologists, politicians, and whatnot and get answers almost in real time. They can be informative and entertaining, or they can turn into unmitigated disasters.

Microsoft is no doubt hoping for the former as it hosts its own AMA event to give its customers the chance to ask about the companys plans for Windows as a Service (WaaS), its efforts to move Windows to a internet-dependent state of continuous development rather than going the old route of just providing fixes and an occasional service pack before the next major OS release.

The event will be hosted on the Microsoft Tech Community site Thursday, May 4, from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. PT.

In the two years since Windows 10 was released, the OS has morphed considerably from the release product. It has a new patching system, which is constantly in flux, and has seen two major updates in the form of the Anniversary Update and Creators Update, with a third due in September. Apps have come and gone, and the Windows Store has been revamped at least once.

Microsoft is supporting this continuous development with the Insider Program, which lets users sign up to receive beta builds of the OS and provide feedback, both directly and through telemetry and crash reports. Microsoft has also communicated more directly with customers via Twitter, social media, blogs and its own message boards.
Saudi Arabia said Sunday it had arrested 46 members of a militant cell responsible for a suicide bombing on the Prophet's Mosque in the holy city of Madinah last year, Anadolu reported.

Four security personnel were killed when a bomber blew up himself outside the mosque in July in a deadly attack widely blamed on Daesh terrorist group.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the dismantled cell included 14 foreigners and 32 Saudi citizens, according to the official SPA news agency.

He said the cell had provided the explosive belt used by the bomber in the attack on the Prophet's Mosque.

The spokesman said investigation had proved that the cell was also responsible for an attack on a hospital in the port city of Jeddah.
Free is free and its probable that even the well-to-do of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass., would rather have a free years worth of Amazon Prime  retail: $99 per year  than not have a free years worth of Amazon Prime.

But it would be difficult to find a less needy population for such a gift.

Nevertheless, Amazon announced today that it is bestowing the free year  plus some free popcorn  upon the town to mark the streaming release on Prime of the Oscar-winning movie, yes, you guessed it, Manchester-by-the-Sea.

From a press release:

Oscar winning Manchester by the Sea is coming to Prime Video on May 5, and we wanted customers in the town to enjoy popcorn and a movie on us, said Greg Hart, Vice President of Amazon Video, worldwide. Manchester by the Sea is a masterpiece representing the best of cinematic storytelling. In other words, it is wicked awesome.

Pro tip: That wicked awesome stuff grates on people from around here like most cinematic Boston accents.

Couple of points not made in the press release:

Manchester-by-the-Sea is a small community with only 5,136 residents slipped comfortably into 2,147 households, which means Amazon will be spending at most $212,553  plus the cost of popcorn and postage  on this publicity stunt provided every household takes them up on the offer, which wont happen.

Why wont that happen? Because for many in Manchester-by-the-Sea claiming the gift  they have to redeem a code theyll receive by mail -- will seem like coupon-clipping, not worth the bother at best, unseemly at worst.

You see, Manchester-by-the-Sea, with a median family income of $145,000, is the eighth wealthiest community in Massachusetts, which is the fifth wealthiest state in the nation. While this certainly doesnt apply to all 5,136 town residents, it certainly applies to most: If you live in Manchester-by-the-Sea, you are not concerned in the least about the cost of Amazon Prime.

But, hey, its the thought that counts, no matter how contrived or commercial.
By PTI

CHENNAI: All India Bank Employees Association today flayed RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya's remarks that it was time to re-privatise some nationalised banks and warned it would resort to a strike to oppose the move.

At a recent function in Mumbai, Acharya had said the time has come to re-privatise some nationalised banks.

"Perhaps re-privatising some of the nationalised banks is an idea whose time has come..this could reduce the overall money government needs to inject as bank capital", he had said.

AIBEA General Secretary, C H Venkatachalam said that the banks belong to people and represent the hard earned savings of the people and must remain so.

"It cannot be handed over to the profit greedy private sector. We demand withdrawal of these remarks by RBI Deputy Governor" and warned AIBEA would go on strike to oppose it.

He said everyone, including Acharya, knew that the bulk of bad loans are due to big defaulters and that the private sector is the contributor of 97 per cent of bad loans.

Venkatachalam said public sector banks make operating profits despite all odds while the net loss was due to "provision of bad loans".

Reeling out statistics, he said that for the year ending March 31, 2016, public sector banks earned operating profits of Rs 1,37,306 crore. But total provisions for bad loans and contingencies were Rs 1,55,297 crore, with a net loss of Rs 17,991 crore".

Requesting the central bank to stand with public sector banks, he alleged that all big loans were sanctioned with concurrence of the RBI and sought a probe.

"(By privatising nationalised banks) RBI cannot escape from its responsibility now and advocate privatisation. Let there be proper accountability for the bad loans", he said.

He said it was due to this reason that AIBEA has been demanding a "parliamentary probe" or by CBI to book those responsible for defaulting.

"Let RBI publish names of these big loan defaulters. let them amend the RBI Act for this purpose. Let them declare wilful defaulters as criminal offenders to take criminal action", he said.

If there was any attempt by RBI to privatise public sector banks, he warned of instant resistance and strike to oppose it.

CHENNAI: All India Bank Employees Association today flayed RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya's remarks that it was time to re-privatise some nationalised banks and warned it would resort to a strike to oppose the move. At a recent function in Mumbai, Acharya had said the time has come to re-privatise some nationalised banks. "Perhaps re-privatising some of the nationalised banks is an idea whose time has come..this could reduce the overall money government needs to inject as bank capital", he had said. AIBEA General Secretary, C H Venkatachalam said that the banks belong to people and represent the hard earned savings of the people and must remain so. "It cannot be handed over to the profit greedy private sector. We demand withdrawal of these remarks by RBI Deputy Governor" and warned AIBEA would go on strike to oppose it. He said everyone, including Acharya, knew that the bulk of bad loans are due to big defaulters and that the private sector is the contributor of 97 per cent of bad loans. Venkatachalam said public sector banks make operating profits despite all odds while the net loss was due to "provision of bad loans". Reeling out statistics, he said that for the year ending March 31, 2016, public sector banks earned operating profits of Rs 1,37,306 crore. But total provisions for bad loans and contingencies were Rs 1,55,297 crore, with a net loss of Rs 17,991 crore". Requesting the central bank to stand with public sector banks, he alleged that all big loans were sanctioned with concurrence of the RBI and sought a probe. "(By privatising nationalised banks) RBI cannot escape from its responsibility now and advocate privatisation. Let there be proper accountability for the bad loans", he said. He said it was due to this reason that AIBEA has been demanding a "parliamentary probe" or by CBI to book those responsible for defaulting. "Let RBI publish names of these big loan defaulters. let them amend the RBI Act for this purpose. Let them declare wilful defaulters as criminal offenders to take criminal action", he said. If there was any attempt by RBI to privatise public sector banks, he warned of instant resistance and strike to oppose it.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The government is nudging the world's largest coal miner CIL to expedite export of coal to neighbouring countries, including Bhutan, as India has surplus coal.

"What I have asked Coal India is to expedite it (coal export)... We have enough (coal). We have 69 million tonnes of pithead stock," Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar told PTI.

Coal pithead is where the mine is located and the mined coal is kept usually before being transported to power companies.

Asserting that CIL can export all the surplus coal, including the pithead and fresh stock, Kumar said the PSU is capable of producing more coal than the actual demand.

"To get anything from Bangladesh is a bit difficult. Coal India is exploring all neighbouring countries, including Bhutan," the secretary said. Coal India (CIL) has conveyed it to the coal ministry that it is exploring the possibilities of exporting coal to neighbouring nations, but nothing concrete has taken shape.

The government had earlier said CIL is examining opportunities to export coal with high ash content or high grade fossil fuel to the neighbouring nations.

Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production.

NEW DELHI: The government is nudging the world's largest coal miner CIL to expedite export of coal to neighbouring countries, including Bhutan, as India has surplus coal. "What I have asked Coal India is to expedite it (coal export)... We have enough (coal). We have 69 million tonnes of pithead stock," Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar told PTI. Coal pithead is where the mine is located and the mined coal is kept usually before being transported to power companies. Asserting that CIL can export all the surplus coal, including the pithead and fresh stock, Kumar said the PSU is capable of producing more coal than the actual demand. "To get anything from Bangladesh is a bit difficult. Coal India is exploring all neighbouring countries, including Bhutan," the secretary said. Coal India (CIL) has conveyed it to the coal ministry that it is exploring the possibilities of exporting coal to neighbouring nations, but nothing concrete has taken shape. The government had earlier said CIL is examining opportunities to export coal with high ash content or high grade fossil fuel to the neighbouring nations. Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production.
U.S. congressional negotiators have hammered out a bipartisan agreement on a spending package to keep the federal government funded through the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30, a senior congressional aide said on Sunday, Reuters reported.

The House of Representatives and Senate must approve the deal before the end of Friday and send it to President Donald Trump for his signature to avoid the first government shutdown since 2013.

On Friday, congressional sources familiar with the negotiations said the deal could include an increase in defense spending for this year totaling around $15 billion. But details of the agreement that was struck over the weekend were not immediately available.

Democrats were pushing to protect funding for women's healthcare provider Planned Parenthood and sought additional Medicaid money to help the poor in Puerto Rico get healthcare.

The House is likely to vote first, probably early in the week and send the measure to the Senate for approval before Friday's midnight deadline when existing funds expire.

Republicans who control Congress and opposition Democrats have been in intensive negotiations for weeks over the legislation that would provide around $1 trillion in Washington money for an array of federal programs, from airport and border security operations to soldiers' pay, medical research, foreign aid and domestic education programs.

If this deal passes Congress and the president signs it into law, as expected, it would mark the first significant bipartisan legislation passing Congress this year and since Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Congress averted a U.S. government shutdown last Friday by voting for a stop-gap spending bill that gave lawmakers another week to work out federal spending over the final five months of the fiscal year.

Even with the new progress, lawmakers are running far behind schedule, as legislation funding government operations in fiscal year 2017 were supposed to have been completed by last Oct. 1.

Democrats backed Friday's stop-gap bill a day after House Republican leaders again put off a vote on major healthcare legislation sought by Trump and opposed by Democrats to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, after Republican moderates balked at provisions added to entice hard-line conservatives.

It was unclear whether Republicans might try this week to pass a healthcare bill in the House.

Trump earlier bowed to Democratic demands that the spending legislation for the rest of the fiscal year not include money to start building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border he said is needed to fight illegal immigration and stop drug smugglers.

The Trump administration also agreed to continue funding for a major component of Obamacare despite Republican vows to end the program.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today ordered inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh and random checks elsewhere to detect short-selling of petrol and diesel by tampering with the system in dispensing units.

The move follows Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) raids on 11 petrol pumps that found out alleged stealing of 50 ml of fuel in every litre dispensed to customers.

Pradhan said that though the responsibility of right quantity of product dispensed lies with state governments as their weights and measures department installs seals on dispensing units, two officials of state-owned fuel retailers have been suspended following the raids.

"We have initiated action against respective field officers. The strictest possible action will be taken against guilty petrol pumps, including termination of licence," he told reporters here.

His ministry issued an order for inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh and random checks in other states to check tampering in dispensing units.

Oil marketing company representatives will accompany the UP police STF and officials of the state's weights and measures department, the food and civil supply department for inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh, he said.

"Responsibility to ensure proper measurement lies with the state's weights and measure department, but as owners, oil marketing companies also have to share the blame," he made it clear. "Surprise checks on fuel stations are to be conducted across the country."

The raids that unearthed a racket involving short delivery of fuel at petrol stations in Lucknow were carried at 11 petrol pumps based on specific information about tampering with fuel calibration by use of electronic chips.

Of these, electronic chips were found at nine fuel stations, three of which belong to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and the remaining Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd BPCL).

The minister has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as well as the state chief secretary and the DGP on the issue.

The central and state governments have decided to hold a meeting in Lucknow in light of the raids, which will be chaired by the state chief secretary and will be attended by representatives of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and fuel retailers.

All petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh will be re-assessed by a team comprising representatives from the state government's weights and measures department, the civil supplies department, the special task force and OMCs.

Pradhan hoped that the state will extend full cooperation as the annual supervision-cum-certification of fuel delivery units at fuel stations is carried out by the local government concerned.

Consumer interest, he said, is paramount and strict action will be taken against those found guilty.

Those dealers violating the Marketing Discipline Guidelines (MDG) will also face action amounting to even termination of licences, he warned.

NEW DELHI: Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today ordered inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh and random checks elsewhere to detect short-selling of petrol and diesel by tampering with the system in dispensing units. The move follows Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) raids on 11 petrol pumps that found out alleged stealing of 50 ml of fuel in every litre dispensed to customers. Pradhan said that though the responsibility of right quantity of product dispensed lies with state governments as their weights and measures department installs seals on dispensing units, two officials of state-owned fuel retailers have been suspended following the raids. "We have initiated action against respective field officers. The strictest possible action will be taken against guilty petrol pumps, including termination of licence," he told reporters here. His ministry issued an order for inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh and random checks in other states to check tampering in dispensing units. Oil marketing company representatives will accompany the UP police STF and officials of the state's weights and measures department, the food and civil supply department for inspection of all petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh, he said. "Responsibility to ensure proper measurement lies with the state's weights and measure department, but as owners, oil marketing companies also have to share the blame," he made it clear. "Surprise checks on fuel stations are to be conducted across the country." The raids that unearthed a racket involving short delivery of fuel at petrol stations in Lucknow were carried at 11 petrol pumps based on specific information about tampering with fuel calibration by use of electronic chips. Of these, electronic chips were found at nine fuel stations, three of which belong to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and the remaining Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd BPCL). The minister has spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as well as the state chief secretary and the DGP on the issue. The central and state governments have decided to hold a meeting in Lucknow in light of the raids, which will be chaired by the state chief secretary and will be attended by representatives of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and fuel retailers. All petrol pumps in Uttar Pradesh will be re-assessed by a team comprising representatives from the state government's weights and measures department, the civil supplies department, the special task force and OMCs. Pradhan hoped that the state will extend full cooperation as the annual supervision-cum-certification of fuel delivery units at fuel stations is carried out by the local government concerned. Consumer interest, he said, is paramount and strict action will be taken against those found guilty. Those dealers violating the Marketing Discipline Guidelines (MDG) will also face action amounting to even termination of licences, he warned.
By Online Desk

NEW DELHI: After a woman lawyer approached the Patiala House Court in Delhi alleging that a BJP MP from Gujarat, KC Patel, had raped her multiple times, the MP filed a case against her saying she had entrapped him, which has prompted the Delhi police to launch a hunt for her.

The woman had on Wednesday approached the Patiala House Court charging Patel with rape. Police said the woman said she was first raped by Patel at his official residence on March 3, this year when he invited her to dinner. He raped her on several other occasions in various places.

She also accused Patel of threatening her with dire consequences if she approached police. She told the court that police refused to register her complaint.

Delhi Police said on Monday that the MP filed a complaint alleging extortion by a woman-led gang after being honey-trapped and filmed in an "objectionable position".

The woman, in fact, had told the court that she had filmed one of the encounters in which she was raped, in order to present evidence of his repeated crime against her.

"I was raped multiple times by Patel. I had to make a CD as evidence so that he stops threatening me. I approached the court to know the status of my complaint after police refused to register my case," she said.

Reports say that the woman had earlier approached a Delhi court alleging she was raped by Lok Sabha member from Valsad.

However, notably, Patel's complaint came after the woman approached the Patiala House Court. There is no reason specified as to why he waited to file his complaint until after she had approached the court, despite his claim that she had filmed the sexual act to extort money from him.

"Patel alleged the woman gave him a spiked drink at her residence and filmed him in objectionable positions after he became unconscious," said a police officer.

"She threatened to make the clips go viral. She demanded Rs 5 crore from him," said the officer, stating what Patels complaint had alleged.

"The woman had earlier extorted at least 15 other people, including some businessmen and a Haryana-based senior politician," he added.

The MP said the woman approached him seeking his assistance but he realised he was honey-trapped after she showed him the objectionable video clips.

In his complaint on Saturday to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, Patel alleged that the gang was led by the woman who took him to her house in Ghaziabad.

Following the complaint, Delhi Police registered an FIR under Section 384 of the IPC against the city-based lawyer. According to the police, the woman had registered a complaint at Tilak Marg police station, about two months back, but at the moment of FIR she changed her statement.

"Investigations reveal that she took back her complaints when police started probing them," Special Commissioner of Police M K Meena said.

"This time she tried to extort Patel. We are investigating from all possible angles," Meena said.

(With inputs from ENS and IANS)

NEW DELHI: After a woman lawyer approached the Patiala House Court in Delhi alleging that a BJP MP from Gujarat, KC Patel, had raped her multiple times, the MP filed a case against her saying she had entrapped him, which has prompted the Delhi police to launch a hunt for her. The woman had on Wednesday approached the Patiala House Court charging Patel with rape. Police said the woman said she was first raped by Patel at his official residence on March 3, this year when he invited her to dinner. He raped her on several other occasions in various places. She also accused Patel of threatening her with dire consequences if she approached police. She told the court that police refused to register her complaint. Delhi Police said on Monday that the MP filed a complaint alleging extortion by a woman-led gang after being honey-trapped and filmed in an "objectionable position". The woman, in fact, had told the court that she had filmed one of the encounters in which she was raped, in order to present evidence of his repeated crime against her. "I was raped multiple times by Patel. I had to make a CD as evidence so that he stops threatening me. I approached the court to know the status of my complaint after police refused to register my case," she said. Reports say that the woman had earlier approached a Delhi court alleging she was raped by Lok Sabha member from Valsad. However, notably, Patel's complaint came after the woman approached the Patiala House Court. There is no reason specified as to why he waited to file his complaint until after she had approached the court, despite his claim that she had filmed the sexual act to extort money from him. "Patel alleged the woman gave him a spiked drink at her residence and filmed him in objectionable positions after he became unconscious," said a police officer. "She threatened to make the clips go viral. She demanded Rs 5 crore from him," said the officer, stating what Patels complaint had alleged. "The woman had earlier extorted at least 15 other people, including some businessmen and a Haryana-based senior politician," he added. The MP said the woman approached him seeking his assistance but he realised he was honey-trapped after she showed him the objectionable video clips. In his complaint on Saturday to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, Patel alleged that the gang was led by the woman who took him to her house in Ghaziabad. Following the complaint, Delhi Police registered an FIR under Section 384 of the IPC against the city-based lawyer. According to the police, the woman had registered a complaint at Tilak Marg police station, about two months back, but at the moment of FIR she changed her statement. "Investigations reveal that she took back her complaints when police started probing them," Special Commissioner of Police M K Meena said. "This time she tried to extort Patel. We are investigating from all possible angles," Meena said. (With inputs from ENS and IANS)
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dengue cases in the city are at an all time high these days. The number of cases normally increases during the monsoon period from July to September. But this year, dengue has struck the city early. This year till date 923 dengue cases has been reported from various hospitals.

The dengue affected include those living in flats or other residential localities which were considered to be clean. We do have waste management problem but the surroundings are clean. At least the wet areas have dried up in summer, said a resident of one such locality.

Health officials explained the phenomenon. According to them the killer mosquitoes actually live inside your homes. Those who store water in numerous containers please be aware that mosquitoes find clean water the best place to breed. Many would have already stored large quantities after the water regulations were partially lifted for the last three days.

We have found many instances of larva growing in fresh water stored inside homes. Some people keep the water unused and uncovered for long, says senior biologist at the DMO office and in-charge of District Vector Control unit, Santhosh Kumar. According to him the practice of keeping large water storages inside houses is followed only in certain localities such as Poonthura. But it has now become a regular scene at most of the houses. The rise in the number of dengue cases points finger to this trend.

It is not just water containers, there are some other places inside the house where the mosquitoes breed. The overflow tray behind the fridge is one such ideal place. During a recent field work we found larva in the fridge tray at least 15 houses. Usually people dont clean the tray, making it an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes, says Santhosh Kumar.

Similarly Money plants pots, plastic trays kept under pots of indoor plants and water from air conditioners are major breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Health officials say more preventive actions need to be taken before the onset of monsoon.

Prevention steps

Keep your house mosquito free

Drain stagnant water

Keep your trash cans covered

Use mosquito repellents

Wear protective clothing

Participate in mosquito eradication efforts

Worst affected wards

Thirumala

Beemapalli

Valiyathura

Punnakkamukal

Kadakampally

Nemom

Symptoms of Dengue Fever

Symptoms, which usually begin four to six days after infection and last for up to 10 days, may include

 Sudden high fever

 Severe headaches

 Pain behind the eyes

 Severe joint and muscle pain

 Fatigue

 Nausea

 Vomiting

 Skin rash, which appears two to five days after the onset of fever

 Mild bleeding

Check for

Unutilised water storage

Tray behind fridge

Containers collecting water dripping from AC

Money plants pots

Tray collecting water from flower pots

The hurdles

Corporation officials have been carrying out fogging at areas from where mosquitoes related issues have been reported. Mayor V K Prashant said it is not advisable to fog the entire area since it may have adverse effect on health of the residents. Field visits from DVC unit will help identify the breeding grounds. But such visits happen only in 58 wards. For the other 42 wards, the health department has to appoint 32 workers. Unlike in metropolitan cities such as Delhi and Mumbai which slap big fines on people who keep their home and surroundings conducive for mosquito breeding, Thiruvananthapuram corporation charges only Rs 200. Also, it is yet to impose the fine on anyone. Corporation will be holding a meeting of health workers and public at each wards.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dengue cases in the city are at an all time high these days. The number of cases normally increases during the monsoon period from July to September. But this year, dengue has struck the city early. This year till date 923 dengue cases has been reported from various hospitals. The dengue affected include those living in flats or other residential localities which were considered to be clean. We do have waste management problem but the surroundings are clean. At least the wet areas have dried up in summer, said a resident of one such locality. Health officials explained the phenomenon. According to them the killer mosquitoes actually live inside your homes. Those who store water in numerous containers please be aware that mosquitoes find clean water the best place to breed. Many would have already stored large quantities after the water regulations were partially lifted for the last three days. We have found many instances of larva growing in fresh water stored inside homes. Some people keep the water unused and uncovered for long, says senior biologist at the DMO office and in-charge of District Vector Control unit, Santhosh Kumar. According to him the practice of keeping large water storages inside houses is followed only in certain localities such as Poonthura. But it has now become a regular scene at most of the houses. The rise in the number of dengue cases points finger to this trend. It is not just water containers, there are some other places inside the house where the mosquitoes breed. The overflow tray behind the fridge is one such ideal place. During a recent field work we found larva in the fridge tray at least 15 houses. Usually people dont clean the tray, making it an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes, says Santhosh Kumar. Similarly Money plants pots, plastic trays kept under pots of indoor plants and water from air conditioners are major breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Health officials say more preventive actions need to be taken before the onset of monsoon. Prevention steps Keep your house mosquito free Drain stagnant water Keep your trash cans covered Use mosquito repellents Wear protective clothing Participate in mosquito eradication efforts Worst affected wards Thirumala Beemapalli Valiyathura Punnakkamukal Kadakampally Nemom Symptoms of Dengue Fever Symptoms, which usually begin four to six days after infection and last for up to 10 days, may include  Sudden high fever  Severe headaches  Pain behind the eyes  Severe joint and muscle pain  Fatigue  Nausea  Vomiting  Skin rash, which appears two to five days after the onset of fever  Mild bleeding Check for Unutilised water storage Tray behind fridge Containers collecting water dripping from AC Money plants pots Tray collecting water from flower pots The hurdles Corporation officials have been carrying out fogging at areas from where mosquitoes related issues have been reported. Mayor V K Prashant said it is not advisable to fog the entire area since it may have adverse effect on health of the residents. Field visits from DVC unit will help identify the breeding grounds. But such visits happen only in 58 wards. For the other 42 wards, the health department has to appoint 32 workers. Unlike in metropolitan cities such as Delhi and Mumbai which slap big fines on people who keep their home and surroundings conducive for mosquito breeding, Thiruvananthapuram corporation charges only Rs 200. Also, it is yet to impose the fine on anyone. Corporation will be holding a meeting of health workers and public at each wards.
By Associated Press

LOS ANGELES: "Guardians of the Galaxy" was just the warm-up.

Two years ago, writer and director James Gunn and his cranky, lovable band of multihued misfits in space seemed like a sort of gamble for the Earth-bound Marvel Studios and its ever-growing plans for total multiplex domination. Star Lord wasn't exactly a household name, and neither was Chris Pratt.

Now as "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" prepares for launch in North American theaters on Friday, the story is quite different. "Guardians of the Galaxy" was a huge critical and financial success, grossing over $773 million worldwide, Pratt became an international star, and Gunn was given the greenlight to do what he wanted once more  making "Vol. 2" as weird and wild and idiosyncratic as his imagination would allow.

Many reviewers have already called "Vol. 2" better than the first, the monosyllabic Baby Groot is already a breakout star, and it's headed for a possible $140 million to $150 million opening weekend.

This image released by Disney-Marvel, Chris Pratt, left, and Michael Rooker appear in a scene from, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2." (Photo| Marvel Studios/Disney via AP)

"So many sequels are not good," Gunn said. "We really tried to let these characters grow and change. ... I didn't want it to be a rehash of the first movie."

Gunn likes to say that "Vol. 2" is an adventure film, a comedy and a space opera tied up into one brightly colored package, but that at its core, it's a family melodrama. A lot of big action and sci-fi films claim to be about family  whether it's the people you're tied to by blood or the ones you choose  but it's often a lot of talk. "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" might have a talking tree and a wise-cracking, machine gun-toting raccoon and an unparalleled glee for the art of teasing, but it's also got a big, beating heart that actually hit quite close to home for both Pratt and Gunn.

Pratt's Star Lord/Peter Quill meets his father Ego (Kurt Russell) for the first time in "Guardians 2" after a lifetime of explaining away his absence telling people that his father was David Hasselhoff, while being raised by the scoundrel Ravager, Yondu (Michael Rooker).

A lot of the story, which also includes a sisterly rivalry that has veered into the murderous zone, is drawn from Gunn's relationship with his father, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 20 years, and what he calls his big, lovingly dysfunctional Irish Catholic family. And even though it's his life on the page, there was one person he needed to get to sign off from first: Pratt.

Pratt's father died in 2014 after battling multiple sclerosis for years  a condition the once hard-working, tough love, man's man Dan Pratt refused to treat. In 2015, Pratt told GQ magazine that it eventually led to him splitting up with his mother and living out the rest of his days in front of the television in assisted living.

"(Chris) was the first person I told it to, that's for sure. When I came up with the story, Chris came over to my house and I said, 'OK, here's what I'm thinking about,'" Gunn said. "I wanted to make sure he was onboard with it because, I mean, there's a lot of personal stuff there. I wanted to make sure he was cool with it."

Pratt said he related to the story a lot. His dad, he said, was not dissimilar to Yondu in the way he showed love. Cat Stevens' "Fathers and Sons" even plays at a pivotal moment.

"All of it is completely honest and true even though it's about aliens," Gunn said. "It is honest and true stuff about human beings and the way we interact and how we have a hard time accepting love from other human beings."

This little cobbled-together family is not disbanding yet, either. Gunn, who has done nothing else but work with these characters for the past five years of his life, will continue stewarding the Guardians through their trials in "Avengers: Infinity War," where he says they are "supporting characters but not small roles." He's also signed on for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," which will close out that series and launch Marvel into its next decade.

"With the first movie, James earned Disney's trust," Pratt said recently. "On the second movie he was like, 'I'm going to do whatever I want with all of your money.' And they said, 'OK.' And he made the craziest movie."

Gunn even said he was a little timid on the first film, but not anymore.

"I'm a little punk rock kid who likes edgy stuff. I thought what I liked might not be what the entire world likes," Gunn said. "But I've come to trust that what I like works."

LOS ANGELES: "Guardians of the Galaxy" was just the warm-up. Two years ago, writer and director James Gunn and his cranky, lovable band of multihued misfits in space seemed like a sort of gamble for the Earth-bound Marvel Studios and its ever-growing plans for total multiplex domination. Star Lord wasn't exactly a household name, and neither was Chris Pratt. Now as "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" prepares for launch in North American theaters on Friday, the story is quite different. "Guardians of the Galaxy" was a huge critical and financial success, grossing over $773 million worldwide, Pratt became an international star, and Gunn was given the greenlight to do what he wanted once more  making "Vol. 2" as weird and wild and idiosyncratic as his imagination would allow. Many reviewers have already called "Vol. 2" better than the first, the monosyllabic Baby Groot is already a breakout star, and it's headed for a possible $140 million to $150 million opening weekend. This image released by Disney-Marvel, Chris Pratt, left, and Michael Rooker appear in a scene from, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2." (Photo| Marvel Studios/Disney via AP)"So many sequels are not good," Gunn said. "We really tried to let these characters grow and change. ... I didn't want it to be a rehash of the first movie." Gunn likes to say that "Vol. 2" is an adventure film, a comedy and a space opera tied up into one brightly colored package, but that at its core, it's a family melodrama. A lot of big action and sci-fi films claim to be about family  whether it's the people you're tied to by blood or the ones you choose  but it's often a lot of talk. "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" might have a talking tree and a wise-cracking, machine gun-toting raccoon and an unparalleled glee for the art of teasing, but it's also got a big, beating heart that actually hit quite close to home for both Pratt and Gunn. Pratt's Star Lord/Peter Quill meets his father Ego (Kurt Russell) for the first time in "Guardians 2" after a lifetime of explaining away his absence telling people that his father was David Hasselhoff, while being raised by the scoundrel Ravager, Yondu (Michael Rooker). A lot of the story, which also includes a sisterly rivalry that has veered into the murderous zone, is drawn from Gunn's relationship with his father, a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 20 years, and what he calls his big, lovingly dysfunctional Irish Catholic family. And even though it's his life on the page, there was one person he needed to get to sign off from first: Pratt. Pratt's father died in 2014 after battling multiple sclerosis for years  a condition the once hard-working, tough love, man's man Dan Pratt refused to treat. In 2015, Pratt told GQ magazine that it eventually led to him splitting up with his mother and living out the rest of his days in front of the television in assisted living. "(Chris) was the first person I told it to, that's for sure. When I came up with the story, Chris came over to my house and I said, 'OK, here's what I'm thinking about,'" Gunn said. "I wanted to make sure he was onboard with it because, I mean, there's a lot of personal stuff there. I wanted to make sure he was cool with it." Pratt said he related to the story a lot. His dad, he said, was not dissimilar to Yondu in the way he showed love. Cat Stevens' "Fathers and Sons" even plays at a pivotal moment. "All of it is completely honest and true even though it's about aliens," Gunn said. "It is honest and true stuff about human beings and the way we interact and how we have a hard time accepting love from other human beings." This little cobbled-together family is not disbanding yet, either. Gunn, who has done nothing else but work with these characters for the past five years of his life, will continue stewarding the Guardians through their trials in "Avengers: Infinity War," where he says they are "supporting characters but not small roles." He's also signed on for "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," which will close out that series and launch Marvel into its next decade. "With the first movie, James earned Disney's trust," Pratt said recently. "On the second movie he was like, 'I'm going to do whatever I want with all of your money.' And they said, 'OK.' And he made the craziest movie." Gunn even said he was a little timid on the first film, but not anymore. "I'm a little punk rock kid who likes edgy stuff. I thought what I liked might not be what the entire world likes," Gunn said. "But I've come to trust that what I like works."
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: In a major attack, militants of Hizbul Mujahideen on Monday attacked a cash van of a bank in South Kashmirs Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir killing seven people including five policemen and two bank employees.

A police officer said a group of militants attacked a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank at Pumbai area in South Kashmirs Kulgam district, about 70 kms south of Srinagar, at around 4.15 pm.

The cash van of the bank was returning to Kulgam district headquarters from Damhal Hanjipora after dropping the cash at one of the branches there.

The police officer said five policemen and two bank employees travelling in the van were killed in the militant attack.

He said militants snatched four services rifles from the slain policemen before escaping from the spot.

IGP Kashmir SJM Gilani said as per initial investigation three militants were involved in the attack.

They have been identified, he said while speaking to media at the wreath laying ceremony of police men in Kulgam.

Immediately after the attack, police, paramilitary and army men rushed to the area and launched a combing operation to track down the militants responsible for the attack. However, no arrests were reported.

The deceased policemen were identified as Bashir Ahmad Dar, Farooq Ahmad, Ishfaq Ahmad Bhat, Mohammad Qasim and Muzaffar Ahmad while the bank employees killed in the attack were identified as Javed Ahmed Bhat and Muzaffar Ahmed Laway.

A J&K Bank spokesman said no cash was looted as the cash van had delivered cash remittance at the Banks Manzgam, Aharbal branch.

Militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility of the attack.

Hizb outfits operational spokesperson Burhanuddin told local news gathering agencies in Srinagar that the attack was carried out by special squad.

He claimed that five policemen were killed in the attack while two bank employees were shot dead by CRPF men.

The spokesman further claimed that militants snatched four rifles from the dead policemen.

We didnt attack the vehicle with intention to loot the cash. We have got enough cash, he said and warned that such attacks will continue in Valley.

The attack comes after security forces foiled attempt by two militants to snatch a rifle and loot a bank in South Kashmirs Anantnag district on Friday last.

The attempt was foiled after CRPF men arrested one of the attackers after he fired at a jawan, injuring his hand.

Army chief arrives in Kashmir

Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived on a two day visit to Kashmir today.

After landing in Valley, the army chief accompanied by Northern command chief and GoC 15 Corps visited army garrison in Panzgam in Kupwara, where three army men including a captain were killed in militant attack on April 27.

A defence spokesman said during his interaction with officials at the garrison, General Rawat took stock of enhanced security measures put in place to foil militant attacks.

Later, the army chief held a security review meeting at Badamibagh Cantonment in Srinagar. During the meeting, GoC 15 Corps Lt Gen J S Sandhu briefed the army chief about the prevailing situation in Kashmir, he said.

The army chief, he said appreciated the synergy among security agencies and complimented the troops for undertaking operations with firmness and resolve.

General Rawat also visited the Army Hospital in BB Cantonment, where he enquired about the health of soldiers injured in Panzgam attack and wished them a speedy recovery.

SRINAGAR: In a major attack, militants of Hizbul Mujahideen on Monday attacked a cash van of a bank in South Kashmirs Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir killing seven people including five policemen and two bank employees. A police officer said a group of militants attacked a cash van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank at Pumbai area in South Kashmirs Kulgam district, about 70 kms south of Srinagar, at around 4.15 pm. The cash van of the bank was returning to Kulgam district headquarters from Damhal Hanjipora after dropping the cash at one of the branches there. The police officer said five policemen and two bank employees travelling in the van were killed in the militant attack. He said militants snatched four services rifles from the slain policemen before escaping from the spot. IGP Kashmir SJM Gilani said as per initial investigation three militants were involved in the attack. They have been identified, he said while speaking to media at the wreath laying ceremony of police men in Kulgam. Immediately after the attack, police, paramilitary and army men rushed to the area and launched a combing operation to track down the militants responsible for the attack. However, no arrests were reported. The deceased policemen were identified as Bashir Ahmad Dar, Farooq Ahmad, Ishfaq Ahmad Bhat, Mohammad Qasim and Muzaffar Ahmad while the bank employees killed in the attack were identified as Javed Ahmed Bhat and Muzaffar Ahmed Laway. A J&K Bank spokesman said no cash was looted as the cash van had delivered cash remittance at the Banks Manzgam, Aharbal branch. Militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility of the attack. Hizb outfits operational spokesperson Burhanuddin told local news gathering agencies in Srinagar that the attack was carried out by special squad. He claimed that five policemen were killed in the attack while two bank employees were shot dead by CRPF men. The spokesman further claimed that militants snatched four rifles from the dead policemen. We didnt attack the vehicle with intention to loot the cash. We have got enough cash, he said and warned that such attacks will continue in Valley. The attack comes after security forces foiled attempt by two militants to snatch a rifle and loot a bank in South Kashmirs Anantnag district on Friday last. The attempt was foiled after CRPF men arrested one of the attackers after he fired at a jawan, injuring his hand. Army chief arrives in Kashmir Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived on a two day visit to Kashmir today. After landing in Valley, the army chief accompanied by Northern command chief and GoC 15 Corps visited army garrison in Panzgam in Kupwara, where three army men including a captain were killed in militant attack on April 27. A defence spokesman said during his interaction with officials at the garrison, General Rawat took stock of enhanced security measures put in place to foil militant attacks. Later, the army chief held a security review meeting at Badamibagh Cantonment in Srinagar. During the meeting, GoC 15 Corps Lt Gen J S Sandhu briefed the army chief about the prevailing situation in Kashmir, he said. The army chief, he said appreciated the synergy among security agencies and complimented the troops for undertaking operations with firmness and resolve. General Rawat also visited the Army Hospital in BB Cantonment, where he enquired about the health of soldiers injured in Panzgam attack and wished them a speedy recovery.
By PTI

MUMBAI: The groundwater level in 60 per cent tehsils of Maharashtra has depleted by a minimum of one metre, a Maharashtra government agency report said.

The dip in the groundwater level would trigger a water crisis in these tehsils during the summer season, it said.

"Of the 353 tehsils in Maharashtra, 218 have shown groundwater level depleting by at least one meter. A total of 5,166 villages in these tehsils would face water scarcity during the summer season," a report released by the Groundwater Surveys and Development Agency (GSDA) said.

The report is based on the readings taken at 3,920 observation wells across the state.

The agency monitors groundwater levels and the readings taken in the month of March are crucial since it helps in framing policies to tackle scarcity situation with necessary planning.

A total of 2,130 villages in 72 tehsils, where there was a rainfall deficit in a range of 0-20 per cent in 2016, have shown groundwater depletion of more than one meter, said the report.

Similarly, 1,854 villages in 113 tehsils which received excess rainfall during the monsoon have reported a minimum one meter depletion in groundwater levels, it said.

The report further mentioned that there are 325 villages in Maharashtra where the groundwater level has depleted more than three meters, which is considered as a worst situation.

There are 857 villages where depletion is between two and three meters, the report said.

Last year, 309 tehsils had reported a groundwater level depletion by at least one meter.

Former associate professor (irrigation management) at Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI), Aurangabad, Pradeep Purandare, while attributing reasons for the dip in groundwater level, said, "The two possibilities are of farmers opting for water intensive crops and exploitation of resources by private companies supplying drinking water."

Purandare, who is also the member of the Maharashtra government formed committee on Integrated State Water Plan said, "Farmers who opted for higher water intensive crops to increase their earnings must have put stress on groundwater level.

"While in urban and semi-urban areas, the drinking water supply industry is heavily dependent on groundwater.

There is no controlling or regulatory authority over such companies and the manner in which they are pumping out water is a cause of worry."

MUMBAI: The groundwater level in 60 per cent tehsils of Maharashtra has depleted by a minimum of one metre, a Maharashtra government agency report said. The dip in the groundwater level would trigger a water crisis in these tehsils during the summer season, it said. "Of the 353 tehsils in Maharashtra, 218 have shown groundwater level depleting by at least one meter. A total of 5,166 villages in these tehsils would face water scarcity during the summer season," a report released by the Groundwater Surveys and Development Agency (GSDA) said. The report is based on the readings taken at 3,920 observation wells across the state. The agency monitors groundwater levels and the readings taken in the month of March are crucial since it helps in framing policies to tackle scarcity situation with necessary planning. A total of 2,130 villages in 72 tehsils, where there was a rainfall deficit in a range of 0-20 per cent in 2016, have shown groundwater depletion of more than one meter, said the report. Similarly, 1,854 villages in 113 tehsils which received excess rainfall during the monsoon have reported a minimum one meter depletion in groundwater levels, it said. The report further mentioned that there are 325 villages in Maharashtra where the groundwater level has depleted more than three meters, which is considered as a worst situation. There are 857 villages where depletion is between two and three meters, the report said. Last year, 309 tehsils had reported a groundwater level depletion by at least one meter. Former associate professor (irrigation management) at Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI), Aurangabad, Pradeep Purandare, while attributing reasons for the dip in groundwater level, said, "The two possibilities are of farmers opting for water intensive crops and exploitation of resources by private companies supplying drinking water." Purandare, who is also the member of the Maharashtra government formed committee on Integrated State Water Plan said, "Farmers who opted for higher water intensive crops to increase their earnings must have put stress on groundwater level. "While in urban and semi-urban areas, the drinking water supply industry is heavily dependent on groundwater. There is no controlling or regulatory authority over such companies and the manner in which they are pumping out water is a cause of worry."
Gayathri Mani By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University students have complaint to Delhi Police cyber crime cell on Monday to take strict action against three accounts on social media platform Twitter.

In the complaint the JNU Student Union has alleged that account of BJP MP Subramanian Swamy along with two other have posted highly objectionable posts defaming the varsity.

Strict action should be taken against such pro-BJP and RSS Twitterati for abusing online and defaming the varsity. These are some accounts which are continuously defaming JNU online in the social media networks by publishing and updating erroneous posts about JNU said Mohit Pandey JNUSU President.

As per the complaint on 30th of April Swamy_Sena which is followed by the BJP leader tweeted about JNU and shared one year old report of news organisation and tweeted JNU is a den of sex racket, says dossier prepared by the university teachers , which was re-tweeted by Swamy who has around four milling followers.

Another account @mera bharat tweeted,  More than GB Road JNU have been center of high class girls for rich ppl night parties since 1980. Following this tweet another account Swamy sena tweeted Words offenses you but what about the dirty filthy action which is going in free sex hub JNU.

The complaint filed by the student union reads: No authority has right to abuse JNU online or offline.

We will also write to National Commission for Woman. JNU is one of the top ranked university in the country. No one has right to abuse and defame the varsity. We will fight against the twitter users until the government takes a strong action against them. Also nearly 70 percent woman student and faculties are there in the university. It is totally disgraceful Pandey said .

The Student Union will soon write to the university Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and the Gender Sensitization Committee against Sexual Harassment to take strong action against the defamatory and abuses made by the twitter users.

NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University students have complaint to Delhi Police cyber crime cell on Monday to take strict action against three accounts on social media platform Twitter. In the complaint the JNU Student Union has alleged that account of BJP MP Subramanian Swamy along with two other have posted highly objectionable posts defaming the varsity. Strict action should be taken against such pro-BJP and RSS Twitterati for abusing online and defaming the varsity. These are some accounts which are continuously defaming JNU online in the social media networks by publishing and updating erroneous posts about JNU said Mohit Pandey JNUSU President. As per the complaint on 30th of April Swamy_Sena which is followed by the BJP leader tweeted about JNU and shared one year old report of news organisation and tweeted JNU is a den of sex racket, says dossier prepared by the university teachers , which was re-tweeted by Swamy who has around four milling followers. Another account @mera bharat tweeted,  More than GB Road JNU have been center of high class girls for rich ppl night parties since 1980. Following this tweet another account Swamy sena tweeted Words offenses you but what about the dirty filthy action which is going in free sex hub JNU. The complaint filed by the student union reads: No authority has right to abuse JNU online or offline. We will also write to National Commission for Woman. JNU is one of the top ranked university in the country. No one has right to abuse and defame the varsity. We will fight against the twitter users until the government takes a strong action against them. Also nearly 70 percent woman student and faculties are there in the university. It is totally disgraceful Pandey said . The Student Union will soon write to the university Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and the Gender Sensitization Committee against Sexual Harassment to take strong action against the defamatory and abuses made by the twitter users.
Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

BHOPAL: Recently granted bail by the Bombay High Court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, Pragya Singh Thakur has alleged that she was framed in the case by Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) to target top RSS leaders.

I was targeted in false cases as I and my family had strong RSS links. I still remember how the Mumbai ATS tortured me for 24 days in custody in 2008 and regularly forced me to name top RSS leaders in the cases, alleged Thakur while talking to the New Indian Express.

While Thakur was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case on April 25, 2017, a Dewas court had acquitted her of criminal charges in the 2007 Sunil Joshi murder case in February 2017.

Presently under treatment at the ayurveda hospital in Bhopal, Pragya Singh recounted her grilling. I was picked up from Surat in October 2008 by ATS and taken to Mumbai for questioning. While the first 13 days were spent in illegal custody, the next 11 days were spent in legal custody of the ATS, said Thakur.

For 24 days I survived on water. I was beaten brutally throughout my custody. I was beaten so much that my hands and fingers regularly developed swelling. Spotting swelling in my hands and fingers, the ATS men put them in warm water and asked me to keep on pressing paper to reduce the swelling, alleged Pragya Singh Thakur.

Throughout the interrogation, the ATS men asked me why I triggered the blast in Malegaon. When I repeatedly told them that I knew nothing about any blast, they named top RSS leaders and tried hard to make me concede that the RSS leaders were involved in the terror acts, Pragya Singh Thakur further alleged.

The target of the interrogators working at the behest of the Congress and UPA government was never the BJP, but instead the RSS, as it gives the nation nationalist leaders like Narendra Modi, said Thakur.

She also alleged that Congress general secretary, Digvijaya Singh, was the brain behind the conspiracy to frame her.

I was a student leader of ABVP when Singh was the MP CM. I used to regularly stage movements against his government and never compromised, owing to which he hatched the conspiracy to implicate me," alleged Thakur.

When queried about having been booked for the December 2007 murder of close associate and former RSS worker Sunil Joshi, the Malegaon blast accused gave a clean chit to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

The BJP government was in power when I was booked in Sunil Joshis murder case, but the case was lodged against me at the behest of the Congress which ruled the Centre. The present CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan never obstructs any kind of probe.

Three months before I was booked in the murder case in Dewas (MP) I was told by personnel of central investigation agencies in hospital in Mumbai that my name would be added in the case, despite me having no role in it. How come the probe agency men had a whiff of it, if the central government was not involved, said Thakur.

State Congress spokesperson K K Mishra reacted sharply to Thakurs allegations saying she is making false statements, everyone knows who were involved in conspiring and triggering blasts. Even RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had in 2011 stated that several extremist elements had made their way into the Sangh fold, will she deny that also? said Mishra.

BHOPAL: Recently granted bail by the Bombay High Court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, Pragya Singh Thakur has alleged that she was framed in the case by Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) to target top RSS leaders. I was targeted in false cases as I and my family had strong RSS links. I still remember how the Mumbai ATS tortured me for 24 days in custody in 2008 and regularly forced me to name top RSS leaders in the cases, alleged Thakur while talking to the New Indian Express. While Thakur was granted bail by the Bombay High Court in the 2008 Malegaon blast case on April 25, 2017, a Dewas court had acquitted her of criminal charges in the 2007 Sunil Joshi murder case in February 2017. Presently under treatment at the ayurveda hospital in Bhopal, Pragya Singh recounted her grilling. I was picked up from Surat in October 2008 by ATS and taken to Mumbai for questioning. While the first 13 days were spent in illegal custody, the next 11 days were spent in legal custody of the ATS, said Thakur. For 24 days I survived on water. I was beaten brutally throughout my custody. I was beaten so much that my hands and fingers regularly developed swelling. Spotting swelling in my hands and fingers, the ATS men put them in warm water and asked me to keep on pressing paper to reduce the swelling, alleged Pragya Singh Thakur. Throughout the interrogation, the ATS men asked me why I triggered the blast in Malegaon. When I repeatedly told them that I knew nothing about any blast, they named top RSS leaders and tried hard to make me concede that the RSS leaders were involved in the terror acts, Pragya Singh Thakur further alleged. The target of the interrogators working at the behest of the Congress and UPA government was never the BJP, but instead the RSS, as it gives the nation nationalist leaders like Narendra Modi, said Thakur. She also alleged that Congress general secretary, Digvijaya Singh, was the brain behind the conspiracy to frame her. I was a student leader of ABVP when Singh was the MP CM. I used to regularly stage movements against his government and never compromised, owing to which he hatched the conspiracy to implicate me," alleged Thakur. When queried about having been booked for the December 2007 murder of close associate and former RSS worker Sunil Joshi, the Malegaon blast accused gave a clean chit to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government. The BJP government was in power when I was booked in Sunil Joshis murder case, but the case was lodged against me at the behest of the Congress which ruled the Centre. The present CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan never obstructs any kind of probe. Three months before I was booked in the murder case in Dewas (MP) I was told by personnel of central investigation agencies in hospital in Mumbai that my name would be added in the case, despite me having no role in it. How come the probe agency men had a whiff of it, if the central government was not involved, said Thakur. State Congress spokesperson K K Mishra reacted sharply to Thakurs allegations saying she is making false statements, everyone knows who were involved in conspiring and triggering blasts. Even RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had in 2011 stated that several extremist elements had made their way into the Sangh fold, will she deny that also? said Mishra.
By PTI

JAMMU: An Indian Army patrol team was taken by surprise by a group of Pakistani special forces who had set up an ambush more than 250 metres deep inside Indian territory early this morning and beheaded two security personnel.

Pakistan's Border Action Team (BAT) set up the ambush and waited for long for the patrol team, while Pakistani troops attacked two forward posts with rockets and mortar bombs along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

"It was a pre-planed operation by Pakistan army. They had pushed in the Border Action Team over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up the ambush for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior officer said.

"Their target was a patrol party of 7-8 members, which had come out of a post," the officer said, adding that as the posts were engaged, the patrol team members ran for cover. In the process, two members were left behind and targeted by the BAT.

Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army were killed and their bodies mutilated.

The BAT is specifically employed for trans-LoC action.

In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in the form of surreptitious raids.

There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated.

On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian Army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector.

In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by a BAT. It also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion suffered injuries in the attack.

In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.

During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.

In February, 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Army's 'Ashok Listening Post' in the Nowshera sector to kill seven Indian soldiers.

Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.

JAMMU: An Indian Army patrol team was taken by surprise by a group of Pakistani special forces who had set up an ambush more than 250 metres deep inside Indian territory early this morning and beheaded two security personnel. Pakistan's Border Action Team (BAT) set up the ambush and waited for long for the patrol team, while Pakistani troops attacked two forward posts with rockets and mortar bombs along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. "It was a pre-planed operation by Pakistan army. They had pushed in the Border Action Team over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up the ambush for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior officer said. "Their target was a patrol party of 7-8 members, which had come out of a post," the officer said, adding that as the posts were engaged, the patrol team members ran for cover. In the process, two members were left behind and targeted by the BAT. Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army were killed and their bodies mutilated. The BAT is specifically employed for trans-LoC action. In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in the form of surreptitious raids. There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated. On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian Army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector. In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by a BAT. It also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion suffered injuries in the attack. In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days. During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India. In February, 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Army's 'Ashok Listening Post' in the Nowshera sector to kill seven Indian soldiers. Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: India today categorically told Turkey that it is ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan including Kashmir, which it said is essentially due to cross-border terrorism.

India's clear message came amid suggestion from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue.

India categorically conveyed to Turkey its position that Kashmir was essentially a terrorism issue, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.

He also said India told Turkey it is ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan, including Kashmir. The spokesperson was asked about Erdogan's suggestion of multilateral dialogue to resolve the issue.

In an interview to a TV channel, Erdogan had said, "We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all."

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

NEW DELHI: India today categorically told Turkey that it is ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan including Kashmir, which it said is essentially due to cross-border terrorism. India's clear message came amid suggestion from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue. India categorically conveyed to Turkey its position that Kashmir was essentially a terrorism issue, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said. He also said India told Turkey it is ready to resolve all bilateral issues with Pakistan, including Kashmir. The spokesperson was asked about Erdogan's suggestion of multilateral dialogue to resolve the issue. In an interview to a TV channel, Erdogan had said, "We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all." The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.
Foreign Enterprises in China (Photo : Getty Images)

The process of business registration in China will soon become easier and cheaper as the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said on April 11 that it is creating a nationwide digitalization platform for corporate registration as well as a new electronic business license. The reform will start by the end of October.



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According to china-briefing.com, the reform in the business registration process is expected to shorten the turnaround time of registering a business and streamline the process for all types of companies.



Currently, the only platform that allows foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) to register their business online is the Beijing Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC) online system.



However, as the national model is being readied, more regions in China will soon use the national platform, SAIC said.



As new regulatory changes were made, startups that plan to register their businesses were asked to familiarize themselves with the setup procedures.



According to SAIC, it will improve the process of online registration by streamlining the application steps and making the entire application simple.



The new registration process will enable businesses to register online and submit their applications with scanned supporting documents affixed with their e-signatures.



In addition, SAIC will create a standard design of an electronic business license, which will include formatting and listed credentials.



SAIC also drafted the protocol to manage the issuance of electronic licenses. After a national protocol is set in place, sub-national registrars will be required to develop local systems based on the national standards, the report said.



SAIC said that both provincial and municipal AICs must open their lists of business names to allow applicants to check if another business is registered using the same company name. To do this, applicants can use the online name-query platform.



Before this reform, SAIC has conducted digital registration pilot programs in different areas across the country, such as in Beijing and Jiangsu Province. In Beijing, the pilot program was opened only to tech companies in Haidian District.



Meanwhile, Beijing AIC online registration system started to accept applications from foreign-invested enterprises on April 19. But since SAIC still lacks the resources or technologies to verify the identities of foreign applicants, foreign companies have to hire a Chinese lawyer to serve as a local agent and facilitate their online application.



If the pilot programs are successful, the pilot model will be implemented across the country starting October this year. Many local and foreign companies are expected to benefit from the said reform.


Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: In a bizarre turn of events, Calcutta High Court judge Justice Chinnaswamy Swaminathan Karnan ordered a psychiatric test of seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice of India (CJI) Jagdish Singh Khehar, in response to a medical test ordered by the Supreme Court on Karnan, who is accused of contempt of court.

The High Court judge had summoned CJI and six other Supreme Court judges at his residential court on April 28 accusing them of discriminating against him for being a Dalit. However, the apex court judges responded to his summons on Monday by ordering a medical test on Karnan.

Speaking at a press meet at his residence here on Monday, the High Court judge said that the seven apex court judges have ordered the Medical Board of Kolkata to conduct a medical test on him with assistance of the director general of police, West Bengal.

The Supreme Court order is ridiculous and a desperate attempt of the seven accused judges to escape prosecution under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The order passed by me against the seven accused judges is still in force, he said.

He termed the medical test ordered by the apex court as an insult in addition to discrimination against him. This kind of harassment against my sanity is an additional insult to an innocent Dalit judge who is of sound judgment and mind, he added.

Karnan said that his family can prove his sanity. My wife, an educational officer, and my two sons, who are engineers, are satisfied with my physical health and acumen of clear, alert and precise mental ability, the Calcutta HC judge said.

The contempt of court accused judge ordered the director general of police, North Delhi to produce all the seven accused judges at a psychiatric board attached to AIIMS and produce him the report before May 7.

KOLKATA: In a bizarre turn of events, Calcutta High Court judge Justice Chinnaswamy Swaminathan Karnan ordered a psychiatric test of seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice of India (CJI) Jagdish Singh Khehar, in response to a medical test ordered by the Supreme Court on Karnan, who is accused of contempt of court. The High Court judge had summoned CJI and six other Supreme Court judges at his residential court on April 28 accusing them of discriminating against him for being a Dalit. However, the apex court judges responded to his summons on Monday by ordering a medical test on Karnan. Speaking at a press meet at his residence here on Monday, the High Court judge said that the seven apex court judges have ordered the Medical Board of Kolkata to conduct a medical test on him with assistance of the director general of police, West Bengal. The Supreme Court order is ridiculous and a desperate attempt of the seven accused judges to escape prosecution under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The order passed by me against the seven accused judges is still in force, he said. He termed the medical test ordered by the apex court as an insult in addition to discrimination against him. This kind of harassment against my sanity is an additional insult to an innocent Dalit judge who is of sound judgment and mind, he added. Karnan said that his family can prove his sanity. My wife, an educational officer, and my two sons, who are engineers, are satisfied with my physical health and acumen of clear, alert and precise mental ability, the Calcutta HC judge said. The contempt of court accused judge ordered the director general of police, North Delhi to produce all the seven accused judges at a psychiatric board attached to AIIMS and produce him the report before May 7.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: A day after Pakistan army chief visited the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Border Action Team (BAT) of Pakistan army conducted cross-LoC raid and ambushed armys patrol party at Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, killing two soldiers and mutilating their bodies.

Armys Northern command spokesman said Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked rocket, mortar and heavy firing toward forward posts of army along the LoC in Krishna Gati sector in Poonch this morning.

He said the army men effectively returned the fire from similar caliber weapons.

The spokesman said as cross-LoC firing was going on, Pakistani troops BAT attacked the patrol party of troops operating in between the two posts.

Also Read: Pakistan army denies mutilating bodies of Indian soldiers

Sources said the BAT team, which usually comprises Pakistani commandos and well trained militant, had crossed the LoC and ambushed the joint patrol party of Army and BSF.

The BAT of Pakistani troops killed two soldiers part of the patrol. They also mutilated bodies of the two soldiers, the Northern command spokesman said.

He termed mutilation of bodies of soldiers by BAT team of Pakistani troops as an unsoldierly and despicable act.

Read: Government, political parties assail Pakistan for beheading of Indian soldiers

The Northern command spokesman warned that such despicable act of Pakistan army will be appropriately responded by army.

Sources identified the deceased as JCO Paramjeet Singh of Armys 22 Sikh Infantry and BSF Head Constable Prem Sagar.

Another BSF jawan was injured in the BAT attack.

Also Read: Army tweets about mutilation but had refused to respond to RTI

According to sources, after the BAT attack, reinforcement was rushed to the area and they launched massive combing operation in the area, which continued for few hours.

The BAT attack took place a day after Pakistan army chief General Qamar Bajwa visited LoC at Hajipir sector in PaK and warned that Pakistan cannot remain indifferent to the barbaric treatment meted out to defenceless Kashmiris including women and children in Jammu and Kashmir.

Todays attack was the second BAT attack on soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir in six months.

Earlier, on November 22, 2016 three soldiers were killed and body of one of them mutilated by in BATs cross-LoC raid in Machil sector of border district of Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir.

On October 28, 2016, a soldier was killed and his body mutilated in Machil sector by militants, who were aided by cover fire by Pakistani Army.

Army in response to these killings had launched a day long offensive on positions of Pakistani troops along the LoC on November 23, killing three Pakistani soldiers and silencing their guns for a long time.

SRINAGAR: A day after Pakistan army chief visited the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), the Border Action Team (BAT) of Pakistan army conducted cross-LoC raid and ambushed armys patrol party at Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, killing two soldiers and mutilating their bodies. Armys Northern command spokesman said Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked rocket, mortar and heavy firing toward forward posts of army along the LoC in Krishna Gati sector in Poonch this morning. He said the army men effectively returned the fire from similar caliber weapons. The spokesman said as cross-LoC firing was going on, Pakistani troops BAT attacked the patrol party of troops operating in between the two posts. Also Read: Pakistan army denies mutilating bodies of Indian soldiers Sources said the BAT team, which usually comprises Pakistani commandos and well trained militant, had crossed the LoC and ambushed the joint patrol party of Army and BSF. The BAT of Pakistani troops killed two soldiers part of the patrol. They also mutilated bodies of the two soldiers, the Northern command spokesman said. He termed mutilation of bodies of soldiers by BAT team of Pakistani troops as an unsoldierly and despicable act. Read: Government, political parties assail Pakistan for beheading of Indian soldiers The Northern command spokesman warned that such despicable act of Pakistan army will be appropriately responded by army. Sources identified the deceased as JCO Paramjeet Singh of Armys 22 Sikh Infantry and BSF Head Constable Prem Sagar. Another BSF jawan was injured in the BAT attack. Also Read: Army tweets about mutilation but had refused to respond to RTI According to sources, after the BAT attack, reinforcement was rushed to the area and they launched massive combing operation in the area, which continued for few hours. The BAT attack took place a day after Pakistan army chief General Qamar Bajwa visited LoC at Hajipir sector in PaK and warned that Pakistan cannot remain indifferent to the barbaric treatment meted out to defenceless Kashmiris including women and children in Jammu and Kashmir. Todays attack was the second BAT attack on soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir in six months. Earlier, on November 22, 2016 three soldiers were killed and body of one of them mutilated by in BATs cross-LoC raid in Machil sector of border district of Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir. On October 28, 2016, a soldier was killed and his body mutilated in Machil sector by militants, who were aided by cover fire by Pakistani Army. Army in response to these killings had launched a day long offensive on positions of Pakistani troops along the LoC on November 23, killing three Pakistani soldiers and silencing their guns for a long time.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Universities and educational institutions across country will soon have a "wall of heroes" depicting portraits of war warriors who showed extraordinary courage to defend the nation.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) is launching a "Vidya, Veerta Abhiyan" tomorrow to encourage varsities to display portraits of Param Veer Chakra-decorated soldiers.

"HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar will tomorrow launch portraits of Param Veer Chakra decorated-soldiers at an event and these portraits will be put up in various educational institutions," a senior HRD official said.

"To begin with, Vice Chancellors from JNU, DU, Jamia Milia Islamia and IIT Delhi, among others, will receive the portraits from him

"Further, a campaign is being launched to have a 'Wall of Heroes' in various educational institutions depicting the portraits of war warriors decorated with Param Veer Chakra for showing extraordinary courage and bravery to defend the motherland," he added.

The idea of having a wall of martyrs in universities was first proposed by a group of ex-servicemen who had last year approached JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, saying portraits of martyrs and tanks used in wars should be put on display in the campus to instill sense of "nationalism" and "patriotism" among the students.

The demand came amid a raging debate on nationalism following a sedition row on campus over an event during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

NEW DELHI: Universities and educational institutions across country will soon have a "wall of heroes" depicting portraits of war warriors who showed extraordinary courage to defend the nation. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) is launching a "Vidya, Veerta Abhiyan" tomorrow to encourage varsities to display portraits of Param Veer Chakra-decorated soldiers. "HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar will tomorrow launch portraits of Param Veer Chakra decorated-soldiers at an event and these portraits will be put up in various educational institutions," a senior HRD official said. "To begin with, Vice Chancellors from JNU, DU, Jamia Milia Islamia and IIT Delhi, among others, will receive the portraits from him "Further, a campaign is being launched to have a 'Wall of Heroes' in various educational institutions depicting the portraits of war warriors decorated with Param Veer Chakra for showing extraordinary courage and bravery to defend the motherland," he added. The idea of having a wall of martyrs in universities was first proposed by a group of ex-servicemen who had last year approached JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, saying portraits of martyrs and tanks used in wars should be put on display in the campus to instill sense of "nationalism" and "patriotism" among the students. The demand came amid a raging debate on nationalism following a sedition row on campus over an event during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
Manoj Das By

There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjuna on the field of Kuruksetra, scribbled Sri Aurobindo in a notebook way back in 1913. He continued, The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion (for before there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanised Europe. The colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these four events ever happened.

That was the time when some intellectuals, in one of the 20th centurys periodical feats of materialism attempted to dismantle several pillars of faith on which civilisation and culture rested. But their zeal, even if quixotic, could be looked upon as a line of quest. But when a lawyer-politico attempts to humour us by associating Krishna with eve-teasers, when an avant-garde drama group associates the Pandavas demolishing a forest for founding their habitation with contemporary ecological misadventures, when novelists in several languages, Indian and English, find in Draupadi an opportunity to recreate her in the light of common psychology, it is time to wonder which, between our environmental and cerebral climates, had become more polluted.

Judging Draupadi: A number of contemporary novels, plays and poems in different languages have attributed to Draupadi of the Mahabharata, emotions and passions common to us. Her father, King Drupad, performed a sacrificial fire-rite wishing to have a son powerful enough to vanquish his enemy, Drona. Since no being short of an emanation of Shakti, the Female Divinity, could destroy the terrible evil that was Dronas camp, from the fire emerged Draupadi, already a radiant young lady, along with a son.

Hence, before we pounce upon Draupadi armed with our concepts, we must remember that she was no human being. At the end of the battle when some of the ladies requested her to reveal her wizardry that could command allegiance of five husbands, she answered disarmingly, she could do that because she had no lust in her!

Over the millennia the two epics have inspired innumerable works of literature in every genre. They have also been retold by geniuses who have added new flavours to the original situationsKamban in Tamil and Tulsidas in Hindi, so far as the Ramayana is concerned. They carried the epic situations to new heights through their lofty realisations; they did not degrade them through any puny sense of social realism. We have enough of social realism as well as cocktail of that and eroticism, surrealism and existentialism. We may leave the epics to rest in their own genre.

The episode of Ekalavya: Both Valmiki and Vyasa were realists. Facts are presented by them in a detached way. The princely forest-dweller Ekalavya had secretly learnt certain miraculous feats of archery taught by Drona only to select disciples. Confronted by the master, Ekalavya is ready to pay him his due. The latter demands his thumb and he readily sacrifices it. Surely, nobody can fail to sympathise with the young man and criticise Drona.

Even then we shouldn't ignore the backdrop. Ekalavya had disabled a dog from opening its mouth, applying a complex formula of archery that at once sealed its lips with a crisscross of seven arrows, simply because it had the audacity to bark at him. This is indication enough to make us wonder about the fate of forest-dwellers under him. There are two arguments in favour of Dronas action. A rather light argument is, some occult techniques were Dronas copyright; none should steal them. The second, a serious one is, a guru in those days was not concerned with a disciples worldly success alone, but also with the consequence of his deeds. It is better if one was less successful than spiritually crushed by the success.

It is to be noted that Ekalavya continued to be an archer. Significantly, he participated in the Kurukshetra battle on the side of the Kauravas, the camp that Drona commanded for a while. But Ekalavya remains unique for his honesty and courage, independent of a later-day estimate of his greatness shadowed by contemporary bias.

We are not bound to look upon our epics as a repository of spiritual truths. We can regard them as ancient creative works containing elements of history. Or we may simply disregard them. But we cannot judge characters or incidents snatching them from their context and milieu.

Krishna the incredible survivor: Krishna is abused time and again in poetry and plays including films showing him as a young man dancing with damsels or with Radha. We forget that he was a small boy as long as he lived in Gopa. His education began only after he left for Mathura, put an end to the tyrant Kamsa and, arranged by his father, proceeded to the Gurukul of Sage Sandipani at Avantipura.

In fact, Radha does not appear anywhere in the three mythological works containing Krishnas biographical information: Bhagavatam, Harivamsha and the Mahabharata. While his relationship with the Gopis as narrated by the Bhagavatam had an esoteric significance, although seen by the masses as happenings at the physical plane, Radha is nowhere in these works.

She is an experience, a revelation nonpareil of Divine Love that dawned in the consciousness of the post-Bhagavatam Vaishnava mystics.

But despite all kinds of popular treatment of Krishna, some even farcical, the Indian psyche had seen nothing but the supreme liberator in him, or rather something inexplicable in that character that dazzled through layers of ignorance heaped on it through the ages.

Let us not be ungrateful towards our heritage of mythology, and to the two epics in particular, the mighty base and succour for the growth of our literature, philosophy and all the aspects of our culture.

Manoj Das

Eminent author and recipient of several awards including the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship

Email: prof.manojdas@gmail.com

There are four very great events in history, the siege of Troy, the life and crucifixion of Christ, the exile of Krishna in Brindavan and the colloquy with Arjuna on the field of Kuruksetra, scribbled Sri Aurobindo in a notebook way back in 1913. He continued, The siege of Troy created Hellas, the exile in Brindavan created devotional religion (for before there was only meditation and worship), Christ from his cross humanised Europe. The colloquy at Kurukshetra will yet liberate humanity. Yet it is said that none of these four events ever happened. That was the time when some intellectuals, in one of the 20th centurys periodical feats of materialism attempted to dismantle several pillars of faith on which civilisation and culture rested. But their zeal, even if quixotic, could be looked upon as a line of quest. But when a lawyer-politico attempts to humour us by associating Krishna with eve-teasers, when an avant-garde drama group associates the Pandavas demolishing a forest for founding their habitation with contemporary ecological misadventures, when novelists in several languages, Indian and English, find in Draupadi an opportunity to recreate her in the light of common psychology, it is time to wonder which, between our environmental and cerebral climates, had become more polluted. Judging Draupadi: A number of contemporary novels, plays and poems in different languages have attributed to Draupadi of the Mahabharata, emotions and passions common to us. Her father, King Drupad, performed a sacrificial fire-rite wishing to have a son powerful enough to vanquish his enemy, Drona. Since no being short of an emanation of Shakti, the Female Divinity, could destroy the terrible evil that was Dronas camp, from the fire emerged Draupadi, already a radiant young lady, along with a son. Hence, before we pounce upon Draupadi armed with our concepts, we must remember that she was no human being. At the end of the battle when some of the ladies requested her to reveal her wizardry that could command allegiance of five husbands, she answered disarmingly, she could do that because she had no lust in her! Over the millennia the two epics have inspired innumerable works of literature in every genre. They have also been retold by geniuses who have added new flavours to the original situationsKamban in Tamil and Tulsidas in Hindi, so far as the Ramayana is concerned. They carried the epic situations to new heights through their lofty realisations; they did not degrade them through any puny sense of social realism. We have enough of social realism as well as cocktail of that and eroticism, surrealism and existentialism. We may leave the epics to rest in their own genre. The episode of Ekalavya: Both Valmiki and Vyasa were realists. Facts are presented by them in a detached way. The princely forest-dweller Ekalavya had secretly learnt certain miraculous feats of archery taught by Drona only to select disciples. Confronted by the master, Ekalavya is ready to pay him his due. The latter demands his thumb and he readily sacrifices it. Surely, nobody can fail to sympathise with the young man and criticise Drona. Even then we shouldn't ignore the backdrop. Ekalavya had disabled a dog from opening its mouth, applying a complex formula of archery that at once sealed its lips with a crisscross of seven arrows, simply because it had the audacity to bark at him. This is indication enough to make us wonder about the fate of forest-dwellers under him. There are two arguments in favour of Dronas action. A rather light argument is, some occult techniques were Dronas copyright; none should steal them. The second, a serious one is, a guru in those days was not concerned with a disciples worldly success alone, but also with the consequence of his deeds. It is better if one was less successful than spiritually crushed by the success. It is to be noted that Ekalavya continued to be an archer. Significantly, he participated in the Kurukshetra battle on the side of the Kauravas, the camp that Drona commanded for a while. But Ekalavya remains unique for his honesty and courage, independent of a later-day estimate of his greatness shadowed by contemporary bias. We are not bound to look upon our epics as a repository of spiritual truths. We can regard them as ancient creative works containing elements of history. Or we may simply disregard them. But we cannot judge characters or incidents snatching them from their context and milieu. Krishna the incredible survivor: Krishna is abused time and again in poetry and plays including films showing him as a young man dancing with damsels or with Radha. We forget that he was a small boy as long as he lived in Gopa. His education began only after he left for Mathura, put an end to the tyrant Kamsa and, arranged by his father, proceeded to the Gurukul of Sage Sandipani at Avantipura. In fact, Radha does not appear anywhere in the three mythological works containing Krishnas biographical information: Bhagavatam, Harivamsha and the Mahabharata. While his relationship with the Gopis as narrated by the Bhagavatam had an esoteric significance, although seen by the masses as happenings at the physical plane, Radha is nowhere in these works. She is an experience, a revelation nonpareil of Divine Love that dawned in the consciousness of the post-Bhagavatam Vaishnava mystics. But despite all kinds of popular treatment of Krishna, some even farcical, the Indian psyche had seen nothing but the supreme liberator in him, or rather something inexplicable in that character that dazzled through layers of ignorance heaped on it through the ages. Let us not be ungrateful towards our heritage of mythology, and to the two epics in particular, the mighty base and succour for the growth of our literature, philosophy and all the aspects of our culture. Manoj Das Eminent author and recipient of several awards including the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship Email: prof.manojdas@gmail.com
By Express News Service

VISAKHAPATNAM: The officials of City Task Force (CTF) arrested a Nigerian involved in ganja smuggling, in the city on Sunday. They recovered 24 kg of the hemp worth Rs 96,000 from him. This is the second incident when a Nigerian was nabbed for smuggling the weed.

The arrested foreigner has been identified as Charles Chuks (40), who came to India around 18 months ago on a business visa and has been staying in Hyderabad.

According to assistant commissioner of police (ACP-CTF) I Chittibabu, on a tip-off the CTF teams raided an area near the Government Eye Hospital here and nabbed Charles Chuks, when he was trying to smuggle the dry ganja. Preliminary investigation revealed that Charles Chuks had visited Visakhapatnam city and some parts of Vizag agency five times in the last 18 months and had smuggled the contraband several times to Hyderabad, Nagpur, Delhi and Chennai.

Police said that the foreigner had visited some remote areas in the Vizag Agency and established contacts with some local ganja smugglers to procure the weed. Charles Chuks received the ganja from the contacts and was planning to transport it to Hyderabad, where he sells it at a premium.

The police are yet to ascertain the job of the accused and seized his passport but are yet to ascertain whether it is genuine or not. The accused along with the contraband has been handed over to the Inspector of Dwaraka police station for further investigation. A case has been registered and an investigation is on.

A year ago, another Nigerian, Ikechukwu Augustine (23), was among the three held for ganja smuggling in Vizag.

VISAKHAPATNAM: The officials of City Task Force (CTF) arrested a Nigerian involved in ganja smuggling, in the city on Sunday. They recovered 24 kg of the hemp worth Rs 96,000 from him. This is the second incident when a Nigerian was nabbed for smuggling the weed. The arrested foreigner has been identified as Charles Chuks (40), who came to India around 18 months ago on a business visa and has been staying in Hyderabad. According to assistant commissioner of police (ACP-CTF) I Chittibabu, on a tip-off the CTF teams raided an area near the Government Eye Hospital here and nabbed Charles Chuks, when he was trying to smuggle the dry ganja. Preliminary investigation revealed that Charles Chuks had visited Visakhapatnam city and some parts of Vizag agency five times in the last 18 months and had smuggled the contraband several times to Hyderabad, Nagpur, Delhi and Chennai. Police said that the foreigner had visited some remote areas in the Vizag Agency and established contacts with some local ganja smugglers to procure the weed. Charles Chuks received the ganja from the contacts and was planning to transport it to Hyderabad, where he sells it at a premium. The police are yet to ascertain the job of the accused and seized his passport but are yet to ascertain whether it is genuine or not. The accused along with the contraband has been handed over to the Inspector of Dwaraka police station for further investigation. A case has been registered and an investigation is on. A year ago, another Nigerian, Ikechukwu Augustine (23), was among the three held for ganja smuggling in Vizag.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Tension prevailed at Nagarjuna Sagar Project on Guntur-Nalgonda border when arguments ensued between irrigation officials of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State over the release of water to Nagarjuna Sagar Right Canal in Andhra Pradesh.

With Telangana State irrigation department officials stopping the release of water to NSRC,their Andhra Pradesh counterparts rushed to the site and demanded water to be released.

When Telangana officials refused to oblige, they resorted to arguments which led to escalating tensions. Police were deployed in large number on both sides.

Andhra Pradesh has been drawing water to NSRC from the project as per the allocations made by the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) in April last week. Andhra Pradesh was allocated 5.6 TMC of water to meet its drinking water requirements in Guntur and Prakasam districts.

According to NSRC officials, Telangana Irrigation officials wanted the water from NS project to be pumped out to meet Hyderabads water needs.

We have already drawn 4 TMC and there is just another 1.6 TMC that is needs to be drawn. It would only take another three days at 7,000 cusecs for getting it. They have asked us to stop drawing water from NSP for three days last night and before we could answer, they stopped the release, explained S Venkataramana Rao, superintending engineer of NSRC.

With continuing stalemate over the release of water to NSRC, Andhra Pradesh officials lodged a complaint with KRMB and are now awaiting its decision.

VIJAYAWADA: Tension prevailed at Nagarjuna Sagar Project on Guntur-Nalgonda border when arguments ensued between irrigation officials of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State over the release of water to Nagarjuna Sagar Right Canal in Andhra Pradesh. With Telangana State irrigation department officials stopping the release of water to NSRC,their Andhra Pradesh counterparts rushed to the site and demanded water to be released. When Telangana officials refused to oblige, they resorted to arguments which led to escalating tensions. Police were deployed in large number on both sides. Andhra Pradesh has been drawing water to NSRC from the project as per the allocations made by the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) in April last week. Andhra Pradesh was allocated 5.6 TMC of water to meet its drinking water requirements in Guntur and Prakasam districts. According to NSRC officials, Telangana Irrigation officials wanted the water from NS project to be pumped out to meet Hyderabads water needs. We have already drawn 4 TMC and there is just another 1.6 TMC that is needs to be drawn. It would only take another three days at 7,000 cusecs for getting it. They have asked us to stop drawing water from NSP for three days last night and before we could answer, they stopped the release, explained S Venkataramana Rao, superintending engineer of NSRC. With continuing stalemate over the release of water to NSRC, Andhra Pradesh officials lodged a complaint with KRMB and are now awaiting its decision.
Rajesh Abraham By

Express News Service

KOCHI: Sharmina K V, in her late 20s, is shattered. Her voice betrays the sadness and the near hopelessness she feels. Ive got no more tears left and I dont know whom to approach now, she tells Express over the phone from Abu Dhabi.

Sharmina is the wife of Thiruvananthapuram native Shihani Jamal Mohammed who was under trial for spying in the UAE. He was dealt a shocking blow last month when an Abu Dhabi court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment and deportation.

(From left) Muhammed Ibrahim, Manarthadi Abbas and Shihani Jamal Mohammed

The tale of Shihani who has two boys aged 8 and 6, is heart-wrenching. He was arrested from home one evening over espionage charges after he contacted Indian embassy officers there as part of his job at British shipping firm Inchcape Shipping Services.

If an American ship comes, he has to call up the American embassy and inform them. Similarly, when an Indian ship docked at the Abu Dhabi port, he was asked by his employers to send a mail to the Indian embassy. It landed him in jail, says Sharmina.

While the Centre is trying to free Kulbhushan Jadhav sentenced to death for espionage by the Pakistan Military Court recently, the case of four Indian spies--three Keralites and one Tamil Nadu native-- languishing in an Abu Dhabi jail has gone unnoticed. Even the Abu Dhabi authorities have told us an intervention by the Indian Government will easily help secure their release, she says.

It was an SMS which landed Muhammed Ibrahim, 36, hailing from Muvattupuzha in jail. He was arrested for texting the name of a ship arriving at Mina Port to an Indian embassy officer. After losing my job, I and my four children returned to Kerala a month ago, says Ibrahims wife Sunithal Basheer.

I used to visit my husband every two weeks, and he is distraught. His condition has deteriorated to such an extent hes not in a proper state of mind. The couple has three daughters and a son who is in Class XII.

The third Malayalee is Malappuram native Manarthadi Abbas serving a five-year term for spying. His brother Shahul Hamid told Express the hopes of the incarcerated Malayalees rest on Ramadan when the UAE Government pardons prisoners. This years Ramadan falls on May 28. When the Abu Dhabi Police arrests a foreigner, he is brought before his embassy, and this happens to citizens of the Philippines, Nepal, China and Indonesia. But unfortunately, Indian citizens do not enjoy such a privilege, he says.

Its really surprising the Indian government cant flex its muscles and help our citizens in distress, says Hamid. Abbas wife and three children have returned from the Gulf nation and are struggling to make ends meet.

Tamil Nadu native Tennarasu Arumughan is also serving a three-year term for espionage.

With External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj back to full health after a kidney transplant, the families of the four Indians hope she will use her clout to secure their release during Ramadan.

KOCHI: Sharmina K V, in her late 20s, is shattered. Her voice betrays the sadness and the near hopelessness she feels. Ive got no more tears left and I dont know whom to approach now, she tells Express over the phone from Abu Dhabi. Sharmina is the wife of Thiruvananthapuram native Shihani Jamal Mohammed who was under trial for spying in the UAE. He was dealt a shocking blow last month when an Abu Dhabi court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment and deportation. (From left) Muhammed Ibrahim, Manarthadi Abbas and Shihani Jamal Mohammed The tale of Shihani who has two boys aged 8 and 6, is heart-wrenching. He was arrested from home one evening over espionage charges after he contacted Indian embassy officers there as part of his job at British shipping firm Inchcape Shipping Services. If an American ship comes, he has to call up the American embassy and inform them. Similarly, when an Indian ship docked at the Abu Dhabi port, he was asked by his employers to send a mail to the Indian embassy. It landed him in jail, says Sharmina. While the Centre is trying to free Kulbhushan Jadhav sentenced to death for espionage by the Pakistan Military Court recently, the case of four Indian spies--three Keralites and one Tamil Nadu native-- languishing in an Abu Dhabi jail has gone unnoticed. Even the Abu Dhabi authorities have told us an intervention by the Indian Government will easily help secure their release, she says. It was an SMS which landed Muhammed Ibrahim, 36, hailing from Muvattupuzha in jail. He was arrested for texting the name of a ship arriving at Mina Port to an Indian embassy officer. After losing my job, I and my four children returned to Kerala a month ago, says Ibrahims wife Sunithal Basheer. I used to visit my husband every two weeks, and he is distraught. His condition has deteriorated to such an extent hes not in a proper state of mind. The couple has three daughters and a son who is in Class XII. The third Malayalee is Malappuram native Manarthadi Abbas serving a five-year term for spying. His brother Shahul Hamid told Express the hopes of the incarcerated Malayalees rest on Ramadan when the UAE Government pardons prisoners. This years Ramadan falls on May 28. When the Abu Dhabi Police arrests a foreigner, he is brought before his embassy, and this happens to citizens of the Philippines, Nepal, China and Indonesia. But unfortunately, Indian citizens do not enjoy such a privilege, he says. Its really surprising the Indian government cant flex its muscles and help our citizens in distress, says Hamid. Abbas wife and three children have returned from the Gulf nation and are struggling to make ends meet. Tamil Nadu native Tennarasu Arumughan is also serving a three-year term for espionage. With External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj back to full health after a kidney transplant, the families of the four Indians hope she will use her clout to secure their release during Ramadan.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Under flak from the opposition for allegedly neglecting the farm sector, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has announced that efforts will be made to supply power to the agricultural sector in the state for 24 hours a day in about a year or a year and a half.

Rao has said his government will create a Rs 500-crore fund in the coming budget to address the issue of minimum support price permanently. Agricultural produce will also be sold under the farmers committees.

He made these announcements on Sunday while addressing a group of oil palm farmers from Dammapeta mandal in Bhadradri Kothagudem district where a palm oil plant has begun production. The farmers thanked the CM for the setting up the plant at Apparaopet, and felicitated him. They invited Rao to formally inaugurate the plant and the CM responded positively.

Rao told farmers that his government was giving nine-hour power supply to farmers. Some farmers are using automatic starters and drawing more water than required. This is causing a twin problem. Ground water level is decreasing and the yield is getting spoiled on account of excess water, he said and asked farmers to stop using automatic starters.

Rao assured farmers of an adequate supply of power in a year or a year and a half. Then we will try to ensure 24-hour power supply. Farmers will be able to draw water whenever they need it, he said.

Claiming that his government was taking all measures to come to the rescue of the farming community, Rao said farmers now had two major issue: One is input expenditure and the other is minimum support price for the produce. The state government had decided last year itself to give Rs 8,000 per acre, irrespective of the crop, to farmers towards input subsidy.

Getting the minimum support price for produce is another issue that is troubling farmers and this is a recurring problem. We have thought of a solution. We will constitute farmers association in mandals. From there we will form district and state level farmers federations. The farmers association will have the authority to fix the prices. It will discuss with mandal-level traders and decide the price. All sales will happen based only on this price. In the coming budget we will allocate Rs 500 crore to the state farmers federation, Rao said.

Palm Oil Plant comes UP

A palm oil plant is coming up at Apparaopet in Dammapeta mandal in Bhadradri Kothagudem district

Its production capacity is 60 tonnes per hour. In the first phase, the capacity is 30 tonnes an hour

Work on the plant began on April 18, 2016 and production commenced on April 29, 2017

It was built at a cost of K82 crore with NCDC contributing K64 cr, state govt K10 cr and the federation

K7.40 cr

Khammam, Kothagudem, Suryapet farmers to benefit from the plant

Currently, oil palm is cultivated in 30,000 acres in 26 mandals

State should not be a land grabber: TJAC chief

Hyderabad: Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) chairman M Kodandaram alleged that TS government instead of acting as custodian of farmers agricultural lands, it is playing the role of a land grabber by trying to snatch their lands for projects. The chief launched relay protests undertaken by oustees of various projects at CPI state office, Makhdoom Bhavan here on Sunday. The protests are being organised to put pressure on state to procure land in accordance with provisions of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, R & R Act, 2013.

HYDERABAD: Under flak from the opposition for allegedly neglecting the farm sector, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has announced that efforts will be made to supply power to the agricultural sector in the state for 24 hours a day in about a year or a year and a half. Rao has said his government will create a Rs 500-crore fund in the coming budget to address the issue of minimum support price permanently. Agricultural produce will also be sold under the farmers committees. He made these announcements on Sunday while addressing a group of oil palm farmers from Dammapeta mandal in Bhadradri Kothagudem district where a palm oil plant has begun production. The farmers thanked the CM for the setting up the plant at Apparaopet, and felicitated him. They invited Rao to formally inaugurate the plant and the CM responded positively. Rao told farmers that his government was giving nine-hour power supply to farmers. Some farmers are using automatic starters and drawing more water than required. This is causing a twin problem. Ground water level is decreasing and the yield is getting spoiled on account of excess water, he said and asked farmers to stop using automatic starters. Rao assured farmers of an adequate supply of power in a year or a year and a half. Then we will try to ensure 24-hour power supply. Farmers will be able to draw water whenever they need it, he said. Claiming that his government was taking all measures to come to the rescue of the farming community, Rao said farmers now had two major issue: One is input expenditure and the other is minimum support price for the produce. The state government had decided last year itself to give Rs 8,000 per acre, irrespective of the crop, to farmers towards input subsidy. Getting the minimum support price for produce is another issue that is troubling farmers and this is a recurring problem. We have thought of a solution. We will constitute farmers association in mandals. From there we will form district and state level farmers federations. The farmers association will have the authority to fix the prices. It will discuss with mandal-level traders and decide the price. All sales will happen based only on this price. In the coming budget we will allocate Rs 500 crore to the state farmers federation, Rao said. Palm Oil Plant comes UP A palm oil plant is coming up at Apparaopet in Dammapeta mandal in Bhadradri Kothagudem district Its production capacity is 60 tonnes per hour. In the first phase, the capacity is 30 tonnes an hour Work on the plant began on April 18, 2016 and production commenced on April 29, 2017 It was built at a cost of K82 crore with NCDC contributing K64 cr, state govt K10 cr and the federation K7.40 cr Khammam, Kothagudem, Suryapet farmers to benefit from the plant Currently, oil palm is cultivated in 30,000 acres in 26 mandals State should not be a land grabber: TJAC chief Hyderabad: Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) chairman M Kodandaram alleged that TS government instead of acting as custodian of farmers agricultural lands, it is playing the role of a land grabber by trying to snatch their lands for projects. The chief launched relay protests undertaken by oustees of various projects at CPI state office, Makhdoom Bhavan here on Sunday. The protests are being organised to put pressure on state to procure land in accordance with provisions of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, R & R Act, 2013.
Pradip R Sagar By

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army could soon be playing big brother to the CRPF, with its officers leading the paramilitary force against the Naxalite menace.

After the Sukma attack killing 25 CRPF jawans on April 24, the Modi government is looking to revive a 2008 Army blueprint to fight Maoists, which had been shoved under the carpet by the Congress-led UPA government.

In Kashmir, the division in conflict management between the Army and the CRPF is clearly demarcated. The paramilitary handle conflict situations and the Army steps in only when the situation spins out of control. While training at a secret location earlier, Army officers realised paramilitary counter-insurgency capability was almost nil.



The proposal for joint anti-Naxal ops had come from Allahabad-based Central Command of the Indian Army, under whose jurisdiction the majority of Naxal-infested states falls.

The detailed presentation by Central Army Commander Lt. Gen HS Panag exposed serious flaws in the anti-Naxal training manual of the central paramilitary forces, making them sitting ducks for trigger-happy killers. He also recommended that an Army officer-lead training exercises with CRPF. Creating a specialised unit on the lines of Rashtriya Rifles to operate in Maoists areas was also part of the plan.



After PM Manmohan Singh labelled Maoists the main threat to internal security in 2006, the Army did give covert training and logistics in counter-insurgency operations to the CRPF and BSF at 15 secret locations in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Initially 13 companies and four core groups of CRPF deployed in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were trained at a counter-insurgency school in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, run by retired brigadier B Ponwar, specialist in jungle warfare. Incidentally, the school is the main training ground for personnel of state and central police forces. During training, we found the paramilitary forces sent to us lacked motivation. Most of them were over forty, Panag said.

NEW DELHI: The Indian Army could soon be playing big brother to the CRPF, with its officers leading the paramilitary force against the Naxalite menace. After the Sukma attack killing 25 CRPF jawans on April 24, the Modi government is looking to revive a 2008 Army blueprint to fight Maoists, which had been shoved under the carpet by the Congress-led UPA government. In Kashmir, the division in conflict management between the Army and the CRPF is clearly demarcated. The paramilitary handle conflict situations and the Army steps in only when the situation spins out of control. While training at a secret location earlier, Army officers realised paramilitary counter-insurgency capability was almost nil. The proposal for joint anti-Naxal ops had come from Allahabad-based Central Command of the Indian Army, under whose jurisdiction the majority of Naxal-infested states falls. The detailed presentation by Central Army Commander Lt. Gen HS Panag exposed serious flaws in the anti-Naxal training manual of the central paramilitary forces, making them sitting ducks for trigger-happy killers. He also recommended that an Army officer-lead training exercises with CRPF. Creating a specialised unit on the lines of Rashtriya Rifles to operate in Maoists areas was also part of the plan. After PM Manmohan Singh labelled Maoists the main threat to internal security in 2006, the Army did give covert training and logistics in counter-insurgency operations to the CRPF and BSF at 15 secret locations in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Initially 13 companies and four core groups of CRPF deployed in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were trained at a counter-insurgency school in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, run by retired brigadier B Ponwar, specialist in jungle warfare. Incidentally, the school is the main training ground for personnel of state and central police forces. During training, we found the paramilitary forces sent to us lacked motivation. Most of them were over forty, Panag said.
Ritu Sharma By

NEW DELHI: In another demonstration of Indias masculine foreign policy, it subtly sent a message to Turkey over its support to Pakistans position on Kashmir. Just before the Turkish President arrives in Delhi; Indian Vice President paid tribute to victims of Armenian genocidea sore point for Turkeyand less than 24 hours before his visit India will be hosting the President of Cyprus.



Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be arriving in India on April 30, his first visit since a coup threat reckoned Bosphorous last year. But India has shown confidence to make distinction between good friends that has stood by it and the message is for Turkey to heed.

Apart from being vocal about supporting Pakistan on the Kashmir imbroglio, Turkey has also been undertaking infrastructure development in PoK and India would convey its protest, sources said.



The Turkish President, too late to call of his visit, has got a taste of the changed template of Indian Foreign Policy, where the South Block would not shy away from pursuing its national interests more assertively.

The first move from India came when Vice President Hamid Ansari visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Armenia to pay tribute to Armenian Genocide victims on April 25. After paying tribute, Ansari said: This is a tragedy, indescribable things done to humans by humans.

Armenian Genocide is often termed as the first genocide of the 20th century by Armenian historians, a contention countered by Turks by calling it inter-communal warfare and wartime relocation.



By acknowledging Armenian genocide, New Delhi is provoking Ankara that has often threatened retaliation against Armenians diaspora pushing for recognition of the killings as a Genocide in their respective parliaments. The second message is to visiting Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades for whom India rolled out the red carpet and it would be hard for President Erdogan to ignore. PM Narendra Modi reiterated Indias support for the sovereignty of Cyprus.

NEW DELHI: In another demonstration of Indias masculine foreign policy, it subtly sent a message to Turkey over its support to Pakistans position on Kashmir. Just before the Turkish President arrives in Delhi; Indian Vice President paid tribute to victims of Armenian genocidea sore point for Turkeyand less than 24 hours before his visit India will be hosting the President of Cyprus. Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be arriving in India on April 30, his first visit since a coup threat reckoned Bosphorous last year. But India has shown confidence to make distinction between good friends that has stood by it and the message is for Turkey to heed. Apart from being vocal about supporting Pakistan on the Kashmir imbroglio, Turkey has also been undertaking infrastructure development in PoK and India would convey its protest, sources said. The Turkish President, too late to call of his visit, has got a taste of the changed template of Indian Foreign Policy, where the South Block would not shy away from pursuing its national interests more assertively. The first move from India came when Vice President Hamid Ansari visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial in Armenia to pay tribute to Armenian Genocide victims on April 25. After paying tribute, Ansari said: This is a tragedy, indescribable things done to humans by humans. Armenian Genocide is often termed as the first genocide of the 20th century by Armenian historians, a contention countered by Turks by calling it inter-communal warfare and wartime relocation. By acknowledging Armenian genocide, New Delhi is provoking Ankara that has often threatened retaliation against Armenians diaspora pushing for recognition of the killings as a Genocide in their respective parliaments. The second message is to visiting Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades for whom India rolled out the red carpet and it would be hard for President Erdogan to ignore. PM Narendra Modi reiterated Indias support for the sovereignty of Cyprus.
Future Tourist Destination: China, Europe to Build an International Village on the Moon

China' Chang'e 3 Lunar Probe (Photo : Getty Images)

A potential future destination for tourists may rise on the moon as China and Europe are collaborating on a project to build a village on the moon, according to the Mirror.



The report said that the European Space Agency (ESA) plans to send robots to the moon to start building a village in the 2020s, while China National Space Administration (CNSA) has signified its intention to bring their expertise to the project.



Advertisement

Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the CNSA, confirmed that talks about the China-Europe cooperation are ongoing, which include plans to build an international village on the moon.



According to Jiao Weixin, a professor at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Peking University, the could eventually develop into a city and become a favored destination for lunar tourism.



Jiao said that China's intention to collaborate on the project shows that it is willing to work with other countries for the benefit of the whole world.



China, which aims to become a major space power, has an advanced aerospace industry and space infrastructure.



The country has shown its space capabilities through numerous space missions in the past years. In 2016, China launched more than 20 space missions, surpassing the 15 missions it had carried out in the previous year.



Last year, China also successfully completed sending three astronauts to dock with the Tiangong space laboratory, where they carried out several scientific experiments before returning to earth.



By the end of this year, China's Chang'e-5 lunar probe will be able to accomplish its mission to collect rock samples on the moon. China's first probe will land on the dark side of the moon next year.



The country's key space plan for 2020 includes various manned space programs, launching of lunar probes, a navigation satellite system and an observation satellite program.



Based in Paris, the ESA has 22 member-states and employs about 2,000 people worldwide, and has an annual budget of about 4.5 billion.



The last landing on the moon occurred in 1972 during the U.S.'s Apollo 17 mission.


YATISH YADAV By

NEW DELHI: The humiliating defeat of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and in the Delhi local body polls has left its vice-president Rahul Gandhi unfazed. Furious debates are on at his home in 12 Tughlaq Lane and the Congress War Room at 15 Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Road over saving the party and stopping the exodus of panicked Congressmen who see Rahuls captaincy as the main reason for the partys rout.

His dysfunctional leadership has paralysed the partys ability to take on the BJP. State leaders are vocal over Rahuls failure in developing trust beyond selected groups of leaders. There is no clear direction. Its as if we do not wish to fight the BJP anymore, a party insider said. He believes strategic aimlessness has afflicted the leadership since April 13. Leaders say the top leadership has failed in formulating sustained campaigns on farmers suicides, cow vigilantism and corruption.

Rahul Gandhi

Rahul in turn has decided to turn to the past to redeem the partys future. Placing experience over PowerPoint enthusiasm, strategic meetings over countering the Modi surge are being mentored by veterans like P Chidambaram, Ahmed Patel and K Raju, junking Rahuls plans to replace them with new generation lackeys. He held a recent meeting of former state presidents, senior Congressmen and ex-MPs to chalk out the roadmap ahead. He also called a meeting of all candidatessuccessful and defeatedin the UP polls on April 29 to discuss methods to recapture the Hindi heartland. On May 1, he will address a rally in Gujarat, which goes to the polls early next year.

Sources say Rahul could take over the reigns of the Congress as party president from mother Sonia Gandhi by October 15. Documents accessed by The Sunday Standard show the election of members of booth committees and blocks will be over by August 20. By September 4, a new block-level structure will be in place. By September 15, elections for party president, vice-president, treasurer and district executive committees will be over. Between September 16 and October 15, state presidents, vice-presidents, state treasurers and All Indian Congress Committee members would have been appointed. Rahul has not fixed the date for electing CWC members, but sources said it could happen during the Congress plenary in November.

Rahul has insisted that the election process to be held in four-five stages has to be democratic. State presidents used to influence the outcome of choosing block and district presidents. Now he has ordered state chiefs to push for reforms in the party structure at the grass-root level, sources said.

Meanwhile, with revelation of Priyanka Gandhis name in the Justice S N Dhingra Commission report for windfall gain from a property, the Congress now fears attack by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Congress first family.

So far, Modi has not attacked Priyanka and has only taken jibes at daamad to target the Gandhi family over corruption. Congress insiders say the party has big plans to unleash Priyanka in the 2019 polls and emergence of her name in a corruption scandal is certainly a blow to the party, which is seriously introspecting after repeated poll debacle.



It is a major blow as the party has high hopes from Priyanka. She is the partys trump card. Now the government has ammunition to target her, which is worrying, said a senior Congress leader, who described how the party was saving Priyankas charisma for the 2019 elections to put brakes on Modis winning streak.

NEW DELHI: The humiliating defeat of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and in the Delhi local body polls has left its vice-president Rahul Gandhi unfazed. Furious debates are on at his home in 12 Tughlaq Lane and the Congress War Room at 15 Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Road over saving the party and stopping the exodus of panicked Congressmen who see Rahuls captaincy as the main reason for the partys rout. His dysfunctional leadership has paralysed the partys ability to take on the BJP. State leaders are vocal over Rahuls failure in developing trust beyond selected groups of leaders. There is no clear direction. Its as if we do not wish to fight the BJP anymore, a party insider said. He believes strategic aimlessness has afflicted the leadership since April 13. Leaders say the top leadership has failed in formulating sustained campaigns on farmers suicides, cow vigilantism and corruption. Rahul GandhiRahul in turn has decided to turn to the past to redeem the partys future. Placing experience over PowerPoint enthusiasm, strategic meetings over countering the Modi surge are being mentored by veterans like P Chidambaram, Ahmed Patel and K Raju, junking Rahuls plans to replace them with new generation lackeys. He held a recent meeting of former state presidents, senior Congressmen and ex-MPs to chalk out the roadmap ahead. He also called a meeting of all candidatessuccessful and defeatedin the UP polls on April 29 to discuss methods to recapture the Hindi heartland. On May 1, he will address a rally in Gujarat, which goes to the polls early next year. Sources say Rahul could take over the reigns of the Congress as party president from mother Sonia Gandhi by October 15. Documents accessed by The Sunday Standard show the election of members of booth committees and blocks will be over by August 20. By September 4, a new block-level structure will be in place. By September 15, elections for party president, vice-president, treasurer and district executive committees will be over. Between September 16 and October 15, state presidents, vice-presidents, state treasurers and All Indian Congress Committee members would have been appointed. Rahul has not fixed the date for electing CWC members, but sources said it could happen during the Congress plenary in November. Rahul has insisted that the election process to be held in four-five stages has to be democratic. State presidents used to influence the outcome of choosing block and district presidents. Now he has ordered state chiefs to push for reforms in the party structure at the grass-root level, sources said. Meanwhile, with revelation of Priyanka Gandhis name in the Justice S N Dhingra Commission report for windfall gain from a property, the Congress now fears attack by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Congress first family. So far, Modi has not attacked Priyanka and has only taken jibes at daamad to target the Gandhi family over corruption. Congress insiders say the party has big plans to unleash Priyanka in the 2019 polls and emergence of her name in a corruption scandal is certainly a blow to the party, which is seriously introspecting after repeated poll debacle. It is a major blow as the party has high hopes from Priyanka. She is the partys trump card. Now the government has ammunition to target her, which is worrying, said a senior Congress leader, who described how the party was saving Priyankas charisma for the 2019 elections to put brakes on Modis winning streak.
By Associated Press

SEOUL: America's CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul confirmed Monday, amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but wouldn't say for how long. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office. The U.S. official, however, wouldn't confirm any meetings beyond ones with officials at U.S. Forces in Korea and the U.S. Embassy.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a U.S. aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters. A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort U.S. naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo in the morning.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a U.S. supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas. They said the U.S. ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japan's Defense Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilizing the region.

"Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world," Turnbull said. "Together, we're taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region."

Turnbull is to meet Trump for the first time Thursday in New York.

SEOUL: America's CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul confirmed Monday, amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula. An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but wouldn't say for how long. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Korea's National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office. The U.S. official, however, wouldn't confirm any meetings beyond ones with officials at U.S. Forces in Korea and the U.S. Embassy. The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a U.S. aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters. A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort U.S. naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region. The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo in the morning. Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a U.S. supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japan's military a greater role overseas. They said the U.S. ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group. Japan's Defense Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15. In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilizing the region. "Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world," Turnbull said. "Together, we're taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region." Turnbull is to meet Trump for the first time Thursday in New York.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: Congressional Republicans and Democrats forged a hard-won agreement Sunday night on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through September, denying President Donald Trump funding for a border wall and rejecting his cuts to popular domestic programs.

Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations. It's expected to be made public early Monday.

The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during Trump's short tenure in the White House. While losing on the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump won a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military.

The measure funds the remainder of the 2017 budget year, rejecting cuts to popular domestic programs targeted by Trump, such as medical research and infrastructure grants.

Successful votes later this week would also clear away any remaining threat of a government shutdown  at least until the Oct. 1 start of the 2018 budget year. Trump has submitted a partial 2018 budget promising a 10 percent increase for the Pentagon, financed by cuts to foreign aid and other nondefense programs that negotiators on the pending measure protected.

Democrats were quick off the mark to praise the deal.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a key force in the talks. "The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure."

Trump said at nearly every campaign stop last year that Mexico would pay for the 2,000-mile (3218.54-kilometer) border wall, a claim Mexican leaders have repeatedly rejected. The administration sought some $1.4 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars for the wall and related costs in the spending bill, but Trump later relented and said the issue could wait until September.

Trump, however, obtained $1.5 billion for border security measures such as more than 5,000 additional detention beds, an upgrade in border infrastructure and technologies such as surveillance.

The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week; the House and Senate have until midnight Friday to pass the measure to avert a government shutdown. It's unclear how much support the measure will receive from GOP conservatives and how warmly it will be received by the White House.

Republicans are also eager to move on to other issues such as overhauling the tax code and reviving their moribund effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's health care law.

While the measure would peacefully end a battle over the current budget year, the upcoming cycle is sure to be even more difficult. Republicans have yet to reveal their budget plans, and battles between Trump and Congress over annual agency budgets could grind this summer's round of spending bills to a halt.

Among the final issues resolved was a Democratic request to help the cash-strapped government of Puerto Rico with its Medicaid burden, a top priority of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. Pelosi and other Democrats came up short of the $500 million or so they had sought but won $295 million for the island, more than Republicans had initially offered.

Democrats were successful in repelling many conservative policy "riders" that sought to overturn dozens of Obama-issued regulations. Such moves carry less urgency for Republicans now that Trump controls the regulatory apparatus.

House Republicans succeeded in funding another round of private school vouchers for students in Washington, D.C.'s troubled school system.

GOP leaders demurred from trying to use the must-do spending bill to "defund" Planned Parenthood. The White House also backed away from language to take away grants from "sanctuary cities" that do not share information about people's immigration status with federal authorities.

Democrats praised a $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health  a rejection of the steep cuts proposed by Trump  as well as additional funding to combat opioid abuse, fund Pell Grants for summer school, and additional transit funding. Senate forces, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and several Appalachia region Democrats, won a provision to extend health care for 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families.

Democratic votes will be needed to pass the measure even though Republicans control both the White House and Congress. The minority party has been actively involved in the talks, which appear headed to produce a lowest common denominator measure that won't look too much different than the deal that could have been struck on Obama's watch last year.

For instance, the measure contains a $2 billion disaster aid fund, $407 million to combat Western wildfires, and additional grants for transit projects, along with $100 million in emergency funding to fight the nation's opioid crisis.

The measure also taps $68 million to reimburse New York City and other local governments for unexpected costs involved in protecting Trump Tower and other properties, a priority of lawmakers such as Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

WASHINGTON: Congressional Republicans and Democrats forged a hard-won agreement Sunday night on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through September, denying President Donald Trump funding for a border wall and rejecting his cuts to popular domestic programs. Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations. It's expected to be made public early Monday. The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during Trump's short tenure in the White House. While losing on the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, Trump won a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military. The measure funds the remainder of the 2017 budget year, rejecting cuts to popular domestic programs targeted by Trump, such as medical research and infrastructure grants. Successful votes later this week would also clear away any remaining threat of a government shutdown  at least until the Oct. 1 start of the 2018 budget year. Trump has submitted a partial 2018 budget promising a 10 percent increase for the Pentagon, financed by cuts to foreign aid and other nondefense programs that negotiators on the pending measure protected. Democrats were quick off the mark to praise the deal. "This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a key force in the talks. "The bill ensures taxpayer dollars aren't used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure." Trump said at nearly every campaign stop last year that Mexico would pay for the 2,000-mile (3218.54-kilometer) border wall, a claim Mexican leaders have repeatedly rejected. The administration sought some $1.4 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars for the wall and related costs in the spending bill, but Trump later relented and said the issue could wait until September. Trump, however, obtained $1.5 billion for border security measures such as more than 5,000 additional detention beds, an upgrade in border infrastructure and technologies such as surveillance. The measure is assured of winning bipartisan support in votes this week; the House and Senate have until midnight Friday to pass the measure to avert a government shutdown. It's unclear how much support the measure will receive from GOP conservatives and how warmly it will be received by the White House. Republicans are also eager to move on to other issues such as overhauling the tax code and reviving their moribund effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's health care law. While the measure would peacefully end a battle over the current budget year, the upcoming cycle is sure to be even more difficult. Republicans have yet to reveal their budget plans, and battles between Trump and Congress over annual agency budgets could grind this summer's round of spending bills to a halt. Among the final issues resolved was a Democratic request to help the cash-strapped government of Puerto Rico with its Medicaid burden, a top priority of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. Pelosi and other Democrats came up short of the $500 million or so they had sought but won $295 million for the island, more than Republicans had initially offered. Democrats were successful in repelling many conservative policy "riders" that sought to overturn dozens of Obama-issued regulations. Such moves carry less urgency for Republicans now that Trump controls the regulatory apparatus. House Republicans succeeded in funding another round of private school vouchers for students in Washington, D.C.'s troubled school system. GOP leaders demurred from trying to use the must-do spending bill to "defund" Planned Parenthood. The White House also backed away from language to take away grants from "sanctuary cities" that do not share information about people's immigration status with federal authorities. Democrats praised a $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health  a rejection of the steep cuts proposed by Trump  as well as additional funding to combat opioid abuse, fund Pell Grants for summer school, and additional transit funding. Senate forces, led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and several Appalachia region Democrats, won a provision to extend health care for 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families. Democratic votes will be needed to pass the measure even though Republicans control both the White House and Congress. The minority party has been actively involved in the talks, which appear headed to produce a lowest common denominator measure that won't look too much different than the deal that could have been struck on Obama's watch last year. For instance, the measure contains a $2 billion disaster aid fund, $407 million to combat Western wildfires, and additional grants for transit projects, along with $100 million in emergency funding to fight the nation's opioid crisis. The measure also taps $68 million to reimburse New York City and other local governments for unexpected costs involved in protecting Trump Tower and other properties, a priority of lawmakers such as Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.
By Associated Press

LOS ANGELES: Police shot and killed a 49-year-old man suspected of shooting seven people Sunday at a birthday pool party in an apartment complex near the University of California, San Diego, authorities said.

Police received reports of a man shooting people by the swimming pool at around 6 p.m., Chief Shelley Zimmerman said at a news conference.

Four black women, two black men, and one Hispanic man were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds, Zimmerman said. One of the women later died.

Several victims were in surgery late Sunday and others were still critical late Sunday, Zimmerman said.

One man was taken to the hospital after he broke his arm while fleeing.

"This is truly a horrific act of violence that took place here today," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a news conference. "Our entire city, all of our thoughts and prayers, all San Diegans' thoughts and prayers, are with the victims and their families tonight."

A police helicopter arrived to the scene first and the pilot reported seeing multiple victims and that the suspect, Peter Selis, was still in the pool area and appeared to be reloading.

Three officers on the ground shot the suspect after he pointed a large-caliber hand gun at them, Zimmerman said.

Police believe that Selis lived in the complex but have not discovered a motive.

One of the partygoers is believed to live at the same complex, Zimmerman said.

Police are investigating.

LOS ANGELES: Police shot and killed a 49-year-old man suspected of shooting seven people Sunday at a birthday pool party in an apartment complex near the University of California, San Diego, authorities said. Police received reports of a man shooting people by the swimming pool at around 6 p.m., Chief Shelley Zimmerman said at a news conference. Four black women, two black men, and one Hispanic man were taken to hospitals with gunshot wounds, Zimmerman said. One of the women later died. Several victims were in surgery late Sunday and others were still critical late Sunday, Zimmerman said. One man was taken to the hospital after he broke his arm while fleeing. "This is truly a horrific act of violence that took place here today," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said at a news conference. "Our entire city, all of our thoughts and prayers, all San Diegans' thoughts and prayers, are with the victims and their families tonight." A police helicopter arrived to the scene first and the pilot reported seeing multiple victims and that the suspect, Peter Selis, was still in the pool area and appeared to be reloading. Three officers on the ground shot the suspect after he pointed a large-caliber hand gun at them, Zimmerman said. Police believe that Selis lived in the complex but have not discovered a motive. One of the partygoers is believed to live at the same complex, Zimmerman said. Police are investigating.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army today denied mutilating the bodies of two Indian security personnel, which has evoked a sharp reaction in India.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false," a statement from the Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations wing said.

"Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier," it said.

In a barbaric attack, an army junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a Border Security Force head constable were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan's Border action team (BAT) crossed into the Indian side as the Pakistan Army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.

The incident evoked a sharp reaction in India with Defence Minister Arun Jaitley saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. Government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army today denied mutilating the bodies of two Indian security personnel, which has evoked a sharp reaction in India. "Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false," a statement from the Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations wing said. "Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier," it said. In a barbaric attack, an army junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a Border Security Force head constable were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan's Border action team (BAT) crossed into the Indian side as the Pakistan Army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch. The incident evoked a sharp reaction in India with Defence Minister Arun Jaitley saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces. "Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. Government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.
By AFP

ISTANBUL: Turkish police on Monday used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse protesters seeking to defy a ban and march to Istanbul's Taksim square to celebrate May Day, an AFP journalist reported.

Police tried to stop around 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district on the European side of Istanbul who wanted to walk to the famous square in spite of the ban by city authorities.

The protesters -- made up of left-wing groups -- unfurled anti-government banners against the result of the April 16 referendum, which handed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expanded powers.

"Long Live May Day, No to dictator!" the banners read. At least one protester was detained, according to the AFP journalist.

Turkish authorities imposed a ban on any demonstration at Taksim square, with police sealing off the avenue with barricades and halting traffic.

Police detained two women who attempted to unfurl banners at the square, the private Dogan news agency reported.

At least 13 people who attempted to defy the ban on Taksim were detained, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Members of the group were wearing May Day T-shirts and chanting slogans: "No to Taksim ban."

In the secular Istanbul district of Besiktas, at least 60 protesters were detained, an AFP photographer reported.

30,000 police in charge

Some 30,000 police were on duty in Istanbul alone, with the governor's office urging citizens not to heed calls for protests in non-official areas.

Police checked tourists and citizens passing through Taksim and all streets leading to the square were cordoned off with iron barricades.

Metro lines did not stop at Taksim square, which was a rallying ground for May Day celebrations until 1977, when at least 34 people were killed during demonstrations.

Authorities later opened up the square for celebrations but it was shut down again after it played host to anti-government protests in 2013 targeting Erdogan, then prime minister.

"Our people were massacred on May Day in 1977, workers were massacred," a women protester who gave her name as Sevim told AFP.

"We are going to Taksim square because it is a meaningful place for the working class," she said shortly before the police intervention in Gayrettepe.

This year's May Day celebrations also come after the 'Yes' camp won last month's referendum with 51.41 percent of the vote against 48.59 percent for the 'No' camp.

The opposition have alleged major irregularities but its complaints were thrown out by the election commission and a top court.

Yunus Ozgur, another demonstrator, said he wanted to march to Taksim square to protest "irregularities" during the referendum.

"We are frustrated," he said. "Taksim has a political meaning. They (authorities) are scared of this. Taksim is ours."

In the meantime, several thousand people and unions attended celebrations in an officially sanctioned rally in the Bakirkoy district near the international airport on the city's western side.

ISTANBUL: Turkish police on Monday used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse protesters seeking to defy a ban and march to Istanbul's Taksim square to celebrate May Day, an AFP journalist reported. Police tried to stop around 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district on the European side of Istanbul who wanted to walk to the famous square in spite of the ban by city authorities. The protesters -- made up of left-wing groups -- unfurled anti-government banners against the result of the April 16 referendum, which handed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expanded powers. "Long Live May Day, No to dictator!" the banners read. At least one protester was detained, according to the AFP journalist. Turkish authorities imposed a ban on any demonstration at Taksim square, with police sealing off the avenue with barricades and halting traffic. Police detained two women who attempted to unfurl banners at the square, the private Dogan news agency reported. At least 13 people who attempted to defy the ban on Taksim were detained, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Members of the group were wearing May Day T-shirts and chanting slogans: "No to Taksim ban." In the secular Istanbul district of Besiktas, at least 60 protesters were detained, an AFP photographer reported. 30,000 police in charge Some 30,000 police were on duty in Istanbul alone, with the governor's office urging citizens not to heed calls for protests in non-official areas. Police checked tourists and citizens passing through Taksim and all streets leading to the square were cordoned off with iron barricades. Metro lines did not stop at Taksim square, which was a rallying ground for May Day celebrations until 1977, when at least 34 people were killed during demonstrations. Authorities later opened up the square for celebrations but it was shut down again after it played host to anti-government protests in 2013 targeting Erdogan, then prime minister. "Our people were massacred on May Day in 1977, workers were massacred," a women protester who gave her name as Sevim told AFP. "We are going to Taksim square because it is a meaningful place for the working class," she said shortly before the police intervention in Gayrettepe. This year's May Day celebrations also come after the 'Yes' camp won last month's referendum with 51.41 percent of the vote against 48.59 percent for the 'No' camp. The opposition have alleged major irregularities but its complaints were thrown out by the election commission and a top court. Yunus Ozgur, another demonstrator, said he wanted to march to Taksim square to protest "irregularities" during the referendum. "We are frustrated," he said. "Taksim has a political meaning. They (authorities) are scared of this. Taksim is ours." In the meantime, several thousand people and unions attended celebrations in an officially sanctioned rally in the Bakirkoy district near the international airport on the city's western side.
New CBRC Chairman Guo Shuqing (Photo : Getty Images)

China is restricting financial regulators from taking jobs at banks and financial institutions after leaving their posts, the Business Vancouver reported.



According to China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), officials working in regulatory positions are banned from taking jobs at financial firms within three years after they resign from their posts.



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The report said that the move came as Chinese regulators tightened the regulation following several scandals that rocked the Chinese financial market.



Although the rule is not new, regulators said it was done to "stress and specify" to officials that they cannot take advantage of their positions.



A source said that the commission is contemplating on whether to announce the regulation or simply make it an internal code of practice within the agency.



But despite having rules that restrict senior officials from taking banking jobs or working for financial firms, enforcing the rule has become difficult because of loopholes, the report said.



"For example, a senior CSRC official could find a job in a state-owned fund house because that can be considered as an 'internal job transfer' rather than job hopping, and is thus exempt from the restriction," the source was quoted as saying.



Similar to situations in the U.S., Chinese financial professionals often leave their jobs to work in the private sector, where they receive better salaries.



In 2015, Yang Xiaojun, a former senior CBRC official, moved to Lufax, the country's biggest peer-to-peer lending platform, while Ye Lingfeng, also a former regulator, joined Huaxin Trust in 2016.



More recently, several top regulators became involved in corruption scandals. Xiang Junbo, the former chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), was fired on Monday, April 24, for "serious violation" of Party discipline. Yang Jiacai, the assistant chairman of the CBRC (including family) was under investigation for unexplained money in their accounts.



Last Friday, April 21, Feng Xiaoshu, a former regulator working for the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), was banned for life from working in the sector. He was also fined almost half a billion yuan for trading stocks under the names of his relatives and for earning from it using inside information.


High-accuracy positioning is an important factor for drone technology. (Photo : Getty Images)

Qianxun Spatial Intelligence Inc., a firm that provides location and data analysis services using the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, has announced that it is teaming up with drone maker DJI Innovation Technology Co., China Daily reported.



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The strategic partnership will aid in promoting the application of the BeiDou navigation system to the lucrative drone industry.



Both parties consider BeiDou's "highly accurate positioning service" as a major advantage, especially for their agricultural models (i.e., drones used to spray pesticides).



According to DJI vice-president Cao Nan, "There is still a lot of room for the two sides to cooperate in more fields, including inspection, public safety and mapping."



First established in 2015, Qianxun is a venture jointly created by the China North Industries Group Corp., the country's biggest defense equipment manufacturer, and e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to help develop the BeiDou navigation system.



Qianxun CEO Chen Jinpei shared that the firm will continue advancing the establishment of the BeiDou ground base enhancement network.



The company will also carry on with its mission of providing "commercial high-accuracy location and data analysis service in the fields of automobiles, bike sharing, mobile phones and drones," China Daily said.



On the other hand, DJI, which claims to hold 70 percent of the worldwide consumer market for drones, said that it will focus on making industry-level drones.



In November last year, DJI unveiled the MG-1S, an upgraded agricultural drone armed with advanced radar, sensors and flight control system.



For Pan Xuefei, a senior analyst at International Data Corp., said that industry-level drones have a higher demand for technologies, and in turn, the applications in industries encourage drone manufacturers to improve their technological levels.



Pan further pointed out that drones heavily rely on high-accuracy positioning, citing the broad prospects for their application.


RI Election Day Coverage Recap: Election Results and more

In the Nov. 8 election Rhode Islanders cast their vote for governor, Congressman, and ballot issues. Here's everything you need to know.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 74F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low near 55F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
China considers the giant panda as a national treasure. (Photo : Getty Images)

"Pandavans" or panda-themed caravans are invading the land down under to boost China's tourism and encourage more Australians to visit the Asian country, a report from the Australian Associated Press stated.



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On Thursday last week, a fleet of 10 pandavans, which serve as roaming information booths, left Sydney to circumnavigate Australia for the next 11 weeks. The 30,000-kilometer tour will cover six capital cities and hundreds of regional towns.



Staff manning the said pandavans are handing out panda souvenirs and information about China's tourism assets such as its cuisine, modern cities and ancient landmarks.



For its South Australian stops, the caravan will feature the meet-up of a real koala and two giant pandas.



As Australians love the koala, Chinese also have high regard for the panda.



Speaking at the expedition launch, China National Tourist Office director Luo Weijian said that "the giant panda is a national treasure of China and a great symbol of friendship between [the two] nations."



Luo also lauded the pandavans, saying that the project is "a two-way win."



The images and videos that will be captured during the panda expedition will be aired over mainstream media outlets in China as well as in different social media portals in the country. The broadcast is expected to reach an audience of 100 million.



The panda-themed caravans comprise one of the highlights of the China-Australia Year of Tourism 2017 program.



Annually, over 720,000 Australian tourists visit China. Meanwhile, in the last year alone, around 1.2 million Chinese have gone to visit Australia.



According to Tourism Australia chairman Tony South, wildlife is one of the main reasons why there is a flourishing tourism exchange between the two countries.



"Australians love pandas just as much as Chinese people love koalas," he remarked.



South added that China was "undoubtedly" his country's most vital inbound tourism market for 2016, saying that one in eight of their tourists is Chinese.


Czech automobile firm Skoda is eyeing 25 percent sales growth in India this year on the back of enhanced customer service, two new upcoming models and upgrades of existing offerings. The company's arm Skoda Auto India had reported sales of 13,370 units last year as against 15,457 units in 2015, down 13.5 percent."We have been on a drive to improve our sales and after-sales service for the past few years. Last year's sales were as per expectations but this year we are looking at 25 percent growth," Skoda Auto India Chairman and Managing Director Sudhir Rao toldElaborating on the company's confidence of clocking such a high growth, he said Skoda Auto India has been able to address issues that its customers had faced in the past few years with its concerted effort by interacting with them closely. The company had even reduced its number of dealerships from around 100 in 2013 to 65 at present to align service quality across India with its global standards."Today, we are looking forward to growth and expansion. Already in the first quarter of 2017, we have grown by 8 percent," Rao said.When asked about the company's product launch plans, he said there would be two new models  SUV Kodiaq and premium sedan Octavia RS, which are expected towards the later part of the year."Along with the existing models, we expect these two new models to contribute to our sales growth this year," Rao said. Both the new models will be produced at the company's Aurangabad plant. There will be upgrades of two of its existing models. Skoda sells sedans Rapid, Octavia and Superb in India currently.When asked if the company's erstwhile hatchback Fabia could make a comeback, Rao said: "There is a space for it in the premium hatchback segment in India but we do not have a definite timeline for it".On sales network expansion, Rao said this year the company is looking to scale up again to around 70-75 by the end of the year, up from 67 at present. Rao also said Skoda is taking steps to increase the level of localisation in its models by tapping tier II and III vendors in India.
Apple Inc urged California to toughen up its proposed policy on testing self-driving cars, a move that would result in more public data that could help Apple catch up to rivals in the self-driving space by giving it a better window into their strengths and weaknesses.



In a letter made public, Apple suggested a series of changes to the draft policy that is under development and said it looks forward to working with California and others "so that rapid technology development may be realised while ensuring the safety of the travelling public."



Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent company Alphabet Inc, Ford Motor Co, Uber Technologies Inc, Toyota Motor Corp, Tesla Motors Inc and others also filed comments suggesting changes.



California said it would review comments before deciding whether to make changes to the policy that aims to allow companies to test vehicles without traditional steering wheels and controls or human backup drivers.



The state is at the forefront of a crowded race to develop self-driving vehicles and the proposed changes from automakers and technology companies help provide insight into current efforts.



In its letter, Apple said California should revise how companies report self-driving system "disengagements." California currently requires companies to report how many times the self-driving system was deactivated and control handed back to humans because of a system failure or a situation tied to traffic, weather or road conditions that required human intervention for safety reasons.



But Apple wants those rules to extend to humans stepping in to prevent even minor traffic violations. Apple contends the reporting rules as written leave too much wiggle room for car makers and "caused public confusion and misunderstanding," wrote Steve Kenner, Apple's director of product integrity.



Apple also asked regulators to revisit language around the definition of an autonomous vehicle to clarify that permits are required in advanced systems even when a safety driver is present.



The exact wording around when permits are needed became a sticking point between Uber and state officials last year when the California Department of Motor Vehicles ordered Uber to cease its self-driving tests in San Francisco.



Apple also said the state's rules for development vehicles used only in testing could "restrict both the design and equipment that can be used in test vehicles."



A late entrant to the self-driving race, Apple secured a permit earlier this month to test autonomous vehicles in California. Although it has never openly acknowledged it is looking into building a car, Apple has recruited dozens of auto experts. The company declined to comment.



'STIFLE INNOVATION'



Tesla said California should not bar testing of autonomous vehicles that are 10,000 pounds (4,535 kg) or more, a move that Apple also joined. Tesla said such a move could "stifle innovation," and bar a company from testing a heavy autonomous vehicle that might be used to haul parts on private property rather than on public roads, pushing developers in this sector out of the state.



Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla, in 2016 announced plans for new electric vehicles, including a commercial truck called the Tesla Semi and a public transport bus. The electric vehicle pioneer said earlier this month it plans to unveil a commercial truck in September.



Tesla also said California should not prohibit the sale of non-self-driving vehicles previously used for autonomous vehicle testing. Tesla said that under the proposal if it loads a vehicle with autonomous testing software and then replaces it with conventional production software it could be barred from selling the vehicle.



Uber said California should allow paying members of the public to ride in autonomous vehicles with drivers, saying: "There is no reason to deny those riders an opportunity to travel in an autonomous test vehicle and provide honest feedback."



Lyft Inc, a ride-hailing service rival of Uber, asked the state to remove a requirement that it notify local authorities of autonomous vehicle testing.



Waymo asked California to remove its liability proposal. General Motors Co had said the state's proposed liability rules could make automakers liable regardless of fault for any crash. GM also said that automakers should be allowed to reuse autonomous vehicles and parts after testing or if the vehicle is scrapped.



Volkswagen AG and Daimler AG submitted joint comments seeking changes to the extent of data required to be retained in crashes involving self-driving cars.



A number of automakers have said they plan to begin deploying self-driving vehicles, some in commercial fleets, by 2020-21.
New Delhi: Petrol and diesel prices will be revised on a daily basis from Monday in select towns in sync with international rates.



State-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL), which own more than 95 percent of the nearly 58,000 petrol pumps in the country, will launch a pilot for daily price revision in five select cities from Monday and gradually extend it to other parts of the country.



A pilot for daily revision of petrol and diesel prices will be first implemented in Puducherry, Vizag in Andhra Pradesh, Udaipur in Rajasthan, Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Chandigarh, PTI quoted from IOCs statement.



State fuel retailers currently revise rates on the 1st and 16th of every month based on average international price of fuel in the preceding fortnight and currency exchange rate.



Instead of using fortnightly average, pump rates will reflect daily movement in international oil prices and rupee-US dollar fluctuations, PTI said.



IOC said petrol in Udaipur costs Rs 70.57 a litre and diesel Rs 61.23, while in Jamshedpur petrol costs Rs 69.33 a litre and diesel Rs 60.26.



A litre of petrol costs Rs 67.65 in Chandigarh and diesel is priced at Rs 57.74. In Vizag, petrol costs Rs 72.68 a litre and diesel Rs 62.81. In Puducherry, petrol is priced at Rs 66.02 per litre and diesel Rs 58.68 a litre.



IOC said customers may verify fuel prices by downloading the company app or visiting its website.



Daily price change will remove the big leaps in rates that need to be effected at the end of the fortnight and consumer will be more aligned to market dynamics, PTI reported.



While petrol price was freed from the control of the government in June 2010, diesel rates were deregulated in October 2014.



Technically, oil companies have freedom to revise rates but often they have been guided by political considerations.
Mumbai: Budget carrier SpiceJet is set to launch its first international flight from Thiruvananthapuram this month with a daily service to Male.



With the launch of the new flight from May 10, the capital city of the Maldives will be connected to two destinations in Kerala -- Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, an airline official said.



The new flight will be operated with Bombardier Q400, which has a seating capacity of 78.



The Gurugram-based budget airline operates 342 average daily flights to 46 destinations - 39 domestic and 7 international.



The airline has offered special introductory fares for the Thiruvananthapuram-Male flight, the official added.



SpiceJet had earlier announced the launch of a flight service to Dhaka from Kolkata from May 16.
New Delhi: Taking a cue from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, the Delhi government on Monday ordered a crackdown on unscrupulous petrol pump owners in the city.



It has directed its Weights and Measures department to ensure that the petrol pumps in the city dispense only purchased quantity of fuel to consumers.



The direction was issued by the Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Imran Hussain, in a meeting to review the measures being taken for the prevention of unlawful activities by unscrupulous petrol pump owners.



The recent raids on petrol pumps allegedly cheating consumers by installing remote controlled electronic chips for dispensing lesser quantity of petrol and diesel in UP, has spurred the AAP government to prevent such anti-consumer activity in Delhi, said a senior government official.



He stressed on the need to ensure that consumers obtained accurate and unadulterated quantities of fuel purchased by them.



Hussain directed the department officials to form teams for raids in various parts of Delhi for ensuring that petrol pumps were not using any means to cheat consumers, and take strict action against them.



Secretary and Controller of Weights and Measures (also called Legal Metrology) along with other senior officials of the department were present in the meeting.
Chandigarh: Give a "free hand" to Army to tackle the dangerous situations in the line of duty, Punjab CM Amarinder Singh said on Monday, while strongly condemning the "barbaric attack" by a Pakistani special forces team in which two security personnel were killed and their bodies mutilated.



The sharp reaction from the Punjab Chief Minister came after two Indian security personnel were on Monday beheaded by a Pakistani special forces team that sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector under the cover of heavy mortar fire.



Amarinder Singh, himself an ex-armyman, came out in solidarity with the Indian soldiers, expressing his concern over the increasing vulnerability of soldiers on the borders, PTI reported.



He said that our soldiers are being exposed to all kinds of risks and atrocities, not only at the hands of enemy forces from across the border but sometimes also at the hands of civilians, as happened recently in Kashmir.



Reacting strongly on today's incident in which bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated, he urged the central government to send out a strong signal to the inimical forces against indulging in such atrocities and barbaric acts.



He backed the Indian Army's warning of "appropriate response" for the "despicable act."



Such unprovoked acts of excessive violence cannot be tolerated or allowed to go unpunished, he said, adding that the Indian soldiers were "not a dispensable commodity to be sacrificed at the altar of such uncivilised and savage assaults".



In a similar vein, he also came down heavily on those criticising the Indian Army's action of tying a man to a jeep= to protect its soldiers from the vicious attack unleashed by civilians during the recent elections in Kashmir.



The civilians tried to take the law in their hands, he said, adding that it was the duty of the army officers to protect their jawans.



Coming out in defence of an army officer, in the line of fire from various quarters, including a section of the media, over his 'human shield' action, Amarinder said the officer was simply doing his duty.



The chief minister said, "had I been in the same situation I would have carried out the same action." In a message to his former comrades in army, he said, "Regardless of your rank on retiring don't forget your past and that you belong to one of the finest armies in this world."



"Initiative is part of our training and curtailing it is killing the very essence of regimental soldiering," he further said, adding, "I hope and trust that officer is suitably awarded for his decision and that all of us fully support his action."



(With PTI inputs)
The BAT is specifically employed for trans-LoC action. In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in the form of surreptitious raids.

The Pakistan Army on Monday mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers after launching an attack on a patrol team of the 22 Sikh regiment in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Army has vowed an appropriate response to the despicable act.Army sources told CNN-News18 that the attack was launched at 8:40am on Monday. Heres how it unfolded:- The 22 Sikh Regiment of the Indian Army and BSF jawans were patrolling between two posts- The patrol unit, comprising nine personnel, came under intense mortar firing from across the border- A Border Action Team (BAT) of the Pakistan Army infiltrated 250 metres on the Indian side and attacked the unit- The intruders mutilated the bodies of two Indian jawans- Before the attack, local intelligence had alerted Indian troops to the possibility of mines being laid by Pakistan operatives near the LoC- When a joint team went to check near the forward defence line, the troops came under attackKK Sharma, the Director General of BSF, one of whose personnel was killed in the attack and decapitated, met Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and briefed him on the incident, PTI reported."It was a pre-planned operation by Pakistan army. They had pushed in the Border Action Team (BAT) over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up the ambush for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior officer told PTI in Jammu.There have been several BAT attacks in the past in which jawans have been beheaded or their bodies mutilated.On October 28, 2016, militants attacked a post and killed an Indian army soldier and mutilated his body close to the Line of Control (LoC) in the Machil sector.In January 2013, Lance Naik Hemraj was killed and his body mutilated by BAT. It also beheaded Lance Naik Sudhakar Singh. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF suffered injuries in the attack.In June 2008, a soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by BAT in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.During the 1999 Kargil conflict, Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.In February, 2000, terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian army's 'Ashok Listening Post' in the Nowshera sector and killed seven Indian soldiers. Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.
More young Chinese readers are now reading e-books. (Photo : Gettty Images)

According to the 2017 Reading Report released by Amazon China, one of the country's biggest online booksellers, more Chinese readers are now sharing their experiences on various social media platforms.



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Popular messaging app WeChat, review website Douban, micro-blogging portal Sina Weibo and question-and-answer website Zhihu are some of the platforms where 78 percent of Chinese readers voice out their reading experiences, China Daily wrote citing the Amazon China report.



The report published on April 20 also stated that Chinese readers still show continued interest in reading, with around 56 percent of those surveyed revealing that they have read over 10 books in 2016. This trend has been the same for the past few years.



The article noted that "reading books on electronic devices is a major factor that fuels the behavior of sharing."



Currently, around 71 percent of Chinese born in the 2000s read books on the Amazon-produced e-reading device, Kindle. On the other hand, only 25 percent among those born in the 1950s do the same.



The reading report also showed that Chinese readers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen lead the trend of reading in the English language format.



As of last year, English e-books sales have already increased by a whopping 68 percent. J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series topped the list of the most popular titles among English e-books sold via Amazon China.



In another trend, TV and film adaptations have also fueled Chinese readers to check out the original books. Some of the literary pieces that became bestsellers because of these adaptations include "Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms," "Three Lives Three Worlds" and "In the Name of People."



Television shows have also contributed to the booming Amazon e-book platform. The program Chinese Poetry Competition has reportedly boosted the sales of ancient poem anthologies on the said website by 154 percent.



Amazon China has been releasing its annual reading report since 2014. It comes ahead of the World Book Day, which is celebrated every 23rd of April.


"Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," the army statement added.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

The grave act of provocation fuels the tension between the two countries after the death penalty given to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav on charges of spying and Islamabads constant raking up of the Kashmir issue.

In a barbaric act, the bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated by the Pakistan Army which violated ceasefire along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district and attacked a patrol team near the border on Monday.The Indian Army has vowed an appropriate response to the despicable act.Pakistan army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, a Border Action Team (BAT) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, a statement by the Indian Army said.Pakistan, however, continued to be in denial and affirmed that it can never "disrespect a soldier even Indian"."Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on Line of Control or a BAT action in Buttal sector (Indian Krishna Ghatti Sector)as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies are also false. Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier even Indian," read a statement from Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR).Sources told CNN-News18 he Army received inputs from local intelligence about mines being laid by Pak troops near LoC. The attack was launched at 8:40am on Monday when the 22 Sikh regiment went to check for the mines and was patrolling between two posts. The unit, comprising nine personnel, came under intense mortar firing from across the border and a Border Action Team (BAT) from Pakistan infiltrated 200 metres on the Indian side and carried out the barbaric attackAlso Read: Blow-by-Blow Account: Here's How the Barbaric Attack Unfolded Sources said the Army received inputs from local intelligence about mines being laid by Pak troops near LoC. When a team went to check for the mines, they were attacked by the Pakistan Army.Earlier reports had said that a BSF soldier and a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Indian Army were martyred in firing by Pakistan Rangers. "At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer had said.It serves as a brutal reminder of two such acts in 2016 when the bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated right after Pakistan initiated cross-border firing.Pakistani troops had breached the truce along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times last month. They violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on April 19 and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on April 17.Pakistan had resorted to firing in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.
Srinagar: India lost two soldiers when Pakistan violated ceasefire in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.



A BSF soldier and a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Indian Army were martyred in the firing by Pakistan Rangers.



Pakistani troops fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post of the BSF along the Line of Control.



"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer said.



Another BSF jawan was injured in the firing and troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, the officer said.



Pakistani troops breached the truce along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times last month. They violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on April 19 and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on April 17.



Pakistan had resorted to firing in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.







The latest violation adds to the tension in ties between both countries after the death penalty given to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav on charges of spying and Islamabads constant raking up of the Kashmir issue.



(With Inputs From PTI)
History has been written and rewritten at the national capitals Jantar Mantar because of the agitations that it has played host to. Some of these protests go on for days and weeks.As they fight for a myriad causes, protesters, over the years, have turned to an iconic gurdwara near Jantar Mantar to help them survive these days and weeks.Bangla Sahib, a shrine known for its association with Guru Har Krishan, the eighth Sikh Guru, is always open for the hungry and doesnt discriminate between a pilgrim and a protestor.'In 1986, We served thousands of supporters of the Bharat Jodo movement'Manjit Singh GK, president of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), said both Bangla Sahib and Rakab Ganj Sahib gurdwaras have become the lifeline of protesters owing to their locations in Central Delhi.In 1986, social activist Baba Amte led a Bharat Jodo march all over the country. For two days, thousands of his supporters were camped out at Amar Jawan Jyoti. By the second day, they were running out of food, which is when they turned to us. Even back then, we were equipped to feed all his supporters.He added, Two years later, Mahendra Singh Tikait of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) marched to Delhi with five lakh farmers. By evening, thousands of farmers used to throng both gurdwaras and go back to sleep at night. Some would even sleep in the courtyard. We are always more than willing to help.'We are very proud of the cooks, who managed to hold their own and serve everybody'If there was ever a protest in recent times that brought the national capital to a standstill, it was Anna Hazares India Against Corruption movement that lasted nine months, from April to December 2011. For Bangla Sahib, it was a busy few months. There were protests happening almost every day. Thousands would come to eat just from the protests, in addition to the usual crowd that we get. I am very proud of the cooks that they managed to hold their own and serve everybody who came. Service is above everything else for us, said GK.'Political affiliation ends at the entrance of the gurdwara; Theres no hatred here'Whenever any political party holds a rally, all they have to do is give us a call and we will help them free of cost. From Nitish Kumar to Mayawati, we have worked to feed workers of every leader. Last year, Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken called me to ask for help. He said 4,000 women Congress workers would be marching near Jantar Mantar and he needed to feed them. He said he could only trust me but was hesitant to ask for help. When prodded, he confessed it had to do with the 1984. After all, we all know Congresss role in the riots. I assured him that political affiliation ends at the entrance of the gurdwara. Theres no hatred.'The Gurudwara was godsend for us'During the recent 40-day long protest by the drought-hit farmers from Tamil Nadu, the gurdwara was an unexpected ally. In the first ten days of the protest, we would have died of starvation had it not been for the kind people at Bangla Sahib. When public toilets were getting overcrowded, some of us walked for 15 minutes to the gurdwara and used the toilets there. When there was no food, we would eat at the langar. It was godsend for us. It kept us alive in those days, said 63-year-old S Jayaraman, who has a loan of Rs 8 lakh to repay.'We work ten-hour shifts and feed 8,000 people in a day from this kitchen'Meet 40-year-old Gurbhajan Singh, one of the Langris (cooks) at Bangla Sahib. For ten hours every day, he does not get a spare minute. I have dedicated my life to this gurdwara. We work ten-hour shifts and feed 8,000 people in a day from this kitchen. There are 35 mulazims (employees) here but most of the work is done by volunteers. On Sunday, the number of volunteers can go up to 200.'We have even managed to accommodate 10,000 people at a time'Many protesters are here for days. We have rooms and dormitories on rent for a nominal price but for those who cant even afford to pay Rs 100 a night, we lay out mattresses in the halls. We have even managed to accommodate 10,000 people at a time, said GK.ALSO READ | 1,000-Hour Protest: How Tamil Nadu Farmers Shook Conscience of New Delhi As protesting farmers from Tamil Nadu pointed out, the gurdwara was also their savior, owing to the lack of public toilets. Lahkbir Singh, in-charge of cleaning the toilets said, I head a team of eight people here. We work in shifts of ten hours and I supervise the work. Apart from the toilets, we have a bathing area upstairs. It is for everyone to use.
The bench directed the Director General of Police, West Bengal to constitute a team of police personnel and ensure that Justice Karnan is medically examined on May 4 and a report is submitted by May 8.

Justice CS Karnan termed as ridiculous and unusual an order by a seven-judge special bench of the Supreme Court to medically examine him.Am I mentally unstable? Who is the Supreme Court to judge that I have a mental illness? The seven judges looking at my case are corrupt, he said in a press conference hours after the SC order. If the DGP acts me without my consent, I will pass an order against him. He should stay within limits.... I won't submit to any treatment.Speaking to CNN-News18 later, Karnan said: The seven judges are protecting other corrupt judges who are awaiting promotion. This erroneous order must not be carried out. The DGP should not come to me.In its order, the SC stated that Justice Karnan may not be in a position to defend himself, and also noted that the present conduct of Justice Karnan was extremely contemptuous.Senior Advocate KK Venugopal submitted before the bench that Justice Karnan needed counseling and he was not consciously passing such orders. The latest SC order comes in the backdrop of Justice Karnan debarring the apex court judges from travelling abroad.Venugopal also stated that Justice Karnan was due to retire in June, and hence his case needed to be considered.The seven judges had issued a suo motu contempt order against Justice Karnan in February after he had named 20 corrupt judges and was seeking probe against them to curb high corruption in the Indian judiciary.CJI J S Khehar, Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Chelameshwar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice MB Lokur, Justice PC Ghose and Justice Kurian Joseph were displeased with the constant disregard that Justice Karnan had shown towards an order of the SC and hence passed the bailable warrant against the Calcutta HC Judge.Justice Karnan was stripped off of his judicial and administrative powers. On Monday, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi informed the court that Justice Karnan was referring to the SC judges as accused in the press conferences and his recent orders against the judges.Rohatgi stated that if the court does not pass an order, then there would be a completely unsatisfactory situation.SC also directed that all orders passed by Justice Karnan after February 8, to all courts, commissions or authorities would not be acted upon. The next hearing in the case is on May 18.Recently, after the apex court had issued a bailable warrant against the Calcutta High Court judge to ensure his presence in the Supreme Court, Justice Karnan had not only stayed the order but had also directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate all the seven judges of the SC.Justice Karnan had previously directed the Secretary General of Lok Sabha to place entire facts of the case before the speaker of the Lok Sabha so that inquiry under the Judges Inquiry Act can be initiated.
New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is on a two-day visit to India, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, and the two leaders said that no reason or rationale can validate terrorism and pitched for strong action against those who provide shelter and support to such forces.



The two countries held comprehensive discussions and took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.



Addressing a joint press event with Erdogan, Modi said, "We live in times where our societies face new threats and challenges every day. The context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern."



"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversation with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," he said.



Modi also strongly pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror outfits, PTI reported.



"President (Erdogan) and I agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace," the prime minister added.



On his part, Erdogan said, "His country will always be with India in its battle against terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."



Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.



"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he had told a TV channel in an interview.



The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.



This is Erdogan's first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.



(with inputs from PTI)
New Delhi: Visiting Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue. He also favoured Pakistans entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, along with India, saying New Delhi should have no objection to it.



Erdogan arrived in the national capital on Sunday evening ahead of talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, PTI reported.



"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he told WION news channel in an interview.



The Turkish leader said that it is in the interest of India and Pakistan that they should resolve this issue and not leave it for the future generations. "All around the world, there is no better option than keeping the channel of dialogue open. If we contribute towards global peace, we can get a very positive result," he said.



Erdogan said India and Pakistan were both friends of Turkey and he wanted to help strengthen the dialogue process among the stakeholders for resolving the Kashmir issue.



Replying to questions on the Kurdish problem in Turkey, he said it could not be compared with the Kashmir issue. "We have no problem with the Kurdish people. We have a problem with a terrorist organisation," he said.



"It (the Kurdish problem) is a territorial dispute. In Jammu and Kashmir, the situation is different. Let's not make the mistake of comparing them," he said.



Erdogan will hold wide-ranging talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday on key bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade.



This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.



Apart from his wife Emine Erdogan, the Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.



Ahead of his visit, India had played down proximity between Turkey and Pakistan as well as Ankara's statements on Jammu and Kashmir, saying the government is aware that Turkey has a very close relationship with Pakistan and it is their bilateral matter.



"We have always emphasised that India-Turkey relations stand on their own footing and, we believe, the Turkish side reciprocates our sentiment," Ruchi Ghanashyam, Secretary (West) in the External Affairs Ministry, said, adding that India's position on the state of J&K is very well known that it is an integral part of the country. However, she did not respond when asked if India will raise the issue.



With Turkey being a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the issue of India's membership bid for the elite group is likely to figure during the talks between the two leaders.







Turkey is not directly opposed to India's NSG membership but has been maintaining that the powerful bloc should come out with a system to consider the entry of the countries which are not signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as also supporting Pakistan's case, diplomatic sources told PTI.



(With PTI inputs)
Bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated by the Pakistan army which violated ceasefire along the Line of Control in Poonch district and attacked a patrol team near the border on Monday.A statement by the Indian Army said the Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in Krishna Ghati sector and mutilated the bodies of two soldiers on patrol duty.The Army has vowed to give a befitting reply to Pakistan "in the same language."Here are the past instances when Indian soldiers were mutilated by Pakistani perpetrators:During the 1999 Kargil conflict Captain Saurabh Kalia was tortured by his Pakistani captors who later handed over his mutilated body to India.Pakistani terrorist and al-Qaida member Ilyas Kashmiri had led a raid on the Indian Army's "Ashok Listening Post" in the Nowshera sector to kill seven Indian soldiers. Even then, Kashmiri had taken back to Pakistan the head of a 24-year-old Indian jawan, Bhausaheb Maruti Talekar of the 17 Maratha Light Infantry.A soldier of the 2/8 Gorkha Rifles lost his way and was captured by a Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) in Kel sector. His body was found beheaded after a few days.One soldier was beheaded and another killed by Pakistani troops after they crossed over into Indian territory in the Mendhar sector of Jammu and Kashmir.A soldier was mutilated by a militant in Kupwara's Machil near the Line of Control while the army was engaged in cross-border firing with Pakistan's army.In a cross-LoC attack by suspected Pakistani terrorists, three Indian soldiers were killed, with body of one of them being mutilated.
New Delhi: The larger conspiracy behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi "has to be investigated", the Supreme Court said on Monday and asked the CBI to give a time-frame for completing the detailed probe.



The court was hearing a plea on the matter by A G Perarivalan, one of the convicts whose death sentence was commuted to life term in the assassination case.



He has alleged that neither the CBI's special investigation team, nor the Multi Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) headed by it, had proceeded with the probe in a proper perspective to bring the accused to book, as several top people were involved in it.



"This has to be investigated. May be not at his (petitioner's) instance, but this needs investigation," a bench, comprising Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha, said.



The bench asked the CBI to file a detailed investigation report along with a time-frame within which the probe would be completed. It also directed the agency to indicate the legal hurdles, if any, and the steps taken to overcome these issues.



During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh told the apex court that investigation was going on and it would take some time as some accused were absconding.



He said the matter would require extradition proceedings since some of the absconding accused were out of India. To this, the bench asked "is it the stand of the government that as on today, investigation into these aspects can go on?"



Responding to the query, Singh said "yes" but it would take some time.



He argued that the CBI has already filed a counter affidavit in the matter and that Perarivalan's conviction has been upheld by the apex court, while the probe into several aspects of the case was going on.



"With or without him (Perarivalan), this matter has to be investigated. What benefits he may get out of the investigation will be seen later," the bench said and fixed the matter for hearing on August 16.



"We will have to be satisfied that the time-frame needed by you is justified or not," the bench said.



The apex court had earlier sought the response of the Centre and the CBI on the plea which has alleged that CBI did not probe the conspiracy behind the killing of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 despite an order from a TADA court in Chennai.



The apex court had on Febraury 18, 2014 commuted the death sentence of Perarivalan to life imprisonment, along with two other condemned prisoners -- Santhan and Murugan -- on grounds of a delay of 11 years in deciding their mercy plea by the Centre.



Perarivalan had earlier sought the case dairies pertaining to CBI and MDMA, which had probed the matter. He had also referred to the inquiry report of the Justice Jain Commission that had probed the conspiracy aspect of the assassinaation and which had formed the basis for the TADA court's order for a further probe to identify the role of individuals to uncover the larger conspiracy in the murder.



The convict had alleged that the CBI and the MDMA, which were entrusted with the task to probe the facts, have not done their work properly.



"The grievance of the petitioner is that the designated TADA Court was monitoring the pending investigation on paper only, but without knowing the actual facts of the investigation being conducted by CBI (MDMA) for the last about

17 years.



"The TADA Court merely collected sealed covers cluelessly, that too in-chambers vide in-camera proceedings, from the investigating agency every three months, once without even opening the said covers for so many years," the plea has claimed.



Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated on the night of May 21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu by a suicide bomber at an

election rally.


Srinagar: Terrorists on Monday killed five policemen and two bank officials besides looting a cash van of a bank in Kulgam district of Kashmir, said police.



The cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, which was returning to Kulgam district headquarter from Damhal Hanji Pora, was waylaid by a group of heavily-armed terrorists this afternoon, a police official said.



Five police personnel and two bank employees from the cash van were puled out and shot from at point blank range, said the police official.



The policemen and the bank officials were killed by the terrorists after dragging them out of their vehicle, DIG south Kashmir S P Pani told PTI.



While four policemen and two bank employees -- including a bank security guard -- died on the spot, the fifth policeman succumbed to injuries at a hospital, the police official said.



Among the deceased is an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police.



According to reports, they are alleged to have decamped with five Self Loading Rifles (SLRs).



It is not known if the terrorists ran away with any cash.



Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit claimed responsibility for the attack.



A spokesperson of the Hizb told a local news gathering agency that its cadre had decamped with four weapons from the scene of the attack.



The attack took place on a day when Pakistan, in a barbaric act, mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers and violated ceasefire along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district and attacked a patrol team near the border.
Continental Tires (Photo : Getty Images)

Chinese B2C company JD.com announced that it will be selling Continental tires to e-commerce consumers as it made a strategic deal with the German tire manufacturer.



Advertisement

According to the agreement, Continental will supply tires directly to JD instead of trading through a multi-level resale model.



An exclusive supply chain will also be established by the two cooperating companies. The chain will offer JD consumers more exclusive deals and new products.



The financial details of the agreement have not been made public.



Continental was established in 1871. In 2006, the auto company officially came into the Chinese market, offering tires for passenger cars and light trucks.



Ten years after entering China, the company made further expansion in its Chinese manufacturing base. Continental had more than 50,000 workers across the globe and made EUR 10.7 billion sales by the end of 2016.



With the developments, the company is looking forward to an increase in the production capacity of its passenger cars, reaching 14 million in 2019.



According to Continentals general manager in mainland China Dalibor Kalina, the significance of e-commerce in the automobile market becomes increasingly apparent.



Through the cooperation with JD.com, Continental will have the capacity to provide Chinese consumers with better shopping experiences. Improvements include shorter product delivery time, broader sales network coverage in the country and increased consumers confidence in the products authenticity, Kalina added.



Tang Yishen, JDs general manager for automotive supplies department of home and lifestyle business unit, said that a retail model upgrade that combines the Internet and service awaits the tire category and the rest of the automotive supplies sector.



As one of the leading Chinese e-commerce companies, JD is dedicated to making more possibilities happen for the industry and consumers, Tang said.



JD.com and Continental hope that the cooperation will help them further expand and provide a better service to e-commerce consumers.


From the grand sets to flawless and bigger battle sequences and VFX which has been far better than the first installment, Baahubali 2 has it all. Released amidst great hype and expectations, the film was screened in over 6500 screens across India in 4 languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.While the film continues its winning streak, and its cast continues to be lauded for the acting potential, actor Rana Daggubati makes headlines for a shocking revelation that he made last year in an interview.Daggubati, who has earned huge applause for essaying the role of Bhallala Deva in SS Rajamouli's Baahubali: The Beginning with perfection, is blind in one eye.In a video interview which was uploaded on YouTube in 2016, Daggubati narrates his story which is bound to motivate and encourage many to turn their dreams into reality.While speaking about his childhood, Rana admits that he is blind in his right eye. While speaking to the host and the audience, he also says that his right eye was donated to him. If I close my left eye, I can see no one," he says.LV Prasad operated me when I was young. Study well, we will support, be courageous as you have to look after her. Sorrows will go away one day but you have to gear up and keep them happy always, he further adds.The film Baahubali 2 which has been making headlines for its indelible impact features Prabhas, Anushka Shetty, Tamannaah, Sathyaraj and Ramya Krishnan in key roles.
Taking the fight head on, AAPs MLA Amanatullah Khan, who made unfavourable comments against Kumar Vishwas, resigned from the party.

Amanatullah, in his parting shot, said Vishwas was planted by RSS and BJP.

Stay tuned for live updates:

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News , watch Top Videos and Live TV here.
Gwalior: A senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Gwalior took to Facebook on Monday to express his displeasure after being suspended for an earlier post on corruption in the party.



Raj Chaddha used plenty of literary jibes to target the party organisation on social media.



I have come to know through media about my suspension but I have not received any notice, Chaddha told News18 over phone.



The defiant leader made it clear that the party has reportedly given him a weeks time to furnish a reply but he wont take more than seven minutes to say what he has to.



Alleging that state-run hospitals were in bad shape, Chaddha, in his earlier post, had urged CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan of either mend ways or expel lakhs of dedicated party workers like him from the party fold.



Following this, party state head Nandkumar Singh Chauhan had announced to suspend him over indiscipline and served show cause notice.



I was moved by the plight of a pregnant woman who was denied admission in Gwalior government hospital and delivered twins under a tree, both of whom died, he said talking to News18. No inquiry happened, no minister or senior health officer visited the hospital. In next few days more such incidents took place, he said.



We spent lives to fulfil dreams of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay who talked about welfare of weakest sections of society but no one is taking care of them now, he said.

Chaddha fired more posts targeting his own party on Monday. He had posted similar tweets on April 6, April 13, 14 and 21 as well targeting moral and ethical deterioration within the party.



A seasoned politician, Chaddha is associated to BJP and other affiliate organisations since 1962. He has served the party on various capacities and even contested assembly polls in 1993 but lost.
Kolkata: The standoff between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Bengal witnessed a new low after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was, on Monday, called a hijra (eunuch) by a senior leader of the saffron party.Addressing a party meet in West Midnapore, Shyamapada Mondal, the partys state committee member said, With the current political situation in Bengal, it is difficult for us to understand whether Mamata Banerjee is a man or a woman. I think she is a eunuch.Mamata is doing nothing in the state apart from helping a particular community in the state, he added.When contacted, Shyamapada Mondal refused to make any comment. I am not the partys spokesperson, he said.TMC has demanded the local administration to take concrete action against the leader. BJP is creating an environment of hatred in the state. We must not allow this to happen, said TMC state secretary Partha Chatterjee.The comment has also not gone down well with Mondals colleagues in the party with BJP state secretary Sayantan Basu saying there was no space for such low politics in the party. We dont support such comments made by our party workers, Basu said. The secretary was, however, quick to add that there was nothing that the party could do to abstain one of their own from making such comments.We are finding it difficult to prevent our workers from making such comments because they are angry with the ruling government. Local administration is harassing our supporters and putting them behind bars on false charges. Even our party president Dilip Ghosh was harassed by Mamatas police, he said.
Kolkata: West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Monday said there was a high possibility of early state Assembly polls, along with the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.



Speaking at the state committee meeting in Bardhaman district, Ghosh said, Under the TMC rule, the law and order situation in the state is a matter of concern for all of us. I think that the state is moving towards early state Assembly polls. These could be held along with the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.



Soon after Ghoshs statement, Trinamool Congress (TMC) said there was no question of an early election. The people of Bengal voted for Mamata Banerjee for five years, and we will be in power for five years. Ghoshs statement makes no sense. I suggest BJP let the election commission deal with the elections dates, said TMC secretary general Partha Chatterjee, adding that the law and order situation in the state was far better than that in BJP-ruled states.
Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday stoked a controversy by alleging that the Telangana Police were encouraging Muslim youths to join ISIS.Telangana Police have set up a bogus ISIS site, which is encouraging Muslim youth and encouraging them to become ISIS modules, Singh tweeted.Singh said based on the Telangana Polices information the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested the accused in the train blast in Shajapur district, MP. He also alleged that this resulted in the Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day.The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information? Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ? he tweeted.The Congress leader also went on to say that if Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao hasnt ordered it then an inquiry must be conducted to punish those responsible.Reacting to Singhs statements, Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma tweeted, Unfounded allegations from a senior responsible leader will lower the morale and image of police engaged in fighting anti-national force?TRS MP Jithender Reddy told CNN-News18 that Singh must apologise for his comments. Digvijaya Singh has lost his senses. He should apologise to the country. He is frustrated, he should be admitted to a hospital. We will take legal action against him, Reddy said.On Saturday, the Congress had replaced Singh as general secretary in-charge of poll-bound Karnataka as well as Goa, where the party failed to form government despite emerging as the largest single party.
Sources had told CNN-News18 that Vishwas wanted Khan to be thrown out of Political Affairs Committee (PAC). Vishwas reportedly told the party that he would attend the PAC meeting only after Khan was removed from the PAC.

Reacting to reports of infighting in the AAP after party's poor show in the MCD polls, BJP leader Vijender Gupta said the Aam Aadmi Party started on a high pitch, but now they are turning into a lean party.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Amanatullah Khan resigned from the party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC) on Monday evening.This came after at least 37 MLAs of the party wrote to Delhi chief minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal against Khan for accusing party leader Kumar Vishwas of working at the behest of the BJP.Khan told the media that he had quit the post voluntarily while maintaining that Vishwas was planted in AAP by RSS and BJP.After the PAC meeting, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia addressed the media and said, Kejriwal is upset that MLAs are making statements in media. Those who have a problem should come to me and Kejriwal, not speak in media."Such statements to the media only discourages party workers," he added.Earlier, Senior AAP leaders demanded Okhla MLA Khan's expulsion from the party over his 'anti-party' remarks.Delhi Ministers Kapil Mishra, Imran Hussain, Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri are among the signatories to the letter, demanding Khan's expulsion, a party source said.Ahead of PAC meet, Kejriwal had met Sisodia at the latter's residence.Khan had alleged that Vishwas was meeting party ministers and lawmakers at his home in a takeover bid on Sunday. If the takeover failed, he was going to join the BJP with a number of AAP legislators, Khan alleged.The allegations got a strong response from Kejriwal who tweeted Vishwas was like a "brother" to him and the people trying to drive a wedge between them were "enemies of the party".On Friday, contrary to the party line that EVM rigging was behind AAP's loss in the Punjab Assembly and MCD polls, Vishwas had pointed to reasons other than alleged tampering of electronic voting machines and said there is a communication gap between the top brass and volunteers."The Aam Aadmi Party has become corrupt. Kumar Vishwas is not an important issue for BJP," Vijender Gupta said while taking a dig at the AAP.Gupta further added, "Amanatullahs statement makes it clear that all is not well within the party. On the outside they are supporting Kumar Vishwas but on the inside they are at war with each other."
Rampur: Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Monday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying Muslims are being troubled in the country and warned the PM to be ready to face the consequences if the community approached the UN.



"Muslims are being harassed in India and if the community approached the United Nations and narrated their ordeal, then Modi will not be able to show his face anywhere. Stop it, otherwise be ready to face the consequences," said Khan, as quoted by PTI.



"Muslims follow the holy Quran and will continue to obey it till their last breath, whereas the prime minister is neither aware of Islam nor Hinduism," Khan said.



Targeting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, he said there is a big difference between his statements and actions.



Khan said the chief minister talks about acting against illegal land possession and encroachments but he has not acted against a minister in his government who has carried out "unauthorised construction" worth crores of rupees of his house.



(With PTI inputs)
The CM acknowledged that the anti-Romeo squads invited criticism, too, but they were also supported by people in large numbers.

"Even the Supreme Court had ordered the same, but the erstwhile SP government didn't act," he said, adding that the police officials were scared of being attacked with knives.

"Government will take tough action against anybody who tries to play with law and order in the state," he said.

: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath ruffled some feathers on Monday when he claimed that everybody in his Cabinet was a vegetarian and asked: "Are we weaker than those who are non-vegetarians?"Addressing the BJP state executive meeting, the CM said that the constitution of anti-Romeo squads was the biggest achievement of his government."During the run-up to elections, wherever we went our daughters complained that they were eve-teased when they stepped out of their school," he said, adding that safety of women was on his radar from the very beginning.The Yogi Adityanath government, ever since it came to power, has clamped down on illegal slaughterhouses. Adityanath said that the NGT had ordered shutting down illegal slaughterhouses in the state.Amidst applause from the BJP workers, Yogi Adityanath claimed, "I assured officers to go and implement the NGT's orders and seal the illegal slaughter houses. No one will dare stab them now."UP CM's comments came days after the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High court pulled up the government over its action against slaughterhouses in the name of "illegality".Appreciating the effort of his government, the four-time member of Parliament from the Gorakhpur constituency, said that his government was determined towards its goal of ending "Mafia Raj".The chief minister also added that his government will come out with concrete results within hundred days of its formation. On Navratri celebrations, Yogi asserted this was the first time that electricity and other facilities were provided during the celebrations."We are not in favour of any particular religion, but every festival or celebration should be equally facilitated," the CM said.The CM also apprised the audience of his government's new excise policy as per which the liquor shops will not be permitted along the highways, near educational institutions, religious places and in densely populated areas.
Sushil Kumar Modi, for long, has been Lalu Prasad Yadavs arch-enemy. The petitioner in the fodder scam cases, Modis move had led to the former Bihar chief ministers conviction, making him the first MP to be disqualified in 2013.



In a candid conversation with News18s Marya Shakil, Modi talks about his latest expose on Lalu Yadav, while saying that he will let Nitish Kumar decide on the future course of Bihar politics. Edited excerpts:



Marya Shakil(MS): Your latest allegation is that Kanti Singh gifted a plot of land and a 3-storey building in Patna to Lalu Yadavs sons in 2005 and to Rabri Devi in 2006 for a ministerial berth. Do you think all these gifts were given as quid pro quo?





Sushil Modi(SM): Kanti Singh, Raghunath Jha and Prem Chand Gupta gave their properties to Lalu Yadavs sons, and not their own children. Why would someone do that? Four big companies were handed over to Lalus family. Prem Chand Guptas Delight Marketing Company, Om Prakash Katyals AK Info system Pvt Ltd, Ashok Kumar Bantiyas AB Exports Pvt Ltd and Fair Grow Holding Pvt Ltd. These four companies did no business in the last decade; had no turnover and no employees. But they had land holdings worth crores of rupees. Slowly, the original promoters of these companies made an exit and both daughters of Lalu became directors and Rabri and Tejasvi got 100% shareholding.



MS: Rashtriya Janata Dal says these are baseless allegations and most of these transactions have been declared by Lalu and his sons in their election affidavits. What do these charges deal with  legality or morality?

SM: It is not only about morality. The same OP Katyal, who built a beer factory in Patna, is a liquor baron of Delhi, who lets Lalu have a house worth Rs 50 crore on his land. Why Prem Chand Gupta was made sansad for 5 years? And why did Lalu Yadav, as railway minister, gave railway property to Harsh Kochar? The same property, 2-acre land near Patna, was transferred to Prem Chand Guptas Delight Marketing. Ultimately, Delight Marketing converted into Lalu Rabdi Distributors Pvt Ltd. And now, Rabri Devi holds 85% share in that company while Tejaswi has the remaining 15%.



MS: Are you saying that these properties werent declared in the election affidavits of the Lalu Yadav family?

SM: Have they declared the Rs 750 crore mall that is coming up on Delight Marketings 2-acre land? The mall will be the biggest in Bihar, and is being constructed illegally without permission from authorities. There is a four-storey building on a land under AB Export. Is there any declaration of that? Or of the petrol pump that they have constructed on AK Infosystem Pvt Ltds land. Tejpratap Yadav purchased a 54-decimal land in Aurangabad for Rs 40-45 lakh, which houses a 3-storey showroom. The land is registered under his name but is not shown in any of their affidavits. They dont have the guts to reply to such allegations.



MS: What is the point of raking up an issue which dates back to the UPA-I era in 2005? Most of your allegations deal with Lalus tenure as railways minister. Will you be demanding a probe by CBI or any other independent agency?

SM: These companies were taken over after 2013-14. Earlier, they were with Lalu Prasads friends but his family took over these four companies. This has to be investigated by Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax Department, and the CBI. I have more than a dozen documents relating to land deals in Bihar and outside. These are all shell companies with the land, thus purchased being transferred to Lalus family. This was one of the prime reasons why he was opposing demonetization. He was the only politician from Bihar opposing it.



MS: Since you are talking about probing the matter, will you come to the rescue of your old ally Nitish Kumar if he breaks his alliance with Lalu Yadav?

SM: Today, this is a hypothetical question. But when the time comes, he will decide what he wants to do. Nitish Kumar has kept mum for the past 24 days. Most of these charges were raised earlier also by Nitishs party members, Lalan Singh (Rajiv Ranjan Singh) and Shivanand Tiwari.



MS: Nitish Kumar may pose a challenge to PM Modi ahead of 2019. Some say making his ally Lalu look weak is aimed at tarnishing Nitishs image. Is that true?

SM: Had they not committed such a big scam, we would not have been able to expose them. Lalu has already been convicted in the fodder scam, but is yet to mend his ways. His sons are following his footsteps. So, as the major opposition party in Bihar, it is our duty to bring forth any misdeeds that are being committed by the government.



MS: Will you back Nitish if he cuts alliance with Lalu?

SM: Nitish cant be comfortable with Lalu Prasad Yadav, he never was. But we will let him decide what he wants to do, and then decide our course of action.
Pacific Oysters (Photo : Getty Images)

A paradise--thats how Chinese food lovers see Limfjord, Denmark, with oysters in its beaches.



On Monday, the Royal Danish Embassy in Beijing posted on Weibo, the Chinese counterpart of Twitter, about the invasion of Pacific oysters that post a threat to the regions coastal ecosystem.



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The story of the oyster invasion quickly went viral on Chinese social media. According to the Danish embassys official Facebook page, the post has 6.5 million views and 40,000 people have shared or commented.



Chinese netizens mostly commented offers to come and help clear the oyster-filled Danish coasts, while some suggested that the oysters be shipped to China where they will be immediately sold. The unwanted Pacific oysters are regarded as a famous Chinese delicacy.



Beijing Youth Daily reported of a Chinese netizen who inquired of the Danish embassy if they will give free oyster-picking trips to the country.



Although the response was negative, the embassy is hoping that more Chinese tourists will come to Denmark after learning about the oyster invasion.



The story went viral at a perfect time as Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen is scheduled to visit China from May 2 to 4. In addition, the current year has been designated as official China-Denmark Tourism Year.



Even though the oyster invasion seems to be of advantage for Danish tourism, there is a small probability that the Pacific oyster will renounce its new-found territory to the native European flat oyster, Peter Blanner, a marine biologist from World Wildlife Fund, told Danish newspaper Politiken.



We can encourage everybody to go out and harvest all the oysters they possibly can, but it would just be a symbolic action that wouldnt make any big difference, he said.



Denmark hopes that the news of oysters in beach will help Chinese food lovers choose the country to be their next travel destination.


New Delhi: Socialist leader Madhu Limaye was anti-RSSism personified. He was baptized into politics on his sixteenth birthday, on May Day.



It happened when he, as a student of Pune's prestigious Ferguson College, was participating in a Labour Day march in the city and clashes broke out with RSS volunteers.



Many years later, Limaye, along with Raj Narain and Krishna Kant would rake up the dual-membership' of Jan Sangh leaders in the Janata Party regime. This finally brought down the curtains on the first non-Congress government at the Centre.



More than three decades later, as the BJP and its ideological fount- the RSS- has galloped ahead to dominate the political space- both ideological and electoral.



This May Day, Limaye has been brought back by the opposition to test waters seeking unity of progressive forces on Monday.



At the Constitution Club of India, on Limayes 95th birth anniversary, they all gathered to pay homage to the veteran Samajwadi. Remnants of the Janata Parivar which are currently on this side of the political divide, with the others part of BJP and partners in power. The Left leadership represented by JD(U)s Sharad Yadav, RLD President Ajit Singh and DP Tripathi of the NCP shared the dais. BSP leader Sudheendra Bhadoria was also present somewhere in the audience.



Veteran Historian and Aligarh Muslim University alumnus Professor Irfan Habib said Hindu Mahasabha, RSS and Muslim League were never part of the freedom movement.



Putting the current political situation in perspective, he urged the participants to work towards a larger opposition unity.



Socialists and their inveterate opposition to Congress led to a situation where right-wingers framed our Constitution, for the Socialists refused to be part of the Constituent Assembly, he added. Very subtly, he told those on the dais that there is little choice before them.



In the last two months-especially after UP polls, efforts are on to cobble together a larger opposition alliance to take on the BJP. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has already held a round talks with Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and NCP chief Sharad Pawar. She has also met CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury.



Grand alliance is a grand idea. But it takes a lot more to bring together a motley group of disparate political outfits. Especially when parties compete for the same constituency. For instance, how will Left and Trinamool Congress reconcile to each other's position in West Bengal where they are fierce adversaries.



In the adjoining Orissa, can Congress and BJD join hands to leave the entire opposition space to the BJP?



The upcoming Presidential Polls, Yechury felt, would be the first ginger step, an acid test of the opposition unity.



As the proceedings came to a close, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh sounded a note of caution as he sought participants to first define the terms of mobilisation against the present regime. Fight, he said, should be based on ideology and not personality, not an Us versus Modi battle.



This was the issue Bihar CM Nitish Kumar broached with Congress President Sonia Gandhi when the two leaders met last month as well. Opposition need not react to everything that BJP and PM say and do. We must have our own agenda, he said.



Almost six decades ago, Limaye along with many others fought in the Goa independence movement. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison for a public cause. Even at the peak of Nehru's popularity, socialist brigade built its own agenda, its own narrative.



These are different times. But fundamentals of power politics do not change. Its about credulity and hope.
Smartron is an Indian IoT company that made a promising t.phone in 2016. The smartphone was a little on the expensive side but had a lot of promise. In 2017, they are all set to launch a budget Android smartphone on May 3.This phone is known as the srt.phone, that's short for Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Expect a lot of nostalgia with this smartphone. It's the first phone that is designed, engineered and made in India. Smartron is not a Shenzhen shopper company like many Indian brands,. It's, in fact, a company that promises to be at the forefront of Indian technology innovation.The srt.phone is expected to be even priced competitively and under Rs 15,000. Our best guess is that it will be priced at Rs 12,999. The srt.phone will also be a Jio certified smartphone and is expected to have the least SAR value among all the phones in this price point.The srt.phone is expected to sport a 5.5-inch full HD display and a 3000 mAh battery with Quickcharge 2.0. The device is also expected to be powered by a tried and tested Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC. The company might just also throw in replaceable back cover for this phone. Expect Sachin Tendulkar's signature for sure on these covers.The device will run on the latest Android 7.0 operating system and is expected to have a 13-megapixel primary camera and a 5-megapixel front facing camera. The device is also expected to be launched in two storage variants of 32 GB and 64 GB.The specs of this device sure look promising and at par with sub-Rs 15K devices that are selling in India from companies like Motorola, Honor and Xiaomi.Watch this space for the review of the srt.phone by Smartron.
The world's first museum dedicated to China's Tiananmen Square crackdown will once again open its doors in Hong Kong after a months-long closure as the city prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of its handover to Beijing.



The June 4th Museum closed its doors last July after organisers said they were being targeted for political reasons in the semi-autonomous city where concerns are growing that Beijing is tightening its grip.



Tenants in the commercial building which housed the museum from 2014 said the museum breached regulations that said the premises could only be used for offices.



The museum, now housed at a new temporary venue, will open to the public at a time when Hong Kong is revving up the fanfare for the 20th anniversary of its handover to China by Britain, with expectations of a high-profile visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping.



Organiser Lee Cheuk-yan said this was an especially important time to reopen the museum.



"It's very important that this museum will be here to tell him (Xi) in his face that people in Hong Kong have not forgotten what had happened 28 years ago when the Communist Party decided to open fire and send in tanks against the people's aspiration for freedom," Lee said.



Chinese authorities branded the pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" and many on the mainland remain unaware of the crackdown.



The cramped 100 square-metre (1,100 square-foot) space will be displaying newspaper clippings, large photographs and videos of tanks rolling down the streets of Beijing during the crackdown.



The exhibit, which also displays a two-metre tall statue of the Goddess of Democracy, opens from April 30 to June 15 in the city's Shek Kip Mei residential region.



"It's very much meaningful because... it counteracts against the brainwashing by the Communist party," Lee said of the museum, which is still searching for a permanent home.



"They have the money and resources to really try to use excuses to suppress our museum, but I think we will fight on, and I think with the support of people in Hong Kong we can fight," he said.



The Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, which runs the museum, is raising funds and hopes to find a permanent location for the displays within the next two years.



Residents told AFP it was important for Hong Kong to host the museum.



"Hong Kong is the only place in China that can act as a platform for people to comprehend this part of history," said social worker Regan Suen, 33.



Beijing has never given an official death toll for the Tiananmen crackdown, which was condemned worldwide, but independent observers tallied more than 1,000 dead.



Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland, enshrined in a deal made before Britain handed it back to China in 1997. But there are growing fears those freedoms are being eroded.
Riyadh: German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday without wearing a headscarf. She is in the country for talks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.



Women in the kingdom are supposed to adhere to a strict dress code in public, including full-length robes and covering the hair with cloth.



Merkel was greeted by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other officials upon her arrival at Jeddah on Sunday, IANS reported.



The 62-year-old like other female Western visitors did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom.



British Prime Minister Theresa May also avoided the strict dress code for women when she visited the country. May had said that she hoped to be an inspiration to oppressed women in Saudi Arabia.



Merkel followed the footsteps of May, Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama.



Merkel has called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".



"It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."



The German parliament last week voted for a draft law banning women working in the civil service, judiciary and military from wearing full-face veils.



Burqas and niqabs will be prohibited in select professions as part of the legislation, once approved by the Bundesrat state parliament.



The German leader is expected to press Gulf leaders to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries.



(With IANS inputs)
"...like the one-sided Paris climate accord. Where the US pays billions of dollars (for the Paris Climate Accord) while China, Russia, and India have contributed (to pollution) and will contribute nothing," Trump alleged as the audience booed to the Paris Agreement.



US President Donald Trump has said India, Russia and China are contributing nothing to the one-sided Paris climate deal and promised to make a "big decision" on the agreement. He said the US was being unfairly targeted by asking to pay money."I will be making a big decision on the Paris accord over the next two weeks and we will see what happens," he said in a speech to mark the first 100 days of his presidency in Pennsylvania, a state that helped tip the election in his favour.The Paris climate deal within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 2015 by 194 countries and ratified by 143. It aims to hold the increase in average global temperature to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial level by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.PTI reported that Trump claimed that it is estimated that for compliance with the agreement could ultimately shrink America's GDP by $2.5 trillion over a 10-year period."That means factories and plants closing all over our country," he said and alleged that the Washingtons dishonest media would not report because it is part of the problem. "Their priorities are not my priorities, and they are not your priorities, believe me," he said."They are all part of a broken system that has profited from this global theft and plunder of American wealth at the expense of the American worker. We are not going to let other countries take advantage of us anymore because, from now on, it is going to be America first," Trump said.(With PTI inputs)
London: Iranians should not thank Hassan Rouhani's policy of detente with the West for any reduction in the threat of war, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday, stepping up his criticisms of the president as elections approach.



In comments that appeared to favour hardline candidates in the May 19 vote, Khamenei played down the benefits of Rouhani's landmark agreement to curb Iran's nuclear activities in return for a lifting of international sanctions.



"Some say since they took office the shadow of war has been faded away. This is not correct," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state media.



"It's been people's presence in the political scene that has removed the shadow of war from the country."



Khamenei and his hardline supporters have also criticised the nuclear deal -- which stiffled talk by Washington of possible military action against Iran -- for failing to deliver promised economic benefits.



But speaking at the opening of a refinery that Iran says will make it self-sufficient in oil products, Rouhani defended his position.



"The nuclear deal was a national achievement. We should make use of its advantages. But some have started a fight over it," Rouhani said. He cited the new refinery, in the Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas, as a result of the deal and "interaction with the world".



One of Rouhani's main challengers, Ebrahim Raisi, an influential cleric with decades of experience in the hardline judiciary, said Iran had no need of foreign help to improve the economy and could always defend itself.



"We should not warn our people of wars and crises. We have full security in the country," Raisi said in a recorded address on state television.



"This approach, that we should wait for foreign investment and for foreigners to resolve our issues, is wrong.



"This is wrong, to wait years and years for foreign investors to come ... We should resolve issues by relying on domestic capabilities," Raisi said in comments that echoed those previously made by Khamenei, Iran's highest authority.



Rouhani has said Iran needs foreign capital to modernize its oil and gas, transportation and telecommunication sectors after decades of international isolation.



However, foreign investors are still cautious about trading with or investing in Iran, fearing penalties from remaining unilateral US sanctions and President Donald Trump's tough rhetoric on the Islamic Republic.



This has caused long delays in contracts that Iran seeks with international firms to develop its oil and gas fields.
Berlin: Germany's defence minister on Monday vowed zero tolerance for far-right extremists in the military amid a widening scandal over a soldier who allegedly plotted an attack which he planned to blame on refugees.



"We can tolerate many things, but not political extremism, right-wing or religiously motivated extremism," the minister, Ursula von der Leyen, told public broadcaster ZDF.



She was reacting to the strange case of a 28-year-old army lieutenant, named by German media as Franco A, who led what prosecutors called a "double life" pretending to be a Syrian refugee.



He was arrested on last Wednesday on suspicion of planning a gun attack which he meant to blame on his alter-ego -- a fictitious Damascus fruit seller.



The scandal widened after news magazine Der Spiegel reported the suspect had expressed far-right views in a 2014 academic paper, but that no disciplinary action was taken against him.



The military intelligence service is currently investigating around 280 cases of suspected far-right sympathisers in the German armed forces, the report said. Von der Leyen pointed to leadership failures within the Bundeswehr and criticised "a misunderstood esprit de corps" that had led superior officers to "look the other way" in the lieutenant's case.



She and Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, in charge of immigration and refugee issues, have vowed to clear up the embarrassing case, which has led one Social Democrat member to label them a "security risk" for Germany.



The lieutenant was first temporarily detained in February, by Austrian police at Vienna airport, after he tried to retrieve a loaded, unregistered handgun he had hidden in a toilet there days earlier.



This sparked an investigation in which a fingerprint check threw up an even bigger surprise: the suspect had in December 2015 created a false identity as a Syrian refugee.



The soldier, who has an Italian father and German mother, had pretended to be a Damascus fruit seller named "David Benjamin" -- ostensibly a Catholic with Jewish roots who had fled the Islamic State militant group.



He had registered himself at a German refugee shelter and even launched a request for political asylum, said the prosecution statement. Incredibly, the request was accepted,

even though the soldier speaks no Arabic.



He was allotted a place in the refugee home and from January 2016 onward, received 400 euros (USD 435) a month in state assistance under this false identity.



The Bild daily has now reported that police found a "death list" compiled by the suspect, including left-wing anti-fascist activists.



Police on last Wednesday also arrested a second German man, a 24-year-old student and alleged co-conspirator named by media as Mathias F, who was reportedly in possession of bullets, flares and other objects that breach weapons laws. Germany has taken in more than one million asylum-seekers

since 2015, many from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, sparking an anti-foreigner backlash and a spate of racist hate crimes.
The offer came during a phone conversation on Sunday night, part of a flurry of calls Trump made to Southeast Asian leaders over the weekend trying to shore up regional support over the troubled Korean peninsula.

But the generals who now run Thailand -- a former staunch US ally that has moved closer to Beijing since the coup -- know they are now less likely to be berated for their dismal rights record under Trump, who has had much fewer qualms about embracing autocrats.

The Thai junta statement was light on specifics but said Trump "had confidence in the Thai government" and that the two countries were ready to "enhance bilateral cooperation in all dimensions".

Thailand's junta chief has accepted an invitation to visit the White House from President Donald Trump, his spokesman said Monday, the latest autocrat to be embraced by the US leader.On Sunday he extended a White House invitation to Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, whose brutal anti-drugs campaign has claimed thousands of lives and led to warnings from rights groups about possible crimes against humanity."The Prime Minister thanked and accepted President Trump's invitation to visit the United States," junta spokesman Major General Werachon Sukhonhapatipak said in a statement, adding that the offer to visit had been reciprocated by Bangkok.Thailand's former army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha seized power three years ago, anointing himself prime minister and ushering in the kingdom's most autocratic government in a generation.The coup strained ties with the Barack Obama administration as the military jailed dissidents, banned protests and ramped up prosecutions under the kingdom's draconian lese majeste law.He also recently called Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a controversial referendum that will dramatically increase his powers.And Trump's rhetoric towards China, a popular punching bag during the campaign, has noticeably softened since his meeting with President Xi Jinping in Florida last month.Many Southeast Asian nations have looked to the Trump administration with some trepidation.He has shown little appetite for his predecessor's Asia "pivot" and he swiftly scrapped the TPP trade deal after taking office.Trump is due to visit two regional summits -- in Vietnam and the Philippines -- towards the end of the year.Like Trump, the arch-royalist general Prayut enjoys berating the media and speaking off the cuff at length, including during weekly "Bringing Happiness Back to Thailand" speeches that are broadcast on all channels.
Philippines: Protesters carry a mock coffin to protest the continuing killings under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drug as they march towards the Presidential Palace to mark May Day celebrations in Manila, Philippines, Monday, May 1, 2017. As in the past years, workers mark Labor Day with calls for higher wages and an end to the so-called Endo" or contractualisation. (Image: AP)
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.
German tourists were top of the list of visitors to Egypt during the first three months of the year

The number of tourists visiting Egypt during the first quarter of 2017 rose by 51 percent compared to the same period last year, an official source at the tourism ministry told Ahram Online late on Sunday.

Egypt received around one million tourists during the period from January to March last year, according to data from the state's statistics body CAPMAS.

Germany topped the list of visiting tourists, followed by Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, China and the United Kingdom during the three first months of 2017, said the source, who gave no figures and asked to remain anonymous.

There was also a significant rise in the number of Japanese tourists compared with the same January-March period of 2016, according to the ministerial source.

Egypt aims to attract 12 million tourists by the end of 2017 through a plan that includes increasing the international presence of national carrier EgyptAir, tourism minister Yehia Rashed said in an interview with Reuters last year.

Egypt's tourism industry has been suffering since a Russian passenger jet crashed in Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board, most of them holidaymakers.

Since the deadly incident, Russia has suspended flights to Egypt, seeking tighter security measures at all Egyptian airports.

Egypt's tourism revenues dropped to $3.4 billion in 2016, a 44.3 percent decline from the previous year, the Central Bank of Egypt said in January. The figure is a far cry from the $11 billion in revenues generated by the sector in 2010, when 14.7 million tourists visited the country.



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Law Assn silent on calls for CJs head

LATT president, Douglas Mendes SC yesterday told Newsday that the association has not met on the issue.

Calls have been made for Archie to resign as chief justice and as chairman of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.

Asked if the association was planning to meet to discuss the issue, Mendes said, The law association meets on Tuesday and the item is not on the agenda. Asked if members have expressed their positions on the issue to the association, he said, No, not that I am aware of. On the issue, former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday said, many people have raised the matter which, probably, requires an investigation. He said, I would not like to condemn anybody without having sound evidence against them. Meanwhile, former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj said he did not want to comment on the issue at the time as he was aware that some members of the legal fraternity were looking at the matter with the aim of making some recommendations.

The calls for Archies resignation followed last weeks shock resignation of Ayers-Caesar and the latest questions to emerge surrounding the appointment of former senior magistrate Avason Quinlan as a judge.
Schools SEA ready, Garcia assures

In a telephone interview yesterday, Garcia said all the supervisors have been trained, testers have been given their assignments through training, and everything is in place to ensure that there are no hiccups.

I want to make the point that our objective is to achieve the success that we had last year where there was not a single cause for concern during the SE A examination. We are working toward repeating that success, he said.

Garcia also noted that the Chief Education Officer together with the Director of School Supervision, and Curriculum officers have been visiting schools to ensure that the physical infrastructure is adequate for the students comfort.

The minister also assured that work is being done at the Cunupia Government Primary School where there was an electrical fire in one of the air-conditioning units recently.

The electrical inspectorate has been on board...Our experts from the ministry of Education and EFCL they have also been on board, and I have been assured that everything is okay for the children to write the exam on Thursday at the school. President of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) Lindsay Doodhai said the association has been told that all schools are ready for the SE A examination.

Meanwhile, the TT Electricity Commission (TTEC) has also activated a hotline service to ensure that there are no interruptions to the electricity service at Secondary Entrance Examination Centres on the day of the examination.

A statement from TTEC saod from 3 pm on Wednesday to 3 pm on exam day, principals and supervisors can call or text the T and TEC hotline at 794-4823 or 794-7264 to report any disruption in their electricity service or any electrical safety concerns.
Dumas: Judiciarys mess signals a decline in governance

This is the view of retired head of the Public Service Reginald Dumas as he weighed on the controversy.

Dumas said yesterday based on information that has come to light in recent days it appears that both Ayers-Caesar and Chief Justice Ivor Archie should take responsibility for the situation.

I find the whole thing very unfortunate, he said. Mrs Ayers-Caesar is quoted as saying that she should have told the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) that she had matters outstanding and the Chief Justice has chastised her by saying that she did not manage her transition from the Magistracy to the High Court well.

It looks as though she is taking the blame, he said.

My feeling is that there are faults on both sides.

First if I am interviewing somebody for a job I am going to try and make sure that I have as much information as possible in front of me so that I can question the person particularly to what was at stake.

I would want to see not only whether she had matters outstanding, I would certainly like to know about the matters that she has disposed of already, the judgements that she have given to see whether they have held up or whether they were challenged in the High Court or anywhere else, which means I will have all this detailed information in front of me before I prepare to meet with her. Dumas said the fact that both Ayers- Caesar and the CJ have said that she did not tell the Commission about these matters and was at fault is not good enough. All of this should have been in a file in front of each member of the JLSC so that they could have seen clearly what her record was, not merely whether there were cases left outstanding or not. Dumas said in his mind Ayers- Caesar has damaged her reputation and credibility.

Because a lot of people appearing before Mrs Ayers- Caesar will wonder whether they are going to get justice or not.

It is not that she is not capable of dispensing justice but they will say, If this lady behaviour is so and she did not care about justice for people whose matters are still part-heard, who have been in many cases in jail for several years, why should she care about me? he said.
Local actor drowns

According to reports, Bengochea, 36, a body builder and the 2015 National Junior Mens Physique Champion, drowned at the Balandra beach in Toco on Saturday, The father of two was said to have gone swimming with a group of friends when he encountered difficulties while in the water. As his friends tried to pull him out of the water he was said to begin losing consciousness and slipped underneath the water.

He was taken to shore where attempts were made to resuscitate him but were unsuccessful.

In a Facebook post yesterday, Eye on Dependency - producers of the film Trafficked - said they were shocked and extremely pained to learn of Bengocheas death.

Brett convincingly played Alejandro, the Spanish-speaking, charming and seductive stranger that leads Penny, George and Nadia to their respective fates in the true story about drug trafficking.

We extend condolences to his family and friends, knowing this time is among the most difficult they will all face. We will remember Brett as an actor committed to the craft, who was beautiful on screen and made the role of Alejandro his own, the Facebook post read.

In another post on Facebook, actress and producer Gina Parris offered her condolences to the actors family.

Today I lost a friend of mines (sic) named Brett Bengochea who also acted in my show. A young, strong talented man. The news hit me so hard, I got an anxiety attack and chest pain and it made me realise how fragile life can be. We know that death will come to us and touch our lives but when it does its always a blow.

I hope my loss today will remind you all to reach out to your loved ones, friends, family and give them some love because we are here today and we can be gone in any moment in the blink of an eye. I am very heart broken over the news. However, I am grateful that I knew Brett and that he had a role in my life I think I was truly blessed by that. For those in the group that know Brett my condolences to you at this time of grief, she wrote.

The Trinidad and Tobago Performing Arts Network also extended their deepest condolences to Bengocheas family, friends and colleagues.

Brett was the son of Sandee Bengochea, a presenter of Enriching Family Life on TCN, who once co-wrote the Family Matters column of the Catholic News. She also previously worked at the now defunct Trinidad and Tobago Television ((TTT).
The new visa will be available for tourists from countries whose citizens require a pre-approved visa to travel to Egypt

Egypt will introduce new electronic visas for tourists as of June in an attempt to attract more visitors and boost tourism in the country, according to the tourism ministry.

The new visa will be available for tourists from countries whose citizens require a pre-approved visa to travel to Egypt.

However, tourists whose citizenship allows them to obtain visas on arrival at Egyptian airports will not need to apply for the online electronic visa.

During a press conference on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market Exhibition  held in Dubai from 24 to 27 April  Egyptian tourism minister Yehia Rashed said there are promotional travel campaigns for Egypt that are expected to be launched soon in several countries, including European countries such as Italy.

Rashed said that the Egyptian Tourism Authority will also prepare campaign to target new markets, such as the Indian market.

"The upcoming visit by Roman Catholic Pope Francis to Egypt on Friday is a reassuring message to the world that Egypt is restoring its prominent place on the tourism map," he added.

The number of tourists visiting Egypt during the first quarter of 2017 rose by 51 percent compared to the same period last year, an official source at the tourism ministry told Ahram Online earlier this week.

Egypt's tourism revenues dropped to $3.4 billion in 2016, a 44.3 percent decline from the previous year, the Central Bank of Egypt said in January. The figure is a far cry from the $11 billion in revenues generated by the sector in 2010, when 14.7 million tourists visited the country.

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Fishermen unaffected by oil spill

President of the La Brea Fisherfolk Association Alvin La Borde said yesterday there was no oil at the beaches in La Brea.

It have no oil in La Brea. God is good to the people who look up to Him, there is no oil in La Brea, he said.

Coffee Beach fisherman Gopaul Balkissoon and Oropouche fishermen Eversley Sookram and Avinash Battoo also confirmed there was no oil in the waters where they fished.

President of the Claxton Bay Fishing Association Kishore Boodram said there were no signs of oil where they were located but said given the wind pattern, he expects there would be oil further out to sea.

He said he was awaiting reports from trawlers but noted that there was a decline in the number of pelicans seen on the shoreline in the Claxton Bay area.

In a release yesterday, Petrotrin said there was significant progress in its recovery and clean-up activities both on land at the port area at Pointe-a-Pierre. The statement said the company was working with the Energy Ministry and the regulatory authorities.

Whenever aerial and marine surveys revealed patches of spilled material, vessels have been quickly dispatched to treat with them using materials approved by the Ministry.

Aerial surveys conducted both on Friday and yet again today (Sunday) reveal that there are no new sightings of oil outside of that contained by the booms, Petrotrin said.

However, one such patch of hydrocarbon material that was close to the border has since entered into Venezuelan waters, the release noted.
Parents to stop school buses

A representative of the parents of the students, Joel Scott, told Newsday since the school term started last Monday, the students have had to squeeze themselves into two buses that would transport them from San Juan to the St George East District Office building in Tunapuna.

He said when the children were relocated to Tunapuna five years ago while the schools were being repaired, four buses were made available to transport students. This eventually dropped to three buses, and at the beginning of this school term, only two bi-articulated buses or accordion buses were made available to the students.

He claimed the buses were overloaded, with three or four students fitting themselves onto a seat while the taller children were asked to stand. This is a health and safety issue. Anything can happen when the buses are overloaded like that.

If the bus had to make a sudden break, children who are not properly seated could be propelled forward and damage themselves. And the insurance would not cover the children because the bus is overloaded, He said when the parents arrive at the pick up location today, if the buses were once again overloaded, they would ask the teachers to leave the bus as the buses could not go without the supervision of teachers.

The thanked the teachers for providing this favour over the years as supervising children on a bus was not part of their job description.

He added that on Tuesday, only one accordion bus and a shorter bus was made available to transport the students of the two schools.

Scott said the parents had been writing letters to the Ministry of Education, the School Supervisor, and Barataria/San Juan MP, Dr Fuad Khan to assist but their letters had not been acknowledged.

We parents are saying enough is enough. Every day for the past four, going on five years we have been silent but we can no longer stand by while our children travel in these unsafe conditions. He noted that the first bus usually leaves San Juan at 7.30 am and the second at 8 am. He also said school started at 8.30 am and ended at 2 pm so that the children have less school hours. This also applied to Standard 5 students who, he said, were under the same amount of pressure as all the other students, with no extra class time or special privileges as they prepare for the Secondary Entrance Assessment exam.

The situation is really bad and no one seems to care. That is why we are embarking on our protest action until somebody listens to us. It is not meant to disrupt the school or prevent the children from learning. It is meant to highlight our plight, what is happening, and the safety of our children.
TT communicating with Turkey, says Young

This is according to Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Stuart Young.

Young told Newsday yesterday that local law enforcement officers and the Turkish security officers who escorted the 12 TT nationals deported from Turkey were still in the investigative process to determine what they were doing there.

The group arrived at Piarco International Airport on Friday.

Our nationals are still being interviewed.

That is the process that is taking place right now, then we wait to see what comes of that process, Young said.

Those involved in the investigations include customs, immigration and special intelligence agencies.

Initially, a group of 11 nationals left TT in June 2016, and travelled to several countries before arriving in Turkey.

One of the women who was pregnant subsequently gave birth to a baby boy.

In late July last year, a report in the Daily Sabah reported that on July 27, Turkish police detained the 11, said to be nationals of TT, in southern Turkey.

They were held in detention since.

The Daily Sabah said the group members were trying to travel to Syria to join Daesh another term for the terrorist group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).

Attorney General Faris Al Rawi told the media last Friday that unlike calls to Government to assist in the release of five nationals who were held in Venezuela on terrorist charges in 2014, and who were released last year, no one intervened on their behalf to try to get them back to TT.




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In 1793, when acclaimed Spanish painter Francisco Goya was 46, he was bedridden for months with a mysterious illness that brought on headaches, dizziness, hallucinations, and even vision and hearing problems. He eventually recovered and went on to live just past his 82nd birthday, but the illness took his hearing for good, reports Live Science. With no doctors' notes and only a description of symptoms, experts have long puzzled over the historic casethough syphilis, bacterial meningitis, and lead poisoning (not exactly uncommon among painters at the time) have long been considered plausible. Now a leading hearing expert at the University of Maryland School of Medical says Goya may have suffered from a rare autoimmune disease called Susac's syndrome.

In Susac's, one's immune system attacks blood cells in the brain, inner ear, and retina, and can lead to loss of vision and hearing and even psychiatric issues. The painter exhibited this "constellation of symptoms," says Dr. Ronna Hertzano. "This required real detective work," she says. "The question of Goyas ailment was a fascinating medical mystery." Still, while syphilis and meningitis are less likely because they tend to be progressive and lead to other complications, she warned ahead of her presentation at the Historical Clinicopathological Conference that "the best we can do is speculate." The annual meeting features an expert (if armchair) diagnosis of historical figures that have in the past included Vladimir Lenin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Hertzano noted that today Goya would have been able to restore his hearing with cochlear implants. (Here's what killed Beethoven.)
Cuba's state news agency Prensa Latina officially restarted journalism operations in the US capital of Washington on Friday, unfreezing 50 years of inactivity and marking another step in the rapprochement between America and the Communist island.

"The agency had a functioning office in Washington from 1959 to 1967," even after the US cut diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, one of the Cuban journalists in the bureau, Diony Sanabria, told AFP.

Its reopening was made possible under a 2014 thaw in relations agreed by then-US president Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro, which has already seen the return of each country's embassy operations in the other two years ago.

Prensa Latina's chief, Luis Enrique Gonzalez, was participating in the agency's reopening ceremony Friday.

Although the Obama-Castro deal has relaxed tensions dating back to the Cold War and restored ties, the easing of many American sanctions on Cuba is dependent on the US Congress.

With the arrival of President Donald Trump in the White House and the dominance of his Republican party in both houses of the legislature, the future of the bilateral thaw is seen to be under a cloud of uncertainty.

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The bullying epidemic may have hit a new low. Two Louisiana teachers were arrested and accused of harassing an 11-year-old girl, reports CNN. The victims first teacher, Ann Marie Shelvin, was removed from the school after the students mother got the school board as well as local authorities involved in Opelousas. Police say Shelvin threatened to fail three other students if they didnt fight the victim, and reportedly told her to go and kill herself. Tracy Gallow, a former teachers aide who took over Shelvins classroom, continued harassing the victim in retaliation for reporting Shelvins abuse, deputies say. On separate occasions, Gallow was caught on school surveillance cameras pushing the victim onto bleachers, and police say she admitted doing so.

Students should not have to attend school and be bullied, especially by teachers that are there for their education, guidance, and safety, says St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby Guidroz. According to KLFY News, the bullying began in October 2016. The girl's mother first went to police in February and was referred to the school board, then returned to police in April to complain that the abuse was continuing. The teachers face charges including intimidation, malfeasance in office, and interference in school operations. The school board called the reports disturbing and said it plans to investigate. (Read more bullying stories.)
A florist caught on camera stealing flowers from a New Jersey cemetery told police she was just trying to "tidy up." Lynda Wingate, a 59-year-old former police dispatcher, was arrested after police investigating months of reports of flowers being stolen at the First Reformed Church Cemetery in Pompton Plains set up a surveillance camera, the Daily Record reports. They replaced previously stolen flowers in front of a columbarium at the cemetery, which is directly across from police headquarters. After those plants disappeared as well, police reviewed the grainy footage and saw a woman driving up in a minivan and removing the plants.

Officers say they visited the police force in neighboring Riverdale to borrow a camera that would allow them to obtain better-quality images, but officers there quickly identified the woman captured on film as the former dispatcher, who now owns Lyncrafts and Floral Designs, Pix11 reports. Pequannock Police Captain Christopher Depuyt says he's not buying her claim to have been tidying up near the graves of people she knew. "We just had those flowers placed there," he says. "They werent garbage ready to be thrown out." Police, who have not found evidence that Wingate resold the stolen flowers, say she will probably receive a fine and community service. Wingate told CBS New York that flowers vanish from her own mother's grave regularly, then noted "You're innocent until proven guilty." (This cemetery-related crime was a much more extreme one.)
Ueli Steck, the famed Swiss mountain climber who died in an accident near Mount Everest on Sunday, almost died in very different circumstances the last time he was in the area. The 40-year-old "Swiss Machine" was one of three European climbers who fled to base camp after brawling with around 100 Sherpas at more than 20,000 feet. Despite how the 2013 incident was portrayed, Steck was no "cultural imperialist," writes Nick Paumgarten in a tribute at the New Yorker, though he was "certainly hardheaded and single-minded, to the point of being relatively heedless of the opinions of others, be they Sherpa or Swiss." Paumgarten describes Steck as the most accomplished mountaineer of his generation.

Paumgarten notes that last year, Steck found the body of Alex Loweconsidered the best mountaineer of his generation when he was killed by an avalanche in 1999and the two "are now forever linked, in the alpinists' circle of death." Authorities in Nepal say Steck fell more than 3,000 feet while climbing the 25,791-foot Nuptse peak ahead of a planned attempt to scale Everest on a route only successfully used once before, the New York Times reports. British mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington tells the BBC that Steck was known for speed climbing, though he doesn't believe that put him at greater risk. "The death rate among the very best mountaineers is very high, particularly in the Himalayas," he says. (Read more Mount Everest stories.)
The search for two missing children in western Arkansas came to a grim end Saturday with the discovery of 9-year-old Reilly Scarbrough's body in a wooded area. The body of the boy's 2-year-old sister, Acelynn Wester, was found a day earlier near the creek where her mother, 43-year-old Bethany Wester, was found dead on Tuesday, CBS News reports. A fourth family member, Steven Payne, was found dead in his home in Hatfield, Ark., early Thursday. The 66-year-old was Bethany Wester's uncle. The body of Reilly, who was reported missing on Saturday, April 22, was found with the help of Brian Travis, who has been in jail since last week on unrelated drug paraphernalia charges, KSLA reports.

Travis, 37, was the mother's boyfriend and was not related to the children. Polk County Sheriff Scott Sawyer, who told reporters Friday that they were still hoping to find Reilly alive, says Travis is expected to face capital murder charges in connection to all four deaths. Further details have not been released. Wester and her children lived in the small town of Mena. "I couldn't hardly talk about it with anybody without tearing up," Mena Mayor George McKee tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "Here we don't have things like that, we just really don't," he says. "It just blows our mind. It blows our mind and tears our heart out." (Read more child murder stories.)
Billy Ray Cyrus is changing his name, but he's still going to share one with daughter Miley Cyrus. The country star says he will now release music under the name "Cyrus," and he plans to make the change legal. "After August 25th, I will be the artist formerly known as Billy Ray. I'm just going by my last name Cyrus," he tells Rolling Stone. "I always went by Cyrus, and I begged Mercury Records to call me Cyrus in the beginning because that's what I was comfortable with. I'm going to the hospital where I was born in Bellefonte, Kentucky, and legally changing my name."

Cyrus' biggest hit, like Miley, will turn 25 this year. He celebrated the anniversary of "Achy Breaky Heart" by visiting Alabama to record a new version of the hit with songwriter Don Van Tress and members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, CMT reports. Cyrus, who has a new album out this year, also plans to release a Spanglish version of "Achy Breaky Heart" and an EDM version with Bootsy Collins, according to Rolling Stone. (Read more Billy Ray Cyrus stories.)
Top Capitol Hill negotiators have reached a hard-won agreement on a huge $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund the day-to-day operations of virtually every federal agency through September. Aides to lawmakers involved in the talks announced the agreement after weeks of negotiations, reports the AP. Details were still to be made public. The catchall spending bill would be the first major piece of bipartisan legislation to advance during President Trump's presidency.

What is known: It denies Trump a win on his oft-promised wall along the US-Mexico border, but it gives him a $15 billion down payment on his request to strengthen the military. The measure rejects White House proposals to cut popular programs such as funding medical research and community development grants. It adds $1.5 billion for border security. Congress was expected to vote on it early in the week, reports the Washington Post. (Read more Congress stories.)
A man who shot at least seven people at a pool party in San Diego on Sunday evening opened fire so suddenly that he didn't even put his beer down, witnesses say. A suspect identified as 49-year-old Pete Selisor Solis, in some reportswas shot dead by police responding to reports of a man shooting people by the pool at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment complex, the AP reports. Police say three officers shot Selis after he pointed a handgun at them. At least seven people, including a woman who later died in the hospital, received gunshot wounds and a man broke his arm while fleeing. Some of the victims are still in critical condition. Police say Selis and at least one of the victims lived in the apartment complex.

Partygoer Drew Phillips tells the San Diego Union-Tribune that minutes before the shooting, Selis, sitting quietly in a poolside chair, declined his offer of food and drink. Another witness says she heard Selis threaten to kill women trying to help a victim. It's not clear whether Selis knew anybody at the party, or whether there was a racial motive. The Los Angeles Times reports that Selis was white and out of the seven people shot, six were black and one was Hispanic. "This is truly a horrific act of violence that took place here today," San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. "Our entire city, all of our thoughts and prayers, all San Diegans' thoughts and prayers, are with the victims and their families tonight." (Read more San Diego stories.)
Marla Dixon was a 19-year-old mother-to-be who had gotten her prenatal care from the federally funded Jessie Trice Community Health Center in Miami. Nurses and midwives met with her along the way, and before giving birth to son Earl Reese-Thornton Jr. on Dec. 2, 2013, things had been progressing well. The birth, she alleged in a lawsuit, was disastrous. Earl Jr. had to be revived after entering the world and suffered permanent severe brain damage due to lack of oxygen. The judge agreed Dr. Ata Atogho was at fault, with the verdict noting he left her room for extended spells, once to speak to his stockbroker for eight minutes; with fetal heart rate monitors indicating the baby was in severe distress, the doctor also should have performed a C-section but didn't. The $33.8 million Dixon and her child will receive as a result won't cost Atogho a penny.

That's because he wasn't the one being sued; rather, the US government was, as it's liable for any injuries its medical employees cause, explains the Miami Herald. Not only does Dixon say Atogho never apologized, she also says he lied, something backed up by the testimony of a nurse who noted Atogho wrote "refused c/s" [that's C-section] in Dixon's medical records; on the contrary, the nurse testified she yelled, "Just cut me." Local 10 reports the judge in his order cited a defense expert who says the child will live only nine to 12 more years. Though the head of Jessie Trice says Atogho is no longer connected to its centers, he has not been reprimanded and his Florida medical license is currently "clear and active." This in spite of three other teen moms who have sued over babies delivered by Atogho in 2013 who ended up brain damaged or disabled. (This woman sued her doctor after becoming pregnant when she thought she couldn't.)
SpaceX had a big morning: It successfully launched its first government satellite and got its rocket to return safely to Earth to boot. The company sent up the spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office aboard a Falcon 9 rocket at 7:15am from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, reports USA Today. Nine minutes later, the rocket returned to Cape Canaveral. Details of the spy satellite's mission are classified, reports Space.com, which adds that about the only thing known is that it will be in a low-Earth orbit.

The Orlando Sentinel sees Monday's launch as a milestone because SpaceX has previously focused on cargo missions to the International Space Station or commercial telecom satellites. The launch of a government payload, then, marks the start of a new era of competition between SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, which had cornered the market on government launches in recent years. (Read more SpaceX stories.)
Two key facts about billionaire Robert Mercer: He is, in the words of a recent New Yorker profile, the "reclusive hedge-fund tycoon behind the Trump presidency." Second, the IRS is going after his Renaissance Technologies fund for nearly $7 billion in back taxes. All of which sets up a dicey situation for President Trump, as a story at McClatchy News Service explains. Mercer wants IRS chief John Koskinen booted from office, and he's pushing Trump to fire him before his five-year term expires in November. The president has not tipped his hand on whether he'll do that, but it makes for "bad optics," per the chief ethics adviser in the George W. Bush White House. "The guys got a big case in front of the IRS," says Richard Painter. "Hes trying to put someone in there whos going to drop the case. Is the president of the United States going to succumb to that?"

Mercer, whose daughter Rebekah is a major political player on the right as well, ramped up political contributions to conservative groups after the IRS began investigating his fund's use of a complicated banking method known as "basket options" in 2010 to cut its tax bill, reports McClatchy. The method involves converting short-term gains on trades into long-term gains, which are taxed at a lower rate. The IRS does not comment on ongoing cases, but a Senate panel accused the fund of short-changing the agency of at least $6.8 billion. The company has maintained that it did nothing illegal. One thing that could work in the Mercers' favor: They have long ties to top Trump strategist Steve Bannon. Still, a Columbia professor says that even if the Mercers succeed in getting Koskinen fired, it's doubtful that would upend a years-long IRS case. (Read more Robert Mercer stories.)
Two men were killed on Sunday when their house collapsed while they were illegally digging for ancient artefacts, Egypt's state-run news agency MENA reported.

The two men were digging beneath their home in the southern city of Assiut when the house above them weakend and caved in, according to initial investigations.

The bodies of the victims were pulled from the rubble and transferred to a nearby hospital, MENA said.

Authorities occasionally arrest people for illegally excavating areas beneath their homes in search of artefacts in a country full of buried antiquities.

Any artefacts discovered during unauthorised excavations of this sort may find their way onto the antiquities black market.

In one recent case, a 35-year-old man died while digging for artefacts in the Alexandria area. The man and three others were digging in an empty lot in the district of Kafr Abdou and had dug a six-metre-deep hole. The sides of the hole collapsed, engulfing the victim in sand.

However, in some cases, illegal excavations have turned up important finds, as with the October 2014 discovery of a temple from the reign of New Kingdom King Tuthmose III. Seven residents of the Giza district were arrested in after illegally excavating an area beneath their home, in the course of which they discovered huge limestone blocks engraved with hieroglyphs.

At the time, Antiquities Minister Mamdouh El-Damaty said that the unearthed blocks were genuine and belonged to a huge temple from the reign of King Tuthmose III. Seven reliefs and two marble columns were unearthed, along with a huge red-granite armless colossus of a seated person, El-Damaty. The items were taken to Saqqara for restoration and further study, the minister said.

The Hod Zeleikha area, where the finds took place, was declared an official archeological site under the control of the ministry, with a view to conducting further excavations in the area.



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President Trump generated controversy over the weekend when he invited a world leader condemned for human rights abuses to the White House. But it turns out that Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines may not be coming anyway. "I'm tied up," he told reporters Monday, per the AP. "I cannot make any definite promise." Duterte has been accused of ordering the mass killing of drug suspects in his country, and in an otherwise routine phone call on Saturday, Trump made the surprise move of inviting him to the US. Given the allegations against Duterte, it's not even clear whether he would receive a travel visa from the US if he eventually decides to accept, reports the New York Times.

By essentially endorsing Dutertes murderous war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings, says John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, voicing a common sentiment among critics of the move. Democratic Sen. Christopher Murphy complained that "we are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash. On Sunday, chief of staff Reince Priebus argued that the outreach to Duterte is necessary as part of the regional push to contain the North Korea crisis, reports CNN. "The issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get." (Read more Rodrigo Duterte stories.)
The car of a Canadian woman who has been missing in Belize since last week along with her American boyfriend was found abandoned Sunday in a sugarcane field. CBC News reports that Francesca Matus, 52, was last seen with boyfriend Drew DeVoursney, 36, leaving a bar in Corozal Tuesday. Matus white Isuzu Rodeo was located by police Sunday 15 miles away with no trace of the couple. Local authorities plan to search the area today with police dogs. The family of DeVoursney, a veteran, tells WSB-TV Atlanta he met Matus on his extended Belize holiday two to three months ago, and that the former marine has always checked in frequently, even while he was away on active duty.

Thats the hardest part, is just that we dont know anything, DeVoursney's mother says. We dont know where he is, whats going on. Matus was scheduled to leave the country on Wednesday, but when her friend arrived to drive her to the airport, she was not home and DeVoursneys motorcycle was still parked in in the driveway. DeVoursney was scheduled to leave the country May 4. Both their passports were found, and none of their personal items appeared to be missing. DeVoursney's brother has expressed frustration at trying to coordinate from afar and plans to leave for Belize this week. Friends of DeVoursney set up a GoFundMe page to help fund their search, which has received $4,300 at the time this article was posted. (Read more missing person stories.)
A gunman despondent over a recent breakup opened fire at a poolside birthday party and phoned his ex-girlfriend as he kept shooting strangers, killing one woman and injuring six other partygoers before he was killed by officers, police said Monday. Peter Selis, 49, sat on a pool chair during most of the rampage, calmly shooting guests at the party with a .45-caliber handgun. Witnesses said Selis was wearing a black coat and sitting alone during the party for a man's 50th birthday Sunday at an apartment complex near the University of California, San Diego. At one point the guest of honor invited the man to join the party. That's when Selis drew a handgun and shot the honoree in the torso, said Demetrius Griffin, a friend at the party.

After shooting two people, Selis called his ex-girlfriend and said what he'd done and that police were there and then continued firing. "It is apparent that Selis wanted his ex-girlfriend to listen in as he carried out his rampage," police chief Shelley Zimmerman says. The victims were black and Latino and Selis was white, but police don't think race played a factor, the AP reports. "These victims were just in his vicinity when he committed this terrible tragedy," Zimmerman says. "What started as a celebration of a friend's birthday party turned into a tragedy of epic proportions." Selis and one of the partygoers lived at the complex in the diverse community north of downtown San Diego. Two victims remained in critical condition, but were expected to survive, Zimmerman said. Another man was taken to the hospital after he broke his arm running away. (Read more shooting stories.)
India and Turkey sign three agreement on Monday (May 1)

New Delhi : India and Turkey on Monday signed three agreements following delegation-level talks headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New Delhi.

"#IndiaTurkey sign three agreements in the fields of ICT, training and culture," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

An agreement was signed on a cultural exchange programme for the years 2017-2020.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Foreign Services Institute (FSI) of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey.

Another MoU was signed on cooperation in the area of information and communication technologies (ICT).

Earlier on Monday, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome with a guard of honour.

Later, Erdogan paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry organisations CII, Ficci and Assocham, at which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties.

On Monday evening, President Mukherjee will host a banquet in honour of the visiting dignitary.

Erdogan arrived in New Delhi on Sunday on a two-day visit to India. He last visited India in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.
Pakistan mutilates bodies of two Indian soldiers near Line of Control, army vows revenge

New Delhi : The Pakistan Army on Monday killed an Indian soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said, and warned of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act". Pakistan denied the charge.

The dead were identified as Naik Subedar Paramjit Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment and Head Constable Prem Sagar of BSF's 200 Battalion. Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF suffered injuries.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said the Army would "react appropriately" to Pakistan's "extreme form of barbaric act... that such acts are unheard of during war and definitely during peace times.

"The government of India strongly condemns the incident.. The country has full faith in its Army. The sacrifices of the soldiers will not go in vain."

The Army's Northern Command said the Pakistan Army in the morning fired rockets and mortar shells on two forward posts on the LoC -- the de facto border that divides Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries -- in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district.

In pic: BSF head constable Prem Sagar who lost his life in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch (J&K) pic.twitter.com/4J75iv7S6A  ANI (@ANI) May 1, 2017

The two were killed in the unprovoked firing as they were patrolling the LoC, army sources said, adding Pakistan Army men then crossed over 250 meters into Indian territory and mutilated their bodies.

"It was a pre-planed operation. They crossed over 250 metres inside and set up ambushes to carry out the attack," an army officer told IANS.

The Udhampur-based Northern Command based said: "A BAT (Border Action Team, which generally comprises Pakistan Army personnel and its trained militants) was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of the two soldiers in the patrol were mutilated.

"Such despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," it warned.

The Pakistan Army denied violating the 2003 ceasefire on the LoC and mutilating the Indian soldiers' bodies.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action ... as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies are also false.

"Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian." A similar statement was issued by the Pakistani Foreign Office.

In Pic: Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh who lost his life in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch (J&K) pic.twitter.com/A7yP3dOwi7  ANI (@ANI) May 1, 2017

But the firing on the tense border sector continued till late Monday evening, Indian Army sources said in Jammu.

In a November incident, three Indian soldiers were killed in an ambush by the Pakistan Army and the body of one of them was mutilated.

The two countries had in 2003 agreed on a ceasefire in the border region that has been violated by sporadic firing incidents.

India has been accusing Pakistan of violating the ceasefire.

The Pakistan Army violated the ceasefire in various sectors along the LoC in Poonch on April 3, 4, 5, 8, 17 and 19. In March, there were four violations on the LoC.
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Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is heading to Uganda on Monday for a visit aimed at boosting cooperation with Nile Basin countries, according to a ministry statement.



Shoukry will deliver a letter from President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to his counterpart Yoweri Museveni dealing with water-security issues and the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI).



The visit will also involve discussions on bilateral relations and development cooperation, the statement said.



Last March, Egypt's Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Ati attended a meeting of the NBI's council of ministers in Uganda's Entebbe.



The minsiters discussed concerns over the Cooperative Framework Agreement, more commonly known as the Entebbe Agreement, which was signed by six Nile Basin countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda.



Egypt and Sudan have declined to sign the agreement, which sets out principles and obligations of member states regarding use of the basin's water resources, citing concerns about its reallocation of Nile water quotas and other provisions.



Historic water-sharing pacts between Egypt and Sudan divide the Nile waters between the two countries.



The NBI has 10 permanent members: Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. Meanwhile, Eritrea has observer status.



The Grand Ethiopian Dam, which when construction is complete will be Africa's biggest hydroelectric dam, has been a source of concern for Egypt in recent years, with some experts arguing that filling and operating the dam will reduce the water that flows downstream to Egypt.

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New Delhi:

While the first phase examination for SSC MTS took place on Sunday, an admit card in the name of Abhishek Bachchan has come under spotlight.

Holding an admid card of Roll No 2405283611, the above mentioned candidate did not reach the examination hall on the scheduled date whose centre was in Jaipur.

Moreover, at the official website of SSC Abhishek Bachchan is being described as a female candidate and a resident of "69 XXX Kaloni Jaipur, Latur, Maharashtra"

A picture of famous Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachhan is also attached along with other surprising details of the applicant.

According to the admit card Abhishek was born on 1st of January, 1995.

A huge mistake and sense of irresponsibility of Staff Selection Commission has come forward after the incident became noticable.



However, no statement or clarification on behalf of Staff Selection Commisssion has come yet on this regard.




New Delhi:

Recently after his gig in TED Talks, Shah Rukh Khan once again rangged the buzz among gossipmongers.

After making people go gaga with his witty speech in the show, SRK now has planned a soothing holiday to Los Angeles with his closed ones.

This trip, indeed, will be one of the perfect trips for the Badshah of Bollywood as he was accompained by a Hollywood legend, none other than, Warren Beatty.

The 51-year-old actor shared a photo on his offcial twitter account about his meeting with 'McCabe' star.

After a whirlwind travelling spree spent a quiet evening with friends in LA & met one of my fav starsWarren Beatty. pic.twitter.com/LPC4IIwrCE  Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) April 30, 2017

Also Read: It's Official! Shah Rukh Khan to make a comeback on TV, will host TED Talks India: Nayi Soch

The actor was recently in news for his goof-up in 89th annual Academy Awards.

Shah Rukh being the first Indian actor delivered a TED Talk and shall host TED Talks' Hindi version, "TED Talks India: Nayi Soch"

King Khan will next be seen in Imtiaz Ali's upcoming movie alongside Anushka Sharma.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

A 29-year-old engineer Tejvir who was working at a mobile phone company in Bengaluru allegedly committed suicide. He hanged himself at a hotel room in Noida, police said on Monday.

In-charge of sector 20 police station Anil Shahi said that the incident took place on Sunday night. He along with his senior Amit Kumar came to Noida together and were staying at a hotel in sector 2.

Most surprisingly, he got married just a month back. However, before committing suicide, he called his wife and informed her about what he was going to do.

ALSO READ: IIT aspirant allegedly commits suicide by hanging himself

Tejvirs wife then searched the hotel's number on the Internet and called the staff to inform them about the incident. The staff then rushed to his room but no response came from inside after repeatedly knocking the room.

The staff then opened the room with duplicate keys and found Tejvir was hanging from a ceiling fan. Police have now started the investigation and sent the body for post-mortem.

It is alleged that Tejvir had a love affair with a woman before marriage. But he got ditched and then under family pressure, had to marry another woman.

ALSO READ: Jawan suicide case: Nashik court rejects anticipatory bail applications of Journalist and retired army official

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US-backed fighters have captured 80 percent of Syria's Tabqa from the Islamic State group, a monitor said on Monday, a week after they first entered the town.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) broke into Tabqa from the south last week and have steadily advanced north, cornering IS in three contiguous neighbourhoods on the bank of the Euphrates River.

The strategic town of Tabqa sits on a supply route about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of Raqa city, the de facto capital of IS territory in Syria.

At dawn, IS fighters withdrew from the western-most district towards the other two quarters, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The SDF now controls more than 80 percent of Tabqa," Abdel Rahman said.

"In the whole town, IS only holds those two neighbourhoods, known locally as the first and second quarters," he told AFP.

Clashes and bombing raids by the US-led coalition were rocking the town on Monday morning, the Observatory reported.

The assault on Tabqa began in late March when SDF forces and their US-led coalition allies were airlifted behind IS lines.

The SDF -- composed of Arab and Kurdish fighters -- then surrounded Tabqa in early April before pushing into the town on April 24.

The assault on Raqa, dubbed "Wrath of the Euphrates", was launched in November and has seen SDF fighters capture large swathes of countryside around the city.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the country's war began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

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New Delhi:

Indian Army on Monday night destroyed two Pakistan posts which gave cover fire for Border Action Team (BAT) which mutilated bodies of two Army jawans, said reports.

According to some reports in media, Pakistan Army knew in advance that Indian Army will retaliate heavily and hence Pakistan Armys personnel had already left these posts.

But, few media reports also said that 6-7 Pakistan soldiers were killed in the attack.

However, government agencies have not confirmed about the reports of Indian retaliation along LoC so far.

Earlier in the day, in a barbaric attack, Pakistan killed and mutilated two security personnel along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. The brutal attack has been condemned and the Indian army has vowed revenge. The Indian Army has said that such despicable acts of Pakistans army would be appropriately responded to.

It was a pre-planed operation of Pakistan army. They had pushed in BATs over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack, a senior army officer said.

The Pakistan Border action teams (BATs) sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory. Pakistan army resorted to heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector.

The ceasefire violation by Pakistan started at 8:40 AM in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir.

Also read: Poonch: Bodies of two Indian soldiers mutilated by Pakistani troops, Indian army warns of 'appropriate response'

Pakistan fired RPG on Indian posts followed by mortars. The Pakistan BAT (Border Action Team) attacked came 250 meters inside Indian side.

The Pakistani army targeted patrol between two posts which was a joint patrol of Army and BSF consisting of 10 soldiers.

An army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed and another soldier was injured in the attack, a defence spokesman said.

Pakistans Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning, a spokesman of the Indian Armys Northern Command said in statement here.

Simultaneously, a BAT operation was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts, it said.

Also read: Pakistan army mutilates 2 Indian jawans in 'barbaric' act: Who said what?

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Rampur (UP):

Launching a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Monday said Muslims are being troubled in India. Khan also warned PM Modi that he should be ready to face the consequences if the community is harassed.



Muslims are being harassed in India and if the community approached the United Nations and narrated their ordeal, then Modi will not be able to show his face anywhere. Stop it otherwise be ready to face the consequences, he told reporters here.



Muslims follow the holy Quran and will continue to obey it till their last breath, whereas the prime minister is neither aware of Islam nor Hinduism, Khan said.



He also lashed out at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, saying there is a big difference between his statements and actions.



Khan said Yogi Adityanath talks about acting against illegal land possession and encroachments but he has not acted against a minister in his government who has carried out unauthorised construction worth crores of rupees of his house.

ALSO READ | Can PM Modi talk about Muslim women who losing their husband, son to cow vigilantes, says Azam Khan

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Jammu:

In a barbaric attack, Pakistan on Monday killed and mutilated two security personnel along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. The brutal attack has been condemned and the Indian army has vowed revenge. The Indian Army has said that such despicable acts of Pakistans army would be appropriately responded to.



It was a pre-planed operation of Pakistan army. They had pushed in BATs over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack, a senior army officer said.



Heres what all happened:

The Pakistan Border action teams (BATs) sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory. Pakistan army resorted to heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in Poonchs Krishna Ghati sector. The ceasefire violation by Pakistan started at 8:40 AM in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan fired RPG on Indian posts followed by mortars. The Pakistan BAT (Border Action Team) attacked came 250 meters inside Indian side.

The Pakistani army targeted patrol between two posts which was a joint patrol of Army and BSF consisting of 10 soldiers.



An army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed and another soldier was injured in the attack, a defence spokesman said.



Pakistans Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning, a spokesman of the Indian Armys Northern Command said in statement here.



Simultaneously, a BAT operation was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts, it said.

ALSO READ | Poonch: Bodies of two Indian soldiers mutilated by Pakistani troops, Indian army warns of 'appropriate response'



In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, the spokesman said. They have been beheaded, the senior army officer said.



The deceased have been identified as Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army.



Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion suffered injuries in the attack. A BSF officer said troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, he said.



Pakistan denies violating ceasefire:



Pakistan has denied to commit any ceasefire violation on LoC and has said that Indias claim of mutilating Indian soldiers is not true.



Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false, M Nafees Zakaria, Spokesperson Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pakistan, said.



Pakistan Army is highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier,

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false.  M. Nafees Zakaria (@ForeignOfficePk) May 1, 2017

Pakistan Army is highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier.  M. Nafees Zakaria (@ForeignOfficePk) May 1, 2017



What Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said?

ALSO READ | Pak troops violated ceasefire 268 times along LoC in last one year, faced appropriate retaliation by Indian Army



Defence Minister Arun Jaitley has called the incident a reprehensible and inhumane act. Strongly condemning the act, Jaitley said that Indian soldiers being mutilated by Pakistan is an extreme form of barbaric act.



This is a reprehensible and inhumane act, such attacks don't even take place during war, let alone peace. Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. Govt of India strongly condemns this act. Country has full confidence & faith in armed forces which will react appropriately. Sacrifice of these 2 soldiers won't go in vain, he said.

This is a reprehensible and inhumane act, such attacks don't even take place during war, let alone peace: Defence Minister Arun Jaitley pic.twitter.com/o1BTHRAzF6  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. Govt of India strongly condemns this act: Arun Jaitley pic.twitter.com/S3WZMIyxwq  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Country has full confidence & faith in armed forces which will react appropriately. Sacrifice of these 2 soldiers won't go in vain: Jaitley pic.twitter.com/0KPOim3QbG  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Recent incidents of ceasefire violations by Pakistan:



In April this year, there have been seven ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.



On April 19, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch sector. On April 17, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by firing and shelling mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector along the LoC in Rajouri district.



They had broken the ceasefire in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.



In Digwar sector of Poonch, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.



In 2016 there were 228 instances of ceasefire violation along the LoC, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violation along the International Border (IB).

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday accused BJP of talking selectively about Muslims womens rights. Owaisis comment comes a day after Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that triple talaq has no sanction in Shariat.



With an intention of keeping the communal plot boiling, the BJP is raising such issues (triple talaq), he said.



Owaisi aggressively attacked Naidu saying Talking about Muslim womens rights, why Naidu is not speaking about rights of Pehlu Khans (who was allegedly lynched by cow vigilantes in Alwar) blind mother? Why Naidu is not speaking about rights of Zakia Jafri? (widow of ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots)...So, this selective talking about rights is not acceptable to us.

ALSO READ: Owaisi slams Centre, says high time now to control anarchist 'gau rakshaks'



The AIMIM president also talked about Prime Minister Narendra Modis comment in which the PM spoke against pollicising this sensitive issue. Despite PM Modis pitch, Venkaiah Naidu and a UP minister are still talking about it, he added.



Basically, BJP wants to keep this communal pot boiling. On 11th of May, Supreme Court is going to start hearing. So, why is BJP talking before Supreme Court? If they have (something to say), let them go and speak in the Supreme Court. But, they want to keep the communal pot boiling, the controversial leader said.



Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said Triple Talaq is not a religious issue as it has no sanction in Shariat. It is a matter of right of equality and right to live with dignity of Muslim women along with other women. Why this discrimination...this must be put to an end and it should not be politicised.

ALSO READ: Adityanath remarks on 'surya namskaar' is to befool Muslims: Owaisi

With inputs from PTI.

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New Delhi:

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday charged Telanagana police for establishing a bogus website which is radicalising Muslim youths and encouraging them to ISIS modules.

The leader took to social media and alleged in series of his tweets that the arrest was made by Madhya Pradesh police in Shajapur train bomb blast was on their information. He further said that Saifullahs encounter was also taken place on the same day.

Digvijaya questioned the intention of Telangana police, saying is it ethical for Telangana police to post inflammatory information and to tarp Muslim youth becoming ISIS modules.

Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

He questioned Chief minister K Chandrashekhara Rao and said,Has he authorized Telangana police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS?

Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Also Read: Not having a pre-poll alliance with Goa Forward Party 'a mistake', says Digvijaya Singh

He further added that if K Chandrashekhara Rao has authorised his cops to do so, then the former should own responsibility and must resign from his post.

If he has then shouldn't he own the responsibility and resign ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

Digvijaya said if KCR has not authorised, then he should enquire the matter and punish to those who are responsible for committing this heinous crime.

If he hasn't then shouldn't he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

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New Delhi:

A gang-war in Delhi's Mianwali area claimed the lives of three people including a Delhi Police Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI). They were killed as a result of shooting in the area on Sunday night.

Further, reports claim that a constable too was injured in the incident. Public Safety officer (PSO) Vijay and constable Kuldeep were sitting in a white sedan with one Bhupendra, who has several criminal cases against him.

Another person Arun, a friend of Bhupendra was also present in the car. However, at around 11: 15 P.M., unidentified gunmen opened fire on the car killing Bhupendra, Arun and Vijay on the spot while injuring Kuldeep.

ALSO READ: Wanted criminal Neetu Dabodia killed in Delhi shootout

The attack may have been a result of gang rivalry. Kuldeep was admitted to a nearby hospital for treatment and an investigation is presently undergoing in the matter.

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New Delhi:

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwaris residence was attacked late night on Sunday. A CCTV grab showed that a few people carrying rods were approaching Tiwaris residence located at 159 North avenue.

A complaint has been filed with Delhi police in the case. The police have arrested four people in the matter.

Tiwari said that two of his associates were injured in the attack. He said it was a fatal attack. He alleged the attack looks like a big conspiracy and involvement of police cannot be ruled out. He said no one should be spared.

Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari's house in Delhi ransacked late last night, Tiwari was not present at the house during the incident. 4 arrested pic.twitter.com/o7bGCq0qJY  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

While to talking to media an eyewitness informed that at least 7-8 miscreants were involved in the attack. He said they were very abusive and it seemed that they had no fear of police.

#WATCH: CCTV footage from the premises of Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari's residence, before his house in the capital was ransacked pic.twitter.com/GyZNb0qp1T  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Also Read | Arvind Kejriwal knowingly commits mistakes, then pulls the stunt of apologising: Manoj Tiwari

According to DCP, A Wagon R car was slightly hit by Manoj Tiwari's staff vehicle. Later, the former returned with a few of his aides and attacked the staff members, the senior cop said. The DCP said all miscreants have been identified and have been arrested. He said there was no attack on Delhi BJP president.

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New Delhi:

The Indian Army on Monday said in a tweet that Pakistan Army had mutilated body of two Indian soldiers. However, the Indian Army refused to furnish details of incident under the Right to Information (RTI) Act saying it could be against national security.

However, the Central Information Commission did not buy the arguments of Indian Army that it will be against national security.

"People of the country have the right to know about soldiers who lay down their lives in the line of duty," Information Commissioner Diya Prakash Sinha had said in his order.

"Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and forward mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," the Northern Command of the Indian army said in the statement. BAT is the Pakistan army's Border Action Team.

Also read: 'Barbaric' Pakistan forces mutilate 2 Indian jawans: Army vows revenge, India calls it 'inhumane'; Pak says 'false allegations'

Also read: Pakistan army mutilates 2 Indian jawans in 'barbaric' act: Who said what?



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New Delhi:

Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra will meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday to discuss the law and order situation in the state and also the future course of action to tackle it.

Vohar may be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to brief him about the tense situation including killing of seven persons in Kulgam and mutilation of the bodies of two soldiers along the Line of Control.

Ahead of his meeting with Union Home Minister, Vohra met and discussed the current situation in the state with Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi on Monday.

ALSO READ: General Bipin Rawat visits Kashmir; takes stock of security measures in valley

Vohras meeting with Mehrishi lasted for 20 minutes wherein they both reviewed the ground situation in Kashmir and discussed the steps taken to control the barbaric situation.

Earlier, the state had also witnessed violence during the April 9 bypoll to the Srinagar Lok Sabha seat wherein eight people lost their lives in more than 200 incidents.

The valley had also seen protests by students last fortnight against alleged huge deployment of forces. Students were seen pelting stones on the army in these incidents.

Last year in July, massive protests were seen after the death Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani who got killed in an encounter. The protests lasted for four months in which more than 90 people were killed. Security personnel and civilians also got injured during the incidents.

ALSO READ: Pakistan will support 'political struggle' of Kashmiris: COAS General Bajwa

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New Delhi:

Terrorists on Monday attacked a bank vehicle carrying cash on way from Nihama to Kulgam. The attack was carried out near Pombai Kakran agricultural university orchard which claimed lives of five police personnel and two bank security guards.

The weapons of security personnel have also been looted by the militants. Later, Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for Kulgam attack. The terrorist outfit also said that they decamped with 4 rifles.

The victims were killed by the attackers who dragged them out of their vehicles, south Kashmir DIG SP Pani said. The van was dispensing cash to local branches. An amount of Rs 50 lakh was looted, sources said.

The names of policemen who were killed in Kulgam attack are Bashir Ahmad Dar, Farooq Ahmad Bhat, Mohammad Qasim, Muzafar Ahmad, Ishfaq Ahmad Hajam.

Also read: Poonch: Bodies of two Indian soldiers mutilated by Pakistani troops, Indian army warns of 'appropriate response'

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Turkish police on Monday used tear gas to disperse a group of protesters as they sought to defy a ban and march to Istanbul's Taksim square to celebrate May Day, an AFP journalist reported.

Police tried to stop around 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district on the European side of Istanbul who wanted to walk to the famous square in spite of the ban by city authorities.

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New Delhi :

Calcutta High Court Justice CS Karnan on Monday said that he might issue suo moto order suspension order against West Bengal DGP if the latter comes to check his mental health forcefully.

Justice Karnan directed the DGP to take seven accused judges and produce them before psychiatry medical board attached to AIIMS and conduct a medical test of them.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court ordered to constitute a medical board in Kolkata to examine the mental health of justice C S Karnan who is facing charges of contempt.

Direct DGP, New Delhi to take 7accused judges&produce them to psychiatric medical board attached to AIIMS;conduct medical tst-Justice Karnan  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

The Supreme Court said a team of doctors will examine Justice Karnan on May 5. The apex court further said the medical board to be set up by government hospital Kolkata, will have to submit its report in SC on or before May 8.

Might issue suo moto suspension order against West Bengal DGP if he comes to check my mental health forcefully: Justice Karnan (File Pic) pic.twitter.com/clnMWpgw13  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017



The Apex Court directed West Bengal DGP to set up a team of police officials to assist the medical board in examining Justice Karnan.

The bench, while referring to its earlier order by which it had restrained Justice Karnan from exercising administrative and Judicial power, directed all the courts, to the tribunal and commissions across the country not to consider and act on the orders passed by him after February 8.

The bench also asked the judge to file his response to the contempt notice and made it clear that if no response was filed by May 8, then it would be presumed that "he does not have anything to say".

Also Read | Defamation case: SC asks Justice Karnan to submit written submission within four weeks

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New Delhi:

In a barbaric attack, Pakistan on Monday killed and mutilated two security personnel along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi condemned the attack. On his official Twitter account, he wrote, Strongly condemn this barbaric & disgraceful act. Govt must move beyond platitudes and hold Pakistan to account.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the "sacrifice (of the two killed) will not go in vain" and the Indian armed forces will react "appropriately" to the "inhuman act" of the Pakistani troops.

"This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during war," he said.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act," Jaitley said.

Demanding a tit-for-tat response, BJP MP R K Singh, a former Union home secretary, said,"Pakistan understands only one language and therefore we need to kill more Pakistani soldiers and give them the same treatment."

ALSO READ: 'Barbaric' Pakistan forces mutilate 2 Indian jawans: Army vows revenge, India calls it 'inhumane'; Pak says 'false allegations'

Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, by engaging in such action, Pakistan was scripting its own destruction. CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury condemned Pakistan but added that the government should set its own house in order first and not let such incidents happen.

Yechury said such action by Pakistan's special forces should not be tolerated, but added,"we should also not give them the opportunity for such things to happen. We need to set our own house in order."

He said eventually all matters (relating to the restive state) would have to be resolved diplomatically and that the government should consult the opposition which was kept in the dark about issues between the two countries.

BJP's national spokesperson Nalin Kohli said it appears that "inhumanity and barbarism" has become the norm in Pakistan."This act will not go unpunished as under Prime Minister Narendra Modi the army has not been restrained from responding to Pakistan's unprovoked ceasefire violations," he said.

(With PTI Inputs)

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Jammu:

In yet another ceasefire violation by Pakistan, grenades were held at Indian posts in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday, reports said.

According to reports, two army soldiers were martyred after Pakistani side hurled grenades at Indian posts along LoC. On April 19, Pakistani troops resorted to mortar shelling and firing on Indian posts along LoC in the same area.

Pakistan violated the ceasefire on April 8 in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir as it resorted to firing at Indian posts.

On April 5, ceasefire violation was reported along the LoC in Poonch district, while on April 4, similar incidents took place in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri district.

Pakistani troops had shelled mortar bombs on forward posts in Balakote sector of Rajouri district on April 3.

ALSO READ | Pakistan violates ceasefire along LoC, shells Indian Army posts in Poonch

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Modi in his high profile talks with Turkish President at India-Turkey business event in Delhi inivited Turkish companies to invest in sectors like rail,ports, airport, textile, auto, energy, tourism and housing.

On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also met External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

Erdogen, who arrived in Delhi on Sunday evening ahead of talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, favoured Indias bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides that of Pakistan, saying India should not have objection to it.

Here are the highlights:

# India-Turkey bilateral trade has gone up to USD 6.4 billion in 2016 from USD 2.8 billion in 2008: PM Modi

# India and Turkey share a common outlook on the present economic order in the world: PM Modi at business event in Delhi

# India and Turkey are among 20 largest economies in the World. Both have shown remarkable stability: PM Modi at a business event in Delhi

# We have to build on this rich heritage, huge potential and opportunity to enhance bilateral engagement (with Turkey): PM Modi

# My Govt came to power in this very month three years back, since then we have launched several initiatives to reform economy: PM Modi

# Recent GST legislation is another such initiative ,was an old demand to create a uniform & efficient business atmosphere in the country: PM

# We are modernizing our railways and upgrading our highways. We have made maximum allocations for these two sectors: PM Modi

# India and Turkey are both energy deficient, and our energy needs are ever increasing. This sector is an imp pillar of bilateral relation: PM

# India was never a more promising destination than it is today: PM Narendra Modi

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Srinagar:

In a barbaric act by Pakistani army, the bodies of two Indian soldiers, who were martyred following a ceasefire violation by Pak in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, were mutilated. Pakistani troops had on Monday violated ceasefire along the Line of Control in Poonch sector, attacking a patrol team near the border.

Pakistan army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector. Simultaneously, a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts. In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded, a statement by the Indian Army said.



A BSF soldier and a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Indian Army were martyred in the firing by Pakistan Rangers, reports had said.



"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer had said.

On April 19, Pakistani troops resorted to mortar shelling and firing on Indian posts along LoC in the same area.

In pic: BSF head constable Prem Sagar who lost his life in ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch (J&K) pic.twitter.com/4J75iv7S6A  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

ALSO READ | Pakistan violates ceasefire along LoC in Poonch, two soldiers martyred after grenades hurled at Indian Army posts

Pakistan violated the ceasefire on April 8 in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir as it resorted to firing at Indian posts.

On April 5, ceasefire violation was reported along the LoC in Poonch district, while on April 4, similar incidents took place in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri district.

Pakistani troops had shelled mortar bombs on forward posts in Balakote sector of Rajouri district on April 3.

ALSO READ | Pakistan violates ceasefire along LoC, shells Indian Army posts in Poonch

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New Delhi:

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday addressed a public rally in Narmada in Gujarat. Rahul touched upon the issues and rights of farmers, education and the administration in the state.

Speaking from the dais, Rahul said that big industrialists get thousands of acres as gift in Gujarat. When farmers ask for their rights, police beat their women.

Today, 10-15 people rule in Gujarat, like earlier Polson company used to rule, and you all know their names. Those who supported Modi, came to me, saying their children don't get education, who is getting benefit then, I asked, said Congress Vice President.

Rahul said that no community gets benefited in Vibrant Gujarat, only 15 persons get benefits, they pay whole money for marketing, rest just watch.

Also read: Rahul takes jibe at PM Modis demonetisation policy after Sukma attack, hopes 'revised strategy has little more impact'

Also read: Rahul Gandhi takes jibe at PM Modi over advise to bureaucrats on social media use



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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered to constitute a medical board in Kolkata to examine the mental health of justice C S Karnan who is facing charges of contempt.

The Supreme Court said a team of doctors will examine Justice Karnan on May 5. The apex court further said the medical board to be set up by government hospital Kolkata, will have to submit its report in SC on or before May 8.

The Apex Court directed West Bengal DGP to set up a team of police officials to assist the medical board in examining Justice Karnan.

#SC directs West Bengal DGP to set up a team of police officials to assist the medical board in examining Justice #CSKarnan.  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 1, 2017

The SC also asked Justice Karnan to file his response, if he desires so. The Apex court said if justice Karnan decides not to file his response, the Supreme Court would presume that he has nothing to say.

If Justice #CSKarnan decides not to file his response, the #SC would presume that he has nothing to say.  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) May 1, 2017

The seven-bench judge also said that the order passed by Justice Karnan after February 8 will have no legal validity and as he facing the contempt charges.

The Supreme Court had issued the arrest warrant against Justice Karnan to ensure his presence before it on March 31 in a contempt case.

Also Read: Justice Karnan passes order against SC bench after contempt case hearing, restrains 7 judges from performing judicial work

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday issued joint statement in New Delhi. Apart from his wife Emine Erdogan, the Turkish president is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

Prime Minister said that President Erdogan and he took stock of full range of our relations particularly our political, economic and cultural engagements. He emphasised that terrorism is a shared worry, we agreed, no impact or goal and no region can validate terrorism.

PM Modi said that nations of the world need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks, their financing and cross border movement of terrorists. He said that we also need to act and stand against those who create and conceive, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence.

"We have decided to work together to strengthen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter terrorism. President Erdogan and I recognise need for the UNSC to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the century gone by," said PM Modi.

Turkish President Erdogan said that Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism. He said that terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over suffering of people, willing to create future for themselves out of victims' pain.

In every international development that is unfolding in Asia we see India playing a important role. We should increase our business and economic relationship. If we can also start comprehensive economic relations negotiations, that would be great. It would be also good to start free trade agreement (FTA) talks. This would also add further momentum to our relations, said Turkish President Erdogan.

Also read: There should be multilateral dialogue to resolve Kashmir issue: Turkish President Recep Erdogan

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Lucknow:

Jailed rape-accused former minister Gayatri Prajapatis family on Monday reached out to Yogi Adityanath but the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister refused to meet them, according to family members of the SP leader.

However, Prajapatis wife said a minister at UP chief ministers residence assured them that their grievance would be heard. She was accompanied by two daughters.



We wanted to meet the chief minister, but he did not meet us, Prajapatis wife told reporters outside the 5-Kalidas Marg residence here of the CM where he was meeting people during the Janata Darshan programme to listen to public grievances.



I am confident that my husband will get justice. We will make another attempt to have a word with the chief minister, she said.



Prajapatis sobbing daughter claimed her father was being implicated in the case. He is innocent. We want justice. We hope the chief minister will listen to us and ensure justice to our family, she said.

ALSO READ | Gayatri Prajapati case: Justice OP Mishra suspended for granting bail to former UP minister

Last week, a special court granted bail to the controvesial SP leader in a rape and molestation case. But the Allahabad High Court stayed the bail granted to him by Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court judge O P Mishra.

The high court administration suspended the judge for granting the bail and ordered a departmental inquiry. Considered close to SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Prajapati failed to walk out of jail as he was sent to judicial remand in two other cases.



Prajapati was a minister in the previous Akhilesh Yadav government. The former Samajwadi Party MLA from Amethi had lost the recent election.



The alleged rape of the woman and molestation of her minor daughter had attracted a lot of media attention in the run up to the assembly election.



The victim from Chitrakoot district had approached Gautampalli police station here on February 17 alleging that she was raped by Prajapati and his two accomplices for several months.



Prajapati had gone missing after the election and an FIR was lodged against him on February 27 on the Supreme Courts directive. He was arrested from Ashiyana area of Lucknow on March 15.



He had approached the Supreme Court to get a stay on his arrest. But the apex court asked him to approach the court concerned.



At the time of his arrest, Prajapati had claimed that he was innocent and alleged the charges were a conspiracy to malign him.



ALSO READ | Samajwadi Party denies Akhliesh govt had been shielding Gayatri Prajapati



The allegations against Prajapati were raked by the BJP during the state assembly elections to attack the then Akhilesh Yadav-led government.



The Supreme Court order to file a police complaint against Prajapati had come just two days before the third phase of polling in the seven-phase state elections which saw Samajwadi Party winning only 47 of the 403 assembly seats while the BJP and its allies bagged 325 seats.



The BJP had accused Akhilesh Yadav of shielding his tainted minister, a charge refuted by the Samajwadi Party.



(With inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

At least 23 lives in Kerala have been taken by H1N1 influenza in 2017. In 2017, the state has recorded higher incidence of flu compared to 2016, a health department officials said.

According to the the health officials, a total of 300-400 swine flu cases were registered across the state and out them 23 people had died.

State Nodal Officer for H1N1 Amar Fettle told that the number of cases of disease not only increased in Kerala but also in the entire South India.

He assured that there was no need for panic and that necessary steops had been taken to control the flu.

Enough quantity of medicines have been made available at all the government hospitals including primary health centres. Proper guidelines have also been issued with regard to the treatment.

"This year, 27 per cent of samples of throat swabs tested from affected people were found to be positive for H1N1," Mr Fettle told PTI.

According to the official, the first case of inluenza in the state was in 2009. Since then, the disease had become a seasonal one in the region.

"People suffering from diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular issues, cancer and HIV among others and pregnant women are considered to be the high risk or vulnerable group," he said.

Talking about the preparation of the state's health department in this regard, he said the latest information, updates and guidelines about H1N1 was available in the official website of the Directorate of Health Services.

State-run 'Disha', 24X7 tele helpline service can be availed by anyone including private hospitals, in order to get necessary information and treatment protocol related to the disease, he told.

He told about government's programme to sensitise and create awareness about various aspects of the disease.

He also advised people who are affected with common cold and suspected fever, to stay at home and take plenty of hot and nourishing fluids.
Mohamed Talbi, a prominent Tunisian academic and specialist on Islam, died early Monday aged 95, the country's culture ministry said.

Talbi, who was born in Tunis in 1921, was one of the "founders of the modern Tunisian university" and a "great intellectual" figure, the ministry said in a statement.

Having studied Arabic literature, he went on to earn a doctorate degree in history from the prestigious Sorbonne in Paris and later became the first dean to head the faculty of literature at University of Tunis.

Talbi penned around 30 books and 100 articles in Arabic and French in which he challenged rigid interpretations of Islam and called for a fresh view of Islamic thought.

Sharia law is "a human product" that has "nothing to do with Islam", he told French newspaper Le Monde in 2006.

"Religion, no matter which one, should not be constraining," he told the paper, adding that Islam should be a source of "freedom" and "is compatible with democracy".

He won many prizes, including the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest distinction, for encouraging inter-religious dialogue.

He once said Jews and Muslims should set up a "strong and well-publicised structure so as to work together for peace".

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New Delhi:

The Nepal Army will keep a tight watch the current situation in the country which is witnessing political instability after the govt on Sunday registered an impeachment motion against its first women chief justice Sushila Karki accusing her of "interfering" with the executive and issuing "prejudiced" verdicts.



Top Army officials have decided to maintain vigil in view of the challenges to security from "unfolding events", the army's media wing said in a statement, without explaining what it meant by unfolding events quoted PTI.

The Army also said it has reviewed the overall security situation in the country ahead of local-level polls on May 14.

After the impeachment motion by govt, Karki was automatically suspended from the position of chief justice.

Nepal: Prime Minister Prachanda says Madhesi have to pay terrible price for boycotting polls

The ruling Nepali Congress and CPN's 249 lawmakers have signed the motion.

In protest to the motion, Deputy PM of Nepal and Home Affairs minister Bimalendra Nidhi also resigned from their post. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local DevelopmentKamal Thapa has expressed his displeasure against the motion.

Nepal, which has been witnessing political instability for some time now, is scheduled to hold local-level polls on May 14.

Some Madhes-centric parties have opposed the elections until the Constitution is amended to accommodate their views: more representation in parliament and redrawing of provincial boundaries.

(With inputs from PTI)

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the United Arab Emirates Monday for talks on economic and security issues.

Talks covered "bilateral political and economic relations... the crises in Syria, Libya and Yemen as well as efforts by the two countries to combat extremism", state news agency WAM reported.

WAM has reported the UAE is Germany's main trading partner in the Gulf, with annual trade worth around $16 billion (14.67 billion euros).

German investments in the United Arab Emirates stand at around 2.4 billion euros ($2.6 billion), according to German government sources.

Merkel's UAE visit comes after meetings Sunday with top Saudi officials in Jeddah, where the German chancellor signed a string of draft agreements with King Salman covering industry, economic relations and security.

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The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will drop its long-standing call for Israel's destruction as well as its association with the Muslim Brotherhood in a new policy document to be issued on Monday, Gulf Arab sources said.

Hamas's move appears aimed at improving relations with the West, Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which label the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Israel rejected the reported document, calling it an attempt by Hamas to delude the world that it was becoming a more moderate group.

The Gulf Arab sources said Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, will say in the document that it agrees to a transitional Palestinian state along the borders from 1967, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a war with Arab states. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

A future state encompassing Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem along 1967 borders is the goal of Hamas' main political rival, the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. His Palestinian Authority has engaged in peace talks with Israel on that basis, although the last, U.S.-mediated round collapsed three years ago.

The revised Hamas political document, to be announced later on Monday, will still reject Israel's right to exist and back "armed struggle" against it, the Gulf Arab sources told Reuters.

"Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," said David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians," he said. "This is the real Hamas."

Israel waged three wars against Hamas since 2007.

It remained unclear whether the document replaces or changes in any way Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israels destruction and is the Islamist group's covenant.

A Hamas spokesman in Qatar declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from Egypt and Gulf Arab states.

Arab sources said the Hamas document was being released ahead of a planned visit by Abbas to Washington on May 3 and as Donald Trump administration prepares to make a renewed push for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Analysts say the revised document could allow Hamas to mend relations with Western countries and pave the way for a reconciliation agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, now also headed by Abbas.

U.S.-allied Arab states including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia classify the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. The 89-year-old Brotherhood held power in Egypt for a year after a popular uprising in 2011.

The Brotherhood denies links with Islamist militants and advocates Islamist political parties winning power through elections, which Saudi Arabia considers a threat to its system of absolute power through inherited rule.

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Sweden's largest Shia Muslim mosque was badly damaged overnight in a suspected arson attack, police said Monday.

"Flames were engulfing the outer facade" of the Imam Ali Islamic Centre in the northern Stockholm suburb of Jakobsberg, a police spokesman said, although there were no reports of any injuries.

"It seems it was set ablaze from the outside," the TT news agency quoted police spokesman Lars Bystrom as saying, adding an investigation was under way to determine if the motive was political.

"This is Sweden's largest Shia mosque with thousands of faithful... They are really concerned," mosque spokesman Akil Zahari told broadcaster SVT.

Several mosques in Sweden have been the target of arson attacks in recent years but few perpetrators have been caught.

In April last year, a 31-year-old man identified through CCTV footage was jailed for three years for racially-aggravated arson after admitting setting fire to a mosque in the southwestern town of Boras.

Swedish anti-racism campaigners protested in January 2015 after a trio of arson attacks on mosques in the Nordic country.

In Stockholm, residents are still coming to terms with an April 7 truck attack which killed five people.

An Uzbek national confessed to using a stolen truck to mow down pedestrians on a busy shopping street in a rampage similar to attacks in Nice, Berlin and London.

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NEW MILFORD - After the United Methodist Churchs highest court reaffirmed its anti-homosexual stance in several rulings Friday night, an openly gay pastor said he will continue his ministry as before.

The Rev. Alex da Silva Souto, who came out to his parishioners at the New Milford United Methodist Church last May, said he is disappointed in the church Judicial Councils decisions, but is no more fearful for his job than he was earlier.

I live to preach another day, and I will remain doing so until I'm stopped, he said.

The church ruled that the boards of ordained ministry in the Illinois and New York regions, the latter of which oversees the New Milford church, must ask those who want to enter the ministry about their sexuality and cannot ordain those who are gay. The decision doesnt apply directly to da Silva Souto because he was ordained in June.

The sword is pointed toward the ones coming on their journey, da Silva Souto said.

IIn its decision, the council noted a provision in its guidelines for determining who can be a minister.

While persons set apart by the church for ordained ministry are subject to all frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world, the provision states. The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore, self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in the Methodist Church.

The council also determined that a married lesbian bishop has violated the churchs teachings on marriage and homosexuality. While the council said she is currently in good standing, the ruling suggested she eventually could be suspended or forced to retire.

In doing so, the council, da Silva Souto said, "asserted the discriminatory language in the churchs doctrine, the Book of Discipline.

The council could have waited until a planned report about gays in the clergy is released in February 2019, da Silva Souto said, but instead they forced their hand, a punishment, and legislated from the bench against us."

Da Silva Souto was in Newark, near where the council met, waiting on the decision Friday.

Da Silva Souto has the backing of his congregation, regional United Methodist officials and clergy members of other denominations behind him. The New Milford United Methodist Church also voted late last year to join about 800 other Methodist churches in rejecting the denominations views on homosexuality.
New eras call for new ways of thinking about leadership, and 2017 is ushering in real change in the business world.

Boston Consulting Group recently published an ebook, Transformation: Delivering and Sustaining Breakthrough Performance. The book argues that companies must operate in a state of always-on transformation, ready to shift tactics at a moments notice.

Related: Is It Time to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone?

In BCG's view, transformation isnt something that happens once every 10 years in response to a crisis. Its the process by which leaders regularly improve their operating models, culture and business strategies.

This concept of constant transformation may seem daunting, but great leaders understand the power of this approach. Successful companies fail often, learn from their mistakes and pivot quickly. But even small transformations can create momentum. Yes, transformations are challenging and disheartening at times. But thats where strong leadership comes into play.

When employees see executives and managers exhibit inspirational qualities, they have faith that even turbulent changes are for the best. I know, because Ive witnessed this many times in my 20 years as a leader in the public relations industry. Despite making my share of mistakes, Ive gained valuable insights from each of those mistakes and used that knowledge to strengthen my company.

We've won awards and been ranked as one of the top 10 fastest-growing PR firms in the world because we were willing to transform ourselves when the circumstances demanded it. Here are four lessons I've learned about what I call the inspirational factor:

1. When in doubt, ask, "Why not now?"

Too often, leaders hesitate to take risks because they fear negative outcomes. But businesses stagnate if their decision-makers refuse to reach higher.

Author, investor and keynote speaker Amy Jo Martin encourages executives to ask themselves, Why not now? when theyre reluctant to take action. Her podcast focuses on this question by encouraging leaders to break down their pessimistic assumptions and spur innovation. She's spoken with business mogul Mark Cuban, #Girlboss Sophia Amoruso and visionary thinker Simon Sinek --- among many others -- to learn how they answered this "why not now?" crucial question and moved forward.

Leading with confidence can inspire people to achieve more than they ever dared. According to author and speaker Denis Waitley, the longer people remain complacent and fearful, the harder they find it to get out of their comfort zones. In short, no one levels up by continuing as they are.

The message here is that you should implement new strategies in 2017 to show employees that your company is moving forward boldly. Encourage them to do the same.

2. Focus on other people.

Capable entrepreneurs arent concerned with their own legacies. Instead, they emphasize their teams' needs and look for ways to help their employees succeed. As Extreme Leadership Institute founder Steve Farber has said, Your leadership is not about your position or title. Its about who you are, how you live and your ability to influence others to change things for the better -- at work and beyond.

Farber explores that concept in his book Greater Than Yourself. He discusses the true goal of leaders -- to build others up -- and outlines three keys to achieving this: expanding yourself, giving of yourself and replicating yourself.

It's one of the most engaging leadership books I've read because it's broken down into parables that detail Farber's own experiences with people who brought this concept to life. One quote really stuck with me: "The real payoff comes in the giving of knowledge, not the keeping of it. If I'm going to make you greater, I have to give freely of not only my knowledge, but all my resources: my connections and network, my experience, my insights, my advice and counsel -- even my time."

Related: Selfless Leaders Prioritize Value for Customers, Not Personal Profits

When training your team members, then, don't lecture them on your own experiences and best practices. Instead, learn who they are, where they excel and where they need assistance. According to Gallup, people are inspired by leaders who demonstrate a sincere interest and commitment in supporting them.

Once you've gained context for those team members' present circumstances, ask, "What can I do for you?" This simple question can convince people that you are on their side and want to work with them. Empathetic leadership is critical to building inspired, motivated teams, so talk with your employees and find out their concerns and needs.

As Farber says, "Expand yourself, give yourself and, finally, replicate yourself by teaching others to do exactly what you've done for them."

3. Invest in clients' passions.

At its core, business is about building and maintaining relationships. Yet Gallup found that less than a third of B2B customers it surveyed said that they were engaged. Boosting those numbers is an uphill battle for businesses that want to bring in more customers and those they already have. For me, the solution has always been to stay passionate about your clients' businesses.

My team and I have climbed oil rigs, walked the aisles of retail stores and done whatever we can to immerse ourselves in clients businesses. The result? They believe that we care about their success, and they trust that were giving them our best. Weve had clients tell us that seeing us get excited about their work makes them feel good, which is critical to developing good relationships.

I tell my team, Love it like they do. Not only does cultivating passion for clients work generate goodwill, it also helps us avoid giving unwise recommendations. Because we care as much about their businesses as they do, our strategies are almost always on target.

4. Lead with authenticity.

Many executives feel they must be tough and have all the answers. And, as a young professional, I believed that, too. But, I struggled because I didnt see myself as a hard-as-nails executive who never made mistakes. Fortunately, Ive realized that authenticity resonates with people more than pretending to have achieved perfection. In fact, according to Pew Research Center, honesty and compassion are rated as some of the most crucial leadership traits.

Related: 10 Qualities of Authentic People

The message here is that entrepreneurs and executives who embrace their unique leadership styles are more effective than those who try to do everything right. Authentic leaders are holistic champions who honor their values, trust their intuitions, build substantial relationships and act with integrity.

Inspiring people is the most challenging and rewarding task entrepreneurs face. Its also key to meeting the growing demand for always-on transformation. When employees and clients are inspired by a companys leaders, theyre willing to follow them into uncertainty, no matter what lies ahead.

Related:

10 Martha Stewart Quotes to Live By

4 Ways to Boost Your 'Inspirational Factor'

Watch 'The Never Settle Show' Ep. 4: Getting Your Finances in Order



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet in Alaska on May 10 or 11 on the sidelines of an Arctic summit, Russia's foreign ministry said Monday.

The meeting was agreed on during a telephone conversation between Lavrov and Tillerson, according to a statement from the ministry.

Lavrov's attendance at the gathering of ministers of eight Arctic countries will be his first trip to the US since US President Donald Trump took office in January.

Tillerson visited Russia last month where he met with Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In their brief telephone conversation, Lavrov and Tillerson also discussed an international meeting on Syria scheduled to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan on May 3-4, according to the statement.

American missile strikes on a Syrian air base last month in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhun by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow.

In response, Russia, Syria's main ally, suspended an agreement with the US designed to prevent clashes between their airforces in Syrian airspace.

Officials from the eight countries bordering the Arctic will meet in Fairbanks, Alaska to discuss environmental protection of the region from May 10-11.

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TORONTO, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - Leon's Furniture Limited ("Leon's" or the "Company") (TSX: LNF), today announced that it plans to release its financial results after 12:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 11, 2017. The Company's Annual General Meeting will follow, at 2:00 p.m. ET, at the following location:

Old Mill Toronto

Humber Room

21 Old Mill Road Toronto, Ontario

M8X 1G5

About Leon's Furniture Limited

Leon's Furniture Limited is the largest retailer of furniture, appliances and electronics in Canada. Our retail banners include: Leon's; The Brick; The Brick Mattress Store; The Brick Clearance Centre and United Furniture Warehouse ("UFW"). Finally, the addition of the Brick's Midnorthern Appliance banner alongside with Leon's Appliance Canada banner, makes the Company the country's largest commercial retailer of appliances to builders, developers, hotels and property management companies. Leon's has in excess of 300 retail stores from coast to coast in Canada under various banners

SOURCE Leon's Furniture Limited

For further information: Dominic Scarangella, EVP & CFO, Leon's Furniture Limited, 416-243-4073; Jonathan Ross, CFA, LodeRock Advisors, Leon's Investor Relations, [email protected], Tel: (416) 283-0178
TORONTO, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - Mattamy Group Corporation ("Mattamy"), the largest privately owned homebuilder in North America, today announced key operating results for the third quarter ended February 28, 2017 and posted full financial results for the third quarter on Intralinks.

Third Quarter 2017 Key Operating Highlights

Homes closed increased 21.9% to 1,319 from 1,082 in the prior year quarter

Net sales orders decreased 25.0% to 1,614 homes from 2,152 homes in the prior year quarter

Sales order backlog expanded 7.7% to 8,384 units from 7,786 units in the prior year quarter

LTM February 28, 2017 Key Operating Highlights

Homes closed increased 24.1% to 6,194 from 4,992 in the prior year period

Net sales orders decreased 8.8% to 6,793 homes from 7,392 homes in the prior year period

For Access to Conference Call and Financial Reports:

Mattamy will host its conference call, for qualified investors, to discuss its first-quarter financial results live on May 4, 2017, from 10:00 am EST to 11:00 am EST. Conference call dial-in details and full financial results are available on Intralinks. An audio replay of the call will be available within 24 hours after the call on Intralinks.

Access to Mattamy's Intralinks site is accessible to beneficial owners of notes, prospective investors and others upon certification to establish its identity as such to the reasonable satisfaction of Mattamy. To obtain information on how to access the site, or if you experience any difficulty please contact [email protected]

About Mattamy Homes

Mattamy Homes is the largest privately owned homebuilder in North America, with operations across the United States and Canada. Mattamy has sold 90,000 homes in hundreds of communities. In the United States, the company is represented in nine metropolitan areas  Minneapolis-St. Paul, Charlotte, Phoenix, Tucson, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa, Sarasota and Naples  and in Canada, those communities stretch across the Greater Toronto Area, as well as in Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. Visit www.mattamyhomes.com for more information.

SOURCE Mattamy Homes Limited

For further information: Investor Relations Contact: Darryl Dawe, 416-637-0794, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.mattamyhomes.com/


OTTAWA, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - Today, the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced the appointment of the Honourable Stephane Dion as Canada's Ambassador to Germany and his Special Envoy to the European Union (EU) and Europe.

Following consultations with European partners, it was agreed that this appointment will best deliver on the Prime Minister's commitment to strengthen Canada's relations with Europe. The Prime Minister has exchanged letters with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, his two counterparts in Canada-EU Leaders' Summits, on the purpose of Mr. Dion's role as Special Envoy to the EU and Europe. Mr. Dion will depart to take up his assignments in early May.

As Special Envoy to the EU and Europe, Mr. Dion will play a central role in advancing Canada's interests throughout Europe, ensuring coherence across the activities of Canadian diplomatic missions, and providing strategic guidance to the Prime Minister. He will also work with European partners to advance a shared progressive international agenda, more important than ever in today's challenging environment. Canada will continue to be represented by our existing Mission to the EU and Ambassador to the EU in Brussels. Mr. Dion will work closely with them to provide further impetus to Canada-EU relations.

As Canada's Ambassador to Germany, Mr. Dion will work to deepen our relationship with Germany  the largest economy in Europe, and an important bilateral trade and investment partner. Germany and Canada share values, such as openness, diversity and inclusion, and are important friends and allies in the G7, G20, NATO, United Nations, and other multilateral organizations.

In these important assignments, Mr. Dion's unique experience and attributes will be of enormous strategic benefit to both Canada and Europe. He will engage with interlocutors across Europe at a high level in order to protect and promote our values and interests.

Quote

"Stephane is a man who has long fought to create a better country for all Canadians, with a keen understanding of how the transatlantic relationship can help to advance shared values and interests. As my Special Envoy and Canada's senior diplomatic voice in Europe, I know he will proudly represent Canada with courage and conviction in this next important chapter for him, for Canada and for the whole of Europe."

Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

https://www.canada.ca


New Era Begins for Nevada's Newest Gold Producer

VANCOUVER, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - Rye Patch Gold Corp. (TSX.V: RPM; OTCQX: RPMGF; FWB: 5TN) (the "Company" or "Rye Patch") announced that it has completed the first gold pour from the new leach pad at the refurbished Florida Canyon Mine in Northwestern Nevada.

A total 485 ounces of gold was poured as dore in the month of April from the new South Heap Leach Pad with the first pour occurring on April 25, 2017. In addition, residual leaching from the old Florida Canyon and Standard Gold mines produced 602 ounces.

"This is a significant milestone for Rye Patch Gold," said President and CEO William Howald. "The Florida Canyon team has done a phenomenal job on the re-start of the Mine and we are excited to be Nevada's newest gold producer. We can now turn our sights to realizing the tremendous potential of our other projects along the Oreana Trend and reaching our goal of becoming Nevada's next mid-tier producer."

Rye Patch began irrigation of the newly built South Heap Leach Pad in mid-April 2017 only nine months after acquiring the Florida Canyon mine in July 2016. The Company plans to ramp up towards commercial production during the second quarter of 2017.

About Rye Patch Gold Corp.

Rye Patch Gold Corp. is a Nevada based, Tier 1, mining company engaged in the mining and development of quality resource-based gold and silver mines and projects along the established Oreana trend in west central Nevada. Leveraging its strong financial position and cash to acquire the operating Florida Canyon Gold Mine, Rye Patch Gold Corp. now controls a trend-scale platform with operations, resource assets and exploration upside. The combination of operations and exploration concentrated along a major Nevada gold trend positions Rye Patch as an emerging mid-tier gold producer with tremendous value added potential. For more information, please visit our website at www.ryepatchgold.com.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

'William Howald'

William C. (Bill) Howald, CEO & President

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to future plans and objectives of the Company, proposed operations of the Company with assumptions made about mine development, funding requirements, future events and conditions and other statements that are not historical facts, all of which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. The Company's actual results, programs and financial position could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of numerous factors, some of which may be beyond the Company's control. These factors include: the requirement of the Company to satisfy the conditions for drawdowns in the credit agreement entered into with Macquarie Bank Limited ("Credit Facility"), the achievement of mine redevelopment plans and production results; the availability of funds; the financial position of Rye Patch; the timing and content of work programs; the results of exploration activities and development of mineral properties; the interpretation of drilling results and other geological data; the reliability of calculation of mineral resources; the reliability of calculation of precious metal recoveries; the receipt and security of mineral property titles; project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses; fluctuations in metal prices; currency fluctuations; and general market and industry conditions.

Forward-looking statements are based on the expectations and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. The assumptions used in the preparation of such statements, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. As a result, the Company cannot guarantee that the drawdowns under the Credit Facility and the Florida Canyon mine redevelopment will be completed on the terms and within the time disclosed herein or at all.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

SOURCE Rye Patch Gold

For further information: Rye Patch Gold Corp, [email protected], Tel.: (604) 638-1588, Fax: (604) 638-1589

Related Links

http://www.ryepatchgold.com


OTTAWA, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - The Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of National Defence, today issued a statement in recognition of Mental Health Week:

"This week marks Canada's 66th Mental Health Week. This week is very important for Veterans and members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), not only for those coping with operational stress injuries such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, but also for the families and mental health professionals who stand by them. We need to keep mental health at the forefront of our priorities, and seek to shine the light of understanding into any dark corners.

"Not every wound leaves a physical scar. The process of healing these unseen injuries is by no means quick and easy. That is why we encourage all Canadians to have candid discussions with one another about mental health and spread awareness and acceptance to put an end to the stigma around mental health once and for all.

"We also take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) for all the hard work they put into starting this conversationand keeping it goingacross Canada. Organizations like the CMHA and the promotion of public awareness throughout Mental Health Week have given Canadians much-needed tools to bring mental health issues closer to the surface.

"The Government of Canada offers a wide range of mental health services, support and information for Veterans, members of the CAF, and their familiesincluding access to a 24 hour, seven day a week, hotline (1-800-268-7708) which is answered by a mental health professional who will speak with callers about their situation and organize one on one counseling.

"This week we urge all Veterans and CAF members to make time to reflect upon their own mental health, take the steps needed to optimize well-being and talk to others.

"Now is the time to GET LOUD for mental health."

SOURCE Veterans Affairs Canada

For further information: Media Relations, Veterans Affairs Canada, Phone: 613-992-7468, Email: [email protected]; Media Relations, Department of National Defence, Phone: 613-996-2353, Toll-Free: 1-866-377-0811, Email: [email protected]

Related Links

www.veterans.gc.ca


OTTAWA, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on Mental Health Week:

"This week, I encourage all Canadians to #GetLoud to raise awareness about mental health, an important, but sometimes invisible, aspect of our general health.

"This year's campaign, led by the Canadian Mental Health Association, asks us to speak up to make sure Canadians get the mental health care they need, when they need it. Mental health is a core part of our well-being, but too often long wait times or limited services stop Canadians from getting the mental health care they need.

"That is why the Government of Canada will provide $5 billion over the next 10 years to provinces and territories to support mental health initiatives. These investments will help improve access to evidence-based interventions and mental health services and care for people across the country. With a particular focus on youth and young adults, this will help as many as 500,000 young Canadians.

"We also know that providing greater access to care and support is just half of the equation. Having access to safe, adequate and affordable housing, and being able to find and keep a good paying job are also part of what makes a difference in people's health. That is why the Government of Canada is making major investments in both housing and employment initiatives. As part of the new $5 billion National Housing Fund, persons with mental health and addiction issues will receive greater support.

"The Government of Canada remains committed to help communities address their unique mental health challenges. To build on Indigenous-led initiatives like the First Nations Mental Wellness Continuum Framework and the National Inuit Suicide Prevention Strategy, Budget 2017 pledges over $200 million over the next five years to increase support for mental health services for First Nations and Inuit. This includes making available, for the first time, the services of traditional healers as part of the Non-Insured Health Benefits Program administered by Health Canada.

"The struggles of mental illness have affected so many of us, including my own family. For everyone who has struggled with a mental illness: thank you for sharing your stories, and for showing that being open is a strength. You are not alone. Today, I join Canadians to celebrate your resilience, and to get loud about the need for timely access to mental health services and support. Together, we can make sure all Canadians have the care and support they need to live full and healthy lives."

Associated Links

This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

SOURCE Prime Minister's Office

For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555

Related Links

http://pm.gc.ca/


DENVER, April 28, 2017 /CNW/-- Vista Gold Corp. (the "Company," "we" or "our") (NYSE MKT: VGZ) (TSX: VGZ) today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017. Management's quarterly conference call to discuss these results is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. MDT on May 3, 2017. The Company's unaudited financial statements, Management's Discussion and Analysis together with other important disclosures can be found in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, filed on April 28, 2017 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities regulatory authorities.

Summary of First Quarter 2017 Financial Results

We reported a net loss of $2.8 million or $0.03 per share for the three months ended March 31, 2017. This includes $2.5 million of net operating expenses; and an unrealized $0.3 million mark-to-market loss on our investment in Midas Gold Corp. ("Midas"). During the three months ended March 31, 2016, we reported a net loss of $0.7 million or $0.01 per share inclusive of $2.2 million of net operating expenses; a $0.7 million payment we received from the Australian Government under a research and development incentive program; an unrealized $0.5 million mark-to-market gain on our investment in Midas; and $0.3 million of other income.

Our working capital at March 31, 2017 totaled approximately $26.0 million, including cash and short-term investments (comprised of government securities) of approximately $21.8 million. The Company has no debt.

Frederick H. Earnest, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We believe that we have sufficient working capital to cover our fixed costs for several years; to execute selected discretionary programs intended to optimize and add value to Mt Todd; and to complete all of the critical milestones, including permitting, necessary to advance the Mt Todd project to the point of a development decision.

"We are working to complete the bulk metallurgical test work to evaluate automated ore sorting, grinding circuit optimization and improved leach recoveries that could support material improvements to the economics of the Mt Todd gold project without significant alterations to the current flow sheet. This work is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year. An updated prefeasibility study, which would integrate these potential flow sheet alterations and the associated economic benefits, will likely be completed after that."

To review the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ended March 31, 2017, including the related Management's Discussion and Analysis, visit any of the following websites: www.sedar.com, www.sec.gov or www.vistagold.com.

Management Conference Call

A conference call with management to review our financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017 and to discuss corporate and project activities is scheduled for Wednesday, May 3, 2017 at 2:30 p.m. MDT.

Toll-free in North America: 1-866-233-5249

International: 416-642-3300

Confirmation Code: 4152669

This call will also be web-cast and can be accessed at the following web location:

http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=1416096&s=1&k=1119E6298108FC79B036B57D1ABE2D12

This call will be archived and available at www.vistagold.com after May 3, 2017. Audio replay will be available for 21 days by calling toll-free in North America: 1-888-203-1112, passcode 4152669.

If you are unable to access the audio or phone-in on the day of the conference call, please email questions to Connie Martinez, Manager  Investor Relations (email: [email protected]), and we will try to address these questions prior to or during the conference call.

All dollar amounts in the press release are U.S. dollars.

About Vista Gold Corp.

The Company is a well-funded gold project developer. Our principal asset is our flagship Mt Todd gold project in Northern Territory, Australia. Mt Todd is one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Australia. For more information about our projects, including technical studies and resource estimates, please visit our website at www.vistagold.com.

For further information, please contact Connie Martinez at (720) 981-1185.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future, including such things as our belief that we have sufficient working capital to cover our fixed costs for several years and to fund our other plans; our belief that our plans could support material improvements to the economics of the Mt Todd gold project without significant alterations to the current flow sheet, and the timing for the completion of this work; the timing and completion of an updated prefeasibility study on Mt Todd and other such matters are forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this press release include the following: our approved business plans, exploration and assay results, results of our test work for process area improvements, mineral resource and reserve estimates and results of preliminary economic assessments, prefeasibility studies and feasibility studies on our projects, if any, our experience with regulators, and positive changes to current economic conditions and the price of gold. When used in this press release, the words "optimistic," "potential," "indicate," "expect," "intend," "hopes," "believe," "may," "will," "if," "anticipate," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, uncertainty of resource and reserve estimates, uncertainty as to the Company's future operating costs and ability to raise capital; risks relating to cost increases for capital and operating costs; risks of shortages and fluctuating costs of equipment or supplies; risks relating to fluctuations in the price of gold; the inherently hazardous nature of mining-related activities; potential effects on our operations of environmental regulations in the countries in which it operates; risks due to legal proceedings; risks relating to political and economic instability in certain countries in which it operates; uncertainty as to the results of bulk metallurgical test work; and uncertainty as to completion of critical milestones for Mt Todd; as well as those factors discussed under the headings "Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" in the Company's latest Annual Report on Form 10-K as filed on February 22, 2017 and other documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Although we have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements and forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information; whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Vista Gold Corp.

Related Links

http://www.vistagold.com


An Iranian filmmaker imprisoned over his work has been released from prison after serving about five months of his yearlong sentence.



Keywan Karimi told The Associated Press on Sunday that he did not receive any of the 223 lashes that was part of his sentence.



Karimi says: "I want to continue filmmaking, but I don't know how and in which country."



Karimi is best known by international film critics for his 2013 black-and-white minimalist film, "The Adventure of the Married Couple."



He is one of several artists, poets, journalists, models and activists arrested in a crackdown on expression led by hard-liners who oppose President Hassan



Rouhani's more moderate policies and efforts to promote openness with the outside world.



His release comes ahead of Iran's May presidential election.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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Indonesia is exploring a number of new options for nuclear power, including high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and a thorium molten salt reactors.

Indonesia has signed several nuclear deals

* In early 2015, they signed a contract to build and test a pebble-bed HTGR at Serpong with a consortium of Russian and Indonesian companies led by NUKEM Technologies.

* in August 2016, they signed a cooperation agreement with China Nuclear Engineering to develop small HTGRs in Kalimantan and Sulawesi by 2027.

* they have signed agreements with Russias Rosatom to develop a floating nuclear power plant to power smaller inhabited islands.

* in March 2017, three state-owned Indonesian power companies completed a 10-month-long preliminary feasibility study for a 250-MW molten salt reactor that would use a combination of 80% thorium and 20% uranium (the uranium would be enriched to 19.75% U-235, and the fuel would be delivered to the plant as fluoride salts). The reactor is from the ThorCon International nuclear startup. ThorCon is a company owned by Florida-based consulting firm Martingale Inc. The prefeasibility study stems from a memorandum of understanding the company signed with the Indonesian state firms in December 2015.

Indonesia has a lot monazite and Thorium, which is recovered from the countrys substantial tin mining industry.

The ThorCon reactor is designed for installation 15 to 30 meters underground.

ThorCon noted that an entire plant can be manufactured in blocks on a shipyard-like assembly line, claiming that a single large reactor yard can churn out 100 1-GW ThorCons per year. Manufacturing costs for building a 500-MW ThorConLand power plant are about $1.2/W, it said. Generation costs could hover around $0.024/kWh. Capital costs are low, it said, because the reactor operates at 700C, enabling the use of supercritical steam turbine generators, such as those installed at modern coal plants.

The designers foresee no technical reason why a full-scale 250-MW prototype cannot be operating within four years.

The plan is for prefission testing to begin in 2018, and fission testing in 2020.
Dangote Cements Offshore Plants Boost Revenue by 74%

Sales recorded by Dangote Cement Plc plants across Africa significantly impacted on the revenue of the company for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 by 74 per cent to N208.2bn.The Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Cement, Onne van der Weijde, who stated this on Friday while presenting the companys first quarter results to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, also said that the earnings per share for the quarter increased by 36.2 per cent to N4.25.He said, Dangote Cement produced record financial results in the first three months of 2017. Despite lower group volumes, we delivered significantly higher revenues and EBITDA after realigning prices late in 2016. Our new pricing strategy meant every tonne worked harder for us in Nigeria, delivering 78.4 per cent more EBITDA per tonne than the same quarter last year.We have now begun sourcing a significant amount of coal from Nigerian mines owned by our parent, Dangote Industries, and this has not only helped us to improve margins, but also reduced our need for imported coal and the foreign currencies needed to buy it.Our pan-African operations performed strongly, increasing sales volumes by 21 per cent and revenues by 74.2 per cent. Pan-African operations now contribute nearly 28 per cent of group revenues and we are pleased to report a good start for our new import facility in Sierra Leone. We will begin operations in Congo in the coming weeks, further consolidating our position as sub-Saharan Africas leading supplier of cement.The Federal Government recently lauded Dangote Cement for its efforts in making the country to be self-sufficient in cement production.The government confirmed that Nigeria had attained self-sufficiency in the production of cement and was now an exporter of the commodity, ascribing the feat to Dangote Cement, which spearheaded the backward integration policy introduced by the government.The Minister for Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who led a government team to the Dangote Cement plant in Ibese, Ogun State, said the government was happy with the leadership role played by Dangote Cement in executing the backward integration policy in the cement industry.The minister said it was a success story that Nigeria, which a few years ago imported over 60 per cent of her cement needs, now could produce enough to meet local demands and still export to other nations.Fayemi had said, As you all know, as the Federal Government moves to diversify the economy away from oil; two areas the government is focusing on are agriculture and solid minerals, this is why we are embarking on a tour of mining operations across the country to know the challenges they face and what can be done to tackle those challenges.What Dangote is doing is marvellous. We need to commend them. The way they led the backward integration policy to turn around our fortunes in the cement industry. I am delighted to see the development here bigger than what I saw the last time. And we are looking at how we can replicate the success in the cement industry in other non-oil sectors of our economy.Dangote Cement is Africas leading cement producer with nearly 46 million metric tonnes per annum capacity across the continent, a fully integrated quarry-to-customer producer with production capacity of 29.25 million metric tonnes per annum in Nigeria.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa on Sunday assured that his administration would not support the establishment of grazing reserves in the state, d...

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa on Sunday assured that his administration would not support the establishment of grazing reserves in the state, despite the incessant clashes between herdsmen and local farmers in Delta State,Okowa stated this during the 2nd session of the seventh synod of Ughelli Diocese of the Anglican Communion held at St. Pauls Anglican Church, Ekete in the Udu area of the state.He noted that his administration was doing its best to end farmers/herdsmen clash across the state.The governors clarification came on the heels of alleged plans by the state government to grant grazing reserves to herdsmen as part of efforts to end incessant clashes between farmers and herdsmen.He said, The people of Delta have made it clear that they are not in support of grazing reserves. We are not supporting any grazing reserves in the state.Possibly, there would have been much more killings if not for our consultations. We are also aware that most of the kidnappings in the state are being done by the Hausa/Fulanis in collusion with some of our people.The governor tasked the church to relentlessly pray for the state and the nation, assuring that revenue to the state would increase within the next couple of months as Shell was working to fix the Forcados Trunkline which was attacked by militants.The Bishop of Yola Diocese of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Marcus Ibrahim, in his homily, decried greed in the church, and urged Christians to pray harder to check the activities of Boko Haram, kidnappers and armed robbers in the country.
Ecobank Nigeria has closed operations in 74 of its branches in an exercise it described as a merger of its branches.The bank, however, stated that it will redeploy affected staffers to other projects.The subsidiary of Ecobank group reaffirmed its committment to digital transformation, which would enable customers carry out banking activities online, thereby reducing the need to carry out banking transactions in physical locations.Ecobank Managing-Director, Charles Kie, said in a statement that the bank hopes to shift its activities to digital channels and in the process improve customers experience at reduced cost.He pointed out that this move also supports the banks financial inclusion strategy and the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.After a detailed analysis of the physical network of branches needed to serve our customers, the decision was made by the Ecobank Nigeria board, and approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria, to optimise 74 out of its 479 branches.We are deploying staff and other resources from the merged branches to other ongoing projects, while also strengthening the existing branches to make them more resourceful and up to speed in their daily activities, the MD said.
The front-runner in the French presidential election has told the BBC that the EU must reform or face the prospect of Frexit.Pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron made the comments as he and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen entered the last week of campaigning.French voters go to the polls on Sunday to decide between the pair.Ms Le Pen has capitalised on anti-EU feeling, and has promised a referendum on Frances membership.She won support in rural and former industrial areas by promising to retake control of Frances borders from the EU and slash immigration.Im a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe its extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation, Mr Macron, leader of the recently created En Marche! movement, told the BBC.But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project.Mr Macron added that if he were to allow the EU to continue to function as it was would be a betrayal.And I dont want to do so, he said. Because the day after, we will have a Frexit or we will have [Ms Le Pens] National Front (FN) again.
Former Minister of Aviation and a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Femi Fani-Kayode has described President Muhammadu Buhari as an evil-minded person who has been rejected by God.Fani said this government is governed by radical Islamists, voodoo merchants and psychopaths.In a Facebook post, Fani predicted that many things will happen in the few months, asking Nigerians to buckle up.He wrote, President Muhammadu Buhari is venal and malevolent. He has been rejected by the Living God.His is a government of psychopaths, ethnic supremacists, radical Islamists, skull and bone diviners and voodoo merchants.We are entering the end game. Everything is coming to a head. The next few months will be instructive and critical. Much will happen.Just few days ago, the ex-minister had averred that there will be chaos in the country if President Muhammadu Buhari dies in Aso Rock.He went further to say that, The truth is that we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder in this country and I sincerely hope and pray that the Presidents health improves and some measure of order, predictability, sanity, peace and stability is restored.If this happens we will have the historic opportunity to organise ourselves and vote the APC out in a peaceful election in 2019 but if it does not and Buhari dies before the end of his tenure, no-one in his right mind should expect a smooth transition of power to the Vice President.
In what appears a May Day clemency, the Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, on Monday pardoned three out of the four teachers and labour leaders who were sacked in October 2016 for allegedly breaching the civil service rule during the years World Teachers Day celebration held on October 5.The Governor announced the clemency while making his speech at the MKO International Stadium, Kuto, Abeokuta.Those pardoned were the outgone State chairman, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Comrade Dare Ilekoya, Eniola Atiku and Nola Balogun.The governor added that their sack has been converted to compulsory retirement with full benefits.However, the state chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Akeem Ambali, who had dragged the state government before the National Industrial Court, Lagos was excluded.The governor said since Ambali has gone to court it would be prejudicial to talk about his own case.He said, Since the fourth person has gone to court, we must allow the process to run its course. After that we might now take decision on his case.He commended the state work force for their support for his administration, adding that 2016 was a challenging year both for the state and federal government.He further reiterated his administrations commitment to workers welfare, noting that efforts would be geared towards paying deductions and gratuities which were in arrears, as soon as funds were available.
President Buhari breathed legitimacy into every agitation for secession in the South East and South South regions of Nigeria when he pro...

President Buhari breathed legitimacy into every agitation for secession in the South East and South South regions of Nigeria when he promised to favour those who voted him en masse ahead of those that didn't shortly after assuming office. There couldn't be a better justification than the President pledging to make them 2nd class citizens in violation of their Constitutional right to freedom of association and from being discriminated against.The strong will of the majority of the people of both regions to remain a part of this nation especially the South East,which seemed to have waited forever to get its first non-ministerial appointment must be commended.When Nnamdi Kanu,the arrowhead of the Indigenous People of Biafra(IPOB) was arrested at a hotel in Lagos about 2 years ago,no one would have ever thought he would step out of Kuje Prisons on bail in the manner he did.He has gone from whom many thought a semi-lunatic spewing what even a lucid him wouldn't make any sense of on radio to a man that has had people like Prof.Charles Soludo,Pat Utomi,Peter Obi,the entire South-East governors and virtually every human rights activist call for his release.Ayo Fayose was in court on the day his bail application was being ruled on and he was dressed in red to show solidarity.The Buhari administration made a hero out of a villain.At every point it kept denying him freedom after being granted bail from the magistrate court where he was first arraigned to the subsequent orders for same by other courts,it had more people rooting for him.For an addendum, his followers were massacred in Port Harcourt, Rivers State for doing nothing other than celebrating Donald Trump's inauguration as U.S President.This administration by its flagrant disregard for the rule of law, has swapped places with its adversaries in the fight between good and evil.A lot of people are starting to forget this man started a radio station with the sole aim of disuniting this nation.He distorted facts and used highly unsavory words in propagating his message of a Biafra nation.What people now see is a man oppressed by the Buhari regime and one that deserves some sympathy for his travails.What we now see is a man who is starting to garner more support from his people as his 'oppressed' status has pumped an air of righteousness into his struggle.A lot of us have been calling on the government for the last 2 years to put a halt to its human right violations and abide by the dictates of the laws governing us because of the possible far-reaching consequences.I took up this matter with the National Bar Association President in person and even suggested lawyers go as far as boycotting courts until court orders are obeyed.It amounts to double standard for a government to claim the judiciary is uncooperative in its bid to sanitize the system when it doesn't obey the courts lay down.The negative implications are starting to manifest and I sincerely hope they don't spiral out of control.With Kanu decked in the caparison of the oppressed, everything seems to be attracting sympathy to his plight and even the worst PR specialist will tell you how crucial a role sympathy can play in moulding public opinion.And in this case where the man wants to disunite Nigeria,that is most undesirable.The stringent conditions attached to his bail last week by Justice Binta Nyako only made matters worse as it only sprang up conspiracy theories of the government interfering to ensure he stays under lock and key.That a man granted bail for the purpose of seeking proper medical care would be required to produce a jewish high priest, 'someone as highly placed' as a Senator and someone who owns a property in Abuja as sureties to deposit N100M each is ridiculous.It is despicably sad that the conditions didn't reflect the dire need to allow him go and look after his health and if not for the compassion the authorities had managed to spring up on his behalf,the man could quite easily have been still locked up in his ill state.Word is the South East Caucus of the Senate met in a bid to help perfect his bail conditions and that tells you the extent to which Kanu's popularity has soared.He has come a long way from someone whose cause didn't seem likely to spread any farther than the container his radio station was transmitting from to having the system justify that cause with its excrescences.The villain has become a hero.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has hailed the Nigerian workers on the commemoration of the 2017 May Day.Saraki, in a statement on Sunday by his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Mr. Yusuph Olaniyonu, described Nigerian workers as the lifeblood and driving force of the countrys development, promising that the Senate would continue to work towards passing and enhancing legislation that would guarantee their safety and well-being.On our part, the Nigerian Senate will continue to partner the Nigerian workers to enact legislation that will guarantee that they get their dues at the appropriate time, that their safety and well-being in the workplace are reassured, Saraki said.Cross River pays May salary in advanceAlso, in commemoration of the 2017 May Day, the Cross River State Government says it has already paid the May salaries, stating that workers in the state had started getting payment alerts as from April 30.A statement on Sunday said the gesture was Governor Ben Ayades way of demonstrating that prompt payment of workers salaries was one of his administrations cardinal objectives.Akeredolu, Ajimobi, Dickson, Obaseki hail workersThe Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, and his counterparts in Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, Bayelsa State, Seriake Dickson, and Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, in separate goodwill messages on Sunday praised workers in their respective states, pledging commitment to their welfare.Akeredolu, in a message through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Segun Ajiboye, hailed the resilience and the undying spirit of Ondo State workers especially in the face of tough economic challenges confronting the country.He said he would always be committed to the welfare of the civil servants in the state but urged them to shun idleness and corruption.The Oyo State Governor, Ajimobi, in a message through his Special Adviser, Communication and Strategy, Mr. Yomi Layinka, said he identified with the workers and shared in the pains they endured, promising that he would make necessary efforts to ensure payment of their four months salary arrears.Ajimobi urged the workers to continue to put in their best and to key into the state governments reform agenda aimed at enhancing productivity and the states Internally Generated Revenue.In the same vein, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Dickson, pledged improved welfare for workers and prompt payment of their salaries within the resources available to the government.In a statement on Sunday by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, Dickson, however, advised the workers to remain disciplined.He urged the workers to accept the challenges they had to face in the verification exercise embarked upon by his government, explaining that it was aimed at sanitising the system and fishing out those who had derailed from the ideals of the civil service.On his own part, the Edo State Governor, Obaseki, said he had already put measures in place to sustain or continue to improve on workers welfare in the state.Obaseki said this in his May Day message issued through his Chief Press Secretary, John Mayaki.He commended the workers for their role in nation building, noting that this years May Day celebration underscored their contributions towards ensuring an economically viable and stable society.Meanwhile, workers in Ekiti State have said they will today confer Governor Ayodele Fayose with the Comrade Governor Award to mark this years May Day celebration.The state chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Mr. Ade Adesanmi, who confirmed this to one of our correspondents, said the honour was a decoration for the workers-friendly governor.On Sunday, telecommunications service provider, Globacom, urged workers to sustain and reinforce the virtues of hard work and excellence in the discharge of their duties.We salute Nigerian workers on this auspicious occasion and commend them for their hard work, commitment and resourcefulness which have continued to grow and sustain the nations economy over the years, Globacom said in its May Day goodwill message.But the Academic Staff Union of Universities on Sunday said its members were suffering under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.ASUU, in a May Day statement by the University of Ibadan chairman of the association, Dr. Deji Omole, called on the Federal Government to address the shortfall of personnel cost and other obligations in Nigeria public universities, noting that under the present administration, academic staff in Nigerian universities were enduring the worst of welfare.
Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned foreigners and foreign companies doing business in Nigeria not to engage in sharp practices whi...

Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned foreigners and foreign companies doing business in Nigeria not to engage in sharp practices which can undermine the countrys economy.He gave this warning on Saturday in Abeokuta at an interactive session with Indian Professionals Forum which held inside the marquee at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library complex.The former President noted that it was uncharitable for foreigners or foreign companies to come into the country and engage in sharp practices which they would never engage in their own countries.He warned the Indian professionals to monitor the activities of their colleagues and their companies, and ensure they followed due process in all their undertakings.The ex-President urged the Indians, who are doing legitimate business, either on their own in partnership with Nigerians or working in companies in the country, to continue in their line of business.Obasanjo added, India has tremendous impact on Nigeria becoming independent. The independence of India in 1947 did not lose its impact on Africa in general but Nigeria in particular as the move for Nigerias independence also started in the 50s.There are Indian enterprises and corporate bodies in the country doing fairly well, employing local staff/Indian staff and legitimate and genuine contributors to the Nigerian economy; I emphasise legitimate and genuine because I will come to something later, may be you will withdraw your applause then.But there are ugly faces; there are Indian companies that have been doing what they will not do in India and that is unfortunate.I hope those of you who are doing the right thing, who really make us proud in our association with India, will make sure that this type of bad things stop.I was in India and I saw what India was doing in self-reliance, which I admired and I dont see why any Indian company should come here and undermine our own self reliance.On his part, the President, IPF, Dinesh Rathi, said the forum was founded in 1994 to project the positive image of India in Nigeria.
The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, said the party is utterly dismayed at the serial show of shame and disgrace ...

The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, said the party is utterly dismayed at the serial show of shame and disgrace Gov. Nyesom Wike is bringing upon the good people of Rivers State especially in recent times.The APC in a statement signed by the State Publicity Secretary, Mr. Chris Finebone said, As soon as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, announced the discovery of $43m and other currencies at Osborne Road, Ikoyi, Lagos Gov. Wike immediately addressed the media laying claim to the money.In doing so, he issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to return the money to him or he would go to court. Two weeks after his bogus claim it has turned out that the governor made an empty threat as he is not in any position to carry it out for the reason that what appears like credible ownership of the said money is unraveling and it has nothing to with the Rivers State Government. More so, despite the opportunity given by a federal high court sitting Lagos for the owner of the money to come forward and claim it, Gov. Wike has made no move whatsoever in that direction. It is clear that the governor was merely amusing himself in one of his cheap circus shows.It reads: Even before the Osborne Road saga, Gov. Wike had raised accusations that the Inspector-General of Police Mr. Idris Ibrahim planned to assassinate him, an allegation he has just repeated yesterday (Saturday).For us in APC, Gov. Wikes behaviour has not come to us as a surprise and the reasons are many.Gov. Wike has a well-established philosophy that directs his politics. He believes that the most secure means of dominating the political environment in Nigeria is to effectively compromise the electoral umpire, the judiciary and security agencies. His position is anchored on his belief that every Nigerian, irrespective of tribe and religion, has a price.Credible pieces of evidence at the disposal of Nigerians today confirm that Gov. Nyesom Wike had a stranglehold on the electoral umpire (INEC), the judiciary and security agencies until recently under the present Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Idris Ibrahim. Several INEC personnel are presently facing trial in court over alleged bribery by the governor involving N360m. Whereas his hold on INEC and the judiciary is as firm as ever, Gov. Wike has failed to compromise the IGP, the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State or the SARS Commander.We make bold to ask: why is it only under the present IGP that the Police is attempting to assassinate the governor as he claims? Why did the previous IGP not plan to assassinate Gov. Wike? Why was the State Police Commissioners under the previous IGP so helpless and often overruled by their boss in favour of Gov.Wike's interest?The APC believes that the bitter war being unleashed on the present IGP by Gov. Wike is a desperate attempt to blackmail, coerce and subdue the IGP, the Commissioner of Police and other key officers to do the bidding of the governor in exchange for the tempting bait he always dangles which they have so far shunned. The APC commends the IGP, the State Commissioner of Police and other officers of the Force in Rivers State who have refused to go near Gov. Wikes poisoned chalice.APC calls on the National Security Adviser, Minister of Interior and the IGP to view the actions and utterances of Gov. Nyesom Wike beyond mere politics but as grave threat to national security and do the needful to safeguard the security of our dear fatherland from the whimsical and capricious manipulation of a governor steadily displaying unstable utterances and behaviour. Gov. Nyesom Wike's immunity only covers prosecution and not investigation.
Turkish police on Monday used tear gas and plastic bullets to disperse protesters seeking to defy a ban and march to Istanbuls Taksim square to celebrate May Day.Police tried to stop around 200 protesters in the Gayrettepe district on the European side of Istanbul who wanted to walk to the famous square in spite of the ban by city authorities.The protesters  made up of left-wing groups  unfurled anti-government banners against the result of the April 16 referendum, which handed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expanded powers.Long Live May Day, No to dictator! the banners read. At least one protester was detained, according to the AFP journalist.Turkish authorities imposed a ban on any demonstration at Taksim square, with police sealing off the avenue with barricades and halting traffic.Police detained two women who attempted to unfurl banners at the square, the private Dogan news agency reported.At least 13 people who attempted to defy the ban on Taksim were detained, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.Members of the group were wearing May Day T-shirts and chanting slogans: No to Taksim ban.In the secular Istanbul district of Besiktas, at least 60 protesters were detained, an AFP photographer reported.Some 30,000 police were on duty in Istanbul alone, with the governors office urging citizens not to heed calls for protests in non-official areas.Police checked tourists and citizens passing through Taksim and all streets leading to the square were cordoned off with iron barricades.Metro lines did not stop at Taksim square, which was a rallying ground for May Day celebrations until 1977, when at least 34 people were killed during demonstrations.Authorities later opened up the square for celebrations but it was shut down again after it played host to anti-government protests in 2013 targeting Erdogan, then prime minister.Our people were massacred on May Day in 1977, workers were massacred, a women protester who gave her name as Sevim told AFP.We are going to Taksim square because it is a meaningful place for the working class, she said shortly before the police intervention in Gayrettepe.This years May Day celebrations also come after the Yes camp won last months referendum with 51.41 percent of the vote against 48.59 percent for the No camp.The opposition have alleged major irregularities but its complaints were thrown out by the election commission and a top court.Yunus Ozgur, another demonstrator, said he wanted to march to Taksim square to protest irregularities during the referendum.We are frustrated, he said. Taksim has a political meaning. They (authorities) are scared of this. Taksim is ours.In the meantime, several thousand people and unions attended celebrations in an officially sanctioned rally in the Bakirkoy district near the international airport on the citys western side.
Unless the clash between herdsmen and some communities in Delta State are stopped, there would be reprisal attacks soon.The state Chairman of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and the Joint Campus Committee (JCC) Mr. Precious Ogonegbu gave the warning in a statement.Ogonegbu said the herdsmens attacks had led to the death of many people, as well as the rape of women and destruction of farmers crops.The statement, which was addressed to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa said the herdsmen had wreaked havoc in Ubulu-Uku, Erweni, Ewheru and Abraka communities.They gave the governor an eight-point demand to curb the attacks, adding that the recent murder of Solomon Ejor and Sunday Idama in Abraka and two other cases in the area would create disaster if not checked.Ogonegbu urged the state government to create a legislation to sanction their activities and also raise a joint task force of security agencies and representatives of the 25 local councils in the state.The Guardian leant that the herdsmen have also planned a reprisal attacks in Urhuoka, Abraka. This followed the destruction of property belonging to Hausa and Fulani communities in the area.The State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Zanna Ibrahim, disclosed that he had held meetings with various Hausa groups to bring the challenge under control.Meanwhile, Okowa has urged the Federal Government to urgently introduce policies to curb the danger.He made the call yesterday at the 25th coronation anniversary of the Ovie of Ughelli Kingdom, Wilson Oharisi III at Ughelli.Okowa said: The Fulani herdsmens menace is a national challenge that is affecting all the states in the federation. I do hope that there would be a policy direction to reduce the clashes.The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Patrick Ukah, also told journalists in Asaba at the weekend that the menace of the herdsmen must be checked to prevent a total breakdown of law and order in the country.
A yet to be identified soldier was killed in the early hours of Monday during a clash between members of a militant group and the men of the Nigeria Army at Ajakpa town in Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State.The soldier was attached to the Operation Delta Safe in Delta State. It was gathered that many other soldiers were injured in the clash.A member of the militant group identified as Ossy Ibori was also killed by the soldiers. He was suspected to be the leader of the group which had been terrorising the riverine areas of Ondo, Edo, Delta and Lagos States in recent times.According to a source, the clash occurred at about 1am on Monday while the soldiers were on patrol in the creeks to flush out the armed militants from their hideouts.The source said,  Immediately the militants saw the soldiers from their hideout, they opened fire on them. During the gun duel, a soldier and a member of the militant group were killed, while many soldiers and the militants were injured.The incident was also confirmed by the army in a statement issued by the Coordinator, Joint Media Campaign Center of the military, Major Abubakar Abdullah.He said the army lost one of his men and three others were injured, noting that the body of the late militant leader was identified by the residents of the community.He stated that the hoodlums had also carried out several attacks at some other communities like Safarogbo and Balowo areas of the Ese Odo council area of Ondo State.The statement read in part,  Troops of Operation Delta Safe, in line with its mandate to rid Niger Delta of all criminal acts of militancy and kidnappings, in a special operation repelled an attack on troops location around Ajakpa community in the creeks of Southern Ondo State last night.The attack was led by one notorious gang leader, Ossy Ibori, with a hideout at Ajakpa, Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State. The leader was gunned down during the gun duel, along with some of his gang members. His body was identified by some of the locals in the area. While search for other criminals who jumped into the water with gunshot wounds is ongoing, troops had recovered one AK-47 Rifle and 4 Magazines.Abdullah added that the injured soldiers had been taking to the military hospital medical attention.The Public Relations Officer of the Ondo State Police Command, Mr. Femi Joseph said the indecent had not been reported officially at the command but he was aware of it.The PPRO said,  We learnt about the incident but it has not been officially reported at the command. We also learnt that the sister security agents are already there to restore normalcy in the area. We were told that gunboats have been taken to the area and I believe peace has been restored. 
Mr Kayode Aderanti, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 1, Kano, says the arrested former Jigawa State Governor,...

Mr Kayode Aderanti, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Zone 1, Kano, says the arrested former Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido would remain in their custody for further investigation.Aderanti, who, spoke through the Public Relations Officer, Zone 1,DSP Sambo Sokoto disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Kano on Sunday. According to him, the former Governor honourably presented himself before the Police after an invitation was sent to him to answer questions.The invitation was as a result of a complaint we received from the Jigawa State Government on April 27, following an inciting statements alleged to have been made on a local radio by Lamido. The Jigawa State Government alleged that the former Governor called on his supporters in the state to stop the conduct of the upcoming local council polls in the state by all means, he said. According to him, the statement made by Lamido was capable of breaching the Public peace.He said it is a public offence which is contrary to section 114 of the Penal code of Nigeria. He said as soon as the investigation was completed, Lamido would be charged to court for appropriate prosecution.
The United States has announced an additional $30m as humanitarian aid for the people of the north-east.In a statement made available to journalists by the US embassy in Nigeria, the funding would bring the total US humanitarian contribution in Nigeria to more than $298m since October 2015.It said the funding was in response to the humanitarian crisis in the north-east as a result of years of brutality by Boko Haram and other militant groups.This new funding will support the UN World Food Programme in Nigeria, which is providing critical food assistance, nutrition support, and vouchers that can be used to buy food where local markets are functional, the statement read.This assistance is also helping communities return to their agricultural livelihoods where security allows.The embassy also noted that humanitarian efforts were vital in the north-east where approximately 8.5 million people require assistance, including 5.2 million people who need emergency food assistance, and more than 1.7 million people who are displaced.US restated its commitment to working with the Nigerian government and other donors to provide humanitarian assistance to avert famine and support vulnerable communities.
A Pentecostal Bishop, Rt. Rev. Seun Adeoye has urged Nigerians to pray for the quick recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari, saying his wellbeing is so important to the nations co-existence and stability.Bishop Adeoye warned that if anything should happen to President Buhari, such would be a difficult burden for the nation to bear as Nigeria will fall into wrong hands that are ready do anything to turn this country into their private estates.The cleric, who spoke during the 1st Episcopal Honours and Gallantry Awards held at the weekend at Sufficient Grace and Truth Ministry (SGTM), Rehoboth Arena, Okinni, Osun State, noted that only God can sustain the presidents health.He said, I see trouble should anything go wrong with President Buhari. So, we need to pray for his quick recovery from this ailment. Buhari must not die; Buhari must live and that should be our prayers.If Buhari is not the president, we will be faced with more lies and propaganda where we are going to be made to call black white. Rule of law will turn to be rule of fear and democracy will be replaced by despotism, favoritism and god-fatherism.We cannot allow Nigeria to be in the hand of any of the present leaders. None of them can be the captain of this ship; they will run it aground with their arrogance and selfish agenda. They will rob, strip us naked and put us in perpetual bondage as slaves. So, I enjoin all of us to pray for the President Buhari to get well quickly, he said.On those who were honoured, Bishop Adeoye disclosed that they were shortlisted from over 100 nominees and were screened by the churchs Council of Clergy based on their courage, services to humanity and God and their various contributions to the society.Those on the successful list were the Commissioner of Police, Kwara State, Mr. Olusola Amore and his counterpart from Osun, Mr. Fimihan Adeoye, Professor Ayo Fatubarin, Pastor and Professor (Mrs) Olusegun Akinwusi, Dr. Kayode Oduoye, Barrister Kanmi Ajibola, Mr. Femi Adefila, Dr. and (Mrs). Niyi Oginni and Deacon and Deaconess Moses Ajayi.Speaking on behalf of the awardees, Akinwusi, a former Head of Service in Osun state urged Nigerians to pray fervently for the nation and not to keep mute or look the other way when things are going the wrong in the country.
Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has stated that by 2019 general elections, Nigerians will be begging President Muhammadu Buhari to run for a second.While maintaining that former President, Goodluck Jonathan never symbolized anything for Nigeria, Shittu said Buhari is like a father figure who is bent on taking Nigeria to a greater height.The minister, who was fielding questions from the Tribune, pointed out that under President Muhammadu Buhari, people now sit up even before he gives orders.According to him, We still have two years. But I want to assure you that by the grace of God, we would urge him to seek re-election because it is only once in a while that you get a father figure for a nation to move forward and attain greatness.He is unlike former President Goodluck Jonathan, who never, with due respect, symbolised anything for the country.Buharis body language is enough to compel people to do things rightly. In the area of finances, electricity and others. A lot of people have had to sit up even before he speaks. So, we need the Buhari father figure for a length of time for the country to get its act right to attain greatness under his leadership.Shittu who is battling for the Oyo states All Progressives Congress governorship ticket with about 16 others said he is confident he will emerge victorious.He added, I dont get upset by the number. I expect we will have many more. But, I know that there are so many upstarts who only want attention for the purpose of either going to the Senate or the House of Representatives or getting commissionership eventually.When the time comes, men will emerge and the boys will be separated. If you look at the records, I am the most senior in age among all the so-called governorship hopefuls. I am the most senior in terms of the years of commencement to politics. I started politics in 1979, after I had become a lawyer already. I became a member of the state House of Assembly as a fresh lawyer.So, if I was already a lawyer in 1979 before starting a political journey, you would agree with me that, looking at the records of all others, with due respect to them, there is none (of them) who came into politics less than 10 years after I had commenced my journey.
Nearly three dozen teenagers from New Jersey were arrested in New York State for allegedly underage drinking at an after-prom party, The Daily Freeman reported.

The group of high school students were from Wallington and were allegedly drinking in a rented a home in Saugerties, located in Ulster County, the site reported.

A neighbor called police at about 8:20 p.m. on Friday to report that loud music was coming from a nearby home, according to the publication.

When police arrived, they found "a number of students" drinking alcoholic drinks and officials arrested 34 students between the ages of 17 and 19, according to the report.

They were charged with underage drinking and issued appearance tickets for Saugerties Town Court, according to the report.

Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.
A White House statement called Saturday's call between the two leaders "very friendly." It also described ties as "now heading in a very positive direction."

Priebus' comments came a day after the White House announced the invitation, and just hours after a Philippine presidential spokesman said Trump told Duterte by phone that he was interested in developing 'a warm, working relationship."

"There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the [Asian] region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," said White House chief of staff Reince Priebus in an interview with ABC news. "Whether they're good folks or bad folks -- people we wish would do better in their country -- doesn't matter. We've got to be on the same page" on North Korea.

The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's invitation to his Philippine counterpart to visit Washington, saying the need to fortify an Asian alliance against North Korea's growing military threat outweighed concerns about President Rodrigo Duterte's deadly domestic crackdown on drug trafficking.

 Duterte Crackdown Under Fire

However, the statement made no mention of the international controversy around Duterte's widely condemned war on drug trafficking -- a violent initiative that has drawn the ire of the United Nations and most Western heads of state.

Last year, then-UN chief Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned Duterte's support for the extra-judicial killings, calling them "a breach of fundamental human rights and freedoms."

Since taking office last year, analysts say Duterte's drug war has led to more than 6,000 deaths -- about one-third of them in police raids and the remaining by vigilantes.

At one point late last year, Duterte boasted to British media that he had personally killed three suspects while he was mayor of the southern city of Davao.

 Phone Call Follows N.Korean Missile Launch

Saturday's presidential phone call also coincided with another North Korean ballistic missile test north of Pyongyang. U.S. and South Korean analysts say the test failed, with the missile falling, without causing harm, into the Sea of Japan.

Washington has responded to recent North Korean missile activity by ordering the deployment of a sophisticated anti-missile system to ally South Korea. President Trump also has ordered the deployment of a flotilla of warships and at least one nuclear submarine to the region in a show of military force.

Pyongyang conducted two unauthorized nuclear test explosions last year and about two dozen rocket launches in a years-long push to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

 Kim: ICBM Testing in 'Final Stage'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared in a speech on New Year's Day that his country's program to build intercontinental ballistic missiles had "reached its final stage."

North Korea has been under United Nations sanctions since 2006, along with an international arms embargo aimed at slowing development of its banned nuclear and missile programs.

Since then, Washington and a vast majority of world governments have repeatedly demanded that the North denuclearize the Korean peninsula. However, Western leaders have yet to devise a plan that would either compel the Pyongyang to cooperate or create incentives for it to do so.
Today

Partly cloudy skies in the morning will give way to cloudy skies during the afternoon. High 74F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph.

Tonight

Mostly cloudy. Low near 60F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow

Intervals of clouds and sunshine. High near 75F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Update: 12:40 p.m.

Two people were taken from the Pottawattamie County Jail to the Nebraska Medical Center. Both of them are listed in fair condition, a spokesman said.

Update: 12:30 p.m.

Suspect in the shooting, Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, was sentenced earlier this morning at the Pottawattamie County Courthouse. He was on his way back to jail after sentencing when the shooting and his attempted escape occurred, according to law enforcement.

Update: 11:56 a.m.

Lockout has been canceled at west-end and other area schools.

There were 12 schools on lockout including Crescent and Lewis & Clark Elementary Schools and Kanesville Alternative Learning Center, said Council Bluffs Community School District spokeswoman Diane Ostrowski.

The district instituted lockdown, and then lockout protocol following this morning's shooting at the Pottawattamie County Jail.

Update: 11:35 a.m.

A suspect in the shooting has been apprehended following a pursuit in Omaha and will be transported back to Council Bluffs.

Early reports state the apprehended suspect is Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder earlier this year. He was one of three men involved in the fatal shooting death of Anthony Walker in March 2016.

Correa-Carmenaty, 24, was found guilty of attempted murder, two charges of second-degree robbery and voluntary manslaughter. He was to be sentenced May 1 to 45 years in prison  and he must serve a minimum sentence of 29 years before becoming eligible for parole.

The carjacking victim was not injured.

Law enforcement officers were stopping cars on West Broadway in Council Bluffs and looking inside the vehicles. About a dozen schools in Council Bluffs were put in lockdown, and then lockout which means no one goes in or out of the school, a school district official said. Preschool children who were to be sent home for the day will be kept at the school until the situation is resolved. Parents can either wait to pick them up or stay at the school, the district official said.

Posted 11:01 a.m.

At least one Pottawattamie County sheriff's deputy has reportedly been shot at the Pottawattamie County Jail, preliminary reports stated at 11 a.m.

Reports also indicate a civilian may have also been struck, and possibly a second sheriff's deputy or a jail inmate. Police are searching for suspects involved.

Initial reports indicate the deputy has been transported to CHI Creighton University Medical Center by a rescue unit.

Law enforcement appears to be looking for a white transportation van, according to 911 dispatchers.

Initial reports say a suspect might have been shot near 16th Street and Nash Boulevard.

The intersection of 25th and I is being shut down by law enforcement.

Two ambulances have left the scene. One of the suspects reportedly carjacked a white vehicle with the female driver still inside.

The carjacked vehicle headed to Omaha, where the female driver was dropped off at a liquor store near 30th Street and Laurel Avenue.

Law enforcement officers were stopping cars on West Broadway in Council Bluffs and looking inside the cars.

Stay with NonpareilOnline.com and our Facebook and Twitter accounts for further updates.

 The BH News Service contributed to this report.
A Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office deputy has died after being shot this morning during an escape and carjacking at the Pottawattamie County Jail.

Mark Burbridge, 43, a 12-year veteran of the office, died Monday after he was shot by Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, authorities said.

During a press conference Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker called Burbridge a good deputy and an excellent man.

It still hasnt sunk in, Danker said of the days events.

Deputy Pat Morgan was also shot during the incident. The 10-year veteran is in stable condition at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

After the escape, Jerry Brittain of Council Bluffs was also injured during a carjacking by Correa-Carmenaty, police said. Authorities reported Brittain was being treated at the Nebraska Medical Center. Another carjacking victim, Amy Kanger of Glenwood, was uninjured.

Correa-Carmenaty, 24, was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this morning at the Pottawattamie County Courthouse in connection with the 2016 shooting death of Anthony Walker. He pleaded guilty to attempted murder in the case.Two other men had been previously convicted and sentenced.

Correa-Carmenaty was on his way back to the county jail from his sentencing when the shooting and his attempted escape occurred, according to law enforcement.

Danker said around 11 a.m., Correa-Carmenaty assaulted the two deputies, obtained a gun from one of the deputies and shot both men. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound man then fled the scene in a jail transport van, driving through a closed garage door.

At the intersection of Big Lake Road and North 16th Street, just outside the jail entrance, Correa-Carmenaty got out of the van and attempted to carjacked Brittain, shooting the 30-year-old once before getting back into the van. A passenger in the truck was uninjured.

Near 25th Street and Avenue I, Kanger, 31, stopped her 2015 Nissan Sentra to see if anyone was injured when she saw the transport van up on the grass of a yard at the intersection. Correa-Carmenaty kidnapped the woman at gunpoint, forcing her into the Nissan, police said.

Correa-Carmenaty entered Omaha and dropped Kanger off at the R&L Liquor store at 5825 North 30th St.

Kanger alerted authorities and a pursuit started at 30th and Sprague Streets in Omaha.

The suspect drove south on 30th Street, west on Cuming Street, did a U-turn at Saddle Creek and Cuming Street and traveled east on Cuming Street again. He avoided stop sticks at three intersections.

When Correa-Carmenaty attempted to enter Interstate 480 southbound he collided with a brick wall on Cuming Street and was apprehended by authorities without further incident. He remains at the Douglas County Jail.

Before the man was apprehended, law enforcement officers were stopping cars on West Broadway and looking inside the vehicles.

A dozen area schools were placed on lockout, including Crescent and Lewis & Clark Elementary Schools and Kanesville Alternative Learning Center, said Council Bluffs Community School District spokeswoman Diane Ostrowski.
Correa-Carmenaty, 22, pleaded guilty to attempted murder earlier this year. He was one of three men involved in the fatal shooting death of Anthony Walker in March 2016.
Forecasters called for a 50 percent chance of more rain today and strong winds in the Council Bluffs-Omaha area, with wet snow possible to the north.

The National Weather Service office in Valley, Nebraska, did not call for snow in the metro area, but it did predict northwest winds gusting up to 30 mph today.

However, Ryan McPike, a meteorologist at KMTV, said wet snowflakes mixed with rain were possible this morning in the area. He said some light, slushy accumulation could occur on grassy areas.

Crazy stuff ... with winter still trying to hold on for the first day of May, McPike said.

Tuesday in the Council Bluffs-Omaha area should be mostly sunny with a high around 65, the weather service said. There is a 40 percent of showers Wednesday, along with a high in the lower 60s.

By Thursday, the area can expect high temperatures in the mid-60s, the weather service said, and temps are likely to reach the 70s on the weekend.

Eventually it starts to warm up later in the week, McPike said. It starts to look like May.

The metro officially received .91 inches of rainfall at Eppley Airfield for the 24 hours ending at 7:30 a.m. Monday.

Offutt Air Force Base recorded .80 for the 24 hours ending at 7:30 a.m. Monday and Millard reported 1.07 inches. Valley had 1.25, Council Bluffs 1.10, Norfolk 1.94, Lincoln 1.03 and Columbus 2.30. Norfolk also had 1 inch of snowfall.

Other area rainfall totals for the 24 hours ending at 7:30 a.m. Monday: Albion, 1.00; Beatrice, 1.16; Blair, .74; Falls City, .72; Fremont, 1.24; Nebraska City, 1.10; Plattsmouth, .66; Tekamah, .94; Wahoo, .64; Wayne, 1.01; Clarinda, .52; Harlan, .78; Red Oak, .75; Shenandoah, .84.

Officially, Eppley Airfield reported 2.42 inches of rainfall for April, .54 inches below normal, according to the weather service.

Also for April, Eppley recorded an average high temperature of 64.4 degrees and an average low of 44.3. The months highest temperature, 82 degrees, occurred April 9.
SEATTLE  Thousands of people across the U.S. marched in rain, snow and sweltering heat Saturday to demand action on climate change  mass protests that coincided with President Donald Trump's 100th day in office and took aim at his agenda for rolling back environmental protections.

At the marquee event, the Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C., tens of thousands of demonstrators made their way down Pennsylvania Avenue on their way to encircle the White House as temperatures soared into the 90s.

Organizers said about 300 sister marches or rallies were being held around the country, including in Seattle, Boston and San Francisco. A wet spring snow fell in Denver, where several hundred activists posed in the shape of a giant thermometer for a photograph and a dozen people rode stationary bikes to power the loudspeakers. In Chicago, a rain-soaked crowd of thousands headed from the city's federal plaza to Trump Tower.

"We are here because there is no Planet B," the Rev. Mariama White-Hammond of Bethel AME Church told a rally in Boston.

The demonstrations came one week after supporters of science gathered in 600 cities around the globe, alarmed by political and public rejection of established research on topics including climate change and the safety of vaccines.

Participants Saturday said they object to Trump's rollback of restrictions on mining, oil drilling and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, among other things. Trump has called climate change a hoax, disputing the overwhelming consensus of scientists that the world is warming and that man-made carbon emissions are primarily to blame.

Among those attending the Chicago rally were members of the union representing Environmental Protection Agency employees. Trump has proposed cutting the EPA's budget by almost one-third, eliminating more than 3,000 jobs.

John O'Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, called the march "a chance to speak out in unity against this administration" and its "ridiculous gutting of the EPA budget and staffing."

More than 2,000 people gathered at the Maine State House in Augusta. Speakers included a lobsterman, a solar company owner and members of the Penobscot Nation tribe.

"I've seen firsthand the impacts of climate change to not only the Gulf of Maine, but also to our evolving fisheries, and to the coastal communities that depend upon them," said lobsterman Richard Nelson of Friendship, Maine.

People in the crowd spoke about the importance of addressing climate change to industries such as renewable energy, forestry, farming and seafood. Saharlah Farah, a 16-year old immigrant from Somalia who lives in Portland, talked about how climate change could have a bigger toll on marginalized groups that have less financial resources.

"But I see untapped power here today," she said.

A demonstration stretched for several blocks in downtown Tampa, Florida, where marchers said they were concerned about the threat rising seas pose to the city.

People gathered on the Boston Common carried signs with slogans such as "Dump Trump." Handmade signs at Seattle's march included the general  "Love Life"  and the specific  "Don't Kill Otters."

Some of the marches drew big-name attendees, including former Vice President Al Gore and actor Leonardo DiCaprio in the nation's capital. In Montpelier, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called the marches part of a fight for the future of the planet.

"Honored to join Indigenous leaders and native peoples as they fight for climate justice," DiCaprio tweeted.

 Associated Press writers Sara Burnett in Chicago; Colleen Slevin in Denver; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vermont; and Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.
An illusion of super powers is bad enough but on top of it is Khan's by now notorious intolerance.
Young Cowboys forward Corey Jensen has recieved a one-match ban after pleading guilty to a careless high tackle on Eels forward Tepai Moeroa in Friday night's NRL clash.

Jensen was charged over the tackle in the 38th minute of North Queensland's loss, and with two prior non-similar offences in the past two seasons he received a one-match ban after entering an early guilty plea.

Jensen will miss Sunday's game between Queensland Residents and their NSW counterparts and will be replaced in the Queensland side by Nick Slyney.
All the match reports, talking points, injury and judiciary news to come out of the weekend's NRL matches.

Broncos v Panthers

The Broncos escaped a Penrith point-scoring frenzy but may have paid a heavy price with star centre James Roberts carried from the field five minutes from full-time in their 32-18 win at Suncorp Stadium on Thursday night.

Injuries: Tim Browne (head knock), James Roberts (ankle).

Judiciary: No charges.

Match report: Broncos lose Roberts in win over Panthers

Broncos v Panthers: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Broncos vs Panthers

Rabbitohs v Sea Eagles

The Sea Eagles exploded out of the blocks to hand the Rabbitohs a crushing 46-8 defeat at Allianz Stadium on Friday night.

Injuries: No major injuries.

Judiciary: No charges.

Match report: Uate and Walker run riot in big Manly win

Rabbitohs v Sea Eagles: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Rabbitohs vs Sea Eagles

Cowboys v Eels

The Parramatta Eels have hammered a North Queensland Cowboys side that dearly missed Johnathan Thurston 26-6 at 1300SMILES Stadium on Friday night.

Injuries: Kalyn Ponga (ankle), Gavin Cooper (shoulder).

Judiciary: Corey Jensen (careless high tackle).

Match report: Eels thump injury-hit Cowboys

Cowboys v Eels: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Cowboys vs Eels

Titans v Knights

Inspired by a Jarryd Hayne double the Titans have fought back from a half-time deficit to score 32 unanswered points and overwhelm the Knights 38-8.

Injuries: Jarrod Wallace (concussion).

Judiciary: No charges.

Match report: Hayne-inspired Titans defeat Knights

Titans v Knights: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Titans vs Knights

Bulldogs v Raiders

Canterbury fullback Will Hopoate turned in a starring performance on his return from injury as the Bulldogs scrapped a 16-10 win over the Canberra Raiders at ANZ Stadium.

Injuries: James Graham (concussion), Josh Reynolds (hamstring), Shannon Boyd (back).

Judiciary: No charges.

Match report: Bulldogs defy injuries to down Raiders

Bulldogs v Raiders: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Bulldogs vs Raiders

Wests Tigers v Sharks

The Wests Tigers suffered several injuries to key players before succumbing to the Sharks at Leichhardt Oval.

Injuries: Aaron Woods (groin), James Tedesco (concussion), David Nofoaluma (knee), Valentine Holmes (cork).

Judiciary: No charges.

Match report: Injury blows for Tigers as Sharks clinch win

Wests Tigers v Sharks: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Wests Tigers vs Sharks

Warriors v Roosters

A last-gasp Shaun Johnson penalty goal saw the Warriors snatch a dramatic 14-13 victory over the Sydney Roosters after Mitchell Pearce had kicked a field goal only minutes earlier.

Injuries: No major injuries.

Judiciary: TBA.

Match report: Johnson penalty goal sinks Roosters

Warriors v Roosters: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Warriors vs Roosters

Dragons v Storm

The Melbourne Storm have put an exclamation mark on their premiership credentials with a dominant 34-22 win over the Dragons, with their back three of Billy Slater, Suliasi Vinivalu and Josh Addo-Carr all grabbing doubles.

Injuries: Christian Welch (ACL).

Judiciary: TBA.

Match report: Storm's back three fire to beat Dragons

Dragons v Storm: Five key points

Watch: Match highlights



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 9: Dragons vs Storm




VALPARAISO  Officials at the Porter County Animal Shelter are hoping to empty the kennels before moving into their new home early next month.

The adoption fee for all dogs has been cut in half, to $50, through May 28, according to Shelter Director Toni Bianchi.

Part of the motivation for the reduced fee is to lighten the load when moving day arrives, she said. But finding forever homes for the dogs will save them from the stress of both the move and finding themselves in a new kennel situation.

"They get comfortable in their kennels even if they are not the most comfortable," she said.

There are 35 available dogs, which can be seen on the shelter's website or on its Facebook page.

A number of good adoptions have helped to reduce the shelter's cat population to 25, Bianchi said. Cats are not part of the reduced adoption fee special.

The county built its new shelter just northwest of the Porter County Expo Center along Ind. 49.

The new $3.25 million shelter is 14,000 square feet, as compared to 4,000 square feet at the current facility that was built in the early 1980s along Ind. 2, south of U.S. 30. The new maximum capacity for dogs rises from 50 to 120, and from 80 to 120 for cats.

The county received a $1 million donation toward the new building. The balance is being funded with proceeds from the 2007 sale of the former county hospital, which required a unanimous vote by the three county commissioners and seven members of the County Council.
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EAST CHICAGO  A 69-year-old man was driving when he was fatally shot Saturday morning near Chicago Avenue and Carey Street, police said.

Alonzo Smith, of the city's nearby Calumet neighborhood, died at St. Catherine Hospital from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Lake County coroner's office.

Police were called after Smith's car traveled from north to south on Carey across Chicago Avenue, struck the back of a truck, traveled through a parking lot and came to rest in a grassy area, police said.

Good Samaritans and medics working to help Smith realized he had been shot, and he was taken to St. Catherine.

Police said witnesses reporting hearing a gunshot before the crash.

Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Luis Semidei at 219-391-8426. To remain anonymous, call 219-391-8500.
HAMMOND  A former Calumet Township trustee and her son are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court next week to plead guilty to federal conspiracy and wire fraud charges.

Mary Elgin additionally has agreed to plead guilty to failing to pay her 2013 federal income taxes.

The U.S. Attorney's office has agreed to recommend the minimum prison terms for Elgin and her son, Steven Hunter, who served as head of the township's information systems and technology office.

The government lawyers state they will oppose any court sentence that doesn't include prison time.

Elgin, who presided over one of the largest township poor relief operations in the area from 2003 until her defeat by voters in 2014, is admitting in her written plea agreement she extorted cash and work from her township employees to benefit her re-election and other political aspirations.

Hunter is admitting in his agreement he distributed his mother's campaign fund-raising tickets, which employees had to sell or pay for with their own money.

Elgin and Hunter are set to official change their not guilty pleas to guilty Monday morning before U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen. If the judge accepts their new pleas, he is likely to cancel their trial, which was to begin Monday.

The U.S. Attorney's office charged Elgin, Hunter, Ethel Shelton (Elgin's secretary) and Alex Wheeler (her campaign manager), in 2014.

Elgin and Hunter were scheduled to be tried before a federal jury Monday. Shelton and Wheeler have pleaded not guilty and have been ordered to stand trial at a later date, yet to be scheduled.

Both government and defense lawyers had said late last month there was little prospect they would plead guilty. The court posted their agreements on its Website late Friday.

Elgin is admitting she and her co-defendants forced township employees to sell political fundraising tickets. The number of tickets depended on the size of the employee's township salary.

The government earlier alleged the scheme was designed to kick back about 1 percent of their salaries. She employed as many as 135 to distribute assistance to Gary's poorest residents.

The agreement states Elgin and Hunter's conspiracy cost taxpayers between $15,000 and $40,000 over her years in office. She also agrees she owes the Internal Revenue Service $6,311 in income taxes for 2013.

The judge could order Elgin and Hunter to pay those amounts or more.
CROWN POINT  A 54-year-old Gary man is accused of mixing alcohol with his grandson's baby formula, causing the child to be hospitalized.

Paul E. Tilson was charged April 28 in Lake Criminal Court with neglect of a dependent, a level 5 felony.

Police were dispatched Thursday afternoon to the emergency room at Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus in Gary after receiving reports of possible child abuse, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Police learned from medical staff a 5-month-old child was being treated at the hospital for a 0.41 blood alcohol content, which caused the child to lapse into an alcohol intoxication delirium, the affidavit states.

The legal limit for an adult to operate a motor vehicle in Indiana is a 0.08 blood alcohol content.

Tilson told police was watching his grandson while the child's mother was in Texas looking for work, according to the affidavit.

He said he provided the child a baby bottle filled with vodka, baby formula and water Wednesday night to help the boy fall asleep, the affidavit states. He said he provided the child a second bottle of the mixture in the morning, and discovered around noon Thursday the child would not awake, according to the affidavit.

Tilson is jailed on a $20,000 bond, according to court records. He told a judge at an initial hearing Monday morning he would need a public defender, records state.
VALPARAISO  Attorneys for an Ogden Dunes man charged with murdering his elderly mother by burning her alive at their home are claiming he was legally insane at the time of the alleged offense.

Defense attorney Bob Harper filed a notice of insanity defense Monday morning on behalf of 69-year-old Frederick Fegely.

Porter Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa agreed to appoint two mental health professionals to examine Fegely to determine if they believe he meets the criteria for insanity at the time of the offense.

If he is found to have been insane, Fegely will be committed to a state hospital until it is determined he no longer poses a danger, at which time he will be released, Harper said.

If Fegely is not found to have been insane, the case will proceed forward in normal fashion.

Alexa scheduled a trial in the case for Sept. 18, with preliminary hearings June 30 and Aug. 18. The judge hopes to have the mental evaluations done in time for the June hearing.

Fegely, who wore the black-and-white-striped garb of a maximum-security jail inmate, made his initial court appearance Monday after being found competent to aid in his defense. Alexa committed Fegely to the Logansport State Hospital on Oct. 21, 2016, after three psychological evaluations were done, two of which determined he was incompetent to stand trial.

Harper said the hospital was able to use medications to bring Fegely back around to competency.

Alexa said he would appoint the same mental health experts to examine Fegely, who carried out the competency reviews last year.

Police said in court documents that Fegely killed his mother, Wanda Maxine Wunder, by burning the house they shared in Ogden Dunes on April 16, 2015.

Fegely was found to have a flammable liquid on the pajama bottoms he wore after claiming to have fled the fire.

Fegely reportedly told police at the time that he was awakened at 4:30 a.m. by a smell he did not recognize and opened his bedroom door to discover heavy smoke in the house. He said he attempted to go upstairs to the main level of the house, but retreated out a basement door and to a neighbors house when he encountered heat and heavy smoke.

Fegely mentioned he was no longer in his mothers will, but thought his sister would share her portion with him, police said. He also said his mother was very particular about things and did not like his involvement in various religious teachings, police said.
CROWN POINT  A 51-year-old man is accused of using his ex-girlfriend's credit card to fraudulently pay for an attorney and court-ordered electronic monitoring, among other expenses.

Robert Guadagnino was charged Friday in Lake Criminal Court with 12 counts of felony fraud, two counts of felony theft and 10 counts of misdemeanor theft.

Guadagnino, who is wanted by police on a warrant, also uses the names Robert Guadanino and Robert Giordano, according to court records.

Police allege Guadagnino used his ex-girlfriend's credit card to purchase thousands of dollars worth of goods and services in Lake County, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Guadagnino allegedly used the credit card to pay an unspecified amount to ICU Monitoring, Inc. so he could remain on court-ordered monitoring pending the adjudication of another theft case in Lake County from January 2016.

Police allege Guadagnino also used the credit card to hire a private attorney to represent him in that criminal matter.

Guadagnino also allegedly used the credit card to pay for car repairs and leather goods at businesses in Merrillville and Schererville, but then disputed the transactions, which caused the payments to be stopped, according to the affidavit.

The ex-girlfriend told police Guadagnino claimed he was a former veteran who served in special forces during eight tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the affidavit. A business owner said Guadagnino told him a similar story about his military experiences.

A military recruiter told police Guadagnino had never served in the military, the affidavit states.

Guadagnino's bond is set at $20,000.
INDIANAPOLIS  State lawmakers have minimized the legal consequences for Hoosiers who rescue a pet trapped in a locked vehicle on a hot day, but good Samaritans still might pay a hefty price for their assistance.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb has signed into law House Enrolled Act 1085 providing criminal immunity, starting July 1, for individuals who break into a vehicle to save an endangered pet, provided several conditions are met.

Specifically, the rescuer must reasonably believe the pet is in imminent danger of serious bodily harm, contact 911 prior to breaking in, use no more force than is necessary to enter the vehicle and stay with the animal at the scene until police arrive.

"We can help prevent many needless injuries and deaths of domestic pets with this law," said state Rep. Tony Cook, R-Cicero, sponsor of the measure along with state Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond.

However, individuals may want to think twice before smashing a car window to help a trapped pet, since the law does not fully immunize them against civil liability for vehicle damage.

It instead requires pet rescuers to pay half the cost to repair the vehicle, unless the vehicle owner agrees to cover the entire expense.

The Republican-controlled Senate originally wanted a pet savior to pay the entire repair bill.

Negotiations with the Republican-controlled House led to the cost-sharing provision in the new law.

"We kind of swallowed hard and decided that would be a way to go, to move this bill, to get a blueprint out there," Cook said.

Twenty-five other states, including Illinois, also permit vehicle break-ins to rescue trapped pets.

Though, in Illinois, only a law enforcement or animal control officer is permitted to enter the vehicle.

A separate Indiana statute enacted in 2015 provides full criminal and civil immunity to any person who breaks into a locked vehicle to rescue a trapped child.
INDIANAPOLIS  The growing number of Indiana deaths connected to all-terrain vehicle crashes has prompted Hoosier lawmakers to require any person younger than 18 to wear a helmet while operating or riding an ATV.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb recently signed into law the child ATV helmet mandate in House Enrolled Act 1200.

The new statute, which takes effect July 1, also prohibits an adult who owns or otherwise possesses an ATV from allowing a child to operate or ride it without a helmet, even on private property.

Violators could be fined up to $500.

In addition, most insurance policies deny coverage when death, injuries or property damage arise out of an illegal act.

"One of the main goals of this law is to help raise awareness in Indiana about the precautions our kids need to take when enjoying off-road vehicles," said state Rep. Lloyd Arnold, R-Leavenworth, the sponsor.

"Hopefully, it will help families avoid the ATV-related tragedies that have become all too common."

According to the Department of Natural Resources, 22 people were killed in Indiana ATV crashes last year. Only three were wearing helmets.

Indiana recorded 16 ATV-related deaths in 2015, and 13 in 2014. Another 1,285 individuals have been injured due to ATVs over the past five years.
INDIANAPOLIS  Depending on who you ask, the 2017 Indiana General Assembly either produced legislative achievements that will improve Hoosier lives for decades to come, or was marked by a series of missed opportunities to truly move the state forward.

The Republicans in control of the House, Senate and governor's office tend to share the first perspective.

They point to passage of an honestly balanced budget, a once-in-a-generation road funding package, improvements to Indiana's workforce development programs, the expansion of pre-kindergarten availability and myriad other measures enacted into law.

"In short, the Legislature over-delivered," said Gov. Eric Holcomb.

Statehouse Democrats believe lawmakers could have done much more, including hike the minimum wage, enact a hate crimes statute, reform the legislative redistricting process and extend civil rights protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers.

"Hopefully, next year we can come back and convince them that these are good ideas that should be advanced for the future of the state," said Senate Democratic Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson.

Social issues minimized

Leaders of both political parties said they were pleased the General Assembly largely stayed away from hot button social issues that in the past have dominated the four-month legislative session.

While Indiana did enact a law restricting access to abortion, the measure mostly sought to limit the ability of pregnant teenagers to obtain an abortion without their parents knowing about it  and it passed with strong bipartisan support.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said he decided early on that more radical proposals, such as an attempt to outlaw abortion in Indiana, would not see the light of day this year.

"I know people want to have the policy discussion, but it's really not productive," Bosma said. "It won't make progress for the Hoosier unborn."

House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said there are still problems any time lawmakers wade into social issue debates.

"It gets so much attention as it's happening, and it causes a lot of anxiety in the public," Pelath said. "Even when some of it isn't enacted, the people always feel like they're being dragged through it."

In fact, the session nearly derailed after lawmakers decided in March to try shutting down two central Indiana convenience store burrito stands that have been using their "restaurant" alcohol permit to sell cold beer for carry-out, even on Sundays.

State law generally limits cold beer sales to package liquor stores and prohibits nearly all carry-out Sunday sales.

Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said the controversy showed lawmakers the need to take a deep dive into Indiana's alcohol statutes, some of which have been in place since the end of Prohibition in 1933.

"A lot of them just don't make sense in the modern economy," Long said.

New governor embraced

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle gave Holcomb high marks in his first legislative session as Indiana's chief executive.

Pelath and Lanane said the new governor earned a "solid B" for his mostly behind-the-scenes approach to working with lawmakers, in contrast to his two most recent predecessors who liked to exert their influence by taking the case for their policies directly to Hoosiers.

"He put out an agenda, and he didn't pound about it," Lanane said. "He sort of let the legislative leaders do the work."

Pelath said, "He listens, and he doesn't speak from the clouds, so that's a big improvement."

Bosma and Long agreed that Holcomb respected the independence of the legislative branch while also acting to shape policies through one-on-one meetings with numerous lawmakers, Republican and Democratic.

"I love the guy, I think he's terrific," Long said. "He thinks we hit a grand slam; I agree with him."
MERRILLVILLE  A largely vacant plaza looks to get a boost with two new businesses planned there.

An escape room experience and a wine and canvas studio are seeking the town's approval to open in adjacent units in the plaza in the 7800 block of Broadway near Town Hall.

The Board of Zoning Appeals sent the two separate special exception requests to the Town Council with favorable recommendations. The council will consider granting final approval of the requests May 9.

William Trozzy, owner of the escape room business, said he will create four rooms in the space he is renting and each room will have a different theme.

Customers will have 60 minutes to use elements in the locked rooms to solve puzzles to discover how to escape them, Merrillville Building Director Sheila Shine said.

Trozzy said the business offers a good family experience and it encourages team building.

He said the escape room themes will change every three to four months.

Trozzy told the board safety is a top priority, and all rooms will be monitored. He said customers can leave the escape rooms at anytime if they wish, and the rooms automatically unlock if power is lost.

Shine said sessions offered at the wine and canvas studio proposed to locate adjacent to the escape room experience would involve local artists providing instruction to customers to help them create paintings. Supplies would be included.

Shine said beer and wine would be served during the sessions.

Jeremy Bachman, who is seeking the special exception to operate the business, said he operates similar facilities in Fort Wayne, Mishawaka and Minneapolis, Minnesota.

In another matter, the board sent a special exception request for a new day care center to the council with no recommendation. The day care is proposed to open at 64 W. 67th Ave.

Board members indicated Lakenya Blair has a good plan for operating the program, but they have concerns about the proposed traffic pattern for dropping off students and a lack of parking available.

Members said the proposed drop-off site is close to the street and asked Blair if there is a way to adjust it before the council reviews the special exception request May 9.

Blair was also advised the council is contemplating an ordinance creating stricter rules for day care facilities.

She is aware of that and has safety precautions planned for her operation, including installing cameras in each classroom.
CHESTERTON  The 2017 Season of Chestertons European Market will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Duneland community residents and tourists are welcomed to visit Third Street and Broadway in historic downtown Chesterton to experience Northwest Indianas premier outdoor artisan and farmers market.

Each weekend this season, the market will boast more than 90 merchants, live musical performances from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., fresh food served on-site throughout the day and plenty of opportunities to enjoy gatherings with friends and family at picnic tables in nearby Thomas Centennial Park.

"The best part about this weekly event is seeing the community come together to enjoy our downtown," said Deanna Kasch, Manager of Chestertons European Market.

For more information about applying to or visiting Chestertons European Market, call the chamber office at 219-926-5513, visit dunelandchamber.org, or email dkasch@dunelandchamber.org.
NEW YORK  Several hundred teachers picketed outside Philadelphia schools early Monday as thousands more immigrants and union members across the United States prepared a series of strikes, boycotts and marches to protest President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

The demonstrations on May Day, celebrated as International Workers' Day, follow similar actions worldwide in which protesters from the Philippines to Paris demanded better working conditions. There were violent clashes and mass arrests in some instances.

In the United States, there were no reports of violence, but protesters vowed to participate in civil disruptions throughout the day to draw attention to the importance of immigrants in American communities.

"On this day, we will not go to work. We will not go to school. We will not buy anything," said Francisca Santiago, a farmworker from Homestead, Florida.

In Philadelphia, about 1,000 school teachers, who've been working without a contract for years, protested outside schools around the city. Supportive parents joined the teachers, many of whom took sick days to protest. Schools were open and the district said it was working with principals and substitute teachers to make sure classes would not be disrupted.

In Washington, D.C., commercial construction company owner Salvador Zelaya paid his employees to take the day off to attend a march. The Salvadorian business leader said his 18 workers were spending the morning making banners to take to a rally that will end in front of the White House.

Zalaya offered a simple message for the president: "All of us, we are immigrants. We came to this country. We work hard. We build up our own business. We employ people. We pay taxes and we make America great."

The White House had no immediate response to the May Day demonstrations.

Much of the action was expected Monday afternoon and evening. Tens of thousands of immigrants and their allies planned to rally in major cities, including New York, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. Demonstrations also were expected in dozens of smaller cities from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Portland, Oregon.

While union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers' rights in countries around the world, the day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the U.S. since massive demonstrations were held on the date in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.

In recent years, immigrant rights protests shrank as groups diverged and shifted their focus on voter registration and lobbying. Larger crowds were expected to return this year as immigrant groups have joined with Muslim organizations, women's advocates and others in their united opposition to Trump administration policies.

"We have never seen such an outpouring of support since we have since the election of Donald Trump," said Kica Matos, a spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

In his first 100 days, Trump has aggressively pursued immigration enforcement, including executive orders for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries. The government has arrested thousands of immigrants in the country illegally and threatened to withhold funding from jurisdictions that limit cooperation between local and federal immigration authorities.

In response, local leaders have vowed to fight back and civic participation has seen a boost, including February's "Day Without Immigrants." The travel ban and sanctuary order were temporarily halted by legal challenges.

In addition to rallies, immigrant rights activists in communities in Indiana, Massachusetts, Texas and elsewhere are calling for strikes to show Americans the demand for immigrant labor and immigrants' purchasing power.

Immigrant advocates said they hope their message will reach Trump, congressional lawmakers and the public, as well as provide a sense of unity and strength to those opposed to the administration's policies. Despite Trump's avowed crackdown on illegal immigration, many said, they hoped a show of strength would help persuade politicians to rethink their plans.

Tom K. Wong, a professor of political science at University of California, San Diego, said the Trump administration's focus on immigration is generating more support for immigrant rights advocates.

"Every pivot back to the issue of immigration gives the immigrant rights movement another opportunity to make its best pitch to the public," he said.

___

Taxin reported from Los Angeles. AP writers Jessica Gresko in Washington, D.C., and Kristen De Groot in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
INDIANAPOLIS  Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is scheduled to visit Indianapolis for a speech before an audience of lawyers and federal judges.

Kagan is speaking during Monday evening's dinner of the 7th Circuit Bar Association Annual Meeting. That group is made up of lawyers who practice with the federal courts in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Kagan is a former Harvard Law School dean who has been on the nation's highest court since 2010 after being nominated by President Barack Obama. She is among three women on the nine-member court and is one of its four reliably liberal justices.

Kagan's speech comes three weeks after Neil Gorsuch joined the court as the first nominee by President Donald Trump.
New York's new citywide ferry service, NYC Ferry, launched Monday morning with its new route linking the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan -- and NY1's Bob Hardt, traveling by boat, narrowly beat colleague Roger Clark on the subway in a race to Wall Street.

Roger headed for the A Train at 6:30 a.m. as Bob boarded the 6:30 ferry, to see who would arrive in Lower Manhattan first. Their progress was tracked by GPS.

The two routes can be see in the map below, with Bob's location represented by the red pin and Roger represented by the blue pin.

Can't see the map? Use this direct link.

BOB HARDT ON NYC FERRY: RED PIN

ROGER CLARK ON A TRAIN: BLUE PIN




When it comes to elevators in the city's subways, many commuters are getting the shaft.

So says an audit from the city's comptroller's office that charges the MTA is not properly maintaining station elevators and escalators.

The report found that nearly 80 percent of 65 machines sampled did not receive all scheduled preventive maintenance.

It also found on ones that had been inspected, often times no work orders were created even if they were defective.

The MTA responded to Stringer's report, saying it distorts the reality of the agency's practices.

"New York City Transit is spending more than $1 billion to increase the number of ADA-compliant subway stations and replace existing elevators and escalators as part of our current Capital Plan," MTA spokeswoman Beth deFalco said in a statement. "The most in-depth inspections were all completed on time during the audit period.

The agency spokeswoman added that it follows a routine maintenance schedule for all its elevators and escalators.

"We have a detailed system for the maintenance of these machines and closely track work that is done to keep our elevators and escalators safe and available for our customers. We are continually looking at new ways to improve the performance of equipment and maintenance practices."

The comptroller says the lack of repairs threatens commuter safety.

"We've seen the caution tape restricting their use. We've felt the disruptions, and we've wondered why does this happen so frequently?" Stringer said.

"It's very important that its known that we travel, we work, we do all of those things. This is not our retirement, this is our active livelihood," said Edith Prentiss, an activist with Disabled in Action.

Last week, disability advocates filed two class action lawsuits against the MTA.

They say the agency is violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as city human rights law.
Police say 30 people were arrested at "May Day" rallies around the city.

Protesters came out in support of equal rights for immigrants, women and workers. They say all three groups are under attack by the Trump administration.

Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at a rally in Washington Square Park. He said Trump is purposefully trying to demonize immigrants and minorities.

"He's trying to make them blame immigrants for their economic circumstance," de Blasio said. "Guess what? The immigrants didn't create the way our economy is. The 1 percent did it. The millionaires and billionaires did it."

"Now, it's more of a fear for immigrants, and there's more of an attack on women, so everybody needs to be in solidarity, and I think that has happened a lot more now," said one attendee.

Similar events were also held around the country and the world.

In Paris, a number of hooded protesters disrupted a peaceful march by throwing molotov cocktails at police.
NEW YORK - The new citywide ferry officially took to the water Monday morning, carrying passengers between the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan.

Riders were welcomed aboard the first ferry which left shortly after 5:30 a.m. from Beach 108th Street and Beach Channel Drive in the Rockaways.

It stopped at 58th Street in Sunset Park before making its way to its final destination at Pier 11/Wall Street.

The entire ride from Queens to Lower Manhattan takes about an hour.

"We're so happy. We fought for this for a long time. We fought to keep out ferry permanent and after we lost our ferry, we fought to get it back," said one passenger.

A ferry route was established for the Rockaways shortly after Hurricane Sandy, but it was taken out of service in October 2014.

Locals say the new service is a way to open the Rockaways to all New Yorkers.

"It's a beautiful beach. It's a city asset. So it's not just about Rockaway people getting to the city it's about people in Manhattan getting to Rockaway and enjoying the beach and either by ferry or railroad we'd like to make sure all paths are open," said Rick Horan of the Rockaway Civic Association.



More routes are coming this summer.



One will make stops along the Brooklyn waterfront from Bay Ridge to DUMBO on its way to Lower Manhattan.

The other will run between Astoria and Wall Street with stops in Long Island City and Roosevelt Island.

A one-way trip on the ferry costs $2.75, the same price as a single ride MetroCard.

But you have to buy paper tickets at the ferry landings or use the ferry's mobile app to pay.

A 30-day pass is $121.

Kids under 44 inches are free, and seniors and people with disabilities ride half-price.

Passengers can also bring their bike on board.

That will cost a dollar more for a single-ride ticket.

For more information, go to ferry.nyc.
UPDATE: November 30, 2021

NYU is excited to announce a number of opportunities at NYU Sydney through a new collaboration with the University of Sydney beginning in July of 2022.

Students enrolled at NYU Sydney will now be able to take course offerings from both universities curricula, all courses will be hosted on the University of Sydneys Camperdown/Darlington campus, and housing will be offered at the University of Sydneys Regiment student accommodation alongside local students.

The first NYU students are scheduled to arrive at the University of Sydney in July 2022 for the NYU fall semester. NYU lecturers will teach on campus at the University of Sydney, with course offerings expected to include Anthropology, Environmental Studies, English, and Media, Culture and Communications, among others.

Read more in the partnership announcement.
Editor's Note: This story joined others in the 2017 Progress special section. Copies are available at the office of the Opelika-Auburn News.

Wanda Lewis credits three women who set the stage for the work shes doing  her mother, grandmother and great aunt. They worked with young people and families. And in her career, so is Lewis.

Lewis is the president and chief professional officer of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Lee County, a position shes held since 1997.

Her career started at Auburn Day Care Centers where she was the secretary/bookkeeper, a title that later changed to office manager.

While I was at Auburn Day Care CentersI ended up learning a lot in that setting, even in the role that I was in, about advocacy for children and families, about early childhood development, about how to go about accessing community resources to support the programs and activities, she said.

And through Auburn Day Care Centers, she became involve with FOCAL - the Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama.

Before her work with the Boys & Girls Club, Lewis served as parent support specialist for FOCAL, the Community Education consultant & Substance Abuse Prevention specialist for East Alabama Mental Health and parent educator and coordinator of Multicultural Activities with Auburn City Schools and Opelika City Schools.

Every setting Ive been in has given me some tools that Ive used all along the way, Lewis said.

Lewis's involvement with the Boys & Girls Club started after some people on the organizations board of directors saw a closing performance of a summer youth program Lewis co-founded called The Center for Cultural Enrichment Education and Experience (C.C.E.E.E). The popular community program, which ran for several years, focused on learning about African-Americans in the arts  music, literature, dance.

The board members asked her to consider applying for the executive director position. They actually asked her more than once. She started with Boys & Girls Club in June 1997, and nearly 20 years later, shes still passionate about helping children in the area and the work of the Boys & Girls Club.

Najeebah Swanson is the administrative office manager for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Lee County. She has worked for Lewis since 2007 and knows her well.

She is a very strong person. She is tireless in her work with Boys & Girls Club. She often does not take any vacation, year after year. Its not that she doesnt want to allow other people to shine, its just that she cares so much that she wants to give her long experience and resources to everything that we do.

She is very passionate about the children of Lee County, Swanson said.
Climbing into a bed and just dozing off for 45 minutes doesnt sound like the kind of thing youd expect to be doing in a gym, but one UK fitness club claims that its napercise classes can help exhausted parents better deal with their hectic daily lives by regenerating the mind, body and even burning a few calories.

New research recently revealed that there is a dangerous tiredness epidemic currently sweeping the UK, with 86% of parents reporting that they suffer from fatigue and 26% saying that they get less than five hours of sleep per night. In an effort to promote the benefits of sleep and boost peoples mental and physical wellbeing, David Lloyd Club, which operates dozens of gyms and fitness clubs throughout Europe, recently launched a napercise class that invites people to get 45 minutes of shut-eye instead of instead of burning themselves out even more with traditional fitness exercises.

Napercise classes consist of a 15-minute gentle stretching session and 45 minutes of blissful sleeping. Participants are guided to their single beds, which come equipped with blankets and eye masks, and get to fall asleep to relaxing atmospheric sounds. The temperature of the room in which the napercising takes place supposedly promotes calorie burning during sleep, so youll be getting some of the benefits of traditional fitness.

Sleep is more important than people realize, said dreams and sleep expert Kathryn Pinkham, who helped design the napercise class. We tend to focus on the short-term effects such as being tired or lacking concentration, but it is also essential for our long-term physical and mental wellbeing too. In addition to a lack of sleep bringing with it a higher risk of developing anxiety or depression, when we are sleep deprived we lack the energy to exercise regularly, and also the mental clarity to make good decisions about the food we eat, which could negatively impact our physical health in the long-run.

David Lloyd Clubs rolled out the new napercise class at their location in Sidcup, Kent, this weekend, as a trial. Considering the event was fully booked, we can expect to see napercise classes at their other locations in the UK in the near future, as well. So yeah, sleeping at the gym is apparently a thing now.
Comcast Corporation has promoted Sena Fitzmaurice to senior VP, government communications. She joined the media giant in 2006 and has led the companys government communications through mergers and acquisitions, including the Comcast NBCUniversal transaction.

Sena Fitzmaurice

Fitzmaurice will continue to report to DArcy Rudnay, executive VP and chief communications officer for Comcast Corporation, and work closely with the entire government and regulatory affairs team in Washington.

I am constantly struck by Senas ability to lead us through a nuanced policy landscape while consistently developing new, creative ideas that strengthen our presence in Washington, D.C. and across the country, Rudnay said. Her promotion is very well-deserved.

Fitzmaurice was a principal with the lobbying firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates in Washington, D.C., prior to joining Comcast.
Getting any vehicle, even a luxury SUV, up off the ground is crucial if you plan on actually exploring the unpaved world. As we noted in our story about why were building a GX 470, this SUV has better off-road chops in stock form than most would realize. But our goal is to take the GX 470 beyond stock performance, and the fact that it shares architecture with Toyota vehicles that have a lot of aftermarket support made this project a far less daunting task.

Since the Lexus GX 470 shares the same Prado 120 chassis as the Toyota 4Runner and FJ Cruiser, aftermarket suspension upgrades are plentiful. After sorting through the options, we decided upon a company right in our Southern California backyard, Icon Vehicle Dynamics. Icon produces suspension kits for trucks and SUVs for a wide variety of manufacturers. The company has worked with race teams in the desert racing and short-course off-road disciplines to test and fine-tune its products for performance and durability. After having been in a few vehicles equipped with their parts in recent years, we felt Icon was a great fit to upgrade the suspension performance on our GX 470.

A quick look at Icons website for GX 470 parts wont yield any immediate results. Since the GX relies on the same chassis as the fourth-generation 4Runner (2003-09), almost all of the parts Icon offers for the 4Runner are compatible with the GX as well.

Since wed be doing a big overhaul on the suspension, we opted for one of Icons complete suspension systems, specifically a Stage 7 kit. This kit not only will improve the performance of the GXs suspension, but it also offers the ability to lift the vehicle up to 3.5 inches. The kit features an extended travel remote reservoir coilover front shock that offers height adjustability up to 3.5 inches. The bolt-on front coilover also features Icons CDCV, or Compression Damping Control Valve system, to allow the fine-tuning of the damping force with the simple turn of a dial on the remote reservoir. To accommodate the additional travel and larger 2.5-inch diameter coilover, the stock upper control arm is swapped out for Icons tubular uniball UCA that is not only stronger but can also accommodate the additional travel.

Out back, our Icon Stage 7 kit also includes a V.S. 2.5 Series Remote Reservoir Rear Shocks thats also fitted with the CDCV system. One of the best features of the rear shocks is its built-in bump zone that Icon says is designed to increase the compression valving in the final two inches of compression travel to help reduce that bottom-out feeling in the backend and for overall improved performance. The kit also includes new billet aluminum upper and lower trailing arms. The stock GX 470 is fitted with an air suspension system for the rear, which works well even on vehicles with mild lifts, but wed be deleting the system entirely due to the vehicles age and replacing it with coil springs instead. Since wed be adding a MetalTech4x4 rear bumper down the line (which will house our spare tire), we opted for the stiffer 3 rear coils from Icon. We also picked up a Rear Coil Conversion kit from MetalTech4x4 (though well cover all of this in our next story).

We decided to tackle the suspension upgrades in two steps: the front and the rear. The front suspension swap is where we started first, as this process upgrading the front IFS is relatively similar to other Toyota suspension upgrades weve performed in the past. The installation should take most garage mechanics about half a day, and all of the parts are bolt-on upgrades. All of the necessary hardware is included as well.

MORE: Why We're Building a Lexus GX 470 Off-Roader

CONTACTS

Icon Vehicle Dynamics

951/689-4266

IconVehicleDynamics.com

Metal Tech 4x4

503/822-1111

MetalTech4x4.com
UPDATE #3: Jordan Edwards family has issued another statement, in which they request the time to mourn their slain son, saying Though we understand what his life and death means symbolically, we are not ready to make a martyr of our son. Read the entire statement here.

UPDATE #2: Jordan Edwards family has released a statement following the teenagers death. Read the statement below.

We would first like to thank everyone for their kind words, thoughts, prayers, and condolences as we mourn the tremendous loss our family and community has suffered. We know that so many of you share in our loss. At this time, we ask that you please be respectful of our family, and allow us the opportunity and space to grieve. This entire ordeal has been inescapable. Jordan was a loving child, with a humble and sharing spirit. The bond that he shared with his family, particularly his siblings, was indescribable. Not only have Jordans brothers lost their best friend; they witnessed firsthand his violent, senseless murder. Their young lives will forever be altered. No one, let alone young children, should witness such horrific, unexplainable violence. While our family attempts to cope with our loss, we ask that at this time the community please refrain from protests and marches in Jordans and our familys name, as we prepare for his funeral. We do not support nor do we condone any violence or threats made against the Balch Springs Police Department or any other law enforcement agencies. What we desire, only second to having our beloved Jordan back, is JUSTICE FOR JORDAN. With All of Our Love, The Edwards Family

UPDATE: The Dallas County Medical Examiners office has ruled Jordan Edwards death as a homicide, killed by a rifle wound to the head. Police are now retracting their initial statement that the vehicle Edwards was in was reversing toward the cop an aggressive manner, with Balch Springs police chief Jonathan Haber saying, I unintentionally (was) incorrect when I said the vehicle was backing down the roadin fact, I can tell you that I do have questions in relation to my observation (of) the video. After reviewing the video, I dont believe that it met our core values.

Read the original story below.

A 15-year-old black child in Texas was shot and killed by a police officer this weekend.

Jordan Edwards, a freshman that was attending Mesquite High School, was leaving a party with friends in Balch Springs, Texas, after hearing gunshots. As he was leaving he was shot through the passenger side window of the vehicle by a police officer.

According to a report, cops were already in the area responding to a call of drunken teens around 11 p.m. when they heard the gunshots. The report then describes the incident with Edwards and his friends as an unknown altercation, with the vehicle that Edwards was in backing down the street towards the officers in an aggressive manner. It was at this moment that one of the police officers fired at the car and ended up shooting Edwards.

During a news conference, Balch Springs police Chief Jonathan Haber said he did not have any information about whether weapons were found in the vehicle. Haber also stated the police department has been receiving threats since the incident occurred.

Over the last several hours, weve received threats through social media towards officersalso towards our community, Haber said. We want to encourage everyone to please just be patient.

According to Attorney S. Lee Merritt, legal counsel for Edwards family, Edwards and his friends were not the allegedly intoxicated teens that police officers were called to control.

They were simply leaving a party where they believed danger was, Merritt said in an interview with CBS-DFW. So I cant wrap my mind around why an officer decided to shoot into the car.

Edwards family has called for the removal of the police officer who shot the 15-year-old.

The Dallas County District Attorneys Office and the Dallas County Sheriffs Department have taken over the criminal investigation.
Agricultural News

Having a Treatment Protocol Plan can be a Valuable Management Tool for Cow-Calf Operations

It is "calf-working time" in Oklahoma, which should serve as a valuable reminder for producers to get with their veterinarians to review, revise or - if one does not exist - develop a treatment protocol plan for their specific cattle operations.







Some may consider a treatment protocol plan as being something feedyards and larger stocker operations do; however, it is a valuable management practice for large and small cow-calf producers as well and a key part of the Beef Quality Assurance program, remind animal agriculture professionals with the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service.







BQA is a nationally coordinated, state-implemented program that provides systematic information to U.S. beef producers and beef consumers about how common sense husbandry techniques can be coupled with accepted scientific knowledge to raise cattle under optimum management and environmental conditions.







"A treatment protocol plan is easy to do, straightforward and takes guesswork and faulty memories out of the equation," said Dana Zook, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension area livestock specialist.







Simply put, write out a plan for what treatment or treatments are to used when cattle get sick for various reasons, making sure to also include follow-up dates and practices as well as possible alternative treatments if the initial treatment does not produce the desired result. The plan should be reviewed annually.







"As you update the protocol plan, previous versions should be kept on file so that you can refer back to treatments that have worked in previous situations," Zook said. "Be sure to keep the treatment protocol plan on file where those who need it can find it easily. Putting it in a file cabinet is not automatically the best place on a ranch."







A tip many find useful is for the producer to consult with his or her veterinarian when writing the plan.







Treatment records are important because:





- Cattle not responding to therapy may require a delayed drug clearance, and good records would indicate if this were the case; and





- Extra-label drug usage is only permitted under FDA guidelines involving a veterinarian-client-patient relationship, making individual animal identification and treatment records paramount.







Dr. Barry Whitworth, veterinarian and OSU Cooperative Extension food animal quality and health specialist, said the treatment protocol plan tells the consulting veterinarian what treatments are being applied, enabling them to make sure treatment recommendations are being followed and allowing them to judge whether treatment regimens need to be adjusted.







Whitworth and Zook said treatment records should include:





- Individual animal/group identification;





- Date treated;





- Product administered and manufacturer's lot/serial number;





- Dosage used;





- Route and location of administration;





- Earliest date the animal will have cleared the withdrawal period; and





- Name of the person administering the product.







"All cattle, including dairy beef shipped for harvest, should be checked by appropriate personnel to assure that all prescription withdrawal times for animal health products administered have been met or exceeded for animals that have been treated," Whitworth said.







In addition, a copy of all processing and treatment records should be transferred with cattle to the next production level.







"Prospective buyers need to be informed of any cattle that have not met recommended withdrawal times," Whitworth said.







The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service is a state agency administered by OSU's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and a fixture of the university's state and federally mandated "teaching, research and extension" land-grant mission.







Oklahoma is the nation's fifth-leading producer of cattle and calves, according to USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service data.







Source - Oklahoma State University













WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady NSI

Top Agricultural News
Rema Idriss knows a thing or two about overcoming obstacles.

So did most of the graduating high school and college seniors that she addressed Sunday at a banquet at Field Club of Omaha. Many have struggled with homelessness, sexual assault, troubled homes, poverty or teen parenthood.

Idriss  an immigrant who fled with her family from their home in Iraq when she was 2 and their second home in Jordan when she was 14  knows about being uprooted, leaving loved ones behind, learning a new language and adjusting to a new culture. On Sunday, Idriss encouraged the 38 high school seniors and 12 college seniors who were being honored for their academic achievements to stay focused on their goals.

The students have been supported through their academic careers by Partnership 4 Kids, and the banquet was held to honor their achievements.

Each year, P4K serves about 5,400 students, from kindergarten through college, according to the organizations website.

P4K provides college scholarships as part of that help. About 120 students have been awarded scholarships for next school year, said Molly Verble, P4K director of college access.

Idriss, 22, is one example of the organizations success.

She is set to graduate with honors Friday from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a bachelors degree in biotechnology. In July, she said, she will head off to Midwestern University in Downers Grove, Illinois, near Chicago, to enter the schools doctor of optometry program.

But none of that has come easily for Idriss, who spoke just two English words when she arrived in the U.S. as a young teenager: hi and bye.

On Sunday, resilient was the word on her mind.

Resilient is the perfect word, she said in an interview before the dinner, to describe herself and other students being helped by Partnership 4 Kids, which has been helping disadvantaged youths for 27 years.

P4K has helped Idriss throughout her Omaha education. The organization gave her mentors and helped her become one to others, she said, and it let her know she wasnt alone by introducing her to students with similar backgrounds and struggles.

P4K helped Idriss find scholarships and other financial aid for UNO, including a $4,000-a-year P4K scholarship, and it helped her pay for an entrance exam and a prep course for medical school.

Learning school subjects in a foreign language has been difficult, especially in her UNO science classes, Idriss said.

Sometimes I have to work extra hard, she said.
Over the years, one by one, the Caniglia family restaurants have closed  their legacy living on in the lives of Omahans.

The family introduced pizza to Omaha after World War II and opened a number of successful Italian steakhouses that were the place where generations of Omahans went to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and hold holiday office parties and family gatherings.

On Saturday, the last of the original Caniglia siblings from the sprawling restaurant family died. Alfred John Caniglia Sr. was 88 when he passed away at his home in Fountain Hills, Arizona. Near his side was his wife of 65 years, Mary Ann.

In all, at least 25 members of the Caniglia family over three generations operated eating establishments in Omaha. The first was patriarch Cirino Caniglia, who operated a bakery. This was followed by the five Caniglia brothers - Ross, Lou, Eli, Yano and Al Sr. - and their sister, Grace (Caniglia) Piccolo, and then the majority of their children, who helped.

Al Caniglia Sr. opened Top of the World in the Woodmen Tower and Al Caniglias Drawing Room in Millard.

He always said there was nothing more satisfying than having people walk out of his place saying That was good (food), we had a good time,  recalls his son, John Caniglia.

For years, Top of the World was the prom destination in Omaha, John Caniglia said.

Restaurants operated by other members of the family included Caniglias Original Pizzeria, Caniglias Venice Inn, Piccolo Petes Steakhouse, Luigis, Lucianos and Mister Cs Steakhouse.

John Caniglia says one of his uncles suggested in the 1950s that the family open a pizzeria after seeing how popular pizzas were in Baltimore. Eli Caniglia was returning from World War II. Pizza, he told his parents, reminded him of the family dish known as cucurene, a thin, usually double-crusted pastry containing cheese and whatever meats and vegetables were available.

John Caniglia said his mail continues to bring an occasional packet from someone who cleared out a parent or loved ones possessions and found memorabilia from one of the restaurants.

Al Sr. didnt take the familys place in Omaha for granted, his son said.

It meant a lot to him to be part of the legacy that my family started, he said.

Today, most of the offspring have moved on to other things. They are teachers, bankers, dentists, physical trainers, even a member of the foreign service. A great-grandson from the Piccolo branch of Cirino Caniglias offspring operates a food truck.

Although he was known as a restaurateur, Al Caniglia was, more than anything, though, a family man, recalls his daughter Laura Callahan of Omaha.

He would do anything for his family, she said. He gave us a wonderful childhood, he involved us in the businesses and was a very wonderful father. This is the end of a dynasty for us.

In addition to his wife, son and daughter, Al Caniglia Sr. is survived by two other daughters, Joanie Sanders and Lynda Gelecki of Omaha, 13 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Funeral services will be May 8 at Heafey Hoffmann Dworak & Cutler Mortuaries, Laura Callahan said. The family will receive visitors from 4 to 7 p.m., followed by the service at 7 p.m., she said.
Mikhayla Zimmerman saw a gleaming ray of hope Sunday as rain pounded down just before the start of the University of Nebraska at Omahas suicide prevention walk.

Its like tears from heaven washing away the sorrow, said Zimmerman, a junior. Thats what someone told me last week after a boy I know from high school committed suicide.

Zimmerman was supported during the 2-mile Out of the Darkness walk by four Sigma Kappa sorority sisters: Kendall Ellis, Meghan Guinette, Emily Petry and Clarissa Rodriguez.

They were among 583 people who turned out in nasty weather and raised $17,000 for suicide prevention.

Aileen Brady, co-chair of the Nebraska chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said the donations will be spent in the Omaha area for research and resources. The suicide prevention foundation will hold a communitywide walk on Sept. 10 at Lewis & Clark Landing.

Youre brave and bold, Brady told the walkers before they headed out. We need you to be brave and bold to stand up to suicide.

An average of 44,193 Americans die by suicide each year, according to the foundations statistics. In Nebraska the yearly average is 225, making suicide the 11th-leading cause of death overall.

The mission of the AFSP is to save lives and bring messages of hope to those affected by suicide, Brady said. We hope today will bring healing for them when they see all these incredible folks and realize they are not alone.

Dan and Mary Gordon of Omaha were drawn to the walk after two people they knew, including a high school student, took their own lives in the past 60 days. Mary Gordon wore a Glow for Joe button in memory of the student.

Its an important topic that we need to make people aware of, she said. Nothings that bad that makes suicide the answer. You can get help.

Three psychologists  Amanda Setlak, Elizabeth Nelson and Kim Vogel  from the Center for Behavioral Health at Boys Town donned rain gear to spread the same message.

We want to support anyone out there who is struggling, Setlak said. We are here to tell them that there are people who care. Dont give up.

Samantha Reed, a UNO senior majoring in psychology, helped organize the walk for the second year. Her family lost a close friend to suicide in 2011.

We might be swimming instead of walking today, Reed said. (The turnout) is a lot better than I ever expected. We had some people say we should postpone (the walk), but we decided this is too important to postpone because of rain.
Both candidates for the City Council District 2 seat put increasing economic opportunities and job readiness for people in north Omaha atop their lists of priorities.

But incumbent Councilman Ben Gray and challenger Dennis Womack have different ideas on how to get there.

Gray said he would amend the citys Small and Emerging Small Business Program ordinance so it will lead to more contracts and jobs in the low-income, high-unemployment neighborhoods it is designed to help.

He said larger businesses from outside those neighborhoods are getting too many of the city contracts.

Smaller contractors from north Omaha are not getting a chance under the ordinance because people have found ways around it.

Gray said he would propose amendments to tighten the ordinances rules limiting the size of companies and their subsidiaries that qualify for preferences in city bidding.

He said he also would propose changing the ordinance to formalize and strengthen the role of the Omaha Human Rights and Relations Department in administering the ordinance.

Gray also said he would put more city money toward a job training program at Heartland Workforce Solutions, the nonprofit program created by the city to administer Omahas federal job training funds. The City Council pressed Mayor Jean Stothert to add $400,000 for a pilot program in 2015.

Gray said it has been so successful that he would try to add an additional $500,000 in city funding. Hes not sure where that money would come from but would look in the citys general fund for spending that could be shifted to the jobs program.

We need to continue these kinds of successes that are helping to bring people out of poverty, Gray said.

He said the Step Up job program for youths is working to increase employment and is one of the reasons that the number of shootings is down in Omaha.

Womack said that the city should expand its involvement beyond summer job programs for youths and that he doesnt believe shootings are down. According to Omaha police statistics, there were 119 gun assaults in 2016, a 10-year low.

Womack said the city should be seeking more federal funding for job training. He said his past career in social services, including workforce development and working for the U.S. Department of Commerce, would help him find and obtain that federal funding.

My No. 1 priority is going to be jobs for this community, Womack said. Bring federal dollars in for retraining that will prepare our workforce for the future. ... I know where those pots of money are.

Womack also said there havent been enough jobs for people in north Omaha in developments that have happened in recent years or are underway. He specified 75 North, a housing and business development going up on North 30th Street.

One of the things that has occurred under Councilman Grays leadership is the community hasnt felt a real buy-in with these so-called development projects in the community, Womack said.

He said he would fight harder for those opportunities than Gray has. Asked how he would do that, Womack said the city should require that developments in north Omaha hire minority contractors.

Because of a Nebraska constitutional amendment approved by voters in 2008, public entities cant hire people or businesses based on race, ethnicity or gender. Reminded of that, Womack said the city should try to contract with companies with inclusion policies.

On street repair, Gray said he would consider moving street work ahead of other projects in the citys capital improvement program.

Womack said he supports legalizing medical marijuana and expanding gambling in Nebraska in order to create more tax revenue for street work and reduce taxes.

He said he would fight black-on-black crime by stopping illegal guns from coming into Omaha. Asked how to do that, he suggested building more police-community involvement.

District 2

Ben Gray

Age: 67

Party: Democratic

Occupation: member, Omaha City Council

Home: Omaha

Public offices held: City Council, District 2, 2009 to present

Education: attended University of Nebraska at Omaha

Family: married; seven children

Dennis J. Womack

Age: 65

Party: Democratic

Occupation: former social services worker

Home: Omaha

Public offices held: deputy Douglas County election commissioner, 2004-2006

Education: attended UNO and Metropolitan Community College

Family: married; three children

Website: none
The writer is a lifelong farmer in Loup City, Nebraska.

Here in central Nebraska, raising corn is a way of life.

I got started when I was 21 with 160 acres I bought from my grandmother. Today, my wife, Linda, and I farm 3,000 acres of corn. Im 66 now, and Ive seen a lot of changes in farming over the years.

Farms are much more productive thanks to advancements in technology. But it takes a lot more land, equipment, planning and investment to grow a modern corn crop and get it to market at a price that allows a family to make a living.

Luckily, were pretty efficient in Nebraska.

Last year, we grew $6 billion worth of corn across the state. Of course, that $6 billion in output means farmers had to spend billions of their own money growing the crop.

Thats a lot of risk, and without a strong crop insurance system in place, we couldnt do it. We couldnt obtain the capital needed to farm today without lenders being confident that were properly managing weather and market risk.

Crop insurance is a unique public-private partnership that protects my investments and protects taxpayers, who no longer have to fund all of the farm safety net.

Before crop insurance, farmers went to Congress after every disaster and asked for help through expensive, unbudgeted relief bills. That wasnt fair to taxpayers, who picked up 100 percent of the tab.

And because the legislative process took so long, it wasnt fair to farmers, who needed help immediately.

That is why farmers are willing pay a lot from their own pockets for a crop insurance policy that is specifically tailored to their operation.

In fact, a full-time corn farmer might spend tens of thousands of dollars for a policy and the peace of mind it provides.

Even though we invest a lot in these policies, we hope we never need to cash them in. Because if were filing an insurance claim, it also means were shouldering a deductible and will have a loss that year. Crop insurance is designed to help you pick up the pieces, not profit.

Ive seen this firsthand in the drought of 2005 and the violent hail storms in 2014 that brought moderate to severe damage to 16 out of 18 of our fields. I didnt make any money those years, but I also didnt go out of business.

That is a far cry from the tough times in the 1980s, before crop insurance was as popular as it is today. Back then, prices were low and farmers feared for their livelihoods.

Prices are also low today, but modern crop insurance takes the fear out of farming. No wonder crop insurance is the top policy priority for most farmers in this upcoming farm bill.

The new administration has promised to protect American jobs and American farms. Keeping crop insurance affordable and widely available is a great way to live up to that promise.
Fake: India Army is not undertaking a spraying exercise to kill coronavirus

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Kremlin needs more soldiers for its Ukraine war

2 soldiers martyred in ceasefire violation by Pakistan

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

At least two security personnel, including an Army officer, were martyred in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.

A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in the attack, a senior officer of the paramilitary force said.

The firing began at 8:30 a.m. as Pakistan attacked Indian posts with rocket launchers and automatic weapons.

Indian forces are retaliating heavily and a massive gunbattle is underway.

In 2017, India has already recorded 60 ceasefire violations along the 778-km Line of Control.

In 2016, the number of violations stod at 228, which killed eight soldiers and 13 civilians on the Indian side, while it was 153 in 2014 and 152 in 2015.

The present, ceasefire violation comes after Kupwara attack in which three soldiers were killed, including an Army Captain.

Timeline of ceasefire violations in April 2017:

On April 8, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir by resorting to firing on forward posts.

On April 5, ceasefire violation took place along the LoC in Poonch district.

On April 4, Pakistani Army fired mortar shells on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri district.

On April 3, Pakistani troops had shelled mortar bombs on forward posts in Balakote sector of Rajouri district. Pakistani troops had shelled Indian posts along the LoC in Digwar area in Poonch sector.

In the same area, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

On March 9, army jawan Deepak Jagannath Ghadge was killed when Pakistani soldiers initiated indiscriminate and unprovoked firing along the LoC in Poonch.

( With inputs from agencies )
MP woman punished to beg for a week over the death of calf by village panchayat

Sad but true, no one killed Pehlu Khan, as 6 accused get clean chit

Cow vigilantism hits UP, once again: 2 men beaten up, heads tonsured, paraded for cattle stealing

After Pehlu Khan in Rthan, 2 killed by gau rakshaks in Assam

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Guwahati, May 1: After the brutal killing of 55-year-old dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in Rajasthan by gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes), two suspected cow thieves were killed in Nagaon, Assam, by an angry mob on Sunday.

"An angry mob lynched two suspected cow thieves in Assam's Nagaon. Police said investigation in the matter was underway," reported ANI. According to PTI, the two men succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

"When the police reached the spot, they were being thrashed by a mob of villagers near Kasamari grazing reserve under Nagaon police station," Nagaon superintendent of police Debaraj Upadhay told PTI.

"The team immediately took the men to hospital, where they succumbed to their injuries," he added.

The images of the incident, taken on mobile phones, show blood soaked faces of the two men, indicating how brutally the alleged cow thieves were beaten by the mob. This is perhaps the first case of cow vigilantism reported from the northerneastern state ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Upadhay said the men were identified and their parents have registered a complaint with the police. A case has been lodged and investigation is on, the SP said, adding no arrest has been so far.

Asked if it is a case of 'cow vigilantism', the senior official said a lot of cattle theft incidents have happened in Nagaon. "In this case, I got reports that some people saw the two men trying to take away cows from the field and called more people from the village. When a large crowd gathered, they started thrashing them badly," he said.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 8:34 [IST]
AI flight diverted as passenger suffers paralytic attack

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, May 1: A Bangalore-bound Air India flight from Delhi was on Monday diverted to Nagpur after a passenger suffered a paralytic attack onboard.

The passenger, N K Kumar, who is in his 40s, has been admitted to a hospital in Nagpur. "After the aircraft landed in Nagpur at 7.52 am, the passenger who suffered a paralytic attack onboard was deplaned along with his aide and immediately admitted to a local hospital," Air India said in a statement.

"The passenger is in ICU and is stable. We wanted to move him to Delhi for better medical care but doctors have advised us against it," according to Air India spokesperson Dhananjay Kumar.

Delhi-Bangalore AI flight 803, with 158 passengers onboard, took off from Indira Gandhi International Airport here at 6.09 am and was diverted to Nagpur at 7.50 am. The plane landed at Bangalore's Kempegowda International Airport at 9.25 am after a delay of 30 minutes.

PTI
AIADMK merger: Affidavits supporting Sasikala become deterrent

India

oi-Anusha

The Panneerselvam camp of the AIADMK continues to remain sceptical about who the real boss of Edappadi Palanisamy camp is. An affidavit in the AIADMK symbol row showing an office bearer extending his support to V K Sasikala Natarajan and Dinakaran has only added to the suspicion. Meanwhile, Edappadi Palanisamy claimed that he had the support of majority party cadre and was running out of patience with the Panneerselvam camp.

Speaking to office bearers, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is said to have conveyed that he enjoys the support of close to 90 percent party cadres. Both factions have not been able to arrive at an understanding over the Chief Minister's post. As talks are being postponed, Palanisamy is said to have made it clear that the wants to continue as the Chief Minister and has the support to do so.

The Panneerselvam camp continues to believe that the merger is a mere eyewash to reclaim the AIADMK's two leaves symbol. As if to strengthen their suspicion Palanisamy is said to have asked office bearers to submit affidavits supporting Sasikala Natarajan and Dinakaran's appoint to official party posts to the election commission. One such affidavit was made public on Sunday.

M Venkatesh, the circle representative from Chennai north in his affidavit has supported Sasikala. "...the general council members of the AIADMK party unanimously appointed V K Sasikala who was the closest advisor of Jayalalithaa to lead the party as general secretary... I have extended my whole-hearted consent to the decision taken by the general council meeting held ob December 29., 2016... The claims made by any party including the former chief minister O Panneerselvam, E Madhusudhanan, Semmalai who are expelled from the party and those who support them are without any merit" says the affidavit.

Despite Sasikala and Dinakaran's ouster from the party, affidavits supporting them are being taken to the election commission and this has made Panneerselvam camp uncomfortable. They now suspect that the ouster was a mere ruse and are unwilling to hold merger talks. Edappadi camp on the other side claim that they have yielded to Panneerselvam's preconditions and no other demands will be entertained until talks commence.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 11:13 [IST]
Amarinder Singh wants total freedom to Army; supports 'human shield' action

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Chandigarh, May 1: Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday called for "total freedom to the Indian Army" to tackle dangerous situations faced in the line of duty.

Expressing concern over increasing vulnerability of Indian soldiers on the borders and in border states such as Jammu and Kashmir, Amarinder Singh, himself an former Indian Army Captain, came out in solidarity with soldiers being exposed to all kinds of risks and atrocities.

He said that the soldiers were facing a tough situation not only at the hands of enemy forces from across the border but sometimes also at the hands of civilians, as happened recently in Kashmir.

Reacting strongly to the reported mutilation of the bodies of two jawans by Pakistan Army following a ceasefire violation in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch, Amarinder urged the Central government to send out a strong signal to such inimical forces against indulging in such atrocities and barbaric acts.

He backed the Indian Army's warning of "appropriate response" for the "despicable act". "Such unprovoked acts of excessive violence cannot be tolerated or allowed to go unpunished. The Indian soldiers were not a dispensable commodity to be sacrificed at the altar of such uncivilised and savage assaults," he said in a Facebook post.

Coming down heavily on those criticising the Indian Army action of tying a man to a vehicle to protect its soldiers from the vicious attack unleashed by civilians during the recent bypolls in Kashmir, Amarinder justified the action of Major L. Gogoi saying that the "civilians tried to take the law in their hands" and it was the duty of the Army officers to protect their mens.

Coming out in the defence of the army officer in the line of fire from various quarters over his 'human shield' action, Amarinder said the officer was simply doing his duty.

"Had I been in the same situation I would have carried out the same action," he said. "Regardless of your rank on retiring don't forget your past and that you belong to one of the finest armies in this world," he said.

"Initiative is part of our training and curtailing it is killing the very essence of regimental soldiering. "I hope and trust that Major Gogoi is suitably awarded for his decision and that all of us fully support his action," he said.



IANS
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in Kashmir on two day visit

India

pti-PTI

Srinagar, May 1: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat reached here on Monday and took stock of the security situation, on a day Pakistani troops beheaded two Indian soldiers after crossing the Line of Control in Poonch sector. Accompanied by the Northern Army Commander and the Srinagar-based Corps Commander, the army chief visited Panzgam garrison and was briefed on the terror attack which took place on April 27, an army official said.

J&K: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in the Valley on a two day visit, took stock of the enhanced security measures. pic.twitter.com/iW03ZWpvpq  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Gen Rawat "took stock of the enhanced security measures," he added. Three armymen, including a young officer, were killed and five other soldiers were injured in the attack by three terrorists, two of whom were eliminated in the incident.

The Army Chief was briefed by the Corps Commander Lt Gen J S Sandhu on the prevailing situation in Kashmir. Gen Rawat appreciated the synergy being shown among all security agencies and complimented the troops for undertaking operations with firmness and resolve, the official said.

The army chief also visited the Army Base Hospital in Badamibagh Cantonment where he enquired about the health of injured soldiers and wished them all a speedy recovery.

en Rawat impressed upon everyone to continue their positive engagement with the people and provide them assistance when required, the official added. The visit of the army chief came on day two Indian soldiers were beheaded by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district.

PTI
Amarnath yatra suspended today in the wake of strike called by separatists in valley

Burhan Wani posters, ISIS flag raised at Pulwama college

India

oi-Anusha

Posters of deceased Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani were raised in a college in Pulwama of Kashmir on Monday. ISIS flags were also raised along with Wani's posters as students shouted Azadi slogans. Clashes broke out soon after Wani's posters were raised by students at the government degree college in Pulwama.

Posters of Burhan Wani and flags of ISIS were raised by students in protest against security forces in the Valley. On Saturday the Kashmir police had allegedly used force against students and teachers of Polytechnic college in Gogji Bagh area of Srinagar. Students had alleged that they were assaulted for protesting 'peacefully' against killings of innocent Kashmiris.

Monday's protest was in retaliation to the crackdown by security forces on Saturday. Poster of Burhan Wani was displayed atop the administrative block of the college with students chanting slogans against security forces. Posters were taken down by force hours later.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 12:19 [IST]
UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case

Congress to contest Uttar Pradesh local body elections alone

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

The Congress Party on Monday announced its decision to contest the upcoming Uttar Pradesh local body elections alone.

The Uttar Pradesh Congress Chief Raj Babbar told ANI that this decision has been taken after thorough deliberations with the leaders and workers of the state.

Raj Babbar said, "Keeping in mind the suggestions of the party leaders and local party workers, the party has decided to contest the local body election alone in the state of Uttar Pradesh."

The BJP marked a thumping victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections by winning 324 seats out of 403.

The decision to contest the local body elections alone comes after the party faced a debacle in the last state Assembly Elections after joining hands with the Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party.

According to seat-sharing formula in the last UP assembly polls, out of the 403 assembly seats, SP had contested in 298 seats and Congress fielded its candidates in 105 constituencies.

However, the one-liner "UP ko ye saath pasand hai" could not bring much expected results. The Bharatiya Janata Party won 324 seats, the SP-Congress coalition garnered mere 55 seats and Bahujan Samaj Party led by Mayawati was restricted to only 19 seats.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 11:23 [IST]
'Kejriwal ji, if my claims true, you'll resign and retire': Sukesh writes a new letter

IRCTC update: 151 trains cancelled on Nov 09; here is the complete list

Daily revisions of petrol in five cities from today

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

New Delhi, May 1: Petrol and diesel prices will be revised on a daily basis in select towns in the country-in sync with the international crude oil prices from Monday onwards.

State-owned fuel retailers Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd, which own nearly 58,000 petrol pumps in the country, will launch a pilot for daily price revision in five select cities from Monday.

The process of fuel price revision is likely to be extended to other parts of the country.

At first, the fuel retailers have decided to implement the pilot project in Puducherry, Vizag (Andhra Pradesh), Udaipur (Rajasthan), Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) and Chandigarh.

With this, you have to check petrol and diesel prices daily before refuelling your vehicles.

According to sources, the revised price on a daily basis will not affect in a big way, as the rates differ by only a few paise between pumps of the three state fuel retailers.

The Indian Oil Corporation also announced the fuel prices effective for Monday for these five cities. Petrol will cost Rs 67.65 per litre in Chandigarh, Rs 69.33 in Jamshedpur, Rs 66.02 in Puducherry, Rs 70.57 in Udaipur and Rs. 72.68 in Vizag, while diesel rate will be Rs. 57.74, Rs. 60.26, Rs. 58.68, Rs. 61.23 and Rs. 62.81, respectively.

Customers may verify fuel prices by downloading the company app or visiting its website.

Oil companies have freedom to revise rates as the corporation was freed from the control of government from 2010.

Earlier, the government announced home delivery of petrol and diesel, if customers make a pre-booking to cut queues at fuel stations.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 9:36 [IST]
Imagination of an artist

A sand artist creates a sand image on Labour Day at Odisha Parba 2017' event in New Delhi on Sunday.

Picture credit: PTI

Lets create a record

Women and children rehearse for Thiruvathira Dance at Kochi on Sunday. Seven thousand women and children from various states will perform Kerala's traditional art form, Thiruvathira, in an attempt to break a Guinness World Records on May 1.

Picture credit: PTI

Hard realities of our time

A labourer carries a sack of grain at a market on the eve of International Labour Day in Bikaner, Rajasthan on Sunday.

Picture credit: PTI

Yes, child labour very much exists

Child labourers carry bricks at a brick factory on the eve of International Labour Day on the outskirts of Agartala in Tripura on Sunday.

Picture credit: PTI

Backbreaking work

Labourers carrying official documents to be loaded on trucks as the 'Darbar' moves from winter capital Jammu to summer capital Srinagar at Civil Secretariat in Jammu on Saturday.

Picture credit: PTI

Yes, we build bridges and roads

Labourers work at the site of an underground power project along a road in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Picture credit: PTI
UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case

Daughter backs Prajapati in rape case, calls him innocent

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

Lucknow, May 1: Just after a few days Allahabad Court canceled bail for former Uttar Pradesh minister Gayatri Prajapati in connection with a rape case, his daughter Sudha on Monday defended him and said that he is innocent.

We hv proof that he is innocent.Girl herself has said tht she doesn't know G Prajapati&did not register FIR: Sudha, Daughter of G Prajapati pic.twitter.com/VUcA9BDCUF  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) May 1, 2017

Prajapati's family on Monday met UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over Allahabad court staying bail granted to him by the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences court earlier in April.

Sudha said that her father Prajapati is innocent and the family has evidence that the alleged rape victim doesn't know Prajapati and did not file a case against him in the police against.

Earlier on April 25, Prajapati and his two accomplices were granted bail by a POSCO court in Lucknow in connection with a rape case. A special judge of POCSO court Om Prakash Mishra granted the bail to Prajapati, Vikas Verma, and Amrendra Singh alias Mintu.

The court had asked him to furnish two sureties of Rs 1 lakh each and a personal bond of the same amount.

Soon after granting bail, POSCO court special judge, OP Mishra was suspended on April 29 for granting bail to Prajapati. According to an initial report, a departmental inquiry had been ordered.

The suspension came a day after the Allahabad high court stayed the bail order granted by a sessions court in Lucknow.

The bail was stayed by Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale on an application moved by the UP government through Additional Advocate General VK Shahi seeking cancellation of bail granted to Gayatri Prajapati and two other co-accused.

The Additional Advocate General submitted that sufficient time was not given by the sessions court to the prosecution for seeking instructions against the accused.

Prajapati was on the run for nearly a month before he was arrested in Lucknow on March 15 and was sent to jail for allegedly raping a woman and attempting to rape her minor daughter in 2014.

A FIR was registered against Prajapati and six others on February 17 on a Supreme Court directive. Prajapati had been a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 11:28 [IST]
For Justice Karnan, SC prescribes mental health check

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Supreme Court has ordered a mental health check up for Justice C S Karnan. The court directed that the report be submitted by May 8.

The court also directed that he submit his reply to the contempt plea. If he does not then it would be assumed that he has no response the Bench observed. Further the Bench also said that all orders passed by Justice Karnan stood invalid.

On the last date of hearing the Chief Justice of India J S Khehar asked if he was mentally fit to understand the gravity of the case. If so give us a medical certificate, the CJI also said. You suffer from work related instability, the CJI also said. Justice Karnan however refused to relent and demanded that his work be restored. I will not appear before you until you restore my work he said while adding that he ready to go to jail.

When asked if he wanted to make oral or written submissions, he said that his fight is against corruption in the Madras High Court and not a personal one. Justice Karnan who has been asked to stay away from judicial work at the Calcutta High Court said if you want my senses restored, then let me get back to work.

The judge of the Calcutta High Court also said that he could prove that he is not fighting against the judiciary. I am fighting against corruption he said before a seven judge bench of the Supreme Court. I can prove the corruption charges and also how appointments are based on a caste basis he also said.

I am innocent and have done nothing wrong, he said. The Bench then said that it wanted him to relax and answer questions. I will relax once you restore my work, Justice Karnan shot back.

The Bench then suggested that he take the assistance of an advocate since he is too involved in the case. If you want we will provide you assistance. In the given circumstance this would be better for you, the Bench said. The Bench then referred to a letter of March 25. It asked if he was willing to apologise. If you apologise the case will take a different turn and if you do not then there will be a trial, the Bench said.

I am not a contemnor and I have done no wrong. Your lordships did not give notice before issuing suo motu contempt notice, Restore my work as I am answerable to the public, Justice Karnan had said.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 11:34 [IST]
'Give army freehand against stone pelters', Bajrangdal appeals to the President

India

oi-Anusha

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad's youth wing, Bajrang Dal has urged that the army be given a free hand to deal with stone pelters in Kashmir. The outfit has planned demonstrations across the country on Tuesday to protest against the continued attacks against security personnel in the Valley. Bajrangdal has also decided to submit a memorandum to the President to 'allow the army to deal with separatists, stone-pelters and their direct and indirect supporters with a free hand'.

"Our cadre is angered by today's attack on our soldiers and we demand a fitting reply," said Vinod Bansal, VHP spokesperson. They reiterated their demand for stern military action against those who attack the security forces. "These stone-pelters and those who are backing them should be dealt with in the same way as those who attack the army," he added.

These statements come days after VHP chief Pravin Togadia demanded that the government carry out 'carpet bombing' in Kashmir to stop attacks on security personnel. "There is absolutely no reason why government must put restrictions on the armed forces to counter violence against the state," Bansal added.

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 17:42 [IST]
Gujarat MP KC Patel says he was honey-trapped, woman accuses him of rape

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, May 1: The Delhi Police have registered a case on a complaint by a BJP MP that he was honey-trapped by a woman who drugged him and shot obscene videos to extort Rs five crore.

K C Patel, the MP from Gujarat's Valsad, filed the complaint with the police last week following which the woman approached a city court, claiming police did not act on her rape complaint against the lawmaker.

The court has sought an action taken report in the matter and police have launched investigation. No rape case has been registered against Patel yet. Police claimed it has emerged that the woman has been involved in similar instances earlier.

However, her claim is being verified, police said. While the woman has alleged that the MP raped her on several occasions, Patel claimed he was drugged and obscene videos and photos were shot by her.

Patel has alleged the woman invited him to a place in Ghaziabad for some work where she offered him a soft drink which was laced with sedatives, police said. The MP claimed she threatened to file a rape case against him if he did not pay her Rs five crore.

Mukesh Kumar Meena, special commissioner of police, New Delhi range, said it was a "sensitive matter" and appropriate action will be taken.

PTI
Varanasi lights up with 8 lakh lamps on Dev Deepawali; PM shares pics too

PM Modi calls on Advani on his 95th birthday | Watch

India's intellectuals are anti-India, says Australian sociologist who is all praise for PM Modi

PM Modi unveils G20 logo: Significance of the lotus and its seven petals

India, Turkey sign three agreements

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, May 1: India and Turkey on Monday signed three agreements following delegation-level talks headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan here.

"#IndiaTurkey sign three agreements in the fields of ICT, training and culture," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

An agreement was signed on a cultural exchange programme for the years 2017-2020. A memorandum of understanding was signed between the Foreign Services Institute of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey.

Another MoU was signed on cooperation in the area of information and communication technologies.

Earlier on Monday, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome with a guard of honour.

Later, Erdogan paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry organisations CII, Ficci and Assocham, at which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties. On Monday evening, President Mukherjee will host a banquet in honour of the visiting dignitary.



IANS
Jaitley statue at Kotla: Angry Bedi asks DDCA to remove his name from stands, quits membership

Reforms in India being done by conviction, not compulsion: PM Narendra Modi

BJP leaders pay tribute to former minister Arun Jaitley on his third death anniversary

Indian Army will react appropriately to mutilation of 2 jawans, says Arun Jaitley

India

oi-Madhuri

Union defence minister Arun Jaitley on Monday called the mutilation of two soldiers in Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch as an extreme form of barbaric act by the Pakistan Armed Forces, and said that their sacrifice won't go in vain.

Country has full confidence & faith in armed forces which will react appropriately. Sacrifice of these 2 soldiers won't go in vain: Jaitley pic.twitter.com/0KPOim3QbG  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

''This is a reprehensible and inhumane act, such attacks don't even take place during war, let alone peace,''said Jaitley.

He further said that bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act and Government of India strongly condemns this act.

Jaitely also said,''Country has full confidence & faith in armed forces which will react appropriately. Sacrifice of these 2 soldiers won't go in vain.''

Meanwhile, Pakistan rejected India's accusation that it killed two soldiers in "unprovoked" firing and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Inter-Services Public Relations in a statement said the Pakistan Army "did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or Border Action Team action in Krishna Ghati Sector as alleged by India." It said the "Indian blame of mutilating soldiers' bodies are also false".

The Indian Army said on Monday that the "despicable act" occurred in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch border district, and warned of "appropriate response" to the "unsoldierly act" by the Pakistan Army.

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)
'Two-finger test' should be banned in matrimonial dispute cases too, says Maharashtra doctor

Khota sarkar left with egg on their faces: Team Uddhav on Andheri win

Maharashtra Day celebration: Tributes paid to martyrs

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, May 1: The 57th Maharashtra Day was celebrated across the state on Monday, with the main ceremony taking place at the sprawling Shivaji Park in Mumbai.

Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis attended the event.

On the occasion, the Governor announced the launch of Maharashtra Real Estate Regulatory Authority under which housing projects in the state will be registered.

He said that "the new Act will make the process of buying and selling of houses transparent, trusted and accountable."

Union Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale, diplomats from various countries, senior officers of the armed forces, serving and retired government officers and citizens were present.

The Governor unfurled the national flag, inspected the ceremonial parade and accepted salute presented by the marching contingents.

Under the Jalayukta Shivar Abhiyan launched by the state government to tackle water scarcity, over 2.5 lakh works had been completed and that 12 lakh thousand cubic meters of water storage potential has been created, Rao said.

"Around 11,000 villages in Maharashtra had become drought free by conserving water in village watershed," he said.

"About Rs 33115 crore crop loan was disbursed to over 48 lakh farmers in the state," the Governor said. Crop loans of 6.85 lakh farmers were restructured, he added.

The World Bank-assisted Nanaji Deshmukh Krishi Sanjeevani Project is being rolled out to make 4000 villages of Vidarbha and Marathwada drought-free, he said.

Altogether 225 cities and towns in Maharashtra have been declared Open Defecation Free, he said, adding the entire urban Maharashtra will become Open Defecation Free by 2nd October this year.

All new legislation and amendments will be made available in Marathi language, he said. The government wants to increase use of Marathi language in judiciary, he added.

Maharashtra was formed on May 1, 1960. Each year Maharashtra Day is commemorated with a parade at Shivaji Park in Dadar where the Governor gives a speech. The State Reserve Police Force Mumbai Police and Home Guards personnel take part in this parade.

PTI

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 15:08 [IST]
Mehbooba Mufti condemns killing of jawans in Poonch

India

pti-PTI

Srinagar, May 1: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday strongly condemned the beheading of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani forces in the Poonch sector and also the killing of five cops and two bank officials by terrorists in the Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir.

In a statement, the chief minister condemned the killing of two soldiers in the Krishna Ghati sector of the Poonch district. On the incident in Kulgam, Mehbooba said that a cash disbursement party had gone to the local bank branch office in a village and their killing reflects the dangerous turn towards criminalisation the society is taking. She also expressed grief over the death of a civilian in a grenade attack in a Khanyar area of Srinagar.

Mehbooba said she has been warning of the ill consequences of violence time and again and made an appeal to the civil society to rise to the occasion to make the future of the younger generation peaceful.

The Jammu and Kashmir Congress Committee also condemned the killing of police personnel and bank employees in south Kashmir. A spokesperson of the Congress termed the killings an "irreparable loss" and asked the police higher ups to ascertain the identity of the killers for handing out stern punishment to them.

PTI
Militants attack cash van, kill five policemen in Kashmir

India

oi-Anusha

Unidentified gunmen attacked a cash van outside Jammu and Kashmir bank's Kulgam branch killing at least six people including five policemen on Monday. One employee of the bank was killed in the incident and another sustained severe injury and is critical.

The bank vehicle was carrying cash from Nihama to Kulgamwhen a group of six militants attacked. The incident took place near Pombai Kakran agricultural university orchard. Five policemen and one employee of the bank were killed. Militants managed to loot the weapons of the policemen and security guards.

A search operation has been launched to nab the unidentified militants. The attack comes on the day two Indian soldiers were mutilated by Pakistan army and students in Pulwama raised posters of Burhan Wani.

OneIndia News
No point raising Pegasus; Opposition should not link Parliament session with polls: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

Naqvi says 'One Election' is need of hour

Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi says Pakistan inviting its own ruin

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, May 2: Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday slammed Pakistan for mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, and said the neighbouring country is inviting its own ruin.

"Pakistan is inviting its own ruin. Our security forces will give a befitting reply to Pakistan," he told media persons here.

An Indian soldier and a BSF trooper were killed near the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir and their bodies mutilated. The Indian Army warned Pakistan of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act".

IANS
Women accuse Ola drivers of molestation in Bengaluru, Mumbai

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

The Bengaluru police has registered an FIR against an Ola cab driver in connection with an alleged molestation case.

According to the FIR, the incident occurred on Begur road in the wee hours on Friday, April 28th.

The woman has complained that cab driver Ravi Kumar groped and molested her while she was seated in the car.

The FIR has been registered in Bommanahalli police station. Investigation is underway.

Molestation in Mumbai

The Mumbai police arrested an Ola cab driver in connection with alleged kidnapping and molestation of 32-year-old woman in Mumbai.

The cab driver was arrested on Thursday based on the complaint filed by a woman from Sewri, a locality along the eastern edge of South Mumbai. The accused has been identified as Shadabh Mohommad Ibrahim Shaikh, a Ghatkopar resident.

The police said the woman was on her way to pick up her seven-year-old son from school. She was approached by Shaikh on the way, who forced her into sitting in his cab.

According to reports, Shaikh told the woman he was looking for a babysitter. After they spoke for a while he forced himself upon her. He insisted her to be his friend, asked her mobile number and even snatched the cell phone. But the woman resisted and tried to jump from the moving car. However, Shaikh did not return her mobile phone. Subsequently, police traced the driver through the woman's mobile phone.

The Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg police has arrested registered cases under 354 assault on woman to outrage her modesty), 365 (kidnapping or abducting), 392 ( robbery) and 506 ( criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

OneIndia News
IT industry veteran appeals to PM for a 'corruption-free' Karnataka

Thailand: PM Prayuth can stay in office, court says

UK PM Liz Truss resigns after 45 days in office, successor to be elected next week

Iraq gets a new government after a year of deadlock

No region could validate terrorism: PM Modi

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday urged all nations to work unanimously to uproot the terrorism network, while adding that no region could "validate terrorism."

In a joint statement with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan Modi said, "Terrorism is a shared worry, we agreed, no impact or goal and no region can validate terrorism".

In a veiled attack on Pakistan Modi said that firm action should also be taken against the countries that "shelter terrorism."

Modi further said that an action should be taken against those who create and conceive, support and sustain, shelter and spread ideologies of violence.

'Pak inviting its own ruin'

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs , Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, while condemned the dastardly act of Pakistan.

Naqvi said 'Pak inviting its own ruin,' in the backdrop of mutilation of two Indian soldiers in Kashmir.

Earlier, two Indian security personnel were killed in ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the LoC in Poonch district and their bodies were mutilated.

A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in the attack.

OneIndia News
Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot

This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how

Pakistan mutilates bodies of two jawans; Army vows appropriate response

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

Two Indian security personnel were killed in ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the LoC in Poonch district and their bodies were mutilated on Monday.

A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in the attack, a senior officer of the paramilitary force said.

Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and forward mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector.

Simultaneously, BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," the Northern Command of the Indian Army said in a statement.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," it said. The Indian Army has warned of appropriated response for the despicable act.

In an unsoldierly act by Pakistan Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated: Army pic.twitter.com/z5b2z1Ikya  ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

The firing began at 8:30 am as Pakistan attacked Indian posts with rocket launchers and automatic weapons.

Indian forces are retaliating heavily and a massive gunbattle is underway.

In 2017, India has already recorded 60 ceasefire violations along the 778-km Line of Control.

In 2016, the number of violations stod at 228, which killed eight soldiers and 13 civilians on the Indian side, while it was 153 in 2014 and 152 in 2015. The present, ceasefire violation comes after Kupwara attack in which three soldiers were killed, including an Army Captain.

( With inputs from agencies)
Summons for Ramdev in lawsuit by doctors over misinformation on allopathy

Salman Khan, Shah Rukh's son take drugs, don't know about Aamir: Ramdev in viral video

Patanjali to wipe out MNCs from Indian market in 5 years: Ramdev

India

oi-PTI

Uttar Pradesh, May 1: Yoga guru Ramdev on Monday said that Patanjali Ayurveda, promoted by him, will steal the march over multinational firms manufacturing consumer products.

Comparing them to the East India Company that had entered the country with a purpose to 'loot', Ramdev said that he aims to make India free from the MNCs.

He said that "the MNCs here were not working for the country's development, rather their sole objective was to 'loot' India.

"Patanjali agle panch varshon mein in videshi kampaniyon ko moksh de degi Patanjali will finish the MNCs up from the Indian market in next five years, " he said.

He was speaking at a function organised here to mark the birth anniversary of Yogi Bharat Bhushan.

"In the next five years, Patanjali would educate the farmers about the latest techniques in farming to boost production. We will also offer decent prices for the produce," Ramdev, who also happens to be the founder of Patanjali, said.

Ramdev also hailed the Uttar Pradesh government under Yogi Adityanath, who he said, establishes a good connect with the public.

PTI

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 13:54 [IST]
PM Modi sould initiate unconditional talks on J&K: PDP leader

India

oi-PTI

Srinagar, May 1: Senior Peples Democratic Party leader and Minister for Education Altaf Bukhari has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate unconditional talks on Kashmir, saying dialogue cannot have a rider in a democratic set up.

Bukhari in a statement on Sunday also said that 'exclusion of the voices of dissent' is against the spirit of a democratic polity and that lack of inclusive dialogue can generate more rebellion over a period of time.

"What separates democracy from other political philosophies is the principle and practice of solving differences through inclusive and meaningful dialogue," he said. The minister said the national leadership should hold talks with all stakeholders irrespective of their political beliefs and without any precondition and fulfil its commitment given in black and white in the shape of agenda of alliance.

Bukhari said dialogue at all levels needs to be inclusive and cannot be conditional.

"Dissent is the essence of democracy. Exclusion of the voices of dissent is against the spirit of a democratic polity. A lack of inclusive dialogue can only add to frustration and over time, generate rejection and more rebellion," Bukhari said.

The minister for education said that it was former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee who talked about dialogue under the ambit of humanity. "Now talking about dialogue with a condition, unfortunately, reveals a flip-flop policy on the resolution of Kashmir problem," he said.

He said Kashmir is essentially a political problem that needs a political solution through dialogue and discussions. "It can't have an economic solution. I wonder why our Prime Minister, with a historic public mandate, is shying away from his responsibility by not carrying forward the legacy of (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee and a former Prime Minister who said 'sky is the limit' on the issue of Kashmir," Bukhari said.

He said that despite wars and violence in different forms, Kashmir issue has remained lingering on since last so many decades and sufferings of people have increased manifold. "Economic packages have never replaced the political necessities of engagement in Kashmir. We have been witnessing death and destruction that has virtually taken over everything," he said.

Bukhari said that those who are at the helm of affairs must draw lessons and read the writing on the wall. "They should also understand the serious implications of the situation that is eating into vitals of Kashmir,"" Bukhari said. He said that PDP forged an alliance with BJP just to resume the halfway left reconciliatory process and initiate talks aimed at resolving the decades' old political uncertainty.

"PDP believes that inclusive dialogue is the only way out. Unfortunately instead of taking such an initiative, we have been made to believe that Central government has a lackadaisical policy with regard to Kashmir. This perception needs to be changed on the ground,"" he added.

Bukhari said that BJP as a coalition partner of PDP has agreed in principle for the agenda of alliance calling for engagement with all stakeholders and not a section of people. "I think good sense will prevail very soon and the central government will take immediate measures which can balm the wounds and address the injured psyche of Kashmiris," he said.

PTI

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 13:37 [IST]
India's intellectuals are anti-India, says Australian sociologist who is all praise for PM Modi

PM Modi unveils G20 logo: Significance of the lotus and its seven petals

In pictures, grandeur of Terminal 2 of Kempegowda International Airport which PM Modi will inaugurate

Congress can never give stable govt to Himachal; it is guarantee of instability, corruption, scam: PM Modi

PM Modi turns nostalgic, recalls govt formation 3 yrs ago

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, May 1: At the India-Turkey business summit in Delhi on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recalled government formation three years ago and how the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre was working towards the betterment of the Indian economy.

"My government came to power in this very month three years back. Since then we have launched several initiatives to reform the economy," said PM Modi.

On May 26, 2014, PM Modi took oath as the country's 15th Prime Minister. In a few weeks, the National Democratic Alliance government under the BJP will host a massive event to mark its three successful years at the Centre.

The PM Modi government is currently at its peak after handsomely winning assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and outmanoeuvring the Congress by forming government in Manipur and Goa. Once again, the BJP tasted success at the recently concluded Delhi civic polls.

Moreover, the PM Modi government has also successfully silenced its critics who spoke against demonetisation. Demonetisation is considered as PM Modi's most risky announcement since he took power at the Centre. However, going by the poll results it looks like PM Modi has come out unscathed from all the criticisms.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 13:06 [IST]
Lack of development in J&K for decades was one of the reasons behind rise of terrorism: Rajnath Singh

Rajnath Singh reviews situation in JK, Naxal affected states

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, May 1: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday reviewed security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the Naxal-affected states in the wake of recent violence there. Singh was briefed about the ground situation in J-K, particularly along the border, where the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated by Pakistan Army.

Top security brass, including Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and chiefs of intelligence agencies, briefed the home minister about the steps taken to tighten security along the border, official sources said.

The home minister directed the top officials to ensure strict vigil along the International Border, which is guarded by the BSF. In the Naxal-affected states, the home minister has been told, the security forces were continuing their operations against the ultras in areas like Sukma, where 25 CRPF personnel were killed by the Left-Wing Extremists on April 24.

The home ministry has already directed the security forces engaged in anti-Naxal operations to strictly adhere to the standard operating procedures to foil Maoists attempts to attack them.

Continuing unrest in Kashmir valley was also discussed in the meeting. Tension in the valley has been continuing since the April 9 bypoll to the Srinagar Lok Sabha when large-scale violence took place that claimed eight lives.

After a few Kashmiri students were threatened in some parts of the country, the home minister had asked all state governments to provide security to Kashmiris living in their states. He had also asked the states to take strongest possible action anyone harassing Kashmiris.

PTI
Arvind Kejriwal is using national flag as a 'decoration': Union minister Prahlad Patel

Government ready to talk to farmers but not on repeal of laws: Narendra Singh Tomar

Who is Rajeev Chandrasekhar, what is his net worth?

Who is Shobha Karandlaje, a close confidant of Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa

Nearly 15 crore children, youths out of formal education system: Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan

Anganwadi centres should be learning centres as well, says Min Pratima Bhoumik

Rajnath stresses on secutiry in Kashmir, protection for CRPF jawans

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

New Delhi, May 1: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday held high-level meeting on the present security situation in Jammu and Kashmir and recent Sukma Maoists attack that at least claimed 25 CRPF police.

Research and Analytic Wing chief Shankaran Nair, Intelligence Bureau chief Rajiv Jain, Director General CRPF Rajeev Rai Bharatnagar and many others attended the the meet.

In view of on Sukma attack, a deep discussion took place in regard to strategies and security.

Singh also stressed upon situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

Early on Monday, two security personnel, including an Army officer, were martyred in a ceasefire violation by Pakistan in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in the attack, a senior officer of the paramilitary force said.

The firing began at 8:30 am as Pakistan attacked Indian posts with rocket launchers and automatic weapons.

Indian forces are retaliating heavily and a massive gunbattle is underway.

In 2017, India has already recorded 60 ceasefire violations along the 778-km Line of Control.

In 2016, the number of violations stod at 228, which killed eight soldiers and 13 civilians on the Indian side, while it was 153 in 2014 and 152 in 2015. The present, ceasefire violation comes after Kupwara attack in which three soldiers were killed, including an Army Captain.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 16:53 [IST]
Three fishermen feared dead as ship collides with boat off Mangaluru coast

Fake: Indian Navy did not attack Sri Lankan fishermen after detaining them

Sri Lankan Navy arrests 5 Tamil Nadu fishermen; remanded till May 15

India

pti-PTI

Rameswaram(TN), May 1: Five Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested on Monday and their boat impounded by the Sri Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters.

The incident occurred this morning when five fishermen from Thangachimadam near here were fishing near Katchatheevu and were rounded up by the Lankan Navy and taken to Thalaimannar in the island nation, police said.

On March 26, 12 fishermen from Pudukottai district were arrested by Sri Lankan navy for allegedly fishing in the island nation's territorial waters.

The five fishermen were later produced before a judicial court and remanded till May 15, Fishermen's association president Emirit said. They have been lodged in a prison at Vavunia, he said.

PTI
Prosecutions story may be attractive but should be backed by evidence

32,000 girls converted to Islam and sold as ISIS slaves: This is The Kerala Story

'The Kerala Story': TN scribe asks govt to probe claims made in the movie

'Police radicalising Muslim youth', says Digvijaya; KTR hits back

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

Hyderabad, May 1: Twitter war went on between Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and Telangana Information Technolgy Minister K T Rama Rao over fake Islamic states websites in the state. The war in the twitter is believed to weaken the relationship between the two Congress and Telangana Rashtra Samithi Party.

Earlier on Monday, Singh asked on Twitter that, "Is Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is helping the police to from fake Islamic states websites and encouraging the Muslim youths to join terrorism"?

"Is It Ethical? Is it Moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?", Singh tweeted.

Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ?  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) May 1, 2017

He said if KCR is involved in helping the police, the should take the responsibility and resign from the CM post.

Singh added that if KCR is not aware of the fake Islamic state websites and then he should take a strict action against those involved.

He questioned whether Telangana police should be trapping Muslim youths in becoming Islamic states modules by posting inflammatory information?

Reacting to the series of tweets, KCR son KTR tweeted that the tweets were most irresponsible and reprehensible from the former chief minister. He added that Singh should withdraw the comments or show the evidence.

Most irresponsible & reprehensible thing coming from a former CM. Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence https://t.co/cg7p7Ym48X  KTR (@KTRTRS) May 1, 2017

Not yet done, DGP Telangana Police Anurag Sharma tweeted that "Unfounded allegations from a senior responsible leader will lower the morale and image of Police engaged in fighting anti-national forces."

OneIndia News
Tourist woman alleges molestation by paragliding pilot, FIR registered

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

An FIR has been registered by Himachal Pradesh on Monday against a paragliding pilot in connection with an alleged molestation complaint filed by a woman tourist.

According to reports, a woman from Mumbai has alleged molestation by a paraglider pilot during her visit to Kangra valley. An FIR has been registered against the pilot under section 354 of Indian Penal Code. The police told ANI that they received an online complaint from the alleged victim.

Superintendent of Police, Sanjeev Gandhi, said, "The women in her complaint alleged that the paragliding pilot molested her during a tandem paragliding flight. An FIR has been lodged against the accused pilot under section 354 IPC.

"Alleged person is being interrogated and all aspects are being examined. The statement of complainant is recorded and investigation will be completed very soon, " Gandhi added.

Until the charges against him are verified the identity of the accused cannot be revealed, said Himachal Pradesh Police.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 10:50 [IST]
Trouble for Virbhadra Singh, court to consider chargesheet against him

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

New Delhi, May 1: A court in the national capital on Monday said it will consider the chargesheet filed against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and others in a disproportionate assets case.

Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal listed the matter for May 3 for considering the chargesheet.

Meanwhile, Pratibha Singh withdrew her application alleging that the Central Bureau of Investigation did not follow proper procedure while probing the case.

Her defence counsel had told the court that as per the Delhi high court guidelines, the CBI should have sought permission from the Himachal Pradesh government before conducting a probe against her.

Besides Virbhadra Singh and his wife, Life Insurance Corp agent Anand Chauhan, his associate Chunni Lal, Joginder Singh Ghalta, Prem Raj, Lawan Kumar Roach, Vakamullah Chandrashekhara and Ram Prakash Bhatia have been chargesheeted in the case.

The CBI had booked the accused on charges of abetment of crime and forgery under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The case was registered on September 23, 2015 after preliminary inquiry found that Virbhadra Singh, as the union Steel Minister (2009-12), allegedly accumulated assets worth Rs 6.03 crore, disproportionate to his known sources of income.

IANS

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 14:59 [IST]
Turkey's Erdogan pitches to resolve Kashmir crisis: New Delhi unhappy

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for a multilateral dialogue with Turkey's involvement to solve the Kashmir issue. He made these comments during an interview with a news channel. The statement has not gone down well with New Delhi.

Erdogan while expressing concern said that Turkey is ready to involve itself in finding a solution. New Delhi has always maintained that the issue will be sorted out with Pakistan with no involvement of other nations.

We should not allow more casualties to occur and by strengthening multilateral dialogue, we can be involved, and through multilateral dialogue, I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, which will benefit both countries," he had said during the interview.

When asked if the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's references to self-determination is a valid means of resolving the problem, he said that OIC represents a certain population. It has its area of influence. It has economic and political strengths, it has a say in global matters and it can contribute to world peace. If something has been approved by all member-states, it should not be criticised or questioned. OIC members also have weight in the United Nations. Turkey supports India to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, he also said.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 8:17 [IST]
Central team to visit flood-hit areas in Bengaluru; Losses suffered due to rainfall pegged at Rs 7,647 cr

AFSPA in parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland extended for 6 months from today

Fact Check: Is the government scrapping the ministry of minority affairs

Turkish Prez Erdogan granted ceremonial reception at Rashtra Bhawan

India

oi-Gulam Rabbani

By Gulam Rabbani

New Delhi, May 1: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday was granted a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan ahead of his delegation level meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Erdogan, who is in India for a two-day visit, proceeded to lay the wreath at Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi at Raj Ghat.

According to reports, number of agreement to be signed between the two nations after the talks. The Turkish President Erdogan is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business forum.

A number of agreements are expected to be signed in several areas after the talks. The Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

It is believed that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also called on Erdogan and had discussed main bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism.

According to reports, it is the first visit of Erdogan to India after winning a referendum in Turkey earlier in April which gave him more executive powers as president.

It is to remind that Erdogan had expressed his desire for constructive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad in order to find a solution to the burning issue of Jammu and Kashmir.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 12:08 [IST]
With Dawood almost dead, who will succeed his 6.7 billion dollar empire

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

D-It is almost certain that Dawood Ibrahim who is undergoing treatment at the Aga Khan hospital in Karachi will not make it. His trusted aide, Chhota Shakeel put up a brave front and refuted rumours regarding his ill-health. Intelligence Bureau officials say that Shakeel would try and keep the issue under wraps because in such times a succession issue would crop up.

Dawood's empire is worth 6.7 billion dollars. His empire is so vast that he made it to the Forbes Magazine in 2015. Forbes described him as one of the richest gangsters of all time. Officials say that his businesses include, diamond, drug and arms trade. He also runs the fake currency racket apart from controlling the cricket betting racket.

[7 Things Which Must Be Included In A Will]

With his health failing and due to crippling gangrene on the legs, the question is who would succeed him? The ISI will have a role to play in deciding who inherits Dawood's 6.7 billion dollar empire. Dawood trusts only two persons. One is his brother Anees and the other his close aide, Chhota Shakeel. However Dawood would like his family to run the business after his death.

At the moment contrary to what is being said in the media, Dawood is not capable of running the show. His health has been failing since the past two years and he has taken a back-seat. He had asked his brother Anees to run the show with the help of Shakeel.

A global terrorist:

Dawood had been declared a global terrorist by the UN Security Council's IS and al-Qaida Sanctions Committee as global terrorist. The UN has acknowledged that Dawood Ibrahim lives in Pakistan. It has confirmed not less than six of the nine addresses shared by India.

Dawood Ibrahim lives in the posh Clifton area of Karachi. He lives in a palatial bungalow spread over 6,000 square yards at D-13, Block-4, Clifton, Karachi in Pakistan.

The aliases used by Dawood are: Dawood Ebrahim, Sheikh Dawood Hassan, Abdul Hamid Abdul Aziz, Anis Ibrahim, Aziz Dilip, Daud Hasan Shaikh Ibrahim Kaskar, Daud Ibrahim Memon Kaskar, Dawood Hasan Ibrahim Kaskar, Dawood Ibrahim Memon, Dawood Sabri, Kaskar Dawood Hasan, Shaikh Mohd Ismail Abdul Rehman, Dowood Hassan Shaikh Ibrahim, Shaikh Ismail Abdul and Hizrat.

OneIndia News
'Yeddyurappa is boss, rebellion has no place', BJP's message to Karnataka

India

oi-Anusha

The BJP's national secretary in charge of Karnataka, Muralidhar Rao minced no words in stating that rebellion has no place in the party. In a strict message to warring Karnataka leaders, Rao implied that B S Yeddyurappa was the boss in Karnataka and rebelling against him or the party would be considered indiscipline.

"I repeat and reiterate that there is no need for anybody to float any organisation outside the party and call it forum, or brigade or give any name. This is the instructions from the party's central leadership," said Muralidhar Rao on Sunday. The in charge who arrived in the city on Saturday had been speaking to a posse of leaders to understand the situation.

The statement was a clear warning to K S Eshwarappa who had been leading the Sangolli Rayanna brigade. B L Santosh exited the BJP office as soon as Muralidhar Rao entered it. Santosh, the joint general secretary (organisation), who is in the midst of controversy after Yeddyurappa blamed him for engineering the rebellion, wanted to give the impression that no matter what the decision of the high command was, he had no role to play in it.

Rao also claimed that the senior leadership had already asked people (K S Eshwarappa) to refrain from participating in the activities of 'other forum'. While his statement was indicative of the senior leadership rooting for B S Yeddyurappa, two of his aides have also been suspended from all party posts. While the BJP is publicly supporting Yeddyurappa, the scenario is not as rosy in private.

Rao will file a report with the senior leadership after which a decision will be taken. He assured leaders of the BJP that all issues would be resolved by May 3. The deadline is three days prior to the ultimatum issued by rebel workers urging Yeddyurappa to fulfil their demands.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Monday, May 1, 2017, 9:09 [IST]
Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot

This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how

Days after attack, Imran Khan's party to resume long march on Nov 10

Pakistan denies mutilation of 2 Indian Soldiers

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Pakistan denied mutilating the bodies of Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday.

In its statements, Pakistan said its army would 'never disrespect soldier, even Indian'.

A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the LoC in Poonch district and their bodies were mutilated.

Pakistan Army carried out unprovoked rocket and forward mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati sector.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," Army source said.

The Indian Army has warned of appropriated response for the despicable act.

In 2016, Indian Army had claimed that it has evidence to prove the complicity of Pakistan in mutilation of a soldier's body killed in in Jammu and Kashmir's Machhil sector along the Line of Control.

( With inputs from agencies )
Trump likely to announce bid for presidency next week

Trump set for first meeting with Mahmud Abbas

International

oi-PTI

Ramallah, May 1: US President Donald Trump meets Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday for their first face-to-face talks, with the Palestinian leader hoping the billionaire businessman's unpredictable approach can inject life into long-stalled peace efforts.

Palestinian officials have seen their cause overshadowed by global concerns such as the Syrian war and Islamic State group jihadists, and want Trump's White House to bring it back to the forefront.

"Palestinians are hoping that Trump's unpredictability might play in their favour," one Jerusalem-based European official told on condition of anonymity.

Examples were seen early on, with Trump backing away from the US commitment to the two-state solution when he met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February.

He said that "Trump would support a single state if it led to peace, delighting Israeli right-wingers who want to see their country annex most of the occupied West Bank."

Trump also vowed to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem, a prospect that alarmed Palestinians but which has been put on the back burner for now.

At the same time, he urged Israel to hold back on settlement building in the West Bank, a longstanding concern of Palestinians and much of the world.

One of Trump's top advisers, Jason Greenblatt, held wide-ranging talks with both Israelis and Palestinians during a visit in March. Abbas and Trump spoke by phone on March 11.

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New Delhi: India and Turkey will hold a bilateral talk with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his arrival in New Delhi, India. As a President, this is his first Visit to India.

Today Erdogan will meet the President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice-President M.Hamid Ansari.

Economic ties, cooperation in the fight against terrorism and talk on Turkey's support to India in its bid to become a member

in the coveted Nuclear Supplier's Group are expected to dominate the bilateral talks.

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Nevada Gov. Sandoval Talks Online Gambling with AG Sessions

Published May 1, 2017 by Elana K

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and discussed the issue of online gambling. Sessions is reportedly considering implementing a federal ban on online gambling, and Sandoval is strongly opposed.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week to discuss a number of issues, and of course, the topic of online gambling came up. The meeting followed reports that AG Sessions is considering reinstituting a federal ban on online gambling, which means that even the states that have already legalized iGaming (Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware) would be banned from such operations.

Nevada Independent reporter Michelle Rindels tweeted updates from the meeting, in which she recorded that Sandoval told Sessions that he himself is an ex-gaming regulator, who knows first-hand that no children have accessed Nevada online gambling sites because the technology they use is foolproof.

Sandovals Background

Not only is Sandoval the governor of Nevada, one of the three states to have legalized online gambling, but he is also the vice chair of the National Governors Association, the group that recently penned a strongly-worded letter urging Sessions not to implement a federal ban on online gambling.

Sandoval firmly stands behind the notion that states can be effective regulators of online gambling, and they have the technology to prevent people from outside the state from accessing gambling sites and to prevent underage gambling - more that can be said for traditional casinos.

Sessions Next Move

Sessions didnt indicate whether he would take Sandovals opinions into account. In the past, he has been reported saying that he does not agree with the 2011 Department of Justice ruling that made it legal for states to regulate online gambling. However, words and actions are very different, and so far, there have just been words.

And yet, there is no telling how the tide will turn, especially when money is involved. Sheldon Adelson, arguably the biggest opponent of online gambling, has donated millions to the Trump campaign/administration, and Sessions is undoubtedly feeling pressure from him. At this point, its difficult to say which group will hold more sway - those opposed to or those who support online gambling.
Prominent Philadelphia Rector Embezzles $500,000 to Fund Gambling Habit

A rector of a Philadelphia Archdiocese retirement home for aging priests was recently charged with embezzling over $500,000 from the home. The motivation behind the crime? To fund an elegant lifestyle for himself, including casino outings.

Gambling and the Church - they dont go together, right? Well, unfortunately, sometimes they do. A rector of a Philadelphia Archdiocese retirement home for aging priests was recently charged with embezzling over $500,000 from the home. Not one of the Church's finest moments.

Federal prosecutors have charged Monsignor William A. Dombrow, aged 77, with four counts of wire fraud by way of a criminal information. If convicted, he could face 80 years in prison.

Most of the money from the retirement home's account came from life insurance payouts of priests who had died or from parishioners who wanted to support the facility. The embezzlement took place over the course of nine years.

Why, Father, Why?

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella reported that the reason for Dombrow's theft was to fund an elegant lifestyle for himself, replete with expensive dinners, concerts, and you guessed it, gambling.

Caught in the Act

Dombrow was finally caught when the bank became aware of some suspicious transactions at Harrahs Casino in Chester, and notified the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Dombrows lawyer, Coley O. Reynolds, stated, The monsignor is remorseful and ashamed of his conduct. Hes done a lot of great things for the people of the parish and the archdiocese.

Unfortunately, it's not easy to remember the good when faced with a betrayal of trust of this magnitude.

Abuse of Power

While it's easy to point a finger at gambling and decry it as evil, the real evil in this case is the abuse of power. Its unfortunate that people who are in the position to do so much good end up using their power and doing something destructive.

Avid gamblers know that there are ways to get help for gambling problems - all they need to do is seek it. Dombrow could have sought help, but instead he chose to indulge his problem. Federal prosecutors have no intention of turning the other cheek.
In the week ending 28 April, 2017, Alphabit has announced plans to raise $300m for its newly launched global fund that invests in digital currencies on the back of growing demand for virtual assets that allow for instant, borderless transactions. The market capitalisation of digital currencies has surged more than 60% so far this year, and nearly 260% over the past 12 months, to nearly $30billion.

Kempen Capital launched a structured credit pooled fund that enables investors to "easily and cost effectively" access the structured credit market; and French asset management firm Massena Partners has spun out and launched as Essling Capital.

Citigroup is out to boost its business with quantitative hedge funds in London and build its high-speed trading platform; Gold Sail Capital has evolved into a full alternative asset management firm with PE and real estate offerings in the last year. WBB Securities has entered the buy-side with its healthcare long/short strategy launched last year; and Folger Hill Asset said it is cutting costs and still trying to find a p......................

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Opalesque Industry Update - Private Advisors, LLC, a leading alternative investment firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, announced today the final close of the firm's fourth dedicated co-investment program focused on the North American Small Company market (companies with enterprise values typically below $150 million). The program includes commingled and custom vehicles with aggregate capital commitments of $164 million. The target for the program was $125 million. Private Advisors and its employees, along with parent organization New York Life, made meaningful commitments to the program demonstrating alignment with investors and continued confidence in the strategy. Private Advisors has devoted significant resources to cross-platform origination and underwriting, and the co-investment program benefits from the firm's overall network of more than 900 General Partners in the Small Company market where Private Advisors has been a leading investor for 20 years. Chris Stringer, President of Private Advisors, commented: "We believe that our reputation, network, and capital base along with our proactive sourcing efforts across the platform have enabled us to provide our Limited Partners with a powerful co-investment engine. We have experienced strengthening deal flow even as deal volume in the broader market has decreased."
Global Oil Seal Market Analysis and Forecast 2021 Segmented By Application

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The Global Market for Oil Seal Report 2017 provides critical data of Production, Supply, Sales, Demand, Market Status and Industry Development Trend of Oil Seal. This Report is a Result of best research material, competitive landscape analysis that will help Decision makers to excel based on futuristic chart.Segmented by Materials, Types and Applications with focus on Regional Market Analysis is the Highlight of this Oil Seal Market Study. Starting with a Complete Industry Review, this Report covers:Oil Seal Chain Structure & Market Comparison AnalysisOil Seal Import and Export AnalysisOil Seal Application Share and Status AnalysisOil Seal Upstream Raw Materials and Downstream Demand AnalysisRequest Sample of Oil Seal Industry Report at:In next section, the Report is segmented by Geographical Areas such as Asia, North America and Europe. For these regions, the Report covers Development History & Trends with Competitive Landscape Analysis for the Oil Seal Industry.For same Regions, the Report also offers Oil Seal Industry Development Trends which includes Markets Capacity Production Overview, Production Market Share Analysis, Demand Overview, Supply Demand and Shortage, Import/Export Consumption, Cost Price, Production, Value & Gross Margin Analysis.One of the major mainstays of the Oil Seal Market Report is the coverage of the Competitors of this Industry. Region-wise Company Profiles are also evaluated for:Company ProfileProduct Picture and SpecificationOil Seal Products Application AnalysisCapacity Production Price Cost Production ValueCompany Contact InformationBrowse Oil Seal Market Report at:The Next Chapter of this Granular Analysis deals with Marketing Channels and Investment Feasibility Analysis. Economic Environmental Analysis is also taken into Account in Chapter 16 of the Oil Seal Market Report for Countries such as China, European Countries, United States, Japan and other Global Regions.Major Emphasis on Oil Seal 2012-2017 Industry Productions, Supply, Sales, Demand, Market Status and Forecasts is given and presented to understand past status of Oil Seal Market. The Report Concludes with 2017-2021 Forecasts of Oil Seal Import and Export Consumptions, Capacity and Production Overview for Each Region with Insights provided by Key Players of the Market.Buy Report at:As always has been the aim at Orbis Research with every report put up, the information on offer is complete and true knowledge seekers will benefit from it. Irrespective of the interest, academic or commercial, the Photo Printing Kiosk Sales Industry report curated and compiled by domain experts will definitely shed light on key information which the clients require.Major Points from TOC:Part I Oil Seal Industry OverviewPart II Asia Oil Seal IndustryPart III North American Oil Seal IndustryPart IV Europe Oil Seal Industry AnalysisPart V Oil Seal Marketing Channels and Investment FeasibilityPart VI Global Oil Seal Industry ConclusionsCheck for Discount offered on this Report at:About Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Information:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019Email: sales@orbisresearch.comFor More Press Releases, visit:
United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market 2017 Report

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SummaryOrbis Research Present's United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market 2017 Industry Trend and Forecast 2022 enhances the decision making capabilities and helps to create an effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage.DescriptionThe United States Hair Straightening Brushes market report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the United States Hair Straightening Brushes industry. This report evaluates the United States market for "United States Hair Straightening Brushes".The United States Hair Straightening Brushes market report report provides complete analysis of the United States Hair Straightening Brushes market by analysing all round market dynamics such as regional market opportunities, drivers, challenges, constraints, threats, and other market trends.The United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market report contains latest Business Data resulting from various Research sources that helps Decision Makers to deliver a Distinctive and Trustworthy Analysis for Companys Growth.Get a PDF Sample of United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market report at:The United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market Survey starts with Industry overview of United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market covering Major Regions Status, Industry Chain Structure, Definitions and Specifications, with a detailed focus on Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis including Raw Material Suppliers, Equipment Suppliers and Manufacturing Process.In Next Part, the researchers has collected and presented information on Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis which comprises of Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source of Major Manufacturers in 2015.In following segment, with Sales, Ex-factory Price, Revenue, Gross Margin, Business Region Distribution Analysis, Competition between various Company Profile has been given along with Product Pictures and Specifications in United States Hair Straightening Brushes Industry Report.The Key Players Mentioned in United States Hair Straightening Brushes Market Report are:DAFNIISA ProfessionalInStylerRevlonACEVIVICostwayCoastaCloudGrace & StellaOak LeafPlace a Purchase Order for this Report at:The United States Hair Straightening Brushes Industry Report is also a Great Source of Marketing Type Analysis consisting:1. United States Hair Straightening Brushes Regional Marketing Type Analysis2. United States Hair Straightening Brushes International Trade Type Analysis3. Traders or Distributors with Contact Information of United States Hair Straightening Brushes by Regions4. United States Hair Straightening Brushes Supply Chain AnalysisNo. of Report Pages: 103Got any Query? Feel free to ask us at:Lastly, the Report provides Development Trend Analysis for 2016-2021 years which will forecast Market Size (Volume and Value), Sales Price, Consumption Forecast, Market Trend (Product Type) and Market Trend (Application). Also the List of Major Consumers is analyzed and Contact Details are provided to easy communicating.Finally, the Report is concluded with Various Methodology, Analyst Introduction and Data SourcesOrbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Information:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas  75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +9164101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:
It's Oregon Wine Month which means there's an abundance of parties and tastings happening all over Portland and wine country. See an event we missed? Drop us a line at sbakall@oregonian.com and we'll consider it for the calendar.

Artigiano reopens

One of Portland's best food carts returns this week after an off season full of travel and relaxation. Southeast Division Street's Artigiano will kick of its eighth season May 3 with service Wednesday-Sunday and a monthly fixed-price regional dinner one Sunday each month, starting with Sardinia.

Time: Starting Wednesday, May 3

Details: 3302 S.E. Division St., 503-860-3419, artigianopdx.com

Fifth Annual "Dinners in the Field"

The fifth annual "Dinners in the Field" dining event, this year with 31 dinners across the northwestern corner of the state benefitting Farmers Ending Hunger, Oregon Farm Loop and Meals on Wheels, kicks off May 6 at Stoller Family Estate with Pitch Dark Chocolate. The schedule of six- to seven-course dinners paired with wine, beer or spirits will run from May 6 - Dec. 9. Tickets are $85 to $90 per person, advanced tickets required.

Time: Various dinners from May 6 - Dec. 9. Visit fieldandvineevents.com for the full list of dates

Details: $85-$90/person, various locations

Spring holidays brunch series at Revelry

James Beard Finalists, chefs Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi, will host a two-course brunch series on Mother's Day and Father's Day. The menu will include baked goods, dips with chips, salads and a choice of Revelry rice bowl with baked eggs. Tickets can be purchased online at revelryspringbrunch.eventbrite.com.

Time: May 14, June 18

Details: revelryspringbrunch.eventbrite.com

Shipwreck pop-up returns

Shipwreck, the seafood and cocktail pop-up/phenomenon from bartender Eric Nelson, returns for one night this month at Taqueria Nueve. The menu, including the memorable fish sandwich and popcorn shrimp, is mostly the same, though chef Jake Stevens (Beast) could be rolling out a ceviche as a site-specific dish. This month's big addition? Legendary New York bartender Giusseppe Gonzalez (owner: Suffolk Arms; inventor: Trinidad Sour) and one-time Laurelhurst Market ace Evan Zimmerman will join Nelson and Chris Abbott behind the bar.

Time: May 15, 5 p.m. - 2 a.m.

Details: No reservations (dishes at Shipwreck 1.0 ranged from $6-$14), shipwreckpdx.com

Restaurants support Raphael House of Portland

On May 17

,

more than 45 Portland restaurants will donate a portion of their day's proceeds to support Raphael House of Portland, Multnomah County's largest domestic violence shelter. The eighth annual event will include Mother's Bistro & Bar, Ruby Jewel, Pip's Original Doughnuts & Chai, Quaintrelle, The Country Cat, Hale Pele, and more.

Time: May 17 at participating restaurants

Details: See the full list of participating restaurants at raphaelhouse.com.

Walter Scott Wines dinner at Little Bird

On May 18, Little Bird chef Marcelle Crooks will join Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon of Walter Scott Wines for a four-course wine dinner. Courses include butter-poached halibut and pork short ribs. Each course will be paired with a Walter Scott wine.

Time: May 18, seatings at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m.

Details: $150/person, food, wine and service included. Tickets can be purchased online.

Bloody Mary Brunch at Tusk

Join Brian Bartels, author of The Bloody Mary: The Lore and Legend of a Cocktail Classic, with Recipes for Brunch and Beyond, for a special menu of five Bloody Marys during Tusk's brunch.

Time: May 20, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Details: Food will be available a la carte; reservations accepted

King Leroy Southern pop-up at Chalino

Cameron Addy (Ava Gene's, La Moule) will cook a monthly Southern pop-up dinner -- dubbed King Leroy after a cow from his childhood -- at North Portland's Chalino starting May 21. The 10-course menu will include smoked and braised brisket, greens, chicory salad, and more. The menu, plus a cocktail and take-home treat, is $75. Tickets can be purchased online.

Time: May 21, 6:30 p.m., June 25, 6:30p.m.

Details: $75/person, tickets can be purchased online.

Fermin Iberico Dinner

Portland's Jose Chesa will host a seven-course dinner centered around Fermin Iberico, the producer of one of the world's most coveted Spanish hams, at his Northeast Portland restaurant. The grandson of Fermin Iberico's founder will be flying in from Spain as the guest of honor. The seven-course menu will include beverage pairings and gratuity.

Time: May 21, 6 p.m.

Details: $200/person, beverage and gratuity included; 2218 N.E. Broadway, brownpapertickets.com/event/2943087

One Night in Umbria at Dame

Head to Northeast Portland's Dame on May 22 to celebrate Paolo Bea, one of Italy's earliest natural winemakers. Sip Bea's wine by the glass alongside an a la carte menu with Umbrian specials.

Time: May 22, 5 to 10 p.m.

Details: Walk-ins and reservations welcome

Logsdon Farmhouse Ales beer dinner at Little Bird

Later in the month, Little Bird will host David Logsdon of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales for a five-course beer dinner on May 22. Courses include French onion foie gras dip and chips and beef tongue Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. Each course will be paired with a different Logsdon beer.

Time: May 22, seatings at 5:30 and 8:30 p.m.

Details: $95/person, food, beer and service included. Tickets can be purchased online.

St. Reginald Parish Wine Dinner at Verdigris

As part of Oregon Wine Month celebrations, Northeast Portland's Verdigris will host a wine dinner with St. Reginald Parish on May 25. The four-course menu will include Oregon Petrale Sole meuniere and sticky quail etouffee.

Time: May 25, seatings at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.

Details: $65/person, gratuity not included; reservations can be made by calling 503-477-8106

PN26 returns at Stacked Sandwich Shop

Stacked Sandwich Shop owner Gabe Pascuzzi will relaunch his fine-dining pop up, PN26, at Stacked on May 26. The communal, seven-course dinner, which will be a spring-inspired menu, includes an optional drink pairing for an additional $50.

Time: May 26, 8:15 p.m.

Details: $100/person, including welcome punch and gratuity; call 971-279-2731 to reserve.

-- Samantha Bakall and Michael Russell

See an event we missed? Email sbakall@oregonian.com and we'll consider it for the calendar.
THIS SESSION HAS BEEN CANCELLED

About Medical Forum

Medical Forum is a weekly lecture series presenting cutting edge medical research by leaders in their fields. The presentations are designed for health professionals, academics and clinical researchers, and students across the Division of Health Sciences. Medical Forum is sponsored by the Otago Postgraduate Medical Society and hosted by the Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago.

Date Wednesday, 3 May 2017 Time 1:00pm - 1:50pm Audience All University,Alumni Event Category Health Sciences Event Type Seminar

Lecture

Campus Dunedin Department Preventive and Social Medicine (Dunedin), Women's and Children's Health (Dunedin), Surgical Sciences (Dunedin), Psychological Medicine (Dunedin), Pathology (Dunedin), Dean's Department (Dunedin), Medicine (Dunedin), General Practice and Rural Health (Dunedin) Contact Email medical.forum@otago.ac.nz Website http://www.otago.ac.nz/dsm/news/medicalforum.html

Save this event
Joy Kwok

Bachelor of Arts (Linguistics)

A degree in Linguistics provided the perfect foundation for Otago graduate Joy Kwok to pursue a career in speech therapy.

There is a misconception that people who study linguistics are walking dictionaries or that they speak a lot of languages. But linguistics is more about understanding how language is acquired, how it is structured, and how it influences our everyday interactions.

While I was studying, I had discussions with my lecturers about career options. I did a lot of research about the role of a speech therapist and the more I learnt, the more interested I became. I felt that my linguistics background would be a big asset for me in this next area of study.

Joy is currently working as a student support services officer for the Department of Education in Victoria, Australia.

My role involves providing speech therapy assessments and intervention to students with a wide range of communication difficulties. I enjoy working collaboratively with students, their teachers, parents and other health professionals to best support the students development.

During her time at Otago, Joy enjoyed a year in a residential college and also took up opportunities to volunteer in the local community.

I made the move to Otago because I wanted to gain more than just a tertiary education. I wanted a change in environment so I could learn to be more independent, meet new people and fully embrace student life.
F-4E fighter jet crash in August caused by engine nozzle defect: Air Force The crash of a South Korean F-4E fighter jet in August was caused by an engine nozzle problem, the Air Force said Wednesday. It announced the outcome of its probe into the cause...
Jessica Hufford has been appointed to the new position of fund development manager with Senior Services.

This role will enhance the capacity of Senior Services to provide a growing aging population with essential services such as Meals on Wheels, transportation and dementia programs.

Hufford comes to the agency with a wealth of experience, most recently working at Michigan State University Extension in Gladwin County. She has also worked for Girl Scouts of Western Ohio and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. While in these roles, she was influential in building relationships within the community that allowed for the continuation of essential programs and services.

Hufford is a graduate of Ball State University with a bachelor of science degree in public relations. She brings an array of development and public relations experience to this new position.

Jessicas experience and caring nature are already making her a valuable addition to the Senior Services staff, said Alan Brown, executive director of Senior Services. Her appointment is a sign of our commitment to address the diverse needs of older adults in Midland County, a population expected to increase by 50 percent over the next 15 years.

Without additional sources of support, the agency will be unable to fund essential programs, Brown continued. We feel very fortunate to have found someone of Jessicas caliber to fill this role. I am confident her forthcoming efforts to reach out to concerned community members for financial support will help assure quality services are available for decades to come.
Trevor Keyes ascension through the ranks of Bay Future, Inc. has culminated in his hire as president and CEO of the economic development organization.

Bay Future officials said Keyes has distinguished himself during his six years working in various capacities at the private-public non-profit organization, a tenure that has included two successful stints as acting interim president and CEO.

We are proud of the things Trevor has done here at Bay Future and are excited for the things he will accomplish in the future, said Mitzi Dimitroff, Bay Future Board of Directors chair. He has the passion, the skills and the knowledge our organization needs to move forward in a positive and impactful way.

The announcement that Keyes is taking the helm of the countywide economic development agency came at Bay Futures annual meeting.

Keyes expressed his appreciation for the unanimous support he received from Bay Futures Executive Committee and the full vote of the Board of Directors to hire the Bay City native for the organizations permanent top post.

It feels fantastic to have the support of the board, our investors, our partners in economic development and our community, he said. Im looking forward to working closely with these shareholders to maximize positive economic impact in our community as we move forward toward sustained economic vitality for Bay County and the Great Lakes Bay Region.

At its annual meeting, Bay Future officials highlighted some of the economy and job-boosting initiatives Keyes alluded to, momentum hes determined to continue. They include:

 GM Powertrain-Bay City announced investment of $118 million in its facility to support high efficiency engine components. The investment created 29 new jobs and retained 67 positions. GM now has invested $249.4 million in Bay City Powertrain since 2010.

 Consumers Energy invested $58 million at its Karn Generating Complex in 2016. The investments included boiler, turbine and environmental projects at the site. More than 300 skilled trades supported the work along with a majority of Michigan-based contractors and subcontractors. Officials said this project reflects Consumer Energys pledge to spend $1 billion annually with Michigan businesses through Pure Michigan Business Connect.

 Tri-City Brewing Co., a microbrewery and beverage manufacturer, received approval for tax abatement and invested more than $1.3 million in its new Bangor Township tap room and brewery. Five new jobs will be added to the existing seven-employee staff at the brewing company.

 F.P. Horak, a full-service print and marketing solutions company located in Monitor Township, is investing more than $8.7 million and creating 71 jobs through its addition of an 87,000 square foot addition to the companys existing facility.

This is just the beginning, Keyes said of his hire and ongoing economic development activities in Bay County. I am confident that with our board, with our investors and with our community moving in a forward direction, businesses will continue to take notice, jobs will multiply and our community will grow.

Keyes, a member of the Michigan Economic Developers Association and International Economic Development Council, has clear-cut goals in his new leadership role: My first order of business is to thank all of our investors, shareholders and partners. Second, is to make good on the goals and strategies we presented as part of our capital campaign. Third, is to aggressively attract, retain and support investment and job growth through our marketing efforts, our partnerships and an expanded Business Retention and Expansion Program.

As president and CEO, Keyes currently oversees an administrative assistant, but we will be looking to fill an economic developer position in the coming month, he said.
SC Johnson has broken ground on a multi-million dollar expansion of its Bay City plant to meet growing demand for Ziploc, one of the companys signature brands.

The plan was met with approval by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and Bangor Township through the granting of tax abatements and incentive package officials estimate to total nearly $2.5 million.

The investment will cover development of infrastructure and equipment for new production lines in a new roughly 50,000 square foot building that will connect to the existing primary production area of the plant. The facility expansion on SC Johnsons 488-acre site in Bangor Township is expected to create 25 full-time jobs in the next two years. These include positions in manufacturing, warehouse operations, and electrical and mechanical maintenance.

We are proud to be making this major investment in one of our U.S. facilities and supporting economic development in Bay City and the state of Michigan, said Fisk Johnson, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, in a statement. The expansion will help us meet increased customer demand for Ziploc, a flagship brand in our product portfolio.

The Bangor Township Board of Trustees unanimously granted a 12-year tax abatement for the project. The move was strongly advocated by Supervisor Glenn Rowley.

We take pride in world-class companies like SC Johnson that call our township home, he said, adding that a quality local workforce helps spur investment like this in Bay County and the surrounding region.

SC Johnson & Son Inc. is the parent company for SC Johnson Home Storage, LLC., the Bay City plant that produces billons of Ziploc bags a year that are exported to seven countries outside of the U.S.

Trevor Keyes, president and CEO of Bay Future, Inc.  the economic development organization that worked with the various entities to help make the project happen  was thrilled by the news.

There are very few communities who have multi-billion dollar companies in their backyard that continue to invest, continue to grow, and continue to hire local residents like we have with SC Johnson, Keyes said of the Wisconsin-based company. They can invest anywhere in the world, literally, and we are thrilled that they continue to invest and grow here in Bay County.

SC Johnson is the maker of other brands such as Glade, Raid and Scrubbing Bubbles. Officials project the new production lines at the Bangor Township facility to be operating by 2018.
Mission Church in Ventura hosts an annual fun-filled, fast-paced prom for the overlooked and the undercelebrated.

Though trying to fit in can be challenging for those with special needs, seamless blending in is precisely what they crave. That is why three churchesMission Church; First Presbyterian Houston; and Willow Creek Community Churchhave each found ways to introduce normalcy and inclusion into the lives of special needs individuals in their communities.

Every spring, Mission Church, whose average weekend attendance is 1,300, hosts A Night to Remembera fun-filled, fast-paced prom for the overlooked and the undercelebrated. Lead Pastor Mike Hickerson and Jen Oaks, outreach director, hosted the first prom in 2012, hoping that 20 guests might come; instead, 200 people showed up. Each year since, that number has grown by about 100, so now they hold the event at the local fairground.

This enables us to never have to cap the event, says Oaks. We want as many people as possible to participate.

It takes 1,000 volunteers to ensure that every last detail is covered. Paired with a volunteer student-host from the community, each guest gets their hair and makeup done, a prom dress or tuxedo and a boutonniere or corsagefor free. They are then treated to a limo ride by the ocean before arriving at the Red Carpet, where they are announced by name and greeted by paparazzi who cheer, clap and offer high-fives. After a formal photograph is snapped, the guests dance the night away to fast, fun songs.

We really blow it out, says Oaks, who notes that the dance floor acts as the great equalizer. You cant tell who has special needs and who doesnt. Everyone is the same for a time.

Two years ago, a guest named Amanda, who was in hospice care, desperately wanted to attend A Night to Remember. Staff escorted her to the front of the line, found her a special host and watched as she partied away the evening. Amanda died two weeks later, but the team was thrilled to have had the opportunity to provide such a memorable experience for her and her family.

To have the chance to celebrate with Amanda on this side of heaven was really special, recalls Oaks.

Read more stories about including and celebrating those with special needs 

MISSION CHURCH

Ventura, California

MissionVentura.com
NORMAL  Students at Heartland Community College walked into a room with an immigration sign on the desk, but the sign was about the only thing that was understandable.

The forms they were asked to fill out were in a language they didn't understand. The person in charge was speaking in a language they didn't understand.

When they finally reached someone speaking their language, they were asked whether they were willing to pledge allegiance to a new country, its flag and its religion while renouncing their home country and religion.

Each who said, No, was sent to a separate walled-in area and had a sign hung around their neck reading, Enemy of the people.

It was all a simulation, but the discomfort was real.

Part of an educational event called Boxes and Walls, the exercise was about raising awareness about what some of their classmates may have gone through to get here, explained Shamelle Grabill, a tutoring services facilitator at Heartland who helped design the immigration part of the program.

An information sheet given to the students after the first exercise provided background on U.S. policies and history as well as how Nazi propaganda and Chinese and Soviet dictators used the enemies of the people phrase.

Students also went through two other exercises in other rooms.

In one, they sat in a circle around a fake campfire with each person reading aloud a brief story about a gay student's experience in coming out about their homosexuality or bisexuality.

These are real stories. They're not just made-up stories, said Jessica Wheeler of Heartland's Pride Club.

Some of the stories were positive with a parent saying, I love you and that will never change. Others were not, including stories of being kicked out of the house or told, You are going to hell.

Wheeler said: Good or bad, coming out is hard. People have to realize that.

Entering the third room, participants were greeted by a sign saying, Tests determine future success, and were handed supposedly easy tests to do in a limited time.

But some tests were in tiny print, blurred print, backward lettering or were difficult to read in other ways, simulating the problems faced by students with physical or learning disabilities.

Compounding the problem, two people distracted the students by moving shades up and down, turning lights up and down, rustling papers and making noise.

Rob Willett, a graduate student in college and student personnel administration from Illinois State University who is working in Heartland's Student Engagement Office, said, The goal of 'Boxes and Walls' includes planting seeds of openness, understanding and respect for oppressed and marginalized groups.

A debriefing session followed the exercises, giving students an opportunity to discuss and reflect on the experience.

Freshman Victoria Rexroat, an art major from Bloomington, said she hadn't though about different oppressed groups and it was helpful to put ourselves in their shoes.

Derrick Coney, a computer science sophomore from Chicago, said the exercise was a good way to experience the different challenges that different types of people face.

He said, It really makes a difference whether you choose to interpret the knowledge as positive or negative.

Willett said the name of the program fits its purpose, which is to think outside of the box by throwing away stereotypes and tearing down walls of division.

He said no one expects a single, hourlong event to bring down all those walls, but our hope is that they would keep thinking about it.
Q: The Veterans Corner column recently discussed burn pits and other exposures from our more recent military operations. Is there a plan to offer health-screening exams, similar to those provided to Vietnam veterans after their exposure to Agent Orange?

A: Yes! The VA Gulf War Registry health exam alerts veterans to possible long-term health problems that may be related to environmental exposures during their military service. Contact your local VA environmental health coordinator at /exposures/coordinators.asp about getting a Gulf War Registry health exam.

The actual health exam includes an exposure and medical history, laboratory tests, and a physical exam. Results will be discussed with the veteran face-to-face with a VA health professional. Points about registry health exams include free to eligible veterans and no co-payment; not a disability compensation exam or required for other VA benefits; based on veterans recollection of service, not based on military records; veterans can receive additional registry exams if new problems develop; veterans family members are not eligible for registry exams.

Veterans who served in the Gulf during Operation Desert Shield, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, or Operation New Dawn are eligible for the Gulf War Registry exam. You do not need to be enrolled in VA health care to take part.

Q: Recently, I have been reading about the high rate of suicides among the veteran community and active military personnel. What programs does the VA have to get this epidemic of suicides under control?

A: Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin stated in a March 21 news release that Suicide prevention is one of our highest priorities. The VA established a national crisis line for suicide prevention a few years ago, but its quality was poor with a call rollover rate exceeding 30 percent.

After major process changes, the Office of the Inspector General conducted a six-month survey of the crisis line. The current call rollover rate is less than 1 percent. To reach a VA mental health professional who is specially trained to attend to emotional crises for veterans and service members, a veteran or service member has the following options:

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 800-273-TALK (8255). Veterans should choose Option 1 to reach a Veterans Crisis Line responder. A veteran or service member may also access the hotline by texting 838255; a Veterans Crisis Line responder will text back; or chat at https://www.veteranscrisisline.net.

Q: I have been told that I am eligible for free Illinois fishing and hunting licenses because I have a service-connected disability rating of 30 percent. What are the rules and how do I apply for the licenses?

A: The Illinois Department of Natural Resources will issue a free hunting license and/or fishing license to those veterans who have a service-connected disability rating of at least 10 percent. Currently, the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) may issue those licenses at its South Main Street office in Bloomington. Any license involving the use of a firearm may be restricted for anyone, including veterans, if their criminal record makes them ineligible. A veteran with a service-connected disability rating of 10 percent or higher is also exempt from purchasing a habitat stamp. The veteran must be able to show proof of disability with a veterans disability card or current award letter.
Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj hosted last night's White House Correspondents' Dinner and spent his stage time making fun of the conspicuously missing president. Donald Trump made headlines a few months ago when he said he wouldn't be attending the Dinner, a presidential tradition in recent years.

"I get why Donald Trump didn't want to be roasted tonight," Minhaj joked to a crowd of journalists and celebrities, "by the looks of him, he's been roasting non-stop for the past 70 years."

The zingers didn't end there, Minhaj went on to blast Fox News for giving Bill O'Reilly a generous severance package and MSNBC for its lazy reporting. Minhaj was met with scattered laughs, applause, and tension but he successfully made light of the ridiculous circumstances he was presenting in.

Watch his full address below:





Header photo via YouTube
In last night's heavily-hyped episode of KUWTK Kim Kardashian takes Scott with her to Dubai, who as a single man, proceeds to woo and bed a girl abroad. While yes, this could be considered disrespectful of him as he's traveling with the sister of the mother of his children, what seems off-base is that Kim does not come for Scott when she discovers he has brought a girl home, but for the girl herself.

Upon discovering the house guest, Kim proceeds to call her a "whore", "tramp" and "groupie" labels that Kim herself has fought against her entire career  a career that was launched with a sex tape. Since then, Kim has become a strong advocate for women to embrace and take control of their sexuality, appearing naked on this magazine's cover and sharing nude selfies with other women who support the cause, always to a fair amount of backlash.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she yells. "Seriously? You're just like a fucking whore. Such a tramp. Get your shit and get the fuck out of here. Fucking groupie. Get your shit and security will escort you the fuck out of here!"

While sure, Kim's outburst makes for great television, what it doesn't do is send a great message and Kim's hypocrisy was not lost on Twitter.

Considering Scott didn't seem to receive even half as much heat for bringing someone home, Kim's response was all-around very confusing. She is yet to address it, other than to loosely commend herself for "having [Kourtney's] back."

Not only is it very uncomfortable to hear anyone speak to a woman like that, but Kim's actions feel disturbingly regressive. Women who choose to engage in intercourse with a single man, regardless of the reason she's attracted to him, does not make her a "whore" and as a defender of women's sexual freedom, Kim should know that.

Image via Instagram.


Everyone's favorite celebrity philanthropist and yacht partier, Leonardo DiCaprio marched yesterday in the People's Climate March in Washington DC. He reportedly walked next to former vice-president Al Gore with a sign that read "Climate Change Is Real".





A famous face popped up at the climate march in DC. Leonardo DiCaprio joins in on the protest. See item NA-34SA. pic.twitter.com/e8d65VmwwH

 CNN Newsource (@CNNNewsource) April 29, 2017





hi hello I'm currently at the People's Climate March in D.C. and Leonardo DiCaprio is 5ft from me pic.twitter.com/S7NMhEsWDp

 Izzy (@lzzer) April 29, 2017





The current administration has been notoriously inept at addressing the realities of climate change, with Trump even claiming that climate change was a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese.

Thousands of people attended the march which was held on Trump's 100th day in office to protest both his inaction on the issue and its proliferation.

Header photo via Twitter
With the first rumblings last summer that the 2017 Met Exhibition would be on Rei Kawakubo and her signature fashion label Comme des Garcons, my initial thought was disbelief; that the notoriously press shy and taciturn designer would subject herself to that level of scrutiny and attention, as well as cede some kind of artistic control to another point of view in interpreting her body of work was unfathomable. Lest we even contemplate the gala itselfthe receiving line! But when the official announcement was made later in the fall that Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between would indeed be the Costume Institute's annual exhibition, it was greeted with glee from Comme-heads and fashion insiders the world overif with some breathless conjecture about how involved or public-facing the designer would be in the process. Given that the few interviews she's granted over her nearly five-decade career are treated as nothing short of lunar events, the spotlight of the show and the build-up seemed anathema to her ethos as an artist and cult figure in the fashion industry.

George Pimentel/Getty

At 74 years old, Kawakubo will be the second designer in the history of The Met to be honored with an exhibition while still living (the first being Yves Saint Laurent in 1983). Though she has been designing since the late '60s, her first runway collection shown in Paris in 1981 will mark the beginning of the exhibit, and it will run up to the most current Fall 2017 collection shown last February (comprising 120 looks in total). It was that 1981 collection that cannonballed Kawakubo into the fashion conversationwhich was mostly taken up by the post-disco, 80s iconoclasts like Versace, Mugler and Armani. Kawakubo's deconstructed and "un-bodied" silhouettes drew a red lineor black, the singular color she worked in at the timein the fashion battlefield of the moment. Viewed as a riposte to the decadence and glam curves that dominated the runways, she deconstructed traditional notions of symmetry and practicalitywhy do one neckline when you can have two?and scrambled the possibilities of garments and intentions. As a child growing up in post-Hiroshima Japan, she came of age both in the deep privation of that country's '50s and then in the more liberated and economically robust '60s and '70s. She shouldered harsh criticism with her first collections that, in their deconstructed and ripped-up presentation, she was somehow paying ill-considered homage to the carnage of the nuclear bomb and nihilism of WWIImuch in the same way Saint Laurent was, unfairly, for his Vichy collection in the previous decade. She was unsurprisingly grouped with other Japanese designers (all male) who were also making waves at the timeamong them Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, whom she had a relationship with for several years during the decade.

Hunter Abrams/BFA.com

Since 1981, her impact on our understanding of dressing and what makes (and doesn't make) a garment are impossible to measurewhether it was her Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body collection of 1997 made up of gingham shifts stuffed with padded humps; her elegiac Broken Brides of 2005 that was a moving take on romance and decay for the new millennium; or, a personal favorite, the 2D collection of Fall 2012 which rendered silhouettes as doll cutouts at once adorable and ingenious. It is also to her credit, and that of her husband of 25 years, Adrian Joffe, that her particular vision, which one could hardly call mass, has miraculously sustained itself and grown into a global empire, generating sales well into the hundreds of millions. With Joffe as CEO of Comme de Garcons and their retail outfit, Dover Street Market, with locations in London, Tokyo and New York, her imprint on retail and the way fashion is distributed and sold is a case study in adhering to one's instincts. Entirely independent of the vice grip of any slick fashion conglomerate, Kawakubo, and Joffe since 1992, have created their own ecosystem of designers and customer experience that challenges long held beliefs about shopping and what a consumer is interested in learning, and if they can at all (yes, duh).

George Pimentel/Getty

The Costume Institute exhibition will be broken up into eight discreet sections: Fashion/Anti-Fashion, Design/Not Design, Model/Multiple, Then/Now, High/Low, Self/Other, Object/Subject, and Clothes/Not Clothes. The titles recall the contradictory and koan-like turns of phrase Kawakubo is known to conjure when she does grant the rare interview. Another hallmark of those interviews, most recently in the May issue of Vogue by Lynn Yaeger and the Business of Fashion's Tim Blanks, is her lack of confidence in her own work and the granular torture she describes when trying to put a collection together; that she fears it will be her last and that she continues mostly for the well-being of those in her employ. A relatable experience to be sure, a tenuous belief in one's own abilities, and it is perhaps the tie that binds in the genius of her collections; the vulnerability, the unfinished-ness, and really, the fear.

And so it is all the more unbelievable that this artist of such fierce vulnerability will be front and center at perhaps the most public and pored-over evening of the year on Monday. It is rumored that CDG has only allotted ten guests to wear looks from the house. The true joy of the evening will be to see, say Rihanna, alighting in something from Dress Meets Body or perhaps Gisele in a look from 2001's Optical Shock collection. The curious space that exists between Kawakubo's unwavering vision for the last three decades and the flashy and infinitely mutable reality of how fashion is presented and consumed, never on more display than the first Monday in May, will be thrilling. A thrill that one hopes reaches, at least for a moment, the woman whose name is above the door.

Splash photo by Julian Boudet/BFA.com


Jodi Charles expresses her disbelief after seeing the photo of her father in a cigarette pack. Charles mentions that her father, nor any family member would not give the cigarette company a consent in terms of having the photo printed on the cigarette packs.

The mother-of-two shares her disbelief when her daughter showed her a photo of a cigarette pack with her "grand dad's" photo. Jodi Charles shares that her father's photo is being used as a cigarette warning label without her and the family's consent, according to Daily Mail.

Charles' father died of bone marrow, septicemia and lymphoma blood cancer, which are all unrelated to smoking. He was confined for 10 months at Basildon University Hospital.

Charles explains that someone from the hospital must have secretly taken the photo without their consent. The photo features an old person with a breathing tube, which reportedly resembles her father.

"The whole picture looks exactly like him. His eyes were puffed up when he was in intensive care and they are in the photo too," Charles told the publication. "I am 110 percent sure it is him and that there is no way he gave permission for such a terrible picture to be used. It's terribly upsetting. This has been a horrendous time for us. Dad being ill took up my whole life and I am still grieving now - I will be forevermore. As time goes on you learn to deal with it, but this has brought it all back. I'm distraught again."

The photo issue is still unresolved up to this date, but Charles is asking for proof that her father did give them the consent to use his photo. She also shares that if the hospital fails to produce a copy of his consent with his signature, she will press charges.

The cigarette tax is becoming an issue in the United states as most states oppose to it. California recently implements their tax hike that causes the prices to increase by $2 per pack, as reported in Washington Times.
Police filed criminal charges against two Louisiana teachers in connection with the bullying of an 11-year-old student. Authorities detained Ann Marie Shelvin, 44, and Tracy Gallow, 50, following a complaint from the child's mom.

Investigators learned the teachers from Washington Elementary ordered and instigated the bullying of the young girl. Allegedly, one of the teachers also told the student to "go and kill yourself," as per Metro.

The child's mom first reported the teacher's abuse to the local sheriff in February but the problem went as far as October last year. The bullying, however, continued even after filing a complaint. This prompted the mom to report the abuse a second time in April with the St. Landry Parish School Board.

According to police reports CNN obtained, Shelvin ordered three female students to fight the 11-year-old girl or else they will get failed grades. They complied with the order for fear they would also be bullied as that's how it started with the 11-year-old victim.

Sheriff Bobby J. Guildroz said Shelvin first ordered the 11-year-old girl to fight another student. The girl, however, refused and reported her teacher to the principal, according to National Post.

School officials removed Shelvin from her classes following the first report but her replacement, Gallow, also did the same abuse. The school's surveillance camera recorded the teacher's misdeeds.

One incident saw Gallow pushing the 11-year-old on the bleachers. The girl's mom believed Gallow continued bullying her daughter in retaliation or Shelvin, as per NBC Columbus.

Meanwhile, the school board issued a statement assuring the community this act will not be tolerated. "We take reports of this nature very seriously and will do everything in our power to protect the health, safety and welfare of all students," the statement read.

Shelvin faces charges of malfeasance in office, encouraging or contributing to child delinquency and intimidation and interference. Gallow, on the other hand, faces charges of malfeasance in office, battery and intimidation and interference.
Donald Trump, Jr., the eldest child of President Donald Trump, wrote a piece about his father for his First 100 Days as president. Don Jr. called his dad a "man of action who keeps his promises" and he shamed the media for not reporting this fact.

In his piece published on Fox News, Don Jr. said his father's actions as the U.S. president bore good results so far. He also said mainstream media failed to report these accomplishments because "they don't understand it."

In his father's First 100 Days, Don Jr. cited the Supreme Court appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch, the swift action on Syria after the chemical attacks and the approval of Keystone XL for the Dakota Access pipelines as the highlights, Daily Mail reported. He also said his father wasn't a "creature of Washington" and alluded the previous eight years before his father took office were mostly "talk and speeches," hence America's domestic growth was slow.

"Hard-working, middle-class Americans who spent the last eight years struggling to make ends meet while Washington ignored them finally have a champion in this White House," Don Jr. wrote. The eldest Trump took charge of Trump Organization in New York when his father became the President of the United States.

Meanwhile, average Americans also gave their assessment of President Trump's First 100 Days via Fortune. One supporter said the president might have "fallen short" in his first three months but these 100 days are just four percent of his term, so there's still hope.

Another said Trump as the president made her "proud to be an American again," and an American immigrant said Trump "crushed" her family. Many of them said they will constantly pray for President Trump for wisdom in his decisions.

President Trump marked his 100 days in office in a rally in Pennsylvania where he signed two more executive orders on trade, CNN reported. Watch his entire speech during the event in the video below.
Heads of a school in New York ordered the burning and banning of all textbooks. The principal and assistant principal in Manhattan's Life Sciences Secondary School cited printed textbooks were "antiquated" so these will be replaced with "modern technology."

Despite the order from Principal Kim Swanson and Assistant Principal Derek Premo, some staffers said the school was ill-equipped to provide digital references for its students. The school itself lacked internet service, computer hardware and devices, as per New York Post.

Swanson and Premo asked students and teachers to surrender and compile the textbooks last November. Since then, the school's halls and stairwells, including emergency exits, have stacks of books for purging.

Some students, however, hid their copies of classics like "Romeo and Juliet" or expensive SAT guides. Some also complained the school instead handed out packets or worksheets of literature or material for use in the classes in lieu of devices.

Swanson did not respond to requests for comments on The Post's report. A spokesperson from the local Department of Education said the books for burning and banning were old editions that no longer worked for the school's current curriculum.

The burning and banning of textbooks come as recent reports cited sales of real books surged 7.5 percent in 2016 in the U.S. while sales of e-books dropped to 18.7 percent. The sale of e-readers, on the other hand, dropped to 40 percent since 2011.

"The print format is appealing to many and publishers are finding that some genres lend themselves more to print than others and are using them to drive sales of print books," publisher Phil Stokes said, as per CNN. Experts also said the choice to dial down on screen time or a "digital detox" prompted the return towards printed books.

What do you think of the Life Sciences Secondary School's policy on printed books? Are kids in your child's school also turning to devices or have the schools retained traditional materials? Share your thoughts in the comments!
A teen with autism won't be able to enjoy his essay contest prize because of his disability. Organizers rescinded Niko Boskovic's trip to the United Nations in New York when they learned he has autism.

Boskovic, 15, wrote a 500-word essay that earned the first prize in a national contest. United Nations Educational Pilgrimage for Youth, Inc. via the Order of Odd Fellows organized the said contest. Peninsula Odd Fellows Lodge chose Boskovic to represent Portland knowing he's a good writer and he won't fail the group.

For winning the contest, Boskovic was supposed to visit the United Nations office in New York as a youth delegate. His mother Loreta, however, received a letter from the Order of Odd Fellows a month after he won advising them of the changes.

"Sorry, he's no longer able to take part and chaperones are not allowed to take part either," the mother recounted the letter's content, as per KGW8 News. She said they canceled the prize because no one from the order knew how to handle students with autism. They didn't have a trained and specialized staff and her son had little inability to verbally communicate.

Boskovic, while a master of written words, uses a board to "speak" since his autism diagnosis at 3-years-old. It takes time for him to get his message across and it's part of his challenges in dealing with his disability.

David Scheer of the Peninsula Odd Fellows Lodge expressed disappointment over the national group's decision. The Portland chapter already raised money for Boskovic's trip but instead got a check back due to the cancellation.

"Not only is it a terrible thing that has happened to him, to Niko," Sheer said, per Katu. "[It's terrible] for all of the other students who could have had this amazing experience meeting him," he said. Sheer also demanded an explanation from the national group. He said they will still give the teen the money to use for another trip.

Meanwhile, Boskovic's mom sought help from Gordon Magella of the Disability Rights Oregon for her son's case. Magella already reached out to the Order of Odd Fellows to answer for its discrimination.
On April 20 Patently Apple posted a report titled "Korea's Deep Paranoia is Setting in as Apple Considers a Supply Shift to China and Apple Watch 3 Shifts to Micro-LED." The report noted that Apple may shift to micro-LED for Apple Watch 3. More importantly, the paranoia from the South Korean press mounted as they noted that "The damage is relatively not that serious due to a small quantity of Apple Watches. However, the problem becomes bigger when Apple decides to use micro-LED displays on its smartphones as well. Such precedent, Apple is highly likely to use a micro-LED display on its smartphones after testing the panel on the Apple Watch." Today we're learning that the scenario of Apple shifting to micro-LED for future iPhones and other devices has sent Samsung into high gear.

It's being reported by the Korean Herald today that Samsung is seeking to acquire Taiwan's PlayNitide, a micro-LED maker for an estimated $150 million. The report notes that "Apple is reportedly considering using the display for its new devices, including Apple Watch, and ultimately for the iPhone."

Yet it still feels like hysteria from Korea. There's no proof of such a move by Apple is taking place at the moment and new display suppliers like China's BOE and Foxconn are ramping up production hoping to gain contracts for Apple's OLED needs for future iPhones.

Last February Patently Apple posted a report titled "Apple could use a Micro-LED Display for a Future VR Headset." Our report covered an EETimes report that noted that micro-LED could be used for "direct projection displays" that would include Augmented and Virtual Reality applications like a headset.

Apple is not alone with its interest in micro-LEDs. According to OLED-Info, in 2016 Oculus acquired InfiniLED, another micro-LED startup. Sony is also developing micro-LED displays. So Samsung's race to gain a micro-LED company may be for a future Gear VR headset not requiring a smartphone as its main display. Industry players believe that micro-LED's in larger formats could be commercialized by 2020.

Where the report got interesting is that they noted that Samsung may be considering the technology for next-gen TVs. If displays the size of TVs could eventuallly use micro-LED display technology in the future, then would an iPhone with a micro-LED down the road sound all that farfetched?

For now it appears that a future Apple Watch may be the first win for micro-LED displays. Yet the bigger move could be reserved for future AR/AR headsets. Whether that means dedicated displays for devices like the Oculus or via smartphones like Samsung's Gear VR is unknown at this time as is how Apple will decide to apply it in a future headset.

Considering that the smartphone industry is only shifting hard to OLED starting this year, it's very difficult to see micro-LEDs becoming the display of choice for smartphones anytime in the near future. Yet the rumbling from the Korean tech press of late is definitely showing us that micro-LEDs have caught the attention of Samsung who is paranoid of any advantage Apple may gain over them in mobile devices.

If Samsung now aims to enter the race to develop micro-LED displays, then we know that there's a movement behind the scenes that this is a trend in the making. Samsung works with Oculus and so this is another clue that headsets may indeed be where this technology debuts big time.

The good news is that Apple saw that trend emerging as far back as 2014 if not earlier.





About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.
As quoted in a recent news article, Ivanka Trump said this of her father:

He encouraged me and enabled me to thrive, Trump said. I grew up in a house where there was no barrier to what I could accomplish beyond my own perseverance and my own tenacity. There was, she stressed, no difference between me and my brothers. And I think as a business leader you saw that, and as a president you will absolutely see that.

But in 1994 Donald Trump said this of his divorce from Ivankas mother, Ivana:

Donald Trump once said that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing in a recently resurfaced interview with ABC News from 1994. The comments were part of an extended discussion about how Trump viewed his relationships with women and the difficulty he had in mixing his business with his personal life. Speaking to Primetime Live correspondent Nancy Collins in March of that year, Trump attributed the failure of his marriage with ex-wife, Ivana, to his decision to put her in a management role at one of his Atlantic City casinos, according to a ABC News report on the interview. I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. If youre in business for yourself, I really think its a bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana, Trump said. He said that he disliked hearing her shouting on the phone during contentious business deals. A softness disappeared. There was a great softness to Ivana, and she still has that softness, but during this period of time she became an executive not a wife, Trump had said. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also discussed his then-marriage to Marla Maples. Trump said that while he enjoyed creating stars  which he said was almost like creating a building  such as Maples, their professional obligations were frustrating. I have days where I think its great. And I have days where, if I come home  and I dont want to sound too much like a chauvinist  but when I come home and dinners not ready, I go through the roof, he said.

Im baffled that none of this appears to play any role in Ivankas assessment of her fathers approach to gender roles. Its great that he encouraged her, that he treated her just like her brothersbut does she not spare a thought to how he treated her mother, or her first stepmother? Has she completely forgotten that he called putting a wife to work a very dangerous thing?

This is actually a pattern Ive noticed, of men who encourage their daughters or granddaughters to work and push and achieve, but want their wives to stay at home and serve them there. Its a double standard that in some sense centers on treating women as objects to serve them or give them statustheir wives to wait on them at home, their daughters give them bragging rights through their success.

Do these men not consider that theyre expecting different things of their sons-in-law than from themselves?

Other explanations have been proffered as well. Jill Filipovik pointed to this double standard in Trumps life last summer, when she titled her New York Times opinion piece, Why Men Want to Marry Melanias and Raise Ivankas. Men have often given their female offspring more opportunities than their female partners, perhaps seeing their children as extensions of themselves, Filipovik wrote.

In 2015, Maya Dusenbery wrote the following in an article on this double standard:

At Jezebel, Tracey Moore suggests one possible explanation: that men choose more culturally sanctioned characteristics in a spouse because a wife is a reflection ON you, while a daughter is an extension OF you. But I think the relevant distinction is slightly different: In a wife, you want whats best for YOU, while in a daughter, you want whats best for HER.

Whether their support for their daughters achievement centers on the prestige this achievement offers, from seeing their daughters as extensions of themselves, or from genuinely wanting what is best for their daughters, this double standard liberates daughters to achieve while limiting wives to a more traditional role. There is perhaps no better example of this phenomenon than Donald Trump.

What I dont understand is why watching this double standard play out hadnt made Ivanka at least a little bit uncomfortable.

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Here is a piece by Yariv Binnun, the creator of the Israel Instititute of Biblical Studies, on the evolution that led to its creation. Very interesting stuff!

The Story behind eTeachers Foundation

The use of the cellular phone in Israel began in the 90s and by the mid 90s cellular phones had become widespread. I understood then that this cellular revolution would provide a plethora of business opportunities for students like me who wanted to study and yet at the same time make a living and be independent.

At the beginning of my studies, I established a company called Suddenly Everything is Clear which mediated between teachers and students. The business model was straightforward. Students would call my cellular phone and I would be the contact between them and the teacher. The students were obligated to purchase at least four lessons, where the teacher had to deposit the first two lessons in my bank account.

Future communications between the teacher and the student was not of my concern. This work provided me with an income as a student, as well as the required flexibility in order to study and achieve an academic degree. It also exposed me to the size of the market and to the demand for private lessons.

The following was my daily routine:

1) On the way to campus in the morning, I stopped by the entrance to one of the high schools in Tel Aviv and handed out flyers to each student who entered. I took advantage of the fact that all the students entered in the space of an hour through one gate and this bottleneck enabled me to give each student a flyer within a short time.

2) When I arrived at the university campus, I put up notices in the hallway for the recruitment of teachers. Students from the campus called and once a week I conducted interviews in the campus library. Those accepted were put on my database.

Overall the model proved itself and in two to three hours of work a day, I made $1500 a month, which was sufficient for me then as a student.

When I graduated, I looked for work in the field of communications and journalism. I was integrated as a researcher and deputy editor into one of the most popular political television programs broadcasted in Israel at the time.

Work in the television industry required that I be constantly up to date with the news and I read all the important newspapers on a daily basis prior to the program. The year 1999 was a very successful financial year with daily reports of exits or substantial funds raised by Israeli startups. I felt that I was not in the right place. That same year I was exposed for the first time to the Internet site EBAY. The model amazed me and I immediately began to think what a site like this could do for the tutoring market which shares similar characteristics. The second hand market and the private tutoring market are both characterized by many individuals who perform small business transactions all over the world. This is where the idea for eTeacher was born.

The idea was such: an internet site that would enable teachers to advertise themselves and students to order instruction services. The tutoring could take place face to face or on-line on the internet.

In order to advance this idea, the first thing I looked for was someone with the capability of building such an internet site. My brother, Boaz, a software engineer worked for IBM s (Israel) research department at the time. Previously, he owned a company for building web sites that was actually one of the first in Israel to build web sites in the 90s. Boaz liked the idea and decided to leave IBM and join me. We worked from his house for the first few months.

In 2001 the site was launched. It was targeted at the Israeli market and enabled teachers to sign up, build a profile on the site and advertise themselves. In addition, we developed an application on Microsofts Net Meeting platform that enabled teachers to hold lessons on-line as well as bill students.

Despite the amount of work that was invested on the site, immediately with its launch, we understood that the site was advanced beyond its time and that there was no chance to profit from it. In 2001, the broadband connection is Israel was in its diaper stage and the market was not ripe to accept our concept.

The alternative was to raise money and wait for the market to come to us. The problem was that the fundraising market was completely shut down after the internet bubble burst and the stock market crash.

One alternative was left: to change the model and produce income.

We came back to the models of conventional tutoring. Orders were placed on the site and we sent the teachers to the students homes. We simultaneously developed a system that would give on-line, real-time support for homework on the internet. This model was already being used in the U.S. by a company called www.tutor.com and the concept there was called live-homework-help. The system was developed and schools purchased the service. The service enabled schools or local authorities to offer on-line, real-time assistance for students who need or want help with their homework every evening without having to leave the house.

These two products developed but were not enough, especially because of low profit margins. Despite this, the activity grew from year to year and more of the tutoring was conducted on-line and less face to face. In 2007, 22 local municipalities registered for the live-homework-help service and purchased subscriptions for tens of thousands of potential students.

The Turning Point  Winning the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tender

In 2002, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a tender for the establishment of a virtual school on the internet for the purpose of teaching Hebrew to children of Foreign Service employees in 50 countries. The goal of the school was to provide training to children of Foreign Service employees in retaining their Hebrew language skills (reading and writing) whilst they are abroad.

We understood then (and today we know we were right) that as a company that wants to specialize in elearning, we had to win this tender. A strategic decision to win this tender at all costs was made and indeed we won. We were required to begin the virtual schooling within two months of the tender (with a high penalty for every day of delay) for between 250 to 300 students of various ages, in many different countries. It was a complex project.

Despite the tight schedule and the complexities of the project, the virtual school began on schedule. The success of the project surprised even us; we believed in learning through the internet, but until this time had not seen tangible proof for the ability to study and progress using our system. There was high attendance by the students in the class, teachers reported that the students were making progress and learning to read and write and the feedback from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the parents of the students was impressive. Today we are still the licensees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A year ago, Intel and El Al Israeli airlines also informed us that they would finance this service for their employees children abroad.

Additional companies also committed to partially subsidize the service for their employees.

In 2003, at the end of the first year of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs virtual school, we thought that the next stage was to sell the courses to Israelis abroad, a community of approximately half a million Israeli families living outside of Israel. However, our marketing budget was inadequate. We therefore tried to market through human resources departments of companies that send employees abroad, forums of Israelis abroad and cooperation with small internet sites intended for Israeli communities abroad. The response was limited but still tens of students registered at high prices.

At this point, another turnabout began which influenced the development of the company. In the winter of 2003, I traveled to Boston with my wife and newly born son for three weeks. My wife was required to take a course at Harvard University as part of her doctorate. I meanwhile took care of my son, Uri, and decided to take advantage of the trip and set up some meetings. I met with Dror Havusha, an Israeli entrepreneur in the field of internet who resides in Boston, and I told him of our plan to sell courses on the internet for Israeli children living abroad. He was particularly interested as his children are at the age where such a solution could be of assistance. I asked him whether he would like to invest tens of thousands of dollars (which was a large amount for us at that time) in our project in order to enable us to market the products.

Dror suggested that the amount was too small to justify the process, but requested the possibility of entering the lessons and observing them, and so he did.

I returned to Israel and spoke to Dror on the telephone who was very impressed by the product. A few years later, he told me that what truly impressed him was the fact he saw the students coming into the class 15 minutes prior to the beginning of the lesson and waiting patiently, as if it were a TV program and not a lesson. Dror proposed an original idea during the meeting. He said he would take the marketing of the courses abroad upon himself and would finance it from his own pocket. In return, he asked for percentage of the income. In addition, he proposed that after a year we would set up a joint subsidiary that would operate and market the courses outside of Israel. We agreed upon the model and set out on our path.

During the first year of our cooperation, 2003-2004, we recruited 250 students who paid an average of $900 in tuition fees. This was a great success for us. It was in fact the first time we were able to enjoy a model that had a significant percentage of profit as the studies were held in groups and the income was in dollars at a very high price (dollar shekel ratio). The success was due in particular to Drors ability to spend a sum of money in marketing that we did no have beforehand. Dror advertised in all the large portals and the Israeli news sites where Israelis living abroad keep up to date daily.

Looking back, this is where the model of eTeacher was born, and this is where the businesss turning point began. What was revealed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs project as an efficient way to learn turned out to be something that can be sold and where a profit can be made. In coordination with Dror, we decided to issue him new shares and added another partner to our company who contributed greatly.

The Next Stage: Establishing www.hebrewonline.com

The activity with Israelis abroad brought about requests from the Jewish American market from Jews who wanted to learn Hebrew as a second language. As we were not prepared for this, we did not initially respond to these requests. One morning a media buyer for Jewish communities abroad came to our offices.

We told him of the recent requests we had received from Jewish communities and he asked if we were interested in running a marketing pilot to determine the markets readiness for on-line Hebrew courses for mature Jewish clientele. We approved of his proposal and agreed to his sending e-mails to a distribution list of 100,000 subscribers of one of the leading sites that focuses on this audience.

The results of this pilot amazed us. From the moment the e-mail was sent, the leads flowed continuously.

Within 48 hours, we had received hundreds of requests from people who wanted to learn Hebrew on-line on the internet. We began a race for the development of a Hebrew learning program on five levels. Every level takes eight to nine months where the student receives a weekly lesson in a group of five to six students. We recruited writers and a pedagogical manager and the development process began. We simultaneously progressed with the sales and marketing.

Hebrewonline was a great success and a natural continuation of the successful project we developed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Israeli children living abroad. Over the course of three years, thousands of students registered. The growth rate was astonishing  the number of students doubled itself year after year. In 2007, approximately 2500 students purchased the Hebrew courses. On top of that, an additional 2500 students joined the tutoring activities here in Israel. We experienced the operation of a school with 5000 paying students.

The next stage: The Establishment of www.classicalhebrew.com

As a natural continuation of our activity in Hebrew, we established www.classicalhebrew.com. Here too, the decision stemmed from clients requests. We began to get requests from the Christian world that was interested in reading the bible in its original language. When we established eTeacher, we could not imagine that we would one day teach courses on how to read the bible in its original language to a Christian public in the US and in Europe. In business, as in life, not everything is planned.

In order to build the site, we took the model that was developed on hebrewonline and duplicated it. The first stage was to find a professional manager to recruit a team of writers, followed by sales and marketing.

In mid 2007, marketing of the product began and hundreds of students have already been recruited this year.

The combined success of the three Hebrew segments: children of Israelis abroad, the Jewish market and the Christian market strengthened our sense that we have a unique model with potential for additional languages.

We decided that it was time to venture into the big world and searched for the next phase.

The next stage: The Chinese Market  Establishment of www.chinesevoice.com (end 2007)

In 2006 and 2007, the company turned profitable as a result of the Hebrew group models, the export activities outside of Israel and the revenues from abroad. The model was profitable due to both the transition to groups as well as the nature of the activity which is one of export. It was also profitable as operational and salary costs were in shekels and these services are less expensive in Israel than the US and Europe. At the same time the revenues were in strong currencies such as Dollar, Euro and Pound.

This status enabled us to begin investing in and developing new initiatives. In 2007 the division of work between Boaz and myself enabled me to leave the day to day management of the business and dedicate all my time to development of our new products, leaving Boaz to actively managing the company.

This is what we looked for:

Big languages, which apply to larger audiences than Hebrew, such as Chinese and Spanish.

Languages that will sell in an English speaking market where our marketing and sales infrastructure are.

Languages from countries where teachers can be recruited easily and where the teachers wages will not be high.

Developing languages, languages that interest in them will grow in the coming years.

We carried out the following tests:

Testing of search volume in Google Trends, of the interest in languages according to different areas in the world, using the expression learn (the language name).

Screening of learning programs offered in 20 language schools in the US.

The tests lead us to the Chinese language. We saw that the market for study of Chinese in the US is smaller than the market for study of Spanish, but larger than the market for Hebrew instruction. We also noticed that the average price for an hour of Chinese language instruction is higher than for an hour of Spanish. In addition, the majority of schools do not offer Chinese language instruction in groups, but rather one on one (there is no critical mass). This data was especially important as this is where the internet is most effective (long tail). On top of this, we should add the current global interest in the Chinese market as a whole and the anticipation that this market will keep growing.

For these reasons, we decided at the beginning of 2007 to establish an on-line Chinese language school.

We set about our work using the same methodology that we had developed in the Hebrew market. In this case, there were additional challenges and logistical complexities related to the employment of instructors in China without a presence in China.

Within 12 months of our decision, a team of instructors was recruited from the Beijing area and a team of writers was established. At the beginning of 2008, we began to market and sell the courses. The first classes are already on their way.

Simultaneous Establishment of www.englishonline.co.il (end 2007)

At the same time as we developed the Chinese site, we decide to strengthen our activity in the local market by developing an on-line English language school. In 2005 and 2006 we identified requests through our tutoring activities for adults wishing to improve their English. At the beginning of 2008 www.englishonline.co.il went on-line and started selling group courses alongside our private tutoring in the local market.
Part II of my series on the Death Penalty at Catholic Weekly.

The problem is this in a nutshell: For centuries, the Church affirmed the power of Caesar to execute capital criminals. But since Evangelium Vitae, the Church has called for the abolition of the death penalty. Ergo (say traditionalists) the post-concilliar Magisterium is contradicting the Tradition. For this reason, the three popes (Pope St John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis) and the global Magisterium who affirm this development can be legitimately ignored in favour of retaining the death penalty.

For some extremist Reactionaries, this supposed contradiction of the Tradition means the very legitimacy of those three popes and the post-concilliar Magisterium are now in serious jeopardy. But for the majority of critics of this development, the solution is not wholesale rejection of the post-concilliar Magisterium, but a sort of limited modified hangout argument that this development is a prudential judgment and we are thereby freed to just ignore it and even lobby against it with Catholic defences of the death penalty while affirming that the Magisterium is still authoritative and not utterly discredited. After all (goes the argument), the Magisterium has made other bad prudential judgment calls (such as Peter not eating with Gentiles at Antioch) and not thereby been utterly discredited.

So, for instance, we are told that the teaching of Evangelium Vitae on the death penalty, summarised in CCC 2267, is just John Pauls personal opinion and is not binding. That teaching, just as a reminder, is this:

2267 Assuming that the guilty partys identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect peoples safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm  without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself  the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically non-existent.

First things first: Thats not just John Pauls personal opinion. Evangelium Vitae is an encyclical, the highest form of teaching document a pope can publish. In an encyclical, the pope is teaching as the Supreme Pontiff of the Church, not hanging out in a bar and popping off about his private views. It is, make no mistake, the teaching of the Church that [i]f non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect peoples safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. Moreover, it is the teaching of the Church that the practical upshot of the practical non-existence of the need to execute is this: abolish the death penalty. That is the express demand of three popes and all the bishops of the world.
Before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube made their entry in the media market, the PatnaDaily had already registered its presence in...
Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and Deputy Chief Minister Tejaswi Yadav kicked off a minor storm of sort when he, while visiting the new museum being built in Patna on Sunday, sat on a throne that is said to be a replica of a similar throne going back to the Mauryan era over 2000 years ago.

Several people in the museum felt Yadav should not have sat on the throne because it demeaned the historical importance of the artifact.

However, museum curator Momita Ghosh, defending the Deputy Chief Minister said that the replica was made for the enjoyment of children who visit the museum.

"Children participate in quiz contests and those who win 'earn' the right to sit on the throne. Other people have also sat on it and there is nothing improper about it," she said.

After posing for a few photographs, Yadav moved on to a weighing scale belonging to the Shershah Suri era in the 16th century. He was allowed to measure his weight before he began the rest of his tour of the museum.

During his hour and a half long visit of the new museum being built at the cost of nearly Rs. 500 crore in Patna, Yadav inspected various sections of it including the Discovery Room, Invention Lobby, Auditorium, Numismatic Exhibit, Painting Gallery, the Waterfall, and the Historical Timeline section of the museum.

"The museum would be open for public by the end of the day. It would be the best museum of India and one of the best such facilities in the world," the Deputy Chief Minister said.
Patna: Police in Patna on Sunday recovered the decaying body of a 40-year old man from a hotel on Gurudwara Gali off Frazer Road under Kotwali police station after employees and patrons complained of foul odor in the building since Saturday morning.

The man was identified as one Rajan Kumar, a resident of West Patel Nagar in Patna.

As reported, people staying at the Hotel Ashoka had been complaining of a nasty stench since Saturday afternoon but the hotel staff thought it was probably a dead rat somewhere. However, on Sunday morning the stench became extremely unbearable. During the search, employees found smell coming out of Room No. 19. When no one answered the knock on the door, police were called.

Authorities broke open the door only to found the decaying body of a man. Extreme heat wave had done a number on the body that had swollen beyond recognition and the appeared to be mutilated. However, why the man was fully naked when found dead in his hotel room is still under investigation.

Kotwali police station in-charge Rama Shankar Kumar said the police was able to contact the victim's wife who said the couple were having some marital issues.

"My husband left the home after an argument on March 29 saying he was going to Lucknow. When he refused to return home, I filed a complaint with the Shastri Nagar police station. Last time I talked to him was Thursday night but when I tried to talk to him again, his cell phone appeared to have been turned off," Sarita Devi, the victim's wife said.

PatnaDaily has the photo of the Rajan Kumar's body in the hotel room but chose not to publish it due to the gruesome nature of it as well as in respect of the departed soul and his family members.

Unfortunately, there is no security camera in the hotel so now it is up to the forensic team to determine the actual cause of death. Officials, however, said that the man had been dead at least for the last 4-5 days.
Patna: Janata Dal  U MP RCP Singh, while inducting former Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) leader Shanti Singh into the party on Sunday, skirted questions about Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sushil Kumar Modi's allegations against the Lalu family saying he was not going to defend anyone and those against whom charges were leveled by the BJP were competent enough to defend themselves.

"We are not going to sit here and defend anyone. That is not our job. People against whom allegations are being made can defend themselves," the former IAS officer said when asked to comment on the barrage of charges of being made against the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, his wife and former Chief Minister of Bihar Rabri Devi, their two sons, Tej Pratap Yadav and Tejaswi Yadav  both parts of Nitish cabinet  and other members of the family.

As reported many times in the past, BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi has made public a number of documents indicating the Lalu family amassed wealth, mostly in the form of land and houses, from a host of politicians in exchange for plum posts in state and central government.

Refusing to go into details of his comment, Singh said allegations and counter-allegations were part of politics and one should not be overwhelmed by them.

When asked about his view on 'benami' properties, or properties bought under false name or in the name of someone else with intent to later assume the ownership of it, the JD-U national General Secretary said that the party's stand was clear on the topic.

"Nitish Kumar has made it amply clear in the past that he is against 'benami' properties. That is what we believe in," he said.
Patna: Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) leader and Madhepura MP Pappu Yadav on Sunday met with the family members of Saurabh Kumar, one of the six CRPF jawans from Bihar killed by Naxals at Sukma in Chhattisgarh, at their residence in Danapur to express his condolence to the victim's family.

Yadav assured the grieving family of all help saying he would make sure they were well taken care of and he was available to them at all time in case of any need.

Later, talking to the reporters, the former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader slammed both Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and RJD President Lalu Prasad Yadav for not going to the Patna Airport when the bodies of five CRPF jawans were brought from Chhattisgarh last Tuesday or for not even trying to meet with the victims' families in the time of their needs.

"Nitish Kumar, for his lust for power, has surrendered himself at the mercy of Lalu Prasad Yadav. He is too busy campaigning for the post of Prime Minister while the entire state of Bihar is going downhill. He has time to watch films on Gandhi but no time for the martyrs from Bihar," the JAP leader said.

Yadav also talked about the Lalu and his two sons amassing properties in many cities in record time with value of these assets exceeding several hundred crores.

"Lalu Yadav's two sons failed to reveal their properties in their nomination papers and they should be held accountable for it. Only a high-level probe by the CBI will bring truth to the front," he said.

Emulating Nitish Kumar's obsession with 'yatras', Pappu Yadav said that he would launch a 'Vishwasghat Rally' (Betrayal Rally) from Madhepura on May 3 to expose the Nitish-Lalu nexus that, he said, has plundered the state beyond anyone's imagination.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Iran exports to Europe up by 300% after JCPOA: EU

05/01/17

Source: Press TV

Iran's exports to the European Union have increased by over 300 percent after the implementation of the historic 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, European Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete says.



European Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete

1st Iran-EU Business Forum on Sustainable Energy in Tehran on April 29, 2017.

(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)



Speaking at the first-ever Iran-EU Business Forum on Sustainable Energy in Tehran on Saturday, Canete added that trade between Iran and the union showed 79 percent boost following the implementation of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), IRNA reported.



According to figures released by the European Union's statistics agency Eurostat in February, Iran's exports to the EU stood at 5.494 billion in 2016 as compared to 1.235 in 2015 due to the EU resuming oil imports from Iran following the nuclear deal.





Participants at the Iran-EU Business Forum on Sustainable Energy



Canete expressed the 28-nation bloc's keenness to cooperate with Iran in the nuclear energy sector and said the JCPOA prepared the ground for the resumption of Iran-EU cooperation.



The commissioner reiterated the EU's support for the nuclear agreement and said Iran and the union started to cooperate with each other in different sectors in 2016 and managed to sign many agreements.



He urged both sides to continue to upgrade their cooperation and expressed hope that the ongoing forum in Tehran would lay the ground for interaction in clean energy.

Canete expressed the readiness of the European countries to transfer their experience in the development of clean energy to Iran so that Tehran would be able to meet 30 percent of its energy needs from renewable energy resources by 2030.



He noted that he would help European firms make more investment in Iran.



Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - plus Germany signed the JCPOA on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16, 2016.



Under the agreement, limits were put on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all nuclear-related bans against the Islamic Republic.



Following the conclusion and implementation of the JCPOA, Iran and EU member states launched cooperation and signed several agreements in various fields.



More than 50 European companies and business associations and some 40 Iranian energy companies are participating at the Tehran forum with the purpose of enabling business relations and partnerships between Iran and the EU and laying the ground for further cooperation and joint partnerships in the energy sector.



It will provide a platform for investors and businesses to look into investment opportunities for clean energy, renewable energy efficiency and energy conservation actions in Iran.
Iran's Supreme Leader Dismisses Rohani Rapprochement Policy Toward West

05/01/17

Source: RFE/RL

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticized President Hassan Rohani for saying his rapprochement policy toward the West had caused the threat of war to diminish. Khamenei's comments at an April 30 meeting with workers from across the country come amid Iran's intensifying presidential election campaign, in which pragmatist Rohani is seeking a second term.



Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

(source: Kelid daily)





"We hear, and we have heard it before, some saying: 'When we took things in our hands, we could save the country from war.' No. This is not true," Khamenei said during the meeting, which was held on the eve of International Workers' Day.



"What protected this country during all these years against aggression, and the enemy's intrusion, is the presence of the people," he added.



Rohani has championed the landmark 2015 deal with world powers in which Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in return for an easing of international sanctions.



Khamenei: "I'll never say whom to vote for"

(source: Ghanoon daily)



A standoff between Rohani's and Khamenei's allies, who criticized the nuclear deal, has escalated in recent months ahead of the May 19 election.



Hard-liners criticize Rohani's economic record, saying a detente with the West and nuclear concessions had yet to yield economic benefits for Iran.



Rohani on April 30 called the nuclear deal a "national achievement."



"We should make use of its advantages. But some have started a fight over it," he said.



In a televised debate a day earlier, Rohani warned Iranians that a vote for his hard-line rivals could bring greater authoritarianism to the country.



"Iranians will prove to the world in the May 19 election that the era of violence, extremism, and pressures in our country is over and Iran is pursuing the path of reason," he said.



Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line cleric and close Khamenei ally, is considered Rohani's main election rival, along with Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.



Raisi joined those who have attacked Rohani over the state of the country's economy when he criticized the president on this issue during a rally in a packed Tehran stadium on April 29.



"Today, 30 percent of our young people are out of jobs and unemployment is over 12 percent," Raisi said. "Does this situation have to continue? Do we have to wait for foreigners to fix our problems?"



Raisi said the country was facing "an unacceptable situation because of weak management."



Qalibaf also attacked Rohani's economic management during a televised debate on April 28, which featured all six approved presidential candidates.



A debate scheduled for May 5 will focus on political issues, while a May 12 event will focus on the economy.



With reporting by Reuters, Khamanei.ir, and Farsnews.com
Videos Appear Defending Iranian Presidential Hopeful's Role in 1988 Prisoners Massacre

05/01/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

Since Ebrahim Raisi announced his candidacy for Iran's presidency, videos have been appearing online defending the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners, which Raisi implemented as part of a special committee.



Ebrahim Raisi, candidate in Iran's Presidential election





The videos were recently published without clear indications of who or what organization produced them. However, some have been posted by Raisi's official campaign page on the Telegram messaging application, which is widely used in Iran.

The head of Iran's wealthy Astan Quds Razavi religious and business conglomerate, Raisi is current President Hassan Rouhani's main rival for the country's elections on May 19.

In 1988, as the deputy prosecutor of Tehran, Raisi was appointed by the founder of the Islamic Republic, the late Ruhollah Khomeini, to the "Death Committee," which implemented the executions of thousands of political prisoners who had already been tried and sentenced.

As a result of Raisi's bid, the extrajudicial executions of 1988 have for the first time become an issue during a presidential election in Iran. Civil rights activists and human rights groups have been publicly criticizing him for his role in the massacre.

In response, Raisi's official campaign page on Telegram, Raisi Amad (Raisi has Arrived), posted a three-minute video titled "Wolves" on April 11 justifying the executions.

The video claimed the victims were executed because they were all members of the outlawed opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalgh (MEK), which launched armed attacks against Iran in the 1980s.



Ebrahim Raisi at a campaign rally in Tehran



According to historical and personal accounts, the political prisoners were executed based on their answers to questions about their political and religious beliefs during one meeting with the committee Raisi served on in Tehran.

The prisoners, who had previously been tried and sentenced, did not have access to a lawyer or any form of due process during the inquisition-like proceedings. Nor were they informed that they were facing death when they faced the committee.

"This (video) is an effort by Raisi's fans to whitewash his role by saying his massacre of political prisoners was a natural and legitimate reaction," tweeted journalist Behrooz Samadbeygi on April 26, 2017. "How will Rouhani's supporters respond?"

Raisi has a history of advocating for the death penalty against dissidents.

When Arash Rahmanipour and Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani, members of Tondar, an outlawed pro-monarchist group, were executed in January 2010, Raisi, then the first assistant to the Judiciary chief, supported the action.

"These two who were executed (Rahmanipour and Zamani) and the nine others who will be executed soon once their crimes have been proven, were arrested during recent disturbances (following the disputed 2009 presidential election)," said Raisi on February 2, 2010, according to the hardline Fars News Agency.

"They were connected to anti-revolutionaries who intended to create discord and overthrow the state," he added.

While publicly criticizing the 1988 massacre is a taboo topic in Iran, some people have publicly spoken out against Raisi's role.

"Today's Iran is not the same as the Tehran prosecutor's office in the summer of 1988," said a student from Yazd University at a presidential debate in late April.
Microsoft made some much needed changes to Windows Defender with the Creators Update. The built-in anti-virus app is renamed the Windows Defender Security Center, and as that name suggests, its a more fleshed-out security suite.

Its not that Windows Defender has any new features. What Microsoft has done for the most part is bring together a number of security settings in Windows 10 that were scattered throughout the system.

Ian Paul/PCWorld Windows Defender pre-Creators Update.

The old Defender was a very bare-bones utility. The Home tab showed a confirmation that it was active, whether virus and spyware definitions were up-to-date, and when the last scan was.

There were also tabs to manually retrieve updates to spyware definitions and to view your Defender history. Other than that there was a link to access Defenders options in the Settings app, as well as a Help menu.

That was it.

The landing page of the new Windows Defender Security Center is clearly a different beast. Information about your latest scan and spyware definitions are still there, but thats just the beginning.

Ian Paul/PCWorld Windows Defender Security Center shows all its categories on the main screen, as well as in a lefthand menu.

Instead of three tabs at the top, the new Defender has an icon-based menu on the left side. Similar to other built-in apps for Windows 10, the menu only shows icons, and clicking the three-line menu icon expands to display the title for each icon.

You dont really need that menu, however, as each item is also displayed in the main window complete with icon, explanation, and current status.

Heres a quick tour of the new Security Center.

Virus & threat protection

Ian Paul/PCWorld

Clicking on the top menu item lets you manage the basic spyware and virus capabilities of Defender. Here youll see your scan history, the ability to run a quick or more advanced scan, change your threat and protection settings, and update your anti-virus definitions.

Device performance & health

Ian Paul/PCWorld

The second section includes a Health Report that details your most recent scan, and (rather unbelievably) the option to reinstall Windows. Microsoft has once again moved and renamed its feature for reinstalling Windows. For the Anniversary Update, the option was called Reset this PC and was in the Update & Recovery section of the Settings app. (You can still get to this option from the old location, but it takes you to Windows Defender Security Center.)

Now its accessible from Windows Defender under the name Fresh start. Click Additional info in this section to open a second screen. From here, click Get started to reseergive your PC a fresh start.

Firewall & network protection

Ian Paul/PCWorld

The Windows Defender Security Center is now the starting place for the Windows Firewall. At the moment, there arent many settings here. Instead, all you see is the current status of the firewall. Clicking the links at the bottom of this window leads to either the Control Panel or the Settings app, with the exception of Firewall notifications settings. We can only assume that in the future Microsoft will move more firewall settings into Defender.

App & browser control

Windows SmartScreen controls are a helpful feature for novice and intermediate users. SmartScreen scans incoming files and apps for suspicious behavior.

Ian Paul/PCWorld

The generic Windows SmartScreen used to be in the Control Panel, while the Edge and Store SmartScreens were in the Settings app. All the SmartScreen incarnations are now in the Defender Security Center.

Family options

The last section includes a link to various parental controls including the ability to limit screen time for your children, Windows activity reports for children, and so on.

Ian Paul/PCWorld

Below the parental controls theres a link to manage all the various Windows 10 devices for your family members.

The family options are the least interesting part of Defender, because this screen doesnt actually house any settings. Clicking any of the links here takes you to Microsofts site, where all family information is managed as part of your Microsoft account.

Theres a lot more to Windows Defender than in previous iterations of Windows 10 and no doubt this security suite will become even more capable in the future.
The Ghana Employers Association (GEA) has commended Organised Labour and all workers of Ghana for their immense and invaluable contribution towards the promotion, sustenance and development of the socio-economic wellbeing of the Ghanaian.



The monumental sacrifices made by the working people of Ghana towards nation building and national progress are highly commended.

A statement signed by Mr Alex Frimpong, the Chief Executive Officer of GEA and copied to the Ghana News Agency has indicated.

The statement said the theme Ghana @ 60: Mobilising Ghanas Future through the creation of Decent Jobs could not have been chosen at a better time when the clarion call by Ghanaians was about creating jobs for the growing number of unemployed citizens especially the youth.

Unemployment is increasingly that sustainable, pragmatic and realistic policies that would be adopted and implemented to create the needed jobs.

It is the firm belief of GEA that employment creation and by extension economic development cannot be successful in an atmosphere of industrial unrest, disagreements and misunderstanding at both the enterprise and national levels.

The social partners, therefore, have to deepen the culture of dialogue and consultations in our collective desire to build a harmonious industrial relations environment which is a prerequisite for investment attraction into the country.

There must be mutual respect for the rights of workers and employers through education and sensitisation of the social partners, the statement said.

It said employers are equally of the conviction that the Ghanaian workplace 60 years ago had seen significant transformation due to a host of factors including; demographic changes, technological developments as well as changing consumer needs, tastes and preferences.

The new workplace would, therefore, require a new orientation, new attitude and a renewal of our minds to complement efforts of employers to improve productivity, human resource development, national competitiveness and prosperity.

Once again on behalf of all employers in Ghana, the GEA would like to express its sincerest appreciation to the gallant workers of Ghana for their unflinching support for enterprise sustainability, national socio-economic development, the building of a resilient national economy and robust democratic culture that would rekindle hope for a prosperous Ghana, the statement said.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
A 20-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University student was killed overnight in the Carver neighborhood, adjacent to the university.



Samuel Kwarteng, from Alexandria, Va., was shot and killed during an altercation off campus in the 1200 block of W. Moore Street, VCU President Michael Rao announced. Kwarteng resided in the 1700 block of Jacqulin Street, according to police, and the suspect charged with involuntary manslaughter resided at the Moore St. home.



"It is with great sadness that I inform the university community of the tragic death this morning of a VCU student," Rao said.



I am sure you join me in sending our thoughts and prayers to Samuel's family and friends in this time of great loss," Rao continued. "The VCU Counseling Center has been alerted and its services are available to anyone who needs assistance in dealing with this tragic event."



Cousin of shooting victim says Sam Kwarteng, 20, was a senior at VCU studying in the electrical engineering program



Kwarteng died on the front porch of the home.



The suspect, Emmanuel E. Jordan, 20, of the 1200 block of West Moore Street, was arrested shortly afterward, Richmond Police said. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter.



The suspect, Emmanuel E. Jordan, 20, of the 1200 block of West Moore Street, was arrested shortly afterward. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter.



A neighbor said that the home is occupied by about eight young people and there is always a lot of activity in the home.



Witnesses said they heard people screaming and arguing and then they heard gunfire. A neighbor with three children said they were hiding in fear.



Rao said the incident was isolated.



Family members told CBS 6 reporter Claudia Rupcich that Kwarteng was "was a very committed, loving, and happy person," and that he "always wanted his loved ones to be happy." A cousin of the victim said that Kwarteng was a senior, studying electrical engineering. Casey Bannon grew up with Kwarteng in Northern Virginia and the two attended Mount Vernon High School.



"He treated me like a brother," Bannon said. "We didn't look alike, but he always treated me like we did."



Friends took to social media with messages of shock and sadness.

video below-





<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdailygraphicghana%2Fvideos%2F1207950779317704%2F&show_text=0&width=400" width="400" height="400" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>

Source: wtvr.com









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Featured Video
Founder and leader of Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Madam Akua Donkor says she resisted an attempt by government taskforce to seize her vehicle.



According to her, some people approached her a month ago to seize her 44 Pajero with registration number GT 6028  16 but she put up a fierce resistance.



Ex-ministers who served under former president John Mahama who have state vehicles in their possession have been asked by the Akufo Addo led-government to return the cars.



There have been chaotic seizures of vehicles from former government appointees by persons acting on behalf of the government.



The task force is composed of officials from the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Revenue Authority (Customs Division), the Bureau of National Investigations, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority and the Office of the President.



It is unclear why the Taskforce allegedly attempted to seize Akua Donkors car, but it would be recalled that the latter who was a strong supporter of then President Mahama in the runup to the 2016 election, revealed last year that then President Mahama gave her two Mitsubishi Pajero vehicles and a house.



Akua Donkor claimed the ex President gave her the items after flagbearer of the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom took his Tundra vehicle from her.



But she later retracted and claimed she made those claims earlier to spite Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom.



Madam Akua Donkor speaking in an interview with Kasapa FM said she handed over her cars documents for verification and the task force didnt find anything that indicated the vehicle belongs to the state.



What annoys me is that Ive never been a Minister, MP nor DCE before, these are the people who use state vehicles so why should I be harrased. If I single handedly founded my party and continue to fund it why cant I buy this car they suspect belongs to the state. I can buy 10 of this car, running a party in Ghana is not an easy task at all. I paid for my travels to Italy, America and other countries so why cant I buy this car, she fumed.

Source: kasapafmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Deputy Local Government Minister, O.B. Amoah has expressed concern over the violent agitations that have characterised the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executive list released by the President on Tuesday.



Speaking with Ekourba Gyasi on Atinka AM Drive Thursday, O.B. Amoah mentioned that it is a natural phenomenon for people to agitate over positions but should be done in a more politer way.

He added that Ghana is a democratic state and people cannot be allowed to take matters into their own hands.

If you are not satisfied with the nominations in your district, there are genuine ways of expressing your displeasure which does not include acts of vandalism, he advised.

Source: Atinkaonline









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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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged members of the Council of State not to be sycophants but speak truth to authority.



The constitution mandates the government to select some people to counsel the president.

The regions also elect persons to the Council. You are here to speak truth to the president and not to massage the truth the President stated. He also reminded them about their cardinal role in nation building, urging them not to shy away from that responsibility.

The one setting the path does not know the bunch of errors behind, that is why you have come to counsel the state the President noted. Nana Akufo-Addo said this when he joined hundreds of guests to grace a special thanksgiving service in honour of the chief of Juaben who is also the chairman of the Council of State, Daasebre Otuo Serebour.

Other speakers like the former Catholic Bishop of Kumasi, Emeritus Kwasi Sarpong, also advised the President to be a listening leader. Daasebre Otuo Serebour thanked the President for the opportunity offered him to serve the country promising that he will not renege on his responsibilities.

He also revealed that over 1,000 acres of land is ready to serve as a free zone enclave for the realisation of One District One Factory project by the government. I have allocated one thousand three hundred acres of land for factories to be set on he stated.

He pleaded with the President to create a new district for Juaben, arguing that Juaben has reached the status of becoming autonomous. Our population size is over thirty thousand with enough resources he noted.

Source: 3news









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
WARNING: This story discusses sexual assault.

A study published recently by Alexandra Brodsky at the Yale Law School has brought a disturbing trend into the public discourse: there is, apparently, a growing movement of men removing condoms during consensual sex without their partners knowledge, also known as stealthing.

In an article published on the website for Triple Js Hack last week, an anonymous Australian woman detailed her own experience with stealthing. She wrote that the experience left her feeling violated, and questioning whether or not shed been raped.

Its an alarming thought for many women, and raises some important questions around consent, sexual assault, trust and the law.

So it made sense that todays Hack would be on the same topic  and it found that there is some concerning friction between those who interpret the law, and those who are supposed to enforce it.





Pauline Wright, a lawyer and the current president of the Law Society of NSW, attempted to provide some legal context for the issue. Speaking to host Tom Tilley, Wright said:

Consent in a legal context is about whether the person complaining of the conduct had actually freely and voluntarily agreed to the sexual intercourse. If there is a clear agreement between two people that [theyre] only going to have sex [with a] condom, and then that person without consulting the other person takes the condom off, then that is negating the consent that was given. [Stealthing] is basically getting consent by fraud, or by deception, so its no real consent.

However, Tilley responded with a statement from New South Wales Police, which read in part:

It is not a sexual assault if someone refuses to wear a condom. it becomes sexual assault when consent is not given or its withdrawn, e.g. theyre having consensual sex and one party becomes aware that the condom was removed and tells the partner to stop and the partner continues. Unfortunately theres nothing in the Crimes Act relating to removing a condom during sex without the knowledge of the other party but it is definitely dangerous.

This is a sticking point in much of the discussion around stealthing: is it actually rape? Many of the listeners calling and texting during the segment had experienced it themselves and clearly felt weird and bad because of it, not least because of the overwhelming threat of STDs.

Removing the one thing that consent to a sexual experience hinges on, without telling the person youre having sex with? I mean, that sure seems like rape to me.

So for gods sake, for once in our lives, can we all just be cool to each other, and agree to never, ever do this? Thanks.

Source: Triple J.

Image: Getty /Thanatham Piriyakarnjanakul / EyeEm.

Sexual harassment or violence is not acceptable. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual harassment or assault, you can talk to the friendly people at 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732  its never your fault, and there are safe ways to speak out or talk to someone. If you are in immediate danger, call 000.
Legal experts and an author with an inside knowledge of the Colombian prison system have spoken regarding the 22-year-old Adelaide woman charged with drug trafficking in Bogota, with both saying its likely shell receive a fair trial.

Flinders Universitys Professor Andrew Goldsmith, an expert in criminal justice, said Cassie Sainsbury can expect an unbiased trial after 5.8kg of cocaine was found stashed within her luggage.

Despite statements from Sainsburys family that the Colombian legal system may be corrupt and that authorities may choose to single her out, Prof Goldsmith said Im not aware of any Colombian judges looking to make an example of someone like her because shes a foreigner.



Prof Goldsmith added that drug mule cases are a dime a dozen in Colombia, reducing the likelihood of Sainsburys case being exceptional.





Australian National Universitys Professor Donald Rothwell reckoned Colombias desire to improve its international perception after a tumultuous recent history means they will try to make sure the case is dealt with fairly.

Rusty Young, who has penned a book on Colombias prisons, agrees with that perception. He said Ive lived there for eight years, Ive worked with the government there, and I believe, particularly for these sort of low-level cases, I dont think the judicial system is corrupt at that level.

That doesnt mean Sainsbury has it easy, though. Young said hed be very concerned if he were in her situation, given the violence and reported overcrowding in El Buen Pastor, the prison in which Sainsbury is currently being held.

Its obviously still a very terrifying experience compared to living in comfortable Australia.

Its believed Sainsbury may face an extended wait to face a trial before a jury, and since Australia has no prisoner transfer agreement with the South American nation, shed have to stay in the Colombian system to serve her time.

As for her case itself? Well, Prof Rothwell said the facts as reported are pretty much against her. Well keep you updated on this one.



Source: ABC / AdelaideNow.

Photo: Scotty Broadbridge / Facebook.
Pope Francis has a serious problem: he is physically incapable of being photographed speaking into a mic without looking like he is spitting some of the fiercest rhymes ever put to paper. This is the kind of thing thatll threaten another Catholic schism  this one more in line with the East Coast / West Coast division.

The original pic went thoroughly viral a couple of years ago, and rightfully:

His psalms are sweaty, knees weak, cross is heavy pic.twitter.com/fswDx2yQ4I  The Mortgage Haver (@andycam_) November 30, 2015

Now, The Old Pope (who must be referred to by this name to distinguish himself from Jude Laws Young Pope) is back, flying a mile high in his plane, as captured by this Reuters pic:

Pope urges mediation to end N.Korea crisis, avert devastating war https://t.co/dYqEUly9Ab pic.twitter.com/dD0JEgDQFZ  Reuters Africa (@ReutersAfrica) April 30, 2017

On the whole I prefer this pic, because it looks like its at the peak of a rap battle and the Popes homeboys have to physically restrain him to stop him from throwing hands. I didnt enter the seminary for this shit, theyre thinking. I didnt give my life to Christ to restrain the Pope from murdering a young MC.

BREAKING: Popes rap battle showing so fly hype men have to hold him back. ?????? #PopeFrancis #DopeFrancis pic.twitter.com/5ZR0BVEvbB  (((John Hayes))) (@justjohnhayes) April 29, 2017

**BEAT DROPS** Pope: oh shiiiiiiit.Microphone check one two what is this, the pope of the Francisus with the roughneck business- pic.twitter.com/NuQLiEaOSQ  LuisMiguelEchegaray (@lmechegaray) April 30, 2017

YALL GON MAKE ME LOSE MY MIND

UP IN HERE

UP IN HERE pic.twitter.com/052jE2Avpd  Daniel Ralston (@danielralston) April 30, 2017

@edsbs Allow me to reintroduce myself my name is POPE

P to the O-P(E)

I still save souls, call me goalie

From the devil, this flight is now holy pic.twitter.com/Yn1HWv4JMV  I should be studying (@Mr_Alexius) April 30, 2017

This wonderful video shows it really wasnt just a freeze frame moment. At least if you speed it up dramatically, that is.

Got bored at work today. Pope held his mic like an MC about to lay down sick bars. This was the result. #poperaps #amnewsers #borededitor pic.twitter.com/mfgddPU5B3  Marc Schutz (@4MMarc) April 30, 2017

Right on.

Source: Twitter.

Photo: Reuters.
It was probably just as well that Education Minister Simon Birmingham outlined his savings plan a week before the Federal Budget arrives, cause its going to take a while for voters to come around to the the HECS debt repayment threshold dropping to $42,000.





Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was effectively charged with defending that budgetary decision on Q&A last night, and look, its still not looking like an entirely grouse proposition for would-be students already be questioning the cost of a tertiary education.

While largely dodging the obvious, tangible benefit that university-educated Australians bring to the nation (and to the economy, cause higher earnings necessitate higher taxes), Joyce reminded the panel that loans do actually have to be paid back.

The governments figure for how big that loan is  $52 billion, buy their count  does pose some questions for those in charge of recuperating costs. But Joyce reckoned that since doctors make bank later in their careers, tampering with the threshold and raising fees is justified  Cause everyone who attends university becomes a doctor.

Australian National University vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt even questioned whether the decision is fair and just, considering how many Aussies rely on the governments HECS scheme to attain a higher education. Itll be a hard sell, and this is only the beginning.

Check it out below:

Source and photo: Q&A / ABC.
Sydney folks  especially the type to rock up to a protest or two  might be familiar with Danny Lim.

The self-styled peace activist can regularly be found along the citys east and inner west train lines with a quality sign around his neck. You might remember that one such sign got him into a bit of trouble a few years back, when a couplea gronks decided his implication that former PM Tony Abbott was a cunt (his sign read TONY YOU CANT, with the A upside down to look like a U) was somehow worthy of a $500 fine. (The community rallied around Danny, quickly paying off his fine via a GoFundMe campaign.)

Well, the former councillor and would-be Federal Senator has another role to add to his CV: music video star.

Credit: Mr. Miyagi / Facebook.

The 73-year-old will be appearing as a Mr. Miyagi-type character in a new music video for a Sydney rap group Gee Boyz, likely out next mid-next week.

Sydney creative Prema Smith directed the video, and he told PEDESTRIAN.TV that hed been searching  unsuccessfully  for an elderly Chinese gentlemen for the shoot for a month. [Editors note: Mr. Miyagi, from cult classic The Karate Kid, is Japanese.]

Theres a line in the song that references Mr. Miyagi, yknow, wax on, wax off' he told us.

The shoot was scheduled for Monday 24th April at this $20 million house in Kenthurst, but as of last Sunday, they hadnt yet found their star.

I was running around train stations, looking for a Chinese elderly gentlemen, said Smith. I thought wed have to cancel the shoot. It was 10pm and I was knocking on every taxi, asking the driver if they wanted to be in my music video. Nobody said yes, but even then, they werent what we were looking for.



But along came Danny.





I saw him at Newtown station and just ran up and introduced myself, said Smith, whod never heard of Danny before the chance encounter.

Danny immediately agreed to be a part of the music video, but refused payment. He said he wouldnt do it if we paid him, said Smith.

Which brings us to one of the best images in existence.



Hes so intelligent, and hes just got this great outlook on life, gushed Smith on Danny. Hes someone Ill have in my life for the rest of my life.



The music video, called Mr Miyagi, wont be out till mid next week, but heres a taster below.

(Youll have to turn your phone / head sideways for this one.)

Please never change Danny

Credit: Anya Shcherban / Facebook.

Photo: Prema Smith / Instagram.
PEDESTRIAN.TVs partnered with AirAsia to tell yall about those cheap-as-chips flights were all dying to find. Book HERE + stay updated with deals HERE.

All your annual leave booked up and nowhere to go? Boy do we have some news for you.

The latest in what seems to be a non-stop bonanza of cheap airfare announcements are AirAsias one-way tix to Kuala Lumpur. This comes just a week after the same airline announced cheapies to Seoul, Korea, and if they were a person Id marry them for continuously keeping things interesting.

You can grab the flights direct to KL from right now to May 7, for travel dates between May 4, 2017 and August 31, 2017. The tickets are one-way and exclude extras like baggage and seat selection, which is to be expected with these kind of deals tbh.

Flights are departing from Gold Coast, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, starting from $129* with the option to keep going to Phuket and Bangkok for as lil as $199*.

Referred to by the cool kids as KL, this Malaysian must-do is still relatively underrated and tbh its hard to see why. You can hit up their labyrinth of spooky caves, get lost in culture and hop around the sights of Malaysias capital, such as the slightly-terrifying sky box.

A post shared by ????? A. (@arthur_a89) on Apr 26, 2017 at 3:59pm PDT

A post shared by Sass Dani (@sassdani) on Mar 13, 2017 at 8:35am PDT

Better yet, hit up Borneo when youre done, situated on the Malaysian and Indonesia border, or keep on flying right through to Phuket or Bangkok in Thailand.

While youve probably been there already (maybe you even drank out of a bucket; I did), we recommend hauling ass back over there and seeing all the things you missed out on when you were strapped for time. This is the opp youve been waiting for. Whether its a 2-hour ferry from Phuket to the stunning Phi Phi Islands full of limestome cliffs, viking caves, white-sand beaches and snorkelling opps, this is the luxe yet chill vaycay you need and deserve.

A post shared by Tourism Thailand (@tourismthailand) on Feb 10, 2016 at 8:56am PST

All thats left to do is convince the boss.

Photo: Flickr / Jorge Lascar.

*terms and conditions apply. Visit AirAsia.com.au for details.
The worst fears of those who knew missing Uber driver Krysten Laib have been realized. The body of the 45-year-old who has been missing since April 11 in eastern Pennsylvania has been found and identified, according to media reports.

The Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office announced that Laib's remains had been positively identified late last week after her remains were recovered from the Delaware River in Philadelphia on Wednesday, according to CBSPhilly.com and Philly.com.

Her death has been ruled a suicide.

Since Laib's Uber car was recovered during the missing person search on April 15, police believed Laib intended to harm herself. Her family had reported her missing on April 11.

Laib, of Abington Township, Montgomery County, was last seen around 4:45 a.m. April 11 in Philadelphia. She had dropped off a passenger on Axe Factory Road near Pennypack Park just prior to last speaking with a family member.

She hadn't been seen or heard from since.

Her car was later found near the Ben Franklin bridge. Afterward, Police announced that they believe Laib's disappearance was voluntary and that she intended to harm herself. It was not immediately clear what evidence found in the car led police to this conclusion.

The search for her remains ended last week with the positive identification by the Philadelphia Medical Examiner.
When Pa. police arrived, they found the young mother clutching her baby daughter, who was clad only in a diaper.

According to police in Allegheny County, the 10-month-old had ingested heroin and fentanyl - and was totally unresponsive, WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh reports.

Luckily, first responders had naloxone, a drug which counteract heroin overdose effect. But police say it took two doses of the drug before the baby girl responded, WPXI reports.

Now the young mother, identified by WPXI as Laurel Hopta, 27, of Aleppo Township, is facing charges following her daughter's overdose late last week.

According to the news station, she tells police she had gone to draw a bath for the baby, and when she came back into the room the baby was unresponsive.

According to police, however, Hopta was arrested just two weeks prior in a grocery store parking lot for doing heroin, WPXI reports. She did not have her daughter with her at the time.

This time around, police say Hopta's boyfriend allegedly left behind the drugs the baby ingested before moving out a couple of week ago, WPXI reports, adding:

Hopta faces charges of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.
An entrepreneur with ties to Boiling Springs is set to bring his big idea to "Shark Tank."

Bill Thompson will appear 9 p.m. Friday, May 5, on the ABC program, according to The Sentinel. The 1996 Boiling Springs High School graduate will pitch the "Thompson Tee," an undershirt that prevents sweat marks under your arms, to "The Sharks."

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the program, "The Sharks" are "tough, self-made, multi-millionaire and billionaire tycoons," according to ABC's website. Entrepreneurs, like Thompson, pitch their ideas to them for a chance of securing a business deal.

Thompson's connections to Pennsylvania don't stop at just Boiling Springs. After he graduated from West Virginia University, he worked for a company in Mechanicsburg, according to The Sentinel.

Thompson went on to sell private jets in southern California. He later developed the patented "Hydro-Shield" sweat-proof technology for the "Thompson Tee" with his business partner Randy Choi.

If you want to find out if "The Sharks" went for his idea, you'll have to see the show.
On Saturday, Hooligans C.C. Central Pa. presented Sled Fest 2017 at Old Sled Works in Duncannon, featuring hot rods and custom cars from 1964 and earlier, a pinup contest, charity auction, live music from the Open Road Trio and the Dirty Devils Trio.

Hooligans C.C. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "preserving the hot rod way of life and everything that goes with it." Its Pennsylvania chapter is the second oldest in the nation.
Hersheypark opened its gates in April for the Springtime in the Park season, but the park opens for the summer season on May 5.

Hours are 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Fridays and Sundays, and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays, from May 5 through May 21.

Beginning Thursday, May 25, the hours extend to 10 a.m.-8 p.m. weekdays, and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. on the weekends. Hours extend on June 2 to 10 a.m.-10 p.m. every day, and until 11 p.m. on Saturdays beginning June 24.

Hersheypark's Boardwark area opens on May 27, with hours from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. Boardwalk hours extend until 8 p.m. beginning June 12 and continue through Aug. 13.

Tickets for regular admission this summer are $64.95, up two dollars from last year's regular admission. The admission for ages 3-8 and for ages 55 and up has also risen by two dollars, to $41.95. However, the admission for those ages 70 and up has dropped three dollars, to $26.95.

If you're interested in what else is coming to Pennsylvania amusement parks this year, we've got a rundown of new attractions and rides at Knoebels, Kennywood and more:

For more details on tickets, hours and rides, visit the Hersheypark website.
WILLIAMSPORT - Fortunately, it was only a drill.

But the exercise that was developed and executed Sunday in downtown Williamsport by UPMC Susquehanna not only looked very real but provided the kind of training that helps police and emergency responders prepare should the real thing ever occur.

"Overall, I'm pretty pleased," said James W. Slotterback, emergency preparedness coordinator for UPMC Susquehanna. "There were a lot of challenges for everyone."

The exercise mimicked elements of what those living in Pennsylvania fortunately have only read about happening elsewhere: The driver of a truck who plows into a parade crowd is fatally shot as are two gunmen who take four hostages in a building two blocks away.

"Things we learn in these things are invaluable," Slotterback said.

Volunteers who played the role of victims and mannequins line one side of the 300 block of West Fourth Street in downtown Williamsport on Sunday morning during a mass casualty exercise staged by UPMC Susquehanna.

Participants were aware of the two scenarios in advance but not the details, he explained.

The parade route attack killed 50 to 60 people and injured another 150, he said.

While no one was actually hit when a pickup truck drove the wrong way east on West Fourth Street from Elmira Street, in its wake lay volunteers and mannequins littering one side of the street.

Emergency personnel assessed each of the injured, with the most serious given immediate treatment and transported to hospitals by ambulance.

The main lobby of Williamsport Regional Medical Center was turned into something similar to a MASH unit with 60 to 70 beds, Slotterback said.

The hospital had its own command center to maintain communications so it knew how many patients to expect and those who needed immediate surgery, he said.

The deceased were placed in a trailer and transported several blocks from the parade location where a temporary morgue was established. A trailer in which autopsies could be performed was there also.

City Police Chief David J. Young called the active shooter-hostage scenario that played out for several hours in the Williamsport-Lycoming Chamber of Commerce building very beneficial.

There were a few communications problems within the building but they were worked out, he said.

The gunmen, who professed loyalty to ISIS, "wounded" several people before barricading themselves on the third floor. A hostage negotiating team and Special Response Teams participated in the event.

The scenario also had one of the gunmen changing clothes with a hostage in an attempt to escape.

The participating agencies, including the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and Pennsylvania Coroners Association, held a critique afterward, Slotterback said.

All those involved including the volunteers who acted as victims were given forms and asked for their feedback, he said.
Rowland Foster

Rowland Foster leaves district court after charges were dismissed against him Wednesday, April 19, 2017, in Bernville, Pa. A district judge dismissed charges against grandfather and pastor Foster, accused of failing to report suspected child neglect that authorities said led to the death of Ella Grace Foster, his 2-year-old grandaughter. District Judge Andrea J. Book issued the ruling following a two-hour hearing in Jefferson Township on Wednesday. Foster, 71, of Lebanon had been charged with failure to report or refer an incident of child abuse. He is pastor for the Faith Tabernacle Harrisburg District.

(Susan L. Angstadt / Reading Eagle via AP)

A charge of failing to report child abuse has been refiled against the grandfather of a two-year-old girl who died after her parents didn't seek medical treatment due to their religious beliefs.

Rowland Foster, 72, of Lebanon, is again charged with failure to report child abuse, a third degree felony, in the death of Ella Foster by the Berks County district attorney.

He is a minister in Faith Tabernacle Church, to which his son and daughter-in-law, Jonathan and Grace Foster of Tulpehocken Township, belong. They are awaiting court action on charges of involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child in connection the death of their daughter, Ella Foster, Nov. 8, 2016.

The charge against Foster was dismissed April 19 by District Judge Andrea Book in Bernville, who said she made her decision after reviewing the child abuse statutes.

"The case will be reassigned to another MDJ. We firmly believe that the Judge erred in dismissing the charges and that is why we have refiled the charges," Adams said.

Charges were refiled on April 28, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 10. Foster remains free on his own recognizance.

At the preliminary hearing April 19, a forensic pathologist said a single shot or dose of antibiotics could have saved the child's life, and that it could have been administered within an hour of her death. She died an invasive infection of her lower respiratory tract, including bronchial pneumonia in both lungs, said Dr. Neil Hoffman.

Trooper Brian Cipko said police were notified of the child's death by a funeral home. He said the family told him they didn't attempt any life-saving measures due to their religious beliefs.

Foster's attorney, Christopher Ferro, said his client was "a grieving grandfather, not a criminal, and to paint this any other way clearly has a religious element to it."

Jonathan Kurland, chief deputy Berks County district attorney, said Rowland, who was a minister, violated his duty to report child abuse. Ministers are mandated reporters, and abuse can include neglect, or causing the death of a child through failure to act.

Kurland said Foster should have known the girl died "because of their lack of care, and that constitutes child abuse."

Ferro claimed Rowland thought the child had a cold when he was called to the home the night before Ella's death to anoint her, which involves asking God's help in curing her illness.
Some of course corrections called for by Attorney General Josh Shapiro Thursday in his final report on the Harrisburg debt crisis have a running start in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

A comprehensive package of municipal debt reform bills was drafted last session and passed by the state Senate before running headlong into the 2016 election cycle and, therefore, out of time for votes in the House.

The four-bill package - the product of a legislative investigation into Harrisburg's plight - was re-introduced in January, has been referred to the Senate's Local Government Committee, and now has a fresh two years to make the trip to Gov. Tom Wolf's desk.

Other recommendations from the grand jury report - intended to give law enforcement more tools to root out public corruption - will have to start from square one.

Shapiro, for example, called for extending the statute of limitations for crimes committed by elected officials and public employees, especially in cases where the conduct isn't discovered until after an official or employee leaves office.

Most of the public corruption charges levied against former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed were dismissed last year when Judge Kevin Hess ruled they needed to be filed within five years of Reed's leaving office.

Shapiro also asked the legislature to give his office jurisdiction to investigate public corruption in county and municipal government.

At present, the attorney general has latitude to take up public corruption cases against state officials, but the office can only look at local officials after a referral from a district attorney. Original jurisdiction, Shapiro said, could help avoid delays that can sometimes make or break cases.

In the Harrisburg case, he said, it "would have given this office the opportunity to jump in almost immediately... while the trail was warm, while the papers were available, while witnesses were available and where we might have been able to dig deeper than we otherwise were able to."

Here's a look at major elements of the debt reform package - many of which dovetail with the AG's report - that made it through the Senate on a series of 50-0 votes last fall.

They would:

* Require that a performance bond or equivalent security cover 100 percent of the construction cost for any major public works project entered into by local government entities.

This was high on Shapiro's list of reforms.

Lack of a performance bond caused major issues for Harrisburg's incinerator project when the contractor hired for a major upgrade in 2003 couldn't complete the project, forcing the Harrisburg Authority into subsequent borrowings both to finish the original project, and to make additional fixes when it failed to work.

* Prohibit one government body from charging a fee to another to provide a guarantee of bonds, something both the City of Harrisburg and Dauphin County did regularly in exchange for backing Harrisburg Authority loans on its incinerator upgrades.

Cross-government guarantees could still be extended to solidify a borrowing; but the guarantor would no longer be able to use its backing as a money-maker, thereby driving up the overall costs of the borrowing.

* Seek to build more transparency throughout the bond process, including clarifications that any proceeds from bond issues or similar borrowings can only be used for the original, specified purposes.

This was also a problem in Harrisburg, state prosecutors allege, when fees charged by the Harrisburg authority were used to support former Mayor Stephen Reed's agenda of economic development projects.

* Clarify that no borrowing can include more than one year of "working capital" - funds meant to keep certain revenue-generating enterprises afloat through its start-up period.

This change is intended to prevent repeat refinancings on bad projects that show little chance of becoming self-sufficient.

* Beef up state review of local government borrowings by requiring filings with the state Department of Community and Economic Development prior to, instead of after, final votes by local officials.

Shapiro, in his report, also suggested giving DCED stronger review authority.

* Create new enforcement provisions for willful violations of the state's debt act, and extend provisions of the state Ethics Act that create a two-year ban on companies from hiring certain state officials they work with to municipal officials and employees authorities to the list of public officials covered by the state's Ethics Act.

Taken together, the measures are designed to prevent a repeat of the problems created by Reed's aggressive use of bond financing for pet projects and budgetary needs.

Reed's actions, executed by municipal authorities that effectively served as rubber stamps for most of his 28 years in office, ultimately left Harrisburg facing a $300 million-plus debt load that forced the capitol city into state oversight.

As Sen. John Eichelberger, R-Blair County, who helped steer the package to the Senate floor in his role as former chair of the Local Government Committee, put it then:

"It was bad practice (in Harrisburg), it was done by people who are still operating in Pennsylvania, and we've got to make sure that something like this doesn't happen anywhere else again."
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Information on candidates who are on the May 16 primary election ballot is being sought by PennLive and the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania.

(Pennlive file photo)

The Pennsylvania League of Women Voters and PennLive are seeking candidate information for a voters' guide to the May 16 municipal primary election.

For the second year PennLive has partnered with the League to gather information for the guide. The League in the last few days sent emails to all candidates who are on the ballot in Dauphin, Cumberland, Perry, Lebanon, York and Lancaster counties with instructions on how they can submit their information for the guide.

Any candidate who has not received such an email is urged to contact Suzanne Almeida, executive director for the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, at salmeida@palwv.org or at 717-234-1576.

The deadline for submitting information for the guide is the end of the day Sunday, May 7.

Information submitted by candidates will be published online at PennLive.com and on the website Vote 411.org about a week prior to the election.
A Lower Paxton Township man is accused of threatening a woman with a knife, telling her he was taking one of her children with him to Puerto Rico.

Jose Jiminez-Acevedo, 31, was charged with terroristic threats, concealing the whereabouts of a child and simple assault in the April 28 incident at her home, Lower Paxton Township police said.

During an argument the night before, the woman accused Jiminez-Acevedo of grabbing her by the neck and squeezing for a couple of minutes, throwing her up against a wall and to the floor, police said.

He also broke her cell phone with a hammer and held a kitchen knife in front of her while threatening to kill her, police said.

Jiminez-Acevedo left with one of her children, telling her he was taking the child to Puerto Rico with him, police said.

The woman had visible injuries, police said. The child was found safe later Friday evening, and Jiminez-Acevedo was found by state police sleeping in a vehicle along the side of a highway. He was arrested and arraigned, and placed in Dauphin County prison in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Jury selections are set for this afternoon for a Carlisle man charged in connection with a shooting last year.

Chad Stanback.

Chad E. Stanback, 44, is going to trial in Cumberland County Court, facing charges of criminal attempt at criminal homicide, aggravated assault, burglary and possession of a firearm.

According to Carlisle police, the incident occurred like this:

Almost a year ago on May 8, police were called to the scene of an early-morning shooting on the 1300 block of North Pitt Street.

Inside the home, police found Antoine Pugh, who had suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach. He told police that Stanback shot him.

Pugh's wife, Damita Pugh-Evans, told police Stanback had been at the house earlier the night before, then came back and started ringing the doorbell. When she opened the door about 4 inches to see who was there, Stanback forced the door open and made his way inside. She told police she saw a black semi-automatic handgun in his hand.

As she went upstairs to hide, Stanback went into the dining room and got into an argument with Pugh before firing one round and leaving the home.

Pugh-Evans told police she heard the shot and saw Stanback leaving the home and fleeing in a red sedan.

Stanback turned himself in the following day.

Stanback is represented by defense attorney Shane Kope. Senior Assistant District Attorney Daniel Sodus is prosecuting the case.

Police say they charged Stanback with possession of a firearm because he is prohibited to do so for being a convicted felon.
Pittsburgh From Above

An aerial view of Pittsburgh's South Side taken on Tuesday April 18, 2017. Barry Reeger | Special to PennLive

Which of Pennsylvania's two largest cities is better positioned for the future?

According to a Philadelphia Magazine piece published Saturday, the answer may surprise you.

The article -- titled "One City in Pennsylvania is Poised to Crush the 21st Century" -- looks at both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia's developing industries, and the urgency with which officials in each are pursuing new leads and cultivating new ideas.

But it's Pittsburgh's embrace of a burgeoning tech industry -- the city is now home to companies like Uber, Google and Amazon -- that solidifies its upward trajectory after decades of industrial decline, the article's author writes. Pittsburgh is also home to cutting-edge research in fields like robotics, a growing film industry, a number of universities and a growing health care industry. (Philly has a sizable "eds and meds" presence as well, it should be noted.)

Overall, though, it's Pittsburgh's dogged efforts under Mayor Bill Peduto to usher in a new post-industrial chapter that stood in contrast with those taking place in Philly, the article found.

"In other places, like Pittsburgh," Ajay Raju, chairman of Dilworth Paxson, told the magazine, "new is embraced. Clever is encouraged. In our city [Philadelphia], it's often not the idea that matters as much as who is delivering the idea."

Yes, Philadelphia can be a very complacent place, Raju said. "It's like a trust-fund city," he added.

Steve Klasko, president and CEO of Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, agreed that Philadelphia is missing a "real sense of urgency about competing for a first-tier position and [being willing] to do whatever it takes to get there."

But there are few concrete solutions offered with that assessment.

Instead, the article stresses the importance of risk taking and of avoiding caution or complacency that verges on paralysis. (For his part, Philly Mayor Jim Kenney has acknowledged tech as key to the city's growth, but some say the city's approach to that goal remains fragmented.)

The article, which can be read in full here, is certainly flattering in its portrayal of Pittsburgh, however, which it compares to a plucky boxer -- "down on its luck, battered against the ropes, but now back in contention and, by all appearances, ready to punch above its weight."

And while Pittsburgh is sure to approve of that message, it's unclear how Philly officials will respond. If the online comments section on the Philly Magazine piece is any indication, though, the City of Brotherly Love will have plenty to say on the subject.
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Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway project.

(PennDOT)

A construction worker had to be freed after being trapped by a shifting reinforcing bar on a bridge pier for the new Central Susquehanna Valley Thruway in Union County Monday morning.

A second worker was also trapped but was able to free himself, said David Thompson, PennDOT District 3 spokesman. The workers are employed by Trumbull Corp. of Pittsburgh.

It took emergency responders an hour to free the trapped worker, Thompson said. Neither had serious injuries, and were taken to a local hospital to be evaluated.

Work was halted by the contractor at the pier until the accident is investigated, and OSHA is on site, Thompson said.

The pier was being built east of Route 15 near the Susquehanna River.

The bridge, estimated to cost $156 million, is the first phase in the $670 million Central Susquehanna Valley Transportation Project.

The CSVT project includes construction of a 13-mille limited access highway connecting Route147 in Northumberland with Routes 11/15 in Snyder County north of Selinsgrove. When completed, the river bridge will be more than 4,500 feet long with a peak elevation of 180 feet. Completion of the project is expected in 2019.
SUSQUEHANNA Twp. -- It's a quiet Monday afternoon at the East Shore Library, and Carl Hisiro is digging eternal bits of American political history out of seemingly depthless cardboard boxes.

This May 29 marks President John F. Kennedy's 100th birthday. And, in his own way, Hisiro, a retired lawyer for the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, is paying tribute.

One by one, he takes the mementoes - a campaign poster featuring a smiling Kennedy during his run for the U.S. Senate; another showing the late president reclining on a sailboat; framed campaign buttons, and a letter written by the late Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis, and puts them in a display case near the library's front door.

It's the product of a lifetime of collecting that Hisiro, 62, began when he was just a teenager. It's a hobby - and obsession, maybe - that's carried him through his adulthood and, now into his retirement.

It's a hobby that's brought him into contact with all kinds of people, including, at one point, the late Theodore C. Sorenson, who was Kennedy's counselor and speechwriter.

As he unpacks his boxes, a patron leaving the library stop to watch and chat.

"My grandmother shook that man's hand," a young man says as he leaves. "He was our greatest president."

And, like many of his generation, it was Kennedy's exhortation to public service that Hisiro says inspired him for a career in government as well.

"John F. Kennedy left a real legacy. The way - and how - he spoke left people, Americans, inspired with hope for the future," he said. "And that transcends to today, even."

Hisiro's collection of Kennedy memorabilia will be on display at the East Shore library through the end of June.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall talks to reporters at the legislature in Regina, Monday, May 1, 2017. The Saskatchewan government says it will invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms so it can keep Catholic school funding for non-Catholic students. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jennifer Graham
Japan's helicopter carrier JS Izumo, top, escorts a U.S. supply ship in the waters off Kozu Island, southwest of Tokyo, in the Pacific Ocean Monday, May 1, 2017. Japan's navy has dispatched its largest destroyer reportedly tasked with escorting U.S. military ships off the Japanese coast, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows JapanAos military a greater role overseas, amid heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula. The Izumo, that left Yokosuka port Monday morning, started to escort the U.S. supply ship after the two vessels met up in the waters off the Boso Peninsula, south of Tokyo, later in the day. (Ren Onuma/Kyodo News via AP)
Humphrey Banack is pictured with a flooded pea field in Round Hill, Alta., on Saturday, April 29, 2017. Prairie farmers are in a bind after bad weather forced them to leave a lot of crops on their fields last fall, and now the problem is being magnified by a cold, wet spring that has delayed seeding. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Codie McLachlan
Into a Lost World: El Triunfo, Chiapas

Story and photos by Nick Rider

An itch to fill an unknown space on the map leads via a long mountain trek to a cloud forest fastness of amazing riches in the wildest part of Mexico.

Holes in the map are what used to inspire people to travel. They saw blank spaces and set out to find what was there, the sheer unknown-ness an irresistible draw. Nowadays, surely, there cant be any such holes left, can there?

Against all odds, the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, the great blade of mountain that separates most of Mexicos southernmost state from its Pacific coast, has remarkably stayed one such space on the map. Main roads go around it, to the north and south. No road crosses it. Mexican maps show only a few dead-end tracks; almighty Google Maps even less. No pre-Hispanic peoples ever settled therethough Maya and Aztec hunting parties did venture uphill in search of the tail feathers of the rare, magical quetzal bird, much prized for the headdresses of kings.

When I wrote a guidebook to southern Mexico I traveled regularly around Chiapas, but the Sierra Madre remained a tantalizingly empty space. I knew that the central area, known as El Triunfo, had been a Mexican Federal Biosphere Reserve since 1990, but I never met anyone whod been there. I did discover that there was just one small organization in Chiapas state capital Tuxtla Gutierrez, Ecobiosfera, authorized to take visitors into the reserve, which took minimal numbers on tough ten-day hikes, going up on the north flank and coming down on the Pacific side. Unfortunately I was never able to fit this into my tight guidebook-writer schedule.

El Triunfo seemed to be the least-known protected area in Mexico. Even today theres scarcely anything about it online. This only made the fascination grow in my head.

Pulled in by the (Almost) Lost World

I couldnt put it off forever. I have a bad hip, which gets worse, so it felt this might be a now-or-never moment. I looked out an old email address, and found Ecobiosfera was still there, as small-scale as ever, and still offering trips. I also found out that while El Triunfo has remained a blank for most travelers, it is known to one specific interest group  birders. Theyve tended to keep it to themselves, but recently Ecobiosfera has made it easier for independent travelers to join groups too, so I signed up for one heading out in early March.

Holes in the map have never been as total as they seemed, of course. In modern times the sole foot trail up and over the sierra was discovered, as Claudia Virgen, director of Ecobiosfera, explained to me, in the 1890s by the German owners of a remote coffee plantation on the north side of the mountains. Finca Prusia (Prussia). They found this was the only way they could get their crop to market, in long mule trains that emerged near the Pacific at Mapastepec.

In the 1940s the pioneer naturalist of Chiapas Miguel Alvarez del Toro followed this same trail. He was searching for the pavon or horned guan, a turkey-like forest bird thought to be extinct. He discovered not only that the guan were still fully alive but that the near-absence of human incursions had allowed the survival of a huge area of untouched primary cloud forest. He found a stunning natural wonderland with quetzals  the only substantial population left in Mexico  400 other bird species, astonishing orchids, and rare, bizarre trees. It was due to his efforts that the first protection measures for El Triunfo were passed in 1972, leading to the establishment of the reserve 18 years later.

In the meantime, a local family called Galvez had also made their way up the trail, and built a small rancho in a clearingthe only settlement of any kind in the central sierra. They moved out when the reserve was created, but several of the family later returned to work at El Triunfo, and Enelfo Galvez, born in the ranchos kitchen, is now chief warden. Their ranch formed the basis of the Campamento El Triunfo where visitors now stay.

Rolling Out With the Birders

On a Sunday afternoon our group met up in Tuxtla Gutierrez. Our guides were Jorge from Yucatan and Amy from Canada, both real experts with a radar-like ability to see, hear and identify birds and other natural phenomena. Of the nine in the group five were pretty committed birders, the rest of us had less set motivations. Paulina, a veterinarian from Queretaro, had made a study of quetzals in a zoo but never seen a wild one; Oscar, from Tampico via Los Angeles, was like me, attracted above all by the idea of seeing untouched wilderness.

We began by driving out from Tuxtla for four hours along a rolling, twisting road up to Jaltenango, a typical Mexican small town of square, market, microtaxis, a couple of hotels, and pretty much the end of the paved road heading south. Along the way we made our first stops to look for birds, and follow the soon-familiar birders routine of standing in silence craning our necks, looking for any color or fluttering in the trees. With each sighting the list of (to me) unfamiliar names multiplied: the groove-billed ani, gartered trogons, tropical mockingbirds

The next day we were up at 5.30 to climb into a kind of cage on top of a rugged old truck that jolted and clanked for five hours to cover just 40 kilometers of rutted dirt track. Eventually, beyond the now decaying plantation house of Finca Prusia, we reached the start of the Prusia trail.

The early start was necessary to allow us to complete the trek in daylight. Our main packs were taken up separately by mule. I hadnt known this when I signed up, and felt for a moment it might make things a little soft, but I rapidly realized that without this luxury wed probably all have come to a dead stop after a couple of hours. Like all the Triunfo trails the Prusia is single-file virtually all the way, zigzagging, curving and dipping again with very few broader patches. Above about 1,800 meters we began to enter the true mountain cloud forest, a dazzling wall of green. After four hours we reached the highest point on the Prusia trail at 2,100 meters, and one of the densest parts of the forest.

I had thought of El Triunfos primeval forest as the main attraction by itself, and assumed that any sighting of its rarest and most endangered species would be unlikely, an icing on the cake, but this isnt really so in El Triunfo. As soon as we entered the high forest Jorge pointed out the call of male horned guans, booming out like old ships foghorns, and on the slope down from the crest we saw a pair of them, their clumsy turkey bodies looking totally ill-suited to perching in high branches. A couple of days later I even got a reasonable picture of one, without the benefit of the birders super-zoom cameras.

After well over six hours, legs complaining, we finally dropped down into Campamento El Triunfo, a grassy bowl in the mountains. The original Galvez house is now the dining room and kitchen, where more Galvez family members, Blanca and Chepi, produced great meals, coffee, and fruit juice. The bunkhouse looks like a Mexican village school, every part of which has been brought up here by mule. There is solar electricity, showers that work, and more comfort than I had ever expected. Temperatures had fallen as we climbed, and it gets cool in the Campamento at night. The climate feels as delicately distinctive as the vegetation: cool shade-patches lick around you, and the first morning sun has a featherlike softness. At dawn, clouds hang around the valley flanks.

Fanning Out From an Isolated Base

For the next three days we explored the Campamento and the trails leading out of it. On the first day three of us and a local guide, Rafael, made the sometimes semi-vertical hike up to the highest peak in the central sierra, the 2,450-metre Cerro El Triunfo that gave the reserve its name. This was our first real immersion into the sheer variety of life in this place: each massive 80-meter tree was the hub of its own ecosystem, entangled in air-breathing bromeliads, orchids, creepers, roots, and fungus. Star bird of the day was a blue-crowned chlorophonia, in green, yellow and blue. We emerged at the top of the Cerro into a clearing, to see a whole vast world laid out below us.

On one walk we almost stumbled into a tapir, drinking placidly from a stream. The calls of the elusive quetzala fast, chatty cluckwere heard frequently, and Paulina saw her first wild one on the first morning at the camp. The next day, I was amazed to see one myself. Quetzals were legendary birds in Mesoamerican mythology, symbols of divine powers. Properly named the resplendent quetzal (since there are five other quetzals, most found much further south), the Mexican quetzal has an iridescent green-and-red body and a green tail thats over four times as long, so that when it flies off you see it as a brilliant streak of luminous color darting across the trees.

Birders can seem obsessive but for a non-birder there are great benefits from travelling with them. Birders accumulate an enormous knowledge of the natural world, which theyre generally happy to share, enabling the uninitiated to notice things that would otherwise be just a pretty blur. Birds provide one door into an environment thats so rich with extraordinary unfamiliar things that otherwise, as Oscar said, you often just dont know where to look. You could just as easily focus on the more than 150 kinds of bromeliad, the 2,000-plus orchids, the trees, frogs, or the astonishing variety of ferns, from an inch long to giant arching canopies above your head.

What goes up must come down, and getting down off the mountain was harder than getting up, requiring two days of seven-hour-plus hikes. Jorge and Amy forced the pace a little to make sure we got there. The Coast Path began with another climb, up to the Continental Divide at 2,200 metres, beyond which there was a fabulous view down towards the Pacific. From there we descended rapidly, through the first of many, many precipitous zigzags. Forest paths are permanently carpeted with dead leaves, which on the one hand provides some cushion when you do fall over, but on the other conceals ankle-twisting loose stones.

After about two hours we entered much drier tropical forest and our surroundings changed astonishingly quickly, with a new scent of pines, more dust, and what felt like an immediate major temperature increase. We spent the night, after dropping down over 800 meters, in dense dry scrub forest at a basic campsite called Limonar.

Completing the Journey to the Pacific

The next day was hotter again, and brought the steepest, most treacherous descents of the whole trail. Staying upright involved constant bets on foot- and walking stick-placement and a fast-diminishing sense of balance. In mid-afternoon, almost at journeys end, Amy announced its going to rain. This seemed impossible, but sure enough within a few minutes we were in a full-on tropical downpour. Some of us started to run, but I knew this would only get me laid out in the leaves, so I went on as fast as I could and got utterly soaked. After a while, dripping under the tin roof of an old ranch called Paval, we carried on to find a truck waiting to meet us, with a freezer box of water and energy drinks. I drank two bottles down straight. I had not realized I was running on empty.

For the last day we transferred to a completely different environment at El Castano in the Encrucijada reserve, a waterworld of coastal mangroves explored by paddle-power. After a late lunch we finally split up. The main group headed back to Tuxtla Gutierrez, but since, to my mind at least, wed walked across the spine of a continent, I felt it more fitting to take a bus to finish up on the Pacific in Mexicos southernmost city, Tapachula.

The empty space had been filled with vivid images. Before writing this piece I asked Claudia Virgen whether Ecobiosfera and El Triunfo actually want any publicityeven birders generally only hear about it through word of mouthin case their stubbornly low profile reflected a deliberate non-marketing strategy. But yes, she said, for El Triunfo needs to be more treasured. Climate change has severely affected it, mining concessions are appearing in parts of the Sierra Madre, Mexicos environmental protection laws are under threat. We have to show what we have, how important it is, she said, the more people know what there is there, the more theyll raise their voices to preserve it.

London-based Nick Rider was the author of the Cadogan guide to Yucatan & Mayan Mexico and original editor of Time Outs Madrid and Barcelona guides. He has contributed to many guidebooks for different publishers on Mexico, Spain, France and other countries. Hes also written for the London Independent and a range of magazines His writing and blog can be found at www.nick-rider.com. All photos by the author.

For information on Ecobiosfera contact cvirgen ( at) ecobiosfera.org.mx.

Related Features:

My Chiapas Misadventure by Tim Leffel

Chasing Butterflies Through Time by Luke Maguire Armstrong

Tourism as a Force for Change in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere by Tim Leffel

Yellowstone by Air in the Freezing Winter by Garrett Fisher





See other Mexico travel stories from the archives
Gretchen Whitmer wins second term as Michigan governor

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defeated Republican challenger Tudor Dixon in the Michigan governor race in the 2022 midterm election to earn a second term.
Brazil evaluating to inpose tariff to curb U.S. ethanol imports





BRASILIA/SAO PAULO

Petroleumworld 05 01 2017

Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi has asked Brazil's foreign trade council to impose tariffs on ethanol imports following a surge in shipments from the United States, an official said on Thursday, a move that could stir trade tensions with the Trump administration.

Brazil is the main market for U.S. exports of corn ethanol which have swelled in recent months to fill a gap left by falling domestic output, as cane farmers in the South American country diverted more of their crop to making sugar because of high prices.

Ethanol imports from the United States increased fivefold to a record 720 million liters in the first quarter - worth some $363 million, according to official trade data.

Most of that went to ports in northeastern Brazil, where ethanol producers are leading calls for the imposition of a 20 percent tariff.

The Agriculture Ministry's secretary for international relations, Odilson Ribeiro, told Reuters the minister sent the request on Wednesday to the foreign trade chamber, known as Camex, that decides on import and export rules.

The seven-minister council is due to meet on Wednesday when the sugar and ethanol industry lobby UNICA hopes the tariff will be approved, though the body has no deadline to decide.

Imposing a tariff on ethanol imports, which come almost entirely from the United States, would put Brazil on a collision course with the more aggressive U.S. trade policy under President Donald Trump.

Brazil scrapped the levy in 2010 as it lobbied for liberalizing the ethanol trade, pressuring the United States to remove its own import tariffs.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Brazil's sugar cane lobby UNICA pressed Maggi, a billionaire soy producer who has not always supported the industry, for a 16 percent tariff.

Ministry officials declined to say whether Maggi had recommended a tariff level, but an aide said the wider trade implications of the decision were being analyzed.

"We are evaluating the impact this could have on Brazil's overall trade relations, especially with the United States," the Maggi aide said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

NOT FAIR TRADE

U.S. ethanol producers have redirected exports to Brazil after China reintroduced a 30 percent ethanol tariff this year.

Edward Hubbard, general counsel for the Renewable Fuels Association that represents U.S. biofuels producers, said the RFA, Growth Energy and the U.S. Grains Council wrote this month to the U.S. Trade Representative about the matter, copying the White House, USDA, and the Department of Commerce.

"Trade is not free and fair if the U.S. opens its door to Brazilian imports but Brazil chooses to erect trade barriers to protect its industry from competition," he told Reuters, adding that U.S. officials had spoken to counterparts in Brazil about the matter.

The Brazilian Energy Ministry's biofuels director, Miguel de Oliveira, warned this week the U.S. government would retaliate if Brazil resorted to ethanol tariffs.

Traders expect the surge in imports to continue even if a tariff is imposed, as big players in Brazil are heavily buying U.S. ethanol, among them Copersucar, which controls biofuel marketer Eco-Energy LLC.

Biosev SA, a unit of trader Louis Dreyfus Co, and Raizen - a joint venture between Brazil's largest sugar producer Cosan and Royal Dutch Shell - are also active buyers, traders said.

"Maybe (it will) reduce the flow a little bit but we still expect them to maximize sugar and still need ethanol," said one U.S. trader, on condition he was not named. He saw no more than a 50-50 chance of tariffs because of the prospect of U.S. retaliation.

UNICA said in a statement to Reuters the levy was needed for environmental reasons because Brazilian sugar cane ethanol produces less greenhouse gas emissions than U.S. corn ethanol, helping Brazil to meet its targets under the Paris climate change agreement.

A spokeswoman for the lobby said UNICA hoped the matter would be settled next week.

Joel Velasco, who led UNICA's efforts to expand biofuel markets in the last decade, said a return to tariffs was the wrong policy at the wrong time.

"Protectionist moves are short-sighted in any climate but especially now when the current U.S. administration would likely retaliate disproportionately," said Velasco, Latin America expert at Albright Stonebridge Group.






This piece, titled, The New Plague, depicts life in Philadelphia in the age of COVID. Artist and educator Raphael Tiberino began painting at the age of four and has been in the spotlight as a professional creative for over 25 years.
Nations involved in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue should do what they can to de-escalate tensions and avoid a military conflict caused by miscalculation, analysts said on Sunday.

The analysts said those nations should realize the necessity of solving the issue in a peaceful manner acceptable to all.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed a dual-track approach of dealing with the peninsula's nuclear issue when attending a special United Nations Security Council ministerial meeting in New York on Friday.

"We must stay committed to the goal of denuclearization," he told representatives from all members of the Security Council.

"All parties should comprehensively understand and fully implement DPRK-related Security Council resolutions," he said.

Wang urged "all parties to remain calm and exercise restraint and avoid provocative rhetoric or actions that would lead to miscalculation".

According to the Republic of Korea's military, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea launched a ballistic missile on Saturday, which apparently exploded seconds after liftoff.

A commentary published in People's Daily on Sunday said Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons is putting itself and the whole region under extremely unsafe circumstances.

It warned that Pyongyang should go no further in the wrong direction by launching missiles, conducting nuclear tests only to receive more sanctions.

"Threatening and confrontation are more than enough concerning the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, however, what the countries and people in the region really need is peaceful and rational voices," the commentary said.

"Only when all related parties conscientiously shoulder their responsibilities and act in the correct way, can the issue be solved and denuclearization be realized on the peninsula as soon as possible."

Da Zhigang, director of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said China, which neighbors the DPRK, is dedicated to helping those on both sides of the issue through mediation.

"However, if Pyongyang continues its nuclear weapon program and Washington and its allies insist on heavy pressure, they risk leading the region into conflicts and even war," he said.

"The key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side, and only those who started the trouble could help end it," he added.

Yu Shaohua, a researcher of Korean Peninsula studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said efforts to prevent the situation from deteriorating should be balanced, with all related parties playing their proper roles.

"Otherwise, the room for peaceful negotiations will be limited and the possibility of going to extremes and conflicts will rise," she said.
Summer is the hungry time of year, when school breakfasts and lunches are no longer available to children in or near poverty.

That puts an extra strain on food cupboards, carved out of the backrooms of churches and community centers where volunteers distribute everything from ham to cupcakes.

For around 500 local cupboards, their food comes from Share Food Program, a multifaceted antihunger organization headquartered in Hunting Park. On Friday, 30 cupboard operators gathered in the program's warehouse to discuss, among other topics, the coming summer and the expected increase in need.

Presiding was Share's director, Steveanna Wynn, a legend in the antihunger community and a key weaver of the safety net that stretches, fraying and thin, beneath the poor of Philadelphia.

"Need at cupboards jumps 15 percent in summer," Wynn said. "Our cupboard coordinators are on the front lines of hunger. They're extremely resilient and dig deeper within themselves to help people, especially this time of year."

While the stock market may be booming, Wynn said, people stuck without work or struggling in low-paying jobs are still having trouble surviving.

Making matters worse, said Wynn and others, is the Trump administration's crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Fearful to congregate in known areas -- like Home Depot parking lots -- to be chosen for day labor, many undocumented immigrants in Philadelphia are choosing not to work, cupboard leaders said.

The result: "More people need our food pantry to eat," said Diana Montes, coordinator of the Tabernacle de la Fe food cupboard in Hunting Park. "We're now dipping into our reserves to make up for the 5 to 10 percent increase in people needing our help."

In some cases, parents are not showing up for their appointments at the offices of WIC (the federal Women, Infants, and Children food and nutrition service) because they're afraid immigration agents might grab them and deport them, antihunger experts have said. They choose cupboards instead, with a corresponding depletion of resources.

One of the biggest sources of summer food in Philadelphia is the federally funded Nutritional Development Services summer meals program, supervised by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The program feeds children of all backgrounds in Philadelphia and the surrounding four Pennsylvania counties, said Andrea Brophy, assistant administrator of the summer needs program. Brophy was on hand at the Share meeting.

The NDS program feeds kids at such places as day-care centers, YMCAs, and even the homes of individuals who volunteer to distribute food on their streets.

The program, and summer feeding sites run by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, as well as the Philadelphia Housing Authority, are the main sources of food for children 18 and younger in the area.

On average, roughly half the children who eat free and reduced-price lunches in Philadelphia schools avail themselves of summer feeding programs, antihunger advocates say. Cupboards are called on to take up the slack, they add.

The pre-summer-feeding months have "an air of excitement about them as we get ready to roll," Brophy said. "By the time summer starts, it's fast and furious. We never rest in the anti-hunger world."

And regardless of the year, one hard fact is true every summer, Brophy said:

"Not much changes for the poor. We see hunger all the time."
Perhaps the best negotiators are not the people who tell everyone that they are the best negotiators.

A spending agreement was reached Sunday night that will keep the government funded through the end of September. This will be the first significant bipartisan measure passed by Congress since Donald Trump took office.

 The White House agreed to punt on a lot of the president's top priorities until this fall to avert a shutdown on Friday and to clear the deck so that the House can pass a health care bill. "This is going to be a great week," Gary Cohn, Trump's chief economic adviser, said on CBS this morning. "We're going to get health care down to the floor of the House. We're convinced we've got the votes, and we're going to keep moving on with our agenda."

Everything is happening so fast  or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies  but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We're launching a newsletter to explore just that. Sign up here.

 But Democrats are surprised by just how many concessions they extracted in the trillion-dollar deal, considering that Republicans have unified control of government.

Trump's longtime lawyer Michal Cohen bragged during the campaign: "He's an amazing negotiator, probably the best in this world."

On Sunday, the president acknowledged he has a lot to learn. "I think the rules in Congress and, in particular the rules in the Senate, are unbelievably archaic and slow moving and, in many cases, unfair," Trump said on CBS's Face the Nation. "In many cases, you're forced to make deals that are not the deal you'd make. You'd make a much different kind of a deal. You're forced into situations that you hate to be forced into."

 You can read the 1,665-page bill here. The House Appropriations Committee posted a department-by-department breakdown here.

 Now that the language has posted, here are the eight most notable areas Trump caved in his first big spending negotiation:

1. There are explicit restrictions to block the border wall. We knew last week there would be no money to start construction on a project that the president says is more important to his base than anything else. But the final agreement goes further, putting strict limitations on how Trump can use new money for border security (e.g. to invest in new technology and repair existing fencing). Administration officials have insisted they already have the statutory authority to start building the wall under a 2006 law. This prevents such an end run.

The $1.5 billion for border security is also half as much as the White House requested. Additionally, there are no cuts in funding to sanctuary cities, something a federal judge said last week would be required for the Justice Department to follow through on its threats. And there is also no money for a deportation force.

2. Non-defense domestic spending will go up, despite the Trump team's insistence he wouldn't let that happen. The president called for $18 billion in cuts. Instead, he's going to sign a budget with lots of sweeteners that grow the size of government. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made sure $4.6 billion got put aside to permanently extend health benefits to 22,000 retired Appalachian coal miners and their families. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made sure $295 million was included to shore up Medicaid in Puerto Rico. Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the cost of protecting Trump when he travels to his residences in Florida and New York. There is also another $2 billion in disaster relief money for states, which bought a couple votes.

3. Barack Obama's cancer moonshot is generously funded. The administration asked to slash spending at the National Institutes of Health by $1.2 billion for the rest of this fiscal year. Instead, the NIH will get a $2 billion boost  on top of the huge increase it got last year. Republican appropriators who care about biomedical research, including Rep. Tom Cole (R., Okla.) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R., Mo.) delivered.

Trump also failed in his efforts to cut money for other kinds of scientific inquiry. For example, he proposed defunding the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. Instead, it is getting a $15 million increase.

4. Trump fought to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by a third. The final deal trims its budget by just 1 percent, with no staff cuts. As part of a compromise, the EPA gets $80 million less than last year, but the budget is $8 billion.

5. He didn't defund Planned Parenthood. Despite the best efforts of social conservatives, the group will continue to receive funding at current levels.

6. The president got less than half as much for the military as he said was necessary. Trump repeatedly prodded Congress to increase military spending by $30 billion. He's getting $12.5 billion, with an additional $2.5 billion if/when he delivers a detailed plan on how to defeat the Islamic State. Many Democrats from states with bases and manufacturers, especially those up for reelection in 2018, wanted this too. Like Trump, they will tout the increased spending as a victory. The White House plans to call this a down payment on a much bigger investment down the road.

7. Democrats say they forced Republicans to withdraw more than 160 riders. These unrelated policy measures, which each could have been a poison pill, would have done things like get rid of the fiduciary rule and water down environmental regulations. On the other side of the ledger, this budget blocks the Justice Department from restricting the dispensing of medical marijuana in states where it has been legalized.

8. To keep negotiations moving, the White House already agreed last week to continue paying Obamacare subsidies. This money, which goes to insurance companies, reduces out-of-pocket expenses for low income people who get coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration justifies giving up on this because of the potential to resolve the bigger issue by repealing Obamacare.

Soon after the deal was reached Sunday night, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi quickly put out celebratory statements. But McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan did not.

The lack of aggressive messaging from Republican leadership, and especially the White House, late Sunday is one of the reasons that coverage is so lopsidedly bad for them in Monday morning's papers and on cable news.

"Overall, the compromise resembles more of an Obama administration-era budget than a Trump one," Bloomberg reports.

The Associated Press calls it "a lowest-common-denominator measure that won't look too much different than the deal that could have been struck on Obama's watch last year."

Reuters: "While Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, Democrats scored . . . significant victories in the deal."

The Los Angeles Times describes the agreement as "something of an embarrassment to the White House":

"Trump engineered the fiscal standoff shortly after he was elected, insisting late last year that Congress should fund the government for only a few months so he could put his stamp on federal spending as the new president."

The headline on FoxNews.com is "Spending bill language omits border wall funding, sanctuary cities crackdown": "It also rejects White House budget director Mick Mulvaney's proposals to cut popular programs such as funding medical research and community development grants."

New York Times A1: "The deal should spare Republicans the embarrassment of seeing the government shut down on their watch. But it also gave a glimpse of the reluctance of lawmakers to bend to Mr. Trump's spending priorities, like his desire for sharp cuts to domestic programs."

The Wall Street Journal's headline notes the $2 billion for Obama's moon shot, plus the EPA and Planned Parenthood being left intact.

"Congressional negotiators basically told the Trump administration to take a hike," David Nather writes on Axios.

NPR says Democrats "flexed their leverage in spending negotiations."

Vox: "Conservatives got almost nothing they wanted."

The bigger picture: "Trump is a nightmare negotiating partner," writes USA Today commentary editor Jill Lawrence, who wrote a book called The Art of the Political Deal. "The only constants with Trump are unpredictability and expediency. These are not, suffice it to say, the traditional cornerstones of getting to yes in politics."
Why couldn't we all just get along?

That's what President Trump wants to know about the Civil War. In an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito, our president-historian posits that the war might not have happened if only Andrew Jackson had still been around. The whole thing apparently could have been avoided if only we had a bona fide negotiator  someone more up to the task than Low Energy Abe Lincoln.

Here's the exchange:

TRUMP: [Jackson] was a swashbuckler. But when his wife died, did you know he visited her grave every day? I visited her grave actually because I was in Tennessee.

ZITO: That's right. You were in Tennessee.

TRUMP: And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. They love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee.

ZITO: He's fascinating.

TRUMP: I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, "There's no reason for this." People don't realize, you know, the Civil War  if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

One glaring issue here: Jackson wasn't really angry about what was happening with the Civil War, because he died more than a decade (1845) before it started (1861).

But that small matter aside, this actually sounds pretty familiar for Trump. Just last week, in an interview with Reuters, Trump suggested there was really no reason for the Israelis and the Palestinians to have been fighting for all these decades.

"I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians," Trump said. "There is no reason there's not peace between Israel and the Palestinians  none whatsoever. So we're looking at that, and we're also looking at the potential of going to Saudi Arabia."

No reason whatsoever! You know, besides the whole claim-to-the-very-same-holy-land thing. Minor details.

What's remarkable about this language is that it sounds like a lefty pacifist, and Trump is at the very same time talking about the prospect of a "major, major conflict" with North Korea. Apparently the Civil War and the long-standing Middle East conflict have just been lacking in diplomacy; North Korea may be beyond that.

Historians with more academic experience than Trump have indeed asked this question about the Civil War often. It's a hugely difficult one to answer, a century-and-a-half later. And to say it with the certainty Trump does  "you wouldn't have had the Civil War" with Andrew Jackson  is just foolhardy.

It's also a question that unpacks all kinds of issues with slavery. It's generally assumed that a deal to avert the Civil War would have included concessions to Southern states having to do with their right to own slaves  the central dispute of the Civil War. Is Trump saying he would have been OK with a more partial or gradual phasing out of slavery? Was there really a deal to be cut on that front? Or does he think Jackson, a slave owner himself, would have convinced the South to abandon slavery immediately, somehow?

It's also a highly questionable statement in the context of Trump's own foreign policy. If the United States does have to get involved in a foreign conflict, Trump is opening himself up to suggestions that such conflicts could have been avoided if only he were a stronger negotiator. If Middle East peace isn't attained by the time he leaves office, it will apparently be because he and adviser Jared Kushner simply weren't Andrew Jackson.

But mostly it's just a completely bizarre claim that, once again, suggests a president who speaks loudly and confidently about things he simply doesn't understand.

Everything is happening so fast  or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies  but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We're launching a newsletter to explore just that. Sign up here.
If you didn't know better, you'd swear President Trump actually likes Kim Jong Un.

At least, that's the impression he's leaving  and apparently deliberately so. Over the past week, Trump has made comments about the North Korean dictator that occupy the middle of the Venn diagram between empathy and flattery.

But Trump has now taken things a step farther  much farther  saying he would be "honored" to meet with Kim.

First Trump told Reuters on Friday: "He's 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want, but that is not easy  especially at that age." Trump then clarified: "I'm not giving him credit or not giving him credit; I'm just saying that's a very hard thing to do." (Side note: This is the very definition of giving credit.)

Then Trump added to CBS News this weekend: "At a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie." (Side note: Kim Jong Un had his uncle Jang Song Thaek executed, which is certainly one way to retain power.)

And finally, in a just-published interview with Bloomberg, Trump cuts to the chase: He wants to talk  if the conditions are right.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely," Trump said, adding: "I would be honored to do it."

He added: "Most political people would never say that, but I'm telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news."

Breaking news indeed. And now we know the real reason Trump has been saying all those nice things. Combined with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson floating the idea of diplomacy last week, it's clear what Trump is getting at here: He wants to cut a deal.

Some immediately compared Trump's posture here to President Barack Obama saying in 2008 that he was open to negotiating with Iran without preconditions. It's not quite the same thing, though, as Trump emphasized  repeatedly  that there very much needs to be preconditions.

The part of Trump's comments that should raise eyebrows are the ones where he says not only that he would meet with Kim, but that he would be "honored" to do so. It's one thing to talk with an adversarial foreign leader; it's another to lend them the legitimacy of saying you, the president of the United States, would be honored to meet them.

Kim consolidated power by executing not just his uncle, but another estimated 140 or so senior officials in the North Korean government. Most recently, he is believed to be behind the assassination of his half brother Kim Jong Nam in Malaysia. It's one thing to give Kim credit for staying in charge of a struggling nuclear power; it's another to acknowledge the means by which he has accomplished this.

Imagine if President Barack Obama had said he would be "honored" to meet with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 2008. The feeding frenzy would have been swift, and it would have been led by Republicans.

Trump's own history of comments about authoritarian leaders make this less than shocking, of course. He has praised the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein for killing terrorists without worrying about due process. He said the world would be "100 percent" better with Moammar Gadhafi in charge of Libya. He has of course praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. He retweeted a Mussolini quote. He congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently on growing his presidential powers. And he gave Egyptian President President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi the thumbs-up in a shift in U.S. policy.

Trump's recent comments about Kim actually echo what he said in Iowa in January 2016, when he pointed more directly to the North Korean leader killing his political opponents.

"It's incredible," Trump said. "He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one. I mean this guy doesn't play games. And we can't play games with him."

In other words, it's clear Trump knows how Kim has stayed in power. And even considering his past praise of authoritarians, his decision to say Kim is worthy of "honor" and is a "smart cookie" suggests Trump has more admiration for authoritarians even than he lets on.

Everything is happening so fast  or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies  but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We're launching a newsletter to explore just that. Sign up here.
One hundred days ago, I took the oath of office and made a pledge: We are not merely going to transfer political power from one party to another, but instead are going to transfer that power from Washington, District of Columbia, and give it back to the people.

In the past 100 days, I have kept that promise  and more.

Issue by issue, department by department, we are giving the people their country back. After decades of a shrinking middle class, open borders and the mass offshoring of American jobs and wealth, this government is working for the citizens of our country and no one else.

The same establishment media that concealed these problems  and profited from them  is obviously not going to tell this story. That is why we are taking our message directly to America.

We have opened the White House doors to listen, engage and act. We've invited in labor leaders, factory owners, police officers, farmers, veterans and Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The change began with the termination of the Trans-Pacific Partnership  a 12-nation pact that would have shipped millions more jobs to other countries.

But leaving the TPP was only the beginning. We have also launched an investigation into foreign trading abuses and taken steps to protect the production of American steel and aluminum. After years of federal contracts going to foreign bidders, we are ensuring that government agencies enforce "Buy American" rules and give preference to American companies  and that American companies hire American workers.

Crucially, to bring back our jobs, we are going to pursue a complete renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement: We've lost nearly a third of our manufacturing jobs in the 23 years since that terrible deal was approved.

At the center of our economic agenda, we've undertaken the most far-reaching effort in history to remove job-killing regulations. I've ordered that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated. We've signed a record 13 Congressional Review Act resolutions to scrap job- crushing regulations, and I've signed 29 pieces of legislation in total  a mark not surpassed in the first 100 days since Harry S. Truman.

Those newly enacted laws include Veterans' Choice legislation  which became law while at the same time we've increased by 42 percent the number of veterans approved to see the doctor of their choosing. And we've provided transparency by publishing all wait times at the Veterans Affairs health system online, backed up by a new Veterans Affairs Office of Accountability.

On energy, the change has been profound. We've canceled restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas and clean coal.

What we've accomplished on immigration and criminal enforcement is nothing short of historic. After decades of unending illegal immigration and mass uncontrolled entry, we've turned the tide as never before  illegal border-crossings are down 73 percent. Visa processes are being reformed to substantially improve vetting and screening, and we've launched prototypes and bidding for the border wall to stop the scourge of drugs, human trafficking and illegal immigrants from coming into our country.

Federal law enforcement has begun a crackdown on sanctuary cities that harbor criminal aliens  because we know the first duty of government is to protect American citizens.

The Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State, and the director of national intelligence, have formed an inter-agency group for the express purpose of dismantling transnational criminal cartels. The handcuffs have been removed from our prosecutors, and they're targeting the drug dealers and gang members who prey on our citizens  and they're working to eradicate the violent cartel MS-13.

The change on defense has been profound as well. The Defense Department has begun to rebuild and restore our military readiness. We've reasserted American leadership by holding the Bashar Assad regime in Syria accountable for its monstrous use of banned chemical weapons against helpless, innocent civilians. Our successful missile strike enforced the red line that the previous administration drew but ignored, thus restoring our credibility with our friends and our deterrence with our foes. Finally, NATO countries are starting to pay billions of dollars more since I have made clear that the United States expects all of its allies to pay their fair share.

I delivered on one of my biggest promises, appointing and confirming a new justice to the Supreme Court who will be faithful to the U.S. Constitution. This is the first time a new justice has been confirmed in the first 100 days in 136 years.

As we've made these changes  on the border, on our economy, on our security  confidence has soared. And a survey of manufacturing reveals record-breaking optimism in the future. Consumer confidence hit a 16-year high. Thousands of new jobs are being re-shored back to America  including jobs at Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, Sprint, Intel and so many more.

We are proving that Buy and Hire American isn't just a slogan  it's now the policy of the U.S. government. It, along with the many other things we are doing, will Make America Great Again.

No longer will we listen to the same failed voices of the past who brought us nothing but war overseas, poverty at home and the loss of companies, jobs and our wealth to countries that have taken total advantage of the United States.

The White House is once again the People's House. And I will do everything in my power to be the People's President  to faithfully, loyally and proudly champion the incredible citizens who love this nation and who call this God-blessed land their home.

Donald J. Trump, president of the United States, authored this commentary for the Washington Post.

Everything is happening so fast  or at least that's how it feels trying to follow politics these days. You've seen the headlines about President Trump and his policies  but what do they mean for Philadelphia? What does that mean for you? We're launching a newsletter to explore just that. Sign up here.
Anyone whose car has been towed in Philadelphia knows the Parking Authority seems to have mystical powers. Even cars parked in legal spots can be magically whisked away before the owner returns. But who knew the authority's magic extended to records that reveal how much public money its executives had stuffed into their pockets?

Following revelations that former PPA executive director and serial sexual harasser Vincent Fenerty had cashed out with $33,000 in compensatory time, reporter William Bender in January asked for the comp-time records of all authority executives.

Watch closely now. Here's where the magic happens. The authority first said there were no such records, but  Presto! Change-o! altered that to say there were records, but they did not include any comp time for PPA deputy directors Richard Dickson, who earns $208,166 a year, and Dennis Weldon, who makes $196,384.

Maybe they didn't have any comp time because it would be piggish for them to take more than their base salaries. Or maybe their records were wiped to withhold information from reporters, which would violate the state open-records law.

A source gave the reporters records showing Dickson had a balance of 337.13 hours in March 2016, which exceeds the PPA's comp-time cap policy of 240 hours. The records showed Dickson still had 199 hours in late November and Weldon had 162. So how did their balances dip to zero by January?

It seems interim PPA executive director Clarena Tolson waved her magic wand in October and ended the practice of allowing high-paid executives carry over comp time as if they were hourly workers who weren't being paid overtime. At a secret meeting, she apparently announced that the executives had given up the hours. But neither Tolson, Weldon, nor Dickson will talk about it  yet another example of the executives' arrogance.

The problem with their magic trick is that earlier versions of the payment records are stored on computer files. It's Tolson's responsibility to find the records too, share them with the public, and reveal whether she plans to pay Dickson and Weldon.

This magic show is a flop because there's nothing entertaining about executives milking a public agency to pad their pockets.

The state took control of the PPA in 2001 and allowed the city's Republican party to use it to build a patronage system that provides an army to work elections. The deal included a promise to help fund city schools. PPA minions have their patronage jobs, but the schools have been shortchanged.

There's no good reason to keep the PPA under state control. Returning it to the city would require certain safeguards, including adding a full-disclosure guarantee to PPA's charter so information doesn't magically disappear. But it's time to stop using the PPA as a hiring hall for politicians and their cronies. The authority has the potential to generate more revenue and play a larger role in making Philadelphia a better city. But that won't happen until the smoke in the boardroom clears.
Deputy Mark Burbridge was shot and killed in a jail escape. (Photo: Pottawattamie County Sheriff)

A Pottawattamie County, IA, sheriff's deputy has died of his injuries after he was shot at the jail Monday morning by an escaping inmate, reports the Omaha-World Herald.

Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker has identified the deputy as Mark Burbridge, 43, a 12-year veteran. Danker said Burbridge "always was happy, jovial. He was a good deputy." Burbridge, he said, had worked on road patrol, investigations and, most recently, court security.

Another deputy, Pat Morgan, 59, a 10-year department veteran, also was injured in the shooting. He was shot in the lower torso, an injury that officials said was not life-threatening. Morgan was listed in fair condition Monday afternoon at Nebraska Medical Center.

Deputy Pat Morgan was shot but is expected to recover. (Photo: Pottawattamie County Sheriff)

The escaped inmate was taken into custody after he led police on a chase into Omaha, NE.

Early reports indicate the inmate apprehended in Omaha is Wesley Correa-Carmenaty, who was sentenced this morning at the Pottawattamie County Courthouse to 45 years in prison. Correa-Carmenaty was on his way back to jail after he was sentenced when the shooting and escape occurred around 11:00 a.m., law enforcement officials said.
Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Dep. Justin Beard was killed on duty Sunday in a single-vehicle crash. (Ouachita Parish SO)

A Ouachita Parish (LA) Sheriff's deputy was killed Sunday morning in a one-vehicle wreck while on duty.

Deputy Justin L. Beard, 26, was killed Sunday morning while responding to a burglar alarm during a severe thunderstorm, the News Star reports.

The preliminary investigation revealed Beard was traveling west on Highway 34 in his assigned 2014 Chevrolet Tahoe when he lost control of the vehicle, exited the left side of the roadway, struck a dirt embankment and began to overturn. The surface of the roadway was wet due to the rain at the time of the crash.

The vehicle was severely damaged and Beard sustained fatal injuries as a result. He was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, KTAL TV reports.
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When Fox News Sundays Chris Wallace tried to blame Democrats for Trumps failures, Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) destroyed the big lie.

Video:

https://youtu.be/VnGTpiy5iek

Transcript via Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: But, Senator, President Trump says one of the problems is the constant obstruction by you and your party. You know, back when Republicans were in the minority, you liked to call them the party of no. Today, arent you?

SCHUMER: Well, lets take his biggest attempt so far, health care. That wasnt the Democrats. He tries to blame the Democrats, but he didnt need a single Democratic vote to pass it in the House. He couldnt do it, he couldnt do it twice.

He ought to realize that they ought to back off repealing Obamacare. Weve said over and over again, if he backs off repeal, well sit down and work with him to improve Obamacare.

Lets look at his next major issue, the tax bill. It seems to be a tax bill thats totally aimed at the wealthy interests, estate tax, get rid of it. You know how many people pay the estate tax? Only  each year, 5,200 of the various wealthiest Americans who have estates over $10 million.

Chris Wallaces question could have been pulled directly from Donald Trumps Twitter account. Republicans and their media are overlooking one fact when they try to blame Democrats for Trumps failures.

Its Republicans who control the House and Senate. Trumps health care bill was killed by Republicans in the House. Trumps tax plan is facing an uphill battle because House Republicans are divided between those fiscal conservatives who dont want to pass an unpaid-for tax plan and Republican moderates who dont want to raise taxes or take deductions away from the middle class and the poor.

Trump is failing because he has no base of support in Congress, and he is trying to govern by decree. Chuck Schumer was having none of the trash that Chris Wallace was peddling.

Republicans dont get to be in total control of the federal government, and then blame Democrats when they fail.

It doesnt work that way. Sen. Schumer was right. Trump owns it all now. If Trump wants Democratic votes on legislation, hes going to have to come to the table and work with Democrats, because Democrats have more to lose by working with the deeply unpopular president than they stand to gain by putting their necks on the line for Trump.

Fox News was peddling a big lie when they tried to blame Democrats, and Senate Democratic Leader Schumer ripped that falsehood to bits on Fox News Sunday.
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Just recently an op-ed in the New York Times railed on the Trump family for being grifters in using the White House as a personal profit machine. Another bunch of stories this weekend pilloried Trump for complaining that he cannot be dictator because of the Constitutions checks and balances that prohibit a tyrant from running the Executive Branch.

Of course none of these kind of stories are surprising and if anyone whos been conscious over the past year-and-a-half says theyre shocked, then theyre likely lying. Everything going on, or just being revealed, within the Trump administration was predicted and warned was coming even before the corrupt liar won the election. One item continues being ignored by the main stream and independent media and it is still a mystery why no-one, save a few people, are reporting on the evangelical theocratization of the government.

Trump has been really, really good and extremely generous to the religious right thus far in giving them unprecedented power and authority over the people by government fiat. He appointed a raging evangelical who claims the Separation Clause in the U.S. Constitution is unconstitutional as the attorney general. He chose a Christian supremacist running mate as evangelically extreme as he is a liar second only to Trump. And he tapped a filthy rich Christian whose brilliant plan is running the Education Department like an evangelical ministry to confront the culture and advance gods kingdom. Add to that the weekly prayer meetings and bible lessons for Trumps Cabinet, the House and Senate with an uber-extremist Christian preacher so extreme his own church disowned and disavowed him. One challenges any know-nothing, liberal or conservative, to dare claim the theocrats in Trumps administration are not a threat to the people.

After promising to give churches tens-of-billions of taxpayer money and the freedom to campaign for religious Republicans from the pulpit, one wondered how Trump would force taxpayers to fund evangelical extremists propaganda campaign against womens autonomy over their bodies and lives. Well the Trump came through and appointed a raging evangelical extremist as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary of public affairs; the person in that top public affairs office is responsible for shaping communications efforts for the entire agency.

The woman, Charmaine Yoest, is a senior fellow at American Values and the former president of Americans United for Life (AUL). AULs website advertises that the group offers religious Republican state lawmakers 32 different pieces of model legislation to restrict access to abortion. And it proudly characterizes Charmaine Yoest as public enemy #1 for abortion rights organizations. A more apt description is Yoest is public enemy #1 for a womans right to control her own body and reproductive health.

Yoests current gig is with American Values that boasts its vision is a [Christian] nation that embraces life, marriage, family, faith, and freedom. Yoests claim to fame among evangelicals at American Values has been leading the war against womens choice. That war primarily entails advancing anti-womens choice legislation in the states to restrict access to the constitutionally-protected legal medical procedure.

Now this religious fanatic holds a high-level position with a mandate to provide scientifically accurate and factual information to the public. Make note that this woman wouldnt know factual and accurate information if mythical Jesus materialized and slapped the religion off her evangelical face. Now that religious face and its extremist anti-woman agenda is going to have a federally-funded HHS forum to spread the AV, AUL, and Catholic-driven personhood movement as propaganda.

Senator Patty Murray issued a statement, a fairly mild statement, but one that needed to be made.

Ms. Yoest has a long record of seeking to undermine womens access to health care and safe, legal abortion by distorting the facts, and her selection shows yet again that this administration is pandering to extreme [evangelical] conservatives and ignoring the millions of men and women nationwide who support womens constitutionally protected health care rights and dont want to go backward.

The Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood, Dawn Laguens said:

It is unacceptable that someone with a history of promoting [religious] myths and false information about womens health is appointed to a government position whose main responsibility is to provide the public with accurate and factual information. (author bold)

As a profile in a 2012 New York Times article by Emily Bazelon noted about the newly-crowned HHS evangelical propaganda minister:

Yoests opposition to legal abortion leaves no room for exceptions in the case of rape or incest or to preserve the health [or life] of the mother. She believes that embryos have legal rights and opposes birth control  that she thinks has life-ending properties.

This evangelical crusader now has the full authority of the federal government increasingly under the sway of an extremist evangelical administration. And she will undoubtedly use her new position to provide the public with sheer nonsense founded on lies and absurd Catholic dogmata  and taxpayers will fund the evangelical propagandists anti-womens rights campaign.

Look, this is another distressing development that likely wasnt even Trumps idea. Remember, it was widely reported that Trump said his job was CEO of making America great and it would be the vice president that set domestic and foreign policies. With a lying evangelical fanatic in the number two position, an attorney general who believes the Separation Clause is unconstitutional, an education secretary who wants public schools to advance gods kingdom, and now an HHS communications chief renowned for attacking womens rights on religious grounds, no-one can say this country isnt being taken over by evangelical theocrats.

If all of this had happened suddenly and with no indication it was on the horizon, it is possible, but not likely, that this author would not be in a raging fit. Horrified yes, but not angry. What is so vexatious is that for over 17 years, warning Americans about the creeping theocratic takeover has been an important and frequent topic of many, many opinion pieces and commentary in print and digital media. Throughout that period and continuing unabated it was considered taboo, and a near-mortal sin, to use the word theocracy or dog forbid; state the fact that religion is behind most of the anti-everything Christian agenda of the Republican Party.

It is a sad fact of life that despite the warnings, and chastising the media and Democrats for not alerting Americans to the religious intent driving Republican social policy legislation, the government is now under the complete control of evangelical theocrats. And, as this column often states, if any American thinks they are immune from the danger of allowing maniacal evangelicals to take over the government, then they are ignorant imbeciles.

History is replete with examples of the danger of religious fervor and zealotry under the best of circumstances. But with the full weight and force of the United States government behind the Christian crusaders, they pose an existential threat to every Americans freedom. And, that threat exists, in no small part, because Democrats and all manner of media are too cowardly to ever cite the real source of the threat to Americans freedom  evangelical fanaticism.
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Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York released a statement today to mark May Day. Citing Donald Trumps attacks on immigrants and minorities, Schumer stressed Americas promise to be a shining light and beacon of hope for those in need.

Sen. Schumers statement in full:

From my house in Brooklyn I can see the Statue of Liberty, and it reminds me every day of Americas promise to be a shining light and beacon of hope for those in need. Just like my ancestors, millions of immigrant families came to the United States looking for a better life for their loved ones. Today, those immigrant families and workers are being targeted and attacked in unprecedented ways.

This first day of May, communities throughout the country are joining together to fight back against President Trumps and Republicans attacks on immigrants, workers, Muslims and many more. Senate Democrats stood strong against President Trumps deportation force, border wall, unconstitutional executive orders, and de-funding sanctuary cities, and we will keep working to protect immigrant rights and maintain an inclusive, diverse, and strong America that welcomes hardworking immigrants and recognizes their contributions to our nation.

In contrast, we have already seen how Donald Trump has celebrated the day, eating cake with his rich friends in honor of imaginary accomplishments that will only lead to the deaths and untold suffering of many Americans if he has his way.

It is important to remember Americas long role as a sanctuary for those seeking a better life as Donald Trump shows a continuing disregard not only for the immigrants who have long made America prosperous but for the Constitution that established this nation.
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CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of Face the Nation John Dickerson confronted President Trump about his false accusations against President Obama, saying, You dont want to be fake news.

You said he (President Obama) was sick and bad because he had tapped you Im just Dickerson asked Trump in the Oval Office of his false accusations against President Obama, in part 2 of the CBS interview.

You can take any way. You can take it any way you want, Trump responded.

But Im asking you. Because you dont want it to be fake news.

After trying to wave Dickersons question away and unable to answer the question because he still refuses to admit he was dead wrong, Trump abruptly ended the interview.

Watch the second part of CBS interview here:

Watch the first part of the interview aired on Sunday here.

Transcript from Washington Post:

JOHN DICKERSON: Did President Obama give you any advice that was helpful? That you think, wow, he really was

DONALD TRUMP:  Well, he was very nice to me. But after that, weve had some difficulties. So it doesnt matter. You know, words are less important to me than deeds. And you you saw what happened with surveillance. And everybody saw what happened with surveillance

JOHN DICKERSON: Difficulties how?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:  and I thought that  well, you saw what happened with surveillance. And I think that was inappropriate, but thats the way

JOHN DICKERSON: What does that mean, sir?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You can figure that out yourself.

JOHN DICKERSON: Well, I the reason I ask is you said he was you called him sick and bad.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look, you can figure it out yourself. He was very nice to me with words, but and when I was with him  but after that, there has been no relationship.

JOHN DICKERSON: But you stand by that claim about him?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I dont stand by anything. I just you can take it the way you want. I think our sides been proven very strongly. And everybodys talking about it. And frankly it should be discussed. I think that is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think its a very big topic. And its a topic that should be number one. And we should find out what the hell is going on.

JOHN DICKERSON: I just wanted to find out, though. Youre youre the president of the United States. You said he was sick and bad because he had tapped you Im just

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You can take any way. You can take it any way you want.

JOHN DICKERSON: But Im asking you. Because you dont want it to be

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You dont

JOHN DICKERSON: fake news. I want to hear it from

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You dont have to

JOHN DICKERSON: President Trump.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: ask me. You dont have to ask me.

JOHN DICKERSON: Why not?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions.

JOHN DICKERSON: But I want to know your opinions. Youre the president of the United States.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, its enough. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thats called a cut-and-run.

Donald Trump cant admit that he was wrong about Obama wiretapping him. Trump didnt even understand how wiretaps worked until after he publicly made his false accusation.

Dickerson rightly called Trump out on this accusation being fake news, and that caused Trump to end the interview because Dickerson refused to buy his vague innuendos as substitutions for facts.

This is how journalists have to operate with Trump. Nail him down or he will deny the very words he just said on tape.



Image: CBS screen cap
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Like everything entailed with being head of the Executive Branch, it appears that Trump is discovering that international trade is much more complicated and harder than his pea-brain is capable of processing. Of course, besides being an imbecile, Trump cannot comprehend that the rest of the world, or members of the House Freedom Caucus, are not going to obey his every dictate or acquiesce to policies intended to enrich Donald Trump, boost Donald Trumps ego, or make Donald Trump look like a decisive badass.

It is unclear what Trump thought was going to happen when he imposed tariffs on Canadian soft wood  thank him for being assaulted? Thats not the Canadian way. Like most people who know how to deal with a loud-mouthed bully, the Canadians are hitting back and the coal industry is about to learn that instead of rescuing their already dying business, their hero probably decimated what is already an archaic, outdated, and dying industry.

Mainstream media has been relatively silent about a letter the Premiere of Canadian Province British Columbia, Christy Clark, issued to Justin Trudeau with a message to Trump that Canadians are not going to be bullied. She tweeted that: Its time to ban thermal coal from BC ports.

Now, this is a debilitating blow for the coal industry because all Western thermal coal is exported from ports in British Columbia, Canada. That amounts to about 6.2 million tons of U.S. thermal coal that was shipped from the Port of Vancouver last year on its way to Asia. If Trump wasnt a know-nothing idiot, that number was expected to increase in the future. Now it appears that not only will that number not increase, it is likely going to be reduced to zero and virtually destroy the Western states coal industry.

Ms. Clarks Tweet contained the letter she sent to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ban American coal shipments out of Canadian ports. Clarks letter read in part:

For many years, a high volume of U.S. thermal coal has been shipped through BC on its way to Asia. Its not good for the environment, but friends and trading partners cooperate. So we havent pressed the issue with the federal government that regulates the port.

Clearly, the United States is taking a different approach. So, I am writing you today to ban the shipment of thermal coal from BC ports. (author bold)

Notice that the Canadians regarded America as a friend and trade partner that warranted cooperation even though they oppose climate destroying dirty coal. Still, the Canadians didnt press the issue and allowed American coal exporters to use a Canadian port to ship their product to Asia because the three American West Coast states are environmentally conscious.

Ms. Clark goes on to say that because of the herculean efforts of the environmental group, Beyond Coal, coal terminals up and down the Pacific Coast have been successfully shut down.

As you may know, over the past five years, every proposed coal export facility on the West Coast of the United States has been rejected or withdrawn, typically as a result of ecological or environmental concerns. . . . Oregon, Washington, and California have all made significant commitments to eliminate the use of coal as a source of electricity for their citizens. In fact, in August 2016, Governor Jerry Brown of California signed Bill 1279 that banned the provision of any state transportation funding for new coal export terminals.

Still, as Americas friend and trade partner, the Canadians were willing to assist the dirty coal industry and allow it to use its ports. That is what friends and trading partners do instead of pressing the environmental and climate issue. But Trump has shown the Canadians, and the rest of the world, that with him there is no such thing as a friend and trading partner; just underlings obliged to acquiesce to his dictates with a smile on their collective faces.

What Ms. Clark is saying on a fundamental level is that Americas coal industry desperately needs Canadas friendship and cooperation to stay in existence. It was something Canada was willing to provide despite it is contrary to Canadian efforts to save the environment and put the brakes on global climate change.

As she noted, because of a dearth of American coal export terminals, Canada stepped up and allowed 6.2 million tons of U.S. thermal coal to flow through the Port of Vancouver on its way to Asia last year alone. And as friends and trade partners they fully intended to increase that number in the future; something that certainly will not happen due to Trumps attack on Canadas timber industry.

According to the policy director of the Seattle, Washingtons Sightline Institute, Eric de Place:

In trying to land a blow on the Canadian timber industry. Trump may have accidentally knocked out the Western coal industry. In the context of how bad off [U.S. mines in the Powder River Basin] are, this could be what brings them to their knees.

As Paul Rauber noted writing for the Sierra Club, the closure of Canadian ports will be especially damaging to Cloud Peak Energy, which does most of the shipping out of Canada.

Trump has portrayed himself as the coal industrys champion and regularly surrounds himself with so-called miners he pledged to elevate as billionaires with more jobs because hes Trump. However, the coal miners, and the coal industry, are all aware that their dying and bankrupt industry is succumbing to mechanization, cheaper and abundant natural gas, and readily abundant and free renewable energy sources. It is the ultimate example of good old capitalism Republicans promote as the be all, end all, and there is no amount of Trump orders and dictates that will change that inconvenient truth.

This is Trumps gross incompetence and ignorance on full display and it will adversely affect the people he claims are damned fortunate he is in the White House. But he made a serious error in provoking Canada with an ill-advised first strike in a trade war with our friends and trade partners to the North. Despite his fallacious claim that President Obamas environmental and climate change policies was a war on coal, Trump has single-handedly initiated the real war on coal.

h/t /SierraClub
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.
ron howard director filmmaker AP_17115170789474

Ron Howard's new television series "Genius" continues the filmmaker's decades-long love affair with science.

The first season  a biopic of Albert Einstein  is currently airing on the National Geographic Channel. It dramatizes the life and times of Einstein, who developed the theory of general relativity (among other discoveries), in 10 hour-long episodes.

But Howard, who directed the series, seems to be chasing more than just a good story. In the eyes of Howard and Gigi Pritzker, a billionaire who produced the show, it's also about promoting science and, by extension, the future of America.

genius show national geographic channel Genius_Portraits_11

Speaking to Business Insider alongside Pritzker, Howard expressed concern about the current direction of the United States, and  in particular  the recognition of social and economic roles that science plays, given that the Trump administration has thus far exhibited an overall lack of support for (if not antagonism towards) the research community.

"Look at what Silicon Valley has meant to our economy and our ongoing influence around the world. ... What we don't want to do is cede that position to other countries, other nations, other cultures," Howard said.

Born in 1954, Howard was around for the first moon landings, the rise of personal computing, and the advent of the internet  but he's also seen many missed opportunities science and technology.

"We could have had the [Large] Hadron Collider. But 15 years ago we decided not to fund that. So I've always lamented the fact that we didn't stay in that pole position on that front of exploration," he said. "I'm an advocate of both because I believe in the growth of the knowledge base, but I also believe in what it means to the national economy."

"Genius" joins a growing list of science-focused productions for Howard, including his films "Apollo 13" (about NASA's moon mission gone awry) and "A Beautiful Mind" (a drama focused on the life of Nobel Laureate mathematician John Nash). Howard was also behind the recent TV production "Mars", a science-meets-fiction mash-up of humanity's efforts to colonize the red planet, which features Elon Musk and other entrepreneurs.

Story continues

"When it was over, and the scripts had been written, we realized ... how much momentum there was in all 10 hours," Howard said of the process of making the first season of "Genius". "We could have done 15 hours on Einstein's life."

genius show national geographic channel Ep108_Genius_003

Pritzker, agreeing with Howard, said shows like "Genius" give filmmakers a chance to cut through the politics that often distort science, and remind people about the value of exploration.

"Having people like Einstein in the forefront of popular culture, and really raising scientists to the level of celebrity, is a really important thing  so people who sit passively and don't think of themselves as scientists or understanding science can really get a grasp of why it's so important to support science and breakthroughs and research and development," Pritzker said. "Because it does get politicized and has been for years."

Howard says that if the Trump administration doesn't support research, others must make up the difference to keep the US competitive.

"I believe they know that science is at the root of growth, social and economic." Howard said. "If government funding starts to dry up, that's where entrepreneurs need to rush in, and universities need to step up and use their endowments."

genius show national geographic channel Ep101_Genius_130

In any case, the actor, director, producer, and father isn't keeping his hopes up.

"It's hard to know ... what the Trump administration really believes versus what they say," Howard told Business Insider. "Trump is a brand-builder and a salesman and will say whatever will help push the sale."

"Genius" has already been renewed for a second season, which will profile a different luminary. Howard wouldn't tell Business Insider who the show plans to dramatize next, but said the shortlist isn't limited just to scientists. He also said it includes people who "are very high-profile today." (When we asked Howard if someone like Musk or Jeff Bezos would be candidates, he dodged the question, saying only that "those are remarkable individuals.")

The show's first episode aired on April 25, and the second debuts Tuesday on NatGeo at 9 p.m. EDT.

NOW WATCH: Einstein did not believe in God  here's what he actually meant by 'God does not play dice with the universe'





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NEW YORK  Is the online giant of retail also looking to conquer physical stores?

Amazon has been dabbling in physical retail since 2015, during which time it's opened a half-dozen bookstores that double as gadget emporia, a score of campus bookstores that don't sell books and a convenience store without cashiers. For now, its efforts seem largely experimental, though that may not be true for long.

Although the company already dominates e-commerce, 90 percent of worldwide retail spending is still in brick-and-mortar stores, according to eMarketer. Amazon has the chance to change retail with automation and data-mining technologies borrowed from e-commerce.

"It seems counterintuitive they are investing in any physical stores when they are blamed for the demise of so many of them, but no cow is sacred," says Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail analyst in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Amazon's offline ambitions could even boost Amazon's online operations further, even though they seem to be doing just fine for now. In the first three months of the year, the Seattle company earned $724 million, or $1.48 per share, a 41 percent increase from a year earlier. Amazon soundly beat Wall Street's expectations of $1.08 per share, according to FactSet. Revenue increased 23 percent to $35.7 billion, above expectations of $35.3 billion.

ADVERTISEMENT

Amazon doesn't break out numbers for its retail-store operations. Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian T. Olsavsky told investors Thursday that the stores represent "another way to reach the customer and test what resonates with them." He said the company has been pleased with the results, but he didn't elaborate.

Exactly what it's learning, and what it plans to do with that knowledge, is the next big question.

Here are five ways physical stores could help Amazon.

A SHOWCASE FOR GADGETS

At Amazon's six physical bookstores  six more are on the way  books are arranged on shelves face out, even though that takes more space. Amazon isn't trying to cram its entire inventory into these stores; Amazon figures you can just order everything else from your phone.

Amazon also devotes a lot of space to its Kindle e-readers, streaming TV devices and other gadgets, so you can try them out before buying. Tutorials are also offered on weekends.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter says physical bookstores are good places to win Kindle converts, as "the only people who don't have Kindles who should have Kindles are luddites who also read."

SERENDIPITY

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Amazon opened its third bookstore in October, near Portland, Oregon. Miriam Sontz, CEO of Powell's Books in Portland, calls Amazon's entry "an acknowledgement of the inability of the internet to provide a certain retail experience that book buyers enjoy." That includes spontaneous conversations with fellow shoppers on what they're reading, and having a book cover or blurb grab you as you walk down the aisle.

Robert Hetu, a retail analyst at Gartner, says online customers tend to go to a website knowing what they want to buy. By contrast, customers visiting a physical store often make impulse purchases, even if they go in with something specific in mind. Amazon could learn more about that serendipity from its stores, and perhaps find better ways to increase impulse buying online, Hetu says.

MAKE CUSTOMERS DO THE WORK

Amazon is scheduled to open its 20th book-less campus bookstore next week in Cleveland. Students order textbooks and dorm furnishings online and come to these stores to pick them up. The centralized pickup location reduces shipping expenses.

The company is also testing a grocery pickup service at two locations in Seattle. Once it launches, Prime members will be able to order groceries online and visit one of these stores for pickup, skipping the aisles. Crews will even bring orders to the car. It's cheaper than door-to-door deliveries.

RETAIL TECHNOLOGY

Amazon already makes heavy use of robots at warehouses to fulfill online orders. Now Amazon is trying to bring automation to retail. The Amazon Go convenience store in Seattle uses sensors to track items as shoppers put them into baskets or return them to the shelf. The shopper's Amazon account gets automatically charged. The store is expected to open to the public soon, after a test with Amazon employees.

Amazon not only saves money on cashiers but also could use the data to manage inventory better and even assess when to discount items, says Mulpuru, the retail analyst.

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Hetu suggests that Amazon might even license its technology to other retailers, the way it rents out its data centers to businesses and groups to power their websites and other digital needs. That business, known as cloud computing, made up 10 percent of Amazon's revenue in the first quarter, as sales grew 43 percent to nearly $3.7 billion.

BUILDING LOYALTY

Amazon can use its campus locations to promote its Prime loyalty program (students get 50 percent off the normal $99 annual fee). The strategy is simple: Get students hooked, and they'll be customers for life.

As for the regular bookstores, Prime members get the same prices available online. For everyone else, only Amazon gadgets match the online prices; books and other items are sold at an often-higher list price. Of course, you can sign up for Prime on the spot.

Hetu said Amazon could use these experiences to deepen loyalty  though they can also damage Amazon's reputation if it can't deliver an experience Prime members are already used to.
"We think you might have had a stroke."

It's hard to argue with a doctor while you're the center of emergency room attention.

The day had started out like many others with a walk on a gray and cold morning that offered little hint of long-anticipated spring. I kicked gravel on the driveway to awaken a sleeping right leg without effect. It was strange, but no big deal. It became more alarming when the tingling moved to the right arm and face.

"It's nothing that I can't handle," I said at the time.

Kathy was alarmed, but I was content to let sleep make things better. An obvious overreaction led to a call to the nurses' line and more commotion.

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"Get your coat on. We're going to the emergency room.''

The doctor said it was good that I came  a delay could have caused more damage and even death. A blood vessel had disintegrated deep in my brain, and it would be a week before I would leave the Mary Brigh Building at Mayo Clinic Hospital  Saint Marys Campus.

Health officials have noted a significant increase in strokes among young people for reasons as yet unknown. High blood pressure, diabetes and tobacco use is a dangerous cocktail that can increase stroke risk by 50 percent. Kathy insists that my worst ways be changed because she doesn't intend to be a widow prematurely.

The patient fell quickly from what had been a high horse of self-importance. Under no circumstance, said the night owl nurse who brought ice water, could I go to the bathroom without her help. I didn't want to be a 2 a.m. bother, but she insisted that she would be in big trouble if I tried on my own and fell.

I've had an unhealthy disregard for the medical profession. It was a bias learned from Dad, who put more faith in home remedies than doctors' expertise. He might have been jaded by the loss of a brother in middle age and a daughter in her teens.

The stroke team gathered the next morning in my room to explain rehabilitation, which would last six weeks. The team included Mo, a North Dakota farm girl so young she didn't know anything about Lawrence Welk, her home state's most famous son; and Jeffrey, a psychologist who asked about my well-being. I felt both lost and discombobulated. What I had been I might never be again. Specialist Anna explained that I would be more easily be frustrated. Kathy bore the brunt of that.

Someone in the exercise room smiled and waved.

"You remind me of someone,'' she said.

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I tried to guess but didn't come close.

"You remind me of Red Skelton,'' she said. "It's just the way that you laugh.'' Skelton was a painter, poet and costumed clown who made millions laugh.

Laughter is indeed good medicine, but tears shed in the third-floor waiting room put things in perspective. I was alone when an elderly woman called a friend to say that her husband of 51 years had been diagnosed with leukemia. She ended the conversation and others that followed in tears.

I needed to say something but wasn't sure what it ought to be.

"You have many friends who love you,'' I offered.

She nodded in agreement, made more difficult phone calls and shed additional tears. We talked more about how love endures forever.

I have been blessed with good fortune. The stroke produced a determination to recover and a greater appreciation for all things small and large. Yellow tulips herald spring's arrival and the awkward blue heron stands on its spindly legs in the creek's gentle flowing water.
EYOTA  A report of a car driving the wrong way down a highway led to a 24-mile pursuit and the eventual arrest of an area man.

The case began about 12:20 a.m. today with a driving complaint about an eastbound car in the westbound lane of U.S. Highway 14 east near 50th Avenue, also known as Olmsted County Road 11. The driver had failed to stop at the stoplight at County 11, the caller said.

Deputies responding to the report found a vehicle matching the description near U.S. 14 and Minnesota Highway 42, said Capt. Scott Behrns of the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office. Now in the correct lane of travel, the car was weaving within its lane and driving at inconsistent speeds.

A traffic stop was attempted, based on the wrong-way report and the deputies' observations, "and the chase was on," Behrns said.

The driver  later identified as Brian Keith Rathbun, 51, of Wykoff  drove through the city of Eyota, then back onto Minnesota 42 and south over Interstate 90. He continued southbound to U.S. Highway 52 north of Chatfield, drove through the city of Chatfield and onto Fillmore County Road 5, the report says, where spike strips were thrown across the road.

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Rathbun's vehicle hit the strips, then drove through at least two yards and a small creek before getting back onto County 5, Behrns said, and crashing through a closed gate into a pasture.

The car became stuck in the mud less than 100 feet in, the report says; Rathbun got out of the vehicle, ran and hid behind a tree.

Deputies caught up quickly and took him into custody; a preliminary search allegedly turned up 1.9 grams of methamphetamine in a cigarette box on the ground near Rathbun.

He told the deputy he fled, Behrns said, because he "didn't want to go back to jail." His criminal history reflects multiple felony convictions and prison terms.

Rathbun could face charges of fifth-degree controlled substance possession, fleeing a peace officer, driving-inimical to public safety "and all the accompanying traffic infractions," Behrns said.
A man reportedly wanted for attempted murder in Florida was arrested Friday in Rochester, officials said today.

William Brent Nero, 30, was taken into custody about 5:30 p.m. at the motel where he was staying in the 2800 block of 43rd Street Northwest.

Nero was tracked to Rochester by U.S. Marshals, said Capt. Scott Behrns of the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office, and deputies here executed the arrest warrant when Nero returned to the motel from his temp job.

No official information about the Florida incident was immediately available, but Behrns said he believed Nero "fired on or shot someone there," and will likely be extradited.
New owners of a downtown Rochester building are mapping out plans for its future.

The former China Star/bus depotbuilding at 405 First Ave. SW was purchased by Regan Real Estate LLCof Maplewood on April 18 for $850,000. The family-owned firm bought it from Zheng and Xue Jin Zheng.

The China Star restaurant closed in early April.

"The long-term plan is for developing that lot," said Rochester Realtor Merl Groteboer, of Re/Max Results, who represented the Regans in the deal.

That means it could be years before big changes hit that lot, though it might happen sooner.

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Groteboer said the goal right now is to try to lease the empty 87-year-old building for the "short, foreseeable future." They are talking to a few interested parties about opening businesses in the prominent spot.

"If we can't find someone to lease, then we'll scrape (demolish) it and use that site for parking," Groteboer said.

He explained that approach, like leasing the building, would be relatively temporary until development plans for the spot could be worked out.

No matter what happens next, change is on the way for the First Avenue building. The Zhengs originally purchased the property, that dates back to 1930, for $300,000 in 2008.
When the legislative session started in January, a Rochester senator was convinced the session outcome would hinge largely on 4-year-olds. She hasn't changed her mind.

"From the beginning of session, I said this session is about 4-year-olds," said Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester.

Nelson is chairwoman of the Senate E-12 Finance Committee and is front and center in a debate raging at the Capitol over how best to fund preschool in the state. Dayton is a passionate supporter of universal pre-K, which allows school districts to apply for state dollars. He is seeking an additional $175 million for the program. But he is encountering stiff resistance to his idea among lawmakers, especially in the Minnesota House.

The GOP-led House eliminates funding for universal pre-K, instead shifting the money into school readiness dollars. The House instead invests nearly $25 million in scholarships targeted toward low-income students.

The Senate education bill keeps funding for the voluntary pre-K program flat but funnels additional dollars into scholarships. Nelson said she believes it makes sense to increase the amount of money going to scholarships.

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"When you have limited resources, you should target your resources. So instead of adding a 14th grade to the public schools in the form of 4-year-olds, we should continue to make sure there is a mixed delivery option," Nelson said.

Dayton has said repeatedly he supports funding for scholarships as well. But he said voluntary universal pre-K also needs to be part of the mix. His plan would allow the number of preschoolers participating in pre-K to jump from 3,300 in 74 districts to more than 17,000 in 260 districts.

Nelson said that while the governor and the GOP-led Legislature disagree on how best to fund preschool, it has become a priority in St. Paul for everyone.

"The good thing is there is nearly universal acknowledgement and understanding that kids need to be ready for kindergarten," she said.

Tax cuts loom large in GOP targets

The Republican-led House and Senate announced their joint budget targets last week. The agreement calls for $1.15 billion in tax cuts.

Rochester DFL Rep. Duane Sauke said he is not surprised to see that his GOP colleagues are advocating that most of the state's $1.65 billion budget surplus be used for tax cuts. He said he supports some tax reductions, including reducing taxes on Social Security income and the statewide business property tax. But the freshman lawmaker said tax cuts of that magnitude will translate into budget cuts and that could eventually lead to higher taxes. He pointed to Olmsted County commissioners recent decision to boost sales taxes by a quarter cent to pay for road and bridge work.

Sauke added, "Is it a tax cut when you underfund local governments so that they have to go to the property tax to get the funds to do what they have to do?"

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Dayton also voiced concerns about the size of the proposed tax cuts. But Republican lawmakers argue that in a time of record surpluses, Minnesotans deserve to share in the prosperity via tax relief.

Drazkowski backs Dean

Rep. Steve Drazkowski is throwing his support behind fellow GOP Rep. Matt Dean for governor. Dean, of Dellwood, announced last week that he was jumping into the governor's race. Soon after the news broke, Drazkowski announced he was backing the former majority leader's bid.

"I know he is a trusted conservative. He's very intelligent, very personable and a very capable leader," Drazkowski said. "I'm certainly going to do whatever I can to help him become the next governor."

Dean is the latest candidate to jump into the crowded race for governor in 2018. Ramsey County Commissioner Blake Huffman recently announced he's running. Several other Republicans are mulling possible runs including House Speaker Kurt Daudt, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Keith Downey, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek. Several Democrats have already announced runs. They are St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, Rep. Tina Liebling of Rochester, Rep. Erin Murphy of St. Paul, State Auditor Rebecca Otto and 1st District Rep. Tim Walz.
MINNEAPOLIS  Asia Dahir, of Spring Lake, is convinced that a measles shot her now 14-year-old son, Adam, received as a baby is responsible for his autism. No scientific studies have found proof of a connection. But Dahir says parents should make inoculation decisions themselves  and not give in to what she says is "bullying" by the medical establishment.

"If the consequences are greater than the benefits, it's better to leave it alone," Dahir said.

Dahir was among 90 people  many of them also Somali-American  who came to a Lake Street ballroom in Minneapolis on Sunday night for a meeting organized by five anti-vaccine groups. Their message: autism is the real epidemic, not measles.

For an hour they listened as businessman and vaccine skeptic Mark Blaxill downplayed the risk of dying from measles. Blaxill, whose adult daughter has autism, repeatedly emphasized the purported but discredited link between vaccines and autism. And he claimed public health research on the matter is rife with fraud.

"It is a fact that vaccines can cause autism," said Blaxill. "That's not the controversy. The controversy is how many cases of autism are caused by vaccines."

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Not true at all, says Dr. Andrew Kiragu of Hennepin County Medical Center. Kiragu was one of at least three pediatricians who sat in the audience quietly fuming as Blaxill clicked through his Powerpoint slides.

At the end, Kiragu took the microphone and told the audience that the autism-vaccine link is bogus.

"When you talk about fraudulent activity, this is fraudulent activity," said Kiragu. "This is a travesty. I understand people have concerns about vaccinations. People have concerns about autism. But linking the two, especially in a situation like this, I feel is extremely sad."

At least 32 Minnesota children have contracted measles since an outbreak began in Hennepin County last month. The state health department reports nearly all of the cases are in Somali-American children ages 5 and younger. Public health officials and Somali community leaders urge parents to get their kids vaccinated immediately.

Public health officials say the vaccination rate among 2-year-olds in Minnesota's Somali-American community is just 42 percent, compared with 88 percent of non-Somali kids.

The rates started falling a decade ago after reports suggested a higher incidence of autism among Somali students in Minneapolis than in the population as a whole. Around the same time, anti-vaccine advocates began spreading word of a link.

Anab Gulaid is Somali-American and an adviser to the state health department. She also researches autism at the University of Minnesota. Gulaid said that because the disorder is often diagnosed around the same time kids get their shots, some parents draw erroneous conclusions.

"When a parent says 'my child was saying words, and after the immunization my child stopped saying words,' they link the two," said Gulaid. "That's ultimately what makes sense to them."

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Gulaid said unlinking autism and vaccines has been challenging. But public health officials are getting the word out with the help of community leaders.

Dr. Michael Osterholm said the fight against pseudoscience is quite literally a matter of life and death. He heads the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the U and was state epidemiologist in 1990 when a measles outbreak sickened 460 people in Minnesota and left three dead.

Osterholm also attended the presentation Sunday night, and said downplaying the potential lethality of measles is irresponsible because the virus can kill vulnerable people  especially those with compromised immune systems.

"This is a very serious situation," said Osterholm. "And when I watch what I saw tonight, and I see these people preying on a community that wants answers, I find this just abysmal. It's the worst of human behavior."

Osterholm said he expects the outbreak to grow. State health department infectious disease division director Kris Ehresmann reports two people not of Somali descent have contracted measles.

But the good news, she said, is that the estimated 1,500 people exposed to the virus in the last two and a half weeks have not contracted the disease, indicating the measles vaccine is working.
Vivan Gornick exudes nostalgia for The Romance of Communism, as she called her 1978 book documenting the memories of old members of the Communist Party USA. Marion Magids unamused review of Gornicks book for Commentary performs an expert anatomy on a reeking carcass of a book.

Anticipating May Day today, the Times turned valuable real estate in its Sunday Review section yesterday over to Gornick for a rerun of her 1978 book in the column When Communism inspired Americans. The conclusion of Magids review applies equally to Gornicks column. This was Magids judgment:

The bloody truth about the Soviet Union (not to speak of the disreputable record of the CPUSA in its own domestic operations) was well enough known in the time of which Vivian Gornick is writing, for one must recall that this is not a book about the early 20s and 30s, but extends into the 50s, the 60s, and in some cases into the present. The Moscow Trials, the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Doctors Plot, the takeover in Czechoslovakia, the Slansky Trial, the murdered writers, the labor camps, and all the restall of this the American Communists were asked to swallow, and many, to judge from Miss Gornicks sampling, did. Not only swallowthey justified it, those wonderful couples, hungry for justice, rushing off to protest meetings and peace rallies and picket lines while supper cooled on the stove at home and bullets met their mark in the cellars of the Lubianka. To read this book along with, say, the memoirs of Nadezhda Mandelstam [i.e., Hope Against Hope and Hope Abandoned] is to become almost physically ill. The romance of Communism, indeed. It is an apology that is requirednot an elegy.

Gornicks column evokes the Timess own fraught relationship with Communism, and not just the gauzy American variety elegized by Gornick. See, for example, recollections of the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning Times reporter Walter Duranty by Bruce Bartlett and Roger Simon. As the Timess man in Moscow, Duranty covered up Stalins terror famine in the Ukraine.

Reflecting in the first volume of his autobiography on his experience working for the Manchester Guardian alongside Duranty in Moscow, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote: If the New York Times went on all those years giving great prominence to Durantys messages, building him and them up when they were so evidently nonsensically untrue . . . this was not, we may be sure, because the Times was deceived. Rather it wanted to be so deceived, and Duranty provided the requisite deception material.

History  like Vivian Gornick, like the New York Times  repeats itself.
As the Supreme Court moves into the home stretch of its term, speculation intensifies over Justice Kennedys intentions. Will the Courts lone centrist retire at the end of the term?

For Justice Kennedy, it must be a case of mixed emotions. Indications are that he would like to escape the burdens that his job places on a man of 80 years. Yet, the ability to shape national policy as the swing vote on the Supreme Court likely still holds considerable allure.

Kennedy surely is aware that his likely replacement, if he retires now, will be a jurist considerably to his right. However, he also understands that postponing retirement wont help produce a centrist Justice down the road. If he waits a year of two, President Trump will nominate a conservative replacement and, barring an unexpected twist to the mid-term Senate elections, see that nominee confirmed.

If Kennedy waits until a Democrat is elected president, his replacement would be a left-wing judge, not a centrist. Theres also the possibility of another Merrick Garland style stalemate. That would mean only eight Justices. Neither scenario likely appeals to Kennedy.

If Justice Kennedy resigns this year, will President Trump pick his replacement from the same list he used to pick Neil Gorsuch? The Washington Times reports, based on an interview with the president, that Trump will do so.

In response to the direct question of whether he would pick from that list, the president responded: Yes, that list was a big thing. It was, indeed, and Trump has profited both from putting it out and from using it to select Justice Gorsuch. Thus, its not surprising that he intends to stick with it.

The list excludes two high quality candidates  Judge Brett Kavanaugh and former Solicitor General Paul Clement. Their sin? They work in Washington, D.C., aka the swamp.

It seems unfair that neither Kavanaugh nor Clement apparently will be considered if/when Justice Kennedy steps down. But there is an abundance of quality jurists on the list, so conservatives need not mourn their exclusion.

In his interview with the Washington Times, Trump said he has no inside knowledge as to whether Kennedy will step down:

I dont know. I have a lot of respect for Justice Kennedy, but I just dont know. I dont like talking about it. Ive heard the same rumors that a lot of people have heard. And I have a lot of respect for that gentleman  a lot.

Theres some irony in this comment. As a candidate, Trump trashed Chief Justice Roberts (by way of trashing Ted Cruz for backing Roberts nomination). Yet, Roberts is considerably more committed to the kind of Constitutional interpretation Trump nowadays espouses than Kennedy is.

Trump, though, has cultivated good personal relations with Kennedy. Politico reports:

As [Trump] made his way to the front of the House chamber [for his address to Congress], he shook hands with Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Chief Justice John Roberts. But Trump stopped to talk to Kennedy about their children who live in New York. Thank you, thats very nice coming from you. Say hello to your boy. Hes a special guy, Trump said. Your kids have been very nice to him, Kennedy responded. Well they love him in New York, Trump said.

Kennedy reciprocated by inviting Ivanka Trump to the Supreme Court as his guest. During oral argument, she and her daughter sat in the most exclusive section of the courtroom, in seats usually reserved for the justices family and special guests.

In addition, in selecting Neil Gorsuch, Trump placed a former Kennedy clerk on the Supreme Court. This may also have helped the relationship between the president and the swing Justice.

Nonetheless, one can imagine Justice Kennedy being put off by some of Trumps more flamboyant comments about judges. Indeed, Gorsuch was put off by them.

The important point, though, is that Kennedy has nothing to gain, from the point of view of who will succeed him, in waiting to retire. The decision likely comes down to his weighing of the joys of retirement vs. the satisfaction of making so much difference in public affairs.
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Hours after PREMIUM TIMES report revealed that the Federal Ministry of Justice had launched a probe of its senior staff accused of working to stop the prosecution of Zinox Computers top officials, the law firm at the centre of the scandal has moved to destroy evidence.

An investigation by this newspaper showed that Stella Anukam, the director of International & Comparative Law in the ministry, was named as a senior team member of Integrity Law Firm, a chamber linked to Zinox Computers.

Top management staff of the tech firm are accused of contract fraud and are facing federal charges.

But a recent petition filed by Integrity Law Firm is now seen as capable of further stalling the lengthy case that began in 2012.

Mrs. Anukams role in the law firm violates a federal rule barring government workers on paid employment from engaging in private practice.

The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, told PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday the embattled director had been given 48 hours to respond to the allegations.

Earlier, the director of Public Prosecution, Mohammed Umar, had said the ministry had commenced investigations into the allegations against Mrs. Anukam.

Integrity Law Firm, which had previously edited the profile of Mrs. Anukam on its website, removed that detail entirely from its site by Friday after PREMIUM TIMES report.

The profile of a Federal Capital Territory Customary Court judge, Femi Odeahan, which was also on the website, was equally removed.

They were earlier named as first and second management team members of the law firm.

The proprietor the firm, according to the Corporate Affairs Commission, is Innocent Eremionkhale, Mrs. Anukams younger brother.

Ahead of this newspapers report last week, the law firm had edited Mrs. Anukams profile to reflect the status of an external consultant, following a petition by Udah, Bala, James & Partners to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, raising issues of conflict of interest against Mrs. Anukam.

Udah, Bala, James & Partners, who are counsel to Citadel Oracle Concept Limited, an Ibadanbased ICT retail company, had accused Mrs. Anukam of using her office to frustrate efforts by the ministry to prosecute the management of Zinox Computers.

The managing director of Citadel Oracle, Joseph Benjamin, had petitioned the police accusing top officials of Zinox Group, including the Chairman, Leonard Stanley Ekeh, and wife, Chioma, of hijacking a N170.3 million contract awarded to his company by the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, in 2012.

The other accused persons in the case include the Company Secretary/Legal Adviser, Zinox Group and Technology Distribution, TD, Chris Ozims, and a director of TD, Folashade Oyebode; the chief executive of Admas Digital Technologies Limited and Pirovics Engineering Services Limited, Onny Igbokwe, along with one Princess O. Kama.

Two staff of Access Bank Plc, Obilo Onuoha and Deborah Ijeabu, were also identified.

Investigations into the case were completed by the police Special Fraud Unit, SFU, in 2014 and a case established against the suspects. But, prosecution was stalled after police refused to release the case file to the directorate for public prosecution.

However, while awaiting prosecution of the accused, the police arraigned the petitioner (Mr. Benjamin) for alleged false information in his petition against the suspects.

A petition by Mr. Benjamins lawyers against his trial had compelled Mr. Malami to order the DPP to take-over the case and transfer the case file to the ministry to avoid a possible miscarriage of justice.

But a petition by Integrity Law Firm alleging that the police had an ongoing case against Mr. Benjamin made the director of public prosecution, Mr. Umar, to issue another letter to the police reinstating its prosecution, apparently in defiance of the ministers earlier directive.

Mr. Umar told PREMIUM TIMES the letter to the police was issued based on a fresh directive by the Attorney General, whom he said changed his mind on his previous decision.

Citadel Oracles lawyers blamed the Attorney-Generals reversal of his decision on police involvement in the prosecution of their client on Mrs. Anukams role in the Integrity Law Firms petition.

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In one fell swoop, South African telecoms firm, MTN, on Friday sacked 280 of its employees in Nigeria, in a major job cut that affected about 15% of the companys entire Nigerian workforce.

Those affected by the move include some 200 permanent employees and about 80 contract staff across various cadres, ranging from new graduates to senior managers, multiple sources told PREMIUM TIMES.

Many of those sacked spent up to 15 years with the company having joined MTN as it opened its business in Nigeria in 2001.

Our sources said affected workers were given a dismal severance of 75% of their gross monthly income multiplied by the number of years with the company.

Given that the company is about 16 years old in Nigeria, the severance package brought pain and discontent among the affected staff, one source said.

With the payoff structure, senior managers with 15 years of service were left with about N15 million. Most of the staff got less than N5 million.

MTN Nigeria recorded nearly $1 billion in profit in 2016. However, the telecoms firm was heavily fined by the Nigerian government for failing to disconnect 5.2 million unregistered subscribers.

The spokesperson for the company, Funso Aina, could not be reached for comments on Monday.

But a source familiar with the latest downsizing said 200 of those affected had earlier agreed to leave the company voluntarily.

The source said the sackings were as a result of the changing dynamics of the telecoms industry in recent times.

The source said the company introduced the voluntary severance scheme, VSS, to provide a window for one week in April, for persons who have served in MTN for five years and above to take up.

Those who decided to leave under the VSS were to be paid the equivalent of their three weeks gross salary for every year they worked with MTN.

What it means is that if one worked in MTN for five years, one would be paid three weeks of their gross salaries times five, the source said.

Eventually, all 280 staff were disengaged under the VSS and paid their benefits, the source said.

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Civil society groups in Nigeria have called for an investigation after the State Security Service, SSS, brazenly violated the federal character principle in its latest recruitment of cadet officers.

PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the domestic secret service, SSS, conducted a shockingly lopsided employment with wide disparity in the number of slots allocated to the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

While the agency commissioned 479 cadet officers, Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Director-General of the SSS, Lawal Daura, alone had 51 slots, more than the total of slots for states in the South-south (42) or South-east (44).

The presidency claimed in an unsigned statement that the skewed allotments were to correct observed lopsidedness in the staff structure of the organization.

Several civic groups have condemned the recruitment procedure by the SSS, and have called for action.

Armsfree Ajanaku, media and civic engagement manager, Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education CHRICED, called on the government to look at the lopsided recruitment exercise carried out by SSS and other uneven recruitment exercises across the country to ensure that justice is done.

For us at the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, the recruitment scandal at the DSS reflects the impunity that continues to characterize government business, notwithstanding the change mantra of the president.

Developments like these give ammunition to those who whip up sentiments aimed at dividing Nigerians. It appears to us that there exist multiple centres of authority within government such that agencies can afford to act as they please without recourse to anti-corruption values the president is attempting to get Nigerians to accept.

This kind of lopsidedness and cronyism will kill confidence of citizens and erode the modest gains of the anti-corruption fight, Mr. Ajanaku added.

In his reaction, Lanre Suraj of the Civil Society Network Against Corruption, CSNAC, said the matter should be taken up at the highest level.

We will meet the Federal Character Commission, things dont just change, the character of people who occupy office never changes. We have to be extremely vigilant and ensure that we do not allow public office holders to get away with this, Mr. Suraj stated.

People are not thinking about the country. It is actually a matter we are going to take up with the President, Federal Character Commission and also the National Assembly.

We are going to demand investigation and if we do not get satisfactory response or action from the responsible authorities, Federal Character Commission and also the presidency, we will go to court because its a constitutional breach, he added.

Kola Banwo, programme officer, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, also said the matter should be investigated with urgency, for three reasons.

The first is, issue of federal character which is a constitutional thing.

If we are fighting corruption and talking about change, we must ensure that people who undermine the Constitution should not get away with it because you cant fight corruption when impunity surrounds you, he stated.

The second is related to issues of perception the government appointment has been lopsided. This country has been treated unfairly in terms of appointment.

With the data I saw, it shows that certain parts of the country have three times what some other people have. It brings suspicion, if nothing is done about it. It is difficult to believe that the president is aware of it and if he did not do anything about it, it will undermine our unity as a nation and that will not be good for his administration for the rest of his two years.

Thirdly is that this same issue has occurred in several parastatals and nothing has been done about it.

Liborous Oshoma, a lawyer and public policy analyst, condemned the development, reiterating that the matter should be investigated.

He called on the anti-graft agencies to carry out their duty on the matter, stating that those that undermine the federal character principle should be prosecuted.

This is a clear fact, a committee does not need to be set up to look into the matter because this is a breach of the Constitution. He said there was tribalism in the recruitment of the cadet officers.

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The immediate past governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi, on Monday said he had only one wristwatch which he has worn for 17 years.

Speaking at The Platform, a programme put together by the Covenant Christian Centre in Lagos, Mr. Obi said he also has two pairs of black shoes which he travels with always.

I have said it to Nigerians, Peter Obi wears only black shoes, and I have two pairs of them, and I travel with them, Mr. Obi said.

The purpose of shoe is to protect the leg from being hurt. Nothing else. I bought this from Marks and Spencer, $49.99, finish.

The former governor noted that when the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, searched his house at Osborne, Ikoyi, Lagos, the anti-graft agency found nothing, and accused him of not residing in the building.

This, he said, was because the EFCC could not find wristwatches, jewelry and other expensive belongings in the building.

They said we didnt even see watch, and I have said it to everyone, this is the only watch I have, I have worn it for 17 years, Mr. Obi explained.

The purpose of watch is to keep time. Why would I keep a watch at home? Whose time is it keeping?

Mr. Obi continued: Ask those who searched it. I was abroad, they said they wanted to search my house, I sent the key, and they searched my whole apartment and I can tell you the only thing they found.

They said this man doesnt live here. It was only his wifes clothes and shoes that we saw, we didnt see anything belonging to him.

On the controversial Ikoyi money, Mr. Obi wondered why anyone would keep such huge cash in a building, adding that such amount could have been kept in the bank.

Why would anybody put it in such a circumstance? What if it caught fire? If that money was put in our banking system, whoever kept it would have earned eight percent per annum, so he would have earned about $7 million by now, Mr. Obi said.

$7 million is about N2.8 billion today. That is the amount I spent for all secondary schools in Anambra in a year.

If he decided to be generous and give it to graduates, they would have shared it to 2,800 graduates, out of which 2,000 would have been successful, he said.

Commenting further, the former governor said he lives in the Ikoyi building, although he has no houses in Abuja and other parts of Nigeria.

The only place I have a house officially built is Onitsha, if you see any house in Lagos, Abuja or anywhere else belonging to Peter Obi, confiscate it.

I lease that place for my wife and children, he said.

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Nigeria can save about $3.8 billion annually if it sticks to the road map by the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA to boost local production of information and communications technology, ICT, products.

A coalition of civil society groups, Transparency Advocacy Initiative Nigeria, made this observation at a press briefing on Friday in Abuja on trends in the sector in Nigeria.

The coalition lamented that the country loses the amount every year to importation of ICT goods services and software that can be produced locally.

The convener of the coalition, Solomon Adodo, however praised recent efforts by NITDA to sanitise the sector in Nigeria.

He noted that the agency was being repositioned under its new Director General, Isa Ibrahim whose sole and singular pursuit is to make NITDA a leader in information technology development that can measure up to the best global standards.

Mr. Adodo said the efforts of NITDA were beginning to be felt in contract awards and procurement by government agencies and in monitoring of importation of ICT products by MDAs into the country.

In the few instances where contracts were awarded, they have been handled in strict adherence to due process. This measure has helped to ensure that the best standards are attained in projects execution at NITDA and shifted the focus away from contracts to the core productivity and regulatory objectives of the Agency.

He stressed that the money being wasted through capital flight and forex in the importation of ICT products should be used to boost local production as well as revamp the countrys ICT sector.

The determined effort being made by NITDA to boost local content is a masterstroke that will reverse capital flight and loss of forex as this will save the nation an estimated $3.8 billion that is annually lost to importation of ICT goods services and software, Mr. Adodo said.

He urged MDAs to strengthen their partnership with NITDA in the execution of their Info-tech projects to ensure that premium standards were maintained and local content enhanced.

Mr. Adodo noted that in the recent past, fake and substandard products almost saturated the ICT market and affected efficiency and productivity in virtually all sectors of the economy.

He, however, added that the current NITDA administration has begun to fight to reverse the trend.

Nigeria is not a dumping ground and the best standards must be maintained.

NITDAs strengthened collaboration with industry leaders, start-ups and young Nigerians fused with the call on manufacturers of ICT products and service providers (with mutually beneficial incentives) to domesticate their production has begun to yield fruits already and this goes to buttress the commitment of NITDA to lead Nigeria to the glory-lands of the info-tech world.

Mr. Ibrahim, the NITDA boss, had in an interview with Daily Trust Newspaper a few months ago warned that if the trend of importation of ICT products was not stopped or at least reduced to barest minimum, Nigeria would be spending $143.8 billion on ICT imports by 2019.

He said approximately $2.8 billion was being lost annually from importation of ICT goods and services, including $1bn spent on importation of software into the country.

Mr. Ibrahim said one of the best ways to prevent or reduce corruption in the civil service is by looking thoroughly into the IT projects being embarked upon by ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs.

He said that most MDAs use importation of IT projects as a conduit to siphon government money.

He however added that the federal government has mandated all MDAs to seek clearance from NITDA before embarking on any IT project.

Mr. Ibrahim also said NITDA was already filtering the ICT products and monitoring all software being imported into the country in a bid to reduce capital flight and build local industry.

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The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, on Sunday said the Nigerian parliament would enact a new wage bill for Nigerian workers.

Mr. Dogara noted that due to the rising cost of living in the country, increasing workers salary had become necessary.

According to a statement by his Special Adviser, Media and Public Affairs, Turaki Hassan, to mark the 2017 Workers Day, Mr. Dogara said the House was committed to passing a new minimum wage bill.

While commending you for your commitment to the service and building of the nation, I wish to assure you that the National Assembly remains committed to the passage of the National Minimum Wage Bill when presented by the executive, he added.

Commenting further, he stressed that the eight House of Representatives was committed to initiating other laws and legislative interventions that would promote the welfare and well being of Nigerian workers.

He, however, enjoined workers, especially civil servants to re-dedicate themselves to duty and support governments laudable policies and programmes.

I urge you to commit yourselves to doing even more in supporting governments activities that will better the lots of our citizens, he said.

Meanwhile, Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, has said he would ensure that the state clears the four-month salary arrears being owed its workers.

Mr. Ajimobi said this on Sunday in a statement by his Special Adviser, Communication and Strategy, Yomi Layinka, which was sent to PREMIUM TIMES.

The governor, in a congratulatory message released on the occasion of this years Workers Day, assured the state workers that he feels their pains in the face of the biting economic dictates.

Mr. Ajimobi urged the workers to continue to put in their very best and key into the state governments reform agenda aimed at enhancing productivity and ultimately increase the internally generated revenue.

We will spare no effort to ensure that we clear the four-month salary arrears. I urge you to play your part dutifully to achieve this, he said.

No doubt, times are hard because of the pervading poor state of the economy. I feel your pains and Im optimistic that we shall soon sing a new song of prosperity and abundance.

May none of you be missing by that time, he added.

Similarly, the organised labour in Kogi State, Sunday, cancelled the celebration of this years May Day in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, reports that the labour unions cancelled the celebration in protest over the non-payment of workers salaries and monthly pensions of retirees.

According to a statement jointly signed by the state Chairman of the NLC, Onu Edoka, and his TUC counterpart, Ranti Ojo, the decision was taken in solidarity with the affected workers and pensioners.

The unions argued that the non-payment of salary to a large number of workers and pensioners over the past 14 months has destroyed the civil service and the workforce of the state.

They also expressed concern over the increasing hardship being faced by workers and pensioners affected by outcome of the screening exercise conducted by the state government.

The non-payment of salary and pension, has led to the loss of lives and also brought untold hardship to workers in Kogi State, the statement said.

They unions also decried the refusal by government to make available to the organised labour, copy of the report of the screening appeal committee, describing the measure as a deliberate move to prevent the labour from taking a position.

In the face of all these negative happenings, it is therefore advisable for workers not to make themselves available for any act of molestation, harassment and intimidation by any security agency, the unions said.

All affiliate unions are to adhere strictly to this resolution, which is in solidarity with workers and pensioners that have not been paid in the last 14 months, including those that have lost their lives during the period, they said.

In his reaction to the complaints, Kingsley Fanwo, Director-General, Media and Strategy to the Kogi state governor, said government would convene a meeting of stakeholders soon to take a common position on the report of the staff screening and verification committee.

Mr. Fanwo noted that the objective of the screening was not to sack workers, but reform the civil service for optimum performance.

He however said that those who secured employment with fake documents would not be spared.

PREMIUM TIMES reports that the Nigerian government has declared May 1 as public holiday in line with the United Nations decision that the day be set aside every year to celebrate and appreciate workers across the globe.

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The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, on Monday asked the federal government to immediately revisit and re-evaluate the transfer of some federation oil assets by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to its upstream industry subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC.

The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio, made the call in Abuja as part of the transparency agencys continued review of the highlights of its latest edition of NEITI Policy Brief entitled Unremitted funds, oil sector reforms and economic recovery.

Mr. Adio underlined the importance of the review, considering NNPCs under-valuation and refusal to pay for the assets.

Also, he said the review was necessary in view of NPDCs inability to either make returns on investments on the assets, or be accountable to the federation over its management of the oil assets in its custody.

The NEITI Policy Brief has put the total unremitted revenues to the federation by the NPDC at a total of N1.76 trillion, consisting $5.5 billion and and N72.4 billion.

Details of the outstanding revenues by the NPDC to the Federation Account in respect of the transferred oil assets by the NNPC include $1.7 billion in respect of the transfer of right oil mining leases, OMLs from the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC joint venture.

Another $2.23 billion was also outstanding in respect of the transfer of four OMLs from the Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC JV.

NEITI report said the NPDC was yet to refund about $148.3 million and about N2.42 billion, being cash-calls paid to it by the federal government for the transferred OMLs.

Other oustanding revenues unaccounted for also include legacy liabilities of $1.46 billion and N70.02 billion.

Beyond the issue of unremitted monies, there are issues of transparency and efficiency with the operations of NPDC, NEITI noted in its report.

Since 2005, NNPC has transferred 16 OMLs to NPDC. However, the process of transfer of these assets raises serious questions, as there appears to be no clear-cut criteria for transfer of oil mining assets to NPDC.

The process for the transfer of Federations assets to NPDC does not seem to pass the transparency test. One of the upshots of this is the undervaluation of these assets, thereby depriving the Federation of optimal value for the assets, the transparency agency stated.

The undervaluation, NEITI report said, resulted from NNPCs divestment of its 55 per cent shares in the SPDC JV valued at about $1.8 billion.

NEITI pointed out that the valuation of the same assets by PricewaterhouseCoopers was put at about $3.4 billion.

Besides, NEITI compared the valuation of the assets with that of four other assets divested in 2012 by NNPC to NPDC under the NAOC JV, which theDepartment of Petroleum Resources, DPR, valued at about $2.225 billion.

The agency said the NPDC, which has so far paid only $100 million, was still contesting these valuations despite that it was currently operating the 12 OMLs without paying neither the full value, nor the new figures arrived at by PwC and the DPR.

In total, the non-payment for the 12 oil blocks by NPDC sums up to $3.925billion, NEITI said.

NPDC continues to be unaccountable to state institutions and the laws of the country. NPDC has consistently refused to give account of its operations and its management of national oil assets in its possession. NPDC failed to cooperate with the forensic audit ordered by the Auditor-General of the Federation in 2015. The company failed to cooperate with NEITI for five audit cycles, and only partially cooperated during the 2013 and 2014 audits, the agency added.

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Nigerian civil society leaders have urged ailing President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately take medical leave to attend to his health.

Several activists, including notable lawyer, Femi Falana, and Jibrin Ibrahim, said the president should heed the advice of his personal physicians without further delay.

As we join the Nigerian people of goodwill to pray for a speedy recovery of President Buhari, we are compelled to advise him to heed the advice of his personal physicians by taking a rest to attend to his health without any further delay, they said in a statement Monday.

Others who signed the statement are Debo Adeniran, Chris Kwaja, Y. Z. Yau, Chom Bagu, Olanrewaju Suraju, Ezenwa Nwagwu, Anwal Musa Rafsanjani, David Ugolor, Sina Odugbemi, Muhammed Attah and Adetokunbo Mumuni.

Read the groups full statement below:

When President Mohammadu Buhari was recently in the United Kingdom on a medical vacation, which lasted 59 days, many public officers said that he was hale and hearty. But upon his return to the country President Buhari disclosed that he had never been that sick in his entire life. Even though the President did not disclose the nature of his ailment, he revealed that he went through blood transfusion. While thanking the Nigerian people for their prayers, the President announced that he might soon travel back for further medical treatment.

A few weeks ago, the Governor of Kaduna state, Mr. Nasir El-Rufai urged Nigerians to give President Buhari time to recover from his sickness. The plea was made after the Governor had visited and presumably assessed the state of the President at the presidential villa in Abuja. However, due to the apparent deterioration in the Presidents health condition, he has neither been seen in public in the last one week nor attended the last two meetings of the Federal Executive Council. His absence at the last Jumat service in the villa has fuelled further speculations and rumours on President Buharis medical condition.

But instead of embarking on regular briefing on the actual state of the health of President Buhari, officials of the federal government have continued to assure the Nigerian people that the is no need for apprehension over the matter. In defending the absence of the President at the last FEC meeting and other state functions, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu stated that the presidents doctors have advised on his taking things slowly, as he fully recovers from the long period of treatment in the United Kingdom some weeks ago.

As we join the Nigerian people of goodwill to pray for a speedy recovery of President Buhari, we are compelled to advise him to heed the advice of his personal physicians by taking a rest to attend to his health without any further delay.

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The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Caretaker Committee has called for the unconditional release of the former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, and other political detainees in government custody.

The PDP made the call in a statement issued by Dayo Adeyeye, the national publicity secretary of the committee on Monday.

The party said its attention has been once again drawn to unwarranted arrest and detention of Lamido by men of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) in Kano State.

Mr. Adeyeye described the arrest of Mr. Lamido as outrageous and anti-democratic and not based on the frivolous allegation of inciting the public leveled against him.

The true reason for his arrest, however, has to do with the forthcoming Local Government elections in Jigawa State, the party said.

The arrest of former Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue, according to the party, was also linked to the forthcoming Local Government elections in the state.

We are therefore calling on the security agencies in the country to release unconditionally, Lamido, Suswam, former Governor of Niger State, Dr Babangida Aliyu, and all other political detainees in their custody, the party stated.

Mr. Adeyeye added that PDP was also aware that members of the opposition would be in for a hard time in the run-up to the 2019 general elections with more arrests and intimidation of their prominent leaders.

He added that Mr. Lamido merely asked the people to defend their votes against rigging, saying how is that a crime?

If you are not planning to steal the peoples votes, why should you be afraid if the people are advised to defend their votes?

Of course, no thief would want the owner to guard his house against burglary.

The PDP recalled that prior to 2015 general election there were inciting statement credited to some members of the then opposition party and no arrest was made.

It was not a sign of weakness by the PDP led Government. It was in deference to freedom of speech, democracy and peace, the party said.

The party accused members of the ruling party of being the ones instigating the lawlessness in Kogi, Niger, Benue and now Jigawa State.

If this ugly trend is not stopped forthwith, it may lead to breach of peace and public disorder, the party warned.

(NAN)

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The Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC), has demanded a review of pension to a minimum of N25,000, per month, in Sokoto State, as against the N4,000 being paid for the past 12 years.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the chairman of the congress in the state, Aminu Umar, made this demand in Sokoto on Monday at the 2017 May Day celebration.

Mr. Umar also called for the implementation of the government circular of December 2014, on the payment of gratuity and pension to staff and medical workers in the Local Government service, as their counterparts in the state service.

The chairman, however, lauded the state government for the payment of arrears of gratuities of more than N4 billion to retired civil servants in the state and local government service.

Mr. Umar promised that workers in the state would continue to be hard working, honest and dedicated to duty, in order to move the state forward.

In a message, Gov. Aminu Tambuwal, promised to continue to accord priority to the welfare of civil servants, as well as the generality of the citizens.

Represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Bashir Garba, the governor promised to motivate and encourage the civil servants to become robust, disciplined and productive. ( NAN)

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The Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, has disclosed that the administration of his predecessor, Ibrahim Shema, operated over 100 savings accounts in various banks.

Mr. Masari made this known on Sunday at an interactive session with the states indigenes living in Abuja at Shehu YarAdua Conference Centre, Abuja.

The governor also disclosed that he met only N7.9 million in the governments salary account, as he gave a vivid picture of the financial situation of the state as at the time when he took ofiice from Mr. Shema at the end of May 2015.

We inherited N7.9 million only in the salary account in May, 2015, the previous administration operated more than 100 savings accounts in various banks.

Now we have serious problem in Katsina State. Federal allocations of most of our local government areas are not sufficient for them to even pay salaries. Even the state government in many cases has to wait for interventions like bailout and budgetary support from the federal government to execute some projects, Mr. Masari said.

He also said his government met most schools, hospitals and many public structures in a dilapidated condition, lamenting that the situation was deplorable beyond our expectation.

Mr. Masari said his administration is still battling with over-staffing and over-payment of salaries, pension and gratuities.

He called on stakeholders to invest in the state to provide job opportunity to the teeming youth of the state.

In terms of poverty, Katsina ranks third position in Nigeria. But we have no reason to be where we are. We are where we are because we chose to be where we are. Let us come together and make Katsina great again and restore its lost glories.

Seven commissioners and two heads of parastatals presented records of their achievements to the gathering that attracted many prominent indigenes of Katsina state.

During his presentation, Secretary to the State Government, Mustapha Inuwa, who is also the head of task force on security, narrated how some traditional rulers, politicians and businessmen connived with cattle rustlers.

We have reports where these people will buy a cow at the cost of N30,000 only, knowing very well that its market value was N150,000.

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A former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, has said that the money given to governors as security votes was unconstitutional.

Mr. Obi, who said that all former governors in Nigeria should be made to account for the votes, noted that the fund was a waste of resources.

The former governor spoke as a guest at The Platform, a programme organised by Covenant Christian Centre, Lagos, on Monday.

There is nothing in our constitution called security votes. Anybody who tells you that is lying. It is a terminology that was formulated over the years from one thing or the other. What we have is contingency fund.

I can say today that it is being abused; it has become our biggest source of waste.

The former governor said there was need to review the fund, adding that on completion of their terms, state governors should be made to account for the fund.

In fact, what I say to people is that when you finish being a governor, in Anambra state for example, where I finished, I should be invited to account for security votes.

So that people will know that when you finish, you account for it.

Commenting further, Mr. Obi noted that the fund is about 30 percent of a governors expenditure, adding that it was wasteful and unsustainable.

Security vote is not supposed to be more than two, three maximum four percent of expenditure.

Today it is twenty, thirty percent of expenditure, he lamented.

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The Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Monday said the plan by his administration to phase out the yellow commercial buses, popularly known as Danfo, would create more jobs in the transportation sector.

The governor, who spoke at the May Day Rally held at the Agege Stadium to commemorate the 2017 Workers Day Celebration, said the Bus Reform Initiative, aimed at introducing over 5,000 air-conditioned buses to replace the Danfo buses would open new vista of opportunities, while also redefining the means of road transportation in the State.

It was the first time Mr. Ambode would attend the workers rally since he became governor in 2015. Last year, his absence angered the workers.

Responding to the fears raised by the Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Lagos Council, Idowu Adelakun, and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Francis Ogunremi, on the implications of the initiative to drivers, conductors, mechanics and other artisans, Mr. Ambode assured that it would benefit all Lagosians on the long run.

If Lagos is to be globally competitive, we need to change the outlook of the way the city runs, he said.

What is of paramount interest to this government is to make sure that every Lagosian has a comfortable means of moving from one point to the other. But I promise you there will be no job losses.

The governor is not interested in driving all the new buses. It is the same bus drivers, the technicians, the mechanics that will also still be employed and trained to use these new buses. Instead of job losses, we are going to employ more people for the greater number of the buses and it will make the city more beautiful and more comfortable for all our workers.

Governor Ambode, who also addressed the request of the labour leaders on workers welfare, assured that as the States Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) continues to increase, his administration would work out modalities to improve the welfare of workers in line with his mantra of all-inclusive governance.

The governor said that his administration was ready to look into the plight of pensioners as regards the pace of paying pension, assuring that the process would be fast tracked immediately.

Just like we have said, we have provided vehicles for the unions but again it has not gone round and it has also not gone round to the private sector unions, we will complete the whole scheme before the end of the year, he said.

The governor said as part of the celebration of 50 years of the State, his administration would provide a befitting State Secretariat for the NLC, while government would also work on local and international training for labour leaders to make them relevant to the growth of the economy.

Governor Ambode also assured that the officers of the State Public Service, who according to him, are the real drivers of the development in the State, would continue to be equipped with the necessary competencies and skills in order to deliver effective and efficient service to the people.

Commending the choice of this years May Day celebration themed, Labour Relations in Economic Recession: An Appraisal, Mr. Ambode said the leadership of labour unions had demonstrated a responsible sense of stakeholding in the joint enterprise to improve the society and leave lasting legacies for the generations to come through the creation of sustainable wealth and value.

Earlier, Messrs Adelakun and Ogunremi commended the governor for his commitment to workers welfare and the determination with which he had been transforming the State, describing the Governor as an accomplished accounting professional, creative intellectual, skilled planner and focused implementor.

The May Day Rally featured March pasts from various Labour Unions, Trade Organisations and its Affiliates who trooped out enmasse despite the heavy downpour and were excited to see the Governor celebrate the day with them.

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Nigerian soldiers in Ondo State have killed Ossy Ibori, a wanted leader of a militant group involved in kidnapping in Ikorodu and Epe areas of Lagos State.

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, told journalists on Monday in Lagos that the suspect was killed by soldiers at Ajakpa area of Ondo State.

Mr. Owoseni said he was killed at about 3.00 a.m. on Monday in the course of arresting all members of his gang and other criminals who had made life miserable for innocent citizens.

He said the gang members retreated to their base in Ajakpa because they could no longer lay claim to the creeks in Isawo area of Ikorodu.

At about 3.00a.m. today, soldiers posted to dislodge the militants wreaking havoc in some parts of Lagos engaged the criminals in a shootout at Ajakpa, during which the suspected leader known as Ossy was killed.

Efforts are ongoing to arrest the other gang members, Owoseni said.

In a statement, Abubakar Abdullahi, Coordinator, Joint Media Campaign Centre, said Operation DELTA SAFE carried out the killing.

According to Mr. Abdullahi, the squad repelled an attack in Ajakpa Community in the creeks of Southern Ondo State on Sunday night.

He said the attack was led by the notorious gang leader, Ossy Ibori, who had a hideout at Ajakpa, Ilaje Ese-Odo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

The leader was gunned down during the gun duel along with some of his gang members. His body was identified by some of the locals in the area.

Search for other criminals who jumped into the water with gunshot wounds is ongoing. The troops recovered one AK 47 rifle and four magazines, he said.

The Ibori gang had been terrorising parts of Lagos, Ogun and Ondo States.

Last month, the gang killed an army captain and two policemen in Ikorodu, Lagos.

The gang was also blamed for the abduction of students and staff of a secondary school, in Ikorodu area.

The criminals, in addition, carried out several attacks at Ilaje Ese-Odo Community at Ajakpa, Safarogbo and Balowo areas, Mr. Abdullahi said.

Mr. Abdullahi said the need to flush the criminals out from their hideout became necessary to ensure peace and security in Ondo State.

Sadly, in the process, one gallant soldier paid the supreme price while three others sustained gunshot wounds.

They have since been moved to a military hospital for proper medical attention.

While the operation is ongoing, let me appeal to law-abiding residents of the affected communities to remain calm, vigilant and to support our troops with valuable information on whereabouts of other criminals, he said.

(NAN)

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The operatives of Rapid Response Squad of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested a man for impersonating a Nigerian Police officer and extorting people in the Oshodi area of the state

Gregory Anyasodo, 47, from Owerri North, Imo State was arrested on Thursday after extorting N125,000 from one of his victims, a trader in Oshodi, the police said in a statement on Monday.

The unsuspecting victim, Emmanuella Joseph, had approached RRS officials stationed in Oshodi to report Mr. Anyasodos threat to arrest her and confiscate her hand bag containing N125,000.

A search around the area led to the arrest of the suspect and the recovery of a radio that looked like a walkie-talkie and a police identity card, which portrayed him as an Inspector with the number 14873, attached to Lagos Taskforce and Special Anti-Robbery Squad.

Confirming the crime, the suspect acknowledged seizing the traders bag but said he did not steal her money as alleged by the victim.

I have been in the trade since December 2016. I came to Lagos before Christmas in preparation for The Lords Chosen convention in Lagos, which was held in February, 2017 at Ijesha, the police quoted Mr. Anyasodo as saying in his statement.

My early coming for the programme was for me to seize that opportunity to look for job in Lagos. When I couldnt get a job, I ventured into impersonating the police.

The suspect said he had been arrested six times in Owerri for impersonation, after impersonating WAEC and JAMB officials.

I have been arrested thrice by Shell Camp police, Owerri for impersonation, he continued.

I am a father of six. I left my wife with six children when I was coming to Lagos. I have been sleeping in hotels since I got to Lagos.

Occasionally, people allow me to sleep on the balconies and corridors of their house after I had convinced them that am a stranger. I make between N10,000 to N15, 000 daily parading myself as police officer and extorting innocent people.

What I do is move closer to them and tell them, mostly traders. I show them my identity card and I threatened to invite my colleagues if they failed to settle me. I collect the money and I move away.

I am sorry, I have not sent a dime to my wife in Owerri to take care of the six children I left in her possession but occasionally, I call her. I thought of impersonating police because it would fetch me more money.

Also arrested with Mr. Anyasodo were the artist who designed the Police Identity Card for him and the owner of the business centre.

The three suspects have been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Yaba.

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The fidau (eighth-day) prayer for late Isiaka Adeleke who died on April 23, aged 62, was held on Monday in Ede, Osun State.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Governor Rauf Aregbesola, former governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola and other dignitaries were present at the prayer.

Patricia Etteh, a former speaker of the House of Representatives; Adebayo Alao-Akala, a former governor of Oyo State; the Deputy Governor of Osun, Titilaoye Tomori; the Osun State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Gbenga Famodun; party chieftains as well as friends, relatives and political associates also attended the prayer session.

The Chief Imam of Offa, Sheik Suleiman, admonished politicians and all to imbibe the good deeds of the late senator.

Mr. Suleiman said the contributions of the late senator to the development of the state would not be forgotten.

Mr. Suleiman also called on the people of the state to use the prayer as avenue to readjust their ways and live up to the expectations of the masses.

Mr. Suleiman, who noted that death is inevitable, urged those at the event to reflect on their lifestyles.

Also, the Secretary of the League of Alfas and Imams in Osun, Nurudeen Gbolahan, prayed for the repose of the late senator.

Mr. Gbolahan urged those who attended the event to remember that death is inevitable for everyone.

Also, Moshood Adeoti, the Secretary to the Government of the State of Osun who spoke on behalf of government, described the late senator as an icon in the state whose landmark achievements would forever be remembered.

Mr. Adeoti said that Mr. Adelekes painful exit was a shock to the state and the country.

Mr. Adeleke, who died on April 23, was buried on April 24.

Before his death, he was the senator representing Osun West Senatorial District at the Senate under the platform of the APC.

Mr. Adeleke was also the first civilian governor of Osun between January 1992 and November 1993 on the platform of defunct Social Democratic Party.

(NAN)

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FILE PHOTO: Logos of Swiss bank UBS are seen at a branch office in Zurich, Switzerland January 27, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

(Reuters) - U.S. federal prosecutors subpoenaed several banks last month as part of a criminal investigation into possible manipulation of the U.S. Treasuries market, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

The banks include UBS Group AG (UBSG.S), BNP Paribas SA (BNPP.PA) and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc (RBS.L), Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

A series of class action lawsuits have accused various banks and brokerages of conspiring to manipulate U.S. Treasury auctions.

The lawsuits have alleged that the banks colluded to manipulate Treasury Department auctions and the pricing of Treasury securities, as well as derivative products such as futures, whose value is pegged to the Treasury.

UBS has flagged a probe related to U.S. Treasury securities in its earnings reports.

"UBS and reportedly other banks are responding to investigations and requests for information from various authorities regarding U.S. Treasury securities and other government bond trading practices," the Swiss bank said in its latest quarterly report last month.

UBS, BNP Paribas and the U.S. Justice Department all declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. RBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
MULLICA TOWNSHIP  Ann Butt, of Hammonton, sat in a pew Sunday afternoon inside the Elwood Gaskill United Methodist Church receiving a double dose of two things she appreciates  gospel music and voices that sound like the late Elvis Presley.

Butt attended the Jim Barone tribute to the Elvis Gospel Hour held at the church.

You can feel God or the Holy Spirit most of the time when he (Barone) is singing, said Butt, 74.

Even though Presley is known as the king of rock n roll, he released one gospel extended play disc and three gospel albums during his lifetime.

Butt owns those recordings and finds Barones voice is so close to Presleys, she can pray while he is singing.

Brother Andy Dahl, 69, of Somers Point, is a fan of gospel music. He was the preacher at a Baptist church in Jacksonville, Florida.

Annually, Dahls church members attended a gospel festival in Georgia.

Dahl attended Barones performance to praise the Lord and listen to gospel music. He had heard some of the original Presley gospel recordings.

His (Presleys) heart was in it. He did a fine job. He loved his mama, and he loved church, Dahl said.

After being introduced by the pastor, Barone stepped to the altar with the black hair and long sideburns of Presley, dressed in a black shirt, pants and white jacket.

The songs Barone sung included Amazing Grace, Peace in the Valley and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

Susan Ficken, of Galloway Township, has been following Barone for 20 years when he does his regular Presley show, which spans several decades of his career.

A couple of years ago, Ficken, a church member, experienced Barones tribute to the Elvis Gospel Hour at the Wright Memorial Presbyterian Church in Barnegat.

Ficken asked Barone if he would be willing to come to her Methodist church and do the show. Sunday was Barones third appearance at the church, and a fourth appearance is scheduled for December.

Liz Jones, 58, traveled from Northfield to hear Barones Presley gospel tribute.

I like southern gospel, Jones said. I have listened to Elvis, but not his gospel music.
For the Public Eye, the end of the month brings about a new round of tips from diligent residents and readers, eager to know the status of projects and problems that still seem to not be addressed.

The problem: Old Harding Highway in Mays Landing seems to be the project that keeps sinking on the to-do list when it comes to repaving, according to a Public Eye tipster.

A Mays Landing resident sent Public Eye a picture of the lumpy, bumpy county road, at a portion right in front of the dilapidated former Wheaton Glass Factory.

The tipster said the road resurfacing project made it as far as construction vehicles and detours in 2016, before it was halted during the state-mandated freeze on projects funded through the depleted Transportation Trust Fund.

The detour signs are still up. The plastic trash bags covering them are starting to come off. It would seem that, with the weather warming and prior to the tourist season, it is time to complete this project, said the concerned resident in an email.

The facts: A news release from February on the Atlantic County website said the portion of Old Harding Highway and Weymouth Road was rescheduled to begin in spring. The freeze of the TTF held up repaving, as did freezing weather, so spring is an easy default to when projects will restart.

Atlantic County Executive Dennis Levinson was quoted as saying the project was hoped to begin as early as April. No update has been given at this point. As the TTF sees replenishment after the 23-cent gas hike New Jersey drivers incurred, projects should get underway.

The next step: Unfortunately, South Jersey seems to be low on the priority list of projects planned using $400 million Gov. Chris Christie signed over to transportation spending. However, the condition of most area roads is not unnoticed by local and county officials who are working to improve roadways. Lets hope our voices here in South Jersey can reach up to Trenton to let officials know we need smooth roads and sturdy bridges, too.
New Jerseys beaches could be the front line of a mounting battle between the Trump administration and a bipartisan group of New Jersey lawmakers, mayors and environmental groups over the prospects of offshore oil drilling and clean water.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday reversing the Obama administrations moratorium on oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic Ocean and parts of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.

That order has ignited a local wave of bipartisan opposition to offshore drilling, as both Democrats and Republicans in New Jerseys congressional delegation have publicly announced their objection to the presidents order.

U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, both D-N.J., and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6th, announced the reintroduction of the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act along the beach in Belmar on Monday, which would ban offshore oil and gas drilling in response to Trumps executive order.

Menendez also criticized the move, joining more than two dozen other senators in urging the U.S. Department of the Interior not to allow offshore drilling.

Tourism is the second-largest industry in New Jersey, most of it directly linked to the states 130 miles of coastline. U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, said the economy and environment are intertwined, and even a low risk of an offshore drilling accident cannot be ignored.

Tourism is a $43 billion industry in New Jersey and a lifeblood for many, and it relies on us having clean beaches and clean water. Tourists wont come without clean beaches, a lesson we learned the hard way in the 1990s, LoBiondo said, referencing a small oil spill in Delaware Bay in 1996.

LoBiondo introduced legislation Thursday that would halt permits for seismic airgun blasting along the Atlantic seaboard.

Companies use seismic blasting in their surveying process to map possible oil reserves under the ocean floor. A similar process was last conducted in the waters off of New Jersey in June 2015, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

For that project, funded by the National Science Foundation, researchers from Rutgers University used seismic blasting to examine the geologic record of sea-level change and the effect on shoreline stability.

Lobiondo said that even the surveying process can have harmful effects on the environment and economy.

The seismic booms have an impact on underwater sea life, which in turn affects our recreational and commercial fisheries, which generate over a billion dollars in revenue, Lobiondo said.

Ventnor Commissioner Lance Landgraf said offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean is a direct threat to the sensitive coastal environment in New Jersey, as well as tourism for shore towns such as Ventnor.

Our beaches, thats the most obvious. But also the Boardwalk. Thats yearround. We rely on that as our tourist draw.

Landgraf said he would rather see development of offshore wind turbines, which he said are both environmentally friendly and act as a tourist attraction.

Cindy Zipf, founder and director of Clean Ocean Action, called the drilling plan a betrayal of Trumps own campaign promise to Make America Great Again.

The clean ocean economy supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in economic return, supports the states economy through the taxes that it generates, and it restores the souls of millions of Americans that come to the shore for the joys of swimming, splashing, boating, diving, Zipf said. Thats why its a nonpartisan issue in New Jersey to defend and protect the Jersey Shore.

The Trump administration has also proposed environmental spending cuts, including money directed to test for harmful bacteria in the water each summer. But the N.J. DEP ensures water testing will go on as normal this summer.

Were fully funded to test all the beaches, about 150 on the ocean and more than 80 along our bays and rivers, through this year, said Larry Hanja, DEP spokesperson.

Hanja said it costs a few hundred thousand dollars per year to conduct the weekly water-quality tests, which look for bacteria that could be harmful to swimmers. Hanja speculated that even if the federal funding were lost in the future, the state could try to pick up the cost for the water testing.

 Staff Writer Claire Lowe contributed to this report.
A.C. jetty fishing troubles

I have noticed over my last 40 years or so that most of the favorite fishing jetties have slowly been falling into a state of decay. I am speaking mainly of what is popularly known as the T-Jetty. Each year I have noticed more and more of the boulders or large rocks and concrete rolled off into the inlet and the adjacent beach. Its becoming increasingly difficult for old timers and young children to access this and other jetties along the inlet. I certainly hope that Atlantic City has jetty renovation in its plans. They have been in a state of decay for much too long.

Of greater concern is the total disregard of some who call themselves fishermen, who leave their trash and garbage on the jetties.

Plastic bags and bottles, and discarded fishing line are the most dangerous items. They either end up in the water or entangling wildlife. Also, the trash is an eyesore that attracts unwanted insects and endangers people too.

A fisherman who leaves his litter is not a fisherman at all; he is a slob. The perfect motto is, If you carry it on, carry it off. Drop it off at the nearest dumpster or take it home to properly discard. Remind others to take their trash, or even take more off than you brought.

Maintenance of the fishing jetties is the responsibility of the city and more so of the fishermen.

Sal Fonte

Browns Mills

Mideast military action cause for great alarm

Do we have a Middle East policy? So far as I know, there is none and never was one. In 2001, Congress approved a resolution authorizing the president to use necessary force on any nation, person or organization he determined aided in any terrorist attack.

It is time for the Congress to reclaim its authority over war-making.

The remorseful tragedy of the Middle East conflict has proven to be unsolvable by U.S. government. Now that the nation has a commander-in-chief who makes overnight decisions, encouraged by the military, it is a more dangerous time for the U.S. to become heavily involved in trying to control or solve the problems in Syria.

Humanitarian aid, of course; heavy military involvement, no. It is cause for great alarm.

The nation will be dragged into a further quagmire when it has not even been able to cut ties with Iraq and Afghanistan.

When will it end, if ever? The tax burden will surely be increased.

Elizabeth Canderan

Cape May Court House

Poor airline treatment

So its come to this: An innocent person manhandled by agents of an airline. The maxim that the customer is always right seems to have been replaced with the customer is least considered.

Last year, my flight from LAX was delayed due to some technical glitch. Consequently, we arrived late for our connecting flight in Minneapolis. When we reached Minneapolis, we made a concourse dash to the connector and were pleased to find the airline held the plane for us. That is customer consideration.

The trauma the poor passengers experienced on the United flight will stay with them for the foreseeable future. The unmitigated gall demonstrated by United in replacing paying and seated passengers with employees, and the utter brutality imposed on the victim/passenger and the witnesses, is beyond the pale.

Shame on them and us if we accept this kind of treatment.

Jim McManus

Ocean City
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Aiming to Connect Education to Labour Market Requirements

Intensive preparations are under way for the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to be held on May 14-18, 2017, under the theme, 'Youth Economic Empowerment', and attended by more than 2000 participants.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/506131/Jeddah_2017_Logo.jpg )

The Annual Meeting will offer a significant opportunity to explore ways to help the Group's 57 member countries connect education to labor market requirements. The agenda of the meeting includes a Youth Summit, to be held May 15-16 at the Jeddah Hilton Hotel, aiming at shaping the future of youth and enhancing youth engagement in the socio-economic development. Participants include senior officials and major youth influencers, and youth groups of different specializations from member countries.

"Inclusive human development is a key element of our 10-Year Strategic Framework. The 42nd Annual Meeting under the theme, 'Youth Economic Empowerment', comes as a major occasion to achieve this by sharing experiences and best practices on education initiatives, and strengthening partnership with the private sector on youth empowerment," said Dr. Abdulhakim Elwaer, IsDB Group spokesperson.

"The Annual Meeting will offer a broad platform for decision makers from all our member countries to discuss the challenges and opportunities in education and skills development, and recommend strategies to provide youths with the relevant skills and competencies to meet the demands of the 21st century labor market," Dr. Elwaer added.

The World Economic Forum, in its 2016 report on 'Future of Jobs', has pointed out that in many countries, the most in-demand jobs or specializations did not exist 10 or even five years ago, and that the pace of change is set to accelerate and will not stop, estimating that 65 per cent of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that do not yet exist.

In line with the theme of the Annual Meeting, IsDB is looking to chart the path towards youth economic empowerment in all its member countries through workshops and flagship events, led by top-level panelists from the government, private sector, academia and the civil society.

The Annual Meeting will give a chance to youth from member countries to take part in the workshops and different events in which high-level experts from private and public sectors, academia and the civil society will participate.

Apart from career based education, key sessions will cover major topics of current relevance such as social media, youth health, agricultural entrepreneurship and Islamic finance.

During the last 43 years, IsDB has been a major contributor to education in a number of countries. In recent years, it has offered assistance in creating a Medical Education and Research Institute in Jakarta, Indonesia; supported education initiatives in Senegal and Somalia; provided electronic education facilities for 2 million children in Syria; and helped build better schools in Togo and Tajikistan.

Contact:

Nora sankour

nora@hadathgroup.com

+971568797444





SOURCE Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB)
New ownership provides investment platform for long-term growth

WESTWOOD, MA, LAVAL, QC and SAN FRANCISCO, CA, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - 20-20 Technologies Inc. ("2020") today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Golden Gate Capital, a leading private equity investment firm. The terms of the transactions were not disclosed.

2020 is the only global provider of applications, solutions and content for interior space planning, omni-channel retail and furniture manufacturing, delivering an end-to-end solution that offers a compelling alternative to ad hoc integration of multiple source component products. Founded in 1987, the company has developed an unmatched depth of knowledge of interior design and space planning to maintain an unbroken history of market and thought leadership. 2020 customers include many of the world's largest home improvement retailers and manufacturers, as well as tens of thousands of local, independent kitchen and bathroom dealers.

"We are delighted to welcome 2020 into our portfolio," said Rishi Chandna, a Managing Director at Golden Gate Capital. "2020 provides the mission-critical solutions that designers, dealers, retailers and manufacturers rely on to create amazing spaces for home and work. As the retail landscape accelerates toward an omni-channel approach, 2020 has the products, technology and team to build upon their position as the global leader in this market."

2020 will remain headquartered in Laval, Quebec and Westwood, Massachusetts and will continue to be led by its current senior management team, including Mark Goldstein, Chief Executive Officer.

"Our customers are the most important part of our business," said Mr. Goldstein. "We have a very serious responsibility to provide them new and better ways to help them profitably run their businesses, which requires us to always invest in ideas and technology that will keep us ahead of market trends and dynamics. The long-term strategic approach of Golden Gate Capital and the confidence they have in 2020 make them the perfect partner to inspire us toward an exciting new phase of growth in our company's evolution."

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017. William Blair & Company LLC acted as the exclusive financial advisor to 2020. Sidley Austin is acting as legal advisor to 2020. Goldman Sachs Specialty Lending Group agreed to provide debt financing in connection with the transaction. Kirkland & Ellis and Nob Hill Law Group are serving as legal advisors to Golden Gate Capital.

About Golden Gate Capital

Golden Gate Capital is a San Francisco-based private equity investment firm with over $15 billion of capital under management. The principals of Golden Gate Capital have a long and successful history of investing across a wide range of industries and transaction types, including going-privates, corporate divestitures, and recapitalizations, as well as debt and public equity investments. Golden Gate Capital is one of the most active software investors in the world. Other notable software investments sponsored by Golden Gate Capital include Infor, BMC Software, Ex Libris, Micro Focus and LiveVox. For more information, visit www.goldengatecap.com.

About 2020

2020 helps professional designers, retailers and manufacturers in the interior design and furniture industries capture ideas, inspire innovation and streamline processes. By providing end-to-end solutions and the world's largest collection of manufacturers' catalogs, 2020 provides businesses with the software and content to be more efficient, integrated and productive. 2020 applications allow professional designers to create kitchens, bathrooms, closets and commercial offices which look as stunning on the screen as they do in reality. 2020 helps retailers to inspire the imagination of their customers and provide an on-line design and shopping experience for home projects. Our solutions for furniture and cabinet manufacturers deliver a complete manufacturing operations management capability to run their factories at maximum efficiency.

Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Westwood, Massachusetts and Laval, Quebec, 2020 employs over 500 people, has direct operations in 11 countries, and supports more than 19,000 customers with over 100,000 users, with additional customers around the world supported through a network of value added resellers. For more information, visit our website www.2020spaces.com.

SOURCE 2020
PRESENTERS:

Dr. Christine Moutier , Chief Medical Officer, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

, Chief Medical Officer, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Jill Cook , Assistant Director, American School Counselor Association

, Assistant Director, American School Counselor Association Dr. Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach , Director of Government Relations, National Association of School Psychologists

Register: Registration required: http://bit.ly/2pGstjR

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is dedicated to saving lives and bringing hope to those affected by suicide. AFSP creates a culture that's smart about mental health through education and community programs, develops suicide prevention through research and advocacy, and provides support for those affected by suicide. Led by CEO Robert Gebbia and headquartered in New York, AFSP has local chapters in all 50 states with programs and events nationwide. AFSP celebrates 30 years of service to the suicide prevention movement. Learn more about AFSP in its latest Annual Report, and join the conversation on suicide prevention by following AFSP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

SOURCE American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

Related Links

http://www.afsp.org


RICHMOND, Va., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A year since the U.S. government's easing of travel restrictions to Cuba, an annual survey* by leading travel insurance provider Allianz Global Assistance is reporting that Americans are less interested in taking a trip to the country than in 2016.

The 2017 survey showed that 40 percent of Americans would be interested in taking a trip to Cuba (two percent fewer than in 2016) while the easing of travel restrictions made just 26 percent of Americans more interested in visiting the country (nine percent fewer than 2016). Seventy-six percent reported being unlikely to plan a trip to Cuba (six percent more than 2016).

While safety concerns (38 percent in 2017/ six percent lower than in 2016) and fear of communist government (12 percent in 2017/ three percent lower than in 2016) were major anxieties for Americans in 2016, those worries appear to be weakening this year. Instead, lack of information on Cuba's travel experiences (22 percent in 2017/ four percent higher than in 2016), travel infrastructure (13 percent in 2017/ one percent higher than in 2016) and internet/mobile connectivity (nine percent in 2017/ two percent higher than in 2016) are the factors making Americans less interested and likely to travel to Cuba.

Resorts and beaches (32 percent/ one percent less than in 2016) remain the hot ticket items that would make Americans most interested and likely to travel to Cuba. That is still ahead of Cuba's cultural attractions (23 percent/ one percent less than in 2016), Cuban food and rum (13 percent/ two percent higher than in 2016), the Cuban people (nine percent/ three percent less than in 2016), classic 1950s American cars (nine percent/ same as 2016), Cuban cigars (seven percent/ two percent higher than in 2016) and family and friends (seven percent/ two percent higher than in 2016).

The survey also measured sentiment and discovered that 34 percent of Americans think Cuba has changed for the better because of as a result of the U.S. having eased travel restrictions to the country.

"Our survey found that merely two percent of Americans think they will go to Cuba in the next six months, two percent believe they will make it there by the end of 2017 and 10 percent think they will go sometime in 2018," said Daniel Durazo, director of communications at Allianz Global Assistance USA. "Airlines continue to change their services to Cuba, while cruise lines are revving up sailings to the island. It will be interesting to see how this affects visitors' interest. It may be having initial effects as Allianz's cruise survey from earlier in the year showed that 17 percent of Americans felt the recent announcements of cruise lines adding sailings to Cuba made them more interested in visiting the country."

The survey also found that 15 percent of Americans believe the peace of mind of having travel insurance would make them more interested in traveling to Cuba.

Allianz Global Assistance offers travel insurance through most major U.S. airlines, leading travel agents, online travel agencies, other travel suppliers and directly to consumers. For more information on Allianz Global Assistance and the policies offered for travelers, please visit: http://www.allianztravelinsurance.com.

*Methodology: The 2017 10-question survey was administered to the U.S. internet population from April 11, 2017 through April 13, 2017, receiving 1,514 responses. The methodology is explained here and a snapshot of survey findings are listed below:

Response 2016 2017 % change

Does the easing of travel restrictions on travel to Cuba make you more or less interested in visiting the country? Did the easing of restrictions last year on travel to Cuba make you more or less interested in visiting the country?

More Interested 35% 26% -9% Less Interested 8% 7% -1% No Change 57% 67% +10%



After the U.S. Government's recent announcement easing travel restrictions to Cuba, would you like to travel to Cuba? A year after the U.S. Government's easing of travel restrictions to Cuba in 2016, would you be interested in taking a trip to Cuba?

Yes, I would like to travel to Cuba 42% 40% -2% No, I would not like to travel to Cuba 58% 60% +2%



How likely are you to actually plan a trip to Cuba?

Very Likely 7% 5% -2% Somewhat Likely 22% 19% -3% Not Likely 70% 76% +6%



If you feel likely to take a trip to Cuba, when do you think you will go?

In the next 6 months 2% 2% 0% (Within the same year) Sometime in 2016  2% Sometime in 2017  2% 0% (Sometime in the next year) Sometime in 2017  10% Sometime in 2018  10% 0% I don't know 34% 28% -6% I don't feel likely to take a trip to Cuba 53% 59% +6%



What makes you less interested/likely to travel to Cuba?

Safety concerns 44% 38% -6% Lack of information on Cuba's travel experiences 18% 22% +4% Fear of communist government 15% 12% -3% Lack of travel infrastructure 12% 13% +1% Lack of internet/ mobile connectivity 7% 9% +2% Lack of appropriate healthcare facilities 6% 6% 0%



What would make you most interested/likely to travel to Cuba?

Resorts and beaches 33% 32% -1% Cultural attractions 24% 23% -1% The Cuban people 12% 9% -3% Cuban food and Cuban rum 11% 13% +2% Classic 1950s American cars 9% 9% 0% Cuban cigars 5% 7% +2% Family/friends 5% 7% +2%



Do you expect Cuba to change for the better or worse as a result of the U.S. easing travel restrictions to the country? Do you think Cuba has changed for the better or worse as a result of the U.S. having eased travel restrictions to the country last year?

Better 55% 34% N/A Worse 8% 6% N/A No Change 38% 60% N/A



What negative changes do you expect opening Cuba to U.S. travelers will have on the country? What negative changes do you think opening Cuba to U.S. travelers has had on the country over the last year?

I don't expect any negative changes / I don't think negative changes have occurred 39% 52% N/A Rapid modernization; Cuba's not ready for it 13% 10% N/A The next Cancun; a theme park for tourists 13% 10% N/A A loss of Cuban culture 11% 10% N/A An increase in all-inclusive resort hotels 10% 5% N/A Worse lives for Cuban people 7% 8% N/A Overcrowding of world-heritage sites 7% 6% N/A



Are you concerned the influx of American travelers over the years will ruin the timeless feeling of the country?

Very concerned 7% 7% 0% Concerned 12% 8% -4% Mildly concerned 19% 17% -2% Neutral 29% 29% 0% Not concerned, it will not change 14% 14% 0% Not concerned, it will change for the better 20% 25% +5%



Would the peace of mind of having travel insurance change your interest in traveling to Cuba?

Yes, more interested with travel insurance 14% 15% +1% No, it doesn't address my concerns 45% 39% -6% Unchanged, I don't want to travel to Cuba 41% 46% +5%

Allianz Global Assistance USA

Allianz Global Assistance USA (AGA Service Company) is a leading consumer specialty insurance and assistance company. We provide insurance to over 25 million customers annually and are best known for our Allianz Travel Insurance plans. In addition to travel insurance, Allianz Global Assistance USA offers tuition insurance, event ticket protection, registration protection for endurance events and unique travel assistance services such as international medical assistance and concierge services. The company also serves as an outsource provider for in-bound call center services and claims administration for property and casualty insurers and credit card companies.

To learn more about Allianz Travel Insurance, please visit allianztravelinsurance.com or Like us on Facebook at Facebook.com/AllianzTravelInsuranceUS.

** - Terms, conditions, and exclusions apply to all plans. Plans are available only to U.S. residents. Not all plans are available in all jurisdictions. For a complete description of the coverage and benefit limits offered under your plan, carefully review your plan's Letter of Confirmation/Declarations and Certificate of Insurance/Policy. Insurance coverage is underwritten by BCS Insurance Company (OH, Administrative Office: Oakbrook Terrace, IL), rated "A-" (Excellent) by A.M. Best Co., under BCS Form No. 52.201 series or 52.401 series, or Jefferson Insurance Company (NY, Administrative Office: Richmond, VA), rated "A+" (Superior) by A.M. Best Co., under Jefferson Form No. 101-C series or 101-P series, depending on state of residence. Allianz Global Assistance and Allianz Travel Insurance are brands of AGA Service Company. AGA Service Company is the licensed producer and administrator of these plans and an affiliate of Jefferson Insurance Company. The insured shall not receive any special benefit or advantage due to the affiliation between AGA Service Company and Jefferson Insurance Company. Non-insurance benefits/products are provided and serviced by AGA Service Company.

SOURCE Allianz Global Assistance

Related Links

http://www.allianztravelinsurance.com


NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- AllianceBernstein LP and AllianceBernstein Holding, LP ("AB") (NYSE: AB) today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Robert B. Zoellick Chairman of the Board of Directors and Seth Bernstein President and Chief Executive Officer. Zoellick and Bernstein succeed Peter Kraus, following his departure as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors.

AB also announced that it has appointed three new independent directors to a newly reconstituted Board. Barbara Fallon-Walsh, Daniel G. Kaye and Ramon de Oliveira will join the Board, along with Messrs. Zoellick and Bernstein. Current directors Denis Duverne and Mark Pearson will remain on the Board, joined by Anders Malmstrom, the Chief Financial Officer of AXA Financial, Inc. AB thanked its former directors for their service.

Denis Duverne, Chairman of AXA's Board and a long-time member of the AB Board, AXA US, said, "We are delighted to welcome two world class executives and three new outstanding independent directors to AB. Bob Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, is currently a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and is a board member of Temasek (Singapore's Sovereign Wealth Fund) and Laureate Education, Inc. He recently stepped down as Chairman of Goldman Sachs International Advisors, where he worked closely with GS Asset Management. Bob was a board member of Alliance Capital Management Corporation from 1997-2001. Seth Bernstein, formerly Global Head of Managed Solutions and Strategy at J.P. Morgan, brings three decades of experience and a proven track record of success in investment management and private banking. We also welcome to the AB Board Barbara Fallon-Walsh, Dan Kaye and Ramon de Oliveira who bring fresh perspectives and relevant expertise."

Duverne added, "We thank Peter Kraus for his service to AB and its stakeholders since taking over in the challenging environment of 2008. He has built a strong team and we believe the company is well positioned for an excellent future. We wish him well. Looking forward, continued success requires us to keep partnering closely with our clients to create the right solutions for their needs through constant innovation. In an industry that is confronting significant shifts, we need to continue transforming the business to improve the quality of our investment solutions while delivering our services more effectively. We are confident that with Bob and Seth we have the right leadership team in place to capitalize on new opportunities and deliver superior value to all of our stakeholders."

Said Zoellick, "I have long admired AB for its talented people, outstanding research, top-tier Private Wealth business and extensive global presence. I look forward to working with Seth and the Board to build on AB's legacy and commitment to being the most trusted investment firm in the world."

Said Bernstein, "As both an AB client of many years and an investment professional, I have a deep appreciation and respect for the firm's distinguished history and exceptional capabilities. I am excited about the opportunity to work with the team in delivering strong returns and superb service to our clients, while accelerating growth and delivering value to all of our stakeholders."

Biographies

Robert B. Zoellick served as the eleventh President of the World Bank Group from 2007 to 2012. Previously, he served as Vice Chairman, International of the Goldman Sachs Group, Managing Director, and Chairman of Goldman Sachs' Board of International Advisors from 2006 to 2007. Zoellick served as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. State Department from 2005 to 2006 and in the cabinet as U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005.

Additionally, in the George H.W. Bush and Reagan Administrations, Zoellick served as an Under Secretary of State, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions Policy. From 1993-97, he was Executive Vice President for Housing and Law at Fannie Mae.

Seth Bernstein has had a distinguished 32-year career at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and most recently he was Managing Director and Global Head of Managed Solutions and Strategy at JPMorgan Asset Management. In this role, he was responsible for the management of all discretionary assets within the Private Banking client segment. Among other roles, Bernstein was Managing Director and Global Head of Fixed Income & Currency for ten years, concluding in 2012. Previously, Bernstein served as Chief Financial Officer at JPMorgan Chase's investment management and private banking division. He is a member of the Board of Managers of Haverford College.

Barbara Fallon-Walsh held several executive positions at The Vanguard Group between 1995 and her retirement in 2012. She previously served in executive positions at Security Pacific Bank Corporation, which merged with Bank of America in 1992. Fallon-Walsh is a director of AXA Financial, AXA Equitable and MONY Life Insurance Company of America. She formerly served as a director of AXA Investment Managers S.A., AXA IM Inc. and AXA Rosenberg Group LLC.

Daniel Kaye served as Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of HealthEast Care System from January 2013 to May 2014. Kaye retired from Ernst & Young LLP in 2012 after a 35-year career, including 25 years as an audit partner, during which he gained extensive financial services experience. Kaye is a director of AXA Financial, AXA Equitable, MONY Life Insurance Company of America and AXA Insurance Company.

Denis Duverne has served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of AXA since 2016. He joined AXA in 1995 and has held multiple management roles including Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive Vice President of Finance, Control and Strategy. Duverne has served on the Board of Directors of AB since 1996.

Mark Pearson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of AXA Financial, Inc. and has served as a director on AB's Board since 2011. He joined AXA US in 1995 with the acquisition of National Mutual, which then became AXA Asia Pacific Holdings, and has held various roles with AXA, including Regional Chief Executive of AXA Asia Life and President and CEO of AXA Japan.

Anders Malmstrom is Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of AXA Financial, Inc. He is also Senior Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company as well as a member of the company's executive committee. Malmstrom joined AXA in 2012 from AXA Winterthur in Switzerland, where he was a member of the Executive Board and head of the Life Department. Before joining AXA Winterthur in 2009, Malmstrom was head of product management, Group Life Insurance, at The Swiss Life Group in Zurich.

Ramon de Oliveira is the Managing Director of the consulting firm Investment Audit Practice, LLC. Previously, he held several executive positions at JPMorgan & Co. over the course of a 24-year tenure, including five years as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Investment Management. He was also a member of the firm's Management Committee since its inception in 1995. De Oliveira is a director of AXA Financial, AXA Equitable and MONY Life Insurance Company of America.

Conference Call

AB will host a conference call, May 1, 2017, at 8:30 am ET. To access the conference call, please dial (866) 556-2265 in the US, or (973) 935-8521 from outside the US, 10 minutes before the 8:30 am (ET) scheduled start time. The conference ID# is 16982453.

An audio replay of the conference call will be available for one week. To access the audio replay, please call (855) 859-2056 in the US, or (404) 537-3406 from outside the US, and provide the conference ID#: 16982453.

Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements provided by management in this news release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The most significant of these factors include, but are not limited to, the following: the performance of financial markets, the investment performance of sponsored investment products and separately-managed accounts, general economic conditions, industry trends, future acquisitions, competitive conditions, and current and proposed government regulations, including changes in tax regulations and rates and the manner in which the earnings of publicly-traded partnerships are taxed. AB cautions readers to carefully consider such factors. Further, such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which such statements are made; AB undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements. For further information regarding these forward-looking statements and the factors that could cause actual results to differ, see "Risk Factors" and "Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" in AB's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2017. Any or all of the forward-looking statements made in this news release, Form 10-K, Forms 10-Q, other documents AB files with or furnishes to the SEC and any other public statements issued by AB, may turn out to be wrong. It is important to remember that other factors besides those listed in "Risk Factors" and "Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements", and those listed above, could also adversely affect AB's financial condition, results of operations and business prospects.

About AB

AB is a leading global investment management firm that offers high-quality research and diversified investment services to institutional investors, individuals and private wealth clients in major world markets.

As of March 31, 2017, AB Holding owned approximately 35.9% of the issued and outstanding AB Units and AXA, a worldwide leader in financial protection, owned an approximate 63.8% economic interest in AB.

Additional information about AB may be found on our website, www.abglobal.com.

SOURCE AB

Related Links

http://www.abglobal.com


NEWARK, N.J., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ABP Technology (ABPTech), a value-added IP Technology distributor specializing in communications, surveillance and infrastructure, and net2phone, a leader in VoIP communications and a rapidly growing UCaaS provider, today announced a partnership to make net2phone's cloud communication services available to ABPTech's technology partners.

Kurt Dow, ABPTech's VP of Business Development said, "net2phone's worldwide infrastructure provides very low latency for a positive customer experience. net2phone is a 3CX-tested and supported SIP trunk provider so our partners get a seamless solution. By coupling our IP PBX solutions, whether on-premise or hosted, with net2phone's SIP Trunking, we make it easy for our partners to rollout quick and problem-free installations."

net2phone's SIP Trunking and hosted PBX services provide clients with access to unlimited international calling from the US and Canada to 23 popular international destinations for a low, flat monthly rate. Backed by IDT Telecom, and certified by 3CX, net2phone SIP Trunking is efficient and reliable.

Jonah Fink, President of net2phone, said, "We are delighted to team with ABPTech. Our SIP Trunking solution not only provides a superior technical solution, it also offers ABPTech's partners the freedom to price our solution to meet their customers' requirements because we provision end users exclusively through the channel."

About ABP Technology:

ABP Technology is a wholly owned, value-added distributor of IP Technology products and solutions based in Dallas, TX. ABPTech serves throughout the Americas including the United States, Latin America, Canada and the Caribbean. The ABPTech portfolio includes best-of-breed solutions within the IP Communications Voice & Video, IP Surveillance & Physical Security and IP Infrastructure Wired & Wireless spaces. The company serves Technology Partners of many kinds including but not limited to, IT Integrators, Resellers, MSPs, ITSPs and WISPs. Find out more at www.abptech.com.

About net2phone:

net2phone is a rapidly-growing unified communications as a service (UCaaS) provider. net2phone's flagship hosted PBX and SIP Trunking services are offered exclusively through channel partners. net2phone is a subsidiary of IDT Corporation (NYSE: IDT), a global provider of telecommunications and payment services. To learn more, please visit net2phone.com, connect with us on LinkedIn, or email [email protected].

SOURCE IDT Corporation

Related Links

http://www.idt.net


CLEARWATER, Fla., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Acacia Diversified Holdings, Inc. ("Acacia" or the "Company") (OTCQB symbol: ACCA), an emerging cannabis company, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, MariJ Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (MariJ) and Canna-Cures Research & Development Center, Inc. (Canna-Cures), focusing on the development of new and proprietary medicinal products for patients with USDA certified organic mobile processing and handling solutions for its customers, is pleased to announce that the Company has been invited to be part of the hemp pilot program in Tennessee through one of its new, wholly owned subsidiaries.

"We are very excited for our shareholders and future customers of Tennessee. Having ownership in a hemp license and being part of an exciting new pilot program manufacturing USDA organic hemp oils in Tennessee is quite an exciting time," said Richard K. Pertile, Acacia's Chief Executive Officer. "Taking steps to move more operations to the east coast is an efficient step for our Company. In addition to the Company working in a hemp pilot program in Tennessee, we are also waiting to hear about our opportunity to be awarded a low-THC, high-CBD, vertically integrated, grower's license in the state of Florida."

The Company has secured a $5,000,000.00 equity credit line with Peak One Opportunity Fund. Shareholders can review our latest financial filings, our annual report for the year ended December 31, 2016 on Form 10-K and our latest current report on Form 8-K, which is now publicly available for review on the OTC Markets trading platform and on the Company web site at: www.acaciadiversifiedholdings.com. The Company is current on all periodic report filings required by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release may be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "intend" and similar expressions, as they relate to the company or its management, identify forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections about the company's business based, in part, on assumptions made by management. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may, and probably will, differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in such forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release. Information on the Acacia or MariJ Pharmaceuticals websites does not constitute a part of this release.

SOURCE Acacia Diversified Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.acaciadiversifiedholdings.com


DUBLIN, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) today announced that the company and its collaborators will present clinical and preclinical data for Linzess (linaclotide) and linaclotide delayed release, Viberzi (eluxadoline), relamorelin CIV, and cenicriviroc at the upcoming Digestive Disease Week (DDW) in Chicago, IL, May 6 through May 9, 2017.

At this year's meeting, researchers will present late-breaking clinical data focusing on the effect of linaclotide delayed release on abdominal pain in Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Constipation (IBS-C), as well as key presentations focusing on treatment satisfaction with Linzess for patients with Chronic Idiopathic Constipation (CIC), comprising an indirect treatment comparison in addition to stool consistency and frequency data. Additional researchers will also present clinical data on Viberzi for the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Diarrhea (IBS-D), including a patient-reported outcomes based severity index and results from a patient survey on the burden of IBS-D symptoms. Lastly, data on relamorelin for the treatment of gastroparesis and cenicriviroc for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) will also be presented.

The data will be presented via oral and poster presentations as follows:

Phase IIb Data on the Effect on Linaclotide Delayed Release on Abdominal Pain in IBS-C (Late-Breaker):

Targeted delivery of linaclotide to specific areas of the intestine affects clinical efficacy in patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) (poster presentation) (session ID 9230), by William D. Chey , University of Michigan , Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Michigan Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI , will be presented at the Clinical Science, Late-Breaking session taking place on Tuesday, May 9 , Noon to 2:00 p.m.

Treatment Satisfaction and Additional Clinical Analyses of Linzess in CIC:

Indirect treatment comparison: placebo-adjusted results from phase 3 trials of two GC-C agonists in patients with chronic idiopathic constipation - linaclotide and plecanatide (poster presentation) (session ID 7120) by Philip Schoenfeld , MD, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, MI will be presented at the Constipation and Other Functional Colonic Syndromes session taking place on Sunday, May 7, Noon to 2:00 p.m.

(poster presentation) (session ID 7120) by , MD, School of Medicine, will be presented at the Constipation and Other Functional Colonic Syndromes session taking place on Sunday, May 7, Noon to The relationship of patient-reported treatment satisfaction with stool consistency and frequency in chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) patients treated with linaclotide or placebo (poster presentation) (session ID 7120), by Darren Brenner , MD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL , will be presented at the Constipation and Other Functional Colonic Syndromes session taking place on Sunday, May 7, Noon to 2:00 p.m.

Sustained Response and Additional Clinical Analyses of Linzess in IBS-C:

Intestinal, non-intestinal, and extra-digestive response to linaclotide in patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation: results at week 4 predict sustained response (oral presentation) (session ID 3185), by Enrique Rey , MD, Hospital Clinico San Carlos, Madrid , Spain, will be presented at the Irritable Bowel Syndrome session taking place on Sunday, May 7 , 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

Similarities and Differences in Symptoms and Quality of Life for Patients with IBS-C or CIC:

Differences in demographic and symptom-related characteristics among patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) and chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC): Results from the CONTOR Study (poster presentation) (session ID 8160) by Jessica Abel, Allergan, plc, will be presented at the Patient Reported Outcomes: IBD, GERD, Functional Disorders session taking place on Monday, May 8 , Noon to 2:00 p.m.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome with Diarrhea (IBS-D) (Poster Presentations):

Towards a patient-reported outcomes based severity index of irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (session ID 8160) by Anton Emmanuel , University College Hospital, London , will be presented at the Patient Reported Outcomes: IBD, GERD, Functional Disorders session taking place on Monday, May 8 , Noon to 2:00 p.m.

(session ID 8160) by , University College Hospital, , will be presented at the Patient Reported Outcomes: IBD, GERD, Functional Disorders session taking place on , Understanding symptom burden and attitudes in patients with irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea: results from a patient survey (session ID 8160) by Gwen Wiseman , Allergan, Ltd, will be presented at the Patient Reported Outcomes: IBD, GERD, Functional Disorders session taking place on Monday, May 8 , Noon to 2:00 p.m.

Relamorelin for the Treatment of Diabetic Gastroparesis:

Relamorelin in patients with diabetic gastroparesis: efficacy and safety results from a Phase 2b randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 12-week study ( RM-131 -009) (plenary session) (session ID 4325) by Michael Camilleri , Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN , will be presented at the AGA Institute Presidential Plenary session taking place on Monday, May 8 , 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

(plenary session) (session ID 4325) by , Mayo Clinic, , will be presented at the AGA Institute Presidential Plenary session taking place on , Development and psychometric evaluation of the diabetic gastroparesis symptom severity diary (poster session) (session ID 7125) by Sheri Fehnel , RTI Health Solutions, Research Triangle Park, will be presented at the Gastroparesis session taking place on Sunday, May 7 , Noon to 2:00 p.m.

Cenicriviroc for the Treatment of Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH):

Effect of acid-reducing agents omeprazole and famotidine on the pharmacokinetics of cenicriviroc in healthy subjects (poster presentation) (session ID 9090) by Star Seyedkazemi , Allergan plc, South San Francisco, CA , will be presented at the Clinical Steatohepatitis session taking place on Tuesday, May 9 , Noon to 2:00 p.m.

About Linzess (Linaclotide)

LINZESS (linaclotide) is indicated in adults for the treatment of both irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) and chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC). Please see full Prescribing Information: http://www.allergan.com/assets/pdf/linzess_pi. Linzess and linaclotide delayed release are a guanylate cyclaseC (GCC) agonist. Linaclotide binds to the GC-C receptor locally, within the intestinal epithelium, and is thought to work in two ways, based on nonclinical studies. Activation of GC-C results in increased intestinal fluid secretion and accelerated transit, as well as a decrease in the activity of pain-sensing nerves in the intestine. The clinical relevance of the effect on pain fibers, which is based on nonclinical studies, has not been established. Linaclotide is marketed by Allergan plc and Ironwood in the United States as LINZESS and is indicated for the treatment of adults with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) or chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC), with nearly 1.5 million unique patients in the United States having filled nearly 7 million linaclotide prescriptions since launch, according to IMS Health. In Europe, Allergan markets linaclotide under the brand name Constella for the treatment of adults with moderate to severe IBS-C. In Japan, Ironwood's partner Astellas markets linaclotide under the brand name Linzess for the treatment of adults with IBS-C. Ironwood also has partnered with AstraZeneca for development and commercialization of linaclotide in China and with Allergan for development and commercialization of linaclotide in all other territories worldwide.

About Viberzi (Eluxadoline)

Eluxadoline is marketed by Allergan in the United States as Viberzi (eluxadoline) CIV. Viberzi is a twice daily, oral medication used to treat adults with irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBS-D). Viberzi has mixed opioid receptor modulator activity; it is a mu- and kappa-opioid receptor agonist and a delta-opioid receptor antagonist. Viberzi acts locally in the gut and is thought to decrease visceral hypersensitivity and control GI motility, based on nonclinical studies. Viberzi is indicated for the treatment of IBS-D in adult men and women. Please also see full Prescribing Information: https://www.allergan.com/assets/pdf/viberzi_pi.

About Relamorelin

Relamorelin is a potent ghrelin agonist in development for the treatment of diabetic gastroparesis. Derived from the natural ghrelin sequence, relamorelin has been optimized to stimulate gastrointestinal (GI) motility, with greater potency and enhanced stability and pharmacokinetics. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track review status to relamorelin for the treatment of diabetic gastroparesis. Allergan has demonstrated category leadership in several gastrointestinal disorders (GI) and shown continued commitment to innovate and advance science and treatments for unmet medical needs.

About Cenicriviroc

Cenicriviroc (CVC) is a once-daily, oral Phase 3 ready, potent immunomodulator that blocks two chemokine receptors, CCR2 and CCR5, which are involved in inflammatory and fibrogenic pathways for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Allergan has demonstrated category leadership in several gastrointestinal disorders (GI) and shown continued commitment to innovate and advance science and treatments for unmet medical needs. Currently, NASH is an adjacent extension of Allergan's broad GI portfolio and represents one of the greatest unmet medical needs. There is currently no approved treatment for NASH.

About Allergan plc

Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a bold, global pharmaceutical company and a leader in a new industry model  Growth Pharma. Allergan is focused on developing, manufacturing and commercializing branded pharmaceuticals, devices and biologic products for patients around the world.

Allergan markets a portfolio of leading brands and best-in-class products for the central nervous system, eye care, medical aesthetics and dermatology, gastroenterology, women's health, urology and anti-infective therapeutic categories.

Allergan is an industry leader in Open Science, the Company's R&D model, which defines our approach to identifying and developing game-changing ideas and innovation for better patient care. This approach has led to Allergan building one of the broadest development pipelines in the pharmaceutical industry with 70+ mid-to-late stage pipeline programs in development.

Our Company's success is powered by our more than 16,000 global colleagues' commitment to being Bold for Life. Together, we build bridges, power ideas, act fast and drive results for our customers and patients around the world by always doing what is right.

With commercial operations in approximately 100 countries, Allergan is committed to working with physicians, healthcare providers and patients to deliver innovative and meaningful treatments that help people around the world live longer, healthier lives every day.

For more information, visit Allergan's website at www.Allergan.com

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, including statements about prevalence and unmet need. Each forwardlooking statement is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statement. Applicable risks and uncertainties include those related to preclinical and clinical development, manufacturing and formulation development; the risk that future clinical studies need to be discontinued for any reason, including safety, tolerability, enrollment, manufacturing or economic reasons; the risk that findings from our completed nonclinical and clinical studies may not be replicated in later studies; efficacy, safety and tolerability; decisions by regulatory authorities; those risks related to competition and future business decisions made by us and our competitors or potential competitors; developments in the intellectual property landscape; and the risks listed under the heading "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in Ironwood's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, Allergan's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and in the subsequent SEC filings of each company. These forward-looking statements (except as otherwise noted) speak only as of the date of this press release, and Ironwood and Allergan undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Media Contacts:

Mark Marmur

862.261.7558

[email protected]

Tara Schuh

201.427.8888

[email protected]

Investor Relations:

Karina Calzadilla

862-261-7328

[email protected]

SOURCE Allergan plc

Related Links

http://www.allergan.com


CHICAGO, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement (HACE) is proud to announce that Angelique Sina was honored with the Redefining Leadership Award at HACE's 35th annual National Leadership Summit & Gala.

Commissioner for Latinos and World Banker

Angelique is an alumna of the Mujeres de HACE Executive Leadership program. She was one of three honorees who were selected from HACE's 52,000 national members. The award recipients are individuals who redefine what it takes to be a leader, leveraging cultural identity to not only succeed in their own lives, but also to make a difference in the Latino community at large.

Angelique, a native of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, now residing in Washington, DC, is a Global Relationship Manager at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. In 2016, she was appointed by the Mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, to serve as Commissioner for the Latino Community. As a passionate advocate for women's business success, Angelique co-founded "Amigas" and the Latina Impact Fund, which aims to develop the next generation of female leaders through angel investing. As co-founder and Executive Director of Friends of Puerto Rico, a national non-profit organization that invests in the orange economy on the island (supporting arts and education), she has excelled as a leader in the community.

Angelique is a contributor at the HuffPost, and serves on multiple national boards, including Mujeres de HACE Alumnae, the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Art Museum of the Americas, Latinas in Business, Viva Latino National Magazine and is an active member of the Johns Hopkins Women in Business Council. She holds a Bachelors in Business from the University of Puerto Rico in Aguadilla and a Master's degree from Johns Hopkins University.

About HACE:

Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement (HACE) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to the professional development and personal progress of Latino professionals and potential candidates. For over 35 years, HACE has served as a resource for Latinos in the workplace and a source of experience and knowledge for corporations seeking to access them.

For questions, please contact: Vivian Perez, [email protected].

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE HACE
Over half (54 percent) of Americans say they are likely to buy a home in the next five years, up 12 percent compared to the results of last year's survey

Over three quarters of buyers set a budget before beginning their home search and stick

Ninety percent of prospective first-time buyers are or plan to get preapproved for a mortgage before making an offer on a home

CHICAGO, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Just over half (54 percent) of Americans say they are likely to buy a home in the next five years  up 12 percent from last year  according to the 2017 BMO Harris Bank Homebuyers Report. In addition, Americans surveyed are willing to pay an average of $277,000 for a home and will average a 32 percent down payment.

The report, conducted by Pollara, also found that:

Among likely first-time buyers, 80 percent plan to get preapproved before making an offer and 10 percent are already preapproved

Around four-in five will set a budget before looking for a home

The majority (65 percent) of those looking to buy a new home will consult a real estate agent, while 61 percent said they will visit online real estate websites and 38 percent will seek recommendations from friends and family

"Future buyers are encouraged about their prospects for a home purchase in the near future, and they're keeping a healthy budget top of mind," said Steven Zandpour, Senior Vice-President and Head of Retail Banking for Chicago Metro North, BMO Harris Bank. "Home ownership is a fulfilling goal for many and it doesn't have to be a cumbersome process. Our mortgage specialists aim to walk each of our customers through each step, helping them along the journey and understanding what matters to them the most."

According to the report, 70 percent of American homeowners spent six months or less looking for a new home before they made a purchase. In addition, 10 percent bought their home without participating in an active real estate search  or even any plan to buy at all  because a specific property caught their attention.

The report also found that Millennials (the generation born between 1982 and 2004) are more likely to use a mobile device as a resource to help in their home search (37 percent). In addition, Millennials are more likely than older age groups to rely on recommendations from friends and family (45 percent) when conducting a home search.

To learn more about home buying and for resources to help consumers in their search, visit: www.bmoharris.com/YourFinancialLife.

The survey results cited in the BMO Harris 2017 Home Buying Report, conducted by Pollara, are compiled from a random sample of 2,505 Americans 18 years of age and over between March 13 and March 20, 2017. A probability sample of this size would yield results accurate to  1.96 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

About BMO Harris Bank

BMO Harris Bank provides a broad range of personal banking products and solutions through nearly 600 branches and almost 1,400 ATMs in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Arizona and Florida. BMO Harris Bank's commercial banking team provides a combination of sector expertise, local knowledge and mid-market focus throughout the U.S. For more information about BMO Harris Bank, go to the company fact sheet. Banking products and services are subject to bank and credit approval. BMO Harris Bank N.A. Member FDIC. BMO Harris Bank is part of BMO Financial Group, a North American financial organization with approximately 1,500 branches, and CDN $692 billion in assets (as of January 31, 2017).

Media contacts:

Emily Penate, Chicago, [email protected], (312) 461-7956

Internet: www.bmo.com

SOURCE BMO Harris Bank
BOCA RATON, Fla., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Child Rescue Coalition's vital work tracking and arresting thousands of child predators across the globe has captured the attention of actress and mother, Blake Lively. The talented mother of two is lending her voice to raise awareness on the global crisis of childhood sexual abuse and exploitation, just introducing Child Rescue Coalition as Lively's charity of honor during Variety's Power of Women luncheon held on Friday, April 21, 2017 in New York City.

The nonprofit's advanced Child Protection System (CPS) technology enables law enforcement to track, arrest, and ultimately convict offenders creating and distributing child pornography online.

"Child pornography has reached an epidemic level and we are committed to training law enforcement officers around the world to find the worst offenders. We are thrilled that Blake shares our commitment of rescuing children from online predators," shared Carly Asher Yoost, Child Rescue Coalition founder and CEO. "Studies show that if a suspect is found with this type of sickening material, they are more likely to be hands-on abusers. We are grateful to Blake who understands the urgency to get these horrific offenders off the streets so we can protect children from further abuse."

Carly and Blake met last fall during an event where Carly was named the 2016 L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth National Honoree. Since this initial meeting, Blake has facilitated opportunities with Child Rescue Coalition and a leading internet service provider as well as Facebook to discuss ways that the tech and communication organizations can develop tools that make the internet a safer place.

Child Rescue Coalition's technology is provided to law enforcement at no cost and has tracked over 44 million unique offenders in possession of child pornography. The nonprofit has trained 9,792 law enforcement officers in all 50 states and in 77 countries, resulting in the prosecution and conviction of more than 9,000 child predators and the rescue of over 2,000 children from sexual abuse.

To watch Blake Lively's passionate speech about child pornography, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbGGFVzfMtk.

For more information about Child Rescue Coalition, visit childrescuecoalition.org.

More about Child Rescue Coalition

The Child Rescue Coalition (CRC), a south Florida- based nonprofit organization with global reach, has spent the past decade building the world's most sophisticated technology to hunt online predators. Through proactive partnerships with law enforcement, the nonprofit's system has tracked 44 million offenders around the world in order to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse. With a vision of protecting innocence through technology, the technology developed by the CRC has aided in the prosecution and conviction of more than 9,000 online predators and rescued over 2,000 abused children in the last four years alone. For more information, visit childrescuecoalition.org or call (561) 208-9000.

SOURCE Child Rescue Coalition

Related Links

http://childrescuecoalition.org


TAMPA, Fla., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- One better burger business is about to give guests the best burger of allthe free kind. Honoring an iconic staple of American cuisine, Burger 21, an award-winning, "beyond the better burger" fast casual franchise, is celebrating National Hamburger Month in May by giving Burger 21 BFF's (Burger Fry Fanatics) a free Burger 101 for their next visit when they dine in-store between May 8 and May 11 and scan a loyalty receipt.

"While we pride ourselves on offering one of the most diverse burger menus in the country, there is still time to enjoy a classic," said Mike Remes, corporate chef at Burger 21.

Any guest who makes a qualifying purchase of six dollars or more between May 8 and May 11 and scans a loyalty receipt will become eligible to receive a free Burger 101, valid through National Hamburger Day, May 28.

The free burger offered, a Burger 101, is a traditional hamburger created from fresh Certified Angus Beef with lettuce and tomato, on a toasted brioche bun.

"At Burger 21 we fully embrace the diversity that can be expressed through different flavors and combinations in creating hamburgers," said Mark Johnston, president and co-founder of Burger 21. "And for National Burger Month we are happy to bring our guests back to the basics by offering them a chance to get a free classic Burger 101 to enjoy in honor of both National Hamburger Day and National Hamburger Month."

Burger 21 offers 10 different beef burger patty options, as well as, chicken burgers, seafood burgers, veggie burgers, and turkey burgers on the menu along with chicken tenders, gourmet hot dogs and salads.

Recognition for Burger 21 includes being named one of the 10 best franchises to buy in 2017, winning the "Better Burger" category of the Franchise Times Zor Awards. The brand has also been named Entrepreneur Magazine's Top New Franchises and Restaurant Business' 50 Fastest-Growing Small Restaurant Chains of 2016. Additionally, the company has been ranked on Fast Casual's Top 100 "Movers and Shakers" for the last four consecutive years, while Burger 21 Founder and President Mark Johnston was acknowledged as one of Fast Casual's "Top 25 People" of 2014 for his strategic leadership in the brand's growth and development. Burger 21 also was named one of QSR's "Best Franchise Deals" of 2014.

For the latest special offers and promotions, download Burger 21's "B Loyal" app from the Apple App Store or Google Play. For more information on Burger 21, please visit burger21.com and follow Burger 21 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

To learn more about ownership opportunities with Burger 21, contact Jim Sullivan at 813.3272 or [email protected] or visit burger21franchise.com.

About Burger 21

With 22 locations now open in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia, and approximately 15 in development in 6 states, Burger 21 is a "beyond the better burger" fast casual franchise concept founded in 2010. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, Burger 21 is a chef-inspired brand with offerings including 21 unique burger creations ranging from hand-crafted, freshly ground Certified Angus Beef to chicken, turkey, vegetarian, shrimp and tuna burgers, fresh salads, all-beef hot dogs, hand-breaded chicken tenders and an extensive shake bar including hand-crafted shakes, floats and sundaes. Since its inception, the company has provided more than $171,900 in contributions as part of its "B Charitable" initiative, in which it donates 10 percent of its restaurants' sales to local schools and charities on the 21st of each month.

SOURCE Burger 21
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today urged the Trump administration not to appoint Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. to a post with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Sources say Clarke will be appointed as assistant secretary at the DHS's Office of Partnership and Engagement, a position of that does not require Senate confirmation.

SEE: White House Considers Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke for Post in Homeland Security

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2017/04/28/white-house-considers-milwaukee-county-sheriff-david-clarke-post-homeland-security/101036918/

Last year, Clarke supported then GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz's call for law enforcement to "patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods." CAIR expressed concern that such a policy would lead to religious and ethnic profiling by officers and called the policy "unworkable, unconstitutional and counterproductive."

SEE: CAIR Concerned That Milwaukee Sheriff's Support for Ted Cruz's Muslim 'Patrols' Will Lead to Profiling

http://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/13465-cair-concerned-that-milwaukee-sheriff-s-support-for-ted-cruz-s-muslim-patrols-will-lead-to-profiling.html

Clarke also caused controversy with his claim that the Black Lives Matter movement would "join forces" with the terror group ISIS. He is facing protests today because he wants his officers to operate as federal immigration agents.

Trump Considers Sheriff Who Called Black Lives Matter 'Terrorists' for DHS Post

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/331139-trump-considers-sheriff-who-called-black-lives-matter-terrorists-for

Controversial Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke Faces Protests Monday

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/30/us/milwaukee-protest-against-sheriff-david-clarke/

"Given Sheriff Clarke's history of extremist views, and his support for counterproductive and un-American policy proposals, it would be inappropriate to appoint him to any government position -- let alone one involving public outreach," said CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw.

McCaw noted that Clarke would join many other infamous Islamophobes in, or recently removed from the Trump administration, including Sebastian Gorka, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and Stephen Miller. Many of the administration's picks are themselves on record as making anti-Muslim statements or of working closely with anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists.

CAIR Islamophobia Monitor: Islamophobia and the Trump Team

http://islamophobia.org/158-key-issues-in-islamophobia/181-islamophobia-and-the-trump-team.html

CAIR's national headquarters recently decried what it termed the Trump administration's "deafening silence" on a growing number of anti-Muslim incidents nationwide since the November 8 election.

SEE: CAIR Decries Trump Administration's 'Deafening Silence' on Series of Anti-Muslim Incidents Nationwide

http://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/14225-cair-decries-trump-administration-s-deafening-silence-on-series-of-anti-muslim-incidents-nationwide.html

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

La mision de CAIR es mejorar la comprension del Islam, fomentar el dialogo, proteger las libertades civiles, capacitar a los musulmanes estadounidenses, y construir coaliciones que promuevan la justicia y la comprension mutua.

CONTACT: CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Related Links

http://www.cair.com


Highlights:

Drill hole PBM-024 intersected 2.6m of massive sulphides grading 3.0% Cu Eq. containing 1.64% Cu, 0.53% Zn, 0.92 g/t Au and 34.6 g/t Ag;





The new intersection is approximately 180m along strike and 70m below drill hole 284-3-93-DPN and suggests considerable room open for expansion towards surface, along strike and at depth; and





An upcoming summer drilling campaign will focus on delineating the grade and extent of the new discovery.

VANCOUVER, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Callinex Mines Inc. (the "Company" or "Callinex") (TSX-V: CNX; OTCQX: CLLXF) is pleased to announce that drill hole PBM-024 intersected 2.6m of 3.0% Cu Eq. containing 1.64% Cu, 0.53% Zn, 0.92 g/t Au and 34.6 g/t Ag at the Company's Pine Bay Project located near Flin Flon, Manitoba (See Table 1). This significant new Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide ("VMS") intersection occurs approximately 180m along strike to the southwest of and 70m below the 10.3m thick intersection of 13.1% Zn Eq. cut by drill hole 284-3-93-DPN (See Figures 1, 2 and 3). The location of the PBM-024 intersection suggests that the massive sulphide zone, if proven to be continuous from the 10.3m intersection in 284-3-93-DPN, likely has a strike length comparable with many of the more significant past-producing VMS mines within the Flin Flon Mining District.

Interestingly, the copper-rich massive sulphide intersection in drill hole PBM-024 is virtually non-conductive and almost completely invisible to conventional Borehole Pulse ElectroMagnetic ("BPEM") surveys. Given the widely-spaced drill holes, the prospects of expanding this zone towards surface and at depth is significantly enhanced based on the Company's exploration model.

Max Porterfield, President and CEO, stated "We are encouraged by this most recent intersection in drill hole PBM-024 which indicates that mineralization associated with the 10.3m discovery grading 13.1% Zn Eq. is now open towards surface and at depth. With our first pass of follow up exploration now complete, upcoming work will increasingly focus on delineating the grade and size of this exciting new discovery."

"The widely spaced exploration step-outs following the discovery of the high-grade VMS intersection in drill hole 284-3-93-DPN have provided us with a wealth of information that should now efficiently guide us towards the heart of the Pine Bay VMS system(s)," said Jim Pickell, Chief Geologist. "Geophysics has often proven to be a very effective exploration tool within the Flin Flon region as a whole. However, the technology has certain limitations when used to outline the extensions of relatively unmetamorphosed and non-conductive, pyrite-dominant, fine-grained, VMS deposits like we are exploring for in the Pine Bay area."

An approximate 300m wide by 600m long sparsely tested, up-plunge, 'exploration corridor' exists above holes PBM-024 and 284-3-93-DPN (See Figure 2) and towards hole PBM-008. In addition, the PBM-024 mineralization is completely open at depth using the assumed steep southwestern plunge (See Figure 2). It appears that the 'proximal' copper-rich source portion of the VMS system occurs to the southwest while the 'distal' zinc-rich mineralization occurs to the northeast. It also seems very likely that there is excellent potential to discover additional 'proximal' and related 'distal' VMS-filled corridors along the Cabin, Pine Bay and Baker Patton VMS Horizons. The Pine Bay VMS Horizon is interpreted to be a fold-repeat of the Cabin VMS horizon.

The Company's exploration strategy was to complete widely-spaced drill holes to maximize borehole geophysical coverage at the Pine Bay Project. Through this process, it was identified that multiple pyrite-rich massive sulphide intersections were either non-conductive or very poorly conductive, including the 10.3m massive sulphide intersection in drill hole 284-3-93-DPN. With this new information, Callinex drilled hole PBM-024, located approximately halfway between holes 95-02-DPN and PBM-017, to test the geological potential for significant massive sulphide mineralization unable to be readily identified by conventional geophysical techniques.

Callinex has also reinterpreted the high-grade, 2.3m thick zone of 9.1% Zn Eq. in drill hole PBM-014 (i.e., the "Cabin FW" zone shown in Figure 2) to be related to a similar new deep footwall interval of 0.2m containing 14.8% Zn Eq. in drill hole PBM-024 (See Table 1). Further drilling will be required to evaluate the potential for 'stacked' VMS deposits in immediate vicinity of these two holes.

Table 1: Partial Assay Results from Drill Hole PBM-024

From (m) To (m) Interval (m) Cu Eq. (%) Zn Eq. (%) Cu (%) Zn (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) 1026.88 1027.04 0.16 N/A 14.82 2.00 5.66 2.09 58.80 1047.42 1050.00 2.58 2.95 N/A 1.64 0.53 0.92 34.60



Notes(1)(2)(3(4): 1. Dip and azimuth for hole PBM-024 is -80 and 315 Az. The 1,182m deep diamond drill hole is located at the following Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinates using the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83) within UTM Zone 14N: 332804m East and 6071457m North. The collar of the hole is 319m above sea level. 2. Copper and zinc equivalent grades are based on the following metal prices: zinc US$5,525/t (1.15/lb), copper US$5,500/t (2.50/lb), gold US$1,300 per oz and silver US$18.0 per oz. Metal recoveries of 100% were applied in the metal equivalent calculations. The zinc equivalent calculation is as follows: ZnEq = 100 ((Au Price in (g) x Au Grade) + (Ag Price in (g) x Ag Grade) + (Cu Price*2204.6 x Cu Grade(%)/100) + (Zn Price*2204.6 x (Zn Grade(%)/100))/Zn Price*2204.6 while the copper equivalent calculation is as follows: CuEq = 100 ((Au Price in (g) x Au Grade) + (Ag Price in (g) x Ag Grade) + (Zn Price*2204.6 x Zn Grade(%)/100) + (Cu Price*2204.6 x (Cu Grade(%)/100))/Cu Price*2204.6 3. The numbers may not add due to rounding. 4. True widths are not currently known.

Figure 1: Plan Map of the Northern Pine Bay Area

Please click on below link to access figure.

http://www.callinex.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Pine-Bay_Plan-View_01May2017_Figure-1.jpg

Figure 2: Longitudinal Section of the Cabin VMS Horizon (3D Gemcom view showing 300 metre wide Exploration Corridor)

Please click on below link to access figure.

http://www.callinex.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Pine-Bay-_Long-Sect_View_Cabin_01May2017_Figure-2a.jpg

Figure 3: Cross Section of Cabin VMS Horizon (showing drill Hole PBM-024 within a 300m wide Exploration Corridor +/- viewing window)

Please click on below link to access figure.

http://www.callinex.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Pine-Bay_Cross-Sect_View_Cabin_300m_Corridor_01May2017_Figure-3.jpg

QA/QC

Individual samples were labeled, placed in plastic sample bags, and sealed. Groups of samples were then placed in security sealed bags and shipped directly to SGS Canada Inc in Vancouver, B.C. for analysis. Samples were crushed to 75% passing 2mm and pulverized to 85% passing 75 microns in order produce a 250g split. All copper, zinc and silver assays were determined by Aqua Regia digestion with a combination of ICP-MS and ICP-AES finish, with overlimits (>100 ppm Ag, >10,000 ppm Zn, and >10,000 ppm Cu) completed by fire assay with gravimetric finish (Ag) or Aqua Regia digestion with ICP-AES finish (copper and zinc). All samples were analyzed for gold by Fire Assay of a 30 gram charge by AAS, or if over 10.0 g/t were re-assayed and completed with a gravimetric finish. QA/QC included the insertion and continual monitoring of numerous standards and blanks into the sample stream at a frequency of 1 per 10 samples, and the collection of duplicate samples at random intervals within each batch at a frequency of 1 per 10 samples.

SGS Canada Inc carried out some or all of following methods to obtain the assay results for Callinex: G_LOG02 Pre-preparation processing, G_WGH79 Weighing and reporting, G_PRP89 Weigh, dry, crush, split, pulverize, G_SCRQC QC for crush and pulverize stages, G_CRU22 Crush >3kg, G_DRY11 Dry samples, GE_FAA313 @Au, FAS, AAS, 30g-5ml (Final mode), GE-IC14A Aqua Regia digestion/ICP-AES finish, GE_IMS14B Aqua Regia digestion/ICP-MS package, GE_IMS14 Aqua Regia digestion, GO_FAG303 30g, Fire assay, gravimetric finish (Au)(Final Mode), GO_FAG313 30g, Fire assay, gravimetric finish (Ag)(Final Mode), G0_ICP13B Ore Grade, Aqua Regia digest/ICP-AES. Ag >10ppm was analyzed by ICP and GO_XRF77B-pyrosulfate fusion.

James Pickell, PGeo, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 and a consultant to Callinex, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release.

About Callinex Mines Inc.

Callinex Mines Inc. is focused on discovering and developing zinc and copper rich mines within prolific Canadian VMS mining jurisdictions. The Company is actively exploring its Pine Bay Project, located in the Flin Flon mining district of Manitoba, which hosts significant historic VMS deposits that are within close proximity to a processing facility. The larger project portfolio hosts three significant zinc rich mineral resources including the Point Leamington, Nash Creek and Superjack Projects located in Eastern Canada.

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.

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to future expenditures. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, among others, the ability to complete the proposed drill program and the timing and amount of expenditures. Except as required under applicable securities laws, Callinex does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

SOURCE Callinex Mines Inc.

Related Links

www.callinex.ca


VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Canadian Web Hosting, a leading provider of cloud hosting and data center infrastructure in Canada, has announced that it has once again successfully completed its annual independent audit for Service Organization Control (SOC) 2, in accordance to AT 101, making this its seventh consecutive year of completion.

Canadian Web Hosting is AT 101 SOC 2 and SOC 3 compliant to meet your data and security requirements.

The SOC 2 audit was conducted between February 2016 and January 2017, and examined all of Canadian Web Hosting's services, including dedicated server hosting, cloud hosting, Canadian colocation and web hosting services. The audit process scanned Canadian Web Hosting's compliance to industry best practices, covering controls, processes and procedures. Upon completion, it was determined that its control activities were compliant and the company displayed the ability to effectively operate throughout the reporting period.

In addition to the annual SOC 2 audit, Canadian Web Hosting also completed the SOC 3 audit, which adheres to the Trust Service Principles and focuses on the design of e-commerce systems. The SOC 3 report is available for download, while the SOC 2 report can be obtained by customers, members of the media, or other interested individuals upon request.

One of Canadian Web Hosting's core missions is to help businesses meet their certification requirements in accordance with AT 101 (formerly SAS70 and CSAE 3416 Type II), which meets the new international service organizations standards for Type I and Type II reporting. As a result, its web hosting customers with services including dedicated servers, VPS, cloud servers, cloud computing, cloud storage and/or shared hosting can feel confident that they are in a secure, reliable and effective environment equipped with the proper controls for internet operations and highly available IT services.

"Canadian Web Hosting not only continues to secure a safe and reliable environment for its clients, but also assures its clients that they are receiving the technology, support and verifiable processes that surpass the industry standards for compliance," said Matt McKinney, Chief Strategy Officer at Canadian Web Hosting. "So long as you are with Canadian Web Hosting, you can expect the very best."

Download Canadian Web Hosting's SOC 3 report, or contact us at [email protected] for our SOC 2 report.

About Canadian Web Hosting

Since 1998, Canadian Web Hosting has been providing on-demand hosting solutions that include Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Cloud Hosting, Dedicated Servers, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for Canadian companies of all sizes. Canadian Web Hosting is AT 101 SOC 2 and SOC 3 certified, ensuring that their processes and business practices are thoroughly audited against industry standards. Canadian Web Hosting guarantees a 100% network uptime, and a total money-back guarantee that backs everything they do. Customers can contact Sales & Billing by calling 1-888-821-7888. The 24/7 support line is 1-604-283-2127 or you can email [email protected]. For more information, visit them at www.canadianwebhosting.com, or get the latest news by following them on Twitter at @cawebhosting or by liking their Facebook page.

Media Contact:

Sheila Wong

[email protected]

1-888-821-7888

SOURCE Canadian Web Hosting

Related Links

https://www.canadianwebhosting.com


The renovation of the Carillon Miami will focus on upgrading the entire guest and resident experience to firmly establish the luxury lifestyle resort as the preeminent wellness hotel in the country. World-renowned hotel designer Peter Silling was retained to develop the design concept following his work on the highly acclaimed renovation of the Waldhaus Flims Alpine Grand Hotel & Spa in Switzerland, another property in the hospitality portfolio of Z Capital Partners, L.L.C. The improvements will include a newly refurbished lobby and a completely redesigned lounge and restaurant that will allow guests to fully enjoy outdoor spaces and Carillon Miami's premier location along Miami Beach. The plans also include adding state-of-the-art meeting and event spaces to the property and installing modern luxury finishes to guest areas.

A world-class hotelier, Mr. Nash joins Carillon Miami with extensive international experience from having worked at some of the top luxury resorts around the world. Most recently, Mr. Nash served as Corporate Director of Operations at the Al Khozama Management Company in the Middle East, where he led an international team and worked to establish the company as a leader in luxury lifestyle hospitality. Prior to Al Khozama, Mr. Nash spent 17 years at various Starwood hotels, including serving as General Manager for five years at The St. Regis New York, the crown jewel of The St. Regis brand and one of the world's finest hotels. Mr. Nash has also served in leadership roles at many other preeminent hotels around the world, including The St. Regis Houston, The St. Regis Shanghai and The Dorchester in London.

"This is an exciting time at Carillon Miami as we continue transforming the property and firmly establishing it as a world-class wellness destination and luxury lifestyle community," said James Zenni, Chairman of Carillon Miami's Board of Directors and President and Chief Executive Officer of Z Capital Partners. "Paul's addition will greatly support those efforts, and I am pleased to welcome him to the team. Paul will also be a key player in executing on our strategic vision of expanding the Z Capital hospitality portfolio. He brings deep industry knowledge, valuable operational expertise and extensive experience managing luxury lifestyle hotels and spas around the world. I look forward to witnessing the exciting changes to the Carillon Miami under Paul's leadership."

Carillon Miami is within the hospitality portfolio of Z Capital Partners, L.L.C.

About Carillon Miami Wellness Resort

Located along the white sand shores of Miami Beach, Carillon Miami presents an authentic and specialized approach to health, wellness and complete well-being. Exuding the "luxury of wellness," the resort focuses on aligning physical, mental and spiritual health by offering a comprehensive retreat, the largest spa in the region (65,000 sq. ft.), a one-of-a-kind Thermal Experience and an integrative medical wellness center. The resort features 150 spacious one- and two-bedroom suites, ranging in size from 720  1,200 sq. ft. An array of recreational activities are at guests' fingertips, with over 200 fitness classes offered each week, access to the resort's two-story indoor rock wall and four pools located throughout the property: the Sunrise Pool, Cabana Pool, Sunset Pool and the adult-only rooftop Atlantic Pool. Serving fresh, locally-sourced cuisine, the resort features four dining venues including Thyme, Carillon Lounge, The Cabana, and the Juice Bar. Carillon Miami Wellness Resort promotes a path to discovery and provides tools for a healthier lifestyle extending beyond each guest's stay. Carillon Miami Wellness Resort is a member of The Leading Hotels of the World and Leading Spas. For more information, please visit www.carillonhotel.com.

About Z Capital Partners

Z Capital Group, L.L.C. is a leading alternative asset management firm with $2.3 billion in regulatory assets under management across complementary private equity and credit businesses. Z Capital manages both opportunistic, value-oriented private equity and credit funds with offices in New York, NY and Lake Forest, IL.

Z Capital's investors are some of the largest and most sophisticated global institutional investors in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East including public and corporate pension funds, university endowments, foundations, sovereign wealth funds, central banks, and insurance companies. For more information, please visit www.zcapgroup.net.

Media Contact

Jonathan Keehner / Julie Oakes

Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher

212-355-4449

SOURCE Carillon Miami Wellness Resort

Related Links

http://www.carillonhotel.com


PLEASANTON, Calif., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Certent, Inc., a leading provider of software-as-a-service solutions for equity compensation and financial disclosure management, announced today the sponsors and charity networking event for its annual user event in Nashville, TN.

In addition to inspiring keynotes, product training, and expert thought leadership breakout sessions, Certent Summit attendees have the opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with Certent's network of industry partners. This year's event partner sponsors include: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, StockCross, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Aon, Armanino LLP, UBS, CEPI, and Hughes Pittman & Gupton, LLP.

Garrison Wynn, speaker, advisor, entertainer, and author of the Amazon bestsellers The Real Truth about Success and The Cowbell Principle, will deliver the keynote address at the conference. Wynn will discuss research on what makes owners and managers of top-performing businesses effective.

Volunteers and attendees will also work with Rise Against Hunger to package 22,000 nutrient-rich meals destined for in-school feeding programs around the world. Rise Against Hunger, an international charity organization founded in 1998, is a meal packaging non-profit that has provided more than 225 million meals in 73 countries.

"We continue to include Rise Against Hunger in corporate events," said Aaron Bolshaw, Vice President of Marketing at Certent. "This will be the third time we've worked with them, and it aligns with our dedication to giving back to communities across the markets we serve."

The 2017 Certent Summit is the company's 6th annual customer conference and is being held at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel in downtown Nashville, TN. More information can be found at www.certentsummit.com.

About Certent

Certent, Inc. is a leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for equity compensation and financial disclosure management. Our open ecosystem allows for comprehensive partner integrations enabling best-in-class stock plan administration, robust financial reporting for ASC 718, and high quality EDGAR/SEDAR filings in XBRL, HTML, and Inline XBRL. Founded in 2002, Certent has helped more than 1,800 public, private, and pre-IPO companies worldwide innovate their stock plan and financial reporting processes.

Aaron Bolshaw

Certent

+1 925 730 4300

[email protected]

SOURCE Certent, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.certent.com


BEIJING, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheetah Mobile Inc. (NYSE: CMCM) ("Cheetah Mobile" or the "Company"), a leading mobile internet company that aims to provide leading apps for mobile users worldwide and connect users with personalized content on the mobile platform, today announced that Live.me Inc., the Company's 90%-owned Cayman Islands subsidiary which operates Live.me, a live video streaming application, has entered into definitive agreements to raise an aggregate of US$60 million from a group of investors, including Matrix Partners China ("Matrix"), Evolution Media China ("EMC"), Gobi Partners ("Gobi"), IDG Capital ("IDG"), and Welight Capital ("Welight") as well as Cheetah Mobile on April 28, 2017. Upon completion of the transaction, the Company directly holds approximately 70% equity interest in Live.me Inc., and retains control over the Live.me business.

Mr. Sheng Fu, Cheetah Mobile's Chief Executive Officer, stated, "We are delighted to welcome Matrix, EMC, Gobi, IDG and Welight as partners for our fast growing, global live video streaming business. Live.me recently reached its first anniversary, and this round of financing is the best birthday gift. Since its launch, Live.me has demonstrated a track record of strong growth in user number, user engagement and number of paying users, particularly in the U.S. market. We will have more resources to build Live.me into a global social community through partnering with top financial institutions. Going forward, we will continue to invest in R&D and further improve our overseas operations for Live.me in order to provide the best user experience for our users worldwide, better connect users with each other and enrich people's social lives through Live.me."

About Cheetah Mobile Inc.

Cheetah Mobile is a leading mobile internet company. It aims to provide leading apps for mobile users worldwide and connect users with personalized content on the mobile platform.

Cheetah Mobile's products, including its popular utility applications Clean Master, CM Security and Battery Doctor, help make users' mobile internet experience smarter, speedier, and safer. The Company has attracted 623 global mobile MAUs as of December 2016, of which approximately 81% were located outside of China. Leveraging the success of its utility applications, Cheetah Mobile has launched its line of mobile content-driven applications, including News Republic and Live.me.

Cheetah Mobile provides its advertising customers, which include direct advertisers and mobile advertising networks through which advertisers place their advertisements, with direct access to highly targeted mobile users and global promotional channels, which are capable of delivering targeted content to hundreds of millions of users.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute forward-looking statements under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements, including but not limited to those appearing in quotations from the Company's management, can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including but are not limited to the following: Cheetah Mobile's growth strategies; Cheetah Mobile's ability to retain and increase its user base and expand its product and service offerings; Cheetah Mobile's ability to monetize its platform; Cheetah Mobile's future business development, financial condition and results of operations; competition with companies in a number of industries including internet companies that provide online marketing services and internet value-added services, including game publishing and live video streaming; expected changes in Cheetah Mobile's revenues and certain cost or expense items; and general economic and business condition globally and in China. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Cheetah Mobile's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Cheetah Mobile does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.

Investor Relations Contact

Cheetah Mobile Inc.

Helen Jing Zhu

Tel: +86 10 6292 7779 ext. 1600

Email: [email protected]

ICR, Inc.

Jessie Fan

Tel: +1 (646) 417-5395

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Cheetah Mobile
SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chegg, Inc. (NYSE:CHGG), the Smarter Way to Student, today reported financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017.

"We exceeded our expectations for revenue and profitability driven by continued strong growth in Chegg Services, which just recorded its first million-plus subscriber quarter," said Dan Rosensweig, Chairman and CEO of Chegg. "It's an exciting time for us as more students are turning to Chegg and using more of our services more often and engaging with each one for longer periods of time. This momentum gives us the confidence to raise our guidance for 2017."

Q1 2017 Highlights:

Total Net Revenues of $62.6 million, a decrease of 6% year-over-year

of $62.6 million, a decrease of 6% year-over-year Total Net Revenues to Non-GAAP Total Net Revenues growth increased 34% year-over-year *

growth increased 34% year-over-year * Chegg Services Revenues grew 61% year-over-year to $41.0 million , or 66% of total net revenues compared to 38% in Q1 2016

grew 61% year-over-year to , or 66% of total net revenues compared to 38% in Q1 2016 Net Loss was $6.4 million

was $6.4 million Non-GAAP Net Income was $5.7 million

was $5.7 million Adjusted EBITDA was $9.5 million

was $9.5 million 1.1 million : number of Chegg Services subscribers

: number of Chegg Services subscribers 99 million: total Chegg Study content views

Our total net revenues are comprised of two revenue streams: (1) Chegg Services revenues, which includes Chegg Study, Chegg Tutors, our writing tools service, Enrollment Marketing, Brand Partnership, Internships, and Test Prep; and (2) Required Materials revenues, which includes commission revenues from Ingram Content Group (Ingram) and textbook publishers, and the rental and sale of eTextbooks.

* Chegg presents non-GAAP total net revenues as total net revenues as if the transition of textbook inventory investment and textbook logistics and fulfillment functions for Chegg's print textbook business to Ingram was complete and the revenues from print textbook business were entirely commission-based. Chegg completed its transition to Ingram and to provide a more meaningful comparison of Chegg's total net revenues for the first quarter of 2017, Chegg has presented the year-over-year percentage against non-GAAP total net revenues for the same period in 2016.

For more information about non-GAAP total net revenues, non-GAAP net income (loss), and adjusted EBITDA and a reconciliation of non-GAAP total net revenues to total net revenues, non-GAAP net income (loss), to net (loss) income, and adjusted EBITDA to net (loss) income, see the sections of the press release titled "Use of Non-GAAP Measures" and "Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures".

Business Outlook:

Second Quarter 2017

Total Net Revenues in the range of $52 million to $54 million

in the range of $52 million to Chegg Services Revenues in the range of $42 million to $44 million

in the range of Gross Margin between 68% to 70%

between 68% to 70% Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $7 million to $9 million

Full Year 2017

Total Net Revenues in the range of $235 million to $240 million

in the range of $235 million to Chegg Services Revenues in the range of $175 million to $180 million

in the range of Gross Margin greater than 65%

greater than 65% Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $38 million to $40 million

in the range of Capital Expenditures in the range of $20 million to $25 million

in the range of Free Cash Flow in the range of $15 million to $20 million

For more information about the use of non-GAAP measures, a reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net loss for the second quarter 2017 and full year 2017 and a reconciliation of free cash flow to cash provided by operating activities for the full year 2017, see the sections of the press release titled "Use of Non-GAAP Measures", "Reconciliation of Forward Looking Net Loss to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA" and "Reconciliation of Forward Looking Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities to Free Cash Flow."

An updated investor presentation and an investor data sheet can be found on Chegg's Investor Relations website http://investor.chegg.com.

Prepared Remarks - Dan Rosensweig, CEO Chegg, Inc.

Thank you Tracey and welcome everyone. 2017 has started out very strong. Through great execution we continue to see excellent momentum in our business. We are extraordinarily happy with our financial results and equally pleased in the relationships and engagement we are building with students who are using more of our services more often than ever.

We set out three priorities for the year and the team is executing across all of them.

First is to hit our financial objectives, and in a few minutes Andy will walk you through our financial results as well as our raised expectations for the year.

Second, we said we would focus on improving our existing services and expanding those opportunities even further. And we believe our investments in Chegg Study, Chegg Writing, and Chegg Tutors are making a big TAM even bigger, while our subscribers and engagement growth are daily indicators of just how much students value what we offer them.

Because we see the education category only getting larger, our third priority, is to invest in new services that leverage the Student Graph, and we are continuing to make important investments in our data platform with an increased focus on Internships and Careers. We are very excited about these investments because they help reconnect the critical link between learning and earning. If we can help students make better education choices, save them money, get better grades, develop career skills, find them an internship and ultimately land them the job they want, we believe that Chegg will become the indispensable student brand with millions of deep customer relationships spanning a decade or more.

What's increasingly evident is that our strategy of delivering direct-to-the-student, high quality, low-cost, educational products and services that are online, on demand, personalized, and backed by human help is the future of education. It's an enormous industry that represents 7% of our GDP and engages about 15% of the entire US population. It's under tremendous and increasing pressure right now: from students, governments, administrators, parents, taxpayers and others. Most importantly, we know through our interactions with students that they have never felt more stressed, never needed more help, and it's never been more clear that the relationship between an education and a good job is increasingly important. And our subscriber and engagement metrics demonstrate that there is a strong connection between what Chegg offers and what students want and need.

So let me give you a little more color on our three core Chegg Services, starting, of course, with Chegg Study, which we believe is already the largest direct-to-student subscription learning service and the center of Chegg's business flywheel. What we continue to see only reinforces our belief that the more we invest in Chegg Study, the bigger the TAM gets, and the more valuable the services becomes to students. Today, our catalog of proprietary content now includes over 26,000 ISBNs which represents more than 6 million unique solution sets. Building on our advantage, we added about 75,000 new and unique solution sets in Q1. We also continue to see a dramatic expansion of our proprietary expert Q&A network, which already has more than 9 million questions asked and answered, meaning students often find what they need almost instantly. And it just keeps growing as students asked and our experts answered over 1 million new questions in the first quarter alone, an increase of 44% year-over-year. To spotlight our engagement and to show just how valuable a tool Chegg Study has become for modern students, our subscribers also engaged with a record number of content views in the quarter - almost 100 million - which is an increase of more than 60% year-over-year.

A year ago, almost to the day, we significantly expanded the reach and capabilities of our connected learning platform with the acquisition of Imagine Easy, which continues to exceed our expectations. What we saw then and continue to see now is a student body that desperately needs writing help. 25% of all students require remedial writing instruction at an estimated cost of more than $3 billion dollars annually. And it isn't just an academic problem, as 73% of hiring managers overwhelmingly agree that recent grads lack proficiency in written communications. So we see a huge opportunity here because we think we can change the outcomes for literally millions of students by teaching them how to write more effectively. In 2016, over 30 million unique visitors came to Chegg for writing assistance, and as an integrated part of the Student Graph, we are continually investing in, expanding, and improving the service on behalf of those students, which is exemplified by the 30% year-over-year growth in the number of citations created by students on our connected learning platform.

As an ongoing example of how the connections made on our platform work to the benefit of both students and investors, Chegg Study is continuing to drive about half of Chegg Tutors' paying customers. The reason for this is simple: through Chegg Study, we're able to know when a student is online, when they are studying, when they need help, the subjects they're on, the actual page or question they are stuck on, and from there, our data science consistently matches them to the right tutor within five minutes on average. We believe that this is something no other company can do. And these students are more engaged than ever, receiving lessons in now more than 175 subjects in the quarter with average lesson hours per student increasing about 5% year over year. And we're not done, as you will see in the second half of this year, we plan to closely integrate Chegg Tutors into Chegg Writing so that students can immediately connect to someone with the skills, availability, and relevant context to help them right now. And just as our early investments in Chegg Study are being validated today, we believe Chegg Tutors is also on the right side of the technology curve. We see the fullness of the opportunity as globally delivering on-demand, live human help from experts in any subject, at any time, in any language, and at an affordable price.

Chegg's strategy has always been to put the student first. We see the Education industry at an inflection point. Students are demanding change. They want education to be more affordable, more relevant, more personalized, and with a closer relationship between the curriculum and their careers. And they want to be able to access that education at any time through any format. As an all-digital business focused on the needs of the students, we believe that we are very well-positioned at the center of these trends, which are becoming more powerful tailwinds for our business.

And with that, I will turn it over to Andy. Andy?

Prepared Remarks - Andy Brown, CFO Chegg, Inc.

Thanks Dan and good afternoon everyone.

Today I will discuss our financial performance for the first quarter, as well as our outlook for 2017.

Chegg has had a great start to the year and we are really excited about the momentum we see in our business. The investments we are making in our platform of services, brand and student graph, as well as our strong execution, are paying off as our revenue and adjusted EBITDA came in above the high-end of our expectations, which gives us confidence to increase our full year guidance.

Total revenue in the quarter was $62.6 million, driven by Chegg Services revenue growth of 61%. We continued to see strong subscriber growth and engagement, with growth rates similar to what we experienced in 2016, but on top of a much larger user base.

Gross margins of 66% were higher than expected, resulting from higher topline growth and increased synergies from Chegg Services. Notably, much of the increased revenue goes straight to the gross margin line, as services like Chegg Study and our Writing Tools have a relatively fixed cost structure. Therefore, as these services grow and achieve scale, we expect our margins will continue to increase.

In Q1, our non-GAAP operating expenses grew 15% year-over-year, while revenue grew 34%, yielding significant leverage, which led to an adjusted EBITDA of $9.5 million, more than 30% above the high-end of our expectations demonstrating the leverage and impact of our all digital model and notably, this represents the first profitable quarter, first profitable Q1, on an adjusted EBITDA basis, in the company's history.

Looking at the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with cash of $70 million and as expected we completed the liquidation of the remainder of our textbook library during the quarter, completing our transition to an all-digital business.

Based on the strength of our performance in Q1 and the momentum we see in the business, we have increased our financial outlook for the year.

For the full year of 2017 we now expect:

Total revenue between $235 and $240 million , with Chegg Services revenue between $175 and $180 million .

, with Chegg Services revenue between . Gross margin greater than 65%.

Adjusted EBITDA between $38 and $40 million , almost doubling from what we achieved in 2016.

, almost doubling from what we achieved in 2016. CapEx between $20 and 25 million .

. And free cash flow will remain between $15 to20 million . And we anticipate our year end cash balance to be approximately $80 million , which includes $24 million in acquisition related payments to Imagine Easy Solutions we expect during the year.

For Q2 2017 we expect:

Total revenue between $52 and $54 million, with

and $54 million, with Chegg Services revenue between $42 and $44 million .

. Gross margin between 68% and 70%.

And adjusted EBITDA between $7 and $9 million .

In closing, Q1 has been a great start to the year. We continued our strong execution and delivered above the high-end of our expectations. As a result, we have increased our outlook for 2017 and have greater confidence in reaching our long-term model of approximately 30% growth for Chegg Services revenue, approximately 25% adjusted EBITDA margin and we now believe gross margin will be greater than 65% for the foreseeable future.

With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for your questions.

Conference Call and Webcast Information

To access the call, please dial 1-877-407-4018, or outside the U.S. +1-201-689-8471, five minutes prior to 1:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (or 4:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). A live webcast of the call will also be available at http://investor.chegg.com under the Events & Presentations menu. An audio replay will be available beginning at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on May 1, 2017, until 8:59 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time on May 8, 2017, by calling 1-844-512-2921, or outside the U.S. +1-412-317-6671, with Conference ID 13659999. An audio archive of the call will also be available at http://investor.chegg.com.

Use of Investor Relations Website for Regulation FD Purposes

Chegg also uses its media center website, http://www.chegg.com/mediacenter, as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. Accordingly, investors should monitor http://www.chegg.com/mediacenter, in addition to following press releases, Securities and Exchange Commission filings and public conference calls and webcasts.

About Chegg

Chegg puts students first. As the leading student-first connected learning platform, Chegg strives to improve the overall return on investment in education by helping students learn more in less time and at a lower cost. Chegg is a publicly-held company based in Santa Clara, California and trades on the NYSE under the symbol CHGG. For more information, visit www.chegg.com.

Use of Non-GAAP Measures

To supplement Chegg's financial results presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP), this press release and the accompanying tables and the related earnings conference call contain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP total net revenues, non-GAAP operating expenses and margin, non-GAAP income (loss) from operations, non-GAAP net income (loss), non-GAAP weighted average shares, non-GAAP net income (loss) per share, and free cash flow. For reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, please see the section of the accompanying tables titled, "Reconciliation of Net Loss to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA" and "Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures."

The presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures is not intended to be considered in isolation from, as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, and may be different from non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. Chegg defines (1) adjusted EBITDA as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, adjusted to include textbook depreciation and to exclude share-based compensation expense, acquisition-related compensation costs, restructuring charges (credits), and other (expense) income, net, (2) non-GAAP total net revenues as total net revenues as if it had already transitioned to a fully commission-based revenue model with Ingram for its print textbook business, (3) non-GAAP income (loss) from operations as loss from operations excluding share-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, restructuring charges (credits), and acquisition-related compensation costs, (4) non-GAAP income (loss) from operations margin as non-GAAP income (loss) from operations divided by total net revenues, (5) non-GAAP net income (loss) as net loss excluding share-based compensation expense, amortization of intangible assets, restructuring charges (credits), and acquisition-related compensation costs, (6) non-GAAP weighted average shares outstanding as weighted average shares outstanding adjusted for the effect of dilutive options, restricted stock units and warrants, (7) non-GAAP net income (loss) per share is defined as non-GAAP net income (loss) divided by non-GAAP weighted average shares outstanding and (8) free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities excluding proceeds from liquidations of textbooks net of purchases of textbooks and purchases of property and equipment. To the extent additional significant non-recurring items arise in the future, Chegg may consider whether to exclude such items in calculating the non-GAAP financial measures it uses.

Chegg believes that these non-GAAP financial measures, when taken together with the corresponding GAAP financial measures, provide meaningful supplemental information regarding Chegg's performance by excluding items that may not be indicative of Chegg's core business, operating results or future outlook. Chegg management uses these non-GAAP financial measures in assessing Chegg's operating results, as well as when planning, forecasting and analyzing future periods and believes that such measures enhance investors' overall understanding of our current financial performance. These non-GAAP financial measures also facilitate comparisons of Chegg's performance to prior periods.

As presented in the "Reconciliation of Net Loss to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA" and "Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures" tables below, each of the non-GAAP financial measures excludes one or more of the following items:

Non-GAAP total net revenues adjustments.

During 2015 and 2016, Chegg was in the process of transitioning ownership of the print textbook library, print textbook logistics and fulfillment functions for its print textbook business to Ingram. During the transition, Chegg reported print textbook revenues for orders that are fulfilled with textbooks owned by Chegg and commission-based revenues for orders that are fulfilled with textbooks owned by Ingram. Upon completion of the transition, all revenues from print textbook business transactions now represent an approximate 20% commission earned. Our transition to a fully commission-based model with Ingram completed in November 2016. The non-GAAP revenue adjustments present historical total net revenues "as if" Ingram already owned all textbooks and managed all logistics and order fulfillment. Management believes that presenting revenues as if Chegg had already fully transitioned to the commission-based model with Ingram provides investors with a better understanding of Chegg's results of operations in light of the changes to its business model by facilitating period over period revenues comparisons during the transition period. The adjustments to total net revenues provided below reflect a number of estimates, assumptions and other uncertainties, and are approximate in nature.

Share-based compensation expense.

Share-based compensation expense is a non-cash expense that varies in amount from period to period and is dependent on market forces that are often beyond Chegg's control. As a result, management excludes this item from Chegg's internal operating forecasts and models. Management believes that non-GAAP measures adjusted for share-based compensation provide investors with a basis to measure Chegg's core performance against the performance of other companies without the variability created by share-based compensation as a result of the variety of equity awards used by other companies and the varying methodologies and assumptions used.

Amortization of intangible assets.

Chegg amortizes intangible assets that it acquires in conjunction with business combinations, which results in noncash operating expenses that would not otherwise have been incurred had Chegg internally developed such intangible assets. Chegg believes excluding the accounting expense associated with acquired intangible asset from non-GAAP measures allows for a more accurate assessment of its ongoing operations.

Restructuring charges (credits).

Restructuring charges (credits) primarily relate to expenses incurred in making infrastructure-related changes as a result of transitioning Chegg's fulfillment obligations for the print textbook business to Ingram, expenses related to the exit of Chegg's print coupon business, and our strategic partnership with the National Research Center for College & University Admissions. These restructuring charges (credits) are excluded from non-GAAP financial measures because they are the result of discrete events that are not considered core-operating activities. Chegg believes that it is appropriate to exclude restructuring charges (credits) from non-GAAP financial measures because it enables the comparison of period-over-period operating results from continuing operations.

Acquisition-related compensation costs.

Acquisition-related compensation costs include: (1) compensation expense resulting from the employment retention of certain key employees established in accordance with the terms of the Imagine Easy acquisition, and (2) the remaining pay-out related to the Bookstep acquisition. In most cases, these acquisition-related compensation costs are not factored into management's evaluation of potential acquisitions or Chegg's performance after completion of acquisitions, because they are not related to Chegg's core operating performance. In addition, the frequency and amount of such charges can vary significantly based on the size and timing of acquisitions and the maturities of the businesses being acquired. Excluding acquisition-related compensation costs from non-GAAP measures provides investors with a basis to compare Chegg's results against those of other companies without the variability caused by purchase accounting.

In addition to the non-GAAP financial measures discussed above, Chegg also uses free cash flow. Free cash flow represents net cash provided by operating activities excluding proceeds from liquidations of textbooks net of purchases of textbooks and purchases of property and equipment. Chegg considers free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by the business after the purchases of textbooks, property, buildings, and equipment, which can then be used to, among other things, invest in Chegg's business and make strategic acquisitions. A limitation of the utility of free cash flow as a measure of financial performance is that it does not represent the total increase or decrease in Chegg's cash balance for the period.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which include, without limitation statements regarding Chegg's momentum, Chegg's expectation that adding content and subjects will increase its opportunity, Chegg's expectation that it will have more paying subscribers to Chegg Services than textbook customers in 2017, on-demand human help as one of the biggest opportunities in the education space, Chegg's expectation that students will leverage online tools more in the future, and those included in the investor presentation referenced above, those included in the "Prepared Remarks" sections above, and all statements about Chegg's outlook under "Business Outlook." The words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "project," "endeavor," "will," "should," "future," "transition," "outlook" and similar expressions, as they relate to Chegg, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and are based on management's expectations as of the date of this press release and assumptions that are inherently subject to uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements include the following: Chegg's ability to attract new students, increase engagement and increase monetization; the rate of adoption of Chegg's offerings; the impact of Chegg's acquisition of Imagine Easy Solutions; Chegg's ability to strategically take advantage of new opportunities to leverage the Student Graph; competitive developments, including pricing pressures; Chegg's anticipated growth of Chegg Services; Chegg's ability to build and expand its services offerings; Chegg's ability to develop new products and services on a cost-effective basis and to integrate acquired businesses and assets; the impact of seasonality on the business; Chegg's partnership with Ingram and the parties' ability to achieve the anticipated benefits of the partnership, including the potential impact of the economic risk-sharing arrangements between Chegg and Ingram on Chegg's results of operations; Chegg's ability to effectively control operating costs; Chegg's and Ingram's ability to manage Ingram's textbook library; changes in Chegg's addressable market; changes in the education market; and general economic, political and industry conditions. All information provided in this release and in the conference call is as of the date hereof and Chegg undertakes no duty to update this information except as required by law. These and other important risk factors are described more fully in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Chegg's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 23, 2017, and could cause actual results to vary from expectations.

CHEGG, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (in thousands, except for number of shares and par value)









March 31, 2017

December 31, 2016

(unaudited)

* Assets





Current assets





Cash $ 70,294

$ 77,329 Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $190 and $436 at March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively 8,787

10,451 Prepaid expenses 8,197

2,579 Other current assets 16,637

21,014 Total current assets 103,915

111,373 Textbook library, net 

2,575 Property and equipment, net 36,778

35,305 Goodwill 116,239

116,239 Intangible assets, net 19,345

20,748 Other assets 4,699

4,412 Total assets $ 280,976

$ 290,652 Liabilities and stockholders' equity





Current liabilities





Accounts payable $ 3,261

$ 5,175 Deferred revenue 18,106

14,836 Accrued liabilities 41,005

44,319 Total current liabilities 62,372

64,330 Long-term liabilities





Total other long-term liabilities 4,542

4,383 Total liabilities 66,914

68,713 Commitments and contingencies





Stockholders' equity:













Preferred stock, $0.001 par value  10,000,000 shares authorized, no shares issued and outstanding 

 Common stock, $0.001 par value 400,000,000 shares authorized; 94,244,990 and 91,708,839 shares issued and outstanding at March 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively 94

92 Additional paid-in capital 591,774

593,351 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (77)

(176) Accumulated deficit (377,729)

(371,328) Total stockholders' equity 214,062

221,939 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 280,976

$ 290,652







* Derived from audited consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2016.

CHEGG, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (in thousands, except per share amounts) (unaudited)











Three Months Ended March 31,



2017

2016

Net revenues:







Rental $ -

$ 14,564

Services 62,602

39,752

Sales -

12,338

Total net revenues 62,602

66,654

Cost of revenues(1):







Rental -

13,513

Services 21,396

13,875

Sales -

11,535

Total cost of revenues 21,396

38,923

Gross profit 41,206

27,731

Operating expenses(1):







Technology and development 19,302

16,958

Sales and marketing 15,964

14,446

General and administrative 15,342

12,666

Restructuring charges (credits) 900

(44)

Gain on liquidation of textbooks (4,766)

(1,005)

Total operating expenses 46,742

43,021

Loss from operations (5,536)

(15,290)

Interest expense and other (expense) income, net:







Interest expense, net (19)

(60)

Other (expense) income, net (199)

65

Total interest expense and other (expense) income, net (218)

5

Loss before provision for income taxes (5,754)

(15,285)

Provision for income taxes 647

400

Net loss $ (6,401)

$ (15,685)

Net loss per share, basic and diluted $ (0.07)

$ (0.18)

Weighted average shares used to compute net loss per share, basic and diluted 92,830

89,118











(1) Includes share-based compensation expense as follows:







Cost of revenues $ 67

$ 28

Technology and development 3,241

4,126

Sales and marketing 1,126

1,893

General and administrative 3,844

5,223

Total share-based compensation expense $ 8,278

$ 11,270



CHEGG, INC. CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (in thousands) (unaudited)









Three Months Ended March 31,

2017

2016 Cash flows from operating activities





Net loss $ (6,401)

$ (15,685) Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities:





Textbook library depreciation expense 

4,496 Other depreciation and amortization expense 4,389

2,577 Share-based compensation expense 8,278

11,270 Gain on liquidation of textbooks (4,766)

(1,005) Loss from write-offs of textbooks 314

224 Other non-cash items (46)

23 Change in assets and liabilities:





Accounts receivable 1,947

2,161 Prepaid expenses and other current assets (1,241)

(16,816) Other assets (287)

258 Accounts payable (1,139)

(1,609) Deferred revenue 3,270

11,798 Accrued liabilities (3,743)

(16,760) Other liabilities 260

(165) Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities 835

(19,233) Cash flows from investing activities





Purchases of textbooks 

(442) Proceeds from liquidations of textbooks 6,943

6,120 Purchases of marketable securities 

(7,633) Proceeds from sale of marketable securities 

550 Maturities of marketable securities 

6,244 Purchases of property and equipment (4,770)

(4,800) Acquisition of business (188)

 Net cash provided by investing activities 1,985

39 Cash flows from financing activities





Common stock issued under stock plans, net 2,763

 Payment of taxes related to the net share settlement of RSUs (12,618)

(6,331) Net cash used in financing activities (9,855)

(6,331) Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (7,035)

(25,525) Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 77,329

67,029 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 70,294

$ 41,504







Supplemental cash flow data





Cash paid during the period for:





Interest $ 30

$ 19 Income taxes $ 388

$ 402 Non-cash investing and financing activities:





Accrued purchases of long-lived assets $ 2,022

$ 2,310

CHEGG, INC. RECONCILIATION OF NET LOSS TO EBITDA AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (in thousands) (unaudited)









Three Months Ended March 31,

2017

2016 Net loss $ (6,401)

$ (15,685) Interest expense, net 19

60 Provision for income taxes 647

400 Textbook library depreciation expense 

4,496 Other depreciation and amortization expense 4,389

2,577 EBITDA (1,346)

(8,152) Textbook library depreciation expense 

(4,496) Share-based compensation expense 8,278

11,270 Other expense (income), net 199

(65) Restructuring charges (credits) 900

(44) Acquisition-related compensation costs 1,500

988 Adjusted EBITDA $ 9,531

$ (499)

CHEGG, INC. RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES (in thousands, except percentages) (unaudited)









Three Months Ended March 31,

2017

2016 Total net revenues $ 62,602

$ 66,654 Adjustment as if transition to Ingram is complete 

(19,855) Non-GAAP total net revenues $ 62,602

$ 46,799







Operating expenses $ 46,742

$ 43,021 Share-based compensation expense (8,211)

(11,242) Amortization of intangible assets (1,403)

(628) Restructuring (charges) credits (900)

44 Acquisition-related compensation costs (1,500)

(988) Non-GAAP operating expenses $ 34,728

$ 30,207







Operating expenses as a percent of total net revenues 74.7%

64.5% Non-GAAP operating expenses as a percent of total net revenues 55.5%

45.3%







Loss from operations $ (5,536)

$ (15,290) Share-based compensation expense 8,278

11,270 Amortization of intangible assets 1,403

628 Restructuring charges (credits) 900

(44) Acquisition-related compensation costs 1,500

988 Non-GAAP income (loss) from operations $ 6,545

$ (2,448)







Net loss $ (6,401)

$ (15,685) Share-based compensation expense 8,278

11,270 Amortization of intangible assets 1,403

628 Restructuring charges (credits) 900

(44) Acquisition-related compensation costs 1,500

988 Non-GAAP net income (loss) $ 5,680

$ (2,843)







Weighted average shares used to compute net loss per share 92,830

89,118 Effect of dilutive options, restricted stock units and warrants 6,944

 Non-GAAP weighted average shares used to compute non-GAAP net income (loss) per share 99,774

89,118







Net loss per share $ (0.07)

$ (0.18) Adjustments 0.13

0.15 Non-GAAP net income (loss) per share $ 0.06

$ (0.03)

CHEGG, INC. RECONCILIATION OF FORWARD LOOKING NET LOSS TO EBITDA AND ADJUSTED EBITDA (in thousands) (unaudited)









Three Months

Ended June 30,

2017

Year Ended

December 31,

2017

*

* Net loss $ (7,500)

$ (24,400) Interest expense, net 

100 Provision for income taxes 500

1,800 Other depreciation and amortization expense 4,800

19,200 EBITDA (2,200)

(3,300) Share-based compensation expense 8,500

35,000 Other expense, net 100

300 Restructuring charges 100

1,000 Acquisition-related compensation costs 1,500

6,000 Adjusted EBITDA $ 8,000

$ 39,000







* Adjusted EBITDA guidance for the three months ended June 30, 2017 and year ended December 31, 2017 represents the midpoint of the range of $7 million to $9 million and $38 million to $40 million, respectively.

CHEGG, INC. RECONCILIATION OF FORWARD LOOKING NET CASH PROVIDED BY OPERATING ACTIVITIES TO FREE CASH FLOW (in thousands) (unaudited)





Year Ended

December 31,

2017

* Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities $ 33,057 Purchases of textbooks  Proceeds from liquidations of textbooks 6,943 Purchases of property and equipment (22,500) Free Cash Flow $ 17,500



* Purchases of property and equipment and free cash flow guidance for the year ended December 31, 2017 represents the midpoint of the range of $20 million to $25 million and $15 million to $20 million, respectively.

SOURCE Chegg, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.chegg.com


JACKSON, Mich., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CMS Energy announced today reported net income of $199 million, or $0.71 per share, for the first quarter of 2017, compared to reported net income of $164 million, or $0.59 per share, for the same quarter of 2016. Earnings per share in 2017 grew $0.12 or 20 percent compared with 2016 despite a historic March storm, and one of the warmest winters in Michigan's history.

CMS Energy reaffirmed its guidance for 2017 adjusted earnings of $2.14 to $2.18 per share (*See below for important information about non-GAAP measures) or 6 to 8 percent annual adjusted earnings per share growth.

The first quarter results include the impact of a historic, statewide wind storm restoration and a final order for our 2016 electric rate case. The company filed a new electric rate case in March, reflecting additional investments designed to continue improvements to customer service and reliability.

"We are committed to safety as evidenced by zero employee safety incidents during our recent catastrophic storm," said Patti Poppe, CEO and President of CMS Energy and Consumers Energy. "To continue our pledge of leaving the planet better than we found it, CMS Energy is increasing our renewable energy capacity as well as investing in energy efficiency and demand response programs which benefit our customers while providing for a more nimble generation fleet."

CMS Energy noted several other important recent events:

Issued a request for proposal in April for acquisition of an existing natural gas plant and filed the securitization case requesting early termination of the Power Purchase Agreement with Entergy's Palisades Plant.

Continued investment in electric and renewable energy infrastructure to reduce system risk and increase capacity.

Started work on the 94-mile, multi-year Saginaw Trail pipeline project, to be completed by 2022, which will deliver natural gas safely and reliably.

Launched the Peak Power Savers Program  helping customers save money by reducing energy use at peak usage times.

Program  helping customers save money by reducing energy use at peak usage times. Received approval from the MPSC to proceed with the Crosswinds Energy Park Phase II, which builds on our commitment to increase customer renewable energy options. We also secured the ability to take advantage of the Production Tax Credit to reduce costs.

Honored nationally for excellence and commitment to energy efficiency with the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year  Sustained Excellence Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS) is a Michigan-based company that has an electric and natural gas utility, Consumers Energy, as its primary business and also owns and operates independent power generation businesses.

CMS Energy will hold a webcast to discuss its 2017 first quarter results and provide a business and financial outlook on May 1 at 9:30 AM (EDT). To participate in the Webcast, go to CMS Energy's home page (www.cmsenergy.com) and select "Investor Meeting."

Important information for investors about non-GAAP measures and other disclosures.

*This news release contains non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (non-GAAP) measures, such as adjusted earnings. Adjustments could include items such as discontinued operations, asset sales, impairments, restructuring costs, regulatory items from prior years, or other items detailed in the attached summary financial statements. Management views adjusted earnings as a key measure of the company's present operating financial performance and uses adjusted earnings for external communications with analysts and investors. Internally, the company uses adjusted earnings to measure and assess performance. Because the company is not able to estimate the impact of specific line items, which have the potential to significantly impact, favorably or unfavorably, the company's reported earnings in future periods, the company is not providing reported earnings guidance nor is it providing a reconciliation for the comparable future period earnings. The adjusted earnings should be considered supplemental information to assist in understanding our business results, rather than as a substitute for the reported earnings.

This news release contains "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause CMS Energy's and Consumers Energy's results to differ materially. All forward-looking statements should be considered in the context of the risk and other factors detailed from time to time in CMS Energy's and Consumers Energy's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Investors and others should note that CMS Energy routinely posts important information on its website and considers the Investor Relations section, www.cmsenergy.com/investor-relations, a channel of distribution.

For more information on CMS Energy, please visit our website at www.cmsenergy.com. To sign up for email alert notifications, please visit the Investor Relations section of our website.

CMS Energy Corporation

SUMMARIZED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME

(In Millions, Except Per Share Amounts)

First Quarter

(Unaudited)

2017

2016







Operating Revenue $ 1,829

$ 1,801







Operating Expenses 1,441

1,475







Operating Income $ 388

$ 326







Other Income 14

18







Interest Charges 107

106







Income before Income Taxes $ 295

$ 238







Income Tax Expense 96

74







Net Income Available to Common Stockholders $ 199

$ 164















Income Per Share





Basic $ 0.71

$ 0.59 Diluted 0.71

0.59









CMS Energy Corporation

SUMMARIZED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(In Millions)

March 31

December 31

2017

2016

(Unaudited) Assets





Cash and cash equivalents $ 433

$ 235 Restricted cash and cash equivalents 30

19 Other current assets 1,752

2,026 Total current assets $ 2,215

$ 2,280 Plant, property, and equipment 15,857

15,715 Other non-current assets 3,551

3,627 Total Assets $ 21,623

$ 21,622















Liabilities and Equity





Current liabilities $ 1,114

$ 1,371 Non-current liabilities 6,057

5,927 Capitalization





Debt, capital leases, and financing obligation (*)





Debt, capital leases, and financing obligation





(excluding non-recourse and securitization debt) 8,548

8,508 Non-recourse debt 1,169

1,198 Total debt, capital leases, and financing obligation 9,717

9,706 Noncontrolling interests 37

37 Common stockholders' equity 4,370

4,253 Total capitalization $ 14,124

$ 13,996 Securitization debt 328

328 Total Liabilities and Equity $ 21,623

$ 21,622







(*) Current and long-term





















CMS Energy Corporation SUMMARIZED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (In Millions)

First Quarter

(Unaudited)

2017

2016















Beginning of Period Cash (Including Restricted Amounts) $ 257

$ 288















Cash provided by operating activities $ 646

$ 632 Cash used in investing activities (346)

(444) Cash flow from operating and investing activities $ 300

$ 188 Cash used by financing activities (94)

(270) Total Cash Flow $ 206

$ (82)















End of Period Cash (Including Restricted Amounts) $ 463

$ 206

















CMS Energy Corporation

SUMMARY OF CONSOLIDATED EARNINGS

Reconciliations of GAAP Net Income to Non-GAAP Adjusted Net Income

(In Millions, Except Per Share Amounts)



First Quarter



(Unaudited)



2017

2016









Net Income Available to Common Stockholders $ 199

$ 164









Reconciling Items:







Discontinued Operations Loss *

*











Restructuring Costs and Other 1

*

Tax Impact (*)

(*)









Adjusted Net Income - Non-GAAP Basis $ 200

$ 164



















Average Number of Common Shares Outstanding







Basic 279

277

Diluted 280

278









Basic Earnings Per Average Common Share















Net Income Per Share as Reported $ 0.71

$ 0.59









Reconciling Items:







Discontinued Operations Loss *

*











Restructuring Costs and Other *

*

Tax Impact (*)

(*)









Adjusted Net Income - Non-GAAP Basis $ 0.71

$ 0.59



















Diluted Earnings Per Average Common Share















Net Income Per Share as Reported $ 0.71

$ 0.59









Reconciling Items:







Discontinued Operations Loss *

*











Restructuring Costs and Other *

*

Tax Impact (*)

(*)









Adjusted Net Income - Non-GAAP Basis $ 0.71

$ 0.59





















Note: Management views adjusted (non-Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) earnings as a key measure of the Company's present operating financial performance and uses adjusted earnings for external communications with analysts and investors. Internally, the Company uses adjusted earnings to measure and assess performance. Adjustments could include items such as discontinued operations, asset sales, impairments, restructuring costs, regulatory items from prior years, or other items detailed in these summary financial statements. Adjusted earnings should be considered supplemental information to assist in understanding our business results, rather than as a substitute for reported earnings.

* Less than $500 thousand or $0.01 per share.

















SOURCE CMS Energy

Related Links

http://www.cmsenergy.com


SYDNEY, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cog Systems' D4 Secure Platform is now officially eligible on a mobile device by the NSA's Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program. This is the first time a mobile device based on a holistic solution from Cog Systems that includes bare-metal virtualization has sought NIAP Certification, setting a major precedent for the rest of the wireless industry.

"We are leading the revolution to change the world from their current well-worn monolithic architecture for mobile to the more resilient and higher performance associated with a fully modular approach to the architectural design for all connected devices," said Carl L. Nerup, CMO, Cog Systems. "With this important validation of our approach, Cog Systems has advanced the CSfC mobile device landscape using a fundamentally different architecture built on the D4 Secure Platform."

Cog Systems has a long heritage in designing and implementing 'hardened' mobile solutions for select western governments around the world. Cog Systems leverages their D4 Secure Platform to develop standard SDKs for specific categories of connected devices, including mobile, gateway, and IoT. These D4 Secure SDKs have been designed to protect organizations and their users with an unparalleled level of data and system security without sacrificing the flexibility to run any application - safely and securely. This same technology and expertise that was once available only to our government customers is now available for use in the enterprise markets.

"This mobile device built on the D4 Secure Platform also holds the unique distinction of running two separate layers of both data in transit and data at rest. By being able to seamlessly run a true nested VPN right out of the box  the user can now run any app, any time on the D4 Secure mobile device," added Nerup.

The CSfC Program list can be found at: https://www.nsa.gov/resources/everyone/csfc/components-list/

About Cog Systems

Cog Systems designs and develops solutions for the connected world. As the Internet becomes more hostile, Cog makes security solutions and high assurance universal among smart devices and offers unrivaled protection. Cog is well positioned to tackle the emerging trust and security challenges of the Internet of Things (IoT) by using advanced embedded solutions and technology.

For more information, visit http://cog.systems/.

SOURCE Cog Systems

Related Links

https://cog.systems


PHILADELPHIA, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 28, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of Colorado granted final approval of a $375 million settlement in Cook et al. v. Rockwell International Corp. et al., one of the longest running cases in the United States. The case, which involves plutonium releases from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons site northwest of Denver, Colo., was filed in January 1990 against The Dow Chemical Company and Rockwell International Corporation. Both companies managed the plant from 1952 to 1989 for the United States Department of Energy. Homeowners alleged that plutonium releases from the plant had contaminated their property.

"We are very pleased with the final approval," said Merrill G. Davidoff, Chairman of Berger & Montague and lead trial counsel for the plaintiffs in a four-month trial held from October 2005 to February 2006. On February 14, 2006, Mr. Davidoff and his team won a jury verdict on behalf of thousands of class members. Compensatory damages as found by the jury were $177 million. Judgment in the case was entered by the Court in June 2008, including interest and punitive damages.

Recognizing this tremendous achievement, the Public Justice Foundation awarded its prestigious Trial Lawyer of the Year Award for 2009 to Mr. Davidoff, Berger & Montague Managing Shareholder David F. Sorensen, and the entire trial team. The entire judgment was reversed and vacated on appeal, including the punitive damages. See Cook, et al. v. Rockwell Int'l. Corp., et al., 618 F.3d 1127 (10th Cir. 2010) ("Cook Appeal I").

After remand to the District Court following an unsuccessful petition for certiorari, the District Court dismissed the entire case. On a second appeal to the Tenth Circuit, the Court of Appeals in 2015 found that plaintiffs state law nuisance cause of action was not preempted by the federal Price-Anderson Act, and that plaintiffs could pursue a state law nuisance judgment based on the existing verdict. See Cook, et al. v. Rockwell Int'l. Corp., et al., 790 F.3d 1088 (10th Cir. 2015) ("Cook Appeal II"). This was a precedent-setting decision written by now-Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Thanks to Berger & Montague's tireless efforts litigating this case, a proposed class settlement for $375 million was reached on May 19, 2016. The settlement will return to class members recoveries in excess of the compensatory damages found by the jury in 2006, even after fees and costs to class counsel.

In addition to Mr. Davidoff and Mr. Sorensen, the trial team also included the late shareholder Peter Nordberg and was supported by attorneys Jenna MacNaughton, Caitlin G. Coslett, and Ellen Noteware, as well as lead trial paralegal Karen Markert. Louise Roselle of the Cincinnati law firm Markovits, Stock & DeMarco; Jean Geoppinger McCoy, currently of the Cincinnati law firm White, Getgey & Meyer, Co., L.P.A., and Gary B. Blum of Silver & DeBoskey, P.C. in Denver, also assisted at trial.

Berger & Montague is a full-spectrum class action and complex civil litigation firm, with nationally known attorneys highly sought after for their legal skills. The firm has been recognized by courts throughout the country for its ability and experience in handling major complex litigation, particularly in the fields of antitrust, securities, environmental, mass torts, civil and human rights, whistleblower cases, employment, and consumer litigation. In numerous precedent-setting cases, the firm has played a principal or lead role.

Contact:

Merrill G. Davidoff

Berger & Montague, P.C.

215-875-3084

[email protected]

David F. Sorensen

Berger & Montague, P.C.

215-875-5705

[email protected]

SOURCE Berger & Montague, P.C.

Related Links

http://www.bergermontague.com


CLEARWATER, Fla., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- (ISC) ("ISC-squared") today announced award-winning national security reporter Ben Makuch will be a keynote speaker at the seventh annual Security Congress Sept. 25-27 at the JW Marriott Austin in Austin, TX. Makuch covers a broad array of cybersecurity issues impacting Canadian national security. On his VICELAND show, he focuses on major hacks, the future of war and more. Makuch and his publisher, VICE Media, are currently appealing a Canadian court order to produce and share information he obtained in the course of reporting on a Canadian citizen turned accused terrorist.

"Whether it's receiving leaked information online or communicating with accused criminals or even alleged terrorists, journalists are encountering new challenges in their missions of informing the public with very serious questions about press freedoms, privacy and security," says (ISC) CEO David Shearer. "Ben's story underscores this evolving dynamic between reporters' ability to serve the public interest and government's role in combating terrorists and prosecuting criminals. There will be many different opinions among Security Congress attendees, but we are happy to host Ben and to learn about his experiences and how he sees technology continuing to shape many cybersecurity issues."

Ben Makuch is an award winning national security reporter with VICE News. Previously with the Canadian Press's Parliamentary Bureau, Makuch was in contact with several homegrown Islamic State militants from Canada. That reporting caught the attention of federal counterterrorism investigators who are trying to force Makush to hand over all source materials connected to Farah Mohamed Shirdon, an alleged ISIS fighter from Calgary. Makuch refused and is now fighting the production order in court. He faces possible jail time if he loses. Makuch is currently the correspondent for Cyberwar on the VICELAND network, an investigative documentary series examining the covert world of signals intelligence and hackers.





About (ISC)2 Security Congress

(ISC) Security Congress will bring together more than 1,500 professionals from around the world for four days of education, best-practice sharing and networking. This year's conference tracks include: Cloud Security; Cyber Crime; Critical Infrastructure; Incident Response & Forensics; Governance, Regulation & Compliance; Identity Access Management; People & Security; Professional Development; Software Assurance/Application Security; Swiss Army Knife; and Threats.





(ISC) members are eligible for special discounted pricing. Early registration rates are available until July 31. More details are available at congress.isc2.org.



About (ISC)

(ISC) is an international nonprofit membership association focused on inspiring a safe and secure cyber world. Best known for the acclaimed Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, (ISC) offers a portfolio of credentials that are part of a holistic, programmatic approach to security. Our membership, over 120,000 strong, is made up of certified cyber, information, software and infrastructure security professionals who are making a difference and helping to advance the industry. Our vision is supported by our commitment to educate and reach the general public through our charitable foundation  The Center for Cyber Safety and Education. For more information on (ISC), visit www.isc2.org, follow us on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook.



 2017 (ISC) Inc., (ISC), CISSP, SSCP, CCSP, CAP, CSSLP, HCISPP, CCFP, ISSAP, ISSEP, ISSMP and CBK are registered marks of (ISC), Inc.

Contact:

Hannah Aboulhosn

703-877-8110

W2 Communications

[email protected]



SOURCE (ISC)2

Related Links

http://www.isc2.org


ATLANTA, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Delta Community Credit Union (www.DeltaCommunityCU.com), Georgia's largest credit union with more than $5 billion in assets, announces a call for grant applications for the 2018 Delta Community Philanthropic Fund. The program provides support to registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations committed to financial literacy and improving the lives of young people, including educational programs focused on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEM/STEAM), fiscal management and youth development.

The Philanthropic Fund will distribute a total of $100,000 throughout 2018, demonstrating the Credit Union's commitment to invest in the communities it serves.

"Past recipients tell us these grants help them make a meaningful difference in the lives of those in need," said Delta Community Chief Executive Officer Hank Halter. "We understand how these organizations benefit individuals and families and, ultimately, support the ongoing success of the communities where we are privileged to operate."

Since its inception in 2013, the Delta Community Philanthropic Fund has invested more than $320,000 in 84 organizations throughout metro Atlanta. In addition to the Philanthropic Fund, Delta Community invests in local communities through school sponsorships and support of chambers of commerce, non-profit groups, industry partners and civic organizations.

The application window is from May 1 to June 30 at 5 p.m. All applicants will receive a written response by Nov. 3, 2017. Interested organizations may visit www.DeltaCommunityCU.com/PhilanthropicFund to review grant guidelines and submit an application.

About Delta Community Credit Union

Delta Community Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative with a mission of providing consumers better service and value on the deposit, loan, investment and insurance products they use to manage their household expenses and save for the future. Delta Community was founded in 1940 and has become Georgia's largest credit union with more than 350,000 members and 26 branch locations. The Credit Union now welcomes residents of 11 metro Atlanta counties and employees of more than 150 businesses, including Chick-fil-A, Delta Air Lines, RaceTrac and UPS. Visit www.DeltaCommunityCU.com to learn more about opening an account at Delta Community or follow the Credit Union on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DeltaCommunity and Twitter at @DeltaCommunity.

SOURCE Delta Community Credit Union

Related Links

http://www.deltacommunitycu.com


HOUSTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc. (NYSE: DO) today reported results for the first quarter of 2017.



Three Months Ended

Thousands of dollars, except per share data March 31, 2017 December 31, 2016 Change Total revenues $ 374,226 $ 391,874 (5)% Operating income 50,859 104,145 (51)% Net income 23,539 116,082 (80)% Earnings per diluted share $ 0.17 $ 0.85 (80)%

"Despite a continually challenging market, Diamond Offshore achieved earnings per share of $0.17 for the first quarter of 2017," said Marc Edwards, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Overall, I am pleased with our first quarter results and our ability to manage costs, while remaining focused on maintaining our operational and technical excellence. The Ocean GreatWhite, Ocean Scepter and the Ocean BlackRhino all commenced term contracts in the first quarter, enhancing our already strong liquidity." Edwards went on to say, "During the first quarter, the Ocean BlackLion successfully drilled and completed one of the deepest and most complex wells on record in the Gulf of Mexico."

Also during the quarter, the Company executed new contracts for the Ocean Monarch in Australia, the first of which is scheduled to commence in late first quarter of 2018. Combined, these contracts add nine months of backlog and will keep the Ocean Monarch contracted through 2018. Additionally, the Company executed a new two-year term contract with Apache for the Ocean Patriot in the North Sea. The rig is scheduled to commence its new program in the second quarter of 2018.

As of March 31, 2017, the Company's total contracted backlog was $3.2 billion, which represents 23 rig years of work.

CONFERENCE CALL

A conference call to discuss Diamond Offshore's earnings results has been scheduled for 7:30 a.m. CDT today. A live webcast of the call will be available online on the Company's website, www.diamondoffshore.com. Those interested in participating in the question and answer session should dial 844-492-6043 or 478-219-0839, for international callers. The conference ID number is 1792549. An online replay will also be available on www.diamondoffshore.com following the call.

ABOUT DIAMOND OFFSHORE

Diamond Offshore is a leader in offshore drilling, providing contract drilling services to the energy industry around the globe. Additional information and access to the Company's SEC filings are available at www.diamondoffshore.com. Diamond Offshore is owned 53% by Loews Corporation (NYSE: L).

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements contained in this press release or made during the above conference call that are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and subject to a variety of assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or expected by management of the Company. A discussion of the important risk factors and other considerations that could materially impact these matters as well as the Company's overall business and financial performance can be found in the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and readers of this press release are urged to review those reports carefully when considering these forward-looking statements. Copies of these reports are available through the Company's website at www.diamondoffshore.com. These risk factors include, among others, risks associated with worldwide demand for drilling services, level of activity in the oil and gas industry, renewing or replacing expired or terminated contracts, contract cancellations and terminations, maintenance and realization of backlog, competition and industry fleet capacity, impairments and retirements, operating risks, changes in tax laws and rates, regulatory initiatives and compliance with governmental regulations, construction of new builds, casualty losses, and various other factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Given these risk factors, investors and analysts should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this press release. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement to reflect any change in the Company's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any forward-looking statement is based.

DIAMOND OFFSHORE DRILLING, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) (In thousands, except per share data)



Three Months Ended,

March 31,

2017

2016







Revenues:





Contract drilling $ 363,557

$ 443,523 Revenues related to reimbursable expenses 10,669

27,020 Total revenues 374,226

470,543







Operating expenses:





Contract drilling, excluding depreciation 203,523

212,841 Reimbursable expenses 10,478

26,791 Depreciation 93,229

104,240 General and administrative 17,483

15,398 Gain on disposition of assets (1,346)

(296) Total operating expenses 323,367

358,974







Operating income 50,859

111,569







Other income (expense):





Interest income 175

173 Interest expense (27,596)

(25,516) Foreign currency transaction gain (loss) 1,087

(3,608) Other, net (63)

578







Income before income tax (expense) benefit 24,462

83,196







Income tax (expense) benefit (923)

4,229







Net income $ 23,539

$ 87,425







Income per share $ 0.17

$ 0.64







Weighted-average shares outstanding:





Shares of common stock 137,173

137,162 Dilutive potential shares of common stock 77

44 Total weighted-average shares outstanding 137,250

137,206

DIAMOND OFFSHORE DRILLING, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED RESULTS OF OPERATIONS (Unaudited) (In thousands)





Three Months Ended

March 31,

December 31,

March 31,

2017

2016

2016











REVENUES









Floaters:









Ultra-Deepwater $ 243,465

$ 231,820

$ 325,961 Deepwater 67,943

64,678

59,117 Mid-Water 48,285

88,130

47,672 Total Floaters 359,693

384,628

432,750 Jack-ups 3,864

18

10,773 Total Contract Drilling Revenue 363,557

384,646

$ 443,523











Revenues Related to Reimbursable Expenses $ 10,669

$ 7,228

$ 27,020











CONTRACT DRILLING EXPENSE









Floaters:









Ultra-Deepwater $ 141,873

$ 119,490

$ 123,736 Deepwater 33,080

30,481

47,509 Mid-Water 19,267

16,814

23,884 Total Floaters 194,220

166,785

195,129 Jack-ups 5,323

3,090

6,055 Other 3,980

4,467

11,657 Total Contract Drilling Expense $ 203,523

$ 174,342

$ 212,841











Reimbursable Expenses $ 10,478

$ 6,775

$ 26,791











OPERATING INCOME









Floaters:









Ultra-Deepwater $ 101,592

$ 112,330

$ 202,225 Deepwater 34,863

34,197

11,608 Mid-Water 29,018

71,316

23,788 Total Floaters 165,473

217,843

237,621 Jack-ups (1,459)

(3,072)

4,718 Other (3,980)

(4,467)

(11,657) Reimbursable expenses, net 191

453

229 Depreciation (93,229)

(86,031)

(104,240) General and administrative expense (17,483)

(14,786)

(15,398) Bad debt recovery --

265

-- Gain (loss) on disposition of assets 1,346

(6,060)

296 Total Operating Income $ 50,859

$ 104,145

$ 111,569

DIAMOND OFFSHORE DRILLING, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Unaudited) (In thousands)









March 31,

December 31,

2017

2016 ASSETS





Current assets:





Cash and cash equivalents $ 123,316

$ 156,233 Marketable securities 24

35 Accounts receivable, net of allowance for bad debts 286,408

247,028 Prepaid expenses and other current assets 105,355

102,111 Asset held for sale 400

400 Total current assets 515,503

505,807







Drilling and other property and equipment, net of accumulated depreciation 5,616,367

5,726,935 Other assets 137,073

139,135 Total assets $ 6,268,943

$ 6,371,877







LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY





Short-term borrowings $ --

$ 104,200 Other current liabilities 201,583

236,299 Long-term debt 1,981,169

1,980,884 Deferred tax liability 191,594

197,011 Other liabilities 120,602

103,349 Stockholders' equity 3,773,995

3,750,134 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 6,268,943

$ 6,371,877

DIAMOND OFFSHORE DRILLING, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (Unaudited) (In thousands)



Three months ended March 31,

2017

2016 Operating activities:





Net income $ 23,539

$ 87,425 Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash





provided by operating activities





Depreciation 93,229

104,240 Deferred tax provision (5,988)

(45,254) Other 17,367

19,957 Net changes in operating working capital (29,471)

74,962 Net cash provided by operating activities 98,676

241,330 Investing activities:





Capital expenditures (including rig construction) (29,487)

(58,114) Proceeds from disposition of assets, net of disposal costs 2,097

113,295 Other 11

11 Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities (27,379)

55,192 Financing activities:





Repayment of short-term borrowings, net (104,200)

(286,589) Other (14)

(33) Net cash used in financing activities (104,214)

(286,622) Net change in cash and cash equivalents (32,917)

9,900 Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 156,233

119,028 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 123,316

$ 128,928

DIAMOND OFFSHORE DRILLING, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES AVERAGE DAYRATE, UTILIZATION AND OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY (Dayrate in thousands)



First Quarter 2017 Fourth Quarter 2016 First Quarter 2016

Average Dayrate (1) Utilization (2) Operational Efficiency (3) Average Dayrate (1) Utilization (2) Operational Efficiency (3) Average Dayrate (1) Utilization (2) Operational Efficiency (3)







































Ultra-Deepwater Floaters $450 50% 91.1% $456 49% 92.0% $533 61% 98.4%



















Deepwater Floaters $260 48% 96.6% $287 39% 92.1% $334 28% 97.1%



















Mid-Water floaters $268 40% 100.0% $478 35% 99.9% $263 25% 97.7%



















Jack-ups $75 29% 99.9% -- -- -- $118 18% 100.0%



















Fleet Total



94.3%



93.5%



98.2%



















(1) Average dayrate is defined as contract drilling revenue for all of the specified rigs in our fleet per revenue- earning day. A revenue-earning day is defined as a 24-hour period during which a rig earns a dayrate after commencement of operations and excludes mobilization, demobilization and contract preparation days.

(2) Utilization is calculated as the ratio of total revenue-earning days divided by the total calendar days in the period for all specified rigs in our fleet (including cold-stacked rigs, but excluding rigs under construction). Our current fleet includes four ultra-deepwater, three deepwater and three mid-water semisubmersible rigs that are cold stacked.

(3) Operational efficiency is calculated as the ratio of total revenue-earning days divided by the sum of total revenue-earning days plus the number of days (or portions thereof) associated with unanticipated equipment downtime.

Contact:

Samir Ali

Sr. Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Development

(281) 647-4035

SOURCE Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.diamondoffshore.com


LISBON, Portugal, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Diesel.net, an incredibly unique and valuable piece of intellectual property registered since 1997, is now publicly available for the first time ever.

The diesel industry contributes more than $480 billion annually to the U.S. economy, provides more than 1.25 million jobs, and supplies a substantial export-to-value ratio five times higher than the national average.

Diesel.net Diesel.net, an incredibly unique and valuable piece of intellectual property registered since 1997, is now publicly available for the first time ever.

The top-tier Diesel keyword is recognized around the world and encompasses many services, including fuel, engines, freight, agriculture, mining, construction industries, and much more. Diesel.net is highly marketable and offers a unique branding opportunity to capitalize on a universally recognized keyword that covers a broad range of industries and business sectors.

Any leading business offering diesel-related services or products and looking to increase their online and offline presence could benefit from exclusive ownership rights to the domain Diesel.net.

Owning the exact keyword match domain that directly relates to your business is powerful for branding, credibility, and memorability. Domain names that are easy to remember promote word-of-mouth advertising and can easily be integrated into marketing campaigns and branding. There are few better investments than the acquisition of a credible, premium domain name; it is a one-time investment in exchange for permanent benefits.

Mr. Luc Biggs, the CEO of KEY DOMAINS, is the exclusive seller of Diesel.net and is currently selling other premium domain assets such as Napkin.com

Interested parties can contact Mr. Biggs, via email [email protected], 00351 915 129 084

SOURCE KEY DOMAINS
San Francisco-based Garza previously drove programmatic innovation for the discipline across The Americas, EMEA and APAC. Under his direction, Garza's team was responsible for the agency's programmatic spend surpassing 50% globally year over year. He joined the agency in 2014 as Programmatic Lead for North America. Prior to Essence, Garza was the Director of Acquisition for Electronic Arts, where he developed programmatic audience targeting for the brand's in-house media teams. As Global Director of Media Activation, Garza will oversee the new, 220+ team that manages all media buying and optimization, including biddable, programmatic and reservation.

Krick, based in Essence's New York office, was previously responsible for Essence's performance marketing offering globally. During a period of more than 200% growth in staff, he was responsible for managing more than 100 staff. Before Essence, Krick spent 12 years at Publicis Groupe-owned Razorfish. As Global Head of Media Planning, he now manages a team of more than 70 senior cross-channel optimization experts globally, tasked with architecting plans that maximize returns for clients and optimizing cross-channel investment decisions.

"Oscar and Brian have played a fundamental role in our quest to reimagine the client experience," said Christian Juhl, global CEO of Essence. "Their digital media expertise is of paramount importance when we look at the future of our agency and the way we help brands reach consumers. I couldn't feel more confident having them lead these two crucial practices."

"Essence has centered itself around buying media assisted by technology and data science," said Garza. "Programmatic has been the practice we've associated with these terms, but Search, Social and other channels are, in parallel, experiencing a fundamental reinvention. I am very excited to be part of this transformation."

"Planning and optimization have always been a key pillar of Essence's mission to make advertising more valuable to the world," said Krick. "I'm looking forward to further shaping our audience-based offering and having an even deeper impact on brands and consumers alike."

Garza and Krick's new titles are effective immediately. They will both continue to report into Andrew Shebbeare, co-founder and chief product officer.

About Essence

Essence is a global digital agency that blends data science, objective media and captivating experiences to build valuable connections between brands and consumers. Clients include Google, FrieslandCampina, Tesco Mobile and the Financial Times. The agency is more than 750 people strong, manages over $1B in media spend and deploys campaigns in 71 markets via offices in Chicago, Delhi, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo. Part of GroupM, Essence is majority owned by WPP, the world's leading communications services group.

Visit essencedigital.com for more information and follow us on Twitter at @essencedigital.

SOURCE Essence

Related Links

http://www.essencedigital.com


Patients who have high LDL (bad) cholesterol may have hard plaque building up inside their artery walls. Plaque buildup makes arteries narrower and less flexible.

"When plaque builds up in your carotid artery (the main artery that provides oxygen to the brain), it can cause the artery to narrow  that's called carotid stenosis," said vascular surgeon Dr. Mohammad Eslami of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Small clots can form on the plaque, then break off and travel to the brain. If a clot blocks a vessel in the brain it can cause a minor or major stroke depending on the diameter of the blocked artery."

Carotid stenosis is responsible for up to one-third of all strokes, he added, and stroke causes one in every 15 deaths. About 700,000 strokes occur every year, usually in men.

An ischemic stroke is frequently a surprise event because even people who have severe narrowing of an internal carotid usually have had no symptoms. In many cases the condition is found during a routine physical or after a patient has already had a stroke. Sometimes the physician can detect a telltale sound in the artery before any strokes have occurred. The narrowing of artery sometimes creates an audible noises that can be picked up when your doctor listens to your neck; this audible noise is called a bruit.

If your doctor thinks you might have carotid artery disease, or if you have had a stroke, you will be given a painless ultrasound test to determine the extent of the narrowing, also called stenosis. (Be sure the lab is "ICAVL approved." The vascular surgeon will need to make important decisions based on the accuracy of the test.)

Patients who should be considered for an ultrasound screening are those over age 65 with atherosclerotic risk factors, such as high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, a history of heart attack or a smoking habit.

Based on the ultrasound test, patients will next see a vascular surgeon. Vascular surgeons perform surgery or endovascular intervention only when necessary and many patients who have mild or even moderate carotid disease with no symptoms only need medication and regular monitoring by the surgeon. If the artery is 70 to 80 percent narrowed by ultrasound, the vascular surgeon may decide you need a carotid endarterectomy or carotid angioplasty and stenting.

Endarterectomy opens the carotid for a cleaning; angioplasty and stenting involve inserting and inflating a miniature balloon to widen the artery, followed by the insertion of a small stent. Angioplasty and stenting are mostly for patients who don't qualify for an endarterectomy. Recovery for both options is quick and most patients are up and around in a day or two.

Unfortunately, atherosclerosis is often undiagnosed until it becomes more severe. Atherosclerosis is an equal opportunity troublemaker. It can also cause heart attack or peripheral artery disease, which can lead to chronic limb ischemia and amputation. Patients with hardening of the arteries should regularly see a physician and have their cholesterol checked.

Learn more about atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases at Vascular.org/patient-resources.

If you are looking for a vascular specialist, start here.

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) is a 5,600-member, not-for-profit professional medical society, composed primarily of specialty-trained vascular surgeons, which seeks to advance excellence and innovation in vascular health through education, advocacy, research and public awareness.

SOURCE Society for Vascular Surgery

Related Links

http://www.vascularweb.org


PORTLAND, Ore., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) ("Eastside" or the "Company"), today announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Big Bottom Distilling ("BBD"), a Hillsboro, Oregon-based distiller of award winning and super premium gins, whiskeys, brandies, rum, and vodka. BBD was founded by Ted Pappas, a past president of the Oregon Distillers Guild. BBD will continue to operate as a distinct business entity and produce spirits in collaboration with Eastside's Master Distiller and EVP of Operations, Melissa "Mel" Heim.

Eastside intends to place BBD's craft spirits into joint distribution, on a selective basis, with Portland Potato Vodka, Burnside Bourbon, Cherry Bomb, Coffee Rum, Marionberry Whiskey and its other popular craft spirits. The extensive BBD product portfolio includes several craft spirits that are highly complementary to Eastside's product line, including The Ninety One Gin, Navy Strength Gin (114 proof) and Delta Rye (111 proof) rye whiskey, among others.

Since its founding, Big Bottom Distilling has transitioned from an independent bottling operation to the distilling of their own award-winning spirits. Inspired by the craft spirits movement in Oregon, Big Bottom Distilling's small-batch, hand-crafted spirits provide consumers with unique takes on traditional spirits. The spirits portfolio created by Ted Pappas and lead distiller Travis Schoney, formerly of High West Distilling of Park City, Utah, has won, and continues to win, awards for such specialty finished whiskeys as the Barlow Trail Port Cask Finished Whiskey. BBD will continue their exclusive Warehouse Series  a boutique line of limited production spirits, like Hungarian oak finished rye, sold to collectors on a first come, first served, basis.

BBD craft spirits are primarily distributed in Oregon, California and Illinois. Eastside intends to leverage its own distribution base and sales team, on a selective basis, in the U.S. and Canada. Eastside's production team, led by its EVP, Mel Heim, will jointly create and produce innovative and high quality spirits, such as spirits aged in Eastside's signature Oregon Oak barrels, as pioneered by Mel Heim and Lenny Gotter starting in 2010.

Eastside and BBD are collaborating on the expanding production of a super-premium American Single Malt Whiskey, made with malted Pacific Northwest barley, fermented and distilled entirely on premises (i.e., in bond) by Ted Pappas, Travis Schoney and, joined now, by Eastside's Mel Heim.

Grover Wickersham, Executive Chairman of Eastside Distilling, commented, "Ted Pappas, and lead distiller, Travis Schoney, are emotionally invested in creating the epitome of high quality craft spirits. Our goal is to help place tasting glasses into the hands of a multitude of Oregonian craft spirit fans, who we think appreciate super-premium craft spirits. BBD's offerings complement Eastside's, so there's an opportunity for great synergies and a lot of fun working together, which is one of the biggest parts of making craft spirits."

Ted Pappas, Founder of Big Bottom Distilling and past President of the Oregon Distillers Guild, commented, "This is the ideal opportunity we have been seeking for Big Bottom Distilling. This relationship with Eastside will allow us to grow at a faster rate and get our products distributed to a broader market. This will also give us the opportunity to focus on our single malt whiskey production and establish our position in this category. We will continue on the path started in 2010 and retain the integrity, quality and identity that the company was founded on while integrating into the overall organization."

Melissa Heim, Executive VP of Operations and Master Distiller of Eastside Distilling, said, "Eastside is creating a great opportunity for craft businesses to maintain their entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to the craft spirits movement while expanding their consumer base. I look forward to working with Ted, Travis and the rest of their team to continue producing high quality, unique spirits that I know consumers inside and outside Oregon will continue to love."

The transaction is structured as an exchange of 84,286 Eastside shares for BBD LLC units, and will maintain the independence of BBD as a separate entity underneath the operational umbrella of Eastside Distilling. BBD and Eastside will benefit from brand synergies because of the limited overlap with Eastside products. Eastside will devote sales, marketing, financial capital and production resources to expanding BBDs business, which in 2016 had total revenues of approximately $201,000.

About Ted Pappas

After graduating from The Citadel and serving time in the United States Air Force, Ted moved to San Francisco, California where he pursued a career in managed healthcare. Ted has been in the healthcare industry for the last 20 years, settling in healthcare IT for one of the largest healthcare providers in the country. After relocating his family to Portland in 2004, Ted was inspired to start his own whiskey business in 2010 as a result of his strong passion for whiskey and the influence of the craft distillery movement in Portland. Ted served on the Oregon Distillers Guild Board of Directors from April 2012 to March 2017 holding the office as Vice President (4/12-12/13) and President (12/13-03/17).

About Travis Schoney

BBD's Lead Distiller, Travis Schoney formerly with High West Distillery in Park City, Utah, joined BBD in November 2012. For the five years from 2007 until 2012, Mr. Schoney was employed by High West as Assistant Distiller and Blender. Mr. Schoney is an integral part of the BBD team and helped win many awards for gins, brandies and whiskey. He is currently overseeing the distillation of a much-anticipated single malt whiskey, distilled from Pacific Northwest barley, using a whiskey mash fermented in-house by Mr. Schoney using BBDs proprietary strain of yeast. Mr. Schoney will continue to manage production for BBD in collaboration with Eastside and will carry forward the company's practice of crafting quality Oregon spirit.

Big Bottom Distilling's lineup of hand crafted spirits includes:

BARLOW TRAIL American Blended Whiskey

Big Bottom's American Blended Whiskey is a proprietary blend of three well-aged whiskeys and contains no neutral spirits, staying true to what they're all about - whiskey. It exhibits subtle floral notes with hints of salted caramel and vanilla along with just the right amount of oak and spice.

Gold Medal Winner at 2014 Great American Distiller's Festival; Silver Medal Winner at 2015 Great American Spirits Festival and 2014 Washington Cup Spirits Competition

BARLOW TRAIL American Blended Whiskey, Finished in Port Casks

Big Bottom continues the tradition of finishing spirits in wine casks with Barlow Trail , Port Cask Finish. It presents a bright, sweet berry and citrus nose. On the palate, it showcases a fresh, ripe berry followed by a small hint of peppery spice that gives way to a very smooth, rich and malty quality from the French Oak Port casks.

Gold Medal Winner at 2015 Great American Spirits Festival; First Place Winner at 2015 Best of the NW: SIP NW Spirits Competition "Best Whiskey"; Silver Medal Winner at 2015 American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA) Awards

DELTA RYE WHISKEY

Delta Rye is a harmonious blend of spicy Indiana distilled straight rye whiskey with a slightly sweeter Canadian distilled 3 year old rye whiskey. This rye blend exhibits intense spice with hints of citrus and mint while it finishes with some vanilla and bold oak. Proofed at 111, the full flavors of these two rye whiskeys create a perfect balance for the most discerning palate.

is a harmonious blend of spicy distilled straight rye whiskey with a slightly sweeter Canadian distilled 3 year old rye whiskey. This rye blend exhibits intense spice with hints of citrus and mint while it finishes with some vanilla and bold oak. Proofed at 111, the full flavors of these two rye whiskeys create a perfect balance for the most discerning palate. STARKA

Starka is traditional aged vodka dating back to the 15th century in Eastern Europe . Big Bottom along with 2 other local Oregon distillers embarked upon a collaborative effort in 2014 called the Oregon Starka Project. Each distiller created an exclusive variation of Starka by choosing specific barrels that are distinct to the producer. Big Bottom aged this vodka for 12months in Zinfandel casks that also housed their bourbon. The result is a remarkable Starka offering a fresh old twist to the world of vodka.

Starka is traditional aged vodka dating back to the 15th century in . Big Bottom along with 2 other local distillers embarked upon a collaborative effort in 2014 called the Oregon Starka Project. Each distiller created an exclusive variation of Starka by choosing specific barrels that are distinct to the producer. Big Bottom aged this vodka for 12months in Zinfandel casks that also housed their bourbon. The result is a remarkable Starka offering a fresh old twist to the world of vodka. THE NINETY ONE GIN

The Ninety One Gin contains 16 botanicals that offer a complex bouquet of floral qualities complementing the juniper. A slightly sweet gin with non-traditional gin characters, it boasts a rich, full mouth feel with a creamy body that finishes with a hint of spice.

Gold Medal Winner at 2015 American Craft Spirits (ACSA) Awards; Gold Medal Winner at 2015 Great American Spirits Festival; 92 Score by Wine Enthusiast in 2015; Bronze Medal Winner at 2015 San Francisco World Spirits Competition; Third Place Winner at 2015 Best of the NW: SIP NW Spirits Competition "Best Gin"

NAVY STRENGTH GIN

Big Bottom Navy Strength Gin is a 114 gin containing the same 16 botanicals as the 91 Gin. It presents a slightly heavier juniper bouquet than the 91 gin with a delicate hint of lemongrass and citrus. This Navy Strength Gin offers a balanced spice throughout the palate followed by a mild head and crisp finish.

Bronze Medal Winner at 2015 Washington Cup Spirits Competition

BARREL AGED GIN

Big Bottom Barrel Aged Gin undergoes a solera process with the use of 3 different woods in our whiskey barrels  Oregon oak, Hungarian oak and North American white oak. It presents a subtle floral sweetness of juniper and warm spices followed by creamy sweet oak characters.

Silver Medal Winner at 2016 Berlin International Spirits Competition

APPLE BRANDY

The 2015 Oregon Apple Brandy is a blend of 5 Oregon apple varietals giving it a more complex fruit quality. This brandy exhibits crisp red apples with autumn spices and the essence of vanilla. A special blend of in-house yeast strains gives way to darker fruit esters allowing for a creamy spiced caramelized apple finish.

Gold Medal Winner at 2015 Great American Spirits Festival

PEAR BRANDY

The 2015 Oregon Pear Brandy is made from a blend of Asian pears that were grown and hand harvested from the Willamette Valley. Exhibiting a fresh ripe Asian pear nose, the brandy unveils sweet and earthy characters while finishing with some moderate spice

Gold Medal Winner at 2015 Great American Spirits Festival; Bronze Medal Winner at 2015 Washington Cup Spirits Competition

CALHOUN BROS . AGED RUM

This 4 year old rum is further aged in Big Bottom bourbon barrels creating a perfect balance of sweetness and complex spice. The initial aroma of caramelized sugar, bourbon and molasses is followed by warm spices of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and allspice resulting in a smooth, rich and full finish.

Gold Medal Winner at 2015 Great American Spirits Festival

About Eastside Distilling

Eastside Distilling, Inc. (OTCQB: ESDI) is located in Southeast Portland's Distillery Row, and has been producing high-quality, master crafted spirits since 2008. Makers of award winning spirits, the company is unique in the marketplace and distinguished by its highly decorated product lineup that includes Barrel Hitch American Whiskies, Burnside Bourbon, Below Deck Rums, Portland Potato Vodka, and a distinctive line of infused whiskeys. All Eastside spirits are master crafted from natural ingredients for unparalleled quality and taste. The company is publicly traded under the symbolOTCQB: ESDI. For more information visit: www.eastsidedistilling.com or follow the company on Twitter and Facebook.

Important Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release may be forward-looking statements. Such matters involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the following: changes in economic conditions; general competitive factors; acceptance of the Company's products in the market; the Company's success in obtaining new customers; the Company's success in product development; the Company's ability to execute its business model and strategic plans; the Company's success in integrating acquired entities and assets, and all the risks and related information described from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including the financial statements and related information contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and interim Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Examples of forward-looking statements in this release may include statements related to our strategic focus, product verticals, anticipated revenue, and profitability. The Company assumes no obligation to update the cautionary information in this release.

Investors:

Robert Blum, Joe Diaz or Joe Dorame

Lytham Partners, LLC

(602) 889-9700

[email protected]

SOURCE Eastside Distilling, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.eastsidedistilling.com


(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/506051/Emaar_Hospitality_Group.jpg )



This is a marked departure from the prevalent fee structure in the hospitality sector, where hotel operators receive a base fee as a percentage of gross revenue and an incentive fee based on the gross operating profit.

The alternative model offered by Emaar Hospitality Group is based only on an incentive fee, which is driven by the operator's ability to generate profits rather than revenues.

In an industry where the majority of global fees earned are linked to revenue, the new model aligns the interests of the owner and operator as it focuses on profit generation.

Olivier Harnisch, CEO of Emaar Hospitality Group, said the new management fee model sets an industry benchmark. "There will be greater responsibility on the operator to drive operating profits that will create sustained value for hotel owners, unlike under the prevailing model, where the operator earns a base management fee regardless of operating expenses.

"The distribution landscape in the hotel industry has changed dramatically and we feel that profit is a more powerful indicator of operator performance than revenue. We are leveraging our experience as a hotel owner and operator in developing the new model. With ten years of history in developing and operating three industry leading hotel brands, we understand the operations side of hotels," said Harnisch.

"The new model enhances owner-operator relationships with greater onus on the operator to drive profitability, and also creates lasting value for hotel owners, even in the face of challenging economic conditions as the operator will focus on minimising operating expenses and strengthening profits," explained Harnisch.

Emaar Hospitality Group has already signed several management contracts to operate hotels in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey and Egypt for other developers and hotel owners. The new model is offered in addition to standard model and gives the hotel owners the opportunity to choose between the two.

Unlike many international hotel operating companies that are shedding their property and focusing on hotel management agreements, Emaar Hospitality Group is expanding its management contract expertise and also strengthening its own development pipeline with a total of 26 hotel projects.

Media contact:

Kelly Home

ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller

+9714 4507 600

[email protected]

SOURCE Emaar Hospitality Group
Jeffery Morris, Director, United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics

"The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act: Requirements and Implementation"

On June 22, 2016, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amends the Toxic Substances Control Actthe nation's primary chemicals management lawwas signed into law. This talk will give a brief overview of some of the key new provisions required by Congress and focus on the Environmental Protection Agency's implementation efforts to date.

Dr. Jeffery Morris is director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, which regulates industrial chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act as well as administers the Pollution Prevention Act. In his 24-year career at the EPA, Morris has held a number of positions across the agency, including serving as acting director of the Office of Science Policy and as National Program Director for Nanotechnology Research. Dr. Morris has a PhD in science and technology Studies from Virginia Tech and has published research on risk and environmental policy.

John Foley, CEO, ORG Chemicals Holding, LLC

"Accelerating Value Creation via Innovation and Transformation: Opportunity Beyond the Laboratory Beaker"

Businesses with declining profitability and cash flow have a mandate for change that organizations either seizeor eventually find imposed upon them. Often even more challenging are the average-performing companies with untapped potential that are resistant to change. John Foley, CEO of ORG Chemicals Holding LLC and noted chemical industry turnaround specialist, will share his approach and experiences in developing strategic vision, simplifying processes, and building engaged, aligned organizations to accelerate top- and bottom-line growth.

SOCMA Keynote Panel: Michael Ott, President and CEO, Polysciences, Inc.; Jack Drawdy, Vice President, Sales & Business Development, MFG Chemical, Inc.; Joe Dettinger, Director, EHS&S and Government Relations, Bimax, Inc.

"The State of Innovation and Industry Transformation"

Innovation is the very definition of specialty chemistry. Join Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) leaders for insights into how current innovation is transforming all phases of the manufacturing process, including the challenges they face while serving as innovation and manufacturing hubs producing chemistries and products for larger companies. Learn how these issues are impacting specialty chemical manufacturers from the front office to the plant floor and operations. Points for discussion include:

Innovation and business opportunity from the CEO perspective

How innovation is impacting plant operations and EHS&S efforts

The ebb and flow of the production process to accommodate innovative manufacturing jobs

To view the full InformEx Connect program schedule go to schedule.informex.com.

Participate in the Epicenter of Specialty Chemical Innovation

Powered by the expertise of the American Chemical Society, the United States Pharmacopeia, the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates, and UBM's rich programming resources, the InformEx Connect Conference is unlike any program ever assembled. Held alongside CPhI Connect, a conference focusing on the latest in drug manufacturing, development, and outsourcing, delegates of InformEx Connect have access to both lineupsmore than 55 speakers at more than 44 sessions across eight tracks.

"I've attended the InformEx show for a number of years and have always found it a great forum to meet with existing customers and suppliers and develop new business connections," said John Foley, CEO, ORG Chemicals Holdings LLC. "I'm pleased to have the opportunity to share my thoughts on improving business performance via innovation and transformation at this year's show in Philadelphia."

Don't miss this opportunity for partnership creation, networking, education, and much more May 16-18, 2017, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA. With a unique blend of unprecedented global influence and the infrastructure to advance relationships between buyers and sellers, InformEx will provide a marketplace of solutions and ideas for the specialty chemical industry like no other.

Learn more and register today at www.informex.com.

About InformEx

InformEx is the must-attend industry conference and tradeshow for the fine and specialty chemical industry. For more than 30 years, InformEx has brought more than 2,500 decision makers and thought leaders together with new suppliers, solutions, and approaches. It is the premier event for buyers and sellers seeking to create profitable relationships, expand partnerships, and network with key industry players. InformEx 2017 will be held adjacent to the inaugural edition of CPhI North America, tremendously expanding InformEx's reach within and exposure to the full pharmaceutical value chain. In addition, InformEx is the leading event for professionals within the broader energy, food, cosmetics, and agrochemicals fields, as well as other strategic verticals within the specialty chemical industry.

About UBM Americas

UBM Americas, a part of UBM plc, delivers events and marketing services in the fashion technology, licensing, advanced manufacturing, automotive and power sports, health care, veterinary, and pharmaceutical industries, among others. Through a range of aligned interactive environments, both physical and digital, UBM Americas increases business effectiveness for customers and audiences through meaningful experiences, knowledge, and connections.

The division also includes UBM Brazil's market-leading events in construction, cargo transportation, logistics and international trade, and agricultural production and UBM Mexico's construction, advanced manufacturing, and hospitality services shows. For more information, visit: www.ubmamericas.com.

SOURCE InformEx

Related Links

http://www.InformEx.com


MILWAUKEE, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Eppstein Uhen Architects (EUA), a leading architecture and design firm that has more than 180 employees in three offices in Wisconsin and Iowa, today announced that it has expanded into the Rocky Mountain region by acquiring Denver-based architecture and interior design firm Burkettdesign. The combination of the firms gives EUA a broader national footprint and increases the services and expertise available to clients of both firms.

"For over 25 years, Burkettdesign has set the standard for design services in Colorado, and we are thrilled to add that experience and expertise to EUA," said Greg Uhen, CEO of EUA. "Combining our core strengths in ground-up architecture in the industries of urban redevelopment and mixed-use, workplace, healthcare, education, senior living and science + technology with Burkettdesign's exemplary corporate design, high tech lab, aerospace and data center expertise will make EUA even stronger in Colorado and nationally."

Burkettdesign will change its name to BurkettEUA, and its entire 27-person staff will join EUA. Additionally, Burkett's leadership team, including owner Rick Burkett and principals Catherine Quintero, Michele Ponicsan, Gillian Hallock Johnson and Kitty Yuen, will become shareholders in EUA. Associate Principal Ben Niamthet will also join the other principals as a member of the core leadership team of BurkettEUA.

"We are excited about the additional leaders joining EUA," said EUA president Rich Tennessen. "The fact that five principals are investing and becoming shareholders in EUA demonstrates our mutual long-term commitment to our clients and each other."

One example of a client who works with both firms and will benefit from the increased services and expertise available is Denver-based Confluent Development, a full-service real estate development and investment firm. EUA is currently working with Confluent Development on the development of a senior living project in Beaver Creek, Ohio, while Burkettdesign is working with two clients who will be occupying all of Confluent's Granite Place at Village Center development in Greenwood Village, Colo.

"I've had the pleasure of working with EUA, and they are a strong design and architecture firm with talented people who really care about their clients," said John Reinsma, vice president of real estate at Confluent Development. "EUA will be a great fit in the Colorado market, and I look forward to what they can do with the combined talent of the team at the new BurkettEUA."

Tim Harrington, executive managing director at leading commercial real estate advisory firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, added, "The combination of EUA and Burkettdesign offers great opportunities. I have worked with Burkettdesign on various projects for more than 25 years, and I have five simple words to describe my experience: creativity, passion, reliability, fun and class. I am excited that the combined firm will not only continue, but will also enhance, its ability to provide this level of experience for its clients."

EUA clients include a range of private and public organizations, including GE Healthcare, Ascension, Baird, Northwestern Mutual and Johnson Controls. Burkettdesign clients include leading companies and organizations such as Charter Communications, Vail Resorts, Holland & Hart, TIAA, Comcast, Janus Capital Group, Lockheed Martin, Children's Hospital Colorado and Sierra Nevada Corporation.

"Burkettdesign was founded in 1990 and has established itself as one of the region's most accomplished and recognized firms by focusing on client service and delivering high-quality, personalized design services," Rick Burkett said. "Those core values and the team providing them will not change, but what will change is our ability to offer our clients even more specialized services with the added resources, expertise and support that comes from combining with EUA."

Uhen said that EUA made the strategic decision to expand to Denver based on the region's economic strength and continued growth projections, and Burkettdesign quickly rose to the top of the list of potential partners based on its high-quality reputation and shared values in the areas of client service, work ethic and company culture. Additionally, the firms have limited geographical overlap and complementary core service expertise, providing opportunities for vertical market expansion.

"I see this union with Eppstein Uhen Architecture as a merger of like-minded firms," Burkett added. "Our cultures, our high design standards and our service-first mentalities echo each other. We are now a bigger, stronger firm that still puts our clients' needs first."

About Eppstein Uhen Architects (EUA)

EUA is best known for designing environments that elevate people's potential. More than 200 employees in Milwaukee, Madison, Denver and Des Moines demonstrate unparalleled commitment to the markets, communities and clients they serve. The respected 110-year old design and architecture firm specializes in several markets including education, workplace, healthcare, senior living, science and technology, and mixed-use. For additional information, please visit the firm's website at www.eua.com.

Contact: Alex Melberg

401-595-9423

[email protected]

SOURCE Eppstein Uhen Architects

Related Links

http://www.eua.com


CHICAGO, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, Equip for Equality launched an exciting initiative called the Employment Rights Helpline. The Helpline is a new, free, statewide service to provide people with disabilities with legal rights information and advice, as well as self-advocacy assistance to help them navigate employment issues that arise. Equip for Equality is the federally mandated Protection and Advocacy System that safeguards the rights of people with disabilities in Illinois.

The concept of the Employment Rights Helpline was an outgrowth of ADA 25 Chicago, a year-long initiative launched by The Chicago Community Trust that inspired hundreds of partner organizations to leverage the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act by expanding inclusion in the Chicago region. The Trust is also the primary funder of the Employment Rights Helpline. "We are very grateful to The Chicago Community Trust, which has been a long-time supporter of Equip for Equality initiatives," said Zena Naiditch, President and CEO of Equip for Equality. "The latest partnership between Equip for Equality and The Chicago Community Trust is an exciting and innovative program that will allow people with disabilities to maximize their employment opportunities," said Anna Lee, the Trust's Program Officer of Basic Human Needs & Social Services.

Historically, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities has been significantly higher than that for the general population making the need for an Employment Rights Helpline especially critical. "Work is a fundamental part of adult life providing dignity, purpose, self-esteem and a sense of belonging to the community," said Barry C. Taylor, VP for Civil Rights and Systemic Litigation at Equip for Equality. "Unfortunately, discrimination against people with disabilities remains pervasive in the workplace. The Helpline is an important new tool to promote equal opportunity and combat discrimination."

To access the Helpline, people with disabilities can call toll-free: 1-844-RIGHTS-9 (or 1-844-744-7489) and a trained attorney will respond to the call. People with disabilities can also email the Helpline at [email protected].

Helpline staff can:

Discuss legal rights under the ADA

Answer employment rights questions

Assist with reasonable accommodation requests

Help understand options

Share fact sheets, sample letters and forms

"Equip for Equality has extensive experience assisting people with disabilities on employment issues," said Rachel Weisberg, Manager of the Employment Rights Helpline. "The Helpline will provide an efficient and convenient way for us to answer questions about ADA employment rights, recommend self-advocacy strategies, and provide legal advice on an array of employment rights issues to job seekers and employees with disabilities."

Building on its successful Special Education Clinic Helpline, Equip for Equality will be reaching out to the private bar for pro bono assistance with the Employment Rights Helpline. It is anticipated that pro bono attorney participation will exponentially expand the Helpline's capacity, allowing Equip for Equality to assist many more people with disabilities.

For more information contact:

Barry C. Taylor at 312-895-7317, [email protected]

Rachel Weisberg at 312-895-7319, [email protected]

Information about the Helpline can be found on-line at: www.equipforequality.org/employment

SOURCE Equip for Equality

Related Links

http://www.equipforequality.org


NEW YORK, LONDON and HONG KONG, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Exiger, the global regulatory, financial crime, risk and compliance company, announced today that it has launched its Immigration, Citizenship & Visa (ICV) due diligence practice with the acquisition of IPSA's Investigative Due Diligence Practice. The acquisition includes IPSA International, Inc., IPSA's Canadian subsidiary located in Vancouver, BC (IPSA Canada) and IPSA's London, Hong Kong and Miami offices and employees.

For the past 15 years, IPSA Canada has principally performed due diligence related to immigration, citizenship and visas. IPSA is considered an industry pioneer in work related to Citizenship by Investment programs and a trusted leader relied upon by many of the largest and fastest growing programs in the world.

Exiger's ICV Due Diligence Practice will be part of Exiger Diligence, Exiger's subsidiary that provides global public records research and investigative due diligence to leading financial institutions, multinational corporations and governmental agencies. Exiger's office in Vancouver will be the epicenter of Exiger's ICV Due Diligence Practice. It will also serve as a full-spectrum diligence research and delivery center that will work in conjunction with Exiger Diligence's offices around the world.

"The ability to seamlessly travel, work and live in our world has changed dramatically", said Michael Beber, Exiger's President and CEO. "Heightened security in the U.S. has led to the potential for 'extreme vetting.' In addition, the prospect that visa-free travel may be limited between the U.S. and the EU has emerged. Recently, there were investigations of U.S. EB-5 programs for misuse of investor funds and the improper obtaining of Green Cards by criminal elements. These trends are driving increased demand for best-in-class due diligence that provides transparent insight into reputational, financial and security risks."

"With this acquisition, Exiger becomes the market leader for Immigration, Citizenship, & Visa due diligence services", said Taylor Twining, Exiger Diligence's President.

"By leveraging Exiger Insight, our industry leading secure portal, and DDIQ, our cognitive computing and intelligent search platform, we will be able to bring new due diligence capabilities to IPSA's clients. Together, we now have over 80 investigative researchers, fluent in over 25 languages, ensuring that our clients receive the highest-quality, scalable and cost-effective due diligence solution in the market today. I am very excited to welcome and work alongside our IPSA colleagues".

"It's through the highest quality due diligence, insight and transparency that programs gain and sustain credibility. IPSA has been providing the resources to help countries improve their programs, standardize procedures and have the highest level of due diligence, and we will continue to do so as part of Exiger", said Kenneth (Kim) Marsh, President of IPSA who will become Exiger Diligence's Vice Chairman and Global Head of the ICV Practice. "Exiger's reputation and industry-leading technology will allow our team to provide the next level of services to existing and new clients including secure data management with Exiger Insight and constant monitoring and diligence refresh with Exiger's DDIQ. We look forward to joining our colleagues at Exiger Diligence and the entire Exiger team".

About Exiger

Exiger is a global regulatory and financial crime, risk and compliance company. Exiger arms financial institutions, multinational corporations and governmental agencies with the practical advice and technology solutions they need to prevent compliance breaches, respond to risk, remediate major issues and monitor ongoing business activities. Exiger works with clients worldwide to assist them in effectively managing their critical challenges while developing and implementing the policies, procedures and programs needed to create a sustainable compliance environment. A global authority on regulatory compliance, the company also oversees some of the world's most complex court-appointed and voluntary monitorships in the private and public sectors, including the monitorship of HSBC. Exiger has four principal business units being: Exiger Advisory; Exiger Analytics; Exiger Diligence and Exiger Insight 3PM. Exiger operates through offices in New York City, Silver Spring (DC Metro), London, Hong Kong, Toronto, Singapore, Miami and Vancouver. For more information on Exiger, please visit www.exiger.com

About IPSA International Services, Inc.

IPSA International Services, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of root9B Holdings, is a leading provider of Regulatory Risk Mitigation Services. The Company delivers results that improve productivity, mitigate risk and maximize profits. Its clients range in size from Fortune 100 companies to mid-sized and owner-managed businesses across a broad range of industries including local, state and government agencies. For more information, visit www.ipsaintl.com

Contact: John Roderick, 631-584-2200, [email protected]

SOURCE Exiger

Related Links

http://www.exiger.com


WASHINGTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Fannie Mae (OTC Bulletin Board: FNMA) today announced plans to report its first quarter 2017 financial results on Friday morning, May 5, 2017, before the opening of U.S. financial markets.

Fannie Mae will host a conference call for the media to discuss the company's results at 8:00 a.m., ET, on May 5, 2017. The conference call will be concurrently webcast. The live audio webcast of the earnings release call will be available at http://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1410671-1/9A0D92DF64BAD68C5EA5F74E64370569, and the company's first quarter 2017 earnings press release, quarterly report on Form 10-Q, and other supplemental information will be available on the company's Quarterly & Annual Results webpage at fanniemae.com/financialresults. A transcript of the call also will be made available on the page.

WEBCAST DETAILS  Fannie Mae First Quarter 2017 Financial Results

Please click on the link below to access the Webcast registration page. It is recommended that you test the connection to the Webcast prior to joining the event.

URL: http://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1410671-1/9A0D92DF64BAD68C5EA5F74E64370569

Fannie Mae helps make the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and affordable rental housing possible for millions of Americans. We partner with lenders to create housing opportunities for families across the country. We are driving positive changes in housing finance to make the home buying process easier, while reducing costs and risk. To learn more, visit fanniemae.com and follow us on twitter.com/fanniemae.

SOURCE Fannie Mae

Related Links

http://www.fanniemae.com


WESTWOOD, Mass., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Local company, FireFlower Alternative Energy, has partnered with Xaverian Brothers High School to build a rooftop solar array at 800 Clapboardtree Street in Westwood. The solar array covers approximately 32,000 square feet of rooftop and has a capacity of 326 kilowatts. It will create approximately 378,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually, enough power to offset nearly 25% of the annual electricity consumption on site.

Xaverian Brothers High School enlisted the expertise of FireFlower Alternative Energy to research, design, and implement construction of the project. Entrepreneur Kathleen C. Doyle founded FireFlower Alternative Energy in 2008. Ms. Doyle has extensive expertise in solar, wind, and biofuel development, combined with over 20 years' experience in commercial real estate.

Of the Xaverian Brothers High School project, Ms. Doyle said, "The school is securing its power prices on a long-term basis and has already begun generating clean, renewable energy, achieving greater energy independence now and in the future. A system of this size will generate over 9,410,450 kilowatt hours (kWhs) over its lifetime of 25 years. That is equal to avoiding the emission of 6,613 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the burning of 744,170 gallons of gasoline.

Brother Daniel Skala, Headmaster of Xaverian Brothers High School, is excited about the newly installed solar array. His enthusiasm stems from the fact that his institution is reducing its carbon footprint and demonstrating leadership in sustainability. By installing a solar array on the rooftop of their esteemed institution, Brother Dan and the trustees of Xaverian Brothers High School are keeping with the recent comments of Pope Francis regarding the environment and how The Holy Father wants our planet's inhabitants to 'care for our common home'. Brother Dan would like to implement a program to educate the 950 students currently enrolled in the school on the daily environmental benefits of the solar array.

The Xaverian Brothers High School solar array is net metered and interconnected to the grid, generating renewable power with an estimated annual market value of over $152,000. Additionally, the sale of Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (SRECs), created by the state to help incentivize solar development in Massachusetts, will generate income to help finance the system for the high school.

MassAmerican Energy, the installation vendor for this project, is a leading full-service solar energy provider. MassAmerican was a key player in the design and installation of the new solar array, completing this project on time and on budget.

FireFlower Alternative Energy helps businesses profitably invest in America's energy independence. With a focus on the numbers, FireFlower invests in and develops renewable energy in the Northeast and can help site owners, commercial energy users, and the financial community collaborate to get real projects built. For more information about FireFlower Alternative Energy, visit http://www.fireflower-ae.com.

Contact: Kathleen C. Doyle, CEO and Founder

[email protected]

617-529-8805

SOURCE FireFlower Alternative Energy

Related Links

http://www.fireflower-ae.com


"We are thrilled to welcome Ian back home to Jenner & Block and very much look forward to sharing with our clients his extraordinary experience and leadership during this next phase of a distinguished career," said Terrence J. Truax, the firm's managing partner.

"Ian's considerable talents will be a distinct asset as we continue to grow our presence, reach and reputation for assisting clients in their most important and sophisticated litigation matters," said Craig C. Martin, chair of the firm's Litigation Department.

Mr. Gershengorn was named Acting Solicitor General of the United States on June 2, 2016, an appointment he held until the end of the Obama administration in January 2017. Before that time, Mr. Gershengorn served in the US Department of Justice for three years as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General, and before that, starting in 2009, as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice's Federal Programs Branch. In each of these positions, Mr. Gershengorn led the development and execution of legal strategy in the Department's most important litigation matters, appearing regularly in the US Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals and district courts around the country.

While at the Solicitor General's Office, Mr. Gershengorn argued more than a dozen cases at the Supreme Court. He also supervised the government's briefing in a range of high-profile cases, including those involving the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank, election law and redistricting, immigration reform, the Fair Housing Act, Title VII, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and same-sex marriage. While at Federal Programs, Mr. Gershengorn oversaw what The New York Times described in a December 2010 profile as "one of the most captivating dockets in American jurisprudence." He led the district court defense of the Affordable Care Act, personally arguing the principal district court challenges to the constitutionality of the Act. And he supervised the defense of virtually all federal agencies, the President, cabinet officers, and other government officials in challenges to major regulatory and policy initiatives, including those relating to financial regulation, immigration, executive privilege, and national security matters such as drone strikes, CFIUS, and detainees at Guantanamo Bay. As Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated when Ian was named Acting Solicitor General, "Ian Gershengorn has earned a reputation as an exceptionally talented attorney and a gifted defender of the Constitution," and he has "displayed his unwavering dedication to public service and his irreproachable commitment to the rule of law."

"Ian's skills as an advocate are second-to-none," said Thomas J. Perrelli, partner and chair of Jenner & Block's Government Controversies and Public Policy Litigation Practice. "Apart from his experience in the Solicitor General's office and overseeing the Federal Programs Branch, all of which will add enormous value for our clients, Ian embodies the core of what defines us at Jenner & Block: An unbending commitment to excellence and to public service. We're very excited to have such a great colleague back."

Mr. Gershengorn added: "It's an honor to have the opportunity to return home to Jenner & Block. This is where I began my career in private practice and where I am very excited to continue the great tradition of zealous, innovative legal advocacy on important business and other policy-related issues affecting a wide array of clients."

Before joining the Department of Justice in 2009, Mr. Gershengorn was a partner in Jenner & Block's Washington, DC office, where he was a member of the firm's Appellate and Supreme Court Practice as well as its Litigation Department, with substantive concentrations in telecommunications and constitutional law, as well as Native American law. Mr. Gershengorn joined the firm as an associate in 1997 and was elevated to partner in 2001. From 1995 to 1997, Mr. Gershengorn served in the Department of Justice, first as Special Assistant and Counsel to Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, and then as Assistant to Attorney General Janet Reno.

He received his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, Mr. Gershengorn served as a law clerk, first for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then for retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the US Supreme Court.

ABOUT JENNER & BLOCK'S APPELLATE AND SUPREME COURT PRACTICE

Jenner & Block's Appellate and Supreme Court Practice lawyers combine exceptional skills in crafting persuasive briefs and oral arguments with extensive experience shepherding high-stakes matters through appellate courts. The lawyers appears before federal and state appellate courts on a range of issues and also have an extensive amicus practice before the US Supreme Court and other appellate courts and regularly brief, argue and advise on complex legal issues that arise in various trial-level fora. The group has had 11 merits cases in the last two terms, including the October 2015 Term in which the firm presented six oral arguments  winning all six cases  and won a seventh without argument.

ABOUT JENNER & BLOCK'S COMPLEX COMMERCIAL LITIGATION PRACTICE

Clients from around the world rely on Jenner & Block for their most complex and challenging business cases. Our trial prowess in high-profile litigation is well known. The BTI Litigation Outlook 2014, an in-depth analysis of the litigation market, ranked Jenner & Block as "A Powerhouse in Complex Commercial Litigation," one of just five law firms that clients see as best in that area. The American Lawyer previously selected us as one of the top five litigation departments in the United States. Citing our impressive business victories for Fortune 500 clients, the magazine singled out Jenner & Block for our "astonishing" trial results and "hard fought" settlements. Chambers Global legal directory has described Jenner & Block as a firm with "bedrock strength in trial work," while reporting that our clients "remain steadfast in their support, describing the group as 'absolutely outstanding.'"

ABOUT JENNER & BLOCK

Jenner & Block (www.jenner.com) is a law firm with global reach, with more than 500 lawyers and offices in Chicago, London, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC. The firm is known for its prominent and successful litigation practice and experience handling sophisticated and high-profile corporate transactions. Firm clients include Fortune 100 companies, large privately held corporations, financial services institutions, emerging companies and venture capital and private equity investors. In 2016, The American Lawyer named Jenner & Block to the A-List, which recognizes the top 20 US law firms. The American Lawyer also recognized the firm as the #1 pro bono firm in the United States six of the past nine years; the firm has been ranked among the top 10 in this category every year since 1990.

SOURCE Jenner & Block

Related Links

http://www.jenner.com


SANTA CLARA, Calif., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Brahadeesh Chandrasekaran, Transformational Health Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, will present on at BIOMEDevice Boston, May 4th, 2017 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, MA, in partnership with the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC).

Chandrasekaran will focus on the change in provider behavior that is leaving to the transformational shift in the industry through factors such as digitization, business and sales model changes, new services around core products and consumerization mind-set. He will discuss on how Medical Technologies is transforming to a customer-focused industry and how companies react to this transformational shift.

"In the past, product based business models worked. But now, moving forward, successful Medtech companies need to develop new models that gives them capability to sell their solutions," explains Chandrasekaran. While the push for value-based healthcare continues, changing business and sales models is not an overnight fix from a Medtech company point of view. These changes require building new capabilities and redefining the business models. "It will be a multi-year journey that will require dedicated resources and time," he adds.

Why you should attend:

Discover the key factors shaping the future of Medtech industry.

industry. Find out the healthcare spending is shift by 2025.

Identify think-tanks in Medtech industry focus in future from Frost & Sullivan's CEO survey 2016.

industry focus in future from Frost & Sullivan's CEO survey 2016. Learn about the new revenue streams thanks to a successful service-oriented business model.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community.

Contact:



Mariana Fernandez

Corporate Communications  North America

P: +54 (11) 4778 3540

E: [email protected]

https://ww2.frost.com

twitter: @FS_Healthcare

LinkedIn: Transform Health

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan

Related Links

http://www.frost.com


LOS ANGELES, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc.), the world's leading membership for professional learning, today announced that applications for its fourth class of Social Impact Fellows would be accepted now through July 17, 2017. (The application is available here.) The GLG Social Impact Fellowship, which was extended from one to two years in 2016, gives curious and ambitious nonprofit and social enterprise leaders access to peer-to-peer learning from GLG's membership of 500,000 experts and thought leaders, at no cost.

Rebecca van Bergen sits down with GLG to discuss the global artisan economy and how Nest is leveraging craft development as a tool for social change.

"Our mission is to transform the way the world's top professionals share expertise through varied one-to-one learning opportunities," said GLG CEO Alexander Saint-Amand. "Our Fellowship, now in its fourth year, serves some of the world's best and brightest social entrepreneurs. We're excited to build a new class of Fellows who will bring with them unique experiences and challenges and grow our community of leading social sector learners."

GLG Director of Social Impact Jen Field announced the opening of applications in Los Angeles at the Milken Institute Global Conference, where GLG will host an event for social sector leaders and GLG Social Impact Fellows. In conjunction with the call for applications, GLG will release new videos with current and former GLG Social Impact Fellows discussing their organizations and how they're creating impact across their various geographies and issues. The first video features 2015 Social Impact Fellow Rebecca Van Bergen, Founder and Executive Director of Nest. More videos will be released in the coming weeks.

"At GLG we are fortunate to be learning from the passions, drive, and commitment of each of our Fellows," said Field. "And we know that the key to success is identifying leaders who share GLG's commitment to the value of teaching and learning."

GLG Social Impact Fellows are creative problem-solvers who have demonstrated that they are among the most promising and gifted social sector leaders. They join GLG's community of leading investors, entrepreneurs, corporations, and consulting firms, who learn every day from academics, current and former C-suite executives, scientists, policy specialists, former public sector leaders, and other professionals. Fellows and their teams work collaboratively with GLG to leverage the breadth and depth of GLG's membership to inform strategic decisions and increase impact. (Learn more about the Fellowship and past Fellows here.)

The competitive selection process is based on organizations' missions and models and on applicants' articulation of how GLG's resources would help them increase efficacy and scale at key moments in their organizational growth. Past and current Fellows and their organizations tackle a range of social challenges around the worldfrom healthcare in Nepal to water sanitation in Bangladesh, from youth unemployment in Nigeria to disaster response in the U.S, and beyond.

Applicants must be the Founder, Executive Director, President, or CEO of a nonprofit or social enterprise with an innovative model creating demonstrable social change. Organizations must have a multi-year plan in place, be 2-10 years old, and fit within our budget criteria. Applicants must be eager to learn from the world's leading professionals, from GLG, and from each other.

The application is available online at GLGSocialImpact.com/application. Applications will be accepted until July 17 and the 2017 Fellows will be announced in the fall.

About GLG / Gerson Lehrman Group

GLG is the world's leading membership for professional learning. Business leaders, investors, consultants, social entrepreneurs, and other top professionals rely on GLG to learn in short- and long-term engagements from more than 500,000 members and other experts. Clients partner with GLG to address their most complex strategic challenges, make better business decisions, and advance their careers through conversations, mentorships, small group meetings, surveys, and other interactionsall within a rigorous compliance framework. Headquartered in New York City, GLG's 1,300+ employees work from offices in 12 countries. For more information visit www.GLG.it.

About GLG Social Impact

GLG Social Impact is an initiative of GLG to advance learning and decision-making among distinguished nonprofit and social enterprise leaders. The GLG Social Impact Fellowship is our flagship program, providing learning resources to a select group of nonprofits and social enterprises, at no cost. Our clients include: leading foundations, impact funds, consultancies, nonprofits and social enterprises. To find out more, visit www.GLGSocialImpact.com.

Contact:

Chloe Sarnoff

[email protected]

SOURCE GLG

Related Links

http://www.GLG.it


ATLANTA and DENVER, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Oniqua Intelligent MRO, a leading provider of maintenance spares and materials inventory optimization solutions for asset-intensive organizations, and ScottMadden, Inc., a general management consulting firm, today announced that the submission deadline is approaching for the global, cross-industry benchmarking survey focused on illuminating the landscape and challenges of inventory management and optimization . The survey - which targets supply chain and maintenance professionals in several industries, including electric and gas utilities; mining, metals processing, and fabrication; oil, gas, and petrochemicals; and suppliers/support services to these industries  will only be available for participation until May 12, 2017.

"We understand from current experience and past benchmarking surveys that asset-intensive companies continue to struggle with optimizing their inventories, which includes having the right critical maintenance spares and materials in the right numbers, at the right location, at the right time, and at the right cost," said Steve Herrmann, Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Oniqua. "This is a tall order for any business but especially challenging in the high-stakes industries of our clients. For asset-intensive companies, there simply isn't room to get this wrong. Poor service levels to maintenance organizations can have negative, even disastrous, effects on operations."

The 2017 Inventory Optimization Survey builds on the lessons gleaned from the last cross-industry benchmarking survey published by Oniqua and ScottMadden in 2013. From that analysis, the two companies discovered that most respondents named inventory optimization as an important or critical issue for senior management.

However, when asked about their primary performance metrics for measuring the optimization of their inventory, respondents' answers ranged greatly (from average stock-out duration to inventory turns ratio to line fill rate). This finding demonstrates that while most asset-intensive industry professionals agree that effective inventory optimization is a major goal, not everyone agrees on the best way to achieve it.

"We are going into this survey armed with a good understanding of asset-intensive inventory management, grounded in the results of our last global survey. This knowledge is informing how we structure our questions, how we target our industries and capture responses, and ultimately how we analyze our data," said Andy Flores, partner and supply chain practice leader at ScottMadden. "We're eager to offer fresh insights because we hope better information and analysis will ultimately help to move the needle when it comes to improving on the status quo."

The re-launched survey will examine several topics related to inventory management and optimization, including:

Overarching views on the inventory landscape

Key challenges and opportunities in inventory optimization

Best practices in inventory management

Inventory visibility levels and segmentation

Processes for managing stocking levels

Safety stock level determination

Tools used to optimize inventory levels

Practices that integrate materials and asset management

"Industry leaders need new, relevant, and informative data to improve their strategic approach. Benchmarking data from industry peers is something our customers seek on a regular basis. When it comes to mastering the science of inventory optimization, learning from others faced with similar challenges will translate to better results," said Herrmann.

Individuals managing inventories in the utilities, mining, oil and gas, and manufacturing industriesas well as those who supply and serve those industriesare invited and encouraged to participate in the survey, but encouraged to do so before May 17, 2017 as this is the final participation window for potential respondents. All respondents will receive a set of survey results free of charge. Click here to participate or visit http://bit.ly/2nQOnjd.

About ScottMadden, Inc.

ScottMadden is the management consulting firm that does what it takes to get it done right. Our practice areas include Energy, Clean Tech & Sustainability, Corporate & Shared Services, and Grid Transformation. We deliver a broad array of consulting services ranging from strategic planning through implementation across many industries, business units, and functions. To learn more, visit www.scottmadden.com | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

About Oniqua

Oniqua provides Intelligent MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) capabilities that are transforming the way Oil & Gas, Mining, Utilities and Manufacturing companies manage their capital-intensive assets. Our unique cloud-based offering combines the world's most advanced MRO analytics technology with analyst services, consulting, master data cleansing and industry expertise to optimize the performance of materials management and operations & maintenance activities. Oniqua does the "heavy lifting" on behalf of customers so they can achieve rapid benefits in the form of reduced waste and costs, minimized risks, greater efficiencies and smarter decisions across their MRO operations. Oniqua is proud to serve many of the world's largest energy and resources companies, including ConocoPhillips, BP, Occidental (OXY), ADMA, BHP Billiton, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), American Electric Power (AEP), Nebraska Public Power District, Rio Tinto, Newmont Mining, Xstrata, and Freeport McMoRan and many others. To learn more, visit www.oniqua.com | LinkedIn

Oniqua is owned by international oilfield support services company ASCO. The company employs more than 2,500 people in four key regions, namely the Americas, Europe, Middle East & Africa, and Australasia. The company currently has sales in excess of $1 billion. Through Oniqua and its other businesses, ASCO offers a wide range of services, including inventory and materials management, offshore supply base management, onshore oilfield support, environmental services, personnel and training, advisory and technical services, as well as fuel services. ASCO's global headquarters is based in Aberdeen. To learn more, visit www.ascoworld.com.

Media Contacts

ScottMadden, Inc.

Mary Tew

Senior Marketing Specialist

919-714-7628

[email protected]

Oniqua

Alisson Moore

Director of Marketing

303-525-5994

[email protected]

SOURCE Oniqua Intelligent MRO

Related Links

http://oniqua.com


BOSTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Goldman Sachs is more than one-third of the way towards meeting the $1.8-billion consumer-relief obligation under its April 11, 2016, mortgage-related settlement agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice and three states, Eric D. Green said today in his third report as independent Monitor of the consumer-relief portions of the agreements.

The report details consumer-relief actions that Goldman Sachs took, and that Professor Green and his team of professionals tested, during the period since the Monitor's previous report on February 1, 2017. It also updates the bank's cumulative progress under the settlement agreements.

In the most recent period, Goldman Sachs received conditional approval of consumer-relief credit of $240 million for donations to facilitate the construction, rehabilitation or preservation of affordable low-income rental or for-sale housing in seven states. The Monitor's team also validated $10,601,593 of credit for extinguishment or forgiveness of unsecured debt.

Goldman Sachs also received conditional approval for credit totaling $280 million for grants to certified New York State land banks and land trusts, to support housing-quality improvement and enforcement programs in New York and for debt restructuring for New York homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

The April 11, 2016, agreements settled potential and filed legal claims against Goldman Sachs regarding the marketing, structuring, arrangement, underwriting, issuance and sale of mortgage-based securities. Besides Goldman Sachs and the Department of Justice, the settling parties were California, Illinois, New York, the National Credit Union Administration Board and the Federal Home Loan Banks of Chicago and Des Moines. Goldman Sachs agreed to provide a total of $5.06 billion under the agreements, including consumer relief valued at $1.8 billion, to be distributed by the end of January 2021.

Together with credit from earlier periods, Goldman Sachs has received conditional approval of a cumulative $644,300,519 worth of consumer-relief credit, or 36 percent of its $1.8-billion target.

"I am pleased to be able to confirm that Goldman Sachs continues to make steady progress toward meeting its obligation," Professor Green said.

Professor Green, a professional mediator and retired Boston University law professor, was named by the settling parties as independent Monitor with responsibility for determining whether Goldman Sachs fulfills its consumer-relief obligations. He has assembled a team of finance, accounting and legal professionals to assist in the task.

The report is available at the Monitor's website at: http://goldmansachs.mortgagesettlementmonitor.com. The website provides further details about the settlement, plus contact information for Goldman Sachs, the Department of Justice, the Attorneys General of California, Illinois and New York, and agencies that provide legal or tax advice to consumers.

The Monitor's mailing address is: Monitor of the Goldman Sachs Mortgage Settlement, P.O. Box 10310, Dublin, OH 43017-5910, and the e-mail address is [email protected].

SOURCE Monitor: Eric D. Green
NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Golub Capital recently announced that as Joint Bookrunner, Joint Lead Arranger and Administrative Agent, it provided a GOLD facility to support the acquisition of Mitratech Holdings by HgCapital. GOLD financings are Golub Capital One-Loan Debt facilities.

Mitratech Holdings, Inc. is a leading provider of legal, compliance and operational risk software solutions, which enables over 1,200 customers across 160 countries to manage risks and the associated costs.

"We're pleased to expand our partnerships with both Mitratech and HgCapital in support of this acquisition, and look forward to supporting Mitratech with its future plans for growth," said Spyro Alexopoulos, Managing Director at Golub Capital.

"Golub Capital has been a lender to Mitratech since 2015, and has worked with HgCapital on previous transactions. We knew we could rely on the team at Golub Capital to act quickly and decisively to deliver an optimized financing solution that suited our needs," said Christian Stein of HgCapital.

About Golub Capital Middle-Market Lending

Golub Capital's Middle Market Lending group provides financing for middle market, private equity-backed transactions with hold positions of up to $400 million and is an arranger of credit facilities up to $750 million. Golub Capital's award-winning team strives to establish long-term, win-win partnerships by providing dependable, fast and creative solutions that meet private equity sponsors' and portfolio companies' needs.

Golub Capital is a nationally recognized credit asset manager with over $20 billion of capital under management. For over 20 years, the firm has provided credit to help medium-sized U.S. businesses grow. The firm's award-winning middle market lending business helps provide financing for middle market companies and their private equity sponsors. Golub Capital's credit expertise also forms the foundation of its Late Stage Lending and Broadly Syndicated Loan businesses. Golub Capital has worked hard to build a reputation as a fast, reliable provider of compelling financing solutions, and we believe this has inspired repeat clients and investors. Today, the firm has over 300 employees with lending offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. For more information, please visit www.golubcapital.com.

About HgCapital

HgCapital is a sector expert private equity investor, supporting management teams to grow industry champions. Deeply resourced sector teams focus on specific sub-sectors and investment themes to identify companies occupying an established position within a niche, and which have the potential to grow faster than their market, create employment and become the leader in their industry. HgCapital's dedicated portfolio management team provides practical support to management teams to help them realise their growth ambitions. HgCapital invests in expanding segments of the TMT, Services and Industrials sectors across Western Europe. Based in London and Munich, HgCapital manages close to 9 billion for some of the world's leading institutional and private investors. For further details, please see www.hgcapital.com

SOURCE Golub Capital

Related Links

http://www.golubcapital.com


SEATTLE, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) today announced an event to honor the first cohort of apprentices in the Apprenti program on Friday, May 5, 2017. Governor Jay Inslee will attend to declare the week of May 1-5 Registered Technology Apprenticeship Week.

Apprenti is the only technology industry apprenticeship program registered with the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries and also the US Department of Labor. The program focuses on recruiting under-represented groups including women, people of color, and veterans. Apprenti helps bridge the skills and diversity gap while also providing urgently needed talent to the state's high-wage tech sector.

Today, WTIA honored the first cohort of 37 apprentices in the Apprenti program. Each apprentice receives up to five months of technical training and then a one-year paid apprenticeship with a mentor and additional training provided by WTIA member companies. The first cohort of apprentices will be working in technology jobs at Amazon, Microsoft, Avvo, Comtech, F5 and Silicon Mechanics. The jobs for this cohort include web developer, software developer, network security administrator, Windows system administrator, Linux system administrator, cloud support associate, and IT support professional.

Each apprentice will be honored by the Governor at the invite-only event with a pinning ceremony, celebrating this first wave of the hundreds of Washington apprentices that will start work over the next few years.

Governor's Proclamation

Date: Friday, May 5, 2017

Time: 4:30-6:00pm

Location: World Trade Center West, 2200 Alaskan Way, 4th floor restaurant in Seattle

Parking: Free valet available at the Marriott Hotel next door to the World Trade Center

For more information about Apprenti apprenticeship opportunities, visit: https://apprenticareers.org.

About Apprenti

Apprenti is a registered apprenticeship program powered by the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA). Apprenti trains future tech workers with an emphasis on underrepresented groups including women, minorities, and veterans. Apprenti is an industry recognized, state and federally accredited program. Apprentices receive two to five months of full-time, industry recognized training before beginning one-year of paid on-the-job training with one of the program's hiring partners. The program is partially funded through a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) ApprenticeshipUSA contract and a grant from the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI), with support from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (L&I), and JP Morgan Chase. For more information on how to apply, donate or become a hiring partner, please visit www.ApprentiCareers.org.

About the WTIA

The Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) is a non-profit trade group. The primary mission of the WTIA is helping Washington residents gain access to high-wage tech-industry jobs. The WTIA acts as an independent, unifying voice to motivate industry, education and government peers to collaborate effectively and also uses group buying power to help tech companies grow profitably. The WTIA group includes the 501c6 WTIA Member Trade Association, the 501c3 WTIA Workforce Institute, and the 501c9 WTIA Voluntary Employees' Beneficiaries Association. Apprenti is a program operated by the WTIA Workforce Institute.

SOURCE Apprenti

Related Links

http://apprenticareers.org


CHICAGO, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HighTower will host the 3rd Annual Apex Summit on May 23-24 at the Intercontinental San Francisco. Featuring insightful speakers and thought leaders from a variety of fields, Apex 2017 will explore the idea that financial success is not an end-goal in and of itself, but rather a catalyst to achieving an extraordinary quality of life.

"At HighTower, we believe strongly that financial health is a critical element of overall wellness," said HighTower CEO Elliot Weissbluth. "We assembled a diverse group of passionate, knowledgeable individualsincluding CEOs, scientists, an Olympian and a space explorerfor a broader conversation about how to help clients lead healthier, more fulfilling lives."

Former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly will kick off the dynamic Apex program with his opening keynote: "The Sky is Not the Limit: Lessons from a Year in Space." Captain Scott Kelly's epic Year In Space solidified his status as one of the greatest pioneers in history. Now, in his acclaimed speech appearances, he brings audiences to the edge of their seats with transcendent insights that inspire and challenge them to dream big, test the status quo, and "choose to do the hard things."

One of a select group of Americans who embody a defining moment in the nation's history, he captivated the world and seized the imagination of millions during his record-breaking voyageproving that the sky is not the limit when it comes to the potential of the human spirit. On his trip, Scott, together with his identical twin brother Mark on Earth, paved the way for the future of space travel and exploration as the subjects of an unprecedented NASA study on how space affects the human body.

This year, the world awaits another exciting landing with the arrival of Scott's widely-anticipated memoir, "Endurance: My Year In Space and Our Journey to Mars" slated for release in fall 2017. His book has also been optioned as a Hollywood film by Sony Pictures.

Jacquelline Fuller, president of Google's philanthropy, Google.org, will also address Apex attendees. Google.org provides more than $200 million yearly to support innovators using technology for humanity. Fuller manages a global team that brings together Googler volunteers, product donations and funding in areas such as education, economic empowerment and inclusion. She previously served as Deputy Director of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she was a member of the senior management team for eight years. At Apex 2017, she will discuss her wisdom and insights on harnessing innovation.

"Scott and Jacquelline both have inspiring stories and valuable perspectives to share," added Weissbluth. "When it comes to challenging the status quo, the thought leaders and experts taking the stage at Apex 2017 speak from experience."

Apex 2017 is a by-invitation-only event. For further details, visit http://www.hightoweradvisors.com/Apex.

For media inquiries, please contact Melinda Brodbeck, JConnelly, at 973-850-7348 or [email protected].

About HighTower

HighTower is a national firm built by and for elite financial advisors. HighTower advisors commit to the fiduciary standard: a binding promise to put our clients' interests first. Powered by a proprietary technology and investment platform, HighTower embraces bold change to create a culture of collaboration and growth and to meet the evolving needs of sophisticated investors. For more information, see www.hightoweradvisors.com and www.byadvisorsforadvisors.com.

Melinda Brodbeck

JConnelly

973-850-7348

[email protected]

SOURCE HighTower

Related Links

http://www.hightoweradvisors.com


PHOENIX, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Honeywell (NYSE: HON) and Paragon Space Development Corporation have announced a teaming agreement that will change the way astronauts experience life in space. The two companies will design, build, test and apply environmental control and life support systems for future human NASA and commercial programs.

Longer duration, human-exploration missions are planned for the future, but there is no easy way to replenish resources such as oxygen and water in space. NASA's future human-exploration missions will require an integrated and highly efficient system for life support and thermal control. Paragon's focus on evolving water and thermal technologies complements Honeywell's new developments in air revitalization technologies, both of which are essential parts of the spacecraft needed for NASA's deep space goals.

"A renewed interest in developing a Deep Space Habitat needed for reaching the Moon and Mars, continued experimentation aboard the International Space Station, and a desire to push the limits of unmanned flights make this a remarkable time in space exploration. Unmanned achievements are now giving way to long-distance and long-duration human missions. The technology developed by Honeywell and Paragon will give humans the opportunity to explore space for longer periods than before," said Marty Sheber, vice president, Space, Honeywell Aerospace. "Honeywell has a long legacy of providing mission-critical environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS), including being the provider of critical parts of the system currently used on the International Space Station. That heritage, coupled with Paragon's focus on innovative and emerging ECLSS technologies, provides a complementary team to develop technology capable of supporting humans on their longer explorations into space."

"This agreement allows the Honeywell and Paragon team to provide fully integrated solutions to NASA, combining our strengths of experience and innovation in technology with an agile and customer-focused responsiveness," said Grant Anderson, president and CEO, Paragon Space Development Corporation. "Potential prime contractors and NASA will have access to a system-focused integration team with a catalog of proven and emerging technology to bring long-duration exploration of the Moon and Mars to practical implementation."

Supporting Resources

Read more about Paragon Space Development Corporation

Learn more about Honeywell's Space Environmental Control System

Read more about Honeywell Aerospace on the Follow The Aero blog

Like Honeywell Aerospace on Facebook

Follow @Honeywell_Aero on Twitter

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 software-industrial company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace and automotive products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, cars, homes and buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywell.com/newsroom.

SOURCE Honeywell

Related Links

http://www.honeywell.com


FORT WASHINGTON, Pa., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Vinca alkaloids such as vincristine, are important chemotherapeutic agents that are highly effective at blocking the growth of cancer. Many patients who receive vincristine have a treatment regimen that includes other chemotherapy drugs that are administered intrathecally, or injected into the spinal fluid with a syringe. If vincristine is mistakenly administered into the spinal fluid, it is uniformly fatal, causing ascending paralysis, neurological defects, and eventually death. This mistake, however, is almost completely avoidable with one small administration changeinstead of "pushing" intravenous (IV) vinca alkaloids via syringe, experts now call for these agents to be diluted into mini-IV drip bags.

This week, during the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) 42nd Annual Congress, MiKaela Olsen, MS, APRN-CNS, AOCNS, The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, will present results of a center-wide effort to administer vincristine via mini-IV drip bags in a poster titled, Putting an Old Oncology Nursing Practice to Bed: A Hospital-Wide Initiative Using Evidence-Based Practice to Standardize the Administration of Vinca Alkaloids Using a Minibag, Side-Arm Technique.

This presentation comes on the heels of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)'s 2016 Just Bag It! Campaign for the safe administration of vincristine.

According to Ms. Olsen and her colleagues, there are a number of barriers to standardizing vincristine administration in mini-IV drip bags. For instance, they note that nurses may believe the risk of extravasation to be higher than when pushing the agent. However, when analyzing 12 months of data at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Olsen, et al, found zero cases of extravasation among the more than 1,300 mini-bag administrations of vincristine after the practice change.

"This was a big change in practice for bedside nurses at Johns Hopkins Hospital who had, to this point, always administered vesicantsother than continuous infusion vesicantsas an intravenous push through the side port of a free-flowing line. Using an evidence-based practice approach to tackle this clinical practice issue was key to our success," said Ms. Olsen. "Just because it was always done a certain way does not mean it is the safest way."

According to Ms. Olsen, the program facilitators provided background education to provider, pharmacy, and nursing staff that included a review of cases of patient harm with recommended guidelines for prevention and used the same technique that nurses were used to; however, instead of pushing the medication through a syringe, the nurse holds the mini-bag as it runs through the side port of a free flowing line.

"Nurses performed the procedure in a skills lab environment to ensure understanding of proper technique for safe mini-bag administration to prevent extravasation. This approach was key to our success," said Ms. Olsen.

Other barriers noted by the researchers include a lack of understanding of the risk of death associated with central nervous system administration of vincristine, as well as a lack of understanding of how to properly administer vinca alkaloids via drip bag.

To thwart these concerns at the time of the administration switch over, a short video was produced for the nursing staff, demonstrating the proper side-arm drip administration of vincristine, and all RN staff attended a hands-on skill lab. RN staff are instructed to remain with the patient during the entire five-minute administration, checking blood returns every two minutes and at the completion of the infusion. Additionally, labeling of vincristine must be clear and stated as such: "For intravenous use only  fatal if given other routes."

"At Johns Hopkins Hospital, our pediatric colleagues made this successful practice change first. After thoughtful design of the step-by-step procedure, policy revisions, and collaboration between nursing and pharmacy, the change was implemented in adult oncology," said Ms. Olsen. "Our staff feel confident that this new procedure is safe and that it is absolutely the right thing to do to prevent patient harm. Once we made the change, we did not look back. Eliminating the risk of harm was our number one priority."

Ms. Olsen will present her findings from 5:30  6:30 PM on Friday, May 5, 2017.

"The oncology nursing community plays an imperative role in the day-to-day, hands-on care and protection of patients with cancer. NCCN applauds Johns Hopkins, as well as the staff and faculty of our other Member Institutions, for their dedication to patient safety," said Robert W. Carlson, MD, Chief Executive Officer, NCCN. "We are pleased that Ms. Olsen has the opportunity to share her findings with the esteemed ONS audience and hope her work is the impetus for others to change their practices."

In 2005, Dr. Carlson, a medical oncologist, witnessed sequelae of such a tragedy with a 21 year-old patient with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma named Christopher Wibeto. Wibeto was transferred to Dr. Carlson's care after receiving incorrectly administered vincristine at another hospital. Dr. Carlson watched the young man go from having a likely curable condition to deteriorating and dying within four days. Motivated by this tragic experience, Dr. Carlson spearheaded a national effort to address this deadly error when he arrived at NCCN, enlisting the help of its Best Practices Committee, which is dedicated to improving cancer treatment protocols.

To ensure that vincristine is always administered properly, NCCN has issued guidelines advising health care providers to always dilute and administer vincristine in a mini-IV drip bag and never use a syringe to administer the medication. This precaution renders it impossible to accidentally administer the medication into the spinal fluid and greatly decreases the chances of improper dosage.

All 27 NCCN Member Institutions, including The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, have adopted policies in line with these guidelines, which are also recommended by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, the Joint Commission, the World Health Organization, and the ONS.

In March 2017, NCCN issued a challenge to raise the number of reported adopters of these policies to 100 centers or practices. To report adoption of these practices, visit NCCN.org/JustBagIt.

In 2008, the NCCN Best Practices Committee led the charge for NCCN to begin publishing Chemotherapy Order Templates (NCCN Templates), which detail the most common regimens for many cancers and highlight safety parameters. These resources enable practitioners to standardize patient care, reduce medication errors, and anticipate and manage adverse events. There are more than 1,500 NCCN Templates for 86 cancer types, and they are used by more than 10,000 subscribers.

For more information about Just Bag It: The NCCN Campaign for Safe Vincristine Handling, or to report that a medical facility has adopted a vincristine policy, visit NCCN.org/JustBagIt or visit NCCN's Booth (#118) at the ONS Annual Congress.

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a not-for-profit alliance of 27 leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education, is dedicated to improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of cancer care so that patients can live better lives. Through the leadership and expertise of clinical professionals at NCCN Member Institutions, NCCN develops resources that present valuable information to the numerous stakeholders in the health care delivery system. As the arbiter of high-quality cancer care, NCCN promotes the importance of continuous quality improvement and recognizes the significance of creating clinical practice guidelines appropriate for use by patients, clinicians, and other health care decision-makers.

The NCCN Member Institutions are: Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, Omaha, NE; Case Comprehensive Cancer Center/University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland, OH; City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA; Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center | Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, MA; Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC; Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA; Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle, WA; The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD; Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chicago, IL; Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ, Jacksonville, FL, and Rochester, MN; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY; Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL; The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, Columbus, OH; Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY; Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; St. Jude Children's Research Hospital/The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN; Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, CA; University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, AL; UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, CA; UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA; University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, CO; University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, WI; Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, TN; and Yale Cancer Center/Smilow Cancer Hospital, New Haven, CT.

Clinicians, visit NCCN.org. Patients and caregivers, visit NCCN.org/patients. Media, visit NCCN.org/news.

Media Contact:

Katie Kiley Brown, NCCN

215-690-0238

[email protected]

SOURCE National Comprehensive Cancer Network

Related Links

http://www.nccn.org


BOULDER, Colorado, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Ag-Con attendees will learn valuable best practices garnered from a 10-year cannabis industry veteran applicable to all indoor grow operations

Surna Inc. (OTCQB: SRNA) co-founder and director, Brandy Keen will make a presentation on best practices in indoor crop cultivation at the Indoor Ag-Con to be held in Las Vegas on May 4.

Ms. Keen's presentation will address six top best practices growers can immediately implement that will impact their bottom lines, without sacrificing yield or product quality. According to a July 1, 2015 article in The Denver Post, between 2012 and 2014 the electricity used at indoor cultivation facilities in Denver more than doubled from 86 million to 200 million kilowatts.

"Looking at the surge in energy use in Denver, we have to learn how to make indoor grows sustainable while still yielding a great crop," Keen said. "Solving the problem of energy conservation without compromising crop yields is an issue that affects all indoor cultivation facilitates, regardless of the crop that is being grown," Keen said.

Further, the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law sites in a July 7, 2015 article that U.S. indoor cannabis grow operations account for $6 billion dollars in energy use annually. Cannabis indoor grow operations consume six times as much energy as the pharmaceuticals industry, and requires eight times as much energy per square foot as the average U.S. commercial building.

By utilizing state-of-the-art solutions such as hybrid facilities, rebate options and new technologies, it is possible to significantly increase the energy efficiency for indoor growing facilities.

Indoor Ag-Con expects up to 700 attendees at the event. For more information on Surna, please see http://www.surna.com.

About Surna

Surna Inc. ( http://www.surna.com) develops innovative technologies and products that monitor, control and or address the energy and resource intensive nature of indoor cannabis cultivation. Currently, the company's revenue stream is based on its main product offerings - supplying industrial technology and products to commercial indoor cannabis grow facilities.

Headquartered in Boulder, CO, Surna's diverse engineering team is tasked with creating novel energy and resource efficient solutions, including the company's signature water-cooled climate control platform. The company's engineers continuously seek to create technology that solves the highly specific demands of the cannabis industry for temperature, humidity, light and process control.

Surna's goal is to provide intelligent solutions to improve the quality, the control and the overall yield and efficiency of CEA. Though its clients do, the company neither produces nor sells cannabis.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the Company's future business expectations, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual results due to a variety of factors including Surna's ability to monetize service components, Surna's support of premium prices for existing products, commercialization of research and development efforts and continued expansion of legal cannabis markets. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Surna's financial results is included in Surna's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company disclaims any obligation subsequently to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

Statement about Cannabis Markets

The use, possession, cultivation, and distribution of cannabis are prohibited by federal law. This includes medical and recreational cannabis. Although certain states have legalized medical and recreational cannabis, companies and individuals involved in the sector are still at risk of being prosecuted by federal authorities. Further, the landscape in the cannabis industry changes rapidly. What was the law last week is not the law today and what is the law today may not be the law next week. This means that at any time the city, county, or state where cannabis is permitted can change the current laws and/or the federal government can supersede those laws and take prosecutorial action. Given the uncertain legal nature of the cannabis industry, it is imperative that investors understand that the cannabis industry is a high-risk investment. A change in the current laws or enforcement policy can negatively affect the status and operation of our business; require additional fees, stricter operational guidelines and unanticipated shut-downs.

Contact:

Jamie English

Marketing Manager

[email protected]

+1-303-993-5271





SOURCE Surna Inc.
ALLSTON, Mass., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The International School of Advanced Learning, a one-stop academic and cultural immersion center for foreign students and professionals, today announced it has earned formal accreditation by the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training, the premier national accreditation agency.

Accreditation means the school has been examined and found in compliance with ACCET's rigorous national standards for private, postsecondary educational institutions offering non-collegiate vocational, avocational and English-language training.

"This is a major turning point in our development and really speaks to the dedication and commitment we have made to helping immigrant workers and students thrive in the community and reach new heights of professionalism and cultural immersion," said Julia Solomin, ISAL's director and co-founder.

ISAL also works with companies, helping their foreign employees assimilate both professionally and personally through personalized programs.

"ISAL instructors were knowledgeable about our industry, quickly grasped our business, and were extremely thorough, professional, time-focused, and a pleasure to work with," said Alena Reva, vice president of human resources at Kaspersky Lab Americas, of Woburn, Mass. "They also acted as employee mentors in their cross-cultural experience. Their expertise inspired me to push the cross-cultural boundaries of Kaspersky Lab confidently."

ISAL will now apply to The U.S. Department of Homeland Security to receive clearance to issue student visas that permit foreign citizens to study in the US.

Massachusetts is home to more than 1.2 million immigrants - more than 15 percent of its total population  working, studying and living in the Bay State.

About ISAL

ISAL is a one-stop hub for foreign students and professionals, offering a complete spectrum of English, business, and cultural classes in the Greater Boston area. The school is a community partner to major universities and local companies and provides guidance for college admission. The school's curriculum includes basic, intensive and business English, cultural exposure and immersion, and university application and preparation assistance. www.isalusa.com

SOURCE International School of Advanced Learning

Related Links

http://www.isalusa.com


LANSING, Mich., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The leading Michigan multi-client lobbying firm Kelley Cawthorne announced today that it has hired Lansing legislative and public affairs veteran Jim Kirsch as a lobbyist.

Kirsch, who has served as Vice-President of Government Affairs for AT&T Michigan since 2006, brings extensive knowledge of the Lansing and Washington, D.C. political landscapes for current and prospective Kelley Cawthorne clients, firm officials said today. Kirsch will officially join the firm on May 8.

Kirsch, who was named the No. 1 Most Effective Corporate Lobbyist in Michigan by MIRS News in 2015, will continue to work with AT&T, a long-time client of the firm.

"Jim is a great addition to our already strong lobbying team," said Dave Ladd, a principal of the firm. "Jim knows business, political, and community leaders throughout Michigan, and that's especially important to us as we look to further expand our Detroit practice and implement our future growth plans."

Kirsch also has extensive experience in the legislative arena, also having served from 1999 to 2006 in the Michigan State Senate as a Policy Analyst for the Senate Judiciary Committee, responsible for monitoring committee activity and advising Senators on legislative content.

Kirsch, a native of Oak Park, is a summa cum laude graduate of Michigan State University, where he majored in Psychology and Criminal Justice. He also holds a law degree from the University of Denver College of Law in Denver, Colorado.

"I'm eager to join a firm with such a strong vision and strategic direction for its future," Kirsch said. "As the political arena evolves in Lansing and beyond, I'm looking forward to creating value for the firm's clients."

A veteran of the United States Navy, Kirsch served overseas as a Military Policeman, training more than 200 patrol officers and guards in all phases of required standards of duty performance. During his time in the service, Mr. Kirsch also worked as a criminal investigator who assisted the Naval Investigative Service (NIS) and the Judge Advocate General (JAG) in various law enforcement capacities.

Kirsch serves on the Board of Directors for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and the University Club of MSU Membership Committee. He also was the recipient of the Navy Good Conduct Medal and the National Defense Medal for his service during Operation: Desert Storm. Kirsch also appeared in the Hollywood blockbuster Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice in an uncredited role when the movie was filming on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Kirsch currently resides in Holt with Angie, his wife of 20 years, and daughter Kennedy, 12.

Kelley Cawthorne is consistently rated as one of Michigan's leading lobbying organizations by Inside Michigan Politics and MIRS News, as are many of its individual lobbyists. It is the only statewide lobbying firm with dedicated offices in Lansing and Detroit. Its highly diverse lobbying team has the policy and advocacy expertise necessary to create value in the public policy arena for clients such as AT&T, The Christman Company, DTE Energy, Michigan Special Olympics, Deloitte Consulting, Ford Motors, McLaren Health Care, Wal-Mart, and Wayne State University, among others.

The bi-partisan firm was co-founded by former Michigan Democratic Attorney General Frank Kelley and former Michigan Republican House Leader Dennis Cawthorne. Its current principals are Rob Elhenicky, David Gregory, Dave Ladd, and Melissa McKinley.

Contact:

TJ Bucholz

517-898-4641

[email protected]

SOURCE Kelley Cawthorne
DALLAS, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Kimberly-Clark celebrates its 25th year of the Bright Futures Scholarship Program by awarding $1.08 million in college scholarships this year to 54 children of Kimberly-Clark employees across 18 states and Canada. Since its inception, the program has awarded over $39 million in scholarships to more than 2,000 students.

Bright Futures scholarship grants are worth up to $20,000, or $5,000 per school year, for full-time students attending accredited colleges and universities. Recipients are chosen based on academic achievement, leadership, work experience and involvement in extracurricular activities.

"Our selection committee continues to be impressed by the caliber of students who apply for our Bright Futures scholarship," said Tom Falk, chairman and CEO of Kimberly-Clark. "We are proud to help the children of our employees pursue higher education and achieve their goals. There is no more important investment we can make than in our next generation of leaders."

The average GPA for this year's scholarship class is 3.88, and awardees will attend such top colleges and universities as University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame and Georgia Institute of Technology. Past scholarship recipients have gone on to pursue successful careers in medicine, education, the armed forces and engineering.

Click here for more information on this year's award recipients.

About the Kimberly-Clark Foundation

The Kimberly-Clark Foundation is the charitable arm of Kimberly-Clark Corporation and is dedicated to supporting and strengthening families around the world. For more information, visit http://www.kimberly-clark.com/ourcompany/community/kc_foundation.aspx.

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its well-known global brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Every day, nearly a quarter of the world's population trust Kimberly-Clark's brands and the solutions they provide to enhance their health, hygiene, and well-being. With brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depend, Kimberly-Clark holds No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in 80 countries. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the Company's 145-year history of innovation, visit www.kimberly-clark.com or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

[KMB-C]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110928/DA76879LOGO

SOURCE Kimberly-Clark Foundation

Related Links

http://www.kimberly-clark.com


NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- World-renowned since 1965 for its leadership in plant-based, sustainably-sourced hair and face care, Klorane announces its rollout to all ULTA Beauty locations nationwide. Recognized as the top national retailer providing All Things Beauty, All in One Place, ULTA Beauty gives guests a unique shopping experience, from offering both established and emerging beauty brands across all categories and price points to a full-service salon in all locations.

Klorane's entry into the 974 stores that ULTA Beauty operates across 48 states and the District of Columbia begins now with a strong assortment of Klorane hair care products that meet the highest level of excellence through the brand's exceptional botanical expertise and pharmaceutical know-how. Klorane devotees will find their favorites on ULTA Beauty shelves, from the award-winning Klorane Dry Shampoo range to the brand's incomparable selection of eco-friendly biodegradable products to the top-selling Chamomile range for enhancing blond highlights.

"Given ULTA Beauty's reputation as the premier shopping destination for savvy beauty consumers and its dedication to superior customer service, we couldn't be more pleased with this new partnership," says Jacqueline Flam, Vice President, Retail and Salon. "Both Klorane and ULTA Beauty are known for delivering value, from Klorane's position as an affordable luxury formulated according to the rigorous standards of our patented research and development process to ULTA Beauty's generous Ultamate Rewards loyalty program. We've been delighted with Klorane's success on Ulta.com, and now we're very excited to bring Klorane to both our fans and new customers at ULTA Beauty." Klorane's expanding distribution in the USA also includes select Sephora stores nationwide, Anthropologie, Bluemercury and Net-A-Porter.com.

ABOUT KLORANE:

For more than 50 years, Klorane has excelled in combining the best of nature with the best of science. Only the purest plant extracts selected to target specific hair and skin needs go into formulas created with Klorane's proven pharmaceutical know-how to develop a broad collection of efficacious hair and skin care products suitable for the entire family. Clinically proven to deliver high performance, the line is 100% vegan, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)-free and utilizes the lowest number of ingredients for the highest efficacy and safety. With a long heritage dedicated to exploring the plant universe to discover the most effective plants for each particular beauty concern, Klorane uses only plants grown by their own farmers. As a result, Klorane can ensure that sustainable farming techniques are practiced, and that each plant offers 100% traceability. This philosophy maintains unparalleled quality standards to guarantee the highest levels of purity, safety and proven performance in all Klorane products.

For more information about Klorane, please visit kloraneusa.com.

Media Contact:

Karen Oliver and Associates

2123970645

Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12636345

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Klorane

Related Links

http://www.kloraneusa.com


HOUSTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Veteran energy company in-house counsel Todd L. Grimmett has joined The Lanier Law Firm as a member of the commercial litigation team, bolstering the firm's growing focus on lawsuits affecting the oil and gas industry.

Mr. Grimmett most recently served as an in-house counsel for Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp., one of the nation's largest natural gas producers. For the past six years, Mr. Grimmett represented Chesapeake in a number of civil litigation matters and provided legal counsel for the company's upstream and midstream divisions. In addition, he directed responses to regulatory inquiries and investigations and was responsible for managing the company's e-discovery department.

Before joining Chesapeake in 2011, he served as a trial lawyer with several Oklahoma-based law firms and tried cases in jurisdictions throughout the Southwest.

"Todd is an exceptional young lawyer with a deep understanding of the energy sector as well as a wealth of practical experience in the courtroom," said Mr. Lanier, who founded the firm nearly 25 years ago. "This combination of skills will be a great asset as we take on an increasing number of cases related to oil and gas disputes, as well as other civil ligation matters."

In his new role, Mr. Grimmett is reunited with Regan E. Bradford, former Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary for Chesapeake, who joined the Lanier Law Firm in 2016.

Mr. Grimmett earned his law degree in 2006 from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and served as an intern in the office of the Oklahoma Attorney General while in law school. He received his undergraduate degree in business administration from Oklahoma State University in 2001.

To learn more about Mr. Grimmett and his work, please click here: http://lanierlawfirm.com/attorneys/todd-l-grimmett.

With offices in Houston, Los Angeles, and New York, The Lanier Law Firm is committed to addressing client concerns with effective and innovative solutions in courtrooms across the country. The firm is composed of outstanding trial attorneys with decades of experience handling cases involving pharmaceutical liability, asbestos exposure, commercial litigation, product liability, maritime law, and serious personal injuries. To learn more about the firm, visit http://www.lanierlawfirm.com.

For more information, please contact J.D. Cargill at 713-659-5200 or [email protected].

SOURCE Lanier Law Firm

Related Links

http://www.lanierlawfirm.com


HOUSTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Xavier Garcia-Rojas, MD, PhD, MBA will be speaking at Houston's Tex US TOO meeting on Monday, May 8, 2017 to discuss imaging techniques and options for prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The event, beginning at 7pm, is free and open to the public. It will be held at St. Luke's United Methodist Church located at 3471 Westheimer at Edloe. Tex US TOO is a prostate cancer support group dedicated to prostate cancer awareness and support for men with prostate cancer and their families. Monthly meetings are held every second Monday. For more information, please visit Tex US TOO.

Dr. Garcia-Rojas is a board-certified radiologist affiliated with Laser Prostate Centers of America, a prostate diagnosis and treatment center specializing in focal therapies for localized prostate cancer. His interests are focused on image-guided therapies, tumor ablation, and medical technology innovation. He received his MD from Baylor College of Medicine, PhD in radiological sciences from the University of Texas, and MBA from Rice University. His diagnostic radiology residency was at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He completed dual fellowships in abdominal imaging and image-guided therapy at the National Center for Image Guided Therapy at Harvard Medical School and completed a Biodesign Innovation fellowship at the Texas Medical Center Innovation Institute. He is co-founder and CMO at IntuiTap Medical, Inc.

With Laser Prostate Centers of America, Dr. Garcia-Rojas offers MRI-guided biopsies and focal therapies including focal laser ablation (FLA), which targets cancerous lesions within the prostate for a reduced risk of side effects as compared to traditional treatments such as prostatectomy and radiation. The use of advanced image-guidance has opened the door for superior diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. The traditional biopsy method, known as transrectal ultrasound (TRUS), randomly collects samples and can lead to complete misses, sampling less aggressive lesions or detecting clinically insignificant tumors. MRI-guided biopsy, on the other hand, allows for more accurate diagnosis of clinically significant prostate cancer.

About Laser Prostate Centers of America (LPCA)

Laser Prostate Centers of America partners with a multi-specialty team of highly-skilled physicians trained in interventional radiology and urology to offer patients an alternative to traditional treatment and therapies with highly-advanced, minimally-invasive MRI-guided procedures. LPCA is a catalyst in bringing the most-advanced and appropriate diagnosis and treatment for patients with prostate cancer to the forefront.

Media Contact

Nisha Franklin

888-502-5722

[email protected]

SOURCE Laser Prostate Centers of America

Related Links

http://www.laserprostate.com


WHAT: Join St. Jude Children's Research Hospital supporters and friends for the 15th annual FedEx/St. Jude Angels and Stars Gala in downtown Miami at the Intercontinental hotel on Saturday, May 20. This celebration of old Hollywood glamour will bring together philanthropists, influencers and celebrity friends from the South Florida community to honor the true stars the children and families of St. Jude.









The annual event, chaired by Venezuelan entrepreneur Mashud Mezerhane raises funds to help ensure families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food  because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.









This year's honoree is Latin actress and national television personality, Adamari Lopez, who will receive the 2017 "FedEx/St. Jude Angels & Stars Lifetime Achievement Award" for her unwavering dedication to raise funds and cancer awareness in the Hispanic community promoting early detection. Julio Barrionuevo, Senior Vice President, Operations for FedEx Express Mexico, Central America, Caribbean and Global Service Partners will also receive a an award for his commitment and longtime leadership as the gala's co-founder.







HISTORY: This event was co-founded in 2002 by model and entrepreneur Daisy Fuentes. Since that time, the Miami gala has raised more than $5 million in cash and pledges.







WHO: Red carpet interviews with celebrity attendees will be available upon request.









To purchase tickets, get information on sponsorship opportunities or donate items for the silent auction, call (305) 537-1422, email [email protected] or visit www.stjude.org/angelsandstars.







WHEN: Saturday, May 20, 6:30 p.m. - media registration begins, 7 p.m. -red carpet






ATLANTA, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A proposed settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. ("Wells Fargo"). The lawsuit alleges Wells Fargo violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA") by using an automatic telephone dialing system and/or an artificial or prerecorded voice to initiate calls to cell phones ("Automatic Calls") in connection with student loans, without prior express consent. Wells Fargo denies the allegations, and the Court has not decided who is right. Instead, both sides agreed to a settlement.

You are included in the Settlement as a Settlement Class Member if you received an Automatic Call regarding a Wells Fargo student loan account from April 21, 2011 to December 19, 2015.

Wells Fargo has agreed to create a $2,075,071.80 Settlement Fund. The Fund will be used to make cash payments to Settlement Class Members who submit valid claims and to pay Class Counsel's attorneys' fees and costs (up to $622,522), a $15,000 service award to each of the two Class Representatives, and settlement administration costs. Settlement Class Member's payments are estimated to be between $20 and $50, but they will depend on the total number of approved claims that are filed.

To receive payment, you must complete and submit a valid Claim Form by July 31, 2017. If you received a Postcard Notice in the mail you may file a claim using the detachable Claim Form, or online or by phone using the Claim ID provided on the front of the card. If you did not receive a Postcard Notice in the mail, you may print a Claim Form from www.PratherWellsFargoTCPA.com and mail it to the address on the form. Claim Forms are also available by calling 844-363-2463.

If you don't want a payment from this Settlement, and you want to keep the right to sue or continue to sue Wells Fargo on your own about the legal issues in this case, then you must request exclusion from the Settlement by sending a letter to the Claims Administrator by June 30, 2017. The letter requesting exclusion must contain the information set forth in the full Notice and in the Settlement Agreement, both are available at www.PratherWellsFargoTCPA.com. Unless you exclude yourself, you are choosing to stay in the Settlement and you are releasing Wells Fargo from the legal claims resolved by this Settlement. The Released Claims are described in full in the Settlement Agreement.

If you don't exclude yourself, you can object to any part of the Settlement. You must file your objection with the Court and mail it to Class Counsel and Counsel for Wells Fargo by June 30, 2017.

If you are a Settlement Class Member and you choose to do nothing, you will not receive a payment, you will be bound by the Settlement, and you will release Wells Fargo from the legal claims in this case.

The Court will hold a hearing on August 30, 2017 to decide whether to approve the Settlement, Class Counsel's request for attorneys' fees and expenses, and Class Representative service awards. You may attend, but it is not required. If you wish to hire your own attorney, you may do so at your own expense.

For more information, including the full Notice and Settlement Agreement, visit www.PratherWellsFargoTCPA.com.

SOURCE Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP; Burke Law Offices
ANYANG, South Korea, April 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Logos Biosystems announced the launch of the new CELENA S Digital Imaging System with an onstage incubator. The multipurpose CELENA S is designed to simplify high-resolution fluorescence, brightfield, and phase contrast imaging for novices and experts alike.

The CELENA S Digital Imaging System is a fully integrated digital imaging system that incorporates an inverted microscope, a high sensitivity CMOS camera, LED light sources, fluorescence filters, a computer, and image capture and analysis software into one device. With interchangeable objectives and LED filter cubes, the CELENA S can accommodate a wide range of fluorescence and brightfield applications. The intuitive software makes sophisticated imaging simple, such as time lapse imaging, Z-stack imaging, and image-based automated cell counting. An onstage incubation system provides the option to precisely control the environmental temperature, humidity, and gas content to cells for sensitive live cell imaging.

"The best thing about the CELENA S is the image quality. We can use it for quick screening or for data collection and in both cases get sharp, detailed images," an AmtixBio representative said. "Our researchers learned to get high quality images in a few minutes, which is great compared to the hours of training and practice it takes to learn on a traditional setup."

The intuitive software is the core of the system, demonstrating Logos Biosystems' commitment to providing advanced imaging solutions to support the life science community. Anyone can learn to capture high-quality images on the CELENA S without extensive training.

The CELENA S Digital Imaging System is for research use only and not intended for diagnostic procedures.

About Logos Biosystems

Logos Biosystems is dedicated to the development and commercialization of life science tools and technologies for a wide spectrum of applications including basic research, quality control, and drug discovery. Since 2008, Logos Biosystems has been developing a series of automated systems and imaging instruments for laboratories engaging in research with a cellular and molecular emphasis. Products include the LUNA family of automated cell counters, the QUANTOM Tx Microbial Cell Counter, the X-CLARITY systems and reagents for electrophoretic tissue clearing, and the CELENA S Digital Imaging System.

SOURCE Logos Biosystems

Related Links

http://www.logosbio.com


NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark Hamrick, Washington Bureau Chief and Senior Economic Analyst at Bankrate.com, has been named president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW), a leading organization of business journalists.

SABEW was formed over fifty years ago to promote exceptional coverage of business and economic topics and events. Mr. Hamrick joined the Board of Governors in 2014 and has held the positions of secretary, treasurer and most recently vice president.

"I'm humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve SABEW members and the profession at this critically important time for our industry and our nation. The rapid pace of change, including the ongoing digital transition, affords opportunities for new and agile media enterprises, but is also prompting others to downsize."

"Our priorities include providing support, including networking opportunities and training, sought by our colleagues in business and financial journalism as well as other stakeholders. We'll also look to advocate where appropriate for our profession," Mr. Hamrick stated.

Mr. Hamrick joined personal finance site Bankrate.com in January 2013 after leading business news for the Associated Press radio and television/online video operation in Washington for many years. In his role as senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com, Mr. Hamrick translates developments in the economy, financial markets, politics and business, providing commentary and expert analysis for radio, television, print and online publications. He hosts regular 60-second personal finance features for CBS Radio and has been a contributing columnist for the New York Daily News.

Before joining the SABEW board, Mr. Hamrick served as 2011 president of the National Press Club in Washington. It was in that capacity that he hosted World Press Freedom Day, organized by the U.S. State Department and the United Nations Foundation, held that year for the first time in the U.S. He also hosted dozens of top-notch VIPs who spoke at the Club's historic Speakers' Luncheon program, including Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, billionaire inventor Elon Musk, CNN founder Ted Turner and NBC anchor Tom Brokaw.

Follow Mark on Twitter: @Hamrickisms

About Bankrate.com:

Bankrate.com provides consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout life's financial journey. For over two decades, Bankrate.com has been a leading personal finance destination. The company offers award-winning editorial content, competitive rate information, and calculators and tools across multiple categories, including mortgages, deposits, credit cards, retirement, automobile loans, and taxes. Bankrate aggregates rate information from over 4,800 institutions on more than 300 financial products. With coverage of over 600 local markets, Bankrate generates rate tables in all 50 U.S. states. Bankrate develops and provides web services to more than 100 cobranded websites with online partners, including some of the most trusted and frequently visited personal finance sites on the internet, such as Comcast, Yahoo!, CNBC and Bloomberg. In addition, Bankrate licenses editorial content to more than 500 newspapers on a daily basis including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

For more information contact:

Kayleen Yates

Vice President, Corporate Communications

[email protected]

(917) 368-8677

SOURCE Bankrate, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bankrate.com


CANTON, Mass., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the state's largest union and professional association for registered nurses and health care professionals, announces its endorsement and strong support for Rep. Sean Garballey, D-Arlington, a candidate for the 4th Middlesex Senate District.

"Representative Sean Garballey is a powerful advocate for Massachusetts patients, nurses and for a fair health care system," said MNA President Donna Kelly-Williams, RN, who works as an obstetrical and neonatal nurse at Cambridge Hospital. "Moving to a single-payer health care system that allows all Massachusetts citizens to access and afford quality care is a top priority for Garballey and for MNA nurses."

Garballey is seeking the state senate seat vacated by the death of Sen. Ken Donnelly, D-Arlington. Garballey currently is a state representative for the 23rd Middlesex District covering Arlington and West Medford. A special primary election is schedule for June 27. The special general election is July 25.

"The MNA endorsed Ken Donnelly for State Senate and we believe Sean Garballey is the best person to continue Donnelly's legacy at the State House," Kelly-Williams said.

Garballey has pledged to support nurse efforts to improve patient care through the state legislature. These include safe patient limits for nurses, workplace violence prevention and safe patient handling bills. He also supports the collective bargaining rights of workers, making sure every public school has a school nurse and improvements for mental health patients.

"I proudly support the efforts of the Massachusetts Nurses Association to protect patients and ensure fair treatment of nurses and other health care professionals," Garballey said. "I know many MNA nurses, understand their concerns and support their legislative solutions. As a State Senator, I will be honored to stand with the MNA and fight for high-quality patient care."

MassNurses.org  Facebook.com/MassNurses  Twitter.com/MassNurses

Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association

Related Links

http://www.massnurses.org


NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Mesothelioma Victims Center is the top branded source in the United States for the best possible financial compensation for electricians who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma. They are urging electricians who have been recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma or their family members to call them anytime at 800-714-0303 for a discussion about why it is so incredibly vital to have the nation's most skilled and experienced mesothelioma attorneys handling their financial compensation claim for this rare cancer caused by asbestos exposure.

Electrician

"If you want the best possible mesothelioma compensation, an electrician or skilled tradesperson definitely needs to have the most capable mesothelioma attorneys working on the compensation claim as we would like to discuss anytime at 800-714-0303." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

How or why are mesothelioma compensation claims potentially so substantial for an electrician? The Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "An electrician could have been exposed to asbestos in a variety of different workplaces including removing asbestos insulation to make an electrical repair, working on any type of commercial or residential construction project where they were wiring while insulation was being installed. Additionally, an electrician could have had constant exposure to asbestos at shipyard, power plant, factory, or almost any type of industrial setting.

"An electrician could have had dozens of various types of exposures to asbestos. It is these various exposures to asbestos that potentially makes an electrician's mesothelioma claim worth more than one million dollars as we would like to discuss anytime at 800-714-0303." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

For the Center for Disease Control's most recent listing on workplace groups or workplaces where a person could have been exposed to asbestos please refer to their website that discusses this. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=29&po=7

The average age for a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma in the United States is 72 years old. Because of their age frequently people with mesothelioma are initially misdiagnosed with pneumonia. This year between 2500, and 3000 US citizens will be diagnosed with mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is attributable to exposure to asbestos.

According to the CDC the states indicated with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon.

However, based on the calls the Mesothelioma Victims Center receives a diagnosed electrician with mesothelioma could live in any state including New York, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, or Alaska.

High-risk work groups for exposure to asbestos include US Navy Veterans, power plant workers, shipyard workers, oil refinery workers, steel mill workers, manufacturing/factory workers, pulp or paper mill workers, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, machinists, miners, construction workers, insulators, rail road worker, roofers, or firemen. As a rule, these types of workers were exposed to asbestos in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. US Navy Veterans make up about one third of all US Citizens who are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year. http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

The Mesothelioma Victims Center says, "When it comes to obtaining the best mesothelioma settlement, the quality of the attorney matters, as we would like to explain anytime at 800-714-0303-especially for an electrician." http://MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

For more information about mesothelioma please refer to the National Institutes of Health's web site related to this rare form of cancer: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mesothelioma.html

Media Contact:

Michael Thomas

[email protected]

800-714-0303

SOURCE Mesothelioma Victims Center

Related Links

http://mesotheliomavictimscenter.com


"I'm excited to have Mitch lead the Zenith Atlanta office," said Sean Reardon, CEO of Zenith USA. "This shift is a great opportunity to create tighter alignment between the Zenith and Moxie brands  bringing together the power of Zenith's media capabilities and Moxie's next generation marketing solutions."

As Managing Director, Scharf will focus on driving revenue growth, creating a winning culture and ensuring client satisfaction. With comprehensive expertise in multiple lines of business including finance, technology, travel, telecom, CPG and retail, Scharf has demonstrated success in connecting insights and strategy to build solutions that drive growth for high-profile Fortune 500 clients. In the last few years, Zenith's Atlanta office has expanded from a small satellite office of media professionals to a regional epicenter staffed by 75+ employees. Under Scharf's leadership, Zenith's presence and reach in the Southeast will continue to expand.

A digital media veteran, Scharf has driven great momentum over the past two years at Moxie, where he will continue in his role as Executive Vice President of Client Leadership. Since joining Moxie, the agency has generated the largest growth period in its 16-year history, adding brands such as Hoover, TaxSlayer, The Atlanta Braves and the American Cancer Society to the roster. Moxie has also received accolades for its award-winning campaigns, including wins at the American Advertising Awards (ADDYs), Echo Awards, Digiday Awards and the Shorty Awards. Prior to working at Moxie, Scharf led client partnerships for industry giants Yahoo! and Twitter.

"I've grown up in this market," shared Scharf. "Since the dot-com boom, Atlanta has continued to evolve and grow into a thriving market. I look forward to developing and growing Zenith's client relationships in step with the work I'm doing at Moxie."

About Zenith (www.zenithusa.com)

Zenith is The ROI Agency. The first agency to apply a rigorous and objective approach to improving the effectiveness of marketing spend, Zenith transforms businesses and brands through evidence-led thinking. Zenith is part of Publicis Media, one of four solution hubs within Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC40], and has offices within Publicis One. As a leading global media services network, Zenith has over 5,000 people working across 95 markets. Supported by Publicis Media's Global Practices, Zenith offers its clients a full range of integrated skills across communications planning, value optimisation, performance media, content creation and data & analytics. We work with some of the world's leading global brands including AstraZeneca, Coty, Farmers Insurance, Georgia-Pacific, Hospital Corporation of America, JPMorgan Chase, Kohl's, Sonic, Toyota, Verizon Wireless and 21st Century Fox.

Media Contact: Jessica Carruth, Senior Marketing & PR Manager, 470-225-3341, [email protected]

About Moxie (www.moxieusa.com)

Moxie is a modern marketing solutions agency that expertly leverages the value of channel, data, content and technology to help our clients grow with unprecedented pace. Founded in 2000, Moxie has offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York and Pittsburgh and is a transformational component of Publicis Media. Moxie's client roster includes Verizon Wireless, The Coca-Cola Company, Ainsworth Pet Nutrition, Hoover, TaxSlayer, American Cancer Society and Delta Air Lines.

About Publicis Media:

Publicis Media is one of the four solutions hubs of Publicis Groupe ([Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40], alongside Publicis Communications, Publicis.Sapient and Publicis Healthcare. Led by Steve King, CEO, Publicis Media is comprised of five global brands, Starcom, Zenith, Mediavest | Spark, Blue 449 and Performics, powered by digital-first, data-driven global practices that together deliver client value and business transformation. Publicis Media is committed to helping its clients navigate the modern media landscape and is present in more than 100 countries with over 17,500 employees worldwide. Twitter: @PublicisMedia.

SOURCE Zenith

Related Links

http://www.zenithusa.com


The Moe-Rita kicks off the countdown to Cinco de Moe's! Whether you're celebrating the holiday at Moe's, getting the highly anticipated free t-shirt or taking the party to your office or home, we've got you covered. Our catering options bring the fun to you and the Moe-Rita is no exception as the ultimate margarita mixer. Moe's Catering is customizable so you can choose from any one of our fresh, flavorful options like all-natural chicken, grass-fed steak and organic tofu; plus, free chips and salsa with every order.

"At Moe's, we are constantly exploring innovative ways to excite our fans' taste buds and provide new menu items from burritos to beverages," said Bruce Schroder, President of Moe's Southwest Grill. "Partnering with The Coca-Cola Company to launch the Moe-Rita is the perfect way to kick off Cinco de Moe's by delivering a refreshing new drink option that's as unique as the guests we serve both in our restaurants and through catering."



To celebrate the new menu item, Moe's is inviting fans to mix it up with the Moe-Rita Mixers Summer Catering Contest. Enter to win by sharing your favorite Moe-Rita recipe with photos and description via Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #MoeRitaMixer. Entries will be judged on originality and creativity, with one lucky winner selected to receive FREE Moe's catering for up to 50 people. A winner will be announced on June 15th and can have their event anytime in the month of July 2017, just in time for a mid-summer fiesta. Visit moes.com/catering for more information.



Visit www.moes.com to find a store nearest to you and www.moes.com/catering for catering options. Connect with us on social via Instagram, Twitter, SnapChat and Facebook.

About Moe's Southwest Grill

Welcome to Moe's! Founded in 2000 in Atlanta, GA, Moe's Southwest Grill is a fast-casual restaurant franchise featuring fresh, handmade, customizable southwestern food in a welcoming environment that rocks. Moe's is committed to serving only the highest quality ingredients 100% of the time at all of our locations in the U.S and abroad. While Moe's is best known for its burritos packed with a choice of more than 20 fresh, flavorful ingredients, the menu also features kid's, vegetarian and low-calorie options, all served with free chips and salsa. Check out Moe's online at www.moes.com.

About FOCUS Brands Inc.

Atlanta-based FOCUS Brands Inc., through its affiliate brands, is the franchisor and operator of over 5,000 ice cream shoppes, bakeries, restaurants and cafes in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 60 foreign countries under the brand names Carvel, Cinnabon, Schlotzsky's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's and McAlister's Deli, as well as Seattle's Best Coffee on certain military bases and in certain international markets. Please visit www.focusbrands.com to learn more.

SOURCE Moe's Southwest Grill

Related Links

http://www.moes.com


PHOENIX, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mosaic451, a bespoke cybersecurity services provider and consultancy, announced today that the company was awarded a contract for Technology Products and Related Services from the City of Charlotte, enabling the company to provide services to member of the Charlotte Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (CCPA), including various schools and government institutions.

Mosaic451 was selected by the CCPA to provide product and services including wireless communications equipment and peripherals, network hardware, COTS software, professional services, network services, and security services.

The contract was issued on behalf of the Charlotte Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (CCPA) through a group purchasing clause, which provides that any county, city, special district, local government, school district, private K-12 school, higher education institution (both public and private), technical or vocational school, state, other government agency or nonprofit organization may purchase products and services through this contract.

The contract allows Mosaic451 to provide product and services including wireless communications equipment and peripherals, network hardware, COTS software, professional services, network services, and security services. The initial contracts are 3 years, with two 1 year extensions totaling 5 years in duration. The CCPA allows other public agencies regionally and nationwide to use contracts competitively solicited and awarded by the City of Charlotte - all members of the CCPA can utilize the contract with Mosaic451 without the need for further solicitation.

"We've enjoyed a long-standing relationship providing security services to the City of Charlotte, and are gratified by the continual recognition of the value Mosaic451 provides," said Mike Baker, Mosaic451 Managing Director. "With this new contract, we look forward to bringing our unique and effective approach to security management to other institutions within the CCPA, utilizing the deep industry knowledge of our analysts and engineers to provide tailor security solutions for our clients."

The CCPA's Authorized MSSP

The Charlotte Cooperative Purchasing Alliance has selected Mosaic451 to provide and manage the following security services:

Aerohive

Arista

Carbon Black

CheckPoint

Crowdstrike

F5

Fortinet

Infoblox

LogRhythm

Netskope

Radware

Tanium

Zerto

Mosaic451 Security as a Service (MSSP)

Mosaic451 Network as a Service

Advanced Security, Experienced Service

Network hardware, identity engines, wireless networking products, and any network hardware/software products related to network security require extensive knowledge and expert service for proper deployment. Next generation and advanced network security products are essential technology for many government and education agencies, but without proper security services they may go under-utilized or perform sub-optimally. These products require expert related services to ensure the agency attains the desired business outcome and value for their investment.

Mosaic451 recognizes that while adoption of advanced and emerging technology is an important part of sound security strategy, no amount of technology can secure an environment without a strong foundation of smart, experienced, operationally minded humans to design, operate, and optimize the technology. Mosaic451's Hybrid solution combines 24/7 off-site monitoring with dedicated on-site personnel that act as a full security operations team to provide the most comprehensive level of information security.

Learn more about Mosaic451 at www.mosaic451.com.

About Mosaic451

Headquartered in Arizona, Mosaic451 is a bespoke cyber security service provider and consultancy with expertise in building, operating and defending some of the most highly-secure networks in North America. Its Mosaic Hybrid is an industry first solution, providing monitoring service through its operations centers as well as specialized staff onsite during business hours to work alongside clients' in house technology and security staff. This hybrid model gives Mosaic451 the unique ability to empower security analysts to provide advanced data analysis and determine threat vectors, threat actors, and intelligent root causes for every incident. Mosaic451 aggregates and empowers intelligent humans in the service of information security and IT operations excellence for our clients.

For more information, visit www.mosaic451.com.

Media Contact: Lisa Wang, [email protected], 1-888-317-4687 ext. 703

SOURCE Mosaic451, LLC

Related Links

http://www.mosaic451.com


BOULDER, Colo., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Undocumented immigrants are facing unprecedented challenges under President Trump's administration - and law enforcement officials are speaking out. Yesterday in Colorado, eight criminal justice system leaders, including the Boulder County District Attorney, Sheriff and five community Police Chiefs, stood in solidarity with six undocumented immigrants and performed monologues written by DREAMers in the play, "Do You Know Who I Am?" The stories delivered a message about what it's like to be an undocumented immigrant in the United States to a sold-out crowd.

"You don't know me. And yet all kinds of people, when they find out I was born in Mexico, they act like I'm a criminal. I am not a criminal," exclaimed Longmont Police Chief Mike Butler, reading a monologue written by DREAMer Hugo Juarez.

Motus Theater worked with undocumented community leaders to help them write and perform autobiographical monologues that were woven into the award-winning play.

"I am undocumented and unafraid," said activist Victor Galvan. "Having law enforcement publicly recognize the problems we face on a daily basis is incredible. I am honored they heard our voices and joined us in amplifying our message."

The law enforcement leaders hope that the performance will help build a bridge between them and an undocumented community that is growing increasingly fearful of the new administration's immigration policies and the officers who are enforcing them.

"It's really discouraging to see how the 2016 presidential election has hurt the immigrant community," said Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett. "We hope the performance will continue to send the message that if you're a human being, you deserve the protection of law enforcement - whether you have an irregularity in immigration status or not."

The performance was live streamed by more than 1,000 users on the Motus Theater and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition Facebook pages, creating a national dialogue about immigrant rights in the U.S. View the full performance here:

https://www.facebook.com/motustheater/videos/622621334615077/

About Motus Theater

Created by Kirsten Wilson and located in Boulder, Colorado, the mission of Motus Theater is to create original theater to facilitate dialogue on critical issues of facing society.

SOURCE Motus Theater
Published in European Heart Journal , the study aimed to determine the accuracy and reproducibility of three different heart measurements in a multicenter setting: left atrial (LA) volume, left ventricular (LV) volume and ejection fraction (EF). Researchers imaged 180 patients across six sites using 3DE with the Philips EPIQ ultrasound system. All images were analyzed using automated Philips HeartModel A.I software, which brings advanced quantification, automated 3D views and robust reproducibility to cardiac ultrasound imaging.

"The days of time-consuming, difficult collection and analysis of heart measurements are behind us," said Dr. Roberto Lang, professor of medicine and director of noninvasive cardiac imaging laboratories, University of Chicago Medicine. "The results of this study provide further evidence that 3DE technology like Philips HeartModelA.I. is the way forward for global health systems to save time and gather accurate data for quality care delivery to patients."

Current medical guidelines recommend 3DE chamber quantification for patients undergoing an echocardiography exam, but adoption in clinical practice has lagged due to time-consuming analysis that has traditionally been associated with the process. By showing that experienced readers in different parts of the world can obtain accurate and reproducible automated measurements of LVEDV, LVESV and LVEF with clinically non-significant differences, this research demonstrates that HeartModel A.I. is a time saving option that yields consistent, reproducible results across laboratories.

These findings could contribute to fuller integration of 3DE quantification into clinical routine. Automated 3DE provides a comprehensive picture of heart function with real-time results, which can help clinicians assess and diagnose patients quickly and confidently.

"It's exciting to see the impact of the Philips EPIQ system and HeartModelA.I. software at work around the world," stated Dr. Alexandra Goncalves, senior medical director, Cardiovascular Ultrasound, Philips. "With these tools, Philips is empowering clinicians with diagnostic confidence and facilitating wider adoption of innovative technology for cardiac imaging."

Philips HeartModelA.I. is designed to allow clinicians and researchers to quickly, easily and confidently assess disease states and determine treatment. Anatomical Intelligence is used in Philips imaging solutions such as EPIQ, Affiniti, and EchoNavigator. To learn more about AIUS and the full suite of Philips innovative ultrasound solutions, please visit http://www.philips.com/ultrasound or follow @PhilipsHealth.

For further information, please contact:

Alicia Cafardi

Philips Group Press Office

Mobile: +1 412 523 9616

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @aliciacafardi

Sarah Haeger

Philips Ultrasound

Mobile: +1 206-920-8726

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @sarahhaeger

About Royal Philips

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Philips' health technology portfolio generated 2016 sales of EUR 17.4 billion and employs approximately 71,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter.

SOURCE Royal Philips

Related Links

http://www.philips.com


HUNTSVILLE, Ala., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, invite media to learn the latest about work and testing underway on the Space Launch System, Orion spacecraft and other programs in Louisiana during NASA Day in Baton Rouge Thursday, May 4, at the State Capitol.

From 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. CDT, NASA team members and interactive exhibits in the rotunda and on the Capitol lawn will give the public a look at SLS -- the most powerful rocket in the world, designed to carry astronauts and equipment on exploration missions deeper into space than ever before. There also will be displays of other NASA projects and related educational initiatives at Louisiana universities and schools, including students' work on robotics and student teams' participation in NASA's Human Exploration Rover Challenge.

NASA leadership attending will include Marshall Center Director Todd May; astronaut Andrew Morgan, who is a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and emergency physician; and Michoud Deputy Chief Operating Officer Malcolm Wood. Throughout the day, they and other NASA representatives will meet with Louisiana state leaders, lawmakers and the public to recognize the space agency's enduring partnerships in Louisiana and the state's critical role in human space exploration.

For more than 50 years, Michoud has been NASA's rocket factory. The skilled workforce built the stages for the Saturn V rocket that took humans to the moon, and the space shuttle external tanks that helped our nation learn how to live and work in space for long periods of time. Today, that workforce is preparing our nation for the next giant leap as they build the SLS's 212-foot-tall, 27.6-foot-wide core stage -- the largest rocket stage ever built -- and the Orion spacecraft's pressure vessel that will be the home for the crew on missions into deep space, including Mars. Altogether, Michoud supports more than 5,000 jobs -- 3,500 people go to work at Michoud every day -- generating an economic impact of more than $800 million nationwide and $342 million for the regional economy, which includes more than $99 million in annual wages and benefits.

Media interested in interview opportunities or other information about NASA Day in Baton Rouge should contact Janet Anderson at [email protected] or 256-724-0314.

For more information about Michoud, visit:

www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/michoud

For more information about NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, visit:

www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall

Janet Anderson

Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama

256-724-0314

[email protected]

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


STERLING, Va., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Natural Insight, a leader in enterprise cloud and mobile applications for retail merchandising and workforce management, announced its new Workforce Health features, which help tackle one of the biggest challenges for employers: finding and retaining high-performing workers. Each worker in Natural Insight is now assigned a 1-5 Workforce Health score. The score uses a proprietary algorithm based on analysis of 34 million work assignments, as well as evaluates individual historical performance. With Workforce Health, employers can access metrics related to their workforce and analyze performance, engagement, and productivity trends in a sleek, visual dashboard.

"At Natural Insight, we strive to help our customers maximize sales revenue and build stronger relationships with consumers," said Stefan Midford, CEO of Natural Insight. "Identifying and retaining top talent is key. Our new Workforce Health capabilities combine staff performance with availability, skills, and proximity so that employers can assemble the best possible teams to drive ROI."

Employers can offer new assignments to workers based on their Natural Insight rating, which creates more opportunities for those who have a successful track record. In return, employers build better, more-effective teams and improve the quality of their field execution, translating to fewer store re-visits, improved compliance and an increase in sales. Workforce Health also lets employers measure how their hiring strategies are performing by providing visual data on hiring trends and turnover rates. With this information, employers can see if they are getting the most out of their recruitment dollars.

"This new performance rating system provides our staffing company with an unparalleled level of detail about our workforce," said Lisa Ritchie, VP Talent, North America, Match Marketing Group. "We are able to identify our field heroes and assemble the ultimate A-team  driving more value for our clients who count on us to recruit and manage workers across the U.S."

Natural Insight is the enterprise platform for delivering perfect execution through enhanced staff communication, on-demand staff scheduling, integrated timekeeping, project management and Reveal Analytics. With its mobile WorkTrak app, the company enables workers to be more productive, anywhere at anytime, creating a seamless field data collection experience. Benefits to companies include cloud-based technology that can be set-up in just days, robust reporting tools and a dedicated account manager for personalized customer support.

"In today's gig economy, using actual job data in addition to performance reviews to assess performance will be a game changer when building a reliable workforce. And we intend to deliver more innovation to the market in the coming year. With machine learning and predictive analytics, the possibilities are endless," added Midford.

With over 34 million assignments managed, Natural Insight has collected in-store execution information on behalf of hundreds of brands in over 120,000 stores across North America and around the world. Natural Insight is quickly becoming the industry's largest visual verification platform, with more than 1 million photos captured and verified monthly.

About Natural Insight

Merchandisers, product companies, marketing agencies and retailers in over 20 countries rely on the Natural Insight cloud-based platform to improve retail execution and reduce costs. Natural Insight leads the industry today with fully integrated mobile and Web-based staff scheduling, timekeeping, task management, field communications, and analytics. Natural Insight is privately held and headquartered in Sterling, Virginia with offices in Toronto, Canada, and Birmingham, England.

Visit naturalinsight.com for more information.

Media Contact:

Amanda Waks

Waks Studios

[email protected]

(561) 504-4997

Related Images

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image2.png

Related Links

Natural Insight

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com.

SOURCE Natural Insight

Related Links

https://www.naturalinsight.com


ALPHARETTA, Ga., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Neenah Paper, Inc. (NYSE: NP) announced today that its Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.37 per share on the company's common stock. The dividend will be payable on June 2, 2017 to shareholders of record as of close of business on May 12, 2017.

In addition, the company announced that its 2017 Annual Meeting of Shareholders will be held on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 at 10:00 a.m., Eastern Time. The Annual Meeting will be held at Neenah Paper's corporate office, located at 3460 Preston Ridge Road, Suite 600, Alpharetta, Georgia 30005. Common shareholders of record as of end of business on March 31, 2017 are eligible to vote at the meeting.

About Neenah Paper, Inc.

Neenah is a leading global specialty materials company, focused on premium niche markets that value performance and image. Key products and markets include advanced filtration media, specialized performance substrates used for tapes, labels and other products, and premium printing and packaging papers. The company is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia and its products are sold in over 80 countries worldwide from manufacturing operations in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom. Additional information can be found at the company's web site, www.neenah.com.

Contact: Neenah Paper, Inc.

Bill McCarthy

Vice President  Financial Analysis and Investor Relations

678-518-3278

SOURCE Neenah Paper, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.neenah.com


"Kiwi is an exciting new summer flavor that packs a punch," said Nicole Butcher, national marketing manager for Planet Smoothie. "Not only is the tangy and sweet taste of kiwi distinctive but the fruit also offers vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C, K, E as well as potassium and folate. We can't wait for our guests to go crazy over our new kiwi smoothies!"

Promotional Smoothies:

Sun-Kissed Kiwi  Kiwi, Strawberries, and Greek Yogurt

 Kiwi, Strawberries, and Greek Yogurt Easy Breezy Kiwi  Kiwi, Leafy Greens, Mango, Apple, and Greek Yogurt

 Kiwi, Leafy Greens, Mango, Apple, and Greek Yogurt Totally Tropical Kiwi  Kiwi, Pineapple, Greek Yogurt, and Chia Seeds

Guests can enjoy all three kiwi smoothies this summer beginning now through September 3, at participating Planet Smoothie locations.

About Planet Smoothie

Planet Smoothie, intent on redefining the smoothie category, is among the country's top smoothie concepts. The brand appeals to a demographic of loyal, active and occasion-driven customers who want to live a healthier lifestyle. Planet Smoothie offers real fruit smoothies with lower calorie, lower sugar, and higher protein options, giving customers a quick, portable snack or meal replacement. The brand's menu is organized into lifestyle categories to assist customers in finding the smoothie that helps them to achieve their personal goals, including protein, energy, and Planet Lite categories. The Planet Smoothie brand operates approximately 110 locations in over 20 states. In 2015, Planet Smoothie was acquired by Scottsdale, Arizona-based Kahala Brands, one of the fastest growing franchising companies in the world with a portfolio of 22 quick-service restaurant brands and approximately 2900 locations in 28 countries.

For more information about Planet Smoothie, Please visit: www.PlanetSmoothie.com.

For more information about Kahala Brands, please visit: www.KahalaBrands.com.

SOURCE Planet Smoothie

Related Links

http://www.planetsmoothie.com


LEAWOOD, Kan., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The industry experts at Retiree Income know that tax changes, like President Trump's newly proposed tax policy, can be frightening for Americans in or approaching retirement. They employed their innovative retirement income planning software to help Americans evaluate the implications of potential changes to the tax code proposed by President Trump.

Their interactive calculator called "The Trump Tax Test" allows Americans to enter in some simple details about their current retirement savings situation to receive a personalized report summarizing the impact of President Trump's proposed tax changes on their individual situation. The calculator is available to the public here: www.IncomeStrategy.com/Trump

"It's critical for Americans to assess how changes to the tax code, like President Trump's new proposal, will impact their retirement," said William Meyer, CEO, Retiree Income. "Taxes matter more in retirement than any other phase of life. The newly proposed tax changes represent a great opportunity for Americans to create a retirement income withdrawal strategy that can make their money last longer."

Retiree Income founders William Reichenstein, PhD, and William Meyer, CEO, built their retirement income planning tool around their research published in The Financial Analysts Journal, which demonstrates that conventional wisdom, used by all major financial services firms, is not the most tax-efficient. Conventional wisdom suggests that an investor should withdraw retirement funds from one account at a time moving to the next one after the previous is exhausted, starting with tax-deferred accounts and moving to tax-exempt accounts.

Their research demonstrates the most tax-efficient strategies take into account progressive tax rates, consider drawing from multiple accounts concurrently and use Roth conversions  all while taking advantage of years when the investor has lower marginal tax rates. The research shows that using these unconventional strategies can add years of portfolio longevity compared with a conventional strategy.

About Retiree Income

Retiree Income was founded on the belief that there is a better way to serve retirees or people getting ready to retireone that is smarter and more personalized. The company produces retirement income planning software for both financial professionals and consumers.

About William Meyer

Throughout his career, William Meyer has looked for new ways to deliver higher quality advice to people in retirement. He has a unique combination of experiences in leading the design and launch of innovative client centric services and products, as well as leveraging technology in service offerings.

Early in Bill's career, he learned financial planning techniques for the affluent, and has strived to apply those insights to all households regardless of wealth. He has a track record of successfully developing products and services in executive leadership roles at H&R Block, Advisor Software and Charles Schwab.

About William Reichenstein, PhD, CFA

Dr. William Reichenstein, CFA, holds the Pat and Thomas R. Powers Chair in Investment Management at Baylor University. His recent work concentrates on the interaction between investments and taxes. He is the author of In the Presence of Taxes: Applications of After-Tax Asset Valuations (FPA Press, 2008), and coauthored with William Jennings Integrating Investments & the Tax Code (John Wiley & Sons (2003).

SOURCE Retiree Income
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc., the leading education technology company for teaching, learning and student engagement, today unveiled Blackboard Classroom, a comprehensive solution designed to help K-12 schools and districts differentiate instruction, increase student engagement and boost teacher productivity.

Screenshots of Blackboard Classroom

Blackboard Classroom integrates a comprehensive set of learning tools that districts can use to create a rich digital learning environment and support differentiated instruction at scale. The modern learning management solution incorporates both synchronous and asynchronous learning and collaboration tools to promote digital literacy and college and career readiness. Specific components include:

A state-of-the-art, learning management system (LMS): Blackboard's LMS provides the foundation for personalized, competency-based, and mastery learning.

Blackboard's LMS provides the foundation for personalized, competency-based, and mastery learning. Cutting edge, HD video web-conferencing: A real-time collaboration platform helps districts cultivate digital collaboration and implement flipped learning.

A real-time collaboration platform helps districts cultivate digital collaboration and implement flipped learning. Interactive, rich digital content: Teachers have numerous options for engaging students with interactive content and a global, cross-platform learning object repository. The repository includes open education resources (OER) such as CK-12, Khan Academy, and SAS Curriculum Pathways, and gives users the ability to create and share content with a global network of educators.

Teachers have numerous options for engaging students with interactive content and a global, cross-platform learning object repository. The repository includes open education resources (OER) such as CK-12, Khan Academy, and SAS Curriculum Pathways, and gives users the ability to create and share content with a global network of educators. Mobile apps with responsive design for parents and students: Blackboard Classroom's mobile apps include fully interactive, offline access, helping to promote anytime, anywhere learning for students with or without Internet access.

Blackboard Classroom's mobile apps include fully interactive, offline access, helping to promote anytime, anywhere learning for students with or without Internet access. Class, school and district-level reporting: Administrators and educators are empowered to make informed, data-driven decisions with Blackboard Classroom's real-time analytics and data visualization that allow them to track, analyze and monitor learning performance.

Administrators and educators are empowered to make informed, data-driven decisions with Blackboard Classroom's real-time analytics and data visualization that allow them to track, analyze and monitor learning performance. Bi-directional student information system integration: Data flows seamlessly between Blackboard Classroom and student information systems to drive adoption, reduce the burden on information technology staff, and save time for teachers.

"With Blackboard Classroom, we have the data we need for making data-driven decisions. It gives us actionable data to make the program better," said Mike Agostinelli, Instructional Program Director at Montana Digital Academy. "We're using that data to keep refining and improving educational opportunities for students across Montana."

Blackboard Classroom saves school districts critical resources, time and energy so that administrators and educators can focus their efforts on their core mission of teaching and learning. As a fully cloud-based solution, Blackboard Classroom makes managing a digital learning environment stress-free and enables districts to benefit from innovation and enhancements without interruption to their schedule.

Blackboard Classroom integrates seamlessly with popular productivity tools such as Google, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Box. In addition, Blackboard Classroom includes full implementation services to drive successful adoption, with Blackboard experts providing training and expertise throughout the entire implementation process and after.

"Today's students and parents demand and deserve an education that is engaging, personalized and accessible," said Todd Schmid, Vice President of K-12 at Blackboard. "With its unique all-in-one design and robust set of learning tools, Blackboard Classroom will play a crucial role in helping school systems meet those expectations. We look forward to continuing to partner with innovative districts nationwide to create rich digital learning environments that meet the needs of every student."

To learn more about Blackboard Classroom, visit http://www.blackboard.com/k12/solutions/blackboard-classroom.aspx.

About Blackboard

Our mission is to partner with the global education community to enable learner and institutional success, leveraging innovative technologies and services. With an unmatched understanding of the world of the learner, the most comprehensive student-success solutions, and the greatest capacity for innovation, Blackboard is education's partner in change.

Contact:

Shawnee Cohn, Blackboard

202-303-9053 | [email protected]

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.

Related Links

http://www.blackboard.com


INDIANAPOLIS, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- One Click, an e-Commerce eyewear company in Greenwood, Indiana is honored to win 'Company Culture of the Year' for the 18th annual TechPoint Mira Awards presented by Angie's List, Genesys, and Salesforce.

TechPoint, the growth initiative for Indiana's technology ecosystem, produces the Mira Awards each year to honor the most innovative and successful technologies and technology companies in Indiana, as well as entrepreneurs and educators. Winners were announced during the annual Mira Awards gala at The Westin Indianapolis on April 29, 2017.

One Click applied for the TechPoint Mira Award for the 'Company Culture of the Year' category because One Click is a place that not only values their customers, but the amazing team members that call One Click home. As a company that truly values their culture and also being recognized previously by INC and Entrepreneur for their culture, One Click only seeks to inform their community and beyond of all they have to offer.

"I'm so proud of our team. One of the things we believe as a team at One Click is that culture is owned by every single team member so us receiving this award is a testament to our fantastic team. The ownership of our culture shows daily in the way we care about our mission, values, customers, community, and each other," Randy Stocklin, CEO and Co-Founder of One Click said.

A total of 15 award winners and three honorable mentions were chosen from the 90 outstanding companies, organizations, and individuals who were selected as nominees this year out of the 180 applications received highlighting achievements during the 2016 calendar year.

Fifty independent, volunteer judges spent more than 800 total hours reviewing and ranking applications, interviewing nominees, and selecting this year's winners. Judges included company founders, CEOs and presidents, CTOs, CIOs, software developers, and a variety of other entrepreneurs and subject matter experts.

The Mira AwardsIndiana's longest running technology awards programamplify success stories of some of the very best Indiana startups, scale-ups, and established tech companies, which helps them win new customers, attract investment capital, and acquire skilled talent. The Mira Awards are a large, annual part of TechPoint's mission to accelerate tech growth in Indiana.

"In just over a decade, Indiana has seen more than $6.5 billion in acquisitions and IPOs from our tech community. More recently, in 2016, two-thirds of all the venture capital dollars and three-quarters of all the deals raised in Indiana went to tech companies," said TechPoint President and CEO Mike Langellier. "The Mira Awards exist to celebrate our state's tremendous tech success stories and amplify them to media, investors and technology buyers nationwide."

A complete list of the 2017 TechPoint Mira Awards winners is available at www.techpoint.org/mira.

About One Click

In 2005, Randy and Angie Stocklin started One Click with the mission to be the world's most people-focused eyewear company. Now operating three brands with 55 employees: Readers.com, Sunglass Warehouse, and felix + iris, One Click has become a multi-million dollar e-tailer. One Click has been recognized for their strong core values and culture as one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana for four consecutive years.

For interviews with One Click, contact:

Katie Wenclewicz

317-215-6610

[email protected]

About TechPoint

TechPoint is the nonprofit, industry-led growth initiative for Indiana's technology companies and overall tech ecosystem. The team is focused on attracting talent, accelerating scale-up companies, activating the community, and amplifying stories of success. For more, visit www.techpoint.org.

SOURCE One Click

Related Links

https://www.oneclickventures.com


SOPHIA-ANTIPOLIS, France, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Orolia, the world leader in Resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) solutions, announced today the successful acquisition of Netwave Systems, a Netherlands-based company located in Zoetermeer. Netwave is a global leader in Voyage Data Recorders (VDRs) for the global maritime market, and is at the forefront of automated vessel monitoring and integrated safety services. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Netwave's location, near the port of Rotterdam, one of the world's busiest maritime hubs, cements Orolia's reach into the commercial maritime sector.

Netwave has been leading in the Voyage Data Recorder market since its first product introduction in 2006 and the acquisition of Rutter's VDR business in 2011. VDRs are mandated by the International Maritime Organization on-board every merchant vessel subject to the SOLAS Convention. Netwave's latest model VDR, the NW-6000, is the industry's most advanced product combining a state of the art data playback suite and new generation of hardware, which not only meets the required standards, but also offers vessel owners and operators advanced features for remote monitoring and optimisation of ship performance, via Netwave's unique SeaWise SaaS suite.

Together, Netwave and McMurdo, another Orolia brand, will work to enhance and integrate onboard safety equipment, simplify installations, lower through life support costs, and provide new and advanced tools for global vessel operations that can be tailored for a variety of vessel types, both in new building and retrofit. Netwave is well-known for its extensive global network of certified service agents, that supports its customers worldwide, throughout major shipping routes and ports, providing a high level of expertise and service. Combined with the McMurdo brand and global sales capability, and its world leading maritime safety product suites, Orolia becomes the premier global provider of intelligent and resilient safety applications for the maritime marketspace. This acquisition strengthens Orolia's offering today in line with its vision for the future.

"The acquisition of Netwave firmly establishes Orolia as a global leader in maritime safety and PNT solutions by combining Netwave's advanced VDR solution with McMurdo's globally recognized safety beacons, GMDSS shipsets, and AIS equipment," said Jean-Yves Courtois, CEO of Orolia. "We are on the cusp of bringing major advances to the world of maritime logistics, operations and safety."

For more information, visit: www.mcmurdogroup.com, www.orolia.com.

About McMurdo

McMurdo (www.mcmurdogroup.com), an Orolia brand, is a global leader in emergency readiness and response, with the only end-to-end solutions for search and rescue (SAR) and maritime domain awareness. Half of the world's SAR satellite ground infrastructure has been installed by McMurdo, and McMurdo has manufactured 25 percent of the world's 500,000 registered beacons. Hundreds of customers around the worldincluding NASA, NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard and others in the aerospace, defense and government sectorshave trusted McMurdo to prevent emergencies, protect assets and save more than 40,000 lives since 1982.

About Orolia

Orolia (www.orolia.com) is the world leader in resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solutions that improve the reliability, performance and safety of customers' critical, remote or high-risk operations. Through its leading Kannad, McMurdo, Sarbe, Spectracom and Spectratime brands, Orolia has more than 400 employees and sales presence in over 100 countries worldwide. Leading organizations including Airbus, NASA, Thales and Raytheon rely on Orolia for fail-safe GNSS and PNT products and solutions for their mission critical needs. Founded in 2006, Orolia has a global presence with offices in China, France, Russia, Switzerland, Singapore, India, the U.K. and the U.S.A.

About Netwave

NetWave Systems B.V. (www.netwavesystems.com) has been the original manufacturer of the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) and Simplified-Voyage Data Recorder (S-VDR) NW-4000 Series since 2006 and is a major supplier of both 'third party branded' VDR Systems as well as stand-alone FRM (final recording medium) Capsules to renowned OEM customers. As a marine IT and electronics development and manufacturing company, NetWave sources from production locations throughout Europe, ISO 9001:2008 certified and audited by the German Notified Body BSH ('Wheelmark') which has audited and approved NetWave's operations regularly. In May 2011, NetWave acquired the Voyage Data Recorder division of Rutter Inc., Canada and hence became the world's leading supplier of Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) and S-VDR solutions.

For European Press:

Jenny Walford or Sophie Foyle

ADPR on behalf of McMurdo

Tel: +44 (0)1460 241641

[email protected] / [email protected]

For U.S. Government and Defense Press:

Jennifer Hewitt

Boscobel Marketing Communications, Inc. on behalf of McMurdo

Mobile: +1 571-388-8671

[email protected]

For General Press Inquiries:

[email protected]

SOURCE Orolia

Related Links

http://www.orolia.com


NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of financial markets for 10,000 U.S. and global securities, today announced Private Bancorp of America, Inc. (OTCQX: PBAM), the holding company for San Diego Private Bank, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX Best Market. Private Bancorp of America upgraded to OTCQX from the OTCQB Venture Market.

Private Bancorp begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol "PBAM." U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com.

"We congratulate and are pleased to welcome Private Bancorp to the growing family of banks on OTCQX," said Jason Paltrowitz, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services at OTC Markets Group. "OTCQX provides banks an efficient, cost-effective public market to increase their visibility with shareholders through transparent trading, peer benchmarking and dedicated capital market support. We look forward to supporting Private Bancorp as it continues to grow."

"We are pleased to be a part of OTCQX," said Thomas V. Wornham, President and CEO of Private Bancorp of America, Inc. "With total assets over $500 million and market capitalization over $100 million, we are excited to continue our growth trajectory on the OTCQX market. We believe the additional exposure, accessibility and liquidity that OTCQX provides will benefit investors and company as we continue to grow."

Private Bancorp was sponsored for OTCQX by D.A. Davidson & Co., a qualified 3rd party firm responsible for providing guidance on OTCQX requirements and recommending membership.

Private Bancorp of America is the holding company for San Diego Private Bank. San Diego Private Bank provides a distinctly different banking experience through unparalleled service and creative funding solutions to high-net-worth individuals, professionals, locally-owned businesses and real estate entrepreneurs. Clients are serviced by experienced personal bankers through offices in Coronado, San Diego, La Jolla, Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, as well as efficient electronic banking offerings. The Bank also offers various portfolio and government guaranteed lending programs, including SBA and cross-border Export-Import Bank programs. San Diego Private Bank is an SBA Preferred Lender and provides a full array of sophisticated treasury management and deposit products.

About OTC Markets Group Inc.

OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM) operates the OTCQX Best Market, the OTCQB Venture Market, and the Pink Open Market for 10,000 U.S. and global securities. Through OTC Link ATS, we connect a diverse network of broker-dealers that provide liquidity and execution services. We enable investors to easily trade through the broker of their choice and empower companies to improve the quality of information available for investors.

To learn more about how we create better informed and more efficient markets, visit www.otcmarkets.com

OTC Link ATS is operated by OTC Link LLC, member FINRA/SIPC and SEC regulated ATS.

Subscribe to the OTC Markets RSS Feed

Media Contact:

OTC Markets Group Inc., +1 (212) 896-4428, [email protected]

SOURCE OTC Markets Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.otcmarkets.com


CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Permabit Technology Corporation will show its Permabit Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO) with patented deduplication, HIOPS Compression, and thin provisioning at Red Hat Summit 2017, held May 2-4 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Permabit will exhibit in the Storage Partner Showcase (Booth #206).

VDO is the only production-ready, modular data reduction solution for the Linux block storage stack. It is fully supported by Permabit on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is compatible with Red Hat Ceph Storage and Red Hat Gluster Storage. As a ready-to-run kernel module for Linux, VDO works transparently with Linux block devices and file systems across all types of storage, as well as a broad range of open-source and commercial software solutions. This unique block-level approach enables Permabit customers to leverage existing file systems, volume management, and data protection, as well as deliver 4 KB inline, high-performance data reduction to Linux storage environments both on-premises and in the cloud.

VDO is used by the world's largest financial and communications companies and large government agencies. VDO data reduction delivers dramatically better data density for public/private/hybrid cloud storage, reducing storage capacity consumption and service demands while delivering IT infrastructure operating costs that are up to six times lower.

Red Hat Summit is the premier open-source technology event to showcase the latest and greatest in cloud computing, platform, virtualization, middleware, storage, and systems management technologies. Thousands of attendees gain insight into topics such as big data, mobile, storage, Internet of Things, security, and DevOps in training sessions, technology sessions, hands-on labs, presentations, and professional networking opportunities.

For additional information on Red Hat Summit visit https://www.redhat.com/en/summit/2017

About Permabit

Permabit pioneers the development of data reduction software that provides data deduplication, compression, and thin provisioning. Our innovative products enable customers to get to market quickly with solutions that cut effective cost, accelerate performance, and gain a competitive advantage. Just as server virtualization revolutionized the economics of compute, Permabit software is transforming the economics of storage today.

Permabit is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts with operations in California, Korea, and Japan. For more information, visit www.permabit.com.

Follow Permabit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Permabit

And/or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/permabit

Judy Smith, JPR Communications, 818-798-1475, [email protected]

SOURCE Permabit Technology Corp.

Related Links

http://www.permabit.com


TYSONS, Va., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The President of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. which supports numerous national programs to help Veterans and their families; a young retired Corporal from Northern Virginia who returned from Afghanistan a quadriplegic and went on to co-found a rehabilitation center in Chantilly, VA. for other severely injured Veterans; and a woman from Chevy Chase, MD. who fought to help her husband recover his life after he suffered severe injuries on his fifth combat tour in Afghanistan are the honorees to be celebrated at the PenFed Foundation's 13th Annual Night of Heroes Gala on May 4, 2017.

Bob Carter, President of Toyota Motor Sales USA and Executive General Manager Corporal (Ret.) Josh Himan Captain Luis and Claudia Avila

Each year, this event recognizes outstanding individuals and organizations for their contributions to military personnel, Veterans and related causes. One of Washington's premier fundraising events for the military community, the Night of Heroes Gala raises on average well over $1 million in a single evening. All proceeds go towards supporting more than 35,000 Veterans each year.

This year's honorees will be recognized for inspiring other heroes:

Community Hero Award: Bob Carter, President of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. and Executive General Manager, Toyota Motor Corporation, who oversees Toyota and Lexus Brands in North America. Under Mr. Carter's leadership, Toyota has invested in numerous military community-based philanthropic programs, including the Toyota Veterans Association. Since 2010, the company has funded over 300 students and awarded over $1 million in scholarships to the children of Marines and Navy Corpsmen through their work with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. Mr. Carter helped establish a partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sponsor Hiring Our Heroes, a nationwide initiative to help Veterans, transitioning service members and military spouses find meaningful employment opportunities. In addition, Toyota is the National Host Sponsor of the National Veterans Wheelchair Games. [Bob Carter photo]

Military Hero Award: Corporal (Ret.) Joshua Himan. Corporal Himan is a Marine who was severely injured while deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom. His injuries resulted in him being paralyzed from the chest down. That has not stopped Corporal Himan from forging a new life back home in Northern Virginia that includes serving other severely injured Veterans. Corporal Himan co-founded the Driver Rehabilitation Center of Excellence in Chantilly, Va., which restores mobility and independence to severely wounded warriors and others through a comprehensive driving program. The Center incorporates the program Corporal Himan went through at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and includes customizing cars to meet individual mobility needs. Corporal Himan also works as a financial planner and is earning his second master's degree in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University. [Corporal Himan photo].

Hero at Home Award: Claudia Avila, wife and caregiver of severely wounded Army Captain Luis Avila. On his fifth deployment in Afghanistan in December 2011, Captain Avila lost his leg, fractured his spine, suffered two heart attacks and sustained a severe traumatic brain injury. Two weeks later, he arrived in the United States in a coma. Mrs. Avila was confronted with the decision whether or not to take her husband off of life support. Believing in her husband's ability to recover, she has helped him regain his sight, speech, limited mobility and life  while continuing to raise their three young sons. Captain Avila today continues his rehabilitation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda and Mrs. Avila's work as his caregiver continues as she takes her husband through each step of his day focused on her number one goal in life: to make him more comfortable and his life as normal as possible. She also serves as an advocate and voice to many other caregivers with similar situations. [Captain and Mrs. Avila photo].

"Our Nation's Defenders and their families continue to face many challenges long after they return home from service," said Tamara Darvish, PenFed Foundation President and PenFed Credit Union Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "The PenFed Foundation exists because there are critical needs facing our active military, our Veterans and their families that are not being met. We change lives every day by closing those gaps and making sure that a medical emergency does not turn into a financial crisis. We are grateful for the generous support the Foundation receives enabling us to deliver these critical programs."

Since it was founded in 2001, the PenFed Foundation has provided more than $30 million of financial support to active military personnel, Veterans and their caregivers. To learn more about the PenFed Foundation and see a short video about its mission, please visit The PenFed Foundation's website .

The Commander Sponsor of this year's gala is PSCU, which donated $100,000.

The black tie event takes place at Trump International Hotel. More information is available at PenFedFoundation.org/2017Gala.

About the PenFed Foundation

Founded in 2001, the PenFed Foundation is a national nonprofit organization committed to helping members of our military community secure their financial future. It provides service members, Veterans, their families and support networks with the skills and resources they need to improve their lives through programs on financial education, credit-building, home ownership, and short-term assistance. Affiliated with PenFed Credit Union, the Foundation has the resources to effectively reach military communities across the nation, build strong partnerships, and engage a dedicated corps of volunteers in its mission. The credit union funds the Foundation's personnel and most operational costs, demonstrating its strong commitment to the programs the Foundation provides. To learn more, visit: www.penfedfoundation.org.

SOURCE PenFed Foundation

Related Links

http://www.penfedfoundation.org


SC State Housing partners with local lenders, such as PrimeLending, to provide the SC Mortgage Tax Credit Program (MCC Program). This program, also known as the Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC), provides a federal income tax credit 2 to qualified homebuyers of up to $2,000 per calendar year for every year they occupy the home as their primary residence.

This program helps South Carolina homebuyers make their mortgages more affordable and helps them save thousands of dollars each year that would have otherwise been paid in taxes.

"It is a privilege to be associated with outstanding assistance programs like the SC Mortgage Tax Credit Program," said Karen Blakeslee, Eastern Division Executive Vice President for PrimeLending. "Helping families establish roots as homeowners is something we approach with great responsibility, and working with homebuyers throughout South Carolina is an especially rewarding experience for us."

For more information on home loan options in South Carolina, please contact a PrimeLending loan officer at a branch near you.

About PrimeLending

PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company, is a national residential mortgage originator. In the last four consecutive years, PrimeLending was listed as a top 10 mortgage lender in the nation in purchase units.* Offering fixed-rate, adjustable-rate, FHA, VA, USDA and jumbo home loans, refinancing and relocation programs, PrimeLending is authorized to make loans in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Founded in 1986, PrimeLending is a member of the Hilltop Holdings Inc. (NYSE: HTH) family of companies. More information at PrimeLending.com. More information at PrimeLending.com.

1 South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority news release, 04/20/2017.

2PrimeLending is not authorized to give tax advice. Please consult your tax adviser for tax advice for your specific situation.

* Ranked by Marketrac for purchase units nationally for Jan.-Dec. 2012 - 2016. Equal Housing Lender. All loans subject to credit approval. Rates and fees subject to change. Mortgage financing provided by PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company (NMLS No.: 13649).

PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company (NMLS: 13649) is a wholly owned subsidiary of a state-chartered bank and is an exempt lender in SC.

 2017 PrimeLending a PlainsCapital Company

About South Carolina State Housing Finance & Development Authority

The South Carolina State Housing Finance & Development Authority is dedicated, committed, and competent public servants. We are visionary, creative, and open to change. We constantly seek to improve our knowledge and ability to serve our customers. Professionalism, Quality, and Innovation are the hallmarks of SC State Housing.

SOURCE PrimeLending

Related Links

http://www.primelending.com


NEW YORK, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area.

You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network  it's easy and free! Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform

EXPERT ALERTS

NAFTA and Trump's Calls for Renegotiations

President Trump's Tax Reform Proposal

Are Ivanka and Jared Trapped in the Trump Family Business?

Screening Graphic/Offensive Video Content on Facebook

Entry-Level Careers for the Class of 2017

How United Airlines' Path to Reputation Ruin Can Be Turned Around

MEDIA JOBS

Capital Markets Reporter  Debtwire

Reporter, Washington Newsletter  The Wall Street Journal

Reporter  The Bond Buyer

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES

How to Get Policy News on PR Newswire for Journalists

How the AP Fights Fake News

Behind the Headlines, With Tim Race

EXPERT ALERTS:

NAFTA and Trump's Calls for Renegotiations

Raj Bhala

Associate Dean for International and Comparative Law, Rice Distinguished Professor

University of Kansas School of Law

Bhala is available to discuss President Trump's calls to renegotiate NAFTA, threats to terminate the agreement and related trade issues: "NAFTA has become a pillar of the American economy and stands as one of the broadest, deepest free-trade agreements in human history. One way to appreciate its significance is to see it in the light of the long, uneasy history of U.S.-Mexican relations and swings in Mexican economy policy through much of the 20th century. Another, 21st century, way to think about NAFTA is to realize that America, Canada and Mexico already spent eight years rewriting and modernizing it  it's called TPP. Unilateral threats of withdrawal or demands for renegotiations risk triggering yet more protectionist moves across the globe."

Bhala is author of dozens of journal articles and books, including "TPP Objectively: Law, Economics, and National Security of History's Largest, Longest Free Trade Agreement," "Modern GATT Law" and "Understanding Islamic Law (Shari'a)."

Contact: Mike Krings, [email protected]





President Trump's Tax Reform Proposal

Robert Duquette

Professor of Practice in Accounting

Lehigh University

Duquette is available to discuss President Trump's tax reform proposal, as well as the House proposal and the need for tax reform: "President Trump's plan consists of three individual tax brackets: 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent; and a doubling of the standard deduction. That would mean, for example, the first $24,000 of a couple's taxable income would be exempt from taxes. The House's version also provides for new, higher combined exemption deductions of $12,000 for singles ($18,000 with children), and $24,000 for couples filing jointly, and consists of three tax rates: 12 percent, 25 percent and 33 percent. Who benefits the most from these plans? The Tax Foundation projects that taxpayers would see an average increase in their after-tax income of between 1 percent and 10 percent in total over 10 years. However, the top 1 percent would benefit the most, with the wealthiest taxpayers seeing an increase in their after-tax income of 5 percent to 20 percent. What is the impact on economic growth and the national debt? A significant part of the cost would be offset by broadening the tax base through elimination of many deductions and credit, loss of business interest deductibility, loss of the domestic manufacturing deduction, and possibly a tax on some type of imports. All independent analyses of the proposals indicate there would probably be trillions of dollars added to the federal debt over the next 10 years. I'm not optimistic of passage of this tax reform in Congress. Even if it does pass, no reputable study has yet suggested it can help mitigate the growth in the national debt from the present $20 million to $30 trillion over the next 10 years."

In addition to teaching taxation and accounting, Duquette is a CPA and has worked in tax and audit advising for three decades.

Blog: http://cbe.lehigh.edu/blog

Bio: http://cbe.lehigh.edu/faculty/accounting/robert-duquette

Contact: Amy White, [email protected]





Are Ivanka and Jared Trapped in the Trump Family Business?

Dr. Michael A. Klein

Psychologist, Consultant

MK Insights LLC, Massachusetts

"As in any family business, being a family member can be extremely complicated emotionally. Even thinking of a possible exit or significant role change can be overwhelming because of guilt, obligation, fear, and myriad other underlying reasons."

Dr. Klein is available to speak to how and why children get trapped in their family businesses and some of the potential emotional issues facing the Trump children. He is author of "Trapped in the Family Business: A practical guide to understanding and managing this hidden dilemma," and is approaching 20 years of experience as a human resources professional and organizational consultant.

Website: http://www.trappedinfambiz.com

Expert Contact: [email protected]





Screening Graphic/Offensive Video Content on Facebook

Jeremy Littau, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Journalism and Communication

Lehigh University

In the past three weeks, two suicides and two murders have been broadcast via Facebook Live or posted to Facebook after. Littau is available to discuss how instances of graphic/offensive video content can be screened on Facebook: "In some ways this is a problem of technology. Instant video and live video are here to stay, for better or worse, and Facebook has to compete in that reality. They certainly could require a human to watch every video before it's approved for posting, but that is unrealistic and the audience that is used to instant gratification on what they post would not stand for it. I know Facebook is testing AI to look for offensive content at the point of upload, but it's important to be realistic about the imperfections of this technology. We are stuck with a collaboration between their content standards team and public reporting for the near future. But, in that sense, Facebook is acknowledging that indeed it has a responsibility to come up with better strategies to monitor offensive or illegal content. For all the company's problems and missteps over the years, to its credit Facebook has tried to attack this problem head on."

Based in Bethlehem, Pa., Littau is the author of "Up, Periscope: Mobile Streaming Video Technologies, Privacy in Public, and the Right to Record."

Website: http://www.lehigh.edu

Contact: Lauren Stralo, [email protected]





Entry-Level Careers for the Class of 2017

Brian Weed

CEO

GradStaff, Inc.

Weed is available to share insights on the top industries hiring new grads now, based on GradStaff's candidate and client research, as well as commentary related to the entry-level hiring landscape for both grads and the companies that want to hire them. "The Class of 2017 will enter the strongest entry-level job market in years, particularly in industries dealing with an aging workforce and retiring baby boomers. But companies in these industries need new strategies to recruit and retain the best young men and women for the job."

Weed is CEO of GradStaff, a national career matchmaking firm specializing in entry-level recruitment and hiring. He is an experienced business leader with nearly 30 years of experience helping companies of all sizes boost revenue and improve processes as well as outcomes, particularly in the higher education market.

GradStaff is seeing a number of trends at work in the hiring economy this year  particularly a dire need for "aging" industries like insurance, health care and logistics to hire and cultivate future leaders at the entry level  contributing to a robust and competitive job market for spring grads. Liberal arts grads continue to be in high demand. Academics and business leaders alike  including billionaire Mark Cuban  are now touting the ascendance of liberal arts grads in the workforce as automation continues to transform the labor market. Transferable skills may be the upside of underemployment. It's a classic "chicken or the egg" story for entry-level job seekers: How can I land my first job when job descriptions ask for previous experience in the field? Despite several years of data showing significant underemployment among recent college grads, there may be a silver lining: these are now "experienced" workers who can transfer their workplace skills to a professional setting.

ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/brianweed/

Contact: David Hlavac, [email protected]





How United Airlines' Path to Reputation Ruin Can Be Turned Around

Ryan McCormick

Reputation Management Specialist and Co-Founder

"The tsunami of negative press United Airlines has experienced in the past month is causing short- and long-term damage to its reputation and brand. Here are three things have been toxic to United Airlines: 1) Passenger David Dao's violent removal from a United Airlines flight; 2) UA receives the lowest domestic airline raking in 2017 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI); 2) This week's report of UA being number one in animal deaths. United Airlines doesn't have to stay on the path to reputation ruin. They can take some actions to reverse their course, though nothing is guaranteed. Here are a few suggestions: 1) Munoz has to go. He may be incredibly skilled and his overall tenure may have been financially healthy for UA; however, he needs to be removed. Between Munoz's tone-deaf responses and the fact these events have all happened on his watch means that Munoz has become an albatross to UA's reputation. 2) Purge employees with poor behavioral histories. Any UA employee that deals with the public should be courteous, patient, and respectful. Employees who deal with the public that have had questionable behavioral issues in the past should either be immediately terminated or transferred to a division that doesn't engage the public. 3) UA should hire a new PR team. There are many respectable PR agencies that have the talent, passion, and enthusiasm to take on the task of rebuilding UA's reputation. They need a fresh perspective. 4) Customer service needs to be top priority. If UA retrains their employees to treat each customer like gold (waive certain fees, be extra polite), it can go a long way. It would be wise for UA to meet with and learn from the Marriott Corporation, the leading innovators of excellent service. 5) New UA contract with customers. Have UA's new CEO issue a list of 10 new commitments of how the airline will treat customers going forward. Put this list of new commitments on every airline seat. Albert Einstein once said, 'No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.' This is the PR crossroads where United Airlines currently stands."

Website: www.goldmanmcormick.com

Expert Contact: [email protected]





****************

MEDIA JOBS:

Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/community/jobs/

Capital Markets Reporter  Debtwire

Reporter, Washington Newsletter  The Wall Street Journal

Reporter  The Bond Buyer

*****************

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES:

Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line.

HOW TO GET POLICY NEWS ON PR NEWSWIRE FOR JOURNALISTS. While President Donald Trump continues to spar with news agencies about White House coverage, PR Newswire has a massive collection of releases to help fill out stories. Hundreds of news releases cross the newswire each day, discussing everything from the president's agenda to folks who support his work  and others who don't. Read more: http://bit.ly/2oY3eV3

continues to spar with news agencies about White House coverage, PR Newswire has a massive collection of releases to help fill out stories. Hundreds of news releases cross the newswire each day, discussing everything from the president's agenda to folks who support his work  and others who don't. Read more: http://bit.ly/2oY3eV3 HOW THE AP FIGHTS FAKE NEWS. Information is everywhere. How is the average news consumer supposed to separate fact from fiction? That's where the Associated Press steps in. The AP has been a paragon of neutrality and fact-based content for 171 years, but only recently has it gotten attention specifically for the work it is doing to rid the world of misinformation, one piece of news at a time. What started as a fact-checking mission to validate information presented by newsmakers has migrated into an organization-wide effort to verify reported or shared news stories that appear to have bad information: http://prn.to/2pldN8B

BEHIND THE HEADLINES, WITH TIM RACE. Over the past 27 years, Tim Race became a veteran at the New York Times , serving in a variety of roles, including energy, autos and transportation editor. A few months ago, Race made the jump from journalism to a career in PR. We sat down with Rice to discuss his transition to PR, using the full array of purchased, earned, sponsored and owned media platforms to help clients tell stories, and building your personal brand to work your way up: http://cisn.co/2pl6dee

PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire.

SOURCE ProfNet

Related Links

http://www.profnet.com


LAKE FOREST, Calif., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PSSC Labs, a developer of custom HPC and Big Data computing solutions, today announced it now offers the option of complete flash storage for its CloudOOP 12000 enterprise server, built specifically for Hadoop. The faster storage option means PSSC Labs can now offer increased data analytics speeds and improved performance, making the CloudOOP 12000 the ideal enterprise Hadoop solution.

The CloudOOP 12000 now supports all flash storage that can replace the disk drives shown here, maintaining the CloudOOP 12000's innovative design while delivering even faster analytics.

The CloudOOP 12000 now supports the new Micron 5100 series Solid State SATAIII (SSDs), with up to 14 x Micron SSDs (2 drives dedicated for operating system and 12 drives for data storage). The all flash storage option provides durability, reliability, and faster performance at a price point that makes the technology affordable to more enterprise users. The Micron SSD's offer faster speeds that traditional non-flash storage, and when combined with the CloudOOP 12000's made for Hadoop server, can achieves near real time performance for data analytics.

Using the largest capacity Micron SSDs, the CloudOOP 12000 can support up to 96 TBs of storage and is tailored to meet the needs of read-intensive video streaming, latency-sensitive transactional databases and write-intensive logging applications. It also makes an excellent platform for edge computing with the ability to consume large amounts of data very quickly from IOT devices and sensors.

The CloudOOP 12000 is the only server specifically designed for Hadoop, Kafka, Big Data and IOT. It offers 2x the density and up to 35% lower power draw than traditional manufacturers as well as a near 50% increase in data throughput performance. Reducing power draw means a lower data center footprint and significantly reducing your total cost of ownership with an over 90% efficiency rating.

"The CloudOOP1200 is PSSC Lab's unique platform for enterprise users using applications like Hadoop, Spark, Kafka Streaming. PSSC Labs has already successfully deployed over 100 PBytes for Hadoop using the CloudOOP 12000 platform, and after stringent review of the SSD options on the market, we've certified of Micron's new 5100 series of SSDs, which will allow us to offer our customers a high capacity, high performance, durable system with the absolute lowest cost of ownership, "said Alex Lesser, Vice President of PSSC Labs.

Micron 5100 Series SSD Features include

High Capacity

Unique range of solutions with up to 8TB of storage in a 2.5-inch form factor and 2TB in an M.2

High Performance

Three models optimized for varying workloads with consistent, steady state random writes at 74,000 IOPS.

Secure Encryption

Built-in AES-256-bit encryption and TCG Enterprise protection with FIPS 140-2 validation - available on the 5100 MAX.

Greater Flexibility

Micron's FlexPro firmware architecture can be used to actively tune capacity to optimize drive performance and endurance

Best Reliability

Unmatched 99.999%2 quality of service (QoS) compared to spinning media. MTTF of 2 million device hours



CloudOOP 12000 Features Include

High Processing Power

The CloudOOP 12000 supports up to 2 x Intel Xeon E5 Series processors & up to 256GB high performance memory  get higher performance and reduced computing time

Direct Connect IO technology

Unique design gives each hard drive its own independent path to the motherboard  removing unnecessary components that restrict data pathways and improving data ingestion & IO rates.

Connectivity Options

GigE, 10GigE, 40GigE and Infiniband network connectivity options available. Dual GigE network bandwidth comes standard, with addition network adapters from Intel, Mellanox, Solarflare and others available.

Operating System Compatibility

Supports Microsoft Windows, Red Hat, CentOS, Ubuntu & most other Linux distributions.

All CloudOOP 12000 server configurations service and support from PSSC Lab's US based, expert in house engineers. Prices for a custom CloudOOP 12000 server start at $5000.

For more information see http://www.pssclabs.com/products/big-data/hadoop/high-density-hadoop-server/.

About PSSC Labs

For technology powered visionaries with a passion for challenging the status quo, PSSC Labs is the answer for hand-crafted HPC and Big Data computing solutions that deliver relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership. All products are designed and built at the company's headquarters in Lake Forest, California. For more information, 949-380-7288, www.pssclabs.com , [email protected] .

Media Contact:

Lisa Wang, [email protected], 888-317-4687 ext 702

SOURCE PSSC Labs

Related Links

http://www.pssclabs.com


MADISON, N.J. and VANCOUVER, Wash., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, and PeaceHealth, a mission-based not-for-profit healthcare system, today announced that they have completed a previously announced two-part agreement designed to enhance the delivery of innovative, convenient and high-value diagnostic information services to communities in Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

This includes the acquisition by Quest Diagnostics of the outreach laboratory services of PeaceHealth Laboratories serving physicians and patients in Washington and Oregon. Quest also now begins to manage 11 laboratories serving PeaceHealth's medical centers in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. PeaceHealth will continue to own the laboratories, which will be staffed, in part, by employees of PeaceHealth.

As a result, physicians and patients will benefit from access to a broader range of testing services that includes advanced diagnostic capabilities only provided by Quest Diagnostics as well as an expanded network of patient service centers and other specimen collection sites in the region.

About Quest Diagnostics

Quest Diagnostics empowers people to take action to improve health outcomes. Derived from the world's largest database of clinical lab results, our diagnostic insights reveal new avenues to identify and treat disease, inspire healthy behaviors and improve health care management. Quest annually serves one in three adult Americans and half the physicians and hospitals in the United States, and our 43,000 employees understand that, in the right hands and with the right context, our diagnostic insights can inspire actions that transform lives. www.QuestDiagnostics.com.

50th Anniversary: In 2017, Quest Diagnostics celebrates 50 years of life-changing results. To learn about our legacy of accomplishments and quest to improve healthcare in the future, visit www.QuestDiagnostics.com/50Years

About PeaceHealth

PeaceHealth, based in Vancouver, Wash., is a not-for-profit Catholic health system offering care to communities in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. PeaceHealth has approximately 16,000 caregivers, a group practice with about 900 providers, a laboratory system, and 10 medical centers. PeaceHealth was founded in 1890 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace to fill a need for health care services in the Pacific Northwest. The Sisters shared financial and personnel resources to open new hospitals. They shared expertise and transferred wisdom from one medical center to another, always finding the best way to serve the unmet need for health care in their communities. Today, PeaceHealth is the legacy of the founding Sisters and continues with a spirit of collaboration and stewardship in fulfilling its mission. This is The Spirit of Health.

Quest Contacts

Wendy Bost (Media): 973-520-2800

Shawn Bevec (Investors): 973-520-2900

PeaceHealth Media Contact

Marcy I. Marshall : 732-762-2354 (mobile)

SOURCE Quest Diagnostics

Related Links

http://www.questdiagnostics.com


Federal investment in cancer research has played a role in every major innovation in the fight against cancer and has led to a decline in the overall number of cancer deaths in the United States, yet funding for cancer research is under threat. The President's proposed 2018 budget would cut $6 billion from the $32 billion earmarked for NIH, which could lead to a roughly 20 percent cut in the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) budget. This drastic cut would derail the progress toward improved outcomes for cancer patients and cause leading scientists to leave the cancer research field. Cuts also would erase the commitment Congress made in late 2016 by passing the 21st Century Cures Act, which was widely-supported, bipartisan legislation that pledged nearly $5 million in additional support for the NIH.

"There are more than two hundred types of cancer, and only through research can we learn which treatments, including radiation therapy, will be most effective to fight the many different forms of this illness. We ask that Congress reject proposed cuts to federal cancer research funding and instead support an increase in the budget to eradicate cancer," said Brian Kavanagh, MD, MPH, FASTRO, president of ASTRO and chair of the department of radiation oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

As Congress and the administration debate the future of American health care, ASTRO members are encouraging policymakers to prioritize reforms that avoid coverage disruptions for cancer patients. Studies have demonstrated that a lack of adequate health insurance leads to delayed diagnosis and treatment, resulting in higher mortality rates. Inadequate coverage also leads to higher costs that are felt throughout the economy. ASTRO strongly supports bipartisan solutions that protect cancer patients from losing their health insurance or not being approved for coverage following a cancer diagnosis, including maintaining bans on pre-existing condition exclusions and annual and lifetime caps; preserving guaranteed issue and guaranteed renewability provisions; and safeguarding access to clinical trials.

ASTRO members also are urging Congress to protect access to care by stabilizing Medicare reimbursement rates and fully supporting the transition to a health system that rewards quality over quantity. Congress unanimously passed the Patient Access and Medicare Protection Act in 2015, freezing payment rates for key radiation treatment services in freestanding clinics through 2018 at levels set in 2016 and requiring the Secretary of HHS to report to Congress on the development of alternative payment models (APMs) in radiation oncology. With the support of key Congressional leaders, we have much-needed stability in radiation oncology payments, and ASTRO has been working on the development of an APM that incentivizes adherence to nationally-recognized clinical guidelines through an episode-based payment framework across five primary cancer sites: breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, and head and neck. Radiation oncologists are on Capitol Hill to remind Congress of the multidisciplinary nature of cancer care and call for the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the nationwide transition to value-based health care.

"When Medicare inappropriately ratchets down on payments for cancer treatments, it jeopardizes whether patients have access to the care they need," said David C. Beyer, MD, FASTRO, chair of the ASTRO Board of Directors and medical director of Cancer Centers of Northern Arizona at Sedona. "In the past decade, radiation oncologists in community-based practices have sustained as much as a 20 percent drop in their Medicare payments. We're urging Congress to prevent additional cuts and support physician-led efforts to drive value-based care."

Finally, ASTRO members are advocating to preserve access to radioactive isotopes. Any effort to abandon radioactive source-based technology in health care would limit patients' access to certain radiation therapy treatments, which could interfere with treatment decisions and result in higher mortality and recurrence rates. A recent Nuclear Regulatory Commission analysis found no violations with safety or security consequences over the past 30 years, demonstrating the culture of safety and security among domestic radioisotope users. Moreover, radiation oncologists and medical physicists receive extensive training in the safe use and security of radioactive isotopes. ASTRO members are urging Congress to reject attempts to limit access to radioactive isotopes and promote policies that enhance the safe and effective use of these materials.

ABOUT ASTRO

ASTRO is the premier radiation oncology society in the world, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals who specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. As the leading organization in radiation oncology, the Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes three medical journals, International Journal of Radiation Oncology  Biology  Physics (www.redjournal.org), Practical Radiation Oncology (www.practicalradonc.org) and Advances in Radiation Oncology (www.advancesradonc.org); developed and maintains an extensive patient website, RT Answers (www.rtanswers.org); and created the Radiation Oncology Institute (www.roinstitute.org), a nonprofit foundation to support research and education efforts around the world that enhance and confirm the critical role of radiation therapy in improving cancer treatment. To learn more about ASTRO, visit www.astro.org.

Contact: Liz Gardner

703-286-1600

[email protected]



Leah Kerkman Fogarty

703-839-7336

[email protected]

SOURCE American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)

Related Links

https://www.astro.org


CLEVELAND, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Know a graduate who is ready to grab that diploma and get down to business at their first post-college job? Based on results of 2016 Experian survey, it might make sense to schedule a last-minute study group on the topic of personal finance.

The Experian research highlights a sobering dichotomy: While 69 percent of those surveyed said they have student loan debt, 70 percent said their alma maters don't do enough to prepare them for real-world personal finance. KeyBank research shows similar concerns  nearly 20 percent of those surveyed know their financial goals, but are not confident they know how to reach those goals.

To help bridge the personal finance confidence gap, KeyBank offers the following insight to college graduates (and their parents, guardians and others):

Build a budget

That first full-time job paycheck might look like a lot of money to recent graduates more accustomed to managing pay from part-time, campus and summer jobs. Now's the time to build a budget that takes into account all new economic realities including student loan payments, rent, utilities, transportation costs, career clothing, insurance and food.

"At this stage in life, budgeting really begins with knowing your take-home income, your student loan debt and then making lifestyle choices that keep expenses within 90 percent of that income," said Stephen D. Fournier, KeyBank Central New York market president and regional network deposits sponsor.

Establish a savings strategy

"At KeyBank, we believe small steps can add up to big differences, and that's certainly very true with savings," Fournier said. He recommends a three-pronged approach to savings that provides for short-term goals, long-term goals and saving for retirement.

"Start to build your emergency savings with a goal of saving enough money to cover three to six months in living expenses. That way, you won't have to rely on credit cards to cover a major unexpected expense such as a car repair," Fournier said. Establish a second account for long-term goals such as home down payments, down payments on vehicles and travel.

Next up is a retirement savings plan. Take full advantage of employers' 401K plans by allocating at least enough to qualify for any available 401K employer match, and then making a commitment to increase that contribution by 1 percent every year until you're saving 10 to 15 percent of your salary.

"Investing sooner rather than later, whether it's in your retirement account, or in addition to retirement, is the single most effective way to be more confident about your personal finances," said Marc Vosen, president of Key Investment Services. "Time is the one thing you cannot get back, and time has a major impact on investment results. Young investors need to understand the effect of compounding and how a small investment, over time, can go a long, long way."

When it comes to credit, know the score

Like investing, there's no time better than right now to start managing credit, whether that means managing a credit score or managing credit card debt.

"People talk about good credit and bad credit, but it's really a question of managing credit rather than categorizing it," said Gary Chavoustie, KeyBank Connecticut market regional sales leader and regional network consumer loans sponsor.

Establishing and managing a credit score is important for college graduates, as credit scores can affect their ability to rent housing, access utilities or eventually obtain a low-interest loan for major purchases.

And good credit scores begin with managing credit payments, including student loan payments and credit card debt, by paying bills on time and keeping any credit card debt at a minimum.

"Credit cards are a useful personal finance tool. They are not, however, the entire tool kit. Think of credit cards as something you use on as-needed basis, with need defined as a large, one-time expense you will pay off promptly," he said.

About Key

KeyCorp's roots trace back 190 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $134.5 billion at March 31, 2017. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, insurance, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of more than 1,200 branches and more than 1,500 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications, and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

KEY MEDIA NEWSROOM: Key.com/newsroom

SOURCE KeyCorp

Related Links

http://www.key.com


BELOIT, Wis., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark J. Gliebe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Regal Beloit Corporation (NYSE: RBC), announced that the Board of Directors, at its regular quarterly meeting held on April 30, 2017, declared a dividend of $0.26 per share. The dividend represents an 8% increase and is payable on July 14, 2017, to shareholders of record at the close of business on June 30, 2017. This is the 228th consecutive quarterly dividend declared by the Company and is the 8th consecutive annual increase.

"Our business continues to generate strong operating cash enabling us to reinvest in the business, pursue strategic growth opportunities and return capital to shareholders. Over the last three years we have returned over $120 million to our shareholders through regular quarterly dividends," said Regal Chairman and CEO Mark Gliebe.

Regal Beloit Corporation (NYSE: RBC) is a leading manufacturer of electric motors, electrical motion controls, power generation and power transmission products serving markets throughout the world. The company is comprised of three business segments: Commercial and Industrial Systems, Climate Solutions and Power Transmission Solutions. Regal is headquartered in Beloit, Wisconsin, and has manufacturing, sales and service facilities throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit RegalBeloit.com.

SOURCE Regal Beloit Corporation

Related Links

http://www.regal-beloit.com


TAMPA, Fla., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EY today announced that Brian Murphy, CEO and founder of ReliaQuest, is a finalist for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 Award in Florida. The awards program, which is celebrating its 31st year, recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Murphy was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a gala on June 23 at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate.

Brian Murphy is founder and CEO of ReliaQuest, a leading IT security company based in Tampa, Fl.

It is an honor to have been nominated and selected as a finalist for this prestigious award, Murphy said. Not only do the team members at ReliaQuest have world-class talent and experience, but their attitude, energy, and effort is the driving force to our success as an organization. It is impressive to see what you can accomplish when you combine those qualities with an exceptional customer base and a rapidly evolving industry. I truly believe we are just getting warmed up at ReliaQuest, and I am excited for the future.

Under Murphy's leadership, ReliaQuest took an inflexible, outsourced IT security model and created a fully customized solution through co-management. Since its founding in 2007, ReliaQuest has grown into one of the leading providers of co-management for some of the most recognizable corporations in the world. ReliaQuest serves a growing number of customers from the company's two Security Operations Centers  at its headquarters in Tampa, FL, and at its second location in Las Vegas, NV. Its success has been recognized by industry analysts, technology providers, independent news publications, higher education partners, and state and federal government entities, including the Governor of the State of Florida and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Now in its 31st year, EY's Entrepreneur Of The Year program has expanded to recognize business leaders in over 145 cities and more than 60 countries throughout the world.

Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National competition. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced at the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards gala in Palm Springs, California, on November 18, 2017. The awards are the culminating event of the Strategic Growth Forum, the nation's most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.

Sponsors

Founded and produced by Ernst & Young LLP in the US, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are nationally sponsored in the US by SAP America, Merrill Corporation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

In Florida, sponsors also include PNC Bank and Vaco.

About ReliaQuest

ReliaQuest advances the delivery, reliability and outcomes of IT security. Founded in 2007 and serving Fortune 2000 enterprises across diverse industries, ReliaQuest is a leading provider of co-managed IT security solutions. Through co-management, ReliaQuest helps its customers better understand the security threats facing their organization, enabling them to continuously evolve their security platforms to stay ahead of the curve. The company takes a collaborative approach to develop customized solutions based on each organization's risk profile and business goals, while leveraging their existing investments in security hardware and software. Headquartered in Tampa, FL, ReliaQuest provides Incident Response, Security Engineering, Security Analytics and Threat Management solutions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from Security Operations Centers in both Tampa and Las Vegas, NV.

ReliaQuest was awarded IBM's Global Security Excellence in Managed Services in 2017. Its security model has been cited by industry experts as the emerging standard for large and complex healthcare, financial and retail organizations.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year

Entrepreneur Of The Year, founded by EY, is the world's most prestigious business awards program for entrepreneurs, chosen from an independent panel of judges including entrepreneurs and prominent leaders from business, finance, and the local community. The program makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global awards program of its kind, Entrepreneur Of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in over 145 cities and more than 60 countries. ey.com/eoy

About EY's Growth Markets Network

EY's worldwide Growth Markets Network is dedicated to serving the changing needs of high-growth companies. For more than 30 years, we've helped many of the world's most dynamic and ambitious companies grow into market leaders. Whether working with international mid-cap companies or early stage, venture-backed businesses, our professionals draw upon their extensive experience, insight and global resources to help your business succeed. For more information, please visit us at ey.com/sgm or follow news on Twitter @EY_Growth.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

For more information, please visit ey.com.





Contact: Kim Wilmath Director of Communications

Company: ReliaQuest Tel: 813-857-5397 Email: [email protected]



SOURCE ReliaQuest
WASHINGTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As part of National Small Business Week, Linda McMahon, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, today recognized this year's Small Business Person(s) of the Year and other national award winners at a ceremony and reception at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.

"It is my extreme pleasure to announce that husband-and-wife business partners Garrett and Melanie Marrero of Maui Brewing Company are this year's national Small Business Persons of the Year," McMahon said. "Their innovative spirit, with assistance from the SBA and its lending and partners, created a thriving business and hundreds of jobs for their community."

Maui Brewing Company, headquartered in Kihei, Hawaii, started in 2005 as a small seven-barrel brewpub with the help of SBA financing. Today, it is the largest craft beer producer in Hawaii.

"Garrett and Melanie have shown impressive growth, expanding in size, sales and scope of their business," McMahon said. "By 2007, increasing demand led them to open a second location in Lahaina with a 25-barrel capacity, giving them the ability to provide brewery tours and making it a tourist destination as well. By 2013, they were producing more than 19,000 barrels of beer a year, boosting revenues to more than $10 million. They have since expanded with a new 18,000 square-foot restaurant that opened in Oahu last year, and new brewpubs and eateries are scheduled to open later this year. By the end of 2018, Maui Brewing Company will employ a workforce of 700."

McMahon also recognized National Small Business Person of the Year runners-up from Kentucky, California and Virginia, as well as winners from each of America's states and territories.

"All of our winners have built very successful businesses through their hard work, innovative ideas and dedication to their employees and communities," McMahon said.

First Runner-up

Debra Dudley

President and Cofounder

Oscarware, Inc.

Bonnieville, Ky

Oscarware, Inc., a family-owned manufacturing business, was founded in 1989 by Debra and Reg Dudley. They pioneered the concept of manufacturing outdoor cooking with a disposable "Grill Topper" designed to provide campers a quick, easy and inexpensive way to cook in parks and campgrounds. Since that first product, Oscarware has expanded to 17 outdoor cooking gadgets, all manufactured in Kentucky. Oscarware has grown to 32 employees and distributes products across the United States. It now exports its products to Canada and Europe, with assistance from the SBA STEP exporting program.

When Reg Dudley passed away unexpectedly in 2006, Debra took over at the helm of the company. She reached out to the Western Kentucky University Small Business Development Center, and since then has received extensive counseling and assistance with marketing, product development and financial forecasting of the business. The SBDC also helped Debra develop a strong business plan that enabled the company to obtain several commercial bank loans. This influx of cash was used to become current on two SBA 7(a) loans and to purchase materials and supplies. In the past three years, revenues have rapidly grown and net worth has more than doubled. In 2015, the company's sales grew a record 50 percent. Debra and Oscarware annually contribute time and money to local and regional charities, civic groups and schools.

Second Runner-up

Lars C. Herman

President

Herman Construction Group, Inc.

Escondido, Calif.

Lars Herman served in the U.S. Navy and resigned his commission with the Civil Engineer Corps in June 2009 after serving in various positions and rising to the rank of Lieutenant. He immediately established Herman Construction Group, Inc., an 8(a)-certified construction company specializing in federal projects.

Herman competed for and won more than 80 general construction and design-build contracts ranging from $3,000 to nearly $24 million throughout the United States. Many of the projects were performed with several government agencies, including the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Veterans Administration, and the State of California, along with private and commercial clients. Herman has proven to be an industry expert in renovation, repair and upgrading active research facilities, laboratories, VA hospitals and military medical treatment facilities.

Amidst dwindling government budgets and a highly competitive market, Herman not only survived the Great Recession but grew exponentially by penetrating niche markets that were underserved by small business prime contractors specializing in construction within occupied medical spaces. The SBA's 8(a) Business Development and Mentor-Protege programs helped Herman develop the necessary tools for its double-digit growth. During 2013-2015, Herman received more than $80 million in contracts set aside for small businesses. In 2016, Herman was awarded an additional $51 million in set-aside contracts.

Third Runner-up

Corliss Udoema

President & CEO

Contract Solutions, Inc. (CSI)

Manassas, Va

After a successful 32-year career with the federal government, Corliss Udoema started Contract Solutions, Inc. in 2006 to provide professional staffing and management support services to federal, state and local government, private for-profit and non-profit clients.

CSI is an 8(a) and economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business that works throughout the country. CSI sought and received assistance from the SBA's Office of Government Contracting.

Udoema is able to use 8(a) certification to allow CSI to bid on set-aside contracts that allow the company to gain access to federal contracts that would otherwise be more difficult to win.

After several years of steady growth, CSI has increased its contracts and revenue. In 2013, CSI participated in the SBA's Mentor-Protege Program. The program allowed Udoema to win a contract with her mentor and later negotiate a subcontract with the same vendor, allowing her to continue the contract for four additional years.

Udoema is also the founder and President of Agape Love in Action, a nonprofit organization providing support for those in need. The dedication to her clients, employees and the community has helped grow CSI since opening its doors. In addition, Udoema is a small business SCORE counselor, providing business mentoring to other entrepreneurs.

To learn more about National Small Business Week and read the bios on all the winners, please visit www.sba.gov/nsbw

About the U.S. Small Business Administration

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 and since January 13, 2012 has served as a Cabinet-level agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation. The SBA helps Americans start, build and grow businesses. Through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, the SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. www.sba.gov

Release Number: 17-32

Contact: Terry Sutherland (202) 205-6919

Internet Address: http://www.sba.gov/news

SOURCE U.S. Small Business Administration

Related Links

http://www.sba.gov


DENVER, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SendGrid, the leading delivery platform for customer communication that drives engagement and growth, today announced that it has expanded its presence in London with the appointment of two new hires and a move to a larger office. The growing team will continue to drive and optimize new market opportunities across Europe and serve SendGrid's base of more than 12,000 paying customers in the region which include OpenTable, EasyRoommate and Rentalcars.com. SendGrid's new office is located at 41 Corsham St, London N1 6DR.

With over 10 years of marketing experience, Jamila Firfire will be joining SendGrid's team in London as a marketing manager. In her role, Jamila will be working closely with the US marketing team to drive the European marketing strategy including content generation, nurture campaigns, outbound marketing and lead generation. As a senior account executive of sales, Ryan Donnelly, an award winning sales executive from Vend, will be responsible for managing a pipeline of leads, consulting prospects on how to best leverage SendGrid's product offerings and driving local sales.

"Investing in our London team is a key priority for SendGrid as we continue our international expansion strategy and grow our customer base across Europe. This office enables our customers to have more local points of contact and connections with local success managers," said Scott Heimes, CMO at SendGrid. "We're excited about the new office's vibrant culture and we look forward to opportunities to get involved with the WeWork Community in London."

Scott Heimes, CMO at SendGrid, will be speaking at Millennial 20/20 London on May 2. His keynote titled, "Driving Explosive Growth from Your Email Program," will feature best practices for email marketing and highlight tips for how to best engage millennials with email. SendGrid will also be hosting a happy hour event on Wednesday, May 3 from 6-9pm at its new office. You can find additional details and register here.

About SendGrid:

SendGrid is a proven, cloud-based customer communication platform that drives engagement and business growth. A leader in email deliverability, SendGrid successfully delivers over 35 billion emails each month for Internet and mobile-based customers like Airbnb, Pandora, HubSpot, Spotify, Uber and FourSquare as well as more traditional enterprises like Intuit and Costco. For more information, visit www.sendgrid.com.

Media Contact:

David Friedman

SendGrid

303-868-9641

[email protected]

SOURCE SendGrid

Related Links

http://www.sendgrid.com


HOUSTON, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Royal Dutch Shell plc ("Shell") announces today the completion of the transaction for the separation of assets, liabilities and businesses of Motiva Enterprises LLC ("Motiva"). As announced when the definitive agreements were signed, the separation is as follows:

Saudi Aramco (through its wholly owned Saudi Refining, Inc. subsidiary) assumes full ownership of the Motiva Enterprises LLC name and legal entity, including the refinery at Port Arthur, Texas and 24 distribution terminals. Additionally, Motiva has the right to exclusively sell Shell-branded gasoline and diesel in Georgia , North Carolina , South Carolina , Virginia , Maryland and Washington, D.C. , as well as the eastern half of Texas and the majority of Florida .

and 24 distribution terminals. Additionally, Motiva has the right to exclusively sell Shell-branded gasoline and diesel in , , , , and , as well as the eastern half of and the majority of . Shell (through various affiliated companies) assumes sole ownership of the Norco, La. , refinery (where Shell operates a chemicals plant), the Convent, La. , refinery, 11 distribution terminals, and Shell-branded markets in Alabama , Mississippi , Tennessee , Louisiana , a portion of the Florida panhandle, and the North-eastern region of the U.S. These assets are now fully integrated with Shell's downstream business in North America.

About Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc, a global group of energy and petrochemical companies with operations in more than 70 countries. In the U.S., Shell operates in 50 states and employs more than 20,000 people.

plc, a global group of energy and petrochemical companies with operations in more than 70 countries. In the U.S., Shell operates in 50 states and employs more than 20,000 people. www.shell.com

www.shellus.com

Inquiries

Shell Media Relations: International +44 207 934 5550; Americas +1 713 241 4544

Shell Investor Relations: Europe + 31 70 377 4540; North America +1 832 337 2034

Cautionary note

The companies in which Royal Dutch Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. In this announcement "Shell", "Shell group" and "Royal Dutch Shell" are sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Royal Dutch Shell plc and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" are also used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies. ''Subsidiaries'', "Shell subsidiaries" and "Shell companies" as used in this announcement refer to companies over which Royal Dutch Shell plc either directly or indirectly has control. Entities and unincorporated arrangements over which Shell has joint control are generally referred to as "joint ventures" and "joint operations" respectively. Entities over which Shell has significant influence but neither control nor joint control are referred to as "associates". The term "Shell interest" is used for convenience to indicate the direct and/or indirect ownership interest held by Shell in a venture, partnership or company, after exclusion of all third-party interest.

This announcement contains forward-looking statements concerning the financial condition, results of operations and businesses of Royal Dutch Shell. All statements other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements of future expectations that are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements concerning the potential exposure of Royal Dutch Shell to market risks and statements expressing management's expectations, beliefs, estimates, forecasts, projections and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as ''anticipate'', ''believe'', ''could'', ''estimate'', ''expect'', ''goals'', ''intend'', ''may'', ''objectives'', ''outlook'', ''plan'', ''probably'', ''project'', ''risks'', "schedule", ''seek'', ''should'', ''target'', ''will'' and similar terms and phrases. There are a number of factors that could affect the future operations of Royal Dutch Shell and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements included in this announcement, including (without limitation): (a) price fluctuations in crude oil and natural gas; (b) changes in demand for Shell's products; (c) currency fluctuations; (d) drilling and production results; (e) reserves estimates; (f) loss of market share and industry competition; (g) environmental and physical risks; (h) risks associated with the identification of suitable potential acquisition properties and targets, and successful negotiation and completion of such transactions; (i) the risk of doing business in developing countries and countries subject to international sanctions; (j) legislative, fiscal and regulatory developments including regulatory measures addressing climate change; (k) economic and financial market conditions in various countries and regions; (l) political risks, including the risks of expropriation and renegotiation of the terms of contracts with governmental entities, delays or advancements in the approval of projects and delays in the reimbursement for shared costs; and (m) changes in trading conditions. No assurance is provided that future dividend payments will match or exceed previous dividend payments. All forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this announcement. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional risk factors that may affect future results are contained in Royal Dutch Shell's 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2016 (available at www.shell.com/investor and www.sec.gov). These risk factors also expressly qualify all forward looking statements contained in this announcement and should be considered by the reader. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this announcement, May 1, 2017. Neither Royal Dutch Shell plc nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. In light of these risks, results could differ materially from those stated, implied or inferred from the forward-looking statements contained in this announcement.

We may have used certain terms, such as resources, in this announcement that United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) strictly prohibits us from including in our filings with the SEC. U.S. Investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our Form 20-F, File No 1-32575, available on the SEC website www.sec.gov

SOURCE Royal Dutch Shell plc

Related Links

http://www.shell.com


This new Advanced Clinical Spa, located in in Newport Beach, California, opens in partnership with esteemed board certified plastic surgeon Dr. Hisham Seify. Dr. Seify has published a wide range of scientific articles, books and medical textbook chapters on the subject of plastic surgery, several of which he has lectured and presented internationally. He was chosen to be on the Castle Connelly/US News top doctors in America from 2013-2017, as well as the recipient of the Orange County Physical of Excellence Award 2012-2017. Throughout his patient consultations and lectures, Dr. Seify always highlights the importance of implementing a rigorous at-home skincare regimen to compliment professional procedures  especially reconstructive procedures.

Dr. Seify says, "The success of our patient-centric, integrative treatment approach is evidenced by our impeccable reputation and unfailingly high patient satisfaction rates. This new partnership with SkinCeuticals will allow us to seamlessly merge our state-of-the-art procedures with scientifically-backed skincare which will ultimately result in superior patient outcomes. SkinCeuticals C E Ferulic, for example, is the industry's gold standard of vitamin C serums. It is my number one recommended product because it not only dramatically speeds up the recovery process post-reconstructive surgery, but it also protects skin from damaging free radicals and UVA/UVB rays."

Dr. Seify continues, "At Newport Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery Associates, our mission is to uphold the highest standards of patient care and medical ethics while delivering cutting edge treatments and surgical procedures incorporating the latest technological advances in the fields of plastic and reconstructive surgery. It is through the combination of SkinCeuticals skincare with these procedures that we see the best results."

Of the partnership, Brenda Wu, SkinCeuticals US General Manager, says, "We are thrilled to partner with Dr. Seify on the opening of this Advanced Clinical Spa. His dedication to providing patients with a holistic skincare regimen that incorporates ultra-modern in-office procedures with clinically proven at-home skincare products aligns perfect with SkinCeuticals' goals to improve overall skin health and superior patient outcomes. We look forward to supporting Dr. Seify to provide the best possible results to his patients."

ABOUT SKINCEUTICALS

Founded in Dallas, TX in 1997, SkinCeuticals discovers, develops, and delivers an advanced line of scientifically backed cosmeceutical treatments. As leaders in antioxidant and sun protection technology, SkinCeuticals products have been shown to dramatically improve skin health by protecting skin from environmental damage and visibly improving skin clarity, tone, and texture to minimize the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. For more information, visit the brand on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or at www.skinceuticals.com.

Contact: Laura Cummins at SkinCeuticals: (212) 984-4907 / [email protected]

SOURCE SkinCeuticals

Related Links

http://www.skinceuticals.com


CHICAGO, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SME recognized and celebrated the achievements of leaders from across the manufacturing industry and academia at its 2017 annual International Awards Gala on April 30 in Chicago.

These annual awards acknowledge the profound impact made by the honorees in manufacturing technologies, processes, technical writing, education, research and management, as well as service to SME.

Opening the event, SME CEO Jeff Krause said "Tonight, SME recognizes the achievers. The thinkers. The doers. They've given so much to the industry and tonight we celebrate you, your hard work and dedication."

SME's 2017 International Honor Award honorees are listed below:

John C. Ziegert, PhD, FSME, University of North Carolina,: Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal

David L. Bourell, PhD, The University of Texas at Austin: Albert M. Sargent Progress Award

Robert B. Habingreither, EdD, CMfgE, Texas State University College of Science & Engineering: SME Education Award

S. Jack Hu, PhD, University of Michigan: SME Gold Medal

Wayne Orr, LSME, CMfgE, Blanchat Machine Co. (Retired): Joseph A. Siegel Service Award

Yoshimaro Hanaki, Okuma Corp.: Eli Whitney Productivity Award

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and SME also recognized Michael F. Molnar, FSME, CMfgE, PE, with their joint M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal at the gala, for his longtime and outstanding contributions to manufacturing research and its implementation in industry.

Additionally, SME recognized six young professionals with the 2017 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award:

Debejyo Chakraborty, PhD, General Motors Global Research and Development

Neil Dasgupta, PhD, University of Michigan

Guha Prasanna Manogharan, PhD, Penn State University

Vikas Patel, PhD, ArcelorMittal

Ashish Kumar Singh, PhD, Welspun Pipes Inc.

Little Rock, Arkansas

Tao Wang, PhD, Nucor Steel

"This year's Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineers were selected based on their work in emerging manufacturing applications, technical publications, patents, and academic or industry leadership," said Rebecca Taylor, SME board member, while presenting the awards. "We celebrate them for their innovative spirit, visionary work and their impact on the future of manufacturing."

Nominations for SME's International Honor Awards are accepted through Aug. 1 of each year. Award details and nomination form are available at sme.org/honorawards.

About SME

SME connects all those who are passionate about making things that improve our world. As a nonprofit organization, SME has served practitioners, companies, educators, government and communities across the manufacturing spectrum for more than 80 years. Through its strategic areas of events, media, membership, training and development, and the SME Education Foundation, SME is uniquely dedicated to the advancement of manufacturing by addressing both knowledge and skills needed for the industry. Follow @SME_MFG on Twitter or facebook.com/SMEmfg.

SOURCE SME

Related Links

http://www.sme.org


"KAZ Shirane's work in architecture, interior design, and spatial art is a natural complement to the Sony BRAVIA OLED's innovative collaboration of technology and design. We are thrilled to enable this opportunity for guests to experience both KAZ's art and the technology of BRAVIA OLED in person," said Deputy President of Sony Electronics, Toshi Okuda. "Sony Electronics is at the forefront of changing the way television is experienced."

For more information on this project, please visit http://www.sony.com/evolve.

For more information on the A1E BRAVIA OLED TV, visit http://www.sony.com/electronics/televisions/a1e-series.

For more information on WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC, visit www.westwoodgallery.com.

About KAZ Shirane

KAZ Shirane (Masakazu Shirane) based in TOKYO, is internationally recognized for his work in spatial art, architecture and interior design. KAZ graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts and Universidad Europea de Madrid where he majored in architecture. KAZ also built the concept of an interactive space design method where "the designer of this space is you," as well as a series of art installations, titled "WINK Space" and "Light Origami."

About Sony Electronics

Headquartered in San Diego, Sony Electronics is a leading provider of audio/video electronics and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. Operations include research and development, engineering, sales, marketing, distribution and customer service. By focusing on engineering and a passion to inspire, Sony is creating world-leading products that innovate and inspire generations, such as the iconic PlayStation, the award-winning Alpha Interchangeable Lens Cameras and revolutionary high-resolution audio products. Sony is also a leading manufacturer of end-to-end solutions from 4K professional broadcast and A/V equipment to the marketing leading 4K Ultra HD TVs.

About WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC

WESTWOOD GALLERY NYC, established in 1995 in New York City, focuses on a contemporary program of artists, including current projects and installations, rediscovered downtown artists and photography. The gallery has developed corporate art branding projects and international traveling exhibitions. Gallery artists are included in the permanent collections of MoMA, Guggenheim Museum, LACMA and other national and international institutions.

SOURCE Sony Electronics

Related Links

http://www.sony.com/news


NEWINGTON, N.H., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE: PLNT), one of the largest and fastest-growing franchisors and operators of fitness centers in the United States, welcomes everyone to jumpstart their springtime routines for just $5 down (enrollment fee), then $10 a month with no commitment. The promotion runs today through May 12 at more than 1,300 Planet Fitness locations in the United States and Canada. Click here to find a Planet Fitness near you.

"Planet Fitness is looking to make it as easy as possible over the next 12 days to help everyone find their fitness groove without feeling the pinch financially," said Jessica Correa, senior vice president of marketing at Planet Fitness. "With our zero pressure, no commitment offer, we invite everyone to come check out Planet Fitness and see first-hand what the Judgement Free Zone is all about."

In addition to the May membership offer, Brian Zehetner, Planet Fitness' director of health & fitness, shares workout tips* tailored for women across various life stages in celebration of Mother's Day (and beyond). Zehetner's tips include:

Moms-To-Be: Women who are expecting don't need to shy away from exercising responsibly. Even if you haven't worked out regularly, it's okay to start and increase your activity level over time as long as it's approved by your physician. Specifically, combining cardio and light strength training has many benefits. Even exercises involving the core abdominal muscles and squats  often considered no-no's during pregnancy  are okay for both mom-to-be and baby. Just be sure to avoid lying on your back when working the stomach. Entering Motherhood: Don't stress about sticking to a workout regimen at this stage. New moms can gently ease into exercise in the weeks following delivery by simply moving around, whether on a treadmill or in the great outdoors. Once cleared by a physician for more rigorous exercise, dive into a program at a slightly lower intensity, then gradually increase that intensity over time. For example, Planet Fitness offers training sessions for small groups (free for all members) that are fun, full-body workouts led by certified trainers. Moms on the Go: For busy moms with active kids, sometimes it feels like you're their personal chauffeur 24/7  from dropping them off at school in the morning to picking them up from soccer practice at night. Don't miss a minute of their day while still making time for yourself by getting in a quick circuit training session that hits all major body parts. To help you get in and get out, check out the dedicated space within every Planet Fitness that features a guided 30-Minute Express Circuit and includes a mixture of strength training and aerobic exercises. An added bonus is that many Planet Fitness locations are open 24/7 so you can go when your busy schedule allows.

Planet Fitness has revolutionized the fitness industry with extremely low prices and offers a variety of benefits, including a hassle-free environment called the Judgement Free Zone, brand name cardio and strength equipment, fully equipped locker rooms, flat screen televisions, unlimited small group fitness instruction by a certified trainer through the pe @ pf program, and much more.

Planet Fitness also provides members with an opportunity to connect and support each other with "Planet of Triumphs," an online community that celebrates all accomplishments and inspirational stories of Planet Fitness members. Planet of Triumphs provides an online platform for members to recognize their triumphs (big or small), share their stories and encourage others, reinforcing the Company's belief that 'everyone belongs'. Check out real Planet Fitness member stories and accomplishments at PlanetofTriumphs.com.

To locate the nearest Planet Fitness club and take advantage of the May offer for new members, please visit PlanetFitness.com/Local-Clubs.

*The content provided by Planet Fitness is designed for educational purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should consult your physician or other health care professional before following any fitness advice to determine if it is right for your needs.

About Planet Fitness

Founded in 1992 in Dover, N.H., Planet Fitness is one of the largest and fastest-growing franchisors and operators of fitness centers in the United States by number of members and locations. As of March 31, 2017, Planet Fitness had approximately 10 million members and more than 1,300 stores in 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada and the Dominican Republic. The Company's mission is to enhance people's lives by providing a high-quality fitness experience in a welcoming, non-intimidating environment, which we call the Judgement Free Zone. More than 95% of Planet Fitness stores are owned and operated by independent business men and women.

SOURCE Planet Fitness, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.planetfitness.com


SAN ANTONIO, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SWBC is pleased to announce the promotion of Karen Meriwether to Chief Financial Officer (CFO). In this role, Meriwether will be responsible for overseeing all aspects of day-to-day accounting, financial planning, and financial reporting. Meriwether joined SWBC in 2015 as Vice President of Internal Audit and Chief Audit Executive. In this role, she was responsible for leading all of the company's audit activities.

Meriwether has 15 years of experience as the Chief Financial Officer for major industry players such as Argonaut Insurance Company, Texas Mutual Insurance Company, and Tower Life Insurance Company.

"We are very fortunate to have Karen on our team," said Gary Dudley, SWBC President and Co-founder. "She has done a great job for us as Chief Audit Executive, and we are confident that she will continue to make a significant impact on our organization as CFO."

Meriwether's professional experience also includes serving as the Director of Internal Audit for the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (Windstorm) and the Texas Fair Plan Insurance Association (Fair Plan). Before that, she was Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer for Argo Group.

"Karen's proven track record and leadership skills are well suited to support the company's vision," said Charlie Amato, SWBC Chairman and Co-founder. "We are thrilled to be able to promote her to this critically important position within the company."

Meriwether earned her bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Texas at San Antonio and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). She is an active supporter of Habitat for Humanity, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Wounded Warriors.

About SWBC

Headquartered in San Antonio, SWBC is a diversified financial services company providing a wide range of insurance, mortgage, and investment services to financial institutions, businesses, and individuals. With offices across the country, SWBC is committed to providing quality products, outstanding service, and customized solutions in all 50 states. For more information, visit SWBC's website at www.swbc.com.

SOURCE SWBC

Related Links

http://www.swbc.com


PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Systemax Inc. (NYSE: SYX) today announced that it will release financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 on Thursday, May 4, 2017 after U.S. market hours.

Management will provide pre-recorded remarks on the Company's first quarter 2017 results at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on May 4th. To access the remarks please dial (412-717-9224) ten minutes prior to the start time. The pre-recorded remarks will also be available via webcast on the Company's website at www.systemax.com in the investor relations section.

If you cannot listen to the call at its scheduled time, the webcast will be archived on www.systemax.com for approximately 90 days.

About Systemax Inc.

Systemax Inc. (www.systemax.com), sells industrial and technology products through a system of branded e-Commerce websites and relationship marketers in North America and France. The primary brands are Global Industrial and Inmac Wstore.

Investor/Media Contact:

Mike Smargiassi/ William Metzger

Brainerd Communicators, Inc.

212-986-6667

[email protected]/ [email protected]

SOURCE Systemax Inc.

Related Links

http://www.systemax.com


MANSFIELD, Massachusetts and SANTA CLARA, California, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Telco Systems, the leading provider of innovative CE 2.0, MPLS, IP, SDN/NFV solutions, and Silver Peak, the global leader in broadband and hybrid WAN solutions, today announced a new open vCPE solution for managed SD-WAN services.

The new joint vCPE SD-WAN solution enables service providers to quickly bring new tiered, high performance, virtualized services to market. This open solution also allows telcos and managed service providers to deliver on the ultimate promise of NFV to be an agile, open and flexible service delivery platform that supports any VNF service in parallel to or as part of a service chain with SD-WAN services. This eliminates the time and expense previously required to deploy stand-alone appliances on the customer's premise for each offered service.

The joint solution integrates the Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnectSP virtual SD-WAN solution with Telco Systems' Verge platform. Verge is an open, service-ready, plug-and-play vCPE based on industry standard x86 hardware platforms and is part of Telco Systems' new NFVTime suite. The Silver Peak EdgeConnectSP virtual SD-WAN solution is a scalable, multi-tenant SD-WAN solution that provides secure and reliable virtual overlays to connect users to applications with the flexibility to use any combination of MPLS, broadband and LTE transport services without compromising network or application performance. Centrally managed with Unity OrchestratorSP, enterprises can quickly configure application-driven security policies that enable direct granular internet breakout for trusted SaaS and web applications from any branch location. The joint solution also provides zero touch provisioning and deployment, orchestration and portal integration. The integrated solution is extensible to include third party functions, such as virtual firewalls and virtual SLA probes drawn from both companies extensive VNF partner ecosystem.

By adopting SD-WAN over open vCPE, telcos and managed service providers can immediately serve customers with a best-in-class SD-WAN solution and seamlessly and remotely layer on additional VNF-based network services at any time. These services may be offered with flexible pricing models, such as pay-as-you-grow, try-and-buy and other subscription models.

"We are excited to get more involved in the rapidly growing SD-WAN market and to partner with the emerging market leader in this space," said Raanan Tzemach, Vice President of Product Management at Telco Systems. "Our joint offering with Silver Peak delivers the freedom telcos and managed service providers have been searching for to pick and choose the VNF services they want to offer without the traditional constraints of any particular vCPE or SD-WAN platform."

"The Silver Peak partnership with Telco Systems underscores the value of combining a best in class CPE virtualization platform with a complete SD-WAN software solution, bringing the future of managed business services to telcos and service providers today," said Shayne Stubbs, Vice President Service Providers and Cloud at Silver Peak. "Our collaboration with Telco Systems expands our market reach and allows us to better serve our telco and managed service provider customers by offering our award winning SD-WAN solution as a turnkey VNF service."

Telco Systems and Silver Peak will be demonstrating this new joint open vCPE solution for SD-WAN at the upcoming NFV World Congress in San Jose, CA from May 2nd through the 5th. Telco Systems will be exhibiting at Booth #52 and Silver Peak will be exhibiting at Booth #38.

About Telco Systems

Telco Systems delivers an industry-leading portfolio of Carrier Ethernet and MPLS-based demarcation, aggregation, NFV and vCPE solutions, enabling service providers to create intelligent, service-assured, CE 2.0-compliant networks for mobile backhaul, business services and cloud networking. Telco Systems' end-to-end Ethernet, SDN/NFV-ready product portfolio delivers significant advantages to service providers, utilities and city carriers competing in a rapidly evolving telecommunications market. Telco Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of BATM Advanced Communications (LSE: BVC).

To learn more, visit Telco Systems at http://www.telco.com or follow Telco Systems on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

About Silver Peak

Silver Peak is the global leader in broadband and hybrid WAN solutions. Silver Peak offers a high-performance SD-WAN solution that provides secure and reliable virtual overlays to connect users to applications with the flexibility to use any combination of underlying transport without compromising application performance. This results in greater business agility and lower costs. More than 2,000 globally distributed enterprises have deployed Silver Peak broadband and hybrid WAN solutions across 80 countries. Learn more at http://www.silver-peak.com.

Press Contacts

For Telco Systems

Tony Miller

+1-617-418-3024

[email protected]

For Silver Peak

Danielle Ostrovsky

+1-410-302-9459

[email protected]

SOURCE Telco Systems and Silver Peak
National Masturbation Month was introduced in May 1995, in response to President Clinton's firing of U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders for suggesting that masturbation should be part of sexual education. Since then, sex-positive organizations all over the world have honored Elders and celebrated masturbation in May.

More than 20 years later, not everyone is comfortable talking about masturbation. TENGA's 2016 United State(s) of Masturbation survey1 found that 88% of all Americans masturbate, but more than half of those surveyed were uncomfortable openly discussing it. By participating in #DoItInMay, we can help change the conversation about masturbation and promote a message that self-care is a common, sex-positive act that should be celebrated, not hidden.

"Masturbation is a natural part of life that not only gives individuals a better understanding of their bodies, but also empowers them to take control of their own pleasure," said Dr. Chris Donaghue, PhD, LCSW, CST, and TENGA brand ambassador. "#DoItInMay is an opportunity to bring this to the forefront and celebrate masturbation for what it is: a positive and healthy sexual practice, whether it's enjoyed by oneself or with a partner."

Participants can take the pledge online at DoItInMay.com, and if they chose to, can promote the campaign via social media. For every person who takes the pledge, TENGA will donate $1  and will donate an additional $2 for every use of the hashtag "#DoItInMay" on social media, up to $10,000, to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). SIECUS advocates for the right of all people to accurate information, comprehensive education about sexuality, and the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health services.

"There is still much stigma and shame in talking about sexuality and about masturbation," said Chitra Panjabi, President & CEO of SIECUS. "We are proud to collaborate with TENGA and Dr. Chris Donaghue on the #DoItInMay campaign and help further cultural acceptance of sexual wellness, including masturbation. We thank TENGA for their generous contribution to help advance advocacy efforts to ensure that all people have access to the information they need to understand themselves and their bodies through comprehensive sexuality education."

As a thank you to all #DoItInMay participants' commitment to de-stigmatize masturbation, TENGA will provide a free sex toy to the first 50 individuals to take the pledge. Everyone who takes the pledge will also receive a coupon for 10 percent off purchases made via TENGA's e-commerce store. Participants must be 18 years or older.

"We believe everyone should explore their bodies, discover their preferences and embrace self-pleasure," said Eddie Marklew, Global Marketing Manager, TENGA. "We're proud to champion #DoItInMay and further cultural acceptance of sexual pleasure through masturbation."

For more information on TENGA's #DoItInMay campaign, or to take the pledge, visit DoItInMay.com.

About #DoItInMay campaign

TENGA's #DoItInMay campaign is a month-long celebration of self-pleasure that is dedicated to broadening the conversation around sex and masturbation in the United States. Participants can visit DoItInMay.com to sign up the pledge to masturbate throughout the month in exchange for a free or discounted TENGA product. Individuals are also encouraged to discuss their participation through word-of-mouth and on social media. TENGA will donate $1 for every sign up and $2 for every use of the "#DoItInMay" hashtag to the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). SIECUS advocates for the right of all people to accurate information, comprehensive education about sexuality, and the full spectrum of sexual and reproductive health services.

About TENGA

TENGA is a line of adult novelty products for men, with a focus on non-obscene product design as a tool for safer, better pleasure. Since their release in 2005, TENGA has sold over 52 million units worldwide and is now highly regarded as one of the leaders in products for male pleasure in both adult and mainstream markets, and is the No. 1 Brand of Male Masturbation products by units sold, selling over triple of their closest competitor. For further details, visit www.tenga-global.com.

About Dr. Chris Donaghue

Dr. Chris Donaghue is a Doctor of Clinical Sexology and Human Sexuality, Doctoral trained in Clinical Psychology, Licensed Clinical Therapist, and a Certified Sex Therapist. Dr. Donaghue specializes in individual and couples sex and marital therapy, as well as sexual compulsivity, sexual anorexia, sexual dysfunctions, and non-traditional sexuality, identities, and relationships. He is a member of American Association of Sex Counselors, Educators, and Therapists (AASECT) and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS). For more information please visit, www.drchrisdonaghue.com.

Contact

Christina McDonald

Burson-Marsteller

Tel: +1 (212) 614 4221

Email: [email protected]

1. "United State(s) of Masturbation" Consumer Survey. TENGA Co Ltd. Conducted August 2016.

SOURCE TENGA

Related Links

https://www.tenga-global.com


"Collaboration amongst health care, social care, and injury prevention is critical for demonstrable improvements in the health and safety of young families. Early childhood development, social-emotional skills, maternal mental health, breastfeeding, positive parenting skills, involvement of fathers, injury prevention, health promotion, disease prevention, and school readiness are intertwined in communities but siloed across health and social services," said Dyann Daley, MD. "The Baby Box program is a positive example of public/private collaboration offering a solution that crosses socioeconomic lines to deliver an inclusive education on these topics to make data-driven decisions about community priorities, mitigate real risks in individual communities, and develop practical solutions for families."

The Baby Boxes are made from a durable cardboard and are proactively certified to meet the highest level of available safety standards by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), as well as Health Canada and European (EN) Standard regulations for bassinets. The Baby Box Co. further champions infant safety by emphasizing natural products which exclude PBDE flame retardants, ozone depleters (CFCs), formaldehyde, prohibited phthalates, mercury, lead or heavy metals. The mattresses are firm foam pads which have been independently certified as non-toxic and safe by CertiPUR-US laboratories.

"Our Baby Boxes alone aren't inherently magical; they're an intervention tool that serves as so much more than a safe sleep resource. The Baby Boxes provide an incentive for mothers to seek regular prenatal care and foster opportunities for healthcare providers to engage with new parents," said Jennifer Clary, co-founder & CEO of The Baby Box Co. "We believe that through community collaboration, we have the ability to improve maternal and infant health outcomes with dedication, education and hard work."

Hospitals and Nonprofits to Hold Launch Events Across Texas to Give Away First Baby Boxes

San Antonio was one of the first cities to pilot the Baby Box University program with the support from early partners Baby Education for South Texas  B.E.S.T and University Health System. Baby Education for South Texas  B.E.S.T helped to develop the Baby Box University syllabuses for Texas and San Antonio to bring this forward-thinking program to all parents across the state. The North Central Rotary Club of San Antonio and Rotary District 5840 were instrumental in providing financial and logistical support. Rotary's interest in maternal and child health integrated seamlessly with the educational efforts of The Baby Box Co., University Health System and Baby Education for South Texas  B.E.S.T.

"Our community has come together to provide practical, demonstrable improvements in the health of our infants," said Dr. William McClain, co-founder and Board Director of B.E.S.T. "Part of a healthy community is an educated and safe community. In partnership with The Baby Box Co., utilizing their innovative Baby Box University web-based platform, local care providers are educating parents, grandparents and all childcare providers in our community on important concepts such as prenatal education, post-natal maternal care, safe sleep, infant development and child safety. This unique, well-rounded curriculum addresses all aspects of health; physical, emotional, social and mental. By making it universally available to all of the parents in Texas, this program aims to make a significant impact on the well-being of the infants of Texas."

There will be two events to launch the Texas statewide program:

San Antonio Launch Event on Tuesday, May 2 at 10:00 a.m.

The DoSeum, 2800 Broadway, San Antonio TX 78209

Free parking spaces at The DoSeum north parking lot at the intersection of Humphreys Ave. and Margaret St. Additional visitor parking is available in the South parking lot along Brackenridge Ave. Dallas Launch Event on Wednesday, May 3 at 12:00 p.m.

Dallas Medical Center, 7 Medical Parkway, Dallas, TX 75234

Launch event held in the Plaza One atrium near the main campus entrance; free parking located directly across from Plaza One.

How Texas New Parents Can Get Their Free Baby Box

It takes only 3 simple steps for expecting and new parents in Texas to get their free Baby Box:

Register for free online at BabyBoxUniversity.com as a Texas resident. Be sure to include your correct contact information, including mailing address. Watch the 10-15 minute Texas syllabus at BabyBoxUniversity.com. After taking a short quiz, you will receive a certificate of completion and be able to select local pick-up or direct delivery of your Baby Box . If you select direct delivery, your Baby Box will ship to the address you provided when you registered on Baby Box University. Please note that there is typically a wait for directly delivery, so please complete the syllabus well in advance of your due date. If you select local pick up for more immediate receipt, bring your Baby Box University certificate to the closest participating distribution site to collect your Baby Box .

The brands included in the Baby Boxes are also committed to the program's education mission, with every product featuring a scientifically proven baby brain-boosting activity parents can do while using the item. All expecting parents living in Texas are eligible to receive a Baby Box which includes newborn essentials such as Pampers Swaddlers diapers, Pampers baby wipes, Vroom activity cards from the Bezos Family Foundation, Lansinoh nursing pads and nipple cream for breastfeeding mothers, onesie, waterproof tote bag and more.

"We are very proud to be partnering with what I feel is a much needed program in the Texas healthcare system," said Dr. Lisa Hollier, Chief Medical Officer for Texas Children's Health Plan, Medical Director of The Center for Children and Women, and in-coming president-elect of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). "Our members and patients are what matters most to our organization, and to be able to provide such a benefit to our pregnant mothers  the education, support and supplies every new mother needs to successfully care for her baby  warms my heart and aligns with our primary goal and promise, which is to help create a healthier future for our children."

The Baby Box Movement

The Baby Box University program is already available universally, at no cost to parents, in the states of New Jersey, Ohio and Alabama. Usage rates are running at over 90% in each of these U.S. states, indicating unparalleled education engagement across demographics.

The Baby Box University program pays homage to the Finnish tradition, which is committed not just to universal product distribution, but to supporting families with access to healthcare and education. The Finnish initiative, which enables every expecting woman in the country to claim a free Baby Box once she receives prenatal care and parenting information from a healthcare professional, is credited with helping to decrease Finland's infant mortality rate from 65 deaths for each 1,000 children born in 1938 to 1.3 deaths per 1,000 births in 2013, according to the World Health Organization.

The success and model of the Finnish Baby Box intervention inspired the founders of The Baby Box Co. to adapt this tradition with enhanced online multimedia parenting curricula through Baby Box University that addresses infant mortality issues and childcare education that is specific to the United States.

About The Baby Box Co.

The Baby Box Co. is an innovative, integrated program to support parents and improve maternal and infant healthcare outcomes globally. The Baby Box Co. partners with hospitals, government agencies and nonprofit organizations to provide Baby Boxes, quality products, resources and ongoing education to families on a large scale. The Baby Boxes, which are made from a durable cardboard and are proactively certified to meet the highest level of available safety standards by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), as well as Health Canada and EN Standard regulations for bassinets, can be used as a baby's bed for the first months of life. While parents appreciate the Baby Boxes and quality care products included, it is the educational component and closer communication with local healthcare providers that is at the center of the Baby Box University distribution model. Families are required to view their community's online curriculum before receiving a free Baby Box. Serving families in 52 countries, The Baby Box Co. has offices in the USA, UK, Canada, and Singapore. For more information, please visit www.babyboxco.com and www.babyboxuniversity.com.

SOURCE The Baby Box Co.

Related Links

http://www.babyboxco.com


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla and NASHUA, N.H., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- VFO, the world's leading assistive technology provider for the visually impaired, and home of the Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and Ai Squared brands, today announced it has acquired The Paciello Group (TPG), a marquee software accessibility firm providing website and application compliance solutions to enterprises throughout the world. This acquisition advances both companies' strategy to offer the most innovative end-to-end enterprise compliance and employee accommodation solutions for people with disabilities, including the visually impaired.

"The accessibility market is growing rapidly, with enterprises around the world investing in compliance solutions, which allow persons with disabilities the same access to the web and applications as their peers," said Tom Tiernan, President and CEO of VFO. "Combining The Paciello Group with VFO's Enterprise Services business advances our position into the top tier of the web accessibility market."

"We will be able to better serve our clients in their corporate accessibility maturity continuum," said Mike Paciello, CEO and Founder of The Paciello Group. "I view this as a game changing move that immediately establishes VFO as the industry leader  a first in the disability and technology ecosystem. Perhaps more importantly, to all of us at TPG, it strengthens our world-wide reputation as visionaries and champions of accessibility to all people with disabilities."

"With The Paciello Group joining VFO, we can now offer enterprises end-to-end solutions, from up-front strategic consulting, accessibility auditing, usability testing, remediation and training, all the way through to seamless integration with our enterprise-class JAWS screen reading and ZoomText screen magnification software solutions," said Matt Ater, Vice President of VFO's Enterprise Services business.

"The coming together of The Paciello Group and VFO makes great strategic sense," said Bill Donoghue, CEO and Chairman, Skillsoft. "This will help us develop a complete solution for our customers with the premier accessibility solutions provider and the primary provider in the AT arena."

About VFO

VFO is a leading global accessibility solutions provider. The VFO brands, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and Ai Squared, have a long history of developing and providing innovative assistive technology solutions. VFO has offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, and is available through multi-tier distribution in more than 70 countries worldwide.

About The Paciello Group

The Paciello Group is passionately dedicated to helping government agencies, technology vendors, e-commerce corporations, and educational institutions make their technology equally accessible to all people, including those with disabilities. The company offers professional consulting, technology solutions, and services to ensure that clients reach all audiences effectively and efficiently while meeting commercial, governmental and international standards such as Section 508 and WCAG.

Media Contacts

Matt Ater, VFO

877-775-9474

[email protected]

www.vfogroup.com

Mike Paciello, TPG

603-882-4122

[email protected]

www.paciellogroup.com

SOURCE VFO

Related Links

http://www.vfo-group.com


LAS VEGAS, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tryke Companies, operators of Reef Dispensaries in Nevada and Arizona, is proud to announce a new partnership with American recording artist and global ambassador RiFF RAFF as the exclusive producer and distributor of two strains of medical cannabis. "Red Carpet Kush," an uplifting, inspirational sativa, and "Lamborghini Leg Lock," a stunningly potent indica, will be the premiere strains of the line, endorsed and curated by RiFF RAFF himself.

Tryke Companies

"It's the equivalent to when the Lamborghini came out," said RiFF. "Imagine NASA, when it first came out with the space program. This is what this is."

Tryke's alliance with RiFF RAFF is the company's third excursion into celebrity-branded medical cannabis, continuing in the tradition and runaway success of Wiz Khalifa's Khalifa Kush and the Exotikz By Berner line of top shelf strains.

"Following Khalifa Kush and Exotikz, we're happy to have RiFF RAFF as a product curator here at Reef," said Matthew Morgan, CEO of Tryke Companies. "His unique taste lends a bold new perspective to the medical cannabis market."

The two strains will be unveiled at Reef Dispensaries' Las Vegas locations available May 1st and in Northern Nevada on May 5th.

Reef Dispensaries' 165,000-square-foot indoor cultivation facility, as seen on Complex news, is the largest of its kind in the state. Reef's Las Vegas base of operations uniquely houses each the cultivation, production, and sale of its products under one roof.

Reef Dispensaries offers care for medical marijuana patients at six locations across Nevada and Arizona, with an unprecedented level of concierge customer service and a wide selection of products for every palette.

About Tryke:

Tryke Companies is a network of ten MMJ licenses for the cultivation, production and retail sale of medical cannabis in Arizona and Nevada. Tryke retail operations, d.b.a. Reef Dispensaries, has existing dispensaries in Nevada (Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Sparks, Sun Valley) and Arizona (Central Phoenix, Queen Creek), with additional locations coming soon.

Like Reef on Facebook at Reef AZ NV (https://www.facebook.com/Reefaznv)

Follow Reef on Twitter @ReefDispensarie (https://twitter.com/ReefDispensarie)

Read about Reef Dispensaries on Complex: http://www.complex.com/life/2017/01/inside-wiz-khalifas-weed-dispensary

About Riff Raff:

Riff Raff is an American musician from Houston, TX, known for such hits as "TiP TOE WiNG iN MY JAWWDiNZ" and "Dolce & Gabbana." He boasts over 140 million cumulative YouTube views and over 1 million fans each on both Twitter and Instagram. He released his first album, Neon Icon, through Diplo's Mad Decent label and recently followed up with his second album in late 2016, Peach Panther. Riff Raff has worked with a stable of A-list artists and celebrities throughout his career, including James Franco, Chance the Rapper, Lil Yachty, Wiz Khalifa, Donald Glover, Mike Posner, Gucci Mane, G-Eazy, Travis Barker, and many more. He has also appeared on Vice's Traveling the Stars: Ancient Aliens with Action Bronson, MTV2's Wild 'N Out, and MTV's G's to Gents, among other television shows.

Riff Raff Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodyhighroller/

Riff Raff Twitter: https://twitter.com/jodyhighroller

Riff Raff YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JodyHighRoller

Photos by Danny Mahoney // Instagram: @dmahoneyphoto

Adam Laikin

Director of Marketing | Tryke Companies | 3400 Western Avenue | Las Vegas, NV 89109

[email protected]

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Related Links

http://www.reefdispensaries.com

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Tryke Companies
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The 14th annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium today announced ValiMail as one of the ten Finalists for the 2017 Innovation Showcase. ValiMail's automated, cloud-based email authentication platform was selected for the strategic value and innovative solution it offers to the digital enterprise. ValiMail will receive key exposure to many of the world's most creative and influential IT executives at the Symposium on May 24, 2017.

"We are thrilled to be recognized as one of ten outstanding early stage companies with cutting edge solutions to help Enterprise IT," said ValiMail CEO and co-founder Alexander Garcia-Tobar. "Our goal is to authenticate the world's communications, starting with email, and it's an honor to be able to showcase the efficacy of our solution to such a distinguished group."

In the absence of authentication, it's trivial for attackers to send email that impersonates your organization. As a result, phishing attacks continue to wreak havoc and rack up huge costs for enterprises. At the same time, the rapid rise of cloud services has brought an explosion of new email senders, causing companies to lose visibility and control over the email sent on their behalf. Email authentication, based on globally supported standards, provides an immediate and effective solution that stops impersonation attacks and also provides complete visibility and control over your extended email ecosystem  including "shadow email" senders. ValiMail's innovative, cloud-based platform automates email authentication, enabling enterprises to regain control of their email infrastructures and protect their employees, customers, partners and brands.

"It is with great honor that we recognize these 10 companies for our 2017 Innovation Showcase," said Anton Teodorescu, Co-Chair of the Innovation Showcase. "The Symposium provides an opportune environment for these early-stage companies to form valuable partnerships with CIOs and a platform to demonstrate their technologies that are building the digital enterprise."

After careful consideration, the Innovation Showcase Judges evaluated and selected ValiMail for this honor based on four important criteria:

Have a B2B or B2C enterprise IT solution product in the market;

Are selling enterprise IT solutions to CIOs or corporate IT departments; and

Show innovation and/or strategic value and potential impact on the top and/or bottom lines.

For a full list of Innovation Showcase finalists visit http://www.mitcio.com/innovation

The Innovation Showcase will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Kresge courtyard tent on Wednesday, May 24, 2017, at MIT in Cambridge, MA. The full agenda for the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is available at www.mitcio.com/agenda.

ABOUT VALIMAIL

ValiMail has developed the world's first cloud-based platform that fully automates email authentication. Based on the globally deployed DMARC, SPF and DKIM standards that protect over 2.7 email inboxes, the ValiMail solution enables customers to stop phishing attacks against their employees and customers, control shadow email services and improve the reputation and deliverability of their email. ValiMail's unique, patented technology provides the only zero-administration solution for email authentication, making it easy for any enterprise to implement this powerful and vital technology quickly and with guaranteed success. For more information visit www.ValiMail.com.

About the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium

The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is the premier global conference for CIOs and digital business executives to become more effective leaders. In one day, CIOs and senior IT executives explore enterprise technology innovations, business practices and receive actionable information that enables them to meet the challenges of today and the future. The Symposium offers a unique learning environment by bringing together the academic thought leadership of MIT with the in-the-trenches experience of leading, global CIOs and industry experts. The MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is organized and developed by the MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association, the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), and the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). For more information and to register for this year's Symposium, visit www.mitcio.com.

SOURCE ValiMail

Related Links

http://www.valimail.com


NEW ORLEANS, May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Shopping.Gives, a Chicago-based startup, will use its position as a featured ALPHA startup at the 2017 Collision Conference as a way to raise funds for a local nonprofit, Rebuilding Together New Orleans, via its innovative software platform.

"We created Shopping.Gives so that nonprofits with limited resources can fundraise in an effective way that makes it easy for supporters to give back to the organizations they love," said CEO Ronny Sage. "We are excited to offer a real-time example of our platform to the conference attendees, while simultaneously giving back to the New Orleans community."

Shopping.Gives will donate one dollar for each participant who visits their booth at the upcoming Collision Conference to the nonprofit, Rebuilding Together New Orleans. The nonprofit will also have the opportunity to raise additional funds through Shopping.Gives at http://shopgiv.es/rtno.

"We know our partnership with Shopping.Gives is going to have a great impact on the New Orleans community, and we thank their team for doing more than just showing up at the conference. They are investing in our community while also communicating the value of their platform to the other conference goers," said William Stoudt, Director at RTNO. "We are so happy to be offering our supporters such a convenient and innovative way to contribute to our cause."

Shopping.Gives is attending the conference to introduce their newly launched software platform, which helps nonprofits raise money by turning their supporters' everyday online shopping into funding. The site currently boasts over 750 popular brands that supporters can shop, while also offering price comparisons and coupons. Nonprofits that use Shopping.Gives can receive up to 40 percent of each purchase made by their supporters.

About Rebuilding Together New Orleans

Rebuilding Together New Orleans is an affiliate of a national nonprofit working to provide veteran, elderly, and disabled low-income homeowners with free, necessary repairs that allow them to live safely and affordably in their homes.

About Shopping.Gives

Based in Chicago, IL, Shopping.Gives launched in January 2017 and is currently working with a wide range of nonprofits on their fundraising efforts, including Rebuilding Together New Orleans.

SOURCE Shopping.Gives

Related Links

https://shopping.gives


Active in the DFW community as a long-time Boy Scouts of America advocate and Scoutmaster, Stelmar enjoys volunteering with today's youth to help instill values, and develop leadership and citizenship skills that will influence their adult lives.

"Tom's ability to understand the particulars of an energy credit transaction allows him to meaningfully examine a customer's needs and address the best financing avenues for all involved," Keith Moore stated. "I, along with WTNB's Board of Directors, Bank Management and Staff, heartily welcome Tom in his new Energy Lending role at WTNB, and look forward to him assisting us in expanding our presence into the Dallas/Fort Worth markets."

"One of the many reasons I chose to join WTNB is their deep community roots and stellar reputation," Stelmar asserted. "Another reason is WTNB's on-staff Engineering coupled with their depth of knowledge and resources with respect to oil and gas related lending. I look forward to bringing their responsible brand of relationship banking to North and East Texas."

About West Texas National Bank

West Texas National Bank headquartered at the ClayDesta Building in Midland, Texas, offers innovative financial solutions and services. Serving West Texas since 1904, WTNB specializes in the following markets: Agribusiness; Business and Commercial Lending; Construction & Commercial Real Estate; Energy; Home Mortgages; Land Acquisitions; Personal Banking; Real Estate Bridge Financing, and Treasury Management.

West Texas National Bank fuels the success of their clients by providing them with their extensive financial expertise and giving their customers a sophisticated banking experience with bankers and branches that are in their hometown areas.

WTNB: Our Experience; Our Bankers; Lending Our Strength; Fueling West Texas.





West Texas National Bank

Jonna D. Smoot, 432-685-6500

Marketing Director

www.WTNB.com

SOURCE West Texas National Bank

Related Links

https://www.WTNB.COM


New Delhi, April 27 : Almost 43 per cent of business and IT leaders in India -- higher than the average 38 per cent for Asia-Pacific and Japan -- see employee experience as a critical aspect of achieving their business objectives, a new study said on Thursday.

According to the study, conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Dell, Indian firms realise the value of technology and innovation and the importance of constantly improving customer experience better than other developing countries in the region.

This puts India in a unique position in Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ), where collectively only six in 10 (61 per cent) business leaders felt that existing technology in their organisation is sufficient to meet their business goals.

"To establish a balance, IT and business leaders need to embark upon a workforce transformation strategy and provide employees, appropriate end user technology -- the requisite devices and software -- in order to attain the two-fold objective of increasing employee efficiency, as well as retaining talent," Indrajit Belgundi, Director and General Manager, Client Solutions Group, Dell India, said in a statement.

The study also found that most security breaches that have occurred in the past 12 months are because of vulnerabilities at the device level.

Nearly 43 per cent of breaches in India occurred due to lost/stolen assets by an employee, while 39 per cent occurred due to a security breach of an employee device.
Mumbai, April 27 : Actor Sanjay Dutt has paid tributes to veteran actor-politician Vinod Khanna, who died here on Thursday due to prolonged illness. He says the late star was and will always be family to him.

"It is saddening to hear of the demise of Vinod Khanna ji. I have watched him as a child and throughout my life was always fascinated by his style and charisma. He was always a thorough gentleman. A big loss to the fraternity. He was and always will be family to the Dutts," Sanjay said in a statement.

Khanna is survived by his former wife Geetanjali and their sons Akshaye and Rahul, who are now actors, and his present wife Kavita and son Sakshi and daughter Shraddha.

Sanjay, who has worked with Khanna in films "Khoon Ka Karz" and "Kshatriya", paid his condolence to Khanna's family.

"May his soul rest in peace. My deepest condolences to Kavita Bhabhi, Akshaye, Rahul and Sakshi," he added.

Khanna was hospitalised for over a month for suspected cancer. He was 70 and is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter.

Khanna was admitted to Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital in the first week on April after reportedly suffering from severe dehydration.

The actor was the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of the Lok Sabha from Punjab's Gurdaspur constituency in Punjab.
Bhubaneswar, April 28 : Maoist guerrillas killed two villagers in Odisha's Malkangiri district, police said on Friday.

The incident occurred on Thursday night. The victims were identified as Bisu Kisani and Ram Padiami.

Meanwhile, a Maoist camp in Ambadala forests on the Rayagada-Kandhamal border was destroyed following a fierce gun battle between security forces and the rebels.

Director General of Police K.B. Singh said there were 15 Maoists in the group and the exchange of fire continued on Friday. A huge cache of arms and ammunition was seized.
Lucknow, April 28 : In another step to discipline the bureaucracy in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP government has directed all District Magistrates (DM) and Senior Superintendents of Police (SSP) to be present in their offices between 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., an official said on Friday.

During this period, the DMs and SSPs will hear the common people and try to solve their problems. No official meetings or work will be carried out.

"The state government is committed to providing succour to the people facing difficulties and the Chief Minister (Yogi Adityanath) himself is meeting people every day at his official residence," the official said.

Other than the DMs and SSPs, all district officials including departmental heads will also be available for the people between the same time period on every working day.

A senior official said that to check the availability and timely attendance of officials, the Chief Minister might make surprise calls to them on their landline phones.

"We are also making efforts that problems of people are sorted out at district level so that they do not have to come to Lucknow and petition Adityanath," the official added.
Mumbai, April 28 : The character Hanuman has a little swag of superstar Salman Khan, who gave it a different dimension in "Hanuman Da Damdaar", says the forthcoming animated film's director Ruchi Narain.

Salman has done a voice-over for the first time for an animated character.

How did he approach a children's film based on Hanuman's character?

Narain told IANS here: "When I went to him with the story, he reacted like, 'What is this Da Dumdaar?' but as I started narrating the story, I think he liked it. So, he did it."

"He was very involved. He listened to the story three to four times to get the character, speaking style and everything right. So as an audience, when we watch the film, one can see a little swag of Salman Khan in Hanuman's character. He gave the character a different dimension."

The film will also feature the voices of actors like Raveena Tandon, Vinay Pathak and Kunal Kemmu, apart from celebrated lyricist and writer Javed Akhtar.

Narain said in the beginning, most of the actors were a little unsure about the potential of the film.

"I don't blame them as most of the time, Indian animated films don't match high quality and content. At times, animation films are quite silly. So, people have a notion that animation films, which are for kids have no good stories, with half baked characters. In this film, I attempted to get that correct," said the director.

"Hanuman Da Damdaar" is set to release on May 19.
New Delhi, April 28 : The Congress on Friday termed Narendra Modi as the "most hypocritical and double-faced" Prime Minister, slamming his government for rise in casualties in violence/terror attacks across India. The situation during the UPA rule was much better, it said.

"Why does this government talk of nationalism when it has failed in curbing casualties?" asked Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Calling Modi "the most hypocritical, double-faced and double-speaking" Prime Minister who had "abused the previous regime on far less violations", he said: "Now with an absolute straight face, everybody in the government is out to defend what is happening."

Comparing the casualty figures of the last 35 months of the United Progressive Alliance rule and the same period under the present National Democratic Alliance government, Singhvi said: "In Jammu and Kashmir, 91 civilians and 198 soldiers lost their lives (under NDA rule). In the 35 months preceding this, that is during 2011-14, 50 civilians and 103 jawans were killed -- around half of the current figures."

"In Maoist violence, 442 civilians and 278 jawans lost lives during the past 35 months (since Modi came to power). In the 35 months earlier, the numbers were 367 and 268 respectively," Singhvi said.

In the northeast, he said, 229 civilians and 47 jawans lost their lives between 2011-14, compared with 344 and 99 respectively since the BJP-led government came to power.

"In all these regions we have seen how in most cases the numbers have nearly doubled," said Singhvi.

About ceasefire violations by Pakistan, Singhvi said: "In last 35 months of UPA, there were 470 ceasefire violations by Pakistan and 85 terror incidents. Under Modi government, these numbers rose to 1,343 and 172."

"On each parameter -- be it Jammu and Kashmir, Maoist violence, Pakistan attacks, China factor or the north-east -- there has been increase in attacks against India," he added.

"Who has given a clean chit to China? Modi government. We are treated to semantic jugglery. The government says there are transgressions and not incursions, and then says that transgressions are a matter of perception."

"China is insulting India by opposing us on international fora. It is giving you the biggest insult slaps on Hafeez Saeed, on renaming six towns in Arunachal Pradesh, on opposing you in NSG, on opposing you in Security Council," Singhvi pointed out.

"In 2013, Modiji said that the government couldn't provide security to India. He asked what government was doing after Pakistan went back on promises."

"In August 2013, Modiji said that China intrudes our borders, Pakistan kills our jawans but Centre doesn't act. May I ask the same questions to this Prime Minister," said Singhvi.
Kolkata, April 28 : The Calcutta High Court on Friday allowed the CBI to carry on with its probe into the Narada sting video footage case and directed accused Aparupa Poddar - a Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member - to extend all cooperation to the agency.

A single judge bench of Justice Joymalyo Bagchi gave the directive on a petition moved by Poddar seeking quashing of the FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against her under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Her lawyer prayed before the court that Poddar could not brought under the purview of the said Act as she was not a people's representative when the video footage was recorded.

The counsel in his submission referred to Narada News Portal CEO Mathew Samuels' claim that he had recorded the footage in April 2014. The results of the Lok Sabha polls were declared a month later, when Poddar won her maiden Lok Sabha election from Arambagh, he argued.

The judge asked the CBI to submit to the court all relevant records related to its probe on the next hearing on May 10.

Poddar has to extend all cooperation to the probe, Justice Bagchi said.

The controversy erupted in assembly election-bound West Bengal in March last year when Narada News portal uploaded video footage purportedly showing the Trinamool leaders receiving money in exchange of favours to a fictitious company.

The Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI preliminary inquiry into the case exactly on March 17, and asked the federal investigation agency to submit the report within 72 hours.

The Trinamool Congress appealed to the Supreme Court on March 21, challenging the High Court' order, but the apex court refused to interfere with the order though it extended the deadline for the preliminary probe to one month.

On April 17, the CBI filed an FIR against a dozen senior Trinamool including former and current state ministers, MPs, and an MLA, besides IPS officer S.M.H. Mirza.

Among those whose names figure in the FIR are Trinamool Vice President and Rajya Sabha member Mukul Roy, Lok Sabha members Sougata Roy, Sultan Ahmed, Kakali Ghosh Dastidar, Poddar and Prasun Banerjee.

Also featuring in the list are state ministers Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad Hakim, Suvendu Adhikari, city mayor and state minister Sovan Chatterjee, legislator Iqbal Ahmed and former minister Madan Mitra.

The accused have been charged with criminal conspiracy and under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
New Delhi, April 30 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday greeted Gujarat and Maharashtra on the eve of their Foundation Day on May 1.

"I congratulate the citizens of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Both the states have striven to reach the heights of progress continually, contributed to the development of the nation, and a number great people born in both states have have continuously inspired us," Modi said in his monthly radio address 'Mann Ki Baat'.

He followed this by making an appeal to the citizens to take a vow to see where they can take their state, society and nation by the year 2022 when India celebrates the 75th anniversary of its independence.

He said on this occasion people should chart out their own vision of the nation.

"To be able to execute this task, one must prepare plans and must march forward with the support of all the citizens," he said.
Kathmandu, April 30 : The Nepal government on Sunday registered an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Sushila Karki, leading to the automatic suspension of the first woman to hold the top legal post.

A total 249 lawmakers from the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre have accused Karki of interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced. The recent dispute between the government and the Supreme Court over the appointment of the police chief is believed to have been the tipping point.

However, apparently protesting the decision which came a fortnight before the crucial local body elections, Deputy Prime Minister Bimalendra Nidhi announced his resignation. Nidhi, who holds the key Home portfolio, leads the Nepali Congress (NC), the largest constituent of the current ruling coalition.

Attorney General Raman Shrestha said it was necessary to impeach CJ Karki for she tampered with the work performance evaluation of the Inspectors General of Police candidates during the recent controversy over the promotion of Nepal Police chief.

Karki, who is slated to retire next month, has also been accused of breaching the sanctity of the court and separation of power, propping up groups and nepotism in the court, failed to execute fair justice and putting unnecessary pressure in the court and his fellow colleagues, among others.

As soon as the Prachanda-led government appointed Jay Bahadur Chand as the new police chief, his competitor Nawaraj Silwal had knocked the door of the Supreme Court claiming he was senior. Later, the court ruled that Silwal be appointed as per merit and seniority. After the dispute, the government had appointed Prakash Aryal as the new IGP of Nepal Police.

Silwal again moved the court last week and fearing that the court, which is due to deliver its verdict on Monday, may rule in favour of Silwal, the two ruling parties decided to register the impeachment motion.

Meanwhile, with Nidhi's quitting, questions have risen over the fate of Nepal's local elections on May 14 and June 14.

Nidhi, who was leading the party in the Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government, was dissatisfied since long due to protocol-related issues with his party boss, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and PM Prachanda.

"The appointment of the police chief comes under my ministry. I was not aware about the impeachment motion registered in Parliament," he said, adding that the impeachment motion is related to the IGP's appointment and "I am not consulted".

Nidhi said he has serious reservations over the move to register the impeachment motion against CJ Karki without his knowledge.
Washington, May 1 : The Pentagon said on Sunday at least 352 civilians were killed as a result of US-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to March 2017.

In its monthly report of assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the Pentagon, 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

In addition, the US military reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present which were not previously announced.

"Although the coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimises the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable," said the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's figures contradict the assessment by London-based Amnesty International, which estimated that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition air strikes in Syria alone.
Washington, May 1 : US President Donald Trump on Sunday spoke separately with leaders of Singapore and Thailand to reaffirm the United States' commitment to the Southeastern Asian countries, the White House said.

In a telephone conversation, Trump and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong hailed the two countries' trade and investment, security cooperation, as well as collaboration on regional and global challenges, Xinhua news agency reported.

Speaking with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, Trump affirmed his administration's commitment to playing an "active and leading role" in Asia, in close cooperation with "partners and allies like Thailand", according to the White House.

Trump and Prayut expressed a shared interest in strengthening trade and economic ties.

The businessman-turned-president invited both leaders to visit the White House.

On Saturday, Trump discussed with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte regional security issues in Southeast Asia, including the threat posed by North Korea.

Duterte's clampdown on drugs was also mentioned during the conversation.

Describing the conversation as "very friendly", the White House said in a statement that the two Presidents acknowledged "the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world."

Trump also invited Duterte to Washington to discuss the bilateral relationship, "which is now heading in a very positive direction," said the statement.

The Obama administration had raised concerns over Manila's extra-judicial killings of drug-trafficking suspects. A meeting between Obama and Duterte was called off last year after Duterte publicly "insulted" Obama.
Ankara, May 1 : Following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's referendum victory for the constitutional amendments granting executive powers to him, he will on May 21 take the helm of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in an extraordinary convention.

Erdogan will implement major changes in the party's administration and the cabinet in May, Xinhua news agency reported.

With the new constitutional changes, Erdogan is able to officially re-establish his ties with the AKP from which he resigned in August 2014 after being elected as the President, according to the constitutional requirement at that time.

The first step will be taken on Monday as the party will convene its Central Executive Board, its top executive bodies, and then the central-decision making body to invite Erdogan to re-establish links with the AKP.

Erdogan will also deliberate on the extraordinary convention during these meetings and register his party on Tuesday at a parliamentary meeting.

"We happily invite our President back to our party. There is nothing stopping him from becoming its chairman. However, the first step is to readmit him once more as a member of our party," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said last week.

Ahead of the party meeting, a cabinet reshuffle is expected as Erdogan wants to shift departing ministers to different posts in the party.

Erdogan on Sunday said that he was not in charge of the cabinet reshuffle decision which is the Prime Minister's responsibility, but has remained the de facto determining leader for party affairs since leaving the AKP.

Several other new appointments are expected for party cadres in the extraordinary congress.

Yildirim will also resign from his post as Erdogan will become the sole candidate for the party's chairmanship.

Erdogan, one of the ruling AKP co-founders, previously chaired the party for 13 years from 2001 but had to step aside when elected President.

Presently, he will once more be able to head the ruling AKP while concurrently serving as President, thereby legitimising the de facto situation without violating the constitution.

The Turkish President will be in a position to maintain a tight grip over his party and parliament since the AKP holds majority seats in parliament.

Turkish nationals voted "yes" on April 16 for the 18-article package paving the way for a transition from a parliamentary government model toward a presidential system, with limited checks and balances among governing authorities.

The referendum paved the way for Erdogan to potentially rule until 2029.

The majority of constitutional amendments will be put into effect through general and presidential elections to be simultaneously held in 2019.

However, three articles will immediately come into effect -- the President's party membership, the re-organisation of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors and abolishing military tribunals.
New Delhi, May 1 : Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here on Monday.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Erdogan. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

"India is delighted to welcome President Erdogan of Turkey. Will hold talks with him and also address a business summit," Modi said in a tweet.

"Beginning an important visit," Gopal Baglay, official spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs said in another tweet.

Later the visiting dignitary paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Later during the day, Erdogan will participate in delegation-level talks with Modi. The two sides were also expected to sign a series of agreements.

Modi and Erdogan will also address a business event organised by Indian business bodies.

Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit.

His visit comes after winning the April 16 referendum, which gives him more executive powers as President.

Terrorism will also feature in the talks.

India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.

His last visit to India was in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

Mukherjee visited Turkey in 2013. Modi also met Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015.
New Delhi : Book: Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society; Author: Tibetan religious head and 17th Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje; Publisher: Simon and Schuster India and Wisdom Publications; Pages: 264, Price: Rs 375 His latest book, "Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society", reflects the historical moment in which this young spiritual leader, who heads a 900-year-old lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, has come of age as a thinker.

The 31-year-old Karmapa, who has lived most of his adult life in the 21st century, portrays a world where global integration has centred on economic and technological connectivity but without moving sufficiently beyond an atomistic vision of who we are as human beings.

As a result, globalisation has led to greater competition, conflict and isolationism, rather than compassion, sharing and collaboration.

Drawing on the Buddhist teachings on interdependence, the Karmapa describes the personal and social values that we urgently need to develop so that we can create a global society that recognises our inner as well as our material interconnectedness.

Interestingly, this book anticipates the current turn towards isolationism, although it is based on discourses the Karmapa gave four years ago in Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India where he resides in a monastery.

The world is hardly united in welcoming this new reality, even if information technology and global economic integration make our interdependence harder to deny.

For his part, the Karmapa -- whose literal meaning is "the one who carries out Buddha activity" -- argues that we must move not backward retreating behind walls, but forward, joining together to build a global society that acknowledges and draws on our fundamental inner connectedness.

He shows that we need to recognise interdependence, not just as a theory but also as a feeling.

The Buddhist monk, who not only paints but also pens poems and books, urges us to move from our head to our hearts and then to our hands.

The book is structured in three parts to take readers from intellectual understanding to emotional awareness to action -- seeing the connection, feeling the connection and living the connection.

The Karmapa points to human beings' inherent capacity for empathy as a natural basis for the values that naturally flow from our interconnectedness, values such as equality and diversity, compassion and social responsibility.

In its final section, "Interconnected" explains how we can apply such values at the personal, community and global levels.

Sub-themes of the book include the way electronic connectivity is transforming the way we relate, loneliness as a product of the consumer culture, animal protection and environmental sustainability.

This book articulates the Karmapa's vision of a compassionate and caring society built through collective action.

The Karmapa has founded Khoryug, an eco-monastic movement that has educated thousands of monks and nuns across the Himalayas to lead their local communities on environmental issues.

In March, the Karmapa, who penned a short song to be used as the anthem for the Vajra Vidya Institute in Sarnath, the birthplace of Buddhism, took the first step towards granting full ordination to women in his Tibetan Buddhism lineage.

As a spiritual leader with a deep commitment to action, the Karmapa does not merely call for real change; in this book he offers the essential guidance we need to bring it about.

The Karmapa has published numerous books of interest to both Buddhist readers and those from other religions. His last book, "Nurturing Compassion", presented his discourses on his first historic trip to Europe in 2014.

"Interconnected" is the second book in a series of publications specifically for non-Buddhist audiences. Each book in this series has emerged from dialogues with the youth held at his temporary residence in Dharamsala, where Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, also resides.

Based on discourses to students from the University of Redlands in California, the first in the series was "The Heart is Noble: Changing the World from the Inside Out" also explored interdependence as it plays out in various areas, such as gender, food justice and personal relationships.

Both books in this series evolved out of dialogues with university students.

However, "Interconnected" reflects the Karmapa's deepening thought over the years and presents a more substantial exploration of the ethical and social ramifications of our interconnectedness.

His third book is coming in 2018, and will be based on interactions held last year with postgraduate students of the psychology department of Delhi's Ambedkar University.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
Washington, May 1 : Former US Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd of Democrats at an event in New Hampshire that he will not run for President in 2020, the media reported.

Biden spoke on Sunday night at an annual dinner hosted by the New Hampshire Democratic Party in a state that the 74-year-old has come to know well through two unsuccessful presidential campaigns of his own and two more as a running mate, CNN reported.

Biden, who advisers say is currently nowhere near making a decision on 2020, addressed the question head on.

"Guys, I'm not running!" he said with a smile, as the audience booed in response.

Regarding the 2016 presidential election, Biden said: "Trump was pretty smart. He made it all personal".

"It would not have taken much for Hillary Clinton to win on Election Day, but too many Democrats decided to stay home...I'm absolutely positive they wanted to be with us. But we have to prove again we understand that hopelessness."

Accompanied at the dinner by his wife, Jill, and speaking for a full hour, Biden also wholly rejected the President Trump's worldview, especially on the issue of immigration, reports CNN.

He warned that the values like dignity and optimism that are at the core of the country were being eroded.

But he also insisted that the current political climate was just a passing phase.

"Tolerance has long been our greatest attribute...We've had our ugly periods, we've had our moments of shame, but the arc of this nation has been towards justice."

Biden spent eight years as Obama's deputy and he served as a US senator from Delaware for 36 years prior to that.
New York, May 1 : Ever since Donald Trump assumed office as the US President, there has been a significant decline in his number of tweets and other engagements on Twitter.

According to US-based digital metrics firm Huge that conducted a deep analysis of Trump's tweets in commemoration of his 100 days in office, it was found that the US President has been tweeting less frequently of late.

The number of likes, responses and retweets has dropped by 66 per cent over the last three months, Fortune reported on Sunday.

Trump's "likes" now make up 64 per cent of engagements, down from 77 per cent three months ago while his total number of likes per tweet has fallen a whopping 72 per cent.

Trump's tweets were categorised as "agitated, calm and prepared". The findings showed that 24 per cent of his tweets were "agitated" in April, down from 44 per cent in February.

"But that doesn't mean that Trump himself has calmed down all that much. After cross-indexing content to tweet time and location, it was found that most of the agitated tweets were posted on weekends and early mornings, while the calmer tweets were posted during the day on Monday through Friday," the findings noted.

What analysts deduce from the research is that there might be a "tug of war" between the Trump and staffers who try to moderate his communication strategy.
Riyadh, May 1 : German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a visit to Saudi Arabia, has arrived in the oil-rich kingdom without a headscarf for talks with the King.

Merkel was greeted by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other officials upon her arrival at the western city of Jeddah on Sunday, The Independent reported.

The 62-year-old like other female Western visitors did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also avoided the strict dress code for women when she visited the country. May had said that she hoped to be an inspiration to oppressed women in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia enforces a conservative dress code in public, requiring women to wear a full-length robe and cover their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Foreign visitors have not always followed the protocol, and Merkel also followed the footsteps of May, President Donald Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama.

Merkel has called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".

"It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

The German parliament last week voted for a draft law banning women working in the civil service, judiciary and military from wearing full-face veils.

Burqas and niqabs will be prohibited in select professions as part of the legislation, once approved by the Bundesrat state parliament.

The German leader is expected to press Gulf leaders to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries.

According to The Independent, Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

She is scheduled to travel to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates after visiting the Saudi Kingdom.
New Delhi : Title: In Hot Blood - The Nanavati Case That Shook India; Author: Bachi Karkaria; Publisher: Juggernaut; Pages: 464; Price: Rs 699 Free India's most significant trial of a crime of passion, the Nanavati case's influence extends beyond three Bollywood films (Akshay Kumar's "Rustom" being the most recent) it inspired, to the public and media frenzy it sparked, the judiciary-executive clash it engendered, the issues of influence and social cleavage it evoked, and the overhaul of the criminal justice system it led to.

Inured as we are to more horrific crimes -- murders by family/lovers, body disposal attempts in tandoors and so on -- the Nanavati case doesn't reach their gruesome level but outstrips them in social, legal and political impact.

Strangely, its full story has never been told -- until now.

In this "part thriller, part courtroom drama and legal history and part social portrait of post-Independence Bombay", veteran journalist and columnist Karkaria seeks to provide its first comprehensive account.

"Way back on 27 April, 1959, a Parsi naval commander, Kawas Nanavati, shot dead his English wife Sylvia's Sindhi lover, Prem Ahuja. Three bullets in less than three minutes is all it took, but the trial which began the following September held the nation in thrall for five years...." she says, which is useful as most may never heard of it, and even the youngest who were around at the time would be in their mid-70s now.

But Karkaria, who contends that the number three has a close affinity with the case beyond the three main protagonists and the three shots, says it was also not "the class, the cast and the context which were such a triple whammy that they have knocked out everything else" but "three major narratives that deserve greater engagement".

This, she identifies as the case, especially the way it proved justice could be subverted, and the clash between two pillars of the state and unprecedented intervention of the head of government; the media, with regards to its coverage; and the triangle itself, in the various perceptions and cliches it projected.

Thus Karkaria serves us not only a reconstruction of the crime and the trial's twist and turns -- up to the Supreme Court, what became of the protagonists in their subsequent life. And then besides the ramifications, there is also a multitude of smaller but no less significant issues connected to it, some that offer a new insight into our country.

Among these was the sheer diversity the case displayed -- a Parsi accused, who obtained what became the murder weapon from a Muslim sailor, went and killed a Sindhi businessman, reported what he had done to a Jewish naval provost marshal, who sent him to a Christian police officer -- and this was only at the beginning.

Karkaria provides an gripping description of the trial and the crowds it attracted, including a naval cadet who sneaked out of NDA, as well as the first example of "merchandise" marketing in India -- replicas of the murder weapon and a crucial piece of evidence being hawked on the streets.

She also focusses on the bench and bar, encompassing giants of the field as well as one novice -- Ram Jethmalani, engaged by the victim's sister on a "watching brief" (no direct involvement) but zeroing in on a key point that made their case. Also figuring is the media aspect -- and the stirrings of the tabloid approach to news -- in the reporting of "The Blitz" of R.K. Karanjia, which took an unapologetic pro-Nanavati line.

Karkaria however heads into uncertain territory in her "deconstruction" of the principal protagonists. It can be argued the hero was not perfect, the villain not entirely bad or the woman an unwitting victim -- to a point.

But questioning if Nanavati was that promising if he cracked up under pressure on a domestic issue ignores he acted as an officer and a gentleman: in the second respect, he offered to stand aside but when reportedly spurned, behaved as a warrior - who is trained to kill.

And if empowerment means spouses can cite their partners' absence on duty to want "something more" than what their marriage gives them, then many professions could only be staffed by single men or women.

But this apart, Karkaria has made a superb -- and balanced -- exposition. With Nanavati refusing to talk afterwards, the jury is still out on what happened -- only this case meant it would never return.

(Vikas Datta can be contacted at vikas.d@ians.in)
Sydney, May 1 : Facebook monitored the posts of Australian children and used algorithms to identify and exploit them by allowing advertisers to target them during their "most vulnerable moments", media reported, evoking criticism against the social media giant.

A confidential 23-page Facebook document prepared by company's two top Australian executives outlines how the social network can target "moments when young people need a confidence boost" in pinpoint detail, The Australian reported on Sunday.

Facebook collected the information on a person's moods including feeling "worthless", "overwhelmed" and "nervous" and then, it divulged the same to advertisers who use it to target them.

Facebook admitted it was wrong to target the children and apologized.

"We have opened an investigation to understand the process failure and improve our oversight. We will undertake disciplinary and other processes as appropriate," a Facebook spokeswoman told The Australian.

"While the data on which this research is based was aggregated and presented consistent with applicable privacy and legal protections, including the removal of any personally identifiable information, our internal process sets a standard higher than required by law," she added.

Facebook's tactic violates the Australian Code for Advertising and Marketing Communications to Children guidelines.

The revelation also points towards the how Facebook can be used for covert surveillance which most of the social networking sites claim to be fighting against.

There have been rumours about Facebook's advertising sales methods but there was no proof until now that could corroborate that.

"The document is an insight on how Facebook gathers psychological insights on 6.4 million 'high schoolers', 'tertiary students' and 'young Australians, New ZealandersA in the workforce' to sell targeted advertising," the report noted.

The document states that the detailed information on mood shifts among young people is "based on internal Facebook data, shareable under non-disclosure agreement only, and is not publicly available".

Facebook has not disclosed if the similar practices exist elsewhere.

This practice is similar to a 2014 psychological experiment conducted by Facebook on its 600,000 users without their knowledge.

Facebook had then tweaked the News Feed of users to highlight either positive or negative posts from their friends. The social media giant then monitored the users' response to study the impact of their friends' attitude.
Chandigarh, May 1 : A threat publicly issued to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh by pro-Khalistan elements during an event in Surrey city of Canada's British Columbia province recently has drawn an official protest from India.

Sources here told IANS that the Indian High Commission in Canadian capital Ottawa has lodged a "formal complaint" to Global Affairs-Canada, the foreign office last week, following the open threat to Amarinder Singh and hate speeches.

Videos of the 'Vaisakhi Parade' in Surrey on April 22 have been sent to the Canadian foreign ministry as proof of the open threats issued to Amarinder by Sikh hardliners.

The communication has also objected to the public display of Khalistan floats with images of slain separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and other terrorists, pictures of Kalashnikov rifles and photographs of former and serving army and police officers who are on the hit-list of Sikh radicals.

It is learnt that the Canadian authorities were cautioned about the "anti-India propaganda" of the Khalistani elements by the Indian authorities, who were anticipating such trouble, on April 13 itself. The Canadian foreign ministry, responding to the early warning, said it will take "necessary action".

However, the Khalistani elements were allowed to have a free run and even issued threats on loudspeakers to Amarinder Singh in front of hundreds of people from the Indian community who participated in the April 22 parade. The Canadian provincial police and security agencies were present when all this happened, the sources told IANS.

It is learnt that the complaint pointed out to two Khalistani activists, Inderjit Singh Bains (an ex-office bearer of the Dashmesh Gurdwara, Surrey) and another person from the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) organization.

British Columbia premier Christie Clark had also attended the parade. The Punjabi Diaspora, particularly Sikhs, form a major vote-bank in the election-bound province.

"These kinds of open and cheap threats show the extent of radicalisation in a relatively small section of the Sikh community in Canada. They endorse our stand of pro-Khalistani leanings of such elements in the Canadian Sikh community. Such brazen threats, and that too against the elected chief minister of a state in another country, should have no place in a democratic polity. It is up to the Prime Minister of Canada and the authorities there to rein in such elements and take preventive action to ensure that things do not get out of hand," Raveen Thukral Media Advisor to the Punjab Chief Minister told IANS.

The Amarinder Singh government cold shouldered visiting Canadian Defence Minister of Indian-origin, Harjit Singh Sajjan, 46, as he visited various places in Punjab last month.

Amarinder refused to meet Sajjan, the first Sikh to be the defence minister of a western country, accusing him and other ministers of Punjab origin in the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of links to radical elements demanding a separate Sikh state of Khalistan.

No minister or senior officer of the Punjab government either went to welcome Sajjan or even accompany him during the visit.

Amarinder had pointed out that "Sajjan and several other ministers and top leaders in Canada were sympathizing with those indulging in anti-India activities, notwithstanding Canada's claims to the contrary", adding that he would "not meet any Khalistani sympathisers".

"I will personally not entertain the Canadian minister as I have concrete information about his being a Khalistani sympathiser, just as his father Kundan Sajjan, a board member of the World Sikh Organisation, was," Amarinder had said earlier.

"Not only Sajjan but other ministers and MPs, including Navdeep Bains, Amarjit Sohi, Sukh Dhaiwal, Darshan Kang, Raj Grewal, Harinder Malhi, Roby Sahota, Jagmeet Singh and Randeep Sari, were well known for their leanings towards the Khalistani movementaa I will not be seen hobnobbing with a Khalistani sympathiser," Amarinder pointed out.

Amarinder has been annoyed with the Canadian government since April last year when he was denied permission to visit that country, which has a sizeable Punjabi Diaspora, in the run-up to the Punjab assembly elections. The SFJ had complained to the Canadian government against Amarinder's visit.

The Congress leader had to cancel his trip after being told by the Canadian authorities at the last minute that he could not allowed to visit the country for holding political rallies and meetings. The visit was aimed at wooing influential Non-Resident Indian (NRI) groups in Canada.

Amarinder had shot of an angry letter to Trudeau protesting against the "gag order". He was informed by Foreign Secretary S. Jaishanker of the Canadian government's stance.

Trudeau's prdecessor, Stephen Harper, had visited Punjab in 2012 and 2009 in an apparent bid to woo the Punjabi and Sikh community in Canada.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)
Mumbai, May 1 : All cinemas and multiplexes in Maharashtra will exhibit a short film on the life and works of the Father of Indian cinema, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, revered as Dadasaheb Phalke, Cultural Affairs Minister Vinod Tawde said here.

The short film will be 55 seconds long and directed by Rajesh Mapuskar, who helmed the much-acclaimed film "Ventilator", which bagged three National Awards, Tawde said.

The minister made the announcement late on Sunday, on the occasion of the 147th birth anniversary of Dadasaheb Phalke which was celebrated on April 30.

"The film will be shown immediately after the National Anthem in all cinema halls. Necessary orders are being issued to implement this as soon as possible," said a ministry official.

The short film will highlight the life and times of Dadasaheb Phalke who introduced the art and business of filmmaking in India with his legendary full-length film, "Raja Harishchandra", in 1913.

Incidentally, last month on April 21, it was the 104th anniversary of the premiere of the film at Olympia Cinematograph cinema hall in south Mumbai.

This year also marks the centenary of India's first blockbuster film, Dadasaheb Phalke's "Lanka Dahan" released in 1917, and the 100 years of India's first 'double-role' character played by the legendary actor Anna Hari Salunkhe in the same film ("Lanka Dahan").

Marking these important milestones, Dadasaheb Phalke's grandson, Chandrashekhar Pusalkar inaugurated the first ever official website called Dadasaheb Phalke International Awareness Mission on April 21.

Pusalkar said the Phalke family descendents and other prominent personalities have been demanding the conferment of India's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna on Dadasaheb Phalke and his wife Saraswati, acknowledged as India's first film technician.

During his lifetime, the multi-faceted Dadasaheb Phalke made around 30 short films and 45 full-length feature films, all silent and mostly on religious or mythological themes which proved to be immensely popular.

Faced with tough competition from talkies which started in 1931 with "Alam Ara", he voluntarily withdrew himself from filmmaking in 1937 and spent the last few years of his life in Nashik, his birth-place where he passed away on February 16, 1944.
New Delhi, May 1 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the bilateral trade between Turkey and India needs to reflect the potential of the two economies.

"The strength of our economies presents an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages between our countries," Modi told the media after delegation level talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He expressed the need for the two governments to approach the entire spectrum of business opportunities in strategic and long-term manner.

"The businesses and industry on both the sides can do much more."

The Prime Minister also invited Turkish businesses to participate in infrastructure sector and the flagship programmes of the government.

The two sides held comprehensive discussion on the full spectrum of issues, particularly in political, economic and cultural spheres.

Modi and Erdogan also discussed the changing contours of the common security challenges such as global terrorism and called for action against those who finance, support and spread terrorism.

There can be no validation of terrorism, the Prime minister said.

According to Modi, India and Turkey discussed the need for comprehensive reforms in the UN, including the Security Council's expansion to make the organisation more representative, accountable and effective.

The two sides recognised the need for the UN Security Council to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the centuries gone by.

Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Erdogan at Rashtrapati Bhavan, where he was accorded a ceremonial welcome with a guard of honour.
Srinagar, May 1 : Militants on Monday shot dead five policemen and two bank employees in an audacious attack on a cash van in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district, police said.

The incident took place in Pombai village when an unspecified number of militants waylaid and targeted the cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank when it was on its way to Kulgam town, about 70 km from here.

"Militants fired at the van occupants," a police officer said. The attackers escaped with the rifles of the slain policemen.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir Range) S.P. Pani said a massive manhunt had been launched for the killers.

The Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack. A Hizbul spokesman, calling himself as Burhan-ud-Din, made the claim over telephone to a local news agency.

Senior police and paramilitary officers rushed to the spot after the killings.

The cash van had deposited cash in the Neehama village branch of the bank and was returning to Kulgam town when it came under attack.
New Delhi, May 1 : India and Turkey on Monday agreed to boost bilateral trade from the current level of just over $6 billion and expressed the resolve to fight the global menace of terrorism together.

"President and I are clear that the strength of our economies presents an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages between our countries," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, jointly addressing the media with Turkish President Recep Tayyip here after delegation-level official talks.

The Prime Minister said that at the level of the two governments, "we need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner".

"India and Turkey are two large economies," he stated.

"Our bilateral trade turnover of around $6 billion does not do full justice to convergences in our economies. Clearly, the business and industry on both sides can do much more."

Modi invited Turkish businesses to tap the "diverse and unique opportunities", including infrastructure requirements and Smart Cities programme, available in India.

"We would like to encourage stronger partnership of Turkish companies with our flagship programmes and projects, either on their own or in collaboration with the Indian companies," he said.

On the issue of terrorism, the Prime Minister said that he had an extensive conversation with President Erdogan on this, and added that both of them agreed that "no intent or goal, no reason or rationale can validate terrorism".

"The nations of the world, therefore, need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists," he said.

"They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence."

Modi said that he and Erdogan "agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace".

The two leaders also discussed the need for comprehensive reforms in the UN, including the Security Council expansion, "to make the body more representative accountable and effective".

"Both of us recognise the need for the UN Security Council to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the century gone by," Modi stated.

Turkey's position on India's bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council is different.

Turkey is a member of a group of countries called Uniting for Consensus (UfC) that is opposed to expansion of permanent seats in the Security Council.

On his part, Erdogan said that Turkey would always be by the side of India "in full solidarity" in battling terrorism.

"Terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over the suffering of people and are willing to a create future for themselves out of victims' pain," he said.

He said that he and Modi also discussed the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July last year in which over 300 people, both civilians and security personnel, lost their lives.

The Turkish government has blamed the US-based preacher and political activists Fethullah Gulen for the coup attempt.

Erdogan expressed hope that India would expel all institutions linked to FETO -- or the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation that Turkish authorities describe the Gulenist network as.

Stating that the current bilateral trade volume of just over $6 billion was "not enough for us", he called for increasing this figure to at least $10 billion.

"We have discussed cooperation in the areas of energy cooperation and infrastructure development," the Turkish President said.

He also said that the frequency of flights between the two countries should be increased to help businessmen on both sides.

Following Monday's talks, the two sides signed three agreements, including a cultural exchange programme, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Foreign Services Institute of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey, and another MoU on information and communication technologies.

Earlier in the day, Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the Turkish President and discussed issues of bilateral interest.

Modi and Erdogan then addressed a business summit organised by industry organisations CII, Ficci and Assocham, at which both leaders called for boosting India-Turkey trade and economic ties.

Erdogan arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit to India. He last visited India in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.
Damascus, May 1 : A total of 2,786 people were killed in Syria in April, slightly lower than the figure in March when there were 2,826 casualties, a British-based war monitor revealed on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that among those killed were at least 938 civilians, including 291 children and 151 women, Efe news reported.

According to the SOHR, nearly half of the civilians were killed in the bombing by Russian and Syrian warplanes in different parts of the country.

Other causes of the death of Syrian citizens were gunfire by Islamic factions, Turkish border guards, explosions of mines and international coalition bombings, as well as attacks by the Syrian Democratic Forces fighters (SDF) an armed alliance led by Kurdish militias.

At least 449 Syrian fighters from the rebel groups and SDF were killed in April, with 833 militants among the dead, most of them foreigners from radical organisations including the Islamic State and the Turkic Islamic Army.

On the government side, at least 215 regular troops were killed, in addition to 308 Syrian rebels from other militias loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Among them were five fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and 23 militia from other nationalities.

Syria has recorded more than 321,000 deaths since the start of a civil war in March 2011.
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Hyderabad, May 1 : AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Monday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to keep the communal pot boiling in the country through its remarks on triple talaq.

Talking to reporters, he said it was inappropriate on the part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his Cabinet colleagues and others to speak on triple talaq when the Supreme Court was set to hear the case from May 11.

Reacting to Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu's comments on Sharia, he pointed out that a day after the Prime Minister asserted the issue should not be politicised, the central minister spoke about it.

The Hyderabad MP also referred to the statement by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath that people should speak on triple talaq and to the remark by a Uttar Pradesh minister that Muslims use triple talaq for lust.

He said if the BJP leaders had anything to say on the issue, they should say it in the Supreme Court, which was hearing the matter.

Owaisi remarked that Venkaiah Naidu was the new expert in the country on Sharia. "I would like to request Mr Venkaiah Naidu to explain us what is Sharia," he said, adding that "Muslims know what is in Sharia".

"Some 1,400 years ago, Islam gave women the share in father's property. Can you give us any such example," asked the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief.

On the BJP leaders' argument that they were speaking for justice to Muslim women, Owaisi said such "selective justice" was not acceptable.

"Why don't they talk about justice to the blind mother of Pilo Khan, who was killed for carrying cow, justice to mother and wife of Akhlaq, justice to mother of Najeeb and to Zakia Jafari," he asked.

Owaisi also wanted to know why the BJP leaders were silent on the need for justice to 20 lakh Hindu sisters, who were separated or abandoned. "There are 4.30 crore women who are widows. Why don't they speak about it or do something for their re-marriage?"

The MP said Modi, central ministers and other BJP leaders were silent on real issues like price rise, unemployment and security.
Los Angeles, May 1 : After months of denying he was sick, actor Val Kilmer has confirmed he had cancer and is now doing fine.

The first hint that Kilmer was ill came in 2015 when he was spotted at UCLA Medical Center. Then in November, fellow actor and friend Michael Douglas mentioned that Kilmer was fighting throat cancer.

Kilmer, at that time, said he never had cancer and that Douglas was "misinformed".

But last week during a "Ask Me Anything" session, Kilmer came clean, reports pagesix.com.

"A while ago, Michael Douglas claimed you had terminal cancer," one fan asked. "What was the story behind that?"

Kilmer answered: "He was probably trying to help me cause press probably asked where I was these days, and I did have a healing of cancer, but my tongue is still swollen although healing all the time. Because I don't sound my normal self yet people think I may still be under the weather."

Was Kilmer outing himself as a cancer survivor, asked one user.

The "Top Gun" actor also used the platform to dismiss rumours he and actor Tom Cruise clashed while filming the iconic 1986 film.

"He was a sweet heart," Kilmer said.

"We were all quite rowdy me and all the real flyboys and the actors, so I actually felt a little sorry for him cause we all had time to play and date the cute extras and zoom around San Diego in muscle cars, but Tom was always in some scene and never go to play with usA"
New Delhi, May 1 : Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday termed the killing of two Indian soldiers and mutilation of their bodies as a "barbaric" and "inhuman" act and said the Indian Army will take necessary action.

Jaitley did not name Pakistan but said the act had been carried out by the "neighbouring country" and added that the Indian government strongly condemns it.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this inhuman act. The whole country has full faith in the armed forces who will react appropriately. Their (two soldiers') sacrifice will not go in vain," Jaitley said.

Terming the act as reprehensible, Jaitley said such attacks do not take place even during war, not to speak of peace times.

The Pakistan Army killed two Indian soldiers in unprovoked firing and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said on Monday.

Jaitley said the incident took place in the Krishna Ghati sector.
Kolkata, May 1 : The position of non-performing assets (NPAs) of public sector banks will worsen if the names of corporate wilful defaulters are not published immediately, leaders of bank officers' union said on Monday.

"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has been steadfastly refusing to divulge the names of top corporate wilful defaulters. In the days to come, the position of NPAs will worsen if the names of wilful defaulters are not published immediately and treated as criminal offenders," All India Bank Officers Confederation's (AIBOC) West Bengal unit Secretary Sanjay Das told the media here.

He said, "The government and the RBI failed to bring in any stringent act or regulation to deal with wilful large corporate borrowers which account for more than 60 per cent of public sector banks' NPAs."

The bank union leaders said the Reserve Bank of In ia Governor said Indian banking system could be better off if some public sector banks are consolidated to have fewer and healthier entities.

Opposing the attempt of merging "weak banks", union leader Soumya Dutta said, "Every state unit of AIBOC will meet Chief Minister of respective states to oppose any move to merge public sector units."

Condemning RBI Governor Urjit Patel for his comment on consolidation of some public sector banks, Das said: "The RBI cannot shirk off its responsibility of the huge NPAs as all the banks' boards have RBI nominees as director."

"We do not understand how it is possible. He (Patel) opined the public sector banks to raise private capital from the markets and not rely on the government for that. He has not asked the government to compensate the PSU banks for the opportunity cost of 'Jan Dhan' exercise and for the entire period of demonetisation which adversely affected the bottomline of the banks," Das said.

Taking a swipe at Patel for his public comment on weak banks, the union leaders said a weak bank reveals a weaker regulator.

They said public sector banks are making "operating profit" but due to stringent provision norms prescribed by the RBI, against big ticket corporate loans, the net profit has come down.
Mumbai, May 1 : Actor Rahul Khanna went down memory lane and cherished the happy moments spent with his late father Vinod Khanna, who died on April 27.

In his first social media post since his father's death, Rahul took to Twitter on Monday to share a photo from his childhood days.

In the black and white photo, Vinod Khanna, sporting a smile on his face, is seen holding Rahul and his brother Akshaye and swinging them on a beach.

Rahul captioned it: "Feels like yesterday."

The late actor and BJP politician, 70, passed away after battling bladder cancer.
Hyderabad, May 1 : Telangana has submitted proposals worth Rs 1,410 crore for construction of elevated corridors on highways connecting Hyderabad to Bengaluru, Vijayawada and Warangal highways.

Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday spoke to Union Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and made the request to approve the proposals aimed at easing the congestion on these routes.

The Chief Minister mooted the proposal for 6.40 km of elevated corridor from Uppal to Ghatkesar on the Hyderabad-Warangal highway and urged the Centre to sanction Rs 950 crore for it.

He sought sanction of Rs 290 crore for the 10-km elevated corridor from Aramgarh to Shamshabad Airport on Hyderabad-Mahabubnagar-Bengaluru route, and Rs 170 crore for the construction of utility corridor (including service roads) of 26 km on Hyderabad-Suryapet-Vijayawada route.

According to a statement from the Chief Minister's Office, the Union Minister positively responded to the request.

The Chief Minister directed Municipal Administration Minister K. T. Rama Rao and Chief Advisor to Government Rajiv Sharma, who were in Delhi, to meet the Union Minister to submit a memorandum and estimates in this regard.
Kathmandu, May 1 : The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government in Nepal on Monday received a major blow after one of the ruling coalition partners, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, decided to withdraw from the government over the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice.

A meeting of the party central committee decided to pull out support following the impeachment motion registered in Parliament against Chief Justice Sushila Karki by the two other ruling coalition parties, Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), on Sunday.

There was no immediate reaction from the Prime Minister's Office over the fate of the coalition of seven parties.

"The decision to impeach Karki by the ruling Nepali Congress and Maoist Centre is an attack on the judiciary and our party does not support such a move," the Rastriya Prajatantra Party said announcing its decision to leave the government.

Nepal has seen hectic political developments following the decision to impeach the first woman Chief Justice, with Nepal's Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi quitting his post on Sunday following his reservation over the impeachment decision.

The Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre have accused Karki of interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced.

A government decision to appoint a new police chief and a subsequent ruling by the Supreme Court led to a serious feud between the executive and judiciary, leading to the ruling party deciding to impeach the Chief Justice, causing an uproar in Nepal.

With just two weeks to go for the first phase of local level elections on May 14, the series of political incidents has put the fate of the polls in a limbo, with the resignation of the Home Minister adding to the quandary ahead of the polls.

The Home Minister is in charge of overall security of the country.

Kamal Thapa, chairman of the RPP that decided to withdraw support on Monday, heads the Local Development Ministry that is in charge of coordinating various 477 local units.

Amid the crisis, a meeting of the top Nepal Army brass on Sunday night further fuelled the political uncertainties in Nepal. The emergency meeting called by Army chief General Rajendra Chettri on Sunday assessed the latest political situation and decided to maintain extra vigil across the country.

Nepal is holding local level polls on May 14 and June 14. Major Madhes-based party, Rastriya Janata Party, has already declared it would not participate in the May 14 polls.

Another party, Madhesi Janadhikar Foum that has 18 votes and is extending support to the government, has threatened to pull out its support on Tuesday, which would put the government in a minority.

MJF is all set to hold the party central committee meeting on Tuesday to take a final call, and is likely to withdraw support to the government, said a leader.

In the midst of this unprecedented political turmoil, Prime Minister Prachanda said that elections on May 14 will take place at any cost.

The Election Commission has set Tuesday to file nominations for the first round of elections but the fast changing political situation has put a question mark on the fate of the local polls.
New Delhi, May 1 : Emphasising that there has been an "atmosphere of fear" in the country under BJP's rule, Congress on Monday criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for being "silent" on issues of national importance.

"It is a matter of grave concern that there have been incidents of violence (across the country). BJP-governed states did not take any action to stop these attacks on innocent people," Congress leader Anand Sharma said in a press conference here.

Referring to attacks on animal traders by cow vigilantes, violence in the name of religion and Uttar Pradesh Government's 'anti-Romeo' squads, the Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said that Prime Minister, who speaks on every subject, must say something on these issues too.

"His (Modi's) silence is deafening. He is duty-bound to uphold constitutional democracy," he said, asking what "prevents" Modi and Union Home Minister from speaking on these matters.

Sharma said that the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have more responsibility to stop these attacks on innocent people.

"These incidents should not only be condemned but guilty must be punished," he said, adding that no economic development would be possible without peace in the society.

The former Union Minister also said these incidents have lowered India's image internationally.

"India's constitutional democracy must be defended. We are a country which is rule-based and rule-governed," he said, adding that atmosphere of fear was not good for the country.

"The Prime Minister must tell the country what action he plans to take against people who indulge in violence," he said.

Stressing that there has to be "stability" in the country for overall development, he said that stability does not mean only political stability and this "situation of fear" may have "long-term consequences".

He also attacked the Modi government for having an agenda, due to which "real issues" get lost.

"Prime Minister had promised 2 crore jobs every year. This (promise) has fallen flat. Only propaganda is being pushed," he said.
Guwahati, May 1 : Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha on Monday proposed to build an aerotropolis in Assam which would bring huge benefits to the region in terms of civil aviation and air connectivity.

Sinha said this to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal during a meeting at the Brahmaputra state guest house here, requesting him to allot 2,000 acres of land within an hour-long distance from Guwahati for the purpose.

Sonowal assured all cooperation in this regard and said that it would be a huge opportunity for the northeast to open air links with the Southeast Asian countries.

An aerotropolis is an airport centric metropolitan hub where infrastructure and economy are all based on access to the airport which serves as a commercial point like any traditional metropolis which contains a central city commercial core area and commuter-linked suburbs.

Saying that the Act East Policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been at the forefront of the development agenda of the state, Sonowal stated that the proposed aerotropolis would bolster the air connectivity in the region and open the northeastern region as the business hub of Southeast Asia.

He also requested the Union Minister of State to send officials from the Union Civil Aviation Department for conducting an aerial survey of the entire stretch of Brahmaputra from Sadiya to Dhubri for identifying suitable locations to set up airports in the state.

Saying that the northeast has the potential to be the growth engine of the country by opening road and air links with the Southeast Asian countries, Sonowal urged the Union Minister of State to start direct flights on the Guwahati-Bangkok and Guwahati-Singapore routes, which would speed up the momentum of economic growth of the region by increased tourist inflow and trade activities.

Referring to the government plan of dredging the Brahmaputra River from Sadiya to Dhubri, the Chief Minister said that increased depth of the river would enable plying of cargo ships on the Brahmaputra through Bangladesh to Chittagong port for which an agreement with the Bangladesh government has already been reached.

The Union Minister also urged the Chief Minister to expedite work on a metro train in Guwahati so that access to the proposed aerotropolis and airports can be improved.
Srinagar, May 1 : Terrorists on Monday shot dead five policemen and two bank employees in cold blood after forcing them out of two vehicles in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district, police said.

The militants waylaid a cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank and a police vehicle in a well-planned attack in Pombai village when they were on their way to Kulgam town, about 70 km from here.

The cash van had deposited Rs 18 lakh in Aharbal village branch of the bank.

When it reached the ambush spot, it was halted by a group of armed men at around 4.25 p.m. who ordered the occupants to deboard. They were lined up and gunned down.

The Pombai village road connects the area with Kulgam town.

Inspector General of Police S.J.M. Gilani told reporters that a militant, Umar Majeed of Kulgam, carried out the killings with his accomplices.

"The terrorists killed five of our policemen and two civilians working for the J&K Bank," he said.

The militants decamped with four rifles of the slain policemen. A junior officer killed in the attack was unarmed.

The J&K Bank has the largest network of branches in the Kashmir Valley. More than 200 branches operate in rural and far-flung areas.

Cash to bank branches is dispensed through cash vans secured by police while cash dispensation to over 2,000 ATMs in the troubled valley has been outsourced to a private security agency, a bank official told IANS.

Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Kashmir Range) S.P. Pani said a massive manhunt was launched for the killers.

The Pakistan-backed Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the bloodbath. A Hizbul spokesman, calling himself Burhan-ud-Din, made the claim over telephone to a local news agency.

The militants escaped by the time Army and police reinforcements reached the spot.
New Delhi, May 1 : Observing that Calcutta High Court judge Justice C.S. Karnan, who has been on a confrontation with the apex court, has been making "press statements with abject impunity", the Supreme Court on Monday ordered his medical examination - doubting if he was in a fit mental condition to defend himself.

The apex court also ordered that no court or authority should take cognisance of any of the "purported" orders passed by him.

A seven-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar directed the constitution of a medical board to examine Karnan on May 4. He would be examined by the medical board of doctors of a government hospital at Kolkata.

"The tenor of the press briefings, as also, the purported judicial orders passed by Justice C.S. Karnan, prima facie suggest, that he may not be in a fit medical condition, to defend himself, in the present proceedings," the court observed.

"We therefore consider it appropriate, to require him to be medically examined, before proceeding further," the court ordered, asking West Bengal government's Director Health Services to constitute a Board of Doctors from Pavlov Government Hospital to examine him.

The Board of Doctors would submit a report on "whether or not Shri Justice Karnan is in a fit condition to defend himself".

The report should reach top court on or before May 8, and fixed May 9 the next date of hearing.

The court also directed the West Bengal Director General of Police to set up a team of police to assist the medical board.

The bench noted that ever since contempt proceedings were initiated against him, Justice Karnan has been "expressing further disrespect" to the top court and also been making "press statements with abject impunity".

It restrained the Court, Tribunal, Commission or Authority from taking cognizance of the orders passed by Justice Karnan against the members of the seven judge bench and another judge of the top court.

Besides Chief Justice Khehar, other judges on the bench are Justice Dipak Misra, Justice J. Chelameswar, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Madan B. Lokur, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Kurian Joseph.

The court directed the medical examination as senior counsel K.K. Venugopal told the bench that "He (Karnan) can't be taken seriously.. He is not in a position to decide what is correct and what is not correct" - a position contested by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi.

As doubts were expressed about his state of mental health, the bench said, "If that is so then he can't be responsible for his acts."

At this the Attorney General said, "It is one thing to say that he has lost balance" but what about his conduct as a judge.

Saying that Justice Karnan was in "gross misconduct", the Attorney General pointed to his conduct prior to the initiation of contempt proceedings and during the pendency of the contempt proceedings by the top court.

Pointing to the conduct of Justice Karnan after the last hearing of the matter on March 31, the Attorney General said: "This is aggravation of contempt. This is becoming more than ... Everyday he keeps saying something. Court can't give him opportunity to explain for his every new act."

The AG said this as the court said the nature of Justice Karnan's latest action was different from his earlier act and he be asked to offer an explanation.

Telling the bench that Justice Karnan's actions are a calculated attempt to bring down the esteem of the judiciary in the people's eyes, Attorney General Rohatgi said: "Contempt action is not for the protection of judges, but to instil the confidence of the people in the institution of judiciary."

Karnan is facing contempt charges for degrading the judiciary and making allegations of wrongdoings against certain judges of the Madras High Court and questioning the orders of the top court.

On April 13, in a renewed confrontation, Justice Karnan had passed a "judicial order" against seven Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice Khehar, for "violating" the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and directed them to "appear" before him on April 28.

Later in an order, Justice Karnan directed the Air Control Authority in New Delhi not to allow the CJI and other six judges to travel abroad.

The seven judges had issued a suo motu contempt order against Karnan in February after he had in January named 20 "corrupt judges", seeking probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the Indian judiciary.

Reacting to the apex court order, Justice Karnan termed it as "ridiculous", and instead ordered the Delhi Police to produce the seven judges before a psychiatric board.

"The said order is a ridiculous order without proper application of mind in following appropriate procedures as required...the seven accused judges have desperately adopted this ridiculous order, in order to escape the punishment leviable via the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (prevention of) atrocity act," Karnan said in a press release.

"With their phenomenal behaviour, it is the said seven judges who actually require medical examination," he said.
Dediapada (Gujarat), May 1 : Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday disputed the BJP's development claims in Gujarat and said the governments in the state and at the Centre worked only for a handful of industrialists.

Addressing an impressive rally in the tribal-dominated Dediapada in Narmada district, Gandhi said the state was being ruled by 10-15 people and that in "Vibrant Gujarat" only these close to the establishment get all the benefits at the cost of others.

He said the Congress would put all its energies in the Gujarat assembly elections due this year and ensure a defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This is how the Gandhi scion began his campaign from the tribal belt of Gujarat which has 27 of 182 assembly seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

In his 25-minute speech, he told the large tribal audience that if the Congress came to power, it would ensure their first right on Jal (water), Jungle (forests) and Jameen (land) and not those ruling or dominating the state.

"The RSS and BJP do not respect you (tribals). They want you to go to big cities and become servants of those living there. Congress would never allow this. We will protect your rights on jal, jungle and jameen," Gandhi said.

Lashing out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said he had promised jobs to 2 crore youths every year but the government could create only 1 lakh jobs last year and not a single in the current year.

"He only wants you to hear his Mann ki Baat. When we come back to power, Congress will come to your doorsteps and hear your Mann ki Baat. We do not believe that only one man can bring progress or development but it is all of you who contribute to development," he said.

All senior Gujarat Congress leaders, state chief Bharatsinh Solanki, Leader of Opposition Shankersinh Vaghela, Ahmed Patel, and the party in-charge for Gujarat Ashok Gehlot sat on the stage with Gandhi.
Srinagar, May 1 : Indian Army chief Bipin Rawat on Monday visited the Panzgam camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district where three soldiers were killed in a terror attack last week.

Defence sources said General Rawat, who arrived on a two-day visit to the Valley - on a day when two Indian security men were killed near the Line of Control in Jammu region and their bodies mutilated - was accompanied by the Northern Command chief and 15 Corps commander.

The army chief was briefed on the gunfight with the terrorists which took place on April 27, and took stock of enhanced security measures, they said.

"The chief later visited the Badamibagh headquarters of 15 Corps in Srinagar where he was given a briefing on the overall security scenario in the Valley," said a source, adding Rawat also visited the army's base hospital in Srinagar where he interacted with the soldiers injured in Panzgam terror attack.

"While appreciating the synergy between the security forces while fighting terrorism, the army chief impressed upon the forces to continue their positive engagement with the people in the Valley," the source said.
Chandigarh, May 1 : The Haryana government has cracked the whip on power theft by government employees, including officers, leading to detection of 343 power theft cases and slapping of Rs 88.78 lakh penalty, a spokesman said here on Monday.

A total of 504 government residential premises across the state were raided by the operation and vigilance wings of the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN), the spokesman said.

The raids took place over the past two days and as many as 330 meters were picked up on suspicion of having been tampered with.

The raids were part of a campaign to curb power theft, including that by government employees and officers.

"Government employees involved in the theft of electricity would be penalised and departmental action would be initiated against them by the department concerned under the Electricity Act," the spokesman said.

The maximum power theft cases were detected in Ambala circle (Rs 14.6 lakh), followed by Faridabad circle (Rs 10.86 lakh), Kaithal circle (Rs 9.51 lakh) and Gurugram circle (Rs 8.37 lakh).
New Delhi, May 1 : Reeling under the BJP's advance after the recent elections, opposition parties, including Congress, JD-U and CPI-M, on Monday came together on a single platform to stop "communal forces" and emphasised the need to elect a President with secular credentials in the upcoming presidential elections.

All the parties agreed that it was their "ideological challenge" to fight "communal and fascist forces" and the need was to unite all "progressive secular forces".

The opposition parties, which also included the CPI, the NCP, the JD-S, the Samajwadi Janata Party, the Socialist Party, and Loktantrik Samajwadi Party had gathered to mark the 95th birth anniversary of socialist leader Madhu Limaye as 'Unity of Progressive Forces'.

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said: "If we have to save the country from fascist and communal forces, the only way forward is unity of progressive forces... They have to come together..

"If ideologies like communism, socialism and secularism come together, only then we can fight the fascist forces.

"Unfortunately, it has become a battle of personalities. Comparisons are not of ideologies but of individuals. If we have to fight these these forces, then we have to take the narrative of the debate towards ideology. This is an ideological fight, not of personalities."

Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said: "There are a lot of questions on the presidential election. The question is whether the new President will be able to uphold the dignity of his office.

"The question is whether the supervision from the Rashtrapati Bhavan will be secular or communal."

"Not just communists or socialists but every secular force sitting here should come together," he said, appealing for everybody to come together to "choose a secular President".

On prospects of a grand alliance in the 2019 general elections, Yechury said: "Let us first achieve this (presidential election) and then we'll move forward."

Noting "politics is not mathematics", he said that "without common ideologies, no unity cannot happen...it is an ideological challenge in front of us. We have to face that".

Yechury also stressed that the question is not about "Hindutva nationalism, but Indian nationalism".

Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav said that opposition unity should be strengthened outside Parliament too.

"Opposition parties are together in the Parliament despite some differences but today's event is a step forward in the direction of an united opposition," he said.

Accusing the BJP of just wanting to divide people in the name of religion, he said that they are doing everything except what they had promised to the people before elections.

"They are dictating what people should eat and wear, they are practising Love Jihad and Ghar Wapsi," he said, for all of them to come together to fight and defeat these forces.

Noted historian Irfan Habib said bringing religion in politics was very dangerous, citing the case of Pakistan.

"If anybody is a patriot then he/she should fight against the RSS ideology," he said, calling for socialist, secular and democratic forces to come together to fight the fascist and communal forces.

"When the grand alliance in Bihar took place, many which didn't take part in that congratulated them after they won the elections. I want to ask them why didn't become part of the alliance," he said.

Earlier, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar called on Congress President Sonia Gandhi to discuss a joint opposition presidential candidate.

Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U President Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja and Yechury have also met Gandhi on the same matter.
New Delhi, May 1 : Even as Pakistani army on Monday killed an Indian soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies across the Line of Control (LoC), Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said India should continue dialogue with the neighbouring country.

"I fully condemn the the attack on Indian soldiers. The government must be supported in dealing with the situation," Singh told reporters.

Supporting the idea of continued dialogue with Pakistan, he invoked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, saying: "We have to keep dialogue open with all our neighbours, because Atalji had rightly said that we can change our policies but not our neighbours."

The Pakistani army personnel on Monday killed an Indian Army soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies near the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said and warned of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act". Pakistan, however, denied the charge.
New Delhi, May 1 : Condemning the menace of terrorism, India and Turkey on Monday expressed their common concern over its menace and urged nations to destroy its global network.

They also called for enhancing their bilateral economic relations.

"Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, wherever committed and by whomever, and declared that there could be no justification for terrorism anywhere," said the Joint Statement after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held talks along with their delegations.

"Both Leaders strongly condemned the use of double standards in addressing the menace of terrorism and agreed to strengthen cooperation in combating terrorism both at the bilateral level and within the multilateral system," it said, adding that they also sought early conclusion of negotiations on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

The statement also underlined the shared interest of India and Turkey in strengthening global non-proliferation objectives. In this regard, Erdogan welcomed India's accession to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) in June 2016.

Modi thanked Erdogan for Turkey's support for India's membership of the MTCR and applications to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Wassenaar Arrangement.

The statement also recognised the need for comprehensive UN reforms including the Security Council expansion to make the body more representative, accountable and effective and the two sides agreement to to work towards its reform in order to enhance its democratic nature and to reflect the reality of the 21st century.

According to the statement, India and Turkey noted that there is an immense untapped potential for growth in the trade bilateral trade and investment. They also agreed to encourage business efforts to achieve a level of at least $10 billion by 2020 in bilateral trade.

The bilateral trade between India and Turkey is $ 6.4 billion.

The two sides expressed desire to hold the Turkey-India Joint Economic Committee meetings regularly.

Both leaders agreed that cooperation in the field of IT, pharmaceuticals, health and tourism will improve the bilateral trade between the two nations.

On the energy sector, the two sides agreed to improve cooperation in the fields of hydrocarbons, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Taking note of the tourism potential of the two nations, the two leaders agreed to encourage more tourist exchanges.
New Delhi, May 1 : A day after accusing senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas of conspiring to break the party, Delhi legislator Amanatullah Khan on Monday night resigned from the party's Political Affairs Committee (PAC).

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is also the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) national convener, had called a PAC meeting to discuss the issues that arose after the allegations levelled by Okhla MLA Khan on Sunday against Vishwas.

Khan reached Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal's residence, where the PAC meet was held, tendered his resignation from the PAC and left.

"Amanatullah Khan has resigned from the party's PAC and his resignation has been accepted," Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told reporters after the meeting.

Vishwas, a founder member of the AAP, did not turn up for the PAC meet.

Sisodia said that Kejriwal was "unhappy" with both Amanatullah and Vishwas in so far in the way they raised the issue outside the party fora.

"In the PAC it was discussed that the party leaders including the MLAs should exercise restraint while making remarks," Sisodia said, while urging party workers "to believe in the party's leadership" and talk to Kejriwal before "engaging in such statements and remarks or issue any video".

He said that some PAC members expressed anger against what Khan said regarding Vishwas and his absence from the meeting was also a matter of discussion there.

"He (Vishwas) is also giving interviews, statements and releasing videos outside party fora and Arvind (Kejriwal) is hurt that some people are giving statements outside the party."

"I want to say that there's no need to give statements outside, if anyone has complaint against anyone else, then we all are here, Arvindji is here," Sisodia added.

He further said that such incidents would affect the party and the people of Delhi, noting that the AAP government has three years remaining and have a long way to go.

"We have to work on projects like CCTV, WiFi, schools and fix the health system of Delhi but because of these miniscule incidents, party workers get discouraged," Sisodia told reporters.

Vishwas had asked the party to introspect after party's debacle in the municipal polls.

Before the civic polls, the AAP suffered jolts in Punjab and Goa assembly election. While it failed to open an account in Goa, it didn't make much of an impact in Punjab.

Khan on Sunday said that Vishwas was conspiring to break the party and had asked some legislators to join the BJP with an offer of Rs 30 crore each.

Khan's remarks came after Vishwas in a TV interview on Friday has said the party won't hesitate in taking a call on change in its leadership after its poor show in Delhi municipal polls.

Kejriwal on Sunday has denied any rift with Vishwas after Khan accused the latter of trying to break the party at the BJP's behest.
New Delhi, May 2 : Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday slammed Pakistan for mutilating bodies of two Indian soldiers, and said the neighbouring country is inviting its own ruin.

"Pakistan is inviting its own ruin. Our security forces will give a befitting reply to Pakistan," he told media persons here.

An Indian soldier and a BSF trooper were killed near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir and their bodies mutilated.

The Indian Army warned Pakistan of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act".
Los Angeles, May 2 : Indie rock band Car Seat Headrest's frontman Will Toledo, who has contributed to the soundtrack of controversial drama "13 Reasons Why", is unhappy with the plot of the show.

"As someone who contributed to the soundtrack for '13 Reasons Why', I am obliged to tell you all that it's kind of f****d," Toledo posted on Twitter, reports aceshowbiz.com.

"Writers: please don't tell kids how to turn their miserable and hopeless lives into a thrilling and cathartic suicide mission," he added.

In addition, Toledo tried to convince young people that the Netflix series was "not a narrative you need to subscribe to". He even suggested people to "go watch 'Spring Breakers' instead."

Car Seat Headrest's song titled "Oh! starving" is played in a scene of the penultimates episode of the series.

"13 Reasons Why" is based on Young Adult novel written by Jay Asher.

Created by Brian Yorkey, the show is based on Hannah Baker, a teenager who explains her decision to commit suicide through a series of cassette tapes which she recorded before she took her own life.

The tapes later are passed to everyone mentioned in the tapes, including Clay Jensen who has a secret crush on Hannah.
The Best Trade Show Booth Design in MWC'17 The creation of an exhibition stand for a firm, for us, is always an important affair. An ephemeral set up implies the action of many professionals who have to collaborate at the same time, in the same way, with their know-how.

From February 27th to March 2nd, the Mobile World Congress, the largest mobile phone congress in the world, was held in Barcelona. This is where the world's largest phone companies take advantage to launch their latest innovations and technological advances.

One of these companies was Alcatel, with its spectacular stand, who has introduced the Alcatel A5 LED, the first interactive Smartphone with LED case. This new system was designed for the younger audience, and thats why Alcatel has thought to make a more exquisite stand, full of contrasts between technology and vintage style. This was what made the Alcatel stand the best valued by the attendants.

To attract the attention of over 100,000 visitors (planned for the organization of the event), the stand must have one of the most striking and functional designs at the event. That was what was achieved by Contemporanea Eventi with the Alcatel stand. However, it took half a year to achieve the success wanted by the brand.

The world of stands is like the world of gastronomy; the quality of the ingredients, the order, and the arrangement; that's what differentiates a dish that is used directly to feed from one that is designed to be enjoyed through sight and taste. That stand, which can distinguish itself from the rest, will be the one that attracts all eyes.

It was important to know how to choose the corporate colours, the music, the location and, in general, create an excellent space in which the value of the brand was transmitted. A good stand speaks for itself, and having a good design is the best speech.

This idea was evident in the philosophy of companies like Contemporanea Eventi, which was created ten years ago in Barcelona by an Italian Architect, Gabriele Pranzini. This strategy has been used by the specialized stand design company to ensure that the project carried out with Alcatel was the best valued by the Mobile World Congress 2017 attendants.

An architect by profession, Pranzini knew that the image of a stand was everything, so he applied the so-called 'Italian Design' to his projects, characterizing them with the elegance combined to the unique innovation of the Alpine area. The creation of an exhibition stand for a firm, for us, is always an important affair. An ephemeral set up implies the action of many professionals who have to collaborate at the same time, in the same way, with their know-how. Our passion and experience were illustrated in the final result, he explained.

The stand made for the MWC17 was able to combine the latest innovations of the stand's design with a retro style inside the stand. This combination made attendees feel attracted by each of the details that were exposed.
Disabled Veteran Scholarship

Phoenix attorney Adam Feldman and his law firm, The Feldman Law Firm, have announced that it will be offering a $1,000 educational scholarship for disabled veterans. The scholarship will provide tuition assistance for the winner at the trade school, secondary school, junior college or college chosen by him or her. The scholarship is aimed at encouraging disabled veterans to continue their education after they complete their military service.

The transition from military to civilian life is difficult. When the veteran is disabled, that transition can become an even greater challenge. Adam Feldman, founder of The Feldman Law Firm, believes that the continuation of ones education can open new opportunities, and make that transition easier. The scholarship is being offered as an incentive to pursue those educational opportunities.

Veterans of any branch the United States Armed Forces who have a disability rating of at least 30% are eligible to apply. The successful applicant must utilize the funds within a year after the date of the announcement of the award; it is not necessary that applicants be enrolled in school at the time they apply. The application deadline is February 5, 2018, and the winner will be notified on or before March 5, 2018.

Anyone interested in applying for or learning more about the scholarship should visit the firms website. It contains all relevant information about the scholarship and the application and selection process. It also contains the firms privacy policy.

Additional questions may be submitted (via email, please) to:

The Feldman Law Firm

1 E. Washington St.

Phoenix, AZ 85004

602-540-7887

mike(at)afphoenixcriminalattorney(dot)com
Settlers Life Insurance Company Audrey's experience as a field agent gives her a unique and welcome perspective as she works directly with our agent partners.

Settlers Life Insurance Company recently welcomed new Sales Coordinator, Audrey Newton, to their Marketing team. Audrey comes to Settlers Life with experience in customer service, sales, and management and is a licensed insurance agent in Virginia and Florida.

We are excited that Audrey has joined the Settlers Life family, said Director of Marketing, Amy Smith. Audreys experience as a field agent gives her a unique and welcome perspective as she works directly with our agent partners.

Audreys role is heavily involved in agent support with responsibilities including the coordination of incentives, management of the quality of business being sold, as well as the development of partner relationships to encourage sales growth. Her knowledge and experience are serving her well in this new position.

Settlers Life Insurance Company specializes in simplified issue, final expense, whole life insurance coverage for ages fifteen-days to eighty-five years. A member of the NGL Insurance Group since 1999, the Settlers Life primary administrative office is located in Bristol, Virginia. Since 2007, Settlers Life has maintained an A. M. Best financial strength rating of A - (Excellent), the fourth highest of 16 such ratings (scale = A++ - F): The A.M. Best Company is the oldest and most widely recognized rating agency dedicated to the insurance industry. A.M. Best rates Settlers Life as an A minus and states that this rating "is assigned to companies which have, in our opinion, an excellent ability to meet their ongoing obligations to policyholders. This rating places Settlers Life well within A.M. Best's "secure" range.
Bringing our program to the thriving community of Peabody has been a goal of ours for some time, and we are happy to celebrate our emergence onto the North Shore.

Little Sprouts, an award-winning provider of early education and child care, celebrated the opening of their first school along the North Shore today in Peabody, Massachusetts. Conveniently accessible via I-95, Route 1 and Route 128, the school is located near Centennial Drive at 7 First Avenue in Peabody, MA. Brightly lit classrooms span the 8,041 sq. ft. colorful learning space, along with two large private playgrounds for children to explore.

Kay Garber, an educator with nearly a decade of experience including owning and directing her own center, is excited to join the Little Sprouts family as Executive Director of the school. Garber brings with her an impressive resume of accomplishments in the field of early education, including the development and implementation of curriculum programs.

For 35 years, Little Sprouts has provided early education and child care to children throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The organization has been nationally recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a Preschool Center of Educational Excellence. With a focus on play-based learning, Little Sprouts employs an individualized approach to teaching in their curriculum, a method that recognizes every child is unique and learns at their own pace.

President & CEO of Little Sprouts, Mark Anderegg, is excited to see Little Sprouts bring their acclaimed program to the North Shore. Bringing our program to the thriving community of Peabody has been a goal of ours for some time, and we are happy to celebrate our emergence onto the North Shore. We feel educators and families alike will warmly welcome the Little Sprouts experience into Peabody.

Inquiring families are welcome to tour Little Sprouts Peabody, meet the Executive Director and teachers, and learn more about Little Sprouts award-winning curriculum. Little Sprouts extends an open invitation to families that are interested in discovering the modern and sun-filled classrooms, brightly-colored hallways, and expansive playgrounds. For more information about Little Sprouts, and to find a location near you, visit http://www.littlesprouts.com.

About Little Sprouts: Little Sprouts has been a leader in providing award-winning early education and child care since 1982. Little Sprouts is home to 23 schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, supporting families that reflect 56 cultures, speaking 23 languages, from all different walks of social, economic, religious and ethnic backgrounds. To learn more about Little Sprouts and how they expand the power and potential of early education and child care, visit http://www.littlesprouts.com.
RecruitMilitary, the national leader in helping employers connect with high-quality veteran talent, announced the winners for the 2017 Most Valuable Employers (MVE) for Military today. The MVE recognition serves to help military-experienced job seekers identify the top employers to target for civilian careers. MVEs are selected annually based on those employers whose recruiting, training, and retention plans best serve military servicemembers and veterans. The award marks its ninth edition in 2017.

It is an honor and privilege to present this years Most Valuable Employers (MVE) for Military on behalf of Vinnell Arabia to recognize employers who are committed to assist in the transition of our service members to the civilian workforce, says Philip J. Hickok, LTC (R) USA, Staffing Manager, U.S. Recruitment for Vinnell Arabia. It is very important that we continue to recognize and put to use the capabilities and experience our transitioning veterans bring to the civilian workforce. Congratulations to all participating companies for setting the standard and paving the way for the continued success of our veterans.

The 2017 MVE Winners are:



Accenture

Amgen

Archer Daniels Midland Company

Aviation Training Consulting, LLC (ATC)

Bank of America

Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc.

Bluehawk, LLC

Booz Allen Hamilton

CACI International Inc.

Capital One

Capstone Corporation

CarMax, Inc.

Carmeuse Lime & Stone

Caterpillar Inc.

Celadon Trucking Services, Inc.

City of Cincinnati Police Department

Comcast NBCUniversal

Constellis

CoreCivic

DaVita, Inc.

Deloitte

Duquesne Light Company

Eaton

Ecolab Inc.

Exelon Corporation

Farmers Insurance

FDM Group

Federal Acquisition Strategies, LLC

First Command Financial Services, Inc.

Fresenius Medical Care North America

G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc.

GE

Greencastle Associates Consulting, LLP

Halfaker and Associates, LLC

HCA, Hospital Corporation of America

Hilton

Humana, Inc.

Hyundai Motor America

JDog

Kaiser Permanente

KBRwyle

Koch Industries, Inc.

Leidos

Level 3 Communications

ManTech International Corporation

Marsh & McLennan Companies

Navy Federal Credit Union

Northwell Health

Northwestern Mutual Los Angeles

Patterson-UTI Drilling Company LLC

Phoenix Protective Corporation

Procter & Gamble

Puget Sound Energy

Quality Distribution Inc.

Quicken Loans

Roush

Ryder

Sallyport

Schneider

Sears Holdings Corporation

Southwest Airlines

Sprung Services, Inc.

Summit Midstream Partners

The Boeing Company

The GEO Group, Inc.

The Home Depot

TMC Transportation

Total Quality Logistics

U.S. Bank

United Rentals, Inc.

USAA

USA Truck, Inc.

Veterans United Home Loans

Vinnell Arabia

Walmart Transportation 7838

Werner Enterprises

Whelan Security

Whitestone Group, Inc.

Windstream Holdings, Inc

Xcel Energy

YRC Freight

Veterans truly represent the finest talent our country has to offer, said Peter Gudmundsson, President of RecruitMilitary. Judging by the stature of the businesses that comprise the Most Valuable Employers for Military winners, we can see that organizations thrive when they include veteran hiring initiatives in their human resource strategies.

The 2017 Most Valuable Employers (MVE) for Military presented by Vinnell Arabia was open to all U.S.-based companies. In observance of Armed Forces Day, the annual list of MVEs will be released in the May/June issue of RecruitMilitarys Search & Employ magazine. Winning employers will also be displayed on the RecruitMilitary.com web site.

Prior to the 2017 application opening, the MVE recognition was produced by CivilianJobs.com. All previous winners can be found in the MVE Winner Archive section at http://RecruitMilitary.com/MVE.

To be notified about the opening of the 2018 MVE application, email MVE(at)recruitmilitary(dot)com.

About MVE

The RecruitMilitary Most Valuable Employers (MVE) for Military serves to help military-experienced job seekers identify the top employers to target for civilian careers. MVEs are selected annually based on those employers whose recruiting, training and retention plans best serve military servicemembers and veterans. RecruitMilitary (http://RecruitMilitary.com) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bradley-Morris, Inc. (BMI), the largest military-focused recruiting company in the U.S. Together, BMI and RecruitMilitary offer employers access to more than 1,000,000 military job seekers via services that include contingency recruiting, military job fairs, a job board, employer branding, a military base publication and more.
The research findings are critical for technology vendors to enable the channel transition and find innovative ways to keep the partners engaged and motivated in this ever-changing environment

Gorilla Corporation, an award-winning channel marketing and sales enablement company, today announced that it will be hosting a series of channel insights events to share the findings of its latest channel insights research, State of the Cloud Channel 2017. The events will be taking place in Menlo Park CA, Dallas TX and Washington D.C.

Gorilla has partnered with KAIROS Strategic Consulting to conduct the State of the Cloud Channel 2017 research in North America to gain deeper insights in the cloud market landscape from the channels perspective. The research report reveals the state of cloud adoption by channels, their challenges, drivers and restrains and the effectiveness of technology vendor incentive programs.

The channel dynamic is changing. Partners have been shifting and transforming their business models and technology offerings to survive and thrive in this cloud era, said Carlo Tortora Brayda di Belvedere, CEO at Gorilla. The research findings are critical for technology vendors to enable the channel transition and find innovative ways to keep the partners engaged and motivated in this ever-changing environment.

The findings will be first unveiled at the first Channel Insights event, held at The Cuckoo's Nest, 68 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA, on May 4th, 2017.

Key research findings and channel strategy discussion include:



The dynamic of cloud business transition in the channel and how to leverage the insights for your channel strategies

Finding the right partner and how to make the most of their existing cloud capabilities and expertise

Understand the barrier and challenges partners are facing when selling cloud solutions

Discover the effectiveness of partner incentives and rewards and find out which have driven the performance

To learn more about the research and register for the event, please visit http://bit.ly/2peCxzg.

About Gorilla Corporation

Gorilla delivers game changing revenue growth for technology companies. Gorilla has been central to Channel Expansion and Optimization globally for over 20 years. Constantly innovating, developing best in class strategy and tactics, Gorilla enables IT vendors to generate revenue within the channel through a variety of solutions ranging from Channel Development, Pipeline Acceleration to Partner Concierge services.

As the pioneer in the field of cloud transformation in the channel, Gorillas goal is to support IT vendors in terms of empowering their traditional channel partners to shift business models safely and effectively to cloud. Gorilla has won Cloud Channel Development Supplier Award 2016. For more information, please visit http://www.gorillaict.com.
Celergo, a leading provider of Global Payroll Management Services, announced today their participation at the American Payroll Association Congress 2017 (May 16-20th) at Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, FL. Michele Honomichl, Founder, Executive Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer and Kira Rubiano, Senior Partner Management Specialist, will present the following workshops:

The Global Automation Cycle: Its Not Just Finance Anymore

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Payroll in the Gulf Cooperation Council

Thursday, May 18, 2017

Shadow Payroll

Friday, May 19, 2017

Celergo Global Payroll is eager to present several APA Congress workshops this year. We believe education is essential for companies that are expanding globally, and we are proud to support APAs international curriculum," states Michele Honomichl, Founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer. As the world continues to automate functions, managing and maintaining compliance with global and local standards, such as OFAC, FCPA, UK Bribery Act, DNS, RTI, e-Socialand European Data Privacy, can be complicated and challenging. Our workshops aim to take some of the mystery and misery out of compliance.

Michele is a subject matter expert and considered one of the foremost thought leaders in the industry. Additionally, Michele is a contributing author of the Payroll Answer Book, published by Wolters Kluwer. Both Honomichl and Rubiano are frequent contributors to Global Payroll Management Institute, where subscribers can download their white papers and videos.

About Celergo

Celergo provides the leading fully-managed international payroll solution, whose technology-powered, service-backed capabilities meet the needs of companies in 150+ countries. As pioneers in payroll outsourcing, Celergo has managed some of the most complicated payrolls and built an unparalleled set of competencies and expertise, along with cloud-based software that integrates with all major HR systems. Celergo helps clients find efficiencies, improve accuracy, reduce costs, and minimize risk. Celergos experienced, multilingual staff covers all time zones and regions, delivering the highest quality service from four operations centers in Chicago, Bogota, Budapest, and Singapore. Celergo has met or exceeded large financial institutions data security requirements  the most stringent in the world  and complies with OFAC, FCPA, BCP, all data privacy, and SSAE16 policies and practices. To learn more about Celergo, visit http://www.celergo.com.

Follow Celergo on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/CelergoLLC

Follow Celergo on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/celergo-llc

Media Inquiries:

Cathy Lininger

847-512-2684

clininger(at)celergo(dot)com
Hillary Bonham and Rachael Overall of Goodall Homes Were Named to Professional Builder Magazine's 40 Under 40 List for 2017 The 40 Under 40 honorees are incredibly inspiring; they are among the most accomplished young home building leaders in the nation  Denise Dersin, Editorial Director, Professional Builder.

Rachael Overall, director of marketing for Goodall Homes, and Hillary Bonham, one of the homebuilders land managers, have been honored as two of Professional Builder magazines annual 40 Under 40 award winners.

More than 200 people across the United States were nominated. The award recognizes leaders across the home building industry. Winners were chosen by the editors of Professional Builder based on career achievement and community service.

Goodall Homes is the leading homebuilder in the Nashville market. The firm was named to the 2016 Builder 100 list of leading builders by Builder magazine and named The National Builder of the Year in 2014 by Professional Builder magazine.

Rachael Overall -- who has been a key advocate in expanding Goodalls philanthropic efforts  credited her fellow employees at Goodall Homes in earning the honor. I wouldnt be able to do the things I do for Goodall Homes if it werent for our team, Overall said. Our people truly make our corporate culture.

Launching the Second Harvest Food Banks Hunger Free Summer campaign could not have happened without all of our team members, Overall added. Its a joy to come to work every day. I can market our story because our hearts are in the right place, and we do the right things.

Hillary Bonham spearheaded Goodall Homes application process for the National Housing Quality Award in 2015, helping Goodall Homes win silver. Modeled on the Malcolm Baldridge Award, NHQ is the home building industrys top award for quality management. Bonham also praised her coworkers and cited the Goodall Homes culture for helping her grow in the industry.

Ive got an incredible team, Bonham said. On the land side, we went from developing 200 lots per year to over 500. I think it speaks volumes to the culture we have. We care so much about what we do. We love building homes for people and having the personal commitment to doing so. It feels like we have an ownership in the company. It speaks volumes to our culture of high drive and self-empowerment.

I look forward each year to the selection process of the 40 Under 40 honorees, said Denise Dersin, editorial director of Professional Builder. The programs winners are incredibly inspiring; they are among the most accomplished young home building industry leaders in the nation.

With deep roots in Tennessee that date to 1808, the Goodall family has been building for decades. Bob Goodall Jr. has been building single-family homes, townhomes, courtyard cottages, condominiums and villas across the greater Nashville area since 1983.

Goodall Homes has been named a Fastest-Growing Private Company for five years by The Nashville Business Journal and recognized as a Top Place to Work for the last four years by The Tennessean.

To learn more about Professional Builders 40 Under 40 Award, visit https://www.probuilder.com/professional-builders-2017-40-under-40-awards.

For more information on Goodall Homes, visit http://www.goodallhomes.com/.
Dr. Webb with Airport Police Detection Dog Adler and handler Dave Knepper Its an honor to give back to dogs that help people every day, says Dr. Terah Webb, the Ophthalmologist at MedVet Columbus.

MedVet Medical & Cancer Centers for Pets is providing complimentary eye exams the entire month of May to service dogs during the 10th Annual ACVO/StokesRx National Service Dog Eye Exam Event. Four of MedVets medical centers are providing these screenings  Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton, Ohio plus Lexington, Kentucky. These screenings are by appointment only. Over 52,000 service animals throughout the U.S. and Canada have been examined since the program launched. There were approximately 7,400 dogs examined in 2016 and almost 60% of those were service animals, with the remainder being therapy animals. More than 150 of those service dogs are examined at MedVet each year.

MedVets three board-certified ophthalmologists provide free eye exams the entire month of May to service dogs who dedicate their lives to serving the public. This includes search and rescue dogs, detection dogs, guide dogs, hearing dogs, therapy dogs, police dogs, and handicapped assistance dogs. Its an honor to give back to dogs that help people every day, says Dr. Terah Webb, the Ophthalmologist at MedVet Columbus. Whether its a search and rescue dog helping a community or a disabled persons life-line for independence, I love to interact with these dogs. Its rewarding to detect a potential problem early that may limit their service or their comfort if left untreated.

In addition to weekday exams the entire month of May, MedVet Columbus & Cincinnati will also be holding a special screening event to facilitate multiple specialty exams to service dogs. The events will be held on Sunday, May 7th at MedVet Columbus and on Sunday, May 21st at MedVet Cincinnati. On this day, service dogs will receive more than just an eye exam from the ophthalmology department. Their appointment will include being examined by doctors from MedVets other specialty departments and will include a general physical exam. These screenings are by appointment only.

Eye screenings are held the entire month of May at these four MedVet locations  Cincinnati, OH (513) 561-0069, Columbus, OH (614) 846-5800, Dayton, OH (937) 293-2714, or Lexington, KY (859) 276-2505. MedVet is joining more than 270 ACVO board-certified veterinary ophthalmologists across the U.S and Canada to provide free sight saving eye exams to improve the health and avert potential diseases for thousands of service animals. For more information visit http://www.acvoeyeexam.org

About MedVet:

MedVet Medical & Cancer Centers for Pets, with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, is a widely recognized and growing group of emergency and specialty referral veterinary hospitals for companion animals. MedVet, whose mission is leading specialty healthcare for pets, is employee owned and veterinary led. MedVet provides specialty referral services for in-depth patient care, as well as emergency services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. More than 100,000 dogs and cats are treated annually at MedVets expanding network of medical centers across the country. MedVet hospitals were named the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Accredited Referral Practice of the Year in 2014 and 2016, the only group of practices to receive this award twice. For more information on MedVets network of medical centers, visit http://www.medvetforpets.com.

Media Inquiries:

For photos and interviews contact:

MedVet Columbus: Tami Adcock, (614) 431-4400, tami.adcock(at)medvetforpets(dot)com

MedVet Cincinnati: Joe DeFulio, (513) 561-0069, Joe.defulio(at)medvetforpets(dot)com

MedVet Dayton: Heidi Hill, (937) 293-2714, Heidi.hill(at)medvetforpets(dot)com

MedVet Lexington: Skye Bricarello, (859) 276-2505, skye.bricarello(at)medvetforpets(dot)com
Travelmate suitcase

Travelmate suitcase will follow the traveler almost anywhere and can be used at airports, while going to work, taking kids to school or doing some shopping. It has a variety of sensors that allow it to navigate through crowds, obstacles and other complex situations.

What's even cooler is that it can recognize simple gestures and voice commands. It will do a trick like spinning around, or it can be told to follow some directions by enabling voice commands.

In addition, it has many other innovative smart suitcase features. It can measure the weight of what the user put in it, so that hell never be over the weight limit at the airport.

The traveler shouldnt worry about someones stealing his Travelmate. The location of the suitcase can be tracked via the Travelmate app. The owner can even turn on a function that will lock Travelmate's wheels if it senses that its not following him anymore.

Travelmate is fully compliant with stringent TSA regulations, which means that it can be taken to airports without any issues. It's also waterproof and damage resistant.

Travelmate Robotics developed all sorts of new technology, like a nano-LIDAR system, and in the process of patenting them. The team is also adding other features to the suitcase that will be rolled out as updates after it releases. The main one is the full voice integration! It puts an advanced voice assistant into the suitcase!

Another intriguing feature will turn the users house into a smart home. It'll do so by acting as a security, delivery and task-fulfilling robot. It'll help carrying groceries around and monitor the home from a distance. The technology behind that is available and very easy to implement. The Travelmate will become an indispensable part of the users daily life, just like a smartphone and a computer.

The suitcase comes in three different sizes, with the smallest model of carry-on suitcase. It also has light up LED indicators. Lights will turn on automatically once it becomes dark.

Travelmate is a robot in every sense of the word. It moves on its own, thinks on its own and talks on its own! It has been fully developed, and pre-orders can be placed at the incredibly low price of $399 on Indiegogo

Travelmate isn't just a cool new gadget, it's ushering in a new type of lifestyle that's fitting for the 21st century.

For more information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyQTRNhe_j8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43YZR1gmS_U

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzuxZdbPLLyeVDNnOHV2T1ptUU0
John Kelly, MD, PhD, FACMQ Dr. Kellys background and leadership experience will be a tremendous asset to HSHS Medical Group, said Melinda Clark, chief executive officer

John Kelly, MD, PhD, FACMQ, has accepted the position of vice president of quality for HSHS Medical Group. Dr. Kelly has served as the interim vice president of quality since February and now joins HSHS Medical Group as a permanent member of the team, effective May 14, 2017.

Dr. Kelly earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and earned a PhD from Harvard University. A fellow of the American College of Medical Quality, Dr. Kelly brings more than 25 years of experience in health care quality and management. He has led strategic quality improvement initiatives for physician organizations, hospital systems and managed care organizations.

Dr. Kellys background and leadership experience will be a tremendous asset to HSHS Medical Group, said Melinda Clark, chief executive officer. We look forward to continuing our work together as we strive to provide high-quality, patient-first care.

About HSHS Medical Group

HSHS Medical Group is the physician organization of Hospital Sisters Health System (HSHS). Launched in 2009, HSHS Medical Group is a critical component of the HSHS Care Integration strategy, which focuses on bringing physicians, technology and patients together to improve the overall health of our communities. Today, HSHS Medical Group is comprised of over 1,000 colleagues in locations throughout central and southern Illinois. HSHS Medical Group is powered by the Franciscan history of the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, and our faith-based identity led us to the single most important tenet of the HSHS Medical Group philosophy  patient-first care. For more information about HSHS Medical Group, visit hshsmedicalgroup.org.

About Hospital Sisters Health System

Hospital Sisters Health Systems (HSHS) mission is to reveal and embody Christs healing love for all people through our high quality, Franciscan health care ministry. HSHS provides state-of-the-art health care to our patients and is dedicated to serving all people, especially the most vulnerable, at each of our 15 Local Systems and physician practices in Illinois (Belleville, Breese, Decatur, Effingham, Greenville, Shelbyville, Highland, Litchfield, and Springfield) and Wisconsin (Chippewa Falls, Eau Claire, Oconto Falls, Sheboygan, and two in Green Bay). HSHS is sponsored by Hospital Sisters Ministries, and Hospital Sisters of St. Francis is the founding institute.

For more information about HSHS, visit http://www.hshs.org.
Sembrando Salud Berry Fun Color Run If we can help influence positive change in their lives, and the lives of their family by hosting events like the Berry Fun Color Run we are truly delivering on our company mission.

The Berry Fun Color Run, hosted by Sembrando Salud, will take place on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at Ramsay Park in Watsonville, California starting a 9:00am.

Employees of Reiter Affiliated Companies, Reiter Berry Farms and their partners are invited to participate in this free event. All Berry Fun Color Run participants will receive a hat, sunglasses and medal for completing the race. Pre-run and post-run snacks will be available for all participants.

Sponsors for the Berry Fun Color Run include: Reiter Affiliated Companies Reiter Berry Farms, JAL Berry Farms, San Benito Farms, Fuentes Berry Farms, River Valley Farms, BE Berry Farms, Sunset Bay Farms, 3rd Gen Berry Farms, El Camino Berry Farms, Maripa Berry Farms, Driscoll's, Quiedan Company, True Organics, Health Stat, AgroPlasticos, Grand Topham, Epa Plasticos, and Navid Dayzad, Esq.

The most important part of our organization is the people who form it, said Gilbert Yerena, vice president of production for Reiter Affiliated Companies. If we can help influence positive change in their lives, and the lives of their family by hosting events like the Berry Fun Color Run we are truly delivering on our company mission. I will be there on Sunday, cheering for all of the participants and their families from start to finish, as they take steps to creating a positive impact on their health.

Sembrando Salud will host a total of three 5K events throughout California in 2017. Each event will be free for employees, and incorporates representatives from local, county and state resources that are valuable to the farm worker population.

Sembrando Salud, established by Reiter Affiliated Companies (RAC), is an obesity and diabetes prevention program that helps create healthy ranch communities throughout California. On average, 600 farm workers graduate from Sembrando Salud annually in the U.S.

To learn more about the Sembrando Salud program, please visit: http://www.berry.net/culture/sembrando-salud/

About Reiter Affiliated Companies

Reiter Affiliated Companies (RAC) is the largest fresh multi-berry producer in the world, growing Driscolls proprietary varieties of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries year round in the United States, Baja California, Central Mexico, Portugal, Morocco and Peru.

The Reiter family began farming in the San Francisco Bay Peninsula and by the turn of the century had migrated south into Watsonville and the Santa Clara Valley. By the late 1970s, operations expanded into Southern California where the headquarters is today. The company values of Honesty, Fairness and Respect line the corridors of every office, guiding and leading business principles and decisions. Those decisions have resulted in the organizations position as an industry leader, adopting health and wellness programs, opening primary health clinics and partnering with local organizations to improve the quality of life for the farmworker community.
Rance MacFarland (Courtesy of McKissack)

McKissack announces the appointment of Rance MacFarland as President, a new position to its corporate team headquartered in New York City with two Manhattan offices in Bryant Park and Harlem. As President, Rance will report to CEO Cheryl McKissack Daniel and will be responsible for overall management of the firm and for continuing to expand McKissack in the New York City and Philadelphia markets. As a family-owned legacy business for more than 110 years with a strong focus on civic-minded local CSR initiatives, McKissack has a rich history in the planning, design and construction of more than 6,000 projects. Today, as the oldest minority- and woman-owned design and construction management firm in the United States, McKissack generates $50 million in revenue annually and are currently developing major projects throughout New York City, including the Fulton Fish Market and Hunts Point Meat Market in the Bronx, Coney Island Hospital Redevelopment in Brooklyn, and The NYCEDC MART 125 Project and The Studio Museum, both in Harlem.

I am honored to be part of the McKissack business and the innovative team that is investing in more than just bricks, steel, and concrete, said Rance MacFarland, President of McKissack. McKissack has an extraordinary American history as the oldest minority and woman-owned construction company in the country originally founded in 1905. Today, the firm has spearheaded major projects throughout the region including: Medgar Evers College Redevelopment; Independent Engineer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Harlem Hospital Center Modernization; Atlantic Yards/Barclays Center; World Trade Center Oculus; Columbia University Manhattanville Campus; and NYS Governors Office of Storm Recovery Resiliency Projects.

With over 30 years of experience, Rance MacFarland is an established commercial and residential construction professional, with a record of winning and completing multi-million dollar projects. Most recently, MacFarland was CEO & Board Member of Pizzarotti-IBC, LLC, an Italian construction firm. He facilitated their initial entree into the New York market, which resulted in the company gaining almost $1 billion of work under contract in 20 months. Previously, as CEO of IBC Groups, LLC, MacFarland launched and expanded the start-up company from $0 to $15M in two years, then negotiated the merger with the Pizzarotti Group. MacFarland was also President & CEO of Construction Management Services (CMS), where he developed the business unit into a nationally recognized Project Recovery BU, assisting the turnaround of $3B in projects.

Were thrilled to have a seasoned industry veteran with a proven track record join our team and welcome Rance to the McKissack family, said Cheryl McKissack Daniel, Chief Executive Officer of McKissack. From growing three construction companies into multi-million dollar businesses to managing a diverse range of commercial and residential clients, Rances accomplishments and award-winning experience will enhance our mission of being a leader in the construction industry and creating innovative results for each of our projects, said McKissack Daniel.

McKissack is an ultimate American success story and has a rich African-American legacy in design and construction, with its original roots in slavery. Brothers Moses and Calvin Lunsford McKissack, whose grandfather was taught the building trade as a slave, established the countrys first African American-owned architectural firm in 1905. William DeBerry, the youngest son of Moses, took the helm in 1968 and proceeded in nurturing the talents of his daughters, all of whom excelled in the fields of architecture, engineering and construction. When he became ill in 1983, Williams wife, Leatrice B. McKissack, assumed the position of Chief Executive Officer and oversaw the completion of more than $300 million in design and construction work.

In 2000, Cheryl McKissack Daniel a fifth-generation McKissack became President and CEO of the firm. Under her direction, McKissack has contracted more than $50 billion in construction and employs over 100 engineers, architects and construction managers.

Rance MacFarland currently resides in New York City, received a BS in Business Administration from Regent University and is a Certified Construction Manager (CCM), a certified LEED AP BD+C professional, and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Rance sits on the board of the New York Building Congress Foundation and the Municipal Art Society Planning Board.

For more information, visit: http://www.mckissack.com.

About McKissack & McKissack

With its headquarters in New York City, McKissack is the oldest minority- and woman-owned design and construction management firm in the United States with two offices in Manhattan, and an office in Philadelphia. For five generations, McKissack has proudly upheld the standards of excellence established by Moses McKissack more than two centuries ago, has a strong focus on civic-minded local CSR initiatives and collaborates with various not-for-profit organizations including the ACE Mentor Program of America, Sanctuary for Families, STRIVE and the Women Builders Council. As a progressive construction industry leaderwhose services include disaster recovery and resiliency, diversity consulting and workforce developmentMcKissack is always looking for the next challenge and the next opportunity to utilize its innovative, practical, and cost-effective solutions. McKissack is currently managing $15 billion in construction and is ranked by Crains New York Business among the top woman-owned and minority-owned companies.
Centium Software, publisher of the award-winning event management platform EventsAIR, announced the release of a major enhancement to the EventsAIR platform.

The EventsAIR Social Media Marketing Automation Tool, a first for the events industry, automates the upload and update of prospective attendees to a clients Facebook and Twitter advertising platforms.

As more and more meeting organizers turn to social media to market their events, the automation of these targeted prospect lists, or audiences, has become a crucial element of a meeting planners advertising efforts.

With the EventsAIR Social Media Marketing Automation Tool, planners filter and select who they wish to upload to their social media advertising platforms. With EventsAIR, its extremely easy to select specific sectors of their own databases, such as prospective Exhibitors, Students, Attendees, or any other segment that they wish to specifically market to.

Trevor Gardiner, CEO of Centium Software, noted that EventsAIR works behind the scenes in real time to make sure that only the targeted prospects are uploaded to Facebook and Twitter.

When they apply a specific filter in EventsAIR, for example, Exhibitors from the previous years event, then only the identified list of Exhibitors is uploaded as a Facebook or Twitter audience, Mr. Gardiner said. The PCO or meeting planner simply defines an update schedule and after that, EventsAIR does the rest. If a prospect registers for the event, they are removed from the next upload of that audience. If new prospects are added, they are automatically updated as well.

Mr. Gardiner noted this is the first time an event management platform has integrated event marketing data with leading social media platforms.

We constantly consult our customers and learn how they are growing their businesses, Mr. Gardiner said. Many PCOs are constantly looking for ways to market their events more effectively and social media platforms are offering fantastic opportunities to reach markets and clients that were impossible even a few years ago.

The EventsAIR Social Media Marketing Automation Tool is available to all users as a standard feature of their EventsAIR license starting with the Version 5.2 released Mid-April 2017.

About Centium Software

Centium Software develops innovative software systems for the meeting/events industry, landmark world events and the accommodation industry. For more than 25 years, the team has developed mission-critical management solutions that enhance productivity, lower labor costs and increase profitability.

We derive our solutions from decades of hands-on experience working in diverse industries. We recruit talented professionals from the technology and hospitality industries, and have assembled a seasoned team with more than 350 years of combined experience. Centium has offices in US, UK, Australia and New Zealand.

For more information, visit http://www.eventsair.com.
ELO Analytics underscores the continuous innovations that ELO builds into its ECM Suite

ELO Digital Office USA, enabling businesses to improve collaboration and streamline information management in a digital economy, announced today that it will present a new tool at the ChannelPro SMB Forum in Chicago: ELO Analytics, an integral component of the ELO ECM Suite. ELO Analytics features best-in-class analytics technology enabling users to gather and structure large volumes of data in a fraction of a second and visualize that data in real time through highly customizable, modern dashboards. ELO USA will demonstrate ELO Analytics along with the entire ELO ECM Suite at the ChannelPro forum in Chicago (Hyatt Chicago Rosemont, May 2).

ELO Analytics is not an add-on but a new capability delivered in our ECM Suite and it underscores the continuous innovations that ELO builds into its Enterprise Content Management products, said Szilvia Horvath, president and CEO of ELO Digital Office USA. The ChannelPro SMB Forum is an ideal opportunity for us to showcase our latest technology to a reseller community that is looking for solutions that will help to grow their business in a digital age.

Best-in-class Technology for Real-time Insights and Data Analysis

The underlying technology for ELO Analytics is based on a high-performance search with sophisticated analytics components that analyze and structure data in a matter of seconds. With ELO Analytics, ELO users can now analyze data in real time and create on-the-fly modern data visualizations. ELO Analytics seamlessly integrates with the ELO ECM Suite and a customers processes, enabling new business insights and fact-based decisions. For example, users can now open all contracts within an active contract file straight from a risk analysis dashboard and, if deemed necessary, initiate a contract termination. The solution also enables:



Visualizations that allow statistical interpretation for detailed analysis through a variety of diagrams, tag clouds, charts, data tables, and more

Custom dashboards that combine visualization and statistical data and which filter options to narrow down data shown

Data Privacy tailored with sophisticated rights management including group and role functions

Integration with the ELO database for one-click access  does not require a separate data analytics database

The solution allows customers to evaluate and understand company data from one location, unlocking information in files, documents, or e-mails to secure actionable insights from data resources.

About ELO Digital Office USA

ELO Digital Office USA provides innovative digital content management solutions for organizations of all sizes and industries throughout the United States. ELOoffice, ELOprofessional, and ELOenterprise give businesses an electronic and secure way to easily capture, archive, and manage business documents and information  both paper-based and digital. A subsidiary of ELO Digital Office GmbH (founded in 1998), ELO USA is headquartered in Boston, MA and is part of a network of global ELO offices throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. ELO Digital Office GmbH has an extensive network of global business partners and maintains technology partnerships with industry leaders such as IBM, Microsoft, and SAP. Visit ELO USA. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

###

All product and service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Capturing both SABEW and Neal General Excellence awards reflects the breadth and depth -- and the dedication -- of the Financial Planning staff, and SourceMedias commitment to creating a winning team.

Financial Planning, SourceMedias flagship brand serving the wealth management community, was recognized for General Excellence by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) in the organizations 22nd Annual Best in Business competition. The brand also won top honors in SABEWs Banking/Finance category for its coverage of whistleblowers in the brokerage industry. The awards were announced Saturday, April 29, at the organizations 54th annual conference, in Seattle.

Financial Plannings SABEW honors follow the brands decisive showing at the Jesse H. Neal Awards last month in New York, where it received four awards -- more than any other media brand in the annual contest. Financial Plannings Neal Awards also included a General Excellence award.

The SABEW honors underscore how Financial Planning delivers every day for its readership, providing vital analysis and investigative journalism that drives the conversation in the financial advisory world, said Scott Wenger, Group Editorial Director of SourceMedias Investment Adviser Group, of which Financial Planning is the flagship. Capturing both SABEW and Neal General Excellence awards reflects the breadth and depth -- and the dedication -- of the Financial Planning staff, and SourceMedias commitment to creating a winning team.

In bestowing Financial Plannings awards, the SABEW judges stated that the brand displayed a commitment to in-depth reporting and dynamic writing that deserves recognition. The publication covered key issues related to the people and companies in its industry, and was willing to present uncomfortable truths about them.

Financial Planning was also honored for its coverage of a J.P. Morgan whistleblower who was fired by his firm, and the federal investigators pursuing the case, who were also fired. A series of stories by Financial Planning Senior Editor Ann Marsh were lauded in the Banking/Finance (small media brands category) for shining a light on the institutional forces working against federal investigators. The citation also describes how the story pursued the issue of whistleblower protection (or lack thereof) with good writing, excellent reporting and nice national and political context.

The judges cited three of Marshs groundbreaking stories:



The SABEW competition, which celebrates outstanding journalism published in 2016, attracted 946 entries from 175 media brands. There were 112 winners and honorable mentions across 65 categories.

About Financial Planning

Financial Planning, a SourceMedia brand, is the leading resource for independent financial advisers, delivering the analysis, strategies and data advisers need to successfully grow their practices in a complex, highly regulated industry. Financial Planning delivers actionable and insightful content to its deeply engaged community through interactions on social media, live events, forums, research, and an authoritative network of contributors. Follow us on Twitter @FinPlan.

About SourceMedia

SourceMedia, an Observer Capital company, is a business-to-business digital marketing services, subscription Information, and event company serving senior-level professionals in the financial, technology and healthcare sectors. Brands include American Banker, PaymentsSource, The Bond Buyer, Financial Planning, Accounting Today, Mergers & Acquisitions, National Mortgage News, Employee Benefit News and Health Data Management.
I truly believe that Rent Estate is an investment tool that all Americans, young and old, should have in their retirement portfolio, shared Kevin Ortner, Author and CEO of Renters Warehouse

How does one of Americas largest and highest-reviewed residential property management empires celebrate their 10th Anniversary after taking on 18,000+ properties under management in over 35 markets in 24 states and counting? They publish their first book on the power of Rent Estate, a term they coined and trademarked to represent the idea of real estate for the rest of us.

Authored by Renters Warehouse CEO Kevin Ortner, Rent Estate Revolution shares the award-winning property management companys philosophy and business expertise around single-family rentals and how Rent Estate is driving retirement security, financial freedom, and the New American Dream for millions nationwide. The book will also offer readers an educational behind-the-scenes guide on how to start and strategically grow their investment property portfolio, including access to multiple e-learning resources and tools.

Given the economic times, Its not surprising that Americans are incredibly unprepared for retirement. In fact, over 40% of millennials say they have no retirement strategy in place. With Rent Estate Revolution, Kevin and his team at Renters Warehouse hope to create a financial movement that could potentially solve the retirement crisis in the US for future generations. It all starts with educating Americans of all ages about the power of Rent Estate.

I truly believe that Rent Estate is an investment tool that all Americans, young and old, should have in their retirement portfolio, shared Kevin. The world is changing, and how we look at retirement and financial security needs to change too. Rent Estate is the new American Dream and thats what this book is about.

As someone who secured his first property as a college freshman, the book shares Kevins first-hand personal experiences with Rent Estate. A former corporate pilot, Kevins journey into real estate investment began as a hobby. When he was laid off from his pilot career during the 2009 recession, Kevin saw a huge opportunity to manage single-family homes. He also recognized a need for a national property management business to meet the demands of hundreds of thousands of real estate investors of all sizes across the country.

As Renters Warehouse continues to level up its approach to the single-family residential property management business in its 10th year in business, Kevin and his team of Rent Estate Advisors now stand at the forefront of Americas newest wealth-creation revolution: Rent Estate.

In my half-century as an economist, Ive watched trends and fads come and go, many getting far too much attention and others going too long ignored, shared Dr. Arthur B. Laffer, Phd., Economic Policy Advisor to President Ronald Reagan and whose foreword will be found in Rent Estate Revolution. Renters Warehouse has done an incredible job at identifying and championing a development that is new, growing, and poised to have significant staying power in the American economy.

You dont have to be in the top 1% to join the Rent Estate club, said Kevin. The magic of Rent Estate is the power of leverage; leverage of others time, skills and resources, and best of all, others money. Theres simply no other investment out there like it.

To order your copy of Rent Estate Revolution today, visit http://www.rentestaterevolution.com.

Renters Warehouse welcomes the opportunity to partner with real estate agents to secure professional property management for their clients, and to source additional investment properties. Visit http://www.renterswarehouse.com/referrals to learn more and earn up to $500 per management deal.

-30-

About Renters Warehouse

Renters Warehouse is one of the fastest growing and highest reviewed residential property management companies in America. Backed by growth equity investor and majority stakeholder Northern Pacific Group, and under the leadership of President and CEO Kevin Ortner, Renters Warehouse now manages more than $3 billion in residential real estate, servicing 13,000+ investors across 18,000+ residential homes over 35 markets and 24 states. NPG Managing Partner Scott Honour, who in 1999 was a founder of YapStone, a leading online rental property payment service provider, serves as Chairman.

Renters Warehouse expertly serves everyday single-property homeowners as well as real estate investors. In 2015, the company officially trademarked the term Rent Estate to redefine the entire SFR (Single Family Rental) industry as more traditional real estate gives way to this new lucrative asset. Through their dedicated Portfolio Services Division led by Chief Investment Officer Anthony Cazazian, the company also brings professional, scalable and efficient single property management solutions to investment portfolios with both centralized services and local market expertise and staff. Not only has Renters Warehouse received the prestigious honor of being included on the Inc. 500 | 5000 list of fastest-growing privately held companies in America seven consecutive years in a row, it was also named one of the Best Places to Work in Minnesota (where they are headquartered) by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016. The company was also honored as a best place to work in Arizona (a centralized corporate services center) by the Phoenix Business Journal in 2013 and 2014, and achieved a spot on the prestigious 2016 Top Companies to Work for in AZ list. Nationwide, Renters Warehouse has been honored as one of America's "Best Places to Work" in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016 by Outside Magazine. Recognized as pioneers in real estate, business management and innovation, Renters Warehouse has been awarded 22 Business Stevie Awards both internationally and stateside.

In 2017, Renters Warehouse received an A rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) after meeting the BBBs eight Standards of Trust and earning BBB Accreditation. In 2016, Morningstar Credit Ratings, LLC, a nationally recognized statistical rating organization (NRSRO) offering a wide array of services including operational risk assessments, assigned its MOR RV2 residential-vendor ranking to Renters Warehouse as a residential property manager, indicating that the company demonstrates proficiency in managing key areas of operational risk.

In 2017, Renters Warehouse published its first book - Rent Estate Revolution. Authored by CEO Kevin Ortner, the book shares the Renters Warehouse philosophy and business expertise around single-family rentals and the power of Rent Estate to drive long-term wealth creation, retirement security and financial freedom for the everyday person. Order your copy today at: http://www.rentestaterevolution.com.

Interviews / Press Inquiries:

Crystal Richard

Public Relations for Renters Warehouse

crystal(at)renterswarehouse.com
A Grain Of Mustard Seed, Eight Stories Of Faith: a retelling of Biblical stories that reveals what faith truly means. A Grain Of Mustard Seed, Eight Stories Of Faith is the creation of published author, Steve Tyner, an educator who graduated from Pembroke State University, now the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, with a degree in English Education and taught for thirty-eight years in both public and private schools in his home Robeson County. Steve Tyner has devoted his life to the study of the scriptures and has taught Bible study courses in churches and schools for over forty years. With a background in theater arts, he has also performed and directed many religious dramas throughout his life. Following his retirement, he and his wife, Martha, moved to Franklin, North Carolina. Steve and Martha have been married eighteen years. They have five children and nine grandchildren.

Blind Bartimaeus. The woman with the issue of blood. The ten lepers. We know their stories from the gospels of how they had amazing encounters with Jesus that changed their lives. They are stories of faith. People who had nothing left took a step over the edge not knowing for sure their foot would land on anything solid, but believing Jesus would provide whatever security they needed. These are stories that serve as examples to show us what true faith really is. But what about the back story? What happened in the lives of these people to lead them to Jesus in the first place? --Steve Tyner

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Steve Tyners new book shows what faith looks like.

The writer of Hebrews defines Faith as the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. Jesus once told his disciples that the smallest amount of faith could bring about tremendous results. Faith can even move mountains. It can, however, be difficult to answer the most important question, what does faith look like.

Throughout the gospels are seven poignant stories of people who demonstrated a faith that dramatically changed their lives as well as the lives of the people surrounding them. A Grain of Mustard Seed retells these stories then expands upon them. Asking the question, what would happen if all these people met the Savior one last time, Steve Tyner offers a sequel to each of the original seven stories by adding a new one of his own. In doing so, he hopes to reveal what faith actually looks like.

View a synopsis of A Grain Of Mustard Seed, Eight Stories Of Faith on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase A Grain Of Mustard Seed, Eight Stories Of Faith at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, Kobo or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about A Grain Of Mustard Seed, Eight Stories Of Faith, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
Both the E-1 and the E-2 are critical in fostering domestic and overseas business growth.

After speaking last month of the E-2 Visas enduring importance, Steven Buchwald today weighed in on news that New Zealand is lobbying for E2 and E1 Visa Access - and that former Trump campaign field director Stuart Jolly has been recruited to help make it happen.

Buchwald, who also operates The E-2 Visa Lawyer- a service geared towards overseas entrepreneurs and startup investors - feels that this represents still more evidence of the E-2 Visas continued importance.

According to Buchwald, there is a close relationship between the E-2 Visa and the E-1 Visa. Known as the Treaty Trader Visa, the E-1 is primarily tied to trade, while the E-2 is designed for investment. The E-1 visa allows foreign nationals to enter the United States to foster substantial trade between their country and the US.

Both the E-1 and the E-2 are critical in fostering domestic and overseas business growth, explained Buchwald. Its therefore little surprise to me that New Zealand is lobbying for both at once. It has been attempting to negotiate a trade agreement with the United States for several years.

Trumps decision to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership could, Buchwald continued, be a blessing in disguise for traders and investors alike. Many countries that were not previously being considered for membership in the E-1 and E-2 program are now on the radar. This in turn could mean that many investors who previously were ineligible for immigration to the United States on the basis of either a US investment or substantial trade might finally get a chance to obtain a visa.

For his part, Buchwald said that he will continue to provide aid to any investors who wish to apply for an E-2 visa.

###

About The E2 Visa Lawyer

The E2 Visa Lawyer is a service of Buchwald & Associates. Buchwald & Associates is a full-service law firm representing startups, private equity funds and international investors. Featured in multiple publications such as Inc., Entrepreneur, Forbes, and TechCrunch, Buchwald & Associates is one of the leading legal authorities for business professionals, particularly entrepreneurs and investors.
Family Investment Center Obtaining the CFP designation seemed like a great way to further my knowledge and ultimately serve clients better.

Since 1998, Family Investment Center has provided clients with commission-free fiduciary investment advisory services that often receive regional and national recognition, with interview sources including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes The Kansas City Star, and others. This work continues with Laura Holthaus, Investment Advisor and Chief Compliance Officer, becoming a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER.

The CFP designation is earned after an individual has met the experience, education, testing, and background requirements set by CFP Board. As part of the application process, Holthaus successfully passed an examination for proficiency in various areas of financial planning, including risk management, investments, tax planning and management, the financial planning process, retirement and employee benefits, and estate planning.

I enjoy helping clients meet their financial goals, said Holthaus. Obtaining the CFP designation seemed like a great way to further my knowledge and ultimately serve clients better, said Holthaus.

Holthaus, also named a Five Star Wealth Manager* in 2016 and 2017, joined Family Investment Center in 2008. She became an investment advisor representative after passing the NASD Series 65 Uniform Investment Advisor Law Examination in 2010. She has Bachelor of Science degrees in Business Administration and Economics from Missouri Western State University (2007). In 2012, she earned a graduate certificate in Personal Financial Planning from the University of Missouri-Columbia and then earned a Master of Science degree in Personal Financial Planning from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2014.

We are proud to have someone of Lauras caliber on our team at Family Investment Center, said Dan Danford, Founder/CEO of Family Investment Center. This recent milestone is one of many that demonstrates her dedication to being a trusted, respected, and knowledgeable advisor for our clients. Weve always put our clients needs first, and this certification demonstrates our constant desire to provide the best service possible.

About Dan Danford and Family Investment Center

Dan Danford serves as Founder/CEO of Family Investment Center, a full-service, commission-free investment advisory firm. Based in St. Joseph, MO, Family Investment Center also serves clients in the Kansas City Northland area and across the country.

Danford holds both an MBA and a Masters Degree in Personal Finance. A 2009 article in The Wall Street Journal outlined Danfords unique birthday messages to clients, complete with a $2 bill inside the envelope. In 2009, Danford was also quoted on ABC News for his insight into how parents can protect funds for their childrens college education. A 2006 article in The New York Times quoted Danfords insights on working with a financial advisor. In 2014, Danford was featured in an article exploring solutions to math anxiety in the Voices section of The Wall Street Journal.
Join The Israel Project as Ambassador Dennis Ross conducts an on-the-record conference call with journalists to discuss expectations for the upcoming meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. President Donald Trump.

What:

On-the-record conference call with Ambassador Dennis Ross

When:

TODAY: Monday, May 1st @ 2:30pm EST

Dial-in Instructions:

US Dial-in:

1-866-710-0179

Outside US Dial-in:

1-334-323-7224

Passcode:

3067

This call is on-the-record. If you plan to call in, please RSVP to events(at)theisraelproject(dot)org with your questions.

About the speaker:

Ambassador Dennis Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Prior to returning to the Institute in 2011, he served two years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, and a year as special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and dealing directly with the parties in negotiations. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

About The Israel Project:

The Israel Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization that provides factual information about Israel and the Middle East to the media, policymakers and the public. Visit http://www.theisraelproject.org for more information.
Our new office in Sarasota extends our ability to offer a space our employees can enjoy and be proud of coming to work to every day, says John OKeefe, CEO for ITelagen

ITelagen, LLC, a leading provider of healthcare IT support, system administration and support services, including professional services, training, and hosting for various industries, announces the opening of new office space in Sarasota, Florida. Answering the strong demand for an expanded national footprint, the Sarasota, FL location will join existing offices in Jersey City, NJ and Charlotte, NC and become the companys new headquarters. Additionally, the relocation of company headquarters is one piece of the puzzle as ITelagen combats a 4.5% unemployment rate in the industry and faces the ever-complex challenge of hiring and retaining millennials.

The new office space is located at 5901 N Honore Avenue, Sarasota, FL 34243 and offers existing employees and new hires with 6,238 sq. ft. of space, totaling 32 workstations. The office space features configured floor plans to promote a higher level of productivity and collaboration amongst employees. Advanced on-site technologies ensure that employees are able to support our clients with minimal hiccups and that our clients are receiving efficient and effective support from very happy employees. Happy employees make for happy clients!

Building amenities also include a 6,000 sq. ft. Game Room/Arcade, a 2,000 sq. ft. Chefs Kitchen, 2,000 sq. ft. Cafe, 3,000 sq. ft. Gym w/Showers and Onsite Child Daycare. Our new office in Sarasota extends our ability to offer a space our employees can enjoy and be proud of coming to work to every day, says John OKeefe, CEO for ITelagen,  We have even encouraged and incentivized our existing staff nationwide to consider relocation to Sarasota. We really want to build this new office space into a premier headquarters for ITelagen! The ITelagen vision is to return to the dot-com days where growth and hiring is spilling over the edges and every employee is excited to be working for a company that offers so much and provides so many opportunities.

ITelagen is a leading provider of IT services, EHR support and EHR cloud-based hosting for healthcare. ITelagen provides unlimited onsite and remote technical support for businesses, and monitors the activity of servers 24/7, to ensure the security of client applications. Its cloud-based system supports and manages patients EHRs, assists with coding and billing records, medical and insurance claims, and categorizing insurance collections. ITelagen also provides disaster recovery and related services to update and back-up data.

About ITelagen:

ITelagen redefines Healthcare IT for medical practices by providing electronic health records (EHR) as part of an entire back-office solution that includes unlimited onsite & remote technical support for all of your staff and secure hosting of your patient data. We are more than just desktop technicians, but a complete healthcare technology team made up of CIO's, engineers, and healthcare EHR experts. With ITelagen, you can have all the benefits of your very own fully-staffed IT Department, without the expense of an in-house staff. By combining certified EHR experts with IT and hosting, ITelagen becomes the single point of contact and One-Stop Shop for EHR, all for a flat monthly subscription fee. For more information, visit ITelagen on the Web at http://www.itelagen.com. Follow ITelagen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ITELAGEN, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itelagen, or LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/company/itelagen.

Contact:

Emile Clifford

ITelagen, LLC

201-239-8405

press(at)itelagen(dot)com
Redlines support of QED brings a new choice to firms needing a full tick-to-trade solution optimized for speed." Stephane Tyc, Co-Founder of Quincy Data LLC

Redline Trading Solutions, the premier provider of high-performance market data and order execution systems for automated trading, today announced its new feed handler for the Quincy Extreme Data (QED) feed. QED is distributed by Quincy Data, LLC via McKay Brothers microwave links from 18 co-location centers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

The global footprint of QED points of presence leveraging microwave transmission technology, combined with Redlines ultra-low latency InRush feed handlers, provides an integrated market data solution for latency-critical trading applications, said Mark Skalabrin, CEO of Redline. When layered with Redlines Order Execution Gateway, customers gain a fully normalized ultra-low latency end-to-end trading framework.

Since 2012, Quincy Extreme Data has delivered pricing information, typically at the lowest latencies, on the most actively traded symbols required for market makers and traders of strategies such as statistical arbitrage. Redlines InRush ticker plant normalizes this data alongside other required market data and forms composite books that benefit a broader set of low-latency trading strategies.

QEDs growing adoption demonstrates that traders and risk managers increasingly equate quality market data with the lowest latency data available, said Stephane Tyc, Co-Founder of Quincy Data LLC. Redlines support of QED brings a new choice to firms needing a full tick-to-trade solution optimized for speed, he adds. For more information, contact Redline at sales(at)redlinetrading.com.

About Quincy Data

Quincy Data, LLC, is the leading microwave distributor of extremely low latency market data. The Quincy Extreme Data service, live since 2012, offers an integrated and normalized feed of select financial market data sourced from multiple exchanges in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Quincy is dedicated to leveling the playing field for extreme low-latency market data and being the data provider of choice among electronic trading desks of all sizes. http://www.Quincy-Data.com

About Redline Trading Solutions, Inc.

Redline Trading Solutions, a pre-eminent financial technology firm, empowers trading with high-performance market data and order execution solutions that solve todays toughest latency and reliability challenges while reducing costs. With offices in Boston, New York, London, Hong Kong and Belfast, Redlines customers include leading investment banks, brokers, exchanges, hedge funds, and proprietary trading firms.

http://www.RedlineTrading.com

# # #

Redline and InRush are trademarks of Redline Trading Solutions, Inc. Quincy Extreme Data is a trademark of Quincy Data, LLC.
NYSID

Digiscribe, a leading provider of document imaging and data entry services, has been approved by the New York State Department of Education  ACCES VR to be a NYSID Corporate Partner. Through this collaboration, Digiscribes services can be provided to state and local government customers in partnership with the Arc of Westchester under New York States Preferred Source Program.

New York States Preferred Source Program is a proven resource for uniting government agencies with quality business support services, while creating jobs for New Yorkers who experience barriers to employment opportunities. NYSID contracts with state and local government customers to support meaningful work opportunities for individuals with disabilities at community-based rehabilitation agencies throughout New York State.

Digiscribe President Mitch Taube stated, We are proud to partner with Arc of Westchester through NYSID and support NYSIDs important work throughout New York State. We are thrilled to have been accepted under NYSIDs demanding approval process and look forward to a long-term relationship.

Joseph Messina, NYSIDs Vice-President of Sales stated, We are excited that Digiscribe will be working with Arc of Westchester, a NYSID member agency, and providing additional employment opportunities for New Yorkers with disabilities.
Were excited to have the opportunity to bring in other manufacturers to discuss product knowledge as well as information on the latest evolutions in the industry.

Johns Manville Industrial Insulation Group will be co-hosting the second annual JM Industrial Masters Course, along with nine other major manufacturers, contractors, and engineers in the industrial insulation industry, on May 17-18, 2017 in Houston, TX. The JM Industrial Masters Course is a free, two-day course designed to provide in-depth product training for engineers, contractors, and facility personnel in the industrial insulation industry.

This is the second year Johns Manville is leading the industry in closing the knowledge gap by developing, coordinating, and hosting the JM Industrial Masters Course  a unique opportunity for professionals in the industrial industry who are looking to build upon their existing knowledge and experience.

Jack Bittner, Senior Product Manager, is the founder and driving force behind the JM Industrial Masters Course. Jack continues to hone the course content to better meet the needs of the attendees and to track the latest trends within the industry. We received a lot of great feedback from our course participants after our inaugural session last year, Bittner said. This year, weve used that feedback to make the course content richer and more effective. Were excited to have the opportunity to bring in other manufacturers to discuss product knowledge as well as information on the latest evolutions in the industry.

The complete list of contributing presenters includes major insulation manufacturers, contractors, metal jacketing suppliers, and heat-tracing specialists:



Garry Caudill, Johns Manville Industrial Insulation Groups Product Management Leader, detailed the importance of hosting opportunities like the JM Industrial Masters Course. Its no secret that many experienced professionals in the industrial insulation industry will be leaving active involvement in the industry and taking their experience-based knowledge with them. At JM, we are working hard to provide alternative resources, like the JM Industrial Masters Course, to help bridge the knowledge gap these retiring professionals leave in their wake. He went on to further explain that JM has made a concentrated effort to provide the industry with numerous educational resources like live webinars, blogs, videos, and white papers.

This free, two-day course is offered to qualified attendees and will be hosted at the Westin Galleria, in Houston, Texas on May 17-18, 2017.

For additional information, please visit http://www2.jm.com/IMC_Reg_PR050117.
Activist Global LP, a multi-strategy hedge fund of fund manager, announced today that it has plans and is currently in the process of preparing to create a new global charity foundation named Temporary Nations. Activist Global (activistglobal.com) will be committed to strategically invest and allocate $494 million into the new proposed project along with several other international governmental agencies. The firm has conducted negotiations and reaching agreements with all the involved parties for the past ten months since mid 2016.

Furthermore, the firm will act as the financial controller to the Temporary Nations project, and the investment is consistent with Activist Global's strategy to leverage on its well established financial resources from over 45 countries, to build a regional diversified network for international humanitarian aid and development.

"Temporary Nations will be a self-regulatory organization and an international charity entity, its main focus is to provide worldwide humanitarian aid operations and development assistance to support the refugees under the current refugee crisis, especially in and around regions of Syria, Yemen, as well as throughout regions of Middle East, Africa, and across Asia Pacific", said King Laurence Chow, Activist Global's Founding Chairman. "More importantly, the Temporary Nations platform will be helping an enormous amount of refugees to work on resettlement into several of the new development zones across the continent, including several self-governed international territory, farmlands, unclaimed lands and districts that has no international laws or governing authority. They can be similar to the "Bir Tawil Territory" between Egypt and Sudan, "The Kingdom of Encalva" between Slovenia and Croatia, and "Liberland" in between Serbia and Croatia, which Temporary Nations will claim and to take control over. We will also work with China, Russia, and possibly the IMF, World Bank, UN, and UNHCR in the future, as well as with several highly experienced international philanthropists and NGOs. The goal is to give comfort and support to the people."

About Activist Global LP

Activist Global LP is a hedge fund manager specialized in global hedge fund investing across 45 countries globally, and provide counterparty swaps, as well as bank swap transactions, including the use of different credit instrument and derivatives.

Forward Looking Statement

This press release may contain forward-looking statements and predictions. These forward-looking statements, by their nature, necessarily involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. The Company considers the assumptions on which these forward-looking statements are based to be reasonable at the time they were prepared, but cautions that these assumptions regarding the future events, many of which are beyond the control of the Company and its subsidiaries, may ultimately prove to be incorrect. Factors and risks, which could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations, are discussed in the Company's annual board meeting. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information or future events, except as required by international law.
Achieving the designation of "Board Certification" in Criminal Law is especially satisfactory for him, in that it is reflective of the culmination of years of dedication, hard work, and a continuous commitment to those he represents in court.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS) announced in early 2017 Carl David Ceder received Board Certification in Criminal Law for the 2016 examination and application process. Carl David Carl D. Ceder practices criminal law and DWI defense in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (and all surrounding counties), with a particular emphasis on Dallas and Collin County. Board Certification is a voluntary designation program certifying Texas attorneys in 22 specific areas of law. Board Certified attorneys must be licensed for at least five years, devote a required percentage of practice to a specialty area for at least three years, attend continuing education seminars, pass an evaluation by fellow lawyers and judges and pass a 6-hour written examination.

This program is important for the public and for attorneys in our state. Were focused on enhancing the quality of legal representation in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Ive been involved with this program for more than 30 years and am continually impressed with TBLS members accomplishments, said David Dickson, Chairman of the TBLS Board of Directors.

Carl David Ceder is a 2003 graduate of The Red McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin earning his Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) in Finance in less than 3 years. He is a 2007 graduate of The University of Houston Law Center, receiving his Juris Doctor Degree (JD) in 27 months. Carl David Ceder has practiced criminal defense literally since the first day he obtained his law license. He has been the owner/operator of The CEDER LAW FIRM since 2009, was licensed by the State Bar of Texas in May of 2008.

He is very proud of many of the successful results achieved as an attorney for his clients, and takes pride that his entire practice has been devoted to defending the citizen accused. Carl was fortunate enough in having been able to try a criminal jury trial, resulting in a Not Guilty verdict, literally within weeks of obtaining his license. He has remained focused on achieving positive results for all those he has represented ever since. Achieving this "Board Certification" designation is especially satisfactory for him, in that it is reflective of the culmination of years of dedication, hard work, and a continuous commitment to his craft in trying to be the best advocate possible for those he represents in court.

The State Bar website lists the statistics as of 2016 that there are approximately 98,671 individuals licensed to practice law in the State of Texas. Among these, only 857 are Board Certified in Criminal Law, meaning less than 1% percent total of all licensed attorneys in Texas are Board Certified in Criminal Law by The Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Thus, only a very small minority of individuals hold this prestigious designation, and it is a very high honor and the Gold Standard of achievement for attorneys practicing criminal law.

Board Certification is offered in 22 specific areas of law to attorneys. Initial certification is valid for five years. To remain certified attorneys and paralegals must apply for recertification every five years and meet substantial involvement, peer review and continuing legal education requirements for their specialty area.

About TBLS

Texas Board of Legal Specialization (TBLS) is authorized by the Supreme Court of Texas. It certifies attorney in 22 specific areas of law and paralegals in six specific areas. TBLS serves as a resource by listing all certified attorneys and paralegals on their online database. TBLS works to ensure that the citizens of Texas receive the highest quality legal services.

To view Carl David Ceders Board Certification profile page, please click here: http://www.tbls.org/Profile/Attorney.aspx?mid=24062657.

To read more about what it means to be Board Certified, please read the article located here:

http://www.carlcederlaw.com/board-certified-criminal-law-texas-board-legal-specialization.

To learn more about Board Certification or find a certified attorney or paralegal in your area visit http://www.tbls.org.
Extending Mesothelioma Survival After Surgery The median survival time after EPP was significantly longer in 21 patients who received additional chemotherapy...

A new study out of Hyogo, Japan suggests that mesothelioma patients who relapse after extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) surgery may extend their survival with additional rounds of chemotherapy. Surviving Mesothelioma has just posted news of the report on its website. Click here to read the details.

The Hyogo College of Medicine study focused on 39 patients with malignant mesothelioma whose cancer started growing again in the months after they had lung-removing EPP surgery. The median time to relapse was just under a year.

According to the study in the International Journal of Clinical Oncology, mesothelioma patients who underwent additional chemotherapy after relapse experienced better outcomes.

The median survival time after EPP was significantly longer in 21 patients who received additional chemotherapy than in 18 patients who did not, says Dr. Teruhisa Takuwa with Department of Thoracic Surgery at Hyogo College of Medicine.

The treatment path is not always clear for mesothelioma patients after first-line therapy fails, since there is no universally-accepted second-line treatment says Alex Strauss, Managing Editor for Surviving Mesothelioma. With median mesothelioma survival times more than three years after surgery, this study suggests that there is reason to hope, even after relapse.

To read the details of the new study including a comparison of survival times between patients who did and did not have additional chemotherapy, see Additional Chemotherapy Extends Survival in Relapsed Mesothelioma Patients, now available on the Surviving Mesothelioma website.

Takuwa, T, et al, Post-recurrence chemotherapy for mesothelioma patients undergoing extrapleural pneumonectomy, April 24, 2017, International Journal of Clinical Oncology, Epub ahead of print, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10147-017-1126-x

For more than a decade, Surviving Mesothelioma has brought readers the most important and ground-breaking news on the causes, diagnosis and treatment of mesothelioma. All Surviving Mesothelioma news is gathered and reported directly from the peer-reviewed medical literature. Written for patients and their loved ones, Surviving Mesothelioma news helps families make more informed decisions.
On April 18, 2014, Joint Active Systems, (JAS) and Bonutti Research initiated litigation against Lantz Medical for the alleged infringement of five (5) of JAS' patents by the Lantz Medical Stat-a-Dyne products. On April 10, 2017, JAS and Bonutti Research reached a settlement with Lantz Medical, Inc. (case reference No. 1:14-cv-00609-SEB-MJD, United States District Court, S.D. Indiana, Indianapolis Division, plaintiff attorney: SENNIGER POWERS LLP). As part of the settlement, Lantz, a former JAS distributor, agrees to pay a royalty to JAS for the use of the five JAS patents in association with the Stat-A-Dyne Products. Lantz will mark certain products going forward with the Bonutti patent numbers. Boris Bonutti, President of JAS and COO of Bonutti Research, said, "This settlement clearly demonstrates our leading position of technology and innovation in Range of Motion products and our commitment to improving patient care by providing our competitors access to our intellectual property." Ted Brown, CEO of Lantz Medical, said, We are pleased with the outcome of this litigation. We look forward to continuing to serve our customers.

About JAS

Founded in Effingham, Illinois in 1994, JAS is the leading innovator and sole provider of a complete Range of Motion (ROM) product offering, including JAS Static Progressive Stress (SPS), JAS Dynamic, JAS EZ, and the EMPI Advance ROM systems. JAS is oriented on patient care for patients challenged with ROM loss with over 100 patents in patient rehabilitation. In addition to selling JAS throughout the USA and 20 countries, JAS has helped to successfully restore ROM in extremity joints of more than 300,000 patients. Learn more about JAS innovations at jointactivesystems.com

About Lantz Medical

Lantz Medical, headquartered in Indiana, specializes in the design and manufacturing of Range of Motion (ROM) products. Lantz Medical was founded in 2005 with a singular goal to improve technologies in the rehabilitation industry. Along with a hands-on approach, our patented ROM product lines provide the best options available in the industry with cost effective rental options, and exceptional service. Learn more about us by reading the Lantz Story at lantzmedical.com
OpenSlate logo Their vast advertising technology experience and proven leadership qualities will have enormous, immediate impact on the company as we continue to uplevel the business.

OpenSlate, the leader in social video analytics, announced today that JoAnna Foyle and Brian Quinn have joined the company as Chief Operating Officer and President, respectively. The two have been tasked with rapidly evolving operational excellence, international expansion, and customer success for the growing data company.

Im thrilled to welcome JoAnna and Brian to OpenSlates growing executive team, said OpenSlate CEO Mike Henry. Their vast advertising technology experience and proven leadership qualities will have enormous, immediate impact on the company as we continue to uplevel the business.

In 2016, OpenSlates YouTube-focused data platform was tapped by more than 600 advertisers in 17 countries. The company recently announced a global business development partnership with GroupM and closed a $7 million round of financing led by North Base Media. The fresh capital is being used to expand both the human and technological horsepower that turns massive amounts of contextual data into actionable analytics.

Foyle will be responsible for organizational structure and scale while directly managing client services, account management, enterprise partnerships, and business operations. Most recently, JoAnna was a Senior Vice President of Enterprise Platform Services at AOL where she managed the division responsible for activating, servicing and supporting customers of AOLs SaaS platform, ONE by AOL for Advertisers.

This is my favorite stage to join an organization, said JoAnna Foyle, COO of OpenSlate. We are at such an inflection point with boundless potential, given the current industry dynamics. I am here to ensure that we build the operational rigor and structure to deliver successfully for customers and capitalize on that opportunity.

Quinn joins OpenSlate in the newly formed role of President to lead the companys domestic and international sales teams, business development, and strategic partnerships. Prior to joining OpenSlate, Quinn served as Chief Revenue & Innovation Officer at Triad Retail Media where he oversaw all global revenue operations in addition to the companys marketing, product innovation and media lab divisions.

The outstanding team already in place had turned OpenSlate into an indispensable tool for marketers in social video, said OpenSlates new President. I look forward to helping the business to grow here in the US and abroad, where we have a massive untapped opportunity.

ABOUT OPENSLATE

OpenSlate provides industry-leading content analytics to advertisers navigating the complexity of social video. The companys global data platform offers insight into the nature and quality of content on YouTube and is used by every major advertising holding company. Ad buyers use OpenSlate to develop YouTube media strategies and define the role of content in brand advertising performance. OpenSlate data also helps creative and PR agencies, brands and content companies identify rising stars and spot content trends in social video. The companys SlateScore has become the industry standard for measuring the quality of content on YouTube. Learn more at http://www.openslatedata.com.

Press contact:

Kate Ritchie

OpenSlate

Telephone: 212-660-2422

Email: kate(at)openslatedata(dot)com
Ringling Reunion With the news that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey will close, Circus World and the Baraboo community immediately thought about the people. The Circus Homecoming is our way to honor all of them," said Scott ODonnell, Exec. Dir. Circus World

Baraboo, Wisconsin, the hometown of the Ringling brothers and their circus empire, will roll out the red carpet to the performers and employees of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey with a special Circus Homecoming, July 20-23, 2017. The four-day event will celebrate the people who have made The Greatest Show on Earth an iconic brand and the worlds preeminent circus. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey cast and crew will also serve as the grand marshals of Baraboos Big Top Parade.

On parade day, Saturday July 22, at 7:30 p.m., former performers from The Greatest Show On Earth will showcase their talents on the stage of the beautifully restored Al. Ringling Theatre for a one-time-only presentation of Sawdust, Spangles and Dreams. Proceeds from this event will benefit the Circus Traveling Show Retirement Project & Showpeoples Winter Quarters, as well as International Clown Hall of Fame, the Al. Ringling Theatre and Circus World. Tickets for this performance can be purchased online beginning May 1 at http://alringling.org/.

With the news that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey will close May 21 after 146 years of continuous operation, Circus World and the entire Baraboo community immediately thought about the people who have dedicated their lives to The Greatest Show On Earth. The Circus Homecoming is our way to honor all of them and their legacy, said Scott ODonnell, Executive Director of Circus World, a state-owned historic site located at the Ringling Bros. Circus winter quarters (1884-1918) in Baraboo and the primary organization behind the Circus Homecoming.

Other Circus Homecoming events, including performances, concerts, tours, films and social gatherings offered each day and evening at the citys premier circus attractions: Circus World, the International Clown Hall of Fame, Al. Ringling Theatre, Al. Ringling Mansion and Ringling House Bed & Breakfast. You can explore the full schedule of Circus Homecoming events by visiting http://www.circusworldbaraboo.org.

Activities on Friday, July 21 will include an 11:00 a.m. guided tour of Baraboos Walnut Hill Cemetery where four of the Ringling brothers and other circus luminaries are interred. The 1952 Oscar-winning best picture, The Greatest Show On Earth, will be shown on the big screen at 7:00 p.m. at the majestic Al. Ringling Theatre. Buy early to get the best seats! Al Ringling Theatre tickets for both the movie and Sawdust, Spangles and Dreams go on sale Monday, May 1, 2017, and can be purchased at http://alringling.org/ or by contacting the Ticket Office at 608-356-8864.

On Saturday, July 22 at 11:00 a.m., the 5th Annual Big Top Parade will take to the streets of downtown Baraboo, with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey employees serving as Grand Marshals. The parade will feature priceless, horse-drawn circus wagons from Circus Worlds unequaled collection, animals, bands, specialty units, and community floats. This year, because Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is ceasing operations, the parade will also feature the grandest assemblage of clowns on the planet.

For more information about the Circus Homecoming, or to arrange interviews and coverage contact Barbara Pflughaupt, BP Media Relations, (212) 707-8181.
"NMSDC certification provides a vast and focused networking platform for SFS Compliance Solutions to establish business relationships." Ken Hernandez, CEO, SFS Compliance Solutions

SFS Compliance Solutions, an independent contractor (IC) compliance and pay agent service provider headquartered in Greenville, SC, is pleased to announce its certification with the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE).

SFS Compliance Solutions is a new company launched in Q4, 2016 by industry veterans Ken Hernandez, CEO and Michael Matherly, Head of Sales & Partnerships. Mr. Hernandez explained the pursuit of MBE status by saying NMSDC certification provides a vast and focused networking platform for SFS Compliance Solutions to establish business relationships with corporate affiliates and other Minority Business Enterprises. Additionally, Michael was the supplier diversity champion for Corporate Procurement at a Fortune 500 company prior to SFS, so his years of familiarity and positive experience in that role were instrumental in our decision to align with NMSDC.

The certificate can be viewed here.

About SFS Compliance Solutions SFS Compliance Solutions is an IC compliance managed services firm that screens contractor and small business engagements for client companies to ensure compliance with independent contractor classification criteria. Independent contractor classification, regulated by a myriad of states and federal agencies, is an increasingly important risk management and contingent labor workforce requirement for companies expanding into the new gig economy where short term, temporary engagements with independent or freelance workers is the trend. SFS Compliance Solutions supports the entire IC lifecycle on behalf of its clients by providing not only the classification screening, but agent of record (AOR) services: on boarding, contracting, aggregated invoicing, contractor payments, dispute resolution, off boarding, etc. SFS Compliance Solutions is a conflict-free IC compliance firm because they are not in the staffing or recruiting business and do not seek further placements of the independent workers the client organizations source themselves. Instead, SFS Compliance Solutions was born from the statement of work (SOW) managed services procurement work that sister company Sourcing For Services provides to multiple Fortune 500 and mid-sized companies.

SFS Compliance Solutions is certified as a Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) through the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC).

Contact:

Michael Matherly, Head of Sales & Partnerships

SFS Compliance Solutions, LLC

1754 Woodruff Rd., Suite #162

Greenville, SC 29607

Direct: (864) 321-0729

Toll Free: (866) 737-4769

Email: michael(at)sfscompliance.com

Website: http://www.sfscompliance.com

About the National Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc. The National Minority Supplier Development Council advances business opportunities for certified Asian, Black, Hispanic and Native American business enterprises and connects them to corporate members. One of the countrys leading corporate membership organizations, NMSDC was chartered in 1972 to provide increased procurement and business opportunities for minority businesses of all sizes. See more at http://NMSDC.org.
Viking Tao

Attorney Viking Tao of Kane Russell Coleman Logan PC has co-authored a book to provide Chinese investors insight into the U.S. real estate market, titled "Chinese Institutions Definitive Guide to USA Commercial Real Estate. The book, which was written by a team of industry experts led by Ben Briggs of Briggs Freeman Sothebys International Realty, has been published by one of Beijing's top business publishers. It includes chapters highlighting markets and submarkets in each of America's top gateway cities, written by local real estate CEOs and top brokers nationwide.

Viking's global network of business investors includes strong connections with the Chinese, who were the single largest group of foreign investors in commercial real estate in the U.S. last year, with deal volumes reaching a record high of $19.2 billion, up 10% from $17.3 billion in 2015, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield. Viking leveraged her extensive experience with both Chinese and American companies to write the article on negotiating joint venture agreements between Chinese and U.S. partners. The article delves into intercultural differences as well as the nuances of joint ventures.

Viking focuses her practice on representing Chinese companies in establishing their presence in the U.S. and in connection with their strategic investment and expansion in the U.S., such as real estate investments, asset and stock acquisitions, and establishing strategic alliances with American businesses. She also advises American companies in connection with their investments in China and business negotiations with Chinese companies.

Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty, in partnership with Kane Russell Coleman Logan PC, recently hosted a reception to mark the launch of the book. The event was held at the Museum Tower, located at 1918 North Olive Street, Dallas, Texas, on April 24, 2017 at 5:00 PM and was attended by more than 100 guests.

Kane Russell Coleman Logan PC is a full service law firm with offices in Dallas and Houston. Formed in 1992 with five lawyers, today KRCL has more than 95 attorneys. The Firm provides professional services for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to medium-sized public and private companies to entrepreneurs. KRCL handles transactional, litigation and bankruptcy matters in Texas and throughout the country.
Axel Heinz, Ornellaias Director and Winemaker

For the 9th edition of Ornellaias Vendemmia dArtista art project, which was launched in 2009 to showcase the marriage between the world of contemporary art and fine wine, the iconic Bolgheri-based estate is proud to announce that $112,500 USD has been raised to celebrate Ornellaia 2014 LEssenza.

On April 27, the spotlight was focused on Ornellaia at a charity auction to benefit New Yorks Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. Featuring 9 lots of numbered, limited edition large format bottles of Ornellaia with unique labels created by renowned Brazilian contemporary artist, Ernesto Neto, bidding was fervent for the wines with the amount raised totalling $112,500. Jamie Ritchie, Sothebys Wine CEO & President, Americas & Asia, presided over the gala dinner and charity auction that raised funds for the host sponsoring the event, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation in New York, directed by Richard Armstrong.

To artistically interpret Ornellaia 2014 LEssenza, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto turned to his current field of art research, shamanism as science, natural phenomena, and the artisanal arts that are the collective fruit of the community. In 2014, Neto and the members of the Huni Kin tribe in Brazil undertook a series of artistic collaborations that analysed shamanic rituals and traditions. The spiritual life of that tribe, their striving for healing in harmony with nature, and the wisdom and serenity that they draw from their intimate bond with the energy of our earth infused into Netos oeuvre an unprecedented awareness of the power of nature and of the dynamic factors that regulate it. Drawing generously from these traditions, and from the shamans and their rituality, the artists recent works convey aspects of transformation and add multiple layers of meaning to his research into social-and ecology-based connectivity.

We are talking about a wine, a sacred juice that comes from the plants, explained Ernesto Neto. I thought about time, the time of the cycles of the wine. In this time that we are living so speedily, wine is slow, because it is nature and nature is slow. Nowadays I see trees as a civilizing entity, one hand in complete darkness, and another hand in complete light; in the middle the trunk, the fruits, the seeds - all of it coming from dark and from the light. This drawing is a kind of old drawing of mine; I have done many of these drawings, thinking about time, about cycles, how somethings begin, then comes back to the beginning; the end and the beginning kissing each other.

For Ornellaias Vendemmia dArtista project, Ernesto Neto sought to convey the concept of natural balance as it is exemplified in our modern societies. He encapsulated 100 large-format bottles with an interwoven mesh, specifically 100 3-litre double magnums, 10 6-litre Imperials, and a single 9-litre Salmanazar, which together represent a social hierarchy with a single King, 10 Nobles, and a populace of 100 subjects, and in so doing illustrates the equilibrium that should reign in every community, with a hierarchy that is necessary so that all can live in harmony within the group and in uniformity with Mother Nature.

In addition, Neto designed a special label for the 750ml bottles of Ornellaia, and one bottle bearing that label will be included in every 6-bottle wood box.

For Axel Heinz, Ornellaias Director and Winemaker, the 2014 vintage exhibits the character of LEssenza, or the Essence. When one is confronted with a challenging growing season, in order to make a great wine, one has to focus on simply extracting that years very essence. And, in fact, the 2014 year unexpectedly turned into a pleasant surprise, since the heavy rains and low temperatures during the ripening stages were followed by a September and October which brought us exemplary weather conditions; the final result was a somewhat later harvest, which delivered optimally vibrant fruit with crisp acidities. We complemented that result with meticulous hand-picking, whose objective was to select only the most sound, healthy clusters. What one notices immediately about the 2014 vintage is the high quality of the tannins: elegant and silk-smooth, with no rough edges at all. 2014 will be remembered in Tuscany for the summer that never was and as one of the most unusual. A warm and rainy winter was followed by a mild and dry spring, a distinctively average July and a cold and rainy August. All of this created difficult conditions for the ripening of the grapes. September and October, however, brought perfect conditions, with mostly sunny and dry weather, offering excellent conditions for ripening, particularly for Merlot. While we had an incredible amount of extra work to do in the vineyard, the combination of the Estates varied subsoils, the varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and our own detailed knowledge of the terroir all played distinctively in our favour. Ornellaia underlines the fundamental difference in terroir between the coast and the central Tuscan vineyards.

Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation noted that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was thrilled to host Ornellaia, Sothebys and the renowned artist Ernesto Neto in the 9th edition of LEssenza Vendemmia dArtista. We are honored that Ornellaia chose the Guggenheim Museum for this spectacular event and are grateful for its generous support. Like wine, art has universal significance.

Today, as the Vendemmia dArtista marks its 9th year, it continues to attract funds for the restoration of artworks belonging to our universal heritage, stated Giovanni Geddes da Filicaja, Managing Director of Ornellaia. In just nine years we have succeeded in donating more than one million euros across the globe, just a small drop perhaps, but there is much more to come.

The Vendemmia dArtista series is a wonderful way of combining the characteristics of each vintage of Ornellaia with a world class artists interpretation of that specific year. For the ninth edition, Sothebys Wine was delighted to continue our collaboration with the launch of Ornellaia 2014 LEssenza Vendemmia dArtista, through a very special dinner and auction benefiting the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York commented Jamie Ritchie, Sothebys CEO & President, Americas & Asia.

To date, Ornellaias Vendemmia dArtista art project, over its nine annual editions, has raised almost 2 million euros, all of which it has donated to foundations and museums that support art across its full range of expressions, including the Whitney Museum of New York, the Neue Nationalgalerie of Berlin, the Royal Opera House of London, the H2 Foundation of Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as the Museo Poldi Pezzoli of Milan, the AGO of Toronto, the Fondation Beyeler of Basel, and the Hammer Museum of Los Angeles.

Curating the Ornellaia Vendemmia dArtista project were Bartolomeo Pietrimarchi (Curator, MAXXI, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo) and Maria Alicata.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

ORNELLAIA

Ornellaias philosophy considers the birth of the wines to be the truest expression of their terroir. The grapes for Ornellaia are selected by hand, and picked in the estate's vineyards in Bolgheri, on the Tuscan coast. The varying natures of the estate's terroirs, marine, alluvial and volcanic, are ideal for the cultivation of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc ad Petit Verdot. The Estate extends over 97 hectares along the Tuscan coast, just a short distance from the medieval hamlet of Bolgheri and the famed cypress-lined avenue Viale dei Cipressi. The constant work of the Ornellaia team and the ideal microclimatic and geological characteristics have brought the wines, in just twenty years-- 1985 was the first vintage of Ornellaia -- great international success. In 2001, the 1998 Ornellaia was declared Wine of the Year by the American journal Wine Spectator. In 2011 the German publication Der Feinschmecker awarded Ornellaia its most sought-after award, the Weinlegende.

Ornellaia has received considerable recognition also in the national and international press, and is consistently ranked among the top estates by the Italian Wine Guides, including Gambero Rosso, Espresso, Veronelli, Duemilavini AIS, and Luca Maroni.

ERNESTO NETO

Born in 1964 in Rio de Janeiro, continues to live and work in Brazil. He studied at the citys Escola de artes visuais do Parque Lage in 1994 and in 1997, and also attended the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art from 1994 to 1996.

Neto, known for his large installations utilizing mesh, fabrics, spices, and stones, draws inspiration from a wide range of sources, from the modernist traditions of Biomorphism, Arte Povera, and American Minimalism, to Brazilian Neo-concretism, succeeding in unifying together into a coherent and harmonizing discourse apparently disparate influences. Since the 1990s, Neto has created an oeuvre in which elements such as improvisation and chance intersect with geometry and gravitational force, to fashion an utterly unique artistic language. His activity brings together mind and body through the experience of space, utilising the senses to align together the viewers physical and psychological dimensions. Taken together, these aspects constitute both a distinctive signature as well as an unprecedented vocabulary that has influenced a generation of artists throughout the world, making Ernesto Neto one of the worlds most respected and influential artists.

THE SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION

Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, joined by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice in 1979, has since expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (opened 1997), and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (currently in development). The Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that take contemporary art, architecture, and design beyond the walls of the museum.
The straight As achievement validates our commitment to patient safety and could not be accomplished without our team members dedication to delivering exceptional, compassionate care to our patients every day.

Florida Hospital North Pinellas has received its eighth consecutive A grade in patient safety from The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit organization committed to driving quality, safety, and transparency in the U.S. health care system. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades assigns A, B, C, D and F letter grades to hospitals nationwide, and Florida Hospital North Pinellas was one of 823 hospitals to receive an A for its commitment to reducing errors, infections, and accidents that can harm patients. Florida Hospital North Pinellas is the only hospital in Pinellas County to achieve straight As since 2013.

Florida Hospital North Pinellas is proud to be recognized as one of the safest hospitals in the nation for the eighth consecutive semester, says Tricia Williams, Florida Hospital North Pinellas President and CEO. The straight As achievement validates our commitment to patient safety and could not be accomplished without our team members dedication to delivering exceptional, compassionate care to our patients every day.

Developed under the guidance of an Expert Panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses 30 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign A, B, C, D and F grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. It is calculated by top patient safety experts, peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.

Hospitals that earn top marks nationally in the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade have achieved the highest safety standards in the country, said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. That takes commitment from every member of the hospital staff, who all deserve thanks and congratulations when their hospitals achieve an A Safety Grade.

To see Florida Hospital North Pinellas full grade, and to access consumer-friendly patient tips for staying safe in the hospital, visit http://www.hospitalsafetygrade.org or follow the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade on Twitter or Facebook. Consumers can also download the free Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade mobile app for Apple and Android devices.

About Florida Hospital North Pinellas

Florida Hospital North Pinellas, located in Tarpon Springs, is a 168-bed, full-service hospital specializing in cardiovascular medicine, emergency medicine, orthopedics, wound healing, sleep medicine and general surgery including minimally invasive and robotic-assisted procedures. Florida Hospital North Pinellas has been nationally recognized by the American Heart Association, the American Stroke Association, The Joint Commission, and The Leapfrog Group, for excellence in providing quality patient care. Florida Hospital North Pinellas serves both the Pinellas and Pasco communities of West Central Florida. Part of the Adventist Health System, Florida Hospital is a leading health network comprised of 26 hospitals throughout the state. For more information, visit http://www.FHNorthPinellas.com.

About The Leapfrog Group

Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrogs other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.
ClearObject, an Internet of Things (IoT) Systems Innovator, is honored to win Scale-up Company of the Year ($5M-$20M) for the 18th annual TechPoint Mira Awards presented by Angies List, Genesys and Salesforce.

TechPoint, the growth initiative for Indianas technology ecosystem, produces the Mira Awards each year to honor the most innovative and successful technologies and technology companies in Indiana, as well as entrepreneurs and educators. Winners were announced during the annual Mira Awards gala at The Westin Indianapolis on April 29, 2017.

There are significant opportunities for tech businesses in Indiana, and in order to continue to sustain growth and set a precedent as a tech hub, the Miras Scale-up Company of the Year ($5M-$20M) award provides acknowledgment and helps generate recognition for those who have moved beyond the start-up phase to take their business to the next level.

The ClearObject team has worked hard to help clients bring their IoT products and projects to life and to be selected from among nearly 100 nominees is truly an honor, said John McDonald, CEO of ClearObject. It is rewarding to spend an evening celebrating not only our teams achievements, but the success and dedication of Indianas entire technology community.

A total of 15 award winners and three honorable mentions were chosen from the 90 outstanding companies, organizations, and individuals who were selected as nominees this year out of the 180 applications received highlighting achievements during the 2016 calendar year.

Fifty independent, volunteer judges spent more than 800 total hours reviewing and ranking applications, interviewing nominees, and selecting this years winners. Judges included company founders, CEOs and presidents, CTOs, CIOs, software developers, and a variety of other entrepreneurs and subject matter experts.

The Mira AwardsIndianas longest running technology awards programamplify success stories of some of the very best Indiana startups, scale-ups, and established tech companies, which helps them win new customers, attract investment capital, and acquire skilled talent. The Mira Awards are a large, annual part of TechPoints mission to accelerate tech growth in Indiana.

In just over a decade, Indiana has seen more than $6.5 billion in acquisitions and IPOs from our tech community. More recently, in 2016, two-thirds of all the venture capital dollars and three-quarters of all the deals raised in Indiana went to tech companies, said TechPoint President and CEO Mike Langellier. The Mira Awards exist to celebrate our states tremendous tech success stories and amplify them to media, investors and technology buyers nationwide.

The award comes just over a month after it was announced ClearObject had won the first-ever Peoples Choice Mira Award for Best Tech Event for IndyIoT Symposium.

A complete list of the 2017 TechPoint Mira Awards winners is available at http://www.techpoint.org/mira.

About ClearObject

ClearObject is an IoT Systems Innovator helping the worlds best companies connect their bold ideas to the Internet of Things. We bring our years of experience, our team of experts and our coalition of leading partners together to make your IoT solutions a reality.

About TechPoint

TechPoint is the nonprofit, industry-led growth initiative for Indianas technology companies and overall tech ecosystem. The team is focused on attracting talent, accelerating scale-up companies, activating the community, and amplifying stories of success. For more, visit http://www.techpoint.org.
Laura Geritz, CEO Given the strength of the US market since the Great Financial Crisis, its easy to look globally and see more attractive valuations abroad, and the move towards passive investing provides increased value in active managers familiar with these markets.

Rondure Global Advisors, the firm recently founded by former Wasatch portfolio manager Laura Geritz in collaboration with Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, announced the launch of the firms first mutual funds. The Rondure New World Fund and Rondure Overseas Fund will be managed by Laura Geritz (CFA, MA), Founder & CEO of Rondure Global Advisors, along with her team. The Funds will focus on high quality, core equities and take a long-term view.

The Rondure New World Fund is an index agnostic total return portfolio designed to identify high quality, core businesses tied to the worlds developing economies. The Fund will invest primarily in equity securities in emerging and frontier markets, or in companies having significant exposure to these developing countries. See the Prospectus for additional fund detail.

The Rondure Overseas Fund is an index-agnostic total return portfolio investing in the worlds developed economies outside of the United States. The Fund will invest in what it believes to be the best equity investments available without regard to benchmark weightings in regions, countries or industries. See the Prospectus for additional fund detail.

Ms. Geritzs investment philosophy is based on finding high quality, core companies which can provide sustainable returns over a long-term investment horizon. The investment process begins with extensive screening, followed by bottom-up research and rigorous company due diligence. Ms. Geritz describes the opportunity this way: We are different. We are the anti-index. We believe being an active manager with a go-anywhere approach allows us to find the best investment opportunities, wherever they may be. We seek to invest in great companies at good prices and good companies at great prices. Ms. Geritz sees the trend towards passive, index-mirroring investment strategies as an opportunity to have high active share in her portfolios. Given the strength of the US market since the Great Financial Crisis, its easy to look globally and see more attractive valuations abroad, and the move towards passive investing provides increased value in active managers familiar with these markets. Im enthusiastic about launching these Funds, commented Ms. Geritz.

The Rondure Funds are available beginning May 1st for direct investment at http://www.rondureglobal.com and through several intermediary channels. Rondure Global Advisors is seeking broad distribution for the new funds. For questions on availability through a specific distribution platform, please contact your investment representative at that intermediary (or contact Eric Huefner at Rondure Global Advisors).

Please visit http://www.rondureglobal.com to learn more about the firm, the investment team, and to read the CEO letter and latest travel journal. Ms. Geritz provides her insights into the culture and investment opportunities around the world in her engaging free verse journal entries.

Ms. Geritz is a 20-year industry veteran who was the founding portfolio manager of the Wasatch Frontier Emerging Small Countries Fund and a former lead portfolio manager of the Wasatch Emerging Markets Small Cap Fund and the Wasatch International Opportunities Fund. Rondure Global Advisors was founded by Ms. Geritz in late 2016 in partnership with Grandeur Peak Global Advisors. Rondure and Grandeur Peak share an office in Salt Lake City and collaboratively leverage the knowledge and skill of the two research teams and back-office staff.

For more information, please contact Laura Geritz (lgeritz(at)rondureglobal(dot)com) or Eric Huefner (ehuefner(at)grandeurpeakglobal(dot)com)

About Rondure Global Advisors:

Rondure Global Advisor takes a bottom-up approach to equity investing using disciplined global screening, rigorous company due diligence, and close attention to valuation to find what we believe to be the best investment opportunities around the world. Our investment philosophy is centered on very high quality companies that we believe can provide sustainable returns. Rondure Global Advisor, LLC is a woman-owned investment adviser headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940

About Grandeur Peak Global Advisors:

Grandeur Peak Global Advisors is comprised of a highly seasoned and collaborative research team taking a bottom-up approach to investing using disciplined global screening, rigorous company due diligence, and close attention to valuation to find what we believe to be the best investment opportunities around the world. Our bias is towards micro to mid-cap companies because we believe we can find faster growth among these firms, and often at better valuations due to the lack of analyst coverage. Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, LLC is an employee-owned investment adviser headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940.

###

An investor should consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. Visit http://www.rondureglobal.com to obtain a Rondure Funds Prospectus, which contain this and other information, or call 1.855.775.3337. Read the prospectus carefully before investing.

Wasatch Advisors and the Wasatch Funds are not affiliated with Rondure Global Advisors or Grandeur Peak Global Advisors. An investor should consider investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing. Visit http://www.wasatchfunds.com to obtain a Wasatch Funds Prospectus, which contain this and other information. Read the prospectus carefully before investing.

CFA is a trademark owned by CFA Institute. The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation is issued by the CFA Institute. Candidates must meet one of the following prerequisites: undergraduate degree and 4 years of professional experience involving investment decision-making, or 4 years qualified work experience (full time, but not necessarily investment related). Candidates are then required to undertake extensive self-study programs (250 hours of study for each of the 3 levels) and pass examinations for all 3 levels.

The Rondure Funds, Grandeur Peak Funds, and Wasatch Funds are distributed by Alps Distributors Inc. (ADI). ADI is not affiliated with Rondure Global Advisors, Grandeur Peak Global Advisors, or Wasatch Advisors. Eric Huefner is a registered representative of ADI. RON000121 5/31/18
Carl Marzola, owner and CEO of Atlantic Properties International Symphony at the Waterways offers a boutique hotel ambience. It provides residents with exquisite amenities that cannot be found in most other assisted living communities. Past News Releases RSS Florida Realtor Carl Marzola...

Atlantic Properties International...

Carl Marzola, Certified Residential Specialist and owner and CEO of Atlantic Properties International, a globally connected, locally respected real estate company, is celebrating his first anniversary as the preferred agent for Symphony at the Waterways. Symphony at the Waterways is an upscale assisted living and memory care community in Fort Lauderdale.

Much of Marzolas time is spent helping the elderly transition from their residences to the secured luxury facility. Symphony at the Waterways has three restaurants, a theater, a gourmet chef catering to residents needs and a 24/7 staff. It even has a full lounge where people can go for happy hour, added Marzola. I also decided to help them by discounting my services, so that the residents can take advantage and use these funds towards their transition move.

Symphony at the Waterways has been compared to a five-star hotel, and is also setting a new standard for assisted living and memory care. It believes residents shouldnt have to give up the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to in order to live at the community.

Symphony at the Waterways offers a boutique hotel ambience, concluded Marzola. It provides residents with exquisite amenities that cannot be found in most other assisted living communities.

About Carl Marzola, Atlantic Properties International, Inc.

Carl Marzola has earned the prestigious designation of Master Broker, of which membership is by invitation only. Atlantic Properties International works with both buyers and sellers. Its exclusive listings are globally marketed to over 7,000 international real estate specialists in 52 countries. For more information, please call (954) 564-8182, or visit http://www.atlantic-props.com. The office is located at 3432 N. Ocean Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33308.

About the NALA

The NALA offers businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361.
Dr. Rebecca Chason of Shady Grove Fertility's Annapolis, MD office I hear patients all the time say that they delayed coming to see us because they were simply unsure what to expect and fear got in the way.

Shady Grove Fertility, the largest fertility center in the United States, with more babies born than any other fertility center in the nationcontinues to remind the community through its educational events when its time to see a fertility specialist, as early fertility intervention offers couples the best chances of success. The goal of Shady Grove Fertilitys online and in-person events is to provide attendees with the most up-to-date information about infertility so they can make educated and informed decisions about seeking treatment. To make each event as informative as possible, all eventseither virtual or in-personconclude with a question and answer session with a physician expert allowing attendees to get their personal questioned answered.

The new virtual event What Your Menstrual Cycle Says about Your Fertility, which launched last month has garnered interest among many Shady Grove Fertility participants who are unaware of whats normal and whats not when it comes to their menstrual cycles and how an abnormal menstrual cycle impacts fertility and conception.

Our new menstrual cycle webinar is intended to give women an understanding of early warning signs about their reproductive health that could be the underlying cause of why they have been unable to conceive. By educating women on what to look for in their menstrual cycles, we are encouraging women to act sooner and seek the help they need from a fertility specialist, which in many cases only requires basic or low-tech treatment options, says Ricardo Yazigi, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Towson, MD office. Dr. Yazigi will be hosting the Tuesday, May 16 webinar about What Your Menstrual Cycle Says about Your Fertility.

Physician experts during the Is it time to see a fertility specialist? in-person seminar will address the most common causes of both male and female infertility. Many people dont realize that 40 percent of infertility is attributed to the male. It is a common myth that many people think infertility is solely a female problem.

What many couples are surprised to learn is that infertility does not discriminate and can affect both men and women equally. If a couple is struggling to conceive, its important to see a fertility specialist for an early evaluation, based on their age and length of time having unprotected intercourse. By testing both partners simultaneously, a physician is able to determine the cause of a patients infertility sooner and put them on the right treatment path, says Rebecca J. Chason, M.D., of Shady Grove Fertilitys Annapolis, MD office. Dr. Chason will be hosting the Tuesday, May 23 in-person seminar, Is it time to see a fertility specialist?

On May 10, Shady Grove Fertility will be offering a new event and a unique opportunity for interested parties to tour their brand new state-of-the-art facility in Rockville, MD. Home to the largest freestanding IVF and embryology laboratory in the nation, co-founder of the practice, Arthur Sagoskin, M.D., will answer questions and provide a tour. I hear patients all the time say that they delayed coming to see us because they were simply unsure what to expect and fear got in the way. This is a casual, relaxed setting to learn more about what makes Shady Grove Fertility a truly unique place. We hear many of our patients say that they wished they hadnt waited so long to make that call, says Dr. Sagoskin.

While all SGF in-person and online events are complimentary, interested parties must register to attend by visiting the Shady Grove Fertility calendar of events.

Upcoming May Seminars

May 2 | Frederick, MD | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Lauren Roth

May 4 | Fair Oaks, VA | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Stephen Greenhouse

May 9 | Harrisburg, PA | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Melissa Esposito

May 10 | Rockville, MD | Open House | Dr. Arthur Sagoskin

May 18 | Columbia, MD | Egg Freezing | Dr. Stephanie Beall

May 18 | Lancaster, PA | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Kara Nguyen

May 23 | Annapolis, MD | Is it time to see a fertility specialist? | Dr. Rebecca Chason

Upcoming May Webinars

May 4 | Webinar | Trying to Conceive Q&A | Dr. Jason Bromer

May 9 | Webinar | Is it time to see a fertility specialist?| Dr. Paulette Browne

May 11 | Webinar | Mind and Body Health for Your Fertility | Dr. Melissa Esposito and Meghan Sylvester, RND, LDN

May 16 | Webinar | What Your Menstrual Cycle Says about Your Fertility | Dr. Ricardo Yazigi

May 17 | Webinar | Financial Options | Patient Financial Team

May 18 | Webinar | Become an Egg Donor | Egg Donor Liaison Team

May 23 | Webinar | I need to see a fertility specialist. Now what? | Dr. Naveed Khan

May 23 | Webinar | Donor Egg Treatment | Dr. Gilbert Mottla

May 25 | Webinar | Egg Freezing | Dr. Shruti Malik

About Shady Grove Fertility

Shady Grove Fertility is a leading fertility and IVF center of excellence offering patients individualized care, innovative financial options, and pregnancy rates among the highest of all national centers. 2016 commemorated 25 years of Shady Grove Fertility providing medical and service excellence to patients from all 50 states and 35 countries around the world, and over 40,000 babies bornmore than any other center in the nation. Today, 39 physicians, supported by a highly specialized team of more than 700 Ph.D. scientists, geneticists, and staff care for patients in 19 full-service offices and six satellite sites throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Shady Grove Fertility physicians actively train residents and reproductive endocrinology fellows and invest in continuous clinical research and education to advance the field of reproductive medicine through numerous academic appointments and partnerships such as Georgetown Medical School, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the University of Maryland, and the National Institutes of Health. More than 1,700 physicians refer their patients to Shady Grove Fertility each year. For more information, call 1-888-761-1967 or visit ShadyGroveFertility.com.
The discovery of a good wine is increasingly better for mankind than the discovery of a new star. -Leonardo da Vinci

Who loves wine? Beside their custom private wine tours, MIB Limousine is now starting their public wine tasting tours. They will be visiting 3 of the finest wineries in Temecula wine country.

MIB Transportation is now hosting Temecula Wine Tasting Tours for the public [cost per seat]. Individuals will be taking a trip to 3 prestigious wineries, enjoying 15 tastings along with a complimentary tour of Thornton Winery. The pick up/drop off location is located at the Old Town Transit Station in San Diego. They will then drive up to Temecula Valley Wine Country to enjoy some tastings at Hart Winery, Thornton Winery and Lorenzi Estate Winery.

June 4th, 2017 is their first run, departing at 10am so make sure to arrive 15 minutes early to check in making their tour last for a total of 7 hours. MIB Limousine is proud to finally host their public wine tours. They have been dreaming of this moment for a while now and are excited to announce the commencement of public wine tours.

MIB Limousine serves clients ranging from corporate to meeting planners, individual families, and groups well on a daily basis no matter what time of the day it is, providing a peace of mind, demonstrate availability and responsiveness, exceed their expectations with professionalism and consistency and take pride in what they do. Have fun, meet new people and experience life in a different light with MIB Limousine Services.

MIB Limousine is a family owned business who benefit from treating their clients like their own. Wine tours have become one of the top things to do in San Diego, whether you are a wine expert or new to the tasting scene this is all the rage in 2017.

MIB WORLDWIDE CHAUFFEURED SERVICES

1 (858) 764  4467

Phone/Office Hours: 3:00 am  11:59 pm

Service Hours 24/7
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SC asks EC not to issue notification till November 10 for bypoll in Rampur Sadar assembly seat following disqualification of MLA Azam Khan.

Rupee gains 45 paise to close at 81.47 (provisional) against US dollar.
In sheer number, womenprimarily straight white womenare the backbone of the publishing industry. PWs annual salary survey showed that women represented 74% of the publishing workforce in both 2015 and 2016, a figure in line with the Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Survey of 2015, which found that 78% of those working in publishing are cis women, of whom 88% are heterosexual and 79% are white.

But there is a persistent pay gap between publishings men and women: in 2015, men earned an average of $96,000, and women an average of $61,000. One reason for the gap is that men often hold higher positions than women in many of the biggest publishers, particularly in management, where salaries are the highest. That combination of factorsthe salary disparity and difficulty climbing the corporate ranksis one reason a growing number of women have moved on to independent publishing, in many cases starting their own publishing houses.

Brooke Warner, publisher of She Writes Press and SparkPress, says her frustration with mainstream publishing is that the executive level is usually [mostly] men, and the decisions handed down from the top and certainly financial decisions are largely made by men, while the underlingsthe editors and most of the marketing teamare women. The pay gap is also embarrassing. She considers the industry to have serious gender problems.

Warner got her start in publishing at North Atlantic Books and at Seal Press, where she had a feminist awakening. She describes herself as having been one of those women who didnt think I needed to be a feminist because we have equality. What a total joke. I was just young and naive. Through all the books I worked on at Seal, I became a full-blown feminist. Once Seal was acquired by Perseus, the mandate shifted from being a very feminist, mission-driven experience to a much more commercial one. Warner says that, working in a womens press, you cant deny [gender discrimination] anymore. You see it everywhere you go. Seal Press has since been acquired by Hachette, and they laid off the female publisher and rolled it into an imprint with a male publisher. I just think thats emblematic of what happens in traditional publishing. Its all about the bottom line. We want to make money too, but not at the sacrifice of some of the core principles on which we were founded. Warner left to start She Writes Press with Kamy Wicoff, founder of shewrites.com, an online community salon space for women writers. In 2014, She Writes was acquired by SparkPoint, whose CEO is Crystal Patriarche. Both She Writes and SparkPoints SparkPress imprint use an author-subsidized model that allows Warner to keep to a content-driven mission.

Dominique Raccahfounder of Sourcebooks, one of the largest woman-owned independent publishers in North America, and 2016s PW Person of the Yearpoints out that gender disparity spans the entire book industry, noting that, among booksellers as well as publishers, the workforce is largely female, but ownership is not always female. Youve got that problem in publishing where the management will become less and less female the higher up the hierarchy you go. And I said that out loudthat probably wont make me popular, Raccah says. On being PW Person of the Year, Raccah says that she was surprised that they would think of me, and that is partly because I still think that for women it takes us a long time to get an idea of who we are.

Graywolf publisher Fiona McCrae remembers that, when she worked in editorial at Faber and Faber, there was one female director at that time, in charge of thrillers and cookbooks even though she was very smart and literary. When McCrae joined Graywolf in 1994, the staff was four employees putting out around eight books a year, and now the publisher has 13 staff members and publishes 33 titles a year. Was it hard for McCrae to work her way up? In retrospect there were elements of a glass ceiling. It was so glassy I didnt necessarily see it at the time. I think its gotten better and better over time. I remember in the early 1990s my friend left publishing altogether, because she didnt think she could get a job that didnt involve being bullied by an egotistical male. I do think things have changed, and I do think publishing has been good to me. She believes that, in terms of gender representation, publishing is better than other professions. Women on an individual basis are treated very well, and I think there are a lot of women running literary agencies. I dont know enough about statistics, but there are many very powerful women in publishing. Thats been the case for a while now. You hear them being talked about in revered tonesnot dismissed or reviled.

Striking Out on Their Own, Together

Some women PW spoke with said they felt they had to start their own businesses because they didnt see an opportunity to rise up the ranks in the companies where they worked, both inside and outside of publishing. Rhonda Hughes, founder of Print Vision and Hawthorne Books, remembers when she was 27, working as a sales rep for an overseas print broker, whose owner she approached about being a partner. He told her hed consider it; yet soon after, he brought in a young man and made him partner. I realized then that it was just not going to happen. So I went to Oahu, sat on the beach, and came up with this business called Print Vision, which I still own. I left because I realized I wouldnt get what I wanted unless I left and did it myself. The same thing with publishing: I realized I could move to New York and be an assistant editor and get paid nothing and be really poor, which I didnt want to do, or I could do this on my own.

C. Spike Trotman, founder of Chicagos Iron Circus Comics, notes that running her own business as a woman relieves her from having to trust the big publishers to make changes. I dont trust the intentions and motivations of a lot of large publishers. I think a lot of people at the top especially are extremely resistant to change. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming to expand the scope of their publishing even slightly.

Amy King, a founding member of VIDAa nonprofit feminist organization that has worked to create transparency around the lack of gender parity, the marginalization of people of color, writers with disabilities, and queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming peoplepoints out that change is almost always small-scale and often among nonprofits. The problem with the big publishers is that they are just so beholden to the profit margin. Theres not a lot of incentive, and not one figurehead saying, Hey, we need to change the face of publishing. Theyre all about making money. The problem is you dont see an immediate turnaround on your investment because youre investing in people.

Trotman says of starting her own business, Every time I hear a news story about how so-and-so did something terrible at a party or a conference, I know Ive made the right decision by starting my own publishing company, because those are the types of people she would have had to deal with on a daily basis if she had not moved on. Quite frankly, speaking for myself, I do just fine by myself out here.

Many women in publishing who came from other male-dominated industries think those experiences helped them when starting their own presses. Publisher Georgia McBride of Month9Books got into publishing by accident when she decided to put together an anthology with authors she knew through her popular tweetchat under the hashtag #YALitChat. Previously, she had worked in very male-dominated industries: the music industry, the internet business, technology, product development, and software development. There werent really a whole lot of female influences at the time. It was also very difficult for me personally because youre constantly being challenged and questioned and constantly having to be more and do more. Youre not expected to succeed and not expected to do well.

Laura Stanfill, publisher of Forest Avenue Press in Portland, Ore., recalls getting so much flack when she ran the local newspaper. I was the gatekeeper, and yet I learned to expect dubious gazes when I walked into Chamber of Commerce meetings, because they didnt think I was qualified, Stanfill says. Spending years in a male-dominated career, she adds, played into my fearlessness when I was starting a press as a woman. So the transition [to publishing] wasnt so shocking.

In starting new businesses, many women reached out to other women for support. When McBride founded Month9Books, she contacted women she had known from the business side of publishing to be mentors to her. Without their support, she says, she doesnt think she would have been able to achieve the things she has in the time frame that I have. Stanfill cites Hawthorne Books publisher Hughes as a role model. While I met with a lot of male publishers too, Rhondas persistence in encouraging me to follow my heart and taste really shaped the early years of the press and who I became as a publisher. Stanfill also joined Women in Portland Publishing (WIPP), and she says that attending monthly socials with other women in publishing helped her find her voice as a publisher.

Raccah emphasizes that collaboration is an important factor in success. I do believe were at a moment when theres an opportunity for lots of different peoples to work together. She cites her work with Little Pickle Press as an example; Sourcebooks recently acquired the publishing rights to Little Pickles titles. I think that successful female entrepreneurs working together is going to be more and more of a trend as we go forward. We have to help each other to succeed.

Rana DiOrio, CEO of March 4th and founder of Little Pickle Press, says the relationship with Sourcebooks is very synergistic and cites Raccah as one of her biggest inspirations. She just breaks the rules, she doesnt take no for an answer, she asks why and what if. DiOriowho came up in investment banking, where there were no women at the top echelons, and it was so competitive that there wasnt a supportive nexus welcomes women helping one another. Unlike other industries, in publishing, women leaders support women leaders.

But, says Raccaha member of the Committee of 200, a group of the largest women-owned and women-run businesses in the countrylarge women-built businesses are still thin on the ground though there are many women-led startups. At Women 2.0, a network for female founders of technology ventures, Raccah notices that they still have the same problems we had 20 years ago. Women are still having problems getting funding and growing bigger companies.

Women Authors

Raccah points out that gender disparities in publishing also affect authors: Women authors do not get reviewed at the same level as guys; its just a fact. Theres been a lot of data about it. Women are not winning prizes at the same level as men are. We even have data that says a book is more likely to be reviewed and garner good reviews with a mans name on it. Youve got great authors who get rid of their womens names. They become J.K. Rowling. Women-oriented genres are less valuable and less valued than male-oriented genres. It is, she says, mission-critical that we continue to work hard at helping all people tell their stories. I particularly love helping women tell their stories, helping tell the stories we dont know, and helping girls to identify bigger visions for their lives.

Amy King of VIDA says that, in schools, syllabi are stacked to promote male voices. We are conditioned to prioritizing those voices. King recalls an adage: Boys grow up reading books by boys, and girls grow up reading books by everybody. She pointed out that, while a certain book written by a man might be classified as nonfiction, the same book, written by a woman, will end up in lifestyle or memoir. A good example would be journalist Suki Kims 2014 book, Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Koreas Elite; Kim wrote about the experience of having her book packaged as memoir despite her intention for it to be serious nonfiction.

Emily Gould, who co-runs the Emily Books imprint at Coffee House Press with Ruth Curry, adds that there is an outsized reverence that is reserved mostly for male authors and a scant handful of women who are mostly really old. You have to be so old to finally deserve to be taken as seriously as mid-career male novelists are. You basically have to be Ursula K. Le Guin or deadthose are your only options. Thats what we are trying to chip away at.

Rosalie Morales Kearns founded Shade Mountain Press in 2013 partly because she noticed a gender disparity in the journals and presses to which she submitted her own work. For decades I would just look at the contents pages of the very important literary journals, and sometimes they were 100% male. I would think to myself, am I the only one that feels really burned by this? After VIDA published its first count in 2010, Kearns says she noticed that editors started being more self-conscious about their lists being so male-heavy.

Trotman of Iron Circus has seen a shift in the comics industry, where the accomplishments of women have been underappreciated and, until recently, women as a market were simply ignored. Trotman says that, while the mainstream comics industry has taken steps to look for more women writers and creators, the gender disparity is still ridiculous, and the focus of mainstream comics hasnt changed from superheroes. Comics, she says, are still associated with stereotypical teenage-boy interests and definitely not written with a potential female audience in mind. According to Trotman, its in the indie and underground scenes where women readers and creators are finding a home.

Stanfill of Forest Avenue is also looking to empower women by providing them opportunities. So far Ive only given anthology collections to other women because I feel like those opportunities are hard to find, Stanfill explains. While Stanfill does accept manuscripts from male writers, they must have feminist sensibilities. If they dont, she will send detailed response letters. If men are putting things into the world that I dont want to forward, I will say that we are a women-run press, Im not interested, and heres why. I dont know if that changes their perspectives on submitting to a women-run press, but its an opportunity I have to use my voice and say, This is not okay with me. 

Diversity Issues

Publishing is not only fairly male in its leadership, but also blindingly white overall. Gigi Ishmael, president and publisher of family-owned and -operated Ishmael Tree, says that, while both her mother and grandmother were businesswomen, serving as role models to her, she still had a lot of issues breaking in. There were times that people just didnt want to talk to me. Not only am I a woman, Im a brown woman too. I get looked at kind of strangely. Because shes Muslim, she adds, theres additional discrimination in getting into certain stores and libraries. They will automatically think that were terrorists or that our entire catalogue is about national security. [People] jump to that even at the book fairs.

Issues of diversity extend, of course, beyond gender and race to sexual orientation, class, able-bodiedness, and gender conformity, among other things. Publishing has a bigger diversity problems than [just] gender, says Warner. If publishing is so white, then acquisitions editors are buying things that are basically cultivating their own interests.

Stanfill of Forest Avenue realized that, by limiting her press to Oregon writers, she was perpetuating the lack of diversity in my slush pile. The latest census data shows that Oregon is nearly 80% white. Now, she says, I wish I had been more activated five years ago to figure out who to reach out to. She opened her press to national submissions, which immediately increased their diversity.

Rhonda Hughes is also focusing on finding writers of color, citing Roxane Gays speech at the ABAs 2017 Winter Institute as having really jolted her. I realized that I have not done enough to find writers of color. Its easy for me to say Id love to find them, but I havent done enough outreach. After author Lidia Yuknavitch recently gave a $10,000 award to a writer of color in Oregon, Hughes obtained the list of finalists and sent each one a congratulatory email with an open invitation to submit work.

For Kearns of Shade Mountain, her mission has always been to exclusively publish work by women, especially those from marginalized or underrepresented groups. Im half Puerto Rican, half white, she says, so I think that has certainly made me more sensitive and aware of how women from racialized ethnic groups and nationalities are marginalized. She cites the presss 2015 novel White Light by Vanessa Garcia as an example: Kearns says Garcia had been turned down by publishers and agents for four years despite having a blurb from Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. According to Kearns, Garcia was being told that, because the narrator was a Miami-born Cuban-American, readers wouldnt relate to her. The question of who can relate is being made by a mostly white publishing industry, so they are missing out on these books by women of color.

Trotman of Iron Circus says she sees an astonishing amount of ignorance in comics publishing. I dont even think its necessarily malicious, but theres this expectation that women and nonbinary people and brown people and queer people identify with characters and stories that are written by white cis straight men, adding that its been that way for decades. If its a story about a brown woman its for brown women, but if its a story about a white man its for everyone, and thats the dynamic theyve internalized and how theyve approached pretty much anything they might be brought as editors. Trotman, who identifies as a straight black woman, is a firm believer in intersectionality. I think a rising tide lifts all boats. I think we all do better when we all do better.

Climbing the Ladder

Raccah offers a strategy for how women can move up the publishing ranks: diversify their skill sets. When youre looking at where the management comes from in publishing firms, it rarely comes out of editorial, she points out. She says its important to ask questions about where women are in publishing. Are they running business? Are they running finance? Are they running accounting ops? Are they running tech? Are they running sales? Weve got to diversity our own skill sets. I come out of tech and marketing. Thats turned out to be a really big advantage. Thats one of the things I really learned as I was building Sourcebooks.

Gould of Emily Books feels that change begins with more women in actual decision-making roles. Unfortunately for me, most of my skills are in editorial. Editors dont have a ton of power. The way you ascend in publishing is to develop skills on the business side. With the exception of people like Reagan Arthur at Little, Brown, she says, to be in a position of real power youre going to eventually move away from editing.

DiOrio says, What Ive noticed is that a lot of the disruptive change in the publishing industry is originated by women. What women have done is step outside of the legacy rubric and innovate by doing their own thing. DiOrio cites She Writes Press as one example of this kind of innovation: Brooke Warner is in the vanguard of hybrid publishing. Before She Writes Press, that kind of publishing didnt exist, so these are innovative solutions to an industry where inertia was the most powerful force.

King of VIDA sees a number of positive changes overall with respect to diversity, one being that even if editors still dont care about gender and racial diversity, they arent saying it out loud anymore. She adds that the outpouring of support for VIDA, despite the climate were in right now, is very encouraging.

Raccah says she is slightly more optimistic today than I was 10 years ago, because I believe we have experienced in our lifetime, particularly in the last decade, an expansion in readership. She cites more types of people demanding a wider range of titles, adding that the interface between readers and publishers is a more permeable membrane. Theres more stuff going between those two groups, and because of that I believe youre going to start seeing a broader range of people entering the field. This story isnt sadI think its really important that we acknowledge that. There are parts of the story that are unfinished and challenging. But were going someplace, and journeys are always fraught.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue University has chosen an award-winning researcher in networks engineering and a leader in educational innovations from Princeton University as the next dean of the College of Engineering.

Mung Chiang, the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering, was selected from a group of three finalists following a national search. He will assume the position of John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering on July 1.

Purdue has recruited one of the genuine superstars of American engineering and higher education, said Purdue President Mitch Daniels. Dr. Chiangs personal research achievements, entrepreneurial success record, and international reputation, combined with our recent major investments in our College of Engineering, truly positions us for world leadership. I cant overstate how thrilled all Boilermakers should be at this news.

Chiang, in 2013, received the prestigious National Science Foundation Alan T. Waterman Award, among the highest honors given to young U.S. scientists and engineers, and he will become the only researcher at Purdue to hold that distinction. He also has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the American Society for Engineering Education Frederick E. Terman Award, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from Princeton School of Engineering. Chiang currently serves as director of Keller Center for Innovations in Engineering Education at Princeton and the inaugural chairman of Princeton Entrepreneurship Council. He founded the Princeton EDGE Lab in 2009, which bridges the theory-practice gap in edge networking research by spanning from proofs to prototypes.

His core areas of research include computing and networking, and information sciences and systems.

Purdues College of Engineering is one of the strongest and one of the largest in the country, Chiang said. Its recent growth is remarkable, and its future even brighter. I am humbled by the honor to serve this outstanding college, one that is part of a public university under the visionary leadership of President Daniels. I am eager to start by listening carefully to the faculty, students, staff and alumni of Purdue Engineering.

Chiang will succeed Leah Jamieson, who is stepping down as Purdues engineering dean after 11 years. She will transition to full-time faculty duties in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Jamieson announced in October she would step down, and Provost Deba Dutta appointed a 15-person search committee, led by R. Byron Pipes, the John L. Bray Distinguished Professor of Engineering and executive director of the Composites Manufacturing and Simulation Center, and Andrew Weiner, the Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The search began in November with town hall meetings to solicit input from faculty and staff. Chiang and two other finalists visited the campus in late March and early April.

I cannot say enough about the outstanding work of the search committee throughout this entire process, Dutta said. From the beginning, they conducted a search of extreme integrity, they were inclusive and they sought the vital input of Purdue engineering faculty and staff. What emerged was a field of excellent finalists and one exceptional new dean for Purdue Engineering.

Chiang joined the Princeton faculty in 2003 after studying at Stanford University, where he received his bachelors degree in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1999. He received his masters degree in electrical engineering in 2000 and his doctoral degree in 2003, also from Stanford.

Vincent Poor, the Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering and the previous dean of engineering at Princeton, said Chiang excels at all he does, ranging from scholar and teacher to leader and entrepreneur.

Notably, he has been highly innovative in all of these spheres at Princeton, creating a wealth of opportunities for students, faculty, alumni and industry practitioners, Poor said. I am confident that his unique combination of skills, his clarity of vision and his ability to work with people from across the academic enterprise will make him an outstanding dean at Purdue.

Reed Hundt, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Purdue has made an outstanding choice. Mung Chiang is highly regarded in the wireless communications research and policy domains. His entrepreneurial mindset will help shape new frontiers in engineering education and research.

As a Princeton faculty member, Chiangs Alan T. Waterman Award was based on his work on networking. His book, The Power of Networks, was published last year, and his textbook, Networked Life, and open online course have reached 250,000 students globally.

He co-founded startups in mobile networks, the Internet of Things and big-data areas, as well as the global nonprofit Open Fog Consortium in December 2015.

About the College of Engineering

The College of Engineering is made up of 11 schools and departments: aeronautics and astronautics, agricultural and biological, biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical and computer, engineering education, industrial, materials, mechanical and nuclear. The college includes the divisions of engineering professional education, construction engineering and management, and environmental and ecological engineering. The college features programs such as Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), the Minority Engineering Program and the Women in Engineering Program.

In the fall of 2016, the college enrolled more than 8,700 undergraduate students and more than 3,400 graduate students. The undergraduate, graduate and online graduate programs are ranked among the top 10 in the nation.

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu

Source: Debasish Dutta, 765-494-9709, dutta@purdue.edu
CHICAGO (AP)  Three Cook County Jail inmates have been charged with attempted murder following an attack on two correctional officers.

Sheriff Thomas Dart announced Saturday that the inmates also are charged with aggravated battery with great bodily harm, aggravated battery to a peace officer and felony mob action.

Dart described the Wednesday incident as a "brutal attack" that left the officers severely injured. He says the officers are still recovering.

Jail officials say the attack occurred as the two officers tried to secure a patio space in the jail's maximum security section.

The inmates charged are 19-year-old David Bush, 20-year-old Taiwan McNeal and 20-year-old Terrence Lynom.

They are scheduled to appear in bond court Sunday. It was unclear Saturday if they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
SPRINGFIELD (AP)  Lawmakers and environmentalists from parts of Illinois that rely on groundwater want tougher monitoring of porous rock quarries that are being "reclaimed" by filling them with construction waste, saying they want to regulate them to make sure drinking water doesn't become contaminated with toxins.

On the other side are road builders, engineers and others in the construction business, who argue that Illinois has sufficient quarry regulations and additional testing would be too expensive.

The proposed rules appear stymied this spring. But Attorney General Lisa Madigan is in court, trying to force previously dismissed groundwater monitoring on the quarries. She argued in a state appellate court brief that testing underground aquifers is necessary to protect drinking water "from the ongoing threat posed by the placement of unchecked materials ... directly into the water table."

Pro-monitoring forces use Flint, Michigan, as a worst-case scenario, where river water was not treated to reduce corrosion for 18 months, leading lead to leach from old pipes and fixtures.

"That's the danger," said Rep. Margo McDermed, a Republican from limestone-rich Will County who is sponsoring legislation requiring groundwater monitoring around quarry receptacles. "That's the concern of everyone who uses water nearby quarries: that we could be in a situation like that."

Eighteen organizations  which have made $6 million in political contributions in the past decade  have lined up against the measure. More than once, the Pollution Control Board has rejected groundwater monitoring, the decision Madigan is contesting.

Legislation similar to McDermed's, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Emily McAsey of Lockport, was shunted into a subcommittee for review last week, substantially weakening its chances for passage before the Legislature adjourns May 31. The Sierra Club and other key environmental groups support the plan.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency calls it "clean construction-demolition debris." The idea is that concrete free of steel reinforcement bars, rock, stone, brick and asphalt from sites where buildings are going up or being razed is "clean" and can be dumped in spent rock quarries. Requirements that professionals examine the waste have been put in place in the past decade, but decades of unregulated dumping occurred before that.

McAsey's and McDermed's home, Will County, has nine quarries with EPA permits to handle demolition waste, with up to nine more that could be soon, said Brent Hassert, a former Republican lawmaker who lobbies for the county.

The Illinois EPA lists 34 EPA-permitted construction-debris quarries, but when The Associated Press asked the agency for the sites handling the most demolition waste, spokeswoman Kim Biggs said the top three are in Lyons, in Cook County; and two Kane County sites, in South Elgin and Bartlett. None is on the agency's list. Biggs then said the list is incomplete and would be removed until it's corrected.

Illinois has the most stringent rules for quarry reclamation in the nation, according to Dan Eichholz, president of the Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers. The waste material must come from a site where previous land use has been determined and verified that it's not part of a toxic-cleanup project. A professional engineer or geologist must test the soil at the site and determine that contaminants do not exceed allowed levels. At the quarry, a detector is used to check for suspicious odors.

The professionals used in the screening process are hired by the landowner or hauler, Eichholz said, but "repercussions are severe" if they don't comply. And the receiving site can reject any dump truck arriving with waste.

"Any load that's suspicious has to be rejected," Eichholz said. "These folks, it's their property. They have plenty of motivation to make sure no contaminated material comes in."

Environment Committee Chairman Dan Beiser, an Alton Democrat, said he sent McAsey's bill to subcommittee to await Madigan's legal action. Beiser has his own legislation  which was approved by the House and is awaiting Senate action  that would release from permitting requirements a quarry-waste operator who transfers part of a quarry-disposal site to someone else.

Eichholz said groundwater monitoring would be cost-prohibitive. "It's not a high-dollar type of business and the whole point was, it's a sustainable way to bringing material back to where it originated" and save the higher cost of landfill burial, Eichholz said.

Dean Olson, director of the resource recovery and energy division for the Will County Land Use Department, said based on his experience, drilling a monitoring well costs just over $2,000 and each time sampling of water is done, the cost is less than $500.

"The destruction of our drinking water sources is such a terrible risk that whatever the cost, it is well worth it," McAsey said, to ensure "we're not in a situation where something terrible has happened and it's too late to un-ring that bell."
MOLINE -- Alison McGaughey has been named public information specialist at Western Illinois University-Quad Cities in Moline.

Ms. McGaughey, who held a similar position at the Macomb campus from 2006-2011, returns to WIU after five years as a community college instructor for Eastern Iowa Community Colleges and Black Hawk College.

She will be tasked with providing information about news and events at the Moline campus and promoting WIU through social media, web and print publications.

Im so excited to return to the university community and to share the exciting developments that are taking place on this beautiful campus, said Ms. McGaughey. Im impressed with the quality of programs and student achievements on the QC campus, and, with my previous experience promoting the University while based in Macomb, I know how important it is to get the word out about the affordability and quality of a Western education.

A 1999 graduate of Monmouth College, Ms. McGaughey began her career as a reporter for daily newspapers. She later was marketing communications coordinator for Knox College in Galesburg. She began working at WIU as an editorial writer in the University Relations office in 2006, and later was promoted to public information specialist.

Ms. McGaughey earned her Master of Arts in English while working full time for WIU, graduating in December 2010. She moved to the Quad Cities and taught English as a Second Language, as well as GED and Adult Basic Education, specializing in reading improvement.

She also was a voting board member and public relations committee member on the Quad Cities-based Bi-State Literacy Council.

Alisons experience in telling the stories about Westerns successful alumni, current students, faculty and staff served us well when she worked for the University previously, said Joseph Rives, WIU Vice President for the Quad Cities and Planning. Now, she brings the added benefit of knowledge about our presence in the Quad Cities and about the varied backgrounds of the students we serve. Her addition to Western Illinois University will help us further expand and promote our growing presence in the Quad Cities and beyond.
Today is Monday, May 1, the 121 day of 2017. There are 244 days left in the year.

1867 -- 150 years ago: A brilliant object passed over Rock Island between 11 and 12 p.m. which was watched by many people and believed to be a meteor.

1892 -- 125 years ago: A local boxer named Molt knocked out Geiger in a bout staged in a pasture between Rock Island and Milan.

1917 -- 100 years ago: The Rev. Granville H. Sherwood was consecrated as bishop of the Springfield Diocese in Trinity Episcopal Church.

1942 -- 75 years ago: Walter Rosenfield of Rock Island, director of Illinois Public Works, attended a joint state and federal conference to consider the elimination of state lines as a means of speeding the war effort.

1967 -- 50 years ago: More than 1,200 attended the annual concert of the Youth Orchestra of the Tri-City symphony Association yesterday in Augustana Centennial Hall.

1992 -- 25 years ago: The only weekend racing for 1992 at Quad City Downs will be getting under way at 7:30 tonight as live harness racing returns to the Quad-Cities.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The administration officials who gave President Donald Trump's tax plan a splashy debut in recent days seem to have caught the exaggeration bug from their boss.

A look at some statements by Trump and his aides over this past week, and the facts behind them:

TREASURY SECRETARY STEVE MNUCHIN, on Trump having "no intention" of releasing his own tax returns ever: "The president has released plenty of information and I think has given more financial disclosure than anybody else. I think the American population has plenty of information."

THE FACTS: Trump has released less than other presidents in modern times.

By withholding his tax returns, Trump has fallen short of the standard followed by presidents since Richard Nixon started the practice in 1969.

During last year's election campaign, Trump argued that he couldn't release his taxes because he was under an audit by the IRS. That reason didn't hold up, because being under audit is no legal bar to a candidate from releasing tax returns. On Wednesday, Mnuchin seemed to abandon even that explanation.

What Trump has released are financial disclosure forms that list his assets and liabilities in broad ranges, required by law. But those forms don't disclose precise numbers, and they include nothing about a person's income or charitable giving  data disclosed only in tax returns.

The few Trump tax returns the public has seen weren't released by him, but disclosed by news outlets. Two leaked pages of his 2005 return that came out in March didn't include full details on income and deductions, but did show that he would have benefited massively by an elimination of the alternative minimum tax  a feature of his just-outlined tax plan. And three pages that surfaced last year showed he had claimed a $916 million loss on his 1995 return, which could be used to reduce his taxes by offsetting later gains.

___

MNUCHIN: "This is going to be the biggest tax cut and the largest tax reform in the history of our country."

THE FACTS: Apparently not. At first blush, the tax cuts look smaller than President Ronald Reagan's in 1981, which were the biggest ever. That plan reduced federal revenues by almost 19 percent, according to a Treasury report. In today's dollars, that would mean a tax cut of more than $600 billion a year or well over $6 trillion over the next decade.

An early analysis by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates federal revenue would probably drop $5.5 trillion over a decade under the Trump plan, shy of Reagan's record-breaker. That assumes all elements of the plan are approved by Congress, which is unlikely.

The biggest-ever claim is also made on the one-page outline of the plan. Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn, more realistically, called it "one of the biggest."

___

MNUCHIN: The tax plan "will pay for itself with growth," reduced deductions and "closing loopholes."

THE FACTS: Tax experts are skeptical, and they're backed up by history.

Reagan's steep cut in 1981 contributed to years of deficits, even after he was forced to raise some taxes in subsequent years to stem the red ink. President George W. Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts were also followed by large deficits.

"No tax cut has ever been self-financing," said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

In its analysis of the Trump plan, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said "no achievable amount of economic growth could finance it" and it would drive the debt to 111 percent of the gross domestic product by 2027, compared with 77 percent now. The group advocates for deficit reduction as a pillar of economic growth.

Alan Cole, an economist at the right-leaning Tax Foundation, has calculated that Trump's corporate tax cut alone would cut federal revenue by $2 trillion over 10 years. Growth would need to accelerate to 2.8 percent a year, from its current pace of about 2 percent, to pay just for that cut. But Cole forecasts growth would increase by only half that amount, resulting in ballooning deficits.

___

COHN: "We are going to cut taxes for businesses to make them competitive and we're going to cut taxes for the American people, especially low- and middle-income families."

THE FACTS: Based on the outline, there's every reason to believe the wealthiest people in the United States will receive the biggest cuts under Trump's plan, though many low- and middle-income families would benefit, too.

The lack of specifics makes it hard to say precisely how the cuts would be distributed. But the plan is similar in outline to Trump's campaign proposal, which would have given nearly half its benefits to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, while middle-income households would have received barely 7 percent of the cuts.

The White House is also proposing to eliminate the estate tax and alternative minimum tax, both of which primarily impact upper-income Americans. The AMT is a separate tax calculation intended to ensure that richer people don't avoid paying most or all of their taxes by claiming multiple deductions and credits. In 2005, Trump himself paid $36.5 million in taxes, mostly because of the AMT. Without it, he would have paid just $5.5 million, according to a leaked copy of that year's return.

The biggest windfall for rich people could come from Trump's plan to lower the top tax rate for small-business owners to 15 percent from 39.6 percent. The true effect will depend on how the Trump administration defines a small-business owner. If the tax cut applies to all business income reported on individual tax returns, it would be a huge benefit for many wealthy families.

Mnuchin said Trump will propose safeguards to prevent rich people from taking advantage of this tax cut, but provided no details on how that would work.

___

TRUMP: Pressing for South Korea to help pay for the billion-dollar THAAD anti-missile system the U.S. is providing for the country's defense, "It's phenomenal. It's the most incredible equipment you've ever seen - shoots missiles right out of the sky. And it protects them and I want to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that."  Interview Thursday with Reuters.

THE FACTS: The president is clearly in sales mode here, because the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system isn't as sure a bet as he portrays. It is being deployed in South Korea after at least a dozen successful tests, but "things that work well at home on the test range don't always go as smoothly when deployed," said Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

A salvo of multiple North Korean short-range missiles, for instance, could overwhelm THAAD, said David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program. And the system will be deployed about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Seoul, out of range of a greater metropolitan area that is home to 25 million people about an hour from the heavily armed border. "It cannot engage missiles fired at Seoul, so it offers no additional protection of the city," Wright said.

___

TRUMP tweet on the tactics of the two jurisdictions that challenged his order to penalize cities that don't cooperate with U.S. immigration officials: "They used to call this 'judge shopping!' Messy system."

THE FACTS: It's hard to argue this was judge-shopping. The two California governments that sued to block Trump's order, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, routinely filed in the court in their neighborhood, which is in the federal system's 9th Circuit. And they don't get to choose a judge; that's assigned through a system that more resembles a lottery.

___

TRUMP tweet: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where three of his orders have run into roadblocks, has "a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80 percent)."

THE FACTS: That's misleading. The nature of the appeals system means that most circuits have high rates of being overturned. The fact the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case means it's likely to overturn it. But other circuits have seen their decisions overturned at a higher rate.

In the most recent full term, the Supreme Court did reverse eight of the 11 cases it heard from the San Francisco-based court. But the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit went 0 for 3  that is, the Supreme Court reversed all three cases it heard from there. And over the past five years, five federal appeals courts were reversed at a higher rate than the 9th Circuit.

The 9th is by far the largest of the 13 federal courts of appeals, which means that in raw numbers, more cases are heard and reversed from the 9th Circuit year in and year out. But as a percentage of cases the Supreme Court hears, the liberal-leaning circuit fares somewhat better, according to statistical compilations by the legal website Scotusblog.
As we enter a third year without a state budget, I turn to readers to close a gap of about $9 billion between state expenditures of $72 billion (hard numbers difficult to nail down, as no budget) and annual revenues of about $63 billion.

There are of course two ways to do this: cut expenditures and/or increase revenues. Nearby I lay out a necessarily compressed and incomplete set of prominent, quite real budget options. Can you select among the options to come up with $9 billion in actions that would close the budget gap?

I am hoping many readers will at least try. The layout will undoubtedly prompt questions, which I would try to answer, if you emailed me. There is, unfortunately, neither time nor technical expertise on my part to make this exercise interactive.

I want to encourage summary responses from readers, whatever they are -- to my email at jnowlan3@gmail.com. What would you do if you were in charge?

I will put all respondents names into a hat and draw out five. The lucky winners will receive a copy of my racy political novel, The Editors Wife, a period-piece romp through Illinois politics from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Now, a few comments on the options provided.

Cutting expenditures may be more difficult than you imagine. For example, most people want to spend more, not less, state money on K-12 education, which is a big piece of the budget pie.

Reducing spending on Medicaid is possible, Im sure, though the potential is limited. Hospitals and doctors will say they already receive less than in most states for this program for 3 million+ low-income residents.

The albatross around our collective neck is the pension obligation. If we were current on our obligations to the five state pension systems, we would need only about $2 billion a year to keep the system healthy, rather than the $9 billion we are -- and will be -- spending to catch up. Except for this albatross, we wouldnt have a budget problem.

I supported efforts a few years ago to reduce spending on state pensions, but the state high court nixed the proposal. I think tweaking the system to save a little money could pass muster with the court, so I plug in a guesstimated half billion in annual savings.

Waste and corruption is always thought to be the go to place for cuts, but appreciate that some cutting has been going on over the past decade, though maybe not enough to your taste.

For example, state employee rolls have been cut from 84,000 in 2002 to 62,000 last year.

As illustration, have you been to a state park recently? The parks and historic sites in my area, where I walk frequently, are either totally or partially closed, and all are decrepit, for lack of personnel and maintenance money.

I am told by an outside consultant that procurement of goods and services by the state, already rather tightly managed, can be cut by half a billion dollars a year. Ill believe it when I see it, but lets put that figure on that line.

As for increased revenues, again the options are unattractive. The ones most often mentioned are to increase the individual and corporate income tax rates and expand the sales tax to services, as in Iowa.

What do you think makes sense? I will pass your responses along to lawmakers.
Watch Nasser Al-Attiyah get his season back on track in Qatar

Sunday, April 23

Doha, Qatar

Two-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser AlAttiyah was in determined mood in his native Qatar as he hunted down another victory. Nasser crashed out of the points in Abu Dhabi earlier this month so returned to racing with a real hunger to get back on track at the Qatar Cross Country Rally. There was also plenty to celebrate for current Dakar bike champion Sam Sunderland in Qatar as he won the two-wheel contest.

Nasser got things started with an impressive victory on a super special stage run over a purpose-built track that featured jumps and water splashes and sections of Losails motocross course. The Qatari then suffered power steering and gearbox issues as the race moved out into the desert and lost the overall lead.

Nasser and co-driver Mathieu Baumel battled back to take the chequered flag, followed home by Kuba Przygonski and Tom Colsoul. It turned out to be a tough week for car category novice Mohamed Abu Issa who suffered punctures and navigational woes on the penultimate stage.

We stayed focused all week on getting the job done, AlAttiyah told us after the race. We suffered a big crash in Abu Dhabi so we needed to make sure we got the win here so we can get our season back on track.

There was also plenty of drama in the bike race before reigning Dakar champion Sunderland eventually emerged victorious. The British biker was on great form all week and spearheaded the Red Bull KTM Factory Teams attack.

Sunderlands team-mates also stood out from the pack with stage wins collected by both Matthias Walkner and Antoine Meo in Qatar.

Ready To Race  KTM Goes MotoGP is a brand new documentary available to watch now on Red Bull TV .

Final Results

CAR

1. Nasser AlAttiyah (QAT)/Matthieu Baumel (FRA) Toyota 13:48:09

2. Jakub Przygonski (POL)/Tom Colsoul (BEL) Mini +7:02:00

3. Leeroy Poulter (ZAF)/Dirk von Zitzewitz (DEU) Toyota +7:30:00

5. Mohammed Abu Issa (QAT)/Xavier Panseri (FRA) Mini +14:44:00 BIKE

1. Sam Sunderland (GBR) KTM 15:50:18

2. Paulo Goncalves (POR) Honda +07:42

3. Matthias Walkner (AUT) KTM +13:11

7. Antoine Meo (FRA) KTM +2:18:25

8. Mohammed Balooshi (UAE) KTM +3:34:36

Quotes
G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad (IHB) is partnering with OptiFuel Systems LLC and R.J. Corman Railpower Locomotives LLC to convert its entire locomotive fleet to compressed natural gas (CNG).

OptiFuel has shipped its 100% U.S. designed and manufactured dual-fuel (diesel and CNG) locomotive engine systems to IHB) for integration into the first two of 31 CNG Tier 4 switcher locomotives for IHBs CNG Repower Program. The dual-fuel system includes OptiFuel-designed on-board CNG storage units and a trackside CNG refueling station.

IHB is the first railroad in the U.S. to convert its fleet to CNG, described as the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel, as its primary fuel source. IHB contracted system design, assembly and integration of the entire CNG system to OptiFuel Systems, and the overall locomotive design, assembly, and integration to R.J. Corman

The CNG Repower Program represents a substantial investment to change our locomotive fleet to CNG and eliminate harmful emissions, said IHB Director of Mechanical Operations Michael Nicoletti. The locomotives are a part of a greater effort by the IHB to convert up to 31 of our locomotives to be powered primarily by CNG. At the end of the program in 2020, 70% of IHBs fleet will be converted to utilizing CNG as its primary fuel source. Introducing CNG as a viable fuel into the freight rail industry is a role that the IHB embraces in both its unique challenges and operational and environmental rewards.

OptiFuel is pleased to be a first-mover and developer of technology applying environmentally compliant dual fuel systems to the railroad switching industry, said OptiFuel Systems President Scott Myers. OptiFuels technology will provide needed solutions and support to the Class I, II and III railroads as they seek ways to mediate the recognized adverse environmental impacts of their aging switcher fleets. As of September 2016, there were more than 1,000 railyards in the U.S. located in densely populated, urban areas classified as particulate matter and ozone EPA-defined nonattainment areas. More than 119 million peoplenearly 40% of the U.S. populationliving in these nonattainment areas are experiencing acute and chronic adverse health problems, including exacerbation of respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

In U.S. railyards, there are more than 8,000 very old, diesel-powered switcher locomotives, 95% of which produce Pre-Tier 0 (non-regulated, pre-1973) emissions. These Pre-Tier 0 pollutants create high levels of ozone, air toxics, greenhouse gases, fine particulate matter (PM) and other diesel exhaust compounds classified as carcinogenic to humans.

Each of these Pre-Tier 0 switcher locomotives put out emissions equal to 72 new Tier 4, Class 8 diesel trucks. Replacing the switchers has priority over replacing old Class 8 trucks since, from a purely emission and dollar funding savings standpoint, it is four times more efficient to replace Pre-Tier 0 switcher locomotives with new Tier 4 CNG switcher locomotives than to replace old Class 8 trucks with new Tier 4 Class 8 trucks. Now that the technology exists to provide affordable Tier 4, CNG-powered freight switchers, all the states and associated railroads have the option to replace their Pre-Tier 0 freight switchers with new Tier 4 CNG freight switchers with commensurate fuel cost savings while expanding the countrys use of domesticated natural gas.

Myers noted that additional funding support could come from the Volkswagen Settlement, which provides $2.7 billion under an Environmental Mitigation Trust for remediation of NOx emissions.

Twenty-one of the IHB locomotives will feature a 1,500-hp twin-engine configuration using two OptiFuel Systems-designed 750-hp, dual fuel engines that meet or exceed all federally mandated Tier 4 emissions reduction categories. As compared to IHBs current locomotive fleet, particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) should be reduced by 94.7% and 85.3%, respectively. In addition, an Automatic Engine Start-Stop (AESS) system will shut down idling locomotives to further reduce by 25% to 50% fuel and oil consumption, lower emissions, and mitigate noise and engine wear.

Mainstay Fuel Technologies, Inc. of Greenville, S.C., under a subcontract with OptiFuel, engineered and manufactured the modular CNG on-board storage system. The design incorporates important features and elements of Mainstays established fuel systems that are used in Class 8 truck markets, Myers said.

The design, which includes eleven 5,000-psi Hexagon Lincoln, DOT-approved Type IV cylinders, was engineered to handle switcher locomotive operational loads and meet Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) recommendations and requirements. Based on the current IHB duty cycle, the on-board system storage of 700 DGE will handle 7 to 10 days of operation before refueling is required. The standard diesel tanks on the locomotives are not reduced in size, allowing 100% diesel operation if needed.

ANGI Energy Systems, also under a subcontract to OptiFuel, manufactured the Trackside CNG Refueling Station equipment. As a premier packager and manufacturer of CNG equipment for the CNG trucking, transit and bulk storage market, ANGI took the OptiFuel system requirements and created and manufactured a low-risk, proven, modular CNG station that can refuel two locomotives every 15 to 30 minutes in the basic configuration and four locomotives every 15 to 30 minutes in a growth configuration, Myers noted. During the system design process, the team developed CNG dispensers, locomotive-to-refueling equipment communications, locomotive RF tagging and system safety approaches and requirements, based on standard best practices used in the rail industry.

All of the CNG components are designed to be modular, scalable, reliable and affordable for use in a locomotive configuration. In addition, during the next 12 to 18 months, OptiFuel will be expanding its line of EPA-certified Tier 4 dual-fuel engines for the rail market, from 600 hp to 3,000 hp, and a line of Near Zero NOx/PM (proposed Tier 5) CNG equipment from 900 to 3,300 hp for rail OEMs. These engines will support single-engine or multiple-engine locomotive configurations and different modular onboard CNG storage sizes.

We expect that the incremental cost to repower older switcher locomotives and/or build new switcher locomotives with CNG and dual fuel will be around 10% to 15%, based on the IHB program. However, we think that the savings in fuel economy, increased safety, lower risk, and cleaner emissions will make financial sense to large and small railroads, particularly if a leasing program and an integrated, cost-effective CNG refueling program is also provided.

The IHBs CNG Repower Program is supported by federal funds through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) Program, administered by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). The IHBs sponsor is the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

Based in Beaufort, S.C., OptiFuel Systems LLC is leading the transportation market with innovative dual-fuel natural gas high horsepower solutions, including the developing of natural gas high-horsepower engines, onboard natural gas (both CNG and LNG) storage systems, and natural gas refueling systems for the rail, marine, power and other mobile markets, as the company describes itself. Currently, OptiFuel is expanding its line of EPA certified, Tier IV, dual fuel (natural gas/diesel) solutions from 600 to 5,400 hp for rail and coastal/inland marine OEMs and will have, in 2018, a line of Near Zero NOx/PM (proposed Tier 5), natural gas solutions from 900 to 3,300 hp for rail OEMs.

The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad, located in Chicago and northwest Indiana, is the largest terminal switching railroad in North America. The IHB provides service to more than 100 industrial customers, and interchanges with 17 railroads including six Class I railroads across its 35 miles of main line and 350 miles of yard and siding tracks.

Based in Piedmont, S.C., Mainstay Fuel Technologies, Inc. specializes in designing, engineering and producing CNG fuel-delivery systems. The company provides products and services for Class 7 and 8 heavy-duty vehicles, including garbage trucks, concrete mixers, vocational trucks and over-the-road tractors. The company also offers products and services for Class 3 through 6 medium-duty work trucks, service vehicles and commercial buses. Since 2006, the company has produced and sold more than 5,800 units/systems for medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles.

Founded in 1983, ANGI Energy Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gilbarco Veeder-Root, a worldwide supplier of retail and commercial fueling operations, is a North American company that designs and manufactures systems for CNG vehicle fueling and tube trailer transport applications around the world. ANGI is supplier of CNG refueling equipment for natural gas vehicles, and has a standing reputation as a leader in the high pressure compression industry, the company says. ANGI provides project management, maintenance, and training programs that enable a complete and optimized natural gas refueling system solution for all systems CNG.

R. J. Corman Railpower Locomotives LLC, a subsidiary of R. J. Corman Railroad Group LLC, designs, builds and currently supports 165-plus locomotives at more than 20 locations around the U.S. Other R. J. Corman companies provide services to the railroad industry such as industrial railcar switching, emergency response, track material distribution and logistics, track construction, signal design and construction, and railroad worker training. In 2000, Railpower Locomotives began developing a family of clean and efficient switchers  with industry leading 33% adhesion, up to 60% fuel savings and the highest power density, including Tier 3 and Tier 4 locomotives that meet Class I, II, and III railroad and industrial switching needs.
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Dr. John Calabrese teaches U.S. foreign policy at American University and is director of the Middle East Institute's Middle East-Asia Project (MAP). This piece is part of a special RCW series on the U.S.-China geopolitical relationship. The views expressed here are the authors own.

For more than a decade, the Middle East and North Africa region has experienced a level of violence and instability that is unprecedented in its modern history -- a turbulence that shows no sign of abating. During this period, the long-term sustainability of the U.S. role as security guarantor has increasingly been called into question, both in the United States and within the region. Meanwhile, Chinas investments in the Middle East have grown, as has its economic, diplomatic, and security footprint.

Within this context, are there any indications that the United States and China already are, or inevitably will become, strategic rivals in the Middle East?

Multiple Interests

Beijing has a broad range of interests in the Middle East. Foremost among them is continued access to the regions energy resources. Chinas commercial interests in the region also include generating new investment opportunities and contracts for infrastructure projects for Chinese firms, as well as gaining market share for their products. Chinas second key interest in the Middle East is cultivating relationships and building influence with regional powers beyond the confines of its immediate Asia-Pacific neighborhood. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt figure prominently in Beijings calculations. The region as a whole is important because of its abundant energy resources, its position as a geostrategic crossroads, and its potential role in the westward rebalancing of the Chinese economy within the framework of the One Belt, One Road initiative. A third interest is preserving domestic security by preventing radical ideologies and jihadi networks with roots in the region from seeping into China. Fourth, China has a general interest in the Middle East, as in other regions, as a theater for earning recognition as a legitimate great power.

A Growing Equity Stake

China imports more than half of its oil from the Gulf, as well as a third of its natural gas. Chinese major energy companies have established supply footholds in the Middle East, including in Iraq and most recently in Abu Dhabi. Sino-Middle Eastern energy partnerships extend to petrochemical and natural gas projects in the region and refinery projects in China itself.

Beijings commercial activities and ambitions in the region extend far beyond the energy sector, however. The Middle East is a growth market for affordable consumer products, and China is now the largest source of the regions imports. Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia import more from China than from any other country. Chinese firms are winning contracts for engineering, construction, and infrastructure development projects. In recent years, Chinese investment in the region -- in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia -- has also picked up. And China is seeking cooperation in new sectors, including nuclear and renewable energy and aerospace technology.

Heightened Vulnerability

Until relatively recently, Beijing had not perceived conflicts in the region as having a direct impact on its interests. However, Chinas heavy dependence on Middle East energy, and on the Gulf in particular, has made it acutely vulnerable to possible supply disruptions and price spikes resulting from unrest and conflict in the region. In spite of progress in diversifying its supply sources and its fuel mix, the Chinese economy remains heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil and thus highly exposed to its volatile politics.

As a result of its expanding footprint in the region, China has incurred additional risks. Turmoil in the Middle East has raised Chinese policymakers concerns about the spread of Islamist ideology, the prospect of Chinese foreign fighters returning to commit acts of terrorism, as well as the possible suspension or abandonment of lucrative contracts, damage to or destruction of investment assets, and endangerment of Chinese workers and expatriates. Heightened exposure to these diverse threats has made it urgently necessary for Beijing to develop and skillfully employ the diplomatic and military tools with which to respond to them.

More Capable and More Active, But Still Cautious

Chinas deepening involvement in the Middle East and its attendant risks has generated a great deal of speculation about whether Beijing has a long-term strategy. If indeed such a strategy exists, the Chinese leadership has yet to articulate it explicitly and publicly. Nevertheless, one can distill from Chinese official statements and conduct three interrelated precepts that guide its approach to the region: 1) buy what you need and sell what you can; 2) do not interfere either in domestic or inter-state political affairs; and 3) emphasize dialogue and development, as opposed to the use of force, as the solution to the Middle Easts problems, and thereby distinguish China from other external powers in the region.

Beijings adherence to non-interference in the Middle East is designed to avoid direct involvement in conflicts or crises, and to evade clear-cut positions on controversial issues. Its obvious that China is not keen to play a central role as peacemaker. Chinas first Arab Policy Paper, issued in January 2016, was vague. Tentative forays such as Beijings Four-Point Plan for Syria gained little traction. This has led many observers to characterize Chinas policy as cautious, wary, and risk averse.

However, Chinas policy in the Middle East, as elsewhere, has been more flexible, pragmatic, and experimental than is often portrayed. Beijing has become increasingly active on the diplomatic front, chiefly through multilateral institutions such as the Arab League, the China-Gulf Forum, and in the recruitment of nine MENA countries as members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

China has also played a more visible security role in the region in recent years, most notably in its deployment of combat troops for peacekeeping in South Sudan, in addition to the construction of its first overseas naval base, in Djibouti. Moreover, the evacuation of noncombatants by PLA naval vessels in Libya and Yemen, in addition to legislation authorizing more expansive counterterrorism operations beyond China's borders, demonstrates that China is willing to secure its interests around the world, and by force if necessary.

Yet Chinas new activism in the Middle East gives the appearance of being a behavioral adjustment to unfolding events -- an outgrowth of its burgeoning commercial presence in a region with demonstrably high political risks and chronic instability -- rather than a carefully crafted great-power grand strategy. On the whole, strategic caution remains the hallmark of the Chinese approach to the Middle East.

Toward a Cooperative Post-U.S. Hegemonic Order in the Middle East

Chinas role in the Mideast has grown diplomatically, economically, and militarily, however this increased involvement is not necessarily indicative of an incipient strategic competition between China and the United States.

First, it is essential to point out that American and Chinese interests in the Middle East are not directly in conflict with each other. On the contrary, the United States and China have a common interest in the uninterrupted flow of oil from the Middle East and in countering violent extremism in the region.

Second, China has exhibited few signs that it wishes to challenge U.S. military predominance in the region -- and for good reason. China benefits from the U.S. role as security guarantor, and without having to bear the fiscal or potential political costs itself. Furthermore, maintaining a large military presence in the Gulf and surrounding region to some degree diverts U.S. attention and resources away from East Asia, the area of highest geostrategic priority to China.

Third, the calls from Beijings Mideast friends and allies for a greater Chinese role in the region do not represent a desire on their part to substitute Chinese for American hegemony. Americas traditional Arab allies -- however much they object to Washingtons policies or have grown uncertain about the resoluteness and sustainability of its commitments -- nonetheless continue to regard the United States as a necessary security partner. Their outreach to China represents an effort to diversify their security cooperation, and not to downgrade or sever security ties with the United States.

As for Iran, the United States chief regional adversary, its project to consolidate its regional position and ultimately repel the United States from the Middle East is a vision not necessarily shared by the Chinese. Indeed, U.S. partners and adversaries alike have sought in recent years to utilize their ties with Beijing in order to gain the upper hand in internecine conflicts or political disputes. In this respect, the objectives and priorities of the various Mideast states and those of China -- which are geared toward balancing regional relationships and avoiding a confrontation with the United States -- are misaligned.

Thus, the prospects for intensifying strategic competition in the Middle East between China and the United States are rather more remote than they appear to be, particularly in the short term. Over the longer term, however, increased Chinese military capabilities, coupled with rising U.S.-China tension in the western Pacific, could feed back into the Middle East, igniting such a competition. In anticipation of such an eventuality, it would be more prudent for the United States to explore win-win scenarios than to assume zero-sum outcomes.

Chinese and U.S. capabilities to contribute to regional stability are complementary. What the two countries can do together is greater than each can realistically be expected to accomplish separately. Moreover, increased U.S. energy independence, thanks in large part to the recent shale gas boom, provides an incentive and an opportunity to share the financial and military burdens with China of enhancing stability in the Middle East. U.S.-China policy coordination in this regard could help pave the way for other extra-regional actors with interests and investments in the region -- countries such as India, Japan, and South Korea -- to play constructive roles. Seizing this opportunity could help facilitate the transition not from a U.S.-led to a Chinese-led hegemonic order in the region and beyond, but to one that is more complex though mutually advantageous and peaceful.
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Nick Cannon says Mariah Carey gave birth to her hit song "Fantasy."

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The 36-year-old actor and former "America's Got Talent" host said on Thursday's episode of "The Wendy Williams Show" that Carey's most "diva" moment happened while she was in labor with their twins.

"[The most diva thing I've seen her do is] have twins," Cannon shared. "She shut the whole hospital down."

"When they was born, she made me play her music as they was coming out. It was a fantasy. They was dancing to 'Fantasy,'" he told a delighted Williams, who responded, "So it's true!"

Cannon and Carey welcomed daughter Monroe and son Moroccan in April 2011.

The actor previously discussed his twins' birth in an interview with "The Gayle King Show" the same year.

"Now my wife wanted to make sure that when the babies came out, that they came out not only to a Mariah Carey song, but a live performance from Mariah Carey ... so they came out to a round of applause," he said, according to Us Weekly.

Cannon and Carey split in 2014 after six years of marriage, but have remained friendly since.

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The actor told Williams he and Carey called it quits after he realized they were no longer growing and challenging each other as a couple.

"I feel like when two people are in a relationship, it should be about growth. It should be a situation where everyone's becoming a better human being," he said.

"When you get to a point where there's no longer any growth and you're not bettering each other ... it was probably best [to split]."
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Canadian Ranger found dead after 4 hunters went missing in Alberta

RIP and condolences to his family...



....and hope the others are found safe.

One of the four hunters who went missing in the northern Alberta wilderness last weekend was found dead on Sunday afternoon, according to Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Steve Courtoreille.Courtoreille told CTV Edmonton that Walter Ladouceur was found dead upriver from where the hunting partys boat was previously found in Wood Buffalo National Park.Ladouceur was one of four men who left Fort Chipewyan, Alta.  about 200 kilometres north of Fort McMurray  on a hunting expedition on the evening of April 23 in the boat.Andrew Ladouceur and Keith Marten, both members of the Fort Chipewyan Canadian Ranger Patrol, have not been located. The fourth missing hunter has been identified as Keanan Cardinal.On Wednesday, RCMP and Parks Canada shifted their efforts to a recovery operation after failing to find the men in the rugged bush.Keith Marten and Andrew Ladouceur were 15-year members of the Canadian Ranger Patrol. Walter Ladouceur joined in 2016. All three are said to be highly experienced outdoorsmen. The defence department notes they were on their own time when they began the hunting trip.The 4th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group Commanding Officer Lt.-Col. Russ Meades spoke about the impact of the incident on Sunday.We are absolutely devastated across the unit, he told CTV Edmonton. When we lose brother rangers, it is felt very, very deeply indeed. The outpouring of sorrow and regret, and even encouragement and hope, has been very moving.The 4th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group is responsible for Canadas four western provinces. There are 26 Canadian Rangers assigned to the Fort Chipewayn Ranger PatrolRangers continue to unofficially assist the RCMP-led recovery effort, which has also drawn over 100 community volunteers.Speaking earlier on Sunday, Courtoreille said the weather has been good, but their resources are spread over a vast expanse of difficult terrain.Its not just one straight river. Its divided up by islands, so it makes the search wider, he said before heading out again with one of the missing mans daughters on Sunday. Even with forty-something boats; its a lot of area to cover.Courtoreille says the RCMP have not given any indication that they will be ending their efforts any time soon.They had some hits yesterday. (We are) just hoping that they can find something, he said prior to the discovery of Ladouceurs body. Its going to be tough. We just have to hope for the best.On Facebook, the 4th Canadian Ranger Patrol Group added a black band to their crest as a sign of mourning. Many have saluted the change and offered messages of condolence to the four mens families. Others posted warnings about the dangers posed by icy waterways at the end of winter.Gone but not forgotten Rangers, wrote Chris Cassia. This will serve as a reminder of how dangerous cold water is, and that safety must be paramount!
Lindsay Hamilton, a senior rhetoric major at Georgia College and State University, drove up to Athens from her home in Milledgeville Saturday morning for one reason: to attend the 2017 Connect Conference, hosted by the University of Georgias LGBT Resource Center.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been trying to mollycoddle India with sweet nothings while having a very close relationship with Pakistan, observes Rajeev Sharma.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after their joint press statement at Hyderabad House, New Delhi, on May 1, 2017. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo

Strange are the ways of international diplomacy where its practitioners openly and unabashedly play the running with the hares and hunting with the hounds kind of game.

But rarely does it happen that a head of state indulges in this kind of diplomacy, and that too with a country he is about to visit.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has done precisely this. Ahead of his state visit to India (April 30-May 1), Erdogan made on-record statements which would have left the Indian diplomatic establishment gasping.

He batted for Indias membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, something which has been stridently opposed by China. But wait! Erdogan hyphenated his gesture with a similar status for Pakistan, a country with which Turkey has extremely close political and strategic relations, and supporting Pakistans case for NSG membership.

This is what he said in an interview to an Indian TV news channel: Both India and Pakistan have the right to aspire for NSG membership. I think India should not assume such an attitude. If Turkey was fair enough to support Pakistan, it was fair enough to support India. We are very objective and positive to the NSG process. (Full text of the interview HERE)

Erdogan didnt stop there and went on to talk about the need for multilateral negotiations on Kashmir, knowing full well that India baulks at such an idea and has always said it would never brook any third party involvement on the Kashmir issue which is essentially a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan.

But then this is how international diplomacy has always been, and perhaps will always be. Obviously, these statements from Erdogan would have been at the back of the mind of the Indian leadership, but didnt deter Prime Minister Narendra Modi in engaging Erdogan in a constructive, meaningful and results-oriented dialogue when the two leaders held delegation-level talks in Hyderabad House on Monday.

Turkey is an important world power, no matter howsoever close it may be with Indias arch-rival Pakistan, and India and Turkey have to build on their many convergences and build mutual trust soon.

This is possible at a time when both countries have very strong leaders and stable governments. Undoubtedly, the world is looking at PM Modi with even more respect after his string of recent electoral victories.

Erdogan too is in the Modi mould in terms of popularity and power. He has been Turkeys prime minister for 12 years and now president for the last two-and-a-half years. This is his first foreign visit after scoring a comprehensive victory in a controversial referendum recently which gave him overwhelming powers and further cemented his place in the countrys power structure.

While Turkeys close ties with Pakistan and Ankaras ever-deepening involvement in several urban development projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir has riled India no end, Turkey too has its own concerns with India, right or wrong.

For example, the issue of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish preacher and political figure who is currently living in exile in the United States, is a major sticking point between Turkey and India. Erdogan dislikes Gulen as much as the Chinese government abhors the Dalai Lama. Gulen is reported to be behind last years failed coup attempt against the Erdogan government.

For quite some time, the Erdogan government has been asking India tough questions about Gulen and believes that Gulens movement, which Ankara dubs as FETO or Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation, has infiltrated India, a charge which about New Delhi has neither evidence nor any credible information. Turkey wants India to take action against FETO but has thus far failed to give any concrete information to India on the basis of which action can be taken.

The Gulen issue inevitably featured among Erdogans talking points during his summit meeting with PM Modi on Monday. As far as the official Indian response goes, the on-record terse remark by Ruchi Ghanshyam, secretary (west) ministry of external affairs, puts things in perspective: The Turkish side has raised this issue (Gulen) and we have noted their concern.

Erdogan had last visited India in 2008 but that time as the prime minister. The Gulen issue was not an irritant in India-Turkey bilateral relations then because Gulen was a major ally of Erdogan. The two fell apart only in 2013, when major corruption scandals against the Erdogan government broke out. This time Erdogans stakes in India are much higher.

Cooperation with India in the field of counter-terrorism should be a major area of interest for Erdogan as Turkey is in the grip of a spate of jihadist attacks. Turkey stands to benefit more on this than India. But what kind of value can he impart to this exercise when his government is closely involved with a country like Pakistan which has a proven track record of using terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy?

But Erdogan is a wily politician and is a past master in the art of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Recently he had a dinner meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad even as he has been aiding and abetting Salafi jihadis against him.

He has been playing the same game with India by trying to mollycoddle New Delhi with sweet nothings while having a very close relationship with Pakistan.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks, but dont expect an overnight transformation of India-Turkey relations following Erdogans visit.

The writer, an independent journalist and strategic analyst, tweets @Kishkindha.
Police on Monday detained two persons in connection with the alleged lynching of two suspected cattle thieves in central Assams Nagaon district but refrained from terming it as a case of cow vigilantism.

District Superintendent of Police Debaraj Upadhay said, We have picked up two persons in this connection and after investigation as to whether they were involved in yesterdays lynching incident, we will arrest them.

Sundays incident was an outcome of mob fury leading to the brutal killing of the two persons suspected to be cattle thieves, he said.

Asked if it was a case of cow vigilantism, the SP said, Not at all. There is no communal issue involved in the incident. It was a case of mob being angry and beating up the two suspected thieves.

The owner of the cattle in Kasamari village saw two men taking away his cows and shouted for the local people to stop them. The people there came out and chased the two before the angry mob beat them up, injuring them seriously, Upadhay said.

The police team which arrived at the site rushed the two to hospital where they succumbed to their injuries, he said.

Stating that the deceased have been identified as Abu Hanifa and Riyazuddin, the SP said their parents have registered a complaint with the police and investigations are on.

Although some incidents of cattle thieves being thrashed by the mob have been reported from Assam earlier, this is the first casualty after cases of cow vigilantism have been reported in recent times across the nation.
Its been six years since United States Navy Seals entered a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the dreaded 9/11 attacks and the head of the Al Qaeda group.

Six years later, Robert ONeill, a Navy Seal, who became known as the man who killed Bin Laden, has for the first time published a detailed account of the mission that lead to the 9/11 mastermind being gunned down in a secure compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.

In a dramatic extract from his new book, The Operator, published in the Mirror, the former Seal described the moment he fired two shots at Bin Laden and split open his head.

I turned to the right and looked into an adjoining room, he said. Osama bin Laden stood near the entrance at the foot of the bed, taller and thinner than Id expected, his beard shorter and hair whiter.

He had a woman in front of him, his hands on her shoulders. In less than a second, I aimed above the womans right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice. Bin Ladens head split open and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance.

In the book, he recalls the tense moments as the elite Seal team landed outside the compound under the cover of darkness. One of the helicopters carrying the unit was forced to make a crash landing, and the team initially failed to break into the compound.

As we entered, it was all dawning on me: Holy s***, were here, thats Bin Ladens house. This is so cool. Were probably not going to live, but this is historic and Im going to savour this.

Going through the three-storied house, they eventually found Khalid bin Laden, the son of the infamous murderer. According to the text, one of the soldiers, who was trained in Arabic whispered, Khalid come here. When the 23-year-old stuck his head out to see who was in the house, American soldiers blasted his face away.

Intelligence had suggested if Khalid was present then his dad would be upstairs.

Running upstairs they found two women who were pounced on.

And then, standing near the entrance of the bedroom at the foot of a bed was the man the Americans had been waiting to kill ever since 9/11.

ONeill said Osama bin Laden standing near the entrance at the foot of a bed.

He said the terrorist was taller and thinner than hed expected, his beard shorter and hair whiter.

In a moment, the deed was done, and the terrorist was dead. ONeill claims that he put an extra bullet in bin Ladens head, explaining that it was insurance.
The army, in its statement, has vowed to give a befitting reply to Pakistan "in the same language".

IMAGE: Army's Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh of the Indian Army and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF.

Under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani Special Forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel on Monday, officials said.

The Indian Army vowed an appropriate response to the despicable act, which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

The Pakistan army denied that it was involved in any attack.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said in Delhi that the sacrifice (of the two killed) will not go in vain and the Indian armed forces will react appropriately to the inhuman act of the Pakistani troops.

This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place during war, he said.

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act, Jaitley said.

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team, which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a Border Security Force head constable were mutilated.

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army. They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack, a senior army official said.

The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them, the official said.

Their target was a seven to eight-member patrol party, which had come out of the post, the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated, the official said.

Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning, a defence ministry spokesman said.

Simultaneously, a BAT action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts, said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistani Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated, the spokesman said, adding, Such a despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded to.

According to reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani armys 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted Indias forward post Kirpan from its post Pimple in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

A senior BSF officer said that about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from the Pakistani army posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons.

They attacked with rockets a forward BSF post (which lies) ahead of the fencing and opened heavy fire from automatic weapons. They violated the ceasefire, the BSF

officer said.

The Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittently.

In Islamabad, the Pakistani army said it did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector.

In April this year, there were seven ceasefire violations by the Pakistani troops along the LOC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan Army on Monday denied mutilating the bodies of two Indian security personnel, which has evoked a sharp reaction in India.

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on the Line of Control or a BAT action in the Buttal sector (Indias Krishna Ghati sector) as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers bodies is also false, a statement from the Pakistan Armys Inter-Services Public Relations wing said.

Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian, it said.

In a barbaric attack, an army junior commissioned officer and a Border Security Force head constable were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which

sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory along the Line of Control in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistans Border action team crossed into the Indian side as the Pakistan Army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.

The incident evoked a sharp reaction in India with Defence Minister Arun Jaitley saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. Government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act, Jaitley said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday assured India of his countrys full support in the fight against terrorism as he held extensive discussion on this evolving threat with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who described it as a shared worry.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before a meeting at Hyderabad house in New Delhi. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo

Holding that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism, Modi, at a joint press event with Erdogan, said the two sides have decided to work together to deepen cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace.

In an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror groups, Modi said countries across the world need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists.

They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence, the prime minister added.

Condemning the Naxal attack on Central Reserve Police Force personnel on April 24 in Sukma, in which 25 of them were killed, Erdogan said, Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism... And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed.

IMAGE: Narendra Modi and the President Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan witnessing the exchange of agreements between India and Turkey. Photograph: Press Information Bureau

Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.

We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all, he had told a TV channel in an interview.

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

The Turkish president also referred to the Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation and said the outfit is active in 170 countries. He said the Turkish government has informed the countries about FETOs operations and hoped India will take action against it.

After a failed coup in July last year to topple Erdogan, Turkey had blamed FETO for it and said the outfit has infiltrated India. Turkey had also asked India to take action against the organisation.

We will never bow down to terrorism or the propaganda of the terror outfits, Erdogan, who also invoked Mahatma Gandhi, said. He said terror outfits will never be able to shackle our resolve to combat the menace.

IMAGE: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reviews the guard of honour during the ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo

Modi and the visiting dignitary had comprehensive discussion and took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.

Referring to changing times where societies face new threats and challenges every day, Modi said the context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern.

In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism, the prime minister said.

The two leaders, who addressed a India-Turkey business forum earlier in the day, also pitched for enhanced trade and business ties.

Observing that India and Turkey are two large economies which present an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen commercial linkages, Modi said at the level of the two governments, there is a need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner.

Our bilateral trade turnover of around $6 billion does not do full justice to convergences in our economies. Clearly, the business and industry on both sides can do much more, he added.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Photograph: Shahbaz Khan/PTI Photo

He further said, We would like to encourage stronger partnership of Turkish companies with our flagship programmes and projects, either on their own or in collaboration with the Indian companies.

Erdogan also emphasised the need to increase bilateral trade to at least $10 billion, as soon as possible, and added that the countries will look at ways to expand cooperation in the energy and infrastructure sectors, in particular.

After the Modi-Erdogan meet, the two sides exchanged three pacts, including one between their telecom authorities.

This is Erdogans first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

The Turkish leader arrived on Sunday on a two-day visit.

In his media statement, Modi also referred to Rumi and Sufi tradition in India. While Rumi found his home in Turkey, his legacy continues to enrich the Sufi traditions of India as well.
Over the past week, Rahul Gandhi has replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa, and brought in young leaders as secretaries. These changes are unlikely to be a one-time exercise and poll-bound states would get the primary attention.

Rahul Gandhi has kicked off the much-awaited Congress reshuffle, bringing in new faces to manage the grand old party.

The Congress vice president, set to take over the reins of the party from his mother and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, has also approved a team which will oversee the internal elections to be held in the coming months.

Sonias tenure will expire in December this year and Rahul is expected to take over as party chief. Sonia became the Congress chief through internal polls in 1998.

Though Rahuls upgrade can be done through an executive order and the Congress working committee has already passed a unanimous resolution urging him to take over, the former wants it through a proper route.

There has been intense speculation over the changes in the party, as it lost four of the five states to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent assembly polls.

Over the past week, Rahul has replaced office-bearers in charge of party units in Gujarat and Karnataka and Goa, and brought in young leaders as secretaries.

According to sources, the changes are unlikely to be a one-time exercise and poll-bound states would get the primary attention.

The changes announced relates to veteran Digvijaya Singh, who was in charge of Karnataka and Goa, and Madhusudan Mistry, who was heading the central election committee, which decides candidates for the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.

Digvijaya Singh faced a strong reaction from the state unit as the BJP moved fast to form a government in Goa under his watch despite the Congress emerging as the single largest party.

While Goa has gone to A Chella Kumar, Singh's deputy in the state, Lok Sabha MP KC Venugopal has replaced Digvijaya in Karnataka, where Assembly polls are due in April next year.

Party lawmaker in Maharashtra Amit Deshmukh, son of former Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, will be the All India Congress Committee's secretary in Goa.

In Gujarat, where polls will be held this year-end, old-hand Gurudas Kamat has been replaced with former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot.

Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara, also the home minister, might be changed, as Rahul plans to revamp the state unit.

Tweaks are also expected in Himachal Pradesh where polls are due this year-end.

Rahul is likely to form his own team to face the challenges, especially the next round of assembly elections in Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in 2018 where the BJP has been ruling for the past three terms.

Rahuls aides Lok Saba member Rajeev Satav and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jitu Patwari have been made AICC secretaries in Gujarat, while Manickam Tagore and former MP Madhu Yashki Goud are the new secretaries in Karnataka.

Sources said the changes would be a mix of youth and experience, which means not all seniors stand to lose their positions in the revamp process.

Digvijaya, who still holds charge of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, said he was loyal to the party and to the Gandhi family. He also thanked party workers in Goa and Karnataka.

Rahul has also addressed the delay in conduct of internal elections as well.

Lok Sabha MP Mullapally Ramachandran heads a panel, which will supervise the party's internal elections likely to be completed by October.

Earlier, in 2015, Ramachandran had prepared a schedule for internal polls, but the exercise could not be rolled out, as several states had problems with membership lists.
The Modi government and political parties on Monday roundly criticised Pakistan for the beheading of two Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir, with a Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker insisting that same treatment be meted out to the Pakistani army.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley denounced the barbaric act, saying such attacks do not even take place during war and that the whole country has full faith in the armed forces.

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this act. The whole country has full faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to the act, Jaitley said.

He said sacrifice of the soldiers will not go in vain.

This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks do not take place (even) during war, he said.

Demanding a tit-for-tat response, BJP MP R K Singh, a former Union home secretary, said, Pakistan understands only one language and therefore we need to kill more Pakistani soldiers and give them the same treatment.

Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, by engaging in such action, Pakistan was scripting its own destruction.

Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury condemned Pakistan but added that the government should set its own house in order first and not let such incidents happen.

Yechury said such action by Pakistans special forces should not be tolerated, but added, We should also not give them the opportunity for such things to happen. We need to set our own house in order.

He said eventually all matters (relating to the restive state) would have to be resolved diplomatically and that the government should consult the opposition which was kept in the dark about issues between the two countries.

BJPs national spokesperson Nalin Kohli said it appears that inhumanity and barbarism has become the norm in Pakistan.

This act will not go unpunished as under Prime Minister Narendra Modi the army has not been restrained from responding to Pakistans unprovoked ceasefire violations, he said.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote on Twitter, I strongly condemn the barbaric and inhuman mutilation of our soldiers. We must react strongly and firmly.
Series of quakes strike near B.C.-Yukon border

Several powerful earthquakes struck Monday in the northern tip of British Columbia near the border with Alaska and Yukon.The U.S. Geological Survey says a 6.2-magnitude quake hit 88 kilometres northwest of Skagway, Alaska. That was followed by several smaller quakes, including one with a 5.2 magnitude and another major 6.3 quake about almost two hours after the first.Natural Resources Canada says the first quake struck around 5:30 a.m. Pacific time, at a depth of only 10 kilometres.USGS geophysicist Amy Vaughan tells the Associated Press that it's not completely uncommon for an aftershock to be larger than the triggering quake, though normally, following quakes are smaller.Four hours after the quake, the geological survey had recorded more than 50 temblors as aftershocks continued to shake the area. The Yukon government activated its Emergency Co-ordination Centre as the quakes continued.Earthquakes over a magnitude of six can cause damage to buildings, even well-built ones. There are no reports of injuries or building damage in the remote region, and no tsunami warning was issued.Yukon Energy confirmed that the quakes triggered power outages. Yukon Community Services Minister John Streiker said on Twitter that Yukon Energy was working with the power utility ATCO to restore power, and to check dams and substations for damage.Several Twitter users reported feeling tremors, including many in Whitehorse, about 170 kilometres away.The Alaska area experiences a high amount of seismic activity due to the movement of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. In 1964, an earthquake centred near Prince William Sound in Alaska registered a magnitude of 9.2 -- the second-largest earthquake ever recorded.[youtube]8B7xr_EjbzE[/youtube]
Last updated on: May 01, 2017 19:34 IST

In a major attack, terrorists on Monday shot dead seven people, including five policemen, after dragging them out of a vehicle carrying cash of a bank in Kulgam district of south Kashmir.

The cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, which was returning to Kulgam district headquarter from Damhal Hanji Pora, was waylaid by a group of heavily-armed terrorists on Monday afternoon, a police official said.

He said the terrorists pulled out the five police personnel and two bank employees from the vehicle and shot them from point blank range.

While four cops and two bank employees -- including a bank security guard -- died on the spot, the fifth cop succumbed to injuries at a hospital, the official said.

Among the deceased is an assistant sub-inspector of the police.

The terrorists have reportedly decamped with four service rifles of the slain cops but the police official said these reports were being verified.

The police is also investigating whether the terrorists had taken away any cash.

The Hizbul Mujahideen outfit claimed responsibility for the attack.

A spokesperson of the Hizb told a local news gathering agency that its cadres had decamped with four weapons from the scene of the attack.

Image: Security forces stand outside the cash van, which was looted by the terrorists. Photograph: Umar Ganie/Rediff.com
Trump weighs breaking up Wall Street banks, raising gas tax

Attaboy raise the price of gas.. MAGA!!

U.S. President Donald Trump said hes actively considering a breakup of giant Wall Street banks, giving a push to efforts to revive a Depression-era law separating consumer and investment banking.Im looking at that right now, Trump said of breaking up banks in the 30-minute Oval Office interview. Theres some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So were going to look at that.Trump also said hes open to increasing the U.S. gas tax to fund infrastructure development, in a further sign that policies unpopular with the Republican establishment are under consideration in the White House. He described higher gas taxes as acceptable to truckers  I have one friend whos a big trucker, he said  as long as the proceeds are dedicated to improving U.S. highways.In other news, Trump said hed be willing to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, against the recommendations of his political advisers, to avert a military confrontation with the U.S. adversary. He also said that a Republican replacement for the Affordable Care Act would protect Americans with pre-existing conditions at least as well as Obamacare.During the presidential campaign, Trump called for a 21st century version of the 1933 Glass-Steagall law that required the separation of consumer and investment banking. The 2016 Republican party platform also backed restoring the legal barrier, which was repealed in 1999 under a financial deregulation signed by then-President Bill Clinton.A handful of lawmakers blame the repeal for contributing to the 2008 financial crisis, an argument that Wall Street flatly rejects. Trump couldnt unilaterally restore the law; Congress would have to pass a new version.Trump officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, have offered support for bringing back some version of Glass-Steagall, though theyve offered scant details on an updated approach. Both Mnuchin and Cohn are former bankers who worked for Goldman Sachs Group Inc.The Glass-Steagall law essentially split banking into two categories: deposit-taking companies backed by taxpayers that primarily made loans to businesses and consumers, and investment banks and insurers that trade and underwrite securities and create or focus on other complex instruments. Severing those businesses would prevent Americans nest eggs from flowing into more volatile capital markets, Congress reasoned at the time.Trump said the tax cuts hes seeking would, along with renegotiated trade agreements, serve as badly needed stimulus for the economy.The president called first-quarter economic growth, which the Commerce Department said declined to a 0.7 per cent annual rate, really bad.Although hes taken credit for monthly job growth figures and stock market gains since entering office on Jan. 20, Trump said hes not responsible for the GDP number.Thats really a left over from  in all fairness, I just got here, he said. So youre growing at 1 per cent or less, so we need a stimulus.Trump touched on a host of foreign and domestic issues during the interview.Addressing the most urgent foreign policy and national security issue before him, Trump said hed be willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim under the right circumstances if it would result in defusing tension on the Korean Peninsula.If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it, Trump said.Most political people would never say that, he said, but Im telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him.No U.S. president has had direct contact with the North Korean regime and any contacts between the two nations have been limited since the signing of an armistice that halted the Korean War in 1953. Kim has never met with a foreign leader since taking charge after his fathers death in 2011 and hasnt left his isolated country.Trump also defended his White House invitation to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whos come under criticism from human rights groups for a brutal crackdown on the drug trade.The Philippines is very important to me strategically and militarily, Trump said. Hes been very, very tough on that drug problem but he has a massive drug problem.:lol:
PLATTSMOUTH  A Greenwood resident who pushed a female victims head into a car dashboard learned Monday morning that he would spend time in Cass County Jail.

Simon J. Hauck, 21, appeared in Cass County District Court for sentencing on a Class I misdemeanor charge of domestic assault-third degree. Hauck accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors in January. The state had originally charged him with a Class IIIA felony count of strangulation.

Hauck and a female had been riding in a car in Greenwood in August when the female laughed nervously at one of his statements. Hauck then swerved the car to the side of the road and stopped.

He used his right hand to grab the female by the back of the head and his left hand to grab her throat. Hauck then pushed the females head into the dashboard. Authorities later viewed a bruise under the females chin and an abrasion on the side of her throat.

Deputy County Attorney Steven Sunde told the court he felt jail was the only appropriate sentence. He said Hauck had been charged with assault twice in Lancaster County in 2014 and theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and obstructing a peace officer in 2016. He said a 2015 criminal charge stemmed from an incident where Hauck threw a cinder block through the window of a car owned by the parents of his then-girlfriend.

He is malicious by nature, Sunde said. He is a very dangerous individual and he has proven that over and over and over again.

Defense attorney Julie Bear told the court her client had been diagnosed with a mental health condition that impacted his decision-making skills. She asked the court to impose a probation sentence that would include multiple rehabilitation programs.

I dont think the malicious-by-nature argument holds true when you have these mental health issues, Bear said.

Judge Michael Smith said he was sympathetic to Haucks condition, but said he felt Hauck had the ability to control his behavior by taking proper medications. He said he felt jail was an appropriate sentence for that reason.

It looks to me like youre not significantly motivated to help yourself, Smith said.

Smith ordered Hauck to serve 270 days in Cass County Jail. Hauck will also be prohibited from owning a firearm due to the domestic assault nature of the offense.
Cite as

UN Security Council, Letter dated 27 January 2017 from the Panel of Experts on Yemen addressed to the President of the Security Council - Final report of the Panel of Experts on Yemen, 31 January 2017, S/2017/81, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5906f6a74.html [accessed 9 November 2022]
Disclaimer

This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Cuba

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Cuba, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4113.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

During the reporting period, religious freedom conditions in Cuba continued to deteriorate due to the government's shortterm detentions of religious leaders, demolition of churches, and threats to confiscate churches. In addition, the Cuban government harasses religious leaders and laity, interferes in religious groups' internal affairs, and prevents  at times violently  human rights and pro-democracy activists from participating in religious activities. The Cuban government actively limits, controls, and monitors religious practice through a restrictive system of laws and policies, surveillance, and harassment. Based on these concerns, USCIRF again places Cuba on its Tier 2 in 2017, as it has since 2004.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Convey that changes in policy do not diminish the Cuban government's need to improve religious freedom conditions on the island;

Denounce  clearly and consistently  violations of religious freedom and related human rights in Cuba;

Press the Cuban government to:

Stop arrests and harassment of religious leaders;



End the practice of preventing democracy and human rights activists from attending religious services;



End destruction of, threats to destroy, and threats to expropriate houses of worship;



Lift restrictions on the building or repairing of houses of worship, holding of religious processions, importation of religious materials, and admittance of religious leaders;



Allow unregistered religious groups to operate freely and legally, and repeal government policies that restrict religious services in homes or other personal property;



Cease interference with religious activities and religious communities' internal affairs; and



Hold accountable police and other security personnel for actions that violate the human rights of religious practitioners;

Encourage Cuban authorities to extend an official invitation for unrestricted visits by USCIRF and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief;

Increase opportunities for Cuban religious leaders from both registered and unregistered religious communities to travel to, exchange aid and materials with, and interact with coreligionists in the United States;

Continue the U.S.-Cuba human rights dialogue and include freedom of religion or belief as part of the dialogue with the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and other relevant participants;

Use appropriated funds to advance Internet freedom and protect Cuban activists by supporting the development and accessibility of new technologies and programs to counter censorship and to facilitate the free flow of information in and out of Cuba; and

Encourage international partners, including key Latin American and European countries and regional blocs, to ensure violations of freedom of religion or belief and related human rights are part of all formal and informal multilateral or bilateral discussions with Cuba.

BACKGROUND

Religious adherence continues to grow in Cuba, although there are no reliable statistics of Cubans' religious affiliations. Sixty to 70 percent of the population is estimated to be Roman Catholic and 5 percent Protestant. The practice of Catholicism is commonly syncretic, mixed with traditional African religions, especially Santeria. According to the State Department, various religious communities approximate their membership numbers as follows: Assemblies of God, 110,000; Baptists, 100,000; Jehovah's Witnesses, 96,000; Methodists, 36,000; Seventh-day Adventists, 35,000; Anglicans, 22,500; Presbyterians, 15,500; Muslims, 2,0003,000; Jews, 1,500; Quakers, 300; and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), 50. An unknown number of Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians, Buddhists, and Baha'is also live in Cuba.

President Raul Castro and his circle rule with absolute authority. The Communist Party is the country's only constitutionally recognized party. Despite increased economic and diplomatic engagement with the United States and Europe, human rights conditions have deteriorated. Authorities engage in arbitrary, short-term, and politically motivated detentions; assaults against human rights and pro-democracy activists and dissidents; extensive surveillance and intimidation; and organizing "acts of repudiation," incidents in which government-recruited mobs harass and  at times  assault activists, religious leaders, and others targeted by the government. In June 2016, USCIRF met with Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner Dr. Oscar Biscet and his wife, human rights activist Elsa Morejon. In January 2017, Dr. Biscet was arrested for his continued advocacy for democracy and freedom; upon his release later that day, government authorities warned him to cease his activism. The Cuban government does not allow human rights organizations to operate legally, and it controls all access to media, printing, and construction materials.

While the Cuban constitution guarantees freedom of religion or belief, this protection is limited by other constitutional and legal provisions. Article 8 affirms that "the State recognizes, respects, and guarantees religious freedom," and article 55 further guarantees the right to "change religious beliefs or not have any, and to profess, within the confines of the law, the religious worship of his/her preference." However, article 62 qualifies that all rights can be limited based on the "aims of the socialist State and the nation's determination to build socialism and communism." The Cuban penal code's Abuse of Liberty of Worship clause permits the imprisonment of any person the government determines abuses constitutional religious freedom protections by placing religious beliefs in conflict with other state goals.

The Cuban government controls religious activities through the Office of Religious Affairs (ORA) of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). The government requires religious communities to register with the MOJ, including the disclosure of funding sources and locations for activities and certification that they are not duplicating the activities of other registered religious communities. The ORA has final authority over registration decisions. Currently, 54 religious communities are registered, primarily Christian denominations, more than half of which have some form of association with the government- recognized Cuban Council of Churches (CCC). Only registered religious communities are legally permitted to receive foreign visitors, import religious materials, meet in approved houses of worship, and apply to travel abroad for religious purposes. Local Communist Party officials must approve all religious activities of registered groups other than regular worship services, such as repairing or building houses of worship and holding processions or events outside religious buildings. The government also restricts religious practice by denying independent religious communities access to state media (which they use to broadcast services), limiting exit visas, requiring the registration of publications, limiting the entry of foreign religious workers, and restricting bank accounts to one per denomination or religious association. Further, the ORA continues to pressure religious communities to make their financing, internal governing structures, statutes, and constitutions more hierarchical, which aids government efforts to control them. Morejon and other religious freedom advocates report that local community officials in rural areas discriminate against some Christian children, including denying them food in schools.

In 2005, the Cuban government implemented a law to regulate house churches (congregations that gather for worship in private homes). Many Protestant denominations rely on house churches due to government restrictions on new building construction; the State Department reports there are an estimated 2,00010,000 house churches in Cuba. The law, known as Directive 43 and Resolution 46, requires all house churches to register and submit to the government detailed information on their membership, the house church's inhabitants, and the schedule of services. It permits no more than three meetings to be held per week, bars foreign citizens from participating in services without government permission, and requires house churches of the same denomination to be at least two kilometers apart.

In January 2015, the Cuban government announced Legal Decree 322, the General Law on Housing, purportedly to regulate private properties and zoning laws. However, Cuban authorities have used Legal Decree 322 to threaten expropriation of churches.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Destruction of and Threats to Churches

In 2016, the Cuban government destroyed four Apostolic Movement houses of worship. On January 8, the government razed Rev. Bernardo de Quesada Salomon's Fire and Dynamism Church in Camaguey and Rev. Juan Carlos Nunez Velazquez's Apostolic House-King of Glory Church in Victoria de las Tunas. Both churches were on the pastors' private properties and had legal permits for their construction. On February 5, authorities similarly destroyed the Emanuel Church of the Apostolic Movement in Santiago de Cuba and confiscated its pews, chairs, audio equipment, musical instruments, and cement blocks. Emanuel Church Rev. Alain Toledano's home also was destroyed. On April 9, the Cuban government demolished the Strong Winds Ministry Church in Las Tunas. The church reports the government also confiscated its pews, electrical equipment, and construction material. The church was privately owned by Strong Winds Ministry member Caridad Reyna.

In 2015, the government designated 2,000 Assemblies of God churches as illegal and ordered their closure, confiscation, or demolition. In 2016, the government began the process of expropriating 1,400 of these churches, although at the time of this writing none have been confiscated.

During the reporting period, government officials interrogated religious leaders countrywide about the legal status of their religious properties. In some cases, the officials confiscated property deeds, leaving the religious communities vulnerable to charges of maintaining illegal properties and having said properties destroyed or confiscated.

Detentions of Religious Leaders

In 2016, the Cuban government detained dozens of religious leaders and followers. The vast majority of detentions occurred during the church demolitions described above to prevent church members from protesting and/or stopping the demolitions and alerting others to the incidents.

On January 8, Rev. de Quesada Salomon, his wife Damaris, and other Apostolic Movement members across the island were detained prior to the destruction of their Fire and Dynamism Church in Camaguey. They were detained at separate police stations and released later that day. The government also shut off cell phone reception in the area during the incident.

On February 5, Rev. Toledano's wife, Marilin Alayo Correa, and 200 other Emanuel Church members were detained across the Santiago de Cuba region; they were released later that day. On February 24, police threatened to arrest Rev. Toledano for alleged illegal possession of chairs and church construction materials.

On March 20, Baptist Convention of Western Cuba pastor and religious freedom advocate Mario Felix Lleonart Barroso was arrested prior to then President Barack Obama's official visit to Cuba. His wife, Yoaxis Marcheco Suarez, was placed under house arrest. Prior to the pair's arrest, the police surrounded their home for hours and cut off their phone lines. After his arrest, Pastor Lleonart Barroso reported constant harassment and surveillance. On August 8, he and his family fled Cuba for the United States.

On April 7, Western Baptist Convention Pastor Leonardo Rodriguez was arrested in Santa Clara and released the next day.

On April 9, state security agents detained Strong Winds Ministry Church Rev. Mario Jorge Travieso for several hours during the church's demolition and threatened him with seven years' imprisonment if he spoke publicly about the incident.

On October 21, Pastor Nunez Velazquez was sentenced to one year of house arrest after neighbors reported noise complaints. Pastor Nunez Velazquez had been holding services outside after his church was demolished on January 8, 2016. He appealed the decision in October, but was unsuccessful. At the time of this writing, the conditions of his house arrest are unknown.

On February 21, 2017, Pastor Ramon Rigal and his wife Adya were arrested and charged with "acting contrary to the normal development of a minor" for homeschooling their child. They were released the next day and ordered to report to the police every week in person until their trial.

Denial of Religious Freedom for Democracy and Human Rights Activists

As in previous reporting periods, the Cuban government continued to deny pro-democracy and human rights activists their constitutional rights to freedom of religion or belief. Christian Solidarity Worldwide catalogued more than 200 separate incidents in 2016 of Ladies in White members being prevented from attending religious services; authorities prevented other human rights and pro-democracy activists from attending religious services 55 times. The Ladies in White are the wives and relatives of dissidents imprisoned in 2003; they wear white during weekly marches following Sunday masses to increase attention to human rights conditions in Cuba. In the majority of cases, these individuals were detained on their way to Mass and released hours later. Individuals reported being beaten and harassed during their detentions. Some also reported being prevented from attending Bible study groups and prayer meetings between weekly services. Church leaders continue to report that government officials pressure them to expel or shun such activists.

Religious leaders report exercising self-censorship during services, fearing official reprisals if they directly or indirectly criticize the government. On September 1, nine workers at the Catholic magazine Convivencia were summoned to the local police station, interrogated, and threatened because of the political nature of some of their articles.

Positive Developments

Some religious leaders report increased opportunities to import religious literature and religious materials, conduct charitable operations, repair or expand religious buildings, and receive exit visas. The State Department reports the Catholic Church and some Protestant denominations maintained small libraries, operated their own websites with little censorship, published periodicals, and conducted religious services in prisons.

U.S. POLICY

In December 2014, then President Obama announced a "new course on Cuba," starting a process of normalizing diplomatic relations between the countries and significantly lifting trade and travel restrictions. On October 14, 2016, the White House released the Presidential Policy Directive  United States-Cuba Normalization that outlined the Obama Administration's vision for and implementation of normalization of relations.

Since December 2014, the United States and Cuba re-established embassies in each other's capitals and in September 2016, then President Obama nominated an ambassador to Cuba, although he was not confirmed before the Obama Administration left office. Although the U.S. trade sanctions and travel embargo on Cuba imposed in 1960 and reinforced by the 1996 Helms-Burton Act remain in place, then President Obama called on Congress to lift the embargo. Beginning in 2009, the Obama Administration eased restrictions on authorized travel to Cuba; increased scholarships and grants for religious, humanitarian, and scientific activities; increased remittance levels; increased opportunities to import Cuban products; allowed for exportation of U.S. telecommunications equipment; provided U.S.-led training opportunities; and allowed the export or sale of goods and services to Cuban private businesses and farmers. U.S. institutions were permitted to open banking accounts with Cuban financial institutions and U.S. credit and debit cards were permitted to be used in Cuba. The U.S. government also removed Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, resumed direct flights between the United States and Cuba in 2016, and in January 2017 ended its "wet foot, dry foot" policy, which granted residency to Cubans who reached the United States.

In March 2016, then President Obama became the first sitting president to travel to Cuba since 1928. In his speech in Havana, then President Obama acknowledged commonalities between U.S. and Cuban people, as well as the Cuban government's human rights violations. He called on the Cuban government to respect the freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion or belief and to allow Cubans to choose their own government through free and fair elections. In October, then Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein joined then Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski in Cuba for the U.S.-Cuba human rights dialogue. In July, then State Department Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs Shaun Casey travelled to Cuba.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Bahrain

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Bahrain, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4213.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

Amidst an overall worsening of human rights conditions during the past year, religious freedom for the majority-Shi'a community deteriorated. There was a sharp increase in the number of interrogations, arrests, convictions, and arbitrary detentions of Shi'a Muslim clerics, mostly on unfounded and unsubstantiated charges. In addition, authorities denied some Shi'a clerics access to specific mosques and banned others from conducting Friday prayers, sermons, and other religious services. Discrimination against Shi'a Muslims in government employment and other public and social services continued, as did inflammatory, sectarian rhetoric by pro-government media, despite officials often making public statements condemning sectarian hatred and violence. Although the government continued to make progress in implementing some recommendations from the 2011 report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), it has not fully implemented recommendations that would redress past abuses against Shi'a Muslims and further improve religious freedom conditions. As a consequence of deteriorating conditions, in 2017 USCIRF places Bahrain on its Tier 2 for the first time. Between 2012 and 2016, Bahrain was covered in the Other Countries Monitored section of the Annual Report.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Address religious freedom concerns with the Bahraini government both privately and publicly and report openly on the government's success or failure to implement genuine reforms;

Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the unconditional release of prisoners of conscience and religious freedom advocates, and press the country's government to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, lawyers, and the ability to practice their faith;

Urge the Bahraini government to cease its targeting of individuals, particularly religious leaders, on the basis of religion or belief or advocacy of human rights and religious freedom;

Ensure clear and consistent messaging at all levels of the U.S. government regarding Bahrain's human rights and religious freedom obligations under international law;

Assist in the training of government entities, including security officials, prosecutors, and judges, to better address sectarian violence and incitement through practices consistent with international human rights standards;

Include Bahraini civil society and religious leaders in exchange and U.S. visitor programs that promote religious tolerance, interreligious understanding, and interfaith dialogue;

Urge the Bahraini government to implement fully the BICI recommendations, including those related to freedom of religion and belief, sectarian incitement, and accountability for past abuses against the Shi'a community;

Undertake and make public an annual assessment of Bahrain's progress, or lack thereof, on implementing BICI recommendations;

Urge the Bahraini government to reimburse the Shi'a community for expending its own funds to rebuild seven mosques and religious structures that were demolished in 2011;

Urge the Bahraini government to pass a law in the Shura Council addressing incitement to violence in the media, ensuring compliance with international human rights standards; and

Urge the Bahraini government to cooperate fully with international mechanisms on human rights issues, including by inviting visits from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief.

BACKGROUND

Of the country's population of approximately 1.3 million, about half are Bahraini citizens and half are expatriate workers, primarily from South Asian countries. Almost half of the expatriate workers are non-Muslim (approximately 250,000300,000). Although there are no official statistics, the population of Bahraini citizens is estimated to be at least 60 percent Shi'a Muslim and approximately 35 percent Sunni Muslim, with approximately 1 to 2 percent non-Muslims, including Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, and Baha'is. Compared to other countries in the region, Bahrain is among the most tolerant of non-Muslim religious minority communities. The government officially recognizes at least 19 Christian denominations, a tiny Jewish community, Hindus, and Sikhs. A small Baha'i community is recognized as a social entity. Most Bahrainis acknowledge that their society has been historically tolerant of all faiths and religiously pluralistic to a degree that is notable in the region.

During the past year, an increased crackdown on civil society and opposition groups had a chilling impact on freedom of religion or belief and freedom of expression. Previously, between 2011 and 2015, restrictions had been primarily aimed at protestors, human rights defenders, and political opposition members, particularly those affiliated with the Shi'a Islamist Al Wefaq society, the largest of approximately 20 licensed political societies. The Bahraini government contends that those who have been arrested and charged have breached public order laws during authorized processions or protests, in some cases carrying weapons. Bahraini and international human rights groups and the State Department dispute this. In addition, during the past year, increased efforts by Iran to expand its influence in Bahrain have heightened the government's concerns about subversive activity by Iranian-backed Shi'a militants in the country.

In July 2016, USCIRF staff traveled to Bahrain to assess religious freedom conditions and to meet with U.S. Embassy officials, the vice chair of the government- appointed National Institution for Human Rights, and representatives of civil society and religious communities.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Significant Increase in Arrests and Charges against Shi'a Clerics

With many political opposition members and human rights activists serving prison terms or facing criminal charges, during the past year Bahraini authorities targeted Shi'a clerics, many of whom are not affiliated with any political entity. According to Bahraini and international human rights groups, this increased targeting of Shi'a clerics constitutes a systematic campaign of harassment that violates their rights to freedom of assembly, speech, and religion. In many of these cases, the Bahraini government has used charges of insulting religious symbols and/or religion, illegal gathering, unlawful protesting, engaging in political speech in sermons, and supporting terrorism. Human rights groups have stated that many of the charges are unfounded or unsubstantiated. In other cases, the Bahraini government has suggested that some clerics have ties to Iran, although no criminal charges have been filed based on these allegations. Bahraini Shi'a clerics deny any subversive relationship with Iran and say their primary tie with the country is having acquired religious training in Qom, Iran, the largest center for Shi'a religious study in the world.

Since June, Bahraini authorities interrogated, charged, and/or sentenced at least 80 Shi'a clerics, imposing travel bans against several. For example, in an attempt to limit freedom of expression and belief, in May 2016, Shi'a cleric Sheikh Mohamed Al-Mansi was charged with delivering an unauthorized sermon and inciting hatred against the regime and sentenced to one year in prison; in July, his sentence was upheld on appeal. In June, Shi'a cleric Sheikh Mohamed Sanqoor was banned from conducting sermons and Friday prayers at Imam Sadiq mosque in Diraz. In July, Sheikh Sanqoor was charged with incitement against the regime and preaching without a permit; his case is ongoing.

In August 2016, a Bahraini court convicted Sheikh Ali Humaidan of illegal gathering and sentenced him to one year in prison for being part of a peaceful gathering outside the home of the most senior Shi'a cleric in Bahrain, Sheikh Isa Qassim, whose citizenship authorities had stripped arbitrarily in June. Immediately after Sheikh Qassim's citizenship was revoked, mass protests erupted in his hometown of Diraz, which led to a full-time security presence and limited or no ability to access the locality. At the end of the reporting period, at least eight other clerics were facing similar charges.

Also in August, Shi'a cleric and religious freedom activist Maytham al-Salman, with whom USCIRF has met on several occasions, was interrogated for 24 hours, endured sleep deprivation, and was subsequently charged with illegal gathering; his case remained pending at the end of the reporting period. In December 2015, he was interrogated about his criticism of Bahraini government policies and his advocacy of religious freedom, and in March 2016 he was charged with "expressing views regarding a case still in court," inciting hatred against the regime, and insulting religious symbols.

On August 16, a group of United Nations (UN) human rights experts criticized the numerous charges brought against dozens of Shi'a clerics and called on Bahraini authorities to end what it called its "systematic harassment of its Shi'a population." The experts found that the government of Bahrain targets the Shi'a Muslim population on the basis of their religion, including by shutting down faith-based organizations, restricting the practice of religious rites, restricting access to Friday prayers and other peaceful assembly, and banning Shi'a clerics from delivering sermons in mosques. The five experts who issued the statement are the chair of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteurs on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; freedom of religion or belief; and the situation of human rights defenders.

The Dissolution of Al Wefaq and the Targeting of Affiliated Shi'a Clerics

During the year, the government continued to prosecute Shi'a Muslim political figures  primarily affiliated with Al Wefaq  on charges that are politically motivated but also have implications for religious freedom.

In June, the Ministry of Interior announced it was revoking the citizenship of Sheikh Qassim, who is sometimes referred to as the "spiritual leader" of Al Wefaq, although he has no formal affiliation with the political society. Sheikh Qassim was also charged with money laundering, although his lawyers say these charges are unsubstantiated; his trial has been postponed numerous times and remains ongoing. Since Sheikh Qassim was charged, Shi'a protesters and security forces have engaged in low-scale clashes around his home in Diraz. According to human rights groups, since August 2016 at least 19 defendants have been sentenced to a total of 23 years of prison time in nine separate cases for gathering in the Diraz area.

The revocation of Sheikh Qassim's citizenship was followed in July by the government's decision to dissolve Al Wefaq and seize its assets, on accusations that it provided "a nourishing environment for terrorism, extremism, and violence." Al Wefaq disputed these charges and appealed the ruling with the highest court in Bahrain, the Court of Cassation. In February 2017, the Court of Cassation denied the appeal, drawing strong criticism from the UN and international human rights groups.

In December 2016, Al Wefaq's former secretary general, Sheikh Ali Salman, was sentenced to nine years in prison in a retrial that was ordered by the Court of Cassation in October. In May 2016, the Bahrain First High Court of Appeals had affirmed Sheikh Salman's original June 2015 conviction and increased his sentence from four years to nine years. Salman was convicted on a range of security-related charges, including inciting regime change and insulting the Ministry of Interior; UN experts have criticized these charges as violations of the freedoms of expression, association, and religion. The State Department has called for his unconditional release. Sheikh Salman has been imprisoned since December 2014.

Limitations on Religious Expression and Sectarian Incitement

While government officials continued to discourage sectarian language in media outlets, public and private media continued at times to use inflammatory, sectarian rhetoric. The Shura Council has not passed media laws that would curb incitement to violence, hatred, and sectarianism as recommended in the BICI report. Nevertheless, some individuals have been charged and prosecuted for incitement to hatred and violence against Shi'a Muslims.

In May 2016, the parliament passed, and the Shura Council ratified, article 5 of the Political Societies Law, which prevents clerics who give sermons from joining political societies that engage in any political activities. The law also states that "political societies' heads and leaders shouldn't be religious preachers, even if they occupy the position in the societies without being paid." Human rights groups view this as limiting clerics' free speech and association rights, while Bahraini officials see it as a way to prevent religious activities from being politicized.

According to the State Department, while some previous amendments to laws strengthened protection of freedom of expression, article 169 of the penal code  which imposes up to two years' imprisonment and a fine for anyone found to publish "falsified" or "untrue" reports  was amended to stipulate that laws on freedom of expression must be "compatible with values of a democratic society." Human rights groups are concerned that such broad language, subject to varying interpretations, increases the likelihood of infringement of freedom of expression, including religious expression.

Furthermore, in 2016 some individuals were arrested and/or charged under articles 309 and 310 of the penal code, which penalizes insulting a recognized religious community, its rituals, or religious symbols with a term of imprisonment up to one year or a fine not exceeding 100 Bahraini dinars (approximately US$265). Despite the charges, there were no known convictions during the reporting period.

Other Forms of Discrimination and Restrictions on Ashura Commemorations

According to human rights groups, members of the Shi'a community still cannot serve in the active military, only in administrative positions, and there are no Shi'a Muslims in the upper levels of the Bahraini government security apparatus, including the military and police. In addition, UN experts have found that patterns of cultural, economic, educational, and social discrimination exist against the Shi'a Muslim community, including in the education system, media, public sector employment, and other government social policies such as housing and welfare programs.

In October 2016, authorities reportedly interfered with some Ashura commemorations and removed Ashura banners in certain locations. Bahraini officials claim they were forced to intervene due to excessive vandalism and looting by youth, and they arrested several individuals. In addition, at least five Shi'a clerics  including Sheikh Abdulmohsen Mulla Atiya Al-Jamri and Sayed Sadiq Al-Ghuraifi  were interrogated related to speeches given during Ashura commemorations. After more than 10 hours of interrogations, Bahraini security authorities released three of the clerics; however, two clerics, Sheikh Al-Jamri and Sayed Al-Ghuraifi, were detained and questioned for longer periods. At the end of the reporting period, no charges had been filed.

Implementation of BICI Recommendations

In May 2016, the Bahraini government announced it had implemented all 26 of the BICI recommendations, including those related to freedom of religion or belief. However, human rights groups and the State Department disagree with that assessment, concluding that only some recommendations have been implemented, while others are either fulfilled partially or not at all. A June 2016 State Department report assessing BICI implementation found that "much work remains to be done," including in areas related to religious freedom and sectarian incitement.

Progress in Rebuilding Shi'a Mosques and Religious Structures

Despite a self-imposed deadline of the end of 2014, the Bahraini government has not fully completed rebuilding all 30 of the destroyed religious structures identified in the BICI report. In July 2016, the government claimed to have spent approximately US$10 million  up from $8 million the previous year  to rebuild Shi'a mosques and religious structures, more than twice what it pledged in 2012. In May, the government stated publicly that it completed rebuilding the mosques and religious structures and all were approved for use. Despite this claim, the government has completed only 20 structures, most of which are in use, and the Shi'a community has rebuilt seven structures. Three structures still require legal and administrative approval and no progress has been made on their rebuilding.

The government has stated that it helped secure legal permits for the seven structures rebuilt by the Shi'a community, but despite indicating willingness in the past, officials have not reimbursed the community. According to the State Department, the Bahraini government claimed it has reimbursed the Shi'a community for reconstruction costs through payments to the national Shi'a endowment; however, members of the Shi'a community dispute this claim.

Progress and Concerns Related to Accountability for Past Abuses

As recommended in the BICI report, the Bahraini government has created entities to address accountability for abuses, including a Civilian Settlement Office to compensate for deaths and injuries from the 2011 unrest, as well as an Office of the Ombudsman in the Ministry of Interior to ensure compliance with policing standards and receive reports of misconduct.

However, the government still has not adequately held high-level security officials accountable for serious abuses, which included targeting, imprisoning, torturing, and killing predominantly Shi'a demonstrators. Bahraini courts have tried, prosecuted, and convicted only a few lower-level police officers, with little or no transparency about the trials, convictions, and length of prison terms; several have been acquitted. In the past, the government has stated that there are ongoing investigations of higher-level officers related to the 2011 abuses, but has not disclosed any specific details.

U.S. POLICY

U.S.-Bahraini relations have been focused primarily on geopolitical concerns, including the regional influence of Iran and security cooperation. Bahrain, a longstanding U.S. ally in the region, has hosted a U.S. naval presence since 1946 and is home to over 8,000 members of the U.S. armed services, mostly affiliated with the Fifth Fleet of the United States Navy. In 2002, the United States designated Bahrain as a "major non-NATO ally," allowing the country access to defense research cooperation and purchase of certain otherwise-restricted U.S. arms.

Despite the close relationship, human rights concerns have affected military assistance in recent years. The Obama Administration's foreign military financing requests for aid to Bahrain dropped from $25 million in fiscal year (FY) 2012, at the beginning of internal unrest, to $5 million in FY 2017. Restrictions on U.S. military aid to Bahrain were targeted toward intelligence assistance and equipment used for internal security matters. In 2015, the United States lifted restrictions on arms sales to Bahrain in recognition of "meaningful progress on human rights." However, in September 2016 the Obama Administration attached a declaration of concern to the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Bahrain, conditioning the sale on specific human rights progress. In March 2017, after the end of the reporting period, the Trump Administration announced it planned to drop all human rights conditions on the sale of F-16 fighter jets and other arms to Bahrain.

The 2011 BICI report has provided the major framework for U.S. assessments of progress on human rights reforms in Bahrain. In the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, Congress directed the secretary of state to submit an assessment of Bahrain's progress in implementing the BICI recommendations, including a description of specific steps taken, an assessment of compliance with each recommendation, and an assessment of the report findings' impact on "progress toward democracy and respect for human rights in Bahrain." In 2015, the Senate Appropriations Committee called on the secretary of state to submit a report describing specific steps taken to implement BICI recommendations, as well as further steps the government should take to fully implement the recommendations and an assessment of the report findings' impact on U.S. security in the region. Accordingly, the Department of State produced two reports on Bahrain's implementation of the BICI recommendations, one in 2013 and one in 2016. Both reports found the government had made progress, but that "more work remains to be done," particularly in the independence and accountability of investigative bodies and promotion of national reconciliation. The 2016 report noted progress in rebuilding demolished Shi'a mosques and in implementing tolerance in curricula.

State Department officials have raised concerns with their Bahraini counterparts about sectarianism, human rights, and prisoners of conscience in the country. During a visit to Manama ahead of the April 2016 Gulf Cooperation Council summit, then Secretary of State John Kerry discussed Bahraini efforts to counter sectarianism with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Then Secretary Kerry also met with opposition and civil society leaders, including noted human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, who remains in detention. Since the summit, several State Department statements have addressed human rights concerns in Bahrain, including the ongoing imprisonment of Rajab as well as religious freedom concerns facing the Shi'a community. According to the State Department, U.S. government officials at all levels, including embassy staff, have urged the Bahraini government to fully implement the BICI recommendations, end discrimination against the Shi'a community, support national unity and reconciliation efforts, respect freedom of expression, bolster the independence of watchdog organizations, and provide for the religious freedom of prisoners.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Azerbaijan

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Azerbaijan, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4310a.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

The status of religious freedom in Azerbaijan deteriorated in 2016. During the year, the Azeri government increased its repression of independent religious activity, closing Sunni mosques, raiding religious bookshops, and harassing Jehovah's Witnesses and certain Protestant communities. While Azerbaijan is at risk from international terrorism, that danger increasingly serves as a pretext in official efforts to suppress peaceful religious dissent amidst a general crackdown on human rights. In January 2017, 18 Shi'a activists were sentenced to prison terms of between 10 and 20 years on numerous charges, including purported terrorism. A local non governmental organization coalition that monitors the status of Azerbaijan's prisoners of conscience estimated that as of December 2016, 86 persons were imprisoned for their religious beliefs. Based on these concerns, in 2017 USCIRF again places Azerbaijan on Tier 2, where it has been since 2013.

Urge the Azerbaijani government to reform its religion law to bring it into conformity with recommendations by the Council of Europe's Venice Commission and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in 2012;

Work with the highest levels of the Azerbaijani government to secure the release of prisoners of conscience and ensure detainee access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, legal counsel, and religious accommodations;

Continue the maintenance of contact, including at the ambassadorial level, between the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan and human rights and religious freedom activists;

Encourage scrutiny of Azerbaijan's violations of international religious freedom and related norms at the United Nations (UN) and OSCE, and urge the OSCE to engage these issues publicly;

Urge the Azerbaijani government to agree to visits by the UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief, on independence of the judiciary, and on torture; set specific visit dates; and provide the necessary conditions for such visits;

Press the government of Azerbaijan to allow religious groups to operate freely without registration, including amending the religion law's registration requirements;

Specify freedom of religion or belief as a grants category and area of activity for the U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan, and encourage the National Endowment for Democracy to make grants for civil society programs on tolerance and freedom of religion or belief; and

Ensure continued U.S. funding for Radio Azadlyg, the Azeri Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and the Azeri Service of the Voice of America.

BACKGROUND

Unlike other Muslim majority former Soviet states, Azerbaijan has a Shi'a majority. According to the State Department, 96 percent of Azerbaijan's population of nine million is Muslim, with 65 percent Shi'a and 35 percent Sunni; the other 4 percent includes Russian Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Molokans, Seventh-day Adventists, Jews, Baha'is, and non-believers. Shi'a and Sunni Muslims, Russian Orthodox, and Jews officially are viewed as the country's "traditional" religious groups. Historically, the country has been tolerant of religious pluralism. Although the secular government of Azerbaijan regards the government of Iran with great suspicion, 13 million ethnic Azeris live in Iran. The country has been ruled by the Aliyev family since 1993, first by Heydar Aliyev and then by his son Ilham, who has been president since 2003.

Azerbaijan's 2009 religion law tightly controls religious activity: it sets complex registration procedures, limits religious activity to a group's registered address; restricts the content, production, import, export, distribution, and sale of religious texts, and requires state approval of religious education for clergy. Alleged offenders face major fines. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) noted that the law gives officials "unlimited discretionary power" to define and prosecute "illegal" religious activity. Under 2015 religion law amendments, religious groups must file official reports documenting their activities and limit religious expression such as the display of banners or slogans to places of worship. Azerbaijani citizens with foreign education and non-Azerbaijani citizens are also banned from leading Islamic rituals, subject to prison terms or fines.

Despite Azerbaijan's pledge to the Council of Europe when it joined that organization in 2001 to enact an alternative military service law, there are criminal penalties for refusal of military service. Other legal amendments further restrict religious freedom: officials have wide powers to act against "extremist" activity; citizenship can be removed from members of allegedly extremist religious groups; police can regulate religious materials; and parents who do not send their children to state schools are subject to administrative fines.

As in many post-Soviet states, increasing authoritarianism and the suppression of secular political opposition in Azerbaijan has fostered the emergence of a religious political opposition that the government has sought to discredit by linking it to terrorism or other illegal activity. In January 2017, 18 defendants, including Shi'a cleric and vocal critic of the government Taleh Bagirov, were sentenced to long prison terms; they had been arrested during a November 2015 raid on the conservative Shi'a town of Nardaran in which two policemen and four residents died. Their year-long trial was widely criticized by human rights groups as unfair and also tainted by allegations of extensive use of severe torture.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Government Control through Registration

Registration with the government is mandatory for religious groups to conduct activities. Religious groups that are denied registration or refuse to register on theological grounds are deemed "illegal," and may face raids and other penalties. The State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations (SCWRO), which oversees registration, has refused to process registration applications. As of November 2016, many communities that applied in 2009 were still waiting for the SCWRO to process these applications. Religious communities unable to gain legal status include all independent mosques outside the state-backed Caucasian Muslim Board (CMB), as well as some of the CMB's own mosques. Almost all Protestant denominations (including Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Pentecostals) have been denied full registration and therefore encounter certain limitations on their activities. Jehovah's Witnesses also lack legal status. Some NGOs that campaign for religious freedom or discuss religion, such as the International Religious Liberty Association and Devamm, have been denied registration.

Repression of Independent Muslims

Muslims face additional legal restrictions that do not apply to other faiths. All mosques must belong to the CMB, which dates to the Soviet era. Mosques must be founded by Azeri citizens and report their activities to the CMB, which also appoints all imams. Police enforce an official 2008 ban on praying outside of mosques. After 2010, there was a mass petition campaign and numerous public protests over the 2010 official "recommendation" not to allow students to wear the hijab; there were multiple arrests and detentions. (According to the State Department, since 2015 this ban is no longer enforced.) Authorities continue to raid meetings of nonviolent Salafis and the homes of readers of Said Nursi and alleged followers of the Turkish Islamic leader Fethullah Gulen. Reportedly, officials and educators have lost their jobs if they were suspected of ties to the Gulen movement.

Religious Prisoners

A group of NGOs calling itself the Working Group on a Unified List of Political Prisoners in Azerbaijan estimates that 86 persons were imprisoned for their religious beliefs as of December 2016. In addition to a total of 48 persons arrested in connection with the events in Nardaran mentioned above, there are 20 prisoners who were arrested during a wave of protests in 2012 related to the government's ban of hijabs in schools, five prisoners connected to the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, and 10 persons connected to Said Dadashbayli, a cleric whom the government accused of ties to Iran.

The Working Group is also monitoring the case of Azeri Shi'a theologian Elsan Mustafaoglu, who was charged in 2016 with espionage for Iran and faces a possible 12-year prison term. Originally sent by the Azeri government to study Shi'a theology in Iran, he founded an NGO, Spiritual Purity, in 2001 and anchored religious programs on Azeri TV.

Closure of Places of Worship

Since 2009, Azerbaijan has closed or destroyed numerous houses of worship, mainly Sunni mosques. In the wake of the November 2015 raid on Nardaran, four Shi'a mosques there were forcibly closed. In 2016, Forum 18 reported that the authorities had forced three Sunni mosques in Azerbaijan to close or restrict activities: the Omar bin Khattab mosque, which had functioned since 1990 south of Baku and whose leader was fined for ministering to an "illegal" religious community; the Lezgin mosque in Baku's Old City, which was closed ostensibly to undergo repairs; and a mosque in the village of Digah, the hours of which were restricted to Friday prayers, apparently in retaliation for undergoing renovations. A privately-built Sunni mosque that had functioned for 20 years was closed in January 2016 in the town of Shirvan near Baku.

Status of Religious Minorities

Jewish groups have long lived in Azerbaijan and have rarely faced anti-Semitism. The Azerbaijani government publicly stresses the lack of anti-Semitism and its good relations with Israel. Baku also has a small Catholic community that has received some Azeri state funding to construct a church. Two registered Georgian Orthodox communities in the Gakh region cannot hold religious services. The Azeri government has not returned any confiscated religious facilities, such as the Armenian Apostolic, Great Grace, and Lutheran churches in Baku, nor provided compensation for properties seized. Monetary fines are the preferred official method of penalizing some activities by religious minorities.

In January 2016, two female Jehovah's Witnesses, Valida Jabrayilova and Irina Zakharchenko, were released after spending almost a year in prison for proselytism. They were acquitted of all charges in February 2017.

At least 14 Jehovah's Witnesses were fined in 2016 for speaking publicly about their beliefs or for holding prayer meetings at home, Forum 18 reported. In March and November 2016, over 60 Jehovah's Witnesses were briefly arrested for such prayer meetings; nine had to pay fines. In September, seven of 34 Jehovah's Witnesses lost their appeals against fines of over three months' average wages each. The 34 were punished for participating in a March "illegal" home worship meeting in the town of Gakh. On January 1, 2017, police and the SCWRO raided a Jehovah's Witness prayer meeting in the town of Barda. The 18 participants were briefly detained; one, Yegana Ismayilova, was physically assaulted in custody.

Government Control of Religious Materials

Official enforcement of restrictions on religious literature also continues. For example, in October 2016, police in and around Baku raided numerous bookstores not licensed to sell religious texts, and confiscated hundreds of books that allegedly lacked required official censorship stickers. Followers of Turkish theologian Said Nursi, Protestants, and Jehovah's Witnesses are the particular targets of raids, confiscations, fines, detentions, and deportations for violating such restrictions. In December 2016, police and the SCWRO raided Azerbaijan's only Christian bookstore and seized 300 books because it is not officially licensed to sell religious texts. The store has been waiting for a response to its license request since 2009. If found guilty, the American storeowner may be fined and deported.

Situation in the Nakhichevan Exclave

The Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, an Azerbaijani exclave that borders Iran, Armenia, and Turkey has a population of 410,000. This exclave faces even more severe religious freedom restrictions than the rest of Azerbaijan; the Baha'i, Adventist, and Hare Krishna faiths are banned. Local Sunni Muslims are denied mosques; up to 50 Shi'a mosques, especially those officially viewed as under strong Iranian influence, reportedly were closed in recent years. During Shi'a Muslim Ashura ceremonies, police reportedly prevent children and students from entering mosques. Many government workers are said to fear losing their jobs if they attend religious services.

U.S. POLICY

The United States aims to encourage pro-Western democracy and to help build an open market economy in Azerbaijan. Other goals include promoting regional stability, primarily resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, enhancing energy security, and fostering economic and political reforms. U.S. companies cooperate in offshore oil development with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan supports the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in Afghanistan by participating in the Northern Distribution Network and counters transnational threats, especially from Iran. U.S. assistance helps build capacity for maritime counterterrorism operations, especially in its Caspian Sea area, and provides military security training courses. U.S. civil society assistance in Azerbaijan focuses on small grants for civil society and on civic dialogue.

The U.S.-Azerbaijani dialogue on civil society and democracy, announced in February 2015 to run in parallel with Council of Europe initiatives, has not moved forward. In 2016, the State Department was publicly critical of politically motivated prosecutions by the Azerbaijani government against several opposition activists, politicians, and journalists. In 2016, then U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Daniel Baer made several public statements critical of human rights conditions in Azerbaijan, but he did not mention religious repression. In March 2016, then Secretary of State John Kerry met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Washington, where he raised issues of political and social freedoms. In June, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia Bridget Brink went to Baku to meet with President Aliyev; she also met with human rights activists and civil society representatives. While the U.S. Embassy website lists Democracy Commission Small Grants for Azerbaijan, that information has not been updated since 2014.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Afghanistan

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 2 countries - Afghanistan, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4429.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

Afghanistan's overall stability and security remain precarious despite a sustained U.S.-led international effort to combat the Afghan Taliban and other extremist groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda. These groups' violent ideologies and attacks threaten all Afghans, including the minority Shi'a Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, and Baha'i communities. In 2016, with international assistance, the Afghan government made some progress in ousting the Taliban from areas it controlled in previous years. However, the government lacks the capacity to protect civilians from attacks due to its internal political instability; fragmented police, military, and intelligence forces; corruption; and weak economy. In addition, the country's constitution and other laws are contrary to international standards for freedom of religion or belief. Based on these concerns, and recognizing that the Afghan government faces significant challenges in combating the Taliban and other violent extremist groups and generally lacks the capacity to protect religious and ethnic communities from violent attacks, in 2017 USCIRF again places Afghanistan on Tier 2, where it has been since 2006. In 2017, USCIRF also finds that the Taliban merits designation as an "entity of particular concern" for religious freedom violations under December 2016 amendments to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA).

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Designate the Taliban as an "entity of particular concern" under December 2016 amendments to IRFA;

Continue to raise directly with Afghanistan's president and chief executive officer the importance of religious freedom;

Encourage Afghan government officials to publicly promote freedom of religion or belief and work toward creating a civic space for the open discussion of diverse opinions on matters of religion and society in the country;

Urge the government to reform the Afghan constitution and laws to comply with international standards of freedom of religion or belief, including by revoking the 2004 media law prohibiting writings deemed un-Islamic and the 2007 ruling that the Baha'i faith is blasphemous and converts to it are apostates;

Ensure the integration of religious freedom issues into State Department and Defense Department strategies concerning Afghanistan, including by reviving the interagency U.S. government taskforce that operated between 2013 and 2015 and prioritized countering religious extremism, attacks on non-Muslim communities, and Sunni-Shi'a violence;

Include a special working group on religious freedom in U.S.-Afghan strategic dialogues;

Encourage the Afghan government to sponsor, with official and semi-official religious bodies, an initiative on interfaith dialogue that focuses on both intra-Islamic dialogue and engagement with different faiths; and

Ensure that human rights concerns, including freedom of religion or belief, are integrated into all bilateral or multilateral talks seeking peace and reconciliation between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and that the parties to any peace agreement pledge to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

BACKGROUND

Afghanistan's population is estimated to be 33.3 million, 84 to 89 percent of which is Sunni Muslim, and 10 to 15 percent Shi'a Muslim. Sikh, Hindu, Christian, and other religious communities collectively are less than 0.3 percent of the total population. Although the population is religiously homogenous, it is ethnically diverse. According to U.S. government figures, Afghanistan's population is 42 percent Pashtun, 27 percent Tajik, 9 percent Hazara, 9 percent Uzbek, 3 percent Turkmen, 2 percent Baloch, and 8 percent other groups.

The constitution states that Islam is the state religion, and that no Afghan law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of Islam. The constitution fails to protect the individual right to freedom of religion or belief as guaranteed under international human rights law. It provides only that non-Muslims are "free to perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of the law"; there is no constitutional provision protecting freedom of religion or belief for Muslims. Additionally, the country's penal code permits the courts to defer to the Hanafi school of Shari'ah law and hudood laws (which cover crimes committed against God) in cases involving matters that neither the penal code nor the constitution explicitly address, such as blasphemy, apostasy, and conversion. Within this system, state-backed religious leaders and the judicial system are empowered to interpret and enforce Islamic principles and Hanafi Shari'ah law, leading at times to arbitrary and abusive interpretations of religious orthodoxy and to the imposition of severe punishments, including death. In 2016, there were no known reports of physical assaults, detentions, arrests, or prosecutions for blasphemy or apostasy. However, one person convicted of blasphemy in 2013 is still serving a 20-year prison sentence, according to the State Department.

The constitution also states that Shi'a Muslims can utilize Shi'a Islamic schools of jurisprudence in personal law issues but makes no reference to personal law allowances for non-Muslims. A 2004 media law prohibits writings deemed un-Islamic, enabling the detention of journalists and others. Also, since a 2007 fatwa by the General Directorate of Fatwas and Accounts, the Baha'i faith has been deemed a form of blasphemy, which means Baha'is are viewed as infidels and converts to the faith as apostates.

Many Afghans from all faiths and ethnic groups have fled their homes and need humanitarian assistance. In June 2016, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees reported that there were more than 2.7 million Afghan refugees living abroad, and approximately 1.2 million internally displaced people in Afghanistan. In 2016, the Afghan government reported that more than 550,000 people became internally displaced due to fighting and insecurity. Additionally, despite the insecurity in the country, the UN reported that in 2016, 1.5 million Afghans who had fled the country in previous years  especially to Pakistan, Iran, and Europe  returned, many forcibly, including registered refugees.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Conditions for Shi'a Muslims

During the last year, Shi'a Muslims, especially ethnic Hazaras, fell victim to multiple violent and deadly attacks, as well as abductions that often ended in death. The attacks were overwhelmingly claimed by or attributed to U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including the Taliban and ISIS. Reportedly, more than 500 members of the Shi'a community were injured or killed between July and November 2016. There continue to be allegations that the government failed to provide adequate security in majority-Shi'a areas.

For example, in June 2016, in Sar-e-Pul Province, the Taliban abducted 17 Hazara Shi'a Muslims; it later released them, reportedly only after their community leaders paid a ransom. Allegedly, they were kidnapped in retaliation for the Afghan government's detention of a local Taliban leader the day before. In July, two ISIS suicide bombers struck a peaceful protest by Hazara Shi'a Muslims in Kabul, killing at least 80 people and injuring more than 400. The community was protesting governmental plans for a power project that would bypass Bamiyan, a predominately Hazara province in the country's central highlands area. Between October 11 and 12, two separate ISIS-claimed attacks targeted the Shi'a community during Ashura celebrations. During the October 11 attack on the Karte Shrine in Kabul, at least 19 people were killed and dozens injured. On October 12, a bomb detonated at a mosque in Khoja Gholak, Balkh Province, resulting in 14 deaths and 30 injuries; most of the victims were children. Also in October, ISIS abducted and killed 30 civilians from the predominately Shi'a area of Ghor Province. In November, an ISIS suicide bomber in Kabul killed at least 32 worshippers and injured 50 more as the Shi'a community observed the religious ceremony of Arba'een.

Conditions for Non-Muslims

Non-Muslim religious communities continue to face societal discrimination, harassment, and, at times, violence. Intimidation and harassment to pressure non-Muslims to convert to Islam have been reported, as well as harassment of converts from Islam. Additionally, non-Muslim communities reported that general insecurity and a lack of economic opportunities have compelled them to emigrate.

In December 2016, the nongovernmental organization National Council of Hindus and Sikhs (NCHS) reported that there were fewer than 200 families, or about 900 individuals, from these two communities remaining in Afghanistan. Despite Hindus and Sikhs being allowed to practice their faiths in public places of worship and being represented in parliament through presidential appointments, in 2016 the NCHS reported that locals often interfere with or disrupt cremation ceremonies for their dead.

There are no reliable estimates of the size of Afghanistan's Christian and Baha'i populations; however, based on reports from refugees in Europe, these populations likely have diminished significantly since the Taliban's resurgence in 2015. The one known Christian church in the country continues to operate on the grounds of the Italian Embassy. Baha'is continue to live covertly due to the 2007 fatwa.

Women's Rights

In Taliban-controlled areas, women are prohibited from working, attending school, or leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative, and are forced to wear the burqa. In December 2016, five assailants  believed to be Taliban members  beheaded a 30-year-old woman for leaving her home without a male relative in the Taliban-controlled remote village of Latti, Sar-e-Pul Province. Moreover, women often are denied access to medical attention due to the lack of female doctors. Women who live outside of Taliban-controlled areas also are targeted by the group.

In Afghan government-controlled areas, due to societal norms often enforced by religious clerics at the local level, women and girls often face discrimination, violence, harassment, forced marriages, prohibitions on working or studying outside the home, and restrictions on how they dress. Women and girls often do not report crimes committed against them. Non-Muslim women report they feel compelled to wear burqas or other face veils.

In March 2016, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ordered the formation of an investigative committee after more than 40 Afghan civil society and women's rights organizations protested the Supreme Court's decision to uphold a lower court's reduction in the sentences imposed on 13 men for the brutal and public 2015 murder of Farkhunda Malikzada, a young Muslim woman falsely accused of burning a Qur'an. The incident made worldwide headlines after a graphic video of the murder went viral. Originally, nearly 50 people, including 19 police officers, stood trial in May 2015. At that time, four of the civilians were sentenced to death, eight were sentenced to 16 years in prison, and 18 were found not guilty; 11 of the police officers were sentenced to one year in prison and eight were acquitted. Subsequently, the four death sentences were reduced to 20 years in prison for three defendants and 10 years in prison for the fourth, and nine of the other prison sentences were shortened significantly.

U.S. POLICY

Afghanistan has been the focus of U.S. engagement in South Asia for over a decade. U.S. government efforts have focused on building a stable Afghanistan and fighting extremist groups. The United States brokered the resolution of Afghanistan's highly contested 2014 presidential election, which led to the creation of the current government. In 2015, U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan transitioned from a combat mission to a training mission, although U.S. forces are still authorized to conduct combat operations. The United States heads two military missions in the country: the joint U.S.-Afghan mission and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Resolute Support mission. In Afghanistan, there are nearly 10,000 U.S. troops; in July 2016, then President Barack Obama announced that they would remain in the country through his term as president. In January 2017, President Donald J. Trump reportedly told Afghan President Ghani that he would continue to support Afghanistan and consider increasing the U.S. troop deployment to the country. Additionally, in late 2015, the United States facilitated the formation of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (comprising the United States, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan). The group's goal was to create a framework for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. However, in 2016, the group had little success and faced significant political challenges when the Afghan government accused the Pakistani government of failing to take action against militant groups. The group last met in May 2016; no future meetings are planned as of this reporting.

In April 2016, then Secretary of State John Kerry travelled to Kabul, where he co-hosted the third U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Commission with Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani. The discussion included issues related to security and defense, democracy and governance, and social and economic development. Additionally, while in Kabul, then Secretary Kerry met with President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. On several occasions, then Ambassador Richard Olson, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, travelled to the country to discuss similar topics. In its bilateral and multilateral engagement with the Afghan government, the U.S. government has urged greater protection for ethnic and religious communities that are likely targets for extremist groups.

Afghanistan's dependence on U.S. and foreign aid is unlikely to change in the near future. In October 2016, more than 100 countries gathered in Brussels, Belgium, to renew commitments first established through the 2012 Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework. International donors committed to provide Afghanistan $15.2 billion in aid through 2020, and the United States pledged it would maintain civilian assistance to Afghanistan at or near levels committed through 2016. In fiscal year 2015, total USAID and Department of State humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan totaled $182.9 million.
PLATTSMOUTH  An Oklahoma man who had been living in Plattsmouth without notifying state sex offender registry officials was sentenced to prison Monday morning.

Brandon C. Parker, 41, appeared in Cass County District Court for sentencing on a Class IIIA felony of violation of sexual offender registry act. Parker was arrested in mid-December and has spent the past 131 days in Cass County Jail.

A female telephoned Plattsmouth police Dec. 16 and said Parker had physically assaulted her during an argument over money. Police learned he had been in Plattsmouth several weeks and had multiple felony warrants out of Oklahoma. They also learned he had neglected to inform local and state authorities of a sex offense on his criminal record.

Deputy County Attorney Colin Palm told the court Parker had been convicted of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child in Neosho County, Kan., in 2004. He was placed on that states sex offender registry for the crime. He was convicted of failing to register for the Kansas registry in 2008 and was charged with failing to register for the Oklahoma registry in 2013. The Oklahoma charge also included an allegation that he had been living within 2,000 feet of a school.

Palm said Oklahoma authorities issued two warrants for Parkers arrest in 2014. The first warrant was for a charge of assaulting a pregnant woman and the second warrant was for assaulting another resident.

Palm said he felt prison time was appropriate in the case. He said Parker had ignored the arrest warrants for several years and said he felt Parker would not likely comply with potential probation requirements. He also said Parkers failure to tell Nebraska authorities about his previous sex offense made him a risk to other members of the public.

Its important to remember that this is a serious charge, Palm said. There is a reason that we as a society ask the people convicted of these crimes to register. We want to keep tabs on them because these are serious offenses.

Judge Michael Smith said he felt the risk was substantial that Parker would engage in additional criminal activity if he was placed on probation. Smith ordered Parker to spend one year in the Nebraska Department of Corrections. Parker will be required to spend 18 months under post-release supervision after he completes his prison term.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Vietnam

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Vietnam, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4513.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

In 2016, Vietnam continued to make progress to improve religious freedom conditions. While the government's Law on Belief and Religion, approved on November 18, 2016, does not comply fully with international standards, the measure reflects the government's and National Assembly's good faith efforts to solicit input from some religious organizations, incorporate guidance from international experts in a relatively transparent fashion, and address myriad religious freedom challenges in the country. Nevertheless, severe religious freedom violations continued, especially against ethnic minority communities in rural areas of some provinces. Given the law's approval late in the reporting period, its effective date of January 1, 2018, and the serious scope and nature of ongoing abuses during 2016, USCIRF again finds that Vietnam merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) in 2017, as it has every year since 2002. USCIRF believes Vietnam may be on the right path toward comprehensive and enduring improvements in religious freedom conditions; continued positive movement along this path may prompt USCIRF to consider moving Vietnam to its Tier 2 list in the future. This possible change in tier status will depend, in part, on whether the Vietnamese government implements and enforces the new law in a manner that ensures the rights of religious organizations and individual believers, providing equal treatment and fairness to both state-sponsored and independent groups, as well as registered and unregistered groups.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Designate Vietnam as a CPC under IRFA;

Continue to work with the government of Vietnam on the Law on Belief and Religion to ensure its implementation is consistent with international human rights standards, and encourage accountability for central and local government officials and law enforcement as well as non-state actors acting in contravention to Vietnamese law, its constitution, and international standards;

Encourage the government of Vietnam to acknowledge and address violations against religious communities by state and non-state actors, including individuals sponsored by the government carrying out such acts, and support the proper training of local government officials, lawyers, judges, and police and security forces who implement, enforce, and interpret the rule of law;

Ensure that human rights and religious freedom are pursued consistently and publicly at every level of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship, including in discussions related to military, trade, or economic and security assistance, and in programs on Internet freedom and civil society development;

Continue regular, visible U.S. government visits to remote, rural areas in Vietnam, including direct contact with independent religious communities as appropriate;

Urge the Vietnamese government to cease detaining and imprisoning members of religious organizations, as well as human rights activists, for peaceful religious activity or religious affiliations, and to promptly and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience;

Encourage the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City to maintain appropriate contact, including in-person visits, with Vietnamese prisoners of conscience, and press the government of Vietnam to ensure them regular access to their families, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and proper legal representation, as specified in international human rights instruments;

Continue to advocate for and provide support to individuals threatened, detained, assaulted, or arrested by the Vietnamese government due to their participation in or attendance at domestic and international meetings and other gatherings with U.S. officials and other international stakeholders; and

Use targeted tools against specific officials and agencies identified as having participated in or responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom, such as the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act.

BACKGROUND

The Vietnamese government has taken notable steps to improve religious freedom conditions in the country. Many individuals and religious communities are able to exercise their religion or beliefs freely, openly, and without fear. In many communities, religious organizations and local officials get along well, with little to no government interference. The country is home to a wide diversity of faiths. The majority of Vietnam's more than 94 million people practice or identify with Buddhism. Estimates vary widely, but more than six million Vietnamese are believed to be Catholic, more than 1.5 to three million are Hoa Hao Buddhists, approximately one to three million are Caodaist, and approximately one to two million are Protestant. Smaller numbers are Khmer Krom Buddhist, Muslim (including ethnic Cham Muslims), Hindu, Baha'i, Mormon, and Falun Gong, as well as practitioners of local religions or other forms of traditional worship.

In general, religious organizations recognized by the government fare better than unrecognized groups. Despite clear improvements, the Vietnamese government either directs or allows harassment and discrimination against unregistered, independent religious organizations, particularly those that also advocate for human rights and/or religious freedom. There is a disconnect between the central government's overtures to improve religious freedom conditions and the ongoing actions taken by local officials, public security, and organized thugs to threaten and physically harm religious followers and their houses of worship or other religious property.

In general, the Vietnamese government continues to crack down on anyone challenging its authority, including lawyers, bloggers, activists, civil society, and religious organizations. For example, the government represses online dissent: in March 2016, a well-known political blogger and his assistant, Nguyen Huu Vinh and Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, received five-and threeyear prison sentences, respectively, for posting so-called "anti-state" articles. In September 2016, their sentences were upheld after an unsuccessful appeal.

Also, in 2016, an environmental disaster resulted in extensive fish and marine life die-offs and undue hardship on local fisherman and residents in affected areas in central Vietnam. As the government arrested peaceful demonstrators who were angered by the government's lack of transparency about the catastrophe, many local religious organizations provided support and resources to those impacted by the disaster and were harassed by the authorities for trying to help the demonstrators. In February 2017, uniformed and plainclothes officials attacked and interrogated Catholic activists and others from Song Ngoc Catholic Parish in Nghe An Province for peacefully demonstrating about the government's handling of the disaster.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Positive and Encouraging Trends

On May 31, 2016, the Vietnamese government granted official national recognition to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and also formally acknowledged the Representative Committee of the LDS Church. Previously, the LDS Church had a temporary representative office. In addition, a handful of clergy reported that the Vietnamese government approved their congregations' registration requests. In September 2016, the Catholic Institute of Vietnam opened in Ho Chi Minh City, becoming the country's first-ever university-level institute of theology. Throughout 2016, the Popular Council of the Independent Cao Dai Church detected less government repression than in previous years. The group was able to perform altar installation ceremonies and funerals without disruption, despite opposition and intimidation by the government-run Cao Dai Church's Governing Council. However, the group remains fearful that government-driven repression will return at any time.

Harassment of Certain Religious Groups and Individuals

The Vietnamese government regularly targets certain individuals and groups because of their faith, ethnicity, advocacy for democracy, human rights, or religious freedom, historic ties to the West, or desire to remain independent of Communist government control. These include the independent Cao Dai; independent Buddhists like the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), Hoa Hao, and Khmer Krom; Montagnards; Hmong; Falun Gong; and followers of Duong Van Minh.

In June 2016, public security officials harassed, physically assaulted, and prevented several Hoa Hao Buddhists from participating in celebrations associated with the June 22 anniversary of their faith. Authorities used checkpoints to block access to Quang Minh Pagoda, the only Hoa Hao Buddhist pagoda in the country not under the government's control. Hoa Hao Buddhists reported other incidents involving the pagoda in January and April 2016; according to Hoa Hao followers, the April incident led to the beating of one of their religious leaders by unknown attackers who may have been part of public security. Hoa Hao Buddhists reported a separate April incident in An Giang Province in which both plain clothes and uniformed public security threatened, harassed, or assaulted more than 50 followers.

Also in June 2016, authorities disrupted a Catholic prayer service, held at a parishioner's home in the Muong Khuong district of Lao Cai Province. Security agents reportedly assaulted some of the Catholics and confiscated cellphones of those attempting to record the incident.

Throughout 2016, Vietnamese officials deliberately targeted individuals for interacting with foreign representatives, particularly Westerners. For example, in March 2016, authorities detained Tran Thi Hong, the wife of imprisoned Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, as she was en route to meet with then U.S. Ambassador- at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein. She eventually met the U.S. delegation at her home, but has since been subjected to repeated official harassment (see the section below on Arrests and Imprisonments). Also, on April 6, authorities reportedly arrested and interrogated Pastor Y Noen Ayun of the Evangelical Church of Christ because he, too, met with then Ambassador Saperstein. The pastor previously has been arrested or threatened with jail time due to his religious activities.

In another incident, in mid-August 2016 local police in Dak Nong Province invited Y Than to the police station for questioning after his father, Pastor Rmah Loan, formerly of the Southern Evangelical Church of Vietnam, testified in June at a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing about human rights in Vietnam. Police questioned Mr. Y Than, who is also a pastor, about the three churches where he currently serves.

Also in August 2016, officials targeted two individuals from the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ who attended a regional religious freedom conference in Timor-Leste. Public security in Kon Tum Province arrested Pastor A Dao after he returned to Vietnam from the conference, confiscating documents and his electronic devices; officials similarly interrogated and searched the home of Y Bet, confiscating her personal belongings. Public security also harassed and threatened two other individuals in connection with Pastor A Dao and Ms. Y Bet's participation in the conference. In addition, authorities scrutinized two men upon their return to Vietnam from the conference: Bui Van Tham, a Hao Hao Buddhist, was detained, and Professor Dinh Kim Phuc was interrogated at least twice. Two other men, Mennonite Pastor Pham Ngoc Thach, a former prisoner of conscience, and Cao Dai Popular Council Representative Nguyen Van Phuc were prevented from leaving the country to attend the conference.

Ethnic minority Montagnards from the Central Highlands, many of whom are Protestant, face numerous government restrictions: some are prevented from holding religious ceremonies, many are summoned to meet with local authorities and pressured to cease practicing their faith, and pastors are harassed or punished. In 2016, USCIRF received a report that in one incident, authorities arrested at least seven Montagnard Christians from the Central Highlands after police reportedly instructed the individuals to stop believing in God. In July, 16 Montagnards returned to Vietnam after seeking asylum in Cambodia; applications for all but one, who did not complete the application, were rejected. Aside from an original group of 13 Montagnards, no others have been granted refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in recent years.

Lastly, USCIRF continues to receive reports of forced renunciations of faith. For example, authorities reportedly harassed followers of Montagnard Pastor Xiem Ksor, who died on January 14, 2016, after public security physically assaulted him on Christmas Eve 2015.

Harassment Relating to Property and/or Disruption of Religious Activities

Religious organizations continue to report threats of eviction from or demolition of their religious property; in some cases, the government follows through on its threats. Not all seizures or destruction of religious property are rooted in religious freedom, but in many cases the acts ultimately disrupt or interfere with religious practices. For example, on March 24, 2016, officials attempted to seize the An Ninh Tay Cao Dai Temple in Long An Province by locking the doors and demanding that two church officials abandon the temple. The temple is used by followers of the independent Cao Dai Church, whom local officials have for years tried to pressure into joining the government-sanctioned Cao Dai Church.

In June 2016, local authorities desecrated a cross and destroyed other property at the Thien An Catholic monastery in Thua Thien-Hue Province. The local government had accused the monastery of illegal deforestation on the property, an allegation monastery officials deny. On September 8, 2016, authorities in Ho Chi Minh City seized and demolished the UBCV-affiliated Lien Tri Pagoda and evicted its monks. For more than two years, authorities threatened to demolish the pagoda, harassing and intimidating Buddhists in order to make way for development projects.

The government harassed followers of the small Christian sect known as Duong Van Minh and burned and/or destroyed funeral storage sheds central to the group's core practices. As of September 2016, authorities, sometimes plain clothes, destroyed 52 of 56 funeral sheds throughout four provinces. On August 29, 2016, in Tuyen Quang Province, authorities reportedly injured at least eight Duong Van Minh followers while destroying the group's funeral sheds.

Law on Belief and Religion

The Vietnamese government can stop harassing, threatening, physically assaulting, and detaining or imprisoning religious communities and individuals without legislative action. Now that the Law on Belief and Religion has been approved, the international community should closely monitor its implementation. In the meantime, it is worth noting the law's positive elements: it extends legal personality to some religious organizations; reduces the time religious organizations must wait for government registration; encourages the establishment of religious schools or other educational facilities; and transitions some government approvals to notifications, for example, regarding clergy and certain religious activities.

Despite this positive language, critics believe the law will restrict freedoms through burdensome, mandatory registration requirements and empower the Vietnamese government to excessively interfere in many aspects of religious life. Critics also believe the law's modest improvements largely benefit only registered, state-recognized religious organizations. They believe the law ignores the fact that many religious organizations wish to remain independent, and represents the government's desire to increasingly control religion and belief. The law also contains a vaguely worded national security provision (article 5, clause 4) that human rights advocates and religious communities are concerned will be open to broad interpretation that restricts freedoms, especially at the local level.

Lastly, it is important to note the strong objections many religious organizations in Vietnam have about the law. These are the individuals and groups it will directly impact, and the Vietnamese government and international community should continue to heed their sentiments, both positive and negative, about the law's bearing on their ability to freely practice their faith.

Arrests and Imprisonments

As of July 2016, Amnesty International had identified at least 84 prisoners of conscience in Vietnam, though many other believers are detained, imprisoned, or awaiting trial on related charges. While the number of prosecutions has declined in recent years, many religious communities report increased harassment by local police, public security, and hired thugs, particularly in remote, rural areas. At times, the government has refused to acknowledge it has incarcerated prisoners of conscience, instead referring to these individuals as "lawbreakers."

On April 14, 2016, authorities arrested Tran Thi Hong just weeks after she met with then Ambassador Saperstein. Authorities continued to harass, detain, and assault Ms. Tran for several weeks after her initial arrest, including physically assaulting her 18-year-old son. Her husband, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, has been in prison since 2011. His health is in critical condition and has been for several months. Other prisoners of conscience include Khmer Krom Buddhist the Venerable Thach Thuol, and Christian human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai. In addition, UBCV Patriarch Thich Quang Do remains under effective house arrest. Ahead of then President Barack Obama's trip to Vietnam in May 2016, the Vietnamese government released Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly from prison. Father Ly, a long-time advocate for political and religious freedom, had been serving an eight-year prison sentence. While human rights advocates had hoped the Vietnamese government would release several other prisoners of conscience in coordination with then President Obama's visit, Fr. Ly was the only one. Prominent activist and religious freedom advocate Bui Thi Minh Hang completed her sentence and was released in February 2017.

U.S. POLICY

Following then President Obama's trip to Vietnam in May 2016, the United States and Vietnam issued a joint statement highlighting several key collaborations, for example: Fulbright University Vietnam, the country's first privately funded university; a new Peace Corps country agreement; and one-year, multi-entry visas. During remarks at Hanoi's National Convention Center, then President Obama spoke about the universal values of human rights and how freedom of religion touches both individuals and communities. While U.S. officials noted that then President Obama raised human rights concerns throughout his visit, human rights advocates expressed disappointment for several reasons. First, as mentioned above, the Vietnamese government released only one prisoner ahead of then President Obama's visit: Fr. Ly. Second, many were concerned that by fully lifting the ban on the sale of lethal weapons to Vietnam, the United States gave away influential leverage on human rights issues. Finally, many were angered that Vietnamese officials prevented several individuals from attending a civil society roundtable with then President Obama. The fact that the roundtable occurred at all, with the inclusion of clergy representatives, is a positive sign, albeit marred by the Vietnamese government's interference.

In April 2016, ahead of then President Obama's visit, the United States hosted Vietnam for the annual Human Rights Dialogue, and religious freedom was among the human rights issues discussed.

November 13, 2016, marked the 10-year anniversary of the State Department's removal of Vietnam's designation as a CPC. When the designation was lifted in 2006, USCIRF agreed that the Vietnamese government had made modest religious freedom improvements, but believed the new policies and legal protections had not been in effect long enough to take hold. (For further information, refer to Religious Freedom in Vietnam: Assessing the Country of Particular Concern Designation 10 Years after its Removal at www.uscirf.gov.)

The United States should commend Vietnam for its noticeable religious freedom improvements, yet, in light of serious and ongoing religious freedom violations, also encourage its government to undertake additional steps that would bring the country's policies and practices in line with international human rights standards.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Uzbekistan

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Uzbekistan, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4613.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

With an estimated 13,500 religious and political prisoners, the government of Uzbekistan continues to perpetrate severe violations of religious freedom. In April 2016, the sections of the criminal and administrative codes used to restrict freedom of religion or belief were amended to increase penalties for various infractions. The Uzbek government continues to imprison hundreds of Muslims who do not conform to officially prescribed religious practices or whom it claims are extremist. The suspicion of terrorism was used to justify persecution of Uzbek labor migrants and their families, while Kazakh and Russian citizens were arrested at the border for possessing religious materials. Members of Protestant denominations were subjected to frequent harassment through raids on private homes, seizures of religious literature, and the levying of fines. Based on these systematic, egregious, ongoing violations, USCIRF again finds in 2017 that Uzbekistan merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). While the State Department has designated Uzbekistan as a CPC since 2006, most recently in October 2016, it has indefinitely waived taking any action as a consequence of the designation.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate Uzbekistan as a CPC under IRFA;

Lift the waiver on taking an action as a consequence of the CPC designation, in place since January 2009, and work to establish a binding agreement with the Uzbek government, under section 405(c) of IRFA, on steps it can take to be removed from the CPC list; should negotiations fail or Uzbekistan not uphold its commitments, impose sanctions, as stipulated in IRFA;

Condition U.S. assistance, except humanitarian assistance and human rights programs, on the Uzbek government's adoption of specific actions to improve religious freedom conditions and comply with international human rights standards, including reforming the 1998 religion law and permitting international investigations into the 2005 Andijon events and the 2010 prison death of Muslim leader Akram Yuldashev;

Make the return of corruption-linked funds seized by the United States under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative dependent on the Uzbek government's adoption of specific actions to improve religious freedom conditions and comply with international human rights standards;

Use targeted tools against specific officials and agencies identified as having participated in or responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom, such as the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act;

Press for UN Human Rights Council scrutiny of the human rights situation in Uzbekistan, as well as raise concerns in other multilateral settings, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and urge the Uzbek government to agree to visits by UN Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief, on the independence of the judiciary, and on torture; set specific visit dates; and provide the full and necessary conditions for such a visit;

Ensure that U.S. statements and actions are coordinated across agencies so that U.S. concerns about religious freedom and related human rights are reflected in its public statements and private interactions with the Uzbek government, including calls for the release of religious prisoners;

Ensure that the U.S. Embassy, including at the ambassadorial level, maintains appropriate contacts with human rights activists and religious leaders;

Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the immediate release of individuals imprisoned for their peaceful religious activities or religious affiliations and press the Uzbek government to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and lawyers and the ability to practice their faith;

Ensure continued U.S. funding for Radio Ozodlik and the Uzbek Service of the Voice of America; and

Ensure that INTERPOL implements announced reforms to more effectively process complaints about the misuse of international arrest and extradition requests, known as "red notices," to pursue political and religious dissidents.

BACKGROUND

With an estimated 28.7 million people, Uzbekistan is the most populous post-Soviet Central Asian state. An estimated 93 percent of its population is Muslim, mostly following the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, with about 1 percent Shi'a, mostly in Bukhara and Samarkand. Some 4 percent are Russian Orthodox, while the other three percent include Roman Catholics, ethnic Korean Christians, Baptists, Lutherans, Adventists, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddhists, Baha'is, Hare Krishnas, and atheists. About 6,000 Ashkenazi and 2,000 Bukharan Jews live in Tashkent and other cities.

Uzbekistan's 1998 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations severely limits the rights of all religious groups and facilitates government control of religious activity, particularly of the majority-Muslim community. The law criminalizes unregistered religious activity; requires official approval of the content, production, and distribution of religious publications; bans minors from religious organizations; allows only clerics to wear religious clothing in public; and prohibits proselytism and other missionary activities. Many religious groups cannot meet registration requirements, such as a permanent representation in eight of the country's 13 provinces. A detailed censorship decree went into effect in 2014 banning materials that "distort" beliefs or encourage individuals to change religions.

The Council on Religious Affairs (CRA) censors religious materials. The government also maintains an extensive list of banned international websites, particularly those pertaining to human rights and freedom of religion or belief. The religion law prohibits the import, storage, production, and distribution of unapproved religious materials. Members of various religious communities reportedly destroy their own sacred texts due to fear of confiscation during police raids. According to a CRA official, Uzbek law only allows religious texts to be read inside the buildings of registered religious groups.

The Uzbek government actively represses individuals, groups, mosques, and other houses of worship that do not conform to officially prescribed religious practices or for alleged association with extremist political programs. While Uzbekistan faces security threats from groups using violence in the name of religion, the government has used vague anti-extremism laws against peaceful religious adherents and others who pose no credible security threat. Particular targets include those allegedly linked to the May 2005 protests in Andijon against the conviction of 23 businessmen for their supposed membership in the banned Muslim group Akromiya. Responding to that largely peaceful protest, Uzbek government troops killed up to 1,000 civilians. Two hundred and thirty individuals accused of involvement in the protests remain jailed, and 11 prisoners have died in custody, including spiritual leader Akram Yuldashev. In January 2016  a month before his release from 17 years of imprisonment  Uzbek officials informed the world and Yuldashev's family that he had died in 2010, supposedly of tuberculosis. The Uzbek government also pressures other countries to return hundreds of Uzbeks who fled after the Andijon tragedy and bans their relatives from leaving Uzbekistan to reunite with their family members living abroad.

In September 2016, Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's first and only post-Soviet president, died. Three months later, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan's prime minister since 2003, became president after an election that international monitors criticized for a lack of transparency. Mirziyoyev is believed to be part of a ruling triumvirate with the equally long-serving Rustam Azimov, the minister of finance, and Rustam Inoyatov, the head of the security services.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Application of Religion and Extremism Laws

The Uzbek government continues to regard religious activity outside of official channels with deep suspicion and wields a variety of repressive instruments against those who fail to submit to state control of religious practice, including fines, punitive searches, detention, torture, prolonged imprisonment, and the intimidation of family members. In April 2016, articles 244-1 and 244-2 of the Criminal Code, governing the crimes of having "extremist materials" or taking part in "extremist organizations," were broadened and the maximum penalties raised from 5 to 8 years and from 15 to 20 years' imprisonment respectively. Many long-term prisoners of conscience are denied due process and are subject to inhumane conditions of confinement. According to the Uzbek Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders (IGNPU), as of late 2016, there were 13,500 individuals imprisoned for alleged violations of Uzbekistan's overly broad religion or extremism laws.

Arbitrary Accusations of Islamic Extremism

With several hundred Uzbeks believed to be fighting in Syria and Iraq, the Uzbek government has legitimate concerns about terrorism. Nevertheless, the widespread use of torture and coercion by Uzbek authorities, the use of religious charges to settle political and economic scores, and frequent reliance on guilt by association make it difficult to disentangle legitimate prosecutions from arbitrary or fabricated ones. In February 2016, for example, an Uzbek citizen and Armenian Christian fish farmer, Aramais Avakian, was sentenced along with four Uzbeks to seven years in prison on allegations of planning to stage a rebellion and then flee to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Not only does the case appear to have been based on testimony extracted through torture  Avakian's leg was broken in detention  but the chief witness and co-defendant, Furkat Dzhuraev, later admitted to inventing many of the key details. Avakian's family, for its part, claims he was targeted after he refused to surrender ownership of his fish farm to a local administrator.

In the first half of 2016, Radio Ozodlik, the Uzbek Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), reported on the arrests of dozens of young men who had studied or worked abroad, mainly in Russia but also in the United States, often solely due to their alleged association with one or two suspect individuals. Despite charging 20 young men from Sokh Province in January 2016 with alleged connections to ISIS, 12 were released two months later. The apparent reason for their arrest was that they had worked in Russia with two men who later emigrated to the Middle East for unclear reasons. In January 2017, Umar Badalov was arrested at the Tashkent airport after arriving from Russia, where he worked as a heavy equipment operator. Badalov previously had been convicted of Islamic extremism and was amnestied in 2003 after serving four years of a 17-year sentence; the IGNPU reported that the authorities planned to charge him with a September 2015 explosion outside a mosque that took place while he and his wife were at a maternity hospital 35 kilometers (22 miles) away.

Charges of terrorism are also believed to be brought as a "prophylactic" measure against persons deemed excessively religious. For example, Forum 18 News Service reported that two cousins, Jonibek Turdiboyev and Mansurkhon Akhmedov, were sentenced to five years in prison in May 2016 for having a CD containing an ISIS sermon; their relatives insisted that it was a music CD and that their family was being persecuted for its religiosity.

Persecution of Expatriates and Their Families

A large number of Uzbek citizens live abroad, including at least 1.7 million in Russia, mostly for economic reasons but also to escape religious and political persecution. The government closely monitors and harasses the families of expatriates in the belief that Uzbeks overseas are susceptible to subversion and religious extremism. In particular, the relatives of people who have left the country for religious reasons were subjected to intense harassment throughout the year in an attempt to force their exiled family members to return or cease their activities abroad. According to Radio Ozodlik, the punishments ranged from punitive searches of family homes to interrogation, arrest, and public shaming. In addition, the Uzbek government reportedly has issued numerous international arrest and extradition requests  better known as INTERPOL "red notices"  for hundreds of its citizens, including against political and religious dissidents.

Restrictions on Muslim Religious Activity

Private religious practice without official sanction is subject to severe penalties in Uzbekistan. In July 2016, according to Forum 18, four Sufi Muslims whose identities have not been established were sentenced to four years in prison for holding religious meetings at home. That same month, two private teachers of the Qur'an were arrested; one was fined and released, but the other may still face indictment. The public practice of state-sanctioned Islam continues to be restricted in different and unpredictable ways in an effort to diminish religiosity. During Ramadan, as reported by Radio Ozodlik, the government banned the public celebration of the fast-breaking Iftar meal. Multiple guard posts were also posted at mosques to ensure that no children could attend religious services and Uzbek schoolchildren were forbidden from visiting mosques during their summer holidays. According to the independent Fergana News Agency, the Uzbek government restricts the number of pilgrims permitted to make the hajj to Mecca to one-fifth of the quota allotted by Saudi Arabia.

"Forbidden" Islamic Religious Materials

Uzbek authorities regularly inspect travelers' electronic media at borders; persons who have "forbidden" materials can be summarily arrested and sentenced to prison terms. Radio Ozodlik reported that at least two Kazakh citizens were arrested during 2016 on such charges; one was amnestied while the other, Akmal Rasulov, was sentenced in July to a five-year prison term for sermons on his cell phone. Ethnic Uzbeks who fled the Kyrgyz city of Osh after 2010 mass interethnic violence and became citizens of other countries also have been arrested for such reasons. In January and May 2016, Russian citizens Bakhtiyar Khudoiberdiev and Zukhriddin Abduraimzhonov were arrested and received prison sentences of six and three years respectively; they were held at border crossings while in transit to Kyrgyzstan.

Inhumane Detention Conditions

In Uzbek prisons and labor camps, religious prisoners of conscience routinely face physical and psychological torture, malnutrition, poor sanitation, and arbitrary changes of conditions. In February 2016, three long-serving religious prisoners  Ikromzhon Nizamov, Doston Abdurakhmanov, and Shakhob Makhkamov  reportedly died, one from tuberculosis and the other two allegedly after severe torture. As prisoners reach the end of their sentences, their terms are often extended or new charges are brought; the IGNPU estimates that 4000 of the country's religious and political prisoners have had their sentences prolonged in this manner. In August 2016, Zulhumor Hamdamova, jailed along with her sister Mehriniso since 2010 for holding home classes on Islam, had her sentence extended by three years. As of November 2016, Mehriniso was due to be tried on unknown new charges. In January 2016, Kamol Odilov, one of 100 Muslims jailed for studying the texts of Turkish theologian Said Nursi, had his sentence extended on allegations that he had started a fight in camp  only days before his scheduled release from imprisonment.

Repression of Christians

The Uzbek government tends to reserve the harshest punishments for the expression of religious belief by the Muslim majority population. The only known Christian prisoner of conscience, Baptist Tohar Haydarov, was released in November 2016 after serving 6 years of a 10-year camp term. Members of Christian denominations suspected of missionary activity often are fined, detained, and subjected to punitive house searches, often for merely possessing religious literature in their private homes. Forum 18 has reported on dozens of such incidents in 2016, primarily affecting Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, and Seventh-day Adventists. As with other instances of religious repression, Uzbek authorities seem to be capricious in their choice of penalties: a Christian was jailed for 15 days in March 2016 on a charge of "hooliganism" after the police searched his home for religious literature; in August 2016, an ethnic Korean Baptist, Stanislav Kim, was sentenced to two years of house arrest for private possession of religious books; and in January 2017, an Adventist had his car seized in lieu of a fine for possessing a "forbidden" book which had been approved by authorities earlier in the year.

U.S. POLICY

Uzbekistan is Central Asia's most populous country and shares borders with the four other former Soviet republics in Central Asia as well as Afghanistan. The country also has a central position in the regional Soviet- era rail system that connects with Russia. Therefore, U.S. policy in Uzbekistan has focused on the country's key position in the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a supply route for international forces in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is the NDN hub but at times have not been cooperative. Although aid and assistance periodically have been withheld over the last decade due to human rights concerns, there remain important spheres of cooperation between the United States and Uzbekistan, including counter narcotics, border security, and counter-terrorism.

The United States instituted Annual Bilateral Consultations (ABCs) with each Central Asian state in 2009. The most recent U.S.-Uzbekistan ABC was held in Washington, DC in January 2016. The U.S. delegation was led by then Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal; Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov headed Uzbekistan's delegation. Human rights issues discussed included the status of several religious and other prisoners, restrictions on civil society and media, labor rights, and religious freedom, particularly the onerous registration requirements for religious groups. In April 2016, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia Daniel Rosenblum met in Tashkent with the families of two men, Aramais Avakian and Furkat Dzhuraev, imprisoned on religious charges.

In February 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice froze more than $800 million held in Western bank accounts in connection with an investigation into bribes allegedly paid by Western mobile network operators to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the late Uzbek president. The money was seized under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, an anti-corruption program inaugurated by the Department of Justice in 2010. Some argue that the return of the money to Uzbek authorities should be contingent on the fulfillment of human rights obligations.

In August 2016, the State Department hosted the second meeting of the new C5+1 diplomatic format, intended to bring together the foreign ministers of the five Central Asian states and the U.S. for discussions on a wide range of multilateral issues, including respect for basic freedoms. In the joint statement issued at the meeting, all five ministers and then Secretary of State John Kerry committed, among other things, to furthering civil rights and democratic freedoms.

Since 2006, the State Department has designated Uzbekistan as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, for its systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom. The CPC designation was renewed most recently in October 2016, but the State Department continued its policy of indefinitely waiving taking any action as a consequence, citing it is in the "important national interest of the United States" pursuant to IRFA section 407.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Turkmenistan

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Turkmenistan, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4713.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

In a climate of pervasive government control of information, particularly severe violations of freedom of religion or belief persisted in Turkmenistan in 2016. The government requires religious groups to register under intrusive criteria, strictly controls registered groups' activities, and bans and punishes religious activities by unregistered groups. A new 2016 religion law further tightened registration requirements. Police raids and harassment of registered and unregistered religious groups continued. At least 20 Sunni Muslims who engaged in private religious study remain jailed; their leader, Bahram Saparov, is serving a 15-year term and reportedly has been severely tortured. Two Jehovah's Witnesses, Mansur Masharipov and Bahram Hemdemov, are known to be in prison for religious activity and reportedly have suffered torture. Turkmen law does not allow a civilian alternative to military service, and six Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors are known to be detained. In light of these severe violations, USCIRF again finds in 2017 that Turkmenistan merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated Turkmenistan as a CPC since 2014, most recently in October 2016.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate Turkmenistan as a CPC under IRFA;

Lift the waiver on taking an action as a consequence of the CPC designation and negotiate a binding agreement with the government of Turkmenistan, under section 405(c) of IRFA, to achieve specific and meaningful reforms, with benchmarks that include major legal reform, an end to police raids, prisoner releases, and greater access to foreign coreligionists; should an agreement not be reached, impose sanctions, as stipulated in IRFA;

Use targeted tools against specific officials and agencies identified as having participated in or responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom, such as the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act;

Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the immediate release of individuals imprisoned for their peaceful religious activities or religious affiliations and press the Turkmen government to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and lawyers and the ability to practice their faith;

Ensure that the U.S. Embassy, including at the ambassadorial level, continues to maintain appropriate contacts with human rights activists and religious leaders;

Encourage the establishment of a regular regional forum for U.S. and Central Asian civil society groups on human rights issues, including freedom of religion or belief;

Raise concerns about Turkmenistan's record on religious freedom and related human rights in bilateral meetings, such as the Annual Bilateral Consultations, as well as appropriate international fora, including the United Nations and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe;

Encourage the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) and the OSCE Presence, both based in Ashgabat, to enhance the human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, aspect of their activities;

Urge the Turkmen government to agree to another visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, as well as visits from the Special Rapporteurs on independence of the judiciary and on torture, set specific visit dates, and provide the full and necessary conditions for their visits;

Ensure continued U.S. funding for Radio Azatlyk; and

Continue to press the Turkmen government to resume the U.S. Peace Corps program.

BACKGROUND

Turkmenistan has an estimated total population of 5.1 million. The Turkmen government does not track religious affiliation; the U.S. government estimates that the country is about 85 percent Sunni Muslim and 9 percent Russian Orthodox. Other smaller religious groups include Shi'a Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, and Evangelical Christians.

Turkmenistan is the most closed country in the former Soviet Union. The country's first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died in late 2006, established a quasi-religious personality cult that dominated Turkmenistan's public life. After assuming the presidency in early 2007, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov ordered the release of 11 political prisoners, including the former chief mufti; he also placed certain limits on Niyazov's personality cult, set up two new official human rights commissions, registered 13 minority religious groups, eased police controls on internal travel, and allowed Turkmenistan to become slightly more open to the outside world.

However, President Berdimuhamedov has not reformed oppressive Turkmen laws, maintains a state structure of repressive control, and has reinstituted a pervasive presidential personality cult that as of 2016 includes the required reading of one of his texts in state schools. A new constitution, signed into law in September 2016, increased presidential terms from five to seven years and dropped the 70-year presidential age limit; in effect, Berdimuhamedov has the legal basis to be president-for-life. The Turkmen government continues its information isolation campaign, including by strictly controlling the Internet and communications; it also harasses and imprisons journalists, including from the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/ RL). In February 2017, Berdimuhamedov was re-elected with 97 percent of the vote in an election that was widely regarded as unfair by international observers.

The country is adjacent to northern Afghanistan, which is home to around 250,000 Turkmen, some of whom the Turkmen government alleges sympathize with Islamist extremist groups. As a result, the government is concerned about religious extremism spreading into Turkmenistan. In 2016, the Afghan Taliban continued to attack and have reportedly killed at least 27 guards at the Turkmen border.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Government Control over Religious Activities

Like its predecessor, the new constitution purports to guarantee religious freedom, the separation of religion and state, and equality regardless of religion or belief, but Turkmen law and government practice contradict these guarantees. A new religion law went into effect in April 2016, replacing the 2013 religion law. The new law raised the minimum requirement for groups to register from five to 50 adult citizen founders. It continues the previous law's intrusive registration criteria, prohibition on any activity by unregistered groups, requirement that the government be informed of all foreign financial support, bans on worship in private homes and private religious education, and prohibition on the wearing of religious garb in public except by clerics. It is illegal for unregistered groups to rent, purchase, or build places of worship, and even registered groups must obtain scarce government permits. Justice Ministry officials can attend any religious event of a registered religious community and ask its members about religious activities. Religious activity is not permitted in prisons or in the military.

The Commission for Work with Religious Organizations (CWRO) and Expert Analysis of Resources with Religious Information, Published and Printed Production, which reports to the Cabinet of Ministers and is headed by Turkmenistan's former chief imam Mekan Akyev, must approve registration applications before they are sent to the Justice Ministry. Other required registration approval entities include the First Deputies of the Foreign Minister, the General Prosecutor, the secret police, the Interior Minister, and the Deputy Head of the State Service for Registering Foreign Citizens. Registration is rarely granted, especially for communities the government dislikes, such as non-Muslim communities led by ethnic Turkmens. Registration denials often have been arbitrary.

According to the Turkmen government, 130 religious communities were registered with the state as of November 2016: 106 Muslim (101 Sunni, five Shi'a), 13 Russian Orthodox, and 11 of other faiths. Some communities have decided not to register due to the onerous and opaque process, while certain Shi'a Muslim groups, the Armenian Apostolic Church, some Protestant groups, and registration applications from Jehovah's Witnesses have faced numerous rejections.

The 2016 religion law requires registered religious communities to modify their governing statutes if state officials deem that necessary. All registered religious communities have been told they must re-register based on a new model statute, but as of early December 2016, the Justice Ministry had not produced a model statute.

In addition to the foregoing, the Turkmen state imposes unwritten conditions for the exercise of freedom of religion or belief, for example by requiring that religious leaders and believers cooperate closely with the secret police.

Punishment for Religious Activities

Unregistered and registered religious groups face frequent raids by secret police, ordinary police (especially from antiterrorism and organized crime units), local officials, and local CWRO officials. The government continues to impose harsh penalties, such as imprisonment, involuntary drug treatment, and torture, for religious activities and human rights advocacy, including for religious freedom. In recent years, Muslims, Protestants, and Jehovah's Witnesses have been detained, fined, imprisoned, or internally exiled for their religious beliefs or activities. Politically sensitive trials often take place in a "closed regimen" without even the length of the sentence being made public.

Turkmenistan denies the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the country's prisons, where the United Nations (UN) Committee Against Torture has found that torture and other ill treatment occur. Many religious prisoners are held at Seydi Labor Camp in the Lebap Region desert or at the isolated top-security prison at Ovadan-Depe in the Karakum Desert, north of Ashgabat. A news drought applies to 80 political and religious prisoners, according to the nongovernmental organization coalition known as "Prove They Are Alive." An unknown number of Muslim prisoners of conscience remain jailed. According to the independent Alternative News of Turkmenistan (ANT), about 120 so-called "Wahhabis" were held in a closed section in Ovadan-Depe as of 2014, and cannot receive parcels or visits from relatives. The term "Wahhabi" typically refers to a follower of the strict Saudi interpretation of Sunni Islam, but Central Asian governments apply it to a broader range of Muslims, including political opponents and those who practice Islam independently of government strictures.

Muslim leader Bahram Saparov is serving a 15-year term in Ovadan-Depe Prison. Saparov, age 34, was sentenced three times, most recently in June 2016, and has been held incommunicado and reportedly severely beaten; he had led a Hanafi Sunni Muslim group in Turkmenabad that held home meetings to study Islam. In a closed mass trial in May 2013, Saparov and about 20 others in his group were convicted of various criminal charges and sentenced to long prison terms, Forum 18 reported. In January 2017, ANT reported that two members of the Saparov group, Lukman Yailanov and Narkuly Baltaev, had died in Ovadan-Depe Prison in the second half of 2016; Baltaev is said to have weighed only 25 kilograms (55 pounds) at the time of his death.

Separately, ANT reported on the cases of Annamurad Atdaev and Yoldash Khodzhamuradov. After Atdaev returned from studying in Egypt, he was repeatedly interrogated by the Ministry of State Security (MNB), apparently under suspicion of being an Islamic radical, before being arrested in September 2016 and convicted in December on a variety of charges, including "inspiring religious, national, and social hatred" and plotting a coup d'etat. At the end of the reporting period, he was being held incommunicado in Ovadan-Depe Prison. Apparently fearing a similar fate, Khodzhamuradov hanged himself in December 2016 after being accused of Wahhabism and pressured to inform on fellow Muslims by the MNB.

In February 2017, Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen service of RFE/RL, reported that approximately 30 of more than 150 persons arrested in late 2016 for connections to the Hizmet movement of exiled Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, possibly at the urging of the Turkish government, had been sentenced to prison. Two businessmen, Resul Atageldyev and Dovlet Ataev, received terms of 25 years. In December 2016, many of the Hizmet detainees reportedly had been tortured brutally during interrogations.

In July 2014, police raided Jehovah's Witness Mansur Masharipov's home in Dashoguz. They confiscated and later destroyed religious texts, and held Masharipov in a drug rehabilitation center where he was tortured and injected with unknown drugs and from which he later escaped; after his June 2016 re-arrest, Masharipov was sentenced to one year in prison for allegedly assaulting a police officer, a charge he denies. After hosting a religious meeting, Jehovah's Witness Bahram Hemdemov received a four-year prison term in May 2015 in Turkmenabad on false charges of inciting religious enmity; reportedly he has been tortured in prison. Jehovah's Witnesses also have been detained and fined, especially for insisting on their legal rights or for appealing to the UN.

In February 2016, members of Greater Grace Protestant Church were fined for going to the town of Tejen to discuss their faith with others. School officials also reportedly have fired Protestant teachers and publicly bullied Protestant families and pressured them to deny their faith. Secret police warned the pastor of a registered Baptist church in the city of Mary that he should not hold a 2016 children's summer camp, Forum 18 reported.

Government Interference in Internal Religious Affairs

The Turkmen government interferes in the internal leadership and organizational arrangements of religious communities. Sunni Islam is the only permitted type of Islam, and the Sunni Muftiate (Muslim Spiritual Administration) is under tight government control. The Justice Ministry names the chief mufti and senior muftiate officials, who also function as CWRO officials and thereby oversee the activities of other religious communities. The muftiate appoints imams, including at the district level, and district imams appoint local mullahs, with all appointments subject to secret police vetting. Sermons by imams at Friday prayers convey state messages; the Justice Ministry forbids imams from discussing certain topics, and prayers end with a short prayer for the president.

The country's largest religious minority, the Moscow Patriarchate Russian Orthodox Church (MPROC), has unsuccessfully tried to establish an official diocese in Turkmenistan, Forum 18 reported. In November 2016, two foreign-based MPROC hierarchs visited Turkmenistan to discuss this issue. In June 2016, the Turkmen government ordered Father Grigory Bochurov to leave the country; he is a Russian citizen who served four years as the patriarchal deanery secretary and senior priest of Ashgabat's St. Nikolai Church.

Aside from basic education in some mosques and MPROC churches, formal religious education is almost totally banned. Religious groups cannot arrange lectures, courses, or training programs. The sole exception is a small Muslim theological section in the history faculty of Ashgabat's Turkmen State University; this section is authorized to train imams, but the number of students is restricted, foreign staff is banned, and all students need government and secret police approval.

Restrictions on Houses of Worship

The new religion law allows registered religious communities to own property and requires CWRO and local administration approval to build places of worship. In practice, however, religious communities face major difficulties in building or acquiring places of worship.

In April 2016, the Sunni Muslim Aksa Mosque in Ashgabat became the eighth of 14 of that city's mosques destroyed by the Turkmen authorities in recent years. That mosque, built in the early 1990s through local donations, accommodated 100 worshippers; city officials claimed it was demolished because it had been built without permission, according to RFE/RL's Turkmen Service. Most of the recently destroyed mosques have been Sunni Muslim mosques.

The Pentecostal Light of the East Church in Dashoguz, registered in 2005, has not been able to meet for worship since early 2015; it does not own a building, and owners of possible rental sites are not willing to rent space to the community in the face of official threats.

Although the religion law gives religious organizations priority in regaining former places of worship, the Armenian Apostolic Church so far has been unable to regain its former church in Turkmenbashi, confiscated in the Soviet era and later partially destroyed, despite President Berdimuhamedov's 2012 promise to return and reopen it for worship. In 2015, MPROC Patriarch Kirill complained that his church's requests to recover places of worship confiscated during the Soviet period in Turkmenistan went unanswered.

State Control of Religious Literature

Searches for and confiscations of "illegal" religious literature remain a constant threat. Religious texts cannot be published inside Turkmenistan, and only registered groups can legally import religious literature under tight state censorship. The CWRO must review and stamp approve all religious texts and literature; documents without such a stamp may be confiscated and individuals punished. Although the MPROC publicly can sell religious texts, the CWRO must approve them. Protestant churches have been unable to register a Bible Society to promote and sell Christian scriptures.

State Restrictions on Foreign Religious Travel

The government continues to deny international travel for many citizens, especially those travelling to religious events. Some 110,000 who have dual Russian-Turkmen citizenship, mainly Russian Orthodox, usually can meet coreligionists abroad and also undertake clerical training. Muslims, however, are not allowed to travel abroad for religious education. In 2014, the last year for which statistics were available, the government allowed 650 Turkmen Muslims to make the pilgrimage to Mecca; this was an increase over the usual 188, but is still less than a seventh of the country's quota. According to Forum 18, Muslims often must wait up to 11 years to reach the top of the hajj waiting list.

Conscientious Objectors

Turkmenistan ignored calls from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for the new constitution to recognize international human rights guarantees such as conscientious objection. Turkmen law has no civilian alternative to military service for conscientious objectors. Reportedly, such a bill was drafted in 2013 but not enacted. Those who refuse to serve in the military can face up to two years of jail. Until 2009, Turkmen citizens received suspended sentences, but now conscientious objectors are imprisoned. In 2016, six conscientious objectors  all Jehovah's Witnesses  are known to have been sentenced in Turkmenistan: five received two-year suspended prison sentences; the sixth must live at home under restrictions and a fifth of his wages are confiscated. In 2016, the UN Human Rights Committee again issued findings against Turkmenistan on conscientious objection cases.

U.S. POLICY

For over a decade, U.S. policy in Central Asia has been dominated by the Afghan war, with human rights and religious freedom low on the list of regional priorities. The United States has key security and economic interests in Turkmenistan due to its proximity to and shared populations with Afghanistan and Iran, and its huge natural gas supplies. Despite its officially neutral status, Turkmenistan has allowed the Northern Distribution Network to deliver supplies to U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan, as well as the refueling of U.S. flights with nonlethal supplies at the Ashgabat International Airport. During counterterrorism operations, U.S. Special Operations Forces reportedly have been allowed to enter Turkmenistan on a "case-by-case" basis with the Turkmen government's permission.

In 2016, the State Department hosted the second C5+1 meeting, intended to bring together the foreign ministers of the five Central Asian states and the United States to discuss a wide range of multilateral issues, including respect for basic freedoms. Previously, the C5+1 had issued a pledge to "protect human rights, develop democratic institutions and practices, and strengthen civil society through respect for recognized norms and principles of international law." Although the C5+1 mechanism provides a regional business forum, it does not include a forum for civil society groups.

Initiated in 2009 by the State Department, the Annual Bilateral Consultations (ABCs) are a regular mechanism for the United States and Turkmenistan to discuss a wide range of bilateral issues, including regional security, economic and trade relations, social and cultural ties, and human rights. The fourth ABC session was held in Washington, DC, in October 2015, and some concerns about Turkmenistan's religious freedom record were discussed. No ABC session was held in 2016 due to scheduling conflicts, thereby depriving the United States of a major opportunity to raise human rights issues, including religious freedom concerns.

The United States funds programs in Turkmenistan for cultural exchange, education, and historical preservation, including three American Corners that provide free educational materials and English language opportunities in Dashoguz, Mary, and Turkmenabat. In recent years, the Turkmen government has barred many students from participating in U.S.-funded exchange programs, and in 2013 it ordered the Peace Corps to stop end its 20-year-long history of operations in the country.

In October 2016, the State Department renewed its designation of Turkmenistan as a CPC under IRFA, a designation it first made in 2014. Previously, it had cited the arbitrary detentions of religious minority members, restrictions on the importation of religious literature, the difficulty of registering religious groups, and the lack of alternatives for conscientious objectors to military service as justifying the designation. A waiver of presidential action in "the important national interest of the United States" was again tied to the latest CPC designation.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Syria

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Syria, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4913.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

Religious freedom conditions in Syria continued to deteriorate throughout 2016 as internal conflict worsened and the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continued. Syria's religious communities have endured religious freedom violations from various actors, including President Bashar al-Assad's regime, the approximately 100 armed opposition groups, and U.S.-designated terrorist groups such as ISIS and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. The deliberate targeting and indiscriminate bombing of Sunni Arab-dominated areas by President al-Assad's regime and its Iranian and Russian allies have heightened tensions between Sunni Arabs and many other communities in Syria, including the Christian, Alawite, Shi'a, and Druze communities. The United Nations (UN) has also found al-Assad guilty of using chemical weapons at least 14 times in rebel-held areas, although the government claimed it had surrendered its stockpile of chemical weapons in 2014. Meanwhile, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, and the Euphrates Shield, supported by the Turkish government, recaptured the northern Syrian cities of Manbij and Jarablus from ISIS, which continues to rule over its territories with brute force, targeting anyone who does not adopt its ideology. Armed opposition groups' fighters, while not adhering to any unified policy, have engaged in sectarian attacks. Due to the collective actions of the al-Assad regime, elements of the armed opposition, and U.S.-designated terrorist groups, USCIRF again finds in 2017 that Syria merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), as it has found since 2014. In 2017, USCIRF also finds that ISIS merits designation as an "entity of particular concern" (EPC) for religious freedom violations under December 2016 amendments to IRFA.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Designate Syria as a CPC under IRFA;

Designate ISIS as an "entity of particular concern" under December 2016 amendments to IRFA;

Condemn the al-Assad regime's brutal persecution of and crimes of humanity against Sunni Muslims and others, and urge other nations to do the same;

Urge the UN Security Council and its member states to rigorously implement and comply with ratified resolutions, including UN Security Council resolutions 2118 (calling for the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons), 2139 (calling for humanitarian access into besieged areas and an end to barrel bombs), 2165 (approving humanitarian access across conflict lines), 2209 (calling for an end to the use of chlorine bombs), and 2254 (ceasefire and roadmap for peace in Syria);

Continue to call for an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into crimes committed by the al-Assad regime, following the models used in Sudan and Libya;

Call for or support a referral by the UN Security Council to the ICC to investigate ISIS violations in Iraq and Syria against religious and ethnic minorities;

Encourage the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, in its ongoing international meetings, to work to develop measures to protect and assist the region's most vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities, including by increasing immediate humanitarian aid, prioritizing the resettlement of the most vulnerable to third countries, and providing longer-term support in host countries for those who hope to return to their homes post-conflict;

Ensure U.S. government planning for a post-conflict Syria is a "whole-of-government" effort and includes consideration of issues concerning religious freedom and related human rights, and that USCIRF and other U.S. government experts on those issues are consulted as appropriate;

Initiate an effort among relevant UN agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and like-minded partners among the Global Coalition to Combat ISIS to fund and develop programs that bolster intra- and interreligious tolerance, alleviate sectarian tensions, and promote respect for religious freedom and related rights, both in neighboring countries hosting refugees (especially Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey), and in preparing for a post-conflict Syria;

Continue the resettlement of Syrian refugees to the United States  subject to proper vetting and a prioritization based on vulnerability  in order to aid those Syrians in the greatest peril, demonstrate U.S. leadership in efforts to address this extraordinary humanitarian crisis, and show support for governments in the Middle East and host communities that are supporting millions of Syrian refugees; and

Allocate sufficient resources to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies that conduct the rigorous individualized vetting of refugees being considered for resettlement to allow them to expeditiously process applications and thoroughly conduct background checks, in order to facilitate resettlement without compromising national security.

The U.S. Congress should:

Include in the relevant U.S. appropriations law for the current and next fiscal years a provision that would permit the U.S. government to appropriate or allocate funds for in-kind assistance for investigating and prosecuting genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes cases at the ICC on a case-by-case basis and when in the national interest to provide such assistance.

BACKGROUND

The al-Assad family has ruled over Syria for more than 50 years, since the late Hafez al-Assad launched a coup with five other officers in 1963 and named himself as leader of Syria in 1971. After his death, his son, Bashar al-Assad, succeeded him in July 2000. Throughout this time, both father and son have disallowed any political opposition; any attempt to create political alternatives or democratic openings has been immediately halted, often with force. Prior to the civil uprising in March 2011, the most significant challenge to Hafez al-Assad's rule occurred in the city of Hama in February 1982. To prevent the revolt from spreading to other Syrian cities, Hafez al-Assad besieged and bombarded the city for 27 days until it surrendered; some 20,00040,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in what has since become known as the "Hama Massacre." While many associate the events of Hama with the Muslim Brotherhood's attempt to challenge al-Assad's rule, others, including members of the Communist Party, labor unions, and various social groups, took part in the uprising. The Syrian government has used Hama as an example of how it would deal with any rebellion, and has blamed Sunni Arabs for the Hama revolt, creating fear among non-Sunnis of "Sunni Arab extremism" that has lasted until today.

The al-Assads are from the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shi'a Islam and a minority group that makes up about 13 percent of Syria's population. Since Hafez al-Assad's ascent to power, loyal Alawites have been placed in the government, including in senior security, intelligence, and military positions. Although Hafez al-Assad forged necessary and strategic relationships with Syria's dominant Sunni Arab community, most religious groups lived alongside coreligionists. It was common to find solely Christian, Alawite, or Muslim neighborhoods, which contributed to some division and distrust between different religious groups. When civil uprising and antigovernment demonstrations in Syria began in March 2011, it did not take long for built-up historical sectarian tensions to come to the forefront.

The Syrian government directly facilitated the "Islamization" of the armed opposition, drawing on the memory of the Hama Massacre to create an atmosphere of fear among Syria's non-Muslim communities. In mid-2011, the government released from the infamous Sadnaya Prison around 200 prisoners previously designated as "Islamic fundamentalists," including prominent Sunnis who were fighting in the Iraq War after 2003. Some of those released became leaders in ISIS, Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, and other armed opposition factions. President al-Assad and his regime played on sectarian fears, repeatedly stating it was fighting "extreme Islamist factions" that were acting to increase sectarian tensions. The result is that now, six years into the conflict, President al-Assad is perceived as the only entity shielding Syria's minorities from Sunni Arab extremists. Many of Syria's minority populations fear that without al-Assad in power, Sunni extremists will overtake them. Simultaneously, Sunni Arabs also have come to see many of Syria's Christians, Alawites, and Shi'a Muslims as aligned with the Syrian regime due to their lack of support for or neutral stance toward the Syrian revolution.

International actors have further increased sectarian tensions. While Russia has provided the al-Assad regime with airpower and military support, and to a limited extent ground troops, Iran has facilitated the participation of 5,000 troops from the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah, another 5,000 Iraqi Shi'a troops, and approximately 18,000 Afghan and Pakistani Shi'a troops to fight in Syria in support of the al-Assad regime. Meanwhile, the armed opposition, once supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and currently supported by Turkey, lost significant territory and influence throughout 2016, although the Turkish government played a direct role in the liberation of territory from ISIS, sending in special forces and artillery to support the Euphrates Shield, an armed group that recaptured both Jarablus and al-Bab cities. The armed opposition's efficacy declined in the face of more extremist factions, such as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, especially after Jabhat Fateh al-Sham played a major role in breaking the siege on Idleb Province. Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, as well as Ahrar al-Sham, have established Shari'ah courts and imposed Islamic regulations in areas under their control, such as prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol. Non-Muslim communities have kept a relatively low profile in opposition-controlled areas and have been subjected to less forced displacement from their homes than Sunni Muslims.

ISIS continues to maintain its stronghold in Syria, especially in the group's de facto capital of Raqqah, although it lost 28 percent of the territory it once maintained. While the anti-ISIS coalition and the Euphrates Shield forces recaptured the cities of Manbij and Jarablus, ISIS managed to recapture Palmyra, a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site, from the Syrian regime in December 2016. The group has terrorized and attacked anyone  including Muslims  who does not espouse ISIS's extremist beliefs. Credible reports of mass beheadings, rape, murder, torture of civilians and religious figures, and the destruction of mosques and churches have been well documented.

Syria continues to suffer from abominable humanitarian conditions. According to UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura, an estimated 400,000 people have been killed since 2011. As of January 2017, in neighboring countries there are almost 4.9 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN refugee agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); 6.6 million are internally displaced, and at least 13.5 million out of Syria's population of 17 million are in need of humanitarian aid for survival.

Before 2011, Syria was home to various ethno-sectarian groups. The U.S. government, based on official Syrian government figures, estimates the country's religious demography before the conflict was as follows: 87 percent Muslim (comprising 74 percent Sunni and 13 percent Alawi, Ismaili, and Shi'a Muslim), 10 percent Christian, 3 percent Druze, and a very small number of Jews in Damascus and Aleppo. Other 2010 estimates include the following breakdown: 92.8 Muslim, 5.2 percent Christian, 2 percent unaffiliated, and all other groups less than 0.1 percent.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Violations by the al-Assad Regime and Affiliated Groups

Six years into the conflict, the al-Assad government continues indiscriminately targeting primarily Arab Sunni Muslim residential neighborhoods, marketplaces, schools, and hospitals. Human rights organizations, the UN, and the governments of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom have presented evidence of severe and methodical human rights abuses undertaken by the regime. In 2016, the Joint Investigative Unit of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) found the al-Assad regime, and specifically President al-Assad, culpable for ordering the use of chemical weapons after it publicly declared it had surrendered and destroyed its full stockpile of such weapons. Reports indicate that 14 out of the 15 chemical attacks in Syria were carried out by the Syrian regime (one was carried out by ISIS).

Shi'a and Alawite militias remain important military allies of the Syrian Arab Army, often contributing to decisive victories on the battlefield. The battle to retake eastern Aleppo City was one such battle. The shabiha militias, referred to as the National Defense Forces, also have been accused of extortion, blackmail, kidnapping, and extrajudicial killing. The National Defense Forces, which comprise mostly local Shi'a and Alawite fighters (including females), have been described as "mafia-like gangs" modeled after the Iranian Basij Resistance Force. Other Shi'a militias have grown exponentially over the last couple of years, as well. According to various sources, there are approximately 5,000 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, 5,000 Iraqi Shi'a fighters, and 18,000 Shi'a Afghan and Pakistani fighters who have been recruited by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) inside of Syria. According to multiple sources, hundreds of thousands of Shi'a volunteers have registered to fight in Syria to defend Shi'a shrines and also to support President al-Assad in his battles against the opposition. The large number of Shi'a foreign fighters in Syria also has increased sectarian tensions, especially in Lebanon and Turkey.

The regime continued to carry out its policy of forced displacement of Sunni Muslims. In 2016, the Syrian government forcibly displaced 125,000 civilians from the Damascus suburbs of Kisweh, Darraya, Wadi Barada, al-Tall, Khan al-Sheeh, Qudsaya, and al-Hameh, moving them to Idleb and other opposition-held areas. In December 2016, the regime forcibly displaced 240,000 civilians from eastern Aleppo, sending many to Idleb, Turkey, or the western Aleppo countryside. While the displaced were overwhelmingly politically opposed to the al-Assad regime, they also were overwhelmingly Sunni Arabs. Several reports have confirmed the government is repopulating evacuated areas with Shi'a Lebanese and Iraqis. For example, approximately 300 Iraqi Shi'a families were moved to Darayya after local civilians were transferred to Idleb.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that between 2011 and 2016, the Syrian regime was responsible for the killing of 183,827 civilians, including 19,594 children and 19,427 women. The group also reports that the government has tortured 12,486 civilians to death and has killed 479 journalists and social media activists and at least 553 medics. In 2016, there were approximately 128 attacks on places of worship.

Violations by ISIS

ISIS continues to severely deny freedom of religion or belief within its territory; the group regulates all religious activities in order to maintain its power. It categorizes all individuals living within the so-called Islamic State as deviants, enemies, People of the Book, or believers. For example, ISIS deems Druze and Sufi Muslims as deviants, and requires them to abandon their beliefs and practice Salafi jihadi Islam; if they refuse, they are ordered killed. Since 2014, ISIS has destroyed over 80 Sufi shrines in al-Hasakah, Raqqah, and Deir-ez-Zor, including a 1,000-year-old shrine of a revered Sufi saint. Earlier this year, ISIS also killed Sheikh Jumaa al-Habeeb, a prominent Sufi leader. ISIS considers Alawites and Shi'a Muslims to be nonbelieving enemies who are actively fighting Islam due to their perceived alliance with the al-Assad regime. Human rights organizations report that only nine Armenian families remain in Raqqa, and no Christians have remained in Deir-ez-Zor under ISIS control. The majority of Christians have fled to al-Assad-held areas, Lebanon, Armenia, or the West instead. Finally, for the category of people ISIS considers to be "believers"  Sunni Muslims  it mandates they adhere to a Salafi jihadi version of the faith. In 2016, the group required that all individuals, including children, living in ISIS territory must complete Shari'ah courses in line with the group's extremist beliefs.

Between 2011 and 2016, human rights organizations have documented that ISIS has killed at least 1,510 civilians, including 258 children and 213 women. The group also arrested at least 1,419 individuals, including 103 children and 50 women. ISIS has tortured at least eight people to death and killed 26 journalists. Moreover, the group killed 19 medics, and tried numerous attempts to kidnap doctors from opposition-held territories in order to force them to work in ISIS medical facilities. The group has made a business out of kidnapping individuals in exchange for high ransoms. According to human rights groups, at least 45 Christians remain captives of ISIS, being freed only in exchange for large sums of money. Well-known Christian leaders, including Italian Jesuit priest Paolo Dall'Oglio (if still alive), remain detained by ISIS.

Armed Opposition Groups

During 2016, the armed opposition suffered a series of losses to the Syrian regime and its allies, losing their former strongholds of the al-Waer neighborhood in Homs City, Darayya in Damascus, and eastern Aleppo City and its countryside. There are approximately 100 armed opposition groups in Syria, each of which follows its own norms of behavior. For this reason, when armed groups' members have been accused of committing various crimes against humanity, the particular group, as well as the armed opposition as a whole, often repudiate those crimes as not representative of the group or the armed opposition.

Areas under the control of the armed opposition do not have formal or consistent policies toward Christians or non-Sunni Muslims. For example, there are no laws that ban Christians from living in areas under armed opposition groups' control, but the reality is that very few Christians have remained living in opposition-held areas. Instead, many have fled to government- held areas or have left the country altogether because they do not feel comfortable remaining in such volatile areas. While there have been no largescale attacks by armed opposition groups against Christian villages or neighborhoods in Syria, in July 2016 local armed opposition groups from Aleppo City heavily shelled several neighborhoods in government- held western Aleppo, including a Christian neighborhood, destroying many buildings but causing no human casualties.

The Druze live largely in the Swaida Province of southwestern Syria, and they have an informal agreement with the Syrian government to have only Druze soldiers protect their territory. It is reported that between 25 and 30 Druze men have been kidnapped by armed groups from Dar'a. Druze activists informed USCIRF that many of these kidnappings are motivated by tribal rivalries between Druze and Dar'a tribes, but that their identity as a distinct religious group in Syria has made them more vulnerable to kidnappings. In areas under opposition control, there are only two Druze villages, both located in Jabal Suma'a. Although clashes broke out in 2015 between some Druze members and armed opposition fighters over ownership of regime officers' property, in 2016 these villages were not targeted by opposition forces.

Armed opposition groups continue to besiege two Shi'a villages, Kafriya and Fu'a, in Idleb Province, as they have since 2015. These villages are home to approximately 40,000 people. During the forced evacuation of eastern Aleppo, the simultaneous negotiations aimed at breaking the siege of Kafriya and Fu'a were derailed when unknown soldiers from armed opposition groups burned buses meant to transfer injured Shi'a villagers to the suburbs of Damascus. Eventually, 1,200 Shi'a residents were allowed safe passage, but the siege of Kafriya and Fu'a continues.

While large-scale Alawite and Sunni Muslim clashes do not regularly occur across Syria, violent confrontations have taken place between the two groups in Homs and Hama, largely because Alawites in Homs participated in multiple mass killings of Sunni Muslims in 2011 and early 2012. As a result, sectarian tensions have resulted in long-term discord. For example, in May 2016, Salafi jihadi armed group Ahrar al-Sham killed 19 Alawites  among them civilians and armed militias supporting the Syrian regime, and including six women  in the village of Zara on the border between Hama and Homs provinces. Small-scale clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites constantly happen along this border area.

U.S. POLICY

On August 18, 2011, only five months after the conflict in Syria began, then President Barack Obama called on President al-Assad to step down, and issued an executive order immediately freezing all Syrian government assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction. The order also prohibited the United States from engaging in any transactions involving the Syrian government. In 2012, the United States closed its embassy in Damascus, and in March 2014 it ordered the Syrian Embassy and consulates to close in the United States. In December 2012, the U.S. government recognized the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, and in May 2014 it recognized their Washington, DC, and New York offices as diplomatic foreign missions. The High Negotiations Committee, the formal negotiations body for the Syrian opposition, participated in the Geneva negotiations in early 2016.

Since 2011, the U.S. government has provided over $5.9 billion in humanitarian aid to Syrians and neighboring countries dealing with the Syrian crisis. The funding has supported activities of the U.S. State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, International Organization for Migration, UN Children's Fund, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN Population Fund, UN World Health Organization, and UNHCR, among others. The efforts supported by the United States include civil society training, local council capacity building, health and medical support, education projects, food assistance, psychosocial support, shelter rehabilitation, and livelihood development.

In February 2016, the International Syria Support Group, of which the United States is a co-chair, supported a cessation of hostilities across the country. Unfortunately, the ceasefire did not hold well and had essentially fallen apart by April. In September, there was another push for cessation of hostilities by Russia and the United States, which also ultimately failed. In late 2016 and early 2017, another round of talks brokered by Russia and Turkey took place in Astana, Kazakhstan. The talks, which included both the armed opposition and the al-Assad regime, once again failed to bring about a country-wide ceasefire. As of the end of the reporting period, another round of talks is scheduled to take place in Geneva in late February 2017, under the direction of UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura.

The anti-ISIS coalition, dubbed Operation Inherent Resolve, is led by the United States and includes 65 countries. Coalition nations conducting air strikes are Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. The coalition has conducted over 10,000 strikes, at least 6,370 of which have been in Syria and most of which have been carried out by the United States. As of January 2016, the total cost of the anti-ISIS operations exceeded $10 billion. In October 2015, then President Obama announced the deployment of almost 500 U.S. special operations forces to advise local forces fighting ISIS but not play a direct combat role. The coalition's successes in 2016 include the recapture of Manbij along the Turkish-Syrian border; its ongoing offensive against Raqqah, ISIS's "capital," continues.

On March 17, 2016, then Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ISIS is responsible "for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims" and "for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups and in some cases also against Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities."

The United States admitted more than 12,500 Syrian refugees in 2016. Syrians could gain access to the U.S. resettlement program through a UNHCR referral if they crossed an international border. Moreover, a new direct access program, started in February 2016, allowed Syrians with family ties to the United States to apply directly to the U.S. government for resettlement without requiring a referral from UNHCR. In an executive order in January 2017, President Donald J. Trump suspended U.S. refugee resettlement for 120 days to review vetting procedures and lowered the Fiscal Year 2017 global refugee admissions ceiling from 110,000 to 50,000, but as of the end of the reporting period these changes were stayed by court orders.

The United States supported a UN Security Council referral of the situation in Syria to the ICC in May 2014, but Russia and China vetoed it. Even if there were such a referral, however, current U.S. law makes it difficult for the United States to use appropriated funds to support ICC investigations and prosecutions, even for cases that the U.S. government supports.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Sudan

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Sudan, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4a13.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

Religious freedom conditions in Sudan continued to deteriorate in 2016. Government officials arrested and prosecuted Christian leaders and marginalized the Christian community. The government of Sudan, led by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, imposes a restrictive interpretation of Shari'ah and applies corresponding hudood punishments on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In 2017, USCIRF again finds that Sudan merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief. The State Department has designated Sudan as a CPC since 1999, most recently in October 2016.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate Sudan as a CPC under IRFA;

Seek to enter into an agreement with the government of Sudan, which would set forth commitments the government would undertake to address policies leading to violations of religious freedom, including but not limited to the following:

Repeal the apostasy and blasphemy laws;



Ensure that a new constitution maintains all of the provisions respecting the country's international human rights commitments and guaranteeing freedom of religion or belief currently in the interim constitution;



Lift government prohibitions on church construction, issue permits for the building of new churches, and create a legal mechanism to provide compensation for destroyed churches and address future destructions if necessary;



Revive and strengthen the Commission on the Rights of Non-Muslims to ensure and advocate religious freedom protections for non-Muslims in Sudan;



Repeal or revise all articles in the 1991 Criminal Code that violate Sudan's international commitments to freedom of religion or belief and related human rights; and



Hold accountable any person who engages in violations of freedom of religion or belief, including attacking houses of worship, attacking or discriminating against any person because of his or her religious affiliation, and prohibiting any person from fully exercising his or her religious freedom.

Convey that the normalization of relations with Sudan and any lifting of U.S. sanctions must be preceded by demonstrated, concrete progress by Khartoum in implementing peace agreements, ending abuses of religious freedom and related human rights, and cooperating with efforts to protect civilians;

Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the release of prisoners of conscience, and press the government of Sudan to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and lawyers and the ability to practice their faith;

Use targeted tools against specific officials and agencies identified as having participated in or being responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom; these tools include the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act;

Maintain the position of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan and ensure that religious freedom is a priority in that office;

Work to ensure that Sudan's future constitution includes protections for freedom of religion or belief, respect for international commitments to human rights, and recognition of Sudan as a multireligious, multiethnic, and multicultural nation;

Continue to support dialogue efforts with civil society and faith-based leaders and representatives of all relevant political parties; educate relevant parties to the national dialogue about international human rights standards, including freedom of religion or belief; and work with opposition parties and civil society to resolve internal disputes related to freedom of religion or belief; and

Urge the government in Khartoum to cooperate fully with international mechanisms on human rights issues, including by inviting further visits by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan, and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

BACKGROUND

More than 97 percent of the Sudanese population is Muslim. The vast majority of Sudanese Muslims belong to different Sufi orders, although Shi'a and Sunni Muslims who follow the Salafi movement are also present. Christians are estimated at 3 percent of the population and include Coptic, Greek, Ethiopian, and Eritrean Orthodox; Roman Catholics; Anglicans; Presbyterians; Seventh-day Adventists; Jehovah's Witnesses; and several Pentecostal and Evangelical communities.

Sudan's overall human rights record is poor. President al-Bashir and his National Congress Party (NCP) have ruled with absolute authority for more than 25 years. Freedoms of expression, association, and assembly are limited, with routine crackdowns and arrests of journalists, human rights advocates, and demonstrators. The armed conflicts in Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile states continued. All parties to these conflicts are responsible for mass displacement, civilian deaths, and other human rights abuses. In areas of conflict, government forces deliberately bombed civilian areas and restricted humanitarian access to civilians. In 2009 and 2010, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for President al-Bashir, accusing him of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur. In 2016, the Sudanese government and the different armed groups agreed to engage in the National Dialogue to address the root causes of the conflicts in the country.

The Interim National Constitution includes religious freedom protections and acknowledges Sudan's international human rights commitments. Article 1 recognizes Sudan as a multireligious country; article 6 articulates a series of religious freedom rights, including to worship, assemble, establish and maintain places of worship, establish and maintain charitable organizations, teach religion, train and elect religious leaders, observe religious holidays, and communicate with coreligionists; and article 31 prohibits discrimination based on religion. However, article 5 provides that "Islamic sharia and the consensus of the people" shall be the "leading sources" of legislation, thereby restricting freedom of religion or belief. In 2011, President al-Bashir stated publicly that Sudan should adopt a constitution to enshrine Islamic law as the main source of legislation.

Religious freedom also is restricted through the implementation of the 1991 Criminal Code, the 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims, and state-level "public order" laws. The 1991 Criminal Code imposes the NCP's interpretation of Shari'ah law on Muslims and non-Muslims by permitting death sentences for apostasy (article 126); death or lashing for adultery (article 146-147); cross-amputations for theft (article 171-173); prison sentences, lashings, or fines for blasphemy (article 125); lashings for undefined "offences of honor, reputation and public morality," including undefined "indecent or immoral acts" (article 151-152); and lashings and/or prison sentences for purchasing, possessing, selling, or propagating alcohol (article 78-79). Article 125 of the Criminal Code criminalizes blasphemy, which is defined broadly to include public criticism of the Prophet Muhammed, his household, his friends or Abu Bakr, Omer, Osman, or Ali in particular, and his wife Aisha. Prohibitions and related punishments for "immorality" and "indecency" and alcohol are implemented through state-level Public Order laws and enforcement mechanisms; violations carry a maximum penalty of up to 40 lashes, a fine, or both.

Government policies and societal pressure promote conversion to Islam. The government is alleged to tolerate the use of humanitarian assistance to induce conversion to Islam; routinely grant permits to construct and operate mosques, often with government funds; and provide Muslims preferential access to government employment and services and favored treatment in court cases against non-Muslims. The Sudanese government prohibits foreign church officials from traveling outside Khartoum and uses school textbooks that negatively stereotype non-Muslims. The Sudanese Minister of Guidance and Religious Endowments announced in 2014 that the government no longer will issue permits for the building of new churches, alleging that the current number of churches is sufficient for the Christians remaining in Sudan after South Sudan's 2011 secession. While Sudanese labor laws require employers to give Christian employees two hours off prior to 10 a.m. on Sundays for religious purposes, this does not occur in practice. The International Labor Organization reports that Christians are pressured to deny their faith or convert to gain employment.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Persecution of Christians

The Sudanese government continued to arrest, detain, and prosecute Christian leaders during this reporting period. The most serious cases involve Rev. Kuwa Shamal, Rev. Hassan Abduraheem Kodi Taour, Abdulmonem Abdumawla Issa Abdumawla, and Czech national Petr Jasek. Rev. Shamal and Rev. Taour of the Sudan Church of Christ and Abdumawla were detained in December 2015 in connection with the arrest of Jasek, who was doing a documentary on the government's religious freedom and human rights violations. Rev. Shamal was released days later, but told to report to National Intelligence Security Services (NISS) offices daily until January 16, 2016. His daily reporting requirements were reinstated in February. On May 9, Rev. Taour was transferred from NISS detention to the custody of the attorney general. NISS rearrested Rev. Shamal on May 24.

All four men were formally charged on August 11 with seven crimes under the Criminal Code: complicity to execute a criminal agreement (article 21), waging war against the state (article 51), espionage (article 53), calling for opposition of the public authority by violence or criminal code (article 63), exciting hatred between the classes (article 64), propagation of false news (article 65), and entry and photograph of military areas and equipment (article 57). Conviction under articles 51 and 53 each carry the death sentence.

On January 2, 2017, a judge dismissed the charges against Rev. Shamal; he was subsequently released from prison. On January 29, 2017, a judge found Jasek guilty of espionage and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The judge also sentenced Jasek to three and half years' imprisonment and fined him 100,000 Sudanese pounds (approximately $15,000) for entering and photographing military areas, inciting hatred between sects, propagating false news, entering the country illegally, and other charges. The judge also convicted Rev. Taour and Abdumawla and sentenced them to 10 years' imprisonment for espionage and abetting and two years' imprisonment for inciting hatred between sects and propagating false news, with the sentences to be served consecutively. On February 23, President al-Bashir pardoned Jasek; he was released on February 24 and left Sudan shortly thereafter. Attorneys for Rev. Taour and Abdumawla are appealing their convictions and sentences.

Several other Christian religious leaders and laity were arrested and detained during this reporting period. NISS officials detained Talahon Nigosi Kassa Rata, an activist and member of the Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church (SEPC), from December 2015 until May 2016; no reason was given for his arrest. Sudan Church of Christ parishioner Benjamin Breama was arrested on March 14, 2016, and released that same day without charge. On March 21, Pastor Ayoub Tilian and Rev. Yagoub Naway of the Sudan Church of Christ were arrested and also released that same day without charge. All three were ordered to report to NISS offices daily, preventing them from adequately performing their pastoral duties. Pastor Philemon Hassan of the Baptist Church in Khartoum was arrested in early 2016. Most of the church leaders and lay persons arrested during the first half of 2016 met with Jasek and were questioned by NISS in connection with the cases against Jasek, Rev. Shamal, Rev. Taour, and Abdumawla. Rev. Naway and Pastor Hassan have been added as prosecution witnesses in their trial.

Sudanese authorities continue to target the Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church, a denomination within the SEPC. In 2013, the Sudanese Ministry of Guidance and Endowments empowered an illegally constituted governing committee to act on behalf of the denomination; in 2015, a Khartoum Administrative Court found this move to be illegal and ordered that the legitimate committee, led by Rafat Obid, be empowered to administrate the denomination. However, the Ministry of Guidance and Endowments in April 2016 refused to acknowledge Obid's committee, instead recognizing a newly elected but unconstitutionally installed committee. Additionally, prior to the improper election, Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church Pastor Daniel Welia, the legitimate committee secretary, was detained for three days; 16 church leaders and elders also were summoned to the police station for questioning but released on the same day. On May 8, Obid was arrested and charged with impersonation, forgery, and misappropriation. He was released on bail.

Sudanese authorities seized the Bahri Evangelical Church training school on July 7. That same day, 14 church members were arrested for demonstrating against the seizure. They were released on bail later that day. On July 10, the Khartoum Bahri Criminal Court convicted and fined them for obstructing the public peace and the police and for nuisance.

On October 24, authorities cancelled classes and seized the SEPC-owned Evangelical Basic School in Madani, Jazirah State. Authorities previously raided the school on September 5, October 4, and October 6. On September 5, Pastor Amir Suleiman and 12 school teachers were arrested and released later without charge. During the raid, police presented a letter from the National Ministry of Guidance and Endowments, addressed to the State Ministry of Social Welfare, ordering that the school be handed over to the government. During the October 6 attempted seizure, Pastor Suleiman, Rev. Ismail Zakaria, and six others were arrested, detained for four days, and released on bail. On November 14, the Madani Appeal Court for Administrative Affairs reversed the order to cancel classes and seize the Evangelical Basic School.

Finally, during this reporting period, at least 25 churches received notices that their churches would be demolished.

Application of Shari'ah Law Provisions

The government continued to apply Shari'ah-based morality provisions of the 1991 Criminal Code and corresponding state-level Public Order laws. The vast majority of women prosecuted under the Public Order regime come from marginalized communities, such as Christians, or from the Darfur or South Kordofan regions or South Sudan. They are held overnight in small, crowded cells in the Public Order Court before receiving summary trials, with no legal representation. As such, their cases are rarely reported in the media. Those convicted are flogged and/or fined up to 1,000 5,000 Sudanese pounds ($161$805).

A USCIRF-contracted project with the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) documented that during a three-month period in the summer of 2016, five Public Order Courts in Khartoum and Omdurman averaged at least 50 cases each month. The vast majority of cases concerned violations for selling or buying alcohol (article 79); fewer cases were brought forward for violations of wearing indecent dress (article 152). What constitutes indecent dress is not defined by law, but is left to the discretion of Public Order police and judges. Convictions resulted in lashings and/or fines. Also, on August 1 and 2, two women were convicted under article 145 (adultery) and lashed 100 times each.

U.S. POLICY

The United States remains a pivotal international actor in Sudan. The U.S. government continues multilateral and bilateral efforts to bring peace to Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur.

In 1997, then President Bill Clinton utilized the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to sanction Sudan based on its support for international terrorism, efforts to destabilize neighboring governments, and prevalent human rights and religious freedom violations. These sanctions imposed a trade embargo on the country and a total asset freeze on the government. Since 1997, an arms embargo, travel bans, and asset freezes have been imposed in response to the genocide in Darfur. With the 1999 designation of Sudan as a CPC, the secretary of state has utilized IRFA to require U.S. opposition to any loan or other use of funds from international financial institutions to or for Sudan. In an attempt to prevent sanctions from negatively impacting regions in Sudan under assault by the government, the sanctions have been amended to allow for increased humanitarian activities in Southern Kordofan State, Blue Nile State, Abyei, Darfur, and marginalized areas in and around Khartoum and the exportation throughout Sudan of communication hardware and software, including computers, smartphones, radios, digital cameras, and related items, as part of a "commitment to promote freedom of expression through access to communications tools."

On January 13, 2017, then President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13761 issuing a general waiver to the sanctions to increase trade and investment opportunities. The order also states that if during a six-month period ending July 12, the Sudanese government sustains progress to end conflict in Darfur and Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states, increases access to humanitarian assistance in those areas, ceases its support for rebel groups in South Sudan, and supports U.S. intelligence efforts, the U.S. government will lift fully the sanctions imposed on Sudan under Executive Orders 13067 and 13412. If the Sudanese government backtracks on this progress, sanctions will be reimposed. Sanctions imposed because of the Sudanese government's genocide in Darfur will continue, as will a prohibition on the sale of military equipment and asset freezes and travel bans on targeted militia and rebel leaders.

Neither country has had an ambassador in country since the late 1990s, after the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and U.S. airstrikes against al-Qaeda sites in Khartoum. However, successive U.S. administrations have appointed special envoys to Sudan. The most recent U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan is Donald E. Booth.

During the reporting period, U.S. Embassy officials raised with Sudanese officials the cases of Jasek, Rev. Shamal, Rev. Taour, and Abdumawla.

U.S. government assistance programs in Sudan support conflict mitigation efforts, the comprehensive national dialogue to address the root causes of conflicts, advancing human rights and political freedoms, and emergency food aid and relief supplies. The United States remains the world's largest donor of food assistance to Sudan, providing needed aid, either directly or through third parties, to persons from Darfur, Abyei, Southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Saudi Arabia

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Saudi Arabia, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4b13.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

During the past year, in line with the Saudi government's Vision 2030 efforts to economically and culturally transform the country, religious freedom conditions in Saudi Arabia improved in certain areas, including a significant decrease in power of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV), a continued government commitment to textbook and curricula reform, and increased efforts to counter extremist ideology at home and abroad. Nevertheless, the government continues to privilege its own interpretation of Sunni Islam over all other interpretations and prohibits any non-Muslim public places of worship in the country. Saudi courts continue to prosecute and imprison individuals for dissent, apostasy, and blasphemy, and a law classifying blasphemy and the promotion of atheism as terrorism has been used to target human rights defenders, among others. While there were improved conditions for public worship among Shi'a Muslims in the Eastern Province, the community continued to face discrimination based on its religious affiliation, and authorities sporadically interrogate, arrest, and imprison dissident Shi'a clerics and activists. Despite progress in some areas, the government continues to restrict a broad range of human rights, especially women's participation in society, including through the legal guardianship system. Based on continuing severe violations of religious freedom, USCIRF again finds in 2017 that Saudi Arabia merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). Although the State Department has designated Saudi Arabia as a CPC repeatedly since 2004, most recently in October 2016, an indefinite waiver has been in place since 2006 on taking an otherwise legislatively mandated action as a result of the CPC designation.

Continue to designate Saudi Arabia as a CPC under IRFA;

Fully engage the Saudi government to take concrete action toward completing reforms confirmed in July 2006 in U.S.-Saudi bilateral discussions; provide a detailed report on progress and lack of progress on each of the areas of concern; and consider, over the course of a year, whether issuing an indefinite waiver furthers the purposes of IRFA;

Consider inaugurating a new U.S.- Saudi bilateral strategic dialogue, which would include human rights and religious freedom among the areas of discussion;

At the highest levels, press for and work to secure the release of Raif Badawi, his counsel Waleed Abu al-Khair, and other prisoners of conscience, and press the Saudi government to end state prosecution of individuals charged with apostasy, blasphemy, and sorcery;

Undertake and make public an annual assessment of the relevant Ministry of Education religious textbooks to determine if passages that teach religious intolerance have been removed;

Press the Saudi government to denounce publicly the continued use around the world of older versions of Saudi textbooks and other materials that promote hatred and intolerance, and to make every attempt to retrieve, or buy back, previously distributed materials that contain intolerance;

Encourage the Saudi government to respect the diverse interpretations and practices of Islam, especially in its propagation of the faith abroad;

Press the Saudi government to continue to address incitement to violence and discrimination against disfavored Muslims and non-Muslims, including by prosecuting government- funded clerics who incite violence against Muslim minority communities or members of non-Muslim religious minority communities;

Press the Saudi government to pass and fully implement an antidiscrimination law protecting the equal rights of all Saudi citizens and expatriate residents;

Press the Saudi government to remove the classification of advocating atheism and blasphemy as terrorist acts in its 2014 counterterrorism law;

Include Saudi religious leaders, in addition to government officials, educators, and judges, in mutual exchanges and U.S visitor programs that promote cultural exchange, religious tolerance, and interfaith dialogue; and

Encourage the Saudi government to take further steps toward phasing out the guardianship system, in line with its acceptance of relevant recommendations from the 2009 and 2013 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council; and

Work with the Saudi government to codify the right of non-Muslims to private religious practice, and permit foreign clergy to enter the country openly to carry out worship services and to bring religious materials for such services.

BACKGROUND

Saudi Arabia is officially an Islamic state whose legal system is based primarily on the Hanbali school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. The Saudi Arabian constitution comprises the Qur'an and the Sunna (traditions of the Prophet). The population is approximately 30 million, including nearly 10 million expatriate workers of various faiths. Among these expatriate workers, there are at least two million non-Muslims, including Buddhists, Christians, practitioners of folk religions, and the religiously unaffiliated. Approximately 8590 percent of citizens are Sunni Muslim and 1015 percent are Shi'a Muslim, including Ismailis, Zaydis, and others.

In April 2016, the Saudi government rolled out Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020, ambitious economic reform plans that seek to reduce the country's dependence on oil revenues. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs is responsible to ensure that Vision 2030 is compliant with Shari'ah law. If fully implemented, these plans to diversify the Saudi economy include goals that could lead to greater respect for human rights and religious freedom in the Kingdom.

Nevertheless, the government persists in restricting most forms of public religious expression inconsistent with its particular interpretation of Sunni Islam. Saudi officials base these restrictions on their interpretation of hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), stating that such a stance is what is expected of them as the country that hosts the two holiest mosques in Islam, in Mecca and Medina. Such policies violate the rights of other Sunni Muslims who follow varying schools of thought, Shi'a Muslims, and both Muslim and non-Muslim expatriate workers. The government still has not codified the protection of private religious practice for non-Muslim expatriate workers in the country, which would foster a greater sense of security. Furthermore, the Saudi legal system limits the religious freedom and human rights of women, whose public and private lives are shaped by the imposition of official religious interpretations.

In February 2017, a USCIRF delegation travelled to Saudi Arabia to assess religious freedom conditions and met with a range of Saudi government officials as well as the government-appointed Human Rights Commission, the King Abdullah Center for National Dialogue, the Tatweer Company for Educational Services, the Muslim World League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the International Islamic Relief Organization, U.S. Embassy and consular staff, and members of civil society, including religious leaders, women's rights activists, lawyers, journalists, and human rights defenders.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Positive Developments

USCIRF has recognized some improvements in recent years, most notably the decrease in the public presence of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV). This body, colloquially known as the religious police, officially enforces public morality and restricts disfavored public religious manifestations and practice by both Saudis and non-Saudis. In April 2016, a royal decree prohibited the CPVPV from questioning, arresting, or requesting identification from individuals. This decree also required CPVPV members to show identification while on duty, and specified educational, religious, and legal prerequisites for membership. As a result, both non-Muslim expatriate workers and Shi'a communities report less harassment in public. USCIRF continues to call for the full dissolution of the CPVPV.

Saudi Arabia has also taken additional steps to counter violent extremism in the Kingdom. After a surge of terrorist attacks in 2015, including against Shi'a worshippers, the number of attacks dropped significantly in 2016, reflecting a rigorous government campaign against domestic terrorism. During the past year, the government worked to challenge the religious and ideological messages of terrorist groups through the newly formed Ideological Warfare Center and Digital Extremism Observatory. The center's stated goal is to confront extremist ideologies and promote a moderate, welcoming understanding of Islam. The observatory focuses on monitoring the online presence of terrorist groups, especially on social media. In addition, the Saudi government continued to dismiss clerics and teachers who espouse intolerant or extremist views, although some preachers continue to use intolerant rhetoric about non-Sunni Muslims in Friday sermons. The Saudi government claims to have retrained over 20,000 imams.

Other positive developments include additional revisions to remove intolerant passages from textbooks and curricula (see section below on Improvements in Saudi Textbooks) and initiatives promoting women's participation in the economic, legal, and political spheres. Saudi officials also confirmed that in 2016 the judiciary had completed the first stage of codifying the penal code and is working to ensure it is consistent with international human rights standards. In addition, in recent years the Saudi government has promoted a culture of dialogue and understanding, both inside the Kingdom through the work of the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue and in international fora through the Vienna-based King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue.

Restrictions and Attacks on Shi'a Muslims

Arrests and detentions of Shi'a Muslim dissidents continued, despite government assertions that Shi'a Muslims are not targeted because of their religion or belief. Officials also claim Shi'a Muslims do not encounter religious discrimination, despite credible allegations to the contrary.

For many years, the government has detained and imprisoned Shi'a Muslims for participating in demonstrations or publicly calling for reform, holding small religious gatherings in private homes without permits, organizing religious events or celebrating religious holidays in certain parts of the country, and reading religious materials in private homes or husseiniyas (prayer halls). Saudi officials often cite as pretext for these restrictions security concerns related to alleged ties to Iran and, this year, intermittent attacks by Shi'a youth on security officials. However, community representatives assert that very few Shi'a Muslims in Saudi Arabia are sympathetic to Iran. While conditions for public religious expression have improved in Qatif (which is predominantly Shi'a) and Najran (which is predominantly Ismaili), Shi'a religious expression in mixed areas and any Shi'a gatherings perceived to have political aims continue to face severe challenges. The Shi'a community also experiences discrimination in education, employment, the military, political representation, and the judiciary.

In recent years, Shi'a dissidents and reformers have received lengthy prison terms or death sentences for their activities. One Shi'a cleric, a vocal and inflammatory critic of the government, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was executed in January 2016 after being convicted by a Specialized Criminal Court of "inciting sectarian strife," disobeying the government, and supporting rioting that resulted in the death of two policemen. Following the execution of al-Nimr and the July 2016 arrest of his associate, Sheikh Mohammed Hasan al-Habib, for "creating dissent," most Shi'a activists have retreated from civil society activities, including demonstrations and protests.

The number of attacks targeting Shi'a places of worship in the Eastern Province decreased significantly when compared to the previous year. In January 2016, a suicide bombing and gun attack on a Shi'a mosque in al-Ahsa resulted in four deaths and at least 18 injured, while in July 2016 two bombers targeted a Shi'a mosque in al-Qatif. In both cases, Saudi officials and religious leaders condemned the attacks, calling for national unity without emphasizing the uniquely sectarian nature of attacks in majority-Shi'a Muslim areas. During the reporting period, hundreds of individuals were arrested in connection to the various attacks. According to official Saudi estimates, more than 2,800 people were arrested on terrorism charges between early 2015 and July 2016. Human rights groups inside and outside the Kingdom have suggested Saudi government rhetoric is not sufficient to prevent future attacks and that reform to existing policies is needed.

Non-Muslim Expatriate Workers

Although the Saudi government bans the public practice of non-Muslim faiths, the government has stated repeatedly that non-Muslims may practice their religion privately without harassment. This policy has not been codified, and government officials show little interest in pursuing codification. In recent years, members of the CPVPV have raided private non-Muslim religious gatherings and arrested and/or deported participants, especially when the gatherings were loud or involved large numbers of people or symbols visible from outside the building. However, there were fewer raids in 2016 than in recent years. Nevertheless, non-Muslims seeking to practice their religion privately operate in a climate of fear, especially outside of compounds populated largely by foreign workers. During its visit in February 2017, USCIRF found that many non-Muslim religious communities restrict their services and other activities in order to avoid undue notice by their neighbors or authorities.

Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Sorcery Charges

The Saudi government continues to use criminal charges of apostasy and blasphemy to suppress debate and silence dissidents. Promoters of political and human rights reforms and members of marginalized expatriate communities typically have been the targets of such charges.

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi remained in prison during the reporting period. In June 2015, the Saudi Supreme Court upheld his sentence of 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes, and a fine of one million Saudi riyal (SR) ($266,000 USD) for, among other charges, insulting Islam and religious authorities. The sentence called for Badawi to be lashed 50 times a week for 20 consecutive weeks. Immediately after the first set of 50 lashes was carried out in January 2016, numerous human rights groups and several governmental entities, including USCIRF, condemned the implementation of the sentence. Badawi has not received additional floggings, due in part to international outrage and in part to a medical doctor's finding that he could not physically endure more lashings, although according to Badawi's family the lashings could resume at any time.

Also still imprisoned was Saudi poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh, who in November 2015 was sentenced to death for apostasy for allegedly questioning religion and spreading atheist thought in his poetry. In February 2016, an appeals court quashed the death sentence and issued a new verdict of eight years in prison and 800 lashes to be administered on 16 occasions; at the end of the reporting period, the lashes had not been administered. According to his lawyer, Fayadh also must renounce his poetry in Saudi state media.

In January 2017, an unnamed Yemeni man living in Saudi Arabia reportedly was charged with apostasy and sentenced to 21 years in prison for insulting Islam on his Facebook page. He was spared the death penalty after renouncing his views in court. The same month, Indian migrant worker Shankar Ponnam reportedly was sentenced to four months in prison and a fine of 5,000 SR (USD $1,333) for offending Islamic sentiments by sharing a picture on Facebook of the Hindu god Shiva sitting atop the Kaaba; he had been arrested in November 2016. Arrests and prosecutions for witchcraft and sorcery  a crime punishable by death  continued during the reporting period, often within the context of disputes over custody or labor relations. The CPVPV has special units throughout the country to combat sorcery and witchcraft.

2014 Law Classifies Blasphemy, Advocating Atheism as Acts of Terrorism

Saudi Arabia's 2014 counterterrorism law, the Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and its Financing, and a series of subsequent royal decrees create a legal framework that criminalizes as terrorism virtually all forms of peaceful dissent and free expression, including criticizing the government's interpretation of Islam or advocating atheism. Under the law, which went into effect in 2014, a conviction could result in a prison term ranging from three to 20 years. According to the law, terrorism includes "calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based." Since the law went into effect, some human rights defenders and reformers have been charged and convicted for such offenses. Terrorism-related crimes are tried in the Specialized Criminal Court, a non-Shari'ah body created in 2008.

In July 2014, Waleed Abu al-Khair, legal counsel to blogger Raif Badawi, became the first human rights defender to be sentenced under the antiterrorism law, receiving 15 years in jail on various spurious charges related to his advocacy. In January 2015, his sentence was upheld. In March 2016, journalist Alaa Brinji was convicted under the antiterrorism law of "insulting the rulers" and "ridiculing Islamic religious figures," based in large part on his tweets in support of women's rights and prisoners of conscience. In July 2016, his sentence was extended from five years in prison to seven.

Improvements in Saudi Textbooks, Yet Continued Concern about Intolerant Materials Abroad

For more than 15 years, the Saudi government has been addressing intolerant content in official school textbooks. In February 2017, Saudi officials stated that the final stage of revisions to high school textbooks was underway, with revisions to grade 11 and 12 texts yet to be completed. During its visit, USCIRF obtained some textbooks currently in use and found some intolerant content remained in high school texts, though at a much-reduced level. Remaining intolerant content includes derogatory language about non-Sunni Muslims, approval of jihad as "fighting" to spread one's religion, and characterization of Jews as "monkeys." Over the years, USCIRF has found that the Saudi government has made slow but steady progress in revisions to lower-grade textbooks in particular, with each subsequent edition appearing to include fewer intolerant passages than previous ones. Despite progress on textbooks, some interlocutors expressed concern that teachers may continue to teach intolerance. During the past year, the Ministry of Education continued to promote teacher training, including through a new program launched in May 2016 that supports Saudi teachers' professional development. Through this program, some 1,000 teachers have gone to Europe and North America to learn through classroom immersion. Domestically, the King Abdullah Center for National Dialogue continued to train Islamic Studies teachers. Furthermore, according to Saudi officials, teachers who do not follow the newly developed curricula are dismissed.

In recent years, a Saudi royal decree banned financing outside Saudi Arabia of religious schools, mosques, hate literature, and other activities that support religious intolerance and violence toward non-Muslims and nonconforming Muslims. In September 2016, the government also put into place new strictures on travel for da'wa, or proselytizing, bringing the foreign travel and preaching of clerics more firmly under the control of the Ministries of Islamic Affairs and Interior. Nevertheless, some literature, older versions of textbooks, and other intolerant materials reportedly remain in distribution in some countries despite the Saudi government's policy of attempting to retrieve previously distributed materials that teach hatred toward other religions and, in some cases, promote violence. For example, some of the older books justified violence against apostates, sorcerers, and homosexuals, and labeled Jews and Christians "enemies of the believers"; another high school textbook presented the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"  a notorious forgery designed to promote hostility toward Jews  as an authentic document. Concerns also remain about privately funded satellite television stations in the Kingdom that continue to espouse sectarian hatred and intolerance.

Women's Rights and Religious Freedom

The Saudi government's adoption of a legal system that combines local tribal customs with 18th century Islamic jurisprudence adversely affects the human rights of women in Saudi Arabia, including their freedoms of speech, movement, association, and religion. Women's rights are constrained in particular by the legal guardianship system applied regardless of religious affiliation, which is based on the government's interpretation of a Qur'anic verse describing men as "protectors and maintainers of women." Under the system, Saudi women must have permission from a male guardian to obtain a passport, marry, or travel abroad, as well as sometimes to access healthcare. The Saudi government agreed in 2009 and 2013 after its United Nations Universal Period Reviews to phase out the widespread system, but has taken only preliminary steps toward doing so. In 2013, however, Saudi female attorneys were permitted to practice law for the first time, increasing women's ability to advocate their rights. In July 2016, the Shura Council and Ministry of Justice announced preparation of new legislation that would codify personal status laws, a project supported by many first-generation female Saudi attorneys.

Personal status law is governed by courts implementing the dominant Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence or, for Shi'a Muslims, Ja'fari jurisprudence. However, Shi'a courts are geographically limited to the Qatif and Ahsa governorates. Saudi courts' interpretation of Shari'ah law results in rulings that women are legal minors and their testimony is worth half of men's, that men may divorce their wives without cause or cost, and that child marriage still is permitted. In 2013, the Saudi government criminalized domestic violence, but women can still legally be convicted and sentenced by a court on charges of "disobedience."

Saudi officials describe the guardianship system as primarily cultural  rather than religious or legal  in nature, and maintain that guardians who abuse their authority may have their rights revoked by a judge. However, judges, who are trained in Islamic jurisprudence and issue rulings in state-sponsored Shari'ah courts, continue to enforce rulings supporting the system, including in the face of alleged abuse, and the financial, logistical, and personal barriers to women seeking redress are considerable. Nevertheless, an increasing number of lawyers are making information publicly available to assist women to better understand and advocate their rights.

U.S. POLICY

Despite a series of challenges in recent years, U.S.-Saudi relations remain close. Between 2010 and 2016, the Obama Administration notified Congress of more than $115 billion in proposed arms sales to the Kingdom. In December 2016, the United States announced new limitations on military support for the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen; despite this, U.S. intelligence sharing, arms sales, and refueling of coalition aircraft continue. Since 2014, Saudi forces also have participated in some coalition strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets in Syria. For years, the U.S. government's reliance on the Saudi government for cooperation on counterterrorism, regional security, and energy supplies has limited its willingness to press the Saudi government to improve its poor human rights and religious freedom record. This trend continued in the last months of the Obama Administration, during which the president briefly addressed the Saudi human rights record in an April 2016 closed-door session with King Salman. In September 2016, a challenge to the relationship emerged with the passage of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows the families of 9/11 victims to sue the attackers' countries of origin.

Nevertheless, Saudi officials have stated that they are optimistic about U.S.-Saudi relations under the new Trump Administration. During his January 2017 confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson questioned whether designating Saudi Arabia a human rights violator would be an effective method of promoting change. In early 2017, Trump Administration officials had several interactions with their Saudi counterparts, including a conversation between President Donald J. Trump and King Salman that reportedly focused on strengthening economic, security, and military ties but did not include human rights or religious freedom concerns.

According to the State Department's most recent report on international religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, U.S. policy seeks to press the Saudi government "to respect religious freedom, eliminate discriminatory enforcement of laws against religious minorities, and promote respect and tolerance for minority religious practices and beliefs." The U.S. government continues to include Saudi officials in exchange and U.S. visitor programs that promote religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue. In 2016, Saudi officials stated that there were more than 61,000 Saudi students in the United States as part of a Saudi government scholarship program, despite recent tightening of eligibility requirements in response to Saudi budget shortfalls.

In September 2004, consistent with USCIRF's recommendation, the State Department designated Saudi Arabia as a CPC for the first time. In 2005, a temporary waiver was put in place, in lieu of otherwise legislatively mandated action as a result of the CPC designation, to allow for continued diplomatic discussions between the U.S. and Saudi governments and "to further the purposes of IRFA." In July 2006, the waiver was left in place indefinitely when the State Department announced that ongoing bilateral discussions with Saudi Arabia had enabled the U.S. government to identify and confirm a number of policies the Saudi government "is pursuing and will continue to pursue for the purpose of promoting greater freedom for religious practice and increased tolerance for religious groups." In reviewing implementation of these policies 10 years since that announcement, USCIRF found that progress had been achieved in several areas, but that other areas require significant work. Some of the measures Saudi Arabia confirmed as state policies but has not yet completed include the following:

Halt the dissemination of intolerant literature and extremist ideology within Saudi Arabia and around the world.

Revise and update textbooks to remove remaining intolerant references that disparage Muslims or non-Muslims or that promote hatred toward other religions or religious groups, a process the Saudi government expected to complete by July 2008.

Guarantee and protect the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice, and the right to possess and use personal religious materials.

Bring the Kingdom's rules and regulations into compliance with international human rights standards.

The State Department re-designated Saudi Arabia as a CPC in February and October 2016 but kept in place a waiver of any sanctions citing the "important national interest of the United States," pursuant to section 407 of IRFA.

Additional Statement of Vice Chair James J. Zogby

While I agree that Saudi Arabia should remain a CPC and with the recommendations at the end of this chapter, I am pleased that we toned down our call to remove the waiver  a provision I believe we were wrong to introduce two years ago.

There are significant changes underway in Saudi Arabia that we should be encouraging and we can best do this by remaining open to engagement with Saudi officials.

During our recent visit to the country, I was struck by the far-reaching changes that are occurring there. For example, the entire educational curriculum is being revamped emphasizing: problem-solving over learning by rote; changes in how math, science and technology are taught; mandated inclusion for children with disabilities; and a sense of civic responsibility. The fact that 200,000 Saudi youth are now studying abroad will inevitably have a profound impact on the future of change in Saudi Arabia.

From discussions with Saudi officials, dissidents, and individuals engaged in civil society, we heard questions being asked with a frequency and urgency not heard before. For example, it is of enormous consequence when religious leaders and officials say that they are struggling with separating out what is custom from what is religion. This is a discussion that should be encouraged, but we can only be partners in this process if we remain open to constructive engagement. This year's report makes it clear that we are.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - North Korea

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - North Korea, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4e12.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

The North Korean government continues to rank as one of the world's most repressive regimes, in part because of its deplorable human rights record. Freedom of religion or belief does not exist and is, in fact, profoundly suppressed. The regime considers religion to pose the utmost threat  both to its own survival and that of the country. The North Korean government relentlessly persecutes and punishes religious believers through arrest, torture, imprisonment, and sometimes execution. Once imprisoned, religious believers typically are sent to political prison camps where they are treated with extraordinary cruelty. Based on the North Korean government's longstanding and continuing record of systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief, USCIRF again finds that North Korea, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), merits designation in 2017 as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated North Korea as a CPC since 2001, most recently in October 2016.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate North Korea as a CPC under IRFA;

Continue to impose targeted sanctions on specific North Korean officials and government agencies, or individuals or companies working directly with them, for human rights violations  particularly violations of the freedom of religion or belief  or for benefitting from these abuses, as part of sanctions imposed via one or more of the following: an executive order, the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016, the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act, other congressional action, or action at the UN;

Call for a follow-up UN inquiry to track the findings of the 2014 report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (COI) and assess any new developments  particularly with respect to violations of the freedom of religion or belief, and suggest a regularization of such analysis similar to and in coordination with the Universal Periodic Review process;

Include, whenever possible, both the Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues and the Ambassador- at-Large for International Religious Freedom in formal and informal discussions about or with North Korea in order to incorporate human rights and religious freedom into the dialogue, and likewise incorporate human rights and religious freedom concerns into discussions with multilateral partners regarding denuclearization and security, as appropriate;

Coordinate efforts with regional allies, particularly Japan and South Korea, to raise human rights and humanitarian concerns and specific concerns regarding freedom of religion or belief, and press for improvements, including the release of prisoners of conscience and closure of the infamous political prisoner camps;

Explore innovative ways to expand existing radio programming transmitted into North Korea and along the border, as well as the dissemination of other forms of information technology, such as mobile phones, thumb drives, and DVDs, and improved Internet access so North Koreans have greater access to independent sources of information; and

Encourage Chinese support for addressing the most egregious human rights violations in North Korea, including violations of religious freedom, and regularly raise with the government of China the need to uphold its international obligations to protect North Korean asylum-seekers in China, including by allowing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and international humanitarian organizations to assist them, and by ending repatriations, which are in violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Protocol and/or the UN Convention Against Torture.

The U.S. Congress should:

Reauthorize the North Korean Human Rights Act beyond 2017, incorporate updated language and/or recommendations from the 2014 COI report, particularly regarding freedom of religion or belief, and authorize funds for the act's implementation.

BACKGROUND

Although other Communist countries restrict freedom of religion or belief  even if they pretend to protect it constitutionally  the North Korean regime stands apart for its state-generated ideology known as Juche. Through this dogmatic stranglehold over society, the regime engenders cult-like devotion to and deification of current leader Kim Jong-un, just as it did for Kim's father and grandfather before him. This forced loyalty leaves no room for the expression or practice of individualized thought, nor for freedom of religion or belief, which in practice does not exist. Those who follow a religion or other form of belief do so at great risk and typically in secret, at times even keeping their faith hidden from their own families. The most recent estimate puts North Korea's total population at more than 25 million. Given the country's extremely closed nature, figures for religious followers are outdated and difficult to confirm. The United Nations (UN) estimates that less than 2 percent of North Koreans are Christian, or somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people. The country also has strong historical traditions of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shamanism, as well as a local religious movement known as Chondoism (also spelled Cheondoism).

Through increasingly aggressive rhetoric and actions aimed at provoking the international community, particularly the United States, the North Korean government continues to look inward to bolster its legitimacy, such as through the expansion of its nuclear weapons program. In May 2016, the regime held the Workers' Party of Korea's Seventh Congress, the first such gathering in nearly four decades. Formally, the party holds a congress to self-organize, set an agenda, and determine leadership roles. Analysts believe the rare meeting also served as a vehicle for Kim Jong-un to consolidate his power.

During 2016, North Korea experienced a series of highly publicized defections, including a high-profile diplomat and a rare group defection. In April 2016, 13 North Koreans working at a restaurant in Ningbo, China, defected. In August 2016, North Korea's former deputy ambassador in London, Thae Yong-ho, defected, eventually arriving with his family in Seoul, South Korea, where he remains under government protection. In October 2016, news reports suggested that as many as three Beijing-based embassy officials or other North Korean government employees defected.

During the year, the UN Human Rights Council named Tomas Ojea Quintana of Argentina as the new Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea and continued to underscore that country's deplorable human rights record. In March 2016, the UN Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 31/18 examining the human rights situation in North Korea. The resolution condemns longstanding violations, including the denial of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and instructs the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to assign a two-person expert group to work on issues of accountability for human rights abuses with the Special Rapporteur. In the group's February 2017 report, the experts recommended a "multi-pronged and comprehensive" approach to "pursuing accountability for human rights violations in [North Korea]," specifically with respect to violations that may constitute crimes against humanity. In November 2016, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution sanctioning North Korea for its fifth nuclear test in September. In December 2016, however, several of Pyongyang's allies, including China, attempted and failed to block a debate on North Korea's human rights abuses when the Security Council met for its third annual discussion on the subject.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Government Control and Repression of Christianity

All religious groups are prohibited from conducting religious activities except through the handful of state-controlled houses of worship, and even these activities are tightly controlled. According to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, individuals face persecution for propagating religion, possessing religious items, carrying out religious activities (including praying and singing hymns), and having contact with religious persons. However, the North Korean regime reviles Christianity the most and considers it the biggest threat; it associates that faith with the West, particularly the United States. Through robust surveillance, the regime actively tries to identify and search out Christians practicing their faith in secret and imprisons those it apprehends, often along with their family members even if they are not similarly religious. According to the State Department, the North Korean regime currently detains an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 individuals in political prison camps known as kwanliso. Reports indicate tens of thousands of these prisoners are Christians facing hard labor or execution.

Underground churches do exist in North Korea, but information about their location and number of parishioners is nearly impossible to confirm. There are three Protestant churches, one Catholic church, and the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, all state run.

In December 2016, Canadian diplomats traveled to North Korea to visit Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim, a South Korean-born Canadian citizen sentenced in December 2015 to life in prison with hard labor for alleged subversive activities and insulting North Korea's leadership. In November 2016, news reports indicated Sweden's ambassador to North Korea met with the North Korean Foreign Ministry on behalf of Reverend Lim, but there was no change in his status. Sweden serves as protecting power for Canada, Australia, and the United States  which do not have diplomatic relations with North Korea  providing limited consular services to these countries' citizens.

During the year, several reports surfaced about the death of Korean-Chinese Pastor Han Chung-ryeol, who led Changbai Church, located in China's Jilin Province near the border with North Korea. After Pastor Han's body was found in April 2016, rights activists accused North Korean agents of murdering him for his work assisting North Korean defectors in China. North Korean officials denied any involvement in Pastor Han's death and instead accused South Korea of slander.

North Korean Refugees in China

The Chinese government holds longstanding concerns about an influx of North Korean refugees crossing its border. Following severe floods in 2016 along the border with China, North Korean authorities reportedly took steps to fortify border security to prevent defections. The few religious materials that make their way into North Korea often do so along this border. Accounts from North Korean defectors reveal that individuals caught attempting to cross the border or who are forcibly repatriated from China are severely punished, particularly if North Korean officials believe they have interacted with missionaries or engaged in religious activities. Increasingly, reports indicate Chinese officials conspire with their North Korean counterparts to hunt down, arrest, and forcibly repatriate North Koreans attempting to cross China. This violates China's obligations under the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

U.S. POLICY

In recent years, the international community, including the United States, has made great strides in recognizing the importance of jointly advocating North Korea's security and human rights challenges as related concerns, rather than favoring the former over the latter. The United States government must continue to raise these two spheres of concern in a mutually reinforcing way and engage stakeholders  such as South Korea, Japan, and the UN  in the same manner to maximize efforts on both fronts; this should include addressing North Korea's broad-ranging violations of human rights  including freedom of religion or belief  and wholesale repression of dissent.

During 2016, the U.S. government for the first time ever identified and sanctioned specific human rights abusers in North Korea. In July 2016, the State Department released a report on North Korea's human rights abuses and censorship pursuant to the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 (P.L. 114-122). The report named 23 North Korean individuals and state entities responsible for human rights violations and censorship, 15 of which the Treasury Department placed on the "specially designated nationals" (SDN) list maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was among the individuals named. When the State Department issued its second report in January 2017, the Treasury Department concurrently placed seven individuals and two government agencies on the SDN list. In statements for both reports, the State Department said, "Human rights abuses in the DPRK remain among the worst in the world."

In December 2016, then President Barack Obama signed into law the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of State Authorities Act (P.L. 114-323), which acknowledged the regime's crimes against religious believers and expressed the sense of Congress that the secretaries of state and treasury "should impose additional sanctions against the DPRK, including targeting its financial assets around the world, specific designations related to human rights abuses, and a redesignation of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terror."

At the end of fiscal year 2017, the North Korean Human Rights Act (P.L. 112-172) will expire, requiring congressional reauthorization to continue. The underlying act became law in 2004 and was twice extended in 2008 and 2012. The act outlines several human rights goals in North Korea: to improve the information flow into the country, create a special envoy position within the State Department, and support U.S. efforts to resettle North Korean refugees in the United States. The 2012 reauthorization also expressed the sense of Congress that China should cease forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees.

North Korea continues to target individuals with close ties to the United States; the regime routinely detains them and compels confessions designed to embarrass and undermine the United States. In March 2016, North Korea sentenced University of Virginia student Otto Frederick Warmbier to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly committing a "hostile act" when he tore down a political banner hanging in a Pyongyang hotel. The previous month, Warmbier publicly confessed to the charges. In April 2016, North Korea's Supreme Court sentenced a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Korea, Kim Dong-chul, to 10 years of hard labor on charges of alleged spying. The North Korean government paraded both men in front of international media to confess their alleged crimes. By June 2016, the North Korean government threatened not to negotiate the release of the two men with the United States unless U.S. missionary and former detainee Kenneth Bae ceased denigrating the country. Bae, who was released from North Korean custody in November 2014 after serving two years' hard labor of a 15-year sentence for allegedly undermining the government, published a memoir describing his arrest and imprisonment.

In February and October 2016, the State Department redesignated North Korea as a CPC. In lieu of prescribing sanctions specific to the CPC designation, the State Department consistently has applied "double- hatted" sanctions against North Korea, in this case extending restrictions under the Jackson-Vanik amendment of the Trade Act of 1974. Jackson-Vanik originated when Congress sought to pressure Communist countries for their human rights violations and has since been used to deny normal trade relations to North Korea and Cuba.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Nigeria

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Nigeria, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f4f12.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

Religious freedom conditions in Nigeria remained poor during the reporting period. The Nigerian government at the federal and state levels continued to repress the Shi'a Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), including holding IMN leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky without charge, imposing state-level bans on the group's activities, and failing to hold accountable Nigerian Army officers who used excessive force against IMN members in December 2015. Sectarian violence between predominately Muslim herders and predominately Christian farmers increased, and the Nigerian federal government failed to implement effective strategies to prevent or stop such violence or to hold perpetrators accountable. The Nigerian military continued to successfully recapture territory from Boko Haram and arrest its members, but the government's nonmilitary efforts to stop Boko Haram remain nascent. Finally, other religious freedom abuses continue at the state level. Based on these concerns, in 2017 USCIRF again finds that Nigeria merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), as it has found since 2009. Nigeria has the capacity to improve religious freedom conditions by more fully and effectively addressing religious freedom concerns, and will only realize respect for human rights, security, stability, and economic prosperity if it does so.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Designate Nigeria as a CPC under IRFA;

Seek to enter into a binding agreement with the Nigerian government, as defined in section 405(c) of IRFA, and be prepared to provide financial and technical support to help the Nigerian government undertake reforms to address policies leading to violations of religious freedom, including but not limited to the following:

Professionalize and train specialized police and joint security units to respond to sectarian violence and acts of terrorism, including in counterterrorism, investigative techniques, community policing, nonlethal crowd control, and conflict prevention methods and capacities;



Conduct professional and thorough investigations of and prosecute future incidents of sectarian violence and terrorism and suspected and/or accused perpetrators;



Develop effective conflict prevention and early warning mechanisms at the local, state, and federal levels using practical and implementable criteria;



Advise and support the Nigerian government in the development of counter- and deradicalization programs;



Ensure that all military and police training educates officers on international human rights standards; and



Develop a system whereby security officers accused of excessive use of force and other human rights abuses are investigated and held accountable.

Hold a session of the U.S.-Nigeria Bi-National Commission on the increased sectarian violence to discuss further actions to end the violence, address land concerns, hold perpetrators accountable, and reconcile communities;

Continue to speak privately and publicly regarding the IMN situation about the importance of all parties respecting rule of law and freedom of religion or belief;

Expand engagement with federal and state government officials, Muslim and Christian religious leaders, and nongovernmental interlocutors to address hate speech and incitement to violence based on religious identity;

Use targeted tools against specific officials and agencies identified as having participated in or being responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom; these tools include the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act;

Continue to support civil society and faith-based organizations at the national, regional, state, and local levels that have special expertise and a demonstrated commitment to intrareligious and interreligious dialogue, religious education, reconciliation, and conflict prevention; and

Assist nongovernmental organizations working to reduce tensions related to the reintegration of victims of Boko Haram, including youth and women, and of former Boko Haram fighters.

BACKGROUND

Nigeria's population of 180 million is equally divided between Muslims and Christians and is composed of more than 250 ethnic groups. The majority of the population in the far north identifies as Muslim, and primarily is from the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group. In southwest Nigeria, which has large Christian and Muslim populations, the Yoruba is the largest ethnic group. Southeast Nigeria is largely Christian and is dominated by the Igbo ethnic group. Nigeria's "Middle Belt" is home to numerous smaller ethnic groups that are predominantly Christian, and it also comprises a significant Muslim population.

Managing this diversity and developing a national identity pose challenges for Nigerians and the Nigerian government. Fears of ethnic and religious domination are longstanding; given that religious identity frequently falls along regional, ethnic, political, and socioeconomic lines, it routinely provides a flashpoint for violence. The constitutionally mandated "federal character" principle is an attempt to avert ethnocentric tendencies and potential violence by offering each group equal access to national leadership. The federal character principle stipulates that federal, state, and local government agencies and their conduct of affairs should reflect the diversity of their populations and promote unity, thereby ensuring no predominance of persons from a few ethnic or other sectional groups.

Among the strategies to implement this principle is a type of quota system to redress regional and ethnic disparities, ensure equal access to educational and public sector employment opportunities, and promote equal access to resources at the federal, state, and local levels. However, this principle is applied through the controversial "indigene" concept, which has led to denying certain ethnoreligious groups citizenship rights at the local level. Based on article 147 of the 1999 Constitution, Nigerian law and state and local government practice make a distinction between "indigenes" and "settlers." Indigenes are persons whose ethnic group is considered native to a particular area, while settlers are those who have ethnic roots in another part of the country. State and local governments issue certifications granting indigene status, which bestows many benefits and privileges. The settler designation can be made even if a particular group may have lived in an area for generations. Accessing land, schools, civil service jobs, or public office without such an indigene certificate can be almost impossible. In the Middle Belt, indigene and settler identities fall along and reinforce ethnic and religious divides, leading to sectarian violence to control state and local governments.

The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria includes provisions protecting freedom of religion or belief and prohibiting religious discrimination. In 12 Muslim- majority northern Nigerian states, federalism has allowed the adoption of Shari'ah law in the states' criminal codes.

In March 2016 and January and February 2017, USCIRF visited Abuja, Kaduna, and Yola to assess religious freedom conditions in the country, meeting with government officials, religious communities, civil society organizations, and internally displaced persons from the Northeast.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Clashes with and Repression of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria

During 2016, the Nigerian government at the federal and state levels continued to repress the IMN. The confrontation started in December 2015 in Zaria, Kaduna State, when the Nigerian Army killed 347 IMN members, arrested almost 200 others, including IMN leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, and destroyed the IMN's spiritual headquarters after the group blocked the procession of the Nigerian Army's chief of staff.

Since this incident, the Nigerian government has detained Zakzaky without charge. A federal court ruled on December 2, 2016, that Zakzaky should be released within 45 days. On January 26, the Nigerian government appealed the ruling. The Nigerian government also continued to prosecute 191 IMN members for illegal possession of firearms, causing a public disturbance, and incitement. The government is seeking the death penalty for 50 IMN members accused of causing the death of one military officer.

During the year, a Kaduna State government- appointed Commission of Inquiry (COI) investigated the December 2015 incident. The COI report, released by the government on August 1, found the Nigerian Army was responsible for the mass killing and burial of 347 IMN members, that the IMN did not possess firearms and that its other weapons were of little consequence, and that Zakzaky was responsible for the IMN's "lawlessness." COI members recommended that the government prosecute officers responsible for the violence and that IMN members be held accountable for "acts of habitual lawlessness." To date, no Nigerian Army officers have been held accountable for the violence.

On October 7, the Kaduna State government declared the IMN an illegal society and set penalties for IMN activities, including fines and/or imprisonment for up to seven years for membership. Governors of Kano, Katsina, Plateau, and Sokoto states also prohibited IMN Shi'a processions, including during Ashura. On December 5, the Kaduna State government released a white paper declaring the IMN an insurgent group and finding that the Nigerian Army in 2015 acted within its rules of operations. Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai told USCIRF in January 2017 that the IMN must register as a society.

In October and November 2016, in Plateau, Katsina, Sokoto, and Kano states, security officers attacked IMN members engaged in Ashura processions. On October 14 in Plateau, soldiers attacked a procession and invaded the IMN Islamic Center, making arrests while threatening to destroy the structure. On November 14, Nigeria's national police force killed dozens of IMN members when they attacked the group's procession in Kano State.

Sectarian Violence

Since 1999, violence between Christian and Muslim communities in Nigeria's Middle Belt states has killed tens of thousands, displaced hundreds of thousands, and damaged or destroyed thousands of churches, mosques, businesses, homes, and other structures. In recent years, sectarian violence has occurred in rural areas between predominantly Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim nomadic herders. While this violence usually does not start as a religious conflict, it often takes on religious undertones and is perceived as a religion-based conflict for many involved. During USCIRF's 2017 visit to Nigeria, interlocutors cited different reasons for the violence, including land disputes resulting from herders seeking land for their cattle to graze and migrate; herdsmen being more heavily armed to protect their cattle from cattle rustling; Fulani engaging in revenge attacks in southern Kaduna in response to the post-election violence in which 500 Muslims were killed in that area; and, for Christian interlocutors, a Fulani ethnic cleansing campaign against indigenous ethnic groups to take their lands.

Recurrent violence in rural areas increased in the reporting period, resulting in hundreds of deaths and a number of churches destroyed. Such attacks were reported in Kaduna, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, and Benue states. For example, in March in Agatu Local Government Area, Benue State, an estimated 100300 were killed and there were reports of at least six villages destroyed. On December 19, the Catholic Archdiocese of Kafancan reported that in 2016 at least 800 were killed in sectarian violence in 53 villages in southern Kaduna. The Archdiocese also reported that 16 churches were destroyed during the year.

The Nigerian government has long failed to respond adequately to this violence. The federal police are rarely deployed, let alone in a timely manner. While the government deployed police and the military to southern Kaduna to address violence in that area, nongovernmental interlocutors universally told USCIRF that the deployments stick to main roads and do not venture into more rural areas where the violence occurs, and they do not respond when forewarned of the potential for violence or when violence occurs. Corrupt police practices, such as officers requiring victims pay bribes before they respond or listen to reports of violence, also impede government efforts to halt conflicts.

During USCIRF's 2017 visit to Nigeria, government interlocutors explained some new efforts to address the increased violence. The Ministry of Interior said it created a governmental and nongovernmental committee to investigate the violence and is waiting for its report and recommendations. Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama said the Ministry of Agriculture is working to create grazing reserves and routes for cattle herders. In a positive move, the Kaduna State government announced its intention to allocate 20,000 hectares of land in southern Kaduna to grazing reserves, over and above land already occupied illegally by the herders; in response, Christian indigenous groups announced they will not give up their land. Governor El-Rufai told USCIRF his government will end the tradition of commissioning a report and ignoring its recommendations and instead arrest perpetrators. As of the time of this writing, 17 individuals in Kaduna State have been arrested. The Benue and Baysala state governors also provided land for cattle grazing.

Boko Haram

Boko Haram is a terrorist organization engaged in an insurgent campaign to overthrow Nigeria's secular government and impose what it considers "pure" Shari'ah law. Boko Haram opposes Nigeria's federal and northern state governments, political leaders, and Muslim religious elites and has worked to expel all Christians from the north. Escaped Boko Haram abductees, human rights groups, and news accounts report that Boko Haram forces Christians to convert or die, applies Shari'ah law and corresponding hudood punishments for those deemed guilty of various criminal or morality offices, and requires Muslims in its areas to attend Quranic schools to learn its extreme interpretation of Islam. Boko Haram has attacked churches, executed civilians, and destroyed whole villages. Since May 2011, according to the Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker, Boko Haram and the military campaign against the terrorists have killed more than 28,000 people. The Boko Haram crisis has resulted in more than 1.8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

In March 2015, Boko Haram pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In August 2016, ISIS announced a new "governor" for West Africa, declaring that a splinter Boko Haram group had been formed, focusing its efforts on military and Western targets.

During the reporting period, the Nigerian military  assisted by regional troops and local vigilante groups known as the Civilian Joint Task Force (C-JTF)  continued to pressure Boko Haram. While the traditional Boko Haram faction is retreating to the Sambesi Forest area, the ISIS-affiliated group has increased its campaign along the northern border and into Niger. Despite a loss of territory, Boko Haram continues to engage in asymmetrical attacks, including against mosques and markets. In March 2016, USCIRF staff interviewed IDPs in Yola and were told of ongoing security concerns for those who returned to home areas in Borno State, including suspicion between Christians and Muslims and between the C-JTF and those it suspects of being current or former Boko Haram members. USCIRF also received reports that women impregnated by Boko Haram fighters and their children have been shunned from their home communities.

The Nigerian government's efforts against Boko Haram continue to be primarily military. In October, President Muhammadu Buhari announced the creation of the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI) to address development and radicalization issues in the northeast. Minister of Foreign Affairs Onyeama told USCIRF in February 2017 that the PCNI will coordinate development initiatives for the northeast, but that more funding is needed for this effort to be successful. Under the Office of the National Security Advisor, the Nigerian prison system operated a small deradicalization program in a prison outside of Abuja. A larger military-led program is not yet operational. The Ministry of Interior told USCIRF in February 2017 that it is deploying police to liberated Boko Haram areas to ensure security. Finally, despite routine reports of arrests of Boko Haram fighters, there are very few trials and convictions. Rather, those arrested remain detained without charge. Further, Boko Haram defectors remain detained without adequate government efforts to deradicalize and/or reintegrate them into society.

Security forces have been accused of engaging in indiscriminate and excessive use of force, committing extrajudicial killings, mistreating detainees in custody, making arbitrary arrests, and using collective punishments. The Nigeria Security Tracker reports that state security officers are solely responsible for more than 6,700 deaths from May 2011 through January 2017. USCIRF has raised concerns about the Nigerian military's use of excessive force in its campaign against Boko Haram. During the reporting period, there were few reports of such military abuses, although little is known about the military's actions in Borno State. In response to criticism, the Nigerian Army created a human rights monitoring office; however, there are no reports of officers being disciplined for abuses.

State-Level Religious Freedom Concerns

Twelve Muslim-majority northern Nigerian states apply their interpretation of Shari'ah law in their criminal codes. Shari'ah criminal provisions and penalties remain on the books in these 12 states, although application varies by location. State governments in Bauchi, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna, Jigawa, Gombe, and Kano funded and supported Hisbah, or religious police, to enforce such interpretations. The vast majority of the Shari'ah cases revolve around criminal acts such as cattle rustling and petty theft, not violations of morality offenses.

Christian leaders in the northern states continued to report to USCIRF that state governments discriminate against Christians by denying applications to build or repair places of worship, access to education, representation in government bodies, and employment. They also reported that Christian girls are abducted by Muslim men to be brides.

In this reporting period, mobs killed two women accused of blasphemy. On June 2 in Kano, Bridget Agbahime was killed after she was accused of insulting a man prior to his prayers. Five men were arrested; however, on November 3 the Kano chief magistrate dismissed the case on the recommendation of the Kano State attorney general, who said the accused were innocent.

On July 9, Redeemed Christian Church of God Pastor Eunice Elisha was killed while preaching in Abuja. Police report that four suspects are detained. In January 2017, an Abuja police spokesman confirmed reports that a court ordered the release of the suspects due to lack of evidence. The spokesman said they are still investigating the murder.

During the reporting period, the Kaduna State National Assembly continued to advance the Religious Regulation Bill that Governor El-Rufai introduced on February 22. Although the legislation seeks to address religious hate speech that could incite violence, increased restrictions could limit religious leaders' and communities' religious freedom and right to freedom of speech. The bill proposes restrictions on Muslims' and Christians' religious activities, including the creation of a joint Muslim-Christian ministerial committee to issue or refuse to issue licenses to religious groups, prohibiting preaching without a license, prohibiting "abusive speech" against any person or religious organization, banning the use of audio equipment containing recordings of preaching by licensed preachers except in houses of worship and personal domiciles for religious purposes, and banning sermons that lead to "disturbance of the public peace."

U.S. POLICY

Nigeria is a strategic U.S. economic and security partner in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in Africa, and the United States is the largest bilateral donor to Nigeria. In 2010, the State Department established the U.S.-Nigeria Bi-National Commission, which includes working groups on good governance, terrorism and security, energy and investment, and food security and agricultural development.

On March 30, Nigerian Foreign Minister Onyeama and then Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken co-chaired the U.S.-Nigeria Bi-National Commission, with remarks by then Secretary of State John Kerry and then National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The two nations agreed to actions to further military and nonmilitary approaches to counter Boko Haram and assist civilians; assist Nigerian economic growth and development; and strengthen good governance, anticorruption efforts, conflict mitigation programs, and public service delivery.

The U.S. government has a large military assistance and antiterrorism program in Nigeria to stop Boko Haram. The United States has designated Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and has designated several Boko Haram leaders as terrorists, imposed economic sanctions on them, and offered rewards for their capture. It also has supported UN Security Council sanctions on Boko Haram to prohibit arms sales, freeze assets, and restrict movement. The U.S. government provides U.S. military personnel, law enforcement advisors, investigators, and civilian security and intelligence experts to Nigeria to advise officials on countering Boko Haram activities. However, in compliance with the Leahy Amendment, U.S. security assistance to the Nigerian military is limited due to concerns of gross human rights violations by Nigerian soldiers. Additionally, both the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department support counter-radicalization communication programs and humanitarian assistance in northeast Nigeria.

Senior Obama Administration officials regularly travelled to Nigeria during the reporting period. In February 2016, then Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein travelled to Abuja and Jos. In August, then Secretary Kerry travelled to Abuja and Sokoto, where he met with the Sultan of Sokoto and gave a speech about religious tolerance and countering violent extremism.

The State Department and USAID fund programs on conflict and mitigation and improving interfaith relations in line with USCIRF recommendations, including a multiyear capacity-building grant to the Kaduna Interfaith Mediation Center to address ethnic and religious violence in the Middle Belt.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Iran

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Iran, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f503b.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

During the past year, the government of Iran engaged in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused. Severe violations targeting religious minorities  especially Baha'is, Christian converts, and Sunni Muslims  continued unabated. Sufi Muslims and dissenting Shi'a Muslims also faced harassment, arrests, and imprisonment. Since President Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013, the number of individuals from religious minority communities who are in prison because of their beliefs has increased, despite the government releasing some religious prisoners of conscience during the reporting period. While Iran's clerical establishment continued to express anti-Semitic sentiments, the level of anti-Semitic rhetoric from government officials has diminished during President Rouhani's tenure. Since 1999, the State Department has designated Iran as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), most recently in October 2016. USCIRF again recommends in 2017 that Iran be designated a CPC.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate Iran as a CPC under IRFA;

Ensure that violations of freedom of religion or belief and related human rights are part of multilateral or bilateral discussions with the Iranian government whenever possible, and continue to work closely with European and other allies to apply pressure through a combination of advocacy, diplomacy, and targeted sanctions for religious freedom abuses;

Continue to speak out publicly and frequently at the highest levels about the severe religious freedom abuses in Iran, press for and work to secure the release of all prisoners of conscience, and highlight the need for the international community to hold authorities accountable in specific cases;

Continue to identify Iranian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom, freeze those individuals' assets, and bar their entry into the United States, as delineated under the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) and related executive orders, citing specific religious freedom violations;

Call on Iran to cooperate fully with the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, including allowing the Special Rapporteur  and the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief  to visit;

Continue to support an annual UN General Assembly resolution condemning severe violations of human rights  including freedom of religion or belief  in Iran and calling for officials responsible for such violations to be held accountable; and

Use appropriated funds to advance Internet freedom and protect Iranian activists by supporting the development and accessibility of new technologies and programs to counter censorship and to facilitate the free flow of information in and out of Iran.

The U.S. Congress should:

Reauthorize the Lautenberg Amendment, which aids persecuted Iranian religious minorities and other specified groups seeking refugee status in the United States, and work to provide the president with permanent authority to designate as refugees specifically defined groups based on shared characteristics identifying them as targets for persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

BACKGROUND

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a constitutional, theocratic republic that proclaims the Twelver (Shi'a) Jaafari School of Islam to be the official religion of the country. The constitution stipulates that followers of five other schools of thought within Islam  Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi'i, Hanbali, and Zaydi  should be accorded respect and permitted to perform their religious rites. The constitution also recognizes Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians as protected religious minorities, and five (out of a total of 290) seats in the parliament are reserved for these groups (two for Armenian Christians and one each for Assyrian Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians). With an overall population of just over 80 million, Iran is approximately 99 percent Muslim  90 percent Shi'a and 9 percent Sunni. According to recent estimates, religious minority communities constitute about 1 percent of the population and include Yarsan (approximately one million), Baha'is (more than 300,000), various Christian denominations (nearly 300,000), Zoroastrians (30,000 to 35,000), Jews (20,000), and Sabean-Mandaeans (5,000 to 10,000).

Nevertheless, the government of Iran discriminates against its citizens on the basis of religion or belief, as all laws and regulations are based on unique Shi'a Islamic criteria. Under Iran's penal code, it is a capital crime for non-Muslims to convert Muslims, as is moharebeh ("enmity against God") and sabb al-nabi ("insulting the prophets"). Since the 1979 revolution, many members of minority religious communities have fled in fear of persecution. Killings, arrests, and physical abuse of detainees have increased in recent years, including for religious minorities and Muslims who dissent or express views perceived as threatening the government's legitimacy. The government continues to use its religious laws to silence reformers  including human rights activists, journalists, and women's rights advocates  for exercising their internationally protected rights to freedom of expression and religion or belief.

Despite publicly releasing in December 2016 a nonbinding Charter on Citizens' Rights  which includes provisions to respect freedom of thought and religious belief for all citizens  President Rouhani has not delivered on his promises to strengthen civil liberties for religious minorities. Even some of the constitutionally recognized non-Muslim minorities  Jews, Armenian and Assyrian Christians, and Zoroastrians  face official harassment, intimidation, discrimination, arrests, and imprisonment. Some majority Shi'a and minority Sunni Muslims, including clerics who dissent, were intimidated, harassed, and detained. Dissident Muslims and human rights defenders were increasingly subject to abuse, and several were sentenced to death and executed for "enmity against God."

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Muslims

Over the past few years, the Iranian government has imposed harsh prison sentences on prominent reformers from the Shi'a majority community. Authorities charged many of these reformers with "insulting Islam," criticizing the Islamic Republic, and publishing materials that allegedly deviate from Islamic standards. Dissident Shi'a cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeni Boroujerdi continued to serve an 11-year prison sentence, and the government has banned him from practicing his clerical duties and has confiscated his home and belongings. He has suffered physical and mental abuse while in prison.

According to human rights groups and the United Nations (UN), at least 120 Sunni Muslims are in prison on charges related to their beliefs and religious activities. In August 2016, approximately 22 Sunni Muslims were executed for "enmity against God," including Sunni cleric Shahram Ahmadi, who was arrested in 2009 on unfounded security-related charges and reportedly forced to make a false confession. Several other Sunni Muslims are on death row after having been convicted of "enmity against God" in unfair judicial proceedings. Leaders from the Sunni community have been unable to build a mosque in Tehran and have reported widespread abuses and restrictions on their religious practice, including detention and harassment of clerics and bans on Sunni teachings in public schools. Additionally, Iranian authorities have destroyed Sunni religious literature and mosques in eastern Iran.

Sufi followers who focus on the spiritual and mystical elements within Islam  are targeted on the basis of non-conformity to the state's official interpretation of Islam. Members of the Nematollahi Gonabadi Sufi order continue to face a range of abuses, including attacks on their prayer centers and husseiniyas (meeting halls); destruction of community cemeteries; and harassment, arrests, and physical assaults of their leaders. Over the past year, authorities have detained dozens of Sufis, sentencing many to imprisonment, fines, and floggings. In November 2016, five members were charged with "insulting the sacred" and "insulting senior officials," among other charges; their case is ongoing. Nearly 20 Sufi activists were either serving prison terms or had cases pending against them. Iranian state television regularly airs programs demonizing Sufism.

Baha'is

The Baha'i community, the largest non-Muslim religious minority in Iran, has long been subject to particularly severe religious freedom violations. UN officials, including former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have found the Baha'i community to be the "most severely persecuted religious minority" in Iran, with its members subject to multiple forms of discrimination "that affect their enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights."

The government views Baha'is as "heretics," and consequently they face repression on the grounds of apostasy. Since 1979, authorities have killed or executed more than 200 Baha'i leaders, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from government and university jobs. Over the past 10 years, nearly 1,000 Baha'is have been arbitrarily arrested.

As of February 2017, at least 90 Baha'is were being held in prison solely because of their religious beliefs. These include seven Baha'i leaders  Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naemi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm. During the past year, dozens of Baha'is were arrested throughout the country. For example, in September 2016, approximately 14 Baha'is were arrested in Shiraz and Karaj for their religious beliefs. In July 2016, five Baha'is were arrested in Shiraz and government agents raided private homes and seized personal computers and other materials. In January 2016, in Golestan Province, 24 Baha'is were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 11 years after being convicted for "illegal" membership in the Baha'i community and engaging in religious activities.

In recent years, Iranian government officials have undertaken a campaign to shutter Baha'i-owned businesses whenever the community observed its religious holidays. For example, in November 2016, at least 124 Baha'i-owned business in the provinces of Mazandaran, Alborz, Hormozgan, and Kerman were closed by authorities following the community's observance of two Baha'i holy days. In June 2016, in Urumia, West Azerbaijan Province, at least 25 Baha'i-owned shops were shut down without explanation by authorities; this also followed the observance of a Baha'i holy day.

Although the Iranian government maintains publicly that Baha'is are free to attend university, the de facto policy of preventing Baha'is from obtaining higher education remains in effect. In recent years, many Baha'i youth who scored very high on standardized tests were either denied entry into university or expelled during the academic year once their religious identity became known to education officials.

During the past year, hundreds of pro-government media articles continued to appear online and in print inciting religious hatred and encouraging violence against Baha'is after various sermons of prayer leaders were delivered. In June 2016, the UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Iran and on freedom of religion or belief expressed serious concern about incidents of incitement against the Baha'i community, noting that they could encourage acts of violence against Baha'is.

In September 2016, Baha'i Farhang Amiri was stabbed to death by two men outside of his home in Yazd; the two men later reportedly confessed, saying they killed him because he was an apostate and they wanted to go to heaven. At the end of the reporting period, an investigation was ongoing.

Christians

Since 2010, authorities arbitrarily have arrested and detained more than 600 Christians throughout the country. Over the past year, there were numerous incidents of Iranian authorities raiding church services, threatening church members, and arresting and imprisoning worshipers and church leaders, particularly Evangelical Christian converts. According to reports, nearly 80 Christians were arrested between May and August 2016; the majority were interrogated and released within days, but some were held without charge for months, and several remain in detention. As of December 2016, approximately 90 Christians were in prison, detained, or awaiting trial because of their religious beliefs and activities.

Christian leaders of house churches were the particular focus of Iranian authorities, and often were charged with unfounded national-security-related crimes. In May 2016, four Christian converts from Rasht  Yousef Nadarkhani, Yaser Mosibzadeh, Saheb Fadayee, and Mohammed Reza Omidi  were arrested and charged with acting against national security because of their activity in the house church movement; each could face up to six years in prison. Nadarkhani previously served several years in prison on an apostasy conviction until his release in 2013. The other three men  who remain in detention  were charged with drinking alcohol and are appealing their sentences of 80 lashes each.

In December 2016, Maryam Naghash Zargaran, a Christian convert from Islam, had her four-year sentence extended at least six weeks because of time she spent outside of prison for medical care during the summer of 2016. During the year, she undertook two hunger strikes to protest being denied treatment for her chronic health problems. She was arrested in January 2013 and later convicted of "propaganda against the Islamic regime and collusion intended to harm national security" in connection with her work at an orphanage alongside Iranian-American Christian pastor Saeed Abedini, who was released from prison in January 2016 as part of a prisoner swap between the United States and Iran. Pastor Abedini had been serving an eight-year prison sentence for "threatening the national security of Iran" for his activity in the house church movement. In addition, in October 2016, Christian pastor Behnam Irani was released from prison after serving a six-year sentence for religious activities.

During the year, there was an increase of anti-Christian sentiment in government-controlled and progovernment media outlets, as well as a proliferation of anti-Christian publications online and in print throughout Iran.

Jews, Zoroastrians, and the Yarsan

Although the vitriolic sentiment was not as pronounced as in previous years, the government continued to propagate anti-Semitism and target members of the Jewish community on the basis of real or perceived "ties to Israel." In 2016, high-level clerics continued to make anti-Semitic remarks in mosques. Numerous programs broadcast on state-run television advance anti-Semitic messages. In May 2016, the Iranian government sponsored a cartoon contest on the Holocaust. Discrimination against Jews continues to be pervasive, fostering a threatening atmosphere for the Jewish community. In recent years, members of the Zoroastrian community have come under increasing repression and discrimination. At least two Zoroastrians convicted in 2011 for propagating their faith, blasphemy, and other trumped-up charges remain in prison.

While the Iranian government considers followers of the Yarsan faith as Shi'a Muslims who practice Sufism, members identify as a distinct and separate religion (also known as Ahle-Haqq or People of Truth). In June 2016, leaders of the Yarsan faith wrote to the Iranian government asking for a constitutional amendment that would prohibit discrimination against them and would recognize the community as a religious minority; reportedly, the Iranian government responded by stating it already respects their religious beliefs and citizenship rights.

Human Rights Defenders, Journalists, and Dissidents

Iranian authorities regularly detain and harass journalists, bloggers, and human rights defenders who criticize the Islamic revolution or the Iranian government. Over the past few years, a number of human rights lawyers who defended Baha'is and Christians in court were imprisoned or fled the country for fear of arrest or prosecution.

Despite having completed a five-year prison term, Mohammad Ali Taheri, a university professor and founder of a spiritual movement (Erfan Halgheh or Spiritual Circle), remains in detention; there have been reports that after a hunger strike in October 2016, Taheri fell into a coma. At the end of the reporting period, his whereabouts were unknown. In 2011, Taheri was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison and 74 lashes for "insulting religious sanctities" for publishing several books on spirituality. Some of Taheri's followers also were convicted on similar charges and sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to five years. In July 2015, in a separate trial, Taheri was sentenced to death for "spreading corruption on earth;" in December 2015, the Iranian Supreme Court overturned Taheri's death sentence.

Women's Rights

The government's enforcement of its official interpretation of Shi'a Islam negatively affects the human rights of women in Iran, including their freedoms of movement, association, thought, conscience, and religion or belief, as well as freedom from coercion in matters of religion or belief. The Iranian justice system does not grant women the same legal status as men. For example, testimony by a man is equivalent to the testimony of two women, and civil and penal code provisions, in particular those dealing with personal status and property law, discriminate against women.

During the reporting period, Iranian authorities continued their enforcement of the strict dress code for women. In 2016, Iranian authorities announced that in addition to the uniformed "morality police," they would add an additional 7,000 undercover Gashte Ershad (Guidance Patrol) officers with broad powers to punish and even arrest people for failing to meet modesty norms. By law, Iranian women, regardless of their religious affiliation or belief, must be covered from head to foot while in public. Social interaction between unrelated men and women is banned, and the morality police continued throughout the country to stop cars with young men and women inside to question their relationship.

U.S. POLICY

The U.S. government has not had formal diplomatic relations with the government of Iran since 1980, although the United States participated in negotiations with Iran over the country's nuclear program as part of the group of countries known as the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany). In July 2015, the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran announced they had reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran's nuclear program would be exclusively peaceful. In January 2016, the UN, United States, and European Union began lifting nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, and they continue to monitor Iran's compliance with the agreement. Notwithstanding the JCPOA, the United States continues to keep in place and enforce sanctions for Iran's human rights violations, its support for terrorism, and its ballistic missile program.

On July 1, 2010, then President Barack Obama signed into law the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA), which highlights Iran's serious human rights violations, including suppression of religious freedom. CISADA, P.L. 111-195, requires the president to submit to Congress a list of Iranian government officials or persons acting on their behalf responsible for human rights and religious freedom abuses, bars their entry into the United States, and freezes their assets. In August 2012, then President Obama signed into law the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (ITRSHRA) of 2012, P.L. 112-239, which enhances the scope of human rights-related sanctions contained in CISADA. Over the past six years, as a consequence of Iran's human rights violations, the United States has imposed visa restrictions and asset freezes on 19 Iranian officials and 18 Iranian entities pursuant to CISADA, ITRSHRA, and various executive orders. Nevertheless, no new officials or entities were sanctioned for human rights or religious freedom abuses during the reporting period.

In recent years, U.S. policy on human rights and religious freedom in Iran included a combination of public statements, multilateral activity, and the imposition of unilateral sanctions on Iranian government officials and entities for human rights violations. During the reporting period, high-level U.S. officials in multilateral fora and through public statements urged the Iranian government to respect its citizens' human rights, including the right to religious freedom. In December 2016, for the 14th year in a row, the U.S. government cosponsored and supported a successful UN General Assembly resolution on human rights in Iran, which passed 85 to 35, with 63 abstentions. The resolution condemned the Iranian government's poor human rights record, including its religious freedom violations and continued abuses targeting religious minorities.

On January 16, 2016, the Obama Administration announced it had secured the release from jail of Iranian-American Pastor Abedini and three other Americans, in exchange for the release of seven Iranians in prison in the United States. Pastor Abedini and the other three Americans returned to the United States later that month.

On October 31, 2016, the secretary of state re-designated Iran as a CPC. The secretary designated the following presidential action for Iran: "The existing ongoing travel restrictions based on serious human rights abuses under section 221(a)(1)(C) of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, pursuant to section 402(c)(5) of the Act." A previous designation made in 2011 cited a provision under CISADA as the presidential action. Unlike CISADA, ITRSHRA does not contain a specific provision citing religious freedom violations.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Eritrea

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Eritrea, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f5113.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

The Eritrean government continues to repress religious freedom for unregistered  and in some cases registered  religious communities. Systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations include torture or other ill treatment of religious prisoners, arbitrary arrests and detentions without charges, a prolonged ban on public religious activities of unregistered religious groups, and interference in the internal affairs of registered religious groups. The situation is particularly grave for unregistered Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses. The government dominates the internal affairs of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Eritrea, the country's largest Christian denomination, and suppresses the religious activities of Muslims, especially those opposed to the government-appointed head of the Muslim community. In light of these violations, USCIRF again finds in 2017 that Eritrea merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated Eritrea as a CPC since 2004, most recently in October 2016.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate Eritrea as a CPC under IRFA, and maintain the existing, ongoing arms embargo referenced in 22 CFR 126.1(a) of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations;

Continue to use bilateral and multilateral diplomatic channels to urge the government of Eritrea to:

Release unconditionally and immediately detainees held on account of their peaceful religious activities, including Orthodox Patriarch Antonios;



End religious persecution of unregistered religious communities and register such groups;



Grant full citizenship rights to Jehovah's Witnesses;



Provide for conscientious objection by law in compliance with international human rights standards; Bring national laws and regulations, including registration requirements for religious communities, into compliance with international human rights standards;



Bring the conditions and treatment of prisoners in line with international standards; and



Extend an official invitation for unrestricted visits by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the International Red Cross;

Ensure that development assistance, if resumed, be directed to programs that contribute directly to democracy, religious freedom, human rights, and the rule of law;

Support the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea;

Intensify efforts with the Ethiopian government, the UN, and other relevant partners to resolve the current impasse between Eritrea and Ethiopia regarding implementation of the boundary demarcation as determined by the "final and binding" decision of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission that was established following the 19982000 war; and

Encourage unofficial dialogue with Eritrean authorities on religious freedom issues by promoting a visit by U.S. and international religious leaders, and expand the use of educational and cultural exchanges.

BACKGROUND

There are no reliable statistics of religious affiliation in Eritrea. The Pew Research Center estimates that Christians comprise approximately 63 percent of the population and Muslims approximately 37 percent.

President Isaias Afwerki and the Popular Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) have ruled Eritrea since the country's independence from Ethiopia in 1993. President Afwerki and his inner circle maintain absolute authority. Thousands of Eritreans are imprisoned for their real or imagined opposition to the government, and the 2015 and 2016 United Nations (UN) Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea (COI-E) reports describe extensive use of torture and forced labor, including of religious prisoners of conscience. In 2016, the COI-E found "reasonable grounds to conclude" that crimes against humanity had been committed, and urged the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Eritrea to the International Criminal Court. In July, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the COI-E recommendation that the African Union establish an accountability mechanism to investigate, prosecute, and try individuals accused of committing crimes against humanity in Eritrea, including engaging in torture and overseeing Eritrea's indefinite military service, which the COI-E equated to slavery.

No private newspapers, political opposition parties, or independent nongovernmental organizations exist. The government requires all physically and mentally capable people between the ages of 18 and 70 to perform a full-time, indefinite, and poorly paid national service obligation, which includes military, development, or civil service components. Eritrean authorities argue that the national service is necessary because the country remains on a war footing with Ethiopia, which has not implemented the demarcated border between the two countries. While national service does include a civil service component, all Eritreans are required to undertake military training; all forms of service are supervised by military commanders, and Eritreans cannot choose which type of service they must complete. Hence, there is no alternative for conscientious objectors. Further, a civilian militia program requirement for most males and females between the ages of 18 and 50 not in the military portion of national service also does not allow for or provide an alternative for conscientious objectors. The UN and various human rights groups have reported that persons who refuse to participate in national service are detained, sentenced to hard labor, abused, and have their legal documents confiscated. Religious practice is prohibited in the military and conscripts are severely punished if found with religious materials or participating in religious gatherings.

There are very few legal protections for freedom of religion or belief in Eritrea. Those that do exist are either not implemented or are limited by other laws or in practice. The Eritrean constitution provides for freedom of thought, conscience, and belief; guarantees the right to practice and manifest any religion; and prohibits religious discrimination. Nevertheless, the constitution has not been implemented since its ratification in 1997. In May 2014, President Afwerki announced a new constitution would be drafted, although no action had been taken by the end of the reporting period.

The lack of freedom of religion or belief, other fundamental human rights, and economic opportunities in Eritrea has led thousands of Eritreans to flee the country to neighboring states and beyond to seek asylum, including in Europe and the United States. The UN reported in 2015 that an estimated 6 percent of the population had fled Eritrea since 2014.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Registration

In 2002, the government imposed a registration requirement on all religious groups other than the four officially recognized religions: the Coptic Orthodox Church of Eritrea; Sunni Islam; the Roman Catholic Church; and the Evangelical Church of Eritrea, a Lutheran-affiliated denomination. All other religious communities are required to apply annually for registration with the Office of Religious Affairs. Registration requirements include a description of the group's history in Eritrea; detailed information about its foreign sources of funding, leadership, assets, and activities; and an explanation of how it would benefit the country or is unique compared to other religious communities. Registration also requires conformity with Proclamation No. 73/1995 "to Legally Standardize and Articulate Religious Institutions and Activities," which permits registered religious institutions the right to preach, teach, and engage in awareness campaigns but prohibits "infringing upon national safety, security and supreme national interests, instigating refusal to serve national service and stirring up acts of political or religious disturbances calculated to endanger the independence and territorial sovereignty of the country."

To date, no other religious communities have been registered. The Baha'i community, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, and the Seventh-day Adventists submitted the required applications in 2002; however, the Eritrean government has yet to act on their applications. The government's inaction means that unregistered religious communities lack a legal basis on which to practice their faiths, including holding services or other religious ceremonies. According to the COI-E report and Eritrean refugees interviewed by USCIRF, most churches of nonregistered religious communities are closed and government approval is required to build houses of worship. Leaders and members of unregistered communities that continue to practice their faith are punished with imprisonment and fines.

Torture of Religious Prisoners of Conscience

Reports of torture and other abuses of religious prisoners continue. While the country's closed nature makes exact numbers difficult to determine, the State Department reports 1,200 to 3,000 persons are imprisoned on religious grounds in Eritrea. During the reporting period, there were reported incidents of new arrests. The vast majority of religious prisoners of conscience are members of unregistered churches arrested for participating in religious services or ceremonies.

Religious prisoners are sent routinely to the harshest prisons and receive some of the cruelest punishments. Released religious prisoners have reported that they were kept in solitary confinement or crowded conditions, such as in 20-foot metal shipping containers or underground barracks, and subjected to extreme temperature fluctuations. In addition, there have been reports of deaths of religious prisoners due to harsh treatment or denial of medical care. Persons detained for religious activities, in both short-term and long-term detentions, are not formally charged, permitted access to legal counsel, accorded due process, or allowed family visits. Prisoners are not permitted to pray aloud, sing, or preach, and religious books are banned. Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Jehovah's Witnesses released from prison report being pressured to recant their faith, forced to sign statements that they would no longer gather to worship, and warned not to re-engage in religious activities.

Pentecostals and Evangelicals

Pentecostals and Evangelicals comprise the majority of religious prisoners. The Eritrean government is suspicious of newer religious communities, in particular Protestant Evangelical and Pentecostal communities. It has characterized these groups as being part of a foreign campaign to infiltrate the country, engage in aggressive evangelism alien to Eritrea's cultural traditions, and cause social divisions. Several Evangelical and Pentecostal pastors have been detained for more than 10 years, including Southwest Full Gospel Church Founder and Pastor Kiflu Gebremeskel (since 2004), Massawa Rhema Church Pastor Million Gebreselasie (since 2004), Full Gospel Church Pastor Haile Naigzhi (since 2004), Kale Hiwot Church Pastor Ogbamichael Teklehaimanot (since 2005), and Full Gospel Church Pastor Kidane Weldou (since 2005).

During 2016, security forces continued to arrest followers of these faiths for participating in clandestine prayer meetings and religious ceremonies, although toleration of these groups varied by location. The Eritrean government and Eritrean religious leaders do not publicize arrests and releases, and government secrecy and intimidation make documenting the exact numbers of such cases difficult. Nevertheless, USCIRF received confirmation of dozens more arrests in 2016. The State Department also has reported that some local authorities have denied water and gas services to Pentecostals.

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses are persecuted for their political neutrality and conscientious objection to military service, which are aspects of their faith. On October 25, 1994, President Afwerki issued a decree revoking Jehovah's Witnesses' citizenship for their refusal to take part in the referendum on independence or to participate in national service. Since 1994, Jehovah's Witnesses have been barred from obtaining government-issued identity and travel documents, government jobs, and business licenses. Eritrean identity cards are required for legal recognition of marriages or land purchases. The State Department has reported that some local authorities have denied water and gas services to Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jehovah's Witnesses who have refused to serve in the military have been imprisoned without trial, some for over a decade, including Paulos Eyassu, Issac Mogos, and Negede Teklemariam, who have been detained in Sawa Prison since September 24, 1994. Moreover, the government's requirement that high school students complete their final year at the Sawa Training and Education Camp, which includes six months of military training, effectively denies Jehovah's Witnesses an opportunity to attend their last year of high school and graduate because their faith prohibits them from participating in the military training. Some children of Jehovah's Witnesses have been expelled from school because of their refusal to salute the flag or to pay for membership in the officially sanctioned national organization for youth and students.

Whole congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses have been arrested while attending worship services in homes or in rented facilities, and individual Witnesses are arrested regularly and imprisoned for expressing their faith to others. Some are released quickly, while others are held indefinitely without charges. As of December 2016, the Eritrean government held in detention 54 Jehovah's Witnesses without charge. Of these, 10 are older than 60, four are older than 70, and one is in his 80s. The majority of detainees were arrested for participating in religious meetings or for conscientious objection.

Recognized Religious Communities

The Eritrean government also strictly controls the activities of the four recognized religious communities: the Coptic Orthodox Church of Eritrea; Sunni Islam; the Roman Catholic Church; and the Evangelical Church of Eritrea. These groups are required to submit activity reports every six months, instructed not to accept funds from coreligionists abroad (an order with which the Eritrean Orthodox Church reportedly said it would not comply), and have had religious leaders appointed by government officials. There also are reports of government surveillance of services of the four official religions. Eritrean officials visiting the United States reportedly pressured diaspora members to attend only Eritrean government-approved Orthodox churches in the United States. Muslims opposed to the government are labeled as fundamentalists. The Catholic Church is granted a few more  but still restricted  freedoms than other religious communities, including the permission to host some visiting clergy, to receive funding from the Holy See, to travel for religious purposes and training in small numbers, and to receive exemptions from national service for seminary students and nuns.

The Eritrean government has appointed the Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church and the Mufti of the Eritrean Muslim community, as well as other lower-level religious officials. Hundreds of Orthodox Christian and Muslim religious leaders and laity who protested these appointments remain imprisoned. The government-deposed Eritrean Orthodox Patriarch Abune Antonios, who protested government interference in his church's affairs, has been held under house arrest since 2006. In April 2016, Eritrean authorities arrested 10 Orthodox priests who asked for the release of Patriarch Antonios. On August 8, 2016, the Eritrean Orthodox Church's website published pictures of Patriarch Antonios at the Patriarchate in Asmara and his purported letter of apology; however, other Orthodox officials deny that Patriarch Antonios wrote the letter and assert that the August 8 meeting was part of a recently begun reconciliation process.

U.S. POLICY

Relations between the United States and Eritrea remain poor. The U.S. government has long expressed concern about the Eritrean government's human rights practices and support for Ethiopian, Somali, and South Sudanese rebel groups in the region. The government of Eritrea expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2005, and U.S. programs in the country ended in fiscal year 2006. Eritrea receives no U.S. development, humanitarian, or security assistance. Since 2010, the Eritrean government has refused to accredit a new U.S. ambassador to the country; in response, the U.S. government revoked the credentials of the Eritrean ambassador to the United States.

U.S. government officials routinely raise religious freedom violations when speaking about human rights conditions in Eritrea. The United States was a co-sponsor of a 2016 UN Human Rights Council resolution continuing for one year the position of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Eritrea.

U.S.-Eritrean relations also are heavily influenced, often adversely, by strong U.S. ties with Ethiopia. Gaining independence in 1993, Eritrea fought a costly border war with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000. The United States, the UN, the European Union, and the now-defunct Organization of African Unity were formal witnesses to the 2000 accord ending that conflict. However, Eritrean-Ethiopian relations remain tense due to Ethiopia's refusal to permit demarcation of the boundary according to the Hague's Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission's 2002 decision. The U.S. government views the Commission's decision as "final and binding" and expects both parties to comply.

U.S. policy toward Eritrea also is concentrated on U.S. concerns that the country's activities in the region could destabilize the Horn of Africa region. In 2009, the United States joined a 13-member majority to adopt UN Security Council Resolution 1907, sanctioning Eritrea for supporting armed groups in Somalia, and failing to withdraw its forces from the Eritrean-Djibouti border following clashes with Djibouti. The sanctions include an arms embargo, travel restrictions, and asset freezes on the Eritrean government's political and military leaders, as well as other individuals designated by the Security Council's Committee on Somalia Sanctions. In 2010, then President Barack Obama announced Executive Order 13536, blocking the property and property interests of several individuals for their financing of al-Shabaab in Somalia, including Eritrean presidential advisor Yemane Ghebreab. In 2011, the United States voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 2023, which calls on UN member states to implement Resolution 1907's sanctions and ensure their dealings with Eritrea's mining industry do not support activities that would destabilize the region. In 2016, the U.S. government voted in the UN Security Council to retain an arms embargo on Eritrea and to renew for another year the mandate of its Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.

In September 2004, the State Department first designated Eritrea as a CPC. When re-designating Eritrea in September 2005 and January 2009, the State Department announced the denial of commercial export to Eritrea of defense articles and services covered by the Arms Export Control Act, with some items exempted. The Eritrean government subsequently intensified its repression of unregistered religious groups with a series of arrests and detentions of clergy and ordinary members of the affected groups. The State Department most recently re-designated Eritrea as a CPC in October 2016, and continued the presidential action of the arms embargo, although since 2011 this has been under the auspices of UN Security Council Resolution 1907 (see above).
The year 2017 marks the 51st anniversary that Southeast Nebraska Community Action Partnership, Inc. (SENCA) has provided a variety of programs and services to help low-income households and communities throughout southeast Nebraska achieve their goal of economic stability.

On May 2, 1966, SENCA was incorporated by Evelyn Cooper of Humboldt and Cecil Davis of Pawnee City as a private, non-profit 501 (c) (3) corporation under the provisions of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. As a direct result of President Johnsons War on Poverty, Community Action, Head Start, Job Corps and a variety of other programs were created to help strike the causes of poverty and make life better for all people. SENCA is one of nine Community Action Agencies (CAAs) serving Nebraska and one of more than 1,100 CAAs nationwide.

SENCA focuses on three primary program areas: Community Economic Development; Family Outreach; and Youth Education. The business, property, policies, programs, and affairs of the corporation are determined and managed by a tripartite volunteer Board of Directors representing the six county service area of: Cass; Johnson; Nemaha; Otoe; Pawnee, and Richardson. SENCA also provides housing programs to Sarpy County and is the Weatherization provider to qualifying Douglas County residents.

Vicky McNealy, SENCA Executive Director, manages a team of 65 trained and certified staff, each dedicated to the mission of Investing in our neighbors through education and partnerships to improve lives and build strong communities in southeast Nebraska.

During the month of April, agency staff met with County Commissioners throughout the six county service area. The commissioners were presented information from the 2016 SENCA Annual Report and the 2016 Community Action of Nebraska State and Regional Community Assessment plus updates on local programs and services within their county. Commissioners from each of the counties also proclaimed May as Community Action Month.

To learn more about SENCA programs and services please visit www.senca.org and like SENCA at www.facebook.com/Senca1. SENCA also produces a quarterly newsletter that can be found on the agency website along with the agency annual report, agency community assessment, and the Community Action of Nebraska State and Regional Assessment report.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - China

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - China, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f5213.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

During 2016, as China's President Xi Jinping further consolidated power, conditions for freedom of religion or belief and related human rights continued to decline. Authorities target anyone considered a threat to the state, including religious believers, human rights lawyers, and other members of civil society. In 2016, the Chinese government regularly emphasized the "sinicization" of religion and circulated revised regulations governing religion, including new penalties for activities considered "illegal" and additional crackdowns on Christian house churches. The government continued to suppress Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, including through new regional government regulations that limit parents' rights to include their children in religious activities. Authorities evicted thousands of monks and nuns from the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute in Tibet before demolishing their homes. The government continued to detain, imprison, and torture countless religious freedom advocates, human rights defenders, and religious believers, including highly persecuted Falun Gong practitioners. Based on China's longstanding and continuing record of severe religious freedom violations, USCIRF again finds that China merits designation in 2017 as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated China as a CPC since 1999, most recently in October 2016.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate China as a CPC under IRFA;

Continue to raise consistently religious freedom concerns at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue and other high-level bilateral meetings with Chinese leaders, and at every appropriate opportunity encourage Chinese authorities to refrain from imposing restrictive and discriminatory policies on individuals conducting peaceful religious activity, including activities the Chinese government conflates with terrorism or perceives as threats to state security;

Coordinate with other diplomatic missions and foreign delegations, including the United Nations (UN) and European Union, about human rights advocacy in meetings with Chinese officials and during visits to China, and encourage such visits to areas deeply impacted by the government's religious freedom abuses, such as Xinjiang, Tibet, and Zhejiang Province;

Ensure that the U.S. Embassy and U.S. consulates, including at the ambassadorial and consuls general level, maintain active contacts with human rights activists and religious leaders;

Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the unconditional release of prisoners of conscience and religious freedom advocates, and press the Chinese government to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and lawyers and the ability to practice their faith;

Press the Chinese government to abide by its commitments under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and also independently investigate reports of torture among individuals detained or imprisoned, including reports of organ harvesting;

Initiate a "whole-of-government" approach to human rights diplomacy with China in which the State Department and National Security Council staff develop a human rights action plan for implementation across all U.S. government agencies and entities, including providing support for all U.S. delegations visiting China;

Increase staff attention to U.S. human rights diplomacy and the rule of law, including the promotion of religious freedom, at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and U.S. consulates in China, including by gathering the names of specific officials and state agencies who perpetrate religious freedom abuses;

Use targeted tools against specific officials and agencies identified as having participated in or being responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom; these tools include the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act; and

Press China to uphold its international obligations to protect North Korean asylum seekers crossing its borders, including by allowing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and international humanitarian organizations to assist them, and by ending repatriations, which are in violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Protocol and/or the Convention Against Torture.

BACKGROUND

The year 2016 marked 50 years since the Cultural Revolution, some of the darkest days for China's religious and faith believers. Five decades later, Chinese government repression under President Xi increasingly threatens human rights, including freedom of religion or belief. For example, in 2016 China revised and enhanced its Regulations on Religious Affairs that limit the right to religious practice. New restrictions include tighter government control over religious education and clergy, and heavy fines for any religious activities considered "illegal," as well as new language formally forbidding religion from harming "national security" concerns. Earlier in the year, President Xi convened a National Conference on Religious Work where he stressed the importance of making religions more Chinese, in part by disconnecting them from foreign "infiltration" and influence. These actions coincided with the release of China's National Human Rights Action Plan (20162020), which includes a section on "freedom of religious belief" with undertones of restrictive government management of religion.

January 1, 2017, marked the effective date of a new Chinese law regulating foreign nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Under the law, NGOs must obtain sponsorship from state bodies that will act as "supervisors," register with the police, and report their activities to the government. Some religious NGOs expressed concern about how the law will impact their charity and aid work in China.

During 2016, the Chinese government reinforced its crackdown on lawyers and other human rights defenders. At the time of this writing, human rights lawyer and advocate Jiang Tianyong remained in detention at an unknown location after Chinese authorities detained him in November 2016 on suspicion of alleged "state subversion." In December 2016, a group of UN experts called on the Chinese government to investigate Jiang's whereabouts and expressed concern that his human rights work  including representing Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, and others  puts him at risk for beatings and torture by police. Longtime human rights activist, lawyer, and political prisoner Peng Meng died in prison in late 2016. His family requested an autopsy, but according to reports, Chinese authorities removed some of his organs and cremated his body, ignoring the family's wishes. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and democracy advocate Liu Xiaobo remains in prison after being sentenced in December 2009 to 11 years in prison; his wife, Liu Xia, is under strict house arrest.

Through five state-sanctioned "patriotic religious associations," China recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. The Chinese Communist Party officially is atheist, and more than half the country's nearly 1.4 billion population is unaffiliated with any religion or belief. Nearly 300 million people practice some form of folk religion, approximately 250 million are Buddhist, about 70 million Christian, at least 25 million Muslim, and smaller numbers practice Taoism, Hinduism, Judaism, or some other faith.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Uighur Muslims

In 2016, the Chinese government continued to suppress Uighur Muslims, often under the rubric of countering what it alleges to be religious and other violent extremism. An estimated 10 million Uighur Muslims reside in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest China where the government presumes their guilt if they are found practicing "illegal" religious activities, including praying or possessing religious materials in their own homes. Authorities even question schoolchildren to coerce them into revealing that their parents pray at home. To constrain what it claims to be widespread radicalism that breeds violent tendencies among Uighur Muslims, the government imposes manifold regulations and restrictions on religious and other daily practices. For example, in a move critics described as targeting Uighur Muslims, in July 2016 the regional government adopted a new counterterrorism measure, which dovetails with a national law that went into effect January 1, 2016. (The national Counterterrorism Law contains vague definitions of "religious extremism" and "terrorism," which the government has routinely used to target the freedom to practice religion and peaceful religious expression.) Also, in June 2016, Beijing issued a white paper, Freedom of Religious Belief in Xinjiang, that alleged the government protects "normal" religious activities and respects citizens' religious needs and customs. Just days later, however, the government once again imposed its annual ban on the observance of Ramadan; authorities prevented government employees, students, and children from fasting, and in some cases praying, during Ramadan. As of November 1, 2016, Uighur Muslim parents are forbidden from including their children in any religious activity, and citizens are encouraged to inform authorities about their neighbors who may be involved in government-prohibited activities.

Authorities continue to restrict men from wearing beards and women from wearing headscarves and face-covering veils. According to reports, in 2016 the Chinese government destroyed thousands of mosques in Xinjiang, purportedly because the buildings were considered a threat to public safety. USCIRF received reports that Uighur Muslims must register to attend mosques  which often are surveilled by authorities  and must obtain permission to travel between villages.

Uighur Muslim prisoners commonly receive unfair trials and are harshly treated in prison. Well-known Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti is currently serving a life sentence after being found guilty in 2014 of "separatism" in a two-day trial that human rights advocates called a sham. On October 11, 2016, Professor Tohti was awarded the 2016 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders; China responded with anger when UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein attended the ceremony. Gulmira Imin, who was a local government employee at the time of her arrest, also continues to serve a life sentence for her alleged role organizing the July 2009 protests in Urumqi  an allegation she denies.

Tibetan Buddhists

The Chinese government claims the power to select the next Dalai Lama with the help of a law that grants the government authority over reincarnations. The Chinese government also vilifies the Dalai Lama, accusing him of "splittism" and "blasphemy," including in at least 13 white papers on Tibet since the 1990s. Moreover, in December 2016, Tibet's Communist Party Chief Wu Yingjie publicly said he expects the party's control over religion in Tibet to increase. In 2016, Tibetan activist Nyima Lhamo, the niece of prominent Tibetan Buddhist leader Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who died in prison in July 2015, fled China to seek justice for her uncle's death and later traveled to Europe where she gave a presentation before the 9th Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. The Chinese government has held Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, also known as the Panchen Lama, the second-highest position in Tibetan Buddhism, in secret for more than two decades. When the Chinese government abducted the Panchen Lama at age six and replaced him with its own hand-picked choice, the Dalai Lama had just designated him as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama. Although in 2016 the government released several Tibetan prisoners who completed their sentences, such as Tibetan religious teacher Khenpo Kartse, it detained and charged several others. For example, in March 2016 Chinese police arrested Tashi Wangchuk on "separatism" charges; he is an advocate known for promoting a deeper understanding of the Tibetan language as integral to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. As of this writing, Tashi Wangchuk's case is still pending; he could serve up to 15 years if convicted. In protest of repressive government policies, at least 147 Tibetans have self-immolated since February 2009, including Tibetan monk Kalsang Wangdu and Tibetan student Dorjee Tsering, both in 2016.

In July 2016, the Chinese government launched a sweeping operation to demolish significant portions of the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute located in Sichuan Province. Larung Gar is home to an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 monks, nuns, laypeople, and students of Buddhism from all over the world. Local officials instituting the demolition order referred to the project as "construction" or "renovation" to reduce the number of residents to no more than 5,000 by the end of September 2017. As a result, officials have evicted thousands of monastics, laypeople, and students, some of whom reportedly were locked out of their homes before they could collect their belongings, or were forced to sign pledges promising never to return. Many others were forced to undergo so-called "patriotic reeducation programs." The demolition order contains language governing ideology and future religious activities at Larung Gar and gives government officials  who are largely Han Chinese, not Tibetan  greater control and oversight of the institute, including direct control over laypeople. The order also mandates the separation of the monastery from the institute, running counter to the tradition of one blended encampment with both religious and lay education. The destruction at Larung Gar exemplifies Beijing's desire to eviscerate the teachings and study of Tibetan Buddhism that are integral to the faith.

Protestants and Catholics

In 2016, the Chinese government continued its campaign to remove crosses and demolish churches. Since 2014, authorities have removed crosses or demolished churches at more than 1,500 locations in Zhejiang Province alone. The government also has targeted individuals opposing the campaign. In February 2016, Protestant Pastor Bao Guohua and his wife Xing Wenxiang, from Zhejiang, were sentenced to 14 and 12 years' imprisonment, respectively, for opposing cross removals. Additional removals and demolitions have occurred elsewhere in the country. In one particularly egregious example from April 2016, Ding Cuimei, wife of church leader Li Jiangong, suffocated to death while trying to protect their house church in Henan Province from a bulldozer during a government-ordered demolition; Li survived but barely escaped the rubble. In March 2016, authorities released human rights lawyer Zhang Kai on bail after detaining him in secret for six months and coercing him to give a televised confession. On December 27, 2016, police summoned Zhang to the police station and detained him for two days before releasing him again. Zhang is well known for his work on behalf of individuals and churches affected by the government's cross removal and church demolition orders.

During 2016, Chinese authorities arrested Christians for displaying the cross in their homes and printing religious materials, threatened parents for bringing their children to church, and blocked them from holding certain religious activities. In August 2016, a Chinese court found underground church leader and religious freedom advocate Hu Shigen guilty of subversion and sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison and another five years' deprivation of political rights. In January 2017, a Chinese court sentenced Pastor Yang Hua, also known as Li Guozhi, to two and a half years in prison. Originally detained in December 2015, Pastor Yang presided over the Living Stone Church, an unregistered house church in Guizhou Province.

China also continued to target individuals affiliated with state-sanctioned churches. On March 31, 2016, Gu "Joseph" Yuese, former pastor at Chongyi Church, a Protestant megachurch in Zhejiang Province, was released from more than two months' detention after being arrested on embezzlement charges. Authorities detained him again in December 2016, and on January 7, 2017, Pastor Gu was formally charged with embezzlement. Pastor Gu publicly criticized the government's cross removal campaign in Zhejiang. In addition to his arrests, he was removed from his post at Chongyi Church and his role with the local staterun China Christian Council. Also, Pastor Zhang Shaojie of the state-registered Nanle County Christian Church remains in prison after being sentenced in 2014 to 12 years in prison for "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order."

In 2016, the Vatican and Beijing attempted to reach agreement on the appointment of Catholic bishops. Although there are several bishops both appointed by the Chinese government and recognized by the Vatican, Beijing refuses to respect papal authority, and bishops seeking Rome's blessing do so at risk of imprisonment or other persecution. Proponents of an agreement see it as a means to repair the nearly 70-year dispute between the Vatican and Beijing and create uniformity across Catholic clergy in China. However, critics worry that by aligning with Beijing, the Vatican risks betraying the underground clergy and followers who have remained loyal to the Pope's authority to appoint bishops. At a December meeting of China's state-run Catholic Patriotic Association, Chinese officials stressed "sinicization," socialism, and independence from foreign influence, a message seemingly incongruous with Beijing's attempts to reach agreement with the Vatican. Prospects for an agreement also became strained when excommunicated Bishop Lei Shiyin participated in two ordinations approved by both the Vatican and the Chinese government in late November and early December 2016.

Falun Gong

The practice of Falun Gong has been banned since 1999 after the Chinese government labeled it an "evil cult," and practitioners have been severely mistreated ever since. They are regularly confined in labor camps or prisons, or disappear altogether. While detained, Falun Gong practitioners suffer psychiatric and other medical experimentation, sexual violence, torture, and organ harvesting. A new report released in June 2016 by the International Coalition to End Organ Pillaging in China revealed that 60,000100,000 organ transplants are performed in the country each year, an alarming discrepancy from the government's claim of 10,000. Organ donors often are nonconsenting, particularly executed Falun Gong prisoners and detainees, though individuals from other faiths also have been targeted, such as Uighur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Christians.

Zhiwen Wang, a Falun Gong practitioner who was persecuted and imprisoned for 15 years, was released in 2014, but the Chinese government has prevented him from receiving proper medical care and reuniting with his family in the United States. In 2016, Zhiwen was granted a passport and U.S. visa to leave China, but a customs agent at the airport nullified his passport. This occurred after Chinese police and undercover agents harassed and intimidated Zhiwen and his family for several days. For the second year in a row, in 2016 Chinese authorities attempted to suppress Chinese-born human rights advocate and Falun Gong practitioner Anastasia Lin. Chinese authorities had denied her a visa and barred her entry into mainland China from Hong Kong when the country hosted the 2015 Miss World competition. She competed in the 2016 Miss World competition in Washington, DC, but Chinese journalists and other "minders" relentlessly followed her, and pageant officials interfered with her ability to speak to the media and initially barred her from attending a screening of "The Bleeding Edge," a movie about China's forced organ harvesting in which she stars.

Forced Repatriation of North Korean Refugees

The Chinese government claims North Koreans entering China without permission are economic migrants, but it does so without evaluating each individual's case to determine whether they qualify for refugee status and ignoring the near certainty that these individuals will be tortured upon their forced return to North Korea. This violates China's obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Not only does the government of China refuse to evaluate asylum claims, but it also increasingly appears to closely coordinate with the North Korean government in the arrest and forced repatriation of North Koreans attempting to cross the border. Moreover, some reports indicate Chinese authorities actively urge citizens to inform them about suspected North Korean asylum seekers and they punish those found offering assistance.

U.S. POLICY

China does not comply with international standards concerning the freedom of religion or belief and related human rights, and defiantly dismisses what it considers to be international interference, including by the United States. It is crucial that the U.S. government not only integrate human rights messaging  including on freedom of religion or belief  across its interactions with China, but also consistently make clear that it opposes Beijing's overt violations of international human rights standards.

During 2016, high-level representatives of the United States and China engaged several times, with U.S. officials raising human rights concerns. In connection with the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC, from March 31 to April 1, 2016, then President Barack Obama met with President Xi and expressed "support for upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms in China," according to the official White House readout of the meeting. In June 2016, then Secretary of State John Kerry and then Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew met with Chinese counterparts in Beijing for the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), which reportedly included some human rights discussions. In September 2016, China hosted the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province and home to a large Christian population of underground churches and parishioners whom the Chinese government has repressed and, at times, violently attacked, including through the destruction of churches and crosses. Ahead of the summit, then National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice met at the White House with a group of Chinese human rights advocates and discussed human rights and religious freedom. On the sidelines of the summit, then President Obama met with President Xi, and according to the official White House readout, the president spoke about human rights and "the need for China to protect religious freedom for all of its citizens."

In June 2016, then President Obama welcomed the Dalai Lama to the White House for an unofficial meeting, which China criticized. In August 2016, the State Department issued a statement urging China to release lawyers and human rights advocates detained since 2015 when the Chinese government conducted a sweeping roundup of nearly 300 individuals. The statement referred specifically to Hu Shigen (mentioned above), Zhou Shifeng, Zhai Yanmin, Guo Hongguo, and Li Heping. On December 16, 2016, then President Obama signed into law the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of State Authorities Act (P.L. 114-323), which requires the secretary of state, in coordination with the secretary of treasury, to submit to Congress a report that, in part, assesses "the treatment of political dissidents, media representatives, and ethnic and religious minorities" within the context of the U.S.- China bilateral relationship and the overall effectiveness of the S&ED.

In addition to its individual critiques of China's human rights record discussed above, the United States also joined multilateral efforts. For example, in January 2016 the United States was one of four diplomatic missions that jointly sent China a letter expressing concern about the counterterrorism law and then-drafts of the NGO law and a cybersecurity law. In part, the letter questioned China's willingness to protect human rights under the law. The U.S. government expressed further concerns about the NGO law at other times during the year. Also, in March 2016 the United States was one of 12 countries signing the first-ever joint statement on China's human rights situation at the UN Human Rights Council. Although the statement did not specifically mention freedom of religion or belief, it did reference the detention of rights activists and lawyers, many of whom have advocated on behalf of religious freedom and religious freedom activists.

In February and October 2016, the State Department redesignated China as a CPC. At the same time, then Secretary Kerry extended the existing sanctions related to restrictions on exports of crime control and detection instruments and equipment.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Central African Republic

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Central African Republic, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f5312.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

The Central African Republic (CAR) remains fragile, susceptible to outbreaks of sectarian violence, and fractured along religious lines. Militias formed along opposing Muslim and Christian lines continue to kill individuals based on their religious identity, leading to retaliatory attacks and waves of violence. CAR's Muslim population remains disproportionately displaced, and in the western part of the country, the Muslim community cannot freely practice their faith. The CAR government has taken some positive steps to address interfaith tensions, but has failed to increase its reconciliation efforts to reverse the ethnic cleansing of Muslims or improve interfaith relations. Since a 2013 coup that resulted in rampant lawlessness and the complete collapse of government control, state authorities have almost no presence outside of the capital. USCIRF again finds in 2017 that CAR merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). In 2015, USCIRF determined that the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and sectarian violence in CAR meet IRFA's standard for CPC designation. While IRFA's language focuses CPC designations on governmental action or inaction, its spirit is to bring U.S. pressure and attention to bear to end egregious violations of religious freedom and address the actual drivers of persecution.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Designate CAR as a CPC under IRFA;

Sustain a high level of engagement with CAR authorities, the United Nations (UN), and international donors to ensure that issues related to ending sectarian violence and impunity, increasing interfaith reconciliation, and affirming the rights of religious freedom and religious minorities are supported and raised in all engagements with relevant parties;

Press CAR authorities to undertake initiatives to ensure that CAR Muslims have a future in the country by issuing statements that Muslims are full and equal citizens, undertaking development missions in the northeast, ensuring Muslim participation in government administration, safeguarding sustainable returns of Muslim refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their homes, recognizing Muslim holidays as national holidays, and rebuilding destroyed mosques and Muslim properties;

Press CAR authorities, the UN Multi-dimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), and international donors to increase activities on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration equally for all armed groups, while simultaneously providing sustainable reintegration opportunities;

Work with the UN Security Council to continue to sanction ex-Seleka and anti-balaka members responsible for organizing and/or engaging in sectarian violence, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, and continue to speak out regularly against sectarian violence and gross human rights abuses;

Continue to contribute to and work with international donors to ensure that future security forces and police units reflect the country's diversity, re-establish and professionalize the CAR's judiciary, and fully fund the Special Criminal Court;

Continue to support interfaith dialogue and efforts by religious leaders to rebuild social cohesion at national and local levels; and

Continue to support humanitarian assistance for refugees and displaced persons, as well as rebuilding projects.

BACKGROUND

CAR has a long history of political strife, coups, severe human rights abuses, and underdevelopment. Sectarian violence and targeted killing based on religious identity started after the 2013 coup by a coalition of Muslim-majority militias. The ongoing violence has resulted in thousands of people dead, 2.3 million in need of humanitarian assistance, more than 450,000 refugees, and almost 350,000 IDPs. Before 2012, 85 percent of CAR's population was Christian and 15 percent was Muslim. By the end of 2014, 80 percent of the country's Muslim population had been driven out of CAR.

The current crisis started in December 2012 with a rebellion by the Seleka, a coalition of four northern majority-Muslim armed rebel groups, supported by large numbers of Chadian and Sudanese foreign fighters. Following a brief peace agreement, the Seleka took the capital, Bangui, in March 2013, deposing then President Francois Bozize. In September, Seleka leader and then self-declared President Michel Djotodia formally disbanded the Seleka following international condemnation of the armed groups' crimes against humanity, including enforced disappearances, illegal detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings. This announcement, however, had no practical impact; ex-Seleka continued to engage in violence, and its coalition members splintered into multiple armed groups. In June 2013, Bozize, his inner circle, and former Central African Armed Forces (FACA) soldiers recruited existing self-defense militias, which are largely Christian (known as the anti-balaka), former FACA soldiers, and other aggrieved non-Muslims to avenge Seleka attacks on non-Muslims.

Fighting between the ex-Seleka and antibalaka groups started in September 2013, and escalated dramatically when the anti-balaka attacked Muslim neighborhoods in Bangui on December 5, 2013. The result was a large-scale conflict in which civilians were targeted based on their religious identity.

In an effort to stabilize the country, the African Union, European Union, and France deployed peacekeepers to Bangui and outside the capital in late 2013 and early 2014. The UN's almost 13,000 troop peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, is the primary peacekeeping force, but is viewed with suspicion by local populations.

In March 2016, Faustin Archarge Touadera was inaugurated president, marking CAR's second peaceful transfer of power since independence and the end of a two-year political transition. An elected National Assembly convened two months later. However, government officials, the police, and the judiciary have neither the infrastructure nor the resources to stop ongoing fighting or to bring to justice perpetrators of violence.

In the first two months of 2017, fighting between ex-Seleka factions escalated in the center and east of the country as different groups sought to increase control over resource-rich territories.

In March 2016, USCIRF staff visited CAR and discussed religious freedom conditions and sectarian violence with CAR government officials, CAR religious leaders, international non governmental organizations (NGOs), and the U.S. Embassy.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

Ethnic Cleansing and Marginalization of Muslims

In December 2014, the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Central African Republic (COI) issued a report finding a "pattern of ethnic cleansing committed by the anti-balaka in the areas in which Muslims had been living." In the first part of January 2014, anti-balaka fighters deliberately killed Muslims because of their religious identity or told them to leave the country or die. As a result, the COI reported that in 2014, 99 percent of the capital's Muslim residents left Bangui, 80 percent of the entire country's Muslim population fled to Cameroon or Chad, and 417 of the country's 436 mosques were destroyed. Since 2014, few Muslims have returned to CAR.

During the reporting period, the situation for Muslims in the country remained poor. Most Muslims in western CAR continue to live in peacekeeper-protected enclaves. The few who have returned to or continue to live in their home villages report that anti-balaka soldiers forced them to convert or hide their faith. The UN reports that Muslim IDPs and returning refugees have been harassed and abused.

The situation for Muslims in the capital's Muslim enclave, PK5, was relatively better during the reporting period than in the previous year, with fewer attacks, increased trade opportunities with those outside of the enclave, and increased opportunities for freedom of movement. However, during USCIRF's visit to Bangui in March 2016, Muslims outside of PK5 refrained from wearing traditional Islamic clothes, instead opting to wear Western clothes so as not to be identified as Muslim.

Muslims in CAR were already marginalized prior to the current conflict, which has further hardened views on religious identity and citizenship. During USCIRF's visit, non-Muslims referred to Muslims as foreigners and untrustworthy. Muslims endure structural discrimination related to access to education and identity documents, and suffer harassment frequently, including by security officers who treat them as foreigners, asking for multiple forms of identification.

Continuing Sectarian Violence

Killings and skirmishes along religious lines continued in this reporting period, although at far lower levels than during the height of the conflict in 2013 and 2014. As in previous reporting periods, CAR authorities lacked the capacity to investigate the killings or hold the perpetrators accountable.

For example, on March 8, 2016, two Muslims were killed in Bambari; ex-Seleka killed 10 Christians in retaliation over the next several days.

In June, several ex-Seleka and anti-balaka attacks in western CAR reportedly resulted in at least 17 deaths. Muslim Fulani and anti-balaka attacks and reprisals on local populations killed 14 in Ngaoundaye and displaced thousands. On June 21, 20 Muslims in Carnot were injured when youths torched their homes.

Violence escalated again in September and October. On September 16, ex-Seleka killed 26 people, including a local pastor, in and around Kaga Bandoro. On September 26, ex-Seleka killed at least 85 Christians in Kouango. After FACA director Marcel Mombeka was assassinated near PK5 on October 4, violence targeting Muslim and Christian civilians spread throughout western CAR. On October 5, four Muslim cattle herders were killed. The following day in Bangui, 11 Christians were killed and 14 Muslims were reported missing. On October 12, ex-Seleka attacked an IDP camp that housed Christians in Kaga Bandoro and killed 30; attacks on civilians in the area killed an additional 12. At least 19,000 were displaced because of the violence. On October 15, 11 Christians were killed at another IDP camp. And on October 27, clashes between ex-Seleka and anti-balaka killed 15.

Since December, violence between anti-balaka and ex-Seleka and between ex-Seleka factions has increased in and around Bambari. During this ongoing violence, MINUSCA intervened to protect Fulani and displaced Muslims living in Christian neighborhoods who had been targeted.

Reconciliation Efforts

President Touadera has said that disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of soldiers and reconciliation are priorities of his administration. In November, the CAR government presented its five-year National Recovery and Peacebuilding plan, which prioritizes the implementation of DDR activities, security sector reform, judicial access, local peace and reconciliation efforts, returns of displaced persons, provision of government services, and economic recovery.

During the reporting period, both President Touadera and the Minister of Reconciliation met with Muslim representatives, including in PK5. On December 21, President Touadera launched a plan for local peace and reconciliation committees nationwide. However, the Speaker of the National Assembly is the only prominent Muslim representative in the government; three Muslims hold minor posts and there are no Muslims in the president's inner circle. Further, reconciliation efforts agreed to at the May 2015 Bangui Forum have not been fully implemented. Finally, while the transitional Minister of Reconciliation declared two Muslim holidays as national holidays in 2015, current government officials' promises to pass a law declaring them national holidays were not met.

On February 15, 2017, the CAR government appointed Toussaint Muntazini Mukimapa from the Democratic Republic of Congo as prosecutor of the Special Criminal Court, a hybrid court composed of CAR and international judges to prosecute those accused of committing gross war crimes since 2003.

Abusive Witchcraft Accusations

Witchcraft is a part of many Central Africans' lives, and accusations of witchcraft can lead to human rights violations. Although the number of incidents is likely to be higher, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights documented 45 cases of human rights violations related to witchcraft accusations during the reporting period. Women, the elderly, children, and people with disabilities are common targets of witchcraft accusations, which have resulted in detention, torture, or death. Such abuses are largely carried out by the anti-balaka.

U.S. POLICY

The U.S. government is engaged at very senior levels in reconciliation efforts in CAR. Then U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN Samantha Power, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield, then Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein, and other senior U.S. government officials travelled to CAR in the past two years as part of a broader Obama Administration priority to prevent and end mass atrocities, increase interfaith dialogue, and encourage national reconciliation efforts in the country. U.S. Ambassador to CAR Jeffrey Hawkins regularly meets with President Touadera and other CAR leaders to promote reconciliation and security.

As part of U.S. and international efforts to bring justice to the country, on May 13, 2014, then President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13667 sanctioning the following persons identified by the UN Security Council for threatening CAR's stability: former president Bozize, former transitional president Michel Djotodia, ex-Seleka leaders Nourredine Adam and Abdoulaye Miskine, and anti-balaka "political coordinator" Levy Yakite. On December 17, 2015, the UN Security Council and U.S. government also sanctioned Haroun Gaye, ex-Seleka/Popular Front for the Rebirth of CAR (FPRC) leader, and Eugene Ngaikosset, Bangui's anti-balaka commander. The Treasury Department's sanctions freeze these individuals' property and financial interests in the United States.

U.S. government financial assistance includes humanitarian assistance; aid for conflict mitigation, peacebuilding, and rule of law programs; and MINUSCA contributions. Since 2013, the U.S. government has been the largest humanitarian donor to address the CAR crisis, providing $404 million, and it also is the largest MINUSCA contributor. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, U.S. nonhumanitarian aid was estimated at $14 million and is requested to be $18 million for FY 2017. This assistance is directed at security sector reform, rebuilding the criminal justice sector, peacebuilding programs, and military professionalization. At a major donors' conference in Brussels in November 2016, the U.S. government pledged an additional $11.7 million to support the justice sector, law enforcement, and livelihood opportunities.
USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Burma

Publisher United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Publication Date 26 April 2017 Cite as United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2017 - Tier 1: USCIRF-recommended Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) - Burma, 26 April 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59072f5411.html [accessed 9 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

KEY FINDINGS

The year 2016 marked a historic and peaceful transition of government in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Yet while the political handover occurred without incident, conditions during the year continued to decline for Rohingya Muslims, as well as for other religious and ethnic minorities. In addition, fresh and renewed fighting in some ethnic areas highlighted the schism between Burma's civilian-controlled leadership and the military, which controls three powerful ministries and significant portions of the economy. Although the circumstances and root causes driving the ill treatment of religious and ethnic groups differ, there are two common elements: (1) the outright impunity for abuses and crimes committed by the military and some non-state actors, and (2) the depth of the humanitarian crisis faced by displaced persons and others targeted for their religious and/or ethnic identity. Due to both governmental and societal discrimination, Rohingya Muslims  tens of thousands of whom are currently displaced  are stateless and vulnerable, and many Christians are restricted from public worship and subjected to coerced conversion to Buddhism. Given that the National League for Democracy (NLD) government has allowed systematic, egregious, and ongoing violations of freedom of religion or belief to continue, USCIRF again finds that Burma merits designation as a "country of particular concern," or CPC, in 2017 under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA). The State Department has designated Burma as a CPC since 1999, most recently in October 2016. Non-state actors such as Ma Ba Tha and other nationalist individuals and groups do not meet the definition of an "entity of particular concern" under the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (P.L. 114-281), but merit continued international scrutiny for their severe violations of religious freedom and related human rights.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

Continue to designate Burma as a CPC under IRFA;

Enter into a binding agreement with the government of Burma, as authorized under section 405(c) of IRFA, setting forth mutually agreed commitments that would foster critical reforms to improve religious freedom and establish a pathway that could lead to Burma's eventual removal from the CPC list, including but not limited to the following:

Taking concrete steps to end violence and policies of discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities, including the investigation and prosecution of those perpetrating or inciting violence; and



Lifting all restrictions inconsistent with international standards on freedom of religion or belief;

Continue to encourage Burma's government to allow humanitarian aid and workers, international human rights monitors, and independent media consistent and unimpeded access to conflict areas, including in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states and other locations where displaced persons and affected civilian populations reside, and direct U.S. assistance to these efforts, as appropriate;

Support efforts by the international community, including at the United Nations, to establish a commission of inquiry or similar independent mechanism to investigate the root causes and allegations of human rights violations in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states and other conflict areas, and to hold accountable those responsible  including members of the military and law enforcement  for perpetrating or inciting violence against civilians, particularly religious and ethnic minorities;

Encourage Burma's government to become party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;

Engage the government of Burma, the Buddhist community (especially its leaders), religious and ethnic minorities (including Rohingya Muslims and Christian communities), and other actors who support religious freedom, tolerance, inclusivity, and reconciliation, to assist them in promoting understanding among people of different religious faiths and to impress upon them the importance of pursuing improvements in religious tolerance and religious freedom in tandem with political improvements;

Use the term "Rohingya" both publicly and privately, which respects the right of Rohingya Muslims to identify as they choose;

Encourage crucial legal and legislative reform that strengthens protections for religious and ethnic minorities, including citizenship for the Rohingya population through the review, amendment, or repeal of the 1982 Citizenship Law or some other means, and support the proper training of local government officials, lawyers, judges, police, and security forces tasked with implementing, enforcing, and interpreting the rule of law;

Press for at the highest levels and work to secure the unconditional release of prisoners of conscience and persons detained or awaiting trial, and press Burma's government to treat prisoners humanely and allow them access to family, human rights monitors, adequate medical care, and lawyers and the ability to practice their faith; and

Use targeted tools against specific officials, agencies, and military units identified as having participated in or being responsible for human rights abuses, including particularly severe violations of religious freedom, such as adding further names to the "specially designated nationals" list maintained by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, visa denials under section 604(a) of IRFA and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and asset freezes under the Global Magnitsky Act.

BACKGROUND

Decades after the military's ruthless divide-and-rule tactics fomented deep social cleavages, peace and cohesion across Burma remain elusive under the new NLD government as it faces numerous religious and ethnic challenges, several of which it inherited from the previous government. On March 30, 2016, the new government took power under the direction of State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who came into office facing high hopes and expectations, and her close ally, President Htin Kyaw. Since that time, the NLD has been confronted by rising nationalism and nativism while attempting to forge the foundations of lasting peace through the 21st Century Panglong Conference. Since 2011, increased conflict between Burma's military and ethnic armed groups resulted in more than 240,000 people being displaced in "camps or camp-like situations in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine" states, according to the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

On July 21, 2016, Burma's Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population released religion data collected during the 2014 nationwide census. Based on these figures, of the total 51.4 million population, nearly 90 percent of the population is Theravada Buddhist, more than 6 percent Christian, more than 4 percent Muslim, and less than 1 percent each is Hindu, animist, or another faith. The previous government withheld the religion data for fear it would reveal a dramatic increase in the Muslim population. In fact, some who sought to deny rights to Rohingya Muslims pointed to a presumed increase in the country's Muslim population to justify their brutal words and actions. However, given that previous estimates of the Muslim population were approximately 4 percent (including the last official census in 1983, which estimated 3.9 percent), the 2014 census discredited these claims.

In an ongoing period of rapid and dramatic change in Burma, the primacy of Buddhism at the expense of religious and ethnic minorities  particularly Rohingya Muslims  continues. During the year, the government formed two key bodies to address the myriad challenges in Rakhine State. On May 31, the President's Office announced the Central Committee for Implementation of Peace and Development in Rakhine State, led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and tasked with developing plans to address poverty issues. On August 23, the State Counsellor's Office announced a nine-member Advisory Commission on Rakhine State led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and launched in September 2016. Some in Rakhine State, including members of the Arakan National Party and civil society, expressed strong dissatisfaction about the Annan Commission having three foreigners among its members, including Annan.

Some Buddhist nationalists from groups like the Organization for the Protection of Race and Religion, also known as Ma Ba Tha, and the Myanmar Nationalist Network staged a number of protests around the country over the Annan Commission, the use of the term "Rohingya," and other issues. In a positive sign, some residents took a stand both online and in person against these nationalist protests. While the momentum of nationalist sentiment appeared to diminish when the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (the official monk-led association) publicly declared it had never endorsed Ma Ba Tha and asserted its own position as the only sangha association (the community of Buddhist clergy and laity) that represents all of Burma's Buddhists, the prejudices, intolerance, and bigotry driving these movements still influence the government and society.

In January 2017, this divisive sentiment was evident following the assassination of prominent Muslim lawyer and NLD adviser U Ko Ni: firebrand nationalist monk U Wirathu praised the murder and thanked the suspects. While many do not believe Ko Ni was killed because he was Muslim, his death leaves a tangible void of Muslim voices within the government, particularly since Muslims are not represented in the national parliament. Taxi driver Nay Win also was killed as he attempted to apprehend the suspected killer. At the end of the reporting period, authorities had arrested three suspects and were searching for others.

In August 2016, USCIRF staff accompanied members of parliament representing the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief on a trip to Burma, visiting religious, civil society, and government representatives in Rangoon and Naypyidaw.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS 20162017

The Persecution of Rohingya and Other Muslims

In 2016, Rohingya Muslims suffered the harshest crackdown since waves of violence in June and October 2012 killed hundreds, displaced thousands, and destroyed hundreds of religious properties. On October 9, 2016, a large group of insurgents believed to be Rohingya Muslims carried out a series of attacks in and around Maungdaw Township in northern Rakhine State, targeting Border Guard Police and other law enforcement facilities and resulting in the deaths of nine police officers. In response, Burma's military and law enforcement instituted a sweeping clearance operation that cut off humanitarian aid and restricted independent media access. According to a February 2017 report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), approximately 66,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh between October 9 and early 2017. Since the report's release, the number is reportedly more than 70,000. (Several thousand also were internally displaced, including some ethnic Rakhine.) Rohingya victims and witnesses interviewed by OHCHR for the report described extrajudicial killings; death by shooting, stabbing, burning, and beating; killing of children; enforced disappearances; rape and other sexual violence; arbitrary detention and arrests; looting and destruction of property, including by arson; and enhanced restrictions on religious freedom. The report concluded that crimes against humanity likely had been committed.

During 2016, the NLD government failed to respond both to the violence in northern Rakhine State perpetrated by the military and security forces, and more broadly to the discrimination and ill treatment of Rohingya Muslims. In one government attempt at compromise that further inflamed tensions, on June 19 the Ministry of Information directed state media to use the terms "Buddhists in Rakhine State" and, rather than "Rohingya" or "Bengali," "Muslims in Rakhine State." For different reasons, both ethnic Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine strongly objected, including thousands of Rakhine Buddhists who protested throughout Rakhine State. Also, as noted above in the Background section, hundreds of ethnic Rakhine, including Buddhist monks, protested the government's decision to include foreigners in the Annan Commission. The government also largely remained silent in the aftermath of the military's indiscriminate and disproportionate clearance operation in northern Rakhine State. Not only has the NLD government refrained from speaking out against the violence, but it also has rejected and denied many of the military's reported abuses and rebuffed the international community's concerns.

The government did establish an investigation commission to examine the October 9 incident in northern Rakhine State. However, the selection of military-appointed Vice President U Myint Swe to lead the commission raised concern among human rights advocates. On December 15, the commission reported on its visit to northern Rakhine State in a State Counsellor's office-issued statement that refuted a report made by one Rohingya woman about an alleged rape by military personnel and portrayed living conditions in a largely positive light, a characterization incongruous with nearly all other accounts of the situation in Rakhine. In its January 2017 interim report, the commission found no evidence of genocide and insufficient evidence supporting numerous rape allegations, and failed to mention civilian deaths at the hands of security forces even though authorities just days earlier detained several police officers after the release of a video showing them beating Rohingya Muslims. (For further information about abuses against Rohingya Muslims, refer to Suspended in Time: The Ongoing Persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Burma at www.uscirf.gov.)

Ill treatment of Rohingya Muslims goes beyond violence. For example, in September 2016, as part of a nationwide government-ordered initiative to demolish religious structures built without state or regional permission, Rakhine State authorities announced plans to demolish several mosques and madrassahs (Islamic schools). The demolition order also applied to Buddhist structures, like pagodas, that lacked official government permission. However, religious minorities typically have more difficulty obtaining the multiple layers of government permission required to build or a repair houses of worship and therefore often do so without authorization, making them more vulnerable to the demolition order.

Government and non-state actors also perpetrate discrimination and violence against Muslims who are not ethnically Rohingya. In June 2016, a reported mob of approximately 200 Buddhists destroyed parts of a mosque in Bago Region, along with other nearby property. Then, on July 1, another mob burned down a mosque in Hpakant, Kachin State; police arrested five people in connection with the arson. In both incidents, Muslims fled, fearful for their safety. Prompted by the violence, 19 nongovernmental organizations issued a joint statement calling on Burma's government to investigate, hold perpetrators accountable, and ensure freedom of religion or belief.

Abuses Targeting Christian Minorities

In a December 2016 report chronicling religious freedom violations against marginalized Christian Chin, Naga, and Kachin, a researcher contracted by USCIRF documented discriminatory restrictions on land ownership, intimidation and violence against Christians, the forced relocation and destruction of Christian cemeteries, violent attacks on places of worship, and an ongoing campaign of coerced conversion to Buddhism. For example, the report cites a March 2016 incident in which a Buddhist man broke into the house of a Christian missionary from the Chin Baptist Convention, physically assaulting him and destroying property. The incident took place after extremist monks from the nationalist 969 Movement tried to force the missionary out of a village in Pauk Township, Magwe Region. The researcher interviewed others who described the Tatmadaw's (Burma's military) occupation of churches and homes. June 9, 2016, was the five-year anniversary of resumed fighting between the Tatmadaw and ethnic armed groups in largely Christian Kachin State after a ceasefire agreement collapsed. Five years later, nearly 100,000 people remain internally displaced in camps in Kachin State and northern Shan State, where additional clashes with the army also continue. The longstanding conflicts, while not religious in nature, have deeply impacted Christian and other faith communities, including by restricting their access to food, shelter, health care, and other basic necessities. Religious organizations, such as the Kachin Baptist Convention and others, continue to assist the displaced.

In April and May 2016, Buddhist monk U Thuzana constructed two pagodas inside the St. Mark's Anglican Church compound in Karen State. The monk is known for building stupas and other Buddhist structures at churches and mosques. Although his actions have not yet provoked violence, and while the Union- and state-level governments did intervene, tensions were high at these sites during construction of the Buddhist structures.

Coerced conversion campaigns are still prevalent in the military-run Border Areas National Races Youth Development Training Schools, also known as Na Ta La. According to 2016 statistics from the Ministry of Border Affairs (also run by the military), there are 33 Na Ta La schools across the country, more than half of which are in rural, impoverished Chin, Kachin, and Naga areas. The Na Ta La schools offer free education and boarding to children of poor families who might otherwise not have access to education. In return, however, Christian students are not allowed to attend church; must practice or learn about Buddhist worship, literature, and culture; and become initiated into the monkhood or nunhood. Students effectively are cut off from their parents, and upon graduation are guaranteed government employment so long as they officially convert to Buddhism, including on their national ID cards. (For further information about abuses against Christians, refer to Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma at www.uscirf.gov.)

In December 2016, Dumdaw Nawng Lat and Lang Jaw Gam Seng, two ethnic Kachin Baptist leaders, disappeared in northern Shan State after assisting local journalists following a military airstrike on St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Mong Ko. Weeks later, the military confirmed it had detained both men, and in January 2017, the police charged them under the Unlawful Associations Act for allegedly supporting the Kachin Independence Army.

Arrests and Imprisonments

During the year, both the outgoing USDP and incoming NLD governments released many political prisoners; the latter also withdrew charges against many individuals awaiting trial. However, as of February 2017, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) calculated 292 political prisoners in the country, including those currently serving sentences and those awaiting trial both inside and outside prison. In February 2016, interfaith activists Zaw Zaw Latt and Pwint Phyu Latt, both Muslim, were sentenced to two years' imprisonment on charges relating to their interfaith activities in 2013 and 2014. In April 2016, the two received additional two-year sentences, this time with hard labor. Nationalist Buddhist monks from Ma Ba Tha pressured authorities to arrest and prosecute the pair.

In positive news, in October 2016 Burma abolished the Emergency Provisions Act, a decadesold measure the military regime often relied on to detain and imprison dissidents. However, several Muslims jailed under the law continue to suffer in prison, including the abovementioned Zaw Zaw Latt and Pwint Phyu Latt. Also, in April 2016 a presidential amnesty resulted in the release of Htin Lin Oo, the former NLD official found guilty in June 2015 of insulting religion. On July 1, authorities released and dropped all remaining charges against U Gambira, a former monk and well-known Saffron Revolution leader. Prior to his release, Gambira, who had already served a prison sentence for his activism during the Saffron Revolution, was potentially facing additional charges after being arrested in January 2016 on immigration charges for illegally entering Burma from Thailand.

U.S. POLICY

The United States must reinforce with Burma its responsibility to incorporate religious freedom and related human rights as part of the broader peace process; continue to press for the rights of Rohingya and other Muslims, Christians, and other religious and ethnic groups; and make clear to the government of Burma that perpetuating and tolerating human rights abuses is not without consequence.

During the year, the United States remained engaged with Burma on the serious human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims. On March 17, 2016, the Department of State issued the Atrocities Prevention Report, which, with respect to Rohingya Muslims in Burma, underscored pervasive governmental discrimination and the role of non-state actors in perpetrating violence. On April 28, after the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon used the term "Rohingya" in a condolence statement issued following a boat accident that killed more than 20 people, hundreds of nationalist protestors, including Buddhist monks and Ma Ba Tha supporters, staked out the embassy to object. In May, hundreds more in Mandalay protested the U.S. government's use of the term. Burma's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated publicly it preferred the U.S. Embassy avoid using the term, but the U.S. government continues to use it as appropriate. Also, in November 2016 U.S. Ambassador Scot Marciel was part of an international delegation that visited Rakhine State. On December 9, the U.S. Embassy signed a joint statement with 13 other diplomatic missions expressing concern about the lack of "desperately needed" humanitarian assistance in northern Rakhine State and urging Burma's government to fully resume assistance deliveries.

On May 17, the United States announced it would partially ease sanctions against Burma by removing restrictions on three state-owned banks and seven state-owned businesses. In late July, the United States announced $21 million in new assistance funding to Burma, primarily for economic governance. On September 14, while State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi visited Washington, DC, then President Barack Obama announced the United States would remove Burma's national emergency designation, paving the way to lift economic sanctions and restore duty-free trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences. After also lifting restrictions on the import of jade and rubies and delisting 111 individuals and companies from the Treasury Department's "specially designated nationals" list, only a few restrictions remain, including trade with North Korea, military assistance, and visa bans on some former and current military members. Also during Aung San Suu Kyi's visit, the two countries announced the U.S.-Myanmar Partnership, which includes cooperation and support on issues such as rule of law, human rights, human trafficking, corruption, investment and economic growth, and global health security, among others. On October 7, then President Obama issued an executive order removing the national emergency designation for Burma under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. U.S. businesses had advocated the removal of sanctions, while human rights advocates within and outside Burma criticized the United States for eliminating crucial points of leverage with Burma's government given serious and ongoing human rights abuses.

Lastly, on December 16, 2016, then President Obama signed into law the Fiscal Year 2017 Department of State Authorities Act (P.L. 114-323), which requires the secretary of state to submit a report to Congress describing "all known widespread or systematic civil or political rights violations, including violations that may constitute crimes against humanity against ethnic, racial, or religious minorities in Burma, including the Rohingya people." Neither the lifting of sanctions nor the act impact the existing U.S. arms embargo, which is the presidential action applied to Burma pursuant to the CPC designation. The State Department renewed the CPC designation for Burma in February and October 2016.
Paul Von Behren will be giving an update on activity in the Nebraska Legislature. Some bills have been passed, some died on the floor for this session and there are others still to be debated.
San Carlos, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 05/01/2017 --B. Bennett Press today released Odyssey of Chaos, a new novella by Alan Fleishman. This compelling piece of historical fiction tells the story of Jews caught in Nazi-occupied Athens, Greeks who tried to save them, and those who betrayed them.



NUMBED BY HORROR, INSPIRED BY FAMILY SURVIVAL



So many stories have been told of the Holocaust that we have become numb to the horror of it. So why write another one, author Alan Fleishman was asked. "Because for me, it's personal. I have cousins in Athens who were among the handful of Greek Jews who survived. Some of my cousins were hidden in a cellar by a shepherd, aided by their Christian friends. Other cousins were with the partisans fighting the Germans, and some perished in Auschwitz." In spite of all the Holocaust novels, non-fiction, movies, and documentaries, few know the story of the suffering in Greece. Nearly ninety percent of Greece's Jews perished, the highest percentage of Jews lost in any country.



Odyssey of Chaos opens with the Gestapo pounding on every door in Athens, seeking out the Jews. Theo Kantos, a dress shop owner, has a desperate choice to make if he is to save his family. Does he trust the most despicable man he knows to hide them? Or does he place his life and the lives of those he loves in the hands of a communist? And what does he do about his obstinate brother who always has to have the last word?



BONUS: SIX SHORT STORIES



Fleishman's latest work of fiction includes six contemporary short stories in addition to the title novella. In these stories, Fleishman explores new territory, both in style and in subject, to the benefit of his readers. All have one element in common: they are about singular unexpected events and choices which alter the course of our lives and form who we are: A little boy wants a new father. A truly ugly man encounters a charming younger woman. A veteran returns home from the war, a hero to everyone but himself. A woman finds a long-lost lover in a compromised condition. A man discovers there are times when too much money still isn't enough. A domineering mother works overtime to control her compliant son.



JEWISH-THEMED HISTORICAL FICTION



After many fruitful years as a businessman, Alan Fleishman started a new career as a novelist at a time most people are retiring. The writer was quite surprised by the success of his first novel, Goliath's Head. Even greater success came with his second and third, A Fine September Morning and Lara's Shadow. In these stories and Odyssey of Chaos, Fleishman chronicles the staggering Twentieth Century Jewish history, from persecution to tragedy to triumph. His intense novels are rooted in hard fact and driven through well-imagined characters.



Fleishman's promotional appearances are unlike typical authors' readings and book signings. To promote his books, he uses his marketing experience to deliver engaging multi-media presentations about the history that underpins each of his stories. He has delivered his presentations to enthusiastic audiences at public libraries, universities, synagogues, churches, book clubs, bookstores, and Jewish Community Centers from California and Arizona to Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.



Today Alan lives with his wife Ann and Siberian cat, Pasha, high on a hill overlooking San Francisco Bay.



Odyssey of Chaos is available for purchase at the following e-tailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple's iBooks, Lulu.com, Smashwords.com, Powell's, and many other e-tailers. It may also be purchased through nearly all retail bookstores. It is available in hardcover, softcover, Kindle, and most e-reader formats.



Visit http://www.alanfleishman.com to read an extensive excerpt and more about the author's Greek cousins Holocaust survival.



ODYSSEY OF CHAOS

Alan Fleishman

B. Bennett Press

Publication date: May 1, 2017



Hardcover: $29.99

ISBN: 978-1365713415

Page count: 220 pages



Soft cover: $14.99

ISBN: 978-1542785181

Page count: 251 pages



Kindle: $5.99

and other e-readers
From 2-7 to sectional champs, Monrovia has one question: 'Why not us?'
Chinese homebuyers look at housing models of a residential property project during a real estate fair in Dalian, northeastern China's Liaoning province, Oct. 14, 2016.

China's economy has exceeded expectations so far this year by outperforming in sectors that the government has promised to control.

Official statements were nearly ecstatic as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced last month that first-quarter gross domestic product rose 6.9 percent from a year earlier, topping the government's 2017 growth target of "about 6.5 percent."

The apparent rebound came after the economic growth rate of 6.7 percent in 2016 slipped to the lowest level in 26 years, leading the government to adjust its 2017 goal down another notch.

The NBS traced the surprising first-quarter turnaround to the "leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core."

The agency asserted that "people from all regions and departments" had implemented party policies, "getting (the economy) off to a good start."

Industrial production jumped 6.8 percent in the quarter and 7.6 percent in March alone, surpassing the 6-percent rate set in 2016. The March output was the fastest since December 2014, Reuters said.

Retail sales climbed 10 percent in the quarterly period and 10.9 percent in March, showing a positive push after rising 10.4 percent last year.

Fixed-asset investment climbed 9.2 percent in the quarter, racing past the 2016 gain of 7.9 percent.

Nearly all the figures improved on consensus forecasts, Bloomberg News reported.

"Once again, the naysayers were proved wrong by China's better-than-expected economic growth in the first quarter," the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary.

"For the first time in the recent years, China starts a year with a strong headline GDP," said Raymond Yeung, an economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Hong Kong, as quoted by Bloomberg. "Thanks to strong investment and property, the economy is performing well."

Yet, the good economic news came with less positive implications, since much of the forecast-beating performance appeared to be due to growth that the government has said it is trying to slow.

Steel production was a case in point, hitting a monthly record of 72 million metric tons in March with a 1.8-percent increase from a year before. Quarterly output of 201.1 million tons rose 4.6 percent, Reuters said.

The new high was a boost for GDP but a sore point for residents of northern cities who have been smothered by smog from coal-fired steel plants.

Curbs on steel industry

The government has been trying to impose curbs on the steel industry for over a year, in part due to anti-dumping pressures abroad. In 2016, China produced 50.4 percent of the world's crude steel, according to World Steel Association data.

On April 20, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum to expedite an investigation into whether steel imports pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Beijing argues that China's steel industry met its targets by eliminating 65 million tons of excess production capacity last year, but a study by Greenpeace East Asia found that capacity actually rose as plants reopened to take advantage of price increases.

Whether steelmakers met the targets or not, the quarterly figures suggest that China still has more than enough capacity to boost output.

In response to the smog crisis, inspections by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) found numerous instances of steel mills operating illegally in March and April, producing without pollution control plans or refusing to submit to inspections at all.

Other major contributors to the GDP rise suggest similar conflicts with government policies.

Under President Xi, the government has said repeatedly that China would seek lower and more sustainable growth by relying on consumption and the service sector rather than investment, infrastructure and heavy industry.

But the first quarter results tell a different story.

Surrogate indicators of the economy in the power and rail sectors both point to an industrial surge.

Electricity consumption in the quarter rose 6.9 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 3.2-percent gain in the same period of 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission said. In the secondary or manufacturing sector, power use increased 7.6 percent after edging up only 0.2 percent a year before.

The recovery of rail tonnage was even more dramatic.

Quarterly cargoes soared 15.3 percent this year after plunging 9.4 percent in the period last year.

The numbers are evidence of the rebound for steel and other heavy industries, said Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

"The industrial production figure, the power figure, the rail freight figurethey all say that either growth was quite exaggerated last year at this time or the push is clearly coming from those areas," Scissors said.

Property development boom

Real estate development also appeared to defy the government's announced efforts to discourage speculation in housing and property.

First-quarter real estate investment rose 9.1 percent compared with 6.9 percent a year earlier. Sales of residential buildings increased 20.2 percent while commercial building sales were up 25.2 percent, the NBS said.

Despite official pressure on the property sector, added investment has been helping to drive the boom in construction materials including steel.

On the one hand, the government has publicized a wave of restrictions on housing sales to cool the market, but on the other, it increased the residential land supply in first-tier cities by over 50 percent in the first quarter, Xinhua said.

And although the government has made a point of rejecting calls for stimulus spending over the past three years, investment in infrastructure posted a quarterly gain of 23.5 percent.

The results raise the question of whether the government has simply been paying lip service to its own reform policies or whether GDP growth has risen thanks to forces beyond its control.

Scissors said the first explanation is more likely, arguing that the government reacted to a serious drop in growth during 2015 by going back to the strategy of pumping up the economy with stimulus spending that revived industry.

"I think 2015 was a very weak year. GDP growth was probably half of what they said, and that was not acceptable," said Scissors. "And so, they went back to the old playbook, ... more steel, more building materials, all of that stuff."

Speaking at a symposium in Beijing on April 18, one day after the quarterly figures were announced, Premier Li Keqiang seemed to acknowledge as much, calling for "accelerating the shift from traditional economic growth engines to new ones."

Rather than claiming success from the first-quarter numbers, Li said that "China must speed up replacing old growth drivers with new ones," Xinhua reported.

"The focus should be on new technology, new industries and new business models, supported by the development of new production factors including knowledge, information and data," Li said.

Industrial formula fallback

Officials have been repeating similar development mantras for years, but when the economy suffers, the government has fallen back on industrial formulas to restore higher growth.

The International Monetary Fund raised its 2016 GDP forecast for China slightly from 6.5 percent to 6.6 percent at its April meeting. But most analysts expect declining quarterly growth rates for the rest of the year, now that the excess of the first quarter has eased pressure on the government's 6.5-percent goal.

"It's been successful for what they want to do, but it's going to cause them problems soon," said Scissors, speaking of the heavy industry boost.

"The economy is definitely moving faster. Whether it's healthier is a different question, but it's definitely moving faster than it was in 2015," he said.

Early results for April suggest that the government is already deescalating its pro-growth policies after overshooting its GDP goal.

Over the weekend, the NBS released weaker growth numbers for its monthly Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) as the reading for manufacturing slipped to 51.2 from 51.8 percent in March.

Any mark above 50 is indicative of expansion, but Xinhua said that "the pace has slowed as authorities stepped up efforts to contain financial risks."

Non-manufacturing activity followed a similar track. The PMI rating for April dropped to 54 from 55.1 in March, the NBS said.
A Hong Kong museum commemorating the 1989 student-led democracy movement in China, and the military crackdown on unarmed civilians that ended weeks of protest on the night of June 3, has opened its doors once more, despite being forced to close amid growing political pressure two years ago.



Located in an 800-square-foot (74-square-meter) office space in Kowloon, the June 4 Memorial Museum was forced out of its current premises following a lengthy legal dispute with the building's landlords, which the organizers believe was politically motivated.



It opened on Sunday, and will offer a temporary exhibit through June 15. Hong Kong is the only Chinese city that still holds regular memorial events for the victims of the massacre on the night of June 3-4, 1989, including a mass candlelight vigil in downtown Victoria Park.



Hong Kong lawmaker and rights lawyer Albert Ho, whose Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China runs the museum, said the new premises in a suburban neighborhood of Kowloon are only temporary, and that the organizers are still looking for a permanent home for it.



"I think a lot of us feel that it would be better to have a permanent home," Ho told RFA. "But we are hoping to put some of the donations we get this year into a fund."



"With a bit more funding, I think we will possibly have more choice of location."



Organizers currently have around one million U.S. dollars, but need two million more to buy a suitable property, Ho told reporters.



Outreach to the young



Ho said the museum hopes to use social media to attract younger people to learn about the weeks of student-led protests in the spring and early summer of 1989 that brought central Beijing to a standstill.



The protests eventually ended in a bloody crackdown by China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), ordered by then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping.



"We want to reach out and communicate and start a conversation with more young people, in the hope that they will take interest in, and care about, this [event in our history] and attend more of the memorial candlelight vigils and demonstrations," Ho said.



Alliance secretary Lee Cheuk-yan said the exhibit shows images of the demonstrations and the aftermath of the crackdown, as well as focusing on the role played by student leaders.



"This temporary exhibit uses experiential features, inviting the visitor to reflect on [the experience of those who took part]," Lee said.



"The aim is to provoke reflection in the people who come and visit, about issues like whether or not the students should have agreed to leave [the Square], whether or not they should have gone on hunger strike, whether or not they should have tried to block the columns of tanks," he said.



Beijing behind complaints



Organizers have previously said they suspect that Beijing may be behind the ongoing complaints against the museum in its previous location, where landlords said it was breaching the building's commercial-use zoning regulations.



The museum has drawn more than 20,000 visitors since it first opened in 2014, marking the 25th anniversary of the massacre, which Beijing has styled a "counterrevolutionary rebellion."



Around half of its visitors come from mainland China, which has erased references to the bloodshed from official accounts and bans public debate or memorials for victims.



The museum's exhibits include photographs of the protests and massacre, touching mementos saved from the scene, and a two-meter replica of the towering Goddess of Democracy statue that featured in the protests.



Under the terms of the 1997 handover, Hong Kong was promised the continuation of its existing freedoms and separate legal jurisdiction for 50 years under the "one country, two systems" pledge from Beijing.



But there are signs that those freedoms may already be eroding, following a string of arrests of former participants in Hong Kong's 2014 democracy movement and of anti-Beijing protesters and the removal of two pro-independence lawmakers from the city's Legislative Council.



Chinese officials have also warned that Beijing could enact laws governing subversion in Hong Kong, and extend them to cover the city by decree of China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC).



Reported by Lau Siu-fung for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.




The Myanmar government has rejected an offer by its powerful neighbor China to mediate a diplomatic dispute that the Southeast Asian country is having with Bangladesh over the recent exodus of minority Rohingya Muslims, a government spokesman said on Monday.

On April 25, China offered to step in between the two nations that are butting heads over the plight of tens of thousands of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh during a violent crackdown in western Myanmars Rakhine state that began last October.

The stateless Rohingya have been living in refugee camps in Cox's Bazar near the border with Myanmar while the two countries hash out which one should take responsibility for them. Many people in Myanmar believe the Rohingya are illegal refugees from Bangladesh and refer to them as Begalis.

Myanmar and Bangladesh are already trying to solve the Rakhine issue, Zaw Htay, spokesman of the State Counselors Office, said at a news conference in the capital Naypyidaw on April 29. Our governments policy is to resolve this problem bilaterally between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

We can understand Chinas offer for mediation, as it has its interests in the region such as with the Kyaukphyu pipeline but, as I have said, our policy is to resolve it [the issue] between Myanmar and Bangladesh ourselves, he said.

The U.S. $1.5 billion oil pipeline connects Rakhine states deep-water port in the town of Kyaukphyu in the Bay of Bengal with the city of Kunming, capital of southwestern Chinas Yunnan province, but has not begun pumping crude from Myanmar to China because the countries have yet to finalize the terms of the deal and sign a contract.

China also wants to mitigate the row between Myanmar and Bangladesh to ensure that its infrastructure development interests in both nations remain secure.

Myanmar has come under heavy fire by the international community and rights groups for possible ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya during the four-month crackdown and for its basic treatment of the members of the group, who are denied citizenship and other basic rights in the Buddhist-majority country.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
A Tibetan doctor freed in January by police in Chinas Gansu province after being held over suspected links to a self-immolation protest has been taken into custody again, sources in the region and in exile say.



Khedrup, a monk and doctor of traditional medicine from Mura town in Gansus Machu (in Chinese, Maqu) county in the Kanlho (Gannan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was detained on April 18, a Tibetan living in India told RFAs Tibetan Service, citing contacts in Machu.



No reason was given for his detention, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



His family members and friends in the community are worried that he may now be put on trial, the source said.



Khedrup, aged about 50, was first detained on Dec. 14 by Machu county police and held for over a month on suspicion of sending photos and video clips of the Dec. 8, 2016 self-immolation protest of Machu resident Tashi Rabten to international media



He was beaten and tortured in detention, sources told RFA in earlier reports. But when authorities could produce no evidence against him, he was freed on Jan. 21 with a warning he would be closely watched.



Call for freedom



Tashi Rabten, 33, set himself ablaze on Dec. 8 at about 7:00 p.m. local time on a road leading from the Machu county center to the Machu Bridge, local sources said following the protest.



Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Tibetan living in the area told RFA next day that witnesses to the protest heard Rabten call out for freedom for Tibet and for the return of [exiled spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama.



He also called out for the release of the [detained] Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, RFAs source said.



Chinese police later beat and tortured Rabtens wife and daughters after taking them into custody for questioning, local sources said.



The abuse followed authorities demand that the three sign a document declaring that Rabten had set himself ablaze not in protest of Chinese policies, but because of problems at home, one source said.



Reported by Sangye Dorjee for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.




A Tibetan woman jailed for four years in Chinas Sichuan province for blocking police from seizing the remains of a self-immolation protester has been released in poor health after serving her full sentence, a Tibetan source says.



Tsedrup Kyi, 32, was freed on April 5 and returned to her home in Sichuans Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) county at around 11:00 that night, a resident of the area told RFAs Tibetan Service, speaking on condition of anonymity.



More than 200 Tibetans, including her family members and relatives, were present to welcome her home, RFAs source said.



[Kyis] health was poor throughout her detention, and she had to stay in the prison hospital for about a year, the source said, adding, At the time of her release, she was asked to pay back 30,000 yuan [U.S. $4,349] the authorities had spent on treating her.



She endured many other hardships while in prison, he said.



News of Kyi's release was briefly delayed in reaching outside contacts owing to communications clampdowns imposed by Chinese authorities in the area.



Kyi had been sentenced for her involvement in the Dec. 3, 2012 self-immolation protest of Lobsang Gendun, a native of Sele Thang township in Pema (Banma) county in neighboring Qinghai provinces Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, RFAs source said.



After Lobsang Gendun set himself on fire and died during his protest, Tsedrup Kyi held onto his body, prayed over him, and called for freedom for Tibet and the return of [exiled spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama, he said.



She was then detained and later given a four-year sentence and jailed in [Sichuans] Mianyang prison."



She is now 32 years old. Her fathers name is Konchok Ngora, and she has eight siblings. She also has a son named Patsal Kyab, he said.



Struggle over body



Chinese security forces and Tibetan residents tussled over the body of Lobsang Gendun, 29, who had walked about 300 steps with his hands folded in prayer and shouted slogans before collapsing dead on the ground, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



Police and public security officers then arrived at the scene and attempted to take his body away, one source said.



However, the local Tibetans managed to wrest his body away from the Chinese and brought it to a monastery, he said.



A total of 148 Tibetans living in China have set themselves ablaze in protests since the wave of self-immolations began in 2009. Of these 125 are known to have died.



Most protests feature demands for Tibetan freedom and the return of the Dalai Lama from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.



Reported by Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.




A recent proposal that a powerful top member of Vietnams ruling Communist Party be punished for misconduct while the head of state-run oil giant PetroVietnam came at the behest of the countrys party chief as part of a bid to secure his political future, according to observers.



Last week, the partys Inspection Committee recommended that the Central Committee and Politburo consider disciplinary measures against Dinh La Thang, Communist Party secretary of Ho Chi Minh City, for greenlighting unregulated investments that caused PetroVietnam losses of nearly U.S. $40 million.



The committee also blamed Thang, a Politburo member, for failing to appropriately oversee four major projects while chairman of the board at PetroVietnam between 2009 and 2011, which led to their suspension and financial losses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.



Thang was appointed transport minister in 2011, before being elected to Vietnams 19-member Politburo and appointed secretary of the Communist Party Organization of the countrys commercial capital Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, early last year.



Pham Chi Dung, a Ho Chi Minh City-based reporter, told RFAs Vietnamese Service that Thang is widely seen as a pawn in a struggle between General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong and former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to cement their political standing.



Many people believe there was a secret agreement between party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the 12th Party Congress [in January 2016] that saw Dung step down in exchange for some of his allies, like Thang, being elected to the Politburo, he said.



These secret arrangements are common in politics  Trong knows very well that even though Dung is retired, his shadow is still looming because his allies are still in the system and they have become an obstacle to Trong. He cant sleep in peace.



According to Pham Chi Dung, Trong has to do something with Dungs allies in order to secure his political career.



I think Dinh La Thang is just the beginning of something bigger, he said.



If you ask the public, theyll say that it wont end until Nguyen Tan Dung is targeted.



Tuong Lai, the former director of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that Thang was repeatedly promoted, despite his involvement in serious wrongdoings while at PetroVietnam, suggesting that the Inspection Committees recommendation came as a result of political infighting.



Even though Thang was responsible for all of the problems at PetroVietnam when he was [company] party chief and chairman from 2009 to 2011, he was still elected to the Politburo at the 12th Party Congress, he said.



Why, when his misconduct cost the national economy so much money and went on for so long, did they not discipline him earlier  Why are they now investigating past deeds to discipline him  I think this is part of internal fighting between political factions [loyal to Trong and Dung], he added.



These decisions all depend on who is currently wielding [political] power.



The Partys Central Committee will hold its twice-yearly meeting this month and could rule to discipline Thang by issuing him a warning, dismissing him from his post, or even stripping him of his party membership.



It is highly unusual for a member of Vietnams powerful Politburo to face sanctions.



Four other PetroVietnam officials have already been punished or warned as part of an investigation into business violations between 2009 and 2015, including Nguyen Xuan Sonthe groups former Communist Party chiefwho was expelled from the party and arrested in July 2015.



Reported by Cat Linh for RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Russia has launched multiple suicide drones on Ukraine's southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, wounding people and damaging civilian facilities, the head of the regional military administration said, as fierce battles are under way in the eastern Donetsk region and in the south.

"The occupiers attacked the area massively with kamikaze drones. Our air defense destroyed five barrage ammunition. They also attacked with drones the city of Dnipro, targeting a logistics enterprise. Four employees were wounded, three of them are in serious condition in hospital," Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

Russian forces also bombarded the Nikopol district in the region with Grad missiles and heavy artillery. Reznichenko said the shelling damaged private houses, a factory, and a power line, but no one was injured.



A fire spread over more than 3,000 square meters, but it had already been extinguished, Reznichenko said.



Russian troops regularly shell the Dnipropetrovsk region with various types of weapons, in particular the Nikopol, Kryvorizky, and Synelnyk districts.

In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed that Ukraine will not "surrender a single centimeter of our land" in Donetsk, where heavy fighting has been under way, and he thanked Ukrainian troops who are holding positions in the Donbas region.



The epicenter of the battle for the industrial region of Donetsk is around the towns of Bakhmut, Soledar, and Avdiyivka.



"The activity of the occupiers remains at an extremely high level -- dozens of attacks every day," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address late on November 8.



"They are suffering extraordinarily high losses. But the order remains the same -- to advance on the administrative boundary of Donetsk region. We will not yield a single centimeter of our land," he said.



Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it annexed in September following referendums considered a sham by Kyiv and its Western allies.



Fighting had been going on there between Ukrainian military and Kremlin-backed separatist forces since 2014, the same year Russia illegally annexed Crimea in the south.

Zelenskiy said the goal of the Russian troops is to push to the administrative border of the Donetsk region.



"We clearly understand the enemy's plans, so we act accordingly. Carefully, thoughtfully, and in the interests of the liberation of our entire territory. We are strengthening our positions, breaking Russian logistics, consistently destroying the potential of the occupiers to keep the south of our country under occupation," Zelenskiy added.



Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said the most intense battles were taking place in Bakhmut and Soledar in the Donetsk region, where the Ukrainian military repels dozens of Russian attacks per day.



Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the region's military administration, said the city of Bakhmut was very badly damaged, and there is not a single surviving house in Avdiyivka, Maryinka, or Krasnohorivka. Russian troops are trying to wipe the cities "off the face of the Earth," he said.



Fierce fighting was also going on on the edge of the town of Snihurivka, in the southern Mykolaiyv region, according to Yury Barabashov, the town's Russian-appointed mayor, as cited by Russia's RIA Novosti news agency.



Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed administration in the southern Kherson region, said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had tried to advance on three fronts, including Snihurivka.



Vitaly Kim, the Ukrainian governor of the Mykolayiv region, apparently quoting an intercepted dialogue between Russian troops, suggested that Ukrainian forces had already pushed the Russians out of the area.



"Russian troops are complaining that they have already been thrown out of there," Kim said in a statement on his Telegram channel.



The information could not be independently verified.



The Ukrainian military said it destroyed two Russian ammunition depots in southern Ukraine on November 8, one in Snihurivka, and one in Kostromka, in the neighboring Kherson region.

WATCH: Paratroopers with Ukraine's 79th Air Assault Brigade say they're holding positions around the small city of Maryinka in eastern Ukraine despite daily Russian attacks.

Russia has mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists in recent months seeking to stave off an offensive launched by Ukraine to regain Russian-occupied territories.



Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said on November 8 that 21 Russian conscripts had surrendered to Ukrainian forces around Svatove in the eastern Luhansk region.



"These poor mobilized men -- really poor, they had had nothing to eat or drink in three days -- of course they decided to surrender," Zhdanov said on his YouTube channel.



In the southern Kherson region, a battle between advancing Ukrainian forces and the Russian occupiers has been looming for weeks in the city by the same name, the only regional capital Russia has captured intact since its unprovoked invasion in February.



Kherson is arguably the most important of the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that Russia says it annexed. It controls both the only land route to the Crimean Peninsula and the mouth of the Dnieper River that bisects Ukraine.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, also commented on the fighting in eastern Ukraine on November 8. He was quoted by TASS as saying that information released about casualties among Chechen fighters near Lysychansk, a city in the eastern Luhansk region, was false.



"Not a single fighter of ours was killed in the aforementioned area," Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that he didn't want to comment on "such falsehoods" but found it necessary "to reassure all sane and concerned people."



Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, released video footage that it said showed a drone strike obliterating a Ukrainian tank that was hiding in an urban area and shelling Russian troops.



"A Russian squad of unmanned aerial vehicles spotted the Ukrainian tank and destroyed it using a precision strike," the ministry said on November 8, according to TASS.



The Ukrainian military's General Staff said Russian troops used drones and artillery on November 8 to shell communities along the Sumy region's border with Russia in northeastern Ukraine. The only damage reported was to utility poles.



Sumy borders three regions of Russia -- Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod. The border regions of Ukraine are regularly shelled by Russia.



Neither side's battlefield claims could be independently verified.



The Ukrainian military has accused Russian troops of more looting and destroying infrastructure in Kherson.



"A convoy of trucks passed over the dam of the Kakhova hydroelectric station loaded with home appliances and building materials," the military said.



Russians were dismantling mobile phone towers and taking equipment, it said, adding that near the city of Beryslav, Russian forces "blew up a power line and took equipment from a solar power station."

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and CNN
Iranian President Hassan Rohani has officially opened a refinery on the Persian Gulf that he says will make the country self-sufficient in gasoline production, a project he credits the 2015 nuclear deal for making possible.

Rohani on April 30 told reporters at the plant in Bandar Abbas that "self-reliance in petroleum production is a great honor for the Iranian people."

Bandar Abbas is 1,205 kilometers south of Tehran.

The plant was constructed by Khatam-al Anbia, the economic arm of Irans powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Iran produces about 64 million liters of petroleum daily and imports 12 million liters to meet domestic demand.

The new refinery will make up that difference by producing 12 million liters a day in its first phase.

The plant will be capable of producing 36 million liters a day after it is completed in 2018, officials said.

Rohani said the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, including the United States, helped allow the project to reach the operation stage by allowing necessary equipment to be imported into the country.

"This giant refining unit would never go online" if the deal had not been made, he said.

Rohani, who is campaigning for reelection in the May 19 presidential vote, has come under criticism from hard-liners for negotiating the deal they claim has brought little economic benefit to Iran.

Based on reporting by AFP, IRNA, and AP
The United Nations says a group of 36 Yazidis have been rescued in Iraq after three years of "slavery" under the rule of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande said that since April 28, when they were rescued, the women and girls from the group had been receiving lodging, clothing, medical, and psychological aid in Duhok, a Kurdish city north of Mosul.

Thousands of Yazidi women and girls were abducted, tortured, and sexually abused by IS fighters after the militants rounded up Yazidis around the town of Sinjar in northwestern Iraq in 2014.

While some have escaped, as many as 3,500 remain in captivity.

The Yazidi faith has elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam. The IS group considers them "devil worshippers."

Most of the Yazidi population, numbering around half a million, remains displaced in camps inside the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the Western military alliance is close to making a decision on whether to increase its troop numbers in Afghanistan to help with the battle against militants.

His remarks came as a U.S. watchdog group said Afghanistan "remains in the grip of a deadly war" and warned that Afghan security forces were suffering "shockingly high" casualties in the face of a resilient Taliban insurgency.

Stoltenberg told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview published on April 30 that in view of the "challenging" security situation, NATO could increase the number of personnel in Afghanistan from the current 13,000, although he did not give a specific figure.

Stoltenberg said the alliance would likely make a decision by June on a potential troop increase and on whether to lengthen to time of soldier deployments, which currently are for one year.

NATO troops are in Afghanistan as part of the alliance's Resolute Support mission to train, assist, and advise local forces.

John Nicholson, the U.S. general who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan, told the U.S. Congress in February that there was a "shortfall of a few thousand" troops needed to meet requirements in the country.

Nicholson also said the current battle, mainly against Taliban forces but also against the Islamic State extremist group, was at a "stalemate."

Since NATO's combat mission formally ended in 2014, Taliban attacks have intensified, often overwhelming the Afghan military.

In a new report, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says 807 members of the Afghan national force were killed against the Taliban and other militants in the first six weeks of this year.

In the quarterly report sent to the U.S. Congress on May 1, SIGAR says at least 1,328 Afghan security personnel were injured during the period.

The figures for the report were collected before the April 21 attack by the Taliban on a military compound in Balkh Province that officials say left more than 140 army personnel dead.

"Casualties suffered by the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces in the fight against the Taliban and other insurgents continue to be shockingly high," the SIGAR report says.

The report cites U.S. figures showing a gain in territory under Afghan government control, now at 59.7 percent of the country's 407 districts, up from 57.2 percent in mid-November of last year.

That represents an 800,000-person increase in the population under Afghan government control, it says.

The report cites figures from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan that said 11,418 civilian casualties were reported in 2016, up 3 percent from the previous year and the highest since such figures have been tallied beginning in 2009.

Of the civilian casualties, 3,498 were deaths, it says.

SIGAR, created by the U.S. Congress, provides oversight into how the more than $100 billion appropriated for reconstruction since 2002 in Afghanistan has been allocated.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters
Fred Ness had a close call.

It happened in Vietnam. As a combat engineer, Ness and other soldiers were trying to move some concertina wire so they could widen a road. But trip flares and white phosphorus grenades, which were in the wire, had to be moved first.

White phosphorus burns fiercely and Ness was careful as he reached for a grenade.

Suddenly, a 175 mm Howitzer at the nearby fire base went off.

I thought Id been shot, Ness said. I jumped back and all I could think of was that white phosphorus all over me. That burns straight through you.

About 50 years after that hair-raising situation, Ness sat in the living room of his rural Fremont home remembering his work in Vietnam and area servicemen who died. He recalled the work of building roads, clearing minefields and sweeping roads for booby traps.

On Monday, Ness was among 650 Vietnam veterans from Nebraska who made the daylong trip to Washington, D.C. to see war memorials. Four charter planes flew the largest group of Vietnam veterans from any state on whats called The Final Mission. The Patriotic Productions flight was made possible in part by a grant from the Fremont Area Community Foundation.

Ness, who was born in Lincoln, moved with his family to Hooper in 1959. He graduated from Hooper High School in 1965 and went into the U.S. Army in April 1966.

I enlisted on the day I was supposed to be drafted, he said.

Ness went to combat engineers schooling in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

Combat engineers are trained to use whatever the land provides for building, he said. They have training in weapons, explosives and landmine warfare.

Ness and other soldiers went to Vietnam in September 1966. Ness worked mostly in the central highlands. He and other soldiers used mine detectors to sweep the roads, looking for any booby traps.

Besides roads, they also built airstrips and landing pads. One time while clearing a mine field, a bulldozer accidentally ran over a personnel mine.

It blew the dirt off the track. Thats about all it did to it, he said. Then we had to take and clear it.

The closest call for Ness occurred when he was trying to move the white phosphorus grenade and a Howitzer at the base went off.

Despite what he thought at first, Ness hadnt been shot. The grenade didnt go off, but the situation still proved unnerving for Ness and other men at the site.

After situation occurred, a platoon leader told Ness to sit back, take a break and have a cigarette.

I grabbed a cigarette and I couldnt even get the thing lit. He had to light it for me, I was shaking so badly, Ness said. It shook everybody else up, too, who were around me.

Ness has other memories, like the time he saw a young soldier blown out of his truck by a grenade.

You never forget the smell of burnt flesh and gun powder mixed, he said, quietly.

Ness doubts the man, who was airlifted out by a helicopter, survived.

He also remembers the harassment fire  times when the enemy shot mortars at night.

If wed get hit around 9 oclock, we knew we were going to get hit again later on, probably around 3 (a.m.) just to harass us so we couldnt get our rest, he said.

Ness also recalls a letter he got from his dad, who told him that Fremonter Kenny Steel had been killed in Vietnam. Ness and Steel had taken basic training together.

Ness father wanted to tell him before he read it in the Fremont Tribune newspaper which hed been receiving.

It was hard, Ness said. Im glad my dad wrote and told me about it, because we (he and Steel) were going to see each other when we got back. That was the last thing we said.

Ness was already back in the states when he learned Dave Hargens from Nickerson had died in Vietnam.

He was two years behind me in school, Ness said.

Ness, himself, returned to the United States in 1967.

He remembers the shouting, sign-carrying protesters.

Some kids  we wouldnt say they spit at us, but they spit, he said. I dont think they wanted to start anything, because there were about 200 GIs there waiting to go home, but we knew they didnt like us.

Im a little bit bitter still for the way we were treated.

Ness spent the last part of his military service at Fort Devens, Mass., where he and other engineers did maintenance work at the post.

He met his wife, Carol, in Massachusetts on a blind date. Her twin sister introduced them and they married in 1968. They have a son, Fred A. Ness, and daughter-in-law Sara and two granddaughters, KateLynn and Kaylee.

When he returned to Nebraska, Ness worked at Hubbard Milling Feed Company and then for Golden Sun Feeds in Fremont.

He and his family moved to upstate New York, where he worked in a feed mill. They returned to Fremont. He worked for Jayhawk Boxes for almost 15 years and retired in 2010.

Ness was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in 2013 and had a double lung transplant in June 2015.

Last week, Ness talked about how he looked forward to the flight to Washington, D.C. Hes been there before, but hadnt seen the World War II monument.

I want to see that because my dad and father-in-law were both World War II veterans, he said. My father-in-law (Aldege Cormier) was a combat engineer, too.

Ness and his wife plan to travel to Massachusetts and Canada.

Would he serve his country again?

He would.

Its an education on how other people live  I learned about different cultures and people and how good we have it compared to other countries, he said. I served my country and Im proud of it.
Fine art consultant and conservationist Andrew Baxter sought out Chase Architectural Metals expertise when he was consulting on the restoration of the cast iron canopy on President James Monroes tomb enclosure in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

I was the consulting conservator to see that the project was done to the U.S. Department of Interiors standards. I brought in Chase during the initial exploratory process, Baxter said about work on Monroes tomb, which is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.

This project was huge, and I trusted Chase to do this properly, Baxter said. They have a tremendous range of expertise.

Richmond-based Chase Architectural Metal had to take down the structure  over 600 pieces  and truck it to its facility on Albany Avenue. Many of the pieces had to be recast.

They did meticulous work, Baxter said. They handled it like an art object. They were able to do everything very skillfully.

Chase Architectural Metals work ranges from custom-made railing systems to historic renovations.

It concepts, designs and fabricates custom architectural and ornamental metal work for commercial and residential customers and restores sculptures and ornamental metal work.

The company is known for taking on complex jobs.

A lot of the work we do other companies arent interested in doing, said Robert Chase, who started the company with Jack Williams in 2005. The work is complicated. A lot of what we make is specialized.

Chase Architectural Metal recently made the mounting base for the 24-foot-tall sculptural head Chloe by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa that was installed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts this month. We have moved and installed a fair mount of sculptures for the museum, Chase said.

The company also crafted all of the outside guardrail systems when the museum expanded in 2010.

They are an excellent company to do business with, said Garry Mason, the VMFAs building and grounds superintendent. They are very customer-oriented, and the staff is very educated and talented at what they do. They do the kind of work no one else is doing.

Chase Architectural Metal has clients around the East Coast. Customers include the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and the Valentine museum.

We have scaled back some, Chase said of working out of state. We are doing more in Virginia now. We stay close to home when we fabricate and install work.

Ninety-five percent of Chase Architectural Metals work is commercial with the remaining for residential projects. It works with stainless steel, bronze, aluminum and cast iron.

For years, we did a lot of high-end railings, but now we have gotten into custom architectural work, Chase said. For example, we have built a lot of pergolas out of a lot of different materials.

Revenue at Chase Architectural Metal rose 25 percent last year compared with 2015. This year looks incredible, Chase said.

I am booked almost the whole year already. I do still have room to fit in some small jobs throughout the year, he said.

Chase does not overload the companys work schedule.

Out of 100 bid invites I get a week, I only bid on one or two of them if that, he said. We try to be accommodating to our regular customers. Its always a juggling act.

Chase and Williams met at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1979 when they were involved in automobile racing. Chase had a background in furniture design and manufacturing as well as machining. Williams had a background in engineering.

We both enjoyed doing this type of work, Chase said.

Chase had started two companies prior to Chase Architectural Metal: Auto, Art and Machine in 1983 (part of that company morphed into his current company) and Chase Competition Engineering. He had contacts with architects and designers when he started Chase Architectural Metal.
Virginia Workers Compensation Commission plans to move to the former Media General Inc. headquarters building in downtown Richmond.

Meanwhile, Media Generals nearly 400 pieces of artwork  with an original value of $700,000  are being sold through an online auction.

The commissions employees would move into the 125,000-square-foot building at 333 E. Franklin St. from its current 47,444-square-foot headquarters at 1000 DMV Drive and leased space elsewhere in the Richmond area, including the Bookbindery Building on West Broad Street.

The state agency plans to lease the space from Hourigan Development, a division of Richmond-based real estate investment and construction management firm Hourigan Group, which has the four-story building under contract to buy. The company expects to close on the purchase in June.

The lease would be for 10 years, said Dena Potter, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of General Services, the state agency that oversees government facilities. Other details of the lease were not available.

Workers Comp plans to lease the facility from Hourigan once the company closes on the property and completes tenant improvements, which we anticipate will be complete by December, Potter said.

Please keep in mind this is contingent upon the sale being finalized and that more details will be available once that has happened, she said. We looked for several years to find a new location for them.

Its not known whether the Workers Compensation Commission will become the sole tenant in the Class A office building, which has a four-story atrium rotunda. It was built in 1998.

Mark Hourigan, CEO of the Hourigan Group, declined comment on how many possible tenants the building might have. He said in late March that he expected Nexstar Media Group, which acquired Media General in January, and Stefanini, an information technology outsourcing firm that has been subleasing space there since 2013, to continue to be tenants in the near term.

But real estate sources say the state will ultimately lease the entire Media General building and have the Workers Compensation Commission occupy the bulk of it.

The commission has a total of 292 employees statewide. The agencys spokesman did not know how many employees work at the Richmond offices.

The independent state agency oversees the workers compensation system for employees, employers and insurers.

Hourigan Development did not disclose a purchase price for the building, which was assessed for $10.7 million, according to city property tax records.

Media General, the communications company that once owned newspapers and television stations across the country, was acquired by Texas-based Nexstar in a stock and cash deal valued at $4.6 billion. Media General had owned the Richmond Times-Dispatch and sold it and other newspapers to a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway in 2012.

***

The art collection in the building was acquired by Media General over the past two decades.

The vast majority of the artists are local, with a lot of them from Virginia and ... for the most part from the Southeast region of the U.S., said Tim Gates, owner of Gates Estates, the Chesterfield County-based company that is handling the sale of Media Generals art collection with Henrico County-based Cannons Auctions.

The collection of 368 pieces is pretty comprehensive, Gates said, including oils, watercolors, acrylics, sculptures, ceramics, mixed media pieces, prints and textiles. The oldest piece dates to 1942.

The vast majority of it is contemporary in nature, Gates said.

Some of the better-known artists include Nell Blaine, Joseph E. Burrough III, Nancy Witt, Amy Archinal, Cindy Neuschwander, Theresa Pollak and Robert Levin.

Some of these artists, like Theresa Pollak and Robert Levin, are internationally known artists, he said. Cindy Neuschwander sadly passed away. She was an internationally recognized artist, and we have about a dozen of her pieces.

The art collection will be available for preview from 4 to 9 p.m. May 11 at the Media General building.

Online bids start closing at 10 a.m. May 15. The auction closes in lot number sequence at the rate of four lots per minute, auto extending for four minutes if bids are received within the last four minutes.

Winning items must be picked up between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. May 16.

The full catalog of items can be viewed at www.cannonsauctions.com.
High school students and teachers in Henrico County will work from new laptops next year.

The Henrico County School Board last week authorized the school division to enter into a $17.45 million contract with Dell for 18,370 laptops to replace the ones currently outfitted in the divisions high schools.

Were not just buying a computer, were buying a system, said Al Ciarochi, assistant superintendent for operations.

The Dell 3380 model laptops will replace the 17,320 Dell 6430 models currently in the schools, according to information Ciarochi presented to the School Board. The total cost per laptop is $950 over the entire four-year lease, a $14 increase over the cost of the current laptops.

Ciarochi, who has previously said the school division keeps to a lease agreement to ensure students have up-to-date technology, said the newer model laptops are faster, more durable and weigh less than the existing laptops.

Two other companies  Electronic Systems, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard  responded to a request for proposals issued by the school division. Dell was chosen after a committee that included principals, teachers and technology staff scored the companies proposals on criteria including functionality and support.

The school division expects to receive the laptops in early June and have them ready for distribution to students in late August or September, according to a timeline of the rollout.

The school division has equipped laptops to high school students for the past 16 years.

Kourtney Bostain, assistant director of instructional technology, said the new devices are needed to keep pace academically and technologically.
As they prepared to take up roughly a dozen old complaints of illegal political mail or signs, members of the Virginia State Board of Elections complained Monday that they were flying blind because the state agency they oversee stopped offering guidance on whether the ads in question did or didnt violate the law.

The lack of staff analysis and recommendations, coupled with lengthy delays between when complaints come in and when they come up for review, left one board member openly wondering whether the state is doing enough to police political campaigns.

Board members also raised concern about receiving limited details about the cases  many dating back to the November election and some over a year old  on Friday afternoon for a Monday morning meeting.

Officials from the Virginia Department of Elections told the board they chose to stop providing detailed memos outlining the facts of each potential violation, the relevant code section and recommendations for action because doing so would constitute legal advice on often hazy questions, such as whether a particular message amounts to express advocacy.

Those are legal questions that we cant answer, said Elections Department Deputy Commissioner Elizabeth L. Howard.

In an email, Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortes said his department has previously told the board that some issues would be better handled by the Attorney Generals Office, but said the change probably could have been communicated better before Mondays meeting.

Among the complaints the board was scheduled to take up at the meeting was the Democratic Party of Virginias accusation that former Richmond mayoral candidate Joe Morrissey circulated intentionally misleading sample ballots in November that suggested he was the Democratic-endorsed candidate and failed to include the required disclaimer letting voters know who paid for the sample ballot. The eventual victor  current Mayor Levar Stoney  joined in the complaint as the mayoral candidate endorsed by the local Democratic committee.

Also on the boards agenda were complaints about campaign material put out by Richmond City Councilwoman Ellen Robertson, who won her re-election bid in the 6th District last year, and several unsuccessful Richmond council candidates.

Under state law, all political advertisements must include a Paid for by disclosure identifying the source of the ad, and violations could potentially bring fines of up to $1,000. In the two weeks before an election, the civil penalties can jump to $2,500. Willful violations can result in a misdemeanor charge.

The Board of Elections, whose three members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly, is tasked with deciding whether a violation took place. Democrats currently hold a 2-1 advantage on the board because state law dictates that two seats go to the governors party while one is reserved for the party that doesnt control the Executive Mansion.

By law, those accused of violations must receive notice at least 10 days before a board hearing, but most of the 11 people or groups on the agenda for Mondays meeting, including Morrissey and Robertson, did not show up.

With little information from staff and few people in attendance to explain their side of the story, the board deferred action, to give the accused another chance to appear.

Weve always received some objective analysis from staff beforehand, James B. Alcorn, the Board of Elections chairman, said in an interview. As you can see, without that, things are taking a really long time.

With no staff memos on hand, the only documents included in the boards meeting materials were copies of the complaints, often brief emails from those who saw the signs or mail, and images of the ads in question.

After lengthy and at times muddled examinations of two of the cases on their agenda, both of which were dropped without punitive action, board members turned to the staff to stress their desire to come to meetings prepped with facts.

These last two discussions really do illustrate the importance of getting us this information, board member Singleton B. McAllister said after she and her colleagues struggled with questions of how the law applied to a somewhat vague advertisement in a festival program for a candidate who wasnt actually running yet and a sign featuring names of both local and federal candidates.

These can become very, very thorny issues. I feel like were the Supreme Court up here a little bit going back and forth with the code.

Alcorn said he would like to see objective analysis from staff and a recommendation that could at least lay out past precedent. Information about complaints the state receives, Alcorn said, should get to the board sooner rather than later.

The very first one on here was received in April 2016, Alcorn said. Thats hard to say that staff doesnt have time to do the analysis on something like that.

Clara Belle Wheeler, the Board of Elections lone Republican, questioned the logic of taking up complaints about improper influence long after the elections are over.
Jenny Natividad of Stafford County grew so concerned about her 8-year-olds health that she visited her at school every day. She had more than a dozen meetings with school staff and nurses.

Annika has Type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, a hormone that allows sugar, or glucose, to enter cells to produce energy.

The second grader had received an insulin pump to manage her diabetes. But Natividad said school nurses were not up to date on the latest diabetes technology.

Natividad said a school nurse incorrectly changed Annikas insulin pump battery, among other errors. This led, she said, to the pump delivering too much insulin. Insulin pumps have safety features preventing over-administration of insulin, Natividad said, but misuse can reduce those features.

An insulin overdose can cause hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, which causes fatigue, dizziness and fainting. It can be fatal if untreated.

Natividad decided she could no longer take chances. She took Annika out of school, homeschooled her the rest of the year and enrolled her in private school.

Natividad hopes other families can avoid that experience.

Virginia legislators do too.

Senate Bill 1116, a bipartisan bill unanimously passed by the Senate and House in February, allows registered school nurses in the state of Virginia who have been trained in insulin pump use to assist students. The bill became law on April 5 and will go into effect in August.

Trouble, then hope

The bill is welcome news to families across Virginia whose children have, like Annika, mastered the insulin pump but encountered issues at school.

The pump, which is slightly smaller than a cellphone, delivers insulin through a needle under the persons skin in frequent, small doses.

The Continuous Glucose Monitor connected with the pump lets Annika, now 13, and her parents know her blood sugar with new readings every 5 minutes.

Natividad can even access Annikas blood sugar reading through a phone app connected with the glucose monitor.

She and other concerned parents pushed for the bill. Prince William mothers Layla Truax and Joni Blue say their children were unable to receive help from school nurses with their insulin pumps.

Blue said the School Board there told a nurse not to replace the pod attached to her son Gavins insulin pump. Blue feared for Gavins safety after he became hospitalized for blood sugar that spiked to more than 600.

Truax and Blue reported the incidents to the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education. The second investigation by the Office of Civil Rights is expected to be completed in a few weeks, Blue said. The women run a Facebook page, Gavin and Diana, that chronicles their kids stories.

Blue first met Sen. Jeremy McPike, D-29th, who introduced the bill in September. Each time the bill was discussed at a subcommittee meeting, Blue arrived in Richmond the day before and met every senator or delegate involved.

Blue and Truax hope the bill will enable nurses to provide diabetes care without interference from school boards. A feature of the bill gives school nurses liability provisions.

I dont want to see our nurses hurting or our children hurting, Blue said.

Keeping up

What comes next for Blue, Truax, Natividad and other affected families is to advocate for school nurses to be trained in using insulin pumps and know how to respond in a diabetic emergency.

This is particularly important as technology for Type 1 diabetes is rapidly advancing.

It is never a great time to have diabetes, but this might be the best time because there are so many options, Natividad said.

A machine considered the closest model to an artificial pancreas was approved by the FDA for people 14 and older in September. The Medtronics MiniMed 670G hybrid closed looped system could be available to the public this spring, according to CNN.

Technology is constantly changing, said Natividad, who said past difficulties are tough to look back on. And that it is important that our communities keep up.

Stafford County Public Schools released a statement about the bill, and said county schools are dedicated to caring for all students.

Stafford County Public Schools is aware of the passage of House Bill 1116, the statement reads. We are considering the bill and evaluating SCPS current practices. SCPS is committed to the safety and welfare of all students in the division.

Stafford County Public Schools, when requested for comment about the incident with Annika, said it could not comment on individual student matters.

Annika attends Holy Cross Academy and has a network of nurses and teachers trained to assist her. She played the Queen of Hearts in the academys production of Alice in Wonderland, was inducted into the Junior Honors Society and plays volleyball.

Annika said the bill gives her and others like her confidence. They can count on schools in the state to provide treatment when needed.

I think it means hope in general, Annika said. Hope that children like me can live a better future in schools.
For the most part, development in downtown Richmond is moving ahead nicely. But building in the city can still be a laborious process. City Center LLC wants to construct a high-rise residential tower between Grace and Franklin streets across from the Carpenter Theatre at the Dominion Arts Center. Its in a stretch of East Grace that, after decades of seemingly irreversible decline, has roared back to life in the past few years, fueled primarily by restaurants and the performing arts.

The neighborhood suddenly seems like a great place to live, and creating condos will help bring a more permanent presence to an area that is reviving but can still feel empty when the curtains come down and the diners head home. The City Center plan generated a good bit of excitement when it was announced last year  and was welcomed by many as a potential turning-point development in an important part of downtown. But as is usually the case, perhaps more frequently in the city of Richmond than elsewhere, the proposed condominiums raised a host of concerns among interest groups, including preservationists, smart growth advocates, and affordable housing watchdogs.
When a prominent Washington peace activist was asked recently to name the leading anti-interventionists in the Senate, he responded, Rand Paul and Mike Lee, both Republicans. Democrats are in the midst of a furious struggle over what they stand for and who is included in their coalition, yet on foreign policy questions, their silence is deafening. When President Trump decided to drop 59 cruise missiles on Syria in response to purported use of chemical weapons, there was more debate about the attack among Republicans than among Democrats.

The Democratic establishments record on foreign policy has been disastrous. Most Democratic leaders supported the war of choice in Iraq, the largest foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. They cheered the humanitarian intervention in Libya that has ended in the humanitarian horror of a ruined country, racked by violent conflicts, where the Islamic State is consolidating a backup caliphate. They applauded President Barack Obamas surge in Afghanistan even as that war dragged on year after year. They touted the United States as the indispensable nation, demonstrating a predilection for military intervention and regime change that rivals that of Republican neoconservatives. Many considered Obama too weak and too wary of intervention, despite the fact that he left office bombing seven nations, dispatching Special Operations forces to more than 120 countries and calling for increased spending on a military that already consumes nearly 40 percent of the worlds military budget.

In 2016, Trump showed how unhappy Americans were with that record of futility. During the campaign, he lambasted Hillary Clinton for Iraq and Libya. He derided regime change. He argued that the United States had wasted $6 trillion in the Middle East for nothing. He claimed his America First policy would focus on the Islamic State and protecting our borders. He intimated that he would seek to work with Russias Vladimir Putin to take out the Islamic State.

In less than 100 days, Trump has discarded many of his most populist and popular positions. In addition to dropping cruise missiles on Syria and the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan, hes dispatching more forces to Syria, getting the country more entangled in Yemen and Somalia, and girding for a confrontation with North Korea. He calls for pumping the military budget up even beyond levels sought by Obama and paying for it by decimating public services at home  from support for public schools to environmental and worker protections.

Trump has proved more con man than strongman, but Democrats havent had much to say about these head-spinning reversals. They largely applauded Trumps bombing of Syria and were reassured by his flip-flops on NATO and the moderating of his positions on China and trade. Objections to his military budget increase have focused more about the domestic cuts than the idiocy of pumping more money into an already bloated military.

With Democrats in the political wilderness, having lost the White House and both houses of Congress, this is the time for fundamental debate and reassessment. A challenge to the failed doctrines of the Democratic foreign policy establishment is long overdue. Cries for unity or attempts to police the boundaries of conventional wisdom should be seen for what they are: an attempt to evade responsibility for calamitous failures.

The need for a new course is clear. Our corporate-led globalization strategy has devastated U.S. workers, racked up unprecedented trade deficits, exacerbated inequality at home and abroad, and essentially ignored catastrophic climate change. Our reflexive interventionism has left us mired in endless wars. Our assertion that we will police the world has undermined international law and institutions while sparking new tensions with Russia and China. Our bloated Pentagon continues to consume resources desperately needed for rebuilding the United States at home.

Leaders who begin to lay out a common-sense foreign policy of realism and restraint will find a responsive public. This will be true even if Trump manages somehow to avoid triggering a new war or global catastrophe.

Some suggest it will take a war to create an anti-war movement that demands change. But the wars are already ongoing. Our attempt to police the world has already proved too costly. Where is the Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren of foreign policy? Many Democrats are positioning themselves to take on Trump four years from now. Theyd be wise to seek leadership by demonstrating it.
MONDAY

The Richmond City Planning Commission will meet at 1:30 in the conference room on the fifth floor of City Hall, 900 E. Broad St.

The Richmond City Council will hold a budget work session at 11 a.m. in council chambers on the second floor of City Hall, 900 E. Broad St.

The Richmond School Board will meet at 5 p.m. in the 17th-floor meeting room of City Hall.

The Richmond Planning Commission will meet at 1:30 p.m. in the fifth-floor meeting room of City Hall.

TUESDAY
Qatar Airways is offering transit passengers the opportunity to discover Doha with free luxury hotel stays and complimentary transit visas. The unique offer is part of a broader campaign called +Qatar which looks to encourage all transit passengers to consider adding Qatar to their itinerary.

Throughout the summer, the national carrier, with the support of Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), will give passengers the chance to turn a layover into a stayover by offering four and five star hotel accommodation at no charge to those transiting through Doha. The promotion invites all Qatar Airways passengers to add Doha to their vacation by taking advantage of a free one-night hotel stay from a selection of the countrys best four- and five-star hotels in the capital, Doha.

Passengers transiting through Doha can extend their stay to make the most of their journey taking in the sights of Doha with a completely free night courtesy of Qatar Airways and QTA or stay a little longer with a second nights stay for a modest $50 booking fee. Passengers can choose from hotels such as The Four Seasons, Marriott Marquis, Radisson Blu and Oryx Rotana. The free hotel accommodation, available throughout the summer, will offer passengers the opportunity to explore Doha and experience city tours, desert safari adventures or a dinner cruise aboard a traditional dhow, giving visitors a taste of authentic Arabian hospitality, courtesy of Discover Qatar.

To be eligible for this offer, passengers simply book their flight on www.qatarairways.com, select multi-city and choose their hotel once they receive their flight confirmation. The online transit visa application is also free and is eligible for those in transit between five and 96 hours. This ground-breaking offer is available for all Qatar Airways passengers, both Premium and Economy, demonstrating the airlines commitment to its brand ethos of Going Places Together. To maximise their time in Qatar, visitors can explore additional stopover packages offered by Discover Qatar.

This unique offer with QTA has been launched by Qatar Airways' newly created destination management company, Discover Qatar, and is just one of many new initiatives that will be launched over the coming months to generate awareness of, and visits to, Qatar. It was designed to kick off the newly launched campaign +Qatar from Qatar Tourism Authority and is aimed at supporting the growing demand for tourism in Qatar.

This exciting and innovative announcement comes as the airline celebrates its 20th year of operations, marking two decades of growth, industry leadership and innovation.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Virginias attorney general has authorized an expanded investigation of the Rockbridge Regional Jail by state police.

Although a probe has been underway since February, authorities said they needed the attorney generals approval before Virginia State Police could continue their work. Thats because former jail Superintendent John Higgins is an elected official, serving as a member of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors.

Investigators for the Virginia State Police will continue their earlier investigation, which was temporarily suspended while awaiting the Attorney Generals approval, Rockbridge County Commonwealths Attorney Christopher Billias said in a statement Monday.

Among other things, authorities are investigating assaults on inmates by other prisoners at the jail.

On March 10, Billias asked the state police to get involved after an initial investigation of an inmates complaint by the Rockbridge County Sheriffs Office revealed other issues that required a closer look.

While local authorities do not need the attorney generals clearance to investigate an elected official, the step is required of state police, according to Michael Kelly, a spokesman for Attorney General Mark Herring. Once authorization is given, the attorney generals office has no further involvement, he said.

Inmates at the jail are believed to be both the victims and the perpetrators of an undisclosed number of assaults.

One question under review is whether jail officials allowed, or did not prevent, the assaults to take place in an area of the jail that houses inmates charged with sex offenses.

Billias has said that since the investigation began, other issues that do not involve assaults have surfaced.

In June, an inspection by the Virginia Department of Corrections found five violations of health and safety standards at the jail. The inspection results were not shared or discussed during meetings of a regional commission that oversees the jail, according to minutes of meetings though March 22.

Billias has said that some of the matters currently under investigation are related to problems identified in the inspection. He declined to elaborate.

The inspection found inadequate documentation that the jail was following procedures related to the medical care of inmates, suicide prevention and emergency plans, and training requirements. Jail officials say the deficiencies since have been corrected.

The jail is also facing an unrelated lawsuit in which an inmate claims he was assaulted by another prisoner after a sergeant called him a rapist and child molester within earshot of other inmates, which he claimed put him in danger.

Higgins was placed on administrative leave March 15 after state police were called in. He decided to retire the following week.
Roanokes chief scientist is encouraged that a $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health means Republicans and Democrats both value biomedical research.

The $1 trillion federal budget deal is expected to be voted on later this week.

As they say in opera, it isnt over until the fat lady sings. But this is a bipartisan show of support for basic research, said Michael Friedlander, executive director of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Techs vice president for health sciences and technology.

The funding boost runs contrary to President Donald Trumps plan to strip NIH funding. His 2018 proposed budget would cut $5.8 billion, or about one-fifth of the agencys budget. Virginia Tech and Carilion leaders recently met with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to talk about the potential loss to the institute and the regions economy.

Friedlander said the budget deal sends a message on behalf of the nation that we all potentially are affected by diseases and disorders, not just one side of the aisle.

VTCRI operates with multi-year NIH grants worth about $72 million. Of that, $20 million is assigned to this year.

Friedlander said the NIH is the major funder of basic biomedical research that occurs in Roanoke and places across the country.

He has been invited to speak this week about the threats to basic biomedical research before the Association of American Medical Colleges research advisory panel.

He views it as an opportunity to talk about basic research happening in places all across the country that is funded by the NIH and can advance to improve Americans lives.

For example, he said, initial studies into LDL and HDL cholesterol in Texas led to understanding of vascular diseases and the development of statins.

More recently, San Francisco researchers use of zebra fish led quickly to clinical trials on a drug that may treat a debilitating type of epilepsy in children.

Zebra fish were genetically engineered to have the same type of seizures as the children, and then a compound that already was proven safe was used to treat the disorder in the fish.

Friedlander said that although the presidents budget plan calls for cuts, he is feeling more hopeful.

If we can all come together on anything, its the health of the nation, at least that is what it implies to me, he said.
If he had not been a superior talent in his chosen line of work, the young man might have got by on his looks alone.

It is a handsome face that stares to its left back at us from the pages of history. The gentlemans well-crafted features included a ruler-straight nose, a leaders square chin jutting over a high-collared shirt and impeccably knotted tie, wavy hair parted high and just to the right of center, and round wire-rimmed eyeglasses that framed eyes that were both kind and scholarly.

By all accounts, the sparkling new apartments first opened for public inspection Saturday at 412 S. Pollard St. in Vinton are as impressive in appearance as the circa-1915 former school buildings namesake.

Which brings us to this weeks query:

Q: Who was Mr. Roland E. Cook?

Colleen Sarver, Elliston

A: Cook, he of the classically chiseled visage and educators eyes in his photographic portrait , was a principal and superintendent of schools whose educational career began in the 1890s and ended in 1945.

His 39 years of service as the countys seventh school superintendent stand as a record likely never to be broken.

A case could similarly be made that Cooks influence on county schools was as momentous as any chief administrator, ever.

It was during his administration that the system moved from the 19th century to the modern age.

When Cook took the top job in 1906, the system was characterized by far-flung, single-room schoolhouses with wood-fired heat. Transportation was provided by a single horse-drawn wagon, purchased the year he was hired.

When Cook retired, schools had been consolidated and modernized in all respects, enrollment had more than tripled, and students were arriving at the schoolhouse door via a fleet of 30 motorized buses, according to his 1945 New Years Eve obituary in The Roanoke Times.

Landmark success for the Cook administration was prophesized in print about six years after he took office.

The friends of Mr. Cook do not hesitate to predict that the future has in store for him many distinctions, and they feel that the splendid character of his work will elevate him to the highest position among Virginias educators, wrote George S. Jack in the 1912 History of Roanoke County.

That and other reference works were provided with the assistance of our friends in the Virginia Room of the Roanoke Public Library. Newspaper sources are courtesy of ace archivist Belinda Harris.

Born at Blue Ridge Springs in Botetourt County and educated at Roanoke College, Cook was named third principal of the originally named Vinton School in 1897. He succeeded Newton P. Painter, who supervised four teachers and 257 students, according to Deedie Kageys When Past is Prologue: A History of Roanoke County.

Students toted water to the school from one of the famously sweet springs in that part of the county.

The same dipper for drinking water was shared by all, Irma Trammell Moseley and Madline Simmons Forbes offered in Vinton History: 1884-1984.

Other chores were handled by more mature members of the academic community.

The principal and some of the older boys took care of cleaning the school and fired the stoves in cold weather, Moseley and Forbes wrote.

Cook was at the school for five years. Among his curricular initiatives was introduction of Latin, algebra and physical geography. Those moves, Moseley posited, actually set the stage for a high school.

The only county high school then open was on Academy Street in Salem. A Vinton school that housed both elementary and secondary divisions was not open until 1916, Moseley wrote.

Next stop for Cook was principal at the high school in Blacksburg. The following year, 1906, he was back in Salem after being appointed to the top Roanoke County school post.

In those days, students attended school 5.8 months of the year. Attendance was not mandatory. In Roanoke County, there were 3,715 students in 93 schools. Jim Crow laws mandated racially segregated schools, which were separate but far from equal.

The new Vinton school opened in 1916. Years later, the name was changed in honor of Cook.

Under Cooks leadership, there were many changes . Teachers became better trained and paid. Equipment improved. Facilities were brought into the modern age. Attendance grew dramatically.

The biggest changes  and Cooks most significant challenge  involved the consolidation of schools from the traditional, scattered and smaller structures to larger, unified classroom buildings.

The major push came in 1920-25, the process accelerated by increasing availability of public transportation for students.

That is not to say there was anything easy about it.

Any person who suggested closing a small country school was branded Public Enemy No. 1, Kagey quoted Cook as saying.

The hard work got done anyway.

Cook died at age 71, the year he retired. He had seen the schools through a depression and two world wars.

He was a good-looking man to the end. His results were just as handsome.

If youve been wondering about something, call Whats on Your Mind at 777-6476 or send an email to whatsonyourmind@roanoke.com. Dont forget to provide your full name (and its proper spelling) and hometown.
The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) will organize next years WTTC Global Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 18-19th April 2018. Roberto Palais, Executive Manager, Ministry of Tourism of Argentina, announced the location of the 2018 Global Summit at the closing ceremony of the 17th WTTC Global Summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

The 2018 WTTC Global Summit will be jointly hosted by the Ministry of Tourism of Argentina, The Argentine Chamber of Tourism and the Buenos Aires City Tourist Board.

Travel & Tourism is one of the leading sectors stimulating economic growth and employment worldwide. In 2016, our sector generated USD7.6 trillion and supported over 292 million jobs, which is 1 in 10 jobs around the world.

David Scowsill, President & CEO of WTTC, said: We are extremely excited to bring next years WTTC Global Summit back to South America for the first time since 2009, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, a great example of a thriving tourism destination. Travel & Tourism contributed ARS775 billion (US$52.5 million) to Argentinas GDP in 2016, which is 9.6% of total GDP, and this is expected to grow by 4.4% during 2017. Furthermore our sector supported 1.6 million jobs, representing 8.8% of total employment.

Scowsill added: WTTCs annual Global Summit brings together the most influential figures from the public and private sector to address the challenges and opportunities facing Travel & Tourism. Hosting the Summit in Buenos Aires is a reflection of the commitment and efforts of the Argentinean government to growing business and leisure travel, and we are very much looking forward to April 2018.

Gustavo Santos, Minister of Tourism, Argentina, said: We are thrilled to be hosting the 2018 WTTC Global Summit, which will allow us to showcase the breadth of opportunities our capital and our country holds for Travel & Tourism, as both a leisure and business destination.

Travel & Tourism is an important area of focus for the Argentinean government. Holding the Summit in Buenos Aires, we will further showcase our commitment to growing the sector in a sustainable fashion and promote the exchange of cultures between the visitors and local communities, said Gonzalo Robredo, Executive Director, Buenos Aires City Tourist Board.

Oscar Ghezzi, President, Argentine Chamber of Tourism, concluded: We are looking forward to welcoming the Summit attendees next year. It is an excellent opportunity for the delegates to experience our culture and the touristic opportunities that Buenos Aires and Argentina have to offer.
SAUDI ARABIA

Germanys Merkel meets with Salman

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia  German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Saudi Arabias King Salman and his successors in her first visit to the kingdom in seven years, saying she pressed them on womens rights, the war in Yemen and other sensitive issues.

After her meetings in the Red Sea city of Jiddah, she told German journalists traveling with her that she raised human rights concerns with Saudi leaders, including the rights of women.

She said Saudi Arabias war in Yemen also was discussed. For more than two years, the kingdom has been bombing Yemeni rebels aligned with Saudi Arabias regional Shiite rival, Iran. The conflict there has driven the Arab worlds poorest countries to the brink of famine, with 27 million people needing humanitarian or protection assistance.

We dont believe there can be a military solution to the conflict, Merkel said.

As is customary, Saudi officials did not comment on the details of the meetings.

FRANCE

Forces kill 20 jihadists on Mali border

BAMAKO, Mali  French forces fighting extremism in Africas Sahel region say they have killed at least 20 jihadists in a forest on the border between Mali and Burkina Faso.

A statement Sunday from Operation Barkhane says soldiers also discovered large amounts of arms, ammunition, rocket launchers and explosives.

ISTANBUL

Iranian-born media mogul fatally shot

ISTANBUL  An Iranian-born TV mogul who had run afoul of Irans government was fatally shot Saturday night by masked gunmen in Istanbul, media reports said.

Saeed Karimian, the director of GEM Group, a Persian-language media conglomerate, was reported killed along with his Kuwaiti business partner.

The two business executives were driving when another vehicle blocked their path, allowing the gunmen to shoot Karimians car, according to Turkish media reports.
Business News Press Digest New York Times Business News May 1 Bx | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Oct 14 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - U.S. grocery giants ... Read More Oct 14 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - U.S. grocery giants ... Read More News Corp on Tuesday reported first-quarter revenue and profit that fell short of Wall Street estimates, even as it recorded growth in advertising and subscription sales. Read More The New York Times Co topped quarterly profit estimates on Wednesday as more people signed up for its digital subscription bundle, helping offset a slowdown in advertising sales. Read More NEW YORK  Stocks ... The Nasdaq fell 1.1% and the Dow ended just barely in the green. The S&P 500 marked its fifth straight loss as worries grow that a recession may be looming. Read More Rankings reflect sales for the week ending Saturday, Oct. 1, which were ... Desk of The New York Times News Department, and are separate from the Culture, Advertising and Business sides of The ... Read More Oct 14 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - U.S. grocery giants ... Read More Oct 12 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - The International Monetary ... Read More
Business News Ex Yahoo Japan Head Built Foundation For Online Business | RobinsPost News & Noticias

so naturally the banks should try various methods to support their business within the environment they find themselves in, said Ryozo Himino, the former head of Japans Financial Services ... Read More TOKYO (AP)  Japan has stepped up its push to catch ... and many Japanese conduct much of their business in person, with cash. Some bureaucratic procedures can be done online, but many Japanese ... Read More so naturally the banks should try various methods to support their business within the environment they find themselves in, said Ryozo Himino, the former head of Japans Financial Services ... Read More The market for used iPhones is booming in Japan as new models are becoming increasingly expensive amid the historic depreciation of the yen. The direct sales price of the cheapest handset from the ... Read More Travelers to Japan, from and through Japan are getting some big news today: Anyone can now travel to Japan, without a visa. And that's effective today. It's been slow going  or no going  to ... Read More Universal Studios Japan is the latest partner of Alipay+ for easy connectivity of various mobile payment methods and marketing solutions TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ant Group announced today that ... Read More Business sentiment among large manufacturers worsened for the third straight quarter, a Bank of Japan survey showed Monday, as the nation grappled with rising costs, the dropping value of the yen ... Read More The yen is plummeting and inflation is climbing, but Japans economic circumstances ... price pressures  its just going to push up business costs, said Bill Mitchell, a professor ... Read More "We got the news that we ... back for short-term business visits and tourism from more than 60 countries. David Beall, a photographer based in Los Angeles whos been to Japan 12 times, has ... Read More Japan PM Appoints Ex-Health Min Goto as Next Economy Minister By Kantaro Komiya TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday appointed former health minister Shigeyuki Goto as ... Read More The joint venture will sell the cars in the U.S. and Japan ... reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram. Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo ... Read More Japan's Nikkei business daily reported on Tuesday. The two U.S. allies have been fortifying security ties as a counterbalance to China's growing military strength. In May, Japan's Fumio Kishida and ... Read More
Business News Canada411 Ca Data Scraping Canada Business Database | RobinsPost News & Noticias

Savvy, talented and knowledgeable database ... used in big data applications, which tend to be associated with certifications for data scientists, data mining and warehousing, and business ... Read More PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Impressico Business Solutions is all set to offer Data Engineering Services across Canada, the UK and the USA. The Data Engineering, Analytics, and BI service ... Read More It's part of the Working for Workers Act, and it makes the province the only one in Canada with legislation ... Nisha Patel is a senior business reporter with CBC News. She's been reporting ... Read More HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--immudb, the only immutable enterprise-scale database with cryptographic ... history is preserved and can't be changed. Data in immudb comes with cryptographic ... Read More Jeff Robertson, director, environment and sustainability at Bimbo Canada, was named a Clean50 emerging leader. Delta Management Group, a search firm in Canada that focuses on professionals in the ... Read More In his forecasting and demand management course, students are prepared with a framework to analyze any organizations numbers using real numbers rather than theoretical data from demand ... provided ... Read More OTTAWA, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Business sentiment has softened in Canada, with many firms expecting slower sales growth amid rising interest rates and cooling demand, and a majority now think a ... Read More As a serial entrepreneur and business strategist, I frequently talk with my peers about their latest experiences and insights. I recently sat down with Chuck Boyce, founder of Datamoo, a data ... Read More The business survey, along with another measuring consumer expectations, represent some of the last pieces of data the Bank of Canada will examine before officials issue its latest rate-policy ... Read More you should first confirm that the name you want to use is available. Learn more about how to use SilverFlume, Nevadas business entity search database. Read More Taking place in Whitehorse, Yukon from November 7th to 8th, 2022TORONTO, Oct. 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Canadian Open Data Society is pleased to announce that the next annual Canadian Open Data ... Read More BERWYN, Pa., Oct. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Envestnet (NYSE: ENV), a leading provider of intelligent systems for wealth management and financial wellness, today announced a strategic partnership ... Read More
A trip to Scotland could be one of the most memorable travel experiences that you may ever have. According to a survey 78% of travelers strongly agreed that Scotland was a country worth visiting more than once.

VisitScotland Expo unveiled the findings of its most extensive ever visitor survey. Nearly a quarter (23%) of the 12,000 visitors polled said getting away from it all was one of the main reasons they enjoyed holidaying in Scotland. This figure rose to 29% among those living here.

Unsurprisingly, the scenery and landscape was the most popular reason to visit, with 50% of those polled citing Scotlands vistas. History and culture (33%) was second on the list, while a desire to return after previously visiting Scotland (24%) was third. Popular culture continues to inspire, with 1 in 10 indicating they were prompted to book a trip to Scotland by a film or television show.

Here are some more findings from the survey:
So-called Islamic State has wreaked havoc in eastern Afghanistan since 2015, mostly through its loose affiliates  attacking government installations and villages, killing and abducting hundreds of people, and keeping schools shuttered and replacing them with IS religious seminaries. It also claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks in the countrys capital, Kabul.

Here is a rundown of how IS operates in Afghanistan:



Emergence



Branching out from Iraq and Syria  and fueled by a growing militancy in Central Asia  IS launched its operations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region two years ago, naming it ISs Khorasan province (IS-K) to cover Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other nearby lands. The name refers to a centuries-old description of Afghanistan and surrounding areas of Central Asia and Persia.

IS-Ks founder, Hafiz Saeed Khan, a former Pakistani Taliban commander, appeared in a video in January 2015, along with 10 militant commanders  each representing a sub-region within the Afghan-Pak region  pledging allegiance to IS.

Members

According to U.S. and Afghan officials, most IS-K fighters are former members of the Pakistani Taliban group (TTP), many of whom belong to the Orokzai tribe in Pakistan. A number of Central Asian militants in Afghanistan, who previously were associated with al-Qaida and Taliban, joined the IS cause. Some Afghan militants also have joined IS-K ranks for financial gains.

Strongholds

Based in southern parts of eastern Nangarhar province, IS-K has taken root in mountainous areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last year it had a presence in at least 12 Nangarhar districts. The group also expanded to neighboring Kunar province, but has had fewer activities there.

Expansion

IS-K has been attempting to expand to other parts of the country. Central Asian fighters who have pledged allegiance to IS have a presence in southern Zabul province.

The group also claims to have a presence in northern Jouzjan and Faryab provinces, where some militants who were previously associated with the Taliban said they have have joined IS-K. The son of a fabled slain Uzbek militant commander, Tahir Yuldash  co-founder and former leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)  reportedly has been luring Uzbek men in northern provinces to join the group, according to Afghan officials.

Numbers

According to the U.S.-led Resolute Mission in Afghanistan, there were about 3,000 IS-K members in Afghanistan last year. The number, however, has been reduced to a few hundred fighters this year.

"In 2016, we believed that year began with about 3,000 or so ISIS-K members in about 12 districts in southern Nangarhar," U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Salvin, spokesperson for Resolute Support in Kabul told VOA last month. "Right now, we believe there are about 600 ISIS-K members in two or three districts in southern Nangarhar."

Countering IS

American and Afghan forces conduct counterterrorism operations together. U.S. forces pursue a two-way approach to combating IS-K.

"The first is the unilateral U.S. counterterrorism mission called Operation Freedom, and that is where we will conduct the operations against terrorist groups like ISIS-K on our own," Salvin said. "The other way that we are attacking ISIS-K is in partnered operations with the Afghan special forces."

Losing Or Winning?

U.S.-led NATO officials and members of the Afghan government say their security operations in recent months have reduced IS-Ks strength from several thousand to now under 1,000 fighters, and their territorial control from more than 10 districts to fewer than five.

Pentagon officials said on April 28 that they suspected the Islamic State leader in Afghanistan, Abdul Haseeb, was killed in a three-hour firefight in the Mohmand Valley, in the Achin district of eastern Nangarhar province. Officials said another 35 IS fighters also had been killed.

Haseeb is not the only IS commander to have been killed in U.S.-Afghan security operations in the region. Several top IS-K commanders recently have been killed in counterterrorism airstrikes, including its leader Saeed Khan, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in July 2016.

But despite the battlefield losses, IS-K has "shown an ability to conduct attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in the country," General John Nicholson, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

U.S. and Afghan forces say they are determined to defeat the extremist group in the country this year.

"Our goal in 2017 is to defeat ISIS-K in Afghanistan," Salvin said.

The U.S. Air Force this month dropped "the mother of all bombs" on IS-Ks stronghold in Nangarhars Achin district, killing at least 95 IS fighters, mostly foreign fighters.

-- Reported by Noor Zahid for Voice of America
Ernie Blom, the President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses (WFDB) for the third term, has served on a range of industry bodies as an executive as well as chairman for many years, including Chairman, Diamond Dealers Club of South Africa; Chairman, Rough Diamond Dealers Association; Chairman, Master Diamond Cutters Association; Chairman, Jewellery Council of South Africa, South African Diamond Board; and is a Special Diplomatic Advisor to the Belgium government on trade with Africa.

An astute businessman, Ernie Blom, President, WFDB, is a third generation diamantaire with his grandfather having entered the industry in the 1800s. Currently, Ernie's son is with him in business as fourth generation heir. Prior to entering the business arena, Ernie became a shop steward at 23 with the trade union South African Diamond Workers Union (SADWU). He rose through the ranks to become the youngest vice-president and a strike leader in the mid-1970s.

Here, in an interview with Rough & Polished, Ernie Blom speaks on various issue currently plaguing the global diamond industry.

Excerpts:

During the Finance Seminar at the Presidents' Meeting in Mumbai, many issues were put forth by the industry as well as the lending banks. But, barring a few banks, most of the banks expressed genuine concern at the state of the diamond industry. Your thoughts?

We did, indeed, discuss many critical issues at the Presidents Meeting. It was also important that we discussed alternative forms of financing for the diamond trade. Our aim is to take this issue forward with task force charged while doing so. We do not want the issue and the potential solutions to slip away out of focus.

The global rough market is reported quite strong and stable at present. How does this reflect on the future polished market? Do you see a sustained growth or will it falter in response to price volatility/market forces?

A strong rough market can be seen as a positive sign that there is demand for goods and that manufacturers are restocking. However, there is often a concern that manufacturers may be purchasing only in order to keep their plants going without strong demand for polished goods further down the pipeline.

On the issue of volatility, this is always a problem because there is so much political and economic uncertainty. But the diamond trade has learned to operate in a prudent way and I hope that is continuing to be the case.

At certain intervals, the Indian diamond industry especially has seen a glut of rough diamonds in the market, which eventually increases stock inventory. Buying for price speculation results as a costly effort, negatively affecting liquidity in the market. Is there a way out of this situation? Your views?

As I have said in the past, our industry members must act in an intelligent and measured manner. Creating an overhang of goods is no good for anyone. It goes without saying that speculation is highly damaging and should not be practised. We believe that manufacturing should be in line with market demand.

Despite steps taken to detect lab-grown diamonds, mixing them with natural stones is still a major issue. Looks like the steps taken currently by the bourses are not strong enough to deter unscrupulous people from doing or repeating the act. A more stringent punishment should be meted out if the diamond industry has to survive; and also to ensure consumer confidence in diamonds. Your views?

The WFDB and its member bourses are monitoring this issue very strongly. We have zero tolerance for this criminal behaviour which is quite simply fraud. People deliberately seeking to gain a financial advantage by passing off lab-grown stones as natural diamonds are behaving illegally.

We take an extremely strong stance on this because the effect on consumer confidence could be disastrous. Many of the diamond bourses have been supplied with machines that can identify synthetic goods.

The WFDB has the power to ban people found to be behaving illegally in one diamond exchange from trading at all of the WFDB's 30 member bourses.

Much has been debated about generic marketing activities over the years. The Diamond Producers Association (DPA) is trying to do its bit, but are we on track to reach the target consumer effectively? Contradictory reports are seen in the media in terms of Millennials' love for diamonds. How serious is the demand situation at present, considering the diamond industry's future is at stake?

Clearly, the next great consumer market is the Millennial generation of 18 to 35-year-olds. Unfortunately, they have had little exposure to diamond jewellery because there has been no generic diamond jewellery marketing for almost a decade.

I believe the DPA is on the right track in concentrating on this segment of the market which is quite cynical about life and what it regards as outdated conventions. It will require a lot of work to ensure that these younger people get the message and to enable them to connect with diamonds. This can certainly be achieved.

Whoever you are and whatever your age, diamonds are still a beautiful object and a store of value as well as symbolising long-term commitment. We are looking forward to the DPA joining hands with the World Diamond Mark and working together to boost consumer demand for diamond jewellery.

The Young Diamantaires Project that was launched last year gave immense confidence to the global diamond industry. While the industry looks towards the Young Diamantaires to take the industry forward, it would be interesting to have a preview of the initiatives that is being planned? Any clues?

As you mention, the Young Diamantaires program had an immediate impact. It was launched less than a year ago in Dubai at the World Diamond Congress, and at its first formal meeting at the September Diamond and Jewellery Show, there was an overwhelming turnout.

In the meantime, the membership of the group is continuously growing. We heard from Rami Baron, the Chairman of the WFDB's Promotion Committee, at the Presidents Meeting in Mumbai in February about how the group is expanding. There is ongoing communication between scores of Young Diamantaires members on WhatsApp about industry issues. In the new 'sharing economy', this is exactly the kind of group that can make a difference to our trade and help take it forward by providing assistance to each other for the good of the industry as a whole.

Like any other industry, the diamond and jewellery industry too is scrutinised and sometimes pulled up by the authorities/regulators globally. The matter gets ugly at times, more because of the unique ways the diamond industry works. Any suggestions on how to establish a much better reputation with the regulators/authorities?

The WFDB, as the world's leading diamond industry organisation, has been in ongoing talks with various bodies. This includes the Financial Action Task Force, for example. We are very proactive in making sure that the industry's voice is heard to ensure that outside bodies and consumers are aware of the steps we are taking and that we are very aware of the need for self-regulation.

We believe that this is important because there are organisations, such as the U.S. State Department, the European Union and Interpol, which are not aware of the emphasis we put on ethical trading, and fighting conflict diamonds and money laundering. It is critical that we have an input and that they are aware of our work.

Wrapping up, with 2017 being the 70th Anniversary of the WFDB, when will the celebrations be held? What programmes /events have been put together for the celebrations? A few words please about the establishment of the WFDB and its progress to date.

We have several celebratory events being held this year. We also aim to produce a book to mark our 70th anniversary.

The WFDB was founded following the Second World War at a time of great uncertainty. The European continent had been destroyed, with enormous damage to infrastructure. Its economies were shattered and international trade had become a laborious and difficult enterprise with slow communications.

In 1947, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses was born. One of the major reasons for the establishment of the WFDB came from America where leaders of the industry saw it as a way of creating a body to speak with a single voice in negotiations with De Beers and other important diamond industry firms and organizations.

The newly formed WFDB met in Antwerps Diamantclub on July 5, 1947. The first meeting was attended by just the Antwerpsche Diamantkring CVBA, the Beurs Voor Diamanthandel CVBA, the Diamantclub Van Antwerpen CVBA, the Vrije Diamanthandel NV, the Diamond Dealers Club, Inc., New York, the Diamond Trade and Precious Stone Association of America, Inc. (at that time called the Diamond Center), New York, The London Diamond Club Ltd, and the Vereniging Beurs Voor Den Diamanthandel, Amsterdam.

Today, the WFDB represents around 20,000 members of the diamond industry around the globe via its 30 affiliated bourses members. It's extraordinary to think that around 95 percent of the diamonds traded worldwide are handled by WFDB members. In addition, we now have associate members such as ABN Amro Bank and the GJEPC which recognise the importance of being part of the world's major diamond business body.

Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Crude oil futures fell Monday morning despite mounting evidence that OPEC will extend its supply quota plan with Russia.

Iran's oil minister said over the weekend that Tehran would go along with such an arrangement.

However, soaring U.S. production has preserved the global supply glut that has weighed on oil prices.

Friday, Baker Hughes said the U.S. added oil rigs for a 15th week in a row. There will be more to come, as President Donald Trump is freeing up more area for exploring by reversing former Pres Obama's drilling bans in the Arctic.

WTI light sweet crude oil was down 20 cents at $49.13 a barrel.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
The Cameroon government has ended a three-month long Internet ban in the English-speaking regions of the country.

The government had implemented the three-month long internet ban in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon in response to fierce anti-government protests. According to the government, people were using social media to spread false information.

The cut off by the government led to protests and days of unrest in the region.

Several thousands of people led protests in the south- and northwestern provinces of the country since October 2016 disputing the use of the French language in schools and courthouses in the Anglophone region of the country.

The UN called the blackout as a rights violation, while proponents said the government ordered the shutdown to prevent more protests.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
By SA Commercial Prop News

Real Capital (Holding), a regional real estate investment group, has launched a special purpose investment fund, Real Berlin 4, to invest in Berlin real estate.

Like its predecessors, Real Berlin I, II and III, Real Berlin 4 plans to seize real estate investment opportunities in the capital of Germany where properties trade at a substantial discount to other European cities.

In the past 3 years, Real Capital purchased, via various affiliates, fifteen income-generating residential and commercial buildings in various districts of Berlin. According to its general partners, lead by Karim Salameh and Karim Sinno, the fund will focus on rented properties as well as opportunistic developments that are expected to produce safe and alluring returns on invested capital.

Real Berlin 4 is the fourth and largest Berlin investment vehicle launched by Real Capital, which pioneered MENA structured investments in the capital of Germany.
The full impact of bank accounts getting blocked due to non-compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) will be known on Tuesday or Wednesday, said a banker in a government-owned bank.

This would only be after banks across the country commence functioning on May 2 after the May Day holiday on Monday.

"Today (Monday) is a holiday in some states due to May Day and the headquarters of most of the banks are located in those states," he told IANS preferring anonymity.



According to him, whether the bank's software would automatically block a FATCA non-compliant account or it has to be done manually would be known on Tuesday.



Another banker with a government bank said the bank's software does not automatically block a non-compliant account. "We are waiting for instructions," he added.



The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), in a statement issued earlier, had said account holders of banks, mutual funds and National Pension Schemes (NPS) would have to be informed that their accounts would be blocked if self-certifications were not submitted by April 30, 2017.



In other words, a bank account holder or a mutual fund investor will not be able to operate their accounts like withdrawals, selling of units and the like.



What is FATCA?



"FATCA is a unique piece of legislation enacted in the US which requires financial institutions (FIs) to provide information about account holders who are US persons to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)."



"Non-compliant FIs are liable to a punitive withholding tax of 30 per cent of their US sourced income," Rahul Jain, Partner, Nangia and Co, an international tax advisory and accounting firm, told IANS.



"The agreement is reciprocal in nature and allows for India to receive tax information in respect of its own residents," he said.



"The FATCA agreement will, therefore, allow for exchange of information between the two countries and will help considerably in detection of unaccounted money held by US persons in India and vice versa," he added.



Under Indian Income Tax rules, financial institutions have to obtain self-certification and carry out due diligence in respect of all individual and entity accounts opened between July 1, 2014, and August 31, 2015.



The last date for submission of self-certification ended on April 30, 2017.



Jain said the FATCA agreement can have serious implications for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who qualify to be US persons.



"Such NRIs need to be mindful that the accounts they hold in India with Indian FIs are duly reported in the US. The information concerning these accounts will now be shared with the IRS and any non-reporting may entail serious consequences for the NRIs under the US tax regulations," he added.



Indian resident taxpayers holding assets in the US will also be impacted.



The agreement with the US is reciprocal and will result in the US providing India with information regarding accounts or assets held by Indian persons in the US.



This information would provide more teeth to the Indian tax authorities in detecting assets held by Indian taxpayers in the US.



Together with the Black Money Law 2015, this could have serious ramifications for Indian residents who may not have reported such assets to the Indian tax authorities, Jain said.



According to Jain, any organisation or individual who has not been able to submit its or his FATCA self-declaration by the deadline of April 30 could make such declaration now and ask for his account with the Indian FI to be unblocked or de-frozen.



"While mutual funds have asked the investors to subject the self-certification form online, the problem may be for NPS account holders who have to go to the registrar office personally," Jayant Pai, Head-Marketing, PPFAS Mutual Fund, told IANS.



"We have reached out to our investors well in advance to be FATCA-compliant and there will not be much impact on our investors. On the other hand, banks and large mutual funds may face some problems going by the sheer size of their numbers," Pai added.



"Mutual Funds will continue to earn their fund management charges even if an account is blocked," he added.
Delhi BJP chief Manjor Tiwari's two staff members were thrashed and his house was ransacked early on Monday by 10-12 people after an alleged road rage incident involving one of his aides.

Tiwari said the "planned attack" with the involvement of police was to "threaten and terrorise" him as the assailants who came with sticks and iron rods even reached his bedroom when he was not at his at his North Avenue residence around 1.15 a.m.



Police arrested two suspects -- Jay Kumar, 38, and his brother Jaswant Singh, 33 -- who reside in the same area.



According to police, the attack followed an incident of road rage involving a Tiwari's staff member.



A police officer said the two brothers were travelling in a car that hit the vehicle driven by one of the MP's staffers just outside his house.



Tiwari made public CCTV footage showing two attackers first arguing and then beating his staff members -- cook Ashok Pathak and personal assistant Abhinav Mishra.



An official told media the two attackers later called in some of their friends before they barged in.



Tiwari said he was not aware of "any road rage incident but the way they (attackers) reached my bedroom and forcefully entered in is a very serious issue.



"It looks like a conspiracy and the police are involved in it. No one should be spared," Tiwari said.





He claimed that the attackers came to his bedroom searching for him.



Delhi Police Special Commissioner M.K. Meena said they have identified the attackers and arrested two of them for trespass, voluntarily causing hurt and criminal intimidation.



"If Tiwari would have been at home at the time of attack, he too would have got injured the way the attackers barged into his house and attacked his staff," Meena said.



"If required, we will provide security to Tiwari's home," Meena added.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan ' title='Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan '>Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial welcome on Monday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Erdogan. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.



Later during the day, Erdogan will participate in delegation-level talks with Modi. The two sides are also expected to sign a series of agreements.



Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.



His visit comes after winning the April 16 referendum, which gives him more executive powers as President.



Terrorism will also feature in the Modi-Erdogan talks.



India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.



His last visit to India was in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.



Mukherjee visited Turkey in 2013. Modi also met Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015.


A soldier and a BSF Head Constable were killed on Monday in firing by Pakistani troops on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Pakistan Army resorted to "unprovoked" firing in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district at 8.30 a.m., Defence Ministry sources told media.



Rockets and automatics were used to target Indian positions.



"A BSF (Border Security Force) Head Constable and an Army soldier were killed in the ceasefire violation," an officer said.



"Indian troops effectively retaliated and firing exchanges are going on between the two sides," he added.
As the central law Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 (RERA) came into force across India on Monday, Uttar Pradesh is one of the states which lags behind in setting up a regulatory authority.

That's because with the change of government, the new regime of the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to review the decision taken by the Akhilesh Yadav dispensation on the real estate law.



Admitting that the state had missed the bus in adhering to the May 1 deadline, officials said that while the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government had notified the constitution of a regulatory authority under the state rules, the new regime has stalled the proces. Uttar Pradesh had notified rules under the RERA in November last year.



The process will now be started afresh, Additional Chief Secretary (Housing and Urban Planning) Sada Kant said. He added that the past process stood cancelled. He also said the application process for the post of chairman and other members of the regulatory authority will be reinitiated soon and that the state may implement the RERA by June-end.



The chairman of the authority has to be a retired IAS official equivalent to the rank of Chief Secretary and it will have three members -- retired IAS officials equivalent of Principal Secretary level.



Sources say that former Chief Secretary Alok Ranjan and over a dozen retired officials had applied for the post of chairman while over three dozen had applied for member's posts.



Ranjan was close to former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, and it was assumed that his name will be shortlisted for the coveted post.



The Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, who chaired the three-member selection committee, is learnt to have objected to some names after which the process got slowed down. With state assembly elections, thereafter, the whole process was kept in abeyance. With the change in guard in the state, the process has since been spiked.



Along with tighetening of screws on private builders and real estate players, the new law will also put pressure on the Aawas Vikaas and the development authorities in the state which would now be forced to deliver flats on time promised at the time of purchase agreement.





While builders in the state say they welcome the Act as it would weed out the small and the fake builders, they feeL that with time the confidence amongst consumers would rise and the recession that had hit the real estate sector over the past two years would recede.



The process of setting up the regulatory authority is likely to be notified again this week, after which a shortlisting of the nominations would be made. The state is yet to set up a website on RERA to inform consumers about the developments.
Facebook monitored the posts of Australian children and used algorithms to identify and exploit them by allowing advertisers to target them during their "most vulnerable moments", media reported, evoking criticism against the social media giant.

A confidential 23-page Facebook document prepared by company's two top Australian executives outlines how the social network can target "moments when young people need a confidence boost" in pinpoint detail, The Australian reported on Sunday.

Facebook collected the information on a person's moods including feeling "worthless", "overwhelmed" and "nervous" and then, it divulged the same to advertisers who use it to target them.



Facebook admitted it was wrong to target the children and apologized.



"We have opened an investigation to understand the process failure and improve our oversight. We will undertake disciplinary and other processes as appropriate," a Facebook spokeswoman told The Australian.



"While the data on which this research is based was aggregated and presented consistent with applicable privacy and legal protections, including the removal of any personally identifiable information, our internal process sets a standard higher than required by law," she added.



Facebook's tactic violates the Australian Code for Advertising and Marketing Communications to Children guidelines.





The revelation also points towards the how Facebook can be used for covert surveillance which most of the social networking sites claim to be fighting against.



There have been rumours about Facebook's advertising sales methods but there was no proof until now that could corroborate that.



"The document is an insight on how Facebook gathers psychological insights on 6.4 million 'high schoolers', 'tertiary students' and 'young Australians, New Zealanders in the workforce' to sell targeted advertising," the report noted.



The document states that the detailed information on mood shifts among young people is "based on internal Facebook data, shareable under non-disclosure agreement only, and is not publicly available".



Facebook has not disclosed if the similar practices exist elsewhere.



This practice is similar to a 2014 psychological experiment conducted by Facebook on its 600,000 users without their knowledge.



Facebook had then tweaked the News Feed of users to highlight either positive or negative posts from their friends. The social media giant then monitored the users' response to study the impact of their friends' attitude.
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Apr-30-2017 22:47 TweetFollow @OregonNews Oregon Passes Cannabis Consumer Privacy Bill to Protect Shop Customers The new bill puts Oregon very much on par with other states that support marijuana legalization in the USA.



(SALEM, Ore.) - Lawmakers in a number of states are currently concerned about the increasing risks of marijuana enforcement by federal agents. The current Trump administration, as well as Jeff Sessions who is currently leading the Justice Department, are showing signs of uncertainty when it comes to their attitude towards weed, causing the concern among legalized states lawmakers in the first place, and increasing the contradictions between the law at the federal and state level. In a bipartisan effort to protect weed consumers, the Oregon state lawmakers have put forward a new bill that will add an extra layer of protection against enforcement efforts by federal agents. The newly signed cannabis consumer information protection act was introduced to further protect consumers. Collection of Information By law, customers who purchase marijuana from registered shops must show a drivers license, a passport or other forms of identification to prove that they are at least 21. This is the case in Oregon as well. Unfortunately, customers information and personal details are often collected without them even knowing. For businesses, these details can be used for marketing purposes. By knowing customers phone numbers or email addresses, shops can send promotional offers, reminders and other forms of marketing messages through different channels. Some shops take it a step further, adding purchase history details. A dispensary employee can instantly learn about a customers purchasing habits, the kind of weed the customer normally buys, and other key details just by entering the identification number of that customer. The data gathering is done to allow shops to offer a more personalized experience and for other marketing purposes. Oregon Governor Steps Up The Cannabis Consumer Privacy Bill, signed by Governor Kate Brown after it was passed 53-5 by state lawmakers, is a measure that will stop shops from further collecting customers information. Such information-gathering tactics are no longer allowed to avoid the same database from being used in crackdown attempts by the federal government. "Given the immediate privacy issues, this is a good bill protecting the privacy of Oregonians choosing to purchase marijuana," said state Rep. Carl Wilson. Wilson is a Republican who also helped sponsor the bill. As mentioned earlier, the bill is the result of a bipartisan effort in the Oregon House. The new bill also puts Oregon very much on par with other states that support marijuana legalization in the USA. Both Alaska and Colorado have also taken steps to protect customers of recreational marijuana. It is also noted as one of the first major responses to the looming risk of crackdown on recreational cannabis. A Major Response The Trump administration first signaled a possible crackdown in February, when Press Secretary Sean Spicers statement about the matter was followed by a bigger sign in the statement of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The governors of Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state sent a letter asking for clarity about the administrations position on the matter. No response has been officially issued so far, but a memo from Sessions to US attorneys confirmed that marijuana will be among the substances reviewed as part of the planned crime-reduction policy. At least for now, customers in Oregon can stop worrying about their personal information being used in future enforcement efforts. _________________________________________

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Articles for April 29, 2017 | Articles for April 30, 2017 |
Here are the unofficial results for Saline County in the 2022 election
Well, it looks as if that nasty debate about whether or not the Samoan government is broke, is becoming more and more interesting  or is it more and more nerve-racking  so that we should keep on hoping it will not all of a sudden, blow up in someones face.

I guess it all began when the Samoa Bureau of Statistics Quarterly Report for the year 2016, disclosed that the Samoan governments debt had remained at $1.1 billion for that year.

And then sometime later when that report somehow found itself in the possession of the Samoa Observer, the paper went ahead and published it in its edition of 13 April 2017, and that was when the real fear started to show up.

It did with the nagging worry that the government of Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegoai, had clocked up a debt totaling $1.1 billion, and then came the questions: Who is going to pay for this debt? The taxpayers?

Now the very poignant worries, are: How were the government Lauia able to allow themselves to accumulate such a debt in a country where the majority live in near-squalor out there in the villages, they are predominantly unemployed, they are therefore constantly worried about not having adequate access to those basic necessities such as clean water, reliable electricity, decent food for their families, and indeed school fees for their children?

Still, the reports that the Samoan government is broke as a result of the debts it has been accumulating, as the Samoa Bureau of Statistics reports for 2016 have shown, were such a worry so that the Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, was asked for a comment.

In response, he dismissed worries that the government was struggling through financial difficulties, saying simply: The government is not broke.

Published in the Sunday Samoan on 30 April 2017, his denial was contained in the story titled: Is the govt. broke? Minister says no.

In that story however, he went on to dismiss worries that the country was in trouble, and instead insisted that the government is not broke.

And then the very next day, a new story titled Finance Minister clarifies S.N.P.F. loans criteria, was also published in the Samoa Observer.

And with it, a new quandary in the nasty debate as to whether or not the Samoan government, lorded over by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, is broke, emerged.

And how did it emerge?

It did when the Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, instead of continuing to deny that the Samoan government was broke as hed been insisting in the past, is now saying there are flaws with the way foreign investments are being handled which, in his opinion, simply have got to be addressed.

To begin with, he said foreign investors should bring their own capital when they come to Samoa because thats one of the benefits of encouraging foreign investment.

Hes probably right.

Still, his opinion was sought as a result of much public criticism that had been made against the S.N.P.F., for allowing loans to foreign-owned companies.

Coin Save, a company with Chinese ownership, is apparently one of them.

The story says that S.N.P.F. had lent Coin Save $5 million, to help it turn the near-defunct Vaitele Market, into a profitable enterprise.

Now the question is: As a foreigner investor, why didnt Coin Saves Chinese owner use his own money as his investment in the project, instead of depending on S.N.P.F. to finance it?

Indeed, dont the government and Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, know that there are many Samoans out there who have great ideas theyre aching to see developed into successful businesses, but then their problem is that they also know they just do not have the sort of guarantee for the sort of loans they need?

We dont know.

All we know is that it looks as if as far as the Minister of Finance is concerned, as long as S.N.P.F. has millions of Tala stashed away that it can lend, it should continue to lend it to foreign investors.

Never for those seemingly enterprising local entrepreneurs and would-be investors who have the will and the gift, but lack the financial backing they need.

But then why is this?

Because according to him, only the foreign investors are the ones who bring the expertise, and whatever knowledge to our people.

Indeed, he told the Samoa Observer: Yes, we do expect investors to come in and bring the capital with them.

And as the government, we provide incentives like tax holidays, we give them duty concessions on building materials, construction materials and some of consumer cost for a limited period.

But you would expect investors to bring in the bulk of the capital needed so they dont have to borrow from our banking sector.

Once they are doing well, and they need further working capital, short term working capital and once theyve proven themselves, that would be an opportunity for our banking and financial institutions to be able to lend to them.

So if theyre not bringing the money in then obviously they should not be called investors.

So what should they be called?

He didnt say.

All he said was that lending is an essential part of S.N.P.F.s operations, because its through interest, that we are able to add on to the value of our contributions.

He also said: But I take the point that when foreign investors come here, whether they are Asian, European, Australian or New Zealanders, our expectation is that they will bring in the capital themselves.

Still, the Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, is pretty sure about one thing. And that is, the S.N.P.F. should remain the governments dual purpose machine, and that is to say in one end it is accumulating millions of Tala it is stashing away in the safe, and at the end it is pilfering away the same millions and yet not one person in there, is raising a voice in complaint.

And lastly, Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, insists that due diligence process is of the utmost importance in this kind of business; we cannot doubt that.

He said: So whether we lend to foreign people or locals, S.N.P.F. needs to make sure as part of their due diligence process, that its a credible business - that it has a business license and has met all the other requirements.

That includes paying the S.N.P.F. contributions for their employees, and ensuring they also have the cash flow to be able to service the loan.

Fine.

And so, when S.N.P.F. has agreed to give you that loan, you make sure you that you have that due diligence process of yours, done.
Bank South Pacifics commitment to Samoa in delivering convenient, innovative and affordable banking, the bank is pleased to announce an addition to their account suite, and this time catering for the children of Samoa.

Announced and officially launched yesterday was their newest product B.S.P. Kids Savings Account.

During their launch B.S.P. managed to open new accounts for five eager students to start saving.

The account is a day to day transaction account for customers under 15 years. This is a great product offering from BSP.

We hope that with this product on offer it will help the children of Samoa with budgeting of their money at such an early age, said B.S.P.s General Manager Mrs Maryann Lameko-Vaai.

The minimum opening balance is $10 and children will have access to a B.S.P. PacificCard that is issued on the spot. We are happy to announce that part of the launch is a campaign in which we are inviting all schools around Samoa to encourage students to sign up.

There will be a monthly draw with prize money of $50 to go into the students account. The school that refers more students to open up account will go into a major draw at the end of the campaign to win prize money of $1,000.00.

This campaign will run from the 1st of May till the end of October 2017, says Shirley Pauga, Head of Retail Banking.

Anyone can call in to any of our three branches to discuss this new product and campaign with any of our B.S.P.s Personal Banker experts.
Every year on the 3rd of May, the world commemorates the importance of freedom of the press and reminds governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration.

The theme for this year is Critical Minds for Critical Times: Medias Role in Advancing Peace, Just and Inclusive Societies.

However Samoa will be hosting a month-long celebration, according to the President of the Journalists Association of Samoa, Rudy Bartley.

The celebration of World Press Freedom Day will begin on Wednesday 3rd of Mary in the morning, he said.

The reason why its changing from night to morning is because every year its always a drink up and everyone is wasted but nothing useful comes out of it, he said.

So it will begin on Wednesday morning but we are yet to finalize the venue.

Another thing is, we are focusing on Social Media from the 3rd till the 26th of May.

It sort of links into the international event as a day of support for media which are targets for the restraint, or abolition, of press freedom and it is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.

But for us, instead of that, we are looking at the most common issue that many people are talking about in our country nowadays and the problems that are rising from it, which is social media.

Mr. Bartley explained that a month of activity will include panel discussions and debates between students, mothers, lawyers as well as the Media Council.

We havent finalized our panel discussions or debates but for the students they will be debating whether social media is useful to them as students.

The mothers will be discussing whether technology is good for their children and some of the good or bad things about social media and if the mothers have the right to check up on their childrens phones and monitor them. Where do the parents draw the line when it comes to their children?

Those are the issues that our committee is discussing to address in the debates during panel discussions.

The programme will be out on television as well as commercially and the whole idea is it will focus on Social Media and the impact of it when we are using it for good instead of bad.

The main activity will still be going on for Indonesia, but for us alone, there will be four weeks to have panel discussions, debates and to talk about Social Media.

We are looking at inviting the students, the mothers, the lawyers aspect and then the media and the Media Council will be involved in this as well.

The Samoan media are the only ones who will be running it for a month as we are trying to find something useful instead of just talking about the issues of how journalists are prosecuted. We want to focus on an issues that people are talking about, Social Media.

Asked about his view on Social Media Mr. Bartley said social media has become a tool for angry people, when it should be a tool to help people.

If people use social media with a bad intention then thats a problem, he said.

If you use social media to say something bad then make sure that it is also useful at the same time critical, constructive, criticism.

People can complain but at least offer something that will be useful to the viewers but dont just use it to complain simply because you dont like the person, but complain because you have something good too and especially when you tell someone that you dont like them make sure your name is out there and be straight up.

When social media was first developed, it was meant for people to socialize and to meet other people from all over the world, to make new friends and also connect with families and loved ones.

So what we are trying to do is to encourage people to use social media as a tool for good.

We all know when people use it for evil, many get hurt or killed, and maybe end up losing jobs and a lot of students school fights are because they are not using social media the right way.

Which is why we decided to have the international W.P.F.D. about peace and all that but for Samoa alone, we will be focusing on one issue.

Another matter that Mr. Bartley spoke about, is the general lack of understanding of what social media is.

Unfortunately for some of our people they dont understand what social media is and to many of them, social media just means face book and mobile phones, he said.

They dont know that there are so many other things such as texting and internet and these are other aspects of social media and we need to understand that its not just us who can see things but theres millions and billions of other people who have accounts. So just imagine one bad comment you paste on facebook and everyone can see it.

So nowadays its always good to have time out from social media, deactivate all social media accounts, turn off our phones and everything but see how we cope without all of these.

I mean as a person living here in Samoa why do we worry about what is happening to the world while we are having problems of our own and thats why we get information overload, its because we kept thinking about others rather than ourselves.

So that is why we are trying to develop this social responsibility.

Another impact of social media nowadays is that young people have no time to talk to each other face to face as most of them are using social media to communicate even amongst their friends.

They spend more time communicating through messenger than face to face and even though they are sitting on the other side of the table some of them will just talk through that because they no longer have inter-personal, communication skills.

[And] I think the younger ones are losing that skill.

For instance if they want something, back in my day, I would go and ask the person face to face but nowadays people use messengers, whatsapp, twitter, viber and all sorts of things to talk to each other rather than face to face.

I think its very hard to find solutions to this problem and it is lacking nowadays and thats what we are going to focus on.

The opening will only be the media and the U.N.E.S.C.O. as they are funding the whole thing and then we will invite the government officials to the closing of this event.

Mr. Bartley said at the end of the month, there will be a workshop on the last day and a big closing ceremony for the celebration.

There will be cocktail party to round off the month-long programme, he said.

U.N.E.S.C.O. leads the worldwide celebration by identifying the global theme and organizing the main event in different parts of world every year.

This year it will be held in Indonesia.
Yazaki Eds Samoa will close down by August 2017 and the Government is still mulling over bids to take over the facility.

There have already been several off island companies showing interest.

This is according to Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.

He said there is a committee tasked to review bids from companies to take over when Yazaki leaves.

Last year, Yazaki the biggest employer in Samoa announced they are closing down, leaving 700 people jobless.

Tuilaepa said there is a company based out in Australia which manufactures electrical wires similar to what Yazaki was supplying, for the Australian automotive industry.

He said this new company uses the same type of machinery and equipment that is currently available at Yazaki which is why they are keen to invest in Samoa.

Tuilaepa said that another bid has some from a well-known company which manufactures bedding out of New Zealand.

It is owned by Samoans.

Tuilaepa was then moved to speak of his experience on different types of beds hes slept on.

He said that during his numerous trips off island, he has slept on all sorts of beds, soft ones, tough ones and the beds that once you lie down, feel like youre sleeping on a rock.

Well this company is well versed when it comes to building customized beds.

If youre interested in buying a bed, they will take your height, your weight, and they will make a bed in accordance with your measurements.

Most of their beds are sold all over New Zealand, Australia and Vietnam.

They are keen on opening a branch here and this would be an opportunity to employ more people, said Tuilaepa.

The third company which is also vying for the Yazaki compound runs a Call Centre and this company handles incoming or outgoing customer calls for a business.

I didnt know there were such businesses as these, but the most important part of this job is that you have to be fluent in English, said the Prime Minister.

He said the Call Centre company has branches all over the Pacific and they employ a lot of people who can handle a large volume of telephone calls, especially for taking orders and providing customer service.
NEW YORK (AP)  Thousands of people chanted, picketed and marched on cities across America on Monday as May Day demonstrations raged against President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

Protesters flooded streets in Chicago. They demanded "Donald Trump has got to go!" at the White House gates. And they sparked at least four arrests after creating a human chain to block a county building in Oakland, California, where demonstrators demanded that county law enforcement refuse to collaborate with federal immigration agents.

Despite the California clash, the initial rounds of nationwide protests were largely peaceful as immigrants, union members and their allies staged a series of strikes, boycotts and marches to highlight the contributions of immigrants in the United States.

"It is sad to see that now being an immigrant is equivalent to almost being a criminal," said Mary Quezada, a 58-year-old North Carolina woman who joined those marching on Washington.

She offered a pointed message to Trump: "Stop bullying immigrants."

The demonstrations on May Day, celebrated as International Workers' Day, follow similar actions worldwide in which protesters from the Philippines to Paris demanded better working conditions. But the widespread protests in the United States were aimed directly at the new Republican president, who has followed aggressive anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail with aggressive action in the White House.

Trump, in his first 100 days, has intensified immigration enforcement, including executive orders for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and a ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries. The government has arrested thousands of immigrants in the country illegally and threatened to withhold funding from jurisdictions that limit cooperation between local and federal immigration authorities. The travel ban and sanctuary cities order were temporarily halted by legal challenges.

Trump has said his policies are meant to keep America safe.

In Chicago, 28-year-old Brenda Burciaga was among thousands of people who marched through the streets to push back against the new administration.

"Everyone deserves dignity," said Burciaga, whose mother is set to be deported after living in the U.S. for about 20 years. "I hope at least they listen. We are hardworking people."

In cities large and small, the protests intensified throughout the day.

Teachers working without contracts opened the day by picketing outside schools in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Activists in Phoenix petitioned state legislators to support immigrant families. And in a Los Angeles park, several thousand people waved American flags and signs reading "love not hate."

Selvin Martinez, an immigrant from Honduras with an American flag draped around his shoulders, took the day off from his job waxing casino floors to protest.

"We hope to get to be respected as people, because we are not animals, we are human beings," said Martinez, who moved to Los Angeles 14 years ago fleeing violence in his country.

The White House did not respond to requests for a response to the May Day demonstrations.

Several protesters, like 39-year-old Mario Quintero, outed themselves as being in the country illegally to help make their point.

"I'm an undocumented immigrant, so I suffer in my own experience with my family," said Quintero at a Lansing, Michigan, rally. "That's why I am here, to support not only myself but my entire community."

In Miami, Alberto and Maribel Resendiz closed their juice bar, losing an estimated revenue of $3,000, to join a rally.

"This is the day where people can see how much we contribute," said Alberto Resendiz, who previously worked as a migrant worker in fields as far away as Michigan. "This country will crumble down without us."

He added, "We deserve a better treatment."

While union members traditionally march on May 1 for workers' rights around the world, the day has become a rallying point for immigrants in the U.S. since massive demonstrations were held on the date in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.

In recent years, immigrant rights protests shrank as groups diverged and shifted their focus on voter registration and lobbying. Larger crowds returned this year, prompted by Trump's ascension, as immigrant groups join with Muslim organizations, women's advocates and black leaders to push back against the president.

Immigrant advocates said they hope their message will reach Trump, congressional lawmakers and the public and provide a sense of unity and strength to those opposed to the administration's policies. Many said they hoped a show of strength would help persuade politicians to rethink their plans.
PLEASE READ UPDATE- VAPING GETS AN FDA REPRIEVE

Congress has killed the vaping industrys big hope for curbing the FDAs deeming regulations, which e-cigarette vendors consider onerous, the American Vaping Association said Monday.

However, another lobbying group, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, praised the defeat, incurred in budget negotiations, as supporting healthy habits.

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The Cole-Bishop Amendment to the Tobacco Control Act was killed by Democrats allied with some Republicans, Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, said in a press release issued Monday afternoon.

In the release, Conley warned Democrats of payback.

Democrats are setting themselves up to experience a reality check on vaping in the November 2018 mid-term elections, Conley said.

The FDAs deeming ban is set to take effect less than three months before Senate Democrats have some of their toughest election fights in years. Just as vapers helped re-elect Senator Ron Johnson, vapers will vote out Senators who stand by idly as harm reduction products are yanked from shelves.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit with funding from various medical associations, said in a statement that the budget agreement delivers critical victories for Americas kids and health over the tobacco industry by rejecting proposals to greatly weaken FDA oversight of electronic cigarettes and cigars and slash funding for the CDCs programs to reduce tobacco use.

By rejecting these special-interest giveaways to tobacco companies, this agreement preserves the FDAs ability to protect kids from the huge assortment of candy-flavored e-cigarettes and cigars that have flooded the market in recent years and threaten to addict a new generation, the group said.

The two groups are deeply at odds on e-cigarettes. The American Vaping Association supports e-cigarettes as a means to move smokers away from cigarettes and to deliver nicotine in a less dangerous way. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids treats vaping as a scheme by big tobacco companies to keep people addicted.

The Cole-Bishop Amendment would have restricted the FDAs deeming regulations to e-cigarette products sold as of Aug. 8, 2016. The existing regulations, which are being phased in, cover e-cigarette products introduced since Feb. 15, 2007, or virtually all e-cigarette devices and liquids.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, included Cole-Bishop among the list of riders that Democrats were proud to have removed from the final bill, the press release stated.

Unless the amendment can somehow be revived, the only option now on the table for vaping advocates is a bill introduced last week by Rep. Duncan Hunter. That bill would place e-cigarettes in a new category for harm-reduction products to move people off of smoking tobacco-containing cigarettes.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids criticized Hunters legislation, which it said would gut the FDAs oversight of e-cigarettes, which amounts to allowing the industry to regulate itself.

More information on Hunters legislation is available in an article I did last week. Click here to read it.

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020
Forge Therapeutics, a developer of a new class of antibiotics, has raised $15 million in a Series A venture capital financing round. The money will advance its lead product into clinical development, said Zachary Zimmerman, CEO of the San Diego-based biotech company.

Forges prospective antibiotic has broad-spectrum effectiveness against drug resistant gram-negative bacteria, an increasingly urgent matter of concern. Gram-negative bacteria include Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE; multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa; and drug-resistant Salmonella, both those that cause typhoid and which cause food poisoning.

The companys technology uses a mechanism of action not found in existing antibiotics, Zimmerman said. Forge has discovered small molecules that inhibit LpxC, a zinc-containing enzyme found only in gram-negative bacteria, and is necessary for their growth.

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The program needs to further test the molecules before one can be chosen for a clinical trial and that trial authorized, Zimmerman said. The process should take several years, he said.

Privately held Forge announced its investment last week. Last month, Forge had been awarded a grant of at least $8.8 million from CARB-X, a $450 million global public-private partnership that includes the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Boston University and the California Life Sciences Institute.

CARB-X was formed to accelerate development of new antibiotics to replace those that losing effectiveness against antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Just receiving the grant has already helped Forge, Zimmerman said. The money from CARB-X is non-dilutive, meaning that Forge didnt have to give up any equity, which would have diluted the ownership of existing investors.

What we didnt realize at the time was that we were going to be the largest award-winner, Zimmerman said. That was a really pleasant surprise  As soon as that announcement went out, I had hundreds of emails from people who were potentially interested in funding Forge in a Series A round. Of course, we were already engaged with a number of potential investors. The Series A came together very quickly.

Some potential investors that had been on the sidelines became much more interested after the CARB-X funding, he said.

The round was not just oversubscribed, but we had a long list of people waiting to come in.

The round was led by MagnaSci Ventures, along with Evotec AG, Alexandria Venture Investments, MP Healthcare Venture Management, Red Apple Group, and WS Investments.

Forge says the investment syndicate is diversified, including firms experienced in life sciences (Alexandria Venture Investments, MagnaSci Ventures and Evotec AG), drug industry partners (MP Healthcare Venture Management), and one of Americas largest privately owned conglomerates (Red Apple Group).

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1020
San Francisco has reached an agreement with Airbnb and HomeAway to settle a federal lawsuit and allow short-term rentals to operate in the city while complying with local regulations.

The agreement, which must still be approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, addresses concerns by short-term rental platforms about being responsible for ensuring that all participating landlords register with the city and comply with local regulations.

Chris Lehane, head of global policy and communication for Airbnb, called the deal a proverbial winner, winner chicken dinner during a news conference Monday.

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The lawsuit filed by Airbnb last year challenged a city ordinance that would fine short-term rental platforms $1,000 for each user who rents out property on such sites without registering with the city.

Under the agreement, Airbnb and HomeAway will create systems that give San Francisco information about users when they register to list rentals on the online platforms. Based on that information, the city will be able to determine if users are registered with the city and abiding by regulations such as a rule that prohibits the use of affordable housing units for short-term rentals.

Creating and rolling out the system will take about eight months, Airbnb said.

Airbnb will deactivate listings if the city notifies Airbnb and HomeAway of a property that has failed to register.

We need to protect our neighborhoods, City Atty. Dennis Herrera said. While we are happy to see a homegrown San Francisco company like Airbnb succeed, it cant be at the expense of residents.

Housing advocates have complained that Airbnb and other short-term rental sites encourage landlords to rent to travelers, which reduces rentals available for local residents.

For those who have been turning badly needed rent-controlled units into vacation spots, that is coming to an end once and for all, Herrera said in a statement.

Users and other proponents of short-term rentals say they help boost local economies, generate taxes and allow owners to afford to live in San Francisco and other high-cost areas. Lehane said the average Airbnb host generates about $6,000 a year.

In San Francisco, 2,100 short-term rental properties have been registered with the city, but Airbnb alone has more than 8,000 short-term listings in San Francisco.

Airbnb and HomeAway have vowed to deactivate any listing once the city notifies the short-term rental platforms that a property is not registered with the city.

HomeAway is pleased to have reached an agreement with the city to create a more convenient means for owners to comply with local rules, said Philip Minardi, director of policy communications for HomeAway.com.

Lehane noted repeatedly that the only information shared by Airbnb with the city will be the name, address and ZIP Code of the property that is registered on the site. He said he is not sure how many current Airbnb hosts may stop using the site once their information gets passed on to the city, but he added that similar systems have been adopted successfully in Denver, Chicago and New Orleans.

lauren.raab@latimes.com

hugo.martin@latimes.com

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UPDATES:

2:15 p.m.: This article was updated with additional analysis as well as comments from Dennis Herrera, San Francisco city attorney; Chris Lehane, head of global policy and communication for Airbnb; and Philip Minardi, director of policy communications for HomeAway.com.

This article was originally published at 11:55 a.m.
Must an employer allow an at-will employee who voluntarily resigned to rescind her resignation when she claims her resignation resulted from a temporarily altered mental state caused by medicine she was taking to address a disability?

In the first case of its kind in California, the court of appeal ruled recently that an employers refusal to allow an employee to withdraw a voluntary resignation was not an adverse employment action that triggers the protections of Californias employment discrimination law.

The case involved Southern California Permanente Medical Group employee Ruth Featherstone. On Dec.16, 2013, Featherstone returned to work from an extended medical leave for sinus surgery with no work restrictions.

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On the morning of Dec. 23, Featherstone called her boss, Vicky Sheppard, to inform her she was resigning effective immediately. According to Sheppard, Featherstone told her that God had told [her] to do something else. Later that day, Sheppard noticed a Facebook post by Featherstone that seemed a little out of the blue -- though not out of character  that indicated that Featherstone had resigned to do Gods work.

Human resources staff immediately processed Featherstones separation paperwork so that Featherstone could receive her final paycheck within 72 hours as required by law.

On Dec. 31, 2013, Featherstone informed SCPMGs HR department that, at the time of her resignation, she was suffering from a side effect of medication she had been taking; she wanted to rescind her resignation. After reviewing documents Featherstone submitted, and conferring with legal counsel, SCPMG declined Featherstones request.

Featherstone sued, claiming that by failing to allow her to rescind her medication-induced resignation, SCPMG had wrongfully discriminated against her based on her disability.

The protections of the disability discrimination law are triggered when an employer takes an adverse employment action motivated by the employees disability. The court of appeal assumed with some skepticism that a temporarily altered mental state could qualify as a disability.

An adverse employment action is an employer action that materially affects any aspect of employment, including actions that may not harm the employee financially or in a concrete psychological way. Relying on cases applying federal employment discrimination laws, the court of appeal concluded that refusing to allow a former employee to rescind a voluntary discharge  that is, a resignation free of employer coercion or misconduct  is not an adverse employment action.

Featherstone had the right to rescind her resignation before SCPMG accepted it. Once SCPMG accepted the resignation, Featherstone had no right to withdraw it and SCPMG had no duty to allow her to do so. SCPMG had the right to take Featherstone at her word, without further investigation, that she wanted out and not to reinstate her when she changed her mind.

Featherstone also could not show that SCPMGs refusal to allow her to rescind her resignation was motivated by her claimed medication-induced temporary mental disability, or that SCPMG had any duty to accommodate the disability by taking her back. SCPMG did not know and had no reason to know that Featherstone was suffering from an altered mental state when she resigned and SCPMG employees processed it. Her disability could not have motivated SCPMGs actions at that time.

What are the takeaways? On the one hand, an employer generally need not allow an employee to rescind a voluntary resignation, even a resignation induced by mental instability of which the employer had no reason to be aware. On the other hand, if an employer has reason to suspect that medication or mental disability are factors in an employees abrupt resignation, the employer may have a duty to confirm the resignation is truly voluntary to avoid a later discrimination claim if a request to rescind is rejected.

Dan Eaton is a partner with the San Diego law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek where his practice focuses on defending and advising employers. He also is an instructor at the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business where he teaches classes in business ethics and employment law. He may be reached at eaton@scmv.com. His Twitter handle is @DanEatonlaw.
I have always been suspect when the famous entrepreneur tells his tale and makes it sound like success was simply a matter of connecting the dots. Let me tell you about dots. There are a way big lot of them, and they operate under the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, namely that if I know where they are, I cant know their speed and thus, it is really hard to corral the little fellows.

So, in an effort to provide a road map of dots in real time, herewith the anatomy of a deal  in progress.

On a Saturday night in February, I find myself at the annual dinner of the Building Industry Association (BIA). I work the room during the reception, and I meet Michael McSweeney, public policy adviser for the BIA, and the conversation turns to prisons and entrepreneurship and reform. It turns out he has a good friend who was formerly incarcerated.

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Rule No. 3  You must go to all the events and all the meetings  in particular the ones you are sure are a complete waste of time.

He says lets get together for a lunch with a pal of his, Scott Crosby, the president and CEO of the Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group. I am sure that all they really want is to ask me for money.

Rule No. 515: Dont jump to conclusions, you idiot.

So we meet and it turns out they do not want money; they want a solution to a problem. Here is the problem. There is a shortage of qualified workers in the construction trades. In other words, they have more jobs than candidates to fill them. When a formerly incarcerated individual gets out of prison with the basic skills and a simple OSHA certification, the Associated Builders and Contractors can get them a job in 48 hours. About 80 percent of prison construction and maintenance is done by the inmates themselves.

OK, so whats the problem? Jobs are waiting. The problem, chucklehead, is transportation. When our guy (we will call him Bob) gets out, he goes to a halfway house for six months of re-entry and parole. But the ABC has a job waiting for him immediately, and so how does he get from the halfway house to the job site (lets call it Poway).

I figure this is a no-brainer. Avis for ex-cons.

Rule No. 516: I know you are brilliant, but remember to ask yourself why no one else has done this or is doing it?

So I begin due diligence  which is code for calling a friend who used to own some car dealerships. You know the rule about knowing what you dont know. And I dont know a carburetor from a pepperoni pizza. (I drive a 12-year old Lexus SUV.) I talk to four smart car guys who own dealerships, and I get educated. One of these guys I met on an airplane coming back from a ski trip.

Rule No. 517: Work the room, even on an airplane.

The next problem is where to get a bunch of used cars costing less than $5,000. I find one of the largest companies in the country that takes in older used cars for non-profits and in exchange the donor gets a tax deduction, and the CEO happens to work in San Diego.

I will not bore you, but the bottom line, in order to rent a cheap used car and pay sales tax and cover insurance, repair and maintenance etc., you need to charge our pal Bob about $90 per week. Huh, he just got out of prison, he gets a job for $13 to $14 an hour, he is almost happy, and you want him to pay you $90 per week. You are insane. For $360 per month, he can finance a new car purchase - if he has good credit. But our Bob does not have good credit.

On top of that, if we own the car and rent it to Bob, we have the liability risk if there is an accident. No individual (even with a corporate shield) is going to take that risk and be the deep pockets.

Also, these car rental businesses like Avis do not make the majority of their money on renting cars. They make money on selling the car later. So, renting is not going to work. We need to sell a car to Bob.

In any start-up, you need to understand the market opportunity. There are 1,800 prisons and 3,000 jails in the United States (we are numero uno in the world in this area), and the construction industry spans the country. In 2015, there was $900 billion of new construction. Lots of jobs lurking. We need to think about how to scale and go big while we also figure out how to get Bob to Poway so he can frame the house.

We have some good things going for us. Bob can get a job offer with the XYZ Construction company, he can enter the trade groups craft and training program, and the guy who pays him each week knows where he is and controls the paycheck, So, what if the XYZ Company buys the car from our little non-profit, and then sells it to Bob on favorable terms?

One of the key objectives of this project is to help our formerly incarcerated gentleman improve his credit  and the absolute best way to improve a credit score is with a declining balance term loan  i.e. a car loan.

But we need to de-risk the transaction for the XYZ Company. We need to create a buffer, a space for Bob to get acclimated and also for XYZ to test and make sure that he is the right guy for the right job.

Rule No. 518: Find out what money cant buy and offer a non-monetary benefit to that organization.

We decide that for the first 60 days on the job  while Bob is getting adjusted to his new life and completing the paperwork and updating his drivers license and reacquainting himself with things like fresh air and freedom, we will ask Lyft and Uber to subsidize his travel to and from the job site. Imagine if they were able to say that they were doing something good and true and decent and creating jobs not only for their drivers, but for the passengers. Our Bob can pay something, but he needs some assistance at the beginning of his rehabilitation.

We are talking to Lyft. Uber has not yet responded. (If you know Travis Kalanick, ask him to call me. They for sure need some improved public relations.)

The big idea for the solution to scale comes from Scott Crosby and from my past time as a software CEO  the distributed network effect. Instead of a single owner of 5,000 cars, what if we had 1,000 owners of five cars. If a single contractor sells a few cars to his new workers, then he can fill the jobs, manage the payments and create improved credit for his boys. (And not charge them 25 percent interest like a used-car guy might). And at scale, you could do this across America. There are 729,000 construction companies in America with an average salary of $48,000 per year. I think this dog might hunt.

So I am sharing this as a deal in progress. There are still some hoops to jump through, but I am optimistic. More information on this adventure will follow in a couple of weeks.

Neil Senturia, a serial entrepreneur who invests in early-stage technology companies, writes weekly about entrepreneurship in San Diego. Please email ideas to Neil at neil@blackbirdv.com.

Rule No. 519: I love the game.
An Encinitas case that will be heard Thursday by the California Supreme Court could tip the fate of thousands of coastal homes at risk of crumbling into the sea.

The case centers on an ongoing dispute between the California Coastal Commission and two bluff-top property owners over a seawall that for decades blocked the onslaught of waves threatening to erode the bluff. After a storm demolished the original seawall, the commission granted a permit to repair it, but placed a 20-year time limit on the barrier that the plaintiffs allege is unconstitutional.

The homeowners say the seawall is necessary to protect their homes, but the Coastal Commission says such structures block natural processes that preserve wide, sandy beaches.

The issue has gained urgency as scientists warn that rising ocean levels could reshape the shoreline within the next century, leaving beachfront homeowners scrambling to safeguard their property, and government officials struggling to manage the change.

About 10 percent of the states 1,100-mile coastline is armored, including a third of Southern California beaches, according to the Coastal Commission. The outcome of the state Supreme Court decision could set legal precedent for those structures, and also define the commissions role in regulating beachfront property on a swiftly shifting coast.

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The specific climate change impact that the Coastal Commission is focused on is sea level rise, and increased frequency and intensity of coastal storms, said Rick Frank, director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at the UC Davis School of Law. This is the first time this issue of the propriety of long-range planning efforts in relation to projected climate change impacts has gotten to the Supreme Court.

In Encinitas, Tom Fricks home on Neptune Avenue commands a sweeping outlook on the Pacific, along with a vertical view of the beach below. A dizzying flight of stairs descends to the shore, and at the bottom, a sculpted, sand-colored wall supports the bluffs.

That concrete seawall replaced the original wooden fortification, which was damaged in a 2010 storm that left a yawning gap in the bluff. Frick and his neighbor, Barbara Lynch, sought emergency permits from the Coastal Commission to make the changes.

If they didnt build their seawall, their homes could have collapsed, said land use attorney Jon Corn, who is representing the families.

But that protection comes with a cost to the public, the Coastal Commission cautioned. Fighting bluff erosion with seawalls can hasten the loss of beach sand, reducing coastal access for all Californians, the commission maintains. With that admonition in mind, the commission granted permits to repair the damaged barricade, but imposed the 20-year limit. When it expires, the homeowners would need to reapply to keep the wall, Corn said.

The Lynches and Fricks proceeded to rebuild their wall and stairway, but challenged the 20-year restriction, saying it amounts to a regulatory taking of their property. Without the wall, their homes would be in jeopardy, and the time limit clouds their ability to maintain or sell them, said Jennifer Lynch, whose mother Barbara was an original plaintiff.

I see the issue as the government overstepping its rights, she said, in order to take property without paying people.

In 2013, San Diego Superior Court Judge Earl Maas agreed. He ordered the commission to remove the conditions from the seawall permit. The state agency challenged that decision, and in 2014, the 4th District Court of Appeals by a 2-1 vote reversed the lower courts decision, concluding that the homeowners had tacitly consented to the restriction by accepting the permit.

Judge Gilbert Nares disagreed, arguing that the conditions on the permit are at odds with the states Public Resources Code and the California Coastal Act. Moreover, he wrote, they run counter to the state constitution.

The right to use, enjoy, and protect property is not a government privilege, but a fundamental, constitutional right, he wrote in a dissenting opinion.

Corn thinks theres something else at play in the states position. He sees it as a quiet shift toward a policy of managed retreat  an effort to adapt to rising seas by shifting infrastructure inland.

The Coastal Commission has a bunch of underground regulations that are designed to phase out oceanfront property over time, Corn said. The commission would much rather have people remove their homes than build a wall.

Coastal Commission officials declined to comment for this story, but in a brief to the state Supreme Court, the agencys attorneys argued that the 20-year time limit allows the state to reassess the risks and benefits of the seawall at a future date, when climate conditions may be very different.

Although there is scientific consensus that sea level rise will accelerate in coming years, there is substantial uncertainty about how quickly it will rise, the brief stated. This uncertainty makes long-term projections about the impacts and stability of shoreline structures extraordinarily difficult to make.

In its landmark climate report in 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that sea level rose by more than seven inches over the last century, and is projected to rise between 10 and 38 inches by the end of this century.

Recent studies warn that it could be much higher. In a report released this month, the California Ocean Protection Council cited research showing that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than anyone anticipated; in the worst case scenario Californias ocean could rise 10 feet by the end of the century.

While property rights advocates are critical of strategies for managed retreat, the sea itself may determine the pace of withdrawal, said Jordan Diamond, executive director of the Center for Law, Energy and Environment at the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Nature is encroaching on the coastline, whether through erosion, sea level rise or intensifying storms, she said. Ten, 20 or 100 years from now, there may be forced retreat. We may not be able to protect the coastline enough from all of the natural forces.

The Coastal Commissions 20-year permit, Frank said, allows the body to revisit its decision in light of the unstable environment.

We dont have static environmental conditions, he said. Can you build in a point to check, and see what the impacts (of the seawall) are in practice, and check that your decision-making would be appropriate?

Jennifer Lynch said that while environmental changes may be accelerating, the legal and regulatory processes in her familys case seemed to proceed at a glacial pace.

Her mother Barbara died in 2016, after the seawall was rebuilt, but was anxious about the court proceedings and distressed by her restricted access to the beach front during that battle, Lynch said. Suffering from medical problems including cancer and high blood pressure, the elder Lynch got limited solace from the seaside home her husband built decades before.

After the stairs were built, she only made it down to the beach one time, Lynch said.

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan
The Boys & Girls Club of Vista in a new partnership with JCPenney Cares and Scholastic, was one of seven Clubs nationwide selected to receive funding to open a Learning Lounge.

Designed in partnership with Club staff and youth members, the Learning Lounge is a dedicated space where youth engage in innovative programming intended to stimulate a passion for academics.

The new area will house more than 1,200 books, educational materials and online resources and will provide a place where youth can engage in hands-on learning that reinforces what they learn in school.

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The Learning Lounge is expected to serve hundreds of students ages 6-18 at the clubs site, 410 W California Ave.

The club has been in operation since 1963 and provides after school programs focused on character development, academic success and healthy lifestyles. The club serves 1,580 youth and is open weekdays after school and during school breaks.

City of Vista Mayor Judy Ritter was among the local leaders attending the ribbon cutting.

The Clubs fundraiser gala is 6 to 11 p.m. May 6 at the Sheraton Carlsbad Resort and Spa.

Visit bgcvista.org
CLARIFICATION: The original version of this story included a photograph of a vacation rental that has fully complied with the city of Carlsbads short-term rental ordinance.

Carlsbad plans to hire an outside company to help enforce a 2015 city law regulating vacation rentals in the coastal tourist town.

The city is one of dozens across the states struggling to get a handle on short-term rentals, which have proliferated with the advent of websites like Airbnb and VRBO. Passing an ordinance is the first step; getting property owners to comply with it comes next.

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Of the more than 2,100 properties listed as vacation rentals in Carlsbad, only about 340 have obtained the required city permits, officials said.

Its been slow going, said Carlsbad Housing and Neighborhood Services Director Debbie Fountain.

Without adequate resources to search out the non-compliant properties, many cities are turning to outside contractors like San Francisco-based Host Compliance.

Founded in 2015 by Harvard MBA graduate Ulrik Binzer, the company uses online sources to help cities identify all short-term rentals, monitor registration and tax compliance, and uncover any fraudulent practices.

Its sort of like we give the code enforcement staff a tool to make them more effective at their job, Binzer said in a phone interview Wednesday. He declined to discuss the exact process his company uses because its proprietary information.

There is nothing sort of hocus pocus about it, he said. What we do is automate things that the city staff would otherwise have to do manually.

The information obtained is all public, he said, and most property owners do the right thing and comply once somebody contacts them with information about permits and taxes.

Host Compliance has contracts with about 15 jurisdictions in California, including Oceanside, Binzer said.

All are tourist destinations  struggling with the same issues, he said.

As a result of the compliance work, the number of active vacation-rentals registered in Oceanside  and paying transit occupancy tax to the city  increased from 546 to 631, City Planner Jeff Hunt said Thursday.

Some cities are taking a different approach to compliance.

Earlier this month, Solana Beach approved a deal with Airbnb that requires Airbnb to automatically collect transient occupancy taxes on any bookings in the city and forward that money along. City officials said the move was an effort to boost compliance with the citys vacation-rental ordinance and increase with increase tax revenue. San Diego and Los Angeles have similar agreements with Airbnb, which is the largest of the online home-sharing services.

Not every beach city has a short-term rental ordinance. Del Mar has essentially turned a blind eye to the rentals since the 1970s, until about two years when they became too widespread to ignore. Now, as the result of residents complaints about noise, trash and parking problems, the small coastal community is struggling to define where the rentals are allowed and what the rules for them should be.

Enforcement in Carlsbad has been tough in part because the number of short-term vacation rentals has increased rapidly from about 400 when the city approved its ordinance, Fountain said.

Officials estimate that of the 10 percent of Carlsbad owners that do have permits, only about 25 percent of those comply with all the operating conditions set under the citys ordinance.

The Carlsbad City Council agreed unanimously Tuesday to spend $100,000 on a one-year pilot program using professional services for code enforcement and related compliance efforts. The city will advertise for bids from companies that want to provide the service, and hopes to have a program in place by summer, Fountain said.

So far Carlsbads ordinance appears to be successful despite the low level of compliance, council members said. About 100 rentals have ceased that were operating in residential neighborhoods outside the permitted areas, and complaints have dwindled.

The intent of the citys ordinance was to give us a tool to regulate bad actors, said Councilman Mark Packard, and that appears to be working.

About five written notices have been sent to property owners where problems have been reported, a city staffer said. Tax revenue collected from the rentals is on the rise.

Carlsbad collected almost $507,000 in transient occupancy tax from short-term rentals in fiscal 2015-16, which ended June 30, up from $372,000 the previous fiscal year. The city had collected more than $418,000 through February of the current fiscal year.

In addition to hiring the compliance service, the city agreed Tuesday to several amendments and revisions to its short-term vacation rental ordinance. Anything less than 30 days is considered a short-term rental.

A definition of bedroom needs to be added to prevent overcrowding, Fountain said. The ordinance limits the number of people per bedroom in a rental, and too often the owners try to include spaces such as living rooms and patios as bedrooms to increase the number of guests.

Also, the city will add an impact response plan that requires owners to provide neighbors within 300 feet with contact information for someone to call if theres a problem such as a loud party or vehicles parked inappropriately.

There is no plan to change the boundaries of the area where short-term rentals are allowed, she said.

Carlsbad limits the rentals to neighborhoods in its coastal zone, which generally is west of El Camino Real and excludes parts of the downtown Village, most neighborhoods along Carlsbad Village Drive, and areas around McClellan-Palomar Airport.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
Peering at glass plates to divine the secrets of the cosmos, Henrietta Leavitt managed to crack the glass ceiling of astronomy.

Lauren Gundersons play Silent Sky honors the starry achievements of the real-life Leavitt, part of a key trio of female Harvard researchers who made major contributions to the science despite the gender politics of the early 20th century.

As a tribute to their legacy, Silent Sky  acted with zest and a sense of authenticity by an excellent cast at Lambs Players Theatre  is entirely worthy.

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As a work of drama, though, the play traverses a more wobbly orbit, partly because the struggles with family and romance that Leavitt encounters over the course of the two-hour, one-intermission show can feel a little forced and artificial.

Where Sky hits home is in the more lyrical passages of Gundersons writing; she sets the stage in the first scene when Leavitt (in a spirited, sometimes fiery performance by Rachael VanWormer) calls astronomy the science of light on high.

Theres also a winning sense of testy, teasing camaraderie between the two women who welcome the young, idealistic Leavitt into the lab: Williamina Fleming (Deborah Gilmour Smyth) and Annie Cannon (Cynthia Gerber). Smyth is particularly funny as the forthright Fleming, who speaks in a rich Scottish brogue.

Those two are part of the harem of female staffers recruited by Harvard College Observatory director Edward Charles Pickering for the tedious but crucial job of recording raw data from photographic plates depicting the night sky.

We are cleaning up the universe for the men, as Fleming puts it. And making fun of them behind their backs.

What Leavitt really wants to do is get a look at the heavens through the observatorys telescope. But its off-limits to the women, shes told, so if Leavitt is going to make any important discoveries, shes going to have to find some other way.

Which she emphatically does, through studies of the Cepheid stars that eventually would shake up fundamental assumptions about the universe.

Leavitt is meanwhile very awkwardly courted by Pickerings painfully shy apprentice, Peter Shaw, played with stammering charm by Brian Mackey (VanWormers real-life husband). She also deals with the guilt of being away from her family and her ailing father in Wisconsin  heightened by pleas from her sister Maggie (a sharp Caitie Grady, who also plays appealing piano passages) to come home.

Those plot elements do help flesh out the conflicts and competing demands Leavitt had to deal with in the already difficult task of building a career. But they also can feel like distractions from the inherent fascinations of her pioneering science.

The Lambs staging (directed by producing artistic chief Robert Smyth) is the local premiere of this piece by Gunderson, who has written an impressive string of plays about accomplished but underappreciated women.

Sean Fannings soaring, domed set turns the Lambs stage into a mini-planetarium, enhanced by Michael McKeons eye-catching projections as well as Nathan Peirsons lighting. Jemima Dutras costumes capture shifts in character, as the budding suffragette Cannon takes to wearing pants while the soured-by-love Shaw dons a conservative suit like a carapace.

Silent Sky  whose title is partly a nod to Walt Whitmans masterful short poem When I Heard the Learnd Astronomer  also has its small moments of well-tuned humor that nestle comfortably alongside big questions of the cosmos.

Late in the play, as the characters debate how to celebrate a world-shaking breakthrough, Maggie chimes in:

I have cookies!

Silent Sky

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. on Wednesdays in May. Through May 28.

Where: Lambs Players Theatre, 1142 Orange Ave., Coronado

Tickets: $24-$68 (discounts available)

Phone: (619) 437-6000

Online: lambsplayers.org

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Twitter: @jimhebert

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com
A Baja California judge on Sunday ordered the release of a former U.S. Marine charged with burglarizing a residence in a Tijuana coastal enclave where many homes are owned by Americans, his attorney said.

Tyler James Yeager, 39, was expected to be released from La Mesa State Penitentiary within hours, said Fernando Benitez, a Tijuana criminal defense attorney who took on his case.

Benitez said that the record of his arrest does not show anybody being proficient in English, and there was no translator. For that reason, state Judge Leticia Larranaga agreed that all evidence derived from the arrest would be excluded, and ordered Yeagers release, Benitez said.

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Yeager is a former Marine scout sniper who at one point was stationed at Camp Pendleton, but reportedly had been living in Tijuana in recent months.

Residents of the oceanfront community of San Antonio del Mar were angry and fearful after a series of burglaries, and waged a campaign denouncing Yeager as the culprit, urging action by authorities.

Yeager was arrested on April 23, after he was caught leaving a residence in San Antonio del Mar whose owner had flagged down federal officers after finding Yeager inside the house, according to authorities. The police report said that Yeager was carrying a shotgun, as well as the owners Mexican voter identification card.

The Baja California Attorney Generals Office charged Yeager with aggravated burglary. A state judge initially upheld the charges.

But on Sunday, the judge stated she didnt feel 100 percent sure that he was afforded all of his entitlements according to the Mexican constitution, according to Benitez.

Yeager was being tried under Baja Californias new oral criminal justice system. As his first offense, the likely sentence would have been three years, with the option of substituting it with a 5,000 to 10,000 peso fine, said his attorney.

This was not Yeagers first brush with the law. Public records show that authorities in Ravalli County, Montana issued a warrant for his arrest after he failed to pay some $1,200 in fines and did not show up for a hearing in connection with two 2015 convictions. Yeager had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sexual assault and driving under the influence of alcohol.

A family spokesman on Sunday described the assault misdemeanor as a minor domestic dispute.

In a statement, Yeagers sister Tracy Yeager said the family expects him to be handed over the the U.S. Border Patrol. She said that Yeager needs to return to the United States to resume his treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction problems.

Yeager remained in the custody of Mexican immigration authorities on Monday afternoon, his attorney said, awaiting deportation to the United States.

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sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
A woman who was attacked by a shark while swimming at a popular surf spot off Camp Pendletons San Onofre State Beach is fighting for her life, her mother wrote Sunday.

Leeanne Ericson was in the water at a surf break dubbed Church when she was bitten on her thigh about 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Bystanders helped pull her to shore and stanch the bleeding until she could be airlifted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, authorities said.

Christine McKnerney Leidle wrote on a GoFundMe page that her daughter is expected to undergo several surgeries and that her recovery will be lengthy.

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She is a single mom with three young children who depend on her, McKnerney Leidle wrote. She has a long (road) ahead.

The beach was closed after the attack, and California State Parks officials and Marine Corps commanders appear poised to extend the ban.

Weve closed the beaches in the geographic proximity to the attack, said Todd Lewis, the Central Sector superintendent for California State Parks Orange Coast District. It appears that the lifeguards at Camp Pendleton are recommending that the beach remain closed for another 24 hours. If they make that final determination, we will follow suit.

That would mean no swimming, surfing or diving along the coast about a mile north and south of San Onofre State Beach.

Lewis said that Camp Pendletons commanders and state officials both follow similar policies whenever there are verified reports of aggressive behavior or an attack by a shark.

Camp Pendleton posted guards on Sunday to bar visitors from the water, with lifeguards from Marine Corps Community Services on the scene as well.

Prine and Winkley write for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday it would not hear a case filed by a San Diego minister and others challenging the Californias 2012 landmark law that prohibits licensed mental-health professionals from practicing therapies that seek to make gay and lesbian youths straight.

The high court rejected a petition from the Pacific Justice Institute to review a ruling last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that let the law stand. The opponents of the law said it violated their free speech and religious freedom rights. .

One of the plaintiffs is Donald Welch, an ordained minister at Skyline Church in Rancho San Diego. He also is a therapist and serves as an adjunct professor at Point Loma Nazarene University and Azusa Pacific University.

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The suit was filed in 2012 by Welch and a Redlands psychiatrist as well as a a Culver City man who says he has benefited from the reparative therapy.

The law was the first in the nation to ban licensed mental health professionals from using a form of therapy known as conversion therapy. That is a kind of treatment that aims to change sexual orientation from gay to straight.

Since California passed the law five other states have adopted similar bans.

The state had argued that the court should not hear the case because the law does not restrict what religious leaders can say, except when it is in the setting of a therapy session and they are acting as state-licensed therapists.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
A Florida woman who was the only official objector to the $25 million deal to settle three Trump University lawsuits said Monday she would appeal the settlement, a move that could mean months of further litigation and delay any payout to others who sued.

The woman, Sheri B. Simpson, filed a formal notice of appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The move was immediately criticized by the lawyer for the other 3,700 or so class members who are eligible to get up to 90 percent of what they spent on President Donald Trumps defunct real estate success program and likely wont be seeing money any time soon.

Gary Friedman, the lawyer for Simpson, said the appeal will be based on the argument that a San Diego federal judge who approved the settlement on March 31 erred because class members were not given a second chance to opt out of the case.

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The class members had a right to opt out of the settlement, Friedman said. The notice they received from the court promised them in no uncertain terms they had that right. Then, once the defendant got elected president it became inconvenient to honor that promise.

Rather than take the more than $15,000 she would get under the terms of the settlement, Simpson wants to take the president to trial individually and try for an award four times that amount or more, Friedman said.

Lawyers for the class members said Simpson and her lawyer mischaracterized language that went out in the class notices, which  when read in the correct context  stated that participants would be able to opt out of receiving a portion of the settlement, not leave the case entirely. By staying in the case, Simpson is bound by the settlement, they argue.

Jason Forge, one of the main lawyers in the class-action suit and settlement, said that the decision to appeal is wrong and could hurt other members of the class who will have to wait to collect their money from Trump.

Its the wrong fight against the wrong people for the wrong reason, he said Monday. My only real concern is we wont have enough time to make it right for everyone. We have a number of senior citizen students here waiting for their money. And given the length of time that appeals can take, we may not be able to get that money to them before they die.

Friedman said Simpson regretted holding up payments. We feel terribly about the delay, he said. But she is not going to be guilted into changing her position.

He said he planned to ask the appeals court for an expedited hearing schedule.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel said that Simpson had plenty of chances to opt out of the case at an earlier date.

The plaintiffs lawyers added that Simpson didnt seem to have any issues with the settlement or the wording in the class notices until she was cold-called by Friedman asking if she wanted to fight the settlement.

Another class member said in an affidavit that he had received a similar phone call from the attorney but declined the offer.

Friedman argued he did nothing wrong in his approach to the case.

The lawsuits  two class actions filed in San Diego and another filed by the New York attorney general  claimed Trump University misled students into thinking it was an accredited university and conned people into signing up for the $35,000 Gold Elite program. The elite status paid for a yearlong mentorship and exclusive access to Trumps resources, which students said were not provided for the most part.

Trump defended his program, saying it provided valuable training and garnered a 98 percent approval rating among students. He was adamant about taking the cases to trial until he won the presidency, when, weeks later, he settled. He said on Twitter that he wanted to focus his attention on transitioning to the White House. Many students said the experience left them broke and in debt.

The appeal now moves the case  for now  beyond Curiel, a judge who Trump publicly criticized on the campaign trial as being biased against Trump because of the candidates border policies due to Curiel being Spanish. Curiel was raised in Indiana by Mexican immigrant parents and before being a judge prosecuted Mexican drug traffickers in San Diego.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
Rallies and marches focusing on workers and immigrants rights stretched across the region from morning till evening on Monday  May Day in San Diego County.

Some grade school teachers gathered before school to show solidarity, professors held teach-ins at community colleges and various groups gathered outside the downtown federal building as similar events took place across the state and nation.

About 500 protesters were met by about a dozen supporters of President Donald Trump outside the federal building in the afternoon. Some on both sides shouted occasionally at the other but police largely kept the two sides apart and the event was peaceful.

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The May Day demonstrators then marched over to Barrio Logans Chicano Park, where the group Union del Barrio planned another rally.

Theres no messages of divisions today. Today were all workers, today were all community members, said Alliance San Diego Associate Director Christopher Wilson at the downtown rally.

The counter-protesters, some wearing Trump T-shirts, didnt seem to take issue with any of the protest messages but showed their support for law enforcement and the president.

Im here to show support for our local police department and Im here to support free speech, said Jeffrey Durell, a Trump supporter carrying a Blue lives matter flag.

Earlier in the day, professors from five local community colleges participated in a National Day of Action organized by the National Education Association. Faculty groups and students joined with other labor organizations downtown.

Members of the California Teachers Association also conducted teach-ins and rallies throughout the state.

A large group taking part in May Day rally, marched from City College down Broadway to Front Street, where they held a peaceful rally in front of the Federal Building in downtown. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Immigrant workers, migrant workers, transnational workers have been at the forefront of every single critical juncture of the labor movement in this country, said Chicano studies professor Justin Akers-Chacon at a morning teach-in at City College.

The annual May Day demonstrations come as Trump said his administration will target illegal border-crossers and unauthorized workers, contending in some cases they take jobs that could be filled by legal residents

As about 150 people listened at City College, Akers-Chacon went on say workers from Mexico have been guiding the labor movement since 1904, and in 1913 they participated in the states first significant agricultural strike in California.

Similar teach-ins were happening at Mesa and Miramar colleges, also within the San Diego Community College District, and at Grossmont and Cuyamaca colleges. All are represented by the American Federation of Teachers, Local 1931.

City College English and labor studies professor Jim Miller, vice president of the local union, spoke about the history of May Day and how it is relevant to current threats to labor and democracy in the Trump era.

I would say that we see labor as under an existential threat, Miller said. You have a Supreme Court justice whos likely to rule against public-sector workers, and weve got people running the Department of Labor who are hostile to labor.

The Trump administration says it is seeking to peel back certain workplace regulations it considers burdensome to business.

Miller said the teach-in at the college was partly aimed at educating students and labor union members about the history of the labor movement.

May Day is a traditional spring holiday in many cultures, but separately in the late 19th century May 1 also was selected as the date for International Workers Day.

Its easy to attack both union and non-union workers rights because people dont remember the history, Miller said. One of the simple things is just to have people say where the American labor movement came from and why. What was it like before workers had an eight-hour day.

Other speakers at City College on Monday talked about the history of immigrants rights and how communities are resisting what is seen as assaults on those rights.

Trump has launched a crackdown on illegal immigration, saying people do not have a right to be in the United States illegally.

A group marched from City College down Broadway to Front Street for May Day rally to stage a peaceful rally in front of the Federal Building in downtown. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Teach-in topics also included food insecurity, racism, students as activists, economic inequality, the prison industry and students and adjunct professors as disposable people in the Trump era, according to the program.

Similar themes of immigration, education and workers rights were part of the teach-ins at Grossmont, Cuyamaca, Mesa and Miramar colleges.

Miller said labor groups have held rallies and marches downtown before, but this was the first time many different groups had coordinated their efforts.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

760-529-4939
Shortly before 7:30 p.m. Thursday, the Muslim students in Mimi Pollacks class quietly filed out of the room to pray, a nightly occurrence in the English-as-a-second-language course.

They returned a few minutes later as Pollack continued with the lesson, wrapping up a visit from a guest speaker.

Refugees who come to San Diego often end up in English classes through San Diego Continuing Education programs after they take initial language and culture classes through a resettlement agency. Since many are placed in City Heights when they arrive, the Continuing Education Mid-City classrooms serve a large portion of the citys refugees.

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Pollack estimated that she has students from at least 20 countries on her 48-person roster and that roughly half of her students are refugees.

Because of the programs open enrollment policy, about half of those enrolled are there on any given night, she said. Those in attendance Thursday included students from Somalia, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Myanmar, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We have become like a little United Nations, Pollack said.

The students time in the U.S. varied widely. One man had arrived about two months ago. Others had been in the country for decades. They had come for a variety of reasons. Some fled their home countries in search of safety. Others had married U.S. citizens.

Those in Pollacks class who are not refugees were sympathetic to the experiences of their refugee classmates, and several had taken steps to try to support refugees amid what they see as a negative political climate toward refugees and immigrants in general.

Marisol Sosa, 41, came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1995 because of a relationship. Though that relationship ended, her desire to make her life in the U.S. did not. Because of the diversity in Pollacks ESL class, she feels connected to refugees, she said.

Now, I feel like my classmates are my family, she said.

Before she met her refugee classmates, she didnt understand what refugees went through to get here, she said.

I came for a relationship, but they came for freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and thats something different, Sosa said.

Her classmates have inspired her to get involved in efforts to help the local community, she said.

I want to tell people, You are not alone. We are here for you, Sosa said.

Vinicius de La Rocha, 37, from Brazil, lives in Pacific Beach and  though there is a education center where he could take class  commutes to Mid-City to be a part of Pollacks diverse classroom.

He was moved by his fellow students stories and decided to make a documentary about the refugees he has met. He partnered with Bettina Hanna, 38, whom he knew in Brazil before they both moved to San Diego.

The pair showed a teaser of their documentary-in-progress in Thursdays class.

We understand the feeling of being in a country you were not born in, Hanna said. We have difficulties on a daily basis.

Hanna said shes been in the U.S. for eight years and still feels that way.

Every single day, I think about my situation because it isnt settled, she said. It seems like its getting even harder with the president that we have right now.

Nimo Mohamed, 26, arrived as a Somali refugee about 10 years ago. She has moved up from Pollacks class to a higher level English class, but her class joined Pollacks on Thursday for a guest speaker.

Shes also taking classes at the Continuing Education building to pass tests for U.S. citizenship, she said. She hopes to go on to college to become a nurse.

She recalled her first experiences in the U.S. as terrifying because she could not communicate, but now she feels comfortable because of her English skills. She has had people tell her to go back to your own country, she said, and she does not like the current political messages about refugees.

Thats breaking my heart, Mohamed said. I cant even talk about that.

She wished people would take the time to talk to her and to other refugees before making judgments based on their appearances, she said.

Kugonza Mumbere, 30, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, arrived in San Diego in September with his wife and four children. Theyve since had a fifth.

He said at first everything was difficult, especially speaking and understanding English, but hes made progress and feels more comfortable now. He was just hired for a housekeeping job that will start next week.

He said that when the administration of President Donald Trump tried to block refugees from coming to the U.S., he got scared again.

I got the chance to come to this country where there is no war, Mumbere said. I was so scared. I was asking myself, Where am I going to go now? Our country is still bad.

Elena Norouzi, 20, from Afghanistan, said she works at a hotel during the day before coming to classes at night. She spends her spare moments painting and has dreams of being a professional artist.

Nobody wants to be in other peoples country, Norouzi said. We had a problem, thats why we come.

She feels close to her classmates, she said. She liked hearing their perspectives in the documentary that de La Rocha and Hanna are working on.

I know what they feel, and other people should know, too, Norouzi said.

Linda Caballero Sotelo, executive director of the New Americans Museum, visited Pollacks class on Thursday to talk about their shared experiences as immigrants.

All of our stories combined should be included in the national narrative of America, Caballero Sotelo said. We have the same hopes and aspirations in common.

She showed a short film by Evan Apodaca called Que Lejos Estoy (How Far I Am) that talks about Apodacas search to understand his own identity in the evolution of his Mexican-American family.

When the film showed Apodacas grandmother remembering being told to go back to Mexico, Pollacks students audibly shifted in their seats.

Caballero Sotelo talked with the class afterwards about the struggle to maintain elements of a familys heritage and culture as the next generation grows up in a new country. She emphasized the importance of sharing their stories with their children.

If youre going somewhere, its easier to know where you came from, Caballero Sotelo said.

Pollacks own life experiences have involved that struggle. She was born in the U.S. but moved to Mexico for her fathers work when she was a young child, she said.

She recalled speaking Spanish when her family was out but maintaining her English-language skills by speaking it at home with her family. She thinks that preservation was important and encourages her students to do the same for their children, she said.

Pollack has been teaching English in San Diego since she moved back to the U.S. in the early 1980s, she said.

Shes seen the faces of her classes shift from Southeast Asian refugees, both Vietnamese and Hmong, to those fleeing former Soviet Union countries after the wall came down in Berlin and then to Middle Eastern refugees pushed out of their home countries by more recent conflicts, she said.

She said learning about her students stories is a key component to being able to teach them successfully.

You have to understand them as a human first, she said.

Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news

kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on Twitter
President Donald Trump has hit the 100-day mark of his presidency with historically low approval ratings, and a poll by The San Diego Union-Tribune and 10News found that the national trends are true in the region.

The poll also asked questions relating to Trumps ties to Russia and thoughts on the 2016 election. The full results are available here.

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Data Watch Videos On Now Data Point: Media Mergers 2:58 On Now Jaywalking infractions in San Diego 1:24 On Now Video: Finding the recipe for the perfect burrito 2:09 On Now Video: Where marijuana is legal in the United States 0:53 On Now Report: Correctional system fails women 1:22 On Now San Diego students have larger classes On Now Hierarchy of cuisine prices On Now Pay phones: Is that still a thing? On Now 2016 border apprehensions On Now STD trends, San Diego County

Reach the writer at: daniel.wheaton@sduniontribune.com or @theheroofthyme
In its 50-year history, the San Diego Mountain Rescue Team has completed hundreds of training missions, each with a dramatic medical scenario.

The March 10 training exercise on Mount Baldy had the classic elements:

 A steep, snow-covered slope.

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 An unexpected hazard.

 Serious injuries.

Yet something about this scene felt off, recalled Tony Rolfe, a former president of the team.

Is this for real? Rolfes companions yelled as two men collapsed into snowdrifts. Or is this our medical scenario?

It was for real. Falling downhill at about 30 mph, a brick-sized chunk of granite headed for Adam Little, climbing 500 feet below the 10,064-foot peak. Striking Littles ice ax, the rock ricocheted off his thigh, then slammed into Dr. Richard Yocum.

Yocum, the teams president, dropped as if hed been shot. Lying in the snow, the physician watched what happened next.

Team members hurried to a ski hut, using Wi-Fi coverage there to signal a helicopter.

A team medic assessed Yocums injuries: right leg broken in two spots.

Others strapped Yocum into a litter and wrapped him in a thermal blanket. Several scouted out a landing zone, then lowered Yocum and Little to that spot.

Finally, the injured men waited for the sound of a distant helicopter, coming to airlift them to a hospital.

After three hours of lying in a litter in the snow, Yocum said, hearing that whup whup whup was tremendously comforting.

The incident gave Yocum a fresh appreciation for the San Diego Mountain Rescue Team. Since 1967, these trained volunteers have plucked the lost from mountain crevasses and led the bewildered out of desert labyrinths.

Theyve retrieved wandering children and dementia patients. They operate in every kind of weather and all types of terrain, including one of the countys most consistently confusing areas, the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

People get lost there all the time, said John Wehbring, one of the teams founders.

While team members are thrilled to reunite loved ones, they sometimes respond to grim scenes. In 1978, when a small plane collided with a PSA jetliner, the team scoured the North Park crash site for human limbs and other remains.

This high-stakes undertaking is often a life-and-death race against time. Thats been true since February 1967, when a tense incident inspired the teams creation.

There was a college couple that went down to Baja California to climb Picacho del Diablo, Yocum said. When they didnt come back, there was a big search.

Devils Peak

Wehbring, 81, remembers this as the incident.

Eleanor Dart and her fiance, Ogden Kellogg, left Claremonts Pitzer College for the 1967 spring break. The undergraduates headed south to San Felipe on the Gulf of California, then hitched a ride inland.

On Feb. 5, they began walking toward Picacho del Diablo, the Devils Peak. The couple had anticipated a 20-mile hike to the 10,157-foot summit, but the trail twisted through canyons, around waterfalls, up rocky slopes and across icy ridges.

They had planned to be back in Claremont by Feb. 13. Instead, that was the day they reached the summit.

Exhausted, low on food, unfamiliar with the route, the couple split up Feb. 16. Dart stayed behind to recover her strength. Kellogg pressed on, looking for help.

By then, family members had alerted authorities, which contacted mountain rescue teams from Los Angeles and Riverside. They reached out to the Sierra Clubs San Diego chapter, whose rock climbers included Wehbring, an East Coast transplant.

Recently hired as Imperial Beachs planning director, he could devote only a few days to the search. He wasnt there when Dart was found on March 1, or for Kelloggs rescue on March 2.

Both had survived the ordeal, yet Wehbring wondered: What if this happened again?

We needed to have a team in San Diego, he decided, rather than rely on the people in the Los Angeles area.

Days after Dart and Kelloggs rescue, about 15 rock climbers met in Balboa Park. Led by Wehbring and two friends, Wes Reynolds and Will Tapp, the San Diego Mountain Rescue Team was born.

Baptism of fire

The would-be rescuers spent months acquiring equipment. Everything from ropes to CB radios were begged, borrowed or bought at discount.

Certified by the non-profit Mountain Rescue Association, the new team agreed to work under the San Diego County Sheriffs Departments direction. (This arrangement was codified in 1993.)

By June 1968, Wehbring, Tapp and John Butler raced to the rescue in the desert southeast of Ensenada. Hiking 12 miles across the parched land, they found George Hoey, a motorcyclist who had been injured in an accident.

Through 105-degree heat, they brought Hoey back to civilization.

A month later, the team was enlisted in the hunt for 10-year-old Bobby Sitz. Attending a church camp, the San Diego boy became lost while on a hike outside Idyllwild.

Despite two nights and three days in the wild, the boy was rescued unharmed on Tahquitz Peak.

On this mission, the San Diegans were far from alone. Bloodhounds and numerous Southern California search teams scoured the mountains.

But the rookies came away from these initial multi-day campaigns with confidence.

We got our baptism of fire in a series of intense, tough operations, Wehbring wrote in a training manual, and consistently turned out more people than many other teams.

Hug-A-Tree

Not every mission has a happy ending. In February 1981, a five-day search of Palomar Mountain for 9-year-old Jimmy Beveridge concluded with the discovery of the boys body. The lost hiker was found in a ravine, curled up near a tree.

Ab Taylor, a San Diego Mountain Rescue Team member, was devastated.

I simply couldnt believe that the largest search team in county history  more than 200 rescuers plus helicopters and a contingent of Marines  could have failed so badly, he told The San Diego Union.

I felt guilty. I felt responsible.

A legendary tracker, Taylors biography inspired the 1980 Charles Bronson movie, Borderline. During 31 years with the Border Patrol, Taylor had never before failed to find a missing child. The Jimmy Beveridge tragedy gnawed at him.

With other searchers, Taylor created Hug-A-Tree, a wilderness survival program for children. Once a slide show, it is now a video sold by the National Association for Search and Rescue.

The basic lessons  stay put; make yourself visible; if frightened, hug a tree  still reach young audiences.

Weve sold literally a couple thousand of these DVDs, said Chris Boyer, the Virginia-based associations president. Its all over the place.

Harsh conditions

Every fall, the team enlists fresh members and elects a new board. The process rattles Wehbring, one of the last surviving founders.

Every year I think to myself, are we going to have the same kind of team we had before? he said.

He even had reservations about Yocum, a physician and biopharmaceutical consultant. The doctor was fit and experienced but quiet. Too quiet?

So Wehbring watched  and was relieved by what he saw.

He is so smart, so good, Wehbring said of Yocum. I am just amazed. This guy does the right things.

His admiration extends beyond Yocum. The team now, he said, is as strong as it ever has been.

There are now 60 some members. About a third are female. Members must attend regular meetings and weekend training expeditions, plus supply their own gear, from tents to snowshoes  about $1,500 worth of equipment.

Its a huge commitment of time and resources, Yocum said.

Its also a test of endurance and character. Recruits have to mesh with other team members, often working together under harsh conditions.

Mid-summer training weekends are in the Anza-Borrego Desert; mid-winter expeditions at frosty elevations.

One year, a pair of outings exposed team members to temperatures ranging from 8 to 122 degrees. Veterans of both missions received a new decoration: The Mercury Award.

Practicing in such extremes may seem masochistic, but Yocum said its good preparation.

More often than not, were called out in the middle of the night and in the worst weather, he said. Thats when people get in trouble.

And when people are in distress, they want rescuers who are calm and proficient, regardless of time or temperature. Thats what Yocum wanted, lying in the snow with a shattered leg.

The team, he said, a note of pride in his voice, immediately went from training mode to rescue mode.
Seven adults were shot, one woman fatally, when a gunman who witnesses said never left his poolside chair opened fire on a birthday party at an University City apartment complex Sunday.

Police shot and killed the suspect, later identified as 49-year-old Peter Selis, a resident at the upscale La Jolla Crossroads complex on Judicial Drive near the Westfield UTC Shopping Center.

A 2015 bankruptcy filing stated that Selis, a father and a car mechanic at a Ford dealership in San Diego, faced crushing debt.

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Authorities said the shooter, armed with a semi-automatic pistol, was white and all the victims were people of color  four black women, two black men and one Latino man. The woman killed was not identified.

Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said investigators have not determined a motive, and were still interviewing witnesses. Authorities were unsure if Selis knew any of the victims.

1 / 35 Walking to their press conference, victims who were at the shooting during a birthday party celebration last Sunday at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments, called for a press conference to speak with the news reporters. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 35 Lauren Chapman who was at the birthday party celebration last Sunday at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City, believes that Sundays shooting was a hate crime. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 35 Many of those who were at the last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City stood holding hands as they answered questions from news reporters. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 35 Mychael Gary who was at the birthday celebration was the first to speak with new reporters about last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 35 Haley Thames answers question from the news reporters about the last Sundays shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartment in University City. L-R, Mychael Gary, Haley Thames and Allison Latta. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - A view of the corner of the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where Peter Selis, 49, opened fire on a birthday party on Sunday. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - Bullet holes are patched up in the pool area near where Peter Selis was sitting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday. Selig was shot and killed by police after he shot party goers at the pool. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 35 SAN DIEGO, CA - MAY 2, 2017 - Bullet holes are patched up in the pool area near where Peter Selis was sitting at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday. Selig was shot and killed by police after he shot party goers at the pool. (Photo by K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune) (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 35 The pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City was the scene of a shooting on Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, who was seated in the lower left, opened fire on a group having a birthday party at the lower right. Seven adults were shot, one fatally. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 35 The pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City was the scene of a shooting on Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, who was seated in the lower left, opened fire on a group having a birthday party at the lower right. Seven adults were shot, one fatally. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 35 Crews clean up blood on the ground at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where a mass shooting took placeSunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people in the pool area. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 35 Blood covers the ground near where Peter Selis, 49, sat and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 16 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 17 / 35 Peoples belongings remain at the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City after a shooting took place Sunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 18 / 35 Remnants of a birthday party in the pool area at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments shows the chaotic scene after a shooting took place on Sunday. Peter Selis, 49, open fired on the party at the crowded pool. Seven people were wounded. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 19 / 35 Blood covers the ground near where Peter Selis, 49, sat and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 20 / 35 Peter Selis, 49, sat in this area and open fired on a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City Sunday evening. Seven people were wounded. Selis was shot and killed by police. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 21 / 35 Crews clean up blood on the ground at the La Jolla Crossroads apartments in University City where a mass shooting took placeSunday evening. Peter Selis, 49, shot seven people in the pool area. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune) 22 / 35 At the La Jolla Crossroads Apartments in La Jolla, SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman along with San Diego Mayor, Kevin Faulconer brief news reportrs on a gunman shooting 7 victims at the complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 23 / 35 A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 24 / 35 Drew Phillips witnessed the shooter reloading at an apartment complex in University City where the shooter eventually shot 7 victims in the swimming pool area. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 25 / 35 A crowd gathers at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 26 / 35 A unidentified woman is taken away by ambulance near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 27 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman briefs news reporters at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 28 / 35 A SDPD officers position t hemselves near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 29 / 35 A SDPD officer stops to question a couple near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 30 / 35 A unidentified woman is taken away by ambulance near the area in La Jolla where a gunman is reported to have shot 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 31 / 35 A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 32 / 35 SDPD police officers tape off the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 33 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 34 / 35 SDPD Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims A group of men who witnessed the shooter in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment complex. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune) 35 / 35 A crowd gathers at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in La Jolla after reports of a gunman shooting 7 victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Partygoer Drew Phillips said shortly before the 6 p.m. shooting, his friend  who was celebrating his birthday  had approached Selis and offered him food and drink. The man declined, and continued to sit quietly yards away.

Six or seven minutes later its just pow, pow, pow, pow  out of nowhere, Phillips said. ...There was no indication that he was there to do evil.

Everyone scattered, including a man who fell and broke his arm. Witnesses said there were about 30 people at the pool. At least one of the partygoers lived at the complex.

Phillips, of Escondido, said he hopped a fence where he spotted a Latino man hed met minutes earlier at the party. He had been shot in his abdomen.

He was just laying there, and just the look in his eyes  sheer terror, Phillips said. I threw my phone down. I just picked him up and I just carried him. I basically ran as fast as I could with him in my arms.

San Diego Police Department Chief Shelley Zimmerman arrives Sunday, April 30, 2017 at the corner of Golden Haven Drive and Judicial in University City, San Diego, Calif. after reports of a gunman shooting seven victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Two young girls, ages 3 and 8, were with a grandmother and a nanny when the shooting started. Their grandfather, Shahrayar Jeff, said they escaped unscathed.

He said the older child described seeing Selis, in a baseball cap and glasses, relaxing and shooting people.

Two UC San Diego students who were in a nearby hot tub were too scared to bolt, but then slowly made their way to a wall. One of the students, 20-year-old Kaela Wong, said she heard Selis threaten women trying to help a victim.

You can either leave or you can stay here and die, Wong said she heard Selis say.

Zimmerman said a police helicopter arrived before officers on the ground, and the helicopter crew saw Selis apparently reloading his weapon. The crew directed a sergeant and two officers to the pool.

Police fired when Selis pointed his gun at them, Zimmerman said. She said its unclear if Selis fired at the officers.

A San Diego Police Department officer stops to question a couple on Sunday, April 30, 2017 near the area in Univeristy City, San Diego, Calif. where a gunman is reported to have shot seven victims at a complex in University City. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Amit Godbole was in his apartment when he heard gunfire.

It was like a war zone or something, Godbole said. There would be three or four shots, a pause and then more shots. I was trying to count them. I counted 30 or 40.

Eight people  the seven shooting victims and the man who broke his arm  were taken to hospitals. Among the shooting victims was the man celebrating his birthday.

At least one of the party attendees lived at the upscale complex.

Several of the injured remained in critical condition, Zimmerman said Sunday night.

Our hearts go out to all the victims, their families and anyone who witnessed this tragic event, the chief said.

In the aftermath of the violence, pools of blood could be seen near a table filled with food under an umbrella. Red cups were scattered on the ground and a patio table lay on its side.

At a late night press conference, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer condemned the horrific act.

We stand united as a city to reject this senseless violence, he said.

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.com

UPDATES:

This story was updated at 1:30 a.m. on May 1.


Congressional leaders reached an agreement Sunday night on $1 trillion in funding for the federal government, but rebuffed President Trumps requested cuts to federal agencies and provided no money for his border wall.

Im Sarah D. Wire, I cover the California delegation in Congress. Welcome to the Monday edition of Essential Politics.

Details of a final deal to fund the government through September, when the federal fiscal year ends, started to come out Sunday night.

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Lisa Mascaro has a look at the deal, which includes increased military spending, $1.5 billion for border security and $295 million to help Puerto Rico pay for its Medicaid burden. It also includes more funding for for the National Institutes of Health, opioid addiction treatment, and money to reimburse New York City and other cities for protecting Trumps properties.

Republicans need Democratic support to pass the spending bill, so it does not include a number of Republican priorities, including stripping funding from Planned Parenthood and agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services.

The House and Senate have until Friday to get the bill passed and keep the government open.

Get the latest about the Trump administration on Essential Washington and follow @latimespolitics and keep an eye on our Essential Politics news feed for California political news.

100 DAYS

Trump marked 100 days in office Saturday with a speech before a friendly crowd in Pennsylvania. He revived the racially charged language that infused his election campaign, lashing out at immigrants and promising to jail or deport anyone who doesnt belong in the U.S. He held the rally instead of attending the White House Correspondents Assn. Dinner, as his predecessors have.

Trump called for action on three of his top priorities  North Korea, healthcare and tax reform  but gave mixed signals on each of them.

Mark Z. Barabak took a look at what he calls the somewhat arbitrary nature of evaluating a president on early-term accomplishments.

Evan Halper has the story on the area of Trumps biggest success: upending environmental protections and climate actions fossil fuel industries have been targeting for years. On Saturday hundreds of thousands of people marched over climate change and climate research in Washington, Los Angeles and other cities.

OFFSHORE DRILLING OUTRAGE

Trump ordered his administration to review prohibitions on offshore oil drilling, a decision that could affect federal waters along Californias coast, but the states leaders and environmentalists immediately promised to block any new drilling.

A team of reporters from The Times explored the fierce opposition, which is rooted in a painful history of oil spills and bolstered by legal authority that could make additional pipelines impossible to build.

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said he is prepared to fight any attempt to expand oil drilling off the California coast.

DISCOVERING MAXINE WATERS

In the last few months, young people have embraced 78-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters and her acerbic comments about President Trump, bringing the Los Angeles Democrat national fame in her 14th term, and a new nickname: Auntie Maxine.

I have the story on the congresswomans sudden popularity, and her long record in Southern California politics.

GAS TAX ANGER

Starting Nov. 1, California drivers will pay higher gas and diesel taxes, which is expected to provide $5.2 billion annually for road and bridge repairs and expanded mass transit.

Gov. Jerry Browns plan also includes new fees for vehicle registration and has sparked a significant backlash. Opponents have launched a recall campaign against one state senator who voted for the package, which Brown signed on Friday, and are talking about trying to roll back and control the taxes and fees. Other lawmakers said they received harassing phone calls about their votes on the bill.

GOP AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Around the country, Republicans have blocked, resisted and undermined efforts to fight global warming. But Chris Megerian shows how that could be changing in California. Some Assembly Republicans want to work with Democrats to extend the states cap-and-trade program, which requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases.

UC SYSTEMS INDEPENDENCE

Last weeks scathing audit of the University of California served as a reminder of something many Californians may not know: The university has long had free reign over its operations.

In his Sunday column, John Myers takes a look back at how the universitys freedom from politics was baked into Californias founding documents. And while there have been efforts in Sacramento to change that, the UC system has managed to beat back all of them.

TODAYS ESSENTIALS

 The Brown administrations draft regulations for selling and using medical marijuana in California. Now, industry officials, law enforcement officers and state legislators are likely to seek changes to the draft regulations.

 This weeks California Politics Podcast is a special edition from the recent Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, featuring a panel discussion on the view from California in the era of Trump.

 Over the last 100 days, thousands have graded Trumps performance in office. Weigh in on his first 14 weeks, and see what others had to say.

 Californias tax revenue in April could come up $600 million short of official projections.

 Antonio Villaraigosa argued Friday that he is best suited to be Californias next governor because he proved while he was Los Angeles mayor that he can make politically unpopular decisions in the best interests of the people.

 Some voters are upset with Robert Lee Ahns misleading mail tactics that helped him get into L.A.'s congressional runoff.

LOGISTICS

Essential Politics is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday.You can keep up with breaking news on our politics page throughout the day for the latest and greatest. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics?

Miss Fridays newsletter? Here you go.

Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox.
I was shocked to read Logan Jenkins article regarding a book by Bob Filner. Filner was the greatest disgrace to women and to San Diego in 50 years.

I cannot believe you gave him print space in your paper. He should be in prison with the other sickos. The embarrassment he caused to many fine women in this city is disgraceful.

I, for one, never want to see his name in print again.

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P. Schonffeld

Kensington

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. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
I hope you published Cindy Dickinsons letter (San Diego should not help with deportations, April 21) just to get reactions and not as a serious letter to the editor.

Dickinson has forgotten one important point about her neighbors, co-workers and friends. If you are in this country legally, you dont have to worry about deportation.

So she thinks our mayor should refuse to participate in upholding our laws. Perhaps she should let Mayor Faulconer know which laws she would like our city to uphold. Apparently, we can now pick and choose.

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Maggie Conway

San Diego

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. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

Where the United States of America is concerned, the operative word is united. Individual states agreed to cede certain powers to a federal government, including the power to make laws concerning immigration. The U.S. Congress subsequently approved such laws.

Now, California and several other states have decided they dont like these laws and wont help the federal government to enforce them. And a federal judge says this is okay.

So where does this leave others who dont like certain federal laws? Can Mississippi reinstate segregated schools? Can Texas make abortion a felony? Can I refuse to pay my taxes?

As United States, we seem to have started down an extremely slippery slope that could lead to anarchy and/or civil war.

Gail Graham

San Diego

Want to see more letters that appear only online? Follow @UTLetters on Twitter and UTOpinion on Facebook.
The California charter school movement began with the adoption of a 1992 law legalizing such schools in Americas largest state. In the quarter-century since, the charter movement has proven extremely popular. About 10 percent of the schools 6.2 million students are enrolled in charters.

The academic record of these schools is mixed, according to a 2014 Stanford study, to above average, according to 2015 state test results. But the best charter schools  such as the High Tech High campuses in San Diego County  are world-class. And by and large, parents of charter students value having an alternative to regular public education  schools with far fewer rules and more of an emphasis on the needs of students than adult employees.

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Charters growth and popularity riles the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, which combine to be the most powerful force in state politics. These unions opposition to charter schools has waxed and waned, but the weakness of their allegations has always limited how much they can achieve. Far from being bastions of white elitism, charters are as likely to enroll minority students from poor communities as public schools. Far from being unaccountable, charters that perform poorly can actually be shut down  which is almost an impossibility with a public school. Far from being costly drains on education funds, studies have repeatedly shown charters in California and the rest of the nation have managed to educate students while getting significantly less funding per student than regular schools.

But now comes the most focused attempt to derail the Golden States charter-school movement in years. Billionaire philanthropist Eli Broads confirmation in 2015 that he plans to seek to sharply expand charter schools in Los Angeles Unified has triggered an all-hands-on-deck response from United Teachers Los Angeles, the most powerful local union chapter.

This has led directly to a game-changing anti-charter bill being considered by the Legislature  a naked power grab that barely bothers to make the case it is addressing a real problem. SB 808, by Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, would end the right of county boards of education and the State Board of Education to overturn decisions by school districts to reject charter school applications and give districts the final say on whether charters seeking renewals after five years should be approved. Given that most urban school board members in California are elected with the support and money of teachers unions, this could have enormous consequences if approved. This is hinted at by the fact that the union-allied Los Angeles school board has already endorsed the bill.

If SB 808 survives what could be a long slog lasting into 2018 and reaches Gov. Jerry Browns desk, the assumption might be that the politician who founded two Oakland charter schools would quickly veto it. But Brown has done the CTA and CFT huge favors, only starting with his backing school finance machinations that freed up money for teacher raises. So heres hoping SB 808 dies a deserved death  and doesnt offer the governor another chance to reciprocate the unions past support.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Conservative author Ann Coulter drew ire from south of the U.S. border over the weekend after she sent a tweet saying that North Korea warheads capable of reaching the Mexican city of Tijuana would be a workable compromise of an increasingly unsettled international saber-rattling situation.

The tweet, which was liked more than 3,000 times by Monday, follows news of a series of failed missile tests North Korea has performed in its pursuit of extending the reach of its warheads. Despite those efforts, experts say North Korean missiles remain incapable of reaching U.S. land.

Related: Should Trump meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un? Obama said he would

But the suggestion made by Coulter struck a nerve with many Mexicans who share the border with San Diego, including Tijuana mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum. On Twitter, Gastelum called her out and demanded respect for the citys citizens.

Coulters tweet drew a lot of unprintable obscenities from Mexicans who accused her of stoking xenophobia and hate. A lot of those reactions were in Spanish, including one saying, Typical Trump follower, full of dumb ideas and hate.

Does Coulter realize that, geographically speaking, Tijuana is so close to the border that any missile strike against the Mexican city would also impact San Diego? Some people on Twitter wondered about that.

Would she apologize? Dont hold your breath.

Coulter is unapologetic about her far-right views on immigration and border security. Her supporters appreciate her candor. Her critics say she stokes anti-immigrant and xenophobic fears.

Just last week, Coulter backed out of a scheduled appearance to speak at UC Berkeley after police expressed security concerns from protests planned for her arrival and after several groups pulled their sponsorship.

In a tweet, Coulter called the UC Berkeley cancellation a dark day for free speech in America.

Do you think Ann Coulter should apologize to the citizens of Tijuana?

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.
President Donald Trump says hed be willing to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un  if the circumstances were right. The president said he would be honored to do it, causing a stir.

The revelation is the latest in a series of strategic ideas and maneuvers to come from the Trump administration in dealing with the escalating tension among the U.S., North Korea and neighboring nations over the countrys push to become a nuclear power.

If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it, Trump told Bloomberg News on Monday. If its under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.

Former President Barack Obama , likewise, said hed be willing to hold such a meeting as early as the 2008 presidential debates.

The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them  which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration  is ridiculous, Obama said.

Trumps comment follows a recent focus by his administration on working toward negotiations with North Korea after previous comments implying military action was on the table. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did say last week that diplomatic and financial leverage or power will be backed up by willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action, if necessary.

So with military action and diplomatic strategies both at work here, what are the circumstances under which Trump would actually be willing to sit down with Jong Un?

Weve got to see their provocative behavior ratcheted down immediately, White House Spokesman Sean Spicer said on Monday. Clearly the conditions are not there right now.

Trump would be the first sitting U.S. president to meet with the leader in North Koreas history, but not the first to suggest it, despite what Trump also told Bloomberg News. (Former president Jimmy Carter met with North Koreas dictator in 1994.)

Most political people would never say that, but Im telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him, Trump said.We have breaking news.

Just how controversial is the idea of a meeting between Trump and Jong Un? The mere thought of it set off debate on social media.

Others were outraged that Trump said he would be honored to do it.

What do you make of Trumps latest comments on North Korea? Sound off in the comment section below.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

Ann Coulter is OK if North Korea missiles reach Tijuana? Why?
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP)  Police in Bosnia have arrested 14 people, including three politicians, in an organized crime and tax evasion case in which they allegedly skimmed a regional budget of nearly 6 million euros ($7.6 million).

Bosniak-Croat agricultural minister Jerko Ivankovic-Lijanovic, his father and three brothers  one of whom is a state parliament lawmaker  are among those arrested. Bosnia is divided into two regions  one run by Serbs, the other shared by Bosniaks and Croats  that are linked by a central government.

Wednesdays arrests also included the Bosniak-Croat minister of trade and eight others.

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According to the state prosecutors office, the 14 are suspected of registering companies that imported, produced and processed meat and then fictively liquidating them without paying taxes.
A 24-year-old man accused of bludgeoning his father to death was arrested early Wednesday morning in an apartment complex in University City.

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Police were called to the La Jolla Crossroads complex on Judicial Drive at Golden Haven Drive about 1:15 a.m. after receiving a frantic 911 call from a woman, homicide Lt. Ernie Herbert said.

She said her son had killed her husband, Herbert said.

Officers arrived about six minutes later and found the son in the hallway and 64-year-old Alexander Chivatchev dead inside the second-story apartment, Herbert said.

Jail records identify the son as Nikola Chivatchev, who was booked early Wednesday morning on suspicion of murder.

Darren Chaker, 37, was visiting his girlfriend at the multiunit apartment complex when he heard screams for help and called authorities.

He flagged down an officer outside and they both went to the building, where they found the woman standing in the hallway wearing a white nightgown covered in blood. Her son was standing behind her, Chaker said.

The officer asked, Who did this? The woman pointed at her son and the officer handcuffed him, Chaker said.

The man said, Yeah, I did it, Chaker said. The mother was crying and asking, Why? Why did you do this? and the son answered, Because hes an (expletive), Chaker said.

He seemed very proud, Chaker said.

The man was wearing only blue boxer shorts and appeared enraged but not under the influence of anything, Chaker said. The witness said the womans screams were echoing through the hallway, but no one came out or opened a door.

Chaker said he held the womans hand and told her he was sorry about what happened. She thanked him for helping and for coming to her aid, he said.

Police have would not discuss a possible motive for the crime or what was used as a weapon. Herbert said the case is still in the early stages of investigation.
VISTA -- Sheriffs detectives arrested five people Thursday on avariety of charges and recovered several high-end mountain bikesthat were stolen in September from a Vista bicycle manufacturer,authorities said.

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Detectives discovered eight of the bikes -- valued at between$900 and $5,000 each -- in side-by-side storage units in the 200block of Huff Street in Vista. They also found tools commonly usedby burglars, said San Diego sheriffs Detective Jason Vickery.

Earlier in the day, authorities searched a home in the 500 blockof Mar Vista Drive, where they recovered a ninth stolen bike, aswell as materials and chemicals commonly used in the manufacture ofmethamphetamine, Vickery said.

Detectives also found a significant quantity of copper wiringand pipes that Vickery said may have been stolen for its recyclevalue.

Jason Tyler Pickett, 38, and Mark Alan Leidle, 46, bothresidents of the Mar Vista home, were arrested in connection withthe bike thefts, said Vickery, who led the investigation.

Picket, Leidle and three others at the home during the earlymorning raid also face drug charges, according to sheriffs Sgt.Art Wager. The suspects were identified as Leidles son, MarkMatthew Leidle, 18; Leidles wife, Christine Leidle, 48; andRussell Ericson, 25.

The chemicals and materials discovered at the house posed norisk to neighbors or agents, said Drug Enforcement Administrationspokeswoman Eileen Zeidler. The quantities of chemicals seized weresmall, and authorities do not believe the suspects are connected toa larger drug manufacturing organization.

Authorities say the nine bikes were among 30 stolen from atrailer parked behind Haro Bikes in late September.

The wholesale value of all 30 bikes is about $50,000, said JillHamilton, a spokeswoman for Haro Bikes. Hamilton came to theEmerald At 78 Storage facility and identified the eight bikes foundthere as among those taken in September.

Hamilton said she and other company employees had taken the 30bikes in a company trailer to a Las Vegas trade show, returning toVista on Sept. 29. They parked the trailer in the rear of thebuilding in the 1200 block of Avenida Chelsea, but the bikes weregone when they returned to work Oct. 1.

Vickery said security videotapes were among the methods used toidentify suspects.

Hamilton said the company used the bikes as demonstrationmodels, and the theft limited their ability to let potentialcustomers sample the bikes before purchase. Hamilton said she washappy to have at least some of the bikes back.

Authorities are still seeking leads on more than 20 bikes thatare still missing. Wager said the investigation continues.

Contact staff writer Philip K. Ireland at (760) 901-4043 orpireland@nctimes.com.
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP)  Myanmar has a unique opportunity to end decades of ethnic rebellions in various parts of the country, leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Wednesday as she promised that her government will guarantee rebel groups equal rights and respect in historic peace talks that her government organized.

Suu Kyi was speaking at the start of the five-day negotiations aimed at ending decades of separatist insurgencies that have claimed thousands of lives. The talks are being attended by representatives of 17 of the 20 major ethnic groups, including the Karen, Kachin, Shan and Wa, who make up 40 percent of the countrys population.

This is a unique opportunity for us to accomplish a great task that will stand as a landmark throughout our history, said Suu Kyi, whose official title is state counsellor although she is the real power in the government, above the president. Let us grasp this magnificent opportunity with wisdom, courage and perseverance and create a future infused with light.

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Also speaking at the conference, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon noted that every transition takes a risk.

But refusing to embark on transition may carry the greater risk of all. We see tragic evidence of this around the world. I urge you all to continue to face up to your responsibilities, particularly to the youth and children of Myanmar, the future of this wonderful country, he said.

The peace talks are called Union Peace Conference -- 21st Century Panglong, a reference to the Panglong Agreement brokered in 1947 by Suu Kyis late father, independence hero Gen. Aung San, in the town of Panglong, when Myanmar was still ruled by Britain.

The deal granted ethnic minorities autonomy and the right to secede if they worked with the federal government to break away from Britain together. But Aung San was assassinated the following year and the deal fell apart. Since then, ethnic groups have accused successive, mostly military, governments of failing to honor the 1947 pact.

The first uprising  launched by ethnic Karen insurgents  began shortly after independence. Since then other ethnic groups have also taken up arms with roughly the same aim -- to fight for autonomy while resisting Burmanization, a push by the Burman ethnic majority to propagate its language, religion and culture in ethnic minority regions.

The rebel armies control a patchwork of remote territories rich in jade and timber that are located mostly in the north and east along the borders with China and Thailand.

Suu Kyi said her National League for Democracy partys aim has always been to hold political negotiations based on the Panglong spirit and the principle of finding solutions through the guarantee of equal rights, mutual respect and mutual confidence between all ethnic nationalities.

The government that emerged after the 2015 elections is determined to uphold the same principles, she said, referring to the landmark elections that brought the NLD to power after decades of military rule.

The previous military-backed government brokered individual truces with various insurgent groups and oversaw a cease-fire covering eight minor insurgencies last year that fell short of a nationwide deal.

Skirmishes, particularly in northern zones where Kachin insurgents are fighting the army, have displaced more than 100,000 civilians since 2011 alone. At least 100,000 more have sought refuge in squalid camps in neighboring Thailand, and are unlikely to return home until true peace takes hold.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this stunning image of the spiral galaxy NGC 5917.

NGC 5917, also known as LEDA 54809, IRAS 15188-0711 and MCG-01-39-002, is a 13th-magnitude spiral galaxy.

It was discovered on July 16, 1835 by the British astronomer John Herschel.

NGC 5917 lies in the constellation Libra, at a distance of 87 million light-years away.

It has a diameter of roughly 40,000 light-years and is approximately 750 times fainter than can be seen by the unaided eye.

NGC 5917 perhaps is best known for its intriguing interactions with its neighbor, the peculiar spiral galaxy MCG-01-39-003 (not visible here). Together, this pair is known as Arp 254.

Galaxy interactions can lead to very interesting effects: the galaxies can steal mass  in form of stars, dust and gas  from one another, distort and warp one anothers shape, or trigger immense waves of new star formation; sometimes, they interact so strongly that they end up colliding and merging completely.

Unfortunately, if NGC 5917 is destined to merge with MCG-01-39-003, it will happen much too far into the future for us to enjoy the spectacle.

Over the years astronomers have observed a number of supernovae in NGC 5917.

In June 1990, a Type II supernova  now called SN 1990Q  was discovered in this galaxy by C. Pollas of the Observatoire de la Cote dAzur.

In 2005, a Type Ia supernova  SN 2005cf  was discovered by astronomers Pugh and Li with the robotic KAIT telescope.

It appeared to be projected on top of a bridge of matter connecting MCG-01-39-003 with NGC5917.

In January 2013, a supernova called PSN J15213475-0722183 was spotted in NGC 5917 by the CHASE (CHilean Automatic Supernovas sEarch) project.

This image of NGC 5917 is a composite of separate exposures acquired by Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

Several filters were used to sample various wavelengths.

The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter.
Genetic material from 161 modern breeds helped a team of researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health assemble the most comprehensive evolutionary tree of dogs. The results are published in the journal Cell Reports.

The team, led by NHGRI dog geneticist Dr. Elaine Ostrander, examined genomic data from the largest and most diverse group of breeds studied to date, amassing a dataset of 1,346 dogs representing 161 breeds.

Included are populations with vastly different breed histories, originating from all continents except Antarctica, and sampled from North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

There are nearly 400 modern domestic dog breeds with a unique histories and genetic profiles, Dr. Ostrander and co-authors said.

To track the genetic signatures of breed development, we have assembled the most diverse dataset of dog breeds.

Combining genetic distance, migration, and genome-wide haplotype sharing analyses, we uncover geographic patterns of development and independent origins of common traits.

Most popular breeds in America are of European descent, but in the study, the authors found evidence that some breeds from Central and South America  such as the Peruvian Hairless Dog and the Xoloitzcuintle  are likely descended from the New World Dog, an ancient canine sub-species that migrated across the Bering Strait with the ancestors of Native Americans.

Archaeologists have previously reported evidence that the New World Dog existed, but this work marks the first living evidence of them in modern breeds.

What we noticed is that there are groups of American dogs that separated somewhat from the European breeds, said NHGRI dog geneticist Dr. Heidi Parker, first author of the study.

Weve been looking for some kind of signature of the New World Dog, and these dogs have New World Dogs hidden in their genome.

Its unclear precisely which genes in modern hairless dogs are from Europe and which are from their New World ancestors, but Dr. Ostrander, Dr. Parker and their colleagues hope to explore that in future studies.

Other results were more expected. For instance, many breeds of gun dogs, such as Golden Retrievers and Irish Setters, can trace their origins to Victorian England, when new technologies, such as guns, opened up new roles on hunting expeditions.

Those dogs clustered closely together on the phylogenetic tree, as did the spaniel breeds.

Breeds from the Middle East, such as the Saluki, and from Asia, such as Chow Chows and Akitas, seem to have diverged well before the Victorian Explosion in Europe and the United States.

Herding breeds, though largely European in origin, proved to be surprisingly diverse.

When we were looking at herding breeds, we saw much more diversity, where there was a particular group of herding breeds that seemed to come out of the UK, a particular group that came out of northern Europe, and a different group that came out of southern Europe, which shows herding is not a recent thing, Dr. Parker said.

People were using dogs as workers thousands of years ago, not just hundreds of years ago.

Different herding dogs use very different strategies to bring their flocks to heel, so in some ways, the phylogenetic data confirmed what many dog experts had previously suspected.

What that also tells us is that herding dogs were developed not from a singular founder but in several different places and probably different times, Dr. Ostrander said.

_____

Heidi G. Parker et al. 2017. Genomic Analyses Reveal the Influence of Geographic Origin, Migration, and Hybridization on Modern Dog Breed Development. Cell Reports 19 (4): 697-708; doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2017.03.079
An international team of researchers from the United States and Italy has identified new genetic variants associated with extreme survival and reduced risks for cardiovascular and Alzheimers diseases.

The team, led by Boston University Professor Paola Sebastiani, established a consortium of four studies of extreme longevity that contributed 2,070 individuals who survived to the oldest one percentile of survival for the 1900 U.S. birth year cohort.

Out results highlight the importance of studying truly rare survival, to discover combinations of common and rare variants associated with extreme longevity and longer health span, Prof. Sebastiani and co-authors said.

They conducted various analyses to discover longevity-associated variants, and to characterize those variants that differentiated survival to extreme age.

Their analysis identified new extreme longevity-promoting variants on chromosomes 4 and 7, while also confirming variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) previously associated with longevity.

In addition, in two of the datasets where the scientists had age-of-onset data for age-related diseases, they found that certain longevity alleles also were significantly associated with reduced risks for cardiovascular disease and hypertension.

The data and survival analysis provide support for the hypothesis that the genetic makeup of extreme longevity is based on a combination of common and rare variants, with common variants that create the background to survive to relatively common old ages (e.g. into the 80s and 90s), and specific combinations of uncommon and rare variants that add an additional survival advantage to even older ages, the researchers said.

However, while the yield of discovery in the study was more substantial than in prior genome-wide association studies of extreme longevity, it remained disappointing, in that the two most significant genotypes discovered are carried by a very small proportion of the cases included in the analysis, meaning that much of the genetic variability around extreme lifespan remains unexplained.

We expect that many more uncommon genetic variants remain to be discovered through sequencing of centenarian samples, they added.

Larger sample sizes are needed to detect association of rare variants and, therefore, promising associations that miss the threshold for genome-wide significance are important to discuss.

The findings were published recently in the online edition of the Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences.

_____

Paola Sebastiani et al. Four Genome-Wide Association Studies Identify New Extreme Longevity Variants. Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, published online March 15, 2017; doi: 10.1093/gerona/glx027
[NEW DELHI] The Paris Agreements goal of limiting average global warming to less than two degrees Celsius is insufficient to protect the worlds drylands, a new study says.



The study, published online in Nature Climate Change this month (24 April), also suggests that reducing the global warming target to 1.5 degrees Celsius is beneficial to both drylands and humid regions.



These findings are important for Asia-Pacific, a region with both dry and humid lands. The regions surrounding the Thar desert in western India are dry, while the northeast is among the wettest areas in the world. The South-East Asian countries are extremely humid.

Most of the countries with drylands are developing countries with poor representation. Jianping Huang, Key Laboratory for Semi-Arid Climate Change

Drylands cover 41 per cent of earths surface area. Low soil moisture content, sparse vegetation cover, and thin clouds enhance surface warming in these regions defined by scanty rainfall. Over the past century, surface warming over drylands has been 20  40 per cent higher than humid lands, and the trend is increasing.



By simulating conditions under two degrees Celsius of mean global warming, the researchers from China and the US find that the drylands would get hotter by 3.2  4 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial era temperature while humid temperatures in humid areas will increase by 2.4  2.6 degrees Celsius.



Despite emitting significantly less greenhouse gases drylands will end up receiving the brunt of human-induced climate change. The consequences can be disastrous as drylands are home to more than two billion people 90 per cent of whom live in developing countries. The resulting temperature increase can result in reduced maize yields, longer droughts and create climatic conditions conducive to malaria transmission.



Moreover, countries with drylands do not get enough consideration in global climate dialogues like the Paris Agreement.



Most of the countries with drylands are developing countries with poor representation, says Jianping Huang, director and chief scientist at the Key Laboratory for Semi-Arid Climate Change, China, who conceived the study. He believes that reducing the warming target to 1.5 degrees Celsius could reduce the burden on drylands and benefit humid countries as well.

Shalander Kumar, principal scientist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, India, says that the study gives a better understanding of regional contributions and impacts of climate change on humid and dryland regions.Kumar, however, says crop yield variation is much more complex. Changes in rainfall distribution are likely to affect crop yields significantly while the increased levels of carbon dioxide may have a positive impact on crop yields.This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Asia & Pacific desk.
Mapping project shows the most effective peace tech is driven by young people themselves, says Harriet Lamb.

Here we have drug problems, we have terrorism, but we want young people to change their minds  and to change peoples lives.

This is what an enthusiastic young student told me on a recent visit to Ettadhamen, a deprived suburb of Tunis.

Six years after the revolution that led to a change in Tunisias leadership, the country is gradually building a more democratic society. Nonetheless, many social and economic challenges remain. Neighbourhoods like Ettadhamen are marked by poverty and high youth unemployment, and often stigmatised as hotbeds of radicalism.

For young people without jobs and facing discrimination at every turn, taking drugs or joining a radical group such as ISIS seem to offer both status and a way out.

The power to choose a different path can sometimes come from digital tools. In Ettadhamen and in other places affected by violence, young people signing up to the fledging phenomenon of peace tech are beginning to take change into their own hands.

Digital mapping in Tunisia

The latest Global Peace Index (2016) confirms that violence and extremism are on the rise around the world, underlining a need to find creative ways to build more peaceful societies.

Technology is part of the response, with the use of digital tools helping to empower people in places affected by conflict, address drivers of violence and help build durable peace.

That is the idea behind an initiative that uses Open Street Map, a collaborative digital mapping tool used in Tunisia by the NGO I lead, International Alert.

A group of students and graduates from Ettadhamen were trained to use the platform to map out places and street names in their neighbourhood, adding details previously only available in more affluent parts of Tunis. They also identified areas in need of basic services. And they are now working with the local council to shape how half of the public investment budget is spent.

After consulting the community they requested for roads and street lights to be repaired, for rubbish collection points to be introduced and for more play areas for children.

At the start the local authorities didnt believe in us, they thought we were just taking pictures with our phones, said one young man. But now they have seen our achievements [contributing to knowledge and planning for the area], they consider us with respect.

It is no secret that most people who engage in crime or violent extremism today come from marginalised neighbourhoods  whether in North Africa or Europe. By offering social status and the belief they can create positive change, this mapping project not only offers young people new skills, but gives them alternatives.

Not just technology

This is not just about technology. While its true that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are powerful tools that are becoming more accessible globally, the involvement of young people is key. Project after project shows they are becoming pioneers of peace tech in their communities and countries.

The Ushahidi crowdsourcing software in Kenya is arguably the most widely known example. It began with young activists using cell phone calls and text messaging to monitor political conflict in the wake of the 2008 post-election crisis, and is now used in different parts of the globe for humanitarian relief, election monitoring and other purposes.

There are others. In Jordan, a youth-led project called Tech Social, run by International Alert and the organisation Tech Tribes, brings together young Jordanians, and Syrians displaced by the war to identify low-cost technological solutions to some of the issues both their communities face. In the process, it also fosters mutual understanding and friendships between young refugees and locals, helping to enhance social cohesion.

Youth at the helm

In conflict-affected communities around the world, peace-themed hackathons ( #peacehacks ) are leveraging technology to tackle issues such as hate speech or violent extremism.

These examples show that to be most effective, peace tech initiatives must be driven by young people themselves and be embedded in their local realities.

In the Tunisia project, the idea to use Open Street Map came from the young people. It was important to be guided by their particular sense of place: Without jobs, their surroundings bonded them together  and yet that same neighbourhood marked them out. Young men told us how at job interviews, they were too embarrassed to admit to coming from Ettadhamen.

The challenge was to help turn this sense of place into a source of pride and strength. They chose Open Street Map as their platform, and this embodied the overall purpose of the project: to help transform a deprived neighbourhood and empower the people who lived there.

Having done the mapping, the young people also held face-to-face discussions on issues such as the need for services, but also relations between young people and the police. As one participant said: As a young man of Ettadhamen you have this negative relationship of mistrust between the youth and the police  in fact that is the main cause of people joining ISIS.

Everyone acknowledges the pressing need to address the future of young people to build more equal, peaceful and prosperous societies. We must also recognise that young people are not a homogenous group, but have multiple differing needs.

The UN Security Councils adoption of Resolution 2250 on youth, peace and security in 2015 marks a historic change in acknowledging that young people can also lead when it comes to innovative peacebuilding, since they are usually the first to embrace new tools and technologies. Peace tech builds on these strengths.

As one of the young men taking part in the Open Street Map project said, smiling disarmingly: Of course we are not the answer for Tunisia. But we are part of the answer.

Harriet Lamb is the CEO of International Alert. She can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter @HarrietLamb_
Storms, high tides, and ocean level may rose higher in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. These new findings contradict the previous studies where scientists placed the climate change impact at much lower levels. The climate change repercussions may hit harder that previously thought.

According to the California Ocean Protection Council, they are revising the previous predictions on an upward trend. As the Pacific Ocean's water level rises, the council agrees on upscale protection. This may particularly affect low-lying areas such as airports, roads, and communities.

California agrees that the ice sheets in Antarctica are melting too fast than previously thought. This incident can spur dramatic rise on ocean's water level since these sheets hold 90 percent of earth's ice. Deputy director Jenn Eckerle said that they are worried about its impact on California's 1,100 miles of coastline.

Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown takes on the planning and budgeting for climate change mitigation in California, the Time said. Come worst scenario, there is a possibility that the state may order occupants to abandon some affected establishments and buildings. California will also use the prediction as a guide in its zoning policy and in making local decisions to avert the climate change impact.

Even in the best case condition, the California council said that the San Francisco Bay area may suffer an increase of 1 to 2.4 feet rise in the ocean water level by the end of the century, according to ABC News. Again, this "best" scenario is only feasible if the world is going to exert a concerted effort to curb climate change. If not, California may suffer an even more destructive impact.

To recall, California is already experiencing the impact of climate change. While there is a lukewarm reception of the problem in the national government, California continually witnessed crumbling cliffs in oceanfront residential areas. Further, some residents were forced to abandon their houses as the water level continues to push forward inland.
Despite suffering from the fatal nuclear accident 31 years ago at Chernobyl, Ukraine is still using atomic power in order to give electricity to all homes and establishments in the country. It is because the country struggled with a coal shortage after a three-year war against Russian-powered insurgents living in the separatist east.

In a report published in Phys.org, Ukraine, a now crisis-torn country, uses atomic power for more than half of the electricity the country needs. The figure had a nearly three-quarters of all power consumed by the citizens during the natural gas price disputes with Russia from 2014 to 2016.

Although this has been a help for the citizens of Ukraine, some are still worried that the Chernobyl disaster would happen again. Iryna Golovko of the National Ecological Center of Ukraine's energy projects department said that the main risk of using nuclear energy in Ukraine is linked with the reactors that have already surpassed their lifespan.

"Today, six of Ukraine's 15 operating reactors have surpassed their designated service lives," she said in an interview with AFP. Golovko added that by 2020, there would already be 12 of theses operating reactors.

Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko promised the public to pressure and ban all trade with the separatist east last March 15 after they have controlled the coal reserves. He said that the use of nuclear power would have the share of total electricity production.

Before Ukraine had the conflict with the Russian insurgents, 46 percent of establishments in the country are using nuclear energy. After Poroshenko's announcement, the share of nuclear power production jumped to 62 percent from around 55 percent.

Thirty-one years ago, Ukraine was faced with a disaster after the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl exploded. The horrible incident happened in the north part of the former Soviet Ukraine last April 26, 1986, after a test caused an accident at 1:23 AM. This caused thousands of lives lost with the country still suffering from the consequences.
American space agency NASA has reportedly chosen an instrument that could be used to explore certain areas on the Moon. Called "ShadowCam," scientists hope that it could enable them to find and eventually mine mineral deposits worth trillions of dollars from the lunar soil.

The ShadowCam has been developed by researchers from Malin Space Science Systems and Arizona State University. The instrument will be a U.S. contribution to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute's (KARI) first lunar exploration mission -- the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) -- Phys.org has reported.

ShadowCams camera is similar to the optical camera based on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera. However, it is much more sensitive and allows the camera to capture high-resolution, high signal-to-noise imaging of the Moon's permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). According to the U.S. space agency, the instrument will search for volatiles as well as further investigate the distribution of minerals that exist on the Moons surface.

Permanently shadowed regions have been a mystery because the perpetually dark interiors are difficult to image and existing research offers varying interpretations regarding the distribution of volatiles within these cold regions, Director of NASAs Advanced Exploration Systems Division Jason Crusan said, according to a Deccan Chronicle report. Crusan also added that future missions in deep space would be safer and more affordable if humans have the ability to harvest resources on the Moon. Furthermore, the ShadowCam has the potential to greatly increase mankinds understanding of the quality of abundance of those resources in the PSRs.

To be launched in 2018, the Shadowcam will study the PSRs on a monthly basis to find seasonal changes. It will also measure the terrain inside the enigmatic craters in the PSRs, including boulder distribution. Eventually, ShadowCam images will be merged with the Lunar Reconnaissance Obiter Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) images to make complete maps of inside and outside of craters that host PSRs. While the NAC covers the illuminated areas, ShadowCam will take photos of the shadowed areas.
Rape has been an issue that causes controversy, even today. While there have been debates regarding what constitutes "rape," a distrubing new trend regarding intimacy has been unveiled.

In a recent article published in the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, an act called "stealthing" has been gathering attention. It was defined as the act of nonconsensual removal of a condom before or during sex. This sign or symbol of "male dominance" is said to destroy the normalcy of dating, even in today's "hooking up" culture.

This is a cause of concern because of the protections afforded by the use of a condom. For instance, it prevents pregnancy for females, and it serves as protection for sexually transmitted infections (STI) in both males and females. Because of such protections afforded by the use of a condom, there is now an ongoing investigation regarding the legality of "stealthing." It is deemed not only as a form of sexual assault but as a form of gender-based violence as well.

The Washington Times noted that callers to crisis centers have been confused about the act. Many of them were left wondering whether or not removing a condom without their consent constitutes as rape.

Alexandra Brodsky, lead author of the article and a Legal Fellow for National Women's Law Center, said in the study that "proponents of 'stealthing' root their support in an ideology of male supremacy in which violence is a man's natural right." According to Forbes, men in online chat forums actually brag about the right to "spread their seeds." They even feel the rush when they carry out such form of assault, with "how-to" guides displayed in some online forums.

In 2016, a court in Switzerland convicted a man of rape for "stealthing" his partner. In the rationale, it was noted that the act could be called rape because the woman would not have consented to have sex if she knew beforehand that the man would remove his condom.
The HMD Global company recently launched some Nokia-branded phones at the recently held Mobile World Congress event, last February. The brand new Nokia 3310 was launched along with the company's most anticipated Android phones Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6. The Nokia company is expected to make a huge comeback after it will launch all of its flagship devices worldwide.

The prices of the Nokia 3, Nokia 5, Nokia 6 and Nokia 3310 were also announced at the event, but there was no exact release date stated. The HMD Global company promises a Q2 launch for the devices. According to Gadgets 360, most markets and retailers around the world are already eager to know the prices and release dates for the said devices.

HMD Global is the company behind the resurrection of Nokia's new smartphones. It seems like fans need to wait another month for the Nokia 3, Nokia 5, Nokia 6 and Nokia 3310 to be officially available in the market. As per GSMArena, HMD Global might launch the Nokia devices in June 2017.

The Nokia 6 will be the most advanced among other Nokia new devices. The device will run on Pure Android 7.1.1 Nougat. Its screen will be a 5.5-inch full-HD display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The Nokia 6 will be powered by 1.4 GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 430 processor and with a Sealed 3,000 mAh battery. The Nokia 6 is expected to have a price of 229.99 (approximately $297) as stated by Clove.

The Nokia 5 will have a price of 189.99 (approximately $246). It will also run on Pure Android 7.1.1 Nougat. But its screen size will be smaller compared to the Nokia 6. The Nokia 5 will have a 5.2-inch full HD screen also with Corning Gorilla Glass. The Nokia 3, on the other hand, will have a price of 149.99 (approximately $194). It will run on Pure Android 7.0 Nougat with 5 inches screen size with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass.
MIAMI, FLORIDA A MAGICAL WELCOME GREETS MIAMIS NEW CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY APRIL 29, 2017

The Magic Citys new Scientology Church opens its doors in honor of freedom and volunteerism in the cultural core of Miami.

Miami is as much a state of mind as it is a location. The city is, for example, about 230 miles from Havana, Cuba. But todays Miami is as intricately fused with the Cuban capital as the two sides of a coin. Miami is Latin, its Haitian, its Southern, its Yankee, its hot and sweaty and its infinitely cool. Floridas top balladeer, Jimmy Buffett, sang about Miami: We got a style, we got a look, we got that old panache.

Theres a new sparkle to the panache. On US Highway 1, nestled amid the storied bohemian ambiance of Coconut Grove and the international gold-collared town of Coral Gables, 2,000 Scientologists and guests gathered, Saturday, April 29, 2017, atop a prominent structure to celebrate the opening of a Church of Scientology.

Mr. Miscavige delivers his dedication address to the thousands gathered at the festive grand opening ceremony, held Saturday, April 29, in the heart of Miami.

In commemorating the new Church of Scientology for Miami, Mr. David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board Religious Technology Center and ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion closed his inaugural speech by stating:

The sea has many voices, many faces and many moods.

But the more diverse the waters, the greater the romance and adventure.

So sail on Mighty Miami.

Godspeed and good luck.

Yours is now a Ship of State and she sails for all humanity beneath the colors of Scientology!

The new facility is designed to not only bring individuals to more advanced states of mental and spiritual freedom, but as a humanitarian center to launch programs that battle drug abuse and illiteracy, that foster human rights, and that dispatch volunteer teams to crises and calamities across the globe.

And while the Miami Church has similarities to Scientology Churches that stand in both hemispheres of Earth, the tropical Florida site reflects the special local character of the Southern regionjust as the other Churches speak to their cultures, whether in Sydney, Auckland, Kaohsiung, London, Rome, Bogota, Mexico City, Tampa and the dozens of other cities where the religion flourishes.

So, in late April, with Miamis southeast breezes cooling participants, the grand opening celebration rocked to life to a salsa beat that was decidedly Miami Nice. The festivities melded those Latin and dance rhythms with humanitarian heroes, and all of it synchronized toward giving back to this city of freedom.

Miami is many light years distant from 1900, when it was just a trading post with fewer than 2,000 residents staking a claim on the swamps of the Everglades. By 1960, some 935,000 people lived in Miami and by 2015 it had soared to 2.7 millionMiami was the international financial and cultural capital of Latin America.

What happened to cause that? In a word: Freedom.

In early January of 1959, a flood of freedom-seeking refugees began riding the Gulf Stream to Miami on boats, rafts or anything that would float. It wasnt just that the South Florida population surged, the entire character and culture of the City was transformed.

One of the early outposts in what has become the accelerating worldwide expansion of Scientology was in Miami, which first opened in the Magic City on March 11, 1957. And the Church has now grown into its stunning new modern building on Main Street Miami, or South Dixie Highway to the locals, where some 70,000 cars pass by every day. Seven stories high and spanning some 50,000 square feet, it is as Miamis alcaldeor mayor if you dont quite have the tropical lingo down yetMr. Tomas Regalado put it, an anchor for the community, alive with volunteerism.

The Church has activated a number of humanitarian initiatives in efforts to counteract chronic and acute social issues and their new home provides a springboard for every local program. Such activities include partnering with churches, youth community groups, court judges and police officers to implement drug education to resident youth. All told, the Drug-Free World program has impacted over 35,000 in the Miami area alone.

The region is also a hotbed for human rights violations, and thus the Church has carried out awareness campaigns on human trafficking and mental health abuse reaching five million with their messages through public service announcements on Miami-based Spanish TV and in-studio interviews on prime time radio.

Emphasizing the Churchs human rights and humanitarian programs, the celebration featured dignitaries that included: Mayor Tomas Regalado; Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, US Congressman for the 21st District (Ret.); Ms. Tamara Batalha, Miami-Dade County Education Program Director; and Mr. Eduardo Sabillon, Miami City Drug Education Counselor.

In his welcoming address, Mayor Regalado honored the Church opening. To me, the Church of Scientology is very simple, he told the crowd. You learn, you work, you think positive and you help people. For that, and many another reasons, you are a good fit for our city.

Mayor Regalado further explained how, Miami is a gateway to the American Dream. And you have now opened those gates by transforming a cold, sterile building into a vibrant center. ...And your hours of volunteerism will change lives, no doubt about that. So now, all I ask is that you give us even more of your hours. Ten thousand, twenty thousandIll take what I can get. That is what we need from the Church of Scientology.

Former Congressman Diaz-Balart spoke to the mutual passion for igniting human rights and freedom that imbued the days event: I was born in Cuba and came to the United States with my family, fleeing communism when I was four years old, he began. When I first met members of your Church at a Human Rights Conference in Washington, DC, I knew I had met very special human beings. Later, when I went to speak with your Human Rights Division, you didnt say, We want you to help us. You asked, How can we help?

Your work is not just theoretical, Mr. Diaz-Balart continued. Its realvery real. And I have heard back from those who suffer the brutality of oppression, that the materials you distribute are like a breath of fresh air. Inherent in every human being is the need to be free. We all need freedom just as much as we need air to breathe. And your Church and your programs greatly contribute to breathing freedom into peoples lives.

Miami-Dade County Education Program Director, Ms. Tamara Batalha, described herself as a warrior for kids. Yet, at age 10, my own daughter could not read. But, when God shuts a window, He opens a door. And that door was to the Church of Scientology!

Ms. Batalhas daughter enrolled in the Applied Scholastics program based on L. Ron Hubbards groundbreaking study tools. And, in just three months, she went from testing at kindergarten level, to reading and writing at third grade. she said. What you do through Study Technology is a miracle. I began to wonder, now that my child has been saved, how many other children out there can be rescued from illiteracy? Eight months later, she opened an Applied Scholastics school in South Miami.

Miami City Drug Education Counselor, Mr. Eduardo Sabillon, left his native Honduras at age 12, and came to Miamiat a time when the city was synonymous with the worldwide drug trade. Mr. Sabillons passion in life was fighting drugs.

My main challenge was a lack of resources, he told the crowd at the grand opening. When I found your Drug-Free World curriculum, it was as though they were heaven sent. I started out using the program in Miami and saw how much it attracted youth. Its straight-talking style does not sugarcoat the realities of drug use.

And so, word quickly got around. Soon, it seemed like everyone wanted the program, with radio stations calling, TV stations calling, as well as churches and youth groups. They were all saying: We need something that connects with our youth. That is how our Drug-Free movement came alive.

And underscoring the days ever-present spirit of partnership, Mr. Sabillon spoke of the new Scientology Church as an even greater platform for social transformation. We have much more work to do, he said. And so, I want to thank you for this new Church of Scientology and this fantastic new beginning for Miami. Because, after all, its not every day an organization like this opens. And thats why you have my sincere pledge that we all make the most of it.

The new Miami Church offers an Information Center open to the public seven days a week, with some 500 films detailing Founder L. Ron Hubbards life and legacy and Scientology beliefs and practices. It further presents the size and scope of the Churchs humanitarian initiatives and community outreach programs, including a worldwide network of literacy and learning centers; international drug education, prevention and rehabilitation; ever-expanding human rights efforts and the worlds largest independent relief force, the Scientology Volunteer Minister program.

The facility provides for the delivery of an array of Scientology services including evening and weekend Dianetics and Scientology seminars, which offer an overview of fundamental principles and their application to life. A host of Scientology Life Improvement Courses complement the introductory seminars to help better any aspect of living. The Church additionally features an entire wing for Scientology auditing (spiritual counseling).

The Chapel of Miamis new Church of Scientology is designed to host congregational gatherings that include Sunday Services, Weddings and Naming Ceremonies. It is also the perfect setting for open house events, community gatherings, civic brunches and banquets for members of any faith.

The Miami ribbon cutting launches an epic season of expansion for Scientology and simultaneously caps 12 months of unrelenting growth. Recent Church openings have taken place in the San Fernando Valley, California; Auckland, New Zealand; San Diego, California; Sydney, Australia; Harlem, New York; Budapest, Hungary; and Atlanta, Georgia.

Future openings are slated for cultural epicenters in Latin America, North America, Europe, the United Kingdom and Africa.
FLORENCE, S.C.  National Small Business Week is here, and it will be observed locally.

The Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce will hold a Meet and Greet on Tuesday following an 11 a.m. news conference as the chamber office on the corner of West Evans and Dargan streets in downtown Florence.

People from small businesses will have a chance to connect with people from other businesses and local elected officials.

National Small Business Week started Sunday and runs through Saturday.

Every year since 1963, the President of the United States has issued a proclamation announcing National Small Business Week, which recognizes the critical contributions of America's entrepreneurs and small business owners.

More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and they create approximately two out of every three new jobs in the United States each year.

As part of National Small Business Week, the U.S. Small Business Administration takes the opportunity to highlight the impact of outstanding entrepreneurs, small business owners and others from all 50 states and U.S. territories. Every day, they're working to grow small businesses, create 21st century jobs, drive innovation and increase America's global competitiveness.
Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds will succeed Gov. Terry Branstad when he leaves office, but she won't have the power to appoint her own replacement, Attorney General Tom Miller said on Monday.

The attorney general's 23-page opinion drew immediate criticism from Republicans, as Branstad prepares to leave office and become the ambassador to China.

Reynolds has been preparing to take Branstad's place for months, and a simmering question has been whether she would become the governor or simply assume the powers of the office. In addition, questions were raised what powers she would have.

State Sen. David Johnson, an independent from Ocheydan, asked for clarification in February after the governor's office  and, initially, the attorney general, too  said Reynolds could become governor and appoint a successor to her post.

On Monday, Miller, who is a Democrat, said his office took a deeper look after Johnson's request and concluded that, based on the state Constitution and the practice of other states, Reynolds would, in fact, become governor. However, he said the section of Iowa's Constitution that deals with succession, as well as past practices in Iowa and at the federal level, convinced him that while the powers and duties of the office would "devolve" upon the lieutenant governor, Reynolds would not be vacating her post.

Therefore, "there is no vacancy to be filled," he said.

Opinions from the attorney general are not legally binding, but the courts often pay attention to them. It's not clear what will happen next, but Republicans jumped on the development to accuse Miller of flip-flopping. And Reynolds indicated she would pay little heed to the new conclusions.

In a statement, she said, "The law still states that as Governor, I vacate my role as Lt. Governor and am able to appoint a new Lt. Governor. With the law on our side we will move forward with his first conclusion as we examine our options in light of Tom Millers reversal.

Branstad, who is preparing to have his hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, said "this politically motivated opinion defies common sense."

The governor's office pointed to a 2009 state law that they say would give Reynolds the authority to appoint a lieutenant governor. They note the law was signed by Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat. Branstad's office also pointed to other states to back up their case, including a 2009 decision by a New York court that upheld the power of Gov. David Paterson to appoint a lieutenant governor.

Secretary of State Paul Pate also issued a statement in which he and two former secretaries of state, fellow Republican Matt Schultz and Michael Mauro, a Democrat, condemned Miller's opinion. In the statement, Mauro said it was he who proposed the "common sense" changes approved in 2009. Mauro is the Branstad-appointed state labor commissioner.

But Miller, in explaining his decision, said that although "the lieutenant governor becomes governor," there is no power to appoint a replacement because the two offices essentially are merging.

In particular, he pointed to Article IV, Section 19 of Iowa's Constitution, which he said sets out a "precise" order of succession.

"You can't add to it by statute," Miller said.

Despite his opinion on the matter, Miller said his office would not challenge Reynolds should she choose to appoint a lieutenant governor.

"We would hope she wouldn't because we all have the obligation to follow the law," Miller said. But he also said that his office also could not defend the governor's office if such an appointment would be challenged in court.

Miller's opinion Monday was especially striking because in December, he sided with the governor's office. Asked about that, the attorney general said the response then came after a "quick look" at the law and in response to media inquiries. He added it also may have been influenced by his preference, as a matter of policy, that the lieutenant governor be empowered to appoint a replacement.
NORTHWOOD | Mason City students recently sponsored a bedroom makeover for a 5-year-old Northwood girl.

iJAG  Iowa Jobs for America's Graduates  raised over $3,000 at a family fun day for My Happy Place, which does bedroom makeovers for North Iowa children who are ill.

Students began the project after watching the movie, "Pay It Forward." Each class was tasked with putting the philosophy into action by giving back to the community.

Fifth-period iJAG linked up with a seventh-grade class to play a Pay It Forward Family Fun Day for My Happy Place. The event generated enough money to fund a makeover for Annara, a 5-year-old girl who lives in Northwood.

Students and staff were able to see her reaction to her "happy place," which is rainbow-themed.

Mason City iJAG and JAMS students and staff also played a "hand" in decorating three pieces of artwork on walls throughout her room.

My favorite part of the project was the reveal, because I got to see how our hard work made a difference," senior Alexis Albright said in a news release.

The two classes will continue to partner for a project for My Happy Haven, which creates dream rooms for sick women.
Press Release

May 1, 2017 De Lima seeks to participate in Senate sessions Senator Leila M. de Lima has expressed intent to take active part in the deliberations of important legislative measures as well as to attend in other official functions in the Senate even through remote or electronic means. De Lima, who is currently detained at the Philippine National Police--Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City on trumped-up charge of illegal drug trade, made the call as Congress resumes sessions on Tuesdayafter the Lenten recess. "For more two months since I was illegally jailed on sham charges, I have refused to allow political persecution and harassment I suffer under the hands of the present administration to prevent me from fulfilling my electoral mandate," she said. "I have work to do as a senator and I will continue to do so because I owe it to the more than 14 million Filipino people who voted me in office and represent them in the Senate. I hope I can participate in important debates in the Senate," she said. While in detention, De Lima has filed resolutions and bills. She remains the chairperson of the Senate electoral reforms and people's participation committee. The Senator from Bicol cited some cases when detained senators here as well as abroad were permitted to attend to their legislative duties, including participation in Senate proceedings, pending the resolution of the charges levelled against them. "I have authored and sponsored important measures I promised the Filipino electorate to shepherd in the Senate. I have an electoral mandate to fulfill and it is my right to attend and participate in the proceedings in the Senate," she said. The former justice secretary said her legal team is currently studying legal options for her to be allowed to attend sessions at the Senate. "Apart from my rights as a duly-elected senator, I have to invoke my rights as a political prisoner as provided and protected under Philippine laws and jurisprudence as well as the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights," she said. In 1950s, she recalled, former Sen. Justiniano Montano was charged with the non-bailable offense of multiple murders but was allowed to post bail to perform his senatorial duties. She added that sometime in 2008, the Senate under the leadership of then Senate President Aquilino Pimentel allowed then detained Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to participate in Senate proceedings through teleconferencing. De Lima also said she hopes to join her colleagues in deliberating on important measures, notably the proposed revival of death penalty, lowering the criminal age responsibility, and the postponement of barangay elections, among others.
MASON CITY | The old Engine 2 Firehouse on South Federal Avenue could be converted into an office building.

But it would take a lot of work and more than $300,000 to accomplish, according to University of Iowa engineering students who have been working with the Mason City Engineering Department.

The city, which was chosen to participate in the program sponsored by Initiative for Sustainable Communities, provided engineering concepts as senior class projects for the students.

Two projects were selected -- replacing the bridge over Willow Creek on 12th Street Northwest, with a pedestrian sidepath along 12th Street extending between Taft and Van Buren avenues and the restoring the old fire station.

Regarding the fire station, students determined 80 to 85 percent of the brick exterior would have to be replaced or tuck-pointed, all exterior doors and windows would have to be replaced and much work was needed on the ceilings and floors. The foundation was sound, they said.

Because of a number of factors, including limited parking, they thought the best use of the 2,000-square foot building would be as an office building.

While the inside would be completely redesigned, the exterior would have essentially the same look it has now, just with a major facelift.

The bridge over Willow Creek presents numerous challenges, the students said, primarily because of the wear and tear it has received in 70 years of use.

They showed numerous photos and drawings to illustrate changes they thought should be made.

While their presentations were just concepts as part of their engineering classes, city officials said their ideas were worthy of consideration for future city projects.
Immigrant and workers rights advocates, fueled by anger over President Trumps policies, staged raucous May Day protests Monday that attracted thousands of people in cities in the Bay Area and around the nation.

While May Day usually inspires throngs of loud voices, Mondays crowds were especially invigorated by the Trump administrations priorities, particularly against undocumented immigrants.

Its our duty to unite together, said Yadira Sanchez, 26, one of hundreds of demonstrators who blocked the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in San Franciscos Financial District. Theres growing momentum. People are angry and upset.

After circling the streets around the ICE building, the protesters marched down Clay Street to Justin Herman Plaza. By noon, the crowd had swollen to several thousand. Protesters began marching west, down the middle of Market Street. Traffic stalled and police held back cars on side streets.

Shoulder to shoulder at the front of the throng were San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and San Francisco supervisors Jane Kim, Katy Tang and Ahsha Safai, directly behind a banner proclaiming Unidos Somos la Fuerza (Together We Are Strong).

At Civic Center Plaza, the crowd lay down on the scant patches of green, gulping water and slurping frozen treats, while speakers took to a small stage and Latino rappers did their thing.

Today is a labor day and an immigration day, said Yemeni expatriate Ahmed Abosayd, a vice president of the Service Employees International Union local chapter.

Abosayd, whose son, Mustafa, was detained at San Francisco International Airport in the opening hours of the first version of Trumps travel ban in February, urged the crowd to give a message to Donald Trump: No ban, no wall.

In past years, protesters seemed to represent many causes. This year, labor unions, immigrant advocates, teachers and environmentalists coalesced around a single anti-Trump message.

In Oakland, a few dozen protesters gathered at the Alameda County Administration building. Four demonstrators were arrested after chaining themselves to the front of the building.

Demonstrators called on the county Board of Supervisors to rein in the sheriff and stop the agencys cooperation with ICE.

By connecting the fight for immigrants with the fight against police militarization, people in Oakland are standing together, said Mohamed Shehk, a 28-year-old organizer with the Oakland Sin Fronteras activist group. People are galvanized  they see a need to organize and resist.

In all, about 100 demonstrators gathered in the plaza in front of the administration building a couple blocks from Lake Merritt, some with babies, dogs and bicycles in tow. It was a diverse coalition that included Asians for Black Lives, Critical Resistance and Third World Resistance.

Were just out here to demand the Board of Supervisors stop their reliance on military policing  specifically with Urban Shield, said Woods Ervin, 34, of Oakland, referring to the police training program founded by Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern in 2007.

Thousands of protesters rallied in downtown San Jose, where some buses were rerouted and many businesses were closed. Mayor Sam Liccardo welcomed the marchers and vowed to celebrate our community as a welcoming and inclusive place for our immigrant neighbors ... in contrast to the rhetoric emanating from Washington.

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.

Other protests were being organized by the California Teachers Association. The events were expected to put a strain on substitute teacher rolls.

By early in the evening, thousands of people were still marching in Oakland, having made it deep into the city's Fruitvale neighborhood before switching course to the north, marching toward Lake Merritt.

Among the masses was 68-year-old Roy Wilson, an Oakland resident since 1998 and the executive director of Oakland's Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, a group that builds civic engagement amongst local middle and high schoolers.

Wilson was opposed to a number of things: Trump in general, cutting back environmental regulations and the like.

"We the people don't understand, don't care, or don't know what it means," he said, referring to America's status as the most powerful country in the world and how the president is changing things, changing fast.

Dropping sweat and hoisting a sign with three students, Wilson, asked if he was tired after marching since early afternoon, didn't skip a beat.

"Tired?" he said. "I'm feeling great."

Evan Sernoffsky, Filipa Ioannou and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, fioannou@sfchronicle.com, srubenstein@sfchronicle.com
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Airbnb and HomeAway settled a lawsuit against San Francisco on Monday by agreeing to help the city ensure that all local hosts are registered. The agreement caps a multiyear struggle by Airbnbs hometown to rein in burgeoning vacation rentals, which critics say divert precious housing stock into the lucrative travel market.

The two largest (vacation-rental services) will only include legal listings, and the city has the tools for quick, effective enforcement, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said at a crowded news conference in City Hall. He was flanked by lawmakers and representatives of groups that say short-term rentals hurt them, including landlords, hotel workers unions and tenant advocates. Enforcement with real teeth will begin in short order after a phase-in period.

A San Francisco law requiring vacation-rental hosts to register with the city took effect in February 2015. Only about 2,100 out of 8,000 hosts on Airbnb have done so. San Francisco wants properties registered so it can ensure that they meet city rules that aim to prevent illegal hotels in homes, such as requiring vacation-rental hosts to be permanent residents and capping whole-home rentals at 90 days.

Airbnb, later joined by rival HomeAway, sued San Francisco in federal court in June after supervisors unanimously passed legislation holding companies liable for steep fines and criminal penalties if they arrange guest stays at unregistered properties.

Airbnb and HomeAway said the law violated their rights under the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that largely shields Internet service providers from legal responsibility for the content of postings on their sites, and the First Amendment. But U.S. District Judge James Donato appeared highly skeptical of those arguments at court hearings in the fall. In November, he ordered San Francisco and Airbnb to work together on a system for companies to comply with the law by registering their hosts.

The agreement will allow hosts to comply with San Francisco laws with simplicity, certainty, visibility, said Chris Lehane, Airbnbs head of global public policy, in a conference call with reporters. We want to move on and talk about other things.

Those other things probably include preparing for a public offering on Wall Street. Airbnb is among the worlds most-valuable startups, but ongoing regulatory disputes could threaten the $31 billion value investors have placed on it in private fundraising. Lehane took pains in the Monday call to emphasize that Airbnb increasingly is forging agreements with cities worldwide.

City officials, including Mayor Ed Lee, heaped praise on the agreement.

This is a decisive victory for San Francisco, said Supervisor Aaron Peskin, describing Airbnb as being dragged kicking and screaming to the negotiating table.

We demanded a system to prevent landlords taking entire units off the market, said London Breed, Board of Supervisors president. Im thrilled the companies have agreed to abide by sensible regulations.

Likewise, Airbnb hosts said they welcomed a new era of cooperation that would allow them to continue earning extra income by renting to travelers.

The issue of home sharing has been fraught and often used as a political hot potato, with the relationship between City Hall, prominent platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway, hosts and housing advocates often boiling over into unpleasant conflict, wrote Peter Kwan and Laura Thompson, co-chairs of the Home Sharers Democratic Club, in a Medium post.

The U.S. District Court will oversee implementation of the new system. Airbnb and HomeAway will pay the costs to implement it on their respective websites, and will have eight months to phase it in. Its most basic requirement is that all short-term rentals listed on Airbnb and HomeAway must include a city registration number.

Airbnb and hosts had complained that San Franciscos registration process, which required an in-person visit to a city office, was too cumbersome. Now, Airbnb and HomeAway will use a pass-through system to send hosts registration applications directly to the city, which will verify that the application information is correct. The city can reject hosts who dont meet its requirements. Hosts must submit supporting documents, such as utility bills and voter registration cards, to prove that they comply with city rules. Hosts must separately apply for a business-registration certificate from the Treasurers Office, but that can take place online.

The companies will give the city a monthly list of all San Francisco listings so its Office of Short-Term Rentals can verify that they are actually registered. If the city finds any listings with invalid registrations, the companies will cancel future stays and remove those listings.

Within six months, Airbnb and HomeAway will require all new hosts to be registered with San Francisco before they can post a rental listing on either site. Existing hosts will be registered in three batches; details and timing on that are still being worked out.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Hosts could attempt to duck the law by listing on other sites, such as Craigslist or TripAdvisors FlipKey. But those sites will be on the hook for fines of up to $1,000 a day per listing and criminal penalties if they help arrange bookings of unregistered listings, city officials said.

This will be a powerful deterrent for those tempted to illegally convert the citys housing stock into mini hotels, Herrera said in a statement. For those who have been turning badly needed rent-controlled units into vacation spots, that is coming to an end once and for all.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @csaid

Past coverage

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported in depth about the extent of Airbnb use in San Francisco, including data that showed how most hosts were flouting city rules on registration.

2016: As city lowers boom, Airbnb and rivals thrive:

http://projects.sfchronicle.com/2016/airbnb

2015: The Airbnb effect: www.sfchronicle.com/airbnb-impact-san-francisco-2015/

2014: Window into Airbnbs hidden impact on S.F.: www.sfchronicle.com/business/item/Window-into-Airbnb-s-hidden-impact-on-S-F-30110.php
The Federal Communications Commissions recently concluded auction of television airwaves netted 10 Bay Area broadcasters more than $825 million, creating unprecedented windfalls that will help many cash-strapped stations remain on the air for the foreseeable future.

KCSM-TV, a station owned and operated by the San Mateo County Community College District, was supposed to be the 11th broadcaster on that list. But when the FCC released a trove of data about the auction this month, KCSMs name was nowhere to be seen.

That has triggered a legal battle between the district and LocusPoint Networks, an investment firm that agreed to keep the station afloat for years in return for a significant chunk of the stations auction proceeds. Competing lawsuits filed by the district and by LocusPoint could put tens of millions of dollars and the fate of KCSM-TV on the line.

First authorized by Congress in 2012, the spectrum auction presented an opportunity for TV broadcasters to sell some of their bandwidth to wireless providers eager to meet the ever-growing demand for high-speed mobile Internet. Four monthlong bidding stages took place between May 2016 and January. Under rules devised by the FCC, stations that wished to sell spectrum had to participate in each round; missing a round meant being tossed out of the auction.

After years of operating KCSM at a loss, the district was looking at the spectrum auction as a way to gracefully exit the TV broadcasting business. But it didnt have enough cash to keep KCSM afloat through the auction period, so district officials solicited bids for outside investors. It eventually selected LocusPoint in May 2013. (KCSM-FM, a radio station also owned by the district, is not involved in the dispute; radio airwaves werent up for sale in the FCC auction. It has also struggled financially in recent years.)

The investment firm claims in its lawsuit against the district that it agreed to invest up to $3.6 million to fund KCSMs operations. Under the terms of their agreement, LocusPoint would also devise the procedures needed to participate in the auction in return for a 36.5 percent cut of KCSMs auction proceeds.

LocusPoint hired consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to help the station submit its bid. Under the FCCs rules, the investment firm and the district were prohibited from communicating directly with each other during the auction, so the consultants oversaw the bidding process and facilitated communication between the district and LocusPoint.

Precisely how much responsibility PricewaterhouseCoopers had as LocusPoints proxy to ensure that the auction was successful is a key part of the dispute between the district and LocusPoint. A spokeswoman for the consultancy declined to comment on the lawsuits.

By all accounts, the bidding process was running smoothly for KCSM up until Nov. 15, the last day the college district participated in the auction, said Mitchell Bailey, chief of staff in the colleges Office of the Chancellor, in an email.

On that day, the district had intended to continue participating in the auction, as it had been doing for months. The district claims it was online, at the ready to submit a bid under the supervision of a representative from PricewaterhouseCoopers, but something went awry. Exactly what happened is contested between the two sides, but either way, a bid was never submitted to the FCC. KCSM was out of the auction and, in an instant, the chance to reel in a jackpot of tens of millions of dollars vanished.

Because the station wasnt allowed to see the auction through to the end, exactly how much money it lost out on isnt yet known, according to Andrew Bednark, an attorney at the law firm OMelveny & Myers representing LocusPoint. But, he said, you can infer what (the FCC) would have offered KCSM by looking at what it offered other stations.

According to Bednark, the closest comparable regional station that did participate fully in the auction was KTLN, a religious content broadcaster in San Rafael, which brought in $79.3 million from the auction. Bednarks legal team is still calculating the exact damages that LocusPoint will seek against the district, but as a rough estimate, the investors deal for 36.5 percent of KCSMs auction proceeds could have been worth more than $28.9 million.

Bednark and LocusPoint also allege that the district gave false assurances that KCSM was still participating in the auction for three months after it had been disqualified in order to continue receiving funding.

Bednark said LocusPoint lived up to its end of the bargain with the district, and placed responsibility for the botched auction squarely on the districts shoulders.

What the bidding history shows is that (LocusPoints) procedures worked, because when they were followed, the district successfully entered its bid and moved on to the next round, he said. Its when the procedures were deviated from that led us to this current dispute.

Bailey, the district official, blames a PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant for failing to ensure that the bid was successfully submitted. According to Bailey, the consultant, hired by LocusPoint, admitted that he did not request a bid receipt from the FCC.

The proceeds could have been invested in higher education in our community, Bailey said.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa

Dont change that dial

What is the FCC spectrum auction?

The broadcast incentive auction, authorized by Congress in 2012, lets television broadcasters relinquish their rights to spectrum. Wireless carriers bid on the freed-up spectrum, and broadcasters get most of the proceeds.

Will this change how viewers watch TV?

No. Thanks to the 2009 transition to digital broadcasting, the process is complex on the back end, but largely invisible to viewers. In the Bay Area, no stations are going off the air. Instead, they are changing frequencies. Because digital broadcasting requires less space than analog broadcasting, stations can now share channels. These channel-sharing agreements, which will get sorted out over the next few years, require a complex process of re-packing stations across the remaining spectrum, but the flexibility of digital broadcasting means that they can keep their channel numbers.

Who made what?

Fifty wireless companies bid $19.8 billion nationwide. Of that, $7.3 billion went to reduce the federal deficit. After other costs and set-asides, broadcasters got $10 billion. The 10 Bay Area stations got more than $825 million. The biggest local winner: KTNC, which got $114.2 million. That station is currently airing paid programming after recently parting ways with a Spanish-language network.

What will the money be used for?

It varies by station. Some broadcasters are handing the money over to investors, while others are using it to fund the process of moving channels or upgrading equipment. Public broadcasters KQED and KRCB are adding to their endowments.

Source: Federal Communications Commission, Chronicle research
A foiled robbery in East Oakland led police to arrest a teenage suspect in last months swarm robbery on BART, in which dozens of juveniles allegedly took over a train stopped at Coliseum Station, officials said Monday.

The arrest comes as BART seeks to identify more suspects in the April 22 train attack, while increasing police patrols on the transit system in the wake of a spike in robberies.

The arrest was the second in connection with the mob robbery, as another boy was arrested earlier Friday, BART said. But he has since been released from custody without charges  a development that BART did not announce or explain.

According to BART police, the latest arrest occurred around 5 p.m. Friday, after a plainclothes Oakland police officer witnessed a robbery on the 6200 block of Camden Street in the Frick neighborhood of East Oakland.

Responding officers tried to pull over three boys as they drove away, but they kept going, prompting a brief pursuit, police said. The chase ended when the suspects crashed into a car near Hegenberger Road and Interstate 880 and fled on foot, officials said.

Officers caught all three juveniles, and no injuries were reported. Prior to the arrest, BART said, investigators had identified one of the teens through surveillance video as one of at least 40 juveniles who participated in the train robbery.

According to police, the juveniles jumped the fare gates shortly before 9:30 p.m. on April 22 and rushed aboard at least two cars of a Dublin-bound train at Coliseum Station. While some held doors open, stalling the train, others ran through cars and some robbed and beat passengers, officials said.

The teens scattered from the scene within minutes, thwarting responding officers.

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 fact this juvenile was out committing a robbery in another jurisdiction with other minors just days following the BART incident is testament of the need for agencies to work together collaboratively to solve regional issues and share resources and intelligence data, said BARTs acting police chief, Jeff Jennings. BART Police will continue to work toward identifying the suspects involved in the Coliseum incident.

The juvenile arrested Friday will face charges arising from both incidents, authorities said. He was in custody Monday at Alameda County Juvenile Hall.

Jennings last week declared a state of emergency for his department in response to a rise in robberies and other crimes on the train system. Under the declaration, BART officers must work overtime and cannot take time off beyond planned vacations.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
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Mario Wagner was trained in the family flooring business, Wagners Carpet Installations, which was run by his father and uncle.

But it collapsed after 20 years, and Wagner wanted to avoid such a fate for his company in Oakland, RF Contractors.

He sought guidance from Turner Group Construction, a family-run business that has worked on several high-profile Bay Area projects, including the renovation of the Fox Theater in Oakland. He admired how the family members worked together at Turner.

Not only that, they work with the community, Wagner, 30, said. It reminded me of the family business we had where we gave out turkeys and things like that. I wanted to continue that.

I kind of took to them, because they represented where I wanted to take my business. The Turners really saw the dedication that I had.

But Wagner, an Oakland native who dropped out of high school to start his own flooring business, said he needed mentoring to keep the business on a prosperous track. Thats a challenge facing young, black contractors.

What the Turner family represents to him is more than subcontracting work tossed his direction. Wagner said they have provided business knowledge and skills taught in classes at the Bay Area Resource Center, a contractor outreach program started by Turner Group.

Thats more valuable than anything, Wagner said. I took advantage of those classes. I think Ive surpassed the knowledge portion of the business that my uncle and dad had.

His father and uncle now work for him at RF Contractors, which has done projects for Mens Wearhouse, San Francisco International Airport and Oakland Housing Authority.

Now its the Turners turn to fight for the life of their company.

Last month a federal grand jury indicted eight people after a bid-rigging investigation. Two of the people charged were Turner Group Construction executives and brothers: Chief Operating Officer Lance Turner, 57, of Oakland and Chief Financial Officer Len Turner, 56, of San Leandro.

Both face charges of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Department of Energy.

According to the indictment, the Turners engaged in bid rigging for a contract to renovate a Department of Energy-owned building at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Turners allegedly were aided in the scheme by Taj Reid, the son of Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid.

Taj Reid and the Turners allegedly colluded with a developer willing to pay bribes. The developer was actually an undercover FBI informant. The Turners allegedly agreed to submit a higher bid so that the developer could secure the contract with a lower bid.

According to attorneys representing the Turners, millions of dollars in projects that were in the companys pipeline have been frozen or postponed since the indictment. If the brothers are convicted, it could be a fatal blow to a homegrown company that gives second chances to ex-cons, a company that pulled up other local black and brown contractors as its business expanded.

But the case against the Turners seems weirdly constructed. And looking at how the developer  known to those he was introduced to as William Joseph  socialized makes me wonder what the government was after.

After snagging state Sen. Leland Yee and former San Francisco school board President Keith Jackson in a sting, the feds angled for some big fish across the bay in Oakland. They used Joseph, a black man whose cover story was that he was an Atlanta developer looking to put some money into big projects, like a five-star hotel near the Coliseum complex in Oakland.

According to my colleagues Matier & Ross, Joseph waved around a multimillion-dollar letter of credit and bragged that he had access to even more money. While its unknown just who Joseph had meetings with, he approached at least two black San Francisco supervisors, London Breed and Malia Cohen. He also reached out to at least two black Oakland City Council members, Reid and Lynette Gibson McElhaney.

And six of the eight men indicted along with the Turners are black.

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.

When the Turners are vindicated, the government will have to answer to why it deliberately went and tried to target a minority business with an excellent reputation in the East Bay community, Dennis Riordan, Len Turners attorney, told me.

The Turners entered not guilty pleas last week.

Our clients are innocent of the charges, we believe, said Martha Boersch, who represents Lance Turner. Theyre looking forward to showing that and proving that in court.

Their defense is that the bid Turner Group submitted was legitimate.

The point is that if they in good faith believed that they were submitting a valid bid on the DOE project, theres nothing wrong with that, Riordan said. They were led to believe by Joseph there was a valid project so they submitted what they believed to be a valid bid in connection with that project.

Wagner told me the indictment of the Turners feels like an assault. He said he still had a lot to learn from them as he builds toward his goal of securing a million-dollar contract.

Last week, he submitted a $400,000 bid to do the floors for a senior housing project in Richmond.

I remember not having opportunities and knocking on doors, and Im glad the Turner door opened, said Wagner, who is enrolled in a 10-week project management course at Bay Area Resource Center. Im able to help other subcontractors and even general contractors with what Ive been taught.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
Dublin, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Hospital Infection Prevention And Control Market Size, Market Share, Application Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Trends, Key Players, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts, 2013 to 2024" report to their offering.



The global hospital infection prevention and control market was valued at US$ 142.6 Mn in 2015, and is expected to reach US$ 245.6 Mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2016 to 2024.



The market experts suggest that healthcare associated infections are a costly issue faced by many hospitals across the globe. Hospital acquired infections are type of infections that are observed in patients during the course of receiving treatment for unrelated conditions. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), infectious waste contributes in this way to the risk of nosocomial infections, putting the health of hospital personnel, and patients, at risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistically suggested that, with approximately 300,000 occurrences each year, surgical site infections (SSIs) are the second most prevalent HAI in the United States, preceded only by urinary tract infections. At a cost of approximately US$ 10 Bn annually, this high incidence of SSIs significantly impacts the U.S. healthcare system, as well as the bottom line of individual hospitals.



The occurrence of nosocomial infections has been observed worldwide in both developed and resource-poor countries. Key factors assisting the growth of hospital infections prevention and control market are rising prevalence of infections, implementation of stringent guidelines associated with hospital infection prevention and control, developing healthcare infrastructure in emerging countries, and rising number of hospitals across the world.



The global hospital infection prevention and control market is segmented by infection type as pneumonia, urinary tract infection, blood stream infection, surgical site infection, MRSA and others. These are the major types of hospital acquired infections that find the highest prevalence. As sourced from the CDC, ventilator associated pneumonia and surgical site infection are the most common conditions followed by GI infection, UTI, and primary blood stream infection.



Global Hospital Infection Prevention and Control Market are segmented by Product type as Infection Prevention Supplies, Infection Prevention Equipment and Infection Prevention Services. Infection prevention supplies held the largest share in the overall hospital infection prevention and control market.



Key Market Movements:



Hospital acquired infections are a growing issue of preventable disease burden in respect of morbidity and mortality in all countries. Nosocomial infection is major cause of concern for the patient and as well as the health care providers. The rising prevalence of the nosocomial infection is major driving factor for hospital infection and prevention market.

WHO and various others regulatory bodies at regional and national level provide guidelines for hospital infection prevention and control. The significant steps taken to control infection include to identify patients at risk of nosocomial infection, maintaining the hand hygiene, practicing standard precautionary measure to reduce the transmission and applying novel strategies to reduce VAP, CR-BSI, and CAUTI.

In Emerging economies, there is rise in R&D and increase government initiative in health care sector. There has being introduction of key corporate hospital chains, which play major role in driving the growth and the expansion of the healthcare sector. With this rise in the number of hospital increases the chances of nosocomial infection.

Scope of the Report

Based on the therapeutic application type, the global hospital infection prevention and control market is segmented as follows:



Infection Prevention Supplies:



Disinfectants

Protective Apparel & Textiles

Safety-Enhanced Medical Devices

Sterilization Supplies

Medical Waste Disposal Supplies

Infection Prevention Equipment:



Endoscope Reprocessors

Sterilization Equipment

Washing/Disinfecting Equipment

Other Infection Prevention Equipment

Infection Prevention Services:



Endoscope Reprocessors

Sterilization Equipment

Washing/Disinfecting Equipment

Other Infection Prevention Equipment

Companies Mentioned



3M Company

Ansell Ltd.

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Belimed AG

Bemis Company, Inc.

B. Braun Melsungen AG

Cantel Medical Corp.

Cardinal Health, Inc.

Covidien plc.

Crosstex International, Inc.

Danaher Corp.

Diversey, Inc.

Getinge Group

Johnson & Johnson

Halyard Health, Inc.

MMM Group

Matachana Group

Medivators, Inc.

Purdue Pharma LP

Sealed Air Corp.

Semperit AG Holding

Synergy Health plc.

Terumo Corp.

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zkgjh8/global_hospital




This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Daniel Acker/Bloomberg Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Associated Press Show More Show Less



Oil prices are in a prolonged slump, gasoline demand is weak, and the international oil cartel is limiting supply. U.S. oil production, buoyed by relatively recent advances in drilling technology, is high and rising. And American oil companies are doing fine, thanks: Exxon Mobil just beat expectations by announcing $4 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year.

Its against this incongruous backdrop that President Trump ordered a potential expansion of oil drilling off California and other coastal areas Friday, attempting to reverse a drilling ban ordered by his predecessor. Never mind that Californians are overwhelmingly against more offshore oil exploration, as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wanly acknowledged of his wifes native Santa Barbara. A lot of people dont like it out there, Zinke said  a mild way to characterize sentiment in the region, which in 1969 suffered what was then the worst oil spoil in U.S. history, leading to landmark environmental legislation.
For many in California, Sen. Dianne Feinstein is an institution. First elected to the Senate in 1992, Feinstein has now served a quarter of a century. Because of her seniority, Feinstein is on key committees in the Senate, including Judiciary (where she is the ranking member), Appropriations and Intelligence. She has used her Senate position well. Over the course of her career, Feinstein has been a proponent of an assault-weapons ban, health care access for all and humane treatment of suspected terrorists. She has represented California admirably on a range of issues important to this state.

But Feinsteins core issue is not so much her history in Congress as her future.

She is 83 years old and the oldest member of the Senate. If Feinstein runs for re-election next year, wins and serves the entire six years, she would complete her term at the age of 91. Feinstein has not revealed whether she will run for another term, but she has already held fundraisers. The question that growing numbers of supporters now discuss quietly is whether, despite her successes in the Senate, Feinstein should run yet again.

There are legitimate reasons for debating Feinsteins future. The first centers on her health; Feinstein received a pacemaker a few months ago and, to her credit, was on the Senate floor the next day. Nevertheless, heart issues are serious. Moreover, Richard Blum, Feinsteins husband, also has serious health problems.

The second reason concerns Feinsteins politics. When first elected, Feinstein ran and behaved as a moderate Democrat, refusing to move closer to the liberal edge of the party. Such an attitude was acceptable then, but today Democrats in California tend to be much more liberal than Feinstein. She has particular exposure on environmental issues, where she has consistently favored the needs of California farmers over those who seek to minimize artificial redirection of water in ways that would harm endangered aquatic species. She also has been slow to criticize President Trump, who is scorned by the liberal Democratic community in California.

Simply put, Feinstein is now  and has been for several years  out of step with the core of the states Democratic Party.

The third, and perhaps most pressing issue, involves Feinsteins age. While Feinstein seems vigorous enough at the moment, its hard to imagine that her energy would continue at the same level as a nonagenarian. Few people work stressful hours at that age because the body and mind can perform only so well at that point in life. Aging is a reality that is never pleasant but a reality nonetheless.

The voters seem concerned, to be sure. A recent statewide survey asked participants whether Feinstein should run for a fifth full term. With her age not mentioned, 48 percent agreed she should run, while 52 percent disagreed. Once Feinsteins age was disclosed to the survey participants, however, only 38 percent agreed that she should pursue another term, compared with 62 percent who disagreed. Simply put, for voters, Feinsteins age may well be a liability. Combined, these three factors could make re-election difficult for her.

Indeed, there are plenty of younger Democrats ready to run for the Senate. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was recently re-elected with 81 percent of the vote in an 11-person race, stands as a possibility.

Former hedge fund manager and major liberal Democratic benefactor Tom Steyer is another.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and poster boy for keeping it on track, has become a nationally known and well-respected figure.

Another half-dozen Democrats could easily be added to the list. Yet, its hard to know which of them, if any, would risk their political careers to run against Feinstein, should she choose to seek another term.

The question of Feinsteins long-term viability is critical, given the importance of the Senate and the need for Californias senators to be vigilant in protecting the states interests. In this sense, the issue is not only about her future, but also our states future.

There is nothing more difficult than the decision to leave ones work, whatever the field, particularly if an individual enjoys his or her endeavor and continues to produce. Yet, for virtually all of us, a time comes to step down while we are still at the top of our game. Several years ago when then-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked why he was retiring from the nations most prestigious judicial institution at the age of 83, he answered candidly, Because Im old!

Dianne Feinsteins health may be fine at the age of 91; then again, it may not. In the brutal business of national politics, that uncertainty should not be left to chance.

Larry N. Gerston is professor emeritus of political science at San Jose State University and author of Not So Golden After All: The Rise and Fall of California (Taylor & Francis, 2012).
Commonly touted as the greatest living theater director, Peter Brook might be more impressively labeled as the greatest working one. At 92, the British author, filmmaker and master of the stage, Brook is still on the move.

His latest production, Battlefield  a 70-minute distillation of portions of the ancient Indian epic The Mahabharata, which Brook first brought fully to the stage to acclaim in 1985  has been touring internationally since its Paris premiere in 2015, and is at American Conservatory Theaters Geary Theater through May 21.

In contrast to the sprawling nine-hour eponymous production of The Mahabharata Brook staged in a quarry over 30 years earlier (and a Brook-directed film version in 1989), Battlefield is a minimalist, four-person one-act observing the aftermath of a great war for a throne that has left hundreds of millions dead. The victor and new king, Yudhishthira, searches for wisdom as he struggles to find solace in his crown amid the resulting bloodshed.

Pascal Victor / ArtComArt

Adapted and directed by Brook and his longtime collaborator, Marie-Helene Estienne, the work has played in small and large venues alike, including schools and prisons, and Brook will continue to traverse the globe with the production after its San Francisco run.

We go where were invited, Brook says. We never say, Take us.

This is perhaps the first lesson I learned in the theater: If you are lucky enough to do something that really seems to touch people, its your responsibility to go on playing it as long as there are people who call for it.

This mentality is perhaps what has fueled Brook to continue creating after a decades-long career that has carved out some of modern theaters singularly seminal moments: from the first English-language production of Marat/Sade in 1964 to the theatrical landmark of his 1970 radical rendition of A Midsummer Nights Dream, which came to ACT in 1973. Brooks The Mahabharata was hailed for wrestling the epic, known as the longest poem ever, into a groundbreaking theatrical event.

But Brook, soft-spoken and unassuming, pays no mind to intimations of a grand legacy.

F that, says the 92-year old with a cheeky smile. My legacy is what at this moment I can bring.

Neither does Brook care to assess the state of theater; to prognosticate on the future of the stage is like asking a chef to explain the future of food, Brook says. The present moment, the here and now, is where he resides and the space in which all theater exists.

Thats why for us on tour, what happened last week, what happened in Washington, what happened in Madrid  these are all very rewarding and splendid experiences. But theyre over, Brook says. Tomorrow we will begin again. And its always  begin again, now.

It may come as a surprise then that Battlefield draws again from the epic Sanskrit text Brook has explored before. But Battlefield is a far cry from his dusk-to-dawn 1985 work. The new one-act is sparsely staged, in contrast to earlier portions of Brooks career that played with technical innovation and, Brook says, focused on imagery.

But the simplicity is not a starting point. You have to go through excess of every sort, he says. I gradually discovered that the richest material was inside the human being. So then, my interest went more and more to the actors, a treasure trove of richness.

Brook prefers to think of The Mahabharata as revisiting him and Estienne rather than the vice versa. The immediate themes of Battlefield, the consequences of war and the arbitrary meaning of victory in its context, sprang up for Brook against the current backdrop of mass death such as that in the Syrian war.

The inspiration was found in the epic poems parallel to what Brook says is our modern responsibility to do everything to our dying day to help rebuild the world.

What in this era of darkness and destruction, can possibly bring a glimmer of hope into the world? Brook poses. What can give one the courage to say, No we mustnt give up  we must go on?

But Brook in no way sees a stage production as a harbinger of revolutionary change, nor does he wish to say what reading ought to be made or what answers, if any, to expect from Battlefield. As one of theaters loftiest figures, Brook adamantly shirks the role of the sage analyzing the stage or his works.

Im not here with a message. Im not here to think I know better than anyone else, Brook says. But I do think that something emerges when things are shared. Thats what we were looking for (during the early days of Brooks troupe, International Centre for Theatre Research) in an African village, an Iranian village, the streets of Brooklyn  where we feel for a moment something of meaning is being lived together.

Works that are true and sincere, Brook says, unite an audience whose members invariably carry a set of differences and frustrations. And living that strong experience together, when they come out, they dont come out defeated. They come out with a little more courage than when they came in.

As for what has kept him to this form of connection for decades, Brook cannot say except to feel useful to others if capable. But will there come a time when the stalwart steps away?

Yeah, Brook says and pauses for a while. Were all born to die. And the day will come when Ill be taken away. Thats how it is.

Brandon Yu is a Bay Area freelance writer.

Battlefield: Adapted and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Helene Estienne. Through May 21. $25-$115, subject to change. ACTs Geary Theater, 415 Geary St., S.F. (415) 749-2228. www.act-sf.org
Its getting increasingly difficult in the Bay Area to turn around without hearing about seemingly impossible new fares to Europe from a low-cost airline. On approach for landing next month is service by Level, a new budget carrier started by International Airlines Group (IAG), which announced in March that its fares between Oakland and Barcelona would start at $149.

Simply, the low-cost airlines have taken everything that isnt the actual ticket (the part they pay taxes on) and moved it to the a la carte menu, in part so they dont have to pay taxes on whats known as ancillary items, but also so they can lure passengers with rock-bottom fares. Picking your seat? Thatll be $13 per leg of the trip. A full-size carry-on? $80. Each way.

Because Level is the latest but by no means the last to make such offers  even United and Delta are offering no-frills fares  here are a few tips and insights on making sure your bargain flight is actually a bargain.

Dont get suckered by advertised or introductory fares. Along with Level, WOW Airlines and Norwegian entered the local market in recent years with impossibly low introductory fares to Europe that likely only applied to a few seats on four flights. Also, even after the intro fares are over, remember that most advertised fares are one way, and the return flight will nearly always cost more  often a lot more  than the low-cost flight over there.

Not all airports are the same. Be prepared to land at an obscure airport hell-and-gone from your destination city (possibly requiring pricey transportation that negates your savings). The bigger the airport, the higher the landing fees, so the budget lines fly in and out of sites that often are more remote.

Ricksteves.com

BYOS (but not too much). Bring your own stuff  snacks, water, inflatable pillow and warm clothes  because if you need any of those things from the airline (including water, in some cases), it will cost extra. Sometimes a lot extra. However, unless you paid more to bring on a larger carry-on, you might not have room to bring anything more than a sandwich, a bottle of water and a box of Tic Tac for that flight to Iceland.

Dont guess the size or weight of your bags. On Uniteds basic economy fares, full-size carry-on luggage isnt allowed, although you can bring a personal item that is no more than 17 by 10 by 9 inches and must fit under the seat. If you bring anything larger, the crew will make you gate-check the bag and charge you a checked bag fee (usually $25), plus another $25 gate handling charge. With most European low-cost airlines there are similar restrictions, although they tend to pay more attention to weight. Because the airlines are newly motivated to follow the rules (where money is involved), the extra pound or extra inch is going to cost you. Buy an inexpensive luggage scale and a tape measure and make sure everything is within limits before you leave home.

Bring a good book. Or two. If a flight is canceled, the airlines are really only required to put you on the next available flight, which is fine if there are five flights a day. Unfortunately, the low-cost airlines are flying these budget routes no more than daily and, in some cases, only three or four times a week. So the next flight might be a while. Also, the lack of frequent flights tends to mean longer layovers between connecting flights, sometimes in smaller, remote airports (see above).

Seat backs are no longer saddlebags. The budget carriers tend to have newer fleets, one feature of which is thinner seats that have a hard-plastic slot for a few magazines, the safety card and an air-sickness bag. The expandable pocket below was removed, supposedly to give you more legroom, although it was probably more about putting in more rows.

Find out if booking online will incur an extra credit card fee. While a fee for using a credit card is commonly included in the price, a few airlines have decided to separate it out and fatten it up a bit. This is probably the best test of your fine-print-reading skills.

In general, the best advice is to plan carefully, be flexible, read all the terms and do a variety of searches to test which days and destinations are the best deal for you. And while you should avoid basing your vacation plans solely on the cheapest tickets available, if an ultra-low fare motivates you to go someplace new, then it might just be worth it.

Spud Hilton is the editor of Travel. Email: shilton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter and Instagram: @SpudHilton
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Political events in the Bay Area

Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening.

Saturday

Immigration event: Remembering the 135th Anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act and standing in opposition to President Trumps proposed travel ban. A rally will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Portsmouth Square, 733 Kearny St. in San Francisco. Contact Chinese for Affirmative Action: (415) 274-6750.

Sanctuary cities discussion: A panel hosted by the Freedom Socialist Party Bay Area on how unions, religious groups and schools can defend immigrants. Doors open at 1 p.m., and the panel talk begins at 2 p.m. at New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk St. in San Francisco. For information, call (415) 864-1278 or email bafsp@earthlink.com.

Health care film: Healthcare for Everybody will be screened from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Contra Costa Central Labor Council, 1333 Pine St., Suite E in Martinez. The event is free.

Monday

Health care film: A screening of Now Is the Time, followed by a discussion on the proposed California proposition for a single-payer plan. The event is from 2 to 4 p.m. at the San Lorenzo Library, 395 Paseo Grande in San Lorenzo. For information, contact aruchlis@gmail.com.

To list an event, email Sarah Ravani at sravani@sfchronicle.com.
Immigrant and workers rights advocates, fueled by anger over President Trumps policies, staged raucous May Day protests Monday that attracted thousands of people in cities in the Bay Area and around the nation.

While May Day usually inspires throngs of loud voices, Mondays crowds were especially invigorated by the Trump administrations priorities, particularly against undocumented immigrants.

Its our duty to unite together, said Yadira Sanchez, 26, one of hundreds of demonstrators who blocked the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in San Franciscos Financial District. Theres growing momentum. People are angry and upset.

After circling the streets around the ICE building, the protesters marched down Clay Street to Justin Herman Plaza. By noon, the crowd had swollen to several thousand. Protesters began marching west, down the middle of Market Street. Traffic stalled and police held back cars on side streets.

Shoulder to shoulder at the front of the throng were San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and San Francisco supervisors Jane Kim, Katy Tang and Ahsha Safai, directly behind a banner proclaiming Unidos Somos la Fuerza (Together We Are Strong).

At Civic Center Plaza, the crowd lay down on the scant patches of green, gulping water and slurping frozen treats, while speakers took to a small stage and Latino rappers did their thing.

Today is a labor day and an immigration day, said Yemeni expatriate Ahmed Abosayd, a vice president of the Service Employees International Union local chapter.

Abosayd, whose son, Mustafa, was detained at San Francisco International Airport in the opening hours of the first version of Trumps travel ban in February, urged the crowd to give a message to Donald Trump: No ban, no wall.

In past years, protesters seemed to represent many causes. This year, labor unions, immigrant advocates, teachers and environmentalists coalesced around a single anti-Trump message.

In Oakland, a few dozen protesters gathered at the Alameda County Administration building. Four demonstrators were arrested after chaining themselves to the front of the building.

Demonstrators called on the county Board of Supervisors to rein in the sheriff and stop the agencys cooperation with ICE.

By connecting the fight for immigrants with the fight against police militarization, people in Oakland are standing together, said Mohamed Shehk, a 28-year-old organizer with the Oakland Sin Fronteras activist group. People are galvanized  they see a need to organize and resist.

In all, about 100 demonstrators gathered in the plaza in front of the administration building a couple blocks from Lake Merritt, some with babies, dogs and bicycles in tow. It was a diverse coalition that included Asians for Black Lives, Critical Resistance and Third World Resistance.

Were just out here to demand the Board of Supervisors stop their reliance on military policing  specifically with Urban Shield, said Woods Ervin, 34, of Oakland, referring to the police training program founded by Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern in 2007.

Thousands of protesters rallied in downtown San Jose, where some buses were rerouted and many businesses were closed. Mayor Sam Liccardo welcomed the marchers and vowed to celebrate our community as a welcoming and inclusive place for our immigrant neighbors ... in contrast to the rhetoric emanating from Washington.

Other protests were being organized by the California Teachers Association. The events were expected to put a strain on substitute teacher rolls.

By early in the evening, thousands of people were still marching in Oakland, having made it deep into the city's Fruitvale neighborhood before switching course to the north, marching toward Lake Merritt.

Among the masses was 68-year-old Roy Wilson, an Oakland resident since 1998 and the executive director of Oakland's Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, a group that builds civic engagement amongst local middle and high schoolers.

Wilson was opposed to a number of things: Trump in general, cutting back environmental regulations and the like.

"We the people don't understand, don't care, or don't know what it means," he said, referring to America's status as the most powerful country in the world and how the president is changing things, changing fast.

Dropping sweat and hoisting a sign with three students, Wilson, asked if he was tired after marching since early afternoon, didn't skip a beat.

"Tired?" he said. "I'm feeling great."

Evan Sernoffsky, Filipa Ioannou and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com, fioannou@sfchronicle.com, srubenstein@sfchronicle.com
NEW YORK, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Class Action Money & Ethics 2017 Conference -- Sipree, Inc., a financial technology company built for the enterprise, today announced the application of its enterprise fintech platform into the complex litigation world of mass tort, securities, antitrust, and class action settlements.



Siprees FinTech platform is ideal for high volume irregular payouts where speed, deliverability, security, and transparency are vital  like claims, commissions, refunds, good-will payments, and, now legal settlements. Siprees platform enables integrated digital notice and payments, as well as highly targeted acquisition to drive larger class participation and faster settlement, with full court compliance and accountability to the class.

Aiming to fully digitize all settlement payouts, Sipree enables law firms to easily take advantage of modern payment networks  like PayPal, Amazon Balance, Google Wallet, Venmo, Visa/Mastercard debit push, and more  reaching virtually all US consumers and small business recipients.

This is just the beginning. Weve leveraged what our Global 2000 and Public Sector customers rely on to deliver historic results, settling payments with class members their way, said Mark Sole, CEO at Sipree. The power of our SaaS platform in litigation is in its any-scale operation, precision engineering in micro targeting, along with all the vital table stakes in security, identity validation and fraud mitigation that our enterprise customers demand. The results of multiple cases weve run speak for themselves; higher claim conversion, greater class member coverage and a frictionless settlement process.

Siprees patented and patent-pending services architecture offers key advantages for large, global enterprises like airlines, insurance companies, consumer product goods, legal firms, and government agencies, such as:

Ubiquity of digital payment options: Gives recipients choice, speed, and delight

Gives recipients choice, speed, and delight Central controls : Customized workflows for extra security, compliance, and fraud mitigation

: Customized workflows for extra security, compliance, and fraud mitigation Easy implementation : Flexible SaaS delivery model integrates with any backend systems

: Flexible SaaS delivery model integrates with any backend systems Scalability: Built and tested to handle millions of payments across multiple departments, use cases, and geographies for massive scale

Siprees technology is going to revolutionize how payments are made in class cases, said Jeff Friedman, Partner at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Its long overdue that technology is leveraged to digitize and expedite the process holistically. Weve looked for a solution like Siprees to deliver cash payments to our class members, with Rule 23 adherence, no cy pres and a predictable and repeatable process to get payments to more class members, faster, and more efficiently. We want this to become the standard in the industry.

Download free case overview:

To download a free case summary of the Fresh Milk Products Antitrust Litigation settlement, visit www.sipree.com/boughtmilkcase. To learn more about Siprees solutions for innovating legal settlements, visit www.sipree.com/legal-services.

About Hagens Berman

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is a law firm with offices in 10 cities and has been named to the National Law Journals Plaintiffs Hot List eight times. More about the law firm and its successes can be found at www.hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.

About Sipree

Sipree is a financial technology company built for the enterprise, focused first on payments innovation. The Sipree platform empowers global enterprises with real-time payments  lowering operating costs, reducing fraud, and delighting recipients with a choice of popular payment networks. Siprees SaaS delivery models enable quick deployment with minimal IT resources while leveraging existing systems for full visibility and control. Sipree is based in San Francisco with a Federal office in Washington, D.C. Visit us at www.sipree.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.




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A foiled robbery in East Oakland led police to arrest a teenage suspect in last months swarm robbery on BART, in which dozens of juveniles allegedly took over a train stopped at Coliseum Station, officials said Monday.

The arrest comes as BART seeks to identify more suspects in the April 22 train attack, while increasing police patrols on the transit system in the wake of a spike in robberies.

The arrest was the second in connection with the mob robbery, as another boy was arrested earlier Friday, BART said. But he has since been released from custody without charges  a development that BART did not announce or explain.

According to BART police, the latest arrest occurred around 5 p.m. Friday, after a plainclothes Oakland police officer witnessed a robbery on the 6200 block of Camden Street in the Frick neighborhood of East Oakland.

Responding officers tried to pull over three boys as they drove away, but they kept going, prompting a brief pursuit, police said. The chase ended when the suspects crashed into a car near Hegenberger Road and Interstate 880 and fled on foot, officials said.

Officers caught all three juveniles, and no injuries were reported. Prior to the arrest, BART said, investigators had identified one of the teens through surveillance video as one of at least 40 juveniles who participated in the train robbery.

According to police, the juveniles jumped the fare gates shortly before 9:30 p.m. on April 22 and rushed aboard at least two cars of a Dublin-bound train at Coliseum Station. While some held doors open, stalling the train, others ran through cars and some robbed and beat passengers, officials said.

The teens scattered from the scene within minutes, thwarting responding officers.

The fact this juvenile was out committing a robbery in another jurisdiction with other minors just days following the BART incident is testament of the need for agencies to work together collaboratively to solve regional issues and share resources and intelligence data, said BARTs acting police chief, Jeff Jennings. BART Police will continue to work toward identifying the suspects involved in the Coliseum incident.

The juvenile arrested Friday will face charges arising from both incidents, authorities said. He was in custody Monday at Alameda County Juvenile Hall.

Jennings last week declared a state of emergency for his department in response to a rise in robberies and other crimes on the train system. Under the declaration, BART officers must work overtime and cannot take time off beyond planned vacations.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
Today, May 1, is being marked by #MayDay protests, rallies and marches across the city (and globe), with many Bay Area restaurants and bars taking part.

The intersection of politics and food is nothing new, but as The Chronicle has reported extensively in recent weeks, the Bay Area restaurant world has been particularly involved in the past six months, be it battling racial inequality in the workplace or registering as sanctuary restaurants.
ALPHARETTA, Ga. and CUMMING, Ga., May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Minuteman Press franchise located at 26 Tri-County Plaza in Cumming, GA is now owned by Kathy Martin. Kathy first joined the Minuteman Press family of design, marketing, and printing franchise owners in November 2015, when she decided to buy her business in Alpharetta. Before franchising, Kathy spent 23 years working in Information Technology for one of the largest retailers in the world. "I now bring this large scale knowledge of branding to our client bases in Alpharetta and Cumming," she says.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/55ef3c74-a123-4b2d-8fdc-0ad0e2f8c5d8.

Each Minuteman Press franchise provides essential products and services that meet the needs of today's business professionals. Kathy explains, "We offer full service printing, marketing design, promotional products, car wraps, window vinyl and direct mailing services. We strive to be the one-stop solution for our clients. If there is something we do not do in-house, we have forged partnerships with local companies to assist our clients with that service. No job is too large or too small."

As for why Kathy chose to expand by buying an existing franchise for sale, she says, "I always knew I wanted multiple locations. I did not plan to purchase the second location in my first year in business. But, the opportunity was too good to pass up and I knew I could manage it with the right staff in place. Im so grateful to say that I have the right staff and they run the show." Like all Minuteman Press franchise owners, Kathy is the independent owner and operator of her business, and she is proud to support the local business communities in Alpharetta and Cumming, GA.

Why Minuteman Press?

With a multitude of franchise opportunities available to her, Kathy Martin chose Minuteman Press because their business model simply was the right fit for her. Kathy says, "After speaking with Minuteman Press International at the Franchise Expo in Atlanta, it was a no-brainer that this was the franchise for me. Every single business owner out there, whether home-based or a large corporation, needs printing of some form. I also love the multiple streams of income under one roof. We arent just printing on paper, and we can offer anything that you can put your logo on."

The Minuteman Press franchise also helped Kathy make an easy transition from her corporate career in Information Technology to business ownership. The training and ongoing local support she receives from Minuteman Press International has been crucial to her success. Kathy elaborates, "When I started in this business, I had no idea what printing was all about. My background was building and implementing IT systems. The local support was invaluable for assisting in training and guiding me through the entire process. I now feel I am very well versed in a short amount of time."

Keith Cawley is Minuteman Press International Regional Vice President for the Atlanta region. Along with his field support team, Keith has been providing local support to Kathy for both of her locations in Alpharetta and Cumming. He says, "Kathy Martin has been a very welcome addition to the Minuteman Press franchise family right here in Georgia. She works really hard on behalf of her customers to provide them with the highest levels of quality and service; she manages her two businesses wisely and has a great staff in place; and she has taken her skills from the corporate sector and applied them to running her own businesses while also following the Minuteman Press franchise system. Kathy cares about her customers and has done a great job in making in-roads in the community while building her business."

Most Rewarding Thing and Giving Back in Georgia

When asked about the most rewarding thing about running her business, Kathy doesn't hesitate to answer. She says, "I love helping my fellow business owners, whether I am helping them with a marketing plan or assisting them with creating their brand through marketing materials. In my corporate career, I was limited by what the company wanted. I didnt have the freedoms that I now have."

Kathy also prides herself on getting involved and giving back to the local communities in both Alpharetta and Cumming. She gives back through sponsorships and supporting other local businesses. Kathy explains, "We sponsor the Relay for Life races in our area. We sponsor our local schools and churches by offering them a 10% off programs. Plus anyone they send our way, we set aside 10% of their purchases for the school or church to use at their discretion. Im passionate about supporting our local community. I live here, both of my shops are in the same county. There is something to be said about staying local and supporting your community."

She adds, "I am also part of the Chamber of Commerce in Alpharetta and Cumming. As well, I am involved in quite a few womens organizations. Women business owners definitely support one another."

Typical Day and Business Goals

Owning two Minuteman Press locations means that there is no such thing as a typical day for Kathy Martin. Like most new business owners who are looking to grow, marketing and networking are vital to building the business. Kathy agrees, saying, "I try to do some form of marketing daily, whether that is attending a networking event, meeting one-on-one with another local business owner over lunch or coffee, or door-to-door marketing in my community. After that, Im in the store, rolling up my sleeves helping out. I split my days between the two locations. But I am in either location each week. My phone rings regularly when Im not in the shop, my folks are still fairly new so they still have a lot of questions. That will calm down as they gain more experience."

The end game, of course, is continuing to grow, and Kathy is really determined to build on her early success. She says, "My goal is to really focus on my local community. I want every business in my community to be using me for their printing services. And, if they are not, I want to know why! I want to grow the business in both centers, and I have both immediate goals and stretch goals in mind for where I want to be. I want us to stretch ourselves as a team and see what we can do."

Advice for Others

Kathy's advice to others who are thinking about owning their own business is this: "If you do not market, folks will not use your services. Some folks do not realize what services we offer and also how economically priced we are until we show them. Also, get great staff! We owners should not be spending our time in the stores. We should only be in the store to help out, not to do the production work."

Kathy Martin's Minuteman Press franchises are located at 26 Tri-County Plaza, Cumming, GA 30040; and 6300 Atlanta Highway, Suite 102; Alpharetta, GA 30004. For more information, visit their websites: www.cumming-ga.minutemanpress.com or www.alpharetta-ga.minutemanpress.com.

About Minuteman Press International

Minuteman Press International is a number one rated business marketing and printing franchise that offers world class training and unparalleled ongoing local support. Started in 1973 by Roy Titus and his son Bob, Minuteman Press began franchising in 1975 and has grown to over 950 business service franchise locations worldwide including the U.S., Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Minuteman Press is ranked #1 in category by Entrepreneur 25 times and 14 years in a row, including 2017. Franchise Business Review has also named Minuteman Press International to its 2017 Top Franchises and 2017 Top B2B Franchises lists thanks to positive feedback and reviews from owners.

At Minuteman Press, we are the modern printing industry, providing high quality products and services that meet the needs of today's business professionals and go way beyond ink on paper. Today, our centers offer innovative branding solutions and produce custom designs, promotional products, branded apparel, direct mail marketing, large format printing (banners and posters), signs, and much more. Prior experience is not necessary to own and operate a successful Minuteman Press franchise.

To learn about Minuteman Press franchise opportunities and access Minuteman Press franchise reviews, visit www.minutemanpressfranchise.com or call 1-800-645-3006 for more information.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global executive search firm Calibre One, is delighted to announce new additions to the firm including Ed Montoya, Pete McStravick, Ian Thomson & Anthony Cenzano. Over the last 5 years, Calibre One has grown substantially in North America, Asia and Europe and was listed as one of the Top 50 Recruiters in Hunt-Scanlon annual roundup of the largest and fastest growing executive search firms in the US.



Ed Montoya joins as a Partner in the San Francisco office from Spencer Stuarts Financial Officer, Private Equity and High Technology practices. Ed brings over a decade of CFO, Investing/Operating Partner and C-Level search experience across companies of all stages of growth and ownership structure. Prior to joining the search profession in 2005, Ed advised technology clients as an M&A banker at Morgan Stanley.

Pete McStravick joins as a Partner in our newly opened Boston office as Calibre One continues to expand their US East Coast presence. He was previously a Principal in Heidrick & Struggles Boston office and a member of the Global Technology & Services Practice. He has been conducting C-suite and VP-level searches on a national and international level since 2007. With a primary focus on marketing, product management and sales roles, Petes search experience spans a variety of public and mid-size hardware, software and systems providers.

Ian Thomson joins as a Vice President in San Francisco and was recently at DHR International in the Global Media & Entertainment Practice. Ian leads the firms media and entertainment activities. His projects have included content distribution, content development and programming, business leaders (Chief Digital Officer, Chief Financial Officer), functional roles (accounting, operations, human resources, business and legal affairs), digital editorial strategy, and advertising salesboth digital and traditional.

Anthony Cenzano joins as a Vice President in our New York office from Daversa Partners and brings more than 7 years of retained search expertise. He has worked closely with entrepreneurs, investors and management teams within some of the largest and fastest growing internet companies of this generation and is especially well-known for recruiting exceptional C-site and VP level engineering, product and operational leaders for these rapid movers.

We are thrilled to have these four exceptional search practitioners on board as we go through our next phase of our growth whilst executing brilliantly for our clients. Ed, Pete, Ian and Anthony are great ambassadors for our values and standards at Calibre One  we look forward to working with them over the coming years, says Dan Grosh, a Managing Partner in San Francisco. With offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, Calibre One is an international search boutique specializing in working with technology-centric businesses at all stages of development.

About:

Calibre One is the world's leading independent specialist technology search firm. We specialize in building leadership teams for technology businesses and businesses across all sectors undergoing digital transformation. Operating from offices in San Francisco, Menlo Park, New York, London, Singapore, Sydney and Shanghai, we are the only boutique search firm with a truly global presence. Were small enough to provide the high-touch, partner-led service unique to a boutique, but as a well-established global firm we are also experts at helping companies grow beyond their domestic markets and access talent across the world. Our network extends to the highest echelon in many of the Worlds leading firms. This network, developed over nearly 20 years, is one of our greatest assets and helps us to deliver outstanding results for our clients across the globe.
NEW YORK, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Genco Shipping & Trading Limited (NYSE:GNK) announced today that it will hold a conference call to discuss the Companys results for the first quarter of 2017 on Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The conference call will also be broadcast live over the Internet and include a slide presentation. The Company will issue financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 on Monday, May 8, 2017 after the close of market trading.



What: First Quarter 2017 Conference Call When: Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time Where: There are two ways to access the call: Dial-in: 800-723-6604 or 785-830-7977; Passcode: 6277973 Please dial in at least 10 minutes prior to 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time to ensure a prompt start to the call. For live webcast and slide presentation: http://www.gencoshipping.com.





If you are unable to participate at this time, a replay of the call will be available for two weeks at 888-203-1112 or 719-457-0820. Enter the code 6277973 to access the audio replay. The webcast will also be archived on the Companys website: http://www.gencoshipping.com.

About Genco Shipping & Trading Limited

Genco Shipping & Trading Limited transports iron ore, coal, grain, steel products and other drybulk cargoes along worldwide shipping routes. As of May 1, 2017, Genco Shipping & Trading Limiteds fleet consists of 13 Capesize, six Panamax, four Ultramax, 21 Supramax, two Handymax and 15 Handysize vessels with an aggregate capacity of approximately 4,735,000 dwt.




WYOMISSING, Pa., May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Customers Bancorp, Inc. announced that the Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend on its Fixed-to-Floating Rate Non-Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series C (NYSE:CUBIPrC) of $0.4375 per share. The dividend is payable on June 15, 2017 to shareholders of record on May 31, 2017.



The Board of Directors has also declared a quarterly cash dividend on its Fixed-to-Floating Rate Non-Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series D (NYSE:CUBIPrD) of $0.40625 per share. The dividend is payable on June 15, 2017 to shareholders of record on May 31, 2017.

The Board of Directors has also declared a quarterly cash dividend on its Fixed-to-Floating Rate Non-Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series E (NYSE:CUBIPrE) of $0.403125 per share. The dividend is payable on June 15, 2017 to shareholders of record on May 31, 2017.

The Board of Directors has also declared a quarterly cash dividend on its Fixed-to-Floating Rate Non-Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series F (NYSE:CUBIPrF) of $0.375 per share. The dividend is payable on June 15, 2017 to shareholders of record on May 31, 2017.

Institutional Background

Customers Bancorp, Inc. is a bank holding company located in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania engaged in banking and related businesses through its bank subsidiary, Customers Bank. Customers Bank is a community-based, full-service bank with assets of approximately $9.9 billion that was named by Forbes magazine as the 35th Best Bank in America (there are over 6,200 banks in the United States). A member of the Federal Reserve System with deposits insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Customers Bank is an equal opportunity lender that provides a range of banking services to small and medium-sized businesses, professionals, individuals and families through offices in Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Committed to fostering customer loyalty, Customers Bank uses a High Tech/High Touch strategy that includes use of industry-leading technology to provide customers better access to their money, as well as Concierge Banking by appointment at customers homes or offices 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers Bank offers a continually expanding portfolio of loans to small businesses, multi-family projects, mortgage companies and consumers. BankMobile is a division of Customers Bank, offering state of the art high tech digital banking services with a high level of personal customer service.

Customers Bancorp, Inc. voting common shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CUBI. Additional information about Customers Bancorp, Inc. can be found on the Company's website, www.customersbank.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

In addition to historical information, this press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include statements with respect to Customers Bancorp, Inc.s strategies, goals, beliefs, expectations, estimates, intentions, capital raising efforts, financial condition and results of operations, future performance and business. Statements preceded by, followed by, or that include the words may, could, should, pro forma, looking forward, would, believe, expect, anticipate, estimate, intend, plan, or similar expressions generally indicate a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to change based on various important factors (some of which, in whole or in part, are beyond Customers Bancorp, Inc.s control). Numerous competitive, economic, regulatory, legal and technological factors, among others, could cause Customers Bancorp, Inc.s financial performance to differ materially from the goals, plans, objectives, intentions and expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. In addition, important factors relating to the acquisition of the Disbursements business and the combination of Customers BankMobile business with the acquired business also could cause Customers Bancorps actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements. Customers Bancorp, Inc. cautions that the foregoing factors are not exclusive, and neither such factors nor any such forward-looking statement takes into account the impact of any future events. All forward-looking statements and information set forth herein are based on management's current beliefs and assumptions as of the date hereof and speak only as of the date they are made. For a more complete discussion of the assumptions, risks and uncertainties related to our business, you are encouraged to review Customers Bancorp, Inc.s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Customers Bancorp, Inc. does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time by Customers Bancorp, Inc. or by or on behalf of Customers Bank.
Californias ban on conversion therapy, which seeks to turn gay youths straight, survived a U.S. Supreme Court challenge Monday when the justices rejected an appeal by religious conservatives who argued that the law interfered with their right to provide spiritual counseling to minors.

The law, the first of its kind in the nation, was passed in 2012 and took effect in 2014 after federal courts ruled that it did not violate free speech. It prohibits licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation of patients under 18.

Conversion-therapy techniques have included counseling and training to encourage opposite-sex behavior, hypnosis, and aversive methods such as hormone treatment and nausea-inducing drugs. National psychiatric and medical organizations say such treatments are deceptive and dangerous, leading in some cases to depression or suicidal impulses.

In Mondays case, Christian legal organizations argued that the law was aimed at suppressing conservative religious beliefs and practices held by many of the families who sought therapy for their children, and many of the counselors who provided it. They also argued that the law would prevent ministers, who also serve as therapists, from saying certain prayers or quoting certain biblical passages to young people.

The Supreme Court, without comment, denied review of a federal appeals court ruling that rejected those arguments.

The goal of the California law is the prevention of harm to minors, regardless of the motivations for seeking (conversion therapy), the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in August. That ruling upheld a federal judges decision to dismiss the lawsuit.

Although some youths and their families seek to change their sexual orientation for religious reasons, others have secular motivations, appeals Judge Susan Graber said in the 3-0 ruling. Under the state law, she said, minors are free to take such steps on their own and with the help of friends, family, and religious leaders, or with the help of a state-licensed therapists after turning 18.

And because the law regulates conduct only within the confines of the counselor-client relationship, Graber said, it does not limit what ministers can say in church.

The same court had ruled earlier that the law regulates conduct, not speech, in much the same way the state regulates other medical practices. New Jersey later passed a similar law that courts have also upheld.

The Supreme Court case is Welch vs. Brown, 16-845.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@egelko
GUELPH, Ontario , May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hammond Manufacturing Company Limited (TSX:HMM.A) today announced in accordance with Toronto Exchange requirements, the voting results from its Annual General Meeting held May 1, 2017 in Guelph, Ontario.



Shareholders voted in favour of all items of business put forth at the meeting, including the appointment of KPMG LLP as its outside auditors and the election of all director nominees as set out below.

Election of Directors



The following seven nominees were elected to serve as directors of the Corporation until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed:

Number of Votes Percentage of Votes Cast Name For Against Withheld Spoiled Non vote For Against Withheld Robert F. Hammond 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 % Edward Sehl 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 % Paul Quigley 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 % Sheila Hammond 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 % Sarah Hansen 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 % Michael Fricker 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 % William Wiener 14,375,867 - 3,700 - 6,578 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 %

Appointment of Auditors



KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants, were appointed as auditors of the Corporation for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2017 and the Directors are authorized to fix their remuneration.



For Against Withheld Spoiled Non vote For Against Withheld 14,382,445 - 3,700 - - 99.97 % 0.00 % 0.03 %

Hammond Manufacturing Company Limited manufactures a broad range of products for the electronic and electrical products industry, including metallic and non-metallic enclosures, racks, small cases, outlet strips, surge suppressors and electronic transformers.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One Theatre World, the most significant gathering of theatre for young audience professionals in North America has partnered with Vendini, the company that makes the business of live events simple with industry leading software and services, for the 2017 event in the San Francisco Bay Area. Presented by Theatre for Young Audiences/USA (TYA/USA), One Theatre World features performances, juried breakout sessions (workshops and discussions), master classes, a keynote address, special events and networking opportunities. One Theatre World taking place Wednesday, May 3 through Saturday, May 6 throughout various locations in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, hosted by Bay Area Childrens Theatre. Registration is open online.



One Theatre World will capture the spirit of the San Francisco Bay Area and the regions commitment to innovate and activate, says Nina Meehan, Co-Chair of One Theatre World and Executive Artistic Director Bay Area Children's Theatre. Its in that spirit that we welcome Vendini as a partner, as their resources and technology ensure that theatres have the tools they need so that the arts can continue to flourish.

The event will kick-off with a special event at Childrens Fairyland in Oakland on Wednesday, May 3, with a special performance by AXIS Dance Company, one of the worlds most acclaimed and innovative ensembles of performers with and without disabilities. The agenda for One Theatre World will include a keynote presentation by Sonia Manzano of Sesame Street fame, the Childrens Theatre Foundation of America 2017 Orlin Corey Medallion Awards, and a conversation with Broadways Tim Federle. In addition, breakout sessions will provide high-quality learning experiences to further the national conversation for professionals working in theatre for young audiences, and TYA/USA will host its first ever TYA composers and lyricist Song Slam.

As patrons of Bay Area Childrens Theatre, my family knows firsthand how important it is for young audiences to experience performing arts early and continuously throughout their lives, says Mark Tacchi, CEO at Vendini. One Theatre World enables young audience theatre professionals to deepen their impact in communities across the United States, inspiring them to innovate and activate in a way that energizes the field for young audiences and families.

About Vendini

At Vendini, our mission is to make the business of live events simple. We designed our all-in-one system to help organizations easily promote events, deepen experiences with audiences, and ultimately sell more tickets. Vendini is based in San Francisco, with offices in Petaluma, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Boston, MA; New York, NY; Knoxville, TN; Vancouver, BC and Gualdo Tadino, Italy. To learn more about what Vendini can do for your live event organization, visit: https://www.vendini.com/

About One Theatre World

One Theatre World is the most significant gathering of theatre for young audiences professionals in North America presented by Theatre for Young Audiences/USA, featuring performances, juried breakout sessions (workshops and discussions), master classes, a keynote address, special events, and networking opportunities. Join us in California and be a part of OTW history, which includes events in Chicago (2015), Cleveland (2013), Seattle (2011), Minneapolis (2007), Philadelphia (2003), Washington, DC (2000) and more
Hundreds of warehouse workers employed by the electronics and photography company B&H Photo Video launched a one-day strike Monday, May Day, demanding that their employer roll back a plan to relocate roughly 330 Brooklyn jobs in Bushwick and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to a new facility in New Jersey.

The move was formally announced in January, in the midst of union negotiations. Workers and their union representatives allege that the relocation is a tactic to stifle their campaign for higher wages and safer working conditions.

"Before, in our job, they had us like we were in prison," said Isais Lopez, a 28-year-old shipping processor. "They obligated us to work sixteen, eighteen hours [per day]. So we got together to do away with that. But the consequence of all of that [organizing] is they found a place and strategies to move to New Jersey."

Workers have said the move is untenable, since the new 5,000-square-foot factory in Florence Township, New Jersey will not be accessible by public transportation. The company confirmed to Gothamist that it will not be providing transport.

"We don't want to be left without a job because we have families," Lopez added. "We have made our life here in New York. Our families could get divided up."

Workers formed a picket line on 34th Street and Ninth Avenue shortly after 10:00 a.m. on Monday, with allies from Immigrant Worker Justice and the Democratic Socialists of America, among others. Marchers shouted "What's disgusting? Union busting!" and carried signs demanding that B&H keep jobs in New York City.

A spokesman for B&H told Gothamist that the company's Brooklyn Navy Yard lease expires in 2018 without a renewal option, and that the company had actively been seeking a new warehouse location before union negotiations began. According to Crain's, an Upstate New York location was under consideration in 2013. David Ehrenberg, head of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, told DNAInfo this year that a movie studio has signed on to take over the space.

"We just had to keep drawing larger and larger circles, and we ended up in Jersey at the end of the day," said spokesman Michael McKeon. "We've invited all of the workers to come to New Jersey. We've invited the union to come."

But United Steelworkers has said that the news of the move was "totally unexpected," and effectively ground negotiations to a halt. The union has since filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

"Moving to South New Jersey will make it difficult, and certainly a challenge, for employees currently relying on public transportation to accept employment offers at the new site," said USW District 4 Director John Shinn in a statement. "This is clearly an illegal tactic designed to avoid the company's obligation to bargain in good faith."



Cindy Martinez of the New York Work Center Federation translates for workers addressing B&H spokesman Michael McKeon, left. (Scott Heins / Gothamist).

B&H workers voted to unionize in the fall of 2015, following years of alleged labor abuses detailed in a Department of Labor administrative lawsuit.

Hispanic workers were paid less than their white counterparts at the Brooklyn Navy Yard facility, according to the DOL, and were relegated to separate restrooms and subject to verbal harassment. Previously, in 2007, B&H paid $4.3 million to Hispanic workers to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Four women employed by the company sued in 2009, alleging that Hasidic Jewish managers refused to promote women into sales positions for "religious reasons."

In 2016, Hyperallergic reported that the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) had fined the company $32,000 for hazardous workplace conditions, including boxes stacked precariously high without guardrails.

Jans Sotto, 41, told Gothamist that he has worked at B&H for six years loading boxes, and has witnessed dangerous conditions and discriminatory practices. "The packages are stacked so high," he said. "The company pays the minimum for the Latinos. For the newest employees it's $18 per hour, for Latinos it started at $11. The company is racist."

Rosanna Rodriguez is an organizer with the grassroots Laundry Workers Center, which has been helping the B&H workers organize for two years. She said this latest news is particularly frustrating in light of the workers' recent successes.

"Things are getting better," she said. "We've had many victories during two years of campaigning. They [B&H] reduced the hours that they have to work. They fixed a little bit of conditions because of OSHA. But in the middle of negotiating they said they are going to move. All of these things we know are excuses. They are just a tactic to destroy the union."

United Steelworkers did not attend Monday's action. We've reached out to the union for comment and will update accordingly.

McKeon, the B&H spokesman, said that there have not been robust union negotiations with the Brooklyn warehouse workers since the news of the New Jersey move. B&H is negotiating more regularly with roughly 70 workers in the company's Manhattan warehouse, below the flagship store, which organized separately last February and will not relocate, he said.

The Brooklyn workers "have asked us some stuff about the move and the like," McKeon said. "But it's mostly been around the idea that somehow we can stay there. We're always open to talk, but there's only so much we can do."

During Monday's action, workers presented McKeon with a letter detailing grievances and demands. Allies plan to picket the store twice a week, on Fridays and Sundays, through May 14th.

"If you don't want this to continue happening, you need to respect what their demands are," said Cindy Martinez of the New York Workers Center Federation, translating from Spanish. "They don't want anymore lies. They want contracts and they want to keep their jobs. Along with [this] letter comes a lot of questions that you need to respect."
Every aspect of Rachel Corries story has been so interrogated, probed and picked apart that well probably never know what really happened.

When in 2003 this 23-year-old activist from Olympia, Wash., was killed after placing herself in the path of an Israel Defense Forces bulldozer heading toward a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip, was there actually a Palestinian family inside the home? (Thats what her organization, the International Solidarity Movement, has claimed.) Or was the structure empty, not a home but a front for storing weapons and entrance to a network of tunnels? Did the driver of the bulldozer see Corrie and forge ahead nonetheless, or was she obstructed from view? Is this whole line of questioning, about a young blond American woman from a middle-class family, suspect, since Palestinians and Israelis get injured and killed all too frequently but international press hardly bats an eye?

Yet if there was any interrogation happening at the Saturday, April 29, opening night of the one-woman play My Name Is Rachel Corrie, presented by Sawtooth Productions at the Magic Theatre, it happened only inside audience members heads. Thats in contrast to the 2009 screening of the documentary Rachel, also about Corrie, at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Protesters sympathetic to both Palestinian and Israeli perspectives on Corries death organized outside the Castro Theatre, where the showing took place.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie doesnt pretend to take an objective stance. The late actor Alan Rickman and the Guardians editor-in-chief Katharine Viner created the show from Corries journals and correspondence, so it would be foolish to expect the show to be anything other than one-sided.

Yet as performed by Charlotte Hemmings, that one-sided perspective proves thoughtful, provocative and very worthy of attention, especially in a country whose historically steadfast support of Israel can blind us to the ways Palestinians also suffer.

Sure, some of Corries writings reveal a naive and girlish idealist, prone to statements like tomorrow, my whole life will be different or Im building the world myself. But which of us wasnt at least a little like that in our early 20s? And unlike most of us, Corrie both talks the talk and walks the walk. She has persuasive, point-by-point rebuttals of her mothers objections to her decision to place herself in harms way in the Gaza Strip. She knows that everything she says or does on behalf of the International Solidarity Movement as a non-Jewish American risks sounding anti-Semitic, but she emphasizes the importance of drawing a line between the policies of Israel as a state and the Jewish people. She recognizes the privileges of her affluence, her nationality, which means she can leave Gaza at any time, and she admits, I dont always know the implications of my words.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie is more than just a screed on a very specific political situation. Especially if youre the kind of person who cant understand how someone from a high-achieving family could embark on a radical life path, the play offers a compelling origin story for activism, broadly speaking. Corrie truly couldnt be any other way. Its not just her lifelong passionate progressivism. Its her mischievous zest for life.

Thats the strongest part of Hemmings performance. If at times shes unvaried, embarking on passage after passage with the pattern of newscaster intonation, she also always has a twinkle in her eye, a twinge of drollery she might direct at any situation, any person, including herself. That, ultimately, makes My Name Is Rachel Corrie work. If it can be hard to put a human face on the Israel-Palestine conflict, it can be just as hard to remember that even this doggedly committed activist was no mere mouthpiece but a funny, complicated human being  one whose words and deeds, warmth and energy we were deprived of far too early.

Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicles theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak

My Name is Rachel Corrie: Edited from Corries writings by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner. Directed by Jonathan Kane. Through May 14. 90 minutes. $25-$50. Magic Theatre, Fort Mason, Building D, 2 Marina Blvd., S.F. (415) 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org
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UNITED NATIONS  New evidence indicates that the Syrian government used suspected nerve agents in four chemical weapons attacks since December as part of a broader pattern of chemical weapons use, a human rights group said Monday.

Human Rights Watch reported that the widespread and systematic attacks on civilians using chemical weapons could constitute crimes against humanity.

The governments recent use of nerve agents is a deadly escalation  and part of a clear pattern, said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. In the last six months, the government has used warplanes, helicopters and ground forces to deliver chlorine and sarin in Damascus, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo.

This also shows that serious use of chemical weapons is becoming a central part of its military strategy, he said during a news conference to present the report.

The rights group said the four attacks using suspected nerve agents all took place in areas where offensives by armed groups fighting the government  including the Islamic State extremist group  threatened military air bases.

In an April 4 attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, Human Rights Watch said 92 people, including 30 children, were identified by residents and activists as victims of deadly exposure to the nerve agent sarin, which Britain and France identified by chemical analysis. Medical personnel reported that hundreds more were injured.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons and so has its close ally Russia, which has also carried out aerial attacks.

The report said two remnants at a crater in Khan Sheikhoun where the first bomb hit appeared to come from a weapon produced by the former Soviet Union that was used to deliver chemical agents.

Roth wouldnt speculate on whether it was part of Syrias undisclosed chemical stockpile or newly delivered. But he said Russias claim that the civilians who died at Khan Sheikhoun were killed by toxic agents released from a rebel chemical arsenal struck by Syrian warplanes has zero credibility.

Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo on Syria and sanctions on those in the military responsible for chemical attacks  and to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

Edith M. Lederer is an Associated Press writer.
The breeder of a giant rabbit that died while in the care of scandal-racked United Airlines told a British tabloid the bunny was cremated by the airlines in an attempt to hide the cause of death.

Simon, a 10-month-old Continental giant rabbit who was likely to outgrow his record-holding sire and become the world's largest bunny, was found dead Tuesday after flying from London to Chicago's O'Hare Airport en route to his new owner.

British breeder Annette Edwards told the Sun that United informed her that there could be no autopsy of the big bunny because the body had already been incinerated. But she says she never gave the airlines consent to cremate the animal's remains.

"The whole thing stinks of a cover-up," Edwards said.

Courtesy of Annette Edwards

United said Simon was very much alive when he was removed from the cargo section of the plane and that he died in a pet holding area. It denied a report that the rabbit was accidentally placed in a freezer by ground staff.

"The assertion that Simon died in a freezer is completely false," the airline said in a statement Sunday. "Simon was cared for at the PetSafe kennel facility which is kept at room temperature (on average 70F). He arrived at Chicago O'Hare airport in apparent good condition at 10:25 a.m. (local time). He was seen by a representative of the kennel facility moving about within his crate about 11 a.m. Shortly thereafter, a kennel representative noticed Simon was motionless and determined that he passed away."

Last week United CEO Oscar Munoz awkwardly apologized for the rabbit's death, comparing the pet to misplaced bags.

"We are deeply sorry for the loss of anything from your luggage to, of course, a loved pet," Munoz said.

So far, the airlines has not released an official cause of Simon's death.

The National Geographic reached out to rabbit experts for possible explanations. They suggested the following:

The cargo bin could have gotten too cold during the flight or while waiting on the tarmac.

Simon might have been stressed out by barking dogs sharing the cargo compartment.

Rabbits bred for excessive size, like Simon, often have more genetic defects, which could make them more susceptible to stress.

Edwards said Simon was in perfect health when she last saw him.

"He was fit as a fiddle when he left my house and then 24 hours later he's dead," she told the Sun.

With no body to examine, the mystery of what killed Simon rabbit may never be solved.

Update: United spokesman Charles Hobart sent this statement in an email Monday afternoon:

"We were saddened by the loss of Simon and have worked with Annette Edwards to reach a satisfactory resolution."
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PARIS  Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron hunted working-class votes Monday, entering the final week of an increasingly nasty campaign for president. Thousands across France celebrated May Day by showing their top concerns are jobs and the kind of country the next leader will give them.

Amid the holiday marches, masked demonstrators threw firebombs at police in Paris before being dispersed by tear gas. Four officers were injured, with one seriously burned in the face, Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said.

While violence from fringe groups is a standard presence in French demonstrations, at least some of those who mixed in the union-organized march came with an angry message against both candidates.

Not one or the other; instead its the peoples self-defense read one sign.

Macron equals Louis XVI, Le Pen equals Le Pen, read another, a reference to Marine Le Pens father, Jean-Marie, the co-founder of the anti-immigration National Front party known for his extremist views.

Sundays runoff election is being watched closely by other European governments and financial markets to see if the French hand power to the populist Le Pen.

Addressing thousands at a venue outside Paris, Marine Le Pen skewered Macron, a former investment banker, as a puppet of financiers and Islamic fundamentalists, a lapdog of Socialist President Francois Hollande and a member of the caviar left. His pro-business policies, she warned, would leave French workers hungry.

Cheers of Marine President! and anti-immigrant chants rose to the rafters.

Whether she wanted it or not, Le Pen got an endorsement from her father. The senior Le Pen has often been decried as a racist; his daughter ejected him from the party in 2015 as part of her bid to make the National Front more politically acceptable.

She is not Joan of Arc, but she accepts the same mission ... France, Jean-Marie Le Pen said at his traditional May Day rally.

At a Paris rally in front of thousands of supporters, Macron criticized Marine Le Pens rude manners and called her the heir  a reference to her father.

Dont boo her, fight her! Go and convince (others), make her lose next Sunday, he told the crowd.

Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet are Associated Press writers.
When President Trump called President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Saturday, White House officials saw it as part of a routine diplomatic outreach to Southeast Asian leaders. Trump, characteristically, had his own ideas.

During their very friendly conversation, the administration said in a late-night statement, Trump invited Duterte, an authoritarian leader accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines, to visit him at the White House.

Now, administration officials are bracing for an avalanche of criticism from human rights groups. Two officials said they expected the State Department and the National Security Council, both of which were caught off guard by the invitation, to raise objections internally.

The White House disclosed the news on a day when Trump whipped up ardent backers at a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pa. The timing of the announcement  after a speech that was an angry, grievance-filled jeremiad  encapsulated this president after 100 days in office: still ready to say and do things that leave people, even on his staff, slack-jawed.

By essentially endorsing Dutertes murderous war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings, said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. Although the traits of his personality likely make it impossible, Trump should be ashamed of himself.

Administration officials said the call to Duterte was one of several to Southeast Asian leaders that the White House arranged after picking up signs that they felt neglected because of Trumps intense focus on China, Japan and tensions over North Korea. On Sunday, Trump spoke to the prime ministers of Singapore and Thailand.

Dutertes toxic reputation had given pause to some in the White House. The Philippines is to host a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in November, and officials said there was a brief debate about whether Trump should attend.

It is not even clear, given the accusations of human rights abuses against him, that Duterte, were he not a head of state, would be granted a visa to the United States, according to human rights advocates.

Still, Trumps affinity for Duterte and other strongmen is well established. Administration officials said Trump wanted to mend the alliance with the Philippines as a bulwark against Chinas expansionism in the South China Sea. The Philippines has clashed with China over disputed reefs and shoals in the waterway, which they share.

Mark Landler is a New York Times writer.
(Updates to recast with drop in shares)

Intueri Education Group shares fell 52 percent to 1 cent, valuing the company at $1 million after it said the level of bids for its remaining colleges mean it wouldn't have a sustainable business after repaying debt and there'd be nothing to return to shareholders.

The stock has fallen from $2.35 in Intueri's initial public offering in 2014, when it was taken public by Australia-based Arowana International. The IPO delivered $102 million to Arowana for selling its stake down to 24.9 percent and paid the $60 million cost of acquiring the now-defunct Quantum Education Group.

Intueri hired High St Capital Partners for advice on options for the New Zealand operations including the sale of assets after being forced to close its Australian institutions when they failed to gain renewed registrations across the Tasman. Those remaining assets are now being liquidated. Today it said indicative offers for its remaining New Zealand colleges would not generate enough funds to repay all of $70.7 million in debt with ANZ Bank New Zealand.

As a result, the company would have "insufficient residual assets to operate a sustainable business or make any return to shareholders" if a sale eventuates, it said in a statement.

The company said it retains the support of its bank under a standstill agreement reached after it breached a lending covenant. The standstill is to allow Intueri to complete a strategic review. "Intueris New Zealand businesses continue to be able to meet obligations currently being incurred," the company said in a statement.

In February, Intueri said it had conditionally agreed to sell the NZ School of Outdoor Studies, which trades as the NZ School of Commercial Diver Training and is the only such school in New Zealand, with settlement expected by the end of March. However, today it said the sale hasn't been finalised despite settlement being extended to the end of April "and Intueri is now exploring options with other parties to divest this college. In the meantime, the Dive School will maintain normal operations under Intueri management."

"Intueri again recommends that persons considering trading in Intueri shares ensure that they understand the implications of this announcement and seek professional advice prior to doing so," it said.

(BusinessDesk)

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NZME shares are likely to rally if the Commerce Commission approves its merger with Fairfax Media's New Zealand unit this week but if the deal is shot down the stock may not fall as much, says Sydney-based Forager Funds Management, which owns 9.1 percent of the newspaper and radio group.

The antitrust regulator will announce on May 3 whether it will allow a merger between the country's two dominant newspaper publishers, having indicated in its draft decision last November that it wouldn't allow it a transaction that would "result in an unprecedented level of media concentration for a well-established liberal democracy" with the potential loss of multiple media voices.

Since then both NZME and Fairfax have worked hard to convince the commission otherwise, arguing, among other things, that they have ended up as minnows in their own advertising markets because of the inroads of global giants Google and Facebook, which between them now control the lion's share of New Zealand's digital advertising market. NZME shares rose 3.5 percent to 90 cents today. It listed at $1 last June and since then has ranged between 99 cents and 49 cents on the NZX.

Daniel Mueller, a senior analyst at Forager, says the fund manager picked up its shares at below current levels when "there was not much in the price for the merger being given the green light".

"If the merger does go ahead there's a lot more upside than if it does not," he said. "It is an asymmetric payoff."

The NZME business was spun off from APN News & Media as a pure-play New Zealand media company, with assets including the flagship New Zealand Herald newspaper, a portfolio of radio stations including Newstalk ZB and the GrabOne daily deals site after APN shareholders overwhelmingly backed plans for the split via a distribution of shares to existing investors. That left some Australian institutional investors with an exposure to a small New Zealand media company that they didn't want, creating natural sellers who have weighed on the stock.

But Forager's Mueller said NZME tended to own more national assets than its counterparts in Australia, where there was more of a regional breakdown, such as Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in New South Wales. "The market, in general, is more attractive for that reason" and Forager also liked NZME's radio assets.

"Post the demerger from APN the company has been unshackled and identified cost savings which will not last forever but will certainly last for the next couple of years," Mueller said. "If the merger goes ahead that will be a bonus." The stock also had an attractive dividend yield, he said.

Other media companies haven't been as supportive. Horton Media, the printing group set up by the family that founded the New Zealand Herald, told the regulator last year that the threat of aggregation in print advertising isn't diminished by digital media, "where it can be seen that the non-exclusive presence of real estate advertising on digital platforms such as realestate.co.nz proves the limits of that medium's substitutability with print" as "agents generally feel that print gives them better exposure to passive buyers and potential house sellers and therefore attracts listings".

Because the two companies are already sharing printing and distribution, the majority of cost savings would have to come from cutting sales and editorial staff, which Horton said meant there was "no discernible public benefit arising from the merger sufficient to offset the lessening of competition".

Dunedin-based Allied Press argued that the amalgamation would disadvantage the public by leading to a "material reduction" in the number of reporters employed. In December, Fairfax NZ and NZME downplayed the size of likely job cuts among frontline journalists if the regulator makes an about-face and approves a merger this week.

Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood said at a Commerce Commission conference in December that unless the merger was allowed, it would become "endgame" for the company's New Zealand assets, which the Australian publisher purchased for $1.19 billion from Rupert Murdoch's Independent Newspapers Ltd in 2003. The Fairfax NZ assets were valued at just $122.2 million in the proposed merger with NZME, which would see that business poured into NZX-listed NZME and hand the Australian parent $55 million in cash and 41 percent of the merged entity with the shares to be issued at 83.6 cents apiece.

Also in December, Fairfax confirmed it had received an unsolicited offer from a mystery bidder for the New Zealand assets. The National Business Review reported at the time that the offer was for $100 million to $120 million while the Australian newspaper speculated the bidder could be US hedge fund Apollo Global Management. Fairfax New Zealand CEO Simon Tong announced his resignation on March 9.

(BusinessDesk)
The New Zealand dollar may be ripe for a turnaround after falling over the past month, with local data this week expected to show the labour market in good heart and while the latest dairy auction may show resilient global dairy prices.

The kiwi dropped 1.5 percent against the greenback in April and was trading near a 10-month low at 68.56 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 68.66 cents on Friday in New York. The trade-weighted index fell 1.5 percent in April and declined to 74.51 from 74.72 last week.

The local currency has been under pressure as heightened geopolitical tensions stoked investors' demand for safe-haven currencies, while the mounting prospect of greater trade barriers was seen weighing on the kiwi and New Zealand's trading ambitions. That's seen a build up in traders taking short positions against the kiwi, betting the currency will decline. That comes ahead of a GlobalDairyTrade auction and employment figures on Wednesday which will likely show dairy prices are still firm and jobs growth remains robust.

"The employment numbers will be a particularly interesting read and if they get some strong numbers you'll see the kiwi bounce up," said Michael Johnston, a senior dealer at HiFX in Auckland. "It could nudge up to 70 (US cents)" although Johnston said he still expects the kiwi will fall over the medium- to long-term.

Trading was relatively quiet in Monday trading with parts of Asia and Europe closed for the May Day and Labour Day holidays.

Investors are awaiting the Federal Reserve's policy review later this week and a speech from Fed chair Janet Yellen on Friday, ahead of US non-farm payrolls data on Friday in Washington.

New Zealand's two-year swap rate edged up 1 basis point to 2.28 percent, and 10-year swaps were unchanged at 3.36 percent.

The kiwi traded at 91.62 Australian cents from 91.63 cents last week ahead of tomorrow's Reserve Bank of Australia policy review and slipped to 4.7231 Chinese yuan from 4.7307 yuan last week in the lead-up to Chinese manufacturing data.

The local currency was little changed at 76.53 yen from 76.58 yen last week and 62.94 euro cents from 63 cents. It traded at 53.10 British pence from 53 pence last week.

(BusinessDesk)
ANZ New Zealand, the local unit of Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, lifted first-half earnings 24 percent on a modest pickup in the lender's banking business and strong trading conditions from its institutional arm.

Cash profit, the preferred earnings measure for the Australian-owned banks, rose to $928 million in the six months ended March 31 from $815 million a year earlier, the Auckland-based lender said in a statement. Net profit rose 14 percent to $869 million. The New Zealand banking business posted a 2 percent gain in earnings to $717 million, while the institutional business almost doubled earnings to $198 million joining a groupwide gain in that division that's shed an eighth of its workforce to cut costs.

ANZ's New Zealand banking division expanded its loan book 4 percent to $114.7 billion, led by a 7 percent increase in mortgage lending to $70.44 billion, while customer deposits grew 8 percent to $82.24 billion. Net interest margin shrank 10 basis points to 1.2 percent as more of the bank's customers switched to less profitable fixed-rate loans.

"All our business units performed well in this half due to our continued simplification of the business," ANZ New Zealand chief executive David Hisco said. "We've boosted our focus on digital innovation which has positioned us well for a period of rapid change in banking."

ANZ reported a groupwide 23 percent increase in cash profit to A$3.41 billion as it slashed 14 percent from its operating expenses, in part by changing the way it accounted its software capitalisation the year earlier, and by cutting its workforce by 6 percent. Credit impairment charges on bad debt shrank 20 percent to A$719 million. The board declared a fully-franked interim dividend of 80 Australian cents per share, unchanged from a year earlier.

The New Zealand unit's credit impairment charges fell 20 percent to $40 million with improvements in the bank's commercial and agricultural portfolios, while the lender's local banking division trimmed headcount by 2 percent to 6,250. Including the New Zealand institutional business, staff numbers fell 4 percent to 7,761 on this side of the Tasman.

ANZ group chief executive Shayne Elliott today announced plans to implement a new 'Agile' working environment across the banking group, adopting working styles typically used in software companies, "that will allow us to respond much faster to changing customer expectations, engage our staff and attract new talent, and reduce waste and bureaucracy". The bank plans to start rolling out the new way of working in early 2018, starting with the Australia banking division.

ANZ's New Zealand unit increased income from funds management and insurance by 6 percent to $183 million in the six-month period, due to expanding funds under management. As at the March 31 balance date, the bank had $27.15 billion and the latest Morningstar KiwiSaver report showed the lender's KiwiSaver funds crossed the $10 billion mark at the end of the March quarter, while Hisco said the lender had more than 725,000 KiwiSaver investors.

The lender's ratio for funds management expenses to average funds under management rose to 0.32 percent from 0.27 percent a year earlier. The Morningstar report showed ANZ's fees on KiwiSaver funds were 0.56 percent for the default conservative option, rising to 1.1 percent for a growth investment.

(BusinessDesk)

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Interpol in 2014. (Getty)

Forest Hills Stadium already has some of the best acts coming to their storied venue this year, and today one more was announced: Interpol will be performing at the stadium on September 23rd. And not just Interpol: 2002 Interpol.

The band is celebrating the 15th Anniversary of their debut album Turn On The Bright Lights by playing the record in its entirety at the stadium. They will also do this in L.A. a week later, but the rest of their North American tour dates will be standard Interpol shows.

If you're in a certain age bracket and were living in NYC in the early aughts, and lived on the Lower East Side, or at least hung out there, or knew Sarah Lewitinn and Karen Ruttner, or ever went to the Dark Room, or dated Carlos D, then this album was most likely your soundtrack for that era. It was the one that came before your other soundtrack from that decade, Antics. Listening to both now will make you very nostalgic for watching The OC in your little LES apartment.

Fan club pre-sales start on May 2nd at 10 a.m. EST for the Forest Hills show, and 10 a.m. PST for the L.A. show. Public on-sale is May 5th, at 12 p.m. EST for NYC and 10 a.m. PST for L.A. The band now consists of Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler and Sam Fogarino, who are currently working on new material for their sixth album, due out in 2018.


HYDERABAD: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Saturday launched its Disaster Recovery Centre (DRC) here, a statement said. BSE DRC is a replication of the primary site and ensures that all data is available at disaster recovery site with near zero time lag. Among others, the automation tool provides a real-time monitoring of the sync status between primary and disaster recovery sites and has also helped reduce manpower requirement for handling operations, BSE said in a statement. With state-of-the-art infrastructure and allied facilities matching global standards, DRC would ensure seamless continuation of exchange operations, aid in diversifying the risk, and fortify the capabilities in terms of processes, people and technology infrastructure.

BSE DRC is designed in line with other global technology hubs which will invite more premier institutions to invest in Hyderabad. Telanganas Information Technology, Industries & Commerce Minister K. T. Rama Rao inaugurated the facility. BSE Ltd Chairman Sudhakar Rao said that they received unstinting support of various state authorities, regulators and stakeholders here.

He said they have contributed in their own humble and modest way, in fulfilling the vision of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, of creating a globally attractive investment destination in the state. Today, therefore, is an opportunity for us to not only just diversify our risk and strengthen our competencies, but also participate in the states growth story, he added.

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NEW DELHI: India's exports are expected to touch USD 325 billion in 2017-18 on account of rising competitiveness of Indian products and revival in global demand conditions, industry chamber PHDCCI today said.

"Our merchandise exports are expected to touch USD 325 billion mark in 2017-18," PHD Chamber President Gopal Jiwarajka said in a statement.

The remarkable performance exhibited by exports is driven by rising competitiveness of India's products and revival in global demand conditions, he said.

He added that the new tax regime - GST - would also help enhance competitiveness of Indian products and increasing exports.

Further, he said strong rupee is favourable for the growth of exports in Indian scenario.

"Recent evidences have also indicated that when rupee appreciated from around 68.60/USD in November 2016 to 64.86/USD in March 2017, exports growth jumped considerably from around 2.29 per cent to 27.59 pct, respectively," Jiwarajka said.

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HYDERBAD: Global retail giant Walmart will set up 50 new stores across India, including 10 in Telangana, over the next three to four years, a top company official said on Saturday.

The US retailer signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Telangana government for the 10 stores.

It will invest $10 to $12 million in each store, which would create direct and indirect employment for 2,000 people.

Walmart currently has 21 stores in India, including one in Hyderabad.

Spread over 50,000 to 60,000 square feet, each store serves 300,000 customers including 30,000 kirana shops.

Walmart executives and Telangana government officials signed the MoU in the presence of state Industries Minister K.T. Rama Rao, President and CEO, Walmart Canada and Asia, Dirk Van den Berghe, and President and CEO Walmart India, Krish Iyer.

Dirk said Walmart was committed to India and the country with its efficient economy was an important market for them.

Stating that Walmart has presence in 28 countries, he said it would continue to invest more in India in local communities, build businesses, train people and develop suppliers.

Krish Iyer said four of the 10 new stores planned in Telangana would come up in Hyderabad.

Walmart is looking at Tier-II cities like Warangal, Karimnagar and Nizamabad to open the new stores.

He said the company would work with kirana shops, hotels, restaurants, caterers, offices and institutions to help them grow their business by selling them merchandise of highest quality at low prices.

Walmart is currently sourcing 97 percent of the products within India. As much as 15 percent of its merchandise is sourced from the region where its store is located.

He said under direct farm programme, Walmart will work with small and marginal farmers and offer training and education to all stakeholders in the value chain. It will also work for the economic empowerment of women and launch its women entrepreneurship development program.

K.T. Rama Rao said Telangana government would soon come out a retail policy to help build a proper solid base for opening more retail outlets in the state.

He said the government was in talks with various retail players and they were seeking specific retail policy to help them with speedy clearances and incentives.

Later, talking to reporters, Rajneesh Kumar, Senior Vice President and Head Corporate Affairs, Walmart India, said their focus in South India would be on Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

The company has already signed a MoU with Andhra Pradesh.

In north India, Walmart is focusing on Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. It already has MoUs with Haryana and Punjab.

Maharashtra is another state that Walmart will be focusing on for its expansion plans.

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Members of Congress managed to agree on a spending billprice tag is more than $1 trillionthat includes $1.5 billion in new border security but not an actual wall, plus $15 billion more for the Pentagon. Also tucked in there: $68 million for New York City and other municipalities for security costs related to protecting Donald Trump.

About $27 million is for costs between the election and the inauguration, and $40 million is for expenses when Trump has officially been president. The actual breakdown is still to come, but NYC will get most of the funds. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, whose district includes Trump Tower, said in a statement, "I'm very pleased that this budget agreement ensures that New York City taxpayers will be fully reimbursed for the costs to protect then-President elect Trump and his family and that future costs will be covered as the NYPD and FDNY continue to protect Trump Tower. This is the right and fair thing to do.

"It is ridiculous to expect local law enforcement, like the NYPD and FDNY, to bear the extraordinary and ongoing costs of protecting the President of the United States. That is clearly a national security concern and paying for it should be federal responsibility. This budget agreement ensures the federal government meets this responsibility."

Rep. Nita Lowey told the NY Post, "I am very pleased New York taxpayers will not be on the hook for these critical and necessary expenses."

Last week, President Trump told Fox News that he felt "guilty" about coming to NYC because of how much money it takes to protect him here. (The NYPD has estimated that when Trump is in town, security costs $308,000 per day, while it's around $127,000-145,000 for First Lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump.)

Trump is returning to NYC for the first time as President on Thursday for an event with the Australian prime minister at the Intrepid. It's unclear if he will spend the night in Trump Tower.


NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India appreciates Cyprus' support for its permanent membership of the UNSC and called for early reform of the Security Council.

"India and Cyprus share the common objective of bringing about an early reform in the United Nations Security Council. Both of us believe that a reformed Security Council will be reflective of the world as it is, and not as it was (earlier)," Modi said while addressing the media after the delegation level talks with Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades.

"It is necessary to address range of challenges facing the world today," the Prime Minister said.

On terrorism, Modi said that being part of a neighbourhood facing threats of terrorism, Cyprus agreed that there was an urgent need for creating a comprehensive mechanism against terrorism.

Both nations called for early conclusion of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Modi also expressed support for the territorial integrity of Cyprus and said that both the leaders held detailed discussions which covered the full range of bilateral issues.

Last year, a revised double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) was signed between the two countries. The provisions of the new DTAA came into force from April 1.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Modi received Anastasiades who was accorded a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

The visiting guest was given a ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Anastasiades, who arrived in Mumbai on April 25, will depart from New Delhi on Saturday. This is his first visit to India.

Modi and Anastasiades also held talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in September 2015.

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MUMBAI: To revive its ties, Italy is keen to support the 'Make in India' drive and hopes to take bilateral trade to nearly 8.5 billion euros in 2018, visiting deputy minister for economic development Ivan Scalfarotto said here today.



Scalfarotto is leading a high profile delegation of 60 Italian companies to the country to explore business and investment opportunities.

"We have a long-standing relationship with India and we want to strengthen it further especially when it is growing at over 7 per cent. With this visit, we are hopeful that bilateral trade would reach to 8.5 billion euros by 2018," he told reporters on the sidelines an investment summit.



He said Rome is committed to contribute to improve the ties, and share her expertise and know-how in key areas such as green technologies, renewables, food processing, textiles, SMEs and infrastructure.



"India, with her emphasis on infrastructure, manufacturing, IT, and clean energy, among others, is a huge opportunity for our businesses.



"There are already 600 Italian companies operating here and we want to further strengthen our ties," he said.



The minister further said in the automobiles sector, Italian component manufacturers are ready to offer their knowledge and advanced technologies for hybrid, electric, fuel cell and hydrogen vehicles.



Scalfarotto said Italy, which is the second largest manufacturing economy in the EU after Germany, has so far invested nearly 2.2 billion euros in India while the latter's contribution in their FDI is around 110 million euros only.



When asked whether there has been an improvement in ease of doing business here, he said, "though things have changed to some extent, there are some areas that still need to be addressed. Government's policy on single taxation under GST, emphasis on creating infrastructure, among others are positive signals."



Addressing the investor forum, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis assured the delegation that his administration will provide all necessary assistance and infrastructure to facilitate Italian companies to set up businesses in the state.



"Maharashtra is growing at more than the national growth rate. We are making huge investments in creating infrastructure. Along with this, we are trying to streamline our processes to ensure single-window clearances. We already have 130 Italian companies operating in the state and we expect more and more companies to come to the state," he said.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The tens of millions of dollars that New York City has spent on security for the first family and Trump Tower in Manhattan will be reimbursed, as Sunday's federal budget agreement includes $68 million to repay municipalities for costs.

Mayor Bill de Blasio for months has called on the Trump administration to reimburse the city for the costly security.

The city said it spent $24 million between Election Day in November and Inauguration Day in January, and estimates it costs between $127,000 and $146,000 a day when President Donald Trump is not in town. (He hasn't been since taking office). A New York City visit by the president would cost an estimated average daily rate of $308,000.

The costs to the FDNY are estimated to be $4.5 million annually.

Based on the city's estimated daily cost, it spent at most around $40 million through Trump's 100th day in office protecting Melania and Barron Trump in NYC.

The $68 million in the budget agreement includes $7 million that the city has already been promised.

The remaining $61 million is for any municipality, like New York City and Palm Beach, home of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, where the president has spent some time since taking office.

Localities must apply for the federal funding.

Since before Trump took office, Rep. Daniel Donovan, the only Republican in the city's congressional delegation, has worked with de Blasio to seek the reimbursement.

In March, Donovan (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) testified in front of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science of the House Appropriations Committee.

He said then, "I think we can all agree that protecting the president of the United States is a national priority and honor, but circumstances have dictated that the costs of such protection fall disproportionately on the local jurisdictions. I sincerely and respectfully request that the committee fully reimburse state and local jurisdictions for the costs associated with protecting the president of the United States and the first family from Election Day to inauguration day, as well as the costs incurred thereafter."

Donovan added Monday, "I thank House appropriators and leadership for doing right by the city. As New York City's only Republican representative, I feel an obligation to work with my colleagues in the majority to advance the city's interests, and I'm glad I was successful."

Before Congress reached its budget agreement Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer said New York City should refuse to provide first family security unless the federal government pays for it.

Speaking Monday, he said, "It's a national responsibility to guard the president of the United States and the federal government's job to pick up the tab. I fought hard to include $68 million in the federal budget agreement to provide reimbursement for New York's and Florida's security costs for guarding the president's residences. Without these funds, New York City taxpayers would have had to foot the bill for protecting the president of the United States and his family."

Responding to the budget agreement, de Blasio said, "We are getting what we are owed. That's good news for our city and the hardworking police officers faced with this unprecedented security challenge. We could not have done this without our congressional delegation, including U.S. Representatives Nita Lowey, Grace Meng, Jose Serrano, Dan Donovan and Carolyn Maloney. They worked tirelessly over the past several months to make sure these costs are paid for by the federal government."

Earlier this year, Police Commissioner James O'Neill sent a letter to the city delegation, asking them to advocate for the reimbursement.

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A transgender woman from Staten Island is finally out of prison, but she is far from free.

Antonio Bohanna, who fled from the south to New York City three years ago, thought life would be better in the big city.

But after an abusive relationship and a traumatic stint in jail for killing her partner during a domestic dispute, it's been a tumultuous transition.

"I thought I could be more free here," Bohanna said in an interview with the Advance. "But I still feel like I'm in jail."

Bohanna spent about a year behind bars before pleading guilty to manslaughter for fatally stabbing her boyfriend last year.

She was sentenced to six months in prison and five years' probation, and released on time served.

"Even though I'm out, my life will never be the same," Bohanna said. "Sometimes I don't want to live."

'IT WAS AN ACCIDENT'

On March 4, 2016, Bohanna and her partner, Kamel Milhouse, 26, got into a heated verbal altercation that quickly escalated into a physical struggle, she said.

Bohanna claims Milhouse was drunk and desperate for drugs when he initiated the fight in their Sea View home.

She claims he beat her for 15 minutes before he grabbed a four-inch kitchen knife off the counter and jumped at her. When Milhouse came at her, she said, she twisted his hand that was holding the knife and he stabbed himself in the left side.

"It was an accident," Bohanna said. "He tried to choke me. I had knots on my head, a swollen face and cuts on my hand from fighting with him."

Bohanna claims Milhouse begged her not to call 911 because he had an active bench warrant against him, but after a few minutes she called for help because he was bleeding.

Officers responding to a 911 call about an assault found Milhouse with a stab wound to his back at about 12:15 a.m., according to an NYPD statement.

When the ambulance arrived, she said, an EMS worker was trying to stop the bleeding, but Milhouse was resisting.

He was then rushed to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, where he was pronounced dead.

"I'm sorry he's gone," she said. "I hurt every day."

'NEVER KNEW HE WAS DEAD'

Bohanna was taken to the 121st Precinct stationhouse in Graniteville and interrogated by homicide detectives.

She said she was there from 2:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. answering questions about the incident.

"I stuck him," Bohanna told detectives as they arrested her for allegedly knifing her partner to death, according to the criminal complaint.

But, she said, she thought the police were trying to help her because they were treating her like the victim, when she was really a suspect.

"I never knew he was dead while they were questioning me," Bohanna said. "I was in shock when they told me. I still feel shock. Sometimes I can't believe it's real."

Bohanna was initially charged with second-degree murder, but a grand jury declined to indict her on that charge. Instead, she was indicted on counts of second-degree manslaughter and fourth-degree criminal weapon possession.

She was arraigned in state Supreme Court and bail at $100,000 bond or $50,000 cash was set.

But Bohanna didn't have the money, and spent a year bouncing around to various city jails, including a harrowing stay at Rikers, where there is no transgender unit.

During her incarceration in general population, she said, she was raped twice and assaulted three times.

She was then placed in protective custody at the facility, she said.

Before her third day in jail, Bohanna admitted she tried ending her life by taking 100 pills. She then spent two weeks at Bellevue recovering, she said.

"I couldn't take it anymore," Bohanna said. "Jail is hard for transgender people.

"That's why I took the plea. I wanted to go to trial, but knew it would take a long time."

A Department of Corrections spokesperson did not provide specifics about Bohanna's time at Rikers.

But in a statement to the Advance said: "DOC has a zero tolerance policy with regard to sexual abuse. As part of our top-to-bottom reform initiative, we are working to bring our agency into compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act."

'ADDICTED TO ABUSE'

Bohanna said she and Milhouse dated for about 15 months, and it was physical and violent throughout the relationship.

She claims her ex would punch, choke, spit on her, hit her with a bottle and even pulled a gun on her.

In one incident, she said he was attacking her outside the 121st Precinct stationhouse and a plainclothes detectives brought two officers to help her. In another incident, Milhouse charged at her with a knife while she was on the phone with 911, she said.

Court records show Milhouse was arrested on Staten Island 10 times after Bohanna filed complaints. The charges included robbery and assault.

"He was never locked up," she said. "They would just let him go and give an order of protection."

Milhouse, an ex-con, had a total of 66 arrests and was incarcerated several times, according to court records.

Bohanna documented the abuse by visiting Safe Horizon, a victim's assistance organization. In 2015, she went there about 40 times to get help with safety planning, crisis intervention and counseling.

But, she admits, if Milhouse was still alive, she would be with him.

"I'm addicted to abusive relationships," she said. "It made me feel like a woman because he was controlling and would put his hands on me."

--

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Lisa Grey, a former Republican commissioner for the city Board of Elections and former first vice chairwoman for the Staten Island Republican Party, officially announced her candidacy for a soon-to-be vacant Civil Court seat in the borough.

Grey resigned from the Board of Elections last month to seek the seat currently held by Judge Philip Straniere, who, at age 70, will be forced to retire at the end of the year.

Attorney John Zaccone replaced Grey at the BOE.

First elected to Civil Court in 1996, the Republican Straniere won re-election last year after receiving cross endorsement from the Democratic Party and running unopposed (along with two Democratic Civil Court judges, who also won re-election).

Grey plans to run in the November election, and while former Family Court Judge Ralph Porzio, a candidate for GOP chairman, is also said to be eyeing the bench, no other candidates have surfaced yet.

Grey was appointed to the Board of Elections in January 2016 to replace Ron Castorina Jr., who had resigned to pursue a campaign for Assembly. She had considered running for the South Shore Assembly seat when party leaders placed her at the BOE.

An attorney in private practice, Grey previously worked as an assistant district attorney under former DAs Daniel Donovan and Bill Murphy, as well as special counsel to Sen. Andrew Lanza.

Grey challenged incumbent state Sen. Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) in 2012 and lost.

With the endorsement of all seven of Staten Island's elected Republicans, Grey said she is "honored."

"For me there is nothing more satisfying than serving my community, and I was fortunate to have that opportunity throughout my career," Grey said in a statement. "From the time I was an assistant district attorney to this very moment, my focus has always been the pursuit of fairness and justice. Our judicial system is built on that very foundation, and I believe that the experiences of my professional life have readied me for this important role. Judge Straniere has served our borough with integrity and distinction, and I would be humbled and honored to succeed him in serving our community as the next Civil Court judge."
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Hear that buzz? The B-List is back. It's comprised of many a New Yorker's life blood: Bagels. Breakfasts. Brunches. Bakeries.

From bagels at breakneck speed during rush hour, to leisurely poached eggs and mimosas at weekend brunch, Staten Island has it all.

But we need your expertise to determine the borough's best Bs.

Nominations are being solicited from May 1-8 to determine finalists in the "Best Bagel, Breakfast, Brunch & Bakery" categories of the 2017 Best of Staten Island Awards.

Share your passionate picks in the comments section here and on the official Advance/SILIve Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages.

HOW THE BEST OF STATEN ISLAND AWARDS WORK: By now you probably know the drill: It's up to you to nominate and elect the borough's best of everything that makes life entertaining, delicious, sometimes challenging, but always culturally enriching.

Nomination phase: After the call for nominees is posted on SILive.com, you share your nominations for one week. Nomination phase for "Best Bagel, Breakfast, Brunch & Bakery" runs from Monday, May 1, through (midnight) Monday, May 8.

Voting phase: The poll phase runs Tuesday to Tuesday, May 9-16, after finalists are announced. Help us generate BUZZ for The B-List: Share the poll! Blast social media with calls to vote. Make sure your finalists get their share of the love.

Go old school with flyers and distribute them at your fave business. Stump door to door for your candidates. Whatever it takes -- within legal and moral reason, of course -- to get S.I. some much-deserved recognition is fine with us.

Winner announcement: We feature your top picks for two weeks starting Tuesday, May 16, on SILive.com, with feature stories, photo galleries and video profiles. The next 2017 Best of S.I. Awards category launches Monday, May 29, on SILive.com.

In the coming weeks: After each nominate-vote-win category cycle, we follow up with a series of additional voting categories celebrating many aspects of life on S.I.

So, dine out. Catch some live music and theater. Get a tattoo. Belly up to a dive bar, cocktail lounge or dance club. Whatever. Just determine the borough's best.

Then nominate your picks as their respective categories are announced, one by one, on SILive.com. Nominees with the most votes in each category become the finalists for the individual (i.e. Best Pub Grub, Best Sushi, Best Mom & Pop Shop, etc.) polls.

QUESTIONS? Post them in the comments section here or hit me up at bailey@siadvance.com. I'll answer them ASAP.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Jurors have listened to more than two dozen witnesses testify over the course of 10 days at alleged wrong-way crash cop Pedro Abad's criminal trial, but there's one witness they won't hear from -- the defendant himself.

At a conference outside the jury's presence Monday in state Supreme Court St. George, Abad affirmed he won't take the witness stand, as is his Fifth Amendment right.

"Yes, Your Honor," the dark-haired, beareded defendant replied when Justice Mario F. Mattei asked if he had chosen not to testify.

Defendants are not required to testify at their criminal trials, as prosecutors have the burden of proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt to secure a conviction. In fact, most criminal defendants don't take the stand to avoid a potentially damaging cross-examination.

Had Abad testified, the former Linden, N.J. police officer would have been subject to questions not only about his actions leading up to the March 20, 2015 wreck that claimed the lives of two passengers in his car, but about a prior driving-while-intoxicated conviction in New Jersey in 2013 in which he fell asleep behind the wheel.

The defense rested without presenting any witnesses or evidence after Abad declined to testify.

"After interviewing the witnesses, their testimony would not have added anything more to the case than we already had," Mario F. Gallucci, Abad's lawyer, said outside court.

Prosecutors, who put 76 exhibits into evidence to support witness testimony, also rested Monday, setting the stage for summations on Wednesday, when the trial resumes.

Deliberations are not expected to begin until Thursday.

Abad, 29, a former Linden, N.J. police officer, is accused of speeding and driving drunk the wrong way on the West Shore Expressway and slamming into a tractor trailer around 4:50 a.m., killing two passengers, Joseph Rodriguez and Frank Viggiano, a Linden police officer. Both men were 28.

The defendant seriously injured himself and another passenger, former Linden cop Patrik Kudlac, 25, prosecutors also allege.

The four men had been drinking at Curves, a Charleston strip club, before the crash, according to witness testimony. Earlier that night, Abad and Kudlac had dinner and drinks at a New Jersey bar and restaurant, Kudlac testified.

Abad is charged with aggravated vehicular homicide, manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter and other crimes.

Gallucci told the court Monday he had spoken earlier that morning and over the weekend with several potential witnesses he had subpoenaed, including Fire Department emergency medical technicians, but chose not to have them testify.

"It would not be beneficial," Gallucci told Mattei. "It did not add anything to the defense."

In the jury's presence, both sides stipulated to the accuracy of evidence, including E-ZPass records, showing a 2015 Honda, which Abad had leased, had entered the Goethals Bridge toll plaza at 2:12 a.m. on March 20, 2015.

The defendant and his three companions walked into Curves nine minutes later at 2:21 a.m., according to prior testimony.

After jurors were dismissed for the day, prosecutors, the defense and the judge discussed the charges to be presented to the panel.

Abad is accused under a 27-count indictment, and it was agreed to eliminate a misdemeanor reckless-endangerment count as being redundant.

Mattei said he would continue reviewing the charges for other duplications, and it's expected a few more would be eliminated before being given to the jury for deliberations.

Abad potentially faces a maximum of eight and one-third to 25 years in prison if convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide, the top charge against him.

Assistant District Attorneys Mark Palladino and Frank Prospero are prosecuting the case.

--

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About 1,500 students filled the Helena High School gym bleachers to hear Kevin Hines tell of his suicide attempt and how it changed his life.

Hines jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in September 2000.

Of the more than 2,000 people whove done so, only 36 have survived.

He is one of just five survivors who regained full physical mobility, he said. He now recognizes his life as a great gift.

Since that fateful day, hes become a suicide prevention advocate, speaking across the country and internationally.

He asked the HHS students for a moment of silence Friday morning to remember seven of their peers who died by suicide in the past five years.

Words make a difference, he told the students.

If someone on that day in 2000 had asked him, Are you OK? Can I help you? Is something wrong? he probably would not have jumped, he said.

I believed I had only one option, he said, which was to die by his own hands.

He had been battling his bipolar disorder for two years and was ready to end the mental anguish, he said.

When he was first hit with the symptoms at age 17, they were dramatic and frightening.

He became convinced postal workers in their white mail trucks were trying to kill him, as were people in the audience at his high school play.

Unlike physical problems, which people easily recognize, mental problems get a different response.

What is wrong with you? they ask, but with a note of sarcasm rather than sympathy. Snap out of it. Get over it. Move on.

People want to blame you for it, but Im here to tell you, there is no blame, he said.

If you are suffering mentally, he said, never again silence your pain. Always be honest about what youre dealing with.

When he was a teen, he didnt know how to talk about his hallucinations, paranoia and depression.

Not only do people want physical pain to stop, they want mental pain to stop too, and thats what leads to death by suicide.

I know suicide aint the answer, he said, it leaves all sorts of pain and destruction in its wake.

Your words have the power to do one of two things, he said. They have the power to help and heal or damage and destroy.

Im asking you to think about the words you use, he told the crowd, and how they can hurt people. Why do you get excited about hurting somebody elses feelings?

He recalls the self-loathing and depression he felt whenever he looked into the mirror back then.

And he recounted sitting on the bus on his way to the bridge weeping uncontrollably and talking to imaginary voices.

Although 100 people on the bus were staring at him, not one person asked if he was OK.

I wholeheartedly believe ... we are here to be our brothers and sisters keepers, he said. We are here to give back to those around us and make sure they are OK.

If theyre not, were here to suggest they go see a counselor, or teacher ... and get the help they need.

One person makes a difference, he said. Each and every one in this gym can change a life with one small gesture.

He urged the students to stand and yell at the top of their voices a message for those in the room battling mental pain: Be here tomorrow -- which they did with enthusiasm.

After he jumped, Hines knew in the millisecond that followed hed made the greatest mistake of his life.

When he landed in the water, he felt something large and slimy beneath him, buoying him up in the water, he said.

He thought it was a shark.

It was only much later he learned that it was a sea lion that kept him afloat until the Coast Guard boat arrived.

His injuries almost severed his spinal column, but miraculously he survived.

And he has been grateful ever since and works tirelessly on suicide prevention. He also takes care of his own physical and mental health and notes that it's a constant fight to be well. He recognizes that his thoughts do not have to become his actions.

Hines also told the students of his hilarious and disastrous first date with a beautiful woman who would become his wife, and that hes been happily married now for 10 years.

This is just one of many things he didnt know would happen in his future when he jumped from the bridge.

You are going to get past today, he said. Just because you are in pain -- recognize today is not tomorrow. Thoughts of suicide never ever have to become actions."

Hines speech brought the students to their feet for a standing ovation.

I think its a really great message we needed to hear -- with all the people we lost at Helena High throughout the years," said senior Taylor Terrio. "It seems thats how people react to the bad parts of their lives.

There have been a lot of judgmental people that say they want to help, but dont," she added. "And people dont know who to reach out to.

I thought it was an amazing story, said Brandt Netschert, another senior. I think the students in Helena really need to hear it. It gets the message across that people really need to talk to each other. One of the things is that no one wants to talk because people will think theres something wrong with them.

I think he was really good, said Aine Lawlor. It was a very strong message we as a school definitely need to hear. Even if we already know it, its something we need to hear. I hope that it means something to the students, it certainly did for me.
Canberra International Music Festival Concert Three: James Morrison Quartet. The Fitters' Workshop. Saturday, April 29.

The standing ovation given at the end of the evening was testament to the calibre of a truly exceptional performance helmed by famed jazz musician James Morrison. His quartet included the talent of his two sons, William on guitar and Harry on bass, with drummer Patrick Danao, who were impressive in their energy.

The James Morrison Quartet showed unrelenting positivity throughout their concert. Credit:William Hall

Best known as a virtuosic trumpeter, Morrison wasted no time in opening the concert with Ferde Grofe's jazz standard On The Trail. Featuring the first of many agile trumpet solos, Morrison's world-famous tone was on full display. The character of this piece suited Morrison perfectly, its light-hearted nature matching a uniquely welcoming smile that remained for the duration of the concert. Indeed, the quartet's unrelenting positivity during the evening  and that of James Morrison in particular, who could be heard singing along with his later piano playing, evidently loving every minute  left the audience with genuine enjoyment.

Morrison's clarity of pitch on both trumpet and trombone was especially dazzling; the latter featuring in Antonio Carlos Jobim's If You Never Come To Me, which truly sang with elegant vibrato. Back on trumpet (a swap made again with unfaltering ease), Morrison's slurs were equally outstanding and his intonation was pinpoint accurate over what must have been at least four octaves. Morrison doubled as an engaging MC, quick to explain jazz traditions for anyone in the audience who might have been unfamiliar with the genre. In particular, he demonstrated the unique piano style of Erroll Garner, interpreting The Way You Look Tonight with the authenticity and class of the late jazz pianist.
The nation's largest private hospital company, Ramsay Health Care, and specifically its Australian chief executive, stand accused of threatening doctors after they moved to set up a competing clinic.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on Monday launched federal court action against Ramsay claiming the ASX-listed company, which had revenue of $8.7 billion last year, had heavied local surgeons at Coffs Harbour who were considering opening their own clinic.

It also claims that the company's Australian chief executive, Daniel Sims, was personally involved in warning at least one doctor not to be involved in the clinic or risk a backlash.
The Turnbull government has committed to constructing Sydney's new $5 billion-plus airport at Badgerys Creek and left the door open to the private sector running it once the first flights begin in less than a decade.

Confirmation of the government's intentions come after Sydney Airport turned down its "right of first refusal" to build and operate Western Sydney Airport because of the "considerable risks" it would bear for decades.

While the terms were unpalatable for Sydney Airport, Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher said it made sense for the government to build and own the new airport because it would boost Sydney's flight capacity and create thousands of new jobs in the west.

"[The] announcement by Sydney Airport was not unexpected at all," he said. "We have been doing detailed contingency planning over many months."
An attack on costs that has cut thousands of jobs and a focus on better lending has seen ANZ Bank post a healthy jump in its half-year profit.

ANZ on Tuesday announced that profit had jumped 23 per cent in the six months to the end of March to $3.4 billion. It posted the result even though interest income slipped 2 per cent, partly thanks to big fall in charges for bad loans (22 per cent).

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott has also unleashed deep cost-cutting across the business, especially its institutional division.

In the year to March, the number of full-time equivalent staff employed by the bank fell by 2850 to 46,046.
Network Ten shares have hit record low, after record low, following last week's half year result but it might still have surprised a few people that the entire business is not worth much more than a James Packer's pre-nup deal with former wife Erica.

Don't let the 23c share price fool you, Ten did a 10:1 share consolidation early last year. Without that, the stock would now be trading as a penny dreadful at 2.3c.

It is a long way from October 2010 when a buccaneering Packer swooped on an 18 per cent stake, buying 186 million shares at $1.50.

That's a cool $244 million. Yes, that hurts even taking into account that he hand balled half this stake to Lachlan Murdoch within weeks.
Chinese investment in Australia surged 11.7 per cent last year to $15.4 billion amid booming demand for agricultural assets and infrastructure, according to a report released on Monday.

A record 103 deals were signed with Chinese companies in 2016, with 76 per cent of those reached with private firms, KPMG and the University of Sydney said in the report Demystifying Chinese Investment in Australia.

Australia, with a population of 24 million people and a land mass larger than India, relies on foreign investment to spur growth.

While Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's government blocked two key purchases by Chinese companies last year, citing national security, the report shows that the vast majority of deals are approved.
Computer software giant Microsoft will set new standards by extending paid maternity leave to 20 weeks and providing four weeks of paid leave for employees to care for a seriously ill family member.

The new leave policy to be announced to Microsoft employees on Tuesday will extend paid parental leave from two to six weeks for all new parents and from 12 to 20 weeks for the primary carer.

Microsoft will offer extended leave. Credit:Swayne B. Hall

The leave will be available from the time an employee starts work with the company. Until now, they had to wait six months before being able to seek the parental leave entitlements.

A new leave benefit will also be introduced to give people four weeks of fully paid leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition.
Fines for shoddy bookkeeping are too low to deter businesses from underpaying workers and is helping them avoid prosecution.

Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James raised the problem when she addressed the Australian Industry Group on Monday, noting that her staff sometimes had to take extreme steps such as camping outside workplaces to monitor when staff were working because record-keeping was so poor.

Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James. Credit:Penny Stephens

This was crucial, she said, because inadequate records hindered her office's capacity to "assess and rectify underpayment of wages".

"Poor or inadequate record keeping is one of our most fundamental challenges," Ms James said.
Almost exactly two years ago, The Montana Standard wrote the following in an editorial:

"Now that the small minority of House Republicans who mulishly blocked a much-needed statewide infrastructure bill have had a chance to go home and feel voters displeasure, it strikes us as a good idea to bring them back to Helena so they can do what they should have done the first time around.

"It boggles the mind that for the lack of one vote, so much good for the state was precluded from happening: local infrastructure projects in Eastern Montana ... upgrades to Montana university campuses, and, of course, the regional veterans home ready to be built, and critically needed, in Butte."

It continued:

"Governor Bullock, the state gives you the power to winch these clueless, negative do-nothing types  along with the majority of responsible legislators who tried to do the right thing  right back into session.

"Power not used is power wasted.

"Haul em back."

Now that we have experienced exactly the same level of destructive ideological stubbornness -- falling two votes short this year instead of one -- there is all the more reason to make a point.

The Legislature, once again, did not do its job.

Governor, summon them back to Helena and make them try again.

It would have been a good idea two years ago and it's a better idea now. Montanans, like the veterans who so have waited so long for the Butte home to be built, need these projects worse than ever.

Make a point with these knuckleheads.

We say again: Haul 'em back.

This editorial was originally published in The Montana Standard.
Dear C8, why doesn't a C8 genius develop an "App" to enable 400 or so Cattle Class travellers to launch a bid for a flight Sydney-London-Sydney without any baggage whatsoever at a theoretical fare of $100 a head? Removing the 23kg "baggage allowance" and the notional 7kg "hand luggage" frees the airline's A380 to carry 12 tonnes of premium dollar earning freight. Advertised on C8 this initiative would propel Granny into the cyber age big time. Peter Skinner, Beecroft.

I give up, says Susan Margan of Epping. "No setting at all (16:9, 4:3, zoom on/off, etc) will display the far left of the ABC's new weather summary table. My TV is newish and large screen, so I called the grandkids, who came, tried and gave up too. So tomorrow's forecast remains a daily mystery to me. ABC please change it back!"

Here in Queensland we are having just as much fun with the ABC TV weather (C8, fuzzy font). Ever since the new format we've been interested to see that Applothorpo, the coldest place in the state, has the same temperature range as Townsvillo, always 10 minimum to 10 maximum. Pam Linnett, Twin Wators, Queensland.

Fuzzy font headline if Her Majesty were to tour Queensland: Quoon visits Roof. God savo tho Quoon. Goorgo Manojlovic, Mangorton.

I call on all C8ers to write to the ABC to complain, eg: "Doar Auntio, I am writing to adviso of my objoction to tho uso of the now font etc..." Sincorly, Tim Donovan, Bahrs Scrub. [C8: this is playing havoc with our spellcheck.]
Illustration: Andrew Dyson. It's a mistake to underestimate the regime's determination to build a long-range missile, he says: "They have already mastered short and medium range missiles. It's only a matter of time before they solve the problem." To make matters worse, North Korea under Kim Jong Un is "much more provocative" than it was under his father, and "the uncertainty is magnified by the fact that the Trump team is learning on the job." Donald Trump has said that he's expecting China's Xi Jinping to do the hard work of deterring Kim from any further provocation. Credit:AP But, with Pyongyang still unable to put a nuclear warhead on a missile, does it matter? Doesn't Donald Trump and the wider world still have options?

Not the options that many seem to think exist: "What people don't really understand," says Campbell, "is that the two sides have been getting ready for a fight for the last 60 years. The North Koreans have a million artillery tubes in firing range of Seoul. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Credit:AP "You have a million-man army in the North facing a smaller, more technologically advanced force in the South backed by the military might of the US and Japan. "The biggest deterrent" to a pre-emptive US strike on North Korea "is not its nuclear capability - it's conventional capability. If ever there were a conflict on the Korean peninsula, it would be a masive inferno. You have high confidence that, in the end, North Korea would be wiped out. "But the devastation of the South would be horrific  millions killed."

A further restraint on any idea of a preemptive US strike to destroy North Korea's nuclear facilities, says Campbell, is that there is recent evidence that the regime has distributed the nuclear infrastructure around the country and the US could not be fully confident that it knows every location. There are no easy options. Trump has said that he's expecting China's Xi Jinping to do the hard work of deterring Kim from any further provocation. Xi says that Washington and Beijing are united in seeking to prevent the nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. But North Korea is nonetheless one of only two allies of China, and there are limits to how far it will go in pressing its ally. Campbell says he expects that "in the end, China will disappoint" American expectations. "Donald Trump is in the process of learning that Korea is the land of lousy options," says Campbell. A Democrat, he is no longer in government, running an advisory business in Washington, the Asia Group. He's not impressed by Trump's handling of the problem to date: "In a crisis like this the tendency is for the US to bring its allies closer. The president has instead roiled South Korea with his comments - it's crazy.

"US allies are looking to the US government for clear signals of strength and reassurance. On the strength side, the president has made clear that all options are on the table, so that's the right thing to do. "But on the reassurance side, the administration is falling short. I think it's fair to say that none of our allies has a clear idea of what's going on. Anxiety in South Korea is higher than it's been for decades." Understandably. In the midst of a crisis that Donald Trump has described his most urgent national security priority, he has picked a fight not with his adversary but with his ally. In the past week or so, even as North Korea threatens an imminent attack on South Korea, Trump has chosen to denounce the US free trade agreement with Seoul as the "worst deal ever" and demanded renegotiations. He has insulted his South Korean ally by saying in an interview that the country was once "part of China", a falsehood that seems to concede to China a greater scope for legitimate influence over Seoul.

And, astonishingly, he has even demanded publicly that the South Korean government, which goes to an election on May 9, must pay for the defensive missile interception system that the US is installing on South Korean soil. Malcolm Turnbull will strike a pose with Trump this week on the deck of a retired warship in New York Harbour to affirm the strength of the alliance with the US. Everyone will play happy allied families in a carefully choreographed performance. But the reality of US alliances under Trump is not the cheerful one to be played out on the USS Intrepid but Trump's treatment of America's South Korean ally. Every US ally needs to note that, exactly when South Korea needs America most, Trump is putting pressure on it, picking a fight with it on trade and defence, publicly belittling it. Turnbull has to do what he can to preserve as much of the alliance as he can. But every US ally is now on notice  you cannot rely on Trump's America in a crisis.
The Australian Defence Force says its aircraft are not responsible for any of the estimated 352 civilian casualties caused by coalition air strikes against Islamic State fighters, but is vowing to start reporting publicly on RAAF bombing raids.

On Monday, the US-led coalition issued its latest civilian casualty report and concluded that "it is more likely than not, at least 352 civilians have been unintentionally killed by Coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve"  the name of the fight against the terrorist group.

In a statement to be issued on Tuesday, Defence says Australian Hornet and Super Hornet strike aircraft have been involved in two incidents that gave rise to "credible claims" of civilian casualties but in neither case were the claims substantiated.

Both were in Iraq in late 2014. But as the fight in the densely populated city of Mosul  regarded as the terror group's last stand in Iraq  becomes more fierce, it is likely that civilian deaths and injuries from air strikes will become more common.
The student newspapers of some of Australia's most prestigious universities have been denied access to the lock-up for next week's federal budget, which will lay out fee hikes for university students and a multibillion-dollar funding cut for the higher education sector.

Described as "suspect" by the publications, the decision will see students locked out of the opportunity for early access to official budget documents, and briefings from Treasury officials, at Parliament House.

The Australian National University's Woroni, the University of Sydney's Honi Soit and the University of Melbourne's Farrago - which were all present at the 2016 lock-up - are among the publications crying foul, suggesting the decision is a "concerted move to avoid scrutiny and criticism" from student journalists.

"By locking student media out of this crucial political event, the federal government has denied us the opportunity to closely analyse a budget which will have a massive impact on young people," the publications said in a joint editorial, also signed by the University of Newcastle's Opus, Western Sydney University's W'SUP, and the ANU's Observer.
Much has been written about Ja Rule's (yes, that Ja Rule) and entrepreneur Billy McFarland's now infamous Fye Festival - a celebrity-endorsed weekend festival of music, gourmet experiences and luxury in the Bahamas - and its subsequent, epic, fail.

Promoted by the likes of Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid (who has since apologised), the weekend promised "the culture experience of the decade" with tickets selling between $1335 - $16,000 and some VIP packages as high as $334,000. Amenities included private plane and boat rentals, massages, and local beach tours. On the line-up to perform were Pusha T, Major Lazer, Disclosure, and Migos. Blink 182 cancelled just before the event.

And yet instead of the premium experience promised to the hordes of cashed-up millennials, let's call them luxennials, it was, well, it was not good.

Swap out the mingling with celebrities (who were allegedly told not to come, along with staff) and the luxurious lifestyles beckoning to be 'grammed, and replace instead with wet tents, barely any electricity and (very limited) catering that consisted of slices of bread with some plastic cheese.
An elaborate publicity stunt orchestrated right down to the placement of a seemingly innocent garnish, or a late-night lovers' tryst caught in the lens of a paparazzo?

It's the question being asked across Sydney on Monday morning as publicity seeking missile Roxy Jacenko once again sets the "news" agenda, this time for being photographed in a passionate embrace and kissing her former lover, millionaire property developer Nabil Gazal jnr, on Saturday night while her husband, jailed inside trader Oliver Curtis, serves his sentence in Cooma prison.

Nabil Gazal and Roxy Jacenko dining at Sydney's Otto restaurant in a file picture.

It all started on Saturday night when Jacenko arrived for dinner at one of her clients' restaurants in Rushcutters Bay.

She was conveniently positioned under a light in full view of the window, outside which was a photographer.
Hollywood actress Shannen Doherty has announced that she is in remission from breast cancer.

The former Beverly Hills, 90210 actress said she had "no idea how to react" after hearing that she had beaten the illness, which she was diagnosed with in 2015.

Shannon Doherty shared the news about her remission from breast cancer in an Instagram post. Credit:Peter Kramer

She wrote on Instagram: "Moments. They happen. Today was and is a moment.

"What does remission mean? I heard that word and have no idea how to react.
Anyone who's ever shared a house can run off the benefits of having a flatmate: cheaper rent and bills, added security and the chance they may have an attractive friend you can date.

But there are also the pitfalls: less privacy, having to be accountable to someone else for the dishes/cleaning/maintenance and that the relationship will come to a bitter end.

Megan Park (left) and Annie Abbott in their shared store in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. Credit:Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.

It's exactly the same for retailers who are joining forces as "shop mates"; just replace the dishes for window displays and the good looking friends for customers.

Fashion designer Megan Park and shoe designer Annie Abbott, of habbot, are experimenting with sharing a space in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy.
Smoking, drinking, exercise and even heart problems are not predictors of a person's longevity - a person's close relationships and social integration were. That's what psychologist Susan Pinker has discovered in researching the impact that our human connections have on all aspects of our well-being, including our physical health. Those with intimacy in their lives, those with support systems and frequent face-to-face interactions were not only physically and emotionally healthier, but they also lived longer.

Among the dozens of big ideas shared this week at the international TED conference - from a robot that could outperform students on college exams to an ultraviolet light that could kill superbugs - were some simpler, almost obvious, life improvements we should all prioritise to live better lives. While the ideas themselves might not be all that surprising, the explanations for how and why they better your life served as powerful reminders that we might be prioritising the wrong things, and undervaluing that which makes life worth living.

It's why women, who tend to prioritise spending time with their friends more than men, live an average of six years longer, Pinker said. And it's not enough to text or email. The actual health benefits of socialising are only achieved through in-person contact, she said.

"Face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters and, like a vaccine, they protect you now in the present and well into the future," she said.

And it doesn't even have to be long, close interactions to have an immediate effect. Making eye contact, shaking someone's hand, giving someone a high-five lowers your cortisone levels and releases dopamine, making you less stressed and giving you a little high, she said. Pinker showed two images of the brain, one of someone conversing in person and another of someone watching a video of someone discussing the same subject. In the brain of the person interacting, parts of the brain associated with social intelligence and emotional reward lit up.

"This face-to-face contact provides stunning benefits, but a quarter of the population says they have no one to talk to," Pinker said. "We can do something about this. It's a biological imperative to know we belong. . . . Building in-person interactions into our cities, into our workplaces, into our agendas, bolsters our immune system, sends positive hormones surging through our bloodstream and brain and helps us live longer. I call this building your village, and building it is a matter of life or death."

- Knowing when to turn off your smartphone enriches your life
Driving on electricity is cheaper than petrol, particularly in the ACT, which has lower electricity prices than other states and territories. However, charging from a rooftop solar photovoltaic installation can be even cheaper  a dedicated system installed to charge the car would cost 1c per kilometre over the life of the system. Maintenance costs are also lower  up to $1000 less over 12 services.

"Handover party for first 30 customer Model 3's on the 28th! Production grows exponentially, so Aug should be 100 cars and Sept above 1500." Credit:Troy Harvey

Driver preference is subjective, but the immediate acceleration and better weight distribution due to the battery-pack placement means many people find electric cars more fun to drive. The drive is also much quieter inside and out. Noise pollution from a car depends on the speed, because tyre and wind noise dominate when the car travels more quickly. Highway noise is about the same in an electric vehicle, but drives in suburban streets are quieter. Some people worry about this, and laws have been passed to mandate that electric cars make a noise at low speeds to protect children, the elderly and other vulnerable people.

The biggest barrier to buying an electric vehicle in Australia at the moment is the high purchase price. They are simply too expensive for most people. Yet cheaper models will be available soon. Tesla is releasing its Model 3 this year ($US35,000, about $A47,000), and more than 6000 were reserved by Australians before the car has even been manufactured. General Motors has released its Bolt, with a price of $US37,495, but there are no plans to sell this in Australia because the company does not see this as a viable market.

However, more and more public chargers are being installed, by private companies, government, utilities and through motor clubs. Other infrastructure depends on each company  Nissan and BMW sell and maintain their vehicles from their shopfronts and service centres, but Tesla only has shopfronts and service centres in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (a new centre is also planned for Brisbane). The first Sydney store only opened in June 2016.
All of Australia's military personnel stationed overseas and 85 per cent of deployed Australian Federal Police officers have completed training to better protect the human rights of women and girls, a new report shows.

Minister for Women Michaelia Cash said the latest efforts to integrate the protection of women and responses to gender-based violence into Australia's peace and security missions overseas had seen 100 per cent of the 1525 Australian Defence Force personnel currently deployed complete specialist training based on a range of United Nations Security Council resolutions supported by Australia.

Minister for Women Michaelia Cash with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Training rates for deployed ADF personnel has seen a 30 per cent increase, from 53 per cent in 2013.

For Australian Federal Police officers working on overseas deployments, the figure has increased from 69 per cent in 2014 to 85 per cent in the latest report.
As with individuals, so with governments. Management books are full of advice about how and when to be decisive. But, quite often, the best thing to do is  precisely nothing.

Consider the situation where whatever it was we were meant to do subsequently turns out to be a very bad idea. In this case, we could say to ourselves, how clever we were, how prescient, not to have acted.

We learned at school that procrastination is the thief of time, and so it is. But, as with all wise sayings, it is true only some of the time, or only up to a point.

The public sector has many splendid examples of serendipitous non-activity. You just have to be on the lookout for them. Back in the 1960s, town councils that thought they were being very progressive got rid of the verandahs shading shopfronts in the main street, because motorists kept driving into the posts that held the verandahs up.

These days, of course, the councils that never got around to outlawing verandahs, or couldn't afford it, are having the last laugh, not only because the summers are hotter than ever before (and cantilevered shop awnings are not as effective as verandahs at keeping out the sun), but because verandahs are popular with tourists who are on the lookout for something picturesque. Despite the efforts of developers to make us think that change is both inevitable and desirable, the result is that whole swathes of towns and cities begin to look much like everywhere else. Who wants to visit a place that looks just like the one they came from?

Sometimes, it is the determined loner who makes a difference. I remember visiting, on a very dark day in November a few years ago, the French town of Albi, in southern France. The river Tarn flowed deep and fast below us, while over the town loomed the fortress-like Gothic cathedral, built in the 13th century to proclaim victory over the Cathars. The cathedral is notable because it is one of few in France that still has its rood screen, somewhat damaged in the French revolution, but still mostly intact. (Rood screens, many of them intricately carved, separated the area around the altar from the nave of the church, where the hoi polloi worshipped).

Revolutionaries considered that cathedrals were particularly redolent of the bad, corrupt and superstitious order of the ancien regime. In the case of Albi's cathedral, the plan of the revolutionary directorate was to sell both the building and its contents. A condition of the deal was that the buyer should eventually demolish the building.

At some risk to himself, a local citizen decided to ward off this intention. In some accounts, he is described as a savant, in others as an engineer. Perhaps, being French, he had worked out a way of being both. Anyway, this person wrote repeatedly and often to the directorate, pointing out the importance to the nation of the priceless heritage that was contained within the building. It is said that this correspondence so preoccupied the bureaucrats that they never went ahead with the plan.
A common complaint is that the use of contractors has caused agencies to run down their in-house expertise and technical resources. As a result, it can be argued, agencies lack the capacity to assess whether the contracts they are agreeing to give the government and taxpayer adequate value for money. Without their own professional judgment, grounded in technical knowledge and practical experience of the area in question, public service managers are ill-equipped to decide matters of all-round quality. Instead, they tend to fall back on generic checklists of assessment criteria that emphasise easily specifiable factors, such as cost and timeliness.

Given the extent to which governments rely on private contractors for a large range of goods and services, it is unsurprising that contractors are often in the frame when things go wrong. But many of the recurring issues arise out of factors specific to the contracting process.

The problems of dealing with private sector providers and contractors are a persistent theme in the analysis of government shortcomings. For example, recent Australian National Audit Office reports highlighted contracting problems in Air Services Australia, the Defence Department and the Immigration Department. Contract management issues were at the heart of last year's failed online census and have been a constant factor in the turbulent administration of Australia's controversial offshore detention centres. Over-reliance on contracted consultants was a major cause of the botched home insulation scheme.

Alternatively, if funds allow and time permits, they may contract in an external consultant or commissioner to give an expert opinion on a proposed contract. But such advice carries the risks of perverse incentives attached to all forms of external contracting and consulting. The consultants' objective is to gain future contracts, which encourages them to say what they think governments want to hear in preference to what they ought to hear. Once again, without the professional judgment to tell the difference and without their own in-house, trusted staff to advise them, public service managers are at the mercy of self-interested outsiders. This vulnerability is compounded by the lack of transparency that surrounds contracting. Overuse of commercial-in-confidence provisions has shielded public servants from the bracing effects of public scrutiny.

Consultants aim to gain future contracts, which encourages them to say what they think government clients want to hear.

The lack of in-house capacity can affect not only the initial process of drawing up contracts but also the oversight of how contracts are implemented. Contracts require payments to be made in return for agreed outputs and outcomes, which the contracting agency must verify. Some contracts are easily administered; for instance, procurement contracts for identifiable pieces of equipment or service contracts for straightforward services, such as cleaning and transport. But others, particularly contracts for providing social services, require the achievement of more subtle outcomes that are qualitative and contestable in nature. For these services, governments have turned to "relational" contracts, which aim to create partnerships based on shared values and trust. In this way, contractors are relied on to exercise their professional judgment and pursue the public interest out of their own sense of commitment to the joint enterprise. Classic examples have been the contracting of church and community-based organisations to provide valuable social services at reasonable cost.

However, as the constant stream of scandals illustrates, many commercial providers are more interested in profit than in good service and cannot be trusted to do the right thing. As a result, governments are being driven to impose tighter controls and regulations. Even then, in the face of determined rorting and corner-cutting, most government agencies lack the resources to prevent opportunistic contractors from wrongfully expropriating public funds. Meanwhile, trustworthy contractors in the non-profit sector are being overwhelmed by intrusive and inappropriate controls.

After two decades of wholesale outsourcing, some general conclusions are clear. Contracting out is an efficient and effective alternative to in-house provision where the objectives are clear and easily monitored, and where there is a competitive market of alternative providers. It also works well for more complex services where providers can be trusted to pursue public-interest objectives for their own reasons.
Nash then declared that, if you live in the regions, "you can send the kids to the neighbour's for half an hour while you go to see the doctor", implying that is not possible in our capital cities. And "when you return to work a couple of days a week, your sister-in-law or parents look after your kids". As if this is not the case in Canberra  no wonder the pesticide authority's Canberra-based staff can't wait to escape their neighbours and family!

Given the debacle Barnaby Joyce's pork-barrel relocation of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has become, one might have expected a retreat. But no, Nationals senator Fiona Nash soldiered on during her recent press club speech , declaring full-scale war last month on our national capital and its public servants. That was just after telling her audience that regional Australia was already a better place to live and work, and just before blaming the media for not promoting that obvious fact. Just in case assembled journalists doubted her claim, she went on to point out that unemployment was lower in the bush and "overall, the story is very positive".

Surely a decentralisation plan would help regional towns? If the Turnbull government had a considered plan, the answer could be "yes". But it doesn't, and the Abbott and Turnbull governments have cut more jobs in the regions in our regional Centrelink, tax and other government offices than they have created.

Nash's enthusiasm and mixed-messaging was too much even for Joyce, who held a press conference less than 24 hours after her speech to try to limit the damage. Unfortunately, he only added to the confusion by declaring a minority of public servants safe, leaving a majority free to start worrying. Nash and Joyce say their threat to move departments that can't justify staying in our capital cities has been endorsed by cabinet, but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is yet to comment.

Beyond Armidale in his own electorate, Joyce has not nominated any destinations for these yet-to be-determined departments and agencies. However, the unusual "policy order" he used to avoid any parliamentary veto of his pesticides-authority pork barrel says the recipient regional city or town must be no nearer than 150 kilometres from a capital city and within 10 kilometres of the main campus of a regional university that is recognised for research and teaching in the field of agricultural science. According to Parliamentary Library analysis, the order narrows the field to just two regional cities in NSW and two in Queensland.

Decentralisation can be good if it is properly and strategically planned and the effectiveness of the entity moved is not undermined in the process. The relocation of the pesticides authority ticks none of those boxes. Indeed, the government's own cost-benefit analysis says so. But that's all right: Joyce declared this no longer matters. We are left to assume only political benefit does.

The official cost of the authority's relocation is $26 million, but we know it to be closer to $60 million. Imagine how many teachers and training opportunities that could fund in the regional communities that need the extra resources the most.

That's a key point. The nature of employment is changing and, increasingly, higher levels of education and training will be needed to secure and keep a job. As well as telecommunications and strategic transport infrastructure, fully funding the Gonski needs-based school reforms is the best thing the Turnbull government could do for rural and regional Australia.
The ad hominem delusion is an unsubstantiated claim in itself. By judging the character of an opponent, we are judging their motives, but motives are subjective and unmeasurable. How, for instance, can a "cruel tax increase" be judged "cruel"? We may well claim that the increase is under-researched or omits income assessments; we may characterise the increase as having an inaccurate estimation of public benefit, of evident bias in consultation or of shortcomings in financial analysis. But our "cruelty" is our opponent's "sustainable" or "realistic". The argument becomes stranded in a battle of emotive terms rather than progressing through a constructive debate.

For more effective, relevant and adequate policy to be devised and implemented, we must start changing our debating culture  start focusing on ideas, solutions, research and evidence  and demand media and politicians follow suit. We need to shift our persuasion techniques from "ad hominem" to "ad argumentum": addressing the argument. Our analysis must stop focusing on our politicians, representatives, allies or opponents and turn rather to ideas, substantiation, evidence, analysis and true, constructive consultation.

It is laudable that pathos  compassion and loyalty  guides our identification of problems, but to build compelling, relevant and effective arguments, we need logos and ethos to underpin the political discourse. We need the structure and coherence of logos and the consistency, credibility and authority of ethos.

Susannah Bishop is a writer, editor and polyglot, and an expert in the grammar of Latin and ancient Greek. John Preston is a former adviser to prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, and delivers writing workshops to the public sector. He and his colleagues blog on writing and public policy at ethoscrs.com.au/agora.
The head of the Australian National University's student association says an expected increase in course fees may prevent disadvantaged students from receiving a tertiary education.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham met with university vice-chancellors Monday night to outline a suite of cuts proposed for the May budget set to impact on universities and students alike.

While institutions will be hit with an efficiency dividend of 2.5 per cent, equal to a reduction in university funding of hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years, students will see a 8 per cent rise in course fees and a lowering of the HECS repayment threshold to $42,000 from $55,874.

ANU Student Association president James Connolly said the price hike would act as a disincentive for some people in receiving a university education.
The marriage break-up of Sydney celebrity couple Anthony Bell and Kelly Landry has been making headlines for months.

Mr Bell's barrister Ian Temby, QC, said some of the publicity had been a deliberate attempt to smear the high-profile accountant.

"On two occasions, there has been publication of material which is ... likely and intended, we submit, to harm Mr Bell's reputation," Mr Temby told Downing Centre Local Court on Monday, at the start of a hearing over an apprehended violence order.

Police sought the AVO against Mr Bell on behalf of Ms Landry, a former television presenter, in early January. Days earlier, the couple celebrated when Mr Bell's supermaxi Perpetual Loyal claimed line honours in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
Wealthy property developer Ron Medich will face a new trial at the end of January next year over his alleged involvement in the murder of his business foe Michael McGurk.

On April 13, after an eight-week trial and almost three weeks of deliberations, the jury hearing Mr Medich's trial was discharged after they informed the judge they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

Ron Medich outside court during his trial this month. Credit:Daniel Munoz

Crown prosecutor Gina O'Rourke, SC, informed the Supreme Court on Monday morning that the Director of Public Prosecutions had formally directed that Mr Medich, 69, will face a retrial.

Justice Geoff Bellew told Mr Medich the courts were unable to accommodate a trial of this length this year and that his new trial would commence on January 29, 2018.
Be the first to know. Sign up for our breaking news alert A man will front court on Tuesday accused of raping a woman on a cruise ship off Queensland. The 33-year-old man was arrested on Monday when P&O Cruises' Pacific Aria docked at Brisbane's Portside Wharf in Hamilton. The man was arrested when he disembarked the Pacific Aria on Sunday. Detectives from the North Brisbane Criminal Investigation Branch charged him with two counts of rape, allegedly committed on Saturday while on board the 1260-guest cruise liner.

A police spokesman said the alleged rapist and victim knew each other but would not reveal their relationship. A spokesman for Carnival Australia, P&O Cruises' parent company, said the company asked police to investigate after a woman complained a travelling companion had assaulted her. "A cabin was sealed and, having reported the alleged assault to police, we have been assisting them fully in their inquiries," he said, in a statement. "Care trained staff assisted the female passenger. "Pacific Aria returned yesterday after a three-night roundtrip cruise from Brisbane."
The plush new surrounds of 1 William Street have added $50 million to Queensland taxpayers' rental bill for the 5000 public servants who worked in the building.

The state government will pay $223.14 million in overall rent for all government buildings in the CBD by June 30 next year, including the $56 million it cost to rent the 75,419 square metres at 1 William Street, the so-called "Tower of Power".

This overall office space rent had increased from $173.29 million in 2015-16, before the 5000 public servants moved into 1 William Street in October 2016, but will increase to $223.14 million by June 2018 when I William Street is included and rent in older buildings is removed.

Rent in 1 William Street is far more expensive than the rent paid for other buildings which the state government has leased to house public servants, because it is a modern, state of the art building.
BOCA RATON, Fla. - At a recent show of "Guys & Dolls" at The Wick Theatre in Boca Raton, there was a bit of a fuss from a late theater-goer trying to get to his seat.

Wick Theatre owner Marilynn Wick was on stage, introducing the show and announcing the theater's next season. Despite the distraction, she didn't miss a beat with her presentation.

Not much rattles the 73-year-old entrepreneur who has worked in real estate, industrial window cleaning, the salvage business, costume business and now theatrical production.

For 40 years, Wick has owned Costume World, which boasts the nation's largest collection of Broadway wardrobes. In 2013, she began operating The Wick Theatre and Costume Museum.

Her business, with its nonprofit theatrical division, employs 125 people.

"She's a miracle worker. She has taken a white elephant and turned it into a fabulous community theater for Boca Raton and for Palm Beach County," said Yvonne Boice-Zucaro, a Boca Raton business owner and philanthropist. She sits with Wick on the board of the county's tourism agency, Discover The Palm Beaches.

One of Wick's strengths is that she doesn't accept "no" for an answer, Boice-Zucaro said. "There's nothing she feels she can't do or accomplish just because she's a woman."

In 2013, the building housing the theater faced foreclosure. Costume World leased the building, finally buying it in April of last year for $5.2 million.

Wick saw a perfect opportunity for the community and Costume World. She needed more space for her growing costume collection -- why not buy the theater?

"I love to take bad deals and make them good," Wick said. "You get strong if you have all kinds of experiences in business."

Now the theater is in its fifth season, with 3,700 subscribers. Wick expects to have 5,000 subscribers by next season. She has expanded with the costume museum and the Tavern at the Wick restaurant, modeled after Manhattan's Tavern on the Green.

"Between the museum and the Tavern, they're starting to stand on their own," Wick said.

Never mind that Wick's theater experience was primarily in the costume end of the business.

"When your own money is involved, you learn very quickly," McArt said. Wick and her daughter, Kimberly, who curates the costume museum, are detail-oriented, she said. "They've learned as they go along and they've run a beautiful ship."

Wick has personally invested $1.5 million in the theater. She took out a $5 million Small Business Administration-backed loan to renovate and add the costume museum and a restaurant.

While not yet profitable, the 341-seat theater is making progress -- the building has since been appraised at $8 million, Wick said.

The April production of "Guys & Dolls," with all original Broadway costumes, was sold out. Letting subscribers choose the theater's upcoming shows is key, she said.

"You may be caught up in doing a wonderful 'Romeo and Juliet,' but nobody wants that. You've got to go with what people want," Wick said.

Costume World may be known to consumers as a place to buy or rent a Halloween or party costume, but the business makes its real money by renting costumes to theaters around the country. Costume World can provide, for example, all 245 costumes needed for the musical "42nd Street." That's why theater managers fly into South Florida from across the country to choose costumes for their upcoming seasons.

"That's a specialty we have, and that's why the business is so successful," she said. "You only have a few ways of surviving. One is if you're a specialty, niche business. And the other is if you take your products and go with the times."

Costume World also provides costumes weekly to NBC-TV's "Saturday Night Live," such as for the show's recent spoof of "Beauty & the Beast."

But the retail costume business has been hurt by rentals available on Amazon and other online sites. Costume World once had seven stores, but now it only has three: in Deerfield Beach, Fla., Dallas and Pittsburgh.

"All of the big chains have cut back. Somebody's telling you something," Wick said.

So Wick is updating Costume World's website, with plans to move the Broadway rental costumes and collectibles to the Pompano Beach warehouse, and expanding to 45,000 square feet. She's not yet sure whether she'll open another brick-and-mortar store.

"This is a real Renaissance for the company right now. You must be always two or three years ahead of what's happening," she said.

Before Costume World and The Wick Theatre, Wick already had many different careers.

When only 24, she applied for a job with a headhunter in Atlanta. When Wick was told the company didn't hire women, she promptly wrote a $2,500 check to cover the recruitment agency's fee. That caught the attention of the male supervisor.

He asked Wick what kind of tires she had on her car, and Wick told him the exact type. Impressed, he hired her.

"I was the first woman ever hired for that business of 66 men, and I did great," Wick said. "I was pretty gutsy. Nothing stopped me."

In her late-20s, she ran her own real estate firm, working in New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina and California.

After moving to South Florida in 1972, Wick operated an industrial window cleaning business that counted Disney World and Epcot among its customers. She closed it in 1986 after opening the costume shop.

She opened the costume shop as a "fun project" with her kids, starting with five Santa suits sewn on her dining room table in Boca Raton. By the 1990s, she was providing costumes to the Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus.

With more than five decades of business experience, Wick said she often warns budding entrepreneurs not to give up too easily.

"If you have a dream and you don't mind working for it, there will be ups and downs . Everyday things will change. One day you might not have a job and the next day you will. You must have confidence in yourself," she said.
It is commonly known that the atoms in our bodies are made out of star dust. Now scientists have found a use for what our ancestors later became: cave dust.

Archaeologists have developed a tool that could help revolutionise their ability to understand the origins and evolution of humanity, by fishing out scattered DNA buried inside previously occupied caves.

Using highly sensitive DNA extraction methods, European researchers working with scientists at the University of Wollongong have been able to identify the presence of hominins in caves even when there are no skeletal remains.

"By retrieving hominin DNA from sediments, we can detect the presence of [hominin] groups at sites where this cannot be achieved with other methods," said Svante Paabo, director of the evolutionary genetics department at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig.
Stan Chudnovsky, head of product for messaging at Facebook, said Australian companies are the biggest users of Messenger globally.

Mr Chudnovsky, who is based in San Francisco, is visiting Australia with a team to discuss Messenger with local businesses, users and developers.

ABC and Qantas are two examples of local businesses using Messenger to reach consumers directly. Credit:Lifehacker

"We're trying to figure out what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong and what we can do better," he said during a visit to Sydney on Friday.

"There's a very high penetration of Messenger in Australia.
London: In the battle against fake news, Andreas Vlachos  a Greek computer scientist living in a northern English town  is on the front lines.

Armed with a decade of machine learning expertise, he is part of a British startup that will soon release an automated fact-checking tool before the country's election in early June. He also is advising a global competition that pits computer wizards from the United States to China against each other to use artificial intelligence to combat fake news.

Andreas Vlachos, a computer scientist at the University of Sheffield in England, is one of a growing number of researchers looking for ways to use artificial intelligence to combat fake news. Credit:NYT

"I'm trying to channel my research into something that is useful for everyone who's reading the news," said Vlachos, who is also an academic at the University of Sheffield. "It's a positive way of moving artificial intelligence forward while improving the political debate."

As Europe readies for several elections this year after President Donald Trump's US victory, Vlachos, 36, is one of a growing number of technology experts worldwide who are harnessing their skills to tackle misinformation online.
Not everyone wants to wake up and smell the coffee.

An inner-city specialty coffee bean processor is facing objections from residents in nearby apartment buildings over the smoke and smell produced by the company's roasting machines.

Andrew Kelly from Small Batch Roasting Company. Credit:Stefan Postles

Small Batch Roasting Company in North Melbourne has had to take steps to improve the situation after its Little Howard Street factory was the subject of a detailed complaint to the City of Melbourne and EPA concerning coffee emissions.

Benjamin Fisher said he first raised concerns about the exhaust billowing out from Small Batch's roasting chimneys on behalf of residents in 2014 because he was worried the smoke might be toxic.
Apartment balconies across Melbourne are potentially unsafe, engineers say.

The warning comes after a young woman was critically injured when she fell from a crumbling balcony in South Yarra on Saturday night.

Engineers warned on Monday badly designed, unreinforced, unmaintained and unsafe balconies were common in apartments across the city.

"I see it enough to say it does not surprise me when these balconies collapse," said Karl Apted, vice-president of the Association of Consulting Structural Engineers Victoria.
Emergency crews have freed a construction worker pinned underneath a concrete pipe which fell on him while he was working in a trench at the SAS Campbell Barracks in Swanbourne.

WAtoday understands the man, believed to be in his mid-20s, has suffered injuries to the middle and lower parts of his body after becoming trapped around 11.30am on Monday.

Paramedics and firefighters are working to free a construction worker trapped under a concrete pipe. Credit:Nine News Perth

St John Ambulance sent special operations paramedics to winch the man to safety.

Department of Fire and Emergency Services fire fighting crews assisted paramedics to free the man around 1pm.
Beijing: A Sydney resident being hunted by the Chinese government for alleged corruption has an Australian wife and child, and fears the case against him has been politicised, his family has revealed for the first time.

China's corruption investigator last week published the names and possible overseas addresses of 22 suspects subject to Interpol 'red notices'. It claimed they had fled overseas and called for overseas Chinese to inform on them.

Leafy Ethel Street, Burwood, identified as the home suburb of one of China's most wanted. Credit:Nick Moir

Ji Dongsheng was said to be living in Ethel Street, Burwood, in Sydney.

China's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection alleges he misappropriated client funds when he was the manager of the Henan Securities branch in Zhengzhou. Mr Ji was alleged to have told IT staff to allow client's guarantee funds to be used for share trading, which led to severe losses.
Colombian police have released new photographs of Australian woman Cassandra Sainsbury wearing handcuffs and standing in front of what authorities allege are 18 packages of cocaine wrapped in black plastic.

The images of the 22-year-old Adelaide woman were taken by police shortly after she was arrested for alleged drug trafficking at El Dorado International Airport, in Colombia's capital Bogota, on April 11.

According to Colombian police, an X-ray machine at the airport detected 5.8 kilograms of cocaine hidden in Ms Sainsbury's luggage as she prepared to board a flight to London, on her way back to Australia.

Ms Sainsbury, from Moana in Adelaide's south, is now facing up to 25 years in jail in Colombia for a crime her family alleges "she did not commit".
Paris: One French police officer was seriously burnt and two others injured in clashes at a May Day demonstration in Paris on Monday in which protesters threw Molotov cocktails and other missiles, the police said.

Television pictures showed policemen trying to shake flames from their riot gear, and of tear gas enveloping the streets around Paris' Bastille monument.

This year's May Day came less than a week ahead of the final round of a presidential election where voters must choose between the far-right National Front's Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Some trade unionists and left-wing activists sought to make the day one of national solidarity against the National Front, mirroring protests in 2002 when Le Pen's father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, was a candidate.
London: Three young women were arrested under anti-terrorism laws in east London on Monday, just days after an armed raid in north-west London.

Police said two 18-year-old women and one 19-year-old were held on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts.

Police officers at the scene of the terror raid on London's Harlesden Road. Three more women have now been arrested in east London. Credit:Stefan Rousseau, AP

"The arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation in connection with an address on Harlesden Road," a statement from police said.

The Harlesden Road terraced house, was the location of a raid by armed counter-terrorism officers last Thursday.
DECATUR  The Illinois Attorney General's Office has declined to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate misconduct allegations against Macon County State's Attorney Jay Scott, citing a potential conflict of interest.

A petition seeking a prosecutor was filed in September by local attorney John Davis and Macon County Board member Greg Mattingley. DeWitt County Circuit Judge Karle Koritz ruled in January that the investigation would move forward with the attorney general's office appointing the prosecutor.

But a motion filed Monday by Stephen Plazibat, an assistant to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, noted that the office has 12 cases pending in Macon County. Of those, 11 involve sexually violent people, which the motion says requires the attorney generals office to work closely with two of the countys assistant states attorneys.

A potential investigation into Scott could have a "detrimental effect" on that relationship, it said.

For the foregoing reasons, the Illinois Attorney Generals Office believes that a conflict, or at a minimum, an appearance of impropriety, can be alleged, if our office were to accept the courts request to serve as a Special Prosecutor in this manner, the motion said.

For that reason, we respectfully request that this Honorable Court authorize the Illinois Attorney Generals office to decline the request.

Scott, who has repeatedly denied allegations of misconduct, declined to comment when reached Monday afternoon.

Davis said he was surprised by Mondays motion, specifically that it took the attorney generals office nearly four months to determine there was a potential conflict of interest.

Why didnt they know about this so-called conflict of interest? Davis said. They could have done this within a week or two.

The next steps in the case are unclear. A copy of the motion was sent Monday to Koritz, the judge presiding over the case. Koritz did not respond to a message left Monday afternoon at his office. A spokeswoman for the attorney generals office could not immediately provide an answer when reached Monday afternoon.

Davis said he thought it would be up to Koritz to appoint a special prosecutor. That prosecutor could be another state's attorney, a private attorney or an appellate defender.

The court has already determined that there is enough there to investigate, Davis said. The people have the right to know whether the states attorney engaged in illegal activity.

The petition seeking an investigation was filed Sept. 13 by Davis and Mattingley, former chairman of the Macon County Board's justice committee.

It alleges that Scott allowed employees to engage in electioneering within county offices; used his county-owned smartphone for political and personal uses; solicited an employee of the Macon County Sheriff's Office to support his campaign in community parades; and exhibited pornographic material to a female state's attorney employee and female crime victim on a computer owned by the county.
Bangkok: US President Donald Trump has called his Philippine counterpart to invite him to the White House, in a move that surprised US officials and human rights groups condemned as signalling support for Rodrigo Duterte's murderous drug crackdown.

"By essentially endorsing Duterte's murderous war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings," said John Sifton, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

Mr Trump's office praised Mr Duterte's government for fighting "very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries around the world."

The invitation, billed as Trump reaching out to allies in Asia, caught the US State Department and National Security Council off-guard and they are expected to raise objections internally, The New York Times reported.
Washington: President Donald Trump said he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if the circumstances were right.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it," Trump said on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."

North Korea has become the most urgent national security threat and foreign policy issue facing Trump as his first 100 days in office passed.

Kim's regime has continued development of its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile program in defiance of international condemnation and sanctions. Kim has never met with a foreign leader since taking charge after his father's death in 2011 and hasn't left his isolated country.
Brussels: European Union leaders have given a formal undertaking to embrace the British province of Northern Ireland in the EU if a referendum unites it with the Irish Republic.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny had asked fellow members of the bloc to acknowledge that Northern Ireland would, like East Germany in 1990, automatically enter the EU in the event of unification with a member state.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement to end violence in the north foresees the holding of referendums on both sides of the Irish border on uniting the island if London and Dublin see public support for such a change.

EU leaders, who met in Brussels at the weekend to endorse a negotiating plan for Britain's withdrawal, gave a political endorsement to what Irish and EU legal experts say is the position in international law of such territorial changes.
It's hard to protest global warming when it's unseasonably cold at the end of April

Photo from the protestors website. Denver capitol building is in the background.

Environmental groups and social-, racial- and economic justice groups marched for climate action on Saturday, April 29, 2017 in Denver and 11 other cities in Colorado. As the event began, outside temperatures were a freezing 31 degrees Farenheit. Water freezes below 32 degrees Farenheit, which is also zero degrees Celsius.

The events are among the 330 sister marches throughout the U.S. and globally to rally for public policies that recognize and seek to slow climate change. The events are also protests against President Donald Trump, who famously is a climate change denier.

"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive," tweeted @RealDonaldTrump on November 12, 2012. The left have mocked him repeatedly for this stand.

The weather today, April 29, 2017 at 10 a.m. in Denver, Colorado's capital.

"Climate change is the most critical issue facing my generation," said Seth Maddox, one of the co-founders of People's Climate of Colorado, a new nonprofit formed to support the march.

"On the 100th day of the Trump administration, we march together to resist the undermining of environmental protections, the assault on clean water and air, and the attacks against indigenous communities, workers, people of color, immigrants, youth and students, working families, the LGBT+ community, women, and others whose rights are threatened." wrote Maddox about today's event in Denver.

Denver's march begins at 10:00 at Denver's Civic Center. Organizers say more than 20,000 people have expressed interest in attending.

Similar marches were held in Colorado Springs, Greeley, Carbondale, Steamboat Springs, Pueblo, Durango, and Pagosa Springs.
Claim: Prayers are requested for the Darkhorse Marine battalion fighting in Afghanistan. Rating: About this rating Outdated

Advertisment:

A simple prayer request for the Darkhorse Marine battalion fighting in Afghanistan was initially spread via social media in late 2010:

We are asking everyone to say a prayer for "Darkhorse" 3rd Battalion 5th Marines and their families. They are fighting it out in Afghanistan and have lost 9 marines in 4 days. Please repost this.

Even more than indicated in that Facebook-circulated prayer request, the U.S. 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (Darkhorse) suffered heavy personnel losses in Afghanistan between October 2010 and its return to Camp Pendleton in April 2011. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, thirteen members of the battalion were killed in the October/November 2010 timeframe:

An infantryman from Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment was killed in action in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced [on 8 November 2010]. Lance Cpl. Randy R. Braggs, 21, of Sierra Vista, Ariz., died Nov. 6 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, the Department of Defense said. Braggs was the 13th member of 3/5 killed since the battalion moved into the Sangin area of northeastern Helmand province in October, including four felled in a single bomb attack on their mine-resistant all terrain vehicle. Two other Marines were fatally shot at a patrol base last week in Sangin, the Marines said. Initial reports indicate they were attacked by a rogue Afghan soldier who then fled, according to U.S. and NATO officials in Afghanistan. An investigation into the incident is continuing.

As noted in an Associated Press account, the area of Afghanistan in which the 3/5 operated is regarded as a particularly key (and violent) area of that country:

U.S. Marines who recently inherited this lush river valley in southern Helmand province from British forces have tossed aside their predecessor's playbook in favor of a more aggressive strategy to tame one of the most violent places in Afghanistan. U.S. commanders say success is critical in Sangin district  where British forces suffered nearly one-third of their deaths in the war  because it is the last remaining sanctuary in Helmand where the Taliban can freely process the opium and heroin that largely fund the insurgency. The district also serves as a key crossroads to funnel drugs, weapons and fighters throughout Helmand and into neighboring Kandahar province, the spiritual heartland of the Taliban and the most important battleground for coalition forces. The U.S.-led coalition hopes its offensive in the south will kill or capture key Taliban commanders, rout militants from their strongholds and break the insurgency's back. That will allow the coalition and the Afghans to improve government services, bring new development and a sense of security.

Another Associated Press report from November 2010 described the difficulty (and heavy casualties) the Marines were encountering during operations in that region of Afghanistan:

The Marines patrolling through the green fields and tall mud compounds of Helmand province's Sangin district say they are literally in a race for their lives. They are trying to adjust their tactics to outwit Taliban fighters, who have killed more coalition troops here than in any other Afghan district this year. "As a new unit coming in, you are at a distinct disadvantage because the Taliban have been fighting here for years, have established fighting positions and have laid the ground with a ton of IEDs," said Lt. Col. Jason Morris, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. "You have to evolve quickly because you have no other choice." Many of the younger Marines also have had to cope for the first time with seeing their best friends die or suffer grievous wounds. Fifteen Marines have been killed and about 50 wounded since the battalion arrived in October [2010]  many by improvised explosive devices or IEDs.

Between 8 October 2010 and its April 2011 return home, the 3/5 lost 25 Marines while conducting Operation Enduring Freedom combat operations in Helmand province:

Sgt. Jason G. Amores, 29, of Lehigh Acres, Florida, died 20 January 2011 Cpl. Tevan L. Nguyen, 21, of Hutto, Texas, died 28 December 2010. Lance Cpl. Kenneth A. Corzine, 23, of Bethalto, Illinois, died 24 December 2010. Lance Cpl. Jose L. Maldonado, 21, of Mathis, Texas, died 17 December 2010. Sgt. Jason D. Peto, 31, of Vancouver, Washington, died 7 December 2010. Cpl. Derek A. Wyatt, 25, of Akron, Ohio, died 6 December 2010. Pfc. Colton W. Rusk, 20, of Orange Grove, Texas, died 6 December 2010. Sgt. Matthew T. Abbate, 26, of Honolulu, Hawaii, died 2 December 2010. 1st Lt. William J. Donnelly IV, 27, of Picayune, Mississippi, died 25 November 2010. Lance Cpl. James B. Stack, 20, of Arlington Heights, Ill, died 10 November 2010. 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly, 29, of Tallahassee, Florida, died 9 November 2010. Lance Cpl. Randy R. Braggs, 21, of Sierra Vista, Arizona, died 6 November 2010. Lance Cpl. Brandon W. Pearson, 21, of Arvada, Colorado, died 4 November 2010. Lance Cpl. Matthew J. Broehm, 22, of Flagstaff, Arizona, died 4 November 2010. Sgt. Ian M. Tawney, 25, of Dallas, Oregon, died 16 October 2010. Lance Cpl. James D. Boelk, 24, of Oceanside, California, died 15 October 2010. Lance Cpl. Joseph C. Lopez, 26, of Rosamond, California, died 14 October 2010. Lance Cpl. Alec E. Catherwood, 19, of Byron, Illinois, died 14 October 2010. Lance Cpl. Irvin M. Ceniceros, 21, of Clarksville, Arkansas, died 14 October 2010. Pfc. Victor A. Dew, 20, of Granite Bay, California, died 13 October 2010. Lance Cpl. Joseph E. Rodewald, 21, of Albany, Oregon, died 13 October 2010. Lance Cpl. Phillip D. Vinnedge, 19, of Saint Charles, Mo, died 13 October 2010. Cpl. Justin J. Cain, 22, of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, died 13 October 2010. Lance Cpl. John T. Sparks, 23, of Chicago, Illinois, died 8 October 2010. Lance Cpl. Arden J. Buenagua, 19, of San Jose, California, died 24 November 2010.



Dark Horse Battalion was rotated back to the U.S. in April 2011. Its place in Afghanistan was taken by the 1st Battalion, 5th Regiment, also from Camp Pendleton.
Lumenpulse Group to Unveil Newest Product Families at Lightfair 2017

MONTREAL, QUEBEC  (Marketwired)  05/01/17  The Lumenpulse Group (TSX: LMP), a leading manufacturer of high-performance specification-grade LED lighting solutions, is set to reveal extended product portfolios from four of their brands, including the new family of Lumenalpha architectural cylinders; the urban technical pole from Lumenarea; the latest range of optics from Lumenpulse; and Fluxwerxs award-winning luminaires.

Lightfair is an amazing opportunity to showcase the strong collaboration of the Lumenpulse Group technology portfolio with our various brands and how each brand has innovated in their market segments, said Francois-Xavier Souvay, Chairman, President and CEO of the Lumenpulse Group. Visitors will see how our comprehensive offering of products and technologies complement each other and address a substantial segment of the architectural specification market.

The Lumenpulse Groups technology synergies will be showcased in their booth through the demonstration of their ground-breaking Lumentalk technology. Lumentalk, recently relaunched with added color-changing capabilities, is a patented power-line communication technology that uses existing AC mains as a bi-directional carrier for data. Lumentalk makes upgrading to digitally-controlled LEDs easy and facilitates the creation of networkable lighting systems without the cost and disruption of having to purchase and install data cables.

Visitors to the Lumenpulse Group booth (#1435) will also be able to see:

From Lumenalpha,

From Fluxwerx,

From Lumenarea,

From Lumenpulse,

Lightfair International 2017 is being held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia from May 9th to 11th.

Editors Notes:

About Lumenpulse Group

Founded in 2006, the Lumenpulse Group designs, develops, manufactures and sells a wide range of high performance and sustainable specification-grade LED lighting solutions for commercial, institutional and urban environments. The Lumenpulse Group is a leading pure-play specification-grade LED lighting solutions provider and has earned many awards and recognitions, including several Product Innovation Awards (PIA), three Next Generation Luminaires Design Awards, four Red Dot Product Design Awards, a Lightfair Innovation Award, and an iF Design Award. The Lumenpulse Group now has 670 employees worldwide, with corporate headquarters in Montreal, Canada, and offices in Vancouver, Quebec City, Boston, Paris, Florence, London and Manchester. Lumenpulse Inc., the parent company of the Lumenpulse Group, is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol LMP.

For more information, visit .

Contacts:

Andreanne Sirois-Carey

Public Relations Manager

1 (514) 937-3003 ext. 294
GTX Corp. Launches New SoleProtector GPS, SmartSole International Distributors Participate in Rollout

LOS ANGELES, CA  (Marketwired)  05/01/17  GTX Corp. (OTCQB: GTXO), an IoT platform and global provider of tracking and monitoring wearable and wandering assistive technology, today announced the launch of its new for the GPS SmartSole. The SoleProtector is a disposable unique breathable and durable open cell foam structure insole cover. Specifically designed for the GPS SmartSole and made of anti-microbial / anti-fungal material that repels moisture and odor providing an extra layer of hygiene, covertness, protection and comfort.

Our customers have been asking us to develop this since last year so we are delighted to finally launch these both in the US and across a number of European countries with our partners Possum in the UK, Posifon in Sweden and Safecall in Denmark, commented Andrew Duncan, GTX Corp. director of Business Development.

SoleProtectors provide hygiene making the GPS SmartSole transferable from one person to another, covers logos or markings making the GPS SmartSoles more stealth and discrete, and adds some comfort and overall protection similar to a case for your smartphone. As the Company plans to launch more wearable technology embedded in footwear, the SoleProtectors are a natural accessory product extension. SoleProtectors can be purchased by the pair for For distributors and wholesalers they come bundled in case packs of 10, 50 and 500 with tiered volume pricing.

The is a non-visible GPS tracking device designed to monitor the location of people afflicted with cognitive memory disorders, such as Alzheimers, dementia, autism and TBI, who have a tendency to get lost or wander and for people at risk of kidnapping, such as government employees, journalists and . The Company is also in early stage development of  SmartSole lite a lower cost, limited feature and available in children sizes GPS and Wi-Fi SmartSole.

GTX Corp. (GTXO) is a pioneer in Smart, Mobile and Wearable GPS, cellular and BLE tracking and recovery location based services. Through its proprietary enterprise monitoring platform and licensing, subscription recurring revenue business model, GTX Corp. offers a complete end-to-end solution of hardware, software and connectivity, backed by an extensive portfolio of patents, patents pending, registered trademarks, copy rights and URLs. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with distributors servicing over 20 countries, GTX is known for its game-changing , block buster Smartphone and award winning, patented , the worlds first, invisible wearable wander guard GPS tracking device, initially created for quick recovery of those at risk of wandering due to Alzheimers, dementia, autism or traumatic brain injury. GTX provides solutions that answer the question: where is my mother, child, employee, vehicle, drone and high-value assets. The Company doesnt just make and sell the best GPS tracking products, they deliver innovative, miniaturized, low power consumption wearable tech that provides safety, security and peace of mind at the touch of a button. We put the in Wearable Tech.

 #withyou #smartsole

Disclaimer: GTX Corp. does not warrant or represent that the unauthorized use of materials drawn from the content of this document will not infringe rights of third parties who are not owned or affiliated by GTX Corp. Further, GTX Corp. cannot be held responsible or liable for the unauthorized use of this documents content by third parties unknown to the company.

This news release contains forward-looking statements. The terms and phrases expects, would, will, believes, and similar terms and phrases are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by GTX in light of its experience and its perception of current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that GTX believes are appropriate in the circumstances. Many factors could cause GTXs actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Certain risk factors that may cause actual results to differ are set forth in GTXs Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (which may be obtained at ). These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on GTXs forward-looking statements. GTX has no intention and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

213.489.3019

In the UK, GTX Corp. operates from its London office.

For more information, please contact:

Nelson Skip Riddle

Email:

Tel: +44 7785 364100
TeraGo to Hold Investor Conference Call to Discuss 2017 First Quarter Financial Results

TORONTO, ONTARIO  (Marketwired)  05/01/17  TeraGo Inc. (TeraGo or the Company) (TSX: TGO) () today announced that it will be hosting a conference call on Friday, May 12, 2017, at 9:00 am ET to discuss the Companys financial results for the first quarter of 2017. The complete financial results are expected to be released after market close on Thursday, May 11, 2017.

To access the conference call, please dial 647-427-2311 or 1-866-521-4909. The Financial Statements and Managements Discussion & Analysis for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, along with a presentation in connection with the conference call will be made available online at .

An archived recording of the conference call will be available until May 19, 2017. To listen to the recording, call 416-621-4642 or 1-800-585-8367 and enter passcode 15747379.

About TeraGo

TeraGo provides businesses across Canada and internationally with cloud, colocation and connectivity services. TeraGo manages over 3,000 cloud workloads, nine data centres in the Greater Toronto Area, the Greater Vancouver Area, Ottawa, Kelowna, Winnipeg, St. Louis and Newport, United Kingdom, and owns and manages its own IP network. The Company serves approximately 4,000 business customers in 46 major markets across Canada including Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Winnipeg. TeraGo Networks is a Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) and is recognized as a Canadian Telecommunications Employer of Choice for 2016. TeraGo Networks was also recognized by IDC as a Major Player in MarketScape Cloud Vendor Assessment.

For more information about TeraGo, please visit .

Contacts:

TeraGo Investor Relations

1-877-982-3688
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Firefighters battled a huge house fire which appears to have been started by a fault in a dishwasher.

Fire crews from Dulverton, Bampton and two from Tiverton attended a fire within a property which on Amory Road in Dulverton.

When they got to the scene at 2.31am crews immediately escalated the situation to five appliances with the fifth coming from Wiveliscombe.

The fire was on the ground floor of a two storey building and crews got to work with breathing apparatus wearers and two hose reel jets to put out the blaze.

Western Power were requested to attend to make the electrics safe. Crews began using one main jet as well as one hose reel jet, and were checking for fire spread.

At 4am crews began using positive pressure ventilation to limit further damage to the property at this point the British Red Cross vehicle was also requested to attend the fire.

The fire was extinguished at 5.45am.

Crews extinguished the fire using a total of eight breathing apparatus sets, two hose reel jets, one main jet, ladders and small tools. The fire fighters checked the property and neighbouring property for fire spread and hot spots using thermal imaging cameras.

It is thought that the fire was started accidentally by a fault dishwasher in the kitchen as a result of the fire the property sustained severe damage.
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Police have issued an appeal to find 17-year-old Alex Carter White.

The teen was last seen at 2.30pm on April 29 in the Exeter area.

A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said: "He is described as a white male, 5 feet 11inches tall, slim build with short sandy coloured hair with a stubble.

"He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a green hooded top and black trainers carrying a black rucksack with red colouring.

"If seen or if anybody has any information as to his whereabouts, please contact the police quoting log number 235  30/04/2017."

The force has released an image of Alex and are hoping he can be found with the help of the public.
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Bargain high street fashion retailer Primark has sent fashionistas everywhere slightly crazy with the news they'll be launching a bridal range.

The fashion giant sneakily revealed a first glimpse of the new range via its Snapchat and Instagram - and it looks amazing.

The range will follow on from the brand's huge success of its Beauty and the Beast range which saw Chip purses and mugs fly off the shelves.

This was followed by a huge demand for a much coveted 15 gingham dress and it looks like the retailer has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.

Despite the fact the range has not been released yet, shoppers are already going crazy for the bridal range, taking to twitter to share their excitement and beg the retailer to announce when it will be in stores.

At the moment, Primark has confirmed the launch date for its shops in Ireland, but it is yet to confirm when it will be arriving in the UK.

From what we could see from Primark's social media posts, the range includes bridal underwear, with a dressing down embellished with 'Mrs' on the back.

As well as a selection of cushions and mugs to help celebrate your big day.

The range will be launching in Ireland next month, so hopefully the wait for it to hit UK stores won't be too long.
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THE BIGGEST STORIES ACROSS TAUNTON IN YOUR INBOX

We've all accidentally put money through the wash or found stray coins in deep pockets - but very few have ever left 1,000 in a pair of socks.

Earlier this year Avon and Somerset Constabulary appealed for the owner of a pair of socks to come forward after a wad of notes was found inside it.

The socks were part of a donation to Refugee Aid from Taunton (RAFT).

Posting on the force's official Facebook page back in March a police spokesperson said: "Did you accidentally leave 1,000 cash inside one of these socks and then donate them (along with some other clothing) to Refugee Aid From Taunton?"

Now the aid centre has been told it can keep the money and they're delighted.

In an interview with the BBC the charity said they are going to spend the money on food and specifically it will be supporting two girls, from Wiveliscombe who are currently in Serbia.

When the cash was found in the socks the centre did not know whether it was a genuine donation or a mistake.

It contacted Avon and Somerset Police, which launched an appeal to find the owner.
If you're one of the many who voted absentee this year in Michigan, the Secretary of State has an online tool to track the status of your ballot, and more.
Breakdown of Indiana Statehouse races across South Bend area

The 2022 election is a midterm election. Voters will come out to to vote in various Indiana statehouse races Nov. 8 from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Wild Space Weapons Ideas

U.S. Air Force

While space has been an excellent forum for peaceful exploration, it is also an excellent high ground from which to gain a military advantage. Spy satellites have been in use for decades. And in one form or another, as long as the Space Age has been around, various agencies have envisioned using space as a platform for missile launches or other activities. In this slide show, check out the top 10 space weapon concepts from over the years. (This slideshow was updated on Dec. 21, 2016).

FIRST STOP: Missiles

Missiles

NASA

Missiles have actually been used for about 1,000 years, although Encyclopedia Britannica points out that there is no authoritative history of the first rockets. China is usually cited as the location where rockets first appeared, followed by Europe. Metal-cylinder rockets were first used in India in the 18th century, which sparked an English version from Sir William Congreve. Rockets were also used in a limited way in the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War and the First World War.

Vast improvements in rocketry, however, began to show up in the military field in the Second World War. Both the Axis Powers and the Allies used missiles, but it was the German V-2 rocket that attracted the most attention, due to the more than 1,000 missiles that were fired at Britain. When Germany lost the war, several of the nation's rocket scientists were picked up by the Soviet Union and the United States. This helped improve rocket technology in both countries and spurred the space race between the superpowers. Missiles are, of course, still in use today, especially as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs, see future slides for more information).

NEXT: DARPA's MAHEM

DARPA's MAHEM

DARPA

Enemies facing down a device that blasts streams of molten metal probably won't stand much of a chance. This idea, popularized in science fiction novels such as Arthur C. Clarke's "Earthlight" (1955), may become real someday thanks to the funding of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM) was announced in 2008. While no updates have occurred for quite some time, the page for MAHEM is still active on DARPA's website. The program promises "the potential for higher efficiency, greater control, and the ability to generate and accurately time multiple jets and fragments from a single charge," with what DARPA officials wrote is "lethality precision." MAHEM could possibly be deployed on rockets, the officials added.

NEXT: A Tactical High Energy Laser

Project THEL

Northrop Grumman

The Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) program ran between 1996 and 2005, according to Northrop Grumman. THEL was created as a joint project between the United States and Israel. During that decade of development, the ground-based system destroyed 46 mortar rounds, rockets and artillery  all of which were airborne.

While the program is no longer active, Northrop Grumman says the technology is now being reconstructed for the U.S. Army's Solid State Laser Testbed Experiment that, like THEL, will take place at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

NEXT: Weaponized Satellites

Weaponized Satellites

With so many satellites orbiting the Earth, how hard would it be to outfit one with a weapon ready to fire at the Earth, or other satellites, as needs dictated? While such a concept would go against agreements such as the Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit, a few military organizations have discussed it in recent years by.

One famous U.S. project from the 1950s was Project Thor, which never got past the conceptual stage. Various concepts for space weapons over the years included "Rods from God," which would drop kinetic-energy weapons from orbit, as well as small satellites that would have onboard targeting systems allowing them to aim at other satellites or at the ground below.

NEXT: Soviet Almaz Space Station

Soviet Union's Almaz Space Station

NASA

The Almaz space station was conceived in the 1960s, designed to make it easier for the Soviet Union to search for sea-based targets, according to Russian space expert Anatoly Zak, who runs the website Russian Space Web. It was believed that having humans in orbit would provide a powerful platform for orbital reconnaissance and allow the rapid changing of targets as battles evolved.

The Soviet Union focused on the race to the moon in the 1960s, delaying the first deployment of Almaz until 1973. It was announced to the world as Salyut-2, the second Salyut space station, so as not to make others aware the Soviets had two space station projects, let alone a military one, Zak wrote.

A failure in Salyut-2 prevented a crew from visiting, but the subsequent Almaz space stations Salyut-3 and Salyut-5 did have crews on board. (Salyut-4 never was sent to orbit.) The cosmonauts are reported to have performed surveillance on at least one mission, and to have fired a cannon in 1975, but technical problems with the stations prevented most missions from running for their scheduled lengths.

NEXT: U.S. Manned Orbiting Laboratory

U.S. Manned Orbiting Laboratory

U.S. Air Force

The Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) was a U.S. Air Force project that, despite never launching an astronaut, had an eventful life from 1963 to 1969 (the program's years of activity). Some of the milestones the project saw included selecting 17 astronauts, creating a launch site at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base and modifying the NASA Gemini spacecraft to accommodate the new program.

One of the program's main objectives was reconnaissance, under a code name of Project Dorian. The camera system was intended to get photographs of the Soviet Union, among other hotspots, with a resolution better than any satellite of its time could have achieved. MOL also could have carried missiles (not nuclear, but something to cause a scare) and nets to nab enemy spacecraft. Many new details were unveiled in late 2015 with the release of more than 20,000 pages of MOL documents.

The program was cancelled after estimated costs ballooned. (MOL was expected to cost more than $3 billion in dollars of the day, with $1.3 billion already spent, at the time of cancellation.) Some of the would-be MOL astronauts, such as Bob Crippen and Richard Truly, transferred to NASA for the first space shuttle flights.

NEXT: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Ian Dudley

ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) are land-based missiles that can fly more than 3,500 miles (5,600 kilometers), according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The Soviet Union sent aloft the first ICBM in 1958, and the U.S. first fired one in 1959, followed by a few other nations. Israel, India and China have recently developing ICBMs, and North Korea may be doing so as well.

ICBMs can be navigated by computer or satellite and pinpointed to land on a particular city or, if sophisticated enough, a target within a city. While they are most famous for being able to carry nuclear weapons, they could also deliver chemical or biological weapons  although as far as people know, that potential has never been realized. The Soviet Union and United States agreed to reduce their ICBM stockpiles in 1991 as part of the Start I treaty, but Russia and the U.S. still have and test ICBMs today.

NEXT: U.S. Air Force's X-37B

X-37B orbital test vehicle

U.S. Air Force

After four missions in space, it's still not fully clear what the X-37B space plane is doing up there in orbit  but some people have speculated that the vehicle could be some sort of Air Force weapon.

The reusable plane looks like a smaller version of NASA's space shuttle, but it is operated robotically and can stay in orbit for more than a year at a time. For its fourth (ongoing) mission, in 2015, the U.S. military confirmed a couple of the payloads  a NASA advanced materials investigation and an Air Force experimental propulsion system, for example  but most details about X-37B missions remain classified.

An Air Force Tech Report video in 2015 had many ideas about what the plane could be doing up there, such as bombing from space, interfering with enemy satellites, performing reconnaissance or perhaps doing all of the above at the same time. But Air Force officials have always denied that the X-37B is a weapon, stressing that the spacecraft is testing out technologies for future spacecraft and carrying experiments to and from space.

NEXT: Anti-Satellite Systems

Anti-satellite Systems

Air Force photo illustration

In 1985, an F-15A jet fired an anti-satellite missile at Solwind P78-1, a satellite that discovered several sun-grazing comets but was scheduled for decommissioning due to its instruments beginning to fail. Solwind P78-1 was destroyed with the Air-Launched Miniature Vehicle (ALMV) fired from the plane, but the test generated more than 250 pieces of space debris big enough to show up in tracking systems. Congress forbade further tests by the end of year, and the Air Force stopped the program in 1987.

The successful test was part of a larger U.S. push at the time to find a way to destroy satellites without breaking the rules of treaties that banned nuclear weapons on spacecraft. Examples listed by the Union of Concerned Scientists included the Strategic Defense System (sometimes called "Star Wars") and the Air Force/Navy Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser that was designed to be fired from the ground. A test in 1997 appeared to overwhelm or damage the satellite sensor that was targeted. Later efforts included the kinetic-energy ASAT (which was cancelled) and the Counter Communications System, which used radio-jamming capabilities.

Anti-satellite systems have also been investigated by the Soviet Union, China and India, among others. For example, a famous 2007 anti-satellite test by China generated a huge cloud of space junk. In 2013, a shard of the destroyed satellite hit a Russian satellite and destroyed that, too.

NEXT: Asteroid Projectiles

Manipulating an Asteroid

NASA/Don Davis

Scientists know that asteroids are the ultimate killers. After all, a 6-mile-wide (10 km) space rock is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs roughly 66 million years ago. Audiences have seen the potential human impacts in movies such as "Meteor"(1979), "Deep Impact"(1998) and "Armageddon"(1998). And even relatively small asteroids can have a big impact, thanks to the tremendous speeds at which space objects travel. For example, scientists think the object that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013, generating a shock wave that shattered thousands of windows and wounded 1,200 people (as a result of the flying glass shards), was just 66 feet (20 meters) wide.

But manipulating an asteroid is in the realm of science fiction, for now. NASA does have a proposed asteroid mission on the books; initially, the agency proposed moving a small asteroid close to Earth for scientific investigation, but elected to pluck a boulder off an asteroid instead. This Asteroid Redirect Mission is currently scheduled to launch in the early 2020s.

Even though some experts say asteroids are "lousy weapons," because they're only useable once every few hundred years, science fiction has you covered there as well. Aliens wipe out Buenos Aires with an asteroid in the 1997 film "Starship Troopers," for example. Space rocks have even wiped out Martians in books such as "Protector" (1973), by Larry Niven.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Biogeochemist Yuichiro Ueno in his lab at ELSI built the instrument (to his right) to further his research.

Research into the origin of life on Earth is notoriously difficult. The field has produced many new insights into how specific chemical building blocks form and the way an organism's basic architecture is constructed.

But putting together some of the pieces of the puzzle has not led to any breakthrough moment when the process could be described as understood. As a sign of how far away that moment is likely to be, there isnt even any real consensus view on how to define life.

Despite this sobering reality  or perhaps because of it  a new center for the study of early Earth and the origin of life was formed several years ago with the goal of approaching the issue in new ways. [7 Theories on the Origin of Life]

The sponsor of this substantial effort is the government of Japan and its World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI.) In late 2012, the government committed $100 million over 10 years to build and fund an institute that would not only tackle the fundamental questions of life, but would approach it in a way intentionally divergent from how science is conducted in Japan.

The institute would recruit and hire dozens of researchers from Japan and abroad (the most interest has come from American, French and British researchers) representing a broad range of disciplines, and would make English the common language of all the institutes endeavors.

Four years into the effort, the Earth-Life Science Institute at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (ELSI) is now a significant international center for origins of life study. It has attracted many early career, and some senior researchers to its inviting new building on the campus of Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Kei Hirose is the director of ELSI and an expert in the field of deep Earth dynamics and materials with some important discoveries to his name. The overall focus of the institute, he said, is the early Earth's transition from geochemistry to biochemistry, or from a world of rock and atmosphere and water to one that included biology.

"We strongly hold that progress in understanding the origin of life requires close collaboration between geoscientists and bioscientists," he said. "There are lots of scenarios about how life might have emerged  the RNA world, metabolism first, hydrothermal vents  but for us they have to link life and the environment to be at all persuasive."

The Agora

The heart of an origins of life institute is inevitably in its labs, but ELSI also has its "Agora," named after the central gathering place in early Greek city-states. A large, clean-lined hall with comfortable chairs, chalkboards covering many walls and engaged scientists often grouped around them, it is where the unscripted but invaluable seeds of collaboration are often sown. The phrase "lets meet at the Agora" is often heard at ELSI.

ELSI Director Kei Hirose and Councilor Piet Hut founded ELSi with funds from the government of Japan. (Image credit: Nerissa Escanlar)

Piet Hut, a computational astrophysicist and head of the interdisciplinary program at Princeton Universitys Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) was one of the early creators of the ELSI approach and culture. In return for an unusual degree of freedom and support, Hut said, the full-time ELSI scientists were informally asked to honor an unusual request.

"All I asked them to do was for everyone to come to tea for at least fifteen minutes, from 3 pm to 3:15, every day."

His expectation is for the researchers to approach their work as a shared venture, whereby talking and working with colleagues outside their disciplines becomes a regular part of life. Hut is of the view that questions surrounding the origin of life can be successfully tackled only by scientists who are immersed in them.

It isnt easy to start an institute from scratch, and harder still to do it in a cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary way. Attempting this approach in a country where science traditionally comes with a strict hierarchy, and deep but narrow focus on subjects means taking on even more. After some inevitable fits and starts the institute as a whole has coalesced generally, but by no means exclusively, around a handful of themes.

Magma Ocean

ELSI is perhaps best known for its work on the "magma ocean" that covered the still-growing Earth in the late accretion phase, a phase of planetary formation thought to occur on many, or perhaps most, just-formed terrestrial planets and moons.

John Hernlund, a ELSI vice director and a specialist in planetary formation and evolution, said the vast molten rock stew  exceeding temperatures of 2000 F or more and in places possibly as deep as 700 miles  was the kitchen in which all the Earths elements and compounds boiled, transformed, bonded and became the material from which all else formed.

More than 20 ELSI researchers regularly study magma ocean dynamics and its role in the evolution of the planet from fiery ball to life's host, Hernlund said, though some would not yet see their particular speciality as connected to that larger whole. Among the results from the group: models showing that the largely smooth surface of Venus may well be the result of the presence of a 3.5 billion year magma ocean that couldnt cool down because of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Messy Chemistry

A diverse group of scientists is also pioneering a "messy chemistry" approach to how life might have started. It focuses on the complex tars of early Earth, which have generally been ignored in favor of looking at "cleaner" pathways to explain the emergence specific building blocks of life. The diversity of life on Earth suggests origins equally as complex, says ELSI chemist Irena Mamajanov, and the "messy chemistry" group is working on how those ungainly macromolecules could straighten into the building blocks of life.

ELSI principal investigator Eric Smith (far left) says the goal of the institute is to shape each others minds. (Image credit: Nerissa Escanlar)

Additionally, ELSI wants to be a center of efforts to explore the evolutionary pathways of molecules central to biology, and to do it in terms of "paleo-biology." Several ELSI researchers and outside scientists associated with the institute are pioneering the field as another approach to the origin of life.

ELSI research scientist Masafumi Kameya, for instance, has been studying microbial metabolisms and has undertaken a difficult and painstaking characterization of the enzymes of ancient and universal pathways. Betul Kacar, a organismic and evolutionary biologist at Harvard University and ELSI, trained in resurrecting ancient molecules and is now exploring how her techniques can be adapted to learn about metabolic pathways with ties to the geochemical record. And ELSIs Shawn McGlynn, a biogeochemist, has studied the molecules that link early sulfur metabolic processes to the flow of energy in living organisms.

Earlier this year, the National Science Foundation selected a group including Kacar, McGlynn and ELSI physical chemist Chris Butch (the latter two also associated with the Blue Marble Space Institute) for a grant to study the role of ancient intermediary compounds called thioesters, which are central to the essential-for-life process of transforming inorganic carbon into organic carbon.

As ELSI principal investigator Eric Smith put it: "So either in-house or in our network, we are studying the three most fundamental innovations in carbon fixation, from a molecular systems evolutionary biology perspective." He said the somewhat disparate group of researchers "found that they were traveling companions, and that ELSI was eager to be a natural home for the community they would form."

Another emphasis is on adapting some of the insights of the alternative life field to better understand "emergence" in the context of life, complexity and cognition, among other areas of study. ELSI artificial life researcher Nathaniel Virgo, for instance, is using alternative life approaches to test the hypothesis that pre-biotic (i.e. non-living) materials can "evolve" through a kind of natural selection into materials more useful to life .

Going International

In the few early years of its existence, director Hirose said ELSI researchers came primarily from Japanese institutions because organizers had limited knowledge and experience in recruiting from abroad. ELSI, he said, had a quite Japanese feel, which was definitely contrary to the goal of creating "a premier international research center," as outlined by the Japanese government in its initiative.

"By today a transition has happened," Hirose said. "When our non-Japanese scientists exceeded 20 percent of the total, then they stopped accommodating to Japanese ways and returned to their international ways. And thats what we have wanted."

ELSI's 2017 researchers and collaborators. (Image credit: Nerissa Escanlar)

Of the 63 researchers directly at ELSI now, almost half are from abroad. And as a sign of the Institutes ambitions, it is a prime sponsor of the upcoming Astrobiology Science Conference (Abscicon) in Mesa, Arizona, one of the largest and best attended gatherings in the field.

ELSI is additionally unique in its creation of the ELSI Origins Network (EON,) a program funded by the John Templeton Foundation that brings postdocs from around the world to Tokyo. As part of the effort to spread and encourage origins of life research, EON requires that each of the postdocs split their two year appointment between ELSI and their home institutions.

The goal is to attract self-starting young scientists willing to travel and try something new; people schooled in a particular discipline but intrigued by how their knowledge can help the broader effort shed light on the origin of life and formation of Earth.

Donato Giovannelli, a native of Italy and researcher at Rutgers University, is one of the current 10 EON postdoctoral researchers. Hes an expert on extremophiles and marine biology, and is particularly drawn to understanding what extremophile genomes can reveal about relatively new adaptations from ancient ones. He looks back to the time to when an organism survived in extreme conditions using just one electron receptor.

"I am very interested in what extremophiles can tell us about the origin of life, and I think its quite a bit," he said. That has led to work at ELSI with artificial life specialists as well as computer modelers, and is part of the molecular paleontology study area the institute is building up.

Japan has a long history of being alternately tightly closed to the outside world and then eager for reinvigoration from abroad. In the case of ELSI, and several other related institutes, the goal seems to go well beyond catching up to the outside to becoming a visionary and inherently risk-taking pioneer. And if this approach succeeds at ELSI, the origins of life field could be in for some most intriguing surprises.

This story was provided by Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program.

Follow Space.com @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.
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New York, April 30, 2017 (SPS) - The United States called to remove the obstacles for the relaunch of the United Nations process in Western Sahara, pleading for the Sahrawi peoples right to self-determination.

Following the adoption on Friday by the Security Council of the resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), US Deputy Representative to the United Nations Michele J. Sison said that the peacekeeping mission should support the political solutions.

Expressing US satisfaction at the adoption of the resolution, Sison said that she will help drawing the attention of the Security Council on the need to support a political settlement to the conflict in Western Sahara.

The American diplomat underlined that UN and Security Council have been blocked for years. On the ground, peacekeeping soldiers faced a series of frustrating obstructions which required months and even years of high level commitment to remove them.

Sison said that the obstacles in the way of MINURSO led the Security Council to concentrate its debate on very specific operational details. (SPS)

062/090/700




Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)May 1, 2017 (SPS) - The president of the African Union Commission (AU) Moussa Faki Mahamat hailed the unanimous adoption, last Friday, by the members of the United Nations Security Council, of the resolution 2351 (2017) on the Western Sahara issue which extended, for a year, the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).

Moussa Faki hailed the constructive spirit and the determination of the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres to relaunch the negotiations process in order to reach a solution to the Western Sahara conflict which provides for the self-determination of the Sahrawi people.

The Chadian diplomat also underlined, as stated in the resolution, the need for an effective mission to monitor the ceasefire agreement, and considered imperative that the two parties (Morocco and Polisario Front) respect this agreement and fully cooperate with the MINURSO.

Finally, he reiterated the African Unions determination to work in close collaboration with the UN Secretary General to advance the peace process and find a lasting solution to the conflict, in conformity with the decisions of the African Union and the UN resolutions.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted, last Friday, the resolution 2351 (2017) with which extends the MINURSO mandate until 30 April 2018. (SPS)

062/090/700




David Horn

Hometown: Bethesda, Maryland

Family: My partner in life is Mary Garrison, and she and I will be celebrating eight years together in early July. Our family members currently live throughout the U.S. from Maryland to California.

Occupation: I am a professor of biology at Millikin University. In this role, I teach a wide variety of courses in biology such as ecology, conservation biology and vertebrate biology; conduct research for companies in the wild bird feeding industry; and am one of the co-founders of Millikins Institute for Science Entrepreneurship.

Education: I earned my high school diploma from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda; bachelors degree from Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio; masters degree from the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss.; and Ph.D. from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

My Id rather be  bumper sticker would read, I'd would rather be watching a NASCAR race at Phoenix International Raceway, hiking in Glacier National Park, attending a Brad Paisley concert at Blossom Music Center, or looking at a painting by Thomas Moran at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. These diverse activities bring me a great deal of joy.

Hobbies/interests: I enjoy many activities that involve being outdoors including birding and other wildlife watching, hiking and fishing. I have been collecting art depicting North American wildlife for 10 years. My oldest piece dates from the mid 1700s.

My first job: I served as a library page shelving books in the childrens section at the Davis Library in Bethesda.

Personal approaches to challenges: Many of our challenges seem to stem from a lack of communication. For me, solving challenges involves a large amount of listening before acting.

Community involvement: For the past four years, I coordinated the Millikin Institute for Science Entrepreneurship Speaker Series. This academic year, we had over 1,000 attendees at the events we hosted. I also enjoyed serving on the Macon County Regional Planning Commission for six years and as a trustee of the Macon County Conservation District for five years.

Why did you run for a seat on the Decatur City Council? Decatur has proven that it can do special things, and the foundation has been laid for positive transformation. I want to play a role in the transformation of our city, and I am very excited to have the opportunity to work with others to see our city and its citizens prosper.

What experiences/qualities do you bring to the position that will make you a good councilman? My combination of skills and well-rounded experiences within the areas of education, science, government and private industry make me well qualified to serve Decatur effectively. Having lived in many other cities before moving to Decatur, I bring a different perspective to the council.

What would you most like to accomplish during your four-year term? If four years from now, the population of Decatur has increased, the unemployment rate has decreased relative to the national average, and the childhood poverty rate has decreased, I would feel that I was part of a team that improved the quality of life for its citizens.

What message did you hear time and again from voters during the campaign? Two of the leading concerns that individuals spoke to me about were lack of employment opportunities and increasing taxes.

What do you see as the two leading challenges/issues confronting the city? How would you suggest they be resolved? I see one leading challenge from which other issues stem from. Between 2010-2015, the population decline in Decatur ranked among the top ten steepest in the country. Increased job opportunities and neighborhood revitalization are two areas that are likely to serve as a catalyst for more people moving back to the city.

The city has adopted numerous fees and taxes in recent years to fund specific projects. Would you consider this method to be a viable option for funding future projects? This method is a viable option if taxes must be raised. I would like all of the taxes collected from video gaming (over $1 million annually) be used to fund neighborhood revitalization initiatives and social service programming.

The performance of City Manager Tim Gleason became an issue during the campaign. Now that you have been elected, do you plan any actions relating to his continued employment by the city? No, I do not plan any actions. I look forward to working with Tim and the rest of the city staff in the days ahead. Working together, I see a very bright future for Decatur.

One of the unwritten jobs of a city council member is being an ambassador for Decatur. What do you like most about Decatur? I love Decatur, Illinois because of the people who live here, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be a public servant for our fine city.
Contributed

GREENWICH  Deirdre Daly, the first woman to hold the post of U.S. Attorney for the State of Connecticut, will deliver the graduation address at Greenwich Academys 190th commencement on May 18, the school announced Monday.

I first met Ms. Daly when she spoke at a Greenwich YWCA event titled, Why Words Still Matter honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said Head of School Molly King. I was impressed by her intellect and her commitment to helping others. She has made it her lifes work to fight for what is good and right, and I cant think of a better role model for our seniors as they look ahead to college and career.
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STAMFORD  In a short span of time, being an immigrant in America has gotten a lot harder, Audrey Camino-jara told the crowd outside the Government Center on Monday.

Were told to be afraid, to fear our own community, to live in the shadows, the 19-year-old said. Being an immigrant in this country made of immigrants has become hardest since this new administration.

Camino-jara was one of several speakers at a rally celebrating A Day Without Immigrants, the national protest aiming to show the value of immigrants, who were encouraged to skip work, school and shopping on May Day.

Camino-jara knows how tough it is being an immigrant  she came to the U.S. from Ecuador as a child.

We came to this country for a better life for our families, for ourselves, she said. We are mothers, daughters, brothers, fathers, lawyers, doctors, workers, students  and humans.

The Stamford event was organized by the local chapter of the Cosecha Movement, a group fighting for the permanent protection of undocumented immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of workers had pledged to participate in demonstrations this week, organizers said.

It was unclear how many Stamford businesses closed Monday, but about 100 people gathered outside the Stamford municipal building with signs telling people to text huelga, or strike, to 41411.

The demonstration on Washington Boulevard came less than three months after a similar strike on Feb. 16, and exactly 11 years after the Great American Boycott, when more than 1 million marchers took to the streets for a historic protest against restrictive immigration laws.

Before the rally Monday afternoon, several Stamford businesses were closed in solidarity, sporting signs like Apoyamos A Nuestra Comunidad. Cerrados Mayo 1 Un Dia Sin Immigrantes.

Translated, that sign on a convenience store on Stillwater Avenue read: We support our community. Closed May 1 A Day Without Immigrants.

Lucas Romero, coordinator of Cosechas Stamford chapter, said the closures and rally are designed to highlight the countrys reliance on immigrant workers  including those undocumented  and campaign for immigration reform.

This is especially relevant as President Donald Trump repeatedly threatens to crack down on illegal immigration and build a wall along the Mexican border, leaving thousands of people in Stamford  where immigrants account for about a third of the population  living in fear.

Mayor David Martin addressed the rally crowd, saying he disagrees with Trumps policies and police raids that round up undocumented immigrants no matter how small their infraction.

But good news, Martin said, the Stamford police department doesnt work for Trump  they work for me.

Organizers from Cosecha Stamford said Mondays event was the first in a series of strikes and boycotts they have planned for this year.

The protest also coincided with the International Workers Day, a holiday observed by many countries around the world, including in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Similar marches for immigrant and workers rights were held Monday in Danbury and Bridgeport, and across the country.

nnaughton@stamfordadvocate.com
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NORWALK  A father and daughter are dead in an apparent murder-suicide after police said the man shot his daughter Sunday night and turned the gun on himself hours later.

They were identified as Mark Wilkinson, 55, and his daughter, Melissa Wilkinson, 33.

Melissa Wilkinson was a well-known server at South Norwalk restaurants. Mark Wilkinson had owned Dynamic Martial Arts in Westport.

After she had not shown up for work, coworkers went to Melissa Wilkinsons apartment on Wilton Avenue and looking through a window, saw her on the floor. They then kicked in the apartment door and found her dead. Police said she had been shot in the head.

Her father was still inside the apartment holding a weapon. Coworkers found him sitting on a couch and mumbling to himself, police said.

The coworkers fled the apartment and called police.

The incident began around 12:30 a.m. Monday and became a standoff lasting several hours. People living nearby were evacuated as a precaution.

For hours, police tried to talk with Mark Wilkinson and get him to surrender.

The suspect would not engage with officers, Norwalk Police Chief Thomas Kulhawik said. Officers heard a shot Monday morning and found the suspect deceased as well.

Arriving officers attempted to speak with the male, but he refused, Lt. Terry Blake said in a news release.

He said negotiators from the departments tactical team continued to make contact, but the male refused to communicate with officers.

During the standoff, Blake said officers heard a single gunshot. They used a camera to view the interior of the apartment and saw the man was dead. Once they entered the apartment, they also found a dead woman.

A close friend of Melissa Wilkinson told Hearst Connecticut Media that Mark Wilkinson had been living in his daughters apartment for two years. She said he had been sleeping on the couch, and she had had enough it, and told her father Sunday he had to move out Monday.

Residents near the apartment were evacuated for about four hours. Shortly after 7 a.m., Kulhawik allowed residents to return to normal activities but said investigators would remain on the scene for a while.

Shortly after 7 a.m., a distraught middle-aged woman arrived near the crime scene, visibly shaken. The woman told Hearst Connecticut Media another daughter who lived out of state had called her to tell her to check on her daughter in Norwalk.

After speaking briefly to police outside the apartment complex, the woman was driven away in a police car with detectives.

A Wilton Avenue neighbor described the scene as the events unfolded overnight.

At about 4:12 a.m. I heard a loudspeaker, the neighbor said. It said, This is the Norwalk police. Stay inside your homes. I was too scared to look, so I stayed in my bed.

A fantastic, likable person

Mark Wilkinson was arrested by Westport police in November 2009 on drunken-driving and weapons charges. He had been clocked going 62 mph on Roseville Road, where the limit is 25. Police said they found a gun on him.

He was granted accelerated rehabilitation in 2010 after his lawyer submitted 40 letters of recommendation from civic figures, church figures and others. They included letters from then Norwalk Fire Chief Denis McCarthy and then-Weston Police Commission Chairman Richard Phillips.

Mark Wilkinson lived on Greenlea Lane in Weston at the time, and owned Dynamic Martial Arts in Westport.

Melissa Wilkinson was a server at Match restaurant in SoNo for the last few years, according to Matt Storch, the restaurants executive chef and owner.

Storch said he and his employees were all still obviously quite shocked after hearing the news Monday morning.

She was a fantastic, likable person, Storch said. We are all extremely sad. Its shocking. Well all carry her memory with us.

Storch said Melissa Wilkinson had previously worked at Strada 18.

She was a good girl, Storch said. She will be missed.

Mark Wilkinson lived in Milfords Devon section about 15 years ago. His neighbor at the time, who asked not to be identified, said that he was surprised to hear that the father was capable of committing such a serious crime.

He seemed like just a regular guy, the neighbor said. Nothing out of the ordinary, really.

Mondays murder-suicide was the second traumatic fatal in Norwalk in less than a week.

On Wednesday, 49-year-old Lisa Zemlok was found dead inside a residence at 505 Westport Ave., which she shared with Paul Bjerke. Bjerke was arrested in the death and charged with first-degree manslaughter.

Police called the assault domestic in nature, but did not provide details of what led to the incident. Police said Bjerke was Zemloks boyfriend.

Staff writer Kevin Schultz contributed to this report.
Founded in 1867, Harper's Bazaar was one of the first of its kind.

A female fashion publication, the first issue launched on November 2, 1867 and was described on the cover as "A repository of fashion, pleasure and instruction".

Fast-forward 150 years, and the magazine - still a market leader in its field - is spending a Wednesday evening projecting some of its most iconic images onto the side of the Empire State Building.

Spanning the entire history of the magazine, the images included shoots with Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, Rihanna and Kendall Jenner.

Since 1976 the Empire State Building has traditionally changed colour of its lights in celebration or commemoration of certain occasions, and the Harper's Bazaar celebration was no exception.

Projected over 42 floors, and spanning 500 feet tall and 186 feet wide, the magazine's editor Glenda Bailey told the New York Times that she wanted to give New Yorkers 'the greatest fashion show in the world'.

An occasion facilitated by Harper's Bazaar and Tiffany & Co., the magazine declined to admit how much it cost, simply admitting "It's wildly expensive but it wil be worth every penny."

Kendall Jenner lights up the Empire State Building

Click through our gallery above see some of the magazine's best covers ahead of tomorrow night's celebration in London
A man has been charged after an Italian national was stabbed in the head at a busy park in leafy south London.

The 31-year-old victim is believed to have suffered head injuries in the alleged screwdriver attack which happened in Dulwich Park, south London, just after 1pm on Thursday.

He is believed to have been sitting in the park with a friend when a man approached him and demanded his phone before reportedly stabbing him, witnesses said.

The victim was rushed to hospital after sustaining life-threatening injuries in the attack. His condition remains critical.

Crime scene: a section of Dulwich Park remained cordoned off on Friday / Chad O'Carroll

A friend, who was with the victim in the park at the time, told the Standard: It was a vicious and shocking attack now my friend is in intensive care and we are praying he will be ok.

An air ambulance landed near a packed childrens playground less than 100 yards away and the man was rushed to Kings College Hospital.

Parents said top private schools in the area including Alleyns and Dulwich College sent a message warning them not to allow their children to go to the park because of the incident.

Gerry Fletcher, who was in the park with a friend, said: Its just horrific. Its such a lovely, peaceful park and the playground would have packed with children. We just hope the man is going to be ok.

Jermaine McDonald, 26, was charged with GBH, robbery, attempted robbery and possession of an offensive weapon on Monday.

He is due to appear at Camberwell Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

Any witnesses or anyone with any information is asked to call police on 101.

Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or contact them online at the crimestoppers-uk.org.
A n armed motorist drove off in a BWM after being Tasered during a police chase in a trendy area of east London.

Officers rushed Old Street, in Tower Hamlets, just before 6am on Monday to reports that two men in a car were carrying weapons.

They had also reportedly been involved in a fight, witnesses said.

As officers approached the vehicle the driver reached for something out of sight, prompting officers to set off a Taser, Scotland Yard confirmed.

Despite being Tasered the man sped off.

Just after 6am, police flagged down the car which had been involved in a crash with a Mercedes in Liverpool Road, Islington.

The driver and passenger ran from the scene.

Huge smash: The BMW crashed into a Mercedes in Islington / Tom Atfield

Liverpool Road resident Ben Atfield said the entire street had been woken up by the massive, crunching thud of the crash.

He told the Standard: A policeman told us the white car was fleeing Old Street after the two guys inside got into a fight with armed officers.

They tasered him but he managed to escape.

When he crashed the Taser cables were still hanging out of the side of the car.

The black Mercedes had four women in who were driving by. Afterwards the two men ran towards Upper Street.

Within three minutes armed coppers arrived here.

A couple of the women seemed very shaken up. The neighbours took them in for a bit.

A woman, who has been driving the other car, was treated for minor injuries.

No arrests have been made and enquiries continue.

Any witnesses, or anyone with any information, should contact police via 101, or by tweeting @MetCC.

Alternatively, contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
A young man died in front of his best friend after being stabbed in the stomach following a fight in south London.

Bilal Kargbo, 26, became the sixth knife crime fatality in London in one week when he died on Friday afternoon.

His friend Alim Komora told the Standard how he had seen Bilal arguing with another man on Peckham Rye and immediately rushed over to separate them.

He said: I saw him from the back and I came straight up to them and tried to separate them. They were so close and they were squaring up to each other.

I was pushing them both in the chest and I said you guys are not fighting.

The scene outside Peckham Rye station / Craig Thomas

Next thing I know the guy took out a knife and just stabbed him. It happened so quickly I didnt even have time to ask why they were arguing.

Mr Komora said that immediately after he was stabbed, a passing bus driver came over and put clothes around the wound to try to stem the flow of blood.

I was just there trying to speak to him but he was not answering me at all," added the self-employed decorator.

He met Bilal, originally from Sierra Leone, when they were both students at Walworth School (now Walworth Academy) on Old Kent Road.

There is nothing bad that I can say about him, added Mr Komora, who shared a moving picture of the pair on Facebook taken seconds from the scene of the stabbing exactly two years ago.

Stabbing in Peckham

Southwark Councillor Michael Situ told the Standard: "It's sad that we are here right again and it's becoming far too many across the city as a whole.

"We need a renewed effort right from centrally to the boroughs to look at how we can put an end to this.

"Yet another man young man has lost his life which has caused quite a lot of pain to his close relatives and to the community at large."

The David Idowu foundation, a group which works to reduce knife crime by educating children and adults, tweeted in response to the councillor: Thank you for joining us at the vigil for Bilal who sadly lost his life to knife crime yesterday in Peckham. May his soul RIP.

A vigil was set to be held at the scene on Monday evening, while many also took to social media to pay tribute to a man described as a "gentle soul".

Mohamed Sheriff wrote on Facebook: "I WILL NEVER EVER FORGET APRIL 28. 3.51pm. THE DAY I LOST MY BROTHER OVER SOME B******." He later added: "My partner and brother is gone left me but will always be with me spiritually..."

Following the stabbing, local business owners were heard screaming and crying as they ran into the street to try and save the victim.

The man was stabbed outside the station. / Chad O'Carroll

Paramedics and police officers rushed to the scene but Bilal could not be saved and he was pronounced dead at 3.15pm.

One local resident, called Laura, told the Standard she was in the kitchen at the back of her flat when she heard a bang and women from the salons screaming.

She said: My flat looks out on Blenheim Grove, the man fell across the road from me.

"I heard a bang which I think was the man falling into one of the metal shutters.

"I could just see lots of women in the road screaming. There are six salons in the road all next to each other.

Killed: A man in his 20s was stabbed to death. / Chad O'Carroll

"It was more the screaming which drew me to the window. They were all in the road screaming and crying.

As commuters poured out of Peckham Rye station they were met with a massive police cordon as officers and police cars blocked the road at the corner with Blenheim Grove.

A swathe of road was taped off by police as officers directed people around the crime scene.

DCI Dave Whellams said later that evening: "We are still trying to piece together the events that led to the victim tragically losing his life. At this early stage we believe he was involved in an altercation with another person prior to being stabbed.

The incident drew a large crowd of onlookers who were on the street and in shops nearby at the time the incident happened. We are aware that a number of members of the public were filming the incident on their mobile phones and I would like to appeal directly to any of those people that have recorded footage to contact the police as soon as possible.

On Monday, a 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder and a 28-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender. Both are in custody.

Anyone with information is asked to call the incident room on 020 8785 8244 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
There is a growing conflict between the mayor and villagers of Metz Ayroum, in Armenias Lori Province.

Residents complain that their taxes are being spent for the personal purposes of community head Sahak Nazaryan, who, above all, has a habit of firing people who didnt vote for him.

Nazaryan was first elected to run the village in 2012, and reelected in October 2016.

Metz Ayroum resident Armen Aslanyan presented the villagers complaint to Lori Governor Arthur Nalbandyan a few days ago, resulting in the governor sending a delegation to look into the matter.

Villagers recount different cases of Nazaryans inaction on the job. One glaring example is when 100 meters of pipes frozelast January 2 with no steps taken to change them since, causing water losses. Unfulfilled promises to solve the issue of street lighting and building a bus stop are also on the inaction list.

Aslanyan admits that he does not pay the land tax, although he owns 1.5 hectares. He says he doesnt want his taxes to serve the needs of community heads family.

Four members of Nazaryans family work in the municipality. His brother is a driver, his wife is a 2nd class specialist, who doesnt do anything apart from drinking tea and coffee there. His mother is the director of the kindergarten, Aslanyan complains.

According to the municipal staff lists, Sahak Nazaryan receives AMD 206,000 in wages from the community budget. His brother, Tigran Nazaryan, gets 78,000. The wife gets 78,000. His mother, the director of the kindergarten, gets 80,000. Overall, the family will make 5.3 million in salary this year.

Metz Ayroum resident Seda Tumasyans son died in Karvatcharin 1993, during the Artsakh War. Seda's husband participated in different battles and died soon after.

"My son was posthumously awarded with the Combat Service Medal and Medal of Courage, but none of the schoolchildren in Metz Ayroum know where and why my son died, and none of the classrooms have been named after him, says the soldier's mother.

She now lives with her daughters family. Tumasyans grandson serves in a military unit in Martouni, Artsakh. Her son-in-law is a contract soldier protecting the Baghanis border. Her daughter, a teacher and university graduate,hasnt been able to find a job for years. The family depends on Sedas pension.

"Metz Ayroum has 800 residents. The mayor keeps two women on the payroll as librarians, one of whom is the daughter of the former community head. If you ask any child or anybody else in the village when theylast went to the library, no one can answer. There are several other people in municipality who are being paid without doing anything. Meanwhile, the mayor head doesnt find a suitable job for soldiers sister with higher education", Armen adds.

Nazaryan bought a minibus, using the village funds, toferry children from Poqr Ayroum to Metz Ayroum to attend school. One million AMD of the budget is allocated for its fuel. The question is, do you spend one million AMD per year to drive a mere six kilometers during the weekdays? In reality, it serves to transport the mayors fertilizer, seeds, and fuel to his fields. And if schoolchildren want to be taken on a tour of Haghpat or some other place, they have to pay."

After the local election on October 2, 2016, Sahak Nazaryan fired people who didnt support him during the election.

"Arsen Petrosyan also ran in that election. His sister, Ani Petrosyan, director of the village kindergarten, was dismissedon October 10. Nazaryans old and disabled mother was appointed director," says Grisha Grigoryan, a member of community council.

According to Sahak Nazaryan, his mother was only appointed as the acting director of the kindergarten, and his wife got the job by participating in a contest. Nazaryans mother is also on the community council.

Marina Shirvanyan, a former nanny in the kindergarten, told Hetq that she had worked for seven months until October.

"My son, who serves in Karabakh, called and asked to vote for his friend, Vazgen. I told him, that as I work in the kindergarten, I have to vote for the community head. However, to please my son, the rest of the family voted for Vazgen. After the election, I was asked to come to the municipality to write my resignation request, she relates, adding that when she refused, staffers said she had to.

Marineh Aleksanyan, the municipalitys treasurer, was dismissed on October 3, the day after the election.

"My father's friend's son was standing as a candidate, whom our family was going to support. I was going to vote for Nazaryan in order not to lose my job. However, Nazaryan told me that he couldnt care less about my vote. I figured that if he demeaned my vote that much, he wasnt worthy of it. So, I didnt do as ordered and didnt bring him the agreed proof - the photo of the ballot. I had to write my resignation, otherwise they would fabricate a financial case against me, Marineh explains.

Syoma, a workman at the kindergarten for four years, says his salary was cut in half after the election, the workload remaining the same, only because his children didnt vote for Nazaryan.

There is an unwritten law here that if theres work to be done in the homes of the mayor and his cronies, then the employees of municipality are obliged to do it. Those running the community are the kings, and villagers their servants, says 85-year-old Zhora Shirvanyan.
A man is fighting for life in hospital after being struck down by a hit-and-run driver near the Olympic Park.

The pedestrian, aged in his 30s, was hit by a car in High Street, Stratford, at around 4.40pm on Bank Holiday Monday.

Police officers on routine patrol witnessed the crash and saw the car drive off immediately after without stopping.

The victim was rushed to an east London hospital by ambulance where he remained in a critical condition on Sunday evening. An Air Ambulance was also scrambled to the scene.

Emergency: the road was cordoned off for three hours / @E15Waheed

Police said that the same car was involved in another crash with two vehicles a minute later in Westfield Avenue, where it was abandoned.

There were reports of minor injuries from the second collision but nobody is believed to have required hospital treatment.

Three males were arrested nearby soon after and have now been taken into custody at an east London police station.

Detectives from Newham are investigating alongside officers from the Roads and Transport Policing Command.

High Street, which is minutes from the site of the 2012 Olympics, was closed for three hours on Monday evening while emergency services carried out work.

Anyone who witnessed the collisions, or who has information that may assist the investigation, is urged to call police via 101.

To give information anonymously call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit the crimestoppers-uk.org website.
T hree teenage women have been arrested in connection with an active terror plot which was foiled by police after a dramatic raid at a house in Willesden.

Scotland Yard said a 19-year-old woman and two others, both aged 18, have been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts.

The teenagers were arrested at three addresses in east London on Monday morning and taken into custody at a police station outside of the capital.

A Met spokesman said the arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation in connection with an address on Harlesden Road which was raided by counter-terrorism officers on Thursday night.

A 21-year-old woman who was shot by armed police as they carried out the raid on the address was discharged from hospital and arrested on suspicion of terror offence, Scotland Yard said on Sunday.

The moment police enter Willesden house during terror raid

Officers were also granted more time to question six other people, including a 16-year-old boy, who were detained when they stormed a terrace house and another address in Kent. Warrants have been granted to detain the suspects until May 2 and May 4.

Armed officers shot the woman and fired CS gas rounds when they stormed the terraced house in dramatic scenes.

Witnesses reported hearing screaming and shots as armed police in gas masks burst into the address.

A mother-of-one said: We were just about to go shopping when we heard bang, bang, bang, bang. We went to the window and saw a number of armed police there with their guns pointing at our next-door neighbours window.

Terror: Harlesden Road where the raid happened / Jeremy Selwyn

Four people, including a boy aged 16, were arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences. The first, a 21-year-old man, was detained near the address and another woman, aged 20, and the boy were held at the house. A 43-year-old woman was arrested in Kent a short while later.

A 27-year-old man, named as Khalid Mohamed Omar Ali, who was detained in Whitehall just hours before the raid in a separate counter-terrorism operation also remains in police custody.

Armed police swooped on Ali, who was allegedly carrying a rucksack of knives in Whitehall, a stones throw from Downing Street and yards from the scene of last months deadly attack by Khalid Masood in Westminster.

Believed to be a British national born overseas who went to school in Tottenham, north London, Ali reportedly joined a humanitarian mission to Gaza in 2010.

Arres: Armed police arrested the suspect / AFP/Getty Images

Following his dramatic arrest in front of crowds of tourists, he was taken for questioning at a south London police station.

Scotland Yard said following a warrant of further detention being granted at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Saturday; he can be questioned until May 4.

Giving an update on both counter-terror operations on Thursday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said: "Due to the arrests made, I believe we have contained the threats that they posed.

"With the attack in Westminster on 22 March so fresh in people's minds, I would like to reassure everyone that across the country officers are working around the clock to identify those people who intend to commit acts of terror."
T wo men have been charged by police after a young man was stabbed to death in south London.

Abdullah Hammia, 24, died from a knife wound to the heart after being attacked near Wandsworth Common at 7pm on Tuesday.

An Australian nanny battled in vain to save his life as he lay on the ground.

Kearn Johnson, 21, of King Arthur Close, Peckham, was charged on Sunday with murder and possession of an offensive weapon.

Emergency services: An ambulance at the scene of the stabbing (Nigel Howard) / NIGEL HOWARD

Police also charged 25-year-old Elliot D'Aguiar, of St Donnatts Road, New Cross, with perverting the course of justice.

The pair were due to appear at Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court on Monday.

Mr Hammias mother said her son was going straight after a spell in prison.

She told the Standard the keen boxer was trying to turn his life around when he was killed.

A 40-year-old man who was also arrested over the killing has been released without charge.
A carer has been charged with attempted murder after a 90-year-old woman was beaten and stabbed in west London.

The victim is fighting for life in hospital after she was attacked at an address in West Drayton on Thursday evening.

Police said they were called to reports of an elderly woman assaulted at an address in Lilac Place at 8.20pm.

The victim suffered a stab wound to the neck and serious head injuries "consistent with blunt force trauma", a Met Police spokeswoman said.

She is currently in a critical but stable condition at a west London hospital.

Abosede Adeyinka, 52, of Hayman Crescent, Hayes, has been charged with attempted murder.

She appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court on Monday and was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey on May 30.
S hadow chancellor John McDonnell is set to address crowds of anti-austerity campaigners when a May Day march winds its way through the central London.

Large crowds of demonstrators will gather at Clerkenwell Green from midday before setting off towards Trafalgar Square an hour later.

Crowds, marking International Workers Day, will march down Clerkenwell Road, Theobald's Road and Aldwych on their way to a rally in the central London square.

Police warned affected roads would be closed and then reopened once the parade moved on.

Buses serving Trafalgar Square, Holborn and Farringdon will also be diverted or could stop short of their destinations due to the event, which is due to end at 5pm.

Mr McDonnell will be one of the lead speakers at the demonstration this year, which organisers say attracted 14,000 people back in 2016.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka will also speak alongside representatives from the RMT union who will discuss the ongoing dispute with Southern Rail.

In a statement on their website, organisers said: May Day is the day to bring together all the important struggles going on over NHS, attacks on the disabled, on education, housing, against the anti-union laws, against racism, against threats to peace, against Government support for repressive regimes, the whole austerity agenda, attacks on civil liberties, the environment, the arts and so many other areas of our lives.

They are all linked in the economic system dominated by multinationals leading to more money for the super rich and attacks on the lives of ordinary people, young and old, of all backgrounds.

We need to bring them all together in one great fight.
F rench presidential favourite Emmanuel Macron has warned the EU must reform or it could face 'Frexit'.

Mr Macron, an independent who leads his far-right rival Marine Le Pen by around 20 percentage points in the polls, is a pro-EU centrist.

But ahead of Sunday's head to head in the second and final round of voting in the contest, Mr Macron has warned of the impact of the "dysfunction" of Brussels on France.

"I'm a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe it's extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalisation," he told the BBC.

"But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the EU is no more sustainable.

Frexit edges closer: Marine Le Pen could take France out of the EU if she wins on May 7

"So I do consider that my mandate, the day after, will be at the same time to reform in depth the European Union and our European project."

Warning that allowing Brussels to continue as it currently functions would be a "betrayal", Mr Macron added: "And I don't want to do so. Because the day after, we will have a Frexit or we will have [Ms Le Pen's] National Front (FN) again."

Ms Le Pen has promised a referendum on EU membership and has pledged a tough stance on immigration.

She has won support among voters in rural and de-industrialised areas of France, which came out strongly for her in the first round of voting.

Last week she stepped down as leader of the Front National while she campaigns. However, the man she chose as her interim successor, Jean-Francois Jalkh, stood down amid claims he questioned whether the Nazis ran gas chambers. The allegation is a crime under French law bur Mr Jalkh denies wrongdoing.
S hadow chancellor John McDonnell has slammed Theresa Mays wrong and feeble leadership following a May Day rally in central London.

Anti-austerity campaigners marched from Clerkenwell Green to Trafalgar Square in the annual bank holiday protest to mark International Workers Day.

Speaking to journalists after addressing demonstrators, Mr McDonnell attacked Mrs May for being "clueless" and unprepared for talks at Number 10 with European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker last Wednesday, as it was reported their discussion went badly.

He said: "What I find came out of it is that she apparently appeared clueless.

"I find it deeply worrying. She either went in badly briefed or she just couldn't handle the situation.

John McDonnell speaks at a May Day rally in Trafalgar Square / PA

"We're finding that just as she refused to debate with Jeremy, this concept of a 'strong and stable' leader, she's demonstrating that actually, she's not strong, she's wrong.

"As for stable, pretty feeble."

Comparing the two main party leaders, the shadow chancellor repeatedly criticised the Prime Minister's refusal to take part in TV debates, saying it demonstrates two types of leader.

He said of the Prime Minister: "One is a leader who is trying to act in a traditional way...spin, slogans that you repeat ad nauseum.

Demonstrators attend a May Day march in central London / REUTERS

"Or a leader that's a warm human being who shows true leadership that brings people together, building consensus, having policies and putting them out. That's the sort of leader I want", he said of Jeremy Corbyn.

A staunch Corbyn ally, he laughed off questions about former Labour leader Tony Blair's return to politics announced on Sunday, but Mr McDonnell welcomed the contributions of Labour 20 years ago, as "building the foundations".

Listing off Labour policies under Mr Blair including the introduction on the National Minimum Wage, he said: "You build upon the foundations of that era. I was elected in '97 and we did some fantastic things.

"What we're advocating now is building on what Labour did in power in that period and then moving it on to address the issues we're now facing."

John McDonnell pledged to scrap the Trade Union Act / PA

Mr McDonnell also renewed Labour's pledge for new employment rights, as it was announced over the weekend that a 20-point plan under Labour to end a "rigged economy" would include securing a 10 minimum wage, end zero-hours contracts and ensure equal tights for pregnant women in the workplace.

He said: "This is a government that after seven years, we're the only developing country where growth is returning but wages are stagnating.

"That's why we need a new charter for workers' rights in this country.

To cheers from protesters, who represented trade unions in Britain and internationally, Mr McDonnell said: "Let me tell you what we will do in June, when June becomes the end of May."

He also insisted on a 1:20 pay ratio - meaning public sector and private firm bosses performing government work are not paid more than 20 times the wage of the firm's lowest paid employee - for all firms competing for a government contract.

Mr McDonnell also pledged to scrap the Trade Union Act.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was on the campaign trail and did not attend, sent a message read out to May Day protesters by Mr McDonnell.

He said: "May Day greetings for peace around the world.

"Workers together want rights to organise and be represented.

"The policies we've announced on workers' rights this week all have their origins in working class organisations and demands.

"United, we can win."

This year's May Day march to celebrate the contribution of workers wound down with a Trafalgar Square rally after making its way through central London.
T heresa May was told Brexit "cannot be a success" during a disastrous dinner with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, according to a damning leaked account of the meeting.

The Prime Minister faced a backlash after German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung published a report which painted a disastrous picture of last weeks dinner.

It claimed EU Commission officials balked at Mrs Mays hopes for negotiations, which include a trade deal within two years and a quick agreement to secure the status of Brits living abroad.

According to the account of the meeting published by the German newspaper, Mr Juncker said Britain would not secure a trade deal between the UK and the remaining EU member states without paying a divorce bill  said to amount to about 50bn  it is expected to be asked for.

Brexit: Theresa May on trade, security and the single market

During the meeting, Mr Juncker is said to have told Mrs May: It [Brexit] cannot be a success.

I leave Downing Street 10 times as sceptical as I was before, Mr Juncker is said to have told the Prime Minister.

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier was also at the dinner / EPA

After the dinner, he reportedly phoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel early the following morning to share his concerns with her, allegedly saying that Mrs May is deluding herself and living in another galaxy.

Downing Street rejected the account of the meeting reported in Germany, but critics seized on it to attack the PM for having no plan in negotiations for withdrawal from the EU.

Labours Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said: This is a deeply worrying account and further evidence that Theresa Mays rigid and complacent approach to Brexit negotiations risks leading Britain over a cliff edge.

"By refusing to acknowledge the complexity and magnitude of the task ahead the Prime Minister increases the risk that there will be no deal, which is the worst of all possible outcomes."

Liberal Democrat Leader Tim Farron added: "It's clear this government has no clue and is taking the country towards a disastrous hard Brexit. Theresa May chose a divisive hard Brexit, with Labour's help, and now has no idea what to do next."

Number 10 has sought to play down the reports of the meeting, which was also attended by the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

During an interview on the BBC this weekend, Mrs May was asked about claims Mr Juncker told her she was living in another galaxy.

"I'm not in a different galaxy. I think what this shows and what some of the other comments we've seen coming from other European leaders show is that there are going to be times when these negotiations are going to be tough," she responded.

Eurosceptics, meanwhile, claimed the leak from an EU Commission source strengthened the case for a clean break from Brussels as opposed to the pursuit of a deal after lengthy and complicated negotiations. A Ukip spokesman was quoted by the Financial Times as saying the account showed the EU was attempting to bully Britain.

Leaks during the two-year negotiation period are expected because of the obligation on Mr Juncker to keep the EUs other member states informed of how talks are developing.

However, the account reported in Germany will be viewed in Downing Street as a provocative move aimed at turning prevailing opinion in Britain away from the view expressed by Number 10 that Brexit will be a success.
T wo children are fighting for their lives in hospital after being rescued from a house fire in Essex.

A 13-year-old boy was flown by Air Ambulance to the Royal London Hospital in Basildon while a ten-year-old was taken to Basildon Hospital in an ambulance.

Firefighters were called to the single-storey property in Pitsea at around 3pm on bank holiday Monday as flames engulfed the building.

One neighbour told Essex Live: "We saw one boy on a trolley and another on the floor being resuscitated who looked like an adult and there was another but we couldn't see who that was because they put the barriers up."

"There was this horrible toxic smell when I was walking out the front. There were flames shooting up and that's when the fire service turned up."

The fire was extinguished by 4.30pm, Essex Police said. The cause is not yet known and enquiries at the scene were continuing on Monday evening.

An Essex Police spokesperson said: Essex Police and Essex County Fire and Rescue Service are currently at the scene of a house fire in Beambridge, #Basildon.

Officers were contacted at around 3.15pm this afternoon, Monday, May 1.

Two children were rescued from the single-storey property. A 13-year-old boy was flown by air ambulance to the Royal #London Hospital while a ten-year-old boy was taken to Basildon Hospital by ambulance.

Both boys are described as being in life-threatening conditions.

The fire was extinguished by 4.30pm. The cause of the fire is not yet known and enquiries at the scene are continuing.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101.
T ourists who feed seagulls could be slapped with huge fines in a bid to cut the number of bird attacks at the seaside.

People who feed the often aggressive birds could be hit with an 80 fine as part of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) issued by East Devon District Council.

The ban comes after a debate about how to tackle the "scourge" on Britain's seaside areas.

In 2015, then Prime Minister David Cameron said a "big conversation" was needed about the threat from seagulls, and he recalled ham once being stolen from a sandwich by the birds.

The following year Brighton pensioner Barbara Cox claimed she was trapped in her home for three days by the angry birds.

While gulls are an important part of the coastal environment, their behaviour can be problematic, said East Devon District councillor Iain Chubb.

He said: "You like to see the birds, it's a nice part of the landscape, but you just don't want them to be aggressive."

The fines will be aimed at addressing habitual feeders and cafes and restaurants which do not dispose of waste food properly, he said.

"It's more a fine for where there is, say a catering establishment with bad practice of disposing of food, or there are little old ladies who like to go down and feed the seagulls," said the councillor, who holds the environment portfolio.

"It's one of those things where, if you've got somebody who is habitually feeding seagulls, it's something to say you shouldn't be doing this, there is a fine at the end of the day."

Mr Chubb described the new measure as a "final backstop" which tackles the issue where anti-litter legislation could not, and added: "There aren't going to be the police out looking for people throwing chips at birds, that's for sure."

In February MPs debated the issue ahead of breeding season, warning that pensioners had been among those attacked by the birds.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.
While May 1, International Workers Day, was originally commemorated to defend the rights of the working class in the aftermath of the Haymarket massacre in Chicago (1886), it seems that in Armenia the day has been co-opted by big business in conjunction with the state.

Today, President Serzh Sargsyan, accompanied by First Lady Rita Sargsyan, participated in an event organized by Grand Candy CEO Seryozha Hovakimyan ostensibly to honor the Armenian worker.

An official press release says that Sargsyan awarded the corporate head with a medal for his long years of effective and caring work.

Activists of the Second International, who chose May 1 to commemorate International Workers Day, are surely spinning in their graves.
 Her mum and dad have called her a joy from heaven - and on the eve of her second birthday Prince William and Kate have released a new photo of Princess Charlotte.

The snap, taken by Duchess of Cambridge, portrays the soon to be two year princess at their country house Anmer Hall in Norfolk.

Charlotte, who will turn two tomorrow, smiles at Kate as the enthusiastic amateur captures the photo.

Taken in April, Charlotte is wearing a traditional Fair Isle cardigan in baby blue and yellow from John Lewis with a slightly crumpled Peter Pan collar poking out of the top.

Princess Charlotte makes balcony debut at Queen's official 90th birthday parade

In a statement the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge said they are "very pleased" to share this photograph as they celebrate Princess Charlotte's second birthday.

They added they "like to thank everyone for all of the lovely messages they have received, and hope that everyone enjoys this photograph of Princess Charlotte as much as they do."

Princess Charlotte makes debut on Buckingham Palace balcony 1 /8 Princess Charlotte makes debut on Buckingham Palace balcony Balcony Princess Charlotte was held by the Duchess of Cambridge REUTERS/Toby Melville Royal family Princess Charlotte made her debut on the balcony alongside her brother Prince George REUTERS/Toby Melville Admiration The royal family gaze up at the fly past REUTERS/Toby Melville Delighted Prince George appeared to be excited to see the aircrafts fly over Buckingham Palace REUTERS/Toby Melville Young royals The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George and Princess Charlotte REUTERS/Toby Melville Fly past The Red Arrows fly past Buckingham Palace  MOD Crown copyright 2015

Charlotte's privacy has been carefully guarded by her parents and during the past year she has only been seen in public on a handful of occasions.

She made an appearance on Christmas Day when she was taken to a church service close to the home of her grandparents Carole and Michael Middleton in the Berkshire village of Bucklebury.

She was pictured in the arms of the Duchess when the royal party arrived at St Mark's Church in Englefield, with older brother Prince George holding the Duke's hand as they walked in. When they left, the royal children were clutching candy canes.

Royal family at Victoria garden party 1 /17 Royal family at Victoria garden party Chris Jackson/Getty Images Chris Jackson/Getty Images Chris Jackson/Getty Images Chris Jackson/Getty Images Chris Jackson/ Getty Images Royal debut: Princess Charlotte attended the garden party on her first official royal engagement Reuters Family fun: The couple spent the day playing with their children and meeting military families Reuters Adorable: Prince George attempts to catch a bubble during the festivities Getty Images Animal magic: George also petted a black and white rabbit with help from the Duchess of Cambridge Reuters Spellbound: George and Charlotte have not been seen publicly since arriving in Canada on Saturday Getty Images Party time: The royal children were kept entertained by a balloon artist Reuters Grand entrance: The family made a stunning arrival at the party in Victoria Reuters Popular: Princess Charlotte with the Duchess of Cambridge Reuters

The other notable outing for Charlotte was during the Duke and Duchess's tour of Canada last autumn when she was seen a number of times, including at a children's party in Victoria, British Colombia.

Charlotte's first birthday was marked with the release of four official photographs by her parents.

Princess Charlotte - In pictures 1 /106 Princess Charlotte - In pictures HRH The Duchess of Cambridge PA KENSINGTON PALACE/AFP via Getty Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge depart the Lindo Wing with their newborn daughter at St Mary's Hospital on May 2, 2015 in London, England. The Duchess was safely delivered of a daughter at 8:34am this morning, weighing 8lbs 3 oz who will be fourth in line to the throne Getty Images AFP via Getty Images Princess Charlotte joining in a national applause for the NHS as people across the country showed their appreciation for all NHS workers who are helping to fight the coronavirus with Prince Louis and George PA Princess Charlotte pictured at Kensington Palace in the first of three images released to mark her fourth birthday HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Princess Charlotte arrives for her first day of school Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on 29 September 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Cheekily looking out from behind Kate as she arrives for school PA Meeting Helen Haslem, the head of the lower school at Thomas's Battersea PA Princess Charlotte runs with a flower in the third picture released to mark her fourth birthday HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Princess Charlotte pictured playing at the Cambridge's their home in Norfolk in the second of three images released to mark her fourth birthday HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Prince George gives his little sister Princess Charlotte a kiss . This photograph was taken by the Duchess of Cambridge in mid-May at Anmer Hall in Norfolk HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Princess Charlotte on her first day of nursery at the Willcocks Nursery School HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge depart the Lindo Wing with their newborn daughter at St Mary's Hospital on May 2, 2015 in London, England. The Duchess was safely delivered of a daughter at 8:34am this morning, weighing 8lbs 3 oz who will be fourth in line to the throne John Stillwell/PA Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge depart the Lindo Wing with their newborn daughter at St Mary's Hospital on May 2, 2015 in London Getty Images The announcement of the birth of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cambridge's second child outside Buckingham Palace on May 2, 2015 in London Getty Images People take photographs of the official announcement of the birth of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cambridge's second child at the gats of Buckingham Palace on May 2, 2015 in London Getty Images A general view of crowds gathered at Buckingham Palace after the birth of the new princess on May 2, 2015 in London Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge is pushed in her silver cross pram as she leaves the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate after her Christening on July 5, 2015 in King's Lynn Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge arrive at the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate for the Christening of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge is pushed in her silver cross pram as she leavesthe Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate for the Christening of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge on July 5, 2015 in King's Lynn Chris Jackson/Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge stand as Prince George of Cambridge looks into Princess Charlotte of Cambridge's pram as they leave the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate after the Christening of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge on July 5, 2015 in King's Lynn Matt Dunham/Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge speak with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, as they leave the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate after the Christening of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge on July 5, 2015 in King's Lynn Matt Dunham/Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall leave the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate for the Christening of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge Chris Jackson/Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge is pushed in her silver cross pram as she leavesthe Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham Estate for the Christening of Princess Charlotte of Cambridge on July 5, 2015 in King's Lynn Mary Turner/Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge plays with a teddy as she is seen at Anmer Hall earlier this month taken by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge in Sandringham in November 2015 HRH The Duchess of Cambridge The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their two children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, in a photograph taken late October 2015 at Kensington Palace in London PA Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, with their children, Princess Charlotte and Prince George, enjoy a short private skiing break on March 3, 2016 in the French Alps, France Getty Images Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, President of the Football Association, is given an England shirt for Princess Charlotte during a visit to the England Women Senior Team at The National Football Centre at St. George's Park on May 20, 2015 in Burton-Upon-Trent Getty Images Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Charles, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh watch a fly past during the Trooping the Colour, marking the Queen's 90th birthday at The Mall on 11 June 2016 Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge watch a fly past during the Trooping the Colour, marking the Queen's 90th birthday at The Mall on 11 June 2016 Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge watch a fly past during the Trooping the Colour, marking the Queen's 90th birthday at The Mall on 11 June 2016 Getty Images Zara Tindall, Anne, Princess Royal, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Charles, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry, Queen Elizabeth II Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Sophie, Countess of Wessex watch a fly past during the Trooping the Colour, marking the Queen's 90th birthday at The Mall on 11 June 2016 Getty Images The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte as they arrive at Victoria International Airport, in Victoria, Canada, on the first day of their official tour of Canada PA William, The Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George, and Princess Charlotte visit Canada Mark Large/Daily Mail The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and Princess Charlotte arrive at 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron,Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on 24 September 2016 Mark Large/Daily Mail Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on 29 September 2016 in Carcross, Canada Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on 29 September 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Prince William, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and Princess Charlotte arrive at a children's party at Government House in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on 29 September 2016 Reuters The Duchess of Cambridge with their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte at a children's party for Military families at Government House in Victoria during the Royal Tour of Canada PA Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada Getty Images Britain's Princess Charlotte plays with balloons at a children's party at Government House in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Reuters Princess Charlotte of Cambridge plays with a dog named Moose at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on 29 September 2016 in Carcross, Canada Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on 29 September 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge at a children's party for Military families during the Royal Tour of Canada on 29 September 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte leave from Victoria Harbour to board a sea-plane on the final day of their Royal Tour of Canada on 01 October 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Princess Charlotte leaves from Victoria Harbour to board a sea-plane on the final day of their Royal Tour of Canada on 01 October 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte leave from Victoria Harbour to board a sea-plane on the final day of their Royal Tour of Canada on 01 October 2016 in Victoria, Canada Getty Images Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and Princess Charlotte on 01 October 2016 PA Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge arrive to attend the service at St Mark's Church on Christmas Day 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge arrive to attend the service at St Mark's Church on Christmas Day 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire Getty Images Princess Charlotte of Cambridge leaves following the service at St Mark's Church on Christmas Day 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire Getty Images Princess Charlotte pictured in Norfolk, England (April 2017) HRH The Duchess of Cambridge The Duchess of Cambridge beckons the bridesmaids and pageboys, including Prince George and Princess Charlotte towards a waiting car following the wedding of her sister Pippa Middleton to James Matthews at St Mark's Church in Englefield, west of London, on May 20, 2017 AFP/Getty Images The Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge look out from the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the Trooping the Colour parade on 17 June 2017 Getty Images Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte of Cambridge view helicopter models H145 and H135 before departing from Hamburg airport on the last day of their official visit to Poland and Germany on July 21, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany Getty Images The Duchess of Cambridge carries Princess Charlotte of Cambridge as they arrive with Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince George of Cambridge on day 1 of their official visit to Poland on July 17, 2017 in Warsaw, Poland Getty Images Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cambridge with their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte arrive at Warsaw airport to start a 3 day tour on July 17, 2017 in Warsaw, Poland Getty Images The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's 2017 Christmas card photograph Getty Images Princess Charlotte on her first day of nursery at the Willcocks Nursery School HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Princess Charlotte arrives at the Lindo Wing after the birth of his Prince Louis on April 23, 2018 GC Images Prince George and Princess Charlotte at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle PA Princess Charlotte plants a kiss on her newborn baby brother Prince Louis in this adorable snap taken by their mother HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Britain's Prince George of Cambridge hold hands with their father, Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, as Britain's Prince Louis of Cambridge is carried by Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge on their arrival for his christening service at the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, London on July 9, 2018 AFP/Getty Images Princess Charlotte playing as her father, the Duke of Cambridge, takes part in the Maserati Royal Charity Polo Trophy at the Beaufort Polo Club, Downfarm House, Westonbirt, Tetbury PA Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, (2R) and Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, (L) and their three children Prince Louis of Cambridge (2L), Princess Charlotte of Cambridge (C) and Prince George of Cambridge (R) posing for a photograph at Anmer Hall in Norfolk in the Autumn of 2018 Matt Porteous via AFP/Getty Images Princess Charlotte pictured at Kensington Palace to celebrate her 4th Birthday HRH The Duchess of Cambridge Princess Charlotte on a family visit to The Duchess of Cambridge Back to Nature Garden co-designed with Adam White and Andree Davies at the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London Matt Porteous via PA Princess Charlotte of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge having fun together after the inaugural Kings Cup regatta hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on August 08, 2019 in Cowes Getty Images Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte greet people as they leave the St Mary Magdalene's church after the Royal Family's Christmas Day service on the Sandringham estate Reuters Charlotte arriving for her first day of school at Thomas's Battersea in September 2019 PA Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Charlotte greet people as they leave the St Mary Magdalene's church after the Royal Family's Christmas Day service on the Sandringham estate PA The Duke of Cambridge, Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte and Prince George taken in Norfolk (2019) by the Duchess of Cambridge PA Princess Charlotte smelling a bluebell at their home in Norfolk in Spring 2019, which was referred to by the Duchess in the 'Happy Mum, Happy Baby' podcast with Giovanna Fletcher. PA Princess Charlotte makes an appearance on The Big Night In paying tribute to frontline key workers during the coronavirus pandemic BBC Kensington Palace The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children, Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte and Prince George attend a special pantomime performance at London's Palladium Theatre, hosted by The National Lottery, to thank key workers and their families for their efforts throughout the pandemic PA

But the young royal was first photographed on the day of her birth - May 2, 2015 - when Kate held her daughter outside the private maternity wing of St Mary's hospital in Paddington, central London, where the princess was delivered.

She was named Charlotte Elizabeth Diana in tribute to her grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales and her great-grandmother the Queen.

The Cambridges will be spending more time at Kensington Palace in London when William leaves his air ambulance helicopter pilot job in the summer and devotes more time to royal duties.

George will be schooled at the private Thomas's Battersea school in September and it is likely his sister will be sent to a nursery later this year.
T ime is running out to spend your old 5 notes  with the paper currency set to become worthless on the High Street tomorrow.

The old-fashioned note will no longer be considered legal tender as of Friday, May 5, meaning anybody with any of the old fivers lying about needs to take them to the bank or Post Office.

The Bank of England has estimated there still about 165 million notes in circulation across the country.

Luckily for those who still havent cashed them in, all legal tender keeps its value even after the notes have gone out of circulation, meaning if the local bank will not accept them then the Bank of England will.

The new 5 polymer note / Getty Images

Old notes given back at the banks are set to be recycled.

The Bank of Englands website says: All Bank of England notes retain their face value for all time. If your bank, building society or Post Office is not willing to accept these notes they can be exchanged with the Bank of England in London by post or in person.

The new durable polymer note, featuring Sir Winston Churchill, was issued in September last year, causing a stir with vegan protesters as the note contains small traces of animal fat.

But some of the notes have also fetched tens of thousands of pounds in auctions, with the first batch of notes proving hot property for collectors.

Watch: New 5 note plays vinyl records

The new Bank of England fiver is stronger than its predecessor and boasts new security features making it harder to counterfeit.

The Bank is also pushing ahead with plans to introduce a new polymer 10 note featuring Jane Austin, to be followed by a new 20.
T he first rail freight service from the UK to China has completed its 7,500-mile journey.

The train carrying 30 containers filled with British produced goods arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu on Saturday.

It was greeted by traders and shipping company officials when it arrived at Yiwu West station after departing London on April 10 carrying items such as vitamins, baby products and pharmaceuticals.

The first freight service from China to the UK arrived in London in January.

First direct freight train from China to UK arrives in London

The service, which is cheaper than air freight and faster than sea freight, is part of Chinas One Belt, One Road programme of reviving the ancient Silk Road trading routes with the West, initially created more than 2,000 years ago.

Yiwu Timex Chairman Timmy Feng told Reuters TV channel: "This freight train is a reflection of the achievements of trade."

After leaving London the bright red train passed through seven countries -- France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan -- before arriving in Yiwu at about 9.30am local time on Saturday.

For Britain, the train is part of an effort to strengthen trade links with the rest of the world as it prepares to leave the European Union in two years' time.
F our men including an alleged gunman have died after a man opened fire at a special needs home in the US.

Police say the suspected attacker shot himself and all four of those who died were connected to the unit in Topeka, Kansas.

Another male victim was taken to hospital with injuries not thought to be life-threatening.

Officers were called to 4100 block of SW 28th St just before 4pm on Sunday after reports of a shooting.

Police Lt. Colleen Stuart believed the shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and said that the alleged shooter was associated with the home, but would not elaborate.

This is a very sad situation, Stuart said. We want to make sure we do this right the first time, and we can provide that closure for the families.

Police say they are not looking for anyone else in connection to the shooting.

In a separate attack in San Diego, California, police shot dead a man who went on a shooting spree at a birthday pool party, killing a woman and injuring six others.

Homicide: One woman dies and six others are injured after a man opened fire at a pool party at La Jolla Apartment Complex in San Diego, California

Police said Selis shot four black women, two black men and one latino man and another man injured his arm fleeing the scene.

The white suspect, 49-year-old Peter Selis, was shot by three police officers after he pointed a large-calibre handgun at them.

Police have not revealed a motive but they believe that Selis lived in the complex.

Witnesses said the tenant, who was celebrating his 50th birthday, walked up to the shooter, who seemed to be acting strangely.

When he invited the suspect to join the celebrating, the suspect lifted up his shirt, took out the gun and shot him in the stomach. He continued shooting people until he was out of bullets, according to the witness.

Then we saw literally the people jumping out from the pool and running like crazy, another witness told NBC 7.

I heard people screaming, said a fourth witness, who lives at the apartment complex and did not wish to be identified.

A fifth witness described the suspect as calm and said he had a smirk on his face during the shooting.

Court records from a 2015 bankruptcy case show Selis, a father and a car mechanic, had large debts.
R iot police have clashed with protesters as thousands of people joined protests in Paris ahead of the French presidential election.

Security officials were forced to protect themselves from flames as the marches turned ugly on Monday afternoon.

Tear gas was fired at groups of youths, while pictures from the scene showed broken glass and burning shopping trolleys.

It came as far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron held high-stakes rallies overlapping with nationwide May Day union marches.

Riot police officers face youths during the May Day demonstration, seized on by anti-Le Pen protesters / AP

The tense campaigning interrupted the usual calm of the May Day holiday, as supporters of both candidates took to the streets, airwaves and social networks to weigh in on an election closely watched by global financial markets and France's neighbours as a test of the global populist wave.

Mr Macron, an independent, leads his far-right rival Marine Le Pen by around 20 percentage points in the polls.

Many used the traditional May Day union marches to stage a show of force against Le Pen, with some 250 events planned across France.

Riot police protect themselves from flames during clashes / REUTERS

More than 9,000 security officers were reported to be mobilised on the streets of Paris, with instructions to stop and check vehicles and pedestrians.

The National Front traditionally holds a march in central Paris on May 1 to honour Joan of Arc. At the 1995 event, a group of skinheads broke away and pushed 29-year-old Brahim Bourram off a bridge into the Seine, where he drowned. Then-party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen sought to distance himself from the attackers, but the death drew national outrage.

A supporter waves a flag reading 'Marine President' during a march in the north of Paris / EPA

Standing on the bridge, Mr Macron hugged Bourram's son Said, who was nine years old when his father was killed.

Said, now a chauffeur who supports Mr Macron, said his father was targeted "because he was a foreigner, an Arab. That is why I am fighting, to say no to racism".

Mr Macron insisted that despite Marine Le Pen's efforts to distance herself from her father's anti-Semitism, "the roots are there, and they are very much alive.

"I will not forget anything and I will fight to the last second, not only against her project, but against the idea she has of democracy and the nation."

Jean-Marie Le Pen was set to hold the Joan of Arc event again, a march his daughter wants nothing to do with. Instead, she is holding a rally in an exhibition centre north of Paris.

Marine Le Pen said on France-2 television that the political rupture with her father "is definitive".

She called it a "violent" decision for herself, but said she did it "because the higher interest of the country was at stake".

Her event was by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a conservative candidate from the first-round election who shocked many French by agreeing to be Ms Le Pen's prime minister if she wins the presidency.

Ms Le Pen, speaking on Europe-1 radio, reached out to "all those who are patriots" and who want to restore French borders and currency and "rediscover the voice of labour, defend our identity, fight against Islamic fundamentalism".
A 15-year-old boy has been shot dead by police as he and his friends were driving away from a party.

Jordan Edwards was hit by a bullet fired through a passenger window in Balch Springs, Texas, on Saturday night.

Police said they had been called following reports of drunken teens in the area and heard gunshots at around 11pm on Saturday.

Dallas News reported the vehicle had started driving towards officers in an aggressive manner when the officers opened fire.

The stricken teen was rushed to hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Balch Springs police Chief Jonathan Haber said: On behalf of the entire Balch Springs Police Department, and the city of Balch Springs we express our deep, sincere condolences to the family.

"We will continue to reach out to the parents and keep them informed as we move forward from this point."

Family attorney Lee Merritt said the teenager was unarmed during the incident and his group had not been drinking. He disputed the claim that the car had been driven aggressively.

Mr Merritt would be requesting body-cam footage from police of the incident.

He tweeted: Another family ripped apart by police brutality.

We demand justice.
By Markar Melkonian

Another May Day is upon us.

International Workers Day has its origins in the U.S.A., but for more than a century American politicians have tried to rebrand the date. They proclaimed May 1 Americanization Day, then Loyalty Day, and then Law Day.

So far their efforts have failed. For millions of American workers, and for workers in scores of other countries, too, May 1 is still International Workers Day, a day of working class solidarity and pride.

For decades, though, working class solidarity has been unfashionable in countries under neoliberal tutelage. It was every man for himself in the post-Soviet era. According to the new thinking, the highest virtue was not responsibility to others, or loyalty, or even hard work.

The highest virtue, we were told, was entrepreneurship. Each individual was to either sink or swim, and if he sank he had no one but himself to blame, because he had failed to adapt to the Free Market reality. Unemployment was the Markets moral judgment against him, and his punishment too.

Back in the final days of the Cold War, no one better exemplified the new thinking in Yerevan than Levon Ter Petrosyan, the soon-to-be first president of Free Independent Armenia.

In an interview, Ter Petrosyan claimed that his Soviet predecessors had wrested criminally from Armenians their natural aptitude in business. (Armenia at the Crossroads, ed. Gerard Libaridian, 1991, p. 116.) Thus, Ter Petrosyan added yet another crime to the long list of real and imaginary crimes of Stalinist totalitarianism.

Our Natural Aptitude in Business:

Armenians like to believe that they have a natural aptitude in business. But if this is true, then we are hardly special in this respect. If Armenians have such an aptitude, then we share this trait with Greeks, Haitians, Lebanese, Gujaratis, Egyptians, Jamaicans, Filipinos, and many other notably business-smart nations.

In 2015, for instance, we learned that Uganda, not Armenia, was the worlds most entrepreneurial nation. (https://www.good.is/articles/why-uganda-is-the-worlds-most-entrepreneurial-nation)

On the other hand, one seldom hears about the business acumen of Norwegians, New Zealanders, or Canadians. The natural aptitude for business seems to thrive in the soil of generalized poverty.

Thanks in part to leaders like Ter Petrosyan and the family businessmen they helped to empower, Armenia now has generalized poverty. Visitors to Free Independent Armenia may notice the unemployed loiterers on the streets of poor neighborhoods, the children in unheated classrooms, the private restaurants on confiscated park land, the empty villages, the thousands of single-parent families in the hinterlands, the polluted rivers, and the vast open-pit mines. Evidently, our fabled aptitude in business is gloriously unhindered.

The big NGOs portray Armenias businessmen as heroic saviors of the nation. But as long as there have been Armenians, the vast majority of them have worked for a living.

The wealth that the oligarchs scoop off the table is produced by their own dear compatriotsthe Armenian workers who dig up and manufacture the raw stuffs of the earth, who drive cabs, write code, harvest and pack food, wait on tables, work the assembly lines and lathes, teach in the schools, stock warehouses, operate computers, and staff hospitals and clinics.

The return to capitalist rule was supposed to unleash invention and innovation and result in a new prosperous Armenia, but instead it has enriched swindlers, gutted public education, demoralized the citizenry, and squandered the considerable achievements of Soviet industry.

Fact and Fallacy

The belief used to be widespread and pretty much uncontested, at least by some of our compatriots: Armenians thrive under capitalism. We are natural-born wheeler-dealers.

Individual Armenians have of course done well by capitalism. We all know their names. And yet Armenias return to capitalist rule has, as a matter of fact, diminished the countrys population and impoverished the majority of its people.

Some readers of these lines will protest that capitalism in Armenia is not the genuine article. (See: Capitalism Run Amok Is Just Plain Capitalism, Hetq Online, 17 Jan. 2015.) When pressed to describe their preferred true capitalism, they fall back on recommendations to rein in Free Enterprise, to regulate it and make it less free. But they have failed to explain how this is supposed to take place without an organized working class opposition that can challenge the political monopoly of the capitalist class.

So how did we get from the fact that:

(A) Individual Armenians have prospered under capitalism,

to the conclusion that:

(B) The nation as a whole will thrive under capitalism?

Clearly, there is a difference between the prosperity of individuals and the prosperity of a society as a whole. And yet toastmasters, business incubators, and Junior Achievement speakers regularly present these two claims as an argument that is close to self-evident. This argument is what still gives business conferences in countries like Armenia their peculiar patriotic and millenarian tone.

Notice, however, that the argument is valid only if we supply the missing premise: (A2) if individual Armenians prosper under capitalism, then the nation as a whole will thrive under capitalism. Without this premise, conclusion (B) does not follow with either certainty or probability.

Unfortunately, the missing premise, If individual Armenians thrive under capitalism, then Armenians as a people will thrive under capitalism, is false, since the first part of the premise, the If- part, is true, while the last part, the then- part, is false: it so happens that Armenians as a people have not thrived under capitalism, and there is not much reason to believe that they will in the foreseeable future. The fallacious argument may be satisfying to some people, and it may serve the ideological purposes of the big NGOs, but it is no less fallacious for all that.

The next time you hear about our natural aptitude for business and the wonderful future this portends for the nation, you might request evidence of a positive correlation between business acumen and the prosperity of the nation as a whole. And in the absence of evidence, you have the right to reject that assumption.

* * *

For young people entering the labor market these days, the neoliberal slogans and buzzwords do not sound as exciting as they did to the counter-revolutionaries thirty years ago.

Theres not much enthusiasm in Yerevan these days for philanthropists, election monitors, business incubators, or the big NGOs. But there is a new surge of initiative and creativity in the streets, public squares, and social media. A new generation has been mounting protests and campaigns against election fixing, the privatization of pensions and public land, violence against women, the nonpayment of back wages, the dumping of toxins into rivers and ground water, fee hikes for public transportation, and rising electricity rates. Perhaps a new generation of workers is tired of being ashamed that they are workers.

Protests alone, however, will fail to achieve their goals without a sustained organizational foundation.

Looking forward to the May Days to come, let us recognize that if Armenias poor and working class majority is to fight back effectively in the class war that their capitalist rulers are waging against them, then they will need their own organizationsstrong unions and a militant party of labor capable of mounting and sustaining the fight for workers power.

Markar Melkonian is a teacher and an author. His books include Richard Rortys Politics: Liberalism at the End of the American Century (1999), Marxism: A Post-Cold War Primer (Westview Press, 1996), and My Brothers Road (2005).

Photo: armenpress.am
Janice L. Henrick Herdt Scheele passed away April 13, 2017. She is survived by her son, Jeff Herdt; her sister, Jeanette Worth; her stepdaughter, Susan; her two grandchildren, Heather and Kyle and numerous nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her son Corey; first husband Johnnie Herdt; and her second husband Ken Scheele.

Janice was born in North Platte, Nebraska. She graduated from Scottsbluff High School in 1957 and attended Western Nebraska Junior College. In 1959, she married Johnnie Herdt and had two boys.

Later in life, when her boys were older, she went to dental assisting college for two years and enjoyed a 20+ year career as a dental assistant.

A widow, Janice and her son moved to Gig Harbor, Washington looking for a fresh start. There she met and married Ken. She enjoyed the rest of her retirement years on the Scheele family farm tending to the grounds and taking care of Ken and Jeff.

A memorial was held on April 27 at the family home.
The Iredell County Fire Marshals Office is investigating the cause of a fire that damaged an 800-square-foot workshop in the 300 block of Bethlehem Road around 2 p.m. Monday.

Jerry Houston, chief of West Iredell Volunteer Fire Department, said fire crews extinguished the blaze in about 10 minutes.

Houston estimated $30,000 in property damage and said the fire appears to have been accidental.

Clifton Dement, the workshops owner, was visibly upset when he returned from getting wood to work on in the shop. He was planning to make pickets and cabinets, he said.

Dement, 71, is retired and has been using the building as a hobby carpentry workshop for 13 years. He has been a carpenter since around the age of 13, but says the fire put him out of commission.

Id like to have the shop back, but I cant afford it, he said. This hurt me.

West Iredell, Troutman, Monticello Fire Departments and Iredell Rescue Squad responded to the fire.
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IRAs were created to allow ordinary Americans to save for retirement more easily. Nearly anyone who has earned income is eligible to contribute to at least some type of IRA, but it's possible that you won't be able to use the IRA of your choice. In particular, Roth IRAs have income limits above which you're not allowed to make contributions, and traditional IRAs limit your ability to take deductions if you have access to an employer-sponsored plan and have too high an income. Moreover, some age-related restrictions apply to traditional IRAs. Knowing where you stand is critical so that you can make the right move with your IRA contributions.

What you need to know to determine your eligibility

In order to figure out if you're eligible to contribute to an IRA, you need to know the following things:

Your tax filing status for the tax year for which you want to make the contribution.

Your modified adjusted gross income for that year.

How much earned income you have.

Whether you, or a spouse if you're married, have access to a work-sponsored retirement plan like a 401(k).

Your age at the end of the year.

Once you have all that information, you'll be able to determine your eligibility fairly easily. The calculator below is an easy way to get the answers you need.

Below is a more in-depth explanation of the thinking behind what the calculator will tell you.

For any IRA, you need earned income

Earned income from a job is a prerequisite for contributing to any type of IRA. Maximum contributions of $5,500 for those under 50 or $6,500 for those 50 or older are available, but only if you have that much in wages, salary, tips, or other compensation from working. If you have less, then your contribution is limited to the amount of earned income you have. The only exception is that if you're married, you can use your spouse's earned income as the foundation for your own IRA contribution. That's known as a spousal IRA and benefits one-earner families as well as those couples where one spouse has relatively little work income.

Income limits on Roth IRA contributions

Above a certain amount of income, you can no longer contribute to a Roth IRA. Below is the breakdown by filing status:

For this filing status: Contributions are reduced if income is above this amount Contributions are not available if income exceeds this amount Single, head of household, or married filing separately IF you didn't live with your spouse during the year $118,000 $133,000 Married filing jointly or qualifying widow or widower $186,000 $196,000 Married filing separately IF you lived with your spouse at any point during the year $0 $10,000

Pro-rata contributions are allowed in the income area between the two columns above.

Income limits on traditional IRA deductibility

Traditional IRAs don't have limits on contributions based on income, but you might not be able to deduct your entire contribution. If neither you nor a spouse is covered by an employer plan, then your traditional IRA contribution is always deductible regardless of your income.

However, if you're covered, then the limits below apply:

Tax Filing Status Deductibility is reduced if income is above this amount Deductibility not available if income exceeds this amount Single or Head of Household $62,000 $72,000 Married Filing Jointly $99,000 $119,000 Married Filing Separately $0 $10,000

If you're not covered but your spouse is, higher income limits apply. Joint filers get a full deduction with income up to $186,000 for 2017, and it phases out between $186,000 and $196,000.

Age limits on traditional IRA contributions

Finally, those who are 70 1/2 or older at the end of the tax year aren't allowed to make traditional IRA contributions, even if you have earned income and would otherwise be eligible. This limit matches up with the law forcing you to take required minimum distributions from traditional retirement accounts at age 70 1/2.

However, the rule doesn't apply to Roth IRAs. Accordingly, you can make Roth contributions at any age -- as long as you have earned income.

IRAs are useful tools, but you'll want to make sure that you use them properly. By following these rules, you'll know what you can and can't do and can plan accordingly.

The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook

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WASHINGTON  A federal appeals court has said it will not rehear a landmark case looking to overturn the government's rules on net neutrality, the regulations that forbid Internet providers from blocking or slowing Internet traffic.

Monday's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit allows its previous ruling upholding the regulations to stand  and paves the way for opponents of the rules to appeal to the Supreme Court.

"I'm super excited," said Daniel Berninger, one of the critics who in 2015 sued the Federal Communications Commission, which wrote the rules. "When we get to the Supreme Court, we want to be saying [to a largely conservative bench] this is a severe case of government overreach."

If the Supreme Court agrees to take the case, it could hear oral arguments next spring, said Berninger, who intends to file his appeal within 90 days. USTelecom  a trade association supporting Internet providers that also sued the FCC in 2015  said in a statement that it was reviewing its legal options.

The D.C. Circuit's decision comes days after the FCC's Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, unveiled a separate plan to undo his Democratic predecessor's net neutrality regulations. Pai argued that the rules have discouraged Internet providers from upgrading their networks and that repealing the net neutrality rules will create jobs.

The rules, approved by the FCC during the Obama administration, classified Internet providers as "common carriers"  a move that allowed the agency to regulate those companies more strictly than before. In addition to banning the blocking or slowing of Internet traffic, the regulations also gave the FCC the ability to investigate business practices among Internet providers that it deemed potentially anti-competitive.

Supporters of the regulations argue that they are a vital consumer protection that prevents Internet providers from abusing their strategic position between Internet users and the rest of the Web. Without strong regulations, they say, Internet providers will be free to raise costs for consumers and website owners, and determine what apps and services may flourish.

Defenders of the 2015 rules said Monday's court decision was a victory.

"Today's decision is a win for consumers," said Lisa Hayes, general counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology.

But that win may prove temporary as the broadband industry and its allies look toward a Supreme Court fight and the FCC's own bid to rewrite or repeal the rules. In a statement Monday, Pai said he was not surprised to see the D.C. Circuit decline to take up the matter.

"Their opinion is important going forward, however," he said, "because it makes clear that the FCC has the authority to classify broadband  as [a more lightly regulated] information service, as I have proposed to do."

Pai is expected to begin soliciting public feedback on his proposal once the FCC meets to vote on it on May 18. That rulemaking process will likely proceed separately but in parallel with Berninger's appeal to the Supreme Court, raising questions as to whether the court will agree to hear the case.

There, Justice Neil Gorsuch is expected to play a key role as the newest member of the bench. Gorsuch is considered a skeptic of what is known as "Chevron deference," a practice in which courts give so-called "expert agencies" such as the FCC the benefit of the doubt in decision-making. In the case of net neutrality, Gorsuch's views on agency deference may encourage him to oppose the FCC's 2015 regulations.

But some legal analysts say that Pai's forthcoming regulatory process to roll back the net neutrality rules will keep the Supreme Court from weighing in. Andrew Schwartzman, a public interest lawyer at Georgetown University, said the Supreme Court will likely take a pass.

"The likelihood that Chairman Pai will seek to abandon the Commission's 2015 decision greatly diminishes the already low likelihood that the Supreme Court would want to hear the case," Schwartzman said.
St. Louis area unions have partnered with select builders to offer an incentive program to spur local homeownership.

The promotion  the "Neighborhoods Built by Your Neighbors Program"  commits nearly $1 million to assist buyers at closing.

Its real cash for use at closing, Jim Brennan, owner of McKelvey Homes, said in a statement.

Six local unions are contributing to the fund with cash amounts that range from $2,000 to $10,000 based on the sales price of the home.

Participating unions include St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Council, Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 562, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1, Sheet Metal Workers Local 36, Greater St. Louis Construction Laborers, Painters District Council 58 and Cement Masons Local 527.

In addition to McKelvey Homes, other builder members of the partnership are Bridgewater Communities, Fischer & Frichtel, McBride & Son Homes, Payne Family Homes and Simon Homes.

We are lucky to have such quality construction and craftsmanship through our local unions, John F. Eilermann Jr., CEO and chairman of the board of McBride & Son Homes, said in a statement. This program is a great opportunity to not only earn a great deal on a new home, but to create jobs, and also support union workers and their families.

The program, which is being offered for the seventh time, is exclusive to partnership members, limited to Missouri communities and runs only during May 2017.

For more details, go to STLunionhomebuilders.com
Two STLers are included in a national publication's list of women who have raised awareness through activism.

Essence magazine named Ferguson activist Brittany Packnett and Antoinette Carroll, chief executive officer of Creative Reaction Lab in midtown St. Louis, to its "100 Woke Women" list.

The list includes women from a variety of professions who are at the "forefront of activism across the political, social and creative spectrum."

Packnett was a member of the Ferguson Commission and also of the President Barack Obama's task force examining national policing methods. Carroll heads an organization that educates and trains cities to create racially equitable communities.

Essence is published by Essence Communication, the leading media company dedicated to black women.
WASHINGTON  The tentative budget agreement funding the government through September keeps in place $1.1 billion in expenditures for 14 Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet jets built by Boeing in St. Louis.

Rep. Ann Wagners office confirmed Monday that the 2017 omnibus spending bill that Democrat and Republican leaders agreed to over the weekend means that the funding for the additional planes, previously agreed to by Congress, remains intact.

Congress is expected to agree to the overall deal to keep the government running for the next five months sometime this week, averting the threat of another government shutdown its members put off last week with a one-week continuation on current spending levels.

Wagner, R-Ballwin, and other members of the Missouri delegation had pushed for the additional planes to replace aging Super Hornets. The Navy had said earlier this year that two out of every three of its F/A-18s were not flyable on any given day because of age and heavy use during the many post-9/11 conflicts around the globe.

The omnibus spending agreement comes more than halfway through the budget year it covers. It includes other expenditures affecting the region.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said the bill makes permanent an additional $2 billion for medical research, the second consecutive year of such an increase after about a dozen years of low growth in government spending in that area.

The bill affects the St. Louis region because of its heavy medical presence. Professionals from the region had testified before Blunts appropriations subcommittee, which oversees such spending, on the benefits of more medical research on lifespan and reducing health care costs.

The investments we make in NIH research will not only save lives, theyll lead to new frontiers in drug and device development that are critical for reducing health care costs, growing our economy, and maintaining Americas competitive edge in innovation, Blunt said Monday.

The appropriations in this bill set the stage for what could be another fight over medical research spending in the 2018 budget, however, if Trump sticks to his call to reduce domestic spending while boosting spending on defense.

Blunt declared cuts in federal medical research a non-starter in March, when Trumps budget blueprint for 2018 began to take shape, pointing out that Trump would not get the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to stave off a filibuster of such cuts

Under this budget deal, the government will spend about $34.1 billion in the current fiscal year on medical research. Included in the appropriation will be an additional $400 million for Alzheimers research, boosting that to almost $1.4 billion total. The National Cancer Institute will get a $475 million increase, to about $5.7 billion, Blunt said.

The omnibus bill, if passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, also allows students to receive federal Pell education grants year-round, another priority of Blunts.

His office said about 20,000 Missouri post-secondary students take classes year-round, and the all-year Pell eligibility could mean an additional $1,650 in federal grants to help pay for their education.

The omnibus agreement also includes permanent health care coverage for about 22,600 coal miners or beneficiaries, whose coverage was threatened by coal-industry financial woes.

Republicans had initially opposed that as a bailout of a private health plan set up in union-company negotiations that would set a dangerous government bailout precedent for other threatened pension and health care contracts.

But advocates, including Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, had said it was simply the government making good on a promise to coal miners that dates back to 1946.

Congress did put off a permanent solution on those miners pensions, which are also threatened because of the coal industrys financial woes.

These men and women worked hard in extremely dangerous situations to power America and were made a promise, Bost said Monday. I am pleased that we have reached a long-term fix on the health care piece. This gives us operating room to continue working on a solution for pensions.
Ask grade school students today to write a few sentences with (gasp!) pens, and chances are many will render something that looks a little like the words you're reading now: individual letters, unattached to one another. Cursive  that graceful and efficient form of writing that was developed over centuries to accommodate the finicky quill pen  is a dying art in the Internet Era, often not even taught in schools anymore.

Now some in Illinois want to turn back the clock and revive those flowing lines and curly characters. Legislation pending in Springfield would require cursive instruction in all the state's elementary and high schools. The House passed it last week and it awaits debate in the Senate.

The sponsor, Rep. Emanuel Welch, a Chicago-area Democrat, argues that even in a world of ubiquitous keyboards, text-ready cellphones and increasingly reliable voiceware, there is a place for the classic scrawl of cursive.

"They can read the notes from their mother and grandmother," Welch told the Chicago Tribune. "They can read our historical documents like the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution." He cited theories (disputed by some) that the process of mastering cursive even aids in the overall learning process.

Not everyone is so anxious to return to the penmanship of our forefathers. The measure, which passed the House Wednesday on a split vote of 67-48, has drawn complaints of attempted micro-managing of districts' curriculum. Others question its value in the modern world.

"Times change," said Rep. Mike Fortner, a suburban Chicago Republican, told the paper. "Our world has changed."

The lawmakers who are considering the new classroom requirement have been unable to reach agreement with Gov. Bruce Rauner on a state budget in almost two years, contributing to a fiscal meltdown that has held up funding for numerous state services  including the public schools.
UPDATED at noon Monday from Valley Park.

VALLEY PARK  Mayor Michael Pennise has issued a mandatory evacuation notice to residents living in areas of town protected by a Meramec River levee. They must be out by noon Tuesday.

Some residents are resigned to it and were packing up Monday, for the second time since December 2015. Others refuse to go.

"Things were just getting back to normal. No, we're not moving anything. Trust the levee, trust the city," said William Reynolds, the owner of Valley Deli Convenience Store, 324 St. Louis Avenue.

Reynolds moved items out of his store last time floodwaters threatened his town. It was a lot of work, and the levee held. He's not bothering to move again.

"Yeah it might be stupid," Reynolds said, "but you know you can only take so much."

About 9:30 p.m. Sunday, the Valley Park mayor issued a letter ordering residents and businesses to evacuate. It began at 8 a.m. Monday. They have to be out by noon Tuesday.

At the time the evacuation order kicked in Monday morning, Pennise told the Post-Dispatch that volunteers would be hand-delivering those letters to 324 homes and 50 businesses in the affected area.

"That gives them roughly 30 hours to get their belongings and leave," the mayor said.

At noon Tuesday, the National Guard will be stationed at both entrances to town and will not allow anyone to come back into the levee-protected area and until the evacuation order is lifted.

They are expecting a crest of 43.7 feet at 7 a.m. Wednesday, Pennise said. That gives little room to spare. In 2015, floodwaters there crested at 44.1 feet and the levee held.

"We want to stress there is no indication the levee protecting the city has been compromised or breached in any way," Pennise's letter said. "The U.S. Corps of Engineers and city officials have been continuously inspecting the levee and there are no signs of damage or breach."

The evacuation route from the levee-protected area is north on Highway 141. City Hall will be open 24 hours beginning Monday, according to Pennise's letter.

Although it's called a mandatory evacuation, Pennise admits they don't make anyone leave.

In the flood of December 2015, a few residents didn't want to move. "We can't make them move," Pennise said. "The only thing we can do is go down there and get their names, make sure we have their information."

He estimated that 99 percent of people will leave.

However, a Post-Dispatch reporter visiting the city on Monday morning had no trouble finding residents and business owners like Reynolds who won't be packing up. They are tired of moving and the stress it brings. They trust the levee will hold.

Dan Ward, a former alderman, said the last time was traumatic and he's not evacuating his home this time. "I'm not gonna go," he said. "They're going to have to drag me out of my house."

Told about the comments from some who won't be leaving, Valley Park City Attorney Timothy Engelmeyer said, "It's a concern, obviously. If they choose to stay, that's at their own peril." He said the city was right to order the evacuation. "We're tired of having to do it also, but it's the right decision."

But others interviewed Monday in Valley Park said they were planning to comply with the evacuation order.

At O.J. Laughlin Plumbing Co., on St. Louis Avenue, warehouse manager T.J. Laughlin was clearing out boxes of documents, file folders, office chairs and other belongings from the office building and warehouse.

"We're pretty much seasoned veterans here," Laughlin said. He said they already have two feet of water in the basement from Sunday. They were loading supplies onto a trailer and will be moving some of the materials to the homes of family members. Some of it will be stored in a nearby facility.

"It's not our first rodeo," Laughlin said. "It is what it is."

The city is providing transportation to anyone in need of assistance. Call the Valley Park Fire District at 636-225-4260 or Valley Park City Hall at 636-225-5171, ext. 6 for more information.

Christine Byers and Kim Bell of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
UPDATED at 12:15 p.m. with I-55 expected to close

Interstate 55 will be closed sometime overnight as the Meramec River continues to rise, the Missouri Department of Transportation says.

The nearby Meramec River crossings at Lemay Ferry and Telegraph roads are also expected to close overnight, according to Greg Horn, St. Louis district engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

"So you all are going to have to decide what side of the river you want to be on before you go to bed tonight, because you're not going to be able to go back and forth," Horn said.

The closures of 55, Lemay Ferry and Telegraph would effectively cut off the southern part of the metro area. Starting from the west, Highway F south of Pacific is already closed at the Meramec; Highway 109 in Eureka is closed at the river; Interstate 44 closed Monday night; Highway 141 crosses the Meramec but is closed before Interstate 44; Highway 30 (Gravois Road) was closed; Highway 21 (Tesson Ferry Road) is expected to close Tuesday; and I-55, Lemay Ferry and Telegraph are expected to close overnight.

During similar flooding in December 2015, Horn said, the closure of I-55 caused the biggest traffic problems area-wide, exceeding even the shutdown then of Interstate 44.

"Alternate routes? There are really no good alternate routes," Horn said. "Cape Girardeau is probably the closest way, so that's a long way."

"This is a huge event, probably the biggest we've ever had," Horn added.

The closures will likely last the week and quite possibly into the weekend. Even after water recedes, Horn said, roads and bridges have to be checked for damage and repaired if need be. For example, I-44 flooded near Lebanon, Mo., on Sunday. The water has largely receded, but there was significant damage to the pavement and it may be the weekend before the interstate reopens.

Mark Fuchs, a National Weather Service hydrologist, said several more inches of rain are expected in the St. Louis area in the next 72 hours, with the heavier amounts south and west of the city. "It looks like Franklin County will get a pretty good shot of it," he said.

Fuchs also said "the big wild card is the height of the Mississippi River."

He said earlier forecasts of the crest in St. Louis did not take into consideration the latest predicted additional rainfall amounts. If new forecasts show a "significantly higher" crest along the Mississippi, he said, "it could affect Arnold in a bad way."

Fuchs repeated that the primary effect of the rainfall would be "a slowing of the recession" of the high water. "Basically it's rain on top of a lake," he said.

44 closure causes traffic headaches

Interstate 44 was closed from Interstate 270 in St. Louis County to Highway 100 in Gray Summit just before midnight Monday. MoDOT has designated Manchester Road, also known as Highway 100, as the alternate route for I-44 travelers between Gray Summit and Interstate 270.

Mark Diedrich, the St. Louis County emergency management agency director, said Tuesday morning's commute was not as bad as feared.

"I don't think it was great, but I think people expected it and prepared for it," Diedrich said.

Officials had warned that it will be extremely slow going on Manchester, which even under normal times has a high traffic flow and can get tied up.

MoDOT officials said the worst jams on Highway 100 occurred in a 2-lane segment of road between Gray Summit and Highway T in the St. Albans area. East of there where the road has more lanes, Horn said, "it wasn't good but wasn't horrible."

Route 100 will become the new I-44 when we all wake up (Tuesday) morning, Tom Blair, MoDOTs assistant district engineer, had said at a press conference Monday. Minutes along that route will become hours.

MoDOT officials urged motorists on Manchester to avoid making left turns as much as possible. In an effort to keep traffic moving, they said, the duration of left turn signals on Manchester and streets crossing have been reduced.

Authorities said it appeared drivers listened. Some area schools were closed, also helping keep some traffic of the road.

I-44 was closed to through traffic from Highway 100 to I-270. However, some segments of that stretch are open to local traffic going shorter distances.

Eastbound local traffic will be allowed to exit at Pacific and Highway 109 in Eureka. Both westbound and eastbound local traffic will be allowed between Bowles Avenue and I-270 so access is maintained to St. Clare Hospital and nearby points.

Highway 30 (Gravois Road) was closed just east of Highway 141 to Rahning Road. Highway 109 was closed in Eureka from Eureka High School to Highway W, the Missouri Department of Transportation said.

Likely to close Tuesday or Tuesday night are Highway 21 (Tesson Ferry Road) and Highway 141 at Romaine Creek, near Highway 21, in Jefferson County. Another stretch of 141  at I-44  was shut down Sunday night.

Highways 47 and 50 in Union near Flat Creek have closed.

MoDOT officials said they do not expect Dardenne Creek to rise high enough to force a closure of Interstate 70 in St. Peters ''unless there's a tremendous change in the precipitation that's going to come" above predicted levels.

They were among scores of closed state road segments in the St. Louis region, MoDOT said. Many other county roads and city streets also were under water.

MoDOT officials again urged people traveling across the state to use Interstate 70 as an alternate to I-44. Horn said Joplin in the state's southwest corner is the hardest place in Missouri to get to because of the I-44 shutdowns.

In Ste. Genevieve County, Highway 61 from St. Mary to Ste. Genevieve was closed late Monday night due to flooding after levees in the area were breached.
About 40 percent of levees along the Mississippi River in the Army Corps of Engineers district north of St. Louis are built higher than their authorized heights, according to the agencys own findings.

The Corps Rock Island District, which covers an area beginning about 60 miles upstream from St. Louis, reports that about 80 out of 202 miles of levee systems it surveyed are improperly high, based on data yet to be publicly released.

Some of those were between 2 and 4 feet above their authorized elevation, said Scott Whitney, the Corps Rock Island District flood risk manager and chief of project management. The revelation is out there that levee districts throughout this region have taken, in some cases, some pretty extreme measures to protect themselves.

That protection, he notes, has come at the cost of others, with the added levee height leaving other areas more vulnerable to redirected floodwater. Whitney said the district is still developing a hydraulic model to understand how far-reaching the levees combined impact on flooding has been, including whether the St. Louis area has been affected.

But the chronically overbuilt levees to the north cause some to wonder whether the problem is more widespread, rekindling some skepticism about levee heights around St. Louis. Last year, the issue gained visibility when an independent group found the levee in Valley Park, along the recently flooded Meramec River, to be as much as 8 feet higher than what was believed to be its proper height.

The Corps St. Louis District maintains that Valley Parks levee is properly built and that it did not worsen local flooding in late 2015 and early 2016.

Officials confirmed, however, that they are conducting similar efforts to examine the heights of the approximately 50 federally built levees in the St. Louis district, including the one in Valley Park. The surveys began late last year and are expected to be complete by March 2018.

Its pretty much been a result of the ongoing controversies up north, said John Osterhage, levee safety program manager for the St. Louis district.

Those upstream disputes about levee heights have simmered for years. Many of the Rock Island Districts levees are made of sand, making it possible for bulldozers to push them higher to ride out floods. That was the case in 2008, when a number of the regions levee districts were allowed to temporarily make emergency modifications in anticipation of flooding.

But the structures are not always returned to their original, authorized elevations. Corps officials said mounting suspicions spurred them to resurvey the areas levee heights.

Levee debates have been especially loud in areas next to the Sny Island Levee and Drainage District, which stretches along about 60 miles of the Illinois riverfront, from Quincy to Belleview. The Sny, the largest levee-protected area overseen by the Corps Rock Island office, has come under fire from government agencies and flood-damaged farmers for supposedly exceeding its authorized height.

But the numbers revealed by the Rock Island Districts newly redone surveys show that the Sny is not the lone offender. Ten systems across seven different levee districts in Missouri, Illinois and Iowa had the majority of their construction exceed the authorized design grade by more than 2 feet.

Whitney says that even some within the Corps worry that the findings could hint at a systemic problem.

Given what weve observed here, its taken away a lot of the security that a lot of other districts have felt, said Whitney. While we had suspicions and had identified some issues and concerns, this survey delineated a much bigger problem.

Those concerns are shared by St. Louis-area river and flood policy experts.

I dont know why the problem would be more severe in the Rock Island District, said David Stokes, executive director of Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, an organization devoted to river management issues.

I mean this isnt a few inches higher, Stokes added. Theres definitely a problem (with) levee districts ignoring the rules.

Osterhage, though, said the St. Louis District doesnt anticipate having issues to the extent that they do upstream, explaining that many local levees are clay-based and are not reshaped prior to floods.

Levee elevations can go unchecked for years at a time. Even with federally built levees, maintenance is often left to independent levee districts and sponsors, who must apply for permits to alter the structures. The Corps conducts visual levee inspections every year, which usually consist of cursory glances from a vehicle to detect any glaring damage or levee modifications. More thorough inspections that survey height along the tops of levees are generally done every five years, Osterhage said.

Critics maintain that levee systems are a counterproductive tool for flood control.

With our so-called flood prevention efforts, high levees are counterproductive, just magnifying the potential damage, said Bob Criss, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University. The waters gotta spread out.

Some argue that reliance on levees should be diminished in the long run, but that more immediately, the structures should be subject to better enforcement, since coordinating heights with other levees is essential.

If levees arent at the heights theyre approved for, then nobody else knows how to plan, said Stokes, adding that the Corps or other regulatory agencies must compel them to come down to their proper elevation.

But levee districts have shown an unwillingness to comply. Whitney said only one of the levee districts recently found to exceed its authorized height has so far cooperated with the Corps in trying to discuss a solution. The rest, he said, are reluctant to go through the procedure.

Complicating matters further, stronger flood protection is increasingly coveted, with an unusual number of major floods taking place in recent years  a symptom consistent with more erratic trends in precipitation predicted by climate change.

Were in an extremely wet period, said Whitney, noting that several of the regions top flooding events on record have occurred in the last decade. Weve had a number of those in the last several years. People think, My God, Ive had three 100-year flood events in the last five years.
UPDATED with more road closures, including Interstate 44 Monday night, and Highway 141 in Valley Park and name of drowning victim

A rapidly rising Meramec River is prompting the evacuation of parts of Valley Park and could cut the southern part of the St. Louis region off, much as it did after Christmas in 2015  but without the benefit of a holiday week that kept many people off the roads.

Late Sunday night, the Missouri Department of Transportation closed Highway 141 in both directions at Interstate 44 near Valley Park. Officials expect it to be closed all week.

MoDOT closed a section of Highway 109 in Eureka on Monday evening and planned to close Interstate 44 between Highway 109 and Interstate 270. The interstate could remain closed the rest of the week. It also closed a section of Highway M from Interstate 55 east to Highway 60 in Jefferson County on Monday night. Other highways are expected to close as well.

Meanwhile, the death of a 77-year-old man who apparently went to look at floodwater near his home Sunday had officials again warning residents how quickly rising water can carry a person or vehicle away. The mans body was found near a creek along Highway BB between Cedar Hill and Hillsboro.

And the coming wave of water has prompted Valley Park to issue a mandatory evacuation notice in parts of the city protected by the levee. The city says there is no indication the levee has been compromised or breached, but residents and businesses in the affected areas are expected to evacuate by noon Tuesday.

Gov. Eric Greitens declared a state of emergency on Saturday, and federal lawmakers are pledging federal resources if needed for the recovery.

Rising water closing roads

Highway 30, Highway 21 and Highway 109 are expected to close Monday night near where they cross the Meramec, as the river pushes to near-historic highs.

Its possible Interstate 55 could go underwater Tuesday night at the Meramec, as it was at the end of 2015. Lemay Ferry and Telegraph roads may also be closed late Tuesday.

I dont know that there is anybody who lives south of Interstate 70 that is going to live a normal life next week, said Tom Blair, a Missouri Department of Transportation assistant district engineer for St. Louis, about the potential traffic problems.

And unfortunately, it appears more rain is on the way. After a bit of respite on Tuesday, more storms are predicted late in the night and continuing through Thursday. The storms could produce up to 3 inches of rain, just as the Meramec River is expected to peak.

The river is predicted to break or nearly reach record crests later this week. Upriver, the Meramec at Steelville was already falling Monday after setting a new record at 28.71 feet earlier in the day. The old record was set in 1998. The river broke a record Monday at Sullivan, reaching 36.52 feet. The previous record, set in 1915, was 33.5 feet.

Pacific may see the Meramec crest about a foot short of the record level of 33.4 feet. In Eureka the crest is expected to reach nearly 46 feet on Wednesday, a few inches short of the record.

In Valley Park, the river is projected to crest at more than 43 feet on Wednesday  within a foot of the record. In Arnold the Meramec may crest at roughly 44 feet on Wednesday. The record there is 47 feet. All those records date to the final days of 2015.

Some of those (forecasts) could be adjusted one way or another, said Mark Fuchs, a hydrologist at the weather service office in Weldon Spring.

MoDOT officials said I-44 would close on Monday after the evening rush hour from Interstate 270 to Highway 109  with some exceptions. Local westbound traffic will still be allowed to exit at Bowles Avenue, a couple of miles west of I-270. Local eastbound traffic also will be allowed on I-44 between Bowles and 270.

Under that scenario, Manchester Road will be the main alternate east-west route south of Highway 40 (Interstate 64).

Blair said there were no immediate plans to close Interstate 55, but MoDOT was preparing for that possibility.

The rain and rising rivers have already closed more than 700 state roads, including 77 in the St. Louis area, according to MoDOT. Officials urged the public to check MoDOTs website for updates.

Interstate 44 was closed in south central Missouri between Rolla and Lebanon Sunday due to flooding from the Gasconade River and tributaries. The closures require a detour along Highway 63 and Highway 60 between Springfield and Rolla.

On Monday morning, Lincoln County Emergency Management officials announced that Highway 79 was closed due to flooding in Old Monroe, Mo. U.S. Highway 61 north of Troy, Mo., had been closed at the Cuivre River, but has been reopened.

Also closed was Highway 30 in St. Clair at the Meramec.

In northeast St. Charles County, Highway 94 was closed Monday morning between Feltes Road and Highway 67, MoDOT said.

In the same area, traffic was expected to be cut to one lane in each direction on 67 between 94 and the Clark Bridge, which crosses the Mississippi River to Alton.

The Calhoun County Sheriff's Department said the Brussels Ferry is closed because of debris in the Illinois River. Also closed is the Golden Eagle Ferry over the Mississippi River to St. Charles County.

However, the Winfield Ferry (between Calhoun County and Lincoln County, Mo.) is still running. Also still running is the Kampsville Ferry over the Illinois River.

The home of the St. Louis FC soccer team near Fenton was expected to flood this week. The team said the effect on a match set for Saturday wasn't clear.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., called the flooding a scary situation for communities across our state. She said the federal government would be ready with any federal resources that might be needed as the flood waters recede, and our communities begin to recover.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he had been in close contact with Greitens and reiterated McCaskills federal aid promise. While we dont not yet know the full extent of the damage, I stand ready to advocate for any federal assistance that may be needed once those assessments are made, Blunt said.

The American Red Cross has opened shelters near flood-hit areas of Missouri, including at Manchester United Methodist Church at 129 Woods Mill Road in Manchester and Tri-County Senior Center at 800 West Union Street in Pacific.

Evacuation in Valley Park

Valley Park Mayor Michael Pennise posted a mandatory evacuation notice to the citys website Sunday. Those in the affected area should be out by noon Tuesday. The National Guard will be stationed at both entrances to town and will not allow anyone to come back into the levee-protected area until the evacuation order is lifted.

We want to stress there is no indication the levee protecting the city has been compromised or breached in any way," Pennise said on the city's website. "The U.S. Corps of Engineers and city officials have been continuously inspecting the levee and there are no signs of damage or breach."

The city is providing transportation to anyone in need of assistance. Call the Valley Park Fire District at 636-225-4260 or Valley Park City Hall at 636-225-5171, ext. 6 for more information.

Volunteers along the Meramec spent part of the weekend and much of Monday filling sandbags. Among those lending a hand in Eureka on Monday was Greitens. He posted photos of his visit to flood-threatened areas on Facebook.

More volunteers were needed for Monday, at the Eureka-Pacific Elks Lodge at 19 West First Street or the St. Louis County Police precinct at 232 Vance Road in Valley Park. The Eureka Fire Protection District also is directing volunteers to Eureka High School for sandbagging efforts there.

Rockwood School District, which had closed some of its schools on Monday, said all of its schools will be closed Tuesday because of worsening transportation issues caused by the flooding.

The Arnold-based Fox and High Ridge-based Northwest school districts also said they were canceling classes for Tuesday because of road closures and flooding.

Valley Park schools and some other schools are also closed; check with your district.

Man swept away

The man who drowned Sunday in Jefferson County was identified as Clifford H. Brandt of Jefferson County. Authorities said he walked to a creek near his house to survey rising water, and apparently slipped and was swept away by the current.

Brandt left his home near Highway BB and Mimi Mountain Road about 3:30 or 4 p.m. His family became concerned when he did not return, found some of his belongings along a Belews Creek bank and called for help, said Brian Gaudet, assistant chief of the Hillsboro Fire Protection District.

Searchers found his body along the shoreline less than a mile downstream about 7 p.m., Gaudet said.

Gaudet said the agencies responded to multiple water rescues throughout the day involving residents, especially in the Cedar Hill area, who had been stranded inside their homes due to rising flood water.

Youve got to be very careful and always understand the force of the water, he said.

Chief Terry Soer of the Cedar Hill Fire Protection District said about 25 people were evacuated Monday morning from the Village Green Estates mobile home park in the Cedar Hill area because of rising Big River floodwater. That's off Highway 30 at Industrial Drive, he said.

The storms that produced all this rain also caused other damage.

The National Weather Service received several reports of wind damage. A very small, weak tornado caused damage to the area near the Lake Center Marina in north St. Charles County, said Jim Sieveking, meteorologist in charge of the local office of the weather service. The tornado hit about 3:30 p.m. Saturday, and had a path of less than 4 miles. It toppled trees along Elmer Dwyer Club Road, and flipped over some boats on trailers and cars. At the marina, the storm destroyed several docks.

Ashley Lisenby, Kim Bell, Mark Schlinkmann and Chuck Raasch contributed to this report.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post.

Why couldn't we all just get along?

That's what President Donald Trump wants to know about the Civil War. In an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito, our president-historian posits that the war might not have happened if only Andrew Jackson had still been around. The whole thing apparently could have been avoided if only we had a bona fide negotiator - someone more up to the task than Low Energy Abe Lincoln.

Here's the exchange:

---

TRUMP: [Jackson] was a swashbuckler. But when his wife died, did you know he visited her grave everyday? I visited her grave actually because I was in Tennessee.

ZITO: That's right. You were in Tennessee.

TRUMP: And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. They love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee.

ZITO: He's fascinating.

TRUMP: I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, "There's no reason for this." People don't realize, you know, the Civil War - if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

---

One glaring issue here: Jackson wasn't really angry about what was happening with the Civil War, because he died more than a decade (1845) before it started (1861).

But that small matter aside, this actually sounds pretty familiar for Trump. Just last week, in an interview with Reuters, Trump suggested there was really no reason for the Israelis and the Palestinians to have been fighting for all these decades.

"I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians," Trump said. "There is no reason there's not peace between Israel and the Palestinians - none whatsoever. So we're looking at that, and we're also looking at the potential of going to Saudi Arabia."

No reason whatsoever! You know, besides the whole claim-to-the-very-same-holy-land thing. Minor details.

What's remarkable about this language is that it sounds like a lefty pacifist, and Trump is at the very same time talking about the prospect of a "major, major conflict" with North Korea. Apparently the Civil War and the long-standing Middle East conflict have just been lacking in diplomacy; North Korea may be beyond that.

Historians with more academic experience than Trump have indeed asked this question about the Civil War often. It's a hugely difficult one to answer, a century-and-a-half later. And to say it with the certainty Trump does - "you wouldn't have had the Civil War" with Andrew Jackson - is just foolhardy.

It's also a question that unpacks all kinds of issues with slavery. It's generally assumed that a deal to avert the Civil War would have included concessions to Southern states having to do with their right to own slaves - the central dispute of the Civil War. Is Trump saying he would have been okay with a more partial or gradual phasing out of slavery? Was there really a deal to be cut on that front? Or does he think Jackson, a slave owner himself, would have convinced the South to abandon slavery immediately, somehow?

It's also a highly questionable statement in the context of Trump's own foreign policy. If the United States does have to get involved in a foreign conflict, Trump is opening himself up to suggestions that such conflicts could have been avoided if only he were a stronger negotiator. If Middle East peace isn't attained by the time he leaves office, it will apparently be because he and adviser Jared Kushner simply weren't Andrew Jackson.

But mostly it's just a completely bizarre claim that, once again, suggests a president who speaks loudly and confidently about things he simply doesn't understand.
Returning from a two-day official visit to Afghanistan, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Monday said the Afghan leadership and the people of the country had shown the utmost respect to the delegation of Pakistani lawmakers.

Sadiq had visited Afghanistan on the invitation of the Afghan president with an aim to ease the tensions between the neighbouring states. He led an unprecedented 15-member parliamentary delegation of top leaders from both houses of Parliament.

"Our dialogue proceeded in a pleasant environment. They provided us with every comfort and gave us the respect that is given not only to a neighbouring country, but to a brother," the speaker told reporters in Islamabad.

Sadiq also said he held a frank, heart-to-heart meeting for over five hours with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

"We saw that the desire among the Afghan leadership, elected members of parliament and the Afghan people was for better relations and nothing else," the speaker added.

He said the leadership in Afghanistan was also informed that the visiting delegation was representing all of Pakistan  the government, the opposition and the people of the country  and that Pakistan's "desire is to restart the process of meetings that had been halted".

"We are more than just neighbours and brothers ... if there is peace in Afghanistan, there will be peace in Pakistan," Sadiq said.

The speaker said the Afghan leadership had "promised" that former Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah will soon visit Pakistan "and the process [of dialogue] that has been broken will be restarted".

Sadiq said a written message by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was also delivered in which the premier expressed his condolences over the loss of lives in a terrorist attack on a base in Mazar-e-Sharif in which close to 200 soldiers were killed.

In his message, the prime minister also promised co-operation and intelligence sharing between the two countries.

"We [the delegation] went there for a new start, for better relations," the speaker said.

During the meeting, Ghani stressed the need for the coexistence of a stable Pakistan with a stable Afghanistan, Dawn reported.

He acknowledged the contributions of Pakistan during the Afghan jihad and thanked the people of the country for their generous hospitality for the Afghan refugees.

Ghani stressed a five principles approach, comprising a prime focus on state-to-state relations instead of seeking peace with individual groups; honouring each others sovereignty; ensuring that either's territory is not used against the other; agreement on a common definition of terrorism; and the opening up of transit routes.

The parliamentary leaders' visit came two days after a top-level Army delegation visited Kabul and held negotiations with the Afghan officials on various issues relating to security.

Inter-Services Public Relations in a statement issued after the day-long visit of the army delegation, led by Chief of the General Staff Lt Gen Bilal Akbar, said terrorists are [a] common threat and shall be defeated.

The resolve was 'conveyed' to Afghanistan's acting Defence Minister Tariq Shah Bahramee and Afghan Chief of Army Staff Gen Mohammad Sharif Yaftali.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Monday has said that Panama Leaks case would change the history of Pakistan.

Addressing traders ceremony in Karachi, Imran Khan said that Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtars demand for authority is right as transfer of power to local government is dire need of time whereas he also termed security as biggest problem of traders in the metropolis.

He said that countrys situation is deteriorating due to bad governance. While extolling performance of K-P government, Khan said tourism increased by 100pc in Galyat.

Khan asserted KP is receiving high investment due to good governance as we have allocated 30pc development fund to local government representatives.

Khan said that Inspector General (IG) Sindh also demanded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) like police system which is free from any political interference.

Share price of BoK has increased from Rs5 to Rs16 in just three years, he added.

He alleged that Pakistanis pay least amount of tax due to corruption.

Imran Khan further announced that PTI would hold a public gathering at Dawood Chowrangi for Karachiites rights.
US President Donald Trump offered some backhanded praise for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, calling him a pretty smart cookie in a television interview that aired on Sunday.

Trumps almost admiring remarks came amid soaring tensions with North Korea over its missile and nuclear programs, with an alarmed Washington looking to China for help.

Trump said he had no idea whether Kim was sane or not, but said the North Korean leader had faced a formidable challenge in taking over the country at a reported age of 27 after his fathers death in 2011.

Hes dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others. And at a very young age, he was able to assume power, Trump said in the interview with CBSs Face the Nation.

A lot of people, Im sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it.

So obviously, hes a pretty smart cookie, he said.

But we have a situation that we just cannot let  we cannot let whats been going on for a long period of years continue, Trump added.

North Korea has kept the West on edge for weeks over signs it may conduct a sixth nuclear test, punctuated by a series of missile tests that have aroused US fears that the regime may be close to developing a ballistic missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead.

The North, defying mounting US pressure, launched its latest missile test on Saturday, which South Korea said failed.

Trump refused comment on whether the United States had anything to do with the missile test failure.

It is a chess game. I just dont want people to know what my thinking is. So eventually, he will have a better delivery system. And if that happens, we cant allow it to happen.

Hours before the North Korean test, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned of catastrophic consequences if the international community does not act more forcefully to sanction Pyongyang.

The United States has deployed a naval strike group to the area led by the carrier USS Carl Vinson, which on Saturday began drilling with the South Korean navy to practice procedures for tracking and intercepting enemy ballistic missiles.

On Sunday, the two allies concluded a massive annual military exercise called Foal Eagle, which involved around 20,000 South Korean and 10,000 US troops.

If North Korea carries out a nuclear test, Trump told CBS, I would not be happy.

And I can tell you also, I dont believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either, Trump said.

Asked if not happy signified military action, Trump answered: I dont know. I mean, well see.

So far, Trump has placed his biggest bet on getting China to use its leverage to pressure Pyongyang to change its behavior, a strategy that has failed to produce results in the past.

Since meeting with Chinas President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida April 6-7, Trump has set aside his campaign threats to impose tariffs on Chinese imports and declare Beijing a currency manipulator.

I think that, frankly, North Korea is maybe more important than trade. Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade, he told CBS.

Now, if China can help us with North Korea and can solve that problem  thats worth making not as good a trade deal for the United States, he said.
Brazilian protesters torched buses, clashed with police in several cities and marched on President Michel Temer's Sao Paulo residence on Friday amid the nation's first general strike in more than two decades.

Unions called the strike to voice anger over Temer's efforts to push austerity measures through congress, bills that would weaken labor laws and trim a generous pension system.

The blackened hulls of at least eight burned commuter buses littered central Rio de Janeiro as police launched rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets at masked protesters.

Despite the protests, Temer and members of his center-right government denounced the strike as a failure. They said that the unions' targeting of public transport meant that people who wanted to go to work were unable to.

Unions said the strike was a success and pointed to adherence by millions of workers in key sectors like automakers, petroleum, schools and even banking. Strikes hit all 26 states and the Federal District.

"It is important for us to send a message to the government that the country is watching what they are doing, taking away workers' rights," said Marco Clemente, head of the 4,000-member radio and TV workers union in Brasilia, leading a picket line outside the headquarters of state broadcaster EBC.

Temer, who was in Brasilia, denounced the violence used by some protesters. He said in an emailed statement that "small groups" had blocked the population from using public transport and said that "work toward the modernization of national legislation will continue."

Brazil's last general strike took place in 1996, in protests over privatizations and labor reforms under former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Despite Friday's action, many analysts said the strike would have little immediate impact on the president's austerity push, and that the bills are still expected to pass given Temer's continued support among lawmakers.

Temer's reforms have deeply angered many Brazilians and he is weighed down by a 10 percent approval rating for his government.

He took over last year when former leader Dilma Rousseff, whom Temer served as vice president, was impeached for breaking budgetary rules. Her supporters denounced the act as a 'coup' orchestrated by Temer and his allies in a bid to derail a sweeping corruption investigation.

"This is not a government that was elected with these proposals," said Bernard Costa, a 27-year-old medical student protesting in Sao Paulo. "These reforms are showing people that this government has is neither legitimate nor representative."

"Shameless government" read one placard waved by one of a group of protesters who gathered outside Temer's family home in Sao Paulo. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Nearly one-third of Temer's ministers and several congressional leaders are under investigation in Brazil's largest political graft scheme yet uncovered. It revolves around kickbacks from construction companies in return for winning lucrative projects at state-run oil company Petrobras.

Temer has proposed a minimum age for retirement, which would compel many employees to work longer to receive a pension and reduce payouts in a country were many workers retire with full benefits in their 50s.
Israeli troops have forcibly broken up a peaceful sit-in protest held in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds in solidarity with hunger striking prisoners in Israeli jails.

According to the Ma'an News Agency on Sunday, Israeli police raided the sit-in which was being held outside the Damascus Gate in the city.

During the raid, Israeli forces also took down tents which had been set up for the peaceful protesters and confiscated pictures of Palestinian prisoners. Several people were also detained.

The Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate noted that 13 Palestinian reporters were wounded while attempting to cover the Israeli regimes aggression against the demonstrators.

This attack is just one of series of attacks committed by Israeli forces against journalists in an attempt to prevent them from exposing Israeli crimes. These attacks will not prevent journalists from delivering Palestinians' message to the world, read a statement released by the group.

The syndicate also noted that the journalists' cameras and equipment were confiscated by Israeli police.

Since April 17, over 1,500 Palestinian prisoners have gone on a mass hunger strike in protest at the conditions of Israeli prisons initially called for by former Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti.

Palestinian inmates regularly stage hunger strikes in protest at Israel's administrative detention policy and their harsh prison conditions.
Loosening the debt trap and resolving the foreign debt crisis View(s):

Resolving the foreign debt trap discussed last Sunday is a mammoth task as the annual debt servicing costs are very heavy in the next few years. Meeting the impending debt repayments for this year and next year are immensely difficult. The debt repayment of as much as US$4 billion in 2019 is unthinkable at present. The severity of the problem is such that further foreign borrowing is likely to be needed to meet this years debt servicing obligations.

Mitigating the crisis

Three vital steps towards mitigating the impending debt repayment crisis are recognition of the problem and the need for strong measures to cope with it, monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies geared to improve the balance of payments by reducing the trade deficit and professional management of the debt at this critical juncture that requires a judicious use of financial instruments in a manner that minimises debt servicing costs in the future. The prudent management of the foreign debt also requires clear cut bold economic decisions.

Debt repayments

Foreign debt and repayments have been increasing since the unity government took office in 2015. According to the Treasury, debt repayments increased to US$2 billion in 2015 from US$1.4 billion in 2014. In 2016 debt repayments reached US$1.6 billion.

These figures are much less than those of the Central Bank as the Treasury figures only contain project loans and loans taken by the government. The Central Bank figures are higher as they contain all foreign loan liabilities. However the lower figures of the Treasury are adequate to demonstrate the severity of the problem.

Next three years

The impending debt repayments in the next three years are onerous. Debt repayments are increasing this year to US$2.4 and to US$2.5 billion in 2018. Then it balloons to as much as US$4 billion in 2019. Debt repayments in the last two years were a serious burden and resulted in further foreign borrowing.

Trade deficit

A significant balance of payments (BOP) surplus would ease the repayment of debt. To achieve this, the trade deficit must be contained at a much lower amount than currently. Recent balance of payments outcomes have been woefully unsatisfactory primarily owing to the large trade deficits. In 2015 the trade deficit reached a massive US$8.4 billion only to be surpassed in 2016 to US$9.1 billion. Consequently, there were balance of payments deficits.

The overall balance of payments had a deficit of US$1.5 billion in 2015 and US$0.5 billion in 2016. This was despite the trade deficits being offset by remittances from abroad, earnings from tourism and other service receipts. Had the trade deficit been contained to about US$ 7.5 billion, there would have been overall BOP surpluses.

BOP surplus

In the current crisis situation a BOP surplus of about US$2.5 billion is needed to make a dent in the debt profile. The containment of the trade deficit to below US$8 billion is vital to enable a significant contribution to the external reserves to assist in the containment of the debt servicing burden. Fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies must ensure that the trade deficit is contained at about US$7.5 billion.

Debt management

The magnitude of the debt repayment problem is too high to be resolved by improvements in the balance of payments alone. It is therefore essential that a professional management of the foreign debt that enables repayment obligations be put in place. Astute use of financial instruments would be needed to achieve this. Overcoming the foreign debt repayment problem would require the use of several financial instruments including currency swaps, renegotiation of debt repayments over a longer period and redeeming high interest loans with lower cost borrowing.

The possibility of getting these arrangements are a serious challenge in a context when the countrys external finances are at a low ebb and the country risk is high. Nevertheless it is important to attempt such means of easing the debt repayment.

Economic reforms

Economic reforms are a vital part of the strategy to improve the external finances immediately and in the long run. Divesting of loss making state enterprises would strengthen the public finances. Sales to foreign investors would bring in foreign funds that would help redeem foreign debt. However there is doubt about these being implemented owing to public protests.

Despite the governments undertaking to reform loss making state enterprises, the current political context and incessant protests make it difficult to implement significant reforms. This could also jeopardise receiving the remaining tranches of the IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) that would aggravate the debt repayment.

The proposed Chinese investments in Hambantota of about US$2 billion would have made a significant contribution towards debt repayment.

Way Forward

The magnitude of foreign debt repayment is such that a multi-pronged strategy is needed to ensure that the country does not default in its repayments. In as far as this years challenge is concerned, it is important to generate a balance of payments surplus of about US$3 billion to ease loan repayments. This can be achieved only if the trade deficit is reduced from last years US$9.1 billion to about US$8 billion or less. A drastic reduction in imports is essential to achieve this as exports can be expected to increase only moderately.

Realistically the debt repayment obligations of this year would be difficult even with these improvements. Therefore prudent debt management through currency swaps, renegotiations of loan repayments, easing of interest costs by redeeming high cost borrowings with lesser cost loans and longer maturity periods and debt equity swaps are vital.

The strengthening of the economy by economic reforms and appropriate macro economic policies is vital to resolve the long term weaknesses in the external finances. Hard policy decisions to introduce economic reforms that propel the economy to a higher growth trajectory are essential. The fundamental weakness in the polity is that it shuns such decision making to aggravate economic problems.

The fundamental lesson that must be learnt is that foreign borrowings must be used for projects that are productive and bring returns above the costs of the borrowing. Even productive foreign loans with a long gestation period and short maturity create foreign debt liquidity problems. Foreign loans should be used for investments that increase tradable goods.
Owners of menacing dogs across the city and in the Western Bay of Plenty are being offered $350 worth of neutering, microchipping, a subsidised muzzle and registration, all for free in an initiative largely funded by central government.

The offer runs until June 30 and applies to dogs that have or could be classified as menacing under the Dog Control Act 1996 due to their breed, type or behaviour.

Four breeds (Brazilian Fila, Dogo Argentino, Japanese Tosa and Perro dePresa Canario) and one type (American Pit Bull Terrier) are automatically classified as menacing dogs.

However, any dog that council considers may pose a threat to any person or animal, may also be classified as menacing.

Tauranga City Council animal services team leader, Brent Lincoln, says in the last two years, there were 214 dog attacks in wider Western Bay.

The sad thing is when a dog does attack, everybody loses. The victim and their family have to deal with the consequences of the injury and the dog owner can lose their pet which is often regarded as a family member.

Its the dog owners responsibility to ensure their dog isnt another statistic, says Brent.

The campaign is part of a nationwide attempt to reduce dog attacks in New Zealand, and supports the proposed changes for menacing dog owners under the Dog Control Act.

One of these proposed changes will require all owners of menacing dogs to have them neutered. Western Bay of Plenty District Councils bylaw already requires this.

Neutering a dog has many positive benefits, including that the dog will be less likely to wander and get into fights, says Brent.

Neutering simply pushes sex drive and fighting down the list of priorities allowing other activities to become more important such as working, hunting, tracking and obedience.

Western Bay compliance and monitoring manager, Alison Curtis, says the amnesty period gives owners the chance to come forward without repercussion and take advantage of the free offer before it becomes law under the Act.

In the Western Bay of Plenty there are 301 registered menacing dogs, but the issue is with the unknown number of unregistered menacing dogs.

We want to promote responsible dog ownership, and push the message that if you own a high-risk dog you have a higher responsibility  and this package is a great opportunity for owners of high-risk dogs.

To register for this package, owners of menacing dogs can call Tauranga City Council on 07 577 7000 or Western Bay District Council on 07 571 8008, or visit any of the Councils customer service centres.
Members of organised criminal networks beware  police are coming for you.

Under the governments Safer Communities investment package announced earlier this month, police are creating new specialised taskforces that will target organised crime around the country.

The first unit will be deployed to the Western Bay of Plenty during the 2017/18 financial year, consist of 10 staff  six investigators supported by asset recovery and support staff  and represents a model which could be replicated in other areas.

Reporting to Police National Headquarters in Wellington, the Tauranga-based taskforce will help police meet a target attached to the investment package  the seizure of $400 million of assets from organised crime over four years.

Tauranga has been chosen because of its status as New Zealands second fastest-growing city and the connections of local criminals to networks in Auckland and Waikato, which are known to have a national reach, Commissioner Mike Bush tells New Zealand Polices Ten One magazine.

Weve listened to our staff working in the area and have the information that this is the right location for the taskforce, with further investment in organised crime still being considered.

The taskforce will also help small-town communities struggling with harm caused by organised crime and gangs.

Under Safer Communities extra staff will be deployed into money laundering and asset recovery teams, and two analysts will also be added to the Gang Intelligence Centre based at PNHQ.

The investment package also helps police fight organised crime overseas. An analyst will be attached to the Australian Federal Polices Gang Intelligence Centre in Canberra.

Funding has also been obtained to make permanent the constabulary position based in Guangzhou, southern China  a region which is a prime source of methamphetamine reaching Australasia and where liaison officer Detective Inspector Phil Jones is currently based.

Mike says basing liaison officers alongside local law enforcement provides the best opportunity to impact transnational crime.

Criminal gangs in New Zealand are working with gangs and syndicates overseas and causing great harm to our communities.

We want to be the safest country, so we intend to hold criminals to account and reduce the harm they cause. We will not tolerate it.
Two Lotto players who bought their tickets in Tauranga are $32,280 richer after winning second division in the weekend.

The player are two of eight, including a Katikati player, who won part of the second division prize pool.

The winning players purchased their tickets from Pyes Pa Supervalue, Greerton Lotto and Video Ezy Katikati.

A ticket purchased in Rotorua Pak N Save is also walking away with $32,280.

The other winning tickets were purchased from the following locations:
Papamoa residents who woke to the sound of sirens early this morning can rest assured they were not tsunami evacuation warnings.

The low-lying coastal community does not have any public alert system of that nature.

Rather, the sirens were in fact fire engines responding to a false alarm at Papamoa Primary School.

Principal Phil Friar says a fault in the system caused their alarm to go off some time after 6am.

Ours isnt a siren, though, its just a horn that says evacuate the building, says Phil.

The fire system is on a completely different system to our school bells. So when we either have a correct activation or a malfunction, it phones the fire brigade straight away. So those would have been the sirens people heard.

Those closer to the school correctly picked up the message calling for an evacuation due to fire, with one person posting to Facebook: Just across from us in Parton, sounds like the primary school area...."please evacuate something, something fire.

Being early in the morning, sounds travel amazingly well, especially in a flat area, says Phil.

He says, thankfully, nobody rushed over with a bucket.
Community group Protect Karangahake is preparing to protect the conservation forest at Karangahake, following an announcement from New Talisman Gold Mines Ltd that it will immediately start mining related activities on site.

The company says activities will include fencing off the area, installing a generator and a ventilation fan, establishing a security office, sampling and drilling.

The new plans put forward by New Talisman are an affront to our community and the very point of Conservation land, says chair of Protect Karangahake, Duncan Shearer.

Locking off the Portal Pad from recreational users in this magnificent natural park will deny locals and tourists a chance to visit this historically vital part of the mountain, which is an increasingly popular picnic spot.

This is the start of an invasive industrial operation being slowly put in place by a private gold mining company in a DOC reserve enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people annually.

Protect Karangahake is setup by locals and supported nationally to raise awareness of the threat to the ecological and recreational values of Mt Karangahake and the gorge.

Spokesperson for Coromandel wide anti-mining Coromandel Watchdog, Ruby Powell, says the group opposes New Talismans plan to mine within Mt Karangahake and will be staunchly supporting Protect Karangahake.

This is the industrialisation of some of the Coromandels most precious conservation estate. For a business that has no place in our future; gold mining is environmentally toxic, economically unstable and the local community doesnt want it, says Ruby.

New Talisman may think they can start digging about on site and drum up some investment, but I think they will find the re-ignited and passionate community opposition will have the opposite effect on potential shareholders.

Protect Karangahake is organising an acoustic concert and picnic on the Portal Pad this Sunday featuring musicians from their CD Songs For The Mountain.

Meanwhile, in a letter to the NZ Stock exchange, Talisman states it will immediately begin building safety and security perimeter fencing around the portal site, the construction of the portal pad and associated structures, and establish a site office and security office.

It will also install a new ventilation fan at the entrance to the mine, install a generator and air compressor, and install reticulation services throughout the underground workings. Talisman also intends to remove old beams and replace underground structures.

New Talismans interest in the Karangahake mine is a result of the company acquiring a large database of historical mine maps and geochemical data which has greatly added to the companys knowledge of the historic mine workings and ore grades mined during the mines operational history.

Historic mine workings have been digitally captured and modelled into a three dimensional wireframe and structural modelling of the Maria Vein is complete within the Dubbo and Bonanza Sections.

The modelling and analysis completed to date supports NTLs belief that the gold mineralised vein material may extend below the existing mine workings.

Analysis of 926 samples taken from raise sampling in the lower workings of the Talisman and Bonanza Zones, highly productive areas of the historical mine and source of the majority of the 3.5 million bullion ounces produced, indicate a mean grade of 36.75grams per tonne gold equivalent in a range of trace to 219.55g/t.

There is evidence on the mine plans that no stoping took place below No 15 level but that high grade ore persists in this area.

New Talisman Ltd was granted a certificate of compliance on April 21 which will allows immediate commencement of activities at the site.

As detailed further below the company has been working on the Talisman deeps project which has resulted in identification of a number of additional areas of mineralisation which can potentially be included in the bulk sampling project.

Accessing these areas will require opening up and making safe a number of the historical drives, particularly those connecting 8 Level with 7 Level above and 10 Level below.

In order to commence these works the company lodged with the Hauraki District Council in December an application for a certificate of compliance to undertake permitted activities under the district plan in order to evaluate the Talisman deeps and Talisman mine projects.

The activities, which have been outlined as separate from activities to be undertaken under the resource consent held for bulk sampling, allows the company to begin site works immediately.

During the period under review the company has been busy establishing further components to the Talisman Deeps project development which is proving significant for the long term future of the Talisman Mine. The team has also been

The Certificate of Compliance has been granted which will allow the company to immediately commence activities on site and begin sampling work at the mine to test Talisman and Talisman Deeps geological data. Many of the activities are core to safe operations at the site and will not have to be duplicated upon commencement of bulk sampling under the resource consent.

It is a pleasure to say we are commencing works at the Talisman site area. With access now available to establish the site we are well on our way to progressing our ambitions for the historically productive Talisman Mine, says chairman Charbel Nader.

We intend to undertake sampling operations to establish the deeper orebody immediately whilst finalising the Traffic management plan. We are very excited by the prospect of Talisman Deep and believe it will likely enhance the bulk sampling project and ultimately the long term future of the mine.

NTL currently have no quantified mineral resources in this area. Four raises below 15 level, covering a strike length of some 500m and a dip extent of 49m have geo-referenced historic sample values. Some 249 samples taken from these raises indicate a mean grade of 20.19g/t gold equivalent over a mean width of 1.1m and sample spacing of approximately 1.5m. Samples range from below detection to 131.36g/t and sample widths between 0.15m and 2.5m.

Advanced statistical modelling of geochemical data is now underway in preparation for estimating the gold equivalent content of the modelled vein material.

The company expects to be in a position to announce the results of this project within the coming months, once peer review of the final report is complete. It is uncertain at this stage of the Talisman Deeps project if all or parts of the mineralisation modelled will be able to be classified as mineral resources or reserves under the 2012 JORC code, due to uncertainty over verifying the quality control and assurance procedures in place at the time.,

However, the information certainly supports the company view that gold mineralisation may extend to depth and that there may be some areas of vein marginal to and below historic stoping that will constitute mineral inventory.

Beyond providing evidence of depth extensions of the vein system below 16 Level, work to date has identified several potential ore sources in close proximity to the No 8 Level drives which, if they can be included into the scope of the Bulk Sampling Project, is likely to have a material effect on the final Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve position of the Talisman Mine.
Currently The Salvation Army is seeing a large number of Tauranga families and individuals reaching out for assistance.

Despite this, many Kiwis treat poverty as a case of out of sight, out of mind, says the Salvation Army.

Across New Zealand, each year 68,000 Kiwi children rely on The Sallies for basic needs such as food, clothing and household goods, and the number of homeless New Zealanders is growing, with one in every 100 now classed as homeless.

The Salvation Army is calling on Kiwis to help them end poverty in New Zealand.

Head of social services Major Pam Waugh says while New Zealand has a reputation as a beautiful and prosperous country thats a great place to live and raise children, the reality for thousands of families living in poverty is very different.

Ive had children tell me they love it when Mum gets paid  thats the one day they get enough food. Thats not okay for children to have this worry. Its not good enough in New Zealand.

No one should have to live like this, and they dont have to. Enough is enough, its time to end poverty in New Zealand now.

The Salvation Army is committed to leading the charge to end poverty in this country and is asking Kiwis to get behind its annual Red Shield Appeal, which raises funds to support The Sallies frontline work fighting poverty.

By donating to the appeal, people will be helping these families and supporting Salvation Army services that assist thousands of struggling families each year to escape the cycle of poverty and make plans for a better future.

The Red Shield Appeal is a chance for every New Zealander to contribute in a meaningful way, to make a real and positive difference in their community.

When people are facing crisis and are in their greatest time of need, The Salvation Army is there to help, but we can only do this with the publics support.

Pam and The Sallies are challenging all New Zealanders to see the need around us, to talk about it and take action.

Its going to take the whole community working together to make this change. We need people to challenge each other and think about what they want their community to look like and how we can make it happen.

To support The Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal visit www.salvationarmy.org.nz/redshieldappeal, call 0800 53 00 00, or give to a Salvation Army street collector between May 1-7.

DEMAND ON SALLIESS SERVICES INCREASING

The Salvation Army helped more than 120,000 New Zealanders in need, through both short-term emergency support and working with each person on a long-term plan to lift them out of poverty using services such as budgeting, life skills, counselling and accommodation In 2016.

But Pam says The Sallies statistics show demand for many of its social services is increasing.

In the 2015/16 financial year, there was a 27 per cent increase from the previous year of clients who accessed counselling services, and an 18 per cent increase in people accessing budgeting support.

For more information, visit salvationarmy.org.nz
Boasting an impressive 10.28 carat, the E colour marquise-cut diamond, classified as Type IIa  meaning that it has been recognised as the most chemically pure and with exceptional optical transparency  fetched 311,000. It had been estimated at 150,000-200,000.

Another diamond that sparkled at the sale was a single stone, 5.01 carats Octagonal Step-Cut Diamond which sold for 81,250.

Diamonds from the 19th century also performed well at the sale with a Diamond Riviere Necklace  featuring 45 collet-set cushion-shaped diamonds weighing 43.00 carats in total  selling for 115,000 against its pre-sale estimate of 60,000-80,000.

Three very rare and extremely attractive coloured diamonds also became the subject of some fierce bidding in the salesroom. The first  an unmounted Fancy Purplish Pink, old brilliant-cut diamond, weighing 0.94 carats  went under the hammer for 40,000, three times its pre-sale estimate.

The second  a Fancy Orangy-Pink pear-shape diamond, weighing 1.93 carats  sold to an online bidder for 40,000, also three times its pre-sale estimate. The third  a Fancy Intense Yellow-Green pear-shape diamond, weighing 2.37 carats  sold for 87,500 against a pre-sale estimate of 50,000-70,000.

Jewellery from Cartier also proved its enduring ability to exceed pre-sale estimates at auction. Two notable pieces by the iconic French brand were much admired during the previews in London, Geneva and New York earlier this month.

The first, an elegant Art Deco Diamond Bracelet, designed as a finely pierced articulated strap of geometric motifs, decorated with cushion-shaped old brilliant and single-cut diamonds, dated circa 1925, sold for 50,000, against its pre-sale estimate of 20,000-30,000.

The second, an Art Deco Diamond Brooch, dated circa 1930, featuring a repeating arabesque design, set throughout with bullet-shape, old brilliant, baguette and single-cut diamonds, sold for 22,500, against its pre-sale estimate of 10,000-15,000.

The auction, which achieved 2,814,000 with 80 per cent of lots sold by value, was Bonhams Londons first Fine Jewellery sale of 2017.

Jean Ghika, Head of Jewellery for Bonhams UK & Europe, says: It is encouraging to see such strong prices achieved at our first auction of 2017.

There is an increasing appetite from our clients globally for the finest examples of jewellery, coloured and white diamonds and gemstones, and we expect this to gain further momentum throughout the year.

Bonhams is the UK market leader for fine jewellery at auction, selling more jewellery lots each year than any other international house.
Brendan McQuade and Samantha Applin are Assistant Professors of Sociology at SUNY Cortland; John-Michael Simpson is a Sociology PhD candidate at the University at Albany.

By Brendan McQuade, John-Michael Simpson, and Samantha Applin

New Jersey has done the impossible: the state virtually eliminated bail. Under the new system, judges use risk assessment to determine a defendant's danger to the community or risk of flight and have found most cases do not warrant pre-trial detention. From Jan. 1 to Feb. 14 2017, judges considered over 3,600 cases, authorizing detention in only 14 percent. Release is no longer conditional on a defendant's wealth.

The striking feature about this bail reform was the rationale; it was a matter of social justice guided by systematic research. The campaign began with a 2013 study by the Drug Policy Alliance that found that three-quarters of the 15,000 people jailed in New Jersey were defendants awaiting trial. Approximately 4,500 people were being held because they could not find the funds to secure their release. These were not kingpins with multi-million dollar bails. They were poor, low-risk offenders: over 1,500 detainees could not pay $2,500 or less in bail, and of these, 800 were jailed for their inability to pay $500 or less. Cash bail and wealth inequalities had a created a two-tiered system, where the wealthy could buy their way out of jail while the poor were detained an average of 10 months for trial.

We call on New York to develop a similar system. In Central New York, the area where we work and live, Broome, Cortland and Tompkins counties are considering multimillion dollar jail expansions. Those facilities mostly house defendants who cannot make bail. The unsentenced at Broome, Cortland and Tompkins County jails respectively account for 70 percent, 62 percent, and 74 percent of the average daily count in 2015.

Beyond the cost of jail expansion to taxpayers, the toll of jail time on the lives of people and their families during pre-trial detention cannot be overstated. Data from the New York City Criminal Justice Agency in 2008 shows that one in five defendants charged with non-felony offenses were not convicted, and about 80 percent of those convicted did not receive a jail sentence.

Although bail reform has been on the docket in New York for some time, progress has stalled. In 2015, then-New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman proposed bail reform. Citing many of the same reasons that led to change in New Jersey, he suggested that New York allow judges to consider whether an individual poses a risk to the "safety of any person or community," releasing without bail those who do not pose a danger or a flight risk.

Now is the time for New York to move forward on bail reform. The political landscape of New York is embracing a more progressive, empirically supported approach to criminal justice reform, evinced by Gov. Cuomo's recent signature that raised the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18. What's more, many communities are already organizing around these issues. From Black Lives Matter to the post-election groups modeled on the Indivisible guide to local organizations opposing jail expansion in Upstate counties, a push for bail reform in New York state has clear supporters ready in waiting.

There are many reasons to support bail reform. The benefits it would bring to the families of individuals who would otherwise be locked up extend to the communities in which they reside. Money from circumvented jail expansions can be invested back into communities for more effective and just social programs. Taxpayer dollars that would otherwise be spent on jailing individuals who cannot afford bail can go back into communities to strengthen neighborhoods from the bottom up, through approaches such as after-school programs for children. And for individuals who have not yet been convicted, and who may not be convicted, jobs are preserved, families are kept intact, and money is no longer as much of a requisite for justice.

Bail reform makes political and financial sense. New York should follow New Jersey's lead and reduce unnecessary pretrial detention.
State Debate: Wisconsin has lost its desire to be the best, writes Blue Jean Nation's Mike McCabe
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The main forte of using a Google branded phone is the presence of near stock Android OS. If you're an avid Android customizer, then you can head over to XDA Forums and download a custom ROM to enhance the usage of the device.

However, one of the famous custom ROM CopperheadOS is directly selling the Pixel XL and Pixel with the OS preloaded. The specialty of CopperheadOS is the security it offers. Although Google is pushing monthly security patches and regular software update, CoopperheadOS claims themselves as the more secure than the Google' stock Android.





The CopperheadOS is available for various Google-branded devices, but if you want a Pixel phone which is more secure than ever, you can purchase the device from CopperheadOS store. Also, the phone is available to purchase only in Canada and the US.




Video footage of a senseless murder in Cleveland, posted after the fact on Facebook Live, has attracted national attention to the role of the platform in criminals minds.

Authorities Tuesday morning announced that Steve Stephens  the 37-year-old suspect wanted for the cold-blooded shooting of Robert Godwin Sr.  shot himself to death after a short pursuit by Pennsylvania State Police. Officials had responded to a tip about a sighting of Stephens white Ford Fusion in a McDonalds parking lot in Erie, Pennsylvania.

We are grateful this has ended, said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams. We would prefer that it had not ended this way, because there are a lot of questions Im sure that not only family, but the city in general would have had for Steve, as to why this transpired.

Stephens had been on the run after allegedly killing 74-year-old Godwin shortly after he left an Easter Sunday dinner with family. Stephens apparently chose his victim at random and shot him at point blank range before taking off in a white Ford Fusion.

Stephens uploaded the shooting to Facebook Live later on Sunday. He claimed that he had shot 15 other people as well, but officials said that claim thus far appears unfounded.

Philadelphia police officials confirmed via Twitter that several schools in the city were put on lockdown Monday afternoon, amid reports that Stephens was in the area of the Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Police later said that the lockdown was lifted, and they found no information indicating the suspect was in the city.

Cleveland P. D.s Williams confirmed that a cellphone ping from Erie had been noted earlier during the manhunt, but he was not aware why the suspect was in the Erie area.

Platform for Violence?

The video of the shooting, which went viral across social media over the weekend, has put Facebook on the defensive, raising new questions about the suspects use of the live-streaming feature to commit a cold-blooded murder against an innocent man that he didnt even know.

The suspect posted a video to Facebook announcing his intent to commit a murder, and then two minutes later posted another video of himself shooting an elderly man, who turned out to be Godwin, Facebook VP of Global Operations Justin Osofsky said Monday. A few minutes later, Stephens went live, confessing to the killing.

Facebook is reviewing its reporting flows to be sure people can report videos and other material that violates Facebook standards as easily and quickly as possible, Osofsky said, noting that the report about the shooting video did not come into Facebook until an hour and 45 minutes after it was posted.

The suspects account was closed 23 minutes after Facebook received the report about the murder video and two hours after it received a report of any kind, he noted.

Artificial intelligence plays a major part in preventing unacceptable videos from being reshared, Osofsky said, adding that the company was working on improving its review process.

Thousands of people around the world review millions of items that are reported to the company every week, he pointed out, and Facebook prioritizes items that have serious safety implications.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, speaking at the companys F8 developer conference on Tuesday, expressed his condolences to Godwins family and friends.

We have a lot more to do here  and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening, he said.

Law enforcement authorities have cautioned before that people not live their lives on social media, Cleveland P. D.s Williams said in response to a reporters question.

The shooting was not something that should have been shared around the world, he added.

Facebook Live drew attention last summer, following its use to document the immediate aftermath of the police shooting of Philando Castile in Minnesota.

St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez is facing a charge of second-degree manslaughter and two counts of intentional discharge of a dangerous weapon in that case.

Castiles fiancee, who was sitting next to him during the traffic stop that led to the shooting, filmed the aftermath while he was in the car bleeding to death.

Other violent events have been live-streamed on Facebook in the past, including a triple shooting in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2016.

Criminals Thought Processes

Certain types of personalities may be prone to using social media as a platform for promoting their crimes.

Like any social media, it depends on the person behind the screen, observed Tina Meier, executive director of the Megan Meier Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on cyberbullying and harassment.

I do think that live feeds allow [the type of people] who want to commit crimes or certain actions to feel powerful, knowing that it can be seen by hundreds, thousands or even millions of people in an instant, she told the E-Commerce Times.

Social media companies may need to take further steps to restrict live video feeds to prevent violent actions from being broadcast.

If a pattern of copycat incidents should follow this latest tragedy, it could justify a case for additional regulation of the platform, said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at Poynter.

However, Facebook cannot be held responsible for any wrongdoing in this case, he suggested.

As commentators have noted, there are precedents  mercifully infrequent, he told the E-Commerce Times.

There have been two on-air suicides, and the shooting of the young morning show film crew in Virginia, a few years back, Edmonds recalled, but no one is talking about closing down TV live shots as a precaution.
The Turkish government has blocked online encyclopedia Wikipedia using a law that bans access to sites considered obscene or a threat to national security. Website Turkey Blocks said citizens were unable to access Wikipedia without using a VPN as of 8:00 am local time Saturday.

"After technical analysis and legal consideration [...] an administrative measure has been taken for this website (Wikipedia.Org)," said Turkey's BTK telecommunications watchdog in a statement.

The law it cites puts blocks in place for the protection of public order, national security or the well-being of the public. The state-run Anadolu Agency writes that Turkey's Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry blocked the site due to its articles and comments showing Turkey in coordination and aligned with various terrorist groups.

"Instead of coordinating against terrorism, it has become part of an information source which is running a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena," said the ministry. The block was put in place after Wikipedia refused to take down the offending content at the request of the Turkish government.

Turkey Blocks reports that the blockage was approved by the Ankara first Criminal Court of Peace. Some users speculate that the ban is a result of criticism on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Wikipedia page. The actions mean Turkey now joins China on the list of countries that completely blocks Wikipedia.

Update: Court order for #Wikipedia block approved by Ankara 1st Criminal Court of Peace https://t.co/LFun43BMP7 pic.twitter.com/LHuF5MaPaz --- Turkey Blocks (@TurkeyBlocks) April 29, 2017

Last year, Turkey blocked access to several sites and online services, including Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, and Github, as it tried to control the spread of almost 60,000 stolen government emails.

In December 2016, a crackdown on VPN users led to the blocking of anonymity network The Onion Router, aka Tor. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have been blocked several times, and many anti-government sites remain inaccessible.
The government of Turkey has blocked access to Wikipedia in all parts of the country after it undertook an administrative measure against the online encyclopedia.

Turkey, which now joins China as the countries that have banned Wikipedia, cited a law that allows it to ban websites that are considered obscene or a threat to national security.

Wikipedia Banned In Turkey

"After technical analysis and legal consideration ... an administrative measure has been taken for this website (Wikipedia.Org)," said telecommunications watchdog BTK in a statement posted online.

All the editions of Wikipedia in various languages were blocked in the country by 8 a.m. local time of April 29, with a monitoring group known as Turkey Blocks stating that the sudden unavailability of the website in the country resembles the internet filters that the government uses to censor online content from being accessed within Turkey.

Users within the country receive a "connection timed out" error when they try to access Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia, however, is still accessible through the use of a VPN.

According to the communications ministry of Turkey, Wikipedia was trying to run a "smear campaign" against the country. Some articles were said to have suggested that the Turkish government was coordinating with militant groups.

The country's authorities reportedly asked Wikipedia to remove the content that insinuated that Turkey was supporting terrorism. The website was subsequently blocked as the government never received a response from Wikipedia regarding the demands.

The ban against Wikipedia, however, is currently only temporary as it was made through a provisional order. For the block to become permanent, a full court ruling will need to be passed within two days, with BTK required to submit a formal document to the court within 24 hours of implementing the ban.

The Wikimedia Foundation said that it will do everything it can to make Wikipedia available in Turkey, adding that it will be pushing for a judicial review of the matter.

Turkey's Wikipedia Ban Heard Around The World

Turkey's move to block Wikipedia sent shockwaves around the world, specifically to the country's Western allies and international rights groups.

Ever since the failed coup attempt in July 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implemented stricter controls over both traditional and online forms of media in Turkey. The government has also since targeted dissidents, with 47,000 people arrested and more than 100,000 purged from their jobs for allegedly having connections to terrorist organizations.

Erdogan recently narrowly won an April 16 referendum that grants him increased powers. The matter, however, has largely divided the nation.

Groups have accused the Turkish government of curtailing basic rights such as freedom of speech. The block of Wikipedia raises another concern, as it rejects the fundamental right of access to information.

Blocked websites are common in Turkey, with such bans implemented at various times against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, particularly after the launch of terrorist attacks somewhere in the country. The government, however, has denied doing so, claiming that the inaccessibility of the websites is due to the usage spike after people log in to monitor the latest details on such events. Anti-government websites have also been rendered inaccessible.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Reports indicate that the next-gen Pixel smartphone from Google  the Pixel 2  may make an appearance soon. It is speculated that the company may share some details on the upcoming smartphone at its I/O event, which is slated for mid-May.

A leaked report about a Google engineer owning the Pixel 2 device has given rise to the rumors of its early arrival.

AOSP Gerrit Leaks Google Pixel 2?

The engineer in question may have unwittingly revealed that he owns the Google Pixel 2 handset, thanks to some code in Android's code commit. The code commits on AOSP Gerrit present fans with a ray of hope that Google has already made a working model of its impending handset.

"Finally got around to manually testing this on a walleye device," the engineer, named David Zeuthen, says in one of the comments.

However, the engineer's comment does not directly refer to the Pixel 2 by name. According to older leaks, Google plans to launch three next gen- smartphones. These are codenamed Muskie, Taiwen, and Walleye for the Pixel 2 XL, Pixel XXL, and Pixel 2, respectively.

Zeuthen's reference that he tested some aspect on the Walleye device suggests that the engineer got his hands on a working Pixel 2 prototype.

However, a probability exists that an older-gen Pixel or Nexus device is running the software the Pixel 2 will possibly deploy. The same conditions may then be adapted for the final device once it is ready. The simplest way to explain the leaked comment is that Google is testing out the future versions of Android on the Google Pixel 2.

Google Pixel 2: Rumored Specs

Weeks of speculations and rumors have led to a string of theories about what the next-gen Google Pixel smartphone will feature. The Google smartphone may sport a 5.5-inch Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) display. The Pixel 2 will likely be powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 835 chipset, which is used by the Galaxy S8.

Rumors are rife that the Pixel 2 could supported functionalities such as Daydream VR, Google Assistant, and Pixel Launcher. The next smartphone is expected to come pre-loaded with Google's Android O or Android Oreo operating system.

It cannot be said with certainty whether the engineer's comment meant that the Google Pixel 2 was nearly ready. However, the company may possibly share more details regarding its upcoming smartphone during Google I/O, which is slated for May 17, 18, and 19.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The past decade has seen big changes in educators approaches to using technology. High school students now communicate with their peers and teachers via online forums. An aspiring multilinguist can connect with an online Chinese tutor on Preply and start learning over Skype in mere minutes. Smartphone apps provide game-like learning environments for children learning the basics of coding.

Technology has the potential to revolutionize how classrooms function, a fact that has not gone unnoticed over the years by teachers and legislators alike. Determining how schools should best capitalize on that potential has been a process of trial and error, with some approaches proving, ultimately, ineffective.

Discovering How Tech Transforms Classrooms

A Stanford review of over 70 education studies has managed to pinpoint what seems to work, and why. Not every approach is equal, but overall, the addition of tech to classrooms and the utilization of online learning environments seem to be having a positive impact on student achievement. This article highlights a few of the reasons technology can empower both students and teachers.

Judgement-Free Zone

Students interacting online can learn about a subject without fear of being judged for their academic enthusiasm by their peers. Its a sensitive period of life for following social norms, and unfortunately sometimes dreams of pursuing math, science, or another subject perceived as difficultor nerdyare squelched by the desire to be cool.

Behind the anonymity of a computer screen, students can pursue their academic interests in a subject without worrying about the social opinions of their fellow students. And for teens in the throes of popularity woes, that freedom from image can provide an excellent academic opportunity.

A benefit of inquiry-based learningversus book memorizationis its potential to get students thinking outside of the box and developing a more robust grasp of concepts. Creative group projects within the setting of an online classroom help students build their skills of communication and collaboration with less pressure than many students feel in the physical classroom.

Increased Student Engagement

In many threaded online classrooms, a student posts their idea on a subject, and every other student must respond to it, building upon the original post. The nature of such a forum allows the students to take the time to think and consider and create more thoughtful responses. It also ensures that every student participates in discussion, something that can be difficult to achieve in a traditional physical classroom. The delayed response timeline is often helpful to ESL learners, giving them the chance to focus on the material and contribute without worries about pronunciation or accents

Classic heavy, bulky textbooks have a couple of flaws -- one of which is the high cost of an upgrade. Because of that expense, textbooks were replaced infrequently, and information became outdated instead of keeping up with changes in the field of study. The digitalization of learning materials means incorrect or antiquated information can be quickly adapted to reflect new standards and new information.

Getting Parents Involved In Education

In many traditional classroom formats, teachers find it difficult to foster parent engagement. Parent experience is often detached from classroom happenings. Students arent always adept at communicating their learning experiences to their parentstypically, that desire for openness doesnt come naturally to teenaged students. In addition, parents who are busy with work or have conflicting schedules are frequently unable to physically observe what their child is learning or working on.

The advent of online-based learning opens up the classroom environment to parentsthey can go to a website to see what their child is learning, or even work through problems with the child. Its easier than ever to contact teachers, via online platforms which mend the seams in mismatched teacher-parent schedules.

Education Tech and the Bigger Picture

Outside of school, the ability to utilize technology effectively and creatively is a critical component of most careers and fields of study. By providing students with a great base of knowledge and experience, online-based education gives kids the tools they need to be productive, successful members of society. Tech-based education broadens horizons for studentsboth in their academic achievement and their long-term career success.

Master Image Credit

technology, Education
WATERLOO  Life is back to normal for Waterloo dairy farmers Shane and Jennifer Sauer following an April theyd rather soon forget.

On Monday, milk produced by the Sauers 120 cows began shipping to the couples new processor, Rolling Hills Dairy Producers Cooperative in Monroe, which informed the couple five days ago it would take their milk under a long-term arrangement.

Getting that call (from Rolling Hills) was the closest thing to our best day ever, Jennifer Sauer said Monday from her Waterloo farm, which hosted media from around Wisconsin and Canada as well as state dairy industry representatives to discuss the dairy crisis the state has faced the past month. It was a huge relief.

The Sauers were among 67 dairy farmers informed in early April by Greenwood-based milk processor Grassland Dairy Products Inc. that it would stop taking their milk after April 30 because it had lost its Canadian customers for ultra-filtered milk, a high-protein ingredient used in cheese production. That left more than 1 million pounds, roughly 100,000 gallons of milk, being produced daily with no place to go.

State officials said Monday that 56 of the 58 affected Wisconsin farms had found new buyers, with 99 percent of the daily milk production thrown into limbo by Grasslands action spoken for. The nine farms in Minnesota that had sold to Grassland have found a new processor.

The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection will continue providing support to the affected Wisconsin dairy farmers still seeking buyers as well as offer consulting services.

Too much milk

The Sauers and some other dairy farmers initially didnt panic because they thought another processor would easily be found. Thats how it always worked for the Sauers, both age 36, who were raised and had worked on dairy farms their entire lives.

But as the days passed and May 1 loomed without a buyer for their milk under contract, the Sauers became more concerned about the future of their livelihood. Processors were unwilling to take more milk because they already had too much.

Jennifer Sauer said her parents had experienced a similar crisis years ago but not to the extent of the current milk situation.

Getting that letter (from Grassland) was very difficult but when phone call after phone call (to processors) repeatedly said no, that part was hard to choke, she said.

Wisconsins dairy industry and the state rallied to the aid of the dairy farmers affected by Grasslands action. The state amended government loan programs to encourage processors to boost production and increase storage capacity while independent groups including the Dairy Girls Network launched grass-roots campaigns encouraging people to buy Wisconsin dairy products and donate them to food banks or similar programs.

The statewide support for farmers didnt surprise Karen Gefvert, director of government relations for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.

Wisconsin has a great culture and long history with dairy farming, she said. It was great to see so many people and groups come together to help these farmers connect with new processors and find solutions.

This past month has shown how our dairy family can come together in challenging times, said DATCP Secretary Ben Brancel, who worked many years managing a dairy operation.

Lloyd Holterman, owner of Rosy-Lane Holsteins in Watertown, said he personally knows about a dozen farmers, including the Sauers, who were affected by Grasslands decision, all of whom have since secured new buyers. Holterman wasnt affected because he ships his milk to Waupun-based processor Saputo.

Holterman, who has been in the dairy business nearly four decades, has never seen a market in which producers cannot find a Wisconsin processor to take their milk. He recalled an initiative by former Gov. Tommy Thompson in the 1990s, which called for the states dairy farmers to increase milk production to meet demands of the states processors.

So weve now increased milk production, but now our plants are full, so now the next step is to increase our processing capacity and keep working to find new markets for our milk and other dairy products, Holterman said.

Trade issues

Grassland had little time to react when it was informed by its Canadian customers they were discontinuing buying their ultra-filtered milk. The Canadian dairy industry instituted a new national ingredient strategy, which encouraged Canadian processors to buy ultra-filtered milk domestically and led to higher prices for the same product they had been buying from the U.S.

Ultra-filtered milk exports to Canada represented about $150 million in annual business to American dairy processors, with Grassland commanding about two-thirds of that business. While not regarded as a response to the dairy situation, the Trump administration last week placed tariffs on Canadian lumber exports to the U.S., foreshadowing what could be contentious talks with Canada, should the administration follow through on reopening negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA has been in place since 1994 and is meant to streamline trade between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The Sauers welcomed the call from Rolling Hills. In addition to getting back to work for their new customer, the Sauers say they will continue assisting in statewide efforts to help other dairy farmers who managed only to secure short-term deals for their milk and the handful of small operations still seeking buyers.

Farming is a lifestyle, and we werent ready to make the decision to stop farming, Jennifer Sauer said. We want to help other farmers and those businesses that work with farmers to be successful.
The Republican Party snatched three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives this Tuesday in Florida, so far in the hands of the Democratic Party, becoming the first to change political... | Read More
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GONZALES  Prosecutors in Ascension Parish announced Monday that they will not bring charges against a South Carolina contractor arrested in February on fraud and other counts.

Tyler Cavalier, spokesman for 23rd Judicial District Attorney Ricky Babin, said Monday the allegations raised against Gager, 49, of Sharon, South Carolina, amounted to a breach-of-contract dispute.

"Based on evidence that we have right now, it shows that it is civil matter," Cavalier said.

South Carolina contractor arrested on allegation of post-flood fraud in Prairieville GONZALES  A South Carolina contractor has been arrested on allegations of fraud after he wa

Ascension Parish sheriff's deputies arrested Gager Feb. 7 on counts of residential contractor fraud and engaging in the business of contracting without a license. After his arrest, he remained in Ascension Parish Prison in Donaldsonville for eight days until he was able to post bail of $55,000, online records show.

Deputies said at the time of Gager's arrest that he had been paid most of a $19,500 contract to repair a flood-damaged home in Prairieville but left the job with only about half of the work finished.

The homeowner paid Gager more than $17,000 in three payments between Sept. 12 and Oct. 3, but sheriff's deputies said estimates from independent contractors showed between $9,000 to $10,000 in work had been finished.

Sheriff's detectives added then that Gager was not licensed by the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. Contractors must register for jobs costing between $7,000 and $75,000, deputies said.

Cavalier, the district attorney's spokesman, said Monday that if more evidence comes in, prosecutors will take another look at the case but as of now, it remains a civil dispute. He said Gager's bail obligations have been removed.

Attempts to reach Gager by telephone were unsuccessful Monday. It was not clear from the court record who his attorney is or if he has one.
Louisiana would receive less than $400 million in additional flood recovery funds under a spending proposal Congress is mulling this week.

The precise dollar amount is unclear, but Congress' spending deal to fund the government through September would set aside $400 million for Louisiana and other states that have been through recent disasters. State leaders say they expect Louisiana will receive a significant portion of it through a formula used by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The state has already received $1.6 billion in flood aid from Congress, the bulk of which will go toward programs to help homeowners affected by last year's historic floods rebuild their houses.

Gov. John Bel Edwards and members of the state's Congressional delegation had sought about $2 billion in additional federal assistance in the latest spending plan, holding repeated meetings with members of President Donald Trump's administration and influential members of the U.S. House and Senate to try to build support.

U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, is working on a bipartisan amendment to the bill to increase the $400 million total and lay the ground work for additional funding in the appropriations bill expected in September, according to his office.

Edwards, a Democrat, said he is working with the delegation to identify additional opportunities for funding. In the past, disaster aid has been tucked into other measures, including defense spending.

Louisianas recovery from the historic floods in March and August is far from complete, but we are well on our way," Edwards said. "While it does not fulfill our unmet needs completely, we are extremely grateful that Congress has stepped up to help the people of Louisiana."

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, meanwhile, said that he proposal "marks another big step in making our state and families whole.

Louisianas state and federal officials have worked together as a team to make sure Louisiana families have the resources they need to recover, rebuild and prosper, he said.

If the additional nearly $400 million receives final approval, the state estimates that it still needs another $1 billion for homeowner assistance, $125 million for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to complete the Comite River Diversion project and $86 million in social services block grant funding to address the health and mental health needs of the communities affected by the floods.

State leaders have approved putting about $1.3 billion of the money already received toward the homeowner programs, which are expected to be running later this month.

More than 17,000 homeowners have completed online surveys for the Restore Louisiana Homeowner Assistance Program  the first step in the application process.

Aside from the homeowner programs, the state also expects to launch programs to aid flood-affected renters and businesses.

The state will be reaching out to landlords and developers to try to address the states supply of affordable rental housing with about $36 million available in loans that will go toward building and repairing rental houses and apartments.

Another $51.2 million program in interest-free loans will be available for flood-affected businesses. If certain conditions are met, borrowers can get 20 percent of their loans forgiven.
Legislation that would set up statewide rules for Uber, Lyft and other ride-booking services was approved Monday by a Louisiana House committee despite criticism from some of the state's most influential groups.

The proposal is House Bill 527 by House Transportation Committee Chairman Kenny Havard, R-St. Francisville.

It cleared Havard's committee and next faces action in the full House.

Under the bill, the state would collect 1 percent of the services' gross receipts, most of which would then be returned to local governments where the rides took place.

Havard said the bill also would set up uniform, statewide regulations rather than the "patchwork" of rules in effect now through ordinances in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other places.

Nick Juliano, who handles policy for Uber in the Southeast, said 42 states have rules like those in the bill, and implementing them in Louisiana would help spread the ride-hailing services throughout the state.

"Members of the committee, it is critical for our industry, as it is for many industries, that there be a single set of rules and regulations affecting our industry," Juliano said.

But the measure came under fire from representatives of the City of New Orleans, the Louisiana Municipal Association and the Louisiana Policy Jury Association.

Rodney Braxton, a lobbyist for New Orleans, said the legislation would cost the city $2 million per year. It would receive $2.4 million under its own rules versus about $400,000 if the bill becomes law. "We just have a lot of issues with this bill," Braxton said.

John Gallagher, executive director of the Louisiana Municipal Association, said his group has concerns about local ordinances being overridden by a state law.

Gallagher said local officials are also concerned about seeing audit results to ensure that cities are getting the revenue they are entitled to.

An official of the Public Service Commission questioned the legality of having the state Department of Agriculture oversee a form of commerce that, he said, is often watched by the PSC.

Havard said the key reason for criticism from New Orleans and elsewhere is money.

He said New Orleans would get $1.2 million per year if the bill becomes law, not $400,000, and that Baton Rouge would collect more revenue than it does now.

Havard said dollars sparked more concerns from critics of the bill than public safety, which he said would be improved if Uber, Lyft and other such services flourish statewide.

"How do you put a price on that?" he asked.

The bill would put Agriculture Department officials in charge of the rules, including permits, driver requirements and the disclosure of fares.

Commissioner of Agriculture Mike Strain downplayed concerns about local officials learning whether their allotments are accurate. "I am sure we can work out a mechanism," he told the committee.

The ban on local governments continuing to regulate Uber and Lyft is expected to cause more controversy, including how the bill would affect existing ordinances.

Havard said airports were removed from the ban.
As Wright Middle School drops its charter status to become a public magnet school, another notable change will be coming to the school on Madisons South Side: Beginning next year, students will be attending school in uniforms.

The Madison School Board voted 5-2 last week in favor of waiving the districts dress code to allow Wright to establish a uniform policy. It is the first district school to require uniforms. The school was also formally recognized as a magnet school rather than a charter at the meeting.

A uniform proposal had been discussed several times before, but the policy came about in February when an advisory committee was formed. The group of six students, three parents and three staff members met four times before the proposal was brought before the board. Faculty and staff will also be subject to the uniform policy.

For the standard uniforms, students can wear solid-colored black, royal blue or white shirts and black or khaki pants, shorts or skirts. During the colder months, students can wear solid-colored sweaters in the school colors so long as the sweater doesnt have a hood.

Uniform requirements would be one way to help students focus on developing their personalities and future goals instead of focusing on their appearances, said Principal Angie Hicks.

Its really about trying to help young people identify who they are and who they can become, Hicks said. And we can establish a community as a school.

In the proposal, the school recognizes that the move could be seen as limiting students freedom of expression. But Hicks said the benefits outweigh those concerns.

A survey conducted by the school indicated that 73 percent of parents favor uniforms and believe uniforms would address the peer pressure to fit in by wearing certain brands, while 65 percent of parents also said uniforms would help them financially.

It will eliminate the stress of conforming to the societal expectations when you have limited resources, Hicks said.

Close to 80 percent of Wright students come from low-income households, according to district data.

Im trying to put the focus on the learning and not on what people are trying to tell you you need to do and need to be on the outside, Hicks said.

Students werent surprised by the schools announcements to pursue uniforms.

I saw it coming because theres a lot of bullying with how people dress, said seventh-grader Alan Cruz, 12. That wouldnt happen with uniforms.

While Hicks said many students accept the change, there are some who dont like the idea.

I dont like it at all, sixth-grader Nate Estep said. All of my clothes will just be sitting in my closet.

Nate, 11, said he hasnt seen students at school get bullied based on their clothing, but classmate Ayress Robbins, also 11, said she sees it frequently.

Kids tend to bully kids because they dont have the right type of clothes, she said.

Ayress said a students shoes can be the biggest target for bullies. Students with Nike- and Air Jordan-brand shoes are safe because those are the cool shoes. But students who wear shoes such as Vans or shoes from Wal-Mart can be harassed, she said.

Under the new uniform policy, students would only be allowed to wear solid-colored white, brown or black shoes.

Sara Alvarado is one of the parents in favor of the uniforms. Her son Leo, 12, is in sixth grade, and she said he hasnt talked with her much about his feelings about uniforms  preteen boys dont typically talk about their feelings with their moms, she said  but he isnt fighting the idea.

Alvarado said the benefits she sees in uniforms  like the feeling of belonging and the deterrent to bullying  outweigh any downsides, although she admits she doesnt know what all those might be, calling it uncharted territory since no public school in Madison has required uniforms.

One downside: her son only having two or three shirts and pants for the week.

When I think about the benefits of (uniforms for) my child in school and in society, I cant even consider laundry to be a challenge, Alvarado said.

Lands End was identified as the schools preferred vendor, offering a no-cost replacement policy and adding the school logo to the shirts, but uniform pieces can be bought at any store so long as it fits the description in the uniform policy.

Although students are required to have a uniform, they wont be removed from the classroom for lack of a complete uniform. According to the policy, the school will have multiple sizes of the uniform on hand if a student needs to borrow a piece for a day.

The school is planning uniform fitting sessions in August during student registration.
It's the same routine day in and day out for most Canberra families - get the kids up, have breakfast, get dressed, rush to school, rush home from school, rush to sport, cook dinner, finish homework, fall into bed.

And it's this daily "hurry up" drill that has our kids more stressed than ever, according to yoga teacher Angela Tonkin.

Angela Tonkin would love to see Canberra families "slow down" and teach kids how to take good care of themselves. Credit:Instagram @be_happy_yoga

"Adults are incredibly stressed - more stressed than ever before," Tonkin said.

"We're busier than ever, and children imitate that and take on that energy. Anxiety in children is huge and research shows it's on the rise.
Avenue Q. Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Book by Jeff Whitty. Directed by Jarrad West. Musical director Elizabeth Alford. Choreographer Pierce Jackson. Supa Productions. Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. Recommended for mature audiences. Until May 13. Bookings: theq.net.au or 62856290.

Everything's A-OK in Supa Productions' snappily staged adult parody of everybody's favourite American children's show, Sesame Street with catchy, bouncy music and cheekily clever lyrics.

Nick Valois as Princeton and Emma McCormack as Kate Monster in Avenue Q. Credit:Family Fotographics

"It's a fine, fine line between a lover and friend," says puppet Kate Monster (Emma McCormack). It's also a fine line between amateur and professional in a show, tightly directed by Jarrad West, assisted by musical director Elizabeth Alford and the band, and choreographer Pierce Jackson, who makes the most of the narrow forestage in front of Chris Zuber and Nick Valois' impressive set design.

Valois also puppeteers the central role of Princeton, who has arrived at the bottom end of town on Avenue Q in search of purpose in his life. His neighbours are an assortment of humans, including a couple, therapist Christmas Eve (Nina Wood) and aspiring standup comedian Brian (Riley Bell) and child star Gary Coleman (Joanna Licuanan Francis).
Good morning Canberrans.

It's Tuesday, it's May and it's time to get a coffee and absorb this morning's top stories.

There's some relief from the recent chill again today, the overnight low was 5 degrees and we're in for a cloudy day with a maximum of 17. Overnight lows get colder again later in the week.

Now, today's headlines.

Tower crane investigated
The British company that sold Optus to its Singaporean owner, Singtel, has lost its bid to get a half-a-billion dollar refund from the tax man.

Cable & Wireless is the British company that sold Optus to current owners Singtel in 2001 as part of a deal that valued the telco at $17 billion.

In a 56-page judgment on Monday, the Full Federal Court dismissed C&W's appeal and ordered it to pay the ATO's costs. Credit:Chris Ratcliffe

Singtel bought Optus by offering shareholders a share buyback. C&W sold 82 per cent of its block for $6.2 billion, while paying $586.9 million in tax.

In 2015 C&W took the ATO to the Federal Court claiming that it should have paid just $134.5 million in tax. The company demanded a $452.45 million refund, along with legal costs.
Resources Minister Matt Canavan banks with Westpac, the company he has labelled "wimps" and encouraged Queenslanders to think about boycotting over its refusal to finance the giant Adani coal mine.

And Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who have both backed Senator Canavan's combative approach to Westpac, are also customers of Australia's second largest bank.

Senator Canavan, who blasted Westpac as spineless for refusing to fund Adani's proposed Carmichael mine in the face of climate change protests, has a Westpac savings account, according to the parliamentary register of interests, along with accounts with Commonwealth Bank, ING and HSBC.

"May I suggest those Queenslanders who are seeking a home loan or a long-term bank deposit or some such in the next few months might want to back a bank that is backing the interests of Queenslanders," he said over the weekend.
Some suggest that women's immune systems benefit from their tendency to prioritise and nurture social connections, but Hayflick says the explanation is unclear. Researchers also know, to an extent, what causes ageing. "I got into this field by accident  literally screaming and yelling," Hayflick recalls. "I overturned a belief that was held in biology for 60 years  that was that when you put cells in culture they will continue to divide forever. I discovered that was wrong  that cells that are capable of dividing forever are cancer cells and that normal human cells have a limited replicative ability. "It's since turned out that my phenomenological finding [the "Hayflick limit"], in which I also found that older people's cells divided a fewer number of times than those of younger people ... [is explained by] the observation that telomeres, which are found at the end of chromosomes, become shorter and shorter at each division and when they reach a sufficiently short length the signal sent to the rest of the chromosome tells the cells to stop dividing." To an extent, we can slow the shortening of the telomeres through nutrition, exercise, good sleep and even meditation and marriage. But, we cannot stop the ageing process.

And researchers are yet to answer the ultimate question of ageing, which according to Hayflick, is "why do things ultimately go to pieces"? In his opinion, part of the reason we don't yet have an answer is because many researchers are looking in the wrong place. "There's a serious problem among decision-makers in my country believing that the resolution of age-associated disease will tell us something fundamental about the ageing process and that's completely wrong," Hayflick argues. "For example, when we eliminated diseases of childhood ... it did not give us any insight into childhood development. In the same way, the wrong idea that the resolution of age-associated disease like cardiovascular disease and stroke will tell us something about ageing is nonsense. It will not and it has not. "If you waved a magic wand and eliminated the major causes of death in this country the increase in life expectation  which is about 82  the maximum that could be achieved is about 92. Even resolution of the major causes of death on death certificates in this country would not result in an understanding of ageing. It would simply allow for the expression of ageing to continue  just as someone who suffers from cancer or cardiovascular disease in mid-life, in their 40s and 50s, the ageing process is not affected  it continues."

Instead of focusing solely on age-related disease, he believes homing in on a molecular level may provide more answers. "We need to ask questions like this: why are old cells more likely to age than a young cell? What's the difference between a young and an old cell?" And whether we want to stop the ageing process altogether is another question to which there does not appear to be a clear answer. Earlier this year, researchers from Harvard and the University of NSW took a step towards developing an anti-ageing drug that, they say, could help astronauts make it to Mars. Others plan on freezing themselves along with instructions to reawaken them when (and if) the science of immortality is understood. "The quest to live forever, or to live for great expanses of time, has always been part of the human spirit," Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Emory Centre for Ethics told TIME recently. "The thing that is most difficult and inscrutable to us as mortal beings is the fact of our own death. We don't understand it, we don't get it, and as meaning-laden beings, we can't fathom what it means to not exist."

For his part, Dr Emanuel has peace with his mortality. "I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive," he wrote, adding that people may live more years, but fewer free of disease. "Health care hasn't slowed the ageing process so much as the dying process ... Seventy-five years is all I want to live. I want to celebrate my life while I am still in my prime." There are also ethical arguments against tampering with the ageing process, Hayflick says. "For example if you were able to stop the ageing process, prevent it from occurring, slowing it down, the likelihood that you would have a pill that would do that  the probability is high that the people that would be first to benefit from that would be the rich and the famous and the powerful and, I don't know about your view of life, but my view of life is that that wouldn't be of any benefit," he says. "Especially because it could involve increasing the life of tyrants, of antisocial people  many of whom could afford the treatment which is likely to be very costly at first  rather than people who are less wealthy. That is one argument against it.
Inadequate inspections and maintenance of rail tracks have been "systemic" across the Sydney Trains network, transport safety investigators have warned.

The blunt assessment is contained in a just-released report by the Office of Transport Safety Investigations into the failure of fasteners on a section of track that runs through a 140-metre tunnel near the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney.

The investigators found that defects in five track fasteners identified in late 2014 were due to water corrosion and had gone undetected by Sydney Trains' maintenance regime.

And they warned that the "unrestrained track" could have led to a train derailment.
A panel has fallen from the top floor of a high-rise building in Sydney's CBD and landed with an "almighty bang", raining shards of glass onto a busy intersection at lunch time, witnesses say.

The incident occurred at the corner of Market and Sussex streets in the city just after midday.

A panel fell from the Allianz Centre in Sydney's CBD, witnesses say. Credit:Nicholas Rugg

Nicholas Rugg said he was standing at the lights waiting to cross the road when the panel fell from the top of the Allianz building and crashed onto the roof of the Fitness First gym below.

He said the panel hit the gym with an "almighty bang" and glass sprayed over the road and onto the roofs of cars waiting at the lights. Another witness claimed that small shards of glass hit a number of people.
A baby boy has been airlifted to a Brisbane hospital after he fell in an open fire at a popular south-east Queensland camping spot.

Paramedics were called to the MV Beagle camp ground at Inskip Point, near Fraser Island, about midday on Sunday after the accident.

The LifeFlight rescue helicopter took the boy from Gympie to Brisbane.

A Queensland Ambulance Service spokeswoman said the boy suffered burns to his left arm and hand and was "distressed" as he and his mother were taken to Gympie Hospital.

They arrived shortly before 2pm before being flown to the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital on Sunday night for further treatment.
A former prostitute has sought to have his criminal convictions, including the indecent treatment of a child under 16, discounted from his assessment for admission into Queensland's legal profession.

The 34-year-old Queensland man pleaded guilty on November 5, 2008, to two counts of unlawful sodomy and to two counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16.

A former male prostitute who had sex with a 15-year-old boy wants his criminal record overlooked to pursue a career in law.

The man, known in court documents as "KMB", wrote a letter to the Legal Practitioners Admission Board (Queensland) on October 4 requesting they not allow his criminal past to adversely affect his admission.

The board refused this request on October 17, and the man appealed the decision in the Queensland Supreme Court.
It's believed the family living at the home had been barbecuing that evening.

It took firefighters more than two and a half hours to bring the Sunnybank Hills two-storey home under control after the fire broke out about 6.45pm.

Seven people have escaped a fire that destroyed a family home in Brisbane's south on Monday night.

Firefighters did not leave the Lamona Circuit home until almost 3am and had to return just after 6am when fire reignited.

Fire has destroyed a home in Sunnybank Hills. Credit:Nine News Brisbane

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services duty manager of operations Mark Welsh said the cause of the fire was still undetermined as it was still too dangerous for fire investigators to go in the house.

"It's just hard to put the fire out (in a situation like this)," he said, saying the collapsing roof meant roof tiles hid pockets of the fire and helped make them inaccessible.

"You can control it and really stop the fire so it's smouldering. You can easily get it down to that stage.
Brian Caccianiga is sitting in his wheelchair on the corner of William and Latrobe streets in the CBD and he's fuming.

He has just emerged from the underground platforms of Flagstaff railway station, on his way to the Royal Melbourne Hospital just 1 kilometres north of here.

He wanted to complete his journey by tram, having been told by the state government that wheelchair-friendly low-floor trams would begin to service Parkville's hospital precinct for the very first time from today, May 1.

The hospital precinct on Flemington Road has had platform tram stops for years now, but had never been serviced by low-floor trams until tram route 58 was introduced today.
A man who used the names and birthdays of people who had posted their resumes on the internet to rort Medicare of thousands of dollars to help pay for his own private health insurance has been jailed for three years.

The ease with which Andrew White, 45, withdrew $19,201 in false Medicare benefits from his bank account between 2015 and 2016 prompted County Court Judge Gabriele Cannon to declare that Medicare should strengthen its security measures.

An apparent security hole in the health system is being exploited.

The court heard that White dealt with the proceeds of 16 false claims on behalf of patients for various medical services at branch offices around Australia. The benefits were then paid into bank accounts that he operated.

Fake receipts from various medical practitioners were used to support the claims.
A Melbourne woman is fighting for life in a Chinese hospital after contracting the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, while visiting family overseas.

Kerri Cosma, 58, caught the virus after arriving in China on April 13, during what was meant to be a visit to her daughter's family who relocated from Melbourne to Nanjing in the country's east two years ago.

Emma Madigan, Mrs Cosma's daughter, told Fairfax Media her mother began feeling unwell a few days into the holiday before her condition deteriorated and she went into acute respiratory failure.

Mrs Cosma, a personal trainer from Preston, was placed on life support and has been in a critical condition for the past 10 days.
Kylie Blackwood's family must wait another seven months to learn if the man charged with murdering the mother-of-three faces trial, after his lawyers were granted more time to seek access to DNA evidence.

It took almost three years between the time Ms Blackwood was attacked in her Pakenham home on August 1, 2013, until Scott Alan Murdoch was charged with murder, in April last year.

Kylie Blackwood, who was killed at her Pakenham home in 2013.

On Monday, Mr Murdoch, 39, was in Melbourne Magistrates Court for a committal  the hearing which determines whether he faces trial  but his case was adjourned until December so his lawyers can seek access to a report about DNA evidence.

As five of Ms Blackwood's family and friends watched on, defence counsel Jason Gullaci told magistrate John Bentley about 500 pages of the report had been redacted and could not be accessed unless he filed subpoenas to prosecutors.
Perth residents who have recently had jewellery stolen are being encouraged to contact police after detectives recovered a massive haul of more than 1000 pieces of stolen jewellery from addresses in Mount Hawthorn and Northam.

The items, estimated to be worth several hundred thousand dollars, were recovered as a result of a police drug syndicate investigation in Northam in March and April.

Police have seized more than 1000 items of stolen jewellery. Credit:Wheatbelt District

Wheatbelt district police posted a Facebook message on Monday, alerting people to the massive find.

"The Northam detectives office have conducted an operation investigating a drug syndicate based in Northam," the post read.
For the second budget in a row, lawmakers on the Legislatures budget-writing committee have rejected Gov. Scott Walkers call to change oversight and eliminate the states judicial watchdogs.

Walker proposed in his 2017-19 state spending plan to move the Wisconsin Judicial Commission under the control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and eliminate the state Judicial Council. The Joint Finance Committee stripped both proposals from the budget on Monday, which they also did two years ago.

The votes were among the first the committee is taking to amend Walkers $76 billion state budget proposal.

Lawmakers on Monday also put off voting on Walkers proposal to increase salaries for judges by about 4 percent in the second year of the budget, similar to proposed raises for other state employees. Walker also wants to create a new process for approving future pay increases, also similar to how state employee raises are approved.

The Joint Finance Committees co-chairmen said Monday its likely the committees conservative majority will approve a 2 percent increase.

In Walkers proposal, the money for raises would no longer come from the state employee compensation plan, but rather from other court revenue sources, similar to how the University of Wisconsin System funds employee salaries.

State Supreme Court Chief Justice Patience Roggensack has asked the committee to keep judicial pay within the states compensation plan. The courts also have asked for a 16 percent salary increase for judges and justices over two years.

Current annual wages for Wisconsin judges are $131,187 for circuit court, $139,059 for the appellate court and $147,403 for the Supreme Court, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The state ranks 38th in Supreme Court and circuit court pay and 33rd in appellate court pay among the states when adjusted for cost of living, according to the National Center for State Courts.

The budget committees vote to reject Walkers proposal to change oversight and eliminate the state Judicial Commission and Judicial Council comes after both the executive director of the commission and Roggensack have said the move could create potential conflicts of interest and wont save money.

The commission polices allegations of judicial misconduct. Walker has said consolidating it under the Supreme Court would create administrative efficiencies.

The Judicial Council has 21 members who study the efficiency of the court system and recommend procedural changes. It employs a full-time lawyer.

Walker proposed eliminating the council and moving the lawyer to the Supreme Court, which could then create its own council outside of the statutory requirement.

Roggensack also opposed that move, saying it wouldnt save money and overlooks the significant work that the council does for both the Legislature and the courts.

Labor commissioners reduced

Also on Monday, lawmakers voted to approve Walkers proposal to reduce the number of commissioners on the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission from three to one. They also approved cutting staff at WERC from seven to five positions.

The commission is charged with settling employment disputes. Its workload has decreased since 2011 after the passage of Act 10, which essentially eliminated collective bargaining for most public employees.

Assembly transportation plan

John Nygren, R-Marinette, said Monday that Assembly Republicans plan to address the billion-dollar shortfall in the states transportation fund will be unveiled as soon as this week. He said the plan, which Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield, is leading in writing, will not increase the tax burden on Wisconsin residents.

Budget co-chairwoman Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said Senate Republicans look forward to reviewing the plan.

Though Mondays committee action reflected the first votes on Walkers budget, the Republican leaders of the committee already announced sweeping changes to Walkers 2017-19 spending plan by removing all 83 non-fiscal policy items and scrapping his entire transportation budget proposal.

The committee is expected to take on those bigger-ticket items over the coming weeks.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A man will be sent to jail later this year after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography, which was found on his computer while crossing the border from the United States into Canada last June.

Benji Rustulka pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography Thursday morning in Steinbach.

During a plea inquiry, court heard that Rustulka was crossing the border on June 25, 2016 when border officers found him in possession of marijuana.

As a result, border security did a more extensive check of his belongings and searched his computer, on which they found child pornography images.

Border security contacted RCMP, who obtained a warrant, and conducted a further search of Rustulkas computer and found thousands of child pornography images.

Court was also told Rustulka had a device on his computer that could potentially distribute images, though he was unaware of its capabilities and was not using it.

Crown attorney Shauna Silver stayed possession and making child porn charges from the same incident.

A charge of possessing child pornography carries a mandatory minimum 90 days jail sentence, though Rustulkas lawyer, Alan Libman, noted the Crown will be seeking a significantly higher sentence.

Rustulka will be sentenced on Sept. 28 in Steinbach.
If you ratted out Detroits notorious Highwaymen Motorcycle Club, you should know what to expect, members said. Snitches would wind up in a Dumpster, one former member testified during a 2010 trial against the clubs leadership.

The clubs leader, Aref Scarface Nagi, was obsessed with hunting down the secret informants in their midst when federal investigators infiltrated the Highwaymen in preparation for a massive 2007 racketeering bust. But beneath Nagis search for so-called rats was a secret, one former Highwayman now alleges.

Gary Ball Jr., who was convicted alongside Nagi on racketeering charges in 2010 and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison, began investigating his former leader while behind bars, in the hopes of securing a new trial. Ball filed a Freedom of Information Act request for details on Nagi, the Detroit Free Press reported, and the request returned a police file. It revealed that Nagithe sworn enemy of snitcheshad once worked with a federal agency as a secret informant.

Prior to his 2007 arrest on charges including racketeering, assault with a deadly weapon, and conspiracy to commit murder, Nagi had good reason to worry about undercover spies. At the time of his arrest, the Highwaymen Motorcycle Club was Detroits most feared motorcycle gang, operating out of an ominous black clubhouse in southwest Detroit, where a winged skeleton sign hung above the door.

The bike clubs history is as dark as its headquarters. The largest motorcycle club in Detroit at the time of Nagis arrest, the Highwaymen are known as an outlaw or one-percenter club. One-percenter clubs take their name from a famous quote attributed to the American Motorcycle Association in the 1940s: that 99 percent of bikers follow the law, while one percent boast of flouting the law. In 1973, multiple Highwaymen were convicted of bombing rival clubhouses throughout the Detroit area. In a federal racketeering case in 1987, Highwaymen were indicted on a range of charges from drug distribution to kidnappings to arson.

And by the mid-2000s, when Nagi led the Highwaymen, the club was living up to its old reputation for violent crime and drug trafficking. Tales of the gangs beatings and shootings were so widespread that, beginning in 2005, the FBI began taping Nagis phone calls, capturing approximately 30,000 conversations over two years. Those tapes, played during court proceedings, revealed Nagi bragging about violent crimes he had allegedly committed against those who had angered him, including a cook at a restaurant he owned in Dearborn, Michigan. In one taped call, Nagi claimed to have stabbed the cook and tossed him a Dumpster. In another recorded conversation, Nagi gave a crony directions by referencing a location as right down where I shot that guy.

The FBI also sent an informant to infiltrate the club. But Nagi, growing suspicious of spies, began a campaign to find the rats hidden among the Highwaymen. In court, one former Highwayman testified that he was warned that if he was a snitch hed wind up in a Dumpster. Another testified that the gang had zero tolerance for rats and that the punishment for such a betrayal could range from expulsion to death.

Multiple witnesses testified that, during the summer of 2006, there was a lot of talk at the Detroit Chapter Clubhouse about discovering and punishing the snitch or rat, a judge wrote in an opinion in Nagis case, adding that a picture of the FBI informant was hanging behind the bar at the Detroit Chapter Clubhouse with rat written across it.

The informant had a bounty on his head, FBI agents testified in court. Theyre going to kill him, one agent testified at a bond hearing for a Highwayman accused of being tasked with murdering the informant. Nagi was eventually convicted of conspiracy to murder the FBI informant, as well as on racketeering, drug, and firearm charges, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But Ball, who was convicted alongside Nagi, claims to have unearthed evidence that the former club leader also snitched when it served him. While in prison, Ball filed a Freedom of Information Act request into Nagis history. The file Ball received in return revealed a 1992 operation in which Nagi allegedly worked with federal agents to bust a cocaine sale, according to the Free Press.

Working with Troy, Michigan, police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Nagi allegedly arranged the delivery of 2 kilograms of cocaine to a parking lot outside a shopping center, where law enforcement agents secretly lay in wait. Once the drug deal took place, Nagi allegedly signaled police and DEA agents to move in.

Nagis lawyer, who did not return a request for comment Sunday from The Daily Beast, told the Free Press that Nagi had never been a law enforcement informant and that perhaps Ball had accidentally received a file on the wrong Aref Nagi from the Detroit area. But Balls FOIA also contained old mugshots of Nagi and listed his birthdate correctly.

Nagis alleged history as an undercover informant is more than hypocritical, Ball and his legal team contend. Balls lawyer, who is trying to secure a new trial for his client, says Nagis alleged secret history raises the question of whether Nagi snitched on his fellow Highwaymen, possibly feeding confidential information on them to law enforcement in exchange for leniency.

Paradoxically, finding and punishing snitches was something of a team-building exercise among the Highwaymen, a judge ruled in Nagis case, writing that the clubs leadership controlled members by directing attacks on persons perceived to have disrespected a fellow member in some manner, those perceived to have squealed, and those suspected of being snitches. Members enhanced and protected their reputation and standing as Highwaymen by using intimidation, threats, violent acts, and possession of weapons while carrying out acts of discipline, punishment, intimidation, and retaliation, the judge wrote in 2011.

Defendant Nagi was aware of and actively cultivated this fear of retaliation.

Now it appears that Nagis own secret history may be snitching on him.
President Donald Trump touted his first 100 days as a success and pledged to deliver on promises like health care during a wide-ranging interview Sunday on CBS.

Trump told Face the Nation host John Dickerson that the job is "something that I really love, and I think I've done a very good job at it."

Trump insisted that the latest revision of his health care bill would guarantee coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, discussed his feelings toward North Korea's recent missile test and reaffirmed his effort to work with China.

Heres our rundown of the presidents remarks, along with notes on their overall accuracy and additional points of context. (More of the segment will air May 1.)

Pre-existing conditions are in the bill

With Republicans in Congress still trying to pass a replacement for Obamacare, Dickerson asked Trump how the latest version protects people who voted for him.

Trump said the latest version ensures that people who are sick can still get coverage:

Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I just watched another network than yours, and they were saying, Pre-existing is not covered. Pre-existing conditions are in the bill. And I mandate it. I said, Has to be. 

Later, Trump said, When I watch some of the news reports, which are so unfair, and they say we don't cover pre-existing conditions -- we cover it beautifully.

This makes protection for people with pre-existing conditions sound ironclad. But thats not the case. People with pre-existing conditions could get coverage, but they could be charged higher rates.

The latest GOP proposal, an amendment from Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., permits states to seek waivers from the health care law. One of the waivers would give states the authority to allow insurers to set premiums based on health status.

That means insurers could look at peoples current and past health to make predictions about how much medical care they might use in the future.

In practice, that means states can allow insurers to charge more for people who are sicker but less for people who are healthier.

There is protection for people who stay insured no matter what. If someone stays insured, insurance companies cant charge the person more based on his or her health status. But low-income people arent always able to stay insured, and health experts told us theyre concerned the poor will end up paying more.

Overall, the proposal could lead to less expensive coverage for younger and healthier people, but more expensive coverage for older or sicker people. (For more details, read our story, PolitiFacts guide to the GOP amendment to health care bill.)

The phony Russia story

When asked about Russia, Trump called the Russian connection to his campaign a total phony story.

Dickerson: You said yesterday on Fox that Russia is a phony story. Which part of it is phony?

Trump: The concept of Russia with respect to us is a total phony story.

Dickerson: Meaning the Trump campaign?

Trump: Of course, it's a total phony story.

Thats minimizing the truth, though. There might not be a vast conspiracy in which Trump is letting Putin pull the strings in the White House. But there is legitimate evidence that Russia meddled in the election, enough to compel the FBI to investigate some of Trumps associates ties to Russia, as well as bipartisan calls for a congressional inquiry.

Trump also tried to redirect attention to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, arguing that his former opponent also had ties to Russia.

You have Podesta, who, by the way, I understand has a company with his brother in Russia, he said. Hillary's husband makes speeches in Russia. Hillary did a uranium deal with Russia. Nobody ever talks about that.

We have looked at similar claims from Trump about Hillary Clintons ties to Russia. Trump is giving a one-sided account here.

In regards to Podesta, Trump was probably referencing Podesta Group, a lobbying and public affairs firm founded in 1988 by brothers John Podesta and Tony Podesta. Public records from 2016 show the U.S.-based Podesta Group was paid $170,000 to represent Sberbank, a Russian bank.

Trumps remarks about Bill Clinton are in reference to Clintons speech for Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank. The bank paid Bill Clinton $500,000 in 2010 to deliver a speech, according to Hillary Clintons 2010 financial disclosure form.

Some critics said the bank was just trying to curry favor with the State Department. But Bill Clinton regularly delivers speeches for fees of $500,000 or higher, and Renaissance Capital regularly invites world leaders to speak at its events.

And finally, as secretary of state, Clinton was one of nine federal agency heads to sign off on Russias purchase of a controlling stake in Uranium One, an international mining company headquartered in Canada with operations in several U.S. states.

But even with its control of Uranium One, Russia cannot export the material from the United States. Russia was likely more interested in Uranium Ones assets in Kazakhstan, the worlds largest uranium producer.

The deal followed established federal rules, and weve found no evidence that Hillary Clinton played a special role in the process.

China: Currency manipulator, or not?

Trump explained why he reversed his promise on labeling China a currency manipulator: China isnt manipulating its currency now, and Trump wants Chinas help in dealing with North Korea.

This marked a major departure from Trumps rhetoric during the campaign regarding China, in which he called the nation out for "outrageous theft and illegal product dumping. He pledged to brand the country a currency manipulator once he was elected. With Trump now on the record as saying the Chinese are "not currency manipulators, we rated this Promise Broken.

Trump seemed to acknowledge the reversal, connecting it to Chinas help with North Korea.

I think that, frankly, North Korea is maybe more important than trade, Trump said. Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade.

Chinas help

Trump said he "will not be happy" if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, but didnt clarify whether the United States would take military action if it happens. He did suggest that Chinas president was on the same page about North Korea's recent missile tests.

And I will tell you, a man that I've gotten to like and respect  the president of China, President Xi  I believe has been putting pressure on him also, Trump said.

Earlier this month, Trump said with North Korea, no one has ever seen such a positive response from China on Americas behalf. Thats at least partially accurate. China has taken many steps over the decades to manage North Koreas nuclear ambitions, but theres no clear consensus on whether its recent actions are unprecedented.

Quick hits

Read more fact-checks at PolitiFact.com
A federal judge has blocked a Wisconsin law  sometimes called the cocaine mom law  that allows the state to detain pregnant women suspected of drug or alcohol abuse.

U.S. District Court Judge James Peterson ruled in Madison that the law, which extends protections for abused or neglected children to fetuses, is void for vagueness.

The amounts of drug use by pregnant women that should prompt state action and the risk to fetuses are not clear, the judge said.

Erratic enforcement, driven by the stigma attached to drug and alcohol use by expectant mothers, is all but ensured, Peterson wrote in a ruling Friday.

The case involves former Wisconsin resident Tammy Loertscher, who claimed that the law, enacted in 1998, is unconstitutional.

Loertscher was living in Medford in 2014 when she sought a pregnancy test and help for depression and a thyroid problem. At Mayo Clinic in Eau Claire, she told a doctor she had used methamphetamine, marijuana and alcohol but stopped taking them when she thought she was pregnant.

Tests showed Loertscher was 14 weeks pregnant and had traces of the drugs in her body. A Taylor County judge ordered her into inpatient drug treatment. When she refused, she was taken to the county jail for 18 days, including 36 hours in solitary confinement, until she agreed to urinalysis throughout her pregnancy.

Under the law, the state can treat fetuses as children in need of protection if the expectant mother habitually lacks self-control in the use of alcohol beverages, controlled substances or controlled substance analogs, exhibited to a severe degree, to the extent that there is a substantial risk that the physical health of the unborn child, and of the child when born, will be seriously affected or endangered.

Peterson ruled that habitual lack of self-control and substantial risk to the physical health of the unborn child are not amenable to reasonably precise interpretation.

He blocked enforcement of the law statewide. In a claim against Taylor County, the judge sided with the county and said Loertscher was not entitled to monetary damages.

The state Department of Justice could appeal the ruling.

At this time, we are still reviewing the courts decision and do not have a comment to offer, spokesman Johnny Koremenos said Monday.

The state Legislature passed the law in 1997 after the state Supreme Court said state law didnt give juvenile courts jurisdiction over adult pregnant women.

The state Division of Public Health, the City of Milwaukee Health Department and the state Division of Children and Family Services, now the Department of Children and Families, opposed the law.

The Wisconsin Legislative Council warned at the time that extending protections to fetuses in all stages of pregnancy likely would be unconstitutional.

Doctors who say the law discourages pregnant women struggling with addiction from seeking prenatal care and being open about drug use praised the ruling.

For the first time in 19 years, Wisconsin women who become pregnant and seek medical help can do so without fear that their confidentiality will be violated and their health and their babys health undermined by forced treatment and punishment based on medical misinformation and stigma, said Dr. Kathy Hartke, chair of the Wisconsin chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Dr. Aleksandra Zgierska, president of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, said babies health has more to do with socioeconomic factors such as poverty, nutrition and access to health care than what pregnant women do or dont do during pregnancy.

The best ways to protect babies and grow healthy children is to provide confidential, non-threatening health care that keeps mothers engaged in treatment, if they need it, and mothers and babies together, Zgierska said.

In a filing in December, the Department of Justice said the state has a substantial and compelling interest in protecting fetuses from harm.

Children are protected from abuse from the moment they are born, the state said. It only makes sense that they be protected from abuse before birth as well.

Between 2005 and 2014, 3,326 reports of abuse against fetuses were screened under the law. The state made claims of abuse of fetuses against 467 women.

In at least 152 cases, authorities removed children from their parents after birth, said Nancy Rosenbloom, director of legal advocacy for National Advocates for Pregnant Women. The group is representing Loertscher, along with the NYU School of Law Reproductive Justice Clinic and Jeff Bowen, of Perkins Coie, a Madison law firm.

A handful of states  including Minnesota, Oklahoma and South Dakota  have similar laws, Rosenbloom said.

Wisconsins law is unique in allowing for the provision of attorneys for the fetus but not the pregnant woman being detained, and for handling the cases in juvenile court where records are confidential, she said.

Loertschers son, now 2, is healthy and thriving, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women said.
Even President Trumps newfound and well-advertised friendship with Xi Jinping may not be enough to overcome the sharp differences between the United States and Chinas goals on North Korea.

While the American president has been full of praise for the Chinese leader ever since their Mar-a-Lago summit in early April, those differences surfaced publicly in a contentious United Nations Security Council session Friday. The back-and-forth was striking because it occurred during a meeting designed by the U.S. to show global unity on the most acute crisis of the day.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who presided over the proceedings, demanded more pressure on the Kim Jong Un regime. He called for more isolation, more sanctions, and, yes, all options, including military. Diplomatic and financial levers of power will be backed up by a willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action if necessary, he said.

For Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, preventing the military option is the highest priority. He noted that Security Council resolutions not only call for the dismantling of North Koreas nuclear arsenal, but also for the renewal of diplomatic talks, frozen for nearly a decade.

We must stay committed to the path of dialogue and negotiation, Wang said. The use of force does not solve differences and will only lead to bigger disasters.

To be sure, several diplomats said Tillerson and Wang, in a departure from their public speeches, showed much more unity of purpose at a private luncheon afterward at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, with foreign ministers and ambassadors in attendance.

Yet the contentious public exchanges between the United States, the United Kingdom, and France on one side, and Russia and China on the other, betrayed deeper differences, according to several regional observers, diplomats, and officials.

Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Susan Thornton described the apparent divide as a difference in emphasis. Concerned about a long border with North Korea, Beijing is focused on preventing a boil-over of tensions and stressing a peaceful resolution of the conflict, she said.

The Chinese have a mantra that they use, which is no war, no chaos, no nukesthe three nos, Thornton told The Daily Beast. And its not accidental that the no chaos and no war come as the first two and the no nukes at the end.

The U.S. sees the North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs as a top issue that could soon threaten the U.S. itself.

True: North Koreas mid-range ballistic missile test Friday was described by South Koreas government as a failure, but practice makes perfect. Pyongyangs missile programdesigned not only to threaten neighbors like Japan and South Korea with nuclear arms soon but also eventually to widen the threat to the continental United Statesis progressing at a rapid pace.

Which, for the U.S., puts time at a premium. The more we bide our time, the sooner we will run out of it, Tillerson told the council Friday. The strategic patience policy of the Obama administration is over, he added.

The kind of diplomatic talks that started during the Clinton presidency and have showed little results since then may not be the best way to end the crisis, and certainly would get there slowest, Thornton said.

We are looking to not negotiate our way to the negotiation table. We are not willing to talk just to talk, she said.

While the secretary of state noted that since 1995 the U.S. has provided more than $1.3 billion in aid to North Korea, he said those funds will start flowing again only after Pyongyang begins to dismantle its nuclear weapons and missile technology programs.

In his speech, TIllerson indicated that China, as Pyongyangs top patron, accounting [for] 90 percent of North Koreas trade, can do much more to pressure its ally. He even suggested, and not so subtly, that the U.S. can go after Chinese firms and banks that do business with the North, saying, We will not hesitate to sanction third country entities and individuals supporting the DPRKs illegal activities.

Wang, for his part, pushed back against the idea that China is in a unique position to do more to pressure North Korea. China is not a focal point of problems on the peninsula, and the key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side, he said.

Wang is partially right. Kim has assassinated his uncle, who was Chinas point-man in Pyongyang, and more recently was responsible for the killing of his half-brother, who had lived in Macau and whom some in Pyongyang believed China had groomed to replace him.

The Chinese are really between a rock and a hard place, said the American Enterprise Institute Asia watcher Michael Auslin. They will be happy to get rid of Kim Jong Un, but they fear a collapse of North Korea.

While Tillerson said Washington is not seeking regime change, such an outcome clearly is much less worrisome for the U.S. than it is for China. But does China fear a collapse more than an uncontrollable nuclear North Korea? That depends on which day and what the situation is, said the State Departments Thornton.

If China wanted, it could simply turn off the oil spigot that supplies all of the Norths energy, said one Western diplomat. Yet, as Auslin noted, hundreds of Chinese companies do business with North Korea at a time when the governments control over those companies is much looser than its been in the past.

Trump has been praising the Chinese premiers cooperation with the U.S. on North Korea ever since that meeting at Mar-a-Lago. After the missile test on Friday, he acted almost as a spokesman for Xi, tweeting, North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!

Yet while China clearly has leverage over North Korea, many factors may prevent it from pushing as hard as America wants and needs it to do. Considering Trumps capacity to reverse positions, his respect for Beijing may fade before too long.
A new report in TMZ alleges that the estate of the late music icon Prince is in the early stages of planning a reality show featuring his family members. Citing sources close to Princes heirs, the site claims that the TV series has a production company behind it and is in the works right now, and will focus on how their lives have changed since [Prince] died.

The site further put forth that Princes estate and family have fought to prevent his one-time collaborator George Ian Boxhill, the producer of the controversial Deliverance EP, from releasing new Prince music so they can debut it on the show. Prince, of course, was an intensely private person who never in a million years would have appeared on a reality television docuseries.

Fans were clamoring in anticipation of the Deliverance EP, a collection of unreleased songs by the late artist known as Prince. In grossly opportunistic fashion, the mini-album was scheduled to be released on April 21, the one-year anniversary of Princes death, and had managed to reach No. 1 on iTunes pre-order chart. Our own Stereo Williams listened to an early stream of the EP, calling some of the tunes on par with some of his best post-Musicology tracks, while questioning the motives and legal sparring behind the release.

Princes estate had, prior to its release, filed a federal lawsuit against Deliverance co-producer Boxill accusing him of violating the terms of his agreement with the late music legend.

The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson is aware that Mr. George Ian Boxill, in conjunction with Rogue Music Alliance, has issued a press release announcing an intent to distribute previously unreleased Prince master recordings and musical compositions, the estates statement read.

Like the other engineers that had the opportunity to work with Prince, Mr. Boxill signed an agreement, under which he agreed (1) all recordings that he worked on with Prince would remain Princes sole and exclusive property; (2) he would not use any recordings or property in any way whatsoever; and (3) he would return any such recordings or property to Prince immediately upon request. Mr. Boxill did not comply with his agreement, it continued. Instead, Mr. Boxill maintained copies of certain tracks, waited until after Princes tragic death, and is now attempting to release tracks without the authorization of the Estate and in violation of the agreement and applicable law.

On April 19, just two days before the scheduled release date of the Deliverance EP, Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright of the U.S. District court in Minnesota issued a temporary restraining order blocking the release of the EP, and forcing Boxhill to deliver all of the recordings acquired through his work with Paisley Park Enterprises back to Princes estate, reported The New York Times.

The Federal Court located in Minnesota has temporarily enjoined the release of the remaining unreleased tracks on the Deliverance EP. The court order has not enjoined the released single Deliverance, Boxhill and his label Rogue Music Alliance said in a statement. Therefore the Deliverance single will continue to be sold. The restraining order expires on May 3, but can be extended.
Heartbreak turned a San Diego mechanic into a homicidal maniac who told his ex-girlfriend that he would go down in a blaze of glory after she dumped him, a source told The Daily Beast.

Pete Selis entered the pool area of an upscale apartment complex where he lived on Sunday, and shot seven people, killing one before he was shot dead by police. The victims were all black or Hispanic and Selis was white, leading some to speculate it was a hate crime. Police said Monday race had nothing to do with the rampage, but rather he was despondent after his girlfriend broke up with him.

There is zero information to indicate that race played a factor in this crime, Chief Shelley Zimmerman said Monday.

Hours earlier, the 49-year-old father of three had taken his two daughters out to breakfast, a source close to the family said in an exclusive interview.

He was acting totally normal, the source said. Pete was in a good mood and in the morning was totally fine.

Some time later, Selis called his ex-girlfriend whom the source knows and got in an argument.

She told him, Youre an alcoholic and I cant deal with this anymore, the source said.

Selis responded: Okay, Im going to go down in a blaze of glory.

Around 6 p.m. on Sunday, he entered the pool area of the University City apartment complex, with a pistol in one hand and a beer in the other. Nearby there was a birthday party. Selis sat in a poolside chair and was offered food and drink. Shortly after, he opened fire.

Six or seven minutes later its just pow, pow, pow, pow  out of nowhere...There was no indication that he was there to do evil, Drew Phillips told The San Diego Union Tribune .

You can either leave or you can stay here and die, a college student nearby said she heard Selis say.

Multiple attempts to reach Selis ex-girlfriend, who The Daily Beast is not naming, were unsuccessful.

The couple posed for photos that were posted on the womans social media account during trips they took together, showcasing the dogs that the source says the woman raises.

Selis appeared to be an ordinary father.

All of the softball moms and dads -- he was one of them He would take my daughter to softball practice with his daughter, the source said. Theyre the same age, go to the same school. Its crazy. Im having a hard time working today to figure this out.

Regarding the reports of racial bias, the source said Selis wasnt a bigot.

I never knew Pete to be a racist, the source, who has known Selis for over 10 years. I never heard him speak a negative word toward minorities in my life. Never.

Selis had been a supervisor at a car dealership, earning a six-figure salary but he quit the job and said It was too stressful, the source said. Selis battles with alcohol and gambling may have contributed to his downward slide.

He went to several rehabs and late 2015 I know he started to drop back and was drinking and taking [painkillers] again, the source said.

Court records show that Selis had filed for bankruptcy twice; once back in 2009 for almost $400,000 in liabilities and again in 2015 for almost $110,000. He had racked up excessive debt in both cases and was attempting to consolidate it.

The financial issues affected Selis ability to help his ex-wife with child support, which the source said was supposed to be $350 per month but came in infrequent increments of $100.

Selis most recently worked as a mechanic at Mossy Ford, where he met and started dating his co-worker. The position paid half what he used to earn, the source said.

A woman who answered the phone at Mossy Ford quickly hung up when asked about Selis.

Selis married again to a nice lady who worked at a juice bar and who had also left him after a year.

According to the source, he remained married so that the woman was able to remain on the late-mechanics health insurance policy.

And while the source described Selis as constantly strapped for cash and a homebody who wouldnt go out to drink, but rather drink by himself at his apartment and or exercise alone.

He worked out a lot, the source said. He was always in the gym.

And when he wasnt on the clock at the dealership, Selis often fixed cars for friends and family, charging them only for parts.

He could fix anything, not just Fords, the source added. He would say, Its making this noise and you need to get this done and I can do it.

Selis also was chivalrous.

Pete was the type of guy and if I was running late he would come and help out my dad get out of the car, the source said, adding that elderly his mother was very active as a volunteer for a local Catholic church. He would come over and help him with his walker.

The source also confirmed that Selis possessed a firearm for years.

I know he had a handgun because when he was married to [his ex-wife] he threatened to kill himself one time with one, the source said.

In fact, Selis apparently attempted to commit suicide more than once by allegedly cutting his wrists and another time hiding under the bed and threatening to kill himself.

If Selis had been discovered dead from suicide, the source could understand. But never could he have foreseen the mechanic and father slay innocent people in such a cold-blooded way.

To see he went after innocent people that surprised me, the source said. Thats not his nature. The Pete I knew wouldnt do that.
Since we have an administration with a proclivity to drop bombs, very big bombs, this seems like a good time to talk about bombs, and how they are dropped.

The United States Air Force has a lot of bombs, of many kinds. On the face of it, they are a modern force, conveying fearsome power. Look behind that impression, however, and there is an astonishing story of aging airplanes and a very expensive effort to keep them flying for as long as 100 yearsin fact, the first ever warplanes to be in service for a whole century.

This only-in-America story really begins in a suite at the Van Cleve Hotel in Dayton, Ohio, on a weekend in October 1948. The Boeing company faced a crisis. For two years they had been trying unsuccessfully to meet a demand from the U.S. Air Force for a new strategic bomber.

It was a dangerous time in the Cold War.

The Soviet Union was a year away from detonating its first atomic bomb. In order to checkmate the Soviet threat America needed a deterrent to demonstrate that it could deliver its own nuclear bombs anywhere and at any time from a fleet of bombers.

Curiously, the Air Force was insisting that the new bomber should not be a jet but propeller-poweredeven though the new Strategic Air Command was already flying a revolutionary Boeing jet, the B-47. To carry a new generation of nuclear weapons they wanted an airplane twice the size of the B-47, and no jet of such a size had yet been attempted. Then, suddenly, in meetings at an air base near Dayton, the Air Force told Boeing that the new bomber should be a jet.

Holed up in the Dayton hotel suite were two engineers who had transformed Boeing from a pre-war minor player to a wartime and post-war behemoth in military aviation: Ed Wells, the chief designer, and George Schairer, a visionary who in 1945 had discovered some of Nazi Germanys most advanced aerodynamic research and put it to use in the B-47, which was twice as fast as any other bomber in the world.

Wells and Schairer called four other Boeing engineers to the suite. Schairer took one of these out to a hobby store to buy balsa wood, glue, and model paint. Back in the hotel, as Wells drew the outlines of a new bomber, he called out its dimensions and Schairer carved and assembled it from the balsa as a 120th scale modelthe scale was chosen because Wells was using a 12-inch ruler and 1 inch of the model represented 10 feet of the actual airplane.

The model was boxed up and sent to the Pentagon together with a dossier drawn up by Wells and Schairer that predicted the bombers capabilities. In April 1952, that airplane made its first flight from a Boeing plant in Seattle. It was called the B-52 and its performance came within a whisker of the numbers calculated in the Van Cleve Hotelin some respects better.

Astoundingly, the B-52 is still the backbone of the Air Forces strategic bombing fleet. Even though there are far more advanced bombers, the B-1 and a small unit of B-2 stealth bombers, it is the B-52 that flies most frequently and acts as a kind of airborne artillery barrage, capable of carpet-bombing on a terrifying scale (though, apparently, not of dropping the Mother of All Bombs deployed this month in Afghanistan).

The Air Force plans to keep its B-52 fleet flying for another 30 years. And that is not all. To keep those bombers operational they also need to maintain another venerable jet, the KC-135 tanker that allows the bombers to stay aloft on long missions by refueling them in flight.

General Carlton Everhart, commander of Air Mobility Command that operates the KC-135 fleet, told an air warfare conference in March that the tankers could be 100 years old before they are retired. No other military airplane anywhere in the world is going to be anything like that old and still flying.

Guess who designed the K-135? The B-52 guys.

Six days after the B-52s first flight, Wells and Schairer presented Boeings board with a breathtaking idea: a passenger jet that would fly twice as fast as any existing propeller-driven airliner. But first they would get the government to pay for the development of the jet by producing it as a new generation of tanker to service the B-52s.

At its own expense, Boeing produced a single prototype (it cost $16 million but by writing off the cost against taxes the actual cost was only $5 million). The Air Force bought the proposal and the KC-135 emerged from the prototype, which then later morphed into the legendary 707 airliner.

It was a very smart two-for-one deal based on a relatively small investment, maybe the smartest deal the company ever made. As a result, the 707 established Boeings supremacy in passenger jets and the KC-135 became a perennial milk cow. The last KC-135 was delivered to the Air Force in 1965.

The Air Force only began seriously looking for a replacement in 2001. What followed for more than a decade demonstrated everything that is wrong about the military procurement process: conflicting pressures from politicians with vested local interests in production plants; international free traders versus protectionists; ever-shifting Air Force requirements; and over-optimistic estimates of the cost.

In 2008 the Air Force awarded the contract to the European Airbus consortium for a military version of its A-330 passenger jet. According to an Air Force source, Airbus beat a rival bid from Boeing by a mile. Boeing cried foul. The Government Accounting Office intervened and found corruption in the Pentagon, concluding that procurement officers had misled Boeing on the criteria that their airplane had to meet.

When the contest was resumed in 2011 Boeing won, with a version of its venerable 767 jetliner. At that point the Air Force ordered 179 new tankers at a total price of $35 billion. That has now risen to $52 billion, and Boeing is so behind in delivering the first batch of 18 airplanes that it has incurred $1.75 billion in overrun costs. (The Airbus tanker has been operational for several years and has been adopted by the Air Forces of 10 nations, including the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, France, and Spain.)

In fact, Boeings poor performance on this contract is widely believed to have cost them the contract for the Air Forces next major investment, the B-21 long-range strike bomber. Northrup Grumman beat out Boeing on a deal that could eventually be worth $80 billion.

The Cold War ideas of strategic bombing that gave birth to the B-52 are obsolete (Strategic Air Command has become Global Strike Command). Technically the B-52 remains part of the nuclear triad (along with the B-2), able to carry and drop nuclear weapons, but it is impossible to see how or where they could still be used in that role. The B-52 can be used only against adversaries that dont have sophisticated air defense systems, like ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, and nuking them is unthinkable. (That is, to any sane person.)

For sure, the B-52s weapons bay has been upgraded so that it can deploy laser-guided conventional smart bombs, but the bombers most effective use is probably psychological: that it can still serve as it did during the Vietnam War as that bluntest of blunt instrumentsthe carpet bomberor, in the vernacular of Trump, to bomb the crap out of adversaries. The opportunity for that is very limited if you have to worry about collateral damage, i.e., killing lots of innocent bystanders.

However, age does bring one benefit. Despite other upgrades the B-52s underlying structure remains as it was designed in the 1950s. As a result it is far simpler to maintain than the B-1 and B-2. Seventy-two percent of the 76-strong force is mission ready at all times. In contrast the B-2 stealth bomber is so complex to maintain and so tricky to operate that its mission readiness is the lowest in the Air Force, only 46 percent of the 20-strong force. (It is the only bomber equipped to deliver the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, otherwise known as the bunker buster that would be required to strike underground nuclear facilities, such as in North Korea or Iran.)

Now, to give the B-52s yet another lease on life the Air Force is on the verge of spending up to $4 billion on re-equipping them with new engines. The existing engines are dirty burners with appalling emissions impact, expensive to service, and so old that at least one has actually fallen off the airplane.

But the idea that these bombers will still have any purpose by 2050 seems bizarre. The only other powers committed to future bomber fleets are Russia and China. Northrop Grummans B-21 is intended to surpass anything those nations can produce, but warfare technology moves ahead far more nimbly than traditional Pentagon procurement programs. Its not even certain that the B-21 will need a crew on board. It could be operated remotely from Kansas like a drone. And its more than likely that a whole array of unmanned aircraft, small and relatively cheap to produce, will end the age of the big bomber for good.
President Donald Trumps reelection campaign quietly took down an ad on Monday that may have skirted federal laws that govern politicking by active-duty U.S. servicemembers.

The 30-second video, which promoted the Trump administrations accomplishments during its first 100 days, featured b-roll of the president shaking hands with his National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster , just after he accepted the job at Mar-a-Lago.

McMaster was wearing his Army uniform in the clip, and that may have violated the spirit if not the letter of Defense Department rules barring active-duty members of the military from participating in political advocacy in uniform.

By Monday afternoon, the Trump campaign had removed the ad and replaced it with a new version that did not include the McMaster clip. A campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the video.

Senior administration officials were not aware of the ad when contacted Monday morning, and asked for time to view it and check with their legal advisors. They declined to comment after the ad was taken down.

A senior defense official said the photo appeared to be from an official meeting, and therefore, is not contrary to law and it does not violate any rules in policy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the Pentagons legal policy on appearing in uniform at political events.

Still, the initial version of the ad seems to violate [the] intent of military policy against members engaging in partisan political activity, according to former Federal Election Commission general counsel Larry Noble.

Noble also runs the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), a watchdog group. Brendan Fischer, CLCs director of federal programs, added that Pentagon rules appear to prohibit McMaster from appearing in Trumps campaign ad [in uniform], assuming he is still on active duty.

Pentagon rules issued in 2005 prohibit the wearing of a military uniform during or in connection with furthering political activities...when an inference of official sponsorship for the activity...may be drawn.

Further guidance in 2008 instructed active-duty servicemembers to refrain from participating in any political activity while in military uniform.

Lt. Gen. McMaster is the third active-duty National Security Advisor in U.S. history. The last two were both appointed by President Ronald ReaganVice Admiral John Pointdexter and Lt. Gen. Colin Powell. Alexander Haig and Brent Scowcroft both served as the deputy national security advisor while still in uniform in the 1970s. Under President George W. Bush, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute served as deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring and remaining in the job as a civilian.

Though the Trump campaigns video did not explicitly urge a vote for the presidents reelection, Trump is already a declared 2020 candidate. He officially filed his candidacy hours after his inauguration in January. His Republican and Democratic predecessors did not do so until more than two years into their first terms.

That early declaration of candidacy has imposed FEC reporting requirements that might not be required of the campaign absent Trumps early official entry into the 2020 campaign.

This story was updated to add comment from a senior defense official and note non-comment from the administration.
BERLINLast Thursday morning, police officers caught up with a 28-year-old German lieutenant now known as Franco A. at a military installation near Hammelburg, a tiny city in Bavaria, where he was in the middle of a commando exercise. They pulled him out of a hole in the ground. The training course for lone fighters brags about the ability of its obstacle course to bring participants to their physical and psychological limitsand even before questioning, the lieutenant was, according to the officers, physically exhausted.

In fact, there was more going on than that. One can hardly wonder that Franco A. was worn out. He had been leading an extraordinary doubleor one might say triplelife. Part of his time was spent as a model soldier, part as a right-wing extremist, and part as a bogus Syrian refugee under the alias of David Benjamin, who applied for asylum in Germany with nothing but a beginners course in Arabic and a stubble beard.

Police suspect he may have been plotting a false flag terror attack that would have been blamed on his alter ego.

At the same time investigators picked up Franco A., they raided the apartment of his friend, a 24-year-old industrial engineering student called Mathias F. The two former rowing buddies had been exchanging texts about targeting asylum seekers and Muslims. In Mathias apartment, officers found hand grenades and dynamite.

The case has been a sensation in Germany, not only because of the twists and turns revealed so far about the alleged conspiracy, but because of the questions it raises about how deep and how extensive right-wing extremism runs in the modern German military.

Franco A. had managed to cultivate a reputation as an uber-punctual military officer throughout the past year, during which he was stationed in France. Yet he found time to drive back to Bavaria regularly in order to pick up refugee benefit payments (400 euros per month) and attend the various bureaucratic appointments required of David Benjamin, he also managed to spend enough time at an asylum home in the southern state to earn the fake refugee a reputation with authorities for being inconspicuous and available.

In December 2015, Franco A. had convinced the overworked employees at an initial registration facility for refugees in his home state Hesse that he was a 27-year-old Catholic fruit dealer whose father had been murdered by the so-called Islamic State. This was at a time when German Chancellor Angela Merkels open door policy saw as many as 10,000 people a day coming into the country, and the usual strict procedures were simply overwhelmed.

Bavarias interior minister Joachim Herrmann wasted no time slamming the Franco A. case as macabre evidence that since 2015/16, at times, asylum seekers were recognized without serious examination of their identity.

In fact, Franco A. didnt just succeed in registering as an asylum seekerhis application was actually successful. David Benjamin explained his lack of Arabic language skills by claiming hed grown up in a French-speaking colony in Damascus. And when the Federal office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) interviewed him in November 2016, it seems they bought the entire story, which was told through a French interpreter.

And French isnt even Francos native language (his mother is German and father Italian). Apparently, it was one of his best subjects in school, though. The mother of an old school friend told Der Spiegel that he had been an eager student, who had dreams of becoming a journalist.

Franco A.s double identity was not exposed by the bureaucracy, in the end, but by another very strange twist in his case.

Three months before his arrest on the obstacle course, the lieutenant had gone to Vienna to attend a gala officers ball in the former imperial palace. At some point, according to Die Welt, he decided to hide a loaded pistol in a bathroom at Vienna International Airport. The cleaning crew discovered it, and when Franco A. returned for it, the police picked him up. He claimed he had just found it.

He was released, but the Austrian police had run his fingerprints, discovered they matched those of David Benjamin, and notified their German counterparts, who began to trail him.

While the case of a right-wing extremist army officer posing as a Syrian refugee, possibly in order to carry out a terror attack, certainly would be unprecedented, the presence of such an extremist in the Bundeswehr is not.

Any military is interesting to extremists with a right-wing mentality, says historian Michael Wolfssohn, a longtime professor at the Bundeswehr University in Munich. And extremists of every stripe consider a stint with the military useful for weapons training and the potential to steal armaments as well.

In one recent case, a soldier who was tasked with setting up an asylum home in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was caught sending WhatsApp texts to his colleagues, asking rhetorically, Do you have anything against refugees? and then replying to himself: Yes. Pistols, machine guns and hand grenades.

That particular soldier is one of the few people who have been fired from the army for right-wing extremist activity, but the armys secret service is reported to be investigating 280 cases, 97 of which are from this year.

According to Der Spiegel, Franco A. had not exactly been discreet about his far-right inclinations. In 2014, his masters thesis at the French military university Saint-Cyr shocked his professors with its anti-democratic themes. But there was no formal investigation. Franco got a second chance to do the essay and earned his degree.

This summer, the German government is introducing a new law that allows the Bundeswehr to conduct an extremist background check on applicants before taking them into the service. But Wolfssohn is pessimistic about the kind of impact that will have: People are already being checked now before being allowed into the military, but sometimes not so thoroughlythe military has difficulties recruiting people so they cant afford to be too picky.

Perhaps, but the Franco A. case shows just how careful Germany, and the rest of Europe, needs to be, whether recruiting soldiers or screening refugees.
As the Democratic Party comes to grips with the results of the 2016 election, smaller races have started to take on a much larger significance than they normally would.

The special election in Kansass 4th Congressional District was the first such race. The Democrat, Jim Thompson, lost by 7 percentage points to Republican Ron Estes. The next one, Georgias 6th District special election, is heading to a runoff between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel. And now the mayoral race in Omaha, Nebraska, is coming up in early May.

Two weeks ago, the Democratic National Committee held a unity event with Heath Mello, an Omaha mayoral candidate. NARAL hit the DNC hard for its support of Mello, calling him anti-choice, and Bernie Sanders, a guest at the unity event, caught a lot of criticism for standing with Mello.

The evidence for NARALs charge is that Mello once supported a law that instructed doctors to inform women that they may view an ultrasound of their baby before terminating a pregnancy. Though Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, refers to Mello as pro-life, he has been adamant he would never restrict any access to abortion and he enjoys a 100 percent rating from Nebraska Planned Parenthood.

The issue isnt abortion, or it isnt just abortion: Its everything that a party stands for and what its willing to sacrifice as it increases its voter share. It isnt just a question for the Democrats.

The question both parties are asking themselves, or should be, is Who do we want to be? For Republicans, this all came into stark focus when Donald Trump tore through their primaries. The cheat-sheet of Republicanismpro-life, for smaller government, pro-free tradewas systematically destroyed by their eventual nominee. He rarely spoke of abortion at all, and when he did he sounded like a Martian who had landed on Earth only to learn about the pro-life position from the caricatures leftists painted of it. When he said he would be open to arresting women who had had an abortion, it was clear this was not a candidate who had a deep regard for or understanding of the pro-life movement.

It didnt stop at abortion, of course. As Trump laid waste to longtime conservative positions, Republicans had to keep reminding themselves that he had assured them of a good Supreme Court pick if elected. He delivered on that promise. He also, in many ways, has governed as a traditional Republican president. Hes learned the language and sometimes uses it correctly. The weekend he shunned the White House Correspondents Dinner, he didnt just have a rally, he spoke at the National Rifle Associations convention and promised them that the eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end. This was a far cry from the candidate who agreed with Hillary Clinton on using the no-fly list to curtail who was allowed to own guns.

So what now? Trade is one area where Trump had not budged. If the partys president is openly against free trade, does the party move in that direction with him? When Trump talks of ending Obamacare, it sometimes seems he wants to replace it with something to its left. He has spoken positively of the medical systems of Canada and Scotland, not exactly conservative stalwarts. We will take care of everybody is not what a small-government conservative says. Yet his message is the one that won. Theres no question he grew the Republican tent and appealed to people who arent natural Republican voters.

Dick Morris used to say that if you dont want your candidate to openly talk about being pro-choice, have them talk a lot about the environment. People will make the connection themselves. The idea is that where you stand on one issue, especially one like abortion, can represent where you stand on a number of other issues. On the conservative side, being pro-life would often mean you were for smaller government or were a defender of the Second Amendment. Where you stood on life on the right or choice on the left represented where you would stand on everything else.

It didnt always fit, exactly, especially when Republicans ran in a blue area or Democrats ran in red ones. In 2004, in Georgia, I got to watch two candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrat Rick Crawford and Republican Phil Gingrey, debate. Crawford got up to speak and told the room how he was born in Georgia and how he was just like them. Im pro-life, he said. Im against gay marriage, I want to bring back prayer in schools, and I dont want to take away your guns.

Dumbfounded, I double-checked the program to see that I was indeed listening to a Democrat. But what we are doing on outsourcing just isnt right, he continued. He was a protectionist. Thats what made him a Democrat in Georgia. That was enough to make him one of the liberal activist blog Daily Koss main targeted races that year, the same Daily Kos that rescinded its endorsement of Heath Mello for not being perfect on choice. Crawford lost that year but then won a seat in 2007. Did the Democrats win with a candidate like Crawford? Not exactly. In 2012, Crawford officially became a Republican.

What do we stand for? is not a bad question for the party completely out of power, and the party that controls all branches of power, to be asking itself.

For Democrats, they have to answer whether they can throw support, and more importantly resources, behind candidates who are distant from them ideologically on tenets central to party identity. Can they support pro-gun candidates? What about candidates who support charter schools? Can a Democrat be anti-union? What about anti-immigration? How much should a party bend to grow its tent?

For the Republicans, the idea that they should look ahead to what the party will be after the age of Trump is one they must entertain sooner rather than later. So many Republicans are still in the we won! phase after the election. The question they should be asking is who is we?
Now that we have a new secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, his immediate efforts will include addressing emergent crises such as the one affecting dairy farmers in Wisconsin and beyond.

But quickly he must turn his attention to protecting and growing programs that benefit the public good.

Specifically, he must fight for research and extension programs that focus on how we can transform our rural landscapes with farming systems that rejuvenate soils, diversify habitat and help stabilize climate and reduce flooding -- all while increasing farmer profitability. These farming systems will re-integrate crops and livestock, "perennialize" the land by eliminating bare soil, and support crop pollinators and natural enemies of pests.

But they will only emerge if Farm Bill policies and programs lead the way. Secretary Perdue must fight for research and extension that explore systems holistically and that are responsive to the needs of farmers, workers, distributors and eaters. This version of the Wisconsin Idea is called agroecology, and we agroecologists stand ready to help President Donald Trump and Perdue build a more sustainable agriculture.

-- Randy Jackson, Madison
Now Spring is here and Summer is just around the corner, this means sunny days, holidays, exploring new countries and different cuisines and sitting with a cocktail watching the world go in some exotic location or cool metropolitan city. This also means it's time to refresh my wardrobe and go shopping!



My travels this year involves a city break in Lisbon very soon, then a trip to Milan, Lake Maggiore and Lake Como to soak up the Italian culture. In August we are off to revisit



So with all this travelling in mind, my wardrobe could do with a serious revamp. My go to item of clothing for most of my travels is a dress. I love wearing pretty feminine dresses especially in the Summer and team them with Fit Flops, wedges or boots for a funky look. When it gets cooler, I layer my dresses with little cami tops underneath, cardigans, tights or leggings. So with this in mind, here is my Summer dress wish list for 2017. My travels this year involves a city break in Lisbon very soon, then a trip to Milan, Lake Maggiore and Lake Como to soak up the Italian culture. In August we are off to revisit Iceland on a movie location tour, taking my son who is studying special effects at university. October brings a trip to New York and Boston to celebrate a big birthday for my husband. I am also very excited to be invited on a press trip to Hamburg where I will be writing about this interesting and vibrant city.So with all this travelling in mind, my wardrobe could do with a serious revamp. My go to item of clothing for most of my travels is a dress. I love wearing pretty feminine dresses especially in the Summer and team them with Fit Flops, wedges or boots for a funky look. When it gets cooler, I layer my dresses with little cami tops underneath, cardigans, tights or leggings. So with this in mind, here is my Summer dress wish list for 2017.





The go anywhere dress





Colour block dress by Esprit 69





This colour block dress by Esprit is made of linen and will keep you cool in the Summer heat. Easy to dress up or down it's lightweight, and I love the burnt orange colour with the flared skirt. Definitely, the dress for a smart lunch out, this 50's style dress has an air of film stars of yesteryear. I'd team it with a navy clutch, cute pumps and a classic navy cardigan. A great dress for Milan or the Italian lakes.





The sightseeing dress





Red floral print tea dress by Joy 45
Johnnie Walker bottles back Paisley bid

Diageo has supported Paisley's bid to be UK City of Culture 2021, by raising a glass at the world's biggest Scotch bottling plant and with the release of specially produced bottles of Johnnie Walker.

Some of the team behind the Paisley 2021 bid visited the Renfrewshire base of Diageo, the latest major business to back the towns ambitions.

Aside from the limited-edition bottles, Diageo is one of a number of local businesses that have agreed to donate 20,000 to meet the costs of hosting the title.

The companys packaging plant at Shieldhall bottles more than 25 million cases of Scotch whisky annually  including Johnnie Walker, Buchanans, J&B and Bells.

Paisley 2021 bid director Jean Cameron met some of the staff at the plant.

The Paisley 2021 Johnnie Walker bottles are not currently available to the public, but a small limited edition will be produced at a later date.

Paisley will lodge its bid with the UK Governments Department for Culture, Media and Sport later this week. The town is bidding for the title as part of wider plans to use its unique cultural and heritage story to transform its future.

Jean Cameron said: Paisleys bid to be UK City of Culture 2021 has had incredible backing to date from across the local community  so far, more than 30,000 people have taken part in the conversation around it.

Along the way we have had wonderful backing from local businesses  with almost 200 to date publicly supporting the bid.

That includes major local employers of international importance assigning uop as bid sponsors  including Glasgow Airport, WH Malcolm, intu Braehead, Gordon Leslie Group and Coats PLC  and we are thrilled to add Diageo to that list.

I loved seeing two iconic global Scottish brands  the Paisley Pattern and Johnnie Walker  combined in one beautiful bottle.

Gavin Brogan, operations director at Diageo Shieldhall says: Paisley is famous for its rich history of craftsmanship.

Today we are part of that living heritage, making the most traditional of Scottish products, Scotch whisky here in Renfrewshire. Were delighted to support Paisleys bid to be UK City of Culture in 2021 and we wish the team every success.

For more on Paisleys Uk City of Culture 2021 bid, see www.paisley2021.co.uk

1 May 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor
U.S. beef exports continue the 2016 trend with additional improvement so far in 2017. February total beef exports were up 19.3 percent and combine with the January total for a year to date increase of 20.1 percent year over year for the first two months. This extends the annual 12.6 percent year over year increase in 2016.

Japan remains the top destination for U.S. beef exports, up 44.4 percent year over year for January and February. Beef exports to Japan represented 29.9 percent of beef exports so far this year. Japan accounted for 25.7 percent of total beef exports in 2016. South Korea is the second largest beef export market for the U.S., up 26.5 percent in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2016. South Korea has had a rising share of U.S. beef exports in the past four years and represented 17.8 of total beef exports in 2016.

Mexico is third largest beef export market, up 25.8 percent year over year for the year to date. Beef exports to Mexico generally have decreased in recent years but did show a year over year increase of 8.6 percent in 2016. Mexico's share of U.S. beef exports has dropped sharply in the past few years to a 2016 level of 15.4 percent of total beef exports.

Canada is the number four beef export market and is up 17.0 percent so far this year compared to the first two months of 2016. Canada's share of beef exports also has declined some in the past five years with a 2016 share of 12.1 percent of total exports.

Hong Kong has had a larger share of U.S. beef exports in the past four years but dropped from the previous year to 11.5 percent of total exports in 2016. Beef exports to Hong Kong so far in 2017 are down 23.6 percent year over year.

The top five beef export markets (Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Canada and Hong Kong) represented 83.7 percent of total beef exports in the first two months of 2017, similar to the 82.6 percent share in 2016. 2017 beef exports are up year over year to all of these markets except Hong Kong.

Beef imports are down 17.4 percent year over year in the first two months of 2017. This follows a 10.5 percent year over year decrease in 2016. Australia, historically the largest source of U.S. beef imports, is down 45.5 percent so far this year following a 39.0 percent year over year decrease in 2016. In fact, Australia is currently the fourth largest beef import source so far in 2017. Australia is in roughly the same relative position as the U.S. beef industry was in 2014/2015, with drought-reduced animal inventories restricting production and herd rebuilding further restricting beef production at the current time.

New Zealand is the largest beef import source so far in 2017 but is down 21.1 percent year over year, following a 7.3 percent year over year decrease in 2016. Mexico is the second largest beef import source thus far in 2017 and is up 37.2 percent year over year in the first two months of the year. Imports of Mexican beef have grown sharply in recent years, jumping 25.9 percent in 2016 and accounting for 16.4 percent of total beef imports.

Canada is the third largest beef imports source, with year to date imports down 12.7 percent. After an annual year over year increase of 14.3 percent, Canada represented 23.8 percent of total beef imports in 2016. The top four import markets represented 85.9 percent of 2016 beef imports. Significantly smaller import shares include Brazil, which accounted for 5.1 percent of total imports along with 4.1 percent from Uruguay in 2016. Beef imports are largely driven by the demand for lean trimmings used in the ground beef market.

On average, an estimated 72 percent of U.S. beef imports are lean trimmings.
Hybrid bermudagrass pastures and cropland, plowed to property lines, have destroyed wildlife habitat. If a landowner wants wildlife to return, then its habitat must be restored.

Areas in which most Land and Livestock Post readers live were once in tallgrass prairie. Eighty percent of a prairie landscape is grasses, usually dominated by switchgrass, indiangrass, little bluestem and big bluestem. The other 20 percent of the vegetation consists of numerous species of forbs or flowers. There are also stands of trees and shrubs, particularly along creeks and other waterways.

Prairie landscapes vary in soil type, depth, moisture and slope which creates many different sites for specific plant communities. Sedges and prairie cordgrass thrive in the wet seeps. In bottomland areas, different grasses and flowering forbs (broad-leaf herbaceous plants) grow because they require the deep soils. In contrast, drought hardy hairy grama is found on dry, shallow soils of the hilltops.

Many landowners are dedicating themselves to restoring tallgrass prairies with guidance and help from various organizations including the Natural Resources Conservative Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension, Texas Tech University, University of North Texas, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, Texas Forest Service, Native Prairies Association of Texas, and others.

The Kirchoff family

In 2008 Don, Scott, Susan and Brenda Kirchoff inherited their parents 200-acre farm near Floresville. Approximately 135 acres had been farmed and the remaining acreage was kept in pasture. As a memorial to their parents conservation ethic, the siblings decided to restore the entire property to pre-settlement native prairie.

Our first attempt at seeding native plants was a complete failure and a waste of considerable time and money, said Don Kirchoff. We planted like we did when field crops were grown on the farm. We plowed, disked, and drilled native plant seed into a fluffy seedbed. Our results were a bumper crop of annual weeds from a seed bank accumulated in the soil during decades of farming. Then fortunately, we began following the advice of Chris Best, state botanist with [the United States Fish and Wildlife Service] and Jason Katcsmorak, [of the Natural Resources Conservation Service].

We rented the land to a local farmer who planted Roundup Ready corn and milo every year for three years. This depleted the seed bank of annual weeds. We then planted a variety of prairie plants into post-harvest corn and milo stubble with a no-till drill, which didnt disturb the soil.

The seed mixture was recommended by [Natural Resources Conservation Service] and partly funded through { the services Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program]. It included switchgrass, indiangrass, little bluestem, four flower trichloris, windmill grass, bristle grasses, grama grasses and several forbs.

These native plants were established over a three-year period beginning in 2012. We now have seven foot tall switchgrass and, this year, we harvested 94 round bales of seed-bearing native vegetation from approximately 30 acres. This was our first hay crop.

We want to sell the hay to people who are interested in establishing native prairie. When the bales are rolled out to feed livestock, the seed should make soil contact and produce native plants.

Top-growth is removed by grazing or haying every year after the growing season to allow new vegetation to grow the following spring, Kirchoff said. We lease grazing rights to our neighbor for pasture use during fall and winter. He uses a high intensity-short duration grazing system that forces animals to remove a percentage of top-growth of all plants, not just the most palatable. Mesquite and huisache seedlings invade, but we are able to control them with individual plant treatments of herbicides.

Prior to our prairie restoration, very little wildlife was seen on the farm, Kirchoff said. Today we are becoming over populated with white-tail deer and we see large populations of Bobwhite quail. We also observe wild turkey, bobcats, coyotes, fox, purple martins, painted buntings, bluebirds, hawks, burrowing owls, many butterflies and a variety of other wildlife.

77 Ranch

The 2600-acre 77 Ranch was developed by Gary and Sue Price over a period of time through purchases of 14 different tracts of land. Purchased land was either native tallgrass prairie, overgrazed pastures or abandoned cotton fields. Regardless of its previous use, the Prices work to improve productivity on each tract.

Pastureland is converted back into sustainable native prairie resulting in wildlife habitat improvement.

Our stocking rates are conservative and flexible, Gary Price said. Conservative stocking allows us to enter a drought last and be the first to return after it is over.

Grazing intensity is calculated to leave one-third of the grass for plant re-establishment, a third for trampling into the soil for organic matter maintenance, and a third to be eaten by cattle, Price said. Our pasture rotation system is managed in a manner to reserve standing bluestem for winter grazing.

Old cropland, best suited for pasture, is restored to natural prairie by reseeding with native grasses. Brush management is accomplished through both mechanical methods and herbicides. Selected methods depend upon type of brush, plant density, terrain and soil type. Prescribed fire is utilized on grassland where the amount of thatch is hindering new plant growth and plant density has increased to the point where upland birds no longer can move between the plant crowns.

Due to good grazing practices and native prairie restoration, white-tailed deer are returning to the 77 Ranch property. Price is working with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to relocate bobwhite quail and, so far, the program is successful. Rio Grande turkey also are being relocated to the ranch.

Along the Gulf Coast

Prairie restoration efforts continue to increase along the Texas Gulf Coast with notable projects near Deer Park, Katy, Eagle Lake and additional locations further south. Restoration projects are undertaken for various reasons including appreciation of native plants, encouragement of song bird populations and creation of Attwater prairie chicken and Bobwhite quail habitats.

Turning the landscape back to an earlier time is accomplished through planting native coastal grasses, cattle grazing management and prescribed burns.

The Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Eagle Lake is attempting to increase the number of birds through several methods, one of which is prairie habitat restoration. The refuge is joined by astute environmental landowners and ranchers who are primarily interested in development of prairie ecosystems for Bobwhite quail, but their efforts benefit the Attwater prairie chicken as well.

Many landowners in the Cross Timbers, Rolling Plains and High Plains ecoregions work closely with either Kelly Reyna at the University of North Texas or Brad Dabbert at Texas Tech University to restore native prairies as a means to improve quail habitat.

There are many more stories of successful native prairie restoration and wildlife repopulation. The underlying principle is to restore the habitat and wildlife usually will return. In addition to increases in wildlife populations, ranchers find that native prairies in good condition have a high degree of drought tolerance and feed costs are reduced. Many landowners enjoy restored prairies for their aesthetics due to increased plant and animal biodiversity.
May 12, 1976 - April 23, 2017

Hiram Blaine McGee, 40, of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, passed away on Sunday, April 23, 2017. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, on May 12, 1976, and being the citizen born closest to July 4th, earned the designation of "Bicentennial Baby of New Castle."

He was a 1994 graduate of A&M Consolidated High School and a 2003 graduate of Northeastern University in Boston. His work at the Harvard University Medical School brought him to live in the Mission Hill neighborhood, a place he loved to call home. Hiram loved to be a Southerner in the north and a Yankee in the south. He disliked the Texas heat, but loved chicken fried steak.

While not talkative, he was a great observer. He will be missed for his wicked sense of humor. He was an avid reader, entertaining juggler and a restrained pool shark. He loved art, drawing and doodling.

He is survived by his mother, Dr. Bonnie D. McGee, of College Station and father, James B. McGee of Hampton, New Hampshire, and numerous loving aunts, uncles, and cousins. A service officiated by Reverend Jerry House will be held at Christ United Methodist Church on Tuesday, May 16, at 1:30 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Please designate your gift to "Hiram McGee/Dr. Michael Curry Research." Send check with designation in memo line to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Attn: Development Office, 330 Brookline Avenue - OV, Boston MA 02215. or at www.bidmc.org/giving.
Bryan City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission must work to stop stealth dorms

One of the attractions of living in Bryan is we have neighborhoods. But unfortunately those neighborhoods are threatened by the almost daily development of stealth dorms, the per room monstrosities springing up across our city.

Two meetings have been held with city staff and Planning and Zoning Commission representatives to discuss what to do about this terrible turn of events, which if not stopped will destroy the character of places that non-college students have lived, often for decades. What to do? And will real action only happen when the character of neighborhoods is gone?

Well meetings are one thing, but real action is needed. It is not enough for P&Z members and city staff to decry the situation and take input. City staff and P&Z members, led by our mayor and city council, must find solutions and quickly get changes in zoning, planning, approval, etc., before those putting their profits over our opportunity to live in sustainable, quality, peaceful, and low traffic neighborhoods continue their invasion.

For now, what we hear is it is up to the residents to maintain neighborhood deed restrictions, take more action to create neighborhood conservation districts, and organize to stop the blight of stealth dorm developments. But, we know how things get done in government.

Yes, residents must demand action, which we've done. But, the mayor, city council members, and city staff must make fighting off the destructive march of stealth dorms their number one priority. They must set a timetable for action, and adjust planning and zoning regulations, or whatever else it takes, to stop theses hideous neighborhood stealth invaders.

One thing the mayor, council, and staff could do quickly is change the number of votes necessary to create neighborhood conservation districts to 51 percent. We need leadership.

Come on, Mayor Nelson, make solving this issue your number one priority.

PETER WITT

Bryan
Franklin County High Schools chapter of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) recently participated in the State Leadership and Recognition Conference held April 6-9 at Virginia Beach.

Attendees participated in a weekend of workshops and sessions that challenged, informed and motivated members and their advisers to learn more about leadership through FCCLA.

Over 700 members participated in STAR Events, a series of competitive events that demonstrate proficiency and achievement in leadership and job-related skills. The following Franklin County students took home STAR Event awards:

*Adriania Butler and Seth Kane, a silver medal in Illustrated Talk for creating a presentation about cyber bullying for fifth-grade students at Rocky Mount Elementary.

*Sydney Hamilton and Alexis Hubbard, a silver medal in National Programs in Action for visiting Teens-N-Tots preschool and teaching the importance of physical activity and fun family exercises in order to stay active.

*Sierra Durst, Ashley Taylor and Angel Furrow, a silver medal in Focus on Children for researching child development and how children of different ages react to and learn through music.

*Kynesha Tinsley, Tamia Starkey and Ashlea Walsh, a silver medal in Interpersonal Communications for speaking to high school classes at FCHS about peer pressure and ways to stand up for themselves, and encouraging their peers to be positive role models for each other.

*Eva Burke and Karli Wade, a gold medal in National Programs in Action for planning club activities like Zumba class and a hike to Bald Knob, to encourage staying active and developing healthy lifestyles.

* Hannah Prillaman and Tayler Turman, gold medal in Illustrated Talk for talking to ninth grade students at FCHS about the effects of drinking and driving. Prillaman and Turman will represent the state of Virginia at the National Leadership Conference, to be held July 1-6, in Nashville, Tenn.

We are very proud of these students and their accomplishments, said Advisor Jessica Leftwich. They have shown leadership and have had a great impact on our community.

FCCLA is national student organization that helps young men and women become leaders and address important personal, family, work and societal issues through Family and Consumer Sciences.

FCCLA unique among youth organizations because its programs are planned and run by members. It is the only national in-school organization with the family as its central focus. Participation in national programs and chapter activities help members become strong leaders in their families, careers and communities.
Megan Perdue of Glade Hill is the first student to receive the Cabell Brand Center Gap Scholarship, which is named for the late Cabell Brand, a Salem businessman, philanthropist and longtime supporter of Virginia Western.

The scholarship supports students completing academic internships.

Perdue, a Franklin County High School graduate, will complete her internship this summer at the Booker T. Washington National Monument in Hardy. After graduating from Virginia Western in May, Perdue will transfer to William & Mary and complete her bachelors degree in history.

Perdue also is a Valley Proteins Fellow, participating in a prestigious scholarship program administered by the Virginia Community College System.

The Cabell Brand Center initiated the endowed scholarship in 2016 with a $60,000 gift to the Educational Foundation. Recipients receive financial assistance as they complete academic internships at nonprofit or public entities that support the Centers mission of addressing poverty, peace and the environment.

Perdue previously volunteered for five years at the Booker T. Washington National Monument, an experience she said inspired her ambition to one day teach history. As an intern she will help with everyday operations of the park, with water quality testing in the park's creek, the park's annual Juneteenth Event, and help with living history interpretation. She also will assist with the Junior Ranger Programs and with the development operation of the park's first ever ECO-Camp.

It is such an honor for the Cabell Brand Center to continue Cabells philanthropy by helping young people pursue their dreams and change the world for the better, said Steve Sunderman, president of the nonprofit Cabell Brand Center.

The mission of the Cabell Brand Center is to inspire social responsibility and global citizenship through knowledge and active engagement. It executes this mission by hosting informative public events, collaborative projects for both local and global action, supporting students who aspire to make a difference with their career or service activities through our scholarship program, and generating scientific publications to contribute to the advancement of science and the public good.

To learn more, visit www.cabellbrandcenter.org.

A native of Salem, Cabell Brand was a leading businessman and philanthropist in the Roanoke region. After graduating from Virginia Military Institute and serving in World War II, he took over his familys shoe company and built it into a massive business known as Stuart McGuire before selling it to the Home Shopping Network. Brand founded Total Action Against Poverty, now known as Total Action for Progress, and helped create one of the first Head Start preschool programs in the country, among many other achievements. Brand was the author of the 2008 book, If Not Me, Then Who?, in which he provides guidance on how individuals may contribute to poverty, peace and environmental issues in America.

The Cabell Brand Gap Scholarship represents the Educational Foundations first effort to specifically support students as they complete academic  and often unpaid  internships. The scholarship is intended to provide financial assistance and spur students interest in a career of public service.

For more information on the Cabell Brand Gap Scholarship, contact the Hall Associates Career Center, (540) 857-7298 or careercenter@virginiawestern.edu.

Applications are accepted year-round for fall, spring and summer internships.
Kim Reynolds wins reelection, promises to let Iowans 'keep more of your money'
Winston Preparatory School, an innovative day school for middle and high school students with learning disabilities, recently held its annual spring benefit event, "Lives Over Time."

Winston Prep's four campuses, including its Norwalk location, came together to celebrate the school and its students at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City on April 1, 2017.
NORWALK  More than 22,000 Connecticut residents are diagnosed with Lyme disease every year. But its those who go undiagnosed that are the focus of a new study by researchers at the Western Connecticut Health Network.

Dr. Paul Fiedler, chair of pathology and laboratory medicine and principal investigator for Lyme disease research at WCHN, is leading the way in developing a test to earlier detect Lyme disease.

In my opinion, were worried about patients who feel sick but test negative and they never get treated, Fiedler said. Those people get really sick and those are the ones Im most worried about ... Our goal is to detect the class of bacteria in blood that causes Lyme disease. When people get sick, it first enters their blood then goes to other tissues like joints, the heart and the brain. It doesnt stay in the blood for very long so its hard to detect.

Fiedler said the most advanced testing currently available to diagnose Lyme disease doesnt actually detect the bacteria itself, but the antibodies produced by the bodys immune system to fight the disease. The problem with this method, he said, is that it can take several weeks for antibodies to develop, so someone may display all the symptoms of Lyme disease but not be diagnosed or treated because current testing methodologies turned up negative.

If theyre tested too early, the antibodies havent formed so even in people we know have Lyme disease, it still might not detect it, Fiedler said. Theres a big problem in the field where the diagnosis is less certain clinically  someone may have some of the symptoms but we cant be sure without the test  and theyre told they dont have Lyme disease so they never follow up and get tested again.

Using the science behind the Human Genome Project to extract DNA from blood samples, Fiedler is hoping to change the way Lyme disease is diagnosed.

Its a unique strategy and were making a lot of progress, Fiedler said.

Fiedler added the team is in the process of filing a patent, and hopes to conduct a large clinical study this summer to determine the success of the new testing methodology. The Western Connecticut Health Network started a blood bank registry for patients with Lyme disease nearly eight years ago, but it wasnt until Fiedler joined the team six years ago that the bank started to get put to use.

Once Fiedler determines if the test works  a process that will include testing dozens of samples from people hes certain dont have Lyme disease  hes planning to develop a model thats affordable enough to be universally available at community hospitals following FDA approval.

Were getting close to that and then we want to partner with another organization to get the test out there, Fiedler said. We know early treatment is effective, and our main concern is that theres a window where we can effectively treat Lyme disease.

Fiedler said once the test is approved, he hopes to use it to study chronic Lyme disease in patients who are treated but still feel sick more than a year later.

We speculate that maybe 20 percent of people with chronic Lyme arent getting the right antibodies, so if we can find the bacteria we can determine how it should be treated in those people, Fiedler said.

Fiedler added that the discussion surrounding chronic Lyme disease has become increasingly politicized, but he largely ignores those conversations.

Im just trying to do good science, Fiedler said. Our research is supported by very generous donors, and we hope that that continues. Theres a tremendous fear among scientists that government funding for this type of research will be cut off. Theres a fear that the current administration doesnt have science at the core of its priorities, so were more reliant on philanthropy than ever before. Its important to be able to call on the community to support the work that were doing.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts the 2017 and 2018 tick seasons will produce the highest rate of Lyme disease in years, and estimate 300,000 people are diagnosed each year across the country. Fiedler said ticks are surviving better than ever before, and roughly 38 percent of ticks are testing positive for Lyme disease this year.

kkrasselt@scni.com; 203-354-1021; @kaitlynkrasselt
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NORWALK  Newly released court documents describe a pattern of abuse that culminated in the death of a 49-year-old Norwalk woman, who police say died Wednesday at the hands of her abusive boyfriend.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said Friday that Lisa Zemloks death was caused by blunt force injury to the head. The death has been ruled a homicide, the citys first of the year.

Lt. Terrence Blake, a Norwalk police spokesman, said detectives are still investigating the matter.

The Norwalk Detective Bureau is investigating the incident with the assistance of the Norwalk Crime Scene Unit, he said.

Zemlok was found dead early Wednesday in the bedroom of a mobile home that she shared with her ex-boyfriend and Paul Bjerke, who has been charged with manslaughter. Police say Zemlok was living with her past and current boyfriend in a small, one-bedroom trailer at 505 Westport Ave.

According to court records, Zemlocks ex-boyfriend arrived home around 1:30 a.m. to find Bjerke drunk on the couch watching TV.

When asked by his roommate about Zemloks whereabouts, Bjerke reportedly replied, I guess shes in the back room.

Unable to open the locked bedroom door, the roommate became concerned when his banging on the door elicited no response. He asked Bjerke to use a credit card to bypass the lock and open the door.

Once he gained entry, the roommate found Zemlok, her face a purple hue, slumped on the floor and leaning against the bed and nightstand, court records state.

The roommate called police and reported Zemlocks death, which he believed was due to an assault.

Arriving paramedics determined that Zemlok was dead.

The roommate was outside of the mobile home when police arrived. He pointed to the home and told police the man who did it was still inside.

According to court records, the roommate told police that Bjerke is often abusive and that he starts trouble when hes drinking all the time.

Bjerke was detained in handcuffs by responding officers.

In an interview with police, Bjerke allegedly blamed Zemlok for causing the altercation, which he said began as a verbal argument but quickly became physical. He initially denied having struck the woman, but later admitted to slapping her on the head.

Bjerke allegedly told police that Zemlok is always pushing my buttons. He admitted that he pushed the woman and she fell back and struck her head on a dresser, court records state.

A neighbor at the mobile home park reported hearing yelling coming from the home at around 5:30 or 6 p.m.

The roommate reported to police that Zemlok had sent him a text message earlier in the evening indicating that she and Bjerke had had an argument and that he had struck her, court records state.

Paul hit me in the head three times really hard. Im scared, a transcript of the saved text message reads.

After receiving the text, the roommate called Bjerke, who reportedly said, Its a mess here.

Bjerke made a sworn statement to police and was charged with first-degree manslaughter. He was arraigned Wednesday afternoon at state Superior Court in Norwalk, where his bond was raised from $750,000 to $1 million. His case was transferred to the Part A docket in Stamford Superior Court, where more serious cases are adjudicated.

Bjerke is scheduled to appear in court again on May 10.

Carmine Renzulli, who owns the trailer park at 505 Westport Ave., said that Zemlok moved into unit 17 at the park in December 2001.

She was a nice lady, very respectful. She was a good person, Renzulli told The Hour. When I heard about this, I was stunned and then I cried.

Connecticut state records show that Zemlok has held a hairdressers license since November 1985. A neighbor at the mobile home park said that Zemloks hairdressing clients often came to the home for services.
At St. Johns I learned how to struggle with fatebefore I was even capable of truly grasping what fate might possibly beas I viewed what it meant to be human through the eyes of war-like Achilleus and as I wandered with crafty Odysseus, searching for my own city

On sest trompe lorsquon a cru que lesprit et le jugement etaient deux choses differentes: le jugement nest que la grandeur de la lumiere de lesprit; cette lumiere penetre le fond des choses, elle y remarque tout ce quiil faut remarquer, et apercoit celles qui semblent imperceptibles

We are deceived if we think that mind and judgment are two different matters: judgment is but the extent of the light of the mind. This light penetrates to the bottom of matters; it remarks all that can be remarked, and perceives what appears imperceptible. Therefore we must agree that it is the extent of the light in the mind that produces all the effects which we attribute to judgment. La Rochefoucauld, Maximes No. 97

Todays offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Kate Deddens as she discusses her transformative experience as a student of St. Johns College. W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher

This is a reminiscence and an expression of gratitude. If one expects to find a tight, syllogism-based argument for the Liberal Arts or a Great Books education in it, it will probably be a disappointment. Instead, this is a narrative testimonial, a reaching back through the years to find the origin of something rich in a personal, and yet I am convinced universal, wayone that it is difficult to describe. But arent the most precious things in life more often than not the ones most challenging to articulate?

Narratives express truths which are difficult to convey. And narratives always have a beginning. So, as I think about my experience with the Great Books at St. Johns College, it is important to start at the beginning. As a result, casting my minds eye back to find the genesis of my narrative, I realized that it is probably a common experience for people to remember the moment they set foot on the campuses of their alma maters. It was so for me. The memory of arriving at St. Johns is vivid.

I was fresh on American soil from East Africa. Traveling alone for a time, I had stopped to visit a friend who was attending NYU as a pre-med student, someone I had known for as long as I could remember and had gone to school with in multiple countries. What a sweet thing it was, fresh from the remoteness of Tanzania, to spend time with her again on the cusp of my experiences as a college student in a new and, to me, foreign land.

It is odd to me, now, to consider that I once thought of Maryland as a foreign land especially since I ended up spending a decade of my life there. These days, of course, I am acclimatized, so to speak. In a basic way, I know my way around cities all across the United States. But then? Not so. At that time, American cities represented a whole universe of unknowns to me. I thoughtand many did not hesitate to tell me I was naive and idealistic for thinking it so (which I find humorously ironic, since I was young and at the beginning of my journey thenwasnt I supposed to be idealistic?)that I would find my way through them by studying the Great Books at St. Johns College. Against all arguments that I needed to go to college to prepare for a particular career and that I would be hampered in my future by a lack of a specific set of expert skills, I stubbornly argued that I had the right idea. In the light of experience, I am now sure I was right.

Loaded with suitcases and a few smaller bags, I awkwardly boarded a bus at the New York Port Authority. A few hours later, I disembarked in Baltimoremuch to the amusement of many at the station. Looking back on it, I must have been a sight: a teenage girl wandering around, encumbered by suitcases, and seemingly lost at the busy hub. No wonder I received skeptical, and some downright bemused, looks. There, I searched for the local transit bus that would deliver me to Annapolis. It was a place Id never seen before in my life. College visits were not an option for me, as I had mulled over my future educational choices in the pre-Internet foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Annapolis was a place that had appeared to me in my dreams as I slept beneath the southern hemispheres cavernous skies (no light pollution there, to raise the black darkness to a shadowy haze).

About an hour later I found myself, and all my earthly possessions at the time, dropped off unceremoniously on the College Avenue edge of the St. Johns campus in downtown Annapolis. I could see King George Street and the Naval Academy to my right, what was then the Maryland Hall of Records to my left (now the St. Johns Library), and stately McDowell Hall straight ahead. The campus was engulfed in silence. I stood for a moment, taking it all in. A sense of peculiar familiarity came over me as I surveyed the cobbled streets, red brick buildings, beautifully manicured lawns, and the historic Liberty Tree. Despite the fact that I had spent the last years of high school in the midst of the third world, healing from the effects of a violent revolution in Iran (and deeply relishing the magnificent heights of Kilimanjaro where the omnipotence of the Divine cannot be mistaken, going on safari and hunting in the untended wilderness of the Serengeti, and celebrating the sweet-smelling Bougainvillea-covered dirt roads of the quiet town in which I had truly enjoyed driving a World War II era Land Rover), I felt as though I had stepped back into memories of childhood visits to centuries-old towns in Europeplaces that also lived in my recollections and dreams. For example, Salzburg, Austria, echoing with the words of Everyman booming from the stage at the Salzburg Festival; or Henley-on-Thames, England, cozy in a cottage hiding behind what seemed to me the Shire-like hedgerows; or a pub in Dublin listening to a man who, undoubtedly fully in his cups, stood upon the bar as he dramatically recited the poetry of William Butler Yeats. So, I was oddly at ease, knowing that I was a stranger in a strange town but experiencing an unshakable sense of having arrived in a place that would become an indelible part of the fabric of my life, perhaps even of my being.

That late summer day, standing there on the street sidewalk studying the deserted front lawn, I remember realizing that I had arrived much earlier than most students. An air of profound emptiness hung over the campus. I made my way, lugging all my bags up the walk towards McDowell Hall, and from there I somehow discovered the path to the Admissions office. All the while, a vague sense of wonder was settling upon me: this was my home. Despite recent years growing up traveling from continent to continent, from culture to culture, and now living thousands of miles away from anything familiar to me, I embraced whole-heartedly the reality that a new world was waiting to be discovered. The sense of it was so heavy for me, that day, that I could almost taste it: It was the world of the Great Books, in whose pages I knew I would be privileged to explore some of the most significant ideas humanity has contemplated over the course of western history.

As I had filled out my application paperwork, during sultry East African afternoons as the monsoon rains passed over me, pondering a self-selecting essay that St. Johns hopefuls had to write, I had in a dreamy way, almost like a young woman considering a wedding, contemplated the Great Books. My appetite had been whetted with exposure to Platos Meno and Dantes Inferno, investigations into Swifts Gullivers Travels and Shakespeares plays. I had even developed a deep fascination with Achilleus, though I had not really met him. Euclid bedazzled me already, though we too had yet to be introduced. And, in what seemed to be the distant future (of course I now know that three or four years constitute only the minutest grains of sand in lifes hourglass), such giants as Aristotle, Sophocles, Moliere, Kierkegaard, Newton, Dostoevsky, Einstein, and Hegel beckoned mysteriously. This, I thought with sweet anticipation, was the height of privilege: to be heir to such thoughts, to the musings and insights of those who had formed the bedrock of my civilization! What could possibly be more compelling, exciting, educational, or useful, than that? I didnt think anything could be. Several decades later, I feel the same way.

So there I stood. Dreams were to become reality. I stared at the immaculate lawn, where later I would lounge in muggy spring days smelling of freshly mown grassa treat for someone raised in the arid climate of the Middle Eastflipping through the pages of one book or another, talking about ideas with friends, watching a croquet game with the next-door Naval Academy unfold and I felt both excited and resolute; peaceful with a sense of being exactly where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there.

My parents were abroad at the time, and all the other members of my immediate family were far away, so St. Johns did turn out to be my home in virtually every respect. For the next four years, in fact, and for two more following that when I worked in the library surrounded by the books I loved, I spent my hours living and breathing in the grip of great ideas and under the mentorship of the books, my fellow learners, and the tutors (as St. Johns professors are called) at the college.

That night, however, was spent quite alonefor if I was not the only one there, I certainly do not remember seeing another soulin eerie anticipation within the empty, echoing dormitory building. I silently settled into my side of the room. In an almost ritualistic way, I put the few books I had brought with me across the seas (which included beloved copies of Tolkiens Lord of the Rings, Lewis Narnia Series, and MacDonalds Lilith, along with Tales from the Thousand and One Nights as well as well-thumbed volumes by Africas Ngugi wa Thiongo and Chinua Achebe) away on the small bookshelf as I meditated about the future. I couldnt help musing about what the days ahead held for me at St. Johns, not just as a college student but as a wanderer into a world of possibilities, all held between the pages of history told through the recorded thoughts of great minds: the pages of Great Books.

St. Johns lived up to, and in fact surpassed, the promise of my wonderings that first night. It was the beginning of a journey a journey that has not yet ended, and it has been a gift that has never stopped bequeathing. Of course, that journey reached back virtually to the dawn of recorded storytelling; it began with Homers Iliad. Actually, it began specifically with Achilleus. Reflecting on this recently, it dawned on mewith something of a thrill, I confessthat it also ended with Achilleus; the very first essay I was asked to write at St. Johns by my language tutor (as we were just beginning to dive into the throes of Ancient Greek), was about the famous Homeric description of the shield fashioned for Achilleus by Hephaestus. My final essay at St. Johns was my senior thesis, and in it Achilleusas he is portrayed in Homers Iliad as well as in the Romantic dramatist Kleists play Penthesileawas one of the most prominent characters of my inquiry.

What that really means, I confess, I have yet to completely uncover, but that is precisely the magic of St. Johns: a seed that was planted grows and flourishes beyond anticipation. For example, just this year I read the Iliad once againI have now lost count of the times I have read itwith yet another group of young men and women whom I tutor. And still, I muse still held in thrall by the Muse about Achilleus and his rage.

What did I learn at St. Johns? It is impossible to quantify. A mere checklist of the books I read and discussed there would never suffice to explain it, and if one were to complete the program at St. Johns and come away with such a list, I believe one would have learned littleand perhaps even entirely missed the pointfrom those books. No, the qualities of what I learned are the only elements that I can list, almost like a stream of platitudes. Yet I believe one must attempt to describe such things, no matter how poorly or stereotypically. I only begin to scratch at the surface, therefore, when I take a clumsy swipe at answering.

At St. Johns I learned how to struggle with fatebefore I was even capable of truly grasping what fate might possibly beas I viewed what it meant to be human through the eyes of war-like Achilleus and as I wandered with crafty Odysseus, searching for my own city. I learned how to examine an idea as though it were a diamond with Plato. I learned how to drag my dreaming eyes down from the forms in the heavens to study and appreciate the concrete particulars with Aristotle. I learned how to see mathematics as a thing of elegance and eloquence. I learned how to be quiet and still, to contemplate; to walk with Pascal in considering the vast void of eternity, and my own minuteness therein. I learned how to attend, to focus and absorb, and to wander with intentionality along with Montaigne through a multitude of musings. I learned how to listen carefully to the thoughts of others, the voices calling out from the pages of history, as well as the voices of my peers and my betters as we explored together; to pass through Socratic dialogue and find myself amazed to discover, at the end of a conversation, that suddenly a truth was revealed which I had never before seen.

I was taught how to appreciate true catharsis, sitting on the edge of my seat as I envisioned a play by Euripides unfold. I laughed with Aristophanes. I pondered the harmonies of the spheres as I struggled to understand Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Kepler. I traveled with Descartes and arrived at Hume and then found myself alongside Kant, treading a relentless path towards eventual radical subjectivism and postmodernity. I fell headlong into truthful absurdity with the Man of La Mancha, and floated along with the waves of historical dialectic with Tolstoy. I learned how to honor the voices of others and their wordslike a Dante trusting his Virgil, seeking his Beatrice and discovering Grace. And I learned how to respond. I learned how to assess myself, against both the past and the present; with Euclid I measured my paces. I learned how to recognize pride and prejudice, as well as how to discern greatness, dancing with Austens prose through a by-gone age that had so much to teach me about my own.

I practiced digging deeply into ideas, ruthlessly mining myself in order to transcend the self by subjecting it to universal realities of truth, goodness, and beauty that thread their ways unmistakably through the passages of human experienceexpressed by those who had themselves been molders of the future, the future in which I now lived.

Did I also learn practical skills? I can only say that if those listed above dont fall into that category, I do not know what does. Those were the skills that propelled me through several jobs in vastly different career paths, yet unified by singular principles with respect to my work, my values, and my goals. They were all the skills that made graduate school pass as though by second nature. They are the skills that have sustained me through years of marriage, parenthood, teaching, and civic community. They were the skills that allowed me to compassionately care for both my parents-in-law as they passed away beneath my roof. They are the skills that allowed me to become exactly who I am, whose happiness has been crafted uniquely out of universal principles as well as particular experiences. They are the skills I wish to pass along to my own children, to equip them for their future.

What I realize now, looking back on it, was that the whole journey was about what it meant to be a human being. Not in the sense of being the product of millennia of random physical mutations, but in the sense which St. Johns president Christopher Nelson evokes when he quotes C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man: men with chests, with drive dynamism self-sacrifice [and] creativity; men of virtue and enterprise. That understanding of what it meant to be a human being has formed the foundation of my lifes efforts, like the meter of a poem, for more than two decades. I owe to it so much that I am, what little I may have accomplished in the great scheme of things so much that I hope to contribute, for which I dare to hope for the futurefor my children, my grandchildren, and for their children after them; for the polis: civilization itself composed like a symphony, one by one, of each of us together.

For that, I feel a deep gratitude. It is because of St. Johns that I believe I was not condemned, as Peter Kreeft writes in his delightfully pertinent Socratic dialogue, The Best Things in Life, to living my life in a circle:

Socrates: I see. Lets review what you have said. You are reading this book to study for your exam, so that you can pass it and your course, to graduate and get a degree, to get a good job, to make a lot of money, to raise a family and send your children to college. Peter: Right Socrates: And why will they go to college? Peter: Same reason Im here. To get good jobs, of course. Socrates: So they can send their children to college? Peter: Yes. Socrates: Have you ever heard the expression arguing in a circle? Peter: No Im a practical man. I dont care about logic, just life. Socrates: Then perhaps we should call what you are doing living in a circle. Have you ever asked yourself a terrifying, threatening question? What is the whole circle there for?

Here, at the end of my narrative, I remain an idealistnot despite my experience but precisely because of it; an idealist like that youngster who surveyed the St. Johns campus for the first time so many years ago: rejecting the cynicisms of our age, imagining the potential of a humanity made imago Dei, filled with dreams and great hope.

Thank you, St. Johns, for nurturing in me the discernmentas La Rochefoucauld puts it, le jugementto see the point of the circle.

Books on the topic of this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. One of our Timeless Essays, it was first published here in January 2014. The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politicswe approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.
A few weeks ago, I received an email with the subject line, An Invitation For You.

Given the nondescript subject, my first thought was that it was a joke or spam email that had made it through the filter. I figured that, when I opened it, my uncle, the Nigerian prince, would ask me for my debit card information so he could give me millions of dollars before he dies.

Turns out it was just my internet-based cynicism, and the email was legit. The writer, a member of the Cosmopolitan International Diabetes Foundation, had read my column and was asking me to speak in front of a group of members who were having a luncheon and banquet on April 22.

I guess people do sometimes read rants. Go figure.

For those reading who arent aware (I wasnt until recently), the Cosmopolitan Diabetes Foundation is focused around support for the treatment of diabetes and the possible cures. As one could imagine, this was an exciting new discovery for me and meant that I could be an active contributor to the advancement of research of my disease, no matter how nominal that contribution may have been.

I went to the luncheon and watched as the club gave a presentation on the mobile diabetes clinic that the club supports financially. The mobile clinic is rad  it offers blood sugar tests, neuropathy examinations and various other services at different events and cities around Nebraska.

If given the opportunity, I highly encourage everyone reading this to get tested. You never think you could have it, until you do. I was the same way.

Ive mentioned it before, and while I was excited to learn about the foundation and to contribute, Im really not good at speaking. Its not that I dont know words or how they fit together. Its just that I cant make my mouth form the words correctly and at the speed I need when Im in front of a group of people. It tends to be exaggerated when I get nervous or anxious.

This is the reason I tend to be quiet in class and in other parts of my life.

Giving a speech was a bit of a challenge but a welcome one, to be sure. I was a nervous wreck before going up, but I dont think it was too noticeable to people other than me. What I think really helped me to get over it was the fact that I knew I was giving the speech for a topic and people that I genuinely cared about.

I dont think it helped with my speech problems at all  I still deal with that all the time. I just think that having the clear goal  what I wanted to get out of my speech  was what helped me be less self-conscious about it and instead to focus on what I needed to talk about.

Maybe thats what I, and many others with the same issues as me, need to learn  to quit focusing so much on what is wrong with us and instead focus on what were trying to accomplish.

Cayden Leicht-Hailey is a junior at Grand Island Senior High.
Children and their parents were able to do fun activities all while learning about cultural diversity at the El Dia de los Ninos  or Childrens Day  event Sunday at Grand Island Senior High.

Activities at the Childrens Day event included a mariachi band, a musician, a balloon artist and inflatables. The event was sponsored by the Grand Island Community Youth Council and was the organizations annual spring event.

Reid Bednar, a GISH senior and CYC member, said Childrens Day was aimed at celebrating the children of Grand Island and exposing them to cultural diversity within the community.

It was a big idea we had for the spring event was that we wanted to focus on celebrating children in our community. Different communities have had a Childrens Day and we thought this would go over well in Grand Island, he said. We wanted to make sure that people understood and also appreciated children throughout the city.

Planning for the Childrens Day event began in February and March. Bednar said the CYC Childrens Day committee wanted to do a cultural event focusing on a specific culture or cultural event, but eventually narrowed it down to focus on children of all cultures in Grand Island.

CYC members Hanadi Isa and Cynthia Serrano said the organization received a $5,000 cultural engagement grant from Union Pacific Corp. that helped with the costs of Mariachi Zapata (the mariachi band), magician Jeff Quinn and the food trucks at the Childrens Day event.

Bednar said committee members were responsible for bringing a specific booth with activities or crafts to the Childrens Day event.

I was in charge of the Lincoln [Elementary] School booth and they brought an activity where theyre decorating maracas and sombrero hats, he said. That was pretty fun to help organize that.

The Grand Island Fire Department handed out red plastic hats and fire badge stickers at its booth during the Childrens Day event. Fire Chief Cory Schmidt said the event was a positive way for the department to interact with the public.

We are always looking for outreach methods and this is a great way to reach the community as a whole, he said. A lot of times, when we interact with people, it is not under the best circumstances. This gives us a chance to do that on a positive note.

The Multicultural Coalition of Grand Island, whose goal is to promote cultural diversity in the community, had a booth equipped with hula hoops for children to play with and informational fliers for people to learn more about the organization.

Audrey Lutz, executive director of the Multicultural Coalition, said the Childrens Day event was beneficial in unifying the community in ways that are unexpected and wonderful.

When you celebrate children and have activities for children, that is something everybody can rally around, she said. Being here and providing activities for the family is one way we can support our diverse community. These are the people we see everyday and the people that are in Grand Island Public Schools. Its wonderful for people in the community to really experience how diverse our community really is.

Isa said there is a blend of African and Hispanic cultures in Grand Island and that the Childrens Day event was a meaningful way for people to learn more about the cultures. Serrano echoed Isas comments.

Learning about other communities makes you an all-around better person because you get to know other cultures, she said.

Despite Sundays cold and rainy weather, Bednar said the Childrens Day event had a great turnout and was a success.

I woke up this morning and I was like, Geez, we are probably going to have 50 people here, he said at the start of the event. So far, we have had around 100 people and we just started.

Bednar added he hopes the Childrens Day event will allow CYC to hold more events in the future.

Isa said she hopes that those who attended the event learned something today. Bednar said he hopes that something is accepting people for who they are.

When you think back to my ancestors and those who came before me, things are different now. I see that walking through these hallways (at GISH) everyday, he said. You dont necessarily look at people because of their race. You dont look at people because of their social status. When you come in these hallways, everyone is an Islander.
Hall County Supervisor Doug Lanfear hopes the county will become such a nuisance to the U.S. Postal Service that it will reverse its decision to relocate services from its downtown location at 204 W. South Front St. to the distribution center at 3835 W. Old Potash Highway.

At its meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, the Hall County Board of Supervisors will consider sending a letter to the Postal Regulatory Commission protesting the Postal Services decision.

Lanfear said the letter is a formal complaint to the Postal Regulatory Commission stating that the Postal Service "didnt do their job right."

"They (Postal Service) should have done some sort of study to consider the impact of the people," he said. "They did not take a public poll. They relied just on letters mailed to Denver. I dont think they did a review of the economic impact. I think they did everything they could do to screw up the rules."

Lanfear added that, in his opinion, Hall County residents were not treated fairly, and the Postal Service did not consider public input. Based on his reading of the regulations, the Postal Service is required to give Hall County 60 days to respond to the decision to relocate. Lanfear said the county was only given 30 days.

Lanfear said the Postal Service was also required to inform Hall County residents that they had the right to appeal the decision.

"They did not do that, so they are not quite playing by the rules," he said. "I would like to see them come back and actually do their job right this time."

Lanfear placed the item on Tuesdays agenda on Monday morning. He said it was placed on the agenda at the last minute because he was informed on Friday that the county had to have a letter sent to the Postal Regulatory Commission by May 14. Tuesdays meeting will be the only county board meeting prior to that date.

On Monday morning, Lanfear said he and county board Chairwoman Pam Lancaster planned to write a letter to send to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Grand Island Mayor Jeremy Jensen said in an email that the city also plans to submit a letter to the Postal Regulatory Commission prior to the May 14 deadline.

At 11:15 a.m., the county board will also have public hearing and approve a resolution to authorize Hall County Public Transportation to apply for financial assistance from the Federal Transit Administration.

According to information provided in the meeting agenda, the purpose of Hall County Public Transportation is to "provide general public transportation" to county residents.

Funding for the project includes $18,429 in federal funds, $5,936 in state funds and $5,935 in local funds.

In other action, the county board will:

 Have a 9:30 a.m. public hearing on a siting application and conditional use permit for ONeill Wood Resources for a construction and demolition waste disposal area.

 Discuss and consider possible action on bids for the child support services remodeling at the Federal Building.

 Consider setting a public hearing date for 9:30 a.m. May 16 on whether Hall County should submit an application to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture to be declared a livestock friendly county.
HASTINGS  The Hastings College band will welcome a new director in the fall as Louie Eckhardt returns to Hastings College and Central Nebraska after earning his doctor of musical arts degree from Louisiana State University and working in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas.

Eckhardt formerly served as band director at Grand Island Senior High.

At Hastings College, he will lead the main Hastings College band, the Symphonic Band, Wind Ensemble and Marching Broncos Band.

"I am very excited to be returning home to Central Nebraska, as is my wife, Kristen, and our 18-month-old son, Malcolm," Eckhardt said. "Hastings College has a rich musical history, and I look forward to working with outstanding students and supporting their musical talents and interests."

Byron Jensen, chairman of the colleges music department, said, "Im thrilled for Dr. Eckhardt to join our music staff at Hastings College. He is an incredible musician, an enviable scholar and tireless educator. The future of music remains bright because of people like Dr. Eckhardt and his family."

Eckhardt graduated from Hastings High School and earned a bachelors degree in music education and trumpet performance in 2005.

He earned a masters degree in trumpet performance from Pennsylvania State University in 2007 and then taught for five years in Hastings and Grand Island public schools. He led all bands while at Grand Island Senior High, where his bands and many students earned superior ratings at marching band festivals and district music contests.

He left GISH in 2012 to pursue his doctorate of musical arts, which he received in trumpet performance in 2015 from LSU.

Eckhardt currently serves as the program director for Kids Orchestra, the largest el Sistema inspired music education organization in the United States for elementary aged students. He oversees 800 students and 80 teaching artists.

He also serves as principal trumpet of the Monroe Symphony Orchestra and is a member of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra and the Chimes Street Brass Quintet.
Hall County Supervisor Gary Quandt will be taking on Gov. Pete Ricketts Nebraska 150 Challenge.

Quandt will spend more than six days on the Hall County Courthouse roof to raise funds for Hall County Hero Flights.

Though my challenge cant be converted to miles, what I propose will pay meaningful dividends while pushing physical endurance, Quandt said. I have conducted courthouse challenge efforts to support the Hero Flight program over the past three years but this challenge will by far push the limit as my time atop the courthouse will be six days and six hours total.

Quandt will begin his vigil at 6 a.m. Wednesday, May 3, and end it at noon on Tuesday, May 9.

Quandts vigil will take place on the railed walkway of the Hall Courthouse cupola in honor of Nebraskas statehood milestone and to honor Hall County veterans.

During the past six years the Hall County Hero Flights have honored veterans with a three-day all expenses-paid excursion to Washington, D.C., to visit war monuments and other sites of interest. Current flights are honoring Vietnam vets.

The cost for each flight is approximately $1,500 per veteran. The second Hall County Vietnam Veteran Hero Flight returns to Grand Island Tuesday, May 2. The community welcome home celebration starts at 4:30 p.m. at the Central Nebraska Regional Airport.

I hope to collect freewill donations over the six days on the cupola that will help fund our third Vietnam veteran flight planned for the spring of 2018, Quandt said.

Donors can contribute funds online at www.gobiggive.org through midnight on May 3 or drop donations at the receptacle in front of the courthouse through May 9.

In response to the Governors Nebraska 150 Challenge, Quandt said, I will make the first donation to the Hall County Hero Flight in the amount of $150 on behalf of Gov. Ricketts.

The Hero Flights are all about saying thank you to our veterans, Quandt said. Its taken more than 40 years to finally give the Vietnam veterans the honor and appreciation they are due for the great sacrifice they made for their country.

Direct donations to the Hall County Vietnam War Hero Flight can also be dropped off or mailed to Five Points Bank, Attn. Linda Green, 2009 N. Diers Ave. Grand Island, NE 68803 or the Grand Island Independent, Attn. Hall County Vietnam War Hero Flight, P.O. Box 1208, Grand Island, NE.
In the last few weeks we have heard about an increasing number of incidents on campuses across the nation where politically conservative speakers have been prevented from talking. From Middlebury College in Vermont to the University of California at Berkeley, these cases have something in common: They are giving higher education a bad name.

Some op-ed pieces by liberal authors have criticized these incidents on the basis that they represent a violation of the basic principle of free speech, which is seen as a liberal principle.

Conservative editorialists have used them to attack higher education for being out of control, being a nest of liberalism, and for hypocrisy. They maintain that the freedom of speech, so proclaimed by liberals, is only valid when serving to state liberal values.

Some on the far left say that this is the only weapon the underserved and oppressed have to get back to people in power.

Those on the far right are mobilizing their forces to introduce legislation that will severely curtail the ability of colleges and university to manage their own affairs.

They are all missing the main point. These controversies are being to the larger political arena for the advantage of conservatives and the disadvantage of liberals.

Some liberals forget that not long ago marginalized groups such as lesbians, gays, feminists, people of color, and others were prevented from speaking on campuses.

By now doing the same to conservative speakers, these liberals are becoming equal to what they have abhorred so much in the past. Suppression of free speech  from any side  is a signature characteristic of totalitarian ideologies.

Conservatives, who feel emboldened from last years presidential elections, are using the current political climate to advance their agenda, and that is to demonstrate that institutions of higher education need to be controlled and that they do not deserve the support of the general public and taxpayers.

One the tactics being employed by campus conservative groups is to invite their ideological allies onto campus as welcomed speakers. In some cases, they have created shadow groups with unsuspecting names to rent spaces and then have used those spaces for hosting events that will be sure to provoke a liberal backlash.

And then, when the backlash takes place, they use the bad publicity to their own advantage.

What has been happening is that many campuses are taking the bait.

This is similar to what neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups do when they organize marches. What they are doing is trying to provoke confrontation so that their profiles can be raised from obscurity to prominence.

One of the basic principles of higher education since its founding period in medieval Europe was that educators were not to be punished for their ideas.

After all, many of those ideas were inconvenient to both the church and the feudal states. That is where the very concept of tenure originated. It was to protect teachers against reprisals for their sometimes unorthodox ideas. Unfortunately, tenure has lost much of its original meaning, and has become more of a labor issue than a protection of freedom of speech.

Its no wonder that conservative groups in Iowa and Missouri have introduced legislation to eliminate tenure in public institutions in those states. They claim that tenure is un-American, gives faculty rights that almost no other professions have, and sets them apart as a privileged group that they call the elites.

These attempts to ban tenure are actually the result of a self-inflicted wound caused by academics themselves.

Another self-inflicted wound is what is now happening on many campuses when it comes to freedom of speech. Liberals have appeared as intolerant and obsessed with ideological purity (two of the trademarks of anti-intellectuals) as those they have fought for years, and they are making fools of themselves in the process.

What many of these liberals do not realize is that actions like these are seriously damaging the future of higher education and making colleges and universities a perfect target for anti-intellectual ideals. A new tactic being employed by some politicians is that of using their power over budgets to de-fund public higher education.

Take, for example, the case of New Mexico, where Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, removed all higher-education funding from the state budget. She recently vetoed nearly $745 million for New Mexicos public colleges and universities, mostly for ideological reasons.

Of course, the situation we are witnessing regarding free speech on campuses is not all the fault of liberal groups.

The leadership of colleges and universities are also to blame.

They feel pressure from both sides and do not know how to react beyond lame apologies for violent incidents.

What they should have realized by now is that the best way to deal with these incidents is by debating ideas in a public forum where civility should be maintained  not by trying to silence specific voices.

By doing so, we are protecting freedom of speech, encouraging critical thinking (a much-needed skill these days), and showing that we are fair. After all, in this new scary world of fake news and alternative facts, real facts should speak for themselves.

Dr. Aldemaro Romero Jr. is a writer and college professor with leadership experience in higher education. He can be contacted through his website at: http://www.aromerojr.net
Glen Carbon resident Don Halpin has a long commute, but he says it's worth it.

He drives to Peoria every Monday to work at the Jump Simulation Lab at OSF Innovations and returns to Glen Carbon on Friday.

Halpin was with the Air Force for 28 years and retired out of Scott Air Force Base. After he retired, he was approached by OSF Innovations to work on the Jump Simulation project. It was an opportunity he couldnt pass up, he said. He has been there for two years.

I love Glen Carbon, and our kids were at an age where they were transitioning into college, so we didnt want to move, he said.

I love the area, I love the people in Glen Carbon, so I maintain an apartment up here and spend weekends there.

The Jump Simulation and Education Center, known as Jump, opened in April, 2013. It is located on the grounds of the OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria. It is collaboration between OSF Healthcare and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria. The mission of Jump Sim is to transform health care through education, research and innovation.

People at Jump heard about us in the Air Force. They asked if we could apply some Air Force thinking to the hospital, Halpin said. They thought they could convert best practices to healthcare.

Both communities are high-tech, Halpin said.

There are two similarities, he said. One, there are very high consequences. Failure can have dire consequences. Second, both are very team-based. In the military, we have crews. Here, we have healthcare teams.

Halpin was born in Liberia and grew up in Hawaii. I left for college in 1980, he said. I spent 28 years in the Air Force air mobility operations. He retired from Scott Air Force Base. He and his wife Alicia have two children, Reece and Margaret Rose.

He said that commute was tough, So much has to do with my family. They supported me. They are stay-at-home patriots. Theyre used to deployments, used to time away, he said.

This place is magical, Halpin said of Jump. I love the mission. We take care of patients, families and providers. It has an innovative, start-up feel about it.

Halpin said the job was a natural extension of what he did in the military. I loved what I did serving in the Air Force. We did humanitarian work and went into areas post-disasters. Im serving in a different uniform being in civilian clothes. Its one of the ways Ive been able to contribute.

Halpin said that OSF Healthcare was the largest healthcare provider in Illinois outside of Chicago. The Jump simulation center is one of 10 in the nation.

Were sometimes called the crazy-idea crew, Halpin said. We do education, research and simulation.

Some projects the lab is working on include studying brain waves to find out how teams work, using a modeling lab, and using 3-D printers. We have 3-D printed hearts to help pediatric cardiology surgeons, Halpin said. They can work on the 3-D heart before surgery.

Jump has a close relationship with the U of I, Halpin said. We get ideas and work with engineers from U of I, Halpin said.

We develop new processes for healthcare, he said. Weve developed avatars to help patients read records.

Halpin enrolled in the Washington University Executive MBA program after he started at Jump. They take business knowledge and translate concepts into real world applications. He completed the program while commuting to Peoria. Its a rigorous program, he said. He added that he had not had time to see much of Peoria.

Halpin said he could not have asked for a better second career. Ive been so blessed with the things Ive been able to do, he said.
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May Day protests around the world - 2017
The true stories, urban legends, and myths in the Bay Area are multitude and easy to confuse. Read through our gallery to confirm or debunk them once and for all.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Dubai, United Arab Emirates  Mon, May 1, 2017 12:01 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb9ad67 2 Science & Tech Dubai,design,Microsoft,Dubai-Font,#Dubai,#Microsoft,United-Arab-Emirates Free

The Dubai government on Sunday announced the launch of "Dubai Font", the first typeface developed by Microsoft for a city, which will be available in 23 languages.

The font was developed simultaneously in Latin and Arabic script and is available to 100 million Office 365 users around the world.

Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum has urged all government institutions to adopt the font in official correspondence.

The Executive Council of Dubai, which manages the affairs of the city-state and is headed by Prince Hamdan, said the font reflects the United Arab Emirates' vision "to become a regional and global leader in innovation".

Read also: Facebook gearing up to fight political propaganda

"It is the first font to be developed by a city and to carry its name", Executive Council secretary general Abdulla al-Shaiban told a news conference.

Home to the world's tallest tower and the largest shopping mall in the Middle East, image-conscious Dubai has pushed in recent years to broaden its appeal by investing in its technology and culture.

The emirate also aims to emerge as the world's happiest city, and last year appointed a happiness minister.

In 2016, some 14.9 million tourists visited Dubai, the most liberal of the UAE's seven emirates and its least dependent on oil revenues.

Dubai will host the six-month Expo 2020 under the themes of sustainability and mobility.
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Mon, May 1, 2017 21:00 2017 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeba3e2b 4 National May-Day,May-Day-commemoration,labor-rally,minimum-wage Free

Labor unions in Medan, North Sumatra, have marked May Day with various activities. While some took to the streets to demand salary increases on Monday, other labor activists arranged blood and food donation events.



Workers organized under Geram-SU held a rally at Bundaran Majestik, Jl. Gatot Subroto, Medan to voice major concerns of workers across the country, namely what they see as low wages and poor living conditions.

Mukhlis, a representative from Geram-SU, said employers were neglecting the rights of workers.

"We have to unite in fighting corporations and officials who want to violate workers' rights for their own interests," Mukhlis said on Monday.

(Read also: Labor protesters burn Ahok-Djarot's floral tributes)

In contrast to Geram-SU, the Association of Indonesian Workers Union (GAPBSI) celebrated May Day with social activities, such as groceries and blood donations. The event, which was conducted at the youth center on Jl. Sutomo Ujung Medan, was attended by Medan Mayor Dzulmi Edin.

A GAPBSI member and the coordinator of the event, Usaha Tarigan, said social activities did not diminish the workers' core struggle to voice their aspirations on May Day. (wit)
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Linkedin Theresia Sufa (The Jakarta Post) Bogor, West Java  Mon, May 1, 2017 09:13 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb941e4 1 National jalak-Bali,Bali-mynah,curik-Bali,Bali-Barat-national-park,conservation,protected-species,ProtectedSpecies,bali,#EndangeredSpecies,EndangeredSpecies Free

Indonesias efforts to conserve the Curik Bali (Rothschilds mynah) by involving local communities living in areas around the Bali Barat National Park (TNBB) have received attention and support from international conservation bodies and zoo associations.

Curik Bali Conservation Association (APCB) chairman Tony Sumampau said that since 2004, the association had striven to breed of the myna, which is on the brink of extinction, by involving local communities in activities to conserve the species.

These efforts were strengthened with the issuance of a decree from the environment and forestry minister, which permits local people, especially those who lived in areas around the TNBB, to breed Curik Bali, he said.

The initiatives conducted by the APCB to save the Curik Bali from extinction has drawn attention from international conservation bodies and zoo associations from Europe and Asia.

They include the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Asian Species Partnership, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria and EAZA Passerine TAG [Taxon Advisory Group], said Tony, who is also director of the Indonesia Safari Park, recently.

He said there were 17 Curik Bali breeders around the TNBB conservation areas. They live in Sumber Klampok village, Buleleng regency, around 4 kilometers from the park.

The breeders have united into Manuk Jegeg, a Curik Bali conservation group. Based on a conservation agreement raised with APCB, they must return 10 percent of the birds they breed to the national park.

There are now around 81 Curik Bali living in the TNBB, said Tony. (ebf)

Into the wild: Two Rothschilds mynahs are ready to be released into the wild.(JP/Theresia Sufa)
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Linkedin Theresia Sufa (The Jakarta Post) Bogor, West Java  Mon, May 1, 2017 10:29 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb95d91 1 National Curug-Cipamingkis,forest-tourism,forest-conservation,ForestConservation,tourism-forest,bogor,West-Java Free

State-owned forestry firm Perhutani is involving local communities in the management of Curug Cipamingkis, a tourist site in Wargajaya village, Sukamakmur district, Bogor regency, West Java.

Located in the eastern Bogor regency, Curug Cipamingkis offers camping facilities and tree houses, from which visitors can enjoy a clean and fresh forest atmosphere. There is also a beautiful curug (waterfall).

Yeti Supriati, the spokesperson for Perhutanis Bogor forest management unit, said the management of the Curug Cipamingkis forest, located on a 16.5 hectare plot of of state forest, involved a government-people partnership scheme on forest use.

Through this partnership, local communities have participated in conserving the forest, said Yeti recently.

Curug Cipamingkis draws around 500 visitors every week. Local and foreign tourists who wish to visit the forest can reach the site via three routes.

Departing from Cibinong, visitors need to travel around 40 kilometers to reach Sukamakmur via Sentul and Babakan Madang, or around 50 km if they depart from the Bekasi-Jonggol highway. The route will be shorter, around 17.5 km, if they go to Sukamakmur from Cianjur via Cipanas, Hanjawar and Loji.

The entrance fee is Rp 16,500 (US$1.24) per person for local tourists and Rp 30,000 for foreigners. (ebf)

Favorite destination: Curug Cipamingkis offers camping facilities and tree houses, from which visitors can enjoy a clean and fresh forest atmosphere.(JP/Theresia Sufa)
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Linkedin Theresia Sufa (The Jakarta Post) Bogor  Mon, May 1, 2017 14:20 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb9d801 1 National Gunung-Pancar,nature-tourism-park,bogor,West-Java,BKSDA,conservation Free

Local authorities are striving to develop the Gunung Pancar Nature Tourism Park in Bogor, West Java.

The park has become the lungs of the city and plays an important role in the lives of the people in Bogor and its surrounding areas.

The park offers a clean and fresh forest atmosphere. It also serves as a water reserve, the main source of clean drinking water for local people in the area.

Nano Winarno, the head of Gunung Pancar resort at the West Java Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), said the agency had identified five springs that were important water sources inside the national park. They are the Batu, Cibayawak, Cihanjuang, Cipancar and Situhiang springs.

Nano said the Batu spring was used by the Ciburial people in Karang Tengah village. Forest tourism operator PT Wana Wisata Indah (WWI) also uses the spring for its tourist activities.

The Cibayawak spring is used by local people living around the national park for household needs. The Cihanjuang spring flows into Cihanjuang River, which stretches from Cileungsi to Bekasi  both in West Java  and is used as a prime water source for domestic needs by people in the two areas.

Meanwhile, water from the Situhiang spring flows into the Ciawi Tali and Cibalok rivers.

Located on 447 hectares of land in Babakan Madang district, Bogor regency, Gunung Pancar is part of the Cileungsi and Cikeas river basin areas. Any damage to the forest area could affect water runoff and lead to flash flooding. (ebf)

Conserving forests: Officials from public forestry firm Perhutani prepare a large banner to promote tourism at the Gunung Pancar Nature Tourism Park in Bogor, West Java(JP/Theresia Sufa)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 10:56 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb97a87 1 City Anies-Baswedan-Sandiaga-Uno,housing,zero-percent-downpayment Free

The website of the Jakarta Social Agency was hacked on Sunday night by a group of hackers demanding that the presumptive Jakarta governor and vice governor, Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno, realize their promise of a zero percent down-payment scheme for housing.

The hackers, calling themselves the Phoenix Team, put up a message on the website that read: "Looking forward to Anies-Sandi fulfilling their promise" with a picture of a toyhouse made from cardboard. Another message reads: "Is this what zero percent means?"

As of Monday morning, the website is undergoing repairs.

"The agency website is operated under the Jakarta Smart City program, so we are working on the website together now," said Miftahul Huda, the agency's information and communications division head, on Monday.

Miftahul expressed regret that the hackers displayed a political message on the website.

"We are a government body that has stayed neutral on politics, so having a message like that posted on our website is weird," he said.

He said it would take a couple of days to fix the website. In the meantime, citizens can access information from the agency at the agencys official channels on Kaskus and Kompasiana. (dea/wit)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 13:20 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb9c70f 1 City jakarta,culture,festival,Europe Free

Jakarta will participate in two cultural fairs in Berlin and Moscow in May and June, respectively, to promote the city's cultural offerings and tourist attractions.

The citys participation comes as part of its membership of Sister Cities International.

We hope Jakarta will be more well-known in the international world through these festivals, said Muhammad Mawardi, regional head and foreign cooperation bureau head, on Sunday as quoted by beritajakarta.com.

He added that the delegation would be from the citys cultural and tourism agency.

Mawardi said Jakarta cooperated with many prominent cities worldwide in the international program. Some of the other cities in the program include Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin and Moscow. (kuk/wit)

Topics : jakarta culture festival Europe
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 12:20 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb9b2ed 1 National e-ID,bribery-case,e-KTP,Miryam-S-Haryani,KPK,National-Police,Lawmakers,perjury Free

The National Police have arrested Miryam S Haryani, a former Hanura Party lawmaker, at a hotel in South Jakarta.

Miryam has been named a suspect by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for alleged perjury after she withdrew her affidavit during a hearing in a corruption trial related to the e-ID case.

The KPK confronted Miryam during the trial since her earlier testimony, made in front of antigraft body investigators, was a crucial component of the case. Her testimony contained the names of lawmakers who allegedly received bribes in the project.

Miryam stands accused for giving false statements when she denied her affidavit during the trial hearing on March 23. She claims she was threatened by KPK investigators during the investigation process.

Before the arrest, Miryam had failed to meet KPK summons, arguing that she was in poor health.

KPK later sent a letter to the police, informing them that Miryam had been included in the antigraft body's most-wanted list.

(Read also: Miryams lawyer to report KPK to Komnas HAM over DPO status)

National Police spokesperson Ins. Gen. Setyo Wasisto said the police arrested Miryam at 2 a.m. early on Monday morning. He added that Miryam was cooperative when the police arrested her and she was found with another person when the arrest occurred.

"We will give details later. Now, Miryam has been taken to the headquarters of the Jakarta Police," he said as quoted by kompas.com. (rdi/wit)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 11:18 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb995e7 1 National May-Day-commemoration,labor-rally Free

The Yogyakarta Police have prepared 2,000 personnel to secure rallies and events celebrating International Labor Day, or May Day, on Monday.

"We have prepared more than 2,000 personnel for May Day to prevent any disruptions during the celebration," police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Yulianto said on Sunday as quoted by antaranews.com.

(Read also: Thousands of workers to join May Day rally in Jakarta)

He added that the police in each precinct would focus on securing their own areas.

Yulianto said this year's celebration would include seminars and gymnastics. Workers in Yogyakarta will also march from Abu Bakar Ali Park until Tugu Nol Kilometer.

The police claim no restrictions will be imposed on the festivities so long as they are conducted peacefully.

"We hope no individuals will provoke the workers," he said. (rdi/wit)
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Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, May 2 2017

A controversial decision by the House of Representatives to launch an inquiry into a graft investigation conducted by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has baffled some academics and politicians, who consider it to be both illegal and a political mistake.

The decision is believed to violate the 2014 law on legislative institutions, also known as MD3 Law, which grants lawmakers the right to launch an inquiry into policies issued by the government, but not law enforcement institutions such as the KPK.

Article 79 of the law stipulates that the House has the right to investigate legislation or government policies [...] that are deemed to be contradictory to the rule of law.

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Linkedin Vishal Bhargava (The Jakarta Post) Mumbai  Tue, May 2 2017

It is no secret that the rise of China is far from peaceful for the globe. After years of single-minded focus on economic growth, the dragon is showcasing its bulked muscle to nations near and far.

Small and weak nations like Mongolia are pummeled into submission for permitting the visit of spiritual leader Dalai Lama who Beijing considers as a separatist.

Small but dynamic economies like South Korea are punished by arbitrary inspections and closures of their companies in China for permitting a defense system on their land that is perceived to hurt Chinas interests. A United Nations judgment in favor of the Philippines against Beijing on the South China Sea was dismissed.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post)  Tue, May 2 2017

How to enhance the quality of national education is one of the most frequently asked questions posed during annual National Education Day commemorations. Educators, including those from private schools, have a keen interest in sharing their views on this issue.

Ashok Pal Singh, the principal of the Gandhi Memorial Intercontinental School (GMIS), emphasized two points in respect to improving the quality of national education: being open to learning approaches and the importance of second language acquisition for students.

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Linkedin Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Davao, The Philippines  Mon, May 1, 2017 07:00 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb93f46 1 SE Asia ASEAN,#ASEAN Free

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his Philippine counterpart, President Rodrigo Duterte, officiated the opening of a new sea route connecting the port cities of Davao and General Santos in the Philippines and Bitung in North Sulawesi on Sunday in Davao.

During the ceremony, roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) vessels headed to Bitung Port departed from Kudos Port in Davao to mark the opening of a new shipping route. The new route is expected to boost trade between the two countries.

Previously, it took five weeks for goods to be transported from Davao to Indonesia, as traders were forced to make a stopover in Manila before shipping to Indonesian port cities like Jakarta, Makassar or Surabaya.

With the new shipping corridor, a Ro-Ro vessel from Davao could reach Bitung in 36 hours.

"The opening of the Ro-Ro route is a breakthrough. This route will cut chains of distribution of goods from the two countries," Jokowi said during the ceremony.

(Read also: Jokowi encourages ASEAN to take on global challenges)

Jokowi said that the opening of the route took place at the right time because the two countries experienced an increase in trade last year.

"This will provide momentum as last year the value of trade between the two countries increased by 30 percent compared to the previous year," Jokowi said.

Duterte said the new port would not only strengthen economic ties between Indonesia and the Philippines, but also connect the economies of ASEAN member states.

"This will open up competition and create new businesses that will support the opening of new jobs in the future," Duterte said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 11:16 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeb98862 1 News Bangka-Belitung,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism-promotion,tourism,#tourism,ANRI,national-archives Free

The National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia (ANRI) held a two-day coordination meeting from April 27 to April 28 in Bangka Belitung to discuss the management of national asset archives.

At the meeting, attended by approximately 200 people, the head of ANRI Mustari Irawan talked about maintaining all tourist and culture-related archives.

Read also: Ministry holds national convention to develop MICE tourism

To include achievements made by Indonesian Tourism, for example the recognition of traditional dances, we must keep all the files in case other countries might attempt to claim our assets, said Mustari.

The meeting was fully supported by the Tourism Ministry as it was a form of MICE Tourism. MICE stands for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions.

We support this event since it is a MICE activity that helps improve the economy of Bangka Belitung, said Esthy Reko Astuti, the ministry's archipelago tourism marketing development deputy. (kes)
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Linkedin Stefanus Ajie (The Jakarta Post) Sukoharjo, Central Java  Mon, May 1, 2017 16:05 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeba0358 1 Destinations Mulur-Reservoir,destination,#destination,fishing,Sukoharjo,Central-Java,travel,traveling,keramba Free

The Mulur Reservoir may not be as famous as other reservoirs in Central Java, such as Gajah Mungkur and Kedung Ombo, but it still has plenty to offer as a promising tourist destination.

Situated in Mulur village, Sukoharjo, and easily reached from Karanganyar and Surakarta, the reservoir once served as an irrigation source during the Dutch East Indies. Since the 2000s, the reservoir has been gradually rejuvenated. Though not yet equipped with tourist-friendly public facilities, it has already become a popular destination for the people of Sukoharjo and neighboring cities.

Keramba fill the waters of Mulur Reservoir. (JP/Stefanus Ajie)

Occupying a 120-hectare area, 90-hectares of which is water, the site features lush trees and a field locals use for sport. Visitors can also be found fishing from dawn till dusk every day; some even hop aboard bamboo rafts to fish in the middle of reservoir.

Read also: East Jakarta discusses turning reservoir into tourist destination

One farmer, Yatim, considers feeding the fish in a keramba a fun activity. (JP/Stefanus Ajie)

The reservoir is also home to many keramba (floating fish farm cages), filled with various fresh-water fish like nila, gabus, toman and patin, which will later be sold to buyers from Sukoharjo and Surakarta for Rp 25,00 (US$1.9) or Rp 35,000 per kilogram.

Sixty-nine-year-old Yatim, who has been working as a keramba farmer for 4 years, said the activity was not only profitable, but also fun. "Every morning and evening I row my small boat to the middle of the reservoir to feed the fish in the keramba, or to repair the net. This is a fun and healthy activity for me." (kes)

A local resident fishing in Mulur Reservoir.(JP/Stefanus Ajie)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 16:30 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeba183a 1 News Batam,music-festival,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,tourism,#tourism,tourists Free

Some 900 Singaporean tourists, including people from the blind and visually impaired community, traveled to Batam, Riau Islands, on three ferries and 22 buses to attend the Wonderful Indonesia Music Festival Cross-Border Batam on April 29 at the Sumatra Expo Center Batam.

For an hour, the tourists were entertained by the Indonesian band Wali.

Read also: Seeking some rest and recreation in the hidden corner of Batam

Apart from attending the concert, the tourists also arranged a Qasidah (a genre of Arabic-language poetry) performance in Sekupang district, a marching band performance by 100 school children and made a donation to the local orphanage. All of these activities were funded with their own money.

Riau Islands is known as a maritime tourist destination. It is among the most-visited places by foreign tourists in Indonesia. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, May 1, 2017 17:29 2018 a291276806121264c0bd211cdeba249f 1 News Batam,Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,music-festival Free

The Wonderful Indonesia Music Festival Crossborder Batam in Riau Islands on April 29 made a huge impact on the citys economy, especially in the tourist sector.

It is estimated that some 34,000 hotel rooms were occupied over the weekend. With the addition of 900 tourists from Singapore attending the festival, restaurants, hotels and shops were overwhelmed with visitors.

Read also: 5 most popular destinations in Indonesia for holidaymakers

All of our rooms are fully booked until May 1, said the executive secretary at the Golden View Hotel.

They [the tourists from Singapore] contribute to hotel and restaurant tax. They also donated money to the local orphanage and the orphans in Batam, said Sulaiman Sulaiman Shehdek from the Visit Indonesia Tourism Office in Singapore. (asw)
Donald Trump has lashed out at a judges ruling blocking his attempt to strip funds from sanctuary cities that dont co-operate with US immigration authorities, calling it ridiculous and vowing to go to the Supreme Court.

So what are sanctuary cities and why did a judge block Trumps proposals?

What are sanctuary cities?

Donald Trump said he will take his battle to the Supreme Court (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

A sanctuary city is generally accepted as one which does not allow municipal funds or resources to be spent on enforcing federal immigration requests.

This includes civil detainer requests in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers request that a local jail detain an inmate for up to 48 hours after their scheduled release date so immigration officials can decide if they want to detain them.

The rules are different in each sanctuary city as they are set by the local government, but it generally means local jails will not turn illegal immigrants in to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after they have been charged or served jail time.

New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Houston are sanctuary cities, among others.

There are approximately 11 million undocumented migrants living in the US right now. Supporters of sanctuary cities say the rules make cities safer as undocumented individuals are able to report crime without fear of being handed over to immigration officials.

What did Trumps executive order say, and why was it halted by a judge?

The executive order was designed to halt federal funding to areas which limit co-operation with immigration officials, in effect forcing them to report undocumented immigrants. Unfortunately for Trump, a San Francisco district judge has thwarted the order.

US District Judge William Orrick said the president had no authority to attach new conditions of his own to spending that was approved by Congress.

A beacon even among #sanctuarycities, I'm so proud to live in the fierce & formidable San Francisco Bay Area. #NoBanNoWallNoRaids  Shannon Coulter (@shannoncoulter) April 25, 2017

The judge further ruled that Trumps order threatened a wide range of funding  not the relatively small amount the Justice Department claimed  and that the government cannot cut off funding if there is no clear connection between the money and the policy at issue.

Trumps Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the president was well within his power to issue the executive order and the Department of Justice would continue to fight the cases in court. It was not clear, however, whether he planned to appeal Orricks ruling.

How did Trump react?

As usual, Trumps reaction came via Twitter. In a series of tweets he slammed the court, accusing groups against the ban of judge shopping.

First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary cities-both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017

Out of our very big country, with many choices, does everyone notice that both the "ban" case and now the "sanctuary" case is brought in   Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017

the Ninth Circuit, which has a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80%). They used to call this "judge shopping!" Messy system.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2017

Are sanctuary cities safe, then?

Texan Republicans have spoken out about sanctuary cities (Eric Gay/AP)

No. There are plenty of other options for the Trump administration.

Trump could appeal to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but that was the court that blocked the presidents first travel ban against seven Muslim countries. 18 of the 25 active judges on the court were appointed by Democrats.

In his tweets he stated he wants to go to the Supreme Court, which would have the final say if it decided to take up the case.

Local government is also taking action against sanctuary cities. The Republican-controlled Texas House approved a strict ban on them on Thursday, which would see funding withheld from county and local governments in Texas which support sanctuary measures and would jail police chiefs and other officials who dont help to enforce immigration law.
Located on the Balkan Coast, north of Greece, across the Adriatic from Italy, Albania isnt one of the most popular tourist destinations or the most obvious.

But the former Communist state has some of the best architecture in Europe.

The nations vast array of architecture reflects its long and proud history. Invaded by the Romans and held by the Byzantines until the 7th Century invasion by Bulgaria, parts of it passed hands on to Serbia and in 1271, Albania was an independent kingdom.

By 1431, the nation was mostly occupied by the Ottoman Invaders and the Turks defeated a long-lasting rebellion started by Albanian noble Skanderbeg by 1479 and Albania was controlled from Constantinople until independence in 1912.

Like the Romans had bought Catholicism and the Serbs had bought Orthodoxy, the Ottomans also bought Islam to Albania.

Albania, like most of Eastern Europe, fell to Communism under the brutal rule of Enver Hoxha and Ramiz Alia until 1991.

All the different influences on the country have left on impression on the nation.

The historic towns of Berat and Gjirokastra are designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Berat, which has several stunning hills in the background, is representative of the religious mix of Albania: you will find churches from the 1300s bustled with mosques from the 1400s.

The town has just 60,000 residents and is full of picturesque white homes and Berat Castle, dating back to the 5th Century and possessing a majestic medieval citadel.

The ancient towns of Butrint and Durres both possess a theatre and an amphitheatre from Roman times.

Carved into mountainous rock, Durress amphitheatre has been threatened by recent housing developments, though the Municipal Government led by Vangjush Dako is planning to remove these houses. It also contains many beautiful mosaics, although some are in need for restoration work.

Butrint, known as Buthrotum in Roman times, close to the Greek border in the south-east also is home to a Basilica, dating back to the the 5th Century, the early Christian building the largest church in the country and the entire region.

In the north west, the town of Shkoder is home to the Busatl Mehmet Pasha Mosque also known as The Lead Mosque.

It is based on a typical Istanbul mosque reflecting Albanias Ottoman era. This is fairly rare as most Albanian mosques are designed in Arabic style.

Many mosques were destroyed under Communist rule due to Hoxhas policy of state atheism.The Lead Mosque was able to survive due to its cultural significance, but was still closed between 1967 and 1990.

All the stones used in construction are almost the same size, making it look spectacular.

Lots of new buildings were constructed throughout the Communist era. Massive new town squares were re-designed, not too dissimilar to those found throughout nations on the other side of the Iron Curtain. This includes the capital city, Tiranas main plaza: Skanderbeg Square.

With the National Historical Museum close by, the square used to contain statues of Hoxha and Joseph Stalin. The former was removed and the later was replaced by the Skanderbeg Monument in 1968. A 36 feet long bronze statue, inaugurated on the 500th anniversary of his death.

Designed by Odhise Paskali, Andrea Mano and Janaq Paco the statue towers over the square and is an apt reminder of the man who perhaps embodies Albanias patriotic and warriorlike spirit better than anyone else, leading a 25-year long rebellion against Ottoman rule.

In the rebellion, he returned to Christianity after converting to Islam and fighting for the Ottomans. He raised a red flag with a black double headed eagle, still to this day the Albanian flag.

An addition to the wide array of architecture, Albania is a diverse nation with both mountains and beaches. Theres also museums exhibiting artefacts from throughout the nations long history.

All this makes Albania a holiday destination to consider.
History buff, keen on following in the footsteps of momentous events and discovering some off-the-beaten-track gems along the way?

Then look no further than the German federal state of Thuringia, where various special events and exhibitions celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation this year - and put the spotlight on the region's stunning castles, palaces and churches.

Here are three reasons to visit.

1. Special exhibition at Eisenach's Wartburg

Thuringia is home to one of the best-known Martin Luther sites: in 1521-22, the Protestant reformer spent 11 months in custody in the mighty Wartburg Castle, towering above Eisenach.

Having nothing else to do, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German and this little pastime achieved nothing less than the creation of a unified German language.

The special exhibition Luther and the Germans (4th May to 5th November) pays tribute to this great achievement and presents more than 300 exhibits from five centuries of German cultural history in the stunning surroundings of UNESCO World Heritage site Wartburg Castle.

2. Discover Thuringia's hidden gems on the Reformation trail

A new permanent exhibition opening on 29th April in Schmalkalden's Wilhelmsburg Castle, a beautiful Renaissance structure, focuses on the so-called Schmalkaldic League, an alliance of Protestant Princes that was formed here in 1531.

Visitors can walk through a large town model, taking them back into the early days of Protestantism, and discover the historic town of Schmalkalden with its charming old town full of lovingly restored half-timbered houses.

Roughly 50 miles further north, the small town of Muhlhausen is another hidden gem, hosting the "Luther's unloved brothers" exhibition this year (until 31st October) in the Kornmarktkirche church.

The displays shed light on the German Peasant's War, which was fuelled by reformatory ideas. Thomas Muntzer, a Muhlhausen preacher, was one of the masterminds behind the revolt.

Tip: Don't miss nearby Hainich National Park, featuring a stand-out treetop trail!

3. Erfurt's historic stage & Gotha's ducal collections

From 18th May to 12th November, Thuringia's capital Erfurt hosts a special exhibition that turns the whole city centre with its narrow alleys and century-old buildings into a real-life exhibition area.

"Barefoot into Heaven?" addresses Luther's relationship with the so-called Roman-Catholic mendicant orders of the city and is shown at the authentic sites of Erfurt's former Augustinian, Dominican and Franciscan monasteries.

Last but not least, head over to lovely Gotha, only 16 miles west of Erfurt. The former residence town of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a branch of the Ernestines, is home to valuable art and ancient documents of the Reformation.

The Ernestines were supporters of the Reformation and the collections at Gotha's Friedenstein Castle and in the Ducal Museum are paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the "painter of the Reformation", along with precious first prints of Reformation leaflets and Luther scripts.
"I breast fed the little people," she cackled, before explaining that the cartoon family had been created to serve as filler between her sketches in The Tracey Ullman Show, which aired in America in the late 1980s. Ullmans show has long since ended but The Simpsons are still around, having become one of the most successful television series of all time. Some 600 episodes have been produced, while this year producers Fox have renewed the series for its 29th and 30th seasons. This spring marks three decades since the original clips popped up between Ullmans sketches.The success of The Simpsons lies in its focus on that most recognisable of concepts: The family. There is a father and mother, happily married but not without their problems, the eldest son, an often undervalued sister, and a baby who came along, unexpectedly, a few years later. This, however, is where the normality ends. The head of this nuclear family is an employee at a power plant which deals with the same kind of energy, while his wife has gravity-defying blue hair, which is somehow accepted by audiences along with the bright yellow skin. Furthermore, The Simpson family, like the rest of the inhabitants in their home town of Springfield, are afflicted with a case of Peter Pan syndrome: nobody ever grows up. The show has seen six US presidents, yet Maggie is still sucking on pacifiers. Creator Matt Groening (who deserves more credit than Ullman), wrote the original sketches with a focus on the obnoxious Bart - an anagram of brat - but wisely switched the focus to Homer by the time of the shows own pilot. Homers outburst of exasperation - 'D'oh!'  is one of the countless tropes which has been made legendary through an array of mediums, from theme parks to action figures and video games. Ullman said it was when she travelled to Italy and discovered a Simpsons bath set that she knew she had been breastfeeding something special.Like all creative geniuses, Groening wrote what he knew; his father was called Homer, his mother Margaret (nee Wiggum). He had sisters called Lisa and Maggie and an aunt Selma. Near his home in Portland, Oregon was a town called Springfield, though one of the shows many running gags is that the fictional city is difficult to place, being, according to Ned Flanders "somewhere between Ohio, Nevada, Maine and Kentucky." Yet Springfield, though hard to locate, is big enough to house a vast array of secondary and tertiary characters, most of them voiced by just a handful of stars; Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Yeardley Smith is the sole exception, voicing just the one character, Lisa.A classic episode would open with a great couch gag, to be followed by a sophisticated plot, featuring a guest star who was not there for the sake of their own fame, but because they added something to the story. Throughout, there would be more cultural references than is possible to pick up on in one viewing, while at the end, either a particularly sick gag or a memorable song would see in the closing credits. My favourite episode is the eighth seasons Homers Enemy, in which the luckless Frank Grimes begins work at the power plant and endures a slow and ultimately fatal collision with Homer. Everybody has their own favourite. Words such as 'iconic' are often employed in discussions of this show (is it no coincidence that Lisa's hair resembles the crown of the Statue of Liberty, another concept indivisibly associated with America?) The sheer number of episodes produced guarantees it the honour of the first binge-watchable show in history, quite an achievement considering it came long before Netflix or even the internet. Indeed, as well as being a cultural icon, The Simpsons is also an invaluable introduction to the greatest movies, television shows and celebrities, ever to have existed - all of which the show has either parodied or, in the case of the latter, had on as guest stars.A show of this magnitude has inevitably attracted critics. In the same year as Venezuela outlawed it as being unsuitable for children, several Russian Pentecostal churches demanded that The Simpsons (along with South Park and other subversive Western cartoons) be removed from television on the grounds that they were propaganda of various vices. The former conservative President George H.W. Bush took a dim view of it, even criticising it in his speech to the 1992 Republican National Convention. The offended producers quickly re-wrote an upcoming episode attacking him, while in a later series he was portrayed as a latter-day Frank Grimes, impotently furious at Homers idiocy. The show had combined the traditional image of a family and the seemingly innocuous medium of a cartoon and had transformed it into something bold and unforgettably radical. Inevitably as time has run on, The Simpsons is now discussed knowingly as 'not as good as it used to be.' Fans date the show's slide from greatness to mediocrity around the tenth season, nearly seventeen years ago (many other shows would be lucky to run even this long). Having long exhausted all conceivable plot points and character issues, writers instead relied on the novelty of the guest stars and other gimmicks to feed the insatiable demand of their fans and producers greed. America is the only country in the world which could give us The Simpsons, but it is also the one that will not allow it a dignified end. The franchise is still too lucrative for the broadcasting bigwigs to do the kindest thing, and prescribe the cure for Peter Pan Syndrome and allow the characters to grow up and move out of Springfield. Yet even if it lives to sixty and is watched by only a handful of devotees, the show need not worry about its place in history. It has introduced a generation to the joys and cruelties of the world, mainly through witty lines (alcohol - the cause of and solution to all of life's problems), uplifting its many viewers while never letting it be forgotten that, at the end of the day, we're all yellow under the skin.
Being President of the United States is incredibly high pressured, but luckily there are a fair few perks to lighten this heavy burden.

One of these, which Donald Trump seems to be particularly enjoying according to an AP report, is a button on the desk in the Oval Office which summons a White House butler with a Coke.

People are pretty jealous of the button  it would be pretty sweet to get a Coke whenever you felt mildly thirsty.

BRUHH I NEED THAT BUTTON  POTUS perks: Trump has a Coke button in the White House https://t.co/ucuVaEOajR  MegaZardX  (@MegaZard_X) April 26, 2017

Even those on the other side of the political debate could not deny the appeal of the Coke button.

I hate Trump and his entire White House but tbh I'd do the same thing but with Diet Coke https://t.co/A2ds85ZkBR  Ellie Schwartz (@EllieInTheStars) April 26, 2017

@amyfiscus This is probably the only thing about Trump that I would emulate.  ChuckVoellinger (@CVoellinger) April 25, 2017

However, not everyone can be pleased, and some have already started thinking of what extra benefits theyd take advantage of if they were in the Oval Office.

Trump has a Coke button and I wouldn't have a button. I'd just have an IV set up that pours Starbucks into my veins  rachel leishman (@RachelLeishman) April 26, 2017

This isnt actually a new development as the button has been available for previous presidents, but it doesnt stop us from being jealous.
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In any bad rule, farmers are not put in prisons. In the Khammam market, illegal cases should be raised on farmers. Rs. The government can only get 12,000.-Acceptance of changes in the Land Acquisition Act.

Hyderabad: 'No worse governments will be arrested and imprisoned,' said TPCC president Uttamkumar Reddy. The farmers have been forced to burn hard-earned crops and products, which means they can understand how the KCR regime is worse. The Congress legislature party meeting was chaired by opposition leader K Jana Reddy in the committees on Saturday. Later, Ramam Kumar Reddy spoke to the media along with Janarreddy. The farmers did not want to get their crops to be burned, but it is happening in Telangana and the worst of KCR rule is the arrest of farmers.

If farmers are in serious trouble, the CM KRR will be forced to go to the farmhouse and to laugh at Pragathi Bhavan. The government has criticized the government for not implementing Section 144 of the Market Yards and preventing farmers from preventing farmers. Khammam demanded the immediate lifting of illegal cases against farmers in the event. Rs. Demanding to buy the government at the rate of 12 thousand quintals. The farmers in Mudigonda district of Khammam district were illegally arrested and put in the police station, where the legislator, who was going to talk with them, was arrested by TPCC executive president Malu Bhatti Vikramarkan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday invited Turkish businesses to invest in sectors like energy, rail, road, ports and housing, saying India was never a better investment destination than it is now.

Addressing business leaders present at the India-Turkey Business Summit, which was also attended by visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Modi stressed the need for a substantial increase in the economic engagement between the two countries.

The prime minister said although the bilateral trade between India and Turkey has gone up to $6.4 billion in 2016 from 2.8 billion in 2008, it is still far behind the real potential.

India and Turkey enjoy good economic ties While this (trade growth) is encouraging, the level of present economic and commercial relation is not enough against the real potential, Modi said.

Observing that India and Turkey, which are among the top 20 economies of the world with strong fundamentals, can substantially increase bilateral cooperation in several areas, the Indian prime minister said, The time has come to make aggressive effort to deepen relationship and enhance bilateral engagement.

Promising a business friendly environment, Modi said the Turkish construction companies can participate in India's infrastructure sector development, especially in sectors like ports, rail, housing, energy, hydrocarbon, tourism, textiles and auto.

Modi also highlighted India's low-cost manufacturing capabilities before the Turkish businessmen while seeking investment.

Speaking on the occasion, Turkish President Erdogan also made a strong case for deepening and strengthening bilateral ties to achieve the actual trade potential between the two nations.

He also suggested that India and Turkey should initiate free-trade agreement talks and look for possibility of bilateral trade in domestic currencies to tide over the issue of exchange rate fluctuation.

We should increase our business and economic relationshipif we can also start the comprehensive economic relations negotiation that would be greatIt would be also good to start free-trade agreement talks. This would also add further momentum to our relations, he said.

Erdogan, however, underlined the need for balancing the trade saying it was highly in favour of India.

He also called upon Indian businessmen to increase investments in Turkey stressing that his country was ideal place for investment and production.

The businessmen of the two countries, he said, could also join hand to explore investment opportunities in third countries.
BJP's student wing ABVP on Monday threw its weight behind students of the Allahabad University, agitating over alleged financial irregularities, and demanded that the vice-chancellor be removed from his post until investigation into the charges was complete.

Addressing a press conference here, secretary of ABVP's Prayag-Kashi Prant unit Bhupendra Singh alleged that "just because of raising the issue of financial irregularities in the universities, student union president Rohit Mishra was suspended some time back".

Mishra, who was elected to the president's post in elections held in September last year, himself belongs to the ABVP which is an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Referring to the recent drive to evict illegal occupants from hostels, following an order of the Allahabad High Court to the effect, Singh alleged, "in the name of removing those occupying rooms unlawfully and cleansing and whitewashing of the premises, the university administration harassed many genuine students as well".

He alleged that the warden of the women's hostel "got belongings of students thrown out" and added, "such a step could not have been taken except under instructions from the VC himself".

"We therefore demand that the VC shall remain 'padchyut' (removed from his post) until investigation is complete", Singh said.

The Allahabad University campus was rocked by large-scale violence and arson on Friday last when four students were arrested by police for raising slogans and disrupting a meeting of the varsity's executive council.

More than a score of people, including Mishra, have been booked for vandalism, arson and violation of prohibitory orders.

Meanwhile, a probe has been ordered by the Union HRD Ministry into the recent incidents at the central university.
BJP president Amit Shah will on Tuesday meet party's newly elected MCD councillors and guide them on their works and duties.

BJP sources said its Delhi unit will felicitate Shah for leading the party to a massive victory in the MCD polls.

"He will give Guru Mantra to them and guide them on their works and duties as representatives of people in their wards," said Delhi BJP general secretary Rajesh Bhatia.

Besides the sitting councillors, all BJP candidates in municipal polls, the outgoing councillors, district presidents, and other Delhi unit leaders and workers will attend the function at Civic Centre, which serves as headquarters for South and North Delhi Municipal Corporations.

"The event will also be an occasion to acknowledge the contribution of every party worker who worked hard to ensure BJP's impressive victory," Bhatia said.

The party pulled off a massive victory in the recent elections for three municipal corporations, winning 181 out of a total of 270 wards.
The rift between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal took a different turn after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was, on Monday, called a hijra (eunuch) by a senior leader of the saffron party.

Mamata Banerjee is practising the politics of appeasement and indulging in theatrics. With the current political situation in Bengal, it is difficult for us to understand whether Mamata Banerjee is a man or a woman. I think she is a eunuch, BJP state committee member Shyamapada Mondal said while addressing a party meet in West Midnapore.

The ruling TMC and other parties have called the comments indicative of the BJPs rotten culture and Kolkatas transgender activists have condemned what they see as an undesirable attitude towards the community and a woman politician.

Reacting to Mondals remark, TMC leader Partha Chatterjee said, "They think they'll make their party stronger through such remarks".

This is not the first time that the West Bengal chief minister has faced such abuses from the BJP leaders.

Earlier in the month, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) had announced a cash reward of Rs. 11 lakh for West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's head, following a lathicharge at Birbhum district to disperse a rally raising slogans of Jai Sri Ram on Hanuman Jayanti.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) on Monday complained to Delhi Police about, what it called, a "misleading campaign" being run on Twitter to "malign" the university.

In a letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, the union said that a Twitter user was spreading "objectionable" comments about female students and teachers of the university in a series of tweets.

"The user, which goes by the name of 'Swamy Sena', has shared a one-year-old article whose headline reads 'JNU den of organised sex racket, says dossier by university teachers'," the letter read.

The elected student body then goes on to denounce the allegations published in the news report as "baseless" and "devoid of facts".

"The post has been retweeted by an account which goes by the name of Subramanyam Swamy ([email protected]_39) and its description reads 'Rajya Sabha MP, BJP national EC member' As a result of their proximity to those in power, some people believe that they have the licence to make lascivious remarks against women," the complaint said.

It further read that because of such messages, in the past many women students had received threats of sexual violence.

The article in question was published last April on the basis of a "dossier" alleged to have been prepared by 12 JNU teachers, who had claimed through the document that the university was a den of prostitution and immorality.

The students union sent a copy to the Delhi Commission for Women as well.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sweeping the Delhi municipal polls, one hopes it puts into practice what it has been preaching across the nation ~ cleanliness.

There are several pockets across the capital that sorely need a liberal brush of the broom, starting with the entry points into the city ~ airports, railway stations and inter-state bus terminals.

Any incoming passenger stepping out of these three locations is surely in for a shock at the nightmare that unfolds.

A colleague narrated how an elderly relative from Chennai, visiting Delhi for the first time, anticipated a swank city. Stepping off the train, he could not believe the sight of the platform that he had landed in Delhi. Moving out of the station, he was even more disillusioned at the sight of the filth and the chaos.

Whisked away into the Metro station and then by car to the final destination, he was suitably impressed. Yet the first impression refused to leave him.

This is true of almost every visitor to Delhi. And the Capital receives a fair number of visitors ~ tourists, job seekers and transit passengers, to name a few. The impression most carry with them is of a bustling modern city that is well-maintained.

This lasts the longest with air travellers, as Delhi's airport is now modern and quite spic-and-spank. However, the city's railway stations and bus terminals are a different story. Stinking ~ there are no wash-rooms in sight and so people relieve themselves on the platform itself ~ and filthy, any visitor would imagine the entire city to be as dirty.

One hopes the BJP councillors quickly take up this clarion call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and clean up the city. Passenger facilities and cleanliness at the rail and bus stations must be a priority, not just to showcase the city but to set an example for the rest of the country.

Traffic chaos

Traffic-control lights remaining nonfunctional for days and months, in Delhi's National Capital Region result in frayed tempers and cumulative loss of man hours for commuters and policemen.

Damaged light signal posts, leaning over for weeks after an impact, are dismal reminders of civic apathy.

Yet no roving repair crew is deployed for speedy restoration of orderly flow of vehicles. In contrast, in the Turkic-Mongol tribal Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, their pre-1992 Soviet Union Republic era traffic management discipline continues.

There is a citizens' fault reporting system and the traffic police ensures that technicians rush to restore functionality.

Traffic snarls in NCR are aggravated by reckless drivers flouting road rules, defiantly cruising on the wrong side of the road, along the side-walk pavements.

Brazen helmetless two-wheeler riders forever resort to unsafe manoeuvres to get ahead, despite there being nothing solid between them and a crash. And policemen contend with disorderly vehicular streams to just keep them moving, to avert exasperating gridlocks.

Reserved seat?

One of the many good features of the Delhi Metro is the respect shown by the younger generation to senior citizens and women.

Apart from one compartment being reserved for ladies, seats are reserved for ladies as well as senior citizens and physically handicapped in the rest of the train.

Being conscious about it, young travellers willingly leave their seats for them. However, at times this mark of respect goes astray, a colleague narrated. On his way to office in the Metro the other day, a girl in her 20s offered her seat to an elderly gentleman, who boarded the train.

But, much to her consternation, instead of taking the seat, he turned to a beautiful girl standing next to him, urging her to sit down instead.

The girl, perhaps not thinking rationally, readily occupied it. This gesture of the older man did not seem not appropriate to the girl, who had vacated the seat. Perhaps smarting from a sense of insult, the young girl couldn't resist an outburst while getting off at her station.

"I offered the seat to you, not that good looking girl. This is inappropriate," the girl tartly told the old man. Realising that something had gone amiss on his part, the other co-passengers also gave him funny looks. Certainly, his chivalry did not go down well, instead attracting jeers.

Brazen stalker

Despite some very stringent laws and measures taken by our law enforcers, one is often amazed at the growing boldness of the so-called Romeos.

A colleague narrated how she was recently unnerved by one such person, who stalked her for quite a while. A resident of Gurgaon, she took the Metro to office and had to change trains at Rajiv Chowk to reach Noida.

Running on to the platform, where a train had just entered, she asked people standing around about the train's destination.

A man in the crowded train confirmed that it was going towards Noida. After getting in, and regaining her breath, our colleague noticed that the man, who was wearing aviators even inside the train, was shamelessly staring at her.

Our friend decided not to react to the situation and simply get off when her station came. However, to her surprise, the man followed her as she walked out of the station. He then caught up with her and asked for her phone number or any social network address.

It took all of our colleague's courage to give a firm response, enough for passers-by to notice. She relaxed only after entering the office building.

Yet she was upset at what might have happened even as she was amazed at the bold manner in which the man accosted her, sure that he would not get into any trouble.

Tailpiece

One wonders whether the debate over agricultural tax is just a coverup for the real crisis that Indian farmers are facing.

Contributed by: R V Smith, Samir Pal, Nurul I Sarkar, Ishita Malhotra and Asha Ramachandran
Actress Julia Roberts has shown support to students fighting for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) rights in the US.

Transgender student leader in St. Joseph's, Missouri, Miguel Johnson Johnson, spoke on stage alongside Roberts at the GLSEN Respect Awards, an event benefitting the national organisation that works to keep schools safe for LGBTQ youth.

"I had the pleasure of presenting with Miguel at last year's GLSEN Respect Awards, and Miguel, like all the students I meet there, is smart, kind and incredibly brave to live their life openly and honestly at such a young age," Roberts said in a statement to people.com.

"As a parent, I want all students to feel safe and protected at school, and I stand with Miguel and trans students across the country. You are loved."

Last year, Johnson was cautiously optimistic about the upcoming election, which featured a Republican candidate who had openly acknowledged the LGTQ community.

Trump even suggested reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner would be welcome to use the bathroom of her choosing at Trump Tower.

"Before Trump got elected, he always said he was totally for LGBTQ students because they're people too and they deserve an education," Johnson told people.com.

"And then after he got elected, he was basically like, Just kidding, I lied.'"

On February 22, Trump overruled his own Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to rescind Obama-era protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

Instead, the Trump administration argued it should be up to the states and local school districts to establish "educational policy".

Johnson blames Trump's flip-flopping on LGBTQ issues with changing the atmosphere of acceptance in his small town.
Even as Pakistani army on Monday killed an Indian soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies across the Line of Control (LoC), Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said India should continue dialogue with the neighbouring country.

"I fully condemn the the attack on Indian soldiers. The government must be supported in dealing with the situation," Singh told reporters.

Supporting the idea of continued dialogue with Pakistan, he invoked former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, saying: "We have to keep dialogue open with all our neighbours, because Atalji had rightly said that we can change our policies but not our neighbours."

The Pakistani army personnel on Monday killed an Indian Army soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies near the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said and warned of an appropriate response to the "unsoldierly act". Pakistan, however, denied the charge.


Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Monday landed in a fresh controversy after tweeting about Telangana Police saying the state police were trapping Muslim youth by encouraging them to join Islamic State (IS).

Congress in-charge of Telangana and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, Digvijaya alleged in a series of tweets that the police in the southern state had set up a bogus ISIS site and were posting inflammatory information to trap young Muslim men.

"Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules," he said.

The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information? Is It Ethical ? Is it Moral ? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS ? he tweeted.

Digvijaya said that based on the information given by Telangana Police, the Madhya Pradesh Police arrested the accused in the train blast in Shajapur district, MP.

"It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP," he tweeted.

However, reacting to the Congress leader's alleged tweets, the Telangana Police said that the Congress leader has made unfounded allegations, which would lower the morale of security forces fighting against anti-India forces.

Unfounded allegations from a senior responsible leader will lower the morale and image of Police engaged in fighting anti-national forces and it, Telangana DGP tweeted.

On Saturday, the Congress had removed Digvijaya as the in-charge of poll-bound Karnataka as well as Goa, where the party failed to form government despite emerging as the largest single party.
Five policemen and two bank employees were killed in an attack by militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Kulgam district on Monday, police said.

The incident occurred at Pombai village in Kulgam when several militants attacked a cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank.

"Militants fired at the van occupants," a police officer said, adding the attackers escaped with the rifles of the slain policemen.

On hearing the news, senior police and paramilitary officers rushed to the spot and launched a hunt for the killers.

The cash van was retrning to Kulgam town, escorted by the policemen, after it deposited cash in the Neehama village branch of the bank when it came under attack.

Meanwhile, a head constable of the Border Security Force was killed and two others, including an Army JCO, critically wounded as Pakistani troops resorted to indiscriminate shelling on Indian pickets in the Krishna Ghati (KG) sector in the Rajouri district today.

According to a BSF spokesman, the killed BSF jawan has been identified as Prem Sagar. He sustained injury and was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to injury. The condition of the Army JCO was not yet known, when the report was received.

Another BSF constable also injured in the shelling was stated out of danger.

Earlier in the day, at around 8.30 am, Heavy firing from Pakistani posts at BSF posts on the LoC in KG Sector with rocket and automatic weapons were reported.

(With inputs from agencies)
In line with the promise to help Nepal conduct its civic polls, India on Monday handed over several vehicles to the Election Commission (EC) of the Himalayan republic.

India's Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri handed over different types of vehicles to Ayodhee Prasad Yadav, the Chief Eelction Commissioner of Nepal, by way of extending logistical support for smooth conduct of the forthcoming elections.

Five days after the telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian assistance was announced.

Apart from the EC request, the government through the Ministry of Home Affairs had also requested for another 1,000 vehicles.

"India has provided different types of vehicles that include 35 double cabin pickups, seven Scorpio jeeps, four sedans, one SUV, one minibus, one microbus, 30 motorcycles and seven scooters," said a government official.

"India procured these vehicles at a cost of NPRs.89.17 million (1 NPR = 0.624577 INR) and gifted to us. These would be useful in supply of men and materials in different parts of the country for conducting the elections," he added.

During the handing over ceremony, Indian Ambassador Puri reiterated India's firm position on elections and recalled the Dahal-Modi conversation last week. Modi, apart from promising assistance in polls, had assured all support to achieve peace, stability and socio-economic transformation in Nepal.

In the past too, India has been extending support in the form of vehicles and other logistical equipment on the request of the Nepal government.

During the Second Constituent Assembly elections, the government of India had gifted 48 vehicles to the Election Commission and 716 vehicles to security agencies in Nepal.
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh is known for his foot-in-mouth moments and remarks that have often landed him in controversies. Many a times, he had to either clarify those statements or retract them. He triggered a fresh controversy on Monday when he posted series of tweets on the Telengana Police, saying the state police were encouraging Muslim youth to join the Islamic State. He alleged that the state police had set up a bogus ISIS site and were posting inflammatory information to trap young Muslim men.

One of the tweets read: "Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules".

With this remark grabbing media attention, the Congress leader is back in the limelight.

While the news has gone viral, readers may recall his earlier remarks that put him in a spot. Here are five other controversial remarks made by him earlier that sparked off quite a row and made headlines.

A 100 per cent tunch maal: During a meeting in Madhya Pradesh on 26 July 2013, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh called his fellow party leader Meenakshi Natarajan 'a 100 per cent tunch maal' (100 per cent sexy woman)'. He also said that he knew this because he is an experienced jeweller. The BJP had that time attacked him and asked the party to send him to some mental institution.

Arvind Kejriwal is like Rakhi Sawant: Digvijaya Singh on 12 November 2012 compared Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal with Bollywood's item girl Rakhi Sawant, saying that they both try and expose but with no substance. "Arvind Kejriwal is like Rakhi Sawant. They both try and expose but with no substance," he had tweeted. Singh also sought an apology from Rakhi Sawant for making the comparison.

RSS making bomb factories: The Congress leader on 18 July 2011 alleged that the RSS was spreading terrorism in the country and it has been making bomb factories. Singh said that he had always maintained that the RSS was spreading terrorism, but reiterated that he had no proof of the involvement of the RSS in the latest Mumbai serial blasts. The statement had created controversy in the BJP circle then.

Supreme Court should give verdicts, no observations: The Congress leader on 14 May 2013 gave the controversial statement on the Supreme Court for its observations on the lack of autonomy in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) setting up a confrontation between the ruling side and the judiciary. The controversial statement landed him in trouble.

Sea burial of Osama Bin Laden? The senior Congress leader questioned Osama Bin Laden's burial at sea, saying however big a terrorist one may be, he should have been buried as per religious rituals. "I am not talking just about Osama. All I am asking is whether burying him at sea is Islamic. We did not do it to those involved in 26/11. It is very good for the world that he is killed. All I am saying is even the worst of criminals have to be buried/cremated as per their faith," he had said it on 3 May 2011.
Saudi Arabia's ambassador to India Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati met Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi here on Monday and the two discussed various issues related to this year's Haj pilgrimage.

A total of 170,000 Indians can go for the annual pilgrimage.

According to a statement, Naqvi stated that safety of devotees will be the government's priority.

Various issues such as visa process, accommodation and transport facilities for the pilgrims were discussed in the meeting, the statement said.
India and Turkey on Monday agreed to boost bilateral trade and investment relations, with various institutional mechanisms being initiated towards this end.

"I agreed with Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi that we should increase our economic relations and we will have opportunity to discuss this further today (Monday)," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the India-Turkey Business Forum, where Prime Minister Modi was also present.

"It would be good to start free trade agreement (FTA) talks, which would add further momentum to our relations," he said.

Noting that Indian industry chamber FICCI, the organisers of the forum, had requested permission to open a liaison office in Turkey and the Turkish Export Office should start an office in India, Erdogan said the balance of trade is heavily weighted against Turkey.

"Joint trade volume should be balanced. Steps should be taken to achieve that," Erdogan said.

Bilateral trade between India and Turkey last year stood at $6.5 billion, of which Indian exports accounted for nearly $5.8 billion and Turkish exports to India amounted to only $652 million.

"This is not sustainable for Turkey and there is need to increase reciprocal investment so that trade balance is achieved," he said.

Addressing the gathering, Modi said India planned massive investments in creating social and economic infrastructure and invited Turkish construction companies, renowned globally, to participate in Indian infrastructure building.

"Our infrastructure requirements are enormous, including core as well as social and industrial infrastructure. We are keen to build it strong and build it fast. Turkish companies can easily participate in this task," Modi said.

He pointed to the complementarities between both nations.

"Turkey has a strong manufacturing sector and India is a low cost manufacturing hub. Besides the cost aspect, we have a large pool of skilled and semi-skilled work force and strong R&D capabilities," Modi said

"The mechanism of India-Turkey Joint Committee on Economic and Technical Cooperation is working well. In its next meeting, the Committee could undertake a review of the measures to be taken for promoting two-way trade and investment," he added.

"This meeting marks a new era of business relations," Erdogan said.

Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India. He is accompanied by a business delegation that includes representatives of 150 Turkish companies.
Bilbao in Spain is the kind of place described in guidebooks as a working city. Go back three decades, and few tourists came to this salty port  except, perhaps, those taking a coffee before proceeding on their way to its quainter resort neighbour in the Basque country, San Sebastian.

But this year the fireworks are coming out for a special anniversary. Its 20 years since the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was built and the Frank Gehry building, with its astonishing tumble of intersecting titanium panels, introduced the now-commonplace idea that a set-piece cultural icon could play a central part in the regeneration of a city  still something of a novelty at the time. In doing so, it ushered in whole new tier of art-urbanist professionals and gave rise to the dread word icon.

It was a harsh time in 1991, recalls Juan Ignacio Vidarte, the long-term director of the Guggenheim Bilbao. There was 21 per cent unemployment. Worst, the city itself had an identity crisis. The Basque separatist group ETA was active, adding a threatening hint to a city that was already in a bit of a postindustrial hole. A feasibility study was undertaken in 1991; an auspicious area of the Nervion riverside identified, the architect Frank Gehry contracted, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in October 1997.

This set in train a series of events that has been dubbed the Bilbao Effect, a coinage claimed by writer and broadcaster Jonathan Meades. As well as adding the icon, the Guggenheim also charted the change in museums from dutiful storehouses to zones of visitor experience (as Vidarte says, They have become hybrid spaces and social hubs), which had almost magical palliative effects. The Guggenheim has been a tool of social transformation, and a good example of the transformational aspects of culture, adds Vidarte. And the effect has been greater than expected, as we underestimated the effect of globalisation  how the Museum would become a world-famous image.

Thus, in town halls and meeting rooms, a generation of burghers have learned to trade chatter about metrics and cultural capital, a phrase popularised by 20th-century French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu; as well as take cues from US geographer Richard Florida, who popularised the argument that creative cities become rich cities, adding a soupcon of sociological science to the mix. And yet, an anti-icon mood is now emerging. In his new book The Age of Spectacle: Adventures in Architecture and the 21st Century City critic Tom Dyckhoff takes a sceptical view of some aspects of the Bilbao Effect. The culture of spectacle and what Gehry has called iconicity has been such an enormous feature of the last 20 years, he says. But particularly in the UK it has sometimes lacked inclusiveness, and made us into passive voyeurs. At worst, he argues, the gallery icon becomes a stick-on that might as well just exist for Instagram snaps. Its always been a poor fit with our reactive planning system. And also, the money just isnt there any longer.

Theres also a sense that policy is shifting from icon building to a more integrated, grass-roots approach, which develops the arts in a bottom-up community-based way. The Great Place Scheme, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, is giving 20 million to drive cultural regeneration in 16 areas across England (followed by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), to a targeted group of moreor-less deprived places including Great Yarmouth, Rotherham and Coventry, now bidding for UK City of Culture 2021. Rather than pushing for icons, itll be encouraging these places to use culture and heritage to drive growth, improve residents health and wellbeing, and boost tourism, with the arts to be integrated into education and health services. Its far from regeneration-by-starchitect and close to the concerns of a younger generation of architects who, according to Dyckhoff, are manifesting a great interest in street-level urbanism.

Even with the big icons, the model has been criticised. As low-cost airlines mobilised the tourism model of the city break the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao alone hosts about 1.2 million visitors a year. The Guggenheim was always meant to be an international institution based in Bilbao, so the city could speak to the world, says Vidarte. That may have worked, but elsewhere theres been conflict about the depredations of hipster tourism and disquiet about posticon gentrification, which has led to critical noise about what academic Martin Zebracki has characterised, with a touch of irony, as the public artopia.Why have an icon if local artists cant afford studio space? A recent report by the Arts and Humanities Research Council called Understanding the Value of Arts and Culture is as critical as it is erudite, The regeneration of places is usually accompanied by gentrification  and the exclusion of communities who live there (as they) are forced out by rising property prices. Nor are the outcomes always so ensured. Glasgow has a higher global profile as an artistic city, but is still known for a relatively high crime rate and notoriously low life expectancy rate.

Back in Bilbao, however,Vidarte cannot see many downsides. The original arts icon remains solid, assured of its place in history, and still looks great. Unbelievably the titanium hasnt even been cleaned, says Vidarte. But its symbolic purpose has lost some of its shine.

The Independent
Saudi Interior Ministry said on Sunday that it has arrested 46 Islamic State (IS) militants suspected to be behind a deadly suicide bombing attack on the Prophet's Mosque in the holy city of Medina in the summer of 2016, Al Arabiya local news reported.

The suspects, 32 Saudis and 14 foreigners of Pakistani, Yemeni, Afghan, Egyptian, Jordanian and Sudanese nationalities, were detained in Jeddah, Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman of the Ministry as saying.

He said they were suspected of being involved in the attack that targeted worshipers at the Prophet's Mosque last summer.

They were also found to have participated in a terrorist attack in the courtyard of Suleiman Fakih Hospital in Jeddah last year, he added.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is on a visit to Saudi Arabia, has arrived in the oil-rich kingdom without a headscarf for talks with the King.

Merkel was greeted by King Salman and other officials upon her arrival at the western city of Jeddah on Sunday, The Independent reported.

The 62-year-old like other female Western visitors did not cover her hair upon arrival in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also avoided the strict dress code for women when she visited the country. May had said that she hoped to be an inspiration to oppressed women in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia enforces a conservative dress code in public, requiring women to wear a full-length robe and cover their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Foreign visitors have not always followed the protocol, and Merkel also followed the footsteps of May, President Donald Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama.

Merkel has called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".

"It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

The German parliament last week voted for a draft law banning women working in the civil service, judiciary and military from wearing full-face veils.

Burqas and niqabs will be prohibited in select professions as part of the legislation, once approved by the Bundesrat state parliament.

The German leader is expected to press Gulf leaders to do more to take in refugees and provide humanitarian relief for those fleeing conflict in Muslim-majority countries.

According to The Independent, Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years.

She is scheduled to travel to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates after visiting the Saudi Kingdom.
Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn that his country and the United States will not tolerate North Korea's reckless, dangerous threats to regional peace.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was speaking at a dawn service today in the Australian northeast city of Townsville where Australians and Americans gathered to remember the pivotal Battle of Coral Sea from May 4 to 8, 1942.

US aircraft carriers supported by Australian cruisers stopped a Japanese naval invasion of the Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby.

Turnbull will meet President Donald Trump for the first time on Thursday in New York aboard the WWII aircraft carrier USS Intrepid to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the start of the battle.
The Reporters Without Borders recent press freedom ranking has caused a stir among those working in the mainstream media industry.

Bhutan jumped 10 places in the Reporters Without Borders rankings last year even as journalists continued their complaints about the industrys worsening state. The country shot 30 places in the past three years, ranking 84 in 2016 from 104 in 2014.

At home however, journalists have been leaving the industry while those left behind continue to lament about the media sectors dismal situation.

Journalists Association of Bhutans (JAB) president, Rinzin Wangchuk said that from access to information to sustainability issues, there are many challenges the Bhutanese media is facing today.

He said the media is unable to exercise its freedom when there is limited access to information.

The industry is run by young journaists. The media managers and owners are reluctant to invest in journalism, he said. If you dont pay reporters or photographers, they will not go after the story. How then can we expect journalism to improve? the JAB president said.

In January this year, Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said the reasons for private media struggling are low readership, very limited volume of advertisement, too many players in the field and senior and experienced journalists leaving media for greener pastures.

There are too many news- papers and our readership and market is very limited, Lyonchoen Tshering Tobgay had told a private newspaper. The people who subscribe newspapers are very limited, so how

Media also quoted former journalists disagreeing with the Prime Minister and said that not all senior journalists have moved on of their own volition. Some, they said, left when their companies could no longer sustain.

A former editor, Rabi C Dahal said Bhutans ranking could have improved because rankings for those who were better in the past could have dropped. Were we able to do a good investigative story or have we unearthed corruption?

The poor financial health of media houses had a rippling effect on the quality of journalism. Two private newspapers closed while another went online.

Rinzin Wangchuk however said that the improved ranking could also encourage policy- makers to appreciate the role, no matter how small, the Bhutanese media is playing.

The ranking should not be the yardstick to measure our progress because one or two incidents in a country could influence the ranking, he said.

The Reporters Without Borders index ranks 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. It is a snapshot of the media freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each country.

However, the index does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a major impact on their countrys ranking. It is not an indicator of the quality of journalism in each country.

The degree of freedom available to journalists in 180 countries is determined by pooling the responses of experts to a questionnaire devised by RSF. This qualitative analysis is combined with quantitative data on abuses and acts of vio- lence against journalists during the period evaluated.

The criteria used in the questionnaire are pluralism, media independence, media environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and the quality of infrastructure that supports the production of news and information. To compile the Index, RSF developed an online questionnaire with 87 questions focused on these criteria.

(The Daily Star)
A Pakistani immigration official has been sacked for assaulting a family of Norwegian nationals at the airport in Islamabad after a tiff over tissue paper, it was reported on Monday.

The family was manhandled by immigration officials two weeks ago and offloaded from a flight to Doha.

They were "finally allowed to travel to Oslo  after an official who was found guilty of assaulting (them) was dismissed from service", the Dawn reported.

An inquiry by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) found immigration lady Constable Ghazala Shaheen guilty, and she was dismissed from service. Two other officials were also found guilty.

"Initially, the issue between the passengers and immigration staff started over tissue paper," an official said. The daily gave no further details.

Video footage of the assault drew outrage, after which Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair said on Monday he was plunging back into domestic politics in order to fight against Brexit.

Blair, who led the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007, will not be standing in the June 8 general election.

But he said he wanted to build a political movement to shape the policy debate as Britain starts its negotiations to leave the European Union.

Blair, 63, who was prime minister for a decade from 1997 and whose legacy has been defined by the Iraq war, said he knew he would face intense criticism for doing so.

But the ardent Europhile, who has largely been working on Middle East and African issues since leaving office, still wanted to get his hands dirty and re-enter the fray, saying voters should have the chance to change their mind once the final EU exit deal becomes clear.

This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics, he told the Daily Mirror newspaper.

You need to get your hands dirty and I will.

I know the moment I stick my head out the door I'll get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me, but I really do feel passionate about this.

I don't want to be in the situation where we pass through this moment of history and I hadn't said anything because that would mean I didn't care about this country. I do.

I am not sure I can turn something into a political movement but I think there is a body of ideas out there people would support.

He said his push was not about defying the vote to leave the European Union.

He said leaving the European single market and seeking a free trade agreement, as is Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May's intention, would be relegating ourselves from the top order.

Opinion polls put the Conservatives far ahead of Labour, a few weeks out from the general election.

Blair, who won three straight general elections as Labour leader, was from the most centrist strain of the party, while current leader Jeremy Corbyn is from its strident leftist wing that reviles Blairite politics.

Unless you are providing answers for the future you are not going to win, Blair warned.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would be willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "under the right circumstances" to defuse tensions over North Korea's nuclear programme.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it," CNN quoted Trump as saying in an interview to Bloomberg News on Monday. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."

No US President has ever before met the leader of North Korea, and the idea is extremely controversial.

Trump's comment comes amid rising tensions between the US and North Korea as Pyongyang has sought to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and Washington has made a show of force in the region to deter their use.

The US directed an aircraft carrier-led strike group to the region as well as deployed a new anti-ballistic missile system to South Korea.

The North Korean nuclear issue has quickly become one of the top national security concerns for the Trump administration. Trump has focused on finding a diplomatic solution to the North Korean issue  working increasingly closely with China  but has also refused to rule out a military solution to the problem.
US Congressional negotiators reached a critical agreement on a massive spending bill which if approved by the House and Senate would fund the government through the end of September, a media report said.

The bill would add billions for the Pentagon and border security but would not provide any money for President Donald Trump's promised border wall with Mexico, official aides told CNN on Sunday night.

Votes in both chambers are expected by the end of the week.

The deal was reached on Sunday night after weeks of tense but steady negotiations between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill and White House officials, who debated over spending priorities but were equally determined to avoid a politically fraught government shutdown.

Aides in each party disputed some characterisations from the other side as to what made into the final proposal. But one of the key aspects they agreed on was a provision for $1.5 billion for border security, including for technology and fixing existing infrastructure. However, it does not allow the money to be spent on building Trump's multi-billion dollar wall along the Mexico border, reports CNN.

There is no money provided for a deportation force and there are no cuts of federal monies to so-called sanctuary cities.

Aides also agreed that the bill includes billions in new defence spending, including for the global war on terrorism, a major demand from Republicans.

In the proposal, there are no cuts to funding for Planned Parenthood, a demand from Democrats.

Funding for the National Institute of Health is increased by $2 billion and there is additional money for clean energy and science funding.

Negotiators also agreed to make a permanent fix for miners health insurance and a disaster aid package.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the agreement is consistent with his party's principles.

"This agreement is a good agreement for the American people, and takes the threat of a government shut down off the table," CNN quoted the New York Democrat as saying.

The deal means a government shut down on Friday, when agencies are set to run out of money, is unlikely.

Last week, Congress passed a one-week stopgap spending bill when it became clear negotiators needed a bit more time to finalise an agreement.


remaining of

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Spending on unauthorized programs accounted for nearly one-third of the federal governments 2016 discretionary budget. The failure of Congresss authorizing committees to exercise oversight, writes Justin Bogie, is one reason the government has a budget problem:

One of Congress core constitutional authorities is to maintain the power of the purse. Authorization legislation, budget resolutions, and appropriations bills (collectively known as regular order) are key components of Congress oversight function. By authorizing agencies and programs on a regular basis, Congress is able to examine the activities that receive taxpayer dollars. This also allows Congress to consider the usefulness of government programs and make sometimes tough decisions about what the nations spending priorities should be.

With the gross federal debt now approaching $20 trillion, it is clear that Congress has a spending problem. Lack of oversight has at least in part contributed to this problem. Congress should be working toward reducing wasteful spending and finding ways to put spending and debt on a sustainable path. Yet at the very least, it should perform its oversight function and fully account for exactly how scarce taxpayer resources are being spent.

This week, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., introduced the Unauthorized Spending Accountability (USA) Act of 2017. Rodgers bill makes a strong push to begin the return to regular order, forcing Congress to do its job and regularly authorize agencies and programs. Under her USA Act, programs would be put on a three-year track to being sunset if they are not reauthorized.

More at The Daily Signal
Organisation: StarTimes

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

About US:

StarTimes was founded in 1988 and is now the most influential system

integrator, technology provider, network operator, and content provider in

Chinas television broadcasting industry, and is on its way to become a media

group with global influence. With more than 8 million subscribers, StarTimes

has now become the fastest-growing and the most influential digital TV operator

in Africa.

Job Summary: The Ad Sales

Executive will be responsible for selling advertising space to businesses and

individuals. The incumbent will contact potential clients, make sales presentations,

and maintain client accounts.



Responsibilities: Key Duties andResponsibilities:

Locate and contact potential clients to

offer advertising services

Explain to clients how specific types of

advertising will help promote their products or services in the most effective

way possible

Offer clients with estimates of the costs

of advertising products or services

Process all correspondence and paperwork

related to accounts

Prepare and deliver sales presentations to

new and existing clients

The jobholder will also inform clients of

available options for advertising art, formats, or features and provide

samples of previous work for other clients

Deliver advertising or illustration proofs

to clients for approval

Prepare promotional plans, sales

literature, media kits, and sales contracts

Recommend appropriate sizes and formats

for advertising











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The applicant should have expert

international knowledge in the fields of media, mas communication,

advertisement, marketing, and also a thorough understanding of the local

advertisement and media trends.

At least two years experience in the TV

Advert industry

Previous experience in the international

4A agencies and have a strong experienced understanding about

organizational structure of 4A agencies, media evaluation system and

client relationship.

Possess independent analytical skills and

goal oriented and self-driven

Effective planning ability, good at

PowerPoint

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified candidates are encouraged to send their updated

CVs to svlvia@startimes.com.ug and lugadavid@startimes.com.ug

Deadline: 20th July 2017
Job Title: Regional Security Manager

Organization: International

Justice Mission (IJM)

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda

Reports to: Global Director of

Security, Washington DC

About Us:

The International Justice Mission is a global organization that

protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world. International

Justice Mission partners with local authorities to rescue victims of violence,

bring criminals to justice, restore survivors, and strengthen justice

systems. The International Justice

Mission (IJM) Uganda is working to eliminate property grabbing in Uganda by

bringing rescue and restoration to individual victims, accountability to their

perpetrators, and transformation to the public justice system as a whole.

Job Summary: The Regional

Security Manager will provide technical leadership in regional security

management across our Africa operations. The Regional Security Manager, Africa

will assist IJM Field Offices to embed sound security practices to enhance the

safety and security of IJM staff, assets and programs, and minimize operational

risks. This individual will provide dedicated safety and security expertise and

support in the Africa region that is in the best interest of IJMs global

security strategy, leadership, and individual staff members. S/he will provide

safety and security expertise and standards application across the IJM programs

throughout the Africa region, to include but not limited to: risk assessment

and analysis, risk treatment plans, contingency plans, monitoring and

evaluation, training and development, incident management, policy

implementation, and strategic innovation.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Lead Field Office Security Strategy:

Keenly review, revise and implement

comprehensive security strategies and operational protocols for IJM Field

Offices, including evacuation and contingency plans for each office;

Carry out regular and ongoing reviews and

inspections of current security procedures, policies and systems;

Work closely with field office and

regional leadership to ensure Regional and Field Office security

strategies appropriately support IJM program priorities.

Creates a regional risk assessment, risk

mitigation plans, monitoring systems, and evaluates the consequences of

risk and risk mitigation measures;

Keenly monitors change in context across

the region and triggers for mitigation;

Develops, from conception to

implementation, a community acceptance strategy framework that can be

applied across the region;

Oversees and coordinates country security

plan updates, ensuring countries maintain realistic and current risk

assessments, mitigation measures, and emergency action plans;

Ensures risk assessments for new project

or emergency response locations are conducted accurately and timely;

Identifies training opportunities for

regional and country staff, and ensures staff has adequate time to engage

in appropriate level training opportunities; and

Provide in-country surge capacity for

fields when required.

Threat Analysis & Response:

Evaluate current political, social and

climatic conditions for possible threats to the safety and security of

Field Office staff;

Provide guidance to field office staff and

leadership, including recommendations for the safety, security and

protection of staff at all times.

Offer technical oversight and strong

support to the country security managers / focal points;

Train, coach, and mentor staff at all

levels on integrated security and leadership development, in order to

strengthen their skills in their own professional area. This is toward the

goal of mainstreaming / integrating security management into all project

designs, country strategies, and departmental policies and procedures;

Lead an internal regional security focal

point network for the purpose of coaching, peer support, and personal

development;

Represent IJM externally and in

interagency forums; and

Support the Global Director of Corporate

Security in the implementation of Security and Threat Assessments using

standard tools and processes, as and when needed.

Operational Support & Crisis Management:

Ensure security of IJM staff and clients,

ensure implementation of all security protocols;

Establish and monitor office access

control mechanisms for IJM premises;

Assist in the selection/supervision of

office guards, where relevant;

Ensure compliance with fire regulations

and train office staff in fire/building evacuation plans;

Provide on-the-ground leadership in

response to critical incidents in the region, and provide input to office

and regional leadership on crisis management;

Provide on-the-ground leadership during

potential security risks and threats arising from changing political,

social or economic contexts where IJM field offices are located;

Monitor national and regional security

incident reporting and ensure appropriate dissemination of information

during emergencies;

Manage security requirements for special

events, including Trips to the Field visits by donors, VIPs, etc;

Provide early warning updates and

mitigation expertise to the country offices;

Manage the incident impact on the region;

Support the Global Security Director and

Country Directors with incident response, reporting and post-incident

action and follow-up;

Conduct yearly drills and scenario

exercises to build incident response capacities in the field;

Lend expertise to country security

managers during and after incident; and

Maintain updated staff lists, including

details of visitors and consultants.

Capacity Building:

Mentor and train field office staff in

security strategies and operational and travel protocols;

Ensure security and contingency plans are

incorporated into all IJM programming in the region;

Facilitate communication to ensure field

office staff are equipped with adequate knowledge, tools and resources to

comply with security protocols and best practices throughout the region.

IJM-internal coordination: Work closely with Field Office

Director, Regional HQ team and Global Director of Corporate Security to provide

regular reporting and updates on security issues in the region. Work closely with Field OfficeDirector, Regional HQ team and Global Director of Corporate Security to provideregular reporting and updates on security issues in the region.



Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The Regional Security Manager should have

at least five years experience in managing security operations,

preferably for non-profit or foreign-based organizations;

Previous experience in security guard

supervision preferable;

Prior experience in VIP protection

preferable;

Expertise in the analysis of security

threats, risks and vulnerability in Africa Region;

Experience in crisis management preferred;

Excellent oral and written communications

skills;

Computer literacy i.e. proficiency in

Microsoft Word and Outlook.

Mature orthodox Christian faith as defined

by the Apostles Creed;

Professional demeanor;

Attention to detail and disciplined with

priorities;

Patient; work well under stress;

Personable; sustained positive attitude;

Diplomatic and flexible;

Effective team player and decisive leader;



Able to achieve goals in a cross-cultural

setting.

Fluency in oral and written communication

in English;

How to Apply:

All applicants are encouraged to send their applications, updated CVs

and Statement of Faith via E-mail (preferred method) to:

ugandarecruiting@ijm.org

OR by mail:

International Justice Mission

Attn: Human Resources

P.O. Box 502 Ntinda, Kampala, UGANDA

By Hand:

International Justice Mission

Attn: Human Resources

Plot 15 Suuna Road, Ntinda

Kampala, Uganda

NB: A statement of faith

should describe your Christian faith and how you see it as relevant to your

involvement with IJM. The statement can either be incorporated into the cover

letter or submitted as a separate document and should include, at a minimum, a

description of your spiritual disciplines (prayer, study, etc.) and your

current fellowship or place of worship.

Deadline: 31st May 2017
About two years ago when General Motors India, the first multi-national car manufacturing company to set up a unit in Gujarat, did not get permission to close its operations in Halol, about 150 kilometers from Ahmedabad, over 800 employees heaved a sigh of relief.

The relief was short-lived. About 300 employees were then transferred to the company's Talegaon plant, near Pune. Remaining 500-odd employees still had a hope as they were retained in the Halol unit.

Their dedication, however, could not prevent the inevitable. The company had announced earlier that it would close the operations on April 28, 2017. It happened on schedule. China-based SAIC is likely to take over the plant as it is keen on entering the Indian market.

GM is reported to have suffered losses, and shares in domestic car segment had also dipped.

Employees have been given transfer orders to move to Talegaon and some have accepted the voluntary separation scheme given by the Detroit-headquartered company.

In a statement, GM India president and MD Kaher Kazem had said that the consolidation of manufacturing at their Talegaon was an important milestone for them. He went on to add that they were mindful of the impacts on their employees in Halol. The company was committed to support them through this necessary transition with generous separation payments or the option of continuity of employment at Talegaon, he said.

Decent it should seem as they have not been terminated. But speaking to them reveals a series of issues and struggle that lie ahead should they accept the transfer.

On May Day, which also happens to be Gujarat's Foundation Day, even as the state government was in an overdrive mode of festivities, the workers protested peacefully outside the company. There were none to listen to their demands, except for some media persons, doing their duty, and police that came for patrolling. The employees were holding placards, demanding their rights and intervention from the state government. The security guards, who once made entry easy for the employees after necessary checks, remained mute spectators.

Workers protest outside General Motors plant at Halol | Janak Patel

The question is not about 500 families but also about 20 ancillary units, supplying stuff to GM India, eatable stores and transport buses that brought the employees to the plant from nearby places, including Vadodara.

Having purchased a new house four years ago and with an EMI of Rs 15,000 per month, 36-year-old Vinodsingh Rathod is in double mind whether to move to Talegaon or not. His two children study in Gujarati medium, and in Maharashtra the medium of instruction would be Marathi. Even Rathod does not know how to speak Marathi.

It is an emotional issue. At the fag end of their career, my parents would wish that their last rites be held in the place they lived throughout. How will it be possible if I move to Maharashtra, he asks.

The workers demand that SAIC be not allowed to take over the GM India plant without ensuring that they are retained at the Halol plant only. They allege that it is a tactic that the SAIC is taking over. It already has a stake in GM India and this is being done so that it gets tax benefits. The benefits GM India got all these years are over now, alleges Bhavesh Jaiswal, vice president of General Motors Employees Union.

Citing the list of 20 cases in Gujarat, Jaiswal says that in all these cases, the employees have been retained by the companies which have taken over from the existing companies.

Rachit Soni, president of the GMEU, feared that if the employees are not retained in Halol, it would set a wrong precedence in the state. Amid slogan shouting and narrating their woes, in a lighter vein, one of the employees says that they have made representations at all levels. Only Donald Trump remains. We would have done that also if he had to do anything with the decision, he says.

Incumbent chief minister Vijay Rupani as the then labour minister had promised them to look into the issue, but now nobody has got the time, says Soni. We even went to meet the PM but were told that he does not have the time. An IAS officer from Gujarat assured us that the PM knows about the issue, Soni says. These are nothing but malafide transfers, the GMEU president alleges.

Mehul Shah, who has worked for 10 years, has been offered Rs 9 lakh as VSS. He has a housing loan of Rs 17 lakh and the EMI is Rs 15,000. I have not even made my bio-data ever since I joined this company. If you can come and understand our feelings, why can't the employers, who have in the past praised us for our work and dedication, he asks.

But interesting case is of Jitesh Nare, 37. I am a Maharashtrian but I still do not want to go to Talegaon. The working style is different. The environment of the place is different. There people have to work in fixed places. In Halol, the easy and hard jobs are rotated so that employees do not get tired and no particular portion of the body suffers more burden, he explains.

Even if you give me Rs 25,000 salary instead of my existing salary of Rs 33,000, I am prepared to stay back in Gujarat, says Ronak Patel, 31. Patel says that the employees fear going to Talegaon as several employees, who were transferred to there in the past, had resigned due to various reasons.

Age is not by their side. Though they might be in their 40s or even 30s, employees say that these days in this sector people maximum up to 27 years of age are offered jobs.
With the much-awaited Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act (RERA) coming into effect from Monday, some buyers are hopeful it will end their woes but many are unaware about the benefits arising from the new regulatory regime.

Under the central law, each state has to notify rules and set up a regulatory authority to manage the real estate sector. Uttar Pradesh notified the rules last November, but is yet to set up a regulator. The law provides for strict penalties against promoters and builders for not fulfilling promises.

K.K. Kaushal, a flat buyer of Amrapali Dream Valley project in Noida Extension, is not sure what the fallout of the new law would be. "RERA will take its own time. I don't think we can expect RERA to come up with solutions very soon. We have hope from the new Uttar Pradesh government, though," Kaushal said.

He had booked his flat in 2010 and was told that possession would be available by 2015. "It has been seven years and the project is not yet ready. Work came to a halt at the project site. It's been almost two months, no work is going on at the site," Kaushal told IANS.

Like Kaushal there are many such buyers who booked flats in that project and 600 of them have started a campaign against the developers. Some went and met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi in Lucknow, while many recently joined a candlelight march as a protest.

Amit Kumar, who booked his flat during the same time in Jaypee Greens in Noida, is still waiting for his flat, promised to him for 2013. But he's hopeful that RERA might bring about a change.

"At least now, real estate developers won't be able to take buyers for a ride. Buyers don't have any rights in the country. There should be a panel comprising buyers, developers and bankers (who provide loans) to monitor the project," he told IANS on phone from Oman.

Dushyant Naagar, a farmer leader, has been fighting since 2012 to rein in developers. "Lot of farmers are home buyers. Real estate developers collect money from buyers, even when the land is not cleared by the authorities. Almost 90 per cent of builders have not deposited money with the Noida Authority after taking money from the buyers," Naagar told IANS.

He was promised possession of an Amrapali flat in Noida Extension in 2014. He says brokers should also face the same penalty as builders under RERA. He feels the new law will build pressure on builders who will now have to pay penalty for any delay. "This will be binding. Till now, once the buyer gave money, he was at the mercy of the builder. It is a new hope now," he added.

Ramkumar Choudhary, who has a small business in Noida, booked a flat in 2009 in Supertech, Noida extension. He was to get possession by 2013-14. He said the builder is ready to return the money, but without interest.

"They have refused to give the flat. There is a committee of Greater Noida aggrieved buyers. We have done dharna (sit-in protest) outside Supertech office at Noida Sector 58. Some people have filed court case, which is still on," Choudhary said.

RERA allows buyers to cancel their option for a project and receive full refund along with interest. It also allows a buyer to receive interest for any delay, if he or she does not want to cancel. But Choudhary is not sure if he can repose hope in RERA.

UP junks previous regime's decision on RERA regulator, to restart process

Uttar Pradesh is one of the states which lags behind in setting up a RERA regulatory authority.

That's because with the change of government, the new regime of the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to review the decision taken by the Akhilesh Yadav dispensation on the real estate law.

Admitting that the state had missed the bus in adhering to the May 1 deadline, officials said while the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government had notified the constitution of a regulatory authority under the state rules, the new regime has stalled the process.

The process will now be started afresh, Additional Chief Secretary (Housing and Urban Planning) Sada Kant said. He added that the past process stood cancelled. He also said the application process for the post of chairman and other members of the regulatory authority will be reinitiated soon and that the state may implement the RERA by June-end.

The chairman of the authority has to be a retired IAS official equivalent to the rank of chief secretary and it will have three membersretired IAS officials equivalent of principal secretary level.

Sources say that former chief secretary Alok Ranjan and over a dozen retired officials had applied for the post of chairman while over three dozen had applied for member's posts.

Ranjan was close to former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, and it was assumed that his name will be shortlisted for the coveted post.

The Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, who chaired the three-member selection committee, is learnt to have objected to some names after which the process got slowed down. With state assembly elections, thereafter, the whole process was kept in abeyance. With the change in guard in the state, the process has since been spiked.

Along with tighetening of screws on private builders and real estate players, the new law will also put pressure on the Aawas Vikaas and the development authorities in the state which would now be forced to deliver flats on time promised at the time of purchase agreement.

While builders in the state say they welcome the Act as it would weed out the small and the fake builders, they feel that with time the confidence amongst consumers would rise and the recession that had hit the real estate sector over the past two years would recede.

The process of setting up the regulatory authority is likely to be notified again this week, after which a shortlisting of the nominations would be made. The state is yet to set up a website on RERA to inform consumers about the developments.
An army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed and another soldier was injured today as Pakistan fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post of the paramilitary force along the LoC in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The ceasefire violation took place around 8:30 am. A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in the attack, a senior officer of the paramilitary force said.

"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts along the LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons," the officer told PTI.

Another BSF jawan was injured in the firing.

Troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, the officer said.

Pakistani troops breached the truce along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times last month.

They violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on April 19 and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on April 17.

Pakistan had resorted to firing in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.
The situation in Kashmir continues to be unstable, both politically and on the ground amid murmurs of the possibility of governor's rule.

The possibility of governor's rule have increased in view of the deteriorating security situation in Kashmir and mounting tensions on the line of control.

What has added to the woes of beleaguered Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti is the blunt 'no' by the Centre to her demand for a dialogue with separatists. The Centre has also told the Supreme Court that it does not intend to hold dialogues with separatists.

On April 29, BJP President Amit Shah, on the first leg of his national wide Vistar Yatra in Jammu, told party legislators that the BJP would prefer nation over power. He was responding to questions regarding the strain in relations between the PDP and the BJP over worsening of the situation in Kashmir and possibility of the PDP ending its alliance with the RSS-backed party.

On Sunday evening, an unannounced meeting between the BJP general secretary Ram Madhav and Mufti also added to the speculation that all is not well between the coalition partners.

The J&K chief minister during her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 24 had demanded that a dialogue be held with the separatists and other dissenting voices in the state.

The PDP leaders argue that dialogue is part of the 'Agenda for Alliance'the document the governs the relationship between the two parties.

The blunt refusal to engage in dialogue has left Mufti and pro-dialogue legislators fuming. A PDP leader said the rejection of the demand for dialogue has undermined the PDP further.

Mufti and leaders close to her have maintained silence over the Centre's refusal to entertain the idea of

dialogue, but senior PDP leader Altaf Bukhari, who was recently inducted into the cabinet by the CM after reconciling her differences with him, told reporters during his tour of Amira Kadal constituency on Sunday that dialogue at all levels needs to be inclusive and cannot be conditional.

I wonder why our prime minister, with a historic public mandate, is shying away from his responsibility by not carrying forward the legacy of Vajpayee. The former prime minister had said sky is the limit on the issue of Kashmir, Bukhari said.

Many PDP leaders are coming around the idea of snapping ties with the BJP after the loss of public support. Reports suggest that many PDP workers in south Kashmir have fled homes due to increasing intimidation by the militants.
BLOOMINGTON, IL  On Saturday, Governor Rauner discussed the importance of preserving Illinois past for a better future at the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Illinois State Conference.

America is the flagbearer for freedom to the rest of the world. We are the land of the free, because of the Revolutionary War heroes who fought for freedom and independence, said Governor Rauner. We applaud the DAR for keeping the memory of their sacrifice alive.

The Illinois Daughters of the American Revolution focuses on three key characteristics: education, patriotism, and historic preservation. The Illinois DAR chapters are active members of their communities whether that is supporting their local library or helping to preserve Illinois' and United States' history.
With the arrival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans arrival in New Delhi, India and Turkey will hold bilateral talks on Monday. Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.

This is Erdogans first visit to India as the Turkish President.

He had won a referendum on April 16 which gave him more executive powers as the President.

Economic ties, cooperation in the fight against terrorism and talk on Turkeys support to India in its bid to become a member in the coveted Nuclear Suppliers Group are expected to dominate the bilateral talks.

Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial welcome on Monday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Erdogan. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

His official engagements also include a call on by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

He will also attend a business event and interact with industry captains. India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.

Erdogan will also be conferred with the Honorary Degree by the Jamia Milia Islamia University.

Erdogan had visited India in 2008, when he was the prime minister. After eleven years as the Prime Minister, he was elected President in 2014.

The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has directed security agencies to ensure that he be provided the highest security cover in the wake of threats from the ISIS.

The IB has even demanded that his aircraft be guarded at all times during his stay in the capital.

A special request to allow officers deployed for his personal security to carry weapons has also been placed.
Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday termed the killing of two Indian soldiers and mutilation of their bodies as a "barbaric" and "inhuman" act and said the Indian Army will take necessary action.

"Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The government of India strongly condemns this inhuman act. The whole country has full faith in the armed forces who will react appropriately. Their (two soldiers') sacrifice will not go in vain," Jaitley said.

Terming the act as reprehensible, Jaitley said such attacks do not take place even during war, not to speak of peace times.

The Indian Army also vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicable act", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

A junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a Border Security Force head constable were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into the Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir. The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. The incident took place in the Krishna Ghati sector.

Meanwhile Pakistan Army denied that its special forces team crossed the Line of Control and beheaded two Indian soldiers.

"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on the Line of Control or a BAT action in the Buttal sector (India's Krishna Ghati sector) as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false," a statement from the Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations wing said.

"Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian," it said.

(With inputs from agencies)
President Donald Trump said China may have hacked the emails of Democratic officials to meddle with the 2016 presidential election, countering the view of US intelligence officials who have said Moscow orchestrated the hacks.

In an interview transcript published on Sunday, Trump gave no evidence backing his allegation, first made on the eve of the November 8 presidential election, that China could have hacked the emails of his rivals.

"If you don't catch a hacker, okay, in the act, it's very hard to say who did the hacking," the president said in an interview. "(It) could have been China, could have been a lot of different groups."

The hackers roiled the presidential campaign by making public embarrassing emails sent by Democratic operatives and aides to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. One email showed party leaders favoring Clinton over her rival in the campaign for the party's internal nomination contest.

Trump has been dismissive of the statements by intelligence officials that Moscow hacked the emails to help Trump win the election. During the September 26 presidential debate with Clinton, Trump said China was one of the many actors that could have been behind the hack, including "somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds."

Like Russia, China is a longstanding cybersecurity adversary of the United States. Trump, in recent weeks, has softened his criticism of Chinese trade policies as Washington seeks Beijing's support in diffusing military tensions with North Korea.

Before Trump was elected, he pledged to improve relations with Moscow. Russia has denied any involvement in the hacks. Lawmakers are currently investigating whether Trump's campaign team had ties with Russia.
At least 352 civilians have been killed in US-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the US military said in a statement.

The Combined Joint Task Force, in its monthly assessment of civilian casualties from the US coalition's operations against the militant group, said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths.

It added that 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017. It reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present that had not previously been announced. The report included 26 deaths from three separate strikes in March.

The military's official tally is far below those of other outside groups. Monitoring group Airwars said more than 3,000 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes.

Included in Sunday's tally were 14 civilians killed by a strike in March that set off a secondary explosion, as well as 10 civilians who were killed in a strike on Islamic State headquarters the same month.

"We regret the unintentional loss of civilian lives... and express our deepest sympathies to the families and others affected by these strikes," the Pentagon said in a statement.
SPRINGFIELD - Illinois' workers' compensation costs rank 8 th highest in the nation and remain a primary reason why manufacturing companies and good paying jobs are fleeing the state. Since the end of the 2009 recession, Illinois has lost 1,600 manufacturing jobs while our neighboring states have added tens of thousands of new jobs, the Illinois Manufacturing Association said in a statement issued over the weekend.

"This week, House Democrats passed two bills (HB 2525, HB 2622) under the guise of reform. Nothing could be further from the truth," the IMA statement said. "It's window dressing and a political sham designed to deflect from the necessary reforms that are needed to make Illinois more attractive for job creation and capital investment. Further, lawmakers are taking $10 million in employer money from the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission to start a new public insurance company that will compete with the private sector at a time when they have not passed a balanced budget with comprehensive budget reforms."





The group said the bill's chief sponsor publicly acknowledged in committee that he refused to make any changes in the last year despite personally participating in more than 100 hours of meetings with all stakeholders.





These House Democrat-sponsored bills will not reduce costs or reform the system to make Illinois competitive. In fact, this legislation further hinders Illinois' workers' compensation by codifying a horrible court ruling into law for the benefit of trial lawyers and labor unions.





The Illinois Manufacturers' Association continues to call on the Governor and lawmakers to enact real and meaningful reforms to our workers' compensation system that include these key components:

Create a causal standard

Bring inflated medical costs into line with average states

Reduce the abuse and high cost of drugs and compounds

Strengthen use of American Medical Association standards

"It's time to stop the bogus and contrived political games and start making Illinois work again," IMA concluded.
(By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times)

For some Kehillos it is an easier task than for others. Indeed, there are Kehillos have gone two years or more having been stuck in the Rabbi hiring process. Hiring a Rabbi has often been a challenging endeavor, yet one that brings everyone out into the action. Opinions are bandied about and advice is dispensed like water:

Lets get someone younger  who can bring in more people!

We need someone with tochain  we need to grow the shul!

Naah, we need someone with life experience  a young guy cant be expected to handle issues and advise on difficult realities..

What is it with this no-college business? Half the kehillah has advanced degrees!

What is this a game show? Is this how we are choosing Rabbonim nowadays?

What? Two votes? Why not one vote?

Three candidates, we should have three votes!

The real question in all of this boils down to one Are there guidelines to the process found in Shulchan Aruch or the Poskim? Does the Halachic literature give us any insight into this undertaking? What about the responsa literature?

IMPORTANCE

The Rambam (Hilchos Teshuvah 4:2) writes of the obligation to appoint a Rav in every Kehillah in Israel. He should be a Chachom Gadol,vzakain, veyarei shamayim mineurav, vahuv lahaim shyeheye mochiach laRabbim umachziram lteshuvah. This means that he must be great in wisdom, venerable, G-d-fearing since his youth, beloved by the congregation so that he can castigate the masses and bring them to repentance. Many Meforshim explain that venerable or zakain does not necessarily mean age  it can refer to the wisdom of age brought about by in depth Torah learning.

The Maharit Tzahalon (1559-1638 in his New Responsa Vol. II #133) writes that from the fact that the Rambam uses the term tzarich that the members may be financially forced to make the hire. Indeed, he goes on to say that any congregation that does not hire a Rav is in violation of a prohibition in the Torah (See BaMidbar 27:15-17), Lo siheye adas yisroel ktzon asher ain lahem roeh  let not the nation of Israel be like a flock with no shepherd.

The importance of a Kehillah having a Rav is seen in a letter that Rav Akiva Eiger Eiger writes to the city elders of the city of Kempena (Igros Rabbi Akiva Eiger Letter 50) after their Rav had passed away. He explains how many necessary institutions fall apart without a Rabbi  even when there are many Talmidei Chachomim that are in the congregation. He suggests that one of the reasons why some communities are hesitant to appoint a Rav is because they are afraid to place someone to whom they must be subservient to in religious matters. Indeed, in Rav Akiva Eigers own will (Asher Atzaveh  a collection of Rabbinic wills page 535) he writes that the matter is of such an urgency, that he wanted a Rav appointed to his own Kehillah after his own death within four weeks.

Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky ztl was once asked whether it was preferable for a Kehillah to have a Rabbi or a doctor. He responded that it is preferable to have a Rabbi. Why? Because it says in Shulchan Aruch that it is forbidden to live in an area where there is no doctor. Thus, a Rabbi will ensure that there will be a doctor. A doctor, however, will not make sure that there is a Rabbi.

PAYING THE RABBI

The Shulchan Aruch (OC 53:22) explains in regard to a Shliach Tzibbur that it is preferable to hire someone for money than to receive his services for free. There are a number of reasons cited for this  some of which apply bith to a Rabbi as well as a Shliach Tzibbur. The responsa Btzel HaChochma (Vol. V #101) explains that a Mitzvah that one pays for is preferable than one that is not paid for.

Who pays for the Shliach Tzibbur and presumably the Rabbi? The Kehillah members of course. But how is it divided? The Ramah (53:23) explains that the conventional custom is to follow the protocols of the Maharam Padua. Fifty percent of the costs should be borne by equal fee of the entire membership and the other fifty percent should be based upon a financial assessment. It is unclear, however, whether these guidelines are followed nowadays, but it may give some halachic insight into how shul membership fees should be assessed. It is interesting to note that the Shulchan Aruch himself seems to be of the opinion that the entirety of the cost should be based upon financial assessment.

THE WILL OF THE MEMBERSHIP

The Ramah explains that a Shliach Tzibbur should not pray if it is belo ratzon hakahal  if it is against the will of the Kahal. If for some reason this has happened, the Kehillah should not respond with Amain to his public brachos. The original source is the Agudah in Kaitzad Mevarchim cited by responsa Rav Binyomin Zeev 163. This perhaps may also be a source for the notion that a Rabbi should not be appointed if it is against the democratic will of the Kehillah.

Is there ever foul play or illegitimacy in elections for a Rabbi? The Chasam Sofer (Responsa Choshain Mishpat #160) discusses a case where there were four candidates for the position and relatives of one of the candidates had bribed a number of members to vote for their relative. The Chasam Sofer ruled that the elections are invalid and that if there are witnesses that the Rabbinical candidate was aware of the payoffs  he is invalidated as a Rabbi until he does a complete Teshuvah  penance. Also, all those who received the bribe cannot vote in the next election.

PRECEDENCE OVER A CHAZAN

The Shulchan Aruch (53:24) discusses the preference of hiring a Shliach Tzibbur over a Rav if the Rav is a Talmid Chachom. The Mor UKtziya writes that this was only back then, when not every person could actually Daven. But nowadays that everyone is baki  fully proficient in Davening, the Rav is preferable even if he is not such a Talmid Chochom . Similarly, the Aruch haShulchan concludes that nowadays, hiring the Rav is always the first priority above a Chazan ro Shliach Tzibbur. This has become the clear universal custom.

AGE REQUIREMENTS

Many cities in Europe had something called a Pinkas HaIr  these were guidelines and internal rules as to how the city was to conduct itself. The Pinkas of Lithuania (Vaad 5521 #961) initially had a requirement that no Rabbi could be hired who was less than thirty. Apparently, this did not work because a later Pinkas changed this figure to below the age of twenty. Regardless, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky ztl (Igerres 428) was very much against this ruling because it would not permit anyone to serve as a Rav before thirty. He repealed the ruling.

Clearly, we see that the many issues involved in hiring the contemporary Rav have been addressed in the Poskim and Teshuvos of Torah literature. The phrase hafoch bah hafoch bah dkulah bah  search it and search it for all is contained in it, is as applicable to the modern Rabbinic search, as it is to all other aspects of contemporary life.

This article is dedicated in memory of the authors father, Dr. Nathan Hoffman zl, whose yartzeit is today. Dr. Hoffman was in Eretz Yisroel during the Six Day War, and was one of the first to enter the reclaimed buildings that were lost in 1948. He vividly describes the scenario in a letter he had written to the authors grandfather.

The author can be reached at [email protected]
The IDF has clamped a general closure on PA (Palestinian Authority) areas in Yehuda and Shomron, barring residents from crossing the Green Line into Israel proper.

The closure began at midnight on motzei Shabbos and will continue will continue until Tuesday, 6 Iyar, until midnight (Tuesday to Wednesday).

During the closure, exceptions will be made for cases involving humanitarian need as is always the case.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
An Arab mob assaulted five Jewish youth, members of Chozrim LHar (Returning to Har Habayis), who were walking around the Har Habayis wall in the Old City of Jerusalem on the night of Thursday, the eve of 2 Iyar. The Arabs, one of whom attempted to run over some of the youths with his car, surrounded the youths and assaulted them.

The youths were escorted by policemen, who called for reinforcements at the start of the incident and were hesitant to intervene. When the reinforcements arrived on the scene, to the astonishment of the youths they, and not their assailants, were detained.

After interrogation at the policemen station the detainees were offered release on condition of signing on an order distancing them from the Old City until a deliberation on the case on Sunday, 4 Iyar. Two of the detainees refused to sign on the order.

Honenu Attorney Nati Rom, who is representing the youths: This was a serious failure by the Israeli Police who not only were unable to protect the youths in the capital city of Israel, but also detained the victims of assault for many hours more than is allowed by law in order to cover up for their failing. I hope that the Israeli Police will present to the court the video clips of the incident, which support the claim made by the detainees and show a serious incident of assault and the faulty conduct of the police.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The Jerusalem District Court has decided to push off Yolish Kraus entering prison for ten days.

His petition to the High Court was rejected as he was scheduled to enter prison on Sunday morning 4 Iyar. His attorney turned to the Jerusalem District Court, which accepted the delay until such time he is informed what prison he will be assigned to instead of being jailed in the Russian Compound until a suitable prison is decided upon.

Kraus, who is viewed as the operations officer of the Eida Chareidit, is going to prison after being convicted of operating an illegal poultry slaughter house and tax evasion. He is estimated to have earned NIS 1.5 million without reporting the income to tax authorities.

He was also convicted of ignoring the law as he never applied for an identity card.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The Jewish Agency for Israel on Monday, 5 Iyar, Memorial Day, will hold a ceremony for Jews murdered in attacks around the world. The event will take place at 9:00AM in the plaza of the Jewish Agency headquarters building (48 King George Street) in Jerusalem:

This years ceremony will center on victims of terror attacks in Belgium; the Ambassador of Belgium will be in attendance; approximately 200 Jews have been murdered in anti-Semitic attacks abroad since Israels establishment in 1948

The annual Yom HaZikaron ceremony memorializing Jews murdered in anti-Semitic attacks around the world, along with fallen Israeli servicemen and women and Israeli victims of terror, will take place this Monday at 09:00 in the plaza of the Jewish Agency headquarters building in Jerusalem.

This years ceremony will center on the victims of terror attacks that have taken place in Belgium over the years, including Professor Joseph Wybran, a world-renowned immunologist and leader of the Belgian Jewish community murdered in 1989, and Mira and Emmanuel Riva, the Israeli couple killed in the terror attack at the Jewish Museum of Brussels in 2014. Wybrans widow and her son will participate in the ceremony, as will Mira and Emmanuel Rivas daughters, Miras siblings, and Emmanuels twin brother.

The ceremony is being hosted by The Jewish Agency for Israel in partnership with the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF), Keren Hayesod-UIA, The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), and Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA (JFC-UIA).

The ceremony will be attended by Chairman of the Executive of The Jewish Agency Natan Sharansky, Ambassador of Belgium to Israel Olivier Belle, Chairman of the World Zionist Organization Avraham Duvdevani, Chairman of the KKL-JNF Board of Directors Danny Atar, JFNA Senior Vice President for Global Operations and Director General of the JFNA Israel Office Rebecca Caspi, Director General of the JFC-UIA Israel Office Yossi Tanuri, CEO and Director General of The Jewish Agency for Israel Alan Hoffmann, and representatives of the Belgian immigrant community in Israel.

According to Jewish Agency data, some 200 Jews have been murdered in anti-Semitic attacks around the world since Israels establishment in 1948. Their names appear on a memorial that will be placed in the plaza for the duration of the ceremony.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A suspected U.S. airstrike killed four al-Qaida operatives in Yemens eastern province of Marib on Sunday, Yemeni tribal and security officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, say the operatives killed were driving a car when an unmanned aircraft targeted their vehicle. Two of the men killed were identified as belonging to one of the local tribes, the others remain unidentified.

The airstrike comes less than a day after a similar strike killed three al-Qaida members in the neighboring province of Shabwa.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, seen by Washington as among the most dangerous branches of the global terror network, has exploited the chaos of Yemens civil war, seizing territory in the south and east.

In a separate development, Saudi Arabias King Salman met with the president of Yemens internationally recognized government, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, on Saturday.

The meeting comes after Hadi fired a Cabinet minister and the governor of the southern port city of Aden. The two figures were known to be close to the United Arab Emirates, a key member of a Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen since 2015.

Government officials said the meeting was unplanned but was set by the Saudi king to ease tensions between the UAE and Hadi over allegations by the Yemeni president that the Emiratis are inciting Yemeni officials to refuse carrying out presidential decisions. Hadi sees this as UAE violations of his countrys sovereignty.

(AP)
Americas CIA director is making an unannounced visit to South Korea, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul confirmed Monday, amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

An embassy official said Mike Pompeo and his wife were in the South Korean capital on Monday, but wouldnt say for how long. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

South Korean media reports said the CIA chief arrived in South Korea over the weekend for meetings with the head of South Koreas National Intelligence Service and high-level officials in the presidential office. The U.S. official, however, wouldnt confirm any meetings beyond ones with officials at U.S. Forces in Korea and the U.S. Embassy.

The visit comes after North Korea conducted another missile test on Saturday, and a U.S. aircraft carrier group was in nearby waters. A Japanese destroyer left port Monday, reportedly to escort U.S. naval ships as Japan increases its military role in the region.

The Japanese destroyer Izumo, a helicopter carrier, departed from Yokosuka port south of Tokyo in the morning.

Japanese media reports said it will meet up with and escort a U.S. supply ship, a first-time mission under new security legislation that allows Japans military a greater role overseas. They said the U.S. ship is expected to refuel other American warships, including the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group.

Japans Defense Ministry only said that the Izumo would participate in an international naval event in Singapore on May 15.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull used a commemoration of a World War II naval battle to warn North Korea against destabilizing the region.

Today Australia and the United States continue to work with our allies to address new security threats around the world, Turnbull said. Together, were taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region.

Turnbull is to meet Trump for the first time Thursday in New York.

(AP)
Abraham Foxman, the National Director Emeritus of the ADL, called Linda Sarsour a bigot who should not have received an invitation to speak at the commencement ceremony of CUNYs Graduate School of Public Health. In an interview with The Algemeiner Journal, Foxman said, Shes a champion of equal rights, except when it comes to Jewish rights. She plays that game, I love Jews, I dont like Zionists. Well, Ive got news for her. Every Jew whos a Jew prays to Jerusalem, says If I forget you, Jerusalem. So this is a throwback to 1948 You can be an advocate of the Palestinian liberation movement without being an enemy of Jewish liberation, Foxman stressed. But that, he continued, is not the case with Sarsour. She is an enemy of Jewish sovereignty and Jewish liberation. Shes a bigot, and she shouldnt have been invited [to CUNY].

Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) praised Foxman who served for nearly three decades as the ADLs National Director. Abe Foxman has the guts and the insight to say what the currently politicized ADL seems to be carefully avoiding. Not a peep out of them on Sarsour. Their silence is deafening and shameful The normalization of terrorism should be unacceptable to everyone, especially our elected officials and community leaders. Speak up or accept that you are contributing to the problem!

This morning, Assemblyman Hikind released a the video Questions for Linda Sarsour from Assemblyman Hikind which can be seen HERE:

I hope everyone who admires Sarsours association with the Womens movementwhich I also supportwill watch this brief but important video, said Hikind.

Sarsour has close ties with Rasmea Yousef Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine convicted by an Israeli court for her role in the murder of two students, Leon Kanner and Eddie Joffe, in a Jerusalem supermarket bombing. Odeh, who has spoken alongside Sarsour, is now being deported by the United States for falsifying information when she immigrated to the U.S.

Sarsour also glorified rock throwing by Arab children at Israelis calling it the definition of courage.

(YWN Headquarters  NYC)
A plane operating under the regional branch of American Airlines has made an emergency landing at a suburban Chicago airport after reporting smoke in the cockpit.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday morning that it is investigating SkyWest Flight 2936, operated by American Eagle.

FAA officials say the flight departed Chicago OHare International Airport at 9 a.m. bound for Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and landed 15 minutes later without incident about 25 miles west at DuPage Airport in West Chicago, Illinois.

American Eagle is owned by American Airlines. American Airlines spokeswoman Marissa Snow said in a statement that the flight landed safely and passengers disembarked normally. The West Chicago Fire Protection District says no injuries have been reported.

Snow says mechanics will inspect the aircraft.

(AP)
The scourge of terrorism against innocents is an unmitigated evil. Civilized societies must strongly and unequivocally condemn it and take every measure to eradicate it. Those who do not do so only abet evil, hate and bloodshed.

It is unconscionable that the Palestinian Authority has enshrined in its law compensation to terrorists and their families for acts of violence. That represents nothing less than a glorification and rewarding of terrorism in Palestinian society  particularly among its youth  and only ensures that murder and mayhem against Israelis and other innocents will continue.

The United States cannot abide the use of its foreign assistance to the PA to either directly or indirectly abet that regimes support for terror. American aid must stop at terrorisms door.

For this reason, Agudath Israel of America strongly supports the Taylor Force Act (S. 464, H.R. 1164), legislation that will condition U.S. foreign assistance to the PA on its public condemnation of terror, its taking credible steps to investigate, punish and end acts of terror, and its terminating of payments to terrorists and their families. We applaud Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), for introducing their respective bills, as well as Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and other co-sponsors, and urge swift passage by both chambers.

We also urge President Trump, in his upcoming meetings with President Abbas, to make clear to the PA leader that his continued actions in aiding terrorism is intolerable and will incur severe consequences.

(YWN Headquarters  NYC)
Many of us will have been told at some point: Act your age. But invest your age is a less common command.

Yet your age is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing where to invest  whether in a tax-efficient Individual Savings Account (Isa) or pension.

How many years you have left to invest will help determine where best to put your money.

The younger you are the more investment risk you can afford to take. Analysis by investment website The Share Centre shows that while savers aged 50 or over have most commonly been choosing investments that pay a reliable income, younger investors are making bolder choices.

How many years you have left to invest will help determine where best to put your money

Helal Miah, an analyst at the centre, says: On the one hand, you have a group who are getting close to retirement and are hunting for tried and trusted investments.

In contrast, the younger group are investing to grow their money for their future.

So wherever you are on lifes great carousel, use our guide to help determine which investments are right for you.

20s and 30s

After experiencing the security of keeping cash in the bank, first-time investors might be reluctant to take risks with their savings.

But this is the ideal age to ramp up the risk. Racier investment funds have the potential to supercharge your savings.

Rob Pemberton, investment director at London-based financial planner HFM Columbus, says: This early age, from your 20s through to 30s, is the best time to start investing because you have the luxury of time to cushion yourself against any temporary losses you might make.

Your 20s and 30s is the ideal age to ramp up the risk

This strategy works well for long-term saving, such as pensions, but if you are saving for a house deposit or anything specific in the near future then it is best not to take too much risk.

Experts advise that when investing you should be willing to tie up your money for at least five years.

Choosing racier investments is about getting the balance right. The trick is to pick funds that are well-managed and have already proven they can deliver, even if they do back riskier options. Juliet Schooling Latter is research director at London-based financial scrutineer FundCalibre. She says: Investing in emerging market economies could really pay off on a long-term basis.

Asia is likely to be the worlds major growth engine over the next 20 to 30 years.

She likes Lazard Emerging Markets investment fund, which has exposure to the stock markets of Asia, Latin America, Europe and America. It has turned 10,000 into 13,560 over the past five years.

So-called emerging markets often deliver stronger returns than developed countries, such as the US and the UK, because they have fast-growing economies with younger populations that are becoming increasingly wealthy.

Pemberton likes the Baillie Gifford International fund, which invests across the globe. It has half of its money in big US firms, such as Amazon and Royal Caribbean Cruises, and other investments in Europe and emerging markets, such as South African media company Naspers and German software business SAP. Over the past five years the fund has turned 10,000 into 20,380.

40s and 50s

As you draw closer to retirement age or a time you wish to access your investments, it is wise to start being a bit more careful with your cash.

By this point, hopefully, you should have saved a decent pot of money, so even if it grows at a slower rate the gains can still rack up.

At this age you are probably at the peak earnings period of your career, so the amount you are investing has hopefully risen. While you want your investments to continue growing, you do not want to take any undue risk.

For this age group, Pemberton likes Jupiter UK Special Situations, which picks out-of-favour firms that the manager believes are on the brink of a turnaround.

The fund, which has money in BP, Tesco and Royal Bank of Scotland, has turned 10,000 into 19,320 over the past five years. Schooling Latter likes the Investec UK Alpha fund. It invests in quality companies that have potential to grow, such as Lloyds Bank and British American Tobacco. It has turned 10,000 into 19,600 over the past five years.

60s and over

Historically, many investors stopped investing when they hit their 60s. But with annuity rates so low  putting people off converting a pension into a lifetime income  many of this age group keep a hand in the stock market. They continue to work  often part-time  rather than living off savings and investments.

Once you reach your 60s, your investment focus is likely to be on funds that can pay you an income while steadily growing the money you have left so it lasts for longer.

Schooling Latter likes the M&G Optimal Income fund because it adapts its investments to how the economy is faring, which is an attractive strategy when times are uncertain.

Currently, its largest investments are in German government bonds and the debt of high-quality companies, such as US telecoms firm Verizon. The fund has turned 10,000 into 13,260 over the past five years and pays an annual income of about 3.2 per cent or about 370 a year.

Pemberton likes the Newton Real Return fund, which aims to protect savers money. It invests in US and Australian government bonds, which deliver a set income over an agreed period.

Only about 10 per cent of the 10billion fund is invested in shares. Instead it focuses on assets that do better when the economy dips, such as gold. It has turned 10,000 into 12,250 over the past five year and generates an annual income of about 2.4 per cent  about 270 a year.
Just one per cent of frauds and cyber crimes reported to police results in prosecution, official figures show.

Police overwhelmed by rocketing levels of fraud, with an average of 78 crimes reported every hour across Britain, are failing to investigate 90 per cent of the cases reported.

Charges were brought in just 7,447 cases in the year to March 2016, which represents just over 1 per cent of the 682,899 reports of financial scams to police, banks and businesses.

Just one per cent of frauds and cyber crimes reported to police results in prosecution

The figures suggest that just one in ten scams are passed to detectives to look into and almost half of those cases are then dropped due to evidential difficulties or a failure to identify the culprit.

Despite fraud becoming Britains most common crime, costing around 193billion a year, prosecutions fell by 13 per cent last year and the number of cases shelved by officers more than doubled.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics showing there were 3.5million frauds and 1.9million cyber crimes in 2016  half of all offences in the country.

But just a fraction of offences are reported to police because victims feel embarrassed or believe little can be done to catch the culprits.

Police figures from April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 show 682,899 fraud and cyber crime reports were made to forces, bank and credit card companies and the fraud prevention service, CIFAS.

But only 70,478 of those  just 10 per cent  were passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB). The figures for all forces in England and Wales show that there were 39,898 cases resolved in that period, but in the majority of cases police decided not to prosecute.

Only 10,099 cases resulted in any form of punishment, with a quarter of those let off with a caution, warning, penalty notice or community resolution.

And in some areas police prosecuted in only a handful of cases in a year despite hundreds of crimes being reported.

Leicestershire Police looked at 858 crime reports in the year to March 2016, but in that year criminals in only six cases faced justice  less than 1 per cent.

Scotland Yard said many of the cases referred to them in 2015/16 are still under investigation due to their complex nature

Norfolk Police received 353 reports of fraud, but offenders in only seven cases faced any punishment. And in Devon and Cornwall just 17 cases resulted in any criminal sanction out of 915 referred for investigation. Even the Metropolitan Police, the UKs biggest force, only saw 8 per cent of the 26,663 cases it handled result in a judicial outcome.

Police say the figures only show outcomes in 2016, but some cases may have been referred before 2015 and also some may still be under investigation, so officials consider the data experimental.

And detectives are often powerless as half of the conmen are based overseas and foreign banks refuse to help track them down.

However, police have had some success in shutting down fraud and cyber crime schemes. City of London Police, the national policing lead for fraud, disrupted a total of 162,252 scams by shutting down 1,185 fraudulent websites, 118,670 telephone cons and suspending 42,307 bank accounts used for stolen funds.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said that fraud cases tend to be lengthy and complex and so many of the cases referred to us in 2015/16 will still be under investigation.

A City of London Police spokesman said reports are stored in case they may become useful in any future investigations.
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By Gina Martinez

Queens community projects were able to network and compete for funding at Queens SOUP Saturday afternoon.

The Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce held its second Queens SOUP event at the Flushing Meeting House, located at 137-16 Northern Blvd.

The event, inspired by Detroit SOUP, is a community potluck dinner that provides seed funding and promotion to help launch local projects that positively affect their community.

Queens SOUP attendees gave a $5 donation at the door and were able to have a potluck dinner with food donated from Dosa Hutt, New Asian Food and Dannys Steakhouse & Oyster Bar.

Attendees ate, mingled and ultimately decided which of the four projects up for voting they felt had the most positive impact on the community. After a presentation from each project, ballots were counted and all the money collected at the door was awarded.

John Choe, executive director of the Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce, said Queens SOUP is a unique networking event. He said regardless of whether a project wins or not, owners and their associates can connect with potential community partners and volunteers, raising their profile. He hopes the event will be an annual undertaking, depending on the amount of support from the community.

We modeled this event after Detroit SOUP, he said. After the government became bankrupt, different people came together and said lets not wait for government to solve our problems, lets get together and come up with our own ideas and fund those ideas, The city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy in July 2013.

So they developed these potluck dinners where they invited people to donate some money and share with their neighbors and listen to organizations innovative and creative ways to help community. We were inspired by that.

The Flushing projects can focus on arts and culture, civil rights, small business assistance, childrens programing, neighborhood beautification, environmental remediation, and more. The community programs were able to apply online from February to March.

Summer Tinker Lab: Latimer House + Child Center ended up the winner with the most votes, earning $950 in funding. The program seeks to expand free access for low-income children to its two-week Tinker Lab class this August. Tinker Lab is an innovative hands-on STEM learning project focused on educating local youth about technology and the arts as well as teaching children how to code.

The other contenders were Flushing CSAs Community Cook-Off and Food Festival, a public food festival highlighting the benefits of local organic produce; Plaza Plays, a six-month residency that connects playwrights to central public spaces within Queens neighborhoods; and Open the Door, a program that gives out disposable cameras to a diverse sampling of 50 Queens residents, to capture images of their own daily life.

Attendee and Flushing resident Jacqueline Colson was happy to be a part of the event.

Its so great, she said. Its a good fund-raiser, and an opportunity to get together with people in the community and see what great projects are going on. Im glad to be a part of it.
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By Bill Parry

Mayor Bill de Blasio kept his promise to the Rockaways, launching NYC Ferry service from 108th Street early Monday morning, a month ahead of schedule.

For nearly a quarter century, Rockaway resident Joe Hartigan has advocated for permanent ferry service to the peninsula in order to slash the longest commute times in the city and bring an economic benefit to the community.

I talked with the mayor and I thanked him for keeping his word and for making the biggest investment in the Rockaways Ive ever seen, Hartigan said. And thats coming from a registered Republican.

Hartigan was on board the Urban Journey as the vessel departed the new ferry landing at Beach 108th for its maiden voyage at 5:30 a.m. Less than an hour later, de Blasio greeted nearly a hundred passengers as it arrived at Wall Streets Pier 11.

I told the mayor I couldnt wait to compare this summers credit card receipts in Rockaway to the last two summers, Hartigan said. Im telling you, this is going to be like Christmas all summer long down here. At $2.75 a ride, how could you not come down to Rockaway and shop at the stores, eat at our restaurants and go for a dip. Heck, this is the cheapest date in New York City and the ride is the best part. Its beautiful, and I think its going to have a deep impact on the Rockaways.

State Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Rockaway Beach) and state Sen. Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) were also aboard that first ferry and shared Hartigans enthusiasm.

Today, I witnessed what many Rockaway residents thought might never happen  a credible commuter ferry run to Manhattan, Addabbo said. This day has been a long time coming. The introduction of this service will give residents and commuters improved, reliable transit options, taking them to-and-from Rockaway Beach, Brooklyn Army Terminal and Wall Streets Pier 11. The ferry will finally link the rest of New York City to Rockaway, so that visitors can experience all the benefits the peninsula has to offer.

After Hurricane Sandy devastated the peninsula in October 2012, cutting A train service for more than a year and leaving 35,000 daily customers without a direct link to Manhattan, the Bloomberg administration launched a subsidized ferry service in May 2012. But that came to an end in the first year of the de Blasio administration as ridership numbers failed to justify the cost of more than $20 per rider.

This ferry is exactly what weve needed to give Rockaway residents something approaching a normal commute, Pheffer Amato said. To get that commute in speed and style a month early? Were over the moon. Were glad the city is finally connecting South Queens to the rest of New York City in a workable way. This is a great day and it was so great to take the first ride with my neighbors.

The ferry is expected to reduce commuting times for South Queens residents by up to an hour.

The two elected officials talked with crew members, employees and fellow riders. They sampled the full-service concession stand, and even led a chorus of Happy Birthday for one of the passengers.

This is the most exciting day Ive had in a while, Pheffer Amato said.

Its an amazing day for the Rockaway peninsula community and for New York City, to see all the hard work and dedication to this fight for better transportation options finally come to fruition.

Borough President Melinda Katz said the new ferry service will be a huge boost for the Rockaway economy.

When you have permanency in a ferry, it means predictability for the Rockaways, Katz said. It means that stores can predict the number of folks coming in and out. It means that we can create jobs based on the predictability of a permanent ferry. It means that families who move out of the Rockways know that they are going to be able to get in and out and work with the ferry every single day for years to come. That predictability will be a huge boost for the Rockaways.

Hartigan has been watching at the 108th Street landing as passengers disembark this week.

Each boat that arrives, 50 to 100 people come off, he said. The first group I saw had tourists, four from Sweden, two from France and one from Britain, and that was on day one. I told my wife Im ordering a T-shirt from Jaws that shows Roy Scheider saying Were gonna need a bigger boat.
It might take a few days to see unofficial results in Pa. Here's why

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A new design may help travelers rethink the dreaded middle seat on the airplane.

Molon Labe Seating has come up with the Stagger Seat, a design that offsets the middle seat from its neighbors on the left and right.

"The arms, thighs and elbows of all passengers are no longer adjacent," Molon Labe Seating CEO Hank Scott said in a statement. "Visually it is a small offset, but ergonomically it makes a huge difference in passenger comfort."

Offsetting the seats helps eliminate one of the most uncomfortable parts of sitting in the middle; it makes it harder for passengers in the aisle and window spots to hog both armrests.

"If you're in the aisle or window seat, you couldn't possibly steal the entire armrestyour elbows would be behind your back at a weird angle," Scott said in an interview with Wired.

That's not the only perk that comes with the company's new design. The middle seat is also three inches wider than the window or aisle spots and comes with a larger television monitor (18 inches for the middle as opposed to 16 inches on the sides).

However, because the seats in every row are offset, the design doesn't translate into extra legroom for anybody stuck in the middle.

A conceptual model of the Stagger Seat is being unveiled this week at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, Germany. Scott told Wired he hopes to see the company's designs on flights in the next two years and says he's already received some interest from major airlines.

"Hopefully we can make flying suck a little less!" The design company's CEO told SFGATE.

Now that's a mission any frequent flier can get behind.
Donna's Italian Restaurant in Troy, a modern take on grandma-style red-sauce fare, will close after dinner service on Saturday, May 13, just a few days before its six-month anniversary.

The restaurant is not financially viable, according to owners Vic Christopher and Heather LaVine. They decided to close it to stop losses they say are running at $1,000 a week or more. They opened it in December as an homage of sorts to Minissale's Wine Cellar cafe, the restaurant that occupied the building, at 1 14th St., for 38 years, until last summer.

A variety of factors were at play in the decision to close, Christopher tells me, including failure to complete purchase of the building, as originally planned.

The restaurant is open only four days a week. Business has been strong all Friday and Saturday nights, the owners say, when the restaurant feeds upward of 100 people, but on Wednesday and Thursday, few customers show up after an initial rush at opening time. It isn't unusual for the last midweek meal to go out before 8 p.m. Further, the 10-seat bar area at Donna's is too small to provide room for people to linger while waiting for a table, meaning most prospective diners who can't be seated upon arrival tend to leave and not return. Finally, alcohol sales  where restaurants make most of their profits  are notably lower than at Christopher and LaVine's other restaurants, Peck's Arcade and Lucas Confectionery wine bar, both also in Troy.

The duo, who have been credited as the single most important component of Troy's surging restaurant scene of the past few years, are experiencing their first significant failure with Donna's. LaVine describes it as "incredibly painful," because Minissale's became their home away from home when they were opening the wine bar, their first venture. But their attachment to the place also led to what Christopher calls an "emotional decision" to go forward with Donna's when Peck's was less than two years old and they were also working to open The Bradley, a dive bar in downtown Troy.

"I'm supposedly a real-estate guy, but I couldn't close the deal on the property," Christopher says. "I'm not blaming anybody but myself."

Most of the staff at Donna's staff will be absorbed into Christopher and LaVine's other businesses, which also includes Little Pecks cafe. The cafe and Peck's Arcade are contiguous spaces in a large, circa-1870s brick building on Broadway near Monument Square, called Clark House; they share a rear courtyard with the wine bar, which has its front entrance around the corner. Some Donna's menu items, especially the pizzas, likely will make their way downtown, says Nick Ruscitto, who supervises food for Christopher and LaVine's restaurants.

Christopher agreed to answer questions from me about the closure. Get the full Q&A on the Table Hopping blog.
New York

For legions of Americans craving a chance to adopt children, a confluence of daunting trends makes this an especially distressing time.

The overall number of U.S. adoptions has dropped significantly in recent years, straining the viability of many adoption agencies and drawing some into conduct that authorities describe as unethical. Would-be adoptive parents confront the specter of long waiting times and high fees. And many face pressure to spend lavishly on self-promotional advertising if they want to compete for a chance to adopt an infant.

Chuck Johnson, CEO of the National Council for Adoption, estimates that 1 million families are trying to adopt at any given time.

"No matter where they go, unless they're super lucky, they're going to be in for a long wait," Johnson said. "They're going to be in a slow, painful process for foster care or in this massive competition for the limited number of healthy infants  and that's where the situation is ripe for fraud. There are so many families who want to adopt, and so few options for them."

Some of the people desperate to adopt fall victim to scams. In March, for example, a woman from Carolina Beach, North Carolina, was accused of using the internet to fleece a dozen would-be adoptive parents.

In the absence of comprehensive federal figures, Johnson's council, which represents more than 120 adoption agencies, periodically tries to tally the total number of adoptions in the U.S. Its latest count, released in February, showed a 17 percent drop from 133,737 adoptions in 2007 to 110,373 in 2014.

Most of the decline was due to a sharp decrease in the number of international adoptions; the number of infant adoptions remained relatively stable at about 18,000, as did adoptions out of foster care at about 50,000.

Thousands of clients seeking to adopt have been buffeted recently by the downfall of their agencies.

The State Department, alleging extensive improprieties in handling international adoptions, shut down Ohio-based European Adoption Consultants in December. It operated in a dozen foreign countries.

A few weeks later, a domestic-adoption agency licensed in eight states, the Independent Adoption Center, declared bankruptcy, leaving more than 3,000 clients in the lurch. The agency blamed the bankruptcy on "societal changes" that increased the number of parents seeking to adopt while shrinking the pool of expectant mothers open to having their babies adopted.

One of the largest U.S. agencies, Bethany Christian Services, continues to grow overall even as the number of adoptions it facilitated dropped from 1,980 in 2010 to fewer than 1,300 in 2016. It has expanded other services in the U.S., including foster care and family counseling, and has launched programs in South Africa, Ethiopia and elsewhere to encourage foster care and adoption of orphans in their home country.
The University of Pittsburgh at Titusville held its graduation ceremony Saturday. Taking part in the ceremony was graduate Karina Nellis, right. She received her diplomas for accounting and business from president Dr. Livingston Alexander, left, as advisor board member Stephen Coleman and campus dean Dr. David Fitz look on.
Avionica Supplies e-Enablement for Icelandair's B737MAX Aircraft

Avionica Inc. has been contracted by Icelandair to provide products and services to e-Enable Icelandair's 16 new B737MAX aircraft. Beginning this year and continuing through 2019 when final aircraft deliveries are made, Icelandair will install Avionica's e-Enabled avionics that include satLINK MAX Iridium (News - Alert) satellite communications system and aviONS Onboard Network Server.

"Avionica's integrated e-Enablement solution allows Icelandair to deploy an advanced e-Enablement system at a fraction of the OEM catalog price. By using avSYNC service, Icelandair will save more than US$4 million in hardware and communications services on the new 737MAX fleet," said Bragi (News - Alert) Baldursson, Head of Design for Icelandair.

Avionica's solution for Icelandair includes:

satLINK MAX Iridium satellite communications system

aviONS Onboard Network Server

avCM 4G cellular device

avSYNC QAR download

satLINK MAX is the industry's only 4-channel, FANS-1/A and ATC Voice Safety Service approved Iridium SATCOM system. The multitude of Iridium channels enables Icelandair to maximize e-Enabled aircraft connectivity without restricting critical Voice and FANS-1/A safety services.

aviONS provides an open-platform network solution supporting airline and third paty e-Enablement systems. aviONS enhances airborne connectivity with global 4G Cellular using avCM and aviONS's WiFi (News - Alert) connectivity for crew wireless applications including efficient in-flight reporting of cabin discrepancies.







To manage connectivity, Avionica's avSYNC global data transfer network provides automated data transfer between aircraft and their operation center. As Icelandair's e-Enabled aircraft focus is efficiency, avSYNC's ability to automate data synchronization of onboard applications would become a key component of its strategy.

"We are very proud to continue our partnership with Icelandair in challenging the industry with better flight data and communications solutions. Icelandair's confidence in Avionica's e-Enablement and global communications solution as an alternative to costly catalog options is a testament to the exceptional value Avionica continues to deliver for Icelandair," said Avionica Vice President of Sales Anthony Rios.

Headquartered in Miami for 25 years, Avionica is the world's leading aircraft data collection and data transmission manufacturer, designing and producing innovative, safety-qualified, state-of-the-art solutions that are revolutionizing air transportation. For more information, please visit www.avionica.com. Connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170430005012/en/
[May 01, 2017] Aparna Systems Emerges from Stealth Mode to Announce the Industry's First Open Software Cloud-in-a-Box Solution

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (NFV World Congress 2017) - Aparna Systems today announced the Orca Cloud and Orca Server-the industry's first open software Cloud-in-a-Box solution to converge compute, storage and networking resources in a compact, energy-efficient system. In addition to offering industry-leading high density and scalability, with support for up to 10,000 cores per rack, the Cloud systems deliver the high performance and high availability needed in distributed, edge, aggregation and core environments. The system-level architecture provides an optimal configuration without the need for "rack and stack" engineering, while the use of merchant silicon and open software enables the Cloud-in-a-Box (News - Alert) to be used in bare metal, containerized and virtualized applications. Aparna Systems will unveil and demo the Orca Cloud and Orca Server this week in Booth 41 at the NFV World Congress held May 3 - 5 at the San Jose DoubleTree Hilton. Two models of the Orca Cloud system are currently available: the 4060 with slots for up to 60 Servers and the 4015 with slots for up to 15 Servers. The Orca Servers are also currently available in two models: the Oserv8 with 8 cores and the Oserv16 with 16 cores. Two models of the Orca Cloud system are currently available: the 4060 with slots for up to 60 Servers and the 4015 with slots for up to 15 Servers. The Orca Servers are also currently available in two models: the Oserv8 with 8 cores and the Oserv16 with 16 cores.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/071fcd81-ce3f-43b3-a662-df53c91ff1db



//www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/acf7c95c-c80c-4b0d-a876-cac113a4b8db "Aparna's Cloud-in-a-Box has the potential to be a real game-changer in a variety of applications," according to Michael Howard (News - Alert), senior research director and advisor for Carrier Networks at IHS Markit. "This is particularly true at the edge of the network, including in central offices, where carriers have struggled to find a practical and affordable way to deploy adequate compute and storage resources. The system's high density and design innovations combine to also drastically improve scalability and energy efficiency compared to blade servers."

The Cloud system addresses a persistent problem in the industry caused by the way the cloud has turned server clusters into amorphous "black boxes" that make it difficult, if not impossible, to match hardware and software to achieve peak performance. With its non-stop, high-performance architecture, the Cloud-in-a-Box provides an easier and more cost-effect way to scale compute and storage resources in mission-critical applications from the edge to the core. Orca Cloud and Server Products Two models of the Orca Cloud system are currently available: the 4060 with slots for up to 60 Servers and the 4015 with slots for up to 15 Servers. Both Cloud systems are packaged in a 4U NEBS-compliant chassis with dual, hot-swappable AC/DC power supplies, and include a GPS clock to support applications that require precise timing, such as time series databases. Both systems are also equipped with dual, hot-swappable active/active switches that deliver 20 Gbps of bandwidth per Server and an aggregate uplink capacity of 640 Gbps (2 switches x 8 ports at 40 Gbps each). This design is what gives the model 4015 its fully fault-tolerant, non-stop, non-blocking performance. These ultra-converged Cloud-in-a-Box systems offer unprecedented CPU core density (10,000 cores per rack with the 4060), energy efficiency (less than 75 Watts per Server), and high intra-cluster bandwidth. The Orca Servers are available in two models: the Oserv8 with 8 cores and the Oserv16 with 16 cores. Both Servers are packaged in a hot-swappable cartridge form factor that is about the size of a 3.5-inch hard disk drive. Both utilize Intel Broadwell Xeon processors, DDR RAM (News - Alert) and dual SATA or NVMe solid state drives (SSDs). Storage I/O is non-blocking based on its support for both SATA at 12 Gbps (6 Gbps per SSD) and NVMe at 64 Gbps (32 Gbps per SSD), with latencies of 100 microseconds (s) and 10 s, respectively. The ultra-convergence of compute, storage and network resources optimized for peak performance in a configurable, compact server cluster enables Aparna's Cloud-in-a-Box system to deliver a savings of up to 40 percent in capital and operational expenditures, and to reduce the need for rack space and power by up to 80 percent compared to clusters built with rack or blade servers. Cloud-in-a-Box Applications The Orca Cloud system is purpose-built for environments with limited availability of space, power and/or cooling. The high density and energy efficiency combine to make the Cloud-in-a-Box especially well-suited for edge and distributed computing needs found in both service provider and enterprise environments. "Our network performance analytics platform requires us to detect problems and identify root causes in real-time, and Aparna's Cloud-in-a-Box enables us to do that in a self-contained system with a remarkably small footprint," claims Charles Barry (News - Alert), PhD, co-founder and chief technical officer at Jolata. "We also value the how the Cloud system scales cost-effectively, and the integrated GPS clock that provides the accurate timing and synchronization needed to analyze traffic being captured by our many sensors distributed throughout the network." Its open software architecture and non-stop high performance make the Cloud-in-a-Box suitable for virtually any networking, computing or storage application, including Fog and Multi-access Edge Computing, databases, data analytics, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning. "Aparna's open software architecture and support for ONIE [Open Network Install Environment] make the Orca Cloud system an ideal for platform for our OcNOS software," said Atsushi Ogata, president and CEO at IP Infusion. "The OcNOS open network operating system is designed to help network operators reduce costs, increase agility and deploy new network services faster, and these objectives align perfectly with the ones Aparna Systems has established for its Cloud-in-a-Box." The need for compact systems like Aparna's Cloud was identified in the Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2015-2020: "Network closets and micro data centers are growing in number and importance as internet-connected sensors and devices proliferate and remote users demand faster access to information. In response, organizations will turn to pre-configured micro data center solutions that support fast deployment, greater standardization and remote management across distributed IT locations." "We chose to launch the company at NFV World Congress because the Cloud-in-a-Box is ideal for carrier-class applications from the edge to the core," said Sam Mathan, Aparna's CEO and co-founder. "We expect the system's industry-leading high density, coupled with its high performance and high reliability, will make the Cloud systems especially popular for edge computing and aggregation applications. Of course, these same capabilities are also important in the enterprise, where the ability to scale compute and storage resources is often constrained by available data center space and power." Product Availability and Pricing The Orca Cloud model 4015 and model 4060 systems, and the Oserv8 and Oserv16 Servers are all available for customer shipment. Pricing for entry-level configurations of the Cloud model 4015 system begins at $49,500. About Aparna Systems Aparna Systems is making breakthrough advances in cloud density, efficiency and price/performance through the ultra-convergence of compute, storage and networking resources. The company's Orca Cloud and Server products provide a high density, high performance and high availability Cloud-in-a-Box solution for distributed and edge computing applications. The Orca Cloud's compact, energy efficient design also minimizes the need for space, power and cooling in central data centers. The privately held company is headquartered in Fremont, CA (News - Alert). For more information visit www.aparnasystems.com or email [email protected]. Media Contact: Kevin Gallagher Gallagher PR [email protected] (510) 599-0416

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[May 01, 2017] Duo World Inc. Retains New York-Based Investor Relations Firm Consulting for Strategic Growth 1 Ltd.

HENDERSON, Nev., May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Duo World Inc. (OTC Pink:DUUO), announced today it has retained Consulting for Strategic Growth 1 Ltd. (CFSG1) as its primary Investor Relations and Corporate Development firm in order to drive investor awareness.

Duos position is one of the leading providers of enterprise solutions for the Asia Pacific region. With the companys API driven Cloud Communication, Subscriber Management and Billing Solution, Data Visualization Tool and more, it has obtained a significant market share in the industry, managing millions of subscribers. CFSG1, with offices in New York, is a recognized leader in Investor Relations and Corporate Development Consulting. It specializes in the development of access to capital for early-stage growth companies. With decades of hands-on experience and broad personal outreach in the private and public investment communities, CFSG1 will focus on putting Duo World in front of the right investment decision-makers. These decision makers, along with market makers, institutions, and accredited investors are intimately familiar with the micro-cap market and are positioned to participate in DUUOs unique position. Stanley Wunderlich, CEO of CFSG1, remarked, We are extremely excited to join DUUO as we move into a new phase of growth as a new public Company listed domestically within the United States. Mr. Muhunthan Canagasooryam, CEO and Chairman of Duo World Inc., stated, We look forward to working with CFSG1 and our goal is to become a significant strategic player in the regional market. With CFSG1 on board, we can bring our story to investors, and look to the capital markets for additional funding. We look forward to announcing our strategic growth plans in the near future. About Duo World Inc. Duo World Inc., having its headquarters in Nevada, United States, and its software development center in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has been catering to the companies in the space of Customer Life Cycle Mnagement, Customer Care, Billing, Business Intelligence and Contact Center Management solutions across the globe. Driven by innovation Duo World Inc. has favored the enterprises in many ways, including efficiency, cost reduction, revenue optimization and continuous value addition to their product or service offerings.



With the ever-evolving technology and innovation, Duo World Inc.s CEO Mr. Muhunthan Canagasooryam foresaw a revolutionary idea to provide solutions for different business domains hosted on cloud, on premise or a hybrid model of the two providing ultimate flexibility and a wider scope for the businesses in various industries. The idea came into reality when DuoWorld Inc. took a step forward by launching its flagship products into the market. It included FaceTone, an API driven Cloud Communication and Collaboration Platform, CloudCharge, a cloud based Subscriber Management and Billing Solution, DigIn, a cloud based Business Intelligence and Data Visualization Tool and Smoothflow, a cloud based workflow designing tool. Learn more about Duo World at www.duoworld.com

Safe Harbor Statement: This release contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, we can give no assurance or guarantee that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of words like "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "believe," "intend," or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties, including but not limited to: adverse economic conditions, competition, adverse federal, state and local government regulation, international governmental regulation, inadequate capital, inability to carry out research, development and commercialization plans, loss or retirement of key executives and other specific risks. To the extent that statements in this press release are not strictly historical, including statements as to revenue projections, business strategy, outlook, objectives, future milestones, plans, intentions, goals, future financial conditions, events conditioned on stockholder or other approval, or otherwise as to future events, such statements are forward-looking, and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. Readers are advised to review our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that can be accessed over the Internet at the SEC's website located at http://www.sec.gov. Contact: Investor Relations Stanley Wunderlich Consulting for Strategic Growth 1 Ltd. Tel: 800-625-2236 Email: [email protected] www.launchpadir.net Duo World Inc. 170 S Green Valley Parkway Suite 300 Henderson, Nevada 89012 Tel: 870-505-6540 Email: [email protected] Website: www.duoworld.com

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[May 01, 2017] More Than 20 Vendors Announce New Products and Services at HDI 2017

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HDI, the first membership association and certification body created for the technical support industry, will host more than 45 exhibitors at its annual HDI 2017 Conference & Expo in Washington DC. The event will provide professionals with the opportunity to learn from industry leaders and network with like-minded professionals. Via the Expo Hall, more than 2,300 attendees will be given the opportunity to connect with solution providers that are announcing new products and services. HDI 2017 will take place May 9-12, at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel & Convention Center in Washington DC. The HDI 2017 Expo Hall will be open May 9  11. For additional information and to register, please visit: hdiconference.com. To see a full list of exhibitor Booths, visit ubm.io/HDI17Exhib. Below is a preview of announcements exhibitors will showcase at HDI 2017: Advanced Software Products Group Inc. (ASPG) (Booth 613) will be showcasing its newest release of ReACT [v5.0] for self-service password reset and synchronization for the enterprise. ASPG will also be introducing OAR, Offline Access Recovery, which provides device access without a network connection, and ProACT, which organizes, centralizes and simplifies user provisioning and reporting. Avatier (Booth 415) will showcase the new features in the latest version of their Avatier Identity Management Suite. This release includes the ability to integrate with MFA vendors such as Duo Security, Symantec VIP, and Google Authenticator. RESTful API's, Mobile Workflow Approver, Proactive Workflow Approver Management, and Entitlement Reconciliation are included to streamline and increase usability. Alemba (Booth 520) will be showcasing Nano, our new, no-plugin interface. Nano is all about user experience and getting the job done easily. Each element, from looks to ergonomics, has been obsessively designed to deliver a slick, effortless experience empowering first-time and occasional users. Atlassian (Booth 421) will be showcasing JIRA Service Desk, a beautifully simple service desk that's easy to use, simple to setup, and has everything you need for IT support and customer service. Stop by the booth to learn why JIRA Service Desk is recognized as a leader in service desk software by G2Crowd, ahead of legacy vendors like BMC and ServiceNow. Axios Systems (Booth 507) will showcase new features including a sleek new interface, robust reporting wizard and improved workflow capabilities that have been introduced in the latest version of their IT Service Management solution, assyst, the world's first ITSM and ITAM solution to be accredited for all 16 ITIL processes. Bomgar (Booth 501) will demonstrate the newest version of Bomgar Vault, its enterprise password management solution. The newest version, which features an integration with Bomgar Remote Support and Bomgar Privileged Access, allows users to inject credentials ino end servers and systems with just one click.



ComAround (Booth 223), specialist and global leader in knowledge management and self-service, will demonstrate the latest KCS-related features in ComAround Knowledge, and how to automate and enhance your support delivery by capturing, structuring and sharing knowledge. EasyVista (Booth 403) will preview powerful self-help innovations within its proven ITSM platform, including intelligent self-guided knowledge processes and social collaboration capabilities designed to provide a superior user experience. EasyVista will also unveil new workflow automation capabilities that allow for easy interactions with 750+ software solutions.

Freshservice (Booth 318) will announce the launch of project management, machine learning-driven self-service, advanced analytics, and a refreshed mobile app. By enabling deeper collaboration between agents and giving them the required context to provide great service to end-users, this proactive approach to service management will improve service quality and reduce agent workload. ISL Online (Booth 526) will showcase helpdesk tools that raise productivity and allow users to resolve issues efficiently. The customizable, multi-platform software provides unattended access and the ability to remotely troubleshoot mobile devices. ISL integrates with tools from ticketing software to CRMs and options include Saas, Self-Hosted or Private Cloud. Ivanti (Booth 303) brings critical ITSM data in sync through the addition of Xtraction reporting and dashboard connectors for Ivanti Service Manager, Voice and additional third party applications. With these latest developments, Xtraction delivers richer data insights on demand, helping users visualize key information such as call abandon rates, coupled with financial impacts. Lionbridge (Booth 326) will showcase its new solution, GeoFluent for Enterprise Service Management, which enables organizations to provide multilingual helpdesk and service support without hiring bilingual staff. By eliminating language barriers across communications channels, from chat and ticketing to voice, productivity and efficiency are improved and speed of response and resolution is increased. Samanage (Booth 309), will demonstrate the latest in service desk intelligence. Each hour at the Astro Bar within the Samanage Booth, the team will highlight how to create customer automations, establish multi-level approvals, and utilize the enhanced integrations found within Samanage, the smartest service desk. ServiceAide (Booth 428) will reveal its unique architecture to create and manage multi-level SaaS environments enhanced with machine intelligence, taking Service Management efficiency to new levels. Cloud Service Management will be showcased, featuring its ITIL-based processes, friction-free onboarding, simplicity of use, and low administrative burden and cost of ownership making it highly affordable. SUMMIT Software Inc. (Booth 229), a leading provider of private and public cloud based IT operations management solutions, will demonstrate Productivity 360, a productivity engine built into its flagship solution, SUMMIT ITOM Platform. The versatile engines provide IT analysts with operational intelligence, gamification, service automation, service assist and skill management. Stefanini (Booth 606), one of the most important global providers of IT outsourcing, applications management, consulting and strategic staffing services, will showcase its portfolio of innovative IT outsourcing practice solutions. These solutions help supplement clients' current help desk operations and assist with migrating the installed base of desktops. StrataCom (Booth 329) will highlight its IT service management professional services and consulting expertise for enterprise-level clients. The services offer a better, faster, more innovative and affordable ITSM solution that fulfills IT help desk needs, as well as the needs of other departments within the organization SunView Software (Booth 414) will showcase its new capabilities to improve end-user experience. These innovative features include a mobile application that gives users an easier and more convenient way to access the ChangeGear platform; and Willow, a Chatbot virtual support assistant powered by artificial intelligence and the award-winning Service Smart Technology. SysAid (Booth 618) will be showcasing the latest in self-service within its help desk and ITSM solution  which will include finger authentication capabilities for the end users. Demonstrations will also be hosted at the booth and will address SysAid's growing marketplace offering pre-built integrations with leading software applications and services. TEKsystems Global Services (Booth 315) will discuss how to effectively manage the complexities of service management transformation as technology continues to evolve at an exponential pace. At the booth, their dedicated team will provide insight into IT service management, service desk, desktop support and engineering, and technology deployment solutions. TOPdesk (Booth 321) will announce its partnership with OneLogin to provide single sign-on, and multi-factor authentication for TOPdesk's clients. This partnership formalizes a joint commitment to providing secure experiences for users and administrators. TOPdesk will also demonstrate its integration with RES Software that helps resolve service times, reduce cost, improve security and deliver predictable service. About HDI

Founded in 1989, HDI is the first membership association and certification body created for the technical support industry. Since then, HDI has remained the source for professional development by offering the resources needed to promote organization-wide success through exceptional customer service. In other words, we help professionals in service management better serve customers. We do this by facilitating collaboration and networking, hosting acclaimed conferences and events, producing renowned publications and research, certifying and training thousands of professionals each year, and connecting solution providers with practitioners. Learn more at www.ThinkHDI.com. HDI is organized by UBM plc. UBM is the largest pure-play B2B Events organizer in the world. Our 3,750+ people, based in more than 20 countries, serve more than 50 different sectors. Our deep knowledge and passion for these sectors allow us to create valuable experiences which enable our customers to succeed. Please visit www.ubm.com for the latest news and information about UBM. Media Contact:

Ashley Womack

HDI PR

[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/more-than-20-vendors-announce-new-products-and-services-at-hdi-2017-300448362.html SOURCE HDI

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[May 01, 2017] NEC/Netcracker to Discuss How to Monetize and Operationalize Multivendor Services at Scale at NFV World Congress 2017

NEC Corporation and Netcracker Technology announced today that they will showcase their comprehensive suite of solutions and services that enable digital transformation and drive the next phase of virtualization towards full-service automation at NFV World Congress 2017 from May 2-5 in San Jose, CA. NEC (News - Alert)/Netcracker is a Diamond Sponsor for the event and will lead discussions throughout the show in the form of keynotes, speaking sessions and a comprehensive pre-show workshop. NEC/Netcracker will be located in booths #36 and #37. Solutions Demonstration NEC/Netcracker's market-focused SDN/NFV solutions provide end-to-end support for service providers looking to transform into digital service providers. These core SDN/NFV solutions include NaaS, Transport SDN and Virtual Core Services, as well as the next evolution in partner collaboration with NEC/Netcracker Ecosystem 2.0 to accelerate the commercialization of multivendor services.



Workshop with TELUS (News - Alert) on Enabling New Revenue and Virtualized Service Innovation NEC/Netcracker will host the "Virtualization: Transforming Revenue Models, Partnerships and End-to-End Operations" workshop with Evan Frith, Director of Products and Services at TELUS, on Tuesday, May 2, from 3:30 - 5:30 PM. Workshop attendees will be given a step-by-step guide to the near-term approach for enabling end-to-end operations and will participate in a discussion on turning partnerships into revenue and service innovation.

Speaking Sessions and Panel Presentations NEC/Netcracker will be keynoting the event as well as leading sessions throughout the show. Wednesday, May 3, 2017 Keynote: "Is Your Business Ready for the Next Phase of SDN/NFV?" Bipin Mistry, Vice President of Product Management, Netcracker Presentation: "How to Operationalize SDN/NFV Services at Scale" Mark Stadtmueller, Business Solution Executive, Netcracker

Panel: "Automating the Network" Bipin Mistry, Vice President of Product Management, Netcracker

Panel: "Transforming Enterprise Services" Mark Stadtmueller, Business Solution Executive, Netcracker

Thursday, May 4, 2017 Presentation: "Building a Marketplace of Commercially Ready Services" Sue White, Head of SDN/NFV Marketing, Netcracker Panel: "Integrating NFV with OSS" Mark Stadtmueller, Business Solution Executive, Netcracker

For more information on NEC/Netcracker's leading SDN/NFV solutions, or to schedule a meeting at the show, contact Joanna Larivee at [email protected] or visit booths #36 and #37 at the event. About NEC Corporation NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at www.nec.com. The NEC Group globally provides "Solutions for Society" that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company's corporate message of "Orchestrating a brighter world," NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow. For more information, please visit http://www.nec.com/en/global/about/solutionsforsociety/message.html. NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other product or service marks mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. 2016 NEC Corporation. About Netcracker Technology Netcracker Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation, is a forward-looking software company, offering mission-critical solutions to service providers around the globe. Our comprehensive portfolio of software solutions and professional services enables large-scale digital transformations, unlocking the opportunities of the cloud, virtualization and the changing mobile ecosystem. With an unbroken service delivery track record of more than 20 years, our unique combination of technology, people and expertise helps companies transform their networks and enable better experiences for their customers. For more information, visit www.netcracker.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005415/en/

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[May 01, 2017] Darktrace Enters into Strategic Cyber Security Partnership with Siemens

Darktrace, the leader in Enterprise and Industrial Immune System technology, and Siemens (News - Alert), a global engineering and technology leader, have today announced they have entered into a strategic partnership to bring cutting-edge cyber defense for operational technology (OT) to electric utilities and the oil and gas industry. With Darktrace's Industrial Immune System and Siemens' extensive domain OT security expertise, the partnership will enable customers to enhance their agility in detecting and responding to cyber-attacks. As these sectors become increasingly digital to achieve revenue and efficiency gains, there is a corresponding need to identify cyber-threats at their earliest stages - going beyond compliance regulations to secure operations. Utilities and oil and gas organizations must defend their entire networks, including all OT, against persistent and highly sophisticated cyber-threats without disrupting business processes. In the oil and gas industry, for instance, digitalization brings a convergence of IT and OT with critical data travelling from the field, to the control room, to the enterprise network. Leveraging advances in machine learning and probabilistic mathematics, Darktrace's Industrial Immune System platform can detect and remediate in-progress cyber-threats at their nascent stages. By learning the 'pattern of life' for every network, device, and user across both OT and IT networks, the AI algorithms can identify and automatically take action against emerging attacks that other tools consistently miss, all in real time. As an industrial technology provider for more than 165 years, Siemens has an inherent and holistic understanding of how to manage cyber risk in complex operating environments. A leader in the OT industry, Siemens brings to the partnership deep domain know-how and solutions for OT cyber, including security program design, security lifecycle management, plant security monitoring, and incident response. "As energy nfrastructure becomes increasingly data-driven, it is critical for operators to quickly detect and disrupt cyber-threats," commented Aymeric Sarrazin, Senior Vice President, Controls and Digitalization at Siemens Power Generation Services. "Through this strategic collaboration, Siemens and Darktrace will give customers actionable insights and intelligence to be faster in identifying and neutralizing those threats, protecting critical assets from harmful and costly attacks."



"As OT environments become more digital, they open a new and glaring vulnerability in organizations of all sizes," commented Nicole Eagan, CEO, Darktrace. "With over 2,400 deployments to date, Darktrace's immune system technology is uniquely capable of not only identifying in-progress threats, but also neutralizing them. We are pleased to be partnering with Siemens to fast-track the delivery of our globally recognized Industrial Immune System to additional customers in utilities and the oil and gas industry. This new era of cyber warfare has resulted in an increased demand for our machine learning technology, which is uniquely capable of providing automated security to environments that extend beyond the corporate network." About Darktrace

Darktrace is the world's leading machine learning company for cyber security. Created by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, the Enterprise Immune System uses AI algorithms to automatically detect and take action against cyber-threats within all types of networks, including physical, cloud and virtualized networks, as well as IoT and industrial control systems. A self-configuring platform, Darktrace requires no prior set-up, identifying advanced threats in real time, including zero-days, insiders and stealthy, silent attackers. Headquartered in San Francisco and Cambridge, UK, Darktrace has 24 offices worldwide. For more information, please visit www.darktrace.com. About Siemens Siemens AG (News - Alert) (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 165 years. The company is active in more than 200 countries, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. One of the world's largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. The company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment - such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging systems - and a leader in laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. In fiscal 2016, which ended on September 30, 2016, Siemens generated revenue of 79.6 billion and net income of 5.6 billion. At the end of September 2016, the company had around 351,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available on the Internet at www.siemens.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005453/en/

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[May 01, 2017]

Zoomdata Named to CRN's 2017 Big Data 100 List

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Zoomdata, developers of the world's fastest visual analytics platform for big data, announced today that CRN  , a brand of The Channel Company, has named them to its 2017 Big Data 100 list. This annual list recognizes the ingenuity of tech suppliers bringing to market innovative offerings for harnessing the increasingly huge amounts of data generated in today's digital world, raising the bar for data management and challenging established IT practices.

Among other accolades, Zoomdata was also included in CRN's 50 Coolest Business Analytics Vendors, debuted in the visionary quadrant in the 2017 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms and was also named a 2016 Cool Vendor by Gartner (News - Alert). In addition, the company was named a Ventana Research 2016 Technology Innovation Award for Operational Intelligence, and received the Top Ranking in the 2016 Annual Big Data Analytics Market Study from Dresner Advisory Services.







Organizations are constantly grappling with the exploding volume, speed and variety of information they produce and utilize on a daily basis to remain competitive. Solution providers are on a never-ending quest to tame this big data with innovative tools, technologies and services that can convert it into meaningful, usable statistics.

In response to this challenge, the CRN editorial team has identified the IT vendors at the forefront of data management, business analytics and infrastructure technologies and services. The resulting Big Data 100 list is a valuable guide for solution providers seeking out key big data technology suppliers.

As the industry rapidly matures from the relational database era of tens of millions of records of structured transactional data to the Big Data 1.0 Apache Hadoop era of batch processing of hundreds of millions of structured and unstructured interaction data, industry today faces the challenges of Big Data 2.0 -- processing tens to hundreds of billions of rows of structured, unstructured and streaming data. In this age of observational data, customers face data volumes that are an order of magnitude larger than ever before.

"Businesses everywhere are faced with managing information streams of unprecedented volume and complexity, requiring more powerful and efficient tools than ever before for capturing, storing, organizing, securing and analyzing data," said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company. "CRN is pleased to present the 2017 Big Data 100, a list of vendors whose ingenuity and creative problem-solving have introduced remarkable new ways to help solution providers tackle this mammoth task. Congratulations to these Big Data aces, who have not only kept pace with the rapidly evolving demands of the data management field, but also innovated and challenged the status quo."

"The past 12 months have really been a breakthrough time for Zoomdata," said Nick Halsey, CMO of Zoomdata. "We continue to expand abroad, adding new customers and partners in the US and around the world, and we are being recognized by top industry publications and analysts."

The 2017 Big Data 100 list is available online at www.crn.com/bigdata100.

About Zoomdata, Inc.

Zoomdata develops the world's fastest visual analytics solution for big data. Using patented data sharpening and micro-query technologies, Zoomdata empowers business users to visually consume data in seconds, even across tens of billions of rows of data. Zoomdata Fusion enables interactive analytics across disparate data sources, bridging modern and legacy data architectures, blending real-time streams and historical data, and unifying enterprise data with data in the cloud. Delivered in a microservices architecture for elastic scalability, Zoomdata runs on premises, in the cloud or embedded in an application. With offices in Chicago, New York, San Mateo, CA (News - Alert) and Reston, VA, Zoomdata is venture-backed by Accel, Columbus Nova Technology Partners, Comcast Ventures, Goldman Sachs, NEA, and Razor's Edge.

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelco.com

2017. The Channel Company, LLC. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Editorial Contacts Joe Eckert for Zoomdata +1.203.300.2649 [email protected] The Channel Company Contact: Melanie Turpin The Channel Company (508) 416-1195 [email protected]
[May 01, 2017] Edgile Introduces New Technology Diagnostics Managed Service for Financial Institutions

AUSTIN, Texas and LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., May 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- (2017 FS-ISAC Annual Conference),  Edgile, the leading security and risk consulting firm and provider of industry-specific regulatory content libraries, today introduced its Technology Diagnostics Managed Service providing financial services organizations with critical insights to more quickly and effectively assess their cyber practices, risks and compliance readiness. Financial Services organizations are increasingly required to expand the depth and breadth of their enterprise's risk and compliance intelligence for systems both on-premise and in the cloud. This insight is becoming more and more essential to identify potential cyber risk to sensitive business information and clients' confidential data, find compliance gaps, and benchmark security capabilities against the industry to ensure security programs, practices and investments are on track. Edgile's Technology Diagnostics Managed Service facilitates exactly that by rapidly providing management with a defensible risk and compliance readiness posture through robust assessment and comprehensive intelligence reports. The firm's diagnostics service leverages its significant investment in Edgile's Content Managed Service knowledge base, which enables regulatory change management through industry-specific harmonized laws, and facilitates compliance readiness reporting. "With increased regulatory scrutiny coupled with greater personal liability of the Board and C-Suite imposed by new laws it is now more important than ever for security and risk executives to understand the depth of their risks and exposure. This knowledge helps them ensure that their company's information security, risk management and cybersecurity are being properly managed," said David Deckter, partner, Edgile. "Edgile's technology diagnostics managed service provides financial institutions with the deep and broad industry-specific insights to assess their risk, demonstrate compliance and make the investments in security that materially reduce risk." Data breaches, which are significantly increasing as a result of cyber attacks targeting sensitive valuable business information such as intellectual property and trade secrets, are driving Federal and State laws and regulations to impose greater privacy and security obligations on compnies to protect consumer information stored on their servers. To remain in compliance, businesses must navigate a complex web of laws and regulations with fragmented and overlapping coverage, and multiple government players.



Financial services organizations must comply with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), which governs financial institutions' obligation to protect financial nonpublic consumer information. Beyond risk and compliance, organizations are now facing increasing scrutiny from such agencies as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prove their security conformance with the 'commercially appropriate' standard determined by practices of similar companies in their industry, or be threatened with sanctions for unfair or deceptive practices. Edgile Technology Diagnostics Managed Service

Edgile's Technology Diagnostics Managed Service significantly reduces the time it takes to properly assess and diagnose an organization's information and technology landscape, enabling them to more rapidly and credibly answer the hard questions on the mind of the Board, C-Suite executives and regulators. 'Are we secure and compliant? How do we stack up to peers in our industry?' Edgile's technology diagnostics run across the enterprise, including platforms, applications, processes, facilities and business functions. Financial institutions' security, risk, and audit teams can choose from over 100 enterprise-appropriate diagnostics leveraging Edgile's industry-specific benchmarking data. This allows companies to more easily identify unknown security issues and demonstrate their proactive security posture. Organizations can now provide the Board and C-Suite with rich intelligence on risk and control capabilities, practices and configurations across the entire organization. Benchmark and compliance reporting, including real-world risk narratives, provides clients with the operational insights to assess and diagnose their cybersecurity infrastructure and benchmark their organization against current industry security practices. Edgile's Technology Diagnostics Managed Service, which can be set up within a client's existing GRC solution, covers the IT estate including business functions, business processes, applications, infrastructure, support services and facilities. Edgile's Integrated Risk Management (IRM) practice enables companies to modernize their governance, risk and compliance programs through industry-leading models, approaches and accelerators which significantly improve the effectiveness of risk management practices throughout the entire technology estate, whether on-premises or in the cloud. The firm's integrated IAM-GRC capabilities and business-aligned approach uniquely qualift Edgile to lead organizational transformation to stay ahead of the cybersecurity curve. Edgile's iGRC Content Managed Service powers the regulatory programs of institutions, including 12 of the top banks and seven top hospitals, by providing clients with streamlined access to the latest regulations and tools to efficiency stay in compliance. Edgile provides GRC Technology Enablement services to lead clients through current-to-future state roadmap strategy-to-planning, and to implement enterprise-wide GRC solutions. About Edgile Edgile is the trusted partner and advisor on cyber risk, providing strategy and implementation consulting services to the world's leading organizations. Our mission is to secure the modern enterprise for the new age of digital, where trust is the most valuable asset, allowing today's enterprise organizations to be more agile, business-driven and transparent with all partners in their ecosystems. Edgile's services include security strategies; cybersecurity; integrated risk management and GRC technology enablement; and identity and access management (IAM). Edgile is a Microsoft Gold Partner and SailPoint Partner of the Year for the Americas. Experiencing increased demand for its cyber risk consulting services, Edgile was recently included on the 2016 Inc. 5000 list as one of America's fastest growing private companies. To help clients stay on top of constantly changing regulatory requirements, Edgile maintains a database of industry-specific harmonized laws and regulations known as the Edgile iGRC Content Managed Service, which integrates with existing client resources across the enterprise for insurance, banking, health and life sciences, retail and manufacturing, government and energy. Contact the Edgile team to discuss your organization's risk posture and how diagnostics can provide additional insights to your risk and security program: click here. Marketing Contact

Dan Seyer

[email protected] Media Contact

Jeff Lettes

[email protected]

(408) 406-1161 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/edgile-introduces-new-technology-diagnostics-managed-service-for-financial-institutions-300448550.html SOURCE Edgile

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[May 01, 2017] Banc Intranets Allows Financial Institutions to Measure ROI of Employee Portal

Banc Intranets announced that financial institutions can now measure the return on investment (ROI) of its BancWorks employee portal, which has been enhanced with an analytics module that converts its operational efficiencies into total dollars. The company is a provider of secure, web-based enterprise content management solutions for financial institutions. Available to any bank or credit union using BancWorks, the ROI analytics functionality categorizes employee-facing resources (news, blogs, product information, security policies, training materials, etc.) and assigns dollar valuations for each interaction. The specific amount is determined by the financial institution, based on the importance of a given process and can be changed at any time. Once values are entered, the system calculates the hourly, daily and monthly ROI stemming from employees' use of the intranet and provides charts and graphs that illustrate the financial institution's realized cost savings for: Participation in and completion of industry training;

Review and acknowledgement of required policies and procedurs;

Engagement from industry and company news, blogs and other internal content;

Management of ticketing system requests; and

Utilization of FAQs and other internal resources.



About Banc Intranets

Established in 2002, Banc Intranets, LLC is a leading provider of secure, web-based enterprise content management solutions for financial institutions. Its technology provides a single point of access across multiple devices for documents and information and centralizes employee onboarding and training, streamlining day-to-day operations for bank directors and senior managers. In addition to increasing efficiency and productivity, Banc Intranets' solutions are developed by financial industry professionals, providing comprehensive reporting that is critical to maintaining regulatory compliance. For more information, visit www.bancintranets.com or follow the company on LinkedIn and Twitter.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005708/en/

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IMPORTANT INVESTOR ALERT: Lundin Law PC Announces an Investigation of KBR, Inc. and Advises Investors with Losses to Contact the Firm

Lundin Law PC, a shareholder rights firm, announces that it is investigating claims against KBR, Inc. ("KBR" or the "Company") (NYSE: KBR) concerning possible violations of federal securities laws.

To get more information about this investigation, please contact Brian Lundin, Esquire,of Lundin Law PC, at 888-713-1033, or by email at [email protected].







On April 28, 2017, the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office stated that "it has opened an investigation into the activities of KBR, Inc's United Kingdom subsidiaries, their officers, employees and agents for suspected offences of bribery and corruption."

Lundin Law PC was founded by Brian Lundin, a securities litigator based in Los Angeles dedicated to upholding shareholders' rights.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005734/en/
[May 01, 2017] Atera Now Offering Apple Mac Remote Monitoring and Management Capabilities

NEW YORK, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atera, developer of the cloud-based IT automation platform that combines Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM), Professional Services Automation (PSA), and remote access into one powerful solution, today announced it is offering Managed Service Providers (MSPs) full monitoring, management, and automation capabilities of Apple (News - Alert) Mac devices. "We are excited to offer MSPs monitoring, alerting, patch management, IT automation, scripting, and reporting for Mac just like we do for Windows," said Gil Pekelman, CEO at Atera. "With Apple cornering close to eight percent of the PC market today, this is a huge opportunity for MSPs to grow their businesses. Our top tier full Apple support offers MSPs a seamless workflow with all the essentials they need to operate efficiently. Through Atera, MSPs can access a total solution, including all the tools they need to manage a Mac environment." With Atera's newly added Mac agent, MSPs can manage an Apple Mac ecosystem, including remote access, patch management, IT automation, and reporting. The Atera Apple Mac monitoring ecosystem provides MSPs with the latest support features and capabilities to expand their remote monitoring services. The power of the Atera platform, combined with the new Apple Mac support capabilitis, enables MSPs to capture new business opportunities and profitably grow.



"Atera has become our one-stop shop for managing all of our customers' needs," said Stan Kats, CEO at Stan's Tech Garage and an Atera partner. "Now we have the option to expand our services with their Apple Mac monitoring and support. Through Atera, we continue to see innovative techniques added to their technology, improved quality month over month, and new features. This is exactly what we are looking for from an RMM provider." "With the new feature, Atera has opened up new business opportunities for us to offer Apple remote monitoring services," said David Einstein, president and CEO at SkyReach Systems, Inc. and an Atera partner. "Atera's powerful platform provides us with a complete solution to fully meet and support our customers' needs, and we are excited to continue growing by leveraging their breakthrough technology."

Atera is enabling MSPs to improve their business practices through its RMM software, services, and security. Its unmatched technology provides MSPs with the Business Intelligence (BI) they require to succeed with its unique pricing model and a transformative billing dashboard that includes real-time statistics from The Benchmark. Atera offers a fast, easy, and secure way for MSPs to migrate their customers to the platform. To learn more about Atera and try its full Apple Mac support, please call (877) 211-4666, or email [email protected]. MSPs seeking to efficiently and effectively run their businesses should sign up for a 30-day free trial today via www.atera.com. About Atera

Atera is the developer of the cloud-based IT automation platform that combines RMM, PSA, and remote access into one powerful solution. Atera's all-in-one innovative platform offers MSPs improved operational efficiency, seamless integration, end-to-end management, and disruptive pricing. To learn more, visit www.atera.com. Media Contact Amanda Lee ARL Strategic Communications for Atera 727-272-0781 [email protected]

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[May 01, 2017] Bell Canada to redeem Series M-35 debentures due September 2017

MONTREAL, May 1, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Bell Canada today announced that it will redeem on May 12, 2017 (the "Redemption Date"), prior to maturity, all of its outstanding $350,000,000 principal amount of 4.37% Debentures, Series M-35, due September 13, 2017 (the "Series M-35 Debentures"). The Series M-35 Debentures will be redeemed at a price equal to the greater of the "Canada Yield Price" and the principal amount of the Series M-35 Debentures, together in each case with accrued and unpaid interest up to, but excluding, the Redemption Date (in the aggregate, the "Redemption Price") as indicated below. Pursuant to the terms of the Series M-35 Debentures, the "Canada Yield Price" means a price equal to the price of the Series M-35 Debentures calculated to provide a yield to maturity equal to the Government of Canada Yield plus 0.46% on the third business day prior to the date fixed for redemption. The "Government of Canada Yield", on any date, means the yield to maturity on such date, compounded semi-annually, which a non-callable Government of anada Bond would carry if issued, in Canadian dollars in Canada, at 100% of its principal amount on such date with a term to maturity equal to the remaining term to maturity of the Series M-35 Debentures. The Government of Canada Yield used to calculate the Redemption Price of the Series M-35 Debentures will be the average of the rates calculated by two registered Canadian investment dealers selected by Bell Canada.



Notice of redemption will be delivered to the registered holder of Series M-35 Debentures in accordance with the terms of the debentures. About Bell

Bell is Canada's largest communications company, providing consumers and business customers with wireless, TV, Internet, home phone and business communications services. Bell Media is Canada's premier multimedia company with leading assets in television, radio, out of home, and digital media. Founded in Montreal in 1880, Bell is wholly owned by BCE Inc. To learn more, please visit BCE.ca or Bell.ca.

The Bell Let's Talk initiative promotes Canadian mental health with national awareness and anti-stigma campaigns like Bell Let's Talk Day, and significant Bell funding of mental health care and access, research and workplace leadership initiatives. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk. Media inquiries: Jean Charles Robillard

514-870-4739

[email protected] Investor inquiries: Thane Fotopoulos

514-870-4619

[email protected] SOURCE Bell Canada

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[May 01, 2017] Aligned Telehealth Names Dan Castillo President and COO

Aligned Telehealth, Inc., a leading healthcare company that provides full, end-to-end telemedicine solutions, including psychiatric specialty physician consultations to acute-care hospitals, emergency rooms, skilled nursing facilities, and correctional institutions, today announced the appointment of Dan Castillo as the company's president and chief operating officer. As demand for Aligned Telehealth's services continues to grow at a rapid pace, the company said Castillo will lead efforts to further enhance operations and broaden its reach as one of the largest providers of behavioral health telemedicine solutions in the United States. Former president, Vikram Marla, has been named chief innovation officer. "Dan joins our team at a time of increasing demand for our telemedicine solutions across the United States," said Nitin Nanda, M.D., founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Aligned Telehealth. "His experience provides a unique advantage to significantly expand the delivery of our services, which help improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. "I'd also like to note that Vikram has been an absolute driving force in the growth and development of our company. We are grateful for his many achievements and look forward to his continued contributions in his new role," Dr. Nanda said. Most recently, Castillo was CEO of LA County-USC Medical Center, where he led a team of more than 8,000 employees and 2,000 physicians who served nearly 200,000 patients per year. He previously was a principal consultant wih Health Management Associates (HMA), a nationally recognized firm dedicated to assisting publicly financed organizations and government programs.



"I'm pleased to be joining Aligned Telehealth at a time of growth when health care organizations are trying to enhance the value proposition for patients seeking improved access to mental health services, while working to reduce avoidable costs," Castillo said. Prior to HMA, Dan served as CEO of a $63-million pediatric physician-hospital consortium in Orange (News - Alert) County, Calif., with more than 115,000 managed Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program lives and a network of 1,000 primary and specialty physicians.

"Dan's appointment is a natural progression for our company, as we continue to broaden the bench strength of our executive leadership team and address the increasing needs of an underserved patient population," Dr. Nanda added. Aligned Telehealth is a privately held company based in Calabasas, Calif. The company has received funding from SV Health Investors. About Aligned Telehealth, Inc. Aligned Telehealth is a fast-growing healthcare company that provides full, end-to-end telemedicine solutions, including psychiatric specialty physician consultations, to acute-care hospitals, emergency rooms, skilled nursing facilities, and correctional institutions via interactive, two-way, real-time, video telecommunication. The company's solutions address the growing need for acute and post-acute settings to reduce lengths of stay, improve quality of care scores and treatment outcomes, as well as create unique and flexible career opportunities for physicians through telemedicine technologies. For more information, please visit www.alignedth.com. About SV Health Investors SV Health Investors, formerly named SV Life Sciences, is a healthcare and life sciences venture capital and growth equity firm. SV targets early-stage opportunities in biotechnology; early-stage and revenue-stage opportunities in medical devices; and growth equity investments for later-stage businesses in healthcare services and digital health. Over the past 20 years, SV Health Investors has invested in more than 175 companies. The firm currently has approximately $2.0 billion of capital commitments under management. SV Health Investors is headquartered in Boston and has offices in London and San Francisco. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501005932/en/

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[May 01, 2017] HRchitect Celebrates 20th Anniversary

FRISCO, Texas, May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HRchitect, Inc., a leading provider of HCM technology strategic consulting services, is proud to announce that it celebrated its 20th anniversary in April 2017.

The company will be launching several initiatives to commemorate this milestone including client receptions at events across North America, and the HRchitect Cares program, a volunteer and service recognition program for its employees. Matt Lafata, President & CEO, commented, We are proud to be celebrating a notable anniversary, and would like to thank all of our clients for their business and continued support. Over the past two decades, HRchitect has evolved and expanded, in terms of our team of subject matter experts, as well as our service offerings. We now employ over 50 employees who work in offices throughout the United States and Canada. Our service offerings have expanded over the years to include a range of services encompassing the full lifecycle of HCM technology. In addition, HRchitect patners with many HCM software vendors and consulting firms that expand our market reach further than ever before.



2016 was the biggest year in HRchitects history, and we expect to continue on our current growth trajectory, fueled by increasing marketplace demand for services, our tenured management team, and all of our talented, dedicated employees working tirelessly to provide top notch services to our clients, continued Lafata. HRchitect was established in 1997 when Rick Fletcher, the companys founder began assisting firms with recruiting systems consulting services. The early success of HRchitect indicated a growing demand for selection and implementation services and upon seeing this need Fletcher began to expand his team outside of the Frisco, Texas location. Current President & CEO, Matt Lafata, was recruited to HRchitect in 2004 where he began as Vice President of Business Development and was named President & CEO in 2011. Now, the company is recognized as an industry leading provider of end-to-end HR technology consulting services focused around strategic planning, evaluation and selection, change management, implementation, project management and ongoing support of HCM systems of all types including Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Learning Management, Workforce Management, Benefits, Core HR/Payroll, and more.

For more information, visit www.HRchitect.com or contact [email protected]. Media Contact: Samantha Colby, Marketing Manager [email protected] + 1 214 619 6609

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[May 01, 2017] Government of Canada Supports Ontario Firm Through Build in Canada Innovation Program

TORONTO, May 1, 2017 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada is committed to growing the economy and the middle class, and helping those working hard to join it. Through the Build in Canada Innovation Program, the Government of Canada is investing in Canadian innovations to create inclusive and sustainable economic growth for communities across Canada. The Government of Canada today announced it is investing in a made-in-Canada mobile support system for injured soldiers. Quality of Care Health Inc. of Toronto, Ontario, received a $508,567 contract for its mobile phone application that supports injured soldiers in their physical and mental recovery. The innovation, called the mobile support system for injured Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members, enables soldiers to track their symptoms and recovery progress from home while connected to healthcare professionals and their peers. The Quality of Care (QoC) Health application, built with specialized components to protect security and privacy, is a cost-effective solution that reduces the users' visits and helps them return to work faster.



The mobile support system for injured CAF members is being tested by National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces as part of QoC Health's Rturn to Duty Program.



This investment was made through the Build in Canada Innovation Program, which helps Canadian innovators land their first sale and get their innovations tested by the Government of Canada. This program is just one of the many ways the Government of Canada supports innovation and small and medium-sized businesses across Canada. Canadian innovators can submit their proposals on the Build in Canada Innovation Program's website.

Quotes "Our government is committed to growing the economy and the middle class, and to helping those working hard to join it. By matching innovative products, such as the QoC Health application, with government needs, the Build in Canada Innovation Program helps Canadian companies move their products from the lab to the marketplace." Steven MacKinnon

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement "QoC Health is just one of the many small and medium companies the government helps through the Build in Canada Innovation Program. The government will continue to purchase cutting-edge technology that benefits Canadians and creates jobs and economic growth." Adam Vaughan

Member of Parliament for SpadinaFort York

"The Build in Canada Innovation Program allowed us to try this unique platform that helps ill and injured CAF members be better connected to their Return to Duty Program support network."

Captain Marie-France Langlois (Navy)

Director, Casualty Support Management

National Defence Quick Facts QoC Health is a Toronto -based social enterprise that builds and develops digital solutions for healthcare organizations. It was founded by a team of experts in healthcare, business and technology.

-based social enterprise that builds and develops digital solutions for healthcare organizations. It was founded by a team of experts in healthcare, business and technology. QoC Health uses secure and cost-effective mobile technology that was designed with the recommendations of injured Canadian Armed Forces members, but can also be used in other post-clinical settings.

More than 223 contracts have been awarded under the Build in Canada Innovation Program, bringing Canadian companies one step closer to selling to domestic and international markets.

Innovation Program, bringing Canadian companies one step closer to selling to domestic and international markets. More than $81 million has been awarded in contracts since the Build in Canada Innovation Program began in 2010. Associated Links Build in Canada Innovation Program Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on Facebook SOURCE Public Works & Government Services Canada

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[May 01, 2017] Small Businesses and Benefits: Capitalizing on the Opportunity to "Wow" Employees

Lincoln Financial Group (NYSE: LNC) announced its support of National Small Business Week, an annual effort to recognize the contributions of America's entrepreneurs and small business owners. As part of this, Lincoln has identified some of the top concerns small business owners face - including providing for employees and protecting their families - and the solutions that can help them address those challenges. "Every business wants top talent, but research shows that small business owners see attracting and retaining high-performing employees as their number one pain point1," said Bob Risk, senior vice president of Group Benefits Distribution at Lincoln Financial. "Many small business owners face competition from larger businesses that can offer more robust benefits packages. Fortunately there are cost-effective options in the marketplace that can help small business owners attract employees and boost retention and satisfaction." Start Simple: Meet Employees' Benefit Needs According to Lincoln Financial's recent research around employee benefits, 35 percent of employees at small businesses say their current benefits - outside of medical insurance - do not meet their needs. This compares to a much lower 20 percent2 when looking at the total employed population. While small business owners may have limited resources and funds to allocate to employee benefits, there are cost-effective options they can leverage. Equally important is focusing on the retirement needs of employees. Small employers can start by offering a retirement savings plan, which 81 percent of small business employees expect, but only 58 percent have access to through their employer3. These plans are even more important for Millennials and Gen-Xers, who believe an employer-sponsored retirement plan will be their top source of income in retirement4. For other generations, considerations of longevity, the uncertainty of social security and the current market have placed an increased focus on the need for employees to save for retirement and ensure they will have enough to achieve their retirement income goals. "When potential employees are looking at companies, they clearly want a quality retirement plan," said Tim Seifert, vice president, national sales anager for Small Market Retirement Plan Services, Lincoln Financial Distributors. "Offering a comprehensive plan doesn't have to be complicated - with just a few conversations and some simple decisions, a small business owner can set up a new plan, or enhance the one they are already offering, for their employees."



Wow Employees: Offer the Unexpected While most small business employees expect employers to offer benefits like dental and vision insurance - at 80 percent and 69 percent5, respectively, small business owners can distinguish themselves by offering benefits that aren't typical of an organization with fewer than 100 employees. Seventy-two percent of small business employees said it would exceed their expectations if an employer offered critical illness insurance, and 64 percent would be impressed if their employer offered accident insurance. These benefits are often voluntary, and the cost can either be shared between the employer and employee, or paid for by the employee. Small business employees are willing to contribute - 80 percent say they want a variety of benefits, even if they have to pay more for them6.

"The good news is, employees at small businesses see the value of workplace benefits, and many may be willing to put money toward them," said Risk. "Small employers can differentiate themselves in the job market - and keep up with the competition - by offering a broad selection of voluntary benefits." A Focus on Life Insurance for Business Protection and Continuity Research also shows that small business owners feel unprepared to deal with revenue loss due to death, disability or retirement of a partner or co-shareholder, and 40 percent are concerned with business continuity7. Small businesses should consider the value life insurance can provide in protecting their futures. "No matter what size business you operate, it's important to talk with an advisor who can help create a plan that will protect your business," said Nathan Edwards, vice president, national sales manager, Executive Benefits and Business Insurance, Lincoln Financial Distributors. "These professionals can help small business owners attract and retain key employees through executive benefit planning. Keeping small business going in America is nothing short of a big endeavor, and a critical one." For more information, visit Lincoln's page for employers and organizations. To learn more about the research cited here, visit our newsroom. About Lincoln Financial Group Lincoln Financial Group provides advice and solutions that help empower people to take charge of their financial lives with confidence and optimism. Today, more than 17 million customers trust our retirement, insurance and wealth protection expertise to help address their lifestyle, savings and income goals, as well as to guard against long-term care expenses. Headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC) and its affiliates. The company had $229 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2016. Learn more at: www.LincolnFinancial.com. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. To sign up for email alerts, please visit our Newsroom at http://newsroom.lfg.com. ____________________________ 1 Corporate Executive Board (CEB) Small Business Owner Survey, March 2017

2 2016 Special Report: M.O.O.D. (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America on Employee Benefits, Lincoln Financial Group

3 2016 Special Report: M.O.O.D. (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America on Employee Benefits, Lincoln Financial Group

4 2016 American Consumer Study, Lincoln Financial Group

5 2016 Special Report: M.O.O.D. (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America on Employee Benefits, Lincoln Financial Group

6 2016 Special Report: M.O.O.D. (Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction) of America on Employee Benefits, Lincoln Financial Group

7 Corporate Executive Board (CEB) Small Business Owner Survey, March 2017 LCN-1784560-050117 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170501006401/en/

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Election results: Check out results from various races across the state
Using the best VPN service (Virtual Private Network to the uninitiated) when connecting to the Internet has long been recommended as a way to keep data private and secure. And, as concerns over data collection and government surveillance increase seemingly by the day, it's now more important to take action than it ever has been.

'While VPNs have always been appropriate for untrusted networks, like unsecured Wi-Fi at places like coffee shops and airports, this change now means that we must all think about our home network connections as untrusted as well,' said Jarret Raim, head of strategy and operations for Rackspace Managed Security in San Antonio, Texas.

With this in mind, more people than ever are looking for VPN service providers, and a quick search through Google Play or the Apple App Store will bring up a lot of free VPN options. We won't lie: free always looks like the more attractive option.

But are the free services as reliable and trustworthy as a paid VPN, or do you really get what you pay for? What are the pros and cons of free versus paid VPNs?

Here, we'll run down all the key similarities and differences  including security, general quality of service, and all-important streaming performance.

NB: The interviews with Jarret Raim and Adnan Raja referenced in this article were undertaken in 2017.

Pricing

The top 'selling' point for a free service is the price. Some free or 'freemium' options are supported by reputable security companies, which are offered with the intention of enticing users into paying.

Some free options offer fairly good anonymity because you often don't have to provide too much personal and financial information, or even sign up for an account at all.

However, the cream of the VPN crop charge for the pleasure  but surprisingly enough, it doesn't always cost the world. If you go with a reputable cheap VPN, you can get prices of around $2 a month. While that's not free, it's hardly expensive, either.

(Image credit: Ksenia Zvezdina/Getty Images)

Security

When it comes to security, though, you often really do get what you pay for in terms of security.

It used to be the case that no-fee services lagged behind in terms of protocol technologies, with many relying on the obsolete PPTP protocol. Most reputable free options have now caught up with the pack, and generally use OpenVPN

However, paid users almost universally have more options, such as OpenVPN UDP and TCP or the Layer 2 Tunnel Protocol (L2TP) and IPsec combination. (L2TP itself is not encrypted, so IPsec adds the encryption layer.) The modern WireGuard is now becoming popular for its swift connections and secure transfer of data, and providers such as ExpressVPN are developing in-house protocols like Lightway.

"If you're paying for a good quality VPN, you can get 256-bit data encryption, compared to a free VPN, which is likely to only have 128-bit encryption," explained Adnan Raja, vice president of marketing for Atlantic.Net, an IT consulting firm in Orlando, Florida.

You probably should avoid VPNs that offer only PPTP, or that don't tell you which protocols they use or support. If a free service supports OpenVPN (and some do), that's much better  but it still doesn't mean the service is worth using.

Quality of service

Free services have to pay for their overhead costs somehow. That revenue sometimes comes in the form of selling your browsing activity to third parties for advertising purposes.

"This means your data isn't 100 percent private," Raja says. "Your web experience can be riddled with ads, have bottle-necked bandwidth speeds, lack data encryption, and even have monthly capped data usages."

Many free options pay the bills by displaying ads, which in and of itself isn't nefarious  and often these are simply the lowest tier of otherwise paid services. Hotspot Shield is a good example here, with its free tier being ad-supported, but its well-regarded paid version being ad-free.

These freemium services, which are generally reputable, also often put a limit on how much data the user gets, how quickly they get it, and how many servers he can connect to before he has to start paying. Referring back to Hotspot Shield, go for the free option and you'll get 500MB a day, throttled speeds and one US location. Pay up, and you'll have unlimited data, over 1,800 servers to choose from, and access to our top-rated fast VPN.

It could be argued that free services could even make you complicit in cyberattacks. The once-popular no-fee VPN service Hola, for example, was used in an online attack against a website in 2015, using customer bandwidth to deploy a botnet. That's a long time ago now, but the memory remains.

Paid VPNs also tend to be more robust than free options, and less vulnerable to outages and meltdowns. Plus, just about every one of our recommended paid VPNs offers a 24/7 live chat service alongside comprehensive FAQs and setup guides to assist if anything goes awry.

"A paid service will protect user interests and sensitive data at much higher speeds, whereas a free service could outsource to a third party to write its code, monitor systems and operate servers," Raja said.

(Image credit: Da-Kuk/Getty Images)

Streaming

All we've mentioned here are the security aspects of VPNs  and for many that's the biggest concern. But, now that VPNs are truly entering the tech mainstream, streaming performance sits at the top of casual users' lists.

If you subscribe to a service like Netflix, you may have noticed that when traveling your library is different. That's because different content is licenced by different providers in different territories.

If you use a streaming VPN, however, you can spoof your location and trick your provider into thinking you're anywhere in the world. That means you can watch whatever you want, wherever you want.

And this is a huge downfall of free services. While there are a couple of OK free Netflix VPN services, on the whole a no-fee VPN will struggle to evade any streaming sites' VPN detection system and subsequently be blocked from accessing it.

If you want to make the most of your subscription, the only way is to pay.

User privacy

Finally, you don't want a service logging your activities  keeping track of what you do and where you go online when you're connected. If the company says it logs user activity, or, more likely, doesn't state its logging policy, avoid it.

Plus, even if a service claims to be no-logging, if it concerns you, it's worth seeing if it's undertaken an independent audit. Leading providers like ExpressVPN have NordVPN done so, but fairly few free providers have  with a notable exception being TunnelBear.

Generally, though, if you're paying for a service, the firm providing it has less incentive to log or store your data  if it's getting cash from you, there's less reason to monetize your data.

Free vs paid VPNs: bottom line

If you're after a VPN that can provide brief protection for casual usage  think checking your emails when you're on public Wi-Fi  then a no-fee VPN may well fit the bill nicely.

However, if you're after robust privacy and security features, powerful streaming performance, extra features, and flexibility, a paid option is the way to go.

Which paid VPN do we recommend?

(opens in new tab) OUR TOP-RATED VPN The top-rated VPN service available today (opens in new tab)

ExpressVPN is our top choice for just about any use, be that staying private online or watching overseas streaming content. With over 3,000 servers in 94 countries you'll get a huge selection to choose from, the apps are super simple to install and use, and you can even try it risk-free for 30 days. What's more, Tom's Guide readers can claim three months FREE on any 12-month plan  what's not to like?
You may have heard rumblings that Sony plans to release a PlayStation 5 as soon as 2018. But don't pull the plug on your PS4 just yet  Sony certainly doesn't need a new piece of hardware to keep winning the console war.

(Image credit: Jeremy Lips / Tom's Guide)

Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong, who correctly predicted the arrival of both the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro, thinks that Sony's next-generation console could arrive by year. However, even if a PS5 is indeed in the pipeline, the success of the PS4 has virtually eliminated the need for one anytime soon.

Sony's PS4 is leading the the current console generation by a mile, with close to 60 million units sold according to a recent financial report. Compare that to Superdata's estimated Xbox One lifetime sales of 26 million (Microsoft doesn't release the system's sales data), and it's not even close. When you think home console gaming, you think PS4.

So, why would Sony throw away that huge install base and massive brand recognition after just 5 years? You could argue that the company is looking to fight back against Project Scorpio, Microsoft's supercharged, 4K-ready Xbox One that could become the most powerful home console ever when it hits late this year. The system's beastly specs even surpass that of the PS4 Pro, a 4K-capable PlayStation that Sony launched in 2016.

MORE: PS4 vs. Xbox One: Which Console Is Right for You?

But even if the Xbox One leapfrogs the PS4 and PS4 Pro in terms of power, it still won't be winning when it comes to games. A huge part of the PS4's success is due to the system's big stable of high-quality exclusives  titles such as Uncharted 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Bloodborne are among the most well-received games of this generation.

It would seem a bit silly for Sony to release a new piece of hardware that suddenly makes all of those great games obsolete. Of course, Sony could opt to make the PS5 backwards compatible, but considering that the PS4 and PS3 barely supported the generation before them, it's not a guarantee. And at the end of the day, it feels like far too many people are familiar with the PS4 name for Sony just to start fresh.

When you think home console gaming, you think PS4.

In fact, I'd sooner expect Sony to release a revised PS4 Pro than I would an all-new PlayStation 5. That way, the PlayStation can still hold its own with Scorpio when it comes to performance, without sacrificing the PS4 brand that gamers clearly love so much.

If it were a different decade, the PS5's imminent arrival would be more believable  after all, the PS3 replaced the PS2 after 6 years; the Xbox 360 did the same for the Xbox after just 4. But we live in an era of half-step upgrades, where consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One get occasional refreshes that give gamers more power and better features without forcing them to leave behind their libraries.

Will a PS5 arrive eventually? Of course. But don't worry about your PS4 becoming obsolete anytime soon. It's simply doing too well.
Tom's Guide is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Heres why you can trust us.
Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins were walking through LAX the other day when they were set upon by the paparazzi. They handled the whole thing better than they really should have.

Hawkins dodged the attention, while Grohl seemed mildly annoyed by the intrusion  Im not that big of a deal, guys  shrugging off a truly stupid question asking what he thinks Kurt Cobain would be doing today if he was alive. The banal questioning seems to come from an Aussie, which we will take it among ourselves to apologise for, on behalf of our nation.

This interviews going really well the guy commented sarcastically at one point, seemingly mistaking what he was doing  harassing someone at an airport with a camera and a barrage of insensitive questions  with a pre-organised interview.

Grohl lightens up somewhat once the dude mentions his mothers new book, perhaps figuring that if he had to deal with this, he may as well promote something.

Paparazzi: the fucking worst.
Weekend murder update to finish Sunday . . .This compares to 31 murders at this time last year and counts as afor homicides so far in 2017.Developing . . .
LENEXA, Kan. -- The search is on for burglary suspects who broke into more than a dozen cars in Lenexa Sunday night. One of the businesses the burglars targeted is Deluxe Corp near 113th and Renner Road. Although there are security cameras in the parking lot, that didn't stop the thieves from smashing several car windows and grabbing whatever they could.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann says he has asked the pastors of his archdiocese to "begin transitioning away from the hosting of parish Girl Scout troops." Naumann made the announcement in a Facebook post Monday morning. "Pastors were given the choice of making this transition quickly, or to, over the next several years, "graduate" the Scouts currently in the program," the archbishop said in a Facebook post.
THE TOY TRAIN CELEBRATES ITS FIRST BIRTHDAY!!!







The week ahead holds a great deal of excitement and possibly even more disappointment for Kansas City.As always, our blog community is here to help.First and foremost . . .starts his Kansas City comeback with a seemingly endless series of concerts. Remember that last time around his voice gave out halfway through his cowtown performance streak . . . We'll see if he's up to the challenge many, many years later . . .And then . . .There's even more celebration planned along with streetcar line with a media hype event to coincide with the rigged election that's currently underway.And then . . .concludes a week with drunken Mexican celebration of traditions that nobody really remembers but still celebrates with booze.And then. . .Still, today is a celebration of organized labor which seeks to join forces with a great many other interests against the current administration.And so . . .as Kansas City rising to meet the challenge of a global marketplace and a deeply divided discourse.Developing . . .
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The Return of Fly My Pretties sees key members of the original cast reunite, and meet with new faces from the Wellington music scene. With the repertoire encompassing a diverse range of styles from folk-roots, to reggae, rock, new-soul, and blues; the themes repeatedly reflect the state of contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand: A nation isolated in the pacific that is searching for its identity, while remembering where we have come from.

The Return of Fly My Pretties has a nostalgic 'vaudevillian' aesthetic, complete with 1930's working-class influenced costumes. To support the performance, a visual backdrop was lovingly crafted by some of New Zealand's finest video-jockies, gathered together by the clever people at Nektar Films. Incorporating rare and restored film footage, generously supplied by The New Zealand Film Archive, and live action captured on stage, the visual backdrop was mixed live to great effect.

The Return of Fly My Pretties sees a wide range of musical influences converge in writing and performance to create something altogether unique and special. The tracks on the CD represent the best takes from the sell-out season, and have been un-altered so that the listener gets the chance to relive the magic of the performances.

Track Listing:

Oh Fair Moonlight Catch The Light Foresight Smoke Me Miracles Get Out Nato's Theme Don't Start King Of You All Clarity Carrier Pigeon Shouldn't I Know All That Could Be Flight Of The Owl

Purchasing more than one item? Opt for the courier/RD courier option first, then the combined
The controversial Fyre Festival in the Bahamas is still roasting under angry tweets and posts from the netizens who were inconvenienced because of the failed event organized by Bill McFarland and Ja Rule.

The supposed to be "international music festival" on the Bahamian island of Exuma, featuring international performers and guests, led to a disaster that prompted organizers to cancel at the last minute. Because of the scandal, the Ministry of Tourism in the Bahamas immediately released a statement, expressing their dismay on the Fyre Festival fiasco.

"We are extremely disappointed in the way the events unfolded yesterday with the Fyre Festival," the agency said through an official press release. "We offer a heartfelt apology to all who traveled to our country for this event."

The Ministry of Tourism in the Bahamas also cleared that they are not an official sponsor of the event, despite Fyre Festival organizers asking for their support.

"Given the magnitude of this undertaking, the MOT lent its support as we do with all international events. We offered advice and assisted with communications with other government agencies," the ministry added.

Several stars who promoted the said event were also heavily scrutinized on social media. The likes of Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and event co-organizer rapper Ja Rule increased the hype of the Fyre Festival -- much to the delight of partygoers -- until everything turned out to be opposite of what was promised. Tickets to the festival didn't come cheap. Some shelled out hundreds of thousands just to get a VIP pass.

In the promotional posts and videos on YouTube and Facebook, bikini-clad women were shown enjoying the white sands and clear waters of the Bahamas, while being accommodated luxuriously in opulent cabanas and dancing to upbeat music played by international DJs.

However, that was not the case. Instead, what guests saw when they arrived at the Fyre Festival venue was like a "refugee camp" full of poorly made tents, blue porta potties and food made of soggy bread and limp cheese.

The organizers of Fyre Festival already promised guests a full refund in exchange for their inconvenience, according to Skift. All guests who attended are also promised free VIP passes for next year's Fyre Festival if everything comes out smoothly.

"All festival goers this year will be refunded in full. We will be working on refunds over the next few days and will be in touch directly with guests with more details. Also, all guests from this year will have free VIP passes to next years festival," Fyre Festival organizers said in an official statement.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
New Delhi, May 1

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday invited Turkish businesses to invest in sectors like energy, rail, road, ports and housing, saying India was never a better investment destination than it is now.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Addressing business leaders present at the India-Turkey Business Summit, which was also attended by visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Modi stressed the need for a substantial increase in the economic engagement between the two countries.

The Prime Minister said although the bilateral trade between India and Turkey has gone up to $6.4 billion in 2016 from 2.8 billion in 2008, it is still far behind the real potential.

India and Turkey enjoy good economic ties... While this (trade growth) is encouraging, the level of present economic and commercial relation is not enough against the real potential, Modi said.

Observing that India and Turkey, which are among the top 20 economies of the world with strong fundamentals, can substantially increase bilateral cooperation in several areas, the Indian prime minister said, The time has come to make aggressive effort to deepen relationship and enhance bilateral engagement.

Promising a business friendly environment, Modi said the Turkish construction companies can participate in Indias infrastructure sector development, especially in sectors like ports, rail, housing, energy, hydrocarbon, tourism, textiles and auto.

Modi also highlighted Indias low-cost manufacturing capabilities before the Turkish businessmen while seeking investment.

Turkish Erdogan pitched free trade agreement with India as a starting point to expand the ambit of bilateral economic ties.

Erdogan, who was accorded a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday, said the two countries should also explore the possibility of trade in local currency to deal with exchange rate fluctuations.

Addressing the India-Turkey Business Summit in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said the relationship between the two is based on friendship.

"We should increase our business and economic relationship... If we can also start comprehensive economic relations negotiations, that would be great," Erdogan said.

The visiting president further said the Turkish-India business council should be a more active mechanism.

"It would be also good to start free trade agreement (FTA) talks. This would also add further momentum to our relations," he said.

He, however, noted that the bilateral trade volume is skewed against Turkey. Of the total $6.5 billion trade, Turkey's export was only about $650 million.

"The trade volume should be balanced as quickly as possible. Steps should be taken to achieve that," the president added.

Turkish companies have pumped in about $212 million whereas Indian investment in Turkey is nearly $100 million.

Erdogan termed Turkey as "an ideal hub" for investment and production, given its geographic location, and invited Indian companies to put in capital.

The businessmen of the two countries, he suggested, can also join hands to explore investment opportunities in third countries.

Projecting his country as an ideal tourist destination, the president said Indian families are increasingly organising wedding ceremonies in Turkey in recent times.

"Therefore, we would like to host more Indian tourists in Turkey... you can come to Turkey for honeymoon. We would like to host you in Turkey," Erdogan added.

He also stressed on further developing collaboration between Turkish Airline and Air India.  PTI
Baisali Mohanty

IN just four months of the establishment of US President Donald Trump's doctrine on foreign policy, a spate of purportedly infallible yet incoherent policy stances have impacted Asia. This has markedly influenced the key regional actors  India and China. In the present scenario, it is highly plausible to comprehend an evolving consistency in Trump's otherwise infamous unpredictability vis-a-vis his bilateral interaction. Previously, from recording a heightening tension between US-China, with Trump's abrogation of the "One-China" Policy, to the subtle accommodation of Xi's governance in the region to confront galloping North Korea  Trump has certainly recognised the urgency of accommodating the dragon in this region.

In a similar vein, Trump viewing India as a natural partner, from Modi's congratulatory call to Trump, to the recent visit of McMaster, NSA of the US to New Delhi is perceived not just as a strategic partner but as a hedge in Washington's effort to strike a balance in the regional milieu. In this scenario, accommodation of India also garners equal concern from the policy makers in Washington.

Accommodation, as understood in the common parlance of international relations, involves mutual adaptation, influence or strategic manoeuvering to curtail the rise of a potential contender rising power  by a great power, in this scenario the United States. Taking notice of the unfolding Indo-Sino interaction with the United States, partial accommodation and issue-based accommodation fits in adequately. The leitmotif for United States is to secure stronger grounds in the region, while figuring distinctively in the affairs of both India and China.

Trump-Xi bonhomie

Commencing on a rather off-note, the Xi-Trump balance has struck an unexpectable high note, not to mention the welcoming tweets from President Trump to Xi recently. In an effort to develop friendship with Xi Jinping, Trump extended trade and commerce ties with the former in their last meeting in Mar-A-Lago. In addition, he also consciously signalled US strength or rather Trump's insistence on hard power and escalating presence of United States across conflict-ridden region, by bombing Syria at an opportune moment. More than anything, what is remarkable is US's burgeoning concern in North Korea that is also echoed in China. Over the purported nuclear strike by North Korea, Trump has repeatedly held talks with China and even confirmed to support the latter in their actions over North Korea's nuclear adventurism. To this end, the NSA Lt Gen HR McMaster confirmed that US-China have reached a consensus over a solution to the North Korean issue.

On the other hand, China has found it beneficial to shake hands with the United States over aggressive Kim-Jong Un's activities. This stands as an instance showing US's effort to accommodate China on specific issues within its folds  taking cognisance of the evolving trade opportunities in China. On India, Trump's motif has been to procure strategic leverage as well as to maintain cordial relation as a natural partner, perhaps not visioning a drastic reversal of Obama's strategy for India. Prime Minister Modi has been pro-actively pursuing greater collaboration and cooperation with the Trump administration spanning sectors like trade, security, counter-terrorism as well as people-to-people links, which have lately been under grave threat. In addition, Trump also envisions India as a pertinent hedge to the rising power of China. While opening up its doors to China, US is equally concerned of its aggressive hegemonic presence in the region as well as an attempt to emerge as a global power. Under these conditions, India can be the hedge that not just intercepts China's undue provocations but also has a cordial relation with United States. However, Trump's policies pertaining to H-1B visa re-evaluation adds few hiccups to bolstering the Indo-US bilateral relations. Unlikely though the bilateral ties will be considerably less impacted by these changes, keeping in mind India's larger interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan running in tandem with US's strategy.

Earlier, Nikki Haley in a statement reckoned of Trump's administration interest to engage in resolving Indo-Pak rivalry as a peacemaker. This adds up to the US's recent strike in Afghanistan, bombing the Taliban safe havens which signals the US intention to oust extremism in the region and inch closer towards a solution over the Afghan conflict. Furthermore, putting aside speculation, Trump has also claimed to support India's candidature for the Nuclear Suppliers Group, suffusing fresh air into the entangled NSG negotiations over this issue. Importantly, by confirming US support Trump accedes to back India not just in the NSG but also against China's opposition  as it surges as a foremost opponent against India in the group.

Considering the US-India interaction so far, since the arrival of Trump, it is quite apparent that the US is forthcoming in its engagements towards India. To an extent, it views India as a stronger hedge when the need arises to curtail China's overwhelming presence. In this regard, Trump has engaged in a partial accommodation of India, while opting for an issue-based accommodation of China.

As the United States under Trump, unpacks its cards gradually pertaining to Asia, Sino-Indian relations could be considerably reshaped. In opting for partial accommodation of India, the US confirms to not view India as a possible contender. However, at the same time, the US recognises India's rising status and material strength globally. In a similar vein, an issue-based accommodation of China by the US implies that the latter is open to accommodating the interests of the Dragon whenever any worse situation befalls, such as North Korea, or even to promote its own interest.

However, such issue-based accommodation comes with its baggage of contradictions. While China has earlier sided with North Korea and much of Kim-Jong Un's artillery has been acquiesced either through China's aid or Chinese material as its core constituents, Xi's hegemonic ambitions will not allow US to take it for granted. Also, Trump's obsession to expand his own interest over national interest, or rather overtly display the strength of America might supersede an opportunity for delivering upon grave situations with a plausible outcome.

In this scenario, India has a larger scope to emerge as a bandwagon of conflict resolution  taking up peaceful negotiations and initiating peacemaking to adequately cater to the interests of multiple stakeholders in the region. India will gain significantly by this effort. It will also consolidate India's distinctive status in the global realm as non-violentand well deserving of status of a great power.

The writer, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation, has a postgraduate degree in International Relations from the University of Oxford.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan must have ruffled many feathers in India with his advice for multilateral dialogue to solve the Kashmir problem. His comments came a day after the government expressed its aversion to speaking with the separatists. Talks with Pakistan are, of course, out of question if the government holds true to its line of conversing only on terrorism. India has sought to suggest that despite being aware of New Delhis stance, Erdogan may have made the comments to mollify Pakistan, both old American cold war allies through thick and thin. The misgiving is strengthened after Erdogan advocated the entry of Pakistan in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). New Delhi has made it a point of honour to block Pakistans membership of the NSG while pushing for its own. Indias membership has not fructified because China opposes this formulation.

The shock over Erdogans plain-speak is due to our reliance on a self-serving inward-looking discourse: that Pakistan is internationally isolated because of South Blocks fancy footwork and, now that the Indian state has tried its best to calm them, all that the Kashmiris need is a firm stick. Erdogans observations should instead serve as a wake-up call. His actions on the ground suggest that at the end of the day he is a practical man who tailors his policies to suit his national interests: he signed a major military pact with Russia, a historical Turkish adversary, and is holding off operations against the Kurds because they have US backing for the fight against the ISIS.

A 150-member business delegation accompanying Erdogan clearly suggests where his priority lies with India. It is clearly not fostering closer political ties, though that may change with greater engagement. India should give a pass to Erdogans observations on Kashmir and the NSG, and instead use the occasion to make a greater push into Central Asia and Caucasus, where Turkey was an early entrant after the dissolution of the Soviet Union because of close cultural links. Turkey can be useful in helping India insert itself in Syria where it has two oil blocks to exploit if the conflict ends.
NITI Aayog has backed the Prime Ministers idea of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls to minimise poll-mode disruption to governance. Since the move would necessitate one-time curtailment or extension of some state assemblies, the think-tank has urged the Election Commission to work out a road map with inputs from the stakeholders. The proposal has not yet excited the non-BJP parties. They continue to maintain a silence. For the present, however, electoral reforms deserve greater attention. Whether electronic voting machines can be tampered with or not needs to be settled once for all. The EC has called representatives of political parties to clear all doubts. The proposed use of voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) will hopefully repair the damage to the ECs credibility caused by political statements not backed by proof.

There are other grey areas. After suggesting to the Home Ministry to make voter bribery a cognisable offence, the EC now wants a legal power to disqualify for five years candidates charge-sheeted for bribing voters. It already has constitutional powers under Article 324 which it hesitates to use. Only recently it cancelled the RK Nagar bypoll on suspected financial inducements to voters. The use of money power in elections is common but candidates and political parties often get away with it. Right now only convicted legislators are debarred from contesting elections for six years. In politicians cases, convictions are difficult and rare. Fast-track courts to try their cases are frequently promised but resources needed to make them a reality are held back.

In a significant judgment on January 3, 2017, a seven-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court barred the use of religion and caste in elections. The next two months saw rampant violations of this judgment during the elections, among others, in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The Election Commission chose to look the other way even though the Sikh high priests have imposed religious punishment on some candidates who sought a dera heads help for votes. Apparently, the will to cleanse the electoral system is lacking, both at the political and EC levels.
Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, May 1

Students resorted to arson after a student died in a road mishap near Achina Tal village on the Delhi-Dadri road on Monday.

The student died as he jumped off the moving bus after the driver of the bus did not halt the bus.

Enraged over the incident, students and villagers set the bus afire and blocked the highway for three hours.

Protesters also assaulted mediapersons during the road blockade.

Dadri SP Sunil Lamba rushed to the spot to control the situation.

The police have registered a case against 50 people; some of them have been identified by the police.

The protesters cleared the blockade after the SPs assurance to book the bus driver for causing death due to negligence.
Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

Learning from the 2012 experience when politically significant Kangra gave it a thumbs down, the BJP in the coming Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh is not taking any chances.

Party president Amit Shah, during his two-day visit to the state on May 3 and 4, will operate out of the region and there are several reasons behind his politically-strategic move, sources say.

Riding high on the successes in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and more recently Delhi MC elections, a buoyant saffron party is all set to reclaim the hill state that favoured the Congress party in the last Assembly elections. Party leaders concede the road to Shimla goes via Kangra  a region which because of deep divisions and infighting in the local leadership delivered the BJP just three seats in 2012.

And this, despite the largest district  covering the most-challenging parts of the state  being a traditional saffron stronghold.

As per the sources, Shah, during his two-day stay, will hold back-to-back meetings covering various issues related to BJPs functioning in all parts. However, the choice of venue is significant given the general feeling of neglect that the region, from where BJPs veteran leader Shanta Kumar also comes from, appears to be harbouring

The party chief, they say, wants to disseminate a strong massage of saffron presence in the district holding around 17 Assembly seats. Though the BJP is unlikely to project a CM candidate in the upcoming elections to avoid frictions among various factions party leaders say apart from Gujarat, where the BJP may go to polls under the leadership of incumbent Vijay Rupani, the 73-year old former Himachal CM Prem Kumar Dhumal, as of now, is not on Shahs radar.

In that sense, the 82-year-old Shanta Kumar is also way beyond the age limit set by the all-powerful Sangh for ministerial posts but given his political relevance in the region, the party would like him to remain by its side in all ways as it readies for Himachal polls later this year. Sources say the leadership is also in touch with former member Rajan Sushant, who resigned from the post of AAP convener last year.

A BJP rebel Sushant was a state minister in the Dhumal government and was also elected to the Lok Sabha from Kangra in 2009 on the BJP ticket. Despite his history of past differences with BJP leaders in the state, including Shanta Kumar and Dhumal, his political relevance makes him a good case for homecoming.

The sources say Union Minister JP Nadda has been making efforts and Sushant, along with other sulking leaders, would be part of the saffron brigade soon.
Shimla, May 1

A regional manager of the Himachal Road Transport Corporation and two others were on Monday arrested near here with 4.4 kg of chitta (synthetic drugs) worth Rs 2.50 crore in the international market.

The Shimla Police stopped Mohinder Rana's official vehicle at Shoghi checkpost, 13 km from here and upon searching found the drugs, a police official said.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

State Transport Minister G S Bali said that Rana has tarnished the image of the Corporation and has been suspended with immediate effect.

He said that the seized drugs are worth around Rs 2.5 crore in the international market.

Rana has been suspended in the past also but then BJP- ruled state government reinstated him in 2008.

Police also arrested two persons, Vikas and Rajiv, who were travelling along with Rana.

All of them would be produced in the court, police said.

Bali said that it is a very serious matter and a thorough probe will be ordered into the matter. PTI
Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 1

Decks have been cleared for admission of the first batch of 100 MBBS students in Lal Bahadur Government Medical College, Ner Chowk (Mandi), and renewal of letter of permission (LOP) for admission of second batch of MBBS at Dr YS Parmar Government Medical College at Nahan for the 2017-18 session.

The executive council of the Medical Council of India (MCI) at its meeting in Delhi on April 28 recommended issue of LOP for Mandi college and renewal of LOP for Nahan college. However, the case of LOP for Pt Jawahar Lal Medical college at Chamba is hanging in balance as deficiencies in faculty still existed. In two separate communications to Secretary, Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, the MCI informed about the decision, recommending opening of Lal Bahadur Shashtri Medical College, a new medical college at Mandi under section 10(A) of the MCI Act 1956 and issue of LOP for admission of first batch of 100 MBBS students from 2017-18 session.

The MCI also recommended renewal of Letter of Permission (LOP) for second batch of 100 MBBS students at Dr YS Parmar Medical College, Nahan.

However, the Union Government would accord permissions only after approval of the oversight committee on the MCI. The decision was taken after considering the compliance reports and undertaking given by Principal Secretary (Health), Himachal Government.

The MCI teams had also inspected Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College at Chamba also but the deficiencies pointed out by the team were not fully removed even after compliance report was submitted and the matter hangs in balance.

The report submitted by the MCI teams after inspecting three colleges in December 2016 had pointed out glaring deficiencies in infrastructure and faculty and starting of admission from 2017-28 looked improbable but after submission of compliance report re-inspection was held last week due to initiative taken by Union Health Minister JP Nadda. The re-inspection was required to be done before April 30 and in case the deadline had not been adhered to, the entire exercise would have been rendered futile.

The MCI which also inspected the Dr YS Parmar Medical College, Nahan which admitted the first batch of MBBS last year, pointed out glaring deficiencies in the infrastructure, causing much embarrassment to the state. The MCI considered the compliance report and recommended renewal of LOP subject to fulfillment of some undertaking given by the government.

The Union government had sanctioned three Medical colleges to Himachal to be set up at Nahan, Chamba and Hamirpur in 2007 and also sanctioned Rs 190 crore for each college. Later the government took over the infrastructure developed for ESIC Medical college at Ner Chowk in Mandi, build at a cost of Rs 650 crore and the total cost rose to Rs 935 crore, including interest of Rs 285 crore .

The state government agreed to pay principal amount in 10 installments but not the interest. Following consensus arrived between the Centre and state governments on not paying the interest and the college was handed over to the state. Little progress was made in respect of Hamirpur Medical College as the land identified for the project was forest land. However, the clearance from Ministry of Environment and Forest has been obtained and a formal communication in this regard is awaited, Dr Anil Chauhan, Director, Medical Education, said.

Fate of two other colleges hangs in balance
Tribune News Service

Reasi, May 1

Two persons, including the driver, were killed when a minibus skidded off the road at Mahore here on Monday.

The ill-fated minibus, which was on its way to Sugri from Mahore, met with an accident at Bagga Mahore as a result of which two persons  Irshad Ahmed and Mohmaad Arshad (driver) died on the spot.

A team from Mahore police station rushed to the spot and shifted the injured persons to Government Hospital Mahore.
Jammu, May 1

Pakistan on Monday mutilated the bodies of the two Indian soldiers killed in firing along the Line of Control in Poonch district.

An army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed and another soldier was injured as Pakistan fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post of the paramilitary force along the LoC in Poonch.

The army condemned the Pakistani action as despicable.

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Condemning the act, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said: "Two of our soldiers in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch have been killed and their bodies mutilated by our neighbours. This is a reprehensible and an inhuman act. Such attacks don't even take place during war, let alone peace.

Bodies of soldiers being mutilated is an extreme form of barbaric act. The Government of India strongly condemns this act and the whole country has full confidence and faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to this inhuman act. The sacrifice of these soldiers will not go in vain, Jaitley said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Foreign Office has denied Pakistan Army's hand.

Pak Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in Buttal sector (Indian Krishna Ghatti Sector) as alleged by India. The Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false, Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Public Relations wing said in a statement.

Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier even Indian, it added.

The ceasefire violation took place around 8.30 am. A junior commissioned officer of the army and a BSF head constable were killed in the attack, a senior officer of the paramilitary force said.

At about 8.30 am, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at the BSF posts along the LoC in Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons, the officer said.

Another BSF jawan was injured in the firing.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

The deceased are naib subedar Paramjeet Singh of the army and head constable Prem Sagar of the BSF. The injured has been identified as constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF.

Troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, the officer said.

Pakistani troops breached the truce along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times last month.

They violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on April 19 and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on April 17.

Pakistan had resorted to firing in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a joint press briefing on Monday that fighting terrorism was their common vision. Agencies
Suhail A Shah

Kulgam, May 1

Five policemen and two employees of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank were killed on Monday when some gunmen from militant organisation Hizbul Mujahideen struck a bank van carrying money in a village in south Kashmirs Kulgam district.

A group of heavily armed militants began firing at a bank van that was returning to Kulgam district headquarters from Damhal Hanji Pora on Monday afternoon, a policeman said.

While four policemen and the two bank employees  the banks security guard one of them  were killed instantly, the fifth policeman died at a hospital later, the policeman said.However, it remains unclear if the van was robbed.

We have received seven dead bodies so far, including 5 policemen and two bank employees, a doctor at Kulgam district hospital said.

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Among the policemen killed is an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police.

The militants reportedly took four service rifles belonging to the policemen, but this is still unverified.

Hizbul Mujahideen later claimed the attack. A spokesperson from the militant group told a local news agency that its fighters had taken with four weapons from the scene of attack.

Several bank robberies have been reported in the Valley since November last year  the last one a failed attempt at a bank in Anantnag two days ago, also at Jammu and Kashmir Bank  with police citing the central governments measure to scrap old high-value banknotes and introducing new ones in November as the possible reason for the sudden spurt. (With PTI inputs)
Rifat Mohidin

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 1

Protests erupted in Pulwama today after students from the higher secondary school and degree college took to the streets, leading to a shutdown in the area.

A college student said, Students were taking out a rally in the town when the police fired teargas shells on them. This led to clashes with the police. The protest was peaceful but due to the teargas shelling, the students threw stones at the police.

Following the clashes, the traffic went off the roads and the schools and colleges were also shut in the town, the student said.

Pulwama Superintendent of Police (SP) Rayees Mohammad Bhat said the students threw stones at the police station which resulted in clashes.

We had arrested four students after the April 15 incident but they all have been released. We are involving parents and the administration to counsel the students. If cases are filed then these things can play havoc with their career. We are just trying to counsel them and they should attend their classes, the Pulwama SP said.

The student protests started in the Valley on April 15 when an Army vehicle entered the Degree College, Pulwama, which led to clashes in which 54 students were injured.

Schools, colleges shut
Rameswaram, May 1

Five Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested on Monday and their boat impounded by the Sri Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territorial waters.

The incident occurred in the morning when five fishermen from Thangachimadam near here were fishing near Katchatheevu and were rounded up by the Lankan Navy and taken to Thalaimannar in the island nation, police said.

On March 26, 12 fishermen from Pudukottai district were arrested by Sri Lankan navy for allegedly fishing in the island nations territorial waters. PTI
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi here today, India politely reiterated the fact that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between New Delhi and Islamabad.

Prior to his India visit, the Turkish President, in an interview to a television channel, had stated rather controversially that a multilateral dialogue could be the way to resolving the Kashmir issue.

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We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all, Erdogan said.

India, however, today said it had put forward its view on Jammu and Kashmir to the Turkish President and that India regards the state to be an integral part of India.

And the Kashmir problem, as such, has a predominant dimension of cross-border terrorism, which needs to be defeated and stopped by those who are perpetuating it, said the official spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs.

He added India had always said the issue could be and should be discussed peacefully between India and Pakistan, as had been provided in the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.

The Turkish President, in his earlier remarks, had pointed out that since Turkey was a friend of both India and Pakistan, he wanted to strengthen the peace process by involving all stakeholders.

Erdogan had said Turkey could be a part of this multilateral dialogue. We should strengthen multilateral dialogue. We can be involved in multilateral dialogues. I think we have to seek out ways to settle this question once and for all, he said.

India has been very sensitive to any suggestions of making Kashmir an international issue. Erdogans reference to Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif as dear friend is an indicator that Turkey may not be keen on changing its historical ties with Pakistan any time soon.
Colombo, May 1

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday described a proposed deal with India to jointly operate a strategic oil facility as a "betrayal" of Sri Lanka's national asset, as his supporters called for raising of black flags during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit next week.

Addressing a May Day rally in Colombo, Rajapaksa, who leads Joint Opposition camp, said that Trincomalee's oil tanks preserved as national asset by successive governments since independence are to be sold.

"This is a government that auctions all national assets," Rajapaksa said.

The reference was on the proposed deal to start a joint venture with India to utilize the World War II time tanks.

At least 73 of the 99 storage tanks in Trincomalee is to be managed under a new equity arrangement between India and Sri Lanka.

Workers of state-run petroleum company went on a strike last week over the issue. They, however, ended their strike after an assurance from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

One of Rajapaksa' main backers Wimal Weerawansa, a former minister, called for raising of black flags during Modi's visit to Lanka.

"They are trying to sell our country to India," he told the rally.

Modi is due to visit Lanka on May 12 to attend the UN Vesak Day, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha.

The opposition claims Modi is to sign the oil tank deal during his visit despite President Maithripala Sirisena rubbishing it as misinformation.

Modi would only attend the UN 'Vesak Day' celebrations and no bilateral agreements will be signed during his visit to Lanka, President Sirisena has said.  PTI
Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu/Poonch, May 1

A day after the Pakistan army chief visited the Line of Control (LoC), Pakistans Border Action Team (BAT) today killed two Indian soldiers and mutilated their bodies in the Krishna Ghati (KG) sector of Poonch district.

In retaliation, Indian troops reportedly damaged the Pimple, Roza and Buttal posts on the other side of the LoC, killing a number of Pakistani soldiers, sources said.

Pakistani troops violated ceasefire by firing rockets at two forward defence location (FDL) posts  Kripan-I and Kripan-II  along the LoC in Poonch. The BAT, comprising special forces, simultaneously intruded about half-a-kilometre inside the Indian territory and ambushed a patrol of about half-a-dozen jawans.

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An Army junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a Border Security Force head constable were killed, while another soldier was injured. The Pakistani forces mutilated the bodies of the two soldiers, before escaping under cover fire by their army.

The deceased have been identified as Head Constable Prem Sagar (from Deoria in Uttar Pradesh) and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh (from Tarn Taran in Punjab).

In Delhi, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said the mutilation of bodies was reprehensible and an extreme form of barbarism. He said the armed forces would react appropriately to the inhuman act and their sacrifice will not go in vain.

An official statement of Udhampur-based Northern Command said: In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such a despicable act of the Pakistan army will be appropriately responded to.

The ceasefire violation took place around 8.25 am when Pakistani troops deployed at Pakistan FDL Pimple, manned by 647 Mujahid Battalion, fired four rounds of rocket-propelled grenades and three to four bursts using automatic weapons towards Indian FDL Kripan-I manned by 200th Battalion of the BSF.

Around 8.40 am, Indian troops deployed at FDL Kripan-I also fired with automatic weapons towards Pak FDL Pimple. Four jawans, including Head Constable Prem Sagar, Constable Rajender Kumar, both of 200 Battalion, and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment suffered splinter injuries. The identity of another trooper, who received minor injuries, is yet to be revealed, a source said.

Sagar and Singh later succumbed to their injuries.

Sources said the BAT members attacked the patrol team 400 to 500 metres inside the Indian territory. The geographical location of the area is very tough and the BAT action seems well-planned. Although the Indian troops were sitting at a higher altitude, the BAT members managed to intrude 500 metres inside the Indian territory and attack the patrol team. The Pakistan army used RPG to give cover fire to BAT members after they killed and mutilated soldiers bodies, a source said.

On Sunday, Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa toured the areas along the LoC in the Haji Pir sector of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He was briefed about the operational preparation of its army along the LoC.

In March, Pakistani troops had violated the mutually- agreed truce along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times. They violated the ceasefire in the Poonch sector on April 19 and also targeted Indian forward posts in the Noushera sector with mortars on April 8 and 17. The Pakistan army had resorted to firing in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

BAT  A mix of special forces, terrorists

Pakistans Border Action Team is a group of special forces with highly trained terrorists from outfits such as Lashkar-e-Toiba specifically employed for trans-LoC action. Their action distance from LoC varies from 1 to 3 km. In Pakistan, the SSG (special services group) forms the core of BAT. Its primary task is to dominate the LoC by carrying out disruptive actions in form of surreptitious raids.

Previous BAT attacks

November 22, 2016: Three soldiers killed, while one soldiers body mutilated near LoC in the Machhil sector of Kupwara district

October 28, 2016: Terrorists, under cover fire by Pakistan army, cross LoC and kill a jawan and mutilate his body in Machhil sector

January 8, 2013: Bodies of two soldiers, Lance Naik Hemraj and Lance Naik Sudhagar Singh, mutilated in Mankot sector of Poonch

READ MORE
New Delhi, May 1

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday reviewed the status of bilateral ties, including in key areas of security and trade, and discussed regional and international issues of mutual concern.

Ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the area of counter-terrorism, Indias NSG membership bid and the regional security scenario were among key issues that were understood to have been discussed during the Modi-Erdogan meeting, according to official sources.

New impetus to a multifarious relationship. Prime Minister Narendra Modi receives President Erdogan at Hyderabad House, MEA Spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called on the visiting President.

Important engagement for the State guest. External Affairs Minister @SushmaSwaraj calls on President Erdogan, welcomes him before delegation level talks, Baglay said.

This is Erdogans first foreign tour after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

The Turkish leader arrived here on Sunday on a two-day visit.

Erdogan was today accorded a ceremonial welcome at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here.

President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Modi received Erdogan. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Erdogan also visited the Raj Ghat to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi.

Apart from his wife Emine Erdogan, the Turkish President is accompanied by senior Cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.

His last visit to India was in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.

Mukherjee visited Turkey in 2013. Modi also met Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015.  Agencies
Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

Todays mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan army is the third such incident in the past six months, leaving the Army with no option but to retaliate, either by opening a fire assault at Pakistan posts or by a surgical strike.

So far, going by the previous two acts of beheadings, a fire assault looks the most plausible option. The Joint Doctrine Indian Armed Forces-2017 released on April 25 talks of possible surgical strikes in response to terror provocations.

This evening, Defence Minister Arun Jaitely hinted at a response when he said: The country has full confidence and faith in our armed forces which will react appropriately to this inhuman act. The sacrifice of the two soldiers will not go in vain.

In other words, Jaitley said the Army had a free hand to respond. Army Chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in Srinagar this afternoon. The Army said it was a pre-planned visit.

Retaliation will be well thought out and calibrated, a senior functionary in the Army said, adding the Commanding Officer of the regiment (22 Sikh), whose soldier was among the victims, will not rest till he has satisfied the troops that the inhuman act has been avenged.

Today, the Armys Northern Command said such despicable act of the Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded to.

In the previous two incidents in October and November, respectively, the Indian Army had opened up a massive retaliation and fired at Pakistan Army posts.

On November 22, three Indian soldiers were killed and the body of one of them was mutilated in the Macchil sector. The Army responded by unleashing massive fire, targeting seven Pakistani posts and the next day Pakistan Army Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) rang up his Indian counterpart over the hotline urging peace on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC).

On October 28, terrorists, aided by a cover fire from the Pakistan army, crossed the LoC and killed an Army jawan and mutilated his body.

In retaliation, the Army destroyed four Pakistani outposts in the Keran sector. Heavy casualties inflicted, the Armys Northern Command had then said.
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said the initiatives taken by his government in the last three years to reform economy were already showing visible results.

My government came to power in this very month three years ago. Since then, we have launched several initiatives to reform economy and administrative processes. We have also launched several flagship programmes like Make in India, Start up India and Digital India. The result of these is already visible in the recovery of Indian economy, the PM said at the India-Turkey Business Summit.

Modi said the Indian economy was the fastest growing major economy in the world. In addition to maintaining this pace, our focus is on removing inefficiencies from the system, he added.

Inviting Turkish investments, Modi said the time had come to make more aggressive efforts to deepen economic relations, which was possible through trade, FDI inflows and cooperation in various projects.

He said that Turkish companies should cash in on the unfolding opportunities in developing Indias infrastructure. Plans were afoot to build 50 million houses by 2022, metros in 50 cities, high-speed trains, upgrading of highways and modernisation of the Indian Railways, he said. The country was establishing new ports and modernising old ones, upgrading airports and improving connectivity to the remote corners of the country.

In his address to the Summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a free trade agreement with India to deepen economic cooperation. He said the two countries should explore the possibility of trade in local currency to deal with exchange rate fluctuations.

Erdogan said the volume of trade between Turkey and India stood at $6.4 billion in 2016. This was way below the potential, he said. Turkeys exports to India were $652 million and imports from India stood at $5.7 billion, he added.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

The Supreme Court on Monday imposed a fine of Rs 25 lakh on an NGO  Suraz India Trust  for wasting judicial time by filing 64 cases in before it and various high courts.

A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar  which restrained the NGO and its chief Rajiv Dahiya from filing PILs in any court  ordered Dahiya to deposit the amount within a month.

To stop this practice, we direct Suraz India Trust will not file any case. Rajiv Dahiya is restrained from filing any public cause directly or indirectly, Bench ordered.

"Waste of judicial time is a serious issue as matters of extreme importance that are taken up lag behind because of misconceived intention of people who are not competent to raise such issues, the Bench said.

It took note of the fact that in all the 64 cases filed by Suraz Trust Dahiya levelled allegations against judges in the name of public cause. He couldnt succeed in even a single one.

What angered the Bench was the manner in which Dahiya had been going to the residences of the CJI and other top court judges and accusing the registry staff in irregularities.

The order came after Dahiya turned down the courts suggestion to give an undertaking not to file any case in future. Instead, he wanted the court to make him amicus curiae to which the court didnt agree.

CJI Khehar has been harsh on those abusing the judicial process and has imposed huge fines on several such litigants.

On March 1, the CJIs Bench had slapped a fine of Rs 5 lakh on a Mumbai tenant for abusing judicial process and dragging his case against the landlord for 33 years despite losing it at various forums.

In February this year, it had had imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on RJD MLA from Bihar Ravindra Singh for wasting "precious judicial time" through frivolous litigation.

It had also imposed Rs 1 lakh fine on a Maharashtra professor for similar reasons.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

Suspecting that he was mentally unfit, the Supreme Court today ordered setting up of a medical board to examine Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan, who has been issuing orders against Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and other judges who initiated contempt proceedings against him.

Justice Karnan  who was proceeded against for contempt on February 8 for writing letters to various authorities, including the Prime Minister, accusing several judges of corruption  didnt appear before the court, ignoring a specific order to the effect. A seven-judge Bench headed by CJI Khehar asked the medical board of doctors from a government hospital in Kolkata to examine Justice Karnan on May 4 and submit a report on or before May 8.

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The Bench fixed May 9 for further hearing when it will pass order on merits and dispose of the case. The Bench said the statements given by him and the orders passed by him indicate that he may not be in a position to defend himself in these proceedings.

The top court also directed the West Bengal Director General of Police to constitute a team to assist the medical board in conducting the examination.

The Bench restrained all courts, tribunals, commissions and authorities from acting on the orders passed by Justice Karnan, including the ones asking the top court judges to appear before him in Kolkata and directing airport authorities not to allow them to leave India. Even on the last date, the CJI had asked Justice Karnan if he was mentally fit to understand the gravity of the contempt proceedings.

But it had given him four weeks to firm up his response as he gave confusing and conflicting answers to the questions posed by the Bench.

On Monday, the court gave yet another opportunity to Justice Karnan  who earned the dubious distinction of being the first sitting judge of a high court to appear as a contemnor before the top court  to furnish his response in the matter.

The Bench also allowed the Supreme Court Bar Associations plea to intervene and assist the court in the matter.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi requested the court to straightway proceed to punish him as he had aggravated the contempt. Judiciary cant become a laughing stock... this is something which is completely unacceptable, Rohatgi said.

However, senior counsel KK Venugopal said it was clear from the orders passed by Justice Karnan and his public utterances that he is not mentally fit enough to take proper decisions.

He cant be taken seriously... Fortunately, he is retiring in June, Venugopal said. Its too late to initiate impeachment proceedings against him. Allow him to retire and then consider it after June, the senior counsel said.

Anybody can play this trick with us (that he is mentally unfit), the Bench shot back. But it still chose to give further time to Justice Karnan.

Faced with a contempt charge, Justice Karnan had on March 31 dared the Supreme Court to send him to jail after it refused to restore his judicial and administrative work.

Will not undergo it

Kolkata: Adopting a belligerent approach, Justice CS Karnan said he will not undergo a medical examination and also threatened to pass suo motu suspension order against the DGP of West Bengal, if the DGP functions against my wish. This kind of harassment order against my sanity is an additional insult to an innocent Dalit judge who is of sound health and mind, Justice Karnan said, adding that I further direct the DGP, New Delhi, to take all the seven judges and produce them to a psychiatric medical board attached to AIIMS to conduct appropriate tests and submit a copy of the report on or before May 7. PTI
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 1

Suspecting that he is not mentally fit, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered setting up of a medical board to examine Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan who has been issuing orders against Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and other judges after initiation of contempt proceedings against him.

Justice Karnan--who was proceeded against for contempt on February 8 for writing letters to various authorities, including the Prime Minister, accusing several judges of corruptiondidnt appear before the top court.

Read: Justice Karnan hits back, orders psychiatric evaluation of SC judges

A seven-judge bench headed by CJI Khehar asked the medical board of doctors from a government hospital in Kolkata to examine Justice Karnan on May 4 and submit a report on or before May 8.

The bench fixed May 9 for further hearing when it will pass order on merits and dispose of the case.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The bench said the statements given by him to the press and the orders passed by him indicate that he may not be in a position to defend himself in these proceedings.

The top court also directed the West Bengal Director General of Police to constitute a team of police personnel to assist the medical board in conducting the examination.

The bench restrained all courts, tribunals, commissions and authorities from acting on the orders passed by Justice Karnan, including the ones asking the top court judges to appear before him in Kolkata and directing airport authorities not to allow them to leave India.

The court gave yet another opportunity to Justice Karnan to furnish his response in the matter.

The bench also allowed the Supreme Court Bar Associations plea to intervene and assist the court in the matter.

Referring to the orders passed by Justice Karnan and statements made in the press since initiation of contempt proceedings against him on February 8, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi requested the court to straightway proceed to punish him as he had aggravated the contempt.

Judiciary cant become a laughing stock...this is something which is completely unacceptable, Rohatgi said.

However, senior counsel KK Venugopal said it was clear from the orders passed by Justice Karnan and his public utterances that he is not mentally fit enough to take proper decisions.

He cant be taken seriously...Fortunately he is retiring in June, Venugopal said requesting the bench to take up the matter after his retirement.

Its too late to initiate impeachment proceedings against him. Allow him to retire and then consider it after June, the senior counsel said.

Anybody can play this trick with us (that he is mentally unfit), the bench shot back.

But still the bench chose to give further time to Justice Karnan.

Faced with a contempt charge, controversial Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan on March 31 dared the Supreme Court to send him to jail after it refused to restore his judicial and administrative work.

My lord, impose punishment on me...send me to jail. I will not appear on the next date, Justice Karnan had told the seven-judge Bench headed by CJI Khehar after it refused to restore his judicial and administrative work withdrawn last month in view of the contempt proceedings.

Unless you restore my work, I will not be normal, Justice Karnan had said, questioning the top courts decision to impose what he termed as punishment without hearing him out.

I am also holding a constitutional post. My dignity has been hurt and work has been taken away without hearing me, Justice Karnanwho earned the dubious distinction of being the first sitting judge of a high court to appear as a contemnor before the top court--had told the bench.

Even on the last date, the CJI had asked Justice Karnan if he was mentally fit to understand the gravity of the contempt proceedings.

But it had given him four weeks to firm up his response and file an affidavit as he gave confusing and conflicting answers to the questions posed by the bench.

It asked him to be personally present on May 1 and advised him to engage a lawyer to represent him.

After the March 31 hearing, Justice Karnan has passed several orders against the Supreme Court judges, including CJI Khehar, saying they were in contempt of his order.

Justice Karnan had earlier demanded Rs 14 crore as compensation from the seven judges on the bench for disturbing his mind and normal life.

On the last date, he had repeated the allegations levelled in his complaints to the Prime Minister and other constitutional authorities. At the same time, he had said that he wanted to apologise because of his respect for the institution.

But what you are saying is contrary to what you have written to us. In your letter, you have tendered an unconditional apology, the CJI had told Justice Karnan asking him to clarify his position.

In a first, the Supreme Court had on March 10 issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan after he failed to appear before it for the second time to answer a contempt notice.

It had ordered West Bengal Director General of Police to execute the warrant to secure the presence of Justice Karnan before the top court on March 31. He had been ordered to furnish a personal bail bond of Rs 10,000.

After the top courts order, Justice Karnan had described the bailable warrant against him as unconstitutional. Talking to the media in Kolkata, Justice Karnan had said: I am being targeted as I am a Dalit. This is a caste issue. The order has been deliberately issued against me. This is an attempt to ruin my life. The warrant is unconstitutional.

In an unprecedented order, the SC had on February 8 issued contempt notice to Justice Karnan and ordered him to forthwith refrain from discharging any judicial or administrative functions and return all files. It had asked him to appear before it on February 13.

As he failed to appear, the top court gave him 25 days to respond to the contempt notice and asked him to appear on March 10 but he didnt show up. Then the court had issued the bailable warrant against him for March 31 when he appeared before it and declared that he would not appear before the SC on the next date.
Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 1

The multi-crore Crown Co-operative Chit Fund scam has grown bigger with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) identifying 182 accused and terming it an international racket where hawala transactions were used to transfer money abroad.

From the initial figure of 10-15 accused, the six-month investigation by the SIT has taken the number of accused to 182. Of them, 17 have already been nominated as the prime accused in the challan submitted in a Mohali court last week.

But in these six months, the SIT has managed to arrest only four of the top 17 accused. Those arrested are Harjit Singh of Sunam, Inderjit Singh of Khanna, Amandeep Singh of Patiala and Paramjit Singh of Ropar.

A copy of the challan says the main accused is the firms managing director, Jagjit Singh alias Laddi, who along with Surinder Singh Bhandari and Balwinder Kamboj floated several companies in India and abroad. The company began operation in 2011-12 and shut shop in early 2014.

They had promised to double the money of the investors in three years. But instead they transferred it to the UK, Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong through hawala transactions. As per the challan, the accused are still operating Tradenext Ltd Cpthall Avenue U, London, headed by one Mohisn Zameel. They are also operating 1Coin.eu, which the police say was a sister concern of Crown Credit Cooperative Society.

The police told the court that the seven companies listed illegal for the violation of the Prize and Chits and money circulation Scheme (Banning) Act, 1978, were Crown Credit Co-operative Society, Bombay Investment Group, Future Choice Group, Live Trading India Company, Mega Fine Agro Concept Ltd. Nicer Green Housing and 4S Forever.

The challan copy says Jagjit Singh was once arrested in September 2015, when the first of the nearly 35 FIRs against the company was registered. He along with others had got conditional bail for three months on the promise that he will return the investors money. The SIT said they were conducting raids to nab him.

Crown Chit Fund Sangharsh Committee president Maninder Singh and general secretary Jai Kumar have suffered several attacks and threats by the accused. They say though the police are pursuing the case, the investors want the MD arrested and their money returned.

On October 19, 2016, the SIT formed on the directions of the High Court registered an FIR on the basis of 470 complainants. However, the FIR was never made public and no arrests were made.

Subsequently, the police swung into action after a series of news reports by The Tribune exposed the scam and the investors showed black flags to Akali leaders for their governments inaction.

Failing to cope with the fraud and police apathy, two investors have committed suicide.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, May 1

Uttarakhand Congress workers, led by former Chief Minister Harish Rawat, staged a two-hour dharna in protest against the hike in the prices of wheat and rice for the Above Poverty Line (APL) beneficiaries by the state government at Gandhi Park here today.

Hundreds of Congress party workers who participated in the dharna raised slogans against the state and Central governments. Addressing party workers, Harish Rawat said workers should be ready for struggle for the next five years. He claimed that his government had ensured cheap ration  Rs 7 per kg each for wheat and rice  to the APL families but the present BJP government not only doubled the rates but also cut the quota of APL families by half.

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said since 2014 the prices of all the essential commodities had risen making life difficult for poor people.

Former Assembly Speaker Govind Singh Kunjwal, Karan Mahra, Adesh Chauhan, Furqan Ahmed, Mamta Rakesh, Qazi Nizamuddin, Harish Dhami, all legislators and former ministers Dinesh Aggarwal and Hira Singh Bisht were present during the dharna. The speakers also paid rich tributes to the martyrs on the occasion of May Day.
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, May 1

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has expressed concern over the degradation of the environment and said it had become a global concern.

He was speaking at a convocation of 2015/17 batch officials of the Central Academy for State Forest Service held here today. Extending good wishes to under-training officers, the Chief Minister said nature was worshiped in India but today it was being exploited.

He further said Uttarakhand had abundant bio-diversity but the increasing population had burdened nature and adversely affected it. Rawat hoped that officials would help conserve nature through their knowledge. He called upon the passed-out officials to be custodians of nature and the environment of the country.

He distributed diploma certificates to officers and those who excelled in the course. A total of 45 officers, 33 from Rajasthan, 11 from Manipur and one from Kerala participated in the course. A total of 11 women officers were part of the course. Senior forest officials, including Dr Shashi Kumar, Director of the Indira Gandhi National Forest academy, were present during the convocation.
DOHA, May 1

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas will drop its long-standing call for Israel's destruction as well as its association with the Muslim Brotherhood in a new policy document to be issued on Monday, Gulf Arab sources said.

Hamas's move appears aimed at improving relations with the West, Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which label the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognise Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

Israel rejected the reported document, calling it an attempt by Hamas to delude the world that it was becoming a more moderate group.

The Gulf Arab sources said Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, would say in the document that it agrees to a transitional Palestinian state along the borders from 1967, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a war with Arab states. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

A future state encompassing Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem along 1967 borders is the goal of Hamas' main political rival, the Fatah movement led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. His Palestinian Authority has engaged in peace talks with Israel on that basis, although the last, US-mediated round collapsed three years ago.

The revised Hamas political document, to be announced later on Monday, will still reject Israel's right to exist and back "armed struggle" against it, the Gulf Arab sources told Reuters.

"Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," said David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians," he said. "This is the real Hamas." Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories since it was founded three decades ago.

It remained unclear whether the document replaces or changes in any way Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israels destruction and is the Islamist group's covenant.

A Hamas spokesman in Qatar declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from Egypt and Gulf Arab states.

Arab sources said the Hamas document was being released ahead of a planned visit by Abbas to Washington on May 3 and as Donald Trump administration prepares to make a renewed push for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Analysts say the revised document could allow Hamas to mend relations with Western countries and pave the way for a reconciliation agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, now also headed by Abbas.

US-allied Arab states including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia classify the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation. The 89-year-old Brotherhood held power in Egypt for a year after a popular uprising in 2011.

The Brotherhood denies links with Islamist militants and advocates Islamist political parties winning power through elections, which Saudi Arabia considers a threat to its system of absolute power through inherited rule.  Reuters
Kathmandu, May 1

The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government in Nepal today received a major blow after one of the ruling coalition partners, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), decided to withdraw from the government over the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice.

A meeting of the party central committee decided to pull out support following the impeachment motion registered in Parliament against Chief Justice Sushila Karki by the two other ruling coalition parties, Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), on Sunday. There was no immediate reaction from the PMs Office over the fate of the coalition of seven parties.

The decision to impeach Karki by the ruling Nepali Congress and Maoist Centre is an attack on the judiciary and our party does not support such a move, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party said announcing its decision to leave the government. Nepal has seen hectic political developments following the decision to impeach the first woman Chief Justice, with Nepal's Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi quitting his post on Sunday following his reservation over the impeachment decision.

The Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre have accused Karki of interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced.

With just two weeks to go for the first phase of local polls on May 14, the political crisis has put the fate of the polls in a limbo, with the resignation of the Home Minister adding to the quandary ahead of the polls. Kamal Thapa, chairman of the RPP that today decided to withdraw support, heads the Local Development Ministry that is in charge of coordinating local units.

Amid the crisis, the army yesterday called an emergency meeting and decided to maintain extra vigil across the country.  IANS

India keeps promise, gifts vehicles for polls
Washington, May 1

Nikki Haley didnt wait to take office as US ambassador to the United Nations to break with the Trump administrations foreign policy stances.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Haley bluntly accused Russia of being complicit in war crimes in Syria going against the President-elects talk of warmer relations with Moscow.

Three months later, she remains boldly off-message. Much to the chagrin of Washington diplomats, her remarks often go well beyond the carefully worded scripts crafted by the White House and State Department.

Shes warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that the days of your arrogance and disregard of humanity are over, even as other top aides to President Donald Trump insisted that his fate was a decision for the Syrian people.

Shes pushed human rights as a driver of foreign policy just as the Trump administration showed its willingness to work with leaders who have suppressed civil liberties, such as Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypts Abdel-Fatah el- Sissi.

US diplomats fear Haleys words could result in an inconsistent, incoherent international message. State Department diplomats drafted an email urging Haleys office to ensure that her public statements on high-profile issues are cleared by Washington. The email was first reported by The New York Times.

In some ways, Haley has been ahead of the curve. Her hints at a change in the Syrian government are now seeping into Trump policies, and the administration has toughened its stance on Russia.

She seems to be in Trumps good graces. At a White House luncheon for UN diplomats last week, he said Haley was doing a fantastic job but only after awkwardly joking that if the diplomats didnt like her, she could easily be replaced. Haley, a rookie to international politics, was an unusual pick for to be UN envoy.

As South Carolina Governor, she was outspoken in her criticism of Trump during the 2016 campaign a stance that effectively disqualified other candidates for top administration positions.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley alluded to Trump in denouncing the siren call of the angriest voices who disrespected Americas immigrants. Trump tweeted that The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley. She has star power in an administration where the President prefers to keep attention on himself. In some ways, the 45-year-old Haley is seizing the spotlight left vacant by media-averse Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Her high-profile persona and relative youth have prompted speculation that she may run for President someday.

The White House and the US Mission to the United Nations declined to comment for this story.

Haleys office falls under the State Departments authority, but administration officials say Haleys staff frequently bypasses the department for policy matters.

They said Haleys deputy, Jon Lerner, a Republican pollster and strategist who helped coordinate the Never Trump movement during the campaign, is in closer contact with senior members of the National Security Council, the White Houses national security apparatus. Still, at times, Haley ad-libs her remarks, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorised to publicly discuss the policy-making process.  AP
Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) is a facility that encourages all employees to go above and beyond for their patients and the community for which they serve.

Owasson Tabitha Spataro is a nurse at CTCA, and on Thursday, March 23, she received the DAISY Award for her dedication and contribution to the organization.

It was a wonderful feeling to be nominated, and a surprise to be the DAISY Award winner, she said. I honestly didnt know what to think when I walked into the breakroom, and there were so many people waiting for me.

The DAISY award, which goes back nearly two decades, celebrates the compassionate and skillful care given by nurses every day and has become an internationally recognized honor.

There are many nominations due to the fact that we have such great staff and wonderful patients, Spataro said. It is a great honor to be the winner, and I am so thankful.

At just 16 years old, she began pursuing her nursing degree and graduated as a registered nurse (RN) at 20. Spataro has worked with CTCA for a year-and-a-half but has been practicing nursing for about six years.

I had some health issues growing up, and that is part of the reason I became a nurse, she said. I wanted to make sure patients had a good nurse because I promised myself I would be the best nurse I could be for my patients.

Outside of work, Spataro said she would describe her live as busy, but blessed.

I (take) mission trips to Honduras almost every year, she said. My husband and I also do an annual vacation Bible school, a feeding program, and a health clinic.

Throughout her 12-hour shifts, and long weeks, Spataro has remained positive and encouraging to those around her.

I honestly feel so blessed to have been given the opportunities I have in life, she said. To be a part of the CTCA family, and to (work with) our patients and the infusion team, they truly are family to me.

Spataro was presented with the DAISY Award surrounded by her friends and colleagues last month.

She said she is thankful to the patients who took the time to send her words of encouragement and select her for the nomination of a DAISY Award.
Nearly $700,000 seized during an investigation into an international drug operation will help finance efforts by the Tulsa County Sheriffs Office to dismantle criminal enterprises.

A representative of Homeland Security Investigations under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement presented Sheriff Vic Regalado with a check for just over $690,000 on Monday afternoon. The money was acquired during a multiagency operation led by the Sheriffs Office, said Tatum King, HSIs assistant director for domestic operations.

Under the equitable-sharing program, law enforcement agencies working with ICE in joint investigations can be eligible to receive part of the proceeds of a federal forfeiture.

The check provided to TCSO represents its share of monies and assets seized from one of the defendants in the case.

The Sheriffs Office can then use these same funds for law-enforcement purposes to combat criminal agencies, King said. Rarely will you find a more appropriate form of justice than criminals having their own resources and proceeds used against them to make our community safer.

Operation MEGA BUZZ began in 2012 with the execution of a search warrant at a Broken Arrow home. King said authorities uncovered $148,000 and 10 kilograms of a chemical imported from China for the manufacturing of K2, sometimes called synthetic marijuana.

The discovery led to enforcement actions in eight cities in five states, ultimately leading to the criminal organization being completely dismantled and the indictments of 13 conspirators, King said.

Eleven people have pleaded guilty to charges, which include conspiracy to defraud the United States, smuggling merchandise into the United States and money laundering conspiracy.

One of the conspirators, a man from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, reportedly agreed to forfeit several expensive vehicles and properties. The amount totaled about $1,346,000, part of which was shared with the Sheriffs Office on Monday.

Regalado said his agency is looking into how best to use the money. He assured that it would help pay for equipment and/or the training and education of deputies.

We certainly look forward to the opportunity to utilize that money in those efforts because as has been stated before, budgets and things like that are tough for everybody, he said. So when you can utilize money that has been seized from criminals, that just makes it all that better.

Regalado said collaborations with federal agencies, like ICE, allow the Sheriffs Office to conduct operations of this magnitude. He stressed the need for resources that contribute to shutting down criminal enterprises. This particular operation helped make a significant dent in Tulsa Countys K2 trade, he added.

Loretta Radford, first assistant U.S. attorney in the Northern District of Oklahoma, said the indictments make the state a safer place.

K2 and other synthetic drugs are a serious public health hazard, Radford said. They are a threat that endanger the lives of young people in our communities. The chemicals in these drugs are usually unknown. Theyre usually manufactured in unsupervised factories in China, which was the case in this particular indictment.

Those drugs have never been tested or approved for human consumption and have even led to psychotic episodes, seizures and deaths, even in the very smallest of quantities.

kyle.hinchey @tulsaworld.com

Twitter: @kylehinchey
Conflicto. Solucion. Resumen del Argumento. Protagonista. Ambiente. Genero.

Noelia Perezs second-grade students hands shot up in the air after she wrote the words on a whiteboard in her classroom at Skelly Elementary School, 2940 S. 90th East Ave.

The children took turns volunteering answers in Spanish, identifying the literary elements in the stories theyd been assigned to present on tri-fold poster boards that would be displayed in the school library.

Books in Perezs classroom are organized in bins tucked into shelves in a corner  blue bins hold books written in English; red bins contain books in Spanish.

Perez is in her second year teaching in the dual-language program at Skelly, where she was assigned through a three-year teacher exchange program with Spain.

While helping second-graders become more proficient readers, Perez is bridging cultural gaps with parents who, like her, are not native English speakers and are sending their children to school in a foreign country.

When Perez and her husband, Angel Alvarez, came to Tulsa from their home in Murcia, Spain, they brought with them their children, who are now in pre-kindergarten and second grade at Grimes Elementary.

Perez said she and Alvarez had taught for 18 years in Spain before they applied for the exchange program, through which he is teaching at Eisenhower International School.

I think our main objectives were, first, know and understand how other teachers are teaching in other parts of the world, and to have a bigger idea about education, and live the experience of living inside another culture, Perez said.

They say their children are already speaking English more fluently than their parents and growing up with an understanding of American culture, which is what theyd hoped their kids would gain from the experience.

But the transition wasnt always easy.

Perez recalled picking up their youngest child from day care to learn he had been crying throughout the day because of the unfamiliarity of his new environment. Its something many in her classroom can relate to.

When a student from Honduras joined her class in October, Perez says neither he nor his parents spoke any English.

The second-grader is already reading English on a first-grade level and is on track to finish the year reading close to his grade level, Perez said.

One parent, Silvia Villeda, said Perez has gone out of her way to nurture her daughters love for reading.

When her daughter, Melanie Moreno, was in second grade last year, Villeda says Perez bought her used books to take home and read for fun. Villeda said Perez still regularly checks in with her and Melanie, who is now in third grade at Skelly.

All I can say is, she really cares about the kids, Villeda said about Perez. She puts in extra effort to make the kids do well at school.

For Perez, the first month of the program felt like being a novice teacher again, learning the dos and donts and many procedures of an American classroom, Perez said.

But helping her along the way was Pam Owens, who teaches the English-language portion of the dual-language program for second grade.

The program splits the students core classes between the two teachers, so they learn language arts, social studies and science in Spanish with Perez and language arts and math in English with Owens.

The way Perez explained it, Owens has helped her acclimate to American culture so she can do the same for her students and their families.

Perez said each of her students puts their small piece of culture in the classroom, too  those cultures coming from countries including Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

They are very open-minded children, Perez said. They understand a lot of things, because they are used to being around a lot of different cultures, not only one. I think this is great.

For example, when students hear a word they would consider offensive, based on their background, they have learned to ask for an explanation before they react emotionally.

We have an agreement: If you hear a word that you dont like, please dont be mad. First, ask, What does that mean for you?  Perez explained. Because many times, the same word hasnt the same meaning for you and for me. So first ask, and then decide if you are going to be mad or not. Because many times, its only a misunderstanding.

Skelly Principal Ramona Gestland praised Perezs classroom by saying her students are immersed in literature and print.

As they grow and get through college ... their workforce just opens up, hugely, because they are bilingual  literate, bilingual, Gestland said. So its really exciting.
City leaders announced Monday theyll be taking more time to choose a pedestrian bridge design after narrowing finalists from four down to two.

The final design had been planned to be announced Monday, but the committee behind the decision decided to narrow the field and give designers an extra month to incorporate feedback that has already been gathered.

We learned a great deal from the public process and wanted to have the opportunity to incorporate the publics wishes into the final designs, Mayor G.T. Bynum said in a statement. Although we originally planned to announce a final bridge design today, the point of this entire exercise is to get a bridge that will represent Tulsa for the next 100 years.

The new finalists are The Crossing, by Tulsas KKT Architects, and The Gateway Bridge, by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates  the Brooklyn, New York, firm behind A Gathering Place for Tulsas design.

The Crossing has an aquatic, undulating aesthetic with wave-like fins to be lit at night and multiple spots that focus on views of downtown, Turkey Mountain, A Gathering Place, and other points of interest along the river. It also features an on-deck amphitheater.

The Gateway Bridge features a varying, open-deck width that follows a grand arc shape across the river and is modeled to seamlessly match the aesthetic of A Gathering Place.

The two bridges that were cut from the finalists group were designed by Oklahoma State University architecture and design students Max Geary and Jameson Shaffer.

Their designs, Rebirth and Metropolis, were polar opposites with Rebirth acting as an homage to the current, structurally deficient bridge and Metropolis filling the role of sleek and modern, with partial covering that crosses the Arkansas River in an S-curve.

The existing pedestrian bridge is a former railroad crossing that dates to 1917. The railroad crossing was converted to a pedestrian bridge in 1975.

From Monday, the two finalist bridge designers will have 30 days to make adjustments to their concepts based on more than 14,000 comments gathered at cityoftulsa.org/vision.

The two finalist designers will also work with an engineering firm to make sure their designs meet the Vision Tulsa budget of $24.5 million.

After 30 days, the selection committee will meet again to select a final design, according to city officials.

These final 30 days will allow us to make a more responsible and informed final decision, Bynum said.
As the nation observes Law Day, its worth noting that Oklahoma appears to have dodged the most pernicious legislative attempts to meddle with the judicial selection and retention process this year.

When the legislative session opened, lawmakers presented about a dozen bills and resolutions to alter the way judges are chosen and re-elected.

The measures had an odor of vengeance to them. Upset that they werent able to get unconstitutional laws through Oklahoma Supreme Court review, lawmakers were looking to politicize the judiciary.

Oklahoma has a time-tested apolitical process for selecting judges. Born of a judicial scandal in the 1960s, the Oklahoma System uses a citizen review board  the Judicial Nominating Commission  to nominate judges for vacancies with the final choice going to the governor. After judges are in office, they stand for re-election in nonpartisan races. Voters consider appellate level judges on a yes/no retention ballot and district and associate district judges in nonpartisan contested races.

The proposed changes  partisan races, turning the commission into a rubber stamp, adding legislative confirmation to the process and other bad ideas  were giant leaps backward. There was a commen thread: They all sought to make the judicial selection and retention process less about merit and more about politics. The system has worked for decades and would not benefit by making it more political.

With some members of the Legislature still fuming over their court losses, this will no doubt remain a long-term struggle. All of the bills that stalled this year remain viable next, when we plan to be just as adamant in our opposition.
Tonight on Insight Jenny Brockie will ask How are dowry and bride price customs evolving in Australia?

Dowry and bride price practices are alive and well in some Australian communities.

In Melbourne, South Sudanese man Chol Goch was proud to negotiate and pay a high price for his new wife Ajah Wuoi. Ajah felt more respected by her community after she recently brought in the price of $70,000.

Salpha Dut, from the same community, has been working 11 hours a day, seven days a week for the past three years in Hobart to save up for his wife who is waiting for him to afford and trasnfer 250 cows before her family will let her move to Australia. Despite the hardship, Salpha says he doesnt have a problem with paying for a wife.

But not everyone is happy to accept the traditional way of doing things without challenging it. South Sudanese lawyer Nyadol Nyuon tells Insight she is against dowry and bride price and says it promotes gender imbalance. She would like to see it abolished but she recently married and accepted her husband paying a large price for her to keep her family happy. She says this highlights the cultural clash within new communities in Australia as they negotiate old traditions in a new setting.

In Sydney, Sheron Sultan, a model from a South African background, asked her Austrian boyfriend Nick Toth to pay lobola, the bride price, as she wanted to uphold her culture and keep her ancestors and family happy. But the couple struggled with the concept of paying for a wife until they interpreted the tradition in a new way to make it their own.

Similarly in Brisbane, Naseema Mustapha tells Insight she personalised her Islamic dowry by requesting her husband-to-be Mohamed to buy and slaughter a goat to cook it and feed the poor.

The program also hears from a young Indian woman in Melbourne, Roopa, who describes how the dowry custom destroyed her arranged marriage.

This week Insight examines the future of dowry and bride price in Australia and hears the stories of new communities struggling with old traditions.

Tuesdays at 8.30pm on SBS.
TEN has now confirmed Prison Break will begin in two weeks time.

The series revival, which started last month in the US, will screen Monday nights from May 15.

It returned to 3.8m viewers and mixed reviews.

Prison Break returns with a new event series, as the original stars reunite to break out one of their own.

It has been seven years since Michael broke his brother Lincoln out of prison for a murder he did not commit. With Michael presumed dead ever since the escape, it comes as a shock when Lincoln learns that his brother could still be alive and embarks upon a treacherous quest to find him.

Lincolns investigation leads him to one of the hardest prisons in the world, in the centre of war-torn Yemen. Trading his United States passport in exchange for his brothers whereabouts, Lincoln is risking it all. But with hitmen chasing him and Michaels widow back in the US, Lincoln better act quickly.

9:30pm Monday May 15 on TEN.
TweakTown's Rating: 90% The Bottom Line AORUS continues to fill out its GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, with the GTX 1080 Ti 11G rocking its GPU copper back plate, it'll keep your GPU at under 70C under OC. The fans barely spin under load, which is what I like to hear... or not hear.

Introduction

GIGABYTE has launched yet another graphics card offensive under the AORUS brand, with their new AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti series of products. We have everything from the AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11G, to the GTX 1080 Ti Gaming OC 11G, and the flagship AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition 11G - the latter two I'm trying to get, and the first I have here today.

The differences between the three different cards are that the middle one is a GIGABYTE branded card, the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming OC 11G, while the other two are the normal, and Xtreme Edition versions under the AORUS branding.

GIGABYTE sent us the slower of the two for our first review, but I'm trying to get my hands-on the GTX 1080 Ti Xtreme Edition 11G, so I can make a comparison of it against the GTX 1080 Ti 11G that I'm about to get into now.

Cooling Tech

Cooling Technology

AORUS upgraded their cooling solution for the GeForce GTX 1080 11G graphics card, with an extensive cooler that takes care of the GPU, VRAM, and MOSFET - keeping them all cool with 3 x 100mm stack fans, a front copper base plate, and the copper back plate.

As you can see, there's a lot going on under the hood on the AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11G.

The large copper base plate has direct contact to both the GPU and VRAM, pulling heat from the hottest running components and into the heat sink.

Where AORUS does things very differently, is that their engineers have designed the advanced copper back plate cooling which removes additional heat from the rear of the GPU. There is more heat than ever being generated by these new GPUs on the 14nm FinFET process, so the additional attention to detail from AORUS is beyond welcomed.

AORUS cooling isn't a joke - it's an advanced set of technologies and features.

There's also RGB Fusion, which lets you customize your GTX 1080 Ti 11G graphics card through RGB LEDs.

Something else that AORUS does that I really love is that there are additional display outputs - with an additional HDMI 2.0 connector at the back, as well as DVI - so you can have four outputs at once.

On top of that, there's also another HDMI 2.0 port on the end of the card for VR setups - specifically, if you have a front HDMI 2.0 header on your PC for easy access to the Rift and Vive headsets.

It's not just the cooling, but overclocking as well.

Detailed Look

AORUS has a similar design throughout all of its GeForce GTX 10 series cards, with the GTX 1080 Ti 11G featuring the additional GPU base plate that keeps the GP104 chip cool. But first, we'll take a look at the retail packaging.

There's not too much to look at on the front of the box.

The back of the box has all of the details you'll need on the cooling, RGB Fusion LEDs, AORUS VR-Link, and more.

The front of the AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11G, with its 3 x 100mm fans.

The back of the card, with the GPU backplate and base plate, can be seen here.

It's a thick card, requiring three slots to fit it in - but it looks great, don't you think?

GIGABYTE requires 8+8-pin PCIe power connectors on the AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11G.

Display connectivity includes: 2 x HDMI 2.0, 3 x DP, and 1 x DVI.

Test System Specs

I've recently edited my GPU test bed, which was powered by the Intel Core i7-5960X processor, and shifted into the arms of Kaby Lake and Intel's new Core i7-7700K. GIGABYTE hooked us up with their awesome new AORUS Z270X-Gaming 9 motherboard, which is the heart and soul of my new GPU test platform.

Detailed Tech Specs

CPU : Intel Core i7-7700K

Cooler : Nocua U12S

MB : AORUS Z270X-Gaming 9

RAM : 16GB (2x8GB) G.SKILL Trident Z 4000MHz DDR4

SSD : 1TB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2

PSU : Corsair AX1500i

Chassis: In Win X-Frame

Detailed Look

There's a bigger article I've got coming that will detail the new system, but for now - here are some shots I've taken of the new system in action:

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike - 1080p

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike - 1440p

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike - 4K

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

Heaven - 1440p

Heaven - 4K

Heaven - 3440x1440

Benchmarks - 1080p

1080p Benchmarks

Ubisoft's latest installment in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series is Ghost Recon Wildlands, an open world tactical shooter with some of the best graphics on the market, with Ubisoft Paris using a modified version of the AnvilNext engine.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Benchmarks - 1440p

1440p Benchmarks

Ubisoft's latest installment in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series is Ghost Recon Wildlands, an open world tactical shooter with some of the best graphics on the market, with Ubisoft Paris using a modified version of the AnvilNext engine.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Benchmarks - 4K

4K Benchmarks

Ubisoft's latest installment in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series is Ghost Recon Wildlands, an open world tactical shooter with some of the best graphics on the market, with Ubisoft Paris using a modified version of the AnvilNext engine.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Benchmarks - 3440x1440

3440x1440 Benchmarks

Ubisoft's latest installment in the Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series is Ghost Recon Wildlands, an open world tactical shooter with some of the best graphics on the market, with Ubisoft Paris using a modified version of the AnvilNext engine.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Far Cry Primal is a game built on the impressive Dunia Engine 2 with wide open, beautiful environments. It might look stunning, but the performance is actually quite good - but most cards will be stressed at 1440p, and especially so at 4K and beyond.

You can buy Far Cry Primal at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is one of the most graphically intensive games we test, with Monolith using their own Lithtech engine to power the game. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor at Amazon.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Benchmarks - DX12

DX12 Benchmarks

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

3DMark TimeSpy (DX12) 1440p

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

Performance Analysis & Final Thoughts

Performance Analysis

If you're after a graphics card that pushes out 1080p 120FPS+ or you've got a 2560x1440 gaming display at 144/165Hz, then the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti 11G is something you should be looking at. For those with a 21:9 aspect display and native 3440x1440 resolution, in our testing the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti 11G can handle 80-100FPS without a problem, which is perfect for the 100Hz UltraWide gaming monitors on the market.

AORUS, as usual, is on the ball, offering up some of the coolest running GTX 1080 Ti temps we've seen. The company does talk up its advanced copper back plate cooling, with a rear-side GPU copper back plate. Our card was running at 62C max and scaling up to around 68-70C when overclocked.

Final Thoughts

AORUS has filled out its GeForce GTX 1080 Ti range well, with the GTX 1080 Ti 11G being the second-fastest in the 3-way stack, with the Xtreme Edition sitting on top of the performance mountain. At the end of the day, you're going to get a great graphics card that can handle anything you throw at it.

For games like CS:GO, Overwatch, Rocket League, and others - frames are king, so you need 120-165FPS for the high refresh rate panels. If you're gaming on my favorite native res: 3440x1440, then you're going to be enjoying your native refresh of 100Hz easily, with 80-100FPS on Ultra details on the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti 11G. For 4K gamers, you're fine with 60FPS average not being a problem in most games - some of them, however, you will be dropping some in-game details down.

If you're rocking a GIGABYTE or AORUS motherboard and were looking at a GTX 1080 Ti, then the AORUS GTX 1080 Ti 11G is a kind of perfect fit. Oodles of power, a stylish look, and best of all - if one isn't enough, why not get two and throw them in SLI?
Toronto, May 1 (IBNS): Toronto Mayor John Tory said he was thankful to Ontarioas 2017-2018 budget which allowed Toronto to tax both hotel and vacant properties, but his main concern was that Toronto had failed to receive funds for fixing crumbling housing, media reports said.

Tory said his call on province to pay attention in its budget on affordable housing, public transit and child care, had only been partially met, CBCNews reports said.

Tory said he had told the province ahead of the budget that city was in urgent need for over $800 million to help fix Toronto Community Housing (TCH) buildings but this was missing in the budget.

To this Finance Minister Charles Sousa had told reporters that the 2017-18 budget had done a lot for Toronto adding around $2 billion over a three-year span has been earmarked for affordable housing, social housing and anti-homelessness measures.

He also added the budget included an offer up to $100 million worth of land to build approximately 2,000 affordable housing units in Toronto and that Toronto could avail of Social Infrastructure Fund it will also get a cut of the three-year $640-million plan.

Tory said these funds would not be sufficient for TCHs multi-billion dollar repair backlog with about 100 more units expected to be added.

At city hall, several councillors opposed the budgets plan in lack of social housing money.

"Right now, we don't have a partner for the social housing issue in the provincial government," said Coun. Ana Bailao, who is also the chair of the affordable housing committee," CBCNews reports said.

Sousa said that according to the present budget the City of Toronto Act would soon be amended to allow transient accommodations including hotels and home-sharing services like Airbnb to be taxed, but added that the Act would also include a regulation requiring Toronto to spend a part of the revenues to promote tourism in the area.

PC Leader Patrick Brown objected and said, "it wouldn't be a Liberal budget if we didn't have some sort of tax," CBCNews reports said.

Brown opposed the city's road toll proposal and asked province to spend its infrastructure money more prudently to allow Toronto to get better funds.

City staff had suggested four percent tax on hotels, and a 10 percent tax on short-term rentals. This proposal also covered small municipalities.

Sousa argued that the option to tax vacant properties to encourage the home owners to sell their vacant properties and make them available for renting.

It also accounted for a large percentage of the $2.7 billion in land transfer tax revenue, said Sousa and added the budget had given the city of Toronto the option to use its own discretion to determine and administer the vacant property tax.

"We build prudence into our plan," Sousa said, CBCNews reports said.

The city council had also objected to the ambiguous statement in the budget that out of nearly 100,000 new child care spaces, nearly a quarter of these spaces would open this year, but the statement did not clarify how many of those spaces will open in Toronto.

To this the Ontario government said that it was committed to work with municipalities to expand its plans and said an ambitious 10-year child care plan had just been approved.

Tory had also objected to funding transit projects and said although $56 billion worth of transit projects was included in the new budget, there was no additional funds.

Sousa assured Tory that talks with the federal government was ongoing on how to fund the next phase of projects.

"We're just going through the process," Sousa said when asked about the lack of a signature transit investment in this year's financial plan, CBCNews reports said.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said there are "no real transit improvements" in this budget, and said her party would fund 50 per cent of operating costs should she be elected.



(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)



Images of John Tory and Charles Sousa: Wikipedia
MADRID, Spain - For more than five weeks, selected refugees have had the chance to learn all aspects of working for multinational furniture company IKEA in the Spanish capital, Madrid.

The unique training programme gives refugees like Ruba, an architect from Syria, and Maria a former bank employee from Ukraine, hands on training at the store, which sells ready-to-assemble furniture, kitchen appliances and home accessories.

Once they complete the work experience programme, participants will be able to apply for jobs with IKEA as a first step towards integrating into the Spanish workforce.




Toronto, May 1 (IBNS): Torontos Mayor John Tory has said that his awakening experience in the field of computer animation was in India holding that India was one among the best countries in the world to have achieved technological advancement in this field.

Tory and over 1,000 participants from than 25 animation studio, to mark the industrys rapid growth within the city, attended an event of the Toronto Animation Arts Festival International (TAAFI) and Computer Animation Studios of Ontario (CASO) on Sunday.

TAAFI x CASO Animation VFX Job Fair was held at George Brown Colleges Waterfront Campus, Toronto.

Founded in 2012, TAAFI is a not-for-profit arts organization which hosts film festivals and other industry-related public events and aims to connect animation artists and enthusiasts and expose them to unique opportunities.



CASO is also not-for-profit industry association committed to the growth with a platform where Ontario's animation and visual effects industry can have a competitive edge in the world.

Tory greatly applauded the hospitality of George Brown Campus Waterfront Campus for hosting this event and added that this event is the first of its kind being held in Toronto and he felt proud to have been given a chance to attend it.

He talked a bit about his awakening experience in this field in India he said India was one among the best countries in the world to have achieved technological advancement in the field of computer animation.

Tory had very optimistic remarks about the digital media and in particular about computer animation.

He felt proud that Toronto was making such a tremendous advancement in this field and said,You do not have to go anywhere from Toronto. You can access any part of the world with digital computer animation.

Talking about the diversity of Toronto, Tory said that people around the world know that Toronto is different and with its high calibre of training and education produces role models,

Addressing the large gathering of students and professionals Tory said, Torontos animation program is one of the top schools of the world, if not the top school.

He said being a diverse city it offers a variety of the jobs in the current field and added one does not know where the opportunities would take them.

The media has the expertise and the knowledge of legacy, said Tory which would lead to great expansion in their careers.

Over 7,000 artists employed at present which comes to 300 percent increase since 2011. TAAFI and CASO are expecting an additional 30 percent growth in this industry.

The TAAFI Animation was a free Job Fair and a unique recruitment fair connecting top studios with Canada's best animation, visual effects, gaming students and professionals from across Ontario and Toronto and its near by cities, popularly known as GTA.

This event consisted a studio and recruiting booths where job seekers could register, an Interview Zone, where recruiters meet one-on-one with potential candidates, set-up with 12 round tables, each with four chairs, and high-speed WiFi, and The Presentation Zone for inspirational and informative talks for attendees and recruiters.



(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
New Delhi, May 1 (IBNS): Delhi BJP chief and lawmaker Manoj Tiwari on Monday said his residence in New Delhi was attacked by unknown men.

Tiwari was not present in the residence when the alleged attack took place.

The incident was captured on CCTV.

Two people have been arrested so far in connection with the incident.

"Around 8-10 people have attacked my 159, North Avenue residence ," the BJP lawmaker had earlier tweeted.

Image: Wikimedia Commons


Most animals play dead to avoid a predator, but for female dragonflies, the extreme tactic is used to evade a male suitor. They are one of a few animal species that play dead to avoid death or a mate. According to a study recently presented to the Ecological Society of America, the female moorland hawker dragonflies would suddenly plunge to the ground and remain motionless until the male dragonfly leaves.

The new study was published in the journal Ecology on April 24. Rassim Khelifa, a zoologist and lead researcher from the University Of Zurich, studied the dragonflies in Switzerland and was surprised by the new behavior, AJC reported.

The study showed the behavior was reported in 27 out of 31 dragonflies that were observed, where 21 out of the 27 instances proved successful. The 6 instances showed that a dead female was still desirable enough for the male to attempt copulation.

Khelifa said it was clear how the female dragonflies were being deceitful. She saw the female dragonfly suddenly play dead in mid-flight and crash-dived to the ground. She expected the female dragonfly would be unconscious or dead after crashing to the ground. As soon as the males flew away, the females got back to doing their usual business.

Mother Nature Network reported Khelifa said the female moorland hawker dragonflies is vulnerable to harassment when it lays eggs and it can permanently damage their reproductive tracts due to repeated copulation. Scientists believe that by playing dead it was the way the female dragonflies survive longer, reproduce more frequently and more successfully.

The surprising behavior is more common than what we all thought. It is the first time it has been observed in dragonflies. Khelifa said she was surprised as she was studying dragonflies for 10 years and has never seen this kind of behavior before.
The University of Iowa plan to reduce reliance on coal in its power plant and has been burning Miscanthus grass as a renewable energy source. Burning 1 acre of can offset 4 tons of coal in a power plant and a field of the grass can grow for a decade or more without replanting. Miscanthus can tolerate Iowa winters and can't produce seeds, so it won't invade neighboring fields.

University of Iowa's renewable energy business development manager, Erin Hazen, said replacing coal with Miscanthus makes environmental sense. It benefits the university and all of eastern Iowa. Coal is not great for the environment and has problematic emissions. Since 2015, the university has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 17 percent with Miscanthus and other biofuels.

The university will also benefit in an economic sense. Its power plant has a $14 million budget for fuel and some of it is used for coal. The money spent on coal goes out of state. Hazen said they want to divert the money in state to give more income for growers.

The university plan to generate 10 percent of its energy from Miscanthus and use biomass fuels for the other 90 percent. Their goal is to eventually eliminate dependence on coal by 2025, Omaha reported.

The Biomass Fuel Project has recruited about 15 growers and more than 800 acres of Miscanthus across eastern Iowa so far. Jay Kemp, has more than 100 acres of Miscanthus on his property in Letts located 37 miles southeast of Iowa City. He decided to rent his fields to the University of Iowa for his convenience.

Kemp said he's getting just as much out of it as it he was renting it to a farmer. One advantage to it he said was it doesn't need to be fertilized or do anything at all.

He recently held a demonstration for farmers that were interested in growing Miscanthus. Officials from the university and partners attended the demonstration and answered some questions. Kemp's partners were Iowa State University and Aggrow Tech, which planted the Miscanthus on his property.
Lucknow, May 1 (IBNS) : Ending honeymoon that turned into the worst disaster for both the partners, the Congress on Monday announced that the party will fight it alone in the Uttar Pradesh civic polls breaking its alliance with the Samajwadi Party.

"We have decided the Congress will contest the forthcoming urban civic polls in Uttar Pradesh alone, without any alignment with any party, including the Samajwadi Party," PCC President Raj Babbar has been quoted by media as saying.

Babbar informed that the decision followed a series of meetings at different levels of the party, including the grassroots, that reviewed the alliance with the SP.

State leaders have been told to focus on the elections and mobilise committed workers and supporters who can devote time and energy for the party, Babbar said.

The Congress , which joined hands with the Samajwadi Party in the state Assembly elections, had experienced a crushing defeat with the combine bagging only 54 seats in the 403-member House that the BJP won with tally of 312.

A large section of the Congress district and city presidents blamed the defeat on the formation of the alliance.
As China fights severe pollution due to industrialization, the government has turned to synthetic natural gas (SNG) for corporate and residential use. While this chemical improves air quality in the country, the production of SNGs may worsen climate change in the long run.

Since the world saw the disturbing pictures of Chinese people wearing masks, the situation in the smog-blanketed city of Beijing received attention from the international community. Princeton University is one of these concerned organizations.

In fact, the problem is so big that it received attention from international organizations. Princeton University is one of them. Published in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", the study examined the impact of switching from coal to SNGs. The report was first publicized last April 24.

According to an earlier University Herald report, there were three parameters used in the research. First is electricity production, second is industry, and the third is residential use. At the end of the tests, the experts concluded that SNGs in industrialization and electricity production have "little impact" on the pollution-related deaths in China. Nevertheless, in residential uses like cooking and heating, SNGs could potentially reduce health problems for the locals.

However, as synthetic gas cleans the air in Beijing, its production produces more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. Thus, it significantly contributes to climate change. For one thing, SNGs are fuels derived from coal. This process releases an additional amount of CO2s rather than just directly burning coal as fuel.

On the other hand, per The Himalayan, air pollution is now the biggest health risk in industrial countries all over the world. Some of the most effective solutions so far are the reductions of vehicle exhaust emission. The rise of electronic cars and motorcycles can later play important roles in the war against dirty air.

The common diseases brought about by pollution are lung cancers, cardiovascular impairments, and emphysema. In China alone, the condition kills roughly 1.6 million people yearly. Only four SNG plants are operational at the moment, but 40 more are either proposed or already under construction.
Every May 1, students in the United States face one tough question: Where to study? Dubbed as the National College Decision Day, incoming freshmen need to make up their minds on where to attend their collegiate studies. Apparently, free tuition is becoming a key factor in making the decision.

While others only worry about the quality of the school, the majority of American students weigh on additional things like the cost of education. There are those who want to go to this particular institution but their savings are not enough to support their four-year stay. Thus, they move to pretty decent schools too but lower ranked than their first choices. National College Decision Day is celebrated to highlight how the big decision of choosing the right school for higher education becomes a big factor of the future state of life of any American pursuing a degree.

For the record, there is nothing wrong with that because, at the end of the day, a degree matters regardless of the affiliated institution. However, everyone probably accepts the fact that better opportunities await those who graduated from, for example, the Ivies.

According to The Hechinger Report, students at Match High School in Boston get excited whenever their teachers announce the results of college entrance exams. Unfortunately, sadness hits them as soon as they arrive home. No matter how capable they are, if their educational savings are not enough upon enrollment day, then they have no choice but to pick a cheaper school.

Alarmingly, others do not want to pursue college anymore. Some of the students "feel bad" about attending college since it would cost their families a lot of money. Moreover, they may be buried in debt once they take equally expensive student loans. If ever they do not back out, they know they would end up in universities with fewer resources and lower success rates.

On the other hand, free tuition seems to lure in more students like what happened in New York. The State's Excelsior Scholarship program offers better opportunities for incoming college students. This project is actually the first of its kind in the US.

In it, families whose incomes are less than $100,000 can avail no-fee education at the schools of the State University of New York (SUNY) starting this fall. Also, in 2018 and 2019, the limit will be raised to $110,000 and $125,000 respectively. This means that more students will benefit from the Excelsior fund in the coming years.

Though it is still too early to conclude the program's success, per the New York Times, the promise of tuition-free schools appears to be powerful lures for parents in considering their children's second homes. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo estimates that 940,000 people will profit from the program. In total, the state has about 64 campuses.
The 1st of May marks a new milestone in one's student life. Otherwise known as the National College Decision Day, teens in America choose the next step towards the fulfillment of their dreams.

According to The 74, the National College Decision Day signals the deadline for students to make their final picks on which schools they will go to in fall. For many, this process is like a roller coaster ride. In fact, a lot of incoming freshmen visit their prospect campuses for so many times before May 1. Other than that, they also study the financial aid offers and housing plans of that particular institution.

All of these are advisable as long as by Decision Day, they already have at least the top three finalists in their minds. Since the procedure could be tiring and very confusing, some actually back out. Considering their uncertainties and the cost of education, there are those who decide not to pursue college anymore.

Now, there are a lot of wonderful things someone would miss if he or she fails to rise above the situation. For one thing, diversity is a promising lesson people take for the rest of their lives. In a University, one would meet friends from different religions, nationalities, and even gender preferences. College life offers diversity as something beautiful.

Per an Elite Daily article, the feeling of taking the entrance exam up to actually deciding where to go provides a whirlwind of emotions. These emotions are often bittersweet. Nevertheless, the same experience might be the most important knowledge a person could acquire in a lifetime. It is too memorable for someone to just let go of.

While universities offer higher education, they also open young minds in a way that more will understand the world in a deeper sense. Commonly, people interact with someone from the same group, may it be religion, nationality, or culture. The situation is almost like a "fictitious bubble of safety and normalcy".

Rather than thinking schools confine students in classrooms, look at it as if they open a whole new world within one's existing world. Interestingly, while the education system requires a lot of academic works, the majority of administrators and teachers never let their students forget about what is happening outside the campus. Different beliefs gather in one place to share their expertise and learn something new from others. That is more valuable than any written exam anyone has taken.
Yale University graduate teachers recently started a protest in the form of a hunger strike to get the official of the Ivy League institution to begin negotiations with them. The school has released a statement on the issue.

Eight teachers, four men and four women, announced the fast. They are part of graduate teachers' union Local 33-Unite Here. The hunger strike came at the end of a silent march in the rain from College Street to the home of Yale President Peter Salovey on Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven Register reported.

The march was led by Mayor Toni Harp. Local clergy and several members of the city's Board of Alders joined the silent protest as well as hundreds of graduate teachers and their supporters.

The hunger strike was dubbed as "Fast Against Slow." Yale University graduate teachers who took part in the fast were commended by Democratic National Committee Vice Chairwoman Maria Elena Durazo.

In its official website, Yale issued a statement saying that it believes that the hunger strike is "unwarranted by the circumstances." The university went on to clarify that they strongly urge students not to put their health at risk or encourage others to do so.

President Peter Salovey admitted that his primary concern is for the health and safety of the students. He explained that he deeply respected their right to freedom of speech and expression but also urged them to reconsider this decision, which may bring harm to their well-being.

The protest was organized to pressure Yale University officials to begin negotiations with graduate teachers in eight academic departments. This comes after the results of a Feb. 23 vote by graduate student teachers in several departments to form a union.

One female graduate teacher, Julia Powers, who teaches comparative literature, said that the school tried to assign a "sexual predator" to oversee her work and decide her future. She added that there is an ongoing crisis on campus that the university ignores.
New Delhi, May 1 (IBNS) : As speculations are rife over a possible rift in Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party following the series of electoral debacles, its convenor and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has ordered AAP MLAs to not make anti-party statements in the media, CNN-News 18 reported.

The warning to lawmakers comes amid rumours of infighting with Okhla MLA Amanatullah Khan alleging that Kumar Vishwas was trying to "usurp" the party with hopes of leading it.

This made Kejriwal to warn party leaders against trying to create a divide between him and his "younger brother" Vishwas.

hKhan

Kumar Vishwas had earlier differed with Kejriwal over EVM tampering as the reason behind the AAPs recent poll routs.

On Monday, the AAP will hold a meeting of its Political Affairs Committee, its top decision-making body, where the Khan-Kumar feud is likely to be discussed.

The AAP bagged only 20 seats in the Punjab polls, much below its expectations, and suffered a humiliating in the MCD polls, its home turf.






New chip under development at UTSA extends battery life of electronics

The chip makes batteries smaller and low power electronics work more efficiently.

(May 1, 2017) -- Ruyan Guo, Robert E. Clarke Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), has received a $50,000 I-Corps grant from the National Science Foundation to commercialize a chip that can make lower power electronics, like cell phones, work more efficiently.

Guo's team developed the technology, which is about the size of a pin's head, with UTSA researcher Shuza Binzaid in the UTSA Multifunctional Electronic Materials and Devices Research Laboratory alongside graduate student Avadhood Herlekar.

"The purpose of this grant is to better identify the commercial opportunities for technology created at universities," Guo said.

Guo and Binzaid are currently working with marketplace experts, as well as UTSA technology and IP management specialist Neal A. Guentzel, to understand the needs of consumers so they can determine which industry their chip is best suited for. It's an odd problem to have, since the device is applicable to several different uses, from every day electronics to medical apparatuses.

"This chip can be used with anything that runs on a battery," said Binzaid. "It manages power so that the device can last longer."

Cell phone users in desperate need of a charge, for example, put their devices on low power mode and reduce its regular functions to extend the battery life of their phones. The chip can keep a phone working at top functionality with much less power. Moreover, it facilitates the use of smaller batteries, since the object itself is so small.

The chip also tackles another common annoyance for electronics users: how hot devices get when they're being used for several minutes.

"The heat is a result of a lot of power being used," Guo said. "It's a nuisance, but with our device there is less power consumption, which means the heat will be much less of an issue."

Guo noted that as the "internet of things" becomes more integrated into the average person's daily life, battery power will continue to become a valuable resource. Beyond lower power devices such as cell phones, the chip could be used in fire sensors, fitness monitors and even medical apparatuses.

"We hope to make a significant leap forward in defibrillators and pacemakers," she said. "Invasive surgeries to replace medical devices that are running out of power could become much less frequent."

For now, Guo's team is focusing on developing the chip for customized sensors, with more possibilities on the horizon.

UTSA is ranked among the top 400 universities in the world and among the top 100 in the nation, according to Times Higher Education.

- Joanna Carver

-------------------------------

Learn more about the UTSA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn.
UW Math Lecturer Spitler Receives Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award

John Spitler is the recipient of the 2017 Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award. (UW Photo)

A gifted mathematician whose enthusiasm for math has influenced generations of Wyomingites has been honored with the University of Wyomings 2017 Ellbogen Lifetime Teaching Award.

John Spitler, who during his 32-year UW career has received at least 15 awards for his teaching, earned the annual accolade that recognizes the long, distinguished and exemplary career of one senior faculty member who has excelled as a teacher at UW.

His enthusiasm for mathematics is contagious, says fellow Department of Mathematics faculty member Myron Allen, who nominated Spitler for the honor. Students enter his classes fearful of the subject and often resentful that theyre required to take it. They leave not only with newfound confidence in their own abilities, but also with a glimpse of why so many sane people are passionate about the field.

After earning a bachelors degree in chemical engineering at Vanderbilt University in 1977, Spitler did a year of graduate work in chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis before coming to UW for graduate studies in mathematics in 1983.

For 10 years, he served in a research capacity as a graduate research assistant and assistant research scientist for the Department of Mathematics, earning his masters degree in 1988 and pursuing his Ph.D. until joining the math faculty in 1994. His instructional career began as a graduate teaching assistant and advanced through the ranks as assistant, associate and senior lecturer.

In all, he has taught close to 3,000 students in over 80 course sections -- ranging from introductory to upper-level classes -- during his 32 years at UW.

Those of us who have worked with him, who have witnessed not only his passion but his persistent efforts to improve teaching and learning, know his devotion is unusual even on a campus where great teaching is, in most places, still treasured, says Alyson Hagy, interim Outreach School dean and professor in the Creative Writing Program. John never loses sight of the students he has chosen to work with -- even if they arrive in his classroom unprepared. Never.

He also played an influential role in two university-wide committees to redesign UWs general studies program.

In addition to his work with and for UW students, Spitler has taught summer institutes for K-12 math teachers and mentored math instructors at community colleges as well. He served on the governors 2007 advisory panel for the Hathaway Success Curriculum and has been part of grant-funded efforts to improve math education in Wyomings K-12 schools.

It is quite rare to find such an advanced mathematical mind on the level of Johns who also cares about the education of high-schoolers. But that is the essence of who John is, says former UW student Dax Crum, now a technology developer for Intel Corp. He does not use his mathematical gifts to empower himself; rather, John uses his mathematical gifts to empower others to follow their dreams.

For his part, Spitler credits his colleagues and students for his career success.

I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to first study mathematics here in Laramie, grow to embrace its power and beauty, and finally to share all of that in the classroom, encouraging an amazing number of students to do the same throughout the years, he says. I would certainly like to thank the Ellbogen family for all they have done and continue to do to enhance quality instruction at UW, my colleagues in math who have unwaveringly believed in me since I walked into that first college algebra class in the fall of 1983, and countless others across our campus, at the Wyoming community colleges and around the state with whom it's been my privilege to work. But most of all, I want to thank all of the students who have made the effort to take up the challenge of what often is a fearful journey.
UW SBDC Hosts Workshops in Casper, Gillette for Independent Restaurateurs

Chris Tripoli, owner of Houston-based A La Carte Foodservice Consulting Group, will host two Wyoming SBDC workshops, titled Restaurant Reality  Mastering the 3 Ms: Menu, Management and Marketing. They are scheduled Monday, May 22, 8:30-10:30 a.m., in Casper; and Tuesday, May 23, 8-10 a.m., in Gillette. (A La Carte Foodservice Consulting Group Photo)

For small-business owners, who operate independent restaurants, they know their businesses face increased competition, labor shortages, and rising operating and occupancy expenses.

For help in these areas, the Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) will host two workshops, titled Restaurant Reality  Mastering the 3 Ms: Menu, Management and Marketing, scheduled Monday, May 22, 8:30-10:30 a.m., in Casper; and Tuesday, May 23, 8-10 a.m., in Gillette. The Casper workshop will be held at 300 S. Wolcott St., Suite 300. The Gillette workshop will take place at 2001 W. Lakeway Road, Suite C.

The SBDC is a partnership among the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Council and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBDC focuses on educating small-business owners and potential owners on how to successfully start and operate small businesses. The SBDCs main office is located at UW.

Chris Tripoli, owner of Houston-based A La Carte Foodservice Consulting Group, will discuss how restauranteurs are succeeding and expanding, despite the challenges that are facing the industry today and their strategies for success. Tripoli will discuss menu practices that can increase revenue; technologies that will help manage costs; principles to use to properly select, train and retain staff; and ways to succeed at marketing, without a costly marketing budget.

A La Carte is an international restaurant consulting group that provides concept development, operations assistance and growth planning services. In addition to having developed award-winning restaurants, Tripoli also has worked with cafeterias, hotels, country clubs, airports, parks and convention centers. He co-wrote the book, So, Youre Thinking About Owning, Operating or Investing in a Restaurant; currently teaches at the SBDC at the University of Houston; and speaks at numerous hospitality meetings and workshops.

Registration for the program is free of charge due to a Portable Assistance Grant from the U.S. SBA, but attendees must register to ensure a seat at www.wyomingsbdc.org/. For individuals unable to attend the classroom presentation in person, they can attend electronically via GoToMeeting.

Additionally, Tripoli will conduct individual consulting with several local restaurants in both Casper and Gillette. The time available for consulting is limited. If you are in Casper, contact Cindy Unger at (307) 234-6683 or cindyu@uwyo.edu to set up a consultation or to obtain the remote GoToWebinar link. If you are in Gillette, contact Susan Jerke at (307) 682-5232 or sjerke@uwyo.edu. Restauranteurs are encouraged to call as soon as possible to schedule a time slot.

Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities will be made, if requested at least two weeks in advance. For further information, call Unger at (307) 234-6683 or Jerke at (307) 682-5232.

The Wyoming SBDC Network is a business advising group of the Wyoming SBDC, Procurement Technical Assistance Center, Market Research Center and SBIR/STTR Initiative. The networks mission is to help Wyoming entrepreneurs succeed. Advising and most market research activities are free of charge to Wyoming residents.

The SBDC is funded, in part, through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. SBA. Additional support is provided by the Wyoming Business Council and UW.

For more information, go to www.wyomingsbdc.org.
Patna, May 1 (TheBiharPost/IBNS): Bihar ruling party lawmaker Bhai Birendra has refused to remove red beacon from his car saying he was bound by the rules of the state government.

Birendra who is from Lalu Prasads Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), made this declaration on Monday.



I wont follow the order of the Union government. I will abide by the rules of the state government only, he told the media on Monday.



Another ruling party leader and education minister Ashok Chaudhary who hails from the Congress party too condemned the Centres move to ban the red beacon.



I dont know why the people are after red beacon. VIP culture doesnt include only red beacon but also blocking road traffic for an hour for the President and the PM, Chaudhary said.



He said the Prime Minister perhaps wanted to take credit for ending VIP culture by carrying out only superficial surgery.



Quite many other ruling party lawmakers made similar observations saying they would remove the red beacon only after a notification to this effect is issued by the state government.



The Union Cabinet at its meeting held last month banned red beacon from today (May 1) in a bid to end VIP culture.



Every Indian is special, every Indian is a VIP, is how PM Narendra Modi says.

thebiharpost.com
Image: twitter.com/MVenkaiahNaidu

New Delhi, May 1 (IBNS): Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation M.Venkaiah Naidu will review progress of implementation of new urban missions in Karnataka on Monday.

Naidu will chair the review meeting to be held in Bengaluru.

Ministers of Urban Development and Housing, Chief Secretary of Karnataka, Secretaries of both the urban ministries of Government of India, National and State level Mission Directors of new urban missions besides other senior officials of central and State Governments would be attending the review.

Under different new urban missions launched during the last three years, the central government approved an investment of about Rs.25,000 cr for improving urban infrastructure in Karnataka with central assistance of about Rs.9,000 cr.

Under Smart City Mission, six cities of Karnataka have been included in the mission of which five cities viz., Davangere, Belgavi, Shivamogga, Mangaluru and Hubbali-Dharwad have been selected for financing smart city plans of respective cities in two rounds of competition so far held.

The sixth one i.e Tumakuru is participating in the third round of competition. Bengaluru has also been allowed to participate in the competition.

Investments approved under Smart City Plans are: Belgavi-Rs.3,534 cr, Hubbali-Dharwad-Rs.2,227 cr, Mangaluru-Rs.2,001 cr, Shivamogga-Rs.1,517 cr and Davanagere-Rs.1,307 cr. Central assistance of Rs.500 cr per each city is provided under this mission.

Under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), centre has approved a total investment of Rs.4,971 cr with central assistance of Rs. 2,319 cr for improving basic urban infrastructure in 27 mission cities. These include; Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Gulbarga, Bellary, Belgaum, Bidar, Tumakuru and Hasan.

Provision of water taps to all urban households in the mission cities and improving water supply to the normative 135 litres per day is accorded priority under this mission followed by expansion of sewerage and drainage networks, non-motorised transport and open spaces.

Badami is among the 12 cities in the country in Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY). An investment of Rs.22.26 is envisaged for improving heritage related infrastructure in Badami.

Under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), construction of 1,46,548 affordable houses for urban poor in Karnataka has so far been approved by the centre with an investment of Rs.6,288 cr for which central assistance of Rs. 2,492 cr has been approved.

Naidu will review progress in respect of all these new initiatives.


Join animal lovers and philanthropists for an exquisite evening of wine, tea and desserts at the beloved annual event, Animals in Wonderland. 2017 sees remarkable changes to this affair, inspired by the transformations of rescued animals at Nevada SPCA No-Kill Animal Shelter.

Animals in Wonderland: Chapter 7  Sunset at Shenandoah, presented by Las Vegas Review-Journal, is set to be the affair of the year with a labyrinth of characters from a certain mad hatters tea party within the enchantment of the grand landscape of Wayne Newtons Casa de Shenandoah.

Guests will be treated to a variety of delicious desserts, wines, and an upscale tea bar as they mix with some of Vegas finest and meet inspiring (and adoptable) rescued animals.

In addition, attendees can bid on a variety of exclusive silent auction items and compete for one-of-a-kind live auction experiences while having afterhours access to the grounds of Las Vegas icon Wayne Newton.
Chef Martin Yang will hold a cooking demonstration on May 20 during An Giang Provinces Food and Tourism Week, to be held from May 16-25 at Vinh ong Trade Centre in Chau oc City.

The event, organised by An Giang Tourism Promotion Centre and the Sai Gon Biz Marketing Communication Joint-Stock Company, will introduce local specialties and encourage participating vendors to offer higher quality food and services, further boosting tourism.

There will be 200 booths, displaying signature dishes and souvenirs from An Giang and other provinces, including Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, ong Nai, Long An, Thai Nguyen and Thua Thien Hue, among others, according to the provincial Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

Food vendors from Thailand, Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, and the US and others will also join the event.

Visitors will have an opportunity to meet famous international chef Martin Yan, who will have a cooking demonstration on May 20.

To attract more visitors, event organisers will hold a ceremony to honour Ba Chua Xu (local tutelary goddess) and on Ca Tai Tu (southern folk music) performances featuring the cultural values of the Oc Eo period and ethnic Khmer.
Cars travel through a road tunnel section at the intersection of Le Duan and Tran Phu streets on the west bank of the Han River yesterday. - VNS Photo Tran Le Lam

The project, which was built on a 21,000sq.m area at a cost of VN137.5-billion (US$6.11 million), will ease rush hour traffic at the citys most busy intersection with a two-lane tunnel on Tran Phu street.

The tunnel project also included two 200m long open-air sections and a 40m underground tunnel, for both cars and motorbikes.

Last year, the city also began construction for the second tunnel at the junction of ien Bien Phu, Nguyen Tri Phuong and Le o streets, using money from the World Bank-funded sustainable development project, with a total investment of VN220 billion ($9.77 million).

a Nang, the third largest city in Viet Nam, has made significant investments in urban development, to develop it as the largest city in the central region, as well as a green city by 2025, with funds from the World Bank.

In 2013, the World Bank agreed to provide $202 million for a $272 million sustainable development project to help build the citys Bus Rapid Transit network, build new roads and revamp the citys drainage system.

The bank also funded a five-year priority infrastructure project for the city, by covering 70 per cent of the total investment of $218.4 million.

In 2015, the city put into operation a three-level rail and road flyover at Hue Junction to alleviate congestion.
Guwahati, May 1 (IBNS): Union Minister of State (MoS) for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha on Monday said that the Centre is planning to build an aerotropilsh in Assam which would bring huge benefits to the region in terms of civil aviation and air connectivity.

While meet the Assam CM at Brahmaputra State Guest House in Guwahati the Union minister requested the Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to allot 2000 acres of land within hour-long distance from Guwahati City near Brahmaputra River for the aerotropilsh.

Both discussed various issues pertaining to development of civil aviation sector in the state.

The Assam CM assured all cooperation in this regard and said that it would be huge opportunity for the Northeast to open air links with the South East Asian countries.

It is to be mentioned that an aerotropolis is an airport centric metropolitan hub where infrastructure and economy are all based on the access to the airport which serves as a commercial point like any traditional metropolis which contains a central city commercial core area and commuter-linked suburbs.

Stating that the Act East Policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been at forefront of the development agenda of the state the Assam CM stated the proposed aerotropilsh would bolster the air connectivity in the region and open the North-eastern region as the business hub of the South East Asia.

Sonowal also requested the Union minister for sending officials from the Union Civil Aviation Department for conducting aerial survey of the entire stretch of Brahmaputra from Sadiya to Dhubri with helicopter for identifying suitable locations setting up airports in the state.

Saying that the Northeast has the potential to be the growth engine of the country with opening road and air links with the South East Asian countries, Sonowal urged the Union minister for starting direct flights on the Guwahati  Bangkok and Guwahati- Singapore routes which would speed up the momentum of economic growth of the region by increased tourist inflow and trade activities.

Referring to the government plan of dredging the Brahmaputra River from Sadiya to Dhubri, the Assam CM said that increased depth of the river would enable plying of cargo ships on Brahmaputra through Bangladesh to Chittagong port for which agreement with Bangladesh government has already been made and it road, water and air connectivity would see a huge improvement in the state in near future.

Union Minister of State Jayant Sinha also urged the Assam CM for expediting the work of metro train in the in Guwahati so that access to proposed aerotropilsh and airports can be improved.

Sonowal apprised Sinha that the government is working on starting metro train in the city and it would be complete by the time aerotropilsh comes up in next few years.

He also apprised the Union Minister of State of governments plan of making a State Capital Region including nearby areas of Guwahati city and industry majors of the country are being invited to set up base in the state to take advantage of the infrastructure boom of the state.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Vietnam is currently Laos biggest investor Photo: VNA

According to a joint statement released during Phucs April 26-27 visit to Laos, he and his counterpart, Thongloun Sisoulith, cut a ribbon to inaugurate the Crowne Plaza Vientiane Hotel  the first five-star hotel in Laos to meet international standards.

The two leaders also witnessed the signing of nine co-operative deals (see table).

It has been the aim of both leaders to raise two-way trade turnover by 10 per cent during the 2017 financial calendar. The two also wish to see increased connectivity between the two economies, particularly in the transport and energy sectors.

Bilateral turnover reached over $823.4 million last year, but this figure was a 26.7 per cent drop on-year.

Both leaders pledged to timely deploy the contents of the signed agreements, particularly the protocol on co-operation in defence and security 2016-2020; the protocol on border line and national border markers; the agreement on border and border gate management regulations; the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on bilateral transport co-operation strategy 2016-2025 with a vision towards 2030; and the agreement on building the Vientiane-Pacxan-Thanh Thuy-Hanoi highway.

Vietnam is Laos biggest investor. As of February 2017, Vietnam had 408 valid investment projects with a total registered capital of approximately $3.7 billion in Laos, according to Vietnams Ministry of Planning and Investment.

During the prime ministers April 24-25 visit to Cambodia, Phuc and his counterpart, Hun Sen, participated in the inauguration ceremony for the new Chrey Thom-Long Binh Bridge. The bridge connects Cambodias Kandal province and Vietnams An Giang province, and was funded by the Vietnamese government through concessional loans.

The two prime ministers also witnessed the signing of four MoUs on promoting the study and construction of the Ho Chi Minh City-Moc Bai, and Phnom Penh-Bavet expressway projects; building a voluntary, community-based treatment service centre for drug addiction in Cambodias Preah Sihanouk province; increasing bilateral co-operation in the fisheries sector; and supporting the construction of Phnom Penh-Hanoi friendship boulevard.

According to a joint statement released during Phucs Cambodia visit, both nations agreed to continue fostering co-operation in a number of sectors including education and training, border trade, tourism, telecommunications, aviation, banking, natural resources, agriculture, and power generation.

The agreements solidify both countries commitment to hit a goal of $5 billion in bilateral trade volume in the coming years. In 2016, the bilateral trade totalled $2.93 billion.

Nine co-operation deals inked between Vietnam and Laos - Agreement on a joint venture project to develop Vung Ang Port as a Lao-Vietnamese port. - Agreement on the construction of a railway stretching from Vientiane through Thakhek, Mayu, and Ton Ob to Vung Ang. - Agreement on the construction of the Phouthid Pheung Road between Luang Prabang and Naxone, which borders Dien Bien. - Agreement on completing feasibility studies for upgrading roads, including Road No.18 B in Attapeu; a road stretching between Poungtha, Thama, and Phialy in Xaysomboun; and a road stretching between Xaysomboun, Tebele, Phoukongkhao, and Samhopadong in Xaysomboun. - Sub-agreement on amending the agreement on Laos-Vietnam border trade. - Sub-agreement on education co-operation. - MoU on the construction of a bonded oil warehouse in Hon La and oil pipeline between Hon La and Khammouane. - MoU on the purchase of electricity generated by a thermal power plant in Xekong between Electricity of Vietnam and Phonesack Group. - Agreement on financial co-operation.

Vietnam currently has 190 valid investment projects in Cambodia, with a total registered capital of $2.89 billion. Vietnamese companies including the likes of Viettel, Vietnam Rubber Group, and Electricity of Vietnam are well-placed in the Cambodian market. For example, the joint Metfone-Viettel venture has contributed over $400 million to Cambodias state coffers in the past decade.

On April 28, after his visit to Laos and Cambodia, Phuc headed to the Philippines to attend the 30th ASEAN Summit.
A set of ancient Angkorian gold jewelry that found its way to a London art dealership will be returned to Cambodia after the government intervened to stop a planned sale.

The Jonathan Tucker Antonia Tozer Asian Art dealership listed the jewelry in its online catalog, according to a statement from Cambodias Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.

The ministry petitioned the dealership in November to return the Angkorian artifacts. They originated in the Khmer empire, a power in Southeast Asia from A.D. 802 to A.D. 1431. At one point, it included much of todays Cambodia, Thailand, Laos and southern Vietnam.

Cambodia has provided concrete testimony to prove that the artifact jewelry belongs to Cambodia, is jewelry designed in the Khmer style and that only Cambodia has this style, and it was taken out of the country illegally, the statement said.

Looting during the war

During decades of war, Cambodia lost countless priceless historical artifacts to looters and smugglers who targeted ancient sites. The Khmer Rouge and other military groups often controlled looters in their areas.

There is a good argument that the illicit trade in artifacts, gemstones and timber even helped to prolong the conflict, Terressa Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition and School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow, told VOA Khmer in an email.

Many of the items they took ended up with foreign art traders, although it is not clear when the jewelry in question was taken from the kingdom or by whom.

Jonathan Tucker, joint owner of the dealership, did not immediately respond to an interview request.

Items to return to Cambodia

The set includes a crown, necklace, earrings, armbands, belt and chest ornament, and will be returned with the assistance of the British government, Thai Norak Satya, spokesman for the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, said. In recent years, Cambodia has successfully repatriated several ancient statues from the United States.

Looting artifacts has a history almost as old as some of the items themselves.

The earliest known trial of looters in Egypt took place in Thebes in 1113 B.C. Today, there are curbs on the trade.

In 1970, UNESCO adopted the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, which to date 132 countries have signed.

Antiquities in demand

Nonetheless, there is a multibillion-dollar demand for ancient artifacts such as the Angkorian jewelry  too great a demand to be met by the legal supply, Davis said.

As a result, looting and trafficking is now an illegal industry that spans the globe, financing crime, conflict and even terrorism, said Davis, a lawyer who in 2015 was knighted by the Royal Government of Cambodia for her work in recovering the countrys plundered heritage.

As is happening today in Iraq and Syria, the Cambodian Civil War triggered organized looting, and trafficking, which helped to further bankroll the conflict, she said.

Two years ago, UNESCO described the Islamic States looting in Syria and Iraq as industrial in scale.

Norak Satya said the recovery was an act of encouragement in the fight against the illicit trade in antiquities. Davis agreed, saying most Cambodian artworks are sacred objects that were never meant to be bought and sold.

They are the rightful property  and legacy  of the Cambodian people, she said. Yet, like so many Cambodian families, the countrys ancient treasures were broken apart during the civil war and scattered to the ends of the Earth. As this story shows, they are continuing to surface and likely will for decades to come.

Preserving heritage

Sambo Manara, a history professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, said the return of looted artifacts to Cambodia would help to preserve Khmer heritage.

Our ancestors left us a heritage that the world started to pay attention to, he said. What we have obtained recently tells the world about the real value of Cambodias great men and ancient ancestors.

Phoeung Sakona, Cambodias minister of Culture and Fine Arts, said the return of the artifacts would help to heal old wounds. She encouraged other dealerships to follow suit.

It is a sign of Cambodias recovery that this heritage is now returning home, thanks to the hard work of the Ministry of Culture and Council of Ministers, Davis said. This is not just about art, it is about justice, and it gives hope to countries in conflict today, like Iraq and Syria.
Civil society groups said it was too early to conclude that U.S.-Cambodia relations were in dire straights following a visit to the country by a senior diplomat last month in the wake of the leaking of a draft budget that could see the superpowers development assistance to Cambodia canceled if approved.

During his one-day visit to Phnom Penh last month, W. Patrick Murphy, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, met Cambodias foreign minister, members of the opposition, civil society groups and the private sector.

Thida Khus, executive director of Silaka, a womens rights NGO, said Murphy had discussed electoral reform and human rights issues.

We also asked him about the USs foreign policy under the Trump administration, and he said that the United States still emphasizes good relations with Southeast Asian countries, she said.

We are keeping a close eye on the news about the [possible] US foreign aid reductions. No one is sure about it as it is still under discussion, she added.

However, in a separate meeting with members of the media, Murphy said there was a lot of discussion and deliberation on how that budget should be formulated at a later stage.

Trade for the United States is very important, and the new administration places importance on trade, and that is no exception. It's been important for the United States economy for a long time. And, this Southeast Asia region, Asean as a collective is an important trading partner of the United States. he said.

The concern over apparently deteriorating relations comes after Cambodia canceled a major military exercise with the United States, postponed a U.S. Navy mission in the country indefinitely, and railed against what the government claimed was a U.S.-backed conspiracy to undermine the rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Since the Khmer Rouge tribunal decided to drop all charges against former regime official Im Chaem in February, numerous ex-cadres have come forward to call on the court to dismiss charges they face in upcoming cases.

Ao An, 79, a former deputy commander of the Khmer Rouges Central Zone, told VOA Khmer that he was appealing to the tribunal to follow the precedent set in the decision not to prosecute Chaem on the grounds she was not a senior regime leader or one of those most responsible for its crimes.



An is a suspect in Case 004 along with Yim Thit, the former commander of the Northwest Zone, who along with Chaem were charged with crimes against humanity. I was not a top leader. I am also a victim like the others, An said.

Meas Muth, another aging former Khmer Rouge commander and a suspect in Case 003, said that he would leave the decision to the court. He showed VOA Khmer reporters a coffin and shrine he has had built in preparation for his death.

What Im most worried about is that the temple which Im building has not been completed yet. If the temple is finished before I die I will feel relieved when I pass away, he said.

Muth is the only suspect in Case 003 charged with crimes against humanity, charges he denies. The cases have faced opposition from the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has on numerous occasions expressed objections to the pursuit of further prosecutions and warned of civil war if international prosecutors continue to try former member of the regime.

Many people in former Khmer Rouge strongholds in Cambodias northwest agree with the premier.

Preap Yoeum, 60, a former regime soldier, said further prosecutions would harm Cambodias future. Mistakes happen. They could not control all of the country by themselves, as I understand it, as other foreign countries interfere in Cambodia, he said.

Another former soldier, Men Chhim, 72, said court proceedings should be restricted to the senior leadership of the former regime.

If they only try the leaders, it would not create many problems. But if they try more, it would spread from one generation to the next, he said.

Sem Sarin, 51, said that while killing was a crime many of those responsible had already died and those who were still alive should be allowed to live out the rest of their lives in peace.

Long Panhavuth of the Cambodian Justice Initiative, said political negotiations would need to take place to resolve the dispute over whether to continue with prosecutions under the tribunal.

I believe cases 003 and 004 will be a situation where we can compare it to grilling a large elephant and we dont know whether it is cooked or not. This is what the victims at the tribunal worry about, he said.

He added that if perpetrators were seen as escaping justice it would undermine trust in the court, but he could foresee power being passed to a national court, with the international branch of the court possibly assuming an advisory role, the court being divided into smaller, case-specific trial chambers, or a final submission being passed and the court closed.

For Chaem, 75, the court should drop all further cases against former members of the regime.

If the court just believes any story without evidence, it is wrong, she said.

The court is expected to conclude case 002 next year.
Reporters Without Borders accuses him of engaging in hate speech against journalists. Freedom House questions whether he believes in the fundamental principles of press freedom. And the Committee to Protect Journalists, which last year labeled him an unprecedented threat to global media freedom, says things havent gotten any better since he took office.

Thats just a sampling of the kind of blistering language leading media rights groups use to describe U.S. President Donald Trump in several reports published ahead of World Press Freedom Day, May 3.

Taken together, the reports amount to a stunning rebuke of the U.S., which has long seen itself as a standard-bearer of free speech and a model for countries around the world.

Watch: Global Press Freedom at Tipping Point,' Report Warns

National political discourse

The outrage stems from Trumps verbal attacks on the news media since entering the national political scene.

Trump has referred to the press as the opposition party. Hes said theyre among the most dishonest human beings on Earth. He regularly accuses journalists and media outlets he doesnt like of spreading fake news. Hes even called the press the enemy of the people.

This week, media rights groups returned the favor.

No U.S. president in recent memory has shown greater contempt for the press than Trump has in his first months in office, warned Freedom House in its yearly report on global press freedom released Friday. Such comments suggest a hostility toward the fundamental principles and purposes of press freedom.

In its World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Trumps actions compromise a long U.S. tradition of defending freedom of expression and are helping spark a worldwide decline in media rights.

White House officials did not respond to VOAs request for comment, but in the past have insisted Trump respects freedom of speech and is only criticizing outlets that he thinks treat him unfairly.

Democracies suffering

Trump is far from the only world leader to make slamming the media a pastime. In fact, its part of a larger trend of eroding press freedom in democracies around the world.

RSF specifically points to Canada, where anti-terrorism laws have raised concerns about government spying on journalists; Poland, where new laws give authorities greater control over media outlets; and Britain, where media bashing played a prominent part of the so-called Brexit campaign to leave the European Union.

Even in the United States, many press freedom concerns predate Trump.

Media rights groups also criticized former President Barack Obamas crackdown on federal officials who leak information to journalists, as well as his attempts to limit media access at the White House.

Democracies began falling in the Index in preceding years and now, more than ever, nothing seems to be checking that fall, said RSF, which warned media rights have never been so threatened as they were during the past year.

Over the past year, media rights deteriorated in nearly two-thirds of the countries measured by RSF. Global press freedom is at its lowest point in 13 years, according to Freedom Houses metric, which estimates that just 13 percent of the worlds population lives under a free press.

US institutions still healthy

The U.S. itself hasnt slipped very far in either groups metric.

According to Reporters Without Borders, the U.S. fell two spots, to 43rd place, in 2017. Freedom House, which uses an aggregate score, calculates the U.S. dropped two points  from 21/100 to 23/100.

But despite Trumps verbal attacks on journalists, the overall state of press freedom in the U.S. remains strong, thanks in part to constitutional safeguards.

We are very concerned by the kind of rhetoric weve seen Trump make as president in 2017, [but] we recognize the vibrancy of U.S. media and its strong institutions, Jennifer Dunham, research director at Freedom House, said. The overall environment hasnt suffered a huge amount.

Worldwide impact?

Perhaps of greater concern is the international impact of Trumps treatment of the media. Even before he won the election, the Committee to Protect Journalists warned Trump was an unprecedented threat to global press freedom.

Those concerns were heightened after several authoritarian governments, including in China and Cambodia, borrowed Trumps language or explicitly referenced his actions as justification for mistreating their own media.

The hate speech used by the new boss in the White House and his accusations of lying also helped to disinhibit attacks on the media almost everywhere in the world, RSFs Delphine Halgand warned.

That amounts to a major role reversal for a country that has long portrayed itself as a beacon for free speech. And it shows that what happens in the U.S. carries a special weight, Freedom House warned.

Further weakening of press freedom in the United States, it warned, would be a setback for democracy everywhere.
Chen Sokngeng, 26, is the youngest candidate standing in the forthcoming local elections in June.

He will contest the Sala Kam Reuk commune seat on an opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party ticket, going head-to-head with the incumbent ruling Cambodian Peoples Party candidate.

Sokngeng joined the opposition in 2011 and was elected president of the CNRP youth movement for tourism in Siem Reap last year.

I wasnt selected by the party, rather it was the people who voted for me to stand as a commune chief candidate, he told VOA Khmer.

Born in Kampong Cham province, the junior pediatrician, who only graduated in 2013, has dedicated the last two years to the CNRP youth wing.

I want to help people more in Siem Reap. I told myself that I have to stand for the commune chief [position], he said, a position he expects to win, despite going up against an experienced politician with the ruling party apparatus behind him.

Sokngeng says he is confident that people need a change and that this will translate into victory.

They want the next generation who are capable to lead since they are tired of old leadership. People are waiting for the election day and they will vote CNRP, he says.

He promises transparent governance if elected and an end to the frustrations he says have dogged the ruling partys control of Sala Kam Reuk.

Despite the experience of leading the commune, the old leadership cannot bring progress. Only new ideas and the force of youth can do that.

The CPP won seven of the 11 council seats in the commune in 2012, securing more than 8,000 of the 11,500 seats nationwide. Only 40 of the 1,633 commune chief positions went to the CNRP in 2012.

But at the 2013 general election the opposition surprised many by winning a large majority in parliament - 55 of the National Assemblys 123 seats. Sokngeng believes the CNRP has only gained in popularity at the local level since then. He is standing on an anti-corruption platform, promising to bring in more tourism to the area.

However, Sam Lan, the 60-year-old incumbent, is confident the CPP will maintain its majority in the commune. I have solved a lot of problems for the people. What they have asked for, I have provided, he said.

I meet many people who say they will support me in the commune election. They think that [my administration] is acceptable, he said.

Lan went on the criticize Sokngeng for his inexperience. He doesnt have a fixed residence and has not met many people here. How can the people know him? Only his friends know him.

He said a vote for the CPP in Sala Kam Reuk would be a vote for stable leadership, better roads and a new sewage system.

Locals hold mixed views on whether such a young candidate can meet their expectations.

Yim Loa, 65, said it did not matter to her how young a candidate was as long as they had the skills and knowledge to do the job. Perhaps a young commune chief will be progressive and have better knowledge than the old one. With high knowledge, he is able to be the commune chief.

Hong Ratana, 37, a grocery seller, said he wanted to see Lan retain his position and ensure security in the commune. He questioned Sokngengs experience. He may have the knowledge, but he has never had any experience and its a lot of work, he said.

Another villager, Tiem Sokunthea, 41, said the villagers needed a commune chief who was not corrupt, but also one who would address growing concerns about security, crime and poor infrastructure.

The smell of sewage is disgusting when it rains. Theres also a lot of rubbish, she said.

Niem Lok, 58, a farmer in Sala Kam Reuks Trapain Treng village, said he wanted a change of leadership if the newcomer could help raise the price of rice, a common refrain among farming communities across the country.

The commune elections, scheduled for June 4, are promising to be a competitive affair, with the CPP and CNRP appearing to have comparable support. Twelve parties will contest the election, but only the CPP and CNRP have registered candidates in the countrys 1,646 communes.

However, only three parties, including League of Democratic Party (LDP), have registered in Sala Kam Reuk.
John Lansing, the CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the parent organization for the Voice of America, told a panel commemorating World Press Freedom Day that there is a war of information happening in the world.

The BBG and George Washington University's (GWU) School for Media and Public Affairs organized the panel in Washington on Monday to discuss the challenges of international journalism, the rise of fake news and how media can establish credibility.

Lansing brought up the allegations that Russia interfered in the recent U.S. election and said people should be alarmed by those reports and step up their investment in factual information. If not, he said, "I really fear what the consequences might be."

The acting U.S. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, D. Bruce Wharton said it "feels like the media environment around the globe is deteriorating." He said during the keynote address that "it is important that we are all here today to stand in defense of press freedom."

Michael Oreskes, senior vice president of news and editorial director at National Public Radio, said the rise of fake news is undermining a fundamental base of journalism  the belief that there are facts. He said journalists "believe in our role of what is a fact" and know "how to track down where information came from."

He said in "a war of information, journalists cannot be sucked in as combatants  we are not on any side." Oreskes said journalists must reestablish their credibility and establish a relationship with an audience.

Elise Labott, CNN's global affairs correspondent, said now that some media are being seen as fake news, and its causing us to spend our day either defending ourselves or repacking the facts to show that our facts are right instead of our original mission, which is to just do the reporting and let it speak for itself.

Lansing says he sometimes hears the argument that if the United States is trying to oppose propaganda from foreign countries, then it should respond with propaganda. However, he said if the BBG did that, it would lose its credibility.

"We hold ourselves accountable to these audiences that they trust us," he said.

Moderator Frank Sesno, the director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at GWU, said the media must do better.

"We are not trusted, we are not transparent," he said, adding that the media must do a better job educating people every day about how they gather information.

"That needs to be a much more conscious campaign," he said.
Fifty-six years ago today, Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro banned multiparty elections and declared Cuba a socialist nation.

Addressing hundreds of thousands of Cubans at a May Day parade (read his speech in English here), Castro openly identified himself as a Marxist-Leninist, setting off a decades-long Cold War with the United States.

"If Mr Kennedy does not like socialism, we do not like imperialism," Castro said, referring to then-president John F. Kennedy. "We do not like capitalism."

The May Day proclamation came just one month after the failed U.S.-sponsored invasion of the island by Cuban exiles, the so-called Bay of Pigs operation.

The invasion force of 1,300 men landed at Bahia de Cochinos, but was quickly crushed. The days that followed saw thousands of anti-Castro rebels confined in makeshift prisons; hundreds were later executed.

Castro came to power in 1959 after leading a successful revolt against dictator Fulgencio Batista and his government.

From the start, the United States worried that Castro was too leftist in his politics. He implemented agrarian reform, expropriated foreign oil company holdings, and eventually seized all foreign-owned property in Cuba.

He also established close diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and the Russians were soon providing economic and military aid to the Caribbean nation.

By January 1961, the United States had severed diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Decades later in 2014 (long after the dissolution of the former Soviet Union), former U.S. President Barack Obama restored full diplomatic relations with Cuba. The U.S. opened an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century as Obama vowed to "cut loose the shackles of the past" and sweep aside one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.

The historic deal broke an enduring stalemate between the two countries, divided by 144 kilometers of water and decades of mistrust and hostility dating from the days of Theodore Roosevelts charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish American War that brought independence to Cuba.

The visit by Obama in 2016 was aimed at cementing the new relationship between Washington and Havana. Some years before, in 2008, an aging and unwell Fidel Castro officially stepped down, handing power to his brother, Raul.

Fidel Castro died Nov. 25, 2016, at age 90.
Guwahati, May 1 (IBNS): Police on Monday arrested two persons in connection with Sundayas lynching of two alleged cattle thieves in central Assamas Nagaon district.

Nagaon police arrested two persons named Robin Bordoloi and Dewaram Bordoloi for their alleged involvement in the lynching incident.

Nagaon district Superintendent of Police Debraj Upadhay said that, following the incident police has started investigation by registering a case and arrested two persons hailing from Pukhuripar village near Kachamari area for their alleged involvement into the incident.

We have taken the matter very seriously and already registered a case, the top Assam cop said.

On Sunday, a mob lynched two youth, between the age group of 20-25 years, suspecting them to be cattle thieves at Jalmoigaon near Kachamari under Jajori police station in the central Assam district.

The youths succumbed to their injuries while they were admitted at hospital in serious condition.

The deceased youths were identified as Abu Hanifa and Riyazuddin Ali.

A group of people intercepted the youths on suspicion of stealing cattle and attacked them in paddy field.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)


U.S. Central Intelligence Agency chief Mike Pompeo is in Seoul for talks with South Korean intelligence officials as top U.S. officials continue to express deep concerns about North Korea's nuclear weapons development program.



Pompeo, traveling with his wife Susan, arrived in the South Korean capital over the weekend and met with the head of the National Intelligence Service and high-level presidential aides.



Their meetings occurred hours before Pyongyang declared Monday that in the face of new U.S. pressure for U.N. sanctions against North Korea it would "speed up" its nuclear deterrence "at the maximum pace."





Nuclear test



North Korea conducted another missile test Saturday, another in a string of launches that South Korea and U.S. officials say was a failure. Pyongyang is looking to develop a long-range missile, one that could carry a nuclear warhead 9,000 kilometers to the U.S. mainland.



U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said Sunday that Washington would adhere to its agreement with South Korea to shoulder the cost of a new missile defense system that is being installed in the face of the North Korean threat. But McMaster said the U.S. is also looking for Seoul to share the cost in the future.



A U.S. aircraft carrier strike group, headed by the USS Carl Vinson, is in nearby waters off the Korean peninsula, dispatched there by President Donald Trump as a warning signal against North Korea. A Japanese destroyer left port Monday to join the U.S. ships, as Tokyo takes a more active military role in the region.

In Australia, Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull issued a new warning against North Korea, saying his government and the U.S. are "taking a strong message to North Korea that we will not tolerate reckless, dangerous threats to the peace and stability of our region.'' Turnbull and Trump are meeting for the first time Thursday in New York.



In an interview broadcast Sunday, Trump said he "would not be happy" if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, which would be its sixth.



"I can tell you also, I don't believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either," Trump said of Chinese President Xi Jinping.



Asked if "not happy" with another Pyongyang nuclear test meant he would undertake "military action" against the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump said, "I don't know. I mean, we'll see. It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is."



Trump, in a Twitter comment, said the Pyongyang's latest missile test, even though it failed, "disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President.... Bad!" But in the interview on the CBS network, Trump said North Korea eventually "will have a better delivery system."



The U.S. leader described Kim Jong Un as "obviously ... a pretty smart cookie," but said the U.S. cannot allow North Korea to develop a nuclear weapon, and blamed prior American presidential administrations for not dealing with the Pyongyang's military ambitions.



Saturday's North Korean missile test came just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned the United Nations Security Council of "catastrophic consequences" if the international community, and especially China, does not pressure North Korea into ending its nuclear weapons development program.



The United States and South Korea on Sunday completed their annual large-scale military drills, which involved 20,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 U.S. forces. But the two countries continued their joint naval exercise in the Sea of Japan that Pyongyang has condemned as a provocation in preparation for an attack on North Korea.
In the face of international outrage, U.S. President Donald Trump's spokesman says the decision to invite authoritarian Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and other East Asian leaders to the White House is part of a strategy to isolate North Korea.

"It is an opportunity to work with countries in that region who can help play a role in diplomatically and economically isolating North Korea," said White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday. "And, frankly, the national interests of the United States, the safety of our people and the safety of people in the region are the number one priorities of the president."

In telephone conversations over the weekend, Trump invited the leaders of Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines to visit. But it was the invitation to the firebrand Duterte that touched off shock waves on Capitol Hill and infuriated the global human rights community.

Invitation questioned

"President Trump weakens American values when he fails to stand up for human rights," said Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, in a written statement. "President Duterte has overseen the illegal killing of thousands of his own people in the Philippines. By welcoming Duterte to meet with him at the White House, Trump risks giving Duterte's actions and his brutal human rights violations an American stamp of approval."

"It sends a terrible message to the world," said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.

Duterte has been scorned internationally for his war on drugs, which has featured the extrajudicial killings of thousands of people. He is reported to have bragged to British media that he personally killed three suspects while he was mayor of the southern city of Davao.

Jonah Blank, Asia analyst at the Rand Corporation, noted that even some White House and State Department staff were caught off guard at news of the Duterte invitation. "It's a balancing of the values America has stood for under both Democratic and Republican administrations, versus a desire to have warmer relations with problematic leaders," Blank told VOA.

Trump isnt concerned

Trump brushed off concerns about Duterte's reputation in an interview Monday with Bloomberg News. "The Philippines is very important to me strategically and militarily," the president said. "I look forward to meeting him. If he comes to the White House, that's fine."

The invitation to Duterte raised questions Monday at the White House about whether Trump had been fully briefed on the Philippine president's human rights record. "The president gets fully briefed on the leaders he's speaking to," Spicer said. "But the number one concern of the president is to make sure we do everything we can to protect our people."

Trump even mused to Bloomberg that he might be willing to invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the White House. Spicer, however, clarified that such an invitation could only come if circumstances change in North Korea.

"Under the right circumstances was, I believe, the phrase used," Spicer said. "We've got to see their provocative behavior ratchet down immediately. There's a lot of conditions that I think would have to happen with respect to its behavior and  to show signs of good faith. Clearly conditions are not there right now."

Not so fast

Duterte on Monday seemed in no hurry to accept the White House invitation. He told reporters in Manila, "I cannot make any definite promises," noting that he already is scheduled to visit Russia and Israel in the coming months.

Duterte also said he told Trump that military threats are not the best tactic for dealing with North Korea.

"I said, mister president, I do not think that you can scare Kim Jung Un with the fire power. Our greatest chance of getting some dialogue with America and North Korea would be through the intercession of China," Duterte said.

Regional analysts Monday questioned the role the Philippines might be able to play in any effort to put military pressure on Pyongyang.

The Philippines could provide diplomatic support for the U.S. position on North Korea, but not much else, said Malcolm Cook, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. "U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea, and Japan's own self-defense forces, are key. The Philippines is far away and is not a node in the U.S. ballistic missile defense system."
Muslim and Christian religious leaders who gathered for an international peace conference in Egypt this week denounced terrorism in the name of religion.

The conference was held at a time when Egypt is suffering from a growing militant insurgency in parts of the country.

Addressing the peace conference hosted by the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the oldest Islamic university  which has a national network of schools with around 2 million students - the universitys Grand Imam Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb denounced preaching violence in the name of God.

Some of the ayats [Quranic verses] I mentioned reveal the openness of this religion [Islam] towards other religions and respecting their beliefs, how could some classify Islam as a religion of terror, asked Al-Tayyeb.

Al-Tayyeb called on militant extremists to stop using religion for achieving their goals and inciting religious hatred and violence.

The Grand Imam said, Neither Islam nor Christianity nor Judaism are religions of terrorism, and terror acts perpetrated in their names are far from their core values.

Pope Francis, who concluded a 27-hour visit to Egypt Saturday and addressed the conference, echoed Al-Tayyebs comments and emphasized the crucial role of religious leaders in exposing attempts to justify violence and hatred in the name of God.

Religion, however, is not meant only to unmask evil; it has an intrinsic vocation to promote peace, today perhaps more than ever, said Pope Francis, according to Radio Vatican.

Importance of context

Jaber Taee, Egypts deputy minister for Islamic Endowments, said in the conference that extremists and violent groups often take religious scriptures out of context in an effort to advance their agendas.

"Those who interpret Quranic verses and Sayings of the Prophet with an understanding in non-relevant contexts, that needs to be reviewed, they should review themselves," Taee told Alhurra TV.

The call for peace comes as the Egyptian government is facing an increasingly violent insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

Several militant groups, including Ansar Beit al-Maqdis - which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group - are controlling large swaths of territory in Sinai, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel, and have established rule separate from the government in Cairo.

Islamic State militants in Sinai targeted Egyptian security forces and local Coptic Christians in the region, causing more than 100 Christian families to flee from the city of el-Arish to escape persecution recently.

Analysts charge that IS and other militant groups capitalize on the Egyptian regime's alienating policies towards the local tribes in Sinai.

"There seems to be a significant civil-military problem in the Sinai Peninsula. Unfortunately, the people who live there tend to regard the Egyptian government as a foreign occupying force," David Des Roches, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, told VOA.

Roches added that the insurgency is gaining strength, partly because of the government's military tactics that have alienated the local population.

"If the problem of alienated people in Sinai were adequately adjusted by the Egyptian government, ISIS would not be a consideration," he said.

The locals accuse the government forces of indiscriminate bombing of their villages, as some militants hide among the local population and use them as human shields.
A group of Hispanic workers is suing a Michigan industrial plant that fired them for taking part in the Day Without Immigrants protest in February.

The Detroit Free Press newspaper reports the workers have taken their case to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington.

Their lawyer, Tony Paris, tells the newspaper the company discriminated against them because they are Hispanic immigrants who took part in a political protest.

Paris says EZ Industrial Solutions questioned about 20 workers about whether they planned to take part in the nationwide protest. The plant allegedly threatened to suspend any worker for one week if he marched.

Paris says instead of a weeklong layoff, the workers were fired and the company threatened to report them to immigration authorities.

One of the affected employees says those who work at EZ have an "informal schedule." She says they stayed home for as much as three days at a time without penalty or being made to justify the absence.

In a message sent to the Detroit Free Press, an official with the EZ Industrial Solutions said the law is clear that someone cannot simply fail to show up on the job and take part in a nonwork-related political protest without consequences.

He said he is confident the lawsuit will be dropped.
Human Rights Watch has accused Syrian government forces of using deadly nerve gas on four occasions in recent months, including the April 4 chemical attack on Khan Sheikoun that killed nearly 100 people.

In a report issued Monday, the rights group said forces loyal to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad also carried out gas attacks in December of 2016 and March of 2017.

The governments recent use of nerve agents is a deadly escalation  and part of a clear pattern, said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. In the last six months, the government has used warplanes, helicopters, and ground forces to deliver chlorine and sarin in Damascus, Hama, Idlib, and Aleppo. Thats widespread and systematic use of chemical weapons.

The HRW report urges the U.N. Security Council to immediately adopt a resolution "calling on all parties to fully cooperate with investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and adopt sanctions against anyone U.N. investigators find to be responsible for these or past chemical attacks in Syria."

Russia has vowed to veto any draft U.N. resolution that blames the Syrian government for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.

Russia has used six vetoes in the past six years to protect Syria from Security Council action.

Syria has denied that is has chemical weapons.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said the United States is "quite confident" that the deadly April 4 attack in Khan Sheikoun "was planned and it was directed and executed by Syrian regime forces."

Following that incident, President Donald Trump ordered a missile attack on the Syrian air base believed to be the source of the chemical weapons that killed scores of civilians.
Resurging violence in the Central African Republic has left full villages emptied and destroyed. The burned out houses are charred, with their thatched roofs totally gone. Inside the homes, evidence of a left-behind life is scattered throughout in the ashes: pots, pans, and bicycle frames. Other homes are looted with the doors kicked in and papers torn up.

Aid workers here warn that the country may be sliding back into conflict. More than 100,000 people have fled their homes since September.

In the north, predominantly Christian anti-balaka rebels used the village of Bambara as a base. But after the soldiers stole some cows from nearby nomadic people, an ex-Seleka militia came for revenge, killing about 25 people and burning more than 600 houses.

Alexi Finicules older brother was killed in the fighting and his house was burned down.

My father died of old age, he said, while standing next to the rubble remains of his home. But when my big brother was killed, I was very shocked by that. I will always remember what happened here.

Finicule, 38, was shot at by the ex-Seleka. A bullet grazed his skin, leaving a scar on his back. He fled to the bush to hide from the militia.

Now back in Bambara, Finicule received a kit from the U.N.s International Organization of Migration to rebuild his house but his family doesnt want to live in the same house where their family member was killed.

Major setback



The violence recalls the fighting and communal clashes that plunged the country into chaos nearly four years ago. Aid workers say the renewed violence has been a major setback.



They dont have food. They dont have seeds. They dont have mats to sleep on. They dont have potable water, explained I.O.M. operations assistant Fabrice Tiro. So, everything was destroyed in these events. They are starting from zero.

At another nearby burned out home, Apaulinere Horouro explained how even the towns school was burned to the ground so his kids cant attend.

We dont have anything, Horouro said.

Meanwhile, at an internally displaced persons camp in nearby Ndim, a group of displaced ethnic Peul have been displaced twice due to fighting over the past few months.



The future for us is truly in the hands of God, said Alazi Makouri, the village chief, sitting on a tree-trunk bench. Because, the population of the nearby village are the ones protecting us. We dont have any say in the matter.

The village chief said his people were attacked by the anti-balaka, who stole about 150 of their cows. They moved to the edge of the village and started growing maize and manioc. But, they were attacked again and finally sought refuge farther away at this camp.

Cows from other nomadic people passing through the area wander through the camp. With mangos in season at the moment, children collect the bright orange and yellow fruit from the ground in the camp. They live in tents constructed with wood and UN tarps.



A fifth of the countrys population is displaced  more than 400,000 people.

Medical needs



Doctors without Borders said civilians are being attacked in the country at levels not seen in years. The spiraling violence has left civilians trapped in the crossfire, kicked out of their homes and cut off from their fields and livelihoods, according to a MSF press release.

The non-profit medical organization supports a hospital in Paoua in the northwest of the country. The project coordinator at the hospital said MSF continues to struggle to access remote areas in need.

Central African [Republic] is one of the poorest countries in the world and needs to be supported but the people are focusing on the conflict, said Abdel Kader Tlidjane of MSF. But it takes time for people to solve it. During this time we should be able to carry on with normal activities to give this access and its not easy.

The biggest problem at the Paoua hospital is malaria, although they also treat war-wounded people.

Following the 2013-2014 crisis that left thousands dead, more than half of the population relies on humanitarian aid.

Humanitarian funding



Despite the increasing needs, humanitarian funding for the year for the country is at only 10 percent. UN officials told VOA the disastrous lack of support hurts the possibility of peace.

Otherwise we are just feed the ground of armed groups who would just come back to the population and tell them, Look the international community, they dont care. The UN, they dont care. Look you dont even have food on your table. You dont even schools for your kids," explained Najat Rochdi, the UN humanitarian coordinator for C.A.R. So we also need to fight against that.

WFP was forced to cut its food aid from 700,000 people last year to 400,000 people this year.

Total yearly funding for C.A.R. dropped from 68 percent to 37 percent over the past two years.
The Indian army has accused Pakistani forces of killing two of its soldiers and mutilating their bodies along the border in the disputed Kashmir region.

India has vowed retribution for the incident that will deepen tensions between the South Asian rivals, whose relations have hit a low point in recent months.

The army said the soldiers were killed on patrol when Pakistani forces fired rockets and mortars at two Indian posts in the Krishna Ghati sector Monday.

"In an unsoldierly act" the bodies of two soldiers were mutilated, an army statement said. The army said that "such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded."

The Pakistani army dismissed the Indian army's accusations of mutilating the soldiers' bodies, calling them "false" and said it did not commit any cease-fire violation.

This is not the first time that the Indian army has accused Pakistani soldiers of mutilating the body of a soldier; it leveled a similar charge last November.

Cross-border gunfire leading to the deaths of soldiers and civilians on both sides has intensified along the Kashmir border since last September, when relations plummeted following an attack on an Indian army camp that killed 17 soldiers. Both sides blame each other for the firing.

It is not just the heavily militarized border dividing Kashmir between the two countries that is volatile. Violence has also spiked in Indian Kashmir, where New Delhi is grappling with escalating street protests against Indian rule and militant attacks.

On Monday, authorities in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar, said five policemen and two bank officials were killed when militants ambushed a bank van in Kulgam district and made away with bundles of cash.

Last week, three Indian soldiers were killed in an attack by militants on an army camp in Kashmir.

While India points the finger at Pakistan-based Islamic terror groups for fomenting violence in Kashmir, Islamabad strongly denies it.

On Monday, after holding talks with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said all countries need to work as one to "disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists."

Modi added, "They also need to stand and act against those that conceive and create, support and sustain, shelter and spread these instruments and ideologies of violence."

Ahead of his visit, the Turkish president told a television news channel that both countries should engage in a multilateral dialogue to resolve their dispute over Kashmir.

An Indian foreign ministry spokesman said that New Delhi had told Erdogan that "the issue of Kashmir is essentially an issue of terrorism."

Peace talks between the two countries have remained stalled as New Delhi says it cannot hold talks until terrorism ends, while Islamabad has stressed the need for negotiations to resolve the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan region.
Iran on Monday acknowledged that the fate of detained Iranian-American dual nationals came up during its first face-to-face meeting with the Trump administration, with an official saying there have been "positive results" for prisoner trades in the past.

The comments by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi mark the first official government confirmation it discussed prisoners with the U.S. at a recent meeting in Vienna over the nuclear deal.



While falling far short of signaling any sort of movement on freeing those with Western ties held in Iran, Ghasemi's acknowledgement fits the pattern of past prisoner negotiations with the Islamic Republic. It signals more behind-the-scene negotiations could be possible if the Trump administration, already skeptical of Iranian intentions, is willing to deal.



Speaking to journalists, Ghasemi mentioned no specific names of the inmates brought up by the Americans.



"In the past ... we had talks for humanitarian reasons with Americans over [swapping] some [American] prisoners with Iranian prisoners jailed in the U.S. and it had positive results too,'' he said.



Among the dual nationals held in Iran are Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi and his 81-year-old father, Baquer Namazi. They are serving 10-year prison sentences for "cooperating with the hostile American government" and their supporters had urged America to bring up their cases at the Vienna meeting.



Last week, State Department spokesman Mark Toner had said American officials at the meeting had "called on Iran to immediately release these U.S. citizens so they can be reunited with their families."



Dual nationals in detention have been used as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West. Under Iranian law, they are not entitled to consular support.



Other dual nationals known to be held in Iran include Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman sentenced to five years in prison on allegations of planning the "soft toppling" of Iran's government. Robin Shahini, an Iranian-American, had been serving an 18-year prison sentence for "collaboration with a hostile government," though he recently was released on bail.



Yet to be tried on various charges are Iranian-American art gallery manager Karan Vafadari, held along with his Iranian wife, and Iranian-Canadian national Abdolrasoul Dorri Esfahani, who helped negotiate the nuclear deal for Iran.



Still missing is former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission.
Islamic State is claiming to have attacked and captured a volatile district from the rival Taliban in eastern Afghanistan.

The Syrian-based terrorist group in a statement through its Amaq News Agency says overnight clashes for the control of Chaprhar in Nangarhar province killed at least 10 Taliban fighters.

It added that three enemy fighters were captured alive while the rest fled the area. IS said both sides used light and heavy weapons in the fighting.

The Taliban has not yet commented on the fighting.

Clash between rivals confirmed

A spokesman for the provincial government, Ataullah Khogyani, has confirmed the clashes between the rival militant groups.

He said 21 Taliban fighters and seven IS militants were killed in the fighting. He added that civilians were also caught in the cross-fire, leaving three people dead and five others wounded.

None of the claims could be verified independently.

Separately, the Taliban and IS have both taken credit for a suicide car bombing of an American military convoy they said took place Monday in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar.

Similar details released

Both the groups have released almost identical details about the damages through their official means of communication, claiming the blast left at least six U.S. soldiers dead.

The U.S. military confirmed the attack on a coalition convoy, but said there were no casualties and the incident occurred in the nearby Achin district, which is believed to be IS's main regional base in Afghanistan.

We can confirm there was a vehicle borne attack on a coalition convoy in Achin district, Nangarhar province. One vehicle was disabled, but there were no coalition casualties or injuries, U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Salvin told VOA.

Islamic State leader killed

Achin is where the two American soldiers were killed during a joint raid with Afghan Special forces last week against a cave-and-tunnel complex.

Pentagon officials said they suspected IS chief Abdul Hasib was also killed along with 35 fighters in a brutal three-hour gunfight in the Mohmand Valley in the mountainous district.

But despite the apparent success of U.S. and Afghan forces in killing the leader of IS in Afghanistan, some questions remain.

The location of the IS headquarters complex is just a couple of kilometers away from an extensive IS tunnel-and-cave complex targeted two weeks ago with the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal. Officials said the ordnance killed 92 IS fighters, though as many as 800 may have been in the area.

'The right weapon'

This weapon was the right weapon against this target, General John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said at the time.

The enemy had created bunkers, tunnels and extensive minefields, and this weapon was used to reduce those obstacles so that we could continue our offensive.

Yet despite those assertions, other officials said it was unclear whether the bomb made any significant impact on IS operations in the area.

Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
Israelis have come to a two-minute standstill to remember fallen soldiers and victims of terror as the country marked Memorial Day, one of the most somber days on its calendar.

Motorists pulled over on the sides of highways and roads and pedestrians stopped in their tracks as a siren rang out at 11 a.m. on Monday.

Israelis are also visiting cemeteries and attending remembrance ceremonies across the country. Radio and television networks broadcast programs about battle and loss.

The melancholic atmosphere is to end abruptly at sundown, when Independence Day celebrations start.

Since September 2015, a wave of Palestinian attacks has killed 42 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British student. During that same time, Israeli forces have killed some 244 Palestinians. Israel has identified most of them as attackers.
Kolkata, May 1 (IBNS): A nearly 43-year-old man from Kolkata, Abdul Mannan, was seriously injured when a 6-month-old calf jumped off a multi-storey and fell on him on Monday morning, reports said.

According to reports, Abdul Mannan went to a market at Masjid Bari Lane area under Tiljala Police Station limits in south-east part of the city, very close to his house, in the morning and when he was buying a cucumber, the 85-kg calf fell on him from nearly 70 feet above.

The middle-aged man was seriously injured in the incident and was rushed to a hospital and later shifted to National Medical College and Hospital as his health condition deteriorated, while the calf died on the spot.

Though no police complaint has been lodged so far, locals alleged that a resident of the four-story building, Md. Alam, is running a byre on the terrace, when cowsheds are legally banned in Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) area since 1980.

"Md. Alam, who is not living in the building since last few months, has appointed a man to look after the six-month-old calf and today, just after having a bath, the calf suddenly jumped from the terrace and fell on Abdul Mannan," Sahidur Alam, an eyewitness of the incident, told IBNS.

Sustaining severe injuries in head, legs, hands and ribs, Abdul Mannan is being treated in a government-run hospital at Beniapukur area.

His wife, Seema Begum, told IBNS: "My husband was buying vegetables when the calf fell on him, he narrowly escaped death today."

However, a police official of the local police station said, "Though no complaint has been lodged officially so far, we are looking into the matter as a cowshed was allegedly being run on the terrace of the multi-story, despite the ban."

Meanwhile, a source claimed that Md. Alam, whose calf is the source of the story, has agreed to pay the cost of injured Abdul Mannan's treatment.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
New Zealander Mark Taylor would appear to be an eligible bachelor. He lists some appealing attributes in his online profile on a dating site  including work as a teacher, and he says hes got a good sense of humor. He says he has an understanding about marriage life.

The warning signs come with the divorced 43-year-olds current location  the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic States self-styled caliphate, Raqqa.

Taylor, who was designated a global terrorist by U.S. authorities on March 30 and appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video, is advertising himself on islamicmarriage.com  one of several IS fighters in Syria and jihadist sympathizers in Europe and the U.S. using the matchmaking site that enables Muslims from around the world to form friendships and marital connections online.

Researchers at the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-based policy research organization that monitors jihadist online activity, suspect islamicmarriage.com might not be the only mainstream matchmaking site jihadists and their supporters are using. It was the easiest singles site to investigate for jihadist activity, they say.

On islamicmarriage.com Taylor calls himself Abujohndaniel. He says he arrived in the caliphate 10 months ago and converted to Islam 13 years ago. I need a righteous practicing Muslim lady who wants to do Hijrah [immigrate] here inshallah.

While the majority of the users on the website appear to genuinely be seeking love and marriage with someone who shares similar religious and cultural beliefs," MEMRI analysts say, "the platform also serves those with more radical beliefs.

They include a 26-year-old Somali-American woman claiming to be living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and calling herself ModestMuslimah. I hope one day to go into Jihad and fight side by side with my brothers and sisters in Islam, she says on her profile.

In 2014 and 2015 some militants used their own niche matchmaking site on Twitter to form connections  and to recruit and groom. Jihad Matchmaker was used by the British girls 17-year-old Samya Dirie and 15-year-old Yusra Hussien, who traveled together to Syria in September 2014.

Anat Agron, a MEMRI analyst, first noticed jihadists were using islamicmarriage.com last May. She suspects curbs by Facebook and other social-media providers to block IS members and fellow travelers outside Syria from using their sites has forced some jihadists to resort to mainstream dating sites.

Previously Twitter and Facebook were more popular options for marrying off jihadists, Agron told VOA. But Western intelligence surveillance may have prompted caution. I think that many realized these options were increasingly unsafe, and some folks probably got thrown in jail, she adds.

Islamicmarriage.com is part of a network of matchmaking sites owned by World Singles  other sites include ArabLounge, EligibleGreeks, IranianPersonals and TurkishPersonals. A VOA email asking for comment from World Singles on the MEMRI findings went unanswered.

The site stipulates members must be at least 18 years of age. In its terms and conditions section managers say they dont screen members or conduct criminal background checks, adding users are solely responsible for interactions with other members via the service.

Among other jihadists from English-speaking countries currently in Syria using the site is a teenage British user calling himself MujahidSham. He says hes looking for a wife to come join me.

And another member, a married 24-year-old user profiled as Abu.Bakr1, appears to be searching for a second wife. Trying to follow the Quran and Sunnah want my partner to do the same, I would like my partner to do Hijrah to Syria where I am right now.

Jihadist use of the dating site may suggest also it is becoming harder for IS members to find Western or foreign jihadi brides in a caliphate thats been shrinking fast in recent months thanks to an anti-IS fight-back by a coalition of states and local forces.

The stream of mainly young, impressionable Western and North African girls traveling to Syria to marry a fighter appears to have fallen off, according to analysts. There are increasing physical obstacles trying to get into Syria: from more intense surveillance at European airports to tighter Turkish control of its border with Syria.

On top of that, Raqqa is now besieged on three sides by Kurdish-led ground forces.

Horror tales related by some foreign girls, recent converts or daughters of Muslims, whove returned from Syria may also have dented enthusiasm and acted as counterpoints to the IS narrative of an Islamic utopia.

In 2016, details emerged from former Tunisian jihadists of how an Austrian teen, Samra Kesinovic, who fled Europe to join IS was used as a sex slave for new fighters before she was beaten to death.

How many Western jihadi brides there are is unclear  authorities in London say about 100 British women have traveled to the caliphate since 2015. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a British think tank, estimates there might be 500 Western jihadi brides.
Driven from their homes in Syria, thousands of refugees in Lebanon are once again in search of shelter.

An estimated 8,000 to 12,000 refugees are on the move amid what is likely to be the biggest mass eviction of its kind in Lebanon since the war began.

The evictions, led by the Lebanese army and justified on the basis of security, have prompted concerns for the welfare of those affected, plunging them further into uncertainty and debt.

What are you supposed to feel when you have settled and rested, asked Hussein Muhammed Michel, and someone comes and tells you that you have to move to another place?"

With the camp next to them now flattened, Michel, his wife and his four children are among those desperately searching for a new place to live. Their possessions are piled up outside the shelter that they have lovingly turned into a home in anticipation of the move.

About 330,000 Syrian refugees live in Lebanons Bekaa Valley, which borders their homeland. The Michels are among those unlucky enough to live in a camp close to Rayak airbase, the site believed to be the root cause of eviction notices.

The airbase has, according to local reports, recently been receiving American planes delivering military aid to the Lebanese army as it fights Islamic State on its borders and there are rumors the airbase could be expanded.

Many Syrians who spoke to VOA had not been told why they had to move. A spokesman for the Lebanese Army described the evictions as part of normal regulations before requesting an emailed inquiry for more specific details, an email that has not been responded to.

Piling debt

Whatever the reason, the need to move is piling on financial pressure for those already deeply in debt.

The family of Iman Hashem, who fled IS-held Raqqa a year ago, has managed to find a new camp to live in, but lost the $800 advance annual rent they paid at the start of the year in their previous site.

This has affected me a lot and I became depressed, she told VOA. Where am I going to get the money to feed my children, my two little ones? How am I going to provide for them?

According to Josep Zapater of the U.N. refugee agency the cost of moving can be between $600 to $1000, with the true financial impact felt far beyond these immediate expenses.

If refugees are moving far ... they are going to lose jobs, so that going to have an impact on debt, he said, explaining families then have to find ways of dealing with such debt.

For quite a while weve seen problems relating to child work in difficult conditions, children six or seven years of age working and not going to school, while prostitution is also a problem in Bekaa.

The eviction notices were first given at the end of March and about 4,000 people have so far moved, many to other camps in the region.

According to observers, evictions have so far been largely voluntary and peaceful, and some local mayors have allowed the displaced to settle anew.

But Zapater warned that such mass movements threatened to spark tensions between Syrians and Lebanese communities in a country that has felt the strain of hosting more than one million refugees, and seen political chatter from some quarters of returning Syrians to their homeland.

No contest

Syrians have no way of contesting such evictions.

The situation is all too familiar for Majid Muhammad, who is rebuilding his home, made mainly from wood and tarpaulin, in a new camp. Since fleeing the Syrian city of Aleppo for Lebanon four years ago he has been evicted from his home three times. For Mohammed, it is not just the financial burden that weighs heavily.

Its the strain, the strain on your self and your mind, having to go and sort out another place, he explained. Any decision the government has made, you are obliged to execute it, no matter what it is, he adds.

With official camps not allowed in Lebanon, the UNHCR estimates 38 percent of refugees in the Bekaa region live in the informal camps that have been affected by the decision to clear Rayak.

In a separate incident in March, a mayor in the northern Lebanese town of Minyara threatened to evict refugees, citing the impact on infrastructure and demanding more financial aid.

I have spoken to many refugees who have been forced from one location to another, said Bassam Khawaja, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Around 60-70 percent of Syrians dont have [Lebanese] residency, and the consequence is a fear of going to the authorities to get past an eviction order - in fact, speaking to the authorities with legal status can result in backlash and arrest, he added.

There is little sign that such evictions will stop.

What can we do?  asked Mohammed. Hopefully our country will calm down, and then we can go home.
4 French CRS anti-riot police officers are engulfed in flames as they face protesters during a march for the annual May Day workers' rally in Paris.
Protesters in the United States and around the world have marked International Workers Day, May Day, with rallies and demonstrations that turned violent in displays of anger against authoritarianism and right-wing politics from France to Turkey.



WATCH: Luis Ramirez video report on protests

May Day is traditionally a day of protest, and this one was no exception. Police fired tear gas on demonstrators rallying in Istanbuls Taksim Square, the scene of past bloody May Day crackdowns.



Tensions in Turkey have been high after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan narrowly won a referendum last month giving him sweeping new powers.



Police arrested more than 200 people Monday.

Violence in Venezuela

May Day protests also turned violent in Venezuela, where there were dueling anti- and pro-government demonstrations. Security forces in the capital, Caracas, fired tear gas at youths throwing stones who were protesting the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro.

A month of protests against the government have left 29 people dead. Opposition leaders in Venezuela are calling on Maduro to step down, blaming him for the country's failing economy. The president accuses his opponents of trying to overthrow him.

Moscow parade

Things were more jovial in Russia, on what turned out to be beautiful spring day with more than 100,000 marching in Moscow.

This shows people's unity when so many people gather. This is the day of labor, peace and the weather is so beautiful. And we can see the people's feelings by the smiles on their faces, said Yuri, a march participant in Moscow.

The spirit was in sharp contrast to Saturday, when thousands of Russians lined up to present their grievances in letters at government offices. Organizers of the mass protest said police arrested demonstrators in cities across Russia, including 120 people in St. Petersburg.



French election campaigning



France, which is still under a state of emergency and with elections less than a week away, was on high alert. The government deployed 9,000 police in various parts of the country to keep supporters of the two main candidates, centrist Emmanuel Macron and nationalist Marine Le Pen, apart.



Le Pen, who wants to curb immigration by Muslims, get France out of the EU, and bring back jobs for French factory workers, led a rally outside Paris, where she called Macron the candidate of the caviar Left.



Macron also campaigned Monday, but his supporters were generally not visible among the May Day demonstrators.



Thousands, including labor union activists, marched in central Paris, many of them protesting Le Pen.

We have to block Marine Le Pen, we all agree about that, and we have to do it while stopping further increases in the vote and percentage of Marine Le Pen which would cost us in the future, said Jean-Claude Mailly, leader of Force Ouvriere, one of Frances main labor union conglomerations.

Demonstrators in Paris threw firebombs and clashed with police.

With elections so near and the issues so divisive, the battle lines could not be clearer on this day of protest.

Across the U.S.

In the United States, May Day's rallying point has shifted from workers to immigrants. Thousands of people are marking the day from New York to Los Angeles with protests against President Donald Trump's focus on boosting deportations. Organizations have called for immigrant strikes in some cities to show Americans what a day without immigrants would look like.

In Washington, about 150 businesses closed, most of them restaurants and legal offices. Other businesses in the city offered a paid day for employees who wanted to demonstrate.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta spoke at the annual May Day celebrations Monday in Nairobi, a day when many countries celebrate workers. But in sub-Saharan Africa, about three-fourths of those laborers work in the informal sector, without contracts or job protections, according to the International Labor Organization.

Kenyatta pledged to tackle high unemployment during his May Day speech.

One hundred meters away, 31-year-old Christine Ndunge continued her work selling sodas and snacks. She has been a street vendor at a public park in central Nairobi for several years.

"These days getting a job is hard," she said. "I have decided to employ myself so that I can survive. Like now, it's a rainy season  there are not enough customers to buy drinks. I motivate myself to continue selling because there is nowhere else I can work."

In his address Monday, Kenyatta announced that Kenya will be raising its minimum wage by 18 percent.

The crowd cheered, but analysts say policies like raising the minimum wage won't help a majority of the workforce.

According to the Kenyan government's 2017 economic survey, 833,000 jobs were created last year. However, less than 20 percent of those jobs were in the formal sector.

"There is that disconnect," said Kwame Owino, CEO of the Institute of Economic Affairs in Kenya. "So on one side, we have unions, which are talking for people who are in the formal sector, raising wages. And when that happens in standard economics, one of the first things that happens is employment shrinks. So when that employment shrinks in the formal sector, most of these people fall back to the informal sector. We are solving the wrong problem."

He said Kenya and other African countries need to improve conditions for entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs in Africa often struggle to raise capital. Owino said what governments can do is create new regulations making it easier for small businesses to get loans. He said policymakers can also streamline the process of registering and running a legal business and make it cheaper.

Josphat Mwendo, a trained mechanic, spent years unsuccessfully looking for a job. Finally, the 32-year-old started fixing cars for money himself. Now, he has three people he pays to help him.

"I don't feel good because they did not speak about people like us," he said. "I think it's good to think about those who have employed themselves too, so that they can know their worth and also feel they are Kenyans like the rest."

The problem is particularly acute among young people.

A recent study by the Brookings Institution found that Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 are just a third of the continent's total working-age population, but account for nearly two-thirds of the continent's unemployed.
Mexican soldiers killed seven suspected gang members in a weekend gun battle in the north of the country, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said on Sunday.

According to a statement on the attorney general's website, a convoy of 15 soldiers was passing near the town of La Grulla in Chihuahua state around 2 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) on Saturday when a group of men opened fire on them.

Five people died at the scene and one more was killed a short distance away, the statement said. Another man was found dead 4 km (2.5 miles) from the scene.

The suspected gang members were wearing bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles, the statement said.

Chihuahua state, which borders the United States, has suffered from years of drug-related gang violence. Across Mexico, more than 100,000 people have been killed since 2007.
Nikki Haley didn't wait to take office as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to break with the Trump administration's foreign policy stances.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Haley bluntly accused Russia of being complicit in war crimes in Syria - going against the president-elect's talk of warmer relations with Moscow.

Three months later, she remains boldly off-message. Much to the chagrin of Washington diplomats, her remarks often go well beyond the carefully worded scripts crafted by the White House and State Department.

She's warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that "the days of your arrogance and disregard of humanity are over," even as other top aides to President Donald Trump insisted that his fate was a decision for the Syrian people.

She's pushed human rights as a driver of foreign policy just as the Trump administration showed its willingness to work with leaders who have suppressed civil liberties, such as Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt's Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi.

U.S. diplomats fear Haley's words could result in an inconsistent, incoherent international message. State Department diplomats drafted an email urging Haley's office to ensure that her public statements on high-profile issues are cleared by Washington. The email was first reported by The New York Times.

In some ways, Haley has been ahead of the curve. Her hints at a change in the Syrian government are now seeping into Trump policies, and the administration has toughened its stance on Russia.

She seems to be in Trump's good graces. At a White House luncheon for U.N. diplomats last week, he said Haley was doing a "fantastic job" - but only after awkwardly joking that if the diplomats didn't like her, "she could easily be replaced."

Haley, a rookie to international politics, was an unusual pick for to be U.N. envoy.

As South Carolina governor, she was outspoken in her criticism of Trump during the 2016 campaign - a stance that effectively disqualified other candidates for top administration positions. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley alluded to Trump in denouncing "the siren call of the angriest voices" who disrespected America's immigrants. Trump tweeted that "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley."

She has star power in an administration where the president prefers to keep attention on himself. In some ways, the 45-year-old Haley is seizing the spotlight left vacant by media-averse Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Her high-profile persona and relative youth have prompted speculation that she may run for president someday.

The White House and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations declined to comment for this story.

Haley's office falls under the State Department's authority, but administration officials say Haley's staff frequently bypasses the department for policy matters. They said Haley's deputy, Jon Lerner, a Republican pollster and strategist who helped coordinate the Never Trump movement during the campaign, is in closer contact with senior members of the National Security Council, the White House's national security apparatus. Still, at times, Haley ad-libs her remarks, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to publicly discuss the policymaking process.

They said the State Department was not involved in the planning of Trump's meeting last Monday with the U.N. ambassadors, nor was it consulted. The event was coordinated exclusively between the U.S. Mission to the U.N. and the NSC.

Public remarks by the U.N. ambassador are generally approved by the State Department and, at times, other departments. Zalmay Khalilzad, a U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush, said that messaging from the various departments has "to be consistent with each other," but he joked that this is not an administration that is "known for protocol."

Indeed, Haley's off-message remarks highlight a broader trend in the administration, with poor communications and tight inner-circle White House politics creating disunity on various issues.

But Khalilzad praised Haley, saying her "experience as a politician helps her in recognizing the importance of the message and the quality of the message."

Phil Cox, a political consultant who has known Haley since 2010 from his work with the Republican Governors Association, said Haley's plain-spokenness comes as no surprise to anyone who tracked her work in South Carolina, starting with service in the state Legislature.

"The Nikki Haley operating on a world stage today is the exact same person the people of South Carolina came to know and respect as governor," he said in a recent interview. "Since she was first elected governor, people have been talking about her taking the next step."
Pakistans spy chief is expected to visit Afghanistan later this week for talks with counterparts in Kabul on bilateral anti-terrorism and security cooperation, officials said Monday.

The director general of the Inter-Services intelligence, Lt. General Naveed Mukhtar, is likely to discuss the fate of the lists of militants wanted on both sides and to address mutual concerns, explained Ayaz Sadiq, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, or National Assembly.

Sadiq spoke in Islamabad shortly after his 15-member parliamentary delegation returned from a two-day official visit to Kabul.

Only concerned [Pakistani security] departments are authorized to discuss matters related to the lists [with Afghan officials]. And, God willing, they will go and do so. I think tomorrow or the day after our D.G. ISI is traveling there [to Kabul] and the discussions [with regard to the lists] will take place at his level, Sadiq said.

He was responding to a question about whether his delegation discussed the list of fugitive militants Pakistan recently shared with Afghanistan.

Islamabad provided the list to Kabul in February after a string of terrorist attacks killed scores of people in Pakistan and authorities blamed anti-state militants sheltering in Afghan border areas plotted the violence. The Afghan government accepted the list, but gave Pakistan a list of militants it said were orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan.

In addition to meeting Afghan counterparts and prominent tribal elders, Sadiq said the Pakistani parliamentary delegation of representatives from all national political parties also met with President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

He said that the Afghan Chief Executive has assured his delegation he will soon visit Pakistan.

The Afghan leadership, the people of Afghanistan and Afghan lawmakers not only warmly welcomed our delegation but our discussions with them took place in an extremely cordial atmosphere, said the Pakistani house speaker.

All of them desired friendship and an improved situation between Pakistan and Afghanistan and both sides agreed to resume contacts from where they were broken off, Sadiq noted.

President Ghani reached out to Pakistan after assuming office in 2014 to encourage the neighboring country to stop Taliban insurgents from using Pakistani soil for insurgent activities in Afghanistan and to persuade the rebels to engage in peace talks with his government.

The Ghani initiative also led to an initial cooperation agreement between ISI and its Afghan counterpart, the National Directorate of Security to fight anti-state militants taking advantage of a 2,600-kilometer largely porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But increased insurgent attacks and the Talibans refusal to hold peace talks with Kabul have deteriorated bilateral relations during the past two years.

President Ghani has repeatedly blamed Pakistan for the continuing deadly violence in his country, charges Islamabad denies.

The Afghan government says sanctuaries on Pakistani soil are helping the Taliban prolong its insurgent activities in their country.

Speaking to Cabinet ministers on Monday, Abdullah, without naming Pakistan, asserted the Taliban planned and announced its so-called "spring offensive "from a neighboring country."

He said that in his talks with Pakistani parliamentarians he stressed that Afghanistan has certain expectations when "the announcement of the launch of an [insurgent] operation is made from inside a neighboring country against its neighbor."
An advance team of the regional protection force arrived in Juba over the weekend.

The U.N. Mission in South Sudan  or UNMISS  says a team of engineers is in the country to prepare for the deployment of the 4,000-strong force in the capital with a mandate to protect civilians. The government says it will accept regional troops from neighboring countries to be part of the U.N. peacekeeping force in South Sudan.

The regional protection force (RPF) was established in 2016 by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2304.

UNMISS released a statement over the weekend saying "the RPF Headquarters has been established in Juba under the leadership of Brigadier General Jean Mupenzi from Rwanda."

The statement also said an advance party of a Construction Engineering Company from Bangladesh arrived on April 20, bringing essential equipment to begin preparing offices for the RPF in Juba. Regional troops from Rwanda are expected to follow in June and July.

UNMISS said the RPF will provide "coordinated protection to key facilities in Juba," and protection to the main routes into and out of the city. The force will also strengthen the security of U.N. protection of civilians' sites and other U.N. premises, according to the statement.

South Sudan Information Minister Michael Makuei said the Kiir administration objects to the presence of any non-African forces as part of the regional protection force and only gave permission for the Bangladeshi forces to enter the country because of their technical expertise.

"We raised concerns that these forces are not part of the region and we saw no reason they should come," Makuei said. But when the administration learned "these are technical people whose abilities are not available in the region," the government relented.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan operates under Chapter VII of the United Nations. Under it, the Security Council determines "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken to restore international peace and security."

Makuei said his government will not accept combat troops who are not from the region.

"It's only the technical part that will be handled by non-regional forces. But the rest of the forces are supposed to come in as Africans, not only Africans but from the region," Makuei said.

UNMISS said the deployment of the regional protection forces will free up existing UNMISS peacekeepers to extend their presence to conflict-affected areas beyond Juba.
Taiwan will vent new anger towards political rival China if the World Health Organization, dominated by Beijing's allies, keeps Taiwan out of an annual assembly this month despite rigorous lobbying from Taipei.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen urged Beijing, one of 192 World Health Organization members, to avoid standing in the way of an invitation to observe the WHO's May 22-31 assembly. It has been invited every year since 2009.

Tsai gets along poorly with the government in Beijing and the issue has not come up since she took office in May 2016.

"We must reiterate that whether Taiwan can observe this year's World Health Assembly is a very important indicator for cross-Strait [China-Taiwan] relations," Tsai said on the presidential office website April 27, citing remarks from a new interview. "If China's decision shows any deviation, the impact on cross-Strait relations is very great."

Her foreign minister said in March he saw "no room for optimism" and cited "contingency measures" if the WHO had not sent an invitation by the end of April, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.

Taiwan is unlikely to retaliate against China or the U.N. health agency in material ways, analysts say. But China may face a longer-term backlash from the Taiwanese public, which is weary of facing limits to its role in international, non-political organizations.

Another year of health assembly participation "would help improve the atmosphere of cross-Strait relations," said National Chung Hsing University international politics professor Tsai Ming-yan.

The two sides dropped formal dialogue about a year ago and have sparred over tourism, military maneuvers and the detention of a Taiwanese human rights activist in China.

"If not, then Taiwan society's reaction toward the pressure from Beijing on the path to participation in international events, even on non-sensitive issues like health, will cast China in the wrong in terms of developing that atmosphere," he said.

China's shadow

The two sides have been separately ruled since the 1940s, but China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and believes international organizations should bar Taiwan for lack of statehood. Beijing insists that China and Taiwan must eventually unify.

The island has just 21 diplomatic allies compared to more than 170 that recognize China, snarling Taiwan's efforts at lobbying for entry to international agencies.

Taiwanese have said in government surveys since 2015 they prefer today's level of autonomy from China over unification. They have long resented Beijing for using its clout as the world's second largest economy to curb Taiwan's diplomatic recognition and role in international organizations.

Taiwanese are watching this month's decision as another "isolated case" in the bigger trend of being blocked, the professor said.

Taiwan cannot join the United Nations, and the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization declined to let it observe a session in September. During the Olympics, Taiwan must call itself "Chinese Taipei" to imply a link with China.

"It always baffles me to see how badly the Chinese treat the Taiwanese," said Coen Blaauw, executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group Formosan Association for Public Affairs.

"If I wanted to annex another country I would charm the pants of the other country," Blaauw said. "So, China blocking Taiwan [from] joining international organizations does not enamor them to the people of Taiwan."

The Taiwan government hopes to get updates from the WHO on international disease outbreaks and share its own experience in overseas health care.

Taiwanese "medical teams" have visited Africa, the Americas and other parts of Asia to provide medical care, the government in Taipei says. The island leadership has lobbied since 1997 for a spot in the WHO.

Some experts say Taiwanese people, stung by a WHO rejection, may pressure their president to approach China for dialogue. Tsai's predecessor's government talked regularly with China about economic issues, signed 23 agreements with Beijing and was allowed to start observing World Health Assembly events.

Tsai disputes Beijing's dialogue precondition that each side see itself as part of one China. The two have quit formal talks since she took office last May 20.

"I just don't see China would make any further concession at this moment," said Liu Yih-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. "When the expectation was upgraded, and then when it cannot materialize, the chance of disappointment on the part of the Taiwanese gets the situation even worse."
New Delhi, May 1 (IBNS): Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday condemned the mutilating of two Indian soldiers by Pakistani forces after killing them in J&K's Udhampur along the Line of Control.

In a tweet, Gandhi said: "Strongly condemn this barbaric & disgraceful act. Govt must move beyond platitudes and hold Pakistan to account."

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also condemned the "barbaric mutilation" of soldiers.

He tweeted: "I strongly condemn the barbaric and inhuman mutilation of our soldiers. We must react strongly and firmly."

The Indian Army has also warned of "appropriate response" to Pakistan who killed and then mutilated two jawans in J&K's Udhampur along the Line of Control in the morning.

Reacting to the attack, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley told media that: "Such acts are unheard of even at a time of war."

The Indian Army in a statement said bodies of two soldiers were mutilated.

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the Indian Army said in a statement.

"Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded," read the statement where the Army warned the neighbours.

The Army said the deceased soldiers were part of a team on patrol between two forward posts in Udhampur along the Line of Control.

One of the deceased were an Army jawan while the other one was a constable of the Border Security Force (BSF).

According to reports, the Pakistani soldiers allegedly crossed the LoC to launch the attack.

However, the neighbouring country has denied the allegation stating that the Pakistani Army is professional and will never disrespect a soldier.


Thailand's prime minister has accepted President Donald Trump's invitation to visit the United States, his office announced Monday, as the U.S. leader made an unexpected diplomatic initiative toward his Southeast Asian counterparts.

Trump telephoned Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday to reaffirm traditional close relations and invite them for meetings. The invitation followed one made in a call late Saturday to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

Washington's diplomacy in Asia has focused on China and tensions with North Korea, although Vice President Mike Pence included Indonesia on a recent Asia tour.

Prayuth's office said he had accepted Trump's invitation, while a Singapore Foreign Ministry statement said the two leaders "looked forward to meeting each other soon." No dates were mentioned for their visits.

Human rights groups have criticized Prayuth for seizing power in a coup and curbing democratic rights, while Duterte is scorned for his deadly war on drugs. Both bristle at the criticism.

However, Washington has strategic concerns in countering Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines are historically the most pro-Western nations of the region, but China's influence has been increasing as it flexes its economic muscle and projects its military power into the South China Sea.

Prayuth's government last week announced approval of its navy's plan to purchase a submarine from China, the latest move in diversifying its military suppliers, traditionally from the United States

Monday's statement from Prayuth's office said he and Trump reaffirmed the importance of their countries' long-standing alliance. It also said Prayuth in turn had invited Trump to visit Thailand at a convenient time.

The White House statement about the call to Lee mentioned that "robust security cooperation and close collaboration on regional and global challenges" mark the two countries partnership.
Chanting "Yes, We Can" in Spanish and English, hundreds of people marched to the White House in observance of May Day.

The march and rally, combined with a general strike, are intended to champion workers' rights like other May Day demonstrations around the world. But this protest had the added impetus of protesting anti-immigrant policies of President Donald Trump by highlighting the role immigrants play in the U.S. economy.

About 150 businesses in the D.C. area closed, most of them restaurants and legal offices. Other businesses offered a paid day for employees who wanted to demonstrate.

El Rancho Migueleno in Arlington was one business that remained open, but paid employees who wanted to protest.

Owner Oscar Amaya also hired a van to take 12 of his workers to Dupont Circle, the staging area for the march.

WATCH: Aline's video report on the march

Amaya, who came from El Salvador in 1990, told VOA in Spanish that he left the choice up to his employees, but that in his opinion, the "most important thing was to get out and march."

He said his biggest concern is the fear that the community is experiencing. "People don't want to go out to work, let alone have fun," he said.

Amaya said his business has been affected by Trump's policies because many of his Latino customers are afraid to come to the restaurant to dinner.

Trump has issued three executive orders pertaining to immigration, including one that loosens the criteria by which undocumented immigrants can be deported, and calls for hiring more immigration agents.
President Donald Trump got decidedly mixed reviews on his first 100 days in office. But he wasted little time in urging his supporters to expect some accomplishments in the months ahead.

To mark his first 100 days in office, Trump held a campaign-style rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, among the supporters who have stuck with him in good times and bad. Trump told the boisterous crowd it was time to reflect on an incredible journey together and to get ready for the great, great battles to come, and that we will win in every case, OK? We will win.

The first 100 days has been a traditional point of assessment for a new president since Franklin Roosevelt moved swiftly to counter the Great Depression in the early weeks of his presidency back in 1933. While some previous presidents had a more productive start than Trump, early victories or failures are not always an indicator of presidents eventual success.

In his first 100 days in office, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders that pleased his core supporters but has struggled to get some important agenda items through Congress, most notably health care reform. Trump cites a major victory in Senate confirmation for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who now holds the seat held for decades by conservative judicial icon Antonin Scalia.

Partisan view from Congress

Despite the congressional setbacks, Republicans remain generally supportive of the president, including Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. I like the strike in Syria. I like the bunker-buster bomb in Afghanistan. I like the more assertive foreign policy. As Ive said repeatedly, Im not a big fan of the presidents tweeting habits, McConnell recently told reporters at the Capitol.

For Democrats, Trump has been a source of protest and resistance, and that will likely continue. The presidents My way or the highway approach is one of the main reasons he has little to show on health care and show little for his first 100 days in office, said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.



The standard for the most active first 100 days was set by Franklin Roosevelt, who came to power at the height of the Great Depression in 1933 and famously proclaimed in his first inaugural address, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Republicans Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, and Democrats John Kennedy and Bill Clinton all overcame early presidential stumbles to build a record of achievement.

Hounded by weak polls

Trump may need some victories soon to turn around his low approval ratings, which have fluctuated between the mid-40s and mid-30s, historic lows for a new president.

Success breeds success and failure breeds failure, said Brookings Institution scholar William Galston. Because once you have demonstrated weakness, your enemies may be more eager to stand up to you and your friends may be less secure about allying themselves with you.

Trump has focused primarily on pleasing his political base so far, said Brookings analyst Sarah Binder. In a period of polarization, I think it is very hard for presidents to move to the center in a real, real way. In part, because there really is not anybody in the center and it becomes a little lonely there. I think they get much greater company and a boost from turning to their base.

Time is of the essence

Historically, presidents have the most political leverage early in their term, and their ability to move public support and get Congress to act can fade over time, said historian Richard Norton Smith.

The greatest single danger that the modern presidency confronts is the risk of overexposure. Not because of anything particularly the president does or doesnt do. But its simply the incredible saturation coverage that any White House generates these days.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post summing up his first 100 days in office, Trump wrote that so far he has kept his promise to transfer power from Washington, D.C., and give it back to the people.

Trump supporters largely seem to agree. One recent University of Virginia poll found Trumps approval rating among those who voted for him at 93 percent.

But the first 100 days have also shown that Trump will need to broaden his public support to get his agenda through Congress.

Successful presidents like Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan were able to broaden their public appeal over time, and that now looms as perhaps the greatest challenge facing Donald Trump.
Loyalty Day is Monday, according to President Donald Trump.



It's a designation made by his predecessors for decades, but the nation's 45th president is putting his own stamp on it as workers elsewhere in the U.S. call May 1 May Day and protest Trump's immigration policies.



Trump is recommending specific ways Americans should mark the day - by flying flags over government buildings and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. His proclamation also mentions Republicans' priority of limited government and the nation's determination to defeat the Islamic State group.



The loyalty of our citizenry sends a clear signal to our allies and enemies that the United States will never yield from our way of life, Trump wrote in a proclamation on Friday. We are working to destroy ISIS, and to secure for all Americans the liberty terrorists seek to extinguish.



Loyalty Day has been marked by presidents at least back to Dwight Eisenhower. It began as Americanization Day in response to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.



Trump's proclamation does differ in tone from his immediate predecessors', who tended to stick to lofty statements on the ideals that bind Americans together.



Elsewhere in U.S. cities, workers and labor groups are marching on what they call, May Day'' in protest of Trump's immigration policies.
Zimbabwes opposition parties and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) say local people should participate in the 2018 general elections in order to bring social and economic transformation to the southern African nation.

Speaking at an event organized by the ZCTU to commemorate Workers Day in Harare on Monday, several opposition party leaders said voting in the next elections is the only way Zimbabwean workers can improve their lives.

The opposition leaders and ZCTU representatives indicated that thousands of workers are struggling to make ends meet in Zimbabwe as they are in most cases unpaid by employers while those that get their salaries cant access cash in banks.

ZCTU secretary general Japhet Moyo said life is tough for millions of workers, mostly vendors, who are trying to eke out a living in the streets.

Moyo said this may come to an end if workers register to vote in the forthcoming general polls, likely to feature several presidential candidates, including 93 year-old President Robert Mugabe.

In a statement, former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) said youth should spearhead the mobilization of Zimbabweans to vote in the next presidential, local government and council elections.

My fellow countrymen and women, given our circumstance and all these visible signs of collapse around us, the real Workers Day is the day of the next election; when we must all turn out in our huge numbers to vote and make a huge statement about the Zimbabwe we want.

We have real work to do at the next election and I urge all parents to encourage their children to participate in the politics of their country. I urge all the youth to come out in their numbers and determine, defend and secure the future that they want by participating in the next election. They certainly cannot outsource or contract out the determination of their own future to anyone.



He said there must be no doubt in the mind of every Zimbabwean that next years election provides us with a rare opportunity  a chance that comes once in every five years  to correct things in our country by voting in a new government that will bring back the dignity of the ordinary Zimbabwean.



Fellow Zimbabweans, we can only be able to fight unemployment, poverty and inequalities if we use the perfect opportunity next year to vote for visionary men and women who will be able to extricate our country from its parlous predicament.

The ZCTU is commemorating this years May Day under the theme Fighting Unemployment, Poverty and Inequalities.
Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Slit open your mattress, exchange your gold for cash, and commandeer a bus to Atlantic City: If you think you know who will take Michael Strahans long-vacant morning-show gig alongside Kelly Ripa, now is the time to put your money where your obsessive love of daytime talk shows is. On Sunday, the Live With Kelly host posted a video teasing Mondays episode, and, according to the videos hashtags, were about to find out who will be joining her, following Strahans exit almost a year ago for Good Morning America. This as-yet-unknown person will also, according to the video, need to join Ripa in drinking out of one giant two-person mug, possibly as part of some sort of beautiful morning-show ceremony.



As you might recall, the sudden announcement of Strahans impending departure last April caused Ripa to take a four-day hiatus from the show, before Strahan eventually departed in May. According to Variety, Ripas new co-host will allegedly not be one of her many repeat co-hosts, which would hypothetically rule out favorites such as Andy Cohen, Anderson Cooper, Fred Savage, and Jerry OConnell. So, is anyone ready to put their money on a John Leguizamo or a Jim Parsons? How about a Josh Groban or a Busy Philipps? Rita Ora, maybe? Any takers on Rita?


Washington, May 1 (Just Earth News): A plane carrying relief items has arrived in Luanda, Angola, to assist over 11,000 people who fled a recent surge violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations refugee agency said on Sunday.

The aircraft landed Sunday morning from Dubai, carrying 3,500 plastic sheets as well as 100 plastic rolls to provide shelter during the rainy season, 17,000 sleeping mats, 16,902 thermal fleece blankets, 8,000 mosquito nets, 3,640 kitchen sets, 8,000 jerry cans and 4,000 plastic buckets. The Office of the UN High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR) will be airlifting more relief items to Angola in coming days.

Arrivals are in urgent need of life-saving assistance including food, water, shelter and medical services, said Sharon Cooper, UNHCR Regional Representative for Southern Africa in a press release. UNHCR is also procuring food locally to support the most vulnerable persons including children, pregnant women and elderly.

The brutal conflict in DRC's previously peaceful Kasai region has already displaced more than one million civilians within the country since it began in mid-2016.

The border is managed by the Angolan army. UNHCR has requested the Government to allow refugees to continue crossing the border, provide unhindered access to assist new arrivals, as well as not to return people fleeing the violence to the DRC.

Angola is currently hosting some 56,700 refugees and asylum-seekers, of whom close to 25,000 are from the DRC.

UNHCR Angola had an initial annual budget of $2.5 million to protect and assist some 46,000 people of concern. In response to the current emergency, UNHCR is appealing for a total of $5.5 million to provide immediate lifesaving assistance.

Photo: UNHCR/Adronico Marcos Lucamba

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Like the best science fiction, The Leftovers throws reality out the window for a reason. Its outlandish genre elements give voice to emotions that are present in our everyday lives, but which have an intensity our everyday vocabulary of ideas and events is incapable of adequately expressing. Theres a throwaway bit in Crazy Whitefella Thinking, this weeks episode and a wall-to-wall showcase for Scott Glenn at his most wild and weathered, that illustrates this beautifully.

During his conversation with the ill-fated Aboriginal man Christopher Sunday (who will soon die when the titular Crazy Whitefella falls off a roof and lands on him), Kevin Garvey Sr. talks about the tape recorder hes been carrying around during his long walkabout across Australia. It originally belonged to Kevin Jr., who received it as a Christmas gift from his mother just a month before she died of cancer. After that, the dad explains, his son brought it with him everywhere  Kevin Sr. hugs it to his own chest by way of illustration. Clearly Kevin Jr. saw the tape recorder as a totem of his mother, and brought it with him wherever he went to keep her with him as well.

All of us use these kinds of grieving mechanisms, whether or not we understand them as such. Is it really that big a leap from little Kevin using a tape recorder as a security blanket after his moms death to the stranger things people did to deal with the stranger trauma of the Sudden Departure? Kevins tape recorder contains shades of Nora Durst hiring sex workers to shoot her in the chest, or Matt Jamison writing a new book of the Bible about his weirdly durable brother-in-law, or Kevin Sr. deciding the voices in his head are telling him hes the only man in the world who can stop the next Great Flood. The Departure and everything that happened afterward are just everyday loss and coping (or failure to cope) writ large; the metaphor works because theres no such thing as everyday loss to those who experience it.

That said, The Leftovers does not shy away from spelling out just how crazy these people can get. Go back to that conversation in which Kevin Sr. reveals the origin of the tape recorder to Chris Sunday. Kevin Sr. mentions it in passing while walking him step-by-step through the process that led to his door. To wit: Five minutes after the Sudden Departure, he began hearing voices, so he was institutionalized. After fighting the voices for years, he decided to listen to them, and they told him to go to Australia. Since they didnt specify a location, he figured hed check out the Sydney Opera House and got dressed up for a night on the town. On the way to a Verdi performance, he was stopped by a hippie who asked if he wanted to talk to God. He said yes and was dosed with an experimental hallucinogen for that very purpose.

Several weeks later, he woke up in a hotel room all the way across the continent, surrounded by other white dudes in warpaint, without any memory of how he got there. When he looked up, he saw a chicken on the television. (The same television through which hed communicated to his son Kevin, on the other side of a dimensional divide, though he doesnt seem to remember that bit.) The chicken reminded him of (or maybe it was; this is unclear) Tony, the bird who hatched from the single egg from a small town in the Outback where every living thing but that egg departed.

Since Tony the chicken is now a fortune teller, Kevin gets on a train, re-crosses the continent, and goes to see it. Without knowing exactly what hes looking for, he blurts out purpose, and Tony hops up on his backpack and starts pecking. His beak hits a tape Kevin Jr. recorded during their trip to Niagara Falls back in 81. The tape is cued up to a bit where the boy had his dad sing The Itsy-Bitsy Spider to reassure him during a rainstorm, at which point the rain stops. Therefore  deep breath now  Kevins divine mission is to spend years learning the sacred songs of the Aboriginal people by any means necessary in order to sing them himself and stop the apocalyptic flood, as predicted by the song he sang on the tape pecked at by a psychic chicken he saw on TV while tripping on acid in a country the voices in his head told him to go to.

Makes perfect sense, right?

The beauty of Kevins absurdly convoluted shaggy-dog story is that it actually doesnt make any less sense than some of the wild stuff weve seen on this show. Remember Kevin Jr. returning from the land of the dead by singing Simon and Garfunkel at karaoke? Showrunner Damon Lindelof and director Mimi Leder have perfected a deadpan presentation of this kind of ludicrousness, whether its funny or scary or sad or just plain freakish. Whether or not you believe your eyes and ears is immaterial. The point is whether the characters do, and how they live their lives afterward.

Which brings us to the third and final side of the belief-and-grief triangle constructed by this episode: The tale of Grace, the woman who rescued Kevin Sr. from death by snake bite and exposure  and who happens to be the ringleader of the gang of women on horseback who drowned a local police chief named Kevin. She, too, has taken a long and winding road to get to where she is, but its a horrifically sad and brutal one, not the weirdo vision quest that led Kevin to her doorstep. She and her husband were religious folks raising both a church and a large family of both biological and adopted children when the Sudden Departure happened. (A checkout clerk at the grocery store vanished in front of her eyes, taking the box of cereal Grace had purchased with her.) By the time Grace got back to their home and church the next day, all that was left behind were her familys Bibles, lined up neatly in a row. Given what shed just said about the disappearing cereal box, this might have been a clue that something was amiss, but she believed her whole family had been united with God. In her faith and her grief, it was the only consolation she could derive from such a tragedy.

But Grace was wrong. Two years later, her childrens skeletal remains were discovered in the wilderness around her property. Only her husband had disappeared; without knowing if their mom would ever come back from town or if she, too, had vanished, the kids set out to find her and perished. Grace found Kevin right at the spot where their bodies were discovered, and in her pocket she discovered a snippet of Kevin Jr.s story from the manuscript Matt Jamison had sent him. Believing it all to be a sign, she kidnapped the coincidental cop Kevin from the nearby town and convinced her small flock to drown him. She believed his denials were a test, and if she proved her faith  this is hard to even type, its so small and sad a hope  He would have no choice but to help me talk to my children one last time.

Its all just a story I told myself, Grace says to Kevin Sr., as she breaks down. Its just a stupid, silly story, and I believed it, because Ive gone a bit crazy, havent I? Cue the blind leading the blind: I dont think youre crazy at all, he replies. You just got the wrong Kevin. Grace is ready to give up on believing, but Kevin Sr. sees in her a chance to keep his own faith alive. The self-reinforcing logic of true faith keeps the whole thing moving, until the next tragedy forces it to change or die. Whether this is chilling or inspiring  whether you think she got the wrong Kevin, or that there is no Kevin at all  its a real phenomenon, and grappling with it is the bravest thing The Leftovers does.
This week, Selina is an official observer of a free and open election. Its an exercise in democracy that begins with some promise, then quickly devolves into a corrupt, chaotic hellscape full of liars, thieves, cheats, and dirt bags. If I paused each of these recaps to bask in the almost terrifying prescience of this series  as Julia Louis-Dreyfus herself said last year, Veep has evolved from a political satire to a sobering documentary  we would spend way too much time basking and not nearly enough time recapping. And they dont pay me to bask. So, onward to Georgia!

While it would be extra prophetic of Veep to have constructed a plotline around a surprisingly gripping race in the state of Georgia, this election brings us to the Eurasian country of Georgia. Democracy, Selina says, soaking up the, ah, atmosphere. What a horror show this is.

Though you might think Selina is out here doing the whole democracy-spreading thing because she is a believer in democracy, she of course is just hoping this international shit will be great for her book. The trip brings the whole gang back together again: Gary, Richard, and a reservation-less Mike are with Selina; Ben and Kent are there with Jonah; and Minna, former prime minister of Finland and self-proclaimed best friend of Selina, is on hand to supervise Selinas supervising and also make her insane. As Ben puts it, Its just like the good old days, except shittier in every conceivable way.

Selina is just thrilled to see Jonah again. She expresses her joy like so: I want to let you know that I will destroy you in ways that are so creative they will honor me for it at the Kennedy Center. Jonah, who is about 1,274 feet taller than Selina, gets intimidated into walking backward onto a couch, so by the time Selina actually delivers her threat, shes towering over him.

Selina is supposed to ensure the victory of Nikolai Genizde, a pure-of-heart poet-professor who was poisoned via sushi and now is covered with scaly scars (as Minna tells us, really, the scars are everywhere). Hes running against President Murman, a no-good, very-bad guy who tortures people and employs death squads. (For what its worth, hes also supposed to be a great storyteller.) I love how casual Selina is about Murmans human-rights violations, asking him gleefully, Have you imprisoned any good novelists lately? Murman is deeply unimpressed by Minna: I was sorry to see that your forceful condemnation did not do more to stop the recent genocide in the Congo. Selina, optimistically: Maybe next genocide.

Complicating matters, both of these men wind up offering Selina bribes  I mean, oh my God, of course they arent bribes! Theyre donations to her presidential library! Accepting the money would not be a violation of American law, and as Kent informs us, There is literally no Georgian law. And Im using literally correctly. Murman offers more money and so wins Selinas support. But Scab Calloway has given Minna something she values even more than money: a torrid, very gross-sounding affair.

Minna thinks her honey has the soul of a poet  Selina: That and a car with a sunroof couldve bought you my virginity in 83  but it turns out that hes a criminal just like all the rest. His shabby apartment and cozy-sweater attire is all for show. He offers Selina $15 million for the library. The next day, Murman is leading by more votes than there are people in this country, according to Kent. Selinas reply: This election is going down like Eleanor Roosevelt at Dinah Shore Weekend. Oh, and Murman ups his offer to $20 million.

Theyre both crooks, says Selina, ever the pragmatist. Whats the difference? Bens wise assessment: Five million dollars.

Minna wants to say the whole election is trash, but Selina wants to use some softer language  irregularities, not uncommon, etc.  and declare Murman the winner. As Selina tells her bestest friend Minna, My concern is, I wonder if your judgment is being clouded by your feelings that are brought on by Nikolais lumpy poison cock. Minna realizes that of course she must recuse herself, as she is in what Selina calls a fuck fog. And so, the election goes to Murman.

Until Murman gets arrested before his swearing-in and the Georgian dude who has been Selinas guide this whole time becomes the president instead. Democracy!

(Sidenote: Early in the episode, Gary and Mike accidentally vote. If you didnt pay attention to it before, I highly recommend going back to see Tony Hales silent, hilarious efforts to hide his green thumb from view.)

Hows Jonah doing on this trip? Well, hes not exactly thrilled to be in Georgia. He wants to know why he couldnt have gone on an international election-watching trip to Hawaii. Kent replies, Hawaii is rightfully a monarchy and will be again. Take it up with Jeff Sessions, you two. Showrunner David Mandel told us that Jonah would become the Ted Cruz of Congress this season, i.e. a pathologically unpopular, universally despised D.C. politician. To wit, the only person willing to hang out with Jonah is sentient teddy bear Richard, who puts on his tourist hat to accompany Jonah for what turns out to be a heavy-metal neo-Nazi concert.

Back on the homefront, Dan interviews scandal-struck Buddy and his beloved Amy on CBS This Morning. When Dan  or Danny, as Amy calls him to piss him off  asks these lovebirds how theyre handling the crisis, he rolls the video of Buddys drunk confrontation with the officer. Amy is holding Buddys hand and looks like she wants to jump into that ice hole with Minnas son as she says, Im happiest when Buddy and I are on the couch eating popcorn watching Downton Abbey.

At the end of the interview, Dan turns to the camera: Full disclosure, Ms. Bruckheimer and I had a brief relationship when she was a much younger woman. As soon as the cameras stop rolling, he also asks whom her favorite Downton Abbey character is. I dont know, Amy says. Abbey, I guess.

Unsurprisingly, Amy has Buddys damage control under control: You have to walk 25 miles for breast cancer and attend a WNBA game, but I think youll be okay. Unfortunately, Buddy heard Amys (obviously fake) words of true love that morning and goes off-script to tell the crowd that he is withdrawing from the race. I need to get out of this toxic world of politics and start to appreciate the things that really do matter in my life, like Amy, darling! Amy does not come when summoned. Its sadder than Jeb! Please Clap Bush.

Also, about that $20 million donation Selina got from Murman 

With all the turmoil going on, its now worth about $389,000. On the bright side, Selina  truly the godmother of the Caucasian Spring  steals Doyles thunder and coins the Meyer Doctrine. If nothing else, she gets a green thumbs-up from Gary.

A Few Other Things 

 Selina: Do you have any water that doesnt come from a nuclear power plant?

 Selina, meeting a little Georgian girl: Someday, you can be president! Little girls dad: NO, NOT YOU. Your brother.

 I really hope Jonah doesnt plan on talking about his ghost-nard much going forward.

 Gary, when Selina is called an elder statesman: More like a jailbait statesman.

 Jonah, on the phone: Mom, I told you, I get more homesick when you call!

 Murman is not interested in making Georgia more like America. I saw your last election. No, thank you. TOO SOON, VEEP.

 Selina to Doyle: You have a doctrine now? What is it: Boners are rare, dont waste them?

 I laughed the hardest at Murman and Selinas faux concern over AIDS  Such a terrible killer. But were making real progress  followed by Selina saying Danny Thomas, founder of St. Judes Childrens Hospital, had hookers shit on a glass coffee table. (Its an American expression.)

 A close second was Selina talking about the residents of Georgia: Do we really want these people to have electricity?

Insult of the Episode

I love the heartlessness of the whole crew re: Mike not having a room. My favorite dismissal comes from Kent: You cant stay with me. Please dont make me make up a reason.

Compliment of the Episode

Catherine and Marjorie asking Dan for his sperm. I love that Dan knows immediately why theyre there and that he has zero qualms about the arrangement.

Jonah Shall Henceforth Be Known As

A sign that Jonah is at a real low point: His new colleagues dont even care enough to make up insulting nicknames for him.
Netflix has heard your concerns. Photo: Beth Dubber/Netflix

Mental-health experts, parents, and even some involved with 13 Reasons Why have voiced strong concerns about the graphic nature of the new Netflix show, accusing the series of glamorizing teen suicide. The show centers around a high-school girl who takes her own life  the act is portrayed in full detail  and involves explicit rape scenes. Canada has banned all talk of the show in some schools, while New Zealand wont allow anyone under 18 to watch the show without adult supervision. (In the U.S., the show is rated TV-MA.) Now, Netflix is taking further precautions: BuzzFeed reports that, in addition to the trigger warnings already in place before the shows two most graphic episodes (plus a half-hour special following the finale that discusses mental health), the streaming service will add a new disclaimer before the first episode and plans to strengthen the messaging and resource language of the warnings throughout. While many of our members find the show to be a valuable driver for starting important conversation with their families, we have also heard concern from those who feel the series should carry additional advisories, Netflix said in a statement. Viewers will start to see these changes this week. Previously, one of the shows writers defended its depiction of suicide, writing that it overwhelmingly seems to me that the most irresponsible thing we couldve done would have not to show the death at all.
Samantha Bee, center, after the show. Photo:  2017 Greg Kahn

There aint no after-party like a Samantha Bee after-party co-hosted by Vulture, because a Samantha Bee after-party co-hosted by Vulture has  designated telephone booths for drunk-dialing your local legislators. Such was the scene at the W Hotel in Washington, D.C., hours after Bee wrapped the taping of her Not the White House Correspondents Dinner, where the likes of Will Ferrell, Retta, Alia Shawkat, and Padma Lakshmi gathered to drink, dance, and generally bask in the two sets Elvis Costello played with his band. Take a look inside the event with the slideshow above, and then resume crossing your fingers that Bee wants to do round two next year.


Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out. Photo: Universal Pictures

There is nothing more disruptive to Hollywood than a movie that makes a ton of money while ignoring every current rule about how a movie makes a ton of money. Pull that off, and you may end up with a moment that not only defines the movie year but lays down some new rules for years to come. Four months into 2017, we may already have that film: Over the last two months, Get Out has messed with Hollywoods head, and with Americas.

Get Out is not the years No. 1 movie. That title is currently held by Disneys live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, which recently passed the original Star Wars to become one of the ten biggest domestic grossers in history. Beauty and the Beast is huge, but its success is confirmatory rather than subversive. It is an immaculate execution of the studio playbook circa right this minute  an expensive extension and refurbishing of an already profitable and well-known piece of intellectual property (intellectual property is what everyone in Hollywood says now when they want something that sounds fancier than brand), the formula for which is easily duplicated. It has arrived, and it has been received, and more than a billion dollars worldwide have changed hands, and it will pass through pop culture without leaving so much as the mark of a kiss or a bruise. This is what studios mostly attempt to do now.

Get Out is different. Everything about it screams niche, from the budget ($4.5 million, which is what its studio, Universal, spent to make approximately two-and-a-half minutes of The Fate of the Furious), to the first-time director-writer, Jordan Peele, a cable-TV star whose show ended and who was looking to branch out, to the complete lack of movie stars (although now, Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams are nicely on their way), to the genre: horror cut with more than a dash of comedy and of pointed sociopolitical commentary. It is based on nothing; it suggests a formula for nothing; it will not rack up huge grosses in China (or, in fact, any foreign country, most of which are still remarkably inhospitable to movies with African-American casts or themes); it is not duplicable; and it is completely execution-dependent. As a plan, thats a nightmare. However, one of the defining aspects of Get Out is that its not a plan but a movie. And as a movie, its current U.S. gross  $170 million and counting  makes it not only a profit machine but a phenomenon. Get Outs multiplier (jargon for total gross divided by opening weekend) is 5.1; most wide releases hope for 3. A multiplier of 5.1 means a movie is a word-of-mouth smash; a multiplier of 5.1 coupled with the rave reviews that Get Out received means its imaginable that the film will reemerge at years end as part of the awards conversation, a finish line few probably imagined.

But Get Out has accomplished much more than that: It has written new chapters in a couple of front-burner cultural narratives that were already compelling public attention  one about African-American representation both onscreen and behind the camera, and one about Donald Trump. A month into the Trump presidency, audiences were clearly ready for a piece of pop art that captured the stricken, petrified gallows humor of the moment. Potential headlines, think pieces, and hot takes were baked right into Get Outs story. If you havent seen the film, its about a young black guy who spends an unnerving weekend with his white girlfriends apparently liberal family, which on one level makes it a deeper, darker 50-years-later version of Guess Whos Coming to Dinner reconceived by the Sidney Poitier character as a nightmare, and on another makes it a Key and Peele sketch that sets up a great premise and, unlike most sketches, has the time, room, and impetus to explore its most unnerving ramifications.

It was an accident, although it now feels like an inevitability, that Get Out arrived in movie theaters the very weekend that Moonlight not only won the Best Picture Academy Award but, thanks to the Oscar telecasts twist ending, appeared to win only by withstanding a hurricane, gently but determinedly wresting its moment from a stage full of churning, baffled white people. Barry Jenkinss overwhelmed and elated acceptance  Im done with it!  probably had many meanings, but in one sense, the phrase couldnt have been more in sync with the tone of Get Out, which, with alternating currents of fear, disgust, clear-sightedness, and amusement, offers a view of the interaction of white and black America that turns Im done with it into a symphony. (One of the sneaky joys of writing about the movie is the case it makes that I, a middle-aged white man writing in effusive praise of it, might be the devil. Take that as you will.)

We have had other African-American-themed movies  most recently Hidden Figures  that outperformed (white) expectations and reminded Hollywood, yet again, that a vast and powerful audience continues to be underestimated and underserved. But Get Out is the first movie that seems in part to be a critique of the whole subject: It suggests that when you encounter a smiling white progressive who talks enthusiastically about the importance of diversity and sticks out a helping hand, you might want to look for the dagger sheathed in the sleeve.

That probably extends to anyone in Hollywood currently saying, We should make more movies like Get Out! Easier said than done, and easier still to translate that into We should get Jordan Peele to direct the next Marvel movie or similar suggestions. Hollywood is an engulfing beast, and its instinct is to incorporate  to get someone like Peele aboard the ship rather than to re-steer the ship itself. Warner Brothers has reportedly been wooing him to direct a remake of the 1988 anime sci-fi film Akira that has been in development for more than a decade. As counterintuitive as it might seem to look at his wholly original work in Get Out and say, This guy should be doing remakes, it is, in a way, all that a studio knows how to offer in 2017. Mid-budget films where a writer-director could once let his own ideas flourish are close to extinct now, so the highest compliment a studio can pay is to hand over a high-value property  a remake, a sequel, a reboot, a franchise  and in doing so, invite a hot new talent to convert from being an underminer of the Plan to a component of it. To pursue an alternative approach  simply asking a filmmaker what he most wants to do next  would be to privilege passion in a way that is completely at odds with the way studios operate. After a success, Hollywoods message is not Change us. Its Join us.

But Get Out itself has plenty to say on the subject of the depersonalization that assimilation can bring about; no spoilers, but its built into the plot. (And there are layers of delightful irony in Get Out leading all contenders in a corporate enterprise like the upcoming MTV Movie Awards with six nominations  including the brand-new and echt-2017 Best Fight Against the System.) In any case, Peele has plans of his own  in an interview with Business Insider, he discussed Get Out as the first of five thrillers about different social demons that he hopes to make over the next decade. I really want to continue to nurture my own voice, he said recently.

With Bradley Whitford doing a dead-on incarnation of the guy who hastens to tell you he loved Obama so much he would have voted for him for a third term if he could, some have claimed that the primary target of Get Outs dark-comedy scorn is woker-than-thou dad liberalism. But Whitfords character is not what he seems, and Get Out knows who and what the greater enemy is. Right after the election, some people, desperately searching for any silver lining, resorted to At least some great oppositional art will come out of the Trump era. Well  with the possible exception of Melissa McCarthys first Sean Spicer appearance, were not there yet. Art takes time. But we are in the first stage of anti-Trump pop culture: the arrival of movies, theater, and television conceived long before this moment that nonetheless have something to say about it. Its part of the reason for the attention paid to Lynn Nottages Pulitzer Prizewinning Broadway play Sweat, which personalizes the economic despair caused by the decline of manufacturing jobs, and to Hulus The Handmaids Tale, an adaptation of Margaret Atwoods dystopic 1985 novel about an anti-female theocracy, the current resonance of which is lost on no one. And it is very much a part of Get Out, which, with its side-eye aimed at the airy delusion that were all part of a post-racial society, unquestionably plays differently than it would have during a Hillary Clinton administration. The movie suggests that a black persons worst fears are not paranoia but foresight. It felt a lot easier to Yes, but that notion six months ago.

You hear sometimes that art like Get Out got lucky, that its success is a matter of propitious timing and the convergence of fortunate circumstances. Dont believe it. Its the job of artists to put their palms to the ground and feel for subsonic rumbles; they write about whats on their minds with the faith that soon, there will be reason for it to be on the minds of others. So Get Out, which finished shooting more than a year ago and had its first trailer up on YouTube a month before the election, isnt the movie of the moment so much as the movie that felt the moment coming. Its a film that says to its audience, Things are so much worse than you imagine. And they have been all along. In 2017, thats the punch line weve been asking for, and maybe the punch we deserve.

*A version of this article appears in the May 1, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
The Waco Jazz Orchestra will present a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Ball Performing Arts Center at McLennan Community College.

For more information, call 299-8283.

Spring Forage Field Day

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Beef and Forage committees in Limestone and McLennan Counties will present a Spring Forage Field Day starting at 8 a.m. May 12 near Waco in the Ronnie Dowdle Field, located off of East Loop 340.

Registration will start in the field at 7:30 a.m.

Matthew Machacek, a rangeland specialist with the U.S. Department of Agricultures Natural Resources Conservation Service, will discuss adaptive grazing management, and local agriculture equipment vendors will have equipment on display.

The program will conclude with a lunch program at Timber Crest Baptist Church. Vanessa Corriher-Olson, service forage specialist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, will be the lunch speaker.

Cost is $10.

Reservations are required by Friday. For reservations and directions to the field, call 757-5180.

Retired teachers

The Waco McLennan County Retired Teachers Association will meet at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Stilwell Retirement Residence, 5400 Laurel Lake Drive.

The meeting will include installation of new officers, an awards presentation, a memorial service and a special presentation to Stilwell Retirement Center.

For more information, call 715-0934 or email lhallenbama65@gmail.com.

Job fair

Heart of Texas Goodwill will host a job fair from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Waco Learning Center, 1700 S. New Road.

The event will include more than 24 employers in various industries, with hiring managers on hand to speak with qualified applicants and possibly conduct one-on-one interviews.

To register, job seekers can stop by the Waco Goodwill Learning Center or call 753-7337.

Walk-ins are also welcome on the day of the event.

Hewitt story times

The Hewitt Public Library, 200 Patriot Court in Hewitt, will present story times for toddlers, ages 12 to 36 months, and preschoolers, ages 3 to 5, on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The toddler sessions will start at 9:30 a.m.

Preschoolers will meet at 10:30 a.m. with a program about Bedtime.

For more information, call 666-2442.

WHS class of 1967

The Waco High School class of 1967 will have its 50-year reunion June 9-10.

The reservation deadline is May 15.

To make a reservation, classmates can email Elaine Earl Milam at elainemilamtx@sbcglobal.net.
A Baylor University fraternity hosted a racist Mexican-themed party on Saturday night, prompting a Sunday afternoon school statement condemning the event and a vociferous student protest.

The Monday protest drew hundreds of students to the center of campus, where calls were made to Baylor administrators and regents to address racism on campus and to sanction the fraternity, which was suspended by its national chapter and the university pending a formal inquiry.

Students at the Saturday party hosted by Baylors Kappa Sigma chapter wore sombreros and serapes, according to images circulating on Twitter.

Others dressed as construction workers and wore brown faces, according to student reports, and attendees chanted, Build that wall, referencing a campaign promise from President Donald Trump to build a wall along the United States-Mexico border.

A Baylor spokesman said the university has no direct evidence of students wearing brown faces, though it would investigate that detail if it arose.

In the Sunday statement, Vice President for Student Life Kevin Jackson called the party deeply concerning and does not in any way reflect Baylors institutional values.

The university is investigating the incident, Jackson said. Under Baylors Division of Student Life, the Bias Motivated Incident Support Team investigates incidents involving race, nationality, religion, gender and age, according to the website.

Baylor is committed to a Christian mission that actively supports a caring and diverse campus community, and we do not tolerate racism of any kind on our campus, Jackson said. When any incident that does not align with our faith and mission is brought to our attention, it is thoroughly investigated by the University, and appropriate action is taken.

Damian Moncada, a Baylor student and president of the Hispanic Student Association, said the university must be more intentional about dealing with issues of diversity and inclusion.

We are fighting for a cause, Moncada said. A lot of you may not understand what were feeling. You may think that you have celebrated our culture. But I ask you that, if you wanted to celebrate our culture, you would have invited us to that party.

There seems to be a disconnect between Baylor culture and student culture, and it needs to be fixed now. Its not a problem about political party. It does not have to do with being a liberal or conservative, its about being respectful of one another, he said.

Students held signs reading, My culture is not your costume, Ignorance is not an excuse for racism, and Somos unidos,  meaning We are united.

Kristen Williams, a Baylor sophomore and incoming president of Baylors NAACP chapter, said she was not surprised when she heard about the party. Mandatory cultural competency training and more discussion about what constitutes racism would be good steps forward, she said.

A lot of people there, I bet, had friends who are minority friends, Williams said. And if they were truly their friend, they wouldnt have put on the party. They could have asked them, I dont know if this is offensive or not, and I just want to make sure before we throw this huge party. 

Organizers of the protest made eight asks of Baylor administrators, including implementation of mandatory training, a sanction of Kappa Sigma, a formal apology from both the fraternity and the university and the creation of a multi-cultural cabinet through student government.

Some minority students told stories of racism they have experienced on campus, including one who said she was berated by a fellow student for speaking Spanish at a football game.

The national chapter of Kappa Sigma suspended the Baylor chapters operations while officials conduct an investigation in cooperation of the university, according to a statement.

The allegations are inconsistent with the values of Kappa Sigma and, upon completion of the investigation, the Fraternity will address the findings in an appropriate manner, the statement said.

Also present on Monday was Natasha Nkhama, a student who reported days after Trumps election that she was pushed on campus and called the n-word. Several hundred people walked Nkhama across campus the next day.

Im just tired. I dont want to do this anymore, Nkhama said. I dont want us to have to keep walking every time something like this happens. And as tired as you are of hearing about racism, were tired of experiencing it.
Local and federal authorities arrested a man accused of defrauding a Woodway bank earlier this year and fraudulently obtaining more than $85,000 by using the identity of a Florida resident, Woodway Public Safety Director Yost Zakhary said.

Oladapo Mobolaji Fasan, 34, of Richardson, was arrested April 6 after Woodway detectives began investigating a man who allegedly obtained a home equity loan for more than $85,000 on Jan. 10 at BBVA Compass Bank's Woodway location.

According to Zakhary, bank employees said that the subject presented identification documents in December to acquire the loan, but authorities later determined the identification documents were fake and the identity of a person in Florida. The victim did not have any ties to Woodway, he said.

Zakhary said Fasan withdrew the money from Compass Bank throughout a two-day period in Woodway.

"Detectives were able to track him down with the assistance of other agencies, in particular, the FBI," Zakhary said. "The suspect did have fictitious and false information from a resident from Florida who had no idea he was being victimized."

Authorities arrested Fasan without incident April 6 at his home. He remained in federal custody Monday. Zakhary said the federal investigation was ongoing.
Three iconic World War II aircraft will bring history alive May 6-7 at the Greenville Downtown Airport (GMU), Airport Rd Ext., Greenville, S.C. The Minnesota Wing and the Dixie Wing of the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) will bring a B-25, Miss Mitchell; a P-51, Red Nose; and an SBD-5 Dauntless dive bomber for the enjoyment of aviation fans in the Greenville area. The trio of beautifully restored WWII warbirds will be at the Runway Cafe ramp and the CAF will offer once-in-a lifetime rides in all three aircraft.

It has been many years since the Commemorative Air Force has brought aircraft to the Greenville Downtown Airport, said Joe Frasher, GMUs Airport Director. We are thrilled that they are coming back. People will not want to miss seeing these World War II aircraft. In the past, when people have heard of these types of visits after the fact, they were sad that they missed seeing them in person.

It is an honor for us to visit Greenville with these great warbirds, said Jay Bess, Dixie Wing Leader. We look forward to welcoming veterans and Greenville area residents. This is part of a five-stop tour to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Doolittle Raid over Japan, and it is a rare opportunity for people to ride in three historic WWII aircraft.
But for a fair and just world, citizens must be able to reveal major injustices and corruption without fear of exposure and reprisals.

Already, we've witnessed the Trump administration escalating the use of force at the US border, seizing and searching the digital devices and social media accounts of journalists and citizens  a risk to investigative journalism that is dependent on confidential sources and whistleblowing. In Canberra, only last week the Australian Federal Police admitted illegally accessing an unidentified journalist's metadata .

Daily, our rights to speak up and speak out are being eroded, restricted and compromised through the corrosive impacts of tools of the state: surveillance, data retention policies, and the overreach of national security and anti-terrorism legislation.

US President Donald Trump's "alternative facts" are not the only thing that threaten truth-telling in 2017. Credit:AP

That's now under threat, as states and corporations use their power to intercept our communications, harvest our emails, and trawl through our mobile metadata. It is these powers which undermine the principles and practice of source confidentiality  a tenet enshrined internationally in both journalistic codes of ethics and human rights law that has supported the sharing of hidden information with journalists in the public interest, from Watergate to the Panama Papers.

Ahead of World Press Freedom Day, UNESCO (the UN's Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) is releasing a new global study Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age of which I'm the author. The study examines source protection-related developments in 121 countries between 2007 and 2015. It concludes that the confidence in the confidentiality of sources could be further eroded unless journalistic communications are protected; surveillance is made subject to checks and balances; data retention laws are limited; and accountability and transparency measures for states and corporations are improved. The likely result is that much public interest information, such as that about corruption and abuse, will remain hidden from public view.

What I've learnt about the implications of 21st century communications for whistleblowing and investigative journalism chills me. When you catalogue a decade's worth of cases globally, as I did with my research team, you're confronted with an undeniable reality: even with the availability of tools like encryption, it's becoming much harder for journalists to protect confidential sources and whistleblowers.

Take, for example, the US Justice Department's mass seizure of AP journalists' phone data in 2012, during a leak investigation connected to the CIA. Or, as revealed by Edward Snowden, British surveillance service GCHQ's scooping up of emails from some of the world's most reputable news organisations. Then, there's the case of the 100 Macedonian journalists placed under surveillance by their government who, in 2015, were invited to the opposition party's headquarters to collect folders filled with transcripts of their conversations spanning a two-year period.
The debate around the ABC for the most part is binary and sterile. One side claims that the ABC is simply underfunded and that any suggestion of imposing on it a set of expectations is a threat to its independence. The other side focuses only on the news and current affairs output and claims that the ABC is politically biased and overfunded.

But there is a profound disconnect between the ABC and its public policy settings concerning Australian screen content, and its contribution to Australian culture and identity. What we have seen consistently is that our most significant cultural institution is vulnerable to unilateral internal change, contrary to stated government policy and in the absence of any public discussion or review.

Author, Kim Dalton, who is publishing a critique of ABC practices, in his Sydney home. Credit:Janie Barrett

The ABC's management and managing director, working to a politically appointed board that lacks depth of experience, is able autonomously to reset the priorities of the ABC.

To achieve its public responsibilities our most significant cultural organisation requires a governance structure within which its public purpose is clearly articulated and set by government, where certain outcomes are clearly established and where the normal high standards of public sector accountability and transparency are mandated and adhered to.
Students who express conservative views no longer feel "safe" on our nations' campuses. They frequently self-censor their opinions and have trouble finding forums in which they can freely express their ideas; you know, the kind of forums where they can really be themselves away from those pesky socialists, multiculturalists and er um women.

That, at any rate, is the lesson to be drawn from the revelation that University of Melbourne Liberal Club president Xavier Boffa wrote to a woman, saying he wanted to invite her to an event but hadn't because "a couple of the guys were a bit uncomfortable about inviting a chick".

This is rich coming from a political movement  and their cheerleaders in the media  who not only mock women for wanting "safe spaces" on campus, but expend petabytes of data complaining that the use of trigger warnings is "political correctness gone mad".
A young Adelaide woman on a working holiday in Colombia has been arrested with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine in her luggage, her family says.

Cassandra Sainsbury was detained for drug trafficking on April 11 at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota on her way back to Australia.

Her sister, Khala Sainsbury, says the 22-year-old personal trainer and volunteer firefighter is facing up to 25 years in jail "for a crime she did not commit".

The family has started an online campaign to raise funds for legal fees.
Changes need to be made so mining companies can't use legal loopholes to avoid environmental rehabilitation obligations, according to new Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston.

"Rogue players, as they've been called, should not be allowed to shift their costs to the rest of the industry, negatively impacting other companies," he said.

"In light of experience, there is a need to assess and improve the Mining Rehabilitation Fund so that the industry is protected."

He also acknowledged the MRF was the community's guarantee that miners would take environmental responsibility.
A Perth fisherman has captured the moment a cheeky seal pulled off the perfect heist, and robbed an unsuspecting angler of a catch right from under his nose.

Eamonn O'Hare was fishing with friends near the Mewstones - a popular fishing spot around 5 kilometres off the coast of Fremantle - earlier this month.

The spot is renowned for tailor in excess of one kilogram, and fishermen flock to the area on weekends to drop a line off the reef. Therefore it was only natural another type of hunter came along to enjoy the sunny weather.

"It didn't take long for us to start hooking up on the salmon as they were plenty at the location," Mr O'Hare said.
Senior MLA from Talala in Junagadh district, Bhagabhai Barad, has quit all his Indian National Congress (INC) posts and submitted his resignation to Gujarat Assembly Speaker Dr Nimaben Acharya. The politician is likely to join BJP as the party eyes Junagadh district. Barad has become the 18th MLA since 2017 in the state to dump the Congress.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Apr 30 (PTI) At least 11 Maharashtra Navnirman Sena workers were arrested today allegedly for burning some Pakistani brand fabrics outside a shopping mall in suburban Malad, the police said.

The MNS workers entered the Inorbit mall at around 4.30 PM and went to a shop where Pakistani brand fabrics and other products were being sold, a senior police official said.

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"We have arrested the MNS activists who torched the Pakistani brand fabrics outside the mall," said Senior Inspector Santosh Bhandare of Bangurnagar police station.

The workers shouted slogans against Pakistan and tried to vandalise the shop, the official said adding they later collected the clothes of different Pakistani brands, came outside the mall on the street and torched them.

The activists also warned the mall authorities not to sale fabrics, cloths and other products of Pakistani brands, he said.

The police also rushed to the spot and brought the situation under control, he said adding a case under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code was registered.

On April 18, the police had apprehended 10 MNS workers allegedly for creating ruckus at a showroom of Zara, in Lower Parel area here, opposing the sale of clothes of Pakistani brands. PTI DC NRB RAX

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By Press Trust of India: Jammu, May 1 (PTI) In a barbaric attack, two security personnel were killed and their bodies mutilated by a Pakistan army team which sneaked about 250 metres into Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

Border action teams (BATs) crossed into the Indian side as Pakistan army launched heavy rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts in the Krishna Ghati sector in Poonch.

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The simultaneous, unprovoked attacks took place this morning, in which an army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed and another soldier was injured, a defence spokesman said.

The Indian Army said that such "despicable" acts of Pakistans army would be "appropriately responded" to.

"It was a pre-planed operation of Pakistan army. They had pushed in BATs over 250 metres deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army officer said.

Pakistans Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector (in Poonch district) this morning, a spokesman of the Indian Armys Northern Command said in statement here.

Simultaneously, a BAT operation was launched on a patrol operating between the two posts, it said.

"In a unsoldierly act by the Pak Army the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated," the spokesman said.

"They have been to an extent beheaded," the army officer said.

The deceased have been identified as Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of the BSF and Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment of the army.

Constable Rajinder Singh of the BSF battalion suffered injuries in the attack.

A BSF officer said troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, he said.

In April this year, there have been seven ceasefire violations by Pakistan along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri sectors of Jammu and Kashmir.

On April 19, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch sector.

On April 17, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire by firing and shelling mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector along the LoC in Rajouri district.

They had broken the ceasefire in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali (BG) sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.

In Digwar sector of Poonch, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), Naib Subedar S Sanayaima Som, was killed in an improvise explosive device (IED) blast along the LoC in Poonch sector on April 1.

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There were four violations of the ceasefire along the LoC in Poonch in March.

In 2016 there were 228 instances of ceasefire violation along the LoC, while there were 221 instances of ceasefire violation along the International Border (IB). PTI AB SMN SC SMN

--- ENDS ---
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By The Associated Press

Apr. 26, 2017 | CLAY, KY

By The Associated Press Apr. 26, 2017 | 12:12 PM | CLAY, KY

The man shot by a Kentucky State Trooper after gaining control of a police cruiser and dragging an officer has been released from the hospital.



Kentucky State Police said Master Trooper William Braden, a sixteen year veteran, shot 30-year-old Alex Harvey on Tuesday after he gained control of a Clay Police Department vehicle and drove toward Braden, dragging Chief Chris Evitts, who tried to stop Harvey.



Police said in a statement that Harvey and another man were handcuffed in the back of separate police vehicles as officers secured evidence from a Webster County home in a counterfeit money investigation. The statement says Harvey was handcuffed, but managed to get into the front of the police car.



Police said Evitts was treated and released. Harvey has been released from St. Marys Hospital and has been booked into the Vanderburgh County Jail in Evansville, IN. He is being held without bond while awaiting extradition back to Kentucky.



Troopers said the investigation is continuing.




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By West Kentucky Star Staff May. 01, 2017 | 02:15 PM | RICHMOND, KY

The Kentucky Center for School Safety (KCSS) has released its 2015-16 School Safety Data Report examining law violations committed in Kentuckys public schools during the previous school year.The center says 6,001 students out Of 655,475 enrolled in Kentucky public schools were charged with violating a law. That's less than 1 in 100 students. Of those who were charged, 12.33 percent were repeat offenders, with 5,261 others only having one violation.Data analysis also showed that use of marijuana or hashish was the number one violation, accounting for 26.45 percent. KCSS says, "While this rate is consistent with previous years, the popularity of marijuana/hashish with teenagers is a major concern for all communities."Alcohol use and possession had jumped up by 46.8 percent in the previous report, but this new report shows a 26.19 percent decrease.Disorderly conduct violations increased by 192.81% from the previous report, but it appears the data may not fully correspond from year to year. When they reviewed the data from 2014-2105, KCSS says it appears some districts did not correctly code specific incidences of disorderly conduct, so correct data from this year's report looks inflated by comparison.The report summary notes that, "the disproportionality of race, special education and socio-economic status among student violators continues to be a concern and suggests that a thorough analysis of school-level data is warranted." Specifically, there was a significantly higher percentage of black students with reported law violations (30.31%) compared to black students enrolled (10.5%) in the 2015 -2016 school year, and there were significantly lower percentages of white (6.57%) and other race (8.67%) students who had reported law violations when compared to white and other race enrollments (79.05% and 10.41%). Still, almost 61 percent of the reported violations were by white students.Data trends from previous years proved consistent when looking at grades. The largest number of reported law violations were ninth graders, followed by 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. The center says this key transition year is also reported as troublesome in studies of retention, failed subjects and attendance.Among weapons violations reported, the other category for violations was highest (88.80%), and predominately involved objects that are capable of being readily used to inflict severe bodily injury upon someone. This compares to violations involving a firearm, handgun, or rifle, which were rare (11.20%) in the 2015-16 school year.The KCSS says reported violations for terroristic threatening may be under-reported. The report says representatives are frequently consulted about anonymous threats that have been uncovered, but cannot be attached to a student. Since only violations that can be assigned to a student are reported, anonymous threats that require school administrators to investigate and respond are not captured in the current data. They say this may be an area that needs to be addressed in future reporting procedures.

On the Net:
Once the Ashok Lavasa report on allowances is screened by the Empowered Committee of Secretaries, it will sent to the Cabinet for approval.

By India Today Web Desk: After missing several deadlines, the Ashok Lavasa-led Committee on Allowances recently submitted its review report on Seventh Pay Commission recommendations to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

If reports are to be believed, employee union representatives are likely to meet government officials, including those from the Finance Ministry, and discuss among other things allowances under the Seventh Pay Commission. The meeting is expected to take place later this week.

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The report submitted by the Ashok Lavasa committee is being examined by the Department of Expenditure, and will be subsequently placed before the Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS). After this, the report on allowances under the Seventh Pay Commission will be sent to Union cabinet for approval.

HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE LAVASA PANEL AND THE SEVENTH PAY COMMISSION: The Ashok Lavasa-led Committee on Allowances submitted its report to Arun Jaitley on April 27. "Modifications have been suggested in some allowances which are applicable universally to all Central government employees as well as certain other allowances which apply to specific employee categories," the Finance Ministry said in a statement on April 28. Among the specific employee categories identified by the Lavasa committee are railwaymen, doctors, scientists, defence personnel, doctors and nurses, the Finance Ministry statement said. The Narendra Modi government constituted a committee under Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa in July to review the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission on allowances. The Seventh Pay Commission suggested abolition of 52 of the total 196 allowances and subsuming 36 other allowances into larger ones. Following representations by several employee unions against the recommendations, the Committee on Allowances was formed under Ashok Lavasa. The Seventh Pay Commission recommended doing away or merging allowances such as assiting cashier, cycle, condiment, flying squad, haircut, robe, shorthand, soap, spectacle, uniform, vigilance and washing. The Committee on Allowances was initially given four months to submit its report but the deadline was later extended to February 22, 2017. The Ashok Lavasa-led committee held detailed discussions with several ministries as well as representatives of employee unions before submitting the report to the Finance Minister. Among the major concerns of government employees is the Seventh Pay Commission's recommendation on reducing the house rent allowance (HRA) by 2-6 per cent depending on type of cities. Employee representatives are also demanding arrears on allowances.

ALSO READ:

7th Pay Commission: Delay in allowances may force government employee forum to call a strike

7th Pay Commission: No hike in transport allowance, HRA to remain at 30 per cent

7th pay commission: RBI worried about price rise as employees wait for HRA

ALSO WATCH

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AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal today discussed infighting within the party with senior leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and others ahead of PAC meeting.

By Ankit Tyagi: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal today discussed the infighting in the party with senior party leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Dilip Pandey and Ashutosh.

The meeting took place at Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's resident. The meeting was held after Delhi MLA Amanatullah Khan accused senior party leader Kumar Vishwas of plotting against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal.

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Kejriwal is learnt to be unhappy with the way Amanatullah Khan made the allegations after Kumar Vishwas called for a deeper introspection within the party in the aftermath of the electoral drubbing that the AAP received in Punjab, Goa and Delhi.

Amanatullah had also alleged that Kumar Vishwas is trying to take control of the AAP replacing Arvind Kejriwal as the party convener. If Vishwas fails, he would join the BJP with his supporters, Amanatullah alleged.

Kejriwal is learnt to have discussed the matter with his senior party colleagues for about one-and-a-half-hour.

KEJRIWAL DEFENDS VISHWAS

Earlier, Arvind Kejriwal had come in the defence of Kumar Vishwas calling him as a younger brother. Kejriwal had tweeted saying, "Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are trying to drive a wedge between us. They are enemies of the party. They should refrain. No one can separate us."

Kumar Vishwas retweeted Arvind Kejriwal's tweet.

The meeting of the senior leaders of AAP at Manish Sisodia's residence assumes significance in the wake of the PAC meeting of the party scheduled for the evening today.

HOW THE ROW BEGAN

Controversy erupted in the AAP after Kumar Vishwas, in an interview with India Today, said that he was open to discuss a change of leadership in the party following the poll debacles in three states.

Amanatullah had reacted to Kumar Vishwas' suggestion of radical changes in the party including the change in leadership.

Meanwhile, Delhi Minister Kapil Mishra had also come out in support of Kumar Vishwas.

Following the public outbursts by senior leaders of the party, Arvind Kejriwal had issued a gag order against them. Kejriwal had asked the party leaders to raise their concerns in the party and not on TV cameras.

ALSO READ |

Arvind Kejriwal gags AAP leaders after Kumar Vishwas-Amanatullah Khan spat

ALSO WATCH | AAP civil war: Kumar Vishwas says he's open to leadership change

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, May 1 (PTI) The Nepal Army will maintain vigil due to the "unfolding events" in the country, it said in an unusual move hours after an impeachment motion was registered in the parliament against the first woman chief justice.

The decision to step up security vigil was taken at a high-level meeting last night, hours after the impeachment motion was registered against Sushila Karki by two major ruling parties. The motion accused her of "interfering" with the executive and issuing "prejudiced" verdicts.

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Top officials have decided to maintain vigil in view of the challenges to security from "unfolding events", the armys media wing said in a statement, without explaining what it meant by unfolding events.

It said the officials also reviewed overall security situation in Nepal.

Karki, 64, has been automatically suspended from the position after the motion was registered.

A total of 249 lawmakers from the ruling Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist-Centre) have signed the motion.

As a fallout, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Bimalendra Nidhi too resigned. A close aide of Nidhi told reporters he has serious reservations over the motion.

Nidhi leads the Nepali Congress, the largest constituent of the ruling coalition mustered by Prime Minister Prachanda.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Development Kamal Thapa has expressed his displeasure against the motion.

Thapa, also the chairman of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, in a tweet said the motion was not just unfortunate but objectionable.

Nepal, which has been witnessing political instability for some time now, is scheduled to hold local-level polls on May 14. Some Madhes-centric parties have opposed the elections until the Constitution is amended to accommodate their views: more representation in parliament and redrawing of provincial boundaries.

The army, which is to be deployed for the smooth conduct of the polls, said it has reviewed the situation and the efforts by political parties in forging a consensus, said the statement. PTI SBP ABH AKJ ABH

--- ENDS ---
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The next few months in cinema hold the promise of fresh new visions and untold stories.

Here and there. On occasion. Intermittently.

Who are we kidding? Mostly, as is expected in the spring-summer season, the movies will deliver familiarity by the bucket: franchises, sequels, spinoffs and reboots. Its a risk-averse movie marketplace, and Hollywood promises youre going to like this stuff because, hey, you liked it before.

Even so, the movie season holds some wild cards in an otherwise stacked deck, if you look hard for them.

Paramount Pictures Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron hit the beach on May 25 in the film version of Baywatch.

Super Friends

Comic book movies will rule the longer days of 2017, starting next week with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (May 5). James Gunns Marvel-ous sequel plunges us into the extra-terrestrial adventures a collection of brigand-heroes led by Chris Pratts space-punk Star-Lord, who embarks on another mission of galaxy rescue and finally meets his otherworldly biological dad (Kurt Russell).

Chuck Zlotnick /Disney-Marvel / The Associated Press Kurt Russell in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2.

After a tantalizing introduction in Batman V Superman, Gal Gadots ageless Wonder Woman gets her own stand-alone movie on June 2, taking sides in the carnage of the First World War alongside a handsome American soldier (Chris Pine).

Well, he thinks hes a superhero. The deluded, under-dressed protagonist of the truly juvenile comic novels by Dav Pilkey gets his own animated feature in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (June 2), with the voices of Ed Helms and Kevin Hart.

A certain webslinger serves up a third live-action reboot with Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7), this time foregoing the usual origin story to facilitate Spidey (Tom Holland) going up against the Vulture, a role wisely cast with Birdman/Batman actor Michael Keaton.

DC FILMS Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, which opens June 2.

Sequels

Even Canadian films get into the sequel act, as proven by Bon Cop, Bad Cop 2 (May 12) an 11-years-later follow-up in which a volatile Quebec cop (Patrick Huard) and a straitlaced Ontario detective (Colm Feore) join forces to stop bad guys traversing both sides of the two solitudes.

Call it a sequel to Prometheus or a prequel to Alien, but know that the director of the original, Ridley Scott, is in the chair for Alien: Covenant (May 19), which sees a spaceship full of colonists land on a planet infected by creepy, malevolent xenomorphs.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (May 25) sees Johnny Depp treading water, career-wise, as Captain Jack Sparrow, now on the run from creepy ghost-sailor Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem) intent on wiping out every pirate in the world, beginning with Jack.

Cars 3 (June 16), continues the red-headed stepchild of Pixar franchises with race car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) sidelined by a horrific accident during a race. So that sounds like fun.

Alien: Covenant, which opens May 19, sees a spaceship full of colonists land on a planet infected by creepy, malevolent xenomorphs, and Ridley Scott back as director.

Despicable Me 3 (June 30) sees reformed super-villain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) undone by both a stuck-in-the-80s nemesis (Trey Parker) and his own long-lost twin brother Dru (also voiced by Carell). Also starring: Minions.

War for the Planet of the Apes (July 14) stars a non-hirsute Woody Harrelson as the ruthless leader of an imperiled humanity taking an apocalyptic stand against an increasingly intelligent army of apes.

Reboots

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (May 12) Guy Ritchie isnt the first director you might think of to helm an Arthurian legend, given his penchant for layering a contemporary shooting style on old, old stories. But if you liked his Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey, youre probably ready for Charlie Hunnam pulling Excalibur from a stone.

Since a TV series about California lifeguards ran all through the 90s, theres a big horndog fanbase primed for Baywatch (May 25), a tongue-in-cheek R-rated comedy starring the inescapable Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron and Alexandra Daddario (who played Johnsons daughter in the disaster movie San Andreas).

The Mummy (June 9) offers up Tom Cruise as an ex-military adventurer who uncovers the evil spirit of an Egyptian sorceress (Sofia Boutella of Kingsman) hell-bent on making the modern world bow to her ancient magical might.

Trey Parker voices Balthazar Bratt in Despicable Me 3.

Rude Comedy

You have to enjoy the casting of Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn as a mother and daughter on the run from South American kidnappers in the comedy Snatched (May 12).

Rough Night (June 16) offers up a distaff variation of a common male comedy trope when a bachelorette party for an innocent bride-to-be (Scarlett Johansson) goes wrong when a male stripper is killed in action, forcing the other party-goers (including Kate McKinnon, Ilana Glazer and Zoe Kravitz) to close ranks and cover it up.

The House (June 30) pairs Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler as a married couple who opt to raise money for their daughters college tuition by turning their suburban home into an illegal casino.

Originals

The riskier movies of summer 2017 appear to be back-loaded well into the summer season, starting with director Edgar Wrights Baby Driver (June 28), a heist thriller in which a getaway driver (Ansel Elgort) must remove himself from a trap set his larcenous confederates (including Jamie Foxx, John Hamm and Kevin Spacey).

After going big on sci-fi (Interstellar, Inception) and superheroes (the Dark Knight trilogy) director Christopher Nolan turns his Imax lens on history with Dunkirk (July 21), a dramatization of how 330,000 Allied soldiers managed to escape the beaches of France after being cut off by the German army during the early days of the Second World War.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (July 21) puts director Luc Besson back in the realm of the trippy space epic (see also: The Fifth Element) with this adventure in which space cops (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne) travel to the titular metropolis to prevent the spread of an evolving new species that threatens to wipe out humanity.

Atomic Blonde (July 28) stars Charlize Theron as basically a female John Wick, an MI-6 agent on a brutal mission in Berlin entailing considerable kick-ass. Its directed by John Wick co-helmer David Leitche.

Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn as a mother and daughter in the comedy Snatched.

Detroit (Aug. 4) feels like a timely look at the racial tension that rocked Motor City in 1967 from director Kathryn Bigelow starring John Boyega and Anthony Mackie.

Ingrid Goes West (Aug. 4) stars the always interesting Aubrey Plaza as a possibly unbalanced young woman who travels cross-country to become best friends with a lifestyle blogger (Elizabeth Olsen) unaware she has become Plazas obsession.

The Dark Tower (Aug. 4) is a long-awaited Stephen King adaptation starring Idris Elba as Roland the Gunslinger and Matthew McConaughey as his supernatural nemesis.

The Hitmans Bodyguard (Aug. 18) casts Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds as an expert bodyguard assigned to protect a hitman (Samuel L. Jackson) who proves reluctant to meet an obligation testifying at the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing

If you value coverage of Manitobas arts scene, help us do more.

Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.

Dunkirk is a dramatization of how 330,000 Allied soldiers managed to escape the beaches of France during the Second World War. Annapurna Pictures / The Associated Press Kathryn Bigelow directs Detroit, which looks back at the city's 1967 riots.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/04/2017 (2019 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province this week is opening a temporary shelter for refugee claimants near the border in Gretna to ease the flow of asylum seekers arriving in Winnipeg at all hours needing housing and help.

Gretnas former seniors home that has been sitting vacant is being repurposed to house asylum seekers for a few days before they can move on to more long-term shelter in Winnipeg, 120 kilometres northeast. The single-storey, wheelchair-accessible building is expected to receive its first guests by mid-week, said Carolyn Ryan with Manitoba Housing, which owns the building.

Gretna residents found out about plans for the temporary shelter at a public meeting Wednesday night. Nearly 100 people in the town of 550 were there, said Ryan, who spoke at it.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES

The short notice caught Gretna off guard, said Don Wiebe, reeve of Rhineland, which includes Gretna. He learned about the provinces plans last Monday and wished the municipality had more time to prepare.

When this comes so quickly you havent got much time to prepare the community with good information about the logistics of it  to understand what supports might be needed from the community, Wiebe said Friday. The (Manitoba) Housing people were pretty good, very knowledgeable and answered a lot of questions but it takes time to work through that as a process, to understand the issues and plan for contingencies, he said.

We had a lively discussion, Ryan said. I think theres still considerable confusion around the Safe Third Country Agreement and the United Nations Convention on Refugees and why people are allowed to be here  Why arent they illegal? These are questions being asked by many Manitobans  Why is this happening?

Gretna isnt where refugee claimants are crossing into Canada, but its only 28 kilometres from Emerson, which has been inundated with asylum seekers in the past several months. More refugee claimants crossed into Canada on foot at Emerson in the first three months of 2017 (332) than in all of 2016 (266), numbers from Winnipegs Welcome Place show.

Once in Canada, theyre picked up by RCMP and taken to Canada Border Services Agency at Emerson to be screened. Upon theyre released, they wait there for someone from Welcome Place to pick them up and give them a ride to one of three shelters in the city.

There was a real unpredictability of people arriving in Winnipeg, said Ryan, executive director of portfolio management for Manitoba Housing. Theyd be arriving at 2 or 3 in the morning, and there was no way to plan for them, she said. You didnt know who they were, the size of their families or anything about their needs.

As soon as Wednesday, rather than being transported to Winnipeg right away, the refugee claimants will be taken to Gretna. The shelter there with 17 units that and can accommodate up to 60 people will help manage the flow of arrivals from the border and be more efficient, she said.

Youre not having people sit for hours and hours waiting to be picked up, she said. In Gretna, the asylum seekers can get to work filling out their paper work  including Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canadas 10-page Basis of Claim form that they have to present within 72 business-day hours of arriving in Canada, as well as Employment and Income Assistance application forms. Asylum seekers will stay at the Gretna shelter from two to five days at the most, Ryan said.

Three provincial social services workers will work at the shelter, rotating every few days. Theyll be on site 12 hours a day with overnight security, said Ryan. Security was a major concern expressed by some Gretna residents at the meeting, she said. Those who had heard inaccurate news reports that half of refugee claimants had serious criminal records said they had misgivings about Gretna sheltering the asylum seekers.

Some in the community expressed a lot of apprehension, Ryan said. While the Canada Border Services Agency disputed the report, saying just just two per cent of refugee claimants screened in recent weeks posed a potential threat and were being held in detention, that didnt calm anyones nerves.

The story that many had criminal records  that story really resonated, whether it was accurate or not, Ryan said.

It would have been good to have more time to address the safety concerns of Gretna residents, Wiebe said. Security had been an issue for them before they learned their town would be sheltering asylum seekers, he said.

Wed been lobbying the RCMP a month ago for a police presence in Gretna and for all of the municipality, he said. Since the RCMP pulled out of Altona, the Mounties presence is concentrated in Morden and Carman, the closest detachment to Gretna, Wiebe said.

In the worst-case scenario, it could take an hour for an RCMP officer to get from Carman to Gretna, he said. Wiebe hopes that in case of an emergency in Gretna, the Altona Police Service, whose detachment is six minutes away from Gretna, could be called on to help. The RCMP have a good, co-operative arrangement with Altona. Wiebe said an RCMP officer attended the meeting in Gretna.

So did the refugee response co-ordinator for the Manitoba Association of Newcomer Serving Organizations. Hearing Michelle Strain share her experience working with newcomer organization and asylum seekers in Winnipeg helped to allay some of the Gretna folks fears, Ryan said.

She was able to talk about who they are as people, she said. At the meeting, some Gretna residents said they could identify with the refugee claimants on a personal level, Ryan recalled: Many of us are immigrants ourselves and, You dont have to go too far back to when we were met with a compassionate response and its our turn to do the same I think the meeting ebbed and flowed, but we ended on a pretty positive note, said Ryan.

Re-opening the seniors building to temporarily house refugee claimants should be good for the local economy, she said. Theyre hiring a local housekeeper and will be bringing the asylum seekers meals from the local restaurant. but nothing fancy. They will be served basic foodstuffs, she said. Those who have money to buy their own groceries can shop at the local grocery store to prepare their own meals in the units, which each have a little kitchen with a fridge and stove.

Were being as creative as we can to minimize the cost of this, said Ryan. Were using a building we already own and rounding up furnishings, beds and linens they have in stock. The costs are all borne by the province  subject to federal-provincial discussions.

Wiebe, who lives north of Altona, said he thinks the new use for the seniors home could be good for Gretna.

This is a pretty expensive operation and they will need resources from the community. That will be an economic benefit, he said.

I think it can work and I think theres enough good people here whod like to make it work.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
The Army chief was briefed by Chinar Corps Commander on the prevailing situation in Kashmir.

By India Today Web Desk: Hours after two Indian soldiers were killed and their bodies mutilated by Pakistani army which breached a ceasefire in the Poonch sector along the Line of Control (LoC), Army chief General Bipin Rawat arrived in Kashmir Valley on a two-day visit today.

Accompanied by Northern Army Commander and Chinar Corps Commander, the chief of army staff visited Panzgam Garrison and was briefed on the encounter with terrorists which took place on April 27. The chief took stock of the enhanced security measures.

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Later on, the Army chief was briefed by the Chinar Corps Commander on the prevailing situation in Kashmir at Badami Bagh.

General Rawat appreciated the synergy being shown amongst all security agencies and complimented the troops for undertaking operations with firmness and resolve.

He also visited the Army Base Hospital in BB Cantt where he enquired about the health of soldiers recuperating and wished them all a speedy recovery.

Also read:

Pakistan mutilates bodies of 2 Indian soldiers near LoC, Army pounds Pak posts in retaliation

As Pakistan mutilates 2 Indian soldiers, another round of Army's surgical strikes invoked as revenge

Also watch:

Pakistan mutiliates India's jawans: Experts call for retaliation

--- ENDS ---
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AWARDS

The Association of Consulting Engineering Companies Manitoba (ACEC-MB)

honoured excellence in engineering at their 18th annual awards gala. The Keystone Award for the project that best represented the programs standards of excellence was presented to AECOM Canada Ltd. for the Eureka Nunavut  Water and Sewer in the Far North Project. Awards of Excellence were presented for projects submitted by KGS Group, WSP Canada Inc. AECOM Canada Ltd. and Teshmont Consultants LP. Stantec Consulting Ltd., TREK Geotechnical, AECOM Canada Ltd. and KGS Group also received Awards of Merit. David Krahn, P. Eng. of Dillon Consulting Ltd. was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award and Dana Bredin, P. Eng. of WSP Canada Inc., with the Rising Star Award. ACEC-Manitobas mission is to promote the business interests of the Consulting Engineers of Manitoba: and to promote the application of engineering for the benefit of Society. More information can be found on acec-mb.ca.

Lawton Partners Financial Planning Services Ltd. is pleased to be the recipient of one of Canadas Top Small & Medium Employers (2017) for the second year in a row. Our key resources are our people and we pride ourselves on cultivating a great work environment combined with many opportunities for educational and professional growth. Employers are compared to other organizations to determine which offer the most progressive and forward-thinking programs.

Karyn Lazarek founder and board chair of GROW (Gaining Resources Our Way) will receive the Sol Kanee Medal for Distinguished Community Service at the annual Kavod Evening on May 17 at Congregation Etz Chayim.

BOARDS

Ten Ten Sinclair Housing Inc.

is seeking individuals who would like to join its volunteer board of directors. The non-profit organization is looking for persons with a disability and also someone with marketing experience. Ten Ten (tenten.mb.ca) promotes, develops and administers affordable, accessible housing and support services, in keeping with the Independent Living philosophy, for persons with physical and reasonably equivalent disabilities. For more information, please email: ugraham@tenten.mb.ca.

North Winnipeg Credit Union has unveiled its board of directors for 2017/18: Chair, Myron Pawlowsky; vice-chair, Sophia Kachor; secretary, Nicholas Chubenko. Directors are: Ruslan Bobelyak, Orest Deneka, Ihor Gawrachynsky, Ostap Hawaleshka, Maxim Paches and Eugene Waskiw.

Folkorama has announced its 2017-18 board of directors: Avrom Charach, president; Richard Reif, chair of finance and audit committtee; Eugene Waskiw, chair of membership committee; Stan Hall, chair of licensing committee; Dr. Parmajit Tappia, chair of youth committee; Dr. Ganpat Lodha, chair of scholarship committee; Tamara Medina, chair of review committee; Matthew Sobocan, director; Margaret Strachan, director; Denys Volkov, director; Marko Vujadin, director; Jordan Wall, director; and immediate past-president Zaleena Salaam will serve as chair of the nominating committee.

Got a promotion or a new contract? Email you submission to: bizlistings@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba tied with Prince Edward Island for the third-best economic-growth performance among Canadas provinces in 2016, according to new Statistics Canada data.

In its 2016 Gross Domestic Product by Industry report released Monday, the federal agency said Manitoba posted real gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.4 per cent last year. Thats up from 2.1 per cent in 2015 and 1.4 per cent in 2014.

The only two provinces to record stronger growth last year were British Columbia and Ontario, at 3.7 per cent and 2.6 per cent respectively.

Manitobas growth rate was more than a full percentage point higher than the national average of 1.3 per cent. Canadas number was pulled down by another weak year for two of the countrys biggest oil producing provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, which saw their GDP decline by 3.8 per cent and 1.0 per cent respectively.

Leading the way for Manitoba was a 3.4 per cent increase in goods output. The biggest contributor there was a 20 per cent increase in engineering construction output, as work ramped up on two major electric power-generation and transmission projects in northern Manitoba.

Another key contributor was a 2.4 per cent increase in manufacturing output, as gains in the food products, pharmaceuticals and medicines, wood products and miscellaneous manufactured goods categories offset declines in transportation equipment and in agricultural, construction and mining machinery.

Other industries that saw output growth were crop production (up 4.5 per cent), copper, nickel, lead and zinc mining (up 3.4 per cent), and electric power generation, transmission and distribution (up 2.4 per cent).

Those gains were partially offset by declines in residential and non-residential building construction, oil and gas engineering construction, and conventional oil and gas extraction.

On the services side, Statistics Canada said service-producing industries saw their output climb by 2.0 per cent in 2016.

Finance and insurance services increased 3.9 per cent on higher output from financial-investment services, banking services and insurance carriers, it noted.

There were also notable contributions from retail trade, transportation and warehousing, health-care services, lessors of real estate and food and drinking places. Wholesale trade was essentially unchanged.

The Statistics Canada report also included the real GDP growth for the three territories, although most economic forecasters tend to focus on just the provinces. The agency said Yukon posted the strongest growth among the three, at 8.2 per cent. Nunavut saw its economy expand by 3.9 per cent, while the Northwest Territories saw its GDP decline by a modest 0.1 per cent.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Gourmet burgers and booze  thats the concept behind a new restaurant opening soon in the heart of downtown Winnipeg.

The Tipsy Cow  slated to open in late June at 285 Portage Ave.  is the latest entrepreneurial undertaking of Winnipeg chef Joshua Mesojednik.

Mesojednik is co-owner of another popular burger joint in the city  the Diners Grill. That establishment, which he and business partner Yang Meng launched in June 2015, was one of 16 independently owned eateries recently selected to duke it out in the Free Presss Munch Madness competition. Readers were asked to vote for their favourite burger restaurant, and the winner was a North End institution  the White Top Drive-In (409 Manitoba Ave.).

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Mario Posillipo (left), the real estate agent who leased the space that will become the Tipsy Cow to Winnipeg chef Joshua Mesojednik (centre) and his business partner Will Bang, says he likes the restaurants chances for success.

Mesojednik is partnering with another Diners Grill employee  Will Bang  to launch the Tipsy Cow.

Like the Diners Grill, the new restaurants focus will be on nice, big, gourmet burgers, Mesojednik said, although there will also be an assortment of finger food, gourmet sandwiches, soups, salads and charcuterie on the menu.

Unlike the Diners Grill, the Tipsy Cow will be licensed, with a good selection of beer, whiskey and cocktails, Mesojednik said.

Thats how I came up with (the name) Tipsy Cow  bar and burgers. I thought it was unique enough, but also easy to remember.

Mesojedniks reasons for opening a gourmet burger restaurant and bar downtown are pretty straightforward.

There are always people downtown and theres always something going on. There is especially a lot of young people now, and lots of condos and offices and people working during the day, he said.

Being close to the MTS Centre is also nice, and were pretty much right in the middle of three hotels. So we think weve got a good location.

The site they chose is a small, two-storey building on the north side of Portage Avenue, just a few doors west of Smith Street. There will be a large prep kitchen on the second floor, with a smaller kitchen and the 80-seat restaurant and bar on the main floor.

Mesojednik, who worked at the now-defunct 625 Bistro, is aware a number of other restaurants have come and gone from that Portage Avenue location.

They include the original Mirlycourtois, Lindys on Portage, Manhatten Bistro, La Bamba Cafe & Lounge and, most recently, Planit Restaurant and Lounge.

That doesnt worry him.

After having the Diners Grill, were pretty confident at what we can do. Plus, Ive always had really good feedback on my food and the Diners Grill has been really busy.

He pointed out the Diners Grill is located in an out-of-the-way place  a small strip mall on Turenne Street in a St. Boniface industrial park. Yet it still attracts customers from across the city.

So if we can make it here, I think we can probably make it anywhere, he said.

Mario Posillipo of Capital Commercial Real Estate Services Inc., the real estate agent who leased the space to Mesojednik, likes the Tipsy Cows chances for success.

SUPPLIED Downtown BIZ CEO Stefano Grande says the chef of Tipsy Cow thinks outside the box with his burgers.

I think hes going to hit a home run there, Posillipo said. Hes thought everything through. Hes a young guy, but hes worked at a number of different establishments, just learning. And thats what you need to do  be in all different environments and take a little bit from each one.

Posillipo said hes eaten at the Diners Grill, trying one of its signature burgers  the Reuben Burger. It features a beef patty stacked with grilled corn beef and sauerkraut.

It was pretty impressive. He thinks outside the box. He doesnt just give you the typical burger.

The CEO of the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone thinks the concept fits downtown.

Burgers and brandies and whiskeys seem to be the rave in places like Montreal and other big cities, Stefano Grande said. Right now, downtown is a burger and fries market. Youve got all of these families going to the Moose games and youve got the Jets crowd and great burgers are always popular (with them).

He noted another locally owned restaurant  the White Star Diner  recently relocated from the Exchange District to the former Salisbury House location on Kennedy Street.

You should see their place. Its packed every single day, he added.

Posillipo said other restaurant operators were interested in the Portage Avenue location, but this was the right fit.

The two-storey building is owned by Winnipegs Sunrex Group of Companies, which last year acquired it along with the eight-storey Sterling Building next door. Its in the midst of converting the century-old office building into rental apartments. About 3,700 square feet on the main floor are earmarked as retail space.

Posillipo said that space could be suitable for some kind of restaurant, so hes been marketing it to local operators as well as to some national restaurant chains.

Weve had a few interested groups who have looked at it, but nothing concrete yet, he said. Once it starts to take shape, there will be a lot more interest in it because there are very few corner units available downtown in a heritage building.

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Midwives may be about to play a greater role in Manitobas health-care system  and there will likely be more of them employed, says Education Minister Ian Wishart.

Wishart told his estimates hearings last week he expects there will be additional cohorts as more new students enrol in university midwifery programs.

But in a highly unusual move, Wishart strayed onto Health Minister Kelvin Goertzens turf by saying he expects the health-care system would be using more midwives and they will have a larger role in the future.

Education Minister Ian Wishart believes midwives will expand their roles in rural and remote communities. (mark Humphrey / The Associated Press files)

His prediction of growth comes at the same time the opposition NDP and public-sector labour leaders are warning of significant cuts coming to the health-care system.

There is a need for them, Wishart told NDP education critic Wab Kinew. I think the department of health is looking to expand their scope of practice from what it is at the moment, and I believe that will make them far more valuable in the system. I think thats probably important now and into the future.

The health minister was in his riding on constituency matters Monday and could not comment, Goertzens press secretary said.

However, Manitoba Health said in a prepared statement that, Generally, midwives in Manitoba are employed by the regional health authorities, and it is up to the regions to determine how best to utilize midwives to address the health-care needs of Manitoba families while ensuring a sustainable health system.

Our government recognizes the important role that midwives play in health care. Midwives are an important part of interdisciplinary team, and are associated with positive outcomes for maternal and infant health. Regulatory changes have been made to expand the list of laboratory tests, diagnostic tests and medications that can be ordered or prescribed by midwives, as well as expand the list of minor surgical and invasive procedures a midwife may perform. This will include a required educational component.

Wishart believes midwives will expand their roles in rural and remote communities.

I suspect that in the northern parts of the province that itll be a much larger scope that they want to see in play, he said, adding there are currently 13 midwifery students at the University of Manitoba.

Were committed to following this cohort through and we are committed to, once we have established what the target might be with the department of health, to putting additional programs in place.

Wishart said his department will work closely with the department of health, as Manitobas largest employer of midwives, to ensure there are jobs waiting for graduates. One of the goals of post-secondary education is trying to match training programs with labour-market needs, he pointed out.

University midwifery has been troubled and exceptionally expensive since the former NDP government announced in 2004 that midwifery would be a flagship degree program at University College of the North.

Launched in 2006, the program left the UCN campus in The Pas in 2009 and was moved first to the University of Winnipeg, and then to the U of M. The NDP spent more than $8 million to so far produce only nine graduates in more than a decade. Most years there was no intake of new students, and one year there was no one enrolled.

The NDP had directed that a new class begin studies in 2015 at the U of M, and promised an additional $844,000 a year to expand the program. That promise disappeared with last years election, and Wishart said there would be no expansion or new classes until midwifery was running properly.

Through an arrangement brokered by the province, the 13 midwifery students are now enrolled in a McMaster University program the Ontario school is teaching at the U of M at $441,000 a year less than the NDP had spent annually when UCN ran the program, Wishart told Kinew.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Free Press reporter Kevin Rollason has received a national honour by the Royal Canadian Legion for a story he wrote on local veterans.

Rollason was awarded the Legions Media Award for his story Fading but not forgotten, a look at how while the number of Second World War veterans is dropping, there are organizations, like the Henderson Highway Legion Branch 215, which are working hard to remember them.

The award was established by the Legions Dominion Command to recognize individuals or organizations from the media which publicize the work in the community of Legion Branches, Zones, Districts and Provincial Commands.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Ian Thomson flips through his pilot's log, a photo of the Halifax Bomber her flew in the bottom right corner. He piloted bombing runs over Germany 44 times during the Second World War.

The article also told how the Henderson Highway Legion printed a fundraising calendar last year, showcasing a single veteran each month, to raise funds to build a wall of honour and remembrance, as well as detailing the 44 bombing missions Legion member Ian Thomson went on and returned from during the war.

I am very honoured to receive this award, Rollason said.

Everyone of these veterans has a story, but the voices of these stories are quickly disappearing. Im glad Ive been able to bring a few of their stories to our readers.

The article also included a list of the names of the 191 local veterans of the Second World War who passed away in 2016, with a short synopsis of what they did during the war.

Other awards Rollason has received during his career include a National Newspaper Award in 2015 for a feature on what happened while Brian Sinclair was in the emergency room of the Health Sciences Centre and a look at bed shortages, clogged emergency rooms and the role racism played in the hospital.
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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man who flew into a rage over a distracted driving ticket and rammed police cruisers before leading officers on a chase has lost his appeal for a lower sentence.

Wayne Daniel Rennie was sentenced in December 2015 to 30 months in prison, with credit for seven months already spent behind bars, after he pleaded guilty to mischief, fleeing from police and assaulting a police officer with a weapon.

Rennie, who was then 24, admitted to systematically backing into five parked police cars outside the Public Safety Building in July 2015 after he was ticketed for using his cellphone while driving a five-ton delivery van. He drove off and led pursuing officers on a 100-kilometre highway chase that ended just west of Portage la Prairie, after Rennie managed to avoid spike belts, stop sticks and several police attempts to block his vehicle.

THE CANADIAN PRESS Cars are taped off after a truck driver hit five police cars outside police headquarters in Winnipeg on Monday, July 20, 2015. Police say a moving truck rammed into five cruisers parked right outside police headquarters.

Rennie appealed his prison sentence and instead sought a jail sentence of two years less a day. He argued provincial court Judge Dale Schille didnt properly consider his aboriginal background before imposing the sentence. But the Manitoba Court of Appeal disagreed, deciding the provincial court judge didnt make a mistake in reaching his 30-month sentence. Even if he had, the Appeal Court ruled in its April 28 decision, the prison term would still be appropriate.

Under Canadian law, courts must consider the history and life experiences of aboriginal offenders before sentencing. In legal circles, this is known as considering Gladue factors. Rennie claimed the judge didnt take into account his indigenous heritage even though he waived his right to have a Gladue report prepared that would have detailed his life experiences as an indigenous person.

In situations such as this, where counsel provides scant information and elects not to have a Gladue report prepared regarding an accuseds aboriginal heritage, it becomes more difficult for him or her to later claim that the sentencing judge failed to properly consider those issues, Court of Appeal Justice Michel Monnin noted as a final comment in his decision, which was also signed by justices Diana Cameron and Janice LeMaistre.

Prior to his sentencing, court heard Rennie was born to a Metis father and a mother of unknown ethnic background, according to the Appeal Courts decision. He was taken into foster care at the age of six months and was adopted by his Caucasian foster family when he was three. He was suspected to have fetal-alcohol syndrome, although he was never formally diagnosed. He was, however, diagnosed with learning disabilities and cognitive limitations. He was bullied by other kids at school and developed a pattern of behaviour where he would tolerate mistreatment for an extended period of time and then blow up out of proportion to a particular situation, the Appeal Courts decision states.

When he sentenced Rennie, Schille said he did take into consideration Rennies intellectual deficits but did not accept that he had FASD.

So when I say I do not accept the Gladue submissions that are made Im not approaching this on the basis that (the accused) suffers from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. He has not been diagnosed with that. It is speculation; it may very well be true, the judge said. That information is not before me and it would, in my view, be inappropriate to rely on that as a consideration for sentencing purposes.

The appeal court ruled Schille was not as dismissive of Rennies Gladue factors as defence lawyer Zilla Jones attempted to make him out to be, Monnin wrote.

The sentencing judge possibly could have phrased his comments in a fashion that was less subject to a negative interpretation, but I have not been convinced that he out-and-out rejected the consideration of Gladue factors, and, therefore was not in error, he wrote.

No one was hurt as a result of the police chase or rammed vehicles. The damage to the five police cruisers Rennie backed into totalled $66,269 and they were repaired by Manitoba Public Insurance. After his arrest, Rennie said he was angry about getting a ticket for distracted driving and planned to lead police on a chase until he ran out of gas, betting police would run out of gas first.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay
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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The entranceway to The Forks is getting a major makeover.

Paul Jordan, Forks CEO, said a redesign of Israel Asper Way from south of York Avenue to The Forks Market will be the subject of a design competition with the goal to create a pedestrian-friendly, tree-lined linear parkway leading to The Forks.

This has been an idea since The Forks was created, he said. The four-lane divided roadway is getting dangerous for pedestrians to cross. We want to reduce it to two lanes and take a look at this long, linear parkway.

A rendering shows a theoretical design for Israel Asper Way, showing a park in place of two of the street's existing lanes of traffic, leaving the east two lanes for two-way traffic. (Supplied)

Jordan said the design competition, which will be formally announced in a few weeks, will seek proposals on creating the parkway and shrinking the number of lanes from four to two, while still maintaining access to the parking lot site east of Israel Asper Way, formally known as the Railside lands, which The Forks plans to develop.

Jordan said he favours eliminating the two lanes along Israel Asper Way now reserved for southbound traffic, using that land for the parkway and converting the two northbound lanes to one lane each way.

But nothing is finalized.

We want to see what the design community comes up with, he said.

The redesign will not affect York Avenue or Israel Asper Way north of York to Waterfront Drive, he said.

The submitted design proposals will likely be revealed in the fall, followed by public input, Jordan said, adding he expects a decision on the winning design and timelines for construction will be announced in about a year.

DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES A redesign of Israel Asper Way from south of York Avenue to the Forks Market will be the subject of a design competition.

Jordan said the number of vehicles speeding along Israel Asper Way confirmed the roadway was overbuilt.

If hindsight was perfect, we never would have built the four lanes to begin with, we would have just done two lanes, he said.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 30/04/2017 (2019 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The timing could not have been worse for Premier Brian Pallister.

Last week, Great-West Life announced it was cutting 450 jobs from its 3,500-job head office in Winnipeg as the financial services giant struggles with competition from digital rivals. Although the layoffs had nothing to do with Pallister or his government, the premier felt the sting.

Pallister is walking a fiscal tightrope, working diligently to control expenditures in a bid to reduce the budget deficit while trying to grow the economy.

John Woods / The Canadian Press Files Premier Brian Pallister, like all premiers, needs advisers who have the fortitude to speak their minds and push back when necessary.

His austerity measures  closing hospital emergency rooms, laying off hundreds, instituting precariously small funding increases to core departments, capping core infrastructure funding and freezing capital spending in health and education  is threatening to stall the slow economy.

The Great-West layoffs are not Pallisters fault. To its credit, the NDP opposition hasnt yet tried to blame Pallister, although it is standard practice for opposition parties  all opposition parties  to blame everything on the government. The Progressive Conservatives did it to the NDP when it was in power; the NDP has certainly dabbled in the same politics since it came to was returned to the opposition benches.

Still, the Great-West layoffs did expose a more inherent problem facing the government: getting the message right.

In question period last week, NDP MLA Wab Kinew, currently the only candidate running in his partys leadership race, used the topic of the Great-West layoffs to press Pallister on job creation. According to Kinew, Pallister only knows how to cut jobs, not create them.

Pallister sat patiently while Growth, Enterprise and Trade Minister Cliff Cullen provided heavily scripted, workmanlike answers to Kinews questions. Finally, Pallister had clearly had enough. He rose to his feet.

Well, I appreciate a question from the member on something his party has expertise on: knowing what people wont vote for, Pallister told the house. What people wont vote for is higher taxes The party the member now seeks the leadership of has a legacy of promising that they wont raise taxes and then following up by raising them to record levels, in fact, more so than any other government in Canada, right on the heels of promising they wouldnt raise them.

If the member wants a little lesson on how to uncreate jobs, he can take a look at Economics 101 textbooks and theyll talk about the importance of leaving money in the hands of the people who work for it.

This was not the right answer to Kinews question. This was not the time to talk about tax cuts. This was the time to express some sympathy for those who were laid off, while acknowledging that fiscal prudence he is delivering will ultimately put the province on a more solid economic foundation.

Instead, Pallister did what he does best  he lashed out at his political enemies while beating the facts to death with a rhetorical hammer.

Despite claims from fiscal hawks, tax cuts do not create jobs. Despite the fact that former NDP premier Greg Selinger did break a promise by raising the PST to fund infrastructure, the former government did not set any national tax hike records.

All that Pallister did in this exchange with Kinew is feed the anxiety of political enemies who think he has a secret plan to cut taxes and undermine core government services.

In fact, this one exchange serves as a microcosm of just how bad Pallister is at messaging.

During his first year, Pallister has struggled to bridge the gap between what he said he was going to do during the election and what he has done while in power. He has frequently made claims about the performance of the former government, and its finances, that were patently false. His ministers have struggled mightily to navigate house debates and media interviews.

The cumulative effect of this mangled messaging should be cause for concern in Toryland: despite the absence of anything that resembles effective opposition from the leaderless Liberals and NDP, polls show Pallister has lost support since the 2016 election.

Perhaps that is why Pallister made a significant change to his inner circle late last week.

Last Thursday, it was announced that communications director Olivia Baldwin-Valainis, arguably Pallisters closest political adviser, was leaving her post to head up something called the transformation management office, a new entity created to oversee change in the health-care system.

The office could represent a significant step up in responsibility for Baldwin-Valainis. But for now, she is the head of an office that has no staff and no budget. And overseeing change in the health-care system is hardly a one-woman job.

This announcement has the appearance of a soft landing created for a formerly trusted staffer that Pallister may no longer trust.

The same cannot be said about her replacement.

Baldwin-Valainis will be succeeded by former Tory campaign director David McLaughlin, who has been advising Pallister on a carbon tax plan and budget matters.

Although Baldwin-Valainis can hardly be blamed for all of the governments messaging woes, there is every reason to believe things will be better under McLaughlin.

Although Baldwin-Valainis was by all accounts a trusted adviser, McLaughlin is the person who managed to contain Pallister during the election campaign and suppress his natural tendency to say and do embarrassing or controversial things. Pallister has a reputation for being slow to trust anyone; during the most important election of his life, he demonstrated a resounding trust for McLaughlin.

All premiers need advisers who have the fortitude to speak their minds and push back when necessary. To date, its not clear Pallister has had that person in his inner circle. Too often, it seems, he has been left on his own to improvise when responding to questions or making important policy statements. Or, as was demonstrated by the exchange with Kinew, Pallister takes the bait and says things that only reinforce the image his political enemies are trying to paint.

Politics is littered with stories of good and noble people who were undermined by an inability to communicate their intentions. With a new communications adviser and a steadier hand on government messaging, Pallister has given himself a much better chance of avoiding that fate.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Khan while coming out of the PAC meeting said, "I stand by what I said about Vishwas. He is working at the behest of the BJP and RSS."

By Ankit Tyagi: AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan resigned from the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) after senior leader Kumar Vishwas refused to attend the meeting on Monday.

Khan while coming out of the PAC meeting said, "I stand by what I said about Vishwas. He is working at the behest of the BJP and RSS."

Staying rigid on his stand, Khan added, "Vishwas ate cake with Ajit Doval and Bassi when AAP MLAs were arrested."

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After Khan's resignation, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia today asked all party MLAs and workers not to give public statements.

"No MLAs, workers should give public statements. We need to have trust in the party. If there is any issue, talk to Arvind Kejriwal," he said, adding that such acts result in loss to the party and Delhi.

"We have three years during which we have to work on WiFi, schools, health, etc. These small statements result adversely affect the morale of our party workers."

Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting and discussed the infighting in the party with senior party leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh, Dilip Pandey and Ashutosh.

Kejriwal is learnt to be unhappy with the way Amanatullah Khan made the allegations after Kumar Vishwas called for a deeper introspection within the party in the aftermath of the electoral drubbing that the AAP received in Punjab, Goa and Delhi.

Amanatullah had also alleged that Kumar Vishwas is trying to take control of the AAP replacing Arvind Kejriwal as the party convener.

Yesterday, Arvind Kejriwal had come in the defence of Kumar Vishwas calling him as a younger brother. Kejriwal had tweeted saying, "Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are trying to drive a wedge between us. They are enemies of the party. They should refrain. No one can separate us."

Watch video here

Also read: Arvind Kejriwal in huddle with Manish Sisodia, others over AAP infighting

Also read: Arvind Kejriwal gags AAP leaders after Kumar Vishwas-Amanatullah Khan spat

--- ENDS ---
Opinion

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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When should traditional liberal values be sacrificed to important but narrower ends? That is the question behind Harvard Universitys effort to subordinate freedom of association and freedom of speech to a locally fashionable form of non-discrimination.

Last spring, the university decided to attack the off-campus, all-male Final Clubs by disqualifying their members from Rhodes Scholarships and other distinctions  unless the clubs admitted women.

A few of these clubs are infamous for loud parties and drunken misbehaviour. The new strategy against them had the merit of novelty, even in the absence of evidence that coed clubs would behave any better.

Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg Files The Baker Library of the Harvard Business School at Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Faculty members reacted with alarm, recalling Sen. Joseph McCarthys persecution of Harvard professors in the 1950s simply for belonging to a hated organization. Students deserve a better lesson from Harvard than an attempt to solve social problems by blackballing members of unpopular groups.

The policy covers all single-gender social organizations consisting of Harvard students, so the same sanctions would be visited on womens clubs, including sororities. More women than men are affected, even though most of the womens clubs dont have real estate and dont stage raucous parties. Hundreds of women staged a surprise protest in response.

The current rationale for punishing single-gender groups is that they are discriminatory. Problems that the policy initially was supposed to address  sexual assault, elitism, drunken parties  have fallen away under scrutiny, leaving gender exclusivity as the clubs irreducible sin. As a university official stated, Our commitment to a non-discriminatory experience is unwavering.

That invites serious thought about discrimination.

I asked some female students what they thought. Well, I am in a sorority, one said. You can guess what I think.

When I pressed her, she icily responded, Give me a break. Im a math major. I am the gender inclusivity in most of my classes. After being taught by men and surrounded by men all day, I dont need a lecture from Harvard about hanging out with women at night.

There is, in fact, not a single tenured woman in Harvards mathematics department.

In response to such resistance, Harvard last month delayed enforcing the policy against womens groups, but not mens. The unwavering institutional commitment to non-discrimination will be implemented in a curiously and perhaps unlawfully discriminatory manner.

Dont students have the right to associate with whomever they want off campus? University president Drew Gilpin Faust thought not, darkly comparing freedom-of-association arguments with the tactics southern racists used to preserve segregated schools.

Using non-discrimination as a cudgel against students private associations is odiously patronizing.

No similar policy applies to Harvard faculty or staff. Even worse, Harvard will compel students seeking scholarships and leadership positions to affirm their compliance with the policy  to respond to a McCarthyesque: Are you or have you ever been a member question, under the threat of punishment for perjury.

Harvard prohibits such questions in job interviews. It is an old authoritarian trick to compel speech and then punish lies, a trick Harvard has a history of resisting. For decades, Massachusetts teachers had to swear their loyalty to the Constitution  until MIT and Harvard professors refused in the 1960s and the law was overturned.

Could Harvard today require oaths about club memberships but resist if the government required students to swear that they are lawfully on U.S. soil?

In civil society, freedom of association is built into the Bill of Rights because the state does not always know what is best for individuals.

It is an expression of American confidence that even when authorities disapprove, the energy of heterodox private associations improves society in the long run. And freedom of speech includes the freedom not to be compelled to speak.

Ironically, Harvard is now in the process of writing a reference to the Puritans out of its alma mater  to update the anthem for the 21st century  even as it reasserts their practice of harsh, intrusive judgments on private lives.

A backlash is arising against this institutional overreach.

Students, faculty and alumni are marshaling venerable liberal values  freedom of thought, of association and of speech  against a twisted new non-discrimination orthodoxy.

Harry Lewis, a former dean of Harvard College, is a computer science professor at Harvard University.
Opinion

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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Donald Trumps presidency is in a sorry state. His first attempt at legislation  on health care  was a failure. His executive order on immigration has been blocked by the courts. His White House is a tangle of chaos and intrigue. His campaign and his businesses are under congressional investigation.

No wonder Trumps standing in the polls has sunk further than that of any other modern U.S. president in his first 100 days, a period once known charmingly as the honeymoon.

And yet, Trump has plenty of time to recover. The first 100 days, an arbitrary checkpoint, are only seven per cent of a four-year term. Its not unusual for new presidents to stumble  and its not impossible to bounce back. Just look at Bill Clinton.

Mike Stewart / The Associated Press files U.S. President Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up as he speaks at the National Rifle Association's leadership forum Friday in Atlanta.

In 1993, Clintons first year in the White House, his presidency nearly went off the rails. His staff was chaotic. His foreign policy was a mess. He passed an economic plan, barely, but his biggest initiative  on health care  was headed for disaster. And, of course, he was sinking in the polls.

It took Clinton more than a year, but by the end of 1994 he was on the way back. He named a new chief of staff who brought discipline to the White House. He changed course on policy, adopted a strategy of bipartisan triangulation, survived epic battles with a Republican-led Congress  and, in 1996, sailed easily to re-election.

So I asked two veterans of the Clinton White House, now scholars at Washingtons Brookings Institution, what Trump should do if he wants to follow Clintons example.

They offered, in essence, a three-step recovery plan:

Step 1: Recognize the problem

The real question here is: will something right the ship? said Elaine Kamarck, who worked on Clintons government-reform project. Will there be a moment when Donald Trump says: This is not working. I have to do something different?

Everything depends on what happens when instincts that served you well in the campaign dont serve you well as president, said William Galston, a former domestic policy adviser. Trumps desire to be a winner may, in fact, overcome all of his other instincts.

Step 2: Fix the White House staff

Presidents get the staff they want, Kamarck said. In Trumps case, people who dont contradict him, many without Washington experience, with no single person in charge.

If Trump wants less chaos, he needs to reorganize his operation. An obvious place to start: name a chief of staff with real authority to reduce the level of palace intrigue. Trump reportedly likes to see his underlings jockey for influence; he hasnt given Reince Priebus the power to rein them in.

Step 3: Expand your governing coalition

Trumps not expanding his base; hes shrinking his base, noted Galston.

Trump ran as a populist, but he has governed mainly as an orthodox Republican. Hes relied on House Republicans to pass his legislative agenda, but thats left him whipsawed between Speaker Paul Ryan and the ultraconservatives of the House Freedom Caucus.

As a result, he has held the allegiance of most Republican voters, but hes lost support among independents and won almost no backing from Democrats. That limits what he can get done in Congress, including tax reform, the keystone of his program to reinvigorate the economy.

The alternative, based on Clintons 1994 playbook, would be a turn toward the bipartisan centre.

If you take the populist parts of the program he ran on, theres plenty to appeal to labour unions, Kamarck said. He could start with infrastructure, which means construction jobs, and ask union leaders to get support from Democrats on the Hill. Add a tougher trade policy and tax changes to keep American jobs from going overseas, and you have a way to build a different kind of coalition.

But that isnt how Trump has ordered his priorities. Although he promised an ambitious infrastructure package, aides say he may not pursue it until next year. Meanwhile, he has alienated Democrats in Congress by blaming them for his legislative problems, even when  as on health care  Republicans were at fault.

If he decides to change course, Trump wont find it too wrenching to alter his policies; hes done that frequently during his 22-month political career. The greater challenge may be changing his management habits  recognizing, at age 70, that what worked in a family-owned real estate firm may not work as well in the White House.

But theres no sign hes noticed the problem.

Hes still in full Trump mode, declaring every setback a success. Just look at his self-review of the first 100 days. They were, he proclaimed, the most productive of any president in history.

Doyle McManus is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
Opinion

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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They were marching in the streets of Americas cities a little more than a week ago.

This, of course, is nothing new. Since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump last November, large demonstrations against his administrations policies and practices have become commonplace  as have Mr. Trumps frequent Twitter-launched assertions that such mass gatherings are performances by paid protesters rather than genuine expressions of anger by citizens whove had it up to here with his antics just 100 days into his presidential term.

What made the recent protests different was that their slogan-shouting throngs  spread across more than a dozen major U.S. cities, with sympathetic marches held in several other countries, including Canada  were made up mostly of scientists and people who fear for sciences relevance under a Trump-led government.

Olivier Douliery / Abaca Press / Tribune News Service Thousands of scientists and their supporters join the March for Science in Washington, D.C., on April 22.

That government that has already installed a climate-change denier to head the Environmental Protection Agency, ordered the EPA to remove all mentions of global warming from its website and proposed a large-scale rollback of funding to environment-related initiatives in order to underwrite a massive increase in military spending.

All of which begs a fairly simple question: how is it possible, at this stage in the evolution of the human species, that its scientists must justify their existence to politicians and policy-makers who choose, for ideological and/or financial reasons, not to believe things that have been proven to be true?

(The wording of the question, of course, assumes an acceptance of the principles of evolution, but thats a debate best left for another day).

Scientists deal in facts, as ascertained through rigorous research and the gathering of empirical evidence. It must be extremely frustrating  eventually, take-to-the-streets-waving-placards frustrating  to have those facts dismissed, or rebutted with alternative facts, by people in positions of power who are inclined to view truth as inconvenient.

Sometimes, the rejection of science is rooted in pure ignorance  a lack of education that precludes understanding. Other times, its a matter of scientific principles being at odds with contradictory long-held (and usually religious) beliefs. A third, and distinctly more cynical circumstance, involves highly educated people who understand science but choose to oppose its use and exploit the aforementioned ignorance and faith-based refusal for political and financial gain.

The demonization of intellect and the framing of anything elite as an enemy of common people has proven to be an exceedingly effective strategy for right-leaning politicians. Mr. Trump is its latest beneficiary. Scientists, a frequent target, have clearly made an en masse decision that this administrations agenda must be confronted in the most public manner possible.

Researchers and laboratory denizens on this side of the border have voiced their support for U.S. scientists. Theyre free to speak now, but Canadas scientific community undoubtedly holds haunting memories of a not-so-distant past in which Stephen Harpers government placed gag orders on Environment Canada staffers, cut funding to climate-research programs (including, famously, the Environmental Lakes Area) and eliminated the long-form census.

The March for Science made its point, but its the beginning of a long fight. The cause is just; the rejection of science for purely political gain is an unconscionably cynical act.

Through centuries of human history, a common response to a scientific discovery was a shouted accusation of Heresy! followed by an off-with-his-head remedy; in the more evolved 21st century, scientists are likely to be simply marginalized and muted.

It has been scientifically proven that neither approach has ever succeed in making facts untrue.
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This article was published 01/05/2017 (2018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local writer is exploring topics of family, war and growth in a project thats gained support through the Manitoba Arts Councils 2017 Major Arts Grant.

Maurice Mierau has a story to tell, and the Wolseley writer is taking this opportunity to write his second memoir. In 2005, Mierau adopted his two sons from Ukraine and documented the experience in his book, Detachment: An Adoption Memoir. The book also took a look at Mieraus fathers life, who was a refugee from the Soviet Union.

This book will be about the current war in Ukraine in the eastern part, and it will also be about meeting my sons extended family this last fall, he said. I dont want to call it a sequel but it does continue the story.

Supplied photo Maurice Mierau is the recipient of the Manitoba Arts Councils 2017 Major Arts Grant. Hell be using it to write a second memoir about his adopted sons.

Before embarking into the memoir genre, Mierau worked mostly in poetry. He said memoirs are gaining popularity for todays readers, and its clear why.

Ive always enjoyed reading memoirs and there are a lot of good people doing things in that field, he said. People have different expectations with books these days. Novels are unsatisfying in some ways because people have seen all the tricks that novels can do and a lot have been done really well in the 19th century.

Were in the age of reality television and even though some of those shows are crude, people have similar expectations when they go to books. They want something authentic and something real, and they dont want to just have a bunch of conventions easily fulfilled.

He said although he still enjoys writing poetry, it tends to be a genre mostly read by other poets, and Mierau wanted his story to reach a larger audience.

There were various reactions, Mierau said of his first book. One of the things that was nice was that people I didnt know sent me emails and there were people in some cases, older people who had, like my father, come out of the Soviet Union as a refugee in the Second World War and in other cases, there were people who had experiences of adopting children or international adoption, not just in Ukraine.

The first memoir was awarded the 2016 Kobzar Literary Award as well as the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction.

Supplied photo Maurice Mieraus sons, Bodhan and Peter, when they were young. The boys are in their teens today.

Mierau says that with his father before him and his children both going through different kinds of trauma while living overseas, he feels like the connecting generation and writing is a way to come to terms with that.

For me, the challenge has been to learn to empathize better with people had these kinds of different experiences. Right now, were aware of people in our community whove come from Syria and other war-torn places so its a good time to think about how lucky we are, how difficult the circumstances are for a lot of people to have what we think of as a normal childhood.

Mierau says hes grateful for the grant hes received, as it will allow him to work on his memoir full-time.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/04/2017 (2019 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EMEK SHILOH, West Bank  Nachum Schwartz cautiously eyed the rugged landscape where he hopes to build his new home.

You see here, where there are thorns? That means no one ever lived or worked here, and there is nothing written down about any ownership, he said.

The point is especially potent to Schwartz, who two months ago was forced out of his home of 20 years in the West Bank outpost of Amona. The settlement was bulldozed this winter after it came to light it was built on land owned by Palestinian farmers living nearby.

Tamar Nizri, her daughter Noa and the rest of their family are living in the hostel.

The government has proposed resettling the families on a site just outside the Jewish settlement of Shvut Rachel, to what would be the first new Jewish settlement in 20 years.

But it is still unclear when, or even if, the new settlement will be built. A multitude of obstacles stand in the way, from bureaucratic complications to Palestinian claims to the land and international pressure.

Schwartz said the families, most of whom are now living in crowded school dormitories in the nearby settlement of Ofra, need an immediate solution.

We need somewhere to live now and we want to stay together as a community, he said. And the location must have ideological meaning.

Shiloh is the cradle of the nation of Israel. This is where our roots are, Schwartz said, adding he still dreams of returning to the hilltop where Amona stood.

That location, about a 20-minute drive south of here, was deemed by Israels supreme court as belonging to farmers from the Palestinian village of Silwad. After a decade-long battle with the court and the government, the residents were forced to move, their homes and farms demolished.

Schwartz was one of the founders of Amona 20 years ago. He met his wife there, had his seven children there and raised a herd of sheep on the land.

The sheep are totally messed up by the lack of a routine, he said. Its all very strange for us. But life goes on, and we are going to build something new.

The Israeli governments approval on March 30 to build a new settlement was widely condemned by much of the international community and viewed by the Palestinians as another Israeli attempt to take over the land.

Photos by Linda Davidson / Washington Post An Israeli man and children who had settled in Amona are now staying at a hostel in Ofra in the West Bank after the settlement was found to have been built on land owned by Palestinian farmers.

The Obama administration had considered the settlements an obstacle to peace.

U.S. President Donald Trump has refrained from directly criticizing the new settlement. But after Israels announcement, an official speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Washington Post while the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace.

In a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, Trump said Israel should hold back on settlements. Since then, Trump has indicated he intends to restart the stalled peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinian opposition to the very existence of settlements, let alone a new one, could make kick-starting a peace process that much harder.

Israel continues to destroy the prospects of peace in our region and to severely affect our lives by the theft of land and natural resources and by the further fragmentation of our country, said Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Erekat said the settlements violate international law and Palestinians are not going to accept any formula that aims at legitimizing the presence of Israeli colonies on occupied Palestinian land.

After approving the new settlement, Netanyahu tweeted it was his way of keeping a vow he made to the evicted Amona settlers, who say God promised the land to the Jews. Netanyahu relies heavily on support from the roughly 400,000 Jewish settlers living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, which is also considered occupied under international law.

What Netanyahu did not mention is the new settlement is slated for an area far from the blocks of West Bank Jewish communities that would most likely remain part of Israel under any peace agreement. If a Palestinian state is created, the new settlement and others around it would have to be removed.

Its not just the land, Frank Lowenstein, a former special envoy for Israeli Palestinian negotiations, said after the announcement. The real question is how many more settlers are going to be living there. How many more settlers will they have to figure out how to remove or compensate in the context of a peace deal? Creating a new settlement just makes the problem significantly worse.

Children of the Amona settlers play in a common area of the hostel.

But the former residents of Amona say the situation could not get much worse.

Tamar Nizri, her husband and seven of her eight children have been living in two cramped rooms on the second floor of the Ofra youth hostel since Feb. 2.

The paper-thin walls do little to keep out the noise of her neighbours, who are also from Amona. The only place to sit is on her bed, and the children  ages five to 17  sleep in the next room on three sets of bunk beds.

Its very stressful here, she said, as her children came in and out of the room. But if we leave, then the government and everyone else will forget about us.

Nizri moved to Amona at 19. Married and with her first child, she said the issue of legality never occurred to her. There were shrubs, rocks and not much more, she said.

The government gave us electricity and we thought it would all be all right. We had been raised on stories of other settlements where they built and got the permits later, she said.

Nizris husband planted grapevines and opened a winery where he produces wines named after each of their children.

Even after the court ruling two years ago, it still did not hit us that all we had built would be destroyed, she said.

On demolition day, Nizri allowed dozens of the hundreds of Israeli youths who had turned out to protest the evictions to sleep in her home. When police and soldiers arrived the next day to remove the residents, the youths chained themselves to each other and to the house.

Nachum Schwartz at the site in the West Bank where he expects the Israeli government to build homes for his and other families.

My house became a symbol of people of Israel. Their presence gave me strength, and I did not want them to leave, Nizri said.

I have a connection to the land, just like the Palestinians, Nizri said. This land was promised to our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We were forced out 2,000 years ago, and now we are back.

Nizri said she goes back to visit the place where her old home once stood.

For us, it was more than a house, it was a home, she said. In 20 minutes, 20 years of our life was just destroyed.

 Washington Post
A Faribault man is facing a laundry list of charges for allegedly cleaning out cash machines at laundromats in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Jesse Lee Kaiser Jones, 43, currently held in Faribault Correctional Facility, is being charged first-, second- and third-degree burglary, two counts of possession of burglary tools, two counts of theft, and first- and fourth-degree criminal damage to property by the Winona County Attorneys office.

According to police, Jones emptied the change machines at the B-Kleen Laundromat and the 5th Street Laundromat between Aug. 2 and 3.

Both incidents were captured in surveillance video, and have subsequently been admitted to by Jones, who said that he used a screw, screwdriver and pry bar to pull out the locks on the cash machine.

Winona police noted in the video that Jones had dropped the screw and then held it in his mouth. The screw was found still in the cash machine door at a locksmiths, and provided a match to Jones DNA through the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

In the Aug. 2 burglary, the estimated damage to the cash machine was over $2,000. In the second burglary Aug. 3, Jones allegedly stole $740 from the machine while doing around $300 worth of damage.

Jones is accused of similar burglaries in Menomonie, Chippewa Falls and River Falls.
Winona

Friday

11:11 a.m.  A man reported that $1,000 worth of tools was missing from a tool chest at Minnesota State College-Southeast.

3:09 p.m.  Charges of disorderly conduct were referred against Makisha Jeneen Scott, 26, Winona, after she returned several times to an apartment on the 250 block of east Fourth Street, which she had been evicted from to yell at the woman cleaning it.

10:29 p.m.  A woman reported that her billfold and a phone were taken from her vehicle while working at Menards.

11:50 p.m.  Michael Earl Rogers, 32, Winona, was cited for fourth-degree drunken driving and driving with a suspended license after being stopped near the intersection of Eighth and Main streets after being recognized by an officer who knew he didnt have a license. His blood alcohol was 0.08 percent.

Saturday

1:19 a.m.  Charges of fourth-degree drunken driving, third-degree test refusal and not carrying proof of insurance were referred against Jonathan Michael Arvay, 30, Winona, after he had hit two parked cars near West Howard and Sioux streets and refused to take a blood alcohol at the jail. His blood alcohol at the scene was 0.23 percent.

2:10 a.m.  A man reported that the windows of his back door had been broken on the 250 block of west Sixth Street.

2:46 a.m.  A man reported seeing two people come into his yard to steal a flag near the intersection of Fifth and North Baker streets.

6:19 a.m.  Charges of third-degree drunken driving were referred against Tyler Lee Zigler, 26, Winona, after he had passed out in the drive through at the east McDonalds. At that time his blood alcohol was 0.17 percent.

8:32 a.m.  A man on the 700 block of west Ninth Street reported that his garage was entered but nothing taken.

6:43 p.m.  A man reported that an Xbox, Xbox controller and two games were missing from his room in a house on the 300 block of west Eighth Street.

7:52 p.m.  Jeanette Louise Finley, 50, Lanesboro, was cited for driving after suspension; Luke Samuel Snyder, 31, La Crosse, was cited for trespassing at Target; and Eric Allen Gaulke, 39, Winona, was cited for giving false information to a police officer after using a false name and possession of a dangerous weapon (brass knuckles).

The three were stopped after leaving Target because while trying to prove to an unidentified woman on a cellphone that they were at Target, one of the men gave the phone to an employee to verify that they were at the store. The woman on the phone told the employee that the three people were going to rob the store.

Sunday

1:46 a.m.  Charges of third-degree drunken driving were referred against Lynne Marie Kern, 40, Winona, after being stopped near the intersection of Sixth and Hamilton streets for weaving in the lane. Her blood alcohol was 0.21 percent.

3:49 a.m.  Kwik Trip on Cottonwood Drive reported a bundle of firewood stolen.

7:17 p.m.  Charges of driving after cancellation-inimical to public safety were referred against Matthew Ryan Nguyen, 32, Winona, after being stopped near the intersection of Fourth and St. Charles streets.

Winona County

Friday

8:27 p.m.  A man on Headwaters Drive reported the fender had been taken off of his truck overnight, estimated to be worth $50 to $80 when combined with damage to the paint.

10:33 p.m.  Charges of fourth-degree drunken driving were referred against Darlene Eve Rothman, 69, Rollingstone, after she reportedly pulled in front of a vehicle. She was stopped on Broadway Street in Rollingstone with a blood alcohol of 0.15 percent.

Sunday

2:18 a.m.  Charges of fourth-degree drunken driving and third-degree test refusal were referred against Ninja Arcadia Deflorian Stevens, 29, La Crosse, after he was stopped for drifting in and out of his lane on Hwy. 61 south of Hwy. 14. His blood alcohol was 0.10 percent when tested at the stop.

8:32 p.m.  In St. Charles, a man reported seeing his company truck, which had gone missing from a farm outside of St. Charles. Deputies reported what appeared to be blood in it, and the door appeared pried open.

11:18 p.m.  Charges of driving after cancellation-inimical to public safety were referred against Bruce Edward Brookes, 68, Winona, after he got an RV stuck in a drive way on Old Homer Road.

1:16 p.m.  Marion Rita Boggan, 47, Goodview, was charged with suspicion of driving under the influence of a controlled substance, pending blood test results, after a traffic stop near the intersection of Hwy. 61 and Hwy. 14 after she was seen swerving in the road outside Stockton and appeared to be under the influence when stopped.
Credit where credit is due: President Trumps tax plan is only one page long and yet contains volumes worth of dumb ideas. And theres fierce competition for which part is dumbest.

Maybe its White House economic adviser Gary Cohns peculiar claim that reducing the number of tax brackets is how you simplify the tax code. The complicated part of doing your taxes is figuring out what counts as income and whats deductible, not looking up the tax rate afterward in a table.

Maybe its the bullet point that promises to eliminate targeted tax breaks that mainly benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, immediately followed by three bullet points pledging tax breaks that would almost exclusively benefit the wealthiest taxpayers.

Maybe its Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchins declaration that the plan will pay for itself, even though similar versions of Trumps tax plan were projected to cost trillions of dollars.

Maybe its the suggestion that we need a multitrillion-dollar, deficit-financed tax cut  a.k.a. stimulus  when unemployment is 4.5 percent.

But probably the dumbest part of this entire presentation was the proposal to more than halve the tax rate on pass-through income.

This is the loopholiest of loopholes. It would further enrich the rich, unleash a major tax-sheltering bonanza, and impoverish Medicare and Social Security.

It also is unlikely to do anything to kick-start economic growth, as Kansas learned the hard way.

For those unfamiliar, pass-through income refers to business income that gets paid at individual income tax rates rather than corporate ones. Income earned by partnerships, sole proprietorships and S-corporations  the vast majority of all companies  falls into this category.

Lots of people, including White House officials, associate pass-through entities with small businesses. But plenty of ginormous companies get taxed this way, including hedge funds, big law firms, publicly traded partnerships and even  coincidentally?  the Trump Organization. In fact, according to the Treasury Department, more than 80 cents of every dollar earned by pass-throughs come from big firms (defined as companies with more than $10 million in income).

Because taxes on pass-through income are paid at the individual level at individual rates, the top rate for such income today is generally 39.6 percent. Trumps plan would lower the rate for all pass-through income to 15 percent.

This would be a huge giveaway to the rich, despite Mnuchins earlier promises that the rich wouldnt get a tax cut. Two-thirds of pass-through income is earned by the top 1 percent of Americans, according to researchers at the Treasury Department, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago.

Among those many rich beneficiaries, by the way, are people who use the carried interest loophole, a preferential tax rate associated with Wall Streeters that Trump loves to say hes closing. The income these private equity and hedge-fund partners receive, after all, is pass-through income; Trump would let them trade one juicy tax break for an even juicier one.

More important, if income from pass-through entities is taxed at less than half the top rate for personal income, thats a huge incentive for millions of people who are currently employees to start calling themselves companies  for example, to become a sole-proprietor consultancy. A Tax Policy Center analysis of an earlier version of Trumps plan assumed that about half of high-wage workers would eventually become pass-through entities.

And self-incorporating (or self-LLC-ing) would allow people to reduce not just their income taxes. It would also let them shave down their payroll tax obligations, which fund Medicare and Social Security. Thats because once they turn themselves into a personal holding company, they could shift more of their pay from wage and salary income to corporate profits.

That sound you hear is the nations tax attorneys licking their lips.

Maybe you dont care about all the rich people who stand to benefit from this, because you believe cutting taxes on pass-through income will spur job creation and economic growth.

Kansas already tested this hypothesis, though, and is paying dearly for it.

In 2012, the state undertook a huge suite of tax cuts, including eliminating taxes on pass-through income. That overhaul, too, was supposed to pay for itself.

Instead, many more people took advantage of the loophole than expected, the state economy and tax receipts slowed to a crawl, and a gaping budget hole forced legislators to close schools early. The states credit rating has been downgraded multiple times.

Our laboratories of democracy have already proven what a daft, damaging idea this pass-through proposal is. Yet the White House pushes it still. The only question is whether its being kept alive by ideologues or incompetents.
AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal has issued a gag order against senior party leaders. Kejriwal is likely to hold a meeting today to discuss controversial statements made by some of the party leaders.

By India Today Web Desk: Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal is learnt to be furious with many senior party leaders for making controversial statements against one another.

Arvind Kejriwal is learnt to have gagged senior leaders from making any public statements. Kejriwal is likely to hold a meeting with party leaders to discuss the statements given by some of them including Kumar Vishwas and Delhi MLA Amanatullah Khan.

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Arvind Kejriwal's gag order follows a spat between Kumar Vishwas and Amanatullah Khan, who accused the former of trying to split the party at the behest of the BJP.

Vishwas had earlier criticised the party leadership in the aftermath of debacles in Punjab Assembly and Delhi municipal corporation elections. Khan had alleged that Vishwas was plotting a coup to overthrow Kejriwal as the AAP convener.

VISHWAS SPILLED THE BEAN

Vishwas had said, in an interview with India Today, that the party was open to structural changes and ready to discuss a possible leadership change.

It has been learnt that Kumar Vishwas had cancelled quite a few interviews that were pre-scheduled since Friday and over the weekend.

Kejriwal has reportedly told the party leaders to vent out their anguish in the party meetings and not on TV cameras. Both Kumar Vishwas and Amanatullah Khan had made public statements on camera.

Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal has tried to play down the reports of rift between him and Kumar Vishwas putting out a tweet saying, "Kumar is my younger brother. Some people are trying to drive a wedge between us. They are enemies of the party. They should refrain. No one can separate us."

Kumar Vishwas retweeted Arvind Kejriwal's tweet. Voices of introspection have been growing within the AAP following the electoral defeats in Punjab, Goa and Delhi.

ALSO READ |

Kumar Vishwas like my younger brother, no rift with him: Arvind Kejriwal

ALSO WATCH | AAP civil war: Kumar Vishwas says he's open to leadership change

--- ENDS ---
Much to his chagrin, President Trump has discovered that there are three branches of government in the United States, each given power to check and balance one anothers actions.

This wasnt accidental. The founding fathers created the executive, legislative and judicial branches to prevent a repeat of the Do what we say  or else orders that used to come down from Englands King George III.

Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and the others who helped build our nation had a name for that practice: tyranny.

Those who wrote the Constitution fashioned an intricate web of governmental rights and responsibilities to prevent it from happening in the new republic. Congress and the president had the power to act, but the courts had the power to review, using the Constitution as the touchstone.

That exact phenomenon has been in play lately when it comes to the Trump administrations attempts to go after so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to let their local law enforcement agencies be commandeered by ICE, the federal agency that enforces immigration laws.

The modern equivalent of the Do what we say  or else is the administrations threat to stop the flow of federal money into cities and states that have refused to cooperate with the administrations efforts to deport as many illegal immigrants as possible.

So far, three executive immigration orders have been derailed by the courts since Trump took office.

The latest was earlier this week, when a federal judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction against the federal governments threat to withhold federal aid to local governments that wont join the anti-immigrant campaign.

Judge William Orrick ruled that only Congress has the power to place conditions on federal spending. Government lawyers argued that the administration did not plan to withhold the billions that flows from Washington, only the millions designated as aid for local law enforcement.

Orrick said that argument was undercut by statements by Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who have said billions were at stake. The government saying one thing in court and another thing outside it was, the judge said, a schizophrenic approach bound to confuse local governments.

The feds have stated their intention is to tighten the screws on local government on the issue. Thats hard to do when you have so many screws loose.

Questions raised by Orrick and others include:

While the federal government has exclusive right to enact immigration laws, does it also have a right to force local police to enforce those laws? Several judges think not.

Can it threaten to cut off funding of programs that have nothing to do with immigration or law enforcement? The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, most recently in 2012 when it stopped the Obama administration from withholding Medicaid funds to force states to comply with Obamacare.

Is anyone listening to the arguments made by many local officials, that putting police in the role of ICE enforcers sabotages the efforts local law enforcement is making to connect with, and get the cooperation of, immigrant communities in fighting crime?

Clearly, Trump and Sessions are not. To hear them tell it, our cities are living hells because of illegal immigrants. So, they push on with this Do what we say  or else approach.

The only thing we can say is: It didnt work out for King George. What makes them think it will work out today?
Samuel VanderJagt

Samuel VanderJagt, 99, died Saturday, April 29, 2017, at his home in Horicon, Wisconsin, with his family by his side.

Visitation will be at Koepsell-Murray Funeral Home, N7199 N.Crystal Lake Rd., Beaver Dam, Thursday, May 4, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. A funeral service will follow with the Rev. Adam Stout officiating.

Burial will be at Davenport Memorial Park in Davenport, Iowa, Friday, May 5. Prior to the burial there will be visitation at Runge Mortuary and Crematory, 838 E. Kimberly Road, Davenport, from 1 to 2 p.m. There will be a service officiated by the Rev. Bill Beattie at 2 p.m., followed by a procession to the cemetery for military burial.

Samuel VanderJagt was born Feb. 8, 1918, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to John and Johanna (VanderPloeg) VanderJagt. He graduated from Union High School in Grand Rapids.

In 1941 Sam answered the call to serve his country and joined first the naval reserve and later as a radio-operator gunner in the U.S. Army Air Force. As a T/Sgt, Sam served from 1942 to 1945 during World War II in the European Theater. He flew 66 missions on a B-26 Marauder Bomber with the 596th Bomber Squadron and earned four battle stars and Air Medal with two silver and two bronze oak leaf clusters.

Sam was married to his sweetheart, Jane Aneta DeVoogd, Jan. 1, 1943, before deploying from Florida. He returned from the war in 1945 and several years later enrolled in Calvin College and Seminary to earn his B.A., ThB, and M. Div degrees. This equipped Sam to serve as pastor and chaplain for the next 65 years in numerous capacities.

Sam pastored Christian Reformed churches in both Battle Creek and Detroit, Michigan. He established home mission churches in Sacramento, California, and Davenport, Iowa. When Sam retired he went on to serve as a protestant chaplain at Davenports Mercy Hospital for more than 13 years. He then answered the call to serve as interim pastor for Presbyterian churches in Illinois (Coal Valley, Alexis and Canton), and Bethel CRC in Fulton, Illinois, and Kimberly Village CRC in Davenport.

Loyalty to his country was evident throughout Sams life. He was a member of the Davenport American Legion and served many years as their chaplain. He also worked with youths in the Civil Air Patrol.

Sam earned the citizen of the year award from the Rock Island City Council for his service to their local rescue mission. He also worked tirelessly to help establish what is now the Womens Choice Center in Davenport and served on its board for 25 years.

At the age of 88 Sam was hired as chaplain for Select Hospital in Davenport, and with this, ended his formal career at the age of 92. Sam continued his profession informally by visiting the sick, counseling, marrying, burying and baptizing.

Survivors include four children Sandra (Marve) Westenburg of Sparta, Jane Laurie (Steve) Scholten of Horicon, Janna (Bruce) Stout of Savanna, Illinois, and Samuel VanderJagt Jr. of Glennallen, Alaska; 16 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

Sam was preceded in death by his wife of 73 years, Jane; son Ronald VanderJagt; granddaughter Jennifer Scholten; his parents; three brothers; and one sister.

In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to World Renew, a Christian relief organization ministering to families in need.

Koepsell-Murray Funeral Home in Beaver Dam is caring for the family. To leave online condolences, or for direction and other information, visit KoepsellFH.com.
The products container resembles a cross between a can of pepper spray and a small hand grenade, and the name on the container, Flashbang, indicates what occurs when the product is used.

Anyone wishing to try the product must be at least 18 years of age and sign a waiver before being allowed to do so.

But perhaps the most telling indication of the potency of Flashbang  the hottest of hot sauces currently featured at Pepper Palace, the new hot sauce emporium in downtown Wisconsin Dells  is the expression on Rolland Haights face as he tries a tiny sample.

Haight starts off smiling as he hoists a single corn chip with a tiny droplet of Flashbang into his mouth, but that sunny expression quickly turns more serious as the peppery elixir begins to take effect. Soon, a look of deep concentration crosses his face.

It kind of builds, Haight said, his words measured, his countenance stock still as the cauldron burns within him. It lasts for a good 10 minutes.

Haight should know. He serves as a sales associate at Pepper Palace at 304 Broadway downtown, and as an employee he obviously has sampled many of the products on hand

Potential customers can sample the spicy wares as well. In fact, a hot sauce and salsa sampling bar built to resemble a fire truck greets everyone who walks into the store. Joining Flashbang are approximately 90 varieties of sauce, some with such fiery names as Reaper and Scorpion. (Coming soon: The End. Rest assured, at least some of the stores sauces come in mild and medium varieties.)

Pepper Palace calls itself the largest spicy-themed specialty retail location in the world, and the bottles of sauces, jars of salsas and pepper jellies and various other spicy food items lining the walls of the store in the downtown Dells support that claim.

The Dells location opened in early April and represents the only Wisconsin store in the Gatlinburg, Tennessee-based companys fleet of around 40 across the U.S. and Canada. But the company apparently began in a place much closer to Wisconsin Dells than to Tennessee.

Company founder and Chilihead-in-Chief Craig Migawa was born in Fort Atkinson, and the first retail locations of what one day would become Pepper Palace were located more than 25 years ago in kiosks at a mall in Appleton. Expansion took the business to kiosks at other malls in the region, at least one converted ATM building and even some market stalls in Princeton.

The Pepper Palace concept evolved from those early Wisconsin locations, but its initial incarnation under that ultimately successful name occurred in 1997, not in Wisconsin but in Gatlinburg, to where Migawa and his wife, Tanya, had moved.

The companys expansion began more than a decade later, with openings in several tourism-oriented locales including Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Branson, Missouri, and St. Augustine, Florida.

A store in Minnesotas Mall of America opened in 2012 as part of Pepper Palaces continued expansion across the U.S., and the seed for the Dells store was planted just six month ago as Migawa drove up I-90/94 toward the Minnesota store.

On a whim, we stopped in the Dells and walked through the town, he recalled. I thought, This feels great.

While walking down Broadway, Migawa spotted a vacant storefront in the 300 block with a For Rent sign. He called the phone number listed on the sign, and plans for the new Dells store began soon thereafter.

Id been looking for an excuse to go back to Wisconsin, he said. Ive been watching the Dells grow.

Migawa is optimistic regarding the new stores prospects in a revitalizing downtown area, predicting that Pepper Palace will be a solid presence.

He plans to return to town this summer so he can demonstrate the companys small-batch, fresh-ingredient approach to cooking up its various sauces.

I want to put one of our old kettles from the kitchen out so everyone can see how we cook them, he said. Ill hang out in the store for a couple of days.

And, if he needs someone daring enough to sample the wares, that person already is employed there.
Police have confirmed that the locals chased the two and thrashed them until they died.

By India Today Web Desk: Two men were killed in Nagaon district of Assam on Sunday for allegedly stealing cattle. The deceased have been identified as Abu Hanifa and Riazuddin Ali.

Sources from the police said that both the deceased were in their early 20s. The duo was allegedly beaten to death by locals.

Police have confirmed that the locals chased the two and thrashed them until they died. The incident took place in a village called Kasomori village some 150 kms from Guwahati.

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According to police, the men were rushed to the hospital soon after, however, they succumbed to their injuries on the way.

District Superintend of Police Debraj Upadhyay said that an impartial inquiry has been ordered into the incident. Sources said that the incident has created panic among several parts of Assam.

Incidentally, this is the first case of cow vigilantism from Assam.

Also read:

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath's veiled attack on gau rakshaks: Violators of law will not be spared

Cow vigilante attacks are anything but spontaneous, reveals India Today sting

Delhi: Men transporting buffaloes attacked near Kalkaji Mandir, cross complaints filed

Also watch:

Assam : 2 men lynched in Nagaon for 'cow theft'

--- ENDS ---
By Samrudhi Ghosh: Ever since the release of Baahubali: The Beginning in 2015, fans have been restless. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the burning question on everyone's minds was "Why did Kattappa kill Baahubali?" and innumerable theories, jokes and memes did the rounds. The Baahubali team, who closely guarded the secret, were plagued by this question in every single interview and media interaction that they were a part of.

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While the release of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, this mystery has been effectively solved by director SS Rajamouli. However, there were some questions in the audience's mind which the film did not address.

1. Who was Bhallaladeva's wife?

In Baahubali: The Beginning, we remember the scene where Mahendra Baahubali, with a single swish of his sword, sends Bhallaladeva's son Bhadra's head flying in the air. But we never see or hear of the wife of Rana Daggubati's character. Last year, there were reports that Shriya Saran had been roped in for the part, but she rubbished the rumours.

Given that the other women in the film (Sivagami, Devasena and Avanthika) are strong characters, it would have been interesting to see what Bhallaladeva's wife would have been like. Evil incarnate, like her husband? Or an antithesis? We will never know.

2. What is Avanthika's story?

We cannot forget the fierce warrior Avanthika of Baahubali: The Beginning. She has almost put on blinkers to protect herself from distraction from her one and only goal - to free the shackled Devasena. But, why is she so motivated to giving away her youth and if need be, life, to the cause?

One may argue that she is driven by the same love that the subjects had for Amarendra Baahubali and Devasena, but that seems unlikely, as Baahubali was killed either before her birth or when she was only a baby. Baahubali 2 has no answers for her intense desire to avenge Devasena's humiliation.

3. Why do the people of Mahishmati meekly accept Bhallaladeva's tyranny without putting up a fight?

"If Amarendra Baahubali is killed, the people of Mahishmati will revolt. There will be war," a character says in Baahubali 2. It is no secret that the subjects of Mahishmati adore Baahubali. There is even a scene where they literally shake Bhallaladeva up (those who have seen the film will know). They are ready to take up arms and even kill for him.

But when Baahubali is killed and his wife Devasena is openly chained and tortured in public view, they are mute. In fact, as Baahubali: The Beginning showed, the tyrant king Bhallaladeva loots and tortures even the subjects, but no one even bats an eyelid in protest.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Baahubali 2

ALSO READ: When Rana Daggubati wanted Baahubali star Prabhas's help to escape the police!

WATCH: SS Rajamouli's Baahubali 2 gets a thumbs up from fans

--- ENDS ---
Meggitt PLC designs and manufactures components and sub-systems in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, the United States, and internationally. The company operates in four segments: Airframe Systems, Engine Systems, Energy & Equipment, and Services & Support. It offers ice protection products, radomes, and structures; air data and flight display products; brake control and tyre pressure monitoring systems, and wheels and brakes; engine health and vibration monitors, H2/O2 analyzers, and turbine monitoring and protection products; and aircraft cameras and security systems, and wireless aircraft systems. The company also provides ammunition handling, thermal, weapon scoring, and weapon training systems; energy storage, power conversion and distribution, and power generation systems; ducting systems, engine composites, and flow control valves; and fire protection and controls comprising bleed air leak detection products, cables, electronic control units, fire and overheat detection products, and fire suppression products. In addition, it offers ground fueling, and fuel systems and tanks; motion control actuators, electric motor drives, and electric motors; oxygen and specialty restraint systems; and accelerometers, ceramics, fluid sensors, magnetic and current sensors, position and inertial sensors, pressure sensors, speed sensors, and temperature sensors. Further, the company provides polymer seals; heat exchangers, printed circuit heat exchangers, thermal components, and thermal management systems; and live fire and virtual trainers, as well as aftermarket services. It serves aerospace, defense, and energy and equipment markets. The company was formerly known as Meggitt Holdings Public Limited Company and changed its name to Meggitt PLC in April 1989. Meggitt PLC was incorporated in 1947 and is headquartered in Coventry, the United Kingdom.
Kennametal Inc. engages in development and application of tungsten carbides, ceramics, and super-hard materials and solutions for use in metal cutting and extreme wear applications to enable customers work against corrosion and high temperatures conditions worldwide. The company operates through two segments, Metal Cutting and Infrastructure. It offers standard and custom products, including turning, milling, hole making, tooling systems, and services, as well as specialized wear components and metallurgical powders for manufacturers engaged in various industries, such as the manufacturers of transportation vehicles and components, machine tools, and light and heavy machinery; airframe and aerospace components; and energy-related components for the oil and gas industry, as well as power generation. The company also provides specified product design, selection, application, and support services; and standard and custom metal cutting solutions to aerospace, general engineering, energy, and transportation customers. In addition, it produces compacts, nozzles, frac seats, and custom components used in oil and gas, and petrochemical industries; rod blanks and abrasive water jet nozzles for general industries; earth cutting tools and systems used in underground mining, trenching and foundation drilling, and road milling; tungsten carbide powders for the oil and gas, aerospace, and process industries; and ceramics used by the packaging industry for metallization of films and papers. It provides its products under the Kennametal, WIDIA, WIDIA Hanita, and WIDIA GTD brands through its direct sales force; a network of independent and national distributors; integrated supplier channels; and through the Internet. The company was founded in 1938 and is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
By Devarsi Ghosh: For all the wrong reasons, Hindi language mainstream cinema i.e Bollywood cinema is often called Indian cinema and the cinema made anywhere else in the country gets relegated to being called regional cinema. Part of this probably has to do with the fact that the Hindi language is one of the two official languages of India, the other being English. However, the gargantuan box-office success of Baahubali 2: The Conclusion all across India makes it look like Bollywood is the 'regional cinema' here.

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Anyway, without digressing from the topic, English language showbiz media often looks at Bollywood stars as national icons. Since the offices of english language news media are mostly in Delhi (in the Hindi belt) and Mumbai (the land of Bollywood), Bollywood cinema and its stars are made to appear as national phenomena. Therefore, when the discussion is about the next big superstar, for example, the buzz is always around Hindi film stars such as Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Varun Dhawan and so on and not the so-called 'regional' actors. One reason can also be because new 'regional' actors have not really acted in any pan-Indian blockbuster with the recent exception of Sairat...

...and Baahubali.

The success of Baahubali

The Baahubali films, including Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali: The Conclusion, made on a budget of Rs 430 crore have already earned up to Rs 1,100 crore as of this moment; Rs 650 crore has come from The Beginning while the recently released The Conclusion just crossed Rs 450 crore worldwide within three days of its release. This kind of money-making leaves not just Bollywood, but any kind of Indian film industry far, far behind economically. And if box-office prowess decides how big a star is (here's looking at Salman Khan), then Baahubali's star Prabhas is definitely the next big Indian superstar.

Prabhas is literally a Rs 1000-crore star right now. And he can only get bigger. There is much that Bollywood's current crop of actors can learn from Prabhas. Just as Bollywood has much to learn from the planning, making and execution of a project as grand as Baahubali.

To be fair, Prabhas did not arrive just yesterday. He made his Telugu film debut 15 years ago in 2002 with the film Eeshwar. Since then, he has acted in a number of blockbusters such as Chatrapathi and Billa. With the stupendous success of Baahubali all across India, Prabhas has overnight catapulted from being a 'regional' star to being a pan-Indian, national superstar.

The sacrifice of Prabhas

But this fame, this power came at a price. For example, Prabhas devoted five years of his life just to this one project, Baahubali. In Bollywood, only Aamir Khan dedicates a long amount of time in his career to a single film and that too can extend up to just two years. To not listen to other scripts or sign contracts for five long years requires a lot of faith, belief and determination. It is a matter of question if any Bollywood star, old or new, can manage to muster courage and say no to film after film for five years. But Prabhas did it. Prabhas remained in the character of Baahubali for five long years, breathed and drank director SS Rajamouli's vision without questioning, and well, he is reaping the fruits today.

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More than anything else, he is secure. While Baahubali was being made, Prabhas received multiple offers. Surely, some of them were good, even great offers. But Prabhas was secure in his heart to let go of those offers as they quite obviously landed in the kitty of Prabhas's peers (and competitors) in the film industry. At the same time, Prabhas shot alongside Rana Daggubati for years on the sets of Baahubali. Here was Rana, with a sizeable following both in the Telugu as well as the Bollywood film industry, and Prabhas had no qualms acting alonside him for the film. Can you imagine two up and coming Bollywood actors of the present generation coming together for a solo-hero film?

With the huge of success of Baahubali under his belt and a great rapport with filmmaker Karan Johar (who distributed the Hindi version of Baahubali), one can only expect the actor to make a first-rate Bollywood debut that will take his stardom sky high if it already isn't. Once that happens, things will start to get really interesting in Indian cinema.

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ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 Hindi review

ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 Tamil review

WATCH: SS Rajamouli's Baahubali 2 gets a thumbs up from fans

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Rep. Joseph M. McNamara pitches a bill to support The Gaspee Days Committee with special license plate sales, one of several such measures considered by the House Finance Committee on Thursday.
By Press Trust of India: London, May 1 (PTI) Beer lovers, rejoice! A couple of pints of your favourite drink may be a better pain reliever than paracetamol, new research claims.

Researchers from Greenwich University in the UK looked at 18 studies involving more than 400 participants.

They analysed if drinking beer could blunt the sensation of pain by acting on brain receptors or if it could lower anxiety, which then reduces the perception of discomfort.

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The researchers found that the more beer people consumed, the less pain they felt.

"We have found strong evidence that alcohol is an effective painkiller," Trevor Thompson from Greenwich University was quoted as saying by The Sun.

"It can be compared to opioid drugs such as codeine and the effect is more powerful than paracetamol," Thompson said.

The findings suggest that alcohol is an effective analgesic that delivers clinically-relevant reductions in ratings of pain intensity, researchers said.

This could explain alcohol misuse in those with persistent pain, despite its potential consequences for long-term health, they said.

"If we can make a drug without the harmful side-effects then we could have something that is potentially better than what is out there at the moment," Thompson added.

The findings were published in the Journal of Pain. PTI APA SAR SAR

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The cash sales share for January 2017 was 36.5 percent, unchanged from a year ago

The distressed sales share for January 2017 was 7 percent, down 4.6 percentage points from January 2016

Only two states and the District of Columbia have distressed sales shares close to their pre-crisis levels





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According to CoreLogic, cash sales accounted for 36.5 percent of total U.S. home sales in January 2017, unchanged from January 2016. The cash sales share peaked in January 2011 when cash transactions accounted for 46.6 percent of total home sales nationally. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent.Real-estate owned (REO) sales had the largest cash sales share in January 2017 at 61.2 percent, followed by resales at 36.5 percent and newly constructed homes at 17.7 percent. While the percentage of REO sales within the all-cash category remained high, REO transactions have declined since peaking in January 2011.Of all the national distressed sales share of total home sales, REO sales made up 5.9 percent and short sales made up 1.1 percent in January 2017. The distressed sales share of 7 percent in January 2017 was 4.6 percentage points below the January 2016 share, and was the lowest distressed sales share for any month since September 2007. At its peak in January 2009, distressed sales totaled 32.3 percent of all sales with REO sales representing 27.9 percent of that share. The pre-crisis share of distressed sales was traditionally about 2 percent. If the current year-over-year decrease in the distressed sales share continues, it will reach that "normal" 2-percent mark by early-2018.All but eight states recorded lower distressed sales shares in January 2017 compared with a year earlier. Connecticut had the largest share of distressed sales of any state at 17.3 percent in January 2017, followed by Maryland (16.3 percent), Michigan (15.1 percent), New Jersey (15.1 percent) and Illinois (12.8 percent). North Dakota had the smallest distressed sales share at 1.2 percent. While some states stand out as having high distressed sales shares, only North Dakota, Utah and the District of Columbia are close to their pre-crisis levels (each within one percentage point)
Young girl (illustration)

By: Mason White WorldWideWeirdNews.com

A young girl suffered horrific abuse at the hands of five asylum seekers at a refugee center, according to police in Germany.

Hamburg police said that they have arrested five asylum seekers after being accused of gang raping the 7-year-old girl at the Central Initial Reception Center.

According to the police investigation, the incident occurred on Tuesday around 7:00 p.m.

The five men, who were described as Arabs by the Daily Star of the United Kingdom, attacked the girl and dragged her to a secluded area.

They then had sex with her at the same time. Police said that the threat was dealt with.
Baby (illustration)

By: Alexis Bell WorldWideWeirdNews.com

A woman who desperately wanted a baby, was arrested after she returned her newborn baby to its biological mother because she was of a mixed race.

According to police, the 35-year-old woman of Rome, Italy, fooled her family by pretending to be pregnant.

The woman who recently suffered two miscarriages, bought a latex pregnancy belly online and told her family she was expecting a baby girl.

The womanas husband was serving time in prison and she did not want to tell him about her latest miscarriage.

Instead, she paid $22,000 to buy a baby from a woman who was pregnant and did not want to keep the child.

The babyas biological mother said that she was in a short relationship with a man from Mali, Africa, who worked in Rome, when she became pregnant and she decided not to keep the girl.

She was in contact with a man who is a Moroccan citizen, and he arranged for the baby to be sold to the 35-year-old woman.

After the babyas birth, she was handed over to her adoptive mother, who called authorities asking how to register a baby who was born at home.

They scheduled a meeting to discuss the matter. Authorities became suspicious after the women did not attend the scheduled meeting.

When police questioned the woman, she admitted that she was never pregnant and that she had arranged to adopt the baby.

However, the woman said that she returned the baby to her biological mother after seeing that she was of a mixed race because she will be unable to explain the color of the babys skin to her husband, family and friends.

Police arrested the 35-year-old woman, the babyas biological mother and the man who mediated the sale.

Police have tracked down the babyas biological father and he will take custody of the child.
ABC/Randy HolmesNot even a potentially deadly virus can slow down Elton John. After becoming violently ill from a "harmful and unusual bacterial infection" following a South American tour, the Rocket Man had to cancel a slew of concert dates, but the episode hasn't inspired him to pull back on his future plans.

A spokesperson for Elton told the British paper The Sun, "He is recovering very well. Hes actually allowing himself to rest and recuperate and acknowledges that it is important to properly get over this distressing time."

The spokesperson added that Elton is "enjoying spending time with [his husband] David and [their two] kids" and is "using the time to catch up on even more new music." As most Elton fans know, he's a huge supporter of new artists and keeps up on all the latest trends.

Elton is "really looking forward to being back onstage" for a scheduled June 3 concert in Twickenham, England, added the rep.

Earlier this year, when Elton turned 70, he told The Sun, "Im not finished yet! Im more interested in keeping going. I have so much more to do.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
The party faces challenges in Gujarat. But after some rebuilding by CM Rupani and with the Modi wave at its peak, it's still advantage BJP.

During Narendra Modi's stewardship of Gujarat, the BJP maintained an above average performance in the Lok Sabha polls, but after he was declared the prime ministerial candidate in 2014, the BJP won all 26 seats from the state. Now with the prime minister's popularity at its zenith after the party's landslide win in Uttar Pradesh, Modi's and Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's challenge for the coming assembly elections seems somewhat lighter. The party had lost rural Gujarat to the Congress in the November 2015 district and taluka panchayat polls, losing more than 70 per cent of the seats, but it did keep all the corporations, a surefire sign that it held complete sway over the urban masses.

So obstacles remain. And a major one is pro-Patel reservation leader Hardik Patel, whose campaign against the BJP government was one of the main causes of the defeat in 2015. Patel's influence has since waned, especially after his hobnobbing with the likes of the Shiv Sena, but by how much is still a matter of conjecture. Patel's popularity graph is important for the BJP because it is from this community that the party and the Sangh parivar have derived their strength all these years. The prime minister's visit to Surat , Gujarat's economic hub and a big Patel stronghold, to inaugurate projects mooted by members of the community (including a high-tech hospital) and his 11-km-long roadshow a day earlier, on April 17, demonstrated the importance the BJP attaches to the Patel vote. Patels constitute around 12 per cent of the population in Gujarat but have been the backbone of the BJP's growth in Gujarat over the past three decades. "The BJP is using Modi's charisma to woo the Patels, almost projecting him as a second Sardar Patel," says a party leader. "His cutouts in Surat, some over 25 feet high, are certainly an indication of this."

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And many Patels are coming out of Hardik's shadow and veering back to the party. The first indication of a BJP recovery came when it won the Talala assembly seat, held by the Congress for two terms, in a byelection last May and then won a majority of the 10,000 village (gram) panchayats that went to polls in January 2017. Both the BJP and the Congress claimed victory in the panchayat polls where candidates contested individually and not on party symbols. But a BJP-sponsored meet of newly elected sarpanches saw a turnout of over 7,000, an indicator of who actually won.

What is making a difference is Rupani's deft handling of the situation. On the surface, the CM has appeared quiet but he has added to the party's strengths with a multi-pronged strategy. He has closed the gap between the party and the government, improved the law and order situation, tried to tackle grassroots issues at the micro level with his innovative Seva Setu programme and addressed the farmer's problems. What has helped most is that his government remains untainted by any scam so far, a big plus for the BJP on the eve of a crucial poll.

In the last assembly session, Rupani pushed through 26 laws in almost as many days in a bid to acquire the image of a decisive government in keeping with his slogan: transparent, decisive, sensitive and progressive. Some of these laws promise to have a strong political impact.

For example, a new law has put a cap on annual fees charged by private schools-Rs 15,000 for primary, Rs 25,000 for secondary and Rs 27,000 for higher secondary. The law is stringent and in case of violations attracts a punitive fine of Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh and even a ban of the school. The move is expected to woo the middle and lower middle classes to which Rupani, a Jain by religion, himself belongs.

The law, which is in keeping with Modi's own pro-poor stance at the Centre, has had an impact across the nation, with many BJP-ruled states showing an interest in replicating it. Even Union minister for human resources development, Prakash Javadekar, has taken notice of it.

In another pro-poor move, CM Rupani has launched the Shramik Annapurna Yojana, covering 88 main thoroughfares across 10 major cities where artisans and labourers of the construction industry gather every day looking for work. They will be given a full lunch at Rs 10 per thali by the government. About 50,000 construction industry workers are to benefit from the scheme and, of course, will strengthen the party's pro-poor image.

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Then, catering to the Hindutva constituency, he has made the anti-cow slaughter law more stringent with a legislation that slaps 10 years to life imprisonment on anyone convicted of slaughtering a cow or its progeny, along with a ban on transportation of cows in Gujarat from dusk to dawn. Any violation of the transportation restrictions invites severe punishment to the violator including confiscation of the vehicle in which the cow is being transported.

On the agricultural front, he has taken a series of measures to address the problems of farmers. When groundnut prices went down, the government in a crucial intervention bought nuts worth around Rs 1,000 crore. Similarly, the state spent Rs 400 crore buying pulses to prop up farmers. Rupani's efforts to improve irrigation in the state also promises to benefit him. He has just cleared Rs 4,800 worth of tenders for irrigation projects in tribal areas which represent 26 of the 182 seats in the state assembly. Although these schemes won't fructify before the elections, the decision itself should create a favourable atmosphere for the party in the tribal areas.

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In north Gujarat, he has done more, filling up some 1,000 lakes with water from the Sujalam-Sufalam irrigation scheme where water is channelled from the Mahi and Narmada rivers. In another important step for the tribals, he has given full rights to them on the sale of forest produce. They will now retain their entire earnings where earlier they had to share half the proceeds with a state government body.

Graphics by: Tanmoy chakraborty

But what could be a trump card for the BJP is the dedication by the prime minister (on April 17) of the second phase of the Rs 12,000 crore Narmada dam-based Sauni Yojana, the biggest river-linking project in the country so far. The projects aims to link the 115 rivers of Saurashtra by 2019 and the dedication of its second phase will severely dent the campaign of Hardik Patel (he had struck a chord with the Saurashtra Patels on the reservation issue) as the main beneficiaries will be the Patel farmers of the region.

However, Rupani has also indulged in some populist moves, though in his defence it could be said that he was under pressure from opponents or even his peer group. For example, the drive against illicit slaughterhouses or the new law making Gujarat's anti-liquor law more stringent with severe punishments. These raise the spectre of seriously affecting business growth in the state.

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The anti-liquor law has come after pressure from OBC leader Alpesh Thakore, who has been leading a campaign against liquor in the state, a move dictated by both social and political considerations. The legislation reverses Modi's own attempts to soften the law in 2008 with an eye to opening up business and tourism opportunities in Gujarat.

Gujarat BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya says, "We are working to a plan. After our UP landslide, the path is clear. What's more, Rupani's schemes are making an impact. We should win Gujarat handsomely. The Congress will struggle, as always."

But the BJP cannot afford to be complacent. The Congress too sounds upbeat. As party spokesperson Manish Doshi says, "There is more publicity than meat in the BJP's claims. You have to see the people's involvement in our political programmes to gauge the real situation on the ground. And we just won all eight seats on the Gariadhar agriculture produce market committee in Bhavnagar district of Saurashtra, in state BJP chief Jitu Vaghani's own backyard."

Indeed, for a change, the Congress is working in unison. All four top party leaders-state chief Bharat Solanki, Shankersinh Vaghela, Shaktisinh Gohil and Siddharth Patel seem to have reconciled their differences and are working in close coordination. The recent tribal Navsarjan Adivasi Adhikar Yatra of the party to highlight tribal issues drew a good response. Plus, the party is trying to provide ammo to Hardik in a bid to keep the BJP estranged from its main Patel constituency in the state.

There's also the fact that despite the BJP's emphatic victories in three consecutive state elections under Modi's leadership, the Congress voteshare never dropped below 30 per cent. But then the party has also not crossed the one-third mark in the last two polls in the 182-seat assembly. After the UP landslide, it's certainly advantage BJP in Gujarat.

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Police Appeal After Horse Shot Dead

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Apr 30th, 2017

North Wales Police Rural Crime Team has launched an appeal for information after horse was shot dead near Hope Mountain, placing shocking pictures of the incident online.

The incident is believed to have happened overnight between Saturday and Sunday.

Posting an update on twitter police rural crime team officers said: Single shot killed this beautiful horse.

We need the publics help. Someone will know and this is a truly awful offence.

They also posted two images of the dead horse, showing the apparent gunshot wound, via twitter:

Sad to report a horse shot dead in a field near Hope mountain overnight. Truly awful offence. We need information as to who would do this! pic.twitter.com/uxSdCNxhum  RuralCrimeTeam (@NWPRuralCrime) April 30, 2017

Single shot killed this beautiful horse.

So sad. We need the public's help. Someone will know and this is a truly awful offence. Call 101 pic.twitter.com/CvejjBu88l  RuralCrimeTeam (@NWPRuralCrime) April 30, 2017

Police are asking anyone who has any information to contact them on 101 quoting ref V061378 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111
By Press Trust of India: Tiruvarur (TN) May 1 (PTI) The Tamil Nadu police has seized a powerful bomb from a lorry ferrying liquor bottles for the state-run alcohol shops at nearby Vilamal today and arrested the two occupants of the vehicle.

The police said the seizure was effected during a routine check up.

The lorry was proceeding from a liquor godown of the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) to supply the stocks to various outlets, the police said.

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The lorry driver, however, managed to escape.

The police declined to give details of the nature of the explosive. PTI COR SSN SS APR RAX

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The NHS FightBack campaign, initiated by the Socialist Equality Party, is fighting Bournemouth Councils plan to sack 13 community rehabilitation assistants in the Bournemouth Intermediate Care Service (BICS).

The redundancies in Bournemouth, saving 426,000, and slashing of services in the county of Dorset are part of cuts being imposed by National Health Service (NHS) Trusts nationally. These are essential to Conservative government plans to impose a further 20 billion in efficiency savings by 2020.

On April 23, NHS FightBack held a meeting in Bournemouth against health care cuts, redundancies and the privatization of the NHS. The meeting was attended by BICS workers, other NHS workers and local residents.

On the Saturday prior to the meeting, NHS Fightback campaigners set up a stall at a rally against NHS cuts in Bournemouth.

In contrast to NHS FightBacks perspective for a socialist strategy to be the basis for the fight against the attacks on the NHS, Keep Our NHS Public Dorset organised a gathering in order to put forward moral appeals to those carrying out the cuts.

The following are interviews from some of those who have spoken to NHS FightBack during its campaign.

Maureen and John are two retired nurses. Maureen said, I was an operating theatre nurse for many years. I have worked in many different hospitals. I think everything happening with the NHS at the moment is totally wrong. The government is targeting all the wrong things. We need to protect people. It is the vulnerable people who are being damaged by these policies.

It is all about saving money rather than giving the quality of care.

I heard from the news that considerable cuts are to be made in Dorset including GP practices, intermediate care and community hospitals.

What is happening with Bournemouth and Poole, with the transfer of emergency services to Bournemouth, just seems completely illogical. The patients, who live in west Dorset, west of Poole, will not get to care in time. Some of them may not survive during long travel. That cannot possibly be right.

Patient safety has gone out of the door. Nurses and all the caring professions are struggling to provide a service. Whether they are consultants, whether they are doctors in medicine in community care social care, they are struggling. They are doing their best. Some of them are leaving because they cant provide that service.

Asked about what she thought about the 13 planned redundancies in Bournemouth, Maureen said, I think that is totally wrong. Who are going to look after the patients in the community? There arent other people there to do their jobs. Everybody in the system is overworked and overstretched. To make people redundant in BICS is complete nonsense. Nobody can pick up the services they provide.

Asking about the trade unionswho have done nothing to oppose the redundanciesshe replied, I think unions are not doing what they are really contracted to do. People are paying in to the unions but unions are not supporting their members the way they should.

When NHS FightBack reporters explained that the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union had their branch meeting at the end of last yearat which they endorsed the Clinical Service Review in DorsetMaureen said she and John should have gone to the meeting to challenge the union leaders.

John added, We were in the RCN for years and are very disappointed with the teeth they dont have. Sometimes they say certain right things at the right time in the right place. Unfortunately, they go no further than that. I am very disappointed with them. Bearing in the mind its the nurses themselves keeping the RCN going and they are paying into it, its not the service you imagine it to be. When it comes to opposing redundancies, like you just mentioned, they dont do anything. They are not interested is a nice a way to put it.

Dino spoke to NHS FightBack and then attended the meeting it held on Sunday. He had worked as a BICS community rehabilitation assistant and later sent this statement in support of the campaign in opposition to redundancies:

The situation which is unfolding now is unprecedented.

Redundancies in BICS will put a lot pressure on the remaining skeleton staff and they will not be able to cover all the areas they do now. I think it will have a direct impact on acute hospital beds that are so costly and, more importantly, already under a huge strain.

The last year has seen many protests and strikes from not just junior doctors but also from general public, who are concerned about the NHS that we care so much about. I had the privilege to work in both NHS and Social Care and have seen things from both sides. I have seen mental health services cut to the bare minimum over the last 3-4 years and Social Care funding cut significantly. This is at a time when our demographics are rapidly changing and so is demand.

[Prime Minister] Theresa Mays repeating of the mantra that the NHS was receiving an extra 10 billion remains constant. But this was debunked by Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, who said the number was both incorrect and risks giving a false impression that the NHS is awash with cash.

On the other hand, the UKs main rate of corporation tax is currently 20 percent, already far lower than Frances 33.3 percent, Germanys 29.7 percent or Italys 31.4 percent. But in 2015, [former Tory Chancellor] George Osborne announced Britains rate would fall to 18 percent by 2020 at a cost of 6.5 billion to the taxpayer, according to documents released at the time.

A year laterand at an additional cost of 1 billionthe government said the rate would drop to 17 percent by 2020, bringing the total cost of the phased 3 percent fall, now due to start from this April, to 7.5 billion.

It becomes imperative for the government to take a hard look at this before leaving our disabled, elderly folks stranded on trolleys in the corridors of A&E.

Andrew, a district nurse in Bournemouth said, It is disheartening to see the services crumbling in Dorset as a result of government cuts to health care.

They disbanded community palliative services and redeployed the staff in other teams, particularly in district nursing teams. We are already stretched and sometimes have to pick the pieces up as result of the crisis in social care. So how can we give dignified care to patients who are dying? I was really angry when I heard about the redundancies in BICS. It will not only increase our workload in the community, but also we will not be able to address many aspects of services they provide as a distinct team.

I left the RCN because they are useless and joined Unison. But Unison seems to be no different to RCN when it comes to the fight against slashing of services and our wages.

Lisa, a nurse who works in Bournemouth Royal Hospital, noted, I personally have not had to deal with the BICS team because of where I work in the hospital. But I know it is an important service operated in the community and I do not agree with the redundancies there. I am a member of the RCN and I do not understand why they dont do anything about the cuts to services in Dorset. Their reps in Bournemouth hospital are supporting these cuts. The RCN supported freezing our pay rise for several years. I have voted online to fight against pay caps, but I am sure the RCN wont do anything.

The author also recommends:

Bournemouth health workers attend NHS FightBack meeting against redundancies and cuts

[27 April 2017]

Oppose health care cuts, redundancies and privatisation of the National Health Service

[11 April 2017]
More than 100,000 people marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., around the White House, and rallied on the Washington Monument grounds Saturday, in opposition to the Trump administrations wrecking operation against pollution regulations and research into climate change and global warming.

The Peoples Climate March was called by a coalition of environmental groups and trade unions before last Novembers presidential election, to raise concerns over climate change and global warming expressed in the environmental protest held in September 2014 in New York City.

The earlier protest, also called the Peoples Climate March, was aimed at pressuring a United Nations special session on climate change, then beginning in New York City. That session was part of the diplomatic maneuvers by various capitalist governments that culminated in the 2015 Paris accords, an agreement that does nothing to forestall the dangers of global warming to agriculture, human health and ultimately human survival.

The sponsoring groups initially made plans for a second Peoples Climate March to be held in April 2017, expecting that it would be used to pressure a Democratic Party administration headed by a President Hillary Clinton to move more quickly to implement the toothless provisions of the Paris accords. Instead, however, the march went forward with a Republican administration headed by Donald Trump that is actively discussing when and how to pull out of the Paris accords entirely.

There was a wide gulf between the political calculations of the organizers of the demonstration, oriented entirely to the Democratic Party, and the sentiments of the tens of thousands of people who took part in the protest.

Most of those attending saw the protest as the latest in a series directed against the Trump administration, including the Womens March of January 21 and the March for Science on April 22. Many of those marching April 29 had participated in one or both of the previous marches.

The marchers gathered near the US Capitol in scorching weather, with the temperature hitting 91 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest-ever April 29 in Washington, a circumstance that seemed to add force to the demonstrators concern over climate change.

The route of the march went past FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, where thousands took up slogans against the repressive agency. Most notable was the chant FBI, CIA, terror made in the USA, expressing a visceral hostility that was not voiced by anyone on the platform at the rally which followed.

Another target before reaching the White House was the Trump International Hotel, also on Pennsylvania Avenue, in an old Post Office building handed over to the billionaire and retained by him despite conflict-of-interest rules barring any federal official from having an interest in the property. Demonstrators took up chants of shame, shame as they marched past.

After circling the White House, the bulk of the marchers dispersed to begin finding their way home under conditions of extreme heat and the partial shutdown of the citys Metro transit system, allegedly for track repair, which forced protesters to walk many miles to reach their buses or cars.

Only a small fraction of the marchers reached the Washington Monument grounds, and only a few thousand assembled near the stage to be addressed by a series of speakers from environmental and racial justice organizations, and a few unions. There were no well-known speakers, and no politicians, although former Democratic vice president and presidential candidate Al Gore was among the marchers.

Many marchers discussed the issues of climate change, environmental pollution and the threat of war with the World Socialist Web Site in the course of the day.

Four students from the Maryland Institute College of Art wore signs they had made to demonstrate artistically the plight of endangered species.

One student, Callie, said she had come to support our Earth, to support our national parks, citing the devastating cuts being made by the Trump administration in maintenance and upkeep of the parks. Callie herself has regularly hiked in Shenandoah National Park, which includes much of the Blue Ridge Mountains, most recently last fall.

Another student, Burton, said that disasters like the poisoning of the water system in Flint, Michigan were a warning sign. When the infrastructure was made we didnt have the scientific knowledge we have now, he said. Its a flawed system that needs to be changed.

Two graduate students in public health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Priya and Laura, stopped to speak with the WSWS. Laura, who is originally from Seattle, Washington, said that a major concern for her was inequity in access to care. Too many people dont have the ability to even see a provider, because they dont have enough money.

Robert Sanders, an IT worker from northern Virginia, said, Im concerned for the future and my childrens future. Its not just the environment, its encroaching fascism, which is threatening human rights. There is real discontent with the system.

Beverly works at the Perlmutter Cancer Center of New York University Medical Center, and she has also had numerous surgeries herself. As a result, she said, Ive seen both sides of the bed. I know what it feels like to be scared, and how it feels to help people and see people walk out of there better.

Were marching because we care deeply about health care patients, and about secure jobs for the health care employees, she said. We are killing people with pollution.

There was a systemic problem, she agreed. I feel that in large corporations, the higher up people are, the more separated they are from peoples needs, she said.

Jim Brodie timed his family visit from Toronto, Canada to Washington so that he and his daughter could attend the climate demonstration. A documentary filmmaker, he spent considerable time at Cannon Ball, North Dakota, filming the struggles of Native Americans and environmentalists against the Dakota Access Pipe Line (DAPL) construction, which the Obama administration initially approved and the Trump administration finalized.

I was heartbroken by how the DAPL was bulldozed through, he said. I was there the day in December they announced the Army Corps of Engineers was not going to approve DAPL and would do an environmental assessment. The young people did feel that they had won something through non-violent peaceful protest, and this was important, because so many of them were coming from broken homes and difficult environments.

The Obama administration delayed the completion of the pipeline only briefly, handing off the final decision to Trump with the sure knowledge that he would rubber-stamp it immediately, as he did.

Its the overwhelming power of greed and capitalism against the First Nations, Brodie said, admitting that no protest by itself would be able to roll back those actions of the federal government and the giant energy corporations.

The speeches at the end of the demonstration offered no perspective to those who marched, except empty appeals to make Trump listen and wake Trump up, as several of the speakers declared. There was no mention of the record of the Democratic Party as the servant of large corporate polluters, including the fossil fuel industry. There was no mention of the imminent danger of war raised by US missile strikes on Syria, the use of the huge MOAB bomb in Afghanistan, and the mounting confrontation with North Korea.

One speaker, Nate James, representing American Federation of Government Employees Local 3331, cited his own 20 years in the US Marines, and said that the military oath to oppose all enemies foreign and domestic should apply to large corporations as well as foreign countries. He gave the example of Syria, where he claimed, a few weeks ago, sarin gas was sprayed on people. The US government reacted immediately. He called for the US government to react just as promptly when American corporations sprayed chemical poisons in America.

Virtually every speaker was chosen to represent one form or another of identity, including Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics, gays, and immigrants, in keeping with the orientation of the march organizers to the Democratic Party.

Even the structure of the march was subordinated to the political perspective of identity politics. The marchers were divided into groups based on such distinctions, with Native Americans in the front, along with African American and other climate justice communitiesi.e., victims of environmental disasters, as in Flint, Michigan, but categorized as a black community, even though the citys population is multiracial. The second rank included immigrants, gays and Latinos, the third rank union contingents; the fourth students and peace groups, and so on.

The effect of this organization was to reinforce the separation of the participants into various sub-groups based first of all on race, gender and sexual orientation. It was a striking contrast to the March for Science the previous week, where the main focus of the demonstrators was to celebrate and defend the universal validity of science and knowledge. There was no black, brown, female or gay science, but science for all, as a unifying framework.

Neither demonstration offered a serious perspective on how the struggle to defend science and oppose environmental destruction can be carried forward. This requires a turn to the mobilization of the working class, potentially the most powerful social force, by uniting workers across all divisions of race, gender, region, or immigration status, by advancing a socialist program.

The author also recommends:

Science and Socialism: The issues posed by the worldwide March for Science

[20 April 2017]

Climate change and the capitalist system

[20 September 2014]
A child in Michigan is more likely to be in poverty nowthe state had an official child poverty rate of 22.2 percent rate in 2015than at the end of the first full year of the recession in 2008. The rate was high enough at that point, just over 19 percent, with about one in five children officially living in poverty. That rate has now increased to more than one in five children. Recent auto layoffs in the state threaten to bring the percentage of children in poverty to new highs.

The 2017 Kids Count report released last week by the Michigan League for Public Policy reports these shocking official numbers. But it also notes that the official federal poverty threshold takes as its benchmark an income of just $24,339 for a family of four. This is grossly inadequate for even basic necessities. The current official poverty level is just 30 percent of the national median household income. In 1960 a family was considered living in poverty if its annual income was below 50 percent of the nations median.

More than 480,000 Michigan children were living in poverty in 2015, up 26,000 in 2008. The total population of the state dropped from 10 million in 2008 to 9.9 million people in 2014, a nearly 1 percent drop. But there was an even greater drop, 7 percent, in children in the state between 2008 and 2014, down to 2.2 million residents aged 0-17. All told, there were more than 160,000 fewer children living in the state in 2014 than half a decade earlier.

The number of children living in families in severe economic distress is actually more widespread than the official poverty numbers reveal. Almost a million Michigan children, or 44 percent, lived in families below twice the poverty level, an income of less than $4,006 a month. The parents in these families struggle paycheck to paycheck, just one emergency away from falling into abject poverty.

Of these one million, about a quarter million children are even worse off, living in families at the lower end of the income scale. Denoted as in extreme poverty, these families have incomes below one-half the official poverty rate, less than $1,000 a month.

This extreme poverty increased by 11 percent from 2008 to 2015, even as the percentage of children receiving cash assistance dropped by a whopping 64 percent, a result of increased enforcement of the Clinton-era work penalties imposed by Michigan governors, both Democratic and Republican.

The increase in those in extreme poverty was accompanied by a rise in the rate of children confirmed as victims of abuse or neglect by more than 30 percent. Nearly 17 per 1,000 children were counted as abused or neglected. Over 80 percent of victims in the child welfare system were there because of neglect, due to a failure to provide adequate food, clothing, shelter or medical care, or when the childs health or welfare is at risk.

As the World Socialist Web Site has noted before, the Kids Count data for child abuse and neglect correlates closely to child poverty.

In 2015, there were nearly 248,000 counts of Michigan children living in families investigated for abuse or neglect, while the count was just over 176,000 in 2009. The highest rate of confirmed abuse was in rural Lake County, a staggering 64 per 1,000 children, twice that of other high-reporting mostly rural counties. Lake County is now the poorest county in Michigan, with a median household income of about $26,000 among its 11,000-plus residents. The majority of Lake County residents, about 85 percent, are white.

The report also presents profiles of specific areas of the state. In the Detroit area, the number of children in families below the poverty level dropped from 98,438 in 2008 to 96,268 in 2014. However, since the citys population fell by 14 percent over those same years, the poverty rate increased substantially.

In 2008 in Detroit a child had a one-in-two likelihood of living in poverty. By 2014 it was almost three in five. The number of children school-aged children, 6-12, living in Detroit dropped by 40 percent.

Eighty-five percent of children in Detroit lived in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared to 17 percent statewide. Sixty percent are signed up for food stamps, 70 percent get reduced price lunches and 98 percent of Detroit children rely on Medicaid for health coverage. The rate of hospitalizations for asthma among children in Detroit, 46 percent compared to 15 percent statewide, reflects the pervasive poverty and unhealthy living conditions in the city.

According to the MLHS report: Poverty also touches every corner of the state. In 2015, nearly 28 percent of children living in rural counties were in poverty compared to almost 24 percent in midsize and 22 percent in urban counties. The child poverty rate is higher in rural parts of the state; however, it increased at a higher rate from 2008 to 2015 in urban counties.

The reports statewide child well-being figures include the following:

Child poverty rates are much higher among minority groups: Almost half47 percentof Michigans African-American children and 30 percent of Hispanic children live in poverty.





Sixty-seven percent of children aged 0-5 years have both parents in the workforce. Working a full-time, minimum wage job leaves a parent with a family of three $1,657 below poverty level each year.





On average, childcare expenses represent 38 percent of minimum wage earnings.





Less than 2 percent of children ages 0-12 receive childcare subsidies. The state eligibility level for childcare assistance, a federal block-granted program, is among the lowest in the nation.

Children eligible for benefits under federal entitlement programs comprise close to half the children in the state. Children in families under 130 percent of poverty level with little assets are eligible for SNAP (food stamps) and make up 30 percent of children aged 0-5 years. The rate of school-age children eligible for free or reduced price school lunches in the state is over 46 percent. Fifty percent of the very youngest children received basic food under the federal WIC (Womens, Infants and Children) program.

At the same time, while births to teens declined 30 percent, the overall rate of mothers receiving inadequate pre-natal care is 31 percent.

The report notes an increase in the percentage of students not proficient in third-grade English Language Arts, from 50 to 54 percent over the previous year. This crucial skill is a basic requirement for reading-based learning in future school years.

The rates of accidents and homicides declined between 2008 and 2014. Accident rates for youth have been reduced by nearly 23 percent and youth homicide rates have improved by almost 26 percent. Black homicide deaths among those 15-19 are still high, 38.6 per 100,000.

A startling finding reported this year is the increase in teen suicides. Youth suicides in the state increased by 38 percent between 2008 and 2014. Suicide rates among both white and African-American youth increased, by nearly 40 percent for whites and 12 percent for African-Americans. The rate of white teens taking their lives is now 11 per 100,000, almost twice that of black and Hispanic youth.

Democratic President Barack Obama was in office for all of the eight years covered by this years Kids Count report. His program of multitrillion-dollar bailouts for the banks and financial institutions paved the way for more demands from the rich.

Since the financial crash of 2008, 95 percent of income gains nationally have gone to the richest 1 percent of the population, while most of the population has not recovered from the Great Recession, which officially ended in 2009. The labor-force participation rate has hovered around 63 percent for years, far below its 67-plus high in the 1990s.

Trump wants a $54 billion decrease in discretionary spending on social programs to cover a $54 billion increase in military spending. Money for low-income housing, education, the environment and other vital areas of social life are to be slashed. Colossal social damage will result as the US Congress takes aim at entitlement programs that now are part of social supports that keep the most distressed families afloat. These include Food Stamps, WIC, Medicare and Medicaid and many federal education subsidies for low-income students in K-12 schools.

This assault is hitting a state already suffering from intense social displacement. In 2009, as a condition of the auto bailout, Obama cut the wages of Big Three new-hires in half, and, as so-called higher-paid legacy workers are forced out, large numbers of low-paid workers now labor in the plants. At the same time, unemployment looms for many. GM cut about 2,000 jobs when it ended the third shift at its Lordstown, Ohio, and Lansing, Michigan plants in January. GM cut nearly 1,300 jobs from its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in March.

These job cuts coincide with unprecedented social disruption in the states larger cities. The ongoing water disaster in Flintand housing crises and water shutoffs in the states largest city, Detroithave stretched into years of acute social disaster for urban residents. In April a new round of water shutoffs to poor residents in Detroit and Flint began, the latest result of the bankruptcy of Detroit engineered by big business and the Democratic and Republican parties in 2013-2014.
Health care benefits for 22,600 coal miners, which were set to expire on April 30, have been extended until May 5, as part of a short-term spending bill approved by Congress on Friday. This is the second time in six months that a temporary funding extension has been passed.

The US Congress is still considering the so-called Miners Protection Act, a bipartisan proposal that would partially bail out the near bankrupt United Mine Workers Health and Retirement Funds by transferring federal money set aside to clean up abandoned coal mine sites.

Many of the retirees facing the loss of medical coverage have worked 20, 30 or even 40 years mining coal. Some suffer from incurable diseases, such as black lung, or were injured on the job. A large number are not old enough to qualify for Medicare and would be forced to buy private insurance at rates approaching $2,000 a month. Many who do qualify for Medicare cannot afford the extra copays or coinsurances necessary to treat their conditions.

The union-controlled UMW Health and Retirement Funds cover pensions and medical care benefits for 89,000 retired coal miners and their spouses. They also cover another 10,000 active or laid-off coal miners who have not yet retired.

The 22,600 retired miners who immediately face a cutoff worked for now bankrupt coal companies, including mining giant Peabody Energy and Patriot, which stopped paying into the fund. Six major coal producers have filed for bankruptcy since the global financial crash in 2008.

UMW officials along with several Democratic and Republican senators and congressmen from eastern coal-producing states are predicting passage of the Miners Protection Act before the new May 5 deadline, although that is far from certain.

Many Republican congressmen strongly oppose the measure, complaining it would lead to a government bailout of other pension plans. Such action, Rachel Greszler from the right-wing Heritage Foundation said, would set an incredibly dangerous precedent, opening the door to taxpayer bailouts of more than $600 billion in unfunded union pensions, not to mention trillions of dollars in other unfunded public and non-union private pension liabilities across the country.

Many congressmen from western mining states like Wyoming and Montana also oppose the bill, which they see as a subsidy to eastern coal

Democrats and Republicans in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois are concerned with the explosive political consequences of condemning tens of thousands of miners and their surviving spouses to an even earlier grave. They are working with the UMW to contain working-class opposition and force retired miners to look to the government, not the independent strength of the working class, to secure the benefits they worked a lifetime to obtain.

A temporary bailout would cost the government little if anything. The Senate bill, introduced in January by Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, would transfer funds from the Abandoned Mine Lands Reclamation Fund into the UMW funds and reportedly keep them going for another decade. This would let off the hook the coal companies, which have used the bankruptcy courts to escape their obligations, and would also bail out the UMW bureaucracy, which has long used the funds as an investment vehicle and slush fund.

A new measure pushed by US Congressman Tim Murphy, Republican from near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, would cover the payments not just of bankrupt coal companies but also highly profitable ones. This would be a bonanza to Consol Energy, formally Consolidated Coal, which has moved heavily into gas drilling. The Republican congressman has received over $70,000 in contributions from high-ranking employees of Consol, which is headquartered in Murphys district, and $353,039 in total from the energy industry.

Senate leader Mitch McConnell, Republican from Kentucky, has opposed the current version of the bill and it has been stuck in the finance committee since it was introduced in January. For the first time, however, McConnell tweeted on Friday that he supported finding a solution for health care for the 23,000 miners and their families, although not for pensions.

According to reports, McConnells plan, which has not been officially presented, would extend only the health benefits for another 20 months, but not provide any funding for pension benefits.

The UMW pension fund, which has seen corporate contributions reduced by more than two-thirds over the last few years, is expected to completely run out of money soon. If it is dumped into the governments Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, benefits would be cut by 20 percent and eliminated for everyone under 65. The PBGC does not insure health benefits at all.

Speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday, alongside US Senators Joe Manchin III (Democrat-West Virginia), Shelly Moore Capito (Republican-West Virginia), Sherrod Brown (Democrat-Ohio), and Democratic and Republican state representatives from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Illinois, UMW President Cecil E. Roberts urged passage of the plan.

Roberts specifically praised McConnell, signaling that the UMW could very well back a bailout plan that excluded pensions. Last month, Roberts told a local West Virginia radio station that there was a great deal of congressional push back on a pension bailout.

During his remarks, the UMW president framed the issue in nationalist terms. This is the most patriotic people in the country. I dont care where they are fromcoal miners are patriots, they have gone to every war, World War One, Two, Korea, Vietnam, and now the Mideast. We have stood for this nation and all were doing now is asking this nation to stand with us.

Such jingoistic and nationalist bluster is aimed at concealing what the long and bitter experience of miners has demonstrated again and again. The United States is not some mythical land where workers and capitalist exploiters blissfully share the same national interests. Pensions and health care benefits were won through mass struggles in which miners fought pitched battles against the violent resistance of the coal operators, their hired gun thugs and bought-and-paid for politicians, courts and police.

Patriotism and nationalism has long been used to blind workers and tie them hand-and-foot to their own ruling class. It is a historical fact, however, that the miners were only major section of the American working class that defied the Roosevelt administration during World War II, when hundreds of thousands of miners carried out wildcat strikes against the coal bosses, who were making record profits from wartime production while starving the miners and jacking up prices at company controlled stores by 124 percent.

After the war, the miners again defied President Truman, who seized the mines and threatened to fire striking miners as federal employees in 1946. It was during this struggle that miners forced the coal companies to finance the health and pension funds, with a tax on every ton of coal produced by workers.

Fearing that the destruction of health and pension benefits could provoke a social explosion the UMW could not contain, Roberts & Co. are promoting nationalism and a sickly dependency on the government to save miners retirement benefits. At the same time, the UMW is marching in lockstep with the Trump administration, which is promoting the lie that workers in China, Mexico and other countries are stealing US workers jobs and livelihoods.

The UMW has hailed Trumps promise to bring back coal by gutting environmental, safety and other supposedly job-killing regulations and corporate taxesmeasures that will only assure more miners lives and communities are sacrificed for profit.

The near bankruptcy of the UMW health and retirement funds is the result of the collapse of coal production, the wave of bankruptcies and the collusion of the UMW, which is opposed to any serious struggle, above all one that challenges the private ownership of the mining industry by the global energy giants and Wall Street.
By Shiv Pujan Jha: A respite is in the offing for lakhs of abandoned cows in Uttar Pradesh's Bundelkhand as CM Yogi Adityanath has taken a considerate look on their plight. Soon, there would be a dedicated pasture for these cows that have been abandoned in hoards to die without food and water.

It's a common practise in Bundelkhand to abandon their cows the moment they stop giving milk. Since the area has been reeling under severe drought like conditions for the last several years, there is an acute shortage of fodder and water for the cattle.

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CATTLE AS BURDEN

As such people have been widely practising Anna Pratha in which they abandon their cattle that roam all over in search of water and food. With the mercury rising and the water bodies drying fast, most of these helpless creatures are left to a slow and sure death. There have been instances when carcasses of these cows have been spotted near dried water bodies. Through the scorching heat, hundreds and thousands of these cows can be spotted wandering in search of food and water even as farmers standing guard with sticks have been forcing them out from one field to the other.

There have been occasions when herds have taken to the railway lines in large numbers only to be mowed down in dozens in one go. The aired fields have no grass and there are no takers to these cows now as their milk has dried up. There are no vigilante groups either and as such these creatures are left to fend for themselves.

YOGI ADITYANATH COMES TO RESCUE

During his recent visit to Bundelkhand, the matter was brought to the notice of the Adityanath and he now seems to have asked for a detailed report on the same. Now with the shocking reports, the CM of the state who has been for long espousing the cause of cow protection is a concerned man. It is learnt that the locals are being roped in to identify the pasture lands that have been under illegal occupation. The government is also planning to set boundary walls around these pastures and house the abandoned cows in large numbers with proper facilities for them.

Meanwhile, orders have already been issued to fill the roadside pits with water for the cows that often die due to thirst in the summer. Government tube wells have been used to fill water in dried ponds and other pits adjacent to the roads to ensure drinking water for the cows.

Sources in the government indicate that this is just the beginning as Yogi Adityanath is concerned about the plight of the cows in Bundelkhand. Soon there are bound to be dedicated pastures for them and also doctors to ensure their health.

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ALSO READ:

Yogi Adityanath: Gau sevak to UP CM; does this mean 'achchhe din' for cows?

Uttar Pradesh: Here's why people abandon cows in Bundelkhand

Slogans will not protect cows,honest efforts needed: Adityanath

WATCH: Uttar Pradesh wants freedom from negative politics of SP-Congress, BSP: CM designate Yogi Adityanath

--- ENDS ---
The AFL-CIO last week released its annual report on workplace fatalities and injuries. Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect, 2017 is based on 2015 injury and fatality data compiled by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and Fiscal Year 2016 enforcement data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

In 2015, the study found:

 4,836 workers were killed on the job in the United States or 3.4 per 100,00 workers.

 50,000 to 60,000 workers died from occupational diseases.

 There were 3.7 million reported work-related injuries or illnesses, a figure that the AFL-CIO acknowledges is underreported. The true toll is estimated to be between 7.4-11.1 million.

 Overall, 150 workers die each day due to hazardous working conditions.

Statistics for individual groups of workers are even more horrifying. Deaths of Latino workers, for example, increased significantly, from 804 in 2014 to 903 in 2015. Immigrant workers accounted for 67 percent of that figure. In total, 943 immigrant workers or over 20 percent of the totalwere killed on the job in 2015.

Older workers face especially hazardous conditions. Workers 55 and older accounted for 35 percent of all fatalities, a total of 1,681 deaths. For workers 65 and older, the fatality rate is 9.4 per 100,000, a figure 2.5 times higher than the average.

The highest rate of worker fatalities was in agriculture, fishing and forestry, with 570 deaths in 2015, at a rate of 22.8 per 100,000. The death rate for transportation and warehouse workers placed second, at 13.8 per 100,000, for a total of 765 fatalities. Deaths in the construction industry continued to increase in 2015, for the second year in a row, with 937 construction workers being killed on the job.

In the mining industry 118 workers died in 2015. The fatality rate in the mining sector was three times the national average or 11.4 per 100,000 workers. This includes workers in the gas and oil industry, who account for 74 percent of the total fatalities in that sector. While the report notes that this represents a decline from previous years, it fails to mention the salient fact that this is largely due to a massive reduction in the coal mining workforce.

Violence in the workplace claimed the lives of 703 workers in 2015. An additional 26,420 workplace injuries were reported due to violence.

The US states with the highest rates of on-the-job fatalities were North Dakota and Wyoming, with 12.5 and 12 per 100,000 respectively. This is near twice the number of the next highest state, Montana, which saw 7.5 fatalities per 100,000 workers.

The report details the paucity of resources available for the enforcement of workplace safety rules. For the eight million workplaces covered under the Occupational Safety and Hazards Act (OSHA), there are a mere 1,838 inspectors, or one for every 76,402 workers. In practical terms, this means that federal OSHA inspectors have enough personnel to inspect each workplace once every 159 years, while state inspectors can visit each workplace once every 99 years. The annual OSHA budget equals $3.65 for each worker in the US.

Despite its authors best intentions, the report is an indictment of American capitalism, both corporate-controlled political parties and the role of unions themselves.

In a whitewash of President Obama, the AFL-CIO report claims, The Obama administration produced a number of significant safety and health rules and left a solid legacy of worker protections in place. While the first term saw many regulatory delays, the second term was much more productive. Among the supposed reforms enacted by Obama is the Mine Safety and Health Administrations 2014 coal dust rule [that] reduces dust exposures and protects miners from black lung.

In fact, by reducing the allowable exposure to coal dust by only 25 percent, the Obama administration not only intervened to deliberately loosen the 1.0-milligram limit proposed by MSHA; it also rejected longstanding recommendations by health officials, backed by numerous studies, arguing that the limits should be cut in half to 1.0 milligram.

Under the Obama administration, the deadliest form of black lung, the common name for coal workers pneumoconiosis, has increased sharply although this deadly and incurable occupational lung disease is known to be entirely preventable through proper dust control.

The overall occupational fatality statistics also contradict the AFL-CIOs assertion about Obama. With the exception, of 2013, the number of fatalities steadily rose under the Obama administration from a low of 4,551 in 2009 to 4,836 in 2015.

The Obama administration was also aware that the last-minute measures it took before leaving office could easily be underdone by an incoming administration.

Insofar as the AFL-CIO looked to the Obama administration, it was because the Democratic president utilized the services of the unions to implement its pro-corporate policies. One of Obamas first acts was to appoint former United Mine Workers of America safety director, Joe Main, to head up OSHAs mine safety division. Under Main, who was schooled in the UMWs corporatist outlook of labor-management collusion, 29 miners were killed in the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster and coal companies rarely saw anything but wrist-slap fines.

At the same time, the Obama administration relied on the unions to suppress opposition to stagnant wages, increased exploitation, longer and more grueling work hours and the explosion of so-called independent contractors who lack any job security and are denied workers compensation and unemployment benefits.

In 2015, for example, the United Steelworkers betrayed the strike by oil refinery workers whose demands included a reduction in work hours to combat worker fatigue in the perilous industry.

President Trump, who has stacked his cabinet and administration with billionaires and business figures hostile to the slightest obstacle to corporate profit-making, had promised to destroy supposed job killing regulations, including occupational safety. In his first week in office, Trump signed a presidential memorandum ordering all federal agencies to freeze the regulatory process and delay the implementation of new rules not yet in effect. Days later, he issued an absurd executive order ordering that for every new regulation adopted two previous ones must be repealed.

The administration has abolished rules requiring employers to keep accurate records of injuries and illnesses incurred on the job, as well as requiring companies to report past health and safety violations when bidding for federal contracts. Trumps proposals would reduce the budget of the Department of Labor by 21 percent, slash the funds made available for job safety research by $100 million dollars, and eliminate the chemical safety board altogether.

The Trump administration has also delayed the implementation of new OSHA rules dealing with the handling of beryllium and silica. The AFL-CIO report states that delay of the Silica rule will lead to 160 worker deaths.

Whatever its criticisms of the current administration, the AFL-CIO has wholly embraced Trumps program of economic nationalism and trade war. AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka, a frequent visitor to the White House, has been appointed to Trumps Manufacturing Jobs Initiative panel, where he sits alongside the heads of the Big Three auto companies, the CEOs of US Steel, and other corporate leaders. The purpose of the panel is to increase the profitability of US manufacturers at the expense of their international rivals and the working class at home.
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) held a successful picket and public meeting on April 28 in Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lankas war-torn northern province, to demand the immediate release of framed-up Maruti Suzuki autoworkers. Over 30 SEP and IYSSE supporters, including workers, youth, fishermen and housewives, participated in both events.

In March, a Haryana state court in northern India sentenced 13 Maruti Suzuki workers to life in prison after they were falsely convicted of killing a company manager. The prosecution failed to prove any connection between these workers and the managers death.

Last Fridays picket and public meeting are part of a campaign by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to expose the victimisation and legal frame-up of the Maruti Suzuki workers, exonerate them of all charges and win their release from prison.

The picket, held outside Jaffnas central bus station for almost an hour, attracted the support of workers, youth and other ordinary people. SEP and IYSSE members campaigned for several days before the picket, distributing thousands of Tamil- and Sinhala-language ICFI statements about the jailed workers.

Pickets displayed a banner and placards reading Free the framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers! Unite to defeat the witch-hunt against the Maruti Suzuki workers, Forge the international unity of the working class and Fight for international socialism against imperialist war plans. Uthayan, a Jaffna-based Tamil-language newspaper, carried a brief report on the protest picket.

Mayuran, a young construction worker, told pickets: I read your leaflet and came here to express my solidarity. The Maruti Suzuki workers have been subjected to unjust punishments. Workers must unite and fight to win their release. I like socialism but the TNA [the Tamil National Alliance] and other Tamil groups are doing nothing for the people. Theyre only interested in their own privileges.

Last Fridays meeting was chaired by SEP member T. Sambandan. He said the campaign to release the Maruti Suzuki workers was a crucial issue for the international working class.

The only crime committed by the Maruti Suzuki workers was to fight against the oppressive conditions inside their car factory, he said. Sri Lankan workers and students, he continued, faced similar state repression, including police attacks and the banning of demonstrations and strikes against the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe governments social austerity measures.

The war victims of the north and east have also been continuously protesting to demand the release of Tamil political prisoners and for information about those disappeared by the Sri Lankan military and police during Colombos war against the separatist Tamil Tigers.

Sambandan explained that the Tamil bourgeois parties, such as the TNA, the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) and the Tamil People Council (TPC), were oriented towards Indian government leaders and the imperialist powers, spreading illusions that the problems facing Sri Lankan Tamils can be solved by appealing to these forces. Tamil workers must instead forge an alliance with the workers in South Asia and internationally, he said.

SEP Political Committee member M. Devarajah told the meeting that the brutal punishment of the Maruti Suzuki workers was another indication that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis government had declared class war against the Indian working class in order to attract foreign investment under his so-called Making India program.

Devarajah outlined the Sri Lankan governments intensification of police-state methods against the working class. After the petroleum corporation workers recent strike, he said, the government is moving to establish a special force under former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka, who led the communal war against the Tamil people. This is a warning to the Sri Lankan working class.

SEP Political Committee member W.A Sunil delivered the concluding address. He emphasised that the campaign of the ICFI and the World Socialist Web Site was not oriented to appealing to the Indian government or the auto company owners.

The aim of our campaign is to mobilise the industrial and political strength, and develop the unity, of the international working class, the only force which can win the Maruti Suzuki workers freedom.

Sunil said the case against the Maruti Suzuki workers wasfrom the beginning right up to the imposition of life sentencesa joint conspiracy of the company owners, the police and the Haryana state government.

This attack seeks to defend the interests of the Maruti Suzuki company and its multinational investors. It is part of the social counter-revolution being unleashed by the capitalist rulers against the working class in every country, he said.

The speaker reviewed the treacherous role played by the two Indian Stalinist partiesthe Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of IndiaMarxist (CPM)and the All India Trade Union Confederation (AITUC).

Over the last four years, these parties and the AITUC have isolated the Maruti Suzuki workers and given the Haryana government, the employers and the police, a free hand to advance their provocations and conspiracies against the autoworkers.

Sunil explained the connection between the worsening global recession, the deepening economic crisis in India and the desperate efforts of all countries in the sub-continent to attract investment by attacking the living conditions and basic rights of the working class.

The Modi government is determined to attack all the social and democratic rights of the Indian working class and brutally suppress any opposition, Sunil said. The assault on the Maruti Suzuki workers shows that there is no limit to this brutality.

The speaker said that while the Modi government was deepening its attacks on the working class, it was working as a frontline state for the US and its strategic interests in the region.

The US has stepped up its military campaign against China as a part of its attempt to establish its hegemony in the region and all over the world, Sunil said. The recent attacks on Syria and Afghanistan and US President Donald Trumps war threats against North Korea were bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Without the international unity of the working class it cannot defeat the social counter-revolution at home or prevent the development of a third world war, he said.

Sunil concluded his address by appealing for participants to support the ICFIs campaign to release the Maruti Suzuki workers, to study the program and perspective of the SEP and the IYSSE, and to join their ranks.
At least thirteen people, including three children, are dead across the American Midwest and South due to a series of tornados and floods that hit over the weekend.

Entirely preventable, the deaths were caused by the lack of public infrastructure, planning, or spending on disaster relief. Although floods and tornados are relatively common in the impacted areas, the ruling class ignores the needs of this deeply impoverished region.

Local officials found what they believe to be clothing belonging to two missing children, a four-year-old boy and his 18-month-old sister, who were swept away by floodwaters in Madison County, Missouri. The childrens mother tried to save the two after their family car was swept off the roadway Saturday afternoon, but the young children slid out of her hands and into the rushing water.

A 10-year-old girl was also swept away by flooding that struck Springdale, Arkansas Saturday night. Officials recovered her body late that night. In DeWitt, Arkansas, 65-year-old Julia Schwede was crushed by a tree in her mobile home. Many of those killed were elderly people caught in their vehicles, unable to escape the rising waters. Missouri declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard.

East Texas was worst hit by tornados, which killed four and injured over fifty.

Ernestine Cook, a resident of East Texas, told Dallas television station WFAA that the tornados hit so hard, so fast. It just kept moving. Ive never seen anything like it after 22 years of living here.

Roughly three dozen people have been killed by tornados in the US so far this year. Two thirds of those killed are impoverished mobile home residents, according to a Weather.com report from early April. These types of homes provide no shelter for residents, who are either crushed by debris or sucked up into the deadly cyclones.

The administration of President Donald Trump is proposing to cut 11 percent of the budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is ostensibly responsible for disaster relief. The New York Times noted in March: At FEMA, potential cuts would target for reduction an array of grants to state and local governments that have helped fund the development of emergency preparedness and response plans for natural disasters

According to the administration, funds for disaster relief will instead be used to construct a border wall separating the US and Mexico and for an intensified plan to militarize the border region.

In Oklahoma, the site of the Moore Tornado, which killed 24 people in 2013, Trumps budget cut would reduce funding for the states emergency relief program by 85 percent.

Oklahoma Congressman Steve Russell told residents not to worry about the impact of the cuts, asking sardonically: You got to look at it like, does this really mean that the US is going to tell Oklahoma if they face a tornado, were sorry?

The answer is yes.

Not only will more poor and working-class residents of these regions be killed as a result of the budget cuts, but relief to help people whose homes were destroyed will also be cut.

The Trump administration is also planning to slash $6.2 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, headed by retired neurosurgeon and religious fundamentalist Ben Carson. HUD provides funding for the Community Development Block Grant Program, which provides money to people whose homes are destroyed in natural disasters.

Trump also announced in March that his administration would cut $2.4 billion from federal transportation programs that fund road and transit programs in rural areas like the ones affected by this weekends storms. It is precisely due to a lack of spending on infrastructure that many of the regions roads are prone to flooding, making travel dangerous in storms.

The regions devastated by the storms are overwhelmingly poor.

Madison County, Missouri, where the two young children were lost in a flood, has a per capita income of just $15,825 and a median family income of $37,474. The county is 98 percent white.

Springdale, Arkansas, where the 10-year-old girl drowned, 39 percent of children live below the poverty line. DeWitt, Arkansas, where Julia Schwede was crushed by a tree in her mobile home, per capita income is at $18,993 and median family income is at $42,917.

Those killed are the victims of the capitalist system, under which the ruling class directs societys resources toward war and speculation in order to enrich a tiny oligarchy. The needs of the working classwhether for shelter in Tornado Alley or for water in Flint, Michiganare ignored as working-class children and elderly people are killed by the wind and rain.
The Australian Education Union has mounted a calculated misinformation campaign as part of its efforts to ram through a new four-year industrial sell-out agreement covering 55,000 public school staff in the state of Victoria.

One aspect of this campaign is the AEUs claim that a key improvement with the new agreement is a ban on quotas on the number of staff who can progress up the salary scale [and] a ban on lump sum performance pay for all staff. The AEUs web site also features a list of claimed major achievements in the past few years, with the first being, Defeat of the former Liberal governments performance pay plan and a commitment from the Andrews Labor government never to implement performance pay.

The AEUs claim that its deal with the state Labor government represents a blow against so-called performance pay and the wider agenda of tying teachers job security and salary to standardised test outcomes is a fraud.

From the outset, the union has been complicit in the bipartisan drive by both Labor and Coalition federal governments to extend standardised testing throughout the Australian public school system. Testing, in the form of the NAPLAN (National Assessment ProgramLiteracy and Numeracy) regime, was introduced in 2008 by the former federal Rudd and Gillard Labor government as a key component of a long-standing agenda to undermine public education and promote, instead, the development of private schools. Under this agenda, underperforming schools are targetedwith many eventually shutdown, and teaching jobs cutwhile the curriculum is narrowed to meet the demands of the major corporations.

Testing regimes have been introduced in several countries, where they have contributed to the virtual decimation of public education, particularly in the US and Britain, and its replacement with for-profit charter schools, in the case of the US, and private academies or colleges in the UK.

In 2010, the Australian teacher unions sabotaged a planned teacher boycott of standardised testing, after the government extended their partnership role in enforcing the Labor governments so-called education revolution through a MySchool working party.

The AEUs latest Victorian industrial agreement incorporates all the previously conceded clauses around teacher performance. The deal, for example, specifies that teachers performance will be assessed against demonstrated achievements against school priorities and Departmental criteria (section 13.3a). The documents next section specifies: Salary progression is not automatic. All employees will be assessed annually based on demonstrated achievement against school priorities and Departmental criteria []. Relevant data will be used.

The union is attempting to push through key new performance measures, which are contained in service improvement commitments that are tied to the new agreement. Ordinary teachers have no knowledge of these commitments, which have been made by the union behind their backs. But teachers and ES staff are nevertheless being asked to approve them as part of the agreement. The only information available is a one-paragraph summary on the AEUs web site.

The motion being put by the AEU to its delegates meetings reads: That the proposed Victorian Schools Agreement 2017 and associated package of improvements be endorsed. [Emphasis added]

This sleight-of-hand further underscores the contempt of the union for the democratic right of delegates, and of all teachers and ES staff, to be fully informed of every measure contained in the new agreement, before they vote.

Moreover, as part of the agreement, the AEU has agreed to the compulsory online collation of annual teacher performance reviews and related salary increment approvals. In addition, it has issued a sweeping pledge supporting the implementation of the [governments] education reform agenda, and contribution to achieving targets.

A central plank of the state governments reform agenda, however, is the introduction of teacher performance pay!

This is spelled out in precise detail in the Greater Returns on Investment in Education: Government School Funding Review that was released last year. The review was carried out by former Labor Premier Steve Bracks and advanced a suite of regressive proposals that were immediately endorsed by the governmentincluding shutting down more public schools (in the guise of amalgamations), making it easier to layoff experienced teachers (to avoid teacher profiles that are skewed to higher cost over time [and] manage the financial challenges presented by an ageing schools workforce), and opening up more opportunities for corporations to expand their operations in the public education system (in the name of Learning Partnerships).

One of the Reviews central planks involves the elaboration of various ways that school funding and teachers wages can be more directly tied to standardised test results.

It explains that industrial agreements between the AEU and the government already provide significant flexibility but that there is not wide use of these options. One option emphasised is the annual teacher performance reviews that the union signed off on more than a decade ago.

The Review complains of a system-wide culture of near automatic salary increments, in which nearly all eligible school staff seeking an increment receive one. It adds: Such uniformity of merit payment is difficult to reconcile with the widening gap between the States real investment in schooling and student performance This puts into question the application of the current teacher performance management framework.

The governments proposed solution to the problem of too many teachers receiving annual salary increment gains is to insist that principals have difficult professional learning conversations with teachers and declare a substantial part of the workforce to be underperforming every year. The Review proposes that principals decisions on salary progression be subject to increased transparency at the aggregate level and that explicit links are made between the rate of salary progression and improved performance.

Translating this into plain English, principals will be compelled to justify approval of teacher salary increments on the basis of students standardised test benchmarks. If, as has previously been claimed by the government, 30 percent of students are making inadequate progress, then 30 percent of teachers across the system can expect to be denied a salary increase. In addition, many of those deemed underperforming will be targeted for sacking, with the last industrial agreement imposed by the AEU allowing for precisely this process to be finalised within just 13 weeks.

These mechanisms make a mockery of the unions claim that the government has committed to abandoning performance pay.

The new industrial agreement contains a clause declaring that the education department will not impose a quota on the number of employees who can progress in any year nor make a lump sum payment as a result of the performance and development assessment. This is simply aimed at providing the union with an alibi; the government does not need to impose performance quotas or issue lump sum payments to schools in order to proceed with performance pay.

Teachers and ES staff need to be aware that there are multiple calculations behind the agenda contained in the new agreement: underperforming public schools will be targeted for closure or for conversion into privately-run academies; teachers objecting to the new standardised testing regime will be intimidated into silence or victimised; the entire education system will be ever more firmly geared to the most narrow and mechanical teaching methods, including continuous assessment of literacy and numeracy skills, with any teachers who dare to encourage critical and creative thinking being shunned.

The Review outlines plans to create a new nominally independent body, the Education Performance Monitor and to have a publically accessible Education Performance Portal.

This will essentially function as a substantially expanded version of the federal governments MySchool website, which collates NAPLAN data. The Education Performance Portal will publish a raft of information, including parent and staff surveys, school performance against threshold standards, school financial data, and, most importantly, the proportion of school staff receiving an annual salary increment.

The Review explains that the education department will monitor the proposed changes to salary increments and provide assistance [to schools] where necessary. There will be continual audits of schools, with audit findings informing principal performance assessments. In other words, principals who do not fall into line, and deny a sufficient number of teachers their annual salary increment gain, will be disciplined or sacked.

The AEU is complicit in the governments agenda. It has said nothing about the preparations for performance pay that are detailed in the Review. In fact, the bureaucracy welcomed its publication, on the grounds that it endorsed the Labor Partys Gonski school funding model.

Moreover, the union cannot be unaware of a recent statement made by the current federal Minister for Education Simon Birmingham. While not announcing any details, he said: I have been working on a funding model that ensures the Commonwealths record and growing level of investment in schools is fairly and transparently distributed, allocated according to need and tied to reforms in school systems that are proven to improve student outcomes. [Emphasis added]

There is nothing ambiguous in that!

Teachers and education support staff need to take a stand and reject the AEUs proposed industrial agreement, as the first step in mounting a unified defence of public education and of the rights, interests and very future of teaching staff and students alike.
Newspapers in Petrograd publish a secret telegram by the Provisional Governments Minister of Foreign Affairs, in which Russia promises to abide by the tsars secret treaties and fight the world war out to a decisive victory. Workers and soldiers in Petrograd respond with massive anti-government demonstrations, triggering the April Crisis.

The Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, populists and other political tendencies that are grouped around the Provisional Government are profoundly discredited. Desperate, fragile, and with crumbling mass support, the Provisional Government teeters on the brink of collapse.

While they enjoy growing popularity, the Bolsheviks remain internally divided, with a radical wing calling for immediate armed insurrection and a right-wing of Old Bolsheviks that is oriented to the status quo. Lenin, who has adopted in essence Trotskys theory of permanent revolution, fights at a historic All-Russian Conference of the Bolsheviks for a clear class line and a strategic orientation to the seizure of power.

Meanwhile, the impact of the upheavals in Russia begin to be felt throughout Europe in the form of mass demonstrations, riots, and mutinies .

Petrograd, May 3 (April 20 O.S.): Miliukovs secret telegram published

A secret telegram by the Provisional Governments Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavel Miliukov to the Allied imperialist governments is published in the newspapers in Petrograd. The note, dated May 1 (April 18 O.S.), describes the desire of the whole nation to fight the world war out to a decisive victory.

Needless to say, the note adds, the Provisional Government ... will fully stand by its obligations towards our Allies. This secret note, transmitted behind the backs of the Russian workers and soldiers, is not only a promise to continue the unpopular war. The reference to obligations towards our Allies implies that the Provisional Government will abide by the secret treaties that the deposed tsar signed with the other imperialist powers, which provide for the division and annexation of conquered territories.

The cards are on the table, Lenin writes in a powerful statement printed in Pravda on the same day. We have every reason to be grateful to Guchkov and Miliukov for their note, printed today in all the newspapers. The majority of the Executive Committee of the [Petrograd] Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, the Narodniks, Mensheviks, and all those who until now have appealed for confidence in the Provisional Government have received fitting punishment.

To those who denounce Miliukov for being insincere, Lenin responds: But that is not the point. The point is that Guchkov, Miliukov, [and others] are spokesmen of the capitalists. And the seizure of foreign lands is necessary to the capitalists. They will receive new markets, new places to which to export capital, new opportunities to arrange profitable jobs for tens of thousands of their sons, etc. The point is that at the present moment the interests of the Russian capitalists are identical with those of the British and French capitalists. That, and that alone, is the reason why the tsars treaties with the British and French capitalists are precious to the Provisional Government of the Russian capitalists.

Workers and soldiers, Lenin concludes, you must now loudly declare that there must be only one power in the countrythe Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, The Provisional Government, the government of a handful of capitalists, must make way for these Soviets.

Chanting Down with Miliukov and demanding the resignation of the capitalist ministers, thousands of soldiers in Petrograd march on the seat of the Provisional Government in the Marinskii Palace. The soldiers declare their refusal to fight in an imperialist war for the fulfillment of the tsars secret treaties. Soldiers and sailors from the Finland Regiment, the Moscow Regiment, the 180th Regiment and the Second Baltic Fleet participate in the demonstrations en masse .

In the working-class districts of Petrograd, the Bolsheviks are a flurry of activity, and the ideas associated with Lenins April Theses attract increased support. For example, a resolution passed by the Petrograd Garrison Reserve Electro-Technical Battalion Committee on the day of the notes publication begins, Having discussed the Provisional Governments note to the Allied governments, we consider this note a demonstration that the Provisional Government is the faithful servant not only of the imperialist countries of the Alliance, but also of the German and Austrian governments, as it assists them in strangling the German proletariats evolving struggle for peace.

Western Front, France, May 3: Mutiny breaks out among French soldiers

Following the disastrous collapse of the Nivelle offensive, French soldiers begin refusing to follow orders at the front. The French 2nd Division initiates the disobedience by defying an order to attack in the Chemin des Dames sector. Revolts quickly spread through the ranks, forcing the French military command to call an early halt to the offensive. General Robert Nivelle, who promised to bring an end to the war by breaking the German lines, is relieved of his command on May 15.

By late May, the mutiny will have spread to 21 divisions, with soldiers beginning to elect spokesmen to call for an end to offensive operations and raise other demands. By the end of 1917, a record 27,000 soldiers will have deserted the French army.

The opposition to continuing the war reflects the impact of the Russian Revolution, itself an expression of spreading demands for peace among the masses of Europe. Two Russian divisions deployed to support French troops are the first to respond to this sentiment, participating in the Nivelle action only reluctantly after a substantial section of the Russian soldiers vote in favor of peace. The French soldiers now follow suit, singing revolutionary songs such as the Internationale and flying red flags.

The mutinies are also driven by a deep hatred of the commanding staff, which French soldiers blame for the bloody slaughter during the three years of the war. By early 1917, almost 1 million French soldiers out of a pre-war population of 20 million males of fighting age have been killed in battle. This includes 306,000 casualties in 1914, 337,000 in 1915, 217,000 in 1916 and 121,000 in the early months of 1917.

Among British forces, tensions are also rising. British deserters are frequently shot on the spot, and increased incidences of disobedience will appear during the last year of the war.

The military authorities show extreme brutality in their response to the mutinies, while political authorities ensure that news of them is suppressed for fear of triggering broader opposition to war. Mass arrests and trials begin in June. A total of 3,427 courts martial will be held, which will hand down 2,878 sentences of hard labor and 629 death sentences. A total of 43 executions will be carried out.

The suppression of news of the mutinies is so successful that the full scale of the rebellion only will become clear 50 years later, when archived documents become available to historians in 1967.

May 4 (April 21 O.S.): April Crisis begins in Petrograd

In response to Miliukovs note pledging Russia to the imperialist war, the Bolsheviks call for mass demonstrations with slogans demanding peace and all power to the Soviets! Some 100,000 workers and soldiers participate in the demonstrationsa massive turnout for the Bolsheviks under the circumstances.

The Menshevik leaders in the Petrograd Soviet are working to prop up the Provisional Government. On May 4, after having demanded an explanation for Miliukovs note, the Menshevik leaders in the Petrograd Soviet declare themselves satisfied with the explanation and deem the incident closed.

While Lenin has been contending with the right wing of the Bolshevik Party, which is inclined towards adaptation to the war and the Provisional Government, he has also to contend with a radical adventurist wing, which includes members of the Petersburg Committee of the party. This wing, buoyed by the enormous turnout for the Bolshevik demonstrations, calls for the armed overthrow of the government and raises the demand, Down with the Provisional Government!

The Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) are staging counter-demonstrations with the slogan, Full Confidence in the Provisional Government! and Down with Leninthe Kaisers Hireling! There are clashes and casualties. The bourgeois newspapers charge the Bolsheviks with attempting to incite a civil war.

On May 5 (April 22 O.S.), the Bolshevik Central Committee adopts a resolution condemning the call for the immediate armed overthrow of the government. The Bolsheviks are internally divided and, despite growing support, remain a minority in the Petrograd Soviet.

Seattle, May 5: IWW leader acquitted in Everett Massacre frame-up

Industrial Workers of the World leader Thomas Tracy is acquitted by a jury in superior court in the frame-up trial resulting from the Everett Massacre of November 5, 1916, in which at least five IWW members were gunned down by a deputized mob of anti-union vigilantes. The IWW, a militant union that calls for the abolition of capitalism, came to Everett to defend striking shingle workers and the right to free speech, after local police and company thugs attacked union members with axe handles and effectively banned the IWW in the labor struggle that broke out in the summer of 1916.

After the massacre, Tracy and 73 other IWW members were arrested and charged with the killing of the two vigilantes, who were actually shot in the back by their own side during the massacre. After Tracys acquittal, charges are dropped against the other IWW members, and they are released from jail.

Stockholm, May 5: Bread riots in Sweden

Women in a working-class neighborhood of Stockholm riot after standing in line for hours for potatoes, only to be told the stock is empty. The riots spread throughout the day in Swedens capital city. Women hurl stones, injuring police officers.

Riots erupt the same day in Gothenburg, where women descend on bakers shops without ration cards. When vendors refuse to sell, they seize the bread and damage the stores, spreading the riot to butcher shops. In both cities hussars attack rioters with sabers. Dozens are wounded or arrested. Food demonstrations are also reported in Norrkoeping.

Sweden is not a belligerent in the Great War. However, the immense war-driven profits accrued to capitalists because of soaring prices in basic commoditiesincluding foodstuffshas exacerbated the class tensions in neutral Scandinavia to the point of explosion.

Petrograd, May 6 (April 23, O.S.): Provisional Government issues law to curtail powers of factory committees

Factory committees were established throughout Russia in both private and state industries in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of the tsar. They are at the forefront of the battle for the eight-hour day and in some factories take over management. By passing a law on the factory committees, the Provisional Government seeks to curtail their growing influence.

The historian Steven A. Smith comments in his book Red Petrograd, The aim of the government  was  to institutionalize them and quell their potential extremism by legitimizing them as representative organs designed to mediate between employers and workers on the shopfloor. Workers, however, were not prepared to have their hands tied by the new law.

While the factory committees often fulfill the function of trade unions, in some industries their powers go well beyond that. Especially in state factories related to the war effort, the factory committees take over the factory management. At many factories, the committees provide for the reinstatement of workers who had been fired previously for participating in strikes or for opposing the war. The control over the process of hiring and firing employees has been one of the first and most important demands put forward by revolutionary workers after the February Revolution.

Washington, May 6: Gompers warns Petrograd Soviet against agitators

The president of the American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers, wires the Petrograd Soviet, ostensibly on behalf of the American working class, insisting that workers in both countries prosecute the war against Kaiserism and autocracy to a victorious conclusion.

The letter is issued in response to the April Crisis in Petrograd with the express aim of delegitimizing working class opposition to the war. Gompers, who pledged to suppress strikes and wage demands of US workers after American entry into the war, denounces German Socialists for underground plotting to bring about an abortive peace in the interests of Kaiserism and the ruling class. And he blackguards as pro-Kaiser propagandists socialists who oppose the new bourgeois government in Russia, which he presents, alongside the US, as the two great democracies of the world.

Gompers cable follows by two days the visit to the Petrograd Soviet of British Labor leaders Will Thorne and James OGrady, who likewise pleaded with Russian Mensheviks and SRs to continue the war against autocracy.

Petrograd, May 7 (April 24, O.S.): Lenin opens All-Russian Conference of the Bolsheviks with call for dictatorship of the proletariat

Within days after Lenins delivery of the April Theses, which sent shock waves through the Bolshevik Party, the first All-Russian Conference of the Bolsheviks following the overthrow of the tsar convenes in Petrograd. Attending the conference are 151 delegates representing 80,000 members.

During the conference, which continues from May 7-12, Lenin wins significant support for the April Theses and his campaign to reorient the party. Lenin, who has aligned himself with positions previously associated with Leon Trotsky, argues that the party must prepare for the next stage of the revolution, the transfer of all state power to the soviets. Lenin is not deterred by the fact that the Bolsheviks remain for the moment a minority in the Petrograd Soviet. The task of the Bolsheviks, according to Lenin, is to advance a clear, independent and internationalist class line, in opposition to the war, the Provisional Government, and all of the petty-bourgeois and opportunist tendencies that are adapting themselves to the status quo. Whatever the transient and confused moods of the masses may be at the moment, Lenin insists that the party must tell the truth, organize and arm the workers, and build soviets throughout the country.

Also this month: German artist George Grosz addresses war in painting

In 1914, the German painter Georg Ehrenfried Gro (1893-1956) volunteered for military service to preempt conscription, hoping that he could thus prevent being sent to the front.

Following an operation for sinusitis in 1915, he was deemed unfit for service and discharged from the military. He later stated: War to me was horror, mutilation and destruction. In protest against the jingoism and German chauvinism of the time, he changed his name in 1916 to the anglicized version: George Grosz. In January 1917, he was again drafted into the military but had a nervous breakdown just two days later. He suffered from depression and hallucinations. During his stay at a psychiatric hospital, he assaulted a medical officer. Following a medical evaluation by the famous psychiatrist Magnus Hirschfeld, he was eventually deemed unfit for service and released from the military for good in late April 1917. Shortly thereafter, probably in early May, he paints his work Explosion as an allegory for the destruction of the war.

He joins the so-called Dada movement and publishes poems and drawings in the journal Neue Jugend (New Youth) and the Dadaist almanac. During the German Revolution of 1918/19, he would join the Marxist Spartacus League.

In a biting lithography from the portfolio God with us ( Gott mit uns, the motto of the German Empire), which appears in 1920, he addresses his experiences with the Reichswehr, depicting in a sarcastic manner their inhumane brutality against their own soldiers and civilians. One year later, Grosz and his publisher Wieland Herzfelde are put on trial for insulting the Reichswehr and fined 300 Reichsmarks.
By Press Trust of India: public

(Eds: Updating with additional information)

New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) The Centre today revoked an order issued by the UGC asking universities to make Aadhar details of PhD scholars public, saying publishing and displaying the unique identification number is prohibited.

The decision comes amid concerns from various quarters that the data could be misused and making Aadhaar details public will make "economic profiling" of PhD scholars easy.

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"It is informed that the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 prohibits publishing and displaying the Aadhaar number publicly.

"Therefore, you are requested not to publish or display the Aadhaar number of the scholars publicly," UGC Secretary JS Sandhu said in a communication to varsities sent today.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) had on March 10 asked all universities to upload the details of PhD scholars on their websites in a proforma prescribed by it.

The details sought in the proforma included PhD registration number, details of supervisor, funding agency (if any), topic of research and Aadhaar number.

Last year, the Centre had made it mandatory for the students to submit their Aadhaar number for grant of all scholarships, including fellowships for higher education.

On an instruction from the HRD Ministry, UGC had directed the vice-chancellors of all universities to collect and send to it Aadhaar number of the students getting scholarship or fellowship under various schemes and also upload "all information" about their students on their respective websites. PTI GJS KIS

--- ENDS ---
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Tallahassee Police say that they are concerned for the safety of a missing man they believe may be in Marianna. It is also believed that he may be injured.

The Tallahassee Police Departments Special Victims Unit is seeking information on the location of Anthony Williams, Jr.

Williams was last seen on Monday, in the area of the Indiana St. in Tallahassee. Williams may currently be in Marianna, FL, or driving in that direction.

Due to statements made by Williams, there is a concern for his safety, and it is believed he may be injured.

He is described as a 35-year-old black man around 5'8 tall with black hair and brown eyes. Williams was last seen driving a blue over gray 2000 GMC Jimmy SUV with FL Tag EFU G48.

Anyone with information on Williams whereabouts is asked to call the Tallahassee Police Department at (850) 891-4200.
China has made huge investment in its One Belt One Road initiative, whose significant part runs across Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Therefore, China cannot afford to be a mute spectator to the Kashmir dispute.

By Santosh Chaubey: Global Times, China's hardline tabloid has called for an increased Chinese role in South and Southeast Asia.

Citing Chinese mediation between Myanmar and Bangladesh over the Rohingya refugees issue in an article published today, it read that it is imperative that China protects the interests of its organisations with their increasing global footprint across the world, saying that 'Beijing cannot turn a deaf ear to such demands'.

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It read that, China has made huge investments in many countries under its 'One Belt One Road' initiative and therefore it has 'vested interests' to mediate in regional conflicts including the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan'.

According to the article, the Chinese experience over the Rohingya issue should serve as a template for the larger Chinese role in South and Southeast Asia.

MEDIA'S INSINUATIONS

Such provocations by a section of the media in China are gradually becoming a trend. Recently, an editorial suggested that China should intervene in the Kashmir issue actively after India declined illegitimate Chinese demands of clamping down on Dalai Lama's Arunachal Pradesh visit.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh is South Tibet and even went on to rename six Arunachal Pradesh cities in maps released by it.

India has made it clear that Jammu and Kashmir, including Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan, is an integral part of India and if there has to be a dialogue, it has to be bilateral in nature and would focus on Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

THE PARADOX

A significant part of China's One Belt One Road initiative passes through PoK where China is making huge investment and which India has objected to because ideally it is Indian territory.

It also exposes China's double standards.

China's considers Arunachal Pradesh its territory and cannot tolerate Dalai Lama's visit to the state but on the other hand, it sends an army in the name of safeguarding a disputed territory that has been historically a part of India.

ON MYANMAR

Though some reports say that Myanmar has turned down the offer of Chinese mediation, Myanmar may finally succumb to China's pressure.

China has gradually increased its investments in Myanmar to a significant level including an oil pipeline through Myanmar that gives China direct access to crude oil from Middle East and Africa. The oil pipeline is an important part of China's One Belt One Road map.

--- ENDS ---
When a yarn bomber stuck a stocking cap on the bronze bust of a Mexican leader near Essencia

As Yakima Neighborhood Health Services continues to work with the city of Yakima to reach a 

If You Go

 What: Public hearing on proposed transitional housing and resource center at former Roys Market location, operated by Yakima Neighborhood Health Services

 When: Monday at 6 p.m.

 Where: Yakima Convention Center, 10 N. Eighth St., Yakima

 Who: Anyone who wants to comment or hear comments on the proposed location, especially residents who live adjacent to the Roys property.
If its true that you dont get a second chance to make a first impression, Yakima could be 
Lizzie Oliphant, 8, left, and Emma Ross, 6, right, clean their pigs before weigh in during the 67th Annual Central Washington Junior Livestock in Toppenish, Wash. on Sunday, May 1, 2016. The livestock show, which continues until Wednesday, May 4, 2016, teaches youth how to raise, show, sell their beef, sheep, and hogs. (MASON TRINCA/Yakima Herald-Republic)
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A man in northern China got arrested because he invited 200 guests from his side as family and friends on his wedding but they were actually paid actors.

By India Today Web Desk: A man in northern China got arrested on his wedding for perhaps one of the most lame reasons. He invited 200 guests from his side as family and friends but they were actually paid actors.

The bride's family became suspicious during their conversations with the people who the groom called 'friends and family'. The people identified themselves as friends of groom but did not mention how they knew him, that's when the bride's family thought something was fishy.

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Also read: Exclusive: As soldier returns from India, China village offers him a new home

When the ceremony started and the groom's parents didn't arrive, the bride's family questioned him. In an interview with regional TV channel Shaanxi TV, the guests revealed they were paid 80 yuan (Rs 745) by the groom for attending the wedding as 'friends and family'. Some said that in real-life they are taxi drivers or students.

One man claimed that he negotiated a price with the groom on messaging app WeChat.

The bride, despite being in a relationship with the groom for three years, could not notice anything odd as they had a completely different friend circle.

Local media has claimed that the bride's family did not agree to go on with the ceremony because he was poor. The groom had stopped his entire family from coming to the wedding so that they are not shamed, as reported by BBC.

Also read: Real life Jurassic Park found in China

Chinese social media users are speculating what would have caused him to take such an action. While some thought he was too embarrassed to invite his own family and friends, others could not understand how did he have money to pay to the so-called guests if he was poor.

--- ENDS ---
Several days ago, Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken tweeted that there was a link between Islamic terror in Europe and European support for Zionism for more than 100 years. He further explained that it was important for terrorists to balance it out Europe's supposedly pro-Zionist approach and that the terrorists are helping do this.

To read this article in Hebrew in Yedioth Ahronoth, press here



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How nice of them. All they want is a fairer policy that's just a little less Zionist. And so while it is true that Europeans fund countless anti-Zionist NGOs, and while this horrific propaganda and these balancing activities claim the lives of numerous innocent victims, Schocken is providing justifications.

We could simply dismiss these comments. We could argue that the Haaretz publisher has gone off the rails. The thing is, though, that crazy opinions are the product of a constant and regular consumption of self-made ideological junk food. When poison is frequently injected into ones veins, as a matter of routinethat Israel is akin to 1930s Germany, that Israel is an apartheid state, that Israel deserves to be boycotted, that people should vote for the anti-Zionist Joint List partythe result is that terrorism is justified, and its all because of Israel.

Scene of ISIS terror attack in Istanbul. Turkey supports Hamas, yet it is hit by terror. According to Schocken, Erdogan is apparently a Zionist too (Photo: Reuters)

This isnt a slip of the pen; its a well-organized doctrine. In the past, Schocken tweeted that colonialism showed that there is no freedom for the occupied and the dispossessed apart from the path of terror. Freedom? The Palestinians have rejected every single peace proposal that would have given them a state and have chosen terrorism instead. The perpetrators of terror are not peace activists. They are not seeking an end to the occupation. They are seeking Israels destruction. But dont worry: They will always have the Schockens to provide justifications.

The newspaper and its publisher have a deep problem with Zionism. Only last week, the first page of that same paper contained a report about Jews emigration to Israel. Emigrationnot immigration or aliyah.

This is not an open letter to Schocken. That would be a waste of time. I am writing this to those who may not have lost their mind like Schocken just yet, but who are telling themselves that maybe, just maybe, there is something in what he is saying. That jihad, which is targeting Stockholm and Nice, Brussels and Paris, may be the result of the European support of Zionism. Perhaps it really is an unconquerable urge, which every enlightened person must understand and maybe even justify. After all, Schocken isnt alone. He has thousands standing by his side, members of the forces of progress, who are spreading similar ideas.

Well, for the sake of the others, those who are still open to the facts, we should note that jihadin its new formatis the result of a years-long investment in Islamist education. Pakistan and Afghanistan were not enlightened and liberal countries in the 1960s and 1970s, but photographs from those years present women in western clothing, without a burqa and even without a hijab, hanging out in public places. That is no longer the case. Everything has changed. It happened because a huge amount of Saudi capital flowed into those countries in the 1970s and 1980s, for the purpose of creating a network of Islamic colleges, or madrasas. In 1971, there were 900 madrasas in Pakistan. Several years later, there were already 8,000 official madrasas, and 25,000 unregistered ones, as Prof. Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies elaborated in his research.

The enormous project was a success. The madrasa graduates became the soldiers of jihad. They were not the majority. After all, its never about the majority. But they set the tone. At an early stage, even the United States helped their first reincarnation, the Mujahideen, which acted against the Russian occupation. There were huge Saudi investments in Africa as well and in mosques all around Europe. But the situation got out of hand. Saudi Arabia is now afraid of this situation more than it is afraid of its greatest enemy, Iran.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which did to Egypt what Saudi Arabia did to Afghanistan and to Pakistan, was in the background too. Its chief ideologist, Sayyid Qutb, was known for his deep hatred toward the West, which he saw as the absolute evil, and the Jews (he wrote an anti-Semitic essay titled Our struggle against the Jews). Qutbs ideas were incorporated in the establishment of Hamas and the jihad founded by Osama bin Laden.

These ideas were also spread in the West. Britain, out of goodwill, created a network of centers for Islamic studies, in a bid to moderate the Muslim students. Prof. Anthony Glees of the University of Buckingham discovered that the Saudis had infused 233 million to these centers. The result, Glees wrote, is the radicalization of young Muslims in Britain. Billionaire Waleed bin Talal donated 8 million to an Islamic center at Oxford University, $20 million to Harvard, $20 million to Georgetown University and to other academic centers as wellfor similar purposes. The results are scary. Different polls have indicated that the student generation is becoming increasingly radical.

I can go on. I doubt there is a single jihad movement in the world which did not develop on the background of Saudi capital and education. Schocken, however, will point a finger at Zionism.

The terroristsregardless of whether they are people who were educated in mosques or small criminals who became Islamist, mainly in the incubator of Frances prisonsare not striving for freedom or equality. They are not against the West because of what it does, but because of what it is: Democratic, free, liberal. They dont want to make Europe more balanced. They want to impose their unenlightened regime in every place they set foot. Their massacres are directed mainly at Muslims. Its an industry of death, like the title of an article written by Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. Any place reached by cells of the radical Islamic cancerfrom Libya to Nigeria, from Iraq to Syria and Somalia and Gazais a place where there is destruction, death and wreckage. This also applies to Turkey, which is becoming more and more Muslim. It supports Hamas, yet it is hit by terror. According to Schocken, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is apparently a Zionist too. How did we not know that?

Among the Muslims themselves, there is a heated argument between the moderates and the radicals. The moderates are against any understanding or justification of violence and terror. They are the ones who exposed a significant part of what I have written here. The Schockens stand by the radicals. The moderates are in favor of adopting universal values. The radicals in insist on an unenlightened world. The Schockens provide them with justifications.

The idealization of jihad is an immune deficiency of the free world. The Labour Partys leader in Britain turned Hamas and Hezbollah into his friends , feminist womens movement Code Pink met with senior members of Hamas and the Taliban (a movement that murders Muslim women seeking an education), and Jewish American linguist Noam Chomsky visited Hezbollahs headquarters and met with Hassan Nasrallah. The interesting thing is that right-wing racist David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, wrote words that are almost identical to those of the unenlightened on the left: Horrors of ISIS created by Zionist supremacy. These two seemingly opposite ideologies, as we know, always end up meeting.

We have been in this situation before. The unenlightened of the pastyes, the Nazisblamed the Jews for Europe's troubles. That was the old anti-Semitism. Todays unenlightened, mostly on the left, argue that the Jewish state is also responsible for Europe's troubles. That is the new anti-Semitism. Schocken, might I add, defines himself as an opponent of terrorism and a Zionist. And with Zionists like him, who needs enemies anyway?
Not a single author or poet has ever managed to capture with his pen that one moment in which bliss turns into grief and life is shattered. No word can accurately describe that horrible moment, after which nothing will ever be the same again. A knock on the door, a short identification, an announcement, and the world collapses all over you. Life is divided into two parts: Before and after the knock on the door.

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Unfortunately, I have been an eyewitness and a hearsay witness to hundreds of such sad occasions. For decades, I used to visit families whose lives had been shattered just a minute or two earlier, helping them begin the never-ending journeythe journey into bereavement. With my own eyes, I saw a mother run to the balcony and try to jump from the third floor; a petrified father who stared at us it astonishment and lost consciousness a moment later; family members who refused to believe the dreadful news and repeatedly demanded that we confirm it.

I wish I hadnt witnessed that. The announcer on behalf of the Town Majors Office once told me that he had made a mistakethe one and only mistake he had ever made during his serviceand informed a family that its son, who was seriously wounded, had been killed. The preparations the military funeral were already underway, when he was told that he must inform the family that a mistake had been made. Good God! he said to himself. I have informed families dozens of times about their sons death. How do you inform a family that its son is alive? Unfortunately, he never encountered such a miracle again.

Military cemetery in Tel Aviv. We don't have any more tears to spare (Photo: Yaron Brener)

The family was always informed in the morning, and only then was the fallen soldiers name published in the media. Slowly, the relatives and friends gathered at the house, embarking on a disintegration journey which lasted for years. There has not been a single family whose life was not shattered after receiving the bitter news about its loss. There have been families which collapsed moments after receiving the news and never recovered. There have been strong families, whose restraint was praised by journalists, but which broke into tears as soon as they were out of the spotlight.

Some of the families dont remember a thing from that horrible day, from that hour and from those minutes, while others remember every single detail: What each of the household members was doing a moment before it happened, where they were, what they felt when the doorbell suddenly rang, who said what, who fainted, who screamed, who froze. Every second and every millisecond have been engraved in their memory and will be with the family its entire life.

There is no other moment in time similar to this moment, in which life is shattered and dreams are broken in an instant. And then, you start compiling and collecting everything that seemed so trivial just several minutes or hours ago and is now turned into a memorial stone: The photographs on the wall, under the table glass, on the refrigerator, in the albums, on the Facebook page; every piece of paper, every written word; every piece of clothing recently worn; every item which the fallen soldiers hand had stroked or nurtured

A total of 23,544 men and women have been recognized as fallen Israeli soldiers up to this day. Only some of them were killed by the enemys bullets, in operational activities or in warsbut on Monday, hundreds of thousands of people will gather across the country to remember and commemorate all of them.

We are a country of monuments, and the names of many of the fallen soldiers appear on the cold stones and symbolic statues. Now, they are being joined by the National Memorial Hall, which was inaugurated Sunday and will forever perpetuate the names of those who gave the State of Israel the most precious thing of alltheir lives. And if were wondering what our leaders think, its important to know that they left additional empty spaces there for the future. On the State of Israels 69th Memorial day, we shall allrightists and leftists, religious and secular, people of all ages, denominations and religionspray that they will not be used. We dont have any more tears to spare.
They fight, risking their lives in the line of duty to protect the citizens of Israel, and at times even give their lives to the causeleaving behind families who have to cope with the pain of their loss and try to move forward.

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These are some of their stories.

Died aiding the wounded of a suicide bombing

Sgt. Maya Kopstein, 19

Received Head of Regional Command Citation, First Intifada

Eitan Kopstein lost many of his friends in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. When he returned home, he decided to immediately marry his girlfriend, Irit, and became a father as soon as he could.

"I was very young, only 20 years old, when Maya was born," said Irit Kopstein, now 62. "Eitan really wanted to have a child, to raise a family. He went through horrors in that war."

Maya was born in July 1975. "Even as a baby, she never stopped talking. Wherever she was, she stood out and excelled. She was amazing," said her mother.

When Maya was seven, her mother gave birth to her sister, Adi. Due to complications during labor, Adi was born mentally disabled. "Maya always took care of Adi, cared for her and did everything for her. I knew that even if something were to happen to me, there will be someone to care for Adi," Irit shared.

In 1993, Maya enlisted in the IDF's Paratroopers Brigade as a communications instructor. "She fought for it," said Irit. "She was proud to wear the uniform and the red beret."

On Sunday, January 22, 1995, Maya was at the Beit Lid Junction when she heard an explosion. It was the first suicide bombing by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

In a description of her actions detailed in the citation Maya received posthumously, it was written that "eight IDF soldiers were killed in the first explosion. The soldier Maya Kopstein hurried to the scene of the incident to help evacuate the many people who were wounded, despite hearing alerts on a potential second explosion. When she arrived at the scene, a second suicide bomber blow himself up, and Maya was killed."

"Many ran away, but Maya stayed to care for her commander, Eyal Levy," said Irit. "I would've been surprised if she hadn't. It's Maya, after all. There were moments when I was angry at her for staying. I'm proud that she did such a brave and noble thing, but I need her with me. Had she only thought of herself, she would've been here today."

There is one moment Irit says she will never forget. "When I got that knock on the door"telling her that her daughter had been killed"I don't wish that knock on anyone in the world. One moment laterand there's no more joy."

Time doesn't heal; it's a lie," Irit added. "I live with Maya every day, every hour, every second. Talking to her and asking her to give me strength to carry on. It's been 22 years and I still can't believe it. I've stayed then, at that knock on the door."

The twin who didn't return from battle

Second Lt. Amir Binyamini, 20

Received Brigade Commander Citation, 1982 Lebanon War

Twin brothers Amir and Yaron Binyamini did everything together. They went to the same school, practiced martial arts together all through high school, received black belts together, enlisted in the Armored Corps together on the same day in November 1980, and even went through basic training and the tank commanders' course together.

Only then did their paths part. Amir went on to be an officer, while Yaron preferred to stay a conscript.

The first Lebanon War broke out while Amir was undergoing officer training. "I served in the 9th Battalion of 211th Brigade, as a tank commander in the western sector in Lebanon. My brother served in the eastern sector together with his friends from the course," Yaron recounted.

Yaron's battalion fought for several days on the outskirts of Beirut. During a temporary truce, Yaron was told that the battalion commander wished to speak with him. "I though he wanted to go over mission details," Yaron said. "I walked into the tent. Several officers were sitting inside, and they told me 'come sit down, we have something personal to tell you. Grab a glass of water.'

"At first I thought that something had happened to my dad, because he had heart problems, but then they said 'your twin brother was killed. Pack your things and head back to Israel.' They put me on a transport that took me several kilometers to western Lebanon, where I had to hitch a ride on a supply van to the border at Rosh HaNikra."

Because he was deep inside a war zone and the technology in the early 80s was not as good as it is today, it took six days to find Yaron and deliver the news, and the family postponed the funeral awaiting his return.

"When I got home, I saw a lot of people there, like in a shiva (the seven-day Jewish mourning period). I found my parents and hugged them. I couldn't cry, it felt like they expected me to be their crutch. It might have been the only thing that was keeping me together. There is no word to describe the pain of losing your twin. It's a pit that sucks you down, if you only let it."

Second Lt. Amir Binyamini was killed in battle in Ein A-Tina, Lebanon, on June 18, 1982. His tank crew, which made a decisive contribution to achieving the objectives of their battalion and brigade, all received citations. Only one of the four survived.

Yaron's girlfriend Anat helped him through the mourning period. Three years later, they got married and went on to have three children, naming their firstborn Amir.

"There is a feeling of great loss because Amir is not around, like we are always missing something," said Anat Binyamini. "The family is not whole without him. People couldn't tell Amir and Yaron apart, but I could. It would have been interesting to see where he would've taken his life."

"I thought it'll get easier with time, but it only gets harder," Yaron concluded. "Losing your twin feels like being maimed. Part of me died with him."

Insisted to join the mission despite his health

Command Sgt. Maj. Beinisian (Danny) Kashon, 39

Received Brigade Commander Citation, Operation Protective Edge

On July 21, 2014, several suspicious figures were spotted near Nir Am, a kibbutz near the Gaza border, in early hours of the morning.

Lt. Col. Dolev Kedar, the area's battalion commander, decided to head out to the area and check it out.

Since the battalion was new to the area, having arrived only a few days earlier, a senior tracker in the Geffen formation joined the missionCommand Sgt. Maj. Beinisian Kashon. Kashon was not supposed to join this mission because of his health situation, but he insisted on it.

On their way there, anti-tank missiles were shot at their vehicle. Kedar, Beinisian and a third soldier exited the vehicle to fight a terrorist cell that charged at them following the shooting. They were all killed, as was their vehicle's driver.

Kashon had served in the IDF for 21 years prior to his death. He was injured in the line of service in a vehicular accident, suffered intense pains in his leg, but fought for two-and-a-half years to return to the field.

Hundreds of his brothers in arms, residents of Netivothis city of residence and members of the Ethiopian community from all over the country came to bid their farewells. A famous picture was taken in his funeralone of his wife, Galit, on her ninth month of pregnancy, walking behind his coffin while holding the hands of their three children. She gave birth a week after he was buried.

"Every time they talk about my big brother in past tense, it's hard for me to accept. I prefer to think that he's someplace far away, and there's no way to contact him," said Kashon's sister. "Not a day passes where I don't reminisce about him.

"I miss him the most on Route 40. Before he was killed I worked in Petah Tikva, and almost every night, when I was driving on that road on my way home, he would call me. Since then, every time I drive on that road I find myself expecting his call, and start crying."

"Kashon was my life's first project," said his brother. "I managed to bring him to Israel from Ethiopia after great efforts. He was something special to me; Not only a little brother, but a close friend.

"He always encouraged me to exercise, and to this day I run to remember him each day. He is impossible to forget. His friends from the army still come to pay their respects. The time that passes does nothing to ease our pain."

'Treat the other wounded, I have no chance'

Sgt. Yekutiel (Kuti) Novik, 27

Received Medal of Distinguished Service, Six-Day War

Ruth met Yekutiel when they were both 18 years old. They dated throughout their military service, and at 21 decided to get married. "We had two children, Yaron and Orit. And then the Six-Day War broke out," said Ruth, now at the age of 76.

Mobile communication technology back then was still undeveloped, so it was nothing out of the ordinary for her not to hear from him. "When the war ended soldiers started coming back home, but Kuti never returned. I searched for him, asked anyone who could have known. Later I found out that they weren't allowed to tell me what happened. That some of them knew, but said nothing," she said.

She only found out what happened weeks later. "(Record-keeping in) the war was a mess. They didn't keep good track of who died and it took them a while to tell the families what happened," she said. "It turned out that they buried my husband, the father of my children, in a temporary grave in Afula and didn't even tell me."

Even when he was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service, Ruth refused to acknowledge his bravery. "I was mad at him. I was sure he gave up (on us)," she added.

Only 40 years later did she open his file and found out what really happened: his half-track was hit by enemy fire and caught fire. Novik, who suffered the heaviest wounds, told the medics "treat the other wounded, I have no chance." A few minutes later he died of his wounds.

"Only then did I truly have to face the reality. I had to acknowledge that he didn't want to leave me behind by myself, but he didn't have a chance. Until that day I never cried, but that changed that day. I finally had to let go of my anger," Ruth confessed.

Orit was only a year old when her father fell in battle. "I don't have even one picture with him. I have no memories of him. Its a great absence that accompanies you throughout your life."

The rescue tank never gave up

St.-Sgt. Adam Goren, 21

Received Head of Regional Command Citation, 2006 Lebanon War

Adam was born exactly on his mother's 40th birthday. "She always said it was the greatest present she could have gotten," said Hanan, Adam's older brother.

Two years after his death, his mother wrote a eulogy for him. "Adam. My sweet child. Not a day passes where I don't think of you," she wrote. "In the mornings, when I go to open the window, I touch your picture on the wall. I caress your beautiful face, your bright green eyes, and drown in them.

"Adam. My beloved son. I miss the evenings when we sat together in front of the TV and watched movies. I remember how we laughed about Gollum's character from Lord of the Rings. I remember how you tried to impersonate him, and actually managed to do it pretty well.

"I miss the little things. Things that stayed with me, like the way you used to hum a tune, and how I knew it meant you were happy. I love you. Mom."

Adam's mother passed away six years after his death, due to illness. His father passed away three years after she did, also from illness. When the soul does not recover, sometimes the body gives up as well.

In a memorial room dedicated to Adam in his home town of Ma'abarot, a display showcases his rifle, armor, helmet and picturea handsome and happy-looking young man.

"Adam chose to serve in the Armored Corps, said Hanan. "He was trained as a loader-signaler for a Merkava Mark IV tank and was proud of his service. My brother was very humble, always with a shy smile, always saying 'do what you can to serve your country.' He always sought to contribute more. For all the complexity and fatigue of army service, he loved it."

When the Second Lebanon War broke out, Adam was due to be released and so was stationed as back-up for the main forces. "He wasn't even supposed to fight in Lebanon. But for Adam to give up on that? He insisted to go and fight in until they finally let him," explained his brother.

Adad joined a tank crew under the command of Captain Bania Rine. They were called "Force Bania." They carried out heroic evacuations of wounded soldiers while under fire, in one such incident saved 8 soldiers from Hezbollah territory before they got hit by an anti-tank missile.

On August 12, 2006, on their way to a complex evacuation mission, during the last days of the war, their tank was hit by a missile in the eastern Lebanon sector. It caught fire, and moments later exploded, killing all four crew members.

Adam received a citation for his "adherence to the mission and striving for victory, providing an example for fellow soldiers and showing remarkable comradely, decisiveness and self sacrifice."

Shot the terrorists, saved lives

Lance Corporal Hadar Cohen, 19

Received Police Medal of Distinguished Service, Knife Intifada

"Two weeks before it happened, my sisters sat with Hadar and asked her: 'how will you know how to fight? When a terrorist attacks will you know what to do?' She told them: 'What did I enlist for, to sit and look at him while he kills? Yes, I will know.' And she did," said Sigalit, Hadar's mother.

On February 3, 2016, three armed terrorists arrived at Damascus Gate . They attacked, and Hadar shot two of them, saving her friend from one of them who was trying to cut her throat. Unfortunately, she didn't spot the third one, who shot her in the backkilling her.

Her mother recalled how Hadar's commander had been so impressed with her daughter's performance and response.

"Her company commander told me how she got into stance, drew her weapon, aimed and fired, doing everything by the book. He told me 'if you take any other officer or soldier who served in her sector for a year or two, not one of them would do it as well as she did,'" she said. "She didn't hesitate. With all her courage she stood her ground and did what needed to be done."

Hadar's family received the Police Medal of Distinguished Service last year on her behalf. "It's a shame it ended this way. It's very difficult," confessed Sigalit. "I still can't fully accept that she's gone. The days go by and I miss her more with each day that passes.

"Since she died, eight babies were named after her. I keep contact with all of those families. They are all lovely, and mean well, but it is no consolation for me," a broken-hearted mother said. "I just want her back."

'We were raised on stories of his bravery'

Sgt. 1st Class Yosef Maman, 28

Received Medal of Distinguished Service, Yom Kippur War

In the corner of the living room of Yosef's parents stands a commemorative area, packed with Maman's pictures, newspaper pieces and the personal gear he had on him at the time of his death. This corner serves as inspiration for his seven grandchildren, who's grandfather's story of courage accompany them throughout their lives.

Maman was born in Casablanca, Morocco and immigrated to Israel with his parents when he was just an infant.

During the Yom Kippur War he served as a vehicle technician for a mechanized infantry unit stationed in the Golan Heights. On October 8, 1973, a half-track got hit during a mission. The combatants got out and took cover, but Maman moved quickly to the spot and repaired the malfunction while under enemy fire.

On October 12, 1973, during battle, a malfunction occurred in the company commander's half-track and all the soldiers took cover, but Maman went out under heavy artillery fire to repair it. He was wounded and killed while working.

"In those actions, Sgt. 1st Class Yosef Maman served as a model of dedication, bravery, and superior professional performance," wrote former IDF Secretary-General in his explanation of why the medal was awarded to Maman.

He was survived by a wife and two children, who were five and one years of age respectively at the time of his death.

His grandson, Yosef, was named after him. "I was raised on stories of his bravery," he said. "I was told of his heroism, and how much he devoted his life to caring for others. I grew up learning of his actions, of how he took initiative and tried to save his crew," Said Yosef, speaking of the inspiration his gained from his grandfather .

Isaac Dabush, Danny Adeno Abebe, Eitan Glickman, Roi Yanovsky, and Israel Moskowitz contributed to this report.

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)
Israels Ben Gurion Airport is preparing for a particularly a busy travel period this July and August, with approximately 4.5 million passengers, both Israelis and tourists, expected to pass through its gates as they embark on, and return from, their summer holidays.

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According to data compiled by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), an average of 1,360 flights are expected per week during the summer months, marking an increase of 13% when compared with the same period last year. Around 63% of all the expected flights will be travelling to Europe.

The forecasts and data collated at the beginning of the year show that close to 2 million Israelis will take off between July and August.

Ben Gurion Airport prepares for busy summer (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

The CAAs figures also illustrate that as a result of Israels open skies policy, which was signed with the European Union in 2013, Israel is on track to record, by this summer, a 43 percent increase in the number of flights taking off from, and landing on, the airports tarmac when compared to the summer of 2013.

During this timeframe, departures to Europe grew by 51 percent while the remaining flights to other destinations grew by 32 percent.

Istanbul, the data shows, will be the most popular destination for those setting out from Tel Aviv this summer, with 91 weekly flights to be made by Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of flights departing for Istanbul will be stopover journeys as passengers press on to European, Far East or American destinations.

The second most popular route will be between Tel Aviv and London, with 65 weekly flights in the summer spanning across six airlines, including El Al, British Airways, EasyJet, Monarch, Wizz Air and Arkia.

Photo: Motti Kimchi

Flights to and from Paris are expected to take third place, with 61 weekly flights operated by five companies, including El Al, Air France, EasyJet, Transavia and Arkia.

Closely following as the fourth and fifth most popular flight routes will be Tel Aviv-Moscow, with 57 flights, and Larnaca, in which 55 flights will land from seven airlines which will include Arkia, Aegean, Tus Airways, Israir, El Al, Cobalt and airblue.

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) welcomed the bustling airport activity, claiming that the increasing number of passengers packings its perimeter stemmed from Israels signing of the open skies agreement.

Katz cited a 50 percent surge in the number of flights between Israel and other destinations since the signing of the open skies agreement.

Updating the aviation agreements while increasing the frequency cap and the number of airlines that are permitted to operate regular flights to Israel is a national strategic goal for the country, Katz said.

The additional flights and competition has brought about a consumer revolution while the Israeli public is the main beneficiary due to the variety of destinations there are and mainly because of the drop in flight prices."
Abie Moses, chairman of the Organization of Victims of Terrorism, along with other members of the organization, was not invited to the inauguration of the Memorial Hall on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, which was held with the participation of the president, the prime minister and the cabinet. All 4,681 victims of terrorism were left unmentioned.

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"It is so jarring and painful that we do not commemorate the victims of terrorism in the Hall of Names, why do we separate blood from blood?" asked Moses, "Add us to the hall as well, we deserve commemoration no less than IDF soldiers. Why are we second-class citizens?"

As early as 2012, when the government decided to establish the hall, members of the organization set out to fight for the inclusion of victims of terrorism in the Hall of Names and even petitioned the High Court of Justice, but their petition failed. The names of the victims are engraved in stone at a monument on Mount Herzl, but they did not receive the honor of being commemorated in the magnificent and innovative memorial hall with illuminated bricks and a virtual memorial candle.

(Photo: Defense Ministry Spokesperson)

In his speech at the state ceremony on Mount Herzl, Moses demanded that the prime minister and defense minister correct the historic injustice and add the victims of terror to the Hall of Names, or at least establish a modern memorial site similar to the military site.

"As it is, most of our casualties came from lower socio-economic backgrounds, people who took buses and went to work," said Moses. "All of the soldiers have their own plots, which is amazing. We also deserve to have our own section alongside the military cemeteries  No one will say Kaddish over my child after I pass away."

Abie Moses (Photo: Asaf Friedman)

"I am ashamed to face these poor parents and say that my hands are tied.  The parents are angry and so they should be. I respect the IDF soldiers. The fact that a soldier was in uniform and was recognized as an IDF fallen soldier deserves this commemoration, even if it was a suicide or a car accident.

"In that sense, if you immortalize those soldiers, why not commemorate those killed for being Israeli, Jewish, Druze or Circassian citizens? But we are of another blood, apparently inferior. In our organization there are 108 children who were orphaned from both parentsthere is no such parallel, not even in the IDF, and that too is forgotten. I've said this more than once: our casualties were soldiers without uniforms."

According to data from the Social Security Institute, the number of civilians killed by terrorism since the establishment of the state to this day is 3,117. This number also includes 122 foreign citizens killed in terrorist attacks in Israel and 100 Israelis who have died abroad. Eleven Israelis have been killed since the last Independence Day, the last one being Hannah Bladon , a student from England who was stabbed to death in Jerusalem during the Passover holiday.

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
"The time goes by somehow and everything is fine. What I'm asking from you is that you not be worried, and I hope that once everything is over, I'll come home quickly. Kisses to you and the little girl.

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These were the words written on the last postcard from Shimon Zeidfunden to his wife, to which his daughter Poli Kovdala-Zeidfunden now clings as the sole memory of her late father who fell in Israels 1973 Yom Kippur War.

"My father was only 28 years old. I was a six-month-old baby girl who had one picture, in which my father, who was a handsome man, held me. And thats it," says Poli, who was to speak at the IDF Memorial Service in Ra'anana on behalf of the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization.

Poli Kovdala-Zeidfunden

"Many times the thought crosses my mind: Would it have been more preferable to know my father and then something happen to him, meaning I would have been separated from him, or the way things are, the way I was born, as a small baby straight into the great pain and bereavement, Poli asks.

I think I would have preferred to be with him for a few years. That way, if something had happened to him, at least I would have had memories, she answers her own question. The pain is largely because I never got to know him.

Shimon was born in Tel Aviv to parents Tzila and Yeshayahu. He served in the Armored Corps and married Hedva. The two lived together in Raanana and he was conscripted for reserve duty on Yom Kippur itself, during which he participated in battles in the Golan Heights region as a half-track driver. He was hit by the shelling of Syrian planes in the Mazraat Beit Jen area in Syria.

In Poli's childhood room hangs the only cherished picture of her and her father together. "My father was supposed to celebrate his 72nd birthday on May 1 if he had only survived," she lamented.

"My mother always tells me how happy he was when I was born, how he always watched over me and protected me. Despite the great pain, my mother made sure I had a happy childhood.

However, for Poli, the mere sight of her friends fathers as a child was enough to remind her of the the paternal absence from her life.

But I remember the moments when I would see my friends' fathers waving at them and my heart would wince in pain. Growing up without a father is a kind of internal disability, she confessed.

I am now 44, married to Tomer and am a mother of three children: Shai, 11, Shira, 8, and Itai, 6. I know that he is watching me from above, and he saw me when I enlisted proudly in the Armored Corps where he served. I keep thinking about him all the time, about a father I wanted so much to be with me in my life."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin released video messages to wish Israelis a happy Independence Day on Monday evening as celebrations began with a torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

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Addressing the nation and the world in a video recording, Netanyahu began by celebrating Israels foundation and independence 69 years ago.

It was a moment of triumph for our people. We had been scattered around the world for millennia. And then we returned to our ancient homeland, to build a safe haven, where we could live, and thrive, Netanyahu said.

PM Netanyahu delivers Independence Day message

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Crediting the country for proving its resilience to military invasion in its nascent stage, and for surviving repeated attacks henceforth from surrounding nations, the prime minister praised the people of Israel for its ability to flourish in the face of annihilation.

Now, many doubted that this tiny State of Israel would survive. We were surrounded by hostile enemies, who attacked us again and again. So perhaps, for some, this skepticism was warranted. But survive we did. Much more than that. We thrived, he said.

Israel today is strong, democratic and prosperous, he continued. And I have no doubt that in the coming 69 years, Israel will continue to thrive, be strong and prosperous.

The story of people of Israel, he added, was one of hope, not just for the Jewish people, but for all of humanity.

We persevered through adversity against all odds. Anyone fighting for a just cause, fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds, could draw inspiration from our story, he concluded before expressing his best wishes for Independence Day to all of our friends around the world."

President Rivlin also recorded his Independence Day remarks, reminiscing about Israel's first Independence Day in 1948. Sixty-nine years ago, in the moments just after (Israels first prime minister) David Ben-Gurion declared the birth of the State of Israel, we all went out to dance in the streets. We celebrated a hope which came true: to be a free people in our land, in Jerusalem, he said.

Rivlin went on to say that the Zionist dream had been realized more than we could have ever hoped, as he commended the country for its robust democracy, lauding it as a shrine of freedom of expression, and a hub of innovation.

He reflected on how dreams of his generation of witnessing an Israeli pilot fly in the sky had been exceeded by Israels learning and doing which had allowed it to see Israeli satellites circling the globe.

President Rivlin delivers Independence Day message

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Such accomplishments, he noted, had been achieved against striking odds in what he described as a difficult neighborhood.

The nation that wandered for hundreds of years looking for shelter, has built universities and Yeshivot (schools of Torah study). The people of the Book, in the land of the Bible.

But the president also emphasized that after the return of The people of the Book, in the land of the Bible, the responsibility to safeguard it had not diminished.

In this vein, he stressed the necessity for the country to continue to look deep inside ourselves to solve the problems and turn challenges into opportunities. We will continue to uphold our values, which guide us on this path.

Moreover, Rivlin urged the people of Israel to strive to create a national home that looks after the weak, and cares for all its sons and daughters.

Finally, Rivlin expressed his gratitude for support offered to Israel by so many around the world. Many of youin Israel and around the worldgive so much to help Israel and Israeli society grow, and we thank you for this from the bottom of our hearts. This is your celebration too, this is the Independence Day of all the Jewish people. Happy Independence Day, and Shalom from Jerusalem.
The decision to contest the upcoming civic polls in Uttar Pradesh alone was taken at the UP Congress Committee meeting.

By Supriya Bhardwaj: Just a few months ago they hummed 'UP ko yeh saath pasand hai', but now the Congress and the Samajwadi Party have parted ways.

The 'divorce' between the two parties was amiable, say party sources. Following the separation, both the parties will contest the upcoming Uttar Pradesh civil polls alone.

The decision was shown the green signal at the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee meeting, which was headed by Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad.

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HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WHY CONGRESS DECIDED TO GO ALONE IN THE UPCOMING ELECTION: "Congress will fight alone in the Uttar Pradesh local body elections," said Raj Babbar, president of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee. "The decision to go solo in the upcoming state civic polls was taken at the meeting. Many leaders were of the view that due to anti-incumbency sentiment against the Samajwadi Party, the Congress too had to feel the heat during the Assembly election," said a senior party leader. At the meeting, Congress leaders in the state were told to strengthen the party at the grassroots. "Our workers were also miffed after the alliance. And now we have been asked to follow the three-K formula suggested by our party vice-president Rahul Gandhi. We will now reach out to our workers and strengthen our organisation at the booth level," said another Congress leader who attended the meeting. Rahul Gandhi has asked his party leaders to work on the three-K formula--Karyakarta (workers), Karyalay (office) and Kariyakram (programme)--in each constituency to strengthen the party.

ALSO READ:

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--- ENDS ---
Israel marked Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism on Monday morning with a two-minute siren, with people stopping their daily activities. The day also included a state memorial service honoring fallen IDF soldiers at the military plot on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

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President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and Chief Justice Miriam Naor were in attendance, alongside bereaved families of fallen soldiers and terror victims.

3,117 citizens have been killed in acts of terror since Israel's founding and until today. This number includes 122 foreign citizens who were killed in Israel and 100 Israelis killed by acts of terror abroad. These acts have left 109 orphaned of both parents, while 826 people were widowed by acts of terror and 939 became bereaved parents.

During the later ceremony for terror victims, Netanyahu attacked terrorists wh have indisriminately taking the lives of others. "Terrorists attack with the intent to commit a crime, Jews and non-Jews, here and abroad, aiming to plant death, destruction and fear. They drink the incitement against our people along with their mother's milk. They are considered heroes in the society they grew up in. But how can a young boy who takes a knife, breaks into the room of an innocent young girl and stabs here in her sleep be a hero?"

Netanyahu specifically came out against terrorist organizations and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who he noted is due to meet US President Donald Trump. Referring to Hamas paying the families of convicted terrorists a monthly salary, he said to Abbas, "How can you talk about peace, peace with Israel, while funding murderers of innocent people? You want to do somethnig for the peace we all want? Stop funding these terrorists. Fund peace, and not murder."

Speaking directly to those who lost the loved ones, Netanyahu said, "you are an example of growing out of mourning," before adding, "Solidarity is the secret to our shared existence."

Abe Moses, who lost his wife and son after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at their vehicle in 1987, represented the victims' families. "For 30 years I have been part of a large family, too large," said Moses. "These cursed killers make no distinction between babies, the innocent, or anyone else. "My own body clearly shows these scars." Moses spoke ended by describing his hope, that those who died in acts of terror will not be forgotten.

Naor, Netanyahu and Rivlin at the Mount Herzl ceremony (Photo: MX1)

During the earlier ceremony for fallen soldiers, Netanyahu spoke from personal experience as a bereaved brother. "The sons and daughters of the fallen brought with them touching memoribilia from the fathers they have lost. And from time to time they broke down with sudden tears that find no solace."

Rothschild Blvd. stand at attention during Monday's silence (:  )

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Eisenkot (R) greets the family of recently fallen soldier Elhai Taharlev

Paraphrasing Natan Yonantan's famous poem Hofim (Beaches), Netanyahu spoke of his brother Yoni, who was killed in Operation Entebbe. "I saw parents who were left without Yoni, with their hearts becoming hearts of stone."

Police Chief Commissioner Roni Alshiekh (second from right) during Mt. Herzl ceremony (Police Spokesperson's Unit)

"Citizens of Israel, we are all brothers, in good and bad times," added Netanyahu. "We know the price our loved ones paid." He ended by wishing to return the Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, who are believed to have been killed during Operation Protective Edge, with their bodies captured by Hamas.

Photo: Yaron Brenner

The Mount Herzl ceremonies were also marked by protest by relatives of victims who feel they are not getting the support they need. Sima Abu, whose husband Zion was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Barcelona 1985, came carrying a protest sign saying, "Being a terror victim's widow is a failure of the state." She stated that "Social Security and the state have neglected and humiliated us." He shirt said, "My husband's blood is not worthless and we're not transparent."

Sima Abu (Photo: Elisha Ben Kimon)

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked spoke at the ceremony at Kiryat Shaul. "Daughters and sons left behind a home enveloped in grief, parents filled with sorrow and endless longing: on Memorial Day. the heart of this country drifts toward your homes out of pain and a shared destiny. We embrace you with a warm hug, remember all the fallen, and the wonderful people they could have been. As we praise their characters, we are also pushed by the power of hope, to build a society that will be worthy of them. A society that solidifies our independence and safeguards our light. A society that casts out discrimination, nurturing unity, solidarity and serving our country as a core value. A society that persists in fighting against its enemies, and that will win out in the struggle they fought and fell for," said Shaked.

Standing at attention during the siren on the Azrieli Bridge in Tel Aviv (Photo: Yaron Brenner)

Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh spoke at earlier ceremony on Monday at a ceremony at the Mount Herzl ceremony. "Every year, we stand here in the police section of Mount Herzl, commemorating the best of our people who are no longer with us. 1,467 names inscribed on our hearts."

IDF tank fighters standing at attention during the siren (Photo: Roee Idan)

At the end of his speech, the police commissioner said: "In every generation, there are people of courage  rising without asking for anything: neither glory nor recognition, nor honor or power. They placed the other, the friend, the task, the rule, before and above their own welfare. Our duty to them is to cherish their heroism, the heroism of the best in our ranks. Here, in this part of the mountain, in the presence of those who sacrificed the most precious of all, and in the name of the fallen, we make a commitment, that murderous acts of terrorism and crime will not undermine the public's fortitude and therefore, will not achieve their goal."

Kiryat Shaul military cemetary (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Marking Memorial Day at Kiryat Shaul (Photo: AFP)

Head of the Shin Bet Nadav Argaman released a statement on Monday, saying, "At the beginning of the 70th year of Israel's independence, our country is stronger than ever. The regional and global reality presents us with many new challenges. A stormy Middle East, rampant terror and hostile activity that takes many forms. But one goal remains: to harm the State of Israel, to terrorize, undermine the foundations of democracy, and even to disrupt the world order.

Soldier lays flowers on graves of fallen soldiers on Mount Herzl (Photo: EPA)

"We stand firmly in the face of all these challengesin the daily work that helps ensure the existence and security of the State of Israel, with the understanding that Israel must be strong and democratic, ready for any campaign and capable to handle any threat.

Photo: Gil Yohanan

"The memory of the fallen of the Shin Bet continues and strengthens, from year to year, the trunk on which the tree grows. Their legacy will continue in the future to shape our lives and work. We pledge to pass this on to future generations and continue on their wayto protect the peace and security of Israel."

At the same time, a state memorial service is being held at the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv, attended by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

A memorial service for terror victims will be held on Mount Herzl at 1pm.

The Memorial Day events will end at 8pm in a torch-light ceremony on Mount Herzl that would also mark the beginning of Independence Day celebrations.
Al Jazeera has broadcast a new documentary Sunday detailing new revelations about the assassination of Hamas' drone engineer , Mohammad al-Zawahri, last December in Tunisia.

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The documentary featured interviews with officials from the drone unit of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, where al-Zawahri had been a key member since his recruitment to the organization in 2006.

Mohammad al-Zawahri

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"The UAV project was only in the early stages when he joined the military wing. His participation led to a breakthough," said a masked man identified only as "Abu Ahmed."

Hamas' drone project was named after al-Zawahri's kunya, or operational name, "Murad."

Al-Zawahri's wife, Majida Saleh, who was interviewed in the documentary, testified that only a year and a half after her marriage did she know what his real name was, yet according to her, he would always known as Murad for her.

The same Abu Ahmed also revealed that an engineer and an Iraqi officer from the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein gave the military wing of Hamas the first UAV model built under the supervision of al-Zawahri. Furthermore, Abu Ahmed also revealed that al-Zawahri and his team visited Iran and met with a team of experts to promote the UAV project.

Hamas' drone unit

al-Zawahri's UAV work

Dedicated to al-Zawahri

The Iranians trained them for several months and by the start of Operation Cast Lead in 2008, al-Zawahri and his men managed to produce 30 unmanned aerial vehicles.

"The Iranians were surprised by the level of knowledge of the crew that was able to manufacture the aircraft manually," one of the unit's men recalled.

According to the documentary, in addition to al-Zawahri's team and their activities outside of the Gaza Strip, there was also another separate team working on UAVs in the Gaza Strip. In light of al-Zawahri's successes in Tunisia, he was apparently sent to the Gaza Strip several times to assist efforts.

Al-Zawahri testing drones

The documentary showed several images and videos of al-Zawahri operating the UAVs while in the Gaza Strip.

The editor of the documentary, Tamer al-Mishal, a former Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza known to be close to Hamas' military wing, confirmed that al-Zawahri had also been tasked with producing unmanned nautical vehicles for Hamas.

Johann from Austria

According to the report, two foreign nationals carried out the assassination.

Currently, three Tunisian citizens have been arrested in connection to the killing, identified as Salam a-Saadawi, Sami al-Malin and journalist Maha Hamouda, who was recruited to produce a film about aviation that al-Zawahri was supposed to collaborate on.

The report claims that the three were recruited by a man named "Johann" from Austria, who set up two straw companies through which to recruit additional people.

Mohammad al-Zawahri

An additional person of interest in the assassination is a man known as Chris Smith, from Budapest, who supposedly made contact with an aviation club where al-Zawahri served as an instructor. Apparently, Smith was interested in collaborating on UAVs and even met al-Zawahri.

The documentary alleges that the Hamouda's task was to bring photographs of al-Zawahri, while the two other Tunisians were responsible for renting two cars, an apartment overlooking al-Zawahri's home and several local SIM cards.

According to the report, the assassination was supposed to be carried out on December 14th and the Tunisians were supposed to leave for Brazil the day before. The investigation further revealed that Hamouda and a-Saadawi identified one of the killers who was caught on camera and later identified as Salim Buzayd, a Moroccan who met with them in Austria as part of their fictitious recruitment.

The documentary went on to speculate that the port of Sfax, which is five kilometers from al-Zawahri's home, was used to both reach the scene of the assassination and escape after the task had been accomplished.

The documentary ended with an interview of another member of Hamas' drone unit, identified as "Abu Mujaheed," who claimed that the moment the organization became aware of the assassination, it was decided to place responsibility on Israel.

Mujaheed added that since the assassination, there many scientists and experts that are flocking to Hamas' military wing to follow in the path of al-Zawahri.

(Translated and edited by Fred Goldberg)
CAIRO -- The leader of al-Qaida' branch in Yemen says his militants have often fought alongside Yemeni government factionsremarks that could embarrass the US-backed coalition fighting the impoverished Arab country's Shiite rebels.

He says al-Qaida militants have on occasion fought alongside Yemeni government factions, including "the Muslim Brotherhood and also our brothers among the sons of tribes" against Yemen's Shiite rebels known as Houthis.

Al-Rimi, who is on the US most-wanted list with a $5 million reward for his capture, spoke to AQAP's media arm al-Malahem on Sunday. He succeeded Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who was killed in a US drone strike nearly two years ago.
None of them are able to forget that moment, in which they received the earth-shattering message. They remember the look in the eyes of those who announced it, the exact words spoken that froze in mid-air. They remember the blood draining from their bodies, the heart that skipped a beat, the world that had crumbled around them. To this day, they feel the terrible bereavement, along with the wound of denial. "You are young and beautiful, it will pass," said the comments, and understand that the social expectation is for them to move on.

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Ella Bar, Shani Omiel Feldman and Meital Mazula are three young women who lost their boyfriends in the line of duty. For them, bereavement is bereavement and loss is losseven if there was no matrimony and their deep and one-time love was not institutionalized in the rabbinate. In the absence of official support from the IDF, all three were accompanied by the Survived by a Girlfriend organization, founded in 1998 to accompany the girlfriends of fallen IDF soldiers in coping with the loss. The organization, which handles no less than 400 girlfriends, was founded by Phyllis Haimovich and her daughter, Tamar Haimovich-Richter, after Michal, Phyllis' daughter, lost her boyfriend in Lebanon. The organization's CEO is Rina Cohen, who lost her partner in the Yom Kippur war.

(Photo: Yuval Chen)

After a continued push from their side, there has been a welcome change in the girlfriends' status: in the wake of their struggle, the procedures were changed in March 2010, so that the girlfriends of fallen IDF soldiers will receive news of the disaster from a Casualty officer, provided emotional support and entitled to days off during mourning. Ella, Shani and Meital welcomed the decision, and hope that it eases, if only slightly, the girlfriends' suffering.

Ella Bar lost the late Paz Eliyahu, who was killed in Operation Protective Edge

This year, Ella Bar and Lt. Paz Eliyahu were supposed to celebrate ten years together. According to the plan, Paz was supposed to propose to Ella and they were supposed to embark on a big trip together.

Ella Bar and Paz Eliyahu

They met at Hashomer Hatzair's camp when they were in ninth grade and were together for seven years. "Paz was the most handsome man in the world. He had a big, bright smile. He liked to travel, enjoy life, and meet friends. He also enjoyed the army and served as an officer in the paratroopers. Paz was very modest. He was always outstanding in everything he did. He never told us if he received a certificate of excellence. We would always find it crumpled up somewhere in his bag," Ella recalled with longing.

Did you ever worry about him?

"Not during the operation or during his service. I knew he was great at everything, and that everything always worked out for him. Even during the operation, I was more concerned about my friends who were there, than for Paz, because I didn't allow myself to think about a situation in which I would live without him, and also because I trusted him to make sure everything would be all right."

Even though they lived together in his kibbutz apartment, Ella and Paz did not get to see each other much before he was killed. "He participated in Operation Bring Back Our Brothers to locate the three missing teens. He was able to arrange for a vehicle from the unit, so that he could pass through the kibbutz on the way to the south, to say hello to me, to give me a hug in the hopes that everything will be alright and end quickly."

During Protective Edge, the day before Paz died, Ella managed to hear from a friend who had served with him that his company was doing fine. "I came home with renewed strength, knowing that everything was fine and that nothing would happen to him."

Eliyahu, an officer in the paratrooper brigade, was 22 years old during Protective Edge. On July 23, 2014, he was killed by an explosive device during an operation in the Gaza Strip. "When I woke up in the morning, I saw that there was a new casualty. They released the name, and it was not Paz, and I felt a sense of relief. During the day, my friends began to evade me, tried to take my phone away so I couldn't receive messages. Everyone around me already knew. My parents did everything so I wouldn't find out from somebody elsethey wanted to reach me and tell me themselves. Everyone helped them delay until they managed to reach me, at work. When my father came in, he didn't have to say anything," she recalled, choked up by tears.

The day of the funeral and the days of mourning remain vague. "You don't really understand what's going on around you, and fortunately, I have Paz's family who appreciated me and gave me the place I deserve. Respected me. They really accepted me as a daughter, just like when Paz was with us."

How are you today?

"The truth is that it gets worse; in the first year, you don't really understand what's going on, you're embraced by a lot of people even today, it doesn't matter that you know he will never come back, you keep waiting I went through a rattling experience and it was very difficult to get back to normal. I still can't. Every day it's a challenge to get up in the morning."

How did the surroundings respond to the loss you experienced?

"As an unmarried girlfriend, you get a lot of reactions. Today, I have a new boyfriend and it's hard for me to hear sentences from people like, 'Oh, so now you have a boyfriend, everything is okay.' No, everything's not ok. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the problem or take away the pain. I'm trying to get on with my life but it's hard for me to explain myself to society, because nobody knows what I go through at night, how painful it is for me, how I can fall to pieces from a song that starts playing, reminding me of Paz, or any small thing that brings back the memories. I try to live the life that Paz would have wanted me to live, and Paz wanted me to live life to its fullest. It's literally to live or die. There's no middle option. My new boyfriend accepts my coping with the loss. He's supportive, containing my pain."

What do you think about the new IDF guidelines?

"I hope they actually follow the new procedures. Unfortunately, more girls will join the cycle of bereavement. I hope they don't have to deal with the bureaucracy in government or military offices in order to prove who she was for her boyfriend, what role he played in her life. Paz was my entire life. I too had to prove what I was for him, and fight for my place, to show that I was also connected, that I should be invited to ceremonies, that I, too, wanted to hurt his death."

Shani Omiel Feldman lost Merom Fisher, who was killed in Operation Defensive Shield

"I met Merom when I was 15 years old on the school lawn," recalled Shani Omiel Feldman, now 32. "We met by chance. I was in 10th grade and Merom was in 12th grade. We were together for two and a half yearshe was my first love and I was his."

Shani Omiel Feldman and Merom Fisher

"At first, my parents didn't want me to come over (to his parents' houseed) before they met him, but Merom was reluctant to come because he was terribly shy. On New Year's, his father drove him over, and he sat in the car embarrassed, afraid to meet my parents. When they saw him, they immediately fell in love with him. They saw that he was the salt of the earth, that he is a shy, sweet guy and that was thathe instantly became a member of our household."

Sgt. Merom Fisher served in Golani's 51st Battalion. The period was full of horrific terrorist attacks, and after the terror attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya, the government decided to commence Operation Defensive Shield, which was meant to damage the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank. Merom immediately joined the fighting in Ramallah and then went with his unit to the north. On Thursday, he was released home for the weekend, but was immediately called back in to fight with the company in Jenin. He was killed in the line of duty on Friday, April 5, 2002.

"On the day Merom was killed, his little brother was with my little sister. I picked him up and the plan was that I would bring him back to their house. Merom texted me, "Good morning from Jenin." We texted each other all day. I asked him, 'What's going on over there?' And he replied, 'War.' When he called me, I was at a traffic light and as I didn't have a hands-free device installed in the car, so I didn't answer. I thought to myself: in five minutes, I'll call him back. Five minutes passed and he didn't answered. The last message he sent me was around two o'clock in the afternoon. Two hours before he was killed. He wrote me that it was important for him to let me know that he loved me, 'so that if something happens to me, you know that you're everything to me, that you're the love of my life forever.' It was as if he sensed it.

"The day before Merom was killed, he returned for a few hours. He knew that his grandmother was traveling abroad and that he had to say goodbye before returning to base. He said, 'I'll just drop by, do laundry, give Grandma a kiss, and I'll go back.' He called me on the way to Kastina. Throughout the whole trip he said to me, 'I love you.' It was as if he was saying goodbye.

"His brother was with us and I was about to take him home for dinner. I sat down to study math, and suddenly I heard a knock at the door. It was Yair, Merom's older brother. He came into the room and told me, 'you better sit down.' I didn't understand what he wanted. And then he said, 'Merom was killed today in Jenin. I have to go.'

"They left and I told myself that it couldn't be. I picked up the phone and called him. Merom didn't answer. I felt that I had to leave the house. My father had been watching television and asked, 'Where are you going?' I yelled to hin, 'Dad, Meror has been killed.' During the shiva (week-long mourning period in Judaism), all that went through my mind was that we had to go through this shiva, that Merom would see that we behaved well and he would return."

Shani remembers the world spinning around her. "I went to his parents, and his father stood at the door and hugged me I don't know how we went through that Shabbat until the funeral. That night, IDF officers arrived and Merom's mother asked permission to say goodbye. I said I had to see him for the last time as well. I didn't say it out loud, I didnt know what my place was with the military. After they left, I went to his mother trembling and asked her to come say goodbye to Merom as well. She said, 'Sure.'

"On Sunday morning, his mother, his grandmother, and I went to the funeral home at Tel Hashomer There was another family there, saying goodbye to their fallen soldier. We heard screams of anguish. It was horrible."

Marom's family "adopted" Shani. For eight months, until she enlisted herself, she was in their house every day, and at the cemetery. "When I came back from the army, I would go over to them for Friday meals, and they accepted me and helped me... His family was and still is wonderful."

How did the environment respond to the loss you experienced?

"People around me would see me, a 17-18-year-old girl devastated with a terrible depression and wouldn't understand ... Even the people closest to me told me, 'enough.' It took me years to recover And I'm not even talking about the terrible talkbacks about the girlfriends of fallen soldiers who write things like: 'All you want is money.' I would hear sentences like, 'You are young and beautiful, it will pass' or 'Who knows if you would had ever had gotten married, you were together for a mere two years.'"

Shani welcomes the change in procedures in the IDF: "If you are a widow or even divorced, you have a social role. As a girlfriend, you fall between the cracks. You have no definition and depend on the kindness of the family. Therefore, in my opinion, any change now in the procedures is welcome. "

Ten years after Merom died, Shani married her partner, whom she met five years ago on a trip to India.

Meital Mazula lost the late Ofer Jerbi, who was killed in an operation in Gaza

Meital Mazula, 33, met Ofer Jerbi from Moshav Ben Zakkai during her military service. The two met at a pizzeria where they both worked. They were together for tree and a half years. "Ofer was an amazing person, he was always there for everyone Two months before he was killed, he bought me a ring. We planned on moving in together in his parents' moshav. Even today, married and with a child, I wonder if he were alive, where we would be. Ofer was my first love, my first boyfriend. He was everything to me."

Meital Mazula and Ofer Jerbi

Sgt. Ofer Jerbi served in the Givati Brigade. He was sent to a course for commanders and senior sergeants. During the al-Aqsa intifada, he was deployed with his comrades on operation Steel Cavalry to locate lathes for producing Qassam rockets. On May 11, 2004, he was killed in the line of duty after a long night of fighting in the Zeitun neighborhood.

"Every evening Ofer would update me, and then early in the morning, he would update me that he had left the area and that everything was fine," recalled Meital. "That morning, there was no message from him. His mother called me very early and asked, 'What's up with Ofer? He's not available.' She said that she had woken up at 5:53am, opened the closet in his room and saw a childhood picture of Ofer On the morning news, they had already announced there was a multi-casualty event. His mother called me again and asked me to try and find out what was going on, adding, 'When they say there are casualties, they mean deaths. Just so you know, something bad happened to Ofer.' She really felt it."

At ten in the morning, Meital went with her mother to the bank. On the way, she received a call from Ofer's sister. "I didn't understand why she was calling; I asked her what was going on, and she said, 'Ofer was killed.' From that moment on, I don't really remember what happened. I remember saying to her, 'That doesn't make sense No one told me anything.' And she said to me, 'But they told us.' At that moment, the world crumbled around me, I couldn't understand how the outside world continues to go on.

"It was a very difficult time. I quit my job. For two and a half months, I was unable to function until my mother picked me up and brought me back to work. I didn't have any support from anyone other than my family, which was there for me."

What do you feel about the change in procedures?

"I'm both happy and jealous. Part of the great difficulty at that time surrounded the issue of recognition, standing, and treatment. I wasn't a part of it. I was always on the outside. I heard all kinds of sentences making it clear that I had no legitimacy, neither from the establishment nor from the public."

Today, Meital is a social worker in the rehabilitation department for disabled people and victims of terrorism at the Social Security Institute in Holon. She is married and the mother of a four-year-old girl, with another child on the way. "Time makes it possible for you to return to normal life, but the longing increases. The fear of forgetting and memory that plays tricksyou are afraid to forget his voice. It happened in 2004, but it feels like yesterday."

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)
According to sources, the expected of a Hamas document will support the establishment of an interim Palestinian state within 1967 borders, without recognizing Israel's right to exist.
As Israel lowers its head in memory of the 23,544 fallen soldiers and victims of terror, here is a look at other countries around the world mark their memorial days.

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The United States

Americans remember the men and women of the armed forces who fell in the line of duty. American Memorial Day is held every year on the last Monday in May with state and local ceremonies and military parades.

US cemeteries (Photo: AFP)

American Memorial Day is considered a national holiday day that is used for hiking, shopping and rest, and it symbolizes the beginning of the summer season.

During this day, memorial ceremonies are held in national cemeteries throughout the United States, where small flags are placed on headstones and state flags are lowered to half mast.

Originally, American Memorial Day was set to honor the memory of the soldiers of the Union Army in the American Civil War, but after World War I it became a national memorial day in which all those who died in battles are remembered.

Itinerary for Israel's national Memorial Day

The United Kingdom

Memorial Day in the United Kingdom (Remembrance Sunday) is held every Sunday closest to November 11, the day Germany signed the armistice which brought the First World War to an end. Today, Britain marks Memorial Day for all the Fallen of the Wars of the Kingdom and the British Empire since the Great War.

British Memorial Day (Photo: AP)

Every year at 11:00am on November 11th, Britain observes two minutes of silence. Remembrance ceremonies for those who fell in wars are also held throughout the kingdom at cemeteries, war memorials, cathedrals and churches.

The main state ceremony is held at The Cenotaph on Whitehall in London in the presence of the Queen, members of the royal family, the prime minister, politicians, military commanders and other public figures.

The two minutes of silence in London begin with the chiming of Big Ben and end with a boom of a cannon shot. After two minutes of silence, the queen and other public figures place wreaths on the monument to remember the fallen.

The symbol of the British Memorial Day is the red poppy flower from the battlefields of Flanders, Belgium, where hundreds of thousands of British soldiers fought and died in the First World War.

France

Armistice Day is observed in France every year during special remembrance ceremonies held in churches on November 11 to commemorate the fallen of the various wars. On this day, the state flag drops to half mast in public institutions.

Armistice Day

During French Memorial Day, military parades are held at war memorials throughout the country and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris. Prominent public figures, led by the President of France, take part in memorial ceremonies and place flowers on monuments.

Armistice Day is considered a national holiday day in France and post offices, banks and many shops and businesses are closed on this day. Restaurants and cafes outside of tourist sites are typically closed. However, train stations, airports and main roads remain open. In some parts of the country, roads are closed for military marches.

South Korea

Memorial Day in South Korea is held each year on June 6th in order to remember the men and women who were killed in the line of duty during the Korean War and other battles.

South Korean Memorial Day

The main state memorial ceremony is held in the capital Seoul and at 10am, sirens sound throughout the country marking the beginning of a minute of silence.

Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand hold their National Memorial Day (ANZAC Day) on April 25. Originally, Anzac Day was held to honor Australian and New Zealand Army Corps soldiers who fought in Gallipoli against the Ottoman Empire during WWI.

The invasion of Gallipoli ended in bloody defeat for allied forces. In total, during the Great War, 60,000 Australian and 20,000 New Zealand soldiers were killed.

Anzac Day

During the Memorial Day, the two countries hold a dawn vigil (marking the beginning of the Gallipoli landings), marches and remembrance ceremonies. The majority of ceremonies are held at various memorials in different cities around both countries.

However, since the outbreak of World War II, Anzac Day has become the Memorial Day for all those killed in conflicts involving forces from the two countries. One of the traditions of the day is drinking coffee with rum after dawn ceremonies as soldiers did prior to battle.

Nigeria

Memorial Day for the Armed Forces was held in the African country every year on November 11 to commemorate forces that fell in the battles of World War I, when Nigeria was part of the British forces. However, this date was changed to January 15, the day the Nigerian Civil War ended in 1970.

Turkey

Turkish Memorial Day is held annually on March 18th on the anniversary of the victory over the Allies in the Gallipoli invasion of 1915. During Memorial Day, the country pays homage to all members of the armed forces, men and women, who fell in the line of duty for their homeland.

Italy

Armed Forces Day is held every year on November 4th when Austria-Hungary surrendered, thus ending the First World War on the Italian front.

Germany

German Memorial Day (Volkstrauertag) was held to mark the memory of all those killed during the First and Second World Wars, two Sundays before the first day of Advent.

The Germans began to mark their memorial day in 1919 in memory of those killed in World War I, but due to various controversies surrounding this day, it was not observed regularly.

Only in 1934 did the Nazis declare Memorial Day a national holiday, and it was called "Heldengedenktag." This day lasted until 1945, with the end of World War II and the defeat of the Nazis. In 1948, the Germans again marked Memorial Day with what was known as "National Day of Mourning."

During the German Memorial Day, the chancellor of the state and various public figures deliver special speeches and an orchestra or chorus plays the song "Ich hatt 'einen Kameraden," which translates to "I had a comrade."
Israel said Hamas was trying to delude the world by issuing a new policy document on Monday that purportedly softens the Palestinian Islamist terror group's policy towards Israel.

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The group will drop its long-standing call for Israel's destruction as well as its association with the Muslim Brotherhood in a new policy document to be issued on Monday, Gulf Arab sources said.

However, the move, whether true or not, has been dismissed in Israel. "Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," said David Keyes, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Palestinian youth in a Hamas camp (Photo: AFP)

"They build terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians," he said. "This is the real Hamas."

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan responded ahead of the documents publications, also dismissing it as a charade designed with the sole aim of gaining international legitimacy. In practice, Hamas continues all the time to advance terror attacks and wildly incites for the murder of Israelis. It continues to refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exists, Erdan said in a statement on Monday evening.

On Sunday, a Hamas political document that was leaked revealed plans to soften the organizations charter to recognize a Palestinian state on 1967 bordersbut still without recognizing Israel.

Hammas tunnel (Photo: Reuters)

It is possible to agree to a state within the 1967 borders, but it does not necessarily include recognition of Israel and does not mean that there is a relinquishment of historic Palestine, the new charter states.

The liberation of Palestine is the duty of the Palestinian people, and the resistance to the occupation is a legitimate right, and armed resistance is a strategic choice. Our right to develop and manage the means of resistance is included in the framework of managing the conflict and not at the expense of the principle of resistance.

It remained unclear whether the document replaces or changes in any way Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israel's destruction and is the Islamist group's covenant.

A Hamas spokesman in Qatar declined to comment. There was no immediate comment from Egypt and Gulf Arab states.
The Islamic militant Hamas on Monday unveiled what it hopes will be interpreted by the international community as a more pragmatic political program, despite its reaffirmation of the movement's commitment to 'liberating' territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and 'confronting the Zionist project.'

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With the new manifesto, Hamas rebrands itself as an Islamic national movement, rather than as a branch of the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood which has been outlawed by Egypt. It also drops explicit language calling for Israel's destruction, though it retains the goal of eventually "liberating" all of historic Palestine, which includes what is now Israel.

It's not clear if the changes will be enough to improve relations with Israel and Egypt, which have been enforcing a crippling border blockade against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip since the group seized the territory in 2007. Hamas has also been shunned by the West, which has set recognition of Israel and renunciation of violence as a condition for ties.

Khaled Mashaal (Photo: AFP)

The five-page program, a result of four years of internal deliberations, was presented at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, by Khaled Mashaal, the outgoing Hamas leader in exile. The group has said Mashaal's replacement is to be named later this month, after the completion of secret leadership elections.

"We wanted to present a document that truly reflects Hamas' ideology and consensus and to present it to our supporters ... and the international community," Mashaal said.

A copy of the program was distributed to journalists in Gaza who followed the news conference by video link.

The new platform was presented at a time of escalating tensions between Hamas and its main political rival, the Fatah movement of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas drove out forces loyal to Abbas in its 2007 takeover of Gaza, a year after defeating Fatah in Palestinian parliament elections. Reconciliation efforts have failed.

Israel's Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan responded ahead of the documents publications, dismissing it as a charade designed with the sole aim of gaining international legitimacy. In practice, Hamas continues all the time to advance terror attacks and wildly incites for the murder of Israelis. It continues to refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exists, Erdan said in a statement on Monday evening.

In recent weeks, Abbas has threatened to exert financial pressure, including cutting wage payments and aid to Gaza, as a way of forcing Hamas to cede ground. Leaders of the group have vowed they will not budge.

The war of words with Hamas was seen as an attempt by Abbas to position himself as a leader of all Palestinians ahead of his first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday. The US president has said he would try to broker Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on a peace deal, despite repeated failures over the past two decades.

Hamas terrorists in Gaza

In its 1987 founding charter, Hamas called for setting up an Islamic state in historic Palestine, or the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, which also includes Israel.

Despite the new program, its overall goals appear to remain the same. Moreover, despite its references to a two-state formula, the wording suggests Hamas considers this to be an interim step, not a way of ending the conflict.

The document does not contain an explicit call for Israel's destruction, but says that the "goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project." The document refers to historic Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, which includes Israel.

While the founding charter was filled with anti-Jewish references, the new document stresses that Hamas bears no enmity toward Jews. It says its fight is with those who occupy Palestinian lands.

Mashaal is to step down as Hamas leader later this month. Two possible contenders for the No. 1 spot are Moussa Abu Marzouk, a former Hamas leader, and Ismail Haniyeh, a former top Hamas official in Gaza.

The Mashaal announcement was initially scheduled for 7pm (1600 GMT) Monday, but was delayed after a Doha hotel withdrew consent at the last minute to host the Hamas news conference. Hamas scrambled to find a new venue.
Italy announced Monday morning that it would not be voting in support of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) resolution, scheduled to take place on Israels 69th Independence Day on Tuesday, denying Israels sovereignty over Jerusalem.

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Despite intense diplomatic efforts undertaken by Israel to exert as much pressure as possible on countries to vote against the resolution, it is expected to pass.

The 58-member UN body will vote on the resolution stating that Israel is not the sovereign nation in Jerusalem.

Old City (Photo: AFP)

The vote will take place just one day after the nation began celebrations for its Independence Day on Monday evening, with a theme emphasizing Jerusalems unification since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Germany was the driving force behind a push for soliciting a compromise from Arab state in the phrasing of the original draft, beseeching them to moderate their language in order to ensure that European countries would not object to the resolution.

Following German pressure, the Arab states softened the original wording and agreed to remove sentences which denied the Jewish people's affiliation with the Temple Mount.

Last year, UNESCO passed a resolution that failed to acknowledge Jewish ties to the Temple Mount by omitting the holy site's Jewish name and referring to it only by its Muslim nameAl-Haram Al Sharif. Only six countries voted against the resolution, and Israel hopes to rally more states to defeat it.

However the apparently softened version did little to mollify anger in Jerusalem, since it negated Israel's sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, including the eastern half and the Old City.

According to the resolution, any decision by the Israeli occupying power, the Knesset, the Supreme Court or any legal or administrative judicial authority that pertains to Jerusalem is null and void and bears no significance. The resolution also criticizes Israel's excavations in eastern Jerusalem and the Old City.

Jerusalem expressed outrage over the German involvement in its moves designed to secure its passage rather than quash it all together.

As for their part, European ambassadors issued unusual criticism against the German Ambassador to UNESCO Stefan Krawielicki, and his actions on the matter: "It seems that he is acting on his own personal agenda rather than orders from Berlin, the said.

Delighting in what appeared to have backfired on Germanys ambassador, Israel's Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen, said in a response that even European nations consider Germanys form of meddling as a mistake.

Israel's Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen

"This is undoubtedly a positive development that should signal to Germany that the negotiations with the Arabs and the text are a mistake not only in Israel's eyes but also in the eyes of a number of EU countries, the statement began.

We are now focused on the mission of Italy being the first, but not the last, country to announce that it does not want to be part of this deal with the Arabs and will vote against it.

Meanwhile Israels Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely also expressed her dismay at the timing and text of the resolution.

"Tomorrow Israel is going to celebrate its 69th Independence Day. Shortly after, Israel will be celebrating 50 years to the reunification of Jerusalem and 3000 years of Jewish history in our historic capital, her statement began.

Tomorrow, even as we celebrate, UNESCO will be voting against Israel's right to sovereignty in its capital city, Jerusalem. This is absurd. We have become used to the concept of 'fake news'. Well, welcome to 'fake history,' she continued.

UNESCO has long been politicized, she contended, adding that it had become a tool in the service of Palestinian propaganda against Israel.

Such absurd and historically baseless resolutions undermine UNESCO's mission of safeguarding humanity's cultural heritage. We, as Israelis, dont need UNESCO's approval of our history in our land.

Nevertheless, she ended by urging member states to vote against the bill if they cherish history and affirm UNESCOs duty to respect historical truth, before accusing the resolution of being yet another attempt to subvert international institutions in order to attack Israel.
By Press Trust of India: Hyderabad, May 1 (PTI) Cyient Limited today announced that it has appointed former US Ambassador to Belize Vinai Thummalapally to its Board of Directors.

According to a statement issued by the company, Thummalapally?s appointment became effective from April 20.

"I am delighted that Ambassador Thummalapally has agreed to join our Board of Directors. He had a very successful track record in the corporate world and provided distinguished service to the US Government.

advertisement

"I am confident that he will bring significant new perspectives and guidance to our Board and leadership team," BVR Mohan Reddy, founder and chairman, Cyient said.

Commenting on his appointment, Thummalapally said, "I have been impressed with Cyient?s growth, diversification and global track record in the engineering and technology services industry.

"I also admire Cyient?s long-standing dedication to corporate social responsibility. I am honoured to join the Cyient Board of Directors and look forward to help the company achieve continued growth."

As US Ambassador to Belize from 2009 to 2013, Thummalapally helped strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries in the areas of economic development, education, citizen security and healthcare.

Thumallapally also served in various capacities in the USA government. PTI GDK RMT BAS

--- ENDS ---
Zabka, Warszawa, 166 m2

Lokal znajduje sie w budynku apartamentowym Unimax Development w inwestycji Viva Vitolin, przy ul. Grochowskiej 87 w Warszawie. Bedzie dostepny w 4Q 2023 roku (podpisanie umow przeniesienia wasnosci).
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) Mid-sized IT firm Cyient today said it has appointed former Indian Ambassador to the US Vinai Thummalapally to its board of directors.

He will also serve on the boards leadership, Nomination and Remuneration; and Diversity and Inclusion committees, Cyient said in a statement.

The appointment became effective from April 20, 2017.

advertisement

"He had a very successful track record in the corporate world and provided distinguished service to the US government. I am confident that he will bring significant new perspectives and guidance to our board and leadership team," Cyient Founder and Chairman BVR Mohan Reddy said.

The development comes at a time when the US, the largest market for Indian IT firms, has proposed a revamp of its work visa regime.

US President Donald Trump, through an executive order, has sought to replace the lottery system for issuing H-1B work visas with a merit-based approach.

On his appointment, Thummalapally said he was impressed with Cyients growth, diversification and global track record in the engineering and technology services industry.

As US Ambassador to Belize from 2009 to 2013, Thummalapally helped to strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries in the areas of economic development, education, citizen security and healthcare.

Thumallapally, thereafter, served as Executive Director, SelectUSA, part of the International Trade Administration under the US Department of Commerce.

SelectUSA was established as a government-wide initiative to attract and retain business investment.

Americas region accounted for over 57 per cent of the companys revenue for the quarter ended March 2017. PTI SR BAL

--- ENDS ---
Today

Partly to mostly cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High around 70F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph.

Tonight

Clear skies. Low near 50F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.

Tomorrow

Sunny skies. High 72F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Correcting designation in header and para 1)

New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) Mid-sized IT firm Cyient today said it has appointed former US Ambassador Vinai Thummalapally to its board of directors.

He will also serve on the boards leadership, Nomination and Remuneration; and Diversity and Inclusion committees, Cyient said in a statement.

advertisement

The appointment became effective from April 20, 2017.

"He had a very successful track record in the corporate world and provided distinguished service to the US government. I am confident that he will bring significant new perspectives and guidance to our board and leadership team," Cyient Founder and Chairman BVR Mohan Reddy said.

The development comes at a time when the US, the largest market for Indian IT firms, has proposed a revamp of its work visa regime.

US President Donald Trump, through an executive order, has sought to replace the lottery system for issuing H-1B work visas with a merit-based approach.

On his appointment, Thummalapally said he was impressed with Cyients growth, diversification and global track record in the engineering and technology services industry.

As US Ambassador to Belize from 2009 to 2013, Thummalapally helped to strengthen bilateral ties between the two countries in the areas of economic development, education, citizen security and healthcare.

Thumallapally, thereafter, served as Executive Director, SelectUSA, part of the International Trade Administration under the US Department of Commerce.

SelectUSA was established as a government-wide initiative to attract and retain business investment.

Americas region accounted for over 57 per cent of the companys revenue for the quarter ended March 2017. PTI SR BAL BAL

--- ENDS ---
Washington: Former US Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd of Democrats at an event in New Hampshire that he will not run for President in 2020, the media reported.

Biden spoke on Sunday night at an annual dinner hosted by the New Hampshire Democratic Party in a state that the 74-year-old has come to know well through two unsuccessful presidential campaigns of his own and two more as a running mate, CNN reported.

Biden, who advisers say is currently nowhere near making a decision on 2020, addressed the question head on.

"Guys, I'm not running!" he said with a smile, as the audience booed in response.

Regarding the 2016 presidential election, Biden said: "Trump was pretty smart. He made it all personal".

"It would not have taken much for Hillary Clinton to win on Election Day, but too many Democrats decided to stay home...I'm absolutely positive they wanted to be with us. But we have to prove again we understand that hopelessness."

Accompanied at the dinner by his wife, Jill, and speaking for a full hour, Biden also wholly rejected the President Trump's worldview, especially on the issue of immigration, reports CNN.

He warned that the values like dignity and optimism that are at the core of the country were being eroded.

But he also insisted that the current political climate was just a passing phase.

"Tolerance has long been our greatest attribute...We've had our ugly periods, we've had our moments of shame, but the arc of this nation has been towards justice."

Biden spent eight years as Obama's deputy and he served as a US senator from Delaware for 36 years prior to that.
New Delhi: The government's decision to grant citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam has also created political rights for them including the right to vote, the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind (JUH) on Monday told the Supreme Court.

The Muslim organisation told the apex court that Section 6A of the Indian Citizenship Act was enacted in view of a policy decision taken by the Centre by signing the Assam Accord which was a settlement arrived at after consultation and concurrence of all the stakeholders, including Assam and the agitators.

It said the provision intended to give a "quietus" to the issue of foreigners in Assam and restore peace and normalcy in the state resulting in conferment of citizenship right to lakhs of people.

"If this court upholds the challenge to Section 6-A, the ongoing exercise of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will be rendered futile.

"Such a verdict would also have ramifications on the international obligations of India, such as the one stipulated in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," JUH said in its 36-page written submissions submitted to a five-judge bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur.

The submissions were made in response to issues framed by apex court which is examining the constitutional validity of various aspects of a provision of the Citizenship Act 1955, including the cut-off date for awarding citizenship to Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam.

A five-judge bench had said it would deal with 13 questions related to the constitutional validity of section 6A of the Act, which were referred to it for consideration by a two-judge bench in December 2014.

The apex court had asked the Centre and other parties concerned, including the Assam government, to file their written submissions in the matter by May 1 and fixed the matter for hearing on May 8.
Kathmandu: The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government in Nepal on Monday received a major blow after one of the ruling coalition partners, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, decided to withdraw from the government over the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice.



A meeting of the party central committee decided to pull out support following the impeachment motion registered in Parliament against Chief Justice Sushila Karki by the two other ruling coalition parties, Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre), on Sunday.



There was no immediate reaction from the Prime Minister's Office over the fate of the coalition of seven parties.



"The decision to impeach Karki by the ruling Nepali Congress and Maoist Centre is an attack on the judiciary and our party does not support such a move," the Rastriya Prajatantra Party said announcing its decision to leave the government.



Nepal has seen hectic political developments following the decision to impeach the first woman Chief Justice, with Nepal's Home Minister Bimalendra Nidhi quitting his post on Sunday following his reservation over the impeachment decision.



The Nepali Congress and CPN-Maoist Centre have accused Karki of interfering in the jurisdiction of the executive and failing to issue verdicts without being prejudiced.



A government decision to appoint a new police chief and a subsequent ruling by the Supreme Court led to a serious feud between the executive and judiciary, leading to the ruling party deciding to impeach the Chief Justice, causing an uproar in Nepal.



With just two weeks to go for the first phase of local level elections on May 14, the series of political incidents has put the fate of the polls in a limbo, with the resignation of the Home Minister adding to the quandary ahead of the polls.



The Home Minister is in charge of overall security of the country.



Kamal Thapa, chairman of the RPP that decided to withdraw support on Monday, heads the Local Development Ministry that is in charge of coordinating various 477 local units.



Amid the crisis, a meeting of the top Nepal Army brass on Sunday night further fuelled the political uncertainties in Nepal. The emergency meeting called by Army chief General Rajendra Chettri on Sunday assessed the latest political situation and decided to maintain extra vigil across the country.



Nepal is holding local level polls on May 14 and June 14. Major Madhes-based party, Rastriya Janata Party, has already declared it would not participate in the May 14 polls.



Another party, Madhesi Janadhikar Foum that has 18 votes and is extending support to the government, has threatened to pull out its support on Tuesday, which would put the government in a minority.



MJF is all set to hold the party central committee meeting on Tuesday to take a final call, and is likely to withdraw support to the government, said a leader.



In the midst of this unprecedented political turmoil, Prime Minister Prachanda said that elections on May 14 will take place at any cost.



The Election Commission has set Tuesday to file nominations for the first round of elections but the fast changing political situation has put a question mark on the fate of the local polls.


Nagaon: Two people were detained by the Nagaon Police in connection with the mob lynching of two suspected cow thieves and an interrogation is underway.

Earlier yesterday, two people were lynched by a mob following suspicion that they were trying to steal cows from a village.

The victims, Abu Hanifa (23) and Riazuddin Ali (24) were brutally beaten up after some villagers said the duo tried to chase away two cows from the grazing ground in Kasomari village.

The deceased hailed from Naromari Jamtola village, which is two kilometres from Kasomari.

The Police handed over the bodies to their families after conducting post-mortem examination.

On April 1st, 55-year-old dairy farmer Khan, who hailed from Haryana, along with four others, including his two sons, was attacked by cow vigilantes in Alwar's Behror on April 1 when he was transporting cows. Khan had died on April 3 during treatment at a hospital, while his associates suffered injuries.

The incidents of lynching started came to fore when in 2015, Fifty-year-old Akhlaq was lynched and his son Danish (22) was brutally beaten up by their neighbours in Bishahra in Dadri in September last for allegedly eating beef on Eid and storing it for later consumption.
Pakistans accusation about Kulbhushan Jadhav being a RAW spy has once again brought the simmering pot in Balochistan into the limelight. While India and Pakistan slug it out over the veracity of the claims made, Pakistan would be well advised to first introspect over the Baloch insurgency.

Balochistan comprises over 44% of the countrys territory with most of the countrys oil, gas and mineral wealth but only about 5% of the total population. This has led to the Punjabi dominated society from exploiting the gas fields and other resources like gold and copper but returning very little to the local folk, 80% of whom live below the poverty line.

Pakistans claim over Balochistan itself is highly questionable. The Baloch region which falls mostly in Pakistan - with some territories in Iran and Afghanistan  always had a distinct identity. Centuries ago, most of Balochistan was under a Hindu king who hired local tribesmen to keep marauders from Multan and Frontier at bay. These tribesmen then toppled the king to establish a Kalat which was presided over by a Khan. But slowly, the British influence began to grow in the western regions of undivided India and by 1839, they had established British primacy in Balochistan as well. Then came the turn of the century and most of India got engaged in the freedom struggle under the aegis of the Indian Congress or the Muslim League, and Baloch tribe leaders too began to habour dreams of ridding themselves of the British, but as an independent country  separate from India and Pakistan.

The Khan of the Kalat at that time, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan, hired none other than Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was a leading advocate of that time, to fight the case for Baloch Independence. It was under Jinnahs legal guidance that a final agreement was successfully reached on Balochistans separate territorial integrity. Balochistan was to be declared independent on 5th August 1947 with the same territorial and administrative freedom that the Kalat enjoyed in 1838. In fact, by the time Pakistan and India gained independence, Baloch leaders had placed a formal ambassador in their commission in Karachi (the first capital of Pakistan) and hoisted the Baloch flag there, just like different countries do.

But as irony would have it, the Baloch people were betrayed by the founders of Pakistan, who scripted a simultaneous agreement with British which gave Pakistan the same rights that the colonial rulers had acquired in 1839. Virtually, Balochistan was handed to Pakistan by the British despite a protracted legal battle that had established its independent status.

Soon enough and despite stiff resistance from the Baloch leaders, all regions and factions of Balochistan were coerced by Jinnah into signing accession treaties with the Islamic Republic. This was an ultimate betrayal.

But the betrayal did not end there. It has continued for decades with the province being excessively exploited by Pakistan without getting much in return. The region has the highest poverty level along with lowest life expectancy, education, health, water, power and sanitation facilities.

Since 1947, the Baloch tribal people have launched 5 insurgencies making it the one of the longest armed struggles in history for seeking either independence or autonomy. However, despite decades of bloodbath very little has come out of their rebellion  the reasons for this are several.

Firstly, the territory does not fall on the border of two nuclear states at odds with each other and so the world has no reason to turn the lens on an area which poses no threat of becoming a potential nuclear hotspot.

Secondly, there is no media to highlight what is happening in the hinterland. Again, unlike other insurgencies, where emotions flare up due to adverse media coverage and fanning of hate through whatsapp groups, Balochistan hardly has access to such dark information through television or social tools about Pakistans atrocities and repressive techniques.

Thirdly, Balochistan is one issue that Iran and Pakistan agree upon. Both do not want the territories falling within their borders to break away from them.

Moreover, China is very keen on utilizing the regions geographical advantage and is the one that has built the Gwadar port. They will do everything to help Pakistan hold on to the state, especially in the light of the economic corridor that they are planning to build. Pakistan has also established settlements of non-Baloch people in areas close to the port and other regions where development is taking place. This is a major grouse for the local populace who are not getting a fair share of jobs arising from economic progress, as mostly, engineers and technicians are hired from other states.

Fourthly, Baloch people have a limited supply of money and weapons and despite that they have managed to prolong the insurgency so far.

Fifth and lastly, the Baloch tribes are a divided lot, betraying and killing each other and harming their own cause. Brawls over succession after death of prominent leaders and comfortable lives of those living in exile make the common Baloch feel shortchanged.

While Pakistan may be feeling a sense of quiet victory that the Baloch insurgency is no longer at its strongest and that it has tightened its iron fist over the people, land and natural wealth, the rulers of the country may be missing a new development.

Balochistan - a predominantly Sunni state  is slowly losing its heterogenous character and the people are no longer happy to live with others of different faith  the case here being Shia community.

From the early years of Baloch Liberation Armys guerrilla warfare to the more recent attacks on urban infrastructure projects to the killing of the leader Nawab Akbar Bugti in 2006, the Baloch struggle has changed course. The peril of Balochistan insurgents now turning from seekers of autonomy to becoming jihadis and foot soldiers of organisations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi may not be a far shot.

Unless the angst cultivated in the hearts of the people is addressed and youth given employment opportunities, there are chances of that anger being misdirected to becoming something even more hideous.

Pakistan can take solace for the moment that they have crushed a movement that has been running since Independence, but it by no measure means that the Baloch quandary has been resolved.
New Delhi: The long-awaited film of Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, 'Jagga Jasoos' will finally be releasing on July 14, 2017. The film took nearly two years to release keeping the fans waiting. Filmmaker Anurag Basu, who has helmed the venture took to Twitter and shared an interesting picture.

Basu shared a picture collage of Ranbir and Katrina where on the right side we can see the 'Jagga Jasoos' pair in their film get-up and on the left side it shows the lead pair as little kids.

The caption below the picture reads: 'Day 1Jagga Jasoos, Last DayJagga Jasoos How Time Flies...'

Well, indeed the picture looks adorable especially the one where Ran-Kat can be seen walking hand-in-hand as kids. But the caption actually seems like a funny take on long duration that the film has taken to be made.

We are certainly waiting for 'Jagga Jasoos' to open in theatres soon!
New Delhi: The government has sought custody of liquor baron Vijay Mallya from the UK, but Indias success rate at extradition has been no more than 36 percent over 15 years, according to a report by Factly.in, a data journalism portal. This means India managed one extradition of every three sought.

While 62 fugitives have been extradited to India from a foreign country between 2002 and 2016, 110 fugitives are yet to be extradited though a formal request has been made by India, according to an answer to the Lok Sabha on December 6, 2016, Factly reported.

Mallya was arrested by the Scotland Yard -- and released on bail -- on April 18, 2017, in connection with an extradition request filed by India on February 8, 2017. The UK government has sent the request to the concerned court, and the arrest marks the beginning of the extradition process.

Mallya is wanted in several cases related to economic offences in India. The now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines that he set up owes over Rs 9,000 crore ($1.5 billion) to state-owned and private banks, it has been widely reported.

There were 16 extradition requests pending with UK as of July 2016, according to an answer to the Lok Sabha. Only one fugitive has been extradited from the UK -- Samirbhai Vinubhai Patel, an Indian citizen, for murder; the extradition came in October 2016, 23 years after India`s extradition treaty with the UK came into force in 1993.

The highest extraditions happened from the UAE (18), followed by the US (9). While four each were extradited from Canada and Thailand, three have been extradited from Germany and South Africa.

India has extradition treaties with 47 countries

India has extradition treaties with 47 countries, among them Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bhutan, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Nepal, the Netherlands, Oman, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, the Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

India also has extradition arrangements with nine countries -- Croatia, Fiji, Italy, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Sweden and Tanzania.

What is the process of extradition?

A request for extradition can be initiated against a fugitive criminal who is formally accused of, charged with or convicted of an extradition offence. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) takes up extradition requests with the concerned foreign countries when a request for extradition is received from the relevant law enforcement agencies in India.

All extradition requests should be supported by documents and information as prescribed by the MEA guidelines. It has to be noted that each extradition request is different and the request is dependent on the specific treaty/agreement signed with a country. The offence should also be defined in the list of the extradition offences.

What are the offences defined in the extradition treaty with UK?

The extradition treaty signed in 1993 with the UK defines the scope of the extradition offence as one which is punishable by law for a term of imprisonment of at least one year. The treaty does not classify political offences as extradition offences but it provides an exhaustive list of offences that will not be treated as a political offence.

Most fugitives extradited in 2005

The most (8) fugitives were extradited in 2005 followed by seven each in 2003 and 2004. Six fugitives were extradited in 2015 during the rule of the current government.

Most people extradited for murder & terrorism-related offences

Out of the 62 fugitives extradited since 2002, 14 were for murder-related offences and 10 for offences related to criminal conspiracy.

As many as nine fugitives were extradited for terrorism-related offences, including three from the UAE, in relation to the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.
New Delhi: British oil firm Cairn Energy plc has accused a senior finance ministry official of "privately" advising billionaire Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta Group to withhold its dividend income for a potential squaring off of a retrospective tax liability.

Cairn Energy, which is the only company whose assets have been frozen for a retrospective tax demand, has in a written application to an international arbitration tribunal stated that its dividend income from its erstwhile subsidiary Cairn India (now a Vedanta Group firm) has not been paid for last three financial year.

This, it alleged, was done at the behest of an "advise" a senior finance ministry official gave to Vedanta in "private meetings", multiple sources in the tax department and industry said. It has also written to SEBI on the issue.

The income tax department had in January 2014 draft assessment estimated Rs 10,247 crore tax due on Cairn Energy for capital gains it allegedly made on a 2006 transfer of India assets to a newly created subsidiary Cairn India and then listing it on stock exchanges.

Cairn Energy sold majority stake in Cairn India to Vedanta Group in 2011 but retained 9.8 percent stake which the tax department had barred it from selling.

After sending draft assessment order, the tax department had in April 2014 also raised a similar tax demand on Cairn India for not withholding tax in 2006.

Both Cairn Energy and Cairn India have initiated separate international arbitrations contesting the tax demands.

Though dividend income can be frozen only after a formal tax demand is raised, which happened only on March 31, 2017 after full assessment was completed and June 15, 2017 was given as the due date for payment, Cairn has not received Rs 670 crore of dividend income for three fiscals.

When contacted for comments, finance ministry said it does not comment on individual cases. Sources however said the tax department will reply to the arbitration panel saying it does not interfere in matters between two companies.

Cairn India spokesperson said: "The dividends due to Cairn Energy Plc for the last three years are lying in an unpaid dividend account as they were subject to an attachment order under section 281B (of Income tax Act).

"We would like to reiterate that these dividends are not available for use by Cairn (now Vedanta)."

He further said: "Cairn Energy Plc has also been in touch with us and we have been responding to their mails/letters sharing our predicament in view of the notice now issued to them post the order of the Income Tax Tribunal for payment of tax liability by June 15, 2017."

When contacted, Cairn Energy plc spokesperson confirmed the company also writing to "SEBI and Cairn India in relation to payment of Cairn India dividends."

"Both SEBI and Cairn India have confirmed receipt of the letter," the spokesperson said.

Originally, Cairn Energy approached the arbitration panel in February saying India is stopping Cairn India from paying dividend.

The tribunal asked the tax department if it had stopped Cairn India from paying dividend. The Tax department in its reply stated that the matter was between the two companies and it had no role to play, sources said.

When replying to that notice, the tax department had internally observed that there can be no attachment of the dividend unless formal tax demand is raised and tax is not paid.

Sources said based on tax department statement, the Tribunal gave its verdict that it will not intervene.

This led to Cairn Energy on March 8 stating in a press statement said the tax department has agreed to lift the freeze it being paid dividend by Cairn India, but it will continue to be restrained from selling the residual stake pending a tax dispute.

But the dividends never flowed to the company, prompting it to approach SEBI.

Cairn India replied to that letter saying it had deposited the dividend amount in a scheduled bank within five days of declaring the dividend.

However it is awaiting the advise of the revenue authorities whether dividend can be paid.

Sources said Cairn Energy also wrote to the tax authorities on why it was not clearly stating its position on freeze on dividend payments.

Now, Cairn Energy has written to arbitrators saying a senior finance ministry official in "private meetings" with Vedanta has advised it against payment of dividend.
Manoj Tiwari tweeted saying that about 10 people had barged into the premises of his residence.

By India Today Web Desk: Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari's house was ransacked by unidentified persons on late night Sunday.

Manoj Tiwari tweeted saying that about 10 people had barged into the premises of his residence in Delhi's North Avenue.

The accused allegedly assaulted the security guard at around 1 am. Sources said that immediately after the incident, Tiwari informed the New Delhi DCP.

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The entire incident has been caught on CCTV camera installed at the premises.

According to Tiwari, this was an attack aimed at him. He said that the accused even called out his name and hurled abuses.

#WATCH: CCTV footage from the premises of Delhi BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari's residence, before his house in the capital was ransacked pic.twitter.com/GyZNb0qp1T- ANI (@ANI_news) 1 May 2017

Two people have been arrested by Delhi Police on Monday.

Sources from the police said that attack was an outcome of a road accident. Tiwari's car had collided with another car.

Following which the driver got into a heated argument with Tiwari's guard. Later a group of people came to Tiwari's residence and attacked his guard.

ATTACK ON JDU MP

This is the second incident in the last two days where a politician was targeted by unidentified assailants.

On Saturday, some people hurled a bomb at the residence of a JDU MP from Bihar's Bhagalpur.

Four persons including the security guard were injured in the incident.

Also read:

Manoj Tiwari eats with slum dwellers; takes jibe at Kejriwal, says work is done here, not in AC rooms

MCD win just the beginning, Delhi CM is next target, says Manoj Tiwari's mother

WATCH | Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari's house attacked, 2 arrested

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: The board of Snapdeal is expected to meet on Monday to discuss the potential sale of India's third largest e-commerce firm to larger rival Flipkart.

Also, on the agenda will be getting Nexus Venture Partners (NVP), an early investor in Snapdeal, to agree to the sale deal.

The approval of Nexus Venture Partners will be crucial for the proposed transaction to proceed, according to sources close to the development.

The seven-member board of Jasper Infotech, which operates Snapdeal, includes representation from investors SoftBank, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners (NVP), as well as co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.

The valuation of Snapdeal is believed to be one of the hurdles to the deal, as Kalaari and NVP were not in agreement with the valuation given by SoftBank, which is the largest shareholder in Snapdeal.

SoftBank has now succeeded in getting Kalaari (another early-stage investor in Snapdeal) to agree but is yet to get NVP on board for the deal.

The sources said once NVP agrees, the deal with Flipkart could be announced in a matter of weeks.

The deal with Flipkart, if it happens, would mark the biggest acquisition in the Indian e-commerce space and change the landscape of the sector that is witnessing an intense competition among players.

Snapdeal was valued at USD 6.5 billion in its last funding round in February 2016. The valuation, however, has shrunk since then and the potential deal could be struck at a discounted rate, say industry watchers.

According to reports, the deal may see Snapdeal's mobile wallet service, Freecharge being sold separately and players like Paytm, Flipkart and MobiKwik are said to be in the fray.

Indian e-commerce companies have seen funding dry up over the last few months as investors focus extensively on profitability and cutting down expenses.

With intense competition from deep-pocketed global rivals like Amazon, homegrown companies like Flipkart and Snapdeal could face even more heat in the coming days.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has recently said the company will keep investing in the Indian market to strengthen technology and infrastructure. The US-based firm has committed investments worth USD 5 billion in the Indian market.
New Delhi: May 1, also known as the May Day marks the traditional spring festival in some countries which is counted as a public holiday where people indulge in many day-long activities such as dancing, cake-making etc. In the 19th century or so May Day was selected as the date marking the International Workers' Day by the Socialists and Communists of the Second International to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago.

The International Workers' Day or Labours Day is marked on the same day as May Day but differs from the traditional May Day celebrations in some parts of the world.

The Labours Day happens to be a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement, socialists, communists or anarchists and occurs every year on May 1.

The 1904 International Socialist Conference in Amsterdam, the Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace."

On May 1, 1886, the labour unions in the United States of America went on a strike demanding that the workers should not be allowed to work more than 8 hours a day. This strike was followed by a bomb blast in Chicago's Haymarket Square on May 4. Several people and police officers were killed in the bombing and more than 100 people were injured.

After this, the 8-hour shift demand was established as a set pattern for the working class.

Around the world:

May Day is one of the most important holidays in communist countries such as the People's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba and the former Soviet Union.

The celebrations in these countries include workforce parades, displays of military hardware and soldiers.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asserted that India was never a more promising investment destination than it is today as his government completes three years in office later this month.

The BJP-led NDA government stormed to power in May 2014, winning by a huge majority.

Addressing the India-Turkey Business Summit here, Modi said that since coming to power in this very month three years ago, the government has launched several initiatives to reform the economy and administrative processes.

The government also launched several flagship programmes like Make in India, Startup India and Digital India.

"Today, Indian economy is the fastest growing major economy in the world. In addition to maintaining this pace, our focus is to remove the inefficiencies from the system," the prime minister said.

The government, Modi said, is in the process of building a New India, adding that the focus is on improving ease of doing business by reforming policies, processes and procedures.

Seeking Turkish investments, the prime minister said there is a huge potential and opportunity to enhance bilateral engagement.

This, he felt, is possible through trade and FDI inflows, technology tie-ups and cooperation on various projects.

"Let us work together for enhancing the level of our economic activities for welfare of our people. From the Indian side, I welcome you with open arms. I can say with confidence that India was never a more promising destination than it is today," the prime minister said.

He called on the chambers of commerce and industry of both sides to engage with each other pro-actively and work closely, both at the government and B2B levels.

"I know that Turkish construction companies have successfully undertaken many construction and infrastructure projects in other countries. Our infrastructure requirements are enormous, including core as well as social and industrial infrastructure," he said.

Referring to opportunities in India, Modi said the country plans to build 50 million houses by 2022, metro rail projects in 50 cities and high-speed trains in various national corridors.

The two-way trade has gone up to USD 6.4 billion in 2016, from USD 2.8 billion in 2008.

"While this is encouraging, the level of present economic and commercial relations is not enough against the real potential," Modi said.

He spoke of energy, mining, textile, automobile and food processing as other areas that offer great promise.

In his address to the Summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a free trade agreement with India to expand the ambit of bilateral economic ties.

He also suggested that the two should explore the possibility of trade in local currency to deal with exchange rate fluctuations.

Hardselling his country as an ideal tourist destination, the president said Indian families are increasingly organising wedding ceremonies in Turkey in recent years.

"Therefore, we would like to host more Indian tourists in Turkey... You can come to Turkey for honeymoon. We would like to host you in Turkey," he added.

The visiting president said Turkish companies can participate in India's project to develop 100 smart cities.
New Delhi: Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Monday asserted the government has "moved quite ahead" on the employment generation front and will focus more on increasing wages and social security for workers.

Speaking at the International Labour Day function here, the minister said: "Employment generation is our priority and going forward will give a lot of focus on it."

Dattatreya said India was not behind when it comes to employment generation and the country has "moved quite ahead".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, has accorded top priority to jobs creation and the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana has been announced in view of the same objective. An allocation of Rs 1,000 crore has been made towards the scheme, the minister added.

The scheme is being implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Under it, the employers would be provided an incentive for enhancing employment by reimbursement of the 8.33 per cent EPS contribution made by the employer in respect of new employment.

The Centre, he said, will in the interest of the workers increase their minimum wages.

"The more the skill is enhanced the more wages would increase. If good scale comes then the workers will not only get minimum wage but also fair wage," the minister explained.

Stating that job, wages and social security are the goals of the government, the minister said the Centre was also giving a lot of focus on the unorganised sector.

During the function, the minister also launched the facility of medical help to migrant workers and their families residing at different places, besides an online claim submission by member using UAN interface.

As part of government's initiatives, all Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) members who have activated their UAN and seeded their KYC (Aadhaar) with EPFO will be able to apply for PF final settlement, pension withdrawal benefit and PF part withdrawal from their UAN interface directly.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday invited Turkish businesses to invest in sectors like energy, rail, road, ports and housing, saying India was never a better investment destination than it is now.

Addressing business leaders present at the India-Turkey Business Summit, which was also attended by visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Modi stressed the need for a substantial increase in the economic engagement between the two countries.

The prime minister said although the bilateral trade between India and Turkey has gone up to USD 6.4 billion in 2016 from 2.8 billion in 2008, it is still far behind the real potential.

"India and Turkey enjoy good economic ties... While this (trade growth) is encouraging, the level of present economic and commercial relation is not enough against the real potential," Modi said.

Observing that India and Turkey, which are among the top 20 economies of the world with strong fundamentals, can substantially increase bilateral cooperation in several areas, the Indian prime minister said, "The time has come to make aggressive effort to deepen relationship and enhance bilateral engagement."

Promising a business friendly environment, Modi said the Turkish construction companies can participate in India's infrastructure sector development, especially in sectors like ports, rail, housing, energy, hydrocarbon, tourism, textiles and auto.

Modi also highlighted India's low-cost manufacturing capabilities before the Turkish businessmen while seeking investment.

Speaking on the occasion, Turkish President Erdogan also made a strong case for deepening and strengthening bilateral ties to achieve the actual trade potential between the two nations.

He also suggested that India and Turkey should initiate free-trade agreement talks and look for possibility of bilateral trade in domestic currencies to tide over the issue of exchange rate fluctuation.

"We should increase our business and economic relationship...If we can also start the comprehensive economic relations negotiation that would be great...It would be also good to start free-trade agreement talks. This would also add further momentum to our relations," he said.

Erdogan, however, underlined the need for balancing the trade saying it was highly in favour of India.

He also called upon Indian businessmen to increase investments in Turkey stressing that his country was "ideal place for investment and production".

The businessmen of the two countries, he said, could also join hand to explore investment opportunities in third countries.
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Board SSC Exam Results 2017 is expected to come out early this month. The AP SSC Results 2017 is likely to be declared on May 3, 2017.

The candidates who have appeared for Board of Secondary Education of Andhra Pradesh (BSEAP) SSC Class X this year will be able to check their results on May 3, 2017, on its official website, bse.ap.gov.in. The candidates can also download the information from the official website.

For checking the results of AP SSC Result 2017, students are required to login and enter their registration id.

Step to check the result:

1) Log on to bse.ap.gov.in, or results.cgg.gov.in.

2) Enter your roll number and other required details

3) Click on submit.

4) Take a print out for further reference
New Delhi: President Donald Trump has said India, Russia and China are contributing nothing to the Paris climate deal, adding that the US is being unfairly targeted by asking to pay money.

Calling the Paris Agreement on Climate Change as 'one sided', Trump promised to make big decision on the deal.

"I will be making a big decision on the Paris accord over the next two weeks and we will see what happens," he said in his speech to mark the first 100 days of his presidency in Pennsylvania, a state that helped tip the election in his favor.

"...Like the one-sided Paris climate accord. Where the US pays billions of dollars (for the Paris Climate Accord) while China, Russia, and India have contributed (to pollution) and will contribute nothing," Trump alleged as the audience booed to the Paris Agreement.

The Paris climate deal within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 2015 by 194 countries and ratified by 143. It aims to hold the increase in average global temperature to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial level by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump claimed that it is estimated that for compliance with the agreement could ultimately shrink America's GDP by $2.5 trillion over a 10-year period, PTI reported.

That means factories and plants closing all over our country, he said and alleged that the Washingtons dishonest media would not report because it is part of the problem. Their priorities are not my priorities, and they are not your priorities, believe me, he said.

They are all part of a broken system that has profited from this global theft and plunder of American wealth at the expense of the American worker. We are not going to let other countries take advantage of us anymore because, from now on, it is going to be America first, Trump added.

Meanwhile, a sea of protesters swarmed in front of the White House on Saturday to voice displeasure with Trump`s stance on the environment and demand that he rethink plans to reverse the climate change policies backed by his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama.

(With PTI inputs)
Dediapada: Launching his party's poll campaign in Gujarat, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Monday vowed to fight the state assembly elections "with full force" and defeat the BJP.

Addressing a huge rally in this tribal-dominated area of Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi took a jibe at him over "Mann ki Baat" program and said the PM believed only in making people listen to him, instead of listening to the people.

"The Congress will fight this election with full force and defeat Narendra Modi and the BJP here," he said. The state assembly elections are due later this year.

"The Congress does not believe in just telling its own `Mann ki Baat,' as we believe in listening to the people. When our government is formed here, we will listen to the people first and then work accordingly," Gandhi said.

"I have selected a team of Congress leaders, led by Ashok Gehlot, and sent them here (to fight election). I want to promise you that if the Congress wins, our government will be of everyone, not of just one person. Instead of just telling our 'mann ki baat,' our government will try to understand your 'mann ki baat'," said Gandhi.

"The working style of our government will make you realise that it is the collective effort of all the people which can change Gujarat, not just one person," Gandhi said.

The Congress vice president also said that Modi was good at only coming up with new slogans like 'Make In India' and 'Shining India,' while the ground reality in Gujarat and elsewhere in the country has not changed under the BJP rule.

He also alleged that the decision to demonetise high value currency notes was taken only to make people realise how powerful the prime minister was.

"The PM scrapped the currency notes just to make people realise how powerful he is. He wanted to convey that he has the power to make the entire country stand in queue. When people asked questions, he told them to just listen to his Mann ki Baat on 'Make in India,' 'Shining India' etc," he said.

Gandhi recalled the contribution of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and the Congress in establishing the milk cooperative movement, known by its popular Amul brand, in Gujarat.

"It is the foundation day of Gujarat today. The state has made tremendous progress during this 60-70 years. This development was brought about by not just one person, but by the millions of women and farmers of Gujarat. The Congress also played a crucial role in it," he said.

He cited the example of Polson company, which he said enjoyed a monopoly in Gujarat's dairy sector before Amul came.

Praising Gujarat's women farmers associated with the Amul cooperative movement, he said even the dairy companies of Australia and New Zealand dare not enter the Indian market as they cannot compete with these women.

"Gandhiji sent Sardar Patel to Gujarat to help women and fight against Polson company, which used to snatch milk from the locals and sell it to the British army. After consistent efforts of Gandhiji, Sardar and one Tribhuvan Patel, Amul was created," said Gandhi.

Just as Polson once imposed its own rules on farmers, a cabal of 10-15 persons was ruling Gujarat now, he said.

The Congress leader termed the Vibrant Gujarat Summit as a marketing tool.

"No community benefited from Vibrant Gujarat, which was just a marketing tool. It only benefited 10-15 persons, who give money for such marketing. At present these 10-15 persons are ruling Gujarat. I will not take their names as you already know them," said Gandhi.

He also touched on the Patel quota agitation.

"Patidars once came to meet me and told me that their children are not getting proper education. It was very shocking for me. If Patidars, who supported Modi all the time, are saying this, then I wonder who are getting the benefits?

"I will tell you the reality. The entire education system has been hijacked by 10-15 persons. All the colleges and universities are under their control. They are getting all the money from capitation fees. They are the friends of Modi and the BJP," alleged Gandhi.

The Congress leader also accused Modi of failing to fulfil his pre-poll promises and trying to snatch the rights of tribals and poor people after becoming the PM in 2014.

"Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Modi ji promised to create two crore jobs every year. The latest figures clearly suggest that only one lakh people were given employment last year. This year, no one was given employment.

"In Gujarat, the people are very angry, as they put their faith in Modi but received nothing. Modi used the poor people, farmers and small traders for his personal gain but gave nothing in return," Gandhi said.

The Congress leader also alleged that the Gujarat government "gifted" thousands of acres of land to industrialists while marginal farmers were "beaten up" for demanding their rights.
New Delhi: A BJP MP from Gujarat - KC Patel - has filed a complaint that he was drugged and filmed in an objectionable position by a gang led by the woman.

Also, the BJP MP alleges that the woman demanded an extortion money of Rs 5 crore.

The Dehlhi Police has now launched a manhunt for a "high-profile" woman, according to a report in TOI.

According to the report, the gang has allegedly threatened to release his pictures and videos if the demand was not met.

Moreover, the woman also threatened to implicate the MP in a rape case, the report added.

KC Patel in his complaint, says,"The woman had sought some help and asked me to accompany her to a house in Ghaziabad, where I was given sedatives mixed in a soft drink."

The MP passed out. He realized he had been trapped when he regained his senses.

After getting the complaint, the police chief immediately ordered the registration of an FIR. An FIR has been filed under section 384 (extortion) of the IPC.

However, the victim claims she was repeatedly raped by MP at his house.

Reacting to the suspected honeytrap case, Valsad Lok Sabha MP KC Patel said, "These are all false allegations, I have full faith in law; will cooperate in the investigation."

A court asked police to investigate rape charges against BJP MP KC Patel.

Also, a special team has been formed by Delhi Police to investigate the matter.
New Delhi: India on Monday asserted that Kashmir was an Indo-Pak bilateral matter, essentially due to cross-border terrorism.

India's reaction came after visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had advocated a multilateral dialogue to resolve Kashmir issue.

Erdogan had made the comments in an exclusive interview with WION ahead of his visit to India.

Erdogan had said, "We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all."

India maintains that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.

Asked if the Kashmir issue or Erdogan's proposal of multilateral dialogue to resolve it figured during the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Turkish President, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay said India's position that Kashmir is its integral part is very sharp and publicly known.

"We conveyed our viewpoint clearly on terrorism and Kashmir (to the Turkish side). It was made clear that there cannot be any justification for terrorism whatever is the intent. We clearly conveyed that the issue of Kashmir is essentially an issue of terrorism. "We told them that we have been victims of cross-border terrorism and and state-sponsored terrorism for 40 years. As far as Kashmir issue is concerned, we have always been ready to resolve it with Pakistan. Not only Kashmir but also all other bilateral issues should be resolved in a peaceful manner," Baglay said, as per PTI.

He also said that the government has made many attempts to have bilateral talks with Pakistan to address issues, including Kashmir as per the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration.

Asked about the response of the Turkish side, Baglay said they heard it "care and attention".

Meanwhile, after extensive talks with Erdogan, in which the fight against terrorism formed a major part, PM Modi said both the countries have agreed that "no intent or goal, no reason or rationale can validate terrorism".

PM Modi said that he and Erdogan "agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace".



There was no mention of Jammu and Kashmir in the brief statements made by the two leaders at a joint address to the media after delegation-level talks and one-on-one talks between the two leaders.

Talks with President @RT_Erdogan included discussions on threats from terrorism & the need for the world to come together & uproot terror. pic.twitter.com/bfnE5wPAHJ  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 1, 2017

On his part, Erdogan said that Turkey would always be by the side of India "in full solidarity" in battling terrorism.



"Terrorist organisations want to launch their propaganda over the suffering of people and are willing to a create future for themselves out of victims' pain," he said.



Both the leaders discussed the situation in their respective regions and on terrorism. The double standards in dealing with the problem and the need for early adoption of the India-initiated Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the UN also came up in the talks.



Turkey conveyed its support for India's bid for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group for which PM Modi expressed his gratitude.

Also, during the talks, which extended by nearly two hours beyond the scheduled 60 minutes, India and Turkey agreed to boost bilateral trade from the current level of just over $6 billion, as per IANS.

Following today's talks, the two sides signed three agreements, including a cultural exchange programme, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Foreign Services Institute of India and the Diplomacy Academy of Turkey, and another MoU on information and communication technologies.

(With Agency inputs)
The government has ordered a crackdown following reports from UP that some petrol pump owners have been allegedly caught cheating people by dispensing lower quantities of fuel.

By Ashutosh Mishra, Pankaj Jain: The Delhi government has ordered a crackdown on anti-consumer activities at petrol pumps. The order has come after a review meeting held by Food and Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Imran Hussain on Monday.

The meeting reviewed the measures being taken for the prevention of unlawful activities by unscrupulous petrol pump owners, in a meeting with the Secretary, Legal Metrology and Controller, Weights & Measures / Legal Metrology Department along with other senior officers.

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The government has ordered this crackdown following reports from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh that some petrol pump owners/managers/workers have been allegedly caught cheating people by dispensing lower quantities of fuel allegedly by installing remote controlled electronic chips, thus illegally duping the customers of rightful quantities of fuel.

The Department of Weights and Measures, (also called Legal Metrology Department), has been mandated to ensure that customers get due value of the cost paid on the commodities including fuels of various kinds.

It was also conveyed that the department should ensure that petrol pumps maintain specified calibrated measuring instruments and equipment for their availability on demand by the public for on-the spot checking of the accuracy of quantities of fuel being dispensed.

It was decided in the meeting that teams will be constituted and despatched to various parts of Delhi for ensuring that petrol pumps in Delhi do not indulge in unlawful activities.

Hussain also directed the department to take a stern legal action against the defaulting units including lodging of FIR, sealing of petrol pumps and initiation of prosecution action.

The Delhi government has also sought cooperation and support of public for checking the menace of supplying lesser quantity of fuel by erring petrol pumps and accordingly appealed to the citizens to report about any such illegal activities.

Also read: Petrol price hiked by 1 paisa, diesel by 44 paisa a litre

Also read: Coming soon: Home delivery of petrol, diesel

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: Condemning the deaths of Indian soldiers in unprovoked firing by Pakistan and the mutilation of their bodies, the Congress on Monday said "unacceptable" actions like these won't help Pakistan in improving its internal situation.



"We condemn what Pakistan did. It must stop terrorism and realise that these actions are unacceptable," Congress leader Anand Sharma said at a press conference here.



Noting that the Pakistani forces were attacking Indian posts even after the surgical strikes in September last year, he said it was a "cause of concern".



"Six major attacks have taken place since the surgical strikes were carried out. 41 soldiers have been killed... it's an issue of concern," Sharma said.



He criticised the central government for having "no plans" to stop repeated attacks by Pakistan on Indian interests.



The former Union Minister also expressed concern over the situation in the Kashmir Valley.


New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday saluted the determination and hard work of workers on International Labour Day.

"Today, on Labour Day we salute the determination and hard work of countless workers who play a big role in India`s progress. Shrameva Jayate!" Modi said in a statement issued here.

International Labour Day is celebrated on May 1 and marks the victory of workers` movement.
New Delhi: Reeling under the BJP's advance after the recent elections, opposition parties, including Congress, Janata Dal-United and CPI-M, on Monday came together on a single platform to stop "communal forces" and emphasised the need to elect a President with secular credentials in the upcoming presidential elections.



The opposition parties, which also included CPI, NCP, JD-S, Samajwadi Janata Party, Socialist Party, and Loktantrik Samajwadi Party had gathered to mark the 95th birth anniversary of socialist leader Madhu Limaye as 'Unity of Progressive Forces'.



Speaking on the occasion, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said, "If we have to save the country from fascists and communal forces, the only way forward is unity of progressive forces. They have to come together. The Opposition parties should keep away the difference and come together."



CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said, "There are a lot of questions on the presidential election. The question is whether the new President will be able to uphold the dignity of his office.



"The question is whether the supervision from the Rashtrapati Bhavan will be secular or communal," he added.



"Not just communists or socialists but every secular force sitting here should come together," he said and appealed that everybody should come together to "choose a secular President".



Vowing for the unity of the opposition, JD-U Leader Sharad Yadav said that it should be strengthened outside Parliament too.



"Opposition parties are together in the Parliament despite some differences but today's event is a step forward in the direction of an united opposition," he said.


New Delhi/Srinagar,: The Pakistan Army on Monday killed two Indian soldiers in unprovoked cross-border firing and mutiliated their bodies in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said on Monday.

The "despicable act" occurred at the Line of Control (LoC) in the Krishna Ghati sector of Jammu region, the Northern Command said, and warned of "appropriate response" to "an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army".

"In an unsoldierly act by the Pak Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers were mutilated," the Indian Army said in a statement.

FULL STATEMENT BY INDIAN ARMY

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

An army JCO and a BSF head constable were killed on Monday and another soldier was injured as Pakistan fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post of the paramilitary force along the LoC in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The ceasefire violation took place around 8:30 AM.

Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh and Head Constable Prem Sagar of the BSF's 200 Battalion were killed in the attack, a senior officer of the paramilitary force said.

"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts along the LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons," the officer said.

Another BSF jawan, Rajendra Singh, was injured in the firing.

Troops guarding the border line retaliated effectively, the officer said.

Pak denies:

Meanwhile, Pakistan has said that its Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector.

"Allegation of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies is also false, Pakistan Army shall never disrespect a soldier," ISPR added.

Pakistani troops breached the truce along the Line of Control in Poonch and Rajouri sectors seven times last month.

They violated the ceasefire in Poonch sector on April 19 and shelled mortars on forward posts in Noushera sector on April 17.

Pakistan had resorted to firing in the same sector on April 8, in Poonch district on April 5, in Bhimbher Gali sector on April 4 and twice on April 3 in Balakote and (Digwar) Poonch sectors.
New Delhi/Srinagar: The Pakistan Army killed two Indian soldiers in unprovoked cross-border firing and mutilated their bodies in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian Army said on Monday.

The "despicable act" occurred at the Line of Control (LoC) in the Krishna Ghati sector of Jammu region, the Northern Command said, and warned of "appropriate response" to "an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army".
New Delhi/Jammu: The Pakistani Army on Monday killed an Indian soldier and a BSF trooper and mutilated their bodies near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district.

The dead were identified as Naik Subedar Paramjit Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment and Head Constable Prem Sagar of BSF's 200 Battalion.

The Indian Army vowed an "appropriate" response to the "despicable act", which significantly took place a day after Pakistan army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited some areas along the LoC and promised support to the Kashmiris.

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati sector.

The Army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army. They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

Also Read - Ceasefire violation by Pak: India retaliates, destroys three Pakistani posts

"The Pakistani army posts attacked two FDL posts with rockets and mortar bombs at 0830 hours and engaged them," the official said.

"Their target was a 7 to 8 member patrol party, which had come out of the post," the official said.

He said as the posts were engaged, the patrol party men ran here and there.

"Two members of the patrol party, who were left behind, were attacked by the BAT team and killed. Their bodies were badly mutilated," the official said.

A #BSF trooper and an army personnel martyred on Jammu LC facing unprovoked Pak fire . They were deployed on an FDL in Mendhar area.  BSF (@BSF_India) May 1, 2017

"Pakistani Army carried out unprovoked rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts on the Line of Control in Krishna Ghati Sector," a defence ministry spokesman confirmed.

Also Read - Mutilation of bodies of Indian soldiers by Pak is barbaric, armed forces will react appropriately: Arun Jaitley

"Simultaneously, a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts," said a statement issued by the Northern Army Command.

According to reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani Army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

The Indian troops retaliated and the firing continued for some time intermittently.

Pakistan Army's action barbaric: Jaitley

Meanwhile, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said the Army would "react appropriately" to Pakistan's "extreme form of barbaric act".

"The sacrifices of the soldiers will not go in vain," he said.

The Act of killing & mutilating the bodies of two of our soldiers is the most reprehensible & barbaric. The sacrifice will not go in vain.  Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 1, 2017

We have fullest confidence in our Armed forces who will react appropriately.  Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) May 1, 2017

Pak denies:

On the other hand, the Pakistani Army denied violating the 2003 ceasefire on the LoC and mutilating the Indian soldiers' bodies.



"Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers' bodies are also false. Pakistan Army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even Indian," they said, as per IANS.

A similar statement was issued by the Pakistani Foreign Office.



(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial welcome on Monday at the Rashtrapati Bhavan here.



President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Erdogan. He was then accorded the ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.



Later during the day, Erdogan will participate in delegation-level talks with Modi. The two sides are also expected to sign a series of agreements.



Erdogan, who arrived here on Sunday, is on a two-day state visit to India.



His visit comes after winning the April 16 referendum, which gives him more executive powers as President.



Terrorism will also feature in the Modi-Erdogan talks.



India-Turkey trade stands at $6.4 billion. Ankara wants a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with New Delhi.



His last visit to India was in 2008 when he was the Prime Minister.



Mukherjee visited Turkey in 2013. Modi also met Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015.


Moscow: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his desire for constructive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad in order to find a solution to the burning conflict over Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking to the media before departing on his Indian visit yesterday, Erdogan called for a negotiated settlement of the dispute between Islamabad and New Delhi, reports Sputnik quoting Pakistan media.

Erdogan, who was given a ceremonial reception at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi today, will hold delegation level talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi later in the day.

A number of agreements are expected to be signed in several areas after the talks. The Turkish President is accompanied by senior cabinet ministers and a 150-member business delegation that will take part in a meeting of the India-Turkey Business Forum.

Key bilateral and regional issues, including India's NSG membership bid and ways to strengthen cooperation in counter-terrorism and trade are expected to be discussed during his visit.

India-Turkey economic and commercial cooperation constitutes an important dimension of the bilateral relationship.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a referendum in his country earlier this month which gave him more executive powers as President.
By Hemender Sharma: The Congress leadership in Delhi is surrounded by people who do not have any base and if things do not change the party is in for tough days ahead, Lakshman Singh, a five-time MP and younger brother of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh said on Monday.

Speaking to India Today in Bhopal, Lakshman Singh said he wanted Rahul Gandhi to decentralise the party functioning. "A Delhi darbar type culture that existed during the Mughal period is still continuing. People like Satyvrat Chaturvedi are given prominence and they manage to get what they want. The party worker feels his views are not being listened. Rajiv Gandhi decentralised the government when he was prime minister; Rahul Gandhi should also do the same," he said.

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A visibly annoyed Lakshman Singh, after the charge of Goa and Karnataka was taken away from Digvijaya Singh said, "I have conveyed that the party workers are feeling bad about it because when he was given the charge of Goa, Congress had nine seats and he along with the workers got it to 17. I spoke to my brother, he told me he was consulted before the decision was taken, and I conveyed the same to my party workers."

"This is part of procedure, charge is given and charge is taken," he added.

On Satyavrat Chaturvedi attacking Digvijay Singh, Lakshman Singh said Chaturvedi was his own voice and had no party workers backing him. "Last time his son fought elections and lost deposit. So he should first concentrate on his son getting elected," he added.

Singh also took a dig at the party high command saying their struggle has not yet started. "Look at history, anyone who struggled and went to jail has revived, their parties have revived, Nehru Ji went to jail, Indira ji went to jail and even Atal Ji and Advani Ji went to jail that's why their party is in power today."

"Struggle begins from top, and if you don't want to struggle at the top for whatever reasons, then let us struggle. We are ready to go to jail, but if the people who work, struggle and go to jail are ignored, and people like Satyvrat Chaturvedi are given priority, then the Congress is in for really tough times ahead," he added.

Also read: Telangana's KTR on Digvijaya Singh's ISIS allegation: Most reprehensible thing coming from an ex-CM

Also read: Digvijaya Singh removed as Congress' in-charge of Goa and Karnataka

--- ENDS ---
Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday reviewed the status of bilateral ties, including in key areas of security and trade, and discussed regional and international issues of mutual concern.

Ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the area of counter-terrorism and the regional security scenario were among key issues that were discussed during the meeting.

Addressing a joint press conference, PM Modi said, "We live in times where our societies face new threats and challenges every day. The context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern. In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism."

PM also strongly pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror outfits.

"Nations of the world need to work as one to disrupt terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop cross-border movement of terrorists. They also need to stand and act against those who create, support, shelter and spread terrorism," he emphasised.

PM Modi further said, "Both of us recognize the need for the UNSC to reflect the world of the 21st century and not of the century gone by. People of India and Turkey have nurtured deep and historical links, ties of culture and language connect our societies since millennia."

"President and I are clear that strengths of our economies present an enormous opportunity to expand and deepen our commercial linkages. We need to approach the entire landscape of business opportunities in a strategic and long-term manner.

Turkey assures India of full support in fight against terror

On his part, Turkish President Erdogan said that his country will always be with India in its battle against terrorism.

"Terrorist will be drowned in the blood they shed," he said.

Condemning the Naxal attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 in Sukma, in which 25 of them were killed, Erdogan said, "Turkey will always be by the side of India in full solidarity while battling terrorism."

Turkish President arrived in India yesterday.

Today he was accorded ceremonial welcome at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Erdogan also visited the Raj Ghat to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi.

This is Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

(With PTI inputs)


Mumbai: Most Indians are likely to travel to New York, Dubai and Bangkok in the first half of the current calender year, according to a report.

The three cities feature in the top searched destinations for the first half of 2017, said the report by global travel search engine KAYAK.

The data is based on the search results from the Kayak site since last year.

London and Singapore were the other two destinations Indians are looking at to travel during the first six months of this year, it added.

Destinations such as Amsterdam, Athens and Male are the top three trending destinations amongst Indian holiday- makers, the report said.

Amsterdam remained a hot destination with a 283 per cent increase in the volumes of searches, followed by Athens (185 per cent) and Male (117 per cent), it added.

"Over the past few months, we have observed that Indian travellers are willing to explore newer destinations. We saw a lot of interest being built for destinations like Amsterdam, Athens and Male becoming popular.

"As for travel planning, we saw that Indian travellers continue to plan their travel well in advance. The most interesting nugget of information, however, was on the search timings. Indian travellers seem to make travel searches mostly during noon," KAYAK Country Manager India Abhijit Mishra said.

However, in cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, the search hour was indicated to be 3:30 to 4:30 pm, which also was the second most preferred timing for the Indians to make travel plans and book their tickets, he added.

The least preferred time for Indians was revealed to be from 4:40?5:30 pm, the report said.

The search highlighted that Indians are willing to take an extra holiday and begin their journey on Friday as compared to waiting till Sunday.

Fridays, the report revealed, remained the most popular journey start day for Indians with Saturday coming a close second, it added.

Be it leisure or business travel, the data showed that in 2016, the average trip duration for Indians was seven days.

Travellers from Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad displayed a longer average trip duration compared to tourists from Pune and Jaipur.

The average travel duration for Ahmedabad was 11 days, followed by Mumbai and Hyderabad (eight days each), the report added.
Srinagar: Indian Army chief Bipin Rawat on Monday visited the Panzgam camp in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district where three soldiers were killed in a terror attack last week.

Defence sources said General Rawat, who arrived on a two-day visit to the Valley - on a day when two Indian security men were killed near the Line of Control in Jammu region and their bodies mutilated - was accompanied by the Northern Command chief and 15 Corps commander.

The army chief was briefed on the gunfight with the terrorists which took place on April 27, and took stock of enhanced security measures, they said.

"The chief later visited the Badamibagh headquarters of 15 Corps in Srinagar where he was given a briefing on the overall security scenario in the Valley," said a source, adding Rawat also visited the army`s base hospital in Srinagar where he interacted with the soldiers injured in Panzgam terror attack.

"While appreciating the synergy between the security forces while fighting terrorism, the army chief impressed upon the forces to continue their positive engagement with the people in the Valley," the source said.
Srinagar: Retaliating to Pakistan's ceasefire violation in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch sector, India on Monday fired at Pakistani posts and destroyed three of them.

Earlier, under the cover of heavy mortar fire, a Pakistani special forces team sneaked 250 metres across the Line of Control (LoC) into the Poonch sector and beheaded two Indian security personnel today.

The attack was carried out by the Border Action Team (BAT), which comprises the special forces, under the cover of shelling by Pakistani troops in Krishna Ghati Sector in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said.

The Army issued a statement saying that the bodies of an army soldier and a BSF head constable were mutilated but a senior army officer told PTI that they were beheaded.

The soldiers killed were Naib Subedar Paramjeet Singh of 22 Sikh Infantry and Head Constable Prem Sagar of 200th Battalion of BSF. A BSF constable Rajinder Singh was injured but is out of danger.

The BAT team had set up an ambush to target the patrol party of the Indian soldiers while the Pakistan Army engaged two Indian forward defence locations (FDL) with rockets and mortar bombs, the officials said.

"It was a pre-planned operation of the Pakistan Army. They had pushed in BAT teams over 250 meters deep inside Indian territory and set up ambushes for a long period to carry out the attack," a senior army official said.

According to reports, at 0825 hours, Pakistani army's 647 Mujahid Battalion targeted India's forward post 'Kirpan' from its post 'Pimple' in Krishna Ghati sector.

It was followed by attack on another forward post in the same area.

Meanwhile, in Islamabad, the Pakistani army said it did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC or a BAT action in the Krishna Ghati sector.

(With PTI inputs)
Jammu: Two Indian jawans were killed along the LoC in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, Monday, after Pakistan violated the ceasefire, once again.

One junior commissioned officer of the Indian Army and one BSF constable were killed when Pakistan fired rockets at a forward defence location (FDL) post manned by them in the Krishna Ghati sector. Another BSF constable was injured in the attack.

"At about 0830 hours, there was heavy firing from Pakistani (army) posts at BSF posts at LoC in Krishnagati sector of Poonch district with rockets and automatic weapons", a senior BSF officer told PTI.

Troops guarding the borderline retaliated effectively, the officer said.

Today's tragic incident comes amid indications that terrorists are waiting at launchpads in PoK to cross across into the Indian side.

Pakistani troops had violated the ceasefire in the same area on April 19 by resorting to mortar shelling and firing on Indian posts along the LoC.

On April 8, Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir by resorting to firing on forward posts.

On April 5, ceasefire violation took place along the LoC in Poonch district.

On April 4, Pakistani Army fired mortar shells on Indian Army posts along the LoC in Bhimbher Gali sector of Rajouri district.

On April 3, Pakistani troops had shelled mortar bombs on forward posts in Balakote sector of Rajouri district.

In the second ceasefire violation on April 3, Pakistani troops had shelled Indian posts along the LoC in Digwar area in Poonch sector.

With agency inputs
Srinagar: Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists today carried out a major attack in Kashmir, killing seven people, including five policemen, after dragging them out of a banks cash van in Kulgam district.

The cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, which was returning to Kulgam district headquarter from Damhal Hanji Pora, was waylaid by a group of heavily-armed terrorists this afternoon, police said.

The terrorists pulled out the five police personnel and two bank employees from the vehicle and shot them from point blank range, a police official said.

While four cops and two bank employees -- including a bank security guard -- died on the spot, the fifth cop succumbed to injuries at a hospital, the official said.

Among the deceased is an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police. The attack took place at Bomai at around 4:15 pm, said Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir, S J M Gilani.

"Our five police personnel were martyred. Two civilians (bank employees), who were in the van, were also martyred in the attack,? he said. He said the militants took away four weapons which were being carried by the guards.

Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit claimed responsibility for the attack.

A spokesperson of the Hizb told a local news gathering agency that its cadres had decamped with four weapons from the scene of the attack. ?During our preliminary investigation, the name of a local terrorist from Kulgam, Umar Majeed, and two of his associates, has come up,? Gilani told reporters here.

In another incident, militants targeted a senior police officer in Pulwama district but he escaped unhurt.

Militants fired at the vehicle of Deputy Superintendent of Police Farooq Ahmad at Dangerpora in Pulwama district this evening, a police official said.

He said the security personnel escorting the officer returned the fire, forcing the militants to flee.

No one was hurt in the brief exchange of fire, he added.
New Delhi: The Odisha government has become `violent` after suffering defeat in the recently held Panchayat elections, said Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday.

He was talking to media after meeting Home Minister Rajnath Singh, accompanied by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Spokesperson Sambit Patra and other leaders of BJP`s Odisha unit accompanied Pradhan.

The delegation apprised the Home Minister of the current violent situation in Odisha.

"Ten people have been killed in Odisha after the Panchayat elections. This had never happened in Odisha. The state government has become violent after poll defeat," said Pradhan.

He termed the death of ten people as political killing as "state government didn`t digest the defeat in the Panchayat Elections".

The BJP emerged number one in Panchayat election held in February this year. Ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) lost its supremacy.

The Union Minister further said that a woman was manhandled by local goons and the police didn`t register an FIR, because the BJP had secured large numbers of votes from her village in recently held Panchayat elections.

"When tried to lodge an FIR, she was told: `go to Modi because you voted for the BJP`. It seems it was her other fault that she apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi of her plight during his road show in Odisha. She and other women of her family were subjected to torture, but again the police were nowhere seen," Pradhan said.

"Rajnath Singh assured us that he would talk to Odisha government over this issue", said Pradhan.
Chennai: Producer B.V.S.N. Prasad says upcoming Telugu entertainer "Radha", which is gearing up for May 12 release, will equally appeal to the class audience as well as masses.

The film stars Sharwanand and Lavanya Tripathi in the lead.

"This is an entertainer with a perfect dose of romance, action and comedy. I'm confident it will appeal to classes and masses. Sharwanand's success streak will continue," Prasad said in a statement.

The team is currently filming a song in Milan, Italy.

"With the Milan schedule, the shoot will be completed. We will hit the screens on May 12 worldwide," he said.

Directed by Chandra Mohan, the film has music by Radhan.
New Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced the `South Asia Satellite` (SAS) has been successfully launched by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on May 5.

The launch of the satellite, intended to serve the SAARC region, was announced by Modi during the SAARC summit at Nepal in November 2014.

In his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat', PM Modi described the satellite's launch as India's 'pricelss gift' to its neighbours as part of the 'sabka sath, sabka vikas' concept, adding that it will go a long way in addressing the region`s economic and developmental priorities.

Here's all you need to know about the satellite, which took India three years to build:

The South Asia Satellite, proposed by Prime Minister Modi, was launched into orbit at 4:57 pm on Friday,May 5, 2017, on board ISRO's rocket GSLV-09 from the Second Launch Pad (SLP) at Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR (SDSC SHAR), Sriharikota.

GSAT-9 is a Geostationary Communication Satellite with the objective to provide various communication applications in Ku-band with coverage over South Asian countries.

According to ISRO, GSLV-F09 mission is the eleventh flight of GSLV and its fourth consecutive flight with the indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage (CUS).

The satellite weighs a massive 2,230-kg and it has 12 Ku-band transponders, which India's neighbours can utilise to increase communications.

The total cost of launching the satellite is estimated to be about 2,350,000,000 (235 crore). The cost associated with the launch will be met by the Government of India

The satellite is meant for providing communication and disaster support, connectivity among the countries of South Asia region. The satellite will provide a significant capability to each of the participating countries in terms of DTH, certain VSAT capacity plus linking among the states for both disaster information transfer and also in terms of library type of things.

Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are already on board of the mission. Afghanistan is in the process of inking the deal. That means seven out of eight SAARC countries are a part of the project except Pakistan, wehich opted out of the program.

Initially, the satellite was to be named as 'SAARC Satellite' but its name was changed to South Asia Satellite after Pakistan refused to join the project.

The main structure of the satellite is cuboid in shape built around a central cylinder with a mission life of 12 years.

So, mark the date to witness the launch of India's priceless gift to its neighbours this week.
New Delhi: With the decision to align with the Samajwadi Party for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections not yielding any dividends, the Congress party has decided to contest the Uttar Pradesh local body elections on its own.

Congress' UP chief Raj Babbar made the announcement after he along with Congress' UP in-charge Gulam Nabi Azad held discussions with party leaders from across the state.

Party candidates who won in the assembly polls, district level office bearers and other important leaders were consulted before the party top brass decided to not get into an electoral alliance with the Samajwadi Party.

Uttar Pradesh urban local body elections will be held in the months of June and July this year.

Congress workers were of the view that the party leadership should focus on rebuilding the party on the ground level and not go for alliances, reports said.

Post the humiliating defeat in UP, the Congress had held review meetings with party district and city unit heads. reports said that a large number of leaders had blamed the pre-poll alliance with the Samajwadi Party for the partys poor performance.
On Monday the senior Congress leader and once Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijaya Singh alleged, " Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site whichis radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS Modules.

By Ashish Pandey: Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh has sparked a fresh controversy with his tweet accusing the Telangana state police of running a fake ISIS website to trap Muslim youth.

The former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, alleged, "Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim Youths and encouraging them to become ISIS modules".

It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP. It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day.

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"The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information? Is It Ethical? Is it moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS? I agree but what about the Telangana Police which is posting inflammatory postings to radicalise Muslim youth through their fake ISIS site?," he said.

The series of tweets made by the veteran Congress man immediately sparked controversy with a sharp objection from Telangana Information Technology and Municipal Administration minister K T Rama Rao (KTR).

He too took to Twitter to counter the allegation and said, "Most irresponsible & reprehensible thing coming from a former CM. Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence."

The Telangana police too denied the allegation and its chief DGP Anurag Sharma tweeted, "Unfounded allegations form a senior responsible leader will lower the morale and image of police engaged in fighting anti-national forces".

Even though the senior congress leader's tweet attracted large-scale criticism and his account was flooded with angry Twitteratti ridiculing him over his allegation, Singh remained firm and asked the Telangana Chief Minister to take action against police or "own responsibility and resign".

ALSO READ:

Telangana's KTR on Digvijaya Singh's ISIS allegation: Most reprehensible thing coming from an ex-CM

Digvijaya Singh removed as Congress' in-charge of Goa and Karnataka

WATCH: Congress sacks Digvijaya Singh as in-charge of Goa and Karnataka

--- ENDS ---
Lucknow: After Allahabad High Court cancelled the bail of rape accused Gayatri Prajapati, family of the former Uttar Pradesh minister on Monday sought Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's help for justice.

Prajapati's wife and daughters went to meet Adityanath at his residence.

"We could not meet Adityanath today but met a minister there who assured us that he would look into the matter and also take the issue to the Chief Minister soon.

He also assured us that, if Prajapati is being falsely accused for the crime, then justice will be given to him without any delay," Prajapati's daughter told ANI here.

Prajapati's family further stated that they have all proof that he was falsely accused with rape and fervently demanded justice.

"We have proof that Prajapati has been falsely accused in this crime and will also show it to Adityanath soon. Even the police have no proof against Prajapati so then why to delay in giving justice," his daughter added.

Yesterday, Additional Sessions Judge Om Prakash Mishra who granted bail to the rape accused Samajwadi Party leader and former minister Gayatri Prajapati was suspended.

The court has also ordered a departmental inquiry against the judge.

According to reports, Justice Sudhir Agarwal will conduct the probe against the judge. The news was confirmed by Registrar general D.K. Singh.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Friday stayed the bail given to Prajapati in a rape case by a local court.

Prajapati, who was arrested in connection with a case of an alleged sexual assault of a minor girl, was released from the district jail in Lucknow earlier on Wednesday.

Prajapati was earlier granted bail by a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) court, Lucknow.

Two associates of Prajapati were also given bail. The court asked them to furnish two sureties of Rs one lakh each and a personal bond of same amount as a condition of bail.

Prajapati was arrested on March 15 from the Aashiyana area in Lucknow by the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF).

The Samajwadi Party leader, who was also accused of allegedly raping the girl's mother, evaded his arrest for nearly a month before he was arrested.

Earlier in February, a police complaint had been filed against the former minister and six others in the case following the Supreme Court's order.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had also filed a non- bailable warrant against the former minister and six others for the same.
Sambhal: Hindu couples should have eight children each to protect their religion, a prominent religious leader has said.

The advice to follow the 'we two and our eight' formula came from Swami Prabodhananda Giri, the national president of Sanatan Dharma Mahasangh, when he was addressing an event at the in Lakhipur here on Saturday.

"In the present times, there is threat to Hindutva and to protect it is responsibility of every Hindu. For this, every Hindu should produce eight children so that he can contribute towards conserving, preserving and protecting Hindutva and the society.

"Hindus should follow - we two, our eight - formula," Giri said.

To promote family planning in the country, the government had in the past introduced the 'Hum do, hamare do' (We two, our two) slogan.

At the event which was organised at the Pawan Van Vihar Ashram, Mahora in Lakhipur here, Giri also said that for safety of Hindus, 'Hindu Raksha Dal' had been constituted and that it would be spread in the entire state.

He praised Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath saying that he would create history in the state and by banning cow slaughter and had already made a good start.

He lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that for the first time India has got "a good PM" and added that the country needed a PM devoted to the cause of Hindutva.
Lucknow: In a bid to improve the quality of education and check truant teachers, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath wants images of faculty members pasted on walls of state-run schools.

This will be done to verify and then cross-check from the students whether those whose pictures are displayed attend schools regularly and teach or not.

Adityanath took the decision at a meeting in Gorakhpur late on Sunday.

The Chief Minister said he was worried over the falling standards in the primary and junior high schools in the sprawling state.

He said officials would conduct surprise inspections and review in these schools. Students would be queried on the regularity of their teachers.

He said some teachers use proxies to teach while they themselves draw hefty salaries without doing any work. This would no longer be tolerated, Adityanath told officials.

He was determined to ensure that the standard of education in the state-run schools improved even if it meant taking out-of-the-box steps or tough measures.

A senior teacher here admitted that the very fact that the Chief Minister had to resort to such a mechanism exposed the rot that has systematically eaten up the education system over the years.

"It may sound strange, extreme and bizarre but I feel that primary and higher secondary schools run by the government in UP need a major overhaul," said Sujata Singh, a retired principal.

Uttar Pradesh has 866,361 primary and 8,459 higher secondary schools which employ hundreds of thousands of teachers.

Some feel that many of them are not qualified and have secured the job through "connections" or by paying bribes.

Aarti Mishra, a teacher, cites many instances where unqualified teachers are taken in and they pay lesser amounts to qualified people to teach in their place.

This happens brazenly in schools in the countryside, says another teacher.

Mass copying during exams has also eaten up the system, rues teacher Anamika Singh, who says the government was apparently left with no option but to get tough.

Travelling daily to her school in Kishni, many kilometres from her home, she says she is a witness to how teachers bunk classes and instead ask other colleagues, at times even peons, to chip in for them.
Doha: The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas unveiled on Monday a new policy document easing its stance on Israel after having long called for its destruction, as it seeks to improve its international standing.

The document notably accepts the idea of a Palestinian state in territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

It also says its struggle is not against Jews because of their religion but against Israel as an occupier.

However, Hamas officials said the document in no way amounts to recognition of Israel as demanded by the international community.

"...Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus," it says.

The movement`s leaders have long spoken of the more limited aim of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without explicitly setting it out in its charter.

But after years of internal debate, the new document formally accepts the idea of a state in the territories occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, remains deeply divided from Fatah, the more moderate party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas based in the occupied West Bank.

Hamas`s announcement comes ahead of Abbas`s first face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday.

The new document was posted online as exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was due to hold a press conference on it in Doha.

The press conference was also being broadcast live in the Gaza Strip.
Seoul: North Korea warned today that it will carry out a nuclear test "at any time and at any location" set by its leadership, in the latest rhetoric to fuel jitters in the region.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been running high for weeks, with signs that the North might be preparing a long-range missile launch or a sixth nuclear test -- and with Washington refusing to rule out a military strike in response.

A spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said Pyongyang was "fully ready to respond to any option taken by the US".

The regime will continue bolstering its "preemptive nuclear attack" capabilities unless Washington scrapped its hostile policies, he said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA news agency.

"The DPRK's measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership," the spokesman added, apparently referring to a sixth nuclear test and using the North's official name, the Democratic Republic of Korea.

The North has carried out five nuclear tests in the last 11 years and is widely believed to be making progress towards its dream of building a missile capable of delivering a warhead to the continental United States.

It raises the tone of its warnings every spring, when Washington and Seoul carry out joint exercises it condemns as rehearsals for invasion, but this time fears of conflict have been fuelled by a cycle of threats from both sides.

The joint drills have just ended, but naval exercises are continuing in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) with a US strike group led by the aircraft carrier US Carl Vinson.

The Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman said if the North was not armed with "the powerful nuclear force", Washington would have "committed without hesitation the same brigandish aggression act in Korea as what it committed against other countries".

The statement reasserts the North's long-running rhetoric on its military capabilities.

Seoul also regularly warns that Pyongyang can carry out a test whenever it decides to do so.

Pyongyang's latest attempted show of force was a failed missile test on Saturday that came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed the UN Security Council to do more to push the North into abandoning its weapons programme.

Tillerson warned the UN Security Council last week of "catastrophic consequences" if the world does not act and said that military options for dealing with the North were still "on the table".

In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS television network's "Face the Nation" programme, Trump said that if North Korea carries out another nuclear test "I would not be happy".

Asked if "not happy" signified "military action", Trump answered: "I don't know. I mean, we'll see."
Seoul: South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1 billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump`s national security adviser, HR McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South`s presidential office said.

The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: "You`ll soon find out," but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.

Trump stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia over the weekend to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action is needed, a top White House official said.

The president spoke on Sunday to Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who heads a military government that took power in a 2014 coup, and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and invited both of them to Washington.

He talked on Saturday night with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who was also invited for talks.

The White House defended the Duterte call, saying his cooperation was needed to counter North Korea, even as the administration faced criticism for its overture to Manila.

Duterte has been accused by human rights groups of supporting an anti-drug campaign of extrajudicial killings, which his government denies.

"There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC`s "This Week."

Trump`s comments in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that he wanted Seoul to pay for the THAAD deployment perplexed South Koreans and raised questions about his commitment to the two countries` alliance.

South Korean officials responded that the cost was for Washington to bear, under the bilateral agreement.

"National security adviser HR McMaster explained that the recent statements by President Trump were made in a general context, in line with the US public expectations on defence cost burden-sharing with allies," South Korea`s Blue House said in a statement, adding that McMaster requested the call.

Major elements of the advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system were moved into the planned site in Seonjgu, in the south of the country, in the past week.

The deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar that can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from local residents worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

About 300 residents rallied on Sunday as two U.S. Army trucks tried to enter the THAAD deployment site. Video provided by villagers showed protesters blocking the road with a car and chanting slogans such as Dont lie to us! Go back to your country!



Police said they had sent about 800 officers to the site and two residents were injured during clashes with them.

South Korea and the United States say the sole purpose of THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles.



Vice President Mike Pence reaffirmed the US commitment to South Korea`s security but said on NBC that Trump would "continue to call on the prosperous nations that the United States provides security and protection for to do more in their own defense.

The United States is seeking more help from China, the North`s major ally, to rein in Pyongyang`s nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a "good man".

TENSIONS HIGH

The North has been conducting missile- and nuclear weapons-related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder`s birth.

In excerpts of an interview with CBS News released on Saturday, Trump said the United States and China would "not be happy" with a nuclear test, but gave no other details.

U.S. officials have said privately that while military options remain on the table, the Trump administration is focusing for now on pressuring North with both unilateral and international sanctions and getting China to do more to restrain Pyongyang.

In an address to a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Saturday, Duterte urged the United States to show restraint after North Korea`s latest missile test and to avoid playing into the hands of leader Kim Jong Un, who "wants to end the world".

Two-month long U.S.-South Korean joint military drills were due to conclude on Sunday, US and South Korean officials said.

The exercise, called Foal Eagle, was repeatedly denounced by North Korea, which saw it as a rehearsal for war.

In a further show of force, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday. The South Korean navy declined to say when the exercises would be completed.



The dispatch of the Carl Vinson was a "reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war," the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea`s ruling Workers` Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

The carrier group has just completed drills with the Japanese navy.

Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, in an apparent show of solidarity with Washington, has ordered the Izumo, Japan`s biggest warship, to protect a U.S. Navy ship that might be going to help supply the USS Carl Vinson, the Asahi newspaper said.
Stockholm: Sweden`s largest Shiite Muslim mosque was badly damaged overnight in a suspected arson attack, police said Monday.

"Flames were engulfing the outer facade" of the Imam Ali Islamic Centre in the northern Stockholm suburb of Jakobsberg, a police spokesman said, although there were no reports of any injuries.

"It seems it was set ablaze from the outside," the TT news agency quoted police spokesman Lars Bystrom as saying, adding an investigation was under way to determine if the motive was political.

"This is Sweden`s largest Shia mosque with thousands of faithful... They are really concerned," mosque spokesman Akil Zahari told broadcaster SVT.

Several mosques in Sweden have been the target of arson attacks in recent years but few perpetrators have been caught.

In April last year, a 31-year-old man identified through CCTV footage was jailed for three years for racially-aggravated arson after admitting setting fire to a mosque in the southwestern town of Boras.

Swedish anti-racism campaigners protested in January 2015 after a trio of arson attacks on mosques in the Nordic country.

In Stockholm, residents are still coming to terms with an April 7 truck attack which killed five people.

An Uzbek national confessed to using a stolen truck to mow down pedestrians on a busy shopping street in a rampage similar to attacks in Nice, Berlin and London.
Columbia: A controversial US missile defense system whose deployment has angered China is now operational in South Korea, a US defense official said Monday.

"It has reached initial intercept capability," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Washington and Seoul agreed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery deployment in July in the wake of a string of North Korean missile tests.
As Donald Trump completes 100 days as US President, what has it meant for India? The short answer is, nobody knows, not even Trump. But in an era of greater uncertainty, it is important for India to identify the key variables triggered by Trump's election. They relate, essentially, to four broad areas: bilateral relations, the Asian balance of power, terrorism and global governance.

On bilateral relations, when market access, investment, technology and the flow of people are taken together, the US stands out as India's most important partner for progress. For America, India's rise presents lucrative opportunities-in infrastructure, energy, financial services and retail. The two countries enjoy an increasingly close private sector-led relationship that encompasses IT, biological sciences, space, energy and defence.

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This mutually beneficial and reinforcing partnership is premised on two things. First, the factors that constitute American exceptionalism: democracy, liberal internationalism and immigration. Trump has instead projected America as a more 'normal' power, one unwilling to be a model for others, focusing its defence structures on closer, more immediate challenges and conceiving national identity in narrower terms. Additionally, the past three US presidents were guided by the strategic logic, as Ashley Tellis put it, that "a strong, democratic, (even if perpetually) independent India [is] in American national interest". This logic informed Bill Clinton's lifting of sanctions after the 1998 nuclear tests, George W. Bush's offer of a civil nuclear agreement and Barack Obama's agreeing to a Joint Strategic Vision with India. While trying to convince Trump of the merits of American openness and the value of a strong India, New Delhi must work with other American actors (including states, legislators and the private sector), while seeking alternative partners whenever possible.

The US role as a security provider in the Indo-Pacific is also crucial to preserving a regional balance of power. Trump has offered mixed signals on China, but possible outcomes include a more militarised 'pivot to Asia' or a policy of calculated unpredictability. Alternatively, Trump may try to broker a power-sharing arrangement with Beijing, or not match his belligerent rhetoric with the requisite sources, or engage in a ruinous trade and currency war. Those outcomes would be much less welcome to New Delhi. While evaluating the possibilities of each broad scenario and planning accordingly, India must continue its policy of maintaining a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. This means doubling down on an 'Act East' policy: arming the north along the border, connecting east into Southeast Asia, securing the Indian Ocean to the south, partnering farther afield with like-minded actors, deepening institutional links to Asia and continuing to engage and cooperate with Beijing, whenever possible, particularly economically.

Terrorism remains a third major concern. While talking tough, Trump has focused on securing the homeland, defeating ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and countering Iran. India has its own priorities, which place greater stress on cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan and, relatedly, on stabilising Afghanistan. However, the US appetite for counter-insurgency in Afghanistan has declined, and several factors, including a nuclear weapons programme, have prevented it from addressing Pakistan-based terrorism. Therefore, while India and the US may find greater agreement at the level of first principles when it comes to terrorism, practical cooperation might be complicated.

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Finally, Trump's election will have consequences for global governance. Today, India seeks membership of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum; desires a voice and a vote on nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional weapons proliferation through membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (which would cement its 2008 waiver that enables it to conduct civil nuclear commerce); and seeks a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council. While the US has supported India's membership of these forums in the past, it appears a low priority for the Trump Administration. It will have to be seen whether 'America First' can ever align with India's aspiration to be a leading power.

The writer is foreign policy fellow, Brookings India

--- ENDS ---
Tabqa: US-backed fighters cornered the Islamic State group in a last part of Tabqa on Monday, after tearing down a huge jihadist flag that had fluttered over the northern Syrian city.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, were in control of all but a fifth of Tabqa as of early Monday, a monitor said.

The city sits on a strategic supply route about 55 kilometres (35 miles) west of IS`s main Syrian stronghold Raqa and served as a key IS command base.

The SDF broke into Tabqa from the south a week ago and have steadily advanced north, squeezing IS in three contiguous neighbourhoods on the bank of the Euphrates River.

At dawn on Monday, IS fighters withdrew from the western-most district towards the other two neighbourhoods, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

"The SDF now controls more than 80 percent of Tabqa," Abdel Rahman said, with IS only holding the two northern neighbourhoods of Hurriyah and Wahdah.

Clashes and bombing raids by the US-led coalition rocked the city on Monday, the Observatory said.

In the aptly named Flag Roundabout in Tabqa`s west, an AFP correspondent on Sunday saw an SDF fighter climb a ladder propped on a huge flagpole.

He triumphantly pulled down an enormous black IS flag, dropping it to the rubble-littered street as fellow fighters cheered and took pictures.

"We`ve brought down Daesh`s flag and we`ll hang our own -- the flag of the Syrian Democratic Forces," SDF fighter Zaghros Kobane told AFP, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Other IS propaganda could still be seen around the city, including a billboard of a balaclava-wearing jihadist with three warplanes behind him.



"We will be victorious despite the global coalition," the billboard read. The city is home to an estimated 85,000 people, including IS fighters from other areas, and is also adjacent to the strategic Tabqa dam, which remains under IS control.

To circumvent the dam, SDF fighters have been using a makeshift ferry to run supplies across Lake Assad, an enormous reservoir created by the barrier.

The SDF said their hard-fought advance had seen jihadists surrendering in large numbers.

"Tabqa is the toughest battle we`ve ever waged," said SDF commander Jako Zerkeh, nicknamed "The Wolf".

Zerkeh said the SDF had used new tactics -- including the waterway supply line and an airlift behind enemy lines in late March -- to kickstart the offensive.

"These were a huge surprise to them (IS) and shattered their morale... Dozens of Daesh fighters have surrendered. There were more surrenders here than any other town," he told AFP.

The AFP correspondent in Tabqa on Sunday saw SDF fighters guarding a group of blindfolded, bearded men that a security official said were suspected IS fighters.

They were waiting to transport them across Lake Assad and into SDF-controlled territory on the northern bank of the reservoir.

The makeshift ferry is made out of a piece of floating bridge that has been lashed to two small boats, and is also used to take civilians fleeing Tabqa into safety. The assault on Tabqa began in late March when SDF forces and their US-led coalition allies were airlifted behind IS lines.

The SDF surrounded Tabqa in early April before pushing into the city on April 24, as part of their flagship offensive for Raqa further east.

That assault, dubbed "Wrath of the Euphrates", was launched in November and has seen SDF fighters capture swathes of countryside around the city.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the country`s war began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

The US-led coalition bombing IS in Syria and Iraq said on Sunday that its strikes had unintentionally killed 352 civilians since the intervention began in 2014.

From November to early March, coalition strikes killed 45 civilians, the coalition said in a statement.

Critics say the real total number of civilian casualties is much higher than the tally reported by the US military.

The coalition insists IS has targeted civilians and used them as human shields, making it difficult to avoid civilian casualties despite its state-of-the-art technology.
WASHINGTON: The White House on Sunday defended President Donald Trump`s decision to invite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington, saying his cooperation was needed to counter North Korea, even as the administration faced human rights criticism for its overture to Manila.

Trump issued the invitation on Saturday night in what the White House said was a "very friendly" phone conversation with Duterte, who is accused by international human rights groups of supporting a campaign of extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in the Philippines.

There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than whats happening in North Korea, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told ABCs This Week during a weekend in which Trump sought to firm up support in Southeast Asia to help rein in North Koreas nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea suggested on Monday it would continue its nuclear weapons tests, saying it will bolster its force "to the maximum" in a "consecutive and successive way at any moment" in the face of what it calls U.S. aggression and hysteria.

Priebus insisted the outreach to Duterte doesn`t mean that human rights don`t matter, but what it does mean is that the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure we have our ducks in a row.

Since he came to power last year, Duterte has often sniped at Washington, his country`s longtime ally, has sought to mend relations with China and spoken of improving ties with Russia.

Asked on Monday about his invitation from Trump, he was non-committal, telling reporters: "I`m tied up.

"I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia and go to Israel," he said, referring to already scheduled visits.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Robespierre Bolivar said that once a formal letter of invitation came it would be accepted.

The invitation for Duterte to the visit White House at an unspecified date appeared to be the latest example of the affinity Trump has shown for some foreign leaders with shaky human rights or autocratic reputations.

For instance, he expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 presidential campaign, hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the White House and has had warm words for Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom Trump is pressing to do more to rein in its ally and neighbor, North Korea.

On Sunday, Trump also extended a White House invitation to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general who heads a military government that took power in a 2014 coup. Prayuths administration had strained relations with Trump`s predecessor, Barack Obama.

Celebrating a man who boasts of killing his own citizens and inviting him to the White House, while remaining silent on his disgusting human rights record, sends a terrifying message, said John Sifton, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

By effectively endorsing Duterte`s murderous war on drugs, Trump has made himself morally complicit in future killings, he said.

A Trump administration official insisted, however, that the invitation was not a reward to Duterte or an endorsement of his policies but a decision that engagement with the Philippines was better than withdrawal which could intensify bad behavior by Duterte.

Its not a thank you, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Its a meeting.

The official denied a New York Times report citing administration officials saying the State Department and the National Security Council were caught off-guard by the invitation to Duterte and were expected to object internally. "We were not surprised. The guys who prepared for the call were unified on this," the official said.

`ON THE SAME PAGE` ON NORTH KOREA

Priebus made clear that North Korea was the top priority.

If we dont have all of our folks together  whether theyre good folks, bad folks, people we wish would do better in their country, doesnt matter, weve got to be on the same page on North Korea, Priebus said.

But taking a swipe at Trump for his invitation to Duterte, Democratic U.S. Senator Chris Murphy tweeted: We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash."

Thousands of Filipinos have been killed since Duterte unleashed his fierce anti-drugs campaign nearly 10 months ago. Police say they have killed only in self-defense, and the deaths of other drug dealers and users was down to vigilantes or narcotics gangs silencing potential witnesses.

Human rights groups say official accounts are implausible and accuse Duterte of backing campaign of systematic extrajudicial killings by police. The government denies that.

Duterte was infuriated by the Obama administration`s expressions of concern about extrajudicial killings after he took office last year and threatened to sever the long-standing U.S. defense alliance.

Duterte spoke positively about Trump, a fellow populist, after the U.S. presidential election in November, and the new administration has sought ways to mend the alliance.

In a summary of Saturdays phone call between the two leaders, the White House said the two discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world. The White House statement included no criticism of Dutertes methods.
YEREVAN, MAY 1, ARMENPRESS. Though Armenia domestic market with 3 million populations is rather small, it can be attractive for Iran for its geographic location serving as a gate for Iranian exports to the 180 million EAEU market, Armenpress reports, citing IRNA, Ambassador of Armenia to Iran Artashes Tumanyan announced in a conference dedicated to fostering exports. He added that the Iranian businessmen can export their products without paying customs duties.

Artashes Tumanyan noted that Armenia can offer air and land transports for Iranian exports without a visa necessity.

Pointing out the 3 free trade zones in Armenia, Ambassador Tumanyan added that Armenia has an agreement with the EU about exporting 6400 types of goods with a facilitated regime. He stressed that Iran can have its share in Armenian market.

Vice governor of Markazi (Iran) Zafar Afshoun noted that the industrialists of the province are interested in making investments in Armenia and establishing economic ties.
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BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia's police said on Saturday they have charged two members of parliament from a far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia with extremism for hate speech against the Roma, the Jews and Islam. If found guilty, they are facing up to six years in prison, according to the penal code. Right-wing and anti-immigrant parties have been on the rise across Europe after years of slow economic growth and the arrival of more than a million migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa. In an electoral shock, the far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia entered the Slovak parliament for the first time last year after winning 8 percent of the vote in March's election. Even though Slovakia has seen little immigration analysts have explained the success of anti-system parties by rising public anger over graft scandals linked to traditional parties. The party openly admires Jozef Tiso, leader of the 1939-1945 Nazi puppet state who allowed tens of thousands of Slovak Jews to be deported to Nazi death camps and was tried for treason after the war. It is also hostile to Slovakia's Roma minority. Its lawmaker Stanislav Mizik is facing charges for publishing on a social network a list of "people of Jewish origin and admirers of Roma" among people who were given state honors by President Andrej Kiska earlier this year. The police have also searched his office in the parliament earlier this week. Mizik received a 1,000 euro fine for breaching parliamentary standards by calling Islam "satanic" in February. Another of the party's lawmakers, Milan Mazurek, has said on social media that the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust had been "distorted". Slovakia formed a special police unit to fight extremism in February in charge of crimes related to support and the funding of terrorism and extremism, hate crimes and hate speech, both online and offline. Leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico has been also criticized by human rights groups and socialist colleagues in the European Parliament for refusing to accept the EU quotas on accepting refugees and for saying in a May 2016 interview "there is no space for Islam in Slovakia". ($1 = 0.9179 euros) (Reporting By Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Bernard Orr)
By Ayesha Rascoe and Soyoung Kim WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday opened the door to meeting North Korea's Kim Jong Un, saying he would be honored to meet the young leader under the right circumstances, even as Pyongyang suggested it would continue its nuclear weapons tests. If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it, Trump told Bloomberg News, comments that drew criticism in Washington. "Under the right circumstances I would meet with him," Trump said. Trump did not say what conditions would need to be met for any such meeting to occur or when it could happen, but the White House later said North Korea would need to meet many conditions before a meeting could be contemplated. "Clearly conditions are not there right now," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said. "I dont see this happening anytime soon," Spicer added. Trump, who took office in January, had said during his presidential campaign he would be willing to meet with Kim. His administration has since said North Korea must agree to abandon its nuclear and missile programs and has sought to pressure Pyongyang economically and diplomatically while insisting that military options remain "on the table." On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told the United Nations Security Council that Washington would not negotiate with North Korea. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, earlier on Monday, said Trump had made clear "that the era of strategic patience is over." Later on Monday, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said in a statement: The United States remains open to credible talks on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula; however conditions must change before there is any scope for talks to resume, adding that North Korea must abandon its nuclear weapons program. Despite that, Trump's statement that he would be "honored" to meet Kim - as well as his description of the young North Korean leader over the weekend as "a pretty smart cookie" - sparked fresh concern over his approach to North Korea. "I don't see much coherence in the Trump administration's statements," said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "If there is to be any hope of getting Kim Jong Un back to the negotiating table to discuss denuclearization, the U.S. has to articulate a clear position." John Sifton, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said Trump had established a troubling pattern of paying compliments to foreign leaders with shaky human rights or autocratic reputations. "You don't have to be a psychologist to see that he admires leaders who ignore the rule of law," he said. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by fears the North might conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth. Early on Monday, North Korea said it would bolster its nuclear force "to the maximum" in a "consecutive and successive way at any moment" in the face of what it calls U.S. aggression and hysteria. North Korea, technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea and has said it will pursue its nuclear and missile programs to counter perceived U.S. aggression. Trump warned in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible, while China said last week the situation on the Korean peninsula could escalate or slip out of control. In a show of force, the United States has sent the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group to waters off the Korean peninsula to join drills with South Korea to counter a series of threats of destruction from North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). "Now that the U.S. is kicking up the overall racket for sanctions and pressure against the DPRK, pursuant to its new DPRK policy called 'maximum pressure and engagement', the DPRK will speed up at the maximum pace the measure for bolstering its nuclear deterrence," a spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by its official KCNA news agency. North Korea's "measures for bolstering the nuclear force to the maximum will be taken in a consecutive and successive way at any moment and any place decided by its supreme leadership," the spokesman said. Reclusive North Korea has carried out five nuclear tests and a series of missile tests in defiance of U.N. Security Council and unilateral resolutions. It has been conducting tests at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles. It test-launched a missile on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful but which nevertheless drew widespread international condemnation. SOUTH KOREAN MISSILE DEFENSE Separately, South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter the North Korean threat, days after Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1 billion battery. In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South's presidential office said. The THAAD system in South Korea has reached an initial operating capability to defend against North Korean missiles, U.S. officials said on Monday. It would not be fully operational for some months, however, one of them cautioned. The THAAD deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar that can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from residents of the area in which it is being deployed, worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles. Over the weekend, Trump stepped up his outreach to allies in Asia to discuss the North Korean threat. As part of that effort, he invited Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to meet in Washington, a move human rights organizations condemned but which the White House defended as necessary for countering North Korea. Washington is also seeking more help from China, the North's only major ally, to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development. Unlike the United States, Beijing has pushed for talks first and action later on North Korea. "The United States has ... negotiated, had talks, waited patiently. All the while we've seen the regime in North Korea continue its headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons, and a ballistic missile program. And the president said that's over," Pence told CBS News in an interview. (Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, David Brunnstrom, Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by Nick Macfie, Soyoung Kim and Susan Heavey; Editing by Robert Birsel, James Dalgleish and Jonathan Oatis)
Donald Trump said he would be willing to meet Kim Jong-un under the right circumstances to defuse tensions over North Korea's nuclear programme.

US President Donald Trump said he would be honoured to meet Kim Jong-un.

By Indo-Asian News Service: US President Donald Trump said on Monday he would be willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "under the right circumstances" to defuse tensions over North Korea's nuclear programme.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it," CNN quoted Trump as saying in an interview to Bloomberg News on Monday. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."

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No US President has ever before met the leader of North Korea, and the idea is extremely controversial.

Trump's comment comes amid rising tensions between the US and North Korea as Pyongyang has sought to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and Washington has made a show of force in the region to deter their use.

The US directed an aircraft carrier-led strike group to the region as well as deployed a new anti-ballistic missile system to South Korea.

The North Korean nuclear issue has quickly become one of the top national security concerns for the Trump administration. Trump has focused on finding a diplomatic solution to the North Korean issue -- working increasingly closely with China -- but has also refused to rule out a military solution to the problem.

ALSO READ | Donald Trump says China pressuring North Korea on missile, nuclear weapons

ALSO WATCH | Trump says China could have hacked Democratic emails during US presidential polls

--- ENDS ---
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's navy intercepted a boat carrying 30 Rohingya refugees who had been living in India and two suspected Indian traffickers after they tried to enter the country illegally, police said on Monday. The island nation's navy and coastguard stopped the boat and its human cargo, which included 16 children, off Sri Lanka's northern shores on Sunday, police spokesman Priyantha Jayakody said. "The 32 people were produced before the magistrate on Monday and remanded them till May 2," he told Reuters. "They have lived in India for more than five years. A local human rights official who met the Myanmar refugees said their planned final destination had been Australia, which lies more than 4,200 miles (6,760 km) from Sri Lanka. "They said they got refugee status in New Delhi after coming to India five years back, via Bangladesh. They are from six families," the official said, asking not to be named. Tens of thousands Muslim Rohingya have fled mostly Buddhist Myanmar since 2012. Refugees, residents and human rights groups say Myanmar forces have committed summary executions, raped women and burned homes. More than 1 million Rohingya live in apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine State, where many in the Buddhist majority consider them interlopers from Bangladesh. About 69,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh since October, straining relations between the two neighbors who each see the stateless Muslim minority as the other nation's problem. (Reporting by Ranga Sirilal; Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Richard Lough)
By Doina Chiacu and Jason Lange WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday stepped up outreach to allies in Asia to secure their cooperation to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. Trump spoke to the prime ministers of Thailand and Singapore in separate phone calls about the North Korean threat and invited both of them to Washington, U.S. officials said. "They discussed ways to maintain diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea," one U.S. official said of the calls, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trump's calls to the two Asian leaders came two days after North Korea test-launched another missile that Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful but which drew widespread international condemnation. Trump talked on Saturday night with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who was also invited to the White House. Duterte has been criticized by human rights groups for an anti-drug campaign in which more than 8,000 people have died. A week ago, Trump spoke with the leaders of China and Japan on the North Korea issue. "We need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure that we have our ducks in a row," White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC's "This Week" earlier on Sunday. "So if something does happen in North Korea, that we have everyone in line backing up a plan of action that may need to be put together with our partners in the area, he said. "We have got to be on the same page." Priebus said the conversations were prompted by the "potential for nuclear and massive destruction in Asia" and eventually in the United States. The U.S. president, who warned in an interview with Reuters that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible, did not elaborate on any U.S. response to the test. "You'll soon find out," he said on Saturday. Trump has stressed he would not broadcast military options to preserve an element of surprise. His secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said on Friday all options remained on the table. Pyongyang's missile test came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula, where it began exercises with the South Korean navy on Saturday about 12 hours after the failed launch, a South Korean navy official said. Priebus said Trump was in regular contact with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and that the president had become "very close" to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump, for whom China was a virtual punching bag during the 2016 presidential campaign over trade, told CBS that any trade disputes with the Asian economic giant took a back seat to securing its cooperation on North Korea. China, North Korea's only major ally and its largest trading partner, has expressed increasing concern about Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions. But it has warned against escalation. "Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade," Trump said in the "Face the Nation" interview. Similarly, concerns over human rights in the Philippines, where critics cite extrajudicial killings in Duterte's war on drugs, take a back seat to possible confrontation in Asia. "There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," Priebus said in the ABC interview. Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former general, heads a military-dominated government that took power in a 2014 coup. His government had strained relations with Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama. H.R. McMaster, Trump's national security adviser, was asked if Washington must respond to the latest test, especially after Vice President Mike Pence told allies during a trip to Asia this month that the "era of strategic patience is over." "Well, yes, we do have to do something," McMaster said on "Fox News Sunday." He said that may mean ratcheting up U.N. sanctions and also being prepared for military operations. AMERICA-FIRST TRUMP GOES MULTILATERAL It was unclear whether the consultations meant Washington was preparing imminent action against Pyongyang. The United States may just be lining up the largest coalition possible in the region to present a united front against North Korea, said professor Jens David Ohlin, an international law expert at Cornell Law School. "It's the only option on the ground - to do this multilaterally rather than try to solve it on our own," he said. Adam M. Smith, a Treasury Department sanctions expert in former President Barack Obama's administration, said the lesson from trying to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions was that the more multilateral the pressure, the more effective it was. He said it was notable that Trump was talking to the money centers in Asia - Singapore and Japan - and reaching out to some countries in the region, including the Philippines, that have been unwilling to go beyond what was required by U.N. sanctions. "It makes a lot of sense, I think, to try to expand the net, and not just rely on Beijing," Smith said. "I think this is sort of a good start on multilateralization." Senator John McCain, a leading Republican on foreign policy, said he did not believe Trump was considering a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. That would put U.S. ally South Korea in immediate danger, he said on CNN's "State of the Union." "But to say you absolutely rule out that option, of course, would be foolish. But it has to be the ultimate last option," McCain said. (Reporting by Jason Lange and Doina Chiacu; Additional reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir, Matt Spetalnick and Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)
Online Learning

Purdue's Kaplan Purchase: Shoring Up the '21st-Century Land-Grant Mission'

Indiana's Purdue University has continually broken with tradition. The land-grant university, which began as an "industrial college" with an emphasis on science, technology and agriculture, was the first public institution in the country to open its own airport. During the 1960s the university teamed up with Indiana U to merge the two schools' extension programs, forming the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus. Last year its innovative competency-based polytechnic institute received accreditation.

Is it any wonder then that the university is trying its next grand experiment  to take over a for-profit college as an effort to extend its reach among non-traditional students, jumpstart its online profile and transform its role in higher education?

Purdue on Thursday announced an agreement to accept the transfer of 32,000 students, 3,000 employees and additional assets of Kaplan University. Kaplan is a for-profit operation owned by Kaplan Higher Education LLC and Iowa College Acquisition LLC, both subsidiaries of Graham Holdings Company, formerly known as the Washington Post Company.

"To be a 21st-century land-grant school, to meet the obligation, really, the great opportunity, the noble opportunity that we have always embraced here at Purdue, we must be active in online education in a way we are not now," said Purdue President Mitch Daniels in a prepared statement. Currently, Purdue encompasses a main campus in West Lafayette and two regional campuses, Purdue Fort Wayne and Purdue Northwest.

The deal has drawn support from one unique quarter: Arne Duncan, who, as secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, drew the wrath of for-profit schools for his continual efforts to reign them in. "I'm excited by this opportunity for a world-class university to expand its reach and help educate adult learners by acquiring a strong for-profit college," said Duncan in a prepared statement. "This is a first, and if successful, could help create a new model for what it means to be a land-grant institution."

Purdue Playing Catch-up

According to university leaders, the latest deal began five months ago as a stealth operation under the code moniker the "Morrill project," named after the U.S. federal statutes promoted by President Lincoln to create land-grant agricultural colleges throughout the country.

But the groundwork was laid earlier in 2015, when Indiana's Commission for Higher Education adopted a goal of having 60 percent of working-age adults obtain a postsecondary degree or credential by 2020. The "Return and Complete Initiative" called upon public institutions to "increase completion rates dramatically." It also promoted the idea of getting "200,000 of the 737,000 Hoosiers with some college but no degree to come back and finish their degree." Alongside that goal, the state launched a website to help prospective students find a good match for their degree completion efforts and pushed its institutions to ramp up their online and night-and-weekend course offerings.

Purdue had some definite catching up to do, lagging behind other universities among the "Big Ten," coming in 10th for the number of online programs it offered. According to a slideshow for the Kaplan announcement, Purdue's leaders had concluded, "We don't know the full dimension, but online will be a larger phenomenon in the future, and we are not equipped for that future." After multiple feasibility studies, the university realized it wasn't equipped to "build" online capacity itself; therefore, to be a "21st-century land grant," Purdue decided to "acquire the capabilities for online excellence."
MONDAY, May 1, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Sales of handguns in California soared after two of the highest-profile mass shootings in the United States, a new study reveals.

"For some, a gruesome mass shooting may induce repulsion at the idea of owning a weapon," wrote study author David Studdert and colleagues at Stanford University. "For others, it may motivate acquisition."

In the six weeks after 20 children and six adults were killed in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., school massacre, handgun sales in California rose 53 percent over expected levels.

And handgun sales spiked even more sharply three years later after 14 people were fatally shot in California's San Bernardino County, the study authors said.

In the six weeks after the San Bernardino holiday-party slaughter, handgun sales were 85 percent higher than expected among residents of the city and surrounding areas. They were 35 percent higher elsewhere in California, the findings showed.

"Mass shootings are likely to boost sales if they heighten concerns over personal security, because self-protection is the most commonly cited reason for owning a firearm," Studdert's team said. He is a professor of medicine and of law at Stanford.

The findings have implications for public health because gun ownership is a risk factor for gun-related homicide and suicide, the study authors said.

Overall, the jumps in handgun sales after the two mass shootings were short-lived and accounted for less than 10 percent of annual handgun sales in California, the researchers noted.

"Concerns about firearm violence and the public health risks of firearm ownership should stay focused on the much larger volume of weapons that routinely changes hands, and the immense stock that already sits in households," the investigators wrote.

"On the other hand, the cumulative effect of such 'shocks' as the Newtown and San Bernardino shootings on firearm prevalence may be substantial," the study authors added. "Moreover, firearm acquisitions seem to be sensitive to a range of other events that are also common, such as federal elections, new firearm safety laws and terrorist attacks."

Each year, more than 32,000 people die of gunshot wounds in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study was published May 1 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

More information

The American Psychological Association has a report on gun violence prevention.
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Every two weeks Mohamed al-Fakharany prepares to visit his brother, Abdullah al-Fakharany, in prison. He packs food, clothes, books, and, most importantly, written responses to his older brothers letters. Mohamed al-Fakharany, who told CPJ that he has never missed a visit, was only 11 when his brother the executive director of opposition news outlet Rassdwas arrested in 2013 and later sentenced to 25 years in prison on anti-state charges.

Mohamed al-Fakharany said that in their letters, the brothers discuss whatever they didnt have time to talk about during the short visits at Cairos Tora prison. He said that his older brother gives him general advice and recommendations for his reading list, and Mohamed al-Fakharany gives updates about his German lessons.

The letters help, but nothing is ever enough. I still miss him, Mohamed al-Fakharany, 15, said.

Mohamed al-Fakharany said he has hope that the family may be reunited this month. On May 8, a verdict is expected in the retrial of Abdullah al-Fakharany and five other journalists: Samhi Mustafa, co-founder of Rassd; Mohamed al-Adly of Amgad TV; Hany Salah el-Deen, news manager of Misr 25, a channel supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Mosad Al-Barbary, the channels administrative manager; and Hassan el-Kabbani, who freelanced for several outlets including Rassd. The journalists were all convicted in 2015 of spreading chaos and forming an operations room to direct the Muslim Brotherhood to defy the government in what is known in Egypt as the Rabaa Operations Room case. The name refers to the sit-in at Rabaa Al-Adawiya in Cairo, when Egyptians gathered to protest the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. The dispersal on August 14, 2013, left hundreds dead, according to news reports.

Al-Fakharany and the others are among the 25 journalists jailed for their work in Egypt at the time of CPJs last prison census. The trials of three other journalists included on the census are also scheduled to take place in May.

They include:

Abdullah Shousha

Shousha, a correspondent of Amgad TV and contributor to Rassd, is due in court May 2, along with 88 other defendants, according to his sister, Rahma Shousha, and local rights group Journalists Against Torture. Shousha was arrested September 22, 2013 while covering a protest in Ismailiya, according to CPJ research. The journalist and his co-accused are charged with belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood, belonging to an armed group, and setting fire to vehicles belonging to members of the judiciary and the police. Shousha, who is pursuing a bachelors degree in sociology from prison with the Suez Canal University, has an examination scheduled on the same day as the court hearing, his sister told CPJ.

Mahmoud Abou Zeid

Freelance photojournalist and IPFA awardee Mahmoud Abou Zeid, known as Shawkan, is scheduled to appear before a Cairo criminal court on May 9, his brother Mohamed Abou Zeid told CPJ. Shawkan was arrested August 14, 2013 while covering the dispersal of the sit in at Rabaa al-Adawiya in Cairo for the UK-based website, Demotix. He and his 738 co-accused are facing charges of possessing weapons, illegal assembly, attempted murder, and murder, according to CPJs research. Shawkan has been held in pre-trial detention for more than three and a half years, and his court hearings are often delayed or canceled.

Mahmoud Abdel Nabi

The trial in Alexandria of Rassd journalist Abdel Nabi the longest-held journalist in Egypt on CPJs latest censuswill continue May 21, Abdelrahman Yaqot, a journalist who was present at his last court hearing, told CPJ. Abdel Nabi was arrested July 3, 2013 while covering clashes between pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters and security forces in Alexandria, hours after the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, according to CPJs research. Abdel Nabi, whose trial only started in 2016, is charged with of rioting and possessing weapons.

Since the ouster of Morsi and the rise of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power, Egypt has moved from a country with no journalists behind bars in CPJs 2012 prison census, to being one of the leading jailers in the world, according to CPJs research. Sisis crackdown on the press includes authorities using anti-state charges and accusations of being connected to the banned Muslim Brotherhood to jail journalists, and implementing restrictive press laws and regulations.
When a three-drug lethal-injection cocktail was administered to Ledell Lee at 11:44 p.m. Central time last Thursday  the first drug to render him unconscious, the second to halt his breathing, and the third to stop his heart  Alan Blinder and Manny Fernandez, two New York Times journalists, were huddled in the Cummins Unit prisons large visitation room. It had been converted into a makeshift media center, close to but cut off from the execution chamber.





Arkansass supply of midazolam, the first drug in the cocktail, is set to expire at the end of April, and, in a race against the clock, the state drew up an unprecedented plan to carry out eight executions in 10 days. The Times has been reporting from Arkansas since April 17. Since then, four executions have been blocked and three have been carried out  including two this past Monday, the first time in nearly 17 years that a state has executed two inmates on the same day. Another man, Kenneth Williams, is scheduled to die on Thursday. [This piece was originally published on April 27, 2017.]





When the Times reporters, Mr. Blinder and Mr. Fernandez, arrived at the prison on April 20, they were allowed to bring only one laptop and a single Wi-Fi hot spot  and no cellphone  between the two of them. Shortly after 11:30 p.m. local time, an announcement came from a prison spokesman that the state was commencing with Mr. Lees execution. The media room grew quiet.





Wed gotten word by then that the courts had lifted all the stays, that there was nothing blocking the execution, Mr. Blinder said. And then we waited.





Although certain aspects of the execution process in Arkansas hint at an outward sense of transparency  the state allowed three journalists to witness the execution in a room adjacent to the execution chamber, for instance  much of the process is shielded from view.





Arkansas is very secretive about its execution procedures, said Mr. Blinder, who has reported on criminal justice issues from more than a dozen states. In terms of what can be made public  the logistics, the people involved, their background, their training  theres a lot we dont know about their approach to this.





The state of Arkansas, he added, also refuses to disclose the manufacturers and the sellers of its execution drugs. (The pharmaceutical industry disclosed some information during litigation.)





Other states, including Georgia and Texas, where Mr. Blinder and Mr. Fernandez have covered executions, respectively, similarly veil information about capital punishment. In Georgia, for example, a law classifies identifying information about the execution team as a confidential state secret.





Its a real challenge when youre trying to cover the execution and you dont have a road map for how exactly the execution might proceed, he added.





Of course, the states attempts to shield certain information regarding executions were not the only complicating factors. Reporting on executions is inherently challenging, given the intensely emotional atmosphere and the extreme public scrutiny. Those involved  from state officials to the family members of both the victim and the inmate  are often hesitant to speak with the press. And emotions, understandably, run high.





A lot of complex issues emerge over the course of these stories, Mr. Blinder said, and many of them get at some of the most fundamental questions that we face as a society  like whether the state should be putting people to death, and, if so, how.





But there are other questions, too, Mr. Blinder said  lingering questions about an inmates guilt, or about the fairness and thoroughness of the legal system.





All these substantive debates are swirling around when it comes to executions, he said. And suddenly they all come home to roost.





Through it all, Mr. Blinder adheres to one rule: Do not blindly accept the states account of the execution. Thats one of the most important parts of reporting on these stories, he said. We wait to hear from the media witnesses who observed the execution  to tell us if they saw anything abnormal, or improper, or to relay if anything had gone wrong with the execution.





In the case of Mr. Lees execution, the three reporters returned to the media room from the witnessing room shortly after Mr. Lee was pronounced dead and reported no obvious complications. Mr. Lees eyes began to droop about a minute after the injection began, according to one of the reporters who was present, and the inmate showed no signs of suffering.





Mr. Blinder and Mr. Fernandezs experience of the event, though, was much more removed. Just before midnight, a phone in the visitation room began to ring, and a spokesman for the prison system  seated next to it, also waiting  lifted it from the receiver. He nodded, and made a few notes, then hung up the phone and made his way to a lectern in front of the few dozen journalists from various media outlets who were gathered there.





The execution had been carried out, the spokesman said; Mr. Lee was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m.





Not much later, after hearing from the witnesses, Mr. Blinder and Mr. Fernandez filed their story, packed up their laptop and left.

An Arkansas Community Looks for an Execution to End Its Ache





STAR CITY, Ark.  James Hawkins, the affable local coroner, has long performed a grim duty on execution nights: He pronounces the deaths of the condemned prisoners. He has done it more than two dozen times.





Mr. Hawkins declared another man dead on Thursday night, when Arkansas executed its fourth prisoner in seven days. Seventeen years after pronouncing the death of a murder victim and family friend, Cecil Boren, Mr. Hawkins did the same for Mr. Borens killer, Kenneth D. Williams





Its a satisfying moment, Mr. Hawkins said in an interview at a funeral home in this largely rural patch of southeast Arkansas, where prisons and produce are about all that power the local economy. What Ive heard nonstop in this community  this entire community  is: This is the one were waiting on.





Mr. Williams was executed at 11:05 p.m. after the United States Supreme Court rejected an appeal from his lawyers, who sought to block the execution on the grounds that their client was intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty. Prison officials said that he requested holy communion as his last meal.

The death chamber in nearby Varner is Arkansass ultimate clearinghouse for capital cases, the site of all of the states executions in the modern era of the American death penalty. The area is one of the countrys sparsely populated death chamber locales, places of peculiar notoriety whose very names can be statewide shorthand for capital punishment and hard prison time: Angola, La.; Parchman, Miss.; Raiford, Fla.

But it is exceptionally rare for any such place to hold an execution for a crime committed in the area. And no case connected to Arkansass recent spate of executions, when the state intended to put eight inmates to death over less than two weeks, was more locally resonant than the one that involved Mr. Boren, a former Internal Revenue Service worker who had been an assistant warden at the Cummins Unit, the prison where Mr. Williams awaited his execution. Mr. Borens nickname was Pee-Wee, and Mr. Williams murdered him after escaping from the prison.

I personally know part of the Boren family, and, of course, naturally we empathize with them, said Charles R. Knight, the mayor of nearby Grady, where the city limits end just a few miles from prison watchtowers. But we empathize for all of the families involved, and being Christian, we also empathize with the inmates as well. From my standpoint, I look at it as, this is the law, this is what the law has allotted and this is what we do.

The state built its death chamber in 1978, and Mr. Williams was born the next year. In 1998, he emptied a revolver after a robbery in neighboring Jefferson County, killing a 19-year-old woman, Dominique Nicole Hurd. When Mr. Williams was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison, he mocked Ms. Hurds relatives, turning to them and saying, You thought I was going to die, didnt you?

He was sent to Cummins and, weeks after his arrival, escaped by hiding inside a 500-gallon tank that was brimming with hog slop. Mr. Boren was in his yard, working while his wife was at church, when Mr. Williams arrived. The fugitive entered the house, stole one of Mr. Borens guns, shot him seven times, seized his victims wallet and drove off in his truck.

In Missouri the next day, Mr. Williams led the police on a high-speed pursuit that ended when he struck a water truck, killing its driver. Sentenced to death for Mr. Borens murder, Mr. Williams later wrote a letter to The Pine Bluff Commercial, an Arkansas newspaper, and confessed to another killing that had been unsolved.

I dont want to make any excuses or shift the blame, Mr. Williams said in the 2005 letter. I just want to be honest and accept responsibility for my actions.

The confession, as well as Mr. Williamss professed religious transformation, had no discernible effect on the Arkansas Parole Board, which ruled this month that his application for clemency was without merit.

The daughter of Michael Greenwood, the man killed during the pursuit in Missouri, urged Gov. Asa Hutchinson to stop the execution. We are in no way asking you to ignore the pain felt by the victims of Mr. Williamss other crimes, Kayla Greenwood wrote in a letter this week. We know what they are going through, but ours is a pain that we have decided not to try and cure by seeking an execution.

Mr. Hutchinson, who set the states execution schedule, did not offer a reprieve.

At Carlas Cafe, a lunch spot in Star City, the county seat, that was just fine. On Wednesday afternoon, when grilled pork chop was a lunch special, residents expressed little concern for Mr. Williams, whose lawyers argue he is intellectually disabled.

When they apprehended him in Missouri, they should have shot him down and killed that sucker, Wayne Harmon, 66, said.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson

But the police did not, so people like Mr. Harmon were left to worry that some court somewhere would step in to save Mr. Williamss life days before the expiration of one of Arkansass lethal injection drugs.





Weve got some of the sorriest judges, leaders and men, Ed Hardin, 73, said. I got tickled the other night when the governor said this was the hardest thing he had to do. Hell, if you cant be no better governor than that, you dont need to be governor.





In hotels and in restaurants, in the governors mansion and on Main Streets, the executions in Arkansas have occupied a large segment of conversation. Residents have debated execution methods  electrocution is still enshrined in Arkansas law as a future possibility  and analyzed last meals. Some here have committed details of the crimes to memory and recalled executions even before Mr. Hawkinss tenure as coroner, which began in 1991. Facebook feeds have been filled with posts about  and pleas for  the states original plan to put eight men to death this month. (Four of the executions have been postponed indefinitely.)





Polling suggests that more than 70 percent of the states residents support the death penalty, but, because of drug supply issues, it is not clear when Arkansas will be able to put anyone to death again.





In this area, people welcomed the fact that Mr. Williams died just before the expected onset of an informal moratorium.

Emotions here are rarely so vivid for executions at Cummins, but, Mr. Hawkins noted, When it hits your home, its a little different.





Mr. Borens widow declined to be interviewed. Her family opposed clemency for Mr. Williams.





Vickie Williams, Ms. Hurds mother and no relation to Mr. Williams, said her daughter had ambitions of being a neonatologist as a biology and premedical student at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, where she was known as Nicky. Ms. Williams said she did not plan to attend the execution, but she supported it.





He did not receive the death penalty for killing Nicky, she wrote in an email. If proper justice was served, others may not have lost their lives. The justice system is very confusing. Everyone has rights except for the families of victims.





Rodney Kennedy, a local resident, said Mr. Williams cut across his parents 1,500-acre property after he fled from Cummins.





I think theyre doing the right thing executing him, Mr. Kennedy said. He could always escape again and kill again.





After the execution, Mr. Borens daughter, Jodie Efird, said her mothers peace will come later.





Her peace will come every time were driving down this road, she said. Hes not here anymore.





Source: The New York Times , Alan Blinder, Manny Fernandez, April 27, 2017. Alan Blinder reported from Star City, and Manny Fernandez from Houston.

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Source: The New York Times , Stephen Hiltner, April 27, 2017
At least 130 executions were carried out in 11 Asian countries in 2016. The vast majority of them were executed in Pakistan. However there is no data available about executions in China, still believed to be by far the world's top executioner.





Overall the number of executions has decreased in the Asia pacific region due to a significant reduction in Pakistan.





The total number of executions in the region fell from 367 in 2015 to 239 in 2016.





Although the number of executions in Pakistan has decreased from 326 in 2015 to 87 in 2016, it still tops the list of the countries with highest number of executions in the Asian region.





The range of those executed varied from prisoners tried by military courts to those suspected of undertaking terrorist activities.





Bangladesh executed 10 people in 2016. 8 out of the 10 were convicted of murder while 2 were tried by International Crimes Tribunal (Bangladesh) for the war crimes committed in 1971.





With secrecy around death penalties slightly lifted, Malaysia has seen an increase in the executions with 9 in 2016, compared to 6 in 2014 and 1 in 2015.





In Afghanistan where almost 600 people were under sentence of death by the end of the year, in 2016, 8 people were executed related to terrorist activities.





Indonesia executed 4 people in the year 2016, 3 of them foreigners and 1 Indonesian. All 4 men were convicted of drug related offenses.





2 men who were executed had their clemency applications pending for a review when the executions were undertaken.





Singapore carried 4 executions in 2016 for murder and drug trafficking. 2 of the 4 executed were Malaysian nationals and 1 was Nigerian. The country has also issued new restrictive guidelines for reviewing the death sentences of those convicted.





Japan executed 3 people in 2016, 2 men and 1 woman. The country's Federation of Bar Association has called on the authorities to abolish the death penalty by the year 2020.





Taiwan executed 1 person within 3 weeks after his sentence was finalised.





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Source: The Daily Star, April 30, 2017
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has been in office less than three weeks and she will soon face a life and death decision.





As governor, Ivey has the power to commute the death sentence of an inmate to life or grant a reprieve to delay an execution.





The next one is the execution of Tommy Arthur, which is set for May 25. 14 days later the state also plans to execute Robert Melson, the man convicted in the 1994 slayings of three Popeye's restaurant employees in Gadsden.





What will Ivey do?





"The Governor is aware of the scheduled execution," Ivey's press secretary, Eileen Jones, stated in an email to AL.com regarding Arthur's execution. "She realized the serious responsibility she has as Governor regarding an execution. She plans to meet with the appropriate authorities to thoroughly review before making a final decision," she stated.





Only once since executions were reinstated in Alabama in the early 1980s, after a nationwide pause over the constitutionality of the death penalty, has an Alabama governor commuted the sentence of a death row inmate. Former Gov. Fob James did it with Judith Ann Neelley.





Governors almost never stop executions





"Have they weighed on me? "Yes they have. Very much so. And they should. We are talking about a human life in each case." Gov. Robert Bentley on the decision to commute or allow a state execution to take place





Former Gov. Bob Riley in 2007 stayed 1 of Arthur's executions for 45 days so the state could put in place a new lethal injection protocol. Arthur also had stays of executions 6 other times by courts. Next month's execution is the 8th one set.





On Wednesday Ivey, after consulting with her legal counsel, denied a request by Arthur's attorney to have DNA testing performed on a wig that prosecutors say was worn by the person who killed Troy Wicker, the man Arthur was convicted of shooting to death in a 1982 murder for hire plot.





A forensic expert had testified at a hearing in 2009 that he couldn't find any genetic material to test for DNA comparison. Arthur has been convicted by 3 different juries.





Denial of the DNA testing wasn't the 1st time Ivey has faced a decision about Alabama's death penalty in the short time she has had in office.





In one of her 1st acts Ivey also signed a bill into law that does away with judicial override - the process that had allowed judges to ignore jury recommendations for life without parole sentences and instead impose death.





Alabama had been the only state that still allowed judicial override after Florida and Delaware did away with it last year.

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Source: al.com, April 30, 2017
Among the most vexing of our national health care policy challenges is the question of who should pay (and how) for the medical care of those with pre-existing health conditions. Advocates propose a broad array of answers to this question, explanations of which rapidly grow complicated. The purpose of this column is to simplify as much as to explain  to provide a cursory thumbnail guide to the basic value judgments underlying these complex proposals.

Disagreement over how to handle pre-existing conditions is a big part of how we came to our current impasse over national health care policy. The promise that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would guarantee coverage for those with pre-existing conditions was one of the most popular provisions of an otherwise unpopular law, and a central motivation for its passage. Donald Trump, while a candidate for president, expressed support for maintaining a pre-existing condition coverage guarantee even as he opposed the ACA as a whole. More recently, congressional Republicans have been working to bridge internal differences over how to handle pre-existing conditions in a repeal-and-replace bill, resulting in the draft MacArthur amendment to the AHCA.

We have a tendency to use pre-existing conditions as a euphemism for expensive health care needs but the two arent quite the same. If you and I are both healthy today, and both participating in the same insurance plan, the pricing of our insurance should already factor in the probability that one of us will someday face a health problem requiring expensive treatment  and the plan should be able to handle it when we do. But a sick person without insurance (or looking to change plans) is in a different situation; their need for health treatment is a certain problem rather than a merely possible one, and hence the average expected cost is much higher. Technically, what they need is not insurance against a possible, unknown problem, but rather help paying for a certain, known problem.

Theres no way around a simple truth: treating an expensive health condition costs (someone) lots of money. There are four basic approaches that can be taken to this problem.

1) Leave sick people to face the costs of their own treatment, whether out of pocket or through high-cost insurance, no matter how ruinous those costs become.

2) Mandate that other, healthier people overpay for the value of their own health insurance, so that sick people can underpay for the value of theirs.

3) Spread the costs of paying expensive health bills throughout society, for example by having taxpayers pick up the tab.

4) Require a targeted group to shoulder the costs.

Lets summarize these approaches in turn:

#1: Leave sick people to face the costs of their own treatment, no matter how high they get. Theoretically (albeit callously) we could leave people with expensive health conditions to their fates, forcing many to first bankrupt themselves and later be denied essential care. The cost of insuring against such expenses would be enormously high, so the sick would face a choice between paying their bills out of pocket without insurance or carrying far more expensive insurance than everyone else. American society appears to wholeheartedly reject this approach, which suggests we must find an alternative.

#2: Force other, healthier people to carry insurance and overpay for its value, so that sick people can underpay for the value of theirs. This is, in effect, the approach taken under the ACA. The ACA sought to mandate that everyone carry insurance and to impose modified community rating  i.e., an individuals health history could not be the basis for charging them a different premium amount.

This approach requires that healthy people pay far more than the value of the health services they expect, while sick people pay far less than the value of the services they expect. The key word here is expect. Under all insurance, people who make more claims receive more value for their premiums than those who make fewer. But more typically, the individual only chooses to carry the insurance in the first place if he believes that the likelihood of his making a claim is such that it justifies paying the assessed premium amount. Community rating and mandatory coverage by contrast create a very different dynamic  forcing many people to pay premiums well in excess of the expected value of their claims, so that others can pay premiums that are far less than the expected value of theirs.

The value judgment made in the ACA is a defensible one. Simplified, it is like saying, We want to ensure that those in our society facing ruinous health care costs are shielded from those costs. We are choosing to have this done through our health insurance system. Paying for their treatments will cost money. So, all the rest of you will pay extra for your own health insurance, to cover not only your own average expected health care costs but theirs as well. We believe this is the right thing for a compassionate society to do.

Had this fundamental value judgment of the ACA been forthrightly explained to voters, it might have sustained more popular support. Instead, however, Americans were repeatedly told that the ACA would simultaneously provide for the sick while lowering everyone elses insurance costs, reducing the federal deficit, and extending Medicare solvency at the same time. When people realized they were being forced to bear additional costs through their own insurance  and when some of these people were hit much harder than others due to patterns in their particular markets -- they felt misled and grew angry in a way they perhaps might not have if they had agreed to this trade-off from the beginning.

#3: Spread the costs throughout society, for example by having taxpayers pick up the tab. An alternative approach is to straightforwardly say: We want to help sick people meet their health expenses. Theres no particular policy rationale for hiding these expected costs in insurance premiums, since this isnt really an insurance problem so much as one of straightforward financial support. Therefore, well just have taxpayers pay for it directly.

There are a lot of ways this could be done. One option is through high risk pools  coverage programs funded by states specifically to finance such costs, and a model Republicans are considering as a successor to the ACA. And while the ACA generally reflected option #2 above, it also featured taxpayer-provided subsidies per option #3, in the form of tax credits for low-income individuals to offset their insurance premiums. Other examples of approach #3 include the support taxpayers provide for both the ACA and non-ACA portions of Medicaid, and for much of Medicare as well (though none of those programs are targeted specifically on people with pre-existing conditions).

Some advocates are concerned about taking approach #3 because they believe government funding will be inadequate to cover the costs of treating pre-existing conditions. Another potential objection is the argument that all participants in the health care system should share in these costs, not just those who pay income taxes.

#4: Require a targeted group to shoulder the costs. This is just another way of saying find someone else to pay, other than the sick individual, the taxpayer, or other mandated participants in the insurance pool. Possibilities are theoretically endless, though few of them would have a compelling policy rationale.

One of the few potentially interesting versions of this approach would be to require insurance companies to shoulder the costs, by grandfathering in guaranteed issue and modified community rating for those with pre-existing conditions who gained coverage under the ACA, while relieving other participants of the coverage mandate and associated penalties. For those with pre-existing conditions, this approach would implement President Obamas promise that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.

This would destabilize these plans and force insurance companies (and, by extension, investors in them) to accept substantial losses. To the extent that insurers withstand these losses and continue to operate, voters might regard this outcome as preferable to, or a useful amelioration of, shifting these costs to taxpayers and healthy participants. The ACA permitted insurers to pursue the upside of a potentially lucrative bet  participating in the ACAs insurance marketplaces so long as the new coverage mandate led to additional profits, but pulling out if the marketplace plans proved unprofitable. Option #4 would effectively force insurers (and their investors) to accept the realization of downside risk from having made that bet.

Regardless of who shoulders the costs of caring for the uninsured, someone will bear those costs unless that care is denied. The complexities of the various policy options facing lawmakers should not obscure a more fundamental societal value judgment that must be made: specifically, who should bear those costs.

Charles Blahous, a contributor to E21, holds the J. Fish and Lillian F. Smith Chair at the Mercatus Center and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He recently served as a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare.

Interested in real economic insights? Want to stay ahead of the competition? Each weekday morning, E21 delivers a short email that includes E21 exclusive commentaries and the latest market news and updates from Washington. Sign up for the E21 Morning Ebrief.
By Shweta Keshri: When President Pranab Mukherjee announced that women will be inducted in combat roles in future, the idea was opposed by the armed forces on account of operational, practical and socio-cultural risks. Alt Balaji's Test Case explores similar subject, where Captain Shikha Sharma (played by Nimrat Kaur) is sent for Special Forces training in Kolipad along with other male counterparts.

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Shikha is a daughter of a retired army personnel, who didn't want her to join army but she took it as a challenge. She has always converted 'you can't do this' to 'I certainly can do this'.

Also read: Thank you, Ekta Kapoor for finally normalising gay romance in Romil and Jugal

While on her way to the training centre, Shikha narrates how the tribals of Africa have to put their hands into gloves filled with 'bullet ants' to check their pain tolerance, which decides if they are man enough. Shikha knows that this wouldn't be easy but is determined to prove everyone wrong and with full determination she says, "bring on the bullet ants." The special forces training's motto is 'We make men out of boy'. A place where even the motto doesn't have a place for woman, it wouldn't be an easy task for Shikha to prove to be a successful test case.

Nimrat Kaur as Captain Shikha Sharma in Test Case.

When you have a seasoned director like Nagesh Kukunoor, who has given films like Hyderabad Blues, Iqbal and Dhanak, you inevitably have high expectations and Nagesh totally nailed it with this series. Not a single moment in the 41-minute episode, would you want to wink and miss.

The concept is unique, unexplored and intriguing. The series has stellar cast with names like Nimrat Kaur, Rahul Dev, Atul Kulkarni and Juhi Chawla. Nimrat is perfect as Shikha and no one else could have portrayed it better than her. She totally owns it.

It's interesting how men feel rattled when a woman tries to make a space for herself, in what they think is 'their world'. Warfront is such a zone, which men think belongs to them. We couldn't agree more when defence minister Shraddha Pandit (played by Juhi Chawla) points out that like any established organization, even army is wary of change. She very cleverly gets the bunch of army personnel agree to recruit Shikha as a test case into special forces training with a hint of warning -- that if Shikha passes the training then they will have to be ready to open their gates to more women.

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Army official in high ranks are strongly opposed to the idea and think that army is being butchered in the name of gender politics by introducing a woman in combat role. Be it the trainer or the fellow trainees, none of them like the idea of a woman joining the special forces. One of the trainees Rohan Rathore goes to the extent of calling Shikha a 'military barbie' while another comments 'what's sexier than a woman in uniform' while seeing her do push-ups.

It's going to be tough for her and interesting for us to witness her journey from being a test case to being a successful test case in world filled with misogynist and chauvinists.

--- ENDS ---
Canadian Site Wins 2017 Industrial Water Project of the Year Award

The annual Global Water Awards honored companies and projects from around the world, including in Kuwait, Spain, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Antarctica, Kenya, Fiji, Australia, Oman, and the United States. The Water Deal of the Year Award went to Vista Ridge Pipeline Financing for a pipeline project serving San Antonio, Texas.

A Canadian site, Federated Co-Operatives Limited's Co-op Refinery Complex in Regina, Saskatchewan, received 2017 Industrial Water Project of the Year honors on April 24 at the annual Global Water Awards during the presentation ceremony in Madrid, Spain. The award recognizes the project commissioned in 2016 that is judged to be the most impressive technical or environmental achievement in the field of industrial water.

The awards honored companies and projects from around the world, including in Kuwait, Spain, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Antarctica, Kenya, Fiji, Australia, Oman, and the United States. The Water Deal of the Year Award went to Vista Ridge Pipeline Financing for a pipeline project serving San Antonio, Texas. The water supply project is being carried out by the Vista Ridge consortium, which is led by Garney Construction, with $853 million in debt funding provided by nine international banks led by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

The gala event saw Water Company of the Year, Desalination Company of the Year, Smart Water Company of the Year, Breakthrough Water Technology Company of the Year, Water/Wastewater Project of the Year, Industrial Water Project of the Year, Municipal Desalination Plant of the Year, Industrial Desalination Plant of the Year, Water Deal of the Year, and Water Leaders Award winners and projects of distinction recognized.

Winning Water Company of the Year honors, for the water company that made the most significant contribution to the development of the international water sector in 2016, was ACCIONA Agua, the water services arm of Spanish construction company Acciona, which commissioned desalination plants in the Middle East, secured finance in the Canadian drinking water sector, boosted its presence in Latin America, and also was active in North Africa and Europe.

The 2017 Desalination Company of the Year, for the desalination company that made the greatest overall contribution to the desalination industry in 2016, is the Korean contractor Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction.

The Smart Water Company of the Year, for the company making the most significant contribution to the field of water technology in 2016, is SUEZ, described by the awards' organizers as "blazing the trail in bringing the digital water revolution to utilities across the world. Nowhere was this more prevalent in 2016 than in North America, where by the end of the year it had installed over 100,000 smart water meters, leak detectors and turbidity sensors as part of its mission to build the largest smart water network in the United States." The company honored with distinction in this category is Xylem, a water equipment and analytics company, for being involved in "one of the most exciting deals of 2016 in the water sector, when it acquired smart utility infrastructure specialist Sensus for $1.7 billion. The follow-up purchase of water analytics start-up Visenti helped propel Xylem to the forefront of the smart water space," according to the awards' website.

Named the 2017 Industrial Water Project of the Year, for the most impressive technical or environmental achievement in the field of industrial water, is the Co-op Refinery Complex, a 2MGD wastewater reuse plant run by Federated Co-operatives Limited. It involves low- and high-pressure membranes from GE to recycle wastewater for steam production, and GE also supplies the site with specialty chemicals and monitoring solutions. The complex became the first refinery in North America to treat 100 percent of its wastewater on site and then recycle the treated effluent for steam production, according to GE.

"We are honored that our Co-op Refinery Complex was named Industrial Water Project of the Year. Water is a precious resource, and our wastewater improvement project allows us to be efficient and sustainable by recovering every drop of water2 million gallons of wastewater daily. With GE's technology, we now recycle all of our wastewater in a socially responsible and environmentally sound way to conserve water for Regina and the entire province of Saskatchewan," said Gil Le Dressay, vice president, refinery operations for Federated Co-Operatives Limited.

Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO of GE Water & Process Technologies, accepted the award in Madrid during Global Water Intelligence's Global Water Summit 2017. "We are very proud that this project, which uses our advanced wastewater treatment technologies, has won this prestigious award," said Markhoff. "Federated Co-Operatives Limiteds outstanding commitment to environmental sustainability should be an enduring example for the entire oil refining industry."

According to GE, the refinery expanded its operations several years ago to produce 30,000 more barrels of oil per day, taking it from 100,000 BPD to a 130,000-BPD facility, which increased its water usage. The refinery's current water source is a blend of well water and city water, and restrictions on water use required that the complex find a new source of water. Water & Process Technologies' solution combined ZeeWeed membrane bioreactor technology and a high-efficiency reverse osmosis system to recycle and reuse 2 million gallons of wastewater per day.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Apr 28, 2017) - Calibre Mining Corp. (TSX VENTURE:CXB) (the "Company" or "Calibre") announces results on the Company's 100% owned Monte Carmelo Gold Project (the "Project") located within the 876 km2 Borosi Concessions, Northeast Nicaragua.

Highlights

The maiden drilling program on the 100% owned Monte Carmelo Gold Skarn Project consisted of 8 holes for 2100 metres and is now completed.

All holes intersected skarn mineralization with variable anomalous in gold, silver, copper, and iron.

Results include; 29.5 m grading 0.58 g/t Au, 4.9 g/t Ag and 0.22 % Cu from surface including 10.5 metres grading 1.43 g/t Au and 7.5 g/t Ag and 0.32 % Cu (0 - 10.5m).

Additionally, the maiden drilling program on the 100% owned Santa Maria low sulphidation epithermal gold-silver project will commence in the near term.

President and CEO Greg Smith stated: "Calibre continues to aggressively advance the Company's 100% owned gold projects in the Borosi District. The Phase 1 drilling at Monte Carmelo tested one of several targets within the Project which hosts additional potential for high grade gold skarn mineralization. This initial eight hole drill program intersected the targeted gold-silver-copper-iron skarn mineralization but we have yet to find the source for the high grade gold samples from the surface and auger drilling work. The Monte Carmelo diamond drill rig has now been moved to the 100% owned Santa Maria gold-silver project to initiate a minimum 2,500 m drill program."

100% Owned Monte Carmelo Gold Skarn

The maiden drilling program at the 100% owned Monte Carmelo Gold Skarn Project consisting of eight diamond drill holes totalling 2100 metres has been completed and all assay results have been received. The drilling targeting high-grade gold skarn mineralization exposed on surface and tested by an extensive program of auger drilling.

All drill holes intersected skarn mineralization consisting of garnet and magnetite skarn developed in calcareous sediments, limestone, and intrusives. Mineralization consist of massive and veined zones with anomalous levels of gold and silver with variable copper associated with iron and lesser amounts of zinc, lead, and arsenic.

Story continues

Drill hole MD17-006 intersected a broad iron rich zone from surface with 29.5 m grading 0.58 g/t Au, 4.9 g/t Ag and 0.22 % Cu from surface including 10.5 metres grading 1.43 g/t Au and 7.5 g/t Ag and 0.32 % Cu (0 - 10.5m).

Drill hole MD17-007 intersected a highly mineralized iron rich zone consisting of magnetite skarn averaging 0.28 g/t Au, 6.34 g/t Ag, 0.33 % Cu, and 0.20 % Zn over 14.5 metres (83.8 - 98.3 m). Additionally the hole intersected 0.36 g/t Au, 65.8 g/t Ag, and 3.51% Cu over 1.53 m (74.72 - 76.25m) and a third intercept from surface of 7.0m grading 0.45 g/t Au, 1.9 g/t Ag, and 0.11% Cu.

Diamond drill hole MD17-001 intersected 2.1 metres grading 0.36 g/t Au (36.6 - 38.7m) and a second intercept of 1.1m grading 0.16 g/t Au and 3.62 % Zn (127 - 128.1m). Drill hole MD17-002 intersected 2.0 metres grading 0.10 g/t Au and 0.48 % Cu (120.25 - 122.25m). MD17-003 intersected a narrow zone of weakly to moderately anomalous mineralization which included 331 ppm Mo (molybdenum) over 3.71 metres (110.66 - 114.37m). Drill hole MD17-004 intersected a near surface, broad mineralized zone with low grade gold and silver values grading 0.22 % Cu and 0.51 % Zn over 47.28 metres (7.62 - 54.9m). MD17-005 contains a narrow zone grading 1.19 g/t Au over 1.15 metres (50-45 - 51.6m). Drill hole MD17-008 intersected a near surface zone of 9.4 metres grading 0.15 g/t Au (0.0 - 9.4m) and a second intercept of 4.95m grading 0.14 g/t Au (63.05 - 68.0m).

Overall the intercepts define a variably mineralized flatly dipping zone consisting of broad anomalous zones with irregular higher grade structures related to the contact of two intrusive phases (granite and granodiorite) and the calcareous sediment and limestone host rocks.

100% Owned Santa Maria Gold-Silver Project

The maiden drilling program, consisting of a minimum of 2500 metres of diamond drilling, is expected to commence in the near term.

Calibre is committed to best practice standards for all exploration, sampling and drilling activities. Drilling is being completed by independent firm Kluane Drilling Ltd. Analytical quality assurance and quality control procedures include the systematic insertion of blanks, standards and duplicates into the sample strings. Samples are placed in sealed bags and shipped directly to Acme Labs (a Bureau Veritas Group Company) in Managua, Nicaragua for sample preparation and then to Acme Labs in Vancouver, Canada for 50 gram gold fire assay and ICP-MS multi element analyses.

The technical content in this news release was read and approved by Gregory Smith, P.Geo, President and CEO of the Company who is the Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101.

About Calibre Mining Corp.

Calibre owns a 100% interest in over 413 km2 of mineral concessions in the Mining Triangle of Northeast Nicaragua including the Primavera Gold-Copper Project and Monte Carmelo Gold Project. Additionally the Company has optioned to IAMGOLD (176 km2) and Centerra Gold (253 km2) concessions covering an aggregate area of 429 km2 and is party to a joint venture on the 33.6 km2 Rosita D gold-copper-silver project with Rosita Mining Corporation. Major shareholders of Calibre include gold producer B2Gold Corp, Pierre Lassonde and management.

Calibre Mining Corp.

Greg Smith, P.Geo.

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.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as "expects" or does not expect", "is expected", anticipates" or "does not anticipate" "plans", "estimates" or "intends" or stating that certain actions, events or results " may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to materially differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements.

Safe Harbor Statement under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented constitutes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements including but not limited to those with respect to the price of gold, potential mineralization, reserve and resource determination, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of the Company involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Atlas to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Apr 27, 2017) - Entree Gold Inc. (ETG.TO)(NYSE MKT:EGI)(EKA.F) ("Entree" or the "Company") has today filed its interim operational and financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017. All numbers are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

Q1 2017 HIGHLIGHTS

Entree/Oyu Tolgoi Joint Venture Property, Mongolia

As reported by Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. ("Turquoise Hill"), major underground development programs currently underway at the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in Mongolia ("OT") include underground lateral development, sinking of Shafts 2 and 5, support infrastructure, and the convey-to-surface system. Entree has a unique carried joint venture interest in a substantial prospective land package in Mongolia (the "Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property"), which includes two of the world class OT copper-gold deposits, Hugo North Extension and Heruga. The resources at Hugo North Extension include a Probable reserve, which is included in the fully financed $4.4 billion underground block cave currently under construction. Rio Tinto is the project operator for the entire OT project, including the underground block cave mine. Turquoise Hill expects production from the first underground draw bell in mid-2020 and first sustainable production beginning in early 2021.

Corporate

In January 2017, the Company closed a non-brokered private placement of 18,529,484 units of the Company at a price of C$0.41 per unit for gross proceeds of approximately C$7.6 million. Each unit consists of one common share and one-half of one transferable common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional common share of the Company at a price of C$0.65 per share for a period of 5 years following the date of issuance.

On February 28, 2017, the Company announced that its Board of Directors (the "Board") had unanimously approved a strategic reorganization of Entree's business. Entree's U.S. based assets, the Ann Mason and Lordsburg projects, will be transferred to a newly incorporated company, Mason Resources Corp. ("Mason Resources"). The strategic reorganization is expected to result in two separate and focused, well-capitalized, debt-free entities, each with a high quality advanced project providing new and existing shareholders with optionality as to investment strategy and risk profile.

Story continues

As at March 31, 2017, the Company's cash balance was $17.6 million. Of that, it is expected that $8.75 million will be transferred to Mason Resources as part of the strategic reorganization.

For the first quarter of 2017, the Company's net loss was $1.3 million (March 31, 2016 - $1.6 million) which was a reduction of 23% from the comparative period of 2016.

STRATEGIC REORGANIZATION

The Company announced on February 28, 2017 a strategic reorganization of its business (the "Arrangement"). Pursuant to the Arrangement, Entree's Ann Mason and Lordsburg projects (the "U.S. Projects") will be transferred to Mason Resources. Shareholders of Entree will receive common shares in Mason Resources ("Mason Common Shares") in proportion to their shareholdings in Entree. There will be no change to shareholders' existing interests in Entree.

It is intended that, as part of the Arrangement, Entree shareholders will receive Mason Common Shares by way of a share exchange, pursuant to which each existing share of Entree is exchanged for one "new" share of Entree and 0.45 of a Mason Common Share (the "Consideration"). Optionholders and warrantholders of Entree will receive replacement options and warrants of Entree and options and warrants of Mason Resources which are proportionate to, and reflective of the terms of, their existing options and warrants of Entree. The reorganization will be effected by way of a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) (the "Plan of Arrangement") and must be approved by the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the "Court") and by the affirmative vote of 66 2/3% of Entree shareholders, as well as Entree shareholders, optionholders and warrantholders (collectively, the "Securityholders") voting together as a single class. An Annual General and Special Meeting of Securityholders to approve, among other things, the Arrangement, will be held on May 1, 2017 (the "Meeting").

Once the Arrangement becomes effective, the result is expected to be two separate and focused, well-capitalized, debt-free entities, each with a high quality advanced project providing new and existing shareholders with optionality as to investment strategy and risk profile.

As at March 31, 2017, Entree has a treasury of approximately $17.6 million, of which $8.75 million is expected to be transferred to Mason Resources as part of the Arrangement. In the event that all outstanding warrants are exercised following the Arrangement, the two companies would receive up to an additional approximately C$6 million in the aggregate.

Entree is undertaking the Arrangement in order to focus on its unique carried interest in the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property. The Arrangement is also expected to give scope to potential value accretive and synergistic acquisitions by each entity, and to maximize shareholder value by allowing the market to value Entree's Mongolian assets independently of the U.S. Projects. It is expected that transferring the U.S. Projects from Entree to Mason Resources will help accelerate development of the U.S. Projects.

On April 25, 2017, the Toronto Stock Exchange ("TSX") conditionally approved the listing of the Mason Common Shares. Mason Resources does not have any of its securities listed or quoted, and has not applied to list or quote any of its securities, on a U.S. marketplace.

Mason Resources will be managed by Entree's current team of officers. Its board will initially consist of four directors who also currently sit on the Entree Board, as well as one new director who is independent of Entree.

On March 24, 2017, the Company filed and mailed its Information Circular (the "Circular") and other materials for the Meeting, which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.entreegold.com. The Circular contains, among other things, details concerning the Arrangement, reasons the Board has recommended the Arrangement, requirements for completion of the Arrangement, the procedure for receiving the Consideration under the Arrangement, how registered shareholders may exercise their dissent rights, procedures for voting at the Meeting and other matters. Securityholders are urged to carefully review the Circular and accompanying materials as they contain important information regarding the Arrangement and its consequences to Securityholders. Subject to receipt of all required Securityholder, Court and regulatory approvals, the Arrangement is expected to become effective on or about May 9, 2017.

OUTLOOK AND STRATEGY

Both Entree and Mason Resources will be managed by Entree's current team of officers and employees for the 2017 year. The companies will utilize a share service model to allocate administrative costs proportionately to each company based on a ratio to be determined prior to closing of the Arrangement, and annually thereafter. It is expected that there will be some additional costs associated with the operation of Mason Resources as a separate publicly traded company, such as listing fees, marketing costs and some additional board related costs. Concurrently, the Company will continue to remain prudent with its expenditures.

The combination of Entree and Mason Resources expects to spend between $3.0 million and $3.4 million for the 2017 year (2016 year - $4.0 million) on exploration and general administration costs which are discussed below. For the 2017 year, Entree and Mason Resources are expected to share the general administration costs equally once the Arrangement is complete.

The Company expects to release an updated technical report for the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property and Shivee West in mid-2017, based on the data used by Turquoise Hill for its 2016 Oyu Tolgoi Technical Report ("2016 OTTR") filed on October 21, 2016. The Company estimates the cost to prepare this report to be approximately $0.5 million.

The Company anticipates the one time cost to complete the Arrangement to be between $0.3 million and $0.4 million.

Corporate

The Company has focused, and will continue to focus its efforts on conserving cash reserves. Corporate objectives for 2017 include maximizing the market value of the Company's assets through restructuring, increasing investor awareness and cash conservation. Total corporate costs, which include marketing and compliance costs, remain estimated to be between $2.0 million and $2.2 million for the 2017 year including an additional $0.2 million of annual public filing costs at Mason Resources for the 2017 year.

Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property

With the release of 2016 OTTR, the Company intends to develop a complementary PEA for Entree's interest in the second lift of the Hugo North (including Hugo North Extension) block cave and the Heruga deposit and file these as part of an updated NI 43-101 technical report. The Company anticipates commencing this process in the second quarter of 2017 and estimates the cost to be approximately $0.5 million to complete and publish the report.

Development of the OT project continues to advance with a number of positive milestones achieved in 2016. As part of the Company's corporate restructuring initiative, management commenced a market awareness program in late 2016 and will continue through 2017 to improve the investment community's understanding of Entree's interest in the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property, including its potential value as compared with the interests of other OT project stakeholders.

The Company maintains an office and administration in Mongolia. Excluding the costs associated with the preparation of an updated NI 43-101 technical report referenced above, the Company remains on target to spend approximately $0.2 million for the 2017 year on legal costs and general administration in Mongolia.

Ann Mason Project

The Company continues to target expenditures, including claim filing fees, site maintenance and local administration costs for its Ann Mason project in Nevada (the "Ann Mason Project"), of between $0.7 million and $0.9 million for the 2017 year. The Company does not intend to implement any significant new work programs at present and will focus on identifying strategic development partners prior to implementing any potential programs to advance the Ann Mason Project into its next phase of development. Upon completion of the Arrangement, these costs will be assumed in Mason Resources.

Other Properties

Costs associated with all of the Company's other non-material assets have been minimized while management evaluates the best alternatives for each asset in the future. Expenditures for 2017 are for license fees and local administration costs. The Company expects to spend approximately $0.1 million for the 2017 year.

FIRST QUARTER 2017 FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Tabled amounts below in USD 000s YTD 2017 Q4 2016 Exploration $ (259 ) $ (540 ) General and administration (926 ) (911 ) Depreciation (8 ) (7 ) Foreign exchange gain 18 54 Loss from operations (1,175 ) (1,404 ) Interest expense and equity investee loss (80 ) (116 ) Income tax recovery - 553 Net loss (1,255 ) (967 ) Foreign currency translation adjustment 96 (460 ) Comprehensive loss $ (1,159 ) $ (1,427 ) Cash flows from operating activities before changes in working capital $ (1,265 ) $ 998 Decrease (increase) in receivables, prepaids and other assets 41 (33 ) Increase in accounts payables and accruals 62 219 Cash receipts from issuance of capital stock 5,179 - Cash receipts from issuance of capital stock - stock option 39 - Cash balance at end of period $ 17,550 $ 13,391

The Company's Interim Financial Statements and accompanying Management's Discussion and Analysis ("MD&A") for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 are available on the Company website at www.entreegold.com, SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on EDGAR at www.sec.gov.

QUALIFIED PERSON

Robert Cinits, P.Geo., Entree's Vice President, Corporate Development, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has approved the technical information in this release. For further information on the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property, see the Company's technical report, titled "Lookout Hill Feasibility Study Update", with an effective date of March 29, 2016, available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. For further information on the Ann Mason Project, see the Company's technical report, titled "2017 Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Ann Mason Project, Nevada, U.S.A.", with an effective date of March 3, 2017, available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

ABOUT ENTREE GOLD INC.

Entree Gold Inc. is a Canadian mineral exploration company balancing opportunity and risk with key assets in Mongolia and Nevada. As a joint venture partner with a unique carried interest on a significant portion of the Oyu Tolgoi mining project in Mongolia, Entree has a singular opportunity to participate in one of the world's largest copper-gold projects managed by one of the premier mining companies - Rio Tinto. Oyu Tolgoi, with its series of deposits containing copper, gold and molybdenum, has been under exploration and development since the late 1990s. Additionally, Entree has also been advancing its Ann Mason Project in one of the world's most favourable mining jurisdictions, Nevada. The Ann Mason Project hosts the Ann Mason copper-molybdenum deposit as well as the Blue Hill copper deposit within the rejuvenated Yerington copper camp.

Sandstorm Gold, Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill Resources are major shareholders, holding approximately 14%, 10% and 8% of issued and outstanding shares, respectively.

This News Release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to corporate strategies and plans; requirements for additional capital; uses of funds; the value and potential value of assets and the ability of Entree to maximize returns to shareholders; potential financial and other benefits of spinning-out the U.S. Projects; timing and approval for a spin-out of the U.S. Projects; the future prices of copper, gold, molybdenum and silver; the estimation of mineral reserves and resources; the realization of mineral reserve and resource estimates; anticipated future production, capital and operating costs, cash flows and mine life; capital, financing and project development risk; completion of an updated technical on Entree's interest in the Entree/Oyu Tolgoi JV Property; a potential strategic development partner for Ann Mason; the potential impact of future exploration results on Ann Mason mine design and economics; the potential development of Ann Mason; potential types of mining operations; construction and continued development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; potential size of a mineralized zone; potential expansion of mineralization; potential discovery of new mineralized zones; potential metallurgical recoveries and grades; plans for future exploration and/or development programs and budgets; permitting time lines; anticipated business activities; proposed acquisitions and dispositions of assets; and future financial performance.

While the Company has based these forward-looking statements on its expectations about future events as at the date that such statements were prepared, the statements are not a guarantee of Entree's future performance and are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies, local and global economic conditions, legal proceedings and negotiations and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the status of the Company's relationship and interaction with the Government of Mongolia, Oyu Tolgoi LLC, Rio Tinto and Turquoise Hill. With respect to the construction and continued development of the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine, important risks, uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, the timing and cost of the construction and expansion of mining and processing facilities; the timing and availability of a long term power source for the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine; the ability of Oyu Tolgoi LLC to draw down on the supplemental debt under the Oyu Tolgoi project finance facility and the availability of additional financing on terms reasonably acceptable to Oyu Tolgoi LLC, Turquoise Hill and Rio Tinto to further develop Oyu Tolgoi; delays, and the costs which would result from delays, in the development of the underground mine; projected copper, gold and silver prices and demand; and production estimates and the anticipated yearly production of copper, gold and silver at the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine.

Other uncertainties and factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements and information include, amongst others, Entree not obtaining all necessary shareholder, Securityholder, Court and regulatory approvals of a spin-out of its U.S. Projects into Mason Resources; the market valuing Entree and Mason Resources in a manner not anticipated by Entree; unanticipated costs, expenses or liabilities; all conditions precedent to the Plan of Arrangement not being satisfied or waived and the Plan of Arrangement not becoming effective; discrepancies between actual and estimated production, mineral reserves and resources and metallurgical recoveries; the size, grade and continuity of deposits not being interpreted correctly from exploration results; the results of preliminary test work not being indicative of the results of future test work; fluctuations in commodity prices and demand; changing foreign exchange rates; actions by Rio Tinto, Turquoise Hill and/or Oyu Tolgoi LLC and by government authorities including the Government of Mongolia; the availability of funding on reasonable terms; the impact of changes in interpretation to or changes in enforcement of, laws, regulations and government practices, including laws, regulations and government practices with respect to mining, foreign investment, royalties and taxation; the terms and timing of obtaining necessary environmental and other government approvals, consents and permits; the availability and cost of necessary items such as power, water, skilled labour, transportation and appropriate smelting and refining arrangements; and misjudgements in the course of preparing forward-looking statements.

In addition, there are also known and unknown risk factors which may cause the actual results, performances or achievements of Entree to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements and information. Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations, including legal and political risk in Mongolia; risks associated with changes in the attitudes of governments to foreign investment; risks associated with the conduct of joint ventures; discrepancies between actual and anticipated production, mineral reserves and resources and metallurgical recoveries; global financial conditions; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; inability to upgrade Inferred mineral resources to Indicated or Measured mineral resources; inability to convert mineral resources to mineral reserves; conclusions of economic evaluations; future prices of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining government approvals, permits or licences or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; environmental risks; title disputes; limitations on insurance coverage; as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk" in Entree's most recently filed Management's Discussion & Analysis and in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Entree's Annual Information Form for the financial year ended December 31, 2016, dated March 10, 2017 filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators and available at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation to update or alter any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable securities laws.
The high court has asked the authorities to seal the EVMs in the next 48 hours. All concerned parties have been given a 6-week period to respond.

By India Today Web Desk: In the wake of allegations of EVM tampering in the recently held Assembly elections, the Uttarakhand High Court today issued an order asking authorities to seal electronic voting machines (EVMs) in string rooms for six assembly constituencies of the state.

The order was passed by Justice Sarvesh Kumar Gupta of Uttarakhand High Court.

The high court has asked the authorities to seal the EVMs in the next 48 hours. Mussoorie, Rajpur, Raipur, Ranipur, Haridwar Rural and Pratappur are the six constituencies.

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All concerned parties have been given a 6-week period to respond.

Earlier, the high court had issued a similar order for the Vikasnagar Vidhansabha.

Also Read:

Electronic Voting Machine: Here's all you wanted to know about India's EVMs

Election Commission to soon call all-party meet to assure them EVMs are tamper-proof

Also Watch:

EVM row: EC snubs Arvind Kejriwal, asks AAP to introspect on defeat in Punjab

--- ENDS ---




trump face the nation

It happened again  a North Korean missile launch exploded in the air, over land, just a few minutes after launching on Friday.

While North Korea can still learn a lot from a failed missile test and use those lessons to advance their program, they've failed to demonstrate capability with missile types the US perfected in the 1970s  and cyber espionage may be to blame.

Asked about North Korea's unsuccessful missile test by CBS' John Dickerson on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, President Donald Trump refused to address whether or not the US had anything to do with the rogue nation's missile failures.

"I'd rather not discuss it. But perhaps they're just not very good missiles," said Trump. Pressed further on possible US sabotage of North Korea's missiles, Trump did not deny it. "I just don't want to discuss it."

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

In the past, US leaders have forcefully denied cyber attacks on other countries, but Trump only reiterated his preference for not telegraphing his intentions or plans in military ventures.

Indeed North Korea lacks the missile manufacturing infrastructure of a world power like Russia or the US, but a recent New York Times report uncovered a secret operation to derail North Korea's nuclear-missile program that has been raging for three years.

Essentially, the report attributes North Korea's high rate of failure with Russian-designed missiles to US meddling in the country's missile software and networks.

But to those in the know, the campaign against North Korea came as no surprise. Dr. Ken Geers, a cybersecurity expert for Comodo with experience in the NSA, told Business Insider that cyberoperations like the one against North Korea were actually the norm.

While the fact that the US hacked another country's missile program may be shocking to some, "within military intelligence spaces this is what they do," Geers said. "If you think that war is possible with a given state, you're going to be trying to prepare the battle space for conflict. In the internet age, that means hacking."

Story continues

North Korea missiles

North Korea's internal networks are fiercely insulated and not connect to the larger internet, however, which poses a challenge for hackers in the US, but Geers said it's "absolutely not the case" that computers need to connect to the internet to be hacked.

Furthermore, Geers said, because of the limited number of servers and access points to North Korea's very restricted internet, "If it ever came to cyberwar between the US and North Korea, it would be an overwhelming victory for the West."

"North Korea can do a Sony attack or attack the White House, but that's cause that's the nature of cyberspace," Geers said. "But if war came, you'd see Cyber Command wipe out most other countries' pretty quickly."

NOW WATCH: This animated map shows how World War I changed Europe's borders





More From Business Insider
- By Shuda Xia





The largest Insider Buys this week were for General Electric Co (GE), Bank of America Corporation (BAC), Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW), and United Continental Holdings Inc (UAL).

General Electric Co (GE): Director Marijn E Dekkers Bought 20,000 Shares

Director Marijn E Dekkers bought 20,000 shares of GE stock on April 24 at the average price of $29.9. The price of the stock has decreased by 3.04% since.





General Electric Co is an American international conglomerate corporation and operates through multiple segments, including Power & Water, Oil and Gas, Aviation, Healthcare, and Transportation. The company has over 305,000 employees as of 2015 and ranked among the Fortune 500 as the 4th largest firm in the United States as of 2017. The company has a market cap of $258.72 billion, and as of April 28 it traded at $28.99.

On April 27 General Electric Co unveiled the GE Energy Ecosystem portfolio at the Powering Vietnam Conference. The system aims to provide a full range of energy solutions from power generation to storage technology to support Vietnam's national energy agenda. Ultimately, this sytem aims to meet the 2030 Vietnam power targets.

Bank of America Corporation (BAC): Director Thomas D Woods Bought 25,000 Shares

Director Thomas D Woods bought 25,000 shares of BAC stock on April 27 at the average price of $23.81. The price of the stock has decreased by 1.97% since.

Bank of America Corporation is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation. It is the second largest bank by assets and the 26th largest company by revenue in the United States. In 2016, the company was ranked eleven on the Forbes magazine Global 2000 list of largest companies in the world. The company has a market cap of $232.21 billion, and as of April 28 it traded at $23.34.

Story continues

On April 26 Bank of America Corporation announced a regular quarterly cash dividend on the company's common stock of $0.075 per share payable June 30 to stockholders of record at close of business on June 2. Furthermore, the Board of Directors of the company also declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $1.75 per share on the 7 percent Cumulative Redeemable Preferred stock payable July 25 to shareholders of record at close of business on July 11.

Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW): Director Mark A Goldfarb Bought 1,850 Shares

Director Mark A Goldfarb bought 1,850 shares of SCHW stock on April 27 at the average price of $26.97. The price of the stock has increased by 44.05% since.

Charles Schwab Corp is a major American bank and brokerage firm. The company provides services for both individuals and institutions that are investing online by offering an electronic trading platform for the purchase and sale of financial securities. The company also provides margin lending and cash management services. The company has a market cap of $54 billion, and as of April 28 it traded at $38.85.

On April 20, Charles Schwab Corp declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.08 per common share payable on May 26 to stockholders of record at close of business on May 12. Furthermore, the Board of Directors of the company declared a regular quarterly dividend on the outstanding fixed rate non-cumulative perpetual preferred stock in the amount of $15.00 per share or $0.375 per depositary share payable on June 1 to stockholders of record at close of business on May 17.

United Continental Holdings Inc (UAL): Director Edward Shapiro Bought 10,000 Shares

Director Edward Shapiro bought 10,000 shares of UAL stock on April 27 at the average price of $69.35. The price of the stock has increased by 1.24% since.

United Continental Holdings Inc. is an American international airline holding company that operates and owns United Airlines. The company is the world's largest airline as measured by revenue passenger miles. The company has major operations in key airports across the United States including at the Chicago-O'Hare, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington-Dulles airports. The company has a market cap of $21.83 billion, and as of April 28 it traded at $70.21.

On April 17, United Continental Holdings Inc. announced its first quarter 2017 earnings. The company had reported a net income of $96 million, diluted earnings per share of $0.31, pre-tax earnings of $145 million, and pre-tax margin of 1.7 percent. Revenue for the first quarter of 2017 was $8.4 billion, an increase of 2.7 percent year-over-year. First quarter 2017 consolidated yield increase 0.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2016.

For the complete list of stocks that was bought by their company executives, go to: Insider Trades.

Disclosure: I do not own stock in any of the companies mentioned in the article.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.






pathomkar wrote:

Hello



In the second attempt of my gmat, I attained the score stated above. My first attempt was 680(v34,q50). I am quite saddened by the fact that my Q score reduced. I am planning to take gmat for the third time but I am seeking some answers before I go for it.



My background : I am an engineer with an MS degree, working in CA and want to switch my career track. I am taking online Business related courses to support my application and to gain some preliminary knowledge of the field.

1. I am planning to apply to top 10 Bschools and I am not sure what score I should be comfortable with. I want to achieve 750 with q50/51 but I would like to know how much does gmat really count, given that I do not have significant knowledge or experience of the business domain in general.



2. Even if I achieve 730+ score, what else should I focus on to make equip myself with necessary skills?





Years of exp : 4yrs in tech

Have held a few leadership roles in the past and working towards gaining more leadership experience before I apply.

Have led teams for volunteering

have taken a couple business related one off courses



Any other suggestions to make my profile stronger are welcome. I am currently trying to gain as much knowledge and develop as many skills as possible to become the right candidate for the top 10 Bschools.





Thanks !



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Website: Apphelp : India's # 1 MBA admissions consultancy-----------------------------------------------Confused about MBA application strategy? Need help with Essay Review? Need mock interviews?All these questions have a single answer : APPHELPPhone:Email:Website: http://www.apphelp.co.in Signature Read More

Hi pathomkar,We think you are on the right path, with respect to improving the GMAT score. A higher score always helps. While 700 will help you get into a good B-school, the top 10 B-schools would require a much higher GMAT, especially since you belong to the super-competitive engineering pool.Having said that, GMAT is just one of the parameters. A good B-school also looks for display of signs of leaderships, teamwork and professional maturity that show that you are ready for an MBA. As a candidate from a technology background, you should focus on identifying where you have and potentially can make a quantifiable and measurable impact to business, that will improve your candidature. Instances of teamwork, innovation, ethics are few areas to begin with. Similarly with extracurriculars, have you been able to make an impact with your volunteering?B-schools look for well-rounded applicants. While you continue to work on your GMAT, we think it is extremely important to identify the B-schools that would best suit your profile. Why don't you try our free B-school selector tool here: http://www.apphelp.co.in/Bschool-selection.htm This will make sure you make the most of your GMAT applications and also work in the right direction with respect to GMAT and essays.Feel free to reach out in case of any queries._________________
Indian MBA programs accepting GMAT scores [ #permalink

Hi,

My name is Himanshu Srivastava

i am from Delhi,

I am planning to write GMAT to get an admission in IIM. i want to know something about IIM Bangalore. I am willing that you will help me out at some extent to get an idea to get an admission. as per my profile i have 3.6 year work experience in which i have work for Qatar government and now working in Delhi. I wrote GRE also & scored 303 but really don't know whether IIM accept the MBA aspirants on GRE score. well apart from that i am a B.tech graduate from computer science and scored 74% from an average college i have published six international papers too but sir main problem is that i am little bit confuse which program will be best for me and which MBA program should i go for. though i am graduate from computer science but i am very much weak in coding kind of stuff so planned to go for MBA but most of the people says that if you go for another stream which MBA is providing related to your graduate studies that it won't help you much. Is it true? I wrote CAT but i think that i can't compete 99% + in CAT exam so i planned to take GMAT so it may give me a chance to enter in IIM. sir, I am messaging you with lots of hope. Eagerly waiting for your kind response. please be my usher.



Reagrds
Profile Review Request + Questions [ #permalink

Hi everyone!



I'm new here and still in the early phases of the MBA application preparation process (currently studying for the GMAT), but I wanted to get feedback early while I still have some time to make some changes for the better. Also, after reading my profile, if you have any input on my questions at the bottom, I'd really appreciate it!



1) Basic Demographic Info: 27, Male, American, White



2) Educational Background:

Undergrad Degree:

B.S. Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management (Japanese Minor, Web Development Certificate)

School: Western Washington University

GPA: 3.38 (excluding Freshman/Sophomore classes covered by community college Associate Degree [Running Start])

3.62 (inclusive of above mentioned community college classes)



Post-Bacc Degree:

B.S. Computer Science

School: Oregon State University

GPA: 4.0

[Completed while working full-time.]



GMAT score: Not yet taken. Aiming for 720-740.



3) Work experience:

Current Role: Procurement Agent, Strategy & Strategic Sourcing

Promotions: 2 (not including Intern -> Level 1)

Industry: Aerospace (Boeing)

Years of Experience: 6

Notable Achievement: Won an award for leading a team in an RFP project that resulted in hundreds of millions in direct company savings.



Previously interned at PACCAR for a summer, also in a purchasing role.



4) Extracurriculars:

Have sung/wrote/recorded in a progressive metal band for the last 6 years that has released two full-length albums, garnered significant critical acclaim and features both online and in major industry print publications, achieved over 100k streams/views on Spotify/YouTube/etc., have full line of shirts/vinyl/CDs/etc., played live with noteworthy acts, etc. [Point being it's more than just a garage band.]



Have been playing guitar for the last 15 years in addition to singing since I was a kid.



In my undergrad I spent 1-2 hours a day during the week volunteering in Japanese exchange student classrooms teaching English and was an officer in our school's APICS chapter.



Studied Japanese in an immersion language school in Tokyo for three months in 2008 [currently conversationally fluent]



Have sporadically volunteered to teach English to young Japanese children over Skype and when in Japan over the last five years for a small private business.



5) Short/Long Term Goals: Become a management consultant at MBB or Deloitte either for the long haul or with an eventual exit into product management at a top tech firm (going straight from MBA to product management in tech is also an option and depends a bit on what school I attend)



6) Schools: Most of the top ten + Ross



Questions:

- Undergrad GPA: I did the first two years of my undergrad as a Running Start student at a community college. On applications, can I roll that GPA into my university GPA? My university transcript carried over the credits and Associate Degree but started my GPA over (so I don't get the boost from the easier earlier classes).



- Post-Bacc: What is the best way to point out my post-bacc degree on an application? Do they usually just get noted in essays, or will there be multiple undergrad institution/GPA slots in the education section of the applications?



- GMAT Score: Would a score in the 720-740 range be sufficient for top schools, considering the rest of my profile?



- Promotions: Do people generally count shifting from being an intern to an entry level employee a promotion? (I just want to get the number right if this is a field I need to complete on an application.)



- Extracurriculars: I went into a lot of detail with the band as it does suck up most of my free time. I'm sure it checks the "interesting hobby" box at the least, but I'm wondering if it is significant enough to make up for a lack of more traditional recent community service experience. With 5-6 months left until Round 1 applications, I can figure something out, but I don't want to go overkill and start a non-profit or something if I'd be better served just studying more for the GMAT.
The ways through which God protects us is unbelievable, the story of a young couple has gone viral on the internet after they were rescued from an accident.

The young man who was identified as Imuzeze Enahoro and his beautiful wife, Ife on Saturday, April 29, were involved in a fatal accident, it took Gods divine intervention to be able to escape the accident.

READ ALSO: Woman begs with her newborn triplets in Port-Harcourt (Photos)

The husband hours later took to his Facebook wall to thank God for sparing his life and that of his wife with the caption:

Husband and wife survives fatal accident in Ikeja (photos)

Husband and wife survives fatal accident in Ikeja (photos)

Husband and wife survives fatal accident in Ikeja (photos)

What a great God we serve. With his miraculous hands he saved my wife and I from a ghastly accident yesterday morning on Kudirat Abiola way. God's mercy prevailed over our lives and we thank God that we are still alive. Just help us to give all praises to God who delivered us from the hands of death. Hallelujah

See post below:

READ ALSO: Final year student creates sculpture of the Ooni of Ife for his project (photos)

Watch video of how petty trader was killed by a police officer below:

Thank God!

Source: Legit.ng
By Press Trust of India: Srinagar, May 1 (PTI) Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists today carried out a major attack in Kashmir, killing seven people, including five policemen, after dragging them out of a banks cash van in Kulgam district.

The cash van of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, which was returning to Kulgam district headquarter from Damhal Hanji Pora, was waylaid by a group of heavily-armed terrorists this afternoon, police said.

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The terrorists pulled out the five police personnel and two bank employees from the vehicle and shot them from point blank range, a police official said.

While four cops and two bank employees -- including a bank security guard -- died on the spot, the fifth cop succumbed to injuries at a hospital, the official said.

Among the deceased is an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police. The attack took place at Bomai at around 4:15 pm, said Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir, S J M Gilani.

"Our five police personnel were martyred. Two civilians (bank employees), who were in the van, were also martyred in the attack,? he said. He said the militants took away four weapons which were being carried by the guards.

Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit claimed responsibility for the attack.

A spokesperson of the Hizb told a local news gathering agency that its cadres had decamped with four weapons from the scene of the attack. ?During our preliminary investigation, the name of a local terrorist from Kulgam, Umar Majeed, and two of his associates, has come up,? Gilani told reporters here.

In another incident, militants targeted a senior police officer in Pulwama district but he escaped unhurt.

Militants fired at the vehicle of Deputy Superintendent of Police Farooq Ahmad at Dangerpora in Pulwama district this evening, a police official said.

He said the security personnel escorting the officer returned the fire, forcing the militants to flee.

No one was hurt in the brief exchange of fire, he added. PTI SSB MIJ AQS AKK AKK

--- ENDS ---
- A student of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) has drowned in the River Benue

- The student had drowned in the river after he went to have a swim

A 200 level student in the University of Benin, James Odibo, has drowned in the River Benue on the closing day of the Nigeria University Games Association (NUGA), in Makurdi, Benue state.

The young man who was a student of medical laboratory science had gone to the river to swim when he drowned.

READ ALSO: Lady, 18, divorces "greedy" husband after 3 hours and remarries the same day

Omeche Onoja, the chairman of NUGA, games medical and sanitation sub-committee, who confirmed the incident, revealed that the corpse of the deceased was identified by some students.

UNIBEN student drowns in River Benue after he went for a swim

READ ALSO: Worshippers terrified after statue of Jesus moves his head during mass

Onoja expressed that the committee was informed of the incident after some students made a distress call.

She said: We had a distress call from some students of the situation but on reaching the river, we found the lifeless body of the student, who has been identified by his colleagues. He was said to have participated in some games. The whole incident could have been avoided.

Legit.ng gathered that the deceased has been moved to Madonna hospital in Makurdi.

Rest in peace.Amen!

Watch STREET GIST: Nigerians name politicians who are not corrupt

Source: Legit.ng
- Girl was born with three legs and couldnt walk

- Doctors spent months planning how to reconstruct her anatomy

- The girl had two rectums, anuses, vaginas and uteruses

- In addition, she was partially blind

A three-year-old girl who was born with three legs can now walk and even run after doctors successfully removed her third leg and extra organs.

Choity Khatun reportedly went through a complex and extremely rare surgery at Monash Childrens Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Prior to the surgery, a team of surgeons spent months planning how to get rid of the third leg and reconstruct Khatuns anatomy.

A twin had grown out of her pelvis but the twin was only part of a twin. The problem is theres no rulebook for this because shes a very unique individual. So you have to try and work out what was where, says Chris Kimber, head of Monash Childrens Hospital.

READ ALSO: Lady burns nephew with hot iron on the chest for stealing (photo)

Three-year-old Choity Khatun was given little prospect of survival until she was brought to Melbourne last year by Australian charity Children First Foundation.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Ossy Ibori, notorious militant leader, kidnapper shot dead in Ondo creeks (photo)

According to Dr Kimber, Khatun was malnourished and couldnt walk properly when she arrived in Australia. She was reportedly brought to the hospital by the Australian charity Children First Foundation.

The Australian surgeons, in collaboration with their colleagues in the United States and Europe, started by mapping out and studying Khatuns anatomy before the operation could commence.

Choitys condition meant that body parts from a twin developed in her perineum  the area between the anus and the vulva. We also found that she had two rectums, anuses, vaginas and uteruses. In addition, she was incontinent explains Dr Kimber.

READ ALSO: Anthony Joshua defeat Klitschko to win IBF and WBA titles

Eight doctors specialised in genital and pelvic reconstructions were involved in the operation, which Dr Kimber describes as extremely rare and extraordinary.

We spent three or four months thinking about it, presenting it to other doctors, getting ideas from around the world, and then based on lots of world opinion, we were able to come up with something that clearly works, he says.

The girl, it emerged, was also partially blind. This was revealed by an ophthalmologist, who also said her sight could not be improved.

The doctors, however, say Khatun has sufficient sight to see her path while walking.

Watch video with about hardship of Nigerian albinos:

Source: Legit.ng
- A Kenyan man has taken his mother to the famed Harvard University where he graduated 24 years ago

- Writing on social media, Chris Mburu said his mum, 83, was unable to attend his graduation because it was too expensive

- After landing a good job, Mburu decided to take his mother to the very school he attended and in so doing, made his mother's dreams come true

A Kenyan man, Chris Mburu has shared on social media, photos of his mother, 83, posing outside the world-renown Harvard University.

Mburu's mother rocking a Harvard sweatshirt

READ ALSO: Husband and wife survives fatal accident in Ikeja (photos)

The three photos tell a powerful story. A story of Mburu's rise from grass to grace and attending one of the finest schools in the world.

He graduated from Harvard University 24 years ago. At his graduation, his mother who had always supported his Education was unable to attend his graduation- it was too expensive.

Mburu and his mum in the US

READ ALSO: 3-year-old toddler who was born with 3 legs can walk and run after surgery

Last week, Mburu got his mom from her village in Kenya and facilitated her journey to the United States.

He could not hide his happiness when his mother wore a Harvard sweatshirt and held a gift from Harvard in her hand.

Though not educated, Mburu says his mother remained supportive of his Education has been the smartest people in living history.

While this adorable son is celebrating his mother, a Nigerian woman recently lost her son to cultists. Watch the Legit.ng video below to see what she has to say:

Source: Legit.ng
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
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's hint that the government may bring in a legal framework to make doctors prescribe drugs by their generic names has kicked off a debate. Soon after, the Medical Council of India (MCI), the statutory body that regulates medical education and registers doctors, issued a notice to all doctors to prescribe drugs only by generic names. Generics are medicines whose patents have expired; they can be manufactured and sold by local pharma companies at a fraction of what patented drugs cost. Branded products comprise 90 per cent of the Rs 1 lakh crore Indian pharma market.

While Modi's suggestion was ostensibly to lower the cost of drugs and break the nexus between doctors and pharma companies, those in the industry feel it might not pay off. Last year too, the MCI had issued guidelines to this effect. The problem is that this is a difficult change to implement. If the government mandates that doctors only prescribe generics, pharmacists will become the ones suggesting specific brands to patients. They too could, then, be accused of being influenced by pharma companies. Another problem is the potential job loss for tens of thousands of medical representatives-who inform doctors about branded medicines-following the MCI directive. Experts feel the move may not even lower prices. "The patient will end up paying more," says D.G. Shah, secretary general, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance. "Chemists are demanding 50 per cent margins for generics against the current 30 per cent for branded generics."

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Another problem relates to drug quality. Generics are expected to undergo bioequivalence studies in India, in which their effectiveness is tested against the patented drug. But this is often flouted. Shah says only 15 per cent of branded generics have undergone such testing. However, Leena Menghaney of Doctors Without Borders, an NGO, feels Modi's step is "path-breaking" and can have the desired impact-if pharmacists are strongly monitored and the quality of generics is ensured by the government.

--- ENDS ---
Angela Merkel met Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud on Sunday and did not wear a headscarf which is a legal requirement for women to follow in public.

By India Today Web Desk: German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a one day visit to Saudi Arabia to meet Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud on Sunday and arrived without a hijab, a legal requirement for women to follow in public. Merkel is currently on a two-nation trip to the Gulf.

But, we aren't shocked about Merkel's decision of not covering her head with a scarf as the German lady backed up the law for banning full-face veil in government jobs in the past.

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British Prime Minister Theresa May also avoided the strict dress code for women when she visited the country. May had said that she hoped to be an inspiration to oppressed women in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia enforces a conservative dress code in public, requiring women to wear a full-length robe and cover their hair, in keeping with other restrictive laws including a guardian system limiting women's movement and a ban on driving.

Foreign visitors have not always followed the protocol, and Merkel also followed the footsteps of May, President Donald Trump's Democrat rival Hillary Clinton and former First Lady of the US Michelle Obama.

Also read: French presidential candidate refuses to wear headscarf to meet Lebanon's grand mufti, says 'I will not cover myself up'

Merkel has called for the burqa to be banned in Germany, saying it was "not acceptable in our county".

"It should be banned, wherever it is legally possible."

Merkel instead of discussing about women's rights, talked about business and humanitarian relief for refugees with the king. Merkel was expected to talk about providing humanitarian relief to people from countries in conflict. Germany has provided refuge to hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan in the past.

"We believe in the UN-led process of diplomatic resolution," said Merkel in Jeddah. "We do not think that there can be a military solution to this conflict."

Merkel's delegation included top German companies like SAP, Siemens, Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn and vowed to help Saudi Arabia achieve a "digital transformation".

Also read: Despite male guardianship system, Saudi Arabia gets elected to UN women's rights commission

Merkel's delegation also signed military deals with Saudi Arabia in which Saudi soldiers and policemen will receive training from their German counterparts.

She is scheduled to travel to the neighbouring United Arab Emirates after her week-long trip.

--- ENDS ---
The UN Security Council has called for the resumption of the political process regarding the Western Sahara to resolve one of the longest-standing issues on its agenda.

The Councils support for resuming the political process was unambiguously expressed in Resolution 2351 it adopted on Friday, sending a strong signal that the time had come to resume negotiations, which had been at a standstill for far too long.

The 15-member Council actually called on the parties to the Western Sahara conflict to resume negotiations under the auspices of the Secretary-General without preconditions and in good faith, in order to facilitate a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution. Emphasizing the importance of the parties commitment to continuing the preparations for a fifth round of negotiations, the Council called upon them to demonstrate the political will to work in an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to resume negotiations, and to implement the relevant Security Council resolutions.

It also underlined the important role of neighboring countries (mainly Algeria, which is backing the separatist Polisario Front, and Mauritania) in making contributions to the political process, and finding a solution to the territorial dispute.

As stated in the resolution, the Council reiterates its call upon the parties and the neighboring states to cooperate more fully with the United Nations and with each other and to strengthen their involvement to end the current impasse and to achieve progress towards a political solution. It also recognizes that achieving a political solution to this long-standing dispute and enhanced cooperation between the Member States of the Maghreb Arab Union would contribute to stability and security in the Sahel region.

The Security Council also extended the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) until 30 April 2018 and called on the parties to cooperate fully with the operations of MINURSO, and to take the necessary steps to ensure unhindered movement for United Nations and associated personnel in carrying out their mandate.

Reaffirming the need to respect fully military agreements reached with MINURSO on the ceasefire and calls for full adherence to those accords, the Council recognized that the recent crisis in the Guerguerat buffer strip raised fundamental questions about the ceasefire and related agreements.

The resolution also states that the Security Council takes note of the Moroccan proposal (autonomy plan) presented on 11 April 2007 to the Secretary-General and welcomes serious and credible Moroccan efforts to move the process forward towards resolution.

Following the vote, delegates of the council member states hailed the resolution as a real opportunity to revive the political process in Western Sahara and called on all parties to rise to their shared responsibility, and to refrain from actions that may undermine the ceasefire agreement.

Morocco takes note with satisfaction of the unanimous adoption by the Security Council of its resolution 2351, said the Moroccan Foreign Ministry in a statement released Saturday.

This Security Council resolution extends for one year the mandate of Minurso, within the strict framework of its current prerogatives, and clearly reaffirms the parameters of the political process as defined since 2007, reads the statement. This political process must take into account the pre-eminence of the Moroccan Autonomy Initiative, and the Security Council once again welcomes the serious and credible efforts that have underpinned the proposal, the statement notes.

The resolution reiterates the regional dimension of the artificial dispute around the Moroccan Sahara and clarifies the responsibility of neighboring countries, and particularly Algeria, the statement adds, renewing Moroccos commitment to work towards a definitive solution within the framework of the autonomy initiative.
Credit: stock.adobe.com

Patients are asking their chest physicians about using e-cigarettes to quit smoking, but those physicians are divided about whether the products do more harm than good, according to a Yale-led study. The finding demonstrates the need for more research on e-cigarettes that will help physicians counsel their patients who smoke.

Since the invention of e-cigarettes in the early 2000s, experts have disagreed about their role in smoking cessation and reducing harms from smoking. While some experts believe that e-cigarettes are simply a tool for getting consumersparticularly youthaddicted to nicotine, others view them as a potential alternative for smokers who struggle to quit with traditional cessation therapies.

To get a handle on the opinion of chest physicians, Stephen Baldassarri, M.D., and his co-authors conducted a survey of members of the American College of Chest Physicians. The survey asked about the providers' experiences with e-cigarette users and their opinion about the products.

Of the nearly 1,000 respondents, the vast majority, 88 percent, reported that their patients had inquired about e-cigarettes, and one-third said at least some of their patients use the products. "Physicians are likely to encounter this in their practice," said Baldassarri, a clinical fellow in pulmonary medicine.

More respondents than not41 percent compared with 21 percent disagreed with the notion that patients could improve their health by switching from tobacco smoking to e-cigarettes. However, the physicians were split about whether e-cigarettes promoted smoking cessation.

"Although very few of the respondents thought that e-cigarettes were more harmful than smoking, many were not convinced that switching from smoking to e-cigarette use would improve a patient's health," he noted. "There was also a clear divide among the survey respondents regarding whether the products should be used as a smoking cessation aid."

This divergence in opinion about e-cigarettes, which mirrors results from prior surveys, points to the need for more research. While most providers would agree that they do not want nonsmokers or youth adopting e-cigarettes, questions remain about the risks and benefits for traditional smokers.

"Further research into these products is going to be critical for providing the evidence base for physicians to make appropriate recommendations for their patients who smoke," he said.

More information: Stephen R. Baldassarri et al. Practise Patterns and Perceptions of Chest Health Care Providers on Electronic Cigarette Use: An In-Depth Discussion and Report of Survey Results, Journal of Smoking Cessation (2017). Stephen R. Baldassarri et al. Practise Patterns and Perceptions of Chest Health Care Providers on Electronic Cigarette Use: An In-Depth Discussion and Report of Survey Results,(2017). DOI: 10.1017/jsc.2017.6
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking have long been associated with cognitive deficiencies in adults. A new study, published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, found the burden of cardiovascular risk factors from childhood and adolescence is associated with worse midlife cognition regardless of adulthood exposure.

"While it is well known that high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking are associated with poor cognitive performance in adults, the effects of these risk factors from childhood on midlife cognition were unknown," said Suvi Rovio, PhD, senior scientist at the Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Turku in Turku, Finland, and the study's lead author.

Researchers analyzed data from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, which has followed a population-based sample of 3,596 individuals from childhood to adulthood since 1980. As part of the 31-year follow-up, cognitive testing was performed as well as regular measurement of blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, body mass index and smoking exposure. These continuous risk variables were evaluated to indicate the long-term burden of each measurement. They were defined separately for childhood (6-12 years), adolescence (12-18 years), young adulthood (18-24 years) and early life (6-24 years).

The Young Finns Study also analyzes age, sex, baseline household income, blood pressure and cholesterol medications, diagnoses of heart disease and Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Altogether, 1,901 individuals with cognitive test data had complete data on the other variables analyzed.

The study found that high blood pressure and high cholesterol in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, as well as smoking in adolescence and young adulthood were associated with worse midlife cognitive performance, especially memory and learning. Study participants with all risk factors within recommended levels between ages 6-24 performed better on cognitive testing than those exceeding all risk factor guidelines at least twice. In all, the difference corresponded to the effect of six years of aging.

Researchers also looked at the independent effects of early life cumulative burden of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, BMI and smoking on cognitive performance. Individuals with the highest blood pressure had an 8.4 years' difference in cognitive age compared to individuals with the lowest blood pressure. Similarly, researchers found a 6.6 years difference between those with high and low cholesterol and a 3.4 years difference between smokers and non-smokers.

"These findings support the need for active monitoring and treatment strategies against cardiovascular risk factors from childhood," Rovio said. "This shouldn't just be a matter of cognitive deficits prevention, but one of primordial prevention."

Study limitations included that cognitive performance was measured once over the course of the Young Finns Study. This prevented researchers from determining the role of early life cardiovascular risk factors on changes in cognition.

"Recent evidence has demonstrated that risk factors developed in adulthood can impact cognitive dysfunction in the elderly, if they have not been corrected," said Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, MACC, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. "The findings in this paper are important, because they show that risk factors that develop at an even younger age can have the same adverse impact."

In an accompanying editorial, Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, and Norrina B. Allen, PhD, MPH, from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, said, "These findings extend our prior understanding on the accumulation of CV risk and cognition back into childhood and suggest that the adverse impacts on later-life health begin accruing very early in life."
A noninvasive PET imaging method that measures granzyme B, a protein released by immune cells to kill cancer cells, was able to distinguish mouse and human tumors that responded to immune checkpoint inhibitors from those that did not respond early in the course of treatment.

The study was published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, by Umar Mahmood, MD, PhD, professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Division of Precision Medicine at Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston.

Although immunotherapies, such as checkpoint inhibitors, have revolutionized cancer treatment, they only work in a minority of patients, which means that most patients receiving this treatment will not benefit but still have the increased risk of side effects, besides losing time that they could spend on other therapies, Mahmood explained.

Response to immunotherapy often cannot be measured effectively at early time points by traditional imaging techniques that measure tumor size, such as CT and MRI scans, or those that measure tumor glucose uptake, such as FDG PET, because these techniques cannot distinguish a nonresponding tumor from a tumor that is responding to immunotherapy but appears to grow in size because it is filled with immune cells and accompanied by increased glucose uptake, Mahmood noted. Tissue biopsies can be unreliable because of tumor heterogeneity and constant changes in the levels of the biomarker proteins measured.

Mahmood and colleagues designed a probe that binds to granzyme Ba protein that immune cells release to kill their targetafter it is released from the immune cells, so they could directly measure tumor cell killing. The researchers attached the probe to a radioactive atom and used PET scanning to noninvasively image the entire body and see where immune cells are actively releasing tumor-killing granzyme B.

The team tested their probe in tumor-bearing mice before and after treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors and found that one group of mice had high PET signal, meaning high levels of granzyme B in the tumors, while the other group had low levels of PET signal in the tumors. When the two groups of mice were followed, all mice with high PET signal responded to the therapy and their tumors subsequently regressed, whereas those with low PET signal did not respond to the therapy, and their tumors continued to grow.

"Because PET imaging is quantitative, we could measure the degree of effectiveness and put a number on it," Mahmood added. When they compared the data from monotherapy and combination therapy, they saw a significant increase in tumor granzyme B PET signal in the combination group.

The researchers then collaborated with Keith Flaherty, MD, and Genevieve Boland, MD, PhD, from MGH, and tested their probe on nine human melanoma biopsy samples, six from patients treated with nivolumab (Opdivo) and three from those treated with pembrolizumab (Keytruda). They detected high levels of granzyme B in the samples from responders and much lower levels in the samples from nonresponders.

"The ability to differentiate early in the course of treatment patients who are likely to benefit from immunotherapy from those who will not can greatly improve individual patient care and help accelerate the development of new therapies," Mahmood said.

"In our study, we found a marker that was highly predictive of response to immunotherapy at a very early time after starting treatment, and we were able to design an imaging probe to detect this marker and accurately predict response noninvasively," said Mahmood.

"These findings could have a significant impact on drug development, as different combinations could be imaged at very early time points in patients and the levels of tumor granzyme B used to compare treatments and rank effectiveness," Mahmood said. "Further, therapeutics that achieve high levels of granzyme B release can be advanced faster and those leading to low granzyme B release can be altered or eliminated."
On the left is Dr. Alica Goldman and on the right is Dr. Jeffrey Noebels. Credit: Baylor College of Medicine

Deep in the brains of two patients with Alzheimer's disease, the main memory structure, the hippocampus, displays episodic seizure-like electrical activity. These non-convulsive hippocampal seizures are the first signs of 'silent' brain electrical network dysfunction described in patients with Alzheimer's disease. The discovery, published in the journal Nature Medicine, provides a better understanding of the condition and can potentially lead to new treatments for this devastating disease affecting more than 5 million people in the U.S.

"About 10 years ago, we were surprised to find 'silent seizures' in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease," said co-senior author Dr. Jeffrey L. Noebels, professor of neurology, neuroscience, and molecular & human genetics, and director of the Blue Bird Circle Developmental Neurogenetics Laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine. "When we measured the animal's brain electrical activity, we detected abnormal electrical discharges in the brain with a seizure-like pattern. The mice, however, did not present with convulsions. These 'clinically silent seizures' in the deep regions of the brain, we speculated, could lead to problems of memory."

It's been reported that in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease, those that have a history of the disease in their families, convulsive seizures are common, especially in advanced cases. However, for most patients with Alzheimer's the condition does not run in the family. In this group of patients, which are said to present with the sporadic form of the disease, convulsive seizures are typically absent. "For this reason, measuring the brain's electrical activity with an electroencephalogram or EEG test is not required for diagnosis and rarely performed," Noebels said.

Even if the test was performed, previous studies in the epilepsy field had shown that seizures deep in the brain, such as the hippocampal region, cannot be detected with routine scalp EEG recordings. Detecting such brain activity requires placing electrodes deep in the brain.

From mouse model to patients

"My colleagues and I have been interested for years in determining whether 'silent seizures' are present in the hippocampus of patients with Alzheimer's disease," Noebels said. "We were able to answer this question when my colleague and senior co-author Dr. Andrew Cole, director of Massachusetts General Hospital Epilepsy Service and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, told me that he had two candidates for the procedure."

Cole and Dr. Alice Lam, first-author of the study and a fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital Epilepsy Service, led the team that performed the test in the patients. They used a minimally invasive recording technique involving fine wires inserted through a small natural opening in the skull. This allowed the researchers to monitor this deep region continuously for several days. Simultaneously, the researchers recorded scalp EEG readings.

In the two patients, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and had no previous history of epilepsy or behaviorally obvious seizures, the hippocampal recordings showed clear clinically silent seizures. At the same time, the EEG recordings that had been taken simultaneously showed no abnormal brain activity, confirming that EEG tests do not register changes in deep brain activity.

"What was fascinating was that this activity was present at night when the patients were sleeping, a time thought to be critical for the consolidation of recent memories, a trait that is most impaired in early Alzheimer's disease," Noebels said.

"Based on our observations, we are particularly intrigued by the possibility that 'silent seizure' activity per se could contribute to or accelerate the degenerative process underlying Alzheimer's disease," Cole said.

In addition, Noebels and his Baylor colleague, Dr. Alica Goldman, co-author and associate professor of neurology and neurophysiology, performed genetic analysis on the patients' samples.

"We determined that these two patients did not have a gene known to cause epilepsy. So Alica and I, who have been studying epilepsy genes for a long time, sequenced the patients' samples for the three genes known to be linked to Alzheimer's disease," Noebels said. "It turned out that the patients didn't have those either; they present with the sporadic form of the disease."

"It is very exciting that we were able to move from an observation in genetically engineered mouse models of Alzheimer's to a demonstration of the same phenomenon in patients with verified Alzheimer's disease," said Cole. "This is a critical step toward a better understanding of network dysfunction in the disease and opens the window to novel therapeutic approaches for this common condition."

"From a physician's perspective, I think this work opened my eyes toward the need to look deeper into our patients' condition in order to improve the quality of their lives as well as that of their caregivers," Goldman said. "I think this work offers an opportunity for new investigations that could be relevant for moving forward the clinical practice of Alzheimer's disease."

The need for future studies

"This work with two patients proves the concept that 'silent seizures' can occur in patients with Alzheimer's disease," Noebels said.

"Next, we need to determine whether this finding is common in Alzheimer's disease, present in other types of progressive degenerative neurocognitive diseases, and when in the course of the disease it occurs," Cole said.

More information: Silent hippocampal seizures and spikes identified by foramen ovale electrodes in Alzheimer's disease, Nature Medicine (2017). Journal information: Nature Medicine Silent hippocampal seizures and spikes identified by foramen ovale electrodes in Alzheimer's disease,(2017). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nm.4330
Tobacco use remains the leading preventable cause of death and disability in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking among lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) individuals is higher than among heterosexual adultsnearly 24 percent of the LGBT population smoke compared to nearly 17 percent of the straight population. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri have found evidence of lower smoking prevalence and greater intentions to quit among the LGBT smokers who live in communities with smoke-free policies.

"Past research indicated despite overall declines in smoking, higher smoking rates persist in the LGBT community, due in part to social norms," said Jenna Wintemberg, instructor of health sciences in the School of Health Professions. "LGBT people face hostility and can feel excluded from social spaces, leading individuals to create their own spaces such as bars and nightclubs, which are often targets for marketing and promotion by the tobacco industry."

Researchers surveyed participants during Missouri Pride festivals with questions about where they live, personal tobacco use and support for smoke-free policies. They found that 94 percent of those who live in smoke-free communities were more likely to want to quit smoking compared to just 76 percent of those who lived in places without smoking bans.

"Smoke-free policies have several positive outcomes for all people, not specifically those who identify as LGBT," said Jane McElroy, principal investigator of the study and associate professor of family and community medicine in the School of Medicine. "These outcomes include overall lower smoking rates and changes in social norms regarding smoking."

Researchers also found that only 35 percent of Missourians from the study sample lived in an area with a comprehensive smoke-free law, compared to 82 percent of the population nationally.
Accidents leading to work injuries cost an estimated $57 billion in Australia and new research from the University of South Australia shows workplaces are unlikely to be adequately addressing injury prevention because management decisions are informed by inaccurate data.

Reporting of workplace injuries appears to be a bit like an iceberg  there is a lot going on underneath that is not reported. The University's Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety study linked confidential surveys of hospital employees to register-reported injuries and found a large discrepancy.

Lead researcher Amy Zadow says on average, only four per cent of work injuries were registered compared to those reported in the confidential survey.

Survey results revealed 66 staff experienced one or more physical work injuries while 63 experienced one or more psychological work injuries (for example post-traumatic stress disorder following a violent encounter or depression arising from work pressure).

"Workers were much less likely to report psychological injuries with 73 per cent of physical work injuries reported compared to just 35 per cent of psychological injuries," Zadow says.

"Despite roughly equal numbers of physical and psychological work injuries, there is greater unreported psychological harm."

The UniSA study revealed employees in work units with a poor climate for psychological health had more work injuries and were less likely to report their injuries.

"This study is unique because existing research focuses almost exclusively on physical injuries, rather than in combination with psychological incidents," Zadow says.

"Research across Australia and Malaysia shows that the psychosocial safety climate  which we refer to as PSC  in organisations is typically lower than physical safety climate indicating a lack of priority given to workplace psychological health."

This accords with the Productivity Commission, which found that psychosocial factors at work are not given the same attention in legislation and by health and safety inspectors as physical hazards.

"The mechanism we proposed was that PSC, emanating from senior managers and transmitted through teams, was the origin of psychological health problems such as emotional exhaustion, that culminated in greater work injuries and underreporting of injuries," Zadow says.

"By contrast, workplaces with a high PSC  where management cared for and supported the psychological health of workers  had less injuries and workers were more likely to report any incidents, so issues could be addressed and treated early."

Zadow has recently completed a PhD addressing the wider topic of psychosocial safety climate across organisations. She reports that modern workers are often given temporary work and put under work pressure with the expectation that they can be "thrown away" and replaced when they wear out. Zadow's research proposes that workplaces that promote caring environments and protect and nurture the psychological health of their workers experience much greater benefits including less work injuries, and more engaged and productive workers.
By Press Trust of India: Panaji, May 1 (PTI) The Goa Forward Party (GFP) has expressed apprehensions over the Union Governments proposal to nationalise six rivers in the state fearing that it might adversely affect the livelihood of fishing community.

"The proposal to nationalise six rivers in the state has to be cautiously looked into as it should not endanger the livelihood of the fishing community," GFPs chief spokesperson Prashant Naik told reporters yesterday.

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GFP is part of the ruling alliance in Goa government led by Manohar Parrikar.

Naiks statement comes two days after chief minister Parrikar claimed that the term "nationalisation" was "misconceived".

"Union government is not nationalising the rivers but will declare six rivers in the state as having national importance," Parrikar had told reporters on April 28.

He had also said that the total control over the rivers would be with the state government.

Naik said, "GFP has already conveyed the concerns of the fishing community to union shipping minister Nitin Gadkari."

"Partys mentor Vijai Sardesai during his interaction with Gadkari in Delhi informed the minister about the concerns raised by small-time fishermen living along the river banks," he said.

Sardesai, who was in the opposition in his previous term in the Goa assembly, had objected to the nationalisation of rivers claiming that it would work against the interest of fishermen community.

The Centre has selected six rivers in Goa ? Mandovi, Zuari, Mapusa, Chapora, Sal and Cumbharjua ? under its project to fund development of rivers in the country. PTI RPS RMT

--- ENDS ---
Hisense operates a factory in Atlantis, Cape Town, which now employs over 500 people  98% of whom are from the Atlantis community.

Across the country, Hisense South Africa manufactures 1,200 fridges and 1,700 TVs per day. Some are sold locally, while it also exports to 14 African markets.

Hisense said it aims to reach more African countries from South Africa in the future.

At its facility in Atlantis, it manufactures approximately 400,000 TVs and 250,000 fridges per year.

The company entered the South African market in 1996. 20 years later, in the January-November period of 2016, Hisense became South Africas biggest TV seller for the first time.

Hisense South Africa previously set its aim on becoming one of the top three companies, in terms of market share, in the TV and refrigeration categories in all the countries it exported to by the end of 2016.

Hisense Atlantis factory staff

Fridge conveyor at the Hisense factory

TV packing line

TV assembly line

Quality control point

Now read: Hisense TV sales soar in South Africa
If youve been shopping for a new AMD Radeon RX 480 recently, you may have noticed that the graphics card is frequently out of stock.

There has been an international shortage of the Polaris-powered graphics cards due to a number of reasons, from the introduction of new products to an increase in the value of select cryptocurrencies.

These factors have made it more difficult to find RX 400-series cards.

Consumers looking for a new AMD GPU can opt for a Radeon RX 500-series card instead, which features similar pricing and is in stock more often.

The main reasons as to why the 400-series cards are in short supply are detailed below.

Ethereum

Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin, which can be mined with certain graphics cards.

AMD graphics cards are far more efficient than Nvidia GPUs at mining cryptocurrency and are a favourite among miners.

Following the spike in Ethereum prices over the last two months, there has been increased demand for AMD graphics cards for Ethereum mining rigs.

This has created GPU shortages, particularly with models well suited in terms of a price-to-performance basis for Ethereum mining.

Currently, popular graphics cards among Ethereum miners include the Radeon RX 480 and RX 470.

RX 480 pricing and end-of-life

The Radeon RX 480 is a popular graphics card worldwide, similar to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060.

However, the Radeon RX 400-series was recently succeeded by the new Radeon RX 500-series  less than a year after their launch.

The Radeon RX 500-series is set to replace the older Polaris GPUs, meaning the RX 400-series cards are nearing the end of their life.

South African hardware retailer Wootware told MyBroadband that certain RX 400-series graphics cards might become cheaper as stock is cleared out, but supplies will continue to diminish.

As the RX 400-series is nearing the end of its life, Wootware said it does not expect any substantial price changes for the older generation of graphics cards.

This article first appeared on MyBroadband and is republished with permission.
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Former ECHR judge: UN Security Council does not consider Karabakh's separation illegal

Shavarsh Kocharyan says current PM took step of declaring Armenia aggressor

AraratBank underwrites FINCA UCO bonds

First ombudsperson says current Armenian authorities are illegitimate

Armenian National Committee of America: Dr. Oz Defeated in Pennsylvania Senate race

Head of Turkish Ministry of Agriculture: 10.1 million tons of grain exported from Ukrainian ports

Putin and Lukashenko discuss upcoming CSTO meeting by phone

President pays tribute to martyrs of 3rd Artsakh war

Australian pedophile sentenced to 129 years in Philippines

Japan says North Korea launches alleged ballistic missile

British cabinet minister resigns after recent harassment allegations

Eleving Group member Mogo applies the best practices in Armenia

Iran MFA. Azerbaijan president's reaction is incomprehensible

Parliament speaker considers transit visa requirement for Armenia citizens at Poland airports worrisome

Pashinyan: Armenia-Cambodia warm relations have great prospects for development

Javier Colomina: NATO supports normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations

Copper falls in price

Karabakh FM: Azerbaijan has become more aggressive, brazen with Turkeys support

MOD: Artsakh army units did not open fire towards Azerbaijan positions

Oil prices go down

Armenia Security Council chief briefs Poland Senate vice-speaker on regional developments

Azerbaijan fires at Armenia positions

Gold prices go down

Newspaper: Armenia law enforcement agencies operative intelligence teams to enter several officials houses

US midterm elections virtually over, counting of votes underway

US State Department: Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs agreed to continue meetings, direct dialogue

India's Supreme Court releases men sentenced to death for rape and murder

Global South needs $2 trillion year to fight climate crisis

McDonald's releases chair for gamers with burger stand

The Telegraph: Rishi Sunak to announce major natural gas deal with US after COP27 summit

U.S. officials secretly ask major banks to continue doing business with some Russian firms

19fortyfive: Is America tired of the war in Ukraine?

EU replaces pipeline Russian gas with imported Russian LNG

Kommersant: China split the 'unity' of the West

Expert estimates level of Azerbaijan's information attack on Armenia in September, comparing it to 44-day war

UK wants to work more with the U.S. on gas supplies

Donald Trump votes in Florida midterm elections

EU admits: It is impossible to set a ceiling on gas prices that will not affect contracts or security of supply

Most valuable metal of year is named

Mehr: Nikolai Patrushev arrives in Tehran

Turkish TV company confesses that Ankara and Israel were arming Azerbaijan against Armenia

Who is Baku threatening? Armenia's former deputy defense minister decodes Aliyev's statements

Army Commander-in-Chief: Even those who claim to be superpowers do not dare to attack Iran

Iran and Russia to build joint pipeline

India to continue buying Russian oil

Businessman Zhong Shanshan becomes richest man in China

Armenia and Poland emphasize OSCE role in promoting stability in South Caucasus

Banks are searched in Germany in case of money laundering by Russian businessman

Armenian President reacts to Aliyev's speech at League of Arab States summit

Armenia increases trade with EEU member states by $1.2 bln

Cavusoglu: Sweden and Finland have not yet fulfilled all Turkey's conditions

Oldest member of Rothschild dynasty die in Britain

Armenian National Security Council head and Polish Secretary of State discuss regional security issues

Stepantsminda-Lars highway faces restrictions

Kyiv realizes if China starts supplying ammunition to Russian troops it will be terrible

State Department: U.S. remains committed to supporting peace in South Caucasus region

Iran condemns thousand protesters and calls for retaliation against rest

Delegation from Israel visits Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide

Media: London is close to agreement with Washington on LNG supplies

Aliyev in fact confirms fact of Azerbaijani aggression against sovereign territory of Armenia

Toivo Klaar: Important meeting held in Washington between Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs

Aliyev switches from threatening Armenia to insulting foreign leaders

Karabakh ombudsman: Todays occupation does not change status of Shushi

Envoy briefs Kazakhstan human rights commissioner on consequences of Azerbaijan aggression against Armenia

Dollar, euro continue to rise in Armenia

U.S. Ambassador to UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield arrives in Kiev

EU partners welcome justice sector reforms in Armenia

Armenia government to have academic city project development working group

Rybar: Publication of Iranian film about 'skeletons' of Aliyev family is blow to positions of Aliyev family

Zelenskyy to attend G20 leaders' summit

Voting for midterm elections to Congress begins in U.S.

Russian MFA offers Tehran and Riyadh to mediate dialogue

Survey: Georgia residents say Armenia is their friend

Arman Yeghoyan to Poland colleague: Armenia needs support from European platforms

State Department official: American side is impressed by Armenia Police reforms

Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte: I realized that this project is the right one

Heads of general staffs of CSTO countries armies to discuss military cooperation development

President: Climate change agenda continues to remain priority for Armenia despite challenges, security concerns

Armenia discusses issue of EEU citizens' stay in country for more than 180 days

Economy minister: 74% of Diaspora Armenians ready to invest in Armenia

Constitutional Court of Georgia revokes ban on pornography

158 people die in Philippines storm

Close to $7.5M allocated for Armenia scientific infrastructure, material, technical base modernization

Byblos Bank Armenia finances the construction of two major solar parks

Bloomberg: EU mechanism to provide Ukraine with $18 billion implies conditions

Turkey voices its full and unconditional support for Azerbaijan

Ombudsperson attends Armenia-EU Human Rights Dialogue session, presents facts recorded in her ad hoc reports

Israeli embassy congratulates Azerbaijan on 'Victory Day'

World gold prices going down

Ankara offers its storage capacity for Russian grain

Zelenskiy calls key conditions for talks with Russia

Bitcoin price goes down

Copper price goes down

World oil prices dropping

Blinken: Armenia and Azerbaijan are taking courageous steps to achieve peace

Newspaper: What changes expected in "Brussels package" of Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization talks?

13 billion cubic meters of natural gas found off Israel coast

State Security Service of Azerbaijan is scared by YouTube video about situation in Nakhichevan

Newspaper: There were serious problems in organizing Global Armenian Summit

MFA: Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs agree to expedite their negotiations
STEPANAKERT.  The adversary violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between the Karabakh and Azerbaijani opposing forces more than 35 times, from late Sunday night to early Monday morning.

During this time the Azerbaijani armed forces fired about 420 shots toward the position-holders of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) Defense Army, and with different-caliber shooting weapons, the defense army informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

In addition, the adversary fired two shells from an automatic grenade launcher, in a southerly direction of the line of contact.

But the Artsakh defense army vanguard units are in full control of the frontline, and they continue to reliably maintain their military positions.
Officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan have detained a man whom they suspect of stealing the metal fences of a Christian cemetery in capital city Baku.

This person is previously convicted Elshan Mammadov, according to APA news agency of Azerbaijan.

Iron fences were found during the search of the suspects home.

Mammadov stated that he had sold some of the stolen items to scrap metal collectors.

A criminal case is opened.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) The government is nudging the worlds largest coal miner CIL to expedite export of coal to neighbouring countries, including Bhutan, as India has surplus coal.

"What I have asked Coal India is to expedite it (coal export)... We have enough (coal). We have 69 million tonnes of pithead stock," Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar told PTI.

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Coal pithead is where the mine is located and the mined coal is kept usually before being transported to power companies. Asserting that CIL can export all the surplus coal, including the pithead and fresh stock, Kumar said the PSU is capable of producing more coal than the actual demand. "To get anything from Bangladesh is a bit difficult. Coal India is exploring all neighbouring countries, including Bhutan," the secretary said. Coal India (CIL) has conveyed it to the coal ministry that it is exploring the possibilities of exporting coal to neighbouring nations, but nothing concrete has taken shape. The government had earlier said CIL is examining opportunities to export coal with high ash content or high grade fossil fuel to the neighbouring nations. Coal India accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal production. PTI SID ARD

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN. - Deputy Chairman of Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), Vardan Vardanyan on Monday told Armenian News  NEWS.am that the list of Tsarukyan bloc candidates, who will receive deputy mandates, will become known in a few days.

It is yet under discussion who and according to which standards will receive them. The first factor for receiving a mandateleadership as per the voting resultsis also among the standards, but not with regard to all candidates.

According to the circulated information, bloc leader Gagik Tsarukyan has forced all the candidates to sign withdrawal applications so that he can pick up those deserving at his own discretion. Pursuant to the information, the list of those deserving lacks certain candidates, who appeared as leaders in territorial candidates, with regard to which dissatisfaction is rising within the party.

The list of these candidates also includes yazidi Artur Mamoyan, who came first in Nor Nork administrative district. Several days ago the latter confirmed to Armenian News  NEWS.am that he wont enter the parliament, this being due to his character, whereas there are news that Mamoyan wont tolerate injustice towards him and will write an application to leave PAP.

PAP Deputy Chairman assured that he has heard nothing about the dissatisfaction of the candidates. Everything is in the stage of discussionWe will consider the votes, activity, conduct, involvement in the party activity, everything.

Asked whether it is possible for candidates who are leaders according to voting results not to make it to the parliament, being replaced by candidate who won fewer votes, Vardan Vardanyan said: We will see this in the discussion stage. I cant tell that now: a decision should be made.

Referring to the wave of dissatisfaction rising in the parliament and the possibility that certain candidates may leave the party as a result, he noted: I am expressing my point of view: There are no such sentiments, but if there are people who wish to leave the party, let them do that, whats wrong? One person leaves and 100 join. There is and will be no injustice factor in our party.

To the question as to why the candidates are forced to write withdrawal applications then, Vardanyan said: I cant respond to that question.

In fact, passions are rising in Tsarukyan bloc over the post of parliamentary deputy speaker: there are many candidates but former chairman of the Control Chamber, Ishkhan Zakaryan, is considered the most possible one. Vardanyan noted that it is yet not certain which candidate they will choose.

According to the legislation, the post of one of the parliamentary deputy speakers should be assumed by the representative of the largest opposition faction, i.e. Tsarukyan bloc.
In another demonstration of Indias masculine foreign policy, it subtly sent a message to Turkey over its support to Pakistans position on Kashmir. Just before the Turkish President arrives in Delhi, Indian Vice President paid tribute to victims of Armenian Genocidea sore point for Turkeyand less than 24 hours before his visit, India will be hosting the President of Cyprus, The New Indian Express newspaper noted in an article.

According to this article, the first respective move from India came when Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Armenias capital city of Yerevan to pay tribute to the genocide victims, on April 25. After paying tribute, Ansari said: This is a tragedy, indescribable things done to humans by humans.

The writers of this article note that, By acknowledging Armenian genocide, New Delhi is provoking Ankara.

It is noted that the second message is to visiting Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, for whom India rolled out the red carpet and it would be hard for [Turkey] President Erdogan to ignore.

In addition Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated Indias support for the sovereignty of Cyprus.

The Turkish president on Monday arrived in India, on a two-day visit.
An event commemorating the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide took place in Iraqi city of Zakho.

There are now 200 Armenian families in the city located in Iraqi Kurdistan, right near the Turkish border. All of them arrived in Zakho following the Genocide that started on April 24, 1915, Rudaw reports.

The Armenians living here are the descendants of those who immigrated from Bitlis, Erzurum, Van, Mush and other locations in Northern Turkish Kurdistan.

Armenians have one seat in the Kurdistan parliament, and another one in the Duhok Provincial Council. Besides, the city has a school, where local Armenians can learn in their native language.

There are just a few of us in Kurdistan. But thanks to God, we have been given most of our rights, said Ishkhan Milko, an Armenian member of the Duhok Provincial Council.
There are two major factors with respect to a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: time, and the seriousness of the conflicting parties, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokesman Bahram Qassemi told APA news agency of Azerbaijan.

There are many factors playing roles in peace settlement; they all need to be taken together so that the conflict can be resolved, Qassemi said. Therefore, I suppose its wrong to think that the crisis can be solved by one person or country. The solution to the conflict is through a total consideration of all the factors that would play their role in resolving the conflict.

Also, he noted that one of the respective central factors is people.

There needs to be a serious approach to this issue, added the Iranian MFA spokesperson. The Karabakh crisis cannot be settled except through considering the peoples role, which will be the key to resolving the conflict.
A truck owned by an Armenian citizen entirely burnt down on a motorway nearby Kvesheti village of Georgias Dusheti region several hours ago, the press-service of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs informed NewsGeorgia.

According to the information, the truck was heading from Russia to Armenia by the Georgian Military road. Fortunately, it was empty and nobody was injured as a result of the fire.

The traffic was stopped by the police on that section of the road for an hour. The passenger cars bypassed the section, while the drivers and passengers of buses, microbuses and trucks waited for the fire to be put out.
Although the Armenian parliamentary election became an important step forward for the development of democracy in Armenia, we recorded facts of bribery, pressure on voters and use of administrative resource, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills said in interview with 168.am.

In his words, these observations are in line with those of other representatives of the international community. Thus, the Embassy urged the government to conduct fully-fledged investigation of all the reports, including the one regarding pressure on SAS Group workers, Mills noted.

Responding to the question on the scandalous incident related to school and kindergarten directors, the Ambassador said that he was disappointed to learn about such use of administrative resource, as well as about the fact that relevant fact finding was not carried out. In this context, Ambassador Mills expressed hope that consideration of the case of civil activist Daniel Ioannisyan will be just.

He also added that the persons, who interfered with the electoral process, will not be authorized to take part in the programs and events funded by the U.S. Embassy.
Family of Jogendra Giri, who is posted at Jammu border, was threatened after they opposed a liquor vendor in the village. The soldier said that after the protests his mother and brother went missing.

By India Today Web Desk: In yet another incident of brazen lawlessness in Haryana, liquor mafia reportedly threatened and abducted the family of an Army jawan in Sonepat. The incident came to light after a video showing the altercation between the two parties went viral.

Family of Jogendra Giri, who is posted at Jammu border, was threatened after they opposed a liquor vendor in the village. The family have been protesting against the liquor sellers in the village. Sources said that along with Giri's mother, women from their entire village had joined the protests.

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"If soldiers are serving the nation, who is responsible for the safety of their family members? the administration needs to answer this," said Giri.

The soldier said that since the protests his mother and brother are missing. He added that he lived under fear of being ill-treated. He said that his wife too was abused by the men from the liquor mafia.

"Some people barged into our residence and threatened us. They threatened me of dire consequences if we did not withdraw the complaint," said Giri's wife.

She added there is no help from the authorities and that both her mother-in-law and brother-in-law have been missing for days. "We have absolutely no knowledge where they took our mother and brother. We have been repeatedly inquiring about them," she said.

NO PROBE BY WOMEN'S COMMISSION

Following the incident, the jawan's wife approached the women's commission. However, no probe has been ordered by the women's commission.

The soldier also approached the Sonepat Police, SP and MP. Distraught with the apathy of the authorities, the jawan has said that there was no assistance from both the police and the Haryana government.

"He didn't approach the government, he shared the issue on social media. There is no formal complaint yet. He is yet to name the accused who harassed his family. Our government ensures justice for them," said Krishan Dhal from the Haryana government.

When asked about the police negligence, Dhal said that he will speak once a formal complaint is lodged and added that the government will look into it. "I don't know which police station he approached. It is time for online FIR registration. This video is very old. However, we assure that if proven we will suspend the police personnel who refused to take the jawan's complaint," said Dhal.

He added that the government will take stern action against encroachments and violations by liquor mafia.

After the jawan's video went viral, Army ordered an inquiry into the case.

"We protect motherland, but are unable to protect our own mother," soldier reportedly told army sources.

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Also Read:

Jaipur: Angered over sale of illicit liquor, locals hurl alcohol bottles on streets

Madhya Pradesh: 70 villages impose self prohibition against sale of liquor in state

Dry way on the highway: Supreme Court's 2016 ban on liquor sales comes into effect today

Ban on liquor along highways: Sale of booze continues surreptitiously along Delhi-Panipat route

Watch: Haryana liquor mafia abducts soldier's family, army orders probe

--- ENDS ---
The plane flying from Moscow to Bangkok was in a turbulence zone for 15 seconds but after 30 seconds the crew was able to return the plane to the needed flight line, pilot in command, Alexander Ruzov said, RIA Novosti reports.

According to the information available to the Investigative Committee of Russia, the incident took place on Monday, 40 minutes before landing in Bangkok, as over 20 passengers sustained injuries when the plane had hit extreme turbulence. The crew had no opportunity to warn the passengers of the need to return to their seats.

All this reloading lasted for 15 seconds and in 30 seconds the plane was returned to the needed flight line thanks to the literate actions of the crew. And everything ended. But unfortunately the passengers, who had not fastened their seat belts sustained injuries, Ruzov said.
Coca-Cola's (KO) - Get Free Report James Quincey has his work cut out for him as he officially takes over as CEO on Monday.

Among his many tasks, one is to get the soda giant back to performing in line -- or better than -- rival PepsiCo (PEP) - Get Free Report . As it stands, the performance gap is pretty wide.

Coke reported tepid first-quarter results, as its earnings of 43 cents a share slightly missed Wall Street's expectations and its revenue declined 11% to $9.1 billion.

To add insult to injury, PepsiCo's earnings of 94 cents a share beat analyst's estimations for earnings of 92 cents a share, and its revenue rose 2% from the year ago quarter to $12.04 billion.

Shares of Coke have fallen 4% over the past year, while PepsiCo has gained 9.5%.

A prime reason PepsiCo performed so well in the first quarter was its strong portfolio of snack brands. Frito Lay North America saw its sales climb 4% as people continue to move toward snacking as opposed to eating outright meals.

Not only does PepsiCo have the food to add to its long list of beverage options, but it's driving the product innovation that makes its food brands strong. In an interview with TheStreet, PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston discussed the importance of its "guilt free" snacks -- salty and sweet treats that have lower calorie counts -- including Baked Lays potato chips, its Quaker breakfast options and a new line of lighter chips called Poppables.

READ MORE: Monster Beverage Hatches a Plan to Steal Female Starbucks Frappuccino Drinkers

"Frito has established itself as an insurmountable brand," said Michael Musso, managing director of Conway MacKenzie's Consumer Packaged Goods practice. He also spent 13 years at PepsiCo, four of which specifically at Frito Lay.

Musso said even if Coke gears itself up with a few snack brands, it will be difficult for the company to compete with PepsiCo's Frito Lay business, which dominates some 80% of the overall snack food industry.

"Coke needs diversification or it needs to be acquired," Musso said, who thinks the logical buyer would be beer king Anheuser Busch Inbev (BUD) - Get Free Report . "If anyone has the resources to compete with [PepsiCo], it's Anheuser Busch."

If Coke decides to stay independent, Musso thinks Coke should target snack giant Mondelez (MDLZ) - Get Free Report , the maker of Oreo, Triscuit and Chips Ahoy!, as a possible acquisition that could help it compete with PepsiCo.

"Mondelez has a number of brands that would complement Coke," Musso said.

Sandy Rubinstein, CEO of digital marketing and advertising agency DXagency, said she's a long-time Coke consumer and would like to see more from the company. DXagency provides services to major players in the snack food industry like Welch Foods.

"As a Coke consumer, I want them to give me more," Rubenstein said. Putting acquisitions aside, she said Coke can leverage its own brands like Minutemaid to make snack products, possibly breakfast bars or smoothie mixes.

"Coke and Pepsi are both world renowned, billion dollar brands," Rubenstein said. "The real differentiator is that Pepsi has diversified its portfolio, which is tremendous given the downturn in the sugar industry." The downturn in sales of sugary soda has been severe, and has weighed on Coke's mostly soda driven business. Sales of soda drinks fell by 1.2% in the U.S. in 2016, marking the 12th straight year of declines, according to trade publication Beverage Digest.

Still, Quincey is seen by Wall Street as a leader who can truly transform the Coca-Cola brand. The former COO led Coke's recent transition away from sugary beverages, amid a general consumer shift to healthier food options, and said on the company's recent earnings call that he will be focused on driving growth for brands such as Honest Tea and Powerade.

Jim Cramer and the AAP team hold a position in PepsiCo for their Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells PEP? Learn more now.
CSB Releasing Investigative Report This Week on 2015 Torrance Explosion

Cal/OSHA cited ExxonMobil Refining & Supply Company in August 2015 for safety and health violations following its own investigation of the California refinery explosion, which injured four workers.

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is holding a news conference on May 3 in Torrance, Calif., to release its final investigation report on the Feb. 18, 2015, explosion at the ExxonMobil Refinery in Torrance. Attending the briefing will be CSB Chair Vanessa Allen Sutherland and Mark Wingard, investigator-in-charge of this case.

Cal/OSHA cited ExxonMobil Refining & Supply Company in August 2015 for safety and health violations following its own investigation of the California refinery explosion, which injured four workers. Cal/OSHA issued 19 citations to the company for safety and health violations along with proposed penalties totaling $566,600.

Cal/OSHA classified 18 of the citations as serious "due to a realistic possibility of worker death or serious injury," with six of those serious violations also classified as willful because Cal/OSHA found the company did not take action to eliminate known hazardous conditions at the refinery and intentionally failed to comply with state safety standards.

The explosion resulted from a hydrocarbon release from the refinery's fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) unit into its electrostatic precipitator, which exploded. Cal/OSHA said its investigation concluded that a 2007 safety review uncovered concerns about flammable vapor leakage in the precipitator and management knew of potential fire or explosion hazards from the leakage but did not correct the danger; that ExxonMobil Refining & Supply's incident response team, which included senior management, was aware of a leaking spent slide valve on the FCC unit before the explosion occurred; and that the FCC unit had not been working properly for as many as nine years prior to the incident, and there was no functional pressure transmitter, so the company was unable to monitor hydrocarbon pressure buildup inside the unit.

The CSB briefing is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. local time at the Double Tree Torrance, 21333 Hawthorne Blvd.
Soon there will be even more to love about "Wisconsin Foodie." Specifically, a print publication.

The Emmy Award-winning local television series will be expanding its reach, thanks to the recent acquisition of Edible Milwaukee magazine.

Much like "Wisconsin Foodie," which maintains a focus on telling the stories of local food purveyors and producers throughout the state of Wisconsin, Edible, a quarterly magazine that launched in 2013, made a name for itself through in-depth stories focused on the local food scene in Milwaukee and surrounding counties.

And that, says Arthur Ircink, independent filmmaker and founder of "Wisconsin Foodie," is what makes the magazine such a good fit for its brand.

"Were based in Milwaukee," he notes. "And although our mission on Wisconsin Foodie is to highlight stories about the food scene throughout the state, there are so many stories wed like to tell about Milwaukee. It makes the magazine a fantastic complement to what we do state-wide."

Bringing life back to print

When asked about his specific interest in a print publication in this day and age, Ircink smiles.

"I am such a magazine geek," he says. "Back in high school, my friends would go out to parties, and Id go to the bookstore. And I was always reading. The art of print has always been a big part of my life; its inspiring to me. And I think theres a real opportunity here to keep up the strong journalism, but also to transform this publication into something thats really artfully done."

Ede says that, although shes chosen to pursue another path outside of publishing, the journey to found and cultivate interest in Edible Milwaukee was rewarding.

"Returning home to launch Milwaukee's Edible magazine, and growing it over the past four years, has been one of the most challenging and rewarding things I've done so far in my professional career," notes Ede, who moved to Milwaukee from Boston to launch the publication. "I'm grateful to our community partners for seeing my vision  which, early on, wasn't even on paper  and supporting us, year after year, to our contributors for their beautiful work and to the readers, for the love and kind words that came every time we distributed. Together, we made Edible Milwaukee what it is today."

Ircink, who purchased the publication with colleague Wendi Devan, director of strategy at Wisconsin Foodie and co-owner of the specialty food business SA Braai, notes that Ede has been a "passionate visionary for Southeastern Wisconsins food community" and that hes eager to take her work and move it to the next level.

Change is a comin'

Ircink says that Ede will remain with the publication as a consultant for both the summer and fall issues, offering the team a chance to really work the kinks out of their processes. But, he says readers will begin to see changes to the look and feel of the magazine beginning with the winter issue.

"We want to bring distinct personalities to the magazine in the same way we do on Foodie," he says. "Our goal is to bring in a variety of voices, from local writers and photographers to artists. We want it to be a playground for creatives in the community. In that way, the magazine might take on a look thats maybe a bit more punk rock art scene than it is currently... something modern and cool."

Behind the scenes Devan and Ircink note that theyll be working to re-centralize the production of the magazine, including layout design, printing and distribution to companies in Wisconsin. They expect that the magazine will continue to be issued at least quarterly; however, they are considering adding an additional page count, as well as special issues.

They will also be looking at ways to bulk up both the social and digital components of the Edible Milwaukee brand, potentially adding a video series and other elements that assist in bolstering the print publication.

"Were already planning stories for next year," says Devan. "Right now everything is an open book and a big brainstorming session. But, were really excited to get started. Edible has a very strong, established community. And part of our job is to broaden that. We want to really engage people of all ages and give them a chance to be a part of our community. Wed also like to influence the distribution of it so we can get it into more eager hands."

Ede says shes confident shes left the publication in capable hands.

"When we started, we said the stories in our burgeoning food community were enough to fill a book," she says. "It's true, they've filled a full four years' worth already, and they will continue to do so, vibrantly, with Wendi and Arthur as publishers. And although my chapter in Milwaukee is over, but I'm happy to know that Edible Milwaukee's book will publish on."
Surely, the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Walkers Point was once a beacon for nearby residents  at least the ones who were members of the congregation that organized in 1852. But for more than 50 years now, that little church  which has long since lost its steeple  has sat quite literally in the shadow of its neighbor, the Allen-Bradley Clocktower. X

For years, Ive been intrigued by this almost hidden little building that looks even older than it really is. Maybe youve also wondered about the former church at 202 W. Scott St. In addition to serving as a church in its earliest days, the building later became a candy factory with an interesting story, too.

Lets go back to the beginning. The Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded on Nov. 22, 1852 by 10 families in the carpentry shop of Walkers Point cabinet maker Samuel Gabrielson, who lived on Pittsburgh Avenue, between 1st and 2nd Streets. X X

The following year, the congregation bought a lot on the corner of 2nd and Scott Streets for $150 and set about building a frame church, reportedly doing much of the work themselves, on the land. X

The church was dedicated on Jan. 14, 1855 and 11 days later, the Wisconsin Legislature authorized the trustees of the church to "bond and mortgage the lot and church" for $1,000, which "shall be applied by said trustees in paying off the indebtedness of said society for the creation of said church and for the completion of the same."

Soon, this new Lutheran church was the first in Wisconsin to offer services in English. By 1904 all services were in English, though by then were held in the neo-Gothic revival cream city brick church designed by architect Andrew Elleson that replaced the frame church on the corner lot in 1882.

Elleson himself had been confirmed at the church in 1865.

Elleson designed the nearby  and much more imposing  St. Peters Evangelical Lutheran Church at 8th and Scott three years later. He also drew other neighborhood structures, including the National Block on 5th and National.

At some point during these years, my great-great-grandfather, who was born in Germany and arrived in Milwaukee in 1877, worked as the janitor at the church. It was the first of a couple connections my family has had with the building and the congregation. X X

By the late 1910s, the renamed Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension had gotten so overcrowded that it purchased a bigger piece of land, further west along Scott Street, at Layton Boulevard. In 1922 ground was broken and the following year a much larger Gothic revival church, designed by Milwaukee architect Anton Dohmen, was completed. X X

It is in this building that my German Milwaukee family has celebrated baptisms, confirmations and weddings. Ascension is still in that building today.

Meanwhile, the old building later became home to the Maronn Candy Co., the history of which Ive only been able to somewhat piece together. X X

In 1914, William Maronn was manager of the Standard Candy Co., which operated out of a couple buildings on Water Street just north of the Button Block on the corner of Clybourn Street.

Later, Maronn was running his eponymous company out of 202 W. Scott St., though I havent been able to find out if he left Standard to start his own company or if he simply moved Standard and changed its name. X

Maronns son was a good friend of my grandfather, perhaps because my great-grandmother worked in the elder Maronns candy factory located in the church where her father-in-law also served as a janitor.

Likely while she was employed there, Maronn produced what seems to be its most publicity-generating product: CheeSweet. X Scuttle into the tower. X

The candy was supposedly invented by DePere lumberman S. M. Stebbings, whose diabetes and sweet tooth led him to experiment and what he came up with was a chocolate cordial filled with a liquid cheese caramel and a whole cranberry. The caramel was made with 40 percent Swiss cheese.

Maronn manufactured the candy, which garnered national media attention for its unique blend. In 1958 Miss CheeSweet was one of the top draws at the Alice in Dairlyland parade in DePere. That same year, the candy was judged the "worlds finest candy" at the International Fancy Food and Confectionary Show at Chicagos Palmer House Hilton. X X

Ten years later, Wisconsin Gov. Warren P. Knowles sent heart-shaped, 10-pound boxes of CheeSweet  by then produced by Quality Candy of Milwaukee  to LadyBird Johnson, Pat Nixon and Lenore Romney for Valentines Day.

Sometime in between, the Chocolate House  which had been founded on 3rd Street Downtown but had moved to Greenfield in 1963  had bought out Maronn Candy and Federal Manufacturing  which makes bottling equipment  bought the old Scott Street church/candy factory. X

Recently, Eric Barthenheier, whose self-named construction company has done renovation and repair work at places like the Saddlery Building, the Mitchell Building and on the steeples at All Saints Cathedral and Holy Hill, purchased the building and plans to renovate it into an office for his business.

He recently met up with me and we took a walk through, even though he warned me there is very little evidence of the church left inside.

Outside, of course, the building looks like a church, even though its steeple has come down, apparently in a few phases. A 1957 photo in the collection of the Milwaukee Public Library shows the spire gone, but the belfry extant. Even that has since been removed.

At some point since then, a small home to the north was razed and a ramp leading to a garage door installed at basement level was added. One can also see where some old windows were bricked up and other windows openings created. Down in the basement you can see the wooden posts that hold the place up. Unlike in other buildings where the posts are just solid, squared-off beams of wood, here they are turned Tuscan columns. X

On the east slope of the roof there is an elevator penthouse for a freight elevator added sometime after the church moved. Fortunately the gorgeous heavy wooden front doors remain  apparently from the church era  as does a curious wooden panel with a pointed arch above the doors.

Its hard to tell if the interior floor configuration has been altered, but Barthenheier believes so. When you enter the front doors, you walk up a few steps to a first floor with a ceiling that is fairly low  perhaps nine or 10 feet.

Up another set of stairs and youre on the top floor, which is a big open space with a cathedral ceiling that has an alluring lip running along each of the long walls where the ceiling meets the wall. Part of the ceiling plaster has come down, allowing us to see the fine carpentry that created the foundation for this lip.

This is clearly the sanctuary, but its not clear whether or not the floor were standing on is original or was added later.

Surely, it seems unusual to enter the church at a lower floor and then ascend a narrow stairway up to a sanctuary with most of its windows at thigh height. On the other hand, the peak of the ceiling is still quite high up and the church was later called "Ascension," so who knows?

At the top of the steps, we can look up and see into the opening that afforded access to the belfry and steeple. The floor directly below it is broken and we can peer downstairs through it, though were careful not to get too close.

At the south end of the sanctuary is the sole surviving church remnant that I saw inside. Two posts support a wooden arch decorated with carved trefoils that serves to create a tiny nave at the back.

Every floor is packed full of junk left behind when Barthenheier bought the place this summer. There is old machinery, boxes full of who knows what, though in a couple I spy hundreds of empty orange juice containers. The floor in one room is littered with cardboard milk bottle caps printed in a font that shouts 1960s (or earlier). The elevator is still in the shaft, with junk tossed on top.

Barthenheier has got his work cut out for him, but Im sure glad this bit of Milwaukee history is in the hands of someone with the desire and the skill to bring it back to a useful life.
Greetings from Family Travel Week, sponsored by The Family Backpack, a new online guide that connects you to the best family travel blog posts. Enjoy seven days of family travel stories that will help you plan your next adventure, reduce pre-vacation stress and provide useful tips for once you arrive at your destination. Wheels up!

When Andrea Khan traveled to France for two weeks with her high school French Club, it was a life-changing experience and one that ignited the wanderlust that would eventually lead her to 26 different countries and hundreds of cities.

"It was so fascinating to see something so completely different than anything I had ever seen before," says Khan, who grew up in La Crosse. "Paris is still my favorite city."

Fast forward a couple of decades, and Khan is living in Shorewood with her husband and three children, ages 9, 7 and 3. Neither marriage nor parenthood has dampened Khans desire to see the world, but the way in which she travels has, obviously, changed immensely.

Research and pre-planning when traveling with kids is absolutely necessary, and although Khan enjoys it, she also found it overwhelming because the abundance of family travel information was scattered and required a lot of digging to find useful articles.

"I have spent hours and hours planning vacations over the years and a lot of time reading family travel blogs and websites to glean insight for my familys travel," says Khan. "I finally had an aha moment and thought, Wouldnt it be great if all of this information was in one searchable website to make it easier for parents?"

Hence, Khan transformed her aha moment" into a reality, and over the course of a year  with the help of Happy Interactive web designer, Unbox Interactive and OnMilwaukee  started The Family Backpack, a travel and lifestyle company with a mission "designed to make family vacation planning easier."

The Family Backpack is an online guide helping families plan vacations from international travel to road trips in the United States while also providing insight and tips once the vacation has been planned.



The Family Backpack is constantly updated and divided into categories that link to hundreds of useful family travel blogs and websites. Khan also writes her own content based on some of the trips she's taken with her family, which include Puerto Rico, Cuba, California, Spain and St. Martin, to name a few. Khan ends most of her blog posts with the expression "wheels up," one she uses both while on vacation and at home to encourage her family to keep moving.





"Whether youre traveling internationally, or going on a multi-state road trip or just going to grandmas house, Family Backpack will direct you to the information you need," she says.

Khan says the travel destination itself is less important than the travel experience. Its an opportunity to explore, make memories, step outside comfort zones and, most of all, learn.

"It's so fun and enlightening to see the world through your children's eyes. It provides a new perspective on yourself and the world that you live in," says Khan. "The entire family realizes there are so many differences in the world but also so many similarities. Plus, if a 3-year-old is going to have a meltdown it's so much less stressful when you're overlooking Lake Tahoe versus at Target."
By India Today Web Desk: Hasan Minhaj is the first Muslim and first South Asian American to head the annual Washington roast and achieved a lot of recognition as a Muslim comedian in America.

Recently, Minhaj hosted the White House Correspondents' Association dinner and raised several eyebrows for obvious reasons. He roasted US President, Donald Trump during his own event.

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Although, POTUS was not present at the event, Minhaj's controversial remarks about the US President were commendable. Donald Trump attended the dinner event later.

There might have been innumerable comedians who must have joked about Trump's presidency but it was a rare situation on Saturday night when Minhaj, a Muslim comedian decided to grill the president of United States of America who is often tagged as 'bigot' and 'racist' during his own event.

Also read: UnAmerican: Indian harassed, abused by racist American in San Jose; police denies help

Minhaj who is also a senior correspondent of the famous TV series, The Daily Show that airs on Comedy Central talked about his experience of being a minority in America along with bullying and hate crimes against the community.

"I would say it's an honour to be here, but that would be an alternative fact," he said. "No one wanted to do this, so of course it lands in the hands of an immigrant. No one wanted this gig."

"The leader of our country is not here. That's because he lives in Moscow, it's a very long flight. It'd be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can't just make it on a Saturday! As for the other guy, I think he's in Pennsylvania because he can't take a joke." Minhaj said in his 25 minute act.

"Even Hillary Clinton couldn't be here tonight. I mean, she could have been here, but I think someone told her the event was in Wisconsin and Michigan."

Also read: Nazi flag, protests, racist attacks and chaos: Trump victory becomes America's reckoning in 24 hours

Minhaj also took a jab on Trump and said, "It's 11 p.m. In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how badly "Nikki Minaj" did at this dinner. And he'll be doing it completely sober. And that's his right. And I'm proud that all of us are here to defend that right, even if the man in the White House never would."

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He talked about American media houses like CNN, USA Today and MSNBC for provoking and profiting off minorities in prison. He also voiced his opinions about discrimination and violence against Muslims and spoke about 2012 Sikh temple shooting along with Orlando nightclub massacre.

Minhaj advised the members of Congress that America needs them to "make our society better" and not just "tweets" on social media.

Also read: 5 times media trumped Trump and Trump trumped media

At the end of the night, he said, "Only in America can a first-generation Indian Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president."

Here's Hasan Minhaj's full monologue:

Also watch: Trump is racist, sexist and homophobic, US doesn't agree with him, says Kal Penn

--- ENDS ---
Greetings from Family Travel Week, sponsored by The Family Backpack, a new online guide that connects you to the best family travel blog posts. Enjoy seven days of family travel stories that will help you plan your next adventure, reduce pre-vacation stress and provide useful tips for once you arrive at your destination. Wheels up!

Before planning a vacation, I encourage you to take a morning coffee break, a date night or a casual, before-bed chat with your spouse, partner or yourself to determine your familys top 10  or top 5  travel bucket list.

If you are more of a pen-to-paper type, go for it; otherwise consider starting a pin board on Pinterest to save your thoughts and then you can add to them in the future. Your list could be further divided into U.S. and international travel. Our familys Pin boards can be viewed here.

The number of people in your travel group and the ages of your kids are important when considering where you might go and when. New Orleans with a newborn might not be a marvelous idea, but New Orleans with older kids is totally do-able.

Our hope at The Family Backpack is to provide you with easy, searchable travel advice so you can make that bucket list happen. My family of five includes three kids, ages 9, 7 and 3, and weve learned a lot during our travels. We've experienced incredible memory-making moments and unexpected let downs and a lot in between  all of which we want to share with you.

Here is my step-by-step approach to planning the right family trip for my clan and hopefully for yours, too.

Determine a budget

The budget is the bottom line for any family vacation. According to the American Express Spending and Saving Tracker, 80 percent of Americans spent an average of $941 per person or $3,764 per a family of four on a summer getaway in 2016. Of course, families spend a lot more or less on their travel. Befrugal.com is a great tool to use when calculating driving versus flying. After you provide basic information, it calculates the total cost of each, the time spent and even the CO2 impact.

Decide on a location

This is usually dictated by the budget as well as the time of year which will affect the weather. We live in Wisconsin, so for us, spring break needs to be somewhere "guaranteed" warm to help us break up the long, long (did I mention long?) winter. In the summer, I think about friends or family we would like to visit or meet up with first to see what options might be there. I also revisit any places that my husband and I went to alone that we might want to share with our kids.

After reviewing our bucket list, if the places dont seem plausible due to budget or timing Arizona in the summer is just too hot  I do random airline searches for sales. Southwest Airlines is usually my go-to airline to start with in the U.S. because I have found great deals through them. Now that our youngest is 3, we are starting to plan one big trip out of the country each year. Budget will continue to dictate where we go as there are so many locations that would be amazing, but it will come down to which one is the most affordable that particular year.

Looking for ideas or inspiration?

Check out The Family Backpack's Inspiration section.

Flying vs. driving?

Once I have decided on a location, I look at airfare prices first, as this is the biggest cost for us as a family of five. If we are road tripping, I consider stops we can make along the way to break up the car ride. Are there friends we could stay with for a night? Is there a site or attraction to check out along the way?

For airline travel, I again look at Southwest first and then I use Kayak to see how the rest of the airlines price out. A lot of the budget airlines like Southwest do not show up on Kayak thus the need for two searches. From there, I try two different searches, one from Milwaukee and one from OHare in Chicago. We are lucky to have two airport options to choose from.

My rule is if we are flying more than three hours and airfare is under $300 then I am almost ready to book. If airfare is over $300, then I try some other creative options like two one-way tickets instead of a round trip. This could be on different airlines. If none of that works, then I wait a few days and check again. I realize this isnt very scientific, but it has worked well for me in the past.

This January, we got round-trip tickets to Cuba for $274 per person out of Chicago. Last January, our tickets to St. Martin were $264 per person. I have also found that airline tickets purchased too far in advance, unless there was a sale going on, are ridiculously expensive. I love direct flights, and that is my preference, but as my kids get older, I am less concerned about making connections. They are all fast runners.

Lodging

Before I book airfare, I make sure that we have a place to stay, especially if its a busy travel time like spring break. Our first preference is to rent a house. All-inclusive resorts are great and sometimes you just need that. However, we like the personal space a house gives us, the privacy (you dont have to share a pool with anyone) and the money it saves. Our go-to sites are AirBnB and VBRO.

Resources

I havent personally tried it yet, but there is another site for family house travel called Kid & Coe. Their team has researched and handpicked kid-friendly houses across the world. Additionally, they provide you with insight from local parents on the destination you are traveling to. Its a brilliant concept; however, take the reviews with a grain of salt because there has been some controversy on fake reviews being posted.

Another resource is www.ciaobambino.com. This website focuses on helping families find kid-friendly places to stay, and it functions as a full-service travel agency (in full disclosure). I love the way they write their reviews of hotels and resorts. Each review includes topics like "Our Favorite Features," "What Families Should Know" and a system to highlight how well a hotel accommodates your kids ages.

Fun with the fam

Traveling with kids has made me realize its great to have a tentative itinerary, but its just that: tentative. You might not get to all of it, especially if you have any kids under the age of 10. But it is good to have a game plan and some things need to be booked in advance, especially if you are traveling during peak times like spring break or Yellowstone in July.

I always find it fun and entertaining to sit down with our kids and discuss what they want to do on the vacation. One of our favorite books to consult is "101 Places You Gotta See Before Youre 12" by Joanne OSullivan. It ranges from #1: A lighthouse to #70: A floating museum. We have gotten some great ideas from here.

If you are traveling overseas and staying in an area for more than three days, I would recommend hiring a local tour guide for one day. I usually choose to do this on our second day. This helps provide a lay of the land and gives us additional ideas for things to do that we might not have come across otherwise  not to mention the wealth of information the guide provides. Some guides will even give you discounts into various museums and other points of interest.

We recently tried a newer website called Mom-aboard. For $50, they will plan a seven-day itinerary for you that includes "Things We Know You Need" like insider tips, cultural nuances, kid-friendly restaurants, age-appropriate activities and doctors. There is a "Mombassador" in each city that has met certain criteria, including that she has kids of her own, who completes the itinerary for you after you fill out a survey. They are continuing to grow their reach around the world with 50 destinations to date. This is a service we will definitely use again.

There are plenty of great ideas here just search under Family Backpack Destinations.

Reminders

If you are traveling out of the country, make sure everyone has a passport that is up to date. Every country is different, but many require that your passport is six months or longer from expiring.

Passports usually take 4-5 weeks, but there is a rush service. Always check the passport website to see what the processing times are in advance.

Wheels up!

What does "Wheels up" mean? Go here.
Dr. Bill Pinchak, Texas A&M AgriLife Research animal nutritionist in Vernon, discusses a new early warning system for bovine respiratory disease. Credit: Texas A&M AgriLife photo by Kay Ledbetter

Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists are developing an early warning system for pen riders or animal care providers to more efficiently identify and treat cattle for bovine respiratory disease.

Dr. Bill Pinchak in Vernon and Dr. Gordon Carstens in College Station, both AgriLife Research animal nutritionists, have been evaluating the relationships of animal behavior in confined animal feeding operations to the onset of sickness.

Along with Texas A&M University students Will Kayser and Kirby Jackson, they recently summarized the results of more than four years of research in a paper, "Evaluation of statistical process control procedures to monitor feeding behavior patterns and detect onset of bovine respiratory disease in growing bulls."

Respiratory disease causes 60-90 percent of the morbidity or sickness in feedlot cattle, Pinchak said. Diagnosis is a challenge and currently relies primarily on visual appraisal to determine illness, which can vary by degrees of individual experience in diagnosing.

"Typically, the accuracy is about 60 percent," he said. "So there are a lot of animals that are not diagnosed and end up being poor performersor die.

"Our goal is to develop and implement technologies that provide earlier and more accurate detection of this illness in cattle," Pinchak said.

"By employing a combination of radio frequency identification tags and receivers with integrated statistical analysis and modeling, we have been able to detect morbidity based on changes in feeding behavior of cattle anywhere from two to four days earlier than visual clinical diagnosis."

He said they use a combination of statistical process control modeling and multivariate analysis for various behavioral traits such as when each animal goes to the feed bunk, how frequently and the amount of time spent there.

"We've been able to detect or predict accurately and repeatedly two to four days prior to clinical analysis," Pinchak said. "By utilizing a combination of sensor technology and modeling, our goal would be to decrease the duration of the illness in the cattle and the number of animals not responding to treatment or relapse rate.

"We expect this could lead to decreasing the overall use of antibiotics and expenses, improving overall animal health and welfare, and improving feed efficiency and overall economic and environmental sustainability of commercial feeding operations," he said.

This diagnosis system would require a dashboard at the feed yard and radio-frequency identification tags. And while Pinchak said neither is prevalent in feed yards yet, if the economics are there, they could be.

"We need to develop next generation technology that improves bovine respiratory disease management based on individual animal diagnosis through a combination of radio frequency identification technology and statistical modeling integrated into a robust, user-friendly analytic platform," he said.

"We've completed the first pass, now we need to follow up with the experiments where animals will be challenged with bovine respiratory disease pathogens and their behavior responses measured to determine the robustness of this integrated sensor modeling approach."

The next step, Pinchak said, will be to use the system with high risk cattle coming into a commercial feed yard and testing in that environment before developing a commercially viable system within the next two to five years.

More information: W. C. Kayser et al. 043 Evaluation of Statistical Process Control Procedures to Monitor Feeding Behavior Patterns and Detect Onset of Bovine Respiratory Disease in Growing Bulls., Journal of Animal Science (2016). DOI: 10.2527/ssasas2017.043 Journal information: Journal of Animal Science
TESS will survey 200,000 stars in search of exoplanets. Credit: NASA

It was a good week for astrobiology. Within days of NASA's announcement that the necessary ingredients for life exist in the plumes erupting from the southern pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus, scientists gathered at Stanford University to discuss discovering life outside the Solar System.

Noting how, "The search for life in the Universe has been transformed from speculation to a data-driven science," speakers like Stanford physicist Peter Michelson offered detailed plans for finding life on exoplanets. Over the course of two days on April 20-21, dozens of scientists attending the Breakthrough Discuss Conference contemplated options for exploring planets in other star systems. These option included using a new generation of powerful telescopes for long distance observations, as well as advancing a first-of-its-kind technology to visit other star systemsall within the next generation.

What these strategies had in common was a focus on observing habitable zone planets in our local stellar neighborhood. In this neighborhood alone, within 30 light-years or so of our solar system, astrobiologists have already identified several Earth-like exoplanets and dozens of systems that may harbor Earth-like worlds. These exoplanets, identified by the effect they have on their parent star, are rocky and roughly the same size and density as Earth. They orbit their stars at a distance that would allow liquid water to exist on the surface. There is, however, at least one major difference between our planet and these potentially-habitable exoplanets. That is, they aren't circling stars like our sun.

On the spectrum of stars, our sun is what's know as a yellow dwarf. It's bright, and not terribly large compared to the largest stars in our galaxy. Yet, even middling stars like our Sun aren't all that common. Our local stellar neighborhood - and probably in the Universe as a whole - is filled with many more low-mass stars. There are 20 yellow dwarf stars like our sun nearby and 250 M-dwarfs, a variety of star so small and dim that, despite their abundance, can't be seen with the naked eye. Over the last three-to-four years, every single low-mass star we've studied appears to have at least one planet. Usually, they have more than one.

"How common are planets orbiting low-mass stars? Very common indeed," explained Courtney Dressing, an astronomer at UC Berkeley to the assembled group. "For a typical M-Dwarf, there tends to be 2.5 planets. One-in-four of the stars has a planet the same size and temperature as Earth in the habitable zone."

Dressing's point was that given the number of M-dwarfs in the local region, there should be at least 60 potentially Earth-like planets in habitable zones within 32 or so light-years from here, and perhaps many more. To date, most of our exoplanet data comes from the Kepler spacecraft. The Kepler spacecraft has focused its search for planets on large M-dwarf stars. In the near future, when the small and medium-sized M-dwarfs are studied, we may discover that closer to one-in-three stars have an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone.

The diagram shows how new technology developed at Caltech will help astronomers search for molecular bio-signatures on exoplanets. Coronagraphs block a stars light, making orbiting planets easier to see. High-resolution spectrometers would help further isolate a planets light, and could reveal molecules in the planets atmosphere. Credit: Caltech/IPAC-TMT

Apart from just being more abundant, studying the potentially-habitable exoplanets around these low mass stars comes with other advantages. These exoplanets have tight orbits around their stars because the habitable zones are close in, giving scientists opportunities to view their transits every few weeks. It is during these transits, when the exoplanets pass in front of their stars, that we have the best opportunity to study their atmospheres for signs of life. Many conference attendees, including Mercedes Lopez-Morales from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics, explained how we will be surveying the atmospheres of the closest habitable zone planets for signs of life dwelling on the surface or in an ocean. "We're going to look for oxygen," she said.

Because the rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere corresponded with the appearance of life, we frequently use that particular molecule as a marker for the presence of life elsewhere. Also, oxygen likes to interact with other chemicals. If we discover a planet where oxygen is still hanging around in the atmosphere, something, possibly life, is actively making it. So, the search for life will focus on elements and molecules like hydrogen, oxygen, and methane. However, as Lopez-Morales explained, there is a downside to this approach.

"A planet's atmosphere is only 1 percent the size of the planet. The size of the signal is tiny. You need to collect at least one trillion photons to be very certain that you are truly looking at oxygen."

The good news is that a new generation of telescopes designed for planetary exploration and astrobiology will be coming online to help us gather those photons. Around this time next year, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will be readying for launch. During its two-year mission, TESS will survey 200,000 stars, including the brighter ones in our local systems. The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in Chile, slated to be operational by 2022, will have a resolving power 10 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope. The GMT will feature a device called the G-CLEF spectrograph, which will be able to see molecules like oxygen in far-off planetary atmospheres. Finally, when the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) opens in 2024, it will have more light-gathering-power than of Earth's current 8 to 10 meter telescopes combined. Astrobiologists are counting on these large telescopes coming online between now and 2024 to identify the prime candidates to look for oxygen and life in our stellar neighborhood.

Even as we anticipate a treasure trove of atmospheric data from these missions, scientists are discovering species that live quite happily without oxygen, light, and other features that we used to believe were required for life. These discoveries highlight how atmospheric bio-signatures like oxygen are an imperfect, if tantalizing, way to look for life from afar. The question then becomes: Could there be there another way to look for extraterrestrial life beyond studying exoplanet atmospheres?

Ideally, to definitively identify life on other worlds, we would visit nearby planets like Proxima b, only 4 light-years away, either in person or with a spacecraft. This is the goal of the Breakthrough's Starshot initiative. Announced a little more than a year ago, Starshot's goal, according to its founder, is to "literally reach the stars in our lifetimes." The plan to accomplish this feat involves launching a fleet of very small spacecraft. Starshot will then accelerate those craft to as close to lightspeed as possible. By aiming high-powered lasers at these gram-sized cameras in space we may be able to cut down the time, cost, and weight required to gain an up- close look at planets around other stars.

TESS: Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite Mission. Credit: NASA

"The goal is to fly a probe very close to a planet and figure out if it has life," said Avi Loeb, a physicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "What is the color of the planet? Is it green? Does it have vegetation? Is it blue, are there oceans? Or is it desert-like?"

At the conference, NASA engineer Ruslan Belikov premiered simulations of what an exoplanet might look like from Starshot's point of view. Even if the craft were moving at 90 percent the speed of light, the onboard cameras should still be able to pick up signs of large oceans, clouds, and land masses that an exoplanet might have.

The hope is that someday, by combining laser acceleration of these very small craft with cameras and other sensors, we might finally be able to take a firsthand look at habitable-zone-planets circling nearby stars, and in doing, perhaps definitively find life elsewhere in the Universe. Combining data from our new generation of very large telescopes with atmospheric observations of nearby exoplanets around M-dwarfs may help us choose the best targets for small Starshot craft flyby.

"We are going to be the generation that is remembered for finding exoplanets. That's a fact," said Lopez-Morales. "Are we going to be also the generation that will be remembered as the first ones who found life on those planets?"

That, indeed, would be the breakthrough of a lifetime.

This story is republished courtesy of NASA's Astrobiology Magazine. Explore the Earth and beyond at www.astrobio.net .
Tell Umeri is an ancient settlement mound in Jordan. As you can see from the Google Earth image, the western edge of the settlement mound has been bulldozed and a modern road now runs alongside this ancient tell. Credit: EAMENA

Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa, (EAMENA) an archaeological preservation project, will today launch public access to its online database of nearly 20,000 archaeological sites at severe risk due to conflict and other agents of destruction in the Middle East and North Africa.

The announcement will be made during the first ever Public Archaeology Twitter Conference(#PATC) today. The conference will also have input from over 30 other leading archaeological academic institutions and projects. It is hoped that the database will drive awareness of the scale of the problem and help governments, NGOs, and other regional stakeholders preserve the heritage of the people of the Middle East and the wider world.

EAMENA's spatial database will provide information for each site, including the level of risk and how each site relates to others. It will be accessible to all heritage professionals and institutions with an interest in the archaeological heritage of the Middle East and North Africa.

It is supported by Arcadia  a charitable fund of Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing, and based at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester, and Durham. EAMENA was established in January 2015 to respond to the increasing threats to archaeological sites in the Middle East and North Africa. The project uses satellite imagery to rapidly record and make available information about archaeological sites and landscapes which are under threat.

Dr Robert Bewley, from the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Director of EAMENA project, said: 'Not all damage and threats to the archaeology can be prevented, but they can be mitigated through the sharing of information and specialist skills. The archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa is exceptionally rich and diverse, giving insight into some of the earliest and most significant cultures in human history.Those seeking to deliberately damage archaeological sites are attacking the cultural heritage of all of us.

'I would like to take the opportunity to thank our donors, my colleagues and partners that have made this vital work possible.'
ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission to the Jovian system could easily confirm the presence of water on Europa, a new study finds. According to the research, it is feasible to detect water molecules (H2O) and water ions (H2O+) from the moon's plumes during a flyby mission.

The suspected water vapor plumes erupting on Jupiter's moon Europa are still baffling scientists searching for habitable environments in the solar system. It is assumed that Europa harbors a vast subsurface liquid ocean, and these plumes could be an indicator of water erupting from the moon's interior. Hence, they offer a great opportunity to gather samples originating from under the thick layer of ice, where many mysteries of extraterrestrial life may await to be unraveled.

Recent observations of Europa with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) show a plume rising about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface. Researchers estimate that these plumes could rise even 125 miles (200 kilometers) before raining material back down onto the icy surface.

According to a new study conducted by a team of European scientists, these plumes should be thoroughly investigated by a future flyby mission like JUICE in order to confirm the presence of water. In a recent paper, the researchers studied the feasibility of in-situ measurements of Europa's plumes by modelling the trajectories of neutral and ionized plume particles and the respective measurements by neutral and ion mass spectrometers.

"Instead of using 'photons' as Hubble does, we will use in-situ particle data. This means that we will validate the presence of water independently using the in situ data. JUICE is the mission that can do this, as it will be equipped with the Particle Environment Package (PEP) instrument suitable for this measurement," Yoshifumi Futaana, co-investigator of the JUICE/PEP instrument at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics told Astrowatch.net.

PEP is a plasma package with six sensors to characterize the plasma environment. It will measure density and fluxes of positive and negative ions, electrons, exospheric neutral gas, thermal plasma and energetic neutral atoms. The package will include the Jovian plasma Dynamics and Composition (JDC) sensor measuring water ions, and the Neutral gas and Ions Mass spectrometer (NIM) sensor measuring water molecules.

Futaana and his colleagues are convinced that the particles of the low mass flux plumes (1 kg/s) can be detected by PEP with large margins. Furthermore, the results of their study suggest the plume signal is recognizable as a temporal signal enhancement of one order of magnitude in the H2O count rate over six minutes. This means that the detection of water plumes during a flyby is, indeed, feasible.

These composite images show a suspected plume of material erupting two years apart from the same location on Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The images bolster evidence that the plumes are a real phenomenon, flaring up intermittently in the same region on the satellite. Credit: NASA, ESA, and W. Sparks (STScI).

"Our paper shows that the plumes can be detected from the JUICE flybys with particle instruments that detect (water) particles in the vicinity of the spacecraft. This is the case even if the plume is significantly smaller than what has been observed. With this, we mean that the plumes in our work only release one kilogram of water per second, while the very first plume observation indicated 7,000 kilograms of water is released per second," Hans Huybrighs of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, one of the co-authors of the paper, told SpaceFlight Insider.

The authors of the study emphasize that even in case of relatively small water plumes, the water atoms dissociating from the molecules, as well as their ions, create significant signals. However, so far, Hubble observations of the plumes detected only atomic oxygen. Given the amount of oxygen and other considerations, it was concluded that these oxygen atoms must arise from dissociated water molecules.

"This would also explain the observed spatial features, which were interpreted as a plume. Even though it is all very plausible, and is not contested in the scientific community, it is an interpretation. PEP on JUICE will be able to confirm this interpretation and provide a lot of additional data to understand the nature of the plume, its composition, and its relation to the subsurface of Europa's ice shell, which is mostly water ice," Peter Wurz of the University of Bern in Switzerland told Astrowatch.net.

The researchers have also shown that the geometry of the plume source does not influence the density distributions. Therefore, it will not affect their detectability when using PEP. They noted that it makes no difference whether it is a point source or a several hundred miles-long crack.

All in all, JUICE equipped in the PEP instrument has the potential to take a peek at Europa's subsurface ocean without drilling the moon's icy shell. This ocean could hold many clues to mysteries of life beyond Earth.

"What is so interesting about this ocean is that it has probably been there for a long time, and that there could be sources of energy for life in it, like geothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean, making Europa's ocean a very interesting environment that is possibly habitable for some form of life," Huybrighs concluded.

JUICE mission is planned to be launched in 2022. The spacecraft will perform two flybys of Europa in early 2031. During these flybys, JUICE is expected to approach Europa up to a height of about 250 miles (400 kilometers).
Credit: Michigan State University

For the best chance of getting hired, former inmates should apologize for their criminal past to potential employers, indicates new research that comes amid the nationwide "ban-the-box" movement.

Trying to justify the crime can be an iffy strategy. And making an excuse is probably the worst thing an ex-offender can do to try to gain a would-be employer's trust, said Michigan State University's Abdifatah Ali, lead author of the study, which appears in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

An estimated 70 million people in the United States - nearly 1 in 3 adults - have a prior arrest or conviction record.

"Apologizing for your past criminal offense seems to be the most effective strategy in reducing concerns about your underlying trustworthiness as a person of integrity," said Abdifatah, a doctoral student in psychology. He co-authored the study with Ann Marie Ryan, an MSU psychology professor who has investigated discrimination against various groups of job-seekers including women, military veterans and people with disabilities.

More than 25 states, as well as some 150 cities and counties, have banned the criminal history check box on job applications, delaying those questions until later in the hiring process - usually the interview - and potentially giving the candidate a better chance at employment, according to the National Employment Law Project. But lawmakers in some areas of the country, including Indiana and Texas, are fighting these ban-the-box efforts.

And even though ban-the-box may increase the likelihood of those with criminal records making it past the application stage, they still likely will be asked about prior offenses.

Abdifatah came up with the idea for the study while working with job candidates in Michigan who couldn't get a job because of their criminal history, even though their crimes had often occurred 10 or even 20 years prior. The state of Michigan does not have a ban-the-box law.

"The core issue that we were trying to address from a psychological perspective is how applicants with a criminal record can best present information regarding their offense," said Abdifatah. "From a counseling standpoint there aren't any evidence-based strategies of how to best present themselves in those situations."

The research involved three studies in which more than 500 participants evaluated job applications or watched a video of job interviews. Job applicants gave one of three responses to their criminal past:

Excuse (e.g., "I was convicted of aggravated assault. I was not responsible for the incident because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time").

Justification (e.g., "I was convicted of aggravated assault. I accept responsibility because I should have not been involved, but I got involved because I was trying to help a family member").

Apology (e.g., "I was convicted of aggravated assault. I should not have been involved and I understand what I did caused harm. I apologized and promised it would never happen again").

Across all three studies, providing an apology was the most successful strategy in leading evaluators to perceive the candidate as remorseful and less likely to engage in deviant behaviors at work. Justification could also be successful, although less so, Abdifatah said.

Making an excuse, on the other hand, had a negative effect on hiring decisions because it failed to lessen the threat associated with criminal identity.

Also co-authoring the study was Brent Lyons, a former MSU doctoral student who's now an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada.
Molecular model of a WS2 triangular monolayer targeted with a green laser (hv). Red light (hv) is emitted from the edges where defects consisting of sulfur vacancies are located. Electron-hole pairs are bound at the vacancy site (see inset). Credit: Yuanxi Wang, Penn State

By now, it is well understood that thinning a material down to a single atom thickness can dramatically change that material's physical properties. Graphene, the best known 2-D material, has unparalleled strength and electrical conductivity, unlike its bulk form as graphite. Researchers have begun to study hundreds of other 2-D materials for the purposes of electronics, sensing, early cancer diagnosis, water desalination and a host of other applications. Now, a team of Penn State researchers in the Department of Physics and the Center for Two-Dimensional and Layered Materials (2DLM) has developed a fast, nondestructive optical method for analyzing defects in two-dimensional materials.

"In the semiconductor industry, for example, defects are important because you can control properties through defects," said Mauricio Terrones, professor of physics, materials science and engineering and chemistry, Penn State. "This is known as defect engineering. Industry knows how to control defects and which types are good for devices."

To really understand what is going on in a 2-D material like tungsten disulfide, which has a single atom-thick layer of tungsten sandwiched between two atomic layers of sulfur, would require a high-power electron microscope capable of seeing individual atoms and the holes, called vacancies, where the atoms are missing.

"The benefit of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is that you get an image and you can see directly what is going on  you get direct evidence," said Bernd Kabius, staff scientist at Penn State's Materials Research Institute, an expert in TEM and a coauthor on the paper appearing April 28 in the online journal Science Advances.

The downsides, according to Kabius, are an increased possibility of damage to the delicate 2-D material, the complex preparation required of the sample and the time involved - an entire day of instrument time to image a single sample and a week or more to interpret the results. For those reasons, and others, researchers would like to combine TEM with another method of looking at the sample that is simpler and faster.

The technique developed by Terrones and his team uses an optical method, fluorescent microscopy, in which a laser of a specific wavelength is shone on a sample and the excited electrons, pushed to a higher energy level, each emit a photon of a longer wavelength when the electron drops down to a lower energy level. The wavelength, or color of light, can be measured by spectroscopy and gives information about the defect type and location on the sample. This data shows up as peaks on a graph, which the team then correlated to visual confirmation under the TEM. Theoretical calculations also helped to validate the optical results. A necessary step in the process requires placing the sample in a temperature-controlled specimen holder, or stage, and lowering the temperature to 77 kelvin, almost 200 degrees C below zero. At this temperature, the electron-hole pairs that produce the fluorescence are bound to the defect - in the case of this work a group of sulfur vacancies in the top layer of the sandwich - and emit a signal stronger than the pristine areas of the material.

"For the first time, we have established a direct relationship between the optical response and the amount of atomic defects in two-dimensional materials," said Victor Carozo, former postdoctoral scholar in Terrones' lab and first author of the work.

Terrones added, "For the semiconductor industry, this is a quick measurement, an optical nondestructive method to evaluate defects in 2-D systems. The important thing is that we were able to correlate our optical method with TEM and also with atomistic simulations. I think this method can be very helpful in establishing a protocol for characterization of 2-D crystalline materials."

In this context, co-author Yuanxi Wang, a postdoctoral researcher in the 2DLM and a theorist, added, "Our calculations show that electrons trapped by vacancies emit light at wavelengths different than the emission from defect-free regions. Regions emitting light at these wavelengths can easily identify vacancies within samples."

And Vincent Crespi, Distinguished Professor of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering and Chemistry, Penn State, said "We can establish not just an empirical correlation between the presence of certain defects and modified light emission, but also identify the reason for that correlation through first-principles calculations."

Device applications that could be enhanced by this work include membranes with selective pore sizes for removing salt from water or for DNA sequencing, gas sensing when gas molecules bind to specific vacancies and the doping of 2-D materials, which is the addition of foreign atoms to enhance properties.

More information: Victor Carozo et al. Optical identification of sulfur vacancies: Bound excitons at the edges of monolayer tungsten disulfide, Science Advances (2017). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1602813 Journal information: Science Advances
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

(Phys.org)A biologist with the University of Zurich has discovered a species of dragonfly whose females play dead to avoid copulating with other males once her eggs have already been fertilized. In his paper published in the journal Ecology, Rassim Khelifa recalls his first experience with a female mooreland hawker dragonfly playing dead, and what he found after further study of the species.

As Khelifa describes it, he was out collecting larvae in the Swiss Alps one day, when he happened to notice one dragonfly chasing anothersuddenly, the one being chased simply stopped flying and crashed to the ground, belly up. The pursuer, he notes, paused for a moment, then moved on. As Khelifa approached the dragonfly on the ground he noted it was female and then was surprised when she suddenly awoke, turned over and flew away.

Intrigued, and suspecting the behavior was intentional, Khelifa initiated a study of the species in their native environment, watching 31 male/female pursuits over time. He reports that the females tried the fake death routine 27 times, and that it worked 21 times. He notes further that in each of the fake death attempts, the female had just left her eggs, or was on her way to tend to them again.

After noting the fake death behavior, Khelifa reports that it makes sense for the female hawker, because unlike other species of dragonfly, the males do not quit attempting to mate once finding success, nor do males assist in protecting the eggs. He notes also that with the hawker species, the males have the ability to pull sperm from prior males out of the female reproductive tract with their penises, and perhaps even worse, can cause damage if he mates with a female that has already laid her eggs.

Khelifa also notes that the females tended to hide among dense vegetation when searching for food, likely another means for warding off ardent male pursuers. He points out that the feigned death behavior is the first observed in a dragonfly, but suggests it likely occurs with other species with females that go it alone after laying their eggs.

More information: Rassim Khelifa. Faking death to avoid male coercion: extreme sexual conflict resolution in a dragonfly, Ecology (2017). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.1781 Journal information: Ecology

 2017 Phys.org
Graph showing the effects of disgust sensitivity on contact with immigrants compared to political ideology, income and education. Credit: American Political Science Review - Volume 111, Issue 2, May 2017, p. 289

There are deep-seated conflicts throughout the Western world about how to handle the influx of refugees and immigrantsshould we close our borders or bid the newcomers welcome? New research reveals that such opposing points of view are grounded in more than deliberate thought and reasoned arguments. At the level of preconscious processing, strong feelings about immigrants are controlled by something as surprising as the immune system.

"The research results provide new understanding of why society does not absorb the new arrivals and why integration fails. Those who are very concerned about the risk of infection are those who are most reluctant to seek out social contact with immigrantssomething that we otherwise know fosters tolerance," says Associate Professor Lene Aare.

"We haven't just found a small, peculiar correlation, but something that can block the integration of immigrants," continues Professor Michael Bang Petersen.

The two political scientists from Aarhus BSS at Aarhus University, Denmark, have collaborated with Professor Kevin Arceneaux, Temple University, on the study, which has just been published in American Political Science Review, the leading journal for political science research.

Deeply rooted reaction

Throughout evolutionary history, our ancestors fought pathogens. The physical immune system evolved to defend us when such pathogens entered the body. Concurrently, humans and other animals have evolved a behavioral immune system, which motivates us to avoid situations where we might become exposed to infection. Avoiding potential sources of infection, such as excrement, blood and rot, has been crucial to our survival, and the motivation to avoid infection remains deeply rooted in us to this day.

The behavioral immune system cannot be controlled. It works on a subconscious level and is particularly sensitive in some people. According to the research team, such people's immune systems overreact and subconsciously misinterpret everything that is different as potential sources of infection.

"People with birthmarks, physical disabilities, abnormalities and something as innocent as a different skin color are subconsciously considered disease carriers by the hypersensitive," says Michael Bang Petersen.

The behavioral immune system shapes our political intuitions and explains why political discussions regarding immigration are so heated in western societies today. Credit: Aarhus BSS at Aarhus University

Better safe than sorry

It is important that these research results are not misunderstood: People with a hypersensitive behavioral immune system do not avoid immigrants because they are consciously afraid of becoming ill if they interact with them. Immigrants are not a source of infection. It is on the subconscious level that the immune system misinterprets differences as a potential sign of infectionthe consequence being that hypersensitive individuals avoid interaction with immigrants.

"The behavioral immune system functions according to a 'better safe than sorry' approach," explains Michael Bang Petersen.

This has consequences for integration and tolerance. One of the primary methods for achieving integration and tolerance is in the contact between immigrants and the majority population. But if immigrants are mistakenly interpreted as an infection hazard, contact becomes something to be avoided; if you are hypersensitive to infection, the last thing you want to do is to interact with a pathogen source.

The research also shows that hypersensitive people are completely indifferent to any good intentions that immigrants might have to contribute to society. The fear among the hypersensitive is due to the perceived risk of infectionimmigrants' intentions are inconsequential. Thus, another of the primary paths to integration is blocked.

Why is the conflict so persistent?

"Our research provides new perspectives on why the immigrant question creates such deep-seated and emotion-laden conflicts in Western society. It is partly shaped by these psychological differences so deeply rooted in us," says Lene Aare.

The research focuses on why it is difficult to arrive at an understanding of each other's points of view when one party does not have a hypersensitive behavioral immune system and does not see the same risks in immigrants.

"If some people see dangers in immigrants that others don't, it's difficult to reach a mutual understanding with reason-based, rational arguments. The fear comes from deeply ingrained unconscious systems that we can't control. You can discuss whether immigrants are a financial gain or burden to society, whether to close the borders or bid the immigrants welcome, but if people are concerned about an entirely different riskand perhaps one they aren't even fully aware ofit's difficult to achieve a mutual understanding of what is the right policy," says Michael Bang Petersen.

The coupling between immigrants and the risk of infection is a misperception, so a greater awareness of why we have different response patterns might contribute to a better understanding among population groups and thereby to integration.

More information: LENE AARE et al, The Behavioral Immune System Shapes Political Intuitions: Why and How Individual Differences in Disgust Sensitivity Underlie Opposition to Immigration, American Political Science Review (2017). DOI: 10.1017/S0003055416000770 Journal information: American Political Science Review
Planning on a little space tourism? Better start training! Credit: barfology.com

It's a new era for space travel. And if there's one thing that sets it apart from the previous one, it is the spirit of collaboration that exists between space agencies and between the public and private sector. And with commercial aerospace (aka. NewSpace) companies looking to provide everything from launch services to orbital and lunar tourism, a day is fast-approaching when ordinary people will be able to go into space.

Because of this, many aerospace companies are establishing safety and training programs for prospective clients. If civilians plan on going into space, they need to have the benefit of some basic astronaut training. In short, they will need to learn how to go safely conduct themselves in a zero-gravity environment, with everything from how to avoid blowing chunks to how to relieve oneself in a tidy fashion.

In recent years, companies like Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Space Adventures, Golden Spike, and SpaceX have all expressed interest in making space accessible to tourists. The proposed ventures range from taking passengers on suborbital spaceflights  a la Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo  to trips into orbit (or the Moon) aboard a space capsule  a la Blue Origins' New Shepard launch system.

And while these trips will not be cheap  Virgin Galactic estimates that a single seat aboard SpaceShipTwo will cost $250,000  they absolutely have to be safe! Luckily, space agencies like NASA already have a very well-established and time-honored practice for training astronauts for zero-g. Perhaps the most famous involves flying them around in a Zero-Gravity Aircraft, colloquially known as the "Vomit Comet."

This training program is really quite straightforward. After bringing astronaut trainees to an altitude of over 10,000 meters (32,000 feet), the plane begins flying in a parabolic arc. This consists of it climbing and falling, over and over, which causes the trainees to experience the feeling of weightlessness whenever the plane is falling. The name "vomit comet" (obviously) arises from the fact that passengers tend to lose their lunch in the process.

Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwos performing a glide flight. Credit: Virgin Galactic

The Soviet-era space program also conducted weightlessness training, which Roscomos has continued since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since 1984, the European Space Agency (ESA) has also conducts parabolic flights using a specially-modified Airbus A300 B2 aircraft. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has done the same since it was founded in 1989, relying on the Falcon 20 twin-engine jet.

Given the fact that NASA has been sending astronauts into space for nearly 60 years, they have certainly accrued a lot of experience in dealing with the effects of weightlessness. Over the short-term, these include space adaptation syndrome (SAS), which is also known as "space sickness." True to its name, the symptoms of SAS include nausea and vomiting, vertigo, headaches, lethargy, and an overall feeling of unease.

Roughly 45% of all people who have flown in space have suffered from space sickness. The duration of varies, but cases have never been shown to exceed 72 hours, after which the body adapts to the new environment. And with the benefit of training, which includes acclimating to what weightlessness feels like, both the onset and duration can be mitigated.

Beyond NASA and other space agencies, private companies have also offered reduced gravity training to private customers. In 2004, the Zero Gravity Corporation (Zero-G, based in Arlington, Virginia) became the first company in the US to offer parabolic flights using a converted Boeing 727. In 2008, the company was acquired by Space Adventures, another Virginia-based space tourism company.

Much like Virgin Galactic, Space Adventures began offering clients advance bookings for sub-orbital flights, and has since expanded their vision to include lunar spaceflights. As such, the Zero-G experience has become their training platform, allowing clients the ability to experience weightlessness before going into space. In addition, some of the 700 clients who have already booked tickets with Virgin Galactic have used this same training method to prepare.

Hawking has experienced zero gravity before, when he flew on Zero Gravity Corps modified Boeing 727 in 2007. Credit: Jim Campbell/Aero-News Network

Similarly, Virgin Galactic is taking steps to prepare its astronauts for the day when they begin making regular flights into sub-orbit. According to the company, this will consist of astronauts taking part in a three day pre-flight preparation program that will be conducted onsite at Spaceport America  Virgin Galactic's spaceflight facility, located in New Mexico.

Aside from microgravity, their astronaut training will also emphasize how to function when experiencing macrogravity (i.e. multi-g forces), which occur during periods of acceleration. The training will also include medical check-ups, psychological evaluations, and other forms of pre-flight prepation  much in the same way that regular astronauts are prepared for their journey. As they state on their website:

"Pre-flight preparation will ensure that each astronaut is mentally and physically prepared to savor every second of the spaceflight. Basic emergency response training prescribed by our regulators will be at the forefront. Activities to aid familiarity with the spaceflight environment will follow a close second."

Blue Origin, meanwhile, has also been addressing concerns with regards to its plan to start sending tourists into suborbit in their New Shepard system. After launching from their pad outside of El Paso, Texas, the rocket will fly customers to an altitude of 100 km (62 mi) above the Earth. During this phase, the passengers will experience 3 Gs of acceleration  i.e. three times what they are used to.

Once it reaches space, the capsule will then detach from the rocket. During this time, the passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Between the intense acceleration and the feeling of freefall, many have wondered if potential clients should be worried about space sickness. These questions have been addressed by former NASA astronaut Nicholas Patrick, who now serves as Blue Origin's human integration architect.

During an interview with Geekwire in January of 2017, he indicated that they plan to provide barf bags for customers to tuck into their flight suits, just in case. This is similar to what astronauts do aboard the International Space Station (see video above) and during long-term spaceflights. When asked about what customers could do to prepare for space sickness, he also emphasized that some training would be provided:

"It's a short flight, so we won't be asking people to train for a year, the way NASA astronauts trained for a shuttle flight, or three years, the way they train for a long space station mission. We're going to get this training down to a matter of days, or less. That's because we don't have very many tasks. You need to know how to get out of your seat gracefully, and back into your seat safely.

"We'll teach you a few safety procedures, like how to use the fire extinguisher  and maybe how to use the communication system, although that will come naturally to many people. What we'll probably spend some time on is training people how to enjoy it. What are they going to take with them and use up there? How are they going to play? How are they going to experiment? Not too much training, just enough to have fun."

"Getting sick to your stomach can be a problem on zero-G airplane flights like NASA's "Vomit Comet," but motion sickness typically doesn't come up until you've gone through several rounds of zero-G. Blue Origin's suborbital space ride lasts only 11 minutes, with a single four-minute dose of weightlessness."

Bezos also addressed these questions in early April during the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, where his company was showcasing the New Shepard crew capsule. Here too, audience members had questions about what passengers should do if they felt the need to vomit (among the other things) in space.

"They don't throw up right away," he said, referring to astronauts succumbing to space sickness. "We're not going to worry about it It takes about three hours before you start to throw up. It's a delayed effect. And this journey takes ten or eleven minutes. So you're going to be fine."

On April 27th, during a special Q&A session of Twitch Science Week, Universe Today's own Fraser Cain took part in a panel discussion about the future of space exploration. Among the panelists were and Ariane Cornell, the head of Astronaut Strategy and Sales for Blue Origin. When the subject of training and etiquette came up, she described the compact process Blue Origins intends to implement to prepare customers for their flight:

"[T]he day before flight is when we give you a full  intense, but very fun  day of training. So they are going to teach you all the crucial things that you need. So ingress, how do you get into the capsule, how do you buckle in. Egress, how do you get out of the seat, out of the hatch. We're going to teach you some emergency procedures, because we want to make sure that you guys are prepared, and feel comfortable. We're also going to teach you about zero-g etiquette, so then when we're all up there and we're doing our somersaults, you know no Matrix scenes, no Kung Fu fighting  you gotta make sure that everybody gets to enjoy the flight."

When asked (by Fraser) if people should skip breakfast, she replied:

"No. It's the most important meal of the day. You're going to want to have your energy and we're pretty confident that you're going to have a good ride and you're not going to feel nauseous. It's one parabola. And when we've seen people, for example, when they go on rides on NASA's "Vomit Comet" What we've seen from those types of parabolic flights is that people  if they get sick  its parabola six, seven, eight. It's a delayed effect, really. We think that with that one parabola  four minutes  you're going to enjoy every second of it."

Another interesting issue was addressed during the 33rd Space Symposium was whether or not the New Shepard capsule would have "facilities." When asked about this, Bezos was similarly optimistic. "Go to the bathroom in advance," he said, to general laughter. "If you have to pee in 11 minutes, you got problems." He did admit that with boarding, the entire experience could take up to 41 minutes, but that passengers should be able to wait that long (fingers crossed!)

But in the event of longer flights, bathroom etiquette will need to be an issue. After all, its not exactly easy to relieve oneself in an environment where all things  solid and liquid  float freely and therefore cannot simply be flushed away. Luckily, NASA and other space agencies have us covered there too. Aboard the ISS, where astronauts have to relieve themselves regularly, waste-disposal is handled by "zero-g toilets."

Similar to what astronauts used aboard the Space Shuttle, a zero-g toilet involves an astronaut fastening themselves to the toilet seat. Rather than using water, the removal of waste is accomplished with a vacuum suction hole. Liquid waste is transferred to the Water Recovery System, where it is converted back into drinking water (that's right, astronauts drink their own pee sort of).

Solid waste is collected in individual bags that are stored in an aluminum container, which are then transferred to the docked spacecraft for disposal. Remember that scene in The Martian where Mark Watney collected his crew members solid waste to use as fertilizer? Well, its much the same. Poo in a bag, and then let someone remove it and deal with it once you get home.

When it comes to lunar tourism, space sickness and waste disposal will be a must. And when it comes to Elon Musk's plan to start ferrying people to Mars in the coming decades  aboard his Interplanetary Transportation System  it will be an absolute must! It will certainly be interesting to see how those who intend to get into the lunar tourism biz, and those who want to colonize Mars, will go about addressing these needs.

In the meantime, keep your eyes on the horizon, keep your barf bags handy, and make sure your zero-g toilet has a tight seal!
An Afghan national succumbed to death after doctors find 46 capsules of heroin in his abdomen.

Doctors said the capsules ruptured as they were not sealed properly.

By Priyanka Sharma: Afghan national Mahdiya Dawood (55) had come to Delhi on a medical visa citing health conditions. After reaching Delhi and staying in the city for two days at a relative's place, he died. While no one had a clue about the reason of his death, a report from AIIMS shocked his relatives and police authorities alike.

"When Dawood's body was taken to AIIMS, doctors scanned 46 capsules containing heroin in his abdomen, which costs around Rs 5 crore. He died due to the capsules bursting inside his body," said a senior doctor.

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Incidentally, only around two weeks back, a similar incident was reported at Safdarjung hospital. In that case too, the deceased was an Afghan. Both had died due to toxicity inside their bodies due to consumption of drugs.

Dr Sudhir Gupta, head of forensic unit at AIIMS, told Mail Today, "Most of the time, drug peddlers escape easily from airport security as they swallow heroin capsules. In fact, Dawood had escaped security checks at IGI Airport. His run ended when one of the capsules ruptured in his stomach, as a result of which he died of inflammation and toxicity in his body."

"Had the drug not ruptured inside his stomach, it would have been difficult for us to detect the drug racket in the city," he said, adding that the capsule ruptured as it was not sealed properly.

DOCTOR'S SHOCKING REVELATION

"It was only after an X-ray that doctors found the 46 capsules. Dawood must have consumed the pouches orally as no surgical marks were seen on his body. He suffered haemorrhage in his stomach," said Dr Abhishek Yadav, assistant professor at the AIIMS forensic department.

Yadav added, "The deceased's relative went to the Afghanistan embassy to take the NOC to transport his body back home, which embassy officials denied citing clearance from the police first."

"Police officials brought the body to us and after postmortem we could find nearly 500 grams of heroin in his stomach," Yadav said.

Thereafter, the NCB was informed and officials confirmed the drug was heroin. A police official from Lajpat Nagar police station said, "This is the second case that we have received in the last four months."

Mail Today had earlier reported how Afghan Hameed Mohammad was brought to Safdarjung hospital following complaints of severe stomach pain, breathlessness and vomiting after landing at IGI Airport. Doctors scanned the 19-year-old's abdomen and found it stuffed with 61 capsules containing heroin worth Rs8 crore. He later died during treatment.Also Read

OMG! 2 foreigners arrested at Delhi airport for carrying cocaine pellets in stomach

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Delhi: Afghan national who consumed 57 capsules of heroin worth 2 crore detained at airport

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Schrodinger's cat: a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source are placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor detects radioactivity (i.e. a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other. Credit: Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0

Physicists have learned how they could breed Schrodinger cats in optics. Scientists tested a method that could potentially amplify superpositions of classical states of light beyond microscopic limits and help determine the boundaries between the quantum and classical worlds.

CIFAR Quantum Information Science Fellow Alexander Lvovsky led the team of Russian Quantum Center and University of Calgary scientists who tested a method that could potentially amplify superpositions of classical states of light beyond microscopic limits and help determine the boundaries between the quantum and classical worlds.

The study was published today in Nature Photonics.

In 1935, German physicist Erwin Schrodinger proposed a thought experiment where a cat, hidden from the observer, is in a superposition of two states: it was both alive and dead. Schrodinger's cat was intended to show how radically different the macroscopic world we see is from the microscopic world governed by the laws of quantum physics.

However, the development of quantum technologies makes it possible to create increasingly complex quantum states, and Schrodinger's thought experiment no longer seems too far out of reach.

"One of the fundamental questions of physics is the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds. Can quantum phenomena, provided ideal conditions, be observed in macroscopic objects? Theory gives no answer to this questionmaybe there is no such boundary. What we need is a tool that will probe it," says Lvovsky, who is a professor at the University of Calgary and head of the Quantum Optics Laboratory of the Russian Quantum Center, where the experiment was set up.

Exactly such a tool is provided by the physical analogue of the Schrodinger cat - an object in a quantum superposition of two states with opposite properties. In optics, this is a superposition of two coherent light waves where the fields of the electromagnetic waves point in two opposite directions at once. Until now, experiments could only obtain such superpositions at small amplitudes that limit their use. The Lvovsky group carried out the procedure of "breeding" such states, which makes it possible to obtain optical "cats" of higher amplitudes with greater success.

Co-author and University of Calgary graduate student Anastasia Pushkina explains: "The idea of the experiment was proposed in 2003 by the group of Professor Timothy Ralph of the University of Queensland, Australia. In essence, we cause interference of two "cats" on a beam splitter. This leads to an entangled state in the two output channels of that beam splitter. In one of these channels, a special detector is placed. In the event this detector shows a certain result, a "cat" is born in the second output whose energy is more than twice that of the initial one."

The Lvovsky group tested this method in the lab. In the experiment, they successfully converted a pair of negative squeezed "Schrodinger cats" of amplitude 1.15 to a single positive "cat" of amplitude 1.85. They generated several thousand such enlarged "cats" in their experiment.

"It is important that the procedure can be repeated: new 'cats' can, in turn, be overlapped on a beam splitter, producing one with even higher energy, and so on. Thus, it is possible to push the boundaries of the quantum world step by step, and eventually to understand whether it has a limit," says the first author of the study, a graduate student from the Russian Quantum Center and the Moscow State Pedagogical University, Demid Sychev.

Such macroscopic "Schrodinger cats" would have applications in quantum communication, teleportation and cryptography.

More information: Cultivation of optical Schrodinger's cat states, Nature Photonics (2017). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nphoton.2017.57 Journal information: Nature Photonics
Figure. (a) Crystal structure of H+ conductive coordination polymer and doped pyranine molecule, which releases/captures H+ by light irradiation. (b) Observed H+ conductivity switching property by on/off light irradiation. Credit: Kyoto University

Adding photoacid to a special kind of melted polymeric crystal allows better and switchable proton conductivity. This could lead to new materials for memory, supercapacitor and transistor technologies.

Researchers at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) in Japan have demonstrated an on/off switching behaviour in a coordination polymer crystal.

Coordination polymer crystals are inorganic and organic hybrid materials. They are known for their structural and functional diversity and their ability to conduct protons.

Proton conduction is a form of electrical conduction in which positive hydrogen ions (H+) carry the charge instead of electrons. It plays a key role in powering photosynthesis in plants and could be used to develop better fuel cells.

A team of researchers led by Satoshi Horike and Susumu Kitagawa synthesized a coordination polymer (CP) by reacting zinc oxide, phosphoric acid and imidazole in ethyl alcohol at room temperature. The CP was then melted and triflic acid was added. The resultant mixture was then cooled and recrystallized. This 'acid doping' of the CP significantly enhanced its proton conductivity.

The team melted their original CP again and instead added the 'photoacid' pyranine. Photoacids are molecules that become more acidic upon absorption of light. After cooling the material, its now recrystallized form was exposed to light and its proton conductivity improved. When the light was turned off, its conductivity decreased and returned to its original state. This change could be switched on and off over several consecutive cycles of light exposure.

Acid doping of the CP resulted in minimal structural change with overall enhancement of proton conductivity. Doping the CP with photoacid gave the researchers on-demand external control of the ionic current in the material.

"This is the first demonstration of utilization of the melting state for CP functionalization," conclude the researchers in their study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie. Their melt-doping strategy could potentially be extended to synthesize a new class of proton-conducting solids that can be used in non-volatile memory technologies, ionics-based transistors, and light-induced ionic/electric current circuits.

The Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) at Kyoto University in Japan aims to advance the integration of cell and material sciences, both traditionally strong fields at the university, in a uniquely innovative global research environment. iCeMS combines the biosciences, chemistry, materials science and physics to create materials for mesoscopic cell control and cell-inspired materials. Such developments hold promise for significant advances in medicine, pharmaceutical studies, the environment and industry.
No area in Southern Calif. was immune from home remodeling, add-ons, redevelopment and the 'hardscaping' of residential lots, destroying trees and other plant life Credit: USC and Spatial Sciences Institute

Plant a tree, save the world?

Maybe, but preventing the chopping down of trees for single-family home add-ons or the paving of shrubbery for driveways and other "hardscaped" property features would go a lot further, say researchers with the USC Spatial Sciences Institute.

In the Los Angeles area, green cover for single-family home lots declined anywhere from 14 to 55 percent, with almost no single area spared from the decline, according to a study published online in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening by a team of researchers led by USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences lecturer in spatial sciences Su Jin Lee and including USC Dornsife and USC School of Architecture Assistant Professor Travis Longcore.

Much of this "de-greening" took place as the city of Los Angeles famously kicked off its "Million Trees" tree-planting campaign in 2007. Other major cities like New York, Shanghai and London have undertaken similar campaigns in recent years.

For its study, the Spatial Sciences Institute researchers looked at tree, building and other land cover for the 20 largest cities in the Los Angeles Basin for the period of 2000 to 2009.

The researchers did this by first noting all the single-family parcels in these cities where additional square footage from 2000-09 was recorded.

Then they digitized high-resolution aerial imagery of these parcels provided by the Los Angeles Region-Imagery Acquisition Consortium, identifying six different types of land coverbuildings, hardscape, swimming pools, shade, grass and trees/shrubs.

Finally, the researchers compared the change in imagery over these six types of cover from the two points in time2000 and 2009.

The entire area examined by the researchers saw a 1.2 percent annual decrease in tree and shrub cover year-to-year.

Baldwin Park: Half the "park" it used to be

Baldwin Park led all areas in reduction, seeing a 55 percent loss of green cover on single-family residential lots in the mere span of nine years.

Other areas in the study that had at least 20 percent loss in cover included Pomona, Downey, Sylmar, Compton, and San Pedro/Port of Los Angeles.

The Pasadena area was a notable exception. The city found a way to minimize tree loss in what is already a fairly verdant community. Longcore also cites the regulations of neighboring South Pasadena, especially in protecting its many tree-lined, suburban lots from redevelopment.

Longcore, however, is quick to point out that sacrificing trees for redevelopment cuts across all Southern California neighborhoods, regardless of socioeconomic status.

"We are losing tree shade across economic areas," he says. "Wealthy areas might generally have more trees to start with, but all single-family areas are losing across the board."

The unintended consequences of ambitious redevelopment

Robust urban forests, or "green infrastructure," can reduce energy use, improve water quality and increase overall health and well-being, according to the United States Forest Service.

Longcore believes changing social views on the preferred size of single-family homes is the largest driver of tree cover loss, along with the increase in paved surfaces like walkways, driveways and swimming pools that come with home expansion.

In their report, the researchers note that the average size of single-family homes had steadily increased from 984 square feet in 1950 to 2,349 square feet in 2004.

A decade after the housing bust, property development in the age of home improvement reality television is as ambitious as ever, with new homes reaching 2,687 square feet, and nearly one-third more than 3,000 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's annual survey in 2016.

Municipalities also often encourage redevelopment as a way to increase tax revenues.

"While the housing expansion throughout the 2000s certainly drove an exceptional amount of construction, the practices that contribute the most to removing tree cover and canopy still remain," Longcore says.

More information: Su Jin Lee et al, Increased home size and hardscape decreases urban forest cover in Los Angeles County's single-family residential neighborhoods, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.ufug.2017.03.004
Credit: Erik Jepsen/UC San Diego Publications

Zero waste by 2020that's one of the goals of the UC Office of the President's Sustainability Practices Policy for all UC campuses. Several students at UC San Diego's Student Sustainability Collective (SSC) are working to make that a reality.

Michael Mnatsakanian, a fifth-year chemical engineering major, minoring in environmental studies, is helping to direct SSC's All Campus Plastic Water Bottle Ban at UC San Diego. He and other students believe that completely eliminating the sale of disposable plastic water bottles on campus is the only way to achieve zero waste by 2020.

"We want to ban the sale of plastic water bottles because plastic is the No. 1 threat to marine ecosystems," said Mnatsakanian. "Bottled water plants negatively affect surrounding communities, and annual purchases of bottled water are 2000 times more expensive than using tap water. On top of that, tap water has significantly lower rates of potentially damaging substances."

Currently, the students are working to pass the Vendor Lease Agreement, which would eliminate the sales of plastic bottles upon a campus vendor's lease renewal. They are also working with Aquaholics Anonymous, a student organization supporting water conservation, to create an interactive map of hydration stations as well as collecting data to make pointed recommendations of where the next stations should be placed.

The ban on plastic water bottles isn't the first campaign aimed at decreasing their presence on campus. "Breaking the Plastic Habit" was an SSC campaign in 2011 that pledged to eliminate the sale of plastic water bottles in dining halls and resulted in the installation of the first 10 hydration stations on campus.

It's not just a campus initiative either. The All Campuses Plastic Water Bottle Ban campaign plans to implement lasting policy not only at UC San Diego, but all UC campuses.

"Thanks to years of working with campus administration, UC San Diego Plastic Water Bottle Ban campaign leaders now have the expertise to teach student environmentalists at other campuses how to implement changes," said Mnatsakanian.

One of the places they are doing that is at Powershift, a conference for advocacy in social justice. During this year's event, Mnatsakanian directed Student Sustainability Collective leaders from campuses around the country about bypassing initiatives and aiming straight for policy changes.
- No fewer than 500 APC supporters joined PDP over the weekend in Benue state

- The defectors say their reason for joining the PDP is as a result of the emergence of Arc. Eric Adokwu as PDPs flag bearer in Ohimini LGA ahead of the 2017 LGA election in Benue

- They says it would amount to breaching the law of nature if they worked against a man whom has given so much to the community

At least 500 supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), including some of the executive members of the party, both present and past, have defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ohimini local government area of Benue State, Leadership reports.

The defection comes on the heels of the emergence of Arc. Eric Adokwu as PDPs flag bearer in Ohimini LGA ahead of the 2017 local government election in Benue state.

According to report, the APC defectors joined the PDP on Sunday, April 30, at Onyagede council ward, when Adokwu visited the area in continuation of his wards tour.

READ ALSO: How Ekweremadu reached out to prominent Igbo leaders to meet Nnamdi Kanus bail terms

500 APC members defect to PDP in Benue

Speaking on behalf of defectors, Hon. Ameh said the emergence of Eric Adokwu as PDP candidate spurred their defection, adding that it would amount to breaching the law of nature if they worked against a man whom has given so much to the community.

Hon. Ameh eulogised the personality of Adokwu and his contributions to the development Ohimini local government area.

READ ALSO: Fresh war brews between Presidency and Senate over Magu

Governor Samuel Ortom

He said the PDP was assured of landslide victory at the forthcoming chairmanship election.

On his part, Adokwu thanked the people for their wise decision, stressing that their gestures would be reciprocated through more infrastructural developments after his victory on June 3.

However, he advised the people and the general public, to go out and get registered in the on-going Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) exercise by INEC, to enable them vote for PDP, come June 3rd, 2017.

Earlier, Legit.ng had reported over 500 members of the PDP in Ikono local government area in Akwa Ibom on Sunday, April 30, defected to APC.

Watch man complaining about the APC government

Source: Legit.ng
Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether 

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Fed up with endless encroachment on their ancestral lands, leaders of Brazil's many indigenous tribes went to the capital Brasilia to speak out this week. But they had trouble finding anyone to listen. More than 3,000 tribal members massed on the esplanade outside the government complex in Brasilia for the 14th annual "Free lands" event. But their freedom had limits: when they tried to approach Congress on Tuesday, they were pushed back in clouds of tear gas. "They're prejudiced," said Alvaro Tucano, one of the tribal members taking part in a week-long camp outside the government complex. "I have never seen such a conservative Congress as the one there is today." The clash provided surreal scenes of men in traditional headdresses with bows and arrows facing off against black-clad riot police. Those who were there say the contrast reflected the permanent disconnect between Brazil's state and the descendants of the country's original inhabitants. Nearly 900,000 indigenous tribe members currently live in Brazil, or 0.4 percent of the entire population, divided into 305 ethnic groups. The statistic that matters most, however, is the 12 percent of Brazil their recognized lands cover, much of it in the Amazon. Although most of the world sees the region as one of the planet's greatest natural wonders, the powerful Brazilian agricultural industry values the sparsely populated lands mainly for logging and converting to farmland for soy and cattle. The government is committed to protecting those lands -- in theory. But the fact that many of the borders are not officially demarcated effectively deprives the tribal members of legal rights. The result is constant pressure on the indigenous peoples and frequent clashes. At least 137 tribal people were murdered in 2015, according to the Indigenous Missionary Council, run by the Catholic Church. The number of those killed since 2003 reaches above 890. - True values - To their chagrin, the official ultimately responsible for protecting vulnerable indigenous groups in the country's conservative government, Justice Minister Osmar Serraglio, belongs to Brasilia's influential pro-agriculture political wing. He recently outraged indigenous activists by saying that land is not the main issue in dispute. "Land doesn't fill anyone's stomach," he said. "We're going to give them good living conditions, but we're going to stop this talking about land." Adriana Ramos of the civil society group Social Environmental Institute says his words betray ignorance of indigenous people's true value to Brazil as well as their longing to inhabit their own lands. "The presence of these communities and the traditional management practices contribute to the enrichment of the forest and conservation," he said. Alessandra Korap, from the Munduruku ethnic group -- which is resisting hydroelectric and other infrastructure developments in its Amazon homeland -- says the minister just doesn't understand the country's native peoples. "I would like to tell him that the land does fill our stomach," he said. "It's on the land and for the land that we live," he added. "It sustains us, gives us fish, pigs, fruits and the artisanal techniques that we use." "It won't be cement that fills our stomach."
One of the problems with covering a motor show in a different country is the language barrier. In Carmudi Philippines case at the 2017 Indonesia International Motor Show, it was the lack of an English-language version of Kia Mobil Indonesias press release of the all-new Kia Rio.

The only information we gleaned from Kia Indonesias presentation of its latest subcompact hatchback is that its powered by a 1.4-liter Kappa D-CVVT engine with an output of 99 hp and 130 Nm of torque thats paired to either a six-speed manual or a four-speed automatic transmission, its marginally bigger than the outgoing model, and that the vehicle utilizes advance high-strength steel to enhance cabin protection.

Since we cant give you any more info other than that, we hope the photo gallery below will sufficeat least until the local launch this May. Keep checking back for Carmudi Philippines coverage on that soon.

The post Indonesia 2017: The all-new Kia Rio Picture Gallery appeared first on Carmudi Philippines Journal.
Since March 13, Hyderabad police has arrested over 40 people in different cases having a face value of over Rs 9 crore.

By Ashish Pandey: Recovering one of the massive haul of demonetised currency, Hyderabad Police on Sunday seized over Rs 4.41 crore in the denomination of now scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1000 and arrested eight people from the posh Banjara Hills region.

The arrested persons include a pearl merchant and a chartered accountant were trying to exchange the demonetised money with legal tender note.

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Acting on a tip off, the Commissioner's Task Force team (west) arrested the accused identified as P Kalyan Prasad (38) a realtor, Mohd Farooq (55) a car dealer, Mir Muzaffar (32) a businessman, Gowtham Aggarwal (51) a pearls trader, Y Surya Prakash (34) a contractor, K Harinath Babu (50), a realtor, V Rajendranath (31) a chartered accountant and a student named Mohd Mustafa Siddiqui.

The task force team nabbed all of the accused from the residence of pearl merchant Gowtham Aggarwal and seized old currency notes amounting to Rs 4.41 crore.

Sources confirmed that the accused were trying to exchange the money with 30 per cent commission.

Since March 13, Hyderabad police has arrested over 40 people in similar cases.

They have so far seized invalid notes having a face value of over Rs 9 crore from different parts of the city while checking of vehicles or acting on specific tip off.

ALSO READ:

Hyderabad Police arrests bank clerk, cashier for exchanging demonetised money without ID proof

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he may turn down an invitation by Donald Trump to visit the United States, as he welcomed three Chinese warships to his home town. Duterte, who has loosened the Philippines' long alliance with the United States while strengthening ties with China and Russia, said he could not commit to the American president because of a busy schedule that included a trip to Moscow. "I am tied up. I cannot make any definite promise. I am supposed to go to Russia, I am supposed to go to Israel," he told reporters when asked about Trump's invitation made in a telephone call on Saturday. Duterte expressed concerns about not being able to fit in a visit to Trump even though no firm date has yet been proposed for it. Nevertheless, Duterte said relations with the United States were improving now that Trump had taken over from Barack Obama, who criticised the Philippine president for his anti-drug war that has claimed thousands of lives. Rights groups have warned Duterte may be orchestrating a crime against humanity, with police and vigilantes committing mass murder. But Duterte insists his security forces are not breaking any laws. Duterte last year branded Obama a "son of a whore" in response to the criticism. He also declared while in Beijing last year that the Philippines had "separated" from the United States. The United States is the Philippines' former colonial ruler and the nations are bound by a mutual defence treaty. Duterte said Monday that his efforts to loosen the alliance were only a response to the drug war criticism. "It was not a distancing (of relations) but it was rather a rift between me and the (US) State Department and Mr Obama, who spoke openly against me," he said. "Things have changed, there is a new leadership. He wants to make friends, he says we are friends so why should we pick a fight?" - 'Confidence building' - Duterte's comments came shortly after he visited three Chinese warships visiting his home town, the southern city of Davao on Mindanao island. "This is part of confidence-building and goodwill and to show we are friends and that is why I welcome them," he said. Duterte has pursued closer relations with the Chinese government even though Beijing has taken control of a fishing shoal and built artificial islands in parts of the South China Sea that are within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone. China claims nearly all of the strategically vital waterway, even waters approaching the coasts of its neighbours. Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have claims in the sea. China's expansionism in the waters have triggered concern regionally and in the West, with its new artificial islands capable of serving as military bases. But on Sunday Duterte issued a chairman's statement, after hosting a 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, which took a soft stance towards Chinese actions in the sea. The statement merely took note of "concerns expressed by some leaders over recent developments in the area". It ignored an international tribunal ruling last year which said China's claims to most of the sea were unlawful. It also did not carry wording from previous ASEAN statements calling for a "respect for legal and diplomatic processes" in resolving the dispute. Duterte has repeatedly said the Philippines and other nations are helpless to stop the island-building, so there is no point challenging China in diplomatic and legal circles. He has instead promoted what he says will be billions of dollars' worth of investments from China that he expects will result from the improvement in bilateral relations. Duterte on Monday also repeated that he was open to joint military exercises between the Philippines and China. "I said I agree. There can be joint exercises," said Duterte, who has scaled back regular war games with the United States.
As travel climbs back toward pre-pandemic levels, spurred by both business and leisure, companies must consider their internal travel risk management programs, especially for employees who identify with any marginalized community.

While some advice can be generally applied to travelers at-large, assessing an individual employees risk is unlikely to produce effective security considerations if operating under a one-size-fits-all program. And while travel security programs may attempt to apply an umbrella approach, many risks do not fit into neat categories and can put different travelers at high risk if they are unprepared. Women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and some ethnicities are of particular concern.

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President Donald Trump will order the Department of Commerce to investigate how excessive aluminum imports are threatening national security, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters Wednesday.

Americas reliance on other countries for aluminum is a national security issue because there are few domestic sources for high-purity, aerospace grade aluminum used in defense equipment like missiles, armored vehicles and F-35 fighter jets, Ross said.

The investigation, which Trump will direct the Commerce Department to begin Thursday, will follow the same process as the investigation into steel imports announced last week. Both investigations are called Section 232 cases, a designation for investigations of an imported items effect on national defense.

Its very, very dangerous, obviously, from a national defense point of view, to only have one supplier of an absolutely critical material, Ross said.

The U.S. Aluminum Market

The U.S.s share of global aluminum production has dropped to around 2 percent, and aluminum American smelting companies are struggling to survive.

Theres only one American smelter that produces the high-purity aluminum needed for [defense] uses, Ross said. Just one. That company has been having some problems.

The aluminum investigation could result in tariffs or other trade actions that could affect both China and Canada, the U.S.s two largest aluminum suppliers. The global supply of aluminum has been rising in recent years with China allegedly flooding the market with cheap products, which drive down prices.

Chinas subsidies have created overcapacity, which has depressed global prices for aluminum, Ross said. Over the past 15 years, Chinas primary aluminum has increased from 11 percent of worlds production  in 2002 to now 55 percent. They have quintupled their market share of global aluminum production.

While Ross spoke extensively about Chinas possible manipulation of the aluminum market, the Commerce Departments investigation is targeted at a particular industry or product, not a country. Russia has the second largest global market share of aluminum at 12 percent, and Canada is also a large exporter.

This is not a China-phobic program, this has to do with a global problem, Ross said.

Canada is the U.S.s greatest source of high-grade aluminum, and experts say they are playing by the rules.

Chinas the problem, not Canada or other countries which are following the rules, Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers union, told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday.

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A new kind of retail incubator has emerged in recent years, providing support for arts-oriented start-ups. One example is the Cleveland Flea, which helps turn Northeast Ohio artists into retail entrepreneurs by offering support services, connections to suppliers, and market access.

Some observers have argued that these incubators have led to a dramatic rise in the rate at which artists are founding businesses. Im not sure the data are strong enough to make that claim, but several economists believe that these types of incubators could be spurring the growth of independent arts businesses. Heres why.

New business formation is often constrained by uncertainty. When a person has an idea for a new business, he or she rarely knows whether the product or service needed can be produced, whether customers will demand it, or whether competitors will offer better alternatives. For instance, its hard to know whether the residents of Northeast Ohio will want blown-glass figurines of the Kardashian family at a price higher than it costs to produce them, before an entrepreneur makes those figurines and offers them to customers.

Why Art Business Incubators May Be Spurring Growth

Many artists are deterred from starting businesses by the cost of testing these types of questions. Arts incubators help to solve that problem by offering pop-up markets. By going to a pop-up market and testing customer demand, would-be creative entrepreneurs can now try to sell their products without needing to sign a lease and open up a store. Thats a much cheaper and faster way of testing product-market fit, which encourages more would-be entrepreneurs to try.

A second reason why incubators, like Cleveland Flea, might be encouraging entrepreneurial activity in the arts is that they help connect would be creative-company founders to suppliers who can help them with the business side of what they are doing. While the driving force of a glass studio might be the glassblower who can create works of art, that artist needs designers to produce brochures and web sites. He or she needs access to payment systems and back-office record-keeping. Incubators like Cleveland Flea make it easier for artists to start companies by connecting them to suppliers, who can help them with the more routine tasks of company creation, and do so at a low marginal cost.

A third reason why arts incubators might be enhancing entrepreneurial activity is because they provide education. Many artists lack knowledge of the world of commerce. Thats an obstacle to becoming an entrepreneur. Starting a business is very difficult if you dont know the meaning of the words revenue and cost, or how to calculate interest payments on a loan. Places like Cleveland Flea provide basic business education and advice to artists, which enables them to turn their artistry into businesses.

A fourth reason why Cleveland Flea, and incubators like it, might be encouraging new business formation is that they make it easier for people to have part-time, small-scale start-ups. A pop-up business operating for eight hours at a market once a week is a lot easier pull off on a part-time basis than a regular retail store. By facilitating pop-up businesses, these incubators allow artists to turn their passions into part-time businesses instead of just working overtime at their regular jobs, or taking other, non-creative, part-time work. The substitution of part-time, small-scale start-ups for other kinds of work boosts the rate of entrepreneurial activity.
Women entrepreneurs shouldnt lose faith about being able to make a mark in the tech sector. One woman able to successfully break into this male-dominated industry has been co-founder and Chairperson of HTC Corporation (TPE:2498), Cher Wang.

Fifty-eight year old Weng currently lives in Taiwan with her husband and two children.

With a staggering net worth of $850 million, Wang is one of the wealthiest people in Taiwan.

Business in the Blood

Wang was born into a family of successful entrepreneurs. Her father ran a plastic empire until his death at the age of 92, while her sister co-founded motherboard maker First International Computer in 1980.

After graduating from the University of California, Wang joined her sisters company. In her new job, Weng traveled around Europe making a pitch for the motherboards.

Interestingly, it was during her trips to Europe that Wang realized personal computers were inconvenient to carry around. She felt there was a need for handheld devices that could easily fit inside a briefcase. This proved to be the idea that eventually led to the birth of HTC.

Writing the HTC Success Story

In its early days, HTC built laptops, which didnt see the success Wang was hoping for. Luckily, she had a Plan B that involved building mobile phones and PDAs in partnership with other companies.

Over the years, HTC built a strong reputation of being the official manufacturer of handheld devices for all top mobile phone brands.

But Wang wanted more. She leveraged the companys technical expertise and engineering talent to tie up with several leading mobile network carriers. Soon HTC became the largest selling mobile phone brand at AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

What You Can Learn from Wang

Wang is an inspiration for businesses, particularly for those owned by women.

Her persistence in expanding HTC and turning it into a success story deserves applause. Its even more special because the company had to face serious competition from some of the biggest names in mobile technology.

Currently, Wang is setting her sights on capturing the virtual reality market with the release of HTC Vive. It demonstrates her unique ability to spot an opportunity and adapt to stay relevant. Thats a big lesson for businesses.
Never heard of QuickBooks Financing before? Well, this is a marketplace of small business finance products that cover the full spectrum of credit offerings including Small Business Administration loans, lines of credit, short and long term loans and peer-to-peer loans.

To date, QuickBooks financing claims that it has helped more than 628 million QuickBooks customers to access financing.

How QuickBooks Financing Works

Once you create your QuickBooks Financing account, QuickBooks will pre-populate your application with information you have already entered into Quickbooks bookkeeping software. This just takes a few minutes, the company says. You will then be able to see your offers instantly.

Use your QuickBooks data to see multiple customized offers for your business. Choose the offer that best suits your business and complete the process. In most cases, many lenders will deposit money into your account on the same day.

The process is as easy as that.

How Can You Tell If You Qualify for Financing?

First of all, QuickBooks makes the lending process a breeze by pre-populating your credit application form with your QuickBooks information.

The service then forwards that information to lending partners who in turn decide on whether you qualify for credit by checking the number of years you have been in business (most require at least two years), revenue (most lenders look for at least $75,000 in gross revenue), personal credit history and business credit history.

Major negative information (such as liens or late payments) could also determine your business eligibility for a loan. These are just the bare minimums for pre-approval.

Overall, QuickBooks financing is a user-friendly business financing option. The platform works with a limited number of hand-selected partners that are interested in financing businesses. And the beauty of it all is that QuickBooks Financing helps you to see all the credit offers that your business qualifies for, so you do not have to apply multiple times.
Anti-Racism  May 1, 2017  Labor for Our Revolution

Millions of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, who lead hard working and productive lives, are also union members.



Donald Trump launched his political campaign in 2015 with a racist attack on Mexican immigrants, painting them as rapists and murderers. He made attacks on our Muslim sisters and brothers his political trademark  even going so far as to propose a religious test for immigration. This kind of race baiting and immigrant bashing has a long history in our country  a consistent attempt by business elites to divide working class people in order to advance their pro-corporate agenda.

As leaders of the unions who supported Bernie Sanders for president, we refuse to go down that road of hatred, resentment and divisiveness. We will march and stand with our sister and brother immigrant workers against the terror tactics of the Trump administration.

We are a nation of immigrants. Every generation and every race and ethnic group has seen attempts to divide the working class based on race and ethnic origin. Together we say NO to the politics of division! We call on Trump and his supporters to end the attacks on immigrant workers!

On May 1, 2017 millions of immigrant workers will engage in public resistance to the Trump administration. In some places that resistance will include labor strikes and boycotts. Millions will march in cities and towns all across the country. We pledge to support these protests and will urge our organizations leaders and members to participate in whatever way we can.

Workers united, will never be defeated! 

In Solidarity,

Larry Hanley, President, Amalgamated Transit Union;

Chris Shelton, President, Communications Workers of America;

RoseAnn DeMoro, Executive Director, National Nurses United; and

Peter Knowlton, General President, United Electrical Workers.
Medium-sized Slovak companies still outsource via specialists, larger firms transition to end-to-end supply of dedicated services.

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Modern information technologies facilitate more than just communication, transportation and peoples lives in general, IT also enhances business efficiency. Now, new cloud and hybrid technologies further stimulate the desire to outsource IT to specialised providers.

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IT has become more available and suitable for a variety of companies. Though the market still allows space for IT dynamics and company resources together with suppliers goods; the original idea of long-term external management changes to the business model with the principle of managed services, according to Martin Kubicek, client solutions executive at IBM.

It gives space for IT managers to optimise resources for operation and projects without forcing their workers to pass to the providers, Kubicek told The Slovak Spectator.

While the global market of external IT providers shows trends of acceleration, the Slovak one lags behind with a majority of outsourcing at local branches of foreign companies that implement the decisions coming from abroad.

Young market

Slovakia already hosts a growing number of shared IT business service centres, though with a low level of importance placed on them by local companies. The main reason for the gap is the different maturity of the markets, according to Tomas Turkovic, head of outsourcing at Soitron IT service provider.

While in Slovakia the topic of IT outsourcing only recently became prominent, in the United Kingdom companies now do not need explanations to outsource IT services as the benefits are clear and the tendency to outsource is high, explained Turkovic.

One of the main factors in favour of suppliers in Slovakia is still price; quality comes second, Turkovic told The Slovak Spectator.

Slovak state institutions must often meet the requirements set by law and incline to private infrastructure. Commercial companies with foreign ownership often consider public clouds, said Kubicek. The difference is much less noticeable in other parts of the EU.

Even public institutions better exploit the options of the EU legislation and work with resources across the borders, Kubicek said.

Options for growth

Experts predict the highest growth rate in Slovakia in services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and data centre services. On the other hand, the decline may be in desktop device and service desk outsourcing, according to Lukas Erben, vendor executive manager of KPC-Group, which is a representative of Gartner advisory company for the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

Outside of pure IT outsourcing, business and technology consulting will grow, while product support will decrease, Erben said.

While in 2016, IT outsourcing in eastern Europe, Russia excluded, totalled $2.134 billion, Gartner predicts growth in the coming years of $2.144 billion in 2017, $2.241 billion in 2018, $2.344 in 2019 and already $2.462 billion in 2020.

Soitron analysts see Slovak interest to outsource in production companies, network industries and the energy sector. Medium-sized production companies tend to outsource mainly via IT specialists and large companies move towards end-to-end supply of dedicated services based on paying monthly fees for complete IT infrastructure, said Turkovic.

In addition to hardware and software, this includes IT specialists who manage the environment, Turkovic said.

Global trends

The global market looks forward to the growth of spending for IT outsourcing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9 percent in constant currency through 2021. Erben listed the main pullers such as digital workplace, data and analytics, risk, security and cybersecurity projects, cloud, automation and as-a-service offerings.

The year 2017 brings growth in intelligent automation services and stagnation in financial and blockchain technologies. The cannibalisation of traditional services will continue to be replaced by smaller projects and the commercial and industrial sector will see more bundled work with managed services as a result, said Erben. On the other hand, automation, robotics, smart machines on end-user spending have little impact on the current situation.

While workplace, mobile service-desk, networking, copy and print, data centre and cloud services are now standards in outsourcing, new global trends include mainly security solutions and IT management tools, said Kubicek.

Preference for own management

Until recently, a typical Slovak customer appeared to be a conservative with the need to have IT technologies, standard licences and own data in-house rather than managed by an external provider due to fear of abuse of data, Jozef Klein, CEO of Asseco Central Europe, explained for the Trend weekly.

In comparison with the past, IBM now sees that both Slovak and global markets are more equal in regard to banking, energy, telecommunications and strong production companies. Several IT delivery centres in Slovakia already allow people to circulate among providers and customers.

However, we have to see the transition to outsourcing as a long-term strategic matter with the horizon around five years or more, Kubicek said.

Changes in resources

Todays more sophisticated technologies allow easier and less time-consuming administration of large systems without reduction of demands on staff, according to Rastislav Koutensky, CIO of IT firm Datalan.

While firms need less in-house infrastructure experts, new technologies require technicians available via outsourcing, Koutensky told Trend.

Kubicek mentioned that new cloud as-a-service technologies, Platform, Software, Infrastructure and Anything as a Service included, and their combinations with hybrid solutions increase the possibility of use of external resources in dynamic environments. In the past, long-term contracts bound the flexibility essential for the IT market, he said.

Future of outsourcing

Analysts do not anticipate more than 10-percent reductions in prices in the years 2018 and 2019. By 2020, business model innovation will become the primary driver for 60 percent of services enabling digital business, Erben said. The digital opportunity should reach more than $200 billion, or 15 percent of CAGR.

In terms of technologies, IBM expects future development of as-a-service, cloud and hybrid solutions, strong influence of mobile technologies, expansion of analytical systems and improvement of national and EU legislation affecting IT.

In addition, the global trends turn to centralisation of suppliers of IT outsourcing services, infrastructure and application solutions included, said Turkovic.

Customers already now prefer one supplier that can cover a broad scope of services, Turkovic said.
A foreigners' real experience at the foreigners police department in Bratislava.

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At some point while we were waiting, a woman behind me began yelling in Russian at a young man in front of me. He ignored her and she settled down, but a little while later began yelling at him again. He tried to ignore her again, but she shoved her way up to him and got in his face, to which he responded in Russian and with rolling eyes. Eventually, the young man in the couple, who spoke Russian, told me the young man at whom the woman was yelling had gotten in line far ahead of where he was supposed to be. After shed returned to her place in line, the woman yelling in Russian periodically said things. Im not sure what she was saying, but the Russian speakers were amused. At some point in the midst of this, an older couple from perhaps Spain or Italy returned from wherever they had been and asked the crowd when people had arrived since theyd gotten there at 5:00 a.m. and knew they should be farther up than they appeared to be now. This garnered a few laughs. I yelled that Id arrived at 4:00. They worked their way somewhere behind me and chatted with their neighbors.

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The facilitation agent I recognized arrived with clients and worked them into their places in line, including the two placeholders in front of the women whom I was behind. They were replaced by a thirty- or forty-something man and a similarly aged woman with her young daughter who looked perhaps ten years old. A mild amount of protest arose from the back of the crowd until one of the placeholders explained they were just switching. When the door opened, there was of course a surge from the back of the zigzagging crowd. The two women in front of me seemed to be getting separated from each other and I did what I could to help them stay together. As the young man whod cut in line got near the door, the Russian woman behind me began yelling very aggressively and the officer in charge of letting us through the door looked genuinely nervous that he would lose control over the situation. The officer asked a few people near him some questions, stopping the whole entry process, but finally the cutter went through the door. As I got nearer the entrance, the semblance of order began to collapse, though myself and those around me tried to keep ourselves organized. At least one person who was behind me got in ahead of me and the woman with her child somehow wound up father back than Id thought they should be. Finally, I reached the officer in charge of the tickets and told him I needed to renew my residence permit. Somehow this confused him, I believe the renewal part, so I showed him the expiration date on my current permit and eventually got a number by about 7:45. My number was 347. After arriving about an hour earlier than I had on Friday, I was thirteen places farther back, but I suppose this depends on who shows up for what service on a given day. The screen read 301, 302, and 303.

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After my experience with the coffee from the machine by the bathroom, I decided to walk to where I thought Id seen a cafe, near the Pizza Mizza. The cafe did not take cards and the cash I had on me needed to be reserved for the permit fee, about 45 including the fee for the permit to be mailed. I walked to a Tesco Express ten minutes away, which did not have coffee but did have a bankomat. After getting some more cash, I went back to the cafe and bought a double espresso and a croissant. On returning to Hrobakova 44, the numbers were up to 307 by 8:30. I sat down on the same bench outside and took out some reading for class on Tuesday. While doing this, the two women whod been in front of me asked if I thought they could go somewhere for a while, showing me their ticket, which read 342. Theyd been immediately in front of me, but were five places ahead. I told them that they certainly had time to go somewhere and in fact should be prepared not to get in at all. The reading took about an hour. I checked on the numbers: 310.

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Read also: FAQ: Non-EU citizens - dealing with immigration authorities Read more

Back to the bench for some grading. Forty minutes in, I checked the numbers again, and the screen was blank. After ten more minutes of grading, it read 317, 325, and 336. I called my friend that the numbers were jumping around a lot and maybe she should come because I wasnt sure what was going on. The next day, someone suggested that, because the agents have a number of clients there at any given moment and are there every day, they convince the officers to let them evaluate a series of their clients in a row, regardless of their position in line. This makes as much sense as anything I could come up with, but I am not sure Ive seen that happen.

This account of the authors real experience at the foreigners police department in Bratislava is to be continued.

James Griffith teaches political thought and philosophy at the Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts
The market was driven mostly by vehicles, while the financing of machines, devices and technologies dropped compared with the previous year.

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The value of subjects financed via leasing amounted to some 2.399 billion last year, which is an increase of 6 percent year-on-year. This represents nearly 93,000 new agreements, according to the Association of Leasing Companies in Slovakia (ALS).

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The market was driven mostly by vehicles, while the financing of machines, devices and technologies dropped compared with the previous year. The dominant commodity remains passenger cars, with 52-percent market share, the TASR newswire reported.

Though the leasing market grew, its dynamics were different in the case of individual commodities, said Pavol Bojanovsky of ALS, as quoted by TASR.

The increase in financing of company cars was impacted by higher sales as well as available financial products offered by leasing companies. But the sales of leased cars to ordinary people dropped, Bojanovsky added.

Also the financing of machines and devices used in agriculture fell significantly compared with the previous year. Bojanovsky, however, expects changes in this segment this year. He also predicts positive development in financing of company vehicles. This should be the result of current conjuncture in the European as well as the Slovak economy.

Businesses remain the dominant customers of leasing companies when their share of overall revenues in 2016 increased to 88 percent from 85 percent in 2015. The share of ordinary consumers dropped to 12 percent.

Regarding the financial products, clients were most interested in both financial and operative leasing whose share of new trades of leasing companies constituted altogether 59 percent in 2016, up by 2 percent annually. The remaining two-fifths of new trades were financed via loans, TASR reported.

The strongest commodity in the leasing market from the point of revenues remained the financing of passenger and utility vehicles. The new volume of financing amounted to 1.390 billion, which is 15 percent more y/y.

The increase in revenues was impacted mostly by the interest of companies, entrepreneurs and the self-employed, TASR wrote.
The first India Today Tourism Awards put on the map some of the country's riveting travel destinations and underscored the sector's untapped potential in contributing to growth.

The many hues of India's heritage and wildlife, and their unlimited possibilities, came alive at the first India Today Tourism Awards held on April 20 in New Delhi. State tourism ministers played brand ambassadors, speaking about the hidden treasures of Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, and fervently pitched for more central support for the sector.

"Tourism could be a game changer...the government of India has sanctioned Rs 4,800 crore for theme-based circuits across 29 states and Union territories under the Swadesh Darshan Yojana," said Union tourism minister Dr Mahesh Sharma. "Rs 488 crore have been allocated for spiritual tourism. It will take us about a year or so to complete these projects."

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India Today and global market research agency Ipsos received 27 nominations for the six award categories-adventure, beaches and coastal, heritage, mountains, wildlife and emerging tourist destination. The destinations were evaluated on safety, infrastructure and facilities, and culture and activities.

While Satpal Maharaj, tourism minister of Uttarakhand, sought faster clearances for adventure and religious tourism projects in his state, Pasang Dorjee Sona, parliamentary secretary (tourism) for Arunachal Pradesh, called for more funds. The gala gathering was unanimous that it was now time to take the Incredible India campaign forward by creating new tourism destinations and offering travellers better experiences.

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said: "Punjab has lessons to offer in promoting heritage tourism, and Haryana would be happy to apply them."

India's travel and tourism sector ranks seventh in the world in contribution to the country's GDP, generating Rs 14.1 lakh crore in 2016 and creating 40.3 million jobs. The good news is that nearly 88 per cent of the sector's contribution to the GDP is driven by the domestic traveller, creating immense potential for increasing the footprint of international travellers.

Wellness tourism and medical tourism have been identified by the government as some of the focus areas. Dr Sharma highlighted some bold measures the government intends to take to encourage the private sector in tourism. "Hospitality is an industry of smile, and smile cannot be achieved at gunpoint. We want to give tourism to the private sector."

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The first  and for a long time also the only solid  bridge in Bratislava appeared in 1890. It was opened with great pomp and splendor; in attendance was Kaiser Ferenc Jozsef himself who benignly agreed for the bridge to bear his name.

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However, the demanding task of bridging the big Danube river was preceded by it being dammed and regulated in 1870; without this, it would not have been easy to build the bridge.

By the end of World War II, Bratislava was without a bridge again, however. The retreating German army arranged for the pride of the city to be demolished, thus slowing down the progress of the Soviet Red Army.

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One army destroyed the bridge while another built it again very quickly, though. About 600 Soviet soldiers, together with 450 German prisoners of war, started re-building it. Thanks to the fast pace of work and the number of people involved, the river was bridged again in a record short period of time, 5 months and 17 days. The final approval, or a strength test of the bridge took place on August 6, 1945, still in war style  when a 50-tonne tank crossed it and the construction did not collapse, it was clear that the effort was successful.

The last bolt was ceremonially screwed tight by famous Soviet marshall Konev, and thus, the main point of the Soviet military mission in Bratislava was fulfilled. The new bridge of the Red Army, meant as a temporary solution, served the Slovak capital for more than half a century before it was torn down and recently replaced by a new one. It even came to be called The Old Bridge.

This bridge with the river and ships attracted the attention of Czech painter Karel Cerny who painted it in 1921.
One thing foreign and local observers agree on is that one of the key reasons for the economic and political problems in Mexico is the epic levels of corruption. This can be measured. Mexico was recently rated one of the more corrupt (123 out of 176 countries) nations in the world for 2016 while neighbor United States was 18 out of 176 and Canada was nine. In 2013 Mexico was 103 out of 175 showing that the corruption has been getting worse, or at last easier to measure. Corruption in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index is measured on a 1 (most corrupt) to 100 (not corrupt) scale. The most corrupt nations (usually North Korea, Somalia or, since 2011, South Sudan) have a rating of under fifteen while of the least corrupt (usually Denmark) is often 90 or higher. The current Mexican score is 30 compared to 74 for the United States, 82 for Canada, 28 for Guatemala, 36 for El Salvador, 37 for Colombia, 40 for Brazil, 35 for Peru, 31 for Ecuador, for 17 Venezuela, 36 for Argentina, 66 for Chile, 11 for South Sudan, 12 for North Korea, 40 for China, 29 for Russia, and 72 for Japan. A lower corruption score is common with nations in economic trouble. African nations are the most corrupt, followed by Middle Eastern ones.

There are other measures for comparison. Both the United States and Mexico have federal government with the states having a lot of independence and power, especially financial. Mexico has 31 states and 120 million people while the U.S. has 50 states and 323 million people. Both countries have problems with state governors being so corrupt that they popular calls for investigations leads to prosecution. Thus from 2000 to 2013 nine American governors were accused of corruption and all nine were prosecuted, convicted and punished. In Mexico nearly all Mexican governors were accused of corruption but only 16 were investigated and only four were convicted and punished. Another measure of corruption is how much more difficult it is to start a business and improve your economic situation in Mexico than in the United States. This can be seen from any number of studies as well as frequent comments by legal and illegal Mexican migrants to the United States.

April 29, 2017: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers in the Tucson Sector have discovered another abandoned (because of a collapse) tunnel. Since 1990 security forces on both sides of the border have discovered over 200 tunnels crossing the Mexico-U.S. border. Last month U.S. authorities criticized Mexico for failing to permanently close tunnel entrances. The U.S. usually fills them in with concrete so they cannot be re-used. Mexican officials say that is too expensive. As a result, smugglers have put some of the tunnels back to use.

April 27, 2017: Mexicos Senate approved proposed legislation that increase the penalties on kidnapping (enforced disappearances). The proposed legislation would also help non-government organizations who search for lost individuals.

April 26, 2017: Security forces in Tamaulipas state have conducted a series of raids on jails and prisons. This was a pre-emptive effort to prevent riots and organized escape attempts by incarcerated cartel members. This operation targeted prisons in Altamira, Reynosa, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo.

April 23, 2017: The government has alerted nine states that a truck carrying a special x-ray machine has been stolen. The theft occurred in the town of Tlaquepaque (Jalisco state). The machine utilizes Iridium-192, a radioactive material.

April 22, 2017: Security forces in Tamaulipas have killed two senior cartel leaders. Julian Loisa Salinas was killed in the city of Reynosa where he was the local Gulf Cartel commander. In Ciudad Victoria, security forces killed Francisco Carreon, a senior commander in the Zetas Cartel.

April 21, 2017: During March 2,020 people were murdered in Mexico. That brings the total murders since January 1, 2017 to 5,775. That is about a 30 percent increase over the first three months of 2016. This is the first time since mid-2011 the country has had more than 2,000 murders in one month. Guerrero has had 550 murders in 2017.

April 20, 2017: Unidentified gunmen killed Demetrio Saldivar, Guerrero states party leader of the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). There is little doubt he was targeted for assassination. Officials said two gunmen blocked Saldivars car so it couldnt move, then shot him as he tried to escape.

April 19, 2017: Italy has decided to extradite former Tamaulipas state governor Tomas Yarrington to the United States. Yarrington was arrested in Italy on April 9. The attorneys general of both the U.S. and Mexico approved the agreement. Yarrington is wanted in the U.S. on charges of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Gulf Cartel and other drug cartels. In Mexico he is wanted on narcotics trafficking and corruption charges in Mexico.

April 16, 2017: Authorities in Tamaulipas state believe drug cartel gunmen murdered a family of four in Ciudad Victoria. One of the dead was a two-year old boy. Investigators described the murders as execution-style.

April 15, 2017: Police in the Guatemalan tourist town of Panajachel arrested Javier Duarte the former governor of Veracruz State. Duarte was a member of PRI, which is currently the ruling party in Mexico. Duarte disappeared in October 2016 and faced charges of bribery, theft (graft) and facilitating organized crime. For many Mexicans Duartes case represented the entire problem of corruption in the highest levels of government. Investigators suspect he protected drug gangs from law enforcement and may have been indirectly involved in the deaths of several journalists and political critics during his time in office (2010-2016). Three other former state governors face major criminal charges. Cesar Duarte (no relation to Javier Duarte), the former governor of Chihuahua, and Roberto Borge, another former governor of Veracruz, have both been charged with graft. However, they have not been arrested. Both men belong to the PRI. Former Tamaulipas state Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores has been a fugitive from justice since 2015. He went into hiding after being indicted on money laundering charges. Recently a court added several more counts of money laundering to Hernandez charge sheet as well as charges of bank fraud. Hernandez served as governor from 2004 to 2010. He is also a member of the PRI and has ties to another former Tamaulipas governor, Tomas Yarrington (who was arrested in Italy on April 9). Another former PRI governor (of Nuevo Leon) Rodrigo Median, is being investigated for corruption. Two former National Action Party (PAN) governors are also under investigation. Guillermo Padres, former PAN governor of Sonora (2009-2015), has actually been charged with graft. He turned himself in to federal law enforcement officials in November 2016 but claims he is innocent. Former governor of Aguascalientes state and PAN member, Luis Armando Reynoso Femat, is also under investigation but as yet faces no specific charges. (Austin Bay)

Cartel gunmen in Acapulco began shooting into a crowd of tourists in Acapulco (Guerrero state). Two people were killed, six wounded. Cartel gunmen also burned several tourist-related businesses in Acapulco, reportedly targeting bars frequented by tourists. The actions may involve extortion (protection rackets) by a cartel faction. They may also be related to a gangland turf war.

April 14, 2017: Another journalist has been killed in Mexico. The latest victim was political and crime reporter Maximino Rodriguez Palacios. He was murdered in a shopping center in La Paz (Baja California Sur state). At one time he worked as an official spokesman and press secretary for the state attorney generals office.

April 9, 2017: Law enforcement agents in Florence, Italy arrested former Tamaulipas state governor and PRI member Tomas Yarrington. This came after evading arrest for almost five years on numerous charges, including organized criminal activity, drug trafficking and money laundering. Those are the charges he faces in Mexico. In the U.S. he is wanted on money-laundering and drug trafficking charges. He was charged in both countries in 2012. Many Mexican citizens believed that the federal government didnt really want to arrest him since he was at one time a major figure in the PRI. Some media speculated Yarrington had information on other corrupt government officials and they feared he would implicate them if arrested. There is evidence for it. For example, state of Tamaulipas bodyguards were still assigned to him until late 2016. Media reported that security forces determined his location in Italy by tracking calls he made to his family in Mexico. When he was arrested he had false identity documents, indicating he was living in Italy under a false name. Both the U.S. and Mexico want to extradite Yarrington. Italy said it will make an extradition decision later this month.

April 7, 2017: The army is now allowing U.S. and UN monitors observe its heroin poppy eradication operations. So far the foreign monitors have observed operations in Sinaloa and Chihuahua states.

April 6, 2017: It is estimated that at the end of 2016 at least 30,000 people should be classified as disappeared under suspicious circumstances. In 2013, the official figures was 26,000. Tamaulipas has 5,563 missing people and this is believed to be the highest state total. Over the last ten years, 855 mass grave sites have been discovered. So far 1,548 bodies have been identified or exhumed. About half of the dead have been identified. Most of the dead were men.

April 2, 2017: Police are investigating an attack on a bus taking tourists to the Palenque (southern Chiapas state). Palenque is a major Mayan archeological site. German tourists and three Mexicans on the bus were robbed by a group of seven armed men. The bus driver took a long detour to avoid a road block erected by protestors. Police initially provided an escort but left the bus just outside of the Mayan ruin. The armed men stopped the bus, boarded it, and robbed the passengers at gun point.

April 1, 2017: Kidnappers in Tamaulipas state freed a Catholic priest who had been abducted (in the town of Altamira) during March 28. A fellow priest said that media and public pressure had help secure the abducted priests release.

March 30, 2017: Former President Calderon has accused the former governor of Coahuila state, Humberto Moreira, of attempting to protect Los Zetas cartel members while he was serving as governor. Moreiras brother, Ruben Moreira, is the current governor of Coahuila. Calderon said that Humberto Moreira asked him to withdraw marines from the state. The marines were conducting very successful anti-cartel operations in Coahuila. Calderon said that the cartels most senior leaders were living comfortably in Coahuila while Moreira was governor and Moreira wanted to protect them. Calderon said he employed Mexican military forces in the fight with drug cartels because the criminal syndicates had infiltrated federal, state and local police forces. Moreira is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), current president Penas party. Calderon belongs to the National Action Party (PAN).

March 28, 2017: A riot in Nuevo Leon states Cadereyta Prison left two inmates dead and 11 injured. Two guards were also injured. Violence on March 27 left nine injured. Prisoners were supposedly protesting the use of x-ray machines to screen prison visitors.
UAEs Mashreq Bank has selected OT (Oberthur Technologies), a leading global provider of embedded security software products, and a forerunner in the payment sector, to deploy instant card issuance.



OT has developed an innovative solution for banks to instantly issue cards. Using this service, the bank can instantly provide a card to its end-users. Customers can open an account and take away their fully personalized debit/credit cards immediately.



The solution provided to Mashreq Bank by OT is currently deployed at 35 branches in both the UAE & Qatar, supporting issuance of over 40 credit and debit card products.



OT has deployed its own personalization system in Mashreqs branches, allowing the bank to benefit from OTs expertise in EMV card personalization. OT also manages bureau card personalization for Mashreq, which means the chip profiles are only developed once, thus reducing cost and timelines for the bank in addition to making card stock management easier.



We are very proud that OT has been Mashreqs preferred partner for EMV personalization for over a decade. Mashreq is among only a handful of banks that provide innovative and convenient payment solutions to its customers, said Muzaffar Khokhar, regional president for Russia, Middle East and Africa at OT.



Mashreq is committed to delivering innovative solutions that improve customer experience and become a source of sustainable differentiation. Our partnership with OT on the Instant Card Issuance solution across the UAE and Qatar is one such example that allows any Mashreq customer to walk in to our branches and walk out with a Mashreq Credit or Debit Card in less than 30 minutes, said Pankaj Kundra, head of Payments and Personal Banking, Mashreq Bank.  TradeArabia News Service
The Saudi insurance market has a huge opportunity to grow with the sector contributing only 1.5 per cent to the kingdoms GDP last year, said Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (Sama).



Inaugurating the 4th Saudi Insurance Symposium, organised by the Insurance General Committee on April 30 and May 1, Dr Ahmed Abdulkarim Al Kholifey said highlighted the need to raise the awareness of the importance of insurance, diversifying the services provided, promoting protection and savings insurance, increasing the number of insured vehicles and encouraging mergers and acquisitions in order to establish entities strong enough to face the challenges and achieve higher growth.



The event was participated by more than 1,100 delegates representing the local, regional and international insurance sector.



Dr Al Kholifey also drew the attention of the delegates to the growth witnessed by the insurance sector in the kingdom noting that the operating profits of the sector reached SR2,469 million in 2016, compared to SR963 million in the previous year. This indicates an improvement in the insurance portfolio management resulting in the sector achieving net profits of SR2,104 million in 2016, compared to SR810 million in 2015. Furthermore, gross written premiums exceeded SR36.85 billion in 2016, which is SR360 million higher than last year.



Dr Al Kholifey explained that Sama has issued a number of circulars aiming to provide better insurance services including the need to establish a customer care department and provide discounts for compulsory and comprehensive insurance for individuals with zero violations.



Dr Al Kholifey stressed on the importance of ensuring fairness of prices of compulsory vehicle insurance for individuals.

Abdulaziz Al-Sudais, chairman of the Insurance General Committee, said: The symposiums most important objectives, through which we seek to join efforts and raise the partnership level between the public and private sectors, as well as among the various insurance segments and the beneficiaries of their services, are to enrich the customer experience and provide best insurance services to customers to meet their needs and aspirations.



He praised the pioneering role played by Sama through its recognised and honoured efforts to promulgate several laws, instructions and rules that have had a great impact on improving the services provided by insurance and reinsurance companies and self-employed companies.



Basem Odeh, chairman of the Insurance Executive Committee, stated: Despite of its relatively young age, the insurance sector in the kingdom has made significant achievements, which were widely recognised by regional and international experts and specialists. We truly believe that what has been achieved so far is very small compared to the great potentials that can be provided by the positive economic environment stimulated by the Saudi Vision 2030, particularly the support of the non-oil private sector and its contribution to expand our economy, create job opportunities and qualify citizens.  TradeArabia News Service


Kuwait remains committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 in oil & gas sector and in other sectors by 2060, said its foreign minister at the UN climate summit COP27, adding that it had executed several projects to preserve the environment and cut emissions.
Huawei, a leading global ICT solutions provider, today announced the launch of OpenLab Dubai, the companys first, to serve customers and partners in the Middle East.



Huawei plans to add seven new OpenLabs across the world in 2017, and in the next three years will invest $200 million and appoint nearly 1,000 people globally, bringing the total number of OpenLabs to 20 by the year 2019, the company said.



OpenLab Dubai is committed to providing innovative solutions for IoT, cloud computing, large data, intelligent analysis, eLTE, converged communications and other new technologies to build public safety, smart city, oil and gas solutions, and has attracted YITU, Zenith, Walkbase, 7G , IOmniscient, Nedap, Richfit and more than 20 other partners.



With the "Platform + Ecosystem, accelerate the Middle East digital transformation of the industry", OpenLab Dubai brings together partners and customers from around the world to discuss the importance of collaboration in the development of a local digital ecosystem.



At the launch ceremony, Fan Siyong, president of public sector, Huawei, said: The digital transformation is causing disruption across every industry. Huawei has established OpenLabs across the world with the theme "platform + ecosystem", and is committed to working with global multi-specialty and industry partners to build customer-centric, innovative industry solutions to promote digital transformation and promote ecosystem development through the creation of an 'open, flexible and safe platform that fully supports the ecosystem. Huawei is committed to helping governments and enterprises in the Middle East to rely on new ICT technology and applications to maintain steady growth, achieve excellence and enhance the competitiveness of the ICT industry in the region. Huaweis OpenLab Dubai was built based on local market demands, talents, and technologies, and will focus on cooperation between enterprises, services, partners and customers in Middle East.



"The special climate, resources, culture and industry in the Middle East pose different challenges compared to other regions," said Xijiang Lin, director of Middle East Solution Development Center, Huawei EBG.



OpenLab Dubai will aggregate the world's best resources to meet local digital transformation needs, and continuously enhance the ICT platform capabilities and development of local ecosystems. OpenLab Dubai is focused on building capabilities to easily apply technical solutions in the actual network environment; developing competitive, commercially viable and industry-oriented solutions; empowering innovation capabilities, rapid response to market demand; achieving industrial chain value aggregation and a customer/partner/vendor win-win-win situation.



OpenLab Dubai has been jointly launched with more than 30 solutions and over 20 partners in Public Safety, Smart city and Digital Oil & Gas. It gives customers a hands-on experience in these areas.



Public safety sector: Based on Huaweis strong infrastructure of wireless network, eLTE-LiTRA, cloud computing, large data technology integration, Dubai OpenLab is working with YITU, Zenith and other partners, for face and license plate recognition, population density analysis, public opinion analysis solutions, working towards creating a harmonious and safe social environment



Smart City: Huawei combines low-power, wide-coverage NB-IoT / eLTE-IoT, Smart Gateway, cloud computing and large data, working with Honeywell, Nedap, Johnson Controls, and other partners. Huawei is also working with Esri in data management to jointly build intelligent parking, intelligent buildings, smart meters, intelligent lights and many other smart solutions.



Oil and Gas: Huawei will combine 4G wireless broadband network eLTE with Honeywell and Emerson's various oilfield sensing devices to provide digital field-wide connection solutions to solve real-time communication problems in oil fields, help oilfield visualization production, improve oil recovery and reduce security risks.



As part of Huawei's commitment to innovation, OpenLab Dubai will be connected to Huawei's global OpenLab network, to promote new business models, market demand and technical solutions for the exchange.

Russell Hammad, CEO , Zenith; Mohamed Hassan, wireless business development manager, Honeywell; Alaa ElShimy, managing director and vice president, Huawei Enterprise Business Middle East; Xijiang Lin, director of Middle East Solution Development Center, Huawei EBG; and Dr Adel Bolbol Fernandez, SE & Data Analytics SME, Esri signed strategic cooperation agreements to mark the opening of the Huawei OpenLab Dubai.



At the opening ceremony, Esri, Zenith, Honeywell shared their solutions in public safety, smart city and oil and gas sectors, and their involvement with Huaweis OpenLab Dubai aiming for a successful digital transformation trend.



At the opening, Huawei also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Zenith, eSri, NeA and Smart IOT to establish long-term partnerships aimed at providing customers with industry-leading solutions.  TradeArabia News Service
Daiso, a Japanese discount chain has opened a new store in Doha Festival City, marking its fourth outlet in Qatar and bringing the count to 48 stores in the Middle East.



In the Middle East, the brand is part of a well-established joint franchise venture between Lals Group and Damas Group.



The worldwide the brand has more than 3,500 stores, out of which 31 stores are in the United Arab Emirates, four in Qatar and the remaining 13 located in Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.



Located on the Ground floor of Doha Festival City, the store occupies 4,450 sq ft and offers a range of 70,000 products, covering a vast array of categories including homeware, decor and ornaments, stationery, pets and toys.



Manu Mulchandani, chief operating officer, Daiso Japan, GCC Region said: People from all over GCC have shown great loyalty to the Daiso brand, loving its diversity and choice, as well as the appealing price-point! We are delighted to be opening a new store and welcoming new and old customers alike. Doha Festival City is a vibrant and busy location, and an ideal environment to further realize our expansion plans.  TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Arabias General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) has awarded the contract to operate the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah to Singapores Changi Airport Group for up to 20 years, a report said.



The statement from the kingdoms aviation authority did not provide any details other than that the selection was made after an evaluation of bids, the Reuters report said.



The Saudi Arabian airport is also home to the worlds fourth largest terminal in the world: the Hajj terminal, a whopping 510,000 sq m in size.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) India and Turkey today strongly condemned the "use of double standards" in combating terrorism and agreed to strengthen cooperation in effectively dealing with the menace both bilaterally and at multilateral fora.

A joint statement, issued after extensive talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said both sides urged all the countries and entities to work sincerely to disrupt terrorist networks and their financing and stop cross-border movement of terrorists.

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The two leaders also called for early conclusion of negotiations on the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT).

The statement said Modi thanked Erdogan for Turkeys support for Indias membership of the MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime) and its application to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group as well as Wassenaar Arrangement, an export control regime.

On terrorism, the statement said the two leaders reiterated their "strong condemnation of and resolute opposition to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, wherever committed and by whomever, and declared that there could be no justification for terrorism anywhere".

It said both leaders also strongly condemned the use of "double standards" in addressing the menace of terrorism and agreed to strengthen cooperation in combating terrorism both at the bilateral level and within the multilateral system.

Referring to multilateral export control regimes, it said India and Turkey are united by common interests in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their delivery systems

On reforms of the UN, Modi and Erdogan stressed on the need for comprehensive reform of the global body including expansion of the Security Council to make the body more representative, accountable and effective.

Resolving to expand trade ties, Modi and Erdogan agreed that the trade and investment relations between India and Turkey had immense untapped potential for growth.

"The two Leaders agreed to encourage business efforts to achieve a level of at least USD 10 billion by 2020 in bilateral trade," said the statement.

In the talks, Modi highlighted that Turkish investments in India?s manufacturing sector, especially in India?s flagship programmes like "Make in India" would be mutually beneficial to both sides.

Erdogan agreed that Indias infrastructure requirements and their ambitious vision of developing smart cities match well with Turkish capacities in the construction industry.

Both leaders agreed that mutual cooperation in the field of IT, pharmaceuticals, health and tourism is beneficial to growth of bilateral trade between the two nations.

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Pointing to the importance of energy in bilateral relations, Modi and Erdogan expressed their willingness to improve cooperation in the fields of hydrocarbons, renewable energy (solar and wind) and energy efficiency.

"The two leaders agreed that India and Turkey, being among the top 20 economies in the world with sound economic fundamentals and increasing convergence of positions, could contribute to addressing international issues of mutual interest such as new economic order, stability and security of the respective regions,? said the statement.

Both sides agreed that cooperation between India and Turkey in the field of tourism would be useful for enhancing people-to-people contact between the two nations. Modi highlighted that Indian film industry is now producing films and television shows abroad, which will eventually lead to increased tourist interest.

The two sides inked a number of MoUs including one between Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), India and Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA), Turkey.

Another agreement for cooperation was signed between Press Trust of India (PTI) and Anadolu Agency (AA) of Turkey.

The statement said Erdogan extended invitations to President Pranab Mukherjee and to Modi for visiting Turkey at mutually convenient time. PTI MPB NSA

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Sky News

Benjamin Mendy has told his rape trial that he "enjoyed having sex with lots of women". The Manchester City player, who denies the charges against him, said that it was "honestly, so easy" for him to meet women, adding that it was "normal" for him to sleep with multiple women on the same night. Wearing a navy blue suit, white shirt and tie, Mendy said he began to receive attention from women when he was 18 and playing for Marseille.
Pro-regime forces targeted the opposition-held eastern Damascus suburb of al-Qabun with over a dozen air raids, including elephant rockets and missiles, according to Syrian rebel media sources.

The air raids coincided with ground operations in which forces loyal to the Assad regime attempted to push further into the eastern section of the area. Syrian rebels claimed to have captured at least two Syrian military officers, while also the killing of Syrian Arab Army Major Mohammad Jalal. Credit: YouTube/Step News Agency via Storyful
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban will comply with demands from Brussels over an education law that threatened a top university, the leader has told his centre-right political group in the European Parliament. A statement released by the European Peoples Party (EPP) said the group had an open and frank discussion with Orban. The EPP Presidency sent a clear message to Prime Minister Orban and his party, Fidesz, that we will not accept that any basic freedoms are restricted or rule of law is disregarded. This includes academic freedom and the autonomy of universities. The EPP wants the CEU to remain open, deadlines suspended and dialogue with the US to begin, EPP President Joseph Daul said in the statement. On local TV Orban insisted it wasnt a climb down, and said he would negotiate with the EU in the coming months over the final result. Brussels had threatened legal action over the law branded an attack on academic freedom, which could close the Central European University in Budapest, established by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. On Wednesday, the bloc gave Orban a month to adapt the higher education law passed on April 4, saying it was incompatible with fundamental European freedoms. It has also led to some of the biggest protests in the Hungarian capital since Orban came to power.
International Workers' Day also known as Labour Day celebrates the spirit of labourers.

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi saluted workers on Labour Day, saying they play a big role in the country's progress.

"Today, on Labour Day we salute the determination and hardwork of countless workers who play a big role in India's progress. Shrameva Jayate!," Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

International Workers' Day also known as Labour Day celebrates the spirit of labourers.

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The Prime Minister also wished the western state of Gujarat and the west central Maharashtra state on their foundation day.

Also Read:

PM Narendra Modi on Mann Ki Baat: Have to remove VIP culture from minds of select few

Don't view triple talaq through prism of politics, PM Modi appeals to Muslims

Also Watch:

Mann Ki Baat: Concept of New India is about EPI (every person is important), not VIP, says PM Modi

--- ENDS ---
Human rights activists have taken to the streets of the Russian city of St Petersburg to protest against the alleged detention, torture and killing of gay men in Chechnya. The LGBT march comes after Novaya Gazeta reported last month that authorities in the majority Muslim republic rounded up over 100 gay men, or those suspected of being gay, and tortured them. It is claimed at least three were killed. One protester said:Authorities in Chechnya deny these people help, they even deny they exist and deny the problem exists, and we are against it. Russias Interfax news agency says a spokesman for Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov refuted the alleged abuses. Investigators say they are looking into claims that threats have been made against newspaper Novaya Gazeta following April article. The LGBT protest in St Petersburg saw several people arrested.
Theres a problem with the wisdom of crowds.

Market economies and democracies rely on the idea that whole populations know more about what is best for them than a small elite group. This knowledge is potentially so powerful it can even predict the future through stock markets, betting exchanges and special investment vehicles called prediction markets.

These markets allow people to trade shares in possible future outcomes, such as the winner of upcoming elections. Anyone with new information about the future has a financial incentive to spread it by buying these shares. Prediction markets now routinely inform bookmakers odds and are quoted in news coverage of elections alongside more traditional opinion polls.

But prediction markets are having a crisis of confidence in the abilities of the crowd. They have been systematically wrong about a series of high profile political decisions, including the UK general election of 2015, the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election of 2016.

We shouldnt expect perfect accuracy on every occasion, just as we know opinion polls are often flawed. But to be wrong so consistently about such prominent events points to possible flaws in the assumptions we make about crowd intelligence. For example, people dont always act on the information they have and so it might never become part of the crowds decision. The dynamics of crowds and markets might also stop people from paying attention to some sources of information at all.

However, there might be a way forward. My colleagues and I have come up with a model that overcomes this problem by giving people a incentive to seek out new sources of information, and an extra reason to share it.

An important question for markets is where do individuals get their information? Research shows that our opinions and activities very often match those of our peers. We also tend to look for information in the most obvious places, in line with everyone else.

Story continues

To give an example, if you look around on any public transport in the City of London youll probably see people holding copies of the Financial Times. This is a problem because if everyone has the same information, the crowd is no smarter than a single individual. Studies show that having a diverse collection of opinions, especially including minority views, is crucial for creating a smart group.

Shutterstock

So why do we tend to narrow the sources of our opinions? One reason is because we have an innate desire to imitate our peers, to behave in ways that are safe and acceptable within our community. But it may also be because of a rational, profit-seeking motivation.

We studied how theoretical profit-motivated people behave when faced with the types of rewards seen in market-like situations. To do this, we created a computer simulation of a prediction market, where people received a reward for making correct predictions. Rewards were larger when fewer people guessed the right answer, just like in a prediction market or a betting exchange.

The reward an individual received was a fixed amount divided by the number of other people who made a correct prediction. This was supposed to give people an incentive to look for right answers that other people wouldnt find. But we found that people still gravitated towards a very small subset of the available information  just like London bankers with their copies of the Financial Times.

The more complex the situation was, the smaller the percentage of available information people actually used. The problem was that the more niche, unused information, though it might be useful to the group, was so rarely useful to the individual that possessed it that there was no incentive for them to seek it out.

New reward system

To counter this, we created a theoretical new prediction market system, where people would only be rewarded if they expressed accurate views but were also in the minority. For example, if someone predicted that Donald Trump would win the US election, against the consensus view, they would have received a reward once the result was known. Conversely, if most people accurately predict the Conservative Party will win the upcoming UK election then they wouldnt receive any reward.

We found that this minority reward system, which explicitly favours those who go against popular opinion if they turn out to be correct, produced much more accurate collective decisions. This was especially the case when the situations were complex, influenced by many factors.

Intuitively, this makes sense. If your opinion supports the existing popular view, you cant change whether the group will be correct or not. In our model, people have an incentive to go hunting for more esoteric sources of information about possible future outcomes. For example, rather than reading the Financial Times, they might follow obscure blogs, or read local newspapers looking for information on companies in the area.

They know that only by finding information that very few have access to will they have a chance to correctly go against the prevailing wisdom. This encourages the whole group to bring together a much wider set of information, leading to more accurate collective decisions.

Our results are so far confined to a theoretical model, but they give us an insight into why current forms of prediction markets may be prone to failure, and how we might try to improve them in future. We hope that these insights will be used to create more accurate prediction markets, as we could all benefit from better collective foresight.

Better predictions and collective decision making could help society decide which political ideas will or wont work. Improving the ability of stock markets to predict which companies and ideas will do well could improve the return on investment and generate greater economic growth. Even academia is a large-scale exercise in collective wisdom. If changing the way that researchers are rewarded can improve the wisdom of this crowd, it could lead to more important scientific discoveries.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Richard Mann received funding from grants from the European Research Council.
Whether moving across town or across the country, nearly a third of consumers choose a professional moving company to assist with their relocation. Movers are one of the top categories of companies searched on the Better Business Bureau website, bbb.org, which has BBB Business Profiles on more than 20,000 moving-related companies.

BBB offers the following tips on preparing for a move, finding a trustworthy moving company, and avoiding scams:

Do your research Look up moving companies on bbb.org. These companies have pledged to uphold high standards of trust and to resolve complaints quickly. Note the length of time a company has been in business and read reviews from previous customers.

Get at least three estimates Written, in-home estimates help you make an informed decision. Show the mover everything that needs to be moved (dont forget sheds and garages). Be wary of unusually high or low estimates. If someone says they can give you an estimate over the phone or by email, its possible theyre trying to scam you.

Get all agreements in writing Read everything carefully and make sure you have it all in writing. Get copies of everything you sign, especially the most important document, the bill of lading, which is the receipt for your goods and the contract for their transportation. Never sign any blank forms.

Know your rights Interstate movers are required by law to provide you with certain information that explains the moving process, as well as your rights and responsibilities during and after the move. Ask for proof of licenses, insurance, etc.

Protect your possessions Make sure that your mover provides full-value protection insurance for any lost or damaged possessions. Note that insurance is by the pound, so expensive items such as a flat-panel television may need additional replacement cost coverage in case they are damaged in transit.

Be wary of unusual requests If a mover asks for a large down payment or full payment in advance, it may be a warning sign. And if a company says it wont return your items to you without more money than you agreed to pay, contact local law enforcement for help.

Take your valuables with you Cash, coins, jewelry, photographs and important papers should be taken with you or shipped separately using a shipping service with tracking numbers and insurance.

Ask questions Dont be afraid to ask questions about anything you dont understand. If the moving company cant or wont answer your questions, you might want to look for another mover.

For more information on federal laws in the United States, check out the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrations website, protectyourmove.gov.
Improv comedy doesnt take as much thinking out of the box as some may think. Thats something that instructors at The Box Performance Space Downtown plan to teach students at their summer improv classes, which will start on May 7.

Kristin Berg, show producer at The Box, is also in charge of registration for the classes. She said that The Box has been conducting classes for aspiring improv artists for a few years, and that they have evolved from workshops to more formal courses meant to graduate its students from beginner levels to more advanced classes.

One of the things The Box emphasizes, which may seem to contradict the art of improv comedy as a whole, is that its OK if youre not naturally funny. Honesty with character is a more important attribute; the laughs will eventually come with it.

Its all about living in the truth of a scene, Berg said. Its about being honest in your scene work, and thats where the comedy comes from. Because life is naturally funny.

Classes at The Box  which can help students learn skills about talking in front of any audience, and not just an improv show  emphasize going with your gut. In other words, if you think of something, commit to it.

Some people get on stage that they think of something, and they decide they dont want to go with it because it might be too much or theyre worried about people will think of what theyre saying or doing, but usually thats the right answer, Berg said. Your first instinct is usually the right thing to do.

Five levels of classes are being offered, with a cap of 15 students for each. Beginners start in Basic I, which goes over the foundations of improv, to character development and in-depth interaction in the intermediate courses. There is a $150 fee for each of the classes, which meet once a week for three hours over six weeks, and participants must be at least 18.

While The Box has been open for about a decade, Berg said shes hopeful that the improv scene in Albuquerque grows into its own, much like the area is renowned for its culture, music, art and, more recently, craft beer. A lot of other cities have multiple improv theaters, but I think well eventually get to a point where theres other in town, with other schools of thought, she said, referring to the variety of philosophies when it comes to improv.
In March, the New Mexico Supreme Court decided a medical malpractice case brought by a New Mexico resident against a surgeon employed at the Texas Tech hospital in Lubbock. The surgeon, a Texas state employee, allegedly botched the surgery. The decision wasnt about the supposed medical negligence, but about whether the plaintiff could maintain the suit at all.

In a nutshell, under Texas law, a Texas court would have been obliged to dismiss the suit because it named the surgeon rather than his hospital as defendant. The question was whether New Mexico courts should enforce that Texas law.

Deciding that issue required the courts to explore the concept of sovereign immunity. That phrase sounds grand, but all it means is that states cannot be sued unless they consent to it. When a state agrees to allow itself to be sued, it is said to have waived sovereign immunity. People seeking to ridicule sovereign immunity claim it is founded on the principle that the king can do no wrong (usually expressed in the Latin tag rex non potest peccare). But practicalities do more than any Latin tag to explain the concept. It comes down to the basic democratic principle that the Legislature is the branch of government that determines how public funds will be spent. In both New Mexico and Texas, the state legislatures have waived sovereign immunity for torts by state employees, but in both states the legislatures impose strict procedural requirements to keep costs under control.

In the recent medical malpractice case, New Mexico courts had to decide whether to enforce one of Texass procedural requirements. In other words, they had to decide whether the disbursement of funds from the Texas treasury should occur according to rules laid down by the Texas Legislature or by New Mexico courts. A four-justice majority of our Supreme Court concluded that rule-making authority rested with the Texas Legislature. In the jargon, they extended comity to Texas.

The dissenting justice, Barbara Vigil, argued that Texas right to dictate the terms of its own waiver of sovereign immunity  its right to regulate the outflow of cash from its treasury  should be subordinated to New Mexico public policy. In her analysis, New Mexicos public policy regarding sovereign immunity can be found in our own Tort Claims Act. To the extent that the Texas approach differs from New Mexicos, therefore, it is contrary to New Mexico public policy. Boiled down, her argument was that comity should be extended to other states only when their waiver of sovereign immunity matches ours. Which, of course, would be the same as not extending comity at all.

But analyzing legal cases in terms of legal doctrine often misses the big picture. The commission of any tort represents the unreasonable imposition of costs on the victim. The costs may take the form of lost money (as with most business torts), physical injury, medical bills, pain, or the loss of a shared life with a loved one. Its only fair that the person or organization responsible for imposing such costs should compensate the victim. Tort law has a second, regulatory aspect, too. It seeks to encourage people to behave responsibly by making negligence costly.

Justice Vigils bigger point, I think, is that its just not right that the compensatory and regulatory purposes of New Mexico tort law should be defeated by another states pleading requirements that seemingly serve no broader purpose at all. Seen in those terms, her argument seems compelling. But if it were accepted, it would mean a New Mexican treated in a Texas facility had greater claim on the Texas treasury than a Texan treated at the same facility, which makes no sense at all.

Many residents of eastern and southern New Mexico rely on Texas public hospitals for medical treatment. In particular, the nearest Level 1 trauma centers for many New Mexicans are the university hospitals in Lubbock and El Paso. One might even say that New Mexico is a bit of a freeloader when it comes to health care. The majority raises this point in more tactful terms, suggesting that extending comity to Texas in this case will positively serve New Mexicos public policy interests by encouraging the continuing cooperation of Texas and New Mexico in maintaining cross-border care networks. In our dependent position, its not really in our interest to give Texas public health care providers a reason to discriminate against New Mexicans. Theres a Latin tag for that, too: noli manum pascentem mordere. Dont bite the hand that feeds you.

Joel Jacobsen is an author and has recently retired from a 29-year legal career. If there are topics you would like to see covered in future columns, please write him at legal.column.tips@gmail.com
Santa Ana Star Casinos dramatic expansion plans over the next couple of years will include a 204-room hotel and new restaurants.

With that in mind, Santa Ana Star has decided to fill the space once occupied by Sadies New Mexican restaurant on the casino floor with a new casino-owned restaurant, the Cantina Rio.

Sadies left the space in January, and Santa Ana Star Casino used all local contractors and subcontractors to provide a quick turnaround of the space. The general contractor was Jaynes Corp.

Cantina Rio, which is already open, mixes the popular American-style grill with a more local New Mexican flavor. The weathered wood walls are decorated with everything from crocodile heads (which Im assured are replicas), license plates and obscure Breaking Bad references. The cantina was decorated by the casino executive team, and most of the items were found at antique and gift shops from all over the state, according to Shannon Guess, casino community relations manager.

The 4,500-square-foot space is a big change from Sadies open floor plan. The casino has closed the space off, to create a more intimate feel, Guess said. The casino uses small touches like hand-weathered tin ceilings and unique individualized light fixtures to make the effect work.

Cantina Rio is smaller than Sadies, but the casino feels that the closed-in space and cantina style more than make up for the smaller area.

A cantina-style restaurant was a natural fit for our casino. It enables us to draw on our local culture while serving the type of food our guests crave and maintaining a fun, high-energy atmosphere. the casino said in an emailed statement.

The food is as eclectic as the decor. Head chef Hassan Abassary has cooked up a menu that offers macaroni and cheese, burgers and enchiladas, among other fare. One of the more unusual offerings is the fried ravioli dunkers.

In the middle of the cantina sits a solid-copper bar and behind it, a wall filled with tequilas, and a series of copper beer taps that dispense some of New Mexicos finest local brews (and yes, they still have Bud, Coors and Miller.)

One of the many reasons Santa Ana Star Casino wanted to renovate the space was to expand the live music area. Before Cantina Rios opening, music at the casino was limited to a small space in a corner bar. Now it can fit a full nine-piece band, according to Guess.

Cantina Rio, which had a soft opening in early April, will have its grand opening on Friday. Festivities will include live music, food and drink specials, giveaways and prizes.

Still Spirit

With the explosion of new taprooms, breweries, pubs, microbrews and bars in Albuquerque, finding a new niche in the alcohol world is a daunting task. However, Peter Arathoon and Zac Hulme, owners of the new Still Spirits distillery, have a solution. Still Spirits is opening a vodka tasting room.

Still Spirits is on Marble NW, directly across from Marble Brewery.

(Marble) has been very nice and supportive. Just super cool, Arathoon said.

The former industrial workshop that now houses Still Spirits has been modified to have a unique-looking barroom in the front and stills in the back.

Arathoon and Hulme did most of the construction. We cut the concrete, did all the woodwork, then brought in contractors for the stuff that requires a licensed contractor. Hulme told the Journal.

While renovations will continue after opening, Arathoon and Hulme have created a space that combines plants and art with the original industrial feel. The distillery may be new, but it certainly seems to understand the style of the neighborhood.

Still Spirits, which opened on April 26 after several unannounced test openings, distills its own vodka on site. We began with a sugar mash, but we hit a bottleneck in our production, so now we are using pre-distilled spirits and then redistilling them, Arathoon said.

Arathoon and Hulme began distilling using a homemade still they constructed out of a beer keg. Recently however, they began using a new still bought from a company in Denver. It has twice the capacity and now takes the bulk of Still Spirits distilling load.

The original still, which sits in all its duct-taped glory next to the shining chrome of the new still in the back of the Still Spirits distillery, will eventually be used to distill gin.

Arathoon, a Guatemalan native who came to the U.S. in 2003, loves gin and says he hopes to add a Still Spirits brand of gin within the next couple of months.

Zullos Bistro

Do you like wine? Italian food with a twist? The color purple? Well, then, you may have a new favorite hangout. Zullos Bistro has opened at 509 Central NW, the former location of Blackbird Buvette.

Zullos is owned by Jennifer Zullo and her father, Mike, a bluegrass musician.

The family moved out from Minneapolis two years ago and immediately wanted to open a bistro, Jennifer Zullo told the Journal. But the Downtown crime made them think twice about locating in the bar district.

But Downtown has really cleaned up over the last couple of years, said Zullo, who attributes a lot of the progress to the local breweries.

Jennifer said they fell in love with the location right away. What sold them? The outdoor space.

509 Central NW is a free-standing building with a back patio, something of a rarity in Downtown, according to Jennifer. And she has made the back patio her own. Nothing in the bistro announces Zullos style like the outside decoration.

One wall is painted with a giant Zullos logo. Pastel colors adorn the adobe walls, and one corner has been carved out as a musical space. Well really take any musical acts, but they have to be live, no DJs, Zullo said.

Another selling point for the Zullo family was the ready-made amenities inside. The location already had a bar, kitchen and some seating. Zullo and company reupholstered, painted and updated some of the equipment and they were ready to go.

To go with the live music, Zullo has selected a corner of the bar area to exhibit local artists. The artist will change every two to three weeks, and artists can sign up at the restaurant.

Zullo, head chef, has poured a lot of love into the bistro, and everything she loves is quite literally inside. Her father helps with business, her mother chooses local artists and her fiancee, Eric, tends bar and helps with decorating.

Reviews for the soft opening have been really good. We have (nothing but) five-star reviews so far, she said. We are known for our meatballs. Everybody seems to order those, she said.

After a rocky start due to mechanical breakdowns, Zullos finally had a soft opening a few weeks ago. It is looking for a grand opening in a month or so.
NEW YORK  Halfway through Valentines Day, florist Ajay Kori realized he was in the midst of a disaster.

His company wasnt going to be able to deliver many of the promised roses and other flowers by the end of the day. Angry customers started venting online, posting negative reviews of UrbanStems on sites such as Google and Yelp. It was a public relations nightmare.

When a small business has a crisis, it can in some ways be more vulnerable than a behemoth like United Airlines, which got plenty of attention last month after video of a passenger being dragged off a plane went viral. Small businesses dont have big revenue streams and cash reserves to cushion them if customers flee. And negative reviews about a local business can turn away prospective customers for weeks, months or longer.

Kori knew he had to move quickly to limit the damage from this past Valentines Day and save both his companys reputation and the business itself.

We sent out emails personally apologizing to every customer and gave them a refund, says Kori, whose company is based in Washington, D.C., and delivers in five metropolitan areas around the country. UrbanStems delivered the flowers without charge over the next few days. And it called disappointed recipients to let them know it was the company, not their sweethearts, that let them down.

His response shows the advantage small companies can have: They dont have multiple tiers of executives who often use precious time discussing what to do rather than taking action, says Scott Sobel, a senior executive at public-relations firm kglobal.

The smaller the business, the more quickly you can react, Sobel says. The longer you wait, the more damage is going to happen.

United was criticized not only for the April 9 incident, but its fumbled response. CEO Oscar Munoz issued a series of statements in which he initially blamed the passenger before apologizing for Uniteds handling of the situation.

When a company makes a mistake, experts roundly agree it needs to own up to it swiftly and show that its sincerely trying to make amends.

Being disingenuous will hurt you, Sobel says. You should try and negotiate  and ask, How can we make it right for you?'

The steps Kori took, which included giving his personal cellphone number to unhappy customers, worked. Most deleted negative reviews. Some offered to help deliver flowers. Sales are up over last year.

If you build goodwill, it makes any crisis easier to navigate, says Beth Monaghan, CEO of InkHouse PR, based in Waltham, Mass. Her company has not worked with Kori.

Sometimes a PR crisis befalls a company through no fault of its own.

Wine importer Selena Cuffe was preparing to unveil South African wine in Dallas in October 2014 when a man visiting the city from Liberia died of Ebola. The wine was being launched at a Sams Club, but publicity for the event was canceled amid growing fears that the virus was spreading to the U.S.

We expected about 10,000 people to come to the launch, says Cuffe, co-owner of Los Angeles-based Heritage Link Brands. She ended up selling fewer than 40 bottles, and was left with nearly 9,000 cases of the wine, which was produced by the family of the late South African President Nelson Mandela.

Mindful of many peoples concern about products from Africa, Cuffe knew she couldnt do a traditional marketing campaign. So Heritage Link Brands hired a PR agency to plot a strategy that included trying to educate consumers.

Cuffe talked with journalists about the wine, and the fact that it had been produced thousands of miles away from where the Ebola outbreak occurred. Shes since been able to sell most of the wine, and used a similar strategy after importing wines from Brazil last year, when the Zika virus was in the news.

When Priska Diaz and her husband, Dana King, began advertising their baby bottles in 2012, they launched a social media campaign including Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Most of the posts highlighted that the design of the Bare Air-free bottles helps mothers breast-feed after using bottles  something many struggle to do. But several tweets implied that because the bottles could free mothers from nursing every few hours, they could help couples rekindle their romance; the tweets told men to reclaim your wife, Diaz says.

The message came out really wrong and offended a great deal of moms and dads around the globe, she says. The result was a stream of angry, even threatening emails and online posts.

Diaz posted an apology on Facebook and Twitter. It took about six months for the anger to die down. The bottles, which began selling in 2013, are doing well. But Diaz has learned that bad publicity may not go away completely in an online world; sometimes she still runs across an angry blog item.

Because social media have made it easier for bad publicity to spread quickly, businesses should get help from someone who knows how to manage a crisis, Monaghan says.

Once it has gone viral, every step you take matters, she says.

But nothing that restaurant owner Gretchen Hanson tried worked to end her PR crisis well. Hanson was accused of discriminating against an autistic woman in 2015 after she had asked the young woman and her friend to make room on a bench outside her Hobos eatery in Rehoboth Beach, Del., for waiting customers.

Hanson, who says she didnt know the young woman was autistic, became the subject of angry social media posts including bad reviews of her restaurant. Hobos rating on TripAdvisor plunged, and so did business, with the number of diners dropping more than 50 percent some nights. A letter to the editor in a local newspaper did more damage.

I had always been on top. Now I was fighting to stay open because the perception of my restaurant had changed, Hanson says.

Hanson says she tried to speak to the young womans mother, and friends wrote letters to the newspaper on her behalf. She tried to get the negative reviews changed but couldnt  a problem faced by most establishments that have bad online reviews.

Hanson gave up and closed Hobos 18 months after the incident. Business hadnt returned to the same level, and Hansons heart wasnt in the restaurant anymore. I no longer loved it, she says.
In its monthly report of assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths, Xinhua news agency reported.

By Indo-Asian News Service: The Pentagon said on Sunday at least 352 civilians were killed as a result of US-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to March 2017.

In its monthly report of assessment of civilian casualties, the Pentagon said it was still assessing 42 reports of civilian deaths, Xinhua news agency reported.

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According to the Pentagon, 45 civilians were killed between November 2016 and March 2017.

In addition, the US military reported 80 civilian deaths from August 2014 to the present which were not previously announced.

"Although the coalition takes extraordinary efforts to strike military targets in a manner that minimises the risk of civilian casualties, in some incidents casualties are unavoidable," said the Pentagon.

The Pentagon's figures contradict the assessment by London-based Amnesty International, which estimated that about 300 civilians have been killed in 11 coalition air strikes in Syria alone.

Also Read

Senior Islamic State leader killed in Mosul; ISIS launches chlorine gas attack on Iraqi soldiers

Islamic State's second-in-command killed, claims Iraqi local media

--- ENDS ---
New Mexico has had a significant footprint in the continued growth of the online marketplace because of one man dubbed by his peers as the wizard in the desert. When New Mexico native Jared Tarbell helped start the vastly successful e-commerce website Etsy from his apartment near UNM, he demonstrated the opportunities that exist when communities are connected to the internet.

Unfortunately, too much of New Mexico is facing a digital divide that leaves 68 percent of New Mexicans living in rural and tribal communities without access to an internet connection  which renders them unable to take part in the opportunities that exist on the world wide web. Its also tied their hand in their efforts to attract, retain and expand businesses.

When your internet speeds match those of developing nations like Iraq and Moldova, you know there is a problem. This problem also signaled a huge chance to reinvigorate local economies and help push New Mexico into the 21st Century.

One of the greatest accomplishments this past legislative session was passing an expansive package geared at connecting New Mexicans in every corner of the state to high-speed internet.

Legislators from both sides of the aisle came together to pass common-sense improvements to help connect families and businesses. I was proud to sponsor two bills which have now been signed into law that will open the door to major internet infrastructure expansion in parts of the state that need it the most.

After years of attempts, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 53, which cuts red-tape that has prevented internet providers from investing in needed internet infrastructure as they look to expand into rural communities. As technology changes and makes traditional land lines obsolete, we need to ensure we have a framework to bring our communities along.

Thats also why we also revamped the existing Universal Service Fund in Senate Bill 308 to help make broadband attainable for all New Mexico families by creating a dedicated broadband fund.

Other measures look to enlist local governments as change agents in the effort to connect their communities. House Bill 60 by Rep. Carl Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, and Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, will reduce the costs of broadband network construction by allowing local government-broadband provider partnerships.

Unfortunately, despite receiving near-unanimous support in the Legislature, Gov. Martinez tried to veto another bill I sponsored that would have allowed local governments to raise the funds necessary to bring high speed internet to their communities. Local governments may still be able to use this option moving forward because (lawmakers have filed a petition with the state Supreme Court, arguing) her veto attempt did not meet the constitutional requirements.

New Mexico suffers from the worst unemployment in the nation; it is critical we find creative ways to expand jobs. Broadband access will allow communities to grow small, local businesses while also being a viable option for businesses who want to come here but are worried about sufficient internet connection.

Etsy is now a publicly traded company that boasts over 28 million active buyers and $2.84 billion in annual gross merchandise sales. Its an example of what can be done when we begin to recognize that high-speed internet is not a luxury; its a necessary tool for economic growth.
Police have launched a homicide investigation after finding a male dead early Sunday morning near a Northeast Heights park, according to a department spokesman.

Albuquerque police officer Simon Drobik said police were called to the Stardust Skies park, near Pennsylvania and Montgomery, around 4 a.m. after receiving reports that shots had been fired in the area.

Police have not released the victims name or age.

Detectives and an officer were on scene Sunday afternoon. Nearby, what appeared to be blood stained the street directly to the west of the park, which is nestled in a quiet residential neighborhood.

A man at the incident area Sunday who said he believed he was related to the victim said hed gone to the park to visit the scene and found a bullet in the street  at least 10 hours after the shooting and after officers had left the area. He called police back to the scene. He said the victim has not been positively identified yet.
Albuquerque police have identified the man killed near a southeast Albuquerque mobile home park on Friday as 42-year-old Harvey Saavedra.

Officer Simon Drobik said Sunday that police are still hoping to identify a person of interest pictured in an image released by the department Saturday.

Drobik said Saavedra was shot and killed in the 8000 block of Zuni, near Pennsylvania, around 6 p.m. Friday.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Massive ray guns that use microwaves to instantaneously down a swarm of incoming enemy drones are approaching prime-time reality, and could propel New Mexico into a leadership role in the next wave of modern defense technology.

The Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base is leading an effort to move such weapons out of the lab and into the hands of war fighters, with help from industry partners like Raytheon Missile Systems Ktech division in Albuquerque.

Those efforts have strong backing from New Mexicos congressional delegation, particularly from Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich, who is spearheading a push to pump more federal spending into development programs and to encourage the Pentagon to move faster on deployment.

This technology using microwaves and lasers is ready for prime time, Heinrich told the Journal. Weve spent a lot on research and development over the years, but today were now capable of shooting down rockets, missiles or mortars that could put our troops in danger. Its developed enough to go beyond research and put this technology into the hands of Americans to make a difference.

The military has concentrated in recent years on advancing laser weapons for fighter aircraft, Navy ships and Army vehicles. But alongside that work, the Air Force lab in Albuquerque has done extensive research and development for decades on microwave, or high-power electromagnetic technology, to build systems that could add another layer of defense alongside lasers and conventional missiles and explosives  ones that would destroy enemy systems without harming civilians or infrastructure.

Mary Lou Robinson, chief of the High Power Electromagnetics Division at the Air Force lab, calls it game-changing technology.

This is not evolutionary improvement in the way we fight wars, but a revolutionary improvement, Robinson said. Directed energy systems (lasers and microwaves) have been called systems of the future. They are the future, but the future is now.

The Air Force labs role in laser-related work helped build a powerful industry cluster in New Mexico, with commercial contractors creating systems and spinning technology off into commercial markets. The same could occur with microwave technology.

Apart from big firms like Raytheon and Boeing Co., dozens of small, local contractors already work with the lab on microwave technology.

The AFRL has become the center of microwave development for the nation, Robinson said. The Navy is partnering with us on this because of our expertise in these technologies.  Albuquerque and New Mexico are well-poised to be a center of excellence for it.

Despite decades of research, only a couple of systems have been deployed on the battlefield for actual use, or for testing and demonstration purposes. That includes the Air Force labs MaxPower System, which mounted a concentrated electromagnetic power system onto an armored truck. It was deployed for nine months of testing in Afghanistan in 2012 to destroy improvised explosive devices.

The Air Force also used a nonlethal, vehicle-mounted Active Denial System, or Pain Ray, in Afghanistan. It causes a burning sensation on skin to disperse crowds or force people to drop their weapons, but it was never used.

Now, the Air Force lab is working with the Navy to adapt its Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, for aircraft. The technology would fly over buildings and installations to destroy electronics, computers and other systems using microwaves but no explosions.

Raytheon and Boeing helped build that system, which was successfully flight-demonstrated in 2012.

Over the past two years, Congress has approved $15 million for the CHAMP program here, including nearly $5 million for Raytheon to upgrade two original CHAMP missiles that the Air Force and Navy will now continue to develop and adapt. Raytheon delivered the first one early this year, and the second is about to follow, said Raytheon Ktech site director Steve Downie.

Raytheon also developed its own Phaser ground system to protect bases and installations from incoming enemy drones or missiles. It successfully tested Phaser in 2013 at Fort Sill, Okla., downing two unmanned aerial vehicles simultaneously. Its designed to take out multiple drones in a single sweep as they cross through the microwaves.

Say there are 20 incoming UAVs, Downie said. If they all fly through our field, they all go down.

Thats different from lasers, which must focus on one target. And lasers need a few seconds to destroy something, whereas microwaves are instantaneous.

You dont need to be Annie Oakley if youre using a shotgun approach, Robinson said. The field spreads out to include a slew of UAVs in a large area.  Were looking at opportunities to support Raytheons research and development on this and demonstrate it for base defense.

If the system is deployed, Raytheon Ktech will manufacture the Phaser in Albuquerque at the Sandia Science and Technology Park, where it has a 103,000-square-foot facility. Its adding a 72,000-square-foot building at the park this summer to better accommodate work on microwave systems and other technologies. Its workforce is expected to grow from 180 people now to 200 by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Heinrich is working to accelerate military efforts to deploy both laser and microwave weapons. He called in March for establishment of a new Directed Energy Weapon System Demonstration Fund to develop the tactics, techniques and procedures for future deployment.

But the Pentagon needs to get fully on board to start moving systems from lab to battlefield, Heinrich said.

The biggest challenge now is not technological; its cultural, Heinrich told the Journal. Im optimistic, because the interest were seeing by other nations in these weapons is having an impact on the top brass at the Pentagon. I believe it will soon become easier to transition this technology into real systems to defend our troops.
An Albuquerque jury has awarded a nearly $8 million verdict to a New Mexico couple in a case in which a 44-year-old man suffered serious pressure ulcers while in Presbyterian Hospitals intensive care unit.

Michael Webb and his wife, Tammy Lee Bruyere, filed the lawsuit in 2012 in connection to injuries Webb suffered while he was in the ICU because of complications from a knee surgery in December 2011.

He had alleged that, while unconscious, he spent days in the ICU without being moved enough and, as a result, developed Stage 4 pressure ulcers on his backside, a condition in which tissue damage stretches deep into the muscle or bone. The injury has continued to cause him pain and the need for medical care, said Randi McGinn, one of the couples attorneys.

The jury heard about a weeks worth of testimony and deliberated for about a day before returning the verdict Thursday, which found that Presbyterian was negligent and that the negligence caused Webbs injuries. Second Judicial District Judge Valerie Huling presided over the case.

The jury awarded Webb $4 million in compensatory damages, Bruyere $1.5 million in compensatory damages. The couple was also awarded $2.25 million in punitive damages.

The one place a helpless patient should be safe from pressure ulcers is the intensive care unit in the second-largest hospital in the state, McGinn said Friday. When you are paying for intensive care, you should get intensive care.

Attorneys at the Rodey Law Firm, who represented Presbyterian, were out of town and couldnt be reached for comment Friday.

As a not-for-profit organization with deep roots in this community, we have confidence in the safe, quality care provided at Presbyterian Hospital. In this case, we are confident that our clinicians cared for the patient appropriately, Kerri Dufault, a spokeswoman for Presbyterian, said in a prepared statement.

We appreciate the efforts of the jury in this case, but respectfully disagree with the decision. We are currently evaluating how we will proceed.

McGinn said Webb at the time he was injured worked on refrigeration for Smiths grocery stores around the state and made about $130,000 a year. But she said Webb can no longer work, and his wife has to provide him with ongoing medical care.

She said her key witnesses at trial were Webb and Bruyere and a nursing expert who said Webbs treatment at Presbyterian was not in line with standards of care and the hospitals policies.
SANTA FE  The New Mexico Public Education Department wants to eliminate two of the five bilingual education teaching models in the state, describing the move as a way to streamline resources and increase the number of students participating in the three other models.

However, some longtime bilingual education professionals are questioning the move, saying it could lead to a loss of state funds for some schools and could cause an interruption for as many as 20,000 students currently participating in bilingual programs.

Some critics also say the proposed changes have been rolled out without a thorough explanation from the Public Education Department.

I sincerely do not know what their motivation is, said Loretta Salazar, a former president of the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Education. It sort of leads to a greater mistrust of whats going on at PED.

A public hearing on the PEDs proposed bilingual education rule changes will be held Tuesday in Santa Fe.

Under a 2004 state law, school districts and charter schools around the state can get state funding to implement bilingual education programs.

Overall, about 50,000 students in New Mexico public schools  or roughly 15 percent of students in kindergarten through 12th grade  are currently participating in bilingual education programs.

Students can participate in bilingual education programs as long as their schools have been approved by the Public Education Department. Albuquerque Public Schools alone has roughly 10,000 students enrolled in schools with bilingual education programs.

Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera suggested the proposed changes, which would not take effect until the 2018-19 school year, could actually lead to more student participation in bilingual programs.

New Mexico is a national leader in bilingual/biliterate education  and we, now with our proposal, have the opportunity to serve more students and address their needs as English learners, heritage speakers and any student who wants to participate in a bilingual, biliterate education program, Skandera said in a statement.

However, critics question how the elimination of two of the five current bilingual education models would increase student participation levels, and say it could force districts using either of the models slated for the chopping block to have to replace instructional materials and overhaul curriculum.

Some concerned policy-makers worry that the rule change is just a back-door attempt to slash state financial aid to local schools, Mary Jean H. Lopez, a former teacher and PED administrator, wrote in a letter to the Journal .

Under the proposed PED changes, the two bilingual models that would be eliminated are a maintenance model aimed at improving a students English-speaking abilities while remaining proficient in their native language, and an enrichment model focused on improving the native language skills of students already fluent in English.

The other three models  dual language immersion, heritage language and transitional  would remain in place, but with some changes.

New Mexico has the nations highest percentage of Hispanic residents  roughly 48 percent  and has enshrined protections for Spanish speakers in the state Constitution and law that are visible in classrooms, courthouses and voting booths.

The state also has one of the nations highest percentages of Native American residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, and Navajo-English bilingual education programs have been implemented in some school districts.

Proponents of bilingual education say proficiency in two languages improves overall academic achievement and gives students an advantage when entering the workforce.

Were known as a multilingual, multicultural state, and this seems to diminish that, Salazar said of the proposed PED rule changes. Its offensive.

If you go

A public hearing on the Public Education Departments proposed bilingual education rule changes will be held Tuesday in Santa Fe.

Time: 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

Location: Mabry Hall, located in the Jerry Apodaca Education Building, 300 Don Gaspar St.

Written comments can also be provided through 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Unlike colleges and universities, U.S. elementary and secondary schools are not subject to national requirements for tracking student sexual assaults. But 32 states and the District of Columbia do maintain information, though it is inconsistent and sometimes incomplete, The Associated Press found.

Some states required school districts to log any student sexual assault on school property or at school-sponsored events, but others required reporting of only those assaults resulting in certain types of student discipline. In Michigan, for example, the state counted only expulsions. So one Lansing high school was able to report no sexual assaults in 2015 while AP found a case in which a student was suspended and later charged with criminal sexual conduct. Additionally, some states masked the actual number of student sexual attacks if they fell beneath a certain threshold.

Whether and how an incident was recorded  as sexual assault or something less serious  was often left to school districts discretion. Education officials in a half-dozen states told AP they didnt think their data reflected the full extent of the problem. In addition, some of the nations largest school districts  including those with student enrollments over 100,000  reported no rapes or sexual assaults for multiple years, even though AP identified cases through public records or news accounts.

In the 18 states with no reporting requirements, cases can go unnoticed, such as the 2010 sexual assault of a girl in a Muncie, Indiana, high school bathroom, which resulted in a boys guilty plea.

AP compared state education agency information from fall 2011 to spring 2015  across the four academic years for which most reported  counting only the most severe forms of sexual assault, such as rape, sodomy, forced oral sex, penetration with an object or unwanted fondling.

For states with no education data, AP looked to the National Incident-Based Reporting System, a database of participating states crime reports collected by the FBI. AP used the two most recent publicly available years of NIBRS data  2013 and 2014.

By mining those records, the AP was able to uncover about 17,000 official reports of student sex assault  an undercount due to the significant under-reporting and spotty categorization.

A state-by-state summary:

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ALABAMA

The state education department received information from school districts and, in some years, schools on incidents of sexual battery by students, including actual or attempted penetration, fondling and child molestation, especially where the victim was unable to give consent. The department reported 43 assaults over the four-year period and said it generally doesnt try to verify the information.

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ALASKA

The state education department tracked incidents leading to student suspension and expulsion, but not specifically sexual assault. Reporting was voluntary, and schools sometimes coded student sexual assault as other-type not listed behavior. Officials said they didnt believe their reported total of three incidents was accurate because Alaskas overall sexual assault rates were three times the national average. This in no way represents the true extent to which sexual assault incidents lead to a discipline event in our public schools, Brian Laurent, the states education data manager, told AP.

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ARIZONA

Individual schools reported incidents of student sexual assault, defined as forced intercourse or oral sex. The education department provided an annual statewide total but masked the actual number of attacks annually when there were five or fewer, which applied to three of the four years in question. That made the reported statewide total between four and 20. In response to APs queries, the state will review the nature and reliability of the school safety data we collect, education spokesman Charles Tack said.

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ARKANSAS

The state education department did not collect information on student sex assaults on school property. State law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 12 incidents of such assaults on school property for the two-year period. The law enforcement representation in NIBRS covered most of the states population.

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CALIFORNIA

The state required every public school to report any offense by a student involving sexual assault or sexual battery, regardless of whether it led to suspension or expulsion. The state defined those offenses broadly to include any forcible oral, anal or vaginal penetration, lewd behavior with someone 15 or younger, and unwanted intimate touching through or under clothes for arousal or gratification. California reported 4,630 such student offenses over the four-year period.

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COLORADO

The state education agency maintained no student sexual assault records over the four-year period; it began tracking incidents leading to suspension, expulsion or referrals to law enforcement only in the 2015-2016 academic year. But state law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System reported 350 incidents of student sexual assault on school property over the two most recently available years.

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CONNECTICUT

School districts notified the state education department about incidents of sexual battery, including rape and forced fondling, that led to student suspensions and expulsions. The department masked district-level totals for any given year when there were five or fewer. During APs four-year study period, the department reported 43 sexual batteries statewide that led to student discipline.

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DELAWARE

The state required schools to report student sex assaults to the states education department and local law enforcement in real time. State education officials recorded only severe sex assaults, such as rape, in a category called violent felonies and said there was no way to distinguish student sex assaults from other offenses. Law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 70 incidents of student sexual assault on school property during the two most recently available years.

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

The districts education department tracked incidents of school sex assaults by students, relying on the Metropolitan Police Departments determination of whether a reported incident constituted a forcible sexual act. Its four-year reported total was 26. Not included in the tally were charter schools, which serve about 40 percent of the districts students.

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FLORIDA

Schools notified the states education department annually of all incidents of student sexual battery, defined as attempted or actual penetration and, as of 2015, sexual assault, including threats of rape, fondling, indecent liberties, child molestation or sodomy. The actual number of attacks at an individual school or district was masked when there were fewer than 10 a year. Over the four-year period, the state reported 165 such incidents.

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GEORGIA

Schools reported annually only those incidents of sexual battery that led to suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment or placement in an alternative education program. The education department defined such behavior as unwanted oral, anal or vaginal rape and forcible intimate touching. The state reported 607 such incidents in the four-year period.

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HAWAII

The state tracked sexual assaults and sexual offenses by students, including acts such as forcible intercourse, oral sex and sexual fondling. It provided annual statewide totals under an official public information request and, over the four-year period, reported 784 such incidents.

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IDAHO

The state education department kept no specific data on student sex assaults. Officials said such incidents most likely would have been reported as violence with injury or violence without injury. None of the 108 state law enforcement agencies reporting to NIBRS during the two years most recently available used the codes that would denote cases specifically occurring at elementary and secondary schools.

___

ILLINOIS

The state education department did not collect data on student sex assaults, though Chicago Public Schools kept its own citywide accounting. As of 2014, Illinois had only one law enforcement agency  the Rockford Police Department  participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System, and it recorded seven such incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

INDIANA

The state education department did not collect data on student sex assaults. The state police, the only law enforcement agency participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System, recorded just three incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

IOWA

The state education department did not track student sex assaults. None of the states 232 law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two years most recently available used the codes that identify cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

KANSAS

The state education department did not track student sex assaults. None of the 360 law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two years most recently available used the codes that identify cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

KENTUCKY

The state education department tracked only incidents of rape and sexual assault by students that resulted in discipline, such as suspensions or expulsions. It reported 187 incidents of sexual assault over the four-year period, but no rapes.

___

LOUISIANA

The state education department collected information from school districts on reported student rapes and sexual batteries and said there were 30 such incidents over the four-year period. The department has since stopped collecting that data, citing the expiration of a grant and a state law passed in 2014 that prohibits collection of student information on sexual or illegal behavior unless it is voluntarily disclosed by a parent or guardian.

___

MAINE

The state education department said it tracked sexual harassment, but not specifically student sexual assaults. None of the 22 state law enforcement agencies that reported to the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two years most recently available used the codes identifying cases at elementary and secondary schools.

___

MARYLAND

School districts reported incidents of sexual attacks by students that led to suspension or expulsion. Over the four-year period, the state reported 307 such incidents.

___

MASSACHUSETTS

The state education department tracked incidents of sexual assault, such as rape and forcible fondling, only when they resulted in student suspensions, expulsions or other discipline. It provided that information online by school name and, over the four-year period, reported 335 such incidents.

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MICHIGAN

School districts reported incidents of student sexual assault, such as rape, sodomy or fondling, only when they resulted in expulsions. For the four-year period, the states Center for Educational Performance and Information reported 54 such cases.

___

MINNESOTA

The state education department tracked incidents of sexual assault by students but allowed districts to decide how to define that. In responding to APs queries, officials learned that Minneapolis Public Schools had for years miscoded physical assaults as sexual assaults and vice versa. Officials said the district has since corrected its data and the state reported 441 incidents of sexual assault by students for the four-year period.

___

MISSISSIPPI

The state education department tracked incidents of student rape and sexual battery only when they led to suspension, referral to an alternative school or juvenile detention center, or corporal punishment. It masked the total for any given year when the number was 10 or fewer. That applies to rapes for two of the four years in APs study period. As a result, the states reported total was between 77 and 93.

___

MISSOURI

The state education department did not track sexual assault, though schools could report it when it led to student discipline under a category called violent incident. Education officials said they had no way to discern the number of student sexual assaults from other violent incidents. State law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 21 incidents of sexual assault at elementary and secondary schools during the two years most recently available.

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MONTANA

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual battery, such as rape, forced fondling or sodomy, only when they resulted in discipline. It masked the total for any given year when the number was five or fewer, which it said occurred in two of the four years in APs study period, making the states reported total between 17 and 25.

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NEBRASKA

The state education department did not collect information on sex assaults in its schools. However, Nebraska law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System reported 10 incidents of student sexual assault on school property in the period during the two years most recently available.

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NEVADA

The education department did not track statewide totals on the number of student sex assaults in its elementary and secondary schools, nor did law enforcement agencies participate in the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE

The state education department collected information on aggravated felonious sex assaults in schools, but cannot distinguish whether the offender was a student. State law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 16 incidents of student sexual assault on school property during the two years most recently available.

___

NEW JERSEY

School districts reported all incidents of student sexual assault, defined as forced penetration, and other sex offenses, such as forced sexual contact or exposure meant to degrade someone. Individual schools reported twice a year to the state education department. The state conducted some targeted verification of the reports, which it said totaled 900 for the four-year period.

___

NEW MEXICO

The state education department tracked all incidents of student sexual battery that resulted in discipline, including such acts as rape, fondling, child molestation or sodomy. It reported a four-year statewide total of 228.

___

NEW YORK

The state education department tracked incidents involving three forms of forcible sexual contact by students: sexual penetration, with and without a weapon, and other types of inappropriate sexual contact with a weapon. It provides the number of incidents at each school upon request and reported 147 statewide over four years. Starting in 2017-2018, the state will group all sex incidents into one category.

___

NORTH CAROLINA

The state required schools to report student incidents of rape, including forced intercourse with an incapacitated person; sexual assault, forced or unwanted contact without penetration; and sexual offense, defined as penetration by an object or intimate touching with the male sex organ. The state education department reported 860 offenses over the four years.

___

NORTH DAKOTA

The state education department tracked two types of student sex assault: gross sexual imposition-rape, defined as compelling sex by threat of death, injury or kidnapping; and sexual imposition, defined as compelling a sexual act or contact by any threat. The department reported 43 such incidents statewide for the four-year period.

___

OHIO

The state education department did not collect information on sex assaults in schools. However, state law enforcement did participate in the National Incident-Based Reporting System and reported 293 sex assaults on school property during the two years most recently available.

___

OKLAHOMA

In the 2012-2013 academic year, the state education department began collecting information on student sexual assaults, but reporting was voluntary. From 2012-13 to 2014-15, only one incident was reported statewide. Spokeswoman Steffie Corcoran told AP any reported data was unreliable because it was not certified. Districts could rely on criminal statutes or guidance from the National Center for Education Statistics, which defines sexual battery (sexual assault) as oral, anal, or vaginal penetration forcibly or against the persons will or where the victim is incapable of giving consent.

___

OREGON

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual battery (sexual assault) only when they led to suspension, expulsion or removal to an alternative educational setting. It defined the offense as forced or unwanted penetration, including rape, fondling and sodomy. It masked totals of five or fewer in any given year, which it did for one of the four years of APs study, making its reported statewide total between 25 and 29.

___

PENNSYLVANIA

School districts and charter schools had to report all incidents of student sexual assault, regardless of whether they resulted in discipline. The state required reporting on rape or statutory rape; sexual assault, including attempted rape or unwanted touching of a sex organ; involuntary sexual deviate intercourse; and aggravated indecent assault of someone impaired or younger than 13. It reported a statewide four-year total of 371.

___

RHODE ISLAND

School districts reported to the state education department incidents of student sex assault, including forcible sex, fondling, forced kissing and child molestation, only when they resulted in suspension. The departments reported statewide total was 28, but districts had been required to report sex assaults only since the 2012-2013 academic year.

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SOUTH CAROLINA

The state education department tracked acts of student forcible sex offense only when they resulted in an out-of-school suspension or expulsion. The department reported a statewide total of 47 over four years.

___

SOUTH DAKOTA

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual battery, including unwanted sexual contact, attempted and statutory rape and child molestation. If any years total was fewer than 10, the state masked that years actual numbers. It did so twice over the four-year period so that its reported statewide total was between two and 18.

___

TENNESSEE

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual assault, including rape, sodomy, fondling and child molestation. It reported 462 such incidents during the four-year period.

___

TEXAS

The state education agency tracked only incidents of student sexual assault resulting in suspension, expulsion or referral to an alternative education program. Reportable acts included sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault against students or school visitors; indecency with a child or sexual contact with a student 16 or younger; and continuous sexual abuse of a child on school property, including school-related activities off property. The state masked actual counts less than five, which affected the count of continuous sex abuse cases during three of the four years, making its reported four-year total between 630 and 639.

___

UTAH

The state education department tracked incidents of student sexual assault, including rape, attempted rape or sodomy, and forcible fondling. The state reported 268 for the four-year period. Queries from AP prompted the state to review its reporting system; State Board of Education spokesman Mark Peterson said the board was working to address discrepancies.

___

VERMONT

The state education department tracked all incidents of student sexual assault on school grounds or at a school-related activity. Education officials declined to share the information, saying it would have been masked anyway because the statewide annual total fell below the 11 or fewer threshold for withholding in each of the four years of APs study. A January 2015 report by the education secretary put the number of sex assaults leading to student discipline at 11 between 2013 and 2015.

___

VIRGINIA

School districts had to report all incidents of sexual assault by students, regardless of whether they resulted in discipline. The state education department tracked four forms of sex assault: rape and attempted rape, sexual battery and aggravated sexual battery, and offensive sexual touching. In public reports starting in 2013-2014, actual numbers for any individual offense category were masked if they were fewer than 10. In response to an AP records request, Virginia reported 4,549 sexual assaults for the four-year period.

___

WASHINGTON

The state education department did not track student sexual assault. Washington law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 42 incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

WEST VIRGINIA

The state education department maintained data on incidents that led to student suspension, expulsion and referral to alternative education, but did not specifically track sexual assault. Schools could report student sexual assault as bullying, harassment or intimidation. None of the states 245 law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System during the two most recent years available used the codes identifying cases at elementary and secondary schools.

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WISCONSIN

The state education department did not track student sexual assaults. Wisconsin law enforcement agencies participating in the National Incident-Based Reporting System recorded 68 incidents during the two years most recently available.

___

WYOMING

School districts notified the state education department annually of incidents of student sexual battery, such as attempted or forced penetration or fondling. Wyoming masked statewide annual totals of 10 or fewer and did so three times over the four-year period, making its reported total between 13 and 40. Data collection director Susan Williams told AP, We dont think its super clean. Districts define and report incidents differently. Wyomings education department stopped asking districts to report sex-related incidents in 2016.

___

Schmall and Dunklin reported from Dallas; Sirolly reported from Philadelphia.
PHOENIX  The Latest on legislation banning cell phone use by teen drivers (all times local):

3 p.m.

The Arizona House given initial approval to legislation banning texting or other cellphone use by drivers with only a learners permit or during the first six months teenagers have a regular license.

Wednesdays action comes two days after Speaker J.D. Mesnard revived the legislation that had been held up by former Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Phil Lovas. Mesnard took over as chairman after Lovas resigned his seat last week to take a job with the Trump Administration.

The House advanced the measure without debate. It awaits a formal vote.

The proposal by Sen. Karen Fann has already passed the Senate.

The Legislature has regularly rejected texting bans. Arizona is one of just four states without blanket bans on texting while driving.

3 a.m.

The Arizona House is planning to debate legislation banning texting or other cellphone use by drivers with only a learners permit or during the first six months teenagers have a regular license.

Wednesdays scheduled debate comes two days after Speaker J.D. Mesnard revived the legislation that had been held up by Rules Committee chairman Rep. Phil Lovas. Mesnard took over as chairman after Lovas resigned his seat last week to take a job with the Trump Administration.

Mesnard said Monday he expects the bill to pass. The proposal by Sen. Karen Fann has already passed the Senate.

The Legislature has regularly rejected texting bans. Arizona is one of just four states without blanket bans on texting while driving.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court ruled Monday that cities may sue banks under the federal anti-discrimination in housing law, but said those lawsuits must tie claims about predatory lending practices among minority customers directly to declines in property taxes.

The justices 5-3 ruling partly validated a novel approach by Miami and other cities to try to hold banks accountable under the federal Fair Housing Act for the wave of foreclosures during the housing crisis a decade ago.

But the court still threw out an appellate ruling in Miamis favor and ordered a lower court to re-examine the citys lawsuit against Wells Fargo and Bank of America to be sure that there is a direct connection between the lending practices and the citys losses.

Miami claimed that Wells Fargo and Bank of America, as well as Citigroup, pursued a decade-long pattern of targeting African-American and Hispanic borrowers for costlier and riskier loans than those offered to white customers. The loans to minority homeowners went into default more quickly as well, the city said.

Wells Fargo and Bank of America appealed the ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, arguing that cities cant use the Fair Housing Act to sue over reductions in tax revenues. The banks said the connection between a loan and the tax consequences is too tenuous. Citigroup did not appeal, though its lawsuit also would be affected by what the appeals court does in response to Mondays ruling.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion a city can make claim for financial harm under the anti-discrimination housing law. But he said the second issue, tying the loans to the drop in tax revenues, is more difficult. Breyer wrote that there must be some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged.

The appeals court should decide that issue, Breyer said.

Writing in dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said he would have given the banks what they asked for and dismissed Miamis lawsuit. Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy sided with Thomas.

The banks claimed that a ruling for Miami could lead to lawsuits asking for billions of dollars. The city said those fears were unjustified and pointed to similar lawsuits filed by Baltimore and Memphis, Tennessee, that were settled for less than $10 million each.

Both sides saw something to like in the outcome. With this decision, the Supreme Court has acknowledged the crucial role of municipal governments in protecting residents rights. In housing and lending as in other areas, cities can and should serve as a bulwark against discrimination, said Dennis Parker, director of the American Civil Liberties Unions racial justice program.

Wells Fargo senior vice president Tom Goyda said the banks case was helped by the courts decision We believe that under the stringent standards articulated by the Supreme Court, it will be very difficult for Miami or any other municipality to show the required connection between the claimed damages and unsubstantiated allegations about our lending practices, which do not reflect how we operate in the communities we serve, Goyda said.

The consolidated cases are Bank of America v. Miami, 15-1111, and Wells Fargo v. Miami, 15-1112.
COLUMBUS, Ohio  Gov. John Kasich on Monday delayed nine executions as a court fight continues over the constitutionality of the states lethal injection process, including a contested sedative used in problematic executions in at least three states.

Kasichs announcement postponed next months execution of child killer Ronald Phillips until July and pushed back eight other procedures.

The Republican governor said the timing of arguments before a Cincinnati federal appeals court makes the delay necessary. The court is hearing Ohios appeal of a federal judges order finding the states latest execution process unconstitutional.

The effectiveness of the sedative midazolam is expected to be front and center of those arguments. Thats especially true given last weeks execution in Arkansas of Kenneth Williams, a convicted killer who lurched and convulsed 20 times during a lethal injection process Thursday that began with midazolam.

Midazolam was also used in Ohio in January 2014 when Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted during a 26-minute procedure, the states longest. Executions in the state have been on hold since then.

In July 2014, Arizona inmate Joseph Wood gasped for air and snorted and his belly inflated and deflated during the nearly two hours it took for him to die when the state executed him.

Both Ohio and Arizona used a two-drug method  starting with midazolam  that each state has since abandoned. Unlike Ohio, Arizona agreed not to use midazolam in future executions.

Attorneys for death row inmates challenging Ohios use of midazolam say it doesnt render inmates fully unconscious, leading to an unconstitutionally high risk of harm.

The state argues that the massive dose planned in Ohio of 500 milligrams  10 times what it used on McGuire  is more than enough to ensure inmates dont feel pain. The state also says the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the drugs use in a 2015 ruling out of Oklahoma.

Kasich issued a similar delay in February to give a three-judge panel of the appeals court time to hear similar arguments. That panel sided with the lower-court judge. In a rare move, the full court said it would hear the case and set arguments for June 14.

Mondays delay was another setback for death penalty supporters who hoped that new supplies of drugs obtained by Ohio last year would allow executions to move forward after a delay of more than three years.

The state has said it has enough drugs for four executions, but records obtained by The Associated Press indicate Ohio could have enough on hand to put dozens of killers to death.

Phillips, scheduled to die May 10 for raping and killing his girlfriends 3-year-old daughter in Akron in 1993, is now set for execution July 26.

___

Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/andrew-welsh-huggins
The incident happened at around 2 am today when three suspected men were travelling from Samba to Chadwal. They are believed to have fled towards the border areas.

By India Today Web Desk: A high alert has been sounded in Jammu's border district of Kathua today following reports of three men hijacking a Tavera vehicle from near Jammu bus stand.

According to the police, three suspected men hired a white Tavera car from Jammu and later tied its driver Kabir Hussain. They snatched his mobile phone and money near Chadwal Morh along Jammu-Kathua highway.

advertisement

The incident happened at around 2 am today when the suspected men were travelling from Samba to Chadwal. They are believed to have fled towards the border areas.

As per initial reports, the three men were Gujjars from Rajouri and were speaking the local language. They were seen without any luggage or arms.

All police posts in the area have been alerted to check their movement.

Meanwhile, the Rajouri area of Jammu has been put on high alert after an AK-47 rifle of a policeman was stolen.

Also Read:

Internet suspended in Jammu and Kashmir for a month over student protests

Major terror attacks on Indian Army, CRPF in Jammu and Kashmir: A timeline

Take strict action against cow vigilantes, CM Mehbooba Mufti tells Jammu and Kashmir Police

Kashmir Valley unrest: Exercise maximum restraint in dealing with protests, says Mufti in security meet

Jammu and Kashmir: 3 army men, 2 terrorists killed in fidayeen attack on Army camp

--- ENDS ---
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

A $1 trillion-plus budget deal unveiled by federal lawmakers Monday contains $50 million for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit project and continued funding for the popular Community Development Block Grant program that communities around the state rely upon.

Its a good day for Albuquerque, said Mayor Richard Berry, who has expressed confidence from the beginning that the funding for ART would come through.

The budget deal also maintains funding for New Mexicos national nuclear laboratories but provides no money for President Donald Trumps proposed border wall. It also does not include a rider allowing for federal grants to be withheld from sanctuary cities that some consider havens for people who are in the U.S. illegally

The agreement reached by Republican and Democratic leaders late Sunday would pay for federal government operations through the 2017 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The new federal spending bill would spare  and even slightly increase  funding for three arts-related agencies that Trump had proposed eliminating: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The 1,600-plus-page bill also would boost funding to fight the heroin and opioid epidemic, providing $3.8 billion to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Albuquerque city officials were breathing a sigh of relief at the news that funding for ART is included, particularly given that Trumps budget blueprint for next fiscal year calls for significant cuts to domestic programs.

Among the programs Trump has targeted for cuts is the Federal Transit Administrations Capital Investment Program, the same Small Starts grants that Albuquerque has been banking on to provide $69 million for the ART project. Specifically, Trumps blueprint calls for limiting Small Starts grants to projects with existing full funding grant agreements only.

If Congress and the president sign off on the current budget proposal, then ART would qualify for additional funding through the Small Starts grant program under Trumps budget blueprint for next year.

Berry said it is typical for funding for a project like ART to be split between two budget cycles.

ART will transform Central Avenue into a rapid transit corridor with a nine-mile stretch of bus-only lanes and bus stations. The $119 million project is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

Im excited to see that the expected $50 million of Small Starts funding for the Albuquerque Rapid Transit Project was included in the budget deal, City Councilor Pat Davis, a Democrat who is running for Congress, said in a statement. I want to thank Senators (Martin) Heinrich and (Tom) Udall and Congresswoman (Michelle) Lujan Grisham for meeting with me and other city councilors on this important issue and continuing to advocate for Albuquerque. This announcement underscores the importance of having strong leaders at the federal level fighting for us back home.

The proposed federal budget also contains $3 billion for Community Development Block Grants, a program that Trump wants to eliminate.

On average, nearly $16 million in federal CDBG funds flow to New Mexico each year. Cities and counties use that money for everything from road, water and wastewater projects to senior citizen centers and community center renovations.

Congratulations to Congress and the president for getting the budget put together, Berry said. Its good news for America. Its good news for ART. Its also good news for Community Development Block Grants and COPS Grants.

Both Republicans and Democrats are praising the budget compromise, which came about after weeks of negotiations. Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump administration couldnt be more pleased with the agreement, calling it a bipartisan win for the American people.

Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also hailed the deal.

At a time when Washington is more polarized than Ive ever seen it, Im pleased that we were able to reach this agreement for New Mexicans and the American people., Udall said.

A House vote on the spending bill is tentatively set for Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
DALLAS  A gunman opened fire on emergency responders treating a gunshot victim in a Dallas street on Monday, critically injuring a paramedic and prompting police to lock down the area until the suspect  and another person  were found dead in a local home, authorities said.

Police believe the shooting started as a dispute between the suspect and the gunshot victim, who were neighbors. A police officer who responded to the late-morning shooting in a largely residential area east of downtown was injured and treated at the scene.

The gunman fled before holing up in a house where investigators believe he fatally shot another person before killing himself. A police robot found the two bodies after authorities barricaded entrances to the community for several hours to allow officers to scour the neighborhood, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said during a news conference.

Interim Police Chief David Pughes said police were still interviewing neighbors and witnesses late Monday, but he said officers on the scene were told it was just a simple dispute between two neighbors that escalated into a shooting.

Pughes said responding officers found the paramedic and the civilian injured, and took fire from the suspect as they approached. A sergeant arrived as officers were still maintaining cover  because the shooter was still at large  and rushed in to pull the injured paramedic to safety.

He went in alone and he pulled the paramedic out, placed him in his squad car and drove him to Baylor hospital, Pughes said. We believe  that as a result of those actions, that paramedics life was saved.

The paramedic underwent surgery Monday and was in critical but stable condition at Baylor University Medical Center, according to the mayor. Rawlings didnt give details of the paramedics injuries, but said he is going to have to undergo extensive medical treatment to get him back up to par.

The neighbor who was shot also was in intensive care, the mayor said, though other details havent been released.

City spokesman Richard Hill says the second body found in the house was a man, but no other information was released about him, including whether the person knew the gunman or if either of them lived in the house.

Dozens of police vehicles swarmed the mostly residential area after the shooting was reported near a local Fire Training Academy. Several people from a nearby neighborhood and some relatives of people who live in the barricaded area gathered at a nearby gas station to await updates from police.

A 33-year-old woman waiting in the shade of a gas station across the street from a police barricade told The Associated Press that her mother lives in the neighborhood and saw SWAT teams arrive Monday.

Brenda Salazar said she was headed to the area to visit her mother when she heard about the shooting on the radio. She called her mother, who told her she didnt hear any shooting but saw the SWAT guys and police setting up and going into the neighborhood.

Salazar said her mother was OK and was watching the news, but this stuff happens here all the time.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement saying his prayers were going out to all of those affected.

FBI agents and officers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also were in unmarked vehicles waiting at intersections in the neighborhood. Officials from the local fire department and parks department passed out water and Gatorade to officers blocking the roads.

___

Associated Press writers David Warren, Jamie Stengle and Terry Wallace contributed to this report from Dallas.
The new director of Sandia National Laboratories said he thinks a lot about violence, and how to avoid it.

Stephen Younger, 65, took the helm at Sandia on Monday as the lab changed management for only the second time in its history. He spent the day introducing himself and his team to employees and the public.

Monday also marked the end of Lockheed Martins management of Sandia, which began in 1993.

A career nuclear weapons researcher, Younger said he has a side career as an anthropologist and takes a special interest in what leads humans into violent conflict.

I want to understand, why do groups fight against each other? And what prevents them from fighting? Younger said after a news conference Monday at the Sandia campus in Albuquerque.

Younger leads a new management entity, National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, which won a contract valued at $2.6 billion annually over 10 years, if all options are exercised.

Honeywell will be the primary contractor at Sandia, along with a team of subcontractors that includes Northrop Grumman Technical Services.

Younger, a former associate director at Los Alamos National Laboratory, promised to continue Sandias mission of nuclear deterrence, while improving efficiency at the labs.

We are in what I call a strategic time  that is, a rapidly changing time, Younger said during the news conference.

Sandia will maintain its traditional flexibility in responding to that somewhat uncertain future, he said. I think its going to be an exciting future for the laboratory as we respond to upcoming national needs.

Younger said he expects no reduction in Sandias 10,500 employee workforce and no significant expansion, but I do see better utilization with existing resources.

Younger also has promised to make Sandias weapons life-extension program his top priority.

A key focus for the new management team will be to improve business practices by providing better management support, Younger said.

The two corporate partners  that is, Honeywell and Northrop Grumman  excel at best business practices and we will be bringing some of those into the laboratory to improve efficiency, Younger said.

How do we do more faster so that we can have the engineers and the scientists focus on the technical work? he asked.

The National Nuclear Security Administration took some by surprise in December when it bypassed Lockheed Martin, which had managed the lab since 1993.

Younger replaces former lab President and Director Jill Hruby.

Dave Douglass, the new deputy director at Sandia, said he plans to continue working with existing organizations in New Mexico to transform technology developed at the labs into business opportunities for the state.

Younger said he began working with nuclear weapons in 1982. He designed nuclear weapons from 1982 to 1989 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. He has also headed the U.S. militarys Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Younger said his role as a nuclear weapons researcher has made him keenly aware of the need to understand conflict avoidance.

The good news is that human beings are not intrinsically violent, he said. But in groups, we are prone to violence. So the question is, what prevents that?

He has written books that include Endangered Species: How We Can Avoid Mass Destruction and Build a Lasting Peace, published in 2007, and The Bomb: A New History, a 2009 book about the history and future of nuclear weapons.

I have made the earth shake, and I have a great appreciation for what we do and what its limitations are, Younger said. It has to be put in a broad perspective.
WASHINGTON  Obamacare is showing surprising staying power, thanks in large part to doctors, hospitals and other health industry players opposing the alternatives that Republicans have proposed.

The stories and perspectives they bring to the debate are grounded in the local community and the impact on finances and well-being. But also their professional associations are deep-pocketed campaign donors and major lobbying powers on Capitol Hill.

For the providers, coverage gains and expanded benefits under the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, translate to better chances of keeping patients healthy, and fewer unpaid bills. They say such tangible results outweigh the shortcomings of the Obama-era law, which extended coverage to millions previously uninsured but remains politically divisive.

We need to be constantly pushing to get folks to do a bipartisan fix of the ACA, said Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, representing more than 600 hospitals. We have to keep blocking and tackling until we get there.

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the health care sector was the sixth largest source of political contributions in the 2015-2016 election cycle, giving more than $268 million. Health care ranked ahead of lawyers, labor, and agribusiness. The industry split its contributions fairly evenly, with a slight edge in gifts to Democrats.

Recently the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Osteopathic Association, and the American Psychiatric Association all have written congressional leaders warning of negative consequences to patients if the GOP bill becomes law.

Patient advocacy groups like the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American Lung Association, the March of Dimes and others are raising similar concerns.

Such groups by and large supported passage of Obamas law, but they also recognize its problems of complexity and cost, and are willing to support changes as long as coverage is maintained or keeps growing.

For the American Medical Association, the focus has been on reaching Republican moderates in the House, whose concerns seem to be the last obstacle to advancing the GOP health care bill.

A Wisconsin nonprofit called the Marshfield Clinic provides an illustration of the provider playbook on Capitol Hill. Marshfield is a large private medical group practice with more than 700 doctors serving the northern part of the state. It also operates hospitals and an insurer called Security Health Plan.

Marshfield representatives have met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., health secretary Tom Price, and members of the states congressional delegation. Not only is Marshfield a health care enterprise, it is also a major local employer.

The biggest concern we express is that we have made many gains with the ACA as it exists today, said Marshfield CEO Susan Turney. We are particularly concerned about whats happening with pre-existing conditions.

The latest drafts of the GOP bill would allow states to obtain waivers of the ACA provision that requires insurers to charge people with medical problems the same premiums that the healthy pay. Consumers whove had a break in coverage could be charged more.

Among the gains Marshfield representatives cite are 30,000 Obamacare customers covered through the systems insurance plan, nearly all of whom receive subsidies. Marshfields burden of unpaid care has also been dramatically reduced. In 2012, the system treated 13,277 patients who were uninsured. That was down to 6,948 last year, nearly cut in half.

Hand-in-hand with such statistics come stories about patients. On a recent round of congressional visits, a Marshfield doctor told of a local knitting shop owner who had lost her vision in one eye. Had it not been for coverage under the ACA, the patient might have lost the use of her other eye as well.

Being a physician and taking care of patients, these stories are repeated, said Turney.

Similar stories can be heard from the most remote parts of the country. John Cullen is a doctor in Valdez, Alaska, supporting efforts by his professional organization  the American Academy of Family Physicians  to maintain coverage gains from the Obama era.

His community of 4,000 people is the terminus of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. While refinery workers tend to have health insurance, fishermen and their families traditionally struggle to afford it. Before Obamacare, uninsured people would put off medical attention until problems could no longer be ignored. The consequences and costs would inevitably be higher.

If I can see them in the clinic and treat something early, its really cheap, said Cullen. If they come in for high blood pressure or cholesterol, that can be treated with medication. But if theyre coming in with a heart attack or a stroke, you have to transport them to Anchorage. Transport alone is $27,000 to $70,000.
Public Service Co. of New Mexicos net earnings rose four-fold in the first quarter of 2017, from $4.1 million in the same period last year to $16.5 million this year.

The increase largely reflects a 10 percent rate hike for average residential customers that took effect last October, combined with lower plant outage costs during the first quarter and cost savings from company restructuring efforts, said executives from the utilitys parent firm, PNM Resources, in a conference call with investors on Friday.

Prospects seem good for more financial improvement in coming quarters, thanks to advances on a settlement agreement with parties involved in PNMs new rate case. The utility is seeking Public Regulation Commission approval for another 14 percent rate hike that would be phased in over two years. Its held ongoing settlement negotiations since March with about a dozen parties in the case.

Weve reached an agreement on the parameters of a settlement, PNM Resources Chairman, President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn told investors on Friday. Weve asked the PRC for an extension for negotiations until next Friday (May 5) for all the parties involved to get approval from their bases to sign a settlement.

Other parties also confirm progress, although difficult issues remain in the negotiations, which are confidential.

Were not quite there yet, but its fair to say were close, said Steve Michel, chief counsel for Western Resource Advocates. There are still some issues were working through. Discussions can be complicated with so many stakeholders with different concerns.

Given the positive outlook for rate relief, company executives project a significant improvement in PNM Resources earnings in the next few years.

Were focused on 2019 as the the year that our earnings potential can be realized, said Chief Financial Officer Chuck Eldred.

The sharp rise in PNM earnings contributed to a marked improvement in the parent firms finances in the first quarter. The company reported a 100 percent jump in net earnings, from $10.5 million in the first three months of 2016 to $22.9 million this year. Net earnings per share rose from 13 cents to 29 cents.

The first-quarter boost came entirely from PNM, since net earnings at the companys other utility, Texas New Mexico Power, remained flat at $7.6 million in the first three months, compared with $7.5 Million in 2016.

Unlike TNMP, however, which reports fairly robust growth in electric demand, PNM continues to face declines in load. Residential demand did climb by 1.6 percent in the first quarter, but commercial sales fell 2.6 percent, and industrial demand dropped by 3.8 percent, Eldred told investors.
May Day rallies in Albuquerque on Monday mirrored the pro-labor, pro-immigrant and anti-Trump themes of rallies across the country.

More than a thousand people came out for the May Day Rise Up ABQ Rally at Tiguex Park, which featured live music, dancing, childrens activities and speakers who addressed what they called assaults on the rights of workers, immigrants and teachers, and oppressive polices coming out of Washington.

About 40 organizations sponsored the rally, including political groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, health care organizations, labor and teachers unions, grass-roots immigrant-led groups and more, said Marco Nunez, a spokesman for El Centro de Igualdad y Derechos, one of the chief co-sponsoring organizations.

Earlier in the day, a group of protesters from the New Mexico Dream Team stood in a mock jail cell in front of Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court to denounce what the group called racist, anti-immigrant attacks by the Trump administration.

The Dream Team is a statewide network of immigrant youths and families who are advocating for immigrants rights.

Other May Day rallies in New Mexico took place in Santa Fe, Gallup, Hobbs and Portales.

The local and national May Day rallies are part and parcel of International Workers Day events. In the United States, celebrations often pay tribute to labor unions, and in particular the struggle of workers in Chicago who in the late 1800s fought for a 40-hour workweek.

Were carrying on a legacy of workers rights, Nunez said. We live in extraordinary times. There are some pretty profound attacks on the immigrant community, who are workers. And as workers, he noted, undocumented employees in New Mexico contributed $66.3 million in local and state taxes in 2013.

The fearmongering that came out of the Trump candidacy has leapt into his presidency, he said. Trump continues amplifying a message that is divisive instead of uniting, and this event today is the antithesis of that.

The courthouse site of the Dream Team rally was selected because we have had confirmed cases of community members who have shown up for their court dates and have been detained and picked up by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and then secretly deported, said Yazmin Irazoqui Ruiz, a Dream Team spokeswoman.

We are speaking against the criminalization of our community and the detentions and deportations of our community, because this is our home and were here to stay, she said.

Protesters carried signs saying No human is illegal and Resist, fight back, and chanted undocumented and unafraid.

Ruiz told onlookers they cannot remain apathetic. You may not agree with the racist agenda of the people who are running our government, but by staying silent and doing nothing you are perpetuating racism, you are perpetuating the criminalization of our people.

Rebecca Schreiber said she attended the rally because I support immigrant rights and immigrant justice.

I think that immigrants are being scapegoated as the cause of Americas problems, she said.
NENANA, Alaska (AP)  Alaska's favorite spring guessing contest has concluded.

Nenana Ice Classic manager Cherrie Forness (SHAYR-ee for-NESS) says ice on the Tanana (TA-nah-nah) River went out at 1 p.m. Monday.

For contest purposes, that means the official correct guess for winning the annual contest is 12 p.m. Alaska Standard Time.

The jackpot is $267,444. Forness says the number of winning tickets should be known by the end of the week.

The annual guessing contest started in 1916 when surveyors for the Alaska Railroad bet when the ice would go out.

Thousands of people now pay $2.50 per guess. Organizers split proceeds between payouts and Nenana charitable organizations.

The winning time is determined when a cable attached to a tripod on the river ice trips a clock on shore.

 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cuba is 90 miles from Florida, as the bird flies.

But thats not the route that two Cuban women, Liset Barrio and her neighbor Marta Amaro, took to get to the United States last year. Rather than crossing the Florida Straits  boats made Barrio nervous  the pair took 
The Bixby Voice feature of Samsungs new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant started rolling out to owners of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus. The Seoul-based consumer electronics manufacturer confirmed that its pushing out the voice-enabled functionality of Bixby today, adding that the staged rollout started in South Korea. Following Bixby Voices debut in Samsungs home country, the voice functionality of the companys digital companion will also be released in other countries where the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are already available for purchase.

As expected, Samsung is pushing out the Bixby Voice feature through an over-the-air (OTA) update thats rolling out in stages and will likely take several days per country to be completed. While the service is currently only being released in South Korea, it remains to be seen whether Samsung will decide to start rolling it out in more countries simultaneously. Like all other Android smartphones, the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are periodically scanning for OTA updates, but users who are feeling impatient can also try searching for the Bixby Voice software package manually by launching the Settings app on their device, navigating to the Software update section, and tapping the Download updates manually option on the following screen. This will prompt the device to download and install the Bixby Voice update provided that one is already available in your territory.

While Bixby was hailed as one of the main selling points of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus, Samsung revealed that its digital companion will be unavailable at launch and will only debut on its new pair of Android flagships this spring. The South Korean tech giant is now seemingly fulfilling that promise as it started rolling out Bixby exactly ten days after the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus officially launched worldwide. While consumers and critics remain skeptical over whether Bixby can compete with the likes of Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and the Google Assistant, Samsungs new AI-powered companion will certainly try doing so. More details regarding Bixbys availability are expected to follow in the coming days.
The Canadian Department of Industry, Science, and Economic Development has stated that the auction of 600 MHz frequency to the wireless carriers will be set back by two more years. At this point, even the public consultation on how the auction will proceed, including its policies and operating procedures, has yet to have a set date. This is despite the agreement that the Canadian ISED and its American counterpart, the Federal Communications Commission, reached back in 2015 that the two regulators will proceed with the auction of the 600MHz frequency, which is previously held by the television stations, at around the same time.

Several concerns may have caused the delay in the Canadian auction of the 600MHz band. The first concern is the intertwined relationships between the wireless carriers and Canadian broadcasters, with some of the carriers owning broadcast media assets. For example, Bell, a wireless carrier, owns CTV, a national broadcaster while Rogers also own Citytv. This means that the incentive auction system of the FCC, which pays the television stations for the frequencies they have sold, will not effectively work in Canada as it will simply revolve the money between different divisions of the same company. Also, the Canadian wireless carrier industry is composed of major carriers and several upstarts across the country, with the upstarts being much weaker competition compared to Sprint and T-Mobile in the United States. Therefore, these upstart carriers may not have much impact on the Canadian carrier industry unless they provide cutting edge competition. In order to better compete with the larger carriers, upstart carriers like Videotron are calling for a more equitable auction of the 600MHz spectrum.

The 600MHz frequency band is very important to the upstart Canadian wireless carriers like Freedom Mobile and Videotron as it allows them to expand their reach and better compete with larger carriers, especially in terms of LTE coverage. One of the major advantages of the 600MHz band is to improve penetration of LTE signals within the buildings, which is something that upstart carriers cannot currently do due to the frequencies that were given to them. The 600MHZ frequency will also allow the smaller carriers to cover a larger area with smaller infrastructure cost, with Videotron estimating that it will take only a third to a fifth of the number of towers to cover the same area with 600MHz compared to higher frequency bands.
In the Agenda of Alliance PDP-BJP had agreed that talks will be held with all stakeholders including separatists in the Valley but now the PDP leaders are not happy with the stand taken by the BJP-led government at Centre on Kashmir.

By Shuja-ul-Haq , Ashraf Wani: Amid tension brimming in the PDP-BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, sources from the PDP camp have said that many of the PDP leaders are not happy with the stand taken by the BJP-led government at Centre on Kashmir. The central government had recently said in the Supreme Court that there won't be any talks with separatists on Kashmir.

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In a statement issued by the party spokesperson in Srinagar, the PDP stressed on "forward movement" on Agenda of Alliance that was signed between the two parties before formation of the alliance. Chief spokesperson Mehboob Beg said the Agenda of Alliance was painstakingly arrived after taking into account concerns of all stakeholders. In the Agenda of Alliance PDP-BJP had agreed that talks will be held with all stakeholders including separatists in the Valley.

According to the sources, the PDP feels that the BJP wasn't respecting the foundation of the alliance.

BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav on Saturday said the separatists in the Kashmir Valley are using people as "scapegoats" and reiterated the government's stand of having no talks with them

Madhav on Sunday met Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti at her residence here amid tensions in the Valley and between the ruling coalition in Jammu and Kashmir. The meeting comes in the wake of the deteriorating law and order situation in the Valley and reports of a rift between the coalition partners over statements by Madhav and Industries Minister Chandra Prakash Ganga.

Ganga had stoked a controversy by calling for use of bullets on protesters in the Valley. He later expressed regret. The PDP was also unhappy with Madhav's comments complimenting an army officer who had tied a man to the bonnet of a jeep to escape stone-pelting in a Kashmir village.

Besides this, the PDP's defeat in the legislative council elections at the hands of the BJP has also led to friction between the two parties.

Senior PDP Leader and Jammu and Kashmir Education Minister Altaf Bukhari has once again raised questions on the center and coalition partners in State government BJP.

In an exclusive interview, Altaf Bukhari said, "We want BJP to consider CMP (Common Minimum Program ) between two partners in the state. There can't be any rider or precondition for a dialogue in a democratic setup."

"It is important to talk to people. Without dialogue there can be little forward movement. We need to engage all sections of society to bring peace in state," added Bukhari.

Bukhari also said that they they are accessing situation on closure of education institutes in the state and that they will restore education activities soon in the schools where protests erupted last week.

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ALSO READ:

Ram Madhav meets with Mehbooba Mufti amid tensions in Valley and coalition

Kashmir is tense due to PDP-BJP's unprincipled coalition: Mani Shankar Aiyar

15 highlights of PDP-BJP government agenda in Jammu and Kashmir

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What is the Vajpayee doctrine on Kashmir that Mehbooba Mufti wants PM Narendra Modi to follow?

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Bezel-less smartphones have managed to become quite popular lately, and a lot of manufacturers seem to be planning to release their very own versions of bezel-less devices, not Meizu though. The companys Vice President (VP), Li Nan, said that Meizu has no plans to release a bezel-less smartphone in 2017, which means some earlier rumors have been wrong. The company might be preparing something awesome to show us in 2018, which sounds quite a bit cryptic, but there you have it.

The companys VP said that Meizus designers have second thoughts about bezel-less devices, as they question how practical they are, and also the placement of a fingerprint scanner is also an issue. This does come as a surprise considering that the companys CEO did say that Meizu is working on a smartphone with a great design and what not, but it seems like that smartphone wont exactly fit in the bezel-less category of devices. This makes us wonder what is Meizu planning to release this year in order to awe users, as the companys CEO did say last year that Meizus design is becoming quite stale, and was asking from his designers to bring it up a notch. It remains to be seen what will Meizu introduce, but it is worth mentioning that the Meizu PRO 7 is expected to land in the coming weeks, Meizu was actually expected to launch their flagship last month, but that didnt happen, so hopefully it will by the end of May.

Weve seen a ton of rumors and leaks when it comes to the Meizu PRO 7, but it seems like that phone will have more bezel than we thought. In any case, you can expect the Meizu PRO 7 to come with the companys mBack multifunctional home key, Meizus Flyme OS which will be installed on top of Android, though the design remains a mystery. The Meizu PRO 7 will probably ship with MediaTeks Helio X30 64-bit deca-core processor, while you can expect to see the Exynos 8895 included in the companys second flagship which will almost certainly land at the end of this year, at least if Meizu intends to stick to its release cycle.

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A new patent published by the European Trade Mark and Design Network (TMDN) several days ago suggests that Samsung might have been developing a variant of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus with a physical Home button at one point. Several sketches from the design patent documentation that can be seen above show how the companys latest pair of Android flagships might have looked like if it was equipped with a Home button similar to the one featured on the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge. Compared to Samsungs 2016 flagships, the button depicted in the illustrations is noticeably slimmer and is presumably meant to host a fingerprint scanner seeing how theres no sign of such a reader on the rear panel of the phone.

While the South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer might have been considering the idea of sticking with the physical Home button for the Galaxy S8 lineup, that concept likely wasnt close to being commercialized seeing how the company only applied for this particular patent in early April, more than a week after it officially unveiled its new Android flagship duo. While that still doesnt indicate Samsung never had a working prototype of the device depicted above, the Seoul-based tech giant was likely not close to commercializing it at any point in the past. Other than the overall outline of the phone, another element that suggests this patent shows an alternative variant of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus is the Bixby button thats located immediately below the volume rocker of the handset.

Regardless of this particular patent, Samsung is expected to continue pursuing the design philosophy introduced with the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus in the future, i.e. the companys upcoming flagships will likely lack a physical Home button and boast a large screen-to-body ratio, as well as stick with the 18.5:9 image format. The Galaxy Note 8 thats set to be introduced in the second half of the year will therefore likely be similar to the Galaxy S8 product lineup, though it remains to be seen whether Samsung moves its fingerprint scanner from the rear panel and embeds it below the display, which is what the company reportedly had in mind for the Galaxy S8 but ran out of development time to realize that vision.
Samsung Electronics filed to patent a smartphone design depicting a handset with a fully wraparound display that covers both the front and back panel of the device, as well as its edges, as revealed by a set of documents that were recently published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In addition to a unique display, the patent also describes a particular feature that provides users with the option of quickly launching apps on any side of the phone. The documentation and accompanying illustrations detail an app drawer located on the side display panel of the smartphone from which users are able to launch apps by tapping and dragging them to the left or right in order to decide whether they want to open them on the front or back screen of the handset.

The sketch of the device depicted in the illustrations accompanying Samsungs latest patent looks somewhat similar to the compact shape a foldout phone that Samsung filed to patent with the USPTO in January. The South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer applied for a number of patents related to curved and foldable mobile display panels in recent years as the company continues to ramp up its efforts to innovate in the field of smartphone design. Samsung is currently in the process of commercializing its first foldable handset, industry sources claim, and while that device  rumored to be called the Galaxy X  is expected to look less futuristic than the one depicted above, it seems that the Seoul-based tech giant believes that the future of smartphones definitely lies in flexible displays and devices with massive screen to body ratios. This particular design philosophy is already reflected by the companys Galaxy S lineup, especially the recently released Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, and Samsung is expected to continue evolving it in the future.

The companys first consumer-grade foldable smartphone is rumored to launch at some point next year and is said to be offered as an alternative to the Galaxy S-series handsets, meaning it wont only sport a unique design but will also be just as powerful as Samsungs traditional Android flagships. More details regarding the companys smartphone products are expected to follow in the coming months.
The highly sought after Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus smartphones are beauties to behold, but customer satisfaction with these flagships do seem to be headed in a downward curve. There is a growing number of complaints being raised online, as new owners of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus are not too happy with the perceived lack of quality: such as the display sporting a reddish tint and Wi-Fi connection issues. Just today, a Galaxy S8 owner posted an image of his handset that looks to suffer from a permanent discoloration on the screen, having owned the device for slightly more than a week. Also known as a burn-in, it is normally the result of having a static image being displayed for an unusually long period of time. Normally, such permanent discolorations are a more common occurrence on AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) screens.

The affected Galaxy S8 owner claimed that the affected area of the screen is located close to the integrated pressure-sensitive soft key. Perhaps this soft key that carries Samsungs Always On Display (AOD) technology has something to do with the burn-in. This is not the first time such a complaint was featured online, as across the globe, Twitter saw a Dutch consumer share similar sentiments about the alleged burn-in issue with an affected Galaxy S8 at the end of last month. So far, these seem to be isolated cases, but as more and more consumers pick up the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus, there might just be more reports of similar nature trickle in.

Samsung has stepped forward to dismiss such claims of burn-ins on its flagship smartphones. A Samsung spokesman shared that the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus have been programmed with an algorithm that prevents such burn-ins from occurring. So far, Samsung sounds confident that this is not going to be an issue, as the company has yet to receive official reports of similar happenings. One thing is certain: Samsung cannot afford another massive recall exercise, or at worse, a discontinuation of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus as it did with the Galaxy Note 7 and its exploding battery saga.
According to a recent rumor from Taiwan, Samsung Electronics is interested in acquiring PlayNitride due to its interest in the micro-LED technology developed by the Taiwanese panel manufacturer. The move seems to make sense given Samsungs interest in display panels as micro-LED is seen by some as the next step forward in this segment. As an industry leader in a number of areas, the South Korean company is always investigating new methods which it could use to improve its future devices, and when compared to contemporary OLED displays, its believed that that micro-LED panels will offer improved efficiency and brightness and could also be less expensive to manufacture.

PlayNitride is a relatively recent venture and focuses on Nitride materials and its uses, just like its name suggests. Recent reports state that the firm could begin the production of micro-LED chips later this year and that the involved technology will be branded as PixelLED. An industry insider put the value of the deal at approximately $150 million, adding that Samsung has plans to use the technology for virtual reality (VR) applications at first. Additionally, theres a chance that PlayNitrides micro-LED technology could also be used for future Samsung-made TVs, the report reveals. However, widespread commercialization for micro-LEDs is at least several years away, with analysts predicting that the technology will not be ready for the market for at least another three years.

In the meantime, Samsung is still heavily investing in OLED technology and related applications. Earlier this year, it was reported that OLED display production was being ramped up by the company and that its panels could soon be used in a larger number of Samsungs devices. Furthermore, at MWC in Barcelona, Samsung Electronics was showcasing some new advancements regarding OLED technology to select partners and members of the industry. These included an OLED panel with no polarizer and a blue-less OLED display aimed at color blind people. Considering this, OLED technology is not likely to be phased out in favor of micro-LED in the near future, so if the rumored acquisition goes ahead, it will likely just be a sign of Samsung gaining some early traction in this emerging field in a bid to compete with other industry leaders.
Samsung Electronics started rolling out the update thats meant to fix the reddish display panels of some units of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus in India. The South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer has yet to officially release its new pair of Android flagships in the country but has still decided to roll out the software fix for the widely reported issue in an effort to ensure the launch of the devices is as effortless as possible. The software package is currently being distributed as an over-the-air (OTA) update that should be ready for download throughout India once the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus launch in the South Asian country on Friday, May 5.

The Seoul-based tech giant already started rolling out the same fix to other markets where its new Android flagship lineup launched in April, with consumers reporting that the software mostly eliminates the overly red hue of the screen. The update recalibrates the color balance of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus display, which is something that can also be done manually. The new software build is over 426MB in size, meaning it might also be shipping with some performance improvements and tweaks, which is suggested, but not confirmed by its official changelog, a portion of which is depicted in the screenshot beneath this writing. Owners of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus in India should be running the firmware version XXU1AQDG following the new update. Anyone who doesnt receive a notification prompting them to download the latest software package as soon as they set up their new Galaxy-branded smartphone should try searching for the patch manually by opening the Settings app, tapping the Software update option, and selecting the Download updates manually command on the following menu. Given the size of the new firmware build, users are encouraged to connect their devices to a Wi-Fi network before initializing the download.

Samsung previously said its hoping to retake a significant share of the premium smartphone market in India with the Galaxy S8 lineup and consequently solidify its position as the top phone vendor in the country. More details regarding the commercial performance of the companys new flagships are expected to follow soon.
Verizon Wireless will release the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier in late June following several delays, an internal email sent to the companys sales representatives revealed, as reported by Phone Arena. The New Jersey-based firm is the only mobile service provider in the United States that has yet to release Samsungs latest Tizen-powered smartwatches and has previously stated its intentions to launch them alongside the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus on April 21. However, Verizon ultimately postponed the release of Samsungs wearables for an unknown reason that the aforementioned email only describes as some unforeseen circumstances. Following the memo, all of the companys sales representatives started informing customers that they wont be able to purchase the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier until late June, though none of them are able to clarify on the matter seeing how the largest mobile service provider in the country has yet to issue a more detailed explanation for the delay, provided that ever happens.

Verizons physical stores already have Samsungs Tizen-powered wearables on display, which has been the case for weeks, but customers are still unable to order the devices. The New Jersey-based wireless carrier is expected to reveal the precise release date for the devices in the coming weeks, so more details on the matter should be available shortly, though it remains to be seen whether the firm eventually clarifies why its so late with introducing the Gear S3 lineup.

Originally launched last November, the Gear S3 Classic and the Gear S3 Frontier are direct successors to the 2015 Gear S2 lineup of wearables powered by Samsungs proprietary Tizen operating system. Even though many smartwatch makers around the world are adopting Googles Android Wear OS, the South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer opted to promote its own platform in an effort to grow an ecosystem over which it has more control. While Verizon may be late with releasing the Gear S3 product family, Samsung is already expected to unveil the Gear S4 lineup later this year, presumably around fall. More details regarding the companys upcoming products and general wearable-related efforts will follow in the coming months.
According to the latest info, Xiaomi is actually planning to open up over 200 Mi Home stores this year. Interestingly enough, this information comes straight from Lei Jun, who decided to share this with the public via his official Weibo (Chinese social network) page. The company will open these stores in their home country, China. For those of you who do not know, Xiaomi had opened up about 80 Mi Home stores in China thus far, which means that the number of Mi Home stores will come to around 300 by the end of 2017, if Xiaomi manages to fulfill its promise, of course.

Consumers can purchase devices in the companys Mi Home stores, of course, while they can also try them out and what not. Xiaomi was an online only company for quite some time, and theyre rather new in the offline sales business, but the company sees great opportunity in such business, and is looking forward to expanding in that direction. Xiaomi finally realized that they cant keep on selling products online only and compete with other companies, which is a good thing, of course. At the moment, Xiaomi is not planning to open up Mi Home stores in other countries, only China, but it might happen in the future, especially in India, which is an incredibly important market for this China-based tech giant. Xiaomi has been expanding to India constantly, and their devices have been selling really well in that Asian country.

As many of you already know, Xiaomi introduced their Mi 6 flagship about two weeks ago, and the Xiaomi Mi 6 Plus is expected to land in the coming weeks as well. We will get to see a number of additional smartphones released by Xiaomi this year, but Xiaomi is only a smartphone manufacturing company, as you probably already know. This China-based company manufactures all sorts of smart gadgets, ranging from electric rice cookers and electric bikes, all the way to tablets and fitness bands. You can experience various Xiaomi-branded devices in the companys Mi Home stores in China, those stores are not only about smartphones. In any case, it will be interesting to see if the company will be able to fulfill their promise and open up 200 additional Mi Home stores by the end of this year.

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The ZTE Axon 7 is currently receiving an update in the United States which bumps it up to the latest B25 build while adding a slew of new features and improvements, though ZTE did not bundle the April security patch with the latest software build for its affordable smartphone.

Perhaps the most notable improvement that ZTE Axon 7 users will notice after they update their devices is the added support for microSD cards boasting a capacity of up to 256GB. Previously only allowing microSD cards up to 128GB, the ZTE Axon 7 now supports even more external storage space. On top of adding a new Night Mode setting, the new update also lets users disable some of the native apps that come pre-installed with the handset for a cleaner, clutter-free experience. ZTE further details the update by mentioning that the B25 build ships with tweaks for the Do Not Disturb function, adds fixes for various Wi-Fi calling issues, as well as improvements to the overall security and stability of the handset. The Chinese company started sending out the new B25 build yesterday, April 30, adding that the software should reach out Axon 7 owners in the next 48 hours. So, dont be worried if you havent seen the OTA (over-the-air) update just yet, its still being rolled out. Naturally, you can try checking manually if the update has arrived by going to System Update menu of the Settings app. Before you proceed to install the new build on your handset, ZTE recommends removing your SD card in order to avoid any potential interruptions. You should also make sure that your phone is sufficiently charged and that you have a stable Wi-Fi connection given how the update is a sizeable one.

Back in March, the Chinese consumer electronics maker started rolling out Android 7.1.1 Nougat for the ZTE Axon 7, while the flagships watered down version, the Axon 7 Mini, should also receive an update to the same version of the operating system soon. Announced in May 2016, the Axon 7 is one of the few premium smartphones launched by ZTE stateside. The device features a 5.5-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels and is powered by the Snapdragon 820, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal storage. Last month, ZTE also announced the ZTE Axon 7s in China, which brings forth a newer Snapdragon 821 chipset, 6GB of RAM, and a rear dual camera setup.
Izumo will support the US vessel, responsible for providing fuel and other supplies to American vessels in the region, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its attack fleet.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Japan sent one of its largest warships to escort a US vessel amid heightened tensions between Washington and Pyongyang (North Korea).

The Japanese Self Defence Forces' destructor vessel Izumo, which allows for the simultaneous take-off and landing of five helicopters, set sail towards the Pacific from the Yokosuka navy base, south of Tokyo, Efe news reported.

The 19,500-tonne ship will escort a US supplies vessel towards the island of Shikoku, before beginning a three-month voyage, in what will be its first such mission in over 70 years.

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Izumo will support the US vessel, responsible for providing fuel and other supplies to American vessels in the region, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its attack fleet.

Washington dispatched this fleet to waters off the Korean Peninsula in response to repeated missile tests by Pyongyang, and amid fears that the regime may be preparing to carry out its sixth nuclear test.

Also read: We need to talk about North Korea and the 1984-like situation there

Pyongyang conducted its latest missile test on Saturday, the same day that the US carrier reached the Sea of Japan and conducted military drills with Japanese and South Korean troops.

Japan's constitution and military actions:

Post-World War Two, Japan barred its military from using force to resolve conflicts except in cases of self defense. But, Japan can provide logistical support to allies involved in situations with important influence on Japan's security. The Japanese military is also allowed to minesweep even in an conflict zone, if the restriction on shipping threatened Japan's survival.

The dispatch of Izumo is the first mission by Japan to back allied troops since 1945, when World War II came to an end.

The expedition follows the reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, with the government led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recognising collective self-defence and expanding the powers of its troops to defend and provide logistical support to allies.

The country's security forces were previously only permitted to use force in self-defence.

Also read: North Korean media threatens Pyongyang will 'wipe out' US from Earth's surface

Also watch: Mother of All Bombs dropped to deny operative space to ISIS: US

--- ENDS ---
That's one-third gone, two-thirds to go. For you and me, that's still a lot of time, but for a company that builds motor vehicles, it is not. But Tesla isn't a company that builds vehicles - it also makes the batteries that power them, so yeah, it's pretty busy at the moment with the whole impending boom of the electric mobility.The so-called Gigafactory - the Nevada plant where they make the battery cells - has been under construction for quite a while, but it is now operational. Housed in what is one of the largest structures on the planet, the tiny energy-holders are being churned out at speed, thanks in no small part to Tesla's partner in crime, Panasonic.But Elon Musk, being Elon Musk, has no time to sit back and admire the process as he's busy finding sites for the future Gigafactories . Up until recently, it was believed that Tesla would announce two or perhaps three more similar plants to be built around the world.During his interview at the TED conference (via Electrek ) last week, Elon Musk dropped the bomb by saying there won't be two, nor three, but four new Gigafactory announcements this year. In typical fashion, the CEO dropped this little piece of info as if it were nothing, just the usual business for him.The important bit about the new Gigafactories is that unlike the initial plan for the first one, they will function as complete production lines, able to build battery cells as well as complete vehicles.From what we've gathered so far, we can assume one of the four will be located in China, another will be built somewhere in Europe while a third might keep the Gigafactory 1 company over on US soil. As for the fourth... well, Musk does have a thing for Mars, doesn't he?
EV

First of all, the Volkswagen Group already has a pickup platform within its ranks in the VW Amarok, and it's quite a good one. It may be a bit stiff compared to the competition, something that doesn't come very handy when crossing patches of rough terrain - as cars like these are expected to virtually on a daily basis - but that can also be overlooked considering the vehicle's other great attributes.Second, it seems like every European brand out there has suddenly developed a taste for building pickup trucks. There's one from Fiat now, and Peugeot and Citroen are also looking into the possibility, rumor has it. And let's not forget about Mercedes-Benz and its X-Class freak-mobile that has been spotted testing. Oh, and even though Tesla isn't European, the fact an-only maker is considering its fifth model to be a pickup does say a little something about how popular they have become.This Skoda concept, however, doesn't really fit the mold set out by the rest of the models on sale. Instead, it goes back to the day when vehicles such as the Chevy El Camino or the Ford Ranchero (and, a bit more recently, the Subaru Baja) were all the rage.Granted, unlike the classic vehicles mentioned above, the Vision E Concept pickup (you can call it whatever you like, it only exists in the mind of the guy who created it and in this picture) is based on an SUV (albeit an electric one), whereas they had sedans as their sources of inspiration. However, that doesn't stop it from looking extremely sporty, as if it were more at home on long stretches of asphalt than anywhere else.Of course, this vehicle has as many chances of becoming a reality as those buildings behind are likely to be built in Uganda, but when you have an agenda that you need to push on to Skoda, you need to move fast once the company has shown what it calls its new design language. As for us, well, we sure wouldn't mind getting our hands on such a ute.
Lots of strange aircraft have turned up at airports in Californias high desert but they usually get identified so theres some intrigue surrounding this image shot at Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville on April 12. The aircraft, which has a streamlined bullet-shaped fuselage, high aspect ratio wings, a huge tail and a pusher prop, was seen at transient parking at Victorville so it presumably flew there. There were a lot of guys in green vests standing around, too, along with a small forklift. The image was posted on Aviation Stack Exchange, a question and answer site for aviation buffs.

According to at least one poster, the vehicle in the photo is a tenant at the VCV airport but is a proprietary design that has not been made public. Much of the speculation is that its some kind of movie prop although others suggest its the prototype for a cargo plane under development. One wag said it looks like something designed by Burt Rutan when he was 12.
JNU professor Buddha Singh's car was found vandalised while he was speaking at a meet organised by Right-wing teachers and students at the Sabarmati dhaba to condole the death of 25 CRPF jawans.

By Arpan Rai: Echoes for CCTV cameras in JNU have grown louder after reports of vandalism and stone-pelting surfaced on the campus on Friday night. While the university administration wants close monitoring of students' activities on the campus through CCTVs, the JNU Students' Union (JNUSU) is completely opposed to the idea.

JNU professor Buddha Singh's car was found vandalised while he was speaking at a meet organised by Right-wing teachers and students at the Sabarmati dhaba to condole the death of 25 CRPF jawans in Sukma.

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JNUSU PROTEST AGAINST CCTV CAMERAS

In March this year, the administration had faced opposition from the JNUSU when it installed a CCTV camera at the Brahmaputra hostel. "The university administration had earlier installed a CCTV camera on the campus but some students from JNUSU dismantled it. There is a dire need of CCTVs as it will help in nabbing those who indulge in any wrongdoings," said JNU registrar Pramod Kumar.

Meanwhile, the JNUSU has again turned down the need for CCTVs on the campus, saying "students and not the administration can decide on installation of cameras".

"If there is a need for surveillance, a governing body meeting should first consult students and get their approval before taking any such step," said Mohit K Pandey, JNUSU president.

PROFESSORS DEMAND ACTION

Not only has Professor Singh emphasised on the need for CCTVs, but he has also demanded action against the JNUSU president for dismantling the camera installed by the administration in Brahmaputra hostel earlier.

"Monitoring by CCTV cameras would have helped us nab the miscreants on the campus. The shameful act of taking the camera off and taking a selfie while doing it is even more pitiable. It calls for an action against the students involved," Professor Singh told Mail Today.

NEED FOR QUESTIONING THE STUDENTS?

Calling it a sheer co-incidence, JNU professor Atul Johri from the School of Life Sciences maintained that it is a matter which requires questioning of different political groups on JNU campus, Left-wing precisely, because the chances of vandalism of his car while he was condemning an attack by Maoists in Sukma are surprising.

"This is the first time JNU has witnessed stone-pelting on the camera pus. The Left-wing has added to the plight of Buddha SIngh by calling this act a 'gimmick for cheap publicity'," Johri told Mail Today.

He also criticised the lack of condemnation from JNU Teachers' Association (JNUTA), particularly in the killings of CRPF jawans in Kupwara and Sukma. "I would like to know if JNUTA has publicly condemned the brutality inflicted on Indian Army," Johri said. Highlighting the inaction in several other mishappenings that gripped the campus last year, students have asked for fair and unbiased proceedings.

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"This shows that this incident was manufactured by the administration to push their agenda of surveillance. The administration has no will to prosecute ABVP members, even if they indulge in kidnapping, but they punish genuine activists for minor protests too," former JNU vice-president Shehla Rashid said.

Rashid also pointed out 'the lack of action' on behalf of the university in the missing case of JNU student Najeeb Ahmed, "which did not stir the debate around CCTV installation".

"Some 22 eyewitnesses, including the administration's own members, witnessed the attack and threats. Were they punished? No. Then what is CCTV for, when the administration is biased?" Rashid said. Slamming the JNUSU for opposing the installation of CCTVs, Saurabh Sharma of the RSS-backed ABVP said that the union does not want the administration to know about rapes and consumption of marijuana that the JNUSU is indulging in their 'private' corners.

Also Watch:

JNU professor alleges his car was vandalised because he paid tribute to Kupwara, Sukma martyrs

Also Read

Delhi: JNU professor's car vandalised, investigations on

--- ENDS ---
President Trump got a 100-day gift on Sunday from the paper he had called "totally failing" at a rally the night before: The New York Times' Sunday Review began a campaign to get readers to "Say Something Nice About Donald Trump," and a cover story of the section respectfully channeled the Steve Bannon world view.

What's going on here: Neither of the pieces appeared to be sarcastic. Both appear to be part of the paper's effort to be more relevant in the Trump era.

Bret Stephens, a conservative columnist hired from the Wall Street Journal, debuted in Saturday's paper, calling for more balance in the climate-change debate.

At the time Stephens was hired, James Bennet, the paper's editorial page editor, told the Huffington Post's Michael Calderone it was an effort to "further widen" the range of views the paper presents to readers.

In Sunday's paper:
Trump is getting heat for inviting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who says he doesn't give a sh*t" about human rights, to the White House.

Duterte was publicly condemned by the Obama White House for allowing police and vigilantes to gun down thousands of people suspected of trafficking or using drugs.

White House defense: During an interview with ABC's "This Week", Trump's Chief of Staff Reince Priebus insisted the outreach "doesn't mean that human rights don't matter, but ... the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area..."

Flashback: During a state visit to Beijing in October, Duterte announced a "separation" from the U.S., threatening to "go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines, and Russia."
Bill Shine, who has served as co-president since Roger Ailes was ousted earlier this year, is out at Fox, and a top female excutive will assume half his duties. As Gabe Sherman noted on Twitter, Shine reportedly went to Murdoch this morning, and the two worked out an exit deal. Murdoch said in a statement:

Sadly, Bill Shine resigned today. I know Bill was respected and liked by everybody at Fox News. We will all miss him.  Rupert Murdoch

Suzanne Scott, who has been at Fox since 1996 and was last an EVP programming and development, will become president of programming, and Jay Wallace will become president of news, per the statement.

What's next: Sean Hannity won't be happy.

Mike Allen update: Fox in a box: "The profitable, influential, seemingly impregnable Fox News is suddenly vulnerable. In a massive disruption for right-wing media, Fox talent is on the market, the purge of the old-boy clique may continue, and there's huge internal paranoia about further lawsuits and revelations."

Related: Timeline of Fox News since Ailes allegations
First in Axios AM ... President Trump is establishing an American Technology Council to help the government deliver better digital services. The administration is bringing big names from the Silicon Valley to the White House in early June, to try get ideas and cooperation from a group that has been skeptical.

What it does: Officials say the new council is part of the efforts by Jared Kushner's White House Office of American Innovation to unite the government with private-sector ideas to solve long-term problems. The ATC will coordinate strategy with other departments and agencies, and funnel advice to Trump.

Officials say the new council is part of the efforts by Jared Kushner's White House Office of American Innovation to unite the government with private-sector ideas to solve long-term problems. The ATC will coordinate strategy with other departments and agencies, and funnel advice to Trump. Why it matters: The White House will announce the council today as part of an effort to show it's thinking ahead to the next 1,000 days  the rest of the term (actually 1,361). The innovation office wants to take what it learned in the first 100 days and turn it into action.
1 May 2017 17:54 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Azerbaijani Embassy in Spain has prevented another Armenian provocation at an international event, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on May 1.

The participation of a representative of the illegal regime created by Armenia in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan was planned for May 5-15 at the Costa Blanca Fashion Week.

The Azerbaijani Embassy in Spain has appealed to the relevant structures of the country and the organizers of the event, thus taking the necessary measures to prevent such provocations by the Armenian participants, Hajiyev noted.

As a result of these measures, the representative of the illegal regime was excluded from the participation list.

Armenian diaspora often uses the international arena to distort the essence of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and present this region of Azerbaijan as Armenian. However, Azerbaijan timely prevents such provocative attempts.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by 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.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 13:15 (UTC+04:00)

By Anatole Kaletsky

The British election called by Prime Minister Theresa May for June 8 will transform the outlook for Britains politics and its relationship with Europe, but not necessarily in the way that a vastly increased majority for Mays Conservative Party might seem to imply. The scorched-earth defeat that Conservative Euroskeptics expect to inflict on Britains internationalist and progressive forces was symbolized by the Daily Mail headline on Mays election announcement: Crush the Saboteurs. But Junes resounding victory could ultimately lead to an even more stunning reversal, like Napoleons hubristic march on Moscow after he had destroyed all opposition in Western Europe.

Britains pro-European progressive forces could still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for three related reasons.

First, by bringing forward the British election, May has effectively extended the deadline for Britains withdrawal from the European Union from 2019 until 2022. The early election makes it inevitable that Britain will formally leave the EU in March 2019, because May will no longer face even the theoretical possibility of parliamentary opposition. But it also allows Britain to accept a long transition period after the 2019 departure deadline, so that businesses and administrative systems can adjust to whatever terms are agreed by then.

British business lobbies, as well as the government officials tasked with implementation, have been pressing for this transition period to be as long as possible. The EU, however, has insisted that during the transition period all of the current obligations of EU membership must continue, including budget contributions, free movement of labor, and enforcement of EU legal judgments.

Until the election was called, it seemed almost impossible to reconcile the business communitys need for a long transition period with the insistence of Conservative Euroskeptics on a complete and immediate break with the EU. A crushing election victory will give May the necessary authority to negotiate a long transition, despite the objections of anti-EU extremists, and will persuade more moderate Euroskeptics that, with Brexit now guaranteed, the precise timing of various EU obligations is less important.

As a result, although Britain will formally cease to be an EU member by March 2019, very little will change in Britains economy or way of life by the time of the next general election in 2022. In this sense, Mays decision to call an early election is a setback for extreme Euroskeptics, who might otherwise have forced her to break completely with Europe by March 2019.

This relates to a second reason why the imminent triumph for British Euroskeptics may end up a pyrrhic victory. Whereas the early election will delay economic changes, it will greatly accelerate the transformation of British politics.

Britains main opposition Labour Party has been in its death throes since 2015, but could survive in its present zombie condition until a general election was called. Because the next election was expected in 2020, it was possible that some unforeseen development in the three years might allow Labour to revive. By bringing the election forward, May has brought forward Labours disintegration as well, and virtually eliminated the possibility of its revival.

When the Labour Party collapses after its defeat in June, a realignment of progressive British politics will become almost certain. This realignment, uniting disillusioned Labour politicians and voters with Liberal Democrats, Greens, and perhaps Scottish and Welsh nationalists, is likely to produce an opposition that is much more effective than May currently faces, even if it has fewer parliamentary seats.

By the time of the next general election, most likely in 2022, Britains internationalist and progressive political forces will have had five years to prepare themselves to oppose Mays conservatism and English nationalism. By that time, the Conservatives will have been in power for three parliaments and 12 years. That is about how long it has typically taken Britains political pendulum to swing between right and left.

Moreover, owing to the extended transition period for Brexit made possible by the early election, it will only be around 2022 that the full consequences of terminating EU membership come into view, together with the contradictions in the Brexit coalition between libertarian free traders and socially conservative nationalists and protectionists. Meanwhile, efforts to negotiate free-trade agreements with the US and China will have revealed the weakness of Britains bargaining position. As a result, public opinion about the wisdom of Brexit could shift substantially by 2022. In any case, the changing relationship with Europe will be the core issue around which Britains socially liberal and internationalist political forces can coalesce after their defeat.

Suppose that, in the meantime, the EU continues its economic recovery. Suppose further that, after the French and German elections this year, a stronger Franco-German partnership drives the eurozone toward the closer political integration that is obviously needed for the single currency to succeed, whereas Denmark, Sweden, and Poland make clear that they have no intention of ever joining the euro. By 2022, British voters could well decide that re-joining a twin-track European Union is much more attractive than pleading for a junior partnership with the US, not to mention China. That is the third reason why Britains Conservative Euroskeptics could end up regretting their imminent electoral triumph.

Whatever happens, the decisive battle in the war for Britains long-term future will not be this years easy victory for May. It will be the clash, five years from now, between nationalist conservatism and a new outward-looking progressive opposition.

Copyright: Project Syndicate: Theresa Mays Pyrrhic Victory

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 11:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Azersun Holding, the largest player in Azerbaijans food industry, plans to take 20-30 percent of Azerbaijans pharmaceutical market, Company CEO Savas Uzan told reporters in Baku on April 29.

Currently, Azersun Holding together with the Azerbaijan Investment Company and Irans Tamin Pharmaceutical Investment Company is building a pharmaceutical plant in the Pirallahi Industrial Park.

Uzan said that Azersun Holdings share will depend on the production capacity of the plant itself.

The construction of the plant began in early 2017. The project cost is more than $20 million. The project will consist of 3 stages. In the first phase there will be production of pills and capsules, ampoule and vial - in the second stage and production of antibiotic drugs will be in third stage.

At the first stage, 200 million tablets and capsules, as well as 84 drugs, including essential ones for treatment of heart diseases, contagious diseases, non-communicable diseases, as well as various types of antibiotics and painkillers are expected to be produced at the plant annually.

The construction of the Caspian Pharmed will be completed in the third quarter 2018.

Currently, Azerbaijan produces only a minuscule share of the medicines that it consumes, while the majority of pharmaceutical production is being imported.

The import of drugs in 2016 increased by 20 percent compared to 2015. In 2016, some 80 percent of drugs were imported from Europe and other developed countries. The remainder of the imports came in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

In late 2015, the government of the country announced that it will create own enterprises on manufacture of medicines to cease dependence on imports.

The foundation of the pharmaceutical complex "Hayat Farm was laid in Pirallahi Industrial Park in November, 2016. This is a joint venture with a group of companies R-Pharm (Russian Federation), Vita-A LLC (Azerbaijan) and AIC.

The total preliminary investment in the project exceeds $70 million. The plant should be producing finished products by the end of 2019.

Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) and VPS Healthcare Company (UAE) are planning to lay the foundation of a joint pharmaceutical plant in the Pirallahi Industrial Park in summer 2017.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 13:42 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) has so far paid compensations worth over 732,438 million manats ($434 million) to depositors of Parabank, Zaminbank, Dekabank, Kredobank, Caucasus Development Bank, Atrabank, Bank of Azerbaijan, Gandjabank, Texnikabank and Bank Standard, which were closed in 2016.

Banks Volume of paid compensations (million manats) Volume of paid compensation out of the total volume (pct) Bank Standard 436,8 99 Zaminbank 58,21 80 Dekabank 3,087 98,7 Kredobank 27,77 99,9 Caucasus Development Bank 1,97 94,4 Atrabank 14,288 98,1 Bank of Azerbaijan 24,16 97 Gandjabank 0,976 94 Texnikabank 120,43 98,2 Parabank 43,199 98,5

The licenses of all the banks were revoked in 2016, as their assets were not classified in line with the law, and they didnt create adequate reserves and their aggregate capital did not meet the minimum requirements.

Licenses of all ten banks were withdrawn in 2016 due to the discrepancy of their total capital with the minimum requirement of the regulator [50 million manat] and default to the creditors.

Some 32 banks are currently implementing their activities in the country.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 15:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Azerbaijan and Turkey intend to use national currencies - the manat and the lira - for mutual payments in bilateral trade.

"Last year, we have carried out manat/lira exchange transactions of 5 million Turkish liras. This year we intend to increase the figure even more, we are ready to meet demand, Chairman of Ziraat Bank Azerbaijan Avni Demirci said in interview with Our Business World magazine of Azerbaijan-Turkey Businessmen and Industrialists Public Association (TUIB).

The bank is taking concrete steps to refuse from USD in mutual trade, according to Demirci.

We are funding trade with Turkish lira and Azerbaijani manat without the need of third-party currency. When people bring manat, we sell lira to them and vice-versa, he said.

Ziraat Bank's head office also supports us, Demirci said, adding that now, the central banks of both countries need to join this process and conduct swap operations.

Some countries use national currencies in bilateral trade instead of dollar and euro. It lowers demand of the national economy in foreign currency, easing pressure on the exchange rate of national currencies.

However, views of experts and analysts on the issue are controversial. Although payment in national currencies is technically more convenient, as there is no need to convert currency and face additional costs, associated with the conversion, national currencies are not strong enough for the wide use of them in mutual trade, for example in energy trade.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 17:11 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Pakistans Trade Ministry hopes for Azerbaijan's positive decision on creating a preferential trade regime, the Pakistani newspaper Customs Today reported citing an informed source in the Ministry.

"A preliminary text of the agreement and the list of suggestions regarding the introduction of preferential tariffs for 100 items have already been sent to Azerbaijan," the source said.

The agreement will facilitate the expansion of economic activity between the two countries and increase the volume of mutual trade.

"The volume of trade turnover between Pakistan and Azerbaijan increased from $10.32 million in 2011-2012 to $60 million over the past five years," the source said.

Pakistan has prepared a five-year trade plan to increase the export of products to Azerbaijan to $500 million. The plan provides for expanding access to the Azerbaijani market by creating a preferential trade regime, which will subsequently be replaced by a free trade agreement.

The plan to increase exports to Azerbaijan was developed by the ministries of trade and defense production of Pakistan after the visit of the Prime Minister to Baku.

Pakistan is one of the oldest and closest allies and strategic partners of Azerbaijan in Asia. Pakistan was among the first countries that recognized the independence of Azerbaijan in October 1991.

Last year, a number of high-level talks and meetings were held in order to develop bilateral trade, investment making, and identify business opportunities.

In October and December 2016, respectively, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan visited Baku. During their visits, the expansion of trade and economic cooperation was discussed.

Trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Pakistan amounted to $7.3 million in 2016, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The Supreme Court today ordered medical examination of Justice CS Karnan of the Calcutta High Court. Justice Karnan responded by passing an order for psychiatric examination of the seven judges of the apex court who heard case against him.

By Prabhash K Dutta: If Justice CS Karnan of Calcutta High Court is made to follow the Supreme Court's order, he will be appearing before a medical board for examination on May 4.

The Supreme Court directed the Kolkata government hospital to carry out the medical examination of Justice Karnan in a contempt case.

Interestingly, Justice Karnan passed a retaliatory order from Calcutta High Court directing the 'DGP of Delhi' (there is no DGP in Delhi, police is headed by commissioner here) to produce the seven judges of the Supreme Court bench that passed order against him before a medical board for psychiatric examination.

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However, the order passed by Justice Karnan stands nullified by an earlier order of the Supreme Court. The apex court had directed all the authorities in the country not to obey any order passed or direction issued by Justice Karnan since February 8, when contempt of court proceeding was initiated against him.

THE CONTEMPT CASE

It is not usual for the Supreme Court to set up a seven-judge bench for a contempt of court hearing. This is the first such instance of a seven-judge bench hearing a contempt case signaling how serious cognizance the apex court has taken of the action of Justice Karnan.

Justice Karnan is facing the contempt case after he accused 20 judges of the high judiciary including those currently serving in the Supreme Court of corruption.

Justice Karnan wrote letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking appropriate action against all the judges named by him.Till now, Justice Karnan has not produced evidence to back his allegations.

The seven judges hearing the contempt case against Justice Karnan are CJI JS Khehar, Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph.

CONTROVERSIES AND JUSTICE KARNAN

Justice Karnan was transferred to Calcutta High Court after he had frequent run ins with the fellow judges at the Madras High Court.

In 2011, Justice Karnan caused a huge controversy when he called a press conference in Chennai to accuse one of his fellow judges of caste discrimination. Justice Karnan alleged that the fellow judge 'deliberately' touched him with his foot as he was a Dalit.

In 2015, Justice Karnan initiated a suo motu contempt proceeding against the then Chief Justice of Madras High Court Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Justice Karnan accused Justice Kaul of harassing him for being a Dalit.

Justice Karnan alleged that he was 'insignificant and dummy' portfolios in the Madras High Court by Justice Kaul. Later, the Supreme Court stayed the contempt proceedings.

In another incident, Justice Karnan had stormed into a courtroom in the Madras High Court hearing a case of judicial appointment. Justice Karnan demanded that he be allowed to hear the case.

CONFRONTATION WITH SUPREME COURT

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In February last year, Justice Karnan again launched a tirade against Justice Kaul accusing him of corruption. Sensing that it was being difficult for the Madras High Court to handle Justice Karnan, the Supreme Court transferred him to the Calcutta High Court.

Justice Karnan responded to the development by ordering stay on the apex court order of his transfer. The matter was heard by a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court, which lifted the stay on his transfer.

Justice Karnan retaliated by passing an order to register case under the SC/SC atrocities law against the two Supreme Court judges for lifting the ban.

The apex court threatened to initiate a contempt case against him if he refused to follow its direction. Finally, the then Chief Justice of India TS Thakur had a closed-door meeting with Justice Karnan following which he agreed to move to the Calcutta High Court.

Justice Karnan had then apologised to the Supreme Court saying his had lost his 'mental balance'.

OTHER CONTROVERSIES

In 2013, Justice Karnan passed an order that led to a new read down in the law.

In a controversial judgment, Justice Karnan ruled that if a man deserts a woman after pre-marital sex with a promise to marry her, the woman could claim the social status of that man's wife provided the man is single and above 21 years of age and the woman is an adult and not married.

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Justice Karnan ruled that the promise of marriage for pre-marital sex would be considered as marriage.

In 2015, Justice Karnan accused another judge of sexually harassing an intern in his chamber. Justice Karnan never provided any material to substantiate his allegation.

HOW KARNAN WAS APPOINTED AS JUDGE

Under the Constitution, any Indian citizen can be appointed a judge in one of the high courts if he has been a lawyer for 15 years at the same level and that the collegium thinks the person is fit to be elevated as a member of the higher judiciary.

There is no provision for keeping a record of the merits or special achievements of the candidate by the collegium.

Justice Karnan was appointed a judge in the Madras High Court in 2009 by the collegium headed by the then Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan. His appointment was made on the recommendation of the then Chief Justice of Madras High Court AK Ganguly.

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Later, Justice Balakrishnan said he did not know Justice Karnan personally while Justice Ganguly said he did not remember how his name cropped up for recommendation as a Madras High Court judge.

Records show that before being elevated as a judge in the Madras High Court, Karnan was a practicing lawyer in the same court. Justice Karnan completed his LLB from the Madras Law College in 1983.

Justice Karnan practiced civil law in the Madras High Court. He also served as government counsel for both Tamil Nadu state and the Centre.

ALSO READ |

Why Jethmalani told Justice Karnan I am convinced you have lost your mind

Revenge of the Karnan: Calcutta HC judge orders medical test of 7 SC judges who ordered same for him

ALSO WATCH | Supreme Court orders medical examination for Justice Karnan

--- ENDS ---
1 May 2017 18:24 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan and Indonesia will discuss the expansion of trade and economic ties within the framework of a business forum that will be held in Guba, Azerbaijan on May 3.

Entrepreneurs from Indonesia representing different sectors of the economy will arrive in Azerbaijan to participate in the event.

Azerbaijani-Indonesian relations were officially established in 1992. Both countries are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Movement.

The trade between Azerbaijan and Indonesia is mostly related to the energy sector, as Azerbaijan emerged as the second biggest supplier of crude oil to Indonesia in 2011 after Saudi Arabia.

In March, 2016, Azerbaijan and Indonesia drafted a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to further deepen cooperation in the energy and mineral resources sectors. Moreover, the Indonesian government encouraged the countrys state oil and gas company Pertamina to invest in Azerbaijans oil and gas projects.

According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, the trade turnover between Indonesia and Azerbaijan for the first quarter of 2017 amounted to $9.2 million.

---

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1 May 2017 13:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan took part in the Jazzahead, the 12th edition of the international exhibition in Bremen, Germany.

With its unique concept combining showcase festival, conference, exhibition and the clubnight - all revolving around the central topic "jazz" - marvelous event has become the must-go networking event for the global jazz scene.

The exhibition has recorded a growth in participant numbers from Central Europe and increase in overall participant figures.

The partner country of the jazzahead! 2017 was Finland and the exhibition therefore focused on Finnish jazz. For the first time, the European Jazz Meeting was held as part of the event and 16 European bands were introduced.

The exhibition also offered numerous new features in the expanded specialist programme: With the Symposium on Improvisation and Jazz for Children on April 27.

With the support of Azerbaijans Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the magazine "Jazz Dunyasi" became regular participant of the event, Trend Life reported.

Azerbaijani jazz became recognizable in Europe and other countries, thanks to the annual participation in this forum. I would like to mention that in March this year, Baku Jazz Festival become a member of the European Association of Jazz (EJN), as one of the best jazz festivals in the world," said Leyla Efendiyeva, chief editor of the magazine.

Rain Sultanov, famous jazz musician and saxophonist also attended the trade show.

The revival of jazz in the Land of Fire started in 1960s, thanks to the active efforts of great national composers such as Gara Garayev, Tofig Guliyev, Rauf Hajiyev and Niyazi.

The flowering of Azerbaijani jazz is associated with the names of giants such as Rafig Babayev and Vagif Mustafazade, who experimented creating unrepeatable compositions, becoming the founders of a new jazz trend jazz-mugham. This unique genre assembles both a traditional Azerbaijan music and a classic American jazz.

Today, Azerbaijani jazz performers are winners of many international jazz festivals and competitions.

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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1 May 2017 17:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The recent provocation of the Armenian side on the line of contact with the Azerbaijani troops has once again demonstrated Armenia's strong desire to exacerbate the situation on the front line.

On April 27, the air defense units of Armenia launched a guided rocket from the Osa surface-to-air missile system in Khojavend-Fizuli direction of the front.

It is noteworthy that Armenia carried out this provocation right before the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Azerbaijani political scientist Fikrat Sadikhov believes that the "activity" of the Armenian side on the frontline largely intensifies on the eve of some important meetings heralding the beginning of the negotiation process.

Usually in such cases, the objective of Armenia is to once again throw dust in the eyes of the international community, showing that it has to deal with a country that allegedly carries out provocations, and Armenia is forced to react in response to them, Sadikhov said.

He noted that by such false actions Armenians are trying to show that all the steps they are taking are allegedly aimed at ensuring Armenia's border security.

Of course, this prejudice is trumped up, because it is Armenia that violates the ceasefire dozens of times a day. Secondly, these provocations are often committed in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. That is, Armenia, being on foreign lands, is engaged in provoking the conflict that leads to certain victims, Sadikhov noted.

The expert added that for Armenia, the occupied territories are the main protective shield, the option to delay the settlement of the conflict. Therefore, at every provocation Armenia receives an adequate response of the Azerbaijani side, and so it will continue, said Sadikhov.

He further expressed his opinion on the discontent of the Armenian side with the recent supply of Russian arms to Azerbaijan.

Russia is not gifting anything to us, it sells modern weapons at market prices to Azerbaijan, and we have never hidden that we have developed close military-technical cooperation with Russia, the expert noted.

Sadikhov also added that the weapons Azerbaijan purchases are not provided for seizure of the territory of any state  Azerbaijan needs them to protect its own territories.

I think that the purchased military equipment will be used for the liberation of those territories that are today occupied by Armenia. Of course, Armenia understands this and this is also one of the reasons which prompt them to engage in such provocations, said Sadikhov.

He noted that delay of the negotiation process and various provocations by Armenia are only exacerbating the situation. The expert assumed that a new escalation wont be in the interests of Armenia, because in this situation the country should be ready for a new, more serious defeat than the one it suffered in April clashes last year.

In conclusion, Sadikhov noted that it would be quite reasonable if the Armenian side would find the courage and, after assessing its real capabilities, would sit down at the negotiating table, thus finally starting a constructive dialogue.

Since the meetings of presidents in Vienna and St. Petersburg, which took place after the April clashes in 2016, the negotiation process came to the dead end due to the denial of Yerevan to continue serious talks. Azerbaijan has long ago stated it is ready to settle the conflict through direct negotiations with Armenia with mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. However, the Armenian side is constantly trying to make up reasons to avoid a constructive dialogue and preserve the unacceptable status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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1 May 2017 09:48 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

May is a fantastic time to visit Baku, Azerbaijan, when the weather is warm and dry.

The average temperature begins at 15C. During the day, temperatures in May can rise to 25C and higher, especially over lunchtime and in the early afternoon. This is much warmer than most of Europe at this time of year, and even the evenings are very mild with rarely dipping below 13C.

The Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry reported that the average monthly temperature in May is expected to be nigh to the climatic norm along with a small positive margin. Rainfalls are forecasted to be close to the climatic norm, while a little more than norm in some regions.

The average monthly temperature in Baku and Absheron peninsula is predicted to be +17-19C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +12-17C. In the afternoons the temperature will be +19-24C, +27-32C in some days.

Average monthly precipitation will be close to the climatic norm (23-33mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Nakhichivan Autonomous Republic, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +17-20C.

At nights the temperature will be +10-15C. In the afternoons the temperature will be +20-25C, but will rise up to +28-33C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 33-62 mm).

In Upper Karabakh: Khankandi, Shusha, Khojali, Khocavand; Gubadli, Zangilan, Lachin, Kalbajar and Dashkasan, Gadabay regions, average monthly temperature predicted to be +11-15C which is nigh to the climatic norm and above 1 degree.

At nights the temperature will be +5-10C.

In the afternoons temperature will be +12-17C, and will be +20-25C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 68-122 mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Gazakh-Ganja, Goranboy, Tar-Tar-Agdam-Agjabadi-Fuzuli-Jabrail regions, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +17-19C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +11-16C.

In the afternoons the temperature will be +18-23C, will be +27-31C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 31-54 mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Balakan, Zagatala, Qakh, Sheki, Oguz, Gabala, Ismailly, Agsu, Shamakhy, Siyazan, Shabran, Khizi, Guba, Khachmaz, Gusar regions, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +15-18C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +10-15C, +2-6 C in some days.

In the afternoons temperature will be from +15-20C, will be +23-28C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 26-166mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Central-Aran: Agdash, Mingachevir, Yevlakh, Kurdamir, Imishli, Beylagan, Sabirabad, Bilasuvar, Saatli, Shirvan, Hajgabul, Salyan, Neftchala regions, average monthly temperature is predicted to be +18-20C.

At nights the temperature will be +11-16C. In the afternoons the temperature will be from +21-26C, will be +28-33C in some days. Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 26-62mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Masall-Lankaran-Astara-Lerik, Yardimli regions

Average monthly temperature is predicted to be +14-19C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +9-14C. In the afternoons the temperature will be from +18-23C, will rise up to +26-29C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 41-72 mm).

---

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 11:16 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The Defense Ministries of Ukraine and Azerbaijan actively cooperate and exchange experience, said Igor Pavlovsky, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister.

Pavlovsky, talking to Report on May 1, said that the ministrys delegation has recently visited Azerbaijan.

Very important documents were signed between the governments of Ukraine and Azerbaijan, and all the prospects of our cooperation in the defense sphere were recorded in protocols, Pavlovsky noted.

He added that Azerbaijan and Ukraine constantly share their experience.

We have a permanent exchange of experience. We cooperate in the field of aviation, aircraft repair and import substitution on various components. Overall, there are about 12-15 areas of joint work, said Pavlovsky.

He also noted that Ukraine is expecting a visit from representatives of the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan in 2018.

Next year, a visit of delegation from the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan is planned, and we are preparing to meet our colleagues, Pavlovsky said.

Azerbaijan domestically produces various types of small arms and melee weapons, artillery, armored vehicles, various aerial bombs, unmanned aerial vehicles, various types of ammunition for small arms, including small-caliber automatic pistols, optical devices and others.

Twenty-eight military factories of Azerbaijans Defense Industry Ministry have manufactured 1,160 kinds of defense products so far. Azerbaijan`s defense products are exported to more than 10 countries.

Azerbaijan and Ukraine enjoy sustainable prospects of bilateral relations in political, economic, energy, transport and humanitarian fields.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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1 May 2017 12:36 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Live-fire joint tactical exercises of the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey started on May 1 in Azerbaijan in accordance with the agreement on military cooperation between the two countries.

Azerbaijans Defense Ministry reported that the aim of the exercises is to improve coordination through the exchange of experience between the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey, as well as to achieve the interoperability of the military units of the two countries through joint headquarters planning, improving the readiness and capabilities of the units to conduct operations.

The joint exercises involve military personnel, armored vehicles, artillery launchers and mortars, military and transport helicopters of the Air Force, as well as air defense units and anti-aircraft missile units equipped with modern defensive systems to protect groupings from the air.

The ministry informed that the exercises will last until May 5.

The skills and combat readiness of the Azerbaijani army are growing year by year, as the countrys Armed Forces regularly conduct military exercises. The Azerbaijani army is supplied with modern weapons and technical equipment for maintaining a high level of combat capability.

The army building process is of particular importance for Azerbaijan, as twenty percent of the country's territory is under Armenian occupation and the country is in a state of war with Armenia.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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1 May 2017 15:09 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijans new economic strategy will significantly improve the living standard of countrys citizens, said Ali Ahmadov.



Azerbaijans deputy prime minister and chairman of the National Coordination Council for Sustainable Development made the remark on May 1 in Baku during a conference titled The role of civil society in achieving sustainable development goals in Azerbaijan.

The goal of Azerbaijan, which joined the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), is to raise the level of social welfare of the countrys citizens, he noted.

Azerbaijans economy has been rapidly developing in recent years, and it grew 3.5 times in the last 12 years, he said, stressing that the way civil society is organized also plays an important role in achieving the goals of sustainable development.

Ahmadov went on to say that some donors perceived the requirement of the state to ensure transparency in the activities of NGOs in Azerbaijan as an attempt to create obstacles.

The Azerbaijani government is ready to work with donor organizations that carry out activities under conditions of transparency, he said.

Each state has the right to take measures to ensure its own security: Azerbaijani lands are occupied and over one million citizens have become refugees and internally displaced persons, and therefore international donors should first of all help solve the problems of refugees and IDPs, and liberate Azerbaijani lands from occupation. We must think about the interests of the state. I do not intend to question the activities of any donor. But part of the territory of Azerbaijan is under occupation, the country is in a state of war, and these forces the state to take certain steps. For this reason, some restrictions have been imposed on the activities of international donors, the deputy prime clarified.

In turn, Chairman of the Council of State Support for NGOs under the President of Azerbaijan Azay Guliyev said that the implementation of the sustainable development program in Azerbaijan requires the active participation of civil society.

Civil society institutions in Azerbaijan are sufficiently developed and have great experience in implementing international programs, Guliyev said. Therefore, civil society institutions should actively participate in the implementation of the sustainable development program, and monitor its implementation.

Azerbaijan joined the new Global Goals for Sustainable Development for 2016-2030 at the Summit on Sustainable Development of the UN member states held in September 2015.



The National Coordination Council on Sustainable Development established by the presidential decree on October 6, 2016, is aimed to coordinate the tasks assigned to state bodies in connection with the obligations arising from the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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1 May 2017 16:03 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has offered condolences to his Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev.

I was deeply saddened by the news of heavy casualties as a result of a landslide in Osh region, said President Aliyev in his letter of condolences.

On behalf of the people of Azerbaijan and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to you, families and loved ones of those who died and the people of Kyrgyzstan, and wish those injured the soonest possible recovery, President Aliyev said.

---

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1 May 2017 18:01 (UTC+04:00)

The 4th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue due to take place in Baku this week will see the launch of a global call for prevention of violent extremism through girls education, said Vasif Eyvazzade, the head of the Department of International Cooperation at the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Secretary of the Organizing Committee of the forum.

Eyvazzade, talking to Azertac, said that officials of about 120 countries, 39 international organizations, and more than 50 non-governmental organizations have registered to attend the Forum to take place from May 4 to 6.

More than 800 foreign delegates, including heads of state and government, heads of international organizations, parliamentary officials, scientists, ambassadors, prominent figures, more than 30 participants at ministerial level are expected to attend the forum," he said.

This is for the first time that heads of more than 25 international organizations are attending the same event in our country, and they are the most influential international organizations in the world. They are representing the international community. And this is the manifestation of their support for the Azerbaijani government's policy," Eyvazzade said.

He noted that the opening ceremony of the forum will be held at the Heydar Aliyev Center, while the Convention Center will host other high-level sessions and events.

---

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1 May 2017 12:35 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

OPEC may announce a short extension of the oil output deal, as there is no chance there will be a six-month extension, Sam Barden, the director of SBI Markets, an international commodity trading and advisory company, told Trend May 1.

Regarding the possibility of Iraqs exemption from the OPEC deal, the expert noted that alongside with Iran, Iraq also wants to increase its share of the global oil export market and will likely increase it.

OPEC countries agree on extension of the deal, but Iraq and Iran will not be part of it, said Barden.

The expert believes that oil prices remain weak, with a risk for a lower price, but in reality, will likely stay around the current level.

In December 2016, OPEC and non-OPEC producers reached their first deal since 2001 to curtail oil output jointly and ease a global glut after more than two years of low prices.

OPEC agreed to slash the output by 1.2 million barrels per day from Jan. 1 with top exporter Saudi Arabia cutting as much as 486,000 barrels per day.

Non-OPEC oil producers such as Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, Sudan, and South Sudan agreed to reduce the output by 558,000 barrels per day starting from Jan. 1 for six months, extendable for another six months.

---

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Turns out that not only did a Vinod Khanna-starrer inspire Kamal Haasan to be a filmmaker but the actor also wants to remake the film.

By India Today Web Desk: Vinod Khanna's death not only sent the Bollywood film fraternity into a state of sadness and shock but Ulaga Nayagan Kamal Haasan too was deeply distressed on hearing that one of Indian cinema's biggest stars had breathed his last.

In a career spanning more than four decades, Vinod Khanna acted in several blockbuster films as not just the hero but also the hero's friend, the second hero, the third hero, a supporting character and even the villain. Thanks to his rugged looks and easy-going personality, Vinod Khanna was a sensation during his heydays.

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One of Vinod Khanna's earliest films is the dramatic thriller Achanak based on the infamous 1958 KM Nanavati case which also inspired Akshay Kumar-starrer Rustom. In a recent interview with The News Minute, Kamal Haasan revealed that it was Vinod Khanna's Achanak that gave him inspiration to take up film direction.

"Achanak is a film that changed my life. When I saw it at 18 for the first time, I was encouraged to become a director. This man didn't know it at that time. But Vinod Khanna was a precursor to Stallone's First Blood. It's the story of a betrayed commando who goes on a rampage. Sylvester Stallone did it many years ago. Now, I want to see where I can take this character," Kamal Haasan said.

Kamal Haasan made his directorial debut in 1997 with the superhit comedy film Chachi 420. He then went on to write and direct some critically acclaimed films like Hey Ram, Virumaandi and Vishwaroopam. His latest directorial venture Sabash Naidu has reportedly been put on hold because of financial troubles.

It remains to be seen if and when Kamal Hassan begins working on the remake of Vinod Khanna-starrer Achanak.

ALSO READ: No one walked the way he did, says Big B on Vinod Khanna

WATCH: Remembering Vinod Khanna, the reluctant superstar

--- ENDS ---
1 May 2017 10:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Dalga Khatinoglu

Iranian deputy oil ministry Hossein Zamani-Nia said Apr.16 that $50-80B worth of foreign investment is expected to be attracted to Irans energy projects, including $10B into the petrochemical sector in near future.

In total, $185 billion worth of investments is needed, he said.

Zamani-Nia said $85 billion are planned to be invested in the upstream oil sector by 2021.

However, Homayoun Falakshahi, senior Iran analyst at Wood Mackenzie told Trend Apr.28 that "We estimate that National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) would need $115 billion over 20 years to develop the 50 oil and gas fields it has shortlisted for investment under the IPC."

"Despite much interest from international oil companies, it is unlikely that all of these projects will be awarded, so the actual level of investment will be a lot less. Because of ongoing US sanctions, international banks continue to be extremely cautious. This will make it difficult for Iran to attract the required capital, at least for now," he said.

Iran introduced 49 oil and gas fields to foreign investors based on newly designed oil contract, called the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) in 2015, but it hasnt issued tenders on them yet.

Previously, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that about $20-$30 billion worth of foreign investments are expected to be attracted based on the IPC.

About 80 percent of Irans active fields are in their second half life and lose 8-12 percent of productivity every year.

Iran says its old oil fields would lose 0.3 mb/d of productivity during this year, but 0.35 mb/d of oil would be added from new fields, like Azar, oil layer of South Pars, West Karoon block, etc.

Falakshahi says that Irans biggest potential clearly lies in the West Karun fields, which are huge and in early phases of development.

"Fields such as Azadegan or Yadavaran could produce more than 1 mb/d combined. However, new output from other fields is will also make a significant contribution  Azar and the South Pars Oil Layer will produce a combined 90 kbd by 2020".

Iran has prioritized the development of West Karoon block, including North and South Azadegan fields, Yadavaran and North and South Yaran fields with 64 billion barrels of in-situ reserves, which currently share about 3 percent of the country's total crude oil production, halved since December 2016, according to an official document, seen by Trend.

Year 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Crude oil output 3.899 3.963 4.092 4.153 4.206 4.29

* Wood Mackenzies estimations (mb/d)

Year 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 Crude oil and gas condensate output 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.5 4.8 5.4

*International Monetary Funds estimations (mb/d), based on Irans fiscal year, starts on March 21. Irans gas condensate output stands at 560,000 b/d and expected to reach 1 mb/d by 2022.

Falakshahi said that "for 2017 however, incremental output from these fields will be limited to around 100-150 kb/d. NIOC will fight against production decline in ageing reservoirs by drilling more and increasing gas re-injection. Increased gas production from South Pars will be allocated to be re-injected into oil fields".

Currently Iran re-injects about 75-80 million cubic meters per day of gas to oil fields to maintain their production, but the needed re-injection volume is at least three times more than this figure.

Falakshahi said that "our estimate of crude production capacity for 2017 is 3.9 mb/d, although we believe NIOC will abide by the OPEC agreement, which, if extended for another six months, will allow Iran to produce 3.8 mb/d of crude oil."

Coming to a five-year perspective of Irans oil output, which is claimed at 4.7 mb/d by Iranian officials, Falakshahi added that "we believe Irans crude oil production capacity is likely to increase to close to 4.3 mbd by 2022, provided Iran enjoys some success in the IPC process and awards a few major projects to investors (we have included Azadegan South Phase 2 and Ab-Teymour among other projects in this forecast)."

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1 May 2017 10:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

U.S. President Donald Trump is stepping up outreach to allies in Asia to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action was needed, a top White House official said on Sunday, Reuters reported.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Trump would speak to the leaders of Singapore and Thailand on Sunday, after North Korea test-launched another missile that Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful but which drew widespread international condemnation.

The telephone calls follow Trump's conversation on Saturday night with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. A week ago, Trump spoke with the presidents of China and Japan on the North Korea issue.

"We need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure that we have our ducks in a row," Priebus told ABC's "This Week."

"So if something does happen in North Korea, that we have everyone in line backing up a plan of action that may need to be put together with our partners in the area, he said. "We have got to be on the same page."

Priebus said the planned conversations were prompted by the "potential for nuclear and massive destruction in Asia" and eventually in the United States.

The U.S. president, who warned a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible in an interview with Reuters, did not elaborate on any U.S. response to the test. "You'll soon find out", he said Saturday.

Trump has stressed he would not broadcast military options to preserve an element of surprise. His secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said on Friday all options remained on the table with regard to North Korea.

Pyongyang's missile test came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula, where it began exercises with the South Korean navy on Saturday about 12 hours after the failed launch, a South Korean navy official said.

Priebus said Trump was in regular contact with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and that the president had become "very close" to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump, for whom China was a virtual punching bag during the 2016 presidential campaign over trade, told CBS that any trade disputes with the Asian economic giant took a back seat to securing its cooperation on North Korea.

China, the only major ally of North Korea and its largest trading partner, has expressed increasing concern about Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions. However, it has warned against escalation.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 15:22 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov discussed issues of developing the bilateral relations within the agreements reached during Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyevs visit to Ashgabat in early March 2017.

Kamilov arrived in Ashgabat city on April 30 to attend the sixth meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue2017, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry reported.

Berdimuhamedov and Kamilov stressed that thanks to the political will of the leadership of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the relations between the two countries reached a qualitatively new level, which allowed to activate mutually beneficial cooperation in the political, trade and economic, investment, transport and communication, cultural and humanitarian, as well as other spheres.

They noted that Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan also intensify cooperation within the framework of international and regional organizations, including the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea currently chaired by Turkmenistan.

On the same day, the Uzbek foreign minister met with Rashid Meredov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan.

The two foreign ministers exchanged views on topical issues of bilateral relations, the agenda of the sixth meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries participating in the Central Asia plus Japan Dialogue, as well as international and regional issues.

Earlier, in March the two countries signed an agreement on economic cooperation for 2018-2020 years, a memorandum on further development of cooperation in the field of rail transport, inter-governmental co-operation program in the cultural and humanitarian sphere for 2017-2019 years, the program of cooperation between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan in the 2017-2018 years were signed.

In 2015, the volume of bilateral trade between the two countries amounted to about $320 million, in January-August of 2016 - $177 million.

Uzbekistan exports fertilizers, construction materials, fruits and vegetables, electrical and mechanical equipment, vehicles, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, services to Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan supplies oil products, propylene polymers, sulfuric acid to Uzbekistan.

In Uzbekistan, 7 enterprises operate with the participation of the Turkmen side. In Turkmenistan, there are 6 enterprises with participation of residents of Uzbekistan.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
1 May 2017 16:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The Syrian armed opposition was invited to the talks on Syria in Astana and none of its groupings spoke out against participation, a member of the delegation of armed groups, Fateh Hassoun, told RIA Novosti on April 30.

"We have received an official proposal, and there are arguments in favor of participation in [the] Astana [talks]. We have not heard a demand not to go [to Astana] from any leaders of the [armed] groups. Vise versa they consider new Russia's proposal as something that could improve the situation on the ground. There are no strong voices opposing attending [the talks]," Hassoun said.

Hassoun stressed that the people of Russia and Syria have a strong connection "since the start of forming of the Syrian Arab Republic."

He also expressed a hope that Russia will act not as a side of the talks but as a guarantor of the process.

The forthcoming meeting on Syria is scheduled for May 3-4 in Astana. Expert-level meeting will take place on May 2.

The nationwide Syrian ceasefire regime was introduced on December 30, 2016, with Russia, Iran and Turkey serving as its guarantors. The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December supporting the effort.

Earlier this year, Astana hosted three rounds of high-level talks to end the military confrontation in Syria , which become known as the Astana process. It brought together representatives of the three guarantor states, as well as the Syrian government and armed opposition, along with representatives of the UN, the United States and Jordan.

Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with various terrorist groups, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), controlling parts of it.

According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the countrys pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

On April 4, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces claimed that 80 people were killed and 200 injured in a suspected chemical attack in Khan Sheikhoun, putting the blame on the Syrian government. Damascus vehemently rejected the accusations and said militants and their allies were responsible.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Syrian Air Force hit a warehouse where militants stored chemical weapons, which were sent to Iraq. The Russian Foreign Ministry reminded that the Syrian government doesn't possess chemical weapons since mid-2014. Chemical weapons have been taken out of the country.

In response to the Khan Sheikhoun incident the United States launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Syrian military airfield in Ash Shairat, located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the city of Homs. Russia described the attack as an aggression against a sovereign state.

This attack was seen as an undermining factor for all international efforts aimed at finding political solution to the Syrian conflict.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
By Press Trust of India: Leg-spinner Karn Sharma on Monday said Mumbai Indians should not take the remaining four round-robin games lightly and carry the momentum into the knockout stage of the Indian Premier League.

Mumbai Indians defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by five wickets to almost seal their spot in the IPL play-offs.

"We have qualified (for the play-offs), but we can't take these four matches lightly also, we need to take momentum to the knock out stage," Sharma told reporters at the post-match conference after Mumbai defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by five wickets.

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In reply to RCB's modest 162-8, Mumbai scored 165-5 with one ball to spare, courtesy skipper and man of the match Rohit Sharma's well-measured innings of 56 not out in 37 balls, that included one six and six fours.

It was MI's eighth win out of 10 games, and they have lost twice only to Rising Pune Supergiant, including the only defeat in their home venue Wankhede Stadium.

The 29-year-old Meerut-born Sharma, who took one RCB wicket, feels leg-spinners have got more purchase from the tracks and hence they have been successful in the T20 League this season.

"Imran Tahir is number one bowler in T20 and I learnt a lot from him (while interacting with him when Pune played against Mumbai here). In T20, the leg spinners get (more) grip from the wickets, even if it is flat or otherwise," said the UP player who had turned out in one Test without much success when India toured Australia a few years ago.

Seasoned off-spinner Harbhajan Singh missed Monday's game and Sharma said Singh had some problem in the left-foot.

"Harbhajan had some problem on the left foot, he will be fine for the next match. Krunal (Pandya) is fine."

Pandya took two wickets in four overs but fell over the ball while chasing a delivery and left the field. He, however, came in to bat at no. 6 only to retire hurt at the 14th over after finding it difficult to run properly.

RCB pace bowler Aniket Choudhary, who bowled impressively till his last over, conceded that the total put up by his team was short of par for the course.

"I don't think so (when asked was it enough). We batted first and we understood how it behaved. I think if we had bowled more slow balls, we could have stopped them from getting to the target. It was a decent wicket, but we bowled a few bad balls here and there."

With MI needing 30 runs from last 18 balls, Choudhary bowled the 18th over and he conceded just six runs in the first five balls but he bowled a wide next and was blasted by Hardik Pandya for a six off the extra ball.

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"As far as last ball is concerned, I was wondering whether to bowl him (Hardik Pandya) the slower one or the fast one. Maybe it was a match-changing point," Choudhary said.

"So I went to and asked him (de Villiers) 'what should I bowl?' And he said 'maybe he is ready for the slower one, so I think you should go with the hard length.'

"And when someone as great as AB tells you do to something, such a world class player and if he is giving you a suggestion, it's very hard to go against it. And I thought he is right."And (captain) Virat (Kohli) wasn't happy with what I bowled. He thought I did the wrong thing and I should have bowled full and slow," he explained.

The Rajasthan pacer had bowled to the Indian batsmen at the nets prior to the Test rubbers against New Zealand, Bangladesh and Australia.

Asked what he had gained from the experience, he misunderstood the question and said: "Gain is that I got Rs 2 crore! (at IPL auction)."

He soon realized his mistake and added: "It was a very good experience, if you are bowling to top Indian batsmen and getting them out, that's where I got noticed by Virat that I'm from Rajasthan and I am bowling well.

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"Once you bowl to the best and get them out, I don't think there is a better way of gaining confidence than that.

After that whichever domestic competition you go, like when I played Ranji Trophy, I was very confident. It appeared a lot easier then."

Asked why such a star-studded unit like RCB has flopped totally this season and have no chance to qualify for the play-offs, Choudhary blamed it on misfortune.

"Maybe bad luck..Things didn't go our way. Things happen quite fast in T20 and when things don't go your way (the team fails)," he said.

--- ENDS ---


It has been over six months since federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced significant new rules for mortgage insurance and eligibility requirements. Through the governments ongoing defence of these changes, we continue to advocate for consumers and the mortgage broker channel. Members of Mortgage Professionals Canada are seeing firsthand that many consumers are frustrated with and affected by the impacts of these new rules.

To assist consumers in making their voices heard by government, the association has launched a new campaign to share those consumer frustrations with Members of Parliament (MPs) via a new website: www.tellyourmp.ca.

This initiative provides a quick and easy tool for consumers to send a letter directly to their MP to demonstrate the negative impact these new rules are having. The goal of this campaign is to increase support for common-sense adjustments to the new rules that will increase competition and encourage affordable home ownership.

This consumer outreach campaign builds on the efforts that have been made since October, to educate MPs and decision makers about the industrys concerns. Mortgage Professionals Canada has met regularly with Department of Finance officials, political staff and over 100 MPs to demonstrate the impacts these changes are having on competition, choice and price within mortgage industry.

Canadians are proud of the parliamentary democratic process; elected representatives are accessible and will respond to their concerns and frustrations. It is extremely important for those who have been impacted to let their MPs know how they have been affected personally by these changes.

MPs are the best advocates to encourage the Minister of Finance to make adjustments to the new rules. However in order to convince MPs to take up the cause they need to hear directly from their constituents and this grassroots campaign is the best way to help achieve that.

Please visit www.tellyourmp.ca and help spread the word to anyone you know who has been frustrated by these changes.

To read more about the advocacy efforts of Mortgage Professionals Canada and the precise adjustments for which they are advocating, click here.
GAFCON's 'missionary bishop'  the spark to blow up Anglicanism?

The fuse has been lit  and all we now have to wait for is the explosion which will mark the end of Anglicanism as weknow it in the British Isles and Europe.

That, at least, is how some in the media and some in the church might well have us understand it, following the decision by the conservative Anglican movement GAFCON to appoint a 'missionary bishop' for the UK and Europe.

The decision by the GAFCON leaders  who claim to represent the majority of the world's Anglicans  is in response to two developments. Firstly, what they see as the imminent and inevitable 'rejection of Jesus' teaching on marriage' in the Scottish Episcopal Church. And secondly, the establishment of new Anglican congregations outside existing Church of England structures.

No doubt the prevailing narrative in some sections of the press and elsewhere will be something along the lines of traditionalists plotting to undermine Justin Welby, and the imminent death rattle of the denomination he leads.

And it would be so easy for us all to follow this media-led agenda and mindlessly climb aboard our automated hobby horses. Depending on our perspective on the major theological issues of the day we would then either be saying, 'It's outrageous and schismatic!' or 'It's long overdue and the Church of England has been doomed for years anyway'.

But may I suggest a different way? Firstly, in the New Testament, we are reminded: 'Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,' (James 1v19). And if there's one thing many Anglicans (including me) have not been very good at in recent years, it's the 'quick to listen and slow to speak' thing.

In fact it seems to me when reading the GAFCON primates' statement that actually they themselves are modelling an attitude in line with that Bible verse. Their communique does not seem angry; it does not take cheap pot-shots at others, and it contains no personal criticism of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps he would even call it 'good disagreement'.

Indeed, it goes out of its way to reassure many who might be dismayed or confused by its actions, declaring that 'faithful Christians may be called to different courses of action'. It continues: 'We bless those whose context and conscience have led them to remain and contend for the faith within the current structures.'

Secondly, as we consider how to react, it is important to be clear what the GAFCON primates are  and are not  proposing. They are certainly offering episcopal oversight to those Scottish Episcopal clergy who will effectively feel conscientiously 'de-churched' and excluded by the direction of that denomination. They are also clearly offering to provide a bishop for independent Anglican congregations, of which there are currently fewer than ten.

But they are not  so far as I can see  currently proposing alternative bishops for parishes within the dioceses and structures of the Church of England. Of course, they might do that in the future, or perhaps some clergy will initiate it, but the GAFCON leaders themselves do not seem to be suggesting it right now. The tanks are not on the lawns, although they are certainly on manoeuvres in some fields nearby. Or to change the picture, depending on one's preference, the lifeboats have not yet arrived, but they are picking up others within sight.

Ultimately, our view of this development is likely to be shaped by our foundational beliefs about issues such as the authority of the Bible, the nature of church unity, the place of church tradition in shaping belief  and, of course, the current presenting issue flowing out of all these, namely homosexual practice. In that sense, the GAFCON announcement is not unexpected, and seems an inevitable development arising from the conflicting trajectories of mutually incompatible theologies. These things have already followed such a path in North America.

But let's avoid brainlessly following any media over-simplification. Let's avoid silly Twitter tirades and pointless Facebook fisticuffs. We are followers of Jesus Christ. And whatever our personal view of this particular announcement, we can surely all agree with the concluding sentiments of the GAFCON statement, namely to pray 'for the continued renewal of the Anglican Communion' and also that 'in all these things Christ may be glorified and his name proclaimed faithfully to the nations'. Hopefully, I trust, we can, all of us, say a heartfelt 'Amen!' to that.

David Baker is a former daily newspaper journalist now working as an Anglican minister in Sussex, England. Find him on Twitter @Baker_David_A
There's a 'rape clause' in the tax credit system. Here's why it's wrong

At the beginning of April this year the UK Conservative government amended its tax credits policy by adding a two child limit for payments.

There are two types of tax credit welfare payments. The first is Working Tax Credits for those in low paid work, which supplements their low paid work to ensure they can afford to live. The second is Child Tax Credits which are for those either in low paid work or those who are unemployed and have children. There is also a childcare element to tax credits that allows some families to get vouchers (worth up to 80 per cent of the cost of childcare) to enable parents to work. Tax credits are different to Child Benefit and are often worth thousands to families. Many acknowledge that without tax credits they would be unable to afford to work, feed their children or survive. Seventy per cent of families in receipt of tax credits are in work.

The tax credit two child limit means low income families will only be eligible for tax credits for children born after April 5, 2017, if they are a first or second child. Third, fourth or other subsequent children will not be supported via the tax credits system. However, the government has a number of exemptions to this policy: twins, triplets and other multiple births (where they form the first or second children in a family), children who have been adopted or are being cared for by family or friends and children who have been conceived without the consent of the mother. This includes if the woman 'did not, or could not, consent to the act that led to the conception of the child' or if the woman was 'in a coercive or controlling relationship with the other parent of the child at or around the time of the conception'. The government has created an eight-page form for this 'rape clause' which women must complete to enable them to gain tax credits for their child. They must also provide third party evidence from support services, police or other agencies in order to prove their claim.

I have been working with women who have been subjected to abuse by a partner for over seven years. I work to prevent abuse through the DAY Programme and to equip practitioners (including those within churches) to effectively support those who have been subjected to abuse through Spark. The two child limit and the by-product of the 'rape clause' have had limited coverage in the mainstream media and few people outside of the women's sector are aware of its existence.

Why should this policy be of interest to the general public? Surely it affects very few people? And isn't it good that the Conservative government is recognising that coercion and abuse exist? These questions and others lay at the heart of why this policy has not gained wider coverage across the UK. We all hold misconceptions about sexual violence, poverty, social security and the status of women. And I want to correct these misconceptions.

Misconception 1: Women will complete the 'rape clause' form

The 'rape clause' gives women two brutal choices: be unable to afford to properly care for her children OR publicly declare that her child's very existence is a result of violence and abuse. There is a reason women have not publicly shared how this clause would have affected them, because it would mean destroying something sacred, the very identity of their child (or children). Women will not complete this form because few women can even comprehend that their child exists only because someone violated them. Being forced to articulate this anywhere, including on a factual form, is a violation of theirs and their child's human rights.

Misconception 2: This is a niche issue that affects very few people

Most women with two children are at risk of having a third child through failed contraception. And no woman is able to rule out that they may be impregnated against their will. It would be great to live in a world where men do not rape women, but sadly that world does not exist. The 'rape clause' offers provision for children fathered by a coercive or controlling man. At least 25 per cent of women will be subjected to abuse by a partner while 72 per cent of girls under 16 will be emotionally abused by a partner. A significant proportion of those women and girls will be coerced into pregnancy. That is not a minor issue, it affects thousands of women and children in our communities.

Misconception 3: Women are always willing and able to recognise abuse and rape

It is rare that anyone self-identifies their partner is abusive. People are socialised to see women who are abused as weak and stupid; therefore they never want to see themselves as one of 'those women'. The psychological processing required to recognise abusive behaviour and accept having been subjected to it is a long and painful process.

Misconception 4: It's easy to leave an abusive partner

In order to be eligible for tax credits under the 'rape clause', a woman must no longer be in a relationship with the father of the child. This assumes that it is easy to separate from an abusive partner, especially whilst pregnant with (or mothering) his child. This could not be further from the truth. Women who leave an abuser are at a high risk of him stalking, harassing, hurting or killing them. Most women who are murdered by a partner are murdered at the point of leaving or soon afterwards, whilst men's abuse often escalates during their partner's pregnancy. Believing that the abuser may change, that children need to be born into a family with two parents, that single motherhood is failure all prevent women being able to leave. The physiological process of trauma bonding can make leaving almost impossible, and due to other Conservative policies, there are few refuges or support services available if women were able to find a way to leave the abuser.

Misconception 5: There's not enough money, this is just a hard decision the government has had to make

No political decision has to be made. Every political decision is based on an ideology. In 2015, the entire cost of tax credits to the UK was 30 billion and only 290 million will be saved through capping benefits. According to the UK Government tax evasion costs the UK 36 billion, whilst independent estimates place the figure to nearer 119 billion. Alongside this, the reason the 70 per cent of tax credit claimants who are working need tax credits is because their work is low paid or part-time. Surely better solutions would include insisting employers increase wages and making flexible full time work a realistic solution for parents?

Misconception 6: This policy is about fairness

Last week Theresa May defended the 'rape clause' (and the Two child limit) by stating that it was based on a 'principle of fairness'. She said that, 'people on benefits have to decide whether they can afford more children, just as people in work have to decide'. Leaving aside her ignorance about tax credits being primarily an in-work benefit, it is impossible to call a policy fair that forces women to declare their precious children's existence to be a result of violation. Or that the policy will almost exclusively affect women and children. There is nothing fair about that.

Misconception 7: People shouldn't have children they can't afford

Given that no contraception is 100 per cent guaranteed, this suggests that couples who can't afford children should either abstain from sex or should be prepared for the woman to have multiple abortions. Is this a humane, ethical or workable situation?

Misconception 8: Women who complete the 'rape clause' form will be given support

The government has promised that those who claim tax credits under the 'rape clause' will be supported. However, due to cuts to domestic and sexual violence services, legal aid, housing benefit and other welfare cuts, there are few support resources available. The government has pledged no funding towards the support they say will exist. There has been no pledge made by the government to provide long term counselling to children who discover their existence is a result of rape as a result of this policy, and child and adolescent mental health services are being decimated by government cuts. The lack of comprehension by the government about the inevitable fallout of their policy is callous and ignorant.

Misconception 9: Rape shouldn't be politicised

Rape is political. While women cannot live their lives freely or safely, then rape continues to be a political issue, given that women are over 50 per cent of the UK population. And it is the government that has further politicised rape by pursuing the Two child limit and the 'rape clause', not its detractors.

Misconception 10: This policy needs to be approached practically, rationally and unemotionally

Rape is an emotional issue. When men rape they destroy women's lives. When policies are brutal and inhumane, rationality will not suffice. Practically the policy is unworkable. No sexual or domestic violence services will collude with the policy by providing evidence of rape. No woman will be willing to complete the form. And perhaps men will see this as legitimising rape. 'If I rape you, you'll be able to get financial support.' As Desmond Tutu famously said, 'If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.'

Misconception 11: It's a compassionate policy that recognises the violence women are subjected to

This policy is not compassionate and does not understand domestic or sexual violence. To enact a policy that requires women to choose between feeding their children and admitting their child's conception was a form of violation is cruel. The wider Two child limit will save the government very little money and will leave women and children in greater poverty. It is a policy that seeks to bolster anti-woman prejudice about poor women who have more than two children. Playing on 'Little Britain' stereotypes of promiscuous women having multiple children to get council housing is loathsome, not compassionate.

Misconception 12: You can support the Tax Credit two child policy and be pro-life

This policy will lead to more abortions. When women are raped or their contraception fails. When their partner secretly pricks holes in their condoms or hides their contraceptive pill. When he lies and says he's had a vasectomy or takes the condom off secretly during sex (so called 'stealthing'). When he manipulates and coerces her into pregnancy or controls her so much that she is unable to say no. When that happens and she already has two children or more, she will not be able to continue the pregnancy, even if she really wants to. Because doing so will harm her existing children. This policy will not reduce the number of conceptions in the UK. All it will do is drive women to feel abortion is their only option. And if you are pro-life, this policy should be driving you to the streets in protest. It should be informing whether you vote and who you vote for in June. If you are at all concerned about reducing abortion rates, then getting this policy abolished should be your top priority

This policy is not a solution to the budget deficit. The ongoing cuts that affect the poorest in the UK have not reduced the UK's deficit, which continues to rise at the same levels as it did under a Labour government. It may seem like this policy affects a tiny minority of women, those with two children who conceive a child because of an abusive, violent or controlling man. Yet it attacks the human rights of women and their children and as such, affects us all.

Democracy is a chance to shape the type of government we want, in voting and lobbying our MP and parliament. We must get this policy abolished. The lives and wellbeing of thousands of women and their children are depending on us.

If you are eligible to vote in the UK, please ensure you are registered to vote. Find out more here: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote
Calcutta High Court Judge Justice CS Karnan ordered the medical examination of the seven Supreme Court judges who ordered the same test on him in a contempt case.

Justice Karnan has ordered the medical examination of seven SC judges. (File Photo)

By India Today Web Desk: The legal battle between the Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan took an amusing turn today after Karnan ordered a psychiatric medical examination of the seven Supreme Court judges who ordered the same on him.

Justice Karnan said he has ordered the Delhi Commissioner of Police to take the seven judges for a medical test to AIIMS. "I direct DGP, New Delhi to take the seven accused and produce them to psychiatric medical board attached to AIIMS and conduct medical test," Justice Karnan said.

Karnan Strikes back,Orders Psychiatric Medical Examination of 7 Judges- Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) May 1, 2017

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Karnan also threatened to issue a suo moto suspension order against West Bengal DGP, "if he comes to check my mental health forcefully."

Karnan move's may be nullified by an earlier Supreme Court order against him which restrained courts or tribunals to take cognizance of orders passed by him.

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CASE

The Supreme Court had earlier today ordered the medical examination of Justice Karnan in a contempt case for accusing 20 current and former judges of higher judiciary of corruption.

The apex court had directed Calcutta government hospital to constitute a board for a psychiatric medical examination of Karnan.

SC had also directed Director General of Police to form a team of police officials to assist with the medical board. The apex court bench led by Justice Kehar had ordered Calcutta government hospital doctors to examine Justice Karnan on May 4 and submit a report by May 8.

The Supreme Court had also said that Justice Karnan may submit a response if he likes.

Justice Karnan had earlier banned eight Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice J S Kehar from travelling abroad. He had also ordered CJI Kehar and seven other SC judges to appear before him.

The seven judges had issued a suo motu contempt order against Karnan in February after he had in January named 20 "corrupt judges", seeking probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the Indian judiciary.

Read: Why Jethmalani told Justice Karnan I am convinced you have lost your mind

--- ENDS ---
Three women arrested in London under anti-terror laws

Three women were today arrested under anti-terror laws in east London, police said, in connection with investigationsinto a plot that was thwarted last week.

The Metropolitan Police said it arrested two 18-year-olds and a 19-year-old on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of terrorist acts.

'The arrests were made as part of an ongoing intelligence-led operation in connection with an address on Harlesden Road,' the police said in a statement, referring to a location where a woman was shot on Friday during an armed raid which police said disrupted a militant plot.

Police said last week that they had foiled an active terror plot after a woman was shot during a raid on a house in Willesden, north-west London.

The 21-year-old woman was one of the subjects of the investigation, and is in a serious but stable condition.

Another raid also took place last week in Kent, with six people arrested in total.

Officers said that the operation was not connected to an arrest near Parliament on Thursday, when a man was detained on suspicion of terror offences.

The house in Harlesden Road, which was raided on Thursday evening, had been under observation by police.

Those arrested included a 16-year-old boy, a man and woman, both aged 20 and another man and woman both aged 28.

In Kent, a 43-year-old woman was also arrested last week.

The woman who was shot is under police guard in hospital and had not been arrested 'due to her condition,' police said in a statement.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
A company accused of having a smelly plant said it would continue its efforts to mitigate against any odors. A financial columnist wrote that Diversification Doesnt Totally Protect You from Every Risk; It May Mitigate the Impact of Those Risks.

A financial report said that the constant fluctuation in bitcoins price seemed to militate against its usefulness as a medium of exchange. A column on a pro-Palestinian student group said that it militates to ostracize fellow students who travel to Israel.

Yes, its time for another episode of similar but different.

Mitigate means to reduce the impact of something, as in making a plant less smelly. Militate means to add weight or impact to something, as in adding reasons not to use bitcoin. They are not exactly antonyms, but they have opposite effects: one eases, one increases.

The two words are unrelated etymologically. Mitigate comes from words for soften, alleviate, moderate, assuage, etc. and dates to the late 15th century. The Oxford English Dictionary says its earliest usage is the most common one today: To alleviate or give relief from (an illness or symptom, pain, suffering, sorrow, etc.); to lessen the trouble caused by (an evil or difficulty).

Militate is newer, appearing at the end of the 16th century, the OED says. Its first usage is close to the one we see today: Of a person, institution, etc.: to contend in the manner of a soldier; to exert power or influence; to campaign; to strive.

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As you might expect, militate has the same root as military, and it carries the same harsh connotations: If you are seeking to militate against something, you are not just putting a thumb on the scale. You are throwing your whole body and as many weapons as you can on the scale to get your way. And you need to say which direction you want things to go: You can militate against something, or militate for something. But mitigating is only lessening something, never increasing.

That has led to confusion of another kind: whether either needs a preposition.

Garners Modern English Usage notes that Today, mitigate is almost invariably transitive, and using it with against is nonstandard. Militate, however, is generally an intransitive verb, and so needs a preposition to indicate the direction the militation is heading. But beware: Garners says that militate toward is unidiomatic.

Its a common shibboleth that mitigate and militate are confused a lot. By themselves, they arent, but the against apparently throws people off. Merriam-Webster includes usage notes at both mitigate  and militate; American Heritage includes a note with mitigate. Garners says using mitigate against when militate against was meant is an error that emerged about 1900 and spread precipitously from 1950, and is surprisingly common. A search of Nexis turns up about 150 instances of mitigate against in the past month, many in congressional transcripts or legal proceedings, where militate against appears more frequently than in ordinary writing. Garners says that using mitigate against instead of militate against is at Stage 3 of the five-stage Language-Change Index, widespread but still frowned upon.

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage has an entry covering both of those situations:

Militate against something means exert weight or effect against it: High taxes militate against relocating the plant. Mitigate, which means ease or soften, is never the word to use with against: Tax reductions mitigated the financial pressure.

The Chicago Manual of Style simply notes that militate takes against, but mitigate stands alone. The Associated Press Stylebook says nothing.

Neither mitigate nor militate is a common word today, though mitigate is in the top 10 percent of popular words on Merriam-Webster.com. (Militate is in the bottom 50 percent.) This Google Ngram of words appearing in books since the 1800s shows how the usage of both steadily declined in the 20th century, until about 1980, when the fortunes of mitigate began to rise.

But because the ngram doesnt differentiate between mitigate against and just plain mitigate, there might be mitigating circumstances to explain the apparent increase.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl.
WISCONSIN GOVERNOR SCOTT WALKERS recent budget proposal took aim at an unlikely opponenta nearly century-old state magazine that covers the states resources and outdoor recreation. In February, Walker recommended axing Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine, a publication put out by the states Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and fully funded by its more than 80,000 subscribers. Walker and his allies argue that the move will allow the agency to focus on its core mission. It is not the governments role to produce magazines that duplicate what is available in the private market, said Walkers spokesperson Tom Evenson in a statement to reporters.

But critics of the proposal dont buy that argument. Public outreach and public involvement has always been part of DNRs mission, says David Sperling, who served as the magazines editor from 1987 until 2011. And because the magazine delves into conservation initiatives and policy decisions happening at the DNR, it provides content that isnt duplicated elsewhere.

Some see the proposal to eliminate the magazine as the latest move to stifle science and hamper outreach at the DNR. It just seems to be one more example of the agency lacking transparency and not valuing the importance of communication and education, says Natasha Kassulke, a journalist who edited the magazine after Sperling left. That should be a core value of a natural resource agency.

WHEN KASSULKE JOINED THE MAGAZINE as editor in 2011, she viewed it as a dream job. It seemed like the perfect way to marry her background in biology and her decade of experience working as a reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal.

At first, Kassulke had license to pick and choose her stories. In 2013, however, she published an insert on climate change funded by the University of Wisconsins Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

In fact, the insert on climate change was the last time the magazine mentioned the issue. A search for climate change or global warming turns up zero hits after 2013.

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That insert caught the attention of the agencys leaders, she says, and sparked a dramatic change in the editorial process. Kassulke had always submitted a list of the stories she planned to run to the agencys communications director. But soon after the insert came out, agency leaders told her that she would need to submit the full text of all stories to the entire leadership team for review.

The leadership team (which included the secretary, deputy secretary, and division administrators) decided to scrap several stories, including some that, at first blush, didnt seem all that controversial. One piece focused on efforts to bring back the American marten, an endangered species in Wisconsin. The story included a map of the animals habitat, Kassulke says, which overlapped a proposed iron mine site in Northern Wisconsin. So that story was killed, Kassulke says.

Agency leaders also prohibited stories on frac sand mining, privatization of groundwater, and climate change, Kassulke says. And they told her she could no longer use the terms global warming and climate change. In fact, the 2013 insert on climate change was the last time the magazine mentioned the issue. A search for climate change or global warming turns up zero hits after 2013.

I really at that point felt I had lost editorial control. I felt like we were no longer able to cover some of the most critical environmental issues in our state, Kassulke says. In 2016, she resigned.

DNR spokesperson Jim Dick didnt address any of Kassulkes allegations directly, but he noted that the proposal to terminate the magazine was a business decision, not an editorial one.

The state estimates that eliminating the magazine would save nearly $545,000 a year. Thats just 0.001 percent of the states $45 billion annual budget. And that money doesnt come from taxpayers. The magazine is fully funded by its subscribers. About 48,000 people pay the $8.97 annual subscription fee, and another 40,000 receive the magazine as a perk when they purchase a premium hunting and fishing license. Content comes from non-profits, unpaid freelance writers and photographers, and DNR staff.

Cutting the magazine was never about saving money, says George Meyer, executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation and a former DNR secretary. They dont value providing information to the public. They dont see the public as people they work for. When Meyer served as secretary, DNR employees could freely speak with the media. Now theyre basically gagged, he says.

Many critics see eliminating the magazine as simply another way for the administration to further hobble an agency focused on science and the environment. Walkers 2015 budget cut 66 DNR staff positions, including 18 staff scientistsnearly a third of the agencys science bureau staffand 11 educators. That same year, fines collected from polluters plummeted to the lowest level in 30 years. Last December, the DNR altered climate change language on its website, striking mention of the role of human activities and carbon dioxide. The revised language implies that changes in climate are natural, mysterious, and driven by causes that still stir debate among climate scientists, wrote a group of University of Wisconsin faculty members.

DESPITE INCREASED EDITORIAL INTERFERENCE, Kassulke believes Wisconsin Natural Resources is worth saving. The publication has a rich history of covering complex and sometimes contentious topics. Sperling ran stories on manure management and runoff, shoreland development, and the Clean Water Act. While the magazine now rarely covers those kinds of issues, it still provides an important home for articles about invasive species removal, hunter safety, wildlife monitoring, and more. And theres always the possibility that the magazine might regain some of its editorial independence under future secretaries. What Im hoping is not just to save the magazine, but that there would be some more flexibility in editorial content and some of these more critical issues could be addressed, Kassulke says.

Supporters have found another way to protest too. Subscriptions to the magazine are up.

Soon after Walker released his budget proposal, Kassulke started talking with Sperling, Meyer, and former communications director Laurel Steffes. We knew that the subscribers would be dramatically opposed to this, Meyer says. However, they werent sure how to alert them to the threat. Wisconsin has an open records law, but the team suspected that a request for the full list of subscribers would be denied. Then Kassulke remembered that subscribers could opt in to receive the magazines email newsletter. The team requested that list, and two days later they had it in hand46,000 email addresses. The team divvied up the list and began methodically contacting subscribers. So far theyve sent more than 17,000 emails.

That effort has paid off. The emails just poured in to the joint finance committee, Meyer says. Letters also started piling up in Gov. Walkers office. An open records request by The Progressive revealed that between mid-February, when the proposal was released, and mid-March, the Governors office received more than 150 emails, letters, and postcards, all in favor of keeping the magazine.

I do not understand why you think this informative, educational, and beautiful publication should be eliminated, wrote one 20-year subscriber. The less people know about the role of the DNR in resource management, the less they will understand and support the crucial work the DNR does for Wisconsins plants, wildlife, and environments.

Katrina Shankland, a state representative who serves on the Joint Committee on Finance, says that she hears about the magazine more than almost any other issue. And its not just constituents writing in. Shankland has received letters from number of out-of-state subscribers as well. At any given time of day somebody is emailing me about the DNR magazine. Thats not true for every issue, she says.

Supporters have found another way to protest too. Subscriptions to the magazine are up. Between mid-February and mid-March, the DNR received 2,300 additional subscriptions, an increase of three percent. Another 350 subscribers renewed.

AT A BUDGET BRIEFING ON MARCH 30, DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp pointed out that the magazine wouldnt necessarily have to die. I think theres tremendous opportunity for someone in the private sector to take this over, she told lawmakers.

Thats what happened in neighboring Michigan. That states Department of Natural Resources decided to privatize its natural resources magazine in 1993. By 1998 the publisher had stopped making payments, and a year later it had halted publication.

Shankland notes that Wisconsin subscribers dont want a private magazine. They not only cherish whats offered to them in the magazine, but they support the concept of the DNR being the one to publish it, she says. While a private magazine might have greater editorial independence, the content would undoubtedly change. Subscribers have respected the publication as a voice of authority coming from the agency that they trusted to manage the states natural resources, Kassulke says.

The magazines fate depends on what happens in the next couple of months in the 16-member Joint Committee on Finance. Shankland says that if no one introduces a motion to strike the proposal from the budget, she will. The motion would need support from at least nine members of the committee. Shankland doesnt have firm commitments of support yet, but she says the comments she heard from other committee members at the budget briefing were encouraging. I think public engagement has certainly helped move the needle on this issue, she says.

Stepp, the DNR secretary, has argued that the agency can more effectively communicate with the public through digital platforms. Our social media and digital distribution reach is far greater than our print magazine subscriptions, she wrote in testimony for the budget briefings.

But that argument doesnt sway Kassulke, who served as the agencys Twitter administrator. The DNRs social media feeds are a place for good news, not complex, multi-faceted environmental topics. These arent stories you can tell in 140 characters or less, she says.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Cassandra Willyard is a freelance science journalist based in Madison, Wisconsin. She writes for Discover, Popular Science, Nature, and blogs at The Last Word on Nothing. Follow her on Twitter @cwillyard.
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New York, May 1, 2017Bahraini prosecutors and security officials should cease harassing journalists and should lift travel bans imposed on two reporters in the past week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Prosecutors summoned three journalists for questioning in the week before the U.N. Human Rights Commission conducted its Universal Periodic Review of the kingdoms human rights record today.

Bahrains public prosecutor summoned three journalistsFaisal Hayyat, a video blogger; Jaafar al-Jamri, a writer at the beleaguered Al-Wasat newspaper; and freelance journalist Ahmed Radhiover the course of the past week, according to the Journalist Support Committee (JSC), a Bahraini press freedom group, and an emailed statement from Bahraini rights activist Nazeeha Saeed. Hayyat and Radhi are both banned from traveling.

Radhi told CPJ that an interrogator at the prosecutors office accused him of participating in a protest in the village of Duraz on October 6, 2016, alongside 800 other people. Duraz is the site of an ongoing sit-in protest and is also the home of influential Shia cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim. Radhi denied the charges.

Al-Jamri wrote on Twitter that officials from the prosecutors Electronic Crimes department questioned him about a series of tweets he wrote, without elaborating. Neither Hayyat nor al-Jamri responded to CPJs requests for further information.

If Bahrain is serious about its commitments to free expression and press freedom, it will immediately lift the travel bans on journalists Fasial Hayyat and Ahmed Radhi and cease harassing the press, CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said from Washington, D.C.

Hayyat and Radhi denied having attended protests in Duraz. Both have been jailed for their writing before. Bahraini authorities held Radhi in pretrial detention for months in 2012 on terrorism charges following remarks he made on social media criticizing a proposal to unify Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, CPJ reported at the time. Hayyat was jailed from October 9, 2016 to January 7, 2017, for his activity on social media, and in 2011 on suspicion that he participated in mass, antigovernment protests in April of that year.

During Bahrains last Universal Periodic Review in 2012, the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) criticized the kingdoms record on press freedom.

At least seven journalists, including Hayyat, were in prison for their work on December 1, 2016, when CPJ last conducted its annual global prison census. More recently, on March 21, police detained former Agence France-Presse photographer Mohammed al-Shaikh for 24 hours upon his return from a holiday in India.
NCUAs latest legal opinion letter addresses contiguous geographic boundaries, recognizing that several Hawaiian islands can be contiguous for the purposes of the agencys rural district regulation, despite being separated by a body of water.

NCUA General Counsel Michael McKenna points out that the opinion is limited to the unique factual circumstances described in the letter.

According to McKenna, the proposed geographic area met the criteria required.

NCUAs chartering manual provides that an area of any geographic size qualifies as a rural district if:

The area has well-defined, contiguous geographic boundaries;

The total population of the district doesnt exceed 1 million;
A 62-year-old Missouri woman, who worked for nearly three decades at the $30.1 million Shelter Insurance Federal Credit Union, pleaded guilty Thursday to embezzling more than $230,000 in U.S. District Court.

Debra L. Wenger of Columbia, Mo., worked as a teller and administrative assistant, and assumed all of the accounting responsibilities at the credit union, according to Missouri federal prosecutors.

In February 2016, an external auditor detected the misappropriation of funds after finding a discrepancy when comparing the general ledger teller cash to the cash-balancing sheet.

When Wenger was questioned by Columbia Police Department investigators, she admitted to taking the cash from her teller drawer and depositing the funds into her personal account, according to federal prosecutors.
A spokesperson of the Hizb told a local news gathering agency that its cadres had decamped with four weapons from the scene of the attack.

By India Today Web Desk, Shuja-ul-Haq : Hizbul Mujahideen militants today shot dead seven people, including five policemen, after dragging them out of a cash delivery van of Jammu and Kashmir Bank in Kulgam district.

A J&K Bank vehicle carrying cash was on way from Nihama to Kulgam when it was attacked by 5-6 armed militants near Pombai Kakran Agricultural University orchard resulting into the death of seven police personnel, a bank security guard and another bank employee.

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The militants decamped with five SLR rifles from the spot.

The terrorists pulled out the five police personnel and two bank employees from the vehicle and shot them from point blank range.

While four cops and two bank employees -- including a bank security guard -- died on the spot, the fifth cop succumbed to injuries at a hospital, officials said. Among the deceased is an Assistant Sub Inspector of Police.

Cash delivery van in Kulgam (ANI)

The police is also investigating whether the militants had taken away any cash.

Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack.

A spokesperson of the Hizb told a local news gathering agency that its cadres had decamped with four weapons from the scene of the attack.

Kulgam (J&K): Wreath laying ceremony of the 5 Policemen who lost their lives during the attack on a cash van by terrorists in Kulgam. pic.twitter.com/h4EyAmTDCy; ANI (@ANI_news) May 1, 2017

Earlier in November and December last year after demonetisation, militants had looted three branches of J&K Bank in Budgam and Pulwama districts of south Kashmir and eloped with more than Rs 30 lakh. After that robbery, security for bank branches in rural areas of the Kashmir Valley was enhanced.

(Additional inputs from PTI)

Also read:

Srinagar bypoll: Kulgam youth killed in clashes with security forces

J-K: 2 Army jawans, 4 Hizbul militants killed in gunfight; encounter over, search ops on

Also watch:

Kashmir: Pulwama college students show ISIS flags, put out Burhan Wani posters

--- ENDS ---
After police raids on Degree College in Pulwama, Kashmir, students across the valley demonstrated against police and paramilitary forces. Dozens of students sustained injuries in the violence as police used teargas, chilli smoke, water cannons and stun grenades to quell the protests. On April 25, militants shot dead Abdul Gani Dar, the Pulwama district president of the PDP, which governs Jammu and Kashmir with its ally, the BJP.

Here, schoolgirls vent their rage against the security forces.

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Photo: Abid Bhat and agencies

Photo: Abid Bhat and agencies

Photo: Abid Bhat and agencies

PULLQUOTE

"I would like to remind the central government that the Dravidian movement has a long history of spearheading struggles against [the] imposition of Hindi... I sternly urge the Centre not to sow the seeds for the emergence of third generation, anti-Hindi imposition protests through... pushing India into becoming Hindia."

M.K. STALIN, DMK chief and leader of the Opposition in Tamil Nadu, issued a warning to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a video message last week, describing the central government's attempt to promote the use of Hindi in national institutions, from Parliament to Air India, as chauvinism that would "disturb the peace and damage the unity of this country."

THE NRI STIMULUS

Non-resident Indians have long bolstered the Indian economy by sending money home. Remittances accounted for about 2.8 per cent of India's GDP last year. The World Bank's annual 'Migration and Development Brief' earlier this month reported that for "the first time in recent history, remittance flows to developing countries registered a decline for two successive years". India, the world's largest receiver of monies from citizens and immigrants abroad, registered a nearly 9 per cent slowdown. Much of the reason is attributed to weak growth and low oil prices, which have had a calming effect on the Gulf economies, home to so many Indian workers. The good news is remittances are expected to bounce back in 2017, up 3.3 per cent to $444 billion.

THE 'SECULAR' MYTH?

Contrary to our self-image as a nation of near unparalleled tolerance, India, according to a report released earlier this month by the Washington, DC-based Pew Research Center, ranks behind only Syria, Nigeria and Iraq as having the most "social hostilities involving religion". Though recently released, the study uses data from 2015. On its website, the Pew Center noted the restrictions some states imposed on religious conversion and cow slaughter, but argued that "India had an even higher level of social hostilities involving religion, which are perpetrated by individuals or groups in society rather than the government". Pakistan, incidentally, ranked 10th, six places behind India. Shashi Tharoor was among those who tweeted his disbelief, claiming the Pew report "discredits itself".

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--- ENDS ---
A committee was constituted to frame guidelines following Puttingal temple fire tragedy in April last year, where more than 100 people were killed.

By India Today Web Desk: Kerala's Central Explosives Department has given a go ahead for using explosives during Thrissur Pooram festival. The consent given is however conditional in nature.

The permission will allow the traditional festival to go ahead with full vigour.

A committee was constituted to frame guidelines following Puttingal temple fire tragedy in April last year, where more than 100 people were killed.

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Crackers which have been permitted to be used include palm leaf crackers, Gundu (Shell 6.8 diameters), Kuzhiminnal (4 inch), Kuzhiminnal of more than 8" or 10" not allowed, Amits - 6" (shell-15 cm diameter).

Conditions set by the explosives department are that no unauthorised chemicals would be allowed to be used in addition to the chemicals showing in test report for any of fireworks display items.

Agriculture Minister Sunil Kumar said: "Whatever the government can do to carry out the fireworks we have done it 100 per cent. All guidelines and security are being obeyed and followed by the state government".

In April 2016, a major fire had occured in Puttingal Devi temple in Kollam district where more than 100 people were killed following which a PIL was filed in Kerala High court on the use of explosives during temple festivals.

The High Court gave conditional permission for Thrissur Pooram and also directed Devaswom board to follow SC verdict of 2007 of fireworks.

--- ENDS ---
The transition to university is a big step, not only for students, but also for the family members and friends who support them. From making the decision to come to Dalhousie to preparing for your student's arrival to campus, you'll find information and resources on this site to help you support them throughout their time at Dalhousie.
It might take a few days to see unofficial results in Pa. Here's why
Boston, MA, May 1, 2017 - Providing adequate cardiothoracic surgical care in a resource-limited setting presents a unique cluster of challenges. A shortage of doctors or specialists, inadequate access to necessary medications, and patient limitations are just some of the myriad issues that make treating heart disease in places like sub-Saharan Africa incredibly difficult. This year's AATS Centennial, the annual meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, features a presentation from a team of doctors and other medical professionals who have been travelling to Rwanda for the past 10 years as part of a surgical outreach program aimed at treating patients affected by rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and building a foundation for sustainable cardiothoracic care throughout the country.

In sub-Saharan Africa, RHD dominates as a leading cause of death. RHD results from untreated strep infection and, when left unchecked, can do great damage to heart valves. Many individuals who die from RHD are very young and each year the disease is responsible for more than one million untimely deaths.

The Rwandan genocide in 1994 crippled the country's health care system, leaving many RHD patients without any chance for treatment. Even today, Rwanda still only has one doctor per 10,500 people and the ratio of specialists is even worse; there are only five cardiologists to serve a total population of 11.5 million.

In order to help relieve some of the pressure on an already stressed health care system, a humanitarian health organization, Team Heart, began sending surgical teams annually to Rwanda starting in 2008. Every year, 35-50 medical and non-medical volunteers travel from the United States to Rwanda to diagnose and treat RHD.

"The goal of Team Heart is to facilitate a partnership with the Rwanda Ministry of Health to establish a sustainable, independent, dedicated cardiac care center for children and adults with all forms of heart disease, which would be a center of excellence in the country and for all of East Africa," said Team Heart physician JaBaris D. Swain, MD, Clinical Fellow in Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA. "This report represents the first account of a long-term humanitarian effort to develop sustainability in cardiothoracic surgery in a resource-limited setting with superior outcomes. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of utilizing volunteer teams to deliver care, transfer knowledge, mentor local personnel, and train key individuals to assist in mitigating the burden of cardiovascular disease in sub-Saharan Africa."

To date, the team has operated on 149 patients 11-47 years of age. Overall, the 30-day mortality rate of patients treated has been 4-5%, with long range mortality at around 10%. Many of the surgeries involved mechanical valve replacement, as well as valve repair, including double and triple valve surgeries. Because of the poor conditions in Rwanda, most patients faced major post-surgical challenges, including systemic anticoagulation and barriers to follow-up care.

"In addition to delivering life-saving surgery, our efforts from the outset have focused on improving screening and diagnosis to allow early treatment of strep throat in order to prevent the development of RHD. Also, we have concentrated on knowledge transfer and education of our Rwandan colleagues, with the eventual goal of establishing a Rwandan-staffed cardiac center," explained Team Heart co-founder Ralph Morton Bolman III, MD, Professor, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT. "From the beginning of our involvement in Rwanda, we have sought to establish a sustainable program in cardiac care."

Team Heart has had lasting, positive effects on the state of health care in Rwanda. Along with the many lives saved by their direct surgical efforts, their work will live on through continually improving cardiac care for the country. The team has helped to identify a new Rwandan surgeon who is currently living in South Africa, training in general and cardiac surgery. The group is also actively working with the government to set up a new cardiac center.

"Through the method of consistent yearly humanitarian surgical trips for a decade with good patient outcomes, and now with demonstrated improvement in quality of life for postoperative patients, a platform has been created that can hopefully be leveraged for the creation of the desperately-needed next level of care for this neglected part of the world," emphasized Dr. Bolman.

###

Team Heart was co-founded in 2007 by Ralph Morton Bolman III, MD, and Ceeya Patton-Bolman, MSN, a pediatric cardiology nurse, who serves as volunteer Executive Director of Team Heart.
1. Large spikes in handgun acquisitions seen in aftermath of mass shootings

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M16-1574

Editorial: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M17-0943

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

Large increases in handgun acquisitions occurred in California immediately following the mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 and San Bernardino, California in 2015. The spikes were short-lived and accounted for less than 10 percent of annual handgun acquisitions statewide, but researchers express concern about whether repeated shocks of this kind could lead to substantial increases in the prevalence of firearm ownership. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Each year in the United States, more than 32,000 people die of gunshot wounds. While mass shootings account for less than 1 percent of those deaths, they are the most visible form of firearm violence. Mass shootings may boost firearm sales among people who are concerned about personal protection or among those who fear that the government will react to the mass shooting with increased gun control measures. News stories and two studies have reported sharp increases in handgun acquisition after several mass shootings, but the size and nature of these increases have not been well-described. Moreover, those reports rely on statistics from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which does not retain purchase-level information.

Using detailed individual-level information on firearm transactions in California between 2007 and 2016, researchers at Stanford University analyzed acquisition patterns after two of the highest-profile mass shootings in U.S. history. Overall, the number of handguns acquired in California increased sharply in the first 12 weeks following Newtown and San Bernardino mass shootings. Large and significant spikes occurred among white and Hispanic persons, but not among black persons. Increases in acquisitions were also larger among those who had no record of having previously acquired a handgun. After San Bernardino, a much larger increase in acquisitions occurred in neighborhoods in and around that city than in other parts of the state.

The researchers suggest that these findings may have implications for public health, as firearm ownership is a risk factor for firearm-related suicide and homicide. Further research is needed to explore both cumulative effects and lasting shifts in acquisition patterns; their causes; and their implications for public health, crime, and social cohesion.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Cara Graeff. To reach the lead author David Studdert, LLB, ScD, please contact Beth Duff-Brown at bethduff@stanford.edu or 650-736-6064.

2. A routine invasive strategy may significantly reduce death risk in unstable angina

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M16-2420

Editorial: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M17-0947

URL goes live when the embargo lifts

The absolute cumulative probability of death at 12 months was 5 percent lower for patients who received routine invasive coronary angiography and revascularization as indicated during an unstable angina admission compared to those who did not. The survival benefit persisted when angiography was delayed up to 2 months after the first unstable angina episode. Results of a comparative effectiveness analysis are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndromes consist of non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (MI) and unstable angina. Reported rates of unstable angina have declined with the introduction of high-sensitivity troponin testing, which identifies patients with non-ST-segment elevation MI, yet patients with unstable angina still account for one-quarter to one-half of all those with acute coronary syndromes who present to the hospital. In general, current guidelines recommend routine invasive coronary angiography for patients with non-ST-segment elevation MI, but not for those with unstable angina. Meta-analyses of previous trials have shown conflicting results with regard to routine invasive management of unstable angina, potentially due to the high crossover from control to intervention groups in the randomized controlled trials.

Researchers at St. Vincent's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia used hospital discharge data to assess the effect of angiography on mortality in 33,901 patients admitted to the hospital with an initial episode of unstable angina. The investigators compared outcomes of patients who had angiography during their first hospitalization with those of other patients by using advanced statistical methods to adjust for differences in individual patient characteristics and to account for crossovers from control to intervention groups. The data showed that routine angiography, with or without subsequent revascularization, was associated with a 52 percent relative decrease in 12-month mortality. Revascularization offered no additional statistical mortality benefit compared with diagnostic angiography alone. The authors conclude that routine invasive diagnostic angiography up to 2 months after an emergent admission for unstable angina in association with optimum medical therapy might prevent up to 5 deaths per 100 hospital admissions for unstable angina during the 12 months after hospitalization for the initial episode.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Cara Graeff. To speak with the lead author, Dr. Vijaya Sundararajan, please contact Elizabeth Lopez at lopez.e@unimelb.edu.au or +61 3 8344 2704.

Also new in this issue:

Realizing the Value (and Profitability) of Digital Health Data

David Blumenthal, MD, MPP

Ideas and Opinions

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/M17-0511

Limitations of Administrative Data for Studying Patients Hospitalized With Heart Failure

Ahmad Masri, MD; Andrew D. Althouse, PhD; Jeffrey McKibben; Joon S. Lee, MD; and Suresh R. Mulukutla, MD

Abstract: http://annals.org/aim/article/doi/10.7326/L17-0077

###
According to a study, those who indulge in activities like knitting, crocheting and jam making are less likely to be surrounded by mental health issues.

By India Today Web Desk: Remember those times when the compulsory craft work in school gave you the jitters? From knitting to crochet, barely did any student sail past this subject without taking help from his/her family members at some point or another, right? Well, whether you nod your head in agreement or not, it won't change the fact that knitting and crocheting have recently been linked with the well-being of your brain.

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That's correct. A research indicates that engaging in activities like knitting, crocheting and jam-making can actually help reduce mental health issues in many individuals.

Published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, the study involved 658 students at Otago University, New Zealand, who were asked to document their "experiences and emotional states over 13 days," reports The Telegraph.

Also Read: a means of cultivating positive psychological functioning.

The results thus observed indicated that the students were more relaxed, happy and enthusiastic after indulging in activities like knitting, crocheting and jam making.

"There is growing recognition in psychology research that creativity is associated with emotional functioning," The Telegraph quotes Dr Tamlin Connor, the study's lead author as saying.

Dr Connor also mentioned that engaging in creative behaviours on a regular basis is "a means of cultivating positive psychological functioning."

It now makes complete sense as to why Benedict Cumberbatch is seen knitting in Sherlock so often, doesn't it?

--- ENDS ---
Although Journal of the American College of Surgeons study shows better care at high-volume surgical centers for patients with pancreatic or thyroid cancer, few patients travel for their cancer operations

CHICAGO (May 1, 2017): New study findings link traveling to an academic medical center for surgical removal of pancreatic or thyroid cancer with higher quality surgical care for both cancers, and longer survival for patients with pancreatic cancer compared with patients who receive treatment at a hospital closer to home. Despite the advantages, few patients with these cancers travel within the United States for their cancer operations, according to the authors of the study, which is published online as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print publication.

"Little was known about whether traveling to receive surgical cancer care results in differences in perioperative outcomes and overall survival," said senior investigator Raymon H. Grogan, MD, FACS, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine. "Yet, there is a well-established relationship between a surgeon's high volume of operations and patients' improved outcomes for pancreatic and thyroid cancer, and most high-volume surgeons in the United States practice in metropolitan settings and academic referral medical centers.

"We wanted to know: if you live in a rural area, does it benefit you to travel to a high-volume academic medical center for your cancer operation?"

To understand the effect of travel on the overall survival rate and quality of care, Dr. Grogan and co-investigators focused on two types of cancer with different chances for cure. One, papillary thyroid cancer, is the most frequent type of thyroid cancer and is usually slow growing and its treatments are associated with a low complication rate. The other, the most common form of cancer of the pancreas, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, tends to be aggressive with a much worse survival rate.

Using patient records entered into the National Cancer Database (NCDB), the authors analyzed data for 105,677 patients with papillary thyroid cancer and 22,983 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. This database is cosponsored by the American College of Surgeons and the American Cancer Society and includes information on approximately 75 percent of all newly diagnosed cancer cases in the United States.

In this proof-of-concept study, the investigators employed a new method of defining travel using data available in the NCDB and the U.S. Census Bureau. They determined the average area of a county in square miles, for metropolitan, urban, and rural areas (from largest to smallest population) in each of the nine national regions described by the Census Bureau.* The researchers considered patients to have traveled for cancer care if the shortest distance from home to treatment center was greater than either the square root of the area of their county if they lived in metropolitan areas or metropolitan-adjacent counties or twice the square root of area of their county if they lived in a county that was not adjacent to a metropolitan area.

The minimum distance for patients who traveled ranged from 20 to 84 miles, the investigators found. Patients residing in the Pacific and Mountain Regions were excluded from analysis because of discordant travel lengths compared with other regions, according to the article.

Travel correlated with receiving care at an academic (university-affiliated) medical center, said Michael G. White, MD, the study's lead author and a general surgery resident physician at the University of Chicago Medicine.

Pancreatic Cancer

Among patients with pancreatic cancer, those living in rural and urban areas who traveled to an academic medical center for their care had longer overall survival compared with patients who underwent cancer operations near their home communities, the researchers reported. Overall survival is a measure of the length of time from a person's cancer diagnosis to the time of his or her death, regardless of the cause of death.. Patients with this aggressive pancreatic cancer lived two months longer on average if they traveled for care, Dr. Grogan reported.

Additionally, patients who traveled for care were more likely to have lymph node dissection, which is removal of selected lymph nodes for examination for cancer. This surgical approach is the standard of care for pancreatic cancer that can be removed surgically, Dr. White said. Patients who traveled also had better rates of clear margins--no microscopic evidence of cancer remaining in the tissues around the removed tumor.

Thyroid Cancer

As expected, the researchers found no survival differences by travel in patients with thyroid cancer, which Dr. Grogan said has an average five-year survival rate of 97 percent. Importantly, however, patients who traveled were more likely to receive care that followed cancer treatment guidelines from the American Thyroid Association and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an indicator of quality of care, he stated.

"Our data do not necessarily show that patients who don't travel for cancer care receive suboptimal care," Dr. Grogan stressed. "Rather, patients who travel more often receive the gold standard care - care that more often conforms with evidence-based recommendations."

Few Patients Travel for Care

Yet, only 9 percent of patients with thyroid cancer and approximately 25 percent of pancreatic cancer patients traveled for their surgical care, the data showed.

Dr. Grogan said, "Although we found that travel is associated with better outcomes, the vast majority of these cancer patients are not traveling for their care."

From the data, he said they cannot conclude why most patients opt to not travel for their cancer operations or what impact the local physicians' referral patterns have on patients' decision making. In the case of why more pancreatic cancer patients travel then thyroid cancer patients, Dr. White speculated, "Poorer survival rates for pancreatic cancer may drive the choice to travel to a medical center that performs a higher volume of these operations."

Noting that lengthy travel to a cancer treatment center may have disadvantages as well as the observed advantages, Dr. Grogan said their study gives patients with cancer more information to decide what is important to them. Whether patients travel for surgical cancer care or not, he recommended that they ask their surgeon two important questions: "How many of these operations do you perform each year? What is your complication rate when performing this operation?"

###

Other co-authors were Edwin L. Kaplan, MD, FACS; Peter Angelos, MD, PhD, FACS; and Dezheng Huo, MD, PhD, from the University of Chicago and Megan K. Applewhite, MD, of Albany Medical College, Albany, N.Y.

"FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

This study received funding from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute (K12CA139160 to Raymon H Grogan). The study was presented in November 2016 at the Western Surgical Association 124th Scientific Session in Coronado, Calif.

Citation: A Tale of Two Cancers: Traveling to Treat Pancreatic and Thyroid Cancer. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2017.02.017.

* US Census Bureau. Census regions and divisions of the United States. Available at: https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf. Accessed April 12, 2017.

About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org.
Chemiluminescence, or chemical light, is the principle behind the glow sticks (also known as light sticks) used at rock concerts and as quick tools to grab when the electricity goes out. But they can also be used to diagnose diseases by identifying concentrations of biological samples. A new mechanism developed by Tel Aviv University researchers produces a 3,000-times-brighter, water-resistant chemiluminescent probe with particular application to medical and cancer diagnosis.

The research found that tweaking the electronic structure of current probes improves their inherent fluorescence. This could lead to the invention of a new single-component system with multiple applications -- including the detection and measurement of cellular activity that points to certain pathologies, such as cancer. The study was recently published in ACS Central Science.

"Chemiluminescence is considered one of the most sensitive methods used in diagnostic testing," said Prof. Doron Shabat of TAU's School of Chemistry, who led the research. "We have developed a method to prepare highly efficient compounds that emit light upon contact with a specific protein or chemical. These compounds can be used as molecular probes to detect cancerous cells, among other applications."

Fixing a glitch

The research, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Christoph Bauer of Geneva University, repairs an energy-loss "glitch" in current chemiluminescent probes. Most systems use a mixture of one emitter molecule that detects the species of interest, and another two additional ingredients -- a fluorophore and a soap-like substance called a surfactant -- that amplify the signal to detectable levels. But energy is lost in the transfer process from the emitter molecule to the fluorophore, and surfactants are not biocompatible.

"As synthetic chemists, we knew how to link structure and function," said Prof. Shabat. "By adding two key atoms, we created a much brighter probe than those currently on the market. In addition, this particular molecule is suitable for direct use in cells."

Based on this molecule, the researchers developed sensors to detect several biologically relevant chemicals. They also used the chemiluminescent molecule to measure the activity of several enzymes and to image cells by microscopy.

"This gives us a new powerful methodology with which we can prepare highly efficient chemiluminescence sensors for the detection, imaging and analysis of various cell activities," said Prof. Shabat. The researchers are currently exploring ways of amplifying the chemiluminescence of the new probes for in vivo imaging.

###

The research was funded in part by the Israel Science Foundation, the Binational Science Foundation, the German Israeli Foundation, and the Israeli National Nanotechnology Initiative.

American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU) supports Israel's most influential, comprehensive and sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). TAU is recognized and celebrated internationally for creating an innovative, entrepreneurial culture on campus that generates inventions, startups and economic development in Israel. For three years in a row, TAU ranked 9th in the world, and first in Israel, for alumni going on to become successful entrepreneurs backed by significant venture capital, a ranking that surpassed several Ivy League universities. To date, 2,400 patents have been filed out of the University, making TAU 29th in the world for patents among academic institutions.
College students who participated in a self-administered intervention prompting them to reflect about their use of classroom resources had final grades that were higher than their peers, according to new findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"We found that self-administering the intervention, even for just 15 minutes online before an upcoming exam, engages college students in a form of thoughtful self-management, which helps them use their resources more effectively while studying," explains psychology researcher Patricia Chen of Stanford University. "This essentially empowers them to translate their efforts into success more efficiently."

With the proliferation of online resources, students now have more options than ever before when it comes to deciding what and how to study. But research suggests that many students have difficulty establishing an effective study routine. Chen's observations as a teacher led her to wonder if a targeted intervention might help students study 'smarter.'

"Many students have come to me after their exams trying to understand why they did not do as well as they had expected, despite their hard work. My response to these students is often, 'Well, describe to me how you studied,'" Chen says. "Their responses illuminated to me that oftentimes sheer effort isn't enough to produce achievement, and that strategy is extremely important in guiding that effort to hit its target."

Drawing from education research on self-regulated learning and evidence from social psychology on effective approaches to interventions, Chen and colleagues developed a brief exercise for students aimed at guiding their thinking about how they use learning resources.

Across two different cohorts of students in a college statistics class, the researchers randomly assigned half the student participants to receive the intervention prompt; the other half received no prompt, serving as the comparison group.

About 7 to 10 days before each class exam, students in the intervention group received a survey that asked them to write down the grade they wanted to get on the exam and rate how important it was to them to achieve that grade and how confident they were that they would meet this goal. The survey then prompted the students to think carefully about what kinds of questions the exam would probably include. After reflecting on the exam format, the students identified which of 15 available class resources they would use to study effectively. They elaborated on why each resource would be useful and described concrete plans for how they would use each one.

After the exam, the students reported how effective they thought their studying had been and reflected on their performance, rating their agreement with statements, including "As I studied for the class, I kept monitoring whether or not the way I was studying was effective." They also rated how useful they found each of the resources they had used in preparing for the exam.

The results were clear: Students who strategically reflected on how to use their resources to learn effectively ended up with higher grades at the end of the semester, outperforming their classmates by an average of one third of a letter grade.

And more reflection seemed to lead to better performance: Students who received the intervention prompt twice had higher final course grades than those who only received the prompt once. The more students self-reflected on their study strategy, the more useful they found the resources they had used, and this ultimately predicted their final grade.

Using a greater number of resources overall didn't seem to help - rather, it was using resources more thoughtfully that mattered for performance.

Students who completed the intervention exercise also reported less negative emotion in relation to the upcoming exams compared with their peers, and they reported a greater sense of control over their performance, suggesting that students actually noticed the benefits of their strategic planning.

These findings are especially intriguing given that the intervention itself did not require students a huge amount of time or effort.

"Unlike instructor-facilitated, multisession, long workshops, this learning intervention is elegant in its brevity and empowering in its mode of online self-administration," says Chen.

The fact that the intervention is relatively inexpensive to administer and easy to scale up to much larger student audiences suggests that it could be useful for teachers and students in a wide variety of settings, including online courses. Importantly, its applications could even go beyond the educational context, targeting psychological mechanisms that play an important role in many kinds of goal-directed activities:

"Goal achievement -- be it accomplishing a task at work, performing well in school, or losing weight -- depends to a large extent on how tactical we are at using our resources and also how effective we are at practicing strategic self-management," says Chen. "I am convinced that anybody can benefit from being self-reflective in their goal pursuit and thoughtful about the way they use their resources."

###

Co-authors on the research include Omar Chavez of the University of Texas at Austin, Desmond C. Ong of Stanford University, and Brenda Gunderson of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The study authors support open, collaborative science conducted in a mutually respectful and responsible manner. They have posted their data, code, and materials at http://osf.io/5fr3d. These materials are accessible by researchers and practitioners upon request. To request access, please complete and submit the request form at http://www.patriciachen.com/requestmaterials. The study authors want to work with researchers and practitioners to improve student learning and are happy to answer any questions about the materials.

For more information about this study, please contact: Patricia Chen at patchenq@stanford.edu.

The article abstract is available online: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617696456

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Strategic Resource Use for Learning: A Self-Administered Intervention That Guides Self-Reflection on Effective Resource Use Enhances Academic Performance" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
There are deep-seated conflicts throughout the Western world about how to handle the influx of refugees and immigrants--should we close our borders or bid the newcomers welcome? New research reveals that such opposing points of view are grounded in more than deliberate thought and reasoned arguments. At the level of preconscious processing, strong feelings about immigrants are controlled by something as surprising as the immune system.

"The research results provide new understanding of why society does not absorb the new arrivals and why integration fails. Those who are very concerned about the risk of infection are those who are most reluctant to seek out social contact with immigrants--something that we otherwise know fosters tolerance," says Associate Professor Lene Aare.

"We haven't just found a small, peculiar correlation, but something that can block the integration of immigrants," continues Professor Michael Bang Petersen.

The two political scientists from Aarhus BSS at Aarhus University, Denmark, have collaborated with Professor Kevin Arceneaux, Temple University, on the study, which has just been published in American Political Science Review, the leading journal for political science research.

Deeply rooted reaction

Throughout evolutionary history, our ancestors fought pathogens. The physical immune system evolved to defend us when such pathogens entered the body. Concurrently, humans and other animals have evolved a behavioral immune system, which motivates us to avoid situations where we might become exposed to infection. Avoiding potential sources of infection, such as excrement, blood and rot, has been crucial to our survival, and the motivation to avoid infection remains deeply rooted in us to this day.

The behavioral immune system cannot be controlled. It works on a subconscious level and is particularly sensitive in some people. According to the research team, such people's immune systems overreact and subconsciously misinterpret everything that is different as potential sources of infection.

"People with birthmarks, physical disabilities, abnormalities and something as innocent as a different skin color are subconsciously considered disease carriers by the hypersensitive," says Michael Bang Petersen.

Better safe than sorry

It is important that these research results are not misunderstood: People with a hypersensitive behavioral immune system do not avoid immigrants because they are consciously afraid of becoming ill if they interact with them. Immigrants are not a source of infection. It is on the subconscious level that the immune system misinterprets differences as a potential sign of infection--the consequence being that hypersensitive individuals avoid interaction with immigrants.

"The behavioral immune system functions according to a 'better safe than sorry' approach," explains Michael Bang Petersen.

This has consequences for integration and tolerance. One of the primary methods for achieving integration and tolerance is in the contact between immigrants and the majority population. But if immigrants are mistakenly interpreted as an infection hazard, contact becomes something to be avoided; if you are hypersensitive to infection, the last thing you want to do is to interact with a pathogen source.

The research also shows that hypersensitive people are completely indifferent to any good intentions that immigrants might have to contribute to society. The fear among the hypersensitive is due to the perceived risk of infection--immigrants' intentions are inconsequential. Thus, another of the primary paths to integration is blocked.

Why is the conflict so persistent?

"Our research provides new perspectives on why the immigrant question creates such deep-seated and emotion-laden conflicts in Western society. It is partly shaped by these psychological differences so deeply rooted in us," says Lene Aare.

The research focuses on why it is difficult to arrive at an understanding of each other's points of view when one party does not have a hypersensitive behavioral immune system and does not see the same risks in immigrants.

"If some people see dangers in immigrants that others don't, it's difficult to reach a mutual understanding with reason-based, rational arguments. The fear comes from deeply ingrained unconscious systems that we can't control. You can discuss whether immigrants are a financial gain or burden to society, whether to close the borders or bid the immigrants welcome, but if people are concerned about an entirely different risk--and perhaps one they aren't even fully aware of--it's difficult to achieve a mutual understanding of what is the right policy," says Michael Bang Petersen.

The coupling between immigrants and the risk of infection is a misperception, so a greater awareness of why we have different response patterns might contribute to a better understanding among population groups and thereby to integration.

###

FACTS:

The research is published in the article "The Behavioral Immune System Shapes Political Intuitions: Why and How Individual Differences in Disgust Sensitivity Underlie Opposition to Immigration" in the prestigious journal American Political Science Review: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055416000770

The study is the first comparative study of the degrees of concern among Danes and Americans for infection and their respective political attitudes towards immigrants.

The study includes lab experiments in which the subjects' levels of perspiration were measured while being presented with pictures related to the risk of infection and disease.

Additionally, several thousand respondents participated in representative surveys that took into account the conventional explanatory factors such as gender, age, education, income, political ideology and race, as well as whether they are generally prone to be anxious.

The results show that the fear of infection has an impact on attitudes towards immigrants that is at least as strong as education and more so than income.
(Toronto - May 1, 2017) Physicists have learned how they could breed Schrodinger cats in optics. CIFAR Quantum Information Science Fellow Alexander Lvovsky led the team of Russian Quantum Center and University of Calgary scientists who tested a method that could potentially amplify superpositions of classical states of light beyond microscopic limits and help determine the boundaries between the quantum and classical worlds.

The study was published today in Nature Photonics.

In 1935, German physicist Erwin Schrodinger proposed a thought experiment where a cat, hidden from the observer, is in a superposition of two states: it was both alive and dead. Schrodinger's cat was intended to show how radically different the macroscopic world we see is from the microscopic world governed by the laws of quantum physics.

However, the development of quantum technologies makes it possible to create increasingly complex quantum states, and Schrodinger's thought experiment no longer seems too far out of reach.

"One of the fundamental questions of physics is the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds. Can quantum phenomena, provided ideal conditions, be observed in macroscopic objects? Theory gives no answer to this question -- maybe there is no such boundary. What we need is a tool that will probe it," says Lvovsky, who is a professor at the University of Calgary and head of the Quantum Optics Laboratory of the Russian Quantum Center, where the experiment was set up.

Exactly such a tool is provided by the physical analogue of the Schrodinger cat - an object in a quantum superposition of two states with opposite properties. In optics, this is a superposition of two coherent light waves where the fields of the electromagnetic waves point in two opposite directions at once. Until now, experiments could only obtain such superpositions at small amplitudes that limit their use. The Lvovsky group carried out the procedure of "breeding" such states, which makes it possible to obtain optical "cats" of higher amplitudes with greater success.

Co-author and University of Calgary graduate student Anastasia Pushkina explains: "The idea of the experiment was proposed in 2003 by the group of Professor Timothy Ralph of the University of Queensland, Australia. In essence, we cause interference of two "cats" on a beam splitter. This leads to an entangled state in the two output channels of that beam splitter. In one of these channels, a special detector is placed. In the event this detector shows a certain result, a "cat" is born in the second output whose energy is more than twice that of the initial one."

The Lvovsky group tested this method in the lab. In the experiment, they successfully converted a pair of negative squeezed "Schrodinger cats" of amplitude 1.15 to a single positive "cat" of amplitude 1.85. They generated several thousand such enlarged "cats" in their experiment.

"It is important that the procedure can be repeated: new 'cats' can, in turn, be overlapped on a beam splitter, producing one with even higher energy, and so on. Thus, it is possible to push the boundaries of the quantum world step by step, and eventually to understand whether it has a limit," says the first author of the study, a graduate student from the Russian Quantum Center and the Moscow State Pedagogical University, Demid Sychev.

Such macroscopic "Schrodinger cats" would have applications in quantum communication, teleportation and cryptography.

###

About CIFAR

CIFAR creates knowledge that is transforming our world. Established in 1982, the Institute brings together interdisciplinary groups of extraordinary researchers from around the globe to address questions and challenges of importance to the world. Our networks help support the growth of research leaders and are catalysts for change in business, government and society. CIFAR is generously supported by the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, Canadian and international partners, as well as individuals, foundations and corporations.

Media contacts:

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ITHACA, N.Y. - There's a simple way to reduce the opioid epidemic gripping the country, according to new Cornell University research: Make doctors check their patients' previous prescriptions.

The most significant response to the opioid epidemic comes from state governments. Nearly every state now has a database that tracks every prescription for opioids like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin. Using these databases, doctors and pharmacists can retrieve a patient's history to decide whether they are an opioid abuser before prescribing them drugs.

Such databases reduce opioid abuse among Medicare recipients - but only when laws require doctors to consult them, according to a Cornell health care economist and her colleague. Their study refutes previous research suggesting the databases have no effect on opioid abuse. The paper is forthcoming in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

"The main issue is getting providers to change their prescribing behavior. The majority of opioids that people abuse start in the medical system as a legitimate prescription," said co-author Colleen Carey, assistant professor of policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology. Her co-author is Thomas Buchmueller of the University of Michigan.

States that implemented a "must access" database saw a decline in the number of Medicare recipients who got more than a seven-months' supply in a six-month period. And there was a decrease in those who filled a prescription before the previous prescription's supply had been used.

"Doctor shopping" also dropped. Medicare opioid users who got prescriptions from five or more doctors -- a common marker for "doctor shopping" -- fell by 8 percent; the number of those who got opioids from five or more pharmacies declined by more than 15 percent

On the flip side, Medicare patients appeared to evade the new regulations by traveling to a less-regulated state.

Although the study looked only at Medicare recipients, the findings are likely to translate to the general population, the researchers said. The effects were especially large for low-income disabled users and for those who obtain opioid prescriptions from a high number of doctors; both groups have the highest rates of misuse and abuse, Carey said.

The strongest effects were in states with the strictest laws, such as New York, which require doctors to check the opioid history of "every patient, every time." But even states with laws requiring access only under certain circumstances reduced doctor shopping.

Until recently Medicare has had very few legislative tools to curtail the epidemic

And insurance companies have little incentive, because opioids are relatively cheap, costing about $1.60 per day in the study's sample. And opioids don't hit Medicare insurers in the bottom line, making up only 3 percent of their total drug costs, Carey said.

###

Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews. For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.
New York, NY (May 1, 2017)--Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have created a new tool to describe the many possible ways in which a cell may develop. Rooted in the mathematical field of topology, the tool provides a roadmap that offers detailed insight into how stem cells give rise to specialized cells.

The study was published today in Nature Biotechnology.

Every organism begins with one cell. As that cell divides, its copies branch off to become specialized cells--such as heart, bone, or brain cells--in a process known as differentiation. To understand the internal and external cues that move cells along this path, scientists can sequence their RNA--the molecular messenger that translates DNA into proteins and other products.

Sequencing RNA from a batch of cells is not ideal, however, because the cells are usually in different states of development. To address this problem, scientists have developed single-cell RNA sequencing. "It's like a new microscope, giving us the ability to study many biological phenomena at once," said Raul Rabadan, PhD, associate professor of systems biology and biomedical informatics at Columbia and co-author of the paper. "However, researchers are still left with the problem of understanding the relationships between different cell states, which drive the process of development."

To study cellular development, scientists use mathematical tools to analyze massive amounts of sequencing data. But these tools rely on underlying assumptions that narrow the possible results. "Due to the complexity involved in cellular development, models that make assumptions actually limit your ability to make new discoveries," said Abbas Rizvi, PhD, a postdoctoral research scientist in Columbia's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and the lead author of the paper.

Dr. Rizvi, together with Pablo G. Camara, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow and theoretical physicist in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Systems Biology, looked to topology, an area of math that studies the spatial relationships between surfaces and shapes, to identify connections between different cellular states and the genes that are active while cells are in those states. The collaboration developed an algorithm, called single-cell topological data analysis (scTDA). The algorithm analyzes the RNA sequences of individual cells, reconstructing the underlying developmental trajectories, and capturing the progression of different transcriptional programs in time.

The researchers used scTDA to map the path of mouse stem cells, which they had coaxed into becoming motor neuron cells. The map correctly indicated the possible developmental trajectory of these cells, starting as stem cells and finally becoming neurons. By looking at which genes were active near particular forks in the map, the researchers were able to identify proteins that appear to guide cellular development at different points along the path. The method was also applied to study the development paths of stem cells from mouse lungs, human embryos, and mouse brains.

"We expect many more discoveries to come to light as scientists mine this data set," said co-author Tom Maniatis, PhD, the Isidore S. Edelman Professor of Biochemistry, Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia. "It really opens up possibilities for a very deep analysis of individual cells at very specific stages of development," said Dr. Maniatis.

"This approach provides deep insights into the potential fate of a cell, giving us access to the pivotal regulators and molecular transitions that govern a cell's identity--and presenting the opportunity to steer cells away from paths that have a negative effect on its development," said Dr. Rizvi.

The approach is currently being applied to uncover the dynamics and cell makeup of complex biological processes, including cancer.

###

The paper is titled, "Single-cell topological RNA-Seq analysis reveals insights into cellular differentiation and development." Authors included Abbas H. Rizvi (Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY), Pablo G. Camara (CUMC), Elena K. Kandror (CUMC) Thomas J. Roberts (CUMC), Ira Schieren (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York, NY), Tom Maniatis (CUMC), and Raul Rabadan (CUMC).

The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (U54-CA193313-01, R01GM117591, and NS088992) and the ALS Therapy Alliance (ATA-2013-F-056).

The authors declare no financial or other conflicts of interest.

Columbia University Medical Center provides international leadership in basic, preclinical, and clinical research; medical and health sciences education; and patient care. The medical center trains future leaders and includes the dedicated work of many physicians, scientists, public health professionals, dentists, and nurses at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Mailman School of Public Health, the College of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the biomedical departments of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and allied research centers and institutions. Columbia University Medical Center is home to the largest medical research enterprise in New York City and State and one of the largest faculty medical practices in the Northeast. The campus that Columbia University Medical Center shares with its hospital partner, NewYork-Presbyterian, is now called the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. For more information, visit cumc.columbia.edu or columbiadoctors.org.
Geneva, Switzerland, 02 May 2017 - Men need more frequent lung cancer screening than women, according to research presented at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC).1

The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual screening for lung cancer with low dose computed tomography (CT) in adults aged 55 to 80 years who have a 30 pack-year smoking history and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years.2

"Less frequent screening would reduce radiation exposure but previous studies of longer screening intervals produced varied results," said lead author Dr Mi-Young Kim, a radiologist at Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. "This may have been caused by differences in the clinical and radiological presentation of lung cancer in women and men."

This study investigated sex differences in newly developed lung cancer and calculated the optimal CT screening intervals for women and men. The study retrospectively included 46,766 patients who underwent chest CT screening at Asan Medical Center between January 2000 and February 2016. During the study period, 282 patients developed lung cancer. Of these, 186 patients were diagnosed from the initial CT scan and were excluded from the study, while 96 patients (85 men, 11 women) were diagnosed from subsequent CT scans and were included in the study.

In the 96 patients, the researchers analysed the CT screening intervals and the stage and pathology of lung cancer when it was diagnosed, to see if there were any sex differences.

The average time between lung cancer being diagnosed on CT and the previous CT scan was significantly longer in women (5.6 years) than in men (3.6 years). However, the lung cancer stage at diagnosis was higher in men: 82% of lung cancers diagnosed in women were stage I compared to just 49% in men.

Pathological analyses showed that solid nodule (72%) was the most common finding in men, while ground glass opacity nodule (45%) was the most common in women. In men, adenocarcinoma was the most common type (42%), followed by squamous cell carcinoma (35%), small cell lung cancer (18%), and others (5%). All women patients had adenocarcinoma.

Kim said: "Because ground glass opacity nodule is the most common feature of lung cancer in women and all cases are adenocarcinoma, the growth rate of cancers might be low. Most female patients were non-smokers (82%), who have a lower risk of lung cancer, while 87% of men were smokers. We included all patients screened for lung cancer in a 17-year period, but the number of women patients was low and further studies are needed to confirm the sex differences we found."

She concluded: "Our study suggests that the annual follow-up interval for CT is too frequent for women, and scans every 2-3 years might be suitable. By reducing the number of unnecessary CT scans, we can decrease radiation exposure and increase cost effectiveness."

Commenting on the significance of the research, Dr Pilar Garrido, head of the Thoracic Tumour Section of the Medical Oncology Department at Ramon y Cajal University Hospital, Madrid, Spain, said: "Lung cancer is the most common cancer globally, but debate about the optimal screening strategy is ongoing and current selection criteria are based only on age and pack-years. Several studies have highlighted that lung cancer has different features in women compared with men, thereby defining a different entity in female patients."

"Cancer incidence is expected to increase in the future, further straining limited healthcare resources," continued Garrido. "Personalised screening strategies, such as a gender approach, could be a way to optimise results and allocate resources appropriately."

She concluded: "The benefits, harms and feasibility of implementing gender-based lung cancer screening policies should be assessed and compared with those of current recommendations. The rate of non-smoking lung cancer is different between men and women and varies among countries. This should be taken into account when considering a gender-based lung cancer screening policy."

###

Notes to Editors

References

1 Abstract 18PD - 'Optimal screening interval for detection of newly developed lung cancer: Comparison of sexual difference' will be presented by Dr Hyun Jung Koo during the Poster Discussion session 'Epidemiology and innovations in biomarker development' on Saturday, 6 May, 16:45 (CEST).

2 https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/UpdateSummaryFinal/lung-cancer-screening

Disclaimer

This press release contains information provided by the authors of the highlighted abstracts and reflects the content of those abstracts. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ESMO or IASLC who cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the data. Commentators quoted in the press release are required to comply with the ESMO Declaration of Interests policy and the ESMO Code of Conduct.

About the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017

The European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) is the reference event in Europe for professionals treating lung cancers. It is organised by the European Society for Medical Oncology and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer in partnership with ESTRO and ETOP.

ELCC provides a comprehensive multidisciplinary overview of the latest as well as of the state-of-the-art knowledge in thoracic malignancies, covering different aspects such as prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment modalities and the results of basic, clinical and translational research, presented by top international academic experts. Around 2,000 attendees are expected from throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With more than 15,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 130 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. We are committed to supporting our members to develop and advance in a fast-evolving professional environment. http://www.esmo.org

About the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)

The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated to the study of lung cancer. Founded in 1974, the association's membership includes more than 5,000 lung cancer specialists in over 100 countries. Visit http://www.iaslc.org for more information.
With the rise of artificial intelligence, the threat of climate change and the challenges of how to feed the world, educate our children and remain healthy as we age, we all turn towards scientific research to provide the insights and breakthroughs that will improve and save lives.

For a year, the academic open-access publisher Frontiers, has been searching for the hottest research that could have a ground-breaking impact. Almost 800 teams came together around research topics addressing some of these major global challenges. Frontiers has now shortlisted 10 outstanding finalists -- topics edited by the brightest minds from the best universities around the globe, for this new Spotlight Award.

Frontier's Executive Editor, Dr. Frederick Fenter, said, "Frontiers is thrilled to be announcing the ten finalists for this new and prestigious research award. Science plays a critical role in solving many of the global and complex challenges of our time -- and we are confident that this award will catalyze thinking and action around these key issues".

Teams came together to write collections of articles around major scientific challenges. As humans grapple with the rise of artificial intelligence, one common research track was around enhancing human intelligence. For example, one research topic addressed current techniques to augment human brain function, another explored how exercise and video games could enhance our brains. A third topic looked at how mastering new motor skills shapes a child's development and can be used to enhance their intelligence as well as emotional and social well-being.

Other cutting-edge research tackles the challenge of our increasingly complex society by merging the tools of mathematics and physics with social science to help us better understand human interactions and their social and political impacts.

Another topic looked at what it would take to protect the oceans and save marine life that is disappearing at an alarming rate. Looking beyond earth, other research explored high energy particles and how they may make long distance space travel possible by preventing radiation effects -- while at the same time unveiling new potential applications for these high-energy particles in treating cancer.

Frontiers researchers also identified strong trends in the plant sciences. Here teams looked at are at how the relationship between microbes and plants may influence agriculture - and in the future may help us build a more sustainable world. In other research also focusing on microbes scientists looked at how the hidden world of microbes that cover us inside and outside are silently shaping us and our environment. One big question is - are we our own microbiome?

The US$100,000 Frontiers Spotlight Award will support the winning team to organize an international scientific conference around their research topic in 2018. The conference aims to provide a forum that will catalyze, inspire and mobilize the rest of the research community to help tackle this challenge. The meeting will be held in Switzerland at the premier SwissTech Convention Center on the campus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).

The ten finalists are:

Just how much can we augment our brain?

Augmentation of brain function: facts, fiction and controversy, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, edited by Manuel Fernando Casanova, University of Louisville, USA; Mikhail Lebedev, Duke University, USA; Ioan Opris, University of Miami School of Medicine, USA.

What will it take to save the oceans and marine life?

Bridging the Gap Between Policy and Science in Assessing the Health Status of Marine Ecosystems, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, edited by Angel Borja, AZTI Pasaia, Spain; Michael Elliott, University of Hull, UK; Maria C Uyarra, AZTI Tecnalia, Spain; Jacob Carstensen, Aarhus University, Denmark; Marianna Mea, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany

Enhancing children's development through motor activity.

Motor skills and their Foundational Role for Perceptual, Social, and Cognitive Development, published in Frontiers in Psychology, edited by Petra Hauf, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada; Klaus Libertus, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Shaping your brain with exercise and video games.

Cognitive and Brain Plasticity Induced by Physical Exercise, Cognitive Training, Video Games and Combined Interventions, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, edited by Soledad Ballesteros, Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (UNED), Spain; Claudia Voelcker-Rehage, Technische Universitat Chemnitz, Germany; Louis Bherer, Universite de Montreal, Canada

How physics and mathematics is helping us understand society.

At the Crossroads: Lessons and Challenges in Computational Social Science, published in Frontiers in Physics, edited by Javier Borge-Holthoefer, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Spain; Yamir Moreno, University of Zaragoza, Spain; Taha Yasseri, University of Oxford, UK

High-energy charged particles could protect astronauts in space and treat cancer.

Charged Particles in Oncology, published in Frontiers in Oncology, edited by Marco Durante, TIFPA INFN, Italy; Francis A Cucinotta, University of Nevada, USA; Jay Steven Loeffler, Massachusetts General Hospital, USA

Your daily task of repairing your DNA.

Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-relative SUMO in DNA damage response, published in Frontiers in Genetics, edited by Ivan Dikic, Goethe Business School, Germany; Kristijan Ramadan, University of Oxford, UK

Could anaerobic digestion in agriculture slow climate change?

Anaerobic digestion, published in Frontiers in Microbiology, edited by Gavin Collins, NUI Galway, Galway, Ireland; Eric D. van Hullebusch, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education,Netherlands; Giovanni Esposito, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy; Cynthia Carliell-Marquet, University of Birmingham, UK; Fernando G. Fermoso, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Spain

How microbes affect plant life.

Biotrophic plant-microbe interactions, published in Frontiers in Plant Science, edited by Ralph Panstruga, RWTH Aachen University, Germany; Pietro Daniele Spanu, Imperial College London, UK

Are you your microbiome?

Microbiome interplay and control, published in Frontiers in Microbiology, edited by Christine Moissl-Eichinger, Medical University of Graz, Austria; Gabriele Berg, Graz University of Technology, Austria; Martin Grube, University of Graz, Austria

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BOSTON - (May 1, 2017) - Over the decades, scientists have repeatedly shown that patients with increased levels of the hormone insulin in their blood can experience increased risks of cancer. Surprisingly, however, Joslin Diabetes Center researchers now have discovered that impaired effects of insulin also can boost these risks.

The Joslin team found that intestinal tumors grow just as quickly in a mouse cancer model whose "epithelial" cells lining the inside of the intestine have been genetically modified so that insulin can't activate the cells. A second surprise came when the investigators discovered that such tumors grow more quickly in mice when cells in blood vessels surrounding the intestine were genetically modified in the same way.

The research highlights biological mechanisms driven by insulin resistance that impair blood vessel health and may be shared by both cancer and cardiovascular disease, says Christian Rask-Madsen, M.D., Ph.D., a Joslin assistant investigator, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and corresponding author on a paper describing the work in the journal Oncogene.

The study was a collaboration between the labs of Rask-Madsen and C. Ronald Kahn, Joslin's chief academic officer. Years ago, the Kahn lab pioneered techniques to genetically modify given cell types to "knock out" the insulin receptor protein on the cell surface, which activates insulin's actions in the cell, thus creating a state of insulin resistance just in these cells.

In a first set of experiments, postdoctoral researcher and co-lead author Max-Felix Haring found that insulin increased the proliferation of mouse epithelial tumor cells in culture, as expected. But when he and his co-workers created mice modified to carry such cells lacking an insulin receptor, the tumors grew at the same rates as in mice with normal epithelial tumor cells.

That paradox raised questions about the role of insulin signaling among other cells in the tumor microenvironment that surrounds the cancer cells, says Rask-Madsen. So Xuanchun Wang, a postdoctoral researcher and co-lead author on the paper, followed up by generating mice lacking the insulin receptor in "vascular endothelial" cells (which line blood vessels).

Knowing that insulin can stimulate the growth of blood vessels, "our expectation was that knocking out insulin signaling in these cells might slow the growth of blood vessels and reduce tumor formation in these mice," Rask-Madsen says. "But we saw the opposite--an increase in tumor formation."

In earlier work as a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of George King, M.D., Joslin's chief scientific officer, Rask-Madsen studied the links between insulin resistance and arterial disease. This research helped to show that insulin resistance in vascular endothelial cells can create a pro-inflammatory state marked by the heightened presence of certain cell adhesion proteins that make immune cells stick to endothelial cells, the first step in enabling the immune cells to travel from the blood stream to tissues.

Now applying the concept to tumor formation, Rask-Madsen and his colleagues discovered similar signs of a pro-inflammatory state in the mice with insulin receptors knocked-out in vascular endothelial cells. These mice displayed higher levels of both cell-adhesion proteins and of immune cells called neutrophils. This would be expected to promote tumor progression and could therefore explain the increase in tumors in these mice.

"We're very interested in following up by finding more direct proof that if you block the recruitment of immune cells to tumors, you can reverse this phenomenon in these animals with endothelial cell insulin resistance," Rask-Madsen says. Additionally, his team will examine indications that the same pathways may be at work in people.

Although scientists have examined insulin action in tumors for years, the ability to knock out the insulin receptor in specific types of tumor cells adds a level of sophistication to these investigations, Rask-Madsen emphasizes. "It's also important to look not only at different tumor cell transformations but at all the cells in the tumor microenvironment, including these endothelial cells," he says.

"We have a real opportunity to propose mechanisms for the risk factors that overlap for cardiovascular disease and cancer formation," he adds. "We're very interested to see if modifying these risk factors could improve vascular function and reduce risk of both cancer and cardiovascular disease."

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Lead funding for the research came from the National Cancer Institute. Other Joslin co-authors included Samuel Lockhart, Ditte Srensen and Siegfried Ussar. Thomas Rathjen of Novo Nordisk contributed while participating in a joint fellowship between Joslin and the company. Other co-authors included Lars Melholt Rasmussen of the Odense University Hospital and the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark, and Monica Bertagnolli of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School.

About Joslin Diabetes Center

Joslin Diabetes Center is world-renowned for its deep expertise in diabetes treatment and research. Joslin is dedicated to finding a cure for diabetes and ensuring that people with diabetes live long, healthy lives. We develop and disseminate innovative patient therapies and scientific discoveries throughout the world. Joslin is an independent, non-profit institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School, and one of only 11 NIH-designated Diabetes Research Centers in the U.S.

For more information, visit http://www.joslin.org or follow @joslindiabetes
The mysterious Kodanad estate murder has been nearly solved due to a crystal artefact which has turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence.

By Pramod Madhav: The mysterious Kodanad estate murder has nearly been solved due to a crystal artefact which turned has out to be a crucial piece of evidence.

The death of Om Bahadur, a security guard during the time a political hurricane was lashing inside AIADMK raised too many suspicions about many bigwigs' involvement. This was making the job very hard for the cops. Five special teams headed by five ADSPs were sent to different corners of the state.

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The main question was how could someone be murdered inside a zone that was held as a fortress during Jayalalitha's regime. Even the other security guard, Krishna Bahadur became a suspect. But he was the first to paint the pictures about the incident and the culprits.

Finally Tami Nadu police arrested three suspects and another three were detained by Kerala police. The other mysterious fact was the death of Kanagaraj who worked for sometime as a driver in Kodanad which was followed by a road accident where his accomplice Sayan escaped his life but lost his wife and daughter.

Now, information has leaked that as cops were combing the roads for the suspects which began at 2.30am on that fateful day, they had stopped a Ford Endeavour which was travelling towards Thrissur. Police asked the occupants of the car to show their belongings which were four gold coloured watches with Jayalalitha's picture inside the dial, a leather strapped watch and a crystal figure of a rhinoceros. Police at that point of time were not aware that those were stolen items.

CULPRITS TO BE QUESTIONED

Yet, when the culprits were apprehended later, the watches had gone missing. When the cops did not find anything incriminating with occupants of the Endeavour car, they were let off and their cellphone numbers were taken for further questioning.

As the days went by, cops took the CCTV footage from various areas, cross checked it and found that the Endeavour and Innova were suspiciously moving around Kodanadu. Immediately Nilagiri SP ordered to apprehend the suspects but their cellphones were switched off which raised more curiosity.

Police finally rounded up three men near Thrissur. "These guys had thrown the watches into a water body on the way to Thrissur as they knew we had cornered them. They have almost confessed now. Kanagaraj seems to be one of the masterminds and he had told them that close to two hundred crore rupees was inside the bungalow and there were no CCTV cameras or dogs", explained a police officer.

Apparently, the bungalow location where the thieves had access to has two rooms and a pantry. The police claims that they couldn't find any evidence of break-in. "There were no disturbance at all in the two rooms or a small pantry which housed some old things," the officer explained.

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However, Nilagiri SP Murali Rambha said that investigation is still going on and more forensic techniques will be used to see that there are no stones are left unturned.

ALSO READ:

Kodanad estate murder mystery solved: Police arrest old driver, Kerala hawala operators planned the crime

Kodanad murder mystery: 2 accused meet with accidents; property papers of Jayalalithaa worth crores stolen

WATCH: Kodanad estate murder mystery: Kerala hawala operator masterminded the attack on security guard

--- ENDS ---
MANHATTAN, KANSAS - Kansas State University researchers will continue to lead efforts to combat a deadly bacterial disease that's affected up to 80 percent of Florida's citrus trees and cost billions in lost revenue.

A $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative supports the continuing efforts of researchers from 10 U.S. academic and national research labs, and the University of Grenada in Spain, who have joined forces to combat citrus greening, a disease that has all but decimated the citrus industry in Florida and is evident in Texas and California groves.

Caused by the proliferation of a bacterial species Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas) in citrus trees, the disease is spread by tiny sap-sucking insects called Asian citrus psyllids as they feed. Once introduced into the host trees via the psyllids, the bacteria move through the veins of trees. The disease starves the tree of nutrients and damages its roots. Fruit from the tree are small and misshapen.

"Our goal is to establish a research pipeline to develop and deliver novel therapies designed to kill the insect when it tries to feed on citrus or block its ability to transmit the bacteria," said Susan Brown, university distinguished professor in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University and principal investigator on the project. "Either way, it can't spread the disease anymore."

The new funding will allow researchers to build on work they began two years ago.

Their approach requires detailed knowledge of the interactions between the insect and the bacteria and the effects of any treatment on citrus. Since it is difficult to access information on such diverse systems, an early goal of the project - and one that has been accomplished - was to develop a platform that allows researchers to access information about the genes, proteins and metabolites of the insect, bacterium and citrus to better understand how to combat the disease.

Another major milestone accomplished was the analysis of the psyllid genome, which involved several undergraduate researchers at Kansas State University, Cornell University and Indian River State College. The students identified genes in the insect genome that can be targeted in new therapies.

Jason Ellis, Kansas State University associate professor and interim head of the Department of Communications and Agricultural Education, is a co-principal investigator on the project and leads efforts to interact with industry, academic and consumer groups.

"The continued funding will allow us to move our work from the laboratory to the green house and the grove for efficient deployment to the citrus growers," Ellis said.

Sometimes referred to as simply "greening," the disease was first detected in Florida in 2005 and spread rapidly through the state's citrus groves.

Fruit from infected trees is safe to eat, but production is reduced so much that citrus fruit may be less available and more expensive.

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More information can be found at the project website.

A survey of citrus growers conducted in 2015 by the University of Florida indicated that as much as 90 percent of their acreage and 80 percent of their trees were infected by the deadly greening disease, which put a huge dent in the state's $10.7 billion citrus industry. The survey indicated Florida lost about $7.8 billion in revenue, 162,200 citrus acres and 7,513 jobs to citrus greening since 2007. Orange production alone dropped from 242 million boxes to 104 million boxes in 2014. More information about the survey is available at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe983 and https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160418092420.htm.
New Orleans, LA - The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research of the National Institutes of Health has awarded LSU Health New Orleans' School of Dentistry an R01 grant in the amount of $2,465,297 over five years to develop stronger, longer-lasting dental filling materials with antibacterial properties to inhibit recurrent cavities and extend the life of the restoration. Xiaoming Xu, PhD, Professor and Head of the Division of Biomaterials, is the principal investigator on the grant.

Tooth decay is the most prevalent chronic oral disease. The treatment for cavities, known medically as caries, is to remove the decayed tooth tissues and restore teeth with filling materials such as dental composites. Currently, composite restorations have a limited service life - about five to seven years -- and their replacement accounts for 60% of dental operations.

"The leading cause for the failure of composite restorations is the development of secondary caries caused by bacterial biofilms at the restoration margin," notes Dr. Xu, who is also Director of Biomaterials Research at LSU Health New Orleans School of Dentistry."Another cause is bulk fractures due to the weakness of the material."

A bacterial biofilm is a slimy layer or film containing colonies of bacteria and the sticky, substance they excrete, which allows them to attach to a surface. Biofilms are more resistant than ordinary bacteria because they contain different kinds of bacteria that stick together, and the substance they excrete also forms a protective barrier around them. The biofilms on teeth are known as dental plaque. Dental plaque uses the food and drinks people consume to produce acids that break down tooth enamel leading to decay.

Although much effort has been directed towards the development of dental materials that can inhibit bacterial biofilms and reduce secondary cavities, most have had either poor mechanical properties or an unacceptable, dark shade, such as silver-containing materials.

Dr. Xu's group has been developing a series of novel antibacterial fluoride-releasing materials (dental composites, bonding agents and sealants) that have shown enhanced fluoride-releasing and recharge capabilities, promising antibacterial effect, and good mechanical properties or bonding strength. This new grant will support further development of these promising materials. The researchers will test a combination of new technologies that will release antibacterial agents in response to the presence of acids. These materials may also be used in sealants, crowns and cement, as well as other dental applications.

"Our long-term goal is to develop a new generation of dental materials that have a high efficacy to inhibit oral biofilm formation as well as excellent physical and mechanical properties," says Xu. "We expect that the novel dental materials developed in this project will have significantly longer service life and will be excellent candidates for future clinical trials."

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LSU Health New Orleans Co-investigators include Dr. Zezhang Wen, Dr. Thomas Lallier at the School of Dentistry and Dr. Qingzhao Yu at the School of Public Health, along with Dr. Hyun Koo at the University of Pennsylvania.

LSU Health New Orleans School of Dentistry is the only dental school in the State of Louisiana. Three out of every four dentists and dental hygienists practicing in Louisiana today are graduates of the school. From a national perspective, LSU Health New Orleans School of Dentistry is unique among the more than 65 dental schools in the United States because it offers degrees in dentistry, dental hygiene and dental laboratory technology. By training students in all aspects of dentistry, the School offers a level of training that has resulted in a reputation for outstanding clinical education.

LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans educates Louisiana's health care professionals. The state's most comprehensive health sciences university, LSU Health New Orleans includes a School of Medicine, the state's only School of Dentistry, Louisiana's only public School of Public Health, and Schools of Allied Health Professions, Nursing, and Graduate Studies. LSU Health New Orleans faculty take care of patients in public and private hospitals and clinics throughout the region. In the vanguard of biosciences research in a number of areas in a worldwide arena, the LSU Health New Orleans research enterprise generates jobs and enormous economic impact. LSU Health New Orleans faculty have made lifesaving discoveries and continue to work to prevent, advance treatment, or cure disease. To learn more, visit http://www.lsuhsc.edu, http://www.twitter.com/LSUHealthNO or http://www.facebook.com/LSUHSC.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Mice have been and will continue to be good base models for human medicinal advances. However, their size and some of their physiological differences leave them lacking in important areas of human medicine, including neurological and reproductive research.

In a study led by Michigan State University, scientists have shown that gene editing using CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be quite effective in rhesus monkey embryos - the first time this has been demonstrated in the U.S.

The results, published in the current issue of Human Molecular Genetics, open the door for pursuing gene editing in nonhuman primates as models for new therapies, including pharmacological, gene- and stem cell-based therapies, said Keith Latham, MSU animal science professor and lead author of the study.

"Our paper is the first in the U.S. to publish on the use of this technology in nonhuman primate embryos," he said. "Using nonhuman primate embryos is important because the closer we can approximate the human condition in the animal model, the better the chances of developing successful treatments as well as limiting risks that may be encountered in clinical trials."

While mice are mammals, they bear litters rather than individual offspring. Their anatomy and physiology differ in many respects from humans. While many advances in understanding diseases have been made first using mouse models, making the leap from a successful mouse study to clinical trials can be difficult or impossible for some areas of research.

"If scientists want to test drugs for dementia, Alzheimer's or autism, ideal models would react similarly to humans in regards to the reduction of symptoms, outbreak of side effects, such as enduring the same lesions as humans do, or exhibiting similar behavioral characteristics," said Latham, who's with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and an MSU AgBioResearch scientist.

"Nonhuman primates are much better models for such diseases. And in terms of some surgical procedures, implants, developing prosthetics, or other therapies, nonhuman primates can prove better suited than rodents."

CRISPR has opened the door to do gene editing in many species other than mice. Developing this technology in nonhuman primates in the U.S. would allow more scientists in this country to incorporate these models into their research, he added.

The advances will allow scientists to move forward and tackle some of the technical barriers related to the research. Other issues that may be later resolved are the commitment to increased costs and longer waiting times when using nonhuman primates.

Fruit flies, often used in genetic studies, reproduce in two weeks. Rodents, with pre-disposed genetic characteristics, can be easily ordered and shipped to laboratories within days. Committing to raising nonhuman primates can cost around $15,000 and can take as long as 4-6 years to have a mature monkey with the desired genetic characteristics.

The high-efficiency of gene editing that scientists are now able to achieve makes it worth the cost and the wait, Latham said.

To conduct the research, Latham partnered with the California National Primate Research Center, where the monkey embryos were produced, in collaboration with his co-investigator Dr. Catherine VandeVoort, an expert in nonhuman primate reproduction. Dr. Daniel Bauer, at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute also collaborated on the study.

The resources offered by the CNPRC were crucial for this work, Latham said.

"Extreme amounts of care go into maintaining the well-being of the monkeys," he said. "They follow strict protocols to ensure this is a priority. So being able to conduct the science here at Michigan State while partnering with the center is the best combination of science and animal welfare."

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Additional MSU scientists contributing to the study include Uros Midic, Kailey Vincent and Benjamin Goheen.

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, MSU AgBioResearch, MSU, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, American Society of Hematology, Charles H. Hood Foundation and Cooley's Anemia Foundation.

Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

For MSU news on the Web, go to MSUToday. Follow MSU News on Twitter at twitter.com/MSUnews.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a user-friendly, inexpensive controller for manipulating virtual objects in a computer program in three dimensions. The device allows users to manipulate objects more quickly - with less lag time - than existing technologies.

The device, called CAPTIVE, offers six degrees of freedom (6DoF) for users - with applications ranging from video gaming to medical diagnostics to design tools. And CAPTIVE makes use of only three components: a simple cube, the webcam already found on most smartphones and laptops, and custom software.

The cube is plastic, with differently colored balls at each corner. It resembles a Tinkertoy, but is made using a 3-D printer. When users manipulate the cube, the image is captured by the webcam. Video recognition software tracks the movement of the cube in three dimensions by tracking how each of the colored balls moves in relation to the others. Video demonstrating CAPTIVE can be seen here: https://youtu.be/gRN5bYtYe3M.

"The primary advantage of CAPTIVE is that it is efficient," says Zeyuan Chen, lead author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student in NC State's Department of Computer Science. "There are a number of tools on the market that can be used to manipulate 3-D virtual objects, but CAPTIVE allows users to perform these tasks much more quickly."

To test CAPTIVE's efficiency, researchers performed a suite of standard experiments designed to determine how quickly users can complete a series of tasks.

The researchers found, for example, that CAPTIVE allowed users to rotate objects in three dimensions almost twice as fast as what is possible with competing technologies.

"Basically, there's no latency; no detectable lag time between what the user is doing and what they see on screen," Chen says.

CAPTIVE is also inexpensive compared to other 6DoF input devices.

"There are no electronic components in the system that aren't already on your smartphone, tablet or laptop, and 3-D printing the cube is not costly," Chen says. "That really leaves only the cost of our software."

The paper, "Performance Characteristics of a Camera-Based Tangible Input Device for Manipulation of 3D Information," will be presented at the Graphics Interface conference being held in Edmonton, Alberta, May 16-19. The paper was co-authored by Christopher Healey, a professor of computer science at NC State and in the university's Institute for Advanced Analytics; and Robert St. Amant, an associate professor of computer science at NC State. The work was done with support from the National Science Foundation under grant number 1420159.

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The content of a children's book -- not its form as a print book or a digital book -- predicts how well children understand a story, finds a new study by NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

The findings, presented on May 1 at the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting in San Antonio, suggest that both digital stories and reading storybooks in person present opportunities for learning vocabulary and comprehension.

Given the rich language in books, reading aloud storybooks is an important activity for engaging children and developing their early literacy skills.

It has been less than clear what role digital storybooks -- which have grown in popularity in recent years -- play in this learning. Earlier research suggests that digitized stories and videos can provide a context for engaging children in vocabulary and comprehension learning activities, as they can bring stories to life through sound, action, and multimedia supports like defining tricky words.

"Although nothing can replace the interactivity that comes from a live read aloud experience between an adult and child, there are certain features in video that might enhance word learning, especially for children with limited vocabulary," said Susan B. Neuman, professor of childhood and literacy education at NYU Steinhardt and the study's coauthor.

However, there has been increasing concern regarding children's ability to comprehend stories in this form. Research has found that children learn better through interactions with a live person than with video presentations. This learning difference, demonstrated in numerous studies with infants and toddlers, has been coined the "video deficit."

In the face of overwhelming evidence on the "video deficit," screen time has been discouraged among infants and toddlers. Nevertheless, children still engage with televisions, tablets, and phones. A 2013 study found that in a typical day, 83 percent of children ages six months to six years use some form of screen media.

Is the "video deficit" still present as children grow into preschoolers? The current study, funded by Amazon, examined children's word learning and comprehension from stories read aloud and in digital form. It sought to determine whether there are differences in children's vocabulary and comprehension, as well as their interest in stories, depending on the medium.

The researchers engaged 38 preschool children ages 3 to 4 years in listening to four storybooks: two in digital form and two print books read aloud. The digital stories came from Speakaboos, a digital library of interactive stories targeted to preschoolers and kindergartners. Each story had animated pages that turned, characters that moved with the action of the story, and text that lit up during the narration. The researchers carefully adapted the four digital stories into printed books that were read aloud by an adult.

The children heard all four stories, but were randomly assigned to hear and watch two on a tablet, while two were read aloud by an adult. Following each story, children completed tasks measuring their story comprehension, vocabulary, and motivation for reading across media formats.

To measure comprehension, the children were asked to name story elements like the setting, characters, event, plot or theme, and the story's resolution. They were also asked to sequence the story by putting the events in the correct order.

The researchers found no significant differences across medium. Children comprehended equally well regardless of whether the story was read aloud or in digital form. Similarly, there were no differences in motivation to read and learn.

"What was most striking in our findings were the similarities, not the contrasts, in children's responses to the medium of instruction," said Kevin M. Wong, a doctoral student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at NYU Steinhart and the study's coauthor.

There were, however, differences in comprehension across stories, with children having more limited understanding of certain stories than others. This suggests that neither medium was able to bolster children's comprehension when the story was perceived to be difficult or not motivating, and it is the content of the book rather than its form that influenced story comprehension.

Therefore, the "video deficit" -- while present with very young children - may no longer be a stumbling block to comprehension for children in the preschool years.

"It's possible that when it comes to books, we have overestimated the means of delivery and have underestimated the importance of the content conveyed in the media. Although certainly not a substitute for parent-child interactive reading, digital stories from quality media sources may represent an important source of learning for young children," Neuman said.

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Tanya Kaefer of Lakehead University's Department of Education also coauthored the study.

About the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development (steinhardt.nyu.edu.
The Society of Biological Psychiatry (SOBP) awarded the 2017 George N. Thompson Award to Society member Stephen Strakowski, MD, Inaugural Chair of Psychiatry at the Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, for outstanding service to promote the welfare of the organization. Dr. Kerry Ressler, President of SOBP, will present the award to Dr. Strakowski on May 19, 2017 at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society in San Diego, California.

In presenting the award, Dr. Ressler expressed the Society's gratitude for Dr. Strakowski's leadership as president and councilor, as editor of the Society's newsletter, and for his continued support and guidance in developing a vision for the future of the Society.

An accomplished psychiatrist and professor, Dr. Strakowski served as President of SOBP from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, Dr. Strakowski began serving a 5-year position on the SOBP Council, and has served as the Newsletter Editor since 2010. He has also served as Chair of the Gold Medal Award Committee, Strategic Planning Workgroup, and member of the Journal Editorial Committee.

The SOBP established the George N. Thompson Award for Distinguished Service in 1982. The award recognized Dr. George N. Thompson's role as one of the founders of the Society in 1944 and his contributions over the years to the growth of the Society. An Honorific Committee composed of the current and past five presidents select the recipient from nominations submitted by SOBP members. The recipient may be honored for work in the areas of leadership, governance, development of publications, special projects, financial contributions, or other service recognized as distinguished by the Council.

A list of past George Thompson Award recipients can be found here.

###

About the Society of Biological Psychiatry:

The Society of Biological Psychiatry was founded in l945 to encourage the study of the biological causes of and treatments for psychiatric disorders. Its continuing purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms, and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior.

To achieve its purpose, the Society creates venues for the exchange of scientific information that will foster the advancement of psychiatric neuroscience and therapeutics. To this end, the Society sponsors an annual meeting, maintains web-based resources, grants awards to distinguished clinical and basic researchers, and publishes the journal, Biological Psychiatry. The term "biological psychiatry" emphasizes the biological nature of behavior and its disorders and implies the use of the medical model; but in so doing, it encompasses other major elements of modern psychiatric medicine, including its humanitarian mission, psychological foundation, and socio-cultural orientation.

The vision of the Society of Biological Psychiatry is to be the leading professional organization in the integration, advancement, and promulgation of science relevant to psychiatric disorders, with the ultimate goal of reducing or preventing the suffering of those with these disorders. For more information, visit http://www.sobp.org or contact us at sobp@sobp.org or 904-953-2842.
The Society of Biological Psychiatry is pleased to honor the Simons Foundation with the 2017 Humanitarian Award. The prestigious award recognizes the crucial contributions of those whose efforts have had a very visible and public impact on both the field of biological psychiatry and the people suffering from mental illnesses. Dr. Kerry Ressler, President of the Society will present the award on May 19, 2017 at the 72nd Annual Meeting in San Diego, California.

The Simons Foundation received the award for its leadership in decreasing stigma, advancing awareness, and contributing materially to the advancement of research in biological psychiatry. An Honorific Committee composed of the current and past five Society presidents selected the Simons Foundation from a pool of nominees. The prestigious award comes with a $5,000 cash prize.

Founded in 1994 by Drs. James and Marilyn Simons, the Simons Foundation is a private organization in New York that seeks to advance basic research on fundamental questions of biology through its Life Sciences division and by supporting early career scientists. In 2003 the foundation launched the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), which has supported hundreds of investigators around the globe with the goal to improve the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of autism spectrum disorders. The Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain, launched in 2014, is building a multi-disciplinary community of scientists to understand internal brain processes that give rise to cognition. The foundation has also made significant contributions to the field and to society through resources and outreach, such as public lectures, to further increase the impact of discoveries in the field.

A full list of past Humanitarian Award winners can be found here.

###

About the Society of Biological Psychiatry:

The Society of Biological Psychiatry was founded in l945 to encourage the study of the biological causes of and treatments for psychiatric disorders. Its continuing purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms, and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior.

To achieve its purpose, the Society creates venues for the exchange of scientific information that will foster the advancement of psychiatric neuroscience and therapeutics. To this end, the Society sponsors an annual meeting, maintains web-based resources, grants awards to distinguished clinical and basic researchers, and publishes the journal, Biological Psychiatry. The term "biological psychiatry" emphasizes the biological nature of behavior and its disorders and implies the use of the medical model; but in so doing, it encompasses other major elements of modern psychiatric medicine, including its humanitarian mission, psychological foundation, and socio-cultural orientation.

The vision of the Society of Biological Psychiatry is to be the leading professional organization in the integration, advancement, and promulgation of science relevant to psychiatric disorders, with the ultimate goal of reducing or preventing the suffering of those with these disorders. For more information, visit http://www.sobp.org contact us at sobp@sobp.org or 904-953-2842.
Imagine wearing clothes with layers of paper that protect you from dangerous bacteria.

A Rutgers-led team has invented an inexpensive, effective way to kill bacteria and sanitize surfaces with devices made of paper.

"Paper is an ancient material, but it has unique attributes for new, high-tech applications," said Aaron Mazzeo, an assistant professor in Rutgers' Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. "We found that by applying high voltage to stacked sheets of metallized paper, we were able to generate plasma, which is a combination of heat, ultraviolet radiation and ozone that kill microbes."

The researchers detail their invention in a study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A video detailing the work is also available on YouTube.

In the future, paper-based sanitizers may be suitable for clothing that sterilizes itself, devices that sanitize laboratory equipment and smart bandages to heal wounds, among other uses, the study says. The motivation for this study was to create personal protective equipment that might contain the spread of infectious diseases, such as the devastating 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

The researchers' invention consists of paper with thin layers of aluminum and hexagon/honeycomb patterns that serve as electrodes to produce the plasma, or ionized gas. The fibrous and porous nature of the paper allows gas to permeate it, fueling the plasma and facilitating cooling.

"To our knowledge, we're the first to use paper as a base to generate plasma," said Jingjin Xie, the study's lead author and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

In experiments, the paper-based sanitizers killed more than 99 percent of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a yeast species) and more than 99.9 percent of E. coli bacteria cells. Most E. coli bacteria are harmless and are an important part of a healthy human intestinal tract. However, some types of E. coli can cause diarrhea, urinary tract infections, pneumonia and other illnesses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Preliminary results showed that our sanitizers can kill spores from bacteria, which are hard to kill using conventional sterilization methods," said Qiang (Richard) Chen, study coauthor and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant Biology in Rutgers' School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

"Our next phase is to vigorously test how effective our sanitizer system is in killing spores," said James F. White Jr., study coauthor and professor of plant pathology in the Department of Plant Biology.

Mazzeo said one of the goals of their ongoing research is to make sensors that resemble how human and animal skin provides protection from external microbes and bacteria, while detecting input (touch, force, temperature and moisture) from environmental surroundings. Such sensors might cover parts of prosthetics, buildings or vehicles. It also might be possible to sterilize vehicles, robots or devices before they enter contamination-prone environments and when they come out to keep them from contaminating people and clean environments.

Professor Mazzeo is a recent recipient of a 2017 NSF CAREER Award, which will allow his research group to continue work with papertronic sensors. The scientists will explore the design and fabrication of paper-based sensors for wearable devices capable of measuring brain waves and sweat to determine human alertness and stress. Their future work should lead to electronic devices that bridge the gap between machines and humans, while creating new processing techniques for renewable paper products.

###

Study authors also include Poornima Suresh, an electrical and computer engineering major and undergraduate researcher in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, along with Subrata Roy, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.

Funding for this study came from the National Science Foundation, John E. and Christina C. Craighead Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture-NIFA, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The Rutgers Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University Research Council and an A. Walter Tyson Assistant Professorship also provided assistance to complete this research. AR Metallizing, Ltd. (a Nissha Company) provided the metallized paper.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S77hmlh6Fzw&feature=youtu.be
Researchers have been trying to understand why up to 85 percent of women experience recurrence of high-grade serous ovarian cancer -- the most common subtype of ovarian cancer -- after standard treatment with the chemotherapy drug carboplatin.

Preclinical research from Dr. Sanaz Memarzadeh, who is a member of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, has potentially solved this mystery and pinpointed a combination therapy that may be effective for up to 50 percent of women with ovarian cancer.

Memarzadeh's research, published in the journal Precision Oncology, shows a new combination therapy of carboplatin and an experimental drug called birinapant can improve survival in mice with ovarian cancer tumors. Additional findings reveal that testing for a specific protein could identify ovarian tumors for which the treatment could be effective. Importantly, the treatment could also target cancers that affect other parts of the body, including the bladder, cervix, colon and lung cancer.

In 2015, Memarzadeh and her team uncovered and isolated carboplatin-resistant ovarian cancer stem cells. These cells have high levels of proteins called cIAPs, which prevent cell death after chemotherapy. Since the cancer stem cells survive carboplatin treatment, they regenerate the tumor; with each recurrence of ovarian cancer, treatment options become more limited. Memarzadeh showed that birinapant, which degrades cIAPs, can make carboplatin more effective against some ovarian cancer tumors.

"I've been treating women with ovarian cancer for about two decades and have seen firsthand that ovarian cancer treatment options are not always as effective as they should be," said Memarzadeh, director of the G.O. Discovery Lab and member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Our previous research was promising, but we still had questions about what percentage of tumors could be targeted with the birinapant and carboplatin combination therapy, and whether this combination could improve overall survival by eradicating chemotherapy-resistant ovarian cancer tumors."

In this new study, the research team first tested whether the combination therapy could improve survival in mice. Half of the mice tested had carboplatin-resistant human ovarian cancer tumors and the other half had carboplatin-sensitive tumors. The team administered birinapant or carboplatin as well as the two drugs combined and then monitored the mice over time. While birinapant or carboplatin alone had minimal effect, the combination therapy doubled overall survival in half of the mice regardless of whether they had carboplatin-resistant or carboplatin-sensitive tumors.

"Our results suggest that the treatment is applicable in some, but not all, tumors," said Rachel Fujikawa, a fourth year undergraduate student in Memarzadeh's lab and co-first author of the study.

To assess the combination therapy's rate of effectiveness in tumors, the team went on to test 23 high-grade serous ovarian cancer tumors from independent patients. Some were from patients who had never been treated with carboplatin and some were from patients who had carboplatin-resistant cancer.

With these samples, the researchers generated ovarian cancer tumors utilizing a method called disease-in-a-dish modeling and tested the same treatments previously tested in mice. Once again, carboplatin or birinapant alone had some effect, while the combination of birinapant and carboplatin successfully eliminated the ovarian cancer tumors in approximately 50 percent of samples. Importantly, the combination therapy worked for both carboplatin-resistant and carboplatin-sensitive tumors.

The researchers also measured cIAPs (the target for the drug birinapant) in the tumors. They found a strong correlation between cancer stem cells with high levels of cIAP and a positive response to the combination therapy. Since elevated levels of cIAPs have been linked to chemotherapy resistance in other cancers, the researchers wondered if the combination therapy could effectively target those cancers as well.

The team created disease-in-a-dish models using human bladder, cervix, colon and lung cancer cells and tested the combination therapy. Similar to the ovarian cancer findings, 50 percent of the tumors were effectively targeted and high cIAP levels correlated with a positive response to the combination therapy.

"I believe that our research potentially points to a new treatment option. In the near future, I hope to initiate a phase 1/2 clinical trial for women with ovarian cancer tumors predicted to benefit from this combination therapy," said Memarzadeh, gynecologic oncology surgeon and professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

###

The research was supported by an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant (RSG-14-217-407 01-TBG), the Phase One Foundation, the Ovarian Cancer Circle Inspired by Robin Babbini, a STOP Cancer Margot Lansing Memorial Seed award, the National Institutes of Health (R01CA183877 and #U54 MD007598) and the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center.
AURORA, Colo. (May 1, 2017) - In perhaps the largest national suicide intervention trial ever conducted, researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Brown University found that phone calls to suicidal patients following discharge from Emergency Departments led to a 30 percent reduction in future suicide attempts.

The study was published recently in JAMA Psychiatry.

The year-long trial, which involved 1,376 patients in eight locations nationwide, provided suicidal patients with interventions that included specialized screening, safety planning guidance and follow-up telephone calls.

"People who are suicidal are often disconnected and socially isolated," said study co-author Dr. Michael Allen, MD, professor of psychiatry and emergency medicine at the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Depression Center at CU Anschutz. "So any positive contact with the world can make them feel better."

Allen is also medical director of Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners in Denver which has already implemented a similar program where counselors call suicidal patients following their discharge from Emergency Departments (EDs).

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. In 2015, there were 44,193 deaths by suicide nationally. Over one million people attempt to take their own life every year.

Colorado routinely ranks among the top 10 states for suicide with about 1,000 deaths a year. Last year, it was number seven in the country. The state Legislature has set a goal of reducing suicides by 20 percent by 2024.

Allen said simply handing a suicidal patient a psychiatric referral when discharged isn't enough.

"We call them up to seven times to check on them after discharge," he said. "If they aren't there we leave a message and call again. For many, this telephone call is all they get."

The crisis center has worked with 17 of Colorado's 88 EDs and is hoping to increase that number and eventually go statewide.

"We don't need more brick and mortar buildings, we can reduce suicide risk by simply calling people on the phone," Allen said.

His colleague and study collaborator Dr. Emmy Betz agreed.

"Telephone follow-up programs offer a great way to help bridge an ED visit to outpatient mental health care and hopefully save lives," said Betz, an associate professor of emergency medicine at CU Anschutz who has conducted extensive research on suicide. "It would be great to see such programs become more widely implemented. Suicide is a leading cause of death, especially in Colorado, and a shortage of inpatient and outpatient mental health care options make innovative approaches like telephone counseling even more attractive."

The study was led by Brown University and Butler Hospital psychologist Ivan Miller.

Miller, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, said he was encouraged that they were able to impact suicide attempts among this population with a relatively limited intervention.

While suicide prevention efforts such as hotlines are well known, published controlled trials of specific interventions are much rarer, Miller said.

"We were happy that we were able to find these results," he said.

This report was one of several from the Emergency Department Safety Assessment and Follow-up Evaluation (ED-SAFE) study led by Miller, Professor Edwin Boudreaux of the University of Massachusetts and Dr. Carlos Camargo of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University.

Dr. Betz was the principal investigator for Colorado's ED-SAFE site.

The trial took place in three phases to create three comparison groups. In the first phase, 497 patients received each ED's usual treatment as a control group. In phase two universal screening was implemented and 377 patients received additional attention in the ED. In the third phase, 502 patients received the experimental intervention.

Those patients received the same Phase 2 care including additional suicide screening from ED physicians, suicide prevention information from nurses and a personal safety plan they could fill out to prepare for times when they might begin harboring suicidal thoughts again.

Over the next year, they also received periodic phone calls from trained providers at Butler Hospital in Providence, R.I., who would discuss suicide risk factors, personal values and goals, safety and future planning, treatment engagement, and problem solving.

The number of suicide attempts and the proportion of people attempting suicide declined significantly in the intervention group compared to treatment as usual. The middle group, which received only additional screening, did not show a significant drop compared to the treatment as usual group.

"This is a remarkably low cost, low tech intervention that has achieved impressive results," Dr. Allen said.

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"Most irresponsible and reprehensible thing coming from a former Chief Minister. I request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence," KT Rama Rao tweeted from his personal handle, @KTRTRS.

By India Today Web Desk: Senior TRS leader and Telangana Minister for Industries and Commerce KT Rama Rao has hit out at senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for his allegation that the state police created a bogus Islamic State (ISIS) website to radicalise Muslim men and encourage them to join the terror network.

"Most irresponsible and reprehensible thing coming from a former Chief Minister. I request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence," KT Rama Rao tweeted from his personal handle, @KTRTRS.

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Earlier today, Digvijaya Singh, in a series of tweets, had made the shocking allegation that the Telangana Police has set up a fake ISIS website to lure Muslims.

"Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim youths and encouraging them to become ISIS modules. Is it ethical? Is it moral? Has (Chief Minister) KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim youths and encourage them to join ISIS? If he has, then shouldn't he own the responsibility and resign?" the senior Congress leader tweeted.

The Congress leader also raised questions on suspected ISIS member Saifullah's encounter. He said it was on the basis of the Telangana Police's information that the Madhya Pradesh police arrested the accused behind the March 7 Shajapur train blast. Saifullaha was killed in an encounter in Kanpur on the same day.

"It was on their information that MP Police arrested accused who were responsible for the bomb blast in train in Shajapur District of MP. It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day," he tweeted.

ALSO READ:

Digvijaya Singh removed as Congress' in-charge of Goa and Karnataka

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WATCH| Congress sacks Digvijaya Singh as in-charge of Goa and Karnataka

--- ENDS ---
Immunotherapy, in which cells from the human immune system are unleashed to fight disease, has been the big story in cancer treatment over the past few years. When it works, it can spur long-lasting remission in patients for whom other treatments have failed. But most patients don't benefit, and there is still no good way to predict who will respond.

A team of researchers led by an engineer from the University of Houston is trying another tack - designing immune system cells that can survive within a tumor even when the nutrients needed to sustain them aren't available. That should allow the cells to work more efficiently in more people.

Navin Varadarajan, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UH, works with T cells, immune cells that can recognize and attack disease cells. But all cells need nutrients to survive, and tumors harbor areas of nutrient limited zones, meaning T cells often die before completing their task, Varadarajan said.

"We know once they get to the tumor, nutrients are limited," he said. "If they are not able to cope and compete effectively for these nutrients, they're going to die. The question is, can you engineer the T cells to survive and persist?"

To further the work, Varadarajan has received a $375,000, three-year grant from the Melanoma Research Alliance, part of $8.5 million in new funding awarded to researchers at 28 institutions in six countries.

"These awards will further our ability to improve melanoma outcomes, support the next generation of melanoma researchers and help draw us ever closer to a cure," said Debra Black, chair and co-founder of the Melanoma Research Alliance.

Varadarajan's work will use a novel research platform he developed to allow researchers to study T cells at a single-cell level, as well as single cell T cell-tumor cell interactions. The proprietary chip-based platform works by co-incubating T cells and tumor cells in dense arrays of nanoliter wells, or nanowells, and monitoring the functional interaction between the cells. The goal is to engineer T cells that retain their anti-cancer properties in the inhospitable environment of a tumor.

The platform will allow researchers to track thousands of interactions and hone in on the traits that predict success. The engineered T cells will then be tested in mice at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This work builds on existing research conducted by Melisa Martinez, a postdoctoral researcher in Varadarajan's lab, in collaboration with an MD Anderson team headed by Chantale Bernatchez.

Varadarajan began working on immunotherapy after arriving at UH about seven years ago. Since then, the therapy has taken off.

"It's amazing how well it's done," he said. "It's become a major player in clinical oncology. All of our work now is going toward getting it to work for more people."

He said the treatment is effective for about 20 percent of patients who receive it.

"For now, we don't have good biomarkers to tell who is a good candidate for immunotherapy," he said. Engineering T cells to work more broadly could be another way to increase the therapy's effectiveness. "It's a complementary approach."

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PITTSBURGH, May 1, 2017 - A novel gene therapy using CRISPR genome editing technology effectively targets cancer-causing "fusion genes" and improves survival in mouse models of aggressive liver and prostate cancers, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers report in a study published online today in Nature Biotechnology.

"This is the first time that gene editing has been used to specifically target cancer fusion genes. It is really exciting because it lays the groundwork for what could become a totally new approach to treating cancer," explained lead study author Jian-Hua Luo, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology at Pitt's School of Medicine and director of its High Throughput Genome Center.

Fusion genes, which often are associated with cancer, form when two previously separate genes become joined together and produce an abnormal protein that can cause or promote cancer.

Luo and his team had previously identified a panel of fusion genes responsible for recurrent and aggressive prostate cancer. In a study published earlier this year in the journal Gastroenterology, the team reported that one of these fusion genes, known as MAN2A1-FER, also is found in several other types of cancer, including that of the liver, lungs and ovaries, and is responsible for rapid tumor growth and invasiveness.

In the current study, the researchers employed the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology to target unique DNA sequences formed because of the gene fusion. The team used viruses to deliver the gene editing tools that cut out the mutated DNA of the fusion gene and replaced it with a gene that leads to death of the cancer cells. Because the fusion gene is present only in cancer cells, not healthy ones, the gene therapy is highly specific. Such an approach could come with significantly fewer side effects when translated to the clinic, which is a major concern with other cancer treatments such as chemotherapy.

To conduct the study, the researchers used mouse models that had received transplants of human prostate and liver cancer cells. Editing the cancer fusion gene resulted in up to 30 percent reduction in tumor size. None of the mice exhibited metastasis and all survived during the eight-week observation period. In contrast, in control mice treated with viruses designed to cut out another fusion gene not present in their tumors, the tumors increased nearly 40-fold in size, metastasis was observed in most animals, and all died before the end of the study.

The new findings suggest a completely new way to combat cancer. "Other types of cancer treatments target the foot soldiers of the army. Our approach is to target the command center, so there is no chance for the enemy's soldiers to regroup in the battlefield for a comeback," said Luo.

Another advantage over traditional cancer treatment is that the new approach is very adaptive. A common problem that renders standard chemotherapies ineffective is that the cancer cells evolve to generate new mutations. Using genome editing, the new mutations could be targeted to continue fighting the disease, Luo noted.

In the future, the researchers plan to test whether this strategy could completely eradicate the disease rather than induce the partial remission observed in the current study.

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This work was supported by National Institutes of Health grant RO1 CA098249, Department of Defense grant W81XWH-16-1-0364 and a grant from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.

Additional authors include: Zhang-Hui Chen, Ph.D., Yan Yu, M.D., Ph.D., Ze-Hua Zuo, Ph.D., Joel Nelson, M.D., George Michalopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., Satdatshan Monga, M.D., Silvia Liu, B.S., and George Tseng, Sc.D., all of Pitt.

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

As one of the nation's leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1998. In rankings recently released by the National Science Foundation, Pitt ranked fifth among all American universities in total federal science and engineering research and development support.

Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region's economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see http://www.medschool.pitt.edu.

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PHILADELPHIA -- Cigarette smoking accounts for about one fifth of cases of coronary heart disease (CHD), one of the leading causes of death worldwide, but precisely how smoking leads to CHD has long been unclear. Now, a team co-led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University has uncovered a molecule that may at least partly explain the smoking-CHD connection. Their findings are published this week in the journal Circulation.

The molecule is an enzyme called ADAMTS7 that is normally produced in the linings of blood vessels. Studies in recent years have suggested that when ADAMTS7 is produced in excess, it promotes the buildup of fatty plaque in coronary arteries, leading to CHD. In the team's new study, they discovered that many people have a DNA variation that reduces their production of ADAMTS7 and also apparently lowers their CHD risk. However, carriers of this DNA variation who are smokers loose this natural protection. The study identified the likely reason: smoking appears to boost ADAMTS7 production.

"Findings from this study will hopefully encourage the development of novel therapeutic and preventive programs for CHD, specifically targeting those who smoke," said lead author Danish Saleheen, PhD, an assistant professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Penn. The study is part of a large, ongoing effort by scientists to determine how genetic variants influence CHD risk, either directly or through interactions with behavioral and environmental factors, in this case smoking.

Saleheen and his colleagues pooled DNA data from 29 prior studies, involving more than 140,000 people, making this study the largest ever to study the interaction of genetic variation and smoking. To find clues to smoking's effect on CHD, the scientists examined 45 small regions of the genome--known as loci--that had already been associated with an abnormal risk of CHD.

"Our hypothesis was that for some of these loci, the associated CHD risk would be different in smokers versus non-smokers," Saleheen said. "By identifying the genes involved, we could hopefully discover clues to how smoking promotes CHD."

The analysis revealed that at a certain spot on chromosome 15, very close to the gene for ADAMTS7, a change in a single DNA "letter" -- found in about 40 percent of people of European heritage, for example -- was associated with a 12 percent lower CHD risk in non-smokers. By contrast, smokers with this same DNA variation had only a five percent lower CHD risk, representing a loss of most of the apparent protective effect.

DNA variations that lie just outside of a gene often inhibit the gene's transcription, leading to lower-than-normal levels of the associated protein. In follow-up laboratory experiments, the researchers confirmed that this was the case for the variation they discovered: In cells that line arteries of the human heart, ADAMTS7 production dropped significantly when the cells contained this single-letter DNA variant.

How does smoking modify this effect? In another laboratory experiment, the researchers applied a liquid extract of cigarette smoke to coronary artery-lining cells, and found that the cells' production of ADAMTS7 more than doubled.

ADAMTS7 has been implicated not only in CHD but also in arthritis and some cancers, making it a potential target for treatments for these disorders. The new findings suggest that reducing the activity of this enzyme could be particularly beneficial for smokers. "This has been one of the first big steps towards solving the complex puzzle of gene-environment interactions that lead to CHD," Saleheen said.

Saleheen and colleagues are now planning larger studies to uncover genetic variants that interact with lifestyle factors such as smoking to influence CHD risk.

"We hope that these studies will lead to more cost-effective targeting of existing interventions, identification of new therapeutic targets, and a better understanding of the biology of CHD," he said.

###

The study was co-led by Muredach P. Reilly, MD, a former professor of Medicine at Penn and the Herbert and Florence Irving Professor of Medicine in the Department of Cardiology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health (R01-HL-111694, K24-HL-107643), the Wellcome Trust, and Pfizer. Saleheen has received support from Genentech, Regeneron and Eli Lilly and Pfizer.

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $6.7 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $392 million awarded in the 2016 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2016, Penn Medicine provided $393 million to benefit our community.
The brain has its own inbuilt processes for mopping up damaging cellular waste -- and these processes may provide protection from stroke and dementia.

University of Queensland scientists discovered a new type of lymphatic brain "scavenger" cell by studying tropical freshwater zebrafish -- which share many of the same cell types and organs as humans.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Ben Hogan from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience said the fundamental discovery would help scientists understand how the brain forms and functions.

"It is rare to discover a cell type in the brain that we didn't know about previously, and particularly a cell type that we didn't expect to be there," he said.

"The brain is the only organ without a known lymphatic system, so the fact that these cells are lymphatic in nature and surround the brain makes this finding quite a surprise.

"These cells appear to be the zebrafish version of cells described in humans called "mato" or lipid laden cells, which clear fats and lipids from the system but were not known to be lymphatic in nature.

"When wastes such as excess fats leak out of the bloodstream, it is the job of the lymphatic system to clean them out to avoid damaging our organs."

Dr Hogan said the study focused on the presence and development of "scavenger" cells in zebrafish, however there was good reason to believe that equivalent cells surrounded and protected the human brain from a build-up of cellular waste.

"Zebrafish are naturally transparent, which means we can use advanced light microscopes to see directly into the zebrafish brain," Dr Hogan said.

"Examining the zebrafish brain up close allowed us to find these cells and see how they form and function in detail.

"Normally, lymphatic endothelial cells will group together to form lymphatic vessels to carry fluid, but impressively, in the adult zebrafish brain these cells exist individually, independent of vessels and collect waste that enter the brain from the bloodstream.

"Our focus now is to investigate how these cells function in humans and see if we can control them with existing drugs to promote brain health, and improve our understanding of neurological diseases such as stroke and dementia."

###

The study was published today in Nature Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1038/nn.4558) and involved researchers from UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Melbourne, Monash University and Japan's National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Centre.

The National Health and Medical Research Council and UQ funded the research.

Media: Gemma Ward, IMB Communications, 07 3346 2155, 0439 651 107, communications@imb.uq.edu.au
TAMPA, FL (May 1, 2017)- A key piece of evidence proving how dinosaurs evolved into modern-day birds could soon be studied across the world.

University of South Florida biology professor Ryan Carney, PhD, MPH, MBA, has created interactive holograms of dinosaurs, including the Archaeopteryx, which is believed to be the missing link in understanding the origin of birds and flight. Only 12 fossils have been discovered, all in Germany.

Dr. Carney digitizes these fossils using X-ray, lasers and photogrammetry, then brings them "back to life" with computer animation. Using virtual reality and augmented reality, paleontologists and students could interact with the dinosaurs in 3D, allowing them to better understand their anatomy and motion without having to travel to a museum.

These technologies are also integrated into Dr. Carney's Digital Dinosaurs course at the University of South Florida's Center for Virtualization & Applied Spatial Technologies (CVAST) and Integrative Biology Department. Students use the same techniques to visualize, animate, and 3D print specimens for research and educational purposes, helping foster enthusiasm for STEM fields.

His work is so groundbreaking, the National Geographic Society just named Dr. Carney to the 2017 class of "Emerging Explorers," granting him $10,000 for research and exploration. This prestigious award recognizes those who are already making a difference and changing the world. He is the first faculty member at the University of South Florida to receive this honor.

###
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Around 40 firefighters from across the North-east of Scotland have tackled a blaze in farm buildings in Aberdeenshire.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service was called to the incident at Blackpots Farm, near Auchnagatt, shortly after 7pm on Sunday night (30 April).

Firefighters were originally called to deal with what was believed to be a shed fire but found several agricultural buildings ablaze, including one that was filled with straw  which took crews around five hours to bring under control.

White smoke could be seen billowing into the sky for miles around in the countryside as the fire raged.

In total eight appliances from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service were called to the scene  including one from Stonehaven, more than 40 miles away from the incident at the farm.

A welfare unit was also sent to the scene later in the evening to assist firefighters dealing with the blaze.

It is understood that no evacuations were carried out by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and crews used hose reel jets to tackle the flames.
The National Farmers' Union has released its manifesto ahead of next month's snap general election, calling for more ways politicians can back British farming.

The farming union has set out five key policy challenges for prospective parliamentary candidates.

Launched today (1 May), the NFUs manifesto is focused on five key areas: Making Brexit a success; Investing for growth; Safeguarding short, fair, and secure supply chains; Placing science at the heart of policy making and and caring for the countryside and rural communities.

Numerous other rural organisations have released their manifestos, including the Soil Association, the Tenant Farmers' Association and the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

NFU President Meurig Raymond said the general election in June provides an opportunity for the farming sector to impress on candidates of all colours the "critical value" of British farming to the economy, to wellbeing and to the environment.

'Farming matters'

He said: The success of British farming matters to the British electorate  especially at this time of unprecedented change. Indeed, YouGov polling commissioned by the NFU this year shows that 85% of people think it is important that Britain has a productive and resilient farming industry.

We cant ignore that farming is arguably the most vulnerable sector in the Brexit negotiations. But the NFU has its sights fixed on solutions and policies to ensure a productive, profitable and progressive farming sector that puts safe, trusted, affordable and quality food on shoppers plates.

Over the next parliament, we want to work in partnership with the new Government to achieve this with a predictable and manageable transition process.

Mr Raymond concluded: And while Brexit is one of the newer challenges for the sector, were still committed to gaining political traction on the issues that existed in the industry before 23 June 2016, and still exist now. The nation needs a food and farming industry with a Government strategy, it needs a safe food chain, and it needs a Government which looks after the countryside and rural communities.

The manifesto, called Back British Farming  Brexit and Beyond, sets out agricultures economic contribution, supplying 61% of the nations food, employing 3.9 million people in the wider food sector and delivering more than 12bn in export earnings.

Critically, the NFU wants politicians to commit to establishing tariff-free trade with the EU, as well as ensuring access to a competent, reliable workforce.
In Madhya Pradesh, 700 brides were gifted wooden bats so that they can beat their husbands if they become alcoholics or harass them. The minister who gifted these said that police will not intervene in the matter. Is this legit?

By India Today Web Desk: During a mass marriage ceremony in Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh minister Gopal Bhargava gifted nearly 700 brides a wooden bat or a 'mogri'. Why? So that they can beat their husbands if they become alcoholics or harass them.

He had ordered 10,000 bats engraved with caption 'sharabiyon ke sutara hetu bhent, police nahi bolegi' (gift for beating drunkards, police will not intervene)' to be gifted to women.

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Minister of panchayati raj and rural development Gopal Bhargava came up with this idea after a woman asked him whether she should get her husband to stop drinking by beating him with a wooden plank.

Also read: Yogi Adityanath to hold mass weddings for poor Muslims under government's Sadbhavna Mandap

"Whenever I visit any rural or urban area in my constituency, women complain about their husband's drinking habit. They inform me that whatever little they earn is snatched away by their husband for alcohol. They (women) are also subjected to physical violence," Bhargava told PTI.

Even though the minister asked the women to talk to their husbands about the problem first but, according to Gopal Bhargava there is nothing wrong in wives beating their husbands as it is a step towards bringing a social change necessary to deal with the menace of alcoholism.

If that doesn't work out, let the 'mogri' do the talking, he said.

Also read: West Bengal: Mass marriage held in Hooghly to celebrate Women's Week

"The government or police alone would not be able to solve this problem. For this, people have to come forward. There are many examples in history which show that when masses intervene, things have changed for the better", he said.

The minister also asked the brides to plant saplings in their village and stop all illegal activities.

But in this unusual incident, the question is on the authority that the minister is giving to those women. Being able to beat someone knowing that the police will not intervene definitely creates a sense of power which can be misused as well and is not lawful. Do you think it is right? Let us know.

--- ENDS ---
Arla urges government to tap into energy potential of manure and slurry
Japans growing appetite for meat could offer UK farmers anopportunity to sell into a high-value market in the future.

Japanese consumers ate 3.4% more beef, pork and chicken between April 2015 and March 2016 year-on-year, according to the countrys Agriculture and Livestock Industries Corporation (ALIC).

This was the 10th consecutive year of growth in Japans meat consumption.

With high incomes, the country is being targeted by AHDBs export teams for premium products rather than large volumes of cheaper products.

See also: How to review your farm business to prepare for Brexit

The majority of Japans pork imports currently come from the US and Canada  860,000t in 2016.

Britain exported 1,000t of pig offal and 1,500t of pork to Japan in 2016 but is seeking to increase the value of these exports, said Jean-Pierre Garnier, head of exports at AHDB.

We are concentrating on premium pork shipments to Japan at the moment, he adds.

Opportunities for beef producers

AHDB hopes to open up opportunities for premium British beef, too, as Japans imports (500,000t) are currently dominated by Australia and the US.

The UK is not currently permitted to trade beef because Japan has not carried out Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) tests at UK processing plants since it lifted its trade ban following the BSE crisis.

We are most interested in unlocking access for beef, explains Peter Hardwick, AHDB international manager for pork and trade development. We have not had that opportunity since the BSE crisis in 1996, or possibly ever.

We see the beef market as being a niche market for high-value products, says Phil Hadley, head of global supply chain development at AHDB.

Mr Hardwick is hopeful that Japan will visit a sample of factories in the UK within 12 months.

However, Mr Garnier warns that even if they do inspect sooner rather than later, a trade deal could be years away.

The issue is anything with Japan is slow and complicated, warned Mr Garnier.

Trade deal needed for UK to compete on price

For the UK to be able to compete with bigger, cheaper producers, a trade deal will be crucial.

You can do business in import markets with or without trade deals, said Mr Hardwick. Trade deals may reduce tariff rates or other restrictions and there are tariff regimes in place.

We are currently competing with Canada and the US who are able to supply at cheaper rates. If we had a free trade arrangement it might improve our position.

Duncan Wyatt, an AHDB beef analyst, said it will be an uphill struggle for British beef in Japan, since the market is already dominated by Australia and the US who have good trade deals in place.

Its a significant market, but I imagine hard to break into and compete in.

The final obstacle to a Japanese agreement is that any deal likely to be thrashed out will come after a trade deal with the EU is reached.

Although permission to trade could come as early as next year, tariffs are expected for several years to come on any beef exports to Japan.
Veterinarians offering $10 rabies shots this week

Related Stories

Annual low-cost rabies vaccination clinics for dogs is being held this week at area veterinary clinics. The $10 rabies shots are being held through Saturday at the following clinics by appointment only:

All Saints Animal Hospital........................................................697-1717

Animals R Us Veterinary Clinic................................................693-7387

Animal Care Clinic.....................................................................692-7201

Apple Valley Animal Hospital..................................................685-1650

Etowah Valley Veterinary Hospital.........................................890-1401

Fletcher Animal Hospital..........................................................684-4244

Haywood Animal Hospital.......................................................697-0446

Health Care for Pets Hospital..................................................891-4848

Hendersonville Veterinary Hospital.......................................692-0561

Kanuga Animal Clinic...............................................................692-0941

Laurel Park Veterinary Hospital.............................................697-5686

Merry Forest Animal Hospital................................................890-2471

Mills River Animal Clinic.........................................................891-9685

North State Animal Hospital..................................................692-1902

White Oak Veterinary Hospital.............................................687-2803

Rabies is a vaccine preventable disease in humans, dogs, cats and ferrets as well as some domestic livestock. All mammals are susceptible to rabies and it is nearly always fatal. Rabies can be prevented in humans with timely and appropriate treatment. The disease most often occurs in wild animals especially skunks, raccoons, bats and foxes. Raccoon rabies is present in the raccoon population in virtually every North Carolina county.

If you think your pet was exposed to rabies or if you have questions, call the Henderson County Sheriff Offices Animal Enforcement Division at 697-4912. Visit the Communicable Disease-Rabies link at hendersoncountync.org for additional information about the signs and symptoms of rabies and dog bite prevention.
The incident took place as the villagers of the upper caste category were unhappy with Chander Meghwal, who invited a band party for his daughter's wedding.

By Asian News International: In an unfortunate incident, the upper caste villagers in Madhya Pradesh's Mana poured kerosene into a well used by the Dalits.

The incident took place as the villagers of the upper caste category were unhappy with Chander Meghwal, who invited a band party for his daughter's wedding.

45-year-old Meghwal had invited a band party despite getting a warning of facing a boycott.

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The traditions of Mana village do not permit such things and they allow only a 'dhol' to welcome the groom.

Upon receiving threats, Meghwal had informed the cops and the marriage took place under tight security.

Ignoring warning of the upper caste members, kerosene in the well was poured to take revenge.

With the kerosene mixing in the water, the Dalits found an alternative route to get water.

They dug a hole on the banks of Kalisindh River.

The Dalits also used pumps to separate the kerosene from the water.

Superintended of Police (SP) R.S. Meena along with district collector D.V. Singh marched towards the village, drank the water from the well and assured the villagers of it being safe to consume.

The duo also had a word with the members of the upper caste.

Singh announced borewells for Dalits so that they do not encounter such problems in the future.

The police are investigating the matter.

Also Read:

Where Dalits are still facing discrimination after 70 years of Independence

PM Modi's Ambedkar Jayanti message: Committed to building an inclusive India

BJP leaders to hold mass dining event with Dalits across UP on Ambedkar's birth anniversary

After UP election, BJP prepares a fresh Dalit-oriented strategy eyeing 2019 polls

Ambedkar Jayanti: How PM Modi won confidence of Dalits and Uttar Pradesh

MCD polls: On Ambedkar Jayanti, BJP plans to reach out to Dalit voters

Amarinder Singh cabinet has 3 Dalits despite 32 per cent vote share, Jat Sikhs continue to rule Punjab

Also Watch:

Our aim is to create an India that would make Ambedkar proud, says PM Narendra Modi

--- ENDS ---
By Syed Ata Hasnain

Analysing a tragedy for whatever reasons must begin with an expression of regret.

Thats exactly how I look at the situation where the nation has been left frustrated yet again with a heavy loss in the security domain.

Losing 25 police personnel in circumstances much like in the past inspires little confidence in the ability of Central armed police forces and of the intelligence agencies that support them in the Red Corridor.

Amid all the patriotic fervor that accompanies the loss of uniformed personnel, the public also deserves to know why this happens so often. While doing so the colour of the uniform one has worn must not be evident; only then will justice be done. To make this into an us versus them affair within the uniformed services would be inherently unfair.

Even as I write an encounter is in progress in Kupwara where the Army has suffered losses. Such losses in the administrative realm, of camps and perhaps convoys, doesnt absolve the Army and Central forces in Kashmir from the many blunders which have occurred in the recent past.

Sukma is nothing short of a tragedy. I insist on calling it that since innocent policemen doing their job and being martyred as they were not trained adequately to do that job is indeed a tragedy.

Citing former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfield, the phrase known knowns is most applicable here. Almost everything which goes into making such a repeated tragedy is a known in terms of past analyses, and we are fully aware that it is a known. There are some knowns that cant and wont change unless transformational decisions are taken, but its important to keep the public informed.

The Central Reserve Police Force has been delineated as the core or lead force to take charge of counter-insurgency operations (CI ops) across the country. Was this Union Cabinet decision, based on the recommendations of the Kargil Review Committee and Group of Ministers, correct? Is it something that should be reviewed?

Analysts are far happier quoting the decision than questioning its wisdom, or the absence of implementation. When such decisions are taken, they should be based on the capability of a force or its potential. If the latter, then the means to acquire that capability must also be delineated and orders issued. By merely recommending the CRPF as the lead force for CI ops without examining its structure, manning pattern and command and control, the Kargil Review Committee perhaps erred substantially. However, the purpose is not to assign blame; a decade and a half down the road experience itself would have repeatedly shown that in its current format and makeup it is unfair to give the CRPF such a responsibility. The known knowns of the force mentioned by every analyst in the past three days needs a brief recount. Chasing nimble tribal guerrillas armed to the teeth who are fighting a son of the soil insurgency in a terrain they know like the back of their palms isnt really a joke.

CRPF jawans are often 50-60 years old as the retirement age in the force is 60. It will be unfair to question it as I am unaware if the force has laid down an age limit for deployment of personnel in the Red Corridor. If not, then it is essential, and units must be restructured as Red Corridor units.

The Armys Rashtriya Rifles is a fine model of a CI force to examine and improve upon.

The manning pattern, under which senior CRPF positions are occupied by Indian Police Service officers is too flogged an issue to repeat. The point to emphasise is that institutional awareness of weaknesses in the operational realm cant be expected from a hierarchy completely inexperienced in training, planning or execution of such operations anytime in their service. To be parachuted into one or more star ranks and suddenly bearing operational responsibility and the lives of so many personnel under care is inherently unfair both on the IPS officers and the CRPF.

Harping on this is like begging the question, as nothing is likely to change. It is best to work around it and look at other ways of potential optimisation. Leadership, training and equipment are the three areas which need to be reviewed, other than the senior leadership question.

Most fighting entities will inform you that the best welfare for warriors is to ensure they are fully enabled in their quest to inflict maximum casualties on the adversary, and prevent casualties unto themselves. This is best done through training and professional stocktaking.

Some Red Corridor forces like the Andhra Pradesh Greyhounds have proved their capability beyond doubt, but such excellence is a drop in the ocean compared to the magnitude of the problem.

The Armys Para SF units, particularly the ones that have operated in Sri Lanka and the Northeast, have institutional experience and strength. There are enough veteran officers and men who could be tapped professionally to impart their knowledge.

Institutions like the National Police Academy are centres of excellence which must be involved in analysis and lesson-learning in a substantive way. The plethora of experience that the CRPF and state police forces possess is itself not little.

The circumstances surrounding the Sukma event, however, do not inspire any confidence on the basics that those involved in such operations must have. Everything here is supposed to be tactical, including having meals.

Troops deployed on operations do not eat at the same time, and not without establishing security through observation posts, sentries and the like. There is obviously a real need to return to the basics, and to do so repeatedly.

Red Corridor forces have mostly suffered when they encounter large groups of insurgents.

Obviously, one of the banes of such operations is contact-based command and control and getting the sub-unit to respond beyond just returning fire. I am not sure whether training on this is ever carried out. CRPF units are most usedly to platoon-based functioning. Even the best Army units may find it difficult to have a full company-based response in the face of such situations. The fact that a full company can come under enemy action at a single time is itself a reflection of questionable field tactics. If this is to improve, egos must be shed. Smaller teams can train with Greyhounds and other successful police outfits, but if a full sub-unit response is necessary, it should imbibe the Armys functional culture.

The immediate upgrading of equipment is vital. The Union home ministry has a very efficient procurement machinery. It must look at rotary aviation resources for recce and response. The Mine-Protected Vehicle is an imperative, and funds cant be the reason for not provisioning this.

While the intelligence services have secured India quite well over the last many years, tactical-level intelligence in the Red Corridor still seems to be highly questionable.

I laud the BSFs concept of G sections of its units. In all my experience, I have not found more competent intelligence personnel at the tactical level.

This is something that the CRPF should examine closely.

The writer, a retired lieutenant-general, is a former commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps. He is also associated with the Vivekananda International Foundation and the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Source : Asian Age
By Zahida Rehman Jatt

Earlier this year, I went to Laki, which is about 18 kilometres from Sehwan. Laki is famous for its natural streams, but once I got there, I also realised how important Hinduism has been to Sindh and how embedded the religion is with the geography of the region.

In his magnum opus, Sindh Revisited, 19th century British scholar and traveller Richard Burton describes Laki as a place of pilgrimage for Hindus. The devotees called the streams dharan tirtha, which means constant flow of the earth in a holy place.

I saw men, women and children climbing the hills to visit a cave dedicated to the saint, dharan pir. I followed them and on the way up, I noticed a tree where people had tied multi-coloured cotton threads. It was a wish tree and the threads are only removed when a persons prayer has been answered.

The cave was tiny and dimly lit. There was a raised platform where women were bowing and presenting flowers, candies and other offerings. After coming out of the cave, I went on a bridge that led to a flight of steep, rough-hewn stairs.

As I went up the stairs and reached the top of the hill, a subtle feeling of elation and adrenaline took hold of me. I took in the splendour of the Laki mountains with beautiful green streams below. There was silence and I could feel my heart throbbing.

Although the landscape was arid, the multi-coloured and heavily-embroidered dresses of the local women added a beautiful contrast. The pale, green ponds run along the entire site and gave off a pungent odour. The bathing rituals are still practiced by the pilgrims, not to wash off sins but mainly to get rid of skin diseases.

Centuries ago, Laki was also considered the favourite spot for ascetics who wanted to commit ritual suicide. Ascetics would ascend to the nearby hills and after ablution, prayer and meditation, they would spend the night on the edge of a hill. If terror gripped their hearts, it was a sign that they were not ready. But if they were able to sleep peacefully, the next morning they would take their own lives.

Laki used to be of special significance for worshippers of Shiva as well. French researcher Michel Boivin, in his book Sindh Through History and Representations, notes that Laki is one of the most important places of the Shivaite cult in Sindh and a stopover for pilgrims going on the journey to Hinglaj Mata temple to celebrate yatra [pilgrimage] in Balochistan.

But today, there are only a handful of shivalas or temples in Laki. Once majestic, they now wear a deserted look since there is no one to take care of them anymore. This is a far cry from the past when the area was dotted with shivalas and Hindu monastic establishments. Scholar and traveller Hiuen Tsang visited Sindh in the seventh century and described that there were 273 Hindu temples here, out of which 235 belonged to Pashupata Shivaites, which is another order of Shivaism.

I dont know in what context it was written, but this poem by the great Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai perfectly captures the pain I felt after seeing Hinduism disappear from the land where it once flourished :

God-seekers voice today I miss

The courtyard now is desolate

The sight of empty places here

Kills me, so tortuous it is

Who to the soul gave life and bliss?

The selfless ones, departed are

Today, the yogis disappeared

Remembering them, I wept whole night

Those whom I searched and so revered

Are vanished, never to return

Zahida Rehman Jatt is an anthropologist and social science researcher. She is a lecturer at the department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Sindh in Jamshoro.

Source : The Dawn
Greek Hospitality Industry Performance 1st Quarter 2017

The Greek Tourism Confederation is optimistic for 2017 forecasting at least 26 million international tourists, representing an increase of 5% and significantly higher receipts, targeting at  14.4 billion, an increase of 12.9% y-o-y. We assume that this increase is based on expected changes in the market mix.

At the Athens International Airport total international arrivals declined in Q1 2017 with 0.6% y-o-y, mainly caused by the performance of the month of February, which recorded a drop of 7% y-o-y.

Occupancy levels as well as room rates of Athenian hotels showed a positive trend, resulting in an improvement of RevPAR in Q1 2017 of 12.3% y-o-y.

International arrivals at the airport of Thessaloniki increased significantly by 11.8% y-o-y during Q1 2017. February was particularly strong, which was reflected in the occupancy levels of the Thessaloniki hotel sector. Overall, RevPAR increased by 10.1% y-o-y in Q1 2017.

Those resort hotels that were in operation during Q1 started the year well. However, most resort hotels are still closed.

The hotel sector of competitive destination Madrid showed a good performance during the first quarter of 2017, especially in terms of room rates. Overall, RevPAR improved by 9.6% y-o-y in Q1 2017, while Rome improved by 3.4% y-o-y due to improved occupancy levels, but at a slightly lower ADR level compared to same quarter last year. Hotels in Cairo attracted much more tourists during Q1 2017 compared to same quarter last year resulting in improvements in RevPAR.

Click here ( Adobe Acrobat PDF file) to download the complete article.

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Two years after the Centre backed out of efforts to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (commonly referred to as the Land Acquisition Act), the Madhya Pradesh government has amended a state law to deny cash compensation to those whose lands have been acquired for public purposes in urban areas.

The MP Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act, 1973, has been amended to bring in provisions of Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)-an incentive-based programme that allows landowners to sell development rights on their land to a developer who can then use these rights to increase density of development at other designated locations. While officials at the urban development department maintain that the amendment aims to unlock the value of land marked 'green' on plans (in other words, land that has restricted use), the amendment has had another impact-it denies cash compensation to those whose lands lie within the plan area acquired for public purposes. A section has been inserted that enables allotting development rights to the person whose land has been acquired. Simply put, the government says it will grant enhanced floor area ratio (FAR)-the ratio of plot area and permitted built-up area-and TDR to compensate for the loss of land.

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Why does the government not want to pay cash compensation as mandated under the 2013 law? "The amendment will bring in greater development in cities through concepts such as TDR," says state minister for urban development Maya Singh, offering no explanation for why cash compensation is being denied. Off the record, officials maintain that the state government is simply not willing to shell out huge sums of money while acquiring land for projects like road widening within city limits. "The new land acquisition act of 2013 imposes huge costs on development projects. The amendment in the TCP Act will offer other options to those whose land is acquired," says an official at the urban development department.

How relevant concepts such as TDR are in MP towns-especially in places like Bhopal, which has developed horizontally over the decades, has large open spaces and few high-rises-is another matter. What will a farmer do with enhanced FAR and transferable development rights (other than sell his land to a builder) if his land located within urban areas is acquired? Will it be fair compensation if s/he is not paid in cash?

--- ENDS ---
Raging Grannies Give Trump Worse than F Grade at People's Climate March by Action League

While California College Republicans met in the Fairmont Hotel, environmentalists marched from San Jose City Hall to the Cesar Chavez Plaza, directly across the street from where the conservative students held their annual convention. Top photo: Chris Cassell

Demonstrators in the South Bay raised noise at a sister event to the DC People's Climate March on Saturday. Assembling at San Jose City Hall for a kick-off, protesters walked three quarters of a mile to Cesar Chavez Plaza. There they found out that Trump supporters were meeting at the Fairmont Hotel across the street.



Environmental activists amplified shouts and speeches filled the plaza and beyond; their signs denouncing the Republican dismantling of the EPA could not be missed. The Raging Grannies pumped up their performance volume and as hundreds of attendees headed for home they passed out SB 562 buttons, saying that health care is a nightmare in the hands of the current administration. (Senate Bill 562, the "Healthy California Act," is a single-payer proposal to create universal health coverage including nursing home care for every California resident).



Asked by corporate media television news about the proximity of Republican college students to the rally, the Grannies, many of whom are in their 80's, said that young people should be leading the way to environmental justice, rather following Trump's path to war and destruction. They gave Trump a grade of "worse than F" for his first 100 days in office.


In Person Migrant Rights Activist: Booming Thai Border Town Built on Burmese Sweat

U Moe Joe, chairman of the Joint Action Committee for Burma Affairs, speaks to The Irrawaddy in Mae Sot. / Saw Yan Naing / The Irrawaddy

MAE SOT, Thailand  Mae Sot, a border town in western Thailand, has changed starkly in the past few years. Once quiet, the town now has shopping malls, hotels, an airport, a new bridge, and construction projects widening its main road.

The graft of Burmese labor workers contributes greatly to the towns development. U Moe Joe, a longtime Burmese migrant rights activist and the chairman of Mae Sot-based Joint Action Committee for Burma Affairs (JACBA), has been supporting Burmese workers in the town for 14 years.

Senior reporter Saw Yan Naing interviews U Moe Joe about his views on the growth of Mae Sot and its consequences for migrant workers.

How do you see the expansion of Mae Sot?

There are huge expansion projects in Mae Sot, including an airport, shopping malls, supermarkets, government offices, buildings, and a hospital. These all benefit the Thai people, but many Burmese migrant workers who work in construction dont receive proper wages.

Many workers on Robinson [a shopping mall named for its primary department store] still havent received their wages and we heard that migrants who helped construct the airport didnt get full wages. The workers were supposed to be paid 300 Thai baht (US$8.5) a day but some received 160-250 baht ($4.5-7.2). Theres still exploitationits one of the results of expansion in Mae Sot, but Burmese migrant workers should also benefit. Every construction project has problems paying the migrant workers.

Have you noticed many Burmese migrant workers returning home now that their country is opening?

Some Burmese workers are going back to live in Burma now the NLD [National League for Democracy] has come to power, but we dont know the official figure. Some permanently move back and others go back and forth. Garment factory workers, who do well back in Burma, often go back but it doesnt work out so well for those in construction and agriculture. They come to Thailand after they dont find work in Burma.

Numbers of Burmese people still come to Thailand for work but we dont have the statistics because many of them cross into Thailand illegally. Migrant workers visiting their homes have brought back friends in the past but we dont see that now. The number of newcomers is decreasing.

What about the abuse and exploitation of Burmese migrant workers in Mae Sot compared to the past?

Employers used to solve their problems with employees in a criminal way and the migrant workers always lost, but now the Thai government is working on upgrading standards, especially for child workers and forced laborers.

The government fines employers but in no case has the employer been jailed. Its common for employees to be jailed, so there are many things that need improving. Guilty employers should also been jailed yet, for now, they pay the fine and are free.

Why do Burmese people still go to work in Thailand?

There are still problems with the wages in Burma, although its improving under the new civilian government compared to the previous regime. Workers in Burma do not get paid the same rate as those in Thailand, which is why they still come.

When did Mae Sot begin to expand?

Mae Sot is a town in Tak Province where all the government offices are based. It has a lot of factories180 registered factories by our estimate. So migrant workers go to Mae Sot. Within the last five years, government offices, departments, privately owned buildings and hotels have sprung up. All the construction on those buildings was built with the labor of Burmese migrant workers. They work in the heat. They built them with their sweat.
Burma Migrant Workers Demand Full Labor Rights in Northern Thailand

Burmese migrant workers demand full Labor rights at Chiang Mai City Hall on International Labor Day 2017.

CHIANG MAI, ThailandBurmese migrant workers and local Thai workers marched to Chiang Mai City Hall on Monday afternoon to demand full labor rights on the occasion of International Labor Day, or May Day.

Around 200 workers from the Northern Thailand Labor Networkwhich is comprised of Thai and Burmese workers associations as well as local academicsconducted a two-day workshop on Sunday and Monday to collect workers voices on the internationally-recognized labor day.

Migrant workers face continuous problems [in Thailand], we want all domestic and foreign migrant workers labor rights to be protected, said Brahm Press, the director of labor rights NGO Migrant Assistance Program.

Workers called on the Thai government and its interior and labor ministries, Chiang Mais governor, and the Burmese government to ensure workers in all occupations have access to a safe working environment, social security benefits without discrimination, and access to skills development.

They want all occupationsincluding domestic work, the service sector, and sex workto be covered by Thailands labor protection law, which is not currently the case.

The workers also recommended an increase in the minimum wage, and for it to be applied to foreign migrant workers as well as domestic workers.

Laborers want the minimum wage to increase to 450 baht a day, instead of 300 baht, for all workers, including migrants, explained Brahm Press, echoing the sentiments of marchers that the Irrawaddy spoke to.

One such Burmese migrant worker, who did not give her name, said that she joined the march to demand an increase in the minimum wage and that workers had to continue to press the Chiang Mai authorities as promises of better labor rights were unfulfilled in the past.

We urge [the government] to use the more humanized term as migrant workers, instead of using the term the Alien laborers in Thailand, Brahm Press also said.

Labor activists want Burmese and Thai authorities to implement changes as soon as possible.

Pi Thong Khan, a legal consultant to migrants in northern Thailand, said they wanted their demands to be fulfilled as soon as possible within the year 2017.

However, Brahm Press said unless the governments adopt policy changes by ratifying the Internal Labor Organization (ILO) conventions, it is hard to expect immediate implementation of the recommendations.

He said that one small victory was won from demands last year: Migrant workers in Thailand holding a work permit were granted freedom of movement around the province in which they were registered without the need for prior permission.

The migrant worker rights activists also want more cooperation from Burmese authorities.

Pi Thong Khan said it is very rare to receive assistance from the Burmese consulate in Chiang Mai, noting that consulate officers declined to join the weekend seminar.

The Northern Thailand Labour Network also demanded to extend Thailands legal working age to 60 years, as currently Thai law forbids working passed the age of 55.

The Network want the Thai government to ratify the ILOs conventions to guarantee rights including the freedom of association the right to collective bargaining and negotiation.

The they also demanded the swift signing of ILO Convention no. 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers this year to promote recognition of domestic workers labor rights.
Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute Scientists Lead the Fight

Malaria afflicts 212 million people globally, and more than two thirds of malaria deaths are children under the age of five.

In 2001, Bloomberg Philanthropies gave $100 million to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in order to fund the establishment of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute (JHMRI). Since then, JHMRI's state-of-the-art facility has become a hub for a community of multidisciplinary researchers dedicated to the treatment, control and eradication of this deadly disease.

Focused on four major areas of researchentomology, parasitology, epidemiology and immunologyJHMRI boasts experts from around the globe, all working to prevent and cure malaria. In this short film, meet JHMRI director Peter Agre, MD and members of his team in Baltimore, and learn about the exciting impacts their research is having abroad in locations such as Macha, Zambia.

More about the Video
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By Brian Whitaker | ( Al-Bab.com ) |  

Among the 22 countries belonging to the Arab League, 17 are ranked as bad or very bad in the annual World Press Freedom Index published today by Reporters Without Borders.

The eight classified as bad are Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The nine classified as very bad are Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Worldwide, these account for almost half the countries in the lowest category.

An even more alarming feature of the index, though, is that it shows press freedom in the Arab countries on a broadly downward trend. The table below compares this years rankings with those in 2010  just before the start of the Arab spring protests. Since then, only six Arab countries have improved their global position and twelve of them have gone down.

The most notable improver is Tunisia  widely regarded as the only success story in the Arab Spring  which has moved up 62 places.

Meanwhile, Egypt has dropped 34 places since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. Others showing a substantial drop (in double figures) are the UAE, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the tiny state of Djibouti.

In a commentary on this years index, Reporters Without Borders highlights Egypt and Bahrain. It says many journalists have been imprisoned in both countries 24 in Egypt and 14 in Bahrain  and they both detain their journalists for very long periods of time:

In Egypt, Mahmoud Abou Zeid, a photojournalist also known as Shawkan, has been held arbitrarily for more than three years without being tried. His crime was to have covered the violent dispersal of a demonstration organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is now branded as a terrorist organisation. Freelancer Ismail Alexandrani has been in pre-trial detention since November 2015 although a judge ordered his release in November 2016. Regardless of the law, the regime led with an iron fist by General Al-Sisi tolerates no criticism, suppresses protests, shamelessly erodes media pluralism, attacks the journalists union, and encourages self-censorship amongst reporters on a daily basis. The situation is no better in the kingdom of Bahrain, which is back in the black [very bad] zone where it always was, except for a brief respite in 2016. Dissidents or independent commentators such as Nabeel Rajab, the head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, pay a high price for daring to criticise the authorities in tweets or interviews. The regime intensified its repressive methods in 2011, when it feared it might be overthrown. Any content or media suspected of posing a threat to the countrys unity is simply suppressed, and detained journalists face the possibility of long jail terms or even life imprisonment.

The surveys methodology is explained here.

Comparison of rankings, 2010-2017

2017 Country 2010 Change 44 Comoros 70 +26 55 Mauritania 95 +40 97 Tunisia 164 +67 99 Lebanon 78 -21 104 Kuwait 87 -17 119 UAE 86 -33 123 Qatar 121 -2 126 Oman 124 -2 133 Morocco* 135 +2 134 Algeria 133 -1 135 Palestine 150 +15 138 Jordan 120 -18 158 Iraq 130 -28 161 Egypt 127 -34 163 Libya 160 -3 164 Bahrain 144 -20 166 Yemen 170 +4 167 Somalia 161 -6 168 Saudi Arabia 157 -11 172 Djibouti 110 -62 174 Sudan 172 -2 177 Syria 173 -4

* Includes Western Sahara
Hassan Minhaj | (White House Correspondents Dinner) | (Video Clip) |  

Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj took full advantage of Donald Trumps absence by taking aim at the president and his administration during his monologue at the White House Correspondents dinner.
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By Baher Kamal | (Inter Press Service) |  

ROME (IPS)  Urgent action is needed to save the lives of people facing famine in North Eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, the UN leading food and agriculture agencys chief on April 28 warned. If nothing is done, some 20 million people could starve to death in the next six months.

Famine does not just kill people, it contributes to social instability and also perpetuates a cycle of poverty and aid dependency that endures for decades, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) the Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva added.

At a media briefing ahead of the conclusive session of the this UN specialised agencys executive armthe FAO Council, he launched a new appeal for voluntary contributions, that are of vital importance to FAO, now more than ever.

I will be always committed to finding more savings and promoting more efficiency, as I have done over the last five years. But I have already cut to the bone. There is no more fat left.

On this, Graziano da Silva emphasised the need to work with everyone on the basis of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development Leaving No One Behind, in order to save all the affected people.

He also announced that agreement will be signed among FAO and the other two Rome-based UN agencies: the International Fund for Agriculture (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) on how to tackle the current famine in those 4 countries Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

The FAO Council, which has met in FAO-headquarters in Rome on 24  28 April, convenes between sessions of the main Conference to provide advice and oversight related to programmatic and budgetary matters.

The Councils 49 elected members have been briefed on the extent of the hunger crises, and the steps required to preventing catastrophe.

Making Funds Go Further

The organisations executive body has also approved FAOs Programme of Work and Budget 2018-2019, which prioritises areas where FAO can deliver the greatest impact to member countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, including climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable agriculture production, water scarcity management, and building the resilience of poor family farmers.

Ahead of the FAO Councils meeting, Graziano da Silva had on 25 April stated in Geneva that a combination of food assistance and food production assistance is the only way to avoid famine in conflict-ridden Yemen where two-thirds of the population 17 million people are suffering from severe food insecurity.

As the conflict continues, food security and nutrition will also continue to deteriorate, he stressed in his address to a United Nations High-Level Pledging conference for Yemen organised in Geneva and co-hosted by the governments of Switzerland and Sweden.

To put these figures into perspective, we are talking about the double of Switzerlands population being unable to meet their basic daily food needs.

He stressed how livelihoods support, especially for agriculture and fishing, must be an integral part of the international communitys response to the crisis in Yemen.

Over 17 Million Yemenis, Acutely Food Insecure

More than 17 million people around Yemens rugged landscape are acutely food insecure, and the figure is likely to increase as the on-going conflict continues to erode the ability to grow, import, distribute and pay for food, Graziano da Silva wrote on IPS.

More than 7 million people are on the verge of famine, while the rest are marginally meeting the minimum day-to-day nutritional needs thanks to external humanitarian and livelihoods support. Large-scale famine is a real risk that will cast an awful shadow for generations to come.

According to Graziano da Silva, only a political solution can end the suffering in Yemen, as there can be no food security without peace. And the longer the delay to draft an adequately funded recovery plan, the more expensive the burden will be in terms of resources and human livelihood.

In 2016, agriculture production in Yemen and the area under cultivation shrank by 38 per cent due to the lack of inputs and investments. Livestock production fell by 35 per cent.

Agricultural assistance in a humanitarian crisis can no longer be an afterthought, the FAO Director-General said. We need to seize every opportunity to support communities in Yemen to continue producing food, even under difficult circumstances.

In Geneva, Graziano da Silva met Yemens Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid Bin Daghr, for talks on FAOs support to the country to deliver emergency livelihood assistance and kick-start food production, especially when resources pledged to tackle the crisis are concretely made available.

The Geneva pledging conference on April 25 mobilised half of the 2,1 billion dollars urgently required to rescue the starving Yemeni population.

Licensed from Inter Press Service



Related video added by Juan Cole:

UN News Centre from 3 months ago: UN relief official: International efforts underway to aid the 7 million vulnerable in the Sahel
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Only one fighting force in Syria is practically speaking taking on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on the ground, and that is the Syrian Democratic Forces, the bulk of whose fighters are leftist Kurds of the Peoples Protection Units (YPG). They are joined by some rural Arab clans of Syrias northeast, but I think the US Pentagon exaggerates the number of Arabs involved. The SDF is mostly Kurds, i.e. it is mostly YPG.

This weekend, the YPG fighters made another advance against Daesh, in the small town of Tabaqah due east of the Daesh capital, al-Raqqa. Tabaqah probably had a population of about 80,000 in 2011 when the Syrian civil war began.

The SDF announced that they had made enormous progress in Tabaqa, a strategic town that is key to controlling the biggest dam in Syria. The campaign there is called Euphrates Fury, which aims at liberating the towns population from Daesh/ ISIL.

Communiques from the YPG claimed that they had almost completely taken the town by Sunday evening (yesterday), with the exception of a handful of villages in the

The YPG says that after Tabaqah is properly subdued, they hope to go on to Raqqa and take down the so-called ISIL caliphate.

Ironically, even as the YPG fighters were putting their lives on the line to take a key town away from Daesh, Turkey was threatening them.

On Daesh, Turkey hasnt been all that interested, despite having been the victim of several Daesh bombings. Ankara has its eye instead on Kurdish separatism in Turkey itself, and fears a successful Syrian Kurdish mini-state could give Turkish Kurds ideas.

As I wrote for The Nation last Friday, last week Turkey bombed YPG positions and killed over 20 fighters (i.e. over 20 allies of the 500 US special operations personnel on the ground in Syria). Turkey views the YPG as a branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and thus as a terrorist organization. The United States government disagrees and has a close battlefield alliance with the Kurds against Daesh.

So Trump had to order US military personnel up to the Turkish-Syrian border to put themselves between the Turkish troops and the Syrian YPG. The US military is now protecting the YPG with its own bodies, from a NATO ally.

Turkey is nevertheless threatening to hit the YPG at night and without warning.

The Anadolu Agency is reporting that

Ankara is gravely concerned by photos of U.S. soldiers attending the funerals of YPG terrorists in the wake of Turkish airstrikes against PKK/YPG targets in Syria and northern Iraq, said Turkeys president Sunday. We are seriously concerned to see U.S. flags in a convoy that has YPG rags on it. We will mention these issues to President [Donald Trump] during our visit to the United States on May 16 . . .

So there you have it. Trump is in the position of trying to separate and make peace among two American allies, one of them a major military power and NATO member, the other a rag tag band of leftist Kurds. In the meantime, it is the ragtag band that is advancing on ISIL in Raqqa.

-

Related video:

Al Jazeera English: Turkey threatens further strikes on US-allied Syrian Kurds
Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCwire) - Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture Exchange: CZX) is pleased to announce that it has finalized plans for the upcoming 2017 exploration program on the Akie property. The Company has outlined a comprehensive up to 7,500 metre diamond drill program that will focus primarily on its Cardiac Creek deposit.

The Company owns 100% of eleven, large, contiguous property blocks that comprise the Akie and Kechika Regional projects. The Companys flagship Akie Project is host to the Cardiac Creek deposit. The Kechika Regional Project includes the Pie, Yuen, Cirque East and Mt. Alcock properties extending northwest from the Akie property for approximately 140 kilometres covering the highly prospective Gunsteel Formation shale; the main host rock for known SEDEX zinc-lead-silver deposits in the Kechika Trough of northeastern British Columbia. These projects are located approximately 260 kilometres north northwest of the town of Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada.

The 2017 Exploration Plan

Logistical planning for the 2017 exploration program is currently underway with contractual arrangements being finalized with several service providers.

The Company has engaged Canadian Helicopters Ltd. of Edmonton, Alberta, to provide helicopter services for the duration of the exploration program. Canadian Helicopters Ltd. has bases located throughout the interior of British Columbia including; Smithers, Fort St. John and Terrace, and is strategically located to support the program. Canadian Helicopters Ltd. recently provided similar services to Teck at its Cirque Project located approximately 20 kilometres from the Akie property; as such they are familiar with the local terrain and expected weather conditions.

The Company has also engaged Western Exploration Drilling Ltd. of Kamloops, British Columbia to once again provide drilling services to the project. Western Exploration Drilling Ltd. has provided drilling services to the Akie project over the course of four exploration seasons since 2011 and has been instrumental in allowing the Company to effectively and efficiently define the Cardiac Creek deposit, and explore the Akie property. In addition to the drilling and helicopter companies the Company is currently finalizing arrangements with several other key service providers.

Diamond Drilling Program

The 2017 exploration program will focus on the Cardiac Creek stratiform Zn-Pb-Ag deposit located on the Akie property. The Company plans on mobilizing two drills to the Akie property to complete a comprehensive up to 7,500 metre diamond drilling program in 2017. Up to 5,000 metres of drilling will target the Cardiac Creek deposit with a focus on expanding the down-dip limits of the high-grade core of the deposit as well as other expansion targets down-dip and along strike. An additional up to 2,500 metres of drilling will be allocated for infill targets across the deposit with the primary objective of providing additional material for subsequent metallurgical lab testing.

Additional exploration drill targets across the Akie property will be considered and include: the North Lead Zone where previous drilling intersected extensive intervals of bedded pyrite mineralisation that were highly anomalous in zinc and a thin massive sulphide lens; the South Zinc Anomaly which is defined by a large (~2 kilometre by 500 metre) zinc-in-soil anomaly; and the Sitka Showing located on the eastern edge of the Akie property that is characterized by a thick barite sequence hosting disseminated coarse grained galena and sphalerite.

The diamond drill program is expected to start early June and continue through to end of September.

Mr. Peeyush Varshney, President and CEO of the Company, stated, "We are pleased with the progress we have made in finalizing our exploration targets at Akie and look forward to soon mobilizing the drill rigs for commencement of drilling.

The Akie Zn-Pb-Ag Project

The Companys flagship Akie property is situated within the Kechika Trough, the southernmost area of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.

Drilling on the Akie property by Canada Zinc Metals since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead-silver SEDEX mineralisation known as the Cardiac Creek deposit. The deposit is hosted by siliceous, carbonaceous, fine grained clastic rocks of the middle to late Devonian Gunsteel Formation.

The Company has outlined a NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource at Cardiac Creek, including an indicated resource of 19.6 million tonnes grading 8.2% zinc, 1.6% lead and 13.6 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut-off grade) and an inferred resource of 8.1 million tonnes grading 6.8% zinc, 1.1% lead and 11.2 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut-off grade).

Ken MacDonald P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.
VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - May 01, 2017) - Arizona Mining Inc. (TSX: AZ) ("Arizona Mining" or the "Company") is pleased to announce it has signed a binding private placement agreement for 45 million common shares in the Company (the "Shares") at a price of C$2.45 per Share with South32 Limited ("South32") for gross proceeds of C$110.3 million (the "Placement").

Transaction Highlights

South32 will subscribe for 45 million Shares of Arizona Mining at a price of C$2.45 per Share, representing approximately 15% of the Company's outstanding Shares on a non-diluted, post-subscription basis, for a total subscription price of C$110.3 million.

The proceeds will be used to add drill rigs and fully test the Taylor Deeps, Trench Vein System and other high priority targets, as well as to advance the Company's Taylor Deposit to the feasibility and permitting stage.

"We are extremely pleased to welcome South32, a global mining company, as a strategic investor in Arizona Mining. South32's significant investment represents an endorsement of the Taylor zinc-lead-silver deposit and recognizes the deposit's growing world-class stature and additional prospectivity," said Jim Gowans, President and CEO. "On closing, we will be fully funded to complete our feasibility study and the state permitting activities for operations on our patented land. We will also continue exploring the property and will add drill rigs to thoroughly test Taylor Deeps, the Trench Vein system and other targets to increase the resource."

South32 will have a pre-emptive right to participate in future equity financings to maintain its ownership percentage at 15% on a non-diluted basis, and will be restricted from selling any Shares for one year from the closing date of the Placement. South32 will also have the right to nominate one Director to the Company's Board of Directors provided it maintains a minimum 12.5% ownership in Arizona Mining's Shares on a non-diluted basis.

The Placement will be completed post receipt of regulatory approvals including by the Toronto Stock Exchange.

About Arizona Mining

Arizona Mining Inc. (an augustagroup company) is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company focused on the exploration and development of its 100%-owned Hermosa Project located in Santa Cruz County, Arizona. A recently completed preliminary economic assessment on the Hermosa-Taylor project showed robust economics, including a 42% after-tax internal rate of return, an after-tax NPV of $1.26 billion and a 1.7 year payback. The Taylor Deposit, a zinc-lead-silver carbonate replacement deposit, has a resource of 8.6 million tons in the Measured Mineral Resource category grading 4.2% zinc, 4.0% lead and 1.6 opt silver, or 9.7% ZnEq, plus 63.8 million tons in the Indicated Mineral Resource category grading 4.5% zinc, 4.4% lead and 1.9 opt silver, or 10.6% ZnEq, and 38.6 million tons of Inferred Mineral Resources grading 4.4% zinc, 4.2% lead and 3.1 opt silver or 11.6% ZnEq, all reported in accordance with NI 43-101 guidelines utilizing a 4% ZnEq cutoff grade. The Taylor Deposit remains open to the north, west and south over land controlled by the Company and will be aggressively drilled to test the limits of the resource. The Company's other project on the Hermosa property is the Central Deposit, a silver-manganese manto oxide project.

About South32

South32 is a globally diversified metals and mining company with high-quality and well maintained operations which mine and produce bauxite, alumina, aluminium, energy and metallurgical coal, manganese, nickel, silver, lead and zinc in Australia, Southern Africa and South America. More information about South32 is available on their company's website at www.south32.net.
Speaking to India Today, the MP Minister said, "I have gifted 700 mogris to the brides in my Assembly constituency of Rahli in Sagar district to save themselves from drunkard husbands."

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Madhya Pradesh Social Justice Minister Gopal Bhargava has devised a couple of novel methods to deal with liquor menace in his Assembly constituency. He is gifting cloth washing bats to the newly-weds and mobile phones to panchayat workers to thrash the alcoholics, including husbands, and the illicit liquor sellers.

Speaking to India Today, the MP Minister said, "I have gifted 700 mogris to the brides in my Assembly constituency of Rahli in Sagar district to save themselves from drunkard husbands."

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Mogris or mogarias are small wooden bats used to thrash and wash clothes.

On the bats are printed messages like "sharabiyon ke sutara hetu bhent (gift to keep drunkards in check)" and "police nahi bolegi (the police will not speak)".

Asked whether he was encouraging violence and sowing the seeds of disharmony in the house of a bride's in-laws, Gopal Bhargava said, "In fact, it is the other way round. The brides become victims of violence at the hands of their drunkard husbands and in-laws. They are forced to commit suicide. Hence, I have told these newly-weds that instead of committing suicide and silently bearing the violence, they should retaliate in self-defence."

Gopal Bhargava said there has been a marked improvement in the situation. "I would get a survey done very soon to get tangible results," he said.

The MP Minister said illicit liquor supply has become a nuisance in the state. There was no problem with the legal liquor shops. But liquor is now being supplied and surreptitiously delivered at home on phone and even on credit. This was spoiling the families. Women and children were the worst victims, he said.

HOME MINISTRY FAILED IN CURBING MENACE

Gopal Bhargava also said the Excise Department and the Home Ministry had failed in curbing the menace. His Social Justice Department's campaigns through posters and hoardings had also failed to convince the men to forsake the drinking habits. Hence, he was forced to come up with fresh ideas.

The second experiment to be launched by the MP Minister is the formation of women groups like the one shown in Hindi movie 'Gulabi Gang'. These 'gulabi gangs' would attack the bootleggers.

He said women from each panchayat and ward are being selected to form a group of 15 to 20 people who would patrol at night. These women have been gifted mobile phones worth Rs 3,000. They have been given the phone numbers of the police, excise and administrative officers.

"I have told them to call me if the officials do not listen to them," he said.

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Gopal Bhargava further said "We are left with no choice but to resort to these tactics because both Excise Department and the Police blame each other for the thriving liquor mafia. Even Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has told the police officials in his public meetings on several occasions to check the menace of liquor."

The MP Minister said the two initiatives have been launched on experimental basis. He would get the impact survey of these initiatives done to replicate throughout the state.

Also read:

Liquor mafia gets free rein in Delhi: An investigation by Mail Today

Delhi cop allegedly beaten to death by liquor mafia in south Delhi

WATCH | Operation Dryways: How liquor vendors on highways are openly flouting Supreme Court ruling

--- ENDS ---
Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCwire) - ALIX RESOURCES CORP. (Alix or the Company) (AIX-TSX:V) (37NFRANKFURT) wish to provide the following news release issued by its JV partner Lithium Australia ML (LIT-ASX) with regards to the ongoing program at the Agua Fria Lithium Project located in Sonora, Mexico.

HIGHLIGHTS

Mineralogy suggests there is potential to significantly beneficiate Agua Fria mineralization.

Most lithium liberated rapidly at ambient temperature.

No expensive reagents required.

No roasting required.

Montmorillonite is thought to be the main lithium bearing mineral.

BACKGROUND

Drilling is progressing at Agua Fria, where Lithium Australia (ASX:LIT) and Alix Resources Corporation (TSX:V AIX) operate a 49/51% joint venture (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Shows the location of the Electra Project (which includes Agua Fria) Sonora, Mexico.



The Agua Fria prospect is part of the Electra Project (Figure 1) which is focused on volcanogenic sediments hosting widespread lithium mineralization. The sediments occur within the same geological sequence as Bacanora Minerals La Ventana deposit which is currently being evaluated for production.

La Ventana is the largest documented lithium clay deposit. Agua Fria has a similar geological footprint and lies to the south of La Ventana deposit. Early indications are very promising with significant drill intervals having average values exceeding 1000ppm lithium.

PRELIMINARY METALLURGICAL RESULTS

Metallurgical test work is being undertaken by Kappes Cassiday and Associates in Reno, Nevada (USA). Mineralogical characterization (using sample from surface trenching) has been evaluated with quantitative X-ray diffraction and yielded the results shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Quantitative XRD of trench composite samples, Agua Fria.

Mineral Ideal Formula Composite 1 Quartz SiO2 2 K-feldspar KAlSi3O8 18 Plagioclase NaAlSi3O8  CaAlSi2O8 13 Analcime NaAlSi2O6H2O 12 Ankerite  Dolomite Ca(Fe2+,Mg,Mn)(CO3)2  CaMg(CO3)2 23 Calcite CaCO3 1 Anatase TiO2 1 Montmorillonite, model (Na,Ca)0.3(Al,Mg)2Si4O10(OH)2nH2O 30 Total 100

INTERPRETED MINERALOGY

Quantitative XRD analyses were performed on a composite sample assembled from trench samples at Agua Fria. The XRD suggests the main lithium bearing phase is montmorillonite, a lithium clay mineral similar to hectorite. The other minerals forming the clay sample are dolomite, quartz, plagioclase feldspar and analcime.

ACID EXTRACTION OF LITHIUM AT AMBIENT TEMPERATURE

Preliminary sulphuric acid shaker tests were carried out at room temperature for a period of four hour on the samples containing up to 950 ppm Li. Lithium extraction attaining 85% were observed. These are excellent results given the fact these sighter tests were performed at low temperature and with a relatively short residence time. The tests indicate no thermal pre-treatment of the material is required. A moderate increase in temperature and residence time is expected to improve kinetics and drive the lithium extraction greater than 90 %.

BENEFICIATION POTENTIAL

Montmorillonite is thought to be the main lithium-bearing mineral. It accounts for only 30% of the sample mass. Efficient separation of the montmorillonite from gangue minerals has the potential to produce a concentrate with significantly higher lithium grades than the bulk material subject of the characterization work.

Separating montmorillonite from the acid-consuming dolomite and calcite by the application of de-sliming or flotation will significantly reduce the quantity of acid used.

Lithium Australia Managing director Adrian Griffin stated:

These results are a great start to our metallurgical evaluation program and clearly show the potential to produce a valuable concentrate from the host volcanogenic sediments. The acid solubility of the lithium is of greater importance. The ability to leach the lithium in very short periods of time, at ambient temperature, and without the requirement of pre-treatment may have profound effects on the economics of Agua Fria, the next major lithium clay deposit.

The technical contents of this release were approved by Michel Boily, PhD, P.Geo a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. The property has not been the subject of a National Instrument 43-101 report.

About Alix Resources

Alix Resources is a junior mining exploration company focused on seeking and acquiring world class lithium projects globally. Alix continues to evaluate suitable prospects that fit the mandate of the Company.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. ("Volcanic") (TSX VENTURE:VG) is pleased to report that it has entered into a binding and exclusive Memorandum of Understanding (the "MOU") to acquire an initial 70% interest in the Seimana Project in Guinea. This interest may be further increased to 100% through additional project expenditures. Seimana comprises four exploration permits, which together adjoin much of the western boundary of Volcanic's existing Mandiana Project ("Mandiana"), as well as the lands the Company has under option from West African Mining Associates SARL ("WAMA"), as announced by Volcanic on April 14, 2017. The acquisition of the Seimana Project will expand Volcanic's holding in the Mandiana district to almost 1,000 fully contiguous square kilometers of highly prospective Birimian terrain, characterized by widespread, linear zones of shallow artisanal gold mining.

The Seimana Project

Exploration at Seimana in 2014 and 2015 by a former option holder included the drilling of 31 reverse circulation holes for a total of approximately 3,000m of drilling over 9 of the 40 reported targets. In much the same fashion as drilling works conducted at Mandiana and WAMA -- to which Seimana is geologically similar -- these targets were derived from artisanal workings. Drilling results include:

4m @ 19.8g/t from 50m in hole TAMRC001

5m @ 2.64g/t from 61m in hole TAMRC002

10m @ 2.58g/t from 36m in hole KROURC001

5m @ 2.02g/t from 55m and 3m @ 3.50g/t from 66m in hole KROURC002

3m @ 5.6g/t from 26m in hole KOTRC001

3m @ 5.06g/t from 21m and 3m @ 3.50g/t from 66m in hole KRDRC002

The reader is advised that the above results are historic in nature and are yet to be verified by Volcanic.

Earlier works at Seimana include surface geochemical and rock-chip sampling, and broad prospecting of artisanal workings over much of the property. Mineralization at Seimana lies along strike from Avocet Mining's Resource1 of 1.99 million ounces (Measured and Indicated) and 1.02 million ounces (Inferred) of gold at the Tri-K property, located 7 km to the south of the Seimana Project. Mineralization appears to be associated with NW trending geological structures, in common with other known gold deposits within the Siguiri Basin. It is anticipated that Volcanic will include Seimana in its airborne geophysical survey program currently planned over its consolidated land package, to be followed-up by further prospecting, with the aim of defining and refining drilling targets at the Project.

1Competent Persons' Report, 31 December 2014 (JORC standards)

The MOU

Pursuant to the terms of the MOU, Volcanic will make a cash payment of US$17,640 to the Seimana optionors, which is to be used to complete the renewal of the mineral tenures that comprise the Project. Subject to completion of satisfactory due diligence on title to the Seimana Project, Volcanic will have the exclusive right to earn a 70% interest in the Project by incurring exploration expenditures of US$700,000 on the Project within 18 months of the effective date of the MOU, including expenditures of at least US$300,000 within the first 6 months. Once Volcanic has acquired the 70% interest, the remaining 30% interest in the Project held by the optionors will remain undiluted until such time as Volcanic has incurred aggregate exploration expenditures of US$2M. Thereafter, the minority owners will have the right, but not the obligation, to participate in any project funding in proportion to their percentage ownership in the Project, or will be diluted proportionally.

About Volcanic

Volcanic brings together a deeply experienced and successful mining, exploration and capital markets team focused on building a multi-million ounce gold resource in the underexplored West African country of Guinea and its neighbouring countries. Through the strategic acquisition of mineral properties with demonstrated potential for hosting gold resources, and by undertaking effective exploration and drill programs, Volcanic is seeking to become a leading junior gold resource company.

Qualified Person

Mr. Simon Meadows-Smith is a Qualified Person as defined by "National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects" and has approved the disclosure of the scientific and technical information contained in this news release. Mr. Meadows-Smith holds a BSc degree in geology from Nottingham University, England, and has been involved in mineral exploration since 1988, including 20 years of experience working in West Africa. He is a Fellow in good standing of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining in London.
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - First Cobalt Corp. (TSX VENTURE:FCC) ("First Cobalt" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has signed an exclusive letter of intent with an associate of Madini Minerals ("Madini"), to form a strategic alliance and earn a controlling interest over seven prospective copper-cobalt ("Cu-Co") exploration properties covering 190 square kilometres ("km") in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the "DRC").

Highlights

Transaction represents a low-risk entry point into the world's leading cobalt jurisdiction

Properties join the Company's Keeley-Frontier Mine option in Canada to expand its global portfolio of cobalt properties

First Cobalt to become a 70% joint venture partner on each of seven properties

Properties represent substantial land package totaling 190 km 2 (19,000 hectares) on the Central African Copperbelt in Katanga, DRC, all with known surface mineralization

(19,000 hectares) on the Central African Copperbelt in Katanga, DRC, all with known surface mineralization Madini will appoint Congolese Serge Ngandu, Pr. Eng., to the First Cobalt board of directors

Madini will have a 8.5% ownership interest of First Cobalt

Trent Mell, President & Chief Executive Officer commented:

"I am very pleased to be partnering with Madini in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Identifying the right mineral properties in the DRC is a key part of our strategy to grow our global portfolio of cobalt properties. The DRC accounts for over 60% of global cobalt production and we see significant exploration upside in the country. This transaction will allow First Cobalt to firmly establish a presence in one of the richest mining camps in the world. I also look forward to announcing the work plan for the Keeley-Frontier mine in northern Ontario in the near future as we move forward with our strategy to provide focused leverage to the cobalt market."

Property Overview

All seven properties are on prospective ground proximal to several major copper-cobalt operations and projects in the Central African Copperbelt (see Figure 1). Five of the properties form a cluster, located approximately 50 kilometres northeast of Lubumbashi, central to existing smelters and refineries. The sixth property is also nearby, close to the former producing Luishia Cu-Co mine, and the seventh is approximately 55 kilometres from the Tenke-Fungurume mine. The claims total 190 km2 and some are contiguous allowing for systematic exploration.

Prospective Property Surface Area Breakdown:

Concession # Surface Area (km2) 12727 5.91 12726 8.44 13730 17.44 1785 22.86 5278 32.40 13729 34.62 13728 68.36 Total 190.03

Figure 1. General location of the First Cobalt properties and major Cu-Co deposits of the Central African Copperbelt





Surface mineralization is known at all properties. Within the cluster of properties near Lubumbashi, small scale mining has exposed cobalt and copper mineralization. One of the properties has a test pit exploring for mineralization at depth and another is adjacent to a pilot open pit developed by state-owned mining company Gecamines S.A.

Geologic Setting

The Central African Copperbelt is a prolific geological setting for sediment hosted Cu-Co mineralization with an extended history of mining, exploration and academic research. As a result, exploration models are reasonably well understood. Cu-Co mineralization was initially thought to be constrained to the lower sedimentary sequences within the Lower Roan sub-group rocks; hence this sequence is also known historically as the "Mine Series". In the last 20 years, several other deposits have been developed in the overlying sedimentary units; specifically, in the Mwashya and Nguba sub-group, highlighting the widespread Cu-Co prospectivity throughout the stratigraphic sequence. Most recently, the major discoveries reported by Ivanhoe Mines in the Kamoa area within the Grand Conglomerate formation, previously considered to represent the upper stratigraphic boundary to Cu-Co mineralization, demonstrate the high potential for new deposits to be found.

The size and distribution of the First Cobalt properties permit a full range of Copperbelt mineralization styles to be explored and developed (see Figure 2). The properties cover prospective strata comparable to world class-sized Cu-Co mineralization at the Tenke-Fungurume deposits which characterize the "Shaba-Type" endmember. These deposits are hosted in evaporite-rich breccias with Cu-Co minerals concentrated in the matrix and replacing the precursor sedimentary rocks. Also nearby, Kinsevere Mine contains a similar style of mineralization. The Luputo-Kasonto deposits represent "Zambia-Type" mineralization in this region with Cu-Co minerals as disseminations and veins as well as within hydrothermal breccias replacing sedimentary rocks, specifically shale, siltstone and conglomerate. A number of smaller Cu-Co prospects are also known throughout the area.

Figure 2. Regional bedrock geology and location of the First Cobalt properties





The area around properties 12726, 12727, and 13729 has been explored at an advanced stage. Approximately 500 metres north of 12727 is a Gecamines S.A. opencast mine. Copper-cobalt mineralization occurs within a 25-30 metre wide breccia zone containing blocks and fragments of Roan Group sediments. The style is comparable to Shaba-Type mineralization. The structure hosting the breccia zone can be traced south to 12727 and provides an immediate exploration target. The surrounding properties are amenable to both regional and detailed surface geochemical surveys.

Terms of Agreement

Madini will act as First Cobalt's operator on all seven properties. Madini has extensive experience running exploration programs in Africa, as well as strong in-country relationships. Exploration plans and budgets will be jointly prepared by Madini and First Cobalt with approval to come from a joint exploration committee. First Cobalt will have final approval on the budget proposed by the committee as the sole provider of the exploration funding. First Cobalt will have a right of first refusal over other Madini interests in the DRC.

As consideration for the options, First Cobalt will pay JayBird Invest Ltd., ("JayBird", associate of Madini Minerals) CAD$600,000 in cash and issue 4.53 million shares upon closing of the transaction. An aggregate of US$1.58 million is payable to the property owners to acquire the 70% interest over all seven properties. There are no minimum annual spending requirements and the 30% partners each have a free-carry until completion of a feasibility study.

At closing, it is anticipated that JayBird will own approximately 8.5% of First Cobalt's issued and outstanding shares, and shall be entitled to appoint a nominee to the Board of Directors of First Cobalt. The nominee is expected to be Serge Ngandu, Pr. Eng., a respected Congolese metallurgist and businessman.

Definitive documentation and confirmatory due diligence is expected to be completed within approximately four weeks. The agreement is non-binding and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and other approvals including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

Qualified Person

Dr. Frank Santaguida, P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration for First Cobalt is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 who has reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - West Kirkland Mining Inc. (TSX VENTURE:WKM)(OTCQB:WKLDF) ("West Kirkland" or the "Company") today announces that a Limited Liability Corporation Agreement (the "LLC Agreement") governing the Hasbrouck Gold Project (the "Hasbrouck Project"), located near Tonopah, Nevada has been executed between the Company and Clover Nevada LLC, a Nevada limited liability company and 100% subsidiary of Waterton Precious Metals Fund II Cayman, LP ("Waterton"), who acquired a 25% interest in the Hasbrouck Project in 2015. West Kirkland owns a 75% interest and is the operator of the Hasbrouck Project.

The LLC Agreement formally ratifies the relationship between the two owners. Under the terms of the LLC agreement Waterton is required to fund their 25% share of expenditures on the Hasbrouck Project incurred subsequent to September 1, 2016. Waterton has indicated their intention to fund their 25% share of expenditures. However, should Waterton choose not to fund their share of expenditures, their interest will be diluted according to a prescribed formula in the LLC agreement.

The Hasbrouck Gold Project has received all the permits to construct and operate the first phase of the open pit, heap leach gold recovery operation at the Three Hills pit. Work continues on the permitting for the second phase of the project at the larger Hasbrouck pit.

A 2015 Pre-Feasibility Study estimated open pit reserves for the Hasbrouck Project. The mineral resource and reserve estimate was prepared in conformance with NI 43-101 by Mine Development Associates ("MDA"). Proven and Probable reserves (based on 100% of the project) total 45.3 million tons containing 762,000 ounces gold and 10.6 million ounces silver as detailed below:

Hasbrouck Project Reserves June 3, 2015, Mine Development Associates Three Hills K tons Grade

(oz Au/ ton) K oz Au oz Ag/ton K oz Ag 0.005 opt

Au cut-off Proven - - - - - Probable 9,653 0.018 175 - - P&P 9,653 0.018 175 - - Hasbrouck Variable Proven 6,242 0.020 127 0.410 2,562 Probable 29,374 0.016 461 0.273 8,007 P&P 35,617 0.017 588 0.297 10,569 Total Hasbrouck Project Variable Proven 6,242 0.020 127 0.410 2,562 Probable 39,028 0.016 635 0.205 8,007 P&P 45,270 0.017 762 0.233 10,569

Notes:

The estimation and classification of Proven and Probable reserves have been prepared by Thomas L. Dyer, P.E., of MDA following CIM standards. Reserves are estimated based on $1,225/oz gold and $17.50/oz silver. Cutoff grades used for reserves are: Three Hills 0.005 oz Au/ton, Hasbrouck Upper Siebert 0.008 oz Au/ton, and Hasbrouck Lower Siebert 0.007 oz Au/ton. It is MDA's opinion that the sampling, assaying, and security procedures used at Three Hills and Hasbrouck follow industry standard procedures, and are adequate for the estimation of the current mineral reserves. MDA completed audits of the database, performed a site visit, reviewed QAQC data and confirmed historic assays. After performing their review, they consider the assay data to be adequate for the estimation of the current mineral reserves. MDA has reviewed and verified the data disclosed in the above table to be in conformity with generally accepted CIM "Estimation of Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves Best Practices" guidelines in accordance with NI 43-101.

ABOUT THE HASBROUCK GOLD PROJECT

Hasbrouck Gold Project consists of two all-oxide gold-silver deposits eight kilometers apart. Both deposits will be mined in open pits having low stripping ratios and minimal pre-stripping should the project proceed to production.

West Kirkland's independent consultants, MDA, produced an updated Pre-feasibility Study in September 2016 which is available on SEDAR and at www.wkmining.com. All necessary permits to construct and operate the Three Hills Mine are in hand, and work to obtain permits for the Hasbrouck Mine is ongoing, with submission of a Plan of Operation to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) targeted for Q4, 2017.

QUALIFIED PERSON

R. Michael Jones, P.Eng, CEO for West Kirkland Mining is a non-independent Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. He has reviewed the information contained in this news release and has verified the data by hiring qualified geologists and engineers and has completed a review of the detailed technical information. Mineral reserve information in this news release has been developed and approved by Thomas L. Dyer, P.E., of MDA following CIM standards.

QUALITY ASSURANCE/QUALITY CONTROL

West Kirkland Mining utilizes a well-documented system of inserting blanks and standards into the assay stream and has a strict chain of custody. Assays are completed at independent laboratories which have internal quality assurance and quality control systems and procedures. Assays were performed by ALS Chemex Labs Ltd., by fire assay and ICP methods.

ABOUT WEST KIRKLAND MINING INC.

West Kirkland owns a 75% interest in the Hasbrouck Gold Project in Tonopah, Nevada. A Pre-feasibility Study with construction-level drawings and all federal and state permits for the phase-one Three Hills Mine provides a ready-to-construct project. Drilling for potential expansion is underway. West Kirkland also holds a 60% interest in the open pit heap-leach TUG Gold Project in Utah in joint venture with Newmont.

For further information, please see the Company's website at www.wkmining.com or contact us by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
CENTENNIAL, Colo., May 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NioCorp Developments Ltd. (NioCorp or the Company) (TSX:NB) (OTCQX:NIOBF) (FSE:BR3) announces that it and Northcott Capital (Northcott) have engaged the engineering firm of RPM Global (RPM) to serve as independent engineer as part of the anticipated process for obtaining debt financing for the Elk Creek Superalloy Project (the Project) in Nebraska.

A highly regarded international mineral resources consulting and engineering firm, RPM (formerly RungePincockMinarco) will conduct technical due diligence for the financial institutions expected to form a debt syndicate to help finance the Project. RPM has served as Lenders Engineer for a total of 32 projects over the past five years, including in the China Molybdenum Companys 2016 purchase of the Anglo-American Catalao Niobium mine in Brazil, where RPM provided acquisitions due diligence, JORC Resource and Reserve Statement review, and valuation support.

Northcott is leading the effort on NioCorps behalf to assemble the expected debt component of the Projects overall financing package. NioCorp previously obtained in-principle eligibility for a loan guarantee to be provided by the Federal Republic of Germany to support the Companys debt financing strategy. That loan guarantee, if approved by the German government, may form the anchor component of NioCorps debt financing.

As part of our effort to continue to advance the Elk Creek Project to construction, we are pleased to have RPM serve as the independent engineer for the debt financing syndicate that we expect to come together in support of the Project, said Mark A. Smith, CEO and Executive Chairman of NioCorp. This is an important step in the process and will help us hit the ground running in the project finance effort once we complete work on the Project feasibility study.

About NioCorp

NioCorp is developing a superalloy materials project in Southeast Nebraska that will produce Niobium, Scandium, and Titanium. Niobium is used to produce superalloys as well as High Strength, Low Alloy ("HSLA") steel, which is a lighter, stronger steel used in automotive, structural, and pipeline applications. Scandium is a superalloy material that can be combined with Aluminum to make alloys with increased strength and improved corrosion resistance. Scandium also is a critical component of advanced solid oxide fuel cells. Titanium is used in various superalloys and is a key component of pigments used in paper, paint and plastics and is also used for aerospace applications, armor and medical implants.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - May 1, 2017) - Medgold Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE:MED) (the "Company" or "Medgold") is pleased to announce that the Company has selected a drilling contractor for a planned diamond drill program at the Tlamino project in Serbia. Drilling is scheduled to start at the end of July. A ground IP-resistivity geophysical survey is currently underway to outline potential anomalies for drill testing.

Dan James, President of Medgold, commented: "We are very pleased at the rapid progress we've made at the Tlamino Project which has built on the high-grade gold-silver results we reported in January. Working with our partner, Fortuna Silver Mines, we've started an IP-resistivity survey over the Barje-Liska and Karamanica showings, and we're excited to drill test our Barje prospect. We'll also be continuing our target generation work throughout Serbia and we have several new licences under application."

The Tlamino Gold Project is located in southern Serbia, and includes two historical showings: Liska and Barje. Both showings are associated with a regional east-west striking detachment fault, which in the vicinity of these showings has been overlain by conglomerates. Mineralization is located at the contact of the basement metamorphic rocks and the base of the conglomerate cover.

In January, Medgold reported the assay results from a series of saw-cut surface channel samples over the outcrop at Barje, where approximately 70 m x 25 m of mineralized tectonic breccia is exposed at the edge of the conglomerate cover (see Medgold news release dated January 9, 2017). A plan map showing the locations of the channel samples is posted on Medgold's website at www.medgoldresources.com.

Medgold's diamond drilling program at Tlamino will test anomalies resulting from the IP program, and will also attempt to confirm the continuity of the Barje outcrop high-grade precious metal mineralization at depth.

Portugal Update

In the light of its recent exploration successes in Serbia, the Company has decided to focus its exploration efforts in Serbia and withdraw from Portugal. Medgold would like to thank everyone on our team in Portugal for their efforts over the last two years.

Following the completion of a 2,500 m diamond drilling program at Boticas, under the Option Agreement with Centerra Gold Inc., it was determined by both Centerra and Medgold that there is insufficient exploration upside to warrant further exploration. Accordingly, our option agreement with Centerra is in the process of being terminated, and Medgold is terminating its option agreement with Luso Recursos for the Marrancos Project.

Shares for Services

In order to preserve its cash on hand during 2017, Medgold has agreed, subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, to issue a total of 220,000 shares of the Company to Dan James in part consideration for his ongoing services as the Company's President. The shares will be issued in installments over a one-year period commencing as of January 1, 2017.

About Medgold

Medgold is a European-focused, TSX-V listed, exploration and development company targeting gold properties in Serbia. Run by a highly experienced management team with a successful track record of building value in resource companies, Medgold is aiming to become a leading European gold exploration company.

Qualified Person

Mr. David Clark, M.Sc., P.Geo., is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Mr. Clark prepared the technical information contained in this news release and has approved its disclosure.

Additional information on Medgold can be found on the Company's website at www.medgoldresources.com and by reviewing the Company's page on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
MONTREAL, May 1, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - ALGOLD RESOURCES LTD. (TSXV: ALG) (the "Corporation") is pleased to announce an updated mineral resource estimate in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") for its Tijirit Property ("Tijirit" or "the Property") in Mauritania. The 100%-owned Tijirit project, which encompasses an area of more than 1,000 km2, is situated approximately 25 kilometers southeast of Kinross' Tasiast gold mine.

Highlights

The updated NI 43-101 technical report comes only nine months following our maiden report (reference Algold's NI 43-101 technical report filed August 4, 2016). Inferred resources at the Eleonore zone, where the majority of drilling was completed, increased significantly to 357,920 ounces at 4.18 g/t Au at a cut-off grade of 1.5 g/t Au. For comparison purposes with Algold's maiden report, and using base case scenario (see below), Eleonore inferred resources increased from 19,650 ounces of gold at 3.26 g/t Au to 357,920 ounces of gold at 4.18 g/t Au. It is important to note that capping negatively impacts results, particularly when applied to nuggety high-grade mineralizations such as that at Tijirit, resulting in an overall decrease in grade and ounces of approximately 20%.

The overall high grade nature of the Eleonore deposit allows for various cut-off grade parameters to be applied and thus will allow Algold to choose between various potential mining scenarios as more drilling will permit to better define the width, depth and strike extension.

Eleonore Zone

The base case, with a cut-off grade (COG) of 1.5 g/t Au without pit constraints, includes inferred resources of 357,920 ounces of gold at a grade of 4.18 g/t Au.

Lily and Sophie Zones

The base case, with a COG of 0.4 g/t Au in pits and 1.4 g/t Au under pits, incudes measured and indicated resources of 43,430 ounces of gold at a grade of 1.04 g/t Au and inferred resources of 244,210 ounces of gold at a grade of 1.37 g/t Au.

The alternate case, with a COG of 1.5 g/t Au without pit constraints, includes measured and indicated resources of 17,710 ounces of gold and inferred resources of 148,820 ounces of gold both at 2.24 g/t Au.

The updated report takes into consideration 24,104 meters of reverse-circulation ("RC") drilling and 4,181 meters of core drilling, most of which was carried out on the Eleonore zone.

The base case resources by zone are shown in the following tables, at cut-off grades of 0.4 g/t Au COG in pits and 1.4 g/t Au COG under pits, excepts for Eleonore at a global cut off 1.5 g/t Au. Alternate scenarios are presented at 1.0 g/t Au, 1.5 g/t Au and 2.0 g/t Au COG without use of pit constraints. Note that the 1.0 g/t Au cut of grade is presented for comparisons with Maiden Resources, but has no reasonable prospect for eventual economic extraction using the new cost and price assumptions. Figure 1 shows the up-to-date drilling over the mineralized zones on a recent (April 2017) aerial photography of Tijirit. Figures 2a, 2b, and 2c, present longitudinal sections of the Eleonore North, Central and South gold zones.

Table 1: Tijirit Base Case Resources (0.4 g/t Au cut-off in pit and 1.4 g/t Au under pit, except Eleonore at 1.5 g/t Au)

Zone Classification Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Sophie/Lily Measured 1.03 73,000 2,420 Sophie/Lily Indicated 1.04 1,226,000 41,010 Total M+Ind 1.04 1,299,000 43,430 Sophie/Lily Inferred 1.37 5,528,000 244,210 Zone Classification Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Eleonore Inferred 4.18 2,665,000 357,920 Zone Classification Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Total Sophie/Lily/Eleonore Inferred 2.29 8,193,000 602,130

1. Effective dates for Eleonore and Sophie/Lily resources are March 17, 2017 and November 4, 2016, respectively. 2. The Independent QP for this resources statement is Yann Camus, Eng., SGS Canada Inc. 3. The mineral resources are presented at a 0.4 g/t Au cut-off grade in pits and 1.4 g/t Au cut-off grade under the pits, except Eleonore at a global cut-off 1.5 g/t Au. 4. The resources are presented without dilution. 5. Whittle pits have been used using a gold value of US$1,500/oz. 6. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. This disclosure does not include economic analysis of the mineral resources. 7. Totals may not add up due to rounding. 8. No economic evaluation of the resources has been produced. 9. This resource estimate has been prepared in accordance with CIM definition (2014). 10. Density used is between 2.0 and 3.0 depending on rock type and alteration based on measurements. 11. Capping varies from 3.5 g/t Au (Lily) to 45 g/t Au (Eleonore) depending on extreme local grade.

Table 2: Tijirit Sensitivity Analysis (The mineral resources are presented at a 1.0 g/t Au COG - for comparison with maiden resources only.)

Sophie & Lily

Zone COG Classification Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Sophie/Lily 1.0 M+Ind 1.68 538,000 29,040 Sophie/Lily 1.0 Inferred 1.65 4,800,000 253,920 Sophie/Lily 1.5 M+Ind 2.24 246,000 17,710 Sophie/Lily 1.5 Inferred 2.24 2,068,000 148,820 Sophie/Lily 2.0 M+Ind 2.76 122,000 10,800 Sophie/Lily 2.0 Inferred 2.87 932,000 85,880

Eleonore

Zone COG Classification Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Eleonore 1.0 Inferred 3.01 4,434,000 428,690 Eleonore 1.5 Inferred 4.18 2,665,000 357,920 Eleonore 2.0 Inferred 5.57 1,701,000 304,660

Refer to base case table for assumptions. Detailed tables for separate Measured and Indicated numbers will be in the full NI 43-101 report.

Table 3: Eleonore Zone Sensitivity Analysis - Various Cut-off Grades

COG (In Pit)

Au (g/t) COG (Under Pit)

Au (g/t) Class Name Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Au Comments 0.4 1.4 Inferred 3.13 3,978,000 400,820 COG different in pit

and under pit 0.5 1.4 Inferred 3.18 3,905,000 399,740 1.0 1.4 Inferred 3.60 3,334,000 385,900 COG (In Pit)

Au (g/t) COG (Under Pit)

Au (g/t) Class Name Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Ounces Au Comments 1.0 1.0 Inferred 3.01 4,434,000 428,690 Equal COG in pit

and under pit 1.5 1.5 Inferred 4.18 2,665,000 357,920 2.0 2.0 Inferred 5.57 1,701,000 304,660 2.5 2.5 Inferred 6.93 1,211,000 269,730

COG = cut-off grade

Base case 43-101 scenario highlighted in grey

Table 4: Tijirit Maiden Resources (1.0 g/t Au cut-off, no pit constraints (August 4, 2016)

Zone Category Au (g/t) Tonnage (t) Gold Ounces Eleonore Indicated 3.62 51,000 5,980 Sophie I - II Measured 1.79 28,000 1,600 Sophie I - II Indicated 1.57 216,000 10,900 Sophie III Indicated 1.13 29,000 1,040 Lily Indicated 1.54 189,000 9,410 Total Measured & Indicated* 1.75 513,000 28,930 Eleonore Inferred 3.26 188,000 19,650 Sophie I - II Inferred 1.96 1,635,000 103,180 Sophie III Inferred 1.10 320,000 11,270 Lily Inferred 1.48 2,258,000 107,470 Total Inferred* 1.71 4,401,000 241,560

* Totals may not add up due to rounding.

Increasing Potential of the Tijirit Project

"As anticipated, Tijirit's Eleonore Zone continues to deliver high grade gold resources. The ongoing Phase III drilling indicates that the mineralization is open along strike and at depth, leading us to believe that we can continue to increase the magnitude this resource significantly," stated Francois Auclair, Algold's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Infill drilling on the Eleonore North, South and Central areas of the drilling target continues to impress, with both remarkable grades and stand-out widths, such as hole T17RC045 (Eleonore South)  10 m @ 14.15 g/t Au (reference Algold's press release dated April 25, 2017). Additionally, the results reported on April 6, 2017 from hole T17RC013, 3 m @ 7.69 g/t Au, including 1 m @ 20.2 g/t Au on Eleonore South at a vertical depth of 150 meters are beginning to outline an area that could grow significantly in the future with additional drilling, both in strike-length and dip continuity (Figure 2c). In addition, recent geological mapping shows the presence of new structures parallel or sub-parallel to the mineralized zones."

Whittle optimized open pits have been prepared to allow to constrain the resource estimate. The assumptions are a gold price of US$1,500/oz, mining recovery of 95%, mining dilution of 5%, processing recovery of 95%, a processing cost of $14/t, a G&A cost of $3/t and an open pit mining cost of $3/t. The cut-off grades for the base case are calculated from the same assumptions with the addition of an underground mining cost of $40/t. The resulting COGs are 0.4 g/t Au in open pits and 1.4 g/t Au under the open pits. For Eleonore, Algold believes the best potential is expressed at a reasonable COG of 1.5 g/t.

Algold's Phase III drilling program is currently underway with the aim to further increase mineral resources.

Resources Modeling and Estimation

The resource estimation was prepared by SGS Canada Inc.  geological group Geostat ("SGS Geostat") with an effective date of March 17, 2017, using results from 489 RC holes totalling 61,807 meters, 53 diamond drill holes ("DDH") totalling 7,995 meters and 16,239 meters of trenching carried out on the property both by Algold Resources in 2016 and 2017 and past operators Shield Mining and Gryphon Minerals from 2009 to 2012. The supporting NI 43-101 Technical Report will be posted on SEDAR at www.sedar.com no later than 45 days after the date of this release.

The database contains 542 drill holes and 197 trenches with 58,752 assay results. (Details are provided in the table below.)

Hole Types Number of

Drill Holes Sum of

Length (m) Number of

Assays* Sum of Assayed

Length (m)* DDH 53 7,995 4,785 4,688 RC 489 61,807 47,071 61,678 Trenches 197 16,239 6,896 16,207 Total 739 86,041 58,752 82,573

*Some historical assays (223) have no gold grades, but are part of the total.

A modeling cut-off grade of 0.3 g/t Au, a minimum thickness of two meters and a minimum accumulation of 1.2 m.g/t were used to delineate mineralized volumes. The 1,628 two-meter composites were capped at grades varying between 3.5 g/t Au and 45 g/t Au based on local extreme grades. Only 14 composites were capped. The gold loss due to the capping is of 16% for the base case resource. Densities are based on 898 readings from DDH holes. A density of 2.00 t/m3 was used for saprolite and fresh rock was set to 2.7 t/m3 in the Lily zone, 2.8 t/m3 in the Sophie III zone, 2.85 t/m3 in the Sophie II zone, 3.0 t/m3 in the Sophie I zone and 2.86 t/m3 in the Eleonore zone.

The block model has a block size of 2 x 2 x 2 meters. Estimation was done by inverse distance squared with ellipsoid influenced distances. A total of 154 separate volumes were estimated with 154 composite sets. Two estimation passes were used with ellipsoids of 75 x 75 x 25 meters and 150 x 150 x 50 meters. The first pass uses a minimum of four and a maximum of seven composites, with a limit of two per drill hole. The second pass uses a minimum two and a maximum of seven composites, with a limit of two per drill hole except for 32 volumes with a minimum of one. The smoothing of the estimation is adequate. The measured and indicated categories have been outlined by hand on longitudinal based on drilling density. Drilling every 40 meters was classified as indicated and drilling every 30 meters was classified as measured. Eleonore has only inferred with a maximum interpolation up to 100 meters and 45 meters extrapolation. The remainder is inferred with interpolation up to 200 meters and limited extrapolation.

Algold Retains the Services of Investor Relations Firm

Algold is pleased to announce that it has engaged Paradox Public Relations Inc. ("Paradox") as strategic investor relations consultants to the Corporation. Paradox will focus on developing and expanding Algold's communications with the investment community through a comprehensive investor relations program. Paradox is an investor relations company founded in 2001 and is based in Montreal, Canada. Paradox provides a wide range of services to companies to help broaden investor exposure and develop a shareholder following. The term of the agreement entered into between the Corporation and Paradox is for an initial period of six months. In consideration for its services, Algold has agreed to pay to Paradox a monthly fee of $6,500. In addition, the Corporation has granted to Paradox stock options giving it the right to purchase up to 300,000 common shares of the Corporation, to be priced according to Algold guidelines. The options granted will vest quarterly starting on the grant date.

Quality Assurance / Quality Control (QA/QC)

Since the beginning of 2017, analytical work for drill core and reverse circulation chips, geochemical samples and rock chip samples has been carried out at the independent SGS Laboratories Ltd. in Bamako, Mali. The 50 g fire assay with ASS finish analytical services are accredited by SANAS and are carried out with a quality assurance protocol in line with ISO 17025:2005. Prior to 2017, drill samples were prepared in the independent ALS Laboratory in Nouakchott, Mauritania and analysed at ALS Laboratories Ltd. in Loughrea, Co. Galway, Ireland, an ISO 17025 (2005) Certified Laboratory.

In both 2016 and 2017, samples are stored at the Company' field camp and put into sealed bags until delivered by a geologist on behalf of Algold to the respective laboratory where samples are prepared and analyzed. Algold's samples are logged in the tracking system, weighed, dried and finely crushed to better than 70%, passing a 2 mm (Tyler 9 mesh, US Std. No.10) screen. A split of 1,000 g is taken and pulverized to better than 85%, passing a 75-micron (Tyler 200 mesh) screen, and a 50-gram split is analyzed by fire assay with an AA finish. Selected samples may be re-analyzed using a 1 kg cyanide leach (Bottle Roll) using "LeachWELL" or a 1 kg screen fire assay method. These results automatically supersede the original 50g fire assay result. As part of Algold's quality assurance and quality control (QAQC) procedures; blanks, duplicates and certified reference material (standards) are routinely inserted within the sample stream to monitor laboratory performance during the preparation and analysis.

This press release has been reviewed for accuracy and compliance under National Instrument 43-101 by Yann Camus, P.Eng., of the independent firm SGS Canada Inc.  geological group Geostat is the qualified person under NI 43-101 standards who supervised the preparation of the resource estimate and approved all resource-related material in this press release. Yann Camus has sufficient experience relevant to the styles of mineralization under consideration and to which the activities are being reported to qualify as the Qualified Person for the purposes of the announcement. Yann Camus has reviewed the results of the QAQC program at Tijirit, both during and prior to Algold's involvement, and is sufficiently satisfied with both the QAQC protocol as well as the performance of the QAQC measures to view the assay results reported in this release as both accurate and precise. Mr Camus visited the property from April 16 to 20, 2016, for current personal inspection requirements. All information supporting the resource estimation was verified for any inconsistencies. There was no limitation on the verification process.

Andre Ciesielski, DSc., PGeo., Algold Resources Ltd Lead Consulting Geologist and Qualified Person, and Alastair Gallaugher, C.Geo. (Chartered Geologist and Fellow of the Geological Society of London), BSc. Geology, Algold's Exploration Manager in Mauritania, Qualified Persons as defined by NI 43101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects. Andre Ciesielski has further approved the scientific and technical disclosure in the news release. All information pertaining to the resource estimates have been reviewed for accuracy and compliance under National Instrument 43-101 by Yann Camus, P.Eng., SGS Canada Inc. and Qualified Person.

ABOUT ALGOLD

Algold Resources Ltd is focused on the exploration and development of gold deposits in West Africa. The board of directors and management team are seasoned resource industry professionals with extensive experience in the exploration and development of world-class gold projects in Africa.
South Korea and the United States on Sunday wrapped up their two-month combined defense drills amid unrelenting tensions on the Korean Peninsula.



"The Foal Eagle exercise is ending today as scheduled," a South Korean military official said.



The allies kicked off the annual Foal Eagle drills, a major field-training exercise, at the start of March involving more than 10,000 American troops including those from military bases abroad. Hundreds of thousands of South Korean soldiers joined in as well.



The U.S. troops from outside of the peninsula will soon return to their bases, added the official.



A host of strategic assets from the U.S. took part in the training, such as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, F-35 stealth fighter jets and B-1B bombers, as a show of force.



This year's exercise came amid North Korea's continued provocations, which include ballistic missile launches and war threats.



The Vinson is on its way back to waters near Korea reportedly for another round of joint drills with South Korean warships.



"Despite the end of Foal Eagle, there will be no change in the defense posture of the South Korean and U.S. militaries," the official said. (Yonhap)




Donald Trump speaks at the National Rifle Association Leadership Conference, Apr. 28, in Atlanta. / AP-Yonhap

U.S. President Donald Trump insisted Friday that South Korea should pay for the U.S. THAAD missile defense system because it's for defending the country, even after Seoul raised objections to the demand.

"Why should we pay for it?" Trump said in an interview with the Washington Times. "It's a phenomenal protective system, best in the world by far, and that's meant to protect South Korea. So I respectfully say that I think it would be appropriate if they paid for it."

Trump first made the THAAD demand in an interview with Reuters on Thursday, despite an agreement reached between the two countries last year that the U.S. military will fund the deployment as long as Seoul agrees to host it and provides land for it.

South Korea said it has no plan to pay for it.

Trump's demand rattled an ally trying to work together with the U.S. to tackle the growing nuclear and missile threats from the North. Many South Koreans expressed anger and bewilderment, raising calls for scrapping the deployment altogether.

It was seen as a direct slap in the face to South Korea, which has withstood a series of economic retaliatory measures by China for deciding to host the U.S. system. South Korea has hoped Trump will press Beijing to stop the retaliatory measures, but critics say he instead joined China in bullying a key ally.
Bhilar is all set to become India's first book town and will soon be called Pustakanche Gaon. The book town claims to provide 10,000 books for every person in the village.

Inspired by Welsh book haven Hay-on-Wye and its famous literature festival, Bhilar in Maharashtra will become India's first (self-declared) book town on May 1. Located near the popular hill station of Panchgani, the 'Pustakanche Gaon' invited some 75 artists to paint the walls of 25 buildings, including temples and schools, that will house 10,000 books, one for every person in the village. State education minister Vinod Tawde explains to Kiran Tare how Bhilar will become a meeting point for authors and readers. Excerpts:

Q. What does it mean to be a village dedicated to books?

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A. We have selected 25 premises in Bhilar where people can read their favourite books undisturbed. They are not libraries, instead the whole village has been turned into a giant bookstore.

Q. How many books will be available?

A. At present, 10,000, mostly in Marathi. We will add 10 to 15 per cent every year, including books in Hindi, English.

Q. Will Bhilar also host literary events and soirees?

A. We will be organising several literary events, including readings and interactions with eminent writers like Vishwas Patil and Kishor Kadam. We are also thinking of inviting students to read out their poems at the village.

Q. Will all this be free?

A. Yes. Book towns are an international concept, but we are giving it an Indian look and feel. Our goal is to promote the Marathi language and encourage more tourism in this village, known mostly for its strawberries.

Q. What are the gains for the villagers?

A. We are paying them rent in lieu of using their premises as spaces for reading. With the influx of book lovers, they will also be able to market their strawberries, which is the primary product of this village.

--- ENDS ---
After the United States deployed a nuclear-powered submarine and an aircraft carrier to South Korean waters amid high inter-Korean tensions, North Korea on Sunday threatened to sink the underwater vessel, accusing America of stepping up military intimidation.



"The moment the USS Michigan tries to budge even a little, it will be doomed to face the miserable fate of becoming a underwater ghost without being able to come to the surface," the North's propaganda website Uriminzokkiri said in a posting.



"The urgent fielding of the nuclear submarine in the waters off the Korean Peninsula, timed to coincide with the deployment of the super aircraft carrier strike group, is intended to further intensify military threats toward our republic," the website claimed.



The guided-missile submarine USS Michigan (SSGN 727) sailed into the South Korean port of Busan on April 25 before heading out to sea four days later. The Ohio-class submarine is reportedly conducting various drills.



The U.S. has also directed the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the waters near South Korea at the same time. The supercarrier is currently engaged in a joint exercise with South Korean naval forces.



The North warned that "whether it's a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centered on the self-defense nuclear deterrence."



The threat followed North Korea's failed missile launch. On early Saturday, North Korea fired off a ballistic missile which the South Korean military said exploded after flying only 71 kilometers. The launch marks the third missile test in April. (Yonhap)




The movie, "Liberation Day," which is about Laibach's experiences during their stay in the North Korean capital, will premiere May 1, at the Jeonju International Film Festival. / Courtesy of Morten Traavik



Movie about rock concert in Pyongyang will premiere today

By Choi Ha-young





Morten Traavik

Norwegian director Morten Traavik is visiting South Korea with a rare movie featuring Slovenian rock band Laibach that held a concert in Pyongyang, Aug. 15.

The movie, "Liberation Day," which is about the band's experiences during their stay in the North Korean capital, will premiere today at the Jeonju International Film Festival with the catchphrase "All art is propaganda, and all propaganda is art."

In an interview with The Korea Times, Friday, Traavik, who also organized the Laibach concert in Pyongyang, said he still vividly remembers the volatile situation on the Korean Peninsula last summer following a deadly landmine incident in the border area.

"When we were setting a loud speaker up in a theater in Pyongyang for a performance, the two Koreas were installing loud speakers on the border for propaganda. Now, the North and the United States are quarreling with each other," Traavik said.

In South Korea, the band, which is accompanying Traavik, will give a rare opportunity to a South Korean audience  performing a set of North Korean propaganda songs with its own rock rhythms.

"The core message of this movie is  anything is possible," he said. "As you will see lots of compromises in the movie, we cannot do everything, but we can do something," he said. "If you are patient and prepared, you can actually achieve what nobody thinks possible."

As a cultural envoy between Pyongyang and the outside world, he has his own view to put an end to the "unnecessary" conflict on the peninsula. "Korean people should start talking to each other, directly."

"The members of the so called six-party talks are the least qualified. Koreans talking directly to each other without outside interference is the only logical way for a better relationship."

The artist is aware that inter-Korean relations kept worsening during the administration of former Prersident Park Geun-hye. Asked about the ongoing debate during the presidential race here about whether North Korea is our "main enemy" or not, he commented straight forwardly.

"The conservatives are those who benefit from such a controversy," he said. "Conservative generals in Pyongyang are those who benefit from the conflict. The conservative forces on both sides are helping each other."

To the next president who will be elected May 9, the artist gave some witty advice.

"Meet your counterpart with a bottle of soju and see what happens. That is actually possible. If you argue too much where to hold such a meeting, you can come to Norway."

Traavik is envisioning a joint art exhibition in Pyongyang in August. He is planning to gather painters, illustrators and video artists from North Korea and foreign countries and let them collaborate for the show.

He believes art can make different societies think outside the box. "Even the strictest dictator should be interested in having a joker who can say no; and they are artists," he said.
Finnish Ambassador to Korea Ero Suominen, center, talks with participants of the "Finland Lifestyle & Design Fair," organized by Finpro at the Around Studio in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, April 20. / Courtesy of Embassy of Finland





By Rachel Lee

Following last year's fashion week in Seoul, Finland brought some of its lifestyle and fashion brands here under the theme "Real Finnish Home" on April 20-23.

The "Finland Lifestyle & Design Fair," organized by Finpro at the Around Studio in Gangnam-gu, introduced nine lifestyle brands and eight fashion labels, including Vallila, Pelago, Aarikka, Rosafox and Ivana Helsinki.

Finpro is a public organization that helps small and medium Finnish companies go international, encourages foreign direct investment in Finland and promotes travel to Finland.

The promotion aimed to "present Finland's design through business-to-business meetings but also by directly communicating with local consumers," Finpro said.

Paola Suhonen, a Finnish designer, artist, entrepreneur and filmmaker, known for her fashion brand Ivana Helsinki, was one of the participants. She founded the company with her sister Pirjo Suhonen in 1998.

"First time visiting Korea, the impression was what a fascinating combination of Asian and Western culture," Suhonen told The Korea Times.

She said Seoul was "modern, full of colors and life and friendly people."

"Seoul is one of those hot spots' now where the most avant-garde and latest fashion trends are created and born. Koreans are very stylish and trendy."

Suhonen has collaborated with and designed for many Finnish and international brands, including Coca-Cola, Uniqlo, Swarowski, Topshop and Google.

Finpro also organized the "Late Night Gathering" event from April 21-22, which offered party space for two selected groups of visitors.

With more Koreans switching to Scandinavian-made products, Finnish fashion designers came to Seoul last May for the first time to show what they can offer and discover more about the Korean market.

The organization hosted the "Finland Fashion Week  Design in Nature," which unveiled some of the country's leading designers  Marita Huurinainen and Samuji  at the Lotte Department Store in Jung-gu. The Finish Embassy launched the promotion to coincide with Economy Minister Olli Rehn's visit.

Through the event, the organization introduced Finnish designers' boldness and practical combination of new materials based on Northern Europe's minimal and practical sensibilities. The Finnish fashion experts were impressed by the diversity and development of Korean fashion and regarded Seoul as one of the hottest fashion capitals in the world.
By Lee Han-soo





John Kirby

John Kirby, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State under the Obama administration, has blasted U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks that South Korea should pay for the U.S. THAAD missile defense system.

Saying that Trump did not understand the "contours of our alliance with South Korea," the retired Admiral wrote in an opinion piece on CNN that Trump should not view the THAAD deployment as a real estate deal.

Referring to Trump's ambiguous price tag on the missile defense system, Kirby also said the THAAD deployment was not sold but deployed by U.S. forces in Korea.

"THAAD deployment is just that, a deployment. And like every other military deployment, while we may need the use of certain domestic facilities and physical sites, it's still our stuff and using it is still our responsibility," wrote Kirby. "It's not clear at all where the President got his $1 billion figure. That's about what the system costs us [United States.] to buy, but operating costs are much lower. And since we aren't selling it to anyone, it doesn't make much sense to slap a price tag on it."
Photo artist Han Sung-pil's 2016 work, "Weight of Time," showcases the melting glaciers in the Arctic Ocean off the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard near the North Pole.



Photo artist warns of global warming

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Unbeknown to himself, Han Sung-pil became a cause-driven photo artist while photographing natural wonders in several parts of the world over the past decade.

Han, 45, was first shocked by the indiscriminative use and ensuing deforestation of the Indonesian rainforest of Kalimantan and the effects on residents during his photo project there in 2004. Global companies' profit-seeking and farmers' use of the jungle to grow vegetables and crops took a toll on the ecosystem and wildlife.

In the central French region of Loire in 2005, Han witnessed a rare coexistence of technology and Mother Nature  ceaseless steam was being released from the cooling tower of a nearby nuclear power plant behind the peaceful vineyard in the Loire Valley. He felt the scenery stretching before his eyes was something ironic and "surreal" because farmers grew grapes near the nuclear power plant. The safety of nuclear reactors was seriously questioned after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in 2011.

The defining moment of his transformation from observer to concerned artist, however, came last year when he travelled to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard near the North Pole. He saw first-hand the results of global warming there and realized that climate change was real and happening much faster than he had thought.

The weather there in October 2016 was above zero Celsius and it rained throughout his three-week photo project on the remote islands through an Arctic Circle residency program. He and about 30 artists, scientists and educators from around the world had explored the natural wonders of the Arctic aboard a specially equipped vessel.

That was his second visit to the region. His first was in October 2013 through the same residency program. His two experiences over three years on the same itinerary enabled him to compare what happened.

"Global warming is real," he said. "My experience there last year was something alarming. In 2013, the weather there was very cold and we had lots of snow. The areas we visited were covered with snow and glaciers. But those glaciers had been melting visibly last year. I remember one day the temperature rose to five or six degrees Celsius and we had lots of rain."

According to a Financial Times article, temperatures in the Arctic region in November 2016 were as high as almost minus five Celsius, which is almost 20 degrees higher than during the same period in previous years.

Danish scientist Rasmus Tonboe was quoted as saying, "We've been processing this data since 1958 and we haven't really seen anything like this at this time of year."

Intrigued by global warming and its visible impact on the Arctic region, Han said he felt that doing nothing was not an option. "People read or hear about climate change mainly through the media and so their experiences are indirect," he said. "But I was privileged to watch it in person because I took photos in many parts of the world. I felt that there's a role that I could play to let the public know about it and so they can join hands to stop climate change."

He was determined to share his experience. Since April 27, the photographer has been displaying his 37 works under the theme of "Intervention" at Ilwoo Space gallery in Central Seoul. Enlarged images of the Arctic region, glaciers and coal mining there and the whaling base in Antarctica are being exhibited until June 14.

The images trace humans' centuries-old struggles and greed to obtain energy sources at the expense of Mother Nature.

The exhibition commemorates his winning of an Ilwoo Award for photographers last year. Iwoo is the nom de plume of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho and the company presents the awards to talented photo artists.

Unlike other photographers who perform little to no alterations to their photos, Han uses the facades technique to turn his images into art. He drew media attention in 2015 for his "Harmonious Havana," a massive image of a stone pagoda in the southeastern city of Gyeongju. The image was installed on the Editora Abril building during the 12th Havana Biennale in May, 2015.

Han's 2016 work, "Weight of Time," showcases the melting ice in the Arctic Ocean in the Svalbard region  a project that vividly shows the real impact of global warming on the region.

"I think one of our roles as artists is to address certain issues or send messages through our works," he said. "We are the people who throw a stone in the lake to disturb its peaceful surface to cause a stir and to alarm those who live in the neighborhood to ponder about the issue we are raising. I think artists are not the people who give direct answers to those issues."

Han said that during his decades of work as a photo artist, he tried to raise the topic of humans living between safety and danger. The topic is reflected in the photos he took in Indonesia and France.

Global companies' logging and agro-business rapidly destroyed the lush Indonesian rainforest of Kalimantan, home to rich flora and fauna. Data shows more than half of the jungle there has been deforested in recent years.

"I saw how the rich rainforest was destroyed," he said. "Global companies' production of vegetable oil for Western consumers and local farmers' fire-fallow cultivation to secure agricultural territory were responsible for deforestation there.

"As the rainforest was destroyed because of humans' greedy uses and development, the ecosystem was negatively affected and caused wildlife species to dwindle. Hunting led to the extinction of wildlife species and damaged the ecosystem. Baby animals were traded as pets, which was sad."

People developed the rainforest to provide goods for them, but this ironically ended up threatening their lives, he said. This was what Indonesian people were now going through, he said.

His visits to the French region of Loire in 2005 and 2015 resulted in a similar lesson. Farmers grow grapes near a nuclear power plant along the Loire River. If properly managed, nuclear energy is a clean and sustainable energy source with almost no emissions. But a disaster occurs when there is a nuclear crisis, as the world witnessed in 2011 when the Fukushima nuclear meltdown ravaged the north-eastern part of Japan.

"I felt the Loire region was a symbolic place showing people living between safety and danger," he said.
BJP leader Shyamapada Mondal on Monday said that he cannot understand whether Banerjee is a man or a woman.

By India Today Web Desk: While bitter war of words between BJP leaders and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is not unusual, a BJP leader has taken the ugly game of words to another level.

BJP leader Shyamapada Mondal on Monday said that he cannot understand whether Banerjee is a man or a woman.

In a video posted by ANI, Mondal is seen perched on a stage amid a swarm of party workers and supporters. His comments were welcomed with applause by the supporters.

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The ludicrous comment comes days after the BJP intensified its campaign to reach out the grassroots in West Bengal.

Can't understand whether Mamata Banerjee is a man or woman. She has become a hijra' as you see in trains/buses says BJP's Shyamapada Mondal pic.twitter.com/s5hWu7FLoi- ANI (@ANI_news) 1 May 2017

Trinamool Congress is yet to react to the scathing comments.

FIR LODGED

An FIR has been lodged against Mandal after he made the comments against the chief minister. The complaint has been filed by a TMC worker from Garbeta in Midnapore.

Meanwhile, CPM party has condemned the comments made by the BJP leader.

"It is condemnable and unfortunate comment by the leader of BJP. It just proves that the BJP are procreating the language of TMC, here West Bengal," said CPM leader Fuad Halim.

Halim added that it was clear that the BJP would not like to contest Trinamool Congress on policy prescriptions. Because they have not found any leader who could present alternate policies.

BJP national president Amit Shah, with an aim to strengthen party presence in West Bengal, made a three-day visit to the state recently.

Shah's visit triggered a barrage of comments from Trinamool leaders.

Also read:

BJP's multi-pronged strategy to corner Mamata Banerjee and wrest power from Trinamool in West Bengal

Narada scam: ED registers case against 12 Trinamool Congress leaders

Rose Valley scam: CBI names Trinamool MPs Sudip Bandopadhyay and Tapas Pal in supplementary chargesheet

Also watch:

Big battle in Bengal: TMC alleges BJP's political vendetta after MP's arrest

--- ENDS ---
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Extreme premature infants are babies that are born before 28 weeks of gestation. Recent technological advances have ensured that these children have improved survival rates; however, babies born around 22-23 weeks of gestation typically have higher rates of chronic lung disease and other complications due to immaturity of their organs. Researchers from the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia have now published a study in Nature Communications that describes a system that closely reproduces the environment of the womb.

The system consists of three main components: a pump-free arteriovenous circuit, a closed fluid environment with continuous fluid exchange, and a new technique of umbilical vascular access. Their closed fluid environment ensures a protective barrier between the womb and the outside world, while also helping to preserve the fluid filled lungs. In the study, the device was tested on eight lamb fetuses and demonstrated success in keeping them alive for up to four weeks outside the womb. It is notable that this is the longest and the healthiest that such early fetuses have been preserved in an extracorporeal system.

The authors recognize the ethical concerns associated with their device, and clarify in their paper that this device would only be used to improve the quality of life and survival outcomes of fetuses that are already being artificially gestated. The clinical target is expected to be 23-25 week premature infants, however, the device is still in early stages of development and will have to undergo rigorous safety testing and clinical trials including further modifications before it is available for clinical practice.

Heres a video from the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia with the scientists behind this research:

Study in Nature Communications: An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb

Via: Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) A mega exercise was launched today to measure blood pressure of over 2 million people in India and stress on regular screening of hypertension, which has taken epidemic proportions.

The initiative -- May Measurement Month (MMM) 2017 -- is part of a global initiative to raise awareness on the importance of screening to tackle high blood pressure.

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Raised blood pressure or hypertension claims over 2 lakh Indian lives each year.

In India, it was launched by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) along with Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Centre for Chronic Disease Control, Indian Medical Association, Army Medical Corps, Association of Physicians of India, Association of Healthcare Providers of India and several healthcare institutions.

The global initiative, which will be undertaken in 100 countries simultaneously in May, aims to screen 25 million individuals, under the aegis of International Society of Hypertension (ISH) and the World Hypertension League (WHL).

In India, the drive will be conducted at over 500 sites across the country aiming to measure 2.5 million people that will contribute to the global cross-sectional survey of men and women aged between 18 to 65 years, who have not had their BP measured ever, or since April 30, 2016.

Several hospitals, public health departments across various states, leading healthcare institutions, the national institutes under ICMR, select Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are among the numerous screening sites involved in this campaign.

Hypertension has been long recognised as one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease and premature deaths worldwide, and is one of the most common lifestyle silent killer diseases today, with every third person having suffered from it.

"It is a well-known fact that early detection of hypertension can delay Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and improve the quality of life.

"Through this initiative we not only aim to raise awareness of public in general, but also inculcate regular BP monitoring among physicians, in addition to developing better policy and guidelines to tackle hypertension and NCDs in India," said Soumya Swaminathan, DG ICMR.

The data from each country will be analysed along with the results of millions of others worldwide and the results will be announced once the analysis in complete to form a blue-print action plan to tackle hypertension globally.

In India, it hypertension exerts substantial public health burden on cardiovascular health status and the healthcare system.

Hypertension is estimated to account for 10.8 per cent of all the deaths and 4.6 per cent of Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALYs) in the country.

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The adult hypertension prevalence has shown a drastic increase in the past three decades in urban as well as rural areas and it is estimated that 16 per cent of Ischaemic Heart Disease (IHD), 21 per cent of Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD), 24 per cent of Acute Myocardial Infarctions (AMI) and 29 per cent of strokes are attributed to hypertension, an official statement said.

Hypertension or High blood pressure (BP) is a major public health problem in India and its prevalence is rapidly increasing among both urban and rural populations.

Around 2.6 lakh Indians die in India due to hypertension and it is now the most prevalent chronic disease in India.

"Raised blood pressure is the biggest single contributing risk factor for global death and the worldwide burden of disease, and we want MMM to lay strong foundations for significantly increasing public understanding.

"The goal for MMM is therefore to screen as many people as possible worldwide who have not had their blood pressure measured in the previous year," said Neil Poulter, president, (ISH). PTI TDS ZMN

--- ENDS ---

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Hach, a company out of Loveland, Colorado, won the first FDA clearance for an automatic chlorine monitoring system for dialysis. The system performs checks of the water being used to prep dialysate every five minutes, making sure the levels stay low. If they rise too much, a monitor with an audio alarm on the patient floor will notify of the problem.

The chlorine concentration of every test is recorded for later review and to comply with any regulatory requirements. These can be downloaded via an SD card or using a more permanent Ethernet connection for direct link-up with a clinics computer system.

For decades, Hach has pioneered and advanced chlorine analysis for municipal and industrial water treatment worldwide, said Kevin Klau, president of Hach, in a press statement. During the development of the Hach CM130, our scientists and engineers fully immersed themselves in the dialysis ecosystem to understand the needs of patients, administrators, staff and technicians. As a result, the Hach CM130 system delivers trusted results in a user-centric design.

Brochure (PDF): CM130

Via: Hach
Scientists in China and Switzerland have developed hydrogel implants containing red light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and engineered cells that produce and release insulin in response to the far-red light emitted by the LEDs. The LEDs can be controlled wirelessly using a smartphone app, meaning that the scientists could control insulin levels in diabetic mice using the surgically implanted hydrogel capsules.

At present, people with diabetes often need to inject themselves several times a day to control their blood glucose levels. Scientists are trying to develop methods for insulin control that are needle and wire-free. This latest technology, recently reported in journal Science Translational Medicine, combines smartphone technology with living cells to achieve that goal.

Implanted beneath the skin of diabetic mice, the hydrogels were designed to hold the cells and LEDs together in the treated animals. The red LEDs in the hydrogel implants were activated wirelessly using an external electronic field and could be easily controlled using a smartphone app. The cells were optogenetically engineered to produce mouse insulin in response to far-red light, and the strength and duration of the LED illumination could be controlled.

Finally, the implants were paired with a Bluetooth-enabled glucose monitor, which provided direct feedback on how effectively the released insulin was affecting glucose levels. This allowed the mice to achieve and maintain stable glucose levels over the course of several weeks. The scientists hope that similar systems might one day be possible in humans, allowing for wireless diabetes monitoring and control.

Study in Science Translational Medicine. Smartphone-controlled optogenetically engineered cells enable semiautomatic glucose homeostasis in diabetic mice

Via: American Association for the Advancement of Science
by Larissa Faw , April 30, 2017

Three marketing technology veterans--Deirdre Catucci, Mike Gentile, and Tim McHale--are teaming up to launch Madison Avenue Social, a new agency focusing on mobile and social campaigns for B2C and B2B clients. The new firm, based in New York, will work with San Francisco-based Mediasmith on some projects via a strategic partnership.

Catucci will serve as president of the new agency, Gentile as executive creative director, and McHale as chief media officer. In addition to the founders, Madison Avenue Social has two lead copywriters Abigail Hudetz and Dave Taylor on staff along with data scientist Frank McHale.

Inaugural clients include Sheaffer Pen Co. and its parent Cross Pens. The agency will also work with licensing partners of the pen brands, including Marvel, Lucasfilm, Fonderie 47 and Liberty United.

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"We decided to formalize our social media offering, applicable for both B2B and B2C, primarily because it represents what clients need today," says Catucci. "Few social agencies really understand their similarities or differences, for that matter; like the lead-gen capability for B2B firms and the sales attribution capability for B2C companies of all kinds, tech or otherwise.

The three founders originally partnered to develop the Mobile Media Summit, which was sold to the Comexposium Group in 2015. Earlier Gentile worked at agencies such as McCann/MRM and Hill Holiday working with clients including Xbox and Verizon.

McHales resume includes stints at Tribal DDB Worldwide and Agency.com. He was a recipient of the ad:tech Industry Achievement Award in 2016 for Tech Innovation.

Catucci was previously CEO at eBabe and previously worked as a marketing director at AT&T.

As for the partnership with Mediasmith, that firms CEO David Smith said, "I have known this team for a very long time and continue to be impressed with their knowledge of mobile media, thought-leadership and creative talent."

The new agencys tagline, We Evoke Emotion, is designed to suggest that people are only inspired to take action when something touches them emotionally, says Catucci.
by Tanya Gazdik , May 1, 2017

Chrysler takes the expression when pigs fly to a new level. A new TV spot for the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid actually shows gravity-defying swines.

The reference is to the 84 MPGe claimed by the vehicle.

The 60-second Flying Pigs, began running across digital media channels April 28. It can be viewed on the Chrysler brands official YouTube page, in addition to the brands social channels Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The all-new 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan is arriving in dealerships now.

It is the first full campaign for Goodby Silverstein & Partners as Chrysler brand's official AOR.

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Autotrader Senior Analyst Michelle Krebs calls it a clever ad.

It showcases the family-friendly features of the Chrysler Pacifica, of which there are many, with the fuel-economy advantage of the hybrid version layered on top  and the story told like a children's fairy tale, Krebs tells Marketing Daily. It should gain some attention.

MediaPost columnist and advertising critic Barbara Lippert calls the ad delightful.

The flying pigs were so unexpected, she says. But I wanted more of a build and a clever ending.

Besides the pigs, the spot also features a glimpse of hell freezing over and a blue moon (as in, once in a blue moon.) The spot opens in an animated picture-book view, from the perspective of a young boy and his sister sitting in the passenger seats of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid as their parents take the minivan for a test drive. As mom and dad learn about the safety and technology features, the children see the unexpected as they gaze into the sky through the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrids tri-pane panoramic sunroof. The moral of the story is that the all-new Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid defies all conventional thinking.

Consumers first got a glimpse of the flying pigs at the Chrysler display at the Chicago Auto Show in February. Metro Detroit residents also saw a building wrap of the FCA headquarters featuring flying pigs back in the fall.
by Tanya Gazdik , May 1, 2017

Mazda is taking the CX-5 on a cross-country journey to help pitch the vehicle to prospective customers.

The 15-city, nationwide Experience the All-New 2017 Mazda CX-5 tour will focus on showing prospects why driving a Mazda is so special and exposing them to the automakers approach to craftsmanship, engineering and design, and how that is embodied in the all-new CX-5.

The cross-country tour will include Intercept events, or the more traditional ride-and-drive experience at a set location and Mastercraft events, which will feature special events in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago, inviting prospects to explore the Mastercraft behind a certain product or craft that aligns with the Mazda brand.

Our goal is to engage our audience in an impactful way, in a location thats convenient and familiar to them, said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing for Mazda North American Operations, in a release. By allowing our customers to engage with our brand and our vehicles in an environment that is fun and interactive, we create the opportunity for potential customers to experience our personality as a brand.

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The hope is that they will have such a great time during the drive experience that they will consider purchasing a Mazda when searching for their next vehicle, he adds.

Participants of the Intercept component will be guided through the city on a quest to learn more about the vehicle and the unique Mazda driving experience. During the tour, participants will learn how a lighter vehicle can make the drive more fun; that safety features can enhance and not overtake the driving experience; how technology can help support the driving experience, not take away from it; and how Mazdas Jinba Ittai driving philosophy directly translates to the drivers everyday experience in the vehicle.

The tour launched this past weekend in Los Angeles. Future stops include Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle and San Francisco.

To follow the journey, and to get up-to-date information on driving opportunities in your area, consumers can visit Mazdas interactive Web site at InsideMazda.MazdaUSA.com/Experience-CX-5 and connect with the social conversation by following Mazda on Facebook or Twitter, using #MazdaCX5 and #DrivingMatters.
by Larissa Faw , May 1, 2017

Last year, Publicis Argentina partnered with Renault for the "Dream Cradle" campaign that promoted the automaker with a fictional cradle containing a base that simulated the movements of a car.

Now that cradle is no longer imaginary. Parents were so enthralled with the idea of a cradle that could lull a child to sleep just like just like a 3 a.m. drive around the neighborhood that Renault is bringing a version of it to market in partnership with babycare brand Chicco.

Credit Publicis with dreaming up the idea and parents, largely through social media, with lobbying Renault to bring the idea to life.

The new (and real) Dream Cradle mimics the movements of the car by way of an app that can adjust the intensity, direction and slope of the cradles movements. With any luck, parents who use it can bid farewell to sleepless nights of driving Junior over hill and dale until hes in Slumber Land. The cradle is designed to take that drive while staying in place. Thats the theory anyway.

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And Publicis is the lead agency on the new gizmo's launch campaign. The creative is designed to illustrate the product's ability to put children to sleep, thus emphasizing Renault's "Easy Life" brand positioning.

According to the agency, the cradle campaign illustrates the global connectivity activated by Publicis Groupes Power of One reorganization. The Argentina division first collaborated with its Italy counterpart and is now working across the network's worldwide locations to develop a global campaign that will be adapted to local markets for the cradles 2018 launch.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) Menthol prices were trading down by Rs 5 per kg in the national capital today owing to reduced offtake by consuming units amid adequate stocks.

Also, higher arrivals from producing belts in Uttar Pradesh weighed on the menthol prices.

Menthol bold crystal, flake and mentha oil prices eased by Rs 5 each to conclude at Rs 1,170, Rs 1,130 and Rs 1,050 per kg, respectively.

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Traders said reduced offtake by consuming industries against increased arrivals from producing regions mainly pulled down menthol prices.

Following are todays quotations:

Ammonium chloride (50 kg) Rs 950-1,800, Acetic acid (1kg) Rs 53-57, Ammonia bicarb (25 kg) Rs 500-600, Boric acid technical (50 kg) Rs 3,800-4,300, Borex granular (50 kg) Rs 2,100-2,400.

Caustic soda flake (50 kg) Rs 2,200-2,300, Citric acid (50 kg) (China) Rs 3,850-4,250, Citric acid deshi (50 kg) Rs 4,100-4,600, Camphor slab (1 kg) Rs 430, Camphor powder (1kg) Rs 375, Glycerin (1 kg) Rs 100-150, Hexamine (1kg) Rs 98, Hydrogen peroxide (1 kg) Rs 30-40, menthol bold crystal (per kg) Rs 1,170, menthol flake (1 kg) Rs 1,130 and mentha oil (1kg) Rs 1,050. (MORE) PTI DP SUN DPL SBT

--- ENDS ---
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, May 1, 2017

The jewelry store Tiffany & Co. taught women that good things come in small blue packages. The same may hold true for online content. A recent study suggests consumers are much more interested in the quality of the content rather than the size of the brand or the budget. Brands that can give consumers a personal experience win the share of voice in the market.

The findings from Conductor's study -- Organic Online Market Share by Vertical -- provide insights on markets such as Insurance, Retail, Travel, Finance, and Real Estate. The report analyzes success and failure by vertical and provides advice on key search strategies that companies can focus on in each sector to increase their market share.

During the first quarter of 2017, Conductor tracked more than 150,000 search terms that consumers used to search for products, services, and information. In aggregate, these search terms represent more than 370 million searches by consumers.

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Many of the top organic performers are large, established companies, but smaller brands and publishers perform well too. The reports identifies that in each vertical, several large industry players are noticeably absent, such as large banks, retailers, hotel chains, and airlines.

Many of the top 10 insurance companies in the United States, such as Assurant and AIG, are not top performers in organic market share. Content creator NerdWallet outperformed industry giants, and Wikipedia dropped out of the top 10 results from the year-ago results, replaced by Farmers.

The largest 10 auto insurance companies do not align with the 10 sites that have the most auto online market share. SafeAuto and Mercury Insurance notably beat out many much larger companies, according to Conductor.

The most successful companies created multiple pieces of content around the same topic with different key terms, provided online tools such as loan calculators, optimized content for Google search "answer boxes," and maintained an active presence on Twitter.

Not all the market segments analyzed in the study demonstrated a similar pattern.

In the Travel and Hospitality market, TripAdvisor and Expedia emerged as clear winners. TripAdvisor dominates the Attraction, Early Stage, Mid Stage, Hotels and Resorts categories. Expedia took the top spots for the Late Stage, Flights, Resorts, Hotels, and Motels.

Hilton, Wyndham and Holiday Inn -- along with Delta, United, Jet Blue, and Avis, Budget, and Hertz -- used content to become more visible to consumers.

Expedia far outperformed other travel aggregators for the Cruise category with 7% market share. Orbitz, with 3% share, was the only other aggregator to appear in the top 10.

The report also finds that the majority of available market share is still unclaimed, indicated by the rather large slice of market share labeled "other" in each vertical. "Other" represents market share that is not consistently held by any one brand. This indicates that the search landscape continue to change. There is a significant opportunity for late entrants to claim organic market share, per the study.

For example, in the Insurance category, "other" represents 44%; Retail, 74%; Travel and Hospitality, 65%; Finance, 66%; and Real Estate, 28%.
by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, May 1, 2017

Google reported Monday the rollout of similar audiences for Search and Shopping, which allow marketers to build in remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA), using similar audiences from past site visitors.

The announcement was made with beta customers Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, John Deere, and GameStop.

In this example, Google explains connecting summer travelers by marketing a hotel in Hawaii using RLSA. "The people in your 'Recent Converters' list might be searching for things like 'flights to Maui,' 'scuba classes,' and 'flip-flop sandals,' per Google.

Amy McNeil, head of digital marketing at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US, beta tested the Similar Audiences for search. "In less than two months, similar audiences for search delivered an 11% increase in click-through rate and 22% more conversions across our test campaigns," she told Google.

Google also announced the global availability of Customer Match targeting for Shopping campaigns to help marketers use their company's own data to reach the customers with the perfect message.

Marketers can optimize bids for existing keywords for visitors on remarketing lists. For example, marketers can increase bids by 25% for those who previously visited their Web site in the last 30 days, or show a different ad to site visitors who have placed items in a shopping cart but have not purchased them.
Aviva plc provides various insurance, retirement, investment, and savings products in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and internationally. The company offers life insurance, long-term health and accident insurance, savings, pension, and annuity products, as well as pension fund business and lifetime mortgage products. It also provides insurance cover to individuals, small and medium-sized businesses for risks associated with motor vehicles and medical expenses, as well as property and liability, such as employers' and professional indemnity liabilities. In addition, the company provides investment management services for institutional pension fund mandates; and manages various retail investment products, including investment funds, unit trusts, open-ended investment companies, and individual savings accounts for third-party financial institutions, pension funds, public sector organizations, investment professionals, and private investors. It markets its products through a network of insurance brokers, as well as MyAviva platform. The company was formerly known as CGNU plc and changed its name to Aviva plc in July 2002. Aviva plc was founded in 1696 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
The dastardly attack on CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh on April 24, that claimed the lives of 25 soldiers raised concerns more than questions on the Center's approach that was only yielding casualties.

By Chayan Kundu: As Modi government gears to take punitive actions in light of the recent Sukma Maoist attack, several political analysts are asking the Centre why its policies are failing so miserably?

Subir Bhaumik, senior journalist and an expert on Naxalite extremism, opines "How can demonetisation stop flow of funds to Maoists when all top corporates pay the Maoists hefty amounts to ensure their business is not affected in states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand - they are no patriots, they are only concerned with their business- the trouble with this government is its chest thumping triumphalism, the tendency to claim it is run by super humans."

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The dastardly attack on CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh on April 24, that claimed the lives of 25 soldiers raised concerns more than questions on the Center's approach that was only yielding casualties.

However, an optimistic G K Pillai, former Home secretary said, "I am not too worried about these one or two incidents in last five years nearly 60 percent of the Naxal infected area have been liberated by our forces But at the same time our forces have to be very vigilante."

But Subir Bhaumik, veteran BBC journalist said that these attacks are testimonies that Naxalism is far from waning.

Where is the Centre going wrong in handling red terror? Bhaumik says, "It is depending blindly on strong arm police methods and developmentalism - neither can guarantee success - the Maoists are a political entity and have to be fought politically. This is a battle for hearts and minds and you don't win this war by overkill and rampant torture - the forces need proper leadership and they need to befriend the tribals. Having fought insurgency for 60 years, India still does not have a counter insurgency policy."

He added that Nepal successfully handled the Maoist problem by co-opting the Maoists. Whereas India is trying the Latin Amercan line and it will not work - the government needs to allow people's platform so that tribals can ventilate their grievances and develop faith in Indian democracy.

'KASHMIR A HOT PLATE'

Kashmir has become a hot plate, which no government has been able to handle well, including the incumbent Modi and its coalition partner PDP.

The recent unrest reminds many of the nightmares of 90s, when the Valley witnessed a turbulent time with the uprising of Kashmiri youth. The most worrying factor about today's unrest is students' active participation in the protest. Even school-going girls can be seen hurling stones at security forces. These disturbing developments pose a question on the validity of BJP-PDP led Mehbooba government.

But for Strategic Affairs Analyst and Pakistan expert Sushant Sareen it is not a political movement.

"It is not a political movement rather a religious movement in Kashmir which has spread its tentacles wide into the subterranean level".

Lambasting the back channel efforts by likes of 'Yashwant Sinha and Salman Haidar' to talk with the separatists as futile efforts, Sareen, blames the government allowing indoctrinisation and radicalisation of the Kashmiri youth over the years by Islamic fundamentalists.

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'POLITICAL SOLUTION THE ONLY WAY OUT'

But GK Pillai only believes in a political solution for Kashmir.

"BJP-PDP coalition have failed to respect what they had promised to the Kashmiri people in their Common Minimum Programme. The village sarpanchs are still not empowered with administrative and financial arms. The MLAs are not ready to give up power to the village panchayats. That's why people are heartbroken."

Sareen on the other hand opines that a persistent strategy with short and mid-term plans will help the government stabalise the situation in Kashmir.

"Clampdown as hard as possible on the hard core separatists as a short term method but at the same time de-doctrinisation, de-radicalisation of the youth through education system is also needed, this will decrease the intensity of the problem in next 10 to 15 years. The idea is to streamline the Kashimiris with the rest of India."

'TALKING TOUGH NOT HELPING'

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi recently said "The government would come to the negotiation table only if the legally recognised stakeholders participate in the dialogue and not with the separatist elements who rake up the issue of accession or Azadi in Kashmir."

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But Subir Bhaumik thinks "The tough line of not negotiating with Hurriyat and other separatist elements in Kashmir has not worked The BJP limits options in Kashmir - or else why cant we ask the simple question- if Bengali Muslims, being 60 per cent of Pakistan's population, got nothing from it except blood and tears, what can the Kashmiris expect. Please hold up the Bangladesh example to Kashmiris Talking tough is getting us nowhere -- we are losing the script in Kashmir."

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Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generic medicines, specialty medicines, and biopharmaceutical products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers sterile products, hormones, high-potency drugs, and cytotoxic substances in various dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, injectables, inhalants, liquids, transdermal patches, ointments, and creams. It also develops, manufactures, and sells active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition, it focuses on the central nervous system, pain, respiratory, and oncology areas. Its products in the central nervous system include Copaxone for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; AJOVY for the preventive treatment of migraine; and AUSTEDO for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington disease. The company's products in the respiratory market comprise ProAir, QVAR, ProAir Digihaler, AirDuo Digihaler, and ArmonAir Digihaler, BRALTUS, CINQAIR/CINQAERO, DuoResp Spiromax, and AirDuo RespiClick/ArmonAir RespiClick for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Its products in the oncology market include Bendeka, Treanda, Granix, Trisenox, Lonquex, and Tevagrastim/Ratiograstim. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has a collaboration MedinCell for the development and commercialization of multiple long-acting injectable products, a risperidone suspension for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The company was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
Most people are familiar with the tumultuous events of England in 1066, but how much do you know about the other Norman conquest, launched a century after the Battle of Hastings?

In spring of 1169, a small band of Normans set sail from South Wales bound for Ireland, landing in May of that same year. This was a watershed moment in Irelands history, marking the beginning of direct English, then British, involvement in Irish affairs  so much so that the Norman invasion of Ireland might even be considered a deep root of Britains Irish Problem. Here, MHM lists 10 key facts about this forgotten Norman conquest.

1. The invasion was led by Robert FitzStephen

The initial invasion force comprised just 90 mounted knights and sergeants, supported by around 300 Welsh archers. It was led by warrior-knight Robert FitzStephen  a battle-scarred veteran of Henry IIs Welsh wars. He was instrumental in securing Norman control of Wexford in 1169, the invaders first major gain.

The image to the left is a romanticised depiction of Robert FitzStephens arrival in Ireland at Bannow on 1 May 1169. He is shown burning his boats  a gesture of commitment to the ensuing conquest.

2. But the man behind the invasion was Irishman Dermot MacMurrough

FitzStephens men came not as the vanguard of a conquering army, but as mercenaries in the service of Dermot MacMurrough, the deposed King of Leinster  an ambitious man, intent on recovering his lost territories. The invasion was sanctioned by King Henry II of England and Pope Adrian IV, and MacMurrough secured the services of several top Norman warriors.

3. The Irish put up a good fight

The fighting in Ireland between May 1169 and September 1171 is often dismissively described as simply an unequal contest between heavily armoured Norman knights and lightly armed Irishmen. This underestimates the difficulties faced by Norman commanders campaigning across forested and trackless terrain, and fails to take account of the substantially greater numbers ranged against them.

4. A key turning point was the Battle of Baginbun



As news of the Normans successes reached England, more Norman warriors made their way to Ireland. At Baginbun, the Normans were commanded by Raymond de Gros (left), who had been sent to Ireland by Richard de Clare ahead of his own, larger (and ultimately highly-significant) invasion force. Though vastly outnumbered, the Normans won the day through perseverance and trickery, and their opponents were brutally cut down. The Battle of Baginbun was the decisive moment in the Norman conquest of Ireland; had Raymonds small Norman force been wiped out, it is conceivable that Richard de Clare might have lost heart in the Irish enterprise in which he went on to play a key part. So there is some truth in the famous phrase by the creek of Baginbun, Ireland was lost and won.

5. The Norman army included a significant number of Welsh mercenaries



Used in large numbers, the Welsh were formidable bowmen, reputed to be capable of discharging arrows able to penetrate an oaken gate four fingers thick. Gerald of Wales, the main chronicler of the invasion, describes them as able to pin a knights leg to his horse through two layers of mail. In support of these bowmen were a small number of other infantrymen, probably also Welsh, who were armed with pikes, spears, and swords. Defensive armour probably consisted of a helmet made of leather, strengthened with iron, and also a stout leather jacket, or studded hauberk.

6. The Normans captured Dublin

Dublin fell in September 1170. Taken completely by surprise, the Norse King of Dublin, Asculf MacTorkil, sued for peace, but during the resulting truce, elements of the Norman army broke into the town and slaughtered the garrison and many of its inhabitants. King Asculf and his family barely had time to reach the safety of their ships and sail away.

Map: 1. May 1169: landing of Robert FitzStephen 2. May 1169: capture of Wexford 3. Summer 1169: Battle of Ossory 4. May 1170: landing of Raymond le Gros. 5. August 1170: landing of Strongbow 6. September 1170: capture of Dublin 7. Summer 1171: Siege of Dublin 8. October 1171: landing of Henry II 9. November 1171: Henry IIs entry into Dublin.

7. As at Hastings, the Normans employed feigned flights to deceive the Irish



Norman tactical know-how played a decisive part during the campaign. Feigned retreats and surprise attacks won the day at Baginbun and Dublin. The feigned retreat at Hastings has been heavily scrutinised by historians, with some rejecting the veracity of the incident because of the intricate organisation required to carry out the operation. But given that the Normans had already used the trick at Arques in 1053, and at Messina in 1060, there is little reason to doubt the ability of the Normans to employ this tactic at Hastings. By the time they invaded Ireland, the feigned flight had become a classic Norman manoeuvre.

8. The Normans had clear political motives for the conquest





Not only did Dermot want to reclaim his lost territories, but a number of Welsh and English dissenters had settled in Ireland, which at the time was almost entirely forested. The only towns were those founded by Norse settlers, with fortified encampments at Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Cork, and Wexford. Previously bases for Irish and Norse pirates, these towns now provided refuge for English and Welsh dissidents. It is little wonder, therefore, that successive Norman kings had contemplated their capture and occupation.

9. Key player: Richard de Clare or Strongbow

Robert FitzStephen and his followers were not the only Normans whose services Dermot MacMurrough secured while visiting South Wales in 1167. Richard FitzGilbert de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, was another. Better known by the family nickname Strongbow, Richard de Clares estates had been confiscated by the Crown, and he was out of favour with Henry II. He was by far the most powerful and prestigious of Dermots supporters, and he brought an 1000-strong force to Ireland in August 1170, playing a key role in ensuring the surrender of Dublin and in establishing conquest.

10. Henry II reaped the rewards

At a great council in 1155, Henry II had reopened the subject of invasion, apparently at the insistence of the English Church, which claimed ecclesiastical primacy over the Irish. Henrys invasion plans were not progressed, however. The time was not right. England had just emerged from a long period of civil war, and his mother, the formidable Empress Matilda, insisted her sons priorities should be to reconcile supporters of the former King Stephen (many still armed and dangerous) to his new Angevin dynasty, and to consolidate his hold over his vast continental empire. So, when approached by Dermot MacMurrough 11 years later, his plans were still on hold. Nevertheless, he allowed MacMurrough to lead the invasion privately. Given MacMurroughs success, Henry decided to lead his own invasion of Ireland, to establish his supremacy over both the Normans and the Irish. The majority of members in both groups submitted to the Crown.

This post is based on an article by Jeffrey James, published in issue 17 of Military History Monthly.

Read more about the Normans

The Norman Conquest: 1066 timeline



10 ways to mark the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings



9 Kings Who Lost Their Thrones
Just few days after being honored by HE Ron Strikker, ambassador for the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to Ghana, multiple award winning musician Bisa K'dei has been appointed as an ambassador for Tourism in La Cote d'Ivoire.

Been one of the top African musicians headlining the 10th edition of Festival des Musiques Urbaines d'Anoumabo (FEMUA), Bisa Kdei who flew to La Cote d'Ivoire on Friday, April 28 2017 with his team and band was invited by top government officials for a lunch upon their arrival.

Almost all the musicians headlining the Festival including legendary Magic System, Singuila others were present at the lunch and Bisa Kdei without knowing how much he is worth to the Ivorians was honored as a tourism ambassador.

According to the citizens in La Cote d'Ivoire, Bisa Kdei's music is the only music they listen to aside their usual Francophone style and having him in their country means so much to them that they wish he never goes back to Ghana.

Bisa Kdei gave a very thrilling performance to the Ivorians last night inside Anoumabo and by popular demand, he has been billed to perform in another city tonight.

Congratulations are certainly in order for Bisa Kdei..
Everyone Ghanaian lover of music, has at one point or another been proud of Efya. Whether she is on a hit track with an international artiste or getting a nod at the world music awards, Efya has always been a source of national pride.

The songstress, who was in Ghana to thrill event audience during the Easter holidays, soon after returned to the USA, to continue working.

On Wednesday 26th April 2017, Efya again made history for Ghana, as she performed at the Sound of Brazil (SOB) in New York, which is considered a rite of passage for artistes looking to make it big in the US and also the last place Fela Kuti, performed in the USA, before he died.

The Ghanaian songstress, will be the first musician of Ghanaian origin, to perform at the 500 capacity venue, previously conquered by the likes of Outkast, Drake, Kid Cudi, DMX, Kendrick Lamar and more.

The artiste announced this achievement with humility, as she took to Instagram to write, "Last night was a dream. Thank you NYC".

Speaking to Efya, she sounded optimistic about the year ahead. Stating that her "gingams" are in for continuous thrills, as she intends to keep giving Africa a world class representation.
The Sulger Buel Lovell art gallery hosted a meet and greet art dinner party with some of their clients and guests at the Unit 2 La Gare gallery in London. Monday gone.

Flying all the way from South Africa to mixing business with pleasure, Tamzin Lovell, a co-partner of the Sulger-Buel-Lovell Gallery, was not jet lagged, one bit.

Sharing friendly and business conversations with guests, invitees, and some clients in-between at the leisure of their gallery, she beamed with the characteristics of an international art curator in her presentations.

Explaining the essence of the 'Arty Dinner Party' Tamzin said:  I think it's a different approach to making business I suppose. This is where you don't have to think about people as clients but rather thinking about them as friends. So this is an opportunity for us to bond with our clients as friends.

Glaring the artist and curator relationship between their gallery and its artists, she said We have been working with Neil from over some good years.

So arriving in London, both for his first trip and exhibition respectively, we thought we should celebrate him together with our clients, friends, wonderful and fascinating people.

As programmed, the evening's dinner was to dine and wine with their two prominent artists, South Africa's Neil Wright and El Kamel of Tunisia, whose exhibitions are still on-going at the gallery.

But due to some visa bureaucracies, El Kamel could not honour his invitation.

And touching her thoughts on the visa situation, Tamzin emphasised that Yeah, El Kamel is in Tunisia and found it a little bit difficult in getting his visa.

It's rather unfortunate, not to have him here, as we had him in Cape Town recently, where he exhibited his works. But the good thing is that, he is being represented here by his ambassador.

Delivering the protocol of the Tunisian embassy's administration was the deputy head of mission, Mr Anouar Ben Youssef, who was concise and very promising with respect to the role of arts in Tunisia's tourism.

In connecting the evening's art dinner to tourism in Tonisia, Mr Anouar said: First of all thanks for the invitation, it's such a pleasure to be among like minded friends.

Of course when you speak about arts, it's always an opportunity for us, as a nation to connect it to our tourism. Because visiting Tunisia gives you the opportunity to discover more.

We place much importance in supporting our artists and their work, because our artists are our message and our ambassadors.

The participation of Tunisia's artist El Kamel tonight, is an opportunity to put a bridge between Tunisia and the UK, as we already have a good relationship with the UK.

And we try to put a strong emphasis in our friendship and relationship through arts and tourism with the UK by extending our invitations to visitors and tourists visiting our lovely country, beautiful beaches and its friendly people.

Neil Wright whose presence was eminent given his work at the gallery, took his time to explain the meanings and the techniques that inform his decisions, in the drawings of his projects on exhibition to the utmost admiration of most guests.

The food was craftily cooked and dished by his majesty- the chef of Bala Baya. Better look for your French dictionary or excuse my French.

Tapping liquor from France, Mr Christian and his gallery staff made sure Moet and Chandon, vin blanc et rouge was on tap all night.

It was a total night of art, business and pleasure at the leisure and presence of some art collectors, art lovers and art enthusiasts.
01.05.2017 LISTEN

Are you surprised that Ooni of Ife reduced Oba of Lagos below his level? The first indication of class was how they got to the throne. When the people of Lagos protested that Tinubu should not be in a position to share his preference on who should be the Oba of Lagos, other Yoruba protested that Lagosians must not discriminate against another Yoruba in Lagos, as they would allow Tinubu to determine their Oba. Indeed, we had those that were asking if Lagosians would rather have someone from other parts of Nigeria.

Before we blame everything on IFA or the selection process, some potential potentates around the world including Nigeria have decided to pass over the throne to either a younger siblings, more educated kin or more informed, one against the right of passage because of religious belief or may feel constrained by the duties and responsibilities of the throne. You may have read about a king of England that abdicated his throne in order to marry a commoner.

Akiolu family is well known and cultured but just like any family, some members reject the training reserved for members of the royal houses. Actually, the police force has produced well bred and respected Lagosians including the former Chief of Police Musiliu Smith in Obasanjos cabinet. So it is not that Oba Akiolu was not cultured, he survives in the present-day Nigeria the best way he knows how. So, he made it in the Police force and made it to the throne.

Look at the background of Ooni before he ascended the throne and look at that of Oba of Lagos before you determine who humiliated whom. The present Ooni is young enough to be the son of Oba of Lagos. Under normal circumstances, one would expect youthful exuberance to cloud the behavior of the young Ooni. Instead what we saw was a jealous older man behaving as if he was uncultured in Yoruba history while the young man took the higher ground.

The behavior of Oba Akiolu of Lagos trivialized his statue and the stool he occupies. Lagosians, are usually and unfairly stereotyped with some boisterous behaviors. But the confusion comes from those that were not familiar with the culture of the indigenes. Like any other place, those born and bred from good homes and those from otherwise homes behave differently. Even in Lagos, they can distinguish the ruffians from the cultured. Indeed, there are those from very cultured homes that lost it on their way to make money by any means necessary.

There is no Lagosian from a royal house that would not be sorted out by men of integrity and caliber before anyone ascended the throne, not only in Lagos but in every domain. If you decided that integrity does not matter, you would end up with someone like Akiolu or Tinubu in power. Compare that to the way Ooni of Ife was selected. Rivalry or competition is ingrained in choice of final for the throne. He weathered each of them before and after becoming Ooni.

Ooni even came out after that to say his mission is to unite all the Yoruba Oba and that incident would not deter him. Ooni and Alafin have their differences but historians and well-informed Yoruba know the different functions between Ife and Oyo. Actually, we also know the political tone many ethnic groups and subgroup have taken in self-actualization and promotion of their own title. Yet, it does not mean traditional rulers have to be less than cordial to one another.

Fair is fair, if it was entirely a Lagos business, Akiolu would never have been chosen as the Oba in the first place. All over Nigeria Oba, Emir and Igwe or Obi are screened and reserved for men of class and integrity. This man was eased out of Nigerian Police, a force that has corruption problem like many institutions, but that of police have been over the top for a long time. Say what you want about Oasanjo, he dealt with corruption in his own way and with Akiolu.

The point about Tinubu angle is that he is going to come back and haunt Yoruba by his choice of Akiolu and other politicians with his corrupt practices. No matter how this writer feels about Tinubu, Yoruba sent fire to quench fire and he served that purpose. But that does not legitimize him as Yoruba leader or aspiration for Presidency. He forced Akiolu through as Oba of Lagos. Osibajo, an honorable man is an exception, even as Tinubus choice.

This Oba has been openly involved in Lagos politics coming out to swear on those that were against any choice of his master, Tinubu. Some of you may remember the role this same Oba of Lagos played in the dispute between Tinubu and Fashola. Tinubu apparently walked out on him with impunity when he feared that Fashola was making sense to the people of Lagos and in the meeting before Oba of Lagos. The Oba turned around until Fashola succumbed.

Fashola a son of the soil that is well known in Lagos because of his fathers amicable reputation became Tinubus accomplice. If you cannot beat them, join them. If the fight against corruption solidly gets a foothold in Nigeria, Tinubu will face justice and he would easily implicate Fashola that initially made his greedy acquisition possible. The koko of the matter is that the support Tinubu gets from Yoruba and which he gave Akiolu will come back and haunt all of us.

Anyone that expects Oba of Lagos to apologize to the Ooni of Ife should not hold his breath. We pay him back scornfully. He also had some problem with the previous Ooni Sijuade. Grown men in exulted positions must learn how to respect their office, especially in a public forum. While some understood his beef with the previous Ooni, this new and young Ooni should not inherit their differences. After all, the previous Ooni also had his differences with Alafin of Oyo.

This Ooni is still cutting his teeth especially with his loyalty to foreign religion and his adherence to their God when he is supposed to be the keeper of Yoruba religion. Yoruba Oba must come together for the sake of their people and create forum where they can express their differences without rancor and disrespectful slights in public. They do not have to share the same political leaning. They are closer to the people locally and must serve and share their causes to earn respect; not personal enmity.

Open division gives unscrupulous politicians the opportunity to gain and distribute favors in their selfish interest. The way Abacha used Yoruba Oba against M.K. O Abiola and General Diya is a fresh history for Yoruba to learn.
01.05.2017 LISTEN

Not long ago, I published in this same medium and column, an article titled Apostle Paul Caught Plagiarizing Greek Philosophers in His Epistles of the New Testament which drew a sizeable readership of over 5,200 within two weeks of its publication!

Two readers of the articleJerubbaal and Francisasked me some interesting questions which I want to answer in and by this article, in the form of a letter to them, and also for the information and benefit of many more readers. I write this letter even though my questioners have already been answered in my separate responses to them, as and when they asked them, posted in the comments section of that article.

For the benefit of those who did not read that article, I am providing the internet link to it here for their reading and study. In fact, I urge all who never read that article to read it before reading this one. www.modernghana.com/news/769023/apostle-paul-caught-plagiarizing-greek-philosophers-in-his-e.html.

Before proceeding with my letter, Id like to make public here, the very questions which were asked me by my two readers, thus:

You sound like someone who does not believe at all in Christianity. Can I know from you the following? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Do you believe in genealogy? Have you considered these great women, Rahab and Ruth, of our Lord Jesus Christ's genealogy? Do you know Christianity is not a religion? Who are you? That's the beauty of theology. I need you to answer anyway. Thank you.Asked by Francis, but very slightly edited by me.

What then do you say about RUTH who came from Moab to marry Boaz who brought forth Obed who brought forth Jesse who begat David?Asked by Jerubbaal, unedited.

My letter is addressed, principally, to Francis because he asked more questions than Jerubbaal even though it was Jerubbaal, of the two, who first read the article; and also because the question asked by Jerubbaal got swallowed up in the many questions Francis asked! So then, here we go with my letter!

Dear Francis: Thank you for all these many questions you ask me upon reading my article. In fact, I am responding to them, even though none relates to the content of my article, because I love all my readers and will always do all I can to ensure their proper information on issues relating to spirituality! This, notwithstanding, I thought you would have read all comments of other readers, and my own responses to them, before posting more questions for me!

Also, I must say some of your questions are simply unnecessary if indeed you read my article critically and with a searching heart! For instance, you would not have asked me about Christianity and of a certain Jesus Christ (a real historical figure? or a cooked up and abstract one??) who people wrongly claim to have founded Christianity, if you had read my article critically, or my older articles which I encouraged all my readers to read.

And again, why ask me whether Christianity is a religion when every sixth grade pupil in school knows that Christianity is a religion?? I hope every sixth grader in school also knows that Christianity is the most confused religion on Earth, what with all its countless denominations that cannot find agreement among themselves!!

Teach me what knowledge you hold about Christianity that may not be obvious to me! And please, do not tell me Christianity is a particular way of life; for, it is NOT!! Now, if at all it is, it is a wrong way of life that disappoints and kills its adherents in the end!

Know that the Towrah enjoins every descendant of Avraham, who must be FIRMLY bound by it, to ONLY one way of life, and hence the slogan, Towrah is Life! Towrah is HaDerekh (The Way)in fact, the only true way of life ordained by the Creator for all who love to obey and serve Him!

As you must know, worship according to the Towrah, reveals ONE Elohiym (not some trinity of an unholy Goy deity), has one house as central place of worship, one Kohen (priesthood?) to direct the worship of Yahuwah Elohiym, one manner of worship, etc.

This is, sadly, not so with Christianity; which is essentially a loose and undefined faith, in which Pentecostals, Charismatics, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Orthodoxy, et al, do many things differently and in manners as they like, simply because even the Bible they claim to be led by in their faith, beliefs and practices, has no definition/teaching that is known as Christianity in it by which any people claiming to be Christians may be guided into any safety!!

Yes, I have considered Rahab and Ruth and even gone beyond them to include Tamar (of Yahudah, in Genesis 38) in order to reveal, in the very article you read concerning my charge of plagiarism against St. Paul, their absorption into the house of Yahudah!

As I intimated earlier in this letter, this question of yours about Rahab and Ruth was first asked by Jerubbaal, in the first of his two posts to me on 4/18/2017; and for which I gave him the following reply that same day. Please read, right next here in this letter, my response to Jerubbaal which I am sure will edify you greatly.

Dear Jerubbaal: Thank you for your question; it makes a significant contribution to the discourse I seek to ignite by my article, though not directly!

I suppose you asked the question in view of what I said in my article about Paul not being qualified to be called a son of Yisroel, a descendant of Avraham, simply because his mother was a Roman and because the Towrah bars marriages between sons and daughters of Yisroel to anyone of the Goyim!

I hope you checked out my claim in this regard and the reference to Ezra too, and found them to be spot on! I hope you are also okay with what I said about Esau! However, beyond these facts, you seem to me to be worried about Ruth; and hence your question!

Well, talking about Ruth, do you know why Elimelech the husband of Naomi died in Moab? Do you also know why his two sons who both married Moabite women, obviously with his support, also died in Moab??

Do you know that Boaz never went courting Ruth to marry her, but was only principally interested in doing a duty under the Towrah toward saving the inheritance of his kinsman Elimelech, for the sake of Naomi; and that Ruth was only a part of the inheritance package that Boaz had to burden himself to take very good care of??

Remember also that, at the end of it all, Naomi lost three mena husband and two sons, who, if they had been alive, would have been taking care of her! Her loss of three men was just to save one woman for Boaz so that, through Boaz (and Ruth??), she (Naomi) may have her needs for living met, which her husband/sons would have dutifully given to her if they had been alive! The marriage of Ruth to Boaz was also to ensure that Naomi's own name did not perish together with that of her husband (and sons??) and be lost to history!!

In any case, by all of these deaths of three men of Yisroel in Moab because they violated the Towrah, was someone not being purged to become fit for someone?? I do not know for certain; but I am thinking it was so!

Remember also that, almost the same situation which befell Naomi in Moab seemed to have been played out earlier on, against Yahudah (Judah??) the son of Yisroel in Adulam, where he too lost a wife just like Naomi lost a husband, and thereafter lost two of his three sons to death through their marriages to one and the same woman by name Tamarcf. Bereshiyt (Genesis??) 38:1-30!

In the end, Yahudah seemed to have gotten his two sons back from the dead from or through this same Tamar in the twins Pharez and Zarah she begat by him, not as a result of copulation in a planned/legal marriage between him and Tamar, but from one single foolish fling!!

Strangely, this fling produced the seed that was to establish the royal line of Yahudah, to which Boaz was also to join in, later on, according to the plan and will of Yahuwah! How unsearchable are the ways of Yahuwah Elohiym!!

We must not forget about Rahab, once a harlot in Yericho, who also through marriage to one Salmon who begat Boaz (of Rachabcf. Matthew 1:5, KJV), was co-joined to the family line of Yahudah to become a member of the royal family line of Yisroel. How did this happen? It happened through an act of war by Yisroel against Yericho in which human blood was shed for her salvation to become a part of Yisroel!

Again, as you would also remember, the taking of very beautiful Goy virgins (who were deemed never to have been known carnally by any Goy man) to wife, by warriors of Yisroel, was permitted as part of spoils taken whenever Yisroel had victory over his enemies in bloody battlescf. Devarim (Deuteronomy??) 21:10-14.

In all of these, the fact still stands that the children of Yisroel were, by the Towrah, never to willfully intermarry with people of Goyim nations.

Dear Jerubbaal, I hope this discourse of mine has helped to clarify some things for you! Shalawam!!

Now, back to you, my dear Francis! If you want to know me, simply read my articles; for the messenger and the message he holds from Elohiym must always be in sync.

But let me say I find no beauty in theology! In fact, I loathe and abhor theology simply because it is all about a Greek concept of the Creator who, to them, is Theos, and intrinsic in theology are all the polytheistic Greek religions, idolatry, mythology, literature and their way of life. However, for me, a descendant of Avraham, I cannot go the way of the Goyim Greeks. This is why I hate theology!

Dear Francis, I must say to you how sad I am that you are still living in the deceived past of mankind by still clinging to the name JESUS CHRIST while searching for salvation! The very KJV Bible of 1611 which misled mankind to believe in one JESUS CHRIST for salvation, by its latest edition titled The Restored Name King James Version Bible (RNKJVB, 1999), now admits error and culpability for this deception and misinformation by deleting JESUS found in their Old (1611) & New (1982) KJV, in replacement with YAHUSHUA!!

What this means is that, JESUS has been taught in error since 1611, and that the YAHUSHUA of 1999 is meant to correct this error and deception! Like seriously?? And this has been since 1999??

And yet, you, my dear Francis, have not heard this in order to be corrected and are thus still stuck to some JESUS?? How sad!! How devastating!!

Please, Francis, just Google The Restored Name King James Version Bible to learn of this truth in the RNKJVB; and also that, in it, God is replaced with Elohiym, CHRIST with Messiah, Christian with Messianic and Christians with Messianics; all very funny stuff! Oh my!!

I am trying to get into touch with the publishers of this novel RNKJVB, to demand the deletion of Holy Ghost/Spirit still found in their new Bible in exchange for Ruwakh HaQuodesh, which is the only genuine and true name of the essence and spirit of Yahuwah Elohiym.

In fact, no modern BiblesThe Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB), The Eth Cepher, The Hebraic Roots Bible (HRB), The Halleluyah Scriptures (HS), etc.have any of the words GOD, JESUS, CHRIST, HOLY GHOST/SPIRIT, CHRISTIAN or CHRISTIANS in them!

So then, all Christians using these words in their search for the salvation of Yahuwah Elohiym are simply wasting their time, since Christianity is thus declared a dead horse!!

I thought I should warn all my readers, and in fact, all the people of this generation of this truth which portends so much evil for Christians.

Shalawam!

PS: Dear Francis, as I said earlier on in this letter, if you want to know me, read more of my over 150 articles published in this column to form your own opinion of me. In addition to that, you have my photo beside this article that you read to aid you in your desire to know who I am.

Let me further say I am offended, as a Towrah-believer, to be addressed as Reverend, apostle, bishop, evangelist, pastor or prophet, since these are Goyim titles that are not found in the Towrah or even the entire Tanakh and I could not be interested in them.

While welcoming you to the discourse sparked by this article and hoping that you would return to it, let me say to you once again, Shalawam!

Author email contact: [email protected]
01.05.2017 LISTEN

If those journalists who pride themselves on reporting corruption in others, then ask for unofficial payment for themselves, isnt that a touch hypocritical?...At the very least, you know, now that you will never receive any soli from the British High Commission (John Benjamin, British High Commissioner to Ghana).

THE IRONY OF SOLI JOURNALIST LIKE KWEKU BAAKO AND THE LINGERING SPECTER OF EXTREME PARTISAN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

Kweku Baako compromised his personal integrity (ethos), and told the world what he is actually made of, when he willingly accepted a gold chain award from one of Ghanas and Africas unforgettable corruptocrat, J.A. Kufuor.

In other words he demonstrated a great potential of incorruptibility as soon as he embraced the leprotic arms of public corruption. This also confirmed his lack of independence insofar as journalistic objectivity goes.

A self-appointed spokesperson for the NPP, Kweku Baako hardly demonstrates a semblance of neutrality, of the nature of political and ethical purpose, in his public pronouncements. All the available evidence points to Kweku Baako as being a stomach journalist. He is not alone in this regard, however.

Ghana's charged political atmosphere brought about by extreme partisan politics and ideological polarization, incidentally has given birth to a situation where manufacturing consent has progressively undermined independent journalism to the extent that journalists are literally in politicians pockets.

Journalists are slaves and pawns in the kind of Machiavellian political games that our politicians play. Politicians have capitalized on journalists material greed, poverty, irreducible ignorance, unpatriotism, ideological suicide and cognitive imbecility to corrupt these journalists further.

What is more, like his pal Kwesi Pratt, Kweku Baako is a victim of this game theory of antagonistic duopoly.

Yet the entire ideological framework called Kweku Baako lacks the operational genius of tactical silence where, ideally speaking, silence exerts sovereign authority over the claustrophobic space of uninformed cacophony in the case of a man who is generally conceptualized as an epitome of encyclopedic knowledge.

As if this conceptualized designation of encyclopedic knowledge directly speaks to the universality or generality of folk wisdom, carefully taken up or circumscribed by the political logic of Ghana.

Besides, there is clear evidence of palpable knowledge deficits in his celebrated panoply of encyclopedic topography. Also it may have been lost on the self-seeking media famewhore, the so-called patron saint of Ghanaian journalism, that, investigative journalism in particular, and if we may add for corrective edification and emphasis, journalism in general, are not exact sciences.

Kweku Baako is not an exact science himself, a pseudoscience for that matter. In fact he has simply been a misnomered nuisance as part of some high-profile public discourses.

Ghanaian journalists are so corrupt and beyond that, they are part of the major reasons institutional corruption is entrenched and so widely spread across the country. They are for the most part criminal agents of institutional corruption as their actions and inactions feed the habit of institutional corruption.

Ghanaian journalists who are already in the pockets of politicians will take bribe from politicians and then turn around to bury the curious, prying eye of investigative journalism, meant for exposing social and political rot, in the graveyard of moral hypocrisy, as political morality and patriotism mean absolutely nothing to them. They are so corrup to the core, beyond redemption.

Even when investigative journalists such as Ana Aremeyaw Anas so much as painstakingly unravel the stinking rottenness of Ghanaian society, the resulting hue-and-cry moirology raised over this stinking rottenness of public corruption and institutional breakdown becomes a nine-day wonder.

The fundamental thrust of our argument therefore makes for the particular case where the smart-alecky talking-head, Kweku Baako, does not have to always see himself as being compelled or obligated to express an opinion in every single instance of media or political communication.

Doing so makes him look intellectually opportunistic and worn-out and dated, strategically uninformed. Some media outlets attribute the following statements to Kweku Baako:

Touching on the conflict of interest allegations, he [Kweku Baako] said Ken Ofori Atta's relationship with the Enterprise Group is public knowledge and duly acknowledged in his Assets declaration.

He added Franklyn Templeton has been transacting business with the government of Ghana under the NDC, way before Ken Ofori Atta became Finance Minister.

Is somebody suggesting that merely because Ken Ofori Atta is Finance Minister and has business relationship with Trevor who is also with Franklyn Templeton, then the US company must divest its business deals with Ghana?

Ofori-Atta may eventually prove to be a Machiavellian Trumpian schemer.

Time will tell if he is an antithesis of this characterization.

That is, it is high time time proved beyond all reasonable doubt if he is a dove or a snake!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: SOME CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS

Kweku Baakos argument is hard to follow if he makes sense at all. For, the fact that Ofori-Attas has a relationship with the Enterprise Group and that this is already in the public domain, and further that this is acknowledged in his assets declaration, does not rule out conflict of interest.

It also does not make any sense for Kweku Baako to claim that since Franklin Templeton has been in a business relationship with the NDC, a government of which Ofori-Atta was neither a member nor held a cabinet position, then it must surely follow that potentially conflict of interest is impossible under the NPP, with Ofori-Atta as Finance Minister.

Kweku Baako may have assumed that Ofori-Atta were either Kwabena Dufuor or Seth Terkper. This working assumption of, however, his turns his narrative or discursive logic completely upside down because Ofori-Atta were neither Dufuor nor Terkper. This is pure science fiction.

On the contrary, Kweku Baako may be transporting us into the reified terrain of political superstition.

Long story short, Ofori-Atta was not the Finance Minister in the Mills and Mahama administrations.

Neither did Kweku Baako provide incontrovertible evidence proving Dufour or Terpker had any professional or business links to Trevor Trefgarne.

Kweku Baako may therefore have had to evoke a precedent of conflict of interest from the Dufuor-Terkpers ministerial dispensations in order to establish a substantial link of continuity to the outstanding one presently engulfing Ofori-Atta and his ministry, and the NPP government.

Last, but certainly not least, Attorney General Gloria Akuffo, a non-Executive Director at Enterprise Group Ltd., Ofori-Atta and his wife Angela Ofori-Atta, and Trevor Trefgarnereportedly are all board members of Enterprise Group Ltd. Trevor is board chairman of Enterprise Group Ltd.

Finally, Kweku Baako didnt explore this connection and the fact that Attorney General Gloria Akuffo recently pleaded ignorance of the transaction that is currently at the center of a serious national controversy, though, technically, as Attorney General, the transaction should not have gone ahead without her legal input. In simple terms, we will posit that serious allegations of insider trading, nepotism, abuse of power, and information asymmetry are at the root of the controversy.

All these circumstantial events may point to a potential conflict of interest. In the meantime Kweku Baako is on a wild goose chase, which is probably why he is calling the NDCs bluff after rubbishing others claims to the contrary.

As a matter of fact he is an excellent embodiment of ignorance, mischief, misinformation, disinformation, very harsh words he used for critics of Ofori-Atta since news broke of the controversial bond transaction and its accompanying potential conflict of interest.

The afore-referenced quotation which we attribute to him may constitute an unnecessary distraction or digression from the potential facts of the bond-transaction case as details from public discourse on the matter seem to suggest.

Fundamentally, then, Kweku Baako is therefore an opportunistic slaveand a dangerous one as a matter of courseof his own biased intentionality in matters of public policy, establishment journalism and ideological partisanship.

He may have forgotten that nepotism and cronyism feed into, support, and give birth to serious instances of public corruption; negate competence and meritocracy, promote a perception of distorted fealty to the state and political tribalism, and speed up the moral atrophying of the Ghanaian society at large.

Kweku Baako may also have glossed over the fact that the ruling class and its spokespersons, like him, and the ranthoneous Kennedy Agyapong, hide behind a convenient frosted glass of populist rhetoric and labels such as social democracy and property-owning democracy, and from behind this frosted glass have erected a Great China Wall of internal colonialismwhere the generality of Ghanaians are locked up as Eurocentric psychological slaves in an economic-political asylum.

Lets ask ourselves this simple question: Is there really a choice between the incompetent NDC and the incompetent NPP in our largely Eurocentric, ethnocentric duopoly, with both criminal political organizations also known for their characteristic proclivity to strategic incompetence?

And these incompetent governments represented by both parties, regrettably, are the celebrated darlings of the capitalist West just like all lazy political parties in Africa are celebrated in the same West, as one perceptive journalist observes in the case of Liberias Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson, so-called Africas War Lord Queen. We shall quote the journalist (Thomas C. Mountain) at considerable length merely as an illustrative reminder of what nepotism and cronyism is doing to Africa:

She used to be the de facto foreign minister for that most bloodthirsty of warlords former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and she addressed the US Congress in his support.

President Johnson is the queen of the warlords, for she has granted fiefdoms to many of Charles Taylors top Capos in todays Liberia. This is the Charles Taylor that is an incarcerated war criminal having been found guilty of crimes against humanity by that pack of western lickspittles enthroned at the International Criminal Court.

Thats right, the ruling President in Liberia was the right hand woman for a serious killer and today is surrounded by many of his most notorious warlords.

You see President Johnson was handpicked by the USA and it lackeys at the UN to rule Liberia when the Charles Taylor regime finally collapsed, doing so under the rubric of democracy, never mind Ms. Johnson tends to run unopposed?

To give you an idea just how rotten things are, the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in front of which Ms. Johnson testified, issued an opinion calling for Ms. Johnson to be barred for life from Liberian politics.

When one speaks of warlords it is meant literally, for the lords of war under Charles Taylor now rule much of the Liberian economy and critical government departments. John T. Richardson was appointed head of the Housing Authority and was a top commander for Charles Taylor and is infamous for being the commander of the operation where 5 American nuns were murdered.

"Eugene Nagbe was a senior commander under Taylor and was appointed Minister of Information. Roland Dou was a senior frontline commander and is now head of special operations at the National Security Agency alongside President Johnsons step son Fomba Sirleaf. Charles Taylors wife, Jewel Howard-Taylor has been a Senator and is being touted as the next Vice President. And the list goes on and on, exposing how some of the worst criminals in neo colonial Africa are ensconced as warlords high up in the national crime syndicate that rules Liberia.

Interestingly enough, Charles Taylor was convicted by the ICC of crimes against humanity for crimes he committed inSierra Leone? But wasn't Charles Taylor President of Liberia? Yes, and he committed all sorts of terrible acts in Liberia for much longer than he did during his invasion of Sierra Leone during its bitter civil war, but the ICC couldn't touch anything Liberian for it would leave Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson with blood on her hands for the world to see

In the mining industry, a mainstay of the economy, many undercover documentaries have exposed how Liberias government is little more than an extortion racket run by gangsters

For years now, while the capital city Monrovia lacked such basic services as electricity and running water, the western banksters, their minions in government and the media kept up a cacophony of praise for the Queen of African Warlords, going so far as to anoint Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson with the Nobel Peace Prize. And this for someone who stood front and center in the ranks of those who supported Charles Taylor?...

Charles Taylor was a warlord who did whatever it took to preserve his power, and always worried that his mentors, if convenient, would hand him over to the ICC without qualms, which is what they did. His trial was fully sanitized and the automatic guilty verdict pronounced with the necessary pomp and circumstance. And the African Queen of the Warlords, Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson, would escape scot free, and remain on her throne, overseeing so much misery and suffering that Liberia should rightfully be considered a failed state

And then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson turns disrespects Africa by inviting African Union Chief, Moussa Faki, to a meeting in Washington and backing out at the last minute. Do we want the West to give us self-validation when we have literally turned ourselves over to them on the cheap? Are we really looking deep within ourselves as a people? As a matter of fact we need a serious, radical rethink and a soul-searching national dialogue on how weve been managing ourselves, else there will be no future worthy of our misplaced national pride to celebrate, if we dont put in place corrective measures to do away with our schadenfreude, self-destructive tendencies and Eurocentric mindsets.

CLOSING REMARKS

We strongly believe that looking seriously into this matter of potential conflict of interest falls within the jurisdiction of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).

What rather bothers us at this point is the extent to which our institutions are politicized and what the implication of this means in terms of the question of independently adjudicating policy matterssuch as conflict of interestof enormous national interest.

Do we recall the CHRACs role in investigating the so-called Ford Gift Saga?

What came out of this investigation, another clear case involving a potential conflict of interest where a Burkinabe contractor gifted the president a ford only for this same contractor to end up being awarded contracts by the state?

Yet we are still not certain if the Commissioner for CHRAC, Joseph Whittal, a Mahama appointee, will be neutral in adjudicating the petition brought before him.

That is to say, undue political interference has been a major drain on national development, a dominant feature of our failed democracy. The fact is that power acquired through democratic channelseven if fake or genuinesometimes confers a false sense of political immortality on winners.

This false sense of political immortality breeds, which in turn reinforces, a culture of impunity, abuse of incumbency, arrogance of power, coercive power, and institutional corruption in a revolving-door of uninterrupted official continuity in a sham duopoly such as ours.

Unproductive, uncompetitive revenge and frigid wickedness in high places therefore exert a state of normative oversight over the instruments of political socialization. Even in this atmosphere political theology becomes a mere smokescreen for the effective exercise of political convenience.

All of these variables simply boil down to the important question of public corruption, which is the most serious problem in Ghana. And conflict of interest has contributed enormously to it.

We all will do well to recall the ignominious scandal that has engulfed Ibrahim Mahama, ex-President Mahamas younger brother, who is currently in the grip of the Economic and Organized Crime (EOCO) for reportedly issuing some twenty-four dud cheques to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GBA).

How did Ibrahim Mahama end up being awarded contracts by a government headed by his own brother? Technically, the question should not be about whether contracts should be awarded or go to a presidents relative(s) and friends who have everything it takes to executive the contracts in question, per se, but rather whether these contracts are widely advertised enough to attract a wider net of potential cost-effective bidders? Any proper investigation into these serious policy matters should attempt to answer these questions.

Now it is being alleged that the Social Security and National Trust (SSNIT) has dragged him, his company Engineers & Planners (E & P), and Directors of E & P to court over alleged non-payment of his employees SNNIT contributions! If this is in fact true, what does it say about us as a people?

And then there is the sad case of these post-Nkrumah pseudo-capitalists, nation wreckers, crony capitalists, and talking-bird Black Englishmen who have literally sold off what Nkrumah built for the country to foreigners, to themselves, and to their cronies under the guise of economic liberalism, just to enrich some recidivating political thieves and criminals at the expense of national development.

Weve become callous practitioners of autocannibalism and autovimprismsocial-political self-destroyers? Weve been spending so much time trying to tear down the little wall of achievements weve built across the years. How so? Is this not sad? Why are we doing this to ourselves? Do we remember Nelson Mandela saying this?:

If the ANC does to you what the apartheid government did to you, then you must do to the ANC what you did to the apartheid government.

Is the ANC different from the NDC and the NPP? Killing and acid-bathing our political opponentsall in the name of some imported democracy from the West. Weve become the sleepless, restive little boy hiding in the troubled souls of CIA darling-boy Charles Taylor, Idi Amin, Emperor Bokassa, Omar Bashir, and Mobuto Sese Seko!

Of course, we are in an era of alternative facts and post-truth politics where politicians hide behind the frosted glass of political theology and profit from the masses absolute acquiescence to political manipulation.

Ofori-Atta, weve been told, reportedly asked his pastor Mensah Otabil to pray over the 2017 budget before its content was formally laid out in parliament, and later made public. What do political theology and political economy have in common?

How much does Otabil really know about political economy? About conflict of interest?

No wonder pastorship and our executive dominance have so much in common.

REFERENCES

Ghanaweb. Sorry Journalists, No Soli For YouUK High Commissioner. November 24, 2014.

Ghanaweb. Probe Into $2.25 bn Bond Will Leave 'Ignorant, Mischievous' NDC ExposedBaako. April 22, 2017.

Ghanaweb. I Didnt Even Know About $2.25bn Bond IssuedGloria Akuffo. April 18, 2017.

For Gloria Akuffo as a former Non-Executive Director at Enterprise Group Ltd., see https://relationshipscience.com/angela-lamensdorf-ofori-atta-p49578943

Ghanaweb. Ibrahim Mahama Sued For Non-Payment Of Workers SSNIT Contributions. April 29, 2017.

Ghanaweb. Bond Saga: CHRAJ Confirms Receipt Of Petition. April 27, 2017.

Thomas C. Mountain. Africas War Lord Queen; The Bloodstained Career of Liberias Eleanor Sirleaf Johnson. Modernghana. April 25, 2017.

Robbie Gramer. (April 26, 2017). Rex Tillerson Spurns Africa In Botched Meeting with African Union Chief. Retrieved from http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/25/rex-tillerson-spurns-africa-in-botched-meeting-with-african-union-chief-moussa-faki-diplomacy-africa-affairs-trump-administration-state-department-understaffed/amp/
The air intelligence unit of Mumbai customs has seized gold and foreign currencies worth Rs 55 lakh from two passengers.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: The air intelligence unit (AIU) of Mumbai customs yesterday night seized illegal foreign currency and crude gold worth Rs 55 lakh from a passenger at the airport.

The AIU officers intercepted a passenger identified as 35-year-old Sayyed Rahman Ali, who was on his way to Sharjah in UAE by Air India Express flight. The AIU officials acted on the grounds of suspicion. Rahman Ali is a resident of Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka.

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Personal search of the said passenger resulted in the recovery of 2 bundles of USD 5,000 from each of the socks.

SMUGGLING OF FOREIGN CURRENCIES

Further examination of his red coloured-trolley bag resulted in recovery of assorted foreign currency, which was cleverly concealed under the plastic sheet fixed inside bag.

The total worth of the seized foreign currency stood at Rs 44,18,803. The AIU said that the agency believed that the recovered foreign currency was being smuggled out of India. The foreign currency was confiscated under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962.

The passenger in his statement recorded under the Customs Act, 1962 has admitted possession, carriage, concealment and recovery of the above said FC under seizure for smuggling out of India and in contravention of the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 read with FEMA, 2000.

The passenger in his statement further admitted that the said the foreign currency belonged to one Salim from Dubai.

Rahman Ali is a graduate in commerce from Mangalore University and has a business of printing in Sharjah by the name Sahara Printing and Publishing. He was arrested.

Ali lives in Sharjah. He landed in Mumbai yesterday morning by Air India Express flight.

SECOND CASE OF SEIZURE

In a separate incident, another passenger identified as Rahul Premchandani a resident of Nagpur's Jaripatka, was intercepted by the AIU officials when he arrived from Dubai by an Indigo flight.

He was found to be carrying a crude gold chain weighing 350 grams valued at Rs 10,50,000. The jewelry was concealed on his body with the intention to smuggle illegally, the AIU said.

He owns a travel company by the name Rahul Tour and Travelling in Nagpur. Rahul was earlier booked by the AIU in a smuggling case of assorted foreign currency equivalent to Rs 11,96,230 in 2015 at CSI Airport, Mumbai.

ALSO READ |

3 nabbed smuggling gold in their rectum at Mumbai airport

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ALSO WATCH | Red alert issued in Mumbai after Coast Guards warn of attack by ISIS suspects

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01.05.2017 LISTEN

The recent disrespect of Oonirisa, Oluaye, the Ooni of Ife, Kabiyesi Eniitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, by the Eleko of Eko, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, has once again reopened the challenges the Yoruba Nation faces as it saunters around in search of a compass to get out of its present political, social and economic quagmire.

The resulting controversy brought about wide condemnation of Oba Akiolu for disrespecting the AROLE OODUA, the accepted representative and royal progenitor of the Yoruba race. The wide condemnation of Oba Akiolu is a sign that the majority of Yoruba still care about their heritage and their culture. In my view, for any race not to be History, it must care about its History.

There have been reports that the disrespect of Oonirisa by Eleko was informed b previous relationship between him (Eleko) and the then Prince Eniitan Ogunwusi. Regardless, that is no justification for what happened and widely and rightly too, condemned by all and sundry. Whatever might have transpired between them before the ascension of Kabiyesi Ojaja II, is irrelevant. What matters is that the old Eniitan Ogunwusi, is a different person now. He represents the Yoruba race now. He is the official AROLE OODUA now and sits on that stool of Oodua. As our forefathers often said, "Eni ba fi oju ana w'oku, ebora a bo l'aso." Oba Akiolu ought to have known this.

However, the resulting controversy has dredged up the importance or otherwise of the need to pay serious attention to traditional institutions in Yoruba land and orderliness that has been the hallmark of their inter and intra relationship across the Yoruba Nation.

To a school of thought, the continued discussion and the attention that this controversy has generated is an unnecessary distraction from the daily economic realities facing not just the Yoruba Nation, but the contraption called Nigeria as well.

To this school of thought, it is important to cease dwelling on the controversy and begin to seek ways out of the socio - economic challenges facing the people. This school of thought insists that the religio - political cum socio - economic challenges"are more important things" than the concerns being shown about extant traditional institutions.

To another school of thought, we should actually de-emphasize order but focus on giving recognition to what individuals on the throne can bring to bear on their domains. This school of thought seems to forget that the essence of careful selection process of prospective rulers is to ensure and sustain normalcy in terms of social peace, economic progress, political harmony and religious freedom insofar as the Yoruba Nation is concerned.

I have no disagreement with this except that following laid down rules with tinkering here and there is of great importance. I do not subscribe to installing popular or famous princes as rulers only for such to turn out to exude aridity of character on the throne. Following the age long traditional ways of selection could still be beneficial, though politics have been intervening in recent times.

I am in serious disagreement with the first school of thought described above that views any discussion of our traditional institutions, as to whether they are doing well or not as a "distraction". I view such position as a dangerous one that could exacerbate the moral morass in which we, as Yoruba, have found ourselves.

It is my considered view that what this particular school of thought considers to be "more important things" than the discussion of the progress or otherwise of our traditional institutions are functionally related to the ability to sustain or otherwise, our tradition.

Let me break it down for easier comprehension. Tradition is the progenitor of Culture. Culture is the incubator of values. Values are the determinants of the righteousness or unrighteousness of a society. The degree of righteousness of a society determines its prosperity, peace and progress.

The breakdown of our traditional values is functionally related to several obnoxious behaviors that are being exuded in the public offices. The endemic corruption that we are witnessing in public offices are by products of a people who have lost sense of their values. People are so confused about what is right and wrong that it is now a common place for kleptomaniacs to walk freely on our streets and even hailed by the victims of their crimes.

When you see elders of the society, preaching for accommodation of certain people who stole from public purse and come around to dole such out in acts of philanthropy, generosity and so called kindness, then one should realise that things are out of joint.

Thus, the controversy kick - started by the disrespect of Oonirisa by Eleko is more than a "distraction". It is indeed a serious matter that has to be exhaustively discussed to ensure that such egregious anomaly never repeats itself. There's need for us as a people to look inward and reach for the beauties embedded in our Culture.

The beauty of showing respect without losing your voice. The beauty of orderliness in our ways of life. The beauty of religious freedom among our people that the politicians are trying to poison for selfish ends. The beauty of communal support and loyalty. The beauty of honesty in dealing with others. The beauty of ordinary words being the bound of those who uttered them. The beauty of hard work and the dignity of labour.

Yes, the beauty of self pride and self confidence. The beauty of knowing the meaning of shame. The beauty of appreciating value of a good name. The beauty of the place of integrity in public affairs. The beauty of ostracising emergency millionaires or billionaires whose sources of wealth could not be explained, et cetera, et cetera.

The diminishing beauties highlighted above are results of not taking our traditions seriously. They are results of dismissive attitude to our Yoruba ways of life. The impact of this dismissive attitude has seen our people refusing to allow their children speak Yoruba in their homes. They want to ape the white man in all manners of ways. At the end of the day, they would never become white after ceasing to be Yoruba.

Our heritage is very important. It describes who we are. It underscores our uniqueness, why we are different and special. Our heritage as bequeathed is our gift to the world. It is to be guarded and protected jealously. We can't afford to treat our heritage with levity. As posited by Olaitan Okedeji, "Empires rise and fall....kingdoms come and go.... emperors debut and exit...... charismatic rulers emerge and disappear ..... but heritage remains."

An insult on our heritage is an insult to us all as a people. A disrespect of our heritage, is a disrespect to us all as a people. "Sugbon bi onigba ba se pe igba e, laa se ba pee." This, literally, would mean "It is the way you treat what belongs to you that would determine the way others would treat it." We can not allow our culture or any discussion of it be a "distraction". Otherwise, we are unwittingly inviting disrespect from others.

It is the same unconscious attitude that is being brought to bear on the unacceptable behavior of Eleko towards AROLE OODUA. The Yoruba Nation is bigger than anybody. OONIRISA is the physical representation of the Yoruba spirit and Yoruba Nation. He could not be toyed with. He should not be toyed with. And he must not be toyed with.

This is why I disagree with the school of thought that considers the discussion, focus and attention given the Eleko issue a "distraction." It is not a distraction but a very serious matter that must be paid attention to along with other traditional institutions of Yoruba land. If we fail to stem the gradual disconnection from our uniqueness as a people, by reconnecting with our culture and traditional values and wed such to modernity, peril is the only thing that can result.

Take away from a people, their culture, they lose their heritage, uniqueness and spiritual being. Our disconnection with our tradition is costing us enormously as is evident in our milieu. There's need for a change of attitude to our tradition and culture as a means to and for moral renaissance which in turn would be a stepping stone to building a fair, just and egalitarian society that we so much crave.

With a revert to our tradition, moral renaissance would serve as it's concomitant. By implication, the meaning of shame would be redoubtable. There would be less crime and increase in righteous acts and behaviours. This in turn would bring about sincere public servants who would engender social harmony, economic progress, political tranquility, religious freedom.

It is only the righteousness of the citizenry that could and would turn around a country. This is what is meant when it is said that righteousness exalts a Nation. By going back to our roots, we can rediscover our values and rebuild our Yoruba Nation, nay Nigeria.
The chief of Sayeegu, Woobjung Kamoutan (termites cannot consume stone) and three others including his eldest son have been assassinated in a renewed protracted land dispute between the Sayeegu and Sambiluk communities near Nakpanduri in the Bunkprugu- Yunyoo district of Northern region.

The victims were allegedly killed at a farmland in an ambush strike by an armed mob suspected to be residents of Sambiluk community who have repeatedly launched deadly attacks on each other over a parcel of land.

Earlier reports said the chief had escaped the attack and fled to the Bunkprugu Chief Palace where he was seeking refuge.

But the Bunkprugu Chief, Alhaji Abuba Nasingmong, told Starr News the subchief, his son and elder brother were savagely murdered on their way to farm by a hooded gang who laid ambush and overpowered them Sunday morning.

According to the chief, the two communities engaged in heavy gun battle when information of the killing reached the Sayeegu faction. Another person from the Sambiluk was also reportedly killed in the exchanges.

Bad road and poor communication networks delayed security forces reaction and heightened tension among the feuding parties.

It is not clear whether the murdered Chief and his family trespassed on the disputed land.

A raging violence between two Bimoaba clans -Boukteeb and Tanmung families  in the two farming communities have left at least 22 dead and several properties destroyed.

In April last year, a police officer Constable Frederick Dadzie was shot and over 70 houses burnt when violence broke out between the neighbours.

Bodies of the chief and his family have been transported to the Nalerigu hospital and security forces deployed.

Police in the area have confirmed the recent murder and said tension was high in the two communities.

The Bunkprugu district police commander ASP Delaport said the police are still mobilising to strengthen security where reprisals are imminent.

He did not link the killing to the longstanding land disagreement, but said investigation was underway.
_"Welcome to Ghana, a country where a poor man goes to jail for stealing a goat and the affluent walking through the corridors of power are only given the punishment of "payback" for raping the public purse" at gargantuan tunes"._ - George Sarpong

Must the fabled Ghanaian hospitality be a vulnerability?

Ghanaians are noted for our compassionate and hospitable nature and it is common to find citizens giving unsolicited support to foreigners who may be in dire need of such. It is however sad to note, that many times these kind gestures of ours have been fed to the dogs by the supposed "vulnerables". Mention can be made of the trade issues preceeding the 1948 riots, the Fulani saga (in the Asante-Akyim areas) and now, galamsey.

Issues of migration and economics saw a big name in the European Union block breaking away to concentrate their efforts on their national interest ahead of all other possible interests - BREXIT. Irrespective of whichever lens one uses in judging this audacious step of the people of the United Kingdom, one thing can never be overemphasised; that "the interest of the Crown reigns Supreme in all matters coming under its Jurisdiction".

The Alien Compliance Order under the leadership of Prof. Kofi Abrefa Busia saw the expulsion of foreign nationals leading to the confiscation and nationalisation of the assets of expatriates with zero tolerance for expropriation, with the aim of safeguarding Ghanaian jobs and ending the price discrimination that existed in the open market then. This act of economic and political intimidation was reciprocated in kind by the Nigerian government. The many Ghanaians in Lagos and other states (the Agege stories were no falacies) had to come back home with their belonging packed in a woven bag nicknamed "efie wura soa me" (Landlord, help me carry) or "Ghana must go". Mention can also be made of Operation Feed Yourself which was instituted to boost agricultural yield and ultimately generate more interest in the area of farming.

In a period of about 3 years, two xenophobic attacks in South Africa resulted in the loss of lives of foreign nationals, predominantly Africans, including Ghanaians and Nigerians. How did the affected African countries respond to the issue? Would the affected countries have to wait for a third attempt to call their shots while keeping their aces on their chests?

What is the state doing to protect the interest of her citizens? Forgive my curiosity but let me ask this, are we still under the grace of the "dzi wo fie asem" (be concerned only with what affects your home) foreign policy?

Lives, property and human dignity was lost to the Fulani menace not so long ago in the Asante-Akyim North, South and Central constituencies, and the rippling effect on neighbouring towns is a subject for another day. Women were raped by the Fulanis in their homes and little boys as well as able-bodied men were shot dead for attempting to protect their own property (farms) in their motherland. Need I say the rest is history?

Did you know that some of the burnt cars from the June 3rd disaster are still on site (could they be serving aesthetic purposes...)? What has the state done for those who cheated death and survived with varying degrees of injuries? Well, let me be charitable and assume that "something-is-in-the-pipeline". Is NADMO now resourced beyond mosquito nets, mattresses and bags of rice???

What is the latest on the Mawarko issue???

When are we to expect the next fire outbreak in our large markets???

Are we happy that we keep soaring up the ladder of open defecation like an eagle???

And for the "norrr norrr" parliamentarians, the least said about them the better. I was embarrassed as a Citizen of Ghana when one MP shouted from behind saying, "Wo boa" (you're lying) during HE Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's first State of the Nation Address while others fulfilled their only use in the house in subsequent sittings by raising placards.

Fast forward, we're now faced with the devil and the deep blue sea, where would be our safe haven in this galamsey era?

I hate to flog a dead horse but truth be told, have we not been fighting galamsey for over 10years? It is quite sad that governments over the years have failed to exercise the prerequisite political will and our security apparatus has been incapacitated in cracking the whip. How well have the chiefs in whom most of these mining concessions are vested served their people? As cocoa farmers keep selling their farms to miners, how do we achieve the 1,000,000 tonnes of cocoa target at the end of the calendar year?

From Amanfi West through to Manso-Datano to Kwabeng, the evidence of galamsey can be found not on the face of the pink sheet but rather the deplorable lands and water bodies that look brighter than chocolate with cream. Previously, the Birim river run through the school farm of Abuakwa State College calmly and clearly but today, I better spare you the gory details. Rumour has is that the Achimota forest is going to be touched for a certain project and our Ivorian neighbours have also chastised us for polluting their water bodies.

Ghana and the Republic of China have enjoyed a seemingly symbiotic relationship. The Chinese have unapologetically milked our land (with the help of our own people) and left it in a very sour state, and the irony of the whole situation is the threats in parts of the letter issued to the Lands Minister by the Chinese Mission in Ghana.

Since a great part of Chinese nationals involved in illegal mining are also victims of fraud and blackmail, if casualties are incurred and plundering and looting take place during operation, it will be extremely harmful to the bilateral relations, it said.

There are a number of distorted or biased reports and stories on Chinese people, especially some reports and cartoons that are defaming Chinese leaders and senior officials. The Chinese side is very concerned about this unhealthy tendency. We hope that the Ghanaian government will pay due attention to this situation, take the necessary action to stop such things from happening again and guide the media to give an objective coverage on the illegal mining issue so as to create a good environment for further development of our bilateral exchanges and cooperation, the letter said.

At this juncture, one may ask - was the 50,000 cedis donation to the Ghana Police service by the Ghana Association of Chinese Societies in support of the construction of the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS) Headquarters at the Nima Police Station just a nibble by the latter to neutralise the former?

On 23rd April 2017 Lands Minister, John Peter Amewu dismissed all mine officers across the country for negligence in the fight against illegal mining and sleeping on the job which I believe is in the right direction. Nonetheless, the small scale miners operating under license and observing the rules must be allowed to stay in business while the regulatory agencies sit up and play their in loco parentis role.

In hundreds of years to come when posterity throws its light back to our days and the damage done to the environment, would we be able to hide our role?

"The Ghana Water Company had to shut down some of their treatment plants in recent past because of excessive pollution of water bodies through illegal mining. Though we believe in the power of education and sensitization, we also believe that lack of enforcement of the laws would slow down or even prevent effective implementation of most initiatives in sanitation and water" - Benjamin Lartey (Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation)

"We can tell you as scientists and environmentalists that the impact of galamsey on this country is transboundary, it is intergenerational and it affects everybody, no matter where you are living in Ghana" - Dr. Chris Gordon (Director of Institute of Environment and Sanitation, University of Ghana)

Lest I forget, if you happen to have some free time one of these nights while you're in the capital, take a walk through Circle (Dubai), Makola and the areas around Darkuman. You'd be surprised at the number of people who sleep in the open in front of stores. It is pathetic, to say the least. Indeed, "all animals are equal but some are more equal than others" (Animal Farm)

But wait a minute, don't you think that the individual also owes the state a duty of care, patriotism and utmost good faith in all situations, since apparently the mental picture that has been painted over the years suggests that government is responsible for everything, which would possibly include "sweeping our rooms"?

On the 21st of April 2017, Iris Kwafo Mensah, Rhodalyn Eshun, Courage Nobi, Isaac Jay-Hyde and my humble self had a lengthy intellectual discourse which inspired this piece, on the campus of University of Professional Studies, Accra.

Let the leaders of our land be compassionate enough to protect the future of this country by any means necessary, and not just their own parochial interest. We are the CHANGE we seek!

George Sarpong,

A Citizen, Not Spectator.

( [email protected] / www.georgesarpong.blogspot.com )
The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has dragged Engineers and Planners and the companys CEO and Directors to court for failing to pay social security contributions of its staff as required by law (Source: ghanaweb.com, April 29, 2017). In his 1966 satirical novel entitled A Man of The People Chinua Achebe quizzed rhetorically who will spit out a juicy morsel that good fortune place in his mouth! Mr. Ibrahim Mahamahs brother was a president and so what? Hypocrisy remains the scaffolding for Ghanaian society. Who on earth hates good things? Who would not take advantage of his or her family members fortune? The ongoing tussles between Mr. Ibrahim Mahama and state institutions are clear manifestations of groupthink or crabology syndrome.

The concept of groupthink was the creation of American social psychologist, Irving Janis, in 1972. Groupthink happens when members of a group make faulty decisions resulting in a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgement (Janis, 1972). It is not uncommon to see individuals affected by groupthink to jettison alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize the other individuals (Janis, 1972). A group is particularly vulnerable to groupthink when its members are similar in background, when the group is insulated from outside opinion, and when there are no clear rules for decision making (Janis, 1972).

Groupthink is similar to crabology concept. I heard the concept of crabology for the first from Bishop Dag-Heward Mills before reading that there is a social concept known as crab bucket. A crab bucket refers to a situation in which a single crab is put into a lidless bucket and escapes with relative ease. However, contrary is the case when many crabs share a bucket, none can get out. If one crab elevates itself above all, the others will grab this crab and drag it back down to share the mutual fate of the rest of the group. A crab bucket or crabology syndrome implies a social situation wherein an individual is trying to succeed in life while the remaining members of his/her community out of jealousy attempt to drag him/her down. More often than not individuals very close to the person try relentlessly to bring the person down. Is that not Kwasi? Your close associates will bring you down so that they can happily say: We are in the same boat ooh, charley! Perhaps this partly explains why Jesus reminded us that a prophet is not without honor except in his own hometown and in his own home (Matthew 13:57).

Youth unemployment is very rife in Ghana now. State institutions must be investor friendly in order to beguile more people into job creation for the teaming unemployed youth. If Mr. Ibrahim had not paid SSNIT contributions of his employees from February 2015 to July 2015, June 2016 to August 2016, and in October 2016, amounting to GHS668,754.75, as being alleged by pension scheme managers, he must be given some grace periods to pay rather than legal scuffle. SSNIT has no locus standi to drag people to court for defaulting social security contributions. I am personally aware of some pensioners who died before their pension pays were processed. Most of us resigned from our jobs before travelling abroad, what happened to our social security funds?

SSNIT must stop harassing Mr. Ibrahim and other entrepreneurs. They even take the contributions to enrich themselves while pensioners languished in poverty. The salary of the director-general of SSNIT is 76, 606 Ghana Cedis equivalent to $18153.00 Per month (Source: peacefmonline.com, March 30, 2017). As at 2008, for example, the minimum monthly pay for pensioners was 100 Ghana Cedis. We always blame politicians and leave the real crooks.

Ghana is a country where expatriate companies are given tax holidays for about three years only for such companies to change their names after three years and re-register for another years of tax holiday. They are supported by their Ghanaian accomplices to evade tax, albeit huge capital flights. Inasmuch as state institutions must impress on business owners to fulfil their national obligations or comply with the laws, they must be careful not to shutdown local businesses. SSNIT must rather schedule payment arrangement with business owners. Ghana government at times owes local contractors up to about three years. Ibrahim was a successful businessman before his brother became the president of the Republic of Ghana.

The habit of polling our own down must stop. This goes to all political parties. How can we beg Chinese to stop flouting the laws of Ghana by polluting our water bodies and drag our own to court? Ghana, an interesting country where the sick goes to the hospital with trotro while the dead goes to necropolis with an ambulance for you! Please, Ghana youth need jobs, do not kill entrepreneurial spirit in Ghana! SSNIT should give us a break! God Bless Our Homeland Ghana, And Make Us Cherish Fearless Honesty!

By Nana Yaw Osei (Padigo), Minnesota, USA

[email protected]

Reference

Janis, Irving L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
The President of Groupe Ideal, Hon. Dr. Nii Kotei Dzani, has been named the overall Best Entrepreneur for his excellent contributions towards the countrys socio economic development at this year's Ghana Entrepreneurship & Corporate Executive Awards (GECE), which came off last Saturday at the Banquet Hall of the State House, in Accra.

He was also touted as one successful entrepreneur who demonstrates vision, business excellence and innovation which deserved to be honoured.

In a remark on this achievement, Hon. Dr.Nii Kotei Dzani had this to share:

Success indeed comes with hard work. It has not been an easy journey in my career as an entrepreneur. A lot were required of me. The story is endless and surely will be told one day to inspire many. It was never a smooth experience however with hard work, determination, perseverance and by the grace of God I am where I am today. Success is never achieved on a silver platter."

He further used the occasion to advise the youth to build themselves well in order to be able to fit into the entrepreneur world.

The GECE awards, is a premiere competition designed for emerging entrepreneurs, corporate executives established business owners, innovative and creative entrepreneurs and seeks to reward excellence among the most committed and dedicated entrepreneurs and corporate executives in Ghana.

It is also meant to recognize entrepreneurs who have displayed massive performance that helped them emerge out of poverty, create jobs and add value to the society.

The award is an initiative of the Entrepreneur Foundation of Ghana in collaboration with the Entrepreneurship Association of Ghana, the Ministry of Trade & industry and the Ministry of Finance.

The theme for this years event, Promoting Economic Growth' through Private Sector Development and Corporate Governance was chosen to enhance business relationship between entrepreneurs and business executives as well as promote government private sector development initiatives.

Dr. Dzani is an Entrepreneur and Businessman par excellence, with extensive business experience as an Economist and Business Owner with a proven record of successful entrepreneurship. He brings on board considerable years of experience in managing Micro & SME financing operations in Ghana.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana and an Honorary Doctorate from Oral Roberts University, Oklahoma, USA. He also holds an MBA in Corporate Governance & Finance from University of Hull, United Kingdom. He is currently undertaking a professional law degree.

The companies that form this spectrum include Ideal Finance, First Trust Savings and Loans, Ideal Capital partners, Ideal Asset solutions, Ideal Trade, tv Africa, Ideal pension Trust, Ideal Insurance brokers, Tsaste Foundation, a CSR wing of the Groupe Ideal financial holdings Force 64 Security, and Westfield offshore consult.

Groupe Ideal currently operates in the areas of Investment Banking, Business Finance, Trade, Asset Management, Mining and Offshore Consultancy Services, Media, and Security Services

Through its broad spectrum of operations, Groupe Ideal has created jobs for several youths in Ghana, thereby helping to improve standards of living and accelerating the general development of the country. With a vision to be the standard of excellence in every sector we operate in, Groupe Ideal hopes to replicate such impacts beyond the shores of Ghana by extending its operations into other African countries, Europe and America.

Also in attendance were ministers of state, former first lady nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings, Deputy minister of communications among other dignitaries.

Other award winners on the night of the event were Mr Gobind Wadhwani, MD KANEM/EM Industries Limited, who won the Llife Time Entrepreneur Achievement; Mr Richard Dugan, Groupe President Mcottley Holdings, Energy for Young Entrepreneur; Mr Godwin Gyamfi, Entrepreneur of the Year, Real Estate Development; and Mrs. Abigail Asolange Harlley, Chief Executive Officer of, AI Energy Group, who was adjudged the Best Woman Entrepreneur among a host of others.
Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia has called on foreign investors to take advantage of the conducive business environment in Ghana and invest in the country.

He was speaking recently at a high-level dialogue on opportunities for ambitious reforms of the business environment in Ghana with the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, in Washington.

The session was aimed at helping participants better understand government's reform priorities and to share some of the World Bank Group's global expertise and best practices in this area.

The Vice President led the dialogue on behalf of the Ghanaian government.

Ghana is open for business. Something very exciting is happening in Ghana today, said Bawumia at the end of the meeting.

We have set the task of becoming the most business friendly economy in Africa.

The session highlighted opportunities to leverage information and communications technologies to enhance the business environment in Ghana.

Ethiopis Tafara, IFC Vice-President and General Counsel, said, New governments with fresh mandates often have a window of opportunity for reform, so the time is ripe to implement immediate and long-term reforms that can improve the business environment in Ghana and attract new investment.

Tafara also expressed confidence in the government's commitment, emphasizing that IFC is ready to support Ghana's reform efforts through investments, mobilize capital from other investors and provide advice when needed.

Ghana was ranked among the top 10 Doing Business global reformers in 2007 and 2008, and is again signaling that it wants drive higher growth with private investment.

In the 2017 Doing Business report, Ghana rated 108th out of 190 economies in ease of doing business.

The World Bank Group supports Ghana through a large number of engagements.

IFC is investing in Ghana across a range of sectors, from the energy value chain, to banking and education.

In 2016, IFC arranged a $667 million financing package to increase the container capacity of the port of Tema.

The World Bank Group's Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice has been supporting business reform programmes in close to 40 countries in Africa, including Ghana, helping to build the capacity of reform-minded governments.

A business desk report


01.05.2017 LISTEN

Authorities of Kumasi Central Prisons have revealed that inmates sometimes reject food rationed them and go hungry due to bad taste of the meal and other poor conditions at the reform facility.

The prisons food is so bad that inmates have to reject them and go hungry, Ashanti Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Ghana Prisons Service, ASP. Richard Burkari revealed.

The PRO stated GH1.80 budgeted as feeding fee for each inmate is inadequate for over 6,000 inmates currently in the facility calling for an increment from central government.

Mynewsgh.com sources in the prison told reporter Kwabena Danso-Dapaah that conditions at the cells and medical services in the prison are appalling and inmates have had to adopt to situation for a very long time.

Inmates adopt a practice call Shit-On-Shit when there is no water to flush their water closets because the taps of the facility have no water running through them which sometimes produce pungent smell.

The supposed reform facility does not have a single medical officer to respond to the emergency calls of sick inmates this reporter was told by a source on strict anonymity.

We are subjected to horrendous treatment by officials as if we are on death row a sick prisoner at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital alleged.

The Kumasi prison which was established decades ago is one of the countrys oldest prisons and was meant to hold 600 people but is now accommodating prisoners in excess of 6,000.

Despite promises by successive governments to build a modern structure and relocate the inmates, nothing concrete has been done.

The congestion at the prison coupled with deteriorating facilities in view of the fact that the facility has not seen any major facelift since it was built, is exposing inmates to various forms of ailments duly acknowledged by authorities.

The lip service paid by duty bearers is however making the situation worst as officers are themselves feel insecure under the dilapidating structure.
01.05.2017 LISTEN

A new study has revealed that, Ghana loses US$340 million annually, due to Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs).

According to the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Ghana loses 340 million dollars annually and this is quiet substantial. We lose all these monies and we go about borrowing, when we can pluck the holes and get these monies out of illicit financial flows.

According to the Global Financial Integrity, illicit flows include when the funds are illegally earned, transferred, and/or utilized.

In Ghanas case, the inability of revenue collection agencies to judiciously mobilize funds, has resulted in both local and foreign companies evading taxes.

In an interview with Dr. Steve Manteaw, Coordinator of ISODEC, at a forum to discuss illicit financing and its effects on countries, lamented that the nation is losing a lot due to this act.

ISODEC has advocated for strict monitoring of the revenue collection agencies as well as the countrys legislations, in order to apprehend the perpetrators. There is exploitation of leakages in our revenue generation agencies, and these leakages must be blocked. Our policies and laws must be reinforced to close the gaps, that way, we can make a lot, he added.

The forum was dubbed combating illicit financial flows to foster sustainable development goals-taking stoke and strengthening responses.

A recent clear Ghana case is the, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) disclosing that Ghana loses about GHC850 million annually in taxes, due to the increased activities of fuel smugglers in and out of the country.

The illegal act is said to involve operators who ply their business at the ports by fueling tanks with fuel products brought into the country through unapproved routes.

The second category of the illicit trade is carried out by businesses who apply under the pretext of exporting petroleum products but end up selling them within Ghana, thereby evading some taxes.

The Chief Executive of the NPA, Hassan Tampuli confirmed the worrying development to journalists during a visit to the Tema port led by Deputy Finance Minister, Kweku Kwarteng last week.

We estimate that about 250,000 metric tonnes of losses in terms of petroleum products get to this country and that is estimated to cost the country GHC850,000,000, he said.

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) are illegal movements of money or capital from one country to another. GFI classifies this movement as an illicit flow when the funds are illegally earned, transferred, and/or utilized.

Some examples of illicit financial flows might include: a drug cartel using trade-based money laundering techniques to mix legal money from the sale of used cars with illegal money from drug sales; an importer using trade misinvoicing to evade customs duties, VAT, or income taxes; and a corrupt public official using an anonymous shell company to transfer dirty money to a bank account in the United States;

Also include: a human trafficker carrying a briefcase of cash across the border and depositing it in a foreign bank; or a terrorist wiring money from the Middle East to an operative in Europe.

GFI estimates that in 2013, US$1.1 trillion left developing countries in illicit financial outflows. This estimate is regarded as highly conservative, as it does not pick up movements of bulk cash, the mispricing of services, or many types of money laundering.

A lot can be said on the impact of illicit financial flows on developing countries. US$1.1 trillion is a tremendous amount of money to be drained out of developing countries. A 2013 GFI report found that even after the account for all types of financial flows (both legitimate and illegitimate)including investment, remittances, debt forgiveness, and natural resource exportsAfrica is a net creditor to the world: GFI is therefore currently in the process of applying this analysis of Net Resource Transfers to the rest of the developing world.

Beyond the damaging economic impact of the overall capital outflows, illicit financial flows have a terrible, subversive impact on governments, victims of crime, and society. They facilitate transnational organized crime, foster corruption, undermine governance, and decrease tax revenues.

It is very critical trace where those illicit monies end up to help in the tracking efforts.

It is a bare fact that, every dollar that leaves one country must end up in another country. Very often, this means that illicit financial outflows from developing countries ultimately end up in banks in developed countries like the United States and United Kingdom, as well as in tax havens like Switzerland, the British Virgin Islands, or Singapore.

GFI research suggests that about 45% of illicit flows end up in offshore financial centers, and 55% in developed countries.

This does not happen by accident. Many countries and their institutions actively facilitateand reap enormous profits fromthe theft of massive amounts of money from developing countries. GFI, therefore, believes that developed countries have a responsibility alongside developing countries to curtail the flow of illicit money.

ISODEC has also identify the main conduits for these losses as; trade mis-invoicing, corruption, and profit shifting in projects and trade deals where companies move profits from their subsidiaries in higher tax countries where the real economic activity takes place to other subsidiaries in tax havens.

GFI believes that the most effective way to limit illicit financial flows is to increase financial transparency and also enact policies to: detect and deter cross-border tax evasion; eliminate anonymous shell companies; strengthen anti-money laundering laws and practices; work to curtail trade misinvoicing; and improve transparency of multinational corporations.

Presenting highlights of a study undertaken by ISODEC on the issue of trade mis-pricing in Ghana, Dr Manteaw said, the study found that Ghanas export to the European Union (EU) was undervalued by an estimated 2.7 billion during the 13-year period between 2000 and 2012; being 14 per cent of the total value of export to the EU.

The analysis, which used data from EUROSTAT for trade with the EU, also found that Ghanas import from the EU within the period was overvalued at 2.8 billion; 14 per cent of the total import from the EU.

An analysis of United States (US) merchandise trade database for US-Ghana trade also found that Ghanas exports to the US within the period was undervalued at an estimated $633 million, which represents 21 per cent of total value of export to the US, while Ghanas imports from the US were overvalued by an estimated $573 million; eight percent of total imports from the US.

Dr Manteaw noted that an experiment conducted by ISODEC by importing and clearing some items (video cameras, microphone/speakers, and projectors) also revealed that the items were undervalued, costing the nation a total of US$101, 781.20 in unpaid taxes.

He called for greater coordination among the various divisions, departments and units of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in order to improve efficiency and information sharing.

It will be necessary to consider the introduction of IT-mediated solution such as a kind of intranet that links up the various divisions, departments and units, and help them to monitor in real time the transactions that take place in a day, he said.

Although, much effort have been done in terms of modernizing, integrating and upgrading the services efficiencies of the three divisions of GRA, it seems there is still more to be done to be able to stem the tax evasion by these well-coordinated criminal activities by tax evaders.

Attempts to reach the GRA for their comments on the allege ISODEC deliberate act to test the efficiency of the tax administration system in the country, where it was proofed inefficient resulting in a loss of US$101,781 in unpaid taxes by ISODEC when it imported some items, proved futile.

ISODEC has therefore recommended that, the planned enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Act or any future amendment of the fiscal responsibility provisions in the Public Financial Management Act contain severe sanctions for the violation of constitutional provisions in respect of tax waivers.

He called on Ghana to design, implement, monitor and evaluate a real-time model for tracking and eliminating trade mis-pricing in commodities.

OECD has estimated, every year, US$1 trillion is spirited out of developing countries through corruption, smuggling, money laundering, and corporate tax evasion.

These illicit financial flows out of developing countries dwarf the flow of development assistance going in. Illicit financial flows removed US$10 for every dollar spent on overall development aid, and US$80 for every dollar spent on basic social services.

By taking advantage of weak rules governing financial transactions, corporations, racketeers, and corrupt officials dont merely enrich themselves. They greatly aggravate poverty and oppression by weakening the institutions that are intended to sustain the rights and livelihoods of the poor.

This deprivation constitutes a massive violation of human rights; one-third of all deaths globally are the result of poverty and poverty-related conditions.

The issue of illicit financial flows (IFFs) is at the forefront of the international agenda. The G8 and G20 are urging countries to take action on several fronts: strengthening their anti-money laundering regimes, enforcing greater transparency of company ownership, and supporting efforts to trace, freeze and recover stolen assets. They are also committed to automatic exchange of information to tackle tax evasion. And given the interconnectedness of our economies, global compliance is required to tackle many of todays challenges.

The most immediate impact of illicit financial flows (IFFs) is a reduction in domestic expenditure and investment, both public and private. This means fewer hospitals and schools, fewer police officers on the street, fewer roads and bridges. It also means fewer jobs. Furthermore, many of the activities which generate the illicit funds are criminal; and while financial crimes like money laundering, corruption and tax evasion are damaging to all countries, the effects on developing countries are particularly corrosive. For example, corruption diverts public money from public use to private consumption.

It is a known fact that, general private consumption has much lower positive multiplier effects than public spending on social services like health and education. Proceeds of corruption or criminal activities will generally be spent on consumption of items such as luxury vehicles, or invested in real estate, art, or precious metals (World Bank, 2006).

The social impact of a Euro spent on buying a yacht or importing champagne will be very different from that of a Euro spent on primary education. On another front, money laundering is harmful to the financial sector: a functioning financial sector depends on a general reputation of integrity, which money laundering undermines. In this way, money laundering can impair long-term economic growth, harming the welfare of entire economies.
01.05.2017 LISTEN

Increased activities of fuel smugglers into and out of the country is costing the country of about GHC850 million annually in taxes, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has disclosed.

The illegal act is said to involve operators who ply their businesses at the ports by fueling tanks with fuel products brought into the country through unapproved routes.

The second category of the illicit trade is carried out by businesses who apply under the pretext of exporting petroleum products but end up selling them within Ghana, thereby evading some taxes.

The Chief Executive of the NPA, Hassan Tampuli confirmed the worrying development during a visit to the Tema port led by Deputy Finance Minister, Kweku Kwarteng last week.

We estimate that about 250,000 metric tonnes of losses in terms of petroleum products get to this country and that is estimated to cost the country 850,000,000 cedis, he said.

Mr. Tampuli added, NPA considers this as a great concern and we have engaged all stakeholders involving the security agencies and the Ministry of Finance. According to the NPA boss, the vessels believed to be perpetrating the act, berth at the Harbour under the guise of dislodging sludge (which is dirty oil) but actually discharge diesel or petrol directly into fuel tankers parked at shore.

The industry regulator is also alarmed over concerns that some of these products could be coming from pirated sources. To commence the clampdown, the NPA has directed that, No vessel is to be allowed to discharge petroleum products at the Tema port, main harbor, fishing harbor or dry dock.

Commenting on businesses flouting the provisions guiding the export of petroleum products to neighbouring Burkina Faso or Mali, Mr. Tampuli asserted that the relative cheaper prices quoted by the miscreants distort the market as their prices make genuinely sanctioned ones expensive for the consumer.

As a result, the NPA, together with the Finance Ministry have reiterated the enforcement of the new tax exemption rules to curb the abuse of the current provisions.

Meanwhile, Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs)has called on the National Security to tighten the noose around Petroleum Black Market dealers whose infiltration into the sector posed a great risk to the national economy.

Mr Henry Akwaboah, Managing Director of Engen Ghana Limited told a media firm in an interview that, the growing Petroleum Black Market trade could disrupt the national economy, if not properly checked.

He said the total national petroleum consumption for 2015 was 4,341,519,247 volumes of litres. Based on developmental trend for 2016, which was also an election year and therefore forecasted to stimulate vitality on the economic front the general projection for petroleum consumption was pegged at 3 per cent increment over the 2015 figures.

He said based on 2015 volumes of sales, projected estimates volumes of sales of petroleum products for 2016 should have hit 4,471,764,824 litres but sadly the consumption for 2016 dropped significantly to only 4,051,101,969 volumes of litres.

In effect, over 420,662,855 volumes of litres was not sold through official channels; this strategically was due to the activities of Petroleum Black Market dealers with active support of some unscrupulous security operatives.

Ghana lost huge sums of money in terms of tax revenue as per official petroleum tax - Special Petroleum Tax GH132 million was lost to the nation; Energy Debt Recovery Levy about GH123 million; and the Road Fund levy about GH120 million.

Mr Akwaboah said in spite of the drop in volumes of litres sold through mainstream channels, export volumes grew by 400 per cent; he added that products loaded as exports strangely through the black market dealers ended up being sold in the country.

He explained that the Government of Ghana has removed all taxes on petroleum products meant for exports to the main trading land lock countries; the petroleum black market dealers mode of operating is to register and load tanker trucks for export.

Mr Akwaboah suggested that all petroleum products for both local and export market should attract the same tax, but the caveat should compel all exporters to provide evidence of export of the product for a refund.

On the security front, the Engen MD suggested a multi-stakeholder approach to make petroleum black market dealing a high economic crime, we should raise the risk associated with dealing in the dark.

Security must scale-up its monitoring role and adopt other undisclosed manoeuvring tactics to outwit the bad elements within, especially those at the borders who aid petroleum black market dealers.

He also suggested that fuel tanker trucks transporting petroleum products to the land lock countries must be fixed with a tracking device to ensure that the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) monitors its operations from the point of loading to the point of discharging.

The Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMCs) has reiterated an operation to combat Petroleum Black Market dealers to save the country from continuous loss of tax revenue.

The AOMCs combat against Petroleum Black Market dealers also aimed at protecting OMCs, whose volumes of fuel sales has taken a nose dive.

However, information gathered indicates that the AOMCs, the National Petroleum Authority, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Energy, National Security and other stakeholders are discussing the issues to map-up holistic strategy to support the combat against Petroleum Black Market dealers.
A sod was cut last week for the commencement of construction of a 400-MegaWatt Bridge Power project, the worlds largest LPG-fired power plant in Tema.

The sod cutting ceremony was graced by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

President Akufo-Addo noted that the US$1 billion project is consistent with his governments vision of making Ghana self-sufficient in electricity for industrial and domestic use, and to drive the countrys socio-economic development.

This project, the President revealed, would be one of several initiatives that will be introduced along the power supply value chain in order to achieve a cost effective, efficient and sustainable energy sector.

With Ghana not having fared well in negotiations with private power producers in recent years, especially as such agreements were negotiated during emergency periods and times of power shortages, President Akufo-Addo noted that the government he leads, nonetheless, is a natural cheerleader for the private sector, but will do so within the framework of protecting the public purse.

For us laypersons, our interest in these agreements rests largely on cost, reliability and flexibility. I am glad to learn the plant will be able to operate on LPG, natural gas, and diesel, and this flexibility will allow the plant to continue producing power in times of disruption in the supply of any one of the fuel types. I am also glad to note that the project has been specifically designed to switch to Ghanas own natural gas, once available. This should help advance our strategy to leverage natural gas as a long-term source of fuel, central to the operation of the power sector, he said.

Having announced an ambitious plan to develop and transform the structure of the Ghanaian economy, the President stated that he was looking forward to working with Early Power Limited to help his government fulfill its vision of creating a modern, efficient, diversified, and financially sustainable energy economy. I intend to grow this economy industrially, and that can be achieved when we have adequate, cost effective and sustainable power supply. The programs this government has lined up to undertake, such as the One District, One Factory, and the One Village One Dam projects, will all require significant amounts of electricity. The power produced in this country must be cost effective, efficient and sustainable. I am informed that the technology of this Early Power project is one of the most efficient types in the world, and we are happy you chose it for Ghana, he said.

As stated in the State of the Nation Address, President Akufo-Addo indicated that his government has commenced actions that will improve transparency in tariff setting, adding that we aim to introduce very soon a new tariff policy that will reclassify consumer categories in order to protect lifeline and strategic industrial consumers.

The President assured the private producers of this project that Ghana will be a great place to do business under his watch, indicating further that the sector ministers will work with the private producers to address any challenges that may arise during the implementation of the project.

It is my expectation that they will be able to address these challenges satisfactorily, for they are all very competent in their domain, but, if, indeed, it becomes necessary, which I hope it will not, to go higher up the chain of authority, I want you to know that my doors will always be open. I do, on the other hand, insist that, on your part, you play according to the rules and regulations of the sector and the country as a whole, he added.

Whilst pledging to make electricity available under his administration, President Akufo-Addo urged Ghanaians to make sure that electricity is used efficiently. Turn off the lights when you leave a room. Switch off fans when not needed. Iron your clothes in bulk. These are just a few, simple actions we can all take. Not only will you be saving money for yourself, but these habits are acts of citizenship and common humanity. For the industrial customers, I urge you to use energy efficient machinery and equipment at your facilities. These human attitudes prove that, even when you have power, you care enough to save what you do not need so others, too, may have, he added.

Bridge Power is a 400 Megawatt (MW) Greenfield power and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) import, storage, and transportation infrastructure project that will be located in Tema near the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).

The project will be capable of being fueled by LPG, natural gas, and diesel. Stage 1 will use five GE TM2500+ gas turbines and one purpose-built GE steam turbine in a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) configuration that will collectively generate 200 MW of power. Stage 2 will add another 200 MW through four GE LM6000 gas turbines and one purpose-built GE steam turbine, again in a CCGT configuration.

Together, this will amount to over 17 percent of Ghanas reliable generation capacity. Bridge Power is being developed by the Early Power Limited (EPL) consortium, made up of Endeavor Energy, a leading independent power development and Generation Company focused on Africa; Sage, a leading independent Ghanaian energy trading firm; and GE (General Electric), the worlds premier digital industrial company.
PM Modi recited a couplet to emphasise that India's map has not changed over thousands of years while many countries have disappeared during this period.

By Press Trust of India: On a day Pakistani troops carried out a major attack on the Line of Control (LoC), Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said there is something in Indiabecause of which it keeps marching ahead despite the inimical forces.

Releasing a commemorative stamp on theologian and philosopher Ramanujacharya here, he recited a couplet to emphasise that India's map has not changed over thousands of years while many countries have disappeared during this period.

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"Kuch baat hai ki hasti mit ti nahi hamari, sadiyon se raha hai dushman daur-e-zaman hamara (there is something because of which our existence is not affected, otherwise for centuries there have been forces inimical to us)," Modi quoted while addressing a small gathering on the occasion.

"The world map has changed. Many nations have perished but our Bharat, our Hindustan, is marching ahead with the mantra of 'sabka sath, sabka vikas' (cooperation of all, development for all)," he added.

His comments coincided with the news about Pakistani troops beheading two Indian soldiers after crossing the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Prime Minister said the government is working on the "weaknesses and constraints that hold us back" and appealed to those in the audience too to set targets which are "tangible and measurable" as the country enters its 75th year of Independence in 2022.

He also invoked Ramanujacharya to condemn the practice of untouchability on the basis of caste and religion.

Also read:

Pakistan mutilates bodies of 2 Indian soldiers near LoC, Army pounds Pak posts in retaliation

As Pakistan mutilates 2 Indian soldiers, another round of Army's surgical strikes invoked as revenge

Also watch:

Such attacks don't even take place during war: Defence Minister Jaitley slams Pakistan for beheading India's jawans

--- ENDS ---
A tax consultant, Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, has faulted government for the introduction of the tax retention policy without parliamentary approval.

A letter signed by the Commissioner of the customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Kuudamnuru John Vianney on March 21, 2017, directed all port stations in the country to implement the policy as captured in the budget.

But Mr. Ali-Nakyea said a law needed to have been passed to effect the implementation of this new measure.

Under Article 174 of the constitution, its only parliament that can grant exemptions. So if parliament grants the exemption, and today, you, by a publication in the papers indicate that any person who has an exemption or not, has to pay duties and apply for a refund, the question is under what law are you operating? If you need to abolish the existing system, you need to pass a law. You dont do that by a decree or a publication in the newspapers. If parliament which has the power to grant exemptions, and by publication say that exemption is not recognized, then youre acting unlawfully, he pointed out.

However, government has stated that it would only take a second look at the newly introduced administrative measure in the tax exemption system, after it concludes a comprehensive review of the entire regime.

The measure which was announced in the 2017 budget statement requires business operators who are eligible for exemption from duties and taxes, to make an upfront payment of the taxes and then have them refunded after 30 days.

This, according to the finance ministry, is to check the irregularities in the current tax exemption regime. But many business operators, especially importers have been complaining about the measure saying it poses a cash flow challenge to their operations.

Speaking to journalist after an interaction with members of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) over the issue, a deputy finance minister, Kwaku Kwarteng said although he empathizes with the concerns of the business community, the move is necessary to correct the anomalies in the system.

From the point of view of the business importer, if I have to pay money and get refund, its definitely an inconvenience. I sympathize with their concerns. But its also important to look at this from the government point of view. For those of us sitting at the government treasury, whose responsibility it is to ensure that government finds the money to do the thing that people want, we also consider that it is something that must be done, he explained.

He has, however, assured that it may be relooked at after a holistic review of the entire tax exemption regime. This, he said could happen before the next budget is presented to parliament in November 2017.

It is part of a comprehensive review of our exemptions regime. As soon we have finished with this review and we are clear in our minds that a lot of the irregularities have been removed, well take a second look at this administrative measure he assured.

The meeting brought together a number of businesses which have challenges understanding the new measure and how it is being implemented.

Chief Executive Officer of the AGI, Seth Twum Akwaboah noted that, the explanations by the deputy finance minister have been helpful. Hes however hopeful the concerns of businesses would be addressed sooner than later.

You may have a good policy but implementation may have challenges because information may not have trickled down to all the people in the chain. So the business operators may have a challenge and they may not have a clear understanding of the policy youre trying to implement. And even the custom officials; some are giving different interpretation to the policy. Therefore the minister acknowledged that theres a lot of work that needs to be done, as far as that is concerned, you cannot begrudge him. What is important is to carry on with the work and make sure that the issues that we raised are actually taken on board and resolved as soon as possible, he stated.

However, according to the tax consultant and Managing Partner of Ali-Nakyea & Associates a firm of Tax Attorneys, Solicitors and Consultants, the measure may not yield the intended results as it could lead to bureaucracy and corruption in the tax exemption system.

Mr. Ali-Nakyea siad a better way of checking the abuse and irregularities in the system was to find and deal with the entities involved in these things.

If it is because of the abuse of the exemption system, is it that there are no structures and systems to trace who is abusing the system and dealing with that person rather than generalizing it? Otherwise confidence in the system wanes, he said. He believes if this happens, it could contradicts governments intention of creating a business friendly environment to engineer private sector growth. Can we search for the people abusing the system; deal with them, withdraw their exemptions, and cancel them, while we let those who have genuinely acquired them to go on with their business, he added.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged members of the Council of State not to be sycophants but speak truth to authority.

The constitution mandates the government to select some people to counsel the president.

The regions also elect persons to the Council. You are here to speak truth to the president and not to massage the truth the President stated. He also reminded them about their cardinal role in nation building, urging them not to shy away from that responsibility.

The one setting the path does not know the bunch of errors behind, that is why you have come to counsel the state the President noted. Nana Akufo-Addo said this when he joined hundreds of guests to grace a special thanksgiving service in honour of the chief of Juaben who is also the chairman of the Council of State, Daasebre Otuo Serebour.

Other speakers like the former Catholic Bishop of Kumasi, Emeritus Kwasi Sarpong, also advised the President to be a listening leader. Daasebre Otuo Serebour thanked the President for the opportunity offered him to serve the country promising that he will not renege on his responsibilities.

He also revealed that over 1,000 acres of land is ready to serve as a free zone enclave for the realisation of One District One Factory project by the government. I have allocated one thousand three hundred acres of land for factories to be set on he stated.

He pleaded with the President to create a new district for Juaben, arguing that Juaben has reached the status of becoming autonomous. Our population size is over thirty thousand with enough resources he noted.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) launched a blistering attack on the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) during the solemn funeral of the former Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Sunyani, Kwasi Oppong Ababio at Abesim in the Brong Ahafo Region over the weekend.

The members of the NDC danced to party songs to the surprise of the people of Abesim, who accused them of turning the funeral of their beloved kinsman into a funfair.

General Secretary of NDC, Johnson Aseidu Nketia represented former President John Dramani Mahama and the National Chairman Kofi Portuphy.

Solomon Nkansah, Communication Director, Kofi Adams, National Organizer, former ministers of state, Members of Parliament (MP) and colleague DCEs and MCEs attended funeral to pay their last respects to the former MCE.

The NPP delegation was led by the Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremey.

Conspicuously missing was the immediate past Brong Ahafo Regional, Eric Opoku, who has been described as an arch enemy of the former MCE by sources in the NDC regional executive.

The late Kwasi Oppong Ababio, who stood on the ticket of the NDC for the Sunyani East in the 2016 elections, died suddenly at the Brong Ahafo Regional Hospital on January 21, 2017 after he complained of stomach ache.

His mortal remains were interred at Wamfie in the Dormaa East District of the Brong Ahafo Region last Saturday.

His death came as a shock to many residents of the area who tried to link it with the discovery of 15 earth-moving machines by NPP regional activists.

Some claimed he and others clandestinely used the machines for their personnel gains.

The case is still under investigations by Sunyani Police.

Addressing the mourners after the burial, the former MCE of Dormaa Central, Gordon Asubontweng, said the people of Ghana were yeaning for the party because they were suffering.

There is dumsor in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is already tired so cannot do the job, he added.

They donated GH25,000 to the family and danced to the tune of Mahama 'dey bee, Mahama dey bee' at the venue.

The Sunyani East constituency Organizer of the NPP, Bartholomew Nkum, in response, said that the people of Ghana recently rejected the NDC at the polls, saying that time would tell if they want them back.

They also sang 'Onaapo, Mahama naaapo and donated GH2,000 to the family.

The late Kwasi Oppong Ababio who served as MCE for Sunyani Municipality from 2009 to January 2017, is survived by a wife, Georgina Oppong and four children.

From Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani

[email protected]


The paramount chief of the Gbi State in the Hohoe municipality of the Volta Region, Togbe Gabusu VI, has declared the area's support for the government in respect of its agenda to transform the country's economy.

According to him, the Gbi State has opened its doors to the administration of President Akufo-Addo for any possible assistance.

Togbe Gabusu VI was speaking at a durbar of the chiefs and people of the Gbi State in honour of John Peter Amewu, for his new role as the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources.

The durbar was to recognise the efforts and achievements of Mr. Amewu  a native of the area, who contributed immensely to the landslide victory of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) last year as the regional chairman. The honour was aimed at inspiring the younger generation to strive hard to achieve success in all their endeavours.

The paramount chief, who was the chairman for the durbar, noted that the appointment of Mr. Amewu as a minister came at the right time, indicating that he has what it takes to fight illegal mining (galamsey), a practice that has become a major worry to all Ghanaians.

Togbe Gabusu VI declared the support of the Gbi State for Mr. Amewu in the performance of his duties.

In an address, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who was the guest of honour, described Mr. Amewu as a very strong 'elephant' who helped the NPP in no small way to win the 2016 general election.

He is an 'elephant' but he fought the election like an elephant with the heart of a lion and he made everyone know that they could not mess with him, he stated.

Dr. Bawumia said Mr. Amewu has the intellectual capability to manage the ministry effectively.

The development agenda that the president has laid down for the transformation of this country, the creation of a new economy that we have embarked on will not be possible without the support of John Peter Amewu and the work he is doing and is going to do in the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the vice president observed.

Mr. Amewu was presented with a citation and other gifts in recognition of his achievements.

From Fred Duodu and Gibril Abdul Razak, Hohoe

( [email protected] )


IT APPEARS that the UK visa fraud allegation made against three sitting Ghanaian parliamentarians and one former Member of Parliament (MP), will end up in court.

This is because one of them, George Boakye  former MP of Asunafo South in the Brong-Ahafo Region  who is very unhappy with the allegation leveled against him by the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin, has engaged the services of a lawyer who has written officially to the UK High Commission in Accra to express his (George Boakye's) misgiving about the matter.

The British High Commission in Ghana has raised an alarm on three Ghanaian parliamentarians and George Boakye for allegedly flouting UK visa regulations in a manner the Commission says could arguably be criminal in nature.

News of the diplomatic embarrassment broke in Accra on Wednesday, April 26, this year, when a confidential letter of complaint authored by Mr Jon Benjamin and addressed to the Speaker of Ghana's Parliament, Prof Mike Oquaye, leaked to the local media.

In the said leaked letter, the UK High Commission complained that Richard Acheampong, MP for Bia East in the Western Region; Joseph Benhazin Dahah, MP for Ntotroso in the Brong-Ahafo Region; Johnson Kwaku Adu, MP for Ahafo Ano South-West in the Ashanti Region and George Boakye, former MP for Asunafo South in the Brong-Ahafo Region, used their diplomatic passports to apply for visas for persons close to them who travelled to the UK and never returned.

But in a letter addressed to the British High Commission on his behalf by Lawyer Kwabena Asare Attah from the Henewaa Chambers, Mr. Boakye denied engaging in any visa fraud.

My client has not engaged in any visa fraud. All documents presented by my client were genuine and he made the application directly to the UK Commission and not through any supposed third party. He has not abused the privileges of a Diplomatic Passport Holder, the letter indicated.



Ordinary Passport

According to the lawyer, contrary to the claim by the British High Commission that Mr George Boakye had traveled to the UK during the period under review with a Diplomatic Passport, he (Boakye) actually got the visa using an ordinary passport and traveled on that same passport.

The former MP strongly argues that it is misleading and unfair to accuse him of abusing his diplomatic immunity when in actual fact, he traveled to the UK as a 'normal man.'

In respect of the period in question, my client travelled to the UK with a normal Ghanaian Passport with number H1050729 and not a diplomatic passport, Mr Kwabena Asare Attah pointed out.

He argued on behalf of the former MP in the letter that The purpose of the visit to the UK by his client and his (client's) 37-year-old daughter was a private one. My client returned as scheduled. His daughter, Joyce Boakye, who is an adult, failed to return as scheduled. My client cannot in any way be blamed because his daughter overstayed her Entry Permit into the UK.



Blame Me

Meanwhile, Joyce Boakye has told journalists that she is the one to be blamed for her father's woes.

Narrating what led to her overstaying in the UK, Ms. Boakye said, I went with my father. And I told him I was leaving for town, but I never returned, that is why I overstayed.

She was quoted by Citi fm as saying, I told him I will return, but I met my boyfriend in town and I departed for his house. I switched off my phone and removed my sim card so that when my father attempts to reach me on phone, he will be unsuccessful. That's why I didn't come with my father.

She added, I don't call my father, and I don't know how he got my number. But I kept calling mum though. There is no network where my mother lives and so she has to leave her house before we can talk.

BY Melvin Tarlue
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo shake hands with Lt Gen Salou Djibo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has bemoaned the absence of political will that would make trade liberalization a functioning reality in the ECOWAS region.

The President made this known when the head of the taskforce for the implementation of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), Lt. Gen. Salou Djibo, who is also a former President of Niger, paid a courtesy call on him at the Presidency.

President Nana Addo said intra-regional trade between members of the European Union (EU) and ASEAN amounted to some 60 percent to 70 percent of GDP, whereas intra-regional trade in West Africa and the African continent amounted to a paltry 10 percent to 11 percent.

He indicated that a buoyant regional market for ECOWAS would boost the development of West Africa, saying this has to be a very fundamental objective of all of our peoples and governments in the region.

He said West Africa's population is set to hit 500 million by 2035.

With ECOWAS having been established some 42 years ago, and trade liberalization agreements being in existence for nearly 40 years, West Africa is yet to reap the benefits of intra-regional trade because the political will to make ECOWAS a functioning reality is not there, the President said.

Lt. Gen. Salou Djibo explained that ETLS, which was established some 39 years ago, is the main ECOWAS operational tool for promoting the West Africa region as a free trade area.

With low volumes of intra-trade being recorded among West African countries, the head of the ETLS noted that charity must begin at home. We cannot be trading with others, whilst abandoning our own. It is for this reason that ECOWAS, in March 2014, endorsed a taskforce to move around the region to identify the hurdles and challenges stifling free trade so we can create wealth for our people.

Gen. Salou Djibo revealed that the taskforce, which has so far visited Cote d'Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Liberia, Burkina Faso, was satisfied with the progress made so far in ensuring the realization of the Free Trade Area in West Africa.

He urged President Akufo-Addo to support the mandate and agenda of ETLS and serve as an advocate for the taskforce in ensuring that his colleague heads of state adhere to the implementation and realization of the Free Trade Area.
The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), has made fresh appeals for government to address the high levels of unemployment in the country.

The union has also said it is dissatisfied with labour developments in the first quarter of 2017 as businesses still suffer from high cost of operations as well as high utility bills.

It's been very unpleasant because employers are still wailing and crying as they have done in the last three quarters nothing has actually changed, electricity and water bills have actually gone higher than where they were, the General Secretary of the ICU, Solomon Kotei said.

He added that government should increase its efforts at improving the salaries and incentives for workers.

We haven't made any significant gains as far as wage increases are concerned hence we think the labour situations should improve at least after the first six months of this government.

A recent study conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service has pegged Ghana's unemployment level at 11.9% as at 2015.

Meanwhile Mr. Kotei is anticipating the government would live up to its promises in the subsequent quarters with an improvement on the labour front.

At the inauguration of the president we all heard him say loud and clear that he will deliver on every promise, so labor is interested in the prices of electricity and water coming down because what they are paying now even at a domestic level it has not been pleasant at all, so these are the things that we are looking at

The ICU is also appealing for policies to allow labour negotiate for improved welfare packages with employers.

Labour is saying it's not just job creation but jobs that are decent so we are talking about where the employee will get the right to negotiate his income in terms of what he is going to add to the business. We are talking about proper social protection where it is relevant to meet their future needs.

This year's May Day celebration is on the theme, Mobilizing for Ghana's Future through the creation of decent jobs.



By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
The family of the murdered MP for Abuakwa North Constituency, Joseph Baokye Danquah-Adu, has opened a register for two million signatures of persons seeking the reopening of the case of the murder.

This came to light during a press conference held in Akyem-Tafo, where the family also hinted of turning to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to seek justice.

The head of Bretuo family at Akyem Tafo, Baffour Odiatuo Ofori Acheampong ll, who addressed the media on Friday, disclosed that they are unhappy with the delay in prosecuting the case and have given the prosecution a three-month ultimatum to come to the conclusion of the matter.

The family last Tuesday, April 25, 2017 presented a petition to President Akufo-Addo at the Flagstaff House, Accra, on the same petition which was received by the Deputy Chief of Staff, Abu Jinapor.

In the said petition, the family is requesting the president to consider reopening a fresh investigation into the circumstances leading to the untimely death of J. B. Danquah-Adu.

Besides the first petition sent to the president, we the family members are opening a petition book to take signatory of members of parliament, ministers of state, chiefs, political members, as well as any person(s) who want the president to open fresh investigations into the gruesome murder of our beloved son and former MP for Abuakwa North, late Hon J. B. Danquah-Adu, the family head said.

He expressed worry at the slow pace of prosecution and appealed to the various authorities to speed up their investigations. We are calling on the government and security agencies to help in ascertaining the cause of our dear royal son, he added.

An Accra High Court over the weekend adjourned the case of the two accused persons in the murder of the Abuakwa North MP to May 5.

This was after the court was informed that the state prosecutor could not appear in court because she had a training programme to attend.

Mr Danquah-Adu was stabbed to death on February 9, 2016 at his Shiashie home. Two persons, Daniel Asiedu and Vincent Bossu, are standing trial for their alleged roles in the murder but the family in a statement said the process of seeking justice has been slow.

How then do we lose a public servant, so beloved, in such a manner, without the penalty for those responsible being swift and merciless? the family wondered.

To that end, the family has called on government and police investigative forces to apply more fervuor in their pursuance of the truth, to bring the real culprits to justice.

Government must make sure to set the precedent of intolerance for violent acts against citizens of the country and even more importantly for its own members. We must all make sure that this is a case which comes to a close and that the true perpetrators are brought to light with accuracy and immediacy, with the use of the truth, the facts and the evidence, the family said

FROM Daniel Bampoe, Akyem-Tafo


HFC Bank Ghana Limited and its subsidiaries recorded a widening loss-after-tax and non-controlling interest of GH47.73 million for the 2016 financial year.

HFC Bank Ghana Limited and its subsidiaries also recorded an 18 percent rise in assets from GH1.6 billion to GH1.89 billion.

Deposits also increased by 31 percent, outperforming the industry average of 25 percent.

The loss position was driven by one-off expenses, changes in mortgage Non-Performing Loans (NPL) policy and Bulk Oil Distributors (BDCs) portfolio.

Prof Joshua Alabi, immediate past board chair of the bank announced this at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday in Accra.

Dividend

As a result of the loss recorded for the year, the board of directors recommended no dividend payment until such a time when the bank can fully cover dividend payments from profit-after-tax.

Provisions

During the year, the bank wrote off loans totaling GH56.07 million.

The cumulative provision therefore stood at GH140.55 million as at December 2016.

The aggregate amount represents 60.91 percent of the non-performing loan portfolio.

In an attempt to adopt a more conservative approach to provisioning, GH72.78 million was charged for credit losses in 2016 compared to GH81.85 million charged in 2015.

Operating expense

Robert Le Hunte, Managing Director of HFC Bank Ghana, on his part, said operating expense for the period increased by 20.42 percent to GH192.60 million.

The major contributing factor to this was the number of projects the bank undertook to clean its books of legacy issues, together with one-off expenditure totaling GH20.49 million.

The one-off operating expense was incurred on a number of items, including the voluntary separation package, branch refurbishment and deposit campaign.

Liquidity position

The bank's liquid asset to total asset ratio was 41.8 percent at the end of 2016 compared to 31.12 percent in December 2015.

Capital adequacy

HFC Bank ended the year with a capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 11.50 percent, which is above the regulatory minimum level of 10 percent.

The suspension of interest on the non-performing loan portfolio and the current provisioning levels continues to adversely affect its CAR.

This is negatively affecting our single obligor limit, ability to increase our risk assets and by extension our loan portfolio.

Net interest income

The overall net interest income decreased by 8.26 percent to GH131.19 million.

The bank's loans and advances (net) to customers increased by 3.20 percent from GH890.89 million to GH919.96 million, resulting in a marginal 2.53 percent increase in interest income.

The marginal interest income earnings from loans was due to the suspension of interest on a number of non-performing loans, totaling GH230.75 million as at December 2016.

New board chair

The bank now has a new board chair in the person of Charles Zwennes, a lawyer in private practice, who has been a member of the board of HFC since April 2015.

[email protected]

By Samuel Boadi


The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has disclosed that Ghana loses about GH850 million annually in taxes due to the increased activities of fuel smugglers in the country.

The illegal act is said to involve operators at the ports who fuel tanks with products brought into the country via unapproved routes.

Businesses that apply under the pretext of exporting petroleum products, end up selling them in Ghana, thereby evading some taxes.

The Chief Executive of the NPA, Hassan Tampuli confirmed the worrying development to journalists after a visit to the Tema Port led by Deputy Finance Minister, Kweku Kwarteng on Thursday.

We estimate that about 250,000 metric tonnes of losses in terms of petroleum products get to this country and that is estimated to cost the country 850,000,000 cedis, he said.

Mr. Tampuli added that NPA considers this as a great concern and we have engaged all stakeholders, including the security agencies and the Ministry of Finance.

According to the NPA boss, the vessels believed to be perpetrating the act berth at the harbour under the guise of dislodging sludge (dirty oil) but actually discharge diesel or petrol directly into fuel tankers at shore.

The industry regulator is also alarmed over concerns that some of these products could be coming from pirated sources.

To address the problem, the NPA has directed that No vessel be allowed to discharge petroleum products at the Tema Port, main harbor, fishing harbor or dry dock.

Commenting on businesses flouting the provisions guiding the export of petroleum products to neighbouring Burkina Faso or Mali, Mr. Tampuli asserted that the relative cheaper prices quoted by the miscreants distort the market, as their prices make genuinely sanctioned ones expensive for the consumer.

As a result, the NPA, together with the Finance Ministry, has reiterated its commitment to enforcing the new tax exemption rules to curb the abuse of the current provisions.

-Citifmonline
The National Investigation Agency is questioning traders operating between India and Pakistan through the LoC as the agency has found connection between trade and terror in the Kashmir Valley.

By Jitendra Bahadur Singh: The National Investigation Agency has unearthed a terror funding plan of Pakistan's ISI to foment trouble in the Kashmir Valley.

According to top NIA sources, ISI has appointed a retired Pakistan Army brigadier to use the trade routes along the Line of Control to pump money into the Valley for terrorists and stone pelters.

Sources said that 667 traders, who are involved in barter-trade across the LoC are on the Pakistan's radar. The NIA is believed to have questioned several traders in this connection.

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The NIA has done intensive questioning with six-seven traders, who were suspected to have been used by Pakistan to send money to Hizbul and Hurriyat leaders. The company or firms, these traders are associated with, are suspected to have provided fund to terrorist and separatist outfits in the Kashmir Valley.

TRADE ROUTES AS TERROR CHANNELS?

According to the NIA, the barter-trade between India and Pakistan has been in doing good business across the LoC and hence the ISI has plotted to use the route to serve its ulterior motive.

As per NIA, between 2008 and 2016 Pakistan supplied about 34,000 trucks via Uri route worth Rs 2,000 crore while India sent 22,000 trucks worth Rs 1,900 crore. This gap of Rs 100 core, the NIA suspects, was used to fund terror activities in the Valley.

The NIA suspects that JKLF, Hizbul, Lashkar and Hurriyat leaders were given this Rs 100 crore at the behest of the ISI. The NIA believes that these outfits used this money for terror activities and stone pelting.

Now, the NIA is also scanning the trade details of the Poonch route. The NIA is also working a Rs 1,550 crore money trail that may have connection with unrest and terror in Kashmir Valley.

ALSO READ |

Kashmir unrest: NIA probe into suspicious funding delayed as curfew continues

ALSO WATCH |

Outstanding result for Army's Kashmir Super 40 initiative: 28 students crack IIT-JEE mains entrance exam

--- ENDS ---
02.05.2017 LISTEN

Fellow Ghanaians, please do not be frightened off nor get agitated by the heading of this publication. It is the view expressed by a Ghanaian which I personally totally disagree with hence sharing the discussion held with her with you. The objective of sharing this information is to educate ourselves as Ghanaians to disabuse our minds of false accusations and/or beliefs that eventually culminate in hatred for one another.

It all started when in the course of a conversation, she identified herself to me as a Ghanaian. By her looks, many people had mistaken her for being of a different nationality other than Ghanaian. When she did introduce herself as such, I then said, I hope you understand Twi and went on to ask, Etesen and she responded, eye. It was then that she asked, could you initially tell I am a Ghanaian? I said no. This is because her natural fair complexion, physique and spoken-English accent make it more difficult to tell at a glance that she is a Ghanaian.

She then said I am not the only one to have had difficulty identifying her as a Ghanaian but many people do. She had worked for six months at a particular company with many Ghanaian women but she never let them know she is a Ghanaian nor she understands Twi. Ghanaian women talk a lot, she concluded.

Anyway, I suggested as many Ghanaians now understand Twi, we had better make it an official language in Ghana. However, in our convivial one hour discourse, about fifty minutes of it was held in the English queens language, thus, English.

She disagreed with me on that suggestion. When I queried about her motive for the disagreement, she said, it will make the Akans who are already arrogant and think Ghana belongs to them feel more superior if Twi were chosen for national language.

Why will choosing Twi as a national language make the Akans feel more superior to the other tribes in Ghana? How, when and why does one come up with that idea or conclusion? Is it also not mythical for one to conclude that the Akans are arrogant and think Ghana belongs to them?

These accusations levelled against Akans, and particularly Ashantis, are just perceptions emanating from our abundance of overflowing ignorance, hatred and mere inferiority complexes, I should think. The fact that some Akans may feel proud of their tribal background, ingenuity, and whatnot, does not necessarily constitute an iota of proof to justify the oftentimes accusations of arrogance and thinking Ghana belongs to them levelled against them.

I am not having a go at the lady in question, no; I am now discussing the broad mentality of both Akans and the other minority tribes who very often hold on to some bizarre misconceptions about one another.

Regardless of our individual tribal backgrounds, we are all Ghanaians and must be seen at all times to behave responsibly as Ghanaians. We should uphold the belief that we are one people, one nation and pursuing one destiny and then cease all our unhelpful bitching, backstabbing and destructive infatuation with tribalism.

Going back to the lengthy but friendly conversation held with my now discovered Ghanaian compatriot married woman that I may never chance to meet again, I learnt something further about our compatriot Voltarians. All along, and probably I am not alone to have thought that all those people or most of the people from the Volta region apart from the Nkonyas and a few others, are Ewes. No, they are not. We have the Anwonas, probably correctly called the Anlos. They are along the coastal belt in the Volta region. Then we have the Ewes who I have been made to understand to have some traces of Akan blood in them and the real Akans in the Volta region who ended up there during the fierce battle waged to conquer some people/tribes in the region by the Ashantis a few centuries ago.

Those from Ho, Hoehoe etc. are not Anlos but are Akans in disguise and behave same as Akans from other parts of the country. Their married women are as promiscuous as the Krobos and those from Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Eastern region, Western region, Central regions (the Akans), she told me. The Anlos stand out as saints when it comes to their women, I learnt from our conversation.

Anyway, we should be more farsighted than to dwell on pettiness in our pursuance of justice, unity as one people and one nation, economic emancipation, nation building and development and peace.

We have many benefits to reap from having one national language chosen from our many and diverse dialects than sticking to English as the official modus operandi. Back to my conversation with the woman, when I suggested should we in any day any time decide on such a way of communication for Ghana it must be Twi, she said no, it mustnt. When asked why, she said it will make the already arrogant Akans who think Ghana belongs to them feel more superior hence she would vehemently oppose any such move by whomever.

I said Twi is the largest spoken dialect in Ghana with even many of the non Akans now speaking it. She still stuck to her guns. I had only to politely rebuke her by asking her to be realistic for a minute. Why would she expect Ewe, Dagbani or Frafra, just for argument sake, to be chosen over and above Twi? She admitted that it is true that even in the northern regions in Ghana (Northern, Upper West and Upper East); the Twi language is widely spoken and understood.

She later inquired about what tribe I belong to. I said Akan of Ashanti origin. There we go, she retorted. I made her understand that it is not for the fact that I am an Akan that I am suggesting Twi but that I want us to live in the real world situation than presumptively deceiving ourselves just for settling tribal scores or being maliciously vindictive for the fun of it. Being educated, and well or semi-informed, we have to be honest with ourselves to face facts rather than allowing tribal sentiments to shroud our thinking.

In Nigeria, they have broken English as their official language and in Ghana, we have English, she said. Yes, but in Ghana, how many people understand English? Do we love to live in ignorance and low self-esteem by preferring whatever is foreign e.g. English language, foreign wear, foreign culture, foreign food etc. to ours without seeking to refine or fine-tune our Godly-endowed local things to suit us? Should we behave that way, then to me, we are exhibiting acts of inferiority complex.

Let us bury our tribal differences and unsubstantiated ping-pong accusations against one tribe and another to be able to move forward as a nation.

Communication is a vital tool in the successful realisation of a nations polices and projects and for the harmonious co-existence of the people in any human society. Will it not be pointless when you communicate views that may not be understood by people just because they do not comprehend the language used? When you pass on information in a language or form that people or many people do not understand it, your objective for passing on that piece of information becomes defeated as it will not be obtained as wished.

Therefore, since a greater percentage of Ghanaians do understand, speak and communicate in Twi other than any of the other dialects or languages including English, why cannot Twi become a national language? Why should we be cowed by those nonsensical perceptions about certain tribes with the concomitant accusations to stop us from progressing or seeking innovative solutions to our teeming local problems holding us back from our quest to prosper as a nation? I cant understand it!

By speaking one language taken from our numerously-spoken local dialects, the long term benefit will be the subsidence of our currently injurious sentimental tribalism. After many years to come, every person will be seen as a Ghanaian and respected as such; categorising people into Ewes, northerners, Anlos, Ashantis, Fantes, Brongs etc. will have become history. Subsequently, practising tribal politics with the attendant voting on tribal lines which are not helpful at all, but are seen to be overtly encouraged in our current democratic dispensation, will immensely be mitigated.

I shall come back to discuss this topic in detail and make the benefits to accrue to the nation using Twi as a national language too obvious to the people. Are we not in a democracy? Why should we fear people will not accept the fact of choosing say Twi as a national language because each tribe would want her dialect to be chosen? When it comes to that crunch, could we not go to referendum to decide on which dialect to choose in case we do not have the balls to impose Twi on the country since from empirical observation it is the largest spoken dialect or language in Ghana?

What our politicians, cowards and clueless but overflowing with corruption have failed to do, Mr (Dr) Osei Kwame Despite of the Despite Group of Companies, a semi-illiterate as some people mock him of, but a business mogul, has achieved. By his farsightedness, Twi is spreading across the nation like summer or harmattan fire set to the forest. Everywhere you go, it is Twi!

To conclude, Akans are not arrogant and it is erroneous, if not malicious, for anyone, to assume Akans think Ghana belongs to them. No, Ghana belongs to all Ghanaians! I can write a hundred pages on the conversation held with the woman if I wanted to but since I am not trying to dwell on her views as one person but the general mistaken thinking about Akans, I have decided to call it a day at this point.

The son of Kumawu/Asiampa has spoken!

Rockson Adofo

(Written on Monday 1 May, 2017)
Kisangani (DR Congo) (AFP) - Protesters angered by a string of unsolved murders threw up roadblocks and mobbed government offices in three days of riots in the restive gold-rich Ituri region of Democratic Republic of Congo, local officials said Monday.

The trouble erupted Saturday in the town of Mahagi in the region bordering Uganda where thousands died in ethnic unrest between Lendu farming people and Hema pastoralists between 1998 and 2003.

Troops had to be called in to back up police trying to quell the riots, triggered by the murders of five money-changers in April in Mahagi.

Protesters said police had failed both to investigate the deaths by shooting and to make any arrests.

"Roads were blocked off, the customs office could not operate ... there has been trouble since Saturday in Mahagi due to demonstrations over the murders of five money-changers," Ituri's deputy governor Pacifique Keta told AFP.

"On Monday, army reinforcements and police brought an end to attempted looting and were trying to consolidate the return to calm," he added.

An official for civil society groups in the area, Louis-David Kisangano, said angry demonstrators had smashed the office of the intelligence service as well as a police station and several government buildings.

"The money-changers were killed point blank without any response from the police or the judiciary," Kisangano said.
Kumasi, May 01, GNA - The Government has been asked to move quickly to fix structural defects on the Kumasi Central Prison building to avoid any accident.

Deputy Director of Prisons (DDP) Lord Nii Boye Tagoe, the Ashanti Regional Prisons Commander, described the present state of the structure as deeply worrying.

It had developed gaping cracks on the walls and he warned that if left unattended, it could collapse.

He was speaking when the Regional Minister, Mr. Simon Osei-Mensah, accompanied by his Deputy, Madam Elizabeth Agyemang, visited the facility as part of his tour of security installations in the region to learn at first hand the challenges and how to tackle these.

DDP Tagoe also complained about the severe congestion at the prison and said the situation needed to radically change to enable the prisoners to live in some human dignity.

The facility built to hold 800 people is now accommodating 1,732 inmates.

He said they needed more space to carry out the task of reforming and equipping the convicts with vocational skills and trades that would enable them to lead normal lives after serving out their sentence.

At the Regional Immigration Office, Mr. Smart Osei-Bonsu, the Regional Head, complained about inadequate office space and logistics including vehicles.

They had been forced to share offices with other institutions, something he said was unhelpful to the kind of job they had been doing - keeping confidential information.

For the entire region, the service has only four vehicles - three in Kumasi and one in Obuasi. Added to these are two motorbikes - one each for the Konongo and the Manso-Nkwanta offices.

Mr. Kwasi Ahiakpor, the Regional Commander of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), pleaded for the refurbishment of their office building and supply of vehicles.

He informed the Minister that many of their vehicles were aged and could not be used to chase smugglers, who often drove in powerful automobiles.

Mr. Osei-Mensah applauded the officers and men of the security agencies for the good job they were doing to keep everybody safe.

He promised to take up their concerns with the appropriate authorities for action.

GNA

By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA
The United Cadres Front of Ghana (UCF-Ghana) join all workers of the land to celebrate this years May Day under the theme; Ghana @60: Mobilizing for Ghanas Future through the creation of Decent Jobs.

Since Independence, workers have continuously shown their resolve to contribute their quota to the forward march of development in Ghana. We therefore salute all workers both in the public and private sectors of our economy for their selfless contribution towards nation building.

We consider the theme for this years celebration as timely and therefore appropriate; having in mind that sixty years of nationhood should propel us to marshal all resources to create more jobs for the teeming unemployed youth who graduate from our tertiary institutions.

We call for high productivity on the part of workers as they demand for increased wages and salaries to cushion the current high cost of living. It is our belief that the call for high wages cannot be justified in an environment of poor working habits culminating in low investment returns.

Calling for the creation of decent jobs should remind the Trades Union Congress to stand to the defence of workers who are unjustifiably attacked at post and forced to vacate their positions. Such acts undermine security of tenure and further disturb the stability required at the labour front for a congenial work environment.

We call on government to seriously tackle the problem of unemployment by making efforts to expand the work environment which is the only way of absorbing more of the youth into gainful and decent jobs.

Signed:

CAMILLUS SAKZEESI (0248433700)

For and on behalf of UCF-Ghana
To have credible and up-to-date National Population Database for Ghana, there is the need for President Akufo-Addos Government to fully resources the National Identification Authority, Birth & Death Registry and the Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development.

The success of NIA predominantly depends on the accurate Data from the Birth & Death Registry and Ministry of Local Government.

Population has to do with Natality Rate and Mortality Rate but currently the Birth & Death Registry in charge of these important exercise is at the state of collapsing. The Birth & Death Registry is poorly resources and unable to serve the purposes it was instituted for.

In accordance with the best standard practice, the Birth & Death Registry must have direct linkage to the Birth and Death Records of all Hospitals across the Nation as well as records from the various funeral homes. But this can be achieve by fully resourcing the Birth & Death Registry. The Government should establish District branches for the Birth & Death Registry in addition to refurbishing the Regional branches and the National Headquarters of the Birth & Death Registry.

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has to be resources by the Central Government to complete the Streets and House Naming Project.

The effective and efficient functioning of the Birth & Death Registry and the MMDCEs would help the NIA to become the cutting-edge referral centre as far as the Countrys Population Database is concerned.

The NIA should be empowered to take over the conduct of the Population and Housing Census from the Ghana Statistical Service. This initiative will help the Nation to save the cost for conducting Population and Housing Census in every 10 years.

Since the NIA will be conducting the continuous collection of National Database on Population and Housing in the Country, there will be no need for the Ghana Statistical Service to conduct the Population and Housing Census in every 10 years.

The up-to-date Database of NIA will serves as a referral point of call for the State Institutions such as National Population Council, Electoral Commission of Ghana, NCCE, DVLA, NHIA etc.

.Signed.

Hon. Randy Collins Owusu Amankwaa

(MP for Manhyia North Constituency)
Kinshasa (AFP) - The Democratic Republic of Congo said Monday it had indefinitely postponed voter registration in two provinces of its troubled central Kasai region after the brutal killing of an electoral official.

On April 3, Philippe Iyidimbe, of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), "was decapitated by militias of chief Kamwina Nsapu in Ndekesha," in central DRC, the CENI said in a statement.

He had travelled to the Kasai capital, Tshikapa, to train technical staff, it added.

Following Iyidimbe's killing and the "destruction" of electoral materials and offices, "voter registration in Kasai-central and in Kasai, which should have started on April 30, has been delayed [indefinitely] due to insecurity" sparked by Nsapu's rebellion, commission president Corneille Nangaa told AFP.

Kasai has seen a major spike in violence since September, leaving at least 400 dead in an uprising that erupted when government forces killed Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader, who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila.

The UN has accused the Nsapu rebels of using child soldiers and committing several atrocities, while also denouncing the disproportionate use of force by the military.

The UN has reported finding 40 mass graves, while two UN researchers -- Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, a dual Swedish-Chilean national -- investigating the violence were abducted and shot dead. One of the victims was also beheaded.

A new date for voter registration will follow discussions with top officials in the two provinces, Nangaa added.

Under a power-sharing deal reached on New Year's Eve, DR Congo is set to hold an election by the end of 2017.
Two police officers are facing interdiction for allegedly stealing and killing a goat belonging to a former Police Commander in Assin Bereku in the Central Region.

The two police officers identified as Sani and Michael also known as Micky are to face disciplinary action for stealing the goat which belonged to their former boss, Chief Inspector Alhaji Abubakar Saliki who was the Assin Breku police station officer.

The evil activity of the two officers in uniform came to light when two sons of the transferred Police commander while taking stock of the animals realised that one of the goats did not return to the pen.

Unhappy about it, the sons of the police officers started searching for the animal. Sani and Micky were named as the ones who stole the animal by one, Aditalma Benjamin as the ones who stole the animal after the former had been arrested for slaughtering and preparing the goat.

Adom FMS Alfred Amoh narrated that Aditalma upon his arrest confessed that he was contracted by the two to slaughter the animal and prepare it. He was also given a portion of the mutton as his wages for helping slaughter the stolen animal.

The rest of the meat was shared between the police officers who hurriedly took them to their wives and ordered that the meat be used for supper.

One of the wives of the police officers after receiving the meat also gave some to her friend as according to her the meat was more than enough for one family.

Amoh added that it was during the search for the search for the missing goat that the friend of the police officers wife claimed that she had been offered a mutton by a friend and suspected it might be the meat of the missing goat.

Further investigations led to the arrest of Aditalma Benjamin as the one who slaughtered the goat and shared the meat. During interrogation, he also named Sani and Micky as the ones who brought the goat to him to be slaughtered.

The two, when invited confessed stealing theIrish Commanders goat insisting that they stole the animal because they suspected their commander would not give them any while going on transfer despite he always sending them to go fetch grass to feed them.

The case was reported to their superiors who insist that they may face interdiction for stealing the animal.

Residents react

Residents who spoke to Adom news threatened to resist arrest if the two officers in question are not transfered from the community.

The residents insisted that the two police officers must be transferred because they now lack the moral right to arrest their fellow thieves.

Assin Fosu divisional police commander, Chief Supt. Henry Bacho said the two officers will be facing disciplinary action since the case has been forwarded to the Central regional commander.
01.05.2017 LISTEN

Accra, May 1, GNA- The Greater Accra Keep-Fit Clubs Association (GAKFCA) has on Monday, donated assorted items to the Echoing Hills Village, a non-profit residential care facility for orphans and young people with disabilities located at Ogbojo, Madina.

The items, include bags of rice and sugar, detergents, toiletries, clothing, soft drinks, bags and boxes of water among others worth thousands of cedis, were donated to the facility to assist in caring for the inmates.

The donation, which formed part of GAKFCA's observation of Ghana's 60 years of independence, was on the theme: 'Supporting the Deprived in Society through Physical Fitness.'

Mr Alphonse Bebli, the President of the Association said they saw the need for the donation knowing that Ghana was celebrating 60 years of independence and people were celebrating it in diverse ways.

Mr Bebli said: 'It is our hope that the managers of the orphanage will use the items for the intended purpose for the children to benefit from them.'

He said they were proud the items were received in good faith and urged other corporate bodies and groups to emulate the gesture to assist facilities like the Echoing Hills Village and other orphanages.

The Reverend Lawrence Lamina, the Director at the Echoing Hills Village said the items donated by the GAKFCA were the exact items they needed to run the home and expressed appreciation for the kind gesture.

'It is going to go a long way to provide good nutrition and healthy provisions that we need for the children.

'We are very grateful to them for demonstrating this love to the children and I am encouraging other groups to emulate this generous gesture,' Rev Lamina said.

GAKFCA is an association of keep-fit clubs in Accra with the aim of promoting fitness activities within the area as well as monitor and regulate the activities of the various keep-fit clubs.

According to the President, it is their responsibility to encourage more Ghanaians to join keep-fit clubs and engage in fitness to promote a healthy lifestyle.

GNA

By Julius K. Satsi, GNA
Accra, May 1, GNA - President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says government is taking plausible measures to ensure that small-scale mining is conducted in a sustainable manner.

'Since the Almighty blessed us with precious minerals, there will be mining in our countrythe sustainable small-scale mining regime we envisage will protect our environment and protect the workers as well,' he said.

President Akufo-Addo was addressing organised labour at the 17th National May Day Parade at the Black Star Square in Accra.

The event was held on the theme: '[email protected]; Mobilising for Ghana's Future through the Creation of Decent Jobs.'

President Akufo-Addo said he had not met anyone engaged in the illegal small-scale mining, popularly referred to as 'galamsey,' who was satisfied with the degradation of the environment as witnessed lately, adding; 'we are not fighting to put people out of work by seeking to end galamsey'.

'This present generation does not own the earth, we hold the lands in trust for generations yet unborn and we cannot destroy it,' he said.

President Akufo-Addo said all indications pointed to the fact that 'galamseyers' did not make much money as they were routinely cheated from getting a fair price for the gold they found.

'As such government is encouraging the establishment of gold refineries, which will pay fair prices to the miners,' he said.

He acknowledged, with special thanks, the support and role being played by the media in the fight against galamsey.

'The media, with the overwhelming support of all well-meaning citizens, have given true meaning to the call for all to be citizens and not spectators,' the President said.

GNA

By Ken Sackey, GNA
3 days ago the president of Gambia Adam Barrow payed an official visit to the flagstaff house to thank the country and the president Nana addo dankwa akufo addo for the support offered by Ghana in ECOWAS joint mission aimed at ensuring that political power was transfered from the dictatorial regime of former president of gambia jammeh to a democratically elected leader adam barrow.

Not wisthanding the successful meeting that went on between the two leaders, an inconspicuous mistake was made that has caused pandamonium among some section of the public. The flag of Ghana which was stationed behind president akufo addo was turned upside down. However does the object that represent the spirit of the nation being turned upside down have any symbolism as far as the state of the country and displomatic relations is concerned.

Political equalisation has become a rather shameful culture by which every political animal in Ghana derives his or her relavance from. The issue of the flag being turned upside down has been championed by the political opponents of the government, especially the ndc as a strategy of exposing the weaknesses of the government. It is clear that the main opposition ndc see this as an opportunity to pay the government back for the mistakes it made during the celebration of Ghana's 59th independence anniversary where the brouchers used at the events contained inaccurate informations and unpardonable grammatical errors.

Does political equalisation insultate the current government from the mistake it has made? No! It is necessary for those in charge of protocol at the seat of government to ensure that such petty and avoidble mistakes are avoided. It is embarrassing for the country to have it's image tarnished as a result of the lack of seriousness on the part of those in charge of protocol.

Going forward as a serious country and people we should not hold on to things that do not innuerd to the development of the country. The flag of a country does represent to some extent the spirit of the country. However it would interest us all to know that the flags of the United State of America are made and imported from china to the usa. Does that mean the the usa is on the brink of collapse? It is also a fact that americans are constitutionally allowed to burn their country's national flag and they do burn it without any legal or criminal implication. Does it mean that the usa is on it knees?

As a country let us realised that partisan politics would no take us far. We must also realised that what we as party supporters do to our political opponents would be the same thing they would do to us when the table turns. Let us realize that beyond the lines of family, religion, gender, ethnic group and partisan politics we are all bound by one destiny which is that we are all Ghanaians.

King David Dzirasah

Social Activist

[email protected]
Nawaz Sharif may have escaped being ousted from office, but his predicament is far from over. A split judgment of the five-member Supreme Court bench has ordered further investigation into the money trail to offshore companies and the properties the Sharif family owns in London.

Nawaz Sharif may have escaped being ousted from office, but his predicament is far from over. A split judgment of the five-member Supreme Court bench has ordered further investigation into the money trail to offshore companies and the properties the Sharif family owns in London.

It's quite a damning ruling for the prime minister with two of the five judges calling for his disqualification for not being honest. The other three may not have agreed to this extreme action, but there is consensus that the Sharif family has failed to provide substantive evidence regarding the source of the money used to buy expensive properties in London. Hence, the need for further investigation.

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Pakistan's top court began hearings last year on the petitions filed by Imran Khan and others against the prime minister after the Panama papers leaks revealed that the Sharif family owned several offshore companies and properties in London's upscale neighbourhoods. The leaks generated a political maelstrom in the country. The court ruling came as Sharif enters the final year of his five-year term.

Photo: Reuters

Sharif's political fate will now be decided by a joint investigation team (JIT) to be set up by the Supreme Court. The commission, consisting of various civilian investigation organisations and military intelligence agencies, is mandated to conclude its probe into the financial scandal spanning two decades and involving three generations of the Sharif family in just 60 days. For the first time in the country's history, a sitting prime minister will appear before an investigation team probing allegations of financial wrongdoing. This raises the pertinent question of whether he should stay in his high office during the investigation. Sharif's position is certainly compromised as he faces an inquiry into a financial scandal with his moral authority diminished.

But the prime minister is determined to fight to the end and not succumb to the opposition's pressure to step down. His supporters appear confident that they will be able to drag the JIT inquiry long enough to get close to the elections next year. A major challenge for a morally and politically weak prime minister is to deal with an extremely aggressive opposition. Almost all the major opposition parties seem united on the demand for his resignation. Though inconclusive, the court ruling has provided strong leverage to Sharif's arch-rival, Imran Khan, to step up the pressure on him.

It's obvious that the growing political polarisation has put the military leadership under immense pressure. There is a danger that it could get more deeply involved in the crisis if the situation becomes grave. Every political crisis has consequences for the civil-military balance of power. A weakening of civilian authority invariably leads to the military gaining more space.

As the political stand-off continues, options for the two sides are becoming limited. It may be true that a fractured opposition cannot force the prime minister to quit through mass agitation. But it can still create huge difficulties for the Sharif government.

Perhaps it is true that the prime minister does not face an imminent threat to his position, either through the court or any opposition-led mass movement. Yet the confidence among Sharif's supporters may be misplaced, given the political uncertainty triggered by the divided ruling. Sharif can hang on because of his party's domination of the National Assembly and its power base in Punjab. But the very perception of him being 'damaged goods' does not portend well for the ruling party or the family dynasty as the country approaches the next general elections.

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There is some indication that Sharif may be considering some other options to keep power within the family. It is quite possible that he will not seek a fourth term, and instead, bring forward his daughter Maryam Nawaz as the next leader. One positive point in the ruling for the PML-N is that she has come out unscathed.

Maryam has long been promoted as the heir apparent. She has virtually been running the party and was also involved in important government decisions in the absence of her father last year. The party has already announced that she will contest the next elections. For Sharif supporters, it is the only way to keep power within the family. But that may also intensify family rivalry. It will not be an easy transition with a powerful uncle, Shahbaz Sharif , the chief minister of Punjab, in the line of succession too.

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Hussain is an Islamabad-based journalist and author.

--- ENDS ---
I want to see the political integration of East Africa, Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni told Talk To Al Jazeeras Mohamed Vall. Our aim is to make East Africa one country, one state. Its now integrated economically but together with our partners we want East Africa to become one country.

He identified the narrow markets of Africa as one of ten strategic bottlenecks that have constrained Uganda and Africa Uganda is 40 million people but thats not a wide enough market to support modernisation. That has been one of the bottlenecks  the fragmentation of Africa into small markets because of colonialism So one of our programs has been regional integration. Its happening; a common market of East Africa.

Museveni dismissed claims that armed guards and mercenaries have become Ugandas biggest export. The biggest export of ours is industrial products; the next one is tourism, he said.

He did acknowledge the existence of private security companies in Uganda. We know about them Because of our liberation struggle, because we fought wars and defeated them, we have a tradition of fighting... Our people have that courage and experience.

But he denied that his use of Ugandan troops in African conflict areas was financially motivated. When we are in South Sudan, we were there at our own cost. It seems you have not heard of fraternal solidarity When we fought the Portuguese in Mozambique and Angola, the frontline states  Tanzania, Zambia  who was paying them? When we stood against Ian Smith in Rhodesia, who was paying them? I am part of the African freedom fighters. Africans will defend their freedom, even though they are poor We are helping each other.

He denied that his support of South Sudans president Salva Kiir against Riek Machar had prolonged the civil war there. Not at all. What happened is that when the fighting started, there was a regional meeting, which called for a ceasefire. Nobody should continue fighting so that we get a political solution. One of the factions [Machar] refused.

He identified ideological disorientation where people emphasise sectarianism, of religion, of tribe as another of the ten bottlenecks constraining Africa. Those problems you are talking about in South Sudan, they are caused by that ideological disorientation. In Uganda we have fought that; that is why Uganda is peaceful.

He denied using Joseph Kony and The Lords Resistance Army as a pretext to sending troops into other countries in the region and interfering. For us, Kony is not a problem to Uganda. We defeated him. He cannot come back. If he comes back, he will be dead. But we had to help our African brothers to hunt. Fighting in the forest is not easy. We are doing it in the partnership with the Americans. The new American government did not want to continue, so we said OK.

He denied Uganda was planning an imminent withdrawal of troops from Somalia. No, they have stabilised Somalia. Our only concern is that Somalia has not built their national army; that is what we are encouraging them to do.

He said Ugandas involvement in Somalia in the fight against Al-Shabab was moral and ideological as we dont have a border with Somalia.

Al-Shabab is an extremist group contrary to our African culture of tolerance. We live and let live.

In a tough interview, Museveni also fielded questions about why hes served five presidential terms and 31 years in office; his succession plans; his jailing of opponents like Stella Nyanzi and opposition leader Kizza Besigye; rules preventing people rallying freely; and the recent killing of more 100 people by security forces in Western Uganda.

Watch and embed the promo:



Watch and embed the full 52-minute interview:


This is May Day.

Spare a prayer for the youth of Africa-- they have the highest unemployment and underemployment rate in the world-despite Africa having 6 of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world over the last decade.

Africa graduates 10 million students from our universities and half of them are unemployed.

70% of workers in sub-saharan Africa still are poor. About 4 in 10 of our youth desire migration.

Despite having 46% of the world's arable land, we spent 35 billion USD importing food last year while thousands of young Africans seeking greener pastures perished in the sands of the Sahara, in North Africa or in the waters of the Mediterranean.

Those who find work have little protection; from abuse from their employers or disabilities and illness resulting from their work.

I remember my Taxi driver friend in Cape Coast who works 14- hour days six days a week. He has a child in a private school and rents a room. By the end of the month, he has hardly anything left. Despite working so hard, he lives on the very edge of poverty. There are also farmers with hardened palms who see hardly any money the whole year round.

Then there is the market woman who leaves her house at dawn and does not return home till it gets dark.

Unfortunately, we celebrate those who have dishonest wealth more than those who toil in poverty honestly.

Let our institutions of higher learning produce gradutes who have the skills our nations need.

Let our senior high schools provide career guidance to students that steer them away from non-productive courses in our tertiary institutions.

Let us put the youth who need and want work on our continent to work in farms and factories that pay livable wages so they will stop dying on their way to other continents in search of jobs and opportunities.

Let our governments simplify regulations and build business-related infrastructure so that entrepreneurs can create jobs.

Finally, this May Day, let us all salute those who do an honest days work and support their quest for a living wage.

Arthur K
The writer

02.05.2017 LISTEN

For our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:29

I baptize with water those who turn from their sins and turn to God. But someone is coming soon who is far greater that I am - so much greater that I am not even worthy to be his slave. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with FIRE. Matthew 3:11

So one night the King of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city. When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere.

Ah, my lord, what will we do now? he cried out to Elisha. Dont be afraid! Elisha told him. For there are more on our side than on theirs! Then Elisha prayed, O LORD, open his eyes and let him see! The LORD opened his servants eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire. 2 Kings 6:14-17.

Another weapon of our warfare that we want to discuss here is the Fire of God. The Fire of God is a terrible Weapon of Mass Destruction that God has provided for the Christians against the enemy. But unfortunately, the church is not making adequate use of this spiritual lethal weapon. Yes, I call it Weapon of Mass Destruction (W. M. D) because it is sure deadlier than the nuclear, atomic, leaser and hydrogen bombs of this world.

You cannot relate with God for a reasonable period of time without noticing that fire is an indispensable attribute of his presence and actions. In the bible, you will always see fire being associated with the presence of God. For example, Leviticus 9: 24 said that,

Fire blazed forth from the LORDS presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar.

Start using the Fire of God as a weapon against your enemies. Use it often in your prayers and spiritual warfare. Satan and his demons are so afariad of it. We will continue on it next week. God bless!

Rev. Agbo is the author of the books Power of Midnight Prayer, Breaking Generational Curses: Claiming Your Freedom, Sex Toys: Good or Evil? Website: authorsden.com/pastorgabrielnagbo E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 08037113283
Legal medical marijuana is a white-hot market right now.

Some companies are seeing extraordinary gains on nothing more than a fancy PowerPoint presentation and vague ASX announcement. Thats concerning. But there are also a select number of stocks involved in medicinal marijuana that are truly cracking little companies.

These select few companies, in our view, will be the ones that are still entrenched in this new market opportunity five, 10, and 20 years down the track.

But before you invest in marijuana mania, you may need to change your thinking.

Pot stocks or biotech?

Well be first to admit that we sometimes get hyperbolic with our words. And calling these companies pot stocks is probably one of those situations. Its an easy way out  but we do so for a reason. When we write pot stocks, you know exactly what were talking about.

Weed stocks, pot stocks, dope stockswhatever you might hear them being referred to asyou know that were talking about companies involved in the marijuana industry. The difference is that the companies weve discussed recently in Money Morning are primarily involved in medicinal marijuana.

Having been researching this industry for close to a year now, the term pot stocks couldnt really be further from the truth.

We view these stocks as biotechnology companies. They are pushing the boundaries in research and development; theyre paving the way for medicinal marijuana to benefit humans in the treatment of  and possibly even cure  diseases.

Take, for example, a recent story from the UK

Deryn Blackwell is now 14 years old. When he was just 10, he was diagnosed with leukaemia. But not the typical form of the horrible blood-cancer. His was particularly aggressive. Doctors said he had the second highest white blood count theyd ever seen.

But that wasnt the worst of it. Deryn also had his tonsils removed. These, too, were found to be cancerous. After brutal chemotherapy, doctors decided on a bone marrow transplant to try and save Deryns life.

The first transplant from Germany failed  his body rejected it. A second transplant also failed. The last hope was a small amount of his own bone marrow transplanted back in. If this failed, he would be switched off the antibiotics, and, with no viable immune system, he would eventually die.

It didnt work.

They celebrated Deryns 14th birthday in the hospice, where they expected he would die. They also celebrated Christmas with Deryn on 14 December that year in the hospice, because they didnt expect he would make it to 25 December.

In the meantime, Deryns mother and father decided that, to help ease his anxiety and pain, they would give him cannabis. They did this outside the knowledge of their doctors.

As reported by The Daily Mirror:

The couple tracked down a dealer, met him at a service station, who gave them some cannabis which they took home and cooked on the family hob in a pressure cooker following instructions theyd found online.

From it they created an oil and it was Callie who placed a tiny amount of it in Deryns mouth.

It worked and calmed him immediately.

More importantly, Deryn didnt die. In fact, his condition began to improve. After the chemo, bone marrow transplants and antibiotics all failed, they expected Deryn would die. He didnt. The only thing he was taking was the cannabis oil.

Today, Deryn is a happy and healthy 17-year-old. Theres no detailed evidence that cannabis oil cured or healed Deryn. But theres no other explanation as to how he survived, either.

His mother has gone to great lengths to imply that cannabis oil is not a cure. But Deryn is alive. And, as she was administering the cannabis, she would alter the dosage, seeing the direct effect on his blood count.

Deryn eventually was well enough to go home, and he lives a normal life now. He has not had any further complications, and is your typical 17-year-old boy.

The point of this story is not to claim that cannabis is some form of miracle cure for cancer. Rather, its to highlight that scientists are only just now starting to uncover the potential of this natural wonder drug.

The endocannabinoid system

Every mammal has whats called an endocannabinoid system. Its a part of the brain, as well as the central and peripheral nervous system.

This system is biologically configured to accept cannabinoids  in particular tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). As it just happens, the cannabis plant, cannabis sativa, produces chemicals (cannabinoids) such as THC and CBD.

Israeli scientist Dr Ralph Mechoulam discovered the endocannabinoid system in the 1990s. Our bodies actually produce cannabinoids, but the receptors that Mechoulam identified are also receptive to plant-based cannabinoids, such as THC and CBD.

The research into how this system works is still in its infancy. Science understands a lot about how the endocannabinoid system functions in humans. But theres simply not enough research available as to how external cannabinoids, like THC and CBD, can benefit the human biological system.

A major inhibitor into prior extensive research is the prohibition of cannabis in most countries around the world. The classification of cannabis as a restricted or outlawed substance means that using it for science and research is a near-impossible task. Researchers need to jump through an incredible number of hoops, and cut through endless red tape, just to get their hands on it.

But the world is changingfast. As countries around the world begin to realise the medical benefits that cannabis might have, access is becoming easier for scientific research.

And as researchers discover more about the potential of this wonder plant, more people are pushing for even greater access. Its a snowflake turning into a snowball thats turning into an avalanche.

The speed at which this industry is gaining momentum is extraordinary. And the more we research it, the more were beginning to understand that this is truly a new frontier for medical science.

Thats why you should view these stocks as biotech companies, and not as the admittedly catchier pot stocks. Theyre medical research companies. They are the next great wave of medical technology, and theyre establishing themselves on the ASX as they open their doors to the world.

Its an incredibly exciting industry thats in its infancy in Australia. An industry that is starting from scratch. An industry that, with further research, development and access, could turn into the most important medical technology known to man.

In fact, the way we see it, the research and development of cannabis is as important as the discovery and application of penicillin.

Cannabis, and the medical benefits derived from it, might even prove to be more important. This is the frontier of medicine, and its creating an investment opportunity for smart investors the likes of which weve never seen before on the ASX.

Regards,

Sam Volkering,

Editor, Money Morning
- Sources inside Aso Rock say President Buhari's health deteriorated heavily in the last few weeks

- They say the cabal is frustrating efforts by the President to travel abroad for treatment

- The report says President Buhari's UK physicians say he needs to travel as quickly as possible for a long-term treatment

- President Buhari's PA on new media says the report is 'totally untrue'

- To read more about President Buhari's state of health and other news about the Nigerian leader, please visit: https://www.legit.ng/tag/buhari-news.html

The Presidency has denied a report by Sahara Reporters on Sunday, April 30 which claimed President Muhammadu Buhari is so sick that he cannot eat or drink with ease.

The online news platform had said in its report that three different sources in the presidency confirmed the alleged sad state of the presidents health.

But President Buhari's personal assistant on new media Bashir Ahmad said the report was totally untrue.

READ ALSO: Police arrest driver who buys food, fuel for Boko Haram

Ahmad cleared the air late on Sunday, April 30 after the report claimed that the Presidents health had deteriorated seriously in the last few weeks.

President Buhari is said to be unable to feed as his health reportedly worsens

He wrote on his Facebook account: "I have received many calls and text messages this evening, asking me whether the story published on Sahara Reporters about President Muhammadu Buhari's health status is true or not.

"The story like so many of its kind is untrue, as Garba Shehu said last week Thursday, there is no need for apprehension over President Buhari's health.

"We pray that God continues to see Mr. President through this period of recuperation."

The Presidents British doctors who had reportedly sent a medical team to the Villa to attend to him had advised that he should immediately return to the United Kingdom to begin a complex and long-term treatment to elongate his life.

However, cabals in the Presidency had frustrated the president's trip on two different occasions including the one planned for April 15.

READ ALSO: May Day celebrations cancelled by angry workers in Kogi

Sahara Reporters said it learned that advance teams were sent by the presidency to the UK twice to await the Presidents arrival but nothing happened.

It quoted a source with knowledgeable of President Buhari's condition as alleging that there was a massive coverup by the Presidents close associates to confuse the Nigerian public.

The source said: "They feel that if he [President Buhari] travels abroad, they will lose the power and influence they wield when he is town."

Legit.ng had earlier reported that the minister of information and culture Lai Mohammed hinted at how sick the president is when he said he had chosen to work from home.

Although he denied saying it was a continuous development, his submission raised concerns among Nigerians.

Lai said he never said that President Muhammadu Buhari is to work from home henceforth.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday, April 26, the minister said the reporting in a section of the media of his post- Federal Executive Council (FEC) briefing that the President is to work from home henceforth is erroneous.

In the statement signed by his Special Adviser Segun Adeyemi, the minister said the President only decided to work from home today, not that he has decided to work from home henceforth.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of a man on the streets of Lagos who has harsh words for President Buhari who he believes is not doing so well for the masses

Source: Legit.ng
By Shalini Lobo: Union minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan has accused the BJD government of Odisha of targeting those seeking help from the BJP in the state following the sound performance of the party in the panchayat polls.

Dharmendra Pradhan led a delegation to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh as he raised the issue of attack on an Odisha woman, named Parbati Sasmal, who was allegedly attacked in Jagatsinghpur district of the state.

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Dharmendra Pradhan alleged that Parbati Sasmal was assaulted by the ruling Biju Janata Dal 'goons' as the people from her village had voted for the BJP in the recent panchayat election in Odisha.

With @BJP4Odisha delegation met Hon'ble Home Minister Shri @rajnathsingh ji to seek his intervention on the Brutal Attack on Parbati Sasmal. pic.twitter.com/UKpjONejsm- Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) May 1, 2017

'VENDETTA POLITICS IN ODISHA'

According to Dharmendra Pradha, Parbati Sasmal went to local police station to lodge a complaint but she was humiliated there and asked to approach the Prime Minister straight away.

Parbati submitted a petition to PM Narendra Modi when he visited Odisha on April 15 for BJP national executive, Pradhan said. The Union Minister alleged that Parbati was again attacked after she submitted petition to the PM.

Dharmendra Pradhan-led delegation handed over another petition to Home Minister Rajnath Singh at his Akbar Road residence in New Delhi over safety of women in Odisha. BJP leader Sambit Patra was among those who met Rajnath Singh today.

She was attacked again for daring to submit a petition to Hon'ble PM during his visit to the state on 15th April to attend the BJP NE Meet.- Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) May 1, 2017

After meeting Rajnath Singh, Dharmendra Pradhan said, "We came to tell the Home Minister about this issue. We asked him to take cognizance of the issue. He has assured us action."

Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan-led delegation submitted a petition to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

ALSO READ |

Odisha is new laboratory of Narendra Modi's pro-poor schemes, says Dharmendra Pradhan

Odisha: Naveen Patnaik visits violence-hit Bhadrak, says will act against those stoking communal tension

ALSO WATCH | Odisha: Section 144 imposed in Bhadrak after violent clash over FB post on Hindu deities

--- ENDS ---
- The Senate wants the judiciary to interpret the powers of the executive when it comes to appointments

- Senate's deputy spokesman Ben Murray-Bruce says the Red Chamber would officially reveal its position on Tuesday, May 2

- Not all lawmakers in the upper house of legislature are happy with the proposed move to place embargo on President Buhari's nominations

The last appears not to have been heard about the conflict between the Presidency and the National Assembly over President Buharis determination to keep Ibrahim Magu as EFCC boss even after being rejected twice by the Senate.

The Punch reports that the upper house of legislature has concluded plans to block confirmation of nominees sent to it by President Muhammadu Buhari.

This, the report says, is part of the lawmakers strategies for a showdown with the Presidency.

Senate believes that only a judicial interpretation of President Buhari's powers can stop the conflict over Magu's retention.

It was gathered on Sunday, April 30 that the Senate chose this line of action after Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law, backed human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) that Section 171 of the Constitution empowers the President to make some appointments without the approval of the National Assembly.

The Punch quotes an anonymous source in the leadership of the Senate as saying that the legislature and the executive have conflicting interpretation of the Constitution on their powers and responsibilities.

The embargo on appointments would now be placed until an intervention by the judiciary is achieved.

READ ALSO: Police arrest driver who buys food, fuel for Boko Haram

According to the source, the executive should go to court and not the legislature to get an interpretation of its powers.

The National Assembly source said on Sunday: There is going to be a constitutional crisis in Nigeria because the Senate is now at a crossroads on what to do with the nominations made by the President for which he is seeking the confirmation by the Senate.

Going by what Osinbajo said on Magu, it means that the nations Presidents from 1999, who sent nominations to the Senate for confirmation, had all breached the Constitution. Even Buhari, who has been sending nominations to the Senate, was not properly advised.

The source added: They may not (be considered, including those of the CBN, NERC and others just sent to the Senate, because of the claims made by the Vice-President. He spoke as if he was speaking the mind of the President.

They (Presidency) should proceed to court to seek endorsement for their position. It is their business to go to the court, not the Senates. The Vice President has already stalled the nomination and confirmation processes by his unguarded statements.

He somehow agreed with Falana that there is no need for legislative confirmation for the appointments. With the Section 171 claim by the Vice-President, the Senate is now at a crossroads on whether to go on with the confirmation (of appointments) or adopt the new claim by the Presidency.

The National Assembly follows established laws, which have been used for all dealings with the other arms of government. If they now have a contrary view, they should go to court.

The Punch however reports that the move by the Senate is not a widely accepted one as some lawmakers are against it.

A All Progressives Congress member of the upper house said the move would only make the Senate even more unpopular following series of recent actions that have received massive backlash.

The lawmaker said: Between you and I, that is rubbish. The issue of Magu is rubbish; the issue of (the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service) Hameed Ali is rubbish.

If some of us insist on Magus removal and Ali should appear before the Senate in uniform, how does that put food on the table of Nigerians? And we are supposed to focus on what can improve the life of the average Nigerians; we are not doing that. But we are busy with Ali, Magu and other issues. It is so unfortunate.

READ ALSO: Police warns IPOB against planned protest in Abuja

Vice-Chairman of Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs Senator Ben Murray-Bruce hinted that plans are afoot to deal with the matter of conflict between the presidency and Senate.

This, he said, would be addressed on Tuesday, May 2.

He said: By Tuesday, Senator Sabi (Abdullahi) will speak on the issue as reflected by the joint decision of the Senate. Nobody can take any individual position (on the matter); the Senate will take the position.

Sabi will take that position because I have not gotten any official communication from the Senate and I dont have any opinion (on the matter).

Legit.ng had earlier reported weeks back that following EFCC acting chairman Ibrahim Magus saga, the Nigerian Senate was considering taking the matter of confirmation of President Muhammadu Buharis appointees to the Supreme Court.

The Senate had been concerned about submissions by legal luminaries like Femi Falana and others that President Buharis appointments were not subject to confirmation by the legislature.

Particularly worrisome to lawmakers in the upper house of legislature are the contents of section 171 of the constitution which the legal commentators use to buttress claims that Magu does not need the Senates confirmation.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nigerians giving their opinions on whether the Nigerian Senate should be scrapped or not.

Source: Legit.ng
- Former governor of Jigawa state, Alhaji Sule Lamido was arrested on Sunday

- Lamido's house was also searched by the police

- The governor has been accused of making inciting comments

- The petition that led to his arrest was sent by Jigawa state government

Following his arrest and Sunday, April 30, the Nigerian Police Force has explained why the arrest and detention of former governor Sule Lamido was necessary.

Lamido, according to the Kano state police spokesperson, Samba Sokoto, made some inciting statements during Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) meeting in Dutse, Jigawa state.

The ex-governor's alleged offence is contrary to Section 114 of the penal code and the police vowed to charge him to court after investigations.

According to Premium Times, Sokoto said the investigation was triggered by a petition received on April 27 from the Jigawa state government against the former governor, who was accused of asking his supporters to resort to violence if the July 1 local government elections did not go their way.

In the petition originally written in Hausa, the former governor reportedly urged followers to 'break heads'.

Lamido was arrested for allegedly making inciting statements during a rally in Dutse, Jigawa state.

READ ALSO: Presidency denies that Buhari is allegedly so sick he cannot eat or drink

He allegedly said: Before the election I will make every one of you swear with his life to protect our cause. No matter what, I will not listen to you for complaining. All I want is to come for your bail in the police station breaking another persons head or you fought someone because the administration belongs to mad people."

Lamido was arrested at his Sharada Kano home on Sunday, April 30 morning and taken away to the Zone One Command of the Nigeria Police in Kano.

When Lamido's house was however searched by the police, a police source revealed that nothing incriminating was found in the House.

The ex-governor spent the night in detention and may be there till Tuesday, when he can be charged to court for trial.

Lamido's political aide, Dahiru Kera, however said that the former governor is being victimised by those in power.

READ ALSO: Police warns IPOB against planned protest in Abuja

Legit.ng recalls that Lamido recently said that President Muhammadu Buhari is not really fighting the war against corruption because he is corrupt himself.

Lamido told BBC Hausa Service that Buhari equally corrupt when he served under the late Head of State Sani Abacha and his present anti-corruption war is just noise.

Lamido said Buhari, who served as chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) that was established by Abacha in 1994 to provide important facilities across the country, dipped his hands in the national treasury as well.

In this Legit.ng video below, Emir Sanusi laments the incompetence of Nigerian leaders;

Source: Legit.ng
- A Niger Delta coalition group criticised Olusegon Obasanjo for his comments about Jonathan

- The group said Obasanjo has no moral right to say anything about Jonathan

- It claimed Jonathan was removed as a result of conspiracy between Yorubas and Hausas

A coalition of civil society groups in the Niger Delta region has described Goodluck Jonathan as the best president Nigeria has had so far and criticised Olusegun Obasanjo for his comments.

Legit.ng had earlier reported that Obasanjo had reiterated that he was against Jonathan running for a second term in office as he had earlier promised not to seek a second term.

READ ALSO: Presidency denies that Buhari is allegedly so sick he cannot eat or drink

Obasanjo said Jonathan showed he was incapable of handling the countrys apex position as he was always looking at the world from the prism of his Ijaw community.

Daily Post reports that the group said there was evil plot against Jonathan which was why he lost his re-election bid.

The group said: Jonathan remains the best President Nigeria ever had. He may have his own short comings but he has the best democratic credentials far and above his predecessors including the present Government.

We disagree with Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in all fronts. OBJ has no moral rectitude to say Jonathan was not qualified to rule the country. When Jonathan was a good political son to OBJ then he was not childish. How can a man of Obasanjo status is making such irresponsible and baseless comment on Jonathan who had all the qualities to govern the Country when they were in good terms? It is quite true that some of our political leaders are becoming a big burden to the younger generation.

The group insisted that corruption was not the reason Jonathan was voted out but due to the conspiracy between the Yorubas and Hausas.

READ ALSO: Fresh war brews between Presidency and Senate over Magu

He failed because some persons felt governance is their birth right and that nobody apart from them is qualified to rule Nigeria. Even if Jonathan had won the election, there would still be civil war because the conspiracy was to prevent a minority from further steering the ship of the nation.

The western powers that aided his defeat were just products of political invention through the propaganda machineries of the Yoruba, Hausa and Fulani hegemony.

Meanwhile, Obasanjo has revealed that he was against the emergence of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan as president of the country in 2015 after he went against two important promises he made.

Obasanjo said he warned Jonathan not to appoint Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke as minister of petroleum but he refused and went ahead to give her the portfolio.

He also said there was also an initial agreement that Jonathan would not run in the 2015 elections but he refused because he felt he could win the election..

Source: Legit.ng
- Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu played a major role in ensuring that Nnamdi Kanu met his bail conditions in a space of 48 hours

- Ekweremadu was said to have rallied Igbos of different social strata nationwide to meet the bail conditions

- There were initial concerns the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) leader might not meet the bail conditions

- For more of the latest news and updates on Biafra, visit https://www.legit.ng/tag/1420-biafra.html

A report by Thisday has detailed how Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu played a major role in ensuring that Nnamdi Kanu met his bail conditions in a space of 48 hours.

Ekweremadu was said to have rallied Igbos of different social strata nationwide to meet the bail conditions, as there were initial concerns the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) leader might not meet the bail conditions.

Ekweremadu was said to have reached out to prominent Igbo leaders to meet Nnamdi Kanus bail terms

Kanu, alongside David Nwawuisi, Benjamin Madubugwu and Chidiebere Onwudiwe were arrested in October 2015 by the federal government for alleged treason.

The IPOB leader was granted bail by a court at some point, but the order was disobeyed by the federal government which moved him from his detention cell at the Department of State Services (DSS) to Kuje Prison on the outskirts of Abuja.

However, on Wednesday, April 26 Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja granted bail to Kanu under very stringent terms.

The terms included three sureties, one of whom must be a serving senator, a Judaism religion leader, and a highly respected person. All three sureties were required to own landed property in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with the sum of N100 million each.

She also warned Kanu against granting press interviews, holding rallies or being in a gathering of more than 10 persons while on bail, threatening to revoke his bail if he flouted any of the conditions. She, however, denied Kanus other colleagues bail.

READ ALSO: Group blasts Obasanjo for comment about Jonathan

Kanu's bail sparked jubilation across the South-east

Legit.ng gathered that Kanu initially rejected his release on the grounds that his colleagues must be released alongside him, but he was prevailed upon by prominent Igbo leaders to accept the bail.

They also advised him that he would be better off appealing the bail terms gagging him from the outside rather than in the custody of the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS).

They also promised that they would meet with Ekweremadu to reach out to other Igbo prominent leaders, businessmen, traders and professionals to raise the money in a matter of hours to meet the bail terms.

Ekweremadu was said to have quickly rallied several prominent Igbos to his Abuja home for a meeting to discuss how to meet the bail conditions and get Kanu out of prison.

One of the senators of South-east extraction who was at the meeting said he was ready to bring the N100 million ordered by Justice Nyako, but was concerned about the prying eye of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which is at daggers drawn with the Senate and has already been accused by some senators of harassing them.

Some of the personaliis who stood as surety for Nnamdi Kanu

On this basis, those at the meeting decided that they would all reach out to Igbo traders and businessmen, professionals, politicians and other leaders in the country to raise the N300 million immediately.

Having agreed to the strategy, dedicated account numbers were immediately sent to several Igbos nationwide, especially those in Abuja, as they are believed to contribute up to 40 per cent FCTs gross domestic product (GDP).

The source revealed that once word was sent out for donations, the amount needed was raised with proper accounting of who gave what for record purposes.

It was also not difficult to get a Jewish religion leader since a few Igbos consider themselves Jews and have long converted to Judaism.

Interestingly, Kanu, while in detention, converted to Judaism, making it easy for a respectable Jewish religious leader to come forward and stand as surety for him.

READ ALSO: Former militant commander invests in rice farming in Bayelsa state

Meanwhile, IPOB has bestowed upon Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state the title of honorary governor of Biafra Republic.

According to the group, the honorary title given to Fayose is in recognition of his support to their leader, Nnamdi Kanu and show of courage at the court sitting in Abuja, where the IPOB leader was granted bail.

Source: Legit.ng
- Chief Olusegun Obasanjo said he has no apology to people he offended during his administration

- He said everything he did was for the progress of the country

- He blamed leaders failing to consolidate on the progress of their predecessor

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that he has no apologies for threading on peoples toes during his eight-year administration as president of Nigeria.

The former president said he did what he had to do and has no regrets for his actions.

The Punch reports that Obasanjo spoke in Lagos on Friday during a reception organised by his close associates to celebrate his 80th birthday.

I make no apologies for treading on anybodys toes. If anybody put their toes on my path, I will tread on them.

READ ALSO: Presidency denies that Buhari is allegedly so sick he cannot eat or drink

The former president said the reason Nigeria was looking like a failed state was because leaders failed to consolidate on the achievement of their predecessors.

He said during one of his visits to Singapore, he asked the countrys former Prime Minister, Harry Lee Kuan Yew about the secret of the countrys success.

Obasanjo said: He (Yew) simply told me their secret was that they did a few things right and continued to do them right. We keep lamenting as if Nigeria is impossible to run or get things rights.

I think that during my tenure as president, we did quite a few things right but our failure to continue to do what we have done right is the problem.

One of the things we got right was the Universal Basic Education. We said Nigerians had no reason not to have at least nine years of education.

On primary healthcare, we did things right because we realised that if we provided basic care for malaria treatment, we would reduce infant and maternal mortality.

On anti-corruption, I think we got it right. But did we continue to get things right?

READ ALSO: Group blasts Obasanjo for comment about Jonathan

Former governor of Ogun, Gbenga Daniel also confirmed that Obasanjo stepped on toes.

He said: In fact, Baba almost crushed my toes. But Baba is a great man who cares for the nation and wants things to be done the right way.

Source: Legit.ng
- Iboro Akpan, a former leader of Ikono Legislative Council in Akwa Ibom, has made history after former President Olusegun Obasanjo as the second former PDP member to publicly shred his PDP membership card

- Akpan alongside over 500 members of the PDP in Ikono LGA defected to APC over the weekend

- The defectors say the PDP being heavily factionalized would fade away from Akwa Ibom politics in 2019

Over 500 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ikono local government area in Akwa Ibom on Sunday, April 30, defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The defection in Ikono, generally regarded as the cradle of the Ibibio, witnessed top PDP chieftains dump the party for the APC.

Among those that defected were four former councillors, Iboro Akpan, Samuel Etuk, Ndifreke Essien and Jonathan Umana, NAN reports.

Others include; Dr George Udoh, a former PDP chapter secretary, Dr Silas Udofia, a former University of Uyo official and Victor Etefia, an oil mogul in the state.

PDP member imitates Obasanjo, tears membership card as over 500 defect to APC in A'Ibom

Receiving the defectors, Obong Uko Umoh, state APC vice chairman for Akwa Ibom North East Senatorial District, who represented the State Chairman Dr Amadu Atai, said that the PDP being heavily factionalized would fade away from Akwa Ibom politics in 2019.

READ ALSO: How Ekweremadu reached out to prominent Igbo leaders to meet Nnamdi Kanus bail terms

He charged the defectors to return to their wards to join existing APC members to preach the message of change.

In his remarks, the immediate past senator of Akwa Ibom North West in the National Assembly, Sen. Aloysius Etok, expressed joy that all the real politicians in the area were together in the APC.

Etok assured the APC in the state of bloc votes in Ikono in the 2019 general elections.

Governor Emmanuel Udom

READ ALSO: Fresh war brews between Presidency and Senate over Magu

According to him, the era of writing election results in Government House, Uyo is over.

He described some of those still in Ikono PDP as lightweight and violent politicians with no grassroots support.

Etok also dismissed claim by the PDP state government that it had constructed 250 kilometres of roads in the state.

Also speaking, former member of the House of Representatives for Ikono/Ini federal constituency, Mrs Iquo Inyang commended the defectors for choosing to embrace the change that was going on in the country.

Inyang applauded the anti-corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

She said that the anti-corruption war was the answer to the prayers of Nigerians who were impoverished by the mindless looting of the treasury by the last PDP government.

Speaking on behalf of the defectors, Iboro Akpan, a former leader of Ikono Legislative Council assured APC of their total commitment.

He said he was making history after former President Olusegun Obasanjo as the second former PDP member to publicly shred his membership card.

Two years ago, Legit.ng reported that former president Olusegun Obasanjo finally decided to part ways with the PDP by tearing his membership card.

Chief Obasanjo dumped the PDP, declaring that he was no longer interested in the party.

Watch man complaining about the APC government

Source: Legit.ng
The police officials told India Today that in Haryana there is a tendency not to report the cases of eve teasing.

By Manjeet Sehgal: Days after Operation Durga was launched to curb eve-teasing, the Haryana Police has identified the main culprit of the menace- victims not reporting the cases.

The police officials told India Today that in Haryana there is a tendency not to report the cases of eve teasing.

The records show that the number of eve teasing cases which were 251 in 2015 came down to 160 in 2016. This year between January and March only 26 cases have been reported which means the victims are not reporting the cases.

advertisement

Additional Director General of Police, OP Singh said, "One of the objectives of Operation Durga is to educate girls to report cases and help them overcome their fears."

'OPERATION DURGA NOT ABOUT MORAL POLICING'

The operation has been launched in all 22 districts and is being run by 21 women police stations with the help of 824 police officials out of which more than 600 are females. Apart from this, the flying squads have been provided with 140 vehicles to nab the eve teasers.

Haryana Police says it will not harass couples. Haryana Police says it will not harass couples.

Haryana Police officials say that Durga operation will be different from Uttar Pradesh's anti-Romeo squad as the police will not harass couples.

Meanwhile, the flying squads today scanned public places in various districts and found romeos standing near bus stops, parks, cinema halls and girls colleges. A boy was also caught clicking photos of girls at Kurukshetra bus stop.

Earlier in April this year, the state police had rounded up more than 70 youths in various parts of Haryana on charges of eve-teasing.

"Operation Durga is not about moral policing. There will be no reign of terror. Initially, we will warn the youth about the ill effects of eve-teasing and how they will be booked under Section 509 and 294 of IPC and they will not be getting any character certificates. We will also be monitoring the incidents through CCTV cameras." OP Singh said.

WHAT IS YASH?

However, the first day of Operation Durga resulted in cases where police officials were caught harassing innocent boys found roaming at bus stops.

Haryana police today also announced a social media campaign to encourage state's youths to join the movement against eve-teasing as volunteers.

The campaign has been named as YASH (Youths Against Sexual Harassment). The police has also started a Twitter handle besides a Facebook page to encourage people to report the cases of eve-teasing by uploading photos and videos as evidence.

--- ENDS ---
- The youths had stormed an Akwa Ibom community in speedboats to attack it when they met resistance from soldiers

- The youths three grenades at homes and fired at them before the soldiers stopped the onslaught

- The police has yet to confirm the incident which occurred on Saturday, April 29

Reports from Cross River state say that Nigerian Army troops have killed not fewer than eight armed youths from Ikot Offiong area of the Niger Delta state.

The youths were said to have met their Waterloo as they stormed Ikot Ada Akpan in Oku Iboku in the Itu local government area of Akwa Ibom state in speedboats to attack the community on Saturday, April 29.

Eyewitnesses say that the assailants threw hand grenades and fired shots at houses of residents in the community.

The attack was however stopped promptly by some soldiers guarding the area that killed the eight of them and injured several others.

READ ALSO: Female vigilante fighting Boko Haram in Maiduguri

Dr Demson Ekong, an eyewitness and indigene of the state, said the incident occurred on Saturday afternoon.

He said: The soldiers intervened and prevented the mercenaries from killing us.

As the assailants were throwing hand grenades and shooting into peoples houses, the soldiers intervened immediately. On Sunday, we heard that the soldiers killed eight of the assailants.

NAIJ..com had reported some while back that several people were killed in a clash between communities in Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.

The clash was caused by a boundary dispute between people of Oku Iboku in Itu Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom and those of Ikot Offiong in Odukpani LGA in Cross River.

Heavy, war-like fighting began on Friday, February 10 night between the communities with light and heavy weapons used by both sides.

The report quotes an unconfirmed source as saying that over 20 people were left dead at the end of the fighting.

Most of those killed were from Ikot Offiong after Oku Iboku youths ambushed them in the attack and chased them to the neigbouring Odukpani community.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of how leader of pro-Biafra agitation group IPOB was released from Kuje Prison on Friday, April 28

Source: Legit.ng
The general overseer of Omega Fire Ministries, Apostle Johnson Suleman, seems not to be bothered anymore about the scandal surrounding him!

The man of God was recently spotted in a private jet on his way to South Africa for this year's edition of 'Help from Above'. Apostle Suleman will be in Johannesburg from May 2 to May 4.

See photos of him in the private jet below:

READ ALSO: Nigerian prophetess calls Apostle Suleman a fake pastor (Video)

Recall that Legit.ng had earlier reported that there have been accusations and counter accusations against Apostle Johnson Suleiman, which centered on infidelity and squandering of his church funds on Nigerian actresses and Miss Otobo.

Miss Otobo who is hell bent on pulling down the pillars of Apostle Sulemans ministry recently released a bank statement showing the man of God made a deposit into her account. This was done to solidify her claims on the relationship she had with the Apostle. To further erase the doubts that may still be lingering in some people's hearts, she also released screenshots of their bbm chats.

Source: Legit.ng
Adetokunbo Adetola Abigail is a 20-year-old Nigerian girl who is striving hard to see that childrens rights in Nigeria are protected. The NCE holder has not allowed her educational qualification to affect the good she has to offer the nation and children at large.

Legit.ng correspondent recently got in touch with the young girl after getting to know she recently organized a walk in Alapere area of Lagos. The walk was to sensitize children and parents on the need to protect the young ones from all sorts of abuses.

The rate at which children are being molested and abused has become a major point of concern to people who are ardent lovers of children. Abigail runs an NGO which she calls Kiyeseni; a weird choice of name.

Adetokunbo Adetola Abigail, the 20-year-old Nigerian girl working wonders.

However, the interaction she had with a Legit.ng correspondent will reveal all you need to know about her, the passion she has for children and her drive. It is intriguing to know that this young girl has achieved so much with little or no financial support.

Read the excerpts from the interview below:

Can you tell us more about yourself, family background and academic qualifications?

I am the only girl in a family of six. I finished my NCE programme last year October in Kwara state College of Education where I studied Biology/Integrated science. I'm 20 years old. I was born in Lagos but my father is a native of Ondo state.

The smart beautiful girl who is concerned about children in Nigeria.

How long have you been into this programme?

I have been running this programme for about six years now although this is my first walk.

Abigail with one of the kids during her recent awareness talk and walk.

What prompted you into doing it in the first place?

I have always had this passion for children since I was younger. I want to do all that I possibly can to make this world a safe place for them. To positively push them to be the best they can be.

How would you rate the reception of people since you began the awareness?

My team members and I took to social media platforms to publicize while my parents helped in sensitizing the areas. We got amazing support and the people from the streets we walked were curious to know. Most of them sent their children with us to the talk venue.

READ ALSO: Bishop Tom Samson spotted in N74m Bentley for Sunday service (photos)

Funding is a major issue with NGOs, how have you been coping?

Funding! It has not been easy. For this walk and talk (we had a talk too), my team members and I asked family and friends and people for funds. I sincerely appreciate them.

What was your ambition while growing up?

I have always wanted to be a teacher. Not just any teacher but a professional one (smiles). I am steadily getting there.

During the recent walk she had at Alapere Ketu.

Has anything changed about it?

The passion keeps me going. I see children and I feel peace. They deserve the best. They are the tomorrow we depend on. We create a safe place for them to maximally develop, they maximize their potentials. That in turn creates the better life we desire.

What motivates you to continue doing what you are doing?

The fact that l am 20 is true. I have had my wings clipped several times because of that but here am I. Still keeping on. The area of support is another area that gives me headache. What is a foundation or dream without support, finances and publicity?

The area of expertise support matters too. If we want the people to know the legal implications of subjecting children to abuse, it is possible I read up on that but what if it has to be delivered in a particular language?

Kiyeseni celebrating with the children during the walk.

Tell us about the foundation and what made you choose the name

The name KIYESENI has a story behind it. My mom told me that I was born very small. I was not a premature baby and she did every right thing a pregnant woman does but I was just so small that when she was leaving the hospital she had to wrap me with a towel before putting me on her back.

Kiyeseni with Mrs Titilope Odelola, the CEO of Kidikingdom.

A friend of hers came visiting few days later and almost sat on me because she didn't know I was there. She actually gave me the name KIYESENI which means 'watch out for this one'.

I decided to use the name because when I look at the children I've been privileged to help and work with, they are really one of the best our nation desires. What she needs.

READ ALSO: Pastor Chris Oyakhilome meets South African President Jacob Zuma and his wife (photos)

KIYESENI foundation has to do with everything that deals with children. We help put out-of-school children back to Schools, provide relief materials to them and their families, create awareness on issues dealing with children, organize educative programmes in the communities and a whole lot of other activities.

Kiyeseni lending a voice to the children in the community.

Which major challenges have you tried to overcome since you began?

Sponsorship is one of the major challenges.

Have your parents supported since you started?

My parents and brothers have been very supportive since I started. I remember when I would just barge into the house about a child or family needing help and how my parents would run around to make sure it is done. I cannot thank them enough.

Kiyeseni and her parents at the event.

Meanwhile, the Legit.ng video below shows what some children in Nigeria are going through. These ones are pleading with the government not ti demolish their homes:

Source: Legit.ng
- There are growing calls from Nigerians over the whereabouts of President Muhammadu Buhari

- Buhari has not been seen in public for almost two weeks

- The president also failed to address Nigeria's workers today, Monday, May 1 reserved to celebrate workers worldwide

- To read more about President Buhari's state of health and other news about the Nigerian leader, please visit: https://www.legit.ng/tag/buhari-news.html

There are growing calls from Nigerians over the whereabouts of President Muhammadu Buhari by Nigerians on micro-blogging site, Twitter.

Buhari has not been seen in public for almost two weeks, but the presidency insists he is healthy and recuperating fine.

The president had spent almost two months receving medical treatment in London. The presidency had first announced that he was there for a 10-day leave. But he extended the leave on medical grounds.

President Buhari failed to address Nigerian workers today, Monday, May 1 as they joined their counterparts all over the world to celebrate International Workers Day.

This has prompted some concern Nigerians to start the campaign tagged #WhereisBuhari on Twitter.

READ ALSO: Open letter to President Buhari - Am I not qualified?

Legit.ng has been monitoring the tweets. See below:

Distance is not a barrier...

Stay woke!

Drag them....

Worrisome...

Urgent!

Source: Legit.ng
The Indian Army called the firing by Pakistan forces unprovoked and said there will be an appropriate response to it.

By India Today Web Desk: The bodies of two Indian soldiers were mutilated by the Pakistan Army along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Krishna Ghati sector of Jammu and Kashmir.

In retaliation, the Indian Army has pounded Pakistan Army posts along the LoC . In the meantime, Pakistan has claimed that they did not commit ceasefire violation nor mutilated Indian soldiers.

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In a ceasefire violation, the Pakistan Army today opened rocket and mortar firing on two forward posts along the Line of Control. Pakistan's Border Action Team (BAT) attacked an Indian joint patrol team and mutilated its two soldiers.

Martyred soldiers Prem Sagar and Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh

Calling the firing "unprovoked", the Northern Command in a statement said, "In an unsoldierly act by the Pakistan Army, the bodies of two of our soldiers in the patrol were mutilated. Such despicable act of Pakistan Army will be appropriately responded".

Incident Krishna Ghati Sector . Statement attached. pic.twitter.com/yyNFqCEHDm- NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) May 1, 2017

The statement issued by the Northern Command said that even as firing was opened on the Indian posts, "a BAT (Border Action Team) action was launched on a patrol operating in between the two posts".

HOW INDIAN TROOPS WERE ATTACKED

According to sources, local intelligence was available to Indian troops about possible landmines being laid out by Pakistani operatives near the Line of Control. When a team reached the forward defence line to check for the mines, they came under the attack from the Pakistan Army.

The Pakistan Army is believed to have entered 200 metres inside the Indian territory along the Line of Control.

The combined patrol team of BSF and Army was ambushed near Nangi Tekri area. The Pakistan Army fired rocket-propelled grenades and followed it up with mortar firing and mutilation of Indian troops.

Head constable Prem Sagar of the Border Security Force and Naib Subedar Paramjit Singh of 22 Sikh Regiment were mutilated by the Pakistan Army. Another BSF soldier Rajendra Singh received splinter injuries.

PAKISTAN INVITING ITS OWN RUIN

Former home secretary and BJP MP R K Singh said that the manner in which Pakistan's BAT treated Indian soldiers, the Indian Army should pay back in the same coin. "They mutilated the bodies of our two soldiers, we should mutilate the bodies of four Pakistani soldiers," the BJP MP said.

BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that Pakistan is inviting its own destruction, adding that the Indian Army would give a befitting reply to the attack.

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Pakistan, however, denied committing any ceasefire violation or mutilating Indian soldiers. "Pakistan Army is highly professional force and will never disrespect a soldier," said M Nafees Zakaria, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Pakistan.

Pakistan Army did not commit any ceasefire violation on LoC as alleged by India. Indian blame of mutilating Indian soldiers is also false.- M. Nafees Zakaria (@ForeignOfficePk) May 1, 2017

A WAY TO LET TERRORIST SLIP IN?

The unprovoked firing at Indian posts comes a day after Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited areas along the Line of Control. During his visit, the Pakistan Army chief accused India of "state-sponsored" terrorism in Kashmir.

According to sources, at least 100 terrorists of Laskar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad are waiting for an opportunity to enter India.

The firing is reportedly a means through which Pakistan is providing cover to terrorists so that they can cross the border and enter India, said sources.

(With inputs from Ashwini Kumar, Kamaljit Sandhu, and Gaurav Sawant)

ALSO READ:

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Army launches biggest assault since 2003 against Pakistan to avenge soldier's beheading

Indian jawan's beheading: Army has given befitting reply to Pak, says Gen Bikram Singh

8 Pakistan Army soldiers killed as India retaliates to ceasefire violation along LoC in Rajouri

WATCH VIDEO | Pakistan mutilates bodies of 2 Indian jawans near LoC, Army vows revenge

--- ENDS ---
- Troops of Operation DELTA SAFE have shot dead a notorious militant

- Ossy Ibori was killed at Ajakpa, Ese-Odo local government area of Ondo state

- Efforts are ongoing to apprehend other members of the gang

Ossy Ibori, leader of a militant group has been shot dead by Troops of Operation DELTA SAFE at Ajakpa, Ese-Odo local government area of Ondo state.

READ ALSO: Loud calls over Buhari's whereabout reverberates on Nigerian Twitter

The militant, known by the name Ossy was killed at about 3 am on Monday at Ajakpa area of Ondo state by soldiers during an attack on troops location around Ajakpa community in the creeks of Southern Ondo state last night.

Operation DELTA SAFE has the mandate ridding the Niger Delta of all criminal acts of militancy and kidnappings

While confirming the incident, Owoseni said that the gang retreated to their base in Ajakpa in Ondo state because they could no longer lay claim to the creaks in Isawo area, Ikorodu.

He said: "Around 3am today, a squad of soldiers posted to dislodge the militants that have been wrecking havoc in some parts of Lagos engage the criminals in a shootout at Ajakpa. During which the suspected leader of the gang known as Ossy was killed. Efforts is ongoing to arrest other gang members."

READ ALSO: Presidency denies that Buhari is allegedly so sick he cannot eat or drink

Operation DELTA SAFE has the mandate ridding the Niger Delta of all criminal acts of militancy and kidnappings.

Major Abubakar Abdullahi, Coordinator, Joint Media Campaign Centre of Operation Delta Safe while announcing the death of the notorious militant said:

"It could be recalled that, criminal gangs led by late Ossy Ibori have been terrorising parts of Lagos,Ogun and Ondo states prior to this operation. They committed many atrocities threatening the peace and security of the general areas.

"Last month, the gang kill an army captain and 2 Policemen at Ikorodu. Also late last year, abducted students and staff of a secondary school. The criminals in addition, carried out several attacks at Ese-Odo community around Ajakpa,Safarogbo and Balowo areas.

"The need to flush them out from their hudeout became necessary to ensure peace and sexurity in Ondo state. Sadly in the process, one gallant soldier paid the supreme price while 3 others sustained gun shot wounds.

"They have since been moved to military hospital for proper medical attention. While the operation is ongoing, let me appeal to law abiding residents of the affected communities to remain calm, vigilant and support our troops with valuable information on whereabouts of other criminals."

In the video below by Legit.ng, a 63-year old woman laments losing son to cultists.

Watch the video:

Source: Legit.ng
- President Buhari has been asked to release the "political prisoners" he has in his custody

- The Peoples Democratic Party have demanded that PMB releases Sule Lamido and Gabriel Suswan

- According to the PDP, the arrest of both members of the party was politically engineered

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Caretaker Committee has called for the unconditional release of two members of the party.

PDP has demanded that the former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, ex-Governor Gabriel Suswan and other political detainees in government custody, be released.

Legit.ng gathered that the PDP made the call in a statement issued by Dayo Adeyeye, the national publicity secretary of the committee on Monday, May 1.

The party said its attention has been once again drawn to unwarranted arrest and detention of Lamido by men of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) in Kano State.

Mr Adeyeye described the arrest of Mr. Lamido as outrageous and anti-democratic and not based on the frivolous allegation of inciting the public leveled against him.

The true reason for his arrest, however, has to do with the forthcoming Local Government elections in Jigawa State, the party said.

PDP says Buhari is keeping political prisoners

The arrest of former Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue, according to the party, was also linked to the forthcoming Local Government elections in the state, Premium Times reports.

We are therefore calling on the security agencies in the country to release unconditionally, Lamido, Suswam, former Governor of Niger State, Dr Babangida Aliyu, and all other political detainees in their custody, the party stated.

Mr. Adeyeye added that PDP was also aware that members of the opposition would be in for a hard time in the run-up to the 2019 general elections with more arrests and intimidation of their prominent leaders.

He added that Mr. Lamido merely asked the people to defend their votes against rigging, saying how is that a crime?

If you are not planning to steal the peoples votes, why should you be afraid if the people are advised to defend their votes?

Of course, no thief would want the owner to guard his house against burglary.

Daily Post reports that the PDP recalled that prior to 2015 general election there were inciting statement credited to some members of the then opposition party and no arrest was made.

It was not a sign of weakness by the PDP led Government. It was in deference to freedom of speech, democracy and peace, the party said.

The party accused members of the ruling party of being the ones instigating the lawlessness in Kogi, Niger, Benue and now Jigawa state.

If this ugly trend is not stopped forthwith, it may lead to breach of peace and public disorder, the party warned.

In an earlier report by Legit.ng, residents of Kastina state, President Muhammadu Buhari's home state, have raised concerns over the health status of the president.

A resident, Abdulmumini Shehu Sani, said it has become pertinent that the presidency take the bull by the horn and allow President Buhari resign and attend to his health.

Speaking on the president's health, the chairman of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Kastina state chapter Abdulmumini Shehu Sani said due process must be observed in handling the affairs of the nation.

In a similar vein, a Pentecostal Bishop, Rt. Rev. Seun Adeoye, has urged Nigerians to pray for the quick recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari, saying his well-being is so important to the nations co-existence and stability.

Legit.ng gathered that Bishop Adeoye warned that if anything should happen to President Buhari, such would be a difficult burden for the nation to bear as Nigeria will fall into wrong hands that are ready do anything to turn it into their private estates.

The cleric, who spoke during the 1st Episcopal Honours and Gallantry Awards held at the weekend at Sufficient Grace and Truth Ministry, Rehoboth Arena, Okinni, Osun State, noted that only God can sustain the Presidents health.

Meanwhile, the presidency has denied a report by Sahara Reporters on Sunday, April 30 which claimed President Muhammadu Buhari is so sick that he cannot eat or drink with ease.

The online news platform had said in its report that three different sources in the presidency confirmed the alleged sad state of the presidents health.

But President Buhari's personal assistant on new media Bashir Ahmad said the report was totally untrue.

Ahmad cleared the air late on Sunday, April 30 after the report claimed that the Presidents health had deteriorated seriously in the last few weeks.

Source: Legit.ng
As episodes the title implies, Crazy Whitefella Thinking is in part about the arrogance of an outsider who embraces his messianic delusions at the expense of other peoples feelings and property. A lot of the episode is like a sad caper comedy, as an old coot scrambles from town to town, one step ahead of the authorities, in search of a man named Christopher Sunday who can teach him the last song he needs to keep the End Times at bay. Even when he finally finds Chris, Kevin Sr. tells a rambling story about hallucinogens, a two-week blackout, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, and how a chicken named Tony randomly pecked at the Niagara 81 tape and gave him a renewed sense of purpose. Then Kevin Sr. tries to fix the mans air-conditioner and ends up falling off the roof, crushing his host.

Throughout the chase, the fugitive stops periodically to read and make notes on Matts new gospel, The Book of Kevin, which  in a further example of Kevin Sr.s colossal egotism  is irritating because its about the son, not the father. Its the AAA guidebook all over again: a text thats meant to be helpful but instead is self-serving. Kevin Sr. is insistent that his boy is really only a minor player in what he knows will one day be recounted as his own heroic saga. So he throws the first draft away, unmindful of the fact that he has the only photocopy.

Scott Glenn has quietly been doing great work for the past two seasons in a relatively minor role, and given his own belated showcase, he doesnt squander it. He gives one of the best performances of a distinguished career, playing a driven lunatic who justifies every dumb, selfish thing he does as an act of supreme self-sacrifice. That mania leads to Kevin Sr.s getting stranded in the desert, where his tape is destroyed, and where hes forced by hunger to try to kill and eat his totem animal, the bush snake. Predictably, the snake bites back ... and our spiritual wanderer lapses into a three-week coma.

Its here where this digressive chapter of The Leftovers (sort of) meanders its way back to the main plot. When he passes out from exhaustion, hunger and snake venom, Kevin Sr. collapses against a cross that was placed by one of the women seen at the end of last weeks episode  the women who kidnapped a local police chief named Kevin, strapped him to a board and drowned him. The rescuers name, ironically enough, is Grace.

At the end of Crazy Whitefella Thinking, Grace tells her guest a painfully tragic story about how her husband departed on Oct. 15, 2011, while she was away at the store, and about how she thought their kids had been taken too, until their dead bodies were found in the wilderness much later. Theyd gone looking for her and were killed by the elements.
Dear Diary:

It was the night of April Fools Day in 2006. I was 23 and nursing a drink at a bar on Ludlow Street.

After commuting from my parents house for a year, I had finally moved to New York City. It was a playground of cool people and things and culture, and I was awkwardly trying to find my place in it all.

Do you want to try some fancy mixed nuts? a guy asked, handing me a can.

I took it, skeptically, and twisted the top open. Out sprang a leopard-print snake.

April Fools! he said.

It was the kind of gag gift you would find next to whoopee cushions and Precious Moments figurines at a Long Island card store, not at a cool bar on the Lower East Side.
People are demanding a second round of surgical strikes against Pakistan after its army mutilates two Indian soldiers along the Line of Control.

By India Today Web Desk: Demands for a 'surgical strike 2' have kicked up pace in the country, following reports of Pakistan Army mutilating two Indian soldiers along the Line of Control.

"How long we should wait. There should be any dialogue. We want a strong & tough surgical strike then before," wrote one user CK Roshan on Twitter.

Similar calls for revenge are being made on the social media platform, with people demanding stronger actions than condemnation against Pakistan.

#BarbaricPak Another surgical strike is long overdue?- Kishore Rao (@KishoreRao10) May 1, 2017

@TimesNow Time for the next surgical strike, eliminate all the 42 terror camps to show them the intent of India,lest they will continue- Atmaram.S.K (@atmaramsk) May 1, 2017

@TimesNow India should respond with another surgical strike this time targeting directly the army unit of pak responsible for this barbarism- Satheesh Kuppili (@satheeshkuppili) May 1, 2017

PM Modi Sir release full movie only in Pakistan , as the trailer (Surgical Strike) was huge hit #BarbaricPak #BadlaLo- Sumit Bhatia (@bhatia_sumit) May 1, 2017

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The demands for strict action Pakistan refer to the Indian Army's claim that it conducted "surgical strikes" against suspected militants in Pakistan-accupied Kashmir as retaliation for a terrorist attack on an Indian Army brigade headquarters in Uri. The Uri attack claimed lives of 17 Indian jawans and was termed "the deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir in two decades."

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST SURGICAL STRIKE?

#1 On September 29 last year, at around 12:30 am, 30 Indian commandos armed with Kalashnikovs, Tavors, rocket-propelled guns and thermobaric weapons began a rare military insertion to ambush terror assets on the rugged Himalayan terrain of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. No audio devices on the ground were able to pick up any sound of their descent as they plummeted down from a freezing height of 35,000 feet.

#2 Simultaneously, seven other crews of the Indian army's Special Forces walked, crawled and slithered through Pakistani barricades across the Line of Control.

#3 Indian commandos reportedly entered three kilometres across the Line of Control to conduct the attack. Snipers with silencers silenced sentries at terror camps and the eight teams managed to reach their targets without detection and annihilated them with explosions, smoke bombs and gunfire.

#4 Seven terror launch pads were destroyed and 38 terrorists were killed in the attack. Two Pakistani soldiers were also killed in the attack.

#5 One commando stepped on a land-mine during exit and injured himself, but there was no other Indian casualties. The paras also took images of the strike on their still cameras.

#6 Indian artillery units, meanwhile, opened diversionary fire to confuse Pakistani defence forces. Pakistan retaliated heavily, and in the loud noise and confusion along the LoC, Indian commandos started slipping back, unchallenged. By 9 am, all commandos were back to their base.

Read: 4 times Indian commandos crossed the LoC for surgical strikes: All you need to know

Watch: Such attacks don't even take place during war: Defence Minister Jaitley slams Pakistan for beheading India's jawans

--- ENDS ---

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CANTON, Texas  At least nine people were killed by tornadoes or flooding this weekend in a series of storms in the South and Midwest that also brought a rare late-season blizzard to western Kansas on Sunday.

Tornadoes hit several small towns in East Texas, killing four people. Three people were killed by flooding and winds in Arkansas, and officials said they were searching for two more people. Rushing water swept away a car, drowning a woman in Missouri, and a death was reported in storms that raked Mississippi on Sunday morning.

Flooding closed part of Interstate 44 near Hazelgreen, Mo., and officials said it would be at least a day before the highway reopened. Interstate 70 in western Kansas was closed as crews waited for snow falling at 3 to 4 inches an hour being blown by 35-mile-per-hour winds to subside.

Rescuers in northwest Arkansas on Sunday continued to look for an 18-month-old girl and a 4-year-old boy who were in a vehicle swept off a bridge by floodwaters in Hindsville, the Madison County sheriffs office said.
The deal should spare Republicans the embarrassment of seeing the government shut down on their watch. But it also gave a glimpse of the reluctance of lawmakers to bend to Mr. Trumps spending priorities, like his desire for sharp cuts to domestic programs, with the increase in funding for medical research a prime example. And it leaves the border wall looming as a fight in future spending negotiations, especially if Mr. Trump presses the issue, as he vowed to do during a rally Saturday night to mark his 100th day in office.

Details of the agreement were not yet public on Sunday night, but several congressional aides described key parts of it. The measure will cover the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Lawmakers had already taken action to keep the government open while they finalized the spending agreement. On Friday, Congress approved a one-week spending measure that averted a shutdown on Saturday.

In recent days, the spending talks on Capitol Hill had seemed unlikely to result in the kind of impasse that could lead to a shutdown, the last of which occurred in 2013. Some key obstacles, including the border wall and a standoff over subsidy payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act, seemed to fall away as congressional negotiators worked on a deal. The White House said last week that it would continue to make the payments, and that message reassured Democrats who wanted to ensure that the payments, which go to insurers to lower deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for low-income consumers, would not be cut off.

Lawmakers were able to reach a resolution in the spending package on another potential sticking point, the fate of retired coal miners who faced losing their health coverage, an issue that brought lawmakers close to a government shutdown in December. The deal provides a permanent extension of health coverage for the retired miners.
MANCHESTER, N.H.  A vast array of Democratic leaders, divided by generations but uniformly emboldened by President Trumps perceived vulnerability, have begun taking palpable steps toward seeking the White House in an election that is still three and a half years away.

A prominent member of that group, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., may have sounded a starting gun for the 2020 race on Sunday night as he delivered a tough-love manifesto for the partys future to a crowd of Democrats here.

Mr. Biden called on Democrats to deliver an optimistic message aimed at the needs of struggling Americans and to emphasize issues like health care and education, which he described as largely sidelined in the last election. Im absolutely positive they want to be with us, he said of people in economic distress. We have to prove, again, we understand that hopelessness.

Mr. Biden said he was prepared to storm the country to help revive the party, and boasted of his comfort in wooing areas that voted for Mr. Trump. Wherever you want, just let me know, because its important, he said.
The new font comes in both Arabic and Latin script and is available as part of Microsoft Office 365. On Sunday, Prince Hamdan shared a video on Twitter that presented it as a powerful tool for self-expression.

Expression knows no boundaries or limits, the video said. Expression is strength and freedom. It defines who you are.

As it turns out, though, there are quite a few boundaries and limits on expression in Dubai and across the United Arab Emirates, where the news media is censored to remove criticism of the government or the coalition of royal families that controls it. Last week, the U.A.E. blocked access to the Arabic-language website of HuffPost, the latest in a series of moves to tighten access to the internet.
BY THE SEA (2015) 8 p.m. on Cinemax. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, celebrity lovebirds no more, star as Vanessa and Roland, itinerant married artists suffering exquisitely through a 1970s rough patch in a French hotel on the Mediterranean. Roland has come to work on his novel. Vanessa lounges around in negligees, her face streaked with mascara as she weeps and weeps. Then they discover a hole in their room and begin spying on the hot young newlyweds next door. Meta with a vengeance, Manohla Dargis wrote in The New York Times of Ms. Jolies melodrama. Any resemblance to real life is strictly coincidental and completely intentional.

WARNING: THIS DRUG MAY KILL YOU 10 p.m. on HBO. Nearly 100 Americans die each day from opioid overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in what public health officials have called the worst drug epidemic in the countrys history. Here, Perri Peltz follows the trajectory from prescribed painkillers like OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet to heroin.

INDEPENDENT LENS: NATIONAL BIRD (2016) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Three veterans recount their experiences in the virtual cockpit of American aerial combat drones  and their guilt about helping to kill faceless people in foreign countries.

Whats Streaming
1. President Trump is pushing for a House vote on a revised health care bill this week, maybe as soon as Wednesday.

The White House insists the bill will cover people with pre-existing conditions, but critics say it could become too expensive.
The three Nomura defendants are accused of the same type of violations as Mr. Litvak, and have raised the argument that information about the price paid for the residential mortgage-backed securities was not material to their customers.

Mr. Litvaks case could play a role in the prosecution. Shortly after his indictment in 2013, Mr. Peters engaged in a chat session with a potential buyer about the price that would be offered for mortgage securities. The customer wrote, Ok dont litvak me! Go ahead with that bid.

The government argues that Mr. Litvaks name became a verb for lying in the parlance of mortgage bond traders, so the jury should be given the charges in his case to understand the context of a statement that might otherwise be indecipherable. Prosecutors also want to use this evidence to help establish that price is material even to sophisticated investors by showing that the awareness of the charges against Mr. Litvak had seeped into the consciousness of everyone in the market, including the three Nomura defendants.

The challenge for the government is that courts do not typically allow charges against an unrelated defendant to be introduced because of the potential prejudice when jurors learn that others have been accused of similar misconduct. There is concern that the jury may implicitly conclude that birds of a feather flock together, so a case against one trader means they are all corrupt  or worse.

Prosecutors filed a brief last week pointing to the prosecution of Michael Steinberg on insider trading charges in 2013. In that case, a key cooperating witness was permitted to discuss the unrelated cases involving Galleon Group and Raj Rajaratnam that took place about the same time that the government alleged confidential information was being passed. The judge rejected a defense motion to preclude the testimony about the cases, saying it could be used to show consciousness of guilt.

As it turned out, Mr. Steinbergs subsequent convictions were dismissed at the Justice Departments request because of a lack of evidence that he knew a benefit was provided to the source of the inside information.

How much weight that precedent carries remains to be seen. The testimony in Mr. Steinbergs trial involved specific discussions about other insider trading cases. In the prosecution of the three Nomura traders, on the other hand, the reference to Mr. Litvak was much more cryptic, coming in a short chat session with only one of the three defendants.
21st Century Fox is talking to Blackstone Group about making an offer for Tribune Media, according to people briefed on the negotiations.

The potential arrangement could involve cash from Blackstone, while 21st Century Fox would contribute its 28 owned-and-operated stations to the joint venture that would buy Tribune Media, according to Bloomberg and The Financial Times, which earlier reported the deal.

The move could set off a bidding war for Tribunes stable of television stations:

 Sinclair Broadcast Group, the biggest station operator in the United States, has also made an offer for Tribune, which has a market value of about $3.2 billion.

 Nexstar, a broadcaster based in Texas with 170 local television stations, is also said to be considering an offer, according to The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
Over his career, James C. Woolery has ventured from the law to investment banking and hedge funds.

Now he is preparing to return to life as a lawyer once more, at his third law firm in six years.

Mr. Woolery announced on Monday that he was joining King & Spalding, a firm that aims to join the top rungs of the legal industry. There, he will serve as the head of the firms mergers and corporate governance practices, overseeing both takeovers and defenses against activist investors who want to shake up companies.

Given his background and resume, his deal list and his experience, its a significant hire for the firm, Robert D. Hays, King & Spaldings chairman, said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Woolery said he wanted to help companies be more proactive in warding off activist investors. He will also help guide King & Spaldings network of lead board directors, who take leadership roles on boards, on discussions of corporate governance practices.
John A. Paulson is one of the best-known names in the hedge fund industry. But these days, Mr. Paulson is having more success in the political realm than he is managing his business.

Mr. Paulson, 61, was one of the first people on Wall Street to back Donald J. Trumps bid for the presidency. He counseled Mr. Trump on economic matters during the campaign. He gave $250,000 to Mr. Trumps inaugural committee. And he recently visited President Trump at the White House for a C.E.O. Town Hall.

But his investors are unlikely to be impressed by his political access. His firm, Paulson & Company, has recorded nearly double-digit losses in several of its larger funds as of the end of March.

That dismal record is a far cry from nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Paulson made nearly $15 billion betting on the collapse of the housing market. Back then, state pension funds and investors around the world rushed to give him their money to manage. Even Mr. Trump became an investor with Mr. Paulson  and eventually lost money.
Indian posts were targeted by Pakistani rocket launchers in yet another ceasefire violation in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district.

By Ashwini Kumar: Two soldiers were martyred in Jammu and Kashmir's Mendhar tehsil in Poonch district after a ceasefire violation by Pakistan.

According to information accessed so far, Indian posts were targeted by Pakistani rocket launchers in an unprovoked ceasefire violation along the Line of Control.

The martyred are a junior commissioned officer (JCO) in the Indian Army and a head constable of the BSF. Another BSF soldier injured in the attack is out of danger.

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ATTACK AFTER PAKISTAN ARMY CHIEF's VISIT TO LoC

The site of the ceasefire violation was Krishna Ghati area in Mendhar tehsil of Poonch district.

Sources said that both the soldiers were attacked by Pakistani rockets and gunfire while they were guarding the border post along the Line of Control.

The injured soldiers were shifted to a nearby Army unit, where they succumbed to their injuries.

Defence sources said this was the first ceasefire violation by Pakistan after its army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited areas along the Line of Control on Sunday.

According to sources, more than 100 armed terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad are waiting near the Line of Control to infiltrate into India.

Pakistan, said sources, is providing cover to these terrorists by firing at Indian posts so that they can cross the border and enter India through Poonch and Rajouri sectors.

ALSO READ:

J-K: Pakistan violates ceasefire in Poonch, Indian forces retaliate

7 RAW rules that prove Kulbhushan Jadhav is not an agent; straight from the mouth of former sleuth

Rajnath: Kashmir was, always will be India's, Pakistan should ask its citizens if they want to join India

WATCH:

Jammu and Kashmir: 2 jawans killed as Pakistan fires rockets at Indian posts in Poonch

--- ENDS ---
The pace follows the market and not the wishes of the U.S. government, said Nikos Tsafos, president and chief analyst at the consultancy Enalytica. No one is really out there fishing for new projects right now.

The gas business is cyclical, and proponents say it is only a matter of time before demand picks up. China and India are increasingly turning to gas to replace coal and improve the air quality of their cities. Gas demand for transport is growing in Iran, Pakistan and Argentina. Germany has largely given up on nuclear power, and it needs natural gas to replace some of the lost power.

Some L.N.G. executives say that the global demand for gas will grow as more export and import terminals are built and that the United States will continue to have a cost advantage over other major producers, including Qatar and Russia, because of the abundance of American gas production.

Its been demonstrated over the last two years that when you have low natural gas prices, demand increases much faster than what people think, said Charif Souki, chairman of Tellurian, a Houston company developing a $15 billion L.N.G. export project south of Lake Charles, La.

The Trump administration has discovered the power of natural gas, Mr. Souki added. Today, we are the top gas producer in the world, and in another three or four years, well be one of the top two gas exporters in the world, right up there with Russia.

That is certainly what the Trump administration is hoping for, although its policies may not have much of an immediate impact.

We could be and should be the largest exporter of L.N.G. in the world, Mr. Cohn said at a Washington conference in April. He said the first thing the administration would do was issue a permit for an export facility in the Northwest, a reference to the Jordan Cove L.N.G. terminal in the Oregon port of Coos Bay, where a Canadian company, Veresen, has proposed to build.
The French electorate heads to the polls in the second round of presidential elections on May 7, followed by votes in Britain and Germany in the coming months. Computer scientists, tech giants and start-ups are using sophisticated algorithms and reams of online data to quickly  and automatically  spot fake news faster than traditional fact-checking groups can.

The goal, experts say, is to expand these digital tools across Europe, so the region can counter the fake news that caused so much confusion and anger during the United States presidential election in November, when outright false reports routinely spread like wildfire on Facebook and Twitter.

Algorithms will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting misinformation, said Claire Wardle, head of strategy and research at First Draft News, a nonprofit organization that has teamed up with tech companies and newsrooms to debunk fake reports about elections in the United States and Europe. Its impossible to do all of this by hand.

Researchers have tried to learn from the United States run-in with fake news, but the problem in Europe has mutated, experts say, making it impossible to merely replicate American responses to the issue.

European countries have different languages, and their media markets are smaller than those in the United States. That means groups that set up fake news sites in the United States, seeking to profit from online advertising when false claims were shared on social media, are less prevalent in Europe.
Fox News faced a fresh legal challenge on Monday after Diana Falzone, a reporter at the network, accused it of discriminating against her on the basis of her gender and her fight against a chronic disease.

Ms. Falzone, who appeared regularly on Fox News and helped host several shows on the networks website, claimed in a suit filed Monday in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan that she had been barred from further appearances after writing an op-ed column for Fox News disclosing that she had endometriosis and was likely to be infertile.

The suit claims that Ms. Falzone had approval from her supervisors to write the column, which ran with the headline Women Should Never Suffer in Silence.

According to the lawsuit, her supervisor, Refet Kaplan, told her shortly after the piece ran that executives at the network had barred her from appearing on the air on Fox News or its website, the suit says, adding that Ms. Falzone was not given a reason for the decision. The filing did not elaborate on why she believed the column led to her being barred other than noting that it happened three days after the article was published and that she previously had received positive performance evaluations.
Hi, partner, she responded, giving him a noisy kiss on the cheek.

Then they discussed her weekend flu and his mothers texting vocabulary, and he read from a list of first-day dos and donts. Im a little bit nervous, he said.

Live, with its celebrity chitchat, home viewer trivia segment and occasional burst of confetti, has been a brightly lit national television institution since 1988, when Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford held the coffee mugs. Little about the bouncy show will change with Mr. Seacrests arrival, at least at first. Live, after all, still wins its time period, attracting an average of 3.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

We welcome Ryans energy, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit and look forward to all the possibilities that the future holds, Ben Sherwood, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, said in a statement.

Live With Kelly and Ryan, as the syndicated series will now be called, represents an important career moment for Mr. Seacrest. The program returns him to regular broadcast television a year after the end of American Idol, which he hosted on Fox for 15 seasons. A successful run on Live could give a boost to Mr. Seacrests personal businesses, which include a clothing line, Ryan Seacrest Distinction, and a coming skin care line. (The show also brings him another rich payday. Terms of his multiyear contract were not disclosed, but it is easily worth millions of dollars annually.)

For ABC, which has pursued Mr. Seacrest for years, landing him required a herculean behind-the-scenes effort to rearrange his Rubiks Cube of a schedule. Robert A. Iger, the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, was even involved, Mr. Seacrest said.

Consider, for instance, Mr. Seacrests Los Angeles radio show, On Air With Ryan Seacrest, which iHeartRadio broadcasts on weekday mornings from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Pacific time. It will continue in its present form. But he will now work from a New York recording studio instead of a California one, at least for most of the year, and some segments during the radio programs first hour  since it will overlap with Live  will be taped.

Very few people have both the appeal and the work ethic to accomplish this, Robert W. Pittman, chief executive of iHeartMedia, said in a statement. Im pleased to see him return to another regular TV platform.
Avocados may seem harmless, but if youve ever peeled and cut one, you know they can be more than a little troublesome. Theyre slippery, theyre oddly shaped, and they have that annoying pit in the middle that rarely slips out as easily as youd like.

These characteristics have earned the avocado a reputation as one of the most dangerous foods to cut. Just recently, the wife of a colleague here at The New York Times was slicing an avocado when she suffered a cut so deep she had to be taken to the emergency room.

Medical professionals and hospitals in the United States dont track kitchen injuries by ingredient, but anecdotally, doctors say they see a number of avocado-related cooking injuries annually  enough to notice.

I see half a dozen every year, said Dr. Sheel Sharma, a plastic surgeon in New York specializing in hand surgery. Mostly, they come with a laceration in the palm.
Sam Sifton emails readers of Cooking five days a week to talk about food and suggest recipes. That email also appears here. To receive it in your inbox, register here.

Good morning. We try to stay buoyant here at Cooking. Food is our one true thing, the kitchen our refuge. (Thats me in the corner with the metal colander on my head, waiting for things to get better while the pasta finishes boiling.)

Oh, hello, Monday.

This week, consider taking a moment to check in on your mental health, or at least check in with people who make it their business to mix food and self-care. Our British sisters at Do What You Want have put out a zine on mental health, and you can believe there is lots of food-related stuff in there.

You can also always dip into Kat Kinsmans world. She has written a book called Hi, Anxiety and runs a collective healing hive called Chefs With Issues. She also writes about breakfast in ways you would never imagine at the Tasting Table.
Nearly three decades after they became close friends while skateboarding in Indianapolis, three men who grew up without fathers in their daily lives are grappling with the idea of becoming dads themselves.

There is a fear there, Lucy Chandler said of her husband, Lamont, as she sat drinking a root beer at the Sinking Ship, a bar not far from the home they share in Indianapolis.

At the time, Ms. Chandler was six months pregnant.

For one thing, he is his dads son, she said. He was a terrible father and not there for his mother at all. Knowing that makes him think: Do I have this in me? Am I going to be like this if something happens?

Mr. Chandler, 42, didnt disagree.

Do I feel like that could be part of me? he said. All the time. Totally. What if the DNA is in me? I have to be better.
Ms. da Silvas 11-year-old daughter became pregnant and had an abortion, prompting a child protection agency visit. After Ms. da Silva told the caseworker that a friend was caring for her Zika baby, the agency investigated and initiated proceedings to remove Joao Lucas from her home. To keep him from being placed in a shelter, both women and the state agreed that Joao Lucas would live with Ms. Ribeiro, while Ana Vitoria stayed with Ms. da Silva. Under court order, Joao Lucas spends Sundays at his biological mothers house.

Ms. Ribeiro, who has adorned Joao Lucas with a bracelet and necklace hung with a good-luck charm called a figa, tries to keep up with his many appointments. They include visits with a psychologist who shows Joao Lucas a panel of black and white squares to stimulate vision and rubs him with a sponge studded with Popsicle sticks to stimulate touch.

On a visit last fall to Ms. Ribeiros emerald green house on a dirt street, where the 23rd psalm hangs on a yellow wall, Ana Vitoria toddled around, clutching a piece of spongy cake with one hand, thumping a table with the other. Reaching for her brothers mouth, she touched the green tape that therapists apply around his lips, fingers, back and chin to relax tight muscles. Ms. da Silva waved a rattle before Joao Lucas, but he did not respond.

So far, his sister  like the other fraternal twins without obvious brain damage  appears unimpaired, but doctors are monitoring her and the others. At Ana Vitorias one-year exam, she was slightly behind developmentally. Her vocabulary was limited and she was slow to point to her mother when the doctor asked, Ms. da Silva said.

That could be unrelated to Zika, but, she noted, The doctor never said its 100 percent sure that she doesnt have a problem.
As a transit reporter for The Times, I spend a lot of time interviewing New Yorkers on lurching subway trains and jam-packed platforms. Ask about subway service, and riders are quick to rattle off a litany of complaints: overcrowding, constant delays, filthy stations and poor communication when problems arise.

My editors on the Metro desk decided to send me to London, a city that has been working aggressively to modernize its subway and reduce delays. It was like being dropped into an alternate universe where people actually like their subway.

On the upgraded Victoria line, subway riders used adjectives like amazing and efficient to describe service. A student told me he very, very rarely finds himself waiting on the platform, and trains were almost always on time. Every two minutes they pulled into the station like clockwork. I was a bit envious. On the F line in Brooklyn, I often find myself peering down the tracks wondering if my train will ever come.

Sure, Londoners have some complaints about the Tube, as their subway is called. During rush hour, officials sometimes shut down stations because they are too crowded. Labor strikes are common. The fares are much higher. (In London, you pay depending on how far you go; a trip from the Tooting neighborhood, where Mayor Sadiq Khan lives, to central London costs 3.30 pounds, or more than $4. New York has a flat $2.75 fare.)

Some riders were stunned to be approached by a nosy American reporter interrupting their peaceful commute. A local transit official told me eye contact was discouraged on the Tube. There are two appropriate places to focus your gaze: your neighbors shoes and the ceiling.
In addition to protests, Mr. Martin said, his group engaged in power mapping the mayor  identifying roughly 1,500 people most important to him and targeting them with digital messages  so that Mr. de Blasio would feel surrounded by its campaign. We logged 20,000 tweets to the mayor in one day alone, Mr. Martin said.

The housing advocates  a coalition of groups under the banner Real Affordability for All  are looking to emulate the approach favored by the anti-Rikers protesters. The mayor would not have changed course without that campaign, said Jonathan Westin, the executive director of New York Communities for Change. The housing stuff and the criminal justice stuff are the two weak spots for the mayor.

So far, Mr. de Blasio has not shown enough political weakness for a prominent challenger to emerge from the left. Most of his rivals, both in his own party and among Republicans, have opted for more centrist campaigns to unseat him; the only one to challenge from the left is a police reform advocate, Robert Gangi, 73, a Democrat who has never before held public office or run a political campaign.

Melissa Grace, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said the targeted protests had not affected the administrations policies in any way. This has been their strategy for more than two years  and it has had zero impact, she said. Were creating and protecting more affordable housing, including more homes for the lowest-income New Yorkers, than at any time since Mayor Koch.

Indeed the coalition now attacking Mr. de Blasios housing plan has also previously endorsed elements of the mayors approach.

Ms. Grace added, Resorting to personal attacks means youve run out of honest arguments.

The new effort does go further in attacking Ms. Glen, accusing her of bringing a Goldman Sachs model of development to City Hall. To buttress the argument, activists compiled a report looking at projects created by three developers  L&M Development Partners, BRP Development Corporation and BFC Partners  that worked with Ms. Glen both before and after she joined the de Blasio administration.
Hours before the warring AIADMK factions were to gather for talks at the party headquarters in Chennai on April 24, former chief minister O. Panneerselvam (OPS), who leads one of the camps, was accorded Y-plus security cover by the Centre following a "heightened threat perception" to his life. Then when information trickled in that the rival ruling faction of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami (EPS) had not acted on their demand that posters of jailed 'general secretary' Sasikala Natarajan, be removed from the party HQ to maintain its "sanctity", a miffed OPS cried off from the talks.

By the next evening, though, when the Delhi police arrested her nephew and party deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dinakaran (and duly Sasikala's posters started coming down), both sides had climbed down to declare that conditions were conducive for talks.

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In Tamil Nadu's politics, cutting deals is second nature to many, more so in the AIADMK since the death of their Puratchi Thalaivi, J. Jayalalithaa. But suddenly, arriving at one between the party's two warring factions seems a daunting task. For close to four decades, party leaders and the cadre had a domineering, decisive leader to look up to. Now the embattled AIADMK factions, staring at an uncertain future, realise that they may lose their last unifying emblem, the coveted 'two leaves' poll symbol.

On March 22, the Election Commission of India (ECI) froze the poll symbol, pending a decision on the rival claims of a majority within the party's organisational structure. Indeed, Dinakaran was arrested for, among other things, trying to bribe an ECI official to get the 'two leaves' symbol assigned to the official EPS faction. Now, in order to retrieve the poll symbol, both factions will have to withdraw contentious claims made to the ECI, including those on Sasikala's appointment as party general secretary.

Burying the hatchet for a common future is also dependent on ousting Sasikala's family from the party. The OPS faction had insisted on two pre-conditions before talks: expelling Sasikala and Dinakaran, and a CBI investigation into the circumstances leading to Jayalalithaa's death. Their apprehensions over Sasikala's family resorting to back-seat driving at the cost of the party should have eased somewhat at the news of Dinakaran's arrest.

EPS too should be emboldened by the arrest (he was handpicked to be chief minister by Sasikala after OPS's revolt in February). Tellingly, a senior party functionary says, "EPS has a lot more clarity on the party situation after his visit to Delhi for the Niti Aayog meeting when he also met the prime minister." The leader who attended the review meetings of district secretaries of the party on April 25 adds that "no references were made about Sasikala at the meetings". EPS has also been prudent in avoiding visiting Sasikala at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison in Bengaluru where she is lodged.

That said, Sasikala's family still pulls the strings in many quarters. The AIADMK party organs, Tamil daily Dr Namadhu MGR and channel Jaya TV, sing paeans to both Sasikala and Dinakaran daily. "We have ousted them from the party and the government. But nothing can be finished off in a day," reasons R. Vaithilingam, Rajya Sabha member and head of the EPS faction negotiations panel.

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Eliminating the 'Mannargudi mafia', as the Sasikala family is known, will not be easy considering the vast party resources and strategic assets in their control. The AIADMK, minus the Sasikala clan, will have to forego what may be held in closely knit trusts, and it may take much legal wrangling to get back the daily and channel, if at all. Political analysts say merely sidelining Sasikala and Dinakaran will have little impact as there are many, including legislators and MPs, who owe their rise in the AIADMK to the family. "Our party bylaws do not allow the expulsion of the general secretary (Sasikala). Only the general secretary can expel others. When they (the OPS faction) do not have ant legal sanctity, how can it be done?" asks one such leader.

What has kept much of the EPS faction together (though there are many within opposed to the clan) till now is their wafer-thin majority and the consequent lack of bargaining leverage to force the hands of the OPS group. The EPS faction has 122 MLAs in a 233-seat legislative assembly-a majority of just six seats. Jayalalithaa's RK Nagar seat which Dinakaran was vying for still lies vacant.

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The rival faction is no less fragile considering that apart from OPS, party presidium chairman E. Madhusudhanan and a few MLAs and MPs, there are no influential heavyweights. They still maintain that the party rank and file is on their side. "Of the 16 million party cadre, at least 95 per cent are on our side," says ex-minister K. Pandiarajan of the OPS camp.

With the centennial celebrations of party founder M.G. Ramachandran in June and elections to the local bodies after July, there is no option for the factions but to come together. While this has become easier with the Sasikala camp paralysed, the reunion will be fraught with challenges, mostly over who gets what post-merger. EPS is unlikely to surrender the CM's post.

Meanwhile, the Opposition DMK's working president M.K. Stalin admits that Jaya's passing has improved their electoral prospects. However, the idea of a total collapse of the AIADMK and a mid-term assembly poll is not in the DMK's interest either. If the AIADMK fails to consolidate at the end of the current convulsions, a simultaneous state election in 2019 along with Lok Sabha polls, as advocated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, cannot be ruled out.

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The only party that seems elated by the turmoil is the BJP's Tamil Nadu unit. The party feels that with the Jayalalithaa era over and the slowing down of nonagenarian DMK patriarch K. Karunanidhi, the situation is perfect for it to emerge as a strong player in the state. It's all part of its Mission 2019 plan to wrest more Lok Sabha seats from the peninsular part of the country, feeding off Prime Minister Modi's charisma and his 'corruption-free development' plank. The Dravidian parties, steeped in corruption as they are, have reason to worry.

So how does the BJP hope to succeed in Dravidian politics, traditionally the antithesis of its own Hindutva-based ideology? P. Muralidhar Rao, state in-charge and BJP national general secretary, has an answer. "The regional parties rose in the 1960s Dravidian era," he says. "Those days are now gone. This is the new age of good governance cutting across caste lines, and the leader who symbolises this new urge in people is our prime minister."

There are reasons for the party to be upbeat. Leaders and workers from the regional parties here have been making overtures, a clear sign of the BJP's ascendancy. The party still doesn't have a significant leader except for state BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan, the daughter of former state Congress president Kumari Ananthan, but that could all change fast. For now, the party is keeping its cards very close to its chest. It doesn't mind being projected as a party close to OPS as the Sasikala camp is now synonymous with corruption and nepotism.

The Dinakaran episode has sent "positive waves" across the BJP. Under the circumstances, the AIADMK may even opt for the BJP as an electoral partner in the future, banking on the old MGR formula of a swap-sharing ratio for assembly and Lok Sabha seats to serve mutual interests.

Seemingly rattled by the prospect of the BJP's emergence, DMK heir Stalin has revived the old Dravidian anti-Hindi pitch. The recent reintroduction of Hindi signage on the highways, making it mandatory for ministers' speeches in Parliament, talk of it becoming the language of the courts have all come together to help his cause. "It shows the BJP's disrespect for Tamil sentiments. This is Hindi hegemony through the backdoor," he thundered. In a video post on Twitter, Stalin warned the Centre "not to sow the seeds for a third generation anti-Hindi protest by pushing India into becoming Hindia". Indeed, a dawn-to-dusk bandh on April 25, to focus on the farmers' plight in the state, saw all major parties backing Stalin and may serve as a prelude for his rise as an alliance leader against the "northerners".

Soundararajan admits "the BJP faces challenges in the state. They are trying to create an anti-Central government image here". The BJP's immediate concern, though, is ensuring that the entire AIADMK votes in the electoral college are in its favour when the presidential poll happens in July. For the moment, it is likely to let the AIADMK factional battles play themselves out, rather than risk taking sides.

--- ENDS ---
The city is awake. Across the length of its five boroughs, a vast stream of humanity will move. This was what a New Yorkers commute looked like in 1961.  can be seen the daily miracle that is the New York City transit system. But that was then. And this is now. [screaming] Stand clear of the closing doors, please. Subway riders demanding an end to their commuting nightmare. So fed up with all the delays and cancellations that they are suing the M.T.A. The New York subway now has the worst on-time performance of any major rapid transit system in the world. And commuters are pissed. This womans commute has gotten so bad, shes considering leaving a job she really likes. No. I got a new job. This rabbi was sent into a panic when his train stalled just before Shabbat. And then theres this guy, who was stuck underground for so long, commuters sang to pass the time. ... Gonna make me lose my mind up in here ... Its been two hours. They ended up making a Facebook group. Theyre still in touch. Yeah. The mornings where every single line is delayed  It was like cruel or arbitrary. But it really wasnt that long ago that New Yorkers would laugh at other city subway systems. Four lines in Boston, two in L.A.? Thats cute. In New York our trains run 24/7. We have 665 miles of track, 472 stations, 27 subway lines, and almost six million riders every single day. Does it really have to be this way? Also, has it always been this bad? Turns out the M.T.A. has recovered from a transit crisis before. Ladies and gentlemen, we are being held momentarily by the trains dispatcher. These were the trains in the 1970s. Poor maintenance, high crime and widespread graffiti. It was kind of scary. And thats Jim. Hes been reporting on the subway since before I was born. He wrote the book about the subway, literally. In the 70s, it was really, really bad. Maintenance really had suffered. So officials poured money into the system, and it improved. [cheering] They are working on it. Theyre doing the best they can. Theyre fixing the tracks. Well, theyre fixing the track. They put in a new escalator downstairs. They improve it in the 80s. Today we got better equipment, better parts and better tools. In the 90s it gets to be the best its ever been. The 1990s were the golden era of subway functionality. So if you want to prove to someone that New York has it all, just show them your MetroCard Gold. New Yorks governor at the time, George Pataki, called it a transit renaissance. But then, that city that has it all started taking the system for granted, starting with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Cut down the size of city government. Just a year into his first term, the mayor cut the citys contribution to the M.T.A.s budget by millions of dollars. Then, Governor Pataki followed Giulianis lead. And so began a trend of mayors and governors diverting part of their budgets away from the M.T.A. and toward their own priorities. And then blaming one another for the problems that followed. Right. So while the city and state contributions got smaller and smaller and smaller, subway ridership went up, and so did the fares. But fares still werent enough to make up for the budget cuts. So a group of Wall Street executives came to the M.T.A. with a deal. [cash register ringing] These Wall Street execs, they went to the head of the M.T.A., also known as the governor, and said, give us your debt. Well pay you cash. Pay us back later. Pataki agreed to the deal to refinance the M.T.A.s debt. Basically, they used the Amex to pay off the MasterCard. And these bankers, many of whom were donors to Governor Patakis campaign, walked away with $85 million in commissions and fees. And that debt lives on today  ... finally reaches its destination.  even if some of the equipment were still paying for does not. Great habitat enhancement for fish and shellfish. Then  It was a fiscal crisis globally. That was a really big turning point for the M.T.A. Maintenance was withdrawn. Youre checking the cars less frequently, youre repairing the cars less frequently, then theyre going to break down more frequently. So basically  The trains became slightly less reliable. But there were millions of dollars draining from the M.T.A.s budget that could have been used for maintenance. So what happened was  This summer Governor Cuomos administration forced the M.T.A. to bail out some upstate ski resorts after an unusually warm winter. So we set out to try and find out if there were a lot of other examples of the M.T.A. being forced by the state to spend money on things that had nothing to do with the subway. And we found out about these bond issuance fees. Bond issuance fees may sound a little boring. So I hired a busker to write a song about it. Let me put it this way  the M.T.A. brings in a lot of money. The state has used that money as a piggy bank for other priorities. The next stop is Fulton Street. Fulton Street was the pet project of a guy named Sheldon Silver. He wanted Fulton Street to be the Grand Central Station of downtown Manhattan. So construction started, the years went by, and the day of the grand opening arrived. Oh, thats way over budget. At this point, the M.T.A. board wants to scale things back. And one of the board members  Nancy Shevell, wife of Paul McCartney, said, were not building cathedrals here. But the next day, Sheldon Silver demanded  Youre going to build this thing the way it was originally supposed to be built, or else Im going to veto your capital budget. So the M.T.A. complied. A billion and a half dollars on one station. It didnt get an extra subway car, an extra foot of track, nothing. Did I say it was in his district? Fulton Street was just one example. These politicians really wanted to be able to have a big project they could champion, mosaics and artwork and everything is brand new. Clean, shiny subway stations. This is exciting, right? I did this for you. Here is my gift to you. Yeah. And I feel good about that. Of course you should. You cant really do that with replacing some ancient subway signal system that people dont even know exists. No one wants to talk about the signals. I dont think I understand how the signals even work. And neither did I. So I watched a documentary released by the M.T.A. to learn more. People know that the system is old, but I dont think they realize just how old it is. Its not just the architecture thats 100 years old. Its a lot of the basic technology as well. We never really know where the train is. Um  Yeah. The workers dont actually know where the trains are exactly, precisely, on the tracks. They know what section they are in. So they have to keep them a safe distance apart as they go through the system. You cant just go to Best Buy and pick up something to replace this 1930s piece of equipment. New signals would mean more trains running more efficiently and closer together. But its been two decades since the M.T.A. first began its push to upgrade its signals. And so far, theyve completed just one line. If you dont focus on the core needs of the system, bad things can happen. So the trains were not as well taken care of, the signal system deteriorated, and there was very little margin for error. And then that margin gets even smaller with Hurricane Sandy. The worst disaster in the history of the subway system. So this is the part of the story where all of those bad decisions of the past really start wreaking havoc. The M.T.A. is openly violating its own safety directives. A tunnel wall in Brooklyn collapses onto the track. We just boarded the rescue train. There have been 22 derailments. Overcrowding is definitely a problem, but the M.T.A. cant blame everything on overcrowding. The issue is theres not one person to blame. Theres been a lot of back and forth between the governor and the mayor. Blame everybody who has been in power in New York in the past 25 years. A train careens off the tracks in Harlem, injuring 34 people. And in summer of 2017, the waiting and crowding and derailments reach a breaking point. And at long last, Governor Cuomo declares a state of emergency. I mean there is some light at the end of the tunnel. No pun intended. I actually did not intend that pun. There are some signs that politicians are now taking the maintenance of the subway system seriously. Elected leaders are finally expected to come out with a plan to pay for the M.T.A. And I think theres a consensus they cant just rely on debt anymore. I believe in you, subway. But youve got to get it together. We want to do this. We need to do this. We will do this. I think delay is, in a messed up way, our way to bring people together. Theres no New York City without the subways. I regard it as the great public commons of New York. Yeah, its good. Nice meeting all of you. They ride together. And in this journey can be seen the daily miracle that is the New York City transit system, upon which the very existence of the city and its people, depend.
The ferry dreams of Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed impossibly ambitious to many who heard them: In a little more than a year, he wanted to build a fleet of boats and a network of landings to lure thousands of New York commuters onto the water from the streets and subways.

Veteran ferry operators said it could not be done by Mr. de Blasios deadline of this summer, just months before he would stand for re-election. Ferry boats are usually fabricated one or two at a time, and planning and building docks and piers often takes years.

But on Monday morning, Mr. de Blasio was at Pier 11 near Wall Street to triumphantly greet some of the first commuters to take the new NYC Ferry service. Not only did it begin operations on time, Mr. de Blasio repeatedly said, it was ahead of schedule.

How was the ride, man? the mayor asked several riders. To others, he said: No traffic, all right! Smooth! and Exactly on time, fantastic.
The Urban Assembly Institute and about five other schools in the city use the Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, which combines sex education with financial literacy lessons, career training and mental and physical health care. A 2002 study found that girls in the program were significantly less likely than other girls to have had sex or gotten pregnant. The program did not have a significant effect on boys sexual behavior. More recent evaluations have found higher rates of condom use among student participants compared with other teenagers.

At other schools in the city, the content of sex education varies widely. The Department of Education offers a free health curriculum that includes lessons on relationships and gender as well as information on condoms and testing for sexually transmitted infections. But schools are not required to use it, and the department does not track what curriculums they use.

Ashley Vasquez, 17, a peer educator with the Teen Outreach Reproductive Challenge program, said her eighth-grade health teacher at P.S. 212 in the Bronx told students to use condoms, but didnt explain how.

In a recent survey by the Sexuality Education Alliance of New York City, a coalition of teachers, students and health experts, 38 percent of students in grades six through 12 who had received sex education had not learned how to put on a condom. Forty-three percent had not learned about gender identity and 38 percent had not learned about consent.

Many schools are overburdened with testing, said Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, one of the sponsors of the task force bill, which is expected to come to a vote later this year. Sex education, for which there are no state tests or reporting requirements, can fall by the wayside.

Additionally, of more than 15,000 instructors who taught health in the city last year, only 153 were licensed in health. (About 12,000 were elementary schoolteachers, who typically teach multiple subjects and are unlikely to be licensed in health.) If people arent educated around the pedagogy of sex education, they can talk in out-of-touch, fatalistic or inaccurate terms, or shame students for their sexual behavior, said Francisco Ramirez, the vice president for education at Planned Parenthood of New York City.
Bret Stephenss first column in The New York Times, about climate change, drew more than 600 letters, an unusually large outpouring. Here is a sampling.

To the Editor:

Re Climate of Complete Certainty (column, April 29):

Bret Stephens does not deny the reality of climate change, but he uses a familiar strategy from the skeptical playbook: misdirection. Rather than acknowledging the role of climate change denial, he blames scientists and their allies for alleged certitude. In fact, the scientific community has taken great pains to analyze and communicate the uncertainties related to climate change.

In 2013, my colleagues and I published an analysis of scientific predictions related to climate change. We found that scientists had generally either been correct in their predictions, within error bars, or had underestimated the rate at which climate change would unfold.

For more than two decades, scientists have been the target of attacks designed to create public uncertainty and skepticism not just about proposed solutions, but about the science itself. Polls show that these attacks have worked: Many Americans, even those who accept the reality of climate change, believe that scientists are still uncertain.
One of the more pernicious and insidious effects of the Donald Trump regime may well be the damage he does to language itself.

Trumpian language is a thing unto itself: some manner of sophistry peppered with superlatives. It is a way of speech that defies the Reed-Kellogg sentence diagram. It is a jumble of incomplete thoughts stitched together with arrogance and ignorance.

America is suffering under the tyranny of gibberish spouted by the lord of his faithful 46 percent.

As researchers at Carnegie Mellon pointed out last spring, presidential candidates in general use words and grammar typical of students in grades 6-8, though Donald Trump tends to lag behind the others. Indeed, among the presidents in the universitys analysis, Trumps vocabulary usage was the lowest and his grammatical usage was only better than one president: George W. Bush.

Trumps employment of reduced rhetoric is not without precedent and is in fact a well-documented tool of historys strongmen.
To the Editor:

Re How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss, by Sheryl Sandberg (Op-Ed, April 24):

When I was a teenager 44 years ago my father died, turning my world upside down and creating a void that lingers to this day. As a society, we were on the cusp of embracing professional psychological support, but far from it in my caring yet overly private family.

As a result I went it mostly alone, bumbling along. What is interesting, though, is that some of my haphazard strategies now emerge as professional advice. I collected photos and the bits of film available, my dads favorite books and letters he had written. Mostly, though, I wrote a lot. I described his life history, examples of his integrity and kindness, his reactions to world events, his corny jokes. I asked my mother for stories, and to her credit she shared a wealth of information.

In those ways I gradually healed enough to push forward and, without realizing it at the time, preserved some of my dads personality and insights to share with my children many years later.

DIANE JARIN, ROSEMONT, PA.

To the Editor:

As a psychiatrist and a father, I was greatly moved by Sheryl Sandbergs Op-Ed article about her familys journey after her husbands death. By sharing her experience, Ms. Sandberg offers help and hope to others raising children after the loss of a parent, or other traumas.
BRUSSELS  Dark clouds have been hovering over Europeans who believe in an integrated, tolerant and open Continent. First came Britains vote to leave the European Union in June, followed by Donald J. Trumps election. Nationalists and right-wing populists seemed to be on the march. And Europhiles looked nervously ahead to a string of elections in 2017, any one of which could herald the moment when the European project began to unravel for good.

These people might be forgiven for savoring the feeling of respite recently.

The first round of Frances presidential election, on April 23, put the passionately pro-European Union independent candidate, Emmanuel Macron, ahead of Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front. Polls now heavily favor Mr. Macron to beat Ms. Le Pen in the second round on Sunday. That election followed one in the Netherlands in March in which the openly Islamophobic and fervently Euroskeptic candidate, Geert Wilders, did worse than expected. And in Austria in December, the far rights Norbert Hofer narrowly lost the presidential election to Alexander van der Bellen, a former Green Party leader.

In light of all this, many now claim that right-wing populism has peaked, and the European Union has walked back from the brink of self-destruction. But while there are many positive lessons to be drawn from the recent elections, triumphalism, which leads to complacency, would be dangerous and misplaced.

Something hasnt peaked until it has started to decline  and to date the far right has only been ascendant. Ms. Le Pens National Front added around 1.2 million votes to its first-round result in 2012. Mr. Wilderss Freedom Party now has 20 seats in the Dutch Parliament, a gain of five from 2012. The previous candidate from Mr. Hofers party received about 15 percent in the last presidential poll in 2010, while Mr. Hofer topped the vote in the first round and got 46 percent in the run off.
Among the fruits of this approach have been bilateral agreements on health care cooperation, joint planning to mitigate oil spills and coordination on counternarcotics efforts. Havana also recently agreed to start accepting some Cubans who have been ordered deported. Regulatory changes have made it easier for most Americans to visit Cuba  though going there purely for tourism is still technically illegal  and enabled broader exchanges among scholars, journalists and artists. Google, meanwhile, is negotiating a series of agreements with Cuba that could significantly expand access to the internet on the island, one of the most unplugged nations on earth.

Mr. Trumps public remarks on Cuba policy have been brief and thoughtless. Shortly after being elected, Mr. Trump tweeted: If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal.

That put Cubans and Americans on notice that Mr. Trump was contemplating reversing Mr. Obamas easement of American sanctions. The White House began an assessment early this year and agencies, including the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce, have given their input. It is unclear when, or whether, an announcement of a decision will come. Mr. Trump could undo many regulatory changes with the stroke of a pen. For instance, he could tighten rules on sending remittances to Cubans, suspend the newly re-established commercial flights between the nations and stop American cruises from docking in Havana.

If he were to take those sorts of steps, Mr. Trump would make the small pro-embargo coalition in Capitol Hill very happy. But doing so would mean reversing course on a policy change that is widely popular among Americans and nearly universally supported by Cubans.

He also would be putting American farmers and businesses at a disadvantage by curtailing their access to a market that is gradually opening to global trade. In 2016, the European Union formally abandoned a policy predicated on pursuit of a democratic transition and struck a broader agreement with Havana that includes cooperation on trade and development and a dialogue on human rights.
To the Editor:

Re How to Stop Drug Price Gouging (Op-Ed, April 20):

Tim Wu is right about the problem, but his solution is not a good one.

The federal government is finally putting in place a track and trace system to secure the pharmaceutical supply chain. Assurance of product identity and safety (and protection from counterfeiting) is at risk with importation outside a regulated supply system.

Canadas drugs are cheaper than ours because its single-payer health care system negotiates prices. Our government is forbidden by law from doing so (for the Medicare and Medicaid programs). Repeal would have immediate significant impact.

A longer range solution, in the generic drug area, would be for a well-funded nonprofit to go into the generic drug business. Competition would drive down prices; the nonprofit could use its reasonable profits to support its health mission.

This solution requires legislation to mandate that the Food and Drug Administration speedily approve any sound generic drug application from a nonprofit for a drug whose price has risen sharply. The threat of drawing quick competition, as well as that competition itself, would be effective.
JERUSALEM  Democracies around the world are searching for ways to protect their citizens from the threat of terrorism. As Israels public security minister, I hardly go a week without a foreign official turning to me to learn from our experience. For better or worse, the thousands of attacks carried out by Palestinian terrorists against Israel have made my country a world expert in combating this threat.

As a result of its counterterrorism operations, Israel now holds 6,177 terrorism-related prisoners. Many of these prisoners were involved in the wave of violence initiated in September 2000 under Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader at the time, following his rejection of an American-Israeli peace offer. The terrorist campaign that began then has so far led to the murder of some 1,300 Israelis  mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, children of every faith and background.

Of the 6,177 security prisoners, about 1,200 have recently begun a hunger strike. The strike leader is Marwan Barghouti, who was behind several deadly attacks.

Since his arrest in 2002, Mr. Barghouti has become adept at rebranding Palestinian terrorism as legitimate resistance and casting himself as a moderate. (Palestinian groups like to use language calibrated to make their actions more palatable to Westerners: Incarcerated terrorists are called political prisoners, and cold-blooded attacks against civilians in restaurants and buses are whitewashed as a struggle for freedom.) He would prefer that his Western audiences not know that he was convicted of ordering or approving three attacks that cost the lives of five people. These victims, Jewish, Christian and Druze, were simply going about their daily lives, sitting in a Tel Aviv restaurant, driving along a road, pulling into a gas station. Mr. Barghouti denies the charges but, saying he doesnt recognize Israeli courts, declined to defend himself.
Clashes were reported today between the students and police in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama after Burhan Wani's posters were put out and flags of Pakistan and ISIS were hoisted in a degree college.

By Ashraf Wani: Clashes erupted between college students and police in Pulwama today as the degree college was reopened after two-day holiday.

Trouble started after some students put out posters of slain Hizbul commander Burhan Wani on the administrative block of the Pulwama degree college. Some of the students also pelted stones at police.

The students also hoisted flags of Pakistan and terror outfit Islamic State in the college premises.

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Later, the students marched out the college and were joined by other stone pelters. The protesters damaged a few police vehicles.

As the clashes between stone pelters and police escalated, shopkeepers brought down the shutters of their shops. The town came to a halt for some time.

Police resorted to teargas shelling on the stone pelters. Clashes were still on in some parts.

Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces in July last year.

NEW TERROR VIDEO

In another development, a new terror video appeared on social media showing armed terrorists marching at an unknown location. However, some reports say that the video was shot in a Shopian orchard.

The video is said to have been posted by Hizbul Mujahideen. The video has been uploaded on the social media despite a ban in the Valley.

The terror group has supposedly managed to bypass the ban on social media through some discreet software. Armed militants can be seen patrolling in an orchard.

ALSO READ |

Pakistan needles India on Kashmir again, Army Chief Bajwa backs terrorism in Valley

Kashmir: Students clash with security forces in Srinagar's Lal Chowk

Stone pelters on hire in Kashmir: India Today nails Valley's insidious villains

NIA digs out ISI's terror funding plot in Kashmir Valley, questions suspected traders

ALSO WATCH | Outstanding result for Army's Kashmir Super 40 initiative: 28 students crack IIT-JEE mains entrance exam

--- ENDS ---
It was the spring of 1936. My grandmother, Ilse Stanley, had just returned from a theater tour that had kept her away from Berlin for almost the whole winter, only to discover a city in which more and more friends were missing. Soon after, a cousin arrived at her home. The Gestapo, her cousin told her, had taken her husband away to a concentration camp. In her 1957 book, The Unforgotten, my grandmother describes asking her cousin about the reasons for her husbands arrest. Her answer:

Because he was a criminal with a record. He had paid two fines in court: one for speeding and one for some other traffic fine. They said they finally wanted to do what the court had missed doing all these years: to get rid of all Jews with criminal records. A traffic fine  a criminal record!

The first half of my grandmothers book is a careful accounting of the years after Hitlers rise to power. In it, she documents how difficult it was to get the German Jewish community to understand the peril they faced. Reporting on a conversation in 1937 in which she unsuccessfully urged a family member to leave the country, she writes:

What distressed me most about the conversation was the further proof it afforded that the Jews around me had scarcely any conception of what was going on. A concentration camp, for those on the outside, was a kind of labor camp. There were whispered rumors of people being beaten, even killed. But there was no comprehension of the tragic reality.

After all, most German Jews did not think of themselves as criminals.

Fast forward to February 2016, and move one country south, to Switzerland. The far-right SVP (the Schweizer Volkspartei) had just introduced a referendum to expel immigrants that could include even second- or third-generation Swiss-born residents found guilty of a few parking tickets. The referendum seemed sure to pass. It was only because of the efforts of Operation Libero, a liberal progressive group founded by Swiss students, who organized to change the narrative of deporting criminal immigrants, that the referendum was defeated.
On todays episode:

Mr. Casey gives his close-up account of what has gone wrong in Venezuela, and he tells us the story of a drive across the country that illustrated the problems.

On that drive, he went to Maturin, a town that he says illustrates so much of whats going wrong in Venezuela. And thats where he learned the tragic story of the death of Kevin Lara Lugo.

Background reading:

 What the death of a 16-year-old boy in Maturin, Venezuela, tells us about the situation in that country.

 Mr. Caseys reporting on the effects of Venezuelas economic crisis on hospitals, which won a George Polk Award for 2016.

Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Tweet me at @mikiebarb. And if that isnt enough, we can even text.
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo.  The vast, sagebrush-studded valleys in this huge chunk of wild country, teeming with herds of elk and bison, are home these days to 10 packs of wolves.

Once among the first species to be listed as endangered, the gray wolf has made a healthy comeback within Yellowstone National Park and its bordering states. Since 1995-96 when 31 wolves were trucked into the park from Canada, their numbers have grown and stabilized to the point that officials could essentially post a no vacancy sign at Yellowstone. Thats because the parks wolf population has hovered for the last decade at 100, give or take, which experts consider Yellowstones carrying capacity.

Protected on parkland, gray wolves show little fear of humans, often living out their lives within view of roads. They attract thousands of tourists a year who sometimes become witnesses to the life-or-death dramas between predator and prey.

And some catch a glimpse of a rare white wolf.

Yellowstone is the best place in the world to view wolves, said Douglas Smith, the parks wolf biologist, as he hiked up a fog-shrouded hill searching for one of the packs.
The artist Eleanor Macnair is an expert on the subject of Play-Doh. Different colors have different textures, she explains: The whites are usually very soft; the blacks quite oily. The children who play with the modeling clay probably havent noticed, but Play-Doh is Macnairs palette: She uses it to recreate her favorite images from the world of documentary photography, then captures her versions on camera.

Shes been working in the medium for four years, and published a book  Photographs Rendered In Play-Doh  in 2014. Now, shes produced a new series for the agency Magnum Photos, in honor of its 70th anniversary. Her limited-edition prints, which go on sale today, are her interpretations of images from the agencys enormous archive, including Elliott Erwitts 1955 shot of a solitary figure gazing at the Empire State Building, and Newsha Tavakolians 2011 photograph of an Iranian woman emerging from the sea.

Macnairs colorful, three-dimensional homages are a labor of love: building one takes up to seven hours. The human figures are modeled as nudes first, then covered with clothes to give them a lifelike shape. Its a bit like when youre a child and you have the cutout dressing-up dolls, Macnair says. She creates the Play-Doh image late at night, then leaves it under a cloth while she sleeps. With the morning light, she begins to photograph. Im totally working against the clock. The edges start to crack and dry, even within three or four hours, and the colors start to fade. Once she has what she needs, she immediately dismantles it, saving as much clay as possible to be used again.

The project, she says, is partly about making art feel less rarefied and more democratic. I didnt go to an art gallery until I was 21 or 22  and so that whole world just wasnt accessible to me, she says. Even though Ive worked in galleries and museums, sometimes I still feel like I cant have an opinion because I didnt go to art school. And so this is a way of bringing photography to a wide audience and saying, Yeah, you can be interested in this too. The fact that Play-Doh is cheap, she says, that its colors are bold and naive and that her images sometimes include visible imperfections, is all part of the appeal.
Jesse Green, the new co-chief theater critic for The New York Times, was the theater critic and a feature writer for New York magazine. You can follow him on Twitter (@JesseKGreen) and Facebook (jesse.green.critic).

Broadway is a bully in April, stealing attention, if not lunch money, from theater everywhere else in the city. But with the end of the bigfoot season on April 27  the date by which productions must have opened to compete for this Junes Tony Awards  its once again safe for the smart, weird shows to come out and play.

Aside from revivals of established masterworks, including the Sondheim-Weidman musical Pacific Overtures, at Classic Stage Company, and Becketts Happy Days, at Theater for a New Audience, May looks to be hospitable to a wide range of proudly oddball productions, Off Broadway and beyond. Here are five that Im especially looking forward to on my first day as the new co-chief theater critic here at The New York Times.
This Czech-born dramatist, who turns (no!) 80 this summer, is now one of his adopted nations most eminent men of letters, the author of plays of intellectual and emotional gravitas like The Invention of Love and The Coast of Utopia. The two early works by him that happily overlapped this season in major London productions are often regarded as the merely playful jeux desprit of a giddy lad with an insatiable and compendious mind.

Ha! The revelation of revivals by Mr. Leveaux and Mr. Marber is how profoundly touching these plays now feel. As Mr. Stoppard and the fans who have grown up with him edge closer to the void, these early contemplations of being and nothingness resonate with a new quiver.

Whats more, the kind of self-conscious metatheatrics Mr. Stoppard practiced in these works has become as common as London rain. And all their talk about facts not being, uh, factual? You dont need me to point out the raging topicality of such speculations.

I saw Rosencrantz and Travesties on the same day, fresh off the plane, and I had expected them to be heavy sledding. Instead, these comic fugues on masterpieces of English literature turned out to be perfect fare for a mind wrestling with the distortions of jet lag. I just went with the flow, and oh, the places they took me  from sophomoric sunniness to the shadows of mortality.

The actors, as well as their directors, were excellent guides for such long-distance journeys. As Carr, an elderly British bureaucrat who recalls appearing in James Joyces production of Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest as a young man in Zurich, Mr. Hollander wanders through the shifting landscape of a faltering memory.

As he sheds decades, and a ratty dressing gown, to become the way he was, Mr. Hollanders Carr cuts capers both physical and verbal with his contemporaries Tzara (Freddie Fox), Joyce (Peter McDonald) and Lenin (Forbes Masson), all blissfully dashing and ridiculous. But as Carr keeps reliving his memories  with variations suspiciously informed by the cadences of Wilde  a lost look invades his sparkling eyes. And suddenly you feel bereft for him.

Mr. Marber, himself a playwright (Closer), delivers the music-hall antics of Travesties with a joyful flourish. The same love of theatrical horseplay and artifice saturates Mr. Leveauxs production of Rosencrantz.
Sustenance

Inside the Temple of the Sun, Xiao Wangs Home Restaurant (86-10-8561-5985), has been around since the early 1990s and serves credible family-style food, Peking duck and various others dishes, as well as craft beer and wine. Its best feature is a rooftop terrace where one can drink beer and look out at the trees. Expect to pay the equivalent of about $20 a person, excluding wine.

Nearby, Yanlanlou (Chaoyangmenwai Dajie No. 12, Chaoyang District, 86-10-6599-1688) serves the traditional cuisine of Chinas Hui Muslim minority. Dishes like mutton chops, noodles, and baked bread cost about $15 a person.

About a 10-minute walk farther west, close to the Second Ring Road, is the Changzhou Hotel, which has a lunch and excellent dinner menu featuring the fresh and mild cuisine of the Yangtze River Jiangnan area.

Near White Cloud Temple, the best bet is a nationally famous Kaorouwan (58 Nanlishi Road, 86-10-6802-8180), which means bowl of barbecued meat. It features Halal food from the Muslim Uighur minority.
Physicians are traditionally wary of spinal manipulation (applying pressure on bones and joints), in part because the practitioners are often not doctors and also because a few chiropractors have claimed they can address conditions that have little to do with the spine. Patients with back pain havent seemed as skeptical. A large survey of them from 2002 through 2008 found that more than 30 percent sought chiropractic care, significantly more than those who sought massage, acupuncture or homeopathy.

Researchers have been looking at the evidence supporting spinal manipulation for some time. Almost 35 years ago, a systematic review evaluated the available research, most of which was judged to be low in quality, and found that there might be some short-term benefits from the procedure. Two reviews from 2003 agreed for the most part, finding that spinal manipulation worked better than a sham procedure, or placebo, but no better or worse than other options.

Almost a decade later, a Cochrane review assessed the literature once more, and found 12 new trials had been conducted. This review was more damning. It found that spinal manipulation was no better than sham interventions.

But since then, data have accumulated, as more higher-quality studies have been performed. Recently, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers looked for new studies since 2011, as well as those that had been performed before.

The evidence from 15 randomized controlled trials, which included more than 1,700 patients, showed that spinal manipulation caused an improvement in pain of about 10 points on a 100-point scale. The evidence from 12 randomized controlled trials  which overlapped, but not completely with the other trials  of almost 1,400 patients showed that spinal manipulation also resulted in improvements in function.
Electronic device searches were already on the rise under the Obama administration, with the number of travelers whose devices were searched more than doubling from 2015 to 2016. The monthly total of searches since Mr. Trump took office has remained roughly at the level that occurred during the last months of the Obama administration.

Ms. Alaoui, who drove to the border in early February, had intended to spend the day in Burlington shopping for toys for her 5-year-old son, who had just finished three months of chemotherapy.

On past trips, she said, she had spent about two minutes at the border before being waved through. This time, she and a cousin were questioned and held for four hours while their phones and car were searched.

After telling her to write down the pass code to her phone, a customs officer asked where she had been born (Morocco), how long she had lived in Canada (more than 20 years) and if she was a practicing Muslim (yes).

The interrogation quickly veered further toward religious questions, Ms. Alaoui said. The officer asked about her mosque and its imam. He pulled up videos found on her phone, videos of Muslim prayers and Arabic jokes that had circulated among her friends and relatives on social media, and asked her to explain.

Then he asked what she thought of Mr. Trump.

I said he can do whatever he wants in his country. Its not my business. I just want to cross the border to go shopping. Why are you asking me this question? recalled Ms. Alaoui, who wears a hijab.

After they were photographed and fingerprinted, another officer told the women that they would not be allowed into the country because of the videos found on their phones.
Theres really no difference, which is actually quite remarkable when you think about the additional layer of stigma these children are growing up with, she said.

Critics of same-sex parenting have frequently pointed to a 2012 study by a University of Texas sociologist that suggests children of gay and lesbian parents are significantly different from children raised by heterosexual couples. That study has been roundly criticized by others in academia.

Judge Nances decision to recuse himself comes less than two years after Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, defied federal court orders to issue same-sex marriage licenses because it went against her Christian beliefs. She was jailed for her refusal and became a symbol of the resistance to same-sex marriage.

The Family Foundation, a Lexington-based group that says it seeks to strengthen Kentucky families, offered praise for Judge Nances decision, saying, Judges have a right of conscience like everyone else.

If we are going to let liberal judges write their personal biases and prejudices into law, as we have done on issues of marriage and sexuality, then, in the interest of fairness, we are going to have to allow judges with different views to at least recuse themselves from such cases, Martin Cothran, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement.

Other judges have faced consequences for similar stances on L.G.B.T. issues. A judge in Wyoming was censured in March for refusing to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies, and an Alabama judge was suspended in September for ordering probate judges to defy federal orders to issue marriage licenses.

Some critics called for Judge Nance to resign or face ethics charges after Thursdays order. Chris Hartman, director of the Fairness Campaign, an L.G.B.T. advocacy group, said the order displayed clear discrimination.
Col (retd) Devindra Kumar and his son Prashant Bishnoi, a trained shooter, now face a slew of charges under wildlife protection act and gunrunning.

The raiding team recovered a large haul of animal skins, antlers, trophy heads, ivory, over 40 unlicenced guns, Rs1 crore in cash and 117 kilogram of neelgai (blue bull) meat from the premises.

By Mail Today Bureau: The strong arm of the law finally caught up with a retired Indian Army colonel and his national-level shooting champion son for training their guns on protected wildlife. In a joint raid operation that lasted 17 hours at the duo's residence in Meerut's Civil Lines area, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the forest department on Sunday claimed to have smashed a cartel of poaching, wildlife hunting and arms smuggling.

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Col (retd) Devindra Kumar and his son Prashant Bishnoi, a trained shooter, now face a slew of charges under wildlife protection act and gunrunning. Local residents told Mail Today the father-son duo led a lavish lifestyle with a fleet of luxury vehicles and collection of guns.

POLICE RAIDS

The raiding team recovered a large haul of animal skins, antlers, trophy heads, ivory, over 40 unlicenced guns, Rs1 crore in cash and 117 kilogram of neelgai (blue bull) meat from the premises.

"Who could have thought of such illegal activity here? There is a woman police station nearby and a DIG living barely 500 metre away," said a local resident, requesting anonymity. Apparently, they duo had also installed CCTV cameras on the street leading to their house and at the entry point.

While Devindra Kumar is believed to have told the police and raiding party that the guns belonged to his son, police sources said he was tightlipped about the recovery of animal parts on his premises.

REVELATIONS

While members of the search team shunned the media, sources in the DRI and wildlife department said the next round of investigation will establish the supply chain for the animal parts and the illegal arms found from the house.

Wildlife officials have hinted the involvement of a foreign national as the main accused running "a poaching syndicate" in which Kumar and Bishnoi acted as influential clogs due to their official positions.

The support staff and visiting maid, who were questioned by the raiding party, also refused to speak to mediapersons gathered outside the Kumar's house.

Mail Today also tried to speak to relatives of Singh as well as his son's shooting colleagues but to little avail.

Meanwhile, chief conservator of forests Mukesh Kumar issued a statement saying that the meat recovered from the refrigerator at Singh's Meerut residence will be sent for laboratory tests.

"A sample was taken and it will be sent to laboratory for testing. Action will be taken against Singh and his Son under relevant provisions of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972."

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The case comes at a time when Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has tightened the leash on illegal slaughtering of animals and unauthorised meat trade in the state.

Interestingly, Bishnois are regarded as crusaders for protection of animals. The community was in the limelight for fighting the case against killing of blackbuck by Bollywood celebrities in Rajasthan.

Also Read

Centre is conducting selective raids against AIADMK leaders, says MK Stalin

--- ENDS ---
At the White House, President Trump had proclaimed May 1 to be Loyalty Day, a time for Americans to reaffirm their commitment to individual liberties, to limited government and to the inherent dignity of every human being with Pledge of Allegiance ceremonies and a display of American flags.

Some Americans had other plans.

In major cities and dozens of smaller communities, protesters marched for immigrants, for workers, for women and for others, grafting their myriad pleas onto a day traditionally reserved for the cause of laborers around the world.

Many surrendered a shifts pay. Labor and immigrants rights activists, criticizing Mr. Trumps detention and deportation agenda, had called for a general strike on May 1, also known as May Day, to emphasize the overlap between the concerns of unauthorized immigrants  on whom farms, restaurants, construction projects and other industries depend  and those of workers.

Trump has pitted the U.S. working class against migrant workers and refugees, and so we must strive to create bridges, not bans or walls, to connect our struggles together, representatives of the International Migrants Alliance wrote in its call to assemble.
When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. visited Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute last month, he was asked a startling question, one with overtones of science fiction.

Can you foresee a day, asked Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the college in upstate New York, when smart machines, driven with artificial intelligences, will assist with courtroom fact-finding or, more controversially even, judicial decision-making?

The chief justices answer was more surprising than the question. Its a day thats here, he said, and its putting a significant strain on how the judiciary goes about doing things.

He may have been thinking about the case of a Wisconsin man, Eric L. Loomis, who was sentenced to six years in prison based in part on a private companys proprietary software. Mr. Loomis says his right to due process was violated by a judges consideration of a report generated by the softwares secret algorithm, one Mr. Loomis was unable to inspect or challenge.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Miami can sue two banks for predatory lending under the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The case arose from the 2008 financial crisis. Miami sued Bank of America and Wells Fargo, saying that their discriminatory mortgage lending practices had led to a disproportionate number of defaults by minority home buyers and, in turn, to financial harm to the city.

Even as the majority of justices ruled that Miami was entitled to sue under the housing law, the court declined to decide whether the city had asserted a direct enough connection between the banks actions and the harm it claimed. The court sent the case back to the federal appeals court in Atlanta for further exploration of that question.

When the case was argued in the Supreme Court in November, it seemed headed for a 4-4 tie. But the vote on the question of whether Miami could sue under the law was 5 to 3, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the courts four-member liberal bloc to form a majority.
The combined result  eliminating the ban on hiring former lobbyists and keeping secret any waivers granted to new hires  means the public has no way of knowing if Mr. Trumps staff members are complying with the rules. Terminating the release of the White House visitor logs, which were public during the Obama administration, has made evaluating compliance even harder, as it is now not known which private-sector players are meeting with White House aides.

For example, Michael Catanzaro, who until recently worked as a lobbyist for companies like Devon Energy and for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers association, is now in charge of White House environmental policy, an issue related to the topics he handled as a lobbyist. He may or may not have been granted a waiver by the White House. A White House spokeswoman declined to say.

The White House, in a written statement, said officials were reviewing Mr. Shaubs request and had not decided how to respond.

However, in the meantime we would like to reiterate our position that the White House and the White House Ethics Office are fully compliant with ethical obligations set forth in the standards of conduct, the statement said. Anyone that claims otherwise is purposefully mischaracterizing the White Houses position.

Mr. Shaub has tried to at least force the White House to make any waivers public. He is doing so by using his power to issue a data call for copies of all waivers issued in the last year. That would include the final months of the Obama administration and the first four months of the Trump administration.

He has quietly escalated his battle with the White House. A second letter he sent late last week to the top senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee also made clear that the ethics office intends to make a similar request early next year that will cover all such waivers granted in 2017.

Mr. Shaub made headlines when he authorized his staff to publish a series of Twitter posts in December related to how Mr. Trump would separate himself from his family business operations. Then, in January, in an unusual public statement, Mr. Shaub called Mr. Trumps steps wholly inadequate, even though Mr. Shaub did not have the power to order Mr. Trump to take additional steps.
WASHINGTON  President Trump on Monday released a triumphant campaign advertisement declaring his first 100 days in office a success, and branding news media that have reported otherwise as FAKE NEWS.

The 30-second television advertisement and a series of more targeted versions that are to run online are the latest examples of Mr. Trumps extraordinarily early return to politicking at a time when most presidents would be spending their time pushing through their highest legislative priorities.

It follows a frenetic week in which Mr. Trump, after having rejected the 100-day mark as an indicator of the success or failure of his presidency, sat for several interviews and dispatched his top advisers for virtually nonstop briefings. They all made the case that he had accomplished significant things since taking office, despite Mr. Trumps lack of major legislative achievements.
President Trump mused in an interview that the Civil War could have been avoided if only Andrew Jackson had been around to stop it. Jackson had been dead 16 years and long out of office when the war started in 1861.

Mr. Trumps comments, among several he made about Jackson in an interview broadcast Monday on satellite radio, quickly drew condemnation from his critics and from historians who said they appeared to show the president profoundly misunderstanding American history.

People dont realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? he told his interviewer, Salena Zito, a host on SiriusXMs P.O.T.U.S. channel, who spoke to Mr. Trump for an article that was published on Sunday in The Washington Examiner.

Mr. Trump followed up on the comment in a tweet on Monday night, arguing that Jackson saw the Civil War coming and would have prevented it had he not died 16 years earlier.
WASHINGTON  After two false starts on President Trumps promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Trump administration officials ratcheted up pressure on the House on Monday to vote on a revised version of the Republican repeal bill this week, even as support may actually be eroding.

The president complicated his pitch with a jumble of statements that indicated he did not fully understand the content of the measure he was pushing. He insisted that the repeal bill would protect Americans with pre-existing medical conditions, as the Affordable Care Act does. But a host of medical groups and disease advocacy organizations said it would not.

I want it to be good for sick people, Mr. Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Its not in its final form right now. It will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.

Representative Billy Long, Republican of Missouri, said on Monday: I have always stated that one of the few good things about Obamacare is that people with pre-existing conditions would be covered. The Republicans latest version strips away any guarantee that pre-existing conditions would be covered and affordable, he said.
WASHINGTON  In the early days of the Trump presidency, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have not agreed on much. But they have come together to keep the government open for the next several months.

The more than $1 trillion spending deal that congressional leaders reached on Sunday was an act of compromise, a rarity in a highly polarized Congress.

But that was the easy part. The fiscal year is already more than halfway over, and the new spending package  which must still be approved by lawmakers  covers only the next five months. A bigger fight awaits as the year goes on and President Trump tries to put his imprint on the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
A 49-year-old San Diego man, apparently distraught over a recent breakup, fired a gun while on a cellphone with his ex-girlfriend on Sunday, killing one person and injuring at least six at a poolside party before the police shot and killed him, the authorities said.

The attack took place around 6 p.m. as people gathered around the pool for a birthday party at the La Jolla Crossroads complex in University City, near the University of Californias campus in the northwest part of the city.

At a news conference on Monday, Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said the suspect, Peter Selis, who lived at the complex, was distraught, depressed when he opened fire.

It is apparent that Selis wanted his girlfriend to listen in as he carried out his rampage, she said.
In a statement, Netflix said the writers sought the advice of medical professionals while writing the script, and the show carries a TV-MA rating as well as a warning about graphic content. Our members tell us that 13 Reasons Why has helped spark important conversations in their families and communities around the world, the statement said.

Some parents have defended the show. Dawn Zawadzki, a paralegal from Fort Mill, S.C., said she watched part of the series with her 16-year-old daughter. Everybody is saying it glamorizes suicide, but I dont think it does, she said. Its making us wake up and look at it.

Not everyone agrees. Just before its March 31 release, a producer sought the support of the JED Foundation, a teen suicide prevention group. I think they were looking for us to say, It was a great educational tool, or that they handled the issues in a psychologically helpful way, said Dr. Victor Schwartz, a psychiatrist and the chief medical officer at the JED Foundation.

Ultimately, he could not support what he called one long revenge story. The group issued a guide about the show, advising people who choose to watch it to view it with someone else and to take breaks between episodes rather than binge watch.

Its complicated, because they got a lot of important issues out on the table, Dr. Schwartz said. But hes concerned that students could think of suicide as a way to get back at people and worried that showing the specific way Hannah died would spur imitators. The missteps are high stakes, he concluded.

The problem, suicide prevention experts said, is that even an ugly suicide can beget copycats. Research has shown that someone elses death by suicide can reinforce a vulnerable persons motivation to die by suicide, said Madelyn Gould, a professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at Columbia University.

On Instagram, Paris Jackson, a 19-year-old model who has tried to kill herself in the past, called the series, extremely triggering. Please only watch this show with caution and keep in mind that it may put you in a dark place, she wrote in a post that got more than 20,000 likes.
By Dev Ankur Wadhawan: After Uttar Pradesh's anti-romeo squads, another BJP ruled state, Rajasthan, has launched mobile patrolling units to prevent molestation, harassment or eve teasing against women in the state. 26 women patrolling units, each comprising of two female constables, were flagged off from the Jaipur Commissionerate on Monday, for deployment in sensitive areas where instances of eve teasing, harassment have occurred in the past.

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"52 girls are there in these first efforts of ours whom we have trained who will be operating in 26 teams. Will operate in morning and evening. After talking to the DCPs, we people have identified those areas which are generally crowded and from where there is a possibility of complaints of eve teasing coming. Full command and control of these people will be from Abhay, our command and control centre... Additional DCP, Kamal Shekhawat, will be the overall incharge of this unit. These people will be deployed randomly as per requirement. These people have been given wireless sets which are connected with our PCR vans. If they feel there is any problem, then the local police and the PCR will also reach there and whatever legal action has to be taken, that legal action will be taken at that time against those people who are taking law in their hands. These kind of schools, malls, parks from where such kind of complaints come, these people will be deployed there," said Sanjay Agarwal, Police Commissioner, Jaipur.

A total of 52 female police constables, in groups of two, will now operate from 6 am to 10 pm and will ensure no cases of eve teasing, of harassment occur under their watch. The patrolling units will operate in two shifts.

"One thinking of ours was that any female will be little less hesitant in telling about her ordeal or pain to another female police personnel. That is why, we people have got these people deployed there. This is a new experiment for Jaipur that is beginning from today and as it progresses, we will try to improve it further. Its total command and control will be from Abhay command centre. Their deployment will be from the Commissionerate," Agarwal said.

The team shall be headed by an Additional DCP rank officer.

One look at these patrolling units gives a glimpse of what they possibly can do in case they are faced with eve teasers or have to give protection to women. They have been provided 110 CC scooties for easy mobility. Each of these female constables have a light-weight police baton that is easy to carry.

The vehicle is also equipped with wireless sets, sirens as well so as to ensure they can alert people and other police personnel, if need be.

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"This is a lady patrolling unit. Nothing more than that. It is a lady patrolling unit. If it sees something, it will call Chetak on phone or wireless, will call local people and the action that has to be taken even otherwise, will take that action," the Police Commissioner said when asked how it will ensure innocent men are not rounded up and there is no moral policing.

--- ENDS ---
BEIJING  Wu Xiaohui, the Chinese tycoon who was in failed talks with President Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to buy into a skyscraper project in Manhattan, is fighting allegations of financial chicanery and has threatened to sue a Chinese magazine that examined his companys labyrinthine funding.

The Anbang Insurance Group, which Mr. Wu controls as president and chief executive, said on Sunday that it would take legal action against Caixin Media and its editor in chief, Hu Shuli, after Caixin Weekly magazine questioned whether Anbang was as financially robust as the company claimed.

Anbangs shareholder structure is like a maze, Caixin said in an article published online on Saturday and in print on Monday. It said that Anbangs meteoric growth and acquisitions raised suspicions of financial sleight of hand, including capital injections coming from companies linked to Mr. Wu.

The left hand has been helping the right hand to inflate capital, the article said.

Anbang hit back with its own incendiary accusations. Caixin is a widely respected economics weekly, and its findings echoed an extensive report on Anbang by The New York Times last year. But Anbang suggested on Sunday that Caixin had published its report after failing to squeeze advertising orders and other contributions from Anbang.
NEW DELHI  Villagers in the northeastern Indian state of Assam beat to death two Muslim teenagers they suspected of stealing cows, the latest in a string of mob assaults in the country.

A police official said the teenagers had been spotted untying two cows in a pasture on Sunday. When the owner shouted Thieves, thieves, a crowd of several hundred villagers gathered and began beating the youths.

When the teenagers, identified as Riazuddin Ali, 18, and Abu Hanifa, 16, broke free and tried to flee, the crowd chased them for a mile and a half, the police official, Debaraj Upadhay, chief of Nagaon District, said.

Raham Ali, Mr. Alis father, said his son was an auto rickshaw driver and had left that day to go fishing. Faizul Islam, Mr. Hanifas father, said his son sold vegetables for a living.
SEOUL, South Korea  The C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, visited the South Korean capital on Monday amid heightened tensions with North Korea, and about a week before South Koreans vote for a new president, an embassy spokesman said on Monday.

Mr. Pompeo, traveling with his wife, was in Seoul to meet with American diplomats and military officials, said the embassy spokesman, Daniel Turnbull. The C.I.A. chief had no meetings scheduled with officials from the South Korean presidents office, Mr. Turnbull said, or with any of the candidates vying to succeed Park Geun-hye, who was impeached for corruption in December and removed from office in March.

South Koreans will go to the polls to choose a new president on May 9.

Mr. Pompeos visit drew attention from the South Korean news media at a time of increasing anxiety on the Korean Peninsula over the Norths nuclear ambitions and increased ballistic missile activity.

North Korea carried out a missile test on Saturday that failed, the second consecutive failed test in the last two weeks. The projectile fired on Saturday  it was not clear what type of missile it was  exploded minutes after liftoff.
MANILA  President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines said on Monday that he might not accept President Trumps invitation to visit the White House, because he was tied up with a busy schedule.

I cannot make any definite promise, Mr. Duterte said, adding, Im supposed to go to Russia; Im also supposed to go to Israel.

Mr. Trumps invitation on Saturday to Mr. Duterte, an authoritarian leader who has been accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, drew criticism from human rights advocates, who said such a visit would amount to a White House endorsement of Mr. Dutertes policies. Thousands of people have been gunned down in the Philippines since Mr. Duterte took office in June, promising a crackdown on narcotics.

White House officials said Mr. Trump had called Mr. Duterte in an effort to mend their countries recently strained relationship, as a bulwark against Chinas expansionism in the South China Sea. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said Mr. Trump also wanted to build a united front in Asia in opposition to North Koreas pursuit of nuclear and missile technology.
Weve grown up together, he said in an interview by phone from Hawaii, where he has been posted to the United States Pacific Command since January. We trust each other and know we can operate together.

Still, there have been challenges. In a discussion last year about the cost of the Marines in Darwin, the Australians came in with a data-heavy presentation asserting that United States Marines eat more than typical Australian soldiers, and therefore strain sewage systems more, and argued that the Americans should pay more of the costs of improving wastewater lines on military bases. The proposal stunned even the lead Australian negotiators, who quickly dropped it, according to American defense officials.

The toughest issues have involved China, the crucial lever of influence with North Korea and the region. Some American officials have urged Australia to engage in robust freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, where China has set up bases on disputed islands, but the Australians have resisted.

Last year, American officials also expressed alarm about a port in Darwin that local officials leased to a Chinese company for $361 million, possibly making it easier to collect intelligence on American and Australian forces stationed nearby.
PARIS  Frances presidential campaign entered its last week on Monday, coinciding with May Day labor demonstrations around the country that reflected a split among unions over whether to endorse Emmanuel Macron, the centrist candidate, against Marine Le Pen, his far-right opponent.

More than 140,000 people participated in rallies in Paris, Lille, Marseille and other cities  events organized by French labor unions, some of which have found themselves in a bind ahead of the vote in the second and final round of the presidential election on Sunday.

Although they have historically opposed Ms. Le Pens far-right National Front and have urged members to vote against her, several major labor unions also fought the job market overhauls that Mr. Macron defended as economy minister and that he wants to expand if elected.

That has left unions split between those who have explicitly endorsed Mr. Macron, and those who have only called for votes against Ms. Le Pen.
In our current climate, they need reaffirming, exploring and celebrating more than ever, he said.

Another trustee, Patrick Derham, headmaster of Westminster School, described the library as a magical place, which, in an increasingly illiberal world, is even more important now than at any point in its existence.

Over dinner, the current writer in residence, the novelist Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, put the attraction differently: When I was a kid, I always wanted to live in a library, then I discovered that there is a library, and you can live in it.

Liz Simons, a textiles teacher from Cambridge, said she was visiting because of her 18-year-old sons interest in Victorian history. As a supporter of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party, he may not be typical of Gladstones Library users, though she thinks exposure to it may be making him a little more liberal.

Originally, the library was named after the nearby church, St. Deiniols, which contains several plaques commemorating the Gladstone family. (William Gladstone, who died at Hawarden Castle in 1898, is buried in Westminster Abbey.)

The librarys warden must be a member of the clergy, and there is a regular communion service at 8 a.m., though Mr. Francis said that there was no expectation that people go, and described this as old-fashioned Anglicanism that goes on like the breathing of the house.

Mr. Francis remembered being terribly scornful that his predecessor stayed in the job for 21 years, yet he is now at the start of his own second decade in the post and seems destined to outdo the record. Not that this means he has become complacent, he added.

We have a lot of images of Gladstone, and I do find him quite stern, he said. You cant quite loll about doing nothing with Gladstone looking over you. You feel you should be doing something solidly and seriously.
When the treaty was signed in Vienna in June 1979 by President Carter and the Soviet leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev, Mr. Toon angered the White House by publicly questioning whether it provided a sufficient means to verify Soviet compliance. But he soon announced his support for the treaty, saying the Pentagon had eased his fears. In the end, President Carter removed the treaty from Senate consideration, and it was not ratified.

When Mr. Toon had arrived for the SALT II summit meeting, he was stunned to learn that President Carter planned to appoint Thomas J. Watson Jr., a former chairman of I.B.M., to succeed him. Mr. Toon had planned to retire soon, and he would do so that October, but he further irritated the White House when he was openly critical of the practice of giving ambassadorships to political supporters and others who had no background in the Foreign Service.

For me and others at the embassy, Toon was a fearsome presence, James Schumaker, a Foreign Service officer who worked under him in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, wrote in a memoir of his time in Belgrade. Everyone at that post seemed to be a little bit afraid of him, myself included.

Malcolm Toon was born on July 4, 1916, in Troy, N.Y., a few years after his parents, George and Margaret Toon, had emigrated from Scotland. His father was a stonecutter. The Toon family returned to Scotland when Malcolm was 6, then went back to the United States and settled in Northborough, Mass., about 35 miles west of Boston.

Mr. Toon graduated from Tufts University in 1937 and received a masters degree from its Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1938.

Image Malcolm Toon in 1982. In his nearly 35 years as a Foreign Service officer, he served as ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Israel and the Soviet Union. Credit... George Tames/The New York Times

He commanded a PT boat in the Pacific during World War II, then joined the State Department. He served in Poland, Haiti and Hungary, received Russian-language training and had stints in the Moscow embassy in the 1950s and 60s.
The Berlin police arrested several demonstrators who marched through the fringes of a street festival in the citys Kreuzberg neighborhood, for years the site of protests and violence during May Day rallies. The police said about 8,000 people took part in the march, some of whom lobbed bottles and fireworks at officers clad in riot gear keeping the demonstrators from the revelers.

Earlier in the day, 14,000 people marched elsewhere in Berlin under the banners of the German Federation of Trade Unions, calling for a reduction in the number of temporary contracts that companies can offer and for guaranteed social benefits for all employees. The march was one of hundreds organized by unions across the country that have faced dwindling membership in recent years.

South Korea
LONDON  No one expects negotiations over Britains exit from the European Union to go smoothly over the next two years, but a German newspapers account of a dinner last Wednesday between the British prime minister, Theresa May, and senior European Union officials suggests that round one, at least, was particularly discordant.

On Sunday, the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, ran an article, clearly leaked by officials in the European Commission, that described a considerable gulf between Mrs. May, who called for a snap election on June 8, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the commission, as well as the blocs chief negotiator on Britains exit, Michel Barnier.

According to the German newspaper and some from Britain, like The Sunday Times of London, Mr. Juncker came away believing that Mrs. May was not just in a state of denial, but in a different galaxy, as he was said to have reported in an early morning telephone call the next day to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.

The paper reported that Mrs. May said at one point, Lets make Brexit a success. Mr. Juncker was said to have replied, Brexit cannot be a success.
When Rana Daggubati was caught by the police, he asked for help from his Baahubali 2 co-star Prabhas. Here is what happened next.

By India Today Web Desk: Rana Daggubati and Prabhas play arch-enemies Bhallala Deva and Baahubali on screen. While Prabhas is Baahubali, a man who is kind, benevolent, noble and brave, Rana Daggubati is Bhallala Deva, a conniving, bitter, arrogant and evil person. Prabhas and Rana's on-screen characters could not be more different from each other. But in real life, these two are the best of friends.

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Prabhas and Rana Daggubati shot for Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali: The Conclusion for up to five years. During this time, the two developed a unique, warm camaraderie that will go beyond the Baahubali films. And as it goes with close friends, these two played pranks on each other.

Rana Daggubati in a recent episode of the chat show Konchem Touch lo Unte Chepta spilled out the beans about one such prank. Turns out, Rana made a prank call to Prabhas and said that he wanted help because the police has caught him!

Prabhas patiently listened to Rana and then said, "Tell the police that you are in Baahubali 2 as my companion and they will leave you."

Seems like either Prabhas was way too much in character to speak as boldly as Baahubali does in the films. Or he saw through Rana Daggubati's prank.

Meanwhile, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion is breaking all kinds of Indian box-office records. The film has already made up to Rs 450 crore worldwide and its Hindi version has earned the maximum amount of money among all Bollywood films in the first weekend.

The BIGGIES and their first 3 days...#Sultan ? 105.53 cr [Wednesday release]#Dangal ? 107.01 cr#Baahubali2 ? 128 cr [Hindi]India biz- taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) May 1, 2017

Starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Sathyaraj, Tamannaah and Ramya Krishnan, Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, directed by SS Rajamouli, is presently running in theatres.

OPINION: Is Prabhas India's next big superstar?

ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 Hindi review

ALSO READ: Baahubali 2 Tamil review

WATCH: SS Rajamouli's Baahubali 2 gets a thumbs up from fans

--- ENDS ---
Iran said Monday that it had discussed the issue of Americans with dual citizenship held in Iranian prisons during a meeting last week with the United States.

The discussion, during a meeting in Vienna on compliance with the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord, was the first face-to-face exchange between emissaries from Iran and the United States since President Trump took office.

A State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, had suggested on April 25 that the imprisonments would be raised at the meeting, which was held while both sides were attending a session of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nonproliferation monitor.

Bahram Ghasemi, a spokesman for Irans Foreign Ministry in Tehran, confirmed on Monday that there had been a discussion, and he said such talks in previous years had yielded positive results.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  Last months chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held Syrian town may have caught the worlds  and President Trumps  attention, but it was not the only recent suspected use of a nerve agent by Syrian government forces.

On three other occasions in the months leading up to the attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, witnesses, doctors and human rights investigators say, government attacks left scores of people sickened with similar symptoms, like foaming at the mouth, shaking and paralysis  including two attacks in December, little noticed at the time, that killed at least 64 people.

New information about the additional attacks appears in a Human Rights Watch report released Monday, bolstering New York Times reporting on those episodes and placing Khan Sheikhoun in the context of wider evidence that the Syrian government continues to use chemical weapons despite its 2013 agreement to give them up.

Despite the missile strike Mr. Trump ordered on the Syrian military airfield he said was the source of the Khan Sheikhoun attack, Syrian forces are doubling down on tactics that constitute war crimes, including bombing hospitals and rescue and medical workers and using chemical weapons, according to the report and other witness accounts.
Experts on all sides of the complex struggle here say the new document is unlikely to represent any profound change in Hamass true position toward Israel. The group recently chose a hard-liner, Yehya Sinwar, as its new leader in Gaza, and it has still in no way recognized Israel or renounced violence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel quickly denounced the move. Hamass document is a smoke screen, he said in a statement. We see Hamas continuing to invest all of its resources not just in preparing for war with Israel, but also in educating the children of Gaza to want to destroy Israel.

Hamas is still considered a terrorist group by much of the West, including the United States, a status that has led to its exclusion from wider international talks about the Palestinians future.

Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the group had to move beyond its original charter to achieve its goals. The document gives us a chance to connect with the outside world, he said. To the world, our message is: Hamas is not radical. We are a pragmatic and civilized movement. We do not hate the Jews. We only fight who occupies our lands and kills our people.

The document is a distillation of various public statements over the years signaling an attempt by Hamas to appear more pragmatic since it seized broad control of Gaza in 2007, after winning parliamentary elections a year earlier. Four years in the drafting, the document represents the consensus of Hamass top leadership.

The paper calls for Hamas to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to build stronger ties with Egypt, which controls the Gaza Strips southern border. It reiterates the Hamas leaderships view that it is open to a Palestinian state along the borders established after the 1967 war, though it does not renounce future claims to Palestinian rule over what is now Israel. And the group specifically weakened language from its 1988 charter proclaiming Jews as enemies and comparing their views to Nazism, though the new document does not replace the original charter.

Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish, but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine, the new document states.
Welcome to The New York Timess latest ambitious experiment in covering the world and connecting with readers.

Im Damien Cave, your new Australia bureau chief  a Yank, a bit of a larrikin, a father of two, and a writer and editor who has covered a dozen countries. I want to make sure you know how to find our expanded coverage of Australia and the region, and how to connect with our journalists, and with each other.

Our primary goal, of course, is to bring you more of the high-quality coverage that youve come to expect from Times reporters and photographers around the world. Were putting together a talented team here that will dig deep and wide. But as we build momentum and deliver more distinctive coverage  like this article on the Great Barrier Reef, or this feature on New Zealand courting global techies  we want you, our audience, to help shape the journey.

Here are a few ways you can find us and participate.
The new Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) will be effective in India from today. Here is an FAQ about the new act which will prove a boon to homebuyers.

By India Today Web Desk: The consumer friendly Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) 2016, that was announced by the government last year, will become effective in the country from today. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act is expected to bring transparency and accountability in the realty sector and ensure consumers will not be cheated or taken for a ride by the developers. The act will also ensure that consumers won't have to endure late deliveries.

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Here is all you need to know about the Real Estate Regulatory Act and some frequently asked questions answered:

How will RERA be implemented?

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has notified 69 out of 92 sections of the Act last week and ensured the Act is enforced from May 1. Both the Central and State governments are to formulate rules under RERA within six months. A report in the Hindustan Times said that the HUPA Ministry will be in charge of formulating rules for Union Territories but for Delhi, the rules will be set by the Ministry of Urban Development.

An authority -- Real Estate Regulatory Authority -- will be established by the government (Centre or State) within a year from today. These bodies will decide on the complaints of buyers and developers in not more than 60 days. Until the authorities are in place, Governments can designate any officer as the interim Regulatory Authority.

Madhya Pradesh already has a Regulatory Authority in place. States like Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Haryana have an interim Regulatory Authority in place, said a report in Money Control.

How will RERA impact homebuyers?

Customers who are looking at purchasing an ongoing project or a project that is yet to be registered will be ensured better protection under RERA because the terms of project delivery will be as per the Act starting today.

Pricing will be impacted with both GST and RERA becoming effective but may take six to 12 months to pan out, said Money Control. The homebuyer will have to pay only for the carpet area, that is the area within walls, and the builder cannot charge for the super built-up area the way it is now, said Business Today.

The same report said that the developer will have to transfer 70 per cent of the money received from customers to an escrow account. This will ensure the builder does not spend the money on other projects since they can withdraw money from this account after approvals from engineers and chartered accountants they appoint.

How will Real Estate Regulatory Act affect builders and developers?

Builders, developers and promoters cannot advertise/promote any project, without quoting a RERA registration number and website address of RERA says Money Control, after three months. If they fail to register post this period, they cannot continue with marketing and selling their projects.

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With RERA, since the builders have to get all the necessary clearances before they could sell the project, malpractices in that regard is expected to be curbed.

Will the builder provide warranty for the projects?

Yes. The builder has to provide a 5-year warranty for any structural defect in the building, said the Business Today report. Amit Chawla, Associate Director, Valuation and Advisory Services, Colliers International India, was quoted as saying by the Financial Express, "Under RERA, in case of any structural defect or poor quality, it will be the responsibility of the developer to rectify such defects for a period of five years.

WATCH VIDEO | Big boon for home buyers: Real Estate Act comes into force today

--- ENDS ---


Cinco de mayo

(Image by SPakhrin) Details DMCA



On May 5, 1862, Mexican troops defeated invading French troops in the outskirts of Puebla, a city around 60 miles east of Mexico City. How did events come to this point in time, what were French troops doing in Mexico and why?

To understand we need to go back in time. On September 15, 1810, a priest, Miguel Hidalgo, sounded the church bells to unite Mexicans in a war of independence from Spain -- Independence was declared the following day, September 16th. But it took Mexicans 11 years to oust the Spaniards. But the general who took the country to victory decided he should become Emperor of Mexico, which led to an internal civil war to oust the pretender which they did.

They were barely getting their house in order when an unprovoked war was thrust on them -- the US wanted and took about 50 percent of its territory. Needless to say, Mexicans weren't happy with this circumstance and blamed their leader, Santa Anna, accusing him of great treason. This led to another rebellion to oust him from office.

Once this done, Mexico entered into one of its most important historical periods: the formation of its Constitution of 1857.

There were two political forces at work, the Liberals who wanted to create a country not unlike the US : A representative republic, democratic, federal, religiously tolerant, free market economy, and an educational system independent of religion, and, most importantly - separation between the State and religion. This instrument would provide Mexican citizens with vast constitutional protections rivaling those in the U.S. (Their constitutional congress used both the US and French constitution as models picking the best of each and adding what they thought best for Mexico)

The other political force was the Conservatives who wanted strong ties to Spain , only the Catholic religion would be allowed, national industrial protectionism (limited imports), regulated freedom of expression, no opposing political parties. They also believed Mexico should be tied to a European monarchy with the head of Mexico having absolute power, and to distance the country as much as possible from the US .

This terrible schism led to the civil war known as "La Guerra de Reforma" (The War of Reform). In 1861, the Conservatives were defeated, and their leaders executed. But the combination of so many years of fighting had placed Mexico in heavy international debt with England , Spain and France .

Meantime in the French court of Emperor Napoleon III, a wealthy Mexican land owner and Conservative, who had access to, and meetings with, the Emperor's wife, the Spaniard Eugenia de Montijo, planted the idea of establishing a monarchy in Mexico as a way of stopping the further territorial expansion ambitions of the U.S..

The U.S. was tied up in its Civil War, so France convinced Spain and England to join in sending troops to collect monies owed them by the new Liberal controlled government presided by Benito Juarez.

Troops from the three countries landed in Veracruz in late 1861. The English and Spaniards were able to negotiate a repayment schedule that was acceptable to all. The parties, including the French, signed the agreement. The Spaniard and English troops left Mexico without incident.

The French commander, Dubois de Saligny, declared, "My signature is worth as much as the paper it is written on." Declaring they were there at the invitation of the exiled Conservative government to establish a monarchy and save Mexico from its non-Catholic leaders, French troops began their long march to capture Mexico City.

And so it was that on May 5, 1862, the most powerful army in Europe met the Mexican army of veterans and farmers outside of Puebla. Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza, addressed his troops, "Your enemies are the first-rate soldiers of the world; but you are the sons of Mexico, and they are here to take your country."

The battle began at noon - the French stormed the Mexican defensive position once and were repelled. A second charge brought the same results. It was then that the Mexican troops attacked, driving the French back in disarray. Hostilities came at the end of the day due to heavy rainfall making any more action impossible.

French commanders were so sure of quick victory that before beginning their march had sent a message to Napoleon III declaring the Emperor owner of Mexico . Instead, it took three months to capture Puebla , and eventually all of Mexico .

Having captured the country, the French were never able to appease the population. Widespread resistance finally led to their defeat and departure from Mexico . The Intervention lasted until 1867.

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was received on his arrival in New Delhi by President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi today.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accorded ceremonial welcome in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

By India Today Web Desk: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was accorded a ceremonial guard of honour at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi today.

Earlier, President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi received Erdogan on two-day state visit to India.

Later during the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold delegation level talks at Hyderabad House in New Delhi.

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TALKS ON TRADE, TERROR, NSG

The two sides are also expected to sign a series of agreements. India-Turkey trade stands at USD 6.4 billion.

Turkey is looking for a Free Trade Agreement and a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement to bridge the deficit with India.

Regional security, terrorism and NSG membership for India are likely to be top on agenda during the bilateral talks between the two sides.

DEEPENING TIES

Turkish President Erdogan's visit comes after winning the April 16 referendum, which gives him more executive powers as President.

Erdogan had visited India last time in 2008, when he was the Prime Minister. President Pranab Mukherjee had visited Turkey in 2013.

Besides, PM Narendra Modi also met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Antalya in 2015.

(With inputs from IANS)

ALSO READ|

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to meet PM Narendra Modi today: 10 things you need to know

ALSO WATCH | Mann Ki Baat: Concept of New India is about EPI (every person is important), not VIP, says PM Modi

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Two days of clashes in al-Khalil in connection with prisoners' hunger strike



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30th April 2017 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | al-Khalil (Hebron), occupied Palestine

Heavy clashes broke out during two consecutive days as Israeli forces stormed the Bab Al-Zawiah neighborhood in al-Khalil, attacking young Palestinians protesting in solidarity with the ongoing prisoners' hunger strike. It resulted in multiple persons being injured, caused by live ammunition and teargas, and at least one protestor being detained.

Thursday

Clashes erupted on Thursday in the Bab al-Zawiyah area of Hebron between Palestinian youths and the forces of the Israeli Army and Border Police. Minor confrontations occurred in the souq in the morning before the situation escalated at noon when several platoons of Israeli soldiers, accompanied by Border Police, entered Bab al-Zawiah in the nominally Palestinian controlled H1 area, causing anger among the hundred-or-so Palestinian youths congregated there.

On Thursday, a general strike was held across occupied Palestine in solidarity with the 1500 Palestinians currently on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, demanding their right to humane and fair treatment in accordance with international law. Consequently, all shops and public transportation were shut down during the day. Many Palestinian youths had congregated in the Bab al-Zawiyah neighbourhood -- not far from Ibn Rusht square, where a solidarity tent has been erected in support of the hunger striking prisoners -- to express their anger through spontaneous protests.

At around 12:30 on Thursday, at least two platoons of Israeli soldiers and around 10 border police made their way up the souq towards the vegetable market and Bab al-Zawiya. While initially seemingly halting their movements at the H1/H2 border, the soldiers soon took up positions around 200 meters into the nominally Palestinian controlled H1. From there, the Israeli forces began bombarding the surrounding area with teargas and sound grenades, as well as shooting with live ammunition into the temporarily dispersing crowd of protesters.



Street leading up from vegetable market filling up with tear gas

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Additional groups of Israeli forces soon swamped the roofs of the area, from which protesters were targeted with continuous showers of sound grenades. Swaying back and forth among a few centrally located streets, the clashes continued for several hours as the ground became littered with empty teargas cartridges, grenades, and spent ammunition.



Israeli soldiers throwing sound grenades from a roof in H1

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Fighting continued throughout the day as Israeli forces used live ammunition, sound grenades, and large amounts of teargas against Palestinians, who responded by throwing stones and burning tires. In addition to the numerous injuries caused by the indiscriminate firing of teargas canisters, ISM activists witnessed at least two Palestinians being seriously wounded after being shot with live ammunition in their feet. The two young protesters were quickly carried away and rushed to hospital.



Protesters halts a passing car to to bring an injured man to hospital. He was shot through the foot with live ammunition

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Later in the afternoon the intensity of the clashes began to subside as the Israeli forces retreated back into H2. However, at around 17:30 several platoons of solders began to once again cross into Bab al-Zawiya which was by then all but empty. Their incursion soon caused renewed anger among the youths still present in the area, resulting in a resumption of clashes.

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Pinocchio

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This weekend's events marking Trump's first 100 days in office provides an example of the problem as the press gets lost in their coverage of his "deeply disturbing" speech in Harrisburg while ignoring Trump's weekly address. Meanwhile, this address contains outright lies that feed Trump's alternate reality. Since our impotent press has failed to provide any type of fact-checking, I'll do their job for them:



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Trump was handed an economy that "has gained jobs for 75 straight months -- the longest streak on record." When Obama left office the unemployment rate stood "at 4.7 percent". To put that in historical perspective, "in all the months since 1948 the median jobless rate was 5.6 percent." Therefore, to say that Trump is "bringing BACK jobs" is in itself a violation of the truth.

While Trump likes to take credit for everything good that has happened since the beginning of the year or even since his election, there have only been two full months of economic reports since he actually took office. The February jobs report showed that 237,000 jobs were created in the first full month of Trump's presidency, 1,000 LESS than the amount that was created in February 2016. "Employers pulled back sharply on hiring in March", creating only 98,000 jobs. In March 2016, 225,000 jobs were created.



The "gross domestic product increased at a meager 0.7% annual pace in the first three months of the year, down from 2.1% and 3.5% in the back half of 2016." This was the "slowest growth in 3 years".

Trump's "plan" was nothing more than an outline on a single sheet of paper. When asked on ABC's Good Morning America, Treasury Secretary, would not "guarantee that middle-class families wouldn't pay more under the proposal."



According to TransCanada's bid for the permit, only 50 permanent jobs will be created to maintain the Keystone pipeline. It will also increase our trade deficit as it will be built to import Canadian oil into our country. "Just 40 full-time permanent positions will remain upon the conclusion of construction on the DAPL". Despite previous assurances, neither project will require using American made steel.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is a $400 billion program. Interestingly, Trump had just bragged on Monday that he had saved $700 million from this program, making this seem like nothing more than the tall tales of weekend fishermen. Additionally, these projected savings are not contained in a contract but in the "personal assurance" of Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson. The General Accounting Office says that due to "cascading testing delays" the project "could cost the Department of Defense more than a billion dollars more than what was budgeted in 2011 when the program was restructured."

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Handsome old Nazi with up and coming Ukie nazi

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Ukraine is having its coming out party in 2017. It's a real trans' democratic affair.

The flower of European values and democracy Petr Poroshenko, championed by Ukrainian ethnic Victoria Nuland as a model, has declared 2017 the Year of the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).

Back in the wild and wooly 1930s to mid-40s, the Ukrainian nationalists UPA made a name for themselves as some of the most brutal prison guards and soldiers the German's had next to the Ustashe and Albanians in the Balkans.

In February 2017, Poroshenko started the festivities by putting up a memorial at the site of World War II's first Holocaust. The first massacre of the Holocaust was in Kiev, Ukraine at Babi Yar. The massacre was committed by the OUN Ukrainian nationalists.

Instead of the promised Holocaust Remembrance Memorial, he promised to spend millions on, Poroshenko put up a memorial to the Killers of the Jewish people at Babi Yar. In his defense, Poroshenko ONLY promised to put up a memorial commemorating the massacre. So I guess this counts.

This monument at the Babi Yar Holocaust site was in honor of OUNb poet, publisher, and propagandist Olena Teliha.



Ukraine's nazis celebrate Holocaust Nazi

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As you can see, the who's who of Ukrainian nationalist society turned out to honor the victims...uhmm...mass murderer heroine. From Vitali Klitschko to the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Rus-Ukraine Filaret, and even Pravy Sektor were accounted for. Many EuroMaidan activists were there.

Honoring Holocaust victims in Ukraine is as easy as putting up a statue to their killers. The US Embassy reaction was timely and predictable.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) "The embassy celebrated the legacy of Olena Teliha Wednesday in a Facebook post that designated her one of the "women who inspire Ukraine" in connection with "Women's History Month".

Teliha was an activist for the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, which fought during the first half of the 20th century against Soviet domination. Leaders of OUN briefly collaborated with Nazi occupation forces before turning against them. Teliha was executed at the age of 35 at Babi Yar in Kiev, where the Nazis also murdered tens of thousands of Jews."

The US Embassy sees the propagandist, Holocaust justifier and OUN murderer as a model of femininity.

The "briefly collaborated" part of the statement is the head scratcher of the decade. The OUN and subsequent UPA were collaborating with Nazi Germany from the beginning to the end of WWII. OUNb members, leaders, and American ethnics plotted to assassinate sitting president Franklin Delano Roosevelt hoping his successor would bring the US into the war on the Axis side.

When Ukrainian nationalist scholar Taras Kuzio interviewed Slava Stetsko, she said she was in Berlin in 1945 negotiating with Hitler hoping he would fund more armies. Stetsko's husband was the best friend of and second in command to the OUNb Nazi leader Stepan Bandera.

I'm inclined to believe the mass murdering genocidist when they admit this kind of thing over the State Department employee looking to justify it. But, it was only 33,000 Jewish victims this time, so no biggie, right?

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Reprinted from www.truthdig.com

There is a familiar checklist for extinction. We are ticking off every item on it.

The idiots know only one word--"more." They are unencumbered by common sense. They hoard wealth and resources until workers cannot make a living and the infrastructure collapses. They live in privileged compounds where they eat chocolate cake and order missile strikes. They see the state as a projection of their vanity. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanov, Wilhelmine, Pahlavi and Soviet dynasties crumbled because the whims and obsessions of ruling idiots were law.

Donald Trump is the face of our collective idiocy. He is what lies behind the mask of our professed civility and rationality--a sputtering, narcissistic, bloodthirsty megalomaniac. He wields armies and fleets against the wretched of the earth, blithely ignores the catastrophic human misery caused by global warming, pillages on behalf of global oligarchs and at night sits slack-jawed in front of a television set before opening his "beautiful" Twitter account. He is our version of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers, the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back the potion that would give him eternal life, and a decayed Russian royalty that sat around reading tarot cards and attending se'ances as their nation was decimated by war and revolution brewed in the streets.

The more the warning signs are palpable--rising temperatures, global financial meltdowns, mass human migrations, endless wars, poisoned ecosystems, rampant corruption among the ruling class--the more we turn to those who chant, either through idiocy or cynicism, the mantra that what worked in the past will work in the future, that progress is inevitable. Factual evidence, since it is an impediment to what we desire, is banished. The taxes of corporations and the rich, who have deindustrialized the country and turned many of our cities into wastelands, are cut, and regulations are slashed to bring back the supposed golden era of the 1950s for white American workers. Public lands are opened up to the oil and gas industry as rising carbon emissions doom our species. Declining crop yields stemming from heat waves and droughts are ignored. War is the principal business of the kleptocratic state.

Walter Benjamin wrote in 1940 amid the rise of European fascism and looming world war:

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

Magical thinking is not limited to the beliefs and practices of pre-modern cultures. It defines the ideology of capitalism. Quotas and projected sales can always be met. Profits can always be raised. Growth is inevitable. The impossible is always possible. Human societies, if they bow before the dictates of the marketplace, will be ushered into capitalist paradise. It is only a question of having the right attitude and the right technique. When capitalism thrives, we are assured, we thrive. The merging of the self with the capitalist collective has robbed us of our agency, creativity, capacity for self-reflection and moral autonomy. We define our worth not by our independence or our character but by the material standards set by capitalism--personal wealth, brands, status and career advancement. We are molded into a compliant and repressed collective. This mass conformity is characteristic of totalitarian and authoritarian states. It is the Disneyfication of America, the land of eternally happy thoughts and positive attitudes. And when magical thinking does not work, we are told, and often accept, that we are the problem. We must have more faith. We must envision what we want. We must try harder. The system is never to blame. We failed it. It did not fail us.

All of our systems of information, from self-help gurus and Hollywood to political monstrosities such as Trump, sell us this snake oil. We blind ourselves to impending collapse. Our retreat into self-delusion is a career opportunity for charlatans who tell us what we want to hear. The magical thinking they espouse is a form of infantilism. It discredits facts and realities that defy the glowing cant of slogans such as "Make America great again." Reality is banished for relentless and baseless optimism.

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Trump's appeal to "the workers" is real but the results indicate the workers did not bite. The average income of the Trump voter: $96,000. The average income of the Clinton voter: $61,000. Clinton won robustly those making $25K or less as well as those making $50 K or less. Clinton got the vote of the working poor, Trump of those with money who saw in his fake populism a backdoor to tax cuts for the affluent.

All fascists appeal to the "people," from the volk of Germany to the fake populism of Trump and Le Pen.

Because of the history of the National front for racism and anti-Semitism, softened by the savvy political radar of Le Pen, French banks will not loan her money so she has had to go abroad, including Russia, which is very favorable to many far-right parties in Europe.

" In 2014, the National Front took Russian loans worth 11m ( 9.4m). One of the loans, for 9m, came from a small bank, First Czech Russian Bank, with links to the Kremlin."

The Russian loans happened as Russia was annexing Crimea, and some wonder whether there was a link. Le Pen says she wants to end the sanctions brought about by the annexation, but so did Trump but that is all now rotten fish, best forgotten, as within 3 months, the US reaches its "lowest point" with Russia. I am suggesting that Le Pen and Trump share the same professed ideology, campaign tactics (ultranationalism, attacks on globalism, scapegoating of minorities) and that we can expect the same flip flops if she is elected.

Don't get me wrong: I agree that Crimea legitimately is part of Russia, that neoliberalism and globalism are evil, that the people should come first, but Trump is lying about who is causing the exaggerated evils he conjured up, and so is Le Pen.

I agree we should be partners with Russia, but look at how Trump has reversed his campaign promises and positions, and Le Pen is likely to do the same. She remains a big fan of Donald, even after he has betrayed everything he ran on.

In her ramped up campaign to fight terrorism, she will intensify the Police State and extend French bombing (with may civilians killed) beyond Syria and Iraq.

The War on Terror, which is her them, is based on scapegoating Muslims and justifying expanded war powers, repression at home, war abroad. That is fascism writ simple.



From flickr.com: Donald Trump flag

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Trump's Big Lie was that Mexicans are criminals and refugees are terrorists, both threatening America. Le Pen's big lie is that France because of "Islamic fanaticism" is on the verge of civil war. Like Trump, she is using fake threats and the need to "win" the war to drum up support. Here is what Madison said about making up excuses for war:

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people." Speech, Constitutional Convention

When Le Pen conjures up a civil war, she is preparing the population for war. In fact, since 2015, there have been 215 killings by alleged terrorists, with many of the attacks having the hallmark of false flag events to justify the militarization of French society. Le Pen vows to intensify this development, which puts vaunted French liberty and equality and solidarity at great peril.

In the 20th Century, Europe was devasted by two wars fueled by nationalism and leading to the slaughter of 100 million; and while I do not support NATO or the current EU leadership, I think it is important to understand why so many Europeans fear the resurgence of the nationalistic spirit which destroyed Europe twice in such a short time.

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The badge of the Order of Vitez contains several fascist marks: the Nazi double cross and the fascist bundled wheat. One of Trump's counter-terrorism advisers wore one at a TV appearance this year.

Wikipedia reports:

"During World War II, many members of the Hungarian government and military were members of the Order; as such, members were involved in both contributing to the Holocaust in Hungary as well as leading efforts against it.The United States Department of State lists this Order of Vite'z as having been "under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany.

Paul Gorka, who served Trump until yesterday as a national security advisor with "expertise" on counter-terrorism is gone, sort of. His departure is being painted as part of a "temporary" assignment and he will continue to aid the Trump regime from "outside." Gorka, denies any Nazi associations, but "In 2017 Gorka appeared on Fox News on the evening of the U.S. presidential inauguration wearing a badge, tunic, and ring associated with Order of Vite'z." Seig Heil!

Trump's association with Nazis extends to his chief strategist and leader of the alt-right, who admits the movement contains racists and neo-Nazis, and Trump is supported by one of the leaders of the neo-Nazi movement, Spencer, who spoke at the celebration in DC of Trumps victory amidst Heil Trump from his audience of Nazis, and now there is Gorka, a part of his administration, Gorka, who displayed a Nazi badge on live TV. Now working "from the outside."

This kind of rhetoric reminds us of the leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland and Ukrainian Ambassador Pyatt, discussing who will lead the regime after the coup takes place: Nuland: "I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the... what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week...."

Yats became prime minister, signing a deal with the IMF giving them control of the Ukrainian economy BEFORE the elections. The others continue to hve influence "from the outside."

Whenever such associations are exposed, the culprits are either let off the hook (Bannon is not a racist, not a white nationalist, but an economic nationalist with robust White Pride),s hidden, or, like Gorka released to work "outside".... and supporters like Duke and Spencer are softly denounced once their support has been secured.

The thesis that a leading contender for President of France, Marine Le Pen, is very much in the same boat as Trump, with associations with fascist leaders and advisers, is shown by the fact that at the same time that Gorka was being exposed and then "released," the same was happening in France with ther replacement as leader of the National Front (as Le Pen steps up to run for President) suddenly "quitting in a controversy regarding his comments that Holocaust denial is a legitimate topic for debate.

ABC News reports: " The man appointed to replace Marine Le Pen as head of her French far-right National Front party has stepped down to prepare legal action over allegations he expressed doubt about Nazi gas chambers......

The party faced fresh turmoil when comments that Mr. Jalkh made about the Holocaust in 2000 resurfaced alongside the news of his new appointment.

Mr. Jalkh made the comments while in conversation with a researcher about the work of Robert Faurisson, a professor convicted more than once for questioning the scale of Jewish extermination in Nazi gas chambers during World War II.

Also unearthed was a newspaper report from 1991 that said Mr. Jalkh had attended a rally held by supporters of Marshal Philippe Petain, a French wartime leader and Nazi collaborator." (and in Ukraine, as the President celebrates those who collaborated with the Nazis in WWII).

Both Gorka and Jalkh deny these associations but the evidence refutes their claims. ABC summarizes: "In the run-up to her bid for power, Ms. Le Pen has sought to cleanse the Front's image of xenophobic and anti-Semitic associations, recasting it as a "French first" party that opposes immigration, globalization and European Union membership." Ultranationalism has historically been the mask of fascism from Make Germany Great Again to Make America Great Again to France: Oui!

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The Trump administration is implementing new deportation priorities with the aim of creating fear as people are lifted from highly sensitive locations like schools, courts and places of worship, says Julia R Wilson of OneJustice. She was of the view that the Trump administration doesn't believe in ANY immigration.

Addressing a civil rights forum of the United Muslims of America in Fremont CA, the OneJustice attorney said that statewide network of attorneys is being created in order to response rapidly to ICE activity. At the same time there is focus on prevention side with clinics to offer immigration screening, family preparedness, asylum and other applications if a legal remedy is available.

Tellingly, arrests of immigrants have jumped by nearly one-third since President Donald Trump took office, compared to the same period a year ago. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit of the Department of Homeland Security arrested 21,362 allegedly undocumented immigrants from January 20 through mid-March, according to statistics released to the Washington Post, compared to 16,104 in the same period of 2016. On February 17, first protected DREAMer was deported under Trump. Within three hours of his detention by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer, Juan Manuel Montes, 23, was deported to Mexico.

Julia, the Chief Executive Officer of OneJustice, has the honor of being part of her professional colleagues who descended on U.S. airports all over the country in the last week of January to offer free legal help to the travelers and family members of loved ones detained under President Trump's executive order of January 27.

Trump's ban temporarily barred citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days, and Syrian citizens indefinitely. It led to chaos at U.S. and international airports as tens of thousands of visa holders were blocked from entering the country or detained after arriving in the U.S

Julia helped stranded travelers at San Francisco and Los Angeles airports. She shared the story of a Syrian refugee who was not allowed to board for a flight to Los Angeles at Istanbul airport because of Muslim Ban.

Syrian Refugee

The 38-year old Syrian refugee, a geologist, was living in Turkey for the last one year. Her wife, who got asylum last year, was already living in Long Beach, CA, living with her two-year-old son who is a US citizen. His flight from Istanbul to Los Angeles was booked on Lufthansa for January 29.

After Trump's Muslim ban there was chaos. "I was connected to this young man," Julia said adding: "For this young man , we were part of an international group of advocates, pro bono attorneys, struggling to help him as the legal context shifted around all of us on a nearly daily basis."

Finally, the Syrian refugee was allowed to board a flight to Los Angeles as the Federal Judge in Washington State, Judge James Robart, ruled (on Feb 3, 2017) the executive order would be stopped nationwide, effective immediately. Julia conveyed the court ruling to the Syrian refugee that helped him convince the airline.

Julia was of the view that using travel ban as a key example, we should mobilize against the injustices. For her working for justice is about preserving American democracy and the rule of law.

Julia believes that at this moment in our country's history, to achieve the American ideal of Justice For All, mobilization against injustice can and will break down all the walls that the Trump administration seeks to erect between our most human hearts.

Legal aid for Californians

Julia also spoke about pro bono legal services to the poor which are at risk because Trump administration, in the proposed budget would also eliminate, funding to the Legal Services Corp., an independent government agency that sends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to groups providing crucial legal services to low-income Americans.

In 2016, Legal Services received $385 million from Congress, 90 percent of which went directly to fund legal aid organizations.

At present the federal funding supports 11 organizations with over 60 offices throughout the state. She is going to DC to meet with the California legislators to educate them about the importance of legal help for the poor. Julia said this is a non-partisan issue. The rule of law works only when everyone has an equal chance in the courts.

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Reprinted from ourfuture.org

A new poll shows fully two-thirds of the American public agrees with this statement: "The Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of most people."

And scarcely more than one in four Democrats themselves think the party understands most people's everyday concerns.

It was also just announced that Barack Obama, following in the well-heeled footsteps of Bill and Hillary Clinton, will be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for giving a speech on behalf of a Wall Street firm.

Anyone who thinks these two facts aren't connected isn't paying attention. Obama's payday reflects a longstanding pattern of behavior from Democratic leaders: Talk like liberals, govern from the center, and make a lot of money once you're out of office.

Their policies better than Trump's and the GOP's, but that adds even more bite to that poll's other major finding: Democrats are viewed as even more out of touch with everyday concerns than Trump, a twitter-happy billionaire president who weekends at his palatial estate.

Democrats need a better message, to be sure. But they also need messengers who will walk the walk after they have talked the talk.

Barack Obama's $400,000 speaking fee, from investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, shouldn't surprise anyone. Obama courted Wall Street leaders like Jamie Dimon, CEO of scandal-plagued serial lawbreaker JP Morgan Chase, until it became politically unfeasible to do so during his re-election campaign. (Dimon was once described as Obama's "favorite banker.")

In 2009, after Wall Street's criminality shattered the economy and ruined millions of American lives, Obama famously told Wall Street's top CEOs, "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

In the years that followed, Obama's Justice Department failed to prosecute a single bank executive for that criminality. Even when regulators identified the individuals responsible for criminal behavior, as they did with GE Capital, the Justice Department failed to follow up.

For his part, Obama appointed the CEO of GE Capital's parent corporation to a prestigious economic position.

Obama chose Wall Street-friendly figures Eric Holder and Tim Geithner to lead the Justice and Treasury departments, respectively. He then followed Bill Clinton's lead by overseeing a revolving door between his administration and Wall Street's biggest banks (most notably Citigroup, the banking behemoth forged in a merger pushed by top appointees in the Clinton Administration).

As the nation has learned under Donald Trump, a president's pronouncements can have a powerful effect on legal actions. When Obama pre-emptively declared that Wall Street executives had not broken the law -- an opinion not shared by experts like William K. Black, Jr. -- that very possibly had a chilling effect on prosecutors in the field. It certainly sent a signal to lower-level appointees in his own Justice Department.

It may be overly cynical to see these large fees as payment for services rendered, but Obama's record on these matters -- like Bill Clinton's before him -- certainly didn't help that perception. At best, these speeches reflect the insular worldview of privileged insiders who neither understand nor fully empathize with the victims of lawbreaking bankers.

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'We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multi-lateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all,' said President Erdogan.

By India Today Web Desk: Even before his visit to India, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan courted by suggesting "multilateral dialogue" to resolve the Kashmir issue in order to ensure peace in the region.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multi-lateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," President Erdogan, who arrived in New Delhi last evening, told WION news channel in an interview.

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"All around the world, there is no better option than keeping the channel of dialogue open. If we contribute towards global peace, we can get a very positive result," he said.

"We have always emphasised that India-Turkey relations stand on their own footing and, we believe, the Turkish side reciprocates our sentiment," Ruchi Ghanashyam, Secretary (West) in the External Affairs Ministry, said.

Ghanashyam added that India's position on Jammu and Kashmir is very well known that it is an integral part of the country. However, she did not respond when asked if India will raise the issue.

President Erdogan said India and Pakistan were both friends of Turkey and he wanted to help strengthen the dialogue process among the stakeholders for resolving the Kashmir issue.

The Turkish leader said that it is in the interest of India and Pakistan that they should resolve this issue and not leave it for the future generations who will have to suffer.

This is President Erdogan's first foreign visit after winning a controversial referendum on April 16 that further consolidated his executive powers.

"All around the world, there is no better option than keeping the channel of dialogue open. If we contribute towards global peace, we can get a very positive result," he said.

President Erdogan said he wanted to help strengthen the dialogue process among the stakeholders for resolving the Kashmir issue which has been festering for the last 70 years.

Replying to questions on the Kurdish problem in Turkey, he said it could not be compared with the Kashmir issue. "We have no problem with the Kurdish people. We have a problem with a terrorist organisation," he said.

"It (the Kurdish problem) is a territorial dispute. In Jammu and Kashmir, the situation is different. Let's not make the mistake of comparing them," he said.

(With inputs from PTI)

Also Read:

Turkish President Erdogan accorded ceremonial welcome, talks with PM Narendra Modi later today

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to meet PM Narendra Modi today: 10 things you need to know

ALSO WATCH | Mann Ki Baat: Concept of New India is about EPI (every person is important), not VIP, says PM Modi

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US flag flown upside down, a sign of distress

Let's come straight out with it, to the US government, We the People are the enemy.

If you've read John W. Whitehead [1] regularly you're already aware of that.

The tell-tale sign: surveillance camera's seemingly everywhere. On most street intersections, photo enforced streets, roads by all schools, airports, railway stations, toll roads and all commercial stores.

Then there's the ubiquitous, "If you see something, say something" heard in Metro subway stations, airports and railway stations. It's portrayed as a necessary given for our "safety and protection" make us fearful of would be terrorists and other bad guys out to harm us.

But really ALL meant for the authorities to keep close tabs on us everywhere. Combined with electronic surveillance of our cell phones and computers-whether on or off-and the NSA pretty much has us under its constant surveillance.

Of course it's all against the 4th Amendments strictures against "unreasonable searches and seizures" and without "probable cause" making it all illegal. Yet most Americans apparently don't care taking the foolish "I haven't done anything wrong so why worry about it" mantra.

It appears the public has been so propagandized and indoctrinated, they've accepted these illegal surveillance intrusions into their everyday lives.

But think about it: If the public absolutely objected to their governments spying on them these illegal intrusions could be severely curtailed, limited only to court ordered warrants for specific instances of suspected criminal activities-as legally specified in the Constitution.

The reason the government has become so paranoid of the people? They know we're the many and they're the few and if our police and military realized they were protecting and defending the indefensible, against the Constitution they've sworn to uphold, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, the party would all be over.

And that necessary "revolution" returning the government to and for the people could soon be realized.

Then all our illegal wars and occupations ended, the military downsized to defend only against an imminent attack, the billions spent on unnecessary defense industry weaponry eliminated, nuclear weapons eliminated and peace in the world realized.

So our government knows its biggest enemy is its own people, not terrorists, Russia, China, Iran or North Korea.

It's us, you and me they're really afraid of. That's why they take the measures they do. Why they infiltrate peaceful protests and demonstrations with agent provocateurs who initiate violence giving the authorities the pretext to interfere and shut it down. It's how "Occupy" was shut down in 2011 with government authorities acting in coordination nationwide.

It's why the National Guard was called out to intervene in the summer of 2014 after police shot an unarmed Michael Brown in the streets of Ferguson, MO. when citizen protests erupted.

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Lucas Berard July 7, 2004

(Image by Lucas Berard) Details DMCA



Though it feels somewhat arrogant, I must begin by stating that I am a combat vet. I don't speak about it often, and even then, only in small snippets. I don't really feel a need to describe my experiences to others, as there will always be much lost in the translation from memory to story. I deployed with the Marines in Fallujah (2004-2005), and with the Army in Kirkuk (2008-2010). The only reason I say it now is to establish validity with all of you; I too have felt disdain for those who talk about something they've never experienced.

I've seen more than some, and less than others. And what I've seen has lead me directly to the place I am today- Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Rutledge, Missouri. I usually write as a "fellow Rabbit (community resident)", but today I'd like to speak to all of you from my veteran roots, to explain my reasoning and hopefully appeal to some of you. Here is some of my story.

I joined the Marines in 2002 among the panic that ensued after 9/11. We were PISSED- and so was I. At the time my best career prospect was moving up the management chain at KFC- and I felt that the military would make me stronger, more disciplined, more confident, and more respectable among my peers than a life of food service ever could.

I soaked it up like a sponge, every bit of it: the esprit de corps, the prevailing viewpoints of superiority and violence of action, a love of weaponry, and the desire to use it. I believed that I was serving the best interests of the American people, and the widespread adulation of the general population reinforced that idea. I felt that I was doing the right thing. It was the first time in my life that I felt proud of something that other people also saw as a worthy endeavor.

It wasn't until my first deployment in 2004 that my thoughts began to wander. The night before the assault on Fallujah began, I sat on the top of a forklift and watched the pre-emptive airstrikes. Using my night vision goggles, I could see where the explosions were going to erupt in advance, via the aircraft's UV laser guidance. The bombings were met with much excitement by all of us, and some nervousness as well; we knew tomorrow would be a much more immersive experience.

The first few weeks I never thought twice about what we were doing. Iraqis weren't people, they were insurgents, terrorists, and evil to their core. Sure, there was a population- somewhere- that wanted our version of freedom, but they were a phantom, and we never saw or heard of them directly. There were only those who hated God, America, women, and any viewpoint that didn't align with their own. And their sights were set squarely those of us that would dare to breach their city. I was so enveloped in protecting my team/squad that it took me a while to step back and look with a more broad perspective at what it was we were actually doing.

After some time, I began to feel uneasy about the rampant destruction and violence I was witnessing. Most of the buildings that still stood looked like blocks of burnt Swiss cheese. The rest were piles of rubble. There were bodies in the streets; the smell of fresh cordite intermingled with decomposition, burning tires, and trash. We listened to the radio traffic of our infantry brothers' injuries and KIA's. We were in and out of the city on a daily basis, tracking down and dodging IED's, and when were were back at camp, we were constantly harassed by RPG and mortar attacks. Even one of our units admin buddies was severely scared by mortar fire, just weeks into the deployment. I found myself angry that so many were dying at the behest of safe, suited politicians.

I would argue that those who have seen the face of war lose their faith in politics, as war is the greatest expression of its failure.

I think it's fitting that we find ourselves in a state of constant war now- our political structure is failing us at every turn, at home and abroad. The Republicans may have taken the Senate, but it's going to be the same song and dance- it always is.

I was deeply disturbed by the loss of life- on both sides. I found myself becoming more isolated, divided as to how I should feel. I was angered at the deaths and injuries of our own, but it never detracted from the pity I felt for the local population as well. After all, we were in their country, kicking down the doors of, and often utterly destroying, their homes.

I began to wonder how Americans would feel if China decided to rile their population up for war with the US. The Chinese population would be made to feel totally justified through media manipulation, and Americans would feel as though a great injustice was occurring. Would we not fight that occupational force? I would hope so- but then we'd be labeled "insurgents", while we would consider ourselves to be "freedom fighters".

I imagine that we would then feel much like the Iraqis.

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(Image by brilliantmaps.com/did-not-vote/) Details DMCA



All that, and just 43 percent of the voters were motivated enough to cast a ballot -- non-voters won in a landslide. In fact, non-voters almost always win.

Dr. Billy Graham has observed that, "bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote."

In 2012, despite a photo-finish presidential election, hot button issues at stake, and an estimated $6 billion spent on campaigning, voter turnout dropped from 57 percent of eligible citizens voting in 2008 to an estimated 55 percent in 2012. Only 63 percent of eligible voters are even registered. And a side note: off-year elections statistics are worse: just 36 percent of the voting-eligible population cast ballots in 2014 -- the lowest turnout in 70 years. Since 2002, the average voter participation in off-year elections has hovered at 39 percent.

As a percentage of all eligible voters, Hillary Clinton received 28 percent (65,845,063 votes) compared to Donald Trump's 27 percent (62,980,160 votes). If "Did Not Vote" was a political party, they would have won in a walk: 44 percent of all voters (102,731,399) stayed home. Only eight states and Washington D.C. had high enough voter turn out where one of the candidates on the ballot won more votes than people who did not bother to vote: non-voters swept up the rest of the country.

Curiously, the United States Elections Project research shows that 2,395,271 people did not vote for President even though they cast a ballot.

In 2012, surveys by Northwestern University's Non-Voters in America revealed that in terms of ideology, 15 percent of non-voters are liberal, 27 percent moderate, and 21 percent self-identified as conservative. Using that equation, about 44 million non-voters considered themselves moderates or conservatives in 2012. Liberal Barak Obama scored five million more votes than the middle-of-the-road candidate Mitt Romney.

However, according to a 2014 Pew Research Group study, 45 percent of non-voters identified as Independents, 29 percent identified as Democrats, and 18 percent Republican; 51 percent indicated that they "lean Democrat" and 30 percent "lean Republican." A February Pew survey found that President Trump's disapproval rating was at 63 percent among adults who aren't registered to vote, compared with 54 percent for registered voters.

In the 2016 New Hampshire U.S. Senate contest, the Democrat nominee bested the Republican incumbent by fewer than 1,000 votes (.14 percent), but more than 135,000 voters stayed home. For the first time since 1988, Pennsylvania voted for a Republican presidential candidate despite a Democratic voter registration advantage of nearly a million people. Donald Trump won Pennsylvania by a 0.70 percent margin (44,292 votes), however about ten million (10,000,000) registered voters did not show up on Election Day. Incumbent Republican Senator Pat Toomey eked out a win by just 100,000 votes in the same election.

Note to fancy-pants political consultants: non-voters as a constituency are fertile ground for Democrats and Republicans.

One of the founding tenets of the United States is that the government derives its authority from the consent of the governed. So why the chasm between tens of millions of non-voters and political campaigns? Simple: when voters are presented with impotent and insipid candidates over and over again, they feel disenfranchised, cynical, and apathetic. Non-voters clobber candidates left and right.

According to a December 2016 Pew Research Center report on non-voters, about 26 percent said they "didn't like any of the candidates." However, inspirational candidates with innovative platforms -- think Ross Perot, Ron Paul, and Bernie Sanders -- always excite the electorate. Better candidates mean more voters.

One more factor: according to an ABC News/Washington Post survey, 48 percent of respondents said they would have preferred a third-party candidate to run. An Associated Press/University of Chicago poll revealed that 71 percent of millennials wanted an alternative to the Republican and Democrat nominees. More choices mean more voters.

Michigan State political scientist Corwin Smidt has observed, "We've seen a huge increase in technology and the ability to turn out the vote. In terms of a cost-benefit analysis, the parties and candidates see that it's much easier to turn out people who agree with them than it is to change someone's mind."

Question: are candidates raising the bridge to capture likely prospects among non-voters or trying to lower the river looking for converts?
With its ever growing collection of breweries and an innovative local food culture, Portland, Maine has become a cant miss New England city. This coastal locale is a dream for beer enthusiasts, foodies who want more than just lobster rolls, and outdoorsy types. Just a two-hour drive from Boston, Portland makes for a great overnight trip, but you could easily spend a week eating, drinking and exploring your way through this city.

1. Portland Museum of Art

Located in The Arts District, the Portland Museum of Art offers a wide range of styles from classic landscapes and seascapes to works by Monet and Picasso. It also features a modern art area in the Charles Shipman Payson building. The museum spent the first few weeks of 2017 getting a facelift and hosted a grand reopening in February. This is a great time to go and explore this refinished space in downtown Portland.

2. Allagash Brewing Company



Photo by Daryl Sztuka

A great place to start the trip is the Allagash Brewing Company. Not only is the rotating selection of beers delicious, they may also have some snack options to nosh on, like doughnuts and pizza in the parking lot. But the best thing about Allagash? Upon walking in, you will be handed a wood token to trade in at the bar for a generously sized freeFREEflight of their beers on tap. The standard Allagash White is reliably delicious, but wed also recommend one of the heavier stouts, with deep tones of chocolate and coffee. Its also worth checking out one of the free tours and their store stocked with plenty of limited run selections.



3. Nosh Kitchen Bar



Photo by Daryl Sztuka

Break up your visits to Portlands many breweries by grabbing some food at Nosh Kitchen Bar. From the creative menu to the low-key feel, Nosh feels like the quintessential Portland spot. Theres a long list of unique burgers, sandwiches and starters to try, but the Big Mac is a must. This next level take on your favorite junior high fast food choice is a delicious bite of nostalgia, upgraded with elements like a special sauce. Top it off with the bacon dusted fries (yes, they are as good as they sound) and grab a can of J.K.s Scrumpy Hard Cider to wash it all down.

4. Longfellow Books

To walk off your Big Mac, head to the shops in Old Port. While many consider The Wadsworth-Longfellow House a must, were bigger fans of Longfellow Books. Offering new and used selections, this charming shop is everything an independent bookstore should be. And as an added bonus, they sponsor shelter cats who get to make this cozy space their temporary home, all the while meeting lots of customers (aka potential adopters). Youll have a tough time not scooping up a new pet and book during your visit, because who doesnt love to cuddle up with a cat and a good book?

5. Portland Sea Dogs

Visiting Portland in the warmer months? You cant go wrong with a Portland Sea Dogs game. You may catch a glimpse of a future MLB star for way less dough than youd shell out at Fenway; current Sox players who came up through the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox include Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts and Clay Buchholz.

6. Rising Tide Brewery



Photo by Daryl Sztuka

Next its time to pay a visit to Rising Tide Brewery. The taproom at Rising Tide features a large glass wall and garage doors that can open up to the picnic tables and corn hole sets that sit outside when it isnt too cold out. Food trucks frequent the brewerys parking lot and a calendar on Rising Tides website will show you what trucks will be visiting soon. Their four beer taster boxes are reasonably priced and let you try a few from their large list of beers on tap. Our recommendation is to take home a growler of Piscesa tart and tasty gosebut youd be hard pressed to find a bad choice at Rising Tide.

7. Portland Discovery Land and Sea Tours

You cant really enjoy Portland without taking a minute to experience the gorgeous coastlines. There are a number of whale watches and island tours to choose from, but to get a view of Maines historic lighthouses, hop on Portland Discoverys lighthouse tour. Including the most photographed lighthouse in Maine, Portland Head Light, this tour gives you a postcard worthy view of the coast.

8. Gelato Fiasco

For dessert, head back toward the Old Port shopping district to indulge at Gelato Fiasco. While it may seem odd to go for a cold dessert in Maine, with comforting local flavors like cranberry and wild Maine blueberry, alongside seasonal bites like spiked eggnog, you wont even notice the temperature. The location of this shop is a bonus; nestled alongside a collection of shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the waterfront, Gelato Fiascos induced sugar rush will gear you up for more exploring as you finish your visit to Portland.

Daryl Sztuka is a writer, record collector, comic book reader and caffeine drinker living outside Boston.
Micronesia's presidents and governors will begin meeting in Guam this morning to discuss regional labor, economic, environmental issues.

The 22nd Micronesian Island Forum opens at the Hyatt Regency Guam.

The forum continues through May 3 and brings together leaders from throughout Micronesia to collaborate on shared issues.

Leaders from the Republic of Palau, the state and national governments of the Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands will be attending.

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A primary point of discussion will be methods of eradicating and preventing the arrival of invasive species, enticing more people from across the region to gain the skills needed to bolster regional labor force, and boosting our island economies  most of which are dependent on tourism, according to the governor's office.

The chiefs will discuss the issues with the help of task force representatives who will present information on their respective issues during the forum.

The forum ends with the signing of a communique, which notes the steps that will be taken in the next year, the governor's office stated.

The leaders also have been invited to attend the 2017 Guam Micronesian Island Fair from May 3 to 7.
Starting today, ministers, politicians and bureaucrats will be banned from using red beacons but lal battis are not the only frills ministers and VIPs in India enjoy.

By India Today Web Desk: Starting today, ministers, politicians and bureaucrats will be banned from using red beacons atop their vehicles, thanks to the government's decisions that doesn't even exempt the country's top VIPs like the President, Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of India.

But are red beacons the only privilege Indian VIPs -- especially ministers and bureaucrats -- enjoy? Absolutely not. While lal battis allow ministers to out-manoeuvre traffic and bring the rest of the traffic to a halt, various others frills eat into taxpayer's money.

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Take a look at some such privileges VIPs enjoy:

No frisking at airports

Union ministers and ministers travelling on government work are exempt from frisking at international airports. A total of 33 categories of people are on the government's no-frisk list at present, including former presidents, deputy prime minister, the Chief Justice of India, speaker of the Lok Sabha, Union cabinet ministers, chief ministers, former prime ministers, leaders of Opposition in both Houses, Bharat Ratna awardees, ambassadors, Supreme Court judges, UPSC chairperson, chief election commissioner and the comptroller and auditor general of India.

First class travel

Ministers are given first class plane tickets for all official travel in India and overseas. Same is the case for train travel within the country.

Lutyens Delhi residence

Despite having homes allotted by respective State governments in their home states, ministers are also allotted residences in Lutyens Delhi, for which they pay a rent of just about Rs 2,000. Their homes further come with free water, near-free electricity, security and other such amneties. These MP bungalows are also furnished with air conditioners, refrigerators and television sets, free of cost. The maintainance and upkeep of the residences comes out of taxpayer's money.

Hotel suites

All ministers are given suites in the hotels they stay at, while they travel for official work. The justification given for the luxury is that ministers conduct everyday meetings in their rooms, but the price for their luxury comes out of the taxpayer's pocket.

Security cover

450 Indians are provided a VVIP security cover, according to a Hindu report. The list has continued to swell over the years, even as the NSG - a force trained for counter-terrorism operations - has requested to downsize the number. NSG commandos say that the job is not only demoralising but also demanding for the agency which is already a lean force.

The business tycoon couple Mukesh and Nita Ambani are possibly the only private corporate entity to be accorded government VVIP security, but they pay for their cover.

Other frills

Most medical expenses of ministers are taken care of by the Contributory Health Service Scheme of the Union government.

Ministers are also entitled to three phone lines and 170,000 free local calls every year.

Ministers are also entitled to a luxury car and chauffeur.

--- ENDS ---
PR-Inside.com: 2017-05-01 09:32:01

First Automotive-Qualified 650V GaN FETs

In-Production, First of Their Kind Customer Products

Upcoming Reference Designs and Modules

Transphorm at PCIM 2017: The GaN Revolution has Begun

Crimson Communicates

Heather Ailara, +1 917-715-3273

heather@crimsoncom.com

At the 2017 Power Conversion and Intelligent Motion (PCIM) Europe expo, Transphorm Inc., the leader in the design and manufacturing of JEDEC-qualified 650V gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors, will demonstrate high voltage GaNs momentum in the market. Various displays will exhibit the advantages of Transphorms high voltage GaN FETs when used in power electronics systems including power supplies, servo motors and photovoltaic inverters. Further, the company will showcase its recently announced AEC-Q101 qualified GaN FETthe industrys first automotive-grade GaN technology.

Transphorms PCIM showcase will be hosted in the HY-LINE Power Components booth [9-525]. Additional demos will be displayed in the GLYN GmbH & Co. booth [9-301].

Transphorm will also lead an educational session on high voltage GaN design methods. Meetings with a team member during PCIM, can be scheduled here.

Speaking Engagement:

Session: GaN  Design, EMC and Measurement

Speaker: Philip Zuk, Senior Director of Technical Marketing

Date/Time: Wednesday, May 17 @ 14:30

Location: Hall 6, Booth 143

Showcase Highlights:

3.5kW Integrated Half-Bridge Module Preview: Transphorms easy-to-use surface mount half-bridge module is designed to simplify PCB layout and shorten design time. Transphorm will soon offer this module as a building block for bridgeless totem-pole, half-bridge, full-bridge and LLC topologies.

Industrys First GaN Servo Motor: Targeting 100W to 400W applications, the Yaskawa integrated servo motor uses Transphorms GaN FETs to increase system power density and efficiency, to simplify system architecture, and to deliver a dramatic reduction in system size.

Industrys First GaN Redundant Power Supply: Targeting 500W applications, the Telcodium redundant AC power supply uses Transphorms TPH3206PS and TPH3202PS GaN FETs to increase efficiency and power density while dramatically reducing standby power (to less than 1W) and internal temperature yields.

Industrys First GaN AC-DC Power Supply with Bridgeless Totem-Pole PFC: Targeting 3kW applications, the Bel Power TET3000 uses Transphorms TPH3205WS to achieve 80 Plus Titanium efficiency while reducing system size to meet a 1U design.

High Voltage GaN Reference Design Previews: Attendees will have an opportunity to see Transphorms 4.2kW PV Inverter (DC to DC, DC to AC) and 3.3kW Totem-Pole PFC reference designs, slated for release later this year. These products exemplify one type of customer design resource provided by Transphorms recently announced Silicon Valley Center of Excellence.

Welcome to the GaN Revolution!

Transphorm is a global semiconductor company, leading the GaN Revolution with the highest performance, highest reliability GaN devices for high voltage power conversion applications. To ensure this, Transphorm deploys its unique vertically-integrated business approach that leverages the industrys most experienced GaN engineering team at every development stage: design, fabrication, device and application support. This approach, backed by one of the industrys largest IP portfolios with over 600 patents, has yielded the industrys only JEDEC- and AEC-Q101-qualified GaN FETs. Transphorms innovations are moving power electronics beyond the limitations of silicon to achieve over 99 percent efficiency, 40 percent more power density and 20 percent lower system cost. Join the revolution at transphormusa.com and follow us @transphormusa.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201705010055

1st #automotive #GaN #FETs to show at #PCIM2017 with a #Transphorm-ed #ServoMotor, #PVinverter & more. Hall 9-525
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




"As promised in the campaign, President Trump has taken the US out of TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), convinced Canada and Mexico to agree to a renegotiation of NAFTA (North America Free Trade Agreement), and initiated the process of potential action against steel and aluminium imports into the US. There has also been some focus on dealing with ISIS," Singh said.

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On the other hand, unlike the pre-election threats, China has not been declared a currency manipulator, no additional tariffs have been imposed on imports from China, and Chinese President Xi Jinping was lavishly welcomed in April at what is now being described as the southern White House at Mar-a- Lago in Florida, he noted.

"The two agreed to come up with a 100-day plan to address the major trade imbalance. China is also being described as an important interlocutor for addressing the North Korean nuclear and missile challenge," he said.

On April 6, Trump authorised missile strikes on a Syrian airbase, using Presidential prerogative under the US Constitution.

"Earlier he had repeatedly called upon his predecessor not to do so, and to consult US Congress before any such action," Singh said.

Relations with Russia have not been improved, he observed, adding that attempts to do so immediately have become controversial in view of the raging controversy about alleged Russian intervention in the US elections to benefit Trump.

"This will now be further complicated by the missile strikes in an area where Russian forces were also present, although Russia had been given some prior notice," he said.

"President Trump has, similarly, now spoken of strongly supporting NATO, which he had earlier described as obsolete. He has now referred to sharing vital security interests with allies, while continuing to complain about alliance commitments, and asking allies to contribute more," the former Indian Ambassador said.

During his illustrious foreign service career, Singh also served as Indias ambassador to Israel and France apart from the US.

He said, on Afghanistan, policy options were being studied by the Trump administration.

US National Security Adviser had recently visited Afghanistan, Pakistan and India for discussions, Singh said, noting that the outcome of the current more strident approach to North Korea remains to be seen.

"The Administration is also constrained at the moment because a large number of posts in the Departments of State and Defence, as well as in the National Security Council, still remain to be filled," he said.

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The decision making process has so far been White House centric, and the attempt has been to project a robust, muscular approach based on Americas strengths, including military, and less on projection of American values or soft power, he opined. PTI LKJ ASK ASK

--- ENDS ---
By: Francisco Mela

new mela small

End

-- Cuban drummer(Joe Lovano, McCoy Tyner, Chucho Valdes) will return to Greenwich Village's Cornelia Street Cafe to lead his ensemble,, for a one-night performance on Saturday, May 20, 2017. Joining him that evening will be Tony Malaby (tenor sax), Leo Genovese (piano), and Gerald Cannon (bass).2017 has been a busy year for Mela thus far, with a performance with McCoy Tyner at the Cully Jazz Festival in Switzerland, a European tour in late April with his bandmate, Leo Genovese, and numerous performances in and around New York City with Tyner and several others artists.Earlier this year, Mela played to sold out audiences at Smalls and The Cornelia Street Cafe and is eager to return to the venue with his ensemble. His upcoming performance will showcase new music and selections from his most recent release,that features(Mela, drums; Gerald Cannon, bass; and Leo Genovese, piano; with special guest, guitarist John Scofield). Mela assembled the trio to celebrate the life's work of one of his mentors, legendary pianist, and composer,. The recording marks an important point in Mela's career as it recounts some of his experiences playing with various musicians who have dramatically influenced his musical development. The album is also dedicated to the memory of his late parents.andwill be performing two sets at the Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street, Greenwich Village, NY on May 20: 9:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. For more information or to reserve seats visit http://www.corneliastreetcafe.com
Following the disastrous traffic congestion caused by unexpectedly high spectator numbers at the 2012 Royal New Zealand Air Force Air Show, organizers of the 2017 event knew they needed to avoid a repeat performance. Fortunately, BlipTrack technology was available to assist, ensuring far smoother traffic flow.

By: BLIP Systems

Contact

Christian Bugislaus Carstens

***@blipsystems.com



Photo:

https://www.prlog.org/ 12636804/1 Christian Bugislaus Carstens

End

-- We all know the frustration of traveling to and from major events, and how the increased travel time and lengthy queues can affect the overall mood in the car.When the Royal New Zealand Air Force celebrated their 75th anniversary in 2012 with an air show, it turned into a gridlock nightmare, with interminable traffic queues weaving for miles, as 70,000 people flocked to the show. This year, with their 80th anniversary coming up, they wanted things to go smoothly and avoid another traffic chaos  in fact, it was an obligation for running the event again.The New Zealand Defense Force acknowledges that after the 2012 event, they needed help. "They learnt from 2012 that they are great at flying planes. They are not so great at putting on large events. The plan was to put on another airshow, but they knew that they had to get it right. They knew they had to change things," said Event Organizer, Renee Barbour.Faced with the dual challenges of trying to ease traffic congestion and reduce the potential for massive gridlock, the event organizers commissioned consultancy service company Beca to provide detailed information on how traffic flowed around the Ohakea Air Base  which was also a major State Highway intersection. Together with the New Zealand Transport Agency and local councils and others, they worked out a traffic management plan.To help ease the traffic flow by providing spectators with live traffic updates, Beca deployed a network of BlipTrack sensors, produced by Denmark-based BLIP Systems. The solution, already implemented in numerous road networks all over New Zealand, Thailand, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and the UK, captures the point-to-point journey patterns and travel time of drivers in real-time, as they pass the sensors.The resulting traffic information could be communicated directly back to motorists in their cars, allowing them to make informed travel decisions, minimize frustration and stagger the continuous arrival of visitors. Both spectators and residents in surrounding neighborhoods were advised to check the transport agency's DriveLive web page for up-to-date information on delays, travel times and even alternative routes.Beca's Project Manager, Richard Young, said: "Providing the Air Tattoo, NZTA and, most importantly, spectators with live and accurate travel information is a key way that we can ensure the event runs smoothly. We had a team working the weekend ready to react to any incident and provide the Air Tattoo team with all the traffic data they needed to keep roads moving. The road network was the busiest of the summer and thanks to using the BlipTrack system we were able to demonstrate that there were minimal delays caused by the Air Tattoo."Behind the public DriveLive service, the event team had access to monitor the live traffic movements, so while spectators were enjoying the air display, the Air Tattoo team was working hard to ensure that the drive home was as stress-free as possible.The information was continuously updated, in line with the actual behavior of spectators to and from the show. So, when considering their route and time of departure, the motorists themselves were helping to reduce bottlenecks and keep the traffic moving.Spectators responded positively to the traffic management measures and reported smooth traffic flow to and from the show.BlipTrack is successfully employed in optimisation efforts in more than 25 international airports, including Amsterdam's Schiphzl Airport, New York's JFK, Copenhagen, Oslo, Manchester, Dublin, Brussels, Geneva, San Diego, Keflavik and Edinburgh. In recent years, the solution has been rolled out in train stations, ports, ski resorts, amusement parks and at global events.
By: USOH

End

-- Hindus have welcomed the inclusion of Diwali, most popular of their festival, as holiday by Unionville-Chadds Ford School District (UCFSD) headquartered in Kennett Square in Pennsylvania, on its School Calendar for 2017-2018; thus closing schools on October 19.Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, describing it as a step in the right direction, urged all other public school districts and private-charter-independent schools in Pennsylvania to do the same.Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, pointed out that it would be a positive thing to do in view of presence of a substantial number of Hindu students at schools around the state, as it was important to meet the religious and spiritual needs of these pupils.Rajan Zed indicated that schools should make efforts to accommodate the religious requirements of Hindu students and show respect to their faith by not conducting regular business and scheduling classes on Diwali. We did not want our students to be put at an unnecessary disadvantage for missing tests/examinations/papers, assignments, class work, etc., by taking a day-off to observe Diwali.If schools had declared other religious holidays, why not Diwali, Zed asked. Holidays of all major religions should be honored and no one should be penalized for practicing their religion, Zed addedRajan Zed suggested all Pennsylvania schools, public-private-charter-independent, to seriously look into declaring Diwali as an official holiday, thus recognizing the intersection of spirituality and education. Zed noted that awareness about other religions thus created by such holidays like Diwali would make Pennsylvania students well-nurtured, well-balanced, and enlightened citizens of tomorrow.Zed urged Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera and Chairperson of Pennsylvania State Board of Education Larry Wittig; to work towards adding Diwali as an official holiday in all the about 500 public school districts, and persuading the private-charter-independent schools to follow.Rajan Zed further says that Hinduism is rich in festivals and religious festivals are very dear and sacred to Hindus. Diwali, the festival of lights, aims at dispelling the darkness and lighting up the lives and symbolizes the victory of good over evil. Besides Hindus; Sikhs and Jains and some Buddhists also celebrate Diwali.Zed thanked UCFSD Board President Victor E. Dupuis and other Board members for supporting Diwali holiday. UCFSD serves over 4,000 students in a 77- square-mile area encompassing seven townships; including Kennett Square, Chadds Ford and West Chester. With 100% graduation rate, it claims to have been "listed as the #1 school district in Pennsylvania". Its Unionville Elementary celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2013. Dr. John C. Sanville is the Superintendent.Hinduism is oldest and third largest religion of the world with about 1.1 billion adherents and moksh (liberation)is its ultimate goal. There are about three million Hindus in USA.
Global Internet and communications experts gather for five days of knowledge sharing and network building

By: Orient Planet PR & Marketing Communications

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-- May 1, 2017 - The 17th Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG) conference recently ended on a high note in Muscat, Oman, with international participants tackling the most pressing issues facing the Internet and communications industry today. This regional forum brought together 210 key players in the region's Internet network operations (along with 460 remote participants)for two meeting days on 19 & 20 April 2107 in Muscat centered around sharing knowledge and expertise.A range of Industry leaders and key stakeholders attended, including high-level representatives from organisations such as the Oman Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), Omantel, Ooredoo, Du, Batelco, Jawwal, OGERO, RIPE NCC, Netflix, GSMA, ICANN, ISOC, ASREN, ARISPA, Google, Akamai technologies, Cloudflare, Huawei and Sultan Qaboos University and Higher College of Technology.TRA Executive President, His Excellency Dr. Hamed bin Salim Al Rawahi, said: "The higher level of discussion during the conference brought new perspectives and learning for all the participants. Valuable opportunities were brought to the fore and challenges were tackled head on. For us at Oman TRA, we took the opportunity to shed light on the country's achievements in the field of Internet and communications as well as our approach to modernise our Internet infrastructure, processes, and system in support of our digital transformation initiatives. Rest assured that we will take in consideration what we have learned from the conference to boost related efforts."For Paul Rendek, Director of External Relations, RIPE NCC (Reseaux IP Europeens - Network Coordination Center): "We witnessed network operators, vendors, Internetservice providers (ISPs), research communities and government representatives looking for new areas for regional cooperation, in addition to examining innovative business models and applications. All these efforts are a welcome development given the need to ensure the region keeps up with the latest dramatic digital changes."Renowned experts led three days of IPv6 and DNSSEC workshops ahead of the two day MENOG conference. Areas discussed at the conference included IPv6 deployment in response to global IPv4 depletion, and the need for Internet exchange points (IXPs) to keep local traffic in the region to reduce latency and costs.
End

-- This past week, IDSI employees from our Pensacola office attended a showcase hosted by the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of West Florida (UWF). During the assembly, IDSI was honored as an "Outstanding Community Partner" for the webinar series that we offered to the UWF Department of Instructional, Workforce and Applied Technology.IDSI has partnered with the Department to host a series of webinars for Instructional Design and Technology graduate students during the Spring semester. These webinars provided students with an opportunity to interact with local professionals in their field of study and gain additional insights into best practices in the field. Between 5 and 10 students attended each of the four webinars. The topics for the webinars were: "Gaming Before Instruction:An Instructional Design Process Overview" "Corporate versus Contract: What Every New Instructional Designer Must Know" "Collaboration:Working with Programmers, Graphic Artists, QA, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)" "I've Graduated. Where do I go from Here?"IDSI Instructional Designer, Angelia Byers, chaired the webinar committee which also included IDSI Instructional Designers Chris Dunkle and Caroline McGill. Together, the committee decided on the topics and the approach for each webinar. Ms. Byers acted as liaison between IDSI and UWF, and also moderated two of the webinars and was a panelist on one.Per the Department's Chair and Associate Professor, Dr. Nancy Hastings, IDSI will once again host webinars during the 2017  2018 academic year. We will modify the schedule to offer four total webinars, two in the Fall and two in the Spring.###Established in 1995, Intelligent Decision Systems, Inc. (IDSI) fuses research, learning sciences, systems engineering, and technology to create world-class training and performance improvement solutions that are both measurable and sustainable. Our creative scientists, analysts, designers, and engineers partner with customers to envision and build these solutions to ensure they resolve identified performance gaps.IDSI skillfully incorporates cutting edge technologies in our solutions; resulting in innovative and effective training, gaming, modeling and simulation, and multiple other performance improvement solutions. The resulting products are based on current research and evidence-based practices tailored to fit each specific challenge; providing solutions that are relevant, effective, and efficient.IDSI's research, analysis, and evaluation efforts support our customer's personnel and organizational challenges. Lessons learned, literature reviews, and best practices add to the body of knowledge and expertise that in turn, enhances all IDSI projects. For more information on IDSI, please visit our website, www.idsi.com.Contact Information:Heather-Joy Nierle, Business Development/OperationsIntelligent Decision Systems, Inc.5885 Trinity Parkway, Suite 100Centreville, VA 20120Phone: (703) 766-9631Email: nierle.heather-joy@idsi.comWeb: www.idsi.com
The country took the opportunity to Introduce Azerbaijan's less-known but extremely beautiful and prosperous destination, the jewel on the crown -Nakhchivan.

By: Atlantis Holidays

Contact

Irene Osegere

***@atlantisuae.com Irene Osegere

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-- Keen on increasing the promotion of its stunning attractions to the Arab Market, Azerbaijan for 13th time joins the train of more than 2,800 exhibitors from around the world at this year's Arabian Travel Market (ATM) event from 24to 27April 2017.Azerbaijan's tourism and hospitality industry have lately been building momentum. With Azerbaijan's Ministry of Culture and Tourism saying that the overall input of travel and tourism to Azerbaijan's GDP stands at $1.437 billion or 4.1% of country's GDP. The Cumulative investment in travel and tourism on the other hand has been forecasted to hit huge grounds in the coming years; with visitor numbers predicted to increase many folds through 2018 and the Hotel occupancy rates to run full capacity this year."We are excited about exhibiting again at the Arabian Travel Market this year. The exhibition provides us the ideal chance to demonstrate to the region what Azerbaijan has to offer, both in the business sector and Leisure Market. Our focus is to continue the development of Azerbaijan's tourism industry. We want to showcase Azerbaijan as the happening destination that offers the best to even the most demanding traveler. We want to ensure that our respective partners, the international travel trade community and potential visitors are equipped with all the necessary first-hand information about why Azerbaijan is the top happening travel destination especially for the Arab Market. We will take the opportunity to Introduce Azerbaijan's less known but extremely beautiful and prosperous destination, our jewel on the crown -Nakhchivan. It is the ancient region of Azerbaijan admired and viewed by many travelers and poets. However, Nakhchivan's main attraction is, of course, the therapeutic salt caves of Mount Duzdag located at a height of 1,173m above sea level. Individuals suffering from respiratory disease find great results of treatment procedures here. It is indeed an honor to introduce all these in a rich and compelling setting such as the ATM." Said Rashid AL Noori, The Chairman, Representative Office of Azerbaijan`s Culture and Tourism Ministry in GCC.Azerbaijan's Tourism strategies at the ATM are tailored towards; hosting business conferences (MICE), international sporting events, hotels and attractions, wellness facilities, and regional outbound tour operators, as Middle East travelers are expected to play a pivotal role in the country's continued tourism success.So far, the waiver of visa procedures to include online visas and visa on arrival, and the expansion of airline destination offerings to Azerbaijan (with Azerbaijan Airlines, Qatar airways, FlyDubai, Airarabia and Jazeera Airways flying to the country) has given Middle East and East Asia visitors a clear gateway to Azerbaijan.Although the country faces significant competition by popular regional destinations, Azerbaijan has distinguished itself as an exclusive tourist destination, remaining home to the world's sole oil field treatmentnaphthalene, over 300 mud volcanoes, breathtaking unsullied nature and many cultural, and heritage attractions.That's not all, Azerbaijan, gives an opportunity to every visitor of Azerbaijan stand at the ATM to avail special offers and to book Summer Family Luxury packages at the venue. Don't miss a chance to visit Baku, capital of Azerbaijan during the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games in May, The Baku Shopping Festival and the 2nd Formula 1 Baku Grand Prix, and be part of many other celebrations in Azerbaijan. Atlantis Holidays, the official representative office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan welcomes all the travel delegates and visitors to Azerbaijan stand EU 8030 to discuss the tourism opportunities in Azerbaijan.Azerbaijan accounts for nearly 73 per cent of the South Caucasus regional economy. This helps both in business and Tourism sector. Under the patronage of Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan Convention Bureau, Baku Shopping Festival Baku City Circuit (Formula 1) Azerbaijan National Airline  Azal, Absheron Hotel Group, Qafqaz Hotel Group, Shahdag Mountain Resort, Various Travel Agencies along with major travel agencies are participating in this year's Arabian Travel Market. For more information visit http://www.ourazerbaijan.com/ en/home
Voiceter Pro technology is now live in Denver Colorado, allowing the consumers to search for homes via voice, either Amazon Alexa or Google Home

Contact

Miguel Berger

***@voiceterpro.com Miguel Berger

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-- Albany, NY  May 1, 2017 - Consumers who want to buy or sell a home in Denver, CO and surrounding area can now start the process by simply saying: "Alexa, open Real Estate" or "OK Google open Real Estate Search."Christie Banowetz and Kelly Thompson, Broker Associates with The Denver 100, LLC, are now the exclusive providers of the Voiceter Pro Real Estate skill and Real Estate Search action for Denver and surrounding area."We are excited that Christie and Kelly are joining the family of forward-thinking real estate professionals powered by Voiceter Pro," said Miguel Berger, CEO of Voiceter Pro. "With millions of artificial intelligence devices in smart homes across the country, the future of real estate property search will be voice driven and they are bringing that future to consumers today.""The Real Estate skill and Real Estate Search action allow us to provide a higher level of customer service as we help consumers with their housing needs," said Banowetz. "Christie and I are thrilled to announce the capability of starting your search for your next home in the Denver area by simply talking to Alexa or the Google Assistant," said Thompson.Voiceter Pro's Real Estate skill and Real Estate Search action are free for consumers and easy to use on their Amazon Alexa-powered devices and Google Home. Voiceter Pro's conversational search will guide homebuyers through a search for their desired home. The search process includes questions about the desired location, number of bedrooms and more. Users can make a cursory search based on a just a few parameters or search deeper search based several detailed home features.Alexa or Google will verbally report the top three matches and consumers will receive an email with complete listing details for all results. Home sellers can also utilize the apps to help them with their housing needs.About Us:Christie and Kelly. Your Home Team:Christie Banowetz and Kelly Thompson are broker associate real estate team within The Denver 100, LLC. Christie and Kelly work with both buyers and sellers to meet their housing goals in Colorado. With title and marketing backgrounds, this team is one of a kind in their ability to help the public in their real estate needs.The Denver 100, LLC:The Denver 100, LLC is a locally owned and operated independent real estate company that has developed into a creative and recognizable force in Colorado real estate circles. The boutique broker-centric service model of this company was designed with the broker associate in mind. The Denver 100 has created through the strength and foresight of producing real estate professionals to service top producers with extensive real estate experience.Voiceter Pro, LLC:Voiceter Pro, LLC., based in Albany, NY and Oakland, CA, is the conversational search company that will bring companies and consumers together through meaningful conversations with Amazon's Alexa. Starting with its flagship product, the Real Estate Skill for Amazon Alexa-powered devices, Voiceter Pro will revolutionize AI-assisted searches in all markets. This search tool has applicability in any business model that requires consumers to filter through product choices to arrive at the product or service that meets their needs. View the demo at www.voiceterpro.com.For more information, contact:Christie Banowetz and Kelly Thompson, Broker AssociatesThe Denver 100, LLCBanowetz: 970-376-2032Thompson: 303-587-3846Miguel Berger, CEOVoiceter Pro518-542-5586miguel@voiceterpro.com
In an exclusive interview with India Today, the Housing Minister of West Bengal and Mayor of Kolkata Municipal Sovan Chaterjee talks about why it is a daunting task to implement RERA in state.

By Manogya Loiwal : The Real Estate Act (RERA) comes into force from today with an objective of safeguarding the interests of buyers across the country. However, West Bengal is one of the states that failed to officially implement RERA.

The Housing Minister of West Bengal and Mayor of Kolkata Municipal, Sovan Chaterjee spoke exclusively to India Today and talked about RERA.

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Chaterjee said, "It is not an easy job to implement the RERA in the state of West Bengal because of the environment and other factors that are changing rapidly. It involves a lot of complexity. We are not overruling the RERA system but taking their advice and regulations into consideration. We are also examining the details of the issue and diversely discussing the matter with the concerned agents."

The minister added, "Many criterion are given in the draft's agenda but it is not possible to apply all on the ground work. That is why different processes need to be adapted and revised. We are working on it and then finally we can go through the actual process of RERA."

HERE IS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RERA

The Real Estate Regulation and Development Act is expected to bring transparency and accountability in the realty sector and ensure consumers will not be cheated or taken for a ride by the developers. The act will also ensure that consumers won't have to endure late deliveries

Objective of RERA is not to pressurise developers, but to safeguard interests of buyers by ensuring they don't get cheated.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has notified 69 out of 92 sections of the Act last week and ensured the Act is enforced from May 1. Both the Central and State governments are to formulate rules under RERA within six months. A report in the Hindustan Times said that the HUPA Ministry will be in charge of formulating rules for Union Territories but for Delhi, the rules will be set by the Ministry of Urban Development.

ALSO READ: No RERA for you: Chennai home buyers in limbo after Tamil Nadu fails to ratify act before deadline

--- ENDS ---
Small - MIRF - 2017 - Cube - English

Contact

Natasha Von Castle

***@l3magazine.com Natasha Von Castle

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-- The International Reggae Festival (MIRF) celebrates its 14season which will be celebrated with some of Jamaica's most loved artists August 18, 19, 20, 2017 at The Old Port in the heart of downtown Montreal.Promising fans the highest caliber of Jamaican and West Indian talent, and maintaining their theme 'United Against Violence,' MIRF 2017 is proud to present lovers of Reggae, Dancehall, Lover's Rock, Comedy and Gospel with talent that will leave lasting memories.This years headlining talent includes Charly Black and Konshens whose Dancehall popularityhas reached the million plus mark on streaming sites such as Spotify, and Etana, Sanchez, and Tanya Stephens who are proven fan favorites. Lt. Stitchie, Pressure, Majah Hype and Inner Circle were requested several times by fans and organizers were happy to oblige.More artists will be announced in the coming weeks. The Montreal International Reggae Festival is the largest in Canada, and has been ranked top 13 Reggae Festivals around the world. The three day event is produced by Mr. Eric Blagrove and team.For more information visit montrealreggaefest.com
If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity.

PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move.
Representatives of Argentinas Arsat have met with Brazils telecom authority regarding the satellite landing rights for LATAMs largest market.





Rodrigo De Loredo, president of the Argentinean public telco met with Juarez Martinho Quadros, president of Anatel, to set the framework for the forthcoming negotiations.De Loredo explained public companys plan to make Arsat-2 profitable, a strategy that failed in 2016 . With almost no agreements being reached before the satellite launch, Arsat now need to find partners and reach landing rights deals across the Americas, while the satellite is already orbiting Earth.According to the Brazilian regulation, in order to get landing rights operators must establish themselves as companies in the country and pay a special public price determined by the markets regulator.The sustainability strategy we have been developing is the right path to follow. Opening new business windows and generating genuine income will allow us to capitalise and finance new projects, said De Loredo. Arsat is betting on the future, aiming to find new global partners and strengthen its position as a prestigious satellite operator.During the last year, Arsat got the landing rights for the US, Canada and Paraguay, but no commercial deals have yet been reached outside Argentina.
Bogota-based telco ETB is set to become a private company this summer, as the city council kicks off the sale of 86.6% of the companys shares.





After over a year of strong restructuring, including worker lay-offs and a reduction in the executive panel in a bid to make the fibre and IPTV operator profitable again, the city council agreed last summer to privatise ETB. The sale will now officially start in the second week of May.According to the Colombian newspaper La Republica , Bogotas city council has set a price for the telco of over $800 million. The final price was decided according to an analysis by the investment banks JP Morgan and BTG Pactual.During the first 60 days, the sale process will only be open for workers, unions, mutual insurance companies, pension funds and cooperatives interested in purchasing ETB shares. After this, the process will be open for any potential investor.The whole process will be monitored by the administration itself to guarantee that potential buyers have the capacity to keep the company running and delivering telecom services.No big telco has officially shown interest in acquiring the loss-making local telco. However, ETBs fibre network in Bogota, through which it delivers advanced IP-based services, has gained the attention of investors such as Millicom Tigo , which has already entered the Colombian market through the acquisition of the public company UNE-EPM.
A Baku district court has sentenced former Azerbaijani Health Minister Ali Insanov to seven years in prison on charges of possessing psychotropic drugs and assaulting and seriously injuring a prison officer that his lawyers say are both implausible and unsubstantiated by hard evidence.

Insanov, who is 71, rejected the charges as fabricated and politically motivated. He has vowed to appeal his new sentence, which he believes was intended to preclude his release from prison after serving an 11-year jail term and his anticipated participation in the presidential election due in October 2018.

Insanov is a former close associate of Heidar Aliyev, the father and predecessor of Azerbaijan's current President Ilham Aliyev, and a co-founder in the 1990s of the ruling Yeni Azerbaycan Party. He first fell into disfavor in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of October 2005, when he and several other senior officials were arrested on charges of plotting a coup against Ilham Aliyev, who had succeeded his father two years earlier.

The coup charge was subsequently dropped; instead, Insanov was found guilty and sentenced in April 2007 on charges, to which he pleaded not guilty, of bribery, forgery, and the illegal privatization of state-owned medical facilities.

'Military-Political Regime'

Six years later, in March 2013, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights ruled that Insanov had been denied the right to a fair trial and that he had been held in inhuman and demeaning conditions in various penitentiaries. The court ruled that the Azerbaijani authorities should pay Insanov 10,000 euros ($10,896) in compensation.



The Azerbaijani government ignored that ruling, however, whereupon Insanov appealed to the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Two months later, Azerbaijan's Supreme Court annulled its own rejection of Insanov's appeal against his prison term and ordered a repeat hearing by the Baku Appeals Court.

The five-week retrial, which Insanov's lawyers and human rights activists said was marred by egregious procedural violations, ended in February 2014 with the judge upholding the original 11-year sentence. Insanov claimed that verdict was dictated by President Aliyev, whom he had earlier publicly accused of appropriating money from the sale of Azerbaijan's Caspian oil and of establishing a "military-political regime."

New Charges

The new charges against Insanov were brought in August 2016, two months after Azerbaijan's Supreme Court upheld the sentence handed down during the retrial and just weeks before his original 11-year prison term was due to end.

The new trial, during which Insanov was constrained to sit in a steel cage in the courtroom, opened on April 8. Insanov's lawyers argued that the prosecution had failed to furnish any evidence to substantiate the charge that Insanov had inflicted a potentially fatal head injury on a much younger prison officer during an altercation.

They further objected that the tablets allegedly found during a search of his cell could not have contained a psychotropic substance because they were colored, not white, the news portal Caucasian Knot reported on April 20.

The lawyers also implied that the new charges were retaliation for Insanov's public backing of opposition candidate Camil Hasanli in the 2013 presidential election.

In that context, they noted that former Economic Development Minister Farhad Aliyev (no relation to Ilham), who was arrested together with Insanov in October 2005 in connection with the purported planned coup, was pardoned and released from prison after expressing support for Ilham Aliyev's candidacy.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
Russia-related investments were a key issue in a televised debate among candidates for the U.S. state of Montana's seat in the House of Representatives.

Democrat Rob Quist on April 29 criticized his Republican rival, Greg Gianforte, for holding some $240,000 in investments that disclosures link to funds with holdings in Russian companies hit by U.S. sanctions.

The sanctions were imposed under the Obama administration because of Russia's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula.

The candidates are running in a special election on May 25 for Montana's only House seat. It became vacant in March when Ryan Zinke resigned to become U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

"I was really dispirited to hear the other day that Mr. Gianforte has a quarter of a million dollars in stocks in Russian companies that are on the sanctions list," Quist said.

Gianforte defended his investments.

"Anyone who invests in emerging markets around the world has investment in Russia," Gianforte said, calling it a small portion of his investments.

His campaign has acknowledged $150,000 in investments with VanEck Vectors Russian and $92,000 with IShares MSCF Russia. Both companies deal in exchange-traded funds, which are similar to mutual funds.

Gianforte made millions when he sold his software firm, RightNow Technolgoies, to Oracle.

According to required disclosures, his total assets are in the range of $96 million to $327 million.

Based on reporting by AP and The Guardian
A Russian opposition activist has been jailed for organizing a letter-writing campaign urging, in part, President Vladimir Putin not to run for a fourth term next year.



Authorities in Russia's Tatarstan region say Darya Kulakova, 23, violated a law on public demonstrations and disobeyed police in connection with the public submission of letters to Putin's regional reception office.



A court in Tatarstan's capital, Kazan, on April 30 sentenced Kulakova to 10 days in jail for her role in the action, which was staged the previous day as protesters demonstrated against the government in several Russian cities.



Russia in recent years has tightened laws on protests and other public events in what critics call a concerted move to stamp out visible demonstrations of dissent. Authorities say the laws prevent mass events from interrupting daily life in towns and cities.



Kazan authorities had refused to grant permission for a street demonstration under the auspices of the April 29 protests spearheaded by Kulakova's group, Open Russia, which was founded by former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.



The protests resulted in dozens of arrests in several Russian cities, though the turnout appeared to be substantially smaller that nationwide protests against corruption last month organized by prominent Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny.



In lieu of the protest, Kulakova and her fellow activists decided to walk to the Kremlin's regional reception center in Kazan to submit letters to Putin



After several activists dropped their letters in a box brought out to the street by an employee, Kulakova was detained by police. Her fellow activist, Lyaysan Ismagilova, was detained later, and both were held by police overnight.



The police report, details of which emerged on April 30, accused Kulakova of organizing an "unsanctioned public event...in the form of submitting letters to the Russian president's reception that voiced demands against the policies of the current authorities."



The report cited specific demands contained in the letters, including "Putin, don't run for a fourth term" and a request that Kazan's mayor call off plans for the construction of a waste-incineration plant.



Ismagilova was also found guilty on April 30 of violating a law on public demonstrations and ordered to perform 36 hours of community service.



Kulakova's attorney, Elza Nisanbekova, has appealed the ruling, and Tatarstan's supreme court was set to hear the matter on May 1.



Nisanbekova argued that submitting letters to Putin's reception center does not constitute a public demonstration.
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.
With the Tamil Nadu government failing to ratify the RERA (Real Estate Regulatory Act) before the deadline, Chennai home buyers are left in lurch, with no regulation to protect them from exploits of builders.

By Akshita Nandagopal: The consumer friendly Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) 2016, that comes in effect today has no good news for Chennai residents, as Tamil Nadu failed to ratify the act before the deadline.

The capital city of Tamil Nadu- Chennai saw a boom in real estate in mid 2000s and since has been a hub of investment for home buyers.

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But with the state government failing to meet the ratification deadline, the residents or home buyers are again left in a lurch, with no regulation to protect them.

Several big realtors in the city have failed to meet deadlines and many families' fight for justice has reaped no rewards whatsoever.

Ravishankar, a home buyer in Chennai, who paid Rs 40 lakh to buy a house in 2010 is yet to get its possession.

'ONLY EMPTY ASSURANCES'

"Took a housing loan to pay for an apartment in MARG properties' Savithanjali project. The delivery date was supposed to be 2013, but we're yet to receive our home. MARG only makes empty promises and nothing more," said Ravishankar.

Another resident, Vijayaraghavan who bought a house in Emaar MGF said, "We complained to the police commissioner, the chief minister's complaint cell and local authorities. They all assured help but nothing changed. The realtors are now forcing us to move into homes with no power, pipelines or even lifts."

Now the aggrieved buyers are pinning the blame on the government for their helplessness. Whereas, private realtors' body CREDAI claims that the state government is committed to bringing RERA into effect.

"The state government has been working to bring RERA into effect and was in touch with us with regards to frame-working the RERA in Tamil Nadu, but there was a delay because of some internal issues... It's only a matter of time before RERA is brought into effect here," assures Nandakumar.

Also read: What is RERA or Real Estate Regulatory Act? How will it impact your home buying?

Also read: India gets new Real Estate Act; six ways how homebuyers stand to benefit from RERA

Watch video: Big boon for home buyers: Real Estate Act comes into force today

--- ENDS ---
Polish authorities say they have arrested an Austrian man suspected of committing war crimes in eastern Ukraine, though there were conflicting reports about whether he fought with Kyiv's forces or alongside Russia-backed separatists.

The Polish border service said in an April 30 statement that the 25-year-old man was arrested at Austria's request two days earlier as he was trying to cross into Ukraine at the Polish border post of Dorohusk.

The man is suspected of participating in the fighting in eastern Ukraine, where he allegedly "killed the wounded and prisoners," the statement said.

Both the killing and the torture of prisoners of war constitute war crimes under the Geneva Conventions.

The war between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 9,900 people since April 2014.

There were contradictory reports about which side the Austrian man fought for. Polish border police spokesman Dariusz Sienicki was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying that "he was a member of a separatist group."

But Erich Habitzl, a spokesman for Austrian prosecutors, said on April 30 that the man had fought on the Ukrainian side, including in the brutal, protracted battle for Donetsk airport.

Rights groups and international organizations have accused both sides of arbitrary killings and torture.

A UN report last year found evidence of arbitrary killings by Russia-backed separatists, Ukrainian troops, police forces, and volunteer battalions of fighters.

The report cited executions of prisoners by both sides and the indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas using imprecise weapon systems.

Austria is seeking the suspect's extradition, Polish border police said.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters
Cellulose is produced from pine and fir and can be a future environment-friendly textile fibre, according to a study of cellulose production, presented in a doctoral thesis at Karlstad University in Sweden.

The population of the world is increasing and so is the average income, which means that the demand for clothes and other textiles is rising too. The global textile consumption in 2050 is estimated to be three times as high as in 2015. The cotton production, which used be the dominant fibre raw material, will decrease because more land is needed for food production. Presently, around 60% of textiles are produced from petroleum, but as oil is not a renewable raw material it will no longer be available in a not too distant future. New environment-friendly and renewable textile raw materials are needed to meet future needs.

Increasing demand for forest-based textile fibres

It is often pointed out that the forest industry has a problem with decreasing sales as the result of less paper consumption. The demand for newspapers and sheets of paper is falling while the demand for environment-friendly forest-based textile fibres are on the rise.

"Our research project comprises two types of sulfite pulping of fir and pine wood," says Raghu Deshpande, PhD candidate in Chemical Engineering at Karlstad University. The aim of the project is to contribute to the understanding of what happens in the sulfite pulping process of softwood where the end product is dissolving pulp, that is, nearly pure cellulose, and also to investigate if the sulfite process can be further improved to achieve better economic efficiency.

The research has been conducted in the industrial graduate school VIPP, funded by Domsjo Fabriker, MoRe Research, Kempestiftelsen and the KK Foundation. VIPP stands for values created in fibre-based processes and products and is an academia-industry collaboration with the aim to strengthen Karlstad University's research environments as well as professional development in industries.

This study has a focus on generating new knowledge of sulfite technology. The study addresses crucial aspects of pulp production based on cheaper raw material for cellulose production. The research results are useful in the manufacturing of even better sulfite pulp and in the long term new sulfite mills may be established.

"Our study shows that different raw materials can be mixed and still result in cellulose of the highest quality," says Raghu Deshpande. "The possibility to produce profitable by-products such as ethanol also makes the manufacturing process more sustainable for the benefit of society as well as the environment."
They found it in the Illinois River near the city of Marseilles, Illinois, about 80 miles west of Lake Michigan -- a strange entry point for an invasive Asian clam. The scientists who found it have no idea how it got there. But the discovery -- along with genetic tests that confirm its uniqueness -- means that a new species or "form" of invasive clam has made its official debut in North America.

The researchers report the find in the journal BioInvasions Records.

This is only the latest invasive aquatic species to settle in North America, said Illinois Natural History Survey aquatic ecologist Jeremy Tiemann, who discovered the new clam with INHS mussel field biologist Sarah Douglass in late 2015. The INHS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.

"In the Midwest, you have invasive bivalves, including zebra mussels, and several species of invasive fish: Asian carp, black carp and even goldfish," Tiemann said. There are exotic plants, like Eurasian milfoil. There is an invasive water flea from Africa, Asia and Australia. There also are several kinds of invasive snails, the researchers said. All of these create problems for the natives.

The new invader is a member of the genus Corbicula, which was first observed in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1924. It likely was brought to North America by immigrants from Asia who used the clams as food, the researchers said. Within a few decades, it had colonized many of the major waterways of North America.

Douglass and Tiemann found the new clams while hunting through a mudflat for a federally endangered native clam, the scaleshell, that had been spotted in the same location two years before. They noticed that this tiny creature, roughly the size of a fingernail, had unusual physical characteristics compared with the other invasive species of Corbicula found in this region.

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The Illinois team shared the find with researchers at the University of Michigan, who conducted genetic tests that confirmed the new clams were distinct from earlier Corbicula invaders.

Despite the genetic and physical differences, the researchers can't say whether the clam is a new species. Corbicula have reproductive strategies that make them difficult to classify, the researchers said. To begin with, they are androgenic clones.

"When the sperm fertilizes the egg, it kicks out the maternal nuclear DNA, retaining only the male's, and thus producing clones of the father," Tiemann said. "These offspring, however, retain the mother's mitochondrial DNA, which resides in tiny organelles outside the nucleus."

Corbicula also can hybridize with other Corbicula taxa, further complicating the task of classifying them, Tiemann said.

"To compound matters even more, Corbicula can also be hermaphrodites, so they can fertilize themselves," he said. "This means that it takes only a single clam to spawn a new population."

To help distinguish among species, researchers can examine the nuclear or mitochondrial DNA, Tiemann said.

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"With Corbicula, the nuclear DNA tells one story, but the mitochondrial DNA can suggest something different," he said. "As a result, we use the word 'form' to distinguish different taxa within a group, as is the case with Corbicula."

No matter how it is classified, the new invader is likely not good news for native clams or the river ecosystem as a whole, the researchers said.

"Corbicula consume the same resources as the natives," Tiemann said.

"It's thought that they also can consume the larvae of the natives, although that hasn't been proved," Douglass said.

Invaders often have no natural enemies in a new locale, and tend to overpopulate, driving out the natives and sometimes overextending themselves, she said.

So far, the ultimate consequences of the latest exotic to take up residence in U.S. waters remains to be seen, the researchers said.

"But if past invasions are any indication, it may signal further erosion of ecosystem services traditionally provided by watersheds already impacted by Corbicula," Tiemann said.
Plant a tree, save the world?

Maybe, but preventing the chopping down of trees for single-family home add-ons or the paving of shrubbery for driveways and other "hardscaped" property features would go a lot further, say researchers with the USC Spatial Sciences Institute.

In the Los Angeles area, green cover for single-family home lots declined anywhere from 14 to 55 percent, with almost no single area spared from the decline, according to a study published online in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening by a team of researchers led by USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences lecturer in spatial sciences Su Jin Lee and including USC Dornsife and USC School of Architecture Assistant Professor Travis Longcore.

Much of this "de-greening" took place as the city of Los Angeles famously kicked off its "Million Trees" tree-planting campaign in 2007. Other major cities like New York, Shanghai and London have undertaken similar campaigns in recent years.

For its study, the Spatial Sciences Institute researchers looked at tree, building and other land cover for the 20 largest cities in the Los Angeles Basin for the period of 2000 to 2009.

The researchers did this by first noting all the single-family parcels in these cities where additional square footage from 2000-09 was recorded.

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Then they digitized high-resolution aerial imagery of these parcels provided by the Los Angeles Region-Imagery Acquisition Consortium, identifying six different types of land cover -- buildings, hardscape, swimming pools, shade, grass and trees/shrubs.

Finally, the researchers compared the change in imagery over these six types of cover from the two points in time -- 2000 and 2009.

The entire area examined by the researchers saw a 1.2 percent annual decrease in tree and shrub cover year-to-year.

Baldwin Park: Half the "park" it used to be

Baldwin Park led all areas in reduction, seeing a 55 percent loss of green cover on single-family residential lots in the mere span of nine years.

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Other areas in the study that had at least 20 percent loss in cover included Pomona, Downey, Sylmar, Compton, and San Pedro/Port of Los Angeles.

The Pasadena area was a notable exception. The city found a way to minimize tree loss in what is already a fairly verdant community. Longcore also cites the regulations of neighboring South Pasadena, especially in protecting its many tree-lined, suburban lots from redevelopment.

Longcore, however, is quick to point out that sacrificing trees for redevelopment cuts across all Southern California neighborhoods, regardless of socioeconomic status.

"We are losing tree shade across economic areas," he says. "Wealthy areas might generally have more trees to start with, but all single-family areas are losing across the board."

The unintended consequences of ambitious redevelopment

Robust urban forests, or "green infrastructure," can reduce energy use, improve water quality and increase overall health and well-being, according to the United States Forest Service.

Longcore believes changing social views on the preferred size of single-family homes is the largest driver of tree cover loss, along with the increase in paved surfaces like walkways, driveways and swimming pools that come with home expansion.

In their report, the researchers note that the average size of single-family homes had steadily increased from 984 square feet in 1950 to 2,349 square feet in 2004.

A decade after the housing bust, property development in the age of home improvement reality television is as ambitious as ever, with new homes reaching 2,687 square feet, and nearly one-third more than 3,000 square feet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's annual survey in 2016.

Municipalities also often encourage redevelopment as a way to increase tax revenues.

"While the housing expansion throughout the 2000s certainly drove an exceptional amount of construction, the practices that contribute the most to removing tree cover and canopy still remain," Longcore says.
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Economic sanctions have not persuaded North Korea to halt its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs. For a long time the main reason the sanctions did not work was because China would not participate or, if they did, would not enforce them. China is notoriously corrupt, something the Chinese government has been forced to admit because of growing public anger over how government (Communist Party) officials have long resisted attempts to curb their main sources of personal wealth. But now China has been forced, again by a growing anger among the Chinese public, to make a serious effort to curb domestic corruption and enforce sanctions against North Korea. The sanctions effort has been crippled by corruption, meaning that North Korea could still get a lot of key items for nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development if they are willing to pay the extra costs (bribes). The Chinese public, even with a heavily censored local Internet, made it clear they were not happy with a North Korea armed with nukes and ruled by a homicidal (and increasingly hostile to China) tyrant.

Yet the sanctions have hurt North Korea and crippled their armed forces and is increasingly vulnerable to sanctions that reduce access to imports essential for nukes, missiles and other military efforts. The United States, South Korea and even the UN have managed to obtain details of how North Korea partially overcomes many sanctions and that provides a short list of additional sanctions that would mainly hurt the North Korea military and government officials. Most of these will only work if China (and to a lesser extent Russia) cooperates.

For example, have China ban all oil exports to North Korea. China is the only sources of petroleum for North Korea and China has already cut the tonnage but is reluctant to halt all oil exports. In response North Korea has already converted thousands of trucks to run on coal gas. This sort of thing was popular in Japan and Germany during World War II because of oil shortages but largely disappeared after 1945. In North Korea these coal powered trucks are common for the same reason. But coal gas is half as efficient as petroleum fuels, are slower, have less range and require more maintenance. Thus coal gas is not suitable for most military vehicles or combat operations. The sluggish and smoky coal powered trucks remind North Korean that their war is not over yet. Even though China now prosecutes and punishes some businesses that take bribes to help North Korea evade sanctions there are a few sanctions, like no oil at all, that would be much more difficult to evade and very expensive if North Korea persisted.

For example, ban North Korea commercial and military aircraft from foreign airports. Same with North Korea seagoing transports. Rail and road traffic into North Korea can be monitored because it can only enter via a few Chinese and Russian border crossings.

The U.S. has been successful at hunting down and punishing major banks and financial institutions that help North Korea move cash to fuel the illegal trade and this would be more effective if China cooperated. The banking sanctions could be more thorough and be extended to hundreds of individuals (most of them North Koreans) who make the illegal banking network work.

One of the more lucrative exports for North Korea is slave labor. Most of what North Korean workers overseas are paid is taken by an unofficial agent of the North Korean government and then the cash is transported back to North Korea. These legal North Korean migrant workers are part of what amounts to a slave labor program that has become a major (up to $2 billion a year) source of foreign exchange for North Korea. The export of North Korean workers has gone from 60,000 men and women in 2014 to over 100,000 in 2016. The number of workers outside the country is nearly triple what it was before since Kim Jong Un took over in 2011. The government takes up to 90 percent of the wages these men and women earn outside the country (mainly in Russia and China) and holds the workers families hostage in case the worker does not return home when ordered. If someone does not come back, their families are sent to prison camps.

North Korea has long used blatantly illegal exports (drugs, counterfeit currency, weapons, stolen data and tech) to keep its dictatorship and key (nuclear, chemical, ballistic missile) programs going. These become more important if all bulk imports and exports are banned and only food and some medicines are allowed in. Even these imports have been abused, with food aid showing up in Chinese markets near the border, along with medical supplies donated to North Korea. So it is essential to go after the known corrupt North Korean practices when imposing and enforcing additional sanctions.

More effective sanctions are more essential now because the North Korean government is allowing another major famine (like the one in the 1990s that killed 5-10 percent of the population) to develop. The North Korean rulers believe having nuclear weapons will enable them to extort sufficient fuel, food and cash to turn things around. That is a fantasy and most of the potential North Korean victims are aware of their vulnerability. China does not want a mass rebellion and government collapse in North Korea, especially when there are nuclear weapons and a lot of other dangerous items involved. So this time around the Chinese appear ready and willing to support more effective sanctions.
Nokia 8 and Nokia 9 prices, release dates and specs

Nokia, the former yesteryear king of mobiles, is back in the news once again. Thanks to the rumor mills surrounded around its eagerly awaited upcoming flagships, Nokia 8 and Nokia 9.

Now, according to the latest sketch designs obtained by NokiaPowerUser, Nokia 8 is said to sport a 5.7-inch QHD display, while Nokia 9 may come with a 5.5-inch QHD display. Both the devices will be powered by the Snapdragon 835 processor and will come with 6GB of RAM. Other important features of the Nokia 8 and Nokia 9 are the Carl Zeiss 22MP dual-lens camera on the rear and a 12MP front camera as well as either 64GB or 128GB of in-built storage or both.

Further, Nokia 8 is expected to have bigger top and bottom bezels than Nokia 9, while the latter will have small bezels and no physical home button. Nokia 8 and Nokia 9 are tipped to come with Carl Zeiss lens, along with dual cameras at the rear panel. Both the devices will be running Googles latest mobile operating system, Android Nougat 7.1.2 and come with pre-installed Google Apps. Also, Nokia 8 and Nokia 9 are expected to come with 3,800 mAh non-removable lithium-ion battery along and Quick Charge 4.0 technology.

Besides the above, Nokia 9 will be the first device to feature Nokia OZO audio enhancements system. Nokia says this tech is essentially advanced psychoacoustic technology that allows sound to be captured and played back just like it would in real life. Also, Nokia 9 is expected to arrive with an Iris Scanner, which is currently present in Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, an IP68 water-and-dust resistant certification, and a fingerprint scanner.

Nokia 8 and 9 are rumored to be unveiled in July or August this year and these devices to hit the stores by the end of the third quarter. According to NPU, Nokia 9 would be priced at approximately $699 in the U.S. and EUR 749 in European markets. On the other hand, Nokia 8 is expected to be cheaper than Nokia 9.

Well, the above specifications and features are just rumors, as Nokia hasnt officially disclosed any further information about these Android smartphones. So, there are chances that the details may vary or not turn out to be true in the future.
By Press Trust of India: Justice Karnan fails to appear, SC orders his health check up

New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) The Supreme Court today took note of the "tenor" of a defiant Justice C S Karnans orders and press briefings and directed his medical check-up by doctors with police support, as the Calcutta High Court Judge did not appear before it.

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Reacting to the order, a belligerent Justice Karnan said in Kolkata that he will not appear before such a medical board as directed by the Supreme Court.

A plea that Justice Karnan, due to retire in June, be "allowed to go" as he was not in a position to defend himself, did not cut much ice with a 7-judge bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar, which said "anybody can play this trick with us and go".

Taking note of the fact that Justice Karnan has been passing orders despite being restrained and holding press briefings, the bench said, "the tenor of press briefings as also purported orders passed by him indicate that he may not be in a position to defend himself.

"Therefore, we consider it in the fitness of the matter to require him to be medically examined. We hereby direct the Calcutta Hospital to constitute a board of doctors to examine Shri Justice C S Karnan and submit a report."

The bench, which also comprised Justices Dipak Misra, J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur, P C Ghose and Kurian Joseph, asked the director general of police (DGP) of West Bengal to constitute a team of police personnel to assist the medical board in carrying out the tests on Justice Karnan on May 4.

The medical report of Justice Karnan has to be submitted "on or before May 8" and the apex court would take up the contempt plea, initiated suo motu (on its own), for hearing a day after.

The top court, which had taken away the judicial and administrative powers from the HC judge, also made it clear that no court, tribunal and commission in the country would consider or obey the orders passed by Justice Karnan after February 8.

It said Justice Karnan may file his reply, if he is "advised so", by May 8, otherwise "we will assume that he has nothing to say".

At the outset, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi referred to the recent actions including the order passed by Justice Karnan summoning eight SC judges and said he is giving "two hoots" to the judiciary and "aggravating" his contempt before the highest court of the land.

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Non-action will make the judiciary a "laughing stock" as the common persons confidence in the system would be shaken, he said.

Referring to the orders passed by Justice Karnan after February 8, the CJI said, "I dont understand the nature of the orders. But he is in clear breach of our orders. The nature of the orders is clearly in teeth of our orders".

Rohatgi said that Justice Karnan was "aggravating" his position every day and "he has done it again and again... this is completely unacceptable".

The bench observed that these actions may also indicate that "he is not in position to defend himself".

"This is a gross criminal contempt. This is not a civil contempt....this court has been very patient with him," the Attorney General said.

Senior advocate K K Venugopal, who represents Madras High Court Registry in a connected matter, referred to various orders of Justice Karnan and said he cannot be taken "seriously" and moreover since he was due to retire in June, "so let him go."

To this, the bench said "what is this? Let him retire? Anybody can play this trick with us. He (Karnan) has taken advice from some senior lawyer...this court should never be construed as shying away from dealing with such issues.

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"We cannot escape from dealing with it. We must deal with it so that it does not happen again."

The bench said the judiciary "must deal with it" or lose face.

Rohatgi said that Justice Karnan has ordered "Your Lordships to appear before him today".

"Today? Oh, thats why he is not present here. He is expecting us there," the CJI said.

The bench concurred with the views of the Attorney General that the Contempt law was meant to ensure that the Rule of Law prevails and people continue to have faith in the judicial system.

Taling to mediapersons in Kolkata today, Justice Karnan said he will not appear before a medical board for examining his health as directed by the apex court. He also threatened to "pass suo motu suspension order against the Director General of Police (DGP) of West Bengal, if the DGP functions against my wish."

On March 31, Justice Karnan had appeared in the Supreme Court, a first in Indian judicial history, and had sought restoration of his powers as a condition for his re- appearance, but the plea was rejected. He had also said he would not appear before it again even if he was arrested and put in jail.

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The bench had referred to Justice Karnans March 23 communication, in which he had sought to withdraw his earlier letters allegedly casting aspersions on other judges and had asked him whether he wanted to tender "unconditional apology".

"Actually, I am not a contemnor. My work has been taken away for me without any notice to me or without giving me an opportunity to be heard. For the last two months, I have gone through so much, people ask me questions about it and I have no answer. You all have taken a suo motu contempt proceeding against me, you have issued notice to me but at the same time you fixed the punishment by taking away my work," he had said.

The bench had gone to the extent of suggesting Justice Karnan, who had defiantly refused to appear before the bench despite summons, that he may file some medical records pertaining to his mental condition.

"I do not need medical records. Without hearing me, how can this be done," Justice Karnan had replied and had sought restoration of his powers which was rejected.

The apex court had on March 10 issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to ensure his presence before it in the contempt case. The warrant had come almost a month after the court had asked Justice Karnan to appear in person and explain why contempt proceedings not be initiated against him.

However, Justice Karnan did not appear before the apex court on February 13.

Justice Karnan was transferred from the Madras HC to the Calcutta HC for his conduct. A recalcitrant Karnan had on February 15, 2016 stayed his transfer order. The apex court even asked the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court not to assign any judicial work to him.

The same day the apex court had suspended Justice Karnans order. The Supreme Court also made it clear that all administrative and judicial orders passed by him after the issuance of the order of his transfer shall remain stayed. PTI SJK MNL ABA RKS ARC

--- ENDS ---
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Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Harvest Asset Management LLC, Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd. Kabushiki Kaisha Kyouei Nenkin Home, LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., Lotus Reinsurance Company Ltd., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Montana Capital Partners, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Northbound Emerging Manager Fund A LP, Northbound Emerging Manager Fund II - A LP, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Desert Falcon Farms Manager LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI River Bend Ranches LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PG Friendly Partners Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM AC Co-Invest GP Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory Shanghai Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Australia Pty Ltd, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Feeder VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM Custom Harvest LLC, PGIM DC Co-Invest GP Pte. Ltd., PGIM DC JV GP Pte. Ltd., PGIM DC Solutions LLC, PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM Holdings Limited, PGIM Hong Kong Ltd., PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM IRELAND LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments Ireland Limited, PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management Shanghai Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital Ireland Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM QUANTITATIVE SOLUTIONS LLC, PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Global Master Fund GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles II S de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Japan Ltd., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. CORE Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate UK Limited, PGIM Scots Limited, PGIM Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Shanghai Company Ltd., PGIM Singapore Pte. Ltd., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM Taronga Investor GP LLC, PGIM U.S. Agriculture Fund LP, PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Wadhwani LLP, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings UK Limited, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP SCOTS FEEDER LLP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF Debt Fund Manager LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica Business Consulting Shanghai Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Hong Kong Holdings Limited, Pramerica Insurance Agency China Company Ltd., Pramerica Luxembourg CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate Scots LP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP Scots Feeder LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I Scotland Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Scots Feeder LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V Netherlands GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI Scots Limited Partnership, Pramerica Scots CP GP LLP, Preco III Scotland Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Inc., Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd. Prudential Gibraltar Agency Kabushiki Kaisha, Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Select Strategies LLC, Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Tax Services LLC, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service, Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy US Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., VIP Australia Holding Company LLC, VIP Australia Trustee Pty Ltd, Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I Ireland L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I US L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Illinois Tool Works: A V Co 1 Limited, A V Co 2 Limited, A V Co 3 Limited, ACCU-LUBE Manufacturing GmbH - Schmiermittel und -gerate -, AIP/BI Holdings Inc., Accessories Marketing Holding Corp., Advanced Molding Company Inc., Allen France SAS, Alpine Engineered Products, Alpine Systems Corporation, Anaerobicos S.r.l., AppliChem GmbH, Avery Berkel France, Avery India Limited, Avery Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avery Weigh Tronix, Avery Weigh-Tronix Finance Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix International Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix LLC, Avery Weigh-Tronix Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Properties Limited, Avery Weigh-Tronix Suzhou Weighing Technology Co. Ltd., Azon Limited, B.C. Immo, Beijing Miller Electric Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Berkel Ireland Limited, Berrington UK, Brapenta Eletronica Ltda., Brooks Instrument B.V., Brooks Instrument GmbH, Brooks Instrument KFT, Brooks Instrument Korea Ltd., Brooks Instrument LLC, Brooks Instrument Shanghai Co. Ltd, Buell Industries Inc., CCI Realty Company, CFC Europe GmbH, CS Australia Pty Limited, CS Mexico Holding Company S DE RL DE CV, Calvia Spolka z Ograniczona Odpowiedzialnosci, Capital Ventures Australasia S.a r.l, Capmax Logistica S.A. de C.V., Celeste Industries Corporation, Coeur, Coeur Asia Limited, Coeur Holding Company, Coeur Inc., Coeur Shanghai Medical Appliance Trading Co. Ltd, Compagnie Hobart, Compagnie de Materiel et d'Equipements Techniques-Comet, Constructions Isothermiques Bontami C.I.B., Crane Carrier Company, Denison Mayes Group Limited, Despatch Industries, Diagraph Corporation Sdn. Bhd, Diagraph ITW Mexico S. de R.L. De C.V., Diagraph Mexico S.A. DE C.V., Dongguan Ark-Les Electric Components Co. Ltd., Dongguan CK Branding Co. Ltd., Duo Fast de Espana S.A.U., Duo-Fast Korea Co. Ltd., Duo-Fast LLC, E.C.S. d.o.o., E2M Production B.V.., E2M Technologies B.V.., E2M Technologies Inc.., ECS Cable Protection Sp. Zoo, ELRO Grosskuchen GmbH, ELRO Holding AG, ELRO-WERKE AG, Elro Group, Eltex-Elektrostatik-Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Envases Multipac S.A. de C.V., Eurotec Srl, Exhibit 21, FEG Investments L.L.C., Filtertek De Mexico Holding Inc., Filtertek De Mexico S.A. de C.V., Filtertek SAS, GC Financement SA, Gamko B.V., Gun Hwa Platech Taicang Co. Ltd., HOBART Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung, Hartness International, Hobart Andina S.A.S., Hobart Belgium B.V., Hobart Brothers International Chile Limitada, Hobart Brothers LLC, Hobart Dayton Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Hobart Food Equipment Co. Ltd., Hobart International Singapore Pte. Ltd., Hobart Japan K.K., Hobart Korea LLC, Hobart LLC, Hobart Nederland B.V., Hobart Sales & Service Inc., Hobart Scandinavia ApS, Hobart Techniek B.V., Horis, ILC Investments Holdings Inc., ITW AEP LLC, ITW AOC LLC, ITW Aircraft Investments Inc., ITW Ampang Industries Philippines Inc., ITW Appliance Components EOOD, ITW Appliance Components S.A. de C.V., ITW Appliance Components S.r.l.a, ITW Appliance Components d.o.o., ITW Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, ITW Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd., ITW Australia Pty Ltd, ITW Automotive Components Chongqing Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Components Langfang Co. Ltd., ITW Automotive Japan K.K., ITW Automotive Korea LLC, ITW Automotive Parts Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Automotive Products GmbH, ITW Automotive Products Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Bailly Comte, ITW Befestigungssysteme GmbH, ITW Belgium B.V., ITW Brazilian Nominee L.L.C., ITW Building Components Group Inc., ITW CER, ITW CP Distribution Center Holland BV, ITW CS UK Ltd., ITW Canada Inc., ITW Celeste Inc., ITW Chemical Products Ltda, ITW Chemical Products Scandinavia ApS, ITW China Investment Company Limited, ITW Colombia S.A.S., ITW Construction Products AB, ITW Construction Products AS, ITW Construction Products ApS, ITW Construction Products CZ s.r.o., ITW Construction Products Italy Srl, ITW Construction Products OU, ITW Construction Products OY, ITW Construction Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Construction Products Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW Construction Services Manila Inc., ITW Contamination Control B.V., ITW Contamination Control Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Covid Security Group Inc., ITW DS Investments Inc., ITW DelFast do Brasil Ltda., ITW Denmark ApS, ITW Deutschland GmbH, ITW Diagraph GmbH, ITW Dynatec, ITW Dynatec Adhesive Equipment Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Dynatec GmbH, ITW Dynatec Kabushiki Kaisha, ITW EAE B.V., ITW EAE Mexico S de RL de CV, ITW EF&C France SAS, ITW EF&C Selb GmbH, ITW EU Holdings Ltd., ITW Electronic Business Asia Co. Limited, ITW Electronic Components/Products Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Electronics Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Epsilon Sarl, ITW Espana S.L., ITW European Finance Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance II Co. Ltd., ITW European Finance III Co. Ltd., ITW FEG Hong Kong Limited, ITW FEG do Brasil Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW Fastener Products GmbH, ITW Fluids and Hygiene Solutions Ltda., ITW Food Equipment Group LLC, ITW GH LLC, ITW GSE ApS, ITW GSE Inc., ITW Gamma Sarl, ITW German Management LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings LLC, ITW Global Investments Holdings Y Compania Sociedad en Comandita por Acciones, ITW Global Investments Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Europe GmbH, ITW Global Tire Repair Inc., ITW Global Tire Repair Japan K.K., ITW Graphics Asia Limited, ITW Graphics Thailand Ltd., ITW Great Britain Investment & Licensing Holding Company, ITW Group France Luxembourg S.ar.l., ITW HLP Thailand Co. Ltd., ITW Holding Quimica B.C. S.L. Sole Shareholder Company, ITW Holdings Australia L.P., ITW Holdings I Limited, ITW Holdings II Limited, ITW Holdings III Limited, ITW Holdings IV Limited, ITW Holdings IX Limited, ITW Holdings Inc., ITW Holdings V Limited, ITW Holdings VI Limited, ITW Holdings VII Limited, ITW Holdings VIII Limited, ITW Holdings X Limited, ITW Holdings XI Limited, ITW ILC Holdings I Inc., ITW IPG Investments LLC, ITW Imaden Industria e Comercio Ltda., ITW India Private Limited, ITW International Holdings LLC, ITW Invest Holding GmbH, ITW Ireland Holdings Unlimited Company, ITW Ireland Unlimited Company, ITW Italy Holding Srl, ITW Japan Ltd., ITW Korea LLC, ITW LLC & Co. KG, ITW Limited, ITW Lys Fusion S.r.l., ITW Materials Technology Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW Meritex Sdn. Bhd., ITW Metal Fasteners S.L., ITW Mexico Holding Company S. De R.L. de C.V., ITW Mexico Holdings LLC, ITW Morlock GmbH, ITW Mortgage Investments II Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments III Inc., ITW Mortgage Investments IV Inc., ITW Netherlands Administration BV, ITW Netherlands Beta B.V., ITW Netherlands Finance Alpha BV, ITW New Universal LLC, ITW New Zealand, ITW Ningbo Components & Fastenings Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Novadan Sp. Z.o.o., ITW PPF Brasil Adesivos Ltda., ITW Packaging Technology China Co. Ltd., ITW Participations S.a r.l., ITW Pension Funds Trustee Company, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Japan Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids Korea Limited, ITW Performance Polymers & Fluids OOO, ITW Performance Polymers ApS, ITW Performance Polymers Wujiang Co. Ltd., ITW Performance Polymers and Fluids Group FZE, ITW Peru S.A.C., ITW Poly Mex S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Polymers Sealants North America Inc., ITW Pronovia s.r.o., ITW Pte. Ltd., ITW Qufu Automotive Cooling Systems Co. Ltd., ITW Real Estate Germany GmbH, ITW Residuals III L.L.C., ITW Residuals IV L.L.C., ITW Rivex, ITW SMPI, ITW SPG Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., ITW Simco-Ion Shenzhen Co. Ltd., ITW Slovakia s.r.o., ITW Spain Holdings S.L., ITW Specialty Film LLC, ITW Specialty Films France, ITW Specialty Materials Suzhou Co. Ltd., ITW Sverige AB, ITW Sweden Holding AB, ITW Test & Measurement Equipment Shanghai Co. Ltd, ITW Test & Measurement GmbH, ITW Test and Measurement Italia Srl, ITW Test and Measurement Services Industry and Trade Ltd., ITW Texwipe Philippines Inc., ITW Thermal Films Shanghai Co. Ltd., ITW UK, ITW UK Finance Beta Limited, ITW UK Finance Delta Limited, ITW UK Finance Gamma Limited, ITW UK Finance Limited, ITW UK Finance Zeta Ltd., ITW UK II Limited, ITW Universal II LLC, ITW Welding, ITW Welding AB, ITW Welding GmbH, ITW Welding Products B.V., ITW Welding Products Group FZE, ITW Welding Products Group S. DE R.L. De C.V., ITW Welding Products Italy Srl, ITW Welding Products Limited Liability Company, ITW Welding Produtos Para Solgdagem Ltda., ITW Welding Singapore Pte. Ltd., ITW de France, ITW do Brasil Industrial e Comercial Ltda., Illinois Tool Works Chile Limitada, Illinois Tool Works ITW Nederland B.V., Illinois Tool Works Inc., Impar Comercio E Representacoes Ltda., Industrie Plastic Elsasser GmbH, Inmobiliaria Cit. S.A. de C.F., Innova Temperlite Servicios S.A. de C.V., Innovacion y Transformacion Automotriz S.A. de C.V., Instron Brasil Equipamentos Cientificos Ltda., Instron Foreign Sales Corp. Limited, Instron France S.A.S., Instron GmbH, Instron Japan Company Ltd., Instron Korea LLC, Instron Shanghai Ltd., Instron Thailand Limited, International Leasing Company LLC, Isolenge - ITW Sistemas de Isolamento Termico Ltda., Itw Spraytec, KCPL Mauritius Holdings, Kester, Kleinmann GmbH, Krafft S.L., Loma Systems, Loma Systems BV, Loma Systems Canada Inc., Loma Systems sro, Lombard Pressings Limited, Lumex Inc., Lys Fusion Poland Sp. z.o.o., M&C Specialties Co., MAGNAFLUX GmbH, MEHB Holdings Limited, MGHG Property LLC, MTS 2 LLC., MTS 3 LLC., MTS China Holdings LLC, MTS Europe Holdings LLC, MTS Holdings France S.a.r.l., MTS Japan Ltd.., MTS Korea Inc.., MTS Systems China Co. Ltd., MTS Systems Corporation, MTS Systems Danmark ApS., MTS Systems Europe B.V., MTS Systems Finance C.V.., MTS Systems Germany GmbH, MTS Systems Holding B.V.., MTS Systems Hong Kong Incorporated, MTS Systems Limited, MTS Systems Norden Aktiebolag, MTS Systems S.r.l, MTS Systems., MTS Systems.., MTS Sytems Do Brazil, MTS Testing Solutions India Private Limited., MTS Testing Systems Canada Ltd., Manufacturing Avancee S.A., Meritex Technology Suzhou Co. Ltd., Meurer Verpackungssysteme GmbH, Miller Electric Mfg. LLC, Miller Insurance Ltd., NDT Holding LLC, NOVADAN APS, North Star Imaging Inc., Nova Chimica S.r.l., Orbitalum Tools GmbH, PENTA-91 OOO, PR. A. I. Srl, PT ITW Construction Products Indonesia, Pacific Concept Industries Limited Enping, Panreac Quimica S.L., Paslode Fasteners Shanghai Co. Ltd., Peerless Machinery Corp., Polyrey, Premark FEG L.L.C., Premark HII Holdings LLC, Premark International, Premark International LLC, Prolex Sociedad Anonima, QSA Global Inc., Quimica Industrial Mediterranea S.L., R&D Engineering A/S., R&D Prague s.r.o., R&D Steel ApS., R&D Test Systems A/S., R&D Tools and Structures A/S., RDGDK Engineering Private Limited, Ramset Fasteners Hong Kong Ltd., Rapid Cook LLC, Refrigeration France, S.E.E. Sistemas Industria E Comercio Ltda., ST Mexico Holdings LLC, Sealant Systems International Inc., Sentinel Asia Yuhan Hoesa, Shanghai ITW Plastic & Metal Co. Ltd, Simco Japan Inc., Simco Nederland B.V., Societe de Prospection et dInventions Techniques  SPIT, Speedline Holdings I Inc., Speedline Holdings I LLC, Speedline Technologies GmbH, Speedline Technologies Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Speedline Technologies Mexico Services S. de R.L. de C.V., Stokvis Celix Portugal Unipessoal LDA, Stokvis Danmark ApS, Stokvis Holdings S.A.R.L., Stokvis Promi s.r.o, Stokvis Prostick Tapes Private Limited, Stokvis Tapes B.V., Stokvis Tapes Benelux B.V., Stokvis Tapes Deutschland GmbH, Stokvis Tapes France, Stokvis Tapes Hong Kong Co. Limited, Stokvis Tapes Italia s.r.l., Stokvis Tapes Limited, Stokvis Tapes Limited Liability Company, Stokvis Tapes Norge AS, Stokvis Tapes Oy, Stokvis Tapes Polska Sp Z.O.O., Stokvis Tapes Shanghai Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Sverige AB, Stokvis Tapes Taiwan Co. Ltd., Stokvis Tapes Tianjin Co. Ltd., Stolvis Holdings II S.A.R.L., Subsidiaries, Technopack Industria Comercio Consultoria e Representacoes Ltda., Teknek China Limited, Teknek Japan Limited, Teksaleco Ltd., The Miller Group Ltd, Thirode Grandes Cuisines Poligny, Tien Tai Electrode Co. Ltd., Tien Tai Electrode Kunshan Co. Ltd., Unichemicals Industria e Comercio Ltda., VR-Leasing Sarita GmbH & Co. Immobilien KG, VS European Holdco BV, Valeron Strength Films B.V., Veneta Decalcogomme S.r.l., Versachem Chile S.A., Vesta, Vesta Global Limited, Vesta Guangzhou Catering Equipment Co. Ltd, Viltronics Soltec, Vitronics Soltec B.V., Wachs Canada Ltd., Wachs Subsea LLC, Weigh-Tronix Canada ULC, Weigh-Tronix UK Limited, Wilsonart International Holdings LLC, Wynn Oil South Africa Pty Ltd., Wynn's Automotive France, Wynn's Belgium BVBA, Wynn's Italia Srl, Wynn's Mekuba India Pvt Ltd, and Zip-Pak International B.V..

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) The Congress today said the rule of law in India is under assault and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak up on rising incidents of cow vigilantism and moral policing by anti-Romeo squads.

The Congress also wondered why Modi, who speaks on a host of issues during his Mann ki Baat radio programme, has not made any reference to these matters of national concern.

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"The prime ministers silence is being misconstrued as tacit endorsement to such elements and an encouragement to them," Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said, as the party sought an explanation from Modi for being "silent".

"His silence is deafening and most unfortunate. Neither the prime minister nor the home minister have assured the country that this government will not allow what is happening on a daily basis in one or the other state of India," he said.

Sharma, a former Union minister, said the "electoral edge" which the BJP had got in 2014 does not give the prime minister the right to make India a "majoritarian" democracy.

"Indias constitutional democracy must be defended and its pluralism respected," he said.

Stating that a "majority government" has the numbers in Lok Sabha, Sharma said everybody has acknowledged the "great victory" of prime minister Modi in 2014 elections.

"But let us not forget 69 per cent people did not vote for the BJP. Electoral edge does not give the prime minister the right to make India a majoritarian democracy. It is the responsibility of the ruling party to protect our constitutional democracy," he said.

The Congresss deputy leader in Rajya Sabha said Indias pluralistic, multi-ethnic and multi-religious identity has to be protected and added that the ruling party has a greater responsibility to do this.

He said India is a country which is rule based and rule governed and therefore, the prime minister must tell the national what action he proposes to take.

"You cannot have criminal elements, lumpens, anti-social elements let loose on the citizens of the country. This is affecting Indias image besides nurturing an environment of fear and insecurity in India. No growth is possible without peace and social stability," he said.

The Congress leader said stability does not only mean political stability, it also envisaged in the social fabric of a society marked with lack of violence and absence of crime.

"The rule of law is under assault in India today in a very organised manner, in a very concerted manner and it will have long-term consequences for India and that is why, we are asking the prime minister directly," he said.

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Sharma was referring to recent instances of killing of people at the hands of cow vigilantes starting from Alwar in Rajasthan and lamented that in recent times, tragic and unfortunate incidents continue to take place.

Sharma also dared the government to make public the GDP growth figures based on the old and new calculations. He said if the old methodology were to be considered, GDP growth rate would be only 4.6 per cent.

"There is a miscalculated euphoria about growth with ministers in the BJP government beating their own drums. Let the government publish GDP numbers from 2004 to 2016-17 as per the previous and new methodology," he said, claiming, "The growth is flat."

He based his assessment of growth on a historic low credit off-take and other weak economic indicators for growth like investment, credit flow, asset and job creation. PTI SKC KIS

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) Saudi Arabias ambassador to India Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati met Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi here today and the two discussed various issues related to this years Haj pilgrimage.

A total of 170,000 Indians can go for the annual pilgrimage.

According to a statement, Naqvi stated that safety of devotees will be the governments priority.

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Various issues such as visa process, accommodation and transport facilities for the pilgrims were discussed in the meeting, the statement said. PTI ENM KUN

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Chennai, May 1 (PTI) In a setback to merger talks between the AIADMK rival factions, Chief Minister K Palaniswami and rebel leader O Panneerselvam blamed each other today for the merger talks continuing to be a non-starter.

Rebel leader O Panneerselvam asked how his camp could trust the Palaniswami-led Amma group since it had furnished affidavits to the Election Commission affirming VK Sasikala and TTV Dhinakaran as party general secretary and deputy general secretary respectively.

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Palaniswami, without naming Panneerselvams group, said "some" were "posing obstacles," though his camp was ready for "unconditional talks." He said conditions were being imposed by the rival camp wantonly.

Citing the symbol row in the EC and a court case, he asked how could parleys be conducted with strings attached under such circumstances.

The chief minister, at a public meeting here, asserted that only through dialogue a solution could be found to the issue. He said Amma group felt that both the government and party should function well.

Former chief minister O Panneerselvam had said that the Palaniswami camp had already given affidavits to the EC stating Sasikala and Dhinakaran as party general and deputy general secretaries, affirming their roles as the party chief and deputy chief.

Now, a new addition was the inclusion of the name of Palaniswami as well in the papers submitted to the EC, he noted.

Referring to the names of Sasikala and Dhinakaran figuring in the papers submitted to the EC, he asked "how we can believe them."

Panneerselvam group had been opposing Sasikala and Dhinakaran from the beginning and had demanded their formal ouster from the party as a pre-condition for talks.

Palaniswami group had announced days ago that both Sasikala and Dhinakaran will be "kept out" of both the party and the government.

Last week, Amma camp functionaries including district secretaries held deliberations in the party headquarters here during which papers that were to be submitted to the EC also came up.

Senior leader R Vaithialingam had said that Palaniswami who also happens to be the party headquarters secretary was included in the party papers to be given to EC and no "corrections" were made.

The papers were part of the documents that were submitted in connection with the two-leaves symbol row.

At that time, Panneerselvam camp had claimed that signatures were being taken from functionaries in papers that still had the names of Sasikala and Dhinakaran even after announcing that they were being eased out.

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Meanwhile, sources said Panneerselvam will embark on a state-wide tour on May 5 from Kanchipuram to meet party workers and the public. PTI VGN SMJ

--- ENDS ---
SAO PAOLOWhile Washington debates whether climate change is a hoax or an imminent threat, the world coffee industry is not waiting for the American government to take action to protect its business.

Coffee crops are under siege from deforestation, abnormally high temperatures, a lack of precipitation and disease. The global market is heading for its fourth straight year of deficit, according to estimates from Rabobank International.

At the same time, global demand for the beloved beverage is expected to reach an all-time high this year, led by demand from younger American consumers.

Read more:

Climate change, rising demand could mean coffee shortage

Coffee beans burn towards extinction

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Production will need to increase at least 50 per cent by the middle of this century to keep pace with the demand, says Conservation International, an environmental organization. To cope, the industry is rushing to develop plants that can adapt with the changing environment.

Land suitable to grow the arabica beans favoured by Starbucks Corp. and other specialty roasters will be cut in half worldwide by 2050, according to the World Coffee Research institute (WCR), a group sponsored by the industry.

In Brazils Espirito Santo state, output has fallen precipitously, particularly for the robusta variety of coffee bean. In the last three years, the region has received just 50 per cent of its average rainfall, while temperatures soared to 3 degrees Celsius above normal.

It was the worst drought in 80 years, Romario Gava Ferrao, a researcher at the state-run research institute, Incaper, told Bloomberg. Some farmers have moved to other regions or have invested in other crops, such as pepper, he said.

Hugo Ramos, a meteorologist at Incaper, isnt sure if the warmer, dryer weather is a permanent change for the region. We have to study more to understand what will happen in the next years.

The situation has become so dire that the nation is considering importing lower-quality robusta beans from Vietnam in order to meet demand, an option that has met with strong opposition from local farmers.

Leaf rust, a fungal disease that affects both arabica and robusta plants, is also devastating the industry. About 18.2 million bags of coffee worth about $2.5 billion were lost to the disease from 2011 to 2016, according to WCR. The loss put 1.7 million people out of work. A warmer planet means producers will be forced to contend with more frequent threats to their beans.

To avert a disastrous future without coffee, Christophe Montagnon, a geneticist at the WCR, is leading a global team of researchers in an effort to find existing plants that can survive in a changed climate.

Global warming means that the only places that will remain arable are colder or at higher altitudes, Montagnon said in a telephone interview from Lyon, France.

In a recent experiment, Montagnons team took 30 plant varieties from 20 countries and placed them in a controlled environment in Laos, where they were subjected to temperatures as low as 2 degrees Celsius. The seven varieties that survived the cold snap will now be taken to other regions, from Brazil to Guatemala, to see if they can thrive in foreign soils and uncontrolled conditions.

Eventually, the coffee plants deemed most resistant to both colder temperatures and leaf-rust will be selected for planting.

We now have these varieties that are resistant to frost, Montagnon said. The next step is to challenge those varieties in different environments, he added.

Finding coffee plants able to withstand leaf rust may be a bigger challenge. Recent research has shown that resistance is breaking down in some rust-resistant varieties originally developed from the 1950s to the 90s. The fungal disease remains common in some areas, particularly the Americas, where it primarily threatens the arabica beans sold by high-end roasters.

Still, Montagnon remains optimistic. This is exciting, he said.

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CALGARYOilpatch CEOs fear their costs will rise when the federal government passes recently introduced legislation to legalize recreational marijuana.

The issue of drug use is closely watched in the industry, where workers tend to be young and hazards include long commutes to and from remote drilling sites, wells that produce poisonous or explosive gas and exposure to heavy machinery. Many oil and gas companies have strict bans on alcohol and drugs at work.

Precision Drilling CEO Kevin Neveu, whose Calgary-based firm operates in both Canada and the United States, says his opposition to legalization is supported by his companys experiences in Colorado after that state legalized the drug in 2014.

Read more: As Canada prepares to legalize pot, Colorado offers advice

He said costs there have increased for employees who need drug counselling or for those who fail drug tests and must be sent home under Precisions zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy.

And its more difficult to find new recruits, typically young men, who can pass pre-employment drug tests, he said.

We have certainly failed more people in Colorado (for drug use) after legalization than we did before, he said, though he was unable to give specific numbers.

Theres a link, theres a cause. Even during the recruitment phase where we warn them well do a test, a surprising number still test positive.

Canadas Liberal government campaigned on a promise to legalize marijuana for recreational use, arguing prohibition does not prevent young people from using the drug. It also said too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts and legalization would help remove the criminal element linked to the drug.

But Jeff Tonken, CEO of Calgary-based natural gas producer Birchcliff Energy, agreed with Neveu that employee costs will rise if the government succeeds in legalizing recreational pot by July 1, 2018.

Its going to be more costly for us to police the safety of our people, he said.

He said workers sign an agreement when hired giving permission for random tests for drugs and alcohol consumption.

If someone fails a test, they must leave the job site, he said, but the company may still be responsible for paying for substance abuse treatment or covering a leave of absence.

SureHire Inc., an Edmonton-based drug testing company with branches across Canada, charges between $85 and $135 for a 12-panel point of collection test or a saliva drug test. A hair drug test costs $275 to $325, but costs rise if the sample is nonnegative because it must then be sent to a lab for confirmation. Usually, the company pays.

This is a really good time for companies to review their internal policies and procedures, said Jason Sheehy, SureHires director of occupational health services.

He pointed out that medical marijuana has been available in Canada since 2001, but there still is no test to determine if someone is impaired by any drug other than alcohol  tests can only show that someone has consumed the drug at some point.

Nor can the test show when the drug was taken, he said. For example, an infrequent marijuana users urine sample might test positive for five to 10 days after marijuana use, but a heavy user will show positive for up to 30 days.

Enform, an oil and gas industry training and safety organization, said in a recent statement that the federal legislation fails to address the need to do further research on marijuana impairment testing technologies, nor did it cover how labour and workplace legislation can be harmonized from province to province.

There is well-documented research to demonstrate cognitive impairments that can last for more than 24 hours and up to 20 days for chronic marijuana use, said Enform CEO Cameron MacGillivray, calling for a legal prohibition on marijuana in or near the workplace.

Matt Pascuzzo, spokesman for federal Employment Minister Patty Hajdu, said the government will ensure Canadians health and safety are protected as it works with provinces and territories on measures addressing impairment at work.

Mark Salkeld, president of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, said freer access to marijuana is more likely to cause problems in his industry than in many others because of its hazards.

You know, you dont want guys stoned in those environments. Or even hungover, he said.

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NEW YORKDebilitating studio battles. One miraculously still cat. Mooning contests between James Caan and Marlon Brando. These were the memories shared, 45 years later, on the making of The Godfather in a rare reunion of the films cast and director Francis Ford Coppola at Radio City Music Hall.

With the stage decorated to resemble the library of Brandos Don Corleone, and a portrait of the actor hanging above, Coppola and cast members Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Talia Shire, gathered together once again on Saturday. The night was organized by De Niro as the closing evening of his Tribeca Film Festival, which preceded the affair with a grand double feature of The Godfather, parts one and two.

That made for a long day  the event spanned nearly nine hours  but one of giddy delight for devotees of Coppolas masterpieces.

While both films are widely viewed as among the finest ever made, Coppola and cast spoke again and again about the films humble origins, when Coppola was a young, untested director, Pacino was an unknown theatre actor who the studio, Paramount, was loathe to cast, and few thought the source material  Mario Puzos bestseller  was the stuff of great cinema.

Even Coppola, himself.

I was disappointed in the book when I first read it because its very long, said Coppola, who called Puzos book a bit of a potboiler.

Much of the book  about a third  is about Lucy Mancinis anatomy, he said.

Coppolas battles over casting Pacino as Michael Corleone have long been Hollywood legend. To help convince the wary studio, Pacino said he did more screen tests  including after he actually got the part  than he could remember. Pacino even suggested Coppola shouldnt fight so hard for him, telling him, Its OK. Well work again. There are other things to do.

But Coppola was enamoured with Pacino. After meeting him in San Francisco, he couldnt shake the image of Pacino as Corleone. I just saw his face, said Coppola. Everywhere we went, all the girls lit up for Al, for some reason.

Still, Pacino was skeptical. I thought, Gee, its not a really good role, said the now 77-year-old actor of the part that earned him two Oscar nods and made him a movie star. Sonny is the part I can play, he said, referring to the hotheaded Sonny Corleone, played by Caan. (De Niro, who ended up playing young Don Vito Corleone in Part II, also auditioned for the part of Sonny.)

When the shoot got off to a rocky start, Pacino lost his already shaky faith. Its over, he remembered thinking. This is the worst film ever made!

But Pacino said he was straightened out after a pep talk from Coppola, who showed him early footage of his performance and told the struggling Pacino to get your chops together.

At the close of the Tribeca Film Festival Saturday, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro looked back on making 'The Godfather' films, 45 years after part one was released.

There were many such stories shared Saturday. All marvelled at the cat, roaming nearby, that was thrust into one scene where it calmly burrowed in Brandos lap. After the lengthy wedding scene, Pacino said, he and Keaton got so loaded, we were on the floor. During the same scene, Duvall said, We were all mooning each other and Brando took it very seriously.

Brando, of course, wasnt the only one missing Saturday. John Cazale (Fredo) was spoken of frequently, as was cinematographer Gordon Willis.

The event was moderated by Taylor Hackford and live streamed on Facebook. The conversation sometimes got bogged down and some on the panel hardly spoke, as many watching grumbled. De Niro said little until nearly an hour in.

But if it was an imperfect evening, it only highlighted the almost inhumane perfection of the movies Coppola et al produced. Having recently watched the films for the first time in decades, Keaton could hardly contain her amazement.

Every choice you made was so authentically brilliant, she exclaimed to Coppola. Its so unusual!

With time running out, Coppola tried to take questions from the audience, asking for the house lights to be raised and urging audience members to holler out. But after a few questions, a voice announced over the speakers that the night was over and The Godfather got the hook.

Coppola and the group gathered together on stage to embrace each other while the crowd, eager for more, took pictures of the legendary Godfather team, draped arm in arm.

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Shahid Kapoor spent some quality time with wife Mira Rajput and daughter Misha and took them out on a lunch date.

By India Today Web Desk: Two days ago, we got an overdose of cuteness when Shahid Kapoor shared an adorable video himself dancing with darling daughter Misha on the occasion of World Dance Day. The sight of the father-daughter grooving to a Michael Jackson song made fans go gaga. The actor gave us another glimpse of his bundle of joy when he stepped out for a lunch date with her and his wife Mira Rajput.

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While Shahid was dressed in black from head-to-toe, Mira opted for more summery hues. Misha was clad in a white frock, accessorised with a matching hairband with a bow.

Photo: Yogen Shah

Photo: Yogen Shah

Photo: Yogen Shah

Shahid also took Misha in his arms, much to the delight of the paparazzi.

Photo: Yogen Shah

Photo: Yogen Shah

The 36-year-old actor absolutely dotes on his little munchkin. At the India Today Woman Summit 2017 held earlier this year, Shahid had said that fatherhood was an "enriching, empowering and beautiful experience" for him and called Misha a "wonderful package of positivity."

ALSO WATCH: Shahid Kapoor and Misha groove to Michael Jackson this World Dance Day

ALSO READ: When Mira Rajput was in labour, I got dizzy, says Shahid Kapoor

ALSO WATCH: Misha's smelly diapers come to me, says Shahid Kapoor

--- ENDS ---
Hasan Minhaj asked the question himself when he hosted the White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night: Who would have thought, with everything going on in the country right now, that a Muslim would be standing on this stage?

Even with the typical guest of honour noticeably absent, The Daily Show senior correspondent was a notable pick for the event  the first Muslim and first South Asian American to headline the annual Washington roast.

It took him just 30 seconds into his 25-minute set to bring up his religion.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

Minhaj pulled from a comedy repertoire built on his experience as a member of a marginalized minority in America, from racist bullying in high school to recent hate crimes against Muslims.

With President Donald Trump absent at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, speakers challenged Trump's accusations of dishonest reporting, while comic Hasan Minhaj roasted the president for his absence.

Over the past few months, the 31-year-old has watched the Trump administration reshape the news media that his show comments on. Events have intensified his brand of socially conscious comedy and affected his own immigrant family. After the election, Minhaj told viewers that his mother was afraid that the ban on Muslims that Trump proposed during the campaign would keep her from returning to the country.

The comedian, who considers himself an angry optimist, voiced both frustration and honour on behalf of his faith during Saturdays speech. As a Muslim, I like to watch Fox News for the same reason I like to play Call of Duty. Sometimes, I like to turn my brain off and watch strangers insult my family and my heritage, he jabbed.

Read more:

Trump snubs  then trolls  White House Correspondents Dinner

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At the end of the night, he said, Only in America can a first-generation Indian Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president.

Though he isnt as high-profile as many of the previous hosts, Minhaj represents what he calls New Brown America. The Comedy Central star joins a new generation of young performers like Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation, Master of None) and Riz Ahmed (The Night Of, Rogue One) who aim to reclaim their Muslim heritage from post-9/11 stereotypes and instead offer a richer view of navigating two cultures.

Minhajs one-man-show-turned-comedy-special Homecoming King premieres on Netflix on May 23. Filmed in his hometown of Davis, California, the show features real stories from Minhajs upbringing, like sneaking out of the house to go to prom.

Muslims make up about 1 per cent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center. That number is expected to double by 2050, making Islam the second-largest religion in the country, after Christianity. Only about 3 per cent of Muslims in the United States come from India, like Minhajs family.

Im a first-generation kid in this country. I so identify with America and its culture. Im a citizen, I was born here. Im American, Minhaj told the Daily Beast. At the same time, like most first-generation kids, I have this other identity to another country back home, which is India. Whats interesting is from a young age, because I had to have this dual narrative, Ive always had a soft spot for other marginalized groups, whether thats LGBTQ people, women, the African American community, the Latino community, Ive been able to connect to their civil rights struggle through my own feelings of racism or disenfranchisement.

Growing up in a mostly white community in Northern California  the only brown kid in his class  he became interested in politics after the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, when he was reeling from prank calls, vandalism and a sense of Americas growing anti-Muslim sentiment.

He recounted on the Mash-Up Americans podcast, however, that his father told him to do the exact opposite: Whatever you do, dont tell people youre Muslim, and dont talk about politics. Needless to say, he didnt follow his dads advice.

Minhajs religion-savvy satire got him his Daily Show gig. He came on staff in 2014  one of Jon Stewarts last hires  after auditioning with a segment about Ben Affleck defending Muslims to atheist Sam Harris on Real Time With Bill Maher. On The Daily Show, now hosted by Trevor Noah, Minhaj has covered religious issues on punnily named segments called Halal Things Considered and Hasan the Record.

In recent months, Minhaj has asked supporters to donate to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations to help support those affected by the new administrations policies.

In addition to addressing instances of discrimination and violence against Muslims, Minhaj spoke out in the wake of the 2012 Sikh temple shooting and the Orlando nightclub massacre. The latter he brought up during last years Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner, telling members of Congress that American needs them to make our society better  not tweet, not tell us about your thoughts and prayers.

Along with Reza Aslan  the Muslim scholar who hosts the CNN show Believer  Minhaj advocated for the American Muslim community to fight for LGBT rights. Fewer than half of Muslim-Americans, 42 per cent according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll, support same-sex marriage.

Minhaj and Aslans open letter said:

Think about the way people look at your hijabi sister or your bearded brother when they walk through the mall. Think about the grumbles and stares you get at airports. Think about the vitriol thats spewed on you by your own elected political leaders. Thats how your LGBT brothers and sisters feel every day of their lives. Are you OK with that?

No one is asking you to change your beliefs. If you feel your faith tells you that homosexuality is haram, fine. We disagree with your interpretation, but youre entitled to it . Bottom line is this: Standing up for marginalized communities, even when you disagree with them, is not just the right thing to do, its the Muslim thing to do.

At the correspondents dinner, as well as on Facebook, Minhaj joked that Barack Obama was the first Muslim president, referencing the segment of the population who falsely believed he was a Muslim. Beneath a picture of his family posing with the Obamas and Bidens, Minhaj wrote, Muslim family with the first Muslim President. What a run we had!

Read more about:

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Last week, my colleagues at Public Health Ontario set up a quarantine tent at the MaRS Discovery District. But instead of keeping the public away from the isolation area, the idea was to expose people to the harsh realities of vaccine-preventable illnesses.

Clad in period dress and made up to look like they had diseases like smallpox, measles or Spanish flu, a team of public health experts played the roles of people affected by real-life outbreaks throughout Ontarios history. Their goal was to help shed light on how they affected families and communities before vaccines existed.

The interactive event was part of National Immunization Awareness Week  but like many of my colleagues working in public health, I think about vaccination all year round.

As a family doctor, I provide patients of all ages with the shots they need to stave off avoidable sickness. From early childhood inoculations that babies receive in their first 18 months of life to the shingles and pneumococcal bacteria vaccines recommended for adults beginning at age 65, there are vaccines to help us stay healthy throughout our lifespan.

I also work as an epidemiologist, doing research to answer questions about vaccination like how many people receive immunizations, who gets them and what kind of impact programs like the annual flu shot campaign have at a population level.

One reason Im passionate about this work is that vaccines have had tremendous benefits to our health. Theyre one of the most successful and cost-effective interventions available. And theres no doubt they save lives and avert the suffering associated with illnesses like pertussis (whooping cough) or mumps.

A recent outbreak of mumps in Toronto drew attention to the need for adults born between 1970 and 1992 to check their vaccination status to be sure they are protected from the highly contagious  and potentially dangerous  illness. The most common symptoms include sore and swollen salivary glands, fever, headache, muscle aches, and fatigue. In males, this virus can also cause inflammation of the testicles. Mumps often clears on its own, but in rare cases, there can be serious complications like deafness or inflammation in the brain or the tissue covering the brain and spinal cord.

Its presumed that anyone born before 1970 would have been infected naturally; people born after 1992 should have received two doses of a mumps-containing vaccine as part of the regular immunization schedule. If youre in the 25-47 age range  or if you were born outside Canada  you might have only received one dose of the vaccine.

Outbreaks of measles have also occurred in recent years  and its one of the most contagious infectious diseases around. The measles vaccine is highly effective, so its important to make sure yours is up to date, particularly if you plan to travel to places where measles spreads regularly. Conveniently, the measles and mumps vaccines are grouped together in a single vaccine.

One day, Id love to see a comprehensive immunization registry to help Ontarians and their health care providers keep track of all the vaccines they have received. But for now, its up to all of us to keep track of our own immunizations.

If you receive a vaccine, be sure to record it and let your doctor know. Family physicians like me can put that information into your chart and print it out if you need it. But, if you got the shot from another health care provider and dont tell us, we wont have any way of knowing that.

Although we still offer people the yellow paper vaccination cards so they can keep their own records, a tool called CANImmunize offers a digital option. The free app can be used to keep track of your vaccinations and those of your children or other family members. You can also use the app to get reminders for routine immunizations or boosters.

For many people, its tough to imagine what its like to live through an outbreak of smallpox or Spanish flu. In a way, vaccines have become a victim of their own success. Theyre so effective that its become easy to forget how devastating the diseases vaccines prevent are.

Were fortunate that immunization eradicated smallpox, and that otherillnesses like diphtheria and polio are now rarely seen in Canada. But its important to remember that we can all play a part in preventing history from repeating itself.

Jeff Kwong is an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. He is also a scientist at Public Health Ontario, a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and a family physician with the Toronto Western Family Health Team. Doctors Notes is a weekly column by members of the U of T Faculty of Medicine. Email doctorsnotes@thestar.ca

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Its a Friday night in Toronto, and Caitlin K. Roberts is getting ready for the evening as if she were getting together with friends. There are bottles of wine  one red, one white  enough for people to have a glass without getting hammered. She slices apples and puts them on plates that she places on the floor alongside spreads of chips and salsa and hummus and pita bread. Twelve pillows form a circle around the snacks; on each pillow is a clean, white hand towel and a clipboard of consent forms arranged on top.

I dont get chocolate and cheese, because they make people gassy  you dont want that when people are getting naked, Roberts says, adding that she covers her bases by going with vegan bites. But people dont come here for the food.

As 7 p.m. approaches, Roberts lights candles that she placed throughout the room. Her tailored Spotify playlist isnt co-operating. She skips through others she thinks are too weird, until she settles on Drake. She has a quick but necessary conversation with her trainee, Jassie: If anyone gets overwhelmed and needs a few minutes, can you step aside with them to make sure theyre OK? Jassie agrees.

Roberts isnt hosting an orgy or a swingers night; shes prepping for Body Pride, a four-hour workshop where strangers come together for a facilitated conversation about body image, sexuality and relationships  clothes off and completely exposed, all of which culminates in a naked dance party and (optional) photo shoot.

Read more:

Actors, audience engage with nakedness in two Toronto productions

Kids tune in to adult body talk

Do naturists have the right idea raising kids around social nudity? END

Roberts, a 27-year-old cisgender woman and sex educator-in-training, founded Body Pride five years ago. She was inspired by a documentary about Betty Dodsons womens-only group masturbation classes called Bodysex Workshops. Dodson, who is now 87 and recently relaunched her classes two years ago, is one of the founders of the 1970s pro-sex feminist movement.

Watching a documentary about Dodson and her workshops was a transformative moment for Roberts, who at the time was in her early 20s. Normalized nudity was huge for me, she says.

Roberts had been interested in sex since her teens, but the film and the idea of desexualizing the human body empowered her to take a bold step. One night back in December 2011, Roberts sat in her apartment and used her MacBook to take naked photos of herself making silly faces and striking funny poses. She then posted the photos to her blog. Girls reading this: I want to have a page of full on non-sexual pictures of you naked, she wrote. Lets be proud of our bodies just as they are.

The responses  most of them positive  flooded in. But one stood out: Will girls send in their own pics or is there going to be a happy naked girl party with lots of cameras? Roberts had an aha! moment. She envisioned creating a safe environment that normalized nudity for people by disconnecting it from sexiness.

A month later, Body Pride was born. The concept might seem odd or frivolous, but some experts argue that socialized nudity helps people become comfortable with their bodies. People say, My (breasts) arent equal, or I have a scar over here,  Dodson tells me. But if you look at all these (naked) bodies . . . you see they are a wonderful thing. How do we ever get to see (that) if we are all shrouded in clothing?

Research shows that we often equate nudity with sex, even though nudity is not a sexual thing but a natural state of being, says Rosalyn Dischiavo, founder and director of the Institute for Sexuality Education and Enlightenment. To take nudity out of our lives and to make it something unusual and odd and something that only happens when youre sexual is an enormous mistake, Dischiavo said.

To understand Body Pride, I had to try it. So one Friday night back in February, I awkwardly stood in a cosy attic space above Torontos Good For Her sex shop, where Roberts holds her classes. The atmosphere was charged with that first-day-of-school nervous energy. After we signed some paperwork, Roberts made an announcement. We have ground rules to cover, but before we do that, lets get naked, she said nonchalantly, before undressing in front of us.

When she first started Body Pride workshops, Roberts held classes for women only. Soon after, men were asking her if they could also join; she has since made them gender-inclusive. In our group that night, there were four men, seven women and one intersex, gender non-binary person. Most of us were in our 20s, two in their 40s, of varying backgrounds and sexual orientations.

One woman, Liz, tells me that she felt a tightness in her chest as she got undressed. Youre becoming vulnerable enough as it is when youre talking about your insecurities, she says.

We mostly sat cross-legged, or with our knees tucked into our chest. Its surprising at how little below the hips is revealed when a person sits cross-legged, which is how I sat, hunching my shoulders forward while trying to hide my chest. I caught myself thinking that if only my A-cup breasts were a little bigger, maybe they wouldnt sit so awkwardly in the air and I wouldnt feel so exposed. Other women, too, covered themselves at first, folding their arms across their chests.

Getting naked was just the first step; then came the revealing conversations. (Part of the ground rules of my participating in and writing about Body Pride was that peoples identities would remain confidential.) One woman said she was a cancer survivor struggling with the weight shes gained from chemo; another came back for her fourth class; one man said he wanted to understand what makes people insecure; another man said he realized hes still dealing with insecurities he thought were behind him. This was the first time I ever spoke about my issues with my sensitive complexion, and how my absentee father wasnt around to teach me to shave without damaging (it), he told me.

I also shared more than I had intended. Random stories tumbled out: About how the first time a boy asked to feel me up, I told him to go feel a wall; how I was teased about my frizzy hair as a kid; about my mothers absence the past 10 years; about never feeling good enough.

As we opened up more, our body language did, too. People started to stretch out onto their sides while some pulled one knee into their chest instead of two. I eventually laid on my stomach with my butt in the air.

Roberts says that Body Pride is a step for people, not a solution, to confronting their insecurities. Its a step in thinking: This is the body I have, and its not going to change. . . . So I may as well put the work into being OK with it, and hopefully one day I will be,  she says.

That rings true for Liz. At Body Pride, she fought through tears as she talked about how her ex-boyfriend gave her a complex about her differently sized breasts. She told me later that, at one point it got so bad she scheduled a consultation with a plastic surgeon.

But being at Body Pride and sitting in a circle with naked strangers, Liz appreciated the beauty of how different we all were. Then, the thought occurred to her: Im not judging their bodies, so why would they judge mine?

Since attending the workshop that night, shes seen marked improvement in her confidence. I used to not like being topless in a well-lit room around my current partner for too long, Liz says, adding shed always put on a shirt, even if she didnt have pants on. Now, I am just me: I can be naked and not worry about it so much.

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OTTAWAA former lieutenant-governor of Ontario has been charged with six counts of wilfully exceeding federal political donation limits, including contributing more than legally allowed to Justin Trudeau and a rival candidate during the 2013 Liberal leadership contest.

The charges against Henry N.R. Jackman, widely known as Hal, span a period of five years from 2008 to 2013.

They were laid Monday by the commissioner of Canada elections, Yves Cote, at the request of the director of public prosecutions.

Cote is not disclosing many details about the charges, including which political parties were involved. A spokeswoman for the commissioner says they involve donations to multiple parties, their riding associations and candidates.

The commissioner has the discretion to deal with infractions of the Canada Elections Act without laying charges. He can issue letters of caution or conclude whats known as compliance agreements, in which the offender publicly admits responsibility for breaking the law but does not wind up with a record of conviction.

The commissioners office would not elaborate on why Cote has chosen to formally charge the 84-year-old Jackman. However, the commissioners website explains that the choice of how to deal with infractions is based on such factors as the seriousness of the acts, the level of sophistication of the alleged offender, the prevalence of the type of offences involved and the level of co-operation offered by the alleged offender.

Jackman was a longtime federal fundraiser for the Progressive Conservatives. He was appointed lieutenant-governor of Ontario in 1991 by then-prime minister Brian Mulroney and served in that role until 1997.

Elections Canadas contributions database shows hes given generously for years to both the Conservative and Liberal parties, as well as both parties candidates and riding associations.

Among those donations was a $1,200 contribution to Trudeau during the 2013 Liberal leadership contest and an equal donation to rival leadership contender Deborah Coyne.

That appears to be the basis for the sixth charge against Jackman, which states that between Dec. 1, 2012 and Dec. 31, 2013, he wilfully donated to contestants in a particular leadership contest, the total of which exceeded the maximum allowable contribution of $1,200.

The other charges include, exceeding the donation limit for a candidate or riding association in 2008 and 2011, and exceeding the limit for riding associations in 2010 and 2012.

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OTTAWAPrime Minister Justin Trudeau said he accepted Defence Minister Harjit Sajjans apology for exaggerating his role in a combat operation in Afghanistan and has no intention of firing him.

Standing in the Commons, Trudeau rebuffed Conservative calls for Sajjans resignation, saying Sajjan acknowledged his mistake, apologized and this minister continues and will continue to have my full confidence.

But the Conservatives, smelling political blood, launched an all-out attack on Sajjan, demanding he be fired and saying hes lost all credibility with the military under his command.

Appearing before reporters Monday, two days after he apologized on social media for claiming at an Indian security conference that he had been the key architect of the 2006 Operation Medusa offensive against the Taliban, Sajjan appeared contrite.

He would not explain what prompted his embellished version of the facts.

Im not here to make any excuses for my mistake, Sajjan said five times. Or to give reasons for it.

I want to be able to acknowledge my mistakes, own it, learn from it, and so I can continue to serve.

Sajjan said he never intended to diminish the great work that my former superiors and our soldiers have done on operations, and Im truly sorry for it.

He later repeated the same lines 12 times under fire in the House of Commons.

Asked by reporters whether he has misled on other issues as the Conservatives claim, Sajjan insisted he always works diligently with his staff making sure we have all the right information.

Conservative interim leader Rona Ambrose was adamant before Sajjan spoke to reporters. He lied, and he should resign.

In the Commons, Ambrose said Sajjan took false credit for something he didnt do. She said no one is questioning Sajjans bravery as a soldier but said misleading Canadians twice on his service record is beyond an apology.

People in the military have a name for what he did, its called stolen valour, when someone takes credit for the actions of another.

He hasnt just embarrassed himself and the prime minister, hes violated a code of honour and ethics with the men and women in uniform that he once served with. He has dishonoured himself and in doing so he has dishonoured them.

The minister made a mistake, Trudeau said repeatedly. This minister has served this country in many capacities: as a police officer, as a soldier and now as a cabinet minister, and he has my full confidence.

Ambrose pressed further, portraying Sajjan as a serial exaggerator.

He said that our allies were OK with pulling our jets out of the fight against ISIS (Daesh), and that was not true. He said our air force does not have enough planes to do its job, but the air force commander said that was not true. Also, he misrepresented his military service and took full credit and named himself the architect of the largest NATO operation since the Korean War, and that was not true.

But after Trudeaus declaration of confidence, Sajjan rose to his feet a dozen times during question period and repeated his apologies.

It was an abject followup to Saturdays efforts on social media to make amends.

Sajjan wrote on Twitter and Facebook that he had made a mistake in describing his role to the overseas audience April 18. It later emerged that same day that Sajjan had also made the claim in a 2015 recorded CBC interview.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair joined the Conservatives call for Sajjans resignation or firing. Mulcair slammed Sajjan for not making a mistake but for telling a whopper.

A whopper is not something you apologize for, its something you step down for.

Sajjan was repeatedly heckled.

Youre a bald-faced liar, hollered Conservative MP Ron Liepert. Shame.

Why did you do it? called another. Youre a disgrace, yelled Conservative MP Kevin Sorenson.

Late Monday, Gen. Jonathan Vance, chief of defence staff, issued a statement in response after last week declining to comment.

Minister Sajjan has issued an unequivocal apology for statements related to the nature of his involvement in Operation Medusa and as far as I'm concerned, the matter is closed, he said in a written release.

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When Humphrey Banack looks out the window on his farm, he cant see some of the fields he depends on to put food on the table and pay his bills.

Water from rain and melting snow is soaking grain and oilseed crops that the farmer near Round Hill, Alta., couldnt harvest last fall due to bad weather.

And fields he did manage to harvest are too sodden to walk on, let alone seed, due to a cold and wet spring.

I havent seen this much water lying around in all of the years I have farmed, Banack said. We are looking at another two to three weeks before we can plant any crops or deal with the old crops.

Removing and disposing of last years unharvested grains will be a challenge across much of the Prairies for many farmers who are eager to start spring seeding.

Albertas Agriculture Financial Services Corp. says there are about 400,000 hectares of insured unharvested crops left over from last fall. A similar amount of uninsured crops remain in fields.

Farmers want officials to move quickly to assess and process crop insurance claims.

Any delay in seeding will push the growing season back, which could put new crops in jeopardy of frost damage this fall.

Some of the old crop may be salvageable. But for the portion that has to be written off, farmers hope governments will be flexible on how it can be disposed of.

Banack said some can be chopped up with harvesters, but burning it makes the most sense. Fields are too muddy to plow the material back into the ground.

I know we dont need a big prairie fire running from Edmonton to Regina, but we are going to have to burn some of this crop. It has no value and it is going to be the best way to manage it.

Todd Lewis, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, said some farmers in his province face the same challenge.

Lewis said conditions are expected to push seeding back weeks in many areas.

Over a million acres didnt get combined last fall in the province of Saskatchewan, Lewis said from his farm near Gray.

As a rule of thumb, May 1 is a good barometer for some seeding being done generally across the province. We are not going to see that this year.

Manitoba estimates about 40,000 hectares were not harvested last fall, mainly in the southwest. Parts of the province will be able to begin seeding soon, but some farmers are reporting the wettest spring they have seen.

Bill Campbell, who owns a mixed farm near Minto, said it could be a month before he can sow his fields.

Campbell figures he will need a few weeks just to clear off his unharvested crop and prepare his land.

In the meantime, he is hoping for warm, dry conditions.

If we had three weeks of 20-degree weather that would be my wish, he laughed.

It has just been a rough fall and a rough winter. Pray to God that 2017 is better than 2016.

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Mayor John Tory is putting Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Toronto-area representatives on notice as the province continues to come up empty on funding for badly needed social housing repairs.

Time to stand up for Toronto, read the flyers that the mayors office plans to circulate in Toronto Community Housing communities across the city in the coming days, after a provincial budget announced last week contained no new money for repairs. There is currently a $1.73-billion backlog with thousands of units at risk of being boarded up.

The Ontario government is not helping to get your housing fixed. Say no to closing housing in this community, the flyers read.

Tory had the printed papers in hand on a bitterly cold Sunday morning as he toured the Thistletown complex, an Etobicoke neighbourhood of townhomes built in 1968 near Finch Ave. W. and Martin Grove Rd.

Read more:

A pre-pre-election budget to bolster Liberal fortunes: Cohn

Ontario Liberals reject Mayor John Torys calls to match federal transit funding

Province shouldnt shortchange Toronto: Editorial

Stopped by the mayor on her way to church, Thistletown resident Florence Bonsu said her unit, like many others, was in need of repair.

Theres a water problem downstairs, she said  when it rains, it floods. Too much water. Sometimes we have to throw some of the things away.

Both the flyers circulated Sunday, and Tory in his remarks to reporters, called on Etobicoke North MPP Shafiq Qaadri to help the vulnerable residents he represents.

I guess what we need now is for them to try harder, Tory said of local MPPs in light of the latest budget news. What we saw is what we got, which was unfortunately a big goose egg when it came to social housing repairs.

Qaadri could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Toronto Community Housing Corp. officials reported last week that they plan to close 1,000 units by the end of next year, displacing those families, if more money for repairs cant be secured. There are more than 181,000 people on the wait list for subsidized housing.

Next year, there is a $350-million shortfall in the repairs budget as the city awaits details from recent federal funding announcements and demands action from the province. The repair needs are significant, including structural deficits, failing roofs and faulty elevators.

The mayor said more than 100 units in Etobicoke North alone were at risk.

The citys own ongoing cash crisis and Torys continued commitment to low property taxes will put significant pressure on his administration in an election year if the other governments dont come up with the needed funds.

Tory was joined by local Councillor Vincent Crisanti, who has more than 1,700 public housing units in his Etobicoke North ward.

These families deserve our support to live in safe, well-maintained homes, Crisanti said. And we plan to make sure our provincial partner shares that same vision and hope that theyll be part of the solution and not the problem.

Though the province did promise surplus land last week to build new affordable housing, Councillor Ana Bailao, a member of the Toronto Community Housing board whom Tory appointed as the citys housing advocate, asked whether any such contributions can be enough if a $1.73-billion repairs gap remains.

Does it make sense to be building on one location while allowing units to close on another? she said.

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Premier Kathleen Wynne ramped up the war of words with Mayor John Tory on Monday saying the province has done plenty for Toronto and other Ontario municipalities, despite what he says.

No government has put more money into transit in the city of Toronto than ours, Wynne told the legislature after listing the billions in provincial funding for various transit projects, including the Spadina subway extension.

Wynne said as the representative of Don Valley West she knows first-hand the challenges of Toronto Community Housing, which faces a massive repair backlog and potential closure of thousands of units. On Sunday, Tory said the province was not doing enough for social housing in Toronto.

Earlier in the day, Wynne appeared to shrug off a rift.

I think this is what happens after a budget. The City of Toronto wants more and, you know, thats kind of the way it goes, Wynne said in a radio interview on NewsTalk 1010.

But she also pledged to continue to work with Tory to address the repair backlog. Were going to continue to work with (Tory) because look, Ive got social housing units in my own riding. I know that they need work.

The premiers comments came a day after Tory toured a west-end community housing complex with flyers suggesting the province is neglecting its residents by ignoring the citys request to pay a one-third share of social housing repairs totaling $864 million.

The flyers feature a headshot of Etobicoke North MPP Shafiq Qaadri and say The Ontario Government is not helping to get your housing fixed. Residents are urged to contact their MPP to say no to closing housing.

Queens Park dispatched Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca to city hall Monday to register the provinces disapproval about effectively campaigning against sitting Liberal MPPs. At the same time, Tory was in a previously scheduled closed-door meeting with Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown.

Theres a fine line between passionate advocacy for your community and moving in a different direction altogether, Del Duca told reporters standing outside the mayors office. I think the behaviour is a little bit over the line.

Read more:

John Tory puts Kathleen Wynne, Toronto MPPs on notice over lack of social housing cash

John Tory says Wynne government turned their backs on Toronto with 2017 budget

No new cash for fixing social housing stock

The Liberals also Monday released a series of open letters and press releases highlighting the billions the province has given toward transit and housing in Toronto.

And Wynnes office issued a point-by-point challenge to claims made by Brown and Tory at their joint news conference.

Conservatives Patrick Brown and John Tory made a bunch of false claims about the Province of Ontario. Both the current and former PC Leaders should know that Facts Still Matter in Ontario, a news release said. Tory was head of the Ontario PC Party from 2004 to 2009.

After his meeting with Tory, Brown said Wynne and the Liberals have taken Toronto for granted for too long. He vowed that if hes elected premier next year, he will stand up for Canadas largest city.

Yet Brown offered no major spending commitments, instead announcing the first in a series of concrete promises, that will be followed by additional measures to respond to Torontos priorities.

These initial measures include introducing a private members bill to respond to the mayors request to block convicted criminals from re-applying to live in Toronto Community Housing, something the Wynne government has so far rejected.

An Ontario PC government would also allow TCH to purchase natural gas independently, which the city has estimated could save $6.3 million annually.

Nor did Brown say how much a Tory government would contribute toward TCHs massive repair bill, with hundreds of units threatened for closure this year.

Right now, we need to look at the provincial books to make sure that the help Toronto needs is there, and certainly it is a conversation that we started today. I realize we have to do our part.

Brown said it was also premature to comment on funding Torontos priority transit projects, including the downtown relief line, though its reasonable the city wants reliable funding from the province.

We want to be a significant partner in these projects, Brown said, but were not going to get into specifics today.

With files from Robert Benzie

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Hundreds of tenants in Torontos Parkdale neighbourhood are expected to stop paying their rent on Monday, as part of ongoing protests against one of the citys largest landlords.

The tenants live in buildings run by MetCap Living Management Inc. and are pushing back against what they say are shoddy and unclean conditions, combined with rent hikes they maintain are being used to push out lower-income tenants.

The companys president insists the buildings are kept in good repair, that there is a system in place to manage tenant complaints and that any rent increases are legal and necessary to cover the cost of significant repairs in the older buildings.

Read more:

Parkdale tenants rally in face of rent increases

Vicious, not so virtuous cycle of rent controls: Cohn

About 200 tenants from seven buildings, including ones on Tyndall Ave. and Jameson Ave., are expected to withhold close to $250,000 in monthly payments, according to Vic Natola, a community legal worker with Parkdale Community Legal Services.

MetCap is essentially displacing an entire neighbourhood in the name of profit, Natola said on Friday.

People cant afford to live there anymore and dont really want to fight to live there anymore because their apartments are such a disaster. We see this as MetCaps ongoing plan of attack on Parkdale and this is how people have decided to stand up and fight back against it.

On Sunday, about 80 tenants and supporters marched through Parkdale, chanting and holding banners and signs in support of a movement that has been dubbed a rent strike.

The tenants are demanding MetCap halt any planned rent increases, not raise the rent in the future, and clean up and make much-needed repairs throughout their buildings.

The rent hikes in Parkdale are tied to something called an above-guideline increase, whereby a landlord can apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board to cover the cost of significant and unavoidable costs or work, such as capital repairs.

Basic rent across Toronto can only be raised by an annual rate set by the province.

Until April, those rules around annual rates applied only to buildings built before 1991, meaning rent in newer occupied units could be raised without warning and without limit, but that gap has now been closed.

However, if a tenant leaves a unit, a landlord can raise the rent on the empty unit to whatever they choose.

MetCap has applied for several above-guideline increases in Parkdale  some have been approved and some are pending  maintaining the money is needed to support significant repair work on the aging properties, including boilers, fire retrofits and balconies.

The tenants insist their buildings are not being kept clean or properly maintained and the increases are meant to squeeze out long-term, lower-income residents.

MetCap president Brent Merrill said the company prides itself on its approach to property management, that staff are on site or close to every building and a hotline has been set up to manage tenant complaints. He said he personally reviews those call logs.

Any above-guideline increases charged to our residents have been approved by a fair and impartial tribunal appointed to oversee these matters by the government of Ontario, Merrill said in an emailed statement sent to the Star.

On Sunday, tenant Barb Livesay, 58, spoke about her building at 135 Tyndall Ave., where she has lived for about three years. Cockroaches, mice, pigeons, bedbugs, lots of water issues. Our water is turned off once a month for a day, while they do whatever work they say they are doing, Livesay said.

I have had floods in my apartment before, from up above, and it took them six months to come and repair all the floor work.

She said repair orders are processed, but some are slower than others.

Livesay said she will not be paying rent on Monday, on intends to clear out her bank account so her rent cheque cant be cashed. She admits the prospect makes her nervous, but feels it is the only way to get tenant demands met.

Community legal worker Natola said the tenants feel that withholding rent is the only way to guarantee change.

I think people who have engaged with the system before they know that the system does not work and has not worked for them, so this is how the neighbourhood decided to take this power back and do something outside of the Landlord and Tenant Board entirely.

Natola said that after a tenant fails to pay rent, the landlord typically sends a warning letter, normally the next day, and then 14 days later can file an application to take the tenant before the Landlord and Tenant Board to evict them for not paying. A hearing will then be scheduled to hear the dispute. Natola said they expect MetCap to take that route.

MetCap president Merrill said MetCap intends to comply with the laws of the province of Ontario as it always does. We hope that our residents will do the same.

He said that the Landlord and Tenant Board is the right forum to handle complaints about repairs or rent hikes, and said anybody in MetCap buildings who feels their concerns are not being addressed has the right to avail themselves of this excellent system for arbitrating such matters.

Merrill has also said he will meet one-on-one with tenants who feel the rent increases could mean they have difficulty paying rent.

New Democrat MPP Cheri DiNovo (ParkdaleHigh Park), who attended the rally, said as long as Ontario doesnt implement real rent control or put rules in place that prevent landlords from putting high prices on new units, there will always be an incentive to push out tenants.

That is the problem here and that is clearly the intent, DiNovo said. When you propose above-guideline increases you know that many people are not going to be able to afford those increases and are going to leave.

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The mysterious disappearance of a Toronto woman who vanished with her American boyfriend in Belize last week deepened on Sunday when her car was found abandoned in a cane field near the village of Paraiso, in the northern district of Corozal.

Francesca Matus, 52, and Drew DeVoursney, 36, were last seen driving the Isuzu Rodeo after leaving a nearby bar around 11 p.m. on April 25, police in the small Central American nation said.

The car was found around 1:20 p.m. local time.

There was no person in the vehicle, said an officer with the Belize Police Department, who did not give his name.

That is all the information we can give at this time, he said.

Joe Rifenbark, a friend of the missing couple, could not say what the discovery might mean when contacted at his home in Belize.

Were aware of that, but the information wasnt really supposed to be publicized, said Rifenbark, whose mother, Nancy Rifenbark, was with the couple at Scottys Bar the night they went missing.

Joe Rifenbark said police were processing the white SUV Sunday afternoon.

Honestly, at this point it would all be speculation, he said when asked if the vehicles discovery might increase the chances that foul play was involved.

The car being found where it was found is just a mystery, he said.

DeVoursneys brother and best friend are now flying down to join the search for the couple.

No matter what, Ive got to hold out hope, but Im definitely worried sick, DeVoursneys brother David said on the phone from Conyers, Ga., on Sunday. My mom and my dad are also worried sick. I dont understand what could have happened.

David said he was trying to secure an emergency passport and, if successful, will fly to Belize Tuesday or Wednesday. He will be accompanied by DeVoursneys best friend, Timothy Barfield, who met DeVoursney in 2004 when they were both in the marine corps and serving in Iraq.

Drew, hes kind of a free spirit, but hes always been in contact with me, Barfield said on the phone from West Palm Beach, Fla. No matter if he was going to go somewhere, he would let somebody know, Hey, Im going to be gone for a week or two  If (he and Matus) were going to do something  you know, go out to the islands or go anywhere  they would have let somebody know.

Barfield added that hes filed a report with the FBI and is also in contact with a private investigation firm in Florida.

David said hed been speaking to his brother daily for the past month and last heard from him five hours before he and Matus were last seen.

We had a normal conversation, he seemed completely fine, and I was actually supposed to hear from him the next day so I could buy his ticket to come home, David said, explaining that DeVoursney had planned to return to the U.S. on May 4 to start college. He was really excited about coming back to Georgia and doing the school.

Matuss family in Ontario is equally distressed by her uncharacteristic disappearance, second cousin and family spokesperson Ivana Pucci told the Star on Sunday.

The Toronto mother of two is extremely close to her family and very active on social media, Pucci said, adding that Matus had been travelling to and from Belize for the past four years without a problem.

Everyones just devastated and we just need answers  Its the not knowing thats the hardest part, Pucci said. Were just in shock and the common theme that just keeps coming up is we feel like were in a movie.

Matuss brother is in contact with people searching the ground in Belize and may fly there soon, she added.

Reached Sunday, Global Affairs Canada repeated its statement from the day before, saying the agency is aware of reports that a Canadian citizen is missing in Belize but that it could not confirm further details.

Nancy Rifenbark, a U.S. expat, said a group of around 70 people had searched the area around the bar and Matuss house for three days with no luck.

Theres (paved roads) but then theres bush and jungle, so its not an easy search, she said.

Joe Rifenbark and two other friends, Colin McGowan and Joe Milholen, have also been coordinating search efforts while the ground search is being conducted by the Corozal police. The couples friends have paid for a plane to do an aerial sweep and are now trying to secure helicopters to do the same, he said, adding they are also handing out missing person flyers.

Theres not a soul in Belize that doesnt know about this right now because this is really strange, he said. This doesnt happen in Belize. People dont just go missing like this.

Its one of those experiences you cant wrap your head around.

Clarification  May 3, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version to clarify that Colin McGowan and Joe Milholen have also been coordinating search efforts.

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By Press Trust of India: Sangareddy, May 1 (PTI) Police today arrested six Maoist sympathisers from Yadadri district and Hyderabad in Telangana and recovered firearms and explosives from them, a senior official said.

"Six Maoist sympathisers were arrested by Siddipet police on the basis of a specific input. Police recovered one revolver, three pistols, 49 live rounds, two magazines and 20 electronic detonators from them," Siddipet police commissioner Shiv Kumar told reporters.

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He said that police arrested one R. Swamy, working as a courier for naxalites, from Venkatraopet village in Siddipet district. "Based on the information given by him, raids were conducted in Hyderabad and Yadadri-Bhuvangiri district and five others were arrested today," the police commissioner said.

They are identified as V. Ramachandram, who hails from Nalgonda district in Telangana, Ranjit Kumar, a native of Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh, B. Narasimha Chary and G. Venkatesh (both from Yadari district), and N. Balaswamy, who hails from Siddipet district, the officer said.

He said Ranjit Kumar is the supplier of arms.

"V.Ramchandram had purchased a pistol from Kumar for Rs 60,000 in 2012 whereas R. Swamy recently purchased two pistols, two magazines and 39 bullets for Rs 80,000 from Kumar," he said, adding that several cases are pending against Ramchandram in Nalgonda district. PTI CORR NSK

--- ENDS ---
Wandering the streets of Toronto, there's little evidence of the diversity the city motto says is our strength.

More than ever, Toronto's built environment is an instantly familiar landscape of chain stores, fast food franchises and the like. We all know who they are: Shoppers Drug Mart, Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Subway, Pizza Pizza, LCBO outlets . . . One corner now could be any corner. One street now looks like any other street.

Across the city, there's a growing sense of monotony and sterility. Toronto is being buried beneath layers and layers of corporate branding and the monomaniacal sameness that lies at its heart, the logos, the standardized colour schemes, the decor, signage, typeface, uniforms, facades . . . To the corporate mind, this is how a business ingratiates itself and ensures that its outlets aren't just recognizable but impossible to ignore. From the civic perspective, however, it's an onslaught on everything that makes the city lively and engaging.

Worse still, the condo boom that has remade Toronto has also remade its retail. The economics of the development industry have hastened the corporatization of the city and made it exponentially worse. Not only does the urban playing field tilt in favour of big business, it contributes significantly to the demise of small operators.

It all starts with the form of the 21st-century condo in Toronto; a highrise tower atop a low rise podium. The former is where developers make their money; the latter is required by the city. Though it seemed a good idea at the time  the base allows for the continuation of the streetscape  in reality, it has become another way for builders to enhance their profit and spread dullness.

Typically, developers retain ownership of the podium. Because banks prefer large businesses, and only they can afford the rent and sign leases three years in advance, they usually get the space. A developer that can snag, say, a Shoppers and an LCBO has hit the jackpot. Who cares that the city is already lousy with drug marts, more than 300 at last count?

I just got a call yesterday about a Pizza Pizza that's coming to College St., laments downtown Councillor Mike Layton. Now Hooters is moving in a what was a wonderfully authentic Italian restaurant on College. It's the same five stores at the bottom of every condo.

Layton, who recently requested a report on how Toronto can stop the chain stores from overrunning the city, looks to examples like San Francisco, which leads the fight against what it calls formula use retail.

As that city's website notes, the sameness of Formula Retail outlets, while providing clear branding for consumers, counters the general direction of certain land use controls . . . which value unique community character and therefore need controls, in certain areas, to maintain neighbourhood individuality.

San Francisco defines chain stores as a retail sales establishment that has eleven or more . . . establishments in operation . . . anywhere in the world. They are permitted in some parts of the city, not in others. These rules, written into the San Francisco Planning Code, stand in stark contrast to the situation here, where chains do what they want.

Toronto does have a character neighbourhood designation, but as Layton points out, It doesn't have much planning clout.

One simple solution would be to force developers to limit the size of retail units so they are too small to suit the chains. Toronto's most successful streets  King, Queen, College  are lined with narrow with storefronts  four to five metres wide  that can be used and reused through generations. But even that would need builders' co-operation. Then there's the question of how the Ontario Municipal Board would respond.

Ultimately, this urban homogenization raises the question of who the city serves  business or people? The answer, of course, is both. But handing the city over to corporate interests helps neither. As Layton asks, Why would anyone come to Queen St. if the stores are the same here as everywhere?

Already Queen West is mostly a memory. The chains arrived years ago.

The final irony, of course, is the self-defeating nature of the chain stores' strategy. Pretty soon, Shoppers Drug Marts will have nothing to compete with but other Shoppers Drug Marts. And how many Starbucks or Tim Hortons do we really need?

Ultimately, the market will decide. And if we're lucky, the city might have something to say, too. In the meantime, though, Toronto's streets are fast becoming dead ends.

Christopher Humes column appears weekly. He can be reached at jcwhume4@gmail.com

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Nothing says spring like the birth of a baby animal  even if that baby is a 100-pound water buffalo, named Jolene.

Jolene was born last month at the Ontario Water Buffalo Company, about two hours east of Toronto. Owners Martin Littkemann and Lori Smith are expecting about 100 such calves this spring.

Females like Jolene are particularly coveted for their milk. In four years, when shes a full-grown 1.5-metre-tall, 910-kilogram adult, shell be producing up to 10 litres of milk per day.

And thats music to Littkemann and Smiths ears.

Buffalo milk is a lucrative, sought-after, versatile product. Its protein rich, high in fat and low in cholesterol. This spring, Littkemann and Smith are working with commercial dairies in Toronto and elsewhere to produce new water buffalo products, including gelato and a blue cheese called Azzurro di Bufala.

Restaurateurs are catching on. Clark Day, newly minted fellow of the Ontario Hostelry Institute and owner of Bayview Farm Restaurant in Kingston, Ont., says Littkemann and Smith make some of the best cheese in the province. In his fine dining establishment, he offers the Ontario Water Buffalo Companys mozzarella  the crowning jewel of a tasty Caprese salad  along with its Asiago, blue and ricotta cheese.

Martin and Lori are talented and incredibly hard working farmers he says, and we are honoured to represent them at our restaurant. Their products help keep our menu varied and original.

Water buffalo could do much worse than to belong to the Ontario Water Buffalo Company herd. The farm, which supports an impressive 350 animals, is one of the largest and most well-established of the dozen water buffalo farms in Canada.

Yet despite its size, Littkemann, Smith and their herdspeople know each animal by name.

Jolene, for example, is joining the likes of Zorra, Jamaica and Sunnie, other names found in the herd.

The water buffalo have oodles of room to roam and graze here  182 hectares, in fact. They can swim in an eight-foot-deep pond. They can wallow in whatever mud they can find.

Or they can chill.

Despite their size, water buffalo are gentle, docile animals, content to do very little. Yvette, the farm mascot, even lets people sit on her back for photos, each year during the Water Buffalo Food Festival in nearby Stirling.

And even though they are easily milked  like they are twice a day at the Ontario Water Buffalo Company, at 6 a.m. and 5 p.m.  theyve never really caught on in Canada. Here, more productive breeds of dairy cows, especially Holsteins, are favoured, which give about three times as much milk per day.

But thats fine with farmers Littkemann and Smith, who have experience with conventional dairy and beef cattle. When they decided to commit to water buffalo, they werent looking for the norm.

We tend to take the road less travelled, Littkemann says. We like doing something different, and in Canada, its hard to find something more different to farm than water buffalo.

Whats next for these water buffalo farmers?

Researchers at the University of Guelph and McGill University are helping the Ontario Water Buffalo Company improve the genetics of their herd. That involves modern reproductive technology, such as embryo transfer, in-vitro fertilization and artificial insemination. By the fall, the farm hopes to be exporting breeding animals.

Helping feed the hungry world

Its estimated that by 2050, the world will be consuming two-thirds more protein than it does today. Some experts believe indigenous animal species such as water buffalo could help. Buffalo production makes an important contribution to economic development, rural livelihood, poverty alleviation, and meets the fast-growing demand for animal protein, write B.M. Naveena and M. Kiran in the journal Animal Frontiers.

Connecting with the world of water buffalo

Ideas for using buffalo mozzarella: pinterest.com/explore/buffalo-mozzarella

All about water buffalo: nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/w/water-buffalo

Water Buffalo Food Festival: ontariowaterbuffalo.ca/events.html

Owen Roberts is an agricultural journalist at the University of Guelph. Follow him on Twitter at@TheUrbanCowboy.

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WASHINGTONThe Pentagon has identified the soldier killed by a roadside bomb outside the Iraqi city of Mosul Saturday.

First Lt. Weston C. Lee, 25, of Bluffton, Georgia, was an infantry officer from the 82nd Airborne Division and was on patrol at the time of his death, according to an emailed statement from his unit.

Lee joined the Army in 2015 and deployed to Iraq in December. He was a platoon leader and died on his first deployment.

"1st Lieutenant Wes Lee was an extraordinary young man and officer. He was exactly the type of leader that our Paratroopers deserve," Col. Pat Work, commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said in the statement. "Our sincere condolences and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time."

Lee was awarded the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medal posthumously.

Lee's death marks the fifth U.S. combat death in Iraq since the start of the campaign against Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, there in 2014, and the first during the Trump administration. In October, Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan was killed by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Mosul just days after the battle to retake the city began.

Since 2003, 4,519 U.S. troops have died in Iraq from both hostile fire and noncombat incidents, according to the website iCasualties.org.

There are more than 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq assisting the country's military in its fight against Daesh. Some of the U.S. forces are in roles that bring them close and sometimes to the front lines. The Pentagon has stressed that the U.S. military is not directly fighting Daesh on the ground, instead saying the troops are in fire support and advisory positions. Often, however, U.S. troops are spotted on the front lines calling in airstrikes and assisting local forces.

Daesh seized Mosul in June 2014 and has fought doggedly to retain the group's largest stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi troops, backed by U.S.-led air power, have been forced to clear the city from east to west. The city's labyrinth of small streets, alleys and rooftops has proved to be a boon for Daesh fighters, helping them launch a relentless number of ambushes, suicide vehicle bombings and sniper attacks against advancing Iraqi soldiers.

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CAMP PENDLETON, CALIF.A shark attacked a woman wading in the ocean with friends, tearing away part of her upper thigh, off a popular Southern California beach, authorities and witnesses said Sunday.

The attack occurred Saturday near San Onofre State Beach in northern San Diego County.

All of the back of her leg was kind of missing, Thomas Williams, one of several witnesses who pulled the woman ashore, told the Orange County Register. If she didnt receive immediate care, it was life-threatening.

Williams said the woman was conscious and talking while onlookers used a rubber surfboard leash as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.

She was not calm, of course, he said. But she was coherent.

The beach is adjacent to the Camp Pendleton Marine base. Marine Sgt. Asia Sorenson said the victim  a civilian  was airlifted to a hospital in unknown condition.

The injury was likely caused by a great white or a seven-gill shark, said Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach. Several sharks have been sighted in the area recently.

Nearly a year ago, a woman was bitten by a shark while swimming off Corona del Mar, about 40.23 kilometres to the north of the Saturday attack. Experts estimated the shark was at least 3.05 metres in length, judging from the bite marks, which spanned her chest, hip and shoulder.

Beachgoer Amber Booth was headed to San Onofre to watch the sunset on Saturday with her family when a ranger told her the stretch of ocean was closed because of the shark attack.

Booth, who often surfs at San Onofre, said the incident made her worry about her 8-year-old daughter, who often boogie-boards in the area.

Theres so many kids in the water at San O, she said. You dont really want to think about (sharks) when youre out in the water.

The beach was expected to remain closed until Monday.

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President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines said on Monday that he might not accept U.S. President Donald Trumps invitation to visit the White House, because he was tied up with a busy schedule.

I cannot make any definite promise, Duterte said, adding, Im supposed to go to Russia. Im also supposed to go to Israel.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

Trumps invitation Saturday to Duterte, an authoritarian leader who has been accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, drew criticism from human rights advocates, who said such a visit would amount to a White House endorsement of Dutertes policies. Thousands of people have been gunned down in the Philippines since Duterte took office in June, promising a harsh crackdown on narcotics.

White House officials said Trump had called Duterte in an effort to mend their countries recently strained relationship, as a bulwark against Chinas expansionism in the South China Sea. Reince Priebus, White House chief of staff, said Trump also wanted to build a united front in Asia in opposition to North Koreas pursuit of nuclear and missile technology.

Duterte said his conversation with Trump had been amicable, and that he had urged the U.S. leader to tread carefully with North Korea. Our greatest chance there of getting some dialogue with America and North Korea would be through the intercession of China, he said.

The Philippines and China have long-standing territorial disputes in the South China Sea, but Duterte has pivoted toward Beijing and away from Washington since taking office. He spoke to reporters Monday after touring Chinese warships in port in Davao, his hometown, and said that the Philippines and China might hold joint naval exercises.

Duterte, who once referred to president Barack Obama as a son of a whore, suggested Monday that his differences with the United States had had much to do with Obama. It was not a distancing, but it was rather a rift between me, maybe, and the State Department and Obama, who spoke openly against me, Duterte said.

He added: Things have changed. Theres a new leadership.

Criticism of Trumps invitation to Duterte continued Monday. Countries with close bilateral ties to the Philippines, particularly the United States, have an obligation to urge accountability for the victims of Dutertes abusive drug war, rather than offer to roll out the red carpet for official state visits with its mastermind, said Phelim Kine, a deputy director in Human Rights Watchs Asia division.

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WASHINGTONGrowing up in the 1980s, Brian Brown was taught to think of the communist Soviet Union as a dark and evil place.

But Brown, a leading anti-gay-marriage activist, said that in the past few years he has started meeting Russians at conferences on family issues and finding many kindred spirits.

Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, has visited Moscow four times in four years, including a 2013 trip when he testified before the Duma as Russia adopted a series of anti-gay laws.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

What I realized was that there was a great change happening in the former Soviet Union, he said. There was a real push to re-instill Christian values in the public square.

A significant shift has been underway in recent years across the Republican right.

From gun rights to terrorism to same-sex marriage, many leading advocates on the right who grew frustrated with their countrys leftward tilt under President Barack Obama have forged ties with well-connected Russians and come to see that countrys authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, as a potential ally.

The attitude adjustment among many conservative activists helps explain one of most curious aspects of the 2016 presidential race: a softening among many conservatives of their historically hard-line views of Russia. To the alarm of some in the GOPs national security establishment, support in the party base for then-candidate Donald Trump did not wane even after he rejected the tough tone of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who called Russia Americas No. 1 foe, and repeatedly praised Putin.

The burgeoning alliance between Russians and U.S. conservatives was apparent in a series of events in late 2015, as the Republican nomination battle intensified.

Top officials from the National Rifle Association, whose annual meeting Friday featured an address by Trump for the third time in three years, travelled to Moscow to visit a Russian gun manufacturer and meet government officials.

Around the same time in December 2015, evangelist Franklin Graham met privately with Putin for 45 minutes, securing from the Russian president an offer to help with an upcoming conference on the persecution of Christians. Graham was impressed, telling The Washington Post that Putin answers questions very directly and doesnt dodge them like a lot of our politicians do.

The growing dialogue between Russians and U.S. conservatives came at the same time experts say the Russian government stepped up efforts to cultivate and influence far-right groups in Europe and on the eve of Russias unprecedented intrusion into the U.S. campaign, which intelligence officials have concluded was intended to elect Trump.

Russians and Americans involved in developing new ties say they are not part of a Kremlin effort to influence U.S. politics. We know nothing about that, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov. Brown said activists in both countries are simply uniting together under the values we share.

It is not clear what impact closer ties will have on relations between the two countries, which have gotten frostier with the opening of congressional and FBI investigations into Russias intrusion into the 2016 election and rising tensions over the civil war in Syria.

But the apparent increase in contacts in recent years, as well as the participation of officials from the Russian government and the influential Russian Orthodox church, leads some analysts to conclude that the Russian government likely promoted the efforts in an attempt to expand Putins power.

Is it possible that these are just well meaning people who are reaching out to Americans with shared interests? It is possible, said Steven Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after managing Russia operations for 30 years. Is it likely? I dont think its likely at all. ... My assessment is that its definitely part of something bigger.

Interactions between Russians and American conservatives appeared to gain momentum as Obama prepared to run for a second term.

At the time, many in the GOP warned that Obama had failed to counter the national security threat posted by Putins aggression.

But, deep in the party base, change was brewing.

At least one connection came about thanks to a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years.

Preston said that in 2011 he introduced then-NRA President David Keene to a Russian senator, Alexander Torshin, a member of Putins party who later became a topofficial at the Russian central bank. Keene had been a stalwart on the right, a past chairman of the American Conservative Union who was NRAs president from 2011 to 2013.

Neither Keene nor Torshin responded to requests for comment. An NRA spokesman also did not respond to questions.

Torshin seemed a natural ally to American conservatives.

A friend of Mikhail Kalashnikov, revered in Russia for inventing the AK-47 assault rifle, Torshin in 2010 had penned a glossy gun rights pamphlet, illustrated by cartoon figures wielding guns to fend off masked robbers. The booklet cited U.S. statistics to argue for gun ownership, at one point echoing in Russian the old NRA slogan, Guns dont shoot  people shoot.

Torshin was also a leader in a Russian movement to align government more closely with the Orthodox church.

The value system of Southern Christians and the value system of Russians are very much in line, Preston said. The so-called conflict between our two nations is a tragedy because were very similar people, in a lot of our values, our interests and that sort of thing.

Preston, an expert on Russian law whose office features a white porcelain bust of Putin, said he had told Tennessee friends for years not to believe television reports about the Russian leader murdering journalists or dissidents.

Preston was an international observer of the 2011 legislative elections in Russia that sparked mass street protests in Moscow charging electoral irregularities. But Preston said he concluded the elections were free and fair.

By contrast, Preston said he and Torshin saw violations of U.S. law  pro-Obama signs posted too close to a polling place  when Torshin travelled to Nashville to observe voting in the 2012 presidential election.

In Russia, Torshin and an aide, a photogenic activist originally from Siberia named Maria Butina, began building a gun-rights movement.

Butina founded a group called the Right to Bear Arms, and in 2013 she and Torshin invited Keene and other U.S. gun advocates to its annual meeting in Moscow.

The event, where about 200 people gathered at Moscows convention centre, included a fashion show in which models donned concealed carry garments with built-in pockets for weapons.

One American participant, Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, recalled that Torshin and Butina took him and his wife out for dinner and gave them gifts that displayed research into their interests  exotic fabric for Gottliebs wife, a needlepoint enthusiast, and for Gottlieb, commemorative stamps that Torshin had received as a member of the Russian legislature.

They wanted to keep communications open and form friendships, Gottlieb said.

Butina, now a graduate student at American University in Washington, told The Post via email that her groups cause is not very popular with Russian officials and has never received funding from the government or from the NRA. She said shes never worked for the government and added that she and the American activists she has befriended simply share a love of gun rights.

No government official has EVER approached me about fostering ties with any Americans, she wrote.

Hall, the former CIA officer, said he was skeptical. He said he did not think Putin would tolerate a legitimate effort to advocate for an armed citizenry, and asserted that the movement is likely controlled by the security services to woo the American right.

When Torshin and Butina attended the NRAs 2014 annual convention, their profiles as scrappy Russians pushing for gun rights were rising. Butina attended an NRA womens luncheon as a guest of one of the organizations past presidents.

Interviewed by the conservative website Townhall, Butina called the NRA one of the most world famous and most important organizations and said that we would like to be friends with NRA.

While Russians are allowed to own shotguns, Butina said her group hoped to reverse a ban on carrying handguns.

That years turbulent events  in which Russias incursion into Ukraine prompted the Obama administration to enact strict sanctions against Moscow  illustrated the Russians alliance with U.S. gun advocates.

Butina argued in a Russian interview that firearm sellers in her country, including the popular Kalashnikov, were among the most impacted by sanctions, which specifically blocked its assets.

In Washington, the NRAs lobbying arm blasted the order, saying such restrictions have long been used by the executive branch as a means of unilaterally enacting gun control.

Relationships between Russians and American conservatives seemed to blossom in 2015, as the Republican presidential race geared up.

Butina posted social media photos showing how she and Torshin gained access to NRA officials and the U.S. politicians attending events. That April, Butina toured the NRAs Virginia headquarters, and she and Torshin met Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, R, then a leading White House contender, at the NRA annual convention. Torshin told Bloomberg last year that he had a friendly exchange with Trump at the 2015 convention and sat with his son Donald Jr. at an NRA dinner the following year.

Walkers spokesman said the encounter was brief, as speakers mingled with attendees before their remarks. A senior White House official said Trump may have briefly interacted with Torshin at the 2015 convention but did not recall. At the next years event, the official said Torshin briefly greeted Donald Jr. at a restaurant.

In June, as Trump announced his candidacy, Butina wrote a column in the National Interest, a conservative U.S. magazine, suggesting that a Republican in the White House might improve U.S.-Russia relations.

She wrote that Republicans and Russians held similar views on oil exploration and that cultural conservatives would identify with Putins party and its aggressive take on Islamic terrorism.

Butina that summer immersed herself in U.S. politics. In July, she showed up at FreedomFest in Las Vegas, a meeting of libertarians where Trump and rival Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, were speaking.

She made her way to a microphone during Trumps speech and asked in accented English, What will be your foreign politics, especially in the relations with my country?

It was the first time Trump had been asked about Russia as a candidate.

I know Putin and Ill tell you what, we get along with Putin, he said.

Trump would go on to repeatedly praise the Russian president as a strong leader.

But Trump, who at the time was considered a long shot for the nomination, echoed a sentiment then bubbling up from some corners of the conservative grassroots  that Putin was a potential friend.

That was the takeaway for Graham, the North Carolina-based evangelist, following his November 2015 Kremlin meeting with Putin.

The last time Graham had visited Moscow, with his father, Billy Graham, in the 1980s, the practice of religion was prohibited. On this trip, he said, conditions for Christians in Russia remained difficult. But Graham recalled that Putin listened as he described evangelical Christianity and the challenges facing Christians around the world. Putin explained that his mother kept her Christian faith even during the darkest days of atheistic communist rule.

He understood, Graham said of the Russian leader.

Putin offered to help Graham organize an international conference on Christian persecution in Moscow, Graham said. Instead, a Russian delegation is expected when the conference takes place next month in Washington, Graham said.

At the end of 2015, Butina welcomed a delegation to Moscow that included Keene, by then a member of the NRA board, as well as top NRA donors. The group also included a rising star in GOP politics, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who went on to be a campaign surrogate for Trump and has been mentioned as a contender for a high-level job at the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke did not respond to requests for comment.

The group toured a gun manufacturing company and met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was among the officials sanctioned by the White House following Russias invasion of Ukraine. Keene told the Daily Beast, which first reported the meeting, that the interaction with Rogozin was non-political and consisted of touring the headquarters of a shooting group that Rogozin chairs.

After Trumps victory, Torshin returned to the United States with a delegation of prominent Russians to attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February. In addition to his gun-rights work, Torshin also had helped build a similar prayer breakfast in Moscow from an obscure monthly event a decade ago into one more resembling the annual ritual in Washington.

Putin now sends an annual greeting to the Russian event, a recognition of its value in allowing Russian and American guests to come together under one roof in order to rebuild the relationship between the two countries that has degraded under the administration of President Obama, said the breakfasts organizer Peter Sautov in an email.

Torshin, accompanied by 15 Russian church and government officials, requested to meet the new president before Trump spoke at the event, according to people familiar with the arrangement.

But they said the meeting was cancelled as reports surfaced from Spanish authorities alleging that Torshin led an organized crime and money-laundering operation. Torshin has not been charged and denied wrongdoing in an interview with Bloomberg, which first reported the allegations.

A White House official said the requested meeting was never confirmed in the first place. The proposed meeting was first reported by Yahoo.

That night, Torshin gathered for a festive dinner at a Capitol Hill restaurant with conservative thought leaders who have supported warmer ties with Russia.

There has been a change in the views of hard-core conservatives toward Russia, a participant, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher said in an interview. Conservative Republicans like myself hated communism during the Cold War. But Russia is no longer the Soviet Union.

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The children were confused, scared and hurt. In their own words, they did their best to convey what other students had done to them in the school restroom, the gym and the bus. What their families learned left them shaken and set up an unexpected, adversarial relationship with their school districts.

Student-on-student sexual assaults rise significantly during middle-school years, an Associated Press analysis of federal crime data found. But even as early as kindergarten and first grade, children can be at risk: About 5 per cent of all sexual attacks reported on school property in a recent two-year period happened to 5 and 6 year olds, according to the AP analysis.

Read more: 17,000 reports of student-on-student sex assaults in U.S. grade schools  and thats surely an undercount

Little boys made up about 41 per cent of the youngest victims  significantly higher than at other times in their school years. Among teens, boys comprised only about 10 per cent of reported victims.

Overall, the data showed children were almost always violated by someone their own age. Unwanted fondling was the most common type of assault; about 20 per cent of the victims were subjected to rape, sodomy or other form of penetration.

Most sexual assaults of children by other children happened at a private residence, but schools were the second-most common location, representing about 9 per cent of the total incidents.

The question for schools is: How do we prevent it, how can we address it, and how can we support our students who may be survivors? said Fatima Goss Graves, chief executive-elect of the National Womens Law Center, which won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1999 that established schools responsibilities for responding to peer-on-peer sexual assault.

APs analysis was based on the most recent two years of available data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, which contains crime reports from about a third of the nations law enforcement agencies. Some of the nations largest cities are not represented in the voluntary reporting program, however, and the data does not reveal the outcome of cases.

Here is a closer look at some of the littlest victims AP found:

Allentown School District, Allentown, Pa.  2003-2004, 2013

After the first-grader came home from Jefferson Elementary School in 2013 and told his mother that his pee-pee hurt, she found him red, swollen and bloody. While washing his hands at a bathroom sink, he said, an older student had pulled down his pants, grabbed his penis and punched him in the face. The student warned, If you tell, Im going to do this again, court records show. The district said it investigated and ultimately disputed the allegation, but paid a settlement to end the familys lawsuit. Just months before that boys case, the district had settled a U.S. Justice Department investigation into similar incidents at another Allentown school. Justice accused the district of knowing a fifth-grade boy was allegedly sexually assaulting younger students in bathrooms at Central Elementary in 2003 and 2004, and failing to take enough action  or, in some cases, any action  to prevent it. The families of three first-grade boys came forward in a lawsuit against the district in 2006, and those allegations eventually spurred Justice to join the case. In all, seven boys said they were victimized. The district denied all the allegations, but settled the lawsuit in 2012 and agreed to court-enforced safety improvements. Since then, a judge has twice agreed to Justice requests to extend oversight of the district after the department cited unchanged policies, including failures to provide staff and student training. The district, which remains under monitoring until August, says it is making good-faith attempts to remedy every deficiency.

Gwinnett County Public Schools, Suwanee, Ga.  2016

The 5-year-old cried in his mothers car after school, saying he didnt want to be friends with a classmate anymore. He later confided to his stepsister what hed been too scared to tell anyone else: A fellow kindergartner at Level Creek Elementary School had threatened to punch him in the face if he didnt pull down his pants, according to a police report filed by the boys family. Frightened, the boy said he did as he was told and his classmate performed oral sex on him. The boys parents contacted Suwanee police, who interviewed the boy and his family but then forwarded the case to school district police, saying they didnt have jurisdiction. A school resource officer later told the mother that due to the ages of the involved there are no criminal charges, according to a district police supervisors email. The supervisor said the mother understood and did not want her son interviewed. A day later, after inquiries from a local reporter, the district issued a public statement saying the boy had been inappropriately touched but that his parents indicated they did not want to pursue prosecution. The parents disputed that in a local TV interview and said they saw school security footage that supported their sons account. The district, which disagreed about the footage, said it didnt have sufficient corroborating evidence to warrant further action in the absence of an interview of the alleged victim. The investigation remains open.

Monroe County Schools, Peterstown, W.Va.  2016

The 6-year-old stepped off the school bus on a cold January day with his coat open. A relative waiting to pick him up offered to fasten it. Instead, the kindergartener wanted help zipping and buttoning his pants, explaining that an older student had been playing a doctor game on him. In an interview with a child-abuse examiner, the boy said he had been forced into oral sex and fondled several times by the older student, then age 16. Police reviewed the buss surveillance camera footage and corroborated at least one sexual assault against the boy, along with other suspicious behaviour by the other student, according to his familys lawsuit. The district did not contest that in its legal response or that another child had provided a statement describing the older students conduct. Younger and older bus riders were supposed to sit separately, but the driver failed to enforce that policy, the Monroe County district acknowledged. The student was expelled a year later, prosecuted as a juvenile and sentenced to a rehabilitation centre, according to the familys suit. He had a disciplinary history in Monroe County and another district, including a suspension for indecent behaviour. Monroe County knew about that record and that its buses were having safety problems. According to a 2013 superintendents memo, there had been two allegations of inappropriate sexual touching of elementary students and three students were expelled for inappropriate sexual behaviour. The memo said the superintendent told the transportation department to create seating charts for buses and keep boys and girls from each other to reduce the opportunity for sexual contact.

San Diego Unified School District, San Diego, Calif.  2013-2014

The 5-year-old kindergartener came home from Green Elementary school in May 2013 and told his parents about a gross thing that had happened in the school bathroom: A classmate had pulled down his pants, sucked his penis and demanded the boy reciprocate. The boys parents alerted the principal, who later testified that he reported the incident to child protective services. But when they followed up with him before the start of the next school year, the principal acted as if he didnt know what they were talking about, according to a letter from the parents attorney. The school district, on behalf of the principal, declined APs requests for comment. A year later, an internal investigator was assigned to the case and eventually reported finding other school incidents of student-on-student sex assault, according to district records. The boys case against the school district for negligence and violating Title IX ended with a $105,000 settlement, terms of which were kept confidential. In May 2014, a 7-year-old first-grader at the same school told her mother, LaToya Johnson, that three older girls had touched her vagina in a bathroom stall. The girl has vocal cord paralysis and couldnt scream for help, her mother said. Johnson, who spoke to AP publicly in hopes of bringing about change, later sued the school district and a proposed settlement agreement is pending. A U.S. Education Department investigation, triggered by the first case, resulted in the district agreeing to create guidelines for elementary school principals on how to handle students sexual harassment and assault complaints.

Lincoln County School District, Newport, Ore.  2009-2010

For months, the parents of five first-grade students at Sam Case Elementary attributed their childrens behavioural problems to the recent merger of two schools. One mother told AP her son had nightmares and soiled his pants. A second child protested daily, I dont want to go to school! Only later, the childs mother said, did she learn that her 6-year-old daughter had been groped in the classroom reading corner and threatened with death if she told anyone. State records show that another parent complained his son had witnessed a 6-year-old exposing himself on a school bus. School officials were first alerted in fall 2009 to a possible problem with the boy accused in both incidents when his family sought help in dealing with problems at home, including bedwetting. The principal and staff members met later with the boys parents to discuss inappropriate touching of other students, state records show. But no one from the school notified the states child welfare office, law enforcement or any of the other childrens parents. The parents of the five alleged victims, however, had pieced together their childrens shared experiences and, in March 2010, one of them notified police. In April 2011, the principal and two teachers pleaded no contest to failure to report child abuse and were fined $648, court records show. The families later sued the district and settled in 2014 for $250,000. Three of the five children never returned to the school; one mother said her son remains in therapy seven years later and another mother told AP her child is scared to death of the world. The accused boy remained at the school.

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SRINAGAR, INDIATwo Indian soldiers were killed and their bodies mutilated Monday in an ambush by Pakistani soldiers along the highly militarized de facto border that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between the nuclear-armed rivals, the Indian army said. But Pakistan denied any such attack, calling the Indian claims false.

Separately, five police officials and two bank employees were killed when suspected rebels ambushed a bank van in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

Pakistani soldiers fired rockets and mortars at two Indian positions southwest of the Line of Control in the Krishna Ghati sector, the army said in a statement.

It said Pakistani soldiers also ambushed an Indian patrol operating between the two posts and mutilated the bodies of two Indian soldiers.

Read more:

India orders ban on social media sites in Kashmir after violent videos fuel anger

Dozens injured after Kashmir students clash with Indian troops

Four Indian soldiers rescued hours after snow cave-in in Kashmir

The statement called the incident an unprovoked firing by Pakistani soldiers and said the unsoldierly act would be appropriately responded.

The Pakistani army denied committing any ceasefire violation along the Line of Control. It said in a statement that Indian allegations of mutilating Indian soldiers bodies were also false.

Pakistani army is a highly professional force and shall never disrespect a soldier, even an Indian, it said.

In the past, both countries have accused the other of initiating border skirmishes leading to the deaths of soldiers and civilians on both sides.

Last year, Indian and Pakistani soldiers engaged in some of the worst fighting along the Line of Control since the two nations agreed to a ceasefire accord in 2003. India accused attackers from the Pakistani side of Kashmir of entering the Indian-held portion and mutilating the body of one of three slain Indian soldiers, leading to days of fighting along the frontier.

India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over Kashmir, a Himalayan territory claimed by both. They have fought two of their three wars over the region since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

The Line of Control is guarded by the Indian and Pakistani armies and divides the two parts of Kashmir. Each country also has a separate paramilitary border force guarding the lower-altitude frontier separating Indian-controlled Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab.

Also Monday, suspected rebels ambushed and sprayed gunfire at a bank van late in the southern Kulgam area, killing five police officials and two local bank employees, including a driver, senior top police officer Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani said.

He said the police were guarding the van and were returning to Kulgam after distributing cash to some bank branches.

There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

Rebel groups have been fighting since 1989 for Indian-controlled Kashmirs independence or merger with Pakistan.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the rebel uprising and a subsequent Indian military crackdown.

The rebel groups have largely been suppressed by Indian forces in recent years. However, public opposition to Indian rule remains deep and is now principally expressed through street protests marked by youths hurling stones at government forces.

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With less than a week to go before the second and final round of the French presidential election, the two candidates are trading harsh taunts.

Marine Le Pen of the populist, far-right National Front used her last big rally to call her centrist rival, former banker Emmanuel Macron, a representative of the caviar left and accused him of moralizing snobbery.

Macron, in turn, has been raking up the ghosts of the National Fronts contentious past. He made a high-profile visit to Frances biggest Holocaust memorial, which seemed to be aimed at drawing attention to two recent National Front scandals.

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French presidential candidate Le Pen steps down as head of National Front party

French students protest both Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron

A week from presidential runoff, Macron summons shame of Frances wartime history

Last month, Le Pen was widely criticized for claiming that France wasnt responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews to concentration camps in 1942. And Jean-Francois Jalkh, who recently took over from Le Pen as the partys head, stepped down just two days after his appointment when an interview he did in 2000 questioning whether the poisonous gas Zyklon B was used against Jews in the camps resurfaced. Le Pens father, Jean-Marie, who previously led the National Front but was kicked out by his daughter, gained international notoriety for calling the Nazi gas chambers simply a detail of the history of World War II. Marine Le Pens niece and National Front rising star Marion Marechal-Le Pen accused Macron on Sunday of World War II blackmail.

Then, on Monday, Macron stood just a few hundred yards from the National Fronts annual May Day march, on the banks of the Seine in Paris, and memorialized a Moroccan man who was drowned by skinheads whod attended the 1995 iteration of the rally. It was a gesture that seemed designed to dismiss Le Pens attempts to detoxify the National Fronts image, portraying the party as aligned with racists and extremists.

This years May Day march was led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, as was the one in 1995. He told supporters that Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards. Its a bad sign for him.

Macron was joined at the riverbank by Said Bouarram, the son of the man who was thrown into the Seine 22 years ago and left to drown. Bouarram, who supports Macron in the runoff election, says his father was targeted because he was a foreigner, an Arab. That is why I am fighting, to say no to racism.

One of the perpetrators was sentenced to eight years in prison in 1998, while three others received five-year terms.

Many French are of Arab extraction, especially in the suburbs, and hail from former French colonies such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Discrimination against them and other minorities is rife, both by employers and police, and voting rates in the suburbs are below the national average.

That legacy of colonialism has proved to be yet another flash point between the two candidates. After Macron called Frances bloodstained colonial administration of Algeria a crime against humanity on Monday, Le Pen shot back that he had maligned Frances glorious history.

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With just six days until a French presidential runoff that could define Europes future, far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron held high-stakes rallies Monday that overlapped with May Day marches and underscored the fact that jobs are voters No. 1 concern.

France votes for a new president on Sunday, a ballot being watched closely by financial markets and Frances neighbours as a test of the global populist wave. While Le Pen got an endorsement from her father on Monday, Macron held an emotional meeting with a Moroccan man whose father died years ago when he was thrown off a Paris bridge by far-right skinheads.

One May Day march in Paris was disrupted Monday as scores of hooded youths threw firebombs at riot police in full gear, who responded with tear gas and truncheons. One policeman was seen spraying a troublemaker in the face.

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Frances dark Nazi history haunts Le Pens presidential campaign

French students protest both Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron

Mixed reactions in Montreal as French expats watch France's election results

Two police officers were reported injured, according to French television.

The violent protesters were not carrying union paraphernalia or anything linked to the French electoral campaign, appearing to be from fringe groups that have targeted anti-government protests in the past.

Workers in the march aimed to block Le Pen from getting into power, but disagreed on the method. Some urged French workers to vote for Macron but others refused to make that call, including far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon who was eliminated in the first-round vote on April 23.

Wanted or not, Le Pen was praised by her 88-year-old father Jean-Marie, the co-founder of her National Front party whom she expelled in 2015 after he reiterated anti-Semitic comments.

In a speech before the gilded statue in Paris of Joan of Arc, his heroine, Jean-Marie Le Pen urged French voters to back his daughter in Sundays runoff.

She is not Joan of Arc but she accepts the same mission ... France, Jean-Marie Le Pen said.

He denounced Macron as a masked Socialist backed by the highly unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande.

He wants to dynamize the economy, but he is among those who dynamited it, the elderly Le Pen said, referring to Frances stagnant economy and it jobless rate around 10 per cent. Macron once served as Hollandes economy minister.

Marine Le Pen, speaking in a hall north of Paris, also skewered Macron, a former investment banker, calling him a puppet of the world of finance and Islamic fundamentalists. Cheers of Marine President! and anti-immigrant chants rose up in the crowd of thousands for Le Pens rally.

Le Pen, who hopes to mimic Donald Trumps populist electoral victory, compared Macron to Hillary Clinton. She also sought repeatedly to puncture Macrons argument that he represents change, calling him Hollandes lapdog, the candidate of the caviar left.

She also claimed that his pro-business policies would not create jobs but send them abroad and leave French workers hungry.

Macron, seeking to remind voters of the National Fronts dark past, paid homage Monday to a Moroccan man thrown to his death in the Seine River amid a far-right march over two decades ago. Macron joined the mans son and anti-National Front protesters at an annual commemoration near the Louvre Museum in Paris.

The National Front traditionally holds a May Day march in Paris to honour Joan of Arc. But at the 1995 event, some skinheads broke away and pushed 29-year-old Brahim Bourram off a bridge into the Seine River, where he drowned. The death drew national outrage.

Standing Monday on the same bridge, Macron hugged Bourrams son Said, who was 9 when his father was killed.

Said, a chauffeur who supports Macron, said his father was targeted because he was a foreigner, an Arab. That is why I am fighting, to say No to racism.

Macron said, despite Marine Le Pens efforts to distance herself from her fathers anti-Semitism, the roots are there, and they are very much alive.

I will not forget anything and I will fight to the last second, not only against her project but against the idea she has of democracy and the nation, Macron declared.

Polls consider Macron the front-runner in the runoff but the race has been exceptionally unpredictable.

Over the weekend, Le Pen was endorsed by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a conservative candidate who lost in the first round of voting. Dupont-Aignan shocked many French by agreeing to be Le Pens prime minister if she wins the presidency.

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Several senior CRPF officials believe that Sukma attack was partially a result of lackadaisical wok by Chhattisgarh Police, who failed to provide any intelligence to forces before the fatal ambush on April 24.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: In an elaborate postmortem of the worst naxal attack in Burkapal, team of senior officers of CRPF feel that its personnel who were caught off guard were not sitting ducks.

However some sources say that the CRPF team was let down by Chhattisgarh Police, who failed to provide the intelligence. It is because anti-naxal operations are also based on local intelligence generated by state police.

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'NAXALS HAD INFORMED THE LOCALS ON TIME'

Senior officials speaking to India Today on condition of anonymity, said "The naxals had fore-warned villagers from venturing out of their homes on April 24."

According to senior officials, the village was nearly empty at the time of the fatal ambush.

The house of tribals became hiding spots for Maoists who fired at the reinforcement team from either side of the road.

'NEED TO CHANGE PREDICTABLE PATTERN OF CRPF'

Another senior officer said, "As per Standard Operating Procedure, state police needs to have at least 33 per cent of the strength of CRPF, but in Sukma, on most occasions, there is barely even one."

Police stations in Maoist hot beds like the one closest to Burkapal, Chintagufa police station is inside the CRPF campus, leaving no scope for generating intelligence.

Though a high level inquiry is underway examining the Sukma attack, several senior officials say that despite initial setback, the soldiers fired and killed several Maoists.

As compared to March 11, 2014 when 15 soldiers were killed with little defence, there has been major improvement in the retaliatory action from forces under barrage of gunfire.

But, there is need to improve tactical response to Maoist fire power, and dire need to change predictable patterns of patrolling, say officials.

Also read: 4 times Indian commandos crossed the LoC for surgical strikes: All you need to know

Also read: Sukma attack: How CRPF jawans walked into 'kill zone' set up by Naxals

--- ENDS ---
ISTANBULWorkers and activists marked May Day around the world Monday with defiant rallies and marches for better pay and working conditions.

Police detained 70 people in Istanbul as they tried to march. Garment workers in Cambodia defied a government ban to demand higher wages, and businesses in Puerto Rico were boarded up as the U.S. territory braced for a huge strike over austerity measures. In Paris, police fired tear gas and used clubs on rowdy protesters at a march that included calls to defeat far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

Some May Day events around the world:

France

A May Day march in Paris turned violent less than a week before the runoff French presidential election as police clashed with a small group of protesters who threw Molotov cocktails at officers.

Policemen watch as participants of the 'March in Defense of St. Petersburg' take part in a rally marking May Day in downtown St.Petersburg, Russia on Monday.









A few hundred protesters started throwing gasoline bombs and other objects at police at the front end of what started as a peaceful union march in the French capital on Monday.

Police responded with tear gas and truncheons. Riot police clubbed some protesters who were pushed up against a wall on a tree-lined avenue. One police officer was seen spraying a troublemaker in the face.

Four police officers were injured, one seriously burned in the face, Interior Minister Matthias Fekl said, denouncing the "intolerable violence."

His statement said all would be done to identify and arrest those responsible.

The annual march to celebrate workers' rights this year included calls to block far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen from winning the presidency during a runoff election on Sunday.

Some of the violent protesters at the May Day event had signs referring to the presidential election and expressing dissatisfaction with both candidates in Sunday's runoff election.

"Not one or the other; instead it's the people's self-defence" read one sign. "Macron=Louis XVI, Le Pen=Le Pen," read another.

Puerto Rico

Businesses in Puerto Rico have been boarded up as the U.S. territory braces for a May Day strike organized by opponents of austerity measures amid a deep economic crisis.

Dozens of people wearing black T-shirts blocked a main road in the capital of San Juan and marched toward the financial centre. They banged large wooden placards painted with a black Puerto Rican flag against the ground.

Thousands of protesters are expected Monday as Puerto Rico teeters on the edge of a possible bankruptcy-like procedure.

A measure that has protected the territory from creditor lawsuits expires at midnight, and the government has struggled to reach a deal with bondholders to restructure part of its $70 billion debt.

Cuba

A protester has briefly disrupted the start of Cuba's largest annual political event, sprinting in front of May Day marchers with a U.S. flag before being tackled and dragged away.

President Raul Castro watched along with other military and civilian leaders and foreign dignitaries as the man broke through security and ran ahead of the tens of thousands in the pro-government march.

Plain clothes officers struggled to control the man but eventually lifted him off the ground and hauled him away in front of foreign and Cuban journalists covering the parade.

Monday's protest was a surprising breach of security at a government-organized event where agents line the route.

Castro has said he will step down as president in February, making this his last May Day parade as head of state.

Russia

Two May Day marches were held in Moscow, both drawing from nostalgia for Soviet times.

First, a crowd that police estimated at about 130,000 people paraded across the cobblestones of Red Square, the site of Soviet-era May Day celebrations. The tradition was revived in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea and is seen as part of President Vladimir Putin's efforts to stoke patriotic feelings.

Marchers, organized by official trade unions, waved the Russian tricolour flag and carried white, blue and red balloons.

The second march was led by the Communists, who over the years have tried to keep the May Day tradition alive. Their march, which skirted Red Square, drew several thousand people.

Many carried red flags with the Soviet hammer and sickle, but there was little honouring of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin compared to previous years.

South Africa

South African President Jacob Zuma was jeered by labour unionists and his May Day speech was cancelled after scuffles broke out between his supporters and workers chanting for him to step down.

Zuma, who is facing calls to resign after a string of scandals, was expected to call for unity between his ruling party, the African National Congress, and labour unions at the rally in Bloemfontein.

Groups in the crowd booed the president and clashed with his supporters before he could speak.

All speeches scheduled for the event then were cancelled by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the country's largest body of unions.

The organization has called for the 75-year-old Zuma to resign.

Zuma once a popular figure among South Africa's workers, was eventually ushered away by his bodyguards.

Turkey

Police in Istanbul detained more than 70 people who tried to march to iconic Taksim Square in defiance of a ban on holding May Day events there. The square was declared off limits to demonstrations for a third year running and police blocked points of entry, allowing only small groups of labour union representatives to lay wreaths at a monument there.

Taksim holds a symbolic value for Turkeys labour movement. In 1977, shots were fired into a May Day crowd from a nearby building, killing 34 people.

Main trade unions groups have agreed to hold large rallies at government-designated spots in Istanbul and Ankara but small groups were expected to try to reach Taksim.

Spain

Spain's two major unions called for marches in over 70 cities under the slogan "No More Excuses." UGT and CC.OO unions on Monday demanded that Spain's conservative government roll back its labour reforms that made it cheaper to fire workers and increase wages and pensions.

CC.OO general secretary Ignacio Fernandez Toxo said "Spain has been growing for two years and now it is time for the economy to align itself with the needs of the people."

He spoke at a march of several thousand people in Madrid, which he led alongside UGT leader Josep Maria Alvarez. Thousands more marched in Barcelona, while other rallies were held in Seville, Valencia and other cities.

Under conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Spain's economy has rebounded and unemployment has dropped from 27 per cent in 2013 to 19 per cent, but that is still the second-highest unemployment rate in the 28-nation European Union behind Greece.

Rajoy thanked Spain's workers on Twitter: "I appreciate your contribution to the economic recovery. The government is working to create more and better jobs."

Poland

Labour union and left-wing activists appealed for unity in order to oppose Poland's current conservative government as they marked May Day with a parade in Warsaw.

The rally and a march Monday was by the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions and by the Democratic Left Alliance, which lost all parliament seats in the 2015 election that brought the conservative populist Law and Justice party to power.

Sebastian Wierzbicki of the SLD said the left wing needs to protect workers' rights but also focus on civic rights and human dignity.

Cambodia

Riot police watched carefully as more than 1,000 garment workers defied a government ban on marching to deliver a petition to the National Assembly in Phnom Penh, demanding a higher minimum wage and more freedom of assembly.

The marchers, holding a forest of banners, filled a street a short distance from the parliament complex and advanced noisily until they were stopped by a barricade and lines of police, holding batons, shields and guns capable of firing gas canisters. A standoff of several hours was resolved when a representative from the Assembly came out and accepted the petition.

The workers were from the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union. Among their demands was increasing the minimum wage from $153 to $208 per month. The clothing and footwear industry is Cambodia's biggest export earner.

Greece

Several thousand protesters gathered outside Greece's parliament, and unions braced for more austerity measures imposed by bailout lenders.

Two large union-organized rallies are planned in Athens on the holiday, with employees at many public services nominally on strike.

As the marches began, government officials prepared for more talks at a central Athens hotel with representatives of bailout creditors as the two sides were near an agreement to maintain draconian spending controls beyond the current rescue program.

The talks had been expected to end Sunday. Future spending cuts will include additional pension cuts and tax increases for Greeks, already hit by seven years of harsh cuts.

Philippines

A few thousand left-wing activists and labourers marched and held noisy rallies to press for higher wages and an end to temporary contractual jobs that deprive workers of many benefits. In sweltering summer heat, the crowds in Manila also protested alleged extrajudicial killings under President Rodrigo Duterte's drug crackdown.

The activists carried murals of Duterte and President Donald Trump, asking the Philippine leader to stay away from the U.S. president, who has invited Duterte for a U.S. visit. Protest leader Venzer Crisostomo fears an "America First" policy would be disadvantageous to poorer countries like the Philippines. "We would not want Duterte to be in cahoots with Donald Trump in oppressing the country and in implementing policies."

Taiwan

In Taipei, thousands of Taiwanese workers hoisted cardboard signs and banners in a march protesting what they said were unfairly low wages and deteriorating work conditions. A number of them staged a fake funeral procession, carrying a coffin with the words "basic annual pension" written on it, while others waved black flags.

Huang Yu-kai, president of the labour union of the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp. and a train conductor, said low wages in Taiwan are "the root of all problems."

"This is why we take part in this march every year," Huang said.

President Tsai Ing-wen said in a post on her Facebook page that improvements are being made even if major changes would take time. "Although reform would not be completed in one step, the progress we have made is not small."

Bangladesh

Thousands of garment industry workers in the impoverished South Asian nation gathered to demand better wages and legal protection.

About 4 million people are employed in the country's garment industry, the second largest in the world. The industry, with about 4,000 factories, earns $25 billion a year from exports, mainly to the United States and Europe, but working conditions often are grim.

Lovely Yesmin, president of the Ready-made Garments Workers Federation, one of several unions representing factory workers, said just increasing salaries is not enough.

She said workers must be provided better living quarters and health benefits, and factories must make provisions so the children of factory workers can be educated.

Germany

Thousands of people celebrated May Day peacefully in Germany's capital, but police were braced for the possibility of violence.

The dpa news agency reported Monday that an estimated 10,000 people gathered in Berlin's Kreuzberg district for a street festival, and police reported no significant incidents.

But 5,400 police officers were mobilized in case the event got out of hand later in the day, when demonstrations were planned. Berlin has experienced major May Day riots in the past, though recent years have been relatively calm.

Still, some 50 officers were hurt last year in a brief, but violent clash.

In the eastern city of Erfurt, about 1,200 supporters of the nationalist Alternative for Germany rallied, holding signs with slogans like "no mosques in Germany." Police say the demonstration was peaceful.

Portugal

Thousands of people marched through the streets of Lisbon under the slogan "Value Work and Workers."

The CGTP-IN union that helped organize the May Day march said in a manifesto that workers must push for "a renegotiation of the (national) debt," the second-highest in the European Union after Greece despite an improving economy.

Portugal's national statistics agency reported Friday that the unemployment rate had hit an 8-year low of 9.9 per cent under the current centre-left government. That's down from the high of 16.2 in 2013.

"I wish Portugal could serve as example," government worker Jose Goncalves, 42, said while marching in Lisbon. "I have my doubts, but yes, there may be an alternative to the rise of the far right in France, to a state of almost dictatorship in Turkey, or such a dubious situation in Brazil. Workers are still here and willing to fight."

Cyprus

Greek and Turkish Cypriots are marking May Day with a "Rock for Peace" concert in support of talks aimed at reunifying their ethnically divided island.

Monday's celebrations kicked off with a gathering of hundreds of Greek Cypriot left-wing trade unionists in front of Cyprus' Finance Ministry to affirm their support for a peace deal that would bring about a united country.

The ambassadors of Palestine and Cuba, as well as the charge d'affaires of the Venezuelan Embassy, were also in attendance.

To the beat of marching bands, union members then marched to the capital's Ledra Palace checkpoint, where they joined Turkish Cypriot counterparts. The checkpoint connects the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and the island's internationally recognized south.

In unison, they entered a soccer field inside the United Nations-controlled buffer zone where Greek and Turkish Cypriot rock acts took to the stage.

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WASHINGTONNikki Haley didnt wait to take office as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to break with the Trump administrations foreign policy stances.

At her Senate confirmation hearing, Haley bluntly accused Russia of being complicit in war crimes in Syria  going against the president-elects talk of warmer relations with Moscow.

Three months later, she remains boldly off-message. Much to the chagrin of Washington diplomats, her remarks often go well beyond the carefully worded scripts crafted by the White House and State Department.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

Shes warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that the days of your arrogance and disregard of humanity are over, even as other top aides to U.S. President Donald Trump insisted that his fate was a decision for the Syrian people.

Shes pushed human rights as a driver of foreign policy just as the Trump administration showed its willingness to work with leaders who have suppressed civil liberties, such as Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypts Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi.

U.S. diplomats fear Haleys words could result in an inconsistent, incoherent international message. State Department diplomats drafted an email urging Haleys office to ensure that her public statements on high-profile issues are cleared by Washington. The email was first reported by The New York Times.

Read more:

U.S. ambassador to UN warns North Korea about attacking American base or testing ICBM

U.S. says countries must punish UN peacekeepers for sexual abuse

U.S. ambassador to UN contradicts Trump

In some ways, Haley has been ahead of the curve. Her hints at a change in the Syrian government are now seeping into Trump policies, and the administration has toughened its stance on Russia.

She seems to be in Trumps good graces. At a White House luncheon for UN diplomats last week, he said Haley was doing a fantastic job  but only after awkwardly joking that if the diplomats didnt like her, she could easily be replaced.

Haley, a rookie to international politics, was an unusual pick to be UN envoy.

As South Carolina governor, she was outspoken in her criticism of Trump during the 2016 campaign  a stance that effectively disqualified other candidates for top administration positions. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Haley alluded to Trump in denouncing the siren call of the angriest voices who disrespected Americas immigrants. Trump tweeted that The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley.

She has star power in an administration where the president prefers to keep attention on himself. In some ways, the 45-year-old Haley is seizing the spotlight left vacant by media-averse Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Her high-profile persona and relative youth have prompted speculation that she may run for president someday.

The White House and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations declined to comment for this story.

Haleys office falls under the State Departments authority, but administration officials say Haleys staff frequently bypasses the department for policy matters. They said Haleys deputy, Jon Lerner, a Republican pollster and strategist who helped co-ordinate the Never Trump movement during the campaign, is in closer contact with senior members of the National Security Council, the White Houses national security apparatus. Still, at times, Haley ad-libs her remarks, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to publicly discuss the policymaking process.

They said the State Department was not involved in the planning of Trumps meeting last Monday with the UN ambassadors, nor was it consulted. The event was co-ordinated exclusively between the U.S. Mission to the UN and the NSC.

Public remarks by the UN ambassador are generally approved by the State Department and, at times, other departments. Zalmay Khalilzad, a UN ambassador under President George W. Bush, said that messaging from the various departments has to be consistent with each other, but he joked that this is not an administration that is known for protocol.

Indeed, Haleys off-message remarks highlight a broader trend in the administration, with poor communications and tight inner-circle White House politics creating disunity on various issues.

But Khalilzad praised Haley, saying her experience as a politician helps her in recognizing the importance of the message and the quality of the message.

Phil Cox, a political consultant who has known Haley since 2010 from his work with the Republican Governors Association, said Haleys plain-spokenness comes as no surprise to anyone who tracked her work in South Carolina, starting with service in the state Legislature.

The Nikki Haley operating on a world stage today is the exact same person the people of South Carolina came to know and respect as governor, he said in a recent interview. Since she was first elected governor, people have been talking about her taking the next step.

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MANILA, PHILIPPINESA U.S.-based human rights group says President Donald Trump should not roll out the White House red carpet for Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte, whom it accused of being a "mastermind" of mass murder because of his anti-drug crackdown in which thousands have died.

Human Rights Watch and other critics reacted with alarm Monday at Trump's invitation to Duterte to visit the White House. In a telephone call, Trump also affirmed America's alliance and friendship with the Philippines and its president, who has maintained an antagonistic stance toward U.S. security policies.

The U.S. and other countries close to the Philippines "have an obligation to urge accountability for the victims of Duterte's abusive drug war, rather than offer to roll out the red carpet for official state visits with its mastermind," said Phelim Kine, HRW's deputy director for Asia.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

Kine said Trump may damage human rights by making overly friendly overtures to Duterte, who is facing a complaint for alleged mass murder before the International Criminal Court.

Trump will cut a "bad deal" for the American and Filipino people if he fetes Duterte with a White House reception without assessing the implications "of hosting and toasting a foreign leader whose links to possible crimes against humanity for instigating and inciting extrajudicial killings has already prompted warnings from the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court," Kine said in an email.

Read more:

Trump calls Philippine President Duterte to affirm warm working relationship

Philippine official admits difficulty of stopping drugs from China

Filipino troops kill 4 suspected militants on resort island

Duterte has said his administration does not back extrajudicial killings, although he has repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death and violence in nationally televised speeches. Duterte's spokesman, Ernie Abella, did not immediately reply to a request for comment Monday.

Duterte said he has not accepted the invitation because of scheduled trips to Russia, Israel and other countries.

"I'm tied up," he told reporters Monday in southern Davao city. "I cannot make any definite promise."

U.S. and Philippine officials said Trump's calls and invitations to several Asian allies including Duterte were aimed at discussing the crisis over North Korea's nuclear threats.

In his phone conversation with Trump, Duterte said he relayed the region's alarm over the North Korean standoff.

"I said Mr. President, I do not think that you can scare (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un with fire power," Duterte said. "Our greatest chance there of getting some dialogue with America and North Korea would be through the intercession of China."

Abella said in a statement that "the discussion that transpired between the presidents was warm, with President Trump expressing his understanding and appreciation of the challenges facing the Philippine president, especially on the matter of dangerous drugs."

A White House statement described the call as "very friendly" and said the U.S.-Philippine alliance "is now heading in a very positive direction."

Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said friendlier ties are needed, even with concerns about Duterte's human rights record, citing the North Korean threat.

"The purpose of this call is all about North Korea," Priebus told ABC's This Week on Sunday. "It doesn't mean that human rights don't matter."

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, said Monday he hopes Trump will send a "very clear and undiluted message" to Duterte, but stopped short of calling for the meeting to be cancelled.

"The Philippine president has gone on record claiming that he perpetrated homicide when in a previous capacity he launched a campaign against those involved allegedly in the drug trade," he said to reporters in Geneva.

"My hope is that the president of the United States will convey this deep sense of alarm about the apparent shirking of the obligations under the law  to subject any alleged violator of the law to the normal process that should be undertaken," Zeid said. "We will wait to see what comes out of that meeting, but I hope the message will be very clear and firm on this."

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This coming Wednesday, May 3, marks World Press Freedom Day. But instead of celebrating it along with other progressive democracies, Canada should be hanging its head.

Thats because this country, astonishingly, does not rank in the Top 10 or even the Top 20 countries in the world for freedom of the media.

Instead, to our shame, it has dropped four places in the past year to 22nd, according to an annual index by Reporters Without Borders. That puts Canada behind Samoa and just ahead of the Czech Republic and Namibia.

The decline reflects what the organization calls a series of scandals over the past year, including:

The revelation that police in Quebec had been spying on journalists, albeit with judges permission.

A courts upholding of a request by the RCMP for a reporter to turn over background materials in a terrorism investigation.

The arrest and potential lengthy jail term of a reporter covering a protest against the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador.

Surely this cant be Canada, a democracy that relies on press freedom to uphold democratic ideals and human rights. Sadly, though, it is.

The federal government can improve the situation by supporting legislation designed to strengthen the rights of journalists and their confidential sources.

Currently, the Supreme Court of Canada holds that journalistic sources may be protected, but that the protection is to be decided on a case-by-case basis. And there is no constitutionally protected right to shield a source.

Thats why Quebec and Montreal police could track journalists cell phones with impunity even as the reporters were breaking important stories, such as one detailing corruption in the provinces construction industry.

Its not the first time Canada has dropped in the ranking of press freedom. This years drop follows a dramatic fall in 2016 that reflected what Reporters Without Borders described as a dark age for journalism during the Harper years.

Disturbingly, 2017 doesnt look any better. We have reached an age of post-truth, propaganda and suppression of freedoms  especially in democracies, the report states.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last fall in response to revelations that reporters were being spied on: Not only is freedom of the press important, but its one of the foundational safeguards of a free democracy, of a free society.

Thats why editors of major news organizations and the advocacy group Canadian Journalists for Free Expression have urged the Liberal government to pass a press shield law to protect whistleblowers and investigative reporting.

Its high time Ottawa enacted legislation to protect journalists if Canada is to rank where it belongs next year  at the top of the press freedom index.

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It is a sad fact that, in Ontario, nobody really knows whether the provinces $1.5-billion childrens aid system is working, because no one is measuring the results.

Thats the conclusion of a new report from academic and former foster child Jane Kovarikova. The Wynne government should pay close attention.

As Kovarikova rightly argues, if the government is serious about putting children at the centre of its new child welfare legislation  as it says it is  it must track what happens to them when they become adults.

If you dont measure whats happening to the youth you have been serving . . . how do you know if your policies or reforms are having any impact? asks Kovarikova, a PhD candidate with a Masters degree in human rights from the London School of Economics.

Sadly, what little is known about children who come through the system is distressing and points to a need for systemic change, she says in her report released last week by the office of Ontarios Advocate for Children and Youth.

What it overwhelmingly shows is that people who grew up in foster care or group homes experience low academic achievement, high rates of homelessness, early parenthood, unemployment, conflict with the law, mental health problems and loneliness.

In Ontario, for instance, only 44 per cent of Crown wards complete high school compared to 81 per cent of students in the general population.

Its easy to blame these poor outcomes on the traumatic backgrounds of many of the kids in care. But the report found the structure and practices of Ontarios child services system contribute significantly to the problems.

In this conclusion, Kovarikova is not alone. Study after study, including a series of investigative articles in the Star, has found the system too often fails to act in the best interests of the child.

For example, a 2016 government report described a system in chaos, with the province actually losing track of children, requiring no minimum qualifications for caregivers and allowing a growing number of kids with complex special needs to be placed in unlicensed programs. Concerns have also been raised about the extent to which racial bias plays a role in determining which children are removed from their families and put into care.

The provinces auditor general, Bonnie Lysyk, has also rung the alarm, warning that the government pours more than a billion dollars annually into a system without even knowing the quality of care provided or how children fare once they set out on their own.

The power to remove a child from their family home is one of the state's most disruptive. As this new report makes clear, there is ample reason to doubt that this power is being used judiciously, and that, once in care, children are given a real opportunity to succeed. In any case, neither Ontarians nor the government has the information necessary to judge whether the system is working.

There is much hope that the new child-centred bill winding its way through the legislature will resolve many of these problems. But it has no provision to track kids after they age out of foster care and group homes. Theres still time to change that, and the government should. It will take vigilance to fix whats broken and transparency to rebuild trust.

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Millennials haven't given up on the American Dream: their expectation of it has evolved.

According to a Bank of the West study, Millennials (18-36) still view the American Dream as owning a home, paying off debt and someday retiring from a fulfilling career. However, they've amended it a bit to include travel, pursuing their passions and living abroad. It's an American Dream that doesn't all take place in the U.S., and it requires significant capital to back up.

"Millennials dream of living abroad, moving to a new city and switching careers, but in reality they are quite satisfied with stability," says Paul Appleton, executive vice president of consumer payments and product at Bank of the West. "It's an interesting dichotomy that doesn't appear with Gen-Xers or Boomers. This generation is dreaming bigger and better, and while they are confident they'll fulfill their dreams, they need help figuring out how to fund them."

With more than six in ten Millennials believing the American Dream is still alive today, they're largely in agreement with older generations about what it looks like. Being happy (70%), owning a home (60%), being debt-free (55%) and retiring comfortably (51%) are all key elements of it, but that isn't the complete picture. The overwhelming majority of Millennials (85%) say it's important to have the flexibility to move when they want, with 67% saying would like to live abroad at some point in their lives and a third of this group can seeing themselves building living in another country for the long term.

But there's a reason that the American Dream has that name: It's still a largely aspirational concept. Currently, Millennials only envision themselves packing up and moving to a new city, state or country fewer than two more times in their lives. Most (68%) even say they would prefer to build a life in one community, rather than live and work in multiple geographies. At this stage, 43% of Millennials have bought their homes, while 75% of non-homeowners say they could be motivated to buy a house.

As a result, Millennials helped make first-time homebuyers 32% of all homebuyers in March. That's the highest percentage of first-time homebuyers during that month in three years and follows a 2016 housing market in which 35% of homebuyers were first-timers -- up from 30% for all of 2015.

"Realtors in most markets are saying interest from first-timers is up this year, but competition is stiff for listings in their price range," says National Association of Realtors president William E. Brown, a realtor from Alamo, Calif. "The best advice is to lean on the guidance of a realtor throughout the home search and be careful about stretching the budget too far."

Low mortgage rates deserve some of the credit for that surge, but they're climbing quickly. According to Freddie Mac, the rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage sat at 4.03% by the end of April. That's down from 4.3% in March but higher than the 3.59% at the end of last April.

Also, while all-cash sales were 23% of all existing-home transactions in March, individual investors paying cash accounted for less than 15% of homes in purchased in March. As a result, first-time homebuyers aren't buying homes to flip them, but to stick around a while.

A survey by TD Bank took a look at these young homebuyers and found that 65% planned to purchase their first home with cash or savings. Of that group, 33% plan to pay it off over a 15-year mortgage. However, 17% of those homebuyers haven't set aside money for unexpected repairs and costs, while 44% of Millennial homebuyers ran into $5,000 in unexpected costs during the mortgage process. While 74% of young potential homebuyers are saving up for their home, 65% say that saving for a down payment is an obstacle to home ownership.

"It's encouraging to see Millennials thoughtfully prepare to enter the housing market," says Scott Haymore, head of pricing and secondary markets at TD Bank. "With today's affordability programs, owning a home doesn't have to be a dream, it can be a reality."

That's not exactly great news. Adjustable-rate mortgages and low down payments enabled many of the wost behaviors we saw during the housing crisis. Meanwhile, a seller's market has been driving up existing he median existing-home prices for four and a half years and put the average U.S. home price in March at $237,800, up 6% from the same time last year. During that same span, housing inventory slipped 6.6% to 1.83 million. The current 3.8-month supply is well beneath the six-month supply typically deemed healthy.

As a result, 19% of Millennials plan to ask friends and family for financial help on top of their savings, while 65% will have a spouse or partner as a co-signer. They also aren't looking for fixer-uppers, with move-in-ready homes the preferred choice for 78% of all Millennial home buyers

"The costs of running a household can be a shock to new home owners," Haymore says. "Monthly expenses for utilities, homeowner's association fees, cable and internet, can add up quickly. Factoring these in at the beginning of the mortgage process can help borrowers assess their overall budget and determine a realistic monthly mortgage payment."

Though three-quarters of Millennial homebuyers have made mortgage rates their key financial concern, budgeting and right-sizing their first homes might deserve greater priority. According to TD Bank, a third of all homebuyers are putting less than 20% down on a home. That 20% down payment was viewed as a minimum as the U.S. emerged from the housing crisis and is still viewed as a sound benchmark. However, roughly 35% of Millennials can't hit that mark as a result of student loan debt, the financial crisis's impact on their careers and other issues. While 37% of Millennial homebuyers will attempt to secure mortgages that don't require as much cash up front, voices within the housing market suggest that maybe they should adjust their expectations.

That's going to be tough, with the Bank West survey nothing that 48% of Millennials feel they would need to switch employers every few years to be paid what they feel they're worth. However, 65% say they are happy working for their current company, while 79% say they wouldn't quit their current jobs to pursue another career and 62% would not move cross-country without a new job offer in hand. Asked whether they'd prefer a fulfilling family life or a fulfilling professional life, more than three-quarters (78%) of Millennials would put their family life first. In fact, the majority (64%) say they sometimes feel stuck in the life they have.

The common thread running through all of that is an overarching sense of caution. After the recession, Millennials gravitated toward low-risk strategies, with most (76%) saving in cash or checking and saving accounts. Only 17% say they were investing on their own and less than one in 10 (7%) were using an advisor.

Despite all of this, 85% say they are confident that they will attain their American Dream. Roughly 67% think they have more opportunity to be successful than their parents had. They see opportunity (80%), not innate ability (20%), as the key to reaching their goals, though only 49% have a financial plan in place.

"Millennials have high expectations for their personal and professional lives, and are driven and able to accomplish the goals that they've set out for themselves," Appleton added. "They want the choice and flexibility to make their own decisions  whether it is to build a new life in a foreign country, navigate a career change to pursue their passions, or buy a home and raise a family. By putting a financial plan in place, Millennials can ensure they have the means to build the life they want to lead."
Jim Cramer shares his views every day on RealMoney. Click here for a real-time look at his insights and musings.

Cramer: Focus on Earnings, Not on the White House

Is it a 15% corporate tax rate and a repatriation holiday? Is there a tax on law firms and hedge funds? Will there be a mortgage deduction still? Is the border tax dead? Will the rich pay lower taxes? Does anyone really pay the 36% rate? How will the holes in the budget be shorn?

Originally published April 26 at 5:49 a.m. EST

These are not the questions you should be asking as Day 100 beckons and legislation is on the horizon. These are issues that should have been solved long before the election.

Hence, the total chaos that we see in Washington, where there seems to be a veneer of consistency with the presidential campaign but not enough to see any one depiction of the plan--if there is one--that isn't different from another in all of the different news outlets.

Yes, the disarray and the notion that different people within the administration and on Capitol Hill have different views on what is being asked for and what can get done makes this tax situation one more sideshow that tends to grab center stage, simply because we have never seen anything so un-orchestrated and so day-to-day coming in the incredibly tricky world of tax policy.

We are used to seeing a plan, one that's paid for in some rigorous fashion, which has the backing of many different factions. We are not used to seeing a plan introduced that seems to have the backing of no one.

We are used to a plan that tells you exactly what it can do for the economy. We are not used to amorphous projections that somehow get you to 4%.

We are used to a document we can all pick over. We are not used to some snippets here and some tidbits there that all add up to something that may or may not tax law firms and hedge funds and retailers and importers and sole proprietors and real estate legends.

It's all a mess.

And it is happening just when we are trying to make sense of earnings, for heaven's sakes.

My advice: remember it is a sideshow. Focus on the numbers coming from the companies, not from the White House.

Otherwise it will just drive you crazy.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, has no positions in the stocks mentioned.

Cramer: Oil Gets in the Way of a Rally

Originally published April 27 at 11:27 a.m. EST

We are back to the "stupid is as stupid does" market. I am talking about a market that is totally hostage to oil, one that would be up because of earnings, and could be up because of taxes, but instead is going down because oil's being crushed.

If oil were a barometer of anything but huge inventories and failing OPEC curtailment, it would make sense. If oil were a commodity that indicated anything about the growth of the world's economies, then I could get it.

But let me tell you what a "false tell" it is. The weakest group Thursday is the airlines. Why? Because of a sudden and surprise wage increase at American Air (AAL) - Get Free Report at the same time as a rare miss in earnings for Southwest Airlines (LUV) - Get Free Report and the $10,000-per-head reimbursement you might get if you are bumped by United Airlines (UAL) - Get Free Report --triggered by the most viral video I can recall, the passenger being dragged kicking and screaming off an overbooked flight. There's nothing like an executive talking on the Today show about taking actions that will make things less profitable for an airline and heralding them to drive a stock down. (Southwest Airlines is part of TheStreet's Action Alerts PLUS portfolio.)

Yet what's the biggest determinant of airline profitability? The cost of fuel. In the old days, a move down in oil would have been enough to spur a nice gain. Here it can even offset it!

Now, you want a tax cut? I listened and calculated and listened some more to the lawmakers on Squawk Box this morning and the executive-branch-speak about plans to cut corporate taxes, and I can tell you that while I am sure they will spur growth, the discourse was strictly on pay-to-play. If President Trump wants his corporate tax cut, he is going to have to raise taxes somehow or the people in his own party will stymie him as surely as repeal-and-replace was stymied. The Republicans in the House are in no mood for further deficit spending.

But you want a real tax cut? It is the one that is coming from oil and gas, which impacts every business. When you have the kind of declines we are getting, you are going to see businesses of all types doing better. Of course, that means nothing to the markets because all they care about is that each dollar down is a signal that commodity prices are going down, so therefore business activity must be slowing.

The machines that are in control of this market are as dumb as those who program them. We talk about machine learning and artificial intelligence, but the linkage just doesn't work.

The fact is, we are finding much more oil here than we thought, about 100,000 barrels more per month, at the same time that we are beginning to really see the oil wells drilled post-Macondo in the Gulf coming in.

Our oil companies are making a great deal of money here because our finding costs have gone down so much that it pays to ramp production. But there's no place to put it. Without OPEC cutting back, we are sowing the seeds of our own price destruction.

I have been saying that when oil was at $53, you had to sell it and trim the stock holdings because it is going back to $47, where I do expect to see the longs blow out at the same time that the Saudis will make their pronouncements of cuts. We will be oversold.

Still, it doesn't matter. The insanity continues and because of it we can't mount the rally that should be occurring if it weren't for the crude falling a buck and a quarter.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long LUV.

Action Alerts PLUS, which Cramer co-manages as a charitable trust, is long LUV.


Saudi Aramco, the state-owned Saudi Arabian oil firm, has cut its pricing for June oil exports to Asia but increased pricing to all other regions, Bloomberg reports.

The Saudi oil conglomerate cut its official pricing for Light Arab crude to Asia by 40 cents to an 85% discount to the regional benchmark.

By contrast, Aramco increased the pricing on all grades of oil for U.S. sales for the second consecutive month. It also raised pricing for Europe and the Mediterranean.

Saudi Aramco is expected to be the biggest initial public offering in history when it launches next year.
WestRock Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides fiber-based paper and packaging solutions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It operates through two segments, Corrugated Packaging and Consumer Packaging. The Corrugated Packaging segment produces containerboards, corrugated sheets, corrugated packaging, and preprinted linerboards to consumer and industrial products manufacturers, and corrugated box manufacturers. It also provides structural and graphic design, engineering services and custom, and proprietary and standard automated packaging machines, as well as turn-key installation, automation, line integration, and packaging solutions; distributes corrugated packaging materials and other specialty packaging products, including stretch films, void fills, carton sealing tapes, and other specialty tapes; operates recycling facilities that collect, sort, grade, and bale recovered paper; and provides lithographic laminated packaging products, as well as contract packing services. The Consumer Packaging segment manufactures and sells folding cartons that are used to package food, paper, beverages, dairy products, tobacco, confectionery, health and beauty, other household consumer, and commercial and industrial products; and express mail packages for the overnight courier industry. It also offers inserts and labels, as well as rigid packaging and other printed packaging products, such as transaction cards, brochures, product literature, marketing materials, and grower tags and plant stakes for the horticultural market; and secondary packages and paperboard packaging for over-the-counter and prescription drugs. In addition, this segment manufactures and sells solid fiber and corrugated partitions, and die-cut paperboard components principally to glass container manufacturers and the automotive industry, as well as producers of beer, food, wine, spirits, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. WestRock Company is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court today ordered the medical examination of Calcutta High Court Judge Justice CS Karnan in a contempt case for accusing 20 current and former judges of higher judiciary of corruption.

The apex court has directed Calcutta government hospital to constitute a board for medical examination of Karnan.

SC has also directed Director General of Police to form a team of police officials to assist with the medical board. The apex court bench led by Justice Kehar ordered Calcutta government hospital doctors to examine Justice Karnan on May 4 and submit a report by May 8.

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The Supreme Court also said that Justice Karnan may submit a response if he likes. The Supreme Court had earlier restrained courts or tribunals to take cognizance of orders passed by Karnan.

Justice Karnan had earlier banned eight Supreme Court judges, including Chief Justice J S Kehar from travelling abroad. He had also ordered CJI Kehar and seven other SC judges to appear before him.

The seven judges had issued a suo motu contempt order against Karnan in February after he had in January named 20 "corrupt judges", seeking probe against them to curb "high corruption" in the Indian judiciary.

Sources said that the order came after senior advocate K K Venugopal requested the bench to defer contempt of court proceedings against Justice Karnan who is expected to retire in June this year.

The CJI reportedly said that the judiciary must deal with Karnan or lose face and stated that further hearing of the case will be held on May 18.

ALSO READ:

Justice Karnan orders ban on travelling of Chief Justice and 7 Supreme Court judges

Justice CS Karnan issues suo-moto order against CJI, 6 other Supreme Court judges

ALSO WATCH | Supreme Court orders medical examination for Justice Karnan

--- ENDS ---
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.
Bahrain-based Youth Pioneer Society has been recognised in a global competition designed to generate ideas for youth empowerment and create positive social impact.



The MiSK NGO Award for Innovation in Youth Empowerment, organized by the Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Foundation (MiSK), will be presented as part of the Unesco NGO Global Forum taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from May 3-4.



Hosted by MiSK, the forum will see more than 400 NGOs from around the world gather together for two days of discussion, learning and brainstorming on how civil society can accelerate youth empowerment to create positive social impact. A number of other Bahraini organizations are attending the forum, including the Environment Friends Society and the Youth & Technology Society.



The competition received over 70 entries from NGOs around the world, and the five finalists will now have the opportunity to win a $30,000 prize fund to be used as seed capital that will put the winning project into practice to help young people effect positive social change.



Youth Pioneer Societys idea was the Youth Parliamentarian program, designed to bring together both youth and Bahraini parliamentarians together in an open forum. The program, which targets participants  both male and female  between the ages of 18 and 25, aims to unite decision makers, stakeholders and public officials in charge of youth welfare programs, as well as the youth themselves, in order to organize constructive dialogue. The end result, it hopes, will be independent youth leaders, and active citizens capable of informed decision-making.



Commenting ahead of the forum, Bader Alasaker, MiSK secretary general, said: With over 1,600 delegates from around the world attending, we know that they will bring boundless passion and expertise to keep the sessions at the forum focused on achieving practical, effective outcomes which empower youth.



Governments can legislate and regulate but it is imperative that civil society and NGOs effect change. This event shows that there is a strong desire for people to want to make a difference, and it is our hope that the ideas borne out of the competition bear tangible fruit in the near future.



The NGOs and delegates present at the conference will be joined by a host of renowned speakers  including Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, as well as nine-time Olympic Gold medallist Carl Lewis. Speakers and delegates will be leading a number of workshops and sessions that aim to tackle issues such as sustainability, culture and technology.



The MiSK Foundation was founded by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman with a mission to empower, nurture and inspire Saudi Arabias youth to become active participants in the global economy. It is a non-profit organisation which works to develop a knowledge-based economy by promoting practical schemes to support young people in developing the right entrepreneurial and cognitive skills. - TradeArabia News Service


Oman Air, the national carrier of the Sultanate, has launched a new daily flight WY105 from Muscat to Manchester, UK.



The new service will depart Muscat at 14.00 hrs daily and arrive in Manchester at 19.05hrs. The return flight will be from Manchester at 20.45hrs arriving in Muscat at 07.20hrs the next day.



The inaugural flight departed from Muscat after a cake cutting ceremony attended by the CEO of Oman Air, a host of high ranking dignitaries and the Oman Air senior management team and media. Upon arrival in Manchester, the flight was greeted by the Lord Mayor of Manchester and other senior Manchester Airport officials.



The daily flight to Manchester, operated by an A330-200, is Oman Airs third daily frequency to the UK.



As well as being the only direct service between Muscat and Manchester in the north of England, the flight will open up easy access to Oman Airs outstanding range of destinations for customers from both Muscat and Manchester with over 27 destinations having connectivity inside of three hours in both directions.  TradeArabia News Service
Allianz Global Assistance's Survey Shows Safety Concerns and Fear of Communism are Beginning to Fade, But Travelers are Needing More Travel Information, Infrastructure and Internet Accessibility

A year since the U.S. government's easing of travel restrictions to Cuba, an annual survey* by Allianz Global Assistance is reporting that Americans are less interested in taking a trip to the country than in 2016.

The 2017 survey showed that 40 percent of Americans would be interested in taking a trip to Cuba (two percent fewer than in 2016) while the easing of travel restrictions made just 26 percent of Americans more interested in visiting the country (nine percent fewer than 2016). Seventy-six percent reported being unlikely to plan a trip to Cuba (six percent more than 2016).

While safety concerns (38 percent in 2017/ six percent lower than in 2016) and fear of communist government (12 percent in 2017/ three percent lower than in 2016) were major anxieties for Americans in 2016, those worries appear to be weakening this year. Instead, lack of information on Cuba's travel experiences (22 percent in 2017/ four percent higher than in 2016), travel infrastructure (13 percent in 2017/ one percent higher than in 2016) and internet/mobile connectivity (nine percent in 2017/ two percent higher than in 2016) are the factors making Americans less interested and likely to travel to Cuba.

Resorts and beaches (32 percent/ one percent less than in 2016) remain the hot ticket items that would make Americans most interested and likely to travel to Cuba. That is still ahead of Cuba's cultural attractions (23 percent/ one percent less than in 2016), Cuban food and rum (13 percent/ two percent higher than in 2016), the Cuban people (nine percent/ three percent less than in 2016), classic 1950s American cars (nine percent/ same as 2016), Cuban cigars (seven percent/ two percent higher than in 2016) and family and friends (seven percent/ two percent higher than in 2016).

The survey also measured sentiment and discovered that 34 percent of Americans think Cuba has changed for the better because of as a result of the U.S. having eased travel restrictions to the country.

"Our survey found that merely two percent of Americans think they will go to Cuba in the next six months, two percent believe they will make it there by the end of 2017 and 10 percent think they will go sometime in 2018," said Daniel Durazo, director of communications at Allianz Global Assistance USA. "Airlines continue to change their services to Cuba, while cruise lines are revving up sailings to the island. It will be interesting to see how this affects visitors' interest. It may be having initial effects as Allianz's cruise survey from earlier in the year showed that 17 percent of Americans felt the recent announcements of cruise lines adding sailings to Cuba made them more interested in visiting the country."

The survey also found that 15 percent of Americans believe the peace of mind of having travel insurance would make them more interested in traveling to Cuba.

*Methodology: The 2017 10-question survey was administered to the U.S. internet population from April 11, 2017 through April 13, 2017, receiving 1,514 responses. The methodology is explained here and a snapshot of survey findings are listed below:

Response 2016 2017 % change Does the easing of travel restrictions on travel to Cuba make you more or less interested in visiting the country? Did the easing of restrictions last year on travel to Cuba make you more or less interested in visiting the country? More Interested 35% 26% -9% Less Interested 8% 7% -1% No Change 57% 67% +10% After the U.S. Government's recent announcement easing travel restrictions to Cuba, would you like to travel to Cuba? A year after the U.S. Government's easing of travel restrictions to Cuba in 2016, would you be interested in taking a trip to Cuba? Yes, I would like to travel to Cuba 42% 40% -2% No, I would not like to travel to Cuba 58% 60% +2% How likely are you to actually plan a trip to Cuba? Very Likely 7% 5% -2% Somewhat Likely 22% 19% -3% Not Likely 70% 76% +6% If you feel likely to take a trip to Cuba, when do you think you will go? In the next 6 months 2% 2% 0% (Within the same year) Sometime in 2016  2% Sometime in 2017  2% 0% (Sometime in the next year) Sometime in 2017  10% Sometime in 2018  10% 0% I don't know 34% 28% -6% I don't feel likely to take a trip to Cuba 53% 59% +6% What makes you less interested/likely to travel to Cuba? Safety concerns 44% 38% -6% Lack of information on Cuba's travel experiences 18% 22% +4% Fear of communist government 15% 12% -3% Lack of travel infrastructure 12% 13% +1% Lack of internet/ mobile connectivity 7% 9% +2% Lack of appropriate healthcare facilities 6% 6% 0% What would make you most interested/likely to travel to Cuba? Resorts and beaches 33% 32% -1% Cultural attractions 24% 23% -1% The Cuban people 12% 9% -3% Cuban food and Cuban rum 11% 13% +2% Classic 1950s American cars 9% 9% 0% Cuban cigars 5% 7% +2% Family/friends 5% 7% +2% Do you expect Cuba to change for the better or worse as a result of the U.S. easing travel restrictions to the country? Do you think Cuba has changed for the better or worse as a result of the U.S. having eased travel restrictions to the country last year? Better 55% 34% N/A Worse 8% 6% N/A No Change 38% 60% N/A What negative changes do you expect opening Cuba to U.S. travelers will have on the country? What negative changes do you think opening Cuba to U.S. travelers has had on the country over the last year? I don't expect any negative changes / I don't think negative changes have occurred 39% 52% N/A Rapid modernization; Cuba's not ready for it 13% 10% N/A The next Cancun; a theme park for tourists 13% 10% N/A A loss of Cuban culture 11% 10% N/A An increase in all-inclusive resort hotels 10% 5% N/A Worse lives for Cuban people 7% 8% N/A Overcrowding of world-heritage sites 7% 6% N/A Are you concerned the influx of American travelers over the years will ruin the timeless feeling of the country? Very concerned 7% 7% 0% Concerned 12% 8% -4% Mildly concerned 19% 17% -2% Neutral 29% 29% 0% Not concerned, it will not change 14% 14% 0% Not concerned, it will change for the better 20% 25% +5% Would the peace of mind of having travel insurance change your interest in traveling to Cuba? Yes, more interested with travel insurance 14% 15% +1% No, it doesn't address my concerns 45% 39% -6% Unchanged, I don't want to travel to Cuba 41% 46% +5%

Allianz Global Assistance offers travel insurance through most major U.S. airlines, leading travel agents, online travel agencies, other travel suppliers and directly to consumers.

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Five Tamil Nadu fishermen were arrested today by the Sri Lankan Navy for allegedly fishing in their territory.

By Promod Madhav: The arrest of five Indian Tamil fishermen, while diplomatic talks were to begin about solving the border issue, has sent shock waves among the Tamil fishermen community.

The fishermen from Thalaimannar were arrested between Pamban and Dhanushkodi for allegedly crossing international waters. Tamil fishermen have maintained that there is no demarcation between Sri Lankan and Indian waters and the distance is very less.

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Also as a ban has been imposed from 14th April for 45 days in Tamil Nadu to allow fish spawning, fishermen only use country boats and claim that there was no need for the Sri Lankan Navy to be such aggressive.

The community also raised questions about Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to Delhi where he has promised to solve this issue in the near future.

Fishermen community have strongly urged Prime Minister Modi to take up the issue with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena as he would visit the island nation on May 11th and requested that the joint patrolling of the sea by both nations' defence forces should be brought back for their welfare.

ALSO READ:

Sri Lankan Navy arrests 12 Tamil Nadu fishermen, seizes two trawler boats

--- ENDS ---
Russian backed militants launched 54 attacks on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) zone in Donbas over the past day, the ATO press center reports.

In Mariupol direction, Russian backed soldiers used 120mm and 82mm mortars, grenade launchers and small arms to shell the Ukrainian positions near Vodiane, Hnutove and Shyrokyne. The militants also used grenade launchers of various systems and heavy machine guns near Mariynka. In addition, the Ukrainian positions near Pavlopil and Krasnohorivka were shelled from anti-tank grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. The enemy also used heavy machine guns on the Ukrainian positions near Novohryhorivka, and small arms near Lebedynske and Chermalyk. Also, enemy snipers were active near Mariynka, Bohdanivka and Vodiane.

In Donetsk direction, the Russian-backed terrorists launched attacks on the Ukrainian positions using 120mm and 82mm artillery, grenade launchers of various systems, large caliber machine guns, small arms, mortars, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. In particular, the enemy used grenade launchers near Butovka coal mine and Zaitseve, while heavy machine guns were used near Troitske. The villages of Kamianka and Pisky were shelled by heavy machine guns and small arms.

In Luhansk direction, the Russian-backed militants used 120mm mortars to attack the Ukrainian positions near Katerynivka. Grenade launchers, 82mm mortars and heavy machine guns were used near the villages of Novozvanivka and Troitske. Moreover, the enemy used grenade launchers of various systems to shell the Ukrainian positions near Popasna, Krymske, Valuiske and Stanytsia Luhanska, and small arms near the village of Lobacheve.

iy
On May 1-14, Ukrinform will be a platform for the work and meetings of foreign journalists who arrived in Kyiv for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017.

During this period, the Ukrainian National News Agency Ukrinform jointly with the Informational Policy Ministry will hold events to promote Ukraine's image in the world, represent Ukrainian ethnic, historical and cultural traditions with the participation of volunteers and public organizations, the Informational Policy Ministrys press service reports.

Information Policy Minister Yuriy Stets noted: "Im very pleased that this project is being implemented with the help of the Student Council at the Information Policy Ministry. This is an example of achieving the result, when the government body (the Information Policy Ministry), journalists (Ukrinform), public organizations (in particular, the Institute of International Relations Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University) are united.

The Ukrainian National News Agency Ukrinform is the national information partner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. On May 1-14, the ArtHub of Ukrinform will be one of locations where foreign media representatives can meet, work and communicate.

ArtHub guests are welcome for creative meetings with musicians, designers and photographers. Here, one can get acquainted with the culture and traditions of various regions of Ukraine, including Crimea and Zakarpattia.

iy
The faction led by Panneerselvam is not ready to to the negotiation table without their demands being met, which has led to the delay in talk.

The merger of OPS and EPS factions seems to be getting delayed once again, after the OPS faction set two conditions for the merger.

The OPS faction wants enquiry into the death of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and ouster of Sasikala, and her family from the AIADMK. The OPS team is not willing to come to the negotiation table without these demands being met.

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However, the EPS team continues to ask the OPS faction to come forward for the talks.

Commenting on the merger Municipal Administration Minister SP Velumani said, "We are ready for talks with the OPS team. We want to retrieve the two-leaves symbol. We have distanced TTV Dinakaran from the party, respecting the sentiments of the cadre. Though there are affidavits by both the factions, all this will be withdrawn once we unite. We are ready to talk whenever OPS team comes to talk. Both the factions will unite surely."

Meanwhile, the OPS faction of the AIADMK claims that unless the demands are met, there is no point in meeting. "How can we go for talks without the basic demands being met," said KC Palanisamy of the OPS faction.

The EPS-OPS merger rumours started after some ministers met Dinakaran on April 14 and demanded that tainted minister Vijayabhaskar be reprimanded. After Dinakaran's arrest by the Delhi Police, the EPS faction has been more keen on the merger. However, despite forming committees both the factions don't seem to be moving ahead.

India Today spoke to leaders from both the sides and these are the reasons they listed out for the delay:

1. Though OPS faction doesn't call it a primary demand, they want the CM chair which EPS is not willing to give up.

2. EPS has support of around 40 MLAs, of which 10 are hardcore Dinakaran supporters who don't want a merger.

3. EPS team is hoping that if there is support from the BJP, then they can continue the government for the remaining period without OPS.

4. OPS faction, which initially was supported by the BJP, now feels that the party is holding talks simultaneously with EPS as Dinkaran has gone to jail.

5. Minister SP Velumani is keen on a merger

6. There are around 80 MLAs who want the merger of the two factions

7. OPS team is also adamant on demands and not ready to sit for talks without conditions not being met

Talking about the BJP also trying to gain some ground in Tamil Nadu, KC Palanisamy said, "If the AIADMK is divided, the political field in Tamil Nadu should not be shifted between the DMK versus the BJP."

In the last few days, the DMK and the BJP have been hitting out at each other over the anti-Hindi agitation and allegations of selective raids of Tamil Nadu ministers.

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Also read: Two leaves to live

Also read: OPS camp wants 3 demands met before merger of AIADMK factions: Ma Foi Pandiarajan

--- ENDS ---
During the hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, special events will be held in the ArtHub of Ukrinform to tell people about real traditions, historical and cultural heritage of Ukraine.

Ukrinform Director General Oleksandr Kharchenko stated this during the opening of the exhibition WOW, Ukraine! in the ArtHub.

We have opportunity to help foreign journalists to see bright, democratic Ukraine  a country with rich traditions," Kharchenko said.

He noted that about 1.5 thousand foreign journalists will arrive in Ukraine for the Eurovision Song Contest, among whom there will be political journalists as well.

"Id like them, after they see whats happening in Ukraine, to be able to convey the truth about our state, about the war that is being waged against us, about whats really happening today in Kyiv and Ukraine," Kharchenko said.

He also stressed that the ArtHub of Ukrinform will host special events to promote Ukrainian ethnic, historical and cultural heritage.

We hope that our colleagues will take away with them the most positive emotions and memories and will deliver them to their readers and listeners in Europe and, probably, in the world," the Ukrinform director general said.

iy
The etiology of prostate cancer continues to be poorly understood, including the role of occupation. Past Canadian studies have not been able to thoroughly examine prostate cancer by occupation with detailed information on individual level factors.

Occupation, industry and prostate cancer were examined using data from the National Enhanced Cancer Surveillance System, a large population-based case-control study conducted across eight Canadian provinces from 1994 to 1997. This analysis included 1737 incident cases and 1803 controls aged 50 to 79 years. Lifetime occupational histories were used to group individuals by occupation and industry employment. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated and adjustments were made for known and possible risk factors.

By occupation, elevated risks were observed in farming and farm management (OR=1.37, 95% CI 1.02-1.84), armed forces (OR=1.33, 95% CI 1.06-1.65) and legal work (OR=2.58, 95% CI 1.05-6.35). Elevated risks were also observed in office work (OR=1.20, 95% CI 1.00-1.43) and plumbing (OR=1.77, 95% CI 1.07-2.93) and with 10 years duration of employment. Decreased risks were observed in senior management (OR=0.65, 95% CI 0.46-0.91), construction management (OR=0.69, 95% CI 0.50-0.94) and travel work (OR=0.37, 95% CI 0.16-0.88). Industry results were similar to occupation results, except for an elevated risk in forestry/logging (OR=1.54, 95% CI 1.06-2.25) and a decreased risk in primary metal products (OR=0.70, 95% CI 0.51-0.96).

This study presents associations between occupation, industry and prostate cancer, while accounting for individual level factors. Further research is needed on potential job-specific exposures and screening behaviours.

Cancer epidemiology. 2017 Apr 26 [Epub ahead of print]

Jeavana Sritharan, Paul A Demers, Shelley A Harris, Donald C Cole, Cheryl E Peters, Canadian Cancer Registries Epidemiology Research Group

Occupational Cancer Research Centre, Cancer Care Ontario, Canada; Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: ., Occupational Cancer Research Centre, Cancer Care Ontario, Canada; Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto, Canada; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada., Occupational Cancer Research Centre, Cancer Care Ontario, Canada; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada., Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada., Department of Health Sciences, Carleton University, Canada; Institut Armand-Frappier, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Canada; CHAIM Research Centre, Carleton University, Canada.

PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28456092
A Liberian forestry authority says a mob of people have killed two forestry staffers who had arrested 20 people for hunting illegally in Liberia's Sarpo National Park.

Forestry Development Authority managing director Darlington Tuagben said Monday that the two staffers found a new base set up by illegal hunters and arrested 20 of them on Thursday in the protected rainforest park which covers more than 100 hectares (247 acres) in Liberia's southeast. He said a mob in support of illegal hunting then formed and attacked, killing the two staffers using shot guns, machetes and sticks.



Tuagben said that those monitoring and protecting the park do not even carry pistols.



Hunters mainly target wild monkeys and deer that are protected in the national park.



Police said they are investigating the killings.
WGN is one of the television stations owned by Tribune Media. It is also an AM radio station serving the Chicago area (Kiichiro Sato/AP)

Rupert Murdochs 21st Century Fox, which owns 28 U.S. television stations, reportedly plans to join the bidding to buy Tribune Medias 42 television stations  a potential multibillion-dollar deal that would make Fox the nations largest single broadcast station owner.

But this can only happen if government regulators relax restrictions aimed at discouraging media consolidation. And Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has been busy signaling that he intends to do just that.

Since President Trump elevated Pai to lead the agency in January, the FCC has changed rules and made public statements announcing that it intends to scale back limits placed on station ownership. Just last week Pai told the National Association of Broadcasters at its annual convention in Las Vegas: The last thing broadcasting  or any industry, for that matter  needs is outdated regulations standing in its way.

Thats could be good news for Fox, which is in talks with investment firm Blackstone Group to jointly go after Tribune Media, the TV arm of what was once the Tribune Co., according to published reports. Foxs interest was first reported by the Financial Times.

Another potential Tribune Media suitor is Sinclair Broadcast Group, the Maryland-based company that runs 173 television stations spread across the country.

If either Fox or Sinclair bought Tribune, they would blow past current FCC limits.

Both Fox and Sinclair are run by conservative-leaning executives, and their television operations have been accused of doling out coverage that favors Republicans and Trump, especially during the run-up to last Novembers election.

Murdoch founded Fox, which includes several divisions, including Fox News. Sinclair caught attention for a series of sit-down interviews with Trump during the election while not providing the same coverage of Hillary Clinton. Last week, Sinclair hired Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump communications staffer, as its chief political analyst.

In addition, Blackstone chief executive Stephen Schwarzman was a major Trump donor and informal economic adviser. Blackstone, Fox and Sinclair could not be reached for comment.

I have no problem with broadcast TV having viewpoints and perspectives, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman of Georgetown University Law Centers Institute for Public Representation, which has sued over previous attempts by the FCC to loosen TV ownership rules. I do have a problem with cronyism and the possibility that regulatory decisions will be made because people are well-regarded by an administration.

Murdoch has made no secret of his displeasure with FCC regulations on media ownership. In 2014, he was upset that Fox was barred from bidding for the Los Angeles Times because his company owned two TV stations in the Los Angeles market, violating FCC rules on cross-ownership of media properties.

Sorry cant buy Trib group or LA Times  cross-ownership laws from another age still in place, Murdoch tweeted.

Mark Fratrik, chief economist at advisory firm BIA/Kelsey, said TV companies clearly preferred this Republican-led FCCs direction over a continuation of the last eight years.

But, Fratrik said, I wouldnt characterize this as paying back Sinclair and Fox for their support.

He said he was surprised Fox was considering buying Tribune because company leaders recently said they were not on the hunt for more acquisitions. Fox is still waiting for British authorities to sign off on its plan to assume full control of British satellite broadcaster Sky.

The FCC has been debating changing ownership restrictions on broadcast TV stations for years because of increased competition from cable and online options. Three decades ago, 60 percent of U.S. households had broadcast-only television. Last year, that number was 17 percent, according to market researcher GfK. Interestingly, that number has grown modestly in recent years.

Under current rules, the national TV audience that any single owner can reach with its stations is capped at 39 percent.

Last month, Pais FCC reinstated a rule that helps station owners get around that cap. The so-called UHF discount allows stations to count just 50 percent of its audience from UHF stations toward the audience cap. The rule dates back to 1985, when the broadcast dial was split between VHF (Channel 13 and below) and UHF (Channel 14 and higher), and UHF transmission had a more limited range. That difference was mostly eliminated with the switch to digital broadcast television.

The UHF discount had been dropped by the FCC, then under Democratic appointee control, just last September  a move that Fox and Sinclair opposed.

The return of the UHF discount was seen by analysts as opening the door for Sinclair to buy Tribune, since Sinclair needs help to stay below the 39 percent cap. Fox, too, would benefit from the discount.

Bernstein Research calculated that while allowing for some double-counting, permitting Fox to buy Tribune would essentially double the coverage and size of Foxs TV station group.

Another current FCC regulation that could hinder Fox or Sinclairs purchase of Tribune is the local ownership rule. That prohibits any owner from running more than two stations in most markets and prohibiting the same owner for any two of the top-four rated stations.

In Washington alone, for example, Fox owns two broadcast stations, WDCA and WTTG. Adding Tribunes WDCW might violate FCC rules.

Similar problems could crop up in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, among other cities.

FCC chief Pai, a Republican, frequently has called for relaxing TV ownership rules since joining the commission in 2012.

At the broadcasters convention, he made his case again, saying he wanted to make sure that our rules keep up with the times.

He pointed out how important broadcast TV remains, despite increased competition, especially when it comes to local news. Pai noted that when the Pew Research Center asked adults which forms of media they used to learn about the presidential elections, the most common answer was local television news  outpacing online sources, cable or newspapers.

And if Fox or Sinclair buy Tribune, one of them will control more local television news than anyone else.
"In particular, the constantly evolving threat from terrorism is our shared worry. I held an extensive conversion with the Turkish president on this subject. We agreed that no intent or goal or reason or rationale can validate terrorism," Modi said after the meeting.

The Turkish leader arrived here yesterday on a two-day visit and held comprehensive discussions with Modi where they took stock of full range of bilateral relations, including political and economic.

Addressing a joint press event with Erdogan, Modi said, "We live in times where our societies face new threats and challenges every day. The context and contours of some of the exiting and emerging security challenges globally are our common concern."

Modi also strongly pitched for the need to work as one to disrupt the terrorist networks and their financing and put a stop to cross-border movement of terrorists, in an obvious reference to Pakistan-based terror outfits.

"President (Erdogan) and I agreed to work together to strengthen our cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to effectively counter this menace," the prime minister added.

On his part, Erdogan said his country will always be with India in its battle against terrorism. "And terrorists will be drowned in the blood they shed."

Ahead of his visit to India, Erdogan had pitched for a multilateral dialogue to resolve the Kashmir issue to ensure peace in the region.

"We should not allow more casualties to occur (in Kashmir). By having a multilateral dialogue, (in which) we can be involved, we can seek ways to settle the issue once and for all," he had told a TV channel in an interview.

The remarks are contrary to the position of India, which maintains that the Jammu and Kashmir issue is a bilateral matter between it and Pakistan, and that there is no scope for a third party mediation.
He wont thank me for saying so, but Dominic Dromgoole is probably better at writing prose than directing tragedies, just as Anthony Bourdain writes better than he cooks. You might think of Dromgooles new book, Hamlet Globe to Globe, as the Shakespearean equivalent of Bourdains TV series, Parts Unknown. Both offer us irresistible samples of what Dromgoole calls good eating and gargantuan drinking with off-kilter characters in out-of-our-way places.

Dromgoole also offers us Hamlet, as served up by 12 actors on a grand tour of almost 200 countries in the 104 weeks between the 450th anniversary of Shakespeares birth and the 400th anniversary of his death. The end of the tour, in April 2016, coincided with the end of Dromgooles 11-year run as artistic director of Shakespeares Globe Theatre.

Dromgoole began his reign at the Globe with another book, Will and Me: How Shakespeare Took Over My Life, which won the first Sheridan Morley prize for best theater biography. Hamlet Globe to Globe should win something, too, but book prizes depend on pigeonholes, and this bird is hard to categorize. Shakespeare never wrote a well-made play, and Dromgoole doesnt write well-made books. He has no tidy scholastic thesis; academics and tidiness irritate him. He is not pushing a new interpretation of the play or the playwright. Instead, like any good memoirist, he bounces unpredictably from revenge and the Islamic State to Istanbul and an ode to scaffolding.

Uniformity on stage breaks my heart, he declares. It is not a suitable response to plays or a world full of dappled things. Variety is his first commandment. And the second: No hierarchies in the saucepan.

That aesthetic principle, or unprincipled aesthetic, makes him a natural tour guide for global Shakespeare. Polonius describes the itinerant actors in Hamlet as hyper-hyphenated specialists in pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral. In the same vein, Polonius might describe Dromgoole as foodie, travel writer, gossipy theatrical memoirist, literary critic, political commentator and, compounded with all these, comedian  usually, like the best comedians, laughing at himself.

On the first page, Dromgoole is already confessing that his grand plan for the 2012 Shakespeare Olympics had captured the imagination in the way only stupid ideas can. (The best explanation yet for President Trump and Brexit.) From every stop on the tour, he brings back souvenir absurdities, such as a billboard advertising The First Indigenous Laughter School in Africa. He turns the entire companys gastrointestinal disaster in Mexico City into a masterpiece of escalating farce. His encounter with the German theatre-god director Thomas Ostermeier is, he cheerfully admits, the most infantile contest of directorial egos.

Dromgoole the marketing impresario sometimes wanders into pompous cliches of Shakes-praise, but he is always saved by his directorial gift for particularity. Every performance of Hamlet that he describes as his plucky crew spirals round the planet is an experience as specific as each venue, from the deadening fascist architecture of the state theater of Ethiopia (a tyrants dream transformed into a rubbish bin) to a beautiful late 19th-century Swedish theater (in tidy proportion for the single-room plays of Ibsen and Strindberg) to a sand-stormed shack in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.

The English company had trouble negotiating with North Korea. (Who knew it would be so complicated?) But there is something deliciously unpredictable, and yet perfect, about Pyongyangs final offer: The actors would be granted passports to perform Hamlet, but only if they agreed not to speak. The rest is silence.

All the touring actors rotated in and out of roles, so that eventually they had all played every part. This unique carousel system epitomizes both the strength and the weakness of Dromgooles approach. Yes, Shakespeare belonged to an ensemble joint-stock company of actors; but no, they did not all play Hamlet. Richard Burbage was the companys star, the leading living actor of Shakespeares time, and Shakespeare wrote Hamlet for Burbage to play. The script contains plenty of good parts, but it is dominated by one sovereign role so demanding that few actors can embody it convincingly enough to hypnotize an audience, or a generation.

Dromgoole and his company are better at comedy than tragedy. Why? Because they are better at ensembles than at titanic individual genius. The artist who stands out, at Dromgooles Globe, is not the star actor, but the artistic director. Not surprisingly, Dromgooles Hamlet production and his Hamlet book are better at capturing the humor than the horror. This Hamlet is not a tragedy about a doomed genius bounded in a nutshell, but a comic epic about company management.

Im not complaining. You will enjoy this book if, like me, you would rather reread Laurence Sternes Tristram Shandy than Samuel Richardsons Clarissa. Just dont expect Dromgoole to rise to the challenge of Cambodias killing fields, or South Sudans blood-spattered chaos. After all, the muse of mass death is Christopher Marlowe, not Shakespeare. The body count at the end of Hamlet is tragic, but Shakespeare never reaches for the genocidal sublime, and neither does Dromgoole. He offers us, instead, a powerful communal bull---- detector. Right now, I can imagine no gift more needed.

Gary Taylor is general editor of The New Oxford Shakespeare.
In John Updikes Rabbit at Rest, theres an agitated scene between Janice Angstrom and her bumbling adult son in which she tells him: You shouldnt sit in judgment of your parents. We did the best we could while being people too. Thats weak reprieve for any loving parent: Our best is hardly good enough. We damage our children one way or we damage them another. Many return to indict us for it. Some write memoirs, and every memoir of Mom and Dad, like it or not, is an indictment.

(Karen Robinson/The author Richard Ford)

Richard Fords new memoir, Between Them, makes clear the enormous difficulty of truly knowing that enigmatic pair who invented us. Fords parents brought him up in Jackson, Miss. Parker Ford was a traveling salesman for a starch company, Edna his on-the-road love and lover. Their life together began just before World War II in time-stuck nooks of Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas. An only child, Richard arrived, unplanned but half-hoped for, in 1944. Part of the intermittent charm of this memoir is its restoration of that deleted era, a contemplative delving into what now seems antiquity: the traveling salesman, the town square and Main Street, a doctors house calls, the tingling novelty of a new model of American car.

Throughout Fords childhood, his father was usually gone, a force largely unseen, and then one morning he was gone for good. His heart had final say. Ford was 16 years old. Parkers absence had been the ordinary, identifying dimension of everything, and at his death, of course, everything changed  many things, its odd to say, for the better where I was concerned. He was granted the liberty to do as he pleased, to assemble his own selfhood, away from the flare of that flawed and combustible man. At such an age, a boy could do worse, says Ford, than to lose his father.

Well, not by much. Its hard to dodge Freuds inkling that the death of the father is the most psychically disruptive event in any males life, and yet Ford manages to dodge it here. Hes unaccountably incurious about his 16-year-old self and the rip his fathers death must have caused at the hub of him.

Ford saves the bulk of his understanding and insight for his mother, whose life after Parkers death played in anguished slo-mo: the resigned quest for an occupation and identity, the tedium punctuated by boredom, the cancer that erased her in her 70s. She never remarried. Her life, Ford writes, never seemed fully lived  the saddest line in the book. Hers was a manner of uncomplaining integrity, the everyday quiet desperation Thoreau lamented. Ford loved her as he could, mostly from afar, while laboring to create what he would become, yanked between vying loyalties. Guilt is a given. With an ailing and alienated parent, guilt is always a given.

At just 175 pages, spattered with I dont know and Im not sure, Between Them is a wisp of a book. It might seem incomplete or lacking, Ford says, and it certainly does, though he claims he has excluded nothing for discretion or proprietys sake, but only because one recollection or another didnt seem important enough. That might be true, but a memoir isnt, or shouldnt be, a conveyor belt of recollections. Its importance will reside in whatever mosaic emerges from a lifes morass, and in how searchingly one considers ones own founding and formation.

At its strongest, with simply etched sentences and slow stabs of wisdom, this memoir conjures Rock Springs, Fords faultless 1987 story collection: Most everything but love goes away; the persuasive power of normal life is extravagant; old photos are scalloped black-and-whites. At its weakest, though, Fords prose mopes with at-hand utterances: part and parcel, pride and joy, this and that.

Tauntingly childless  I hate children, he once said  Ford admits: What I know of children and childhood and of being a parent, I know almost entirely from being my parents son. Which of course wont do, if knowledge of parenthood is what youre after. And theres something else: In his memoir Experience, Martin Amis suggests that the childless never really comprehend their parents, are never able really to forgive them for their influential inadequacies. One wonders how the vista of Between Them would have been widened if Ford had kids to clue him in to the essence of his own parents, or if hed been more interested in how the trajectory of their lives plotted his own. What did their lives mean?

But he has attempted a gentle reckoning here, his own exertion of mercy and mourning  his parents breathe in him still  and the attempt alone makes a loving homage.

William Giraldi is the author, most recently, of a memoir, The Heros Body.

On Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Richard Ford will be in conversation with Maureen Corrigan at George Mason University in Dewberry Hall North, Johnson Center, Fairfax, Va. This event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center.


Tracy Conyer Lee and Eric Messner in Robert Schenkkans Building the Wall from Forum Theatre. (Teresa Castracane )

The weekend marking the Trump administrations first 100 days saw the Washington debut of a high-profile coast-to-coast resistance play, Robert Schenkkans gloomy, calculatingly shocking Building the Wall. How bad could things get? Schenkkan methodically walks us through a series of policy initiatives and plausible public catastrophes to cook up a gruesome dystopia akin to the 20th and 21st centurys cruelest atrocities.

Notoriously, theater never responds to public events this fast, so the rapidity of this coolly acted, straightforward two-character show may be the most notable thing about Building the Wall. Schenkkan, the Tony-winning playwright of the LBJ drama All the Way, wrote this dialogue during and immediately after the presidential campaign, and the D.C.-based National New Play Network quickly facilitated one of its rolling world premieres, with the script getting unique productions in several cities across the country.

Silver Springs Forum Theatre is opening the play at Arena Stages Kogod Cradle for two weeks before transferring the show to its Silver Spring base. Its rich to see Schenkkans play where Arena recently debuted Jacqueline Lawtons Intelligence, which reexamined the Valerie Plame affair as a cautionary reminder of shoddy executive branch rationales and bloody consequences.

[What can theater do in the time of Trump?]

Naggingly, though, Building the Wall is terribly coy in telling its story. Schenkkan plays cat-and-mouse with the audience, teasing out information in mere teaspoons as a white male prisoner named Rick  some sort of marked man by governmental higher-ups  gets interviewed by Gloria, a black female historian. Its 2019, and apparently Rick had a trial but was counseled not to speak. Gloria somehow got access and will now record the truth.

In setup and execution, this is practically an exact duplicate of a show that closed Sunday at Mosaic Theater, A Human Being Died That Night, an adaptation of South African psychologist Pumla Gobodo-Madikizelas actual interviews with convicted death squad leader Eugene de Kock. Both projects feature a black woman in a business suit (on our left) interviewing a conservative white man in prisoners orange (on our right) convicted of racist crimes in his governments name. Both are straight-up Q&As in a secure interview room.

A crack in Schenkkans Wall is that Rick is not as consistent a person as de Kock. As Gloria (Tracy Conyer Lee, composed and pointed) queries Rick (Eric Messner, hyper-alert), we build a database of facts. Rick enlisted after 9/11, served overseas, came home and got involved in privately run prisons. His Trump enthusiasm? Ricks testimony is brief and moony. He describes feeling giddy at the rallies, where, as a white conservative and a Christian, he didnt feel shame anymore.

So whatd he do to land in jail? Its maddening to have to wait so long. (Knowing precisely what de Kock did hardly diminished moral fascination with the hows and whys.) Without spoiling things, picture a spiral involving a deadly Times Square terrorist attack, martial law and colossal complications trying to process mass deportations.

The final third of the shows uninterrupted 90-minute conversation is compelling as a thought experiment. Its anti-Trump, all right  so much for theater as a safe and special place  though it also wickedly and shrewdly deposes the current president from the story rather early. The words corporation and factory loom large in Ricks description of his prison operations, with a marketplace mind-set driving many of the most unforgivable actions.



Tracy Conyer Lee and Eric Messner in Building the Wall. (Teresa Castracane)

Forum Artistic Director Michael Doves staging is purposefully plain: Its a talk across the table, intelligently acted. Ricks descriptions of the scandalous prison facility are vividly rendered by Messner, who is cocky with Ricks pro-Trump positions at first but traumatized as he recounts the worst incidents. (A little more self-knowledge from the outset would seem to be called for in the script.) Lee deftly handles the few clues Schenkkan pens about Gloria, and the gap between the characters is clear when Lees understated Gloria makes a reference to Sandra Bland, the black woman found hanged in a Texas jail three days after her arrest during a traffic stop, that Rick thinks is off-point.

Though the plays sense of suspense is hoary, with Gloria saying portentous things like That would come later while leaving us to wonder exactly what that will turn out to be, Schenkkan does take care to build his scenario brick by brick. Yes, you think as Rick talks, thats happened before. And that. And that. The slippery slope is firmly constructed from a long national and international public record.

The play is flawed but furious, and this ultrafast dramatic response sets a constructive precedent for writers, producers and audiences. At present, Building the Wall sounds far-fetched; one lesson of the first 100 days is that even presidents must operate within legal confines (something Schenkkans script acknowledges and then eerily runs around). Four years of frightened fantasias wont add up to a notable creative statement, but Schenkkans project puts down a marker declaring that the American theater always can be  and had better be  a swift-moving imaginative and intellectual platform.

Building the Wall, by Robert Schenkkan. Directed by Michael Dove. About 90 minutes. Set, Patrick Lord; lights, Sarah Tundermann; costumes, Heather Lockard; sound design, Thomas Sowers. About 90 minutes. Through May 7 at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW. May 18-27 at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre, 8641 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring. Tickets: $18-$38. Call 301-588-8279 or visit forum-theatre.org.
1 of 19 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Inside the 2017 Kips Bay Decorator Show House View Photos The annual New York event, a fundraiser for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, takes place May 2 through June 1. Caption The annual New York event, a fundraiser for the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, takes place May 2 through June 1. 125 East 65th St., New York. Tickets are $35 and can be bought at the door or at kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org. The living room by Robert Stilin is inspired by contemporary European salons. The Kips Bay Decorator Show House is at Alan Barry Photography Wait 1 second to continue.

NEW YORK  Nick Olsen looks very much at home in an Andre Sornay art deco lounge chair in the salon he decorated in a 1905 townhouse, the setting for the 45th annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House opening Tuesday  the most exclusive design event in the country.

As you climb the winding steps to Olsens room on the top floor of 125 E. 65th St., on the market for a recently reduced $26.8 million, you cant help but notice the jewel-toned colors and lavish details throughout the house: yards of velvets, stacked gilded birch logs and chinoiserie wallcoverings in the spaces transformed by 18 design firms.

Nick Olsen, who was mentored by decorator Miles Red, designed a salon in the 2017 Kips Bay Decorator Show House. (Reid Rolls)

Olsen, 35, is part of the new generation that has come to decorate at Kips Bay. A traditionalist who also embraces modern design, he got his start with well-known designer Miles Redd after earning a degree in architecture from Columbia University. His lively interiors mix different periods and are full of intriguing stories. In his show-house debut, he was inspired by the Paris apartment of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge: his daffodil-yellow duchess-satin curtains with claret red binding were painstakingly sewn by a former fashion designer. Hes blended a 1970s black glass coffee table, Christopher Spitzmiller lamp and an 1825 Austrian Biedermeier walnut desk.

[Step inside a home decorated for a 1-percenter: The 2016 Kips Bay show house]

Ichatted with Olsen about the gravity of doing Kips Bay, about design trends and the mood of decorating in 2017.

So why is there so much drama in this show house?

We live in dramatic times, in case you havent seen the news. There is a theatrical element to any decorating project. As designers we are insanely visual people. When given the opportunity, we will go full tilt.

What does it mean for you, at the age of 35, to be selected to do Kips Bay?

Its a huge honor. Ive been imagining it since I was a kid in Pensacola, Fla., reading Architectural Digest and Elle Decor.

What are the hallmarks of design in 2017?

Its highly personal. I am fascinated by all the narratives the designers here used to create their rooms. Billy Cotton described a down-on-her-luck heiress he used as a muse. Ken Fulk based his dining room on amazing animals that come into someones life, and mine is an effete American expat living in Paris in the 1930s. Actually, Ive always wanted to have lived during that era.

The bar in Olsens Salon du Beau Monde at the 2017 Kips Bay Decorator Show House. (Jura Koncius/The Washington Post)

You have a super-looking bar here in your room set up on a lacquered blue faux malachite tray. Can you give us some ideas on how to set up a good-looking drinks tray?

You can set up a bar on a TV credenza or on a bookcase. If you have it contained on a tray, its more inviting. I love any tray with a color or texture in contrast to the surface its on: Burmese rattan is lovely in both the city and the beach, silver trays look nice on polished wood. Go to some flea markets and look for shakers, jiggers and other old bar accessories. Include a few fruit and vegetable juices and buy mixers in small bottles; they look better and keep their bubbles. Choose liquor bottles with attractive packaging. Put out some vintage linen cocktail napkins.

What design element must every room have?

Every room must have an outlier. It should be something a little bit strange or a little bit unexpected. Mine is this chintz chair. Its a vintage English club chair I bought at auction. I used a glazed chintz fabric on it with hydrangeas in pink, celadon green and French blue. Its cheerful and I love a little bit of granny in a room.

What trends do you see in the Kips Bay rooms this year?

There are lots of rich, deep colors around. Plus, the textiles are very luxurious and youll see walls of silk velvets, There are a lot of metallics. You have to be careful, though, as metallics can go south very quickly and look cheap. To avoid that, use actual gold or silver leaf or real metals  not something plasticy. Tapestry is a huge trend: we are seeing a bit of a neo-baronial moment going on.

When youre not shopping to-the-trade, what are your favorite home stores?

I like CB2 and have used their cast concrete drum table for both indoor and outdoor use. I think they have great low-slung upholstery at good prices. I also like West Elm for unique accessories.



Nick Olsen's room at Kips Bay, Salon du Beau Monde, is inspired by French modernist salons of the 1930s and '40s, with woodgrain walls and an art deco lounge chair by Andre Sornay. (Alan Barry Photography)

What are some of your favorite blogs or Instagram accounts?

I like Jennifer Boless The Peak of Chic blog. Ashley Hicks on Instagram is fascinating and fabulous, and of course I love Miles Redd on Instagram. I also like Apparatus Studio on Instagram because of their aesthetic, which is super clean and modern but with a bit of Studio 54 glamour.

What item do you covet from another designers room at Kips Bay?

Id have to say the shearling-covered Fritz Hansen chair from Neal Beckstedts room.

Kips Bay Decorator Show House is open daily May 2 to June 1 at 125 E. 65th St., New York. Admission is $40 and benefits the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. For more information, visit www.kipsbaydecoratorshowhouse.org.

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The turmoil at Fox News continued on Monday with the ouster of co-president Bill Shine, who succeeded Roger Ailes amid a sexual-harassment scandal last summer despite Shines alleged role in abetting Ailes in tolerating a workplace hostile to women.

Shine, a 20-year Fox News veteran, appeared to have the backing of Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch in the wake of the firing of Bill OReilly, Foxs biggest star. Only last week, Murdoch, Shine and Fox co-president Jack Abernethy were photographed emerging from lunch at a Manhattan restaurant, a tableau widely read as a vote of confidence by Murdoch in the two men.

Instead, Shine appeared to come under increasing pressure all week, as rumors began circulating that Murdochs sons  Lachlan and James, who run Foxs parent company, 21st Century Fox  were seeking his successor.

Shine runs the programming side of the media empire, while Abernethy, also a longtime Fox News executive, runs the business side of the company, including ad sales, finance and distribution.

Shine got an unusually public endorsement last week from Sean Hannity, Foxs biggest star. Amid reports that Shine could be on his way out, Hannity tweeted, I pray this is NOT true because if it is, thats the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done. He added: Somebody HIGH UP AND INSIDE FNC is trying to get an innocent person fired.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Shines departure fueled speculation that Hannity could be the next to leave Fox News. The network emphatically denied that Hannity  a favorite of conservatives and a staunch supporter of President Trump  was planning to leave. Hannity himself said in a tweet that he has no such plans.

Rupert Murdoch announced Shines departure in an internal memo Monday afternoon:

Sadly, Bill Shine resigned today, he wrote. I know Bill was respected and liked by everyone at Fox News. We will all miss him.

Murdoch said Suzanne Scott, Shines top deputy, will become president of programming. Jay Wallace, executive vice president of news, will be president of news.

Added Murdoch: Fox News continues to break both viewing and revenue records, for which I thank you all. I am sure we can do even better.

The terse and relatively upbeat announcement masked what has become an extraordinarily tumultuous nine months for Fox News. Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlsons harassment lawsuit against former chief executive Ailes last July triggered a succession of lawsuits, internal investigations, resignations and firings.

In addition to Ailes, OReilly and now Shine, Fox has lost Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren, both of whom anchored evening programs on Fox. Both joined NBC in January, with Van Susteren becoming the host of a program on MSNBC while Kelly is slated to host a prime-time magazine show on NBC in June.

Rupert Murdoch, second from left, leaves a Manhattan restaurant with Jack Abernethy, second from right, and Bill Shine, right, on April 24. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

The network also has a new chief financial officer and head of human resources.

The appointment of Scott puts a woman at the top of the network for the first time in its 21-year history and may be the most visible sign yet that the younger Murdochs are attempting to foster what they called a workplace based on the values of respect and trust when Ailes was forced out.

Womens groups, and some Fox employees, have complained that the Murdochs werent serious about reforming Fox as long as its leadership  selected by and loyal to Ailes  remained mostly intact.

OReilly was fired last month after the New York Times revealed that he and Fox had paid millions of dollars to quietly settle sexual harassment allegations against him, including two after Ailes left last summer. Both OReilly and Ailes have denied the many accusations lodged by female employees of Fox against them.

Shine has been implicated in the harassment scandal, and an unrelated racial discrimination action, via several lawsuits filed by Fox employees. Among the claims are that Shine ignored or played down complaints and concealed Ailess behavior. Among others, former host Andrea Tantaros alleged in a suit last year that she complained about Ailess harassment of her to Shine, and Shine advised her against pursuing the claim.

More broadly, Shine has been under suspicion for his close association with Ailes over the years, and over what role, if any, he played in helping Ailes maintain secrecy in the face of allegations of harassment and employee intimidation. He has repeatedly disclaimed any knowledge of Ailess allegedly unethical or illegal behavior.

Shine did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Some at Fox believed Shine gave the network stability and continuity as it was buffeted by the Ailes and OReilly episodes.

Shine started his career at Fox News as a producer on Hannity & Colmes, the program Sean Hannity hosted with Alan Colmes.

Hannity did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Shines departure.

In addition to the sexual harassment allegations, Fox last week was sued by a dozen African American workers, including Fox host Kelly Wright, who have claimed that the company maintained an abusive work environment and was racially discriminatory. A 13th employee filed a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The dozen workers  some former and some current Fox employees  joined a lawsuit filed in March in New York by two employees, Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright, who accused the networks former controller, Judith Slater, of racial animus. Fox said the suit has no merit.
James Scully did not intend to become the public scold of a global fashion industry  one that views models as interchangeable widgets, that strong-arms them into unhealthy weight-loss regimens and insists on referring to them as girls. Nonetheless the veteran casting director has emerged as one of the most vocal agitators for change. He wants the fashion industry to treat models like human beings rather than commodities.



James Scully, at his home in New York, is an advocate for diversity and protecting the rights of young models in the fashion industry. (Jesse Dittmar/for The Washington Post)

In February, several models came to him complaining about their treatment at an audition for the fall 2017 Balenciaga runway show  the kind of prestigious booking that could pave a young models way in the business. Not only had some 150 hopefuls waited hours for the chance to be one of 47 chosen to walk in the show, they also had been left languishing for hours in an unlit stairwell while the casting directors went out for lunch.

Incensed, Scully took to Instagram to call out the Balenciaga team. But he wasnt done yet. In that same post, Scully claimed that representatives of the French fashion house Lanvin told model agencies not to send black women to its auditions. Finally, he voiced his suspicions that underage models were being booked in Paris, where 16 is the standard minimum.

I made the post out of personal outrage, Scully says a month later.

His alert led to apologies from Balenciaga, as well as denials and explanations from Lanvin and the casting directors accused of wrongdoing. But more than anything, Scullys words  a rather modest call to arms, on the face of it  managed to add fuel to an ongoing conversation about the often unprofessional, disorganized and offensive treatment of models by their own industry.

The frock trade has always been far grittier  and seamier  than its glossy trappings would suggest. There have been dramatic examples of drug abuse, deaths from eating disorders and sexual misconduct. But there are far more stories of mistreatment by omission or disregard. Models are expected to wait hours at an audition. They have fittings that last until the wee hours of the morning for which they receive no overtime pay. Sometimes they are paid for their services in clothes, not currency. They can wind up as nearly indentured servants  working to pay off debts to their agencies.

And often designers and their staffs even fail to recognize that models need water  as became clear during Kanye Wests presentation on Roosevelt Island last summer, when unpaid models collapsed in the September heat.

Im trying to make people realize the human cost of this behavior, Scully says. We have normalized it and become desensitized to it.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America offers some guidance  all of it optional  about providing food and water backstage and at long fittings, about not booking unhealthily thin models, about striving for diversity. The New York legislature passed a law in 2013 giving models younger than 18 protections similar to those that govern child actors, such as limits on work hours and regulations regarding pay.

But there are loopholes. And models 18 and older are essentially on their own, says Sara Ziff, who in 2012 founded the Model Alliance, an advocacy organization for models working in the United States.

I make sure parents understand that their child might be pressured to miss school, says Ziff, a former model. There are a lot of adult pressures that come with working in the industry at a young age.

In the past, models were typically in their 20s, with a sense of how the industry worked, by the time their careers gained traction. Now its all accelerated, Scully says. Todays models are being asked to do a womans job, and theyre kids. 

The potential for abuse has grown with practices such as street casting, in which designers invite everyone from friends to their favorite bartender to participate in a show. The philosophy suggests that almost anyone can be a model  at least for a few hours. The churn of fast fashion means that not just clothes are disposable; people are, too.

Girls are seeing this big dream world through social media. They think they can be a model and dont realize what theyre getting into. The turnaround now is so fast; its almost like trafficking, says Scully, who sits on the Model Alliance advisory board. Theyre pulled in and traumatized and then spit back out.

Scully, 52, is tall and slim with neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair, a jutting jaw, and a resting expression that is pleasantly somber  supporting-actor handsome. His Manhattan apartment is filled with calming earth tones and nubby textures. He is the picture of earthy serenity by way of Architectural Digest.

But when he speaks, its at full gallop, his voice filled with the agita of someone whose childhood fantasy-come-true has gone bad.



Casting director James Scully. (Jesse Dittmar/for The Washington Post)

One of 10 children in a working-class family, he spent his early childhood in South Amboy, N.J., a small city about an hour outside Manhattan that was almost all white and largely Catholic. It was the smallest town with the most bars, he says. Id never been around an Asian person. I didnt know what a Jewish person was.

He was transfixed by acting after an aunt took him to see Pippin on Broadway, but he loved fashion, too, thanks to an older sister with a stash of Cosmopolitan magazines. He enrolled at the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (LIM), where he took a class taught by Audrey Smaltz, a former host of Ebony Fashion Fair and founder of the team of backstage dressers and assistants called the Ground Crew. Scully became her intern.

His freelance work with her helped pay his way through school until he was distracted by jobs in retail and nightlife. His grades fell, he lost his scholarship and dropped out. He got a job at the influential fashion boutique Charivari, later worked for the production company Kevin Krier & Associates, and then Harpers Bazaar. Scullys career helped him see the fashion industry from virtually every angle.

Hes been a part of fashion shows since the early 90s, and hes seen a lot in that time, Smaltz says. Hes seen all thats happened and how its changed. Its not nice.

Smaltz recalls when a runway show featured 10 to 15 professional models, and each would make three or four changes in a single show. Today, a show hires 50 women. Mostly, anonymous. No clothing changes.

How can you pay all those models? They try to pay the models in clothes. Smaltz says. You dont need anyone with experience. Theyre like robots. . . . Some directors tell the girls: Do not smile. Do not clap. Its one model after another. Its a human conveyor belt.



Stoic models on the runway at the Balenciaga Fall/Winter 2017 collection (Olivier Claisse/MCV Photo)

Models are typically expressionless on the runway. Balenciaga Fall/Winter 2017. (Olivier Claisse/MCV Photo)

Scullys foray into activism began in the mid-2000s, but the seeds had been planted earlier. As a teenager, his vision of fashion was shaped by images of the multicultural aesthetic of Saint Laurent and Halston in the 1970s  an ideal he continued to carry into his career.



When he was a teenager, James Scully was captivated by designer Yves Saint Laurents diverse cast of models. Here, the late designer takes a bow alongside French actress Catherine Deneuve at the end of a retrospective show in 2002. (Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)

He went on to work on some of the most influential runway shows of the late 1990s, including those mounted by Tom Ford for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, whose casting was particularly diverse. Fords shows helped turn the Ethiopian-born model Liya Kebede into a star. In 2003, she became one of the faces of Estee Lauder  the first black model to represent the beauty brand.



Model Liya Kebede on the runway in March at the Celine Fall/Winter 2017 show. (Stefan Knauer /MCV Photo for The Washington Post)

But the prejudices Kebede faced along the way exasperated Scully. A few years later, after taking time away from the industry, he joined activist Bethann Hardison and models Naomi Campbell and Iman in industry town halls, panel discussions and a media blitz to highlight the lack of black and brown models on the runway. Hardison, a former model and agent, worked to mentor more women of color, and men. Scully pushed to cast more of them in shows.

[Once Again, White Is the New White]

He speaks his mind. Thats who he is, Smaltz says. I just thought, Good for you, Scully. Take care of these young girls. 

In May, he will be honored by the Black Alumni of Pratt Institute for his efforts.

In the winter of 2016, Scully delivered an impassioned talk at a Business of Fashion conference in Europe about labor practices that include bullying young women and treating puberty like a career-killer.

His February Instagram post, with more than 9,700 likes, received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Change is on the way thanks to you, wrote model Karolina Wallace.

It gives me a lot of hope to know that there is someone like you fighting for better treatment of models, wrote Gwen Van Meir, a young model. I once [was] in Milan, waited at a casting for almost four hours in the hot sun, with no water available. . . . It seemed like a lot of the models were afraid to say anything.

Over the years, the very nature of what it means to be a model has shifted, from one of performer  and experienced professional  to that of an anonymous, prepubescent-looking mannequin. Only a few savvy young women of this era  Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Kendall Jenner  have successfully positioned themselves as full-fledged personalities with the potential for professional longevity. Thats largely thanks to their diligent off-the-clock efforts on social media.

But models have few work protections. Theyre not unionized. Financial agreements with agencies can be opaque. Pressure to lose weight is not just a medical concern but also a labor issue, says Ziff of the Model Alliance.

I think that many of the problems James called out  models waiting an inordinate amount of time, working through the night, not having breaks  all of that is a symptom of a bigger problem, Ziff says. And thats a power imbalance.

Modeling has always been unregulated. And a models career was always relatively short and reliant on a certain amount of good timing and genetics. But there was a code of ethics and on some human level, you did care about models, Scully says.

I sit and I have to do massive castings with 600 girls a season, Scully says. Im bleary-eyed. I have no idea who I saw.

Now its really about being clothes hangers, he says. Theyre disposable and replaceable.
United Medical Center, a public hospital, serves poor D.C. neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. It has a history of financial problems. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

United Medical Center, the troubled Southeast Washington hospital that has struggled for decades to provide medical care to some of the citys poorest residents, has hit a stretch of financial turbulence that puts it at risk of needing a taxpayer bailout  again.

The public hospitals woes, which stem in large part from recently recognized errors in Medicare billing that could require extensive repayments to the federal government, threaten to derail a plan by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to stabilize and rebuild the facility with help from a private developer.

That plan calls for ensuring that the hospital  which is supposed to be financially independent but has received millions in subsidies from the city in recent years  can make it through next year without additional infusions of public money.

But Wayne Turnage, director of the D.C. Department of Health Care Finance, wrote in an email several weeks ago to the chairman of the hospitals board that there is little margin for error if UMC is to end the year without the need for financial assistance.

The medical centers precarious fiscal position, Turnage said in the email and in interviews with The Washington Post, is primarily a result of a discovery that doctors may have overbilled Medicare, which along with Medicaid covers a large number of the hospitals patients in the poor and predominantly African American neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.

City officials said they were not yet sure how extensive the overbilling was or how long it went on. D.C. Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey S. DeWitt said the hospital has set aside $5 million in its operating budget to pay back the federal government. City and hospital officials say they hope that in lieu of repayment, Medicare officials will require the hospital staff to undergo training in billing.

On April 5, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also fined the hospitals nursing facility $122,000 for shortcomings in patient care that led to a skin infection and bedsores, according to the D.C. Department of Health.

After the inspection late last year that uncovered those shortcomings, the federal government briefly threatened to withhold payments for new patients at the nursing facility but relented when a follow-up inspection showed that it had remedied its problems.

Combined with financial shortcomings in other areas, Turnage said, the billing problem led to a 45.8 percent operating deficit for the month of February that, if not reversed, would translate into a year-end deficit of 8.5 percent  or about $9.5 million.

Despite the hospitals newly disclosed troubles and the note of alarm Turnage sounded in his April 10 email, District officials said in interviews last week that the prospect of another subsidy for UMCs operating budget was unlikely.

DeWitt said he was confident that the hospital can absorb the Medicare losses if it has to repay the federal government. City officials are regularly monitoring UMCs financial performance, he said, unlike in past years when operating deficits piled up and could not be reversed before it was too late.

The hospital is in probably better financial shape now than its been, ever, DeWitt said. Its above water for the first time, because were monitoring it very closely.

Turnage said that his email last month laid out a worst-case scenario and that barring some unforeseen circumstance, the hospital is not likely to need a subsidy.

I believe much has been done to stabilize but clearly the operation remains at risk with such minimal cash reserves for what is a $128 million operation, Turnage wrote in an email to The Post.

Like many public hospitals, UMC has a long history of financial struggles and failed reform efforts. Built in the 1960s, what was once the Greater Southeast Community Hospital entered bankruptcy almost 20 years ago and since then has endured a turbulent cycle of different operators.

Even as they have tried in recent years to find a private partner to build a new hospital in Southeast, city officials have injected regular infusions of cash to keep the hospital afloat and have paid various consultants to overhaul its operations.

In the 2015 and 2016 fiscal years, the city bailed out UMC to the tune of $7 million and $10 million, respectively. The city is also paying an outside firm, Veritas of Washington, $6.1 million for an 18-month contract to turn the hospital around.

David Boucree, a principal at Veritas and executive vice president for analysis and planning at UMC, said the Medicare billing issue began before Veritas took over and was an example of the legacy problems the turnaround firm is trying to fix.

This is a restructuring effort that weve been going through, he said. As we identify legacy issues, were clearing them up and bringing it forward.

City Administrator Rashad M. Young said the Bowser administration remained confident in Veritas and in the hospitals improvement despite the recent setbacks.

But for the Medicare billing issue, we expected the hospital this year to break even or have positive operating revenue, Young said.
In this 2015 file photo, fifth- and sixth-grade students warm up for class at For Academy for Ideal Education, a private school in D.C. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Congress is expected to extend the D.C. school voucher program as part of a bipartisan budget deal this week, a move that follows the release of a new federal analysis showing that some voucher recipients in private schools trailed their public-school counterparts on standardized tests.

The legislation would reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which helps 1,100 low-income students attend private schools, through fiscal 2019. The program is the only federally funded effort of its kind.

The congressional deal would also continue funding at current levels through September, sending a total of $45 million to the District for education, split among D.C. Public Schools, D.C. public charter schools and the voucher program. The program gives poor children up to $8,452 to attend a private elementary or middle school and up to $12,679 for high school.

Advocates for the voucher program said they were relieved after spending years fighting for its survival under President Barack Obama, who opposed vouchers. President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in contrast, have pledged to spend billions of dollars expanding vouchers throughout the country.

Its hard to get schools to sign up for the program and hard to get parents to sign up their kids, if theres uncertainty, said Kevin Chavous, who lobbied Congress to create the voucher program in 2004, when he was a D.C. Council member.

[D.C. voucher program has negative impact on student achievement, study finds]

But critics said the reauthorization was galling given the results of the new study by the Education Department, which suggested that the voucher program had a negative impact on student achievement after one year, especially in math. The D.C. study, released last week, came on the heels of similar findings on voucher programs in Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio.

Not only do students not do any better in the voucher programs, but its actually been proved that theyre doing worse, said David Grosso (I-At Large), chairman of the councils education committee and an opponent of the program. I am always disappointed when Congress intervenes in D.C. local matters, and I think this is one of those areas where it is extremely consequential.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), a supporter of the program, said, Families are choosing schools, and they know what they are choosing.

Chavous and other voucher advocates have said that the studys findings cannot be seen as a verdict on the programs effectiveness, because they are a snapshot of only one year. They also say math and reading test scores are a limited measure of school quality.

The D.C. study was conducted using whats known as the gold standard in scientific research: An experimental design, comparing the performance of students who received a voucher through a citywide lottery to the performance of their peers who applied for a voucher and didnt receive one. The study was designed to comply with the law as currently written, which requires the strongest possible research design for determining the vouchers effectiveness.

The reauthorization rolls back that language and prohibits the departments researchers from using that gold standard. Instead, it says that researchers must use a quasi-experimental design, comparing voucher recipients to students with similar backgrounds in D.C. public and public charter schools.

Researchers say this approach is generally weaker because it creates uncertainty about whether the comparison is fair. This program has been studied rigorously since it began in 2004, using an approach that the field of medical research would regard as common practice, said Mark Dynarski, who co-authored the D.C. study released last week. If rigor is rolled back, a future study might lead to more questions than answers.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) called the research change an egregious dilution of serious science, accusing his Republican counterparts of trying to escape empirical data that might not back up their school-choice philosophy.

[DeVos praises this voucher-like program. Heres what it means for school reform.]

But voucher advocates said that they had good reason to seek changes in the study of the program. In the past, they said, children who lost the voucher lottery were then unable to get a voucher in subsequent years, because that would interrupt the research. And they had to keep coming back each year to take a standardized test.

That was a lot to ask of children who had not benefited from the vouchers, said Rachel Sotsky, executive director of Serving Our Children, the D.C. nonprofit organization that administers the money. There are a lot of problems with sticking with the gold standard, she said.

The reauthorization proposal would require voucher recipients to take the same standardized test that is administered in D.C. Public Schools, which is currently a Common Core-aligned exam known as PARCC. The provision would ease apple-to-apple comparisons but may be unpopular with private-school administrators, some of whom may feel they are at a disadvantage because they dont teach to the test.

The proposal also would add more measures of accountability for schools in which more than 85 percent of students are paying with vouchers. Serving Our Children would be required to develop a way to scrutinize the financial viability of those schools, and evaluators would be asked to examine the academic achievement of students at that subset of schools.

Alejandra Matos contributed to this report.
By Press Trust of India: Digvijaya

(Eds: Adding details about the police complaints filed against Digvijaya in Hyderabad and Karimnagar) Hyderabad, May 1 (PTI) AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh today kicked up a row with comments that the Telangana police has set up a "bogus" ISIS website to radicalise Muslim youth and encourage them to join the terrorist outfit.

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Telanganas ruling TRS reacted sharply to the "most irresponsible and reprehensible" remarks of the senior Congress leader and demanded that he withdraw those.

"Telangana Police has set up a bogus ISIS site which is radicalising Muslim youth and encouraging them to become ISIS modules," Singh said in a post on his Twitter page.

"The issue is whether Telangana Police should be trapping Muslim Youths in becoming ISIS modules by posting inflammatory information?

"Is It Ethical? Is it Moral? Has KCR authorised Telangana Police to trap Muslim Youths and encourage them to join ISIS? If he has then shouldnt he own the responsibility and resign? If he hasnt then shouldnt he enquire and punish those who are responsible for committing such a heinous crime?" Singh said in a series of tweets.

Following the comments, TRS MLA from Jubilee Hills constituency M Gopi Nath filed a police complaint against the Congress leader seeking action against him.

"We have received a complaint from the MLA that says Digvijaya Singh has defamed the police. We have referred the matter for legal opinion and will proceed as per the legal opinion," Jubilee Hills police station inspector S Venkat Reddy told PTI.

Protesting against Singhs comments, TRS workers in the city burnt his effigy.

A complaint was also filed against Singh in Karimnagar in Telangana.

Lodging a complaint with the I Town police station, Karimnagar Municipal Corporation Mayor Sardar Ravinder Singh stated that the comments made by Singh are "highly objectionable and might create a law and order problem in the state. I request the police to take suitable action against Singh as per law."

When contacted, Karimnagar I town Circle Inspector Tula Srinivas Rao said, "We have not registered an FIR yet. We will take a legal opinion before proceeding further".

The Congress leaders comment drew sharp reaction from TRS, with Telangana Industries and IT Minister K T Rama Rao demanding that Singh withdraw his remarks or provide evidence to back his claim.

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"Most irresponsible and reprehensible thing coming from a former CM (of Madhya Pradesh). Request you to withdraw these comments unconditionally or provide evidence," Rama Rao, the son of chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, tweeted.

Later, talking to reporters on the issue in New Delhi he wanted to know if the Congress high command endorsed Singhs remarks.

The Congress leader, who continues to be the partys general secretary in-charge of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana after being divested of the charge of Karnataka and Goa on Saturday, said on Twitter that it was after Telangana polices information "that MP police arrested those who were responsible for a bomb blast in a train in Shajapur district".

"It also resulted in Saifullaha encounter in Kanpur the same day," he said.

Telangana DGP Anurag Sharma said the Congress leaders comments would demoralise the police force and lower the image of personnel engaged in fighting anti-national forces.

"Unfounded allegations from a senior, responsible leader will lower the morale and image of police engaged in fighting anti-national forces," Sharma said. PTI GDK VVK CORR DK NM SK NSK SK

--- ENDS ---
Haymarket-area clothing designer Kelsy Dominick has shown off her wares at New York Fashion Week and in a historic appearance in Cuba last year. She has done an underwater photo shoot in Aruba. And next month, shes off to France to rub elbows with celebrities.

Dominick, chief executive of DiDomenico Design, has been invited to present her work on the runway May 20 at a fashion show at the Cannes Film Festival. Its an opportunity to catch the eye of an actress or perhaps a stylist responsible for dressing a starlet who may want to buy her clothes.

Its really powerful to start the conversation, and you never know where thats going to go, Dominick, 25, said last week at her in-home studio.

The international event also marks another step in following a longtime dream.

Dominick learned to sew when she was 9, and she collaborated with her mother to create her prom dress when she was a student at Battlefield High School. After graduating from Virginia Tech in 2013, she worked for a government contractor for a while before fully committing to DiDomenico.

By 2015, her designs were on display at New York Fashion Week, and in November, she became the first American designer to show her handiwork in Cuba since the U.S. government established an embargo in 1960, a feat heralded by fashion publications and websites devoted to news about the island nation.

Fashion Week led to the invitation to Cannes. But just getting invited doesnt mean a designer can necessarily pay to make the trip, so Dominick held an Indiegogo online fundraiser from Feb. 21 to April 21.

She raised $42,168 from 358 backers, passing her goal of $40,000, which will go toward not only travel, but production costs for the demand the show could whip up. Theres no reason to attend such a big event if you cant accommodate customers afterward, Dominick said.

Two of those Cannes donors praised the entrepreneurs skill and passion.

Jana Fitchett, a business professor at the University of Kansas, met Dominick in Aruba, where the designer did a photo shoot in which she wore a wedding dress 60 feet under water.

That shoot was quite complicated (There was just so much that could have gone wrong, Dominick said). The project endeared the designer to Fitchett, who watched from a boat, and the professor asked Dominick to speak via Skype to students in her introduction to entrepreneurship class.

Douglas Camp met Dominick as tourists at Stonehenge in Britain about a year and a half ago. He was impressed that she left a job in government contracting to pursue her passion for design. He made a similar transition, exiting the investment world to create a company called Hashtag Media. He interviewed Dominick for a piece on his website, thehashtag.us.

When I saw her, I thought, This girl is going someplace,  the 38-year-old Birmingham, Ala., executive said.

Dominick also landed a prominent customer late last year. Rachel Beauregard, half of the country music duo Native Run, said her mother goes to church with the Dominick family. Her mom connected her with Dominick for help modernizing a family heirloom wedding dress.

The satin dress, circa 1949, was from Beauregards maternal grandmother, but it had yellowed and become so fragile that it couldnt be cleaned. Dominick worked with the underside of the dress and used a lace overlay that transformed the garment, Beauregard said.

It totally gave it new life, the Nashville resident said. The 30-year-old wore the dress when she was married in December.

DiDomenico Design will host a party May 9 in the District to preview its Cannes collection. The event is open to the public. For information, see didofrance.eventbrite.com .
When the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors adopted a budget for fiscal 2018 on April 4, it handed the school board the task of trimming its expenditures by $5.5 million.

On Monday, the school board completed the budget reconciliation process by approving a list of reductions recommended by Schools Superintendent Eric Williams. That list avoided cuts to the school boards key initiatives, such as expanding full-day kindergarten, boosting employee salaries and buying new school buses.

When Williams presented his proposal to the school board April 18, he said that $1.25 million for a one-week pay supplement for school employees was no longer needed, and that the summer school budget could be reduced by $150,000 without affecting the level of services.

The package also cut funding for part-time aides for school board members. Most of the remaining items on the reduction list were one-time expenses that could be funded using unspent money at the end of the fiscal year, Williams said.

Although the school board last week approved the package unanimously, with Joy Maloney (Broad Run) absent, the reconciliation process began with a turbulent meeting April 6.

A suggestion that two small schools in western Loudoun be closed to save money led to a testy discussion, and Vice Chairman Brenda Sheridan (Sterling) complained that some supervisors showed a lack of respect for the school board during the budget review process.

School board member Tom Marshall (Leesburg) raised the possibility of closing Lincoln and Hamilton elementary schools to save $1.15 million.

I think its prudent for the school board, when its facing a $5.5 million reduction, to consider this, Eric Hornberger (Ashburn) said, adding that the two schools could be consolidated with Kenneth W. Culbert Elementary in Hamilton.

Eric DeKenipp (Catoctin) said it made absolutely no sense to close the schools when a new school would be needed soon to alleviate overcrowding in Leesburg.

Keep in mind, just six miles away we have schools bursting at the seams, over capacity, DeKenipp said.

Beth Huck (At Large) questioned bringing up the closure of the small schools every single time we need to cut money from our budget.

Its not fair to this community and the students that go to the school to be worried year after year if were going to close their schools, Huck said. So if we want to consider it, lets do it the right way and not rush it in a 10-day period.

Chairman Jeff Morse (Dulles) said keeping the schools open might enable the board to delay building a new elementary school for a year or two.

Hornbergers motion to schedule a public hearing on closing the schools failed by a 4-to-5 vote, with Maloney and Jill Turgeon (Blue Ridge) joining DeKenipp, Huck and Morse in opposition.

After the vote, Sheridan expressed frustration with some of the supervisors comments comparing this board of elected officials to teenagers  last year it was about car keys and this year it was about allowance, she said.

The lack of trust that seems to come across in their comments  its irritating, Sheridan said. I dont think we can demand it, but I do think weve earned respect [as] an elected board that works very hard to be fair [and] transparent.

Supervisor Ron A. Meyer (R-Broad Run) said that the reconciliation process proves that its probably healthy for the schools to look at reductions to their request.

Despite all of the scare tactics and dramatic comments from the school board and from different special interest groups, our tax reduction did nothing to harm teacher salary increases, or full-day kindergarten, or new buses, or any other major new initiative that our schools needed, Meyer said in an interview.

Responding to Sheridans remarks, Meyer said the supervisors scrutinize the county side of the budget much more closely than the school board does.

If they went through that [degree] of scrutiny, I think the Board of Supervisors would have a higher regard for the school boards respect for how we use taxpayer dollars, Meyer said.

But Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) agreed with Sheridan.

Making disrespectful, demeaning comments is . . . unhelpful, she said in an email. In addition, its a poor example to set for our students.
A 26-year-old man shot last week in Southeast Washington died from the injuries Sunday.

D.C. Police said Michael Derricote of Upper Marlboro, Md., was shot just after 8 p.m. Friday in the 3500 block of Stanton Road SE.

Officers responded to a report of the sounds of gunshots. When they arrived, they found two men suffering from gunshot wounds. They were both transported to area hospitals.

Derricote died Sunday, and the other man was reported in critical but stable condition.

A reward of up to $25,000 is being offered. Those with information are asked to call 202-727-9099.
Federal law enforcement has taken over the search for a Maryland prisoner who escaped from the parking lot of the states psychiatric hospital, after police concluded that he was not in the immediate area.

The U.S. Marshals Service will take over the investigation into locating David M. Watson, 28, who was serving a more than 100-year prison term in Delaware in the attempted murder of a police officer, according to Howard County police.

Authorities announced a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to Watsons capture.

Watson, who also faces attempted murder charges in Wicomico County, escaped after being transported from Delaware to Clifton T. Perkins hospital in Jessup on Friday morning, police said.

Two Wicomico County detention center guards were unloading him from the van for an evaluation at the hospital when he pushed a guard and ran into the woods. Watson managed to get out of handcuffs and a waist chain before his escape, items found near the van after he fled, police said. Authorities also found some of Watsons clothes discarded in the woods.

This photo released by the Howard County Police Department shows David M. Watson. (Howard County Police Department/AP)

[Police call off ground search for prisoner who escaped while en route to psychiatric hospital in Maryland]

He was last seen wearing white clothing in a wooded area around Dorsey Run Road, police said.

Police launched K-9 units, heat-seeking technology and helicopters but have not been able to find Watson or received any reported sightings.

Howard County police over the weekend called off the ground search for Watson after investigators determined there was nothing to indicate he was still in the area. On Saturday, police said they were following up on leads where Watson has ties, including in Wicomico County and Delaware.

Though U.S. marshals will be leading the search, Howard County police will still be investigating. Howard County police will canvass the community to search for surveillance video or signs of break-ins that could indicate Watsons trail.

Watson has tattoos between his eyes and under his right eye, according to images released by police. He also has several body tattoos, including the word SIN on his hand, EVIL on the back of his neck and WATSON on his arm.

Watson was convicted in 2013 in the firing of a rifle into the home of a Delaware police officer, according to the Delaware News Journal, and charged on similar allegations in Wicomico.

He was found incompetent to stand trial in 2014 on the Wicomico charges, according to online court records in Maryland.

Anyone who sees Watson should call 911, police said. Those with general information should call the U.S. Marshals Service at 443-885-0923 or email CAR.FTF@Maryland.gov.
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 01: A young protester holds his sign high as Casa in Action, and Service Employee International Union 32BJ hold a rally in Lafayette park after marching to "denounce Trump's anti-immigrant policies on May 01, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Don Juan Restaurant shut down. So did Haydees restaurant. And so did Pupuseria San Miguel. Customers yanked on the door handle of Ercilias restaurant, hoping for just-fried pupusas and freshly brewed coffee. Instead, they found themselves staring at locked doors.

Closed to support general strike, the signs said in English and in Spanish. We support our workers today & every day.

Dozens of businesses in Maryland, Virginia and the District shut down Monday, and thousands of protesters marched through the nations capital in sweltering heat to rally against President Trumps immigration policies in front of the White House.

Some said the turnout was lower than expected, but others pointed out that they marshaled support for immigrants and workers on a weekday, and soon after massive marches for science and the climate.

This is not the last rally, said Alma Couverthie, organizing director of Casa, an organization in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania that led the largest march to the White House. Theres going to be many of these and then after this were going to go back to work. Were going to call the Congress people. Were going to lobby. Were going to march again until what we need to have in this country happens.

Ercillia's restaurant in Mount Pleasant was closed Monday as a May Day expression of solidarity with immigrants workers. (Maria Sacchetti /The Washington Post)

Demonstrators gathered at different points in the city  in the historic Latino neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, at Malcolm X Park and in Dupont Circle  and shut down streets as they marched toward the White House singing folk songs and waving signs and flags. Signs said, Deport Trump, and This Swamp Fights Back, a nod to the presidents pledge to drain the swamp in Washington.

Along the march routes, workers who could not take the day off stopped and waved or filmed with their phones. A cook at Chipotle smiled from the door. Around the corner, construction workers stopped hammering.

At DC Variedades on Mount Pleasant Street, owner Delmy Garcia said she tried to close for the day but customers begged her to open so they could buy cell phones and pay their telephone bills. She said it is difficult for small businesses to close, even for a day, even when the nations immigrant communities are fearful of the border and deportation crackdown that Trump promised.

I support immigrants. But closing businesses is really tough, Garcia said, as she stood behind a glass counter. If you close, you always pay for it.

The march to the White House was part of a nationwide mobilization Monday to support immigrant rights through rallies, teach-ins and vigils, said Kica Matos, a spokeswoman for the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which coordinated the national effort.

Organizers planned 149 strikes, rallies, marches and other events in 125 cities and 35 states, in addition to one overseas in Vienna.

Facebook, Google and the City of Seattle all told employees they could take the day off to participate.

People take part in a May Day rally and march in Washington, DC, 01 May 2017. Labor Day or May Day is observed all over the world to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers and fight for laborers rights. (Michael Reynolds/EPA)

In Portland, Ore., the marches turned violent, and more than two dozen people were arressted.

In Washington, the marches closed streets in Mount Pleasant, Dupont Circle and elsewhere as early as midday. Dozens of police officers escorted the demonstrators on what appeared to be a peaceful protest. No arrests were reported.

Organizers said people protested in different ways: Some stayed home from work or school. Others took to the streets.

Karen Rice, 25, a doctoral student in philosophy at Georgetown University, said she missed work to join the protest.

Im on strike, said Rice, who normally would have been working as a teaching assistant at that hour. Im an American citizen, so I need to be here and support others.

She held aloft a sign showing a phone number that workers can call if they are fired for striking. Many Languages One Voice, an organization in the District, planned to escort demonstrators back to work Tuesday to urge employers not to fire them for the one-day strike, said Executive Director Sapna Pandya, who marched Monday.

By 3 p.m., the crowd streaming from Dupont Circle ballooned and poured into the streets for the mile-long march to the White House. With a police escort and herded by volunteers wearing traffic vests, the demonstrators shut down the stretch of downtown Washington traffic for an hour. Some wore white Casa in Action T-shirts distributed by the immigration advocacy group, while others, organized by unions, donned orange traffic vests and purple Service Employees International Union shirts.

American flags outnumbered protest signs at the center of the throng of people. Their chants included Si Se Puede, No Papers, No Fear and Donald Trump Has Got to Go.

A few handwritten signs said, Immigrants Made America Great.

Around 4 p.m., the group gathered at the White House for a massive rally. Guards peered from the top of the White House and dozens of police officers waited nearby as members of Congress, community leaders and immigrants demanded respect for immigrant workers.

Whether its the White House or the Empire State Building, we built this country, said Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.), as the crowd cheered.

Fenit Nirappil contributed to this report.
Pittsburgh resident Peter Kogan and his 9-year-old son, Benjamin, were just trying to get to the International Spy Museum. But the process turned into their own sort of Mission: Impossible on Sunday: navigating Metros labyrinth of weekend trackwork and maintenance.

Yellow Line trains were single-tracking  and there were none in sight  so they boarded a Blue Line train marked Special at Crystal City, thinking they would get downtown that way.

But when they got to Foggy Bottom, the operator suddenly announced that the train was going out of service. They followed the instructions, hopping on a shuttle bus  crowded and stuffy on an 85-degree day  before disembarking at Metro Center, where they were left to complete their trek on foot.

Weve been traveling for more than an hour now, said Kogan, 45, asking directions to the museum. I want to say, just comparing it to New York, its pretty sad today.

Kogan echoed a common refrain among dismayed tourists and others trying to maneuver the system on a busy weekend  both on and off the tracks:

Going back, we may take Uber.

The scene outside Metro Center was reminiscent of a transit agency dealing with ridership woes and floundering reliability. Out-of-town visitors, propped against their roller bags, stood glued to their smartphone screens as they Googled walking directions or pulled up ride-hailing apps. Every few minutes another shuttle bus would arrive, and a swarm of seemingly exasperated passengers would disembark.

It seems like a guided tour that we didnt pay for, Kogan, a lawyer, said later from the James Bond exhibit.

[Metro adds Red Line to weekend track work list, adding more disruption to busy weekend in D.C.]

SafeTrack work, crews testing for stray current and weekend single-tracking combined to leave scattered and inconsistent service on all six Metrorail lines, even as tens of thousands of people flocked to the city Saturday for the Peoples Climate March and the Capitals-Penguins game at Verizon Center in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Not to mention the usual hordes of tourists and flurry of conferences that are in town this time of year.

Downtown, the disruptions stretched from Federal Triangle to Foggy Bottom on the Orange and Blue lines, as crews built ceiling grids to secure new tiling and laid radio and cellular cabling along tunnel walls, according to Metro spokesman Dan Stessel.

On the Red Line, trains were single-tracking as crews were conducting stray-current testing between Judiciary Square and Farragut North after electrical incidents created severe service disruptions three times in two weeks. The Silver Line operated on a limited segment, from Wiehle-Reston East to Ballston. Green Line trains were running every 20 minutes because of a SafeTrack surge. And the Yellow Line was also single-tracking, with trains every 20 minutes, as crews renewed rail fasteners in a stretch from National Airport to Braddock Road.

Metro is not unique in scheduling track work on weekends, when ridership is less half of weekdays, Stessel said. And the point is to get at these issues on weekends  in a predictable, scheduled way  so that weekday commutes arent disrupted by unexpected failures.

But for those who encountered the delays, the disruptions were enough to leave them wondering why they turned to Metro at all.

Matt Chance, 28, of Boston was fuming after two days of dealing with reduced service, calling it a pain in the [butt] and lamenting the decision to spend $29 on two one-day rail passes for Sunday  one for him and one his mother  though he said taking Uber wouldnt have been any cheaper.

[Climate March draws massive crowd to D.C. in sweltering heat]

Chance and his mother, Teresa, of Huntsville, Ark., were sightseeing, visiting Fords Theatre and other downtown landmarks after departing their Navy Yard hotel on Sunday.

On a normal day, being able to navigate the trains and stops [would be hard], Teresa Chance said. Now, she said, a piece is just sucked out.

The Chances said they spent 20 minutes stuck in traffic on a shuttle bus Saturday near DAR Constitution Hall  the site of Samantha Bees Not the White House Correspondents Dinner  before the driver, hearing passengers complaints, let them off early to complete their journeys on foot.

The problem with buses is traffic is so bad with everybody in town, Matt Chance said.

Stessel said the shuttle buses were running smoothly, with limited crowding and no significant waits or detours. But some riders said the disruptions caught them off guard and left them confused, although they applauded Metro personnel for helping them navigate the disruptions.

Weve been walking for days, said Jeanne St. Pierre, 66, who attended Saturdays march with her husband, David Haber, 72. For somebody who doesnt know the town and how far things are from each other, its just a little challenging.

The Oregon couples first brush with the disruptions came Saturday night, when they were planning to head to Dupont Circle. They arrived to find the McPherson Square station closed  and Metro Center and Farragut North, where they could catch the Red Line, were a bit out of walking range for them. On Sunday evening, they were planning to head to Eastern Market to meet friends.

[The best signs from the Peoples Climate March]

I think were just going to end up Ubering or taking a taxi, meaning it will be way more expensive, St. Pierre said.

Stessel said that despite the march, Saturdays ridership was comparable to a typical Saturday in April. As for why Metro couldnt schedule around the event, he pointed to the numerous demonstrations and large events in the capital over the past month.

If its not the Climate March this weekend, it would have been the Science March last weekend, or the Tax March the weekend before that, or the Cherry Blossom parade the weekend before that, Stessel said. Theres always something going on in this region, and our planning teams work hard to ensure that weekend riders can get where they need to go while still giving track crews and contractors the access they need to get essential work done.

Nicole Schroeder, 37, who usually rides in from East Falls Church, said dealing with weekend track work on top of SafeTrack during the week has been frustrating. The year-long repair program has repeatedly targeted stretches of track in Northern Virginia, disrupting her daily commute on the Orange and Silver lines.

It just makes you regret taking Metro instead of driving, she said of the weekend work. I was just so looking forward to opening my book [on the train]. I was about there and they were like oh, were offloading. 

Ben Leibig, 23, of Hershey, Pa., was wheeling his luggage toward Metro Center after stepping off the shuttle bus from Foggy Bottom. Leibig, a college student, had been in town visiting his girlfriend at George Washington University. He parked his car at Shady Grove at the beginning of the weekend, thinking itd be easier to park there and take Metro into the city.

It wasnt.

It is what it is, he said, before ducking inside Metro Center to catch the Red Line.
Do as I Say

Not as I do, Narendra Modi should have said, as he instructed a roomful of civil servants to use social media for the broader public good as opposed to self-promotion. The prime minister has received lavish praise, at home and abroad, for his astute use of the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google Hangouts. Most of it, whether it's ostentatiously embracing Barack Obama or drinking tea with his mother, has burnished his image as at once a man of the people and a towering statesman. It is a reflection of Modi's amour propre that when he and the BJP achieved their sweeping election victory in 2014, he tweeted that "India has won!" But the prime minister is probably correct. While bureaucrats should be above self-promotion and self-praise, these are the politician's stock in trade.

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Smell the Coffee

'Philately' is not the sort of word you'd expect to see appended to a hashtag. So full marks to Nirmala Sitharaman, the MoS for commerce, for breaking the news of a new coffee-scented stamp with the unlikely hashtag and some jaunty, nerdy enthusiasm. "Philatelic delight," she cooed. The stamp, which Sitharaman released at the General Post Office in Bengaluru, costs Rs 100.

Kill Bill

Social media had a considerable, possibly decisive, role in Fox News firing Bill O'Reilly, host of maybe the most popular and most reviled show in cable news history. If O'Reilly did not pioneer the television news genre of 'angry man believes the truth means just repeating a prejudice or an opinion as loudly as possible', he was perhaps its most proficient exponent. He was simply louder and more belligerent than anyone else. And also, it turns out, a serial harasser of women. For decades. Social media is cele-brating his scalp because a sustained online campaign scared off enough advertisers to persuade Fox to cut their losses.

--- ENDS ---
FOUR AND a half years after 15-month-old Prince McLeod Rams was found unresponsive, cold and without a pulse by paramedics responding to a 911 call, his father was found guilty of his capital murder. Judge Randy I. Bellows, hearing the case without a jury in Prince William County Circuit Court, explained his decision April 13 in a 62-page opinion that methodically sorted through the evidence and definitively answered questions surrounding the case. No, the judge concluded, the boy did not die from a febrile seizure or any natural cause, but was drowned or suffocated by his father  who stood to benefit from more than $500,000 in life insurance.

But the conviction of Joaquin S. Rams, set to be sentenced June 22 to life in prison, doesnt tie up all loose ends. Two other deaths  the murder of Mr. Ramss ex-girlfriend and the ostensible suicide of his mother  need to be accounted for. There are questions about whether Princes death could have been averted had Maryland and Virginia officials been more diligent. Most critical is whether lessons were learned from this tragedy that will help protect other children.

Prince William County Commonwealths Attorney Paul B. Ebert can take justified satisfaction from his offices successful prosecution of a complicated case. But authorities in Prince William need to do some soul-searching about missed signals and missteps in investigations involving Mr. Rams that preceded Princes death. Was sufficient attention paid to the 2003 murder of ex-girlfriend Shawn Katrina Mason? Why did police brush aside suspicions when his mother died and he benefited from her insurance? Then there was the botched inquiry into allegations surrounding a disputed sexual encounter involving Mr. Rams and the teenage sister of Princes mother, Hera McLeod.

Ms. McLeod, as she wrote recently in a Post essay, faults the family court system that made her son vulnerable to harm. She had sole legal and primary physical custody of her son and fought fiercely to prevent Mr. Rams from having unsupervised visits. But a Montgomery County Circuit judge allowed them, and Prince died on the fourth one. Parents, Ms. McLeod wrote, should not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the other parent is dangerous.

Part of the problem, according to lawyers experienced in custody cases, is an inherent bias, even distrust, of parents  in most cases women  who without physical evidence raise safety as a reason to limit or prevent contact with the other parent. I hate it when I have to tell a client who genuinely fears for her child that she risks appearing as an alarmist and alienating the court, one attorney told us. I hate it even more when I have to tell her she has no choice but to abide by the courts order.

No judge can lightly suspend parental contact with a child. But the interests of children always should take precedence. Montgomery County, reacting in part to this case, appears headed toward opening its first monitored child exchange and supervised visitation center, which would give judges a better option in cases such as this. Its long overdue. When it opens, it would be fitting for it to bear Princes name.
The April 23 Local Opinions essay VRE is off track on expanding the Crystal City rail station asserted that the expansion of the Virginia Railway Express station could cause public outcry among Crystal City residents because of the noise the construction would make and the potential damage to a small park it would cause. That outcry could be avoided if the city made the existence of this railway known. As a Crystal City resident myself, I was glad to hear such an expansion was underway.

The Crystal City Metro stop is insanely crowded and the two lines that run through it are impressively inconsistent. Delays of more than 30 minutes have left residents of Crystal City angry, frustrated and, most important, late  making rush hour a nightmare for commuters.

So why arent people using VRE if the Metro is so horrible? They dont know it exists. When speaking with other locals in the area, I found that only a few were aware an alternative into the city was available, but expressed interest in it as soon as they knew about it.

Crystal City residents are begging for better public transportation, and they deserve it. If residents knew that there was a more reliable way to get where they needed to go, they wouldnt react negatively to an expansion, they would be grateful for it.

Clara Shannon, Arlington
The greatest achievement of Donald Trumps first 100 days as president was that there was a 101st. If things continue this way, he will finish out his term and then the nation, like someone after a boozy night, can right itself and get on with its business. We will restore the environment, repair alliances, recognize science, welcome immigrants, cherish honesty, value knowledge and return dignity to a White House where Jefferson may have dined alone but where Trump was joined by Sarah Palin. More than a fresh coat of paint is needed.

The passing of the first 100 days was simultaneously cause for mockery and relief  and both for the same reason: President Trump accomplished next to nothing. The courts held firm, so did much of the bureaucracy, and the press not only remains free, it has a new bounce to its step. Most of all, Trump seemed dazed by reality. All sorts of policies were pirouetted  China, Iran, Russia, Syria and Israel, among others  and Trump, like the junkie he is, scorned the news media while craving it dearly. He held it up like a mirror: Am I great? Am I pretty? Am I popular?

[Trumps 100th-day speech may have been the most hate-filled in modern history]

And so the alarms have been muted. The Great Fascist Threat has receded, and it is considered both gauche and ahistorical to compare Trump to dictators of the past  you know their names. I quibble with that, because we can always learn from even extreme examples, but the Trump prototype that now seems most relevant is yet another German: Kaiser Wilhelm II. During his reign, World War I began.

That war, more than the greater one that followed, continues to intrigue historians because its cause is so hard to isolate. By Armistice Day, four empires were no more, about 17 million people were dead and the stage was set for a further calamity. But what started it? There are many explanations, but one factor, certainly, was the idiotic bellicosity of the German kaiser.

(Alice Li,Jayne Orenstein,Julio Negron/The Washington Post)

Anyone who turns to Christopher Clarks book about the run-up to World War I, The Sleepwalkers, will recognize a Trump-like figure. The kaiser was a tweeter before his time, firing off letters, telegrams and orders without pausing to wonder about contradictions or policy or even common sense. (He demanded plans for invasions of Cuba, Puerto Rico and New York.)

There can be no doubt about the bizarre tone and content of many of the kaisers personal communications in telegrams, letters, marginal comments, conversations, interviews and speeches on foreign and domestic themes, Clark writes. The kaiser spoke, wrote, telegraphed, scribbled and ranted more or less continuously.

Clark then wonders whether such utterances connected with the world of actual outcomes. His answer is both frightening and reassuring. In the end, the kaiser was king but not dictator. He was considered a fool and widely ignored within his own government. Other governments had a harder time figuring him out. He often contradicted himself. He often seemed not to understand what he was saying, and he felt that he had no need to. I am the foreign office, he proclaimed. I am the sole master of German policy.

[Trumps nifty plan to spend more and hurt poor people more  at the same time!]

My nifty likening of Trump to Wilhelm suffers from one compelling problem: The American president is much more powerful than the German kaiser ever was. Trumps response to Syrias use of the sarin nerve agent  swift but bracketed by contradictory policy statements  would not have been possible for Wilhelm. His ministers would have mulled it over, possibly blocked it  said yes, sir, clicked their heels  and then done nothing. (President Richard Nixons aides took the same approach to many of his harebrained schemes.) The kaiser benefited from a lazier technology. Mobilization took time, and a tomahawk was a hatchet, not a missile.

More disturbing than the similarities between Wilhelm of Prussia and Trump of Queens are their differences. The kaiser was the product of an archaic monarchical system  the bad luck of the draw. Trump, however, was elected in a democratic process, and yet the result has been distressingly similar. All Trump lacks is a pickelhaube, the familiar spiked helmet.

Whatever the cause of World War I, it is clear that the Europe of 1914 needed stability. The arrangements of the 19th century were crumbling, Germany and Britain were warily eying each other, and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires were coming apart. The kaiser, with his chaotic mind, was only making things worse. The world needed consistency, clarity, wisdom  instead, it got the juvenilia of a deluded leader. Not much has changed.

Read more from Richard Cohens archive.
Members of the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, remove a victim from the rubble of his house on April 8 in the southern Syrian city of Daraa. (Mohamad Abazeed/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

Nearly a month has passed since a sarin gas attack on the Syrian village of Khan Sheikhoun prompted President Trump to bombard a government airbase with cruise missiles. The good news since then is that there have been no further attacks on civilians using sarin  though the regime of Bashar al-Assad is believed to possess several tons more of it  or chlorine, though barrel bombs filled with that chemical were routinely dropped on hospitals, schools and apartment buildings before April 7.

Now for the bad news, which has been almost entirely ignored by a White House that long ago moved on to other issues: Syrian and Russian planes have been pounding civilian targets across Syria on a daily basis with bunker busters, cluster bombs, phosphorus and barrel bombs packed with shrapnel. On a typical day last week, between 70 and 80 people were killed in the civil war, according to reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights  about the same number as died from the gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun.

Did Trump make Syrians any safer? Sadly speaking, no, says Raed al-Saleh, the head of the White Helmets civil defense organization, which told the world about the sarin attack. They managed to stop the use of chemical weapons. But the killing still goes on with all the other kinds of weapons.

During a visit to Washington last week, Saleh grimly described the rubble his teams have been digging through in the past several weeks. There was the Shaam Hospital, which was built into an underground cave six miles west of Khan Sheikhoun: Russian planes dropped six bunker busters on it on April 22, collapsing it and trapping doctors and patients under heavy stone. On Wednesday and Thursday, three more hospitals were bombed in the same northwestern region. In two of those cases, the planes came back to strike the White Helmets rescue operations.

The organization has become a prime Russian target since it provided evidence of the sarin attack, Saleh said. In the days after the U.S. missile salvo the White Helmets center in Khan Sheikhoun was bombed; the staff survived in an underground shelter but all their vehicles were destroyed. Two other nearby White Helmets facilities were struck, including in Salehs hometown of Jisr ash-Shugur. Meanwhile Russia launched an all-out propaganda offensive: In a briefing in Moscow on Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman accused the group of collaborating with the Islamic State and an al-Qaeda affiliate as well as providing the U.S. a pretext to carry out an act of aggression.

In fact the White Helmets have been an island of humanity in an otherwise bleak barbarian landscape. As of last week they had counted nearly 91,000 people saved since Saleh helped to establish the group in rebel-controlled northern Syria in 2013. He says it now has 3,300 workers in 120 centers across nine Syrian provinces. One hundred eighty-four have been killed and 500 injured, including eight who died in an airstrike Saturday. Many of the casualties came in deliberate bombings of rescue operations. Yet Saleh says there is a long waiting list of volunteers ready to join when spots open up: When we request 10 volunteers we get applications from 700.

The rescuers are paid a monthly salary of about $150  but their real motivation is saving their friends and neighbors. Every time they pull a baby from the rubble they find the motivation to go on, said Farouq Habib, an aid and training coordinator for the group. International support has been heavy: Most major Western governments have supplied funding, including more than $20 million from the Obama administration; an online campaign has attracted more than 200,000 small donors and more than $12 million in contributions.

The White Helmets have become a leading candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize. But the 34-year-old man who leads them is anything but sanguine. Wearing a black suit, black shirt and black tie with purple stripes, Saleh spoke in a funereal monotone as he described the groups strategy for avoiding Russias double-tap strikes on rescuers: We dont have one. We have to be available immediately at the site. Minutes or seconds can save lives. So we dont have the option to wait.

When I asked Saleh how Syrias carnage could end, he cited what he said was the only day since 2011 when no Syrians were killed: Feb. 28, 2016, when a cease-fire brokered by the United States and Russia went into effect. It soon crumbled, but Saleh says that is the only way out: a political solution that comes about from serious will from the major political powers.

In other words, a single U.S. airstrike isnt enough. Unless and until Trump is willing to do more, the White Helmets will still be digging though rubble.

Read more from Jackson Diehls archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
If President Trump has a real strategy to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, its such a tightly held secret that even the parties involved dont seem to know what it is. When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visits the White House this week, that mystery will be on full display.

I want to see peace with Israel and the Palestinians, Trump said last week. There is no reason theres not peace between Israel and the Palestinians  none whatsoever.

Setting aside the patent absurdity of that statement, whats clear is that the White House is willing to devote time and attention to new Middle East negotiations and the president wants to be personally involved.

The problem is, theres a glaring gap between Trumps high-flying rhetoric and his still-unexplained strategy. As the Abbas visit approaches, theres no clarity in sight.

Last week, a high-level Palestinian delegation led by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat traveled to Washington to prepare for the visit. The group met with Trumps envoy on Middle East peace, Jason Greenblatt, as well as with White House and State Department officials.

Both sides are keeping expectations for the Trump-Abbas meeting low. Palestinian officials tell me the Trump team doesnt seem to know exactly what Trump wants to discuss or propose. White House staff declined to say anything at all about their goals for the meeting. Some experts think thats because theres no depth to Trumps approach.

How you deal with Abbas is directly related to a broader strategy, which unless they havent announced it, they simply dont have, said former Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller. Its hard to see that this is going to turn out to be much more than a stage visit.

In truth, there really isnt much Trump and Abbas can agree to. Theres little hope that Abbas will give Trump what the U.S. side wants, namely a promise to address the issue of incitement in the Palestinian territories or a pledge to curb the Palestinian Liberation Organizations policy of paying families of terrorists who have attacked Israelis and Americans.

Likewise, theres no prospect that Trump will deliver what Abbas wants  a commitment to press the Israelis into a freeze of settlement-building that would meet Palestinian standards. The United States has secured an informal agreement with the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to place some limits on building new settlements, a version of the build up, not out framework from the George W. Bush administration. But that falls short of what Abbas says is needed before negotiations can begin.

The meeting could be significant by itself, if Trump and Abbas can establish a personal rapport to build on in the future. But therein also lies a risk.

The president has never met Abbas and that makes it an important meeting, said former White House and State Department official Elliott Abrams. But if he forms the opinion that Abbas is not strong enough to do a deal and then implement it, that will have a real impact on American policy.

Sure to be present at the meeting is Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is overseeing Greenblatts work. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, will reportedly join Donald Trump for a trip to Israel in late May, one that may also include a stop in Saudi Arabia.

Administration officials sometimes talk about an outside-in approach whereby a framework for peace negotiations would be arranged with Arab states and then folded into the Israeli-Palestinian dynamic. Details of that plan are hazy, and the Trump team has yet to explain how it plans to incentivize Arab states to buy in.

Martin Indyk, who served as President Barack Obamas special envoy on this issue, said Trumps approach of trying to find avenues to pursue is positive but cannot overcome the inability of Israeli and Palestinian leaders to make the political compromises necessary for real progress.

Based on experience, theres one principle that I operate on. By American willpower alone, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved, he said.

There are things the Trump team can do constructively, including bolstering Abbas by promoting economic development in the West Bank, Indyk said. Making small progress on the margins could improve the chances for peace down the line.

But by going for headlines, not trend lines, Trump is raising expectations and putting his administrations already-thin credibility at risk. There can be dangerous consequences in the Middle East when high-stakes diplomacy fails. The new administration would be better off recognizing that peace is not in the offing.

Read more from Josh Rogins archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The April 27 editorial about gun violence in the District,  Whoever invented guns needs to stop,  was right on the mark when it started by noting that the tragic story of the shooting of a 28-year-old father was easy to miss. But why? Is it possibly because the 84-word news brief about the incident  which, by the way, discussed the shooting of six people  was buried somewhere deep inside the newspaper?

When a single French police officer was shot and killed in Paris recently, the story was splashed across the front page [Gunfire targets Paris police, April 21]. That was, of course, also a tragic incident. But if The Post doesnt give the consequences of gun violence in the United States the same coverage as the consequences of terrorism, it should not be surprised if people see the latter as the greater threat.

David Buchholz, Silver Spring
Afghan activists pay tribute to the victims of a Taliban attack on an Afghan army base at a memorial on the Wazir Akbar Khan hilltop in Kabul, on April 23. (Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

The April 27 editorial How to make progress in Afghanistan urged the Trump administration to send additional U.S. trainers and Special Operations forces to Afghanistan and allow American planes and drones to operate with the same freedom against the enemy that they have in Iraq and Syria. A few thousand more U.S. troops will not change the trajectory of the war, and the inevitable spike in civilian casualties from loosened rules of engagement will only increase support for the Taliban. The way to make progress in Afghanistan is by ending the war, and only a negotiated political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban will bring peace to a nation that has known nothing but war since the Soviet invasion in 1979.

The Obama administration tried to defeat the Taliban by building up the Afghan army and sending 100,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, augmented by 40,000 NATO troops. When the military approach failed, President Barack Obama kept the Afghan government on life support until he left office and Afghanistan was no longer his problem.

President Trump inherited a war that our side is losing. There is ample reason to believe the Taliban still is willing to enter into a power-sharing agreement with the Afghan government. It is a deal Mr. Trump should try to close.

William Goodfellow, Washington

The writer is executive director of the Center for International Policy and co-coordinator of

the Afghanistan Study Group.
Amid the ongoing debate on triple talaq, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is calling people to banish those who wrong their wives using triple talaq and is urging parents to not wed their daughters in such families.

By Dev Ankur Wadhawan, Siraj Qureshi: In a twist to the ongoing triple talaq debate, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is calling the society to ostracise those who indulge in this practise and urging parents to not wed their daughters in such families.

Atiya Siddiqa, General Secretary of the women's wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind said, "Triple talaq is a social ill that needs to be eradicated from India. This campaign will be run in cities and towns where triple talaq is rampant."

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She added that both men and women need to be sensitised about it and therefore Jamaat-e-Islami is urging imams to talk about triple talaq in their lectures before Friday namaz.

BE CONCERNED ABOUT ALL WOMEN, NOT JUST MUSLIMS

"Muslim community will try to solve this by sitting together and in this case... When they (government) are so worried with regard to the Muslim women, they are required to worry about all the women staying in this country... what is our condition with regard to education and in the same way, what is our economic position. What is the state of our slum areas? Today our houses are getting spoilt because of liquor, what can we do to alleviate that? So, the Prime Minister of our country should worry about the entire country, there is no need to worry about only Muslims", Atiya Siddiqua added.

Siddiqa says an android app is being developed to help people understand Islamic teachings. Members of Jamaat-E-Islami Hind have been touring different parts of the country to spread awareness about the Muslim Personal Law. In Jaipur today, the organization claimed there is a need for better awareness about Muslim Personal law and Islam.

Jamaat will spread awareness through 'Jamaat Counseling Center', Darul Qaza and Sharia Panchayats in various cities of Uttar Pradesh.

JAMAT TO PROVIDE MONETARY AID

The organisation will also seek funds from the public and help women deserted by their husbands using triple talaq.

Lauding Prime Minister Modi's plea to not make it a political angle, Bhartiya Muslim Vikas Parishad Chairman Sami Aghai said, "Modi's step to abolish triple talaq has been welcomed by many."

Also read: Triple talaq row: Changing wives meant to satisfy lust, says UP minister Swami Prasad Maurya

Also read: PM Narendra Modi on triple talaq: Muslim community should come forward to protect its women

--- ENDS ---
MORE THAN a century ago, Congress gave the president extraordinary powers to protect precious public lands, in part to enable the White House to quickly preserve the Southwests Anasazi ruins from looters. Since then, presidents have used the 1906 Antiquities Act to create scores of national monuments on hundreds of millions of acres. But a president has never tried to undo a national monument, and it is unclear whether he has the authority to do so.

For that matter, it is unclear whether President Trump will try to do so. But there are ominous signs that he is considering at least shrinking protected areas. In an executive order last week, Mr. Trump asked for a review of monuments that are more than 100,000 acres and were designated in 1996 or later. Historically, the Act calls for the President to designate the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected,  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement. Despite this clear directive smallest area has become the exception and not the rule.

In fact, recent presidents have used the Antiquities Act ambitiously, but, for the most part, not in unprecedented ways. From the start, presidents used the act to preserve huge tracts of land. Teddy Roosevelt designated the Grand Canyon, at more than 800,000 acres, as a national monument. Franklin D. Roosevelt vastly expanded protected zones in the Grand Tetons. Jimmy Carter created the largest land-based national monument, 10.95 million acres in Alaskas Wrangell-St. Elias National Monument.

The Antiquities Act has protected Californias redwoods and Washington States Olympic Peninsula, Wyomings dramatic Devils Tower and Arizonas Petrified Forest. The act also preserves historical sites, such as the Obama-designated monuments dedicated to Cesar Chavez and to the Reconstruction Era.

Mr. Obama created more large monuments than any of his predecessors. He and President George W. Bush each set aside hundreds of millions acres, but their largest by far preserved big portions of Pacific Ocean habitat, which do not seem to be the object of Trump administration scrutiny. Instead, the prime targets appear to be two national monuments in southern Utah: President Bill Clintons 1.7 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Mr. Obamas 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument. The former is a spectacular red-rock landscape that tells a geologic story over hundreds of unspoiled miles. The latter also has glorious landscape, and contains priceless Native American ruins.

There is much good in the Antiquities Act track record, because presidents, in their broad view of the national interest, have generally used their powers judiciously. Moreover, Congress has not been absent from this process. Very often it has ratified presidential actions, and at times it has checked the presidents use of the act, an interaction that restrains presidential abuse. Mr. Trump should keep this broad national interest, and long view, in mind.
A fighter with the Syria Democratic Forces looks toward the northern town of Tabqa, Syria, on April 30. (Syrian Democratic Forces via Associated Press)

Regarding the April 30 news article On Syrian border, tension between Turkey and the United States over troops:

For nearly 50 years, I have been a U.S. citizen, with an American family, jobs and dreams. Eighty years ago, I was born in Syria and grew up there when the people united to build their nation after World War II. Later, I became the best friend of Hafez al-Assad, Syrias president. I met his son, current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, when he was a child. For years I worked on secret Israeli peace negotiations on their behalf. Few know the mind-set of Syrias people and leaders as I do.

The United States must not get further involved in the Syrian tragedy. We have no national interest that can be won there militarily. The Syrian civil war is now a miniature world war directly involving Russia, Iran and Turkey. Western and Arab Gulf nations are funding proxy fighters. The only solution is for the international community to reach consensus on handling the questions of chemical weapons, other alleged war crimes and the regimes future.

The Russians will continue backing the regime to keep their Syrian naval base and airports. The Iranians will not abandon Syrias regime, which is dominated by co-religionists, Shiite Muslims. The Islamist militants will never leave until the Syrian people reunify and drive them out. The United States must not enter that quagmire.

Ibrahim M. Soliman, Rockville
Many modern presidents have proposed big tax cuts by wrapping those cuts in forecasts of new consumer spending and new business investment creating significant economic growth. Such claims have always been based on magical thinking, not studies of the actual effect of tax cuts. With decades of data available, we are able to assess the truth about the rosy rhetoric of tax cuts: No solid evidence exists to support the claims of unleashed economic growth. In fact, tax cuts sometimes lead to a ballooning federal deficit and a contracting economy.

President Trump is following a path well-trod by his predecessors. He is relying on the myopia and gullibility of millions of Americans  especially pundits, talk radio hosts and members of Congress  to build knee-jerk support for cutting taxes, even though there is little evidence to suggest that such cuts will help a sluggish economy.

Robert Tiller, Silver Spring

While American corporate tax rates have been decried as too high and a burden on competitiveness, economics class teaches that taxes are passed on to customers. Indeed, Verizons latest bill says it will begin in July to collect from their customers surcharges to recover the cost of a state imposed gross receipts tax and a local business tax. Big corporations have long been devising complex mechanisms to avoid high U.S. corporate taxes, and the proposed 15 percent rate would be an increase in what many of them currently pay. So who benefits? Gone are the days when savings were passed on to consumers in lower prices or as dividends to shareholders.

Kerry Abbott, Harrisonburg, Va.

Regarding the April 27 news article Six ways Trumps tax plan could affect ordinary taxpayers:

After reading President Trumps tax-reform plan, I was once again struck by how out of touch some government leaders are with the needs of seniors. Social Security benefits have been frozen for two years and have actually decreased because of increases in Medicare premiums. This is because the cost-of-living adjustment does not factor in medical costs, a major expense for retirees.

Now, Mr. Trump has floated a tax plan that will eliminate individual medical deductions, preserving only mortgage interest and charitable contribution deductions. Moderate-income seniors generally no longer have mortgages. They frequently have high medical costs. Seniors, or any other citizens for that matter, who incur a major medical expense will suffer under Mr. Trumps plan since we all know that $15,000 doesnt go very far in todays medical world.

I have no hope that Mr. Trump will come to his senses, but maybe Congress will.

Karen Gelerter, Montgomery Village
BY NOW it should be clear that the new normal of Russian conduct on the international stage includes tampering with elections in Western democracies to boost candidates the Kremlin believes likely to do its bidding and to harass those who wont. Having done exactly that in the 2016 U.S. elections, President Vladimir Putins intelligence agencies are now directing their subterfuge at Europe, including the continents foremost economic powers: Germany and France.

The immediate targets of Russian cyber-meddling are Emmanuel Macron, the front-runner in the second and final round of Frances presidential election, set for May 7, and think tanks associated with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose governing coalition faces elections this fall. Like Hillary Clinton, whose campaign was similarly in the Kremlins crosshairs, neither Mr. Macron nor Ms. Merkel has been shy about condemning Moscows aggression in Ukraine. They have backed economic sanctions against Russia that have infuriated Mr. Putin.

The result has been a relentless series of cyberattacks originating in Moscow, in all probability directed by Russian military intelligence. In addition to Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel, hacking targets have included the Foreign and Defense ministries of Denmark, a stalwart of the European Union and NATO. This is part of a continuing war from the Russian side in this field, said Danish Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen, and its an eternal struggle to keep them away.

Amid the flurry of reports about Russian-directed fake news, phishing, phony websites and other stratagems deployed by Mr. Putins cyberwarriors, its important to stay focused on the central outrage  namely, that the Kremlin, having succeeded in corrupting Americas politics last year, is now intent on hijacking elections, democracys most basic feature, in other key Western nations. Thats why congressional Republicans leading investigations into the 2016 elections must do their jobs; Russian interference is an attack on core American values, not a partisan issue.

In February, the Macron campaign said it had detected more than 2,000 attempts to hack its campaign  most thought to have originated in Russia  including cyber-assaults that crashed its website and a barrage of efforts to gain access to the email accounts of campaign officials, perhaps in an attempt to collect compromising information that could then be used as leverage, a favorite Kremlin tactic, or for embarrassment.

Moscows tactics are designed to favor its preferred candidate in the May 7 runoff: Marine Le Pen, a right-wing nationalist who has taken loans from Russian banks, opposed sanctions against Moscow and heaped scorn on the E.U. Her policies would weaken Europe and drive a wedge among Western democracies  precisely the return on investment Mr. Putin is hoping for from his meddling.
Lets face it: The past 100 days have been a disaster . . . for Democrats.

While much ink has been spilled in the past week assessing President Trumps first 100 days in office, the Democrats abysmal performance has largely escaped scrutiny. So lets review their record.

The Democrats spent much of Trumps first months in office pushing their unfounded narrative of Trumps alleged collusion with Vladimir Putin. But that narrative went up in smoke when Trump launched missile strikes against Putins Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad. Trump not only hit the air base from which Assad allegedly had launched his chemical weapons attack but also dropped the mother of all bombs on the Democrats efforts to paint him as a Putin puppet. His Syrian strikes were followed by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haleys blistering speech before the U.N. Security Council laying the blame on Russia for failing to stop Syrias use of chemical weapons and Defense Secretary Jim Mattiss charge, on a recent visit to Afghanistan, that Russia is arming the Taliban. Suddenly, were in a new Cold War with Moscow  which pours cold water on Democrats case for Trump-Putin collusion. All that effort at character assassination down the drain.

But most damaging has been the Democrats seemingly nonstop efforts to further alienate the millions of Americans who twice voted for Barack Obama but switched to Trump last year. The presidents critics have pointed to a Post-ABC News poll, which showed that Trump had not expanded his base of support since he took office. Well, Trump did not need to expand his base. He won the election (and the poll suggested that if the election were held again today, he would not only defeat Hillary Clinton again but also win the popular vote this time).

The ones who need to expand their base are Democrats  the party that lost  and they utterly failed to so. According to the Post-ABC News poll, only 2 percent of Americans who voted for Trump regret their votes, while fully 96 percent say it was the right thing to do. In other words, after 100 days, Democrats made no inroads with these Obama-Trump voters. Quite the opposite, today just 28 percent of Americans say that the Democratic Party is in touch with the concerns of most Americans today  10 points behind Trump.

(Alice Li/The Washington Post)

Perhaps one reason is that Democrats have made clear their deep-seated contempt for the values of working-class, socially conservative Democrats who left their party in droves last year. On April 21, newly elected Democratic National Committee chairman Thomas Perez announced that pro-life candidates are no longer welcome in the Democratic Party: Every Democrat, like every American, should support a womans right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable. Hear that, Middle America? Get with the baby-killing program.

Democrats are completely focused on placating their frothing, left-wing, anti-Trump base  and the American heartland thinks these people are insane. They see women marching in anti-Trump rallies wearing pussy hats (and placing them on the heads of young children). They see left-wing mobs attacking Charles Murray at Middlebury College and trying to stop Ann Coulter from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley. They see Bill Nye the Liberal Guy  honorary co-chair of the March for Science  raising a question about whether people should be punished for having extra kids. (Which of their kids, they wonder, is the extra one?) They see a horrible feedback loop of left-wing intolerance for their beliefs and way of life.

And they see Democrats in Washington pandering to these people.

They also see that Democrats have not even made a pretense of cooperation with the candidate they elected. The Democratic Party is no longer the opposition; it is The Resistance. These voters rightly ask: Resistance to what? The answer, they conclude, is resistance to ideas that are not their own. Resistance to the values of Middle America. Resistance to the candidate who promised to fight for them  the forgotten Americans the Democratic Party abandoned.

The Democrats unrelenting, hyperventilating obstruction of Trump has sent crystal-clear a message to millions of Obama-Trump voters: We dont hear you. We loathe your president and all of you who put him into office. And were going to show you what you can do with your Trump vote, by doing everything in our power to undermine the man you elected.

Not smart. Cranking out the liberal base while alienating working-class, traditionally Democratic voters did not work in 2016. It cost Democrats not only the presidency but also a historic opportunity to take control of the Senate in a year when the playing field was tilted against the GOP.

Yet for some inexplicable reason, Democrats seem hellbent on doubling down on this failed strategy in 2018. Trouble is, in 2018 Republicans are defending only eight Senate seats, while Democrats are defending 25  including 10 in red states that Trump won. And working-class voters in those states see that Democrats have utter contempt for their choice of president, and thus utter contempt for them.

A hundred days in, these voters remain loyal to Trump. Thats good news for the president. But for Democrats, it is a disaster.

Read more from Marc Thiessens archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Jim Millstein, founder of the financial advisory and investment firm Millstein & Co., was chief restructuring officer in the Treasury Department from 2009 to 2011. Jane Vris is a partner at Millstein & Co. and chairperson of the National Bankruptcy Conference. Jim Wigand is a partner at Millstein & Co. and former director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.s Office of Complex Financial Institutions. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors.

Pressure is building in Congress to repeal significant portions of President Barack Obamas signature Dodd-Frank Act, signed into law after the financial crisis of 2008. In particular, critics are targeting a provision in the law known as orderly liquidation authority, which is designed to give the federal government the power to step in and prevent a systemwide collapse during financial emergencies.

The idea behind the law was to avoid a future Lehman Brothers  to give federal regulators the ability to liquidate a large financial holding company in an orderly way and thereby avoid triggering the kind of panic that occurred after the investment bank filed for bankruptcy in 2008.

Opponents see orderly liquidation authority as a mechanism to protect too big to fail banks. They argue that it encourages large financial institutions to take outsize risks with the knowledge that, if those risks lead to the firms failure, federal regulators will be there to bail them out.

This moral hazard argument, however, mistakes how this provision of Dodd-Frank is designed to work. Unlike with the financial bailouts implemented by the federal government in the wake of Lehman Brothers collapse, the statute requires firms in need of federal help to wipe out their shareholders, replace their management and force their creditors to take losses ahead of any funds the government may provide to facilitate the liquidation of the failed institution.

This is worth emphasizing: If the government were to lose money as a consequence of liquidating a large financial institution, the firms unsecured creditors would be wiped out and other banks in the system would have to pick up the tab to make sure the government were made whole.

The safety net under Dodd-Frank, therefore, is not a safety net for the failing firms shareholders, management or creditors. Rather, it is a safety net for the rest of us, intended to mitigate the harm that the failure of a large, deeply interconnected financial institution could inflict on the economy.

In creating a specialized regime to deal with the failure of large financial holding companies such as Lehman Brothers, Dodd-Frank filled a dangerous gap in the statutes governing the bankruptcy of financial institutions. Following the deregulation of the financial industry in 1980, huge financial conglomerates were assembled, bringing broker dealers, asset managers, depositories and insurance companies under the umbrella of a single holding company. Congress had previously created specialized bankruptcy law for each of the regulated entities within these complex conglomerates, but it never created a bankruptcy regime for holding companies until it passed Dodd-Frank.

Those who want to do away with Dodd-Franks liquidation authority would have us believe that a special chapter of the bankruptcy code could address the procedural problems that Lehman Brothers faced when it filed for bankruptcy. And while those procedural issues should be addressed, two important features of Dodd-Frank designed to protect the public are not addressed by the proposed revisions to the bankruptcy code.

First, federal financial regulators wouldnt have the power to coordinate the commencement and conduct of bankruptcy proceedings for a failing financial holding company with regulators of its domestic and foreign subsidiaries. Second, without access to an established source of liquidity as provided under Dodd-Frank, the federal government could not forestall the kind of fire sale of assets and defaults on short-term debt that set off the widespread panic that the start of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy triggered.

Repealing orderly liquidation authority in favor of a new chapter of the bankruptcy code would leave the stability of the financial system hostage to one large firms failure, without the important tools available under Dodd-Frank to contain the contagion its failure would certainly precipitate.

By all means, Congress should amend the bankruptcy code to give bankruptcy courts the tools needed to mitigate the kinds of problems revealed by Lehman Brothers bankruptcy proceedings. But we should retain orderly liquidation authority  just in case regulators need to break the glass to protect the financial system against the economic contagion that the bankruptcy of a large, deeply interconnected firm could provoke.
The New York Times reports that President Trumps aides were stunned that he invited Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte to the White House.

Im stunned that anybody would be stunned. In style, if not in scope, the two men are brothers from another mother.

Both have employed foul language in public, boasted publicly about their sexual performance and made vulgar references to assaulting women. Both have threatened the free press, challenged the legitimacy of the judiciary, attacked opponents as corrupt  and insulted the pope.

Certainly, Trump has attempted nothing so horrifying as has Duterte, who has boasted of personally killing people and whose government has killed thousands of alleged drug dealers. Trump boasted that I could . . . shoot somebody and I wouldnt lose voters, but he hasnt tested the hypothesis.

Duterte is only the latest autocrat to earn Trumps admiration, following his earlier praise for the skills of Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Bashar al-Assad, Moammar Gaddafi and smart cookie Kim Jong Un. But the similarities between Trumps language and Dutertes are striking. Is it a case of imitation? Or are they both using the same authoritarian handbook?

[The Trump-Duterte bromance, and the ghastly realities of wars on drugs]

The man Trump would have as his guest at the White House has attacked Philippine judges as drug addicts, telling the chief justice not to order me around unless she would rather that I declare martial law.

Trump tried to disqualify a federal judge from hearing a case against him because hes Mexican and attacked the so-called judge who blocked his travel ban, proposing people blame the court system for future terrorist attacks. A top aide said Trumps authority on national security will not be questioned.

Duterte, when he was mayor of Davao City, joked about the prison rape of an Australian missionary, saying she was so beautiful. The mayor should have been first. What a waste. He at first said that was just how men talk.

Trump, in footage that emerged during the campaign, boasted about assaulting women, saying he could grab em by the p----. Trumps campaign at first said this was locker-room banter.

Duterte has proclaimed: Im not impotent. What am I supposed to do? Let this hang forever? When I take Viagra, it stands up.

Trump, in a presidential debate, spoke of the size of his genitalia: He referred to my hands  if theyre small, something else must be small. I guarantee you, theres no problem. I guarantee you.

Duterte, when Pope Francis tied up traffic in the Philippines, said he wanted to tell him, Pope, son of a whore, go home. Trump called it disgraceful of the pope to question Trumps Christianity. He said Francis was very political and a pawn of Mexico.

The man with whom Trump would break bread in the Peoples House also called President Barack Obama a son of a whore. Trump has questioned Obamas American birth and called him a threat to our country and founder of ISIS.

Trumps new friend, who has spoken favorably of Adolf Hitler, said, If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself. Duterte said he wouldnt stop because of the human rights, daring opponents to assassinate him.

Trump once suggested that Second Amendment people  gun owners  could stop judicial nominees. He has been accused in court of inciting violence at his rallies. He proposed paying legal fees of those who knock the crap out of protesters.

Duterte said f--- you to leaders of the European Union. Trump spoke of bombing the

s--- out of ISIS and said China was ripping the s--- out of the sea.

Duterte told drug pushers to forget the laws on human rights, saying, Id kill you. Id dump all of you into Manila Bay and fatten all the fish.

Trump once said that he would restore waterboarding and much worse for terrorists, and that the military would obey him.

[Trump embraces yet another strongman]

Duterte made a Christmas video telling criminals it would be your last Merry Christmas. Trump had a New Years tweet for my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly.

Duterte has attacked newspaper owners and told journalists you are not exempted from assassination. Trump routinely blasts the fake news media and talks of restricting press freedoms (though happily not of assassination).

Duterte accused a senator leading an inquiry into his administrations killings of being corrupted by the drug industry. Trump, who made crooked Hillary his campaign centerpiece, has lashed out at those investigating his administrations ties to Moscow.

A report in March from the State Department  Trumps State Department  said Dutertes attacks on those who have criticized his policies had a chilling effect on free speech and expression.

Now Trump, after a very friendly talk with Duterte, wants to honor him with a White House visit. Thats not just chilling  its cold.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
The overflow crowd at Busboys and Poets was black and white and shades in between, yuppies in chinos and activists in message T-shirts, bubbling with excitement to hear from the special guest at the restaurants open mic night.

Instead of a poet or a musician, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) stepped onto the stage, showered with applause and cheers. Not many members of Congress could draw this kind of crowd  diverse and yet united behind a single goal. After taking a moment to thank the crowd for its greeting, Waters got right to the point.

Donald Trump is someone that found his way to the presidency of the United States of America  I still dont know how, she said, drawing boos at the mention of the presidents name. But hes someone that Im committed to getting impeached!

The crowd exploded.

Hes a liar! Hes a cheat! Hes a con man! she said, each declaration punctuated by cheers. Weve got to stop his ass!

(Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

Waters has become the voice of a new generation of restless citizens. At age 78, the congresswomans political career is older than many of her new admirers. Her decades of forceful confrontation of institutional discrimination, inside and outside the political arena, has attracted fans far beyond the boundaries of her Los Angeles congressional district.

But much of her newfound celebrity can be credited to one word: impeachment.

Waterss crusade against Trump  she did not attend his swearing-in and skipped his joint address to Congress two months ago  is popular with the young activists and progressives who have taken to the streets since his inauguration.

[Omarosa Manigault is in Trumps White House because of her loyalty. But what is she doing there?]

John Becker, a 32-year-old LGBT activist who was at the Busboys event, said Waters recognizes, almost as no one else does, the peril that our country is in, and she is willing to say exactly what needs to be said. She is putting country first, and I wish that more of our representatives and elected officials would follow her example.

Symone Sanders, who served as national spokeswoman for the unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said Waters reflected the outrage of progressives when she rejected the notion of trying to work with Trump, as some Democratic members of Congress suggested after the election. Even Senator Sanders was quoted as saying he would be willing to work with the president on trade reform and rebuilding the countrys infrastructure.

That is not what the base wanted to hear, and that is definitely not what millennials wanted to hear, Symone Sanders said of Democrats response to Trump. Just 37 percent of voters ages 29 or younger voted for Trump, according to exit polls.

It is clear that Waters is enjoying the attention. She is in demand on cable news and at progressive events such as Januarys Womens March on Washington. She is busy on Twitter (she jokes that she had to consult with her grandchildren to find out what it meant to go viral).

But for all of her followers on social media and in the streets, Waters is waging the campaign to impeach Trump largely on her own. Her concern centers on the question of whether Trump and his campaign knowingly worked with the Russian government to influence the outcome of the election, in which the businessman defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Most of her Democratic colleagues are circumspect on the matter, calling for a vigorous, independent investigations, but rarely using the i-word.

Asked to respond to Waterss call for impeachment in February, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Trump has acted in a way that is strategically incoherent, that is incompetent and that is reckless. And that is not grounds for impeachment.

[Prediction professor lays out eight reasons Trump could be impeached]

Ive been criticized because people said, Oh, you shouldnt use the impeachment word. But I have a deep and strong feeling about what Im hearing and what Im seeing and what Im learning, Waters said in an interview with The Washington Post. That day, The Post reported a secret meeting between a major Trump supporter and a Russian with close ties to President Vladimir Putin, and BuzzFeed reported that former Trump adviser Carter Page had communicated in the past with a Russian intelligence agent.

This involvement with so many of the people in his Cabinet with the Kremlin, with Putin . . . worries me and it bothers me, she said.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House principal deputy press secretary, said of Waters: Her calls for impeachment are baseless and ridiculous.

Waters has nothing to lose. Her congressional seat is safe  she has received no less than 70 percent of the vote since her first congressional campaign in 1990. And among Democrats, the idea of impeaching Trump is appealing. Although only 30 percent of adults in a February Public Religion Research Institute poll said Trump should be impeached, 58 percent of Democrats supported the idea.

Still, neither Waters nor any of her Democratic House colleagues has put forth a resolution to begin the impeachment process. She acknowledges that there is not enough solid evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians.

The investigations are very important. I think all of the signs are there, and when they connect the dots, when they have all the facts, you will see a change in the Congress, said Waters, who is the ranking Democrat of the House Financial Services Committee. Not only will Democrats be anxious to impeach, but Republicans as well.

Removing a president from office is difficult, both practically and politically, says Michael J. Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolinas School of Law. The Constitution sets a high bar: The House can call for an investigation if a president is suspected of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The House Judiciary Committee decides whether there is sufficient evidence; if so, it draws up articles of impeachment. If the full House passes them, the Senate considers the charges and decides whether to convict the accused.

[Airlines say theyre overbooking less. But passengers say theyre discriminating more.]

The House has voted to impeach only two presidents in the countrys history  Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. The Senate acquitted both men. The House Judiciary Committee had begun preparing articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon in 1974 for his role in the Watergate scandal, but he resigned.

With a particularly partisan environment in Congress, lawmakers will weigh the political risks of pursuing impeachment, Gerhardt said.

When you have party unity like you do in current Republican Party, that makes it an additional hurdle to get over. The minority party in the House has virtually no power, said Gerhardt, who testified during Clintons impeachment proceedings.

Waterss record on progressive and civil rights issues is lengthy: Before joining Congress in 1991, she was a member of the California State Assembly, where she authored legislation forcing the state to divest its pension funds from companies doing business in South Africa at the height of the fight against that countrys apartheid system.

In 1992, she was introduced to a national audience during the Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of police officers charged in the beating of motorist Rodney King. Waters called for context, saying the violent reaction was a result of an ongoing sense of injustice in the citys black communities. Two years later, she voted against President Clintons crime bill, which has been criticized for helping to fuel an explosion in the prison population that has disproportionately affected African Americans and Latinos.

In the House, she continued to articulate the concerns of poor people, women and people of color, and she chaired the Congressional Black Caucus in the late 1990s.

Nichole Christian heard Waters speak at an event in Detroit last month  every fifth word was impeachment   and came away invigorated.

Christian called the actions of Trumps presidency a daily slap in the face to immigrants, women and African Americans. Waters, she said, was somebody who has taken a principled stand. . . . Shes a politician doing an apolitical thing: speaking truth to power.

As much as Waters is celebrated by progressives, she is castigated by conservative commentators and activists who point to an ethics investigation of her to undermine her arguments against Trump. Several years ago, Waters was investigated for  and cleared of  violating House conflict-of-interest rules after she sought federal aid for a bank in which her husband owned hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock.

[Maxine Waterss ridiculous claim that Betsy DeVos has never seen the inside of a classroom]

Her moments of hyperbole and slip-ups also have become targets for conservative critics. While laying out her concerns about the Trump administration at a news conference in February, she said Putin had invaded Korea instead of Crimea.

And last month, Fox News host Bill OReilly, reacting to a Waters speech that was critical of Trump, disparaged her appearance, likening her hair to a James Brown wig. A backlash followed, and he quickly apologized.

But the eccentricities that have become targets for Waterss critics have been glorified by her fans, who affectionately call her Auntie Maxine.

R. Eric Thomas of Elle.com helped fuel Waterss popularity with a column in January on how Waters doesnt just go in on Trump, she does so with style, employing dramatic eye rolls during interviews and a taunting moniker for Trump and his advisers who have ties to Russia  the Kremin Klan.

Thomas likened her to that certain aunt in the family who will set you straight when you are out of line. As he put it: Honey, Maxine Waters is not the one. . . . She would like to cordially invite you to not come for her unless she sends for you.

Like the time Waters dissed FBI Director James B. Comey. She emerged from a closed-door intelligence briefing with the air of someone who was not pleased to have wasted her time. When a reporter asked about the meeting she said simply: The FBI director has no credibility! And then walked away.

Auntie! Auntie! Auntie! the crowd at Busboys chanted as Waters wrapped up her talk.

I did not know that an auntie could be loved by so many people! she said. Im having the time of my life.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.
Miami Commissioner Francis Suarez stands in front of the remains of a demolished vacant property in Miami. The city is taking its case to the Supreme Court, asking to sue big banks that targeted mostly minority neighborhoods with predatory lending practices. (Angel Valentin for The Washington Post)

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal anti-discrimination law allows cities to sue a bank over lending practices they allege led to urban blight but said they face a high standard in proving those practices directly harmed the local governments.

The ruling was a mixed one for Miami, which was at the forefront of a move by cities nationwide to sue big lending institutions under the federal Fair Housing Act.

Banks have previously been sued by individuals and taken to task by the federal government for lending practices. But these new cases are the first in which cities are the plaintiffs and are demanding that banks be held accountable for harming their communities.

A majority of the justices agreed that cities, not just individuals, can sue under the Fair Housing Act.

[Supreme Court seems to favor Miami suing banks whose lending practices led to neighborhood blight]

This court has repeatedly written that the FHAs definition of person aggrieved reflects a congressional intent to confer standing broadly, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for himself and four other justices.

But the justices unanimously decided that a lower court had incorrectly allowed Miamis lawsuit against Wells Fargo and Bank of America to go forward without more proof that the bank practices had directly harmed the city by, for instance, reducing the amount of property taxes it received.

Instead, cities must show some direct relationship between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged, Breyer wrote.

The half-full, half-empty opinion seemed to reflect an effort at compromise among the eight justices who heard the case. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the four liberals in the majority opinion that cities could sue under the Fair Housing Act, but the justices did not describe what would constitute the direct relationship that must be shown. That hard work was left for the lower court on remand.

Miami and other cities have pursued a novel approach under the Fair Housing Act to recover what they lost as a result of lower tax revenue and greater demand for services after the housing collapse.

[To recoup losses from the housing collapse, Miami pursues a novel suit]

The banks countered that Congress never intended for the law to be used for such purposes.

Municipal suits like this one were unheard of until recently, when enterprising contingency-fee counsel began pushing them, Bank of America told the court in its brief. Baltimore settled a suit it had filed against banks, and there is litigation underway by Cook County, Ill., Oakland, Calif., Los Angeles and other cities.

The law allows an aggrieved person to file a civil action seeking damages, and the first question for the court was whether cities qualified.

Breyer said the courts precedents show that it has interpreted the law in a broad fashion, because that is what Congress intended.

Civil rights groups pointed to the finding that cities could sue as the most important takeaway from Mondays court decision.

Todays Supreme Court decision reinforces the critical role that states and cities must play in holding banks and other actors accountable for actions that continue to harm communities, particularly minority communities that have borne the brunt of the crisis, said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Breyer recounted the citys argument: Predatory lending practices in minority neighborhoods led to a concentration of foreclosures. That caused stagnation and decline. They hindered the citys efforts to create integrated, stable neighborhoods. And, highly relevant here, they reduced property values, diminishing the citys property tax revenue and increasing demand for municipal services, he wrote.

But Breyer, joined by Roberts and liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said that only got the city into the courthouse.

To prevail, the city must prove the direct causal link, and they hinted it might be difficult to do that.

The housing market is interconnected with economic and social life. A violation of the FHA may, therefore, be expected to cause ripples of harm to flow far beyond the defendants misconduct, Breyer wrote. Nothing in the statute suggests that Congress intended to provide a remedy wherever those ripples travel.

Previously, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said Miami only had to show that its damages were foreseeable by the banks to proceed to trial. The Supreme Court unanimously said that was the wrong standard.

Robert S. Peck of the Center for Constitutional Litigation, which represented Miami, said the city is ready to prove the banks action directly led to the citys problems. Were capable of doing it, he said.

But Wells Fargo and Bank of America said the new standards will be hard to meet. The citys charges are without merit, said Bank of Americas spokesman Lawrence Grayson.

The three dissenting justices also said Miami could not prove its case.

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr. signed on to Justice Clarence Thomass dissenting opinion that Miami should not be able to bring suit under the Fair Housing Act. Even if it could, he wrote, the citys injuries are exceedingly attenuated.

Thomas noted that the chain of causation in Miami occurred between 2004 and 2012. The court of appeals will not need to look far to discern other, independent events that might well have caused the injuries Miami alleges, Thomas wrote.

The case was argued before Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined the court, and he took no part in the decision.

The case is Bank of America v. Miami.
(Bastien Inzaurralde,Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Growing up in the 1980s, Brian Brown was taught to think of the communist Soviet Union as a dark and evil place.

But Brown, a leading opponent of same-sex marriage, said that in the past few years he has started meeting Russians at conferences on family issues and finding many kindred spirits.

Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, has visited Moscow four times in four years, including a 2013 trip during which he testified before the Duma as Russia adopted a series of anti-gay laws.

What I realized was that there was a great change happening in the former Soviet Union, he said. There was a real push to re-instill Christian values in the public square.

A significant shift has been underway in recent years across the Republican right.

On issues including gun rights, terrorism and same-sex marriage, many leading advocates on the right who grew frustrated with their countrys leftward tilt under President Barack Obama have forged ties with well-connected Russians and come to see that countrys authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, as a potential ally.

The attitude adjustment among many conservative activists helps explain one of the most curious aspects of the 2016 presidential race: a softening among many conservatives of their historically hard-line views of Russia. To the alarm of some in the GOPs national security establishment, support in the party base for then-candidate Donald Trump did not wane even after he rejected the tough tone of 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who called Russia Americas No. 1 foe, and repeatedly praised Putin.

[Inside Trumps financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Vladimir Putin]

The burgeoning alliance between Russians and U.S. conservatives was apparent in several events in late 2015, as the Republican nomination battle intensified.

(The Washington Post)

Top officials from the National Rifle Association, whose annual meeting Friday featured an address by Trump for the third time in three years, traveled to Moscow to visit a Russian gun manufacturer and meet government officials.

About the same time in December 2015, evangelist Franklin Graham met privately with Putin for 45 minutes, securing from the Russian president an offer to help with an upcoming conference on the persecution of Christians. Graham was impressed, telling The Washington Post that Putin answers questions very directly and doesnt dodge them like a lot of our politicians do.

The growing dialogue between Russians and U.S. conservatives came at the same time experts say the Russian government stepped up efforts to cultivate and influence far-right groups in Europe and on the eve of Russias unprecedented intrusion into the U.S. campaign, which intelligence officials have concluded was intended to elect Trump.

Russians and Americans involved in developing new ties say they are not part of a Kremlin effort to influence U.S. politics. We know nothing about that, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said. Brown said activists in both countries are simply uniting together under the values we share.

[Heres what we know so far about Team Trumps ties to Russian interests]

It is not clear what effect closer ties will have on relations between the two countries, which have gotten frostier with the opening of congressional and FBI investigations into Russias intrusion into the election and rising tensions over the civil war in Syria.

But the apparent increase in contacts in recent years, as well as the participation of officials from the Russian government and the influential Russian Orthodox church, leads some analysts to conclude that the Russian government probably promoted the efforts in an attempt to expand Putins power.

Is it possible that these are just well-meaning people who are reaching out to Americans with shared interests? It is possible, said Steven L. Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after managing Russia operations for 30 years. Is it likely? I dont think its likely at all. . . . My assessment is that its definitely part of something bigger.

Interactions between Russians and American conservatives appeared to gain momentum as Obama prepared to run for a second term.

At the time, many in the GOP warned that Obama had failed to counter the national security threat posted by Putins aggression.

But, deep in the party base, change was brewing.



G. Kline Preston IV sits at the desk in his office in Nashville, with a portrait off George Washington painted by a Russian artist on the wall behind him. (Kyle Dean Reinford/For the Washington Post)

At least one connection came about thanks to a conservative Nashville lawyer named G. Kline Preston IV, who had done business in Russia for years.

Preston said that in 2011 he introduced David Keene, then the NRAs president, to a Russian senator, Alexander Torshin, a member of Putins party who later became a top official at the Russian central bank. Keene had been a stalwart on the right, a past chairman of the American Conservative Union who was the NRAs president from 2011 to 2013.

Neither Keene nor Torshin responded to requests for comment. An NRA spokesman also did not respond to questions.

Torshin seemed a natural ally to American conservatives.

A friend of Mikhail Kalashnikov, revered in Russia for inventing the AK-47 assault rifle, Torshin in 2010 had penned a glossy gun rights pamphlet, illustrated by cartoon figures wielding guns to fend off masked robbers. The booklet cited U.S. statistics to argue for gun ownership, at one point echoing in Russian an old NRA slogan: Guns dont shoot  people shoot.



A page from a Russian pamphlet written by Alexander Torshin. The pamphlet advocates for gun rights. (Obtained by The Washington Post)

Torshin was also a leader in a Russian movement to align government more closely with the Orthodox church.

The value system of Southern Christians and the value system of Russians are very much in line, Preston said. The so-called conflict between our two nations is a tragedy because were very similar people, in a lot of our values, our interests and that sort of thing.

Preston, an expert on Russian law whose office features a white porcelain bust of Putin, said he had told Tennessee friends for years not to believe television reports about the Russian leader having journalists or dissidents killed.

Preston was an international observer of the 2011 legislative elections in Russia, which sparked mass street protests in Moscow charging electoral irregularities. But Preston said he concluded that the elections were free and fair.

By contrast, Preston said he and Torshin saw violations of U.S. law  pro-Obama signs posted too close to a polling place  when Torshin traveled to Nashville to observe voting in the 2012 presidential election.



Mementos from various trips to Russia decorate the G. Kline Preston IV's office. (Kyle Dean Reinford/For the Washington Post)

In Russia, Torshin and an aide, a photogenic activist originally from Siberia named Maria Butina, began building a gun rights movement.

Butina founded a group called the Right to Bear Arms, and in 2013 she and Torshin invited Keene and other U.S. gun advocates to its annual meeting in Moscow.

The event, where about 200 people gathered at Moscows convention center, included a fashion show in which models donned concealed carry garments with built-in pockets for weapons.

One American participant, Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, recalled that Torshin and Butina took him and his wife out for dinner and gave them gifts that displayed research into their interests  exotic fabric for Gottliebs wife, a needlepoint enthusiast, and for Gottlieb, commemorative stamps that Torshin received as a member of the Russian legislature.

Maria Butina attends a rally on handgun legalization in 2013. (Anton Novoderezhkin/ZUMAPRESS.com)

They wanted to keep communications open and form friendships, Gottlieb said.

Butina, now a graduate student at American University in Washington, told The Post via email that her groups cause is not very popular with Russian officials and has never received funding from the government or from the NRA. She said she has never worked for the government and added that she and the American activists she has befriended simply share a love of gun rights.

No government official has EVER approached me about fostering ties with any Americans, she wrote.

Hall, the former CIA officer, said he was skeptical. He said he did not think Putin would tolerate a legitimate effort to advocate for an armed citizenry, and asserted that the movement is probably controlled by the security services to woo the American right.

When Torshin and Butina attended the NRAs 2014 annual convention, their profiles as scrappy Russians pushing for gun rights were rising. Butina attended an NRA womens luncheon as a guest of one of the organizations past presidents.

Interviewed by the conservative website Townhall, Butina called the NRA one of the most world famous and most important organizations and said that we would like to be friends with NRA.

While Russians are allowed to own shotguns, Butina said her group hoped to reverse a ban on carrying handguns.

That years turbulent events  in which Russias incursion into Ukraine prompted the Obama administration to enact strict sanctions against Moscow  illustrated the Russians alliance with U.S. gun advocates.

Butina argued in a Russian interview that firearm sellers in her country, including the popular Kalashnikov, were among the most impacted by sanctions, which specifically blocked its assets.

In Washington, the NRAs lobbying arm blasted the order, saying that such restrictions have long been used by the executive branch as a means of unilaterally enacting gun control.

[Trump vows to come through for NRA]

Relationships between Russians and American conservatives seemed to blossom in 2015, as the Republican presidential race geared up.

Butina posted social-media photos showing how she and Torshin gained access to NRA officials and the U.S. politicians attending events. That April, Butina toured the NRAs Virginia headquarters, and she and Torshin met Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), then a leading White House contender, at the NRA annual convention. Torshin told Bloomberg last year that he had a friendly exchange with Trump at the 2015 convention and sat with his son Donald Jr. at an NRA dinner the following year.

Walkers spokesman said the encounter was brief, as speakers mingled with attendees before their remarks. A senior White House official said Trump may have briefly interacted with Torshin at the 2015 convention but did not recall. At the next years event, the official said Torshin briefly greeted Donald Jr. at a restaurant.

In June 2015, as Trump announced his candidacy, Butina wrote a column in the National Interest, a conservative U.S. magazine, suggesting that a Republican in the White House might improve U.S.-Russia relations.

She wrote that Republicans and Russians held similar views on oil exploration and that cultural conservatives would identify with Putins party and its aggressive take on Islamic terrorism.

Butina that summer immersed herself in U.S. politics. In July, she showed up in Las Vegas at FreedomFest, a meeting of libertarians where Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a rival for the GOP nomination, were speaking.



In his office, G. Kline Preston IV displays a flag reading "Our President Putin" that was given to him in the streets on Russia's last presidential election day. (Kyle Dean Reinford/For the Washington Post)

She made her way to a microphone during Trumps speech and asked in accented English, What will be your foreign politics, especially in the relations with my country?

It was the first time Trump had been asked about Russia as a candidate.

I know Putin and Ill tell you what, we get along with Putin, he said.

Trump would go on to repeatedly praise the Russian president as a strong leader.

But Trump, who at the time was considered a long shot for the nomination, echoed a sentiment then bubbling up from some corners of the conservative grass roots  that Putin was a potential friend.

That was the takeaway for Graham, the North Carolina-based evangelist, after his November 2015 Kremlin meeting with Putin.

The last time Graham had visited Moscow, with his father, Billy Graham, in the 1980s, the practice of religion was prohibited. On this trip, he said, conditions for Christians in Russia remained difficult. But Graham recalled that Putin listened as he described evangelical Christianity and the challenges facing Christians around the world. Putin explained that his mother kept her Christian faith even during the darkest days of atheistic communist rule.

He understood, Graham said of the Russian leader.

Putin offered to help Graham organize an international conference on Christian persecution in Moscow, Graham said. Instead, a Russian delegation is expected when the conference takes place in May in Washington, Graham said.

At the end of 2015, Butina welcomed a delegation to Moscow that included Keene, by then a member of the NRA board, as well as top NRA donors. The group also included a rising star in GOP politics, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who went on to be a campaign surrogate for Trump and has been mentioned as a contender for a high-level job at the Department of Homeland Security. Clarke did not respond to requests for comment.

The group toured a gun manufacturing company and met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was among the officials sanctioned by the White House following Russias invasion of Ukraine. Keene told the Daily Beast, which first reported the meeting, that the interaction with Rogozin was non-political and consisted of touring the headquarters of a shooting group that Rogozin chairs.



In 2011, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, right, State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov, left, and Federation Council Deputy Chief Alexander Torshin attend a presentation ceremony of state awards in the Kremlin. (Konstantin Zavrazhin/Getty Images)

After Trumps victory, Torshin returned to the United States with a delegation of prominent Russians to attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February. In addition to his gun-rights work, Torshin also had helped build a similar prayer breakfast in Moscow from an obscure monthly event a decade ago into one more resembling the annual ritual in Washington.

Putin now sends an annual greeting to the Russian event, a recognition of its value in allowing Russian and American guests to come together under one roof in order to rebuild the relationship between the two countries that has degraded under the administration of President Obama, said breakfast organizer Peter Sautov in an email.

Torshin, accompanied by 15 Russian church and government officials, requested to meet the new president before Trump spoke at the event, according to people familiar with the arrangement.

But they said the meeting was canceled as reports surfaced from Spanish authorities alleging that Torshin led an organized crime and money-laundering operation. Torshin has not been charged and denied wrongdoing in an interview with Bloomberg, which first reported the allegations.

A White House official said the requested meeting was never confirmed in the first place. The proposed meeting was first reported by Yahoo.

That night, Torshin gathered for a festive dinner at a Capitol Hill restaurant with conservative thought leaders who have supported warmer ties with Russia.

There has been a change in the views of hard-core conservatives toward Russia, a participant, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), said in an interview. Conservative Republicans like myself hated communism during the Cold War. But Russia is no longer the Soviet Union.

Andrew Roth in Moscow and Alice Crites and Karoun Demirjian in Washington contributed to this report.
By Press Trust of India: Tura (Meghalaya), May 1 (PTI) Two persons were arrested today in West Garo Hills district in connection with a fake currency racket and counterfeit notes of face value of Rs 1.32 lakh seized, police said.

The arrests were made based on reports of fake currency being circulated by some unscrupulous criminals amongst villagers as payments for various trades, the police said.

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"We have arrested two of the main men behind the entire operation and search is currently on for the rest of the gang," district police chief M G R Kumar said.

He said the group of criminals were going into villages and buying betel nuts and other products and making payments late in the evenings in mostly dark places.

"As villagers were unable to check the authenticity of the notes due to the darkness and their high quality, they were getting away with the entire operation," Kumar said.

"We believe the gang has international links and has been circulating fake Indian currencies for some time through the Mankachar route from Bangladesh. The notes are very difficult to discern as they have most security features including high security thread, 3D raised elevation for visibly disabled people. They used crowded market days to push through the FICN into the monetary state," the SP said.

The two arrested have been identified as Abdul Kalam from Hazirhat from Assam and Salseng Sangma from Tura, the police said. PTI CORR JOP RG

--- ENDS ---
Its no longer just Vladimir Putin.

As he settles into office, President Trumps affection for totalitarian leaders has grown beyond Russias president to include strongmen around the globe.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi has had his opponents gunned down, but Trump praised him for doing a fantastic job. Thailands prime minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, is a junta chief whose military jailed dissidents after taking power in a coup, yet Trump offered to meet with him at the White House. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has eroded basic freedoms, but after a recent political victory, he got a congratulatory call from Trump.

Then theres the case of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. He is accused of presiding over the extrajudicial killing of thousands of drug dealers and users. And in response to U.S. criticism of his human rights record last year, he said President Barack Obama can go to hell.

Yet on Sunday, in what the White House characterized as a very friendly conversation, Trump invited Duterte to Washington for an official visit.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

In an undeniable shift in American foreign policy, Trump is cultivating authoritarian leaders, one after another, in an effort to reset relations following an era of ostracism and public shaming by Obama and his predecessors.

For instance, it has become an almost daily occurrence for Trump to gush about Chinese President Xi Jinping since their Mar-a-Lago summit last month. Trump has called Xi a very good man, highly respected and a gentleman, as he tries to persuade Xi to convince North Korea that it should scale back or give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Trumps praise is not limited to potential U.S. allies. Even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ratchets up his provocations, Trump called Kim a smart cookie in a CBS News interview over the weekend. On Monday, Trump told Bloomberg News he would be honored to personally meet with Kim under the right circumstances.

[Trump takes a selective approach to the promotion of human rights]

Every American president since at least the 1970s has used his office at least occasionally to champion human rights and democratic values around the world. Yet, so far at least, Trump has willingly turned a blind eye to dictators records of brutality and oppression in hopes that those leaders might become his partners in isolating North Korea or fighting terrorism.

Indeed, in his first 102 days in office, Trump has neither delivered substantive remarks nor taken action supporting democracy movements or condemning human rights abuses, other than the missile strike he authorized on Syria after President Bashar al-Assad allegedly used chemical weapons against his own people.

He doesnt even pretend to utter the words, said Michael McFaul, a U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama. Small-d democrats all over the world are incredibly despondent right now about Donald Trump  and thats true in China, in Iran, in Egypt, in Russia. They feel like the leader of the free world is absent.

A tipping point for many Trump critics was his invitation to Duterte to visit the White House. Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he was deeply disturbed by Trumps cavalier invitation and called on him to rescind it.

This is a man who has boasted publicly about killing his own citizens, Cardin said of Duterte in a statement. The United States is unique in the world because our values  respect for human rights, respect for the rule of law  are our interests. Ignoring human rights will not advance U.S. interests in the Philippines or any place else. Just the opposite.

Yet Trumps advisers said the presidents silence on human rights matters is purposeful, part of a grand strategy to rebuild alliances or create new ones. Trumps outreach is designed to isolate North Korea in the Asia-Pacific region and to build coalitions to defeat the Islamic State in the Middle East and North Africa, senior administration officials said.

Inside the Trump White House, the thinking goes that if mending bridges with a country such as the Philippines  historically a treaty ally whose relationship with the United States deteriorated as Duterte gravitated toward China  means covering up or even ignoring concerns like human rights, then so be it.

The United States has a limited ability to direct things, said Michael Anton, the National Security Councils director of strategic communications. We cant force these countries to behave certain ways. We can apply pressure, but if the alternative is not talking, how effective would it be if we had no relationships? If you walk away from relationships, you cant make any progress.

Anton explained that Trump is trying to balance interests. He said the decision to invite Duterte to the White House  a symbolic gesture that gives credibility to the autocrats rule  was agreed to by most of Trumps advisers.

Its not binary, he said. Its not that you care about human rights so you cant have a relationship with the Philippines, or if you have a relationship with the Philippines you dont care about human rights.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) described the Trump strategy as establishing commonality with offending nations before publicly chastising them for offenses.

Their approach is to obviously continue to hold up the values that we have here in America, Corker said in a recent interview. But their approach is to build some commonality  never let go of that as an American cause, but to work on it in ways where they achieve a result, and to not go in on the front end.

White House officials cite the release last month of Aya Hijazi  an Egyptian American charity worker who had been imprisoned in Cairo for three years amid Sissis brutal crackdown on civil society  as evidence that their strategy is paying dividends.

Trump and his aides worked for several weeks with Sissi and his government to secure Hijazis freedom. The Obama administration had pressed unsuccessfully for her release, but once Trump moved to reset U.S. relations with Egypt by embracing Sissi at the White House, Egypts posture changed.

[Freed Egyptian American prisoner returns home following Trumps intervention]

Tom Malinowski, assistant secretary of state for human rights and democracy under Obama, said Trump appears to be living up to his campaign promise.

The whole idea of America First is that were not trying to make the world better, Malinowski said. Were trying to protect the homeland and the domestic economy, and the rest is all cutting deals with whoever is willing to cut deals with us. Theres not much room in that equation for standing up for the rights, freedoms and well-being of other people.

Human rights activists are concerned that Trump is condoning the actions of dictators when he is warm to them or extends invitations to visit.

Inviting these men to the White House in effect places the United States seal of approval on their heinous actions, said Rob Berschinski, senior vice president at Human Rights First. He went on to say, Nothing excuses President Trumps clear inclination to reward mass murderers and torturers with undeserved honors.

Asked at the daily White House press briefing whether Trump had a thing for totalitarian leaders, press secretary Sean Spicer suggested he was cultivating such leaders with the explicit aim of weakening North Korea.

The president clearly, as I said, understands the threat that North Korea poses, Spicer said. Having someone with the potential nuclear capability to strike another country  and potentially our country  at some point in the future is something that the president takes very seriously.

But McFaul posited that the Trump administration may be naive in calculating that personal outreach and warm praise will persuade authoritarian leaders to support U.S. interests.

The converse of that is that these leaders are taking him for a ride, McFaul said. He tends to over-personalize relationships between states. He says Chinas raping us, then he meets President Xi and suddenly hes this wise man with whom he has a good chemistry. I hope this will produce outcomes that are good for us, but right now its producing outcomes that are good for China.

Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
Congressional negotiators reached an agreement late Sunday on a broad spending package to fund the government through the end of September, alleviating fears of a government shutdown later this week, several congressional aides said.

Congress is expected to vote on the roughly $1 trillion package early this week. The bipartisan agreement includes policy victories for Democrats, whose votes will be necessary to pass the measure in the Senate, as well as $12.5 billion in new military spending and $1.5 billion more for border security requested by Republican leaders in Congress.

The agreement follows weeks of tense negotiations between Democrats and GOP leaders after President Trump insisted that the deal include funding to begin building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump eventually dropped that demand, leaving Congress to resolve lingering issues over several unrelated policy measures.

The new border-security money comes with strict limitations that the Trump administration use it only for technology investments and repairs to existing fencing and infrastructure, the aides said.

This agreement is a good agreement for the American people and takes the threat of a government shutdown off the table, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). The bill ensures taxpayer dollars arent used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure.

Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) boasted that they were able to force Republicans to withdraw more than 160 unrelated policy measures, known as riders, including those that would have cut environmental funding and scaled back financial regulations for Wall Street.

Democrats fought to include $295 million to help Puerto Rico continue making payments to Medicaid, $100 million to combat opioid addiction, and increases in energy and science funding that Trump had proposed cutting. If passed, the legislation will ensure that Planned Parenthood continues to receive federal funding through September.

The package includes $61 million to reimburse local law enforcement agencies for the cost of protecting Trump when he travels to his residences in Florida and New York, a major priority for the two New York Democrats involved in the spending talks, Schumer and Rep. Nita M. Lowey.

Among the bipartisan victories is $407 million in wildfire relief for western states and a decision to permanently extend a program that provides health-care coverage for coal miners.

The agreement will move the needle forward on conservative priorities and will ensure that the essential functions of the federal government are maintained, said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.).

House Republicans have struggled in recent weeks to keep their members focused on spending as White House officials and conservatives pressed leaders to revive plans for a vote on health-care legislation. The health-care fight became tangled last week in spending talks as leaders worried that forcing a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act risked angering Democrats whose votes are necessary to avoid a government shutdown.

Leaders worked last week to determine whether the House has enough votes to pass a revised health-care bill brokered by the White House, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a top member of the moderate Tuesday Group.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and his top lieutenants announced Thursday that they did not have sufficient votes to be sure the measure would pass but vowed to press on.

Were still educating members, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters after a late-night health-care meeting last week. Weve been making great progress. As soon as we have the votes, well vote on it.

Read more at PowerPost
Afghanistans security forces are experiencing shockingly high casualties and conflict has displaced record numbers of civilians, a U.S. government watchdog said in a report Sunday on the grim challenge facing the country as it confronts the Taliban and other insurgencies with drastically reduced support from the United States and other NATO partners.

In its quarterly report to Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) urged the Trump administration  which is reviewing U.S. policy toward Afghanistan at a time of sustained Taliban aggression and diminished American assistance  to take a hard look at its programs and priorities and to focus aid more narrowly.

Security is the most obvious and urgent challenge to rebuilding the country after 16 years of war, the report said. It noted that since 2002, 61 percent of the $71 billion in U.S. reconstruction aid has gone to train, equip and support the 300,000-strong Afghan defense forces.

Nevertheless, the SIGAR report said, those forces continue to be hampered by internal problems  such as poor leadership and corruption  as well as by an agile and determined foe that is making it difficult for them to control territory. It noted that more than twice as many Afghan soldiers and police personnel were killed in 2016 as the 2,400 U.S. troops lost since 2001.

[Afghan generals face charges in crackdown on military corruption]

In an interview here Sunday, Inspector General John F. Sopko noted that senior U.S. military officials, including Gen. John W. Nicholson, the commander of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, have described the conflict as being at a stalemate and have suggested that several thousand more U.S. troops are needed to tip the balance. The current troop level is 8,400.

If there is a stalemate, the question is why and how it can be improved, Sopko said. The why is corruption, the why is poor leadership. . . . If leadership is poor, the people below dont care, and they wonder why they have to die.

The report said the Afghan armed forces are also plagued by illiteracy, an attrition rate of nearly 35 percent and overreliance on highly trained special forces for routine missions. A previous report by Sopkos office described military officers reselling supplies and food intended for combat troops. Such problems, the new report said, are corrosive and can undercut civilian progress in health care, rule of law and efforts to counter the soaring drug trade.

[Afghan forces withdraw from key district in embattled Helmand province]

A recent example of the deadly cost of these weaknesses was the Taliban attack on April 21 that killed at least 140 soldiers on a large Afghan army base in northern Balkh province. It was the deadliest single insurgent attack of the war, and some of the contributing factors were the same systemic flaws mentioned in the report.

One factor was poor leadership based on nepotism. Sopko said the commander of the Balkh base was known as well connected but ineffective. Another was shoddy vetting of military personnel; several of the people suspected of carrying out or helping in the attack were military recruits or former base workers. Sopko said a new system of biometric identification had been planned for all soldiers but was taking far too long to implement. And, ultimately, Afghan special forces had to come in and quash the assault though the base trains thousands of soldiers.

The report, titled Reprioritizing Afghanistan Reconstruction, also described a panoply of problems across Afghan society and government that hinder national reconstruction efforts, even as the international community has pledged substantial new aid through 2020 and wants as much of that aid to be spent and managed by Afghan agencies as possible.

Opium production stands at near record levels, the report noted. Illiteracy and poverty remain widespread. Corruption reaches into every aspect of national life. The rule of law has limited reach. Multiple obstacles deter investors. . . . The ranks of the jobless grow as the economy stagnates.

Sopko said that the United States has a cooperative and willing partner in the government of President Ashraf Ghani and that senior Afghan officials really care about improving their country, but he said they have been frustrated by old systems of ethnic patronage and palm-greasing that discourage building institutions based on professionalism and merit.

He said that the government has made noticeable progress on some U.S.-backed programs, such as a new anti-corruption task force, but that even this effort has taken only baby steps and needs to prosecute some mafia big fish to bring real change and build public confidence.

In its recommendations, the report said the White House and Congress need to be prepared to perform triage on less successful projects, impose more rigorous standards of management and accountability for all programs, prevent aid funds from inadvertently reaching insurgents, establish a new strategy to combat opium production and drug trafficking, and decide whether reductions made in U.S. military and civilian oversight need to be reversed.

Read more

It was a brutal killing that shocked Afghanistan. Now, the outrage has faded.

While the U.S. wasnt looking, Russia and Iran began carving out a bigger role in Afghanistan

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
In 2015, Britains Labour Party tacked to the left, repudiating the middle-way philosophy that had won it three elections under Tony Blair. Voters responded by handing the party its worst defeat in three decades.

Rather than scramble back toward the center, Labour lurched further left. The party elected as its leader Jeremy Corbyn, a white-bearded baby boomer from the back benches who, like Bernie Sanders in the United States, ignited an improbable movement among young activists with his attacks on the rigged capitalist system and unquestioned fidelity to socialist ideals.

Now, with less than six weeks to go before Britain votes once more, the Corbyn-led Labour Party is on course for an electoral beatdown so broad and deep it would make the drubbing the party took in 2015 look like a triumph.

The ruling Conservative Party has a double-digit lead over Labour in pre-election polls, and Prime Minister Theresa May stands to win a parliamentary majority that would have been the envy of Margaret Thatcher.

The grim outlook for Labour has prompted insiders to preemptively concede defeat; one former party leader has despaired that at 75, hes unlikely to see another Labour prime minister in his lifetime. Theres even a chance that the party could fall apart altogether.

Prime Minister Theresa May, shown leaving leaves the BBC, in London, April 30, 2017, has gone on the attack even in working-class northern English constituencies that havent voted Conservative in decades. (Peter Nicholls/Reuters)

The decline of Labour  architect of the countrys vaunted National Health Service and one of two major parties in Britain for the past century  offers a cautionary tale for Democrats as they attempt to rebound from a humiliating 2016 loss to Donald Trump.

Corbyn may have captured the hearts of left-wing true believers. But unless something dramatic changes before June 8, when Britain votes, thats not enough to win a national election.

Hes still very popular with a lot of Labour activists. But hes a long way from the center of gravity among the British people, said Martin Baxter, a political analyst who runs Britains Electoral Calculus website. The lesson for Democratic voters who thought that Bernie Sanders would revitalize the party is that in Britain at least, with Jeremy Corbyn, its not worked out.

Nor has it worked out in other places where center-left parties have attempted to placate their increasingly radicalized grass roots by shifting toward the margins.

[A youth revolt in France boosts the far right]

In France, for instance, the Socialist Party  beleaguered after a humbling five years in power marked by double-digit unemployment and a slew of terrorist attacks  rejected more centrist alternatives and picked as its presidential nominee Benoit Hamon, a proud radical who championed a 32-hour workweek and a universal basic income.

But in the first round of the vote on April 23, Hamon mustered only an embarrassing 6 percent, having split the far-left vote with a Socialist defector, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who proposed nationalizing Frances biggest banks and withdrawing from NATO. Neither made the final round.

Meanwhile, 39-year-old Emmanuel Macron, a former economy minister under the incumbent Socialist government, ran to the center via his own upstart movement that aims to combine strands from both the left and right. He is now the favorite to become the next president of France.

The Socialists, said French political analyst Gerard Grunberg, suffered for too long under an establishment thats aging, tired and not active in modern communication.

Now the election outcome has left in doubt the future of the party, which helped build one of postwar Western Europes most generous welfare states.

Britains Labour Party is facing its own existential angst even before the country goes to vote.

Labour is the party of the industrial proletariat  that was its original function. But Britain doesnt have an industrial proletariat anymore, Baxter said of a party that traces its roots to 1900 and the workers rights movements of factory-saturated northern England. So theres a big question as to what the Labour Party is for.

Corbyn has sought to offer an answer by promising a more socially just society. That involves passionate opposition to the austerity policies enacted by the Conservatives since they came to power in 2010, ending 13 years of unbroken Labour rule.

The 67-year-old has pledged to halt the cuts in public services, to renationalize banks and energy firms and to consider a maximum wage on private-sector executives. Corbyn has also been highly critical of NATO, the British nuclear deterrent and the European Union  though he grudgingly backed remain in last years Brexit vote.

To his enthusiastic backers  who delivered the north London lawmaker a pair of landslide victories in party leadership races  Corbyns prescription for Britain is exactly what the country needs.

I love him  best leader ever, said Richard Crook, a 57-year-old telephone engineer from southeast London who cheered Corbyn on at the lawmakers campaign kickoff. Weve all had enough of PR politics. We want the truth. He is a bit like Bernie Sanders. Hes leading us into a fight back.

Such fervent support helps explain why Corbyn has insisted he does not believe the polls.

Im out on the streets and the doorsteps and the meeting halls every day, and thats not what Im finding, he said during a campaign stop last week.

But theres no getting around the fact that the polls for Labour are dire. The Tories now have a working majority of 17 in the 650-member House of Commons. Projections  which no doubt influenced Mays decision to call the snap vote  show that could widen to 150 or more.

[Britains snap elections wont reverse Brexit. Heres why.]

The gains are forecast across the U.K.

In Wales, where the Conservatives havent won in nearly a century, a recent survey showed them leading. In Scotland, where Labour ran a virtual one-party fiefdom until the 2015 vote, the party is now a distant third.

May has gone on the attack even in working-class northern English constituencies that havent voted Conservative in decades. And shes doing so by invoking Corbyn at every turn.

I know this city is one of the places that people call a traditional Labour area, May said at a Thursday night rally in Leeds, a Yorkshire city that was once renowned for its wool mills. But here  and in every constituency across the country  it may say Labour on the ballot, but its Jeremy Corbyn that gets the vote.

The strategy is not hard to understand: Polls show that fewer than half of Labours own voters favor Corbyn in a head-to-head matchup with May, and his broader approval ratings are abysmal. His rigidly leftist views and reputation for incompetent management help explain why.

He seems like a throwback to the 1970s, said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London. Hes not someone voters have warmed to. They neither like nor respect him. Indeed, he seems a figure of ridicule.

Blair, the last Labour prime minister to win a national vote but a reviled figure among the partys leftist grass roots, is among those who have declined to endorse Corbyn. In an interview with Britains Sky News last week, he said the identity of the prime minister after the June election is no mystery: Itll be Theresa May.

Thats because even as Corbyn has energized some voters, hes alienated many more.

The man is living in a cloud cuckoo world, said Gareth Bell, a 34-year-old business development manager and, until now, Labour voter.

Bell, an ardent pro-European who recently defected to the centrist Liberal Democrats, said he was disenchanted by Corbyns muddling stance on Brexit. Five of his friends have also left the party, he said, and the ones that are still there are holding on by their fingertips. The moderates are so disappointed in him.

If Labour does lose in a rout, Corbyn may be forced to resign as party leader. The party could also split apart.

Whether that happens or not, the center-left the world over will have to work out what it stands for and stop re-litigating internal battles that date back decades, said Stewart Wood, a Labour member of the House of Lords and top adviser to former party leader Ed Miliband.

The center-left is struggling everywhere with a philosophical malaise, he said. It has to be about the next 20 years, not the last 30. Any party thats busy trying to pick its favorite moment from the past is in trouble.

James McAuley in Paris contributed to this report.

Read more:

British prime minister calls for elections in June amid Brexit fallout

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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They call him the radical centrist.

This is the way Emmanuel Macron, the photogenic, 39-year-old independent candidate poised to win the French presidency next weekend, is often described in the French and foreign press.

But even Macrons closest advisers say there is little about the political platform of a former investment banker that can be considered radical. In nods to both the left and the right that mirror the programs of third-way centrists such as President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair from the 1990s, Macron has proposed a middle way that would heavily invest in health and agriculture at the same time it would trim a costly public sector.

What is radical about Macron, his advisers insist, is the candidate himself, a political outsider who, against all odds, is the only option for those who wish to protect Frances embattled political establishment. This, they insist, is Macrons not-so-secret weapon in combating the rising tide of populism: If what he proposes is not quite a departure from the political status quo, he is not a familiar face.

Its an oxymoron, radical centrism,  Jacques Attali, a prominent French economist and public intellectual who has been an informal adviser to Macron for months, said in an interview. What he is is what you call bipartisan. Hes not Marx; his program is not an ideology per se. Its pragmatism.

(The Washington Post)

In certain respects, Macrons pragmatism is traditional, the almost predictable orientation of a centrist social democrat or a moderate American liberal. He has called for a massive 50 billion euro ($55 billion) public investment, but at the same time, he has vowed to slash as many as 120,000 public-sector jobs and to continue liberalizing the French labor market  despite the immense difficulties the Hollande administration faced when it tried to do the same in 2016.

Not surprisingly, Macron has been called a French Bill Clinton.

But in the global political climate of 2017, those who have advocated ideas like these have not done well. Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the U.S. presidential election with a similar platform, and the British campaign to remain in the European Union was sorely defeated in the Brexit referendum. In both cases, a large number of voters railed against the system.

[Rising Right: The rise of insurgent parties in Europe]

Much of that same anti-establishment sentiment has defined the French presidential campaign. Although Macron came out on top in the first round of the vote, a staggering 49 percent of voters ultimately backed populist candidates on the far-right or the far-left whose central message, in different terms, has been anti-establishment fervor.

Furthermore, some of these candidates, especially the far-right Marine Le Pen, have targeted the former investment banker and onetime Socialist economy minister as the very essence of the system to be destroyed.

But the strategic problem for Le Pen is that Macron, an entirely unknown quantity just three years ago, cannot quite be written off as an establishment candidate, even if his ideas have captivated a significant number of establishment figures in the process.

This is the balancing act for Macron: standing by his pro-E.U. views while acknowledging the anti-Brussels anger that led to Brexit and is animating Le Pens underdog campaign.

In an interview with the BBC, Macron said E.U. leaders must take reforms to address complaints over its power and reach or risk a French movement to leave the bloc, which he dubbed a Frexit.

Im a pro-European, I defended constantly during this election the European idea and European policies because I believe its extremely important for French people and for the place of our country in globalization, he told the BBC.

But at the same time we have to face the situation, to listen to our people, and to listen to the fact that they are extremely angry today, impatient and the dysfunction of the E.U. is no more sustainable, he added.

Jean Pisani-Ferry, a prominent French economist and public policy expert, was among the principal collaborators on Macrons platform.

Its animating theme, he said, is that it offers a vision of an as-yet-untested future in a society that has rejected, for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, both the center-left and the center-right.

The idea is that we can untangle French society, liberate, unlock  that we can do that, and that we can re-create the potential for innovation and development, a system of social protections that works well in a modern economy, he said in an interview. Thats the aspiration.

To that end, Macrons third-way pragmatism  neither left nor right, as the candidate frequently reiterates  ultimately comes wrapped in the packaging of lofty idealism. Younger voters often say that it is the idealism  rather than the policies  of the man who would be Frances youngest-ever president that ultimately defines his sprawling and, some say, nebulous agenda.

[Whoever wins Frances presidency will still face a big challenge: Governing]

The project I propose to you, is to build with you a new France, which innovates, searches, creates and lives, a France of prosperity reclaimed and of progress for everyone, Macrons platform reads, promising a new contract with the nation.

Pisani-Ferry rejected the charge, from across the political spectrum, that pronouncements like these are vague.

But more vague than what? he said. The people who criticize the program for not having all the marks of the left or the right are clinging to traditional approaches in political life.

Strictly speaking, France has never before elected a centrist president. In an electoral campaign otherwise devoted to what the French call degagisme  loosely translated as throw them out-ism  electing a centrist in 2017 could be the protest analysts and pollsters have anticipated for months.

Attali, the economist, said he does not see a Macron victory  which polls still unanimously predict  as a revolution, but rather as a potential reset for a political system mired in dysfunction.

Its a parenthesis, he said. A necessary parenthesis.

Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more

Macrons strong finish in the French election shows populist wave may be ebbing

Choice for French voters: Hope in Europe or fear of globalization

The geographical divides behind Le Pens and Macrons success in the polls

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Deputy assistant to President Trump Sebastian Gorka speaks at a conference in February. His future at the White House is uncertain. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The role of Sebastian Gorka, a controversial and often combative senior adviser to President Trump, has become the subject of debate inside the White House with some senior administration officials pressing for him to be reassigned even as others insist his job is safe.

Gorka has been singled out by some in the White House as a liability for his hard-line stands on Islam and terrorism and his past involvement in right-wing Hungarian politics. But Gorka, the former national security editor for the conservative Breitbart News outlet, has powerful supporters in both the president and Stephen K. Bannon, Trumps chief strategist.

Gorka might also have one other factor working in his favor: After a tumultuous first 100 days in office, the president and his top advisers are also eager to avoid more major staff shake-ups, senior officials said.

Gorka initially joined the White House as a deputy assistant to the president and senior member of the Strategic Initiatives Group, an internal White House think tank that briefly reported to Bannon and Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser.

The group has since been disbanded leaving Gorka, who specializes in counterterrorism and national security issues, without a clear portfolio. Some senior administration officials said that he could be reassigned in the next few months to a senior job in the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department or the Pentagon.

Its a question of finding the best role for him, said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel issues.

But other officials insisted that Gorkas role with the administration has not changed and that he will continue to advise Trump and Bannon on broad counterterrorism and national security strategy.

Gorkas uncertain status was first reported by the Daily Beast and the Washington Examiner.

In the wake of news reports suggesting that he may be moved, a second senior administration official said Gorka was assured by a senior White House official that his job was safe.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer played down the possibility of Gorkas imminent departure. I have no belief he is currently leaving the White House, Spicer told reporters Monday. So theres nothing to update you on, with respect to that, and we wouldnt talk about personnel matters at this time.

Gorka also appears to have the strong backing of Trump, who has privately praised his combative television appearances and his heated critiques of the media as purveyors of fake news.

[For a Trump adviser, an odyssey from the fringes of Washington to the center of power]

Gorka has been a staunch defender of the presidents executive order on immigration and refugees, and has been criticized by some counterterrorism experts for his insistence that the terrorism threat emanates primarily from Islam and violent passages of the Koran. He rejects research suggesting that Islamist militancy is also an outgrowth of repression, poverty and poor governance.

More recently he has strongly advocated describing the enemy as radical Islamic terrorism, a phrase that Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the presidents national security adviser, has privately argued is too broad and risks alienating potential allies. Even as McMaster has amassed influence inside the White House and won the trust of the president, Trump has sided with Gorka and his allies on the narrower question of how to describe the enemy.

Gorka also has been accused of having links to groups in Europe with anti-Semitic histories, a charge that he has vigorously denied.
By Press Trust of India: Tura (Meghalaya), May 1 (PTI) Two persons were arrested today in West Garo Hills district in connection with a fake currency racket and counterfeit notes of face value of Rs 1.32 lakh seized, police said.

The arrests were made based on reports of fake currency being circulated by some unscrupulous criminals amongst villagers as payments for various trades, the police said.

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"We have arrested two of the main men behind the entire operation and search is currently on for the rest of the gang," district police chief M G R Kumar said.

He said the group of criminals were going into villages and buying betel nuts and other products and making payments late in the evenings in mostly dark places.

"As villagers were unable to check the authenticity of the notes due to the darkness and their high quality, they were getting away with the entire operation," Kumar said.

"We believe the gang has international links and has been circulating fake Indian currencies for some time through the Mankachar route from Bangladesh. The notes are very difficult to discern as they have most security features including high security thread, 3D raised elevation for visibly disabled people. They used crowded market days to push through the FICN into the monetary state," the SP said.

The two arrested have been identified as Abdul Kalam from Hazirhat from Assam and Salseng Sangma from Tura, the police said. PTI CORR JOP RG PS

--- ENDS ---
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This weekend, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, the leader of the small right-wing party Arise France (DLF), officially backed Marine Le Pen of the neo-fascist National Front (FN) in the runoff of the French presidential election.

Le Pen said she would name Dupont-Aignan prime minister if she were elected president. It is together that we will campaign to bring people together, more and more, and win a victory on Sunday May 7, declared the FN presidential candidate.

The two leaders issued a six-point government accord that forms the basis of their alliance. This contract for a governmental alliance will be key to get beyond the divisions and the doubts that are giving the system and Emmanuel Macron the weapons they need to survive, thus harming the national interest, the two signatories stated.

An alliance at the national and presidential level between the FN and a right-wing party is unprecedented and points to the collapse of the two-party system made up of the Socialist Party (PS) and The Republicans (LR), whose candidates were eliminated on the first round. Already, several LR leaders, including Henri Guaino, Laurent Wauquiez and Thierry Mariani, have decided not to call for a Macron vote against the FN.

While most PS and right-wing politicians are calling to block Le Pen by voting for Macron, a former economy minister in the reactionary PS government, Dupont-Aignan, justified his decision to back the FN. If Emmanuel Macronthat is, [PS President] Francois Hollande junioris elected, the country is screwed, he said. Ive made a historic choice, telling the French people: yes, I will do everything to beat Macron. I went beyond, I didnt rally to the FN. I negotiated. It is the most beautiful moment in my political history.

The rallying to a neo-fascist policy by growing sections of the French ruling elite underscores the correctness of the Parti de legalite socialiste (PES) call for an active boycott of the second round of the presidential elections. The strategy of begging the political establishment to block the rise of the neo-fascists is false and will only produce disasters.

The pseudo-left partiesthe New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA, at the time the Revolutionary Communist League, LCR), Workers Struggle (LO) and the Independent Democratic Workers Party (POID, at the time the Workers Party, PT)used this strategy in 2002. They aligned themselves with the PS as it endorsed right-wing candidate Jacques Chirac to block FN candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. They claimed this would block the rise of the neo-fascists.

In fact, this granted the far right the monopoly of opposition to Chirac and the PS within the French political establishment. The conservatives and then the PS carried out policies increasingly indistinguishable from those of the far right over the last 15 yearsin the last five years alone, the PS imposed a state of emergency and repeatedly invited Marine Le Pen to the Elysee Presidential Palace. Now, a section of the right is overtly jumping ship to back Le Pen, who has become a major force by profiting from the discrediting of the traditional PS-LR two-party system.

These bitter experiences, like Dupont-Aignans current policy, expose the claims that a vote for Macron, a supporter of austerity and war, will halt the FNs rise. Not only would Macron carry out an extremely reactionary policy, but ever-larger sections of the ruling elite are rallying behind the far right and its populist demagogy.

The PES calls for the independent mobilization of the working class through an active boycott of the election. Macron and Le Pen are both ruthless enemies of the workers. As the PES wrote in its statement No to Macron and Le Pen! For an active boycott of the French election!, The critical issue is the development of opposition in the working class to both Macron and Le Pen from the left.

The differences between those sections of the French ruling class backing the FN and those supporting Macron are largely tactical and are principally about foreign policy. The bulk of the ruling class supports Macron, but a considerable section supports the FN. This division reflects in no small part the deep crisis of the European Union and of NATO: the FN prefers an alliance with Trump and Russia against German hegemony in Europe, and has proposed a Frexit to leave the EU as well as a referendum on leaving the euro and returning to the French franc currency.

Large sections of the French population still view the FN with horror, however. In their document, Le Pen and Dupont-Aignan therefore make a few modifications to nationalist or xenophobic policies of the FN that provoked particular media attention and popular hostility.

They therefore claim that to clinch the agreement, Dupont-Aignan forced Le Pen to give up her policy of making foreign children pay for school. Policy changes regarding cost-free access to public services for strangers arriving legally on national territory will not affect schools, the text states.

They also implied that Le Pen had somewhat moderated her anti-European nationalism. Dupont-Aignan said, I am not against Europe, nor is Marine Le Pen. We are against the European Union. We want a referendum to renegotiate all the treaties. The French people, by voting for Marine Le Pen, will not have issued a blank check on Europe. The transition away from the common European currency will have to be accomplished with skill.

Le Pen has also indicated that she may take 18 months to develop her policy on the euro and that other policy issues could have priority rather than the euro, though she is still hostile to it.

The euro is dead, she told Le Parisien this weekend. She explained that under the FN, the common currency could still be used by major corporations for international trade, but that the franc would be used for daily transactions within France.

These attempts to somehow reassure electors thinking of voting for the FN are false and reactionary. Class tensions in France and across Europe are enormous. Hollandes presidency demonstrated that the entire ruling class is shifting rapidly and very far to the right. If the FN were to be elected, as was the case with the PS in 2012, it would seek to carry out a policy far to the right even of what it proposed during the presidential campaign.
New York Citys Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the largest and wealthiestand most visitedmuseums in the world, is considering a significant change in its admission policies that would for the first time in its history require some visitors to pay a fixed entrance fee. Current admission to the museum is $25 for adults, $17 for those over the age of 65 and $12 for students, but since it is only suggested, visitors can pay as little as one dollar, or even one penny.

The proposal being discussed by the museums board of trustees and the administration of Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio would maintain the suggested fee for city residents, but would make payment mandatory for out-of-city or out-of-state visitors.

The projected change in admission policy reflects in its own way the rampant and record social inequality that grows with each passing year in the capital of high finance.

The museum first opened in 1872, and 1893 state legislation codified free admission, based on the museums status as a state-supported institution. This was modified through agreement between the city and the museum beginning in 1971. Even though the 1893 law remains on the books, it has been interpreted to allow for suggested or recommended admission.

The term recommended was used in recent decades. A lawsuit several years ago, however, led to an agreement to use suggested and to make it clearer to visitorsmany of whom are making their first visit to New York and may feel pressured to pay the full amountthat it is not obligatory. If the museum goes ahead with the plans for mandatory admission, it may be necessary to amend the 125-year-old legislation.

The city owns the building, but the Metropolitan Museum itself is owned by a private corporation composed of about 1,000 prominent individuals primarily from the corporate and cultural sectors. A 41-member board of trustees is elected from this larger group.

The Met remains a tax-supported institution, most recently receiving about $26 million in city funds, approximately 8 percent of its more than $300 million annual expenses. Currently admission fees contribute 13 percent to the museums annual budget, and the shortfall, after city aid and other revenues, is made up by income from the institutions massive $2.5 billion endowment. The museum is currently running an annual deficit of some $15 million, and in recent years there have been several rounds of layoffs as well as other cutbacks, including a reduction in the number of annual exhibitions from 60 to 40 in the current year.

Many questions remain, and there are numerous potential obstacles along the path envisioned by the museums trustees. Among the complications is whether to exempt people who work in the city but live outside the city limits from the admission charge. There is also the issue of whether to include only residents of the city (8.5 million), New York State as a whole (19.8 million) or the massive metropolitan tri-state area (20.2 million) in the category of those who continue to enjoy discretionary admission fees.

In a city that is home, at last count, to 79 billionaires, the current arts budget of $181.2 million is less than measly. It amounts to only about two-tenths of one percent of the citys projected $84 billion budget for the next fiscal year. The resources clearly exist, not only to maintain the current admission policy at the Metropolitan Museum, but to institute completely free admission for visitors from all over the world.

These resources can only be made available, however, by challenging the grip of the grasping and parasitic ruling elite that dictates accessibility to culture alongside its hold on all other significant spheres of life in the metropolis.

Democrat de Blasio, although elected on the promise to end New York as a tale of two cities, now embraces and personifies this description. The museum issue gave him an opportunity to put on his populist hat for a short time. The mayor told a news conference earlier this week, Im a big fan of Russian oligarchs paying more to get into the Met.

This comment, as stupid as it is demagogic, simply (and deliberately) ignores the fact that among the Mets annual 6.7 million visitors, more than 4 million are from outside the state. The great majority of these are not only not oligarchs, but in most cases are from families that have scrimped for a visit to the city and can ill afford another $100 for a family of four to see the priceless art that should be the property of humanity as a whole.

Mandatory admission charges, in addition to causing hardship and discouraging visits from those outside New York City or New York State, must also be seen as setting the precedent for doing away with the suggested admission category altogether in the not-too-distant future, with the excuse of meeting mounting deficits.

As far as the movers and shakers who run the Metropolitan Museum, it is quite likely that these very wealthy and privileged individuals live in such a bubble that they cannot understand why $25 or even $100 is a big deal. They pay far more than $100 for a single meal at the citys pricier establishments.

It may also be that the Met executives, while they covet higher attendance figures, visualize the numbers coming increasingly from the citys wealthy and gentrified neighborhoods, alongside well-heeled tourists who are already spending thousands of dollars on their visits to New York, rather than from broader layers of the population.

Recent figures for the annual compensation of top Met executives point to the material source of such an outlook. Thomas Campbell, who was forced out earlier this year as museum director, effective in June, after serving in the post since 2009, received total compensation in 2015 of $1.4 million. Met president Daniel Weiss, who will also serve as interim director until a permanent replacement is found, received a $300,000 bonus for less than six months work in 2015. His total compensation for the half-year came to $818,112, including a luxury Park Avenue apartment. Suzanne Brenner, a senior vice president at the museum and chief investment officer, received $1.6 million, including a bonus of $624,000. These figures, for only a few of the highly paid officers, should be kept in mind when considering the museums deficit of $15 million.

The Metropolitan Museums deficits and its efforts to make its visitors pay up calls to mind the financial difficulties facing New York Citys other Met, the Metropolitan Opera. That august and world famous musical institution, also tracing its beginnings to the last few decades of the 19th century, has a similar-sized budget and a similar-sized deficit. It can be expected to attempt to close this gap through a combination of higher ticket prices and renewed demands for givebacks from its highly skilled employees.
Paul Wiedefeld, the General Manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), announced on April 19 an open attack on WMATA workers, proposing to cut wages, along with health, pension, and vacation benefits. Wiedefeld also proposed contracting out work, currently performed by WMATA employees, to private companies.

WMATA currently faces a fiscal deficit totaling nearly $300 million, a funding crisis exacerbated by declining ridership. In addition, Metro has had repeated serious electrical failures in the last few years. In January 2015, an electrical malfunction caused a train to fill with smoke, resulting in the death of a passenger and the hospitalization of 84 others. In March 2016, frayed power cables caused a fire on subway tracks. Two days later, the whole system was shut down for an entire day for emergency inspections of 600 power cables in the system. Workers found at least 26 cables that needed repair.

Wiedefelds plan will eliminate defined benefit pensions for all new hires, placing them instead in volatile 401(k) plans. Positions to be contracted out include station managers and track inspectors, at lower wages than those paid currently to WMATA employees.

The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the largest union representing WMATA workers, stated that Wiedefelds proposal will result in cuts in wages and benefits totaling $100 million.

The general managers plan also calls for eliminating some bus routes and forcing the state governments of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia to take on paratransit services, which provides door-to-door transportation for those whose disability prevents them from using bus or rail services.

Along with the attacks on workers and cutbacks to Metro services, the general managers plan requests $500 million a year in additional funding from local governments for equipment, including new rail cars and buses, and to catch up on long-neglected maintenance. While Wiedefeld did not specify how the local governments should come up with this additional funding, business groups and local officials have proposed a regressive regional sales tax increase to foot the bill.

The Washington D.C. Metro system is the only regional transit system which does not have a single dedicated source of funding, instead obtaining its funds from multiple local and federal sources. The funding method has left the public transit system at the mercy of multiple competing jurisdictions, all seeking to cut back funding for essential social services.

The proposed cuts come on the heels of fare increases for both rail and bus service approved by Metros Board in March. Along with the fare hikes, the Board announced that there will be fewer trains offered on five of the six rail lines, resulting in longer waits for passengers. These changes will take effect July 1.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, Hillary Clintons running mate in the 2016 presidential campaign, lauded Wiedefelds plan to foist the problems caused by the chronic underfunding of WMATA, popularly known as Metro, onto the backs of its workers. Ignoring the fact that Metro workers would bear the brunt of Wiedefelds attack, Kaine stated he was open to any solutions that meet the main criteria of ensuring a reliable funding source and making positive changes to safety and governance.

Virginias other Senator, Democrat Mark Warner, was also silent about the attack on Metro workers, stating: This proposal appears to be a realistic and responsible contribution to the regional discussion about how best to fix Metro.

The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 is currently in contract negotiations with Metro. It has staged token protests since Wiedefeld announced his plan. On April 27, during a Metro Board meeting, an ATU-orchestrated protest included chants of Who moves this city? We move this city! as the protesters exited Metro headquarters. The protestors wore T-shirts with the toothless slogans Fix It, Fund It and Bargain in Good Faith.

Some rank and file Metro workers apparently organized a sickout a day later, with Metro reporting 500 requests for advance absences on Friday, a rate far higher than normal. The advanced notice for absences are one of the requirements of a new policy issued by the WMATA in February that requires workers to give 72 hours notice that they anticipate being sick in order to take a sick day. The union denied any involvement in the protest.

Metro management threatened to discipline any employee who failed to come to work on Friday. Instead of supporting and organizing job actions by Metros workers to defend their pay and benefits, ATU Local 689 President Jackie Jeters only response to the sickout was that Metro would be forcing workers who were legitimately sick from getting medical attention and forcing sick drivers to operate trains and buses.

The ATU is concerned ultimately not with the salary and benefit cuts that Metro is proposing, but rather that managements aggressive tactics will spark further rank and file action on the part of employees that it would be unable to control. All I can see looming ahead of us is a fight and chaos, Jeter told the Washington Post .

On the same day as the Metro Board meeting, the rail system experienced yet another major breakdown. A stray electrical current caused smoke to pour into a tunnel Thursday morning causing a massive delay on the busiest rail line, with service shut down for more than three hours. Two other electrical fires have broken out on the rail system in the prior two weeks.

In June 2016, Metro began a SafeTrack program to address some of the deficiencies in the system. The ongoing safety program has required the shutting down of various segments on different Metro lines, resulting in the single tracking of trains where inbound and outbound trains have to share the same track. As a result of the numerous safety issues, regular delays, and fare hikes, daily weekday rail trips are down about 100,000 from their 2009 peak.

For all of Wiedefelds proclamations about safety concerns, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) reported this week of ongoing deficiencies in the safety protocol for Metro track workers. As a result of Metros neglect of worker safety, the FTA found repeated instances where workers were placed in serious jeopardy. The FTA has threatened to take away millions of dollars in federal funding unless the worker safety issues are addressed.

Metro managements latest proposals again exhibit the inability of capitalism to provide even the modest amounts of money needed to maintain both a safe and reliable public transportation system and a reasonable standard of living for transit workers. While the federal government doles out billions of dollars to military contractors in the area, including Lockheed Martin, Northup Grumman, General Dynamics, and Raytheon (maker of the 59 Tomahawk missiles recently fired on Syria at a cost of about $60 million), and spends trillions on wars, Metro is in complete disrepair and its workers threatened with millions of dollars in wage and benefit cuts.
US President Donald Trump issued another thinly-veiled warning to North Korea yesterday of military action if it carries out a sixth nuclear test. His remarks on the CBS program Face the Nation are the latest in a string of threats by Trump officials as the Pentagon moved an aircraft carrier strike group and a nuclear submarine to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

Trump said he would not be happy if North Korea tested another nuclear weapon. Asked whether that meant the US would conduct military strikes, he contemptuously declared: I dont know. I mean, well see. He added later: It is a chess game. I just dont want people to know what my thinking is.

The Trump administration is deliberately keeping the world in the dark as to its plans and is arrogating to itself the right to wage war at a time of its choosingas it did with its illegal cruise missile strikes on Syria last month.

Despite the servility of the Democrats and Congress, the US president declared his unreserved contempt for the system, signaling his determination to assert an autocratic rule. Its just a very, very bureaucratic system, he said. I think the rules in Congress and in particular the rules in the Senate are unbelievably archaic and slow moving Youre forced into situations that you hate to be forced into.

At present, the Trump administration is placing intense pressure on China to bully the North Korean regime in Pyongyang to bow to US demands. Trump boasted he had developed a very special relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. But again, you know, well find out whether or not President Xi is able to effect change [in Pyongyang], he added.

Trump is in effect blackmailing Beijing, warning that if China does not solve the North Korean crisis, the US will do so through military means. He has recklessly placed the Korean Peninsula on a hair trigger where any incidentdeliberate or accidentalcould set off a devastating conflict.

The US president is well aware that such a war would cause immense human suffering. Defending his decision not to immediately brand China as a currency manipulator, he declared: Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade.

In fact, the Trump administrations determination to force North Korea to capitulate to its demands is just one component of broader plans aimed against China, which the US regards as the chief obstacle to its growing hegemony. Its decision not to adopt trade war measures against Beijing at once is a purely tactical one, which will quickly change whether or not China brings North Korea to heel.

Trump has repeatedly stated that the US will not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea and expects quick results. We cannot let whats been going on for a long period of years continue, he said. Last week he underscored his willingness to use military might when he declared absolutely there was a definite chance of a major, major conflict with North Korea.

Trumps national security adviser H.R. McMaster made the same threats yesterday on the Fox News Sunday program. We do have to do something [with other countries] that involves enforcement of the UN sanctions that are in place, he said. It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further. And it also means being prepared for military operations, if necessary.

Alongside the constant propaganda drumbeat, the Trump administration has embarked on an intense diplomatic offensive to ensure that US allies and strategic partners in the Asia Pacific are primed for a crisis that could descend into war. Vice President Mike Pence has just completed a tour of Asia to hold discussions on North Korea with key alliesJapan, South Korea and Australiaas well as Indonesia, which plays a pivotal role in the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN).

As ASEAN leaders met over the weekend, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday joined with China in calling on the US and North Korea to tone down their militarist rhetoric. On the same day, Trump called Duterte and invited him to visit the White House, undoubtedly to pressure him to toe Washingtons aggressive line against Pyongyang. Under Duterte, the Philippines, which has an extensive military basing agreement with the US, has tilted its foreign policy towards China.

Speaking on the ABCs This Week program, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus dismissed concerns about Dutertes war on drugs and gross human rights abuses. The issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure we have our ducks in a row, he said.

Trump also phoned the leaders of Thailand and Singapore to discuss North Korea and invited them to visit Washington. Thailand is a formal US military ally, while Singapores military bases are used by American warships and military aircraft.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is flying to Washington this week to meet with Trump. If war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, Australia, which hosts key US communications, targeting and spy bases, would be involved automatically. Since 2011, the US has greatly expanded its use of Australian military bases for its Marines, warships and aircraft, including long-range bombers.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe immediately joined the US in condemning North Koreas failed missile test on Saturday. Despite strong warnings by the international community, North Korea today went through its ballistic missile launch, he said. It is a grave threat to our country. This is absolutely unacceptable.

Abe is exploiting the tense situation on the Korean Peninsula not only to demonstrate his support for the US alliance but to advance his own agenda of Japanese remilitarisation. The Japanese military has dispatched the huge helicopter carrier Izumo to protect a US supply ship in the Western Pacific, using the Abe governments collective self-defence legislation. It is the first time the law, which breaches the countrys constitution, has been used to send a Japanese warship into what could rapidly become a war zone.

The South Korean and American militaries have just completed their huge annual joint war games, which involve rehearsals for a war with North Korea. A new strategy agreed in 2015OPLAN 5015shifted the emphasis from nominally defensive to offensive exercises, including pre-emptive strikes against military targets and decapitation raids to kill North Korean leaders. US warships are continuing naval drills with their South Korean counterparts.

Admiral Harry Harris, head of US Pacific Command, gave an indication of the massive scale of the attacks being planned against North Korea when he addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. Asked whether a US military pre-emptive strike could destroy North Koreas artillery aimed at Seoul, he simply noted: It depends on the level of the pre-emptive strike.

In other words, what is under discussion in the Pentagon is a full-scale blitzkrieg that would destroy North Koreas nuclear arsenal and facilities, ballistic missiles and its large but poorly-equipped military, as well as its leadership and industrial capacity. Such reckless and unpredictable actions could rapidly draw in other powers, including China and Russia, with catastrophic consequences.
The political crisis in Macedonia, which has been raging for months, intensified after some 100 partly masked nationalists, followers of long-time Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, stormed the parliament building in the capital, Skopje.

The demonstrators waved Macedonian flags and sang the national anthem. They attacked members of the Social Democratic Party and the parties representing the countrys Albanian minority. According to media reports, around 100 people were injured. Zoran Zaev, the designated Social Democratic head of government, suffered an injury to the head.

Although there has been a series of violent conflicts and assaults in recent months, there were only a handful of police in and around the parliament building. Police were able to establish some sort of control only after several hours, while some 3,000 demonstrators gathered in front of the parliament shouting nationalist and racist slogans. The police refrained from intervening.

It must be assumed that the security forces had been informed in advance about the action. Gruevski has considerable support in the security apparatus.

The occasion for the attack was the election of a new president of the parliament. The Social Democrats (SDSM) and the party of the Albanian minority had elected Albanian Talat Xhaferi with 61 out of a total of 120 votes, although the acting president had already declared the meeting closed. Gruevskis party, the VMRO, described this as a coup.

The storming of parliament, in a country wracked by poverty and with just over two million inhabitants, threatens to turn into all-out civil war. President Gjorge Ivanov, who has close links to the VMRO, refused to give the Social Democratic opposition a mandate to form a government following parliamentary elections in December 2016, despite the fact that the SDSM together with Albanian parliamentarians has a majority. Ivanov accuses the opposition of undermining Macedonias sovereignty.

The VMRO won the election on December 11, 2016 with 39 percent of the vote, just ahead of the Social Democrats. But it has since been unable to form a government coalition. The SDSM, led by Zoran Zaev, formed an alliance with the representatives of ethnic Albanians, who account for 20-25 per cent of the population. Since then, the Gruevski camp has been trying to paralyse the work of the parliament with filibusters and other procedural tricks. More recently, the tactics have taken violent forms, with the clear intent of seizing power.

President Ivanov, who has himself played a vile role in the right-wing protests, hypocritically called for peaceful protest in a TV speech. Last Friday, he invited the various party leaders to discuss the situation in his office.

The political strife in Macedonia has been going on for more than ten years, but has recently intensified considerably. In 2006, the VMRO won the parliamentary election and formed a government with the parties of the Albanian minority. After 2008, the government collapsed when the VMRO refused to recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

The early parliamentary election of 2008 was overshadowed by protests and violent outbreaks involving deaths and injuries. After a long political crisis, Gruevski was finally confirmed in 2011 as head of government.

According to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, Gruevski is regarded as a corrupt power-broker, who regards politics as an opportunity for personal enrichment and employs authoritarian methods. The VMRO has roots in fascist traditions. It is a successor to the Inner Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, which was founded in 1919 as a nationalist movement and has always maintained a paramilitary wing.

At the same time, Gruevski has the backing of the European Union and European powers because, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he was useful at the height of the refugee crisis as a bulwark against migration flows. In 2015, when tens of thousands of refugees attempted to navigate the Balkan route to Western Europe, Macedonia reinforced its border with Greece, set up frontier fences and used tear gas to repulse refugees, including women and children.

The country has been transformed into a powder keg by the rampant corruption of the ruling elite, which earns part of its wealth through smuggling operations, and the bitter poverty of the population. Macedonia has no significant independent economy, and effective unemployment is around 45 percent. The status of candidate for accession to the EU, agreed in 2005, has served only to intensify the social and economic crisis as Macedonia struggles to fulfill the conditions for EU membership.

Both the VMRO and the Social Democrats seek to direct these tensions along ethnic and nationalist channels. Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, to which Macedonia belonged, the country was embroiled in the Kosovo war. In 2001, armed conflicts occurred in the northwest of Macedonia after the Albanian militia occupied some villages and fought with the police and the army.

Now the VMRO is once again playing the Albanian card. President Ivanov refused to appoint the Social Democrat Zaev as premier because he and his coalition partners agreed to strengthen the rights of Albanians in the country. Albanian is due to become the second official language.

The great powers are also stirring up conflicts in the country, although they try to stay in the background. For example, Dusan Reljic, the head of the Brussels office of the official German Institute for International and Security Affairs, complained about the role of the United States in the region. He told the Austrian Standard: The Americans have always had the say, not the Europeans. The fact that the Albanians turned away from Gruevski and toward the Social Democrats a year-and-a-half ago can be traced back to direct interference from Washington.

The whole region still sees America as its most important security policy partner, especially the Albanians, Reljic continued, a situation that obviously does not suit Brussels and Berlin. He described talk about the growing influence of Russia in the region as nonsense.

For his part, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel condemned the attack carried out by Gruevski supporters on the parliament. There must now finally be a government. There were democratic elections, Gabriel said on Friday on the fringes of an EU meeting in Malta. It is absolutely unacceptable when the former ruling party allows its supporters to attack the parliament and assault MPs.

The crisis in Macedonia could quickly spread across the entire region. Ethnic conflicts, social misery and ruthless, reactionary elites dominate all of the states of the former Yugoslavia. The danger of war in the region looms ever closer.

In March, the British Economist magazine wrote: In normal times, the world tends to ignore Macedonia and its 2 million people, a quarter of them ethnic Albanian. But the world is not ignoring Macedonia now. Western politicians are rushing to Skopje, Russia is issuing warnings, and Serbian newspapers proclaim that war is coming. Geopolitical relevance is returning to the Balkans
Life finds a way, and thats true even under the most extreme conditions  whether its cold, hot, wet, dry, high or low. Earth has a diverse ecosystem, with life forms thriving in just about every corner and crevice.

Its amazing on its own, but its also good news for people who are holding their breath and waiting for scientists to find aliens on another planet. If living creatures can persist under the harshest circumstances, where the environment is brutal and unforgiving, that gives us hope that life can exist on other worlds, even ones that dont seem so hospitable.

Heres a look at all the extreme places on Earth where there is life other than humans.

robocam-fish

Photo: National Geographic

In an underwater volcano

Scientists dubbed a submerged volcano Sharkcano when they found sharks swimming and living in it. Its officially called the Kavachi volcano, and its located under the sea near the Solomon Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean.

What was so shocking about the find is the status of the volcano  its one of the most active submarine volcanoes in the world, ocean engineer Brennan Phillips told National Geographic. And yet it is infested with sharks. But they arent shooting out of the volcano and landing onto unsuspecting landlubbers like some horror movie; they seem to swim away when the volcano is about to erupt.

Read: The Aliens Are Probably Swimming, Not Walking

At the deepest point on Earth

We dont have direct evidence of this one, but scientists found organic matter underneath the deepest point in the ocean that could have been created by a microbe. The organic material was in a sample taken from below the seafloor close to the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean  the lowest underwater region on the planet. Much like the shark-infested Kavachi, this exact location also involved a volcano: a mud volcano. The many mud volcanoes and hydrothermal vents in that area spew material and heat from inside Earth and if scientists can link the organic matter they found to living microbes, that means this harsh environment that reaches the boiling temperature of water is somehow harboring life. At the same time it would kill a human, living there could have protected prehistoric life from Earths tumultuous surface, including mass extinction events and severe climate changes.

Story continues

Even if there isnt life there right now, it has been previously. Scientists in Canada have found evidence of bacteria living in hydrothermal vents billions of years ago, when Earth was young.

antarctica-space

Photo: NASA/JPL

On Earths frozen bottom

Antarctica inspires shivers in many and for good reason: The average temperature on the planets southernmost continent is -30 degrees Fahrenheit, and it has dipped as low as -129 degrees. Yet animals like whales, seals, birds and fish can be found there.

And the temperature is not the only obstacle. If you can believe it, Antarctica also has volcanoes. One in particular, the Deception Island volcano, has erupted ferociously multiple times in the past, endangering the Gentoo penguins who live on Ardley Island, one of the continents closest points to South America. But every time those penguins got knocked down, they got up again  an analysis of historic penguin poop samples shows that over the last 7,000 years the Gentoos have survived several huge eruptions to narrowly avoid extinction and repopulate their community. It could take hundreds of years for the species to rebound, but they did every time.

sahara-desert

Photo: NASA

In the scorching heat of the desert

Many plants and animals would not be able to survive in the desert, in the intense heat and with very little water, but many others manage. That includes birds, lizards, rodents, cacti and coyotes, to name just a few. Theres even life we cannot see with our naked eyes, microorganisms like bacteria and algae.

Read: What Earth Looked Like Before Environmental Laws

Where there is almost no oxygen

Once again microbes are the heroes. They can endure the intense temperatures of the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park or other similar sites, using the chemicals inside for fuel. And if theres little to no oxygen, thats not a problem. NASAs Astrobiology Magazine explains that some microbes can at least partially replace oxygen with iron or sulfur.

himalayas-mt

Photo: NASA

On top of a mountain

Thousands of feet above sea level, a variety of animals claim their territory. There are snow leopards living between 9,800 and 17,000 feet, according to the BBC, as well as ibex, mountain goats, foxes and yaks. But thats just the beginning. Bumblebees can live at higher than 18,000 feet and jumping spiders and moss at nearly 22,000. At the very top are birds and bacteria.

Bacteria have been found in the atmosphere 5-10 miles above the Earths surface, the BBC said. Researchers have even found bacteria in storm clouds.

See also:

Early Life on Earth Formed in Acidic Oceans

Fossils Found by Accident Show How Early Marine Life Evolved

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The following material contains mature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

If you thought airport pat-downs were a bit too personal, get prepared  new guidelines mean they may involve more touching than ever.

ER Physician Dr. Travis Stork explains that travelers who opt out of the scanning machine will be subject to a body exam that is described as more comprehensive. Screeners may touch areas of the body normally considered private.

Watch: Cancer Patient Booted off Airplane

But heres why, he continues. Eight firearms per day  PER DAY!  are confiscated at American airports. Breast Surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk adds, It all came from a 2015 audit from the Department of Homeland Security. They found theres just too many handguns and weapons being brought in.

Dr. Funk also points out that electronic scanners produce no radiation and arent linked to any ill health effects. Its only if you trigger the warning from the scanner (or request not to go through it) that youll receive a pat-down. Both she and Rosie Mercado have had multiple pat-downs and agree it hasnt been a big deal.

Watch: Drs. Rx: Don't Consume THIS on the Plane!

The Doctors agree that security is crucial. Dr. Stork adds, if youre uncomfortable with a physical exam  whether its at the airport or your doctors office  you should never hesitate to say something. And if you dont want to be patted down in your personal areas, Dont put guns up your rear! concludes Dr. Funk.

In response to an inquiry from The Doctors, the TSA released the following statement: "TSA consolidated previous pat down procedures into one standardized pat down procedure at airport security check points and at other locations within the airport. This standardized pat down procedure continues to utilize enhanced security measures implemented several months ago and does not involve any different areas of the body than were screened in the previous standard pat down procedure. TSA continues to adjust and refine our systems and procedures to meet the evolving threat and to achieve the highest levels of transportation security."
Mauritius is abound with natural wonders and you should definitely witness it in person.

By India Today Web Desk: From bizarre topographical features to unusual play of colours on landscapes--the uncountable natural wonders around the world never fail to amaze you. The more you explore, the more incredible your experiences become.

And if you are wondering what to add next to your bucket-list, let it be this underwater waterfall in Mauritius.

Just off the coast of Le Morne, towards the southwestern tip of the island, lies a sight to behold. When you look at the ocean from the top, you will find a huge waterfall, gushing in the middle of the water, flowing into who knows where.

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A phenomenon practically impossible, you think? Well, then allow us to clear your doubts.

This waterfall, that draws thousands of tourists each year, is actually a fascinating optical illusion. The underwater currents pull sand from the higher coastal shelf, all the way to the deeper levels of water. As the sand and silt deposits flow through the area, the colour of water fluctuates, thus making it appear like a waterfall or like the area is being sucked into a drain.

Picture courtesy: Twitter/NewsRadio_1440

Also Read:The hidden Niagara Falls of India you probably didn't know about

However, to view this spectacular image, one generally has to take a helicopter ride around the ocean. Special tours are booked for the purpose. Customised tour itineraries are available from the north, east or south of the island. And once you look at it, it will be your defining moment of suspension of disbelief. On the contrary, the water may seem quite calm when viewed from the coast.

To reach Le Morne, driving is the best option to cover the distance of around 60 km from the airport. So, next time you plan a relaxing getaway to the island, make sure you are not missing out on this spectacle.

--- ENDS ---
This gator was a real crook-odile.

Read: Woman Fights to Keep 6-Foot Alligator That Wears Clothes And Wags Its Tail

Louisiana firefighters handcuffed an alligator last week after it was caught roaming around a house under construction in St. Tammany Parish.

In videos uploaded by the local fire department, animal officials can be seen lassoing the reptile, and eventually pulling it out of the home.

To restrain it, they duct-taped its jaws and bound its two hind legs together using two sets of handcuffs.

Thats a big one, one of the officers said of the reptile.

Read: Florida's Alligator Encounters Have Led to a Loss of Limbs, but Rarely Death

Carefully, by each taking one of the alligators limbs and holding its mouth shut, they were able to load the feisty reptile into the back of a pickup truck and slam the trunk as it continued to thrash around.

The St. Tammany Fire Protection District #1 told InsideEdition.com that the alligator was released by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries on the opposite side of town near a swamp  a natural habitat for its kind.

Watch: Man, 75, Uses Golf Club to Escape Alligator Attack: 'I Was Lucky Because I had a Putter'

Related Articles:
VIENNA (Reuters) - An Austrian man suspected of war crimes in the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was arrested in Poland on Sunday, Austrian prosecutors said. The 25-year old is accused of "having killed soldiers involved in fighting at the Donetsk airport who had already surrendered and/or of having killed civilians", said a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Wiener Neustadt in the northeastern province of Lower Austria. Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, and fighting broke out in eastern Ukraine the following month between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian government forces, a conflict in which close to 10,000 people have been killed. A European arrest warrant was issued a few weeks ago for the suspect, who supposedly fought on the Ukrainian side against the pro-Moscow separatists, the spokesman said. He was arrested at a border crossing to Ukraine close to the Polish town of Dorohusk by Polish border police on Friday evening, Lieutenant Dariusz Sienicki, a spokesman for the Polish border service said. "At present (the suspect) remains at the disposal of the Polish judiciary," Sienicki said. "The person is awaiting proceedings relating to extradition to Austria." (Reporting by Kirsti Knolle in Vienna; Additional reporting in Warsaw by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Ros Russell)
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaking in March against the repeal of Obamacare. (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

Former Vice President Joe Biden has stoked plenty of speculation in recent days over whether hes positioning himself to run for president in 2020.

But in a speech at the New Hampshire Democratic Partys annual dinner in Manchester on Sunday night, Biden did his best to curb their enthusiasm despite speaking in a key primary state.

When I got asked to speak, I knew it was going to cause speculation. Guys, Im not running, Biden said, drawing boos from the crowd.

Biden, who decided not to challenge Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination following the 2015 death of his son, Beau, said in March that he regrets not being president  but doesnt regret his decision not to run.

Do I regret not being president? Yes, he said at Colgate University on March 24. Do I regret not running for president, in light of everything that was going on in my life at the time? No.

Earlier Sunday, Politico reported that the 74-year-old and his staff have been planning a strategic timeline in the event he decides to run against President Trump in 2020.

Biden will be 77 by the time of the next Iowa caucuses, Politicos Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote, but Biden 2020 just might happen.

In New Hampshire, Biden gave his assessment of Trumps successful Republican presidential campaign.

Trump was pretty smart. He made it all personal, Biden said.

The former vice president also said the Democratic Party needs to return to its core values.

Whats the core reason why youre a Democrat? he asked. Because you abhor the abuse of power. Whether its financial power, psychological power, physical power.

Biden said Democrats should focus on voters who didnt vote because they felt like the party has left them behind.

A lot of them wonder whether weve forgotten them. They are being abused by the system. They are as decent as any one of us are, he said. So, folks, lets go win it back.

Read more from Yahoo News:
London (AFP) - Former British prime minister Tony Blair on Monday announced a return to domestic politics to fight Brexit, while acknowledging he remains a divisive figure whose contribution may not be welcomed.

The former Labour leader will not be standing in the June 8 general election, but said he wanted to get his "hands dirty" and help shape the debate as Britain prepares to enter negotiations on leaving the EU.

Blair won a record three elections as Labour prime minister and spent 10 years in Downing Street from May 2, 1997 to 2007.

But his final years in office were marred by his decision to join the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq -- a legacy he cannot shake off.

"I know the moment I stick my head out the door I'll get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me, but I really do feel passionate about this," Blair told the Daily Mirror tabloid.

"I don't want to be in the situation where we pass through this moment of history and I hadn't said anything because that would mean I didn't care about this country. I do."

He said his goal was not to defy last year's referendum vote in favour of Brexit, but that voters should be given a chance to change their mind once the final EU exit deal becomes clear.

Leaving the European single market and seeking a free trade agreement, as Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May intends, would be "relegating ourselves" from the top in the international order.

"This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics," the 63-year-old said.

"You need to get your hands dirty and I will."

- 'Rally the troops' -

It remains unclear exactly what Blair intends to do, or how helpful his intervention would be.

In the Labour party, now led by leftist Jeremy Corbyn, the term "Blairite" -- to describe Blair's centrist, business-friendly policies -- is widely used as an insult.

Among the public, 74 percent of people have an unfavourable view of Blair, according to a YouGov survey published in November.

Story continues

"Even some of his supporters think the more he keeps quiet the better it is," said Steven Fielding, a professor of politics at the University of Nottingham.

Blair spent several years after leaving office working in the Middle East and on African issues, but has become increasingly outspoken on domestic issues in recent months.

He has set up a not-for-profit Institute for Global Change to campaign, among other things, to "revitalise the centre ground" and tackle the "destructive approach of populism".

He told the Mirror: "I am not sure I can turn something into a political movement but I think there is a body of ideas out there people would support."

Last week Blair conceded the Conservatives looked set to win the election, as opinion polls put them more than 20 points ahead.

In an interview with Sky News, he said the "real issue" was by how much they won, warning against giving May a "blank cheque".

Many commentators suggested such comments will do little to help Labour's campaign.

He has also been accused of encouraging tactical voting, if necessary for another party, to elect anti-Brexit candidates next month -- something he denies, vowing his loyalty to Labour.

"Tony Blair is a voice that gets attention and he's using it for it's own purposes, to rally the troops in the bigger cross-party battle which is all about Brexit," Fielding told AFP.

But he warned: "He is not going to be like King Arthur who is sleeping and will awake and save England in the hour of England's need."
The following material contains mature subject matter. Viewer discretion is advised.

Almost any event is a great excuse to throw a party  but how about one to say goodbye to your breasts? When she learned she needed to undergo a double mastectomy, Andy Sealy of Philadelphia threw a ta-ta to my tatas party so friends and family wouldnt feel sorry for her or awkward about discussing the surgery.

Watch: Beating Breast Cancer

These bye-bye boobies parties are not uncommon, says Breast Surgeon Dr. Kristi Funk. Many of her mastectomy patients have thrown them and shes attended a few  complete with breast cupcakes and other trappings. It turns something unexpected and something unwelcome and mournful in a womans life into something that brings family and friends together to celebrate their life.

Andy took it a step further and encouraged party guests to feel the lump in her breasts so they would recognize what a tumor felt like. Dr. Funk cautions, though, that Breast cancers, unfortunately, arent just in one shape or size  but that is one shape and size. And now all the women at that party (and maybe some men!) know what that shape and size feels like. Its empowering!

Watch: DIY Breast Reconstruction?

The Doctors wish Andy all the best.
CNN president Jeff Zucker (Photo: Monica Schipper/Getty Images)

In an interview with The New Yorker Radio Hour broadcast over the weekend, CNN president Jeff Zucker derided Fox News as a propaganda outlet for the Trump administration, while claiming his own network was the only cable news outlet broadcasting the truth.

Asked for his assessment of the cable news landscape in the era of President Trump, Zucker began his reply by saying: Obviously Fox News is, uh, then paused for more than 11 seconds. So, look, theres three cable news networks. Certainly in primetime and in the morning, Fox is state-run TV and is extolling the line out of the White House.

A spokeswoman for Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zucker said MSNBC has become the opposition and CNN is seeking the truth.

Do you think the other two networks are not broadcasting the truth? the New Yorkers David Remnick asked.

Well, I think that there are clear agendas at work at the other cable news networks depending on their political points of view, Zucker replied.

CNN and other mainstream media outlets have been branded by Trump as fake news  a term Zucker would like to see banished.

I think its an unfortunate phrase, he said. I think we should all try to avoid it. I think its also dangerous and unfortunate that the president of the United States and the people around him would try and denigrate an institution like the media, which is one of the bedrocks of this country.

Zucker said there is a legitimate problem with news that isnt real, invented either to advance a political agenda or just as clickbait to sell advertising  something Facebook and other online publishers have been grappling with since last years presidential campaign. But what Trump means by fake news, Zucker noted, is news he doesnt like  and there is a difference between news that is not real and news that he doesnt like.

Related: Trump blasts media coverage of his first 100 days

The former NBC chief, who is credited, in part, with launching Trumps television career with The Apprentice, said its always been clear that Trump is an entertainer who knows how to work an audience. But Zucker did not at all foresee Trumps political success.

Story continues

Theres no way I or anyone else back in 2004, when The Apprentice went on the air, would have predicted that Donald Trump would end up as president of the United States, Zucker said. I never had political conversations with him, ever. We had conversations about the ratings of The Apprentice and how much [money] he was going to make doing The Apprentice.

We ended up paying him what we wanted to pay him, Zucker recalled. He wanted a million dollars an episode to do The Apprentice in the second year.

Zucker said the network agreed to pay Trump $60,000 per episode for that season.

But it worked out for everybody, he said.

Zucker now admits that CNNs decision to air many of Trumps rallies during his 2016 campaign in full and unedited was a mistake.

I think, in hindsight, if we could go back, we probably wouldnt do all those, Zucker said. I think we probably did do too many of them. I do not think thats why hes president of the United States. I do not believe thats why he won the Republican nomination.

According to Zucker, the reason for Trumps success lies in his rabid fan base.

The people who voted for Donald Trump, the people who support Donald Trump, they understand he was a businessman, Zucker said. He did things, he said things  they may not be what were used to. Theyre OK with it. Theyre OK with it because theyre completely not OK with Washington. And all they wanted was somebody to go to Washington and actually just create havoc.

Read more from Yahoo News:

 Foxs Jesse Watters sparks controversy with suggestive Ivanka Trump remark

 Tucker Carlson and Caitlyn Jenner debate Trump and transgender rights

 Ivanka Trump booed at W20 summit after calling father a champion for women

 Obama makes first public remarks since leaving office

 Trump approaches 100 days with lowest job approval rating in more than 70 years
By Julia Edwards Ainsley and Mica Rosenberg

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Congress has agreed to fund an additional 5,300 detention beds for illegal immigrants, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee said on Monday, less than half the number requested by President Donald Trump.

The additional detention space was negotiated by Republican leaders with Democrats as part of a spending package Congress will vote on later this week to fund the government through September, according to two congressional sources familiar with the agreement.

The new beds will be added despite a sharp decline last month in apprehensions of people crossing the southern border with Mexico illegally. Immigration detention centers at the U.S. border have been operating at below capacity in recent months.

The agreement will increase the number of immigration detention beds to 39,324 from 34,000 currently, according to a summary provided by the House Appropriations Committee.

The White House in March requested bringing the total number of beds up to 45,700, saying the additional capacity was necessary to achieve the president's goal of "enhancing interior enforcement efforts and ending 'catch and release' for those apprehended at the border."

The budget summary did not break out the specific cost of the additional 5,300 beds, but said they would be included in an overall $1.5 billion increase in immigration enforcement funding.

The spending also includes more electronic monitoring and GPS tracking alternatives to detention, as well 100 additional officers to enforce immigration laws and funding for programs that increase coordination with local authorities on immigration enforcement.

A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which runs detention facilities, said the agency would not comment on the contents of the spending bill while the legislation is pending. The House Appropriations Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Story continues

From April 1-22, an average of 36,235 immigrants were in detention per day, according to the most recent statistics provided by ICE.

If border crossings and apprehensions continue to stay low, the administration could struggle to fill additional detention beds, unless it increases "arrests of undocumented immigrants in the interior with no criminal convictions and cuts back on releases of asylum seekers found to have legitimate claims," said Kevin Landy, who served as assistant director at ICE during the Obama administration.

"ICE is going to be under enormous pressure to fill those beds" to prove to Congress that the funding was needed, said Landy, who left his post in January. Democrats raised similar concerns during budget negotiations, a Congressional aide with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters.

Some Republicans as well as Democrats also expressed worries during the negotiations that the Department of Homeland Security might redirect money allotted for detention centers to use on border wall construction if Congress appropriated more money than needed, the aide said.

In October, the first month of the 2017 fiscal year, 66,710 people were apprehended crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Apprehensions have fallen steadily since then.

In March, 16,600 individuals were apprehended, down 64 percent from the year-earlier month, according to statistics from Customs and Border Patrol.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Julia Edwards Ainsely in Washington; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Leslie Adler)
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell points to a reporters after a policy luncheon on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)

WASHINGTON  Congress has reached an agreement to fund the federal government through September in a bipartisan deal that rejected President Trumps demand for a border wall and non-defense domestic spending cuts.

The $1 trillion-plus spending bill will allocate $1.5 billion for additional technology and infrastructure on the border, but includes language that explicitly states those funds cannot go to the construction of a wall. Lawmakers also rejected the presidents demand for $18 billion in non-defense spending cuts, increasing funds for the National Institutes for Health (NIH) by $2 billion for cancer research. Democrats held off the White Houses demand to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by a third as well, with that agency getting just a 1 percent trim off its budget.

The bipartisan deal also increased military spending by $12.5 billion  less than half the $30 billion the president asked for  with an extra $2.5 billion contingent upon the Trump administration showing Congress a plan to defeat ISIS.

The bill doesnt touch funding for so-called sanctuary cities and Planned Parenthood  two hot-button issues the Democrats had called poison pills. But Democrats were stymied in their effort to get Congress to take over funding key Obamacare subsidies. The final deal does not include them, though the Trump administration told Democrats they would continue to fund that part of Obamacare for now.

Democrats entered the negotiations with a lot of leverage, since Republicans, eager to prove their governing chops, did not want to be blamed for a government shutdown while they controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. House Republicans have also been eager to move on from spending negotiations to a second attempt at repealing and replacing Obamacare. A vote on the amended health care bill could happen this week.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats had managed to exclude poison pill riders in the agreement. The bill ensures taxpayer dollars arent used to fund an ineffective border wall, excludes poison pill riders, and increases investments in programs that the middle class relies on, like medical research, education and infrastructure, Schumer said in a statement Sunday night. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also released a celebratory statement.

Story continues

Republicans also declared victory. American will be stronger and safer because of this government funding bill, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., said in a statement. It acts on President Trumps commitment to rebuild our military for the 21st century and bolster our nations border security to protect our homeland. Ryan added that the spending bill increased military spending without including an equal increase in domestic spending, as Democrats had insisted upon for years.

The government is funded through Friday at midnight, giving lawmakers five days to push the spending bills through both houses.

While Republicans and Democrats were able to put their differences aside and reach a deal on spending, the budget fight for 2018 will likely be far fiercer. The president has vowed to get funding for his wall then, and to ask for deep cuts in non-defense spending.

Read more from Yahoo News:
In an exclusive interview with India Today Online, veteran actress Upasana Singh, opens up about The Kapil Sharma Show and more.

By Parmita Uniyal: Like a true friend, Upasana Singh has come to Kapil's rescue when others left his side. Not that she is taking sides, but the veteran actress feels that the current crisis is temporary and things will change very soon. She also has a feeling that in the end, Kapil and Sunil will patch up.

Currently juggling with multiple commitments including David Dhawan's upcoming movie Judwaa 2, Nach Baliye and The Kapil Sharma Show, Bubbly Mausi tells India Today Online that she is trying her best to strike a balance. Also read: The Kapil Sharma Show to be replaced by this reality show?

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The veteran actress is also unfazed about the rumours of the show shutting down due to low ratings.

"So many comedy shows came and went but it was The Kapil Sharma Show that excelled. And it's still working decently. I don't think this show is going to go off air because Kapil is doing his job brilliantly. Situation is not right currently, but I have a feeling the show is not going to wrap up anytime soon," Upasana told India Today Online.

Upasana Singh returned as Bubbly Mausi on The Kapil Sharma Show a couple of episodes back.

Upasana also feels that Sunil and Kapil will bury the hatchet soon. "They will patch up soon. Insaan bura nahi hota, halaat hote hain. Kai baar aisi situation aa jaati hai. Ghar mein bhi ladaiyan ho jaati hain," (People are not bad, situations are. Family members also fight at times)said the actress. Also read: The Kapil Sharma Show undergoes a makeover of sorts; and we are loving it

The Judaai actress also clears the air on her rumoured cold war with Nach Baliye host Karan Tacker. "This report is completely untrue. On the contrary Karan and I share a very cordial relationship. In fact, the other day we were talking about this and he told me that he had never said such a thing to anybody and had no clue where all this was coming from. Besides, Karan and I have a very different styles of hosting and there is no scope of insecurity. We are very good friends and we get along really well on the sets," she signs off.

--- ENDS ---
Havana (AFP) - Millions of Cubans rallied in May Day parades Monday, the last to be overseen by President Raul Castro -- and the first without his late brother and revolutionary predecessor Fidel.

The rallies filled Havana's Revolution Square and other spots across the country in a sea of red, white and blue national flags and giant portraits of Fidel Castro.

Traditionally a day of protest and defense of workers' rights worldwide, the May Day rally in communist Cuba is unusual in being a march in support of the authorities.

The government still employs 70 percent of the five million workers on the island of 11 million people.

Fidel Castro died in November and Raul, 85, has said that he will step aside in February 2018 after 12 years in power.

"I don't think Cubans are ready to accept another president," said Mariana Gonzalez, a 28-year-old economist, at the march in Havana.

"People will accept one grudgingly at first until he shows he is capable."

- After Castro -

Raul Castro has been cautiously opening up Cuba's state-run economy and strengthening its foreign relations.

He re-established diplomatic ties with the United States in 2015.

But Monday's parade had the feel of the end of an era.

Raul Castro attended in his trademark green military cap and uniform, but did not make a speech.

It is not clear who will take his place next year as president.

Most rumors suggest it will be Miguel Diaz-Canel, 56, vice-president of the State Council.

- Political uncertainty -

Castro's supporters on Monday were hopeful that the transfer of power will be smooth.

He is expected to retain considerable influence since he will remain leader of the governing Communist Party.

"The conditions for continuity are there," said retiree Elier Dominguez, 68.

"There is only one party."

Despite ministerial experience and party credentials, Diaz-Canel is seen as lacking a support base in the military.

"There is very high uncertainty about 2018," said Pavel Vidal, a former official of Cuba's central bank and an academic at Colombia's Javeriana University.

Story continues

"One could expect a process of continuity" of Raul Castro's reforms, he added, "but not at the same speed."

- Venezuela factor -

Cuba's economic fortunes depend largely on another country that saw May Day marches on Monday: Venezuela.

Monday's parade in Havana voiced support for Venezuela's leftist government which is facing deadly unrest as the opposition protests against President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela sells cut-price oil to its leftist allies in Havana. Cuba is currently in recession, dragged down by its ally's economic crisis.

Analyst Andrew Otazo of Washington-based Cuba Study Group told AFP that Cuba has started looking to other oil exporters in case the Venezuelan government collapses.

- Show of support -

Despite the rapprochement under former US president Barack Obama, his successor Donald Trump has reiterated concerns over the Cuban government's human rights record.

It is accused of repressing political dissent.

Monday's march was a show of confidence by its loyal supporters, however.

"No one can beat Cuba," said demonstrator Alejandro Matos, 35, a civil defense employee.

"Even though Fidel is no longer here, there is Raul. And later there will be his successor."
(Reuters) - A man suspected of shooting a Dallas paramedic on Monday was found dead of an apparent suicide after a police robot search of a local home, which also uncovered the body of a second man in the same residence, officials told a news conference.

The paramedic underwent surgery and was in a Dallas hospital intensive care unit, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and police said, without releasing the names of anyone involved in the incident.

The incident began when Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics arrived to treat a civilian who had been shot. The suspect then arrived on the scene and opened fire, wounding the paramedic, the city of Dallas said in a statement.

Police who arrived on the scene were also fired upon and one officer suffered minor injuries, Rawlings and police said. One officer pulled the paramedic out and drove him to a hospital, police said.

The initial shooting victim was also hospitalized and is in an intensive care unit, Rawlings said.

"(The paramedic) is going to have to undergo extensive medical treatment to get him back up to par," Rawlings said.

Police brought in the robot to search the home where they believed the shooting suspect was hiding and came across the two bodies.

The suspected shooter died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound and there was no information yet released on the relation between him and the other man found dead in the room, police said.

Dallas was the scene last July of a mass shooting of police officers in which five were killed and seven wounded. The assailant, a former U.S. Army reservist who had posted an angry rant against white people on a Facebook page, was killed in a police-initiated explosion after being cornered in a parking garage.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)
US President Donald Trump has said that he has 'no idea' if North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is sane, amid escalating tensions over the threat from the country's nuclear weapons programme.

But, speaking to CBS, Mr Trump said that Mr Kim must be a "pretty smart cookie" to keep hold of power in his country.

People are saying, 'Is he sane?' I have no idea.... but he was a young man of 26 or 27... when his father died. He's dealing with obviously very tough people, in particular the generals and others.

Read more

This is how Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump could start World War III

And at a very young age, he was able to assume power. A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie, Mr Trump said.

The comments come after North Korea launched a mid-range ballistic missile on Saturday, which broke up a few minutes after launch, the third test-fire that failed in April. The programme's repeated failures over the past few years have given rise to suspicions of US sabotage.

In the interview with Face the Nation, the President was asked why North Korea's rockets keep blowing up.

I'd rather not discuss it, Mr Trump said. But perhaps they're just not very good missiles. But eventually, he'll have good missiles.

He added: And if that happens, we can't allow it to happen.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped weapon that can hit the US mainland. North Korea's regional neighbours South Korea, China and Japan are also on high alert.

Video not available for syndication

Related video: President Trump coy on possibility of military action against North Korea



Elsewhere, Mr Trump's National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. HR McMaster said that Trump has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or the other, but that the President's preference is to work with China and others to resolve it without military action.

Story continues

That means, Lt. Gen. McMaster said, working to enforce current UN sanctions and perhaps ratcheting them up. And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary, he added.

The blitz of television coverage comes amid weeks of escalating tensions over the actions of North Korea, with the Trump administration never decisively saying that military action would be forthcoming.

When asked, Mr Trump said Mr Kim will eventually develop better missiles, and we can't allow it to happen.

But, the President would not discuss the possibility of military action - saying "I don't know...we'll see" when asked if another missile launch by North Korea would mean retaliation. He added: It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is.

Agencies contributed to this report
Donald Trump has blamed the US constitution for the problems he has encountered during his first 100 days in office.

In an interview with Fox News to mark the milestone, the Republican called the system of checks and balances on power archaic.

Its a very rough system, he said. Its an archaic system  Its really a bad thing for the country.

Read more

Trump on if he may start war with North Korea: 'I don't know'

It comes after a torrid few months in which Mr Trump has faced a series of setbacks and embarrassments.

His introduction of a travel ban on immigration from seven mainly Muslim countries was struck down by the courts, forcing him to put forward an amended version.

Weeks later, his healthcare bill was withdrawn after it failed to secure sufficient backing from Republican senators.

Related:

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

Those mishaps contributed to a sense of chaos that has seen Mr Trumps popularity fall to unprecedented lows for a US president at this stage of their term. Mr Trumps current ratings hover around 40 per cent; at the same point in his presidency, Barack Obama was on nearly 65 per cent.

Speaking to Fox, Mr Trump admitted he was disappointed with Republican senators, despite claiming to have great relationships with many of them.

The US President also urged Americans to celebrate 1 May as Loyalty Day  a recognition of what he said were the US values of loyalty to "individual liberties, to limited government, and to the inherent dignity of every human being".

The tradition dates from the Cold War, when the celebration was established as a way to stop traditional May Day celebrations being used by left-wing organisations.

Despite the setbacks, Mr Trump insisted he had kept his promises to the American people during his first 100 days in office.

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One hundred days ago, I took the oath of office and made a pledge: We are not merely going to transfer political power from one party to another, but instead are going to transfer that power from Washington, DC, and give it back to the people," he wrote in an article for the Washington Post.

Issue by issue, department by department, we are giving the people their country back. After decades of a shrinking middle class, open borders and the mass offshoring of American jobs and wealth, this government is working for the citizens of our country and no one else.

In the past 100 days, I have kept that promise  and more.
Havana (AFP) - A plane crash in western Cuba on Saturday killed eight military personnel, the ministry in charge of the island's armed forces said.

The Russian-made AN-26 transport aircraft crashed in a mountainous region of western Artemisa province, killing all eight on board including the plane's crew, the Revolutionary Armed Forces ministry said in a statement carried by state media.

The plane, which can carry up to 40 people, had taken off from Playa Baracoa airport just outside the capital Havana. It crashed into a mountain, Loma de la Pimienta, 35 miles (55 kilometers) distant.

The ministry said it was investigating the causes of the accident.

An official with the authority in charge of the crash site told AFP that the area was cordoned off while the bodies were being recovered.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plane had been making a "military maneuver" when it crashed. The official did not elaborate.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has said politicians like former President Barack Obama have giant blind spots regarding the lived experiences of most Americans.

Talking about her new book This Fight Is Our Fight, Ms Warren also did not rule out a possible 2020 presidential bid.

Ms Warren said politicians like Mr Obama and others in both parties talk about a set of big national statistics that look shiny and great like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and unemployment rates, but they neglect that the lived experiences of most Americans [are] that they are being left behind in this economy.

Read more

If Warren runs in 2020 she will have Mansplaining McConnell to thank

She added, worse than being left behind, they're being kicked in the teeth.

Should Ms Warren run in 2020, abortion rights may be a major issue for the Democratic party.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran against Hillary Clinton for the partys nomination in 2016, recently said he supports Democratic candidates who are pro-life.

He said you just can't exclude people who disagree with us on one issue.

However, Ms Warren, speaking to The Guardian - made it clear that she is decidedly pro-choice and would not likely support any candidate that did not think giving women rights over their own body is important.

Ms Warren said the issue is powerfully important to her and that she understands not everyone in the Democratic party agrees with me, but I am in this fight all the way.

It is apparent that Ms Warren is not ruling out a 2020 bid, but is concerned the effect on her family.

I can take whatever somebody wants to throw at me. It is harder when things get thrown at your family but that's become the reality of 21st-century politics, Ms Warren noted.

At a rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump said Ms Warren might be his opposition in the next presidential election. He referred to her as Pocahontas - a Native American woman associated with the early British settlement in Jamestown, Virginia - in an apparent insult to Ms Warrens alleged Cherokee heritage.
Istanbul (AFP) - By launching air strikes against Syrian Kurdish fighters and threatening more action, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking to send a tough message to Donald Trump in the hope of bringing about a major U-turn in US Syria policy.

Turkey last week bombed targets of the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, earning the wrath of its NATO ally Washington and on Sunday Erdogan warned more action could be imminent.

"We can come unexpectedly in the night," said Erdogan. "We are not going to tip off the terror groups and the Turkish Armed Forces could come at any moment."

The YPG has been seen by the United States as the best ally on the ground in the fight against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists in Syria and Trump has inherited a policy from Barack Obama of actively supporting the group.

But Ankara says the YPG is a terror outfit and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have waged an insurgency since 1984 inside Turkey that has left tens of thousands dead.

- 'Sign of impatience' -

Analysts say the dispute will be the number one issue when Erdogan meets Trump for the first time as president on May 16 in the United States. Failing to resolve the problem could seriously harm US efforts to destroy IS in Syria.

"The strikes are manifestly a sign of impatience by Turkey and part of a long line of appeals telling the US to stop supporting the YPG," said Jean Marcou, professor at Sciences Po Grenoble and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies.

Since Trump's election, Turkey had indicated it wanted a "change in US policy on the YPG support. But in reality Erdogan has obtained nothing for now," he said.

The cooperation between Washington and the YPG, which saw the United States send a limited number of forces to work with the group, led to bitter tensions between Ankara and Washington in the dying months of the Obama administration.

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The US backed the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the YPG but also including Arab fighters, yet Ankara contends it is merely a front from the Kurdish group.

In an unusual move after days of border clashes between the Turkish army and YPG that followed the air strikes, the US sent military vehicles to the Syrian side of the frontier to carry out patrols in an apparent bid to prevent further fighting.

Erdogan said the sight of American flags in the convoy alongside YPG insignia had "seriously saddened" Turkey.

- 'Tensions help IS survival' -

The Turkish president, fresh from winning the controversial April 16 referendum on enhancing his powers, has indicated that the rewards for Washington in breaking up with the YPG could be high by spurring Turkish involvement in a joint operation to take the IS fiefdom of Raqa.

Together the United States can "turn Raqa into a graveyard for Daesh (IS)," Erdogan said on Saturday.

But Ankara has made clear it will have nothing to do with any operation involving the YPG and analysts say Turkey could even be a threat to a Raqa operation if it is not included.

"Washington was reluctant to launch the Raqa operation before Turkey's April 16 referendum to avoid potential complications with Ankara," said Aykan Erdemir, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

He said the Turkish air strikes -- which were combined with strikes against the PKK in Iraq -- brought "another unanticipated challenge" to coalition efforts against the jihadists.

"Tensions among coalition members have been one of the key factors for the Islamic State's continued survival," he said.

- 'Singular dilemma' -

The International Crisis Group (ICG) said in its latest report on the Syria crisis that the US had "a singular dilemma" on the future of its relationship with the YPG

It said the YPG "is indispensable" to defeat IS but there is also "no avoiding the fact" that the US is backing a force "led by PKK-trained cadres in Syria while the PKK itself continues an insurgency against a NATO ally."

It said that Turkey had pressed ahead with the air strikes despite US objections and this "should serve as a warning for what could lie in store."

But it said while the YPG was counting on American and also Russian support as a bulwark against Turkey, the importance of the country will mean Trump will have an ear for Erdogan's concerns.

Ultimately Washington "will likely view relations with Turkey - a NATO member and critical ally - as more important to its broader strategic interests," it said.
Donald Trump will have his 100th day in office on Saturday, April 29. The day is used historically as a big indicator of what's to come in an administration.

The public will be exposed to loads of information comparing Trump to past presidents, and data about his actions in office thus far. But, the administration is more than the POTUS. How has the rest of Trump's team spent the first 100 days of the administration?

SEE ALSO: 5 pages from 'The Art of the Deal' that explain exactly what Trump's doing

The information is all there if you know where to look. Unfortunately, I do not. I have no idea where to find this info. Please take a look at what I've gathered below anyway.

Secretary Ben Carson

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Chris Gardner/AP/REX/Shutterstock (5935132a) Ben Carson Dr. Ben Carson, then-director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, holds a model of the heads of conjoined twins Tabea and Lea Block of Lemgo, Germany, during a news conference in Baltimore. Carson is the only 2016 candidate for president who has never led a state or company or run for political office, but the retired neurosurgeon maintains that someone who can lead life-or-death operations surely can run the country GOP 2016 Carson as Neurosurgeon, Baltimore, USA

Image: Gardner/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Secretary Carson's time at the helm of the Housing and Urban Development department has thus far been marred by the fact that he is still working 9-5 at a hospital as a brain surgeon. Carson apparently forgot to tell the hospital he got a new job and at this point it has been too long and would be awkward. He has been getting two hours of sleep a night for 100 straight days and he drinks 16 cups of coffee a day. According to Carson, the hospital will receive his two weeks notice once "things start to settle down there."

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 10: White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon attends a ceremony in the Rose Garden where Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch was administered the judicial oath at the White House April 10, 2017 in Washington, DC. Earlier in the day Gorsuch, 49, was sworn in as the 113th Associate Justice in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Image: Getty Images

Bannon's first 100 days have mostly been spent outside of the White House, in that big hole by the lake where he lives. Locals call him "Lake Devil" and he does that thing certain spiders do where they hide underground with just one arm sticking out like it's a worm or a caterpillar and then when something comes to investigate they leap out and eat them. In terms of governing, though, he has also been bad.

Secretary Rex Tillerson

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 11: Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee January 11, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Tillerson is expected to face tough questions regarding his ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Image: Getty Images

Rex Tillerson's first 100 days have been dominated by his attempts to create a "Jaeger Program"  named after and exactly the same as the program from 2013's Pacific Rim, in which Jaegers are large robots merged with human minds and used to fight off the colossal Kaiju (monsters emerging from a portal in the ocean hellbent on destroying earth). Tillerson watched the film on a plane while he flew to Germany during his first foreign trip as Secretary of State. He told the president about it and was immediately brought home to develop the program.

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Secretary Betsy Devos

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 17: Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the next Secretary of Education, testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill January 17, 2017 in Washington, DC. DeVos is known for her advocacy of school choice and education voucher programs and is a long-time leader of the Republican Party in Michigan. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Image: Getty Images

Secretary Devos has not been seen since she was confirmed on February 7. According to the administration, she is somewhere in the Acadian Forest region, hunting large predators to extinction in order to "improve the lives of K-12 public school children in the U.S."

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 20: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks to the media during his daily briefing at the White House, on March 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Image: Getty Images

Sean Spicer's first 100 days have gone very badly.

White House Innovations Director Jared Kushner

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 7: (AFP OUT) Jared Kushner, senior White House adviser, listens during a county sheriff listening session with U.S. President Donald Trump, not pictured, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on February 7, 2017 in Washington, DC. The Trump administration will return to court Tuesday to argue it has broad authority over national security and to demand reinstatement of a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries that stranded refugees and triggered protests. (Photo by Andrew Harrer - Pool/Getty Images)

Image: Getty Images

Jared Kushner has been hiding in a clothing rack inside of a Brooks Brothers in Washington D.C. for 100 days. Everyone knows that he is there and they plead with him to come out and he keeps saying "Jared isn't in here."

Secretary Sonny Perdue

WASHINGTON, D.C. - APRIL 25: (AFP-OUT) Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue looks on at a roundtable with farmers hosted by US President Donald in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on April 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. During the meeting Trump signed the Executive Order Promoting Agriculture and Rural Prosperity in America. (Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images)

Image: Getty Images

Who the hell is this guy? Nobody knows. He goes to every meeting.

WATCH: Ivanka Trump gets booed at an international womens summit speaking about father's 'advocacy' for women
Paris (AFP) - Traditional May 1 union marches turned violent in France on Monday and presidential election frontrunner Emmanuel Macron attacked far-right rival Marine Le Pen, highlighting the divisions six days before the runoff.

Six police officers were hurt in clashes in Paris between masked youths throwing molotov cocktails and riot police who responded with tear gas, as tens of thousands of union activists took to the streets for May Day demonstrations.

One riot police officer was engulfed in flames, an AFP photographer saw.

Interior Minister Matthias Fekl condemned the violence and said one officer was seriously burned on the hand while another had serious burns to the face, without saying which was the officer in the photograph.

Reacting to the scenes, far-right presidential candidate Le Pen tweeted: "This is the sort of mess... that I no longer want to see on our streets."

In a feisty speech, Macron told thousands of his supporters he would defend "free democracy" if voters choose him on Sunday after Le Pen had urged voters to reject "the world of finance, of arrogance, of money as king" she said her opponent embodied.

The traditional union-led marches underlined the conspicuous absence of the united front shown in 2002 when Le Pen's father Jean-Marie shocked the country by reaching the run-off.

On this day 15 years ago, some 1.3 million people, including 400,000 in Paris, took to the streets of France in union-led demonstrations to protest against the founder of the National Front (FN).

That show of force, coupled with a political closing of ranks, helped the centre-right's Jacques Chirac inflict a crushing defeat on Le Pen senior.

This time, with left-wing candidates eliminated in the first round, the left is deeply divided over the choice between Le Pen's 48-year-old daughter and Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker.

In Paris's Place de la Republique, 28-year-old teacher Camille Delaye held a placard that read: "Abstention is a political act" -- meaning he is so disgusted by both candidates, he will not vote on Sunday.

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But Nastassja Naguszewski, 28, who works in local government, said: "You have to put Le Pen as low as possible. One of them is a candidate who will uphold republican values and one is not."

- 'Le Pen is anti-workers' -

Two unions, the CFDT and Unsa, have called for their members to back Macron.

But while three other more left-wing unions including the biggest, the CGT, have called for demonstrations against Le Pen's vision of French identity, they have stopped short of backing Macron whose economically liberal outlook worries many members.

Some militants have formed a movement they have called "Social Front" to block both candidates.

CGT leader Philippe Martinez said he "deeply disagreed" with that approach, arguing that Le Pen and Macron "are not the same thing".

"The National Front is a racist, xenophobic party that is anti-women and anti-workers because it is also an economically liberal party," he said.

Le Pen hit back that the unions "are not defending workers' interests, they are looking after their own interests".

Macron is currently favourite to become France's youngest ever president, leading Le Pen by 19 points in the polls, but she has shown she is an effective campaigner.

Speaking at a convention centre in northern Paris, Macron, however, said Le Pen "had fed off worry and hate for years".

- 'More than politics' -

He said he was aware that "many people will vote for me to avoid having the National Front".

"I say to them that I am completely aware that on May 7, I will be doing more than defending a political programme -- I will be leading the fight for the republic and for a free democracy," he said to roars of approval from supporters.

Le Pen took her campaign Monday to the working-class Paris suburb of Villepinte where the first speaker was Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a eurosceptic from outside the FN who Le Pen has said will be her prime minister if she wins on Sunday.

She is hoping to capture some of the 1.7 million votes he won in the first round, although his support for Le Pen has divided his own party.

"It's a choice between France and finance," Dupont-Aignan said in a jibe at Macron.

In her remarks, Le Pen repeated nearly verbatim several passages from a speech made two weeks earlier by Francois Fillon, the former frontrunner who was eliminated in the first round.

Asked by AFP about the apparent plagiarism, FN deputy leader Florian Philippot said it was "a nod to a short passage in a speech about France" on the part of "a candidate that shows she is not sectarian".
The new poster of Vivegam starring Ajith Kumar is the gift that all Thala fans were waiting for on the birthday of their favourite star.

By India Today Web Desk: Today is the 46th birthday of Thala Ajith Kumar. And the boss has a special treat for his fans on this auspicious day.

As we all know, Ajith Kumar will be seen next in the action thriller Vivegam. This will be director Siva's third film with Ajith Kumar after two back to back blockbusters, the 2014 film Veeram and 2015's Vedhalam.

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Reportedly Ajith Kumar plays an Interpol agent in the film while Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi is essaying the role of the antagonist. Earlier, the first look of Vivegam showed Ajith Kumar with his chiselled, bulked up physique for which the actor received a lot of appreciation.

Now on his 46th birthday, Thala Ajith has gifted his fans the new poster of Vivegam. Here the actor is seen with a huge tree trunk atop his shoulders as he sits on his knees in a place full of snow as a storm rages on. Thala's face is bloodied and he is seen looking up towards the sky and screaming. However, this time he is not shirtless.

Vivegam, besides Ajith and Vivek Oberoi, also stars Kamal Haasan's daughter Akshara Haasan and Kajal Agarwal. The film is scheduled to release in the Independence Day weekend.

Hearty May Day wishes to all true hard workers around the globe! And Many more happy returns of the day Ajith sir! #HBDBelovedThalaAjith pic.twitter.com/CKKrr77ykN- D.IMMAN (@immancomposer) April 30, 2017

Thala Birthday special Ride ??#MMDDDDLCTworkout ??Wish u all the love and happiness Ajith Sir ??????#HBDBelovedThalaAjith Have a lovely day ?????? pic.twitter.com/GuQb2Hkd7c- Arya (@arya_offl) May 1, 2017

Happiest birthday to the one and only! Love you sir :) #HBDBelovedThalaAjith pic.twitter.com/Z73BZOP7C6- Anirudh Ravichander (@anirudhofficial) April 30, 2017

Happy birthday thala ajith sir,honest,humble,great man,it's truly honour to know u,my sincere prayers for ur happiness and long life,sai sai- siva+director (@directorsiva) April 30, 2017

ALSO READ: When Thala Ajith called Vijay Sethupathi and appreciated his work

SEE PIC: Ajith Kumar looks dapper on the sets of Vivegam

WATCH: SS Rajamouli and Raja Koduri share their VR experience working on Baahubali

--- ENDS ---
Now that the complete disaster that was Fyre Festival is over, it's time for the very attractive people who promoted the event to apologize.

On Saturday, model Bella Hadid let her fans know she was sorry about what went down.

SEE ALSO: Here's the official postmortem statement from Fyre Festival organizers

That's an apology, sort of. I mean, maybe don't promote some totally random thing that you've never experienced or barely know about next time.

SEE ALSO: Instagram influencers are utter nonsense, and Fyre Fest proves it

Hadid was one of the modelsalong with Elsa Hosk, Emily Ratajkowski, Lais Ribeiro, and Hailey Baldwinwho hyped up Fyre Festival on Instagram.

@rose_bertram: "Make sure to get your tickets for @fyrefestival weekend two still available! #fyrefestival". #haileybaldwin #bellahadid #rosebertram #HaileyUpdates A post shared by Hailey Baldwin Updates (@baldwinsupdate) on Apr 4, 2017 at 6:43pm PDT

In case you were wondering, Fyre Festival did not look like this. Instead, it was filled with disaster relief tents, gourmet meals consisting of cheese slices on bread, and fleeing festival-goersmany of whom paid thousands of dollars for the privilege.

Hadid and pals weren't the only models promoting the festival. The organizers also invited less famous models and "influencers" to attend for free if they posted about the event on Instagram.

Amanda Riley told her tragic story to The Hollywood Reporter.

"I was in L.A. about six months ago when I was offered these tickets  everything paid for. The organizers were trying to get a lot of promotion from models. A couple of friends and I were going to go; everything was paid and comped in exchange for a couple of posts to help them with marketing."

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Which she did!

Packing to leave my home in Los Angeles to head back east to my home and my @wilhelminamodels family in NYC for 24 hours before heading to FYRE festival in the Bahamas for the weekend. Los Angeles will always be my home and this is probably the hardest it's ever been to leave but I'll be back soon (hopefully) Until next time LA xo  #LifeOfAmandaRiley A post shared by Amanda Riley Ferree (@lifeofamandariley) on Apr 25, 2017 at 6:41pm PDT

It turns out she got stranded in Miami, so she didn't get to witness the horror in the Bahamas for herself.

"I got lucky since I didn't pay upfront for anything," she wrote. "Worst case, I have to buy one flight back to New York."

Um, sad? Anyway, she ends her story with this:

"Im staying out of it because Im kind of complete with it. My friends and family are safe. And I didnt pay for anything. So I just dont want anything to do with that company anymore or deal with these people."

Unlike Hadid, she doesn't even apologize for shilling for Fyre Festivalalthough, to be fair, she didn't promote it as hard.

The lesson here: Don't do things just because models tell you to. Because there's a pretty good chance they'll keep promoting things they know nothing about for cash and free stuff.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

WATCH: This electric surfboard can move without the waves
Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would achieve a massive propaganda victory if U.S. President Donald Trump agrees to meet with him.

If this meeting takes place  God forbid  thatll be the biggest geopolitical victory for Putin, Kasparov, a longtime Putin critic, told Yahoo News. Its not just about discussions there or whats being said or not being said at the meeting. The very fact that Putin could sit at the same table as Trump will help Putin dramatically strengthen his grip and power in Russia.

During a wide-ranging interview Monday with Yahoo News Anchor Bianna Golodryga, Kasparov said that top officials and elites in Russia had expected Putin and Trump to have a cordial relationship before he entered the White House. He said they thought the leaders might even strike up a grand bargain to normalize relations that could even include Trumps recognizing Russias claim to Crimea  but the countries relationship has foundered since Inauguration Day.

Instead, the relations are just at the lowest point, Kasparov said. So if Putin manages to meet with Trump, thats all about it. That will be the greatest coup for him to strengthen his grip and power in Russia.

He pointed out that though the Trump administration has criticized Putin, Trump himself has not. This absence of condemnation is noteworthy for several reasons, including Putins appalling human rights record and Trumps penchant for insults.

Donald Trump has never said anything negative about Vladimir Putin. His administration did, Kasparov said. He could talk about Russia, but Vladimir Putin is excluded from the list of people he criticized, and this list is endless.

Kasparov appeared on Yahoo News with Golodryga in part to discuss his new book about the future of artificial intelligence, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. In 1997, Kasparov, the worlds reigning chess champion at the time, famously lost a game to IBM supercomputer Deep Blue. However, given todays geopolitical climate, the conversation largely focused on the risk Putin poses to Russia and the world.

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Kasparov has been highly critical of Putin for many years. He led the pro-democracy resistance to Putins regime in Moscow but fled to New York because he feared for his safety. He has been calling on Western democracies  such as the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France  to stop negotiating with Putin because doing so only appears to validate his claim to power back home.

In his book Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped, Kasparov argues that leaders of the free world have appeased rather than confronted Putin since he ascended to the presidency in 1999  allowing the Russian strongman to become a serious threat to liberty throughout the world.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Document aims to heal divisions within Palestinian movement and ease peace process but Netanhayu says: Hamas is attempting to fool the world

A Palestinian person waves a Hamas flag in Gaza City. The groups new charter could be the last chance to put Gaza on a sensible path, says a diplomatic source. Photograph: Suhaib Salem/Reuters

Hamas has unveiled a new political programme softening its stance on Israel by accepting the idea of a Palestinian state in territories occupied by Israel in the six-day war of 1967.

The new document states the Islamist movement it is not seeking war with the Jewish people  only with Zionism that drives the occupation of Palestine.

The new document also insists that Hamas is a not a revolutionary force that seeks to intervene in other countries, a commitment that is likely to be welcomed by other states such as Egypt.

The policy platform was announced by the head of the movements political bureau, Khaled Meshal, at a press conference in Doha. Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognising Israel or ceding any rights, he said.

The move comes just two days before a White House meeting between Donald Trump and Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah movement remains at odds with Hamas.

But according to diplomatic sources, the new document has been in preparation for years and has been the subject of intense debate between the various Hamas factions in Gaza, in exile and in prison.

Although it does not explicitly supplant the previous charter of the founding fathers, seen by many as racist, it is being described by those seeking to help Hamas toward a more peaceful path as the contemporary summary of Hamas beliefs and aims.

Israel rejected the document before its full publication, with a spokesman for the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: Hamas is attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed.

Ed Royce, the chair of the House foreign relations committee, said: Until Hamas recognises Israels right to exist, its words are meaningless. I will see to it that Hamas remains designated a terrorist organisation as long as it continues to launch rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, remains an Iranian proxy, and engages in other acts that threaten the US and Israel.



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But some influential diplomatic figures will seek to persuade Trumps Middle East advisers that the document at least shows there is the potential for a peace settlement based on the recent regional push led by Egypt. It may also open the way for international investors to start rebuilding basic services in Gaza, and end the blockade.



In the biggest concession, the new document states that Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of 4 June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

By implication, the document accepts that there will be another state entity outside these borders, even if it does not mention Israel.

Previously the movements leaders have given verbal commitments to the more limited aim of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but the aim has never been put formally in writing.

Hamas, which wrested control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority  controlled by Fatah. Since then, all efforts since to reconcile the two Palestinian factions have faltered.

The new Hamas document essentially brings the two sides closer to the same negotiating objective.

The policy statement asserts: Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

Critics of Hamas will point out the document rejects the Oslo accords, and asserts that resistance for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty and an honour, adding armed resistance is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and rights of the Palesinian people.

The new charter also abandons past references claiming Hamas is part of a pan-national Muslim Brotherhood, to which it was closely linked when formed.

This aspect of the statement could improve the currently difficult relations with the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief overthrew his Islamist predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013 and has since led a bloody crackdown on the Brotherhood.

Hamas had been planning to present the charter at the Intercontinental hotel in the Qatari capital of Doha, but the hotel canceled, prompting Hamas to rush to find an alternative location, eventually holding the event at the Doha Sheraton.



In advance of the publication, Netanyahus office said: Hamass document is a smokescreen. We see Hamas continuing to invest all of its resources not just in preparing for war with Israel, but also in educating the children of Gaza to want to destroy Israel.

The day Hamas stops digging tunnels and diverts its resources to civilian infrastructure and stop educating children to hate Israelis, that would be real change, the statement said.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Gaza-based deputy head of Hamass political bureau, said at an event in the Gaza Strip on Sunday that the new document will undermine neither our principles nor our strategy. Jerusalem, the right of return, Palestinian unity and the resistance forces are fundamental principles. The changes relate to regional developments, and suit the era.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Tom Finn GAZA/DOHA (Reuters) - The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Monday dropped its longstanding call for Israel's destruction, but said it still rejected the country's right to exist and backs "armed struggle" against it. In a policy document presented in Doha by its leader Khaled Meshaal, Hamas also said it would end its association with the Muslim Brotherhood, a move apparently aimed at improving ties with Gulf Arab states and Egypt, which view the Brotherhood as a terrorist group. Israel responded to the announcement by accusing Hamas of trying to "fool the world", while the group's main Palestinian political rival, the Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas, also reacted coolly to the policy shift. The publication of the policy document comes two days before Abbas is due to visit Washington, and days after President Donald Trump told Reuters he may travel to Israel this month and sees no reason why there should not be peace between Israel and the Palestinians. "We don't want to dilute our principles but we want to be open. We hope this (document) will mark a change in the stance of European states towards us," Meshaal told reporters. Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, said in the document it agreed to a transitional Palestinian state within the borders of 1967, when Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a war with Arab states. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. "Hamas advocates the liberation of all of Palestine but is ready to support the state on 1967 borders without recognizing Israel or ceding any rights," said Meshaal, in a shift that brings Hamas more into line with the position of Fatah. "TERROR TUNNELS" Israel said the document aimed to deceive the world that Hamas was becoming more moderate. "Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed," said David Keyes, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "They dig terror tunnels and have launched thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians. This is the real Hamas." Founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Egyptian Islamist movement, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2007 and has carried out hundreds of armed attacks in Israel and in Israeli-occupied territories. Many Western countries classify Hamas as a terrorist group over its failure to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements. Meshaal said Hamas's fight was not against Judaism as a religion but against what he called "aggressor Zionists". Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasme upbraided Hamas for taking decades to join Fatah in accepting a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, a position Hamas used to criticize Fatah for. "Hamas's new document is identical to that taken by Fatah in 1988. Hamas is required to make an apology to Fatah after 30 years of accusing us of treason for that policy," Qawasme said. It remained unclear whether the document replaces Hamas's 1988 charter, which calls for Israels destruction. Meshaal said the document would "guide Hamas's daily political activity". Abbas's Palestinian Authority has engaged in peace talks with Israel on the basis of seeking a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, although the last, U.S.-mediated round collapsed three years ago. There was no immediate comment on Monday from Egypt and Gulf Arab states to the Hamas document. "For Hamas ... it's a signal of their desire to align with conservative Sunni elements in the region and create some immunity (from Saudi pressure)," said Beverley Milton-Edwards, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre and author of a book on Hamas. But while the document could strengthen Hamas's position in the Palestinian Territories and the Middle East, she said, it was unlikely to lead "to any definitive swing in opinion in the group's favor in the United States or even Europe." Meshaal said Hamas remained part of the Muslim Brotherhood's "intellectual school" but was "an independent Palestinian organization". U.S.-allied Arab states including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia classify the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The 89-year-old Brotherhood held power in Egypt for a year after a popular uprising in 2011, but was then removed by the army after mass street protests. The Brotherhood denies links with Islamist militants and advocates Islamist political parties winning power through elections, which Saudi Arabia considers a threat to its system of absolute power through inherited rule. (Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Tom Finn; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Ocean scientists often say that humans know more about the surface of Mars than the seafloor of Earth.

Under the icy water surrounding Earth's poles, there's a hidden world of dramatic landscapes  ancient canyons, craters, hills and fields. A group of scientists has compiled a new atlas of some of those formations and released images from the collection on Tuesday (April 25) at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna.

The 200-plus images in the "Atlas of Submarine Glacial Landforms" reveal the "fingerprints" that past glaciers and ice sheets left on the seafloor, Kelly Hogan, a marine geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey, told reporters during a news conference. [See Images of Hidden Landsacpes from the Underwater Atlas]

In all, about 250 scientists from 20 countries contributed to the new atlas. Most of the high-resolution,3D seafloor imagery was obtained by acoustic methods like multibeam sonar, where sensors on research ships send sound signals to the seafloor and record the responses back up to the ship.

"I like to think of this as remote sensing of the seafloor," Hogan said. "In the same way that satellites are moving around the globe and sending down a pulse and receiving the signal back and putting together a whole picture of the planet, this is what we're doing on the ships."

But satellites in space don't have to navigate pack ice. Researchers who study the seafloor can take images of only those areas they can sail near, so thereare still a lot of blank spots in the underwater topography around the poles. The total area of the images covered in the atlas would fill a region about the size of Great Britain. Nonetheless, chief editor of the atlas, Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, told Live Science that over 95 percent of the types of landforms you would find on the seabed are likely represented in the new collection.

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The formations include a range of geological phenomena, from the once-exposed ridges left behind by fast-moving glaciers to the squiggly plough marks that have been etched into the seafloor by the keels of massive icebergs. Studying these formations could help scientists reconstruct past climates and environments. [See Time-Lapse Photos of Retreating Glaciers]

"Often these features are very well-preserved because there's no humans, there's no roads, there's no weathering," Hogan said. For example, she described a former permafrost field in the shallow Laptev Sea in Eastern Siberia that was submerged when sea levels rose at least 6,000 years ago. "What these permafrost patterns tell us is that although this area was permanently frozen during the last glacial [period], it wasn't covered by grounded ice. This tells us exactly the environmental history of that area."

Retreating glaciers and ice sheets are among the biggest concerns of scientists trying to understand the effects of climate change today, and Hogan hopes the glacial history preserved underwater could help scientists predict how ice will behave under different conditions in the future.

"If we can find information from the seafloor about what stabilizes ice when it retreats or about how quickly it flows over different materials on the seafloor, then it means we can contribute that knowledge to the ice sheet modelers today," she said.

Original article on LiveScience.

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Historians Monday valiantly tried, and mostly failed, to understand and interpret President Trumps remarks about President Andrew Jackson. Among other comments, Trump seemed to assert that Jackson, who died in 1845, could have prevented the Civil War, which began in 1861, and that the causes of the bloodiest conflict in the nations history have not been addressed or discussed.

I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldnt have had the Civil War, said Trump in an interview with the Washington Examiners Salena Zito. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, and he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, Theres no reason for this. People dont realize, you know, the Civil War, you think about it, why? People dont ask that question. But why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

The comments, published Monday morning and broadcast on SiriusXM Radio, led to confusion over Trumps understanding of Jacksons beliefs and general American history.

First of all, historians have actually talked about the reasons for the Civil War quite a bit, said Kevin Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton, in an email to Yahoo News. Second, theres an overwhelming consensus among historians that the Civil War came about because of slavery. Simply put, the war came because the southern states seceded, and they seceded  as they quite clearly said themselves at the time, over and over again  because of slavery. Mississippis secession declaration, to take just one, is quite direct here: Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery  the greatest material interest of the world.

The question of why the Civil War should have happened is not only central to the study of U.S. history but to our entire national mythology, said Eric Rauchway, a professor of history at UC Davis, in an interview with Yahoo News, and Lincolns answer to that question is literally chiseled on the walls of the Lincoln Memorial about a miles walk from the White House.

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Historians of the U.S. were surprised to learn that nobody asks why the Civil War happened, as its one of the central questions of American history, said Nicole Hemmer, assistant professor at the University of Virginias Miller Center, to Yahoo News. Its even featured on the test for American citizenship. But when Donald Trump marvels at the ignorance or incuriosity of the masses, what hes really doing is expressing his own ignorance and incuriosity. Hes saying that hes never asked about the origins of the Civil War.

Jon Meacham, author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, attempted to parse Trumps historical commentary.

The president seems to be conflating two things, said Meacham in an email to Yahoo News. The first is Andrew Jacksons determined stand for the Union against South Carolina nullifiers in 1832-33; Old Hickory believed in the primacy of his federal government and faced down John C. Calhoun and others over the supremacy of federal law. The second is Trumps thought  one he first expressed to me in an interview for Time last year  that perhaps a deal of some kind could have averted the Civil War.

The problem with the latter, added Meacham, is that any accommodation with the South would have to have ratified the continued existence of slavery in the old slaveholding states  which, to be fair, was a mainstream possibility in the prewar days. What finally drove secession was Lincolns refusal to allow the expansion of slavery westward. All fascinating, complicated stuff  but one has to wonder why the 45th president, who has plenty to do, is blithely relitigating what Shelby Foote called the crossroads of our being.'

Rauchway also suggested that Trump might have been thinking about Jacksons actions against former Vice President Calhoun.

To give the president the benefit of the doubt, said Rauchway, I imagine he is thinking there of the Nullification Crisis where Jackson faced down John C. Calhoun over the South Carolinian attempts to nullify a federal tariff law and that therefore Jackson is sometimes referred to as being a strong Unionist, which I suppose is fair enough. But at that point the issue of slavery wasnt directly at issue or its expansion wasnt directly an issue, and I dont think Jackson would have been effective in dealing with that issue in any way.

There was also pushback against Trumps musings that Jackson could have prevented the Civil War and his suggestion that the seventh president  whose Indian Removal Act essentially legalized genocide  had a big heart.

Andrew Jackson himself was a slaveholder and the Jacksonians were slaveholders and they despised the abolitionists, said Rauchway, so its hard for me to believe that they would have been able to prevent the Civil War. And actually it was Jacksonian policies  particularly those of James K. Polk, who styled himself as Young Hickory, as a direct heir to Andrew Jackson  which precipitated the Civil War. Thats entirely wrong in every respect.

Jackson had a big heart for white farmers, said Hemmer, Less so for the American Indians he slaughtered and the African-Americans he enslaved. Given Trumps own focus on white Americans over nonwhite Americans, its not surprising that he would fail to see the limits of Jacksons big-heartedness.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Congratulations, Starbucks. You played yourself.

You thought the unicorn frappuccino was going to be a good idea, and it was. We're sure it made you a ton of money.

But now that people have been alerted to the idea that you can be creative with your drink order, complicated recipes are popping up everywhere in an attempt to be the next big frappuccino trend, like the dragon frappuccino we've seen going around the last few weeks.

Well, now there's the mermaid frappuccino. Maybe people really are trying to take our list of mythical creature frappuccinos and giving it a go.

SEE ALSO: Here's how you can make Starbucks' Unicorn Frappuccino at home

A post shared by Jocelyn Freeman (@themodernbarista) on Apr 26, 2017 at 2:38pm PDT

The mermaid frappuccino was first created by Jocelyn, a barista in Michigan, after her location ran out of the ingredients for the unicorn frappuccino.

Jocelyn describes the recipe for the beverage in her Instagram post. Her mermaid frappuccino consists of a vanilla bean base blended with freeze-dried blueberries and drizzled with "a toasted coconut matcha sauce."

A post shared by Chase Murphy (@chacemurfy) on Apr 24, 2017 at 8:57am PDT

Websites dedicated to compiling Starbucks secret menu items have also caught onto the frappuccino, listing very specific recipe instructions for both the drink itself and the drizzle. According to Starbucks Secret Menu's website, the drizzle calls for "eight pumps of white mocha sauce, three pumps toasted coconut syrup, three heaping scoops of matcha."

If that sounds like mad work, that's because it is. Putting all of those things together just for one frappuccino sounds like a big waste of time. But as long as people keep coming up with these novelty frappuccinos, baristas everywhere will be forced to continue to make them.

Next time you get your frappuccino, make sure to pour some out for all those poor baristas out there. Or tip them.
Four kilometres east of Saharanpur on the Dehradun road lies Sadak Dudhali, a village of 3,000 people, mostly Muslim. There is also a significant Dalit minority that lives in Sadak Dudhali. There is no history of communal violence here; both Muslims and Dalits worship at the famous nearby shrine to Naugaja Peer, the 'saint of the highway' believed to be 27 feet tall. On April 14, Muslims and Dalits in the village celebrated the birthday of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar.

But local BJP MP Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma, among others, wanted to lead another procession on April 20, a so-called 'shobha yatra', in celebration of Dr Ambedkar's birthday. Their march would take them through Sadak Dudhali. Police say they denied permission for the march fearing communal tension. Still, on April 20 at 11 am, hundreds of marchers, including local BJP workers and leaders such as Sharma and MLAs Brijesh Singh and Pradeep Choudhari defied police orders and held their procession. As they approached the village, their path was blocked with tractors and soon a confrontation developed. Mobs began to throw stones and hurl insults at each other. A bus was burned down as the violence spilled onto the highway.

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Angered at being stopped, the marchers attacked the house of Saharanpur senior superintendent of police Love Kumar some three kilometres from the village. "There were around 400 people," Kumar says. "CCTVs were broken, my nameplate was vandalised. They destroyed my office." He identified BJP MP Sharma as part of the crowd and filed FIRs against him, the two MLAs and 10 others. Describing Lakhanpal Sharma as "very decent", Shrikant Sharma, UP government spokesman and cabinet minister, said "anti-BJP parties conspired to disturb the peace... action will be taken against the guilty".

Meanwhile, on April 22 at 10 am, the new director general of police, Sulkhan Singh, took office in Lucknow, calling for "strict action" against "vigilantes taking up issues related to cows or love affairs". Within hours, the DGP had confirmation of his warning that vigilantes were running amok. In Agra, Hindutva activists from groups including the BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal, and Yogi Adityanath's own Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) attacked the Fatehpur Sikri police station.

Men, reportedly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, were being held by police for beating and robbing a Muslim vegetable vendor and the protesters demanded their release. When a police deputy superintendent tried to calm the crowd, he was slapped by a VHP student leader, after which the police allegedly caned the protesters. Further violence ensued and a police vehicle was set ablaze. FIRs were filed against five men for the violence, including Uday-bhan Singh, the BJP MLA for Fatehpur Sikri.

Speaking in Bundelkhand on April 20, chief minister Yogi Adityanath instructed BJP workers to follow the law and not take matters into their own hands. But is anyone listening? HYV members too have been lambasted for assaulting a couple in Meerut and stopping a function at a church, among other recent incidents. The HYV has decided to suspend recruitment. P.K. Mall, the group's state office in-charge, said the HYV would "keep a close eye on the activities of every member. We will not tolerate any member involved in defaming the organisation".

DGP Sulkhan Singh is committed to stopping "goondagardi". He says "even VIPs will not be spared". Tough words, but will they be matched by action? Much of Adityanath's reputation as an administrator rests on his no-nonsense approach to law and order. Will the biggest challenge to that come from those who share his ideology and politics?

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Paris (AFP) - Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen announced Saturday that she would name a eurosceptic from outside her National Front party as prime minister if she captures France's presidency in the May 7 run-off.

In a bruising contest against pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron, Le Pen is hoping to broaden her base enough to win the decisive second-round vote, despite polls suggesting she is some 20 points behind.

The anti-immigration Le Pen told reporters that she and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan -- who lost in the election's first round with 4.7 percent of the vote -- shared a "common project that we will promote together".

"We will build a national unity government that will bring together people chosen for their skills and their love of France," said 48-year-old Le Pen, who has promised a French referendum on quitting the European Union.

Dupont-Aignan, 56, heads the nationalist Debout la France (France Stand Up) party and, like Le Pen, has said he favours ditching the euro.

"It's a historic day because we are putting France before personal and partisan interests," said Dupont-Aignan, whose party does not have the same notoriety as the National Front's.

His backing for Le Pen sparked the resignation of two Debout la France officials and drew over 200 protesters to the town hall in Yerres, in the Paris region, where he is mayor.

Opposition to the FN also prompted an artist to spend hours barking on a public square outside the capital, in what he termed an "act of resistance against the National Front".

Meanwhile, Macron was aiming to entice voters in rural central France to his pro-free trade, globalist message.

"On one side, there is a reactionary, anti-European right... and on the other, a progressive movement that supports an EU that protects as well as social and economic reform," he said. "That is my candidacy."

He told reporters that the alliance between Le Pen and Dupont-Aignan was a "political scam that aims to solve Marine Le Pen's credibility problems."

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Polls give him a commanding lead of up to 20 points over Le Pen in the run-off but show the gap narrowing slightly after Macron's sluggish start to his second-round campaigning.

- 'Not one vote' -

Le Pen's announcement came with the National Front again fighting a furore over a senior official's reported remarks about Nazi gas chambers.

Jean-Francois Jalkh, who was tapped to lead the FN after Le Pen stepped aside to campaign, was accused of praising the work of a convicted Holocaust denier.

"What I'm saying, and what really surprised me, in the work of a genuine negationist or revisionist... is the well-worked, rigorous nature of the argument put forward," Jalkh, 59, was quoted as saying.

"We condemn this type of remark and he denies (making) them," the FN's vice-president Louis Aliot said.

Le Pen has attempted to woo new voters on either side of the political divide, telling leftists their real enemy is the free-marketeer ex-banker, and conservatives that Macron would continue the policies of the unpopular outgoing Socialists and be soft on terrorism.

In a video message Friday, she urged the near 20 percent of voters who backed eurosceptic leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round to "block" Macron, saying his pro-business programme was "diametrically opposed" to leftist ideals.

"Let's put our quarrels and divergences to one side," she said in the message, calling Macron the choice of the "oligarchy".

Melenchon has refused to explicitly endorse the liberal Macron, breaking with France's "republican front" tradition of the big parties coming together to halt the FN.

An Odoxa poll Friday showed that 40 percent of Melenchon's supporters would back Macron, 41 percent would abstain and 19 percent would vote for Le Pen.

Melenchon's spokesman Alexis Corbiere rebuffed Le Pen's advances, telling supporters: "Not one vote should go to the National Front."

Le Pen has sought to purge the FN of the anti-Semitism that was its trademark under her father, co-founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.

In 2015 she booted him out of the party for repeatedly calling the Nazi gas chambers a "detail" of history, but this month she was herself criticised for saying France bore no responsibility for the roundup and deportation of French Jews during World War II.
MARSEILLE and HENIN-BEAUMONT, France  The election is not even over, yet this week, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the notorious former leader of the far-right National Front party, made news in France for appearing to offer an early post-mortem of his daughters presidential campaign.

If Id been in her place, I would have had a Trump-like campaign, he told France Inter radio. A more open one, very aggressive against those responsible for the decadence of our country, whether left or right.

It was a bold critique from a politician who, despite multiple runs at the presidency, never managed to come as close as his daughter Marine Le Pen: She is potentially expected to receive as much as 40 percent of the vote in the next round of the election, scheduled for May 7. The elder Le Pens comments may, however, be a preview of whats to come.

For members of the National Front, there is seemingly ample reason to celebrate the results of this campaign, come what may this Sunday, and to applaud the woman who made them possible. Le Pen, who took over leadership of the party in 2011 with an aim to de-demonize what had previously been a fringe party known for its anti-Semitism and xenophobia, has already secured the National Front its biggest vote share ever in a presidential election and, though still widely predicted to lose in the second round, remains likely to make a strong showing.

Yet there are signs that trouble could be on the horizon. Marine Le Pen has spent six years walking a fine line between appealing to a broader swath of the electorate concerned by immigration and the EU and placating her partys far-right, hard-line base, which is above all interested in establishing a cultural hierarchy that privileges what it views as traditional French ethnic-national identity. Divisions have so far been papered over for the sake of presenting a united election front, but the disparate coalition that currently makes up the National Front may not hold in the wake of electoral defeat. A loss could even force a shift away from the strategy that has made the party what it is today.

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One of the major questions that Marine Le Pen will face in the aftermath of the second round is exactly this: Why didnt the party get what was expected? said Caterina Froio, an expert on the European far-right at Oxford University. We will see the splits internal to the party occupying a major, major role in the post-electoral debate.

Were the National Fronts divisions to spill out into the public after May 7, it wouldnt be the first time this has happened within a far-right party in Europe. Such groups tend to struggle when attempting transition from protest vehicles to parties seeking a role in government; such transitions require expanding the partys appeal in ways that tend to alienate its base. The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Frauke Petry, for instance, recently announced that she would not be her partys leading candidate in national elections this fall, following months of party infighting over her proposals for relatively pragmatic policies.

Nor would it even be the first time internal splits have roiled the National Front itself. The party has faced more than one such split in its more than 40-year history, the most famous of which was when Bruno Megret, Jean-Marie Le Pens No. 2, left the National Front in 1998 over similar disagreements about the direction of the party. (Megret found Le Pens extremist positions too alienating.)

Should she lose, its unlikely that Le Pens role as leader of the National Front would be in immediate danger: Unlike the AfD, the National Front has historically been a family dynasty, and there are currently no real challengers who could take her place. I dont see a leadership contest in the cards, said Dorit Geva, an expert on gender and the National Front at Central European University. She is firmly in charge of the party, with enormous support and legitimacy. Should she make a strong enough showing, she could emerge from the election more firmly in charge than ever. But should the loss be brutal, it could empower elements within the National Front that had previously been quieted on the promise of electoral victory.

The National Front has existed since the 1970s, when Jean-Marie Le Pen, together with others, brought together supporters from several smaller neo-fascist and anti-Semitic groups. Although it did see some electoral victories over the years  primarily in local or parliamentary races, especially in the more conservative and Catholic south of France  under the elder Le Pen, the National Front was a party that seemed more interested in making noise than getting into government.

Since taking control of the National Front, the younger Le Pen, who unlike her father has been clear that she wants to govern, has gone to great lengths to distance herself from her father and his brand of politics. She has kept her focus on immigration, security, and an exit from the European Union while steering clear of traditional hot-button social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. This strategy has helped her take the National Front to new heights, drawing in new voters who are disaffected by the current system and no longer consider it taboo to vote for the National Front.

This reimagining of the partys central message  away from conservative, anti-Semitic, hard-line Catholicism and toward security, immigration, and French identity  was spearheaded by Florian Philippot, one of Le Pens top confidants and a vice president of the party. The rebranding has also entailed reaching out to certain groups that had previously considered the National Front anathema: Le Pen has tried to appeal to Jews as their primary defender against radical Islam, for example, while Philippot, who is gay, has helped steer the party away from emphasizing its opposition to same-sex marriage in an effort to bring in gay voters.

But this transition has at times met with resistance. The original base of the party has not gone away  nor are these voters necessarily happy with whats being billed as a kinder, gentler National Front. One faction prefers the more socially conservative policies of Le Pens father, particularly in the south of France where the National Front first formed a power base in the 1980s and 1990s. And this faction has a champion in Le Pens niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, who, at 22, was elected as the youngest member of parliament in a generation. Today, at 27, she is a darling of the U.S. far-right news site Breitbart, a major force within the party, and the self-proclaimed guardian of Jean-Marie Le Pens legacy.

I am the political heir of Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marechal-Le Pen told the Washington Post this month. At the Front National, we all are his heirs. He was a visionary.

Marechal-Le Pen is a staunch Catholic who vehemently opposes same-sex marriage and government funding for abortion. She has never explicitly made the kinds of anti-Semitic comments that her grandfather has  but stood up for him when Marine Le Pen threw him out of the party in 2015 for such comments.

Thus far, Marechal-Le Pen has largely proved a political asset to her aunt: It was Marechal-Le Pen who warmed up the crowd last week at a rally in Marseille, a city on the Mediterranean coast near Marechal-Le Pens parliamentary district and a traditional stronghold for the National Front. She has been a frequent and valuable surrogate in southern France, where National Front voters tend to be more socially conservative, and, as one of just two National Front members of parliament, has real standing within the party.

But there have been disagreements, too  including some very public ones, many of which have provided ample fodder for French media to report on the split between aunt and niece. In December, Marechal-Le Pen advocated for reducing abortion coverage under the French health care system, a move that forced her aunt to take a position on the issue. Marine Le Pen responded with a flat-out rejection of her nieces proposal, saying it is not part of my program.

At times, Marine Le Pen has publicly criticized her niece. In a late March interview with the womens weekly magazine Femme Actuelle, Marine Le Pen said, if elected president, there would be no place in her cabinet for Marechal-Le Pen: My niece is an MP. I dont owe her anything. I dont owe anyone anything. I have no favors to return. She took it even further, criticizing Marechal-Le Pen as rather stiff, its true  a bit like todays youth.

However Marechal-Le Pen felt about that comment privately, she shook it off publicly: Days later, she tweeted a photo of her smiling and embracing her aunt, writing, Onward to victory!

Online, however, where the National Front has a strong presence, the Philippot-Marechal-Le Pen divisions have played out among supporters of both factions. After the December spat over abortion funding, supporters of Marechal-Le Pen began tweeting with the hashtag #MarionEtMoi (Marion and me), many of them trashing Philippot. One user described Philippot as slimy and disloyal; another said he advocates for a leftist line.

Though Marechal-Le Pen is likely too young to pose a real leadership challenge to her aunt, she could, in the face of a loss, use her clout with the partys conservative wing to put pressure on Marine Le Pen to shift her political and electoral strategy.

With the focus in this final stretch on presenting a united front and winning the presidency, few National Front voters at Le Pens Marseille rally were interested in discussing the partys various factions  and those who would said they were the same kinds of squabbles any party has from time to time.

No, no  its like in a family, said Daniel Peju-Guillot, a 62-year-old National Front supporter from Pertuis, a small town in the nearby Vaucluse department, adding that not everyone can be in agreement all the time.

Jacques Villa, a resident of nearby Montpellier who has supported the National Front for 20 years, said he believes Jean-Marie Le Pen was too hard and that Marine Le Pen has made the party respectable. But he also noted that he believes both Philippot and Marechal-Le Pen are important for the party.

I like Marion, I like Florian  a party needs different currents, said Villa, 68. Its normal, and everybody works for a party in different ways, but thats that.

It could be that the internal conversations about the future of the party  and whether Le Pen will be at the helm  will be put off until after Frances legislative elections, which will be held in early June. Though a presidential victory seems unlikely, the National Front is still expected to make significant gains in the National Assembly, which would introduce a new class of National Front politicians with independent power and influence on the national political stage; how they would fit into what has until now been mostly a family affair remains to be seen.

This is completely new territory for the National Front, because it has been a party run by a family dynasty, Geva said. And even though on one hand it looks like a big success that they have all these new members of parliament, the partys not used to functioning outside of that family dynasty.

I dont think its clear where the National Front is going next, she added.

Photo credit: PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP/Getty Images
Photo credit: Facebook

From Redbook

It's been a rough couple weeks for air travel, what with United Airlines kicking a passenger off the plane, a United pilot being escorted off the plane after delivering an epic rant, and United kicking off a bride and groom en route to their wedding. It's not just United, either - a video came out of an American Airlines flight attendant violently confronting a mother on a plane recently, too. It's enough to make you never want to travel by air again.

Luckily, a flight attendant from WestJet airlines is here to restore your faith in air travel. According to Whitney Pontz, who flew WestJet from Palm Springs, CA, to Calgary, Canada on April 19, a flight attendant named Ashley was their trip's saving grace.

Pontz was flying with her husband and 4-month-old daughter, and neither parent could calm their crying baby (who was asleep while boarding but was woken up by the plane's intercom). Pontz was able to nurse her back to sleep, but that's when "all hell broke loose."

"Not sure if it was gas or maybe pressure but we did not have a happy baby, unfortunately those seats aren't made for rocking or trying to put a baby back to sleep," she wrote in a Facebook post to the airline. "Eyes glaring, sweat dripping down our foreheads trying to get her back to sleep, in comes the hero of the day... a flight attendant named Ashley."

Pontz went on to explain that Ashley took the crying baby and walked her up and down the plane aisle until she was lulled back to sleep.

"Now it may not seem like a lot but the experience was amazing," Pontz wrote. "Never would I ever think someone would ever do that, volunteer to take your screaming child, but she did." She thanked the airline and Ashley personally for the "over and above customer service (baby whispering)," and it seems like the airline has earned itself at least three loyal customers.

Your move, United.

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London (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday called North Korea's test-fire of a ballistic missile "absolutely unacceptable" and a "grave threat to our country".

Speaking in London, Abe called upon the international community, in particular China, to "show solidarity" in formulating a response.

"There is a major crisis looming over the peace and prosperity of the world," he told reporters at the end of a three-day visit to Russia and Britain.

"Despite strong warnings by the international community, North Korea today went through with its ballistic missile launch.

"It is a grave threat to our country, this is absolutely not acceptable, we strongly condemn such acts.

"Our country will be resolute in our response," he vowed.

North Korea test-fired the missile Saturday in apparent defiance of a concerted US push for tougher international sanctions to curb Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

The latest launch, which South Korea said was a failure, came just hours after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned the UN Security Council of "catastrophic consequences" if the international community -- most notably China -- failed to pressure the North into abandoning its weapons programme.

Abe said G7 leaders meeting in Italy next month, "shoulder a huge responsibility" in responding to the threat.

"The international community must display solidarity," he said, adding that he had agreed with Russia President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that Russia, China, Japan, US and South Korea all needed to cooperate closely on the issue.

He singled out China as being "extremely important" in resolving the crisis given its UN Security Council role and that it accounts for 90 percent of North Korea's trade.

"For the denuclearisation of North Korea, I hope China will play a constructive role in the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions. It is my high expectation that China will perform its role properly."
The stand-off between the US and North Korea could be like a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion according to Senator John McCain, with Donald Trump once again dancing around the subject of military action.

Mr McCain and Mr Trump were two of a number of politicians and Trump Administration officials to make appearances on US television on Sunday  a day after a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch, the third test-fire failure in April.

That launch has been seen as a clear act of defiance, after weeks of rising tensions in the region over the threat posed by North Korea.

Ballistic missile tests by the country are banned by the United Nations because they're seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped missile that can eventually hit the US mainland. The threat of such missiles also has North Koreas regional neighbours, South Korea, China and Japan, on high alert.

Read more

This is how Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump could start World War III

Mr Trump  speaking in an interview with CBS programme Face the Nation - said that he believed Chinas President Xi Jinping, North Koreas major ally in the region, was putting pressure on the regime in Pyongyang, but was coy about the use of US military force against the country.

Mr Trump said that he did not say North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un should not test a missile, but that Mr Kim knows further such action would not make the US happy, or, he believes, Mr Xi either.

Asked if that means military action if it happens, Mr Trump responded: I don't know. I mean, we'll see.

Asked about the failure of a number of the missile launches, Mr Trump also refused to give much away. He said he would rather not discuss [the launches]. But perhaps they're just not very good missiles. But eventually, he'll have good missiles.

Mr Trump also told the show he was not going to talk about US military options with North Korea because we shouldn't be announcing all our moves. It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is. So eventually, he will have a better delivery system. And if that happens, we can't allow it to happen.

Story continues

Turning his attention to Mr Kim, Mr Trump called the North Korean leader, a pretty smart cookie for being able to hold onto power after taking over at a young age. However, the President added: People are saying, 'Is he sane?' I have no idea.

Video not available for syndication

President Trump coy on possibility of military action against North Korea

In a nod to the fluctuating rhetoric of the President and his team  which has moved from bombast to varying degrees of caution  Mr McCain told CNN that it might be better at times to watch what the President does, rather than what he says. Although he agreed that China was the key to averting conflict.

China can put the brakes on this", Mr McCain said, because he does not believe Kim Jong-un will do this by himself.

Asked if he thought Mr Trump was preparing a pre-emptive strike on North Korea, Mr McCain said: I dont think so but, as somebody said, this could be a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.

Speaking to Fox News, Mr Trumps national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. HR McMaster, said North Korea's most recent missile test represents open defiance of the international community. He says North Korea poses a grave threat not just to the United States and its Asian allies, but also to China.

Mr McMaster added that it was important for all of us to confront this regime, this regime that is pursuing the weaponisation of a missile with a nuclear weapon. This is something that we know we cannot tolerate.

Mr McMaster said that Mr Trump has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or the other, and what we prefer to do is to work with others.

That means, he said, working with partners in the region and globally on enforcing current UN sanctions and perhaps ratcheting up those sanctions even further. And it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary.

Mr Trump spoke with the leaders of Singapore and Thailand on Sunday, inviting both to the White House. Mr Trump also spoke to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte about North Korea on Saturday, according White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, adding that Mr Trump was in regular contact with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and that the president had become very close to Mr Xi.

Mr Priebus said the conversations were prompted by the potential for nuclear and massive destruction in Asia and eventually in the United States.

The North Korea missile launch comes after Mr Trump sent a nuclear-powered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to Korean waters.

Video not available for syndication

Related video: John McCain calls Kim Jong-Un 'a crazy fat kid'

The US and South Korea also started installing a missile defence system that is supposed to be partially operational within days and their two navies are also staging joint military drills.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence system (THADD), remains a controversial topic in South Korea and presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in even has vowed to reconsider the deployment if he wins a presidential election next month.

Mr Trump raised eyebrows in South Korea last week when he said he would make Seoul pay $1bn for the missile defence system, but Seoul's presidential Blue House said on Sunday that the White House National had confirmed that the US will not be seeking money for the system.

Analysts say the missile apparently fired by North Korea on Friday was a KN-17, a new Scud-type missile developed by North Korea. The North fired the same type of missile on 16 April, just a day after a massive military parade where it showed off its expanding missile arsenal, but US officials called that launch a failure, just as another launch on 5 April was.

The two earlier launches were conducted from an eastern coastal area, but Friday's missile was fired in the west, from an area near Pukchang, just north of the capital, Pyongyang.
Early Saturday morning thousands of people met up in Washington, D.C. to rally for the planet at the People's Climate March. The first People's Climate March took place in 2014 in New York City on the eve of the United Nations Climate Summit. People came together Saturday, on President Donald Trump's 100th Day in office, to urge him and other lawmakers to take action on the environment.

While the main march is happening in Washington, D.C., there are satellite marches happening worldwide. There is a live feed of the D.C. march available to stream online if you can't make it to a march but want to follow the progress.

Read: People's Climate March 2017: How It's Different Than March For Science

The metro system in D.C. was crowded Saturday morning as people made their way to the Capitol meeting area. Participants started to meet at 9 a.m. in D.C., lining up around 11 a.m., to start marching at 12:30 p.m. The plan was to begin the march and assemble in front of the Capitol Building before marching to the White House to loudly demand action on climate change.

The march is organized into groups of attendees based on their role in climate change action. They'll be marching in groups of "Protectors of Justice," "Builders of Democracy," "Guardians of the Future" and more.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey were getting ready to march Saturday morning, maybe with the "Builders of Democracy" group.

There were plenty of people ready to march with signs.

This man's sign seemed to be a nod to President Trump's tweet in which he called climate change a "hoax."

Many of the signs had to do with Trump's climate policy and his career prior to being the President.

Story continues

Some people took their "signs" above and beyond, like this massive Earth ice cream cone shows.

And you probably sang this sign to yourself.

Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted front and center supporting Indigenous Communities with a sign that read "Climate Change is Real."

The weather in D.C. was forecasted to reach 92 degrees Saturday, the hottest April 29 D.C. has ever seen is 91 degrees, meaning the day could set an ironic temperature record.

Meanwhile, in Denver, it was snowing but people still showed up to march.

Even dogs showed up for the Earth.

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Rosie Mercado takes to the streets of Hollywood to find out what people love  and hate  about their bodies.

What do you love about your body? she asks on Hollywood Boulevard. The answers: Um, Um, Ummmm   finally one woman volunteers, Ummm  my eyes?

Watch: The Importance of Embracing Our #FierceFlaws

However, no one hesitates to say what they hate about their body. Breast size, love handles, height, thighs, even crooked pinkie fingers!

I love the opportunity to talk to people, Rosie concludes. But they see every little thing wrong with themselves. We are own worst enemies.

Watch: Inside the #FierceFlaws Photoshoot

She sees plus-size model Hunter McGrady and others like her as a sign of hope. Its finally time to celebrate just being beautiful people. And Rosie and Hunter are ready to unveil their new project to help those changes happen.
By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday urged the United States to show restraint after North Korea's latest missile test and to avoid playing into the hands of leader Kim Jong Un, who "wants to end the world".

The notoriously blunt Duterte said the Southeast Asia region was extremely worried about tensions between the United States and North Korea, and said one misstep would be a "catastrophe" and Asia would be the first victim of a nuclear war.

The United States, Japan, South Korea and China, he said, were sparring with a man who was excited about the prospect of firing missiles.

Duterte is current chairman of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and was due to speak by telephone to U.S. President Donald Trump later on Saturday. He said he would urge Trump not to get into a confrontation with Kim.

"There seems to be two countries playing with their toys and those toys are not really to entertain," he told a news conference after the ASEAN summit in Manila, referring to Washington and Pyongyang.

"You know that they are playing with somebody who relishes letting go of missiles and everything. I would not want to go into his (Kim's) mind because I really do not know what's inside but he's putting mother earth, the planet to an edge."

North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs could lead to "catastrophic consequences".

U.S. and South Korean officials said the test appeared to have failed, in what would be the North's fourth straight unsuccessful missile test since March.

Duterte said it was incumbent upon the United States as the a responsible country to not rise to Kim's provocations. He said he was sure Trump had cautioned his military not to allow the situation to spiral out of control.

Story continues

"Who am I to say that you should stop? But I would say 'Mr. President, please see to it that there is no war because my region will suffer immensely'," Duterte said.

"I will just communicate to (Trump), 'just let him play... do not play into his hands'."

He added: "The guy (Kim) simply wants to end the world, that is why he is very happy. He is always smiling. But he really wants to finish everything and he wants to drag us all down."

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Ros Russell)

Related:

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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that politics of nepotism, casteism and appeasement will end soon.

By India Today Web Desk: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that politics of nepotism, casteism and appeasement will end, and politics of development and rashtra bhakti will endure.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister was addressing a two-day BJP meet in Lucknow which is likely to be attended by party president Amit Shah.

"Politics of nepotism, casteism and appeasement will end and only politics of development and rashtra bhakti (devotion to nation) will sustain," Yogi Adityanath said.

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NATIONALISM NOT POLARISATION

Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results, Yogi Adityanath, a five-time MP from Gorakhpur, had said that the BJP's agenda is to "provide development" and "promote nationalism" in the country.

In an interview to the Economic Times last year, Yogi Adityanath had said, "Our agenda is not polarisation but nationalism".

A Hindutva face of the BJP, Yogi Adityanth, since becoming the chief minister of the most populous state, has maintained that his government would deliver on the promise of development.

POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT

The Chief Minister has decided that he would meet MPs and MLAs at least once in a week to hear them out on the problems in their constituencies.

"The chief minister will meet MPs every week on Friday between 4-5 pm at Secretariat annexe. Legislators can meet him on Monday and Thursday during the same time", an official release said.

The objective of such meetings is to take a stock of development projects in various constituencies of the state.

On Sunday, Yogi Adityanath announced June 15 as the deadline to make all roads in Uttar Pradesh pothole-free. Speaking at a function in Deoria, the chief minister said his government would provide 24-hour supply to all the 75 district headquarters in Uttar Pradesh.

SOME DECISIONS RAISED EYEBROWS

Yet some of his decisions in the past one month since assuming the post of Uttar Pradesh chief minister have raised eyebrows.

The anti-Romeo squads, a BJP poll promise, have been formed across the state to check eve-teasing. The squads have faced criticism from sections of society with many alleging harassment by police in the name of cracking down on eve-teasers.

The Adityanath government's crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses while receiving applause from some also received criticism from others.

Many small illegal slaughterhouse owners had complained that certification process for an abattoir is a tedious process that requires clearances at multiple levels.

(with inputs from PTI)

ALSO READ:

Yogi Adityanath government completes 30 days: How foreign media reported the month

Yogi Adityanath completes a month in office: An airport to be named after Gorakhnath

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Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath's veiled attack on gau rakshaks: Violators of law will not be spared

ALSO WATCH

--- ENDS ---
May Day workers rally in Paris French CRS anti-riot police officers are engulfed in flames as they face protesters during a march for the annual May Day workers rally in Paris on May 1, 2017. (Zakaria Abdelkafi /AFP/Getty Images)

French CRS anti-riot police officers are engulfed in flames as they face protesters during a march for the annual May Day workers rally in Paris; Looking At Lee gets a bath outside Barn 38 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.; and, An attendee photographs fashion displays during the Rei Kawakubo/Commes Des Garcons: Art of the In-Between during the The Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute Spring 2017 exhibition.

These are just a few of the photos of the day for May 1, 2017.

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Tumblr.
Owners of small businesses have a raft of options for retirement savings -- the SEP IRA, the SIMPLE IRA, solo 401(k), Keogh, traditional or Roth individual retirement accounts. It's enough to make the head spin.

"It's very rare for me to find a client that truly understands how to select the right type of plan for their business," says Hampton Bourne, financial advisor with First Advantage Investments in Nashville, Tennessee. Even accountants and financial advisors have a hard time figuring which type of plan is best for a given business owner, he says.

Each type of plan has its own pros and cons, so the choice depends on factors like how much the business owner wants to set aside, the type of investing options desired and time horizon.

All except the Roth versions allow tax deductions on contributions and penalty-free withdrawals after 59.5. Investment gains are tax-deferred. Withdrawals are taxed as income and, except for the Roths, must begin after age 70.5. Many allow investors 50 and older to invest even more through catch-up contributions.

[See: 9 Ways to Avoid 401(k) Fees and Penalties.]

What is a SEP IRA? A Simplified Employee Pension Plan, or SEP IRA, works much like a traditional IRA except the business owner and his or her employees can invest much more -- up to $54,000 this year, deducted from income to reduce taxes.

"In my opinion, the biggest bang for the buck at the lowest cost (administration fees) is the SEP IRA," says Tim Shanahan, principal at Compass Securities Corp. in Braintree, Massachusetts. "Typically, a SEP IRA might bear an annual fee of $25 to $30, versus a 401(k) plan that might have a base fee of $2,500-plus per participant, plus some basis points for administrative costs."

Generally, SEP contributions are limited to 25 percent of net business profit, less adjustments for things like self-employment tax. A 40-year-old sole proprietor making $100,000 per year could contribute $18,587.05, according to calculators offered by several financial services firms.

Story continues

"SEPs are the leading horse in the world for sole proprietors," Bourne says. "They are relatively easy to set up, allow for high income deductions, and can offer a slew of investment options from conservative money markets to aggressive stocks."

What is a SIMPLE IRA? A SIMPLE IRA -- officially a Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees Individual Retirement Account -- also offers tax-deductible contributions but with a lower annual limit of $12,500.

Bryan Ellis, of SelfDirected.org , an Acworth, Georgia-based website for savvy investors, says the SIMPLE has lost ground to various types of 401(k)s, which are just as good and not as complex.

What is a solo 401(k)? An individual 401(k), or solo 401(k), has high contribution limits -- up to $54,000, with the 40-year old owner described allowed to put in $36,587.05. Again, the law allows just about any kind of investment, though the investor needs a brokerage-style account for the broadest range.

It can be set up as a traditional 401(k), with tax deduction on contributions but tax on withdrawals, or a Roth type with no up-front deduction but also no tax when money is taken out. This distinguishes the solo 401(k) from the SEP and SIMPLE accounts, Ellis says.

"It's the Mercedes-Benz of retirement accounts for small business owners ... superior to other options -- head and shoulders above them -- in every substantive way," Ellis says.

A regular 401(k) plan, rather than a solo 401(k), is generally best if the business has 25 or more employees, though administrative costs can be high, Bourne says. With fewer than 25 employees, a SIMPLE plan can be cheaper to manage, he adds.

[See: 10 Tips to Boost Your IRA Balance.]

What is a Keogh plan? The Keogh plan is probably one of the most familiar names, since it's been around the longest. Investment options are wide open and contribution limits are 25 percent of compensation up to $54,000. The investor in the example could contribute $18,587 this year.

In recent years, Keoghs have fallen out of fashion due to the rise of 401(k)s, Ellis says.

Other considerations. Experts say new business owners can be tripped up when selecting investment options. People striking out on their own after working for others are generally familiar with standard 401(k) plans in which the employer offers a variety of investing options, usually bundles of mutual funds and target-date funds. In some cases, a sole proprietor or small business owner may do the same, especially if the plan must also cover employees.

But by choosing a self-directed plan, the boss can allow just about any kind of investment. This choice is available in SEP, SIMPLE and 401(k) plans, says Jaime Raskulinecz, CEO of Next Generation Trust Co., in Roseland, New Jersey.

"Self-direction allows for a broad array of nontraditional investments not allowed in typical retirement plans," Raskulinecz says. "Savvy business owners who know and understand alternative assets -- and may already be investing in them outside of their existing retirement plan -- can develop a more eclectic, and potentially more lucrative, retirement portfolio with a self-directed plan."

A self-directed account can include real estate, precious metals, commodities, private placements of non-public companies, and other options not found in a standard corporate plan. Of course, that can produce a lot of risk, but small-business owners are used to that.

John Ingoglia, investment advisor at Socotra Capital in Sacramento, says small business owners should also consider Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k)s, which have no deduction on contributions but offer tax-free withdrawals and no required minimum distribution after 70.5. The trade-off favors younger investors because the tax savings at the end, many years later, can outweigh the tax deduction missed at the start, he says.

[See: 12 Steps to a Stronger 401(k).]

The contribution limit this year is $5,500 for people under 50, $6,500 for those 50 and over, and most people can contribute to an IRA even if they have another retirement plan.

Jeff Brown spent nearly 40 years as a newspaper reporter, columnist and editor, including 20 years writing about investing, personal finance, the economy and financial markets. He spent 20 years at The Philadelphia Inquirer and has been freelancing since 2007.
Sebastian Gorka, an adviser to President Donald Trump, will take up a job outside the White House to deal with the war of ideas involved in tackling radical Islamic extremism, the Washington Examiner reported Sunday, citing two sources. This follows several reports saying Gorka was on his way out of the White House after serving on the Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG), an advisory panel formed by the presidents chief strategist Steve Bannon.

According to Washington Examiner, Gorka will be appointed at a federal agency after his temporary stint with the SIG. A White House source told the publication that Gorkas role at the panel was unclear and he did not have national security issues in his portfolio.

"This guy has always been a big mystery to me," the source told Washington Examiner about Gorka, adding that his duties only included speaking on television about counterterrorism, as well as "giving White House tours and peeling out in his Mustang."

Sebastian Gorka

Photo: Getty Images/Alex Wong

Earlier in the day, several reports, citing unnamed officials, stated that Gorka, a former counterterrorism analyst at Fox News, would bid adieu to the White House. According to the Hill, a senior official said the British-born would be leaving the White House role as soon as "this summer."

"To defeat extreme Islamic terrorism, you can't kill your way out of the problem. A plan is needed to defeat the ideology the same way Nazism was defeated" the unidentified official told the Hill. "[Gorka] was here to provide an overall strategy in that regard."

The official reason for Gorkas reported departure is unknown, but, a source told CNN he was "generating too much controversy" for the White House. Gorka, who is in late 40s, was previously an editor at right-wing Breitbart News. He has been a regular on several cable news shows and has consistently warned of the threat of Islamic terrorism.

Story continues

The reports about his departure came amid the controversy surrounding his clearance status for the National Security Council. He was unable to get the clearance after being charged last year with carrying a weapon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Despite this, he played a key role in Trumps team and accused the administrations critics of endorsing fake news.

Recently, there were allegations that Gorka had links to a Hungarian right-wing group with Nazi ties. He was also accused of faking his PhD. He denied the allegations.

Last month, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) urged the White House to provide the House Judiciary Committee with Gorka's immigration documents for review. In a letter addressed to Trump, Nadler reportedly said the judiciary panel needs to "be assured that he did not enter this country under false pretenses."

Gorka was born in London to Hungarian parents who migrated to the United Kingdom during the countrys failed 1956 anti-Soviet revolution. At Trumps inauguration, he wore a medal awarded to his father by the Hungarian group Vitezi Rend Order of Heroes  which has been linked to Nazis. The move grabbed eyeballs at the ceremony. However, in a video posted on his Twitter account in February, Gorka said he wore the medal in honor of his father.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sexual assault in the U.S. military has fallen, according to a Pentagon report released on Monday, even though the number of incidents reported by service members hit a record high in 2016.

Service members reported 6,172 cases of sexual assault compared with 6,082 last year, the U.S. Department of Defense said in the annual report. This was a sharp jump from 2012 when 3,604 cases were reported.

An anonymous survey found that 14,900 service members experienced some kind of sexual assault in 2016, from groping to rape, down from 20,300 in 2014, the report showed. The survey portion is conducted every two years.

Sexual assault and harassment in the U.S. military is largely under-reported and has come under renewed scrutiny after a scandal involving some Marines sharing nude photos of women online came to light. The U.S. military has opened an inquiry and senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill have denounced the violations.

"We see the increase in rates of reporting as an indicator of a continued trust in our response and support systems," said Elizabeth Van Winkle, performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for readiness, at a press conference.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, in a statement, questioned if there was actual progress.

"The truth is that the scourge of sexual assault in the military remains status quo," she said.

"Today's report disappointedly shows a flat overall reporting rate and a retaliation rate against survivors that remains at an unacceptable six out of 10 for a third year in a row."

Fifty-eight percent of victims experienced reprisals or retaliation for reporting sexual assault, the report showed.

"The fight to end sexual assault, sexual harassment and related misconduct in the military is far from over," said Van Winkle. "We do not confuse progress with success."

Navy Rear Admiral Ann Burkhardt, director of the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, told reporters that more work needed to be done.

The Marine Corps has been rattled by a scandal involving a private Facebook group called "Marines United" and its surreptitious distribution of explicit images of women in the armed forces, often with obscene, misogynist commentary.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Richard Chang)
He's big, smelly and a little past his prime, but should you happen to see a northern white rhinoceros named Sudan pop up on your Tinder, you might want to swipe right anyway.

Sudan is the last male of the northern white rhinoceros subspecies (Ceratotherium simum simum). He's not on Tinder to find love  there are only two female northern white rhinoceroses left, and both live with Sudan at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. One, Najin, is too old to breed. The other, Fatu, has a uterine condition that renders her infertile.

Instead, Sudan's Tinder debut is designed to garner donations for rhino-assisted reproduction. Swiping right will take users to a donation page with the goal of funding rhino in-vitro fertilization to save the northern white subspecies. [A Crash of Rhinos: See All 5 Species]

Saving the northern white

The northern white rhino has been pushed to near-extinction by habitat loss and poaching. Rhino horn is used as a status symbol and in traditional Chinese medicine, despite it being mostly keratin, the same substance that makes up human hair and fingernails.

The last northern white rhinos seen in the wild were a group of four that lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Garamba National Park. They haven't been spotted since 2007 and are presumed dead. Political instability and war across the northern white's former territory have contributed to the difficulty of protecting these rare rhinos. Meanwhile, the few northern whites in captivity are aging and beginning to die off. In 2015, the Dvur Kralove Zoo in the Czech Republic lost Nabire, a 31-year-old female, to a ruptured cyst. Just a few months later, the San Diego Zoo had to euthanize Nola, its 41-year-old female, due to a bacterial infection that resisted all treatment.

Sudan is 43 years old, and conservationists and scientists are racing to help him breed before it's too late. Rhinoceros IVF currently does not exist, so scientists are trying to tweak horse IVF to make the process work; horses and rhinoceroses are related, so they may have similarities in their hormones and uterine environments. Zookeepers and veterinarians harvested sperm and eggs from the surviving northern white rhinoceroses, and have already banked tissues from those that have died. At the San Diego Zoo, researchers are even testing methods to turn regular body cells into stem cells, which they then hope to coax into becoming sperm and egg cells.

Story continues

"We could have a source of eggs that we could actually produce in the lab," Barbara Durrant, director of reproductive physiology at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, told Live Science in 2015.

Funding the rescue

All these efforts cost money, so Ol Pejeta has partnered with Tinder and the communications agency Ogilvy & Mather for the dating-app effort. The goal is to raise $9 million to go toward assisted technology research in rhinoceroses. Though the two remaining northern white rhinoceros females are not healthy enough to carry pregnancies, researchers hope they can harvest their eggs, fertilize them and implant them in southern white rhinoceroses (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), a closely related subspecies.

"Financial support remains the biggest challenge to this project. At 43 years, Sudan does not have much longer to live," Steven Seet, a spokesman for Leibniz-IZW, part of the research consortium, said in a statement. "To win this run against time it is very crucial to find major funds as quickly as possible."

During this process, Ol Pejeta must also pay for round-the-clock armed guards to protect Sudan, Najin and Fatu from poachers. Organized criminal gangs have become increasingly brazen in the hunt for rhino horn. In February, armed men stormed a rhinoceros orphanage in South Africa and killed two baby rhinos while holding the staff hostage. In March, poachers broke into a zoo in France and killed a southern white rhinoceros in its enclosure.

Original article on Live Science.

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President Trump says he doesnt understand why the Civil War could not have been prevented.

People dont realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why? Trump said during an interview with the Washington Examiner set to air on Sirius XM Radio Monday afternoon. People dont ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

Trump expressed praise for President Andrew Jackson, a slaveholding plantation owner, as a swashbuckler. Trump suggested that Jackson could have brokered peace between the North and South  sides that held irreconcilable views on slavery.

I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later you wouldnt have had the Civil War, Trump said. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, Theres no reason for this.'

Jackson died in 1845, 16 years before the Civil War began  though it is possible Trump was referring to the decades-long buildup of tensions over slavery before the war started, and not asserting that Jackson was alive during the Civil War itself.

"Had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldnt have had the Civil War" @realDonaldTrump told @SalenaZito. Full intv at 2pE, Ch124 pic.twitter.com/d7PuRRm7Md  SiriusXMPolitics (@SXMPolitics) May 1, 2017

Trump has long been interested in Jackson, and has repeatedly compared the controversial president to himself. In March, Trump visited the Hermitage, Jacksons Tennessee home, to commemorate what would have been the seventh presidents 250th birthday.

It was during the revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite, Trump said at a rally in Nashville. Does that sound familiar to you? Oh, I know the feeling, Andrew.

Story continues

Trump told Sirius he also visited the grave of Jacksons wife while he was there.

Trump speaks at a rally in Nashville in March. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

I visited her grave actually because I was in Tennessee, he said. And it was amazing. The people of Tennessee are amazing people. They love Andrew Jackson. They love Andrew Jackson in Tennessee.

Its not the first time Trump appeared to exhibit a loose grasp of history as president.

In February at an African-American History Month listening session at the White House, Trump cited Frederick Douglass as an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice.

Douglass, a 19th-century African-American abolitionist, writer and orator, died in 1895.

Read more from Yahoo News coverage of Trumps first 100 days:
The White House says there have been no changes to the Let Girls Learn initiative.

"There have been no changes to the program," Kelly Love, a White House spokeswoman, told CNN, hours after the network reported on internal documents which stated that the stand-alone program would be shut down immediately.

Statements from the Peace Corps and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to CNN and The Independent, respectively, indicated that the program would stop operating at full capacity, effective Monday. But a second spokesperson at USAID emailed The Independent hours after the first statement was received, saying that the program had not been changed.

Read more

Michelle Obama reveals why she held back tears at Trump's inauguration

Neither the White House or the USAID spokesperson indicated how long the program would continue, nor did they address why the memo had been sent.

The White House originally referred questions from CNN about the program to representatives of first lady Melania Trump, who declined to comment.

The news network had obtained internal emails directing Peace Corps employees not to use the Let Girls Learn name or branding. The emails, from Peace Corps acting director Sheila Crowley, said that while they may continue some Let Girls Learn projects, the Peace Corps would no longer maintain a stand-alone Let Girls Learn program.

In an initial statement, a spokesperson from USAID told The Independent the agency is "committed to empowering women and girls around the world" and are "continuing to examine the best ways to do so."

Video not available for syndication

Related video: Michelle Obama 'shaken to the core' by Donald Trump comments

Ms Obama launched the $250 million initiative in 2015 with the aim of using public and private partnerships to fund new efforts to expand educational opportunities for girls  including in areas of conflict and crisis.

Story continues

In the two years since its formation, the program has invested at least $1 billion in programming in 50 different countries. Much of that funding came in the form of donations from more than 100 companies and 11 other nations  some of which gave up to $600 million.

The Obama administration had attempted to fortify the program last year, announcing $5 million in private sector donations to Let Girls Learn projects. Tina Tchen, Ms Obama's former chief of staff, told CNN the programme had secured several more years worth of funding.

"We were hopeful that given that, it could continue, Ms Tchen said. But obviously elections have consequences, and nobody knows that better than we."

Announcing the discontinuation of the programme, Ms Crowley said her agency was proud of what the program accomplished.

'Let Girls Learn' provided a platform to showcase Peace Corps' strength in community development, shining a bright light on the work of our Volunteers all over the world," Crowley wrote in her email to employees.

The Peace Corps did not respond to requests for additional comment.

Mr Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, has largely taken on the role of advising the president on women's empowerment. The first daughter, however, seems more focused on empowering women in business. She hosted a dinner party for CEOs to discuss women in the workforce in February, and orchestrated the creation of a joint US-Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs.

On a trip to Germany this month, Ms Trump announced the creation of a fund to benefit female entrepreneurs around the world.

Excited for the opportunity to meet with mentees from the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Womens Mentoring Partnership today! pic.twitter.com/7EXHPi8Sj3  Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) April 27, 2017

Critics expressed their dissatisfaction with the discontinuation of "Let Girls Learn" using Ms Trump's signature hashtag.

"It's harder to have #WomenWhoWork if you don't #LetGirlsLearn," former Organising for America communications director Jesse Lehrich tweeted.

Also on Monday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue rolled back parts of Ms Obamas other signature project, the National School Lunch Program. Republicans often complained about the burdens of the program, which required all school meals to meet Institute of Medicine nutritional guidelines.

Mr Perdue said the Trump administration would relax those regulations going forward.
Washington (AFP) - A top aide on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's invitation to his Philippines counterpart to visit Washington, saying the need to rally Asian allies over North Korea overshadowed concerns about President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal war on drugs.

On Saturday, the White House said Trump had invited Duterte in a "friendly" call in which the leaders discussed the Filipino president's fight against drugs and the two countries' alliance.

The statement touched only lightly on Duterte's brutal crackdown on crime, which has claimed thousands of lives and drawn international condemnation.

But when White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was asked Sunday why Trump was "honoring" Duterte with the White House invitation, he told ABC, "I'm not so sure it's a matter of honoring this president."

"The issues facing us, developing out of North Korea, are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get," he said.

That way, Priebus added, "if something does happen in North Korea, we have everyone in line backing up a plan of action that may need to be put together with our partners in the area."

Duterte had in the past regularly hit out at the United States, Philippines' one-time colonial ruler, for perceived hypocrisy over human rights. Last year he branded then US president Barack Obama a "son of a whore" for criticizing the drug war.

Duterte spoke of loosening the long-standing alliance with the US as he looked to court China, whose push to control most of the disputed South China Sea has alarmed neighbors.

But the White House said Saturday that the two leaders, both elected to office last year, had helped orient the US-Philippine relationship "in a very positive direction."

- 'Happy to slaughter them' -

The White House said Trump "enjoyed the conversation" with Duterte, and looked forward to attending the key US-ASEAN and East Asia summits in the Philippines in November.

Story continues

Duterte's spokesman Ernesto Abella confirmed Trump's invitation, although he gave no indication of when the visit would take place.

Duterte has not been shy about his brutal campaign against drugs, saying of his country's addicts, "I'd be happy to slaughter them" the way Hitler killed millions of Jews.

Philippines police have reported killing 2,724 people as part of the anti-drug campaign, although authorities insist the shootings have been in self-defense.

Many thousands of others have been killed by shadowy vigilantes, according to rights groups.

A Philippine lawyer last week filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of mass murder, alleging his war on drugs had led to about 8,000 deaths.

When Priebus was asked whether Trump had raised that record with Duterte, he said he had not personally sat in on the entire phone call. But the purpose of the call, he added, was "all about North Korea."

- 'Nothing ... more important' -

"There is nothing facing the country and the region more important than what's going on in North Korea," he added.

In the Philippines, Duterte's pledge to stop the country turning into a narco-state has proved wildly popular with millions of Filipinos looking for a quick solution to crime and corruption.

Duterte is the latest in a series of authoritarian leaders with whom Trump has established friendly relations, including Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. And he often spoke warmly of President Vladimir Putin of Russia -- until differences over Syria erupted.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday invited his Philippine counterpart to Washington in a "friendly" call in which the leaders discussed Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs and their countries' alliance, the White House said.

Duterte has faced international condemnation for his brutal crackdown on crime, which has claimed thousands of lives and led to warnings from rights groups about a possible crime against humanity.

The White House said the two leaders, who were both elected to office last year, had "a very friendly conversation" that included discussion about the Philippine government's efforts to "rid its country of drugs" and the regional security threat posed by North Korea.

"President Trump also invited President Duterte to the White House to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction," the statement said.

There has been concern about Duterte's efforts to loosen the Philippines' long-standing alliance with the US as he looks to court China, whose push to control most of the disputed South China Sea has alarmed neighbours.

Duterte has regularly hit out at the Philippines' one-time colonial ruler for perceived hypocrisy over human rights and last year branded then US president Barack Obama a "son of a whore" for criticizing the drug war.

The White House said Trump "enjoyed the conversation" with Duterte, and looked forward to attending the key US-ASEAN and East Asia summits in the Philippines in November.

Vice President Mike Pence had announced earlier this month that Trump would attend the Asian meetings as a sign of "unwavering commitment" to the region.

Duterte's spokesman Ernesto Abella confirmed Trump's invitation, although he gave no indication of when the visit would take place.

Philippine police have reported killing 2,724 people as part of Duterte's anti-drug campaign, although authorities insist the shootings have been in self defence.

Story continues

Many thousands of others have been killed by shadowy vigilantes, according to rights groups.

A Philippine lawyer last week filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of mass murder, alleging his war on drugs had led to about 8,000 deaths.

Duterte's pledge to stop the country turning into a narco-state has proved wildly popular with millions of Filipinos looking for a quick solution to crime and corruption.

Over the weekend some Southeast Asian leaders attending a regional summit in Manila also expressed support for the drug war, including Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo.
The White House justified President Donald Trump's decision to invite Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington, saying Dutertes cooperation with the United States was needed in order to counter the threat from North Korea.

When asked about the presidents invitation to the controversial leader of the Philippines, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABCs This Week on Sunday: There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than whats happening in North Korea.

I'm not so sure it's a matter of honoring this president or any of the facts that you've laid out there, it's really a matter of a potential for nuclear and massive destruction in Asia and the potential, at least according to North Korea, of developing an ICBM that could, at some point down the line if we do nothing, potentially reach the United States. This is a different level of problem that we need cooperation among our partners in Southeast Asia, Preibus added.

Trump invited Duterte on Saturday during a phone call between the two leaders. Trump had a very friendly conversation with Duterte, according to a statement issued by the White House late Saturday, cited by the New York Times. The statement also said the two leaders discussed the fact that the Philippines is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs.

Priebus said during the interview on ABCs This Week that the invitation for Duterte to visit the White House doesn't mean that human rights don't matter, but what it does mean is that the issues facing us developing out of North Korea are so serious that we need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure we have our ducks in a row.

Rodrigo Duterte

Photo: REUTERS/Erik De Castro

Story continues

Duterte has been accused by international human rights groups of backing a campaign of extrajudicial killings that resulted in deaths of numerous people involved with the sale or use of drugs, as well as of others who might not have had any connection to narcotics.

Celebrating a man who boasts of killing his own citizens and inviting him to the White House, while remaining silent on his disgusting human rights record, sends a terrifying message, John Sifton, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in response to Trump's invitation, according to Reuters. By effectively endorsing Duterte's murderous war on drugs, Trump has made himself morally complicit in future killings.

According to New York Times, the White House statement suggested Trump was eager to improve ties between Manila and the United States. It said the presidents invitation was mainly aimed to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippine alliance, which is now headed in a very positive direction.

Trump also invited Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to the White House on Sunday. The Thai leader, a former general, came to power in a 2014 coup and currently chairs a military government in the country, and his administration was said to have had a difficult relationship with former President Barack Obama.

Related Articles
President Donald Trump does not rule out military action against North Korea if leader Kim Jong Un conducts a sixth nuclear test.

If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy, Trump said in an interview aired Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation to mark his first 100 days in office. And I believe the president of China  will not be happy either.

Read: Vice President Mike Pence Admits Reducing Rates Will Swell Budget Hole

When asked whether the U.S. would engage in military action against the North, Trump said, I dont know. I mean, well see, adding he expects China to exert pressure on Pyongyang.

I dont think they want to see a destabilized North Korea. I dont think they want to see it. They certainly dont want to see nuclear on  from their neighbor, he said. They havent liked it for a long time. But well see what happens. The relationship I have with China, its been already acclaimed as being something very special, something very different than weve ever had. But again, you know, well find out whether or not President Xi is able to effect change.

Trump likened the situation to a chess game and said he cannot be sure it isnt designed as a test of him and his administration. He also described Kim as a pretty smart cookie.

Read: What Trump Will Do About Health Insurance?

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CNNs State of the Union he thinks the administration needs to consider a pre-emptive strike against North Koreas nuclear program as a last resort.

"I think that we have to consider that option as the very last option, and for a number of reasons," said McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"But to say you absolutely rule out that option, of course, would be foolish. But it has to be the ultimate last option."

McCain urged China to help resolve the situation.

Trump said he cannot let the situation to continue, criticizing the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations for not taking care of it.

Story continues

Last week, Trump told Reuters he would prefer a diplomatic solution to a military one but we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea.

In the CBS interview, Trump refused to say whether the U.S. was responsible for North Koreas latest missile test failure, saying he wouldnt discuss the matter. He cautioned, however, eventually Pyongyang will have a better delivery system. And if that happens, we cant allow it to happen.

kim

Photo: KCNA/Reuters

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABCs This Week the president would not telegraph his next moves and the situation takes precedence over others like human rights.

The issue on the table is North Korea and there is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what's happening in North Korea, Priebus said.

Now if we don't have all of our folks together, whether they're good folks, bad folks, people that we wish would do better in their country, doesnt matter. We have got to be on the same page.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster told Fox News Sunday North Korea poses a grave threat to the United States, our great allies in the region, South Korea and Japan ... but also to China and others. And so it's important, I think, for all of us to confront this regime.

He said Trump will resolve the issue one way or another.

Related Articles
President Trump repeated his unsubstantiated claim that former President Obama ordered surveillance of Trump Tower in a somewhat tense, interview-ending exchange with CBS News, released Monday, about his relationship with his predecessor.

Face the Nation host John Dickerson interviewed Trump in the Oval Office. After asking if the president had received any helpful advice from Obama, Trump broached the topic of surveillance.

Well, he was very nice to me, but after that weve had some difficulties, Trump said of his predecessor. So, it doesnt matter. You know, words are less important to me than deeds. And you saw what happened with surveillance and everybody saw what happened with surveillance.

In early March, Trump sparked a weeks-long firestorm with a series of explosive, evidence-free tweets accusing Obama of having ordered a wiretap on his Trump Tower office. Obamas spokesman rejected the claim. The White House has since muddled Trumps stance, but refuses to back down on the accusation.

President Trump appears onstage at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on April 29. (Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

And Trump, clearly, isnt backing down, either.

Well, you saw what happened with surveillance and I think that was inappropriate, he told Dickerson.

What does that mean, sir?

You can figure that out yourself.

When Dickerson pressed him, Trump held his ground, even while simultaneously claiming, I dont stand by anything, with respect to his past accusations.

Well, the reason I ask is because you called him sick and bad, Dickerson said, repeating language Trump used on Twitter to describe Obama.

Look, you can figure it out yourself, Trump replied. He was very nice to me with words, but, and when I was with him, but after that there has been no relationship.

But you stand by that claim about him?

I dont stand by anything, the president said. You can take it the way you want. I think our sides been proven very strongly and everybodys talking about it. And frankly, it should be discussed. I think that is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think thats a very big topic. And its a topic that should be No. 1, and we should find out what the hell is going on.

Story continues

Their back-and-forth continued.

You dont have to ask me, you dont have to ask me.

Why not?

Because I have my own opinions; you can have your own opinions.

But I want to know your opinions. Youre the president of the United States.

OK, its enough, Trump said, waving Dickerson off and walking away. Thank you.

The president of CBS News tweeted that Dickerson said, It was pretty clear I was to escort myself out, following the testy exchange.

.@jdickerson says "it was pretty clear I was to escort myself out" after @POTUS oval office interaction @CBSThisMorning  David Rhodes (@davidgrayrhodes) May 1, 2017

Despite the tensions between Obama and Trump  Obama campaigned heavily for Trumps election rival, Hillary Clinton  the two held a cordial White House meeting in November. Trump called the meeting a great honor and said he looked forward to further building a relationship with Obama, a very good man.
By Jason Lange and Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is stepping up outreach to allies in Asia to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action was needed, a top White House official said on Sunday. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Trump would speak to the leaders of Singapore and Thailand on Sunday, after North Korea test-launched another missile that Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful but which drew widespread international condemnation. The telephone calls follow Trump's conversation on Saturday night with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. A week ago, Trump spoke with the presidents of China and Japan on the North Korea issue. "We need cooperation at some level with as many partners in the area as we can get to make sure that we have our ducks in a row," Priebus told ABC's "This Week." "So if something does happen in North Korea, that we have everyone in line backing up a plan of action that may need to be put together with our partners in the area, he said. "We have got to be on the same page." Priebus said the planned conversations were prompted by the "potential for nuclear and massive destruction in Asia" and eventually in the United States. The U.S. president, who warned a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible in an interview with Reuters, did not elaborate on any U.S. response to the test. "You'll soon find out", he said Saturday. Trump has stressed he would not broadcast military options to preserve an element of surprise. His secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said on Friday all options remained on the table with regard to North Korea. Pyongyang's missile test came as the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula, where it began exercises with the South Korean navy on Saturday about 12 hours after the failed launch, a South Korean navy official said. Priebus said Trump was in regular contact with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and that the president had become "very close" to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump, for whom China was a virtual punching bag during the 2016 presidential campaign over trade, told CBS that any trade disputes with the Asian economic giant took a back seat to securing its cooperation on North Korea. China, the only major ally of North Korea and its largest trading partner, has expressed increasing concern about Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles in violation of U.N. resolutions. However, it has warned against escalation. "I think that, frankly, North Korea is maybe more important than trade," Trump said in the "Face the Nation" interview. "Trade is very important. But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade." Similarly, concerns over human rights in the Philippines, where critics cite extrajudicial killings in Duterte's war on drugs, take a back seat to possible confrontation in Asia. "There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," he said in the ABC interview. Senator John McCain, a leading Republican on foreign policy, said he did not believe Trump was considering a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. That would put U.S. ally South Korea in immediate danger, he said on CNN's "State of the Union." "But to say you absolutely rule out that option of course would be foolish. But it has to be the ultimate last option," McCain said. (Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Andrew Hay)
Washington (AFP) - After what he called a "very productive" first 100 days, President Donald Trump is vowing to roll out a new health plan and to completely renegotiate the NAFTA continental trade pact.

His remarks, in a CBS interview broadcast Sunday, touched on daunting challenges domestic and foreign, from his vexed effort at health-care reform to a controversial new tax-cut plan to the rising threat from North Korea.

But they followed his assurance at a raucous rally Saturday in Pennsylvania that the "great battles" ahead would be won.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

Trump insisted, even after two failed efforts to see an Obamacare repeal vote through Congress, that Americans will get a health-care package that preserves key protections, like coverage of pre-existing medical conditions.

And as Republicans scramble for ways to pay for Trump's promise this week of major tax cuts -- the White House had hoped to use savings from the Obamacare repeal -- the president vowed that the money would not come through savings on the huge and popular Medicare program.

"I'm not going to touch it," he said, except to eliminate "waste, fraud and abuse."

- Frustrations -

Trump, who is not known as particularly self-reflective, shared some of the frustrations he has encountered in his young presidency.

He lambasted "unfair" media coverage; said Congress operates by "unbelievably archaic and slow-moving" rules; and called Democrats "totally obstructionist."

But he will need some Democratic support to pass some of his more ambitious legislative objectives.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that Democrats looked forward to working with Trump on issues like infrastructure spending and affordable child care.

But so far, she said on ABC, "he hasn't really proposed anything."

In a week when Trump dropped a threat to cancel the NAFTA trade agreement following what he called "very nice" phone calls from the Mexican and Canadian leaders -- instead ordering a six-month review of all trade deals -- he made clear that US security took priority over even trade.

Story continues

If China can help ease the nuclear tensions with Pyongyang, "that's worth making not as good a trade deal," he said.

"Trade is very important," Trump added. "But massive warfare with millions, potentially millions of people being killed? That, as we would say, trumps trade."

He scheduled the Pennsylvania appearance after snubbing an invitation to the traditional White House correspondents' dinner on Saturday, where he had risked being roasted by comedians.

Instead, he declared himself "thrilled" to be far from "the Washington swamp" and its "fake news" journalists.

The black-tie affair in Washington was headlined by veteran investigative journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame.

Woodward rebuffed the president's relentless barbs against news outlets. "Mr. President, the media is not fake news," he said.

"Whether the media is revered or reviled, we should and must persist, and I believe we will."

- 'Keeping promises' -

Some of Trump's animosity stemmed from US media evaluating his 100-day record as meager and mixed.

They have noted embarrassing setbacks for the Republican on health care and a travel ban, and his own reversals on China and NATO -- while also recognizing campaign pledges he has met, like appointing a conservative Supreme Court justice and pulling the country out of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement.

In his speech, Trump presented his record so far as "very exciting and very productive."

"We are keeping one promise after another," he asserted, adding that he was preparing for "the great, great battles to come and that we will win in every case."

Trump also highlighted his tough approach to immigration.

Stepped-up law enforcement was removing "drug dealers, gang members and killers" from the country, he said, though he did not acknowledge his difficulty in finding money to start work on the wall he has promised on the Mexican border.

Trump said the US economy had surged since he took office, reinvigorating America's construction, manufacturing and energy sectors, as well as its declining coal and steel industries -- a key message for the crowd in rust-belt Pennsylvania.

On the North American Free Trade Agreement, he said, "If we can't make a fair deal for our companies and our workers we will terminate NAFTA."

He said he would be making a decision on the "one-sided Paris climate accord" in the next two weeks. He described the pact, meant to curb global warming, as an impediment to US economic growth.

On CBS, Trump -- holding the only elective office he has ever sought -- was asked about an earlier comment that he thought the job of the presidency would be easier.

"Well, it's a tough job," he said. "But it's something that I really love and I think I've done a very good job at it."
By Tarek Amara TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisian security forces killed a senior commander in an Islamist group who detonated his suicide belt as he was shot during a raid against militants planning attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, officials said on Sunday. Tunisia's armed forces have been cracking down on militants allied to Islamic State and al Qaeda's North Africa branch, especially since the country suffered four major attacks in the last two years, including two against foreign tourists. The clashes came on Sunday when national guard special forces raided a house where the group had been under surveillance for weeks, after communications about a possible attack were intercepted, National Guard spokesman Col. Major Khelifa Chibani said. Another militant was killed and three others arrested in the raid on a house in Sidi Bouzid, a town 200 km (125 miles) southwest of the capital, Tunis. "National Guard special forces killed two terrorists, including a commander of Okba Ibn Nafaa ... " Chibani said by telephone. "They had been in the Sammama mountains, and planned attacks during Ramadan." He did not give any details on the potential attack, but Tunisia has been on alert since militant gunmen attacked the Sousse beach resort in 2015, killing more than 30 foreigners and badly damaging the vital tourist industry. Another security source said the commander was an Algerian militant, but did not give his name. The Okba Ibn Nafaa has mostly been based in remote Chaambi mountain range along the border with Algeria, where the army has been trying to flush them out for several years. Militants have in the past carried out raids on checkpoints and towns nearby. They have mostly claimed loyalty to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al Qaeda's North Africa branch still led by veteran Algerian militants hiding over the border in the mountains in eastern Algeria. But Okba Ibn Nafaa brigade, which takes its name from an 7th century Arab general who led the Muslim conquest of North Africa, has split, with some of its fighters going to Islamic State ranks and hiding in the Sammama mountains, according to Tunisian security sources. More than 3,000 Tunisians left over the last few years to fight for Islamic State and other militant groups in Iraq, Syria and Libya, and Tunisian authorities are trying to prepare for potential security threat from many of them returning. Islamic State claimed most of major attacks in Tunisia, including the Sousse hotel attack and the Bardo museum attack, which killed dozens of foreign tourists in 2015, and raids by militants crossing from Libya into Tunisia's Ben Guerdane in 2016. (Reporting by Tarek Amara; writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Larry King)
By Robin Respaut and Nick Brown (Reuters) - Ailing Puerto Rico would receive $295 million in Medicaid funding from the federal government as part of the U.S. Congress' spending plan to avert a government shutdown, Governor Ricardo Rossello said on Monday. Rossello said in a statement in Spanish that he was "grateful" for the addition in the spending bill reached late Sunday night. The full House of Representatives and Senate must approve the bipartisan pact, though prompt passage was expected this week. Puerto Rico's public health system is nearly insolvent, a key driver of emigration that has decimated the U.S. territory's population as it wrestles with $70 billion in debt, a 45 percent poverty rate and unemployment twice the U.S. average. The island faces a deadline at midnight Monday to negotiate a debt-cutting agreement with creditors, or open itself up to lawsuits over debt defaults. It could also file for a modified version of U.S. bankruptcy to protect itself from such litigation. One creditor, who owns insured Puerto Rican bonds, said the proposal was "not even close to a good proposal. "Not just lowball but also not a well constructed proposal," said Sean Burgess, portfolio manager and lead trader for Puerto Rico strategy at Sarasota, Florida-based Cumberland Advisors. BANKRUPTCY? The island's aggressive lobbying for federal healthcare funding in Washington is seen as a possible detractor to filing bankruptcy, which would not garner sympathy from Congressional Republicans who opposed the in-court restructuring provision in last year's Puerto Rico rescue law, PROMESA. The $295 million will help fund the islands Medicaid budget for fiscal year 2018, which starts July 1, and enable Puerto Rico to contract with managed care health insurance companies that administer the Medicaid program. Without the money, the island would have to run the Medicaid program on its own, a massive undertaking that Puerto Rico is not equipped to do, said island Health Secretary Dr. Rafael Rodriguez-Mercado. But Puerto Rico will still need an additional $300 million to fund its entire Medicaid budget for fiscal year 2018, Rodriguez-Mercado told Reuters in an interview on Monday. He hopes that money will come from the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in September. Puerto Ricos $2.76 billion Medicaid budget has been funded in part by a one-time pool of money provided to U.S. territories under the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. That money is expected to run out by the end of 2017, triggering what island officials call the Medicaid cliff  the return to a federal funding cap of $321 million for Puerto Ricos Medicaid program. U.S. territories receive proportionately less federal Medicaid reimbursement than U.S. states. Prior to Obamacare, Puerto Rico partially funded its Medicaid budget through bonds, exacerbating the islands debt crisis. In recent weeks, Governor Ricardo Rossello has been lobbying to boost Puerto Ricos healthcare funding, warning that Washingtons failure to do so would leave some 900,000 people without health coverage. (Reporting by Robin Respaut in San Francisco and Nick Brown in New York. Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Daniel Bases)
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said on Sunday U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser reaffirmed the two countries' pre-existing agreement on the expenditure for the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system. In a telephone call on Sunday, H.R. McMaster reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the United States' alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea's presidential office said. Trump said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that he wanted South Korea to pay for the THAAD deployment, but South Korean officials responded that the cost was for Washington to bear, under the bilateral agreement. (Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
By Ju-min Park and James Pearson

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea said the United States had reaffirmed it would shoulder the cost of deploying the THAAD anti-missile system, days after President Donald Trump said Seoul should pay for the $1-billion battery designed to defend against North Korea.

In a telephone call on Sunday, Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, reassured his South Korean counterpart, Kim Kwan-jin, that the U.S. alliance with South Korea was its top priority in the Asia-Pacific region, the South's presidential office said.

The conversation followed another North Korean missile test-launch on Saturday which Washington and Seoul said was unsuccessful, but which drew widespread international condemnation.

Trump, asked about his message to North Korea after the latest missile test, told reporters: "You'll soon find out", but did not elaborate on what the U.S. response would be.

Trump is stepping up outreach to allies in Asia to discuss the North Korean nuclear threat and make sure all are "on the same page" if action was needed, a top White House official said. The U.S. president will discuss North Korea with the leaders of Thailand and Singapore on Sunday after speaking with the Philippines' president on Saturday.

"There is nothing right now facing this country and facing the region that is a bigger threat than what is happening in North Korea," White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus told ABC's "This Week."

Trump's comments in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that he wanted Seoul to pay for the THAAD deployment perplexed South Koreans and raised questions about his commitment to the two countries' alliance.

South Korean officials responded that the cost was for Washington to bear, under the bilateral agreement.

"National security adviser H.R. McMaster explained that the recent statements by President Trump were made in a general context, in line with the U.S. public expectations on defence cost burden-sharing with allies," South Korea's Blue House said in a statement, adding that McMaster requested the call.

Story continues

Major elements of the advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system were moved into the planned site in Seonjgu, in the south of the country, this week.

The deployment has drawn protests from China, which says the powerful radar which can penetrate its territory will undermine regional security, and from local residents worried they will be a target for North Korean missiles.

About 300 residents rallied on Sunday as two U.S. Army lorries tried to enter the THAAD deployment site. Video provided by villagers showed protesters blocking the road with a car and chanting slogans such as Dont lie to us! Go back to your country!

Police said they had sent about 800 officers to the site and two residents were injured during clashes with them.

South Korea and the United States say the sole purpose of THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles.

Vice President Mike Pence reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to South Korea's security but said on NBC that Trump would "continue to call on the prosperous nations that the United States provides security and protection for to do more in their own defense.

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The United States is seeking more help from China, the North's major ally, to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development. Trump, in the Reuters interview, praised Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a "good man".

TENSIONS HIGH

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth.

In excerpts of an interview with CBS News released on Saturday, Trump said the United States and China would "not be happy" with a nuclear test but gave no other details.

Trump discussed the threat posed by North Korea in a telephone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, the White House said.

In an address to a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Saturday, Duterte urged the United States to show restraint after North Korea's latest missile test and to avoid playing into the hands of leader Kim Jong Un, who "wants to end the world".

Two-month long U.S.-South Korean joint military drills were due to conclude on Sunday, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

The exercise, called Foal Eagle, was repeatedly denounced by North Korea, which saw it as a rehearsal for war.

In a further show of force, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean peninsula and began exercises with the South Korean navy late on Saturday. The South Korean navy declined to say when the exercises would be completed.

The dispatch of the Carl Vinson was a "reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war," the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

The carrier group has just completed drills with the Japanese navy.

Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada, in an apparent show of solidarity with Washington, has ordered the Izumo, Japan's biggest warship, to protect a U.S. navy ship that might be going to help supply the USS Carl Vinson, the Asahi newspaper said.

(Additional reporting by Yuna Kim and Minwoo Park in SEOUL, Nobuhiro Kubo, Linda Sieg in TOKYO and Jason Lange and Doina Chiacu in WASHINGTON; Editing by Andrew Hay and Mary Milliken)
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that cities may sue banks over predatory mortgage lending to minorities that harms municipal finances, but cast doubt on whether such cases can succeed by throwing out a lower court decision that had allowed litigation brought by Miami to move forward.

The court, ruling 8-0, tossed out a ruling by the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had permitted Miami's lawsuits against major banks but gave the city another chance to make its case before a lower court.

Bank of America Corp and Wells Fargo & Co had challenged the appeals court's decision to permit the suits by the Florida city against the banks. The Supreme Court ruling also affects a related case brought by Miami against Citigroup Inc .

Miami said Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup steered non-white borrowers into higher-cost and riskier loans they often could not afford, even if they had good credit. As a result of this alleged discriminatory lending, Miami said, property values declined because of the high rate of loan defaults that led to foreclosures. The city said it lost property tax revenue and was forced to pay to repair and maintain properties that went into foreclosure.

Writing for the court, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer said Miami had the legal standing to sue the banks but needed to present more evidence that the injuries it claims to have suffered were tied to alleged violations of the federal Fair Housing Act.

The ruling was a partial victory for both sides.

In Miami's favor, the justices, on a separate 5-3 vote with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court's four liberal justices, did not throw out the lawsuit altogether and embraced the principle that cities can in some circumstances sue under the law.

"We are pleased that the Supreme Court validated the city's standing to bring its claims under the Fair Housing Act. We look forward to litigating this case further in federal court," said Victoria Mendez, Miami's city attorney.

Story continues

The banks can point to the fact that the lower court ruling permitting Miami's lawsuits was thrown out unanimously. They now get a second chance to argue why Miami's claims should not move forward.

"We believe these claims are without merit and we will continue to defend our interests in this matter," Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson said.

Tom Goyda, a spokesman for Wells Fargo, said that under the standard set by the court, "it will be very difficult for Miami or any other municipality to show the required connection between the claimed damages and unsubstantiated allegations about our lending practices, which do not reflect how we operate in the communities we serve."

LEGAL STANDING

Miami accused the banks of a decade of lending discrimination in its residential housing market. Other U.S. cities, including Los Angeles and Oakland, have launched similar lawsuits.

Miami filed the cases in 2013, in the aftermath of the U.S. financial crisis. The city sued under the housing law, which prohibits discrimination in housing sale, rental and financing.

Three of the court's conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy, said they would have thrown out the lawsuit altogether.

In order to demonstrate the connection between the alleged violation and the harm suffered, "a plaintiff must do more than show that its injuries foreseeably flowed from the alleged statutory violation," Breyer wrote.

The appeals court in September 2015 overturned a lower court's decision to dismiss lawsuits by Miami against the banks. Citigroup Inc decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Business interests have sought to narrow the scope of the Fair Housing Act in an effort to ward off expensive litigation.

In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in a major Fair Housing Act case from Texas, upholding a broad interpretation of discrimination claims allowed under that law, in a setback to lenders and insurers. Then, Kennedy joined the liberal justices in the majority.

Newly appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was not on the court when the case was argued in November, did not participate in Monday's ruling.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
America's National Security Adviser has said America should be prepared to take military action against North Korea.

Lieutenant General HR McMaster called on other world powers to prevent the rebellious regime from developing a nuclear arsenal, saying the state was acting in "open defiance of the international community".

Although he said the Trump administration would prefer to "work with others" to resolve the issue "short of military action", he said the US must be prepared for its armed forces to intervene.

Read more

North Korea stand-off like 'Cuban missile crisis in slow motion'

North Korea poses a grave threat to the United States, our great allies in the region, South Korea and Japan ... but also to China and others. And so it's important, I think, for all of us to confront this regime, he said in an interview with Fox News.

This regime that is pursuing the weaponisation of a missile with a nuclear weapon. And so this is something that we know we cannot tolerate ... The President has made clear that he is going to resolve this issue one way or another."

He added: It may mean ratcheting up those sanctions even further and it also means being prepared for military operations if necessary."

President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would "not be happy" if North Korea carried out another missile test, adding that his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping would likely feel the same.

He refused to say whether this meant military action, saying: "I don't know, I mean, we'll see." He added: We shouldn't be announcing all our moves. It is a chess game. I just don't want people to know what my thinking is.

Mr Trump also called the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un a pretty smart cookie for being able to hang onto power after taking over the isolationist state at a young age.

On Saturday, a North Korean mid-range ballistic missile appeared to fail shortly after launch, the third such failure this month.

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of the North's drive to produce a nuclear-armed missile that could reach the US mainland.
Donald Trump has been ridiculed for comments that appear to display a lack of knowledge about the US Civil War and the reasons that led to it.

In an interview broadcast on SiriusXM, the 45th president said that the countrys 7th president, Andrew Jackson, could have stopped it, had he served later.

I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart, Mr Trump said.

Here's Trump's full answer on "swashbuckler" Andrew Jackson and the Civil War: "Why could that one not have been worked out?" pic.twitter.com/Zb8OQaDqyq  Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) May 1, 2017

He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War, he said There's no reason for this.

Mr Trump was immediately criticised for his comments that appeared to suggest a lack of basic knowledge about the civil war, and one of his predecessors in the White House.

Mr Jackson, who was a slave owner, died in 1845, 16 years before the outbreak of the US Civil War, which was fought essentially about the American souths desire to retain slavery.

Video not available for syndication

Trump's security adviser says North Korea will be solved 'one way or another'

Jackson died in June 1845. He did not have any opinions about the Civil War. He was also a slave owner, Kevin Kruse, Professor of History at Princeton, told The Independent.

This highlights a lack of knowledge about basic familiar history.

During the interview with Salena Zito of the conservative Washington Examiner, Mr Trump questioned why the country could not have solved the issues between the north and south, rather than embarking on four years of brutal fighting that resulted in more deaths than those in World War I and World War II combined.

Story continues

People dont realise, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why, he said. People dont ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

Trump: A. Jackson angered by events "with regard to the Civil War. He said theres no reason for this. Jackson died 16 yrs before the war.  Richard Perez-Pena (@perezpena) May 1, 2017

During the interview, the president also compared his win to that of Jackson.

My campaign and win was most like Andrew Jackson, with his campaign. And I said, when was Andrew Jackson? It was 1828. Thats a long time ago.

He added: He had a very, very mean and nasty campaign. Because they said this was the meanest and the nastiest. And unfortunately, it continues.

It was not the first time that Mr Trump has drawn comparisons between his campaign and that of Jackson.

The Hill said that ahead of a March rally, the president compared his presidency to Jacksons while marking the birthday of the seventh president.

Speaking outside The Hermitage, Jacksons estate in Nashville, Tennessee, Mr Trump referred to Jackson as the peoples president.

It was during the revolution that Jackson first confronted and defied an arrogant elite. Does that sound familiar?

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An American soldier has been killed in an explosion near Mosul as the battle continues to drive Isis militants out of their former stronghold.

A spokesperson for US Central Command said: "A US service member died from wounds sustained in an explosive device blast outside of Mosul, Iraq, on Saturday."

No further information was immediately released, but the blast came after a number of deaths and injuries caused by mines and improvised explosive devices littering Isis' former territories.

The terrorist group is known to rig buildings, cars and even toys and items of food and drink with explosives as it retreats.

The tactic has slowed the advance on Mosul, which started on the city's outskirts in October 2016, and prevented civilians from immediately returning to their homes.

Military commanders were forced to temporarily pause the offensive last month amid "catastrophic" civilian casualties caused mainly by artillery and air strikes.

Isis has also murdered countless civilians found attempting to flee, as well as posing as Iraqi soldiers to dupe civilians who were then massacred.

Members of international organisations and militaries have been bolstering the de-mining effort surrounding the city as fierce fighting continues in Isis' remaining western districts.

Another American soldier was killed by an improvised device near Mosul in October, while helping government guide US air strikes embedded with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

Two members of US special forces were also killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, during a possible "friendly fire" incident during a night raid on an Isis compound.

Read more

Isis rigs mass grave with landmines to kill investigators

The latest casualty came a day after Isis killed at least four people and wounded several more at a police station in central Baghdad.

A suicide car bomb was detonated outside the building in Karrada district, officials said.

Iraqi and coalition officials have warned that as Isis loses ground in Iraq and Syria, the group will increasingly return to its insurgent roots.

Analysts say terrorists are attempting to inspire attacks on civilians around the world in a bid to retain legitimacy and support.
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump is "pleased" with a bipartisan deal to fund government through September, the White House said Monday, even though several of his top priorities were left out of the agreement.

The newly-unveiled congressional deal includes Trump's call for increased military spending, but rejects his demand to fund a border wall and maintains spending levels for key government operations including the State Department that he had proposed gutting.

The agreement was struck late Sunday after weeks of tense negotiations fueled the threat of a government shutdown just as Trump was marking his 100th day in office.

Congress is expected to vote this week on the new bill, which provides $1.163 trillion in overall federal spending, ahead of a Friday night deadline when government funding would expire absent a new agreement.

"There's a lot that he's pleased in," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said of Trump, citing increased military spending and added funding for border security operations.

"We couldn't have our entire way on this, but we're five months away from having a 2018 budget, and I think the president's priorities will be reflected much more in that."

The agreement would keep federal operations running through September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Leaders in the Republican-controlled Congress will need support from Democrats in order to pass the legislation.

The opposition party has hailed the spending bill as a victory because Trump's administration punted on several elements named as priorities during his presidential campaign.

Notably, it includes no money for Trump's border wall.

Trump made building the wall along the southern US border with Mexico a core election pledge, insisting it would begin within his first 100 days, a milestone that came and went on Saturday.

But Republicans are pleased because the bill adds some $1.5 billion in funding for other security efforts along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218-kilometer) border, and boosts military spending.

Story continues

Of the trillion dollars in the bill's discretionary spending, $598.5 billion is slated for defense -- an increase of $25 billion, or 4.5 percent, above fiscal year 2016 levels, and 3.8 percent above the request by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama last year.

It also funds an authorized 2.1 percent pay raise for the military.

White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney insisted the agreement "lines up perfectly" with Trump's priorities, despite lacking wall funding.

"We realized it was almost impossible if not impossible to actually get bricks and mortars on the ground in five months, so why start fighting about it now?" Mulvaney said on a press call.

- Trump held in check -

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi branded the deal a "defeat for President Trump."

Democratic negotiators prevented 160 "poison-pill riders" -- controversial provisions that could sink the legislation -- from being attached to the bill, and included priorities like assistance for debt-saddled Puerto Rico, Pelosi said.

The measure adds $2 billion in new funding for the National Institutes of Health and, despite calls by social conservatives, maintains funding for women's health care provider Planned Parenthood.

Trump's proposed cuts for the State Department were largely ignored, and the deal inserted $1 billion for famine prevention and relief into the department's budget.

The deal also maintains 99 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency's budget, in what can be interpreted as another broad victory for Democrats.

Trump had proposed slashing EPA funds by more than 30 percent, which would have cost thousands of jobs and reduced critical programs like grants for public water systems.

The two parties managed to come together to extend health benefits for retired miners, and agreed to increase 2017 funding by $650 million to address America's opioid addiction crisis.

The cooperation comes as Trump seeks another shot at passing legislation that repeals and replaces most of Obama's landmark health reform law.

After an embarrassing setback last month when a Republican health bill collapsed over disagreements among moderates and conservatives, Trump sought to revive the effort last week with an amendment that would allow states to opt out of some Obamacare guidelines.

But House Speaker Paul Ryan held off, acknowledging he did not yet have the votes, as some Republicans remained skeptical of the revised legislation.

Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, told CBS News he was optimistic the health bill can reach the House floor "this week."
By Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's unpopular socialist President Nicolas Maduro announced on Monday the creation of a new popular assembly with the ability to re-write the constitution, which foes decried as a power-grab to stifle weeks of anti-government unrest. "I don't want a civil war," Maduro told a May Day rally of supporters in downtown Caracas while elsewhere across the city security forces fired tear gas at youths hurling stones and petrol bombs after opposition marches were blocked. Maduro, 54, has triggered an article of the constitution that creates a super-body known as a "constituent assembly." It can dissolve public powers and call general elections, echoing a previous assembly created by his predecessor Hugo Chavez in 1999 soon after he won office in the South American OPEC nation. "I convoke the original constituent power to achieve the peace needed by the Republic, defeat the fascist coup, and let the sovereign people impose peace, harmony and true national dialogue," Maduro told red-shirted supporters. Only half of the 500-member assembly, or less, would be elected and political parties would not participate, he said. Opponents fear Maduro would stuff the assembly with supporters and manipulate the elected seats by giving extra weight to pro-government workers' groups. They said it was another attempt to sideline the current opposition-led National Assembly and keep Maduro in office amid a bruising recession and protests that have led to 29 deaths in the last month. The opposition had been demanding general elections to try and end the socialists' 18-year rule. National Assembly President Julio Borges called on Venezuelans to rebel and not accept Maduro's "coup." "This is a scam to deceive the Venezuelan people with a mechanism that is nothing more than a coup," Borges told reporters, calling for continued street action on Tuesday and Wednesday. Since anti-Maduro unrest began in early April, more than 400 people have been injured and hundreds more arrested. While Maduro alleges a U.S.-backed coup plot, foes say he has wrecked the economy and become a tyrant. Tulane University sociologist David Smilde said Maduro's announcement was a "pretty clever" move to dodge conventional elections which could both appeal to government hardliners and ease international pressure on him. "It is sufficiently complex and ambiguous that it might freeze some countries in the international community who think this might be a concession to the opposition, or represents an autonomous political process and should be respected," he said."It is a transparent attempt on the part of the government to skirt elections it knows it will lose," he added. "WHO CAN STAND THIS?" Earlier on Monday, National Guard troops shot teargas in a district of west Caracas towards hundreds of opposition protesters standing around waiting to march. "For no reason, they are starting to repress us," lawmaker Jose Olivares said via a video on Periscope, as demonstrators took cover behind trees and walls and opposition lawmakers streamed video of the protest from their phones. Olivares was injured in the head by a gas canister, the opposition said. He later tweeted that the wound required a dozen stitches. Elsewhere, the National Guard blocked marchers pouring towards a major highway in front of the Avila mountain which towers over Caracas' northern edge. Opposition supporters cheered as youths ran to the front, carrying makeshift shields made from trash bin lids, wood and even a satellite dish. Some, wearing motorbike helmets, swimming goggles or bandanas over their mouths, threw stones and petrol bombs at the security line, with a protester yelling, "No one turn back!" Others blocked roads in Caracas' wealthier Chacao area with branches and fences. One woman loaded Molotov cocktails from a beer crate onto a motorbike where two men took them to the front line. As well as elections, government opponents are demanding autonomy for the legislature where they have a majority, freedom for more than 100 jailed activists and a humanitarian aid channel from abroad to offset Venezuela's brutal economic crisis. In central Caracas, where the socialists have traditionally held their rallies, thousands of government supporters cheered a huge inflatable doll of Chavez and railed against opposition "terrorists." "The workers are in the street to defend our president against the violent coup-mongers," said Aaron Pulido, 29, a union worker with migration department Saime, in downtown Caracas among a sea of red banners. The government laid on hundreds of buses for its backers but closed subway stations in the capital and set up roadblocks, impeding opposition mobilization. Some government workers acknowledged they had been coerced into attending Monday's pro-Maduro rally. "We're here because they tell us to. If not, there are problems," a 34 year-old employee with a state aluminum company, just off a bus after an all-night journey from southern Ciudad Bolivar, told a journalist until a supervisor cut off the conversation. Millions of Venezuelans are struggling to eat three square meals a day or afford basic medicines. "Who can stand this? So much hunger, misery, crime ... The prices are going up far more than the salary rises," said social security worker Sonia Lopez, 34, at the opposition demonstration in west Caracas, as she waved a Venezuelan flag signed by now jailed opposition politician Antonio Ledezma. (Additonal reporting by Marco Bello, Diego Ore, Andreina Aponte, Girish Gupta, Diego Ore, Eyanir Chinea and Carlos Rawlins; Editing by Andrew Hay and Mary Milliken)
One of the veteran journalists who broke the Watergate scandal has said that Donald Trump has lied as no president...in my lifetime has, day in and day out.

Carl Bernstein, known for his investigation into the Richard Nixon-era scandal with Washington Post colleague Bob Woodward, was speaking to CNN about the White House Correspondents Dinner that had taken place the night before.

Mr Trump was not present at the dinner, usually a roast of the administration featuring a comedian and a speech by the president as well.

Read more

Watch the White House Correspondents Dinner host tear into Trump

The only other president to skip the dinner was Ronald Reagan, who was absent because he was recovering in hospital after being shot in 1981.

In the 1970s, President Richard Nixons administration tried to cover up their involvement in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC - leading to proceedings to impeach Mr Nixon, who eventually resigned.

And at the Correspondents Dinner, Mr Bernstein seemed to compare the Watergate scandal and lack of transparency of the Nixon presidency to the current administration.

Almost inevitably, unreasonable government secrecy is the enemy and usually the giveaway about what the real story might be, he said.

On CNN, Mr Bernstein had a piece of advice for fellow journalists: as I said in that address to the correspondents' dinner last night: follow the money, yes, but follow the lies as well.

This years dinner featured comedian was Hasan Minhaj, a regular on satire news program The Daily Show.

Related:

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At the turn of the 21st century, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an article about the 10 greatest public health achievements over the past 100 years, from 1900-1999. One of them was vaccination, which likely has saved millions of lives over the past 100 years.

Yet, in more recent years, some parents of infants and children have questioned the necessity and safety of vaccines. Grossly inaccurate information that wrongly linked vaccination to autism was a key factor. That claim has now been thoroughly debunked by countless high-level studies, but there is still skepticism about vaccination.

In addition to misinformation about safety, vaccination today faces questions from a new corner. Some parents have begun to question whether children still need vaccination for diseases that many of us never even see.

This reasoning is inaccurate and can be dangerous. The viral and bacterial pathogens that cause these diseases still exist. Only one disease  smallpox  has ever been eliminated from Earth.

Bottom line: We have vaccines that have prevented misery in millions of children. Vaccination not only works; it is a godsend. Why is there resistance to these? As a professor of pharmacy who specializes in pediatrics, I will try to explain.

When things get good, we forget when things were bad

Ironically, vaccines have been the victim of their own success.

When was the last time that you met or heard of someone in the United States with polio? Diphtheria? Rubella? Likely, never. However, morbidity statistics indicate that in the 20th century, each year in the United States, more than 16,000 were ill from polio, more than 21,000 were ill from diphtheria and more than 47,000 were ill from rubella.

In 2015, 0 cases of polio (a 100 percent reduction), 0 cases of diphtheria (a 100 percent reduction) and 10 cases of rubella (a more than 99 percent reduction) were reported in the U.S. These dramatic differences are a testament to the effectiveness and importance of vaccines in improving public health.

Story continues

Many of the diseases listed in the 2017 pediatric immunization schedule have not been so dramatically reduced, however. In 2012, 48,277 cases of pertussis (whooping cough) were reported in the U.S., resulting in 20 deaths, with 18 of these deaths occurring in infants and children. In 2014-2015, 855 cases of measles were reported.

A decline in the number of cases of a disease does not mean that the diseases do not exist, as shown by the measles outbreak and others.

Vaccine skepticism gets a presidential booster shot

What should be a settled scientific matter  that vaccines prevent disease and that they do not cause autism  still arises from time to time as a contentious, emotional issue. Nonscientists are usually the ones fueling the confusion.

President Trump has stated repeatedly that he thinks there could be a link between vaccines and autism.

Trump even hosted perhaps the most vocal critic of vaccines, whose controversial study that falsely claimed a link between vaccines and autism was later retracted  at an inaugural ball. That author, Andrew Wakefield, said the night of the ball that a huge shakeup is needed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Wakefield, incidentally, was additionally investigated for ethical violations and professional misconduct, and has since lost his license to practice medicine in the United Kingdom. He currently lives in Texas, and he continues to promote the false premise that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

When I began my career in 1989, the bacterial pathogen Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) was one of the most common causes of bacterial meningitis in children 5 and younger. I can recall young children admitted for meningitis to the pediatric hospital I was associated with.

Thousands of children in the U.S. were similarly treated then for meningitis resulting from Hib. In 2015, only 29 cases of serious illness from Hib were reported in children 5 and younger. Effective vaccines to prevent serious illness from Hib were licensed for use at about the time I began my career. They are now routinely recommended.

Mercury misunderstanding contributes to confusion, too

Another scapegoat for a cause of autism has been thimerosal, a preservative agent that had been used in some vaccines, but never in MMR vaccines. Thimerosal contains ethylmercury and differs chemically from methylmercury, the form of mercury commonly found in the environment, including some fish.

Although mercury can be dangerous to humans in high amounts, ethylmercury differs, as it is eliminated from the body quicker than methylmercury.

Although some had suggested that thimerosal was a cause of autism, a 2013 review of the scientific literature has demonstrated that this is not true.. Even so, pharmaceutical companies removed thimerosal from the majority of pediatric vaccines in 2001, and it remains in only a few multi-dose influenza vaccine products.

Vaccine safety is carefully studied

Vaccine products, similar to other pharmaceutical products, are evaluated for safety and efficacy over many years, prior to their public use as allowed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Because of their therapeutic importance for disease prevention, vaccines are additionally evaluated for safety after the FDA has granted their approval for public use. Several monitoring systems carefully track vaccine product safety, including the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, the Vaccine Safety Datalink and the Post-Licensure Rapid Immunization Safety monitoring system. These programs help ensure that vaccine products remain safe, once they have been made available for public use.

Because of the importance of vaccines in preventing many serious infectious diseases, the medical community has carefully and thoroughly reviewed the science of vaccines and their potential adverse effects. Vaccines, as any pharmaceutic drug product, have risks  a potential to result in adverse effects, such as a sore arm or leg. The majority of these adverse effects are not serious. The benefits of vaccines  the prevention of fatal infectious diseases  greatly outweigh their risks for the vast majority of infants and children.

As a parent, if you have concerns about giving a vaccine to your child, talk with your childs pediatrician or physician. Ask specific questions and express your concerns. Good internet sites, with accurate, easy-to-read information you can additionally read, are the Centers for Disease Control website on vaccines; the website for the American Academy of Pediatrics; and the Immunization Action Coalition. Pediatric health care professionals, such as myself, desire infants and children to be as healthy as possible. This includes your children. Vaccines are a safe and effective means to accomplish this.

Edward Bell, Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Drake University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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If Democrats want to regain the power theyve lost at the state and federal level in recent years, they will have to convince more voters they can offer solutions to their problems.

That may be especially difficult, however, if voters think the party and its representatives in government dont understand or care about them. And according to a recently released poll, many voters may, in fact, feel that way. The Washington Post-ABC News survey, released this week, found that a majority of the public thinks the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of average Americans in the United States. More Americans think Democrats are out of touch than believe the same of the Republican Party or President Trump.

A single poll shouldnt be given too much weight on its own, but the results arrive at a time when Democrats are trying to understand what went wrong last year, and what they need to do to win over voters. The results raise questions over why exactly the public thinks the party is so out of touch.

This should be a huge wake-up call, said Tim Ryan, the Ohio congressman who made an unsuccessful bid post-election for House minority leader. Having two-thirds of the country think that your party is in la-la-land, thats a bombshell. That should wake everybody up, the Rust Belt Democrat who represents a state that Trump won and has argued the Democratic Party needs to improve its brand said, and we should, as a party, be woken up already by the fact that people took a chance on Donald Trump.

Recommended: Ro Khanna Wants to Give Working-Class Households $1 Trillion

There is nuance to the results of the survey. A closer look at the numbers shows that while a majority of Americans believe the Democratic Party is out of touch, most Democrats do not, though thats only by a slim majority. Democratic voters do, however, seem to have less confidence in their partyat least at the momentthan Republicans do in theirs. A higher percentage of Republican voters, at 60 percent, said that the GOP is in touch with the concerns of most people, compared with just 52 percent of Democrats who said the same of their party.

Story continues

One explanation for this dynamic could be that liberal voters are looking to rationalize the results of the election, while Republicans may feel instinctively that their party is doing a better job of connecting with votersbecause they won.

The perception might also be rooted in how much power Democrats have lost at the state and local level. The partys grip on state legislatures eroded dramatically during the Obama administation. Voters may doubt that Democrats understand the challenges they face if the party lacks a substantial presence in their state.

I do think that theres a lack of trust that has amplified and grown between voters in certain parts of the country and the party, but I think thats fixable, said Adam Parkhomenko, a former Hillary Clinton aide. We have to have a big tent, and the national party has to support state and local parties so that we can invest in candidates who can compete everywhere in the country.

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As Democrats try to determine how to better appeal to voters, some Democratic lawmakers think the party needs to start with a compelling economic agenda.

Representative Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, believes the party needs to make a clear case that it will fight for the working class. During the campaign, she urged Clinton to talk more about tradea popular issue of Trumpsand she vocally opposed the Obama administrations Trans-Pacific Partnership, an international trade deal that Trump campaigned against. Democrats need to be out front on trade, and show that we are going to protect workers, she said. This White House isnt exactly walking their talk, but Trump understood that people had seen their jobs shipped overseas, and they were afraid.

Its a real problem for us that we are perceived as limousine, latte-drinking liberals.

Representative Ryan thinks the party understands the financial hardship that many Americans face, and has better policy prescriptions to help them than the GOP. But hes not convinced the party has persuaded voters of that: Its a real problem for us that we are perceived as limousine, latte-drinking liberals, Ryan said. Democrats cant just message our way out of this. We need to put out bold and aspirational initiatives that will excite voters to the point they want to associate themselves with, and work for, the Democratic Party.

Another potential issue for Democrats may be the perception that party elites are too close to Wall Street. A key part of Senator Bernie Sanderss case against Clinton during the presidential primary was that the Democratic front-runner was cozy with the financial industry. When news broke earlier this week that former President Barack Obama will accept $400,000 to speak at a Wall Street conference, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive voice, said she was troubled by the news, while Sanders called it unfortunate, at a time when people are so frustrated with the power of Wall Street and big-money interests.

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Sanders and Warren have built their reputations on a willingness to take on banks and corporations, and to call out Democrats not similarly inclined. But theyre not the only lawmakers who seem uncomfortable by Obamas decisions. Im not judging him over it, Ryan said. But, he added: the optics of that are awful. That is playing right into the very same issue that we had to deal with during the election, of making more money in one speech than people in my district will make in 10 years.

A spokesman for Obama released a statement earlier in the week suggesting that whatever ties the former president may have to Wall Street, they are not compromising. Yet some critics believe that, despite his support for financial regulatory reform, Obama was far from tough on Wall Streetand that Democrats need to reckon with the extent to which their party has let down the working class. Democrats cant win until they recognize how bad Obamas financial policies were, Matt Stoller, a fellow with the Open Markets Program at New America, wrote in The Washington Post after the election, arguing that Obamas policy agenda concentrated power in the hands of corporate elites at the expense of less wealthy Americans.

Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic congresswoman from Washington state who Sanders endorsed, believes its important for the party to demonstrate to voters that it will work for average Americans and not corporate interests. She hopes future Democratic candidates will reject super PAC moneyas one way to ease any doubts that might otherwise exist in the minds of voters. I dont believe that everyone who takes money from corporations is corrupt, but I think that when people do accept corporate money, voters start to question whether theyre basing their votes on that money, she said.

As Democrats strategize over how to convince Americans they understand their problems, the party may have to decide how much to embraceor distance itself fromthe legacy of its last president. And its broader legacy, too. If nothing else, the fact that so many Americans appear to believe the party is out of touch suggests an opposition message alone wont be enough to win back power in Washington. In Jayapals words, the party need[s] to rebuild trust with voters.

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
When British Prime Minister Theresa May visited Saudi Arabia in early April, she caused a stir  drawing both criticism and support  because she did not wear a headscarf, as women are expected to do under Islamic law. And on Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel followed suit, arriving in Saudi Arabias port city of Jiddah without her head covered. Perhaps not a surprise, considering that she has called for a burqa ban in her home country wherever it is legally possible and probably saw this visit as a way to highlight her beliefs about such modesty laws for women.

Meanwhile, in Germanys neighboring Austria, President Alexander Van der Bellen has just called for all women to wear headscarves in solidarity with Muslim women and to fight Islamophobia, telling a group of students, It is every womans right to always dress how she wants; that is my opinion on the matter.

But where do other female world leaders stand on the hijab question? Heres how a handful have chosen to respond, by example, while on official business in Islamic nations.

Read More from Yahoo Style + Beauty:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
Three massive tornadoes have hit Texas this weekend, and the videos are absolutely terrifying

Natural disasters can be terrifying. And now, three massive tornadoes have hit Texas this weekend, and the videos are really scary. While you may have been lucky enough to live far away from the damage, citizens of Canton, Texas were not so blessed. At least five people have died due to the intense storms. And countless homes have been destroyed as well.

As with any breaking news, Twitter was compiling videos from Canton.

As can be seen, the first-person accounts and clips are extremely nerve-wracking.

Most of them are from drivers who were in the path of the vortex.

News sources all over Texas started reporting on the damage that was being caused by a devastating wedge tornado. Warnings about the intense storms were issued in the South and Midwest on Saturday. In addition, they included warnings of flash floods.

NEW: devastating wedge tornado from close range just east of #Canton, TX that has caused extensive damage along its path @breakingweather pic.twitter.com/U6zvQDmZ2p  Reed Timmer (@ReedTimmerAccu) April 30, 2017

Right now a lot of the power lines have been knocked down by the massive tornadoes, leaving people scrambling. Obviously, a lot of the houses have been totally wrecked as well, but the full scope of the damage is unclear at this time.

Story continues

Texas Sky Rangers shows the damage at a car dealership along I-20 in Canton. https://t.co/KcISTZ8xuz pic.twitter.com/o6i4zoyV6Q  NBC DFW (@NBCDFW) April 30, 2017

According to an interview with ABC News, Desirae Rasmussens house was severely knocked around by the tornado.

We were all sitting in the hallway and the roof collapsed on us. By the time it was all over, we went outside. We had a three level house, and were down to the last level and half of that roof is gone, she said.

In case you ever find yourself in a dangerous situation such as Desirae did, it is important to keep calm and position yourself somewhere safe.

If you have a basement below ground, go there. Regardless of how safe you think you are.

Its always better to stay safe than be sorry.

And if you find yourself trapped under debris, use whatever is around you as leverage to get yourself free and to safety. Our thoughts go out to all the people affected by these tornadoes.
- Chinese in Ghana now into the taxi driving business

- The Chinese until recently have been massively involved in illegal mining in Ghana

- It appears the Chinese may have stopped galamsey for now but are now venturing into menial jobs reserved for locals

The Chinese have been in the news in Ghana lately for their involvement in illegal mining [galamsey], but YEN has spotted a young Chinese man in the capital driving a taxi.

There have been concerns over the increasing spate at which foreigners, especially, the Chinese are venturing into businesses meant for Ghanaians.

Chinese in Ghana have a new galamsey in taxi driving

The Akufo-Addo led administration have declared war on the persons involved in the illegal mining businesses.

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Over the period, over 500 excavators and earthmoving equipment have voluntarily withdrawn after the sector minister's 21-day ultimatum to Chinese galamseyers.

Meanwhile, some Chinese galamseyers have also been arrested during the crackdown period.

The intriguing question is, are the Chinese taking over businesses like taxi driving reserved for the locals?

READ ALSO: Ghanaians mock government over upside down Ghana flag

Share your views on this with us in the comments section below.

Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send them to us on Facebook or contact us via info@yen.com.gh.

Source: YEN.com.gh